#which I should have realized sooner since the last time I had contacts

[vashti-lives]

I don’t know why my brain is so bad at processing my own allergies but boy!!!!!!

[jakesduskwood]

even statues crumble if they're made to wait

Pairing: Jake x Fem!MC

Genre: Post-Episode 10 Duskwood, Post-Episode 1 Moonvale

Words: 8,916

Summary: It's been three months since the explosion in the mine. Three months since Hannah was found. And MC's accepted that Jake is never coming back. When she gets roped into another missing person's case, it makes for the perfect distraction. Jake is dead. It's fine. That is, until she finds herself on the phone with Alan Bloomgate who says he has something to show her. But it's fine. Jake is dead.

Until he's not.

EPISODE-1 MOONVALE SPOILERS AHEAD (MAYBE)!

[ A/N: Hello! :)

I know it's been a while since I've done this, but I finished Moonvale Episode 1 and if you've seen the ending (and used its Duskwood code), you know what happened and how excited I was to receive that bit of Duskwood. So, I took it and ran with it, and out came this extremely long fic. I did not proofread this as it took me literally almost 12 hours to write so it is completely and 100% me and my love for Jake and I hope you love it.

Side note: I suck with anything related to timelines, so I made one up on my own. I know Episode 1 of Moonvale takes place over the course of a day or two, but for the purpose of this fic, it made sense to make it longer, so it's not a typo, or me losing my mind, it's just the way my brain processed this.

Enjoy! :) ]

It’s been three months since the explosion in the mine.

Three months since Richy had been killed. Three months since Hannah was rescued. Three months since I had last spoken to Thomas or Cleo or Lilly or…or Jessy. I didn’t blame her then and I don’t blame her now. Any of them, really. I didn’t share the bond they had with each other. I wasn’t from Duskwood. It didn’t matter that we’d experienced a tragedy together—and yes, perhaps them more than me, but I loved Richy too. I had lost Richy too. And Jake—

But mostly, I think they just wanted to forget. To move on. They didn’t want to remember that their friend had been capable of…of that. And I was a constant reminder of that to them. So I understood why we didn’t necessarily talk anymore.

The one person I did keep in contact with from Duskwood, oddly enough, other than the occasional update from Alan Bloomgate, was Dan. We weren’t best friends or anything, but he allowed me to check in on our friends in a way that I didn’t know how to do with anyone else. Maybe because I thought he was the least affected among them. I knew he cared about Hannah, but he wasn’t to her what Thomas or Cleo or Lilly were. And he wasn’t to Richy what Jessy had been.

I’d learned from him that Thomas and Hannah had broken up. There was no bad blood, but Thomas hadn’t quite figured out how to accept the things he’d learned about his girlfriend when she’d been gone, and Hannah hadn’t quite figured out how to re-trust someone after Richy. Even if that person was Thomas. But I’d hoped they would find their way back to each other in the end.

I thought about reaching out to Jessy every once in a while—even just as an apology for everything that had happened. I’m sorry that Hannah was found at the expense of Richy. I’m sorry that he did this to you. I’m sorry I didn’t realize it sooner. We should have. We should have. We should have. I miss you. But I never send it. I’m not all that sure she’d respond anyway.

Cleo and I were never all that close. She has her best friend back, so I think she’s probably as okay as she can be. Helping Hannah find a new kind of normal in a time where her childhood friend had kidnapped her in order to prove a point. I don’t know how you come back from that—I don’t know how you come back from knowing that you killed somebody at all.

I hadn’t found the courage to ask if somebody had told Hannah about Jake.

Not that I think it would matter anyway. I hadn’t heard from him since before the explosion in the mine, which was, like I said—three months ago. I waited the appropriate amount of time—twenty-five days—before I broke down and concluded that maybe he hadn’t survived. Which just piled a shit-ton of guilt onto my shoulders because it was supposed to be me in that mine. He had gone in place of me and now he was dead.

It was the only explanation that made sense. I was used to Jake disappearing for days at a time, but never as long as he had been now. And he didn’t seem like the type to tell me he loved me and then leave without a single explanation. Not unless he had to. But it had been three months and as much as I missed him, as much as my chest ached with the thought that we would never eat Chinese food out of shitty motels and have that on-the-run ending we talked about, I had accepted that he wasn’t coming back.

I wonder if he had known about Richy or if he had died still thinking Michael Hanson was the one who had kidnapped Hannah. I wonder if his last thoughts were of me. Maybe it’s selfish, but I kind of hope they were, because I’m pretty sure I’ll think about him for the rest of my life.

