#when I saw the news. had to take a long breathing. to avoid another anxiety attack

[heich0e]

the wake - miya osamu/f!reader (haikyuu!) part 8 in the bff!osamu series word count: 2.5k tags: angst, childhood friends to pining, every miya fic i write is just a thinly veiled love letter to the miya brotherhood and that is very clear here, angst gets worse before it gets better so be nice to me, ps: u ever heard the song vienna by billy joel?

The longest that you have ever gone without speaking to the Miya twins was thirteen calendar days—a single day shy of a fortnight—when the three of you were eleven years old. 

It all happened because you’d invited the twins over to see the brand new lava lamp you’d gotten for your birthday—the one you had been longing for relentlessly, and talked about incessantly in the lead-up to your big day—and, well, one thing led to another (as it often has the tendency to do when Osamu and Atsumu are involved) and the beloved lamp had ended up shattered across your bedroom floor only a few hours after you’d torn it from its pretty purple wrapping paper. 

Neither of the boys had been willing to take responsibility at the time, each pointing an identically vehement finger of blame towards the other, and they both refused to offer you anything remotely close to an apology—lest that somehow imply an admission of culpability. 

Your mother had sent them home after a stern, disappointed talking to and a call to their own mother (which she then echoed in a far less civilized tone when they returned home to her) and then they didn’t hear from you for almost two full weeks. It felt like an eternity back then, when life was small and days were long and just a couple of hours felt like a lifetime. You refused to come to your door when the two of them showed up knocking, didn’t answer any phone calls or instant messages they sent, and outrightly ignored them at school each day—hiding in classrooms on breaks between classes or behind the backs of other girls to avoid the increasingly desperate attempts of the twins to get your attention.

And so, on the two week anniversary of The Incident, the twins showed up at your door one last time—sheepish but earnestly remorseful—with a new lava lamp in tow. Thus the silent treatment was ended, reconciliation was struck, and there has scarcely been a day that passed since then where you had not been in some form of contact with the twins.

Osamu hasn’t heard from you in 6 weeks.

After the night of Atsumu’s party, he’d waited with bated breath to hear from you. His phone was on, sound at full blast and never too far from his reach. He knew it wasn’t really his place to reach out first. Knew you probably needed time to process things. To forgive him.

That first night he’d barely slept a wink, staring up at the ceiling of his living room, sprawled across the couch the two of you should have been sleeping on together, regretting every single moment of his life that had led him to this misery. He had texted you a simple: Let me know when you’re home safe please. It was a message he’d sent you countless times before, but never with so much urgency—but it went unanswered. It didn’t surprise him, even if it hurt. Even if it only added to the twist of anxiety turning his stomach into knots. More time passed. Seconds bleeding into minutes that turned into hours, each more agonizing than the last. He thought about calling you. Texting you again. Pulling on a jacket and chasing after you like he should have when you walked away from him hours prior. But he didn’t.

Osamu texted Atsumu first thing the next morning, with bags under his eyes and exhaustion in the marrow of his bones, asking if you’d made it back to the party safely. He’d wanted to reach out sooner—he’d had an entire sleepless night to think about nothing else, after all—but he’d waited for the sake of saving face with his twin. 

When Atsumu finally woke up and saw his message, replying back with a frightening ??? didn’t she leave with u?, Osamu’s worst fears were realized. 

After hearing from his brother, Osamu immediately texted your roommate—a girl you’d gone to college with, who might even have been considered your best friend had the twins not beaten her to the punch by about two decades. She and Osamu had always been on good terms, seeing each other semi-regularly over the years by virtue of their shared connection to you. You’d even once implied she had a little crush on him after Osamu had met her for the first time, though he had (for obvious reasons) never acted on the information. He felt no hesitation reaching out to her about whether or not you’d made it home the night before.

Yes.

Her icy reply came through almost immediately—even though it was early in the morning, even though he rarely ever texted her. The message was just three letters and a full stop, but it told him everything he needed to know: you were safe, and she knew what he’d done.

Osamu knew that the very least that he could give you in this situation was space, and he really did try, but he only made it two days of silence before he was reaching out to you again. His text had gone unanswered on that horrible, sleepless night where he had ruined everything, so after two days he finally tried to call.

It went right to voicemail.

His subsequent texts (and eventually calls) over the following days were similarly ignored, and every day that passed without hearing from you felt worse than the last.

Atsumu’s concern took root the day following his party, thanks to his brother's early morning text, and it only continued to grow. You were ignoring him too, the reason for which he had not the faintest idea, and the blonde inundated his twin for details as to what exactly had happened when the two of you had left his apartment that night.

But Osamu couldn’t tell him.

He couldn’t.

So he started avoiding his brother's calls and texts, too.

Osamu’s feelings for you were the only thing he’d ever, ever kept from his twin in all of their shared lifetime. And look where it had gotten him. 

But eventually—inevitably—Osamu finally broke. 

It was to be expected, really. He was hardly eating, scarcely sleeping, and any hours not spent robotically going through motions of keeping his business running were spent holed up in his little apartment. The apartment that now somehow reminded him far too much of you—like you had inked yourself as indelibly into the walls as you had the paint that you helped him apply when he'd first moved in.

Osamu showed up at his brother’s place at 11 o’clock on an otherwise completely unremarkable Wednesday night, still in his Onigiri Miya uniform, and as soon as Atsumu opened the door he burst—violently, spectacularly—into tears before he could even manage a greeting.

It must have been shocking, frightening even, for Atsumu to see his twin in that state. For him to have to help his brother’s crumpled frame across the threshold, over the step in the genkan, and to the couch in his living room—supporting the entirety of his weight to keep him upright. Atsumu had shown up a hundred times at Osamu’s door in not dissimilar states of heartbreak, but that was the first time he’d ever seen his twin—largely credited as the level-headed, rational one between them—like this. He’d always thought Osamu was just stronger than he was when it came to heartbreak; his relationships fizzling out with relatively little fanfare, and no substantial distress, and his exes sort of just faded into the background like they’d never even been there at all.

Atsumu never realized it was because his brother’s heart had never been theirs to break in the first place.

Osamu came clean that night in his brother’s apartment. Confessed to the sins he’d kept locked away in the recesses of his chest for so long, more fully and unequivocally than he had ever voiced the long-held secrets to anyone. And Atsumu listened. He didn’t tease him for his tears. Or berate him for keeping his feelings from him. Or yell at him for harming you and jeopardizing the friendship that the three of you had spent so much of your lives building. 

He just hugged him. Comforted him. Cried with him. Because that was what his brother needed from him more than anything else.

When Osamu calmed slightly, many hours later, Atsumu quietly admitted that he’d suspected there may have been feelings that his brother was harbouring but he’d never really known for sure. I figured ya’d tell me when you were ready. Those were the simple words he’d offered, with a little shrug and a gentle, wobbly smile. And it was the first time in all his life that Osamu realized that his brother had far more tact than he’d ever given him credit for.

Atsumu reached out to you again that night, though his messages to you for the past week had gone unanswered like his brother’s. He put his message simply. He told you that he knew what had happened. That he wanted to talk. That you were his best friend and he needed to see you.

The twins were laying side by side in Atsumu’s bed, neither asleep nor fully awake, when your reply came through.

I need some time, Tsumu.

The brothers shared a look across the mattress of Atsumu’s bed in the dim light of his bedroom, their eyes sore for crying and the harsh glare of the cellphone’s light.

They yielded.

A few day later, you finally reached out again, and agreed to meet Atsumu for dinner.

Just Atsumu.

The evening that Osamu knew the two of you were meeting without him, he was a mess. He burned half the food he tried to prepare at the restaurant, got a nasty cut on his finger when he was chopping carelessly, and almost charged a customer 250,000 yen for their 250 yen purchase. When the restaurant finally closed, he slumped over the counter with his head in his hands and waited.

Atsumu showed up not long after.

“It was weird," his brother confessed, fiddling with an edamame pod but never moving to bring it to his lips—curled down slightly as the corner as he spoke. "But I can’t go between the two of ya like this, and she can’t see me without thinking of you."

“She hates me,” Osamu rasped, a familiar, suffocating tightness swelling in his chest that had made a home there over the past two weeks. 

“She’s just upset,” Atsumu tried to console him, but Osamu could hear the wisp of frustration creeping into his twin’s tone. It wasn’t Atsumu’s fault—Osamu knew how hard this entire situation must have been for him, all as a result of the circumstances for which only he could bear the burden of blame. You’re Atsumu’s closest friend too, as much a part of the elder Miya twin’s life as you are the younger's, and Osamu didn’t take that fact for granted. Atsumu shut his eyes, sighing. “I think she’s confused, Samu. Hell, I’m confused and we shared a womb.”

Osamu’s eyes began to burn with a familiar, unpleasant prickle. He didn’t cry much about it anymore, now two weeks on, like he’d somehow run the well dry. But he’d occasionally get phantom pains behind his eyes, like the precursor to tears he knew couldn’t come. It was almost worse.

“I know,” the dark-haired twin finally muttered, his head hanging dejectedly.

“We’re gonna figure this shit out, but she’s gotta take some time to get things straight in her head first, alright?” Atsumu said softly, nudging his brother’s hand with his own, lending him encouragement in the warmth of their knuckles meeting. “Just give her that.”

So he did.

Osamu gave you another full month of time. 

Of space.

Of absence.

And now he’s here, six weeks to the day since everything went wrong.

Osamu drives home to Hyogo on a whim—the idea of spending another weekend holed up in his apartment, wondering each day if it would finally be the one where you call, is enough to make him feel sick. His apartment has never felt more suffocating than it has in your absence. Never felt smaller than it does without you in it, no matter how contradictory that sounds. It’s been a while since he went home to visit his mother and the boys from high school who stuck around into adulthood, and even though his childhood home is as rife with things that remind him of you as his current one, he can’t help but hope that the change of scenery might do him some good.

The Miya family home hasn’t changed much, if at all, since the twins were kids. As an adult, Osamu takes comfort from this fact—finds stability and familiarity in the walls and windows and roof that endure today in just the same way and in the same shape as they always have. His mother’s car isn’t in the driveway when he pulls in to complete the picture, but he hadn’t told her he was coming so he can’t blame her for not being there to welcome him. 

Osamu grabs his hastily packed duffle bag from the passenger’s seat of his truck, walking up the stone pathway his feet have trod upon so many times, in all their different sizes, to the door. He keeps his mother’s house key on his own keyring, because the last thing she’d said to him the day that he’d moved out—her hands, smaller than his own now that he’d grown so big, clasped around his as they held the little silver key—was that no matter what this would always be his home.

The genkan is the same. The coats in the closet are the same. The air smells the same, though there’s the faintest whisper of citrus in it as Osamu closes the front door behind him and toes off his shoes. His mother keeps two pairs of slippers at the door for him and Atsumu when they visit but his are missing for some reason, so he stuffs his feet into his brother’s designated pair before he pads off further into the home.

He can hear the television—the faint hum of a variety show or something similar drifting through the halls—and he laughs to himself that his mother has never quite been able to correct her bad habit of leaving the TV on even when she’s not watching it. He turns the corner into the living room, the sound of the television having grown louder the nearer he got.

And then he freezes.

The duffle bag he’d held loosely in his hand falls gracelessly to the floor.

And even though the television is right there, he can’t hear it anymore.

Because between him and the LCD screen, tucked under the kotatsu with a satsuma poised in hand half-peeled, is a face he hasn’t seen in six long weeks.

There, in the heart of the place that would always be his home, is you.

[parkerrogersgirl]

Birds of a Feather- Chapter 2

Pairing: Bradley "Rooster" Bradshaw x Reader

Summary: you're stationed at Top Gun with your brother's long time best friend/your forever crush, Bradley. When you finally realized that your feelings were unrequited, you settled for Adrian. But what happens when Rooster reveals the truth about the man you thought loved you endlessly?

A/N: HI GUYS! I'M BACK!! This is my new series because i am an absolute hoe for Rooster, so I'm gifting this to all of you. I will be coming back to Anything But Free as well, I just needed to get this out of my head. I promise I will try to make the other chapters longer!

Warnings: fluff, pining, cheating, language, angst

Word Count: 2,617

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Rooster’s POV

Rooster hadn’t slept for more than an hour. When he finally did fall asleep around 4am, all he did was dream of you. By the time he woke, he had resolved that today, he would tell you everything. There was the possibility of losing you, sure. But even that was better than watching a cheating pig like Adrian use you over and over again. He got dressed into his running clothes so he could at least jog to your house to plan what he was going to say. As he stepped outside, locked his door, and began running, the intrusive thoughts returned.

There was no easy way to tell you that the man you’d loved for so long couldn’t care less about your feelings. The man you’d given so much, and from whom you’d received nothing in return. The man who broke your heart over and over again while Rooster picked up the pieces and put you back together. His brain was so full of thoughts and anxiety, he hadn’t even realized he was at your door.

Reader’s POV

As soon as you open your front door, Rooster envelopes you in one of his famous Bradshaw hugs. The moment his arms are around you, something inside you snaps and the dam breaks. You start sobbing, and Rooster picks you up and carries you to the kitchen. He sets you on the counter, staring at you.

“Are you- Do I smell biscuits and gravy?”

You laugh through your tears, “I made it for Adrian since it’s our anniversary but he won’t be home for breakfast. I was going to bring it to work for you.”

Rooster shakes his head, laughing with you, “you’re the best. And I will eat it later if you still want me to. But right now, I have to talk to you before I chicken out.”

He stands in front of you, taking your hands in his. “What I’m about to tell you is a big deal. If you never want to see me again because I’m the one telling you, I’m okay with that. I just couldn’t forgive myself if I let this go on any longer.”

You watch him cautiously, cocking an eyebrow, “Bradley, you’re freaking me out.”

He takes a deep breath and lets out in one breath, “Adrian is cheating on you.”

“He’s what?” You let out a nervous laugh, unsure of how else to react, “what are you talking about?”

“Like eight months ago, remember when you had pneumonia and you wouldn’t let anyone come over because you didn’t want them to get sick? You were upset because Adrian said he was working or some shit and he wouldn’t bring you soup. Well, he wasn’t sick. He was at the Hard Deck.”

Your heart sinks like it did earlier when you received Adrian’s text, “why would he lie to me about that? He could have just told me.”

“He lied because he didn’t want you to know he was there. He was there with another woman. I caught them fucking in the bathroom. He saw me and told me that you’d never believe me. And if you did, you would never trust me again because I ruined your relationship.”

You sit in silence for a few minutes, staring at your shoes and avoiding your best friend’s gaze. After a few minutes, he speaks up again.

“Do you want me to leave?”

“No.”

“Do you want to stay here?”

“Where else am I gonna go, Roo?” You finally make eye contact with him, his eyes pleading with yours.

“You can stay with me. I’ll help you move your stuff, we can carpool to work, it’ll be great.”

You feel warmth in your cheeks, but your smile falters almost immediately, “Why would he do this to me? Do I deserve this?”

Bradley wraps you in his arms again, kissing your forehead like he always does, “of course not, sweet girl. You only deserve happiness. He did this because he is spineless, and he doesn’t understand how wonderful you are. You are sunshine. When you walk in the room, everyone smiles. Adrian is selfish. You deserve someone who will take care of you.” Someone like me, his inner voice chimes in.

You take a deep breath to steel your nerves, “we should get ready for work.”

“I already called Mav and explained everything. We’re off the hook for today. He told me to take care of you. So, what do you want to do?”

“I think I need to leave him, Roo. I’m so tired. All this time he’s just been tolerating everything I do for him. I can’t do this anymore. This is the end.”

He squeezes you tightly one last time, “I’m gonna call a moving truck and have them come meet us here while we start packing your stuff. You’re gonna stay with me. It’s gonna be great.” Rooster picks up his phone and heads into the other room, making arrangements. You slowly slide off the counter and walk around the home you shared with the man you thought would be your endgame. You run your fingers along the walls, looking at the photos you’ve taken together. With Rooster’s bombshell, you’re noticing new details. How Adrian’s smile never really reached his eyes. How, on the few times he put his arm around you, it was possessive, like he was holding you in place. On the other end of the spectrum, there were photos where you were leaning on him, and he wasn’t returning the affection at all. He was simply supporting your weight.

When you reach your bedroom, you grab your suitcase set from under your bed. It was a gift from Adrian for your one-year anniversary when you’d made plans to go to Cabo together. A trip that had never happened because he’d “had to work.” Now, you wondered how many times he’d used that excuse on the phone with you with another woman’s tongue down his throat.

You went to your closet and started mindlessly packing your clothes into your suitcase, dissociating from the activity. Every so often, you find a t-shirt or hoodie of Adrian’s in the mix of your stuff, and you carefully fold it and put it on his side of the bed. You know with every fiber of your being that if you allowed any part of Adrian to slip through the cracks, you would forgive everything he had put you through.

You don’t know how long it’s been when Rooster puts a hand on your shoulder, making you jump.

“Sorry! I just wanted to tell you movers will be here soon. They’ll bring boxes for everything and pack it really carefully and bring it to my house. When we finish packing your clothes, we can get lunch and drive to my- our house.” He gives you a sweet smile before helping you continue to pack. When you fill up your largest suitcase, you move onto your smaller suitcases and pack your lighter clothes and accessories in them. Periodically, Rooster will hold up an article of your clothing and ask if you think he can pull it off, earning a small smile from you. Otherwise, you work in silence, both of you unable to fill the void that you feel in your heart. Eventually, the movers arrive and Rooster lets them in and explains the situation, then returns to finish helping you.

—------

Rooster’s POV

He’s helping you pack your last few items, when suddenly you speak up.

“Roo… Why are you helping me?”

Because I love you! His inner monologue screams. He bites his lip, continuing to fold your clothes.

“Because you’re my best friend. I care about you. Because I should have told you sooner. And… because it’s what my dad would’ve done.”

“Oh… Well why did you think I wouldn’t forgive you for telling me?”

Rooster takes a deep breath, putting your last pair of pants in your suitcase. “Adrian… He got in my head. He told me that if I told you what was going on, you would blame me for your relationship ending.”

You bite your lip, letting a nervous laugh slip out as you look around the bedroom which was now devoid of your belongings.

“Bradley… You realize that’s silly, right? He’s the reason the relationship is ending. He cheated. He just can’t handle taking the blame for something for once in his fucking life. He knows you’re too good to not tell me, so he manipulated you. That’s what he-” The sound of a car door closing cuts you off, and you look at your best friend with wide eyes.

“It’s okay, we have all of your stuff and the movers are gonna finish up. We can go. You don’t have to say anything to him.” He takes all of your suitcases in his hands with ease, and you follow him to the staircase.

“Baby? Are you here?” You hear your now-ex call from the foyer.

You shrink behind Bradley as you round the corner and begin your trek down the stairs.

“Y/N? What’s going on?”

“I-” Bradley shakes his head, turning slightly to give you a look.

“What the fuck does it look like, Adrian? She’s leaving you. You fucked up for the last time.”

Adrian scoffs, sending shivers up your spine, “yeah? And I suppose you’re gonna take care of her, big man? She’ll never forgive you. You did this.”

Bradley starts to say something, but you dodge around him and come face-to-face with the man you once loved.

“He didn’t do shit, Adrian. He didn’t cheat on me. He didn’t abandon me when I needed him most. He didn’t laugh at me with his friends. He didn’t ditch me on anniversaries, birthdays, when I was sick, just to fuck someone else. Bradley is the only one in this house who cares about me. The only thing he did was spare me from thinking you were my forever. Fuck you, and fuck everything I ever let you put me through.” Holding back tears, you pull out your favorite photo of the two of you, from your very first date at the Santa Monica Pier. You rip it into pieces while maintaining eye contact with him, then drop it to the floor.

You walk out of your house and hop in the passenger’s seat of Rooster’s car, and the dam breaks. Every emotion you’ve felt today comes pouring out, and you start sobbing. The loss of everything you thought you had comes crashing down, and you struggle to breathe between your sobs. You hear Bradley close the tailgate after loading your stuff, but your body won’t let the tears stop. He opens his door and when he sees your current state, his face falls.

—----------------

Rooster’s POV

“It’s okay, sweet girl. He can’t hurt you anymore. He can’t touch you. I won’t let him get near you ever again.” He continues whispering sweet nothings against your hair until he’s sure you’ve stopped crying. He drives you to his house with a determination you’ve never seen before and gets there in record time.

He steps out of the car and comes around to let you out, scooping you up in his arms and carrying you inside. He takes you up the stairs and sets you in his large master bathroom. He scuttles around, grabbing various bath products and towels, then turns on his bathtub faucet.

“Take a bath, take some deep breaths. I’ll get your clothes and some pajamas. Do you want to sleep in the guest room or my bedroom? I can sleep in the guest room if you want my bed, it’s more comfortable honestly.”

He can see the gears turning in your head as you weigh your options, then meets your gaze when your head moves up to look at him. “Can I sleep in your bed with you? I just want to cuddle… It’s okay if not I don’t want to bother you, I don’t want to make you uncomfortable I just don’t want to be alone and you’re my best friend-”

He cuts you off with a hug, and all he can think is that he’s screwed. Completely, totally screwed.

—-------------

Reader’s POV

Bradley’s quiet for a moment as he holds you, and all you can think is that you should have never overstepped. You know immediately you fucked up by asking him that, and nothing would ever be the same again.

He steps back with his hands on your shoulders, looking you directly in the eye again, “of course you can. It won’t bother me, it won’t make me uncomfortable. I know you need affection, and I’m your best friend. I’ll always be here for you. Now, I’m gonna go get your stuff, I’ll leave you some pajamas outside the door. Take your time and just breathe.”

You nod and thank him before stripping and slowly sinking into the tub, almost moaning at how surreal the water feels on your skin. Your mind wanders to when you were living with Adrian and how he never wanted you to take baths because it was time spent away from him. You couldn’t go out with friends, you couldn’t go on walks without him suspecting something was going on. He truly did trap you into thinking you were safe with him.

You shake off the thoughts of your ex and sink deeper into the water, letting your mind roam to thoughts of your best friend. He had done so much for you, and you had no idea how you would ever repay him. You’d had feelings for him years ago, and having him take care of you now was making those feelings resurface. It had been so long since someone had genuinely cared about you, listened to you, or made you feel appreciated. And here Bradley was, doing all those things like he always did. Ever since you had started dating Adrian, you could see that Bradley was concerned. You’d thought it was just a friendly kind of concern, but now you suspected it was more than that. Could this be the catalyst you needed to finally be with someone who showed you he cared about you every day? Could you confess your feelings without Bradley thinking it was an impulsive decision based on your current situation?

As you wash up and finish your bath, you resolve to tell Bradley in the morning when you were clear headed. Tonight, you would just bask in the affection and the knowledge that despite Adrian’s best efforts, you did have someone in your life that cherished you. And that was what mattered.

You get up and dry off, then turn to see your pajamas on the counter, along with a pair of underwear. Your eyes widen, embarrassed that he went through your underwear, until you realize that if the clothes are in the bathroom, that means he saw you in the bathtub. You blush at the thought of him seeing you naked but regretting you didn’t get to see his face. Did he linger to watch you? To appreciate you? You shake off the intrusive thoughts and get dressed before leaving the bathroom to see Bradley laying in his bed in shorts with no shirt. He extends his arms to invite you in, and you don’t waste a moment climbing into bed and snuggling up to him. He rolls the both of you onto your sides, still holding you close.

“Is this okay?” He asks softly into your hair, and you feel him start to stroke your arm.

“It’s perfect,” you mumble back, his touch lulling you into the first peaceful sleep you’ve had in months.

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@my-emotional-self @thankyouforanonymity @supernaturaldean67 @lostinthoughtsandfeelings @princess76179 @srgntjbarnes @jcc04220 @ilovethefandomwho-blog @a-tale-of-two-comics @p-parkerrr-blog @magellan-88 @healojane @mizz-kraziii @lostinspace33 @esther-maslow-90 @astheskycries @kunaikunari @turningtoclown

[potatomountain]

TLaM Chapter 4

“Warm Welcome”

mutant reader x human ateez- Seonghwa Focus

Word count: 2.5k

Warnings: there will be potential triggers for anxiety and mental illnesses all throughout this story. Not all characters are nice at first.

AN: not all chapters are going to be long, a reminder a lot of the times i don't edit my works and that this is a slow burn, its going to take awhile for mc to meet and trust each of the eight but she’ll get there!

This is a work of fiction, in particular Fan fiction, and in no way is this a representation or an accurate depiction of ATEEZ or any other idols/people used for this work.

Any feedback is always appreciated and adored! Comment on the masterlist to be added to the taglist <3

Masterlist

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Before he could reply or react, our attention was grabbed by a door swinging open a bit loudly and the soft pitter patter of someone's hurried steps: a very small someone. I saw them first, a Typhon child rushing into the room and up to Seonghwa, wrapping her arms around his legs just as he fully turned to the commotion.

"Ah, Eun Yeong, is something wrong?" Gently he reached down and rubbed the girl's bright orange hair, avoiding the three horns that were protruding through the strands an inch from her front hairline. The girl's wide vibrant red eyes were fixated on me, her black-tipped nose flaring as she breathed in my scent. 

As if finally registering Seonghwa's words she looked up at the much taller man, shoulder level with his knees. "Other kid sleeping, but I want to play." She pushed out her pouty lips and I noticed a scab in them, most likely from the constant grazing of her fangs.

Seonghwa peeled the young girl off his legs and knelt down in front of her, motioning back towards me. "I'm with another guest right now Eun Yeong, I can play with you later."

She huffed out, brushing him off and instead taking the two steps towards me. Her skin was naturally tanned, if a bit more with an orange tone than most, and she had freckles running over her bare arms and shoulders that were a deep black, giving a beautiful contrast to the blue and pink sundress she wore; she seemed a polar opposite to my own Typhon characteristics. 

We locked eyes over my tea cup as I took another sip, waiting for whatever this girl was going to do next. Just behind her Seonghwa seemed to be waiting as well, brows pulled up and together with obvious concern; even more so when she lifted a finger to point at me. "You wanna play?"

I nearly choked on my tea, setting it down as I cleared my throat and gathered my bearings. Seonghwa pulled her a few steps back and immediately began to apologize for her but I held up a hand to stop him. "She's fine I just-" I have never been asked that by a child, even the few Typhon children I had seen would stick to their parents and were very skittish as they often could sense the animosity towards them. "I didn't expect this. Her name is Eun Yeong?"

"Mhmm! I'm four!" With a toothy grin she escaped Seonghwa's hold and pulled herself onto the ottoman next to me. "Will you play?"

I could feel warmth radiating off of her, and I had to stop myself from leaning into her. "Seonghwa was going to give me a tour after I finished my tea." I pointed out, noticing the speckles went all the way down to her bare feet, the tips of her toes black. While I had initially declined, the girl had my curiosity even more peaked about this place.

"Can I join?"

"Eun Yeong… it's her first time here." Seonghwa began to protest before I could, still watching the two of us cautiously. It was clear he didn't want to scare me off, which was the opposite of what humans usually wanted.

I shook my head, feeling the corners of my lips lifting as I met the girl's eyes once more. "I don't mind if you join us… in fact I insist." With the young child next to me I felt a bit more relaxed in this new place, as if she was a little sun or ball of energy to ease the tension in the air as well as warm it up.

The way her features lit up, gasping with pure joy, solidified my decision. "Yays! I can tell you all the best places to nap!" With gusto she pushed herself off the seat and grabbed Seonghwa's hand. "Did she meet Mister Woo yet?"

He shook his head, letting out a soft sigh as he stood up. "No, Woo isn't here today, Eun Yeong. She can meet him next time if she wants…" He glanced up to meet my gaze just as I took another sip of my tea. "Wooyoung is my kitchen help and he often plays with the children here." He clarified, which I was grateful for.

With a soft nod I went silent, focused on the tea as Seonghwa turned his full attention to the Typhon girl. "You didn't ask for her name, Eun Yeong, what are you going to call your new friend?"

She gasped dramatically, turning to me with her brows pushed together. "Oh no- I was rude. Don't tell Yuyu!" Lips still against the tea cup I watched as the girl knit picked at her appearance and posture until she was bowing formally. "Nice to meet you, I'm Eun Yeong, and you are?"

Just to make her wait I finished off my tea, slowly setting it down. She looked adorable glancing up at me impatiently through the orange fringe, fidgeting her hands in front of her as she waited for my reply. I told her my name, watched her stand back up with relief, and then continued with "but you can call me whatever you like."

"Then Unnie?"

Well… I don't think I've ever met a more straightforward person in my life, and this girl was just four. "Sure." Happy with my acceptance, she bounced on her feet, giggling and glancing at the hall. I didn't think she was going to wait much longer, so slowly I pushed myself off the ottoman, filling up the tea cup. "How about I drink this during the tour? There is a lot of tea anyway."

She let out a low squeal, tugging on Seonghwa's arm and looking up at him just as he locked eyes with me. "If that's what she wants then let's start the tour. It's not much, I assure you."

"It is already plenty, Seonghwa, I'm excited to see the rest." Admittedly I was, even with my nerves still on edge and every little sound filtering in my mind for any sign of danger.

This place was already so welcoming it was hard not to like it… but for that reason alone I didn't want to trust it. If I didn't know Seonghwa's father, someone I trusted, I probably wouldn’t have rethought the tour and even ignored the child; but I wanted to make an effort.

After a small moment of hesitation, Seonghwa nodded and then motioned towards the arch. "This is our lounge, across the hall is the children's room. Eun-Yeong?"

"Yes! Come see!" The fiery child rushed ahead of us and into the hall, holding onto the door knob until both Seonghwa and I were behind her. She pushed the door open with more care than she had left the room earlier, then stepped inside.

The room was large, not as big as the lounge area but decent. I was expecting a typical children's room like on TV, but this was different. One corner of the room was set up as a children's reading corner with different sizes of colorful chairs. Another corner of the room seemed to be a makeshift fort with several layers built in as it reached the ceiling. Between the two setups were three little teepees, and I could make out a pair of feet sticking out of the left one by the fort. That must be the other kid Eun-yeong mentioned.

The corner to the left of the door was organized with several shelves for toy bins, with a few desks to the right of the door and a full black chalkboard wall with rules written on it as well as basic words and lessons. 

It was well organized, not too colorful or chaotic but it wasn't lacking either. The center of the room held an array of small tables for toys, dollhouses to the left and more play room just under the windows to the right, neither were cluttered and plenty of space between them all.

"This is a neat room…" It actually looked fun, a stark contrast to the play rooms I had as a child. "What else is there?"

Eun-yeong pouted at my eagerness to move on, her hands finding purpose on her hips. "This is the best room though!"

