#what the fuck is it about my sleeping form that makes these assholes addicted to knocking on my door & asking me to run errands

[emdotcom]

I tried my whole life to fix my emtirely fucked sleep schedule & couldn't do it, so i said "fuck it" & picked up a job w/ night & overnight shifts. Going all well & good, except for the fact that, for some fucking reason, none of my family can grasp the concept that I NEED TO SLEEP, I NEED TO SLEEP, I NEED TO SLEEP, I NEED TO SLEEP

[hangovercurse]

Until You Fall Asleep

After moving in with the crew to help cure your quarantine boredom, you find a new way to deal with your insomnia.

Request: “Could you please do a Colson fanfic where you're a friend of the gang and you move into their house for quarantine so you're not alone. Colson finds out you have terrible insomnia and starts staying up to keep you company and you gradually start sleeping in his bed because it's the only place you seem to actually sleep. You start to get really close through these late night chats, watching films, sharing stuff and opening up to each other... Friendship starts to develop into something else. I need some fluff to see me through these sleepless nights! 🙏😘 Thanks!”

Colson X Reader

Warnings: cursing

Word Count: 3487

Living with your best friends during a nationwide quarantine seemed like a good idea when you agreed to it, but after the 5th night of wandering the huge house late at night because you couldn’t sleep, you were starting to think you should’ve stayed where you were. At least at your own place, you didn’t have to worry about sneaking around so as not to wake anyone up.

Luckily, no one seemed to notice that you woke up earlier than everyone else in the house or went to sleep later. Or if they did, no one said anything.

Day five

Tonight hadn’t been going so well. You had tried showering, you hadn’t eaten for at least a few hours before trying to sleep, you turned your lavender diffuser on, you’d even tried yoga. Nothing helped, and you were left staring at your ceiling.

Frustrated and uncomfortable, you rolled out of your bed, sock clad feet pattering across your room and slowly pulling your door open. You made your way through the house and out to the pool, letting the cool night air wash over you. A deep breath fell from your lips as you began to pace around the deck, hoping to tire yourself out enough to sleep.

After a few minutes, you heard the sliding glass door open, looking up and finding Colson stepping out with a blunt in his hand. He smiled tiredly at you, “you’re up early.”

You raised an eyebrow, “what time is it?” You figured it was 4, maybe 5 am.

“Almost 7,” he looked concerned, “you okay?”

You were trying to figure out how you managed to stay up until 7 am without a wink of sleep, “yeah, just couldn’t sleep. It’s cool though. Why are you up?”

Colson lit the blunt as he spoke, “couldn’t sleep either.”

Day eight

You found yourself curled up on the couch, reading a book at 5:30 in the morning after hours of trying to fall asleep. You swore if you stayed in your room a second longer, you’d break something, so you snuck out to the TV room with the most boring book you could find.

“Do you ever sleep?” Colson’s voice surprised you, making you jump lightly in your seat. The man chuckled at your reaction, taking a seat next to you.

You pouted at his glee, “I could ask you the same thing.”

He shrugged, “sleep is for the weak.”

A sarcastic chuckle fell from your lips, “oh yeah, I feel so strong and cool right now.”

The man laughed with you, but soon turned serious, “serious though, are you good? Both nights this week I haven’t slept you’ve been awake, and I know you don’t take naps.”

You sighed, “it’s just insomnia, I’ve been dealing with it on and off for a couple years now. It’s not a big deal.”

He cocked his head in curiosity and worry, “how much sleep have you been getting?”

You ducked your head in embarrassment, “I slept for an hour at like 3, hopefully I’ll fall asleep again at some point tonight.”

Colson frowned, “can I help at all?”

A small smile fell upon your face, “sometimes talking helps, but honestly not much else. It’s not that big of a problem, though. I’ve been dealing with this for a while, I’m used to it.”

He looked shocked, “dude, you sleep for a few hours every night! That’s a problem. I don’t even know how you’re still alive.”

“Like you’ve never gone a couple days in a row without sleeping,” you said sarcastically.

“No! I go to sleep late as fuck, but I sleep eventually most nights. You’re on a whole different level.” His tone was slightly defensive, if not concerned, “do I need to get you some pills or something? I can do that.”

Your eyes went wide, “Jesus, Kells, no. I have enough to deal with, I don’t need another addiction on my hands too.”

He chuckled, “I’m just saying it might help. I’m assuming weed does nothing?”

You sighed sadly, “it did for a while, but I think my body got used to it. I just have to wait it out until I inevitably pass out.”

“Well, guess I’ll just bother you until you fall asleep.” He relaxed further into the couch, throwing an arm around your shoulders.

“Colson, you really don’t have to-“

“You won’t let me get you drugs, so I’m gonna stay up with you. It’s the least I can do.” He smiled widely, knowing he would get his way.

“You’re ridiculous, you know that, right?”

Day Twelve

“You think that Captain America has the best character arc? Seriously?”

Your nightly chats with Colson had moved into his room after Baze was woken up by Colson’s loud laughter during a conversation about what type of dogs you’d both be. So, you were sat cross legged on his bed, facing each other in deep conversation.

The man tried to defend his stance to you, “okay, I know everyone loves Tony’s whole asshole to hero thing, but Captain America went from this goody two shoes to this badass criminal and he still got the girl in the end.”

You shook your head, “you’re just wrong in every way. I’m not even saying Iron Man had a better story, but literally every other character developed more than Steve. He wasn’t that badass in the end, and the fact that he went back to get the girl just proves he never really changed all that much. He was static.”

“So, you’re telling me, if we watched every single movie with Captain America in it, you wouldn’t be entertained?” He crossed his arms and leaned backwards, eyeing you challengingly.

You scoffed, “the movies are fine, I just think that Marvel has produced better superheroes with better plotlines.”

“New plan, we’re going to watch every marvel movie in order and then you can tell me that I’m right.” He grabbed the remote and turned on the TV across from his bed.

Rolling your eyes, you moved back to lean against the headrest, legs spread out in front of you, “you’re not right, but I’ll watch them just to see the look on your face when you realize you’re wrong.”

Colson flopped down on the bed next to you, throwing an arm over your shoulder and pulling you so that you were leaning into his side. A yawn escaped his mouth, “if you get tired, let me know.”

You giggled, “I’m always tired, I just can’t sleep. I won’t get offended if you fall asleep though.”

He pulled a face, “I’m not falling asleep.”

About an hour into the movie the slow rise and fall of his chest indicated differently. You chuckled to yourself once you realized he had fallen asleep, turning further into his chest, and allowing yourself to get more comfortable.

Somewhere between 4 and 5 am, you found your eyes finally closing of their own accord, unconsciousness washing over you.

Day 17

Since starting your marvel movie binges with Colson, you’d found yourself getting more sleep. You couldn’t tell if it was from the movies or from Colson, but either way something seemed to be working.

Tonight, however, even your new routine wouldn’t lull you to sleep. You tried every breathing exercise in the book, but nothing seemed to work. Colson had fallen asleep a while ago, his arm wrapped around you as per usual, so you couldn’t talk yourself to sleep.

So, you decided to take a stroll around the house, hoping the small form of physical activity would help. But in order to get out of bed, you would have to find a way out of Colson’s embrace without waking him up.

You slowly and gently grabbed his hand and removed it from your side, laying it on the bed next to you. Then, you sat up slowly, only to be pulled back into his chest, “where’re you going?”

His voice was deep and gravelly, sleepiness very evident. You responded with a whispered, “I can’t sleep, was gonna go walk around.”

He pulled you in closer to him, nuzzling his face into the crown of your head, “but you’re so warm.”

You chuckled, cuddling into the man, “fine, I’ll stay.” You tried to close your eyes and find sleep, but again, none came. Sighing, you accepted that you would be stuck in your current position, realizing there were worse things than being wrapped up in a beautiful boy’s arms.

Day 25

“I know aliens probably exist, but do you think they’d ever take one of us to study?”

Colson chuckled at your question, “like a human in general or, like, you and me?”

“Like you or me. Do you think we’re important enough to be studied?”

He squeezed your waist, “I think you are in desperate need of sleep.”

Laughing, you responded, “I’m serious! And I have been sleeping, thank you very much.”

“Okay, fine. I think if aliens ever came to Earth, they’d probably be more interested in, like, genius billionaires or really dumb people, like people from Florida.”

You slapped his arm, “don’t be mean to Florida.”

You could feel the vibrations from his laughter, making you giggle. “Fine, but my point is they wouldn’t be interested in us unless they’re really into music.”

“Darn,” you huffed.

He raised an eyebrow at you, “you want aliens to take you and study you?”

Balancing yourself on his chest, you lifted yourself up to look down at him, “yes! That would be so fucking cool.”

He shook his head with a laugh, “you’re crazy.”

“Think about it, who else would be able to say they got studied by aliens. And then you’d know that you were important to someone, even if it is just alien scientists.”

Rolling his eyes, Colson pulled you back down into him, your hands still resting on his chest, “I don’t need aliens to know I’m important.”

“Well not all of us can be ubertalented rock stars with millions of fans,” you joked, a teasing smile on your face.

You glanced up to find his eyes trained on you, holding a softer look in them than you had expected, “I didn’t mean that.”

It took a few moments for his words to get processed by your brain, but you immediately dismissed the thought that he could be talking about you specifically. More than likely he was referencing his family in general, which you could be included in.

Day 31

To celebrate a full month in quarantine, the guys had decided to throw an in-house only party, which just meant that everyone had an excuse to drink together more than normal. You were staying mostly sober, knowing that otherwise the boys would most likely break something, most likely themselves.

You watched from your place on the kitchen counter as Rook, Baze, Slim, Dre, Irv, Dub, and Colson played a round of King’s cup.

“Y/N, you have to drink,” Rook called from across the room, “it’s a six.”

“If there’s no women playing then you just skip that card, Rookie.” You called but took a sip from your cup anyways.

Colson whined, “this is boring.” You chuckled as he moved away from the table to come stand by you, the rest of the guys continuing without him. He leaned against the counter next to your dangling leg, letting you run your fingers through his blond hair, “parties are boring now, Y/N.”

You could tell that he was gone, the alcohol having almost full control of him. “When we get out of quarantine, we’ll throw the biggest party ever, Kells,” you said, letting your hand fall to rest on his shoulder. The man grasped your hand in his and moved it back up to the top of his head, silently begging for you to continue. He turned into a cat, practically purring as he leaned into you, “hey, Kells, you tired?”

He shook his head, “no, ‘m gonna stay up with you, remember?”

You laughed softly, “it’s okay, Kells. You should get some sleep; I’ll be okay for a night.”

His arms wrapped around your middle, head burying into your stomach, “I’ll go to sleep if you do.”

“You gotta let me off this counter for that.” This was a side of Colson you rarely saw; the drunk, very cuddly version of Colson. Occasionally he’d cling on to you when he got really tired, but that was in the privacy of his room. Here he was hanging onto you in front of all his friends, though granted they were too drunk to notice anything unusual.

You hopped off the counter, taking on some of Colson’s body weight in order to get him up the stairs and to his room. Truthfully, you planned to leave him in his bed once you got him there, but he had other plans. As soon as you moved to walk away from the bed, he grabbed your arm sleepily, “why are you leaving?”

Running a hand along his jaw softly, you softly said, “I’m gonna go to my room.”

He whined, “you never sleep in your room, stay.”

You bit your lip, unsure how to respond to that, “Kells, you’re drunk, you need some sleep.”

“I can’t sleep without you.” His eyes were glazed over, making his pleading look even more appealing than normal.

Sighing, you muttered, “yes, you can. I’ll be right down the hall,” but he wasn’t taking no for an answer, hand still firmly around your wrist.

“No.”

You rolled your eyes, climbing into the bed next to him, “I’m only doing this because you need to go to sleep.” He hummed in response to that, wrapping his arms around you and pulling you tightly into him, leaving no room for you to escape even if you tried.

Day 37

Nights with Colson had slowly turned into every moment with Colson. You woke up together, ate breakfast together, spent time together. You were rarely separated for long, not that either of you minded.

At some point, the line between friends and whatever lied next had gotten blurred, but not fully crossed. You and Colson were touchy and cuddly during the day as well as at night, and everyone in the house was starting to notice it.

Part of you just wanted to kiss him and see what happened, but you knew messing with a situation like this could go very wrong very fast. So, you just left it up to him to figure out where this thing would go, knowing he probably wouldn’t make the first move either.

But as you laid in his arms, listening to his midnight ramblings, you couldn’t help but wonder what would happen if you took matters into your own hands. You watched his lips move as he spoke, wanting nothing more than to lean up and press your own against them. Of course, you would never actually do it, but it was nice to dream.

There was a lull in the conversation which was spent with your eyes dancing across each other’s face, trying to figure out what to say next. Suddenly, he blurted out, “can I get your advice on something?”

You nodded in response, a soft smile on your face. He continued, “this sounds so stupid, but there’s this girl I’ve been talking to recently and I can’t figure out if she ‘s into me or we’re just really good friends.”

You sat up slightly, perking an eyebrow up, “well what signs has she given you that she’s into you?” Your heart burned, hoping he was talking about you. It was a feeling that had been happening a lot recently whenever you were around him, which was almost all the time.

He sighed, “I mean, we talk like, all the time about everything. And I think she flirts with me, but I’m not completely sure if she’s flirting or she’s just being friendly.”

“Well, what signs say that she’s not into you?” You ask, biting your lip to hide the grin forming on your face.

Colson hesitated, “I mean, none, really. I’m just scared of messing up our friendship, you know?”

You nodded, “well, you’ll never know if you never ask her. I’m sure it’ll work out.”

He was quiet for a long time, clearly turning the advice over in his head, “I would but, with quarantine and everything, I just don’t think it’s the right time. We wouldn’t be able to actually, you know.”

Your heart fell, realizing that there was no possible way he was talking about you. It felt like every bone in your body turned to Jell-o at the realization, a lump forming in your throat. “Right, well, maybe you could invite her over to the house. Or do a cute facetime date or something.”

He nodded but stayed quiet. You fully sat up, swinging your legs off the bed. “Where are you going?” he asked softly.

Something inside of you was slowly crumbling, and you needed to get yourself out of his presence as soon as possible, “I just need to take a walk, I don’t think I’m tired enough to get any form of sleep.”

Colson let out a small “oh,” as you stood up and swiftly left the room, tears forming in your eyes.

You felt silly for letting yourself fall so easily and for thinking that he might have felt the same way. But you could’ve sworn there was something forming between you two.

And how had you never heard of this new girl? How long had that been going on?

So many thoughts swirled around in your head as you made your way downstairs and out to the empty pool deck, pacing the familiar space. You tried to convince yourself that your feelings weren’t as strong as they actually were so that this could somehow be easier, but you knew it wouldn’t work.

The sound of the door sliding open caught your attention, your eyes meeting those all too familiar blue ones. “You okay?” he asked, leaning against the wall of the house. You flashed him a fake smile with a nod. “This doesn’t have anything to do with what I just-”

“No, no,” you cut him off, “I’m just restless right now, needed to get some energy out.”

He nodded, watching you cautiously, “I’m actually super tired, so I’m gonna get some sleep. I’ll see you in a few?”

You nodded, knowing full well you had no intention of getting back into his bed, “yeah, goodnight.” You turned your head to the ground, studying the cement below your feet.

The door opened and shut, but when you looked back up, Colson was still standing outside, watching you. “I don’t know why I said that. There isn’t a girl in quarantine. Well, I mean, there is, but we wouldn’t not be able to see each other.”

Your head was spinning, trying to make sense of whatever he was saying. He kept talking, “I got nervous and chickened out and then you left and I felt like an idiot.” You looked up to him, confusion evident on your face as he continued on the borderline of rambling, “so I’m just gonna throw this out there and whatever happens, happens.”

You stared at him blankly, not fully processing his words or what was happening.

“Would you wanna go on a date with me? Or, like, whatever kind of date we can pull off here?”

Your eyes went wide in shock, the rollercoaster you had just been on emotionally twisting your mind. You didn’t speak for a few moments, making Colson nervous, but you finally got out a stuttered, “yes.”

He sighed in relief, “god I feel like such a teenager right now.”

You came back to your senses, narrowing your eyes at him, “do you realize the emotional turmoil you just put me through? I feel like I’m crazy!”

He chuckled, moving towards you, and wrapping his arms around your waist, “I know, I’m an asshole. But it was worth it, right?”

“I was literally rethinking my entire life out here,” you pouted, leaning into his touch.

He leaned down and pressed a kiss to the corner of your mouth, “I’ll make it up to you, I promise.”

You rolled your eyes, “look who’s all Mr. confident now.”

The vibrations of his laugh shook your own body, “well, you said yes. This would be a completely different story if you had said no. Then I would be the one rethinking my entire life.”

You smirked teasingly, “I could always change my mind.”

He shook his head with a chuckle, “shut up.” His lips met yours, one hand reaching up to softly hold your jaw. You melted into the kiss, your arms moving to wrap around his neck loosely.

You pulled away slowly, a smile spread on your face, “this almost makes not being able to sleep worth it.”

Tag list:

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[rivendellsstuff]

𝐀𝐃𝐎𝐑𝐄 𝐘𝐎𝐔 ━━━ 𝐋𝐄𝐕𝐈 𝐀𝐂𝐊𝐄𝐑𝐌𝐀𝐍

𝐀𝐝𝐨𝐫𝐞 𝐘𝐨𝐮 | ❝In despair, he condemns his desires. Regretted, he know the consequences would be eternal and all he wanted was you. Your fiery personality, bright lips and soft skin.❞

𝐖𝐨𝐫𝐝 𝐜𝐨𝐮𝐧𝐭: 2310;

Genre: friends to lovers;

𝐃𝐢𝐬𝐜𝐥𝐚𝐢𝐦𝐞𝐫: Mentions of canon-typical violence. The first chapter is set before the events of the first season. Friends with benefits — so, it'll be eventual smut (like, a lot!)

𝐀𝐮𝐭𝐡𝐨𝐫'𝐬 𝐧𝐨𝐭𝐞: English isn't my natives language, so if you spot a misspelled word or anything else, feel free to let me know.

━━━━ 𝐅𝐈𝐑𝐒𝐓 𝐂𝐇𝐀𝐏𝐓𝐄𝐑

Some men's whish the glory, others crawl like snakes by power and there is those who live like rats in the system. However, there is a exception — and his names is Levi Ackerman. Emerged from the underground, by dust and blood, forged as a weapon at an early age and steeped in pride, he raised as humanity's strongest soldier. He carries a doctrine, imbedded in his bones: he serves to humanity, the balance and the freedom of mankind. If there is a threat, he is the man who can fight against it, ranging from cruel people to evil titans.

He was born in cruel times and did his best to survive in the Underground. He found a glory he wasn't looking for. Something many wish to through their lives, but which, for him, was irrelevant. They all bleed, they all are stuck on the Walls and share the same ended chapter: the death. The final outcome is not defined by possessions, achievements or privileges in life. The only difference was that could get death any easier and painless. Levi was not a hypocrite: he would rather a peaceful death, lying on his bed, instead of being eaten by a titan.

He rather — and is all what it is. It wasn't like if he had any choice. The Ackerman's family were designed to protect the people and to fight. They were cursed with a power. Some people could say it is a miracle in dark times. Others would argue that mans were corrupted, cruel and too ambitious to deal with that awakened power. Well, Levi knows, that no everyone were worthy to possess such ability — Kenny, that asshole, was one of them.

However, there was kind strange situation. An only exception, an affliction that hung over through the heart and maddened his mind: you.

Desire wasn't a word enough to define how he feels close to you, a fearless female warrior, who destroy each barrier he has built over the years, causing delirium with the thought of you hurt. Levi knew he would have taken a checkmate just by desiring you.

But when it all starts? He couldn't say with sure. Maybe, when he, Farlan and Isabel were recruited by the Survey Corps, and you were the only one who spoke to them without undriveable mock and trial. You, besides Erwin, didn't seem to care where they came from. As deeply loyal as you were to your comrades, you didn't depend on your interactions with them for take a direction — you were content to follow your own passions and desires without input from anyone else.

Maybe it started when he saw you in battle or an a argue with a member of Military Police Regiment. Fear is not in yours's vocabulary when you are on the battlefield or when you are speaking her mind to others.

As their partnership grew, he'd find some similarities between you, but also many differences.

You, just like him, has little patience for any form of prose or riddles when you are communicating with others. You speak bluntly and without pretense, and expects others to do the same, prefers to get to the point and doesn’t seek to romanticize your expectations or intentions. You also are focused on the present issues and what role you can play in protecting the people that you love, what can prevent you from seeing the future results of your present actions and, unlike him, does result in some impulsive and risky — yet brave— actions.

All these little things over the years, made him fall in love with you, and Levi had ways to say it without saying "I love you".

Like that night.

He wasn't hiding his disgust face when handed you a cup full of that steaming, black liquid; the simply smelling coffee could make your stomach turn, but still, he prepares a cup for you every night.

As the second in the command, you have spent several evenings together conducting the next advances of the squadron. So, there you are, sitting next to him, eyes focused on the paper, turning the pen between your fingers and... biting your lower lip.

Occasionally, almost instinctively Levi raises his eyes to you. Being so close of you was it's a unique feeling. The smell of your perfume as stunning, and his throat closes around the words he would like to say. The tension that has been brought in was too dangerous for someone like him.

Fucking woman, fucking lips. Fuck you!

''Is there a problem?'', you inquired making eye contact for the first time that night. He couldn't say if there was perversion when you wet your own lips, but Levi felt his muscles become tense and contracted when you made it.

Levi responded with a faint whimper before observed: ''You shouldn't be drinking so much coffee at this time. You look like shit when don't get sleep''.

Lie. Fucking hell, you're always beautiful, but no way he'd say what he thought.

You rolled your eyes. ''It's you who did'', you put forth.

''I wasn't in the mood to put up with a brat attitude from you.''

''Brat? You know that we have about the same age, don't you?'', your gaze traveled from the figure sat in front of you to the window, confused as to why you would be embarrassed about his presence. You took in a breath before adding: ''Anyway, don't want sleep.''

There was a pause for a few seconds. You and he eyed each other.

''Why?'', he asks, authoritative one.

You shrugged and shook your head firmly. ''It doesn't matter.''

''If it doesn't matter, why would I have asked that?''

"Cause you're snooper”, you smirked.

''I'm not a snooper, brat."

He felt his heart begin to quicken when you carried the pen to your lips and start biting.

"Yes, you are a horrible snooper old man, bossy and with an astonishing mania for cleanliness."

"Old? You know we have about the same age”; he repeats. His eyes drifted back to your face, noticing your gaze had shifted again to the woods beyond the window. "And you're avoiding the question", he softly says (at least as softy as he could be), interrupting your rampant thoughts. "Are you alright?"

Levi watches in silence as you'd shoulders slump.

"I can't sleep. My mind has the scary capability of being evil, although I always thought that one day it'd get better", you're voice was low and flat, quiet and a little sad as you spoke to Levi, who seemed to know what are you exactly referred to and only nodded at your words. "I feel guilty. All the time."

Even in the darkness the room held, your eyes find his greys one like the starlight's.

''Are you afraid of your dreams, too?'', you asked, never expecting the humanity strongest soldier to have any fears.

'Yes'', he said quietly.

You nodded with hesitation, his words repainting in your head as you struggled to forma a sentence to answered.

Levi was used to such sadness, he had month's — no, years — to griever over the deaths of his mother and friends. Death was not uncommon thing in his life. His childhood who should be carefree, playing in the sun, was like a living nightmare, learning to fight in the darkness of Underground. Later, when he left the place to join the Survey Corps, he accepted to live in that never ending tragedy that people had sadly grown used to. Death was more common in that job than anything else, and he knows how badly it fuck with his mind.

“I’m beginning to think we’re a lot alike… you and me. We’re both strange cast, who’ve learned to fight when we’re backed into a corner'', you began weakly.

''Well, we’re backed into a corner now. Two fucking insomniacs”, he shook his head, thinking about your words. He didn't seem to like the way your voice sounded sadder. You raised your eyes to him again as he slowly spoke: ''You're not alone''

You answered a tiny smile onto your lips. Levi felt his cheeks burn and opposite glanced to your empty coffee cup, thinking that he'll able to always tolerate your strange addiction.

A few second later you both went back to work, and Levi was left with words stuck, temptation planted in the mind and a sure thing for him: the insomniac nights would become better by you.

【 ━━ 】

Inside Wall Sheena, guests were arriving, among them five members of the Scout Regiment - consisting mostly of commanders - walked through the gates, exuding self-confidence, bitter to participate in that boring and stupid meeting.

Little lies, little social sacrifices to feed what kept the Scout Regiment going: funding.

It was not necessary to be an expert in politics to see beyond the traditional veil of those events, to perceive the intentions of certain parliamentarians, very sadistic. Knowing it was part of your job to relate to these kinds of people annoyed you.

For one minute, you saw out of the corner of your eyes, the first on your command. The man of grey eyes used a black suit that fits perfectly. Be present in an event with so many politics didn't seem to his liking. Was kind of hard for all of you play nice one with all this tension in the air.

You've never felt the feeling of fear and tension like that inside the Walls before.

''Stop frowning before you break your face''

'It would be so sad, and you would cry for being depriving of that beautiful face''

''Oh, fuck yourself'', he says, angrily.

''If you watch''

You smirched at his expression as he looks up to you, after seeing your face, he turns away.

''Watch your words, brat''

''Or what, old man? What will you do to me?''

He looks back up at you.

''I could break you habit of drinking coffee, put you to clean all the HQ or even to help Hange with the experiments. The three together seems good, by the way''

You roll your eyes.

''You're mean''

'You're annoying'', he replied. ''And you know, if you keep rolling your eyes one day their going to get stuck like that''

''Are you trying to be funny?''

His little grin showed up making you roll eyes into a smile. He was terribly bossy and annoying, but you like that about him.

You took the glass of wine to your lips and raised your eyes to hit his. Levi hovered over you, making you felt that flame into your heart once more. Your eyes tailed down to Levi's lips then back to his eyes. You could feel your heart beating recklessly.

Fucking grey eyes, fucking black suit. Fuck you!

You felt a thumb on your cheeks, making them burn.

''You look...'', he started whispered and slightly caress your cheeks. Your body started to get hot under his soft touch. ''... beautiful. You look beautiful''

You were speechless.

You liked the sudden ardor, of the dangerous attraction, of folly and frivolous with provocative sins. Liked and thought how the taste of his lips would be: the indomitable, the irresistible, the powerful and sin.

He slowly dragged his hand down to my thorax wrapping his hands around it. A soft gasp escaped of your lips.

''You know... If you want dance, it'll not rude to ask'', you try to say. ''The song is awful, but I'm not a demanding partner''

''Only if you don’t step on my foot''

His prepotency make you smile.

''Don’t be a bad partner and there will be no mistakes'', you retorted, making him raised one of the eyebrows. ''That's how a men should behave next to a woman''

He took you in his arms, abruptly, making the bodies collide with intensity. You gasped, very close to Levi's ears, who felt the hairs stand on the back of his neck. Leading you through music, in no second was the look averted, in a battle for unknown control.

You and Levi explored a unique experience.

He stares burned deep into your body. His touch on your skin made your body tingle.

Fuck, control yourself. Don't get turned on by him!

He didn't say anything, just left you hold into him. You could feel your body burning around him. What was he doing to you? It felt like a spell. The effect of sin, of desire. You should get rid of that, all you needed least were distractions in the workplace and ruin the friendship, trust and partnership that you two took so long to build.

However, both keep looking to each other longer than friends should. Longer than friends should...

He could saw you lost inside your mind. Slowly, he pulled down his fingers, lazily touching the skin of your exposed back by the dress. Levi's vision was blinded by the desire his image represented. The surroundings smelled wine and fruits, intoxicating his sense. The ears, doomed to hear the political bullshit. His tact could burn by touching you. His taste? It was dangerous, because wanted to discover the taste of your lips and body.

But not now, not here.

You are his friend — the only who was left. In despair, he condemns his desires. Regretted, he knew the consequences would be eternal and all he wanted was you. Your fiery personality, bright lips and soft skin.

To hell all of that. When you both got back, he'll fucked you, every way that he can thinking off. He wants to pound into you, slammed into you and give the best night that you ever have. He wants to kiss every inch of your skin.

''Good girl'', he whispers next to your ears. ''But I'll show you how true men should behave next to a woman when we get back''

[chiwhorei]

the devil makes

pairing: benimaru shinmon x reader x joker/52

genre: smut, 18+ minors dni

word count: ~2.2k

tags: a touch of branding (he flicks his cigarette at you i just really don’t know how else to tag it), knifeplay (except it’s a playing card, only a smidge of blood), rough oral, face fucking, voyeurism, spit, anal, double penetration, degradation, spanking, belly bulge, it’s a little dubconny but not really?

a/n: my first full fire force piece woot woot! these two characters make me so fucking horny and when they shared the screen my pussy was completely inconsolable. thank you @messwriting and @10millionyearsdungeon for looking over this and always encouraging me.

hymn: wrong by MAX ft. lil uzi vert

you, and me, and the devil makes three.

“Why don’t you cut the shit and tell me what you want,” you pluck the cigarette from your caller’s lips, he presses his saccharine smile down at the edges to feign a pout.

You know better by now. Your legs hang on either side of Joker’s hips, his white dress shirt doing almost nothing to cover skin filled with a new flight of bites and bruises. The last set had just faded when you heard the tell-tale knock at your front door.

His timing is always impeccable, hat in hand and dipping under your doorway just as the wanton throbbing sizzles into a dull ache.

Deeply inhaling, nicotine breaches your throat and prickles past your lungs. You only ever smoke when he’s around. At this point, you’re not sure if it’s a necessity or a habit.