I wonder what it would have felt like to run my hands through his hair. To kiss him. To spend every waking moment with him and know it was because I loved him. Because I would have. Talking to Jake became about more than just finding Hannah. It became a part of my day I looked forward to more than anything else. He confided in me in a way that told me he never had with anyone, maybe not even Hannah, and I needed that from somebody. I needed somebody to trust in me the way that Jake did. I needed somebody to love me the way that Jake did.

It was strange—and maybe a little ironic—the thought that something so beautiful could come out of something so tragic.

Anyway, my point is: it’s been a long couple of months. Of thinking about my friends. Of thinking about Jake. Of wondering if I should have done things differently. I should have gone to Duskwood to help. Not even with the mine, but sooner. I could have. I could’ve gone when Jessy was attacked on the way home. I could’ve gone when the group made plans to cut out of town and hide away in the house Richy had found. Selfishly, I should have. In that moment, when they were settled around the fire and Lilly called me, I had never remembered wanting anything more. I should have grabbed Jake—metaphorically, maybe even literally—and rode it out with them to the end.

I don’t stop missing them after three months. Of wishing things could have been different. Wishing I could have done more. But exactly ninety-five days after the explosion in the mine, seventy days since I had accepted that Jake was never coming back, twenty-two days since I had last heard from anybody from Duskwood (Dan included), my phone dings with a new message.

And the cycle starts all over again.

It’s somebody named Eric, who claims he needs my help to find his friend Adam, who disappeared while he was waiting for a ride in someplace called Redlog Pines. And much like with Duskwood, I have never heard of Redlog, and the case reminds me way too much of Thomas’ first message to me, so much that it makes my chest ache, but I can’t say no because there’s somebody missing, and if I’d say no the first time, God knows where Hannah would be.

So, I say yes, and I help out where I can, and Eric decides he needs to bring about four more friends in on his little plan and I try my best to stay emotionally unattached because I remember everything that happened the last time and I can’t go through that again. I offer up information when I can and keep my words short and careful because I’m not ready to get attached to somebody else I know I might never meet.

I know how this ends.

Two days in, Ash, one of Eric’s friends, brings up my Duskwood past and the unhealed wound I’ve been trying to mend breaks open again. She asks about Richy, and about the mine, and then because I’m me and I can’t help myself, I tell her about Jake. She tells me the news never mentioned another body and I shove that thought to the back of my head because hoping for something that will never come true will kill me.

Four days into Adam’s disappearance, and the police not giving a shit—as Charlie, somebody who reminds me far too much of Richy for comfort, points out—my phone beeps with an incoming call from somebody I haven’t spoken to in a while.

“Go for [MC].” I answer my phone.

Ever since Hannah had been found in the mine and Jake had…you know, my phone had been more silent than I’d gotten used to. Until this new case. But even that—it was only a few days old and I didn’t want to go down the same path with them that I did with my friends in Duskwood. We didn’t really know each other that long, sure—even though sometimes it’d felt like it—but it felt like I’d finally been a part of something. Like, I had found these people who had chosen me for me.

And originally, maybe they had. Maybe they’d had every intention of keeping me around, but then Richy was the Man Without A Face and Alan Bloomgate had rescued Hannah and nothing was the same as it had been when we’d met each other. We knew too many secrets about each other by the time the town settled. Secrets we would have to take to the grave.

Or maybe I’m losing my mind a bit and I had really only been a means to an end.

Either way.

“Alan?” I raise my voice when there’s nothing but breathing on the other end of the line. “Did you mean to call me?”

His tone is clipped. “I found something.”

“You found something.” I repeat.

My heart clenches. For all I know, it might fall into my stomach. As far I know, from watching the news, from what Ash told me, Jake’s body was never found. Richy’s was. Or what was left of him to find, anyway. I had assumed that there just hadn’t been enough of Jake left. The thought left me nauseous, but it was better than hoping for something I knew I could never have.

“I’m sending it to your phone now.” He responds. “Let me know what you think of this.”

And then he hangs up.

That was a riveting conversation, I think as my phone dings with a message. I do my best to ignore my other messages—contacts from Duskwood I’m still not ready to acknowledge—and click Alan Bloomgate. He sent me a video that looks like—oh God.

Immediately, I’m overcome with emotion as an all-too-familiar forest pops up on my phone. It’s a video of Alan’s bodycam footage. He’s searching the Duskwood forest. A forest I’ve seen too many times in the background of other video calls.

I watch as he stumbles upon an object that’s too dark to make out at first. When he gets closer, it’s clear that it’s a backpack. It’s simple. Black. Nothing about it that screams this is mine and I left it here about anybody in particular. You stupid, stupid idiot, I tell my heart when it rattles against my chest in hope. He’s dead.