Seonghwa seemed to be fighting off laughter. "For you maybe, but not for us adults." 

"Being an adult sounds boring."

This time he did laugh at her sassy counter, my own lips pulling up into a grin, a small giggle leaving me. "It is boring, stay young forever."

Eun-yeong sighed as if she had many worries on her mind, shaking her head. "Silly adults. Come, I show you next room." Taking the lead she walked past us and out into the hall. Still laughing, Seonghwa and I followed. I busied myself with a drink of my tea while Seonghwa shut the door and followed after the small girl.

"What room are we going to show her next?" A few meters down the hall we came to a stop in front of a crossroads of shorts. To the left was a partition, a few computer monitors could be seen over it on a desk with a door behind it labeled "office". To the right were stairs, and straight ahead there was a kitchen door on the right.

Eun Yeong looked at her options, weighing them heavily. "They're all boring!" Huffing, she turned to look up at Seonghwa with a pout. "What do you think?"

"Well- why don't we just tell her?"

"Fine." The girl turned to me, the teacup pausing against my lips. "The stairs go to the rooms for the others."

"There are rooms for rent upstairs for Typhon's, but I budget with them or just have them help out around the place as payment." Seonghwa clarified as I just nodded, lowering the cup.

Eun Yeong pointed to the door by the stairs. "The kitchen. Woo is usually in there!"

Seonghwa quickly added on "Our residents are also welcome to help themselves but guests like you I enjoy taking care of." The smile he sent my way was sweet, genuine, but didn't relax me as I knew it's intention was.

"And there-" Eun Yeong continued as she pointed to the office. "Mister Sangie works there sometimes! But it's really Hwa's space."

"She means Yeosang, he's a friend of Wooyoung's who's very good with tech. He installed my security and comes by to update or check for problems occasionally." Once more I was thankful for his clarification but…

"Why are you telling me all this? I'm simply a guest right?"

He paused, tongue poking the inside of his cheek as he thought it over. "Well, my father has talked about you quite a bit so I wouldn't say that. I hope you, more than anyone, can enjoy this place to your heart's content."

I frowned, looking down at my nearly empty teacup. "I see… I'm going to finish my tea now, thank you for the tour." I bowed my head a bit and turned on my heel. 

"I- Blue wait…" I had managed only a handful of steps before the human had caught up to me, standing in my way. "Did I make you uncomfortable? If so I'm sorry I-"

"You didn't make me uncomfortable, Seonghwa, I haven't gotten comfortable enough to become uncomfortable just yet." I stopped him, looking up through my lashes despite the eye contact making me uneasy. "That is nothing against you or this place, I just- it's very new to me. All of this. And it is a bit much."

I ignored the whirlwind of emotions he showcased, my only familiarity with this reaction being his own father and even that was limited. Shifting, I moved past him and back into the lounge area. "Please don't fret, despite my unfamiliarity with all this, I don't necessarily dislike it." I really just didn't know how to handle it, or how to process this.

The tavern was warm and welcoming in ways that felt unsafe to me, simply because they were new and unfamiliar. 

Seonghwa followed behind, stopping just inside the archway as I stopped at the table and tea. "Alright… shall I leave you to your tea?" 

Turning to face him, as I felt I owed him that much, I froze in place as a new face entered my line of sight: the sleeping figure was now staring me down. He was human, despite my initial confusion over his bright orange and red hair, there were no other signs or indications he wasn't. He seemed to still be quite drowsy, his stare hazy as he blinked dark eyes into focus.

A chill ran down my spine as the man's full lips pulled into a boyish grin, waving a large hand in greeting. He didn't seem shocked to see an unfamiliar Typhon here, which given the nature of the business made sense; yet he greeted me as if I was just another friendly human.

I was far too confused by his actions to notice Eun-yeong run in, not until she was squealing and jumping into the strangers arms. "Minnie!! You woke up!"

Panicked, I did the only thing I could do without bolting or changing- I glanced at Seonghwa out of the corner of my eye with a silent plea for help. 

He seemed to catch on, stepping between the stranger and myself. "We have a guest, would you like to introduce yourself and head into the playroom?"

Eunyeong had a different idea. "Can't Unnie come with?"

"Miss Blue is overwhelmed right now, Eunyeong, we need to give her space." Once more I was astonished by Seonghwa's gentle tone and kindness for Typhons in general. It truly felt as if Typhon's were treated no different than humans here- I couldn't wrap my head around it.

"Oh, a newcomer?" The stranger's deep voice startled me, the back of my thigh hitting the table behind me when I jumped back. I held my breath when he looked around Seonghwa with that same boyish grin. "Welcome, I'm Mingi. I'm usually here with Eunyeong."

They are being so kind I should be polite.

Easier said than done, a frightened mewl left my lips when I tried to speak, eyes now wide as saucers. The three stared at me, perplexed, but I could only shake my head.

Limit reached. 

Speech was out of the question so I pointed to the tea, then Seonghwa, and bowed my thanks, rushing out of the tavern in a heavy jog.

I didn't stop until I was at the subway entrance, out of breath.

Only when I descended the stairs and people scurried out of my way did I realize I left my hat and glasses back at the Tavern- and I didn't pay either. Sure he said the tea was free but…

I suppose it was more reason to consider going back… could I actually muster up the courage though?

============================================================

Tag list:  @justhere4kpop  |  @hwaightme-recs  |  @candypop1611 | @legohwas |   @spooo00oky | @sanniessnails | @babyhailey819   | @simplyalfie | @diamondjen03  | ask to be added <3

[imapuppy5000]

Even MORE Vlk nonsense. If yall are interested in other stuff I have two stories that I started and never finished. I can give yall the pieces in another post, only one is about Vlk.

The more Vlk got to know her new landlord the more she wanted to leave. Not because the princess of hell was anything but kind but rather because she was so kind. She was persistent, saw the best in everyone, wanted to help everyone, wouldn’t hurt a fly, and worst of all, she was so optimistic. If she had social anxiety she would be Lilith’s carbon copy. And that made forgetting her life on earth really difficult. She was already having enough issues with her feelings for Val but now she had to be reminded of the daughter she’d never see again every time she came home. It hurt so bad.

So… she avoided Charlie as much as possible. She wasn’t subtle about it either and the residents were noticing. Angel had asked about it once but didn’t press any further when Vlk snapped it wasn’t his place to know. Husker didn’t really seem to care, neither did niffty. Alastor, the sadist, found joy in Vlk’s repeated neglect of the hotel manager and Charlie’s subsequent sadness.

Of course, she couldn’t be so blunt forever because there was one particular staff member that was not having her attitude. She had been avoiding Vaggie too because of that. Unfortunately you could only run from your problems for so long. And… this was the end of the line for her.

“What’s your problem?!” Vaggie snarled, having trapped Vlk in the kitchen after dinner.

“What are you going on about?” Vlk growled back evenly, slipping on gloves and washing her plate. She wasn’t a fan of wet fur so she avoided it when possible.

“Why do you continuously go out of your way to avoid Charlie? She’s offering you a place to stay, food, and protection all free of charge and you can’t even say ‘hi’ in the morning or ‘thanks’ when she serves you food?”

“Look I get you’re her little guard dog but I’m not appreciating your tone. I don’t have to interact with anyone I don’t want to. She said I only need to do what I’m comfortable with. And right now? I’m not comfortable with her.” She tried to keep her voice even and ears and tail still. Her muzzle kept wanting to curl into a snarl but she didn’t let it.

“Why not? What has she done so wrong to get this kind of reaction out of you?”

“Nothing in particular.”

“Are you just scared of her then? Cause you know she’d never hurt you.”

“I’m not scared of the goody-two-shoes, no.” Her muzzle did twitch this time, offended at the idea.

“Then what?!” Vaggie snapped, throwing her arms to the side and glaring dangerously at Vlk. “And you better tell me so we can get it resolved because you’re not even attending meetings or anything that she’s involved in and those are *mandatory* if you wanna stay here.”

Vlk turned around, setting her plate on the counter to dry, taking off her gloves, and leaning back to study Vaggie for a few moments, all without a word. Eventually she sighed, “Your little princess brings back memories I’m trying to suppress, alright? Makes it hard to want to be in this hotel.”

“What kind of memories?” The angel shifted into a more passive stance, worry written plainly on her face. “Did she… do something to trigger them?”

“Just memories.” Vlk growled tersely, ears flat.

“Well, how can I help fix the problem?” Vaggie ran a hand through her hair and looked away.

“You can’t. But if you're so bent out of shape about it I’ll attend the meetings. Just don’t expect me to become any sort of buddy-buddy with Princess Morningstar.” With that, Vlk shoved past and left the kitchen, almost running face first into the very topic of the conversation who happened to be looking for her girlfriend.

Charlie made a pained face, when Vlk backed away, eyes wide. Biting back a response, she moved past the manager and muttered a quick, “sorry.” Under her breath.

“Wait, Vlk…” Charlie called, stopping the fox in her tracks. Vlk’s ears were back and shoulders hunched as Charlie continued, “Is there anything I can do to help your stay be more… comforting?”

“No.” Vlk said before laughing tensely and adding, “Unless you wanna go beat up some innocent kid or start cursing like a sailor.”

“That sounds f—king awful, b—-ch. What's wrong with you?” It wasn’t said aggressively and Vlk turned to face the princess in awe. She was being mean? Just the act of turning to face her had Charlie grinning an all to familiar grin and Vlk immediately wanted to turn away again but she didn’t.

“That works.” Vlk laughed, genuine this time. “Yeah. Keep that up and maybe I’ll be more comfortable around you.”

Charlie nodded with a smile and Vaggie set a hand on her shoulder, happy that they were starting to build a relationship— as odd of a way as this was.

“Night, princess.” Vlk said, turning away and going to her room.

Very faintly she heard a, “Goodnight, c—t.” and smiled to herself.

[tutuntuntuinen]

Close eyes, breathe in, breathe out

I wrote this today and I'll just leave it here. It's Good Omens fan fiction. It takes place 6 months after S2.

Aziraphale longs for Earth and fears seeing Crowley. Most of the time, he deals with it by closing his eyes and breathing in and out. If you're looking for good dialogue between these two idiots, you're in the wrong place. However, here is a chance for a better future.

I think I'm projecting my own anxiety into this too much. Sorry about that. Also, Englis is not my native language.

Aziraphale had returned to Heaven and was now diligently working as the supreme archangel to make Heaven a better place, all while keeping an eye on Metatron's plans regarding the Second Coming. The beginning had been tough. Aziraphale missed Earth and everything it had offered him for the past 6000 years. Books, pastries, music... and, of course, a certain demon.

During the first week, Aziraphale struggled every second not to rush into the elevator and return to Earth. Soon, avoiding thoughts of returning to Earth became easier as he focused on the tasks assigned to him. None of these tasks concerned the Second Coming; they were mundane, dull, and insignificant. It suited Aziraphale at that moment more than anything. He immersed himself so deeply in them that there was simply no time for thoughts. If Aziraphale lifted his gaze from his papers and looked into the bright emptiness of Heaven, his thoughts immediately returned to Earth, causing him physical pain in his chest and tears welling up in his eyes. So, he immersed himself in his tasks, and when they finished, he begged for more. Anything to avoid thinking. And so, six months passed.

More challenging were the situations where he was asked about Earthly matters. Angels were indeed ignorant of all things related to humans. Once, an angel asked him about the Queen. They wanted to know why her death was such a big deal and how it related to music. The question caused a biological short circuit in Aziraphale's brain. The walls he had built in his mind collapsed one by one like dominoes. He had strongly identified as English, and the death of the queen was, of course, a shocking piece of news. What completed Aziraphale's short circuit and made him rush towards the elevators was the mention of music.

Britain, Queen, Bentley, Crowley... "You are my best friend," "Good Old-Fashioned Lover Boy," "Don’t Stop Me Now"... Inside the elevator, Aziraphale's mind played snippets of Queen's songs he had heard over the years from Bentley's radio. Midway through the elevator ride, he almost pressed the stop button, realizing he was actually in the elevator and not just imagining it. But it was as if Earth was pulling him, and he kept his hand away. Right then, Heaven didn't matter. When the elevator doors opened, his eyes were so full of tears that he could hardly see ahead. The elevator had manifested itself onto a corner in Soho, and he took the necessary steps to step out. It was his first time on Earth in half a year. The smells of the city, the noise of traffic, and the crowds pushed against him strongly, and the angel stood still. He squeezed his eyes shut and wiped the tears from his cheeks with the back of his hand. When he opened his eyes again, he saw his bookstore, Nina's café, and Maggie's record store in the distance. The pain in the angel's chest grew so intense that he almost turned back to the elevator. However, he clenched his fists, closed his eyes, and breathed deeply of London's air. He breathed out and then in again. He repeated it until his hands relaxed, and he could open his eyes once more.

Aziraphale was now breathing calmly and watching the familiar street's bustle relatively calmly. A part of him hoped to see familiar faces on the street, while another part doubted whether his mind could handle another surge of emotions. His stomach churned at the thought that Crowley might turn the corner at any moment. As if fearing this, the angel closed his eyes again and focused on regulating his intensified breathing. He was afraid to open his eyes. He felt around with his hand, found the wall, and leaned against it. What if he opened his eyes and Crowley was right there? What if he wasn’t? Crowley could be anywhere between London and Alpha Centauri. Aziraphale had last seen Crowley standing next to Bentley, watching as he entered the elevator with Metatron. Crowley hadn’t moved, and Aziraphale didn’t know what the demon had done after the elevator doors closed. It had been six months now.

Reality felt much stronger on Earth than in Heaven, and Aziraphale hadn’t been prepared for that. Memories that Aziraphale had actively tried to suppress started leaking through the protective walls built over months. The encounter with Crowley in the bookstore was one of these memories. He wasn’t ready then, and he wasn’t ready now. When would he be ready? Would he ever be? If he could have the conversation again, would he still know what to say? Aziraphale felt his knees giving way, and he sank down against the wall, knees bent.

Was there a version where he could both save the world and be with Crowley?

If Crowley were standing in front of him now, what would he say?

Aziraphale sighed heavily, opened his eyes, and looked up. Crowley wasn’t standing before him, leaning on his car, or walking down the street. Aziraphale wasn’t sure if he was relieved or disappointed, but at least he was calmer. He pushed himself off the wall, stood up. He looked around once more and then stepped back into the elevator and returned to Heaven.

***

The espresso served in a small cup should be enjoyed right away because cooling significantly affects its taste. A small cup of espresso cools down to ice-cold within a minute. The cooling of a mug containing six servings of espresso takes approximately the duration of one angel's mental breakdown.

***

Aziraphale felt better after his visit to Earth, sensing improved self-control. He was relieved that the visit hadn’t caused any repercussions. Apparently, the movements of the supreme archangel weren't closely monitored, and even Gabriel had occasionally visited Earth. Aziraphale sought out the angel who had inquired about the Queen and made it clear to them the distinction between Queen Elizabeth II and the band named Queen. Talking about the subject still stirred a burning sensation in the angel's chest, but it didn't feel as severe as before the visit to Earth. He noticed himself smiling and felt an excited flutter in his stomach as the curious angel posed further questions about music. Aziraphale decided that Heaven needed a record player. And perhaps books as well... he knew where he would retrieve those from.

To keep himself in check, Aziraphale decided to limit his visits to Earth to twice a month. It would be enough to have something to look forward to all the time, yet little enough for him to continue his work and focus on why he had come to Heaven in the first place. Before his next visit to Earth, Aziraphale had made a list of things he intended to acquire. He documented the music and book lists in Heaven's official records as educational material. This time, as Aziraphale stepped into the elevator, he was much calmer than before. He straightened his bowtie and adjusted his waistcoat as the elevator descended, but as Earth approached, the tension became almost unbearable. What if Crowley were waiting behind the elevator doors? Aziraphale shook his head, feeling paranoid. The demon had no reason to wait in front of Heaven and Hell's elevator doors on an ordinary Wednesday morning. Still, the angel held his breath as the doors opened and sighed when they revealed the typical morning rush and crowd of people in Soho.

Aziraphale headed straight for Maggie's record store. He had a list of records he wanted Maggie to procure for him. The angel had spent much time compiling a list of the top hundred records that would serve as the foundation for Heaven's record collection. He had a similar list for books. As Aziraphale reached the entrance of the record store, he took a deep breath, straightened his posture, and stepped inside. He had anticipated Maggie's reaction, but the screaming, almost leaping woman over the counter surprised him nonetheless. Maggie hurried over to Aziraphale, opening and closing her mouth but unable to produce a single word. Eventually, she hugged Aziraphale tightly, wiping tears from her eyes after breaking away.

"You..." Maggie began. "...you've come back?" she continued, her voice uncertain.

"I came to pick up some records," Aziraphale replied, managing to keep his tone steady and business-like. He retrieved a white paper from his pocket. He noticed it was trembling slightly in his hands and focused on breathing in and out again. Emotions were rising again, but he wanted to keep them in check. If he let them take over, he would lose his ability to function and would have to return to Heaven before sorting out all his affairs.

"When... how long... have you...?" Maggie continued to stumble over her words, unable to form a complete sentence. Aziraphale smiled at the woman who hadn't changed much during his absence. The angel's throat burned as he considered asking about Crowley, but he decided it wasn't the right time. Not yet. He looked into Maggie's eyes and shook his head. Maggie gazed back at the angel and understood that it wasn't the time for questions.

"If it's possible for you to gather the records listed here, I'll come to collect them in two weeks," the angel said calmly. "Do you think that's achievable?"

Maggie looked at Aziraphale, visibly calmer now, and then took the paper, examining it. She quickly read through it and then looked back at the angel. "Don't you already have most of these?" she asked, confused.

"They're not precisely for me, they're educational materials," the angel responded. Maggie furrowed her brows but decided not to inquire further. Aziraphale had been away for a long time, and Maggie didn't know what had happened during that time. She only knew what the locals talked about. She also knew that her and Nina's intervention regarding Aziraphale and Crowley's relationship hadn’t resulted in the desired outcome; something unpleasant had happened. Maggie looked into Aziraphale's eyes, took his hand, and squeezed it reassuringly. The angel startled but looked at Maggie, and she noticed sorrow in his gaze. However, Aziraphale smiled, squeezed Maggie's hand, and nodded.

"I'll come to pick up the records in two weeks," he said and left the record store. Maggie watched him go but then began going through the list, searching for the records.

***

Aziraphale was mentally breathless after stepping out of the record shop. He had been preoccupied with the possibility of Crowley suddenly appearing from around the corner, and hadn't considered what he would say to other people he knew. Just before leaving, he had contemplated stopping by Nina's café, but now the thought seemed impossible. Maggie had understood from Aziraphale's expression alone that he wasn't up for answering questions, but Nina surely wouldn't give up until she had received a detailed account of the events of the past six months. The angel briskly walked past the café towards the bookstore, grasped the door handle, and slipped inside. The bookstore felt familiar and quiet. Aziraphale stood in the entrance for a moment, looking around. He had expected the place to stir painful memories and quickly had to shut his eyes to protect himself from them. Leaning against the wall, he focused on breathing again. Soon, however, he heard footsteps coming from the direction of the counter and opened his eyes. Muriel had paused in the middle of the room, staring at the other angel with their mouth agape and eyes wide.

"Are you alright?" the angel asked, concerned, taking a few steps closer. Aziraphale straightened up and smiled. He focused on Muriel and only Muriel, avoiding looking at all those places where he had spent time with Crowley. Or that corner where Crowley had stood when Aziraphale had told him about his departure to Heaven and Crowley's place by his side. He also absolutely did not look at the spot in the middle of the room where Muriel was standing right now... where... Aziraphale felt his bowtie tightening around his neck, and he coughed, trying to loosen it. He took a deep breath.

"Everything's fine," he said. "I came to place an order for books."

"Unfortunately, all the books are currently out of stock," Muriel replied, their face serious. Aziraphale stared at the other angel for a moment and then glanced around. The shelves were filled with books, as if nothing had been touched in half a year.

"Ah, I see... I understand," Aziraphale replied, and he felt a small smile creeping onto his lips. He suddenly felt like hugging the angel but settled for warmly smiling instead. "Good job!"

"Thank you," Muriel replied, smiling, pride in their voice. They rocked back and forth on their heels with their hands behind their back.

"I won't be taking books from this shop; I want to place an order with a certain collaborator. The contact details are in the desk drawer," Aziraphale explained and walked towards the writing desk. Muriel watched him go and made no move to stop him. Apparently, Aziraphale still held the proprietor's rights in this store. He fetched his address book from the drawer and then sat down, writing the address on an envelope. He took out a list of the chosen books from his pocket, put the list into the envelope, and wrote an accompanying letter explaining the details of the order. Throughout the entire writing process, Muriel stood in the middle of the room, observing Aziraphale's activities. When the letter was finished, Aziraphale walked over to Muriel.

"Thank you for taking good care of the shop," he said to Muriel, smiling, and patted them on the shoulder.

"I couldn't do this alone," to Aziraphale's surprise, Muriel replied. Muriel no longer looked towards Aziraphale but out of the window. Aziraphale turned to look, but he didn't see anyone there.

"Who..." Aziraphale started but then shook his head. "No, don't..." he stepped back. "Good job, see you later," he muttered and continued stepping back out of the bookstore. He opened the door, stepped onto the bookstore steps, and saw in front of him the black Bentley. Leaning on the black car was Crowley, who was looking straight at Aziraphale, arms crossed. Sunglasses covered the demon's eyes, and his expression was serious. Aziraphale was close to losing consciousness. His legs felt like they were giving way, and he leaned against the bookstore door. His heart was pounding harder than ever, and the burning sensation in his chest was almost unbearable. It felt like his brain was shutting down block by block, and his only escape was to shut his eyes again.

"Are you secretly visiting Earth again?" Crowley asked in a low voice devoid of any emotion. Again? Aziraphale swallowed, feeling exposed in front of Crowley. He dared not open his eyes, not to face Crowley's condemning gaze. The angel focused on breathing again. If he kept his eyes closed and focused only on breathing, would the outside world cease to exist?

"Come on, let's go inside," Crowley's voice suddenly sounded right next to Aziraphale, and he felt the demon grip his elbow. Aziraphale flinched, straightened up, and opened his eyes. Crowley didn't look towards him but leaned to open the door next to the angel and pushed him inside the bookstore. Muriel made a small startled sound upon noticing the duo at the door.

"Muriel," Crowley said in a tense tone, and before he could continue further, Muriel nodded and hurried out of the bookstore. Every limb of Aziraphale felt like it was made of wood. He couldn't imagine moving, and his head was buzzing. The demon still held onto the angel's elbow, guiding him deeper into the bookstore and onto a sofa. Crowley himself sat in an armchair, crossed his arms, and casually rested one leg over the other. Aziraphale glanced at him; sunglasses covered his eyes, and his expression remained serious. Aziraphale quickly averted his gaze and shut his eyes again. It was silent for a long time. Aziraphale felt himself calming down again. He opened his eyes and looked towards the demon. Crowley stared back at him through his glasses. The sun shone through the bookstore window at an angle that allowed Aziraphale to see the demon's yellow eyes. It was impossible to say how much time passed. They just silently stared at each other. Aziraphale wished more than anything that Crowley would say something, but he knew it wouldn't happen. This time, Aziraphale had to make the first move. The staring continued for a while longer. Then Aziraphale opened his mouth. However, he couldn't say anything. Crowley's expression flickered, and he raised his eyebrows slightly. Aziraphale swallowed, looked deep into the demon's eyes, and asked softly and uncertainly:

"Is there a version where we could be together and still save the world?"

Crowley blinked and looked past Aziraphale out of the window for a moment. The demon sighed, and with the exhalation, all stiffness and tension disappeared as he sank into the soft armchair.

"Perhaps..." he replied, his voice not louder than a whisper.

***

And yes, "Is there a version..." is shamelessly stolen from Staged and I regret nothing.

[vollereix]

Alright, going for another idea here. Kitsune reader who is found by Miko and maybe some other Inazuma characters after getting attacked by a group of (rift) wolves. Is covered in many scratches, perhaps had an ear partially bit off?

Ooh that’s a nice one, i’m making this more of a mother-daughter dynamic if you don’t mind ><.

You jumped backwards, barely dodging the ridthound’s tail strike. Defenceless you could only run and hope that it stops chasing after you.

Looking back at the pack of wolves, you saw them disappear. Thinking that they left you alone, you stopped running, trying to steady your breathing.

“!!” A painful blow hit your head making you fall onto the ground.

Tears welled up in your eyes as you tried to create as much distance between you and the rift hound. You had scratches all over your body and although you couldn’t see it, you knew your ear was injured.

Squeezing your eyes shut, you prepared for the next attack only to be met with nothing. Slowly, you peaked out of your hands, eyes landing on a pink haired lady.

Noticing your gaze, Miko gave you a close eyed smile before carefully approaching you. Although you were still wary about her, you didn’t make a move to avoid her touch.

“Oh dear little one, it seems you’ve taken quite a substantial amount of damage.” She held one of your hands in her own, helping you up.

“Follow me, i’ll get you patched up!” Her cheery voice comforted you.

Although still a bit hesitant, you followed after her. It was a long walk back to the grand narukami shrine, by the time you’ve reached you were ready to pass out.

After making sure you were comfortable, Miko went to start a warm bath and grab a few first aid stuff. Kneeling down to be at your eye level, she slowly disinfected your wounds. Checking to make sure you were alright every few minutes.

Once she was done, she moved to your ear. That was when you finally let out a soft sob, despite the pain in your body, what hurt most was the fact that your ears had been hurt.

You loved your fluffy ears, everyone you’ve met would try to touch it. Of course you would let them, you enjoyed basking in their attention. Now that your ear was hurt, you were afraid people might not like you anymore.

“oh what’s wrong? I didn’t hurt you, did I?” shaking your head you wiped away the tears threatening to fall.

“pretty pink lady, you can fix my ear right? right…?” You looked at her hopefully.

A small smile plastered Yae Mojo’s face at the name you’ve given her, “but of course, it’ll take a while but don’t worry. Your ear will be good as new in no time.”

Hearing those words put your mind at ease. You let her work in silence after that, heart content with the her answer.

Even if you had only know her for less than a day, you could easily tell that she was someone you wanted to know better.

Saving you from the rift hounds, cleaning your cuts and bruises, giving you a warm bath and a new set of clothes. You’ve never came across anyone quite as nice as her.

When night came, you anxiously waited outside the door. Miko was talking to a few shrine maidens inside, you were looking around uneasily.

The door opened, “ah! little one, perfect timing!”

The previous anxiety you felt was instantly swept away at her tone. Unlike what you had thought, she didn’t have any intentions of kicking you out.

“why don’t you stay here for the time being, at least until you have somewhere you want to go. I can even introduce you to some of my friends in the morning!” A wide smile was etched on your face.

You practically beamed at her, “yes please!”

[pearlwriter]

The afternoon sun shone high overhead. The smell of blood and wet soil hung in the air, the earth was damp from the heavy dew drops from the night before. Tom lay on the ground, still dazed from falling off his horse, his head pounding from landing on his back, or was he hit with a mace to the head? For moments he blinked, sweat and hair fell on his eyes. His body felt numb, but he could feel the metal of his armor growing hot on his skin. He remembered his horse galloping toward the glen pursuing the enemy when his horse suddenly reared up on his hind legs to avoid a collision against a man? a shadow? The shape was a blur, it leapt onto the road like a sack of potatoes. He fell backwards, too late to grab the reins and the impact made him see stars and bright red. The horse turned a full circle and shrieked, galloping over his dazed rider, missing being crushed by mere inches. His hand went to touch his face but the metal gauntlet only clanged against his helmet. ‘Damn’ he cursed as he struggled to sit upright. The sounds of men shouting and horses seemed so far away. ‘They’ve moved on, but who was alive, us or the enemy?’ Tom couldn’t see behind him, he hoped it was his comrades still alive and fighting. ‘How long was I unconscious?’ The taste of blood was still fresh, not too long. He moved his foot and his leg, making sure nothing was broken. Just a bruised head and laceration somewhere on his scalp. He debated taking his helmet off but quickly decided no. Another ambush would leave his head an easy target.

He struggled to stand up, leaning against the trunk of a fallen tree to catch his breath. Keil’s army isn’t too far ahead. His army was slowed down by carrying heavy artillery. At most, two hours at full gallop. He needed to find his men and regroup. He wondered who was left alive. He looked for his sword, it was thrown to the side of the road, his shield no where to be found. Probably still on my horse, he thought. With a groan, he stood up and picked his sword up among the grass. He wondered if he had any broken ribs. Doesn’t matter, he thought. I’ll walk the whole way if I must. I will destroy him. We’ll go down together. She’s waiting for me, I hope she’s still alive. With a grim thought he knew she was alive but only because Keil needed her hostage to force the King’s army to pursue him. Maybe he killed her anyway and it’ll be too late, he thought with a wave of anxiety. No, don’t think that. Clear your mind. I will face the enemy and will need my wits. The crows above cawed loudly and flew from the trees, were they encouraging him or laughing at his demise?

//

He recognized her right away. Sitting alone on a garish red recliner, her grey and white dress out of place among the sea of bright pinks, yellows, and pastel blue dresses of the ladies dancing around her. She was oblivious to the laughter and chattering of men competing with each other to impress the groups of ladies, giggling and flirting with their eyes behind feathery fans. Yet she paid them no attention, her back was against the spectacle. She was starting out a very large window overlooking the palace garden. He turned toward that direction and saw a small group of people playing a game of croquet on the green. Three brightly dressed ladies and two men were eagerly swatting a small wooden ball through hoops with absurdly large mallets. The girls exclaiming when the ball rolled sideways away from the hoop, the men chuckling and rushing over to offer tips on how to hit better. The ladies were obviously playing bad on purpose, letting the men get close to them. They made their way slowly across the lawn, following a colorful path of markers, each a new obstacle of evenly spaced hoops.

Yet she didn’t seem to be interested in the game, merely following their progress. She would occasionally look up in the sky. She seemed to study the clouds overhead. He followed her gaze and high up, two dots moved gracefully. Hawks, he realized. The King kept a falconry, a dozen birds he proudly showed off when hunting. He saw her look up, her face turning slowly left and right following their flight. When they passed the view of the window, she would watch the group below playing their game. She then got up slightly from the futon to strain her neck up left, looking for the two dots gliding fast towards the dust and field. Her long black hair a massive braid fell from her shoulder when she stood, her pale neck suddenly exposed. He felt himself blush slightly and looked down guiltily.

‘They must’ve spotted a rabbit,’ Tom thought. He couldn’t stop watching her, she was poised and observant, as if studying the habits of simple creatures going about their business. The hawks were definitely more interesting to her.