“Do I need a reason to visit my favorite girl?” His voice trails around your skin in tune with a wandering set of hands. It’s infuriating how easily your body relents to Joker’s fingerprints. You’ll feel them like scorch marks for days to come.

“I’m not your girl and I doubt I’m your favorite.” You bush off his quip, cigarette bobbing in your teeth before he pulls it from your mouth to drag. With a flick of his finger, ash falls like burning snow onto the juncture of your collarbone. You wince and fall forward into his chest.

“You’ve proven yourself the most useful, is that better?” Joker pulls you into a searing kiss, pushing tongue and smoke into your awaiting mouth.

“At least it’s more honest.” Joker laughs loudly, his head falling back against the mattress. Your pillows will smell like sage and campfire, you’ll pretend it doesn't lull you to sleep.

“I need your help to, achem, seal a deal of sorts. For the greater good of course.”

Eyes roll upwards, first with guffaw, but any argument melts with the feeling of his lips on a warpath from the angle of your jaw to the swell of your breast.

Joker promises to make it worth your while, in the ways you always seem to let him.

Against all better judgement.

* * *

“Well, Captain,” Joker presses a sharp ace against the curve of your collarbone, leaving a trail of crimson in its wake, “she’s a pretty little toy ain’t she?”

Pleasure coats your tongue, it tastes like blood and incense.

In the short time they’ve been acquainted, Benimaru has learned to be unsurprised with any impromptu meetings Joker could plan.

What Beni wasn’t expecting was your naked, flushed body on the lap of his new associate. He wants to complain about the purple eyed almost-stranger sitting in his private quarters, but any argument flounders for air as soon as you come into view.

You seem completely placid from your position against the anti-hero’s chest, awaiting further instructions with glassy eyes. Any shame you could ever muster lies in a heap of fabric six feet away. Joker always dresses you in something easy to tear off.

“You sure do make an interesting first impression, Joker.” The 7th’s captain walks forward in the dimly lit room, pushing his fingers against your hair and pulling back roughly to steal your undivided attention.

A pretty little toy indeed.

“We’re partners now, Beni,” you can feel Joker’s voice like honeyed venom from behind, every syllable drips against your shoulders, “and partners share.”

Joker flicks the playing card upward, twirling it in deft fingers. You watch his dexterity, the piece of glossy paper is pressed to your lipstick, dragging your bottom lip down slightly before pulling away. A signature painted in soft pink.

The hand on your hip, the one in your hair-- the feeling of two bodies enclosing on you like prey is overwhelming and salacious.

“Does he bring you to do all of his dirty work?” You’re spoken to for the first time, the grip in your hair lifting you from Joker’s lap.

“Only the dirtiest work suits me,” you hold your ground, voice dropping an octave to make both men shudder, “captain.”

Benimaru’s sneer is only an inch from your mouth, his proximity neering closer with every word falling past your lips. If you keep talking like this, Joker won’t want to share his toys anymore.

Pointer finger and thumb come up to cradle your chin, mouth parting with the smallest pressure. Your tongue lulls out slightly, an invitation punctuated with your eyes flitting from his stare to the deep set frown across his face.

The sound of Beni spitting hits your ears, the harsh put bounces against the bannisters. Warmth runs in an indecent trail from the tip to the fattest plane of your tongue.

“Don’t play coy, sweetheart, show ‘em what else you can do with that mouth.” Joker’s palm comes down on your ass cheek hard, a breathy yelp escapes to be swallowed by the man above you.

Beni moves to perch against the desk centered in the ever-condensing room, arms folded across his broad chest. The space feels cold without the body heat you had been stuck in between, you feel exposed fully for the first time since Joker snuck you into company seven.

There’s only a beat of self-cognizance before you’re pushed to the ground by a familiar set of calloused hands. You need no further direction, knees and palms straining against the hardwood as you inch forward.

By the time you’re kneeling in front of Benimaru, his cock is in a tight fist. He pumps himself in long strokes, smearing pre with his thumb to coat the throbbing head. His length is impressive, you can feel saliva pooling in under your tongue as you watch his hand move from base to tip.

The sight almost has you forgetting your manners.

“Will you fuck my mouth, Captain Shinmon?” There’s very little restraint left available behind his icy red irises. Joker sits back in the brown leather chair, a front row seat.

You feel the familiar burn against your scalp with Beni’s searing pull. The red tip hits your mouth and you’re positive a streak of lipstick finds home against your chin.

You’ll be covered in much more before the sun comes up.

His cock is heavy as pushes past your lips inch by thick inch. The groan ripping through your throat is vibrato against the ribbed skin.

“Wow, ah, your sweet little throat was meant for cock wasn’t it?” Tears prick in your eyeline, your vision growing bleary as you swallow. A stray streak of mascara falls down the curve of your cheek before Beni swipes it away. You almost blush. Almost.

He hits the back of your throat with seemingly little effort, you sputter slightly at the burn, your jaw aching to accommodate. Just as you feel him pulling almost all of the way out, Beni slams the full length in again. His pace is brutal and unforgiving. Each thrust earning a new mess of spit and makeup to collect at the edges of your mouth.

“No need to be gentle, Beni, she’s taken a whole lot worse.” You would laugh at the sick curl of Joker’s words if you could. The implication is both irritating and worrisome.

“As much as I would love to cum in that pretty little mouth,” you gasp for air as Beni pulls you off, a thick line of slobber still connecting your bottom lip to his cock, “I really want to feel your cunt wrapped around me instead.”

You hear the sound of Joker’s heavy feet closing in from behind, his grip on the back of your neck to hoist you back up to your feet.

“Partners share, remember?” The lilt in your pursuers voice is sweet in the way sugar free gums rots your teeth. Joker will break you into pieces for the greater good.

It’s sick, absolutely disgusting, how much you crave your own destruction.

“She’s nice and ready for you, captain. Feel how dripping wet she is just from sucking your cock.” His next words suck all of the oxygen from your lungs, he replaces air with tension,

“You can take her cunt, I’m going to fuck her tight little ass.”

“Wait I--” There’s no use pleading, there’s no use in anything but quiet compliance and resolving to the fate of being stuffed completely full.

Four hands are on you, groping the fat on hips and breasts, moving against the pliant skin in tandem. You’re malleable in their hold, hoisted up in Joker’s arms. His grip is unforgiving, crescented bruises are bound to form and be visible for days to come on the inside of your thighs.

Beni captures your lips between his teeth, stealing back your attention with a growl. His kiss is searing, tongue slipping to lash against your own. The stubble grazing his strong jaw is dizzying, he whispers against your lips, licking against your pre-stained mouth. Quiet enough to be either missed or ignored by Joker as he busies himself freeing his cock and grinding itn against your ass.

“Next time I’ll sit you on my face and we can have a little fun one-on-one.” Beni punctuates his promise with a nip to your bottom lip before his hands move to steady you snugly in between two wide chests. His palms rest on the dips of your hips, thumb jutting out to press tightly against your aching clit. The movement rips a hoarse wale from deep in the back of your throat.

“You always cry so pretty, dollface.” Joker’s emboldened by your tears, an invitation to push you farther, you feel two fingers prodding your asshole, using your own slick to assist in his exploration. The sensation is painful and addicting as both digits push past the tight ring of muscle.

His fingers move to work the taught hole open, each ridge of knuckle and callus blurring the line between torment and pleasure. Beni circles your clit, picking up in pace as Joker adds a third finger, the stimulation hurtling you towards orgasm. A litany of please scratch at your throat, begging your captors to steal an orgasm from the pile of shaking limbs in between them.

“Cum, little one, cum so I can fuck this tight little cunt of yours.” Beni’s voice is unmistakably demanding, there’s not a note of suggestion behind his words. Your first orgasm snaps against you like electrocution, buzzing around every nerve.

“That’s my girl,” Joker snickers, feeling the contraction and loosening of your muscles. Your high is the final submission, willing every part of you how they see fit. Little more than a toy, a pawn in a broader game of chess.

“Are you ready for us?” Beni’s voice is framed in question, but you know better than to take it as anything but rhetorical. It doesn't actually matter whether or not you’re ready. What matters is the squeal of pain and temperance that comes from breaking you.

Before you can even nod in agreement, you feel it. The burning fullness, the sealing of a deal between two men that you happen to be placed right in the middle of. Joker’s cock is hot and heavy, sheathing himself in the last plane of virgin flesh. The piercing on his frenum drags against you, a familiar feeling in the most unfamiliar place.

There’s no time to get used to the sensation as Beni is pulling you forward slightly so your weeping pussy is hovering over his length. Your legs dangle, suspended on either side of his forearms. You’re lowered onto the captain, his pace is remarkably gentle as your pubic bone meets the sprawling expanse of wirey hair nestled between his hips. As your skin meets on either side of your weeping body, both cocks sheathed completely inside, the canter of either man picks up brutally.

The sticky feeling of sweat and arousal covers every inch of skin in the room, partnering with the sound of slapping and thrusting that all but drowns out the pathetic whimpers your suspended form can muster.

“I knew you would make yourself useful, doll. My favorite game to play.”

Your head falls forward against Beni, body growing heavy as the merciless, rhythmic thrumming of your abuse. The dull ache of another orgasm drips into your bloodstream. Your abused bundle of nerves become live wires, sparking against Joker’s wandering fingers as they wrap around your front.

“I can feel it, ya’ know, I can feel myself in your stomach.” His taunt is stressed with his palm pressing down against your abdomen before dipping back down once more to pinch your clit.

His rough treatment is the final straw, you scream and cuvulse in the hold of your predators. You squeeze tightly in a succession of muscle spasms that feel like you’re trying to milk both of their own orgasms to crash with your own.

Thick spurts of cum spill into you with a series of deep, final thrusts. You feel your own wetness as it runs down your thighs and ass. Muffled groans from both men fill the stale air as they claim your holes. There’s nothing left in the space between bodies except you caught in the web of spiders, dangling in silken limbs and labored breathing. There’s nothing left to give or take.

There’s nothing but panting and sweat and a deal with the devil.

all writing is dymphnasprose’s original content, please do not repost or modify. do no read my content as asmr.©️

[vanderlindemorgans]

Cross My Heart (Chapter 6)

Pairing: Agent Whiskey x Reader

Rating: Explicit/18+

Summary: A traitorous Agent Whiskey returns to the United States on the run. Being cast out by Statesman, he soon finds that you’re the only person he can turn to - the embittered former flame from years long passed

Word count: 7.7k

Chapter-specific Warnings: Descriptions of blood from a gunshot wound, alcohol consumption, talk of drug addiction, more death talk, mentions of entitled kid + parent, everyone being in denial and uh I think that’s about it

Read on AO3 | Previous Chapter | Next Chapter | Masterlist

The strangest thing about dreams were how quickly they disappeared: you could be passed out in bed, a million miles away from the waking world before the rays of sun started to shine over the horizon to rouse you from your slumber, and just like that - whatever world you were in would vanish, being replaced by an often disappointing reality in front of you. For Jack, vivid dreams weren’t too often of an occurrence for him, not that he really remembered anyway. Nightmares were even more rare, though at one point in time they’d plagued him for months on end. That was how he’d spent the first few months after his wife’s passing: waking up in a cold sweat, heart racing in panic from the lingering remnants of dream clung to the back of his mind, horrifying scenes of loss and tragedy playing out to torture him in his most vulnerable state. Usually the nightmares involved him being forced to watch Lily’s death with his own eyes and being powerless to stop it, the illusion always shattering just as her body hit the ground. Other times he’d be confronted by her, blood cascading from the bullet wound in her head and onto her skin while she stared at him with harsh eyes. He’d try to reach out for her, only to feel her hands had gone cold. And then the blame would start. The words that were repeated over and over by her until he felt his brain was going to break.You couldn’t protect me. Those ones were always the worst, and thankfully, the most rare.

All of this being said, Jack hadn’t dreamt of Lily in a long time. As the sting of her passing began to fade with time, leading into hate and anger towards the world for taking her away, the dreams slowly stopped. He still mourned for her every day, feeling frozen in time no matter how many years passed, no matter how fine he seemed on the outside, but the worst of it had left him. Or, so he thought.

Jolting out of bed with a fierce start, he could feel the rough material of the duvet in his hands, his hands grasped around it with an iron grip. He felt compelled to scream, though no sound was able to escape his mouth, and as he took note of his surroundings he started to feel less afraid when he realised where he was. He didn’t know what the time was, if he had to guess it was probably after midnight. Hesitantly, he placed the back of his hand to his temple, feeling the stray beads of sweat running underneath. It’d been a long time since something had managed to scare him to that degree, much less a nightmare. He probably should have felt relaxed once he realised that none of what he just went through was real, but he still felt spooked by the entire experience. Jack couldn’t even remember most of what happened - it all blended together in a frightening blur. The only moment he could still make out in his mind from the dream were its final moments: his wife was standing in front of him, in the middle of the convenience store where she died, with a man holding a gun to the back of her head. He remembered screaming out, pleading for her to be spared. It was too late - the sound of a gunshot rang out and her body fell limp to the floor, a pool of blood forming underneath her head. That wasn’t even the worst of it, as when he looked down upon her corpse he realised that it wasn’t Lily’s body lying dead on the ground anymore. It was yours.

“God fuckin’ damn it” he cursed, placing his head in his hands. On top of everything else that had already happened, he now had to deal with the return of old haunting nightmares that somehow were even worse than the ones he had years ago, because now you were involved. He sat up abruptly, grabbing onto a discarded shirt that he’d thrown over the foot of the bed and pulling it over his head, using nothing but the moonlight pouring through the curtains to guide himself out of the room and into the darkened hall. He stole a glance towards where your room was, a droplet of fear etching itself into his mind. Before he entirely knew what he was doing, he was opening the door to your room, being careful not to make any sound lest you were awakened. His fears subsided when he saw you curled up beneath the covers, sound asleep and none the wiser to his presence. Exhaling gently, he untensed his shoulders and looked over at your sleeping form with a small but sweet smile on lips. Of course she would be fine. You’re being paranoid. 

Pulling the door behind him softly, he turned his attention to the end of the hall where the stairs were, the vague recollections of the nightmare rattling in the back of his mind. If he didn’t do something soon, he would keep himself up all night mulling over the implications of it all, and he wasn’t keen to spend the early hours of Sunday morning losing sleep because of his fucked head. He supposed it wasn’t that out of nowhere to dream about his wife, as he had been talking about her with you just last night. What scared him more so was that you were there, taking the bullet and ending up exactly as she had: dead. He couldn’t begin to fathom its meaning. Did it have to have meaning? Was it nothing more than a nightmare?

Scooping up a glass, he poured himself a generous amount of whiskey to sip on, returning the bottle back to the corners of your liquor cabinet. He probably should have asked before helping himself but it wasn’t like you were awake to answer to him, and he had a feeling you wouldn’t notice anyway, considering he’d found the aforementioned bottle pushed to the furthest reaches of the cabinet. When he noticed the label on the bottle, he couldn’t keep himself from smirking at the irony of it - of course you’d keep the Jack Daniels whiskey towards the back. Reclining into the couch with the glass in his hands, he took an absentminded sip while his mind further delved into the worrying implications of such a dream. 

The only part of it all that made sense was that the dream had been about his deceased wife - with the discussion that happened between the two of you last night about her it was only logical that his subconscious had lingered on some parts of it. After you’d turned in for the night Jack had stayed up for a little while longer, seated out on that veranda with a pensive look and the bottle of bourbon you’d neglected to bring back inside. Your words made rings around his mind, sparking a debate of sorts with himself as he considered your criticisms towards him. The emotional part of him wanted to blindly hate, and to keep on doing exactly what he’d always been doing. But when he realised that blind hate had gotten him into this whole mess in the first place, he’d allowed himself to listen more carefully to your words, and to examine them on a deeper level. Upon knowing your own past with loss and pain at the hands of another, it made him take a step back and actually look at everything that had transpired in Cambodia, all the little things that led him to working against an organisation that he once devoted himself to. Whereas you’d taken steps to try and live in a world without your parents, he’d remained angry and hurt, stuck in a world that had long moved on from the tragedy and still feeling every raw cut of emotion that losing her dealt. Sure, he wasn’t exactly inconsolable over it constantly - he had been able to live for sixteen years without Lily. If he went to a psychiatrist, he knew exactly what they’d say to all that: “You’ve externalised your hate onto someone easier to blame, in this instance addicts, when really the only person you feel should be to blame is yourself for not being there to save her”, or something like that. He couldn’t help but let out a small laugh at the ludicracy of it all. Never in a million years did he think he’d be one for deep introspection. What in the goddamn has this world come to?

Even so, your words wouldn’t leave his mind. Did you have a point? Was it wrong to blame every addict on the planet for the actions of a few? In a rational sense, he could see what you were saying. His actions hadn’t been based on rationality though, it was all emotion. His instincts wanted him to reject the notion of him being ideologically wrong in this, a notion he in turn fought to reject from himself. One thing in particular that Eggsy had said to him during their final confrontation had stuck out to him at that moment: “You’re working for the president?”. He’d denied it at the time, and there was truth to his denial: as he put it himself, he didn’t want any kind of association with that asshole. At the same time, his feelings on the matter did happen to crossover with the president's own agenda, and some part of that in general hadn’t sat right with him. 

Would it even matter by this stage if he’d accounted for his errors? He’d already single -handedly destroyed all that he had by then, the only thing that could properly atone him in his own opinion would probably be death, and he’d be damned if he was gonna let himself die any time soon. The realisation that he might have to spend the rest of his days with the guilt of the incident in Cambodia eating away at him wasn’t too kind on his psyche, but he was ready to accept it in lieu of the alternative. And damn it, if there wasn’t something about that judgemental way you’d looked at him that gave him enough of a kick in the teeth to want to do better. You’d said it yourself that you didn’t believe him to be a bad man. Maybe somehow he could redeem himself enough to even be half of what you’d described of him. 

Drumming a lone finger along the fine seam of the couch cushion, his thoughts circled back around to the disturbing dream and everything it entailed, including the part that had shaken him the most. Why you? Why were you of all people appearing in his nightmares? And not only that, why did you take the place of his long dead wife at the end? His mind was ticking into overdrive to decipher every little detail. There was only one other time in his life he remembered seeing you in his dream, and that was when you two were dating. He could chalk up your sudden appearance in his subconscious to the conversation the both of you were having the night before - it would explain the return of his nightmares about Lily too, although his mind swayed towards ruminating on a much more confronting possibility.

What if it means I’ve fallen back in love with her?

As soon as the concept crossed his mind, Jack frantically sought to purge it from his mind altogether. What a foolish idea, he reasoned to himself, taking a larger sip of whiskey out of the glass. There wasn’t anymore to this, and he shouldn’t be throwing out such wild theories based on a nightmare of all things. He went and thought back to the small moments you two had shared throughout the weeks together, times where one lingering touch almost seemed to convey something more. He realised just how many times he’d caught himself staring at you the last few weeks, or the times his touch lingered on yours a second longer than it should have, things he hadn’t noticed until he began to pick apart his own behaviour and examine it underneath a microscope. Old habits die hard, I guess. He may have teased you about making him coffee by “accident” a couple of weeks back, but there wasn’t meant to be any insinuation behind it. It was just that - a harmless tease, a simple reflex of his infamous flirtatious charm. None of this necessarily meant there were any reignited feelings, and furthermore, if by some insane stroke of dumb luck that did happen to be the case, then they were only small at best, fleeting in nature. He couldn’t fall for you again. He couldn’t. Not after putting you through so much pain.

No matter how hard he tried to convince himself it was nothing, even he wasn’t buying it tonight. If he was falling for you again, how would you take it? Not well he guessed, as you still felt hurt by his actions. Why wouldn’t you? He was the one that hurt you then came back into your life without warning because he had to go screw up the one good thing he still had. It was painful to be reminded of how little still had left by that time: his status as an agent stripped from him, everyone he ever loved being dead and buried, and not able to return back home as he was still on the run. Him being at your ranch at all was putting you in enough danger, a fact that made him uncomfortable in of itself. Falling for you would make things more complicated than they already were.

She doesn’t have to find out. Keep it to yourself, and she’ll never know. 

That’s it. That’s what he’ll do. He won’t ever mention these returning feelings of affection towards you, and in doing that, hopefully they will run their course and die out. Jack would still be courteous towards you, it went without saying since you were implicating yourself in all of this by hiding a fugitive. He could do that, right? Ignore it all, and avoid anything more than general amicable gestures. A part of him hurt to think of that, especially when those thoughts he had when you two were on the veranda together last night pushed themselves to the forefront of his mind. The way your hair had looked splayed out over your shoulders under the dim porch light, the burn in your eyes that gleamed as you’d admonished him for every mistake he ever made that shouldn’t have made him so entranced. He chastised himself for thinking so lewdly of you in that moment, hating how the very image of you in such a light darted straight to his groin. Finishing off the last dredges of whiskey, he wiped his lips with the back of his hand and let out a heavy sigh. 

Forget about it. Leave her be. You’ve hurt her enough. 

_______________ 

At long last, there was finally a lull in the day, giving you some off time to relax and decompress a bit. There was still an hour to go before the ranch closed for the night, though nobody else had any riding lessons booked and it was unlikely that anybody was going to show up unannounced at five in the evening. To say the day had been busy would be selling the whole experience short - downright exhausting would have been a more accurate way to put it. There was a function going on for a good chunk of it, a birthday party for the son of some big-shot oil tycoon. You’d been worried your injury would slow down your progress with getting tasks done but to your pleasant surprise you were able to manage just fine, though having your other employees and Jack around had also been a huge help. It’d been four weeks since you’d gotten injured, and according to the doctor during your semi-regular checkups the recovery process was coming along nicely, which had been more than evident to you with the lessening pain. Sadly, you wouldn’t be able to get the cast off for a while, despite your protests. You didn’t see why it all had to take so long: you hadn’t been in any excruciating pain for a good while so it was clearly healing. As well as the cast being a nuisance when bathing and the like, it was also annoyingly itchy, leading you to talking yourself out of shoving a coat hanger down the side of it in an attempt to stop it several times. If only you didn’t have a ranch to run, then you could take an antihistamine pill and be done with it. 

Dragging yourself back into the house, you headed straight for the stairs, eager to lie down and doze a little - normally a long day like that would call for a bottle of scotch. This time round, however, you decided to forego the alcohol in favour of a more straightforward way to relax. Once you’d come to the door to the guest bedroom upstairs you felt compelled to stop, your mind wandering to where Jack was at that very moment. Last you’d seen him that day he’d been bringing the horses in. The two of you had stopped to chat for awhile, your usual bitter-edged banter being exchanged, things playing out just as they should when suddenly that same familiar feeling started to make itself known, the same thing you’d felt when he’d handed you the painkillers, or when you two had been out on the veranda a little while back. That spark, so to speak, the frightening feeling of something burning in you, something that shouldn’t be there in the first place. You’d instinctively ended the conversation soon after, making up some excuse about needing to take care of some accounting and hurrying off. Thinking about it now you couldn’t stop yourself from going a tad pink in the cheeks at your behaviour, thoroughly embarrassed for daring to act like you were inflicted with something as trivial as a schoolgirl crush. 

Don’t be soft on him. Don’t do this. You’re better than this, those words you repeated to yourself like a mantra started to wear thin during those weeks, especially after the conversation you two had shared where you’d divulged some of the pain closest to your heart. You never thought that you’d tell anybody what you felt after your parents had died, not in a million years, so to have you in a position where you were comfortable enough to reveal such details was nothing short of astounding, particularly when one took into account the exact person you’d told it all to. You could justify these choices with the flimsy excuse of being drunk, but even you knew that in order to run your mouth about something that personal, even while intoxicated, meant you had to feel a certain amount of trust to the other person. Did you trust Jack? Was that what was happening here? To that, you couldn’t fully answer, as you didn’t really know. 

Glancing from the doorknob to the stairs and back, you twisted the handle and allowed yourself into the spare bedroom, letting your feet move you towards the closet at the back of the room. Like a woman possessed, you didn’t stop yourself from doing any of this, the feeling of your heartbeat ricocheting through your chest. It had been years since you permitted yourself to look at any of this stuff, let alone giving any of it a second thought. Out of sight, out of mind, you’d thought to yourself when you’d originally boxed it all away, not being able to bear throwing any of it out. Sliding the doors open, you took note of the fact that everything was left in its precise location indicating that true to his word, Jack hadn’t meddled in any of it. A small sigh of relief escaped your lips while you sunk to your knees, poking your head through the rows of old coats that you kept neglecting to donate or sell to the very back of the closet where your eyes locked onto what you’d been originally seeking: a plain velvet blue shoebox shoved underneath an ugly knitted blanket that you plainly despised. 

For as much of a hardline no-nonsense woman others perceived you as, a huge part of you was deeply sentimental towards both people and things, or more specifically, things people had given you, hence the choice to simply box up every gift and memento he’d ever given you rather than setting fire to it in some overly dramatic yet cinematic manner. When Jack and you had broken up, you’d gathered up everything that reminded you of him, thrown it in a box and then tossed it into the back of the closet of your apartment to be forgotten forever. When you’d taken over the family ranch from your parents, the box had ended up in the guest room closet instead due to you not wanting an object holding that many sorrowful memories anywhere near where you slept. Taking the box out and setting it down in front of you, you stared at it frostily for a minute, considering throwing it back into the closet and forgetting that you ever wanted to open it. Ultimately you caved, lifting the lid off and opening up the treasure trove of mementos, symbols of a love that used to be that became tarnished with time. 

A lot of the items in question were photographs, a couple of polaroid shots of the two of you out at some bar in New York thrown in with the myriad of photos depicting you on various other dates with him. One in particular that caught your eye was a polaroid that had a heart drawn in red permanent marker on the white margins - you were wearing Jack’s Stetson and had one arm thrown around his neck, looking as if you hadn’t a care in the world while he looked up at you with those heart-meltingly gorgeous brown eyes of his, as if nobody else in the world existed except for you. You could still recall the smell of the cigarette smoke from that day, how the loud music reverberated through your ears the entire night you’d spent there with your head rested against his shoulder, ignoring all your other friends in favour of him. You caught yourself grinning at the memory as if you were some kind of lovesick fool. Back then you might’ve been. Not anymore though. Not now.

That’s what you continued to tell yourself while you sorted through the box’s contents, pulling out items ranging from small bits of jewelry to a small cat plushie that he’d won for you at the county fair. Your gaze zeroed in on a small silver chain necklace with a little horseshoe charm dangling on the end, earning yet another foolish smirk from you. Jack had bought that for you as a Christmas present, although you had insisted to him that he didn’t have to go all out on a gift for you. He’d even gotten the underside engraved with your name, which you traced over with the pad of your finger at that very moment.

Looking through all these gifts and the significance they once held to you, your mind started to wander back to the possibility you’d considered during your last proper talk with Jack, questioning once more if he deserved such harsh hostility being thrown towards him. You didn’t want to let yourself be hurt again, so it only seemed logical to make yourself guarded and keep him at an arm's length. With that said, time and time again he’d managed to surprise you - he hadn’t been pestering you as much you thought he would. Sure, he did jokingly insinuate that one time you made him coffee that you were growing fond of him but other than that he’d kept the charm to a minimum, or at least, less than you were used to in the past. It all made sense to you after you’d learned what happened to him that brought him back to you, his magnificent fall from grace so to speak. You meant what you said to him that night - you didn’t think he was a bad person, rather just someone who’s done bad things out of hurt and anger. With everything he told you about his wife’s death, you couldn’t help feeling a sense of powerful empathy towards him, a feeling that scared you a little to tell you the truth. It’d been easy for years to write him off as a liar and a player, but in reality, Jack was far more complicated than that.  How ironic: the advice you gave him ended up being a hundred percent relevant to yourself at the same time, you huffed with an absence of amusement. 

If you had to be completely honest with yourself, without any kind of lies or facade to keep up, you didn’t know what you felt about Jack anymore. You couldn’t say you hated him, no, hate was far too strong of a word. Actually, you couldn’t really say you even disliked him that much anymore. But you didn’t really like him either. Or did you? Once again, the thoughts of how his touch had made you feel over those last few weeks invaded your mind, things that by all means shouldn’t make you feel some type of way but did. Hell, even how you continued to make his coffee exactly how he liked it every morning, not bothering to question it anymore than necessary for the sake of your own sanity. 

Shaking your head, you let out a heavy sigh as you glowered down at the box witheringly. Great, now you’d made yourself confused on your own emotions, all because you felt the need to reminisce on the past. You’re being ridiculous about this. You don’t feel that way about Jack, and if you did, you can’t have him. He’s on the run, he’s a criminal now, and more to the point he broke your heart once. Who’s to say he won’t do it twice? Do yourself a favour for once. Ignore those feelings. Ignore it, and they’ll go away.

You quickly boxed up everything soon after that, pushing it to the back of the closet as if you’d never been there at all. Lifting yourself to your feet, you neglected to look back when you maneuvered yourself out the door and back into the hall, pulling your mind back towards any kind of ranch duties you could muster up out of thin air that you had to attend to, anything that could distract you from the small pink tinge that had crept across your cheeks that refused to leave, or the racing of your heart with every step you took. 