Alan stands and treks away from the backpack—I want to scream at him to go back, to open it and look through it and tell me if it’s what my heart aches to believe, but I can’t, because this is a video and I’m simply watching with wide eyes, waiting for…for something. But then. But then, he moves further into the forest and I watch as he stumbles upon an object that makes my knees tremble and tears rush to my eyes and my hands shake. A black hoodie. It looks like it’s been through hell, with holes scattered up the sleeves and dirt cakes into the hood, but it’s unmistakably his.

And then—Alan lifts the hood and picks up something that makes me sink to my knees with a sob that wracks my entire frame. Because I’m staring at Jake’s mask. The mask he doesn’t go anywhere without. The mask that protects him. And so my relief is short-lived, because I realize that even if he’s alive—which seems like a very big possibility at this point—he’s alive without the things that he needs to survive.

And then the anger kicks in. Because if he’s been alive, on his own, for three months—why has he not contacted me? Unless he survived the mine but he didn’t survive the after. But that didn’t make any sense. So, okay, he wasn’t dead. But that didn’t make any sense either. He told me he wouldn’t let them catch him. Because catching that meant he would be apart from me. Did something happen that prevented him from being able to reach out and tell me he was at least okay? A quick text that said didn’t die in the explosion in the mine, you don’t need to mourn me, by the way, going off radar for another year. Did he think I would have given up on him?

I wipe my eyes and shoot a message to Alan.

ME: Recently?? Did nobody search the forests before?      

ALAN: Searched the forests for what, [MC]? The logical assumption seemed to be that if anybody was inside the mine when Richy set the fire, they would have perished alongside him. Officers were stationed outside every known entrance and exit. Besides, after the story you and your friends spun around this town, do you think anybody would have gone back into its forests?

ME: But it’s possible?

ALAN: I would say these items had been there for some time. But I would say it is likely he ditched them when he fled the mine, yes.

Another sob tears through my throat. Jake is alive. I don’t know quite what that means for us as of now, but I know it’s the best news I’ve heard since Hannah was found. Jake is alive. He’s out there somewhere. And even if it’s been three months, and even if I’m a little bit mad at him right now, I know that if he was here, I would throw my arms around his neck and hold on to him until someone dragged me off, and even then—I would fight kicking and screaming.

I close out of my messages with Alan and pull up a conversation I haven’t had the heart to look at in quite some time.

ME: Jake’s alive.

LILLY: …

LILLY: Have you spoken to him?

ME: Alan called. He found some of Jake’s things in Duskwood. I don’t know a lot of details. But I know he made it out of the mine.

Lilly types for a long while, but she doesn’t respond. I don’t take it personally. I think it’s probably hard for her to be happy that her brother’s okay while also trying to accept that her sister may never be okay again. Her sister, who had once-upon-a-time been kind-of-sort-of in love with their brother she didn’t know she had. I think that would probably mess with any family’s heads. And on top of all that, you throw in manslaughter and a kidnapping. I wouldn’t wish anybody, not even my worst enemy, to have had to go through what the Donforts had.

When it becomes adamant that Lilly isn’t going to respond, I start scrolling through messages with the rest of the group in Duskwood. I click on Jessy. I’m here if you need me. That had been the last thing I sent to her, a couple of days after Richy’s death. She hadn’t responded. I click out of Jessy’s contact and click on Thomas’ instead. Thank you for everything. That had been his last message to me after we found Hannah. I’d liked it. I hadn’t expected at the time it would be the last thing we’d ever say to each other. I click out of Thomas’ and click on Richy. So, you want to turn yourself in? I’d asked. That was before he called me. Before he lit a match and burned himself and the mine to the ground. Some people would call that heroic. I mostly call him a coward.

I click on Jake’s name. It’s been a while since I read messages between the two of us. Maybe before I had accepted—thought—he was dead. In that twenty-five-day period when I’d hoped with all I’d had that he would come back. I love you. That was the last message he sent me. I’d responded with I love you too, Jake. Then, four days later: Are you okay? A week later: Jake, please, you’re starting to scare me. I know you said you would contact when you could, but it’s been a week. After twenty-five days, when I had finally accepted our fate, I’d sent one final message: I hope you know that I love you, and I will always care about you, but I think it’s time for me to move on. I’m so sorry that I sent you into the mine. It should have been me. And I will probably feel the guilt from that for the rest of my life. Thank you for everything. Take care of yourself, wherever you are.

After that, I had closed out of our messages and hadn’t looked back. Partly because I couldn’t bear the pain of it. It felt like I had given up on him. I hadn’t—if I had thought for a second that he was alive, if I knew then what I know now, I would have never sent that message. But holding out hope for somebody who I thought was a ghost at the time? That was slowly killing me.