Her plucked up courage and slowly walked toward her, not wanting to startle her. He smiled and with a little bow he said ‘Interesting game, croquet. Do you play?’ She looked up with a little start. Her grey eyes widened at the sudden voice next to her. She dropped her gaze and looked out the window again. She was slightly annoyed at the intrusion. ‘Hardly, I’m watching them because there’s nothing else interesting. She pointed with her head towards the sky. ‘Except those two’ she said with a sigh still not making eye contact.

Tom felt his face redden slightly at the indifferent response. He was used to ladies returning his greeting with a smile and a giggle. He wasn’t used to being treated like a servant offering unwanted wine.

‘I feel like we started on the wrong foot, my lady. I apologize for my rude behavior the other day. I didn’t introduce myself properly.’ She turned to him with raised eyebrows, her grey eyes searching his face. She still didn’t smile. Undeterred, he did a half step and bowed, his right arm crossed his chest with his left extended. A courtly bow indeed. ‘My lady, he continued. May I introduce myself. He stood up and said with his most formal voice and a slight smile. ‘My name is Thomas de LionCourt of Burgeoyn. I serve in the Kings’s Guard on behalf of my father the Duke of Burgeoyn. I’m very pleased to meet you.’ He nodded and hoped she wouldn’t laugh.

She didn’t. Her grey eyes studied his. Will she dismiss him with a wave of her hand? Or say nothing and continued to look for the hawks in the sky? There was a long pause. Each looking at each other. An eternity seemed to pass and time slowed. The merry din around them became a blur and the sound an indistinguishable murmur. His heart was pounding in his ears and he almost broke his smile. He resisted the urge to run away and hide. Just before he lost his nerve, she smiled. A little one but it changed her grey eyes from a steely mirror to a soft grey of mourning doves. ‘I’m pleased to meet you, Sir de LionCourt of Burgeoyn.’ Tom let out a breath, he didn’t know he was holding it. He wanted to shout gleefully but remained calm and collected. ‘Please, call me Tom. All my friends do.’ He kicked himself mentally. ‘I should’ve have said that, she’ll think I’m TOO friendly.’ She didn’t seem to notice. ‘Alright then, Sir Tom. You know ‘she continue, ‘no need to be formal since we’ve met. Yes. It was a little rocky, I admit.’ ‘I’m Ravenna. You know my father and my siblings I assume?’ Tom nodded, ‘yes, wonderful people.’ He kicked himself mentally again. ‘That sounded insulting.’

He cleared his throat and looked up into the sky. ‘The King’s hawks. Aren’t they magnificent?’ He changed the subject to something he knew interested her.

‘Oh yes, I’ve been wanting to get a closer look at them, but I never get the chance.’ She looked disappointed, as if her favorite scone wasn’t available at tea time. ‘Kind of difficult when they’re way up there. Even if I could get close, I doubt they would sit still long enough for me to sketch their profile.’

Tom raised his eyebrows, now that he didn’t expect. Her response piqued his interest. ‘For your sketchbook, right?’ He remembered the sketchbook he found in the marketplace and his journey to return it to its rightful owner. Little did he know it belonged to Ravenna and not her brother. That fact made him realize she was more than she seemed at first. After that encounter he wanted to know about her - she was different from the other girls, in a unique way. He watched her biting her lip as she spoke softly, she was already sketching a hawk profile in her mind. ‘Yes, I want to draw a hawk’s profile, but I only end up drawing pigeons with a fierce look.’ She shrugged her shoulders and looked up at him. ‘Not becoming for a bird of prey, is it?’

Tom there back his head and laughed. He pictured in his mind a pigeon flying clumsily after a rabbit. It missed and bounced in a run as it chased its prey. She must have had the same thought because she also let out a giggle. He liked her a lot, he realized. But more so they way she thought about the world around her. She was so serious around strangers, reserved as if she avoided the dazzling light emitting from the sea of people dancing and carrying on in entertainment. She danced in her mind, her song showed in her eyes. He heard it but only for a moment before she lowered her eyes hiding her music. ‘What else was in that book?’ He wondered. ‘It must be filled with wonderful things, her music.

Suddenly he heard the orchestra start a new song. It was a popular song of the court. The melody was even hummed by the commoners in the streets. The ladies clapped when they heard it. They eagerly looked for a dancing partner to join them. Couples quickly formed and joined on the ball room floor.

Tom puffed up his chest and looked at Ravenna. ‘Will you dance with me my lady!’ He held out his hand. He knew she wouldn’t refuse, not that they shared a laugh. She looked at the dancing couples and glanced beyond the other side of the room. She held up her hand, ‘of course.’ She stood up as he offered his arm to her. He beamed and couldn’t help a big smile as they made their way to the ballroom. He felt a dozen pairs of eyes side glancing at them. A few of his friends yelled in greeting. He took her hand in his and felt her dress as he placed his hand on her waist. He was careful not to grab her too hard, fearing she may recoil. She didn’t flinch and placed her hand on his shoulder with a firm grip. He took the lead and felt the tempo of the song’s rhythm. They both knew the song and he was amazed at how easily she danced. They glided along with the other couples. Tom’s friends shouted a greeting when they danced within ear shot. ‘Hullo Tommy Boy!’ One shouted. ‘Finally coming to join in the fun!’

‘Frankie, always a pleasure to see you!’ Tom said in a raised voice. ‘Ever the most popular among us again!’ Tom winked at the blonde girl dancing with Frankie. She giggled, ‘oh you two. You’re both most popular!’ They danced away in a flourish. A few more shouted greetings from Tom’s friends buzzed around them. Their dancing partners curtsied and smiled at Tom as the music changed tempo, calling for more twirling.

Ravenna said something but he couldn’t hear her. She looked at him and pointed her head in the direction of the main entrance. Her lips moved but he couldn’t hear over the orchestra. He shook his head and shouted ‘Sorry!’ She shrugged and kept dancing. Her eyes looked left and right an occasional glance at him. He felt 10 feet tall. The other ladies also glanced at the couple. They smiled at him and looked at Ravenna with a neutral face, some with a questionable look, others a haughty look. He knew it didn’t phase his dancing partner.

The song finally ended and most of the couples left the ballroom floor seeking refreshment and a futon to rest. A few couples stayed as the music slowed and conversation was possible to hear. He held onto her with a light tug when she faltered after the song. She glanced up at him and did a little shrug, matching her step to his. His heart swelled even more when she danced a second dance with him. He led her calmly across the ballroom dance floor. With most couples gone it was easier to move around. He saw Frankie a few feet away, dancing with a red head in a green dress. He nodded and flashed a smile at Tom. He could see in his expression that he had many questions. ‘After many drinks he’ll bombard me non stop with questions,’ Tom inwardly groaned. He was always so nosy. Frankie smiled at Ravenna before dancing away with his red head. She raised her eyebrows and said nothing. Better she not know how much he can be an annoyance, Tom thought.

Tom was glad Frankie bothered him no more the rest of the party. He only wanted to spend eternity dancing. ‘Let me enjoy this moment as long as possible,’ he prayed to whomever would listen.

//

He had on a dark blue velvet suit specially made for court appearances, white neck ruffles and laced white sleeves peeked over his hands. The coat tails and pockets had silver threads of ivy leaves. The shoulders were embroidered a miniature version of the family coat of arms, a lion with a star behind his mane. The coat felt a little too stiff from the starch, and the pants more restrictive than he preferred. He mostly wore his uniform of the Kings’s Guard, well-worn like a second skin. He could move silently even with a sword at his side and leather riding boots. No, his formal wear attire was very attractive (according to his aunt), but he didn’t feel completely at ease. He did like the color though, it reminded him of the skies of his childhood, far over the mountains. The sky of his new home just didn’t seem as blue. His hair, normally flying over his eyes was tied neatly back. As a child, he was blonde and his mother scolded him when his hair wasn’t combed. She cared very much about appearances and didn’t allow him to play rough with the other boys. Now away from his mother’s reach, he let his hair grow. Chestnut brown with blonde highlights now, he constantly brushed his hair away from his eyes. He’d rather put up with the annoyance than cut it. The court ladies loved to tease him, they said his hair made him look like a bandit. He would only smile back.

His feet were even foreign to him. In place of riding boots, he had on shoes that were the latest fashion of men’s wear. Made from the skin of a large reptile of the Far Southlands. They were dark blue that matched perfectly with his suit, even with tiny lion buttons sparkled on the buckles. The heel had steel tips encrusted with diamonds. His mother insisted on the shoes of course, even sending a cobbler to his private quarters to make sure her son had a decent pair of dancing shoes. They were comfortable he admitted to himself. The cobbler knew his craft. Maybe he could commission a pair less fancy for his days off.

He resisted the urge to pull at his collar, forcing an air of calm confidence as he held out his hand. She reached up but hesitated before taking it. She glanced over at a group of ladies sitting together far across the other side of the ball room. She felt eyes staring at her. It was her sister, Genna. Genna wasn’t actually staring, but Ravenna could see her side glancing as she laughed with her friends. She’s always watching me, always. Mother wants her to make sure I’m more social. Fine, I’ll have a dance with this Tom. She can’t say I ignored all the men tonight! She took his hand and slowly rose, fixing her gown to smooth the wrinkles. She no longer felt annoyed at Tom’s sudden presence. He didn’t vex her like the other young men that hung around her like flies. No, those BOYS clamored a little too close. Their sweating bodies and wine-tinged breath made her gag. Yet her sisters’s friends didn’t notice, or they didn’t care. Genna had insisted she spend time with the court ladies. Their mother always disapproving at her youngest daughter’s unladylike mannerisms. She even brought seamstresses to the castle earlier that year to make gowns for court appearances. They battled on what colors and styles to make. Her mother insisting on the latest fashions from the capital. Ravenna scoffed and refused to wear anything that resembled a stuffed peacock. The seamstresses hemmed and hawed over their clients’ arguments and Genna threw her hands up and left for the weekend at her best friends chateau. Finally, Ravenna relented on wearing the fashion-forward styles on the condition she chose the colors. Her mother agrees but when the frocks were halfway made she was angry at the colors her daughter chose but couldn’t say anything against her word. Ravenna chose greys in all shades, blues, and cream colors. So opposite the bright pinks and yellows, and even neon greens! Neither spoke for weeks until the royal family threw their spring ball at the castle. Ravenna chose a gown of grey and blue. Accents of cream lace and silver thread flowers were woven in delicate patterns. Reluctantly, her mother decided that the colors matched her daughter well. Her black hair matched her gown in a braid woven with silver threads. A long strand of pearls tucked inside her corset. The grey and blue matched her grey eyes and creamy skin elegantly. Yes her daughter was a beauty. So opposite her older sister of red hair and hazel eyes. The two together were like the sun and moon. Both beautiful in different ways. What man would be a suitable match? Ravenna was beautiful but her spirit was wild. Who would want to tame a wild horse?

Ravenna tolerated her sister’s friends for over an hour. She tried her best to be polite and to smile, but was bored of endless gossip. They whispered over the latest shoe trends, which girl had mismatched undergarments, and how fat the pastry chef’s wife has become. The men, or boys, she called them, kept coming up to the ladies and telling jokes or giving over-the-top compliments. The goal was to get the ladies to dance. Many of them already knew each other. Genna tried to introduce her to some of the men. Ravenna would smile and be polite, but would decline their request for a dance. She didn’t want to be displayed in front of strangers, competing for unwanted attention. Genna would give her a reprimanding look, so much like their mother. Ravenna would shrug her shoulders and give a small smile. After so many failed attempts, the young men went for easier targets. She gave a sigh of relief and sought refuge on a red futon away from the crowds. An enormous window from floor to ceiling provided a grand view of the palace green. Five brightly colored people were playing croquet below. She was glad to be away from people and finally rest her feet. She hated high heels, meant more for show and not practical at all. She wasn’t paying attention to the game below but better to pretend to watch than to face the party behind her where she would be bombarded by requests to dance or gossip. Above in the skyline she say two birds. ‘The king’s hawks! They look so happy flying so free’, she thought. She started sketching them but couldn’t get the lines right. Their sleek frames weren’t giving a fierce look of a predator. Too much like barn bird!’ Each time they glided past the window she strained her eyes to see. She waited patiently until they came into view again hoping to remember their shape.

//

Tom transferred her hand to his arm as he led her to the ballroom floor. She could feel his forearm muscle stense when she touched it. His eyes had smile lines she noticed, something she liked because her father and brother also had them. They were both good natured and told the best jokes. He nodded to the other couples as they passed. She allowed him to lead and away they danced. It was loud and fast, she hoped her high heels wouldn’t fail. It was several months since danced to this particular song. Genna first taught her when she learned it at the courts of the capital. It was fun back then because she didn’t expect to dance with young men in a fancy dress and high heels! Yet here she was. Tom was a great dancer, he didn’t step on her feet or grip her too tightly. He did bring her close when he dipped her around. She felt his hand on her lower back and face came close to neck. She could see his jaw line tense when she sucked in her breath. He swung her up and continued to hold her a little closer than before. She felt him looking at her and she looked up into his eyes. ‘Blue like the ocean,’ she thought. ‘Almost violet.’ Why didn’t she notice before? She felt the urge to sketch, her minds eye already making the outline of his eyes. He saw her look distant and he felt her hand moving in his. She blushed when he tilted his head and asked her what was wrong. The music became so loud and the laughter drowned out her answer. He shouted something and she could only shrug. He held onto her as if to protect her from the dancers getting too close.

//

‘About your dilemma with the hawks,’ Tom suddenly broke the humming of the orchestra. ‘I think I can help you get a close at them.’ She

[deadmemefrom2012]

April 30th, 2020

Memories that stand out in my mind:

As an elementary school kid, walking the halls after school because my mom was a teacher. Feeling acid rise in my throat outside the bathroom near the principal’s office. Going to my mom and asking her if throwing up in my mouth every once in a while was normal. She gives a distracted yes because I don’t tell her how often it happens.

Being about 9 or 10 in the doctor’s office, finally getting a name for what I’m experiencing: Acid Reflux. I’m so excited to have some bit of information that I tell my friends as soon as I see them next. They seem disinterested and I can’t understand why. A weight is off my shoulders and I feel hopeful that the pain will stop.

I’m thirteen years old in my career and college readiness class. I ask the teacher if I can go get some water. She tells me no, there’s only a few minutes until the bell. With tears in my eyes, I plead with her, but she is set in her decision. After three excruciating minutes, the bell rings and I run to the water fountain to gargle water over and over. Finally, the taste of bile leaves the back of my mouth and the burning sensation starts to recede. The tears of pain that had been building release at last as tears of relief.

I’m still thirteen. I’m laying on the doctor’s examination table as he feels my stomach with cold gloved hands. He thinks the cause may be an ulcer, so he attempts to book me for an endoscopy. All of the specialists nearby have transferred, so for the long months of waiting, I take gigantic pills in an effort to stop the pain. They don’t work, but I keep taking them. Eventually, we drive the four or so hours to Memphis. My mom is with me when I go under for the first time. When I awake, they tell me they saw nothing outwardly abnormal except scar tissue in my throat. We wait and wait just to receive lab reports with no answers.

We see another specialist, who hypothesizes it’s a bacterial infection in my stomach. I have another pill to take and a humiliating stool sample to give, before more waiting for test results with no answers.

At fourteen, my doctor prescribes me anxiety medication. It does wonders for my mental health, but absolutely nothing to the near constant pain. Another cause ruled out and I’ve nearly lost hope.

It’s ninth grade, I’m fourteen years old and walking down the upstairs hallway of the fine arts building with my broadcasting friends. Acid suddenly floods my throat and nasal cavity and I cry out in pain. At the water fountain I gargle over and over, before breathing the water in and blowing it out to maybe stop the burning that’s spread from my nose all the way down to my lungs. My friends stand around me, startled and asking frantically if I’m ok.

Tenth grade, I receive a new medication. It still doesn’t work, and my new doctor doesn’t have any new answers.

The summer after eleventh grade, I’m excitedly waiting to go with my best friend and his family on a trip to see our favorite musician in concert. As we wait to get in the car, my stomach begins to hurt and I feel overheated and nauseous. This is the worst of the symptoms, worse than even breathing in the stomach acid. I can’t move, and my best friend holds me as I try not to cry. Eventually it passes, but the humiliation and helpless feeling stays with me.

Finally, I meet a doctor with new ideas at the beginning of the year. The specialist at the children's hospital tests me for gluten intolerance and lactose intolerance, but both tests come back negative. Still, she suggests that it may be a dairy sensitivity and I agree to slowly stop eating dairy over the next two months. I’m prescribed new medications and receive new hope.

In November of my senior year, on a mission trip in a room all alone in the middle of the night, the same feeling that I got in the summer comes back ten times worse. I’m not completely off dairy, but I avoided it as much as possible during the trip. I take my strongest meds kept in the bag right next to my bed. It doesn’t matter, and I can barely move enough to rest my head on a cool metal chair and call my youth director. He doesn’t pick up, and I end up calling a friend to wake him up. I feel humiliated to have anyone see me so helpless, but there’s nothing I can do. My youth director brings me some over the counter medications to go with my prescriptions and I spend another hour fighting the urge to vomit or pass out before the pain finally ebbs away.

I send off the new year and enter 2020 with one last taste of real ice cream. I regret it almost immediately and am in pain for days afterwards. I think the doctor is definitely right about the dairy sensitivity and I give up milk entirely. The pain doesn’t go away entirely, but it helps somewhat.

In February, I go to my state's Thespian Festival. For the weekend, I eat almost only salads along with the other dairy free and gluten free kids. They told us we would have options to choose from, but we didn’t, and none of us prepared to spend the weekend eating only from the hotel concessions and the meager salad bar. Eventually I can’t take it and order food for whoever nearby needs it. We spend hours talking and eating food that I checked over and over to ensure it was diary free. The pain still doesn’t go away entirely and I still have to swallow down rising bile multiple times a day. My hopelessness turns to rage because why won’t it just stop, please make it stop already, why?

It’s the end of my senior year, only two more days of school. I’m sitting here at four in the morning writing this because for the second time this week I’ve been kept awake by the burning pain in my stomach that has almost become commonplace. I know my grades are suffering, but I can’t focus from the pain and when it stops I’m too tired to focus. It’s only this, my recollections of the pain, that I’ve been able to focus on enough to ignore the current pain. It’s irony, and I feel bitter as I finish this, with tears in my eyes and unfinished assignments open in other tabs. I’m only left with one question:

Why?

[say-al0e]

Choices

Rating: PG-13

Summary: Frankie doesn’t think he deserves this; the white picket fence, the family, the happy ending. But you remind him that he does. | Ft. “Do you believe in soulmates?” + “I didn’t know where else to go.” +. “I love you.” “Why?” requested by @phoenixhalliwell​

Warnings: Mentions of addiction, relapse, desire to use again, anxiety, postpartum mental health, therapy, NA meetings, Frankie has a temper, breastfeeding, pregnancy.

Pairing: Frankie x fem!Reader 

Word Count: 7.3k

General Masterlist | General Taglist

When you and Frankie announced that you were expecting, it seemed as if everyone suddenly became an expert on parenting. Unsolicited advice was offered at every turn - you were told the best brands, the worst methods, the must-haves, the must-avoids, the good, the bad, the ugly - and you spent months being warned that your life would change dramatically.

The most common warning you were given was that, as a new parent, sleep would be difficult to come by. There was little doubt about that - you’d seen enough friends and family have children to get a firsthand look at the sleep deprivation - but hearing it got old. In fact, all of the joking complaints and not-so-joking resentment disguised as humor got under your skin immediately.

Still, you spent a little too much time considering it all. And each time you thought about it, you realized that you always imagined it would be the mundane things keeping you awake at night; late night feedings, soiled diapers, crying jags you couldn’t calm, no matter how hard you tried. It never really occurred to you that it would be your own restless mind keeping you awake.

Before Isabel, there was no shortage of things for you to think about - no shortage of mind-numbing thoughts that stole more than sleep - and no shortage of restless nights. Anxiety, nightmares, general discomfort; it all plagued you and Frankie regularly, kept you both awake and eager for sleep. Naively, maybe, you thought that those problems would suddenly dissolve in your desperate need to get a good night’s sleep. 

If anything, the thoughts that plagued your restless mind only seemed to grow louder as time went on.

Frankie was in a good place before your pregnancy. His nightmares were fewer and farther between, no longer haunting him every night. He’d been sober for nearly a year and a half, regularly saw his therapist, and attended NA meetings weekly.

Emotions he’d felt for years - guilt, fear, anger, resentment, hopelessness - still lingered, as did the ghost of self-doubt and self-loathing he’d picked up somewhere along the way. A dark cloud still seemed to loom over his head some days but it was no longer as stormy, no longer as threatening, as it had been.

There was a blossom of hope in you both, a light and airy feeling that wrapped around your lungs and made breathing a touch easier. It was a beacon in the darkness that you’d both been missing for years and made smiling, laughing, living less of a chore.

The future seemed brighter, less terrifying, and you were keen to take it on with Frankie by your side. A good thing, really, as it barreled forward, full-steam.

Both you and Frankie hated describing your pregnancy as an accident but that was what it was - a happy one, unplanned but in no way unwanted. There was never any doubt that you wanted children. It was one of the first conversations you’d had about your future, one you vividly remembered even as it was shrouded in the dim haze of a bar near a base in North Carolina so long ago, and you’d agreed that you would wait until Frankie was out for good.

Then, after everything he’d gone through - after everything you’d gone through together - neither of you found the timing to be quite right. There was another conversation, this one had in the living room of your shared home, where you decided to wait until Frankie had at least two years under his belt.

Still, life finds a way.

The moment you told Frankie, quietly handed him the positive test you took after weeks of feeling not quite right, his entire being seemed to shift. He was terrified - you could see it in his eyes, the way they blew wide and remained unblinking for a few long moments; saw the way his hands trembled as he took the test from your outstretched hand, the way his entire body seemed to tense - but the fear only lasted a few moments.

Beneath the terror that initially gripped him, Frankie was pleased. He wanted a child, wanted a child with you, and enjoyed the journey to fatherhood. There were moments of softness - gentle caresses of his hand across your growing belly; quiet words, spoken directly to your daughter, as if she could hear them; shining eyes as he watched your stomach swell, your body change; quiet laughter, gentle amusement, as you craved this new food or that odd combination - and moments of passion, moments where Frankie couldn’t be bothered to keep his hands to himself, where he couldn’t stop the filthy praise that escaped his mouth.

Frankie was eager to be a father, so excited to welcome your child into the world, and it filled your heart with an indescribable joy to see Frankie so positive. He put his all into becoming the best version of himself he could be for his little girl; saw his therapist more often, kept a journal so meticulously that it nearly worried you, spoke more freely, loved more fiercely, and even began building pieces for the nursery - a hobby he hadn’t indulged in in years.

During your pregnancy, things were good.

It was only after Isabel was born that things seemed to change.

There were many instances throughout your relationship where you woke in the middle of the night to an empty bed, sheets to your left cool to the touch. Frankie grew restless when he couldn’t sleep, preferred to wander around - or park himself on the couch and toss without fear of waking you up - but he always seemed to find his way back. After Isabel was born, however, waking to find Frankie gone seemed to happen with increasing frequency.

Usually, Frankie could be found in Isabel’s nursery, sitting in the small rocking chair he’d built not long after you found out that you were pregnant. Some nights he held her in his arms, soft brown eyes cast down to her sleeping face with a look of awe that made your heart ache. The way he looked at her had tears welling in your eyes each time you caught it, made you grateful he was the one you’d brought a child into the world with, and the feeling of gratitude only grew stronger as he spoke quiet words - soft praise, gentle affirmations, little words of love - that you tried not to listen to. 

However, as was the case more often, he opted to sit and watch quietly as she slept. He still sat in the rocking chair, arms folded over his chest, as he stared intently at the quiet crib. He never disturbed her - never acknowledged your presence when you came to check on them both - and it brought about another kind of ache that you couldn’t quite calm.

In the beginning, you wondered if it was some sort of protective instinct - watch over her, just to make sure she’s safe; be there, just in case something happened - as he’d done something similar with you throughout your pregnancy. There were nights he’d lie awake, one hand resting carefully on your stomach as he stared off at something you found yourself grateful you couldn’t see. However, as time passed, you grew less certain that it was protective and more fearful that it was a manifestation of his anxiety.

Most nights, you let him be. There was little you could say to coax him back from the dark place he’d gone when your own thoughts were beginning to spiral out of control in a mess of anxiety and postpartum feelings. Exhaustion,  heavy and overwhelming, weighed on your shoulders and kept you in a perpetual fog that never seemed to lift long enough for you to form a coherent sentence. And even when you were capable of stringing together some kind of thought that might help Frankie, you grew increasingly doubtful he’d let you.

Somewhere between Isabel’s birth and her sixth month of life, Frankie seemed to hit a true rough patch.

It all came on so gradually that the culmination of changes truly surprised you - and everyone in your lives. He stopped going to his NA meetings, stopped seeing his therapist as often as he should have - two things he chalked up to not having free time; something you immediately shut down as there was always someone eager to keep you company, even if you didn’t want them to, for the few hours a week he took for himself - but neither the  lack of sleep or his skipping appointments worried you as much as the shift in his behavior.

There was a pattern of behavior you recognized, one that terrified you for far too long - hiding things, edging back into secretive, easily irritated, distant, angry; the same behavior he’d exhibited when he was actively using - that began to reemerge and made it difficult for you to breathe.

For the first time in two years, you felt as if you were walking on eggshells in your own home again. Everything worried you, was compounded by the anxiety you felt as a new parent, and you hated it even more this time. And though you tried to be there for him, tried to use the tools you’d learned in therapy, talking to him only seemed to make matters worse. His agitation fueled your ire and, soon enough, neither of you were sleeping properly.

When you bought your mattress, it was with sharing in mind. It was too big just for you - something you hated when Frankie was still active duty - and you never seemed to be able to get comfortable when you were alone. The sheets were too cool without Frankie’s body heat warming them, without his arms wrapped around you, but you’d stopped counting how many nights you’d gone to bed alone over the last few months as you dragged your fingers across the empty space to your left.

Not long after Isabel was born, Frankie had taken to sleeping in the guest room or on the couch or in the rocking chair and that was infinitely worse than sleeping alone. Knowing that he was there, in the house but choosing not to sleep in your bed, made the weight on your chest unbearably heavy. It made sleep elude you, made your mind race and your heart ache in the worst way imaginable, but none of your tried and true remedies seemed to work.

Now, with him completely gone - out of the house entirely, no longer just down the hall - your body seemed to completely refuse sleep. You knew that it was necessary, knew that there would be consequences if you didn’t get some kind of rest soon, but it seemed impossible.

Sleep had eluded you since he left. You hadn’t gotten more than a few minutes of shut eye in nearly a week and you could feel the toll it was taking on your body. Your limbs felt heavy, as if they were made of concrete, and focusing on any one task seemed damn near impossible.

Each beat of your heart was too fast, too heavy, and your lungs could never fill quite enough to satisfy the ache in your hollow chest. You were moving on autopilot, wandering around your home on instinct, but it wasn’t enough. And when coupled with the fog you’d been feeling as the parent of a small baby, you sometimes wondered how you were managing to make it.

Try as you might to sleep, every otherwise mundane noise was amplified in your half-conscious state. Each gust of wind made the house creak and groan. You swore you could heard the near silent hum of every electronic in the dwelling just as clearly as if they were all in the bedroom with you. There was a faucet dripping somewhere - likely the bathtub; something Frankie had been meaning to fix for months - and a deafening roar as the air conditioner kicked on. The rattle of vents, the whir of the ceiling fan, the shallow breaths you took, the uneven thump of your heart; it all made your skin crawl, made your head ache and eyes burn with unshed tears as you willed sleep to take you, just for a moment.

So much noise, most of it imagined, and you angrily - irrationally - wondered how you’d ever managed to get any sleep with all of it sounding so fucking loud.

There was no time to dwell, however, when Isabel needed you.

A soft cry, the first real, discernible sound you’d heard in hours, echoed through the house. It crackled through the baby monitor on your nightstand, shrill and piercing in the otherwise still house, and you spared a glance at the alarm clock on Frankie’s nightstand - the old one he’d had for years and insisted on keeping - with a quiet sigh.

Like clockwork, Isabel was hungry.

The thought of climbing out of bed made you want to join her in wailing, letting the sobs you’d been keeping at bay wrack your body, but there was no one to piece you back together. The tears you’d already shed were enough as the two of you were alone, her completely dependent upon you, so you swallowed the bitter sadness lingering heavily in the back of your throat and pushed yourself up.

Your body protested, joints creaked and groaned as you climbed out of bed, but you trudged on. A few traitorous tears managed to track down your cheeks - wouldn’t stop, no matter how hard you blinked or how hard you scrubbed your hands across your face - and you were grateful that Isabel was so young. She might be able to tell the difference in your countenance but at least she wouldn’t remember seeing you cry.

Before you could slip into her room, pull her from her crib and carry her into the living room to get comfortable in the small armchair you’d taken to sitting in to avoid the rocking chair, a knock echoed through the house.

There was no reason for anyone to be knocking at two in the morning and even less reason for you to answer. But the soft voice that echoed from your phone, connected to your doorbell camera, quietly announced, “It’s me, querida,” had you padding across the living room on jelly limbs to wrench open the door.

Frankie had a key - you insisted he keep it, despite him breaking down and throwing it across the kitchen the last time you spoke - and could’ve let himself in. Still, he waited on the doorstep in the dark for you to let him into your home willingly. His face was hidden beneath the brim of his hat, shadowed even as the soft living room light filtered out into the night, but you could tell from the slump of his shoulders that it was a bad night.

Six days had passed since you last saw Frankie. He’d been crashing at Will’s place, sleeping in his guest room,, and you were grateful for the elder Miller brother. He kept you updated - promised that Frankie was in the house, in bed, safe - and kept an eye on your husband as he navigated his emotions. If there was anyone else that understood Frankie, could get through to him, it was Will. Still, he seemed to have hit the same wall with Frankie that you did.

The feeling of giving up - of quitting, of letting go when Frankie needed you - was one that haunted you. You’d been together for so long, been through so much, but things were different now. It was harder to be there, to be what Frankie needed and what Isabel needed and what you needed, all at once. You were stretched so thin between your own exhaustion, both mental and physical, and emotions you knew were normal postpartum but were still digging into your skin.

Frankie’s irritability only made you irritable, made you unable to do more than glare as he groused. Yelling matches grew more common, as did the return of Frankie’s volatile temper, and beneath your worry for Isabel - and your worry for your relationship, something so strong that now seemed so fragile - there was a constant fear that the next argument would be your last.