 __________

After a day that felt like it dragged on forever, you’d been looking forward to turning in for the night. For whatever reason, everything that could have gone wrong that day decided to go wrong - one of the horses had done a runner during one of the riding lessons and you’d had to go out and try to catch the bastard. It took forever to rope the damn horse back into the property. Jack, you and another one of the instructors managed to catch him in the end but it ended up setting your schedule behind for the rest of the day. Later on in the day, some entitled kid had come down and decided he didn’t like the horse he’d been assigned to ride, waltzing right into the stables and picking out one that he deemed more suited for him. The horse, one of the older boys, was understandably annoyed by this random loud kid appearing out of nowhere and being rough with him, leading to said entitled brat getting chomped on the arm. The rest of the day had to be spent dealing with the screaming kid and his mother, who was every bit as entitled as her son was. Apple doesn’t fall far from the tree, does it? Despite your damndest to put on a smile and placate the woman who was screaming threats of a lawsuit, she still wasn’t letting up so you’d metaphorically thrown your hands up in frustration and told her straight to shut up. She’d left soon after that, huffing and threatening to get your entire business shut down. You weren’t scared in the least of her empty threats: you’d dealt with hundreds of other people just like her in your stint running the ranch and nine times out of ten nothing ever came from their tantrums. It was still supremely exhausting to deal with, draining your energy and putting you in a foul mood for the rest of the day. 

You’d been angling to end the day as soon as the first instance of idiocy started, so when it was finally late enough in the night and you’d grown tired of the bottle of merlot that you’d been speeding your way through, you’d taken yourself upstairs, thrown on a random t-shirt and sweatpants, and sunk right into bed ready to forget it all and start over.

However, you weren’t so lucky. From the moment you’d first entered your room that night, something had felt off. You couldn’t quite put your finger on it at first, so you’d tried to ignore it, writing it off as feeling slightly on edge from the rough day. The weird feeling wouldn’t go away though - everytime you closed your eyes, you felt like someone else was there, like there was another presence nearby. Five minutes passed before you’d flicked the lamp next to your bed on and looked around the room. You knew Jack had already gone to bed before you, and you couldn’t hear any sort of noise from downstairs that would indicate someone else being there. Nevertheless, you couldn’t shake the feeling that someone else was there, maybe not in the house precisely but somewhere on the property, as if there were a pair of foreign eyes staring at you from afar. Your eyes darted towards the window, the curtains open to reveal the glimmering starry sky outside, your breath becoming shallow as you were finally able to place the exact feeling that was making you tense up in fear:

You felt like you were being watched. 

Diving out of bed, you scrambled towards the window and scanned the vast expanse of countryside surrounding your property, searching to see if there was anything out there that was unfamiliar to you. Nothing - all you could see were the stretches of field that lay beyond your ranch, with a lone few collection of trees situated off the edge of your property, exactly as it always looked. That alone should have eased your nerves a bit but for whatever reason that feeling of being watched wouldn’t go away. You glanced back at your bed, trying to talk yourself into downplaying it all as you being paranoid. There isn’t anyone out there.You’ve had a rough day, and about three glasses of wine so you’re a little bit tipsy too, you told yourself as you trudged back to bed and pulled the covers over your head, a useless action that did nothing to quell the anxiety festering in you. For the next twenty minutes or so, you did everything you could to push your unease away in favour of sleep to no avail. The entire time you’d been lying there you felt like there were a pair of eyes burning into your back, directly across from where the window was, yet every time you sat yourself up to check there was nobody there. 

Fantastic, guess I’m not sleeping tonight then. Clearly, that creepy feeling wasn’t going to leave and you didn’t feel comfortable in that room anymore. Briefly you contemplated going down to sleep on the couch but that idea was dismissed almost as quickly as it came to you - if you felt like someone was watching the house, then moving sleeping locations wasn’t gonna solve anything. A part of you wanted to go grab a firearm and go on a patrol around the property to be safe, though once remembering that you were a little bit tipsy you didn’t feel it would be the best course of action to go hold a gun right then. Throwing a single glance towards your bedroom door, another idea popped into your head, and before you could try and talk yourself out of it you were already out the door and down the hall to where the spare bedroom was. 

Opening the door as quietly as you possibly could, you poked your head inside and peered over to where Jack was laying in bed, covers tangled up around him and facing away from you, appearing to be fast asleep. “Jack? Are...are you awake?” you called out hesitantly. 

It took a minute for him to respond, by that time you’d come close to convincing yourself that you were being a baby about all of this and that you should go back to bed. “Darlin’? Is there somethin’ wrong?” he replied, his thick southern drawl sounding groggy, matching his dazed expression he wore while he fought to keep his eyes open. 

“Sort of...maybe, I don’t know...I can’t sleep” you admitted. 

“Having nightmares or somethin’?” he asked, sitting himself up in bed to properly face you. You couldn’t help but let your eyes wander down his torso ever so briefly - it wasn’t anything you hadn’t seen a million times before but damn, he did look good. Shaking your head fervently, you attempted to ignore that fleeting thought and focused back on what you’d come there to say, proceeding to reply. “No, no, nothing like that. I just...ok, this might sound a little bit crazy but I can’t help feeling like I’m being watched in there, and it’s freaking me out”.

You could see Jack’s brow furrow through the darkness, a look of concern creeping over his face while he thought on what you’d just said. “Watched? Like how?”. 

“I don’t really know how to explain it, if I’m gonna be totally honest. All I know is that everytime I close my eyes I feel like there’s somebody outside. Whenever I go to look out the window though, I don’t see anyone” you explained, and at almost the very second you finished your sentence you could see Jack’s eyes widen, the last remnants of sleep falling away and being replaced by an alert and alarmed expression. Before you could say anything about it, he was already throwing the covers off him and sliding out of bed, hustling over to where you were standing by the door. “Stay right here. I’ll go take a look for myself” he instructed sternly, pushing himself past you and making a beeline straight for your bedroom. Instinctively, and in all honesty against both his wishes and your own better judgement, you followed in behind him, seeing him linger close to the wall just enough so that he was out of direct sight of the window. Slowly, he advanced forward to a position where he could properly take a look out, his eyes steely as they examined the landscape, the tensity of his demeanour feeding into your own feelings of concern. 

“Jack, what’s going on?” you asked in a small voice, something that was uncharacteristically meek of you. In all fairness, something like this had never happened before. You’d hoped that Jack would come in, take a quick look, confirm there was nobody on the property and give you a little bit of peace of mind but the way he was acting made the possibility of someone actually being out there all the more real to you. 

“Darlin’, I’m sorry, but I’m gonna need you to be quiet for a second” he orders, not tearing his eyes away from the window for a single second. You didn’t know how long you two stood there for - it was probably no more than a minute or two at most, even so it felt like an eternity to you, until at long last you saw some of the tension in Jack’s shoulders dissipate and he finally slunk away from the window. “Give me a second, I just gotta go check something” he mumbled, dashing back out of your room and still looking vaguely distressed at the entire predicament. This time around, you did as he said, not wanting to leave the house on the off chance there really was something to worry about. You heard him run back into his own room briefly before darting off downstairs, hearing the unmistakable click of the front door lock opening. You had no idea what to make of any of this - why was he acting so weird? Was there something you should know? Was there really something to your weird feeling and should you be genuinely scared?

The sound of gravel crunching from the ground below alerted you, leading for you to wander over to the window for what felt like the millionth time that night to see for yourself what was going on. Your eyes first landed on Jack, who was pacing the gravel and looking off into the distance, searching for something. You could see he was holding something in his hand but couldn’t quite get a proper look at it as he was angled away from you. He disappeared from your view and a moment later he was back upstairs with you, appearing to be infinitely more relieved than he was before. Now you could properly see what he’d gone to fetch from his room once he’d left: his gun from his days as an agent, the moonlight streaming in through the window glimmering off the silver barrels and onto the floor. 

“Nothin’ out there, thank fucking christ” he sighed, giving you a smile that was meant to be comforting. His gesture did nothing to ease your worries, despite the confirmation that there wasn’t anything out there like you’d originally hoped. Along with still feeling uneasy being in that room, there was also the matter of what you’d witnessed in Jack before, the plain and unconcealable look of suspicion and worry that had been showing on him. 

“Are you alright? You...seemed worried. The way you were looking out that window, it was...like you were searching for something in particular...”.

“It’s nothing, sweetheart. Don’t worry your pretty little head off about it” he dismissed, obviously wanting to put this whole incident behind the two of you. You were having none of it, so you pressed further, taking a single step closer to where he was standing in the door. “You sure about that? ‘Cause you kinda got your gun out” you pointed out, your eyes flickering down to the weapon resting in his hands knowingly. “Did you think it was Statesman or something?”.

Jack looked surprised that you’d dared to be that direct in your line of questioning. He supposed he shouldn’t have expected any less from you, following your eyes down to where he was holding his gun. “Well, if I’m gonna be honest, yeah. For a moment there, I was worried they’d found me somehow. But there isn’t anybody out there - besides, if they were doin’ surveillance on the house they woulda had me led away in cuffs already. You’re safe as pie, sugar” he confessed. 

Exactly as you thought. You’d wondered if Statesman would ever make an appearance, suddenly becoming hot on Jack’s tail. So far nothing had happened, thankfully, and seeing as your strange feeling tonight turned out to be nothing, you permitted yourself to relax a little, despite the still present feeling of discomfort from being in that room. “Alright...thank you for checking. Sorry I woke you up for something stupid”. 

“Don’t apologise, sweetheart. I haven’t been sleeping great this last week anyway so I wasn’t even fully asleep when you came in. You make sure to get plenty of rest, ok?” he nodded towards you, turning to leave the room, the comfort of his presence slipping away from you and leaving you to feel the same odd and uncomfortable unrest that plagued you all night. 

Glancing back over towards your bed, you dreaded the thought of trying to go back to sleep in that thing tonight. It sounded so childish and silly for you to say, or rather think, but you really didn’t want to be in that room tonight. If you stay in here you aren’t gonna get a wink of sleep.

What you did next was something you never thought you’d do in a million years. In your defense, it’d been a long day, you’d had some alcohol earlier, and you just had to deal with the intense unnerve of being watched only to discover that your feeling was nothing more than a spate of paranoia. With all that taken into account, it was only logical that you asked what you did next. “Jack, wait” you called out before you could stop yourself, freezing once you saw him stop in the hallway and turn back towards you with those sweet eyes of his. “Look, I know this is an odd request but...can I sleep in your room? Only for tonight. I don’t know, I still feel a little on edge and it’s dumb but I’d rather be around someone else right now” you mumbled, simultaneously hating yourself for asking in the first place and feeling utterly embarrassed at your own audacity. 

Some part of you wanted him to laugh in your face. Laugh at you and make some stupid little quip about you being a “big girl” who could handle herself. It would be easier to hate him still that way. Of course, he didn’t do that at all. What he did instead was give you the sweetest damn smile you’d ever seen from him, different from those charming smirks you were used to and harkened closer to those rare moments from when you two were together that he would lay down the bravado and be vulnerable. “Sugar, you don’t need to feel bad for askin’ at all. I understand completely where you’re comin’ from” he reassured, holding his hand out and beckoning for you to come forward. And come forward you did, following him out into the hall and into his own room, the anxiety from before fading into nothing and being replaced by relief. 

“Thank you. I know we’re not...like that anymore but��” you stumbled dumbly as you glided over towards the bed, fatigue overcoming your brain and making you more impatient to be in bed and asleep as fast as possible. It had to be extremely late by then and you wanted to get a decent amount of sleep before having to get up and go about with business as usual the next day.  

Jack, meanwhile, was on the other side of the room throwing his gun back into a chest of drawers. “Say no more, honeybee. If you want, I can sleep on the floor if it makes you more comfortable” he posited, to which you promptly snapped your head back up and stared at him as if he were crazy. “You don’t have to do that, Jack, I’m not about to be kicking you out of your bed”. 

“Technically it’s your bed, not mine”. 

Rolling your eyes at him, you flopped down on the pillow and sighed. “Doesn’t matter, just...stay here. I’d rather have someone close right now, ok?”. If you weren’t already tired beyond all reason, your brain might have been fretting over the oh so horrific implications of staying in the same bed as him, though if you were really being honest you couldn’t care less right then. It’s not like sleeping in the same bed meant anything, plenty of people did that all the time. So what if you wanted someone near after feeling scared? Wouldn’t someone else do the same thing in your position?

“If that’s what you want, sweetheart. I’ll keep to the other side of the bed if you’d like” Jack assured you, sliding into the other side, doing exactly as he said and keeping a safe enough distance from you. It might’ve been silly for you to care so much, but you had to admit it was nice having someone else be there, and at the least it calmed your anxiety enough for you to feel fine sleeping. Stealing one last brief glance over at him, you wished him goodnight and let yourself relax truly for the first time in hours, letting the world fall away and fade into nothing as you closed your eyes and passed out in mere minutes of being there.

 ___________

When you awoke the next morning, it was to the strands of sunlight streaming through the parted breaks in the curtain, shining right over your face and rousing you from your slumber. Through bleary eyes, you became aware of the room around you, memories of the night before flooding back to you instantaneously. You noticed you felt warmer, becoming aware of the heavy feeling on your body, which caused your eyes to snap open fully. Looking back over your shoulder, you saw Jack, still sleeping and curled into your back, his arm lazily stung around you. You knew you two hadn’t fallen asleep like that, reasoning that he must have reached out to you during the night, leading to the position you were in now. You could feel the light tickle of his breath against the nape of your neck, something so small managing to light an unexpected spark in your heart. You should have pushed him off. You should have woken him up. You should have done a million other things in that moment instead of the one thing you did.

When instead of flinging him off you and darting out of bed like a skittish cat you curled yourself further into his light embrace, the mortifying realisation hitting you right then with a full force - Jack Daniels, the man who’d broken your heart, was caressing you in his sleep.

And you didn’t mind it, not one single bit.

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Cross My Heart: @giselatropicana @absurdthirst

[matthewtkachuk]

feel something pt 1 - jj

On the outside, you’re a kook princess with a seemingly perfect life and a perfect family. The expectations are suffocating you, to the point where the only thing you feel is numb. You’re chasing different coping mechanisms in order to feel something. Until a chance encounter with a certain blond pogue you know you’re supposed to hate gives rise to a different kind of feeling.

Warnings: angst, toxic behaviour, poor coping mechanisms, drug usage, mentions of sex, mentions of suicidal ideations (brief), Rafe being a grade a asshole, shitty parents

Pairings: JJ x reader (eventually), Rafe x reader (slight), Topper x reader (slight)

Words: 3.1k

A/N: I accidentally deleted this, ugh sorry if you see this again!! I started off wanting to write a supremely angsty one shot, turned into a supremely angsty multi-chapter fic. This is a slow burn, babyy. Here’s the set up, let me know what you think! :)

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You stand teetering on the edge of the balcony railing, barefoot and facing the waves as they crash onto the beach. You’re not thinking about jumping. At least you’re pretty sure you won’t actually jump. Really you’re just looking for even a flicker of an emotion to stir up in your chest. Lately you haven’t felt anything more than mild annoyance at your parent’s constant bickering and pestering. You know you’re too young, but all you feel anymore is numb. You lift your left leg, balancing precariously on the right for a minute before lowering it and returning to the balcony and slipping your heels back on.

You don’t want to die, you just don’t want to live like this. Kook princess, paraded and practically pimped around by your parents, looking for you to find an advantageous marriage, have 2.5 kids and further accumulate your hoarded wealth. “Why don’t you date the Cameron boy? He’s quite good looking and your father would love it if you married his business partner’s son” and “The Thornton boy would be a good match, the family mansion is the largest” and “Jacob Kane’s father is a name partner at a successful law firm on the mainland”. Your mother’s incessant nagging about finding the perfect husband only further cements your lack of value as a human being, your usefulness tapped out at your ability to be someone’s wife.

You don’t understand the wealth accumulation thing, your trust fund probably equals the national budget of a small country already, and there’s no way anyone could blow through the entire family fortune in a single generation. At this point, it just feels like generating wealth for the sake of generating it. What good is money if it just sits in a bank account or investment portfolio, earning passive income and not being used for anything.

You recognize you’re very privileged, you’ve never once had to worry about where your next meal would come from, you have a closet full of designer handbags and red bottom shoes the value of which could feed several families on the Cut. But what’s the cost? You feel suffocated by the pressure bestowed upon you by your parents. You’re the eldest sibling, primary heiress to the Y/L/N family fortune and expected future successor of the family business. Truthfully, you couldn’t give less of a fuck about retail development or whatever it is that keeps your father so busy that he missed every single one of your piano and ballet recitals growing up. You like the idea of studying Shakespeare’s sonnets and soliloquies over learning about mergers and acquisitions and tax avoidance laws at college, but you know your father would sooner cut you off than let you pursue your own passions.

Sometimes you let yourself fantasize about leaving it all behind, running off to some college like Columbia, moving to New York and living in the city that never sleeps. With your 4.0 GPA and stellar extracurricular activities, you could probably get a pretty good scholarship. Or maybe Paris, where you would sit in a cute little café flirting with French boys and writing poetry by the Seine River. But it would be hard, and you’re too much of a coward to see if you could make it on your own without daddy’s money. Not to mention the little voice in the back of your head that sounds suspiciously like your mothers telling you that you’ll never amount to anything without their help.

Later, you’re wandering the party, both hands curled tightly around the cup you hold to your lips, eyes staring out at the crowd over the rim. Unfortunately, you catch Rafe Cameron’s eye as he’s sat around the coffee table with a freshly cut white line ready on the surface. He’s surrounded by the idiots he calls friends and more than one pretty little rich girl making eyes at him. The left corner of his mouth turns up in a smirk as he realizes you’ve sized up the company around him.

“Hey Y/L/N, want a line? First one’s on me, babe.” He calls out at you, but you just roll your eyes and keep moving forward. As desperate as you are to feel something, you’re not sure you can cross that line just yet. Partaking in the occasional joint or bong rip is one thing, but hard drugs is another. You don’t think trading in the empty feeling in your chest for an addiction is worth it. Seeing the blown out pupils of some of your peers, and the way they not-so-discreetly sniff and wipe at their noses you realize you’re likely alone in that assessment. “Your loss!” he calls out at your retreating form, and you don’t even bother to look over your shoulder. You know he’s not really interested in you beyond making you a customer and maybe a quick fuck.

You snort to yourself, wondering what your mother would think about the boy she wanted you to pursue offering you a line of coke at a party. Knowing her, she would focus on the fact that you had gained his attention and ignore the illicit substance.

Making your way through the cluster of bodies is harder than you had initially thought, everyone was on everyone. Every kook party ends up this way, a certain subset of the group coked out and the rest so drunk they can’t function, and you begin to wonder why you even bothered coming.

You’re not totally sure what you’re looking for, your best friend and Rafe’s younger sister Sarah doesn’t really associate with this crowd anymore ever since she started spending all her time with the less fortunate side of the island. Rafe had called it ‘slumming with those dirty fucking pogues’ the last time Sarah had partied with you. Maybe it isn’t right to call her your best friend anymore because not only does she not associate with this crowd, she doesn’t really associate with you either.

You know she’s hanging with Kie again, there are a lot of watchful eyes on the island and even more flapping lips. It’s kind of ironic, Sarah was the one who convinced you to drop Kie, and you had let her. Now the two of them were spending all their time together on some dilapidated boat named after the inhabitants of the Cut and you were alone at some lame party with a heavy weight on your chest and under your eyes.

Sighing deeply, you down the rest of the contents of your cup and grab a refill before turning your attention back to the crowd of people in the middle of the living room. As your brain starts to fog further with the familiar feeling four vodka crans give you, you let Topper put his hands on your hips and pull your bodies close together, your back to his front. A voice in the back of your mind wonders if you’re supposed to feel guilt over Sarah’s ex’s hands all over your body, but you don’t feel anything and Sarah clearly doesn’t give a fuck about you either.

The next morning you wake up with Topper’s hands around your bare waist. There’s a pain radiating against your skull and you have cotton mouth, but you quietly gather your clothes and sneak out of the room before the sleeping blonde can wake up and give you that regretful look he gets in his eyes every time you hook up. You know he still loves Sarah, in his own fucked up way and though you don’t regret where you woke up, you know you’ll just be annoyed if you have to deal with his issues this early in the morning with this bad of a hangover.

You’ve almost successfully left the large mansion, quietly walking through the living room to the front door when a voice remarks dryly, “Really, y/n? I thought you were better than my sister’s leftovers.”

Inhaling through your nose and out your mouth sharply, you spin on your heel to face Rafe with a blank expression on your face. He sits at the kitchen island, bare-chested with his hat on backwards, casually eating a bowl of cereal. The thought of why exactly Rafe is sitting half naked in Topper’s kitchen, eating Topper’s cereal briefly flashes through your mind but you decide you don’t care. “What do you care Rafe?” you ask, only half interested in his response. There’s a moment of silence, and you pick at your fingernails rather than meet his gaze.

“I’m just saying, I thought you were better than that,” he shrugs, bringing another spoonful to his mouth.

You roll your eyes, already tired of the conversation, “And who, pray tell, is better for me?”

“Me of course,” he smirks at you, and you huff out an annoyed laugh and raise an eyebrow silently asking him to explain. “Come on princess, I know your parents want you to marry up. ‘m your best option on this island”.

Mildly annoyed, you roll your eyes and turn back towards the front door, eager to leave this conversation behind. “C’mon baby, we both know how this thing ends, with you on my arm as the perfect trophy wife.”

There was a time those words might have brought butterflies in your stomach. Growing up best friends with Sarah meant you also grew up with Rafe, and you used to have the biggest crush on him. Forbidden by Sarah after a late night game of truth or dare, you didn’t use to mind when your mother would spout off about Rafe being the perfect boy for you. He used to look out for you like he did for Sarah. But that was a long time ago, and he no longer cared about either of you anymore and you had to admit you couldn’t remember why you had ever thought him anything but repulsive. That was before the drugs and the untethered rage that always rests just under the surface of his skin, ready to be unleashed at the smallest slight. You might have married the little boy with the gap toothed smile who once punched Jacob Kane when you were in the second grade and he wouldn’t stop bothering you, but this Rafe wasn’t good for anything beyond a quick meeting in the dark.

If you had been able to feel anything, you might have snapped back at him, but you had no energy and honestly all you wanted was to shower in your own shower and collapse in your own bed, so you ignored his comment and slipped out the door.

It was a quick walk back to your house, and you snuck in quietly through the front door hoping no one was home and your dreams of slumbering until the early afternoon could be realized. Unfortunately, your mother sat on the cream colored chaise in the sitting room, clearly anticipating your arrival. Her eyes quickly scanned your appearance, your manolos held by the straps in your right hand, your sex hair and décolletage you were sure was covered in bites and bruises caused by overeager lips, before sighing.

“Y/n, darling, you have to stop this silly behaviour and settle down. Boys aren’t going to want to lock you down if they’ve already had you.” She criticizes, effectively slut-shaming you. You roll your eyes at that, briefly wondering if the old wives tale was true and you’d end up with your eyes stuck like that. You decide you don’t mind, it would save you some time as your base reaction to most interactions is to roll them.

“I had a rough night mom, I’d like to go back to bed,” you tell her as you try to slip past her. A cold hand circles your wrist, stiletto tipped manicure digging slightly into the skin stopping you from moving any further.

“I’m serious, y/n, you’re better than this.” She throws the same words Rafe had at you. Exasperated and exhausted you rip your wrist from her grasp and head to the stairs. “We’re not done talking about this!” she shouts but you ignore her and continue towards your nice shower and bed.

Rolling over to an empty bed several hours later, you grumble as you try to identify the source of your wakeup call. Cursing as you smack your arm against your side table, you finally manage to grab your ringing cell phone. Seeing RC flash as the contact calling, you groan loudly, before hitting the decline button and rolling back over. A minute later your phone chimes again, indicating a voice mail.

You figure there’s no point in drawing out the inevitable, so you unlock the phone and listen the voicemail Rafe left. He’s invited you to hang out with him and his friends on his dad’s yacht. Before you can talk yourself out of it, you’ve sent him a text to say you’d be there in an hour. Despite there being no love lost between you and Rafe, you really don’t have any better options and maybe if you tell your mom who you’re hanging out with she’ll get off your back and not subject you to The Lecture. You and Sarah used to laugh and joke about The Lecture, about how being a Y/L/N means being perfect and obtaining a perfect husband. The two of you would mock your mother, exaggerating her southern drawl that slipped out as she lectured you on the importance of propriety and ‘leaving something to the imagination’.

As you slip on a navy sundress with a deep neckline, you laugh, thinking to yourself that there’s not much left to leave to the imagination. You take the time to curl the ends of your hair to create a bouncy wave and apply a few coats of waterproof mascara and lip gloss. The humid heat of the OBX keeps your makeup routine light in the summer.

“And just where do you think you’re going?” Shit. Your dad’s home, he knows you stayed out all night, and he’s pissed. You don’t think your mom told him the full story, because he’s not frothing at the mouth mad, just his typical disappointed mad.

“Rafe invited a couple of friends to hang out on his dad’s yacht, daddy,” you reply back, not meeting his eyes.

You can tell your dad disapproves, because the lines between his eyebrows are more pronounced with his narrowed eyes. As he starts to give you what you’re sure is an impassioned lecture, your mother pops up out of nowhere, gushing, “Rafe? Well of course you can go sweetie, isn’t that right hon?” she turns to your dad, a single eyebrow raised daring him to defy her. Your parents are the ultimate power couple, wielding power and guilt over each other almost as easily as they try to do to you.

He sighs, realizing the fight with his vengeful wife isn’t worth the lesson you’re not going to learn anyway and nods, “Alright, just be back for supper, we’re going to sit down as a family tonight. And tell Sarah we said hi.”

If either parent noticed your stiffened back, they don’t comment on it. You hadn’t told them that Sarah dumped you like yesterday’s news just yet. Why blow a perfect cover story? Again, the lack of guilt should probably concern you, but you’re more focused on the very expensive, very good quality wine that you know is waiting for you on the Cameron’s yacht.

An hour later, you’re sitting between a very uncomfortable Topper and a disinterested Kelce with a full wineglass in your left hand. Your right hand slides your sunglasses back onto your eyes to shield them from the harsh sunlight that beats down directly on your face.

You can’t find the energy to strike up a conversation with either of them, and they don’t seem very inclined to start one either, so you turn your head to the side and look out at the water until you see a familiar beat up boat approaching. You visibly tense as your eyes lock on your blonde former best friend laughing with her arm around John B as their stupid friends talk and laugh around them. “You okay, y/n?” Kelce finally speaks, noticing your change in posture.

“Never better,” you drily reply moving to turn your head back to the other side of the yacht, as if the other boat on the water didn’t exist at all. Your eyes briefly flicker to the other blond on the boat, taut muscles on display beyond the ratty cut-off tank top as the pogue known as JJ attempts to wrestle with his friend Pope. You feel a drop in your stomach that perplexes you as your eyes scan his sunkissed skin. Startled, you turn your head quickly and take a huge sip of your wine.

You anticipated some sort of confrontation, maybe a thrown insult, but their boat simply eclipsed the yacht and they continued on their way. You were annoyed by the concerned look that Kelce threw your way after they had left, so you downed your glass and grabbed Rafe’s hand and all but dragged him inside the cabin.

The second the door shuts behind you, you’re on him, mouths mashing in a hungry kiss. He smirks against your mouth and leads you into the bathroom and proceeds to rid you of your clothes.

As you’re letting Rafe Cameron fuck you in the bathroom of his yacht, your mind can’t help but think you’re fucking over Sarah, too.

“Fuck baby, you feel so good,” he praises in your ear as he thrusts into you from behind. You don’t even have the energy to fake a moan, you just lean your head back against his shoulder.

When he’s finished, you simply slip your dress back on, refill your glass and sit back between Topper and Kelce as if they didn’t just hear you hook up with their best friend.

You go to bed early that night after a “nice family dinner” that consists of back-handed compliments and your mother fishing for details about your time on the yacht. You don’t think she’d be too pleased about letting Rafe ‘have you’ before ‘locking you down’, so you keep it to a minimum. Both parents drill it into your head that as a Y/L/N, you’re held to a higher standard than your peers. Perfect grades, perfect life, perfect daughter. You don’t know how to tell them you don’t even feel human anymore, so you smile and nod as they pester and nag. Your little sister sits quietly the whole time, looking at you with an emotion you can’t quite decipher.

[mcu-fan-fics-blog]

The Helping Hand

This is a Repost from my Ao3 I wanted to bring it to Tumblr. I hope you like it Its currently 5 chapters I will be uploading the rest throughout the rest of the week.

Word Count: 2400 approx

Summary: Y/N Krast Illegitimate Daughter of Tony Stark. Product of an unwanted teen pregnancy. What would Howard Stark be capable of doing to assure his sons future? What will happen when Tony meets our Beautiful, young, genius, rich philanthropist.

Tw: Implied/Referenced Child Abuse, Drug use, Drug addiction, Teen Pregnancy. (If there are any I missed please tell me.)

Ch.1

The Prodigal Child Returns Ch.2

Ch.3

While it is true that you had a very comfortable life it was definitely not easy or by any means a normal one. The first 11 years of your life were full of injustice, abuse, trauma, and all because your parents made it so. 

At one point you completely gave up… The things that happened to you, the things that they did to you were unforgivable. Howard tried to get you to talk about it, but you never let him know that part of you. You didn't tell him because you were scared he'd think you were broken, that you were not worth saving.  

You've never asked about your parents and quite frankly you've never wondered. They didn’t give a second thought when leaving you in a fucking hospital, why should you. Your scars are things you're not proud of; they are a reminder of how weak and vulnerable you used to be.

You were sleeping on the plane when suddenly you're there again. The Gordon house they had a son… he had issues and they knew it but did nothing about it. This was your repeating personal hell… when you least expected it you're being hit and yelled at. You feel like you can't run away fast enough. Your body is not letting you get away from him. 

When he finally reaches towards you, you jump awake from the nightmare. "Right on cue." you say to yourself. You wake up in a cold sweat. You look out your window to see the new york skyline. The pilot informs you that you'll be landing within the hour. The perks of having a jet to take you wherever you want no hassles. 