Beneath the mild mannered man you loved so dearly, a temper unmatched simmered. Frankie could be sharp, biting, lethal when he wanted to be - when he felt cornered, trapped, desperate. It was a side you only saw a handful of times, never aimed at you - even in the throes of his addiction - and you wondered what you’d done to draw his ire. Still, you were a force unto yourself.

Neither of you knew how to pull your punches, not when emotions were running this high and tensions were strung so tight that you were afraid you might snap. You constantly bit your tongue, tasted copper and bitter resentment as you wandered the shared halls of your home, out of fear that you might accidentally say something you wouldn’t be able to come back from.

Frankie, maybe in sharing that fear, ran.

For nearly a week, you were afraid that the last fight you shared was it - the one you wouldn’t be able to come back from - but there Frankie stood, eyes cast down and shoulders slumped as he waited.

Even in the dark, you could finally tell what toll the last few weeks had taken on Frankie. He looked a touch thinner - barely noticeable to those who didn’t see him daily but, to you, glaringly obvious - and his shoulders seemed to shake with every breath he took. His clothes were rumpled, as if he’d tossed them on in a hurry, and he curled in on himself, as if to make himself smaller instead of taking up his usual space.

Though your own chest ached, burned with a hurt that you had yet to truly catalogue in your need to care for Isabel, it still hurt to see him so clearly upset.

No matter how hard you tried, words seemed to fail you. Silently, you held the front door open a little wider, just enough for Frankie to slip inside, and stepped back to let him into the house. When he’s safely crossed the threshold, head still bent, you locked the door behind him.

“I’m sorry.” As usual, he broke the stalemate and spoke first. His voice, rough with disuse, shook with clear uncertainty as he took a timid step further into the living room. He kept his head down, almost as if he was unable to look you in the eye - which you imagined he was; fear, shame, anger, resentment, no matter what he felt that pushed him away before bringing him back to your door likely weighed heavily on his chest - as you waited for him to continue.

“I… I started driving and didn’t know where else to go.”

The rational part of your brain demanded you ask him why he’d left in the first place but that was a loaded question. It was one you knew needed to be eased into, not lobbed at him like a grenade when he’d wandered in looking so sad. The second question that came to mind was why he’d left Will’s, why he’d come home, but that was one you already knew the answer to.

In the beginning, when Frankie was fresh out and could finally do what he wished, things got bad. When he started thinking too much or found himself lost in thoughts he had no desire to entertain with no clear path through, he went for a drive. Sometimes he drove all night, with no destination in mind, while others he was fine after a drive around the neighborhood. 

Before Isabel, he took you with him occasionally - let you fall asleep in the passenger seat, head pressed to the cool glass of the window; shared a milkshake in silence as you drove down an empty stretch of highway; listened to you ramble about your day, just so he wasn’t alone - but the drives stopped around the same time as he sought help for his addiction.

He hadn’t needed to disappear in a long time and you sometimes wondered if things had been different, if any of this would’ve happened.

This wasn’t the time to delve into existential questions, though. He’d come home to you instead of going someplace he might regret, found his way back to your doorstep, so you shook your head. Frankie’s eyes remained steadfast on a spot on the rug and, when he made no move to react, you sighed quietly.

“It’s okay.” Your assurance was a hoarse whisper, voice thick with emotion. No matter how hard you tried to hide the fact that you’d been crying, Frankie’s sharp inhale told you that he heard it clearly - no need to lift his head and see the dried tears tracking down your cheeks. Still, you cleared your throat - as if it would help - and pressed on as you folded your arms over your chest. “It’s time for me to feed Belle, anyway.”

Any other time, Frankie would’ve followed you down the hall eagerly. Even when things were tense, difficult, he trailed after you on the nights you’d let him. He never pushed, never interrupted your time with Isabel - he gave you moments alone, quiet bonding time, just as he stole his moments in the middle of the night - but he’d sheepishly admitted that he liked sitting with you as you fed her.

There were plenty of jokes that you could’ve cracked at his expense but give the tension, none of them felt quite right. Instead, you let him flounder for an explanation he couldn’t give. There was no real answer as to why it was one of his most treasured moments, nothing he could give you other than how happy it made him to see his two girls together, but that was enough of an explanation for you. It made you feel wanted, like an integral part of his life still, and you took it however you could in the weeks leading up to his departure.

This time, however, Frankie waited quietly in the living room as you wandered down the hall. Inside the nursery, you took a moment to breathe. You stood over her crib, shaking fingers desperately clutching the side as you inhaled deeply, and offered her a watery smile when she reached for you. There was a moment of unwarranted hesitation - a moment where you held her close, pressed a soft kiss to her forehead,  and inhaled the soothing scent you associated with her - before you turned and headed back to the living room.

When you returned, Frankie hadn’t moved an inch. He only budged when you gestured for him to follow you to the couch. His steps were timid, soft, as he moved almost hesitantly through the space he was always so comfortable wandering around and it made your eyes sting as he settled unsteadily on the edge of the couch.

Frankie kept his distance, as if he was afraid of getting too close, of being so near you both, and the thought had your throat tightening. He’d been pushing you away for weeks, eager to keep the wall he’d built separating you both, but that was not something you could focus on as you attempted to make yourself - and Isabel - comfortable.

As Isabel latched, you were able to get a better look at Frankie.

Dark circles lingered beneath his eyes, a deep purple that bloomed so heavily he nearly resembled post-fight Benny, and indicated you were not the only one going without sleep. The set of his mouth was soft, a weary frown that curved the corners of his mouth, and your fingers itched with desire to reach out and drag your thumb across his bottom lip, just to see him smile. His curls were unruly beneath the brim of his cap, a touch greasier than you’d see them in a while, and there was a slump to his shoulders that almost made you reach out to pull him into your arms.

This was the most downtrodden you’d ever seen him, soft and sad and broken, and it hurt to see him so torn apart. Still, there was an ache in your chest that kept you from speaking for a few long moments.

The three of you sat quietly - Isabel’s soft suckling the only noise that filled the room - for longer than you had in months. There was no argument, no bitter words tossed at one another in the heat of the moment. There was only a tense silence that neither of you knew how to break. Neither of you knew where to begin, only that one of you would need to break the stalemate. 

His gaze remained on the floor, eyes fixed on the rug, before a soft sigh from Isabel caught his attention. His eyes to her face, small and round and pressed to your breast, and you knew that he would be content to sit in silence as she nursed. He’d done it before, a handful of times, but that was not what you needed tonight.

So, you spoke. “Bad night?"

Frankie’s gaze remained steadfast, soft brown eyes that Isabel had inherited glued to his daughter with a look so akin to heartbreak that it made you want to cry, as he nodded.

“I… I almost called him,” he admitted quietly, voice shaking as he dipped his head - dropped his eyes to the rug once again to hide the pained look that crossed his face. “I wanted to.” His voice pained you - the ache, the shame, the desperation - but you did your best to keep your expression level as you waited for him to continue. “And then I thought about her.” He lifted his head then, to glance at Isabel as her small hands reached out for something to hold on to, before he hesitantly admitted, “Thought about you.”

There was no question of who ‘he’ was; Frankie only spoke so vaguely about one person. To hear him admit that he’d thought about it and that Isabel - that you - was the reason he’d stopped himself only added to the weight on your chest. It was not surprising but it was the thing you’d feared for months. 

And as much as it pained you to speak the fear you harbored aloud, there could be no room for uncertainty. You inhaled deeply, tried to calm your heart and even your breathing - remain calm, collected, rational - even as sleep deprivation made your head ache and clouded your thoughts.

“Frankie,” you breathed, voice shaking as you cut your eyes to Isabel instead of him. “I need to know.”

The reply was instant. “I haven’t relapsed,” he declared, voice strong, steady, promising. “I haven’t been using.” There was a moment of tense silence, a brief pause where he took a shaking breath, before he admitted, “I’ve wanted to.” There was such an ache in his voice that it made the tears you’d been blinking back track down your cheeks but you kept your eyes on Isabel - desperate to avoid looking in his soft, sad eyes - as you waited for him to continue. “I haven’t,” he promised again, “I can’t.”

Frankie’s admission shattered your heart - broke it into a thousand tiny pieces and made you wonder what had gone wrong, where you’d gone off track -  and you struggled to rein yourself back in. The emotion lingered in the back of your throat, thick and suffocating, as you tried desperately to catch your breath. You could feel the weight of Frankie’s gaze on the side of your face but you couldn’t meet his eyes.

Not yet.

“What happened, Frankie?” The question was broken, shattering just like your heart, and you heard the quiet sound Frankie made - punched out, low, hurt. There was a moment of hesitation, a moment where you wondered if what you wanted to declare was too much - too demanding for the delicacy the situation required - but you decided there could be no words left unsaid. Not at such a critical moment. “I can’t do this if you won’t talk to me, Frankie. I can’t walk around afraid of what might be happening. Not now, not with her.”

“I know.”

There was an understanding there. He knew where you were coming from. Before Isabel’s birth, you’d talked about it, talked about needing more communication - stronger communication, steadier communication - just to make sure there were no lines blurred or crossed. So, Frankie nodded.

“I know,” he repeated, voice quiet as he shifted just a touch closer, his knees turning toward yours. “I just… I don’t know what happened,” he admitted with a sigh. “I was so happy, so excited to have her - to be a family. But then I started thinking. Now, I look at her, I look at you, and it’s impossible to think about anything but my past.” There was a moment of pause, a deep breath as he collected his racing thoughts, and you looked at him beneath your lashes. He looked lost, almost, uncertain, as he continued. “You deserve better,” he declared quietly, though certainly - his voice never wavered. “Isabel deserves better. The things I’ve seen, the things I’ve done…” He trailed off, voice breaking as he folded his hands over his lap and shook his head as if to clear it. “You both deserve better.”

That was it.

A part of you felt foolish for not seeing what had been eating at Frankie for so long. Despite your own anxiety and own emotions, it should’ve been obvious how Frankie felt. These were demons he’d been battling for years, for the entire length of your relationship, and you should’ve known that they weren’t going to go away over night. He’d struggled loving you at first, so desperate to believe that he didn’t deserve it, and Isabel was wholly innocent - a pure being that deserved better than the man Frankie believed himself to be.

It was all so obvious that it nearly hurt as a quiet sob forced its way free from your throat. Now, with the knowledge of why Frankie had fallen so deeply into a pit of self-hatred, why he’d spent months pushing you away when you knew all he wanted was to be by your side - to be with your daughter - you had a better idea of how to bring him home.

“Do you believe in soulmates, Frankie?” The question was whispered into the dim living room, broken and hoarse but genuine, and you lifted your head to see the look on Frankie’s face as he contemplated it.

“I don’t know,” he answered, honest, as he so often was. “Do you?”

“Not really,” you admitted, voice soft as you carefully brushed a finger across Isabel’s cheek. “I think there’s a little bit of destiny, a little fate, but there’s a whole lot of choices there, too. You may not fall in love by choice but you have to choose to nurture that love. Relationships aren’t perfect or effortless, no matter how good they are. They take consideration, choices. We met by chance, fell in love by chance, but I continue to nurture our love by choice. I’m still here by choice.”

“Why?”

The question was so broken, so disbelieving, that you couldn’t stop yourself from reaching out to gently squeeze his hand. Frankie recoiled at the contact, so unused to your touch after weeks of going with out, but held tight when you went to move away. His fingers tangled with yours desperately, so eager to have you close - something he’d call selfish, something you needed just as badly - as he waited.

“Because you’re a good man, Frankie.” Frankie inhaled sharply, as if it pained him to hear. Out of the corner of your eye, you could see him open his mouth to argue. Before any words could escape, you shook your head. “Let me, please.”

Frankie nodded encouragingly as he brought one shaking hand to brush across the soft hair covering Isabel’s head. His eyes flitted between the two of you, only returning to you fully when you began to speak.

“All you can see is the blood on your hands, the mistakes you’ve made, and I can’t say that I understand because I’ve never been in that situation. I don’t know what it’s like to live with the weight you carry. But what I do understand is what it’s like to not be able to understand why someone loves what you perceive as flaws. You love with everything you have, even when people don’t deserve your goodness. You’re willing to do stupid shit for your friends because you want the best for them. You go above and beyond for me, do more than anyone has ever even thought of doing. You’re so fucking good, Frankie, and I wish you could see yourself the way I see you.”

You could hear the shuttering breaths Frankie took as he attempted to process your words. His grip on your hand tightened but you only matched his grip as you continued.

“You spent months reading parenting books, building furniture by hand - and not that Ikea stuff, either; actual, real furniture that you built by hand. You worked with your therapist to get ready for Isabel, to deal with your anger and learn how to cope. You wrote a whole fucking journal for her to read when she gets older. You got up at three in the morning to get me McDonald’s when you had to go to work two hours later. And that was just while I was pregnant.”

There was no need to look at Frankie as you continued to roll through the reasons you loved Frankie so much, why you were so desperate to keep him close. You knew that his soft eyes would be shining with tears, dark and sad and in awe of the praise you heaped on him, but you would gladly repeat each and every sentiment. Frankie meant the world to you - was the partner you’d spent so many years longing for - and you would be damned if you let him go without him knowing why you continued to choose him.

“You’ve done so much for Belle, for me. Before you, I used to think that you had to truly love yourself before you could love someone else but that’s not true.” Frankie sighed quietly as his hand gently squeezed yours. He wasn’t the only one that dealt with demons, with insecurities, with doubt, but he’d done his best to show you love. “Loving you made me forget why I hated myself so much. Loving you made it easier to love myself. Loving you didn’t fix me, I had to do that work myself, but it made me want to be better. It made me realize I was worthy of the love I so desperately wanted. It made me realize that the love I gave, I could receive. Loving you has made my life so much better, Frankie.”

You took a deep breath, one that you desperately needed, and steadied yourself as you ran a careful finger across Isabel’s cheek as she continued to suckle. “The reason I started talking to you at that bar was because I thought you were gorgeous but the minute you opened your mouth, I knew you’d either be my worst heartbreak or my happily ever after. You’re a good man, Frankie, and I’ll repeat all of this every day, if that’s what you need. I just need to know what you want to do now.”

Frankie was stunned silent, lips parting but no noise escaping as you met his eyes for the first time in weeks. There was a raging darkness that lingered in them, pitch black darkening the honeyed brown, but the storm looked to be settling some. His cheeks were flushed - embarrassed, grateful, overwhelmed; all of it, possibly - and his grip on your hand tightened minutely as he shuffled even closer. His thigh pressed fully into yours, heat rolling off his body in waves, as he closed his mouth and swallowed.

“I want you. I want her. I want this. I… I want to be a family. But I -“

The shake of your head cut Frankie off before he could express the lingering insecurities you knew were weighing so heavily on his shoulders. “I’m not asking if you think you deserve this, Frankie. I’m asking if you want this. I’m asking if you want to be a father, a husband, if you want to be here for us, for this. Do you?”

“Yes.” There was no hesitation in Frankie’s answer - just as you imagined. You knew that he did. There was so much Frankie would do for you, for Isabel; he just needed reminding that this is what you were asking.

“Okay.”

He frowned, uncertain, and tilted his head as he met your eyes. “Okay?”

“Nothing is easy, Frankie, and I would love to say that you wanting to be here is enough but we both know it’s not. But you telling me how you feel, acknowledging why you’ve been the way you have, that’s a start. And this is going to be harsh but I’m going to say it.” You paused for a moment, eyes searching Frankie’s for any hint of the wall you’d blown through so quickly, before you continued. “We deserve someone who will be here, Frankie. We deserve someone who wants us, someone who will choose us. And I know that’s you. You just said so. You may not see how good a man you really are, but I do. Isabel will. As long as you choose to stay. And that means physically and mentally.”

There was another quiet pause as Frankie digested your declaration. He knew what you were saying - that his presence, body and mind, was all that you wanted - but he still seemed to wonder if that was enough.

“I love you, Frankie, and I want you here. I want Isabel to have her father, I want to have my husband, and I want you to have the family you deserve. I know it’s hard to believe some days but you do deserve this. You deserve love and happiness. You deserve all the good things and I want Isabel to know the kind of man her father really is - not the one he’s afraid of becoming. I want to share this life with you. I don’t expect perfection, I never have. I just expect you to try. I expect you to love us and to choose to nurture that love and it’s something you’ve done for years now.”

“It is,” Frankie agreed quietly, almost hesitantly. “I always have and I always will.” He pressed impossibly closer, his body slotting against yours as his hand gently traced the slope of Isabel’s nose, before he returned his eyes to yours. “I want to be here. I want this. I choose this.”

A moment of silence lapsed as you contemplated your next words. You trusted Frankie implicitly, he knew you did, but you both knew that he needed someone else to talk to. “You have to start seeing your therapist again,” you declared, voice soft as you met his eyes. “And going back to NA. It’s a few hours a week; someone will come by and sit with me, if that’s what you really want. Send Benny over, he’s dying to play uncle. Or Santi, for all I care. You just need to talk to someone, work through these feelings so they don’t overwhelm you again. I’m sure there are other people who’ve been in the same place you are right now. Maybe it’ll help.”

Frankie nodded readily. “I know,” he promised, voice soft as his shoulders relaxed for the first time in weeks. “There’s a meeting tomorrow and I set up an appointment with my therapist on Friday. I want this,” he repeated, certain as he lifted his hand to cup your cheek. “I’ll do whatever I have to to keep this. I… I want to be worthy of this, of her, of you.”

“You already are, Frankie. I just hope this helps you see it.”

Another few moments passed, these less tense than the rest of the night had been, before Frankie frowned and brushed his thumb beneath your eye. “How long has it been since you’ve gotten a good night’s sleep?”

There was no room for dishonesty in this moment, in this space, so you answered honestly. “I haven’t really slept since you stopped sleeping beside me. Couldn’t when you were on assignment, can’t now.”

Frankie’s face crumbled at your admission. He knew that his disappearance had taken a toll on you, could see it in your eyes - in the set of your shoulders, in the curve of your mouth - but it still hurt to hear you admit it aloud. “If you’ll have me, I want to come home, sleep beside you again.”

There was nothing you wanted more.

“Please.” There was a moment of pause before you offered him your now satisfied daughter. As much as you’d missed him, you knew that she’d missed him, too - just as he’d missed her. “Can you put her to bed? I’ll turn off the lights.”

The look of awe he wore every time he held her returned nearly immediately as he cradled her in his arms. With his broad frame, she looked impossibly small but she fit so perfectly in his grasp. There was no safer space for her - unless, of course, you counted the moments the Millers and Santiago invaded your home; the three of them already as smitten as Frankie and just as willing to go to the ends of the earth to protect her - and you knew he needed a moment alone with her.

He walked softly down the hall, cooing in Spanish - soft apologies, promises that he would be there for her, promises he’d never leave again - and you scrubbed at your eyes to keep from crying as you turned off the few lights around the living room. There was a sudden weariness that weighed on you, more drained than you’d been only an hour earlier, as you wandered down the hall to the bedroom. You could hear Frankie, could hear the softness in his voice as he spoke, and closed your eyes as you settled into bed. 

After a few long moments, Frankie stepped into the shared bedroom and smiled softly - sadly - as he caught sight of you buried beneath the blankets. He took a moment to shuck off his clothes - t-shirt and jeans, tossed into the laundry basket; flannel, hung on the back of the door - before he climbed beneath the covers to join you. His body stiffened as you wrapped your arms around him for the first time in weeks, unable to stop yourself, before he allowed himself to breathe and relax into the embrace.

There was a beat of silence, punctuated only by your breathing, before Frankie spoke. “I’m sorry, hermosa,” he apologized, voice soft in the darkness of your room as he held you close - a proximity you missed desperately. “I’m… I’m so sorry.”

You knew that there was no point in telling him he had nothing to apologize for - in his mind, he had everything to apologize for - so, you nodded. “I know, Frankie. It’ll be okay.” It wasn’t, not yet, but you were hopeful that it would be.

Frankie made his choice and even if he wasn’t certain he deserved what came with that choice, you would do your best to make sure he knew that he did. You were glad he chose you, chose Isabel, as if he could’ve ever chosen anything else.

The road would always be rockier than other paths you could’ve taken, other paths he could’ve taken, but as long as he let you walk it with him - as long as he let you choose him - you had hope that it would be alright.

_________________________________________________________

Author’s Note: This got out of hand. Now I’m going to write something soft for Frankie, I think. Or maybe straight up smut. Maybe both. Not sure yet.

Tag List: @peoniarose, @karie-me-home, @rachelwritestuff, @stardust-galaxies, @deliciouslydisturbed365, @a-louise-juliane, @ben-is-a-hoe, @weasleywinchester, @crowfootwrites​, @winchestershiresauce​, @kesskirata​​, @lyr1ssa, @viyasstuff, @negansnympho89​, @im-just-a-mississippi-girl​,  @kirsteng42​, @balekanemohafe​, @avengers-fixation​, @buckybarneshairpullingkink​, @nintendhoe8​, @luciferiorbxtch​, @jettia​, @xoxabs88xox​

[diaphragmjellyfish]

Research

Finally wrote something again! Sorry it took so long. 

How exactly do you get a dog to lose your scent? Because avoiding your werewolf boyfriend Embry was proving a lot harder than you had anticipated. Last weekend was… eventful. You guys had finally done it. Gone all the way. After 6 months of dating and an imprint bond, you both finally decided you were ready to take that next step. And you’ve only had one thought since that night. 

That shit hurted. 

It was borderline unbearable. The pain was searing. You lied there until Embry was done, faking moans and even faking the Big O, and you were less than eager to do it again. Were you broken? He seemed to enjoy it, so obviously you were to blame. He’d been super clingy and lovey since that night, even more so than usual, and you didn’t have the heart to be around him knowing you had faked it like that. What if he found out? He’d be crushed. What if he wanted to do it again? You couldn’t take that pain another night. What if he faked it too and was going to break up with you the next time he saw you? Yeah, no. Avoidance was the way to go. 

He wanted to take you out to see a movie. You mysteriously came down with a case of allergies in the middle of winter. 

He wanted to pick you up after school and give you a ride home. You had the sudden urge to join a club that was meeting after school that day. 

He called, your phone was on silent. 

He texted, you suddenly became illiterate. 

But he kept trying. God, why was he making this so difficult?! Thoughts like this swirled through your head as you walked the long way home from school. He knew your usual route, so obviously that was out of the question. You took a path through the woods that would eventually spit you out right by the beach where you could sit and think. The forest had always felt like a second home to you. Peaceful, comfortable, private. You walked for some time before hearing twigs snapping in the distance. Probably a rabbit or something. Louder snapping. Bigger sticks. Definitely not a rabbit. You halted, waiting for the creature to pass, when a large gray wolf stalked out of the trees. 

Damn. 

He was wearing the softest, cutest, most “kicked puppy” look on his face that you had ever seen. Head bowed, he walked up to you slowly, whining. So he had noticed your avoidance. You held your hand out to him, petting the thick fur between his ears. He sniffed your hand, giving it a soft lick. 

“Hi,” you whispered. He whined louder at this. “Embry…” you started, before he crouched down, a silent cue for you to get on his back. He waited. 

Guess this was inevitable. And at least him showing up in wolf form gave you some time to think about how exactly you would explain what had happened. With another soft sigh, you climbed up on his back, holding the fur tightly as he trotted off into the trees. After about 5 minutes, you realized that he was taking you to Sam and Emily’s house. You weren’t in the mood to be around the rest of the pack right now. 

“Embry, I’m kind of busy today. I don’t really have time to hang out with the pack.” 

He ignored you, trotting along as if your statement was the buzz of a mosquito in his ear. When you reached the house, however, you quickly realized that no one else was there. They must all be out. It was a Friday afternoon, after all. 

When you reached the lawn, Embry stopped and crouched once more so you could dismount. When you did, he ran off behind the house, walking back out several minutes later as the inky-haired boy you had grown to love. His face was full of sadness, yours full of anxiety. 

“Let’s go for a walk,” he said. 

You silently followed him down the path that led to the cliffs, waiting for him to say something else. He never did, only kept walking. You struggled to keep up, but were too stubborn in your silence to ask him to slow down. You both finally reached the rocky cliffs jutting out over the frigid ocean. He stopped, staring out at the horizon. You paused next to him, waiting. After another several minutes of silence, you grew impatient. 

“It’s supposed to snow Monday,” you said. 

You waited. Silence. 

“The news said they might even cancel school.” 

A pause. Nothing. 

“I don’t know about you, but I could definitely use a three day weeken-”

“Is there something you want to tell me?” he cut you off, seeming agitated. For as long as you’d known Embry, he was never in a bad mood. Never anything but happy. Maybe sad on a few occasions, but never angry. Never frustrated. And it was making you nervous. 

And now it was your turn to be silent. Yes! You wanted to say. You hurt me! But you couldn’t. Wouldn’t. He didn’t do it on purpose, so why would you make him feel guilty about something that was your problem and your problem alone? 

“Because, if I’m counting correctly, it’s been 5 days since I’ve so much as heard from you. Barely a text back. Not a call, not a ‘hey! I’m super busy this week.’ Why are you avoiding me? I thought… after last weekend, we should be more in love than ever right?! Did it not mean anything to you?” 

You remained quiet, tears pooling in your eyes. You gave no sign that you were going to respond, so he kept going. 

“Just tell me where your fucking head is at, Y/N. You can’t keep brushing me off like this. Did I do something wrong? Do you regret what we did? Am I, like… not ripped enough for you or something?” 

“Embry, no,” you pleaded. You could see the insecurity behind his eyes. You had to tell him what was going on, but you knew it would crush him. “It’s not that at all.” 

He waited. “Then what?” 

You closed your eyes, a tear slipping down your face. You wiped it away quickly before taking a deep breath. “I have been avoiding you.” You looked up at his face at this, finding tears building up in his own eyes. “I love you, Embry. But last weekend, just… I can’t do that again.” 

He clenched his jaw, looking anywhere but your face and nodded. He was hurt. You definitely could have worded that better. 

“Let me explain,” you pleaded. He wouldn’t look at you still, but didn’t walk away, so you kept going. “I think I might be broken or something, because that… It didn’t feel right.” 

At this, he looked back at your face, switching from hurt to concerned almost immediately. 

“Why would you think you’re broken?” 

Another pause. “I know you would never hurt me on purpose…”

“You were in pain?” he panicked, fresh tears pricking in his eyes. 

“It’s not your fault,” you hurried. “I don’t know what’s wrong with me.”

“Why didn’t you tell me that? Why would you let me keep going?!” 

“I’m sorry!” you cried, causing him to walk up and embrace you. You sobbed into his chest as he pet your hair, all signs of anger gone. “You were having a good time, and I didn’t wanna ruin it, but it hurt so bad…” 

“Shhhhh,” he cooed as he rocked you from side to side, letting you calm down. “It’s okay.” 

After several minutes, you finally stopped crying. He didn’t falter in his embrace, only left light kisses on your forehead and cheek. 

“Y/N, I am so sorry,” he whispered into your hair. 

“It’s not your fault,” you replied. 

“Yes, it is. I’m supposed to take care of you. It was my job to make you feel good, and you were hurting that bad and I didn’t even notice.” You sniffled, just enjoying being in his arms. A few more minutes passed as you both calmed down. 

“To be fair, I did take a drama class last semester. I’d say I put on a pretty convincing performance,” you added weakly, an attempt to lighten the mood. 

He huffed a laugh, if for no other reason than to make you feel better. “Had me fooled,” he added. 

You smiled, looking up at him. “I’m sorry for avoiding you.” 

“It’s okay. I just wish you would have told me as soon as it started to hurt that you wanted to stop.” 

“I know. I should have, I just got all in my head about it.” 

“And I’m sorry for hurting you. I’ll never forgive myself, and I understand if you don’t want to be with me anymore,” he answered, nervously awaiting your response. 

“I forgive you. And of course I still want to be with you, Embry. I love you. We just need to work on our communication skills a little bit,” you laughed. 

“We do. And I’ll start. I would really love another chance to make you feel good. If you promise to be honest about how you’re feeling, I know I can do a way better job. But I understand completely if you wanna wait a while… or if you never wanna do it again. You’re in charge here.” 

His words had your heart melting. He really did care about you, and you knew that if you had told him in the moment that you were in pain, he would have done anything to get you feeling good. You were always his first priority. 

“I’d be willing to try again, but what we did last time didn’t work. I think we need to think of some new techniques or something,” you mumbled shyly. 

“Tell you what. I’ll do some research, get some stuff, and you can come over tonight… if you want to. And we can maybe try again? And if you get there and aren’t feeling up to it, we can just watch a movie and cuddle. No pressure… I just miss you.” 

You thought for a second. Worst case scenario, you’d cuddle on the couch and eat junk food. You trusted Embry completely, and if you said stop, you knew he would. 

“Okay,” you replied. 

__________________________________

After a long shower, some fresh makeup, and a cute-yet-comfortable outfit, you were ready to go over to Embry’s. Sure, the nerves were kicking in, but you trusted him when he said he would do some research. When you pulled up, he was already standing in the doorway smiling. You ran out and gave him a giant bear hug (or wolf hug), and he picked you up and carried you into his room, kicking the door closed with his foot. 

“I missed you,” he said, face buried in your hair. 

“You saw me like 3 hours ago,” you giggled in response. 

“Yeah, but I haven’t seen you all week! Gotta get my Y/N fill or I might die!” 

You laughed loudly, hands threading up into his hair as he sat down on the bed with you seated in his lap. 

“Yeah, yeah, just try not to crowd me,” you cheekily replied. 

He raised an eyebrow before tackling you back onto the bed, tickling you like a maniac and placing playful kisses all over your face and neck. 

“Like this?! Don’t crowd you like this?” 

“Embry stop!” you laughed, trying to suck in a breath between his manic tickles. When he finally stopped, he was lying between your legs, one hand grasping both your wrists above your head, the other propped beside you so as to not crush you. He stared lovingly at your face before leaning down and placing a soft kiss on your lips. His grip on your arms loosened, as if to say You can stop me anytime, but you didn’t. You kissed him back, arms staying in place to tell him that you were okay. 

The kisses grew slightly more heated, but Embry kept them gentle. And every time you thought he was about to take things to the next step, he’d just kiss you some more. You were growing slightly impatient, breath labored and blood pumping fast. Your stomach became slightly warm, and every time you leaned up, he’d pull away. 

“You’re being mean,” you whimpered. 