You haven't seen New York since Howard's funeral 3 years ago. Another thing you haven't seen since you left was your friends if you could still even call them that. Once you land you decide to go to your favorite coffee shop… if you missed one thing it was the coffee. 

As soon as you walk in the cashier notices you and she looks awestruck, dare you say angry. Jenna… 

"Are you going to say hi or are you just going to stare?" You say lifting your brow. She snaps out of her thoughts and smiles at you. "Y/N the regular? Or have you acquired new tastes?" You smirk at her and she makes her way around the counter basically throwing herself at you.

"Wow, easy there you're going to give me the wrong impression." She keeps hugging you nonetheless. "I missed you too!" you say as you return the hug. As soon as she pulls away she slapped you not holding back. "I spoke too soon didn't I?" You say to her. 

"You didn't speak at all you asshole you said you were going to call. That was my only condition." You give her an apologetic look, but at the end of the day she understands. She goes back to the counter, prepares your drink, and hands it to you. "So what's new around here?" You ask, she simply sighs and leads you to a more secluded table. 

"Marissa and Rob broke up, lets see Angel moved to Washington he actually made it into politics I still can't believe it, and I, well I own the coffee shop now." She looks at you and smiles. "What about you, where did you go?"You tell her what you did where you went, all about David and Viv. "So how long are you staying here?" She asks. "I'm here to stay." You say. 

You finish catching up with Jenna a couple of hours later. You walk out with your drink in hand and immediately bump into someone. Your drink spilled all over you. "Shit… are you okay?" You say as you look up. Your eyes meet hers and you're hypnotized completely forgetting how to speak. 

"Yeah, are you it seems like that spilled all over you." She points out rather matter of factly pushing her deep red hair out of her face. "Well it would seem so… you know it wouldn't have happened if someone hadn't bumped into me." A smirk forming on her face.

"Bold of you to assume I bumped into you." She tells you, raising her eyebrow. You smile, extend your hand towards her and introduce yourself. "Y/N Krast and you…" she takes your hand and finishes your sentence. "Natalie, nice to meet you Y/N."

You chuckle lightly. "You say that because coffee isn't currently dripping into your bra." She huffs out a small laugh. "How could I ever make it up to you. I mean I would say dinner but that seems too soon." She says smirking. 

You smile and say "I'll see you around Natalie." You hand her your card and walk away. Not looking back you make your way to your old house. "And it begins you say to yourself as you enter your home."

What exactly is beginning you are unsure of but if you know one thing it's that they're all "going to pay." You were a kid and you'll never forget what you lived through.

The first night anywhere is extremely uncomfortable… for you at least. The jet lag didn't help you toss and turn all night. When you least expect the sun is out and you are pulled from your thoughts as your alarm rings. Great now you have to go to work on no sleep. 

You make it to the office on time… you left it in good hands. "Y/N? Long time no see, where were you?" You turn to see Logan, you meet him in the system, you gave him a chance when no one else would. "How's my company? It better not be in shambles." You say playfully he fakes an offended gasp. 

"Y/N it's doing great, I'd say that if we work a little harder SI might have some actual competition." You laugh, but the expression on his face doesn't change. He doesn't laugh with you. "Wait are you serious Logan?" He answers almost immediately "Yeah it’s crazy right!"

You and Logan spent the day going over your company's finances. "We are doing better than ever, and it's all thanks to you." You state. Logan takes your hand and says "Thanks to us, you might have been gone but you definitely helped." You smile. 

You hesitate but eventually cave. "Logan I need your help with something?" He looks at you, his posture turning serious, "What do you need?" He said almost immediately "You can say no and I will understand, but I need to know everything about the Gordon's." you say nearly a whisper that only Logan could hear. 

"Y/N why?" He simply asks with a calm demeanor. When you try to explain nothing comes out you just shrug. "I'll do it, but just be careful alright." Suddenly anger fills within you and you venomously spat "I'm not that kid anymore Logan I'm not scared of them if anything they should be scared of me."

Logan is quiet for a moment "I see… Is this why you came back?" Unsure of how to answer you shrug, and he walks towards you kneeling in front of you. "I'll follow you anywhere you know… they hurt you, hell they even hurt me." He grabs your shoulders making you look at him. "You'll have that file on your desk tomorrow… they deserve what's coming their way Y/N."

He leaves your office leaving you unsure but content with the fact that he understands why. Again you are pulled from your thoughts as your office phone starts to ring. "Y/N Krast who am I speaking to." You say somewhat confused as the call wasn't announced or scheduled. "Hi Y/N it’s Pepper Potts from Stark Industries." 

You almost drop the phone when you hear the words come out of the speaker. Pepper continues "I must confess Y/N you're not an easy person to get a hold of. Did you enjoy your sabbatical?" You're still at a loss for words but compose yourself quickly. "I did very much, forgive me but what is this call about?"

"Right, I am inviting you formally on Me and Tony's behalf to our annual Company investor and corporation cocktail party." Suddenly realization hits you in the face he wants to scope out the competition. "That seems great, when will it take place?" Pepper seems taken aback by your response quickly composing herself. 

"All the information will be emailed to you and how many passes would you like?" You quickly respond "Two would be perfect!" you say. "I'll look forward to meeting you Y/N." Pepper states. "As will I, and thank you for the invitation." You say and end the call cordially. 

As soon as the call is over you receive the information the cocktail party will literally be tonight! You run into Logan’s office startling him. “What's up… you look pale what happened?” He asked as he started to worry. You catch your breath and say “Stark wants to meet us. We were just invited to their annual Cocktail Party!” You say all in one breath you quickly add “And it’s tonight.”

As soon as Logan Processes your words he starts to pace back and forth. “Tony Stark… The Tony Stark wants to meet us? Y/N do you have any idea what this means?” He turns to you and you can see the eagerness in his eyes. “Of course I do Logan, but we’ve got to get ready to. We need to buy presentable clothes and talk strategy.”

“God this is a dream come true!” You move in front of him to prevent him from pacing and catch his attention. “Logan it’s not the time to get star struck okay… he’s still our competition we were invited for a reason and we’re going to make the best of it.” He slowly nods getting more serious, but you couldn’t help it, you’ve looked up to him most of your life. Almost screaming you said, “Fucking Tony Stark wants to meet us!” Logan just laughs and you join him.

The day goes by in a blur, you and Logan had a busy day starting off with wardrobe. You're rocking a beautiful red fitted dress with a slit that goes up your thigh. Logan of course wanted to compliment you and chose a traditional black tux. "You look amazing." He says. You smirk "I look hot. You're not looking too shabby either." You tell him, making him smile and blush a little. 

Later in the night you finally make it to Stark Tower. Presenting your passes to security outside they immediately let you in. "This place is amazing." Logan comments you only nod your head in agreement. As you make, your way to the party Logan takes your hand. 

You look at him… you both needed the reassurance. You continued walking hand in hand. You are greeted by a crowd of people drinking, talking, and having fun. This calms you a little as you are just one in a multitude of people. You and Logan make your way to the bar. You take a seat and sigh. You lean on Logan's shoulder as he orders you drinks. 

When you get your drinks you realize something but don't get that chance to mention it as Pepper and Tony walk up to you causing everything else to melt away. "You must be the infamous Y/N Krast and your Logan Smith." Tony points at both of you. You smile and say "Exactly." You say then directing your attention to Pepper. "It's nice to meet you, Pepper, you look amazing."

You and Logan shake their hands. "Y/N I must say you look stunning as well… and I'm so sorry for the short notice I'm glad you could both make it." You smile as if to say it was not a big inconvenience. Tony clears his throat catching your attention. "Well Y/N you must know that we are in direct competition." You nod unsure of where the conversation is heading. He continues. "I want to work hand in hand with you and your company. What do you say?" 

You smiled and turned to Logan who knew exactly what Tony wanted to do. "So this has nothing to do with the fact that Karst Industries is projected to surpass SI within months." You can tell you caught him off guard as he desperately tries to say something. "Logan and I would love to work with you, Tony. It would help both of us in the end." He looked relieved and pleased with your answer. 

"This merits some drinks." He calls to the bartender "Natasha bring some drinks over here." You turn to Natasha who is now walking towards you. And finally, all the pieces fall together you can't help but chuckle. "The Call… that's how you got my number, touché Pepper I've got to hand it to you." Pepper can only smirk at your comment, relieved that you're not angry or offended by it.

You greet Natasha. "Well, it's nice to see you again Natalie." She smiles and hands you all your drinks. "This is Logan, my business partner I've known him since forever." You introduce him to Natasha. This piqued Tony's curiosity asking "When did you two meet?"

"We met when I was 5 or 4 not quite sure." Pepper hummed and added. "Your parents must have been friends." You and Logan shuffle unconformable but you decided to answer. "Um… no actually me and Logan met in the foster system. It's okay though it's a part of us we are not ashamed of it." You stated quite confidently that you even surprised yourself. 

Natasha senses you and Logan are uncomfortable and change the subject. "So what did you do whilst you were on sabbatical?" You thanked her with your eyes and answered her question. "I went to Europe Sokovia to be exact I wanted to help so I moved there and opened a small practice." Tony jumps in again quite tactlessly asking "How old are you Y/N you seem young not offense." He quickly adds towards the end. 

You chuckle lightly and answer "I'm turning 22 in a couple of months." you say. He looks at Pepper concern flashing in his eyes and quickly dissipates as he notices you looking at him.

[thevioletjones]

48. “You make me want things I can’t have.” 💜

Thanks for the inspiration! 💜

Prompt 3

Buffer

Ian Gallagher was starting to become a problem.

And the worst part about it was that he wasn’t even a problem that Mickey wanted to resolve. No. He just kept holding Ian closer and refusing to push him away like he should. He was just letting him ruin Mickey’s mediocre life. Because something about Ian was unshakeable. It wasn’t just that Ian kept coming back no matter what Mickey ever said or did, either. Ian was definitely persistent, but Mickey had formed an attachment too, even though he did everything in his power to hide it. It was still there, buried under layers of caustic remarks, aloof expressions, and occasional lashing out. He wasn’t proud of his behavior, but it was just who he was, and remaining unchanged in his ways was easier than the alternative.

Ian was definitely too good for him. Sure, he was hood trash too, but they were on two different levels. Ian was buffed up with a certain surface shine that Mickey lacked. Although, he would admit he’d come a long way in his style and hygiene game since his early days as an unwashed miscreant. Mickey was a gay man after all, and not immune to gaying certain things up, despite his tendency to flout homo conventions. If he wanted the ability to get a decent dick in his ass, there were standards that he’d learned to push himself to meet. This was the glossiest Mickey was ever gonna get, and it still came with a pinch of grime and hostility.

Maybe he’d developed enough sense to give a fuck, but he still didn’t give two shits either; a concept that walking contradictions the world over could likely comprehend.

The thing about Gallagher was that he was sweet. Not in an annoying, cloying, obvious way that was anathema to everything Mickey was about, but in a low-key, casual, incidental kind of way that somehow managed to be attractive, even to someone with Mickey’s abrasive nature. Ian played tough, and he genuinely was in many ways, but he had a gooey, marshmallow center that evened him out. Mickey didn’t see himself as having that sort of balance.

But there were these unsettling moments like this, usually in the middle of the night or early in the morning, when Mickey would catch himself watching Ian unawares. Unawares because he only ever did it when the redhead was deep in sleep. Suddenly, Mickey would be Mr. Contemplation, burning a hole into the face of the dude he was banging, daring to wonder what could happen between them if he wasn’t an emotionally stunted asshole. And then he’d reflect on what Ian’s life was like whenever he wasn’t around; the things Mickey acted like he didn’t care to know.

These circular thought patterns never led anywhere good, because at the end of the day, Ian wasn’t his. And Mickey could never be Ian’s. He’d long ago resigned himself to a certain destiny that involved long-term solitude until his dying day, which he’d always been fairly certain would come prematurely and most likely in violent fashion. It would be ridiculous to drag someone else into his vortex of apathy for life and the general traditions of living it. Especially someone like Ian, who was good; who helped people because he genuinely cared about, like, the well-being of humanity and shit. Despite the occasional soft look or revelatory comment that Ian would throw his way, he knew better than to think he’d want to be saddled with Mickey’s non-reciprocating ogre-y ass.

Usually when one of these intense, one-sided staring sessions would take place, Mickey would overcompensate for silently slipping by adding an extra dose of rudeness when he kicked Ian out after the fact. Honestly, he wasn’t even sure why Gallagher still bothered with him. It wasn’t like he couldn’t get laid elsewhere. Ian was the type that would never have trouble finding a willing ass. Yet somehow he kept coming back to Mickey and ignoring all the negatives thrown in his path. It didn’t make much sense on either of their parts… allowing each other in on any terms. Probably meant that Ian was just as fucked up as he was, really.

Blowing out the last hit off his smoke, Mickey glanced at the bedside clock and stubbed out the cigarette butt. 3:26 AM and he was wide awake, just gawking at his slumbering ginger fuck buddy, and trying to repress the multitude of emotions swirling within him. It was truly pathetic.

He could just get the hell up and drag his ass to the living room to play video games or watch late-night TV, but no. Apparently he liked suffering and feeling conflicted. What a pussy.

Not ten minutes went by before there was slow movement from the other side of the bed... Ian turning over in his sleep, reaching an arm out, and searching. Searching for the warmth of Mickey’s body, it would seem.

A big hand landed on his thigh, rubbing it softly as tired eyes blinked open, and a groggy voice sounded, “What’re’y’doin’?”

Oh, just fuckin’ lying here starin’ at your pasty ass for some reason. “Can’t sleep.”

“Didn’t wear you out?” Ian asked with a breathy titter, squeezing the sensitive flesh precariously close to Mickey’s groin.

Maybe it made his dick twitch a little.

“When did one round ever wear me out?”

“Pretty sure there were two rounds. Did you forget about the couch?”

“Random handies while watchin’ mediocre porn barely counts as a round, carrot-top.”

“A, it wasn’t that mediocre, and B, do you only consider it sex if penetration is involved?”

“I mean… it helps.”

“What about blowjobs, then? How would you classify them?”

“Sex act, but not sex, sex. Know what I mean?”

Ian laughed. “Not really. What about lesbians?”

“Definitely don’t wanna have my cock anywhere near those.”

“Har har. I mean, what would you call lesbian sex?”

“Gross? Boring? I don’t fuckin’ know. Never had it, don’t plan to.”

Ian laughed harder and it made Mickey feel good. “Pretty sure lesbians don’t want fuck all to do with you either, bottom boy.”

“Hey, likin’ what I like don’t make me a bitch.”

“No, but you seem pretty hostile toward anything but a real live human cock poking you in the asshole. I mean, naysaying getting your dick sucked? That’s a bold bossy bottom stance to take.”

“What can I say? I’m a simple man with simple kinks. Aren’t you glad I don’t need any freaky extra shit to get me off?”

“What kinda freaky extras are we talkin’?”

“Fuck off, Gallagher. Don’t act like you don’t just live for stickin’ that big red dick inside any tight manhole that’ll accommodate it. Does that make you a hungry top just begging for it?”

“I prefer ‘brutal top,’ since it’s so big, as you were so kind to mention.”

Mickey rolled his eyes into tomorrow. “Gotta remember to stop accidentally complimenting it. You get so fuckin’ uppity about it.”

Ian rolled over and boxed him in, nuzzling around his face and neck, while Mickey tried to bat him away.

“Come on,” prodded Ian. “Big hard cock seeks tight little hole for another round of deep penetration.”

Mickey could feel said big hard cock firming right up against his hip. “Ixnay on the cutesy man seeking man dirty talk, fuckhead. I will make you take that hulking boner elsewhere.”

“No you won’t,” Ian replied, humping down against him.

Of course he wouldn’t, but he had to front at least a little bit. That was the nature of his inner beast.

While they were fucking, Mickey could just let himself get lost in all the appropriate heightened sensations that really good sex immersed him in. Immersed him and Ian in. Ian and him. Them. Reveling in the pleasure of carnality was totally kosher… as long as it limited him from basking in that additional Ian stuff. That feelings stuff that he had no idea what to do with. That unfathomable connection that existed between them.

He let Ian kiss him a lot too. Like, a lot, a lot. That wasn’t customary for him with other dudes. In fact, it barely ever happened. It was just another habit Ian had slipped under the wire to form with him when he wasn’t paying enough attention. Mickey was pretty sure he’d kissed more girls in his life than boys, because that was always an easy, less disgusting way to publicly appear straight during the years he’d spent in the closet. With guys, there was nothing to prove and everything to hide, so it just wasn’t something he incorporated into his casual sex routine.

Before Ian, he hadn’t exactly attracted the kind of dudes that warranted sticking around for in any capacity, or who made any kind of effort to stick with him. There were never any near-miss boyfriends, or pine-worthy hookups. Sex was always transactional and he’d been perfectly fine with that arrangement.

The truth was that once he’d fucked up and invited Ian in for repeats over and over again, he started to figure out that the sex just kept getting hotter and hotter. That when two bodies really took the time to get to know each other, things fit better, motions got smoother, and orgasms got a thousand times stronger. Turned out that one-night-stands were not where the fuck it was at. Those were always crapshoots with odds that were at best 25/75 in favor of mediocrity. With Ian, it was guaranteed total fulfillment 100% of the time.

That was the only explanation he could find for this unexpected addiction he was stuck with. An addiction to Ian and his stupidly perfect cock. The rest of his body was alright too. And when he spoke, he wasn’t completely fucking annoying. His personality and his nature were tolerable. Mickey didn’t want to gouge his eyes out every time he got sucked into a conversation.

They didn’t really hang out, though. Outside of the bedroom, that is. It was like the whole game changed when they were in bed. They could fuck, they could goof around and have a laugh, they could wrestle, they could accidentally say something profound once in a while… but if Ian had a bag of food when he dropped by, Mickey wasn’t about to sit on the couch and watch TV with him while he ate it, and he definitely wasn’t going to accept a portion for himself.

Until tonight, that is. Or last night, or however the fuck time was identified when you were a natural night owl.

Tonight, they’d crossed another invisible line in the sand, and Mickey had found himself chowing down on tacos, while heckling some shitty 90s action film; his part-time lover chuckling next to him with a sloppy mouth.

It was fucking terrifying.

So as soon as he’d realized what was actually happening, and how much he didn’t hate it, Mickey had switched over to some hardcore porn. They’d cracked jokes about it at first, but it’d done the trick of quickly leading to the familiar comfort of sexual gratification. With that justification, Mickey could just sweep the whole ‘watching a movie and eating together like they were on a date’ thing under the proverbial rug without further examination.

At least until Ian had fallen asleep around 2 AM. Then it was dwell city.

By 4:30 AM, Ian had fucked him into the mattress once again, and promptly fallen back asleep without a care in the world. Mickey was more than sated, but felt even more awake than he had an hour ago, his brain full of fresh bullshit about the man next to him and what was happening between them.

He opened his bedside drawer and pulled out his stash, knowing the high would fog up his brain enough to go off on thought tangents, and eventually shut down for at least five hours. Within ten minutes, he felt a little better, or at least more distracted. He was still very aware of Ian’s looming presence in the darkness, though. He wanted to be comforted by it, but he just couldn’t relax.

There’d always been a buffer between them, which Mickey had been diligent in maintaining, and he could see it slowly falling away now. If he didn’t step up and push back, pretty soon there’d be no barrier left standing. Who the fuck knew what could happen then.

He hated it. He felt so fucking out of control, when it should be the easiest thing in the world to control. All he had to do was break it off. He knew exactly what to say and do to make that happen. Knew enough to be able to really hit Ian where it hurt, both literally and figuratively.

But goddamn it, he didn’t want to.

He didn’t want to make Ian sad, and he didn’t want to give into his own desire to try for more. He would always fuck it up, because he was a fuck-up by nature. His goddamn knuckles spelled it all out in block letters.

He wanted Ian, but he didn’t want the responsibility. Didn’t trust himself, because no one had ever trusted him before in his entire life. What kind of dumbass wanted that kind of damaged douchebag for a boyfriend? No sane one.

Against his better judgment, Mickey rolled closer to Ian and wrapped an arm around his middle, spooning him the way he secretly liked it when Ian spooned him. He held him close and breathed in his scent.

“You make me want things I can’t have,” he murmured to himself, exhaling heavily against Ian’s neck.

He fell asleep swiftly, and in the morning, he didn’t ask Ian to leave.

[reaperlight]

Do you have any lawryght headcanons?

@greenpactbosmer Thanks for the ask!

Headcanons... ooh boy, well...

(Oh and I saw you had another ask there too but I think I may have misunderstood the prompt/what was being asked? In any case I should probablt edit the paragraphs of brain vomit that came out of that but until then here's more paragraphs of brain vomit, uh... sorry 😔)

Anyway...

Headcanons for lawryght can vary greatly from fic verse to fic verse but let's see curtent HC generally...

These three getting together in a canon-like universe...

The RyukxLight will either be established relationship or at the very least Ryuk is more helpful to Light and his plans than in canon to the point Light feels secure enough in his position so he can give L a chance and not feel like he has to kill him immediately so a relationship could actually develop between Light and L beyond "oh no, he's hot... I still have to kill him." (Also expect Light to be even more arrogant and insufferable because he thinks he's immortal and has the power of deathgod and anime on his side.)

Ryuk and Light getting together: And then they were roommates (oh my they were roommates) and there was only one bed--Shinigami don't really need to sleep but Light doesn't know that and the bed is comfy so Ryuk doesn't fell the need to tell him.

They are both extremely bored. Ryuk is absolutely fascinated with this human--he may not be on Light's side (or so he claims) but the entertainment value is beyond his wildest dreams. He is smitten, even if he doesn't admit it. If Light is curious about something hell try at least once... Or Light may be trying to get free Shinigami eyes out of him and they catch feelings.

L enters the picture... Ryuk doesn't mind sharing 1. Hes immortal and bored and... two interesting humans! This is so cool! 2. Shinigami don't have the same ideas about monogamy. 3. Headcanons about Ryuk vary depending on if rule 36 valid up to this point in the ficverse. (I.e. Chad!Ryuk vs. Virgin!Ryuk)

L and Ryuk--L is very disturbed to learn that his case actually has a supernatural component and is more leery of Ryuk than of Light at first. This lasts for all of the moment it takes to remember that Light is Kira and Ryuk is afraid of tennis balls.

After 5 minutes of soul searching, L can admit to himself he has a thing for monsters--both internal and external.

Assuming they are all alive and this takes place in early canon this shippable version of L is probably more interested in having fun then bringing Kira to justice. Either that or he has become disillusioned with the status quo or hurt and and wants revenge to the point that he's willing to entertain Light's way of doing things.

If its post series, maybe Ryuk is bored so goes looking for Light in Mu and ends up pulling both Light and L out of Mu because their souls are intertwined and once restored as humans or Shinigami or something shippable in the afterlife then it's just learning to rely on each other as they forge a new arrangement in the Shinigami realm.

Top/bottom it's not assigned seating Regardless of bedroom positions or what arrangement they have out of the bedroom Light is the dom/one in charge of this arrangement in bed... but subs L and Ryuk unionize and gang up on him. Light is a dom in bed but not always a top. L as a sub but not always bottom. Ryuk as a service top or power bottom. Ryuk doesn't really feel pain like humans do and will go with whatever he and his partners find interesting.

Contrary to rumor Light and L aren't always fighting over who gets to top. Fighting is for chess matches, clashes of ideology, and the last chocolate eclaire--not the bedroom. Consent, safe words, and mutual respect are all very important.

(The safe word is vegetables)

Light is very dom. In every relationship before or since. Except there's Ryuk, looming over him. Making him feel kinda excited and confused and then theres that stupid sexy voice of his... But ryuk is the exception. (But he might let L fuck him if he asks nicely and submits to Kira's reign.)

When they sleep together Ryuk likes to keep them both wrapped in his wings. He likes being the little spoon sometimes though...

L gets Ryuk addicted to apple desserts.

Light frequently ends up cleaning up after the other two. Ryuk helps when he remembers but typically L is a brat.

Light: How can you stand to live like this?

Ryuk: I was formed in a dustbowl.

Light: Yes, it shows.

L [throwing candy wrappers on the ground]: Why are you doing that, that's what Watari is for?

Others who might potentially join the polycule under the right set of circumstances: B, Mikami, Aiber, Matsuda...

Some very noncanon AU ideas...

Superhero aus (current wips)

Winning and ruling the world(s) au (current wips)

Light gets in trouble (of either a mundane or supernatural variety) and Ryuk goes to L to ask for his help because he's the only human he can think of who would be clever enough to help Light and because of supernatural restrictions Ryuk can't save Light by himself. L is annoyed to have his fun ruined by having it confirmed that Light is Kira in this way, pissed that Light could get himself into a situation like this, and also pissed at himself that Ryuk doesn't even need to threaten him to want to risk everything to save him. After they save Light, L decides there's no point in continuing the kira case because it no longer interests him. He returns INTERPOLs money and after Light recovers from his ordeal the three go on vacation looking for something interesting but less hazardous than their previous ordeal. L becomes fascinated with the supernatural and wants to go ghost and cryptid hunting, seeking out ancient mysteries and Ryuk has plenty of leads in that. Light is still more interested in becoming god of the new world but "fine, if you guys insist..." (he doesn't want to admit he's having fun too). They drive around in L's pink crepe van huntjng ghosts, solving mysteries. Light occasionally writes the names of murderous jerks and people who are assholes to L thst they meet along the way while Ryuk laughs and L scowls in a mildly disapproving way but never really discourages him.

Au inverting the dynamics so its established relationship of lawlight first and then Ryuk joins the polycule: AU where Light and L are the same age and are childhood friends and when Light finds the Death Note they become Kira together. Ryuk is fascinated by them both and slowburn they realize their feelings for each other.

Or... Human!Ryuk and mundane college AU Ryuk is in a metal band and is probably studying art and helps rival law students Ligtt and L to chill... at least until Ryuk gets in trouble for drug possession and then Light and L compete to be his better defense counsel.

Monster AU werewolf or vampire au that's canon adjacent--Ryuk bites Light, Light goes on to monster better than Ryuk does then Light bites L, the monster hunter who falls for him...

7. Haunted house au

8. The quarantine au--Light is annoyed because now killing as Kira feels rather pointless. L is annoyed because this is boring. Ryuk is having a blast because they're playing with him a whole lot more. If L and Light doesn't just use the L screen, Ryuk is always in the background, having floating, juggling apples photobomb the zoom calls.

And suddenly Ryuk is important.

Ryuk runs errand for them because he has no danger of catching the plague. They play video games, watch movies, bitch at each other, and get into pointless arguments over stupid things.

Also L makes them custom masks modeled after Ryuk's fangs just because.

Other ideas:

Wammys house and lawryght

Option 1: Wammy's house tooth rotting fluff, adopting all the orphans

Option 2: Wammy's house evil, B was right. It's really just about being raised as a weapon. It's like the stormtrooper program for genius orphans that may not have actually been orphans before the institute took an interest in them.

Option 3: Wammy's house complicated. The institute really is trying to do better, is the best place for the kids and while not perfect its closest thing to home/family they have.

Lawryght and Morality

These 3 can be awful enablers of each other's worst qualities. Then again...

Light: Huh, Ryuk thinks we're going too far. Maybe we should rethink this.

L [already has the prisoner tied up and being forced to listen to polka music on repeat]: But where's the fun in that?

Finding a home together

With Kira and a Shinigami as his boyfriend L feels secure enough to do more normal things he's been denied all his life.

With Ryuks help, Light finds the names of all of L's major enemies and gets to writing in the Death Note.

Light: Be mad if you want. I'm not sorry.

L tries to be mad, and fails. He can't help but feel relieved that they're gone.

He might even entertain the thought of having a permanent address.

He still enjoys traveling though.

Also L gets a kitten

The cat loves chasing Ryuk's feathers.

The cat likes Light's lap the best because Light went out of his way not to look at the cat.

....

Ah, that was probably way too long. But thanks for letting me ramble! 😆

[anotheronechicagobog]

Bulletproofness and Playing God Jay Halstead x reader

written by: @anotheronechicagobog​

requested by @confusedpimp​, I hope you like it!

warnings: swearing, addiction, Hannah Asher is NOT porprayed well in this you have been warned, malpractice, emergency c-section complications, involves Chicago Med episode ‘Do No Harm’, police being idiots and assholes, warrants served incorrectly, drugs, drug dealers, bad neighbourhood created by systematic oppression and gentrification, Will is a prick with issues, and canon compliant violence

A/N: I am very sympathetic and supportive of people who have addictions because not only are there a tone of genetic factors that weigh in on it, but environmental factors that most people have very little to no control over. That being said, I am strongly against people with addictions working in healthcare, first responding, and/or law enforcement who spend most of their time with vulnerable people who don’t have much of a choice about whether to trust them or not. If someone works in an area where they have someone’s life in their hands they cannot be addicted to a substance that will control their ability to make judgements, affect how/their ability to work, and function as a whole.

In the past eight months, a warrant has been served to your apartment twenty-one times. You haven’t done anything wrong, the name on the warrants was always for your upstairs neighbour, did this make being woken up and the fucking crack of dawn and being interrogated (sometimes arrested) any easier? Not even a fucking bit. So you weren’t surprised when at 3:28 am, your door was busted open (again), heard shouts of “Chicago PD!” (again), and heard your house being “cleared” (again). You groaned and sat up, holding your hands up. Your bedroom door was thrown open with a bang. “I am unarmed, Marcus Evans lives in the apartment upstairs, and I have no association to him.” In the blandest voice possible, you recited the statement the legal aid at your university wrote you. “Uh... Sorry? Hey, Sarg, I think I’ve figured out why there were so many unsuccessful warrants on this place.” The blonde man was still pointing a gun at your head, but more members of his unit came to surround him.   