He just looked at you and smirked before leaning down and capturing your lips once more. You could feel your blood heat in every part of your body. From your head to your toes, you felt warm and fuzzy, yet desperate for more,,, more touch, more pressure, more Embry. Growing frustrated, you hooked your legs around his waist and tried your best to pull him closer, unintentionally grinding your hips into his. When he brushed up against your core, you let out an involuntary sigh. It actually felt nice. He smiled into the kiss, pulling his lips away from yours and dragging them down to your jaw, and then your neck, suckling and sucking and leaving light red marks that made your head spin. The hand that was holding your wrists came down behind your back and up into your hair, firmly pulling your head back to give him better access to your neck. 

This movement made your entire back arch up into his body. His grip in your hair tightened slightly, lips sucking your skin up into his mouth as he nibbled, before soothing with his tongue. Your toes curled, legs pulling him impossibly closer. When he felt this, he ground his hips down into yours. The combination of his hands, lips, and weight on top of you made you let out a gasp. Your hands held onto his shoulders for dear life, pulling his shirt up in an attempt to take it off. He got the hint and sat up to remove it, being away from your body for far too long for your taste. He didn’t lower fully back down, however, instead sliding his warm hands under your shirt and onto your stomach. You sat up, taking your sweatshirt off and throwing it violently across the room. His eyes widened as they looked down at your bare chest in an almost feral fashion. He gripped your thighs, tugging you down the bed with ease, and resuming his position on top of you, hands roaming all over your torso. He cupped your breasts gently, rolling your nipples softly between his fingers. You shut your eyes and threw your head back, enjoying the sensations. His kisses trailed from your neck and down to your chest, softly. Lovingly. When he reached your nipples, his tongue poked out and licked around each of them, before taking them into his mouth and sucking. His hands continued to caress your back, and he took his sweet time switching from one breast to the other, and back again, until he felt your skin grow almost as hot as his. You were writhing underneath him, panting as your mind tried to comprehend the sensations. And his mouth, God it was so warm. You felt him kiss the undersides of your breasts, and then your stomach, and then lower… 

When he reached the waistband of your leggings, he brought his hands up as if to pull them off of you. He stopped, looking up at you for permission. You gave a lazy nod Yes, and lifted your hips to help him. He pulled your underwear off as well, spreading your legs and almost salivating at the sight of your soaking pussy. Not wanting to waste another second, he once again began placing kisses on your lower stomach, and then down to your hip bones, scraping his teeth lightly against the skin, which had you shuddering. He trailed lower, to where your thighs met your core, and began to suck lightly and the soft skin there. Your clit was throbbing by now, desperate for any sort of attention. You thrust your hips up, desperate for his mouth on the place you needed him, but he only pulled your legs over his shoulders and brought his arms across your stomach to hold you in place. Your hands went to his hair in an effort to control any aspect of this situation, but the boy was strong. He teased and teased and teased, until you thought you might very well crawl out of your own skin if he didn’t properly touch you soon. Embry brought his face right up to your center and licked into your entrance, making your toes curl once more. His hands gripped your hips as he brought you as far onto his tongue as he could, nose not quite brushing where you still needed him. 

“Embry…” you whimpered, about to tell him what you needed. 

“I know, baby. I got you,” he spoke, as he finally brought his warm tongue to lick a firm stripe up to your clit, swirling it around and sucking the swollen nub into his mouth. 

You let out a moan. A real one. Your first real one. And it only encouraged Embry, as he began to suck and lick with a steady rhythm that caused your legs to shake. You felt your stomach start to coil after several minutes of this, hands fisting Embry’s hair even tighter. It felt amazing, but that coil wouldn’t snap. He started to notice you coming down slightly, orgasm fading away, when he brought his index finger into your mouth. You sucked on instinct, before he pulled it out and brought it down to your entrance. He swirled the digit around a few times and began to push in slowly. One knuckle. Then two. And then he was fully in you. Sucking your clit into his mouth yet again, he rubbed his finger up into your front wall, massaging the ridges there. 

“Oh… Embry, oh my God,” you moaned. He used more pressure, and then brought his finger out and added another, slowly pushing them in together and resuming the ‘come-hither’ motion. You felt your muscles shake, losing all control, and the coil in your stomach tightened rapidly once again, only this time, it broke. Your back arched, eyes shut tight, mouth open in a silent scream as you came hard. Waves of pleasure drove through you, hands holding his head firmly onto your center. When you came down and opened your eyes, you looked down at his face to see an excited grin. 

“If you tell me that was fake, I think I’ll cry,” he chirped. 

You calmed your hard breathing enough to mutter a “That was real.” 

“Do you wanna keep going?” he asked. 

You nodded, taking note of the obvious tent in his shorts. You reached a hand down to grasp him, when he grabbed your wrist and said “Nuh-uh, I’m still making it up to you.” 

He stood up off the bed and went over to a plastic shopping bag on his desk. He opened it and pulled out a condom, some lube, and a small pink toy. Your eyes widened, and he cockily stated, “told you I’d do some research. Come here Sweetheart.” He held a hand out to help you up, and moved you so that you were on your hands and knees, bum facing him as he stood at the edge of the bed. He tore the condom packet open with his teeth and rolled it on, and then opened the bottle of lube and slathered it all over himself. He then brought what was left on his hand up to your sensitive core, distributing the substance gently. Throwing the bottle onto the floor, he lined himself up with your entrance. 

“You sure you wanna keep going?” he asked. You nodded in response. “I need you to say it, babe.” 

“Yes, I want to keep going, Em,” you almost cried. 

“Okay, but I need you to tell me if it hurts even a little. Promise?” 

“Promise.” 

He grasped your hip with one hand, guiding himself in with the other. Slowly, carefully, he became fully seated inside you, giving you a moment to adjust. You felt no pain, just a delicious stretch inside your walls. When Embry saw that you were relaxed, he pulled himself out a couple of inches and softly thrusted back in, looking for any signs of discomfort. He found none, and continued. He dragged himself in and out of you at a torturous pace that made your breathing pick up yet again. You needed more. You began rocking yourself back onto him, begging for a faster pace, and he complied. He pulled out several inches more this time, shoving back in at a quicker pace that had your toes curling and your moans going up in pitch. At this, he stopped holding back. Embry began pounding into you, hands gripping your hips tight enough to leave the good kind of bruise. You were moaning loudly, brain turning to mush. This is what sex was supposed to be like. What you’d always imagined it would be like. Passionate, loving, amazing. 

Embry found himself reaching the edge, but would not allow himself to finish before you. He reached down onto the bed for the small pink toy that you had forgotten about. He flicked it on, brought his other hand down and around your throat to pull you up against him, and held the small vibrator right onto your clit. The pounding pressure of his dick paired with the fervent vibrations had you seeing stars. You came. Hard. You didn’t know how long the orgasm had lasted. When you came to, you were lying on your back on the bed, breathing still labored, as Embry cleaned your thighs off with a damp towel. He noticed you looking up at him. 

“Hey, Sweetheart,” he cooed.

“Hey,” you responded weakly. 

“How ya doing?” 

“Really good,” you laughed. 

“Yeah?” he beamed at you as you nodded in response. “Good. I’m gonna get you some water and then we can cuddle, okay?” You only smiled in contentment as he walked off into the hallway, returning shortly with a cup of cold water. “Sit up for me?” 

“Can’t,” you answered, eliciting a laugh from him. 

“C’mon, I’ll help you,” he spoke as he gently held the back of your head, supporting you as you leaned up to drink from the cup he was holding up to your mouth. After you took a few sips, he seemed satisfied and placed the cup on the floor, lying down next to you and pulling you close. “If you start ignoring me after that, I might have to kill you,” he teased. 

“Don’t worry. I won’t ever ignore you again.” You sighed in contentment, listening to Embry’s soothing heartbeat, before you began to wonder. “By the way, what the heck kind of research did you do?” 

He huffed a laugh before responding, “Some guy on the internet called Owen Grey.” 

[winter-soldier-vibes]

Come Back Home (Bucky x reader)

Come back home

Bucky x reader

Word count: 3,061

Summary: You were getting worse and were afraid to hurt Bucky, but unable to hide it. Instead of talking it out, you ran away. Embarrassed and afraid, you avoid the calls and voicemails from the man you left. But one night, you can’t help but listen to them, and you need to hear his voice.

Warnings: depression, reader blames herself, Bucky blames himself, anxiety attack, lots of tears, lots of fluff and comfort

I actually got this idea from @thelifeof.jana on TikTok, she posts different scenarios with comfort characters and I wanted to make it into a fic. 

Tags: @buckfics @buckys2thicc @abitgryffindorky @stucky-on-spiderman @thatfangirl42 @thundering-barnes   

A/N: It’s nearly finals week and it is CRUNCH TIME so I’ve been writing when I can, I apologize for the sporadic-ness of it. Thanks for sticking with me! 

A/N 2: I left a few things to interpretation, such as a nightmare. Insert what you want, I know everyone has different experiences and I wanted this to be as relatable to as many people as I could. I also left out when y/n gives an address because 1) I don’t know New York and 2) It’s likely somebody’s address in real life so...interpretation. 

-----------

Your phone began ringing, piercing the otherwise silent house and startling you

Answer it.

You stared at the phone, taking a deep breath.

Ring 

You picked it up and turned it over, closing your eyes and letting a breath out.

Don’t answer it.

You looked at the screen again, seeing the name of your favorite person.

Bucky…

Ring 

Answer it

No. 

Please, I wanna hear his voice.

I can’t

Ring

Letting a breath out, you put the phone down and sat on the floor next to your bed, leaning your head back and closing your eyes. 

Ring. Ring. Ring.

Then you were left in the silence once again.

You let out a breath you didn’t know you had been holding, waiting a few more seconds for the next noise. Sure enough, your phone made a sound, notifying you of yet another voicemail.

Another addition to your library of ignored messages.

You picked up your phone, clicking to see the messages you never listened to.

25 unheard messages. All of them from Bucky. 

Your finger hovered over them for a moment, allowing yourself to ponder listening to them. But you sighed, closing your phone and placing it back on the nightstand. You couldn’t listen to them. Because if you did, you wouldn’t be able to resist calling him back. And you couldn’t take that risk. 

You’d spent this much time without him. Once you heard his voice you’d be spilling everything to him. Just like you used to. Which is why you left in the first place. 

Bucky was special to you. He always had been. Despite all the trauma he’d gone through, he was still kind and gentle. He had been the one to pull you out of the dark place you were in at the time. He was always there to talk to you, listen to you, or help you take care of yourself when you just couldn’t anymore. He’d sat through many of your panic attacks and calm you down if you had a nightmare, just as you would for him. He would drop anything for you, you always came first.

And that was the problem.

He did too much for you, and you couldn’t help but feel guilty. This man had already gone through so much pain and suffering and was finally getting better. He was going out more and the nightmares happened much less often. You were grateful for the love he gave you, and you loved him more than anything.

Which is why you couldn’t bring him down anymore. So, one day when he was out on a mission, you had packed up your few positions and left him a note.

Bucky,

I just wanted you to know that I love you so much, but I have to go now. I’m sorry. 

-Y/n

You had to keep it brief. If you said anything more you knew you’d say too much, and it would only make leaving harder. And if he knew you were leaving because you were hurting too much, he wouldn’t stop until he found you.

Not that he wasn’t looking for you know.

You had rented out a room in the cheapest hotel your could find in somewhere-New-York-City. It was small, it wasn’t the cleanest, but it was fine. You didn’t care, it was functional. Within hours of leaving, your phone started ringing. Not that you answered. You couldn’t, not when you would start crying once you heard his voice.

You got many texts and calls that night. 

What happened?

Where are you? Y/n are you okay??

Tell me where you are, we can talk this out, please.

You couldn’t bring yourself to read more than that. You silenced his messages and let the calls go to voicemail, never able to bring yourself to reject a call, instead letting it ring all the way until he got the same voicemail message every time.

Hi, it’s y/n. Leave your name and number and I’ll get back to you as soon as I can, have a nice day!

The same fake cheery message every time, giving an empty promise.

What you didn’t know was that on the other end of the line, Bucky was shattering a bit more with each voicemail he left. 

Bucky’s POV:

He couldn’t understand what could have happened. Why you had left all of a sudden. He knew you had some bad days, and the first time he had read it he was terrified that you had done something. He usually was able to see when things were getting bad again but he couldn’t think of what he could have missed. When he saw that you had read his texts that night, seeing the word read appear after a few of them, he told himself that you were okay. 

Because he didn’t know what he was going to do if you weren’t.

What you didn’t know was that you had helped Bucky just as much if not more so than he had helped you. His nightmares happened less often because you were there with him every night. He was more outgoing because you had dragged him out to those first few bars and parties. He felt happier because he was helping you, and you made him feel safe and wanted.

And then you left.

He couldn’t sleep most nights, worried about you. Most of the nights he did sleep, he dreamt about you and everything that could have happened. He called you every day, multiple times, needing desperately to hear your voice. He withdrew again, only going on one mission when the team absolutely needed him. It was his only sense of purpose anymore, but it meant nothing compared to what you had meant to him

But you didn’t know that. Because you hadn’t opened any of his messages yet. 

It was late now, and Bucky was discouraged. It had been over a week since you had left, and his texts had gone unread ever since a the first night you left. It wasn’t a long time. But it was still too long. He decided to try your phone once more. 

Ring 

Ring 

Ring 

Ring 

Bucky closed his eyes, begging you would pick up, silently knowing you wouldn’t.

Ring 

Ring 

“Hi, it’s y/n. Leave your name and number and I’ll get back to you as soon as I can, have a nice day!”

Sighing, he got ready to leave a voicemail. After the beep he said, broken.

“Please y/n. Come back home.”

Your POV:

You sighed as yet another round of rings echoed through your apartment, hearing the notification soon after, notifying you of yet another new voicemail. 

You looked at the time. 11:03 P.M.

You sighed, knowing you should get some sleep. But no matter how tired you were, you knew that once you closed your eyes, you would have nightmares again. And no one would be here this time. 

You couldn’t deny it, you weren’t doing well. Your appetite had diminished and you relied heavily on caffeine to supplement the sleep you refused to get. Not that it helped your appetite in any way.

You would go through the motions, make it to work (most days) and get through the day just to...get through the day. You weren’t living really. Just surviving. You knew it was getting bad again, some nights so dark you weren’t sure if you would see the light the next day. Yet you couldn’t let yourself call him. You didn’t want to hurt him.

But you didn’t know that you had already hurt him more by leaving than you ever could’ve by staying.

You sighed, knowing that eventually, you were going to need to sleep. Might as well try to. You didn’t know if for sure you would have a nightmare, so may as well try?

That turned out to be wishful thinking.

Major wishful thinking. 

You woke up screaming, drenched in sweat and looking around the room frantically. When you realized it was just a dream, you put your face in your hands and felt tears immediately prick your eyes.

When was this going to stop?

You felt your chest contract as you realized the truth. It wasn’t. Not like this at least.

Just over a week and you were already at your breaking point.

Call him

You looked at the time. 2:47 AM.

You couldn’t call him now.

Call him.

You opened your phone and found Bucky’s contact, finger hovering over the name once again. At the last second, you clicked your voicemail inbox instead, scrolling back down to the first one on the night you left.

“Y/n?”

Your breath hitched as you heard his voice, fresh tears pricking your eyes. Not just from his voice and how much you had missed it, but also the absolute panic in his voice.

“Where are you? Are you okay? Why- why did you leave? Please, answer the phone, I need to know you’re okay.”

You clicked on another one from a few hours later.

“Y/n, please, I saw you read the first few texts I sent. Please answer the phone. We can talk this out, whatever it is just - please call me.”

Tears were falling from your eyes, and you didn’t have it in your power or even the desire to stop them. You flicked to another one that was sent a few days later, this one was longer. 

“Please y/n,” it started, his voice soft and cracking with emotion. “Where are you? Just - just tell me where you are, please. I need you. These past few days it’s like I hear your voice and then there’s nothing. I miss you so much. I’m nothing without you please....please just come back home. I don’t care what you did or think you did or why you left. I love you. And I could never stop loving you. I can come get you, we can talk this out. Please. I can’t do this without you. I - I’m falling apart.”

You were now sobbing as you flicked over to your text messages and clicked on Bucky’s name, seeing texts upon texts from him.

One of the more recent one’s caught your attention.

“I’m sorry. Did I do something wrong?”

Never, never in your heart did you ever think Bucky would think that he had done something to drive you away. Your heart broke, realizing he could be blaming himself for your leaving. It was never his fault. It could never be his fault.

With shaking hands, you pressed the phone icon below his name, bringing the phone to your ear as you listened to it ring.

You tried to control your breathing through the tears, falling apart after a few seconds of thinking you had it together.

Ring

Ring

Ring

Please pick up, I need to hear your voice.

Ring 

I’m sorry this is all my fault.

Ring 

Please, I -

“Hello?”

Your breath hitched and your eyes flew open. Your words got caught in your mouth, having no idea what to say. Bucky, on the other side of the line, hadn’t even looked at the caller ID. He hadn’t fully fallen asleep yet, but the tiredness was evidence in his voice.

“Hello?” he said again

“I’m sorry,” you choked out.

Bucky’s eyes flew open and he pulled away his phone, seeing your name across the screen. All exhaustion was gone from his body, and he heard you trying to control your breathing on the other side of the line.

“Y/n?”

“I’m so sorry…” you said again, breaking out into sobs.

“Y/n, can you tell me what’s wrong? Where are you?” he said, panicked and getting out of bed, pulling on a shirt and shoes.

“I’m sorry, Bucky, I’m so sorry,” you said again, not being able to say much else. 

“Y/n, sweetheart, it’s okay. You’re okay. But I need you to tell me where you are, can you do that for me?”

He waited for a moment while you tried to pull yourself together enough to repeat the address of the hotel.

As you did, Bucky was already out the door and in the car, starting it and putting you on speaker, driving as fast as he could to the hotel and ignoring all traffic signals. It was the middle of the night, and you were not okay.

“I’ll be there soon, angel, can you keep talking to me?

“I’m sorry Bucky…”

“It’s okay y/n. You’re okay. We’re okay. I’ll be there in a few minutes.”

His words didn’t reach your ears, your breathing getting harder to control and your tears fell faster. You had fucked up, this was your fault. Why did you call him, now he knows where you are and you were going to burden him with all your shit again. 

He could hear your breathing become labored as he sped further towards your location. He tried talking to you more but he soon realized that he wouldn’t be of much use until he was in front of you. His heart was breaking and he was hoping nothing was seriously wrong. 

But you wouldn’t have called him like this if nothing was wrong.

Clenching his jaw, he scanned the street signs for yours, knowing the city well enough to know he was close. 

When he pulled up to the street, he couldn’t help but wince at how dingy this place was. It was run down and the smell was putrid. He was so sad that this was where you had run off to. He took his phone, saying how he was here but it fell upon deaf ears. You weren’t calm enough to hear his voice from the phone you had dropped when you had moved to cover your face instead.

Bucky took the stairs 3 at a time, getting to your room in record time. He pounded on the door, trying the knob even though he knew it would be locked. Calling out your name and getting no response, he decided to break the door in. It was barely hanging on its hinges anyway.

“Y/n? Y/n where are you?” he called out, met only with the sounds of your labored breathing. He followed it to your room, where you had curled yourself into a ball against the headboard, hands covering your face as you struggled to breathe. 

He walked over to your side, reaching out his hand but thinking better at the last moment. He needed to make sure you knew that he was there, he didn’t want to scare you.

“Y/n?” he starts softly. 

You lifted your head and looked around yourself wildly, startled when you saw the figure of a man standing in front of you, trying to push him away. He grabbed your arms and you tried to break free

How did he get in here? 

What does he want with me? 

Why- 

Your eyes settle on his. Light blue eyes, staring right back into yours. You knew them, you were safe with them. Your own eyes, red  and blotchy flash with realization and you let out a sob. 

“Bucky…”

He took you into his arms as sobs wracked your body, rubbing an arm up and down your back in efforts to calm your shaking form. He was repeating comforting words over and over again. You clung to his shirt as you kept apologizing over and over again, not knowing what else to say - or even how to say it. 

“I’m sorry”

“It’s okay.”

“I’m so sorry…”

“Shh, y/n, it’s okay.”

“I’m sorry.”

“I’m here. I got you.”

You tried to focus on his heartbeat, steady and strong, as you tried to take deep breaths. Eventually your tears slowed down as you still clung to him, tears drying on your face as you were able to deepen your breathing to match his. His hand still rubbed up and down your back as the two of you sat in silence for a few minutes.

You took a shaky breath. “I - I’m so sorry Bucky.”

Bucky took a deep breath and held her a little more tightly. He could still feel her heart racing. What could she possibly have to be sorry for?

“What happened y/n?”

You felt tears prick your eyes again. Sadness, shame, embarrassment and made you feel sick to your stomach. You opened and closed your mouth a few times before you were able to speak. 

“I - I don’t know.”

“Please y/n. Tell me why you left.”

“I just… I was… “ you swallowed and let out a shaky breath. “It was getting bad again,” you said, voice barely audible. 

Bucky clenched his jaw, angry at himself that he didn’t see it. “Why didn’t you tell me? I told you you could talk to me about anything.”

You screwed your eyes shut. “That was the problem…”

Bucky pulled you back to look at you. “What?”

Your eyes darted everywhere but Bucky’s face. You didn’t want to see the pained expression you knew he’d have right now. You took a deep breath. 

“I just… you were doing so well. And I - I just felt so bad for bringing you down all the time. You would drop anything for me, and you were always there and you were always perfect but I wasn’t.” you finally looked at him. “And I left because I realized I was never going to be.” You shook your head slightly. “I didn’t want to put you through that when you were doing so well.”

You looked away, unable to look at Bucky’s sad eyes any longer. Bucky broke the silence after a few moments. “You were the only reason I was better.”

 Now it was your turn to look at him confused. “What?”

“You brought me out to places when all I wanted was to hide. The nightmares stopped because you were there to make me feel safe. Every time I helped you, I was helping me too,” he said, voice cracking. “You were the best thing that ever happened to me. You weren’t too much for me, you never could be.” 

When you still looked unsure, he moved his hand to cup your cheek. “It’s okay to let people help you, y/n.”

Tears pooled in your eyes once again. That had been what you had said to him when he began closing himself off, be it an intense nightmare or being triggered. Back when things were bad. Like they were for you now.

“I’m sorry,” you whispered.

“It’s okay.” he whispered, hugging you again. “Let’s go home.”

[souichioneshots]

Passing Notes 【Souichi x Reader Fluff】

Summary: You and Souichi had never really spoken before. But after getting new seats, you two start to exchange notes with one another.

It all started when the new semester started and everyone was assigned new seats.

The class had been proceeding the same as always when suddenly a folded-up piece of paper landed on Souichi’s desk.

Opening it up he saw the words,

Y/N: Sorry, but what page are we on?

Turning to the side where the paper came from, he saw you. You had turned towards him, but weren't looking directly at him.

You and Souichi had never really spoken to one another before. Thinking about it now, Souichi had never seen you talk to anyone before. The only time you spoke was when the teacher called on you to answer a problem. Other than that you were silent, always hiding in your own shadow as you tried to avoid interacting with people.

Writing the page number under your words, he slid the paper back onto your desk. Giving him a small bow as a thank you, you quickly turned to the assigned page.

From that day on, you would pass notes to Souichi whenever the teacher wasn't looking.

Although most of the notes you passed him were brief and casual, today you started off by asking him a heavy question.

Y/N: What do boys like?

Souichi squinted in confusion as he looked down at the note. What kind of question was that?

Turning his head to the side, he looked at you. You were looking down at the worksheet on your desk, trying your best to focus on the problems written on it.

Souichi sighed deeply as he looked back at the note. He noisily moved the nails around in his mouth as he thought to himself.

Are you trying to figure out a way to approach a guy? How is he supposed to answer that? The question is way too broad.

Scribbling on the back of the paper, he poked your elbow and handed it back to you.

S: Everyone is different. If it’s a guy you like, you should just ask him yourself.

Ripping another piece of paper from your journal, you wrote back.

Y/N: But I’ve never actually talked to him before… S: Love at first sight type of thing?

Suddenly, you shoved the paper into your bag and turned away from Souichi. The conversation between the two of you ended there.

Souichi couldn’t help but wonder that night why you thought it would be a good idea to ask him such a thing. Although he didn’t have social anxiety like you, he certainly wasn’t popular or qualified enough to answer such questions. But still, he felt proud that you thought so highly of him.

When the next day came, you immediately started to pass Souichi notes.

Y/N: Do you like cookie straws? S: I’ve never had one before. Y/N: I have some. Is strawberry okay? S: Yeah! I love strawberry!

When lunch came, you reached into your bag and pulled out a small pink package.

Scribbling onto a piece of paper, you handed both to the pale boy.

Y/N: These are from my home country. They’re my favorite. I hope you like them too…

Just as Souichi was about to verbally thank you, you got up from your seat and walked out of the classroom.

He'll just have to thank you later.

After finishing his own bento, Souichi opened the package. He was surprised when the delicious smell of strawberry filled the air around him.

“Woah. These are really good!” Souichi said to himself as he ate the sweet snack in big bites.

Before he knew it, he had eaten all 10 cookie straws in one go.

When lunch finally came to an end, you walked back into the classroom.

Sliding a piece of paper onto your desk, Souichi gave you a smile.

S: Thanks for the cookies. They were super good.

You gave Souichi a small bow and placed the note into your bag.

As the class went on, you didn’t make any attempts to pass him any more notes. Souichi rested his head in his hand as he looked at you. His eyes looked you up and down as you continued to write in your notebook.

Now that he got a good look at you, you were actually kind of cute. Because you were a foreigner, you stood out like a sore thumb, but not necessarily in a bad way. Maybe that’s why you felt anxious about hanging out with people so much?

Souichi tensed up a bit as you suddenly turned and look at him.

Pulling your notebook up, you showed him what you had been doing.

Souichi quickly put his hand up to his mouth, trying to stifle his laughter as he looked upon a drawing you had done. It was the homeroom teacher hanging from the ceiling as he continued to ‘teach’ the class. Even though it was just a sketch, the detail was amazing.

Ripping out a piece of paper from his own notebook, he passed you a note.

S: You’re really good at drawing. What else can you draw?

He could see a small blush appear on your cheeks as you read his note.

Taking out a new piece of paper, you moved your textbook in a way that hindered Souichi from seeing what you were doing.

When you finished, you folded the paper half and passed it to him.

Souichi’s eyes widened in surprise as he opened it up to see a picture of him. You had drawn him in his current uniform, but with a long vampire cape. The nails in his mouth had been replaced real vampire fangs, making him look like the vampire he always wanted to be.

Souichi couldn’t help but stare at the drawing. It was the most amazing thing he had ever received.

He didn’t exactly know how to thank you, but he needed to give you something in return.

As the class was coming to an end, Souichi handed you one last note.

S: If you want to talk with the guy you like, why not try greeting him in the morning?

It wasn’t much, but it was a start. It would help you break the ice with the guy you liked and even help cure your social anxiety too.

You looked down at the note with emotionless eyes. When the final bell rang, you shoved it into your bag and quickly made your way out of the class.

As the next day came, Souichi noticed that you had arrived before him today.

He gave you a small bow as he sat down in his seat next to you. However, you didn’t bow back. Instead, you turned towards him and rubbed your wrist with your hand. Your mouth moved in small motions, but no words came out. Not that he could hear at least.

Not able to understand what you had just said, Souichi tiled his head to the side in confusion. He was expecting you to try to speak again, but you just turned to the other side and, taking out a random textbook from your desk, pretended to read from it.

The entire time the class went on, you hadn’t tried to pass him any more notes again.

Had something happened between you and the guy you liked? Maybe you finally talked to him?

Souichi suddenly started to feel irritated as he thought about how you might be trying to throw him away now that your social anxiety was slowly being cured.

When cleaning duty came, you and Souichi had been assigned to eraser cleaning duty.

You had kept your distance from Souichi most of the time, but as people started to slowly leave the classroom, you walked up to him.

Bringing a piece of white chalk up to the blackboard, you wrote in tiny letters.

Y/N: Can I call you by your first name?

You placed the chalk down and stared at the words, waiting for the raven-haired boy to respond.

Taking the chalk into his own hands, Souichi wrote back.

S: Sure

Wrapping your hand around your wrist, you started to nervously rub it again. You tried to look up at the boy, but your eyes quickly looked in a different direction when his eyes met yours.

“……Souichi…”

Souichi’s face suddenly felt warm as you whispered his name.

Taking the chalk back into your hand again, you quickly wrote.

Y/N: You can call me by my first name. It’s Y/N.

He already knew your first name. There was no need to remind him.

“Y/N.”

You jolted at the sound of your name coming from the tall boy beside you.

Quickly grabbing an eraser, you erased the writing and ran to the open window. Souichi laughed as a huge cloud of chalk dust surrounded you, causing you to go into a small coughing fit.

He was happy that you actually tried to talk to him. Even if it was just you saying his name and running away in embarrassment.

When the day finally came to an end, Souichi noticed that you hadn’t gotten out of your seat yet. You stayed as still as possible until you two were the only ones left in the classroom.

He was going to write you a note to ask what was wrong, but he stopped when you turned towards him.

You brought your hands up to your desk and pushed your body up, almost as if you were about to leave. But then you suddenly sat back down again.

You had also wrapped your hand around your wrist for a second, however, you quickly pulled it away when you looked at the boy sitting next to you.

You looked extremely nervous.

Taking a deep breath, you spoke in a calm but slightly loud voice.

“Good morning!”

Souichi’s eyes widened in surprise as his cheeks burned red. He finally understood everything that had been going on with you.

Unsure how to respond, he just continued to look at your ever-worsening anxious expression.

Suddenly you pushed yourself off your seat and grabbed your bag. Souichi moved from his own seat as you walked to the door of the classroom.

Rushing towards you, he put his hand out and grabbed the strap of your bag, stopping you from going any further.

His heart raced as he looked into your eyes and responded.

“…Good morning.”

[earlgreydream]

Jealous

| loki x reader | smut |

Loki ignores you and you devise a plan to make him jealous, but you’re in too deep when it backfires. 

warnings: spanking, punishment, sex (obviously)

A drink was pushed into your hand, a the fake smile on your face was dazzling. A designer gown that cost more than a car was draping your body, catching the attention of everyone in the room.

Stark’s parties were loud and long and obnoxious. The host of the party was drunk and enthusiastically telling stories of his genius success. Reporters followed around your coworkers like dogs, three of them interrogating you at the moment. You could barely find it in you to give them any attention, your eyes intently resting on your boyfriend. He was leaned against a wall in an all-black suit, drinking champagne with a harrowing scowl on his face. You had to drag him to the party, and he’d left you to stand in a quiet corner as soon as reporters had flocked to you. The public wasn’t fond of Loki, and you knew that. They were unable to forgive him for his attempted takeover, though it had been years. You hated the judgement of the public against Loki, especially when he was accused of corrupting you.