“Can I put my hands down now? I have documents that prove I am innocent, that the warrant was served to the wrong address, again, and that the only connection I have to Marcus Evans is that he is my annoying upstairs neighbour.”

They all sheepishly looked at you. The Latina woman spoke up, “the apartment is clear of anything even remotely illegal. Well, aside from the power lines attached to her box outside that show that her neighbours have been stealing power and internet from her.”

‘Sarg’, an older man with silver hair with a surprised look on his face nodded. “Alright, put ‘em down and get us the papers.”

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

Despite all the evidence that the warrant wasn’t meant for you, they still insisted on taking you down to the station. You refused since they couldn’t arrest you and had no grounds to hold you on, and Sergeant Voight did not like that. “I’m too tired to give a shit about what you want. I have three jobs, student loans, and university to deal with. The only things of value in my apartment are my crappy laptop and internet access. The only time I am ever here is to sleep. You already disturbed what little sleep I was able to get, and I have work in... Forty-five minutes. Just great. Please leave, and can one of you, for the love of all things holy put a note in the system that this is NOT Marcus Evans’ apartment?!” Everyone flinched at your outburst, all looking both sympathetic and annoyed except for Detective Halstead, he just looked very sad for you. “Of course,” he said as he handed you a business card, “if you could call me when you have time, we have some pretty important questions.” Sargent Voight shot him a look, one that clearly said ‘what the fuck are you doing? That’s not your call.’ “Okay. Now seriously, please leave.” Irritated and muttering under their breath, barring Halstead who gave you a smirk and a wink, they all left stepping over the splinters of the door you replaced three weeks before.

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

The next day after entering your sparsely decorated apartment, dropping dead on your bed/couch, you heard the distinctive sounds of a door being broken down, followed by the police announcing themselves, and an apartment being searched... Above yours. They finally got the right apartment! Despite the ache in your muscles and bones, you jumped up and cheered. Complete and utter elation surrounded you and your soul. A few minutes into your dancing and celebrating there was a knock on the door. Smiling brighter than you had in years you answered the door. “Good morning detective!”

“Well, good morning to you too, Ms. Y/L/N. You’re in a much better mood.”

“To be fair, you guys busted into my apartment at three in the morning, again, and I just heard everything that happened upstairs, you guys finally got the right apartment!”

“Hey, we never served more than one warrant here.”

“Your unit only served one, but your brothers in blue served twenty-one. Destroying property, unlawful arrest, causing severe anxiety, and just general harassment for eight months. The only reason I didn’t move was because I couldn’t afford to. I’m just happy it’s over now, I’ll never have a  Marcus Evans warrant served at my apartment again!” Halstead looked happy when you opened the door and your conversation began, but when you finally took a breath you noticed how guilty he looked. “I’m sorry.” He whispered, looking like he was in physical pain, before he nodded at you and walked away, leaving you feeling incredibly confused.

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

Two days later you returned from two ten-hour shifts to Jay Halstead in front of your door. “Detective?”

“Please, call me Jay.”

“Alright, Jay, what are you doing here? Is everything okay with Marcus’s arrest?”

“Oh yeah, everything’s fine with that. I came here because of this.” He handed you a large manilla envelope. “What’s this?”

“Compensation. For everything that happened over the last eight months. And apartment listings in better neighbourhoods. Seriously, you need to get out of here, it’s way too dangerous.”

“Thanks for the advice, and the compensation, I’ll think about it. But it just might not be doable for me.”

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

You couldn’t afford to move, something that irked Jay to no end. So he came around often. Dropping by with coffee and Irish breakfasts. Sharing his Netflix password and watching B99 together. Driving you home from work or university when it was late. The days grew shorter, and your hours of work grew longer. Jay worried. About you. About the number of hours you worked. About how much university work you had. About your health, how much (or little, really) you slept and ate, how you didn’t see the doctor as often you should (ironic considering you were in med school), and about how you never took time to relax, always jumping from one task to the next. 

You slumped against the passenger seat of Jay’s truck, exhausted after working for thirty hours straight, ten at each of your jobs. “Okay, seriously, you can’t keep living like this. I have a spare room, I can get you a civilian job at my precinct. You are wearing yourself to the bone. Please, Y/N.”

“I get my residency assignment tomorrow. I quit today.”

“You did?”

“Yes.”

“All of them?”

“All three.”

“And you’ll move out of your apartment?”

“Nope.” Popping the ‘p’. Jay sighed and shook his head, before looking at your half-asleep form. “I’ll take you to the shithole you call a home.”

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

TWO YEARS LATER

Jumping up and down you waited for Jay to open the door. The envelopes sitting on his coffee table glaring at you. You flopped onto his couch (that didn’t also double as a bed) and huffed impatiently. Fidgeting.

The door opened and you jumped up, startling your best friend. His cop/ranger instincts taking over. He stiffly dropped his jacket and yanked out his gun before aiming it for your head. Panic coursed through you, tightening your chest. Reflexively you put up your hands, not able to control the words that bubbled out of your throat. “I’m bulletproof... But please don’t shoot me.” Jay lowered his gun, laughing. “‘Bulletproof’? Really?”

“Hey, I panicked, shut up.”

“What’re you doing here, anyway? I thought you were taking another shift?”

“I was, but then Sarah’s plans fell through so she decided to take her shift back, plus I got my fellowship applications back!”

“Where did you get accepted?!”

“I don’t know I was waiting for you to get back to open them!”

“Well I’m here now, so open them!” 

“Okay, okay, here we go; Honolulu general, accepted, Seattle Grace, no, but they had a bomb blow up there recently so I’m not heartbroken, Chicago med, yes, and Miami Dade Memorial, yes. Okay 3/4, that’s great! What do you think?”

“Well I’m biased, so Chicago Med, but it would be fun to visit you in Hawaii.” 

“Hawaii is so expensive though, I’d probably have to have a part-time job to make rent.”

“In a decent apartment this time.”

“Two part-time jobs, then. So Hawaii is out, now Miami... It is hot there, beaches, the ocean, the food, but Miami Dade Memorial isn’t very prominent in the research department and the crime rate is awful in the part I’d need to live and work in. I mean I know isn’t a whole lot better but... It would feel a bit like moving from bad to worse, especially on my budget.”

“So that leaves Chicago...”

“It does, but I think I need to find a new place that’s closer to Med and filled with less dug dealers.”

“Please tell me this was a subtle way of asking if you can move in with me.”

“It wasn’t, but now that you bring it up, would that be okay?”

“YES! Oh thank fuck, you’re finally moving out of that rat’s nest! C’mon, let’s go get your stuff now!”

“But Jay I just paid this month’s rent-“

“Let’s gooooooooooo!”

——————————————————————————————————-

FOUR MONTHS LATER

Because your apartment was in such a “great location” (in the same building as three drug dealers) your landlord was willing to give half of your rent back. It had only taken you twenty-something minutes to pack your things and leave. Now you were starting your surgical OB/GYN fellowship, excited to not be working multiple jobs at once for the first time since you were twelve. While Jay’s brother, Will, worked at Med as well he worked in the ED while you worked in the gynecology unit and you were thankful you only had to work together for consults or in an all hands on deck situation because he could be a fucking prick. When you first met him years ago he spent two hours quizzing your medical knowledge, and he got annoyed when you got everything right and he couldn’t correct you. So when you got a consult from him your first week there, you were apprehensive. “Hey Y/N, treatment room four.”

“Thanks, Maggie.” You pushed back the curtain and were met with the sight of a pregnant woman clearly in immense pain and a frustrating ginger. “Dr. Asher is her OB but we can’t find her anywhere. She was on-call but I, and a couple of nurses, and her secretary have been blowing up her phone and we’ve got nothing back. This is her patient Sienna. She’s in a lot of pain but is refusing painkillers, you’ve been working with her a lot lately-“ You snorted. His facial expression hardened. “Just come out and say it Y/L/N.”

“First of all it’s doctor Y/L/N, second of all, I haven’t been ‘working’ with her, I’ve been taking care of ‘her’ patients because she’s almost never at work. She just cancels the appointments short notice and since these women are kind of on a timeline their appointments get reassigned to other doctors. She’s listed as their doctor on all the forms but she’s never even met half of them. Sienna is the only patient that Dr. Asher has seen more than once.” 

“Don’t talk about her like that, you don’t know-“

“That she’s an addict? The entire OB floor knows we just don’t have enough proof to do anything about it. And don’t get me wrong, I know that there’s a lot of genetic components to addiction and I would be sympathetic if she wasn’t responsible for multiple lives at a time on a daily basis.” You turned on your heel and entered the room, done with Will Halstead and his bullshit. “Hi Sienna, my name is Dr. Y/N Y/L/N, and I’ll be filling in for Dr. Asher, I understand that you don’t want any drugs and while that’s fine, if your condition gets bad enough we may have to intervene but we’ll do everything we can for you and your baby, okay?”

“Where’s Dr. Asher? I need her here, she understands!”

“Okay, we’re still trying to find her okay?”

—————————————————————————————————

“So I heard that you and my brother locked horns today.”

“Your brother is a prick.”

“I know that he is, I’m just wondering what happened this time.”

“He’s doing this weird ethical-puppy love-guilt trippy-Romeo and Juliet level of doomed-unnecessary drama-thing going on and it’s completely affecting how he treats his patients. We already had one loose cannon we couldn’t disarm, now we have another. It’s come to the point that I’m genuinely worried about the patients that come into Med, and I don’t know what to do.”

“I’m sorry, I wish there was something I could do.”

“Just try not to antagonize Will, okay? He’s more on edge and that makes him erratic, I would really appreciate it if you wouldn’t make it worse.”

“Okay. I’ll leave him alone.”

“Thank you. I’m starving, what should we do for dinner?”

“Vietnamese is on the way.”

“Have I told you how amazing you are today?”

“Yes, but I would love to hear it again.”

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

Dr. Asher’s medical negligence had finally caught up with her, and for once Will wasn’t even remotely involved. He and Asher were having one of their silent spats again when Asher dropped the ball, or baby rather, during an emergency c-section of a patient she misdiagnosed and mistreated because she was in need of a fix. The only reason the mother didn’t hemorrhage and baby didn’t crack his skull was because of your observations and quick reflexes. The baby was healthy and mom was recovering and you were fuming. After scrubbing out you approached the, understandably distressed, father and told him that on your best medical opinion he and his wife should file a malpractice suit for missing an easy and obvious diagnosis, screwing up a routine surgery, and almost killing his son seconds after he was born.

You met with him, his lawyer and Asher two days later in a conference room with Goodwin and Peter the Stressed Out Lawyer. You accused her of having an addiction. The father requested a drug test. Goodwin glared, you glared back. If she didn’t want it handled like this then she should have dealt with it months ago when you brought it up your second week at Med. She tried to approach you in the hall, condescension on the tip of her tongue when you levelled her with a glare so fierce it rivalled that of Godzilla. “You do not get to scold me like I am a child. I told you when I first got here that she has a problem. That she is a danger to everyone who comes into her care. That she is a danger to other doctors. That she is a liability. Do not bitch to me when I told a husband and father who almost his wife and son to her recklessness to sue. To get angry and fight back. Do not take that petty, catty, condescending tone with me because I went around you. You have absolutely no ground to stand on. Because. You. Were. Wrong.”

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

You were surprised you had a job to come back to the next day. So was a very pissed off and ‘heartbroken’ Will Halstead. He kept running around to your colleagues, badmouthing you, trying to get them to join in and turn on you, but that didn’t happen. They not only agreed with you but rallied around you. Doctors are not gods. They do not get to ignore a patient’s wishes or act like they don’t have restrictions and limitations. It came to the point that Will told Jay he didn’t approve of you and that he had to dump you... Despite the fact that you weren’t dating.

Jay had rolled his eyes and pushed Will out of the apartment before giving you a hug and made you pancakes for dinner. “I’m sorry that I messed up your relationship with Will.”

“Don’t be. We’re brothers, we fight from time to time, and sometimes those fights are bigger than others and that’s okay. Will, well Halsteads in general, are pretty good at torpedoing any and all romantic relationships.”

“I’m sure that’s not true.”

“My parents only got married cause my mom got knocked up and fought non-stop, Will was and still is in love with Natalie but he was too controlling, secretive, and refused to tell her about Burke, and me... Lindsay and I were on a break before we left because my Vegas wife refused to divorce me and I didn’t tell her I had even been to Vegas.”

“Okay, so maybe it’s a little true, but it’s not because you’re bad people or  Even just saying ‘yes there’s something going on but I don’t feel ready to talk about it with you’ would go a long way. Cause all you Halstead guys say is that you’re fine but you never are and if you lie to yourself you lie to your partner.”

“I’ll keep that in mind. And tell Will when his head is surgically removed from Asher’s ass. You’ve seen that he follows her around like a puppy, right?”

“Yup, everyone on the OB floor has been talking about it nonstop since he started his whatever it was with Asher.”

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

EIGHT MONTHS LATER

Because of the suit, the hospital conducted an internal investigation in relation to Dr. Asher that pretty much everyone could confirm. Erratic behaviour and attendance, leaving other doctors to tend to her patients while keeping her name on the case files, and horrifying evidence of being high while working. Granted that had only happened twice and she literally just sat in her office staring at paperwork the whole time. Still, she was fired, the suit was settled, and Asher lost her license. You had destroyed her career and while there was a part of you that felt guilty, you knew that in the end she did the right thing. She refused help and kept carrying on in a way that would have been detrimental to more patients if other doctors hadn’t stepped in. Will still wasn’t talking to you and had started avoiding Jay recently because you two started dating.

Barring the tension from all the Will stuff, your relationship was doing well. You had great dates (both out and at the apartment), were radiating happiness together, and Jay was taking your words about communication to heart. Not once has the phrase ‘I’m fine’ dripped off of his lips. If he didn’t want to tell you something or was more comfortable talking about it with his therapist or Upton before you he’d let you know. Most times he would just talk about what was bothering him, even if it was only bullet points sometimes you both felt relieved that functional relationships were actually possible. 

You were on a date with Jay at your favourite Jamaican restaurant when you ran into Hannah Asher. She did not look pleased to see you and quite honestly you could have lived the rest of your life happily if you never had to see her again. After a few seconds of glaring at you and your boyfriend, an annoying ginger put his arm around her. “Hi Will. How are you?”

“My girlfriend and I are doing well Jacob.”

“Really Will? You’re using my whole name because my-”

“Okay, you know what? Let’s go our separate ways. It looked like you guys were just leaving, and we’re probably confusing our poor hostess. So let’s both just walk away.”

“You ruined my life.”

“Asher-”

“You took everything from me!”

“Do you have any idea how many patients you almost killed in your time at Med? Because I do, and it’s a triple-digit number. You shouldn’t have been practicing in your condition and you know it. So you need to drop the victim act and walk away.” You saw her face contort into complete and utter rage, then everything is hazy. There were lights, bright red ones, and screaming, you were pretty sure Jay was there, and there was... Copper? Why did your mouth feel like it was full of liquid pennies? There was gurgling, was there a baby? Were they okay? You tried to speak, get up, look around, but you were too tired. You were begging yourself to move, to do something, but it felt like your bones turned into melting iron.

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

You didn’t remember waking up, or falling asleep for that matter, you were just looking at the glass door and suddenly it came into focus. You didn’t even know how you got to the ED, what happened at the restaurant. Dr. Choi entered your room apprehensively. “Y/L/N? How are you feeling?”

“Like I was mauled by a tiger.”

“That’s... Actually pretty close to what happened, honey.”

“Jay?”

“Hey, I’m right here. So, what’s the prognosis Choi?”

“Multiple contusions on the right side of the abdomen, lower back and around your neck, multiple lacerations all over your abdomen, forearms, and two on your head. Your liver was also perforated, we couldn’t stop the bleeding so we had to remove half of it, which you know means it’ll take a couple of months to grow back and you won’t be able to drink for around a year. We’re going to need to monitor you and run some tests, so you’re gonna be here for a few days.”

“Well I should hope so. What? Why are you two looking at me like I have eight heads? I could’ve died.”

“... You actually want to stay in the hospital and be cared for by your colleagues?”

“I trust you, besides I’ll only make things worse if I check myself out AMA, doesn’t matter how good of a doctor I am. It’ll be hard and I’m not going to enjoy it, but I have to stay here and get treated regardless so I might as well be as positive as I can about it.”

“You are officially my favourite patient.”

“And I love you even more.”

“Thanks guys, I appreciate it.”

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

“What happened Jay? I don’t remember anything after telling her to walk away.”

“She went berserk. Attacked you. I tried to pull her off but Will lost his mind, telling me not to hurt her. I managed to toss him after a couple of seconds but I was too late. She’d already slashed you up and stabbed you twice. I grabbed her but she managed to get a bunch of kicks in while I was hauling her away from you all while screaming that she was going to kill you. I’m sorry that I couldn’t protect you. She’s sitting in a cell at the 21st right now with Platt breathing down her neck. We also did a drug test on her, she was high as all hell.”

“Please don’t feel bad Jay, I know that you reacted as fast and did as much as you could. And I know that Will did what he could to stop you. How is Will by the way?”

“He’s in the cell next to hers. He assaulted a police officer and was an accomplice in assault. Voight’s been asking if I want to drop the charges against him because he’s my brother. And I just don’t know, I wanted to talk to you first.”

“I don’t want to charge him. And I don’t want you to press charges either, but I won’t stop you if that’s what you want.”

“I don’t want him to go to jail, I want him to go to therapy. He needs it.”

“I wasn’t sure if I should say anything, but he really does. And I think you need to be the one to bring it up with him. We can do some research, too, and find psychiatrists that have their own practices so that it’s not connected to the hospital at all.”

“That sounds like a great idea, but I think you mean I do the research cause you are supposed to be resting and not doing any physically or mentally strenuous tasks.”

“Fine, fine. Just give Will a hug from me when you see him.”

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

ONE YEAR LATER

The day of the trial had finally arrived and you were pissed off about it. The date of the trial was the same day as your due date. The defence had done everything they could to delay the trial, and when they finally settled on the worst possible day three weeks ago, you’d tried to have it delayed again because you didn’t want to give birth in a courtroom. The defence had convinced the judge to deny it, so here you were, sitting in a sweltering room that smelled like old wood and seventies carpet for five hours beside your husband behind the district attorney doing your best not to glare at the judge. “It’s going to be okay, honey, she won’t get away with anything, it’s cut and dry. The only real thing to do is to determine her sentence.” Jay kissed your forehead and placed his hand on top of yours on your protruding stomach. You winced. “She just kicked again, Jay.”

“That’s seven minutes apart.”

“I’m in labour, we need to go.” Jay nodded to your lawyer who motioned to the judge for permission to speak. “Your honour, my client is in labour, may we adjourn so that she and her husband can go to the hospital?”

“Objection your honour!”

“Ms. Asher, do not interrupt the prosecution. I’ve heard and seen more than enough evidence. Ms. Asher, you are hereby sentenced to twenty-five years in prison for aggravated assault and attempted murder. The court now is adjourned. Oh, and Dr. Y/L/N and detective Halstead? Congratulations.”

[driversmutbucket]

Kitten Part IX

Kylo Ren AU x Reader

lol @ me for thinking I could wrap this up in one part. Yeah, absolutely not, this is the first of 3 parts/time jumps, so this part is on the shorter side. 

Warnings: tooth rotting domestic fluff, NSFW, sub/dom, dirty talk, oral sex, ass eating, butt plug

Recap: if you had to skip the previous part due to the content, Kylo relapsed into a past drug addiction he had been keeping a secret from y/n. Y/n finds Kylo in a bit of state and learns of Kylo’s secret. The character of Luke is introduced. He is an older gentleman and friend of Kylo’s from Narcotics Anonymous. He guides and supports y/n and Kylo in the following weeks as Kylo recovers from his bender. Declarations of love are made.

6 months later

You heard a key in the front door, just as you put the kettle on. You were fresh from the shower, wrapped in a fluffy robe.

It was late, just after 8pm, you hadn’t seen your man yet today, he had been gone when you woke.

Kylo walked into the kitchen, dapper as ever in a black heavy woolen pea coat, hair slightly windswept from the winter weather outside.

“How’s my Kitten?” He asked with a smile, his large hand cupping your jaw.

“I’m good, glad you’re home.” You said, gripping the lapels of his suit jacket and tugging him down to your level, seeking his soft lips.

He hummed into your kiss.

“Speaking of, where is my girl?”

On cue your recently adopted black cat, Ebony, trotted into the kitchen. She slunk over and rubbed against Kylo’s legs.

He stroked her, cooing, “oh who is a little Daddy's girl, huh Bonny?” She purred and arched against his large hand.

You rolled your eyes with a smile. Kylo had been against any animals, you had sweet talked him into adopting Ebony from a local shelter. Now she was the apple of his eye, Kylo would carry her around and get sulky when she didn’t sit on his lap on the sofa.

“How was the meeting, how’s Luke?” You asked, turning and pulling a mug from the cupboard, “Tea?”

“No thanks.” He pressed himself against your back, running his hands over your shoulders and kissing the top of your damp head.

“It was the usual and Luke is good, he asked after you.” He murmured before inhaling deeply, “Mmmmm you smell so good.”

“Awh Luke is so sweet.” You smiled, “your dinner is in the oven.” You added.

“What would I do without you?” Kylo turned your head with his hand and planted another kiss on your lips.

“Well, for one thing you would, starve.” You grinned.

He scoffed, opening the oven to retrieve his plate.

—

Kylo never moved back to his apartment after his two week stint of recovery at your house. It was unspoken, but there was too much pain and reminders of failure held in those walls, so he only returned to pack up his possessions. A lot of which he sold or passed on. He loved to exist in your space, surrounded by you.

He did overhaul your wardrobe though, organising it within an inch of its life. Actually most of the house was now organized meticulously. 

You weren’t complaining, it was like having a male Marie Kondo. You accepted that it was a way he felt in control and safe. You liked to brag that you had found a man who liked to do laundry. Whenever you tried to he would look into the wardrobe in horror, uttering an exasperated sigh.

You had finally cleared out the spare bedroom, it had mainly been used as a dumping ground. Kylo transformed it into a home office that you shared. It meant that occasionally you could both indulge in work-from-home days together, where you would drink far too much coffee and distract each other.

—

You were pulled from sleep with a gasp.

“Oh god!” You croaked, coming steadily aware of Kylos hot mouth on your pussy.

He paused and looked up at you.

You would never get sick of seeing his sleep-tousled hair between your legs, especially when he made sounds like he was eating the most delicious meal on earth.

“Oh fuck! Kyyyyyyyyy-!”

“That’s Sir to you this morning, Kitten.”

Oh. Oh.

It still made your stomach flip when you had sex like this. Like when you first met each other.

“Yes Sir”, you breathed.

It was still dark in your room, not even day-break yet.

“Hands and knees.” His voice was husky, lustful.

You scrambled up into position and arched, pushing your bottom into the air.

“Fuck, babygirl, I don’t tell you enough how perfect this ass is.” He pushed your silk nightgown up so your bare ass was exposed and rubbed your plump cheeks with his hands.

He slapped your ass, you yelped in surprise, the sting quickly giving way to pleasure. You know he would be watching how your ass jiggled and rippled.

“You like that Kitten?” He ran his hand between your legs and over your pussy, “your soaking wet little cunt, tells me you did.”

“Yes sir, I like it.” You breathed.

He brought his hand down again, harder this time. You moaned, his mouth soothing the tender skin with licks and kisses.

He pulled apart your cheeks, you squirmed as he kissed your tailbone and licked his way down to your back entrance.

Your moans became louder, pushing back against his mouth as he rimmed you.

“Filthy girl, you love me eating your ass?” He growled, before going back to his ministries.

“Yesyesyes, I love it Sir.” You rasped. He moaned into your skin.

You whined as he suddenly stopped and got off the bed.

You heard him chuckle “Stay as you are Kitten, no looking.”

You could hear him rifling in a drawer. Probably the drawer.

You stayed as still as you could with bated breath.

Your breath hitched as the bed dipped under Kylo’s weight.

“Good girl Kitten, such a good girl for me.” He praised, you flinched as he spread cold lube on your ass.

Cold silicone pressed against your asshole, you tried to relax as Kylo slowly pushed a plug in.

You whimpered as your tight passage sucked it in completely, the round top nestling between your cheeks. Kylo tapped it a few times, you hissed in pleasure.

It started to vibrate, you gasped- this was new.

“Oh! holy fuck!” you groaned.

He slapped your ass again.

You cried out, overwhelmed by the sensation of the vibrating plug being pushed in hard momentarily, dragging against your inner walls.

“How does that feel Kitten?” Kylo asked, you could hear the smirk and lust in his voice.

“AmazingitissogoodSir.” You babbled.

After 5 move spanks you were a quivering mess. He hadn’t touched your throbbing mess of a pussy, and you needed something, soon.

“Pleeeeeeese, Sir, baby! Fuck!” You pleaded. Beyond frustrated.

“Use your words baby girl, I want to hear you say it.” Kylo breathed, he was panting, you could imagine how rock hard and angry his cock would be.

“Fuck me- put your cock in me- please Sir! I need it!” You almost sobbed, legs shaking.

You wished you could see the expression on his face. The sound he made was guttural and feral- a rumbling deep within his chest.

He dragged the head of his cock through your lips, you bucked your hips desperately.

He didn’t have the patience to tease you more than that, pushing into your sopping entrance in a quick, hard motion.

Sounds of relief and pleasure erupted from the both of you.

“Fuck- I can feel the plug- fuck!” He gritted out as he began to rock into you.

You were beyond forming sentences. The vibrations in your ass and the drag of his thick cock had you in another realm.

Kylo reaches around and began rubbing your clit in strong circular motions.

You were on the cusp already, it took mere seconds for pleasure to explode through your body. The strength of your orgasm made you almost scream, your body giving out, Kylo held you up long enough to thrust into you a few more times, until he came inside you with a growling groan.

You were a boneless pile on the bed, the plug still buzzing inside you.

“You’ve killed me.” You mumbled into the mattress, as Kylo peppered soft kisses on the make of your neck and down your back before switching the plug off.

“Good way to go?” He chuckled.

“Undoubtedly.” You smiled, as you sat yourself up.

—

You woke the next morning, curled up against Kylo’s chest, sun streaming into the room through the cracks in the curtain.

You got out of bed quietly, as Kylo continued to snore softly, Ebony was curled up in his bent legs, behind his knees.

You smiled at the sweet scene before padding out into the kitchen to switch on the coffee machine.

You loved the slow, gentle nature of Sunday’s.

As the coffee brewed you connected your phone to the speaker system and put on some David Bowie softly.

You were swaying your hips and singing along to Absolute Beginners as you poured coffee into your mug when two large hands skimmed your waist and Kylo’s warm body pressed against you.

“Please don’t stop on my account.” He purred as you paused, “you look so sexy shaking your ass in this little nighty.”

You chuckled, reaching for a second mug, as he stayed pressed against you, and kissed your neck.

“Did I have a fever dream, or did you wake me up at 3am, push a vibrating plug in my ass and fuck me, Mr Ren?” You asked innocently as you poured him a cup.

You turned and handed it to him, his eyes were still bleary from sleep and he was only wearing boxers slung low on his hips.

“Dunno what you are talking about, you little nympho.” He grinned, eyes twinkling.

——

Tag list: @reyloaddict55​ @candycanes19​ @jediminddicks1000​ @finn-ray-nal-beads​ @maybe-your-left​ @thegreenmatt​ @morby​ @sydneyssmut​ @contesa-lui-alucard​ @millenialcatlady​

[eryiss]

Chapter Twelve - The Epilogue

Summary: Freed and Laxus live incredibly different lives. Freed is a corporate lawyer in the capital city, and Laxus works as a handyman in a countryside hotel. Despite their differences, their lives collide when Freed inherits a house in Laxus’ village, and hires him to make the derelict building liveable. But the closer they get, the more they seem to offer each other. [Fraxus Multi-Chapter]

This was written as my admission for Fraxus Day 2020, hosted by @fuckyeahfraxus​. This is the last chapter, and I hope you enjoy it. I tried with a bit more character drama in this fic, and I hope it went well.

You can read this under the cut, on Fanfiction, or on Archive of Our Own. You can find the chapter masterpost here.

Chapter Twelve – The Epilogue

Wednesday 14th April 2021

Waking up with Laxus' arms wrapped around him was something that Freed was unwilling to give up. Because it came with a feeling of safeness, a comfort that Freed could hardly put into words. It was as if Laxus was enveloping all of his senses; the touch of skin against skin, the scent of Laxus' cologne against his neck. It was an incredibly addictive feeling, but Freed was all too willing to indulge in this particular weakness.

The sound of the other man groaning awake was drowned out by the blaring of their shared alarm clock. Freed watched with partial amusement as Laxus' sleeping face crumpled up into a frown and his eyes blinked open, grogginess and annoyance in his expression.

"Y'know," Laxus croaked, half asleep still. "I don't wanna sound like a kid or anything, but waking up every morning this early is kinda shit."

"I used to picture you as a morning person," Freed teased, though a yawn affected his tone. He shifted slightly to look up at his tried boyfriend and smiled. "How naïve I must have been."

Laxus laughed gently, wrapping his arms around Freed tighter and burying his face in his long hair. Freed sighed in content, unintentionally nuzzling his nose into the crook of Laxus' neck. He blinked a few times, knowing from experience that it would be very easy for him to fall asleep again. And, as much as he really wanted to do that, he couldn't.

A lot had changed over the last three months, for Laxus as well as Freed. The blonde had decided that, although he enjoyed being the town's unofficial handyman, he wanted something more structured. Using his work on Albion House as a sort of resume, as well as a strong reference, Laxus had managed to get a job working in construction management. It was a large and important step for Laxus, and despite the early mornings, he was loving his new work.

Freed's changes had bene more emotional, and insular. His therapy had been working very well, as brutal as it could be at times. He was being told the ways in which he could improve himself, and many of them were working. He felt better about himself, his confidence seemed less forced, and his relationships – platonic and romantic – felt more intimate.

He was still unemployed, though that was his choice. He was frugal and had enough savings to keep him comfortable for half of a year, meaning he had time to search for a job that truly suited his needs and wants.

A job that he would hopefully find in Magnolia, something he'd discussed with Laxus a month after their apology.

Their conversation had been a good one. Freed had partly assumed that it would only focus on their relationship, but it had thankfully been more than that. They'd spoken about Freed's living arrangements – as he could only live with Bickslow for so long – and what he was looking for in terms of work. They'd spoken about Laxus new job and what that meant for them. And they spoke about if it was the right time for them to start dating.

It wasn't, they decided. Laxus job had begun that week, and it was his priority. And as much as Freed's therapy was helping, he was still new to it. But they both wanted more, and Freed proposed the idea of him moving to Magnolia and looking for employ somewhere in and around the town. Laxus had jumped on the chance, and Freed had moved into Albion House within the week.

Having the opportunity to see Laxus as often as he did was great. And despite their initial plan to wait another month to see if they were ready, they found themselves dating within two weeks of Freed living there.

"Eyes open, Dreyar," Freed smirked a little as he saw Laxus' eyes drooping. "You have to leave in an hour."

"Don't care," Laxus grumbled as he hugged Freed tighter. The lawyer put in no effort to fight this movement, nuzzling Laxus' chest. "Don't know why you're so excited about waking up, thought you were dreading today."

"That doesn't change the fact I have to do it," Freed whispered with a laugh, pinching Laxus' forearm and smirking when his eyes shot open in a tired glare. "Though it's true what they say, bad things do come in threes."

Coincidentally, three things that Freed wasn't at all looking forward to had fallen on the same day. After traveling to Era each week for his therapy, Freed had decided to meet Magnolia's only therapist Porlyusica; with Laxus assuring him he didn't mind Freed seeing the same person he had. Along with his first meeting with her, he also had to attend a job interview for Magnolia's most reputable law firm; it was the second job interview he'd ever been to, and he was dreading it. The third thing he had to do was have an evening with Laxus and Makarov, which was not nearly as bad as the other two, but Freed had discovered a fondness for being dramatic.

"You really think Gramps is that bad?" Laxus asked with a laugh. "I could tell him that, imagine how hurt he'd be."

"I'm sure he'd forgive me," Freed chuckled, though there was a hint of bitterness in his words. "Even if his way of doing that is making joked at my expense."

"If you don't wanna be the punchline of his jokes then you shouldn't have told him to fuck off," Laxus grinned, pressing his lips against Freed's crown in a soft kiss.

"I didn't tell him to fuck off, I told him to mind his own fucking business," Freed laughed as he shifted so his face rested on Laxus' chest. "Which, in retrospect, might not have been the best thing to do to the grandfather of the man I wished to date."

"Maybe not your smartest choice," Laxus grinned. "You know he's forgiven you though, right? Like, before you even moved here we talked, and he said he had to respect you for sticking up for me, even if he was pissed off at the time. That's basically as close to him saying that you were right you're gonna get. He's just pissing you off because he thinks it's fun."

"If you insist," Freed smiled slightly. He believed that Makarov made jokes at his expense as a form of test for Freed, making sure that he didn't prioritise his dignity over Laxus. That was a mistake he'd made once before, and didn't plan on doing again, so he could live with the tests. "What time is it?"

"Three in the morning," Laxus lied smoothly. "Let's sleep again."

To counter Laxus' insistence of them sleeping again, Freed removed himself from the blonde's grasp and left the bed; Laxus groaned at the lack of a warm body against his. With tired, slow movements, he moved to the curtains and opened them, giving him the idyllic view of the countryside. He opened the window and allowed the soft breeze to hit him, still enjoying the quietness of Magnolia even after living there for two months. Warm arms wrapped around him from behind tightly, pulling him against a strong body. A tired yawn hit his ears, and a laugh slipped through him.

"You will have to get used to waking up early at some point," Freed smiled, turning in Laxus' arms to face him. "I would have thought you'd be used to it by now."

"Thought I was, but normally you're sleeping," Laxus shrugged, a soft expression on his tired features. "It's kinda hard to get out of bed when your boyfriend is right there, looking all cute and shit. Not to mention naked," He grinned a little, and Freed chuckled. "In the past, all the good stuff happens in bed when you're naked. And when you're looking like that, anything could happen."

"Anything?" Freed chuckled. "You certainly are an optimist, aren't you?"

"Nah, I just know what you're like," Laxus grinned. "Yer just as bad as me, and you know it."

They moved in sync, pushing their heads forward and pressing their lips together in a soft kiss. It was slow, tired, and slightly sloppy, but Freed relished every moment. Burning adrenaline and passion was great, but there was something magnificent about having moments where, despite their tiredness, they could enjoy each other's company and their touch.

But the moment could only last so long, as Freed's phone blared to life in another alarm, this one he had set for himself so he wouldn't risk sleeping through Laxus'. The blonde groaned and pulled away, glaring at the device while Freed chuckled. He picked his phone up and turned the alarm off, smiling at Laxus.

"We have to start getting ready at some point," He chuckled. "As much as I'd like not to."

"Guess so," Laxus shrugged, sitting down on the bed, and groaning as he cracked his back. He glanced towards Freed a moment later and grinned. "You wanna shower first? It'll take hours to tame the rat's nest, won't it?"

"I was going to propose we shower together, actually," Freed grinned. "But after that comment, I think I can do it alone."

"Well, I mean you don't wanna be hasty," Laxus chuckled a little. "I might be able to help out."

"No, there's no need for that. After all, given how long it takes for me to 'tame my rats nest' I wouldn't want to force you in there for hours. You might get bored," Freed smirked a little, keeping Laxus' gaze. "After all, what is there to do in a shower with your very wet and very naked boyfriend to keep you distracted. No, I wouldn't force such boredom on you. I can lather myself up on my own."

"Asshole," Laxus grinned with a chuckle.

Freed went to walk to the en suite attached to his bedroom, but as he walked past Laxus his hand was grabbed, and he was pulled into the man's lap. On reflex he pressed his lips against Laxus', kissing him softly as Laxus pulled him closer.

They kissed for a short while, still tainted with their sleepiness. Once they pulled apart, they rested their foreheads together. Both men wore tired and somewhat lovestruck expressions, the incredible feeling of a soft and lazy morning kiss being new for them. Freed had wrapped his hand into Laxus' hair as they kissed and was now gently stroking it absentmindedly.

"Make sure that don't get too in your head about today," Laxus spoke softly, sincerity now in his tone. "I know you're nervous about the interview, but you'll be fine. And I know you already convinced yourself it's not gonna go well because you've not worked in criminal law before or some crap like that, but you're more than qualified to be there and you know it. You probably got a better degree that the guy who's interviewing you. So don't get all self-sabotaging, just show them how much they need you, okay?"

"I know," Freed nodded, smiling a little while leaning against Laxus. "Thank you."

"It's what I'm here for," Laxus shrugged. "You said the same thing when I went to my interview," He leant up and pressed his lips against Freed's again for a soft kiss. "And don't worry about Porlyusica. She's intense, and she can be kind of an asshole when she wants to be, but she's gonna help ya a lot."

"I know," He repeated, nuzzling Laxus slightly again but pulling away as the snooze alarm went off. "I also know that you're an annoyingly effective distraction when we need to get ready."

Laxus barked out a laugh, pulling Freed close again and kissing him, wrapping his fingers into his hair, and pulling at it. Freed grinned as he kissed back, cupping Laxus' chin and dragging him as close as he could. They remained kissing for a short while, before pulling apart with slight breathlessness. Laxus grinned a little at Freed's expression, despite being just as flushed as Freed was. He cocked an eyebrow at his boyfriend.

"You wanna reconsider you banning me from your shower?" He teased. "Because something tells me that you might."

"Animal," Freed said in response, grinning. "You utter animal."

And before Laxus could ask for clarification, not that he needed it, Freed grabbed him by the chin and pulled him into a hot, passionate kiss, and it was more than enough of an answer for him.

~~~

Sunday 8th May 2022

"Now, although we're here to celebrate my grandson, I think we should spare some congratulations for his boyfriend," Makarov spoke into the microphone. "Because with this job, Laxus will be doing less physical work, meaning he'll have a lot more energy to spend on his dear boyfriend. And after a year of putting on muscle on a building sight, I expect Freed has a lot of ideas for what that spare energy can be used for. Something I'm sure they're both incredibly excited about."

Laxus cringed, blushing as a cheer rushed through the crowd. He glanced towards Freed, to see him laughing and raising his champagne as if in a toast. Because Freed Justine was a traitor.

But Laxus couldn't help but smile at the reaction.

It was sort of a testament to Freed's growth, in a way. The fact that, in front of almost all of their friends and family, Freed was able to laugh at and indulge himself in a joke at his own expense; well, his and Laxus' expense. There was genuine enjoyment in his features as well, with honest laughter rather than forced politeness. When they had first met, he would have gotten either defensively angry or attempted to appear amused while a level of contempt grew in him. But now, his ego allowed him to take jokes. It was good, and Laxus enjoyed seeing it.

The reason for the gathering was Laxus had, after months of looking, gotten a new job. Again. Working at his construction company had been good and satisfying work, but it had awoken desire to move up the ladder. He was shockingly driven when he was enthusiastic about something.

And eventually he'd found a good job, and he was excited about it.

Having a degree in engineering, as well as work experience with Albion House and his time in construction, was instrumental in his promotion. He now was going to have a job as co-project manager in a new housing development three towns over. He was to direct the workmen on the site, while also being trained in the architectural aspects of the process with the intention being he earn a qualification in architecture by the time the estate was finished. It was perfect for him, and more than a step up form where he'd been working before.

It felt cliché to even think it, but as Laxus looked around to see the man he loved laughing with the people who had always been there for him, it felt as though the parts of his life were falling into place. It was a great feeling, to be able to sleep at night while thinking that his life was complete. Even if he had gotten there later than most might have, he was going to make the most of it.

"That's enough from me," Makarov said in conclusion. "This is all just to say, I'm very proud of the man you've become Laxus."

Makarov raised his glass of champagne, and the gathered crowd filling Fairy Tail's back garden mimicked the actions. They let out a cheer of a toast, all looking towards Laxus, who grinned sheepishly and tried to will away the blush on his face at the attention aimed at him. His eyes fell on Freed for anchorage, who was seemingly expecting this and greeted him with a soft, genuine smile that calmed the blonde.

Then he winked and the blush returned threefold, but Laxus could be annoyed about that later.

And thus, the party truly began. Drinks were pored, individual congratulations were made, and people enjoyed their time together. Throughout the night, people close to Laxus who had come to celebrate his new job congratulated him, all the while thanking Laxus for the work he had done for them over the years. It was almost emotional for him, to have people whose pathways he'd re-laid years prior, or people who paid him to remove the leaves from their guttering, treating him as if he were family. He supposed that it was one of the benefits of living in a relatively small village. He thanked them all politely and laughingly assured them that, if he had the time, he would still be happy to work on their houses should they need it.

As evening turned to night, the gathered guests slowly began to leave and return to their homes. Makarov claimed that the night was catching up on him once most of the guests had left, and retired to bed, leaving a small group of Laxus' friends sitting in Fairy Tail's beer garden.

Laxus sat on one of the picnic benches, leaning tiredly against Freed's shoulders as the alcohol in his system put him into a tired sense of lethargy; his sober boyfriend looking at him with amusement in his eyes as he stroked through the blonde hair. On the other side of the picnic table were Cana and Mirajane – now an official couple, though unwilling to admit when that had become true – who were in an equally tired state. Lisanna sat on the grass nearby, playing with one of the dogs at the adoption centre she now worked at. The only person missing was Elfman, who was obviously on his weekly Skype call with Evergreen despite both of their claims otherwise. Nobody called the two of them on their lies, because as fun as it would be, they seemed happy with their odd relationship.

"So, giving up your heritage and becoming an exec, huh?" Cana grinned, fiddling with an empty pint glass. "You're a traitor to your people."

"Yeah, most execs spend their days inches deep in dirt on a building site. I mean in a couple months I'll be like Freed used to be when we first met him," Laxus chuckled, and noticed the stroking of his hair slowing slightly. He smirked before continuing. "Nah, don't think I could get that far up my own ass."

"Hey," Freed attempted to sound offended, but was grinning when he tilted Laxus' head towards him. "I distinctly remember you being quite interested in me when we first met."

"Yeah, I guess," Laxus grinned back, and the stroking of his hair continued. "But I like you more now."

"Do you now?" Freed grinned. "Please, go into detail about why."

"Fuck me," Cana groaned "You two are revolting."

"You can fucking talk," Laxus snorted, looking towards Cana as she leant against her girlfriend. "I'll give you half the money in my fucking wallet right now if you ain't playing footsie under the table with each other."

"They are," Lisanna said as she threw a chew toy across and watching the dalmatian amble after it. "Have been since they sat down."

"Wow, I came here to support my friend and enjoy his company. And yet now I'm being attacked by everyone," Cana shook her head in an exaggerated gesture of being offended. "First from the never-ending gay honeymoon who never shut up about how in love they are," She gestured to Freed and Laxus, both of them chuckling at the title they'd been given. "And now from the woman who might one day be my sister in law. And all because I wanted to congratulate my very dear friend about his new job."

"And the free booze," Laxus smirked, and Cana cackled loudly, not bothering to pretend to be insulted.

"Fair," She cackled, looking over towards her girlfriend. "But I've gotten drunk enough, and it's pretty late. Ready to go home?"

"Yeah," Mirajane smiled, shifting to remove herself from the picnic bench they were all sat around. She walked to the other side, pressing her lips to both Laxus' and Freed's cheeks in a form of goodbye. "See you both soon. And good luck with your first day, I'm sure you'll be great."

"Thanks Mira," Laxus smiled.

"And if you fuck it up, you can always fuck your boss again. Worked well last time," Cana laughed, and Laxus glared while Freed chuckled to himself.

"Don't encourage her," Laxus grumbled over into shoulder.

"Well, you can't deny it. The last time you fucked your boss it worked quite well in the end," Freed chuckled, laughing happily when Laxus punched him in the arm. He pressed his lips onto the top of Laxus' head, then whispering softly. "Though if you do consider it, be aware I have a rather possessive side and will fight for you."

"That's hot," Laxus whispered back, leaning up and pressing his lips against Freed's and pulling him closer.

"This is a public space," Cana groaned, and Laxus pulled away to glare at her. Mirajane and Lisanna – dog now on a leash – standing either side of her, meaning it would only be the two men left from the party soon. "Nobody wants to see you tongue fucking each other."

"Then why are you watching?" Freed grinned.

"I preferred it when you were trying to get us to like you again," Cana smirked, and Freed laughed again. "Later blondie. Later fuckboy."

At their respective nicknames that they couldn't get rid of – no matter how hard Freed had tried – Freed and Laxus wished their friends a goodnight. They were soon left alone in Fairy Tail's beer garden, resting against one another as they enjoyed the silence of a village during the night. Laxus shifted slightly so he could look up at Freed, fondness painting his expressions.

"Thanks for the past few months," He said softly.

"What do you mean?" Freed tiled his head slightly, and a strand of hair fell and hit Laxus on the cheek. The blonde absently began playing with it.

"For being there, helping me find a job," Laxus explained, running the strands of green hair through his fingers. "For being okay with me quitting my job and being unemployed for a quarter of a year while I was looking."

"You did the same for me," Freed responded, smiling at his boyfriend's actions.

"Yeah, but you had savings and crap, and you had an idea of what you actually wanted to do. And we weren't dating when you quit your job," Laxus shrugged. "I never needed to support you or to talk about how the right job was around the corner or any of the crap that I made you do for me. So thanks for being okay with it all, and for not getting pissed off at me."

"You know it's not a problem," Freed whispered. "Though, I suppose I do have one regret about what happened over the last few months."

"Really?" Laxus asked, a flush of worry overtaking him.

"Nothing bad, mind you, so you can drop the expression," Freed chuckled, taking Laxus' hand in his own and stroking it absently. "It's just, some of the times when you needed a bit of enthusiasm, or just someone to talk to, it was over the phone. In retrospect it would have been considerably easier to do that in person. And, well, the best way for us to make sure that happens in the future would be to have you be around more often. And perhaps the best way to accomplish this would be to-"

"Are you asking me to move in with you?" Laxus cut in, sitting up. Cautious excitement filled him.

"Well, there's more than enough space-" Freed shook his head. "Sorry, I need to stop giving excuses in place of emotions. Old habits die hard I suppose. But yes, I want to have you live with me. Because I am in love with you, and I think living together would be incredible."

"You're serious?" Laxus asked again, grinning now. "You wanna have me live with ya? Permanently?"

"If you're ready for that," Freed clarified. "But yes, I'd like that."

In place of an answer, Laxus almost launched himself into Freed by kissing him hard. The force of the action made them both stumbles, taking them off the bench and onto the grass below. Freed laughed loudly as Laxus landed atop him, the sound slightly winded because of the weight on his chest. Laxus chuckled, pushing himself off of Freed while grinning.

"Just to clarify, was that a yes, or was that you trying to kill me to avoid an uncomfortable conversation?" Freed asked, rasping slightly, grinning.

"Shut the fuck up," Laxus said, though he was beaming, laughing boisterously as he pulled Freed up from the ground, so they were both standing. Freed had a similarly excited expression on his face, and the honest emotions of it made Laxus' heart nearly flutter. "And it's a yes, fucker. Of course it's a fucking yes."

~~~

Saturday 5th October 2024

Freed hadn't expected it, but he'd turned somewhat sentimental about his relationship.

A testament to this was how much he looked forward to Saturday mornings. He and Laxus had gotten into the habit of cooking breakfast together and eating it at their kitchen table, and despite how small and unimportant it might have seen to an outsider, Freed thought that it might be his favourite time of the week. It was certainly the thing he looked forward to most, and that his mind strayed to when he found himself bored at work.

Given both men now held managerial positions in their respective companies, they worked long hours. Freed had been the one to propose that, rather than working late, they enter work early each morning to have the evenings to enjoy each other's company. This meant that, although they woke up at the same time, their mornings were rushed, and they didn't have time to enjoy one another's presence before starting their days. It was the best way to stop their work life from affecting their relationship, but Freed did find himself craving the lazy mornings they used to share, hence why he liked Saturday so much.

They woke up together, laid in each other's arms for as long as they wanted, before stumbling down the stairs and cooking a large breakfast. Having pancakes and bacon while drinking coffee, looking at his boyfriend as he yawned, hair a mess and bags under his eyes, was heaven for Freed.

And today, he was in a particularly good mood.

Evergreen and Bickslow had come to stay at Albion House for the weekend, as they did a few times a year. He had kept his friendship with the two of them strong, with daytrips to the city being a regular thing, as well as video calls and near constant messaging. But having them in his home for the weekend was something he would always look forward to.

The two guests were still asleep, given that eight AM on a weekend was not considered sleeping in for most people on a weekend. But Laxus and Freed had woken early, and were now dancing around one another as they cooked, something they had grown to be proficient at.

To say that they had hit their stride as a couple was an understatement.

Freed carefully placed four rashers of bacon onto a frying pan above a gas burner, the smell of cooking meat filling his senses. As he gently prodded it with a spatula, large arms wrapped around him and a kiss was pressed into the back of his neck. He turned with a smile, looking to see Laxus wearing his nightwear and a large, fluffy, purple dressing down. Freed smiled a little at that, leaning against the man's back as he watched the food cook.

"Good morning," Freed smiled, turning a rasher over and relishing in the fizzing of the oil. "Is the hug solely for me, or to get closer to the food so you get it first?"

"It's for you," Laxus said with offence in his tone, though then laughed. "But if I can eat before Bickslow forces it down like a mad dog, I won't mind."

"I've made more than enough for all of us," Freed assured him. "Have you started on the pancake batter yet?"

"It can wait," Laxus mumbled, peppering kisses on the back of Freed's neck while smiling softly. Freed wore a similar expression. "I wanna make the most of you before they wake up. Don't wanna hear them bitching about how close we are and how much we're kissing. So I'm gonna get as many in before they show up."

"I suppose I can't complain about that," Freed grinned, placing the spatula resting against the frying pan. "Though their complaints haven't stopped you before."

"Doesn't mean I want to have an audience," Laxus grumbled, smiling as Freed turned around in his arms. He leant down so that their noses were resting against one another softly, smiling. "Because sometimes I want you all to myself."

"And forty-nine weeks of the year isn't enough for you?" Freed taunted.

"Fuck no," Laxus grinned, leaning down and pressing his lips against Freed's.

They shared a soft but passionate kiss for a short while, leaning against one another. Freed pushed Laxus' against the kitchen island they'd had installed, smirking a little when Laxus' hand began to play with his hair. When they pulled apart, both slightly breathless, they grinned at each other. There quiet mornings shared together really were incredible, and Freed certainly understood why Laxus didn't want to share it with their friends.

Unfortunately, their time alone could only last for so long, given their friends habit of acting like forces of nature when they wanted to. To prove this, they walked into the kitchen with the door banging loudly against the counter. The two men pulled away from each other, smiling resignedly.

"Get a room," Bickslow groaned.

"We had one," Laxus laughed. "You two just walked into it."

"In fact we had an entire house," Freed continued, pulling himself from Laxus' grasp to walk to the oven again. "You walked into that too."

"It smells divine," Evergreen praised as she sat at the kitchen table, glancing at herself in her compact mirror. She was the only person who had showered and dressed herself, something she did every time she stayed there. "Hopefully enough to distract me from sleeping on that awful sofa."

"I made it perfectly clear that I was happy to drive you to Elfman's house where I'm sure a bed would be waiting for you," Freed said plainly, removing the cooked bacon from the frying pan. "You argued against it; therefore the sofa was all that was left. And why you continue to be so peculiar around the poor man is something you've yet to explain to me. You've been dating for over a year now, it's hardly a scandal to want to spend time with him."

"Bickslow got the spare room," Evergreen huffed, ignoring Freed's comment. The lawyer sighed a little, wondering if he would ever get an insight to her relationship.

"He's not dating someone who lives here," Laxus laughed. "And doesn't have someone who'd take him to bed."

"Not that you know," Bickslow grinned, wiggling his eyebrows as he looked over the mounting food that Laxus and Freed had made. Before any of them could wonder if there was any truth in the statement, Bickslow kept going. "We're having Laxus' pancakes right; basically the only reason I come here?"

"We are, and I'm sure he'll be happy to make them once the bacon is done," Freed assured him then thought for a moment. "Although I'm not sure how many eggs we have, so we might not have that many."

"I can go check if she's laid any," Laxus shrugged, and Freed chose not to comment on the smile tugging at Laxus' lips.

"Thank you," Freed smiled, pressing his lips against Laxus' cheek as the blonde walked past him, pulled on his slippers and walked to the chicken coop in the garden, where their three chickens now lived. He shook his head at the enthusiasm that Laxus showed for their animals, given that Freed had initially been the one trying to convince him of them.

When he turned his head to his friends, Freed mentally prepared himself. Because what happened next was inevitable.

"Are you fucking kidding me!" Bickslow exclaimed, only whispering because he didn't want to alert Laxus to his annoyance.

"You can't just drop something like that on us!" Evergreen hissed, equally annoyed.

"What do you mean?" Freed smirked slightly as he began plating up food.

"We mean that bullshit you pulled last night," Bickslow snapped, crossing his arms. "We mean it's unfair that, after a perfectly innocent question about if you wanted to go out for dinner this evening, you decided that you couldn't because, and I quote, 'my funds are a little low this month because of the engagement ring.' And after you just casually mentioned that you decided to go to bed before we could ask any more questions."

"What other questions is there?" Freed asked, grinning slightly.

"What does it look like?" Evergreen said with exasperation in her voice. "When are you going to ask? How are you going to ask? Have you already asked and is this some nonsense where you don't tell us like those two women you're friends with?"

"Right," Freed nodded, glancing at the garden to see Laxus petting one of the chickens rather than looking for eggs. He had time. "I haven't asked him yet, hence why I didn't mention it with him in the room. I don't know how nor when I will ask him, all I know is that I will. I have faith that the moment will present itself and I'll be eloquent enough when it comes to it. And as for what it looks like, this is it."

Freed pulled out his phone, scrolled through his pictures, and opened the picture of the ring that he had brought. It was a simple obsidian band, made of simple geometric shapes. It was relatively minimalist, and Freed thought it was perfect for Laxus. He showed his friends it.

"Holy shit," Bickslow grinned. "Our boys all grown up."

"It looks great," Evergreen smiled, taking the phone, and zooming in on the picture. "It definitely suits him as well," She handed the phone back, and her smile was almost disconcerting. "You must have some idea about how you're going to do it?"

"Well, we've developed the tradition of hiking up the mountain every Christmas eve," Freed mused aloud. "I suppose if I can hold off from doing it until then, it would be quite romantic."

Stupidly, both of his friends let out a slight squeal at that.

"You're both ridiculous," Freed tutted slightly, though was grinning now. "I assume I can count on you both to keep this to yourself, right?"

They both agreed to this, and Freed turned back to the cooking he was doing. His eyes strayed over their back garden again, and he smiled softly as he watched Laxus attempting to access whatever eggs may or may not have been laid by their chickens. The chickens themselves were flocking to Laxus and either rubbing against him or pecking at him for attention; for whatever reason they had affinity for the man and loved his presence. He was laughing to himself, and it made Freed grin.

He soon watched as his boyfriend managed to leave the coop and the onslaught of attention from their chickens, and walked down their garden holding a small basket. It wasn't lost on Freed how cliché that they had become – keeping livestock while living in the country – but he found himself too happy to care.

"Only laid two," Laxus said as he walked inside. "It's enough, but we have to go to the store later."

"It doesn't shock me," Freed said, a slight tease in his tone. "You shower them with so much attention no matter what that they've got no incentive to lay any."

Laxus chuckled, and Freed passed him a mug of steaming coffee to warm him up. As Laxus cupped the hot drink, Freed realised that it would be very difficult indeed for him to keep the ring to himself before Christmas.