You were America’s darling, the golden girl of the avengers. A late addition to their team, you were adored by everyone for your sweet personality and generally bubbly attitude. The media was scathing when discussing your relationship with Loki, accusing him of manipulating you. They would never be able to understand the love and devotion you had for each other.

However, tonight, he was in a sour mood. You were annoyed that he had abandoned you to fend for yourself against the press, especially after he’d put up such a fight to come in the first place. Your eyes narrowed at him as you made eye contact across the party, and his gaze was hard as he lifted his glass to his lips.

You grew more and more frustrated the more time that passed. You wanted attention, you wanted him by your side, you wanted his hands on you, you wanted him.

“Y/N! How do you feel about Stark’s new weapons line? Have you used any?” A reporter captured your attention. You turned to him, flashing a smile.

“Yes, actually! Stark is a genius as always.” You laid your hand on his arm, giggling at a joke he made. You could feel Loki’s eyes on you, and you could practically feel the jealousy brewing. The reporter blushed and began to stammer, making you smile wider.

“Stark! Come tell them about your weapons!” You called as he passed. He never passed up an opportunity to talk about himself, and he wrapped an arm around your waist with an intoxicated grin. You shot Loki a challenging look, leaning your head on Tony’s shoulder and laughing at something he said.

You slipped out of his grasp, taking the opportunity to get away from the reporters. You walked to the bar, standing Bucky and ordering another cocktail.

“We can feel his jealousy radiating off of him. You’re making him angry.” Bucky warned you, referring to Loki.

“I don’t care. Maybe if he was so jealous he could at least stand by me.” You shrugged, and Bucky seemed uneasy.

“Y/N, you’re playing a dangerous game-”

“Let him be mad if he wants.” You swallowed a generous amount of my drink, and Bucky dropped it, giving up on trying to warn you.

“Dance with me.” You said to Bucky, setting your empty glass down on the bar.

“Y/N, you’re going to really piss him off-”

“You’re dating Steve, I don’t think Loki needs to worry.” You rolled your eyes and pulled Bucky to dance with you. He relaxed as he expertly moved your body along with the music, dipping you low to the ground.

“Excuse me.” You left Bucky after a couple of songs, walking to the restroom.

After drying your hands, you went to fix your hair in the mirror. A startled gasp left your lips as Loki suddenly appeared behind you, wrapping his hand around your throat.

“Loki-?” You were caught off guard, and you were dragged back and pinned to his chest, seeing his green eyes blaze with anger in the mirror.

“What are you playing at, Y/N? Are you trying to make me jealous?” Loki gave you an opportunity to confess and apologize, but you looked back at him, standing your ground.

“I’m just having fun at the party. Just because you pout in the corner doesn’t mean I can’t talk to reporters and dance with a soldier boy.” You taunted him, feeling his grip tighten around your throat.

“Why are you being a brat? Is it because you’re so fucking desperate for my attention, you’ll get it any way you can?” Loki’s voice was dangerously low, but you refused to show your anxiety.

“I can get attention from anyone.” You dug yourself deeper, and Loki bent you forward over the counter.

“Loki!” You gasped, tugging at the magic binds that held your wrists to the faucet. The cold marble was pressed against your chest, the edge of the counter digging into your hips, pushing your ass out.

“Not so bold now?” Loki mocked as you struggled.

“Have you lost your mind? Someone could walk in-”

“Let them. You wanted to flirt and whore around, so let them walk in and see you bent over the counter for me.” He snapped, and your eyes widened. As much as you hated it, the threat made arousal pool between your thighs.

You knew it was an empty threat, Loki would never let anyone see your body. You knew the door was magicked shut, but his words still made warmth spread through your belly.

“You’re mine. You’re mine alone, and I didn’t realize I would have to remind you.” He ran his hands down your sides, and you looked up at him in the mirror, your eyes widened when you saw his suit was gone, and he was standing naked behind you.

“I’m yours.” You breathed, squirming against the counter, trying to arch off the cold stone. His hands went under you, groping your breasts roughly. You squeaked as he rolled your nipples between his fingers through the thin fabric of your dress, and you rested your forehead against the countertop as heat seeped through your panties.

“Loki, I’m-- ah-- I’m sorry!” You shrieked as he pinched roughly, making your back arch. 

“I’m going to make you remember that nobody could ever touch you like me or make you feel good.” He hissed in your ear, making you moan eagerly, nodding.

“After I punish you for acting like a brat.” He finished, a yelp leaving your lips as he slapped your ass with force, pain stinging through your skin. He lifted your dress to bunch around your hips, leaving your ass exposed to him. 

“A black lace thong, hm?” He snapped it, making you jerk. Soft yelps caught in your throat as he delivered several more slaps to your ass, and you tugged pathetically, failing to free your wrists. You knew he could see your arousal dripping down your thighs, and you blinked away moisture from your eyes, trying to look at him in the mirror. 

“Loki, please!” You begged him, wanting him to ease up on your ass and fuck you like you wanted.

“Please, what, Y/N?” He taunted, knowing exactly what. He wanted to hear you say it, to further your embarrassment. He spanked you again when you didn’t answer, and you swallowed your shyness. 

“Please, fuck me!” You cried, and he tore off your thong, kicking your legs open wider. You wanted to touch him, and you yanked on your hands, but he didn’t let them go.

“You’re fucking soaked, you dirty girl. Was it from dancing with the soldier?”

“No, no, it’s from you.” Your voice was broken as you struggled to speak. 

He dragged his fingers through your folds, and you writhed as he stroked at your opening, avoiding your clit and not entering you. He was making you writhe and beg for him, completely at his mercy.

“Needy girl.” He mocked your pathetic whimpers. 

You screamed as he fully entered you in one thrust, his hips connecting with the heated skin of your ass. You choked on moans as he relentlessly snapped his hips, hitting you deep with every thrust. The roughness burned, but pleasure was coursing through your body, making it easier to ignore. You tried to grind against the edge of the counter, needing stimulation on your clit in order to cum.

“No, you will not come. You’ve been a brat and throwing yourselves at other men. So you are going to bend over and take what I give you, and you’re going to hold it.” He ordered, making you sob desperately. 

“Please, please, please!” You squealed helplessly and he held you still as he emptied his seed into you, coming inside of your tight heat. You whimpered as he pulled out, using his fingers to push his thick seed back inside of you as it dripped. You were shocked at his willingness to just leave you. 

Loki was an incredible lover, always attentive and making sure you came multiple times. The sharp contrast of his dominating roughness left you jarred and unsatisfied. 

He knelt down and pressed a kiss to your aching cunt, making you shudder as he stood back up. 

“Come on, darling. Stark’s party has another couple hours. You did want me to stand by you for interviews, didn’t you?” Loki hummed, slipping your dress to fall back down over your legs. 

“Loki, I don’t know if I can walk.” He laughed, releasing the invisible bonds on your wrists and pulling you up to stand. He held your jaw and pressed a tender kiss to your lips, leaving your head spinning.

“You’re so pretty in this dress, darling. Come on, let’s go enjoy the party.” 

You walked out of the bathroom, his hand on your lower back. He murmured affirmations in your ear, and put a drink in your hands, smiling at Bucky and Steve as they chatted with you. 

“Y/N, how is everything with your boyfriend, here?” A reporter asked you, and you leaned back into Loki’s chest. You fought off the urge to slip into subspace after the sex, and you gave the reporter a dreamy smile.

“It’s amazing. Loki is wonderful to me, as always.” You answered, looking up at the young god who smiled down at you. You were dazed as you kept up with the party, and there wasn’t a second without Loki’s hands somewhere on your body.

“Loki, please, this party is too much.” You whispered to him. You wanted to go back to the privacy of your suite, and be alone with Loki. He gave into your request, whisking you away back to your bedroom. 

“I need you, I need you to make me come. I’m sorry I was a brat.” You babbled softly, and he gently kissed you, slipping the dress off of your shoulders and helping you step out of it. 

“I’m going to take care of you darling, relax.” Loki hummed into your neck before laying you down carefully on the bed. He was attentive to the fact he’d destroyed you earlier, and he knelt down between your legs to eat you out instead of putting you through another round of fucking.

“I’m sorry, I’m sorry, I love you, I just wanted attention!” Your words came out in shaky breaths as he licked through your folds, pulling your clit between his lips.

“My darling, I know. I love you, I’m no longer upset. If you want my attention you need only ask. Now hush and let me make my gorgeous girl feel good.” He said with a kiss to the inside of your thigh. You weaved your fingers into his black hair, rocking against his face as he ate you out, bringing you to the edge within minutes. 

“Loki!” 

“Let go, darling.” He coaxed you, and the coil in your belly snapped with a scream. You throbbed as you came, and he rode you through it, licking up everything that dripped from your aching center. 

“I love you,” He said softly, pulling you to lay in his arms and lulling you to sleep.

[cloudteawrites]

chapter: six ( 15.5k ) rating: mature (death, past abuse, eventual smut) genre: mystery | romance | hurt/comfort tags: bts x reader | ot7 x reader | hybrid | poly summary: when an estranged uncle leaves you his massive fortune you wonder if the universe is playing a joke on you. when that fortune comes with seven hybrids, you know for sure that it is. << first < previous | next > last >>

what is hybrid marking

8.2 million results. 

While scent mixing (heretofore referred to as ‘scenting’) is temporary and lasts a maximum of twelve hours if left undisturbed, scent marking (‘marking’ in common parlance) is semi-permanent. A ‘mark’ is created when the pheromones present in a hybrid’s bodily fluids are applied directly to their markee’s skin. When said chemical compounds seep below the epidermis and bond to the sweat glands found within the dermal layer of the skin, the target has been officially ‘marked’. Between domesticated hybrids and their human caretakers, this is most commonly done by applying hybrid saliva to the skin of the neck, where a human’s scent tends to be strongest. While the behavior involved in marking resembles some aspects of human foreplay, it is a non-sexual expression of mutual trust and affection. It is important to note that most hybrids of age are able to mitigate the oral secretion of pheromones and cannot mark accidentally-

“How do I look?” 

The sound of Jimin’s voice makes you jump. You fumble with your phone, trying to exit out of the website, shove it in your pocket and look at the leopard hybrid’s outfit at the same time.

“You look great!” You tell him once the device is safely tucked away.

He rolls his eyes at you. “You’ve said that about everything I’ve shown you.”

You had, but only because it was true. No matter what the trio of hybrids tried on, they all looked great. You weren’t sure what it was, but seeing them in something other than neutral sweat suits made them look even better than they already had. You were discovering they all had unique senses of fashion too. Taehyung preferred earth tones, soft fabrics and slouchy cardigans, Yoongi tended toward plaid overshirts and dark denim and Jimin had just come out of the dressing room in his sixth button down and second pair of chelsea boots. 

When the four of you had arrived at the mall that afternoon, you’d told them to go wild and call you when they were ready to check out. There was an entire section of the shopping center that catered specifically to hybrids and you were certain they’d be able to find everything they needed and more. You’d been all set to sequester yourself in a booth in the food court and indulge your hybrid research habit, but Taehyung had fixed you with a forlorn look the moment you tried to part with them and Jimin had insisted that you personally review every piece of clothing he put on. You wouldn’t deny that you were having fun, but surreptitiously trying to google what every little thing they did meant without getting caught was getting harder and harder. 

Jimin breezes past you to the semi-circle of mirrors on the far end of the fitting rooms, brushing his tail against your shins as he passes. That was another thing that had changed. Since the talk you’d had with the boys last night, it seemed like they were always finding some excuse to touch you or brush up against you . You didn’t know if it was a manifestation of their cat genes or them just wanting physical reassurance that you were there, but it seemed like every time you turned around there was a tail curling around your calf or a nose tip against your ear or a shoulder brushing your own. You were practically wreathed in them. Even Yoongi hadn’t seemed to mind when your fingertips had brushed against each other at breakfast when you’d passed him the juice. You didn’t know if you should count that as progress, but you want to. 

You’re not entirely used to physical contact and nearly every time Taehyung rubs his cheek on the top of your head or Jimin reaches out to link your fingers together, you jump. It feels strange, to have people be so blatantly physically affectionate with you. It’s not like you dislike it, exactly, it’ll just take some getting used to. Whatever adjustments you need to make, you know you’ll need to make them quickly. You don’t think the hybrids will give up on friendly hugs just because you never initiate them first.  

“Y/N-ah,”Jimin calls, catching your attention. He’s twisting this way and that on the platform, trying to catch his reflection in every possible angle. He hums in disappointment as he turns back to the front, tail waving behind him. “This collar,” he says, tugging on the offending band of bright green plastic around his neck, “-is ruining my outfit. We’ll need to get real ones today.” 

You feel like a stone has settled in your stomach. Your shoulders sag, but if the leopard hybrid notices, he doesn’t say anything. “Yeah,” you reply. “Yeah, you’re right.” In truth, you’d hoped to put it off for a little while longer. Collaring and leashing a hybrid had always seemed odd to you. After all, weren’t they people too? The law was the law, you knew, but something about publicly and visibly marking someone as property...well, the morality of it was gray at best. The temporary collars had provided you with a stay from the inevitable, but there was no avoiding it any longer, you supposed. They’d have to get collars. 

“I saw a store for them a couple shops down,” Taehyung supplies as he steps out of his dressing room in a white linen shirt and cream drawstring pants. “We could go there?” 

“That works for me...Taehyung, one of your buttons is in the wrong hole.” 

The tiger hybrid squints down at his shirt, feels blindly for the hole he missed, but can’t seem to find it. 

“No,” you tell him. “Not that one, the other- do you just want me to fix it?”

He pauses and looks up at you for a solid three seconds before giving a single, slow nod. 

You come to stand in front of him and start undoing the buttons from the top. There’s only four of them but each one you pop open reveals more and more of his honey brown skin and prominent collar bones. Your fingers brush his skin accidentally and he chuffs happily, one hand resting on your lower back as you start buttoning him up again. Heat starts crawling up your neck unbidden. Even through the fabric of your t-shirt, you can feel the warmth of his palm, how long his fingers are. He presses you closer until your arms are nearly flat against your chest as you try to finish buttoning him up. It’s hard to move squished between the insistent pressure of his hand and the- surprisingly- hard line of his body, but you make do. “There!” You pat him gently on the chest as you finish the last button. “All done.”

He dips forward and rubs his cheek against your forehead, rumbling so deep in his chest that the vibrations pass into you. “Thank you.” He releases you and pulls away, but as he does, his lips brush against your hairline. You try not to read too deep into it. 

The tiger hybrid sidles over to his friend in the mirror, wrapping his arms around the smaller man’s waist and dipping his head into his neck. Jimin reaches back and scratches behind one of his ears and your heart swells in your chest. It was nice to see them be so openly affectionate with each other. They’re so close in a way you can’t even begin to understand. It’s beautiful. 

Your phone buzzes in your pocket and you thumb the screen to life. An incoming call from Mr. Seo. “You guys keep trying stuff on,” you tell the pair, already standing to make your way out of the dressing room. “I’ve gotta take this.”  They both call at you to hurry back and you give them a shout of assent as you rush away. 

The second you’re outside the store, you answer. “Hello?”

“Ms. L/N,” Mr. Seo’s voice crackles on the other end of the line. “I trust you’ve settled in well.” It isn’t a question and the tone of his voice makes it clear that he doesn’t wish to spend what precious time he has exchanging pleasantries with you. 

“Yeah, everything’s okay.” Everything had most certainly not been okay when you’d emergency dialed him two days ago about the tiger on your couch. The text he’d sent you back six hours later had told you to figure it out. You had and you knew you weren’t his responsibility, but him tossing you in the deep end was still a sore spot for you. 

“There’s been a change of plans.” 

You grimace. Straight to it, then. “What’s going on?” 

“Black Mountain Canines- the company your uncle purchased two of the hybrids from- changed their pick-up date. They want you to come get them in person today.”

“Pick-up?” You frown. “No, they were supposed to drop them off.”

“They were,” Mr. Seo confirms, “But it’s apparently no longer profitable for them to drive all the way into Seoul to hand-deliver two of their charges. They also claim they’re incurring additional expenses by feeding and housing two hybrids who’ve already been purchased, but we’ll see about that when we arrive.”

Your anxiety spikes and your fingers wrap tighter around your phone. You’d promised the boys a whole day out. All you’d done so far was get them phones of their own and furniture for their room. There was still so much to do, so much to see. “What about Yoongi and Jimin and Taehyung?” You blurt out.

Mr. Seo sighs and his breath crackles over the receiver. “Those are the cats, I assume? I suggest you let them know sooner rather than later that they’ll have to share their space.” There’s a flurry of movement on his end of the line, the sound of someone calling his name and papers shuffling. “I have to go; they need me to look over some case files.” He tells you. “I’ll be at Haneul Tower to pick you up in three hours. Be downstairs waiting.”And the line clicks off. 

You sigh and hang up. What were you going to tell the boys? Day one of your new friendship and you were already breaking promises. 

“Trouble?” Yoongi’s voice right behind you makes you flinch and whirl on him. His ears press back against his head and he takes a step back at your sudden movements. 

“Sorry!” You tell him, forcing your spine to relax. “Sorry, I didn’t notice you there; I thought you were still shopping. ”

“I can tell,” he snarks, but there’s no heat behind it. His eyes trace the line of your shoulders, still tense and flick to the phone in your hand. “I dropped my stuff at the register. What’s going on?”

You gnaw on the inside of your cheek, nerves making your stomach ache. “C’mon,” you tell him, walking back into the store. “Let’s pay and grab some lunch. I’ll tell you when we sit down.” He follows after you a few paces behind, trying not to let worry prick in him at the anxious shift in your scent. Something was about to change, he was sure, and not entirely for the better. 

Twenty minutes later, the four of you are sitting in the food court, a mess of shopping bags at your feet and a bowl of tteokbokki between you. Yoongi and Jimin had picked out all the fish cakes first and were bickering good-naturedly over who the last one should go to, but Taehyung seemed content to just gnaw at his rice cakes. You’d hardly touched anything, your eyes flicking back to the time on your phone. 1:20 P.M. Two hours and forty minutes ‘til Mr. Seo would be at your apartment to pick you up and bring you to get two more of the hybrids your uncle had bought. You push a rice cake around on your paper plate with the end of your chopstick. Well, no point delaying the inevitable. 

“Hey, guys?” You call softly. Three pairs of ears swivel toward you immediately. The words die in your throat and your tongue feels like lead as they look at you, all their eyes focused and expectant. You clear your throat and force yourself to continue. “So...you know how I…” You search for the right word, but there’s really no other way to say it. “...inherited you guys from my uncle?” 

Taehyung’s eyes flick toward Jimin and the leopard hybrid brushes his tail against the tiger’s. Silent communication you couldn’t even begin to decipher. “Yeah,” Yoongi says, tossing his chopsticks down and leaning back in his chair. “I told them.”

That was right. What you’d blurted out at Yoongi yesterday on the street you had yet to disclose to his juniors. “Thanks, Yoongi,” You tell him, meaning every word of it. He’d spared you from yet another uncomfortable conversation. 

“...For what it’s worth, we’re glad it’s you,” Taehyung tells you, his tail twining around your ankle under the table. He looks at his hyungs for confirmation and when neither of them deny it, he settles his amber gaze back on you. “We like being here with you, even if you didn’t pick us. It’s...It’s nice.”

You can’t help the smile that tugs at your lips at his words. He beams at you, his boxy smile soft despite the sharp incisors poking his bottom lip. “I like having you guys around, too,” you admit, taking the time to meet each of their eyes. Jimin purrs as you look at him, the corners of his mouth curling. When your gaze meets Yoongi’s, his ears twitch but he doesn’t look away. He doesn’t blink either, just holds your stare with an intensity that makes heat crawl up your neck. You suddenly remember the warm stretch of his body over your’s, the sensation of his lips against your neck. You snatch your eyes away and cough to cover your lapse in speech.  “It would’ve been scary, I think, if I had to deal with all this alone.” 

You couldn’t even imagine it.That clinically clean apartment with its blank white walls and its imposing emptiness would have driven you down until you couldn’t stand it anymore. You’d always had a little pit of loneliness inside you. You didn’t know how long it’d been there. Maybe it always had been, a seed of something sad and dark at the core of your soul. You’d done well keeping it contained. You felt it in your goshiwon, but your room was small. It couldn’t grow beyond your keeping. In Oliver’s penthouse, it would’ve had endless room to sprawl and with no one to clip it back, you would’ve choked to death on vines of doubt.

“There are others,” you tell them, before you can down spiral into the mire of your own thoughts. “He bought other hybrids before he died. They weren’t supposed to be coming until next week but their company wants me to come get them today.” 

The mood at the table shifts almost immediately. Taehyung’s ears and tail sag, Jimin’s smile goes sharp at the edges and Yoongi’s lip curls. “How many others?” He asks, crossing his arms over his chest. You notice he does that when he’s nervous or uncomfortable. It’s a defense mechanism, no matter how at ease it makes him seem. 

“Four,” you answer and the bobcat hybrid’s ears tilt back in irritation. “Two are coming home today and the other two toward the end of next week.” Jimin doesn’t say anything, but you see the tip of his tail flicking back and forth. He’s annoyed. Taehyung drops a hand onto the smaller hybrid’s back and rubs circles in it, trying to soothe him. 

“Maybe it’ll be okay?” The tiger hybrid offers. He’s trying his best to be diplomatic, but you hear the strain in the deep timbre of his voice. “Having other cats around again might be nice. We used to live with a lot back at the center…”

You wince. “...they’re canines.” Almost immediately, all of their ears go flat against their skulls and they hiss in unison. Yoongi stifles himself the quickest, setting a hand on Jimin’s knee and squeezing to get the leopard hybrid to get a hold of himself. 

“Hybrids of different species don’t play well together,” he explains. “Especially not when our animals are solitary in the wild. The only reason Jimin, Tae and I are able to stand sharing the same territory is because we’ve known each other since we were kids and we’ve had to do it before.”

Before? A question forms in the back of your mind, but now isn’t the time to ask it.

“We don’t like sharing what’s ours,” Jimin continues for his hyung, interlocking his fingers with yours on the plastic table top. “It’s instinctual.”

“I know, I know.” You squeeze his hand lightly, trying to reassure him. “But the apartment is big; can’t you avoid each other starting out?”

All three of them give you a strange look and Jimin’s lips curl in a way that isn’t quite a smile. “...right,” he purrs, a little delayed. “The apartment.”

You chew on the inside of your cheek, anxiety sinking its claws into you. “I’m really sorry to spring this on you guys, I know it’s not great, but…” Your shoulders sag. “I don’t want to have promised someone a home and rip the rug out from under them, you know?” You knew what that felt like. You wouldn’t wish that feeling on your worst enemy. “I’m just...I’m worried that they’re not being treated well.”

“They were up for sale,” Yoongi drawls. “They definitely aren’t.” 

The taxi ride back to Haneul Tower is uncomfortably quiet. Jimin still holds your hand and Taehyung still leans on your shoulder, but nobody says a word. You help them carry their bags upstairs and drop them off in the master bedroom. You’d told them they could have separate rooms if they wanted, but they’d insisted on sharing, so you thought it was only fair that they get the largest room in the penthouse. Clothes went onto hangars and into closets and before you knew it, there were only ten minutes until Mr. Seo’s arrival. 

“You don’t have to go,” Taehyung huffs. He’s got you wrapped in a bear- well, you suppose a tiger hug and his cheek is mashed against the top of your head. You don’t even think he’s actively scenting you at this point, just keeping you from leaving. “Send your assistant instead and stay here with us.”

You let out a puff of laughter and pat the hybrid on the back in a way you hope is soothing. “Mr. Seo isn’t my assistant, buddy, he’s my uncle’s attorney.” You give a little tug away from him and he lets you go, albeit with a sad little mrow that makes him sound just like a disappointed cat. “I couldn’t ask him to do that. The only reason he’s coming is because they broke the contract. And I can’t drive.” 

The look Taehyung gives you is so downtrodden that you toy with the idea of calling the whole day off and staying with them- but no. You can’t bail out now, especially not with what you’d put Mr. Seo through when the first group of hybrids were delivered. “I’ll be back before you know it,” You tell him with a steadfast smile. 

“You’d better,” Jimin says, nudging the taller hybrid out of the way. Taehyung gives a half-hearted growl, but settles as Yoongi squeezes his shoulder. “The longer you’re away, the longer you’ll have to sit in the stench of those mutts.”

You frown. “Jimin-”

“Only joking,” He soothes, bringing both of your hands up to his cheeks. You don’t believe him, but you don’t press it. The leopard hybrid nuzzles into your palms, purring happily at the feeling of your skin against his. Your palms nearly burn from how warm he is. You feel a warm puff of air against your fingers and tense as Jimin presses all ten of them against his lips. 

“Jimin.” Yoongi’s voice is hard, but his junior’s lips curl up in a satisfied smile, one of his incisors pricking at the pad of your index finger. 

“Hurry back,” he murmurs. You try not to shiver at the feeling of his plush lips moving against your oversensitive fingertips. 

“I’ll do my best!” You say,  a pained smile tugging your lips apart. He hums in response and drops your hands, his fingers trailing across yours as he lets you go. 

“Hyung,” he calls over his shoulder. “Is there anything you’d like to say to Y/N-ah?”

“Don’t let them scent you.” Is all Yoongi says as he breezes toward the stairs. “You know better now.” 

It’s as much as you were expecting. “I’ll see you guys later,” You tell them as you head out the door. “Finish setting your phones up and text me if you need anything!”

True to his word, Mr. Seo is parked out front at 4 o’clock on the dot. You haven’t seen him in a little over a week and you’d almost forgotten how imposing he was. He cuts a sharp figure against the backdrop of the bustling street, dressed in all black and leaning against a brand new Buick Enclave. The poor valet stationed at the front door looks like he’s been trying to work up the courage to ask to park his car for the past twenty minutes and sags in relief as you start heading over.

The lawyer dips his head in acknowledgement at you and checks his watch. “Miracle of miracles,” he says, popping open the passenger side door for you. “You’re on time.”

“I was late one time,” you huff, sliding past him and into your seat.

“And that was enough,” he snips back, closing your door before you can come up with a retort. You grumble to yourself, but don’t press him. You know he’s right. He’d gone out of his way to help you and you’d put him out. 

“I’m sorry,” you tell him as he settles into his seat and reaches for his seatbelt. “It won’t happen again; I know you’ve got other things to do.”

He stills and looks at you over the gold frames of his glasses. For a long moment he holds your gaze, unblinking. You gnaw on the inside of your cheek. Had you done something wrong? 

Finally Mr. Seo blinks and finishes buckling himself in. “I apologize for staring, I wasn’t sure if I’d heard you correctly.” He push starts his car and pulls away from the curb. “I never thought I’d see the day a L/N would apologize to me.” He edges the car into the steady stream of Seoul traffic and you’re off, zooming toward the freeway.

Silence fills the car again, but as Mr. Seo takes on-ramp, you work up the courage to ask your question. “Did Oliver never apologize to you?”

Mr. Seo snorts and it’s such an undignified sound that you almost can’t believe it comes from him. “You could tell your uncle the sky was blue and he’d argue that it was red until he was. And your grandfather-” He seems to catch himself, reigning back whatever meager bits of his personality had managed to slip through the cracks in his normally flawless veneer. You’re all ears.

Up until a week and a half ago, you hadn’t known you had any family, much less an uncle who owned buildings and bugattis. Now you were finding out that you had a grandfather too. “What about my grandfather?” The word feels strange in your mouth. It’d been years since you’d followed the word ‘my’ up with any type of familial relation. 

Mr. Seo cuts his eyes at you, and flicks them back to the front. “Nothing,” he replies, clearly done talking about him. “I spoke out of turn.” He reaches forward and turns on the radio, the sound of national news filling the silence.

You pout and slouch in your seat, disappointment setting in as the promise of new information slipped out of your grasp.

The rest of the drive is easy. Mr. Seo takes the highway out of Seoul and up into the foothills but you’re asleep before he even finds the exit. You’d slept more in the past two days than you had in the previous three weeks, but it seemed like years of bad habits were catching up to you.

Last night, you’d passed out halfway through the second movie snuggled up between Jimin and Taehyung. They’d been so warm and soft and the quiet thrumming of their heartbeats had lulled you to sleep before you knew what was happening.You’d woken up with them still curled around you and -maybe most surprising of all- Yoongi plating breakfast in the kitchen.

Still, it seemed even twelve hours of the best sleep you’d gotten in years and a peaceful morning devoid of stress -for the most part- hadn’t been enough.

You wake up just as the asphalt transitions into gravel, the sound of it crunching under the tires and the car’s shaking waking you up. You’re bleary-eyed and confused, but a sign up ahead snaps you to wakefulness. Standing like a guardian over a chain link fence topped with barbed wire is a metal sign, imposing as it is tall: Black Mountain K-9s, written in stark font.

“We’re here,” Mr. Seo says, as if it’s not obvious. He kills the engine and without its purring to distract you, you feel nerves starting to boil in your belly. What kind of place was this? You half expect sinister organ music to kick on and lightning to start flashing from black clouds. Neither of those things happen, though. The sky remains startlingly clear and the only things you can pick up are the sounds of whistles being blown, dozens of people doing call and response, and one voice, louder than all the others screaming for people to ‘Run faster! Get those knees up!’

You pop the door and step out of the car before Mr. Seo can open it for you and head around to the nose of the car, taking in the compound. 

“This facility produces some of the highest caliber bodyguards in the country,” He says, coming to stand beside you. The attorney rebuttons his suit jacket and flicks his sleeves up before settling his arms over his chest. “Politicians, celebrities, even a few former presidents all have hybrids from this training center.”

“It looks more like a prison,” You remark, nodding toward the barbed wire. “First big cat hybrids, now this...Why didn’t Oliver just get regular pets if he was lonely? Was he worried someone was after him?” 

“Anything I can tell you would be pure speculation,” He replies, walking away from you and heading for the callbox. “Your uncle very rarely confided in me.”

“But you were his attorney.” 

For just a second, the tight grip Mr. Seo has on his composure slips. His lips press together and his shoulders sag- but just as quickly as it’d lapsed, his mask is in place again. “Yes,” he says after a beat. “I was.” And he presses the button on the call box before you can pester him with any more questions about the dead men he’d known.

The call box crackles to life, speakers squealing with feedback. You flinch and slap your hands over your ears to protect them from the splitting sound. Mr. Seo doesn’t react at all and you’re stunned, wondering how he can stand it.

“Seo Seunghan and Y/N L/N for Lim Hangyeol.” 