Because the man before him – dressed in an overly fluffy dressing gown, having just been accosted by adoring chickens, with red cheeks and mumbling through his pancake recipe without realising he was speaking out loud – was perfection. And to not shower the man with as much love and devotion as humanly possible would be incredibly difficult indeed.

~~~

Sunday 13th December, 2026

"I now pronounce you husband and husband," Mirajane declared. "You may seal your marriage with a kiss."

Laxus and Freed moved with practiced synchronicity. They both took a single step forward, placing their hands on the back of the other man's neck, and brought their lips together. The kiss was soft, chaste but filled with emotion and passion and devotion for one another. It was their first kiss as a married couple, and it was utter perfection.

As they pulled apart, the small congregation that sat in the cathedral applauded, with a few cheers echoing around the large room. Both men smiled without dignity nor care for their surroundings, unable to look away from each other's eyes. The room was filled, but it felt as if they were alone.

Similar to their practice-ceremony, they walked down the cathedral isle with their hands intertwined. Laxus was grabbing onto his husband's hand as if he was a lifeline, and the feeling of an equally strong grasp on his own hand was perfect. The blonde could think of nothing but the fact that finally, after six years, he was married to the man of his dreams. That for the rest of their lives, they were bound together through marriage. It was perfect.

Everything was perfect.

It had been a small ceremony, with not many people there. Freed had no living family and Laxus had very little, so other than Makarov it was essentially their closest friends. This suited them both, as neither particularly wanted a large public spectacle.

As they left the cathedral, they say that it had begun to snow gently. The hired cars stood parked a little while away, and their photographer – Reedus – was waiting for them. No bells rung, as was their instructions, and slowly people began to file out of the building so that the pictures could be taken. This all seemed to happen around the two men, with them both too enveloped in their own world of each other.

When the photography started, they followed Redus' instructions. Multiple pictures had been taken, all of which had Laxus and Freed in the middle while different selections of their friends gathered around them. On any other day Laxus might have found it all tedious and unnecessary, but he was too high on the elation to care.

Once Reedus had claimed that the rest of the photographs would include the grooms individually rather than together, Freed leant to Laxus and whispered.

"May I have a minute?" He asked softly.

"Of course," Laxus nodded, knowing what Freed needed.

He removed his hand from Freed's and allowed his husband – a shot of joy rushed through him every time he thought of Freed that way – to walk toward Evergreen. Laxus watched with a soft smile on his face as the woman walked to her car, pulled out a bouquet of flowers from her back seat, and handed it to Freed. The lawyer seemed to have thanked her, before walking to the cemetery attached to the cathedral.

This was why Freed had requested that they get married here, in a town neither near Era nor Magnolia. Initially Laxus had been confused as to why Freed wanted to wed in a cathedral, with neither man being religious, but it made sense. This was where Freed had been raised, and where both of his parents had been buried.

Between the photographs taken with his wedding party – Elfman as his best man, Cana his matron of honour – he found his eyes lingering on Freed, who was now crouched down before a gravestone. His lips were moving as if speaking Laxus smiled at the sight.

Freed really had made progress. It was incredible to see.

Once all the pictures of Laxus had been taken, Reedus asked whether Freed was ready to begin his solo pictures. Laxus glanced to see that Freed was still speaking to his parent's grave, and said that he'd ask Freed, but he might need some time. The photographer agreed and took a step back, deciding to take requests.

Laxus thanked him for his patience, walking towards Bickslow's car first where both his and Freed's coats had been stored. He was already feeling the cold, and suspected Freed would be too. He picked his out first, a large faux-fur lined thing that Freed often referred to as the cloak, given Laxus' tendency not to wear the sleeves. He also removed the red, almost Victorian styled jacket Freed always wore since he had brought it. He'd seen it at a thrift store of all things, and had fallen in love with it. Laxus always grinned at the memory, often teasing Freed with how he used to only wear designer suits.

He walked slowly to his husband, stepping on the gravel pathway to make sure his presence was known. Freed looked up Laxus and smiled softly, which Laxus returned. He placed the coat over Freed's shoulders and looked down at the gravestone, decorated with a new bunch of flowers.

'Here lie August and Myriam Justine, Loving Partners and Caring Parents.'

"You okay?" Laxus asked, and Freed nodded.

"I am. It's nice to see them. Even if I can't actually… see them," He spoke quietly, still crouching before the grave. "I should come here more often; it helps more than I remember. Though I'm sure you of all people know that."

"We could make time to come regularly, if you want," Laxus offered. "I still go to moms grave at least once a month."

"Perhaps," Freed nodded slightly. "Am I needed?"

"We can wait," Laxus shrugged.

"No, I've spoken to them for long enough. No doubt if they can hear me somehow they'd be bored of it," Freed chuckled, standing upright. "And that photographer was rather expensive, if I remember correctly, so I wouldn't want to waste our money."

"That's not important," Laxus said firmly. "If you need more time, you get it."

"Maybe another minute would be nice," Freed admitted.

Laxus nodded. Freed looked down at his parents shared grave, and Laxus wrapped an arm around his shoulder to silently show he was there. He stood beside his husband, the snow falling softly around them and making Freed look ethereal in his beauty. To be able to call this man his husband wasn't something that Laxus would ever take for granted, and he counted himself more than lucky that Freed had chosen to spend his life with him.

As they stood in silence, Laxus noticed that a few tears had begun to fall form Freed's eyes, but he didn't mention any of them. He pulled Freed slightly closer, and allowed his husband to silently cry at his parent's gravestone. This was something that happened every time either man visited the grave of their loved ones, and Laxus was glad Freed now felt he could express his emotions openly.

He pressed his lips against the crown of Freed's head softly, allowing the man to raise his hand to his face and wipe away the stray tears from his cheeks.

"You okay?" He whispered softly, and Freed nodded against him.

"I just needed to get it out," Freed explained softly, as he always did on the occasions where he cried about his parents. Laxus had assured him he didn't need to explain. "But I think I'm ready to get back to it now."

"You sure?" Laxus asked, and Freed nodded.

Removing his arm from around Freed's shoulders, Laxus took a step back. He watched as Freed looked down at his parent's grave again, a gentle and loving expression on his face. It was a look that Laxus adored seeing on his husband's face, and the honesty in the expression warmed Laxus more than he could describe.

"Goodbye father. Goodbye mother," Freed whispered. He placed a kiss on his fingertips and pressed them against the marble gravestone. "I love you both very much."

He took a moment to gather his thoughts and calm his breathing. Laxus watched from the side-line as he spoke again, his voice almost silent.

"And for all you have both done, thank you."

~Fin~

[prettycutebunny]

Wide awake - hisoka x reader collab part 1

Me and my amazing friend @absolute-flaming-trash decided to collab , hope you enjoy it 💙

TW: unhealthy relationship , hisoka being an asshole , hinted non con nothing graphic I can't write lemon to save my life, and manga spoilers !

I'm wide awake

I'm wide awake

When did it start ? How did the time merge so fast , you couldn't decipher it anymore ?

You've known him for so little time , yet it feels like forever. The moment your eyes met, even in your own memory you feel the time stop

His golden eyes looking at you curiously , eyeing you up and down as you approached him blushing.

You've seen him before. Hisoka Morow , the famous champion of Heaven Arena. A place you never thought you'd step a foot in until your friends dragged you there.

You've seen him fight his way to the top. You used to go because your friend made you , but how did it end up with you being his fan ?

His tickets were the hardest to come by , yet you couldn't stop yourself from spending paychecks on them. The disappointment of him not showing made you promise yourself to never go , yet again you go. He was simply too good to miss.

I'm wide awake

Yeah, I was in the dark

I was falling hard

With an open heart

I'm wide awake

How did I read the stars so wrong

His eyes were piercing you as he tapped his feet impatiently. You had to do it now. There's no knowing when you'll ever see him again.

"I'm a huge fan of you ! I've seen every one of your fights, and I don't know if you have someone ! But ..."

The words flew from your mouth so fast , you had to say them without thinking. If you think , you'll stop.

You swallowed nervously.

"Would you go out with me ?"

A chuckle took you by surprise. You felt your cheeks heat up, as your head lowered in shame.

He's laughing at you. Of course he is, what did you expect ? For him to hug you close and admit his love for you ? That he noticed you watching him in every match and fell for you ?

As your tears formed in your eyes , the laughing stopped and noises of heels clicking took it place.

Your chin was raised as you met his eyes again. His melted gold eyes shone with amusement accompanied with his signature smile.

"Amuse me , and I might♦️"

I'm wide awake

And now it's clear to me

That everything you see

Ain't always what it seems

I'm wide awake

Yeah, I was dreaming for so long

You stood in front of the mirror looking at yourself bitterly; how did he enchant you like that ? You were so far gone you ignored every warning sign even when it hit you in the face. Literally.

Your first "date" if you could call it that was unusual to say the least

You tried so hard to look as pretty as you can. You even bought new clothes and spent more time on a makeup tutorial than you care to admit.

He had texted you about his upcoming fight, naturally you already bought tickets to it before it's sold out. He wanted you watching from his room.

The tickets were pretty expensive but it also meant you could sell them and get a decent profit thanks to the limited number of them.

You walked nervously into Heaven's Arena, displaying your ID at the receptions who allowed you in. Hisoka already gave you a copy of his keys, which surprised you with how sudden it was. Then you laughed , what would you do ? Hurt him ? The idea alone was laughable

Reaching his room , you felt a sharp intense pain as your neck twisted painfully with a loud smack noise deafening your ears.

"You whore , you thieving whore ! He's mine. How dare you !"

Wish I knew then

What I know now

Wouldn't dive in

Wouldn't bow down

Gravity hurts

You made it so sweet

Till I woke up on

On the concrete

Closing the door while breathing heavily , you felt yourself shake with the amount of energy it took you to slam the door in her face and lock it.

Your cheek stung as you looked around at his place. It was quite fancy, which was expected from Heaven's Arena undefeated champion's rooms.

Your shaky hands turned on the tv as you headed to the kitchen looking for ice. Opening the freezer , you found tubs of ice cream and ice. You grabbed the ice while eyeing the neapolitan ice cream.

You were tempted, but you felt rude enough helping yourself to his ice. You didn't want your cheek to swell on your important date.

Hearing the excited announcement ,with the ice pack in hand you rushed to the TV. He was there in all his full glory with some powerful guy you never cared about.

The fight was similar to Hisoka's usual ones. He loved to spend time teasing and messing with his opponents. The death came in too quick after

he managed to land a hit on Hisoka's face, resulting in him being shredded with a stream of cards that came out of nowhere.

Closing the door , checking your face again , retouching your makeup , and changing your posture to your best abilities. You're going to look your best no matter what.

The loud noise of the door opening shocked you , being pinned out of nowhere on the sofa terrified you , seeing Hisoka's excited face aroused you as his hands started touching you all over while the other started ripping the clothes off of you.

Falling from cloud nine

Crashing from the high

I'm letting go tonight

I'm falling from cloud nine

Every single part of you ached. You've never been taken like that , so passionately and with great urgency. His deep alluring voice whispering in your ear; dragging you from the pain and pleasure. You were overwhelmed not only by his body , but also his words and whispers.

Feeling him shifting from atop of you as he walked naked to the phone. He looked at you with a satisfied smile as you tried to move after such a rough session.

Standing up wobbling , his voice faltered as you walked to the bathroom. looking at him , you noticed him glaring at your cheek, your hand went immediately to touch it earning a wince.

He slowly and predatorily approached and you could do nothing but stare.

"Who did this ♠️?"

"A woman slapped me when she saw me unlocking the door , she said I stolen you from her"

Your eyes lowered in embarrassment. That's not something to mention after you spent the night with someone.

Chuckles caught you off guard

"Ahh ! My little fruits tend to be a little too excited about me ♥️ you'll forgive them, won't you ♣️ ?"

I'm wide awake

Not losing any sleep

Picked up every piece

And landed on my feet

I'm wide awake

Need nothing to complete myself, no

It wasn't the last time it happened though. He was rarely around , and when he was he didn't want to do anything but have sex.

Whenever you did anything else , "little fruits" as he called them would attack you. Verbal and sometimes physical abuse towards you ruined the mood for you.

He didn't seem to care much , in fact he always looked amused. Today wasn't any different. He sent you a ticket to his new match with a keycard to his new suite in h]Heaven Arena's. You stopped buying tickets since he always sent you one.

It didn't take a genius to know , he either wanted you to patch him up or looking for a quick fuck. His matches always leave him hurt and aroused.

Why were you okay with this again ? Why can't you say no ? You knew it wasn't healthy but you can't help it. You're addicted to him now.

I'm wide awake

Yeah, I am born again

Out of the lion's den

I don't have to pretend

And it's too late

The story's over now, the end

Going to the match a lot earlier as usual, Heaven Arena's had a first come first serve rule on the seats. It became a habit for you to come hours earlier to book a decent seat.

His rival was someone he already defeated in the past so it should be okay. Not like he would lose or anything.

The noises of people slowly pouring distracted you from the nagging pain in your chest. Was this what you wanted ? A once every few weeks fuck or dinner if you're lucky ?

The match started as usual , Hisoka observing and letting his opponent take shots at him while he taunted them. The sudden severing of Hisoka's arm made you scream so loud , yet it was drowned by the screams of the entire stadium.

Hisoka was smirking and even offered him the other arm. What is he thinking ?

You felt yourself trumble as tears swelled in your eyes , how can he fight without arms? Will he bleed to death ? Why is he happy about it ?!

I wish I knew then

What I know now

Wouldn't dive in

Wouldn't bow down

Gravity hurts

You made it so sweet

Till I woke up on

On the concrete

You sat next to him in shock as you watched the

beautiful pink haired lady do her magic. She didn't seem to care you're watching. Her movements were fast and graceful before she finished and demanded her payment.

"Would you spend the night with me ♥️?"

You felt like you couldn't breath. Did you just hear that ? Her eyes drifted to you as she ignored him and left.

"Pity ♠️"

He looked at you with disappointment in his eyes before he smiled again. You stood back slowly heading to the door.

Where were you headed at this hour ? You can't stay with him ! He asked another woman right in front of you !

A firm hand gripped you as you felt your blood freeze.

"Where do you think you're going ♠️?"

Trying to break free from his grip , the painful lump in your throat making it impossible to breathe normally let alone talk. His hand only gripped you tighter as you started fighting to let go.

His face frowned at you trying your hardest to shake him off. Who did you think you were ? You knew you couldn't win against him , you saw all his fights ! The rational part in your brain didn't work.

All those women ? They weren't some crazy fans ? He's been cheating on you ? Does he even see you as more than a sex doll ?

A scream tore through your silent tears. He pinned you roughly over the table next to him. His face changed from the usual frown to something more sinister.

"Go on , fight me ♦️"

Thunder rumbling

Castles crumbling

I am trying to hold on

God knows that I tried

Seeing the bright side

But I'm not blind anymore

I'm wide awake

I'm wide awake

Every single muscle in your body hurt. Even the roots of your hair felt like hell. Your throat was dry and so were your eyes.

How did this happen ? Why did your innocent crush turn to this ? Weren't you enough for him ? Did your pain excite him that much ?

He left after the pink haired girl as soon as he was finished with you. Is that really the last time you'd see him ?

It's okay you'll gather your pieces and move on. At least that's what you tell yourself every time you go and bandage him. Every time he has his way with you.

When you heard about his fight with chrollo you refused to go; still traumatized from the last night at his Heaven Arena's place , you simply couldn't. You still watched him on the TV and went the next day after he cooled off. It'll be the same thing over and over.

Why can't you just say no ? Will you only escape him through death ?

Death , it made you laugh. Hisoka dying ? The idea of it seems so far fetched. He was so strong. Too strong.

Wait , did his hand just explode ? His legs too ? Hisoka ?

I'm wide awake

I'm wide awake

I'm wide awake

I'm wide awake

I'm wide awake

[sachigram]

Truss chapter 2

((click here to read on ao3!))

Izaya never paid much attention to the whole “soulmate” thing. Throughout his life, he never cared about romance or relationships of any kind. His only friendship was against his will, and really, he just got bored of telling Shinra to fuck off after a while.

“I think you have selective hearing, Shinra,” Izaya said. The two of them were in the biology room, and Shinra had once again dismissed Izaya's tone of indifference. Shinra merely smiled widely at Izaya, his eyes crinkling in the corners.

“Maybe! Why would I want to hear all the mean stuff you say, anyway?” Shinra asked, and Izaya huffed.

“If you can hear that I'm being mean to you, you should pay attention.”

“Nah. It's not like you mean most of it.”

Izaya glared at the other boy for a moment. He never liked when Shinra pretended to know Izaya better than Izaya knew himself.

“How's your zombie girlfriend?” Izaya asked. He knew that would knock Shinra off his smug little pedestal. Celty kept rejecting all of Shinra's advances, which wasn't surprising, seeing as how Shinra was only in middle school.

“She keeps saying my soulmate is out there somewhere,” Shinra said woefully. He told Izaya a while ago that his mark was on his back, and Celty didn't have one. “She refuses to see me as anything other than a friend.”

“Mm. Sucks to be you,” Izaya said, pleased when Shinra wailed woefully.

“You're lucky, Izaya-kun! No mark! You can make your own decision. I wish I didn't have one.” Shinra wilted, a common occurrence when Celty was mentioned.

“Id make my own decision anyway,” Izaya said. “Being mated to someone sounds so boring. People put way too much stock into it. Some girl was crying earlier in class, did you see her? Apparently some guy she's in love with doesn't match her. Why care about it at all?”

“There's not an ounce of humility in you, is there?” Shinra asked, but he was smiling. He liked that about Izaya, and Izaya knew it. “Have some compassion! Just because you don't have a mark doesn't mean you don't have a mate, anyway. They'll just be harder to find.”

“I can't see myself ever looking for them, anyway.”

“Yeah, you don't really have any desire to meet new people. Oh, hey! I really wanna introduce you to my other friend! He's been really reluctant about it, too, but I think you two would get along really well!”

“I told you no already,” Izaya muttered. “You should respect your other friend's wishes.”

“Well,” Shinra said, unbothered. “You'll meet him eventually anyway. I'll make sure of it.”

***

Izaya wakes to the soft light of morning, and he hums in acknowledgment when he feels Shizuo's tongue on his neck. Shizuo is spooning him, his entire body almost rolled over Izaya's. Their need to touch hasn't waned in the least, and Izaya doesn't think it ever will.

“You're up early,” Izaya murmurs, enjoying the way Shizuo feels against him.

“You were dreaming,” Shizuo says. His hand lifts to move under Izaya's shirt, which is actually Shizuo's shirt. Izaya has taken to wearing them to bed. “Something about Shinra.”

“A bad dream, then,” Izaya says, gasping when Shizuo pinches his nipple. Sometimes they share dreams, other times they can see what the other is dreaming. Their bond keeps getting stronger no matter what Izaya does. It feels less and less like a choice every day.

“Was Shinra really your first kiss?” Shizuo asks, and Izaya grins, feeling the jealousy radiating off Shizuo.

That day in the biology room, after they argued a while about soulmates, Shinra begged Izaya to kiss him. Something about proving Shinra didn't have to abide by his mark; Izaya stopped listening to the reasons after Shinra wouldn't shut up. They shared a few chaste kisses, and after that day, it never happened again.

“Yes. He was persistent about it,” Izaya says, and Shizuo growls behind him.

“That little weasel. He never told me.”

“Why would he? We were just kids, Shizu-chan. We didn't even use tongue.”

“You liked each other, though,” Shizuo mutters, and he hugs Izaya to himself. “I could tell.”

“Don't spy on my dreams,” Izaya says, and he laughs when Shizuo forces him to roll over so they're facing each other.

“Like I'm trying to!” Shizuo snaps, glowering at Izaya. “Don't say 'spy', it makes me sound creepy.”

“It's pretty cute you're getting jealous about Shinra of all people,” Izaya says. “I already told you that you were my first. I didn't think earlier kisses mattered.”

“It's just that it was Shinra. We see him all the time!” Shizuo argues.

“And he's head over heels for Celty. Besides, I'm bound to you, anyway. We're incapable of being away from each other, Shizu-chan.”

It's true, and they both know it. Even when they're angry at each other, which happens a lot, they can't be apart for more than a day. When Shizuo is gone, Izaya can't eat, can't sleep, can barely function at all even before the sickness sets in. And then, when the headache comes, they have to find each other. Sometimes they'll curl up together and keep arguing, though it loses meaning when they're tangled from head to toe.

“I've been thinking we should try to train our bond,” Shizuo says. It's not the first time he's said it, but Izaya still doesn't like hearing it.

“Why?”

“Because we're bound together? Because...ugh! Because, Izaya! Wouldn't it be better to know how to work it rather than just seeing bits of each other at random?” Shizuo is frustrated, and even if Izaya wasn't looking at him, wasn't anywhere near him, Izaya would still know. It's radiating from Shizuo in waves. “Why are you still being stubborn about it?”

Jaw set, Izaya rolls away from Shizuo, and then out of bed. He can feel Shizuo wants him back, but that's nothing new. If up to their bond, they'd always be touching, always together. Izaya isn't ready for that, and he can't accept that Shizuo is. They're both separate people, independent people—

“Izaya,” Shizuo says. His voice doesn't sound angry anymore, which is actually worse somehow. “We aren't separate people. I know it's hard, but...”

“You don't know anything!” Izaya hisses, tearing Shizuo's shirt off himself like it's burning him. “You're just so ready to succumb to this stupid thing, but I'm not, okay?”

“Why are you so mad?” Shizuo asks, which is hilarious, coming from him. “I thought we were past this.”

“Past what?”

“You being an asshole about this!” Shizuo says, throwing his hands up. “For fuck's sake, Izaya, we sleep together almost every night, we argue a lot less, I told you I'm in love with you— What else do you want from me?!”

Izaya dresses hurriedly, refusing to look at Shizuo. He ignores the parts of himself that are screaming for him to return to the bed and seek refuge in Shizuo's arms. He can't, he won't, he doesn't want this!

“I want you to mean it,” Izaya mutters, and he leaves the apartment before Shizuo can follow him, though he knows Shizuo will follow him through their bond whether they're together physically or not.

***

The first time Izaya heard of a soul bond, he was intrigued.

He was in elementary school, listening to the teacher with rapt attention. He knew of soulmates already, and he wasn't really interested in them, but this was something else. The teacher was describing two people who literally couldn't be apart without suffering because of it. Some of the girls in class looked starry eyed, and Izaya heard one of them whisper to her friend that she hoped she was lucky enough to be bound to someone. Some of the boys looked just as awestruck, but Izaya was interested for a different reason.

He raised his hand.

“Yes, Orihara-kun?” The teacher asked. Many heads turned towards Izaya. “You have a question about soul bonds?”

“It seems cruel to me,” Izaya said. Silence greeted his statement, but he was used to that.

“It does? How so?” The teacher asked. She always tried to be patient with him, but he could tell he scared her. He often scared a lot of people without meaning to.

“Because they can never be away from each other. What if they weren't really in love? What if there was no desire to be together, but their bodies forced them? It's like a drug addiction, isn't it?”

There was a rustling around him, the fidgeting bodies of his classmates. Another familiar sound.

“A... A drug addiction?”

“Yes. A heroin addict doesn't want to be an addict, do they? Their body makes them dependent on it, and they're incapable of fighting after a while. How long can soul-bonded pairs be apart? Can the withdrawal kill them? Is—“

“Enough,” the teacher said, and Izaya fell silent. “This isn't like heroin, Orihara-kun, and you're too young to know about such a thing! This is another form of mating, of loving someone. It's not nearly as sinister as you're making it out to be.”

Izaya bit his tongue, tasted blood, and glared openly at the teacher. He wasn't making anything sinister, he was repeating exactly what she told him. If a hostage felt appreciation and love for their kidnapper, was that not Stockholm Syndrome? If there was no freedom, was that not complacency more than acceptance and desire?

“Yes, sensei,” he muttered, and she only looked at him a moment longer before continuing the lesson.

He didn't raise his hand again.

***

“Honestly, it seems cool to me. I dunno why you're fighting it so much,” Kadota says. He sips at the sake Shinra gave him and grins when Izaya glares over at him.

“Why do you know about it, Dota-chin?” Izaya asks, though he knows already. Shinra has the decency to look sheepish.

“Kadota-kun won't tell anyone! It slipped out!” Shinra says, and Izaya rolls his eyes.

“For your sake, I hope he doesn't tell anyone. If Kawisawa-chan finds out, I'm going to slit your throat. Your fate is in Dota-chin's manly hands.” Izaya sips his sake as well, though he's not in the mood to drink. He can feel Shizuo checking in on him tentatively, and it's annoying, but also charming in a way. Shizuo could take on an entire army of people, but he's wary of Izaya being mad at him.

“Trust me, if she finds out, I won't know peace anymore. I don't want to tell her,” Kadota says. “And stop calling me 'Dota-chin',” he adds in afterthought.

“Sorry, no can do. It suits you,” Izaya says, and he winks when Kadota glowers at him.

“You know it's pointless to fight it anyway,” Shinra says. “You keep fighting with Shizuo-kun and coming over, but there's nothing I can do to help.”

“I still blame you. We were doing fine before you had to tell us about the soul bond.” Izaya knows deep down that Shinra had nothing to do with it, but bothering Shinra about it is too much fun.

“I thought it was a good thing!” Shinra wails. “Or...the start of a good thing! I should've known you'd be as stubborn about it as ever.”

“I'm not being stubborn!” Izaya huffs, though he supposes he is. “I still have my own free will, you know. I'm not some mindless drone like one of those Saika zombies. I don't have to fawn over Shizu-chan and spam his name everywhere like some hapless lovesick high school student.”

“Isn't that what you've always done, though?” Shinra asks, and he yelps when Izaya throws a knife that pins Shinra's sleeve to the wall. “It was a joke! A joke!”

“You're an even worse comedian than you are a doctor, and that's saying something,” Izaya says, and then he holds his hand out. “Give me my knife back.”

“I don't think you're supposed to look at it as not having free will,” Kadota says, watching as Shinra tries to pry the knife loose from the wall. “It's more like...having someone who fits you. Even if you were dating someone and madly in love with them, you'd still be bound to Shizuo, so it would be sad for you and whoever you were with. You aren't really ever dating anyone though, so didn't it work out?”

“Izaya-kun knows all this already. You're talking to a brick wall,” Shinra grunts, toppling backwards when he finally wrenches the knife free. He stands, brushes himself off, and hands the knife back to Izaya, who immediately throws it back at Shinra, pinning his other sleeve. “Hey!”

“Shut up and I'll stop,” Izaya says. He sips at his sake, wincing as a sharp pain shoots through his skull. “Fuck.”

“Withdrawal headache?” Shinra asks.

“I've only been gone since this morning...” Izaya murmurs, rubbing his temples. “Maybe it's just a normal headache.”

“Mm, twelve hours is a long time for you two now that you're always together. The fact that you're fighting could've exacerbated the effects.”

“Should I call Shizuo?” Kadota asks, and Izaya groans.

“No. This just happens sometimes. It's nothing new.”

“But you look really rough,” Shinra says, and he finally frees himself from the wall. This time, he holds on to the knife.

“I said it's fine,” Izaya says, and he knows that miles away, Shizuo's head is pounding as well. Izaya can feel Shizuo's presence, a steady vibration in himself that seems to say, “What's wrong? Do you need me?” Izaya tries to send something negative in reply, but it hurts so badly, and he doesn't notice the concerned voices of Kadota and Shinra shouting his name before everything goes black.

***

After meeting Heiwajima Shizuo and getting him hit by a car, Izaya sat proudly at Shinra's table, legs crossed as Shinra cleaned and dressed his scratches. They were shallow, barely considered injuries at all, and Izaya found it funny that out of the two of them, Shizuo was the one who ended up worse off.

“I'm really sorry,” Shinra said, though he didn't seem sorry in the least. “I really thought you two would get along.”

“You should be sorry, introducing me to a bullying monster like that,” Izaya said. “He was really going to punch me for no reason. Did you see the look on his face when he saw I wasn't going to sit there and take it? It was hilarious!”

“He's usually not like that. I mean, he's always short-tempered, but he normally waits for a reason to attack someone. I guess he was having a bad day,” Shinra said.

“Yes, let's excuse his needless violence because he was sad. Boohoo, Shizu-chan, punch everyone in the vicinity with your monstrous strength and we'll look the other way,” Izaya said. Shinra frowned at him.

“Well, I guess I was wrong.” Shinra sighed. “I really wanted you to like him so I could have both my friends together! But I guess you'll be avoiding him from now on.”

“Why would I avoid him?” Izaya asked, and he smiled widely when Shinra gaped at him. “I think Shizu-chan and I will be seeing much more of each other. We're still having fun!”

“That's a scary face, Izaya-kun,” Shinra replied, but he was also smiling. He was never scared of Izaya, and that's one reason the two of them were able to mesh together so well. For every odd thing Izaya would say, Shinra would say something odd himself, and they were rarely surprised by each other anymore.

“That's assuming he survives, anyway,” Izaya continued. “I waited until he stood up to leave, but he still got hit by a truck. Your friend quantity might already be reduced by one.”

“Guess I'm stuck with you, then,” Shinra said, and then the door slammed open, revealing an extremely pissed off Shizuo, who was clearly alive and well.

“You're dead, you're dead, you motherfucker—!” Shizuo's voice was gaining volume, and Izaya merely grinned up at him, captivated. Celty ran in the room, stopping Shizuo's rampage, though Shizuo continued to shout obscenities.

“See?” Izaya asked Shinra, glancing over at him. “He's crazy about me.”

***

Izaya wakes with a weak moan. His headache is gone, but he feels weak, clammy. He looks down and sees a hand in his, and he doesn't have to think about who it is.

“Shizu-chan...” he mutters, and there's the sound of a chair scooting closer across the floor.

“Do you need some water?” Shizuo asks, squeezing Izaya's fingers.

“No. Ugh, what time is it? What happened?”

“It's around ten, I think. Shinra said you passed out from withdrawal.”

“You didn't?” Izaya asks.

“No. My head hurt like hell, though. It's never been that sudden before. I ran all the way here.”

Izaya opens his eyes again and looks up at Shizuo, who is leaning on the bed, but keeping a respectable distance between them. Izaya remembers they fought earlier, but he gives Shizuo a pleading look and opens his arms all the same. Shizuo stands and climbs in bed beside Izaya, wrapping around him.

“You still mad?” Shizuo asks. He watches as Izaya undoes the buttons of his vest and then his white button-down.

“I wasn't mad to begin with,” Izaya mutters, burying his face into Shizuo's bare chest. Shizuo's scent is so strong there, and Izaya likes feeling wrapped up in the same shirt with Shizuo.

“I wish you'd at least think about practicing how to use our link more. If we could know when we're doing it, it'd come in handy. Right now we're just projecting random shit at each other. I think if we could talk through it more often, we'd be able to last longer before we need to see each other again,” Shizuo says.

“Mm, who knew you were so eager to have more time away from me,” Izaya says, and he means it as a joke, but Shizuo growls and hugs him tighter, tight enough to hurt.

“Izaya, just fucking stop it, okay? You get mad when I say I want you around more, and you get upset when I try to give you space. You're attached to me, so I know you can feel I mean it when I say I love you. I don't know why you're so dead set on not believing me, but it's a real pain in the ass.”