The person on the other end doesn’t respond. The speaker cuts and a second later, the metal gate before you starts rolling to the side, pushed by invisible hands. It’s like a curtain going up at the theater. 

Before you lies a wide, dusty yard, devoid of any plant life. The thick-trunked trees and lush grasses of the surrounding mountainside had been stripped down to the roots here. All that remains are a few weeds poking out around the base of the long metal buildings that ring the fence, and even those seem like an intrusion. People are making use of the space in whatever way they can. A group of people with matching cropped black ears and docked tails run past you in four straight lines, all perfectly in step with each other. Over to your right, there’s a pack of teenagers working in pairs to scale a ten-foot tall sheer wooden wall and in the center of the field, twenty kids are running through taekwondo forms, supervised by a widely smiling instructor.

You’re in awe of it all. Every single person is like a cog in a well-oiled machine, all in the same black tactical pants and compression shirt. You’d never seen so many hybrids in one place before and certainly not all of the same breed.

Mr. Seo places a hand in the center of your back, steering you away from staring and toward a squat cement building.You let him lead you.

“When we get inside,” the lawyer begins, his voice quieter than you’ve ever heard it. “Let me speak first. If we can get him to admit to breaching the contract right away, it’ll be much easier to get him to agree to a settlement.”

You frown at that. “Why would we settle?” You ask him. “It’s not like I need the money.”

“It’s a matter of principle, Ms. L/N.” He sighs, pulling open the heavy metal door and ushering you into the building. “He did something wrong, and it’s most easy for him to bear the brunt of atonement financially. Without requiring damages be paid for breaches, contract law would collapse.” 

“Can’t you just have him apologize?”

Mr. Seo’s mouth twists up like he’s just tasted something unpleasant. “As you attorney, it is my duty to advise you against accepting restitution in the form of an apology. You’ll get a reputation for being a pushover.” 

You wanted to be anything but. “Alright, alright,” you concede, “Do whatever you think is best.”

The building you’ve ducked into seems to be an office. Along one wall are a set of metal folding chairs doing their best impression of a waiting room. Along the other is a metal door covered in peeling paint and one suspicious dent bearing a plaque that reads ‘DIRECTOR LIM’. Set between you and it is a desk covered in a mess of paperwork. An old desktop stands among it like an island in the ocean and middle aged hybrid woman in coke bottle glasses is hunched before it, tapping away at the keyboard at a mind-boggling speed. One of her ears twitches as the pair of you approach. 

“Take a seat,” she orders in a reedy voice, not bothering to look up from her work. “The Director will be with you shortly.”

“Send them in, Eunjung!” Someone shouts from behind the metal door  just as she’s finished. She doesn’t look up or stop typing or even acknowledge you two again. Mr. Seo takes it upon himself to breeze past her desk and open the door for you. 

The office is militaristically organized, all right angles and bare metal surfaces. There’s a black leather couch that’d seen better days to your left as you enter, a half empty water cooler to your right. Bookshelves lined with trophies and textbooks dominate the western wall. You scan the titles as you pass: Predatory Instinct: The Teaching and Training Canines, The Utility of Force, On Raising Hybrids, The Art of War, all dangerous and daunting as the man they belonged to.

Lim Hangyeol is the most grizzled man you’ve ever seen and the only other human besides yourself and Mr. Seo in the compound, it seems. He looks like a drill sergeant from an old action movie, his salt and pepper hair buzzed short and his face craggy with frown lines. There’s a semicircle of pockmark scars marring the skin of his right cheek and as you get closer, you realize they’re teeth marks. You shoot a concerned look to Mr. Seo, but he’s more focused on giving the director a shallow bow than allaying any of your fears. 

“Director,” He says, straightening back up. “Thank you for having us-”

“Spare me the bullshit,” The older man orders, kicking back his office chair and sinking back into it. “Take a seat. Let’s talk business.” 

A cold smile settles on your attorney’s lips and you see a cord twitching in his jaw, but he merely nods and replies in a breezy voice, “Of course.” 

The two of you do as you told, settling into two metal chairs in front of his desk. These ones are nicer than the folding ones in the waiting room, but no more comfortable. You try to slide yours forward only to find that it’s bolted to the floor. 

“Stops the dogs from throwin’ em when they get bad news,” Director Lim tells you as you uselessly tug at the legs. “Got tired of replacing windows.”

You grimace. If the awards on the bookshelf, what Mr. Seo had told you and the dozens of hybrids running boot camp drills outside were any indication, the man before you must’ve had some idea what he was doing. You didn’t end up providing security for high profile public figures without a smidge of credibility, you knew, but the bite marks on his cheek, the little crack about people throwing chairs at him and the way he’d referred to them as ‘dogs’ didn’t inspire confidence in you. 

This was your first time visiting a place that produced hybrids, you realized. You’d never even been into a shelter before and certainly not a breeding center. Were they all like this? Devoid of anything soft or comforting, rigid with rules and regulations? Had Yoongi, Jimin and Taehyung come from a place like this? You don’t know and you’re not sure you’d like the answer if you did. 

“Thank you for agreeing to meet with us on such short notice,” Mr. Seo starts, popping open the hinges on his briefcase and pulling out a few sheaves of paper. “After the sudden cancellation of your company’s contract with Ms. L/N, I was concerned for the state of our business relationship.” He slides one of the packets across the desk to the director. 

“If I remember correctly,” Director Lim says, scanning the lines of ink and unintelligible legalese, “Me and your boss signed for delivery, not me and whoever this little girl is you brought.” 

Your eyes narrow and your lips curl, but before you can give voice to the nasty thing crawling up your throat, Mr. Seo gives a subtle shake of his head and taps you twice on the knee, out of eyeshot of the director. You grumble, but cage it behind your teeth. 

“See?” The man jabs one gnarled finger at the page, right over your late uncle’s flourishing signature. “It says it right there: L/N Oliver. Last I checked, he was dead. I’m not holding on to a dead man’s dogs. ”

That same muscle tenses in Mr. Seo’s jaw. “The contract states that Black Mountain Canines would deliver the hybrids my client purchased to his residence on December the eighteenth and that they would be received by a proxy if he was unavailable. You were made aware of the fact that he was unavailable, as well as the fact that he now has a proxy-

“I’ll pay the goddamn fine!” The Director barks, throwing his hands up in the air. “Christ above, I don’t know why he wanted those two fuck-ups in the first place, but I don’t want them on my property a second longer.” 

You shoot Mr. Seo a look of confusion, but he just watches, blasé, as the Director rifles through his desk drawers. The man finds what he’s looking for and drops two manila folders on top of the contract. “The pair of them are useless. If it weren’t for my reputation, I’d’ve had them both sent to shelters years ago. Or put down, but you know how touchy the law is about that.”

“I don’t.” You say, your voice edging dangerously close to a snarl. It slips out before you can stop it. Mr. Seo shoots you a warning look and you ball your fists up in your sweater sleeves, fingernails biting crescent moons into your palms with the effort of keeping your mouth shut. 

You can’t stand this man, you decide. He’s awful. You should’ve known that from the moment you saw elementary school aged hybrids stumbling through taekwondo drills with their ears taped and bandages on their tails. You’re going to take whatever hybrids Oliver bought, get them the fuck out of there and never look back. 

If Director Lim had heard you growl at him, he gives no sign of it, just flips open the folders. “To be honest, I should be paying you to take them off my hands. They’ve been nothing but a pain in my ass since they aged out of training. I told your uncle he could have his pick of the litter for what he was paying, but he wanted a wide-eyed buffoon and a mutt who’d rip your hand off soon as look at you.” Clipped to the insides are photos of two men, staring back at you in black and white. 

One has the same black and tan cropped ears as every other hybrid you’ve seen thus far. Unlike them, he’s smiling. His eyes are little upturned crescent moons and he beams at you through the photo paper. There’s so much light in his face it’s nearly blinding. 

The other is not nearly as inviting. The photo is taken at an odd angle and it’s blurry at the edges, like whoever took it was much shorter than the subject and had to zoom in to even get the shot. His ears, larger than any of the other hybrids and longer furred, are pinned back against his head. His jaw is clenched and he glowers down into the lens, one eye soot black and the other piercing blue. 

There are stats listed on the pages behind their photos: height, weight, shot records and the like. Among them, you see their call signs, highlighted in yellow: Hope and Monster. 

“I don’t know where I went wrong with him,” the director says, tapping Hope’s photo. “He went through all the training, passed all the tests, but when it comes down to it, he just doesn’t have the instinct.” He gives a single shake of his head, clicks the tip of his tongue against his teeth. “No one wants a guard dog that’d sooner talk an intruder’s ear off than actually guard what he’s supposed to. He’s not good for much but nannying the pups, but he’s too soft on them too.”

A light bulb clicks on and you realize the hybrid in question had been the one instructing the kids outside in the center of the yard, his tail wagging a mile a minute as they completed another form correctly.

“Now this bastard…” the director continues, jamming a finger onto the second photo with so much force, it rattled the cup of pens on his desk. “Is my biggest failure.” He crosses his arms and kicks back in his chair, his dislike of the hybrid in question obvious. “His mother was the cornerstone of this facility for nearly a decade. I sold her pups to assemblymen and actors alike. Centers around the country wanted pups with her genetics. If it weren’t for her, we’d never have grown to this size.” He sounds wistful as he spreads his hands out, gesturing around himself like a king taking in his holdings. “But all good things come to an end,” He sighs. “A pack of wild hybrids settled a little higher up on the mountain.” His face darkens and his lips twist. “Wolves,” he snarls with all the disdain he can muster. 

“All that about them being noble and self-sacrificing? Complete and utter bullshit,” He scoffs. “They’re transient lowlifes who’d slit your throat as soon as look at you. At first I didn’t care. They stayed on their side of the mountain and I stayed on mine, but then they started sneaking down here at night to steal my food and fuck my dogs. By the time I managed to get the cops out here, they’d cleared out and my top breeder had gone with them.”

He let out a low chuckle and shook his head. “I tell you, I thought I was ruined. But wouldn’t you know it, she came stumbling back here six months later, barefoot and howling to be let in and heavy with some wild thing’s pup.” Director Lim snaps both the folders shut and slides them to you across the desk. “The thing about breeding hybrids is, the money’s all in the bloodlines. No one wants a dog with mystery genetics. The only way to solve that problem is to cut it off at the root- but it was already too late by the time she got here.” 

You feel sick to your stomach. You hope he isn’t implying what you think he is- that hybrid children he hadn’t planned out himself were mistakes in need of correction- but you know he is. Deep in your gut you know.

“And she spoiled him. She let him run roughshod over everyone and everybody in this compound. I tried telling her wild hybrids need a firmer hand- he certainly did if we were gonna break that wolf he’s got inside him, but she wouldn’t hear it. I tried to crop him with the other pups his age, he gave me these,” he said, gesturing to the teeth marks in his cheeks. “We keep him shut up away from the others, now, in the back when he can’t bother anyone. He gets his meals delivered but we don’t ever let him out.” The grizzled man shakes his head. “A drain on resources is what he is.”

“And his mother?” You ask, quietly. 

“Eunjung?” he questions. “You met her on the way in.” The director stands and unclips a ring of keys from his belt buckle, making his way around the desk and gesturing for you and Mr. Seo to follow. “I’ve got her doing desk work now. Gotta keep her close so she doesn’t cause any more trouble.” He pushes open the door to his office, barks something at his secretary and steps outside, not looking back to see if you two are following. 

You shoot Mr. Seo a look before you stand and he meets it, evenly. “We’ll discuss this in the car,” he says, stuffing papers back into his briefcase and flicking the clasps shut. Oh, you most certainly will discuss ‘it’ in the car. 

You don’t really know what it is or where to even begin. The kids with bandaged ears? The fact that Director Lim seemingly decided who was allowed to see the sun and who wasn’t? You think back to the conversation you’d had with Jimin, Taehyung and Yoongi last night. Right now, it seems years away, in some unreachable, idyllic past before you knew how breeding centers worked and how security hybrids were made. You feel foolish. Who were you to try to get them to let go of their pain and their hurt? If what they’d been through was even a little like what was going on here, they wouldn’t be able to for a long time. You’re angry. You’re disgusted. You are unquantifiably fucking sad. 

You pass Eunjung on your way out. In your time in the director’s office, she’s pulled her ash brown hair into a low ponytail at the nape of her neck. Peeking out of the collar of her sweatshirt you can see a faded scar in the shape of a ring, little puncture marks pale and glossy. It looked similar to the one on the director’s cheek, but this one was a complete circle and not ragged at all, like she’d stayed completely still while it was given. Teeth marks. 

You swallow. You want to do something, to give her some words of encouragement, but you have no idea what to say. You still don’t as you slow to a stop beside her desk, but you open your mouth to speak anyway. “I’m sorry,” You tell her, with all the sincerity in your heart. 

She doesn’t answer, but one cropped ear flicks toward you and her fingers slow in their incessant race across her keyboard. 

You turn to go. Mr. Seo was holding the door open for you and you can hear the director barking orders at a group of trainees to run an obstacle course faster. Just as you set foot over the threshold, she speaks. Her voice is so quiet, you have to strain to hear her over the steady clack-click-clack of her nails on the keys. 

“He likes green things,” she says, not looking up from her work. “And old books.” 

You look over your shoulder at her. Her face is a mask of neutrality, her eyes clear and her mouth set in a relaxed line. She looks fine, but there’s an ocean of meaning behind her words. You see her, just for a moment, as she’d been all those years ago, barefoot in the snow and begging for shelter, her stomach full with one of the moon’s own children. You commit the sight of her to memory. Then you turn and you go.

The director is waiting outside, shielding his eyes from the sun and regaling Mr. Seo with some long-winded explanation on the best way to treat hip dysplasia in Doberman hybrids. “Where to?” you ask, effectively cutting him off mid-sentence. 

The man gives you a disgruntled look but despite the anxiety you feel spiking in your belly, you meet it evenly. Once upon a time, anyone in a position of authority looking at you the way he was would’ve sent you into a tailspin of self-doubt and nerves, leaving you shivering as your heartbeat thrummed in your ears, warning you of non-existent danger. If you were honest, it still did- but you didn’t have the luxury of running away and hiding anymore, not when there were people who needed you. 

“Hope’s bags are in the barracks. He just needs to grab them, and he can be on his merry way,” The direction grunts. “Monster’s still locked up, so I’ll-”

“I’ll go.” You can feel Mr. Seo stiffen beside you. 

“Ms. Y/N-”

“If he’s really that aggressive,” you start, your eyes not leaving the director’s for a moment. “Wouldn’t it be better for me to meet him now instead of when we’re packed into a car on a two hour car ride?” Director Lim narrows his eyes at you, but you don’t falter. You hold your hand out for the key. Your boldness surprises you. He drops the key ring into your open palm and you wrap your fingers around it, stuffing it in your pocket before he can snatch them back. You turn on your heels and march off in the direction he tilts his head in, nothing but a hiss of your name from Mr. Seo’s lips to accompany you. 

You walk quickly, eyes straight and willing your legs to go faster with every stride. It’s a long way across the compound but the less time you spend walking, the less time you have to stew in anxiety. None of the hybrids training in little packs spread across the yard pay you any mind- except for Hope. 

Your path takes you directly behind the group of kids he’s working with. You give them a wide berth, not wanting to disturb them, but you get a little distracted. Your steps slow for just a moment as you drink him in. He’s tall- the same height as Taehyung, if you’re judging it right, but there’s an ease about him the tiger hybrid hasn’t yet mastered. Everything about Taehyung is pulled in. He’s always coiled tight, like he’s preparing to spring forward at any moment, all his energy drawn into the center of his being. Even last night, when you’d been cuddled up with him on the couch, he’d pulled you tight against his side, shifting and rearranging himself til you both fit on one cushion. He’d held you tight through both films, his tail curled around the both of you and his spine tight, like if he let himself relax for a moment, you’d both turn to dust on the wind. 

Hope has no such fear. Everything about him is spread wide open, from the heart-shaped smile on his lips to his arms as he demonstrates a series of punches to his little pack of students. They all watch him with rapt attention, ears perked up and bandaged tails wagging. One of them asks him a question and he laughs, ruffles their hair. He laughs in a way you’ve never seen before, shoulders shaking like he can’t contain the force of it alone. It makes your heart flip. 

His ears twitch, picking up the change in the cadence of your footsteps. He looks up and your eyes meet for the first time. He looks surprised to see you, for a moment, face blank- but then it melts into a soft smile, brimming with affection you’ve done nothing to earn. You snatch your gaze away and fix it to the dirt in front of you, embarrassed at being caught. Out of the corner of your eye, you can see him cock his head to the side in confusion, but he doesn’t go after you. All the better, you’re all but running away from him now. 

You shuffle across the compound in a blur of scuffed sneakers and frayed nerves. You barely give yourself time to look up at the small cinder block building before you, shoving the key in the padlock before you can lose what unearned confidence you have left. You twist it, yank the rusted thing open, take a deep breath and enter.

You don’t know what you’d been expecting, but it’s certainly not what you find. The way Director Lim had spoken about him and this place, you’d been expecting cobwebs on the ceiling, blood spatters on the wall and rusty nails on the floor. What’s before you is almost entirely the opposite.

The room is a veritable Eden. 

There are vines climbing every available wall, wrapping around structural posts and digging their way between concrete blocks. Every surface is crammed full of flowering plants in makeshift pots: lilies in old water jugs, violets in a worn out boot, black-eyed susans dripping orange petals from an upturned helmet. The floor is in a similar state, ferns and foxgloves turning what little space around his bed there is into a meadow. It’s beautiful. 

“He likes green things,” you marvel, stepping into the room and pushing the door shut behind you. It seemed every living thing that’d been uprooted to expand the compound had found a second life here, sheltered from the Director’s violence. Maybe the hybrid who lived here had too. 

A plant different from all the others catches your eye. It’s set up on the cardboard box serving as his bedside table and it’s the only one in a real pot from what you can tell. It looks just like a miniature tree, complete with knobs on it’s trunk and tiny leaves. You let out a little sound of wonder and crouch in front of it, your fingers reaching out on their own to trail across the delicate branches-

A massive hand wraps around your wrist, stopping you cold. “Don’t touch that.” 

You hadn’t heard him approach, but now you knew he was there. You could feel his presence behind you, heavy and warm. He’s looming over you. You swallow and make your arm go limp in his grip. No need to give him a reason. “I won’t,” You tell him. “Will you please let go of my wrist?”

He drops your arm without protest and relief floods your body. You weren’t sure if there was a hybrid version of lockjaw and you certainly weren’t itching to find out. You sit back on your heels and struggle to your feet, still hyper aware of the person behind you, his eyes boring holes into the back of your head. By the time you turn around, he’s back where he came from, standing in the entrance for a bathroom you hadn’t seen, half hidden behind a curtain of vines. 

He looks different than the others. You’d been expecting that, but the full-length fluffy tail held stiffly behind his back and the long-furred ears pointed away from you are still a surprise. His fur, instead of being in rigid black and tan points, is marked by whorls of black, brown and gray. Instead of the lean musculature all the other hybrids had -all trim waists and narrow ankles- he’s sturdier, his shoulders broad and the veins in his forearms popping as he clenches his fists. He’s looking at you with that mismatched glare, his chin tilted toward his chest and his eyes shining aquamarine and obsidian. 

“If you’re new,” he starts, voice raspy. “They should’ve told you: you’re supposed to knock before you come in.”

“No, I’m not-”

“You can leave the food over there.” He nods toward a little plastic folding table jammed into one corner. It’s the one surface in his room that’s devoid of plants and there’s nothing on it besides a metal cafeteria tray, licked clean. “I won’t move when your back is turned.”

“I’m not here to deliver your food.”

He frowns, brows drawing together as his shoulders tense. “Then why are you…?”

You ball your hands up in your sweater sleeves and turn to face him full on. “I’m here to take you home with me.” You tell him. “They didn’t tell you?”

He laughs, but it’s a cold sound, devoid of joy. “Nobody tells me anything.”

Based on the short conversation you’d had with Director Lim, his sudden cancellation of contracts and the way he seemed ready to bulldoze over anything and everyone that didn’t fit his agenda, he didn’t seem the sharing type. Still it was hard to believe he hadn’t told him he’d be leaving the compound that’s been his home for over twenty years. 

“You don’t have to come with me,” you add, softly. “If you don’t want to. I know I’m a stranger. But you can leave-”

“I can’t go anywhere.” He taps the collar around his neck. At first, you’d thought it was the same as the ones every other hybrid had been wearing. You can see now that it isn’t. Theirs had all been leather with thin silver buckles holding them in place. His was leather too, but the band was broader and double-layered. There’s a little box on the side with hinges and a small drawing of a lighting bolt. A shock collar. 

Your stomach turns. 

You take a slow step toward him, but the second you do, his ears go flat against his head and he pulls his lips back, revealing sharp teeth. You freeze, hands held up and the keys dangling from your thumb. “I have the keys,” you say, extending them toward him. 

His eyes flick from your face, to the keys in your hand and back again, like he doesn’t believe what’s happening, like he can’t believe you’d actually want him free. The silence drags out into a little eternity before he speaks again. “If I try to unlock it, it’ll shock me.”

You blink up at him and risk another slow step forward, hoping you’ve caught his meaning correctly. This time, he doesn’t growl but his ears stay pinned back as he watches you through narrowed eyes. You close the distance between the two of you. 

When you were six, your mom scraped together enough money to take you to Busan for your birthday. You’d spent the day down at the beach, building sand castles with sea shell windows and wading through tide pools. After the sun had set, someone had set off fireworks and you’d watched them cuddled up in your mom’s arms, eyes wide and filled with a riot of colors you had no name for. It’s strange, you know. The ocean is miles away, but that’s what he smells like: the sea and the sand, and the last curls of smoke from homemade bottle rockets. He smells like that day. 

You lift your hands to the clasp on his neck and slide the key home. You twist it and the collar falls to the ground, a monster that can’t hurt him anymore. His skin is warm under your fingers, but puckered with scar tissue. There’s a ring of it around his neck, branching with whatever current had run through him in different directions. There’s no way this was legal, no way anyone with half a heart could treat another person like this. Your fingers trail one of the splits over his adam’s apple and he swallows beneath your touch, snatching your wrist again. 

“Dont.” His voice is cold. You blink, shaking off whatever spell you’d been under and shuffle back quickly, eager to give him space. He cradles his throat with one long-fingered hand, massaging the skin. He rolls his neck and you look away. You shouldn’t stare; the last thing you want is to make him uncomfortable. “I’ll go with you,” he rasps, answering the question before you can ask it again.

You gape for a second. You really hadn’t expected it to be that easy. “Really?” You can’t stop a note of relief from creeping into your voice.

“Anywhere’s better than here.” He answers back. So, you were a means to an end. It doesn’t bother you. You’ll be whatever you need to be to get him away from this place and that man who seemed to only want to drive him down. 

“Do you need time to pack, or-?”

He gives a firm shake of his head. “There’s nothing from this place I want to keep.” And that’s the end of it. You push open the door and stride back out into the cold mountain air, trying your best to exude the confidence you know you lack. The hybrid slinks behind you, head hunched between his shoulders and every step stiff. He hesitates at the threshold and looks up at you, uncertainty written in the rigid line of his spine. He’s nervous. He has every right to be. 

How long had he spent in that little cinderblock room, shut away from every living thing? How long had he spent being told that he was a monster? You didn’t believe it, not for one second. No one who was as violent as the director had painted him out to be could’ve raised that garden. 

He leans out of the door frame, sniffs the air and lurches forward, out of the shadow of his room, His shoulders bunch up even higher around his head and he goes stiff like he’s waiting for a shock or a shot or a shout- but none comes. The sun is still shining and he’s barefoot in the sand, standing for the first time in years under the open sky. He exhales in a short puff and it looks like he’s going to walk beside you- but he turns on his heels on goes back inside. 

You make a little noise of distress in the back of your throat. Had he changed his mind? Did he not want to come with you anymore? You go to call his name out of concern- but realize you don’t know it. All you have is the call sign he’d been given and you sure as fuck aren’t calling him ‘Monster’. You don’t have to flounder for long. He comes back out two seconds later, cradling the bonsai that’d caught your attention to his chest. 

“I’ll take this,” he mutters, shuffling into place behind you. You can’t smother the smile that starts tugging at your lips. Yeah, no one hateful would hold a little tree with as much tenderness as an infant. 

You give him a little nod. “There’s a terrace where I live,” you tell him, starting your trek across the yard once again. “It’s got a garden and a little greenhouse on it. It’s not very big, and it’s not as pretty as your’s, but you could grow new things there, if you wanted.”

His ears twitch in response, but he keeps his glower firmly focused on the plant in his arms as he shuffles along beside you. It’s then you notice he’s barefoot. “Do you wanna go back and get your shoes?” You ask, trying to make the question sound as innocuous as possible.

“Don’t have any,” he grumbles back. “Don’t need them; I never go outside.” 

Alright, that was understandable. Your first stop when you got back into the city would be a shoe store to get him a pair to wear- or maybe not with the way he kept flinching every time a whistle blew and his ears were swivelling like satellites at each new sound that reached them. You chew the inside of your lip. You don’t want to ask, but you know you should. Better to rip the bandaid off now, than get surprised later. “How long were you shut in for?”

“Fourteen.” He bites out. 

“...weeks?” You venture. There's a hopeful uptick at the end of your words. Even that would’ve been horrible, even that would be worthy of the litany of profanity you’re mentally lobbing at Director Lim- but it’s still better than the truth. 

The hybrid cuts a flat look at you out of the corner of his eyes. “Years.” 

A wall of your scent hits him like a freight train, vacillating between the thick, cloying odor of sadness and the burn of anger. His nose wrinkles at it, brows drawing together in confusion. 

However little you might’ve known about hybrids, however limited your view of them was, you knew they weren’t supposed to be locked up. Domesticated hybrids like hamsters and cats might’ve been fine inside a house all day, assuming they still had regular interaction with people- but dogs weren’t. And he was half wolf. Wild, he’d have had dozens of square miles to roam over, and he’d been limited to a four-by-four yard room for fourteen years. Your goshiwon was a similar size, but it hadn’t been your whole world. All he’d had was one tiny window and what narrow view he’d managed to glimpse in the doorway when his meals were delivered. 

You open your mouth to say something, anything, but you’re cut off by a scream of delight and a snarl keying up in the hybrid next to you’s chest. Your jaw snaps shut with a click. 

A few yards ahead, there’s a group of kids wrestling in a massive pile. They’re all giggling and rolling over each other, tails wagging a mile a minute as they play bite and make grabs for the person at the center of their puppy pile. A head of black hair and a pair of cropped ears pop up and you see that it’s Hope, smiling bright as the sun as his students try to pin him. 

“You can’t leave!” One particularly determined kid yips, adamantly pushing his shoulder back to the sand. “Who’s gonna teach us?”

Hope just laughs.”Lisa is gonna teach you with the older kids-“

A chorus of disappointed barks and howls breaks out. “Ms. Lisa’s classes are too hard!” A little girl complains.

“Yeah!” Someone else chimes in. “And she’s strict!” 

The hybrid ruffles both kid’s hair affectionately, careful of their bandaged ears. “Just because she won’t let you get away with skipping night practice doesn’t mean she’s strict,” he laughs. He’s only met with more grumbles and complaints. 

It warms your heart to see. Even if these kids were at the mercy of their director -for now, at least- it was good that they had him to rely on. Your eyes meet and the sheer force of light in his face makes your own heat up. You look away, but he’s spotted you. He disentangles himself from the mess of kids and draws himself up to his full height. He’s in the same uniform he was in before, albeit with a black tactical bag now strapped to his back. He takes a step toward you and the wolfdog hybrid's ears go flat against his skull. He’s not deterred. “Joonie?”  It takes you a second to realize he’s talking to the hybrid next to you. “Kim Namjoon, is that you?” Hope takes one step forward and the hybrid - Namjoon - takes a step back to counter him. Hope looks like he’s going to advance again, but a small pair of hands wrapped around one of his own stops him. 

A little girl is holding on to him. She can’t be more than six years old. Her tail is still long and her ears are still floppy and she looks so small in her child-sized boots and cargo pants. “Mr. Hobi,” she whines, her head craned back to look up at him. “Please don’t go.”

He falters. His eyes flick from the pair of you back down to her, then he crouches, holds both of her hands in his. “I have to, Sowon-ah,” he says softly. 

She sniffles pitifully and juts out her lower lip.”But why?” 

It’s a fair question. You’re about to tell him that he doesn’t have to come with you if he  doesn’t want to, but he beats you to the punch. “Because it’s my job, sweetheart,” he tells her, smiling softly.

“Y-your job is to teach us,” she hiccups back, face growing blotchy as tears well up in her eyes. Hope swipes one of them away with his thumbs. 

“I teach you so you can grow up well and protect your person, right?” She nods, little hands balling the fabric of her cargo pants up in her fists. “Right. Well this,” he continues, turning and looking at you with a soft smile. “Is my person. And I’ve gotta go make sure she stays safe.” 

You feel your heart jump into your throat. He’s looking at you like you hung the stars in the sky and you don’t deserve it. You’ve done nothing to warrant that much unearned loyalty. Sowon rubs at her eyes with the back of her hands and Hope pulls her into a tight hug. 

“Ah, don’t cry, Sowon! You’ve gotta make sure you get stronger so someone takes you home, okay? You don’t wanna get old and still be here like me, right?” He squeezes her and goes to stand, but gets mobbed by his students again, all wanting their own hugs and making him swear to write them letters. It takes another five minutes of tearful goodbyes and Director Lim approaching for them to turn him loose.

“Get back to your training, all of you!” He barks, stomping out of the office and slamming the door, Mr. Seo on his heels. The kids scatter to the four winds almost instantly, not wanting to be underfoot for whatever scolding the director was about to deal out. Hope’s face remains the same but you catch his ears droop just a little as his students leave him. The wolfdog hybrid- Namjoon, you remind yourself- on the other hand has his ears flat against his skull. A growl bubbles up in his chest and rips past his lips. It’s a dark, full bodied thing that has you taking a step back and Hope shrinking with a whine. 

“Joonie-” he pleads. 

“Don’t fucking call me that.” All the fur on Namjoon’s body is standing on end, from the points of his ears to the tip of his tail. Even his hair has fluffed out. His mismatched eyes are narrowed, lips pulled back in a snarl that reveals his incisors and all that fury, all that rage, is leveled on Director Lim. 

To his credit, the grizzled man doesn’t shrink back an inch before the enraged hybrid. His lips twist and he yanks a little remote out of his pocket, mashing a red button in the center. Namjoon flinches, his hands fly to his neck- but nothing happens. The shock collar is gone and the director has no power over him anymore. 

The man in question’s eyes widen, flicking between the remote to the column of Namjoon’s throat, now devoid of his one element of control. “Where’s his collar?” He demands. “How the hell did you get your collar off?” He advances on the tall hybrid, his hand in the air and though he doesn’t stop snarling, Namjoon ducks his head, anticipating the blow. 

You don’t know what moves you. Maybe it’s Hope pleading for it all to ‘stop, just stop!’. Maybit’s how Namjoon knows exactly how to move when he’s about to get hit. Maybe it’s your own lack of self-preservation. Whatever it is, you blink and you’re in front of Namjoon, your hand up and clutching the director’s forearm, stopping him from striking the hybrid behind you. You’re not strong enough to stop him, not fully. Your elbow buckles in and you stumble back, your back pressing into the wolfdog hybrid’s chest.

The director yells something at you, red flooding his face. You can’t hear him over the rushing of blood in your ears, the pounding of your heart. You force a dry swallow down your throat, put on your bravest face and glare up at him. “Don’t hurt him anymore.”

He reaches out with his free hand to tug you out of the way, but before he can touch you, Hope is there. He presses close to your side and holds the director’s wrist firm, his eyes on the sand and his shoulders hunched up by his ears.

Director Lim looks angry enough to spit. “Hell of a time for you to grow a backbone,” he snarls at Hope, making the doberman hybrid flinch. “I want all four of you off my property now.” He snatched his arms free and you don’t miss the nasty glare he casts at Namjoon. “And if this mutt ever shows his face around here again, I’ll-”

“Director Lim,” Mr. Seo cuts in, his voice cool. “You’ve made yourself clear; we’ll leave. You needn’t make threats.” There’s an underlying warning in the attorney’s voice. The director locks his jaw.

“Get out.” He breathes. Hope ducks around him, his head low and his docked tail pressed close to his back. If he could tuck it, you think he would. You follow after him, eyes fixed straight ahead and your back ramrod straight. He might’ve scared the shit out of you, but you weren’t going to let him see that. Mr. Seo fixes you with a hard look and the second you’re within arms reach, he presses a hand to your back and ushers you toward the gate. The only one who remains is Namjoon.

He looks like his anger has rooted him to the spot. His ears are still flat against his head, his lip still curled. 

“Do it, boy,” the director taunts. “Give me a reason-”

“Namjoon.” At the sound of his name, his ears prick up and you turn around. It’d come not from Hope- which you’d expected, seeing as he seemed to be the only one who actually knew his fellow hybrid’s name- but from the open door of the office building where Eunjung stood. She looks at him, her expression unreadable and he stares back. All the tension in his body has shifted and for a moment, you think he’s going to spring toward her and fall into her arms- but she gives an almost imperceptible shake of her head and his face hardens. His arms tighten around his bonsai. You think you know, now, why it was the only plant in his room that had a pot. 

“Go,” she says and all the tension leaves him. His shoulders curve in and he drags himself past the director, out from the fence and toward Mr. Seo’s car. There’s something final about the way the gate rolls shut after him. If you hadn’t known better, you’d’ve sworn you heard him whine as it locked. 

The car ride down the mountain is...interesting to say the least. Hope insists that the seating arrangements inside the Buick be done to his specifications,( “You’ve gotta sit in the middle,” he tells you, pointing to the narrow center seat. “And Joonie and I will sit on either side of you to protect you in case we crash!” His tail is wagging a mile a minute behind him. You’re surprised it can move that much, given how short it is. Mr. Seo looks affronted at the unintentional jab at his driving and Namjoon just looks irritated. “I told you to stop calling me that.”) and he keeps throwing an arm across your middle everytime the car hits a bump. You’re going down the side of a mountain. There are a lot of bumps. He also keeps pressing his nose against the glass of his window, ears pricked up and trying to take in every tree that passes by. Namjoon, on the other hand, slouches back in his seat, his body curved around his plant and ever so slightly away from you. He still watches the world pass by, but he doesn’t acknowledge any of you or speak- which would be fine if anyone else would. Hope seems to be doing his best to appear stoic and alert every time you look at him and Mr. Seo seems comfortable with the quiet. So, you’re left to ride the two hours back to Seoul in silence. 

You almost cry with relief when your phone buzzes with an incoming text. You fish the device out of your pocket, thumb it to life and scan your notifications.

Unknown Sender [7:13 PM] where are you

You frown. Very few people had your number or any reason to text you. You’re about to chalk it up to a wrong number when the second text rolls in.

Unknown Sender [7:14 PM] it’s yoongi

Now that’s a surprise. When you’d hurriedly told the boys to text you, you’d been expecting Jimin to urge you to hurry or for Taehyung to ask for updates, not for their hyung to check your progress. A little smile pricks at your lips as you rush to reply

You [7:14 PM] We’re on the way back now!

Unknown Sender has been changed to Yoongi 

Yoongi [7:14 PM] can i call

You bite the inside of your lip, suddenly nervous. You know there’s no reason to be. After all, you tell yourself, what’s scary about a pair of roommates talking on the phone? You give him the go ahead and not three seconds after the delivered notification pops up, you get a call. You answer it on speaker.

“...Hello?”

“Did you just start driving?” Yoongi’s voice is thick with sleep, like he’s just woken up. It’s different than normal, his usual smooth drawl gone gravelly. 

“Y-yeah,” you reply, trying to ignore the way Hope is watching you out of the corner of his eyes and Namjoon’s ears have swiveled back toward you. “It’s gonna be awhile, still. Are Taehyung and Jimin-”

“They’re fine; They ate dinner earlier and they’ll be asleep til you get back.” He yawns and you picture him slouched on the couch, his hair mashed up on one side and his face puffy.  “Why do you sound nervous?”

“I’m not,” you counter. It’s a blatant lie and he knows it. He hums in doubt, but doesn’t press you.

“I’ll see you when you get back.”

“Do you want me to text you when we’re close?” It’s an innocuous question. There’s no reason you can see for him to pause as long as he does. For a second you think you’ve lost him- after all, mountains aren’t known for having great reception- but then you hear his breath fan over the receiver. 

“...Yeah.” 

You give a little nod you know he can’t see. “Okay.” He makes a little noise of assent and then his line clicks off. You hang up. Just as you do, another text comes through. 

Yoongi [7:16 PM] don’t let them scent you

“Who was that?” Hope asks in a small voice, pulling you away from your phone screen and Yoongi’s insistence that you remain scent-free. His tone is open, but you can tell by the way his knee is bouncing that he really, really wants to know. “Is that your husband?”

The bark of laughter that rips past your lips is out before you can think to stop it. Namjoon flinches and you wince at him in apology, your hand flying up to cover your mouth. Hope is frowning at you in confusion, his head cocked slightly to the side. You force yourself to calm and answer him. “No, Yoongi is not my husband.” You weren’t sure if you even really qualified as friends at this point. “He’s another hybrid that lives with me.”

Hope perks up in his seat. “You have another hybrid? Director Lim always told us that once we left the center, we’d be alone.” Your expression sours at the mention of the ill-tempered man and you shake your head. 

“No, there’s a lot of hybrids in Seoul,” you tell him, eager to dispel some of his misconceptions. “The three that live with me are named Yoongi, Jimin and Taehyung. Yoongi’s around your age, I think. Jimin and Taehyung are younger.” The doberman hybrid sits at rapt attention, soaking up every bit of information you give him and waiting eagerly for more. What else could you tell him about them? You remember the boys’ reaction that morning when you told them you’d be bringing dog hybrids home. “...They’re all felines,” you say, slowly, trying to gauge their reactions. 

“So that’s why you smell like that.” It’s the first words Namjoon’s spoken since you all piled into the car. You turn to him, but he’s not looking at you.

“What do you-?”

“You smell like other hybrids,” Hope says, covering for him. “But I’ve never smelled any that weren’t other dogs before.” He leans closer, his seatbelt stretching. You tense and lean away from him, but he’s not deterred. The tip of his nose brushes your neck and you have to fight off a shiver as he breathes you in. “They smell the same…” he starts, his breath fanning over your throat. “...but different? And one of them isn’t as strong as the others-” He presses closer, trying to catch the scent that’s eluding him. You make a noise of mild distress and lean further back, pressing into the solid wall that is Namjoon. 

“Hoseok, let it go .” Hoseok. That was his real name then. To your surprise, the dog hybrid pulls back as instructed, settling back into his seat without so much as a whine.

“I’ve never met a cat before,” he muses, turning his attention back to the window. “I hope they’re nice.”

You think about the chorus of hisses you’d been met with when you told the boys they’d have to share their space. You hope so too.

It’s 9:30 by the time Mr. Seo drops you off back in front of your building. He wishes you a good night and promises to call later in the week to discuss Black Mountain Canines. You’re not sure if there’s anyone to report him to or anything you can do, but you want to try. What you’d seen at the compound was wrong any way you looked at it. It made you sick to leave anyone there knowing how the director treated Namjoon and Hoseok. No one was useless. No one deserved to be locked away for years at a time for the sheer crime of existing. You’d make them see that. 

The moment you step out of the car, Hoseok is all wide smiles and exclamations. “Woah, you live here?” he asks, tilting his head back to take in all fifty-one floors of Haneul Tower in their sparkling, glass-paned glory.

“Yeah,” you tell him, handing him his bag. In his excitement to get out of the car, he’d abandoned it and Mr. Seo had nearly driven away with it. “But I just moved in a couple days ago, so it’s still pretty empty.”

Hoseok nods, scanning the windows like he’ll be able to pick out which one’s your’s. Behind you, Namjoon is lingering on the sidewalk.

He’s still got his bonsai clutched close to his chest and he’s hunched down around it like he’s trying to stop unseen hands from picking at it. His shoulders are bunched up by his ears, and he flinches with every car horn, every siren that comes to you on the wind. He’d grown up in the mountains and spent the better part of his life indoors. It only made sense that he’d be sensitive to the sounds of the city. 

“Is there a security system?” Hoseok asks, still enamored with the building. “How many entrances does your apartment have?”

“Just one second,” you tell him, forehead wrinkling as you take in Namjoon. You slide slowly toward the wolfdog, not wanting to startle him. “Namjoon?” He flinches when you call his name, head whipping toward you. “Do you wanna go inside? I know it’s new, but it’ll be quieter, I think.”

His mismatched eyes flick from you, to Hoseok, to the building and back to you before settling firmly on the concrete at his feet. He seems different than he had in the mountains. He’s smaller, quieter, less sure of himself. Was it because this is all new territory for him? Or had the snarling hybrid in the mountains just been a roll he was forced to play, the mythic monster to the director’s tyrant king. 

“You don’t have to go inside if you don’t want to,” you tell him, in a voice you hope is reassuring. “We can wait, if you need to.”

“I’ll wait with you, Joonie,” Hope chimes in, giving the larger hybrid the same soft smile he’d given his students earlier. 

He swallows, adam’s apple bobbing in his throat. “It...it’s fine,” he mutters, “We can go in, I just…” He takes a few hesitant steps forward and huddles closer to you. There’s still an inch between you, but it’s closer than you’d thought he’d come. 

You peer up at him. “Okay?” You ask. He gives a single nod and your little group moves through the double doors and into the lobby. 

It’s quieter at this time of night. You don’t recognize the woman standing behind the reception desk. There’s no one really around except one man, pacing the width of the lobby looking thoroughly put out. You can’t really see his face, but there’s something familiar about the slant of his body. He whirls around as the glass doors click shut and you catch sight of a fringe of gray hair, pointed ears, narrowed yellow eyes and an all too familiar pout. 

Yoongi. 

“Fuck.” You’d completely forgotten to text him. Judging by the look on his face as he stalks toward you, he wasn’t happy about it. To his credit, Hoseok does his best to guard you, sliding in front of you and pushing you behind him. You can’t see Yoongi’s ears beneath the hat he’s wearing but if his curled lip and narrowed eyes are any indicator, they’re pinned straight back. 

“Move.” He snarls at the doberman hybrid. Hoseok is taller than he is, but the closer Yoongi gets to him, the smaller he seems to shrink. There’s fire in the bobcat hybrid’s eyes. Hope whimpers and slinks out of his way, ears low. 

You wince. “Heeeeey, Yoongi. I’m sorry I forg-“ before you can even finish the sentence, he tugs you toward him by the shoulders. His face roves your neck, sniffing in earnest as he tries to pick up the scent of the other hybrids on you. All is well until he reaches the right side of your throat and grazes over the exact spot Hoseok had nosed earlier. He pulls away slowly, his shoulders tight. His head turns slowly to the doberman hybrid, mechanical. 

“You.” He hisses at the other hybrid with so much virulence it makes your blood run cold. He takes one step toward him, teeth bared in a snarl, but Namjoon slides in front of him bumping him back. A growl bubbles in the bobcat hybrid’s chest and the wolfdog matches it, both their ears pinned flat against their skulls. 

“Hey-” If either of them hear you, they don’t react. They’re too focused on having a staring contest. “Hey!” You push between them, a hand on either of their chests. Namjoon snarls as you touch him and Yoongi looks ready to skin him alive for that alone. He pushes against your hand, trying to get closer to the taller hybrid. You ball your hand up in the fabric of his shirt. “Stop it!” The receptionist already has the lobby phone in her hand. She’s whispering earnestly into it and you’re sure security will be on the way any second. You exhale and squeeze your eyes shut. “Everybody, elevator.” 

Yoongi hurls an accusatory finger in Hoseok’s direction. “These fucking-”

“Yoongi, please,” you plead. That gets him to stop. His arm falls to his side and he glowers down at you for a few seconds before stalking over to the elevators and slamming the up button. “I’m sorry,” you murmur to Hoseok and Namjoon. The smaller of the two hybrids is still hunched in on himself and the taller has Yoongi fixed in his mismatched gaze, his lips curled in anger. 

This was not the way you wanted this to go. You’d wanted them to have time to settle before you discussed next steps and gave them the same talk you’d given the felines, but it didn’t look like that was in the cards. You don’t know what’s gotten into Yoongi. You’d thought the bobcat hybrid was calm, cool and collected, completely unflappable in the face of anything. Apparently not. He seemed upset that some of Hoseok’s scent had gotten on you, but there’d been no way to help that. You’d been packed in a car with him and Namjoon for two hours. It was inevitable, wasn’t it?

“It’s not okay,” you tell them, wanting them to know you didn’t condone the way Yoongi had acted. “I don’t...I don’t know why he’s acting like this; he doesn’t normally. Do you wanna go up separately?”

It’s Hoseok who answers. “No, we’ll go up together,” he assures you with a small nod. “If...maybe if we get used to each other, it’ll be okay?” 

You’re not optimistic, but you give him a pained smile you hope is reassuring. “Yeah, maybe?” You cast a look back over your shoulders. Yoongi is waiting by the elevators, his arms crossed over his chest and his tail flicking in irritation. The elevator dings and the doors slide open. Well, there was no avoiding it. “Come on,” you tell them. “Just...keep to the other side, for now. I’ll stand between you and him.” 

The four of you pile into the elevator, all tucked into your own corners. It’s strange, you think. It’s never seemed small until now. Hoseok keeps casting worried looks over at you, Namjoon keeps subtly shifting closer and Yoongi is still glowering at the both of them, angry for a reason you can’t quantify. 

“If it helps,” Hoseok starts softly, his voice an intrusion in the awkward silence. “I really didn’t mean to, honestly-”

“Don’t apologize.” Namjoon counters. “If it bothers him that much, he can speak up” 

You don’t know what they’re talking about. It’s too late that you realize the canines aren’t addressing you. Suddenly, Yoongi’s fingers are hooked through one of your belt loops. He yanks you backwards and you stumble, falling against the length of his body. “My bad,” You shoot out, before the hybrid can hiss at you. “I just lost my bala-” The words die on your tongue as Yoongi fixes his mouth to the soft skin of your throat. The elevator goes quiet.

The canine hybrids avert their eyes almost instantaneously, instinct telling them they’re witnessing something they shouldn’t be. Yoongi keeps them fixed firmly in his sights, a dark growl bubbling in his throat. 

Your fingers flex uselessly at your sides, hands clenching unclenching as the hybrid works over the sensitive skin of your neck with his teeth and tongue. ‘Don’t make a noise,’ you plead with yourself. ‘This isn’t what it feels like. Don’t make a noise, don’t make a noise, don’t make a noise-’ Yoongi’s incisors graze over a vein and a little whimper slips past your lips before you can stop it. The grip he has on your hips becomes bruising. You feel your legs turning to jelly beneath you. Any more of what he was doing, and they’d have to mop you up off the elevator floor. You force your throat to swallow. “Y-Yoongi, I think that’s enough-” You don’t know if he hears you over the noise he’s making, so you lace your fingers through his and untangle them from your hips. He releases you with a wet pop and you slap a hand over the skin he’d marked. Heat floods your face and a smirk spreads across Yoongi’s, his teeth flashing at the canines. He leans in again to rub his nose against the mark he’d made- but a hand on his chest stops him. 

“Can you stop?” You ask in a small voice. Honestly, you’re embarrassed. Regardless of what the articles said about mark-making being platonic, it doesn’t feel friendly. It feels possessive and mean and you don’t like it. “I’m sorry I didn’t text you like you asked, but what is with you today?” Yoongi’s expression changes from smug satisfaction to confusion and then surprise, like he hadn’t expected you to protest. “I know what I said about you being ready but…” You rub a hand over the mark, wiping away saliva and your sweat. The bobcat hybrid visibly deflates. The elevator chimes for the fiftieth floor and the doors roll open slowly. You rush out before any of them can and start punching the code in your door with shaky fingers. You don’t know what to say. You’re tired and stressed and you don’t know what’s going on. Was this about the apartment? You knew the felines wouldn’t be happy about sharing their space, but why had Yoongi gone this far?

“Y/N…” He trails after you, his ears drooping. You shake your head, You can’t talk to him right now. 

“In the morning,” you tell him as the door swings open. “We’ll talk about it in the morning.” You can’t deal with everything that’s happened today, and Yoongi flipping out and getting the canines settled. You weren’t that good at juggling. 

By the grace of all that’s merciful, Taehyung and Jimin are still asleep when you walk in. You’d need to have an extended meet and greet tomorrow, you decide. Maybe do some icebreakers or team building exercises. If they reacted anything like their hyung did, you were in for one hell of an adjustment period. 

Hoseok and Namjoon trail you into the penthouse warily, sniffing the air. You want to give them time to explore and get their bearings, they deserve that, but with the way Yoongi still seems agitated when they venture anywhere but exactly in your steps, that’ll need to be saved until tomorrow morning too. You give them the most spartan tour you can muster up and show them each to a guest room, promising to order them furniture and get them the things they need tomorrow. 

By the time you collapse into your own bed, it’s damn near 11. You groan and drag a pillow over your face as you ask the universe for the thousandth time why it had decided to continuously kick your ass. Having three hybrids had been hard enough. Having five of all different species was likely to prove impossible and having seven was going to be a sisyphean task you’d had no training for. You groan and kick your feet in the air, allowing yourself the brief respite of a temper tantrum before crawling under your covers and flicking the lamp off. Maybe in your dreams there’d be no stress and no snarling hybrids with behavior you couldn’t explain.

[landinoandco]

Our Love is a Game

Lando Norris x Reader

Request from @jamieeboulos

Warnings: pinch of fluff, cute ending because they are the best

Word count: 2.7 k

Requests are open :)

It all started with a phone number, an innocent exchange that would subsequently change the world you knew; mostly for the better. When you had met Lando, as far as you were concerned you had just met a 21 year old who lived in London and had a passion for cars. How wrong you were. It was only when things started to get serious that he sat you down and explained everything that came with being a formula one driver; more importantly the fandom that he was involved in. 

You had always been a private person and admittedly this piece of information almost broke your relationship but after some time to think you had decided that he was worth it all. You both decided it was a better idea to keep your relationship as quiet as possible - you took every precaution to make sure you stayed a stranger to the fans.

For the past 2 years, you thought you had managed to stay clear of the cameras, the photos and the twitch streams but it wasn’t until a fan-made compilation caused your world to spiral out of control. 

You and Lando were out for a run, it was a part of your morning routine - a great way to start the day and it was time that you two could escape the motor sport world and act like a normal couple without worrying about who might be watching. It was time you both valued and appreciated. On this particular morning, Lando had decided to add to his Instagram story, a short video of his morning adventures - the mist still hanging around the trees as you ran under a heavily graffitied bridge, the early birds song chirping animatedly. At the time you didn’t think much of it as you were too busy tying your hair back up to notice. 

It wasn’t until you got home and looked at his story that your heart stopped, rushing over to the kitchen island you placed your phone down and ran your fingers through your hair. It was a blink and you’ll miss it moment but in the corner of his video - the last millisecond before it ended - there was a flash of a purple top (the purple top you had been wearing) and a swish of brown hair as you chucked it back up into a ponytail. 

“Lando.” You called out, trying to keep your voice as calm as you could. You didn’t know why it had affected you so much - or why you were so desperate to keep your identity a secret. It wasn’t like you wanted to hide your relationship; you were the happiest you ever had been, everyday was exciting and offered new prospects - it was more that you were so used to being in this bubble with Lando, the idea of it bursting seemed rather unappealing. Usually you didn’t care for how others saw you but seeing some of the words that people used to describe him, it would be enough to trouble even the thickest of skins. 

Lando’s close proximity broke your thoughts as he stared down at your phone, pausing on the flash of brown and purple. “I am so sorry, love.” He almost whispered, his eyes widening at his carelessness. He picked your phone up to take a closer look. 

“It will be alright, won’t it? I mean, it’s a blink and you’ll miss it.” You had said, more to reassure yourself than Lando. He didn’t answer, anxiety building in the pit of his stomach because he knew exactly what he had started. 

The fan-made compilation didn’t go viral until a few hours later - as it turns out that flash of purple was the perfect cherry on top of an unappetising cake. Lando was sat on stream - not that this was out of the ordinary and Max had decided to join him, leaving you alone to rewatch Friends for the umpteenth time. 

The pair were sat reacting to videos on YouTube when a clip of a seal swimming into a shoal of fish started playing - the amusing part was that they kept quickly dispersing away from the seal in question. Unsurprisingly, they laughed and Lando spluttered: “This is me trying to find a girlfriend.” What the fans didn’t know was the apparent irony of that sentence and this was what caused the major meltdown; whilst Lando and Max were busy crying with laughter - that chat had filled up with the same link and references to the video you would be redirected through. 

Max was the first to stop laughing, tapping Lando on the shoulder as he pointed at the chat. Hundreds of the same message filled the screen: “That’s not what this compilation shows.” “Lando, what are you hiding from us?” “Lando and Max laughing knowing very well he has a girlfriend.” 

“Chat what on earth are you waffling on about.” Max chuckled uneasily, looking at Lando out of the corner of his eye. Lando sat with a forced smile, his nostrils flaring as he continued through the comments. He could only let out a tense laugh as he swallowed thickly - his throat feeling suddenly dry. You were still sitting, completely engrossed and unaware that Lando Norris was now trending on twitter. 

Max had come up with an excuse to end the stream not long after, Lando uncharacteristically quiet. His thoughts were with you in the other room, had you seen it? Did you know? How would you react? He felt as though he had lost all control, like he had failed you entirely - all he wanted to do was protect you yet he was the one to screw it up. 

“Hey,” Max nudged his shoulder, “It was bound to happen at some point. Let’s go and see if she’s seen it - if not then -” He took a deep breath, “We will watch it together. We need to know what we are working with here.” Lando nodded, unable to reply, his body went into automatic pilot mode and too quickly he was standing facing you. 

Pausing the tv, you looked at Lando - his jaw tightened and facial expressions set as though he had just seen a ghost. “Is everything ok?” You asked apprehensively. 

“There’s something you need to see.” Max reached for his phone, pushing Lando onto the sofa. You offered your arm to Lando, pulling him into a hug. Max pulled up the video and pressed play. A tense atmosphere held the room hostage - breath restricted and gazes fixed onto the tiny screen in front of you. 

It started with a clip from this year’s Goodwood - Lando preparing to drive his last hill climb - you remembered it well, a McLaren hat placed on your head mainly to cover your identity; knowing that there would be more than a few fans around. The clip moved to 3 separate stills - all of you in your McLaren hat. One with your back to the camera, you hand placed around Lando’s waist, the other two a side profile as you spoke to Max. 

The reaction was immediate, you slapped your hand to your mouth, Lando looked horror-struck and Max was watching you carefully. 

The video moved on, this time a clip from the quadrant video where Niran trains like Lando for 24 hours - Lando and Niran were in the kitchen preparing to eat their breakfast when once again the video moved to stills. This time they were of your reflection in the oven - holding the camera. You had thought at the time, if you were behind the camera it would stop every chance of you accidentally being caught on camera. Apparently not. 

The video had moved on again, this time to stills of Lando arriving on track - of course there was no way for you to get on track without being photographed and you were fine with that because you would just arrive after Lando either with Jon or Charlotte. Photos of you arriving with Jon and Charlotte flashed up - with them you were just another member of staff but put with those other stills and it really did yell out that you and Lando were romantically involved. Finally the flash of purple from Lando’s story. The game was up. 

“Oh my-” You stuttered as the video came to an end. Fortunately your Instagram hadn’t been shown but judged by how skilled you knew the fans to be - it would only be a matter of time. “I feel sick.” You admitted, wiping your hands across your face. Lando still hadn’t said a word, staring blankly at the floor. Max was the first to come up with something logical, turning to you and Lando. 

“It will blow over.” He started, “The fans will soon lose interest and move onto the next big headline. We just need to ignore anything we see regarding the subject.” He moved his attention to you. “Maybe avoid social media for a few days. Let everyone cool down -” Sensing your means to interrupt, he held his hand up. “I know you shouldn’t have to and I know none of this is fair but unfortunately people have no boundaries and believe because it’s on social media it is their business. If they were in our situation, I’m pretty sure they would be the first to complain. Let’s just go along with it for now. It will give you time to think about what to do next.” 

Lando cleared his throat, pulling you closer into him. “I’ve failed you. All I wanted to do was protect you.” At this, Max got up and left. 

Shaking your head, you pressed your lips to his forehead. “You could never. Think about how long we kept it secret for. Besides, until we announce or admit anything - it isn’t confirmed.” You offered, trying to soothe his worries. He nodded, still not convinced. 

“Our love is like a game and it’s not a game I enjoy playing.” He croaked, lacing your fingers together. 

“I know, Lando, I know. Let’s let everything calm down and then we can think about what our next step is.” 

Weeks later and it was the night before you were due to leave for your summer holiday. You would be spending it with Lando and some of his friends and family. Due to the current pandemic, it had been so long since you had been away - even if it was a bigger group of you going; you were still looking forward to spending that quality time with Lando. 

Max had decided to take himself and Tom off to the streaming room - leaving you and Lando to sort out the remaining items you needed for your time away. 

“I have a present for you.” He said suddenly, his hands behind his back. You beamed, taking a step closer to him. He shook his head, “If you want it - “ He pointed at his lips. 

Rolling your eyes, you pecked his lips then held out your hands like a child. Lando chuckled, “Close your eyes.” Hands still outstretched and eyes closed, you waited for Lando to present you with your surprise. He grasped your left wrist and attached something to it - “No peeking.” He added. A moment or two later, he dropped his hold of your wrist and said: “You can open them now.” You could hear the smile on his lips. You opened your eyes and looked straight to your wrist - he had given you a pink watch. You furrowed your eyebrows and looked up at him, his eyes twinkled as he then pointed to the orange watch on his wrist. 

“Watches?” You asked, confusion laced your tone. 

Nodding, he said, “We all have matching watches but in different colours - they are for our holiday away.” 

You gave him a lopsided grin and wrapped your arms around his neck, “I love it. Thank you.” 

In the streaming room, Max was having to ignore the majority of the comments because they were all asking the same thing: “Who was the girl from the compilation.” He was trying his hardest to keep moving off the topic, instead showing off the watches - it had been his idea, blue for him, orange for Lando, a child’s watch for Tom and a pink watch for you. He had listed off all of the colours and said who they belonged to: “And then pink-” He paused, mentally face palming. He looked over to Tom for assistance - he hadn’t meant to say pink at all. “And pink is for someone.” He cursed his poor excuse but as if by magic - Lando walked through the door. 

Distracting the stream from his slip up. 

Croatia was a dream come true, the hot summer sun on your back and the time to just relax and recharge. Days spent with Lando sunbathing on the boat or stuck in a tense game of Uno. Not being the only female was brilliant as well - as they got to go off and not feel guilty about leaving you on your own. 

Currently, you and Lando were standing in each other's arms - the afternoon drawing into the evening as the sun began to set. You had your arms around his neck and his arms were around your waist, sighing contentedly you broke the silence: “This is nice.” He pressed his lips into your hair, a sign that he agreed with your statement. In that moment, it was just you and him - everyone seemed to disappear from around you and all worries vanished. It was the simple yet affectionate moments that had always meant the most to you. You felt as though you could relax every muscle in your body, listening to his steady heartbeat - you wished for this moment to never end, to forever be in his arms and to not worry about who sees you there. 

Ever since that compilation had been made, the thought had been on your mind a lot. Were you ready to go public with Lando? At the end of the day you were both happy and surely that was the most important thing. 

Later that night, you were sitting eating your meal when a phone was handed to you, displayed on it was a picture of you and Lando - in each other’s arms. 

Instantly you knew what this meant, looking at Lando you were met with the same expression. He did as well. 

You and Lando had decided it was time to announce your relationship, there was no point sneaking around anymore if people knew and were looking out for you. You had agreed that the best way to do it was if you joined him in a stream, that way they got to know you a bit more for who you were. 

“Is it ok to feel as nervous as I am?” You asked him, pulling up a chair beside him. He was setting up the stream, two mugs of tea placed in front of you. It seemed completely unnatural to sit facing the camera. 

“I mean, this is kind of a big deal so yes I would say, it’s completely natural for you to feel nervous.” He reached for your hand, rubbing his thumb over the back of it. Nodding, you took a deep breath. 

“Ok. I’m ready.” You said, your heart beating at a million miles an hour. The corners of his lips turned up, leaning in to leave you a kiss on the lips. 

“I love you and I’m so proud of you.” He admitted quietly, as though you were the only person in the world, his eyes flickered with complete adoration. 

“I love you too. Now, shall we start it?” 

Lando went to press the start stream button but paused. He turned back to face you, his eyes wide and offered an apologetic smile. 

“What did you do?” You asked, a smile toying at your lips as you had an idea of what it might have been. 

“Stream, meet my girlfriend.” 

He had already started it...