Izaya could say a lot of things to that, could point out that Shizuo is still using the term “need” more than “want”, could mention, once again, that they're both stuck together whether they love each other or not, or he could refuse to work on mastering their link for no reason other than pure stubbornness. Instead, he noses against Shizuo's skin and slides his hands under the back of Shizuo's shirt, hiding against him as if Shizuo can protect him from the futility of fighting the laws of the universe.

“Sorry,” Izaya murmurs, and Shizuo sighs softly before tugging him back and kissing him on the forehead.

“Don't be sorry. Just listen to me every once in a while, okay? I know I don't know a lot, but I know I want to be with you, and it sucks that you'd rather torture yourself and pass out from pain than be with me, too.”

“I do want to be with you,” Izaya says, because he knows Shizuo will feel it anyway. Izaya can feel himself projecting it, can feel it's in every breath he takes. “Don't leave me, don't leave me, don't leave me.”

Shizuo hums. “Then that's really all that matters, right?”

***

It's a slow process.

Soul bonds are incredibly rare, and there isn't much of a guide for them to follow as far as speaking to each other purposely sharing things through their link. Sometimes it's easy, and it happens without them even really trying, but then other times it feels like Shizuo is far away from Izaya even when they're sitting right next to each other.

“Don't look so forlorn!” Shinra says, patting Izaya on the bare shoulder. Izaya finds it's easier to project onto Shizuo when more of their skin is touching, so neither of them are wearing a shirt, but Shinra made them separate before trying again this time. “You're both really getting a lot better!”

“Don't touch him!” Shizuo snaps, and Shinra immediately puts his hands up in surrender.

“Shizu-chan, you're being ridiculous,” Izaya says, glaring at Shizuo from across the room. “You're jealous of a middle school kiss.”

“You told him about that?!” Shinra yelps, and he hides behind Izaya.

“No, he saw it in a memory of mine. He snoops, you know? Especially when I'm sleeping.”

“I don't snoop! You project them! You shove your dreams at me 'cause you won't fucking stop squeezing me to death while you sleep!” Shizuo argues, and Izaya raises his hand as if to wave Shizuo's words away.

“I see your dreams too, you know. I just don't comment on them because they're idiotic, usually involving you punching things. I can see that in reality just as easily,” Izaya says, and Shizuo stands, stomping over to Izaya. Shinra wisely shuffles away from them.

“Guys, fighting really isn't what we're working on! Why don't we calm down and you two can touch for this one, okay? You seem to like that much more.”

“I don't wanna touch his flea body,” Shizuo huffs, but he lifts Izaya from his chair and twirls them around so Izaya is sitting in Shizuo's lap. Once their skin touches, Izaya feels all the desire to annoy Shizuo evaporate, and Shizuo's tense shoulders go slack with ease.

“Okay, good,” Shinra says. “Now then, try again, Shizuo-kun. Think of a number between one and fifty and see if Izaya-kun can read what it is through your link.”

Grumbling, Shizuo presses his face into Izaya's neck, and Izaya can feel Shizuo's hot breath on his skin, can feel the warmth of Shizuo's arms around him, and can feel the comfort between them from being close, but he doesn't sense any number.

“Anything?” Shinra asks.

“No,” Izaya says, and Shizuo growls.

“It's because there's so much stuff in your head already!” Shizuo says, glowering up at Izaya. “I can tell you're just thinking all the time, about everything!”

Izaya blinks at him. “Are you saying I think too much for you?”

“Yes! It's not normal to constantly have racing thoughts like that! I can barely filter them out, and when I do, I just think of some random word in Russian that I've never heard, or I think of some recipe— It's all the time with you.”

“Well, let me think about things you can understand, like violence and grunting and junk food and trash TV—“

“Fuck you!”

“Fuck you!”

“Okay!” Shinra says, waving his arms. “Let's focus! Shizuo-kun said something interesting, actually!”

“What?” Shizuo asks, still glaring at Izaya. Izaya wants to hit Shizuo and also to kiss him, and he doesn't know if those are his own desires, or the ones Shizuo is projecting.

“You said you thought in Russian, sometimes?”

“Oh, yeah, just, you know...random words. Never anything important. I'll be working and a word will pop in my head, and Vorona will translate it.”

“That's so cool!” Shinra says, then he gets misty eyed. “Oh, I wish I could share things like that with Celty. You two are really taking this for granted!”

“I need a smoke break,” Shizuo mutters. He stands up and sets Izaya back in the chair before stomping out to the little balcony of Shinra's apartment and closing the door behind him.

“You shouldn't antagonize him. He's trying,” Shinra says, and Izaya crosses his arms across his chest and sinks lower into the chair.

“I'm trying, too!”

“You know, I think it's just that you both had such a...tempestuous relationship before. Both of you have walls up, and it's going to take a long time to work through that. I think it's good you're trying, though.”

Izaya glances up at Shizuo's back through the window, and he reaches out through their link in an equivalent of a tug. He exhales shakily when he feels Shizuo clinging tightly to him in return.

***

At least with sex, they can be on the same page.

Their bond doesn't require sex, doesn't even ask of it them, though it does thrive between them when they're intimate. As long as they're close, they can fight withdrawal, but when their skin is pressed together, and Shizuo slides inside Izaya's body, Izaya really can understand why everyone says soul-bonded pairs are two halves of one soul.

Everything Shizuo feels, thinks, loves, Izaya can feel it, and Shizuo's pleasure is as pressing as his own. Like this, it's hard for Izaya to tell which of them he even is anymore. It seems ridiculous to fight at all when they can be one like-minded soul.

“Izaya— Fuck, Izaya, I love you, I fucking—“ Shizuo pants, and Izaya writhes underneath him before coming, his body trembling as Shizuo keeps moving, chasing his own orgasm.

“Shizu-chan...” Izaya murmurs. His nails press into Shizuo's back, and he can feel it in his skin as if the crescent indentations have appeared on his back, as well. “I'm yours, I'm yours...!” The words feel pried from Izaya's lips, but they're true all the same, and Shizuo comes inside Izaya with a startled gasp that resembles a sob.

Izaya wonders if sex will always be this intense between them. The first time they had each other, it was over quickly, even by virginal standards. It had less to do with their stamina and more to do with the intensity of it, the feeling of their souls becoming one. Both of them love being together like this, and Izaya takes solace in the fact that they want to have sex and feel this level of intimacy, not that their bond requires it from them.

“God...” Shizuo's voice is muffled in Izaya's shoulder. “Don't think I'll ever get used to this...”

“Mm...” Izaya agrees. He traces patterns in Shizuo's back and soothes over the scratches he left. “Hey, Shizu-chan. What number am I thinking of?”

Shizuo nuzzles at him. “Sixty-nine?” he asks, and Izaya giggles.

“Yes. Good guess.”

“Wasn't guessing,” Shizuo says, and then he lifts his head and licks into Izaya's mouth.

***

Izaya thought it was a familiar scene, but he knew he'd never been there himself.

The store was a wreck, glass and debris from the wall thrown around, and there were men buried, as well as a pretty woman. All of them were unconscious. Above them, panting and crying, stood a small boy with mousy brown hair. He turned when Izaya took a step forward.

“Who are you?” Shizuo asked, and Izaya took a good look at him. He never knew Shizuo as a kid, but he'd know Shizuo anywhere, even with different hair and snot running down his face. Izaya has had this dream before, but he was seeing it through Shizuo's eyes. He was never able to interact with Shizuo before now.

“Orihara Izaya,” Izaya said, and he could tell from his voice that he was a kid, too. He looked down at himself, saw some neon bandages on his bare knee.

“You should go,” Shizuo said. He looked back at the scene. “I think I'm about to get in bad trouble.”

“Oh, that's okay,” Izaya said with a shrug. “I like trouble.”

Shizuo frowned at him and sniffled a bit, rubbing at his wet face. He only succeeded in smearing dirt everywhere.

“Do I know you?” he asked.

“No. Not yet, anyway. We don't meet until later.”

“Later?” Shizuo asked, and he looked so confused and so sad. Izaya took a few steps towards him, crunching glass as he walked.

“Yes, later. I guess this is your memory I'm in. I've been here before, but not as myself.” He looked at the woman.

“I was trying to help her,” Shizuo said, and his voice was pleading. “No one ever believes me, but I really didn't mean to do this.”

“I believe you,” Izaya said. “It's okay.”

Shizuo sobbed, dropping the pole he was holding. He covered his face with his hands and cried into them.

“It's not okay! Everything always turns out like this! I can't control myself! I wanted to help her because she was nice to me and I liked her, and I hurt her just as badly as those guys might have!”

“You're just a kid, Shizu-chan,” Izaya said with a shrug. “Believe me when I say she'll be fine.” Izaya stepped closer until he was beside Shizuo, and he blinked when he felt Shizuo grab at his sleeve and tug.

“Will you stay with me until my parents get here? I think my little brother went to call them and the police...” Shizuo said. Izaya wondered to himself what this would have been like in reality, if they really met back then, like this, long before high school.

“No one will come. This already happened, remember? But yes, I'll stay with you.”

“I know you, don't I?” Shizuo asked, squinting at him. “You're...”

“Your soulmate,” Izaya said, and he grinned when Shizuo gaped at him. “We don't meet for a long time. We don't find out we're bonded for even longer than that.”

“Bonded,” Shizuo murmured, his eyes full of wonder. He reached down and found Izaya's hand with his own. “And you...like being with me?”

“It's hard for me,” Izaya said honestly, and he tapped Shizuo on the nose when Shizuo looked hurt. “I loved you before we knew about our bond. It's hard for me to accept you can love me so suddenly.”

“Why?” Shizuo asked, and Izaya clicked his tongue. This was pointless, wasn't it? In this memory, Shizuo was just a kid with no idea about anything yet to pass.

“Because, it's... When you're bound, you have to be together. It hurts you when you aren't. I guess I just... Even later on, when you tell me you want me around, I still think you're lying.”

“I don't think it's a lie,” Shizuo said, and he scrunched up his face in thought. “I'd be real happy if I had a soulmate like you.”

“Oh, yeah?” Izaya asked, raising a brow.

“You aren't scared of me, I can tell. And I like how you talk.” Shizuo stopped talking suddenly, and then he looked down at his hand in Izaya's. “I never thought anyone would want to be around me. And you love me, you said? You mean it?”

“Yes,” Izaya said, and he gasped when Shizuo plowed into him, still ridiculously strong even as a child. Shizuo hugged him tightly, and Izaya struggled to breathe, but he didn't try to get free.

“You have to keep loving me, okay? I'm not really smart, and I say a lot of stupid things, and I... I get real mad a lot. I don't mean to. If I'm mean to you in the future, it's just 'cause I don't know what I'm supposed to do or say.” Shizuo clung to him. “But you have to keep loving me, 'cause no one else ever will.”

“Don't be stupid,” Izaya said. “A lot of people love you. It's almost sickening, how many of them there are.”

“But they aren't like you. I can tell.” Shizuo pulled back to look at him, and suddenly they were both older, Raijin uniforms on their bodies, Russia Sushi in the background. The sun made Shizuo's blond hair even brighter. “No one else has ever been like you, so believe me when I say I love you, okay?”

“Shizu-chan...”

“And you have to keep loving me, too. You have to promise.”

“I do. I do, and I always have, and I'm just... I'm fucking scared, okay? I'm scared of this,” Izaya said, and he felt his lips were trembling. “I never wanted anyone to have this power over me. I don't know how to control it.”

“I'm scared, too,” Shizuo said. “But I'm not scared of you.”

“I'm not scared of you, either.”

Shizuo shrugged, and then he grinned. “So then stop thinking so much about it, you shitty flea.”

***

Izaya wakes with a soft gasp. He looks over at Shizuo, who is blinking awake and giving him a sleepy smile.

“Same dream,” Shizuo murmurs, and he kisses Izaya gently.

“You were a cute kid, Shizu-chan,” Izaya says, and Shizuo snorts.

“Yeah? So were you. You were so fucking little.” Shizuo pulls him closer. “You're still little. Flea-like.”

“Ha ha.”

“I wish I knew you back then. Maybe if we met on our own, just out in the world, we could've been friends a lot sooner.”

“Is that what we are now? Friends?” Izaya asks, and he's grinning playfully.

“Yep. Since we started fucking, though, I think maybe we messed it up,” Shizuo replies.

“Mm...” Izaya lifts his hand and traces little lines in Shizuo's cheek, and Shizuo catches Izaya's hand and kisses the pads of his fingers.

“I love you.”

Izaya blinks in surprise. He heard that as easily as if Shizuo said it out loud, and he can feel in their bond that Shizuo means it, and has meant it every time.

“I love you, too,” Izaya says quietly, and Shizuo beams at him.

“Fuckin' better. You promised me.”

“I did,” Izaya agrees, and he curls closer to Shizuo. They drift off again, sharing another dream, and in the dream itself, and in reality, they can reach out, knowing the other is right there.

[xellshun]

Feeding The Beast

I stand firm when supporting one of my favorite quotes: Evil is never born, it is created. All things were once good in the beginning, even Satan.

With the developement of my disorder and my descent into becoming a sociopath came many dark traits that I’ve used countless times to calm my urges and impulses. Most of them are fairly common among those with ASPD. But one quality has always stood above all the others.

My desire to victimize as many women as possible.

This post will focus on this trait rather than HOW it came to be but I will share a little bit of my past just to give you a general idea of it’s origins.

Over the course of the last 7 years I went through 3 very traumatic relationships. But before I did, I was a very kind hearted, ambitious, compassionate person with a huge dream of some day finding the love of my life, building a family, and living out the same fairy tale ending that my parents and their parents had before them. I had this perfect image of how my love life would work out and I based it off of what I watched my family build as I grew up. I grew up with a very close, caring, and loving family. So going into adulthood that’s just how I thought things were supposed to be.

I didn’t realize how fucking wrong I truly was and I was no where near prepared for the 7 year long nightmare I was about to go through...

The first of the three stages was when I lost my first true love - the mother of my beloved son. Not only did I loose her along with all my hopes and dreams of having that fairy tale ending. But I lost her while she was still pregnant with my son... So along with the initial pain, my first experience of pregnancy and my introduction to being a father were stripped from me and left me in a state of mind that pushed me into making my FIRST step down the dark I would eventually get lost in. She was what I would eventually call “The First Heartache”

The second stage happened with my next serious girlfriend. She would not only be my second love but would also end up being the girl who would eventually become extremely abusive. Physically, emotionally, mentally - she tortured me. She ultimately become what I called “The Abuser”

At this point, my disorder was born and rapidly growing. Coupled with emotional distress and a newly developed addiction to drugs and alcohol, my next relationship would only escalate the problems. She was a drinker, a drug user, and eventually a cheater. Her betrayal lead me down a path filled with an unending urge to stay intoxicated to cure the pain. And even though I should have left both her and the last girl, I didn’t. I was constantly trying to fill the void in my heart left by the first girl. But this third girl was no better than the last. She eventually became what I called “The Drunk Cheater”

By this point, my son was 5 years old. My relationship with him and my family was greatly damaged. I had come off my ADHD medication, struggled to stay employed, struggled with money, wrecked and totaled my vehicle, got into trouble with the law, did time in jail, struggled on and off with addiction to both drugs and alcohol, lost many of my friends... And above all else...

I lost myself...

And I forgot the feeling of remorse... Of empathy... And love...

The person I became and am now is the total opposite of who and what I was 7 years ago. Me then and me now wouldn’t even recognize each other if they met...

And thus, the sociopath was born... And within the dark pit of inhumane emotions, impulses, and urges.. The strongest one was my unending thirst for revenge...

And with that, the player mentality became supreme. And with it every aspect of my life would shift, change, and become centered around an unending cycle of chasing women. It started out as me just having fun and enjoying the single life and eventually evolved to what I do now.

So what do I do? For starters, I supress the monster underneath, I go out and I hunt women. I will often create several dating profiles, all of which with the same pictures, the same information about myself, and it has quickly turned into a game of seeing how many women I can sleep with in the shortest amount of time.

People would probably tell me “You sound like every other typical asshole player.” And it’s partially true, but in my mind I am a hunter. But I don’t hunt with the goal to kill (or hurt these women). I hunt with the goal of capturing and retaining them. I go out with my sociopathic mask, looking friendly, nice, and emotional. I play the part of a good honest man who just wants to settle down. For each individual girl I would learn her, everything about her, I would research her and read her like a book. I would figure out exactly what she wants and needs in a partner and I’d become that to the best of my ability. Once they are lured in I deceieve and manipulate every situation. Slowly and pateintly I shift the mood and create a large amount of sexual tension. I never come off as the creep, I never make them uncomfortable, and I always wait for THEM to make the first move. Why? Because it makes me feel powerful. And when we finally reach the point of having sex the sexual side of my sociopathic tendencies comes out. You see, I don’t care about finishing. It’s not what I look forward to and I don’t need to finish to be happy. The only thing that matters is HER pleasure. In those moments of intercourse I do everything in my physical ability to fuck them in every way they fantasize about. The porn star comes out and my one and only goal is to fuck them to the point where they are physically sore and trembling from orgasms. I want them to have issues walking the next day, I want to rearange their insides, and turn their intestines into soup. It almost never fails and this newly found dark skill has increased my body count from a pathetic 5 (my son’s mom) to a body count of 52 as of this last weekend.

But do I stop there and leave them in the dust? Hell no! I keep them around, I drag them around, and am constantly looking for new targets daily. I keep them around for many reasons - sex, money, drugs, alcohol, transportation, parties, new friends... And some times I’ll keep them around and create friendships with them so I always have someone to talk to or hang out with.

This way I am never bored and can always feed whatever hunger comes into my darkened heart...

I have done so many messed up things. Slept with more than one girl in a single day, slept with a new girl every day of the week, fucked a girl and then fucked her best friend. I’ve made women cheat on their boyfriends and then turned around and hung out with their boyfriends. I’ve made wives cheat on their poor unknowing husbands. Some would find out and their wives would leave them for me. Others would simply ask me to never mention it. Do I respect their wishes? Of course! Like I said. I never purposely treat any of these women poorly. I do this so that I can retain my image as a good and normal man. But more often than not, it’s the sex that makes them come back. I can’t tell you how many girls I’ve dicked down. I’ve been with all kinds of girls. Blondes, redheads, burnettes, thick girls, thin girls, small boobs, huge boobs, some who could be porn stars, some who were covered in tattoos and peircings, some were cam girls, some were strippers, some were partiers, drinkers, some were moms, some were church girls, some were younger, some were older... I think the only type of girl I have yet to be with is an Asian... Gunna have to change that...

I’ve been all over the place too. I can’t go to ANY surrounding town from where I live without knowing a girl I’ve fucked there. It’s hard enough when I’m out running errands too, can’t go fucking anywhere without the chance of seeing one of my victims.

All in all, it’s the thrill of the chase, it’s the thrill of knowing what lurks beneath the mask while they remain clueless, it’s the feeling of being so cold and heartless yet have the ability to bring them so many emotions I can’t feel, it’s about giving them the best sex of their lives, it’s about the satisfaction of leashing them along like pets, it’s about POWER and CONTROL. The two fucking things I had so little of when this all started during those 3 toxic and traumatizing relationships.

And in the deepest, darkest corners of my sick mind... In these many moments of deception and manipulation... I trick myself into believing that these poor girls I victimize are my exes.. In an attempt to feel some type or form of revenge to dowse the neverending burning fires of PURE HATRED that have turned my entire world into a place of devastation that is now just as dark as my heart...

For me, women as a whole, are my newly developed drug addiction. When I see them, I don’t see people, I see prey that I can use for whatever benefit I see fit. And if those benefits run out I simply take them to the slaughter house and use them one last time. Rejection doesn’t faze me either. If a single sheep manages to escape my fenced in prison it doesn’t bother me, the herde always consists of between 10-20 women at all times. It’s as easy as a simple hunting trip, which I honestly enjoy. After all, it’s always good to get out every once in a while.

This is what my life has turned into. A never ending sickening cycle of trying to fill in the void within my heart that they left behind those years ago. But in the end that ONE thing that can fill this whole is the one thing I avoid the most - Love...

Yes, my therapist knows about all of this. It’s great because my therapist is a female so it’s nice to be able to share my stories and brag to a girl who’s job is to help me. She probably thinks I’m a fucking piece of shit and I don’t blame her. But she’s a professional and has to help people like me.

We’ve discussed goals throughout therapy on ways for me to relearn the feelings of empathy, remorse, love, and so on... It’s one of many goals and this is the one I have the most trouble with... Part of me wants to change and go back to being normal. But the other part of me wants to keep doing what I do best because it’s just so much damn fun.

So will this part of me ever change? I think so. I hope so. The only other times I went from being a total man whore to a faithful loving man was every time a girl would come into my life who was strong enough to snap me out of dark ways... So far it’s only happened twice. My body count is at 52 and going up more quickly than ever. I’ve spoken to thousands of women, met hundreds, recieved thousands of numbers, thousands of X rated pictures and videos of these women, I’ve had sex thousands of times, and it’s getting to the point where these women just seem to blur together...

There’s little hope of finding a girl strong enough to pull me from the darkness this time. And honestly, I’m okay with it. I am at a point where the darkness is comforting and feels like home...

So this time around.. Not only does she need to be strong enough to pull me out... She needs to be brave enough to venture into a world of total darkness...

[septicbro1005]

I am an Addict, But I Get Paid to Indulge in my Habit

A/N: Sad Kirishima thing with implied Kiribaku. I just heard a song, got hit with the biggest wave of inspiration, so I’ll work on it between breaks in homework assignments. Ready for some good ol’ sad shit? Great. Based off of “Art is Dead” by Bo Burnham. There will be cursing, self-deprecation, depressed / anxious thoughts, suicidal thoughts, mentions of self-harm, etc. If this shit is not your cup of tea, go onto whatever the hell else you’d like. Cool? Cool.

Eijirou Kirishima hasn’t really been the most confident person in the world. Hell, probably not even the most confident person in Class 3-A. No matter the facade he put on, his inferiority complex has always bit him in the ass at the worst times.

Does he ever show other people how he feels when that happens?

Of course not!

He’s Eijirou Kirishima! The Unbreakable Red Riot! Nothing will ever make him break! He’s the toughest, manliest man out there!

Yet, behind closed doors, there are those days.

When the voice in his head screams. When a loud noise makes his heart race for the next thirty minutes. When his fingernails dig into his shoulders as he takes deep breaths. When the second he does something wrong or that he feels is wrong, he clams up and is flooded with guilt. When he doesn’t speak unless spoken to, and only replies with the fewest amount of words possible. When the fake smiles and the fake affirmations come to the surface.

Then the memories come in.

They flood in faster than he can stop them, and he’s stuck thinking about those things until he finds something else to do.

So that’s why he asked Jirou, in their first year, about music. Happily, Jirou taught him to play the keyboard, which he grasped quite quickly. In fact, by their third year, he was writing his own songs.

Of course, his lack of confidence never allowed him to put them out to the world for people to see.

But, he anonymously goes to a cafe near campus and plays his music there. Every weekend he can.

He’s somehow become a hero in training by day, and a comic musician by night.

This results in little to no down time, what with all of his classes, studying, creating new music, and anything else along those lines.

And there’s one song he’d been working on since he began writing his own music. He’s put his heart and soul into it. He’s practiced it, he’s practically perfected it.

Since he started his gigs at the cafe, he’s been debating on whether or not to throw it into his set list. And every time, before he can even make a joke to introduce the song, he pauses.

He can’t.

He can’t move. He can’t breathe. He can’t think properly. There’s only a few thoughts that swirl in his head, until one voice in his head yells at him to move on.

And so he does.

There was one night, however, that he had an exceptionally shitty day. He almost entirely flunked a quiz, he passed out during training because he didn’t eat lunch, and Bakugou was nowhere to be seen.

Eijirou has no idea how or why Katsuki Bakugou affects him so much. Yet, whenever something happens to the ash blond or the ash blond isn’t there, he’s filled with anxiety and even a bit of jealousy.

Which makes Eijirou hate the way he felt that day.

So when he came into the cafe that night, his beanie shoved low onto his head and colored contacts on, it was much harder to fake his entertainer’s smile.

He started with a couple of jokes and dumber songs, with only some meaning behind it.

And as he finished the third song, he heard the door open up to the cafe.

He’s grown used to people walking in part way into his shows, it doesn’t offend him. Not like it really should. He’s not doing it for money. He just wants to release his feelings in the form of music and comedy.

                                                          ~~~

Katsuki Bakugou was a frequent customer at a cafe close to campus. He had been since he was a second year. He’s always loved going on the weekends, when the entertainer is there.

He never heard a name from the man, and it seems no one else has either. He asked the manager, but she said she was sworn to secrecy by him.

So, he hears the wild applause coming from the cafe, and felt a small grin bloom on his face that grew once he entered.

The man sat in front of his piano, drinking from one of the coffee cups from the cafe. The cafe bought a piano for the man a few weeks after Katsuki began to frequent the place.

Customers erupted with clapping and laughter as the man turned from the piano.

“Okay. Next, I’ve got a poem for you guys. It’s called ‘I Fuck Sluts’,”

A woman in the crowd screamed.

“Not a roll call, but thank you,”

                                                        ~~~

The night was almost over, one song being the last thing in Eijirou’s set list.

He’s kept it to himself for far too long, He was gonna burst if he didn’t say something.

“This next song honestly isn’t funny at all, but it helps me sleep at night,” he managed to push out, rubbing his sweaty palms against his pants.

The anxiety in his voice would be obvious to any of his friends. None of them were there, though, so he doesn’t have to worry.

Katuski watched the performer closely, watching his nails dig into his knee for a moment before bringing them up to the piano keys.

His fingers moved quickly and gracefully across the keys, causing a swift yet elegant melody to float through the air.

Katuski watches as the performer looks out into the audience, taking a clear breath in before turning back to the piano.

“Art is dead. Art is dead. Art is dead. Art is dead,”

Eijirou’s voice carried through to the ears of the crowd, one or two weak cheers coming from the audience.

Katsuki appreciated the performer’s voice, being so soft and soothing, no matter how dark the lyrics were.

“Entertainers like to seem complicated, but we're not complicated. I can explain it pretty easily,”

The performer looked like he was glaring holes into somebody, brows furrowed and shoulders stiffer than usual.

Eijirou was tense.

There was no going back. No stopping now.

“Have you ever been to a birthday party for children? And one of the children won't stop screaming,”

They way that line was sang sent shivers through Katsuki. Hatred was evident in his voice, but the question was who it was pointed to. This hypothetical child was clearly a stand-in for somebody.

“'Cause he's just a little attention attractor. When he grows up to be a comic or actor, he'll be rewarded for never maturing. For never understanding or learning that every day can't be about him. There's other people, you selfish asshole,”

Katsuki frowned as the crowd laughed a bit.

Eijirou’s heart beat erratically in his chest, having to take deeper breaths to continue singing properly.

The hypothetical child was one he hated.

“I must be psychotic. I must be demented to think that I'm worthy of all this attention,”

The hypothetical child with shoulder length dark hair, red eyes, sharp teeth and a worthless Quirk.

“Of all of this money, you worked really hard for. I slept in late while you worked at the drug store,”

The hypothetical child who was greedy and ungrateful.

“My drug's attention, I am an addict. But I get paid to indulge in my habit,”

This hypothetical child who grew up, dyeing his hair firetruck red and putting on a mask of confidence.

“It's all an illusion, I'm wearing make-up, I'm wearing make-up Make-up, make-up, make-up, make...”

Katsuki noticed the performer’s voice sounding far more choked up, and he felt his own grip tighten on his coffee cup.

“Art is dead. So people think you're funny, how do you get those peoples money?”

Eijirou’s hands shook as he played, praying to every god that he wouldn’t miss a key and mess up.

Because then the audience might see this isn’t a joke.

“Said art is dead. We're rolling in dough, while Carlin rolls in his grave, his grave, his grave,”

Katsuki went to the coffee counter to go get a refill on coffee, not wanting to take his eyes off the beanie clad performer.

“The show has got a budget. The show has got a budget. And all the poor people way more deserving, of the money won't budge it,”

Eijirou’s had a complicated relationship with money in his life. He started his life with a good amount of money, which then dropped substantially when his Quirk activated.

It wasn’t because of that, but he’d always thought it was his fault for developing a Quirk.

But as he got older, his financial state got much better. He could afford luxuries. He could afford dyeing his hair consistently. He could afford to go to Yuuei.

But then he felt guilty when his parents paid for his braces. He felt guilty when his parents paid for him to go to Yuuei. He felt guilty when his parents paid for a therapist after his mom thought he developed depression. He feels guilty when his parents pay for his medication.

He wants to pay them back, he just doesn’t know how.

“‘Cause I wanted my name in lights. When I could have feed a family of four for forty fucking fortnights. Forty fucking fortnights,”

Eijirou realizes he’s allowed to feel bad for himself. He knows that.

But it’s hard to feel like shit when you know there are small children who can only eat a meal or so a day, because their family lives in poverty.

There are people dying from cancer out there.

There are people who run a razor across their wrists almost daily because they no longer want to be alive.

There are kids who look at the knife block in their kitchen and think about which knife would kill them the fastest.

Because he used to be that kid.

He used to pull the big knives out of the knife block when his parents weren’t home and would think about how quick and easy it would be to make his family’s life so much easier.

Just a few stabs, and they don’t have to deal with me.

“I am an artist, please god forgive me. I am an artist, please don't revere me. I am an artist, please don't respect me. I am an artist, you're free to correct me,”

Katsuki had gotten his new cup of coffee and practically squeezed the coffee out of the cup when he looked at the performer.

His hands were shaking, his cheeks were flushed, and tears streaked down them.

“A self-centered artist. Self-obsesed artist. I am an artist. I am an artist,”

Eijirou hated the warm tears trickling down his face as he sang. He despised it. All he wanted was to finally put this song out, and just be free of it’s almost deathly grasp.

“But I'm just a kid. I'm just a kid I'm just a kid. Kid. And maybe I'll grow out of it,”

Forcefully, Eijirou pressed on the keys with their finishing notes, drinking from his water.

Hardened fingers dug into his leg as he told everyone to have a good night, packed up, and left.

As he exited the warm cafe, he shivered under the fluttering snow. Releasing a sigh, it quickly fogged up.

“Okay, back to--”

“Oi,”

Katsuki watched as the performer whirled around.

“You alright?”

Eijirou sat there, unable to speak.

Katsuki Bakugou went to his show.

Katsuki Bakugou saw him sing his most vulnerable song.

Katsuki Bakugou watched the unbreakable break.

“Fine. You need something, sir?”

“I need to know you’re okay, Shitty Hair,”

Hearing the nickname confirmed Eijirou’s fears, and he shook.

“Ha. So you did recognize me, huh?” Eijirou laughed weakly.

Katsuki felt his brows furrow in a way they don’t normally.

“Wanna talk back at the dorms?” Katsuki offered before taking a sip of coffee. “I’m willing to listen to you,”

Eijirou felt the lump in his throat swell and his eyes spring with tears.

“Yeah... sure,”

A/N: I actually like how this came out! It’s sorta shitty, but not incredibly so! I’ll put this on my Wattpad and my AO3 later, so if you vibe on there, then vibe on there. Peace out! Stay safe and healthy! - Septic / Spark