It’s only then that I notice the screen flickering. Much like the way it used to whenever Jake would hack into my phone. I don’t think he’s much in the mood to be hacking right now, but somehow, I know it’s him. When had he done this? Recently? If I had opened our messages, would I have seen this ten—twenty—even fifty days ago? It hadn’t looked like this the last time I texted him. Did he see my last message about needing to move on? Was that why he hadn’t reached out to tell me that he was okay? Because he thought I was moving on happily without him?

No, my brain supplies. He wouldn’t. He would reach out anyway, because he knows how much the thought of him not being okay would have destroyed you.

The screen flickers once more and then a message pops up, bright and blue-tinted and clear as day on my phone.

[MC]

I WILL FIND YOU

And the world around me shifts.

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

Maybe it sounds crazy, considering I’ve never seen his face before, but I always thought that if I’d ran into Jake one day, maybe on the street or at one of those motels he stayed at or maybe even in Duskwood, surrounded by all our friends, I would know it was him. I would, because it’s him, and it’s me, and we’re the only two people who understand each other quite the way we do.

I still believe that.

I believe it when I book my flight to Duskwood (or rather, twenty miles outside of town, which is the closest airport). I believe it when I board the airplane and find a seat next to a mother with her screaming child and when I shoot off a quick text to Eric to let him know I’ll be MIA for the next few hours, but to message me if he needs anything—and I think about how much easier this case would probably be to solve if we had Jake.

Maybe it would have been harder to find Hannah without me, but I know damn well they would’ve never found her without Jake.

Dan picks me up from the airport. I haven’t told the others yet. Something about it felt off—like I shouldn’t message them and say hey, I know we haven’t spoken in a while, but I’m booking a flight to look into why my maybe-slash-not-really boyfriend left his belongings in a forest we really wish we could forget about, and by the way, can I crash at your place?

It’s quiet on the car ride back into town. I’m looking through my messages from Eric and the group from Redlog Pines and thinking about how I’m Duskwood with this group and I want so badly to laugh because it’s ironic, but Dan wouldn’t understand. He might just call me crazy. Better yet, he would ask how I manage to get myself into these situations, and really, I don’t have an answer for him.

“How have you been?” I ask, just to break the tension, as Charlie, in my messages, tries to persuade his friends to head back into that creepy cave in the middle of the forest. He’s going to get someone killed, I think.

Dan looks over at me. “Are you still with Hackerman?”

My chest squeezes. “His name is Jake, Dan. And we were never really together.”

“Hm.” He nods like he doesn’t quite believe me. “You already know mostly everything that’s been happening here. Thomas and Hannah called it quits. They say it was some mutual decision, but it’s hard to find them in the same room together. Jessy hasn’t been out with us since. I think we remind her too much of Richy. The group’s all changed.”

“And you?” I ask.

He gives me a cheshire-like grin that doesn’t quite meet his eyes. “I’m always the same.”

We make it to Duskwood just as the sun’s going down. Much too late for me to try and trek through the forest and retrace the steps Jake might have taken that night. Not that I think it would help give me any clues as to where he might have gone, but mostly because I wonder if it will make me feel closer to him. We’ve never been in the same place before, and even if he’s not there now—he once was.

“Can you drop me at the police station?”

Dan blinks. “The police station.”

I nod. “Yeah.”

“We answered their questions for weeks, [MC]. I don’t think anything you have to tell them at this point is going to help. The investigation’s closed. Everybody knows Richy did it. He died with the fire in the mine. Everybody’s trying to move on from that.” He works his jaw. “Did you come here to open old wounds after all this time?”

I try not to show the hurt look on my face. “This isn’t about Richy. Look, Alan called me. He asked if I could look at some things. I figured it was better for me to do it in person. That’s it. Nothing to do with Richy. Nothing to do with Jessy. Nothing to do with you.”

He sighs, and I’m not entirely sure he’s going to abide by my wishes until we pull in front of a tiny building—tinier than most—that says Duskwood Police on the sign. Duskwood must not have that much crime. Well, not until this, I suppose.

“Thank you.” I tell him as I reach over to undo my seatbelt and climb out of the car. “This is a nice ride, by the way.”

He raises a hand in some mock-salute. “Need me to pick you up?”

“Nah.” I shake my head. “Think I’ll explore the town for a little bit.”

“Suit yourself.” He shrugs and then he’s off.

I square my shoulders and take a deep breath before opening the door to the police station. It wasn’t like Alan asked me to come down here. He hadn’t. Even during the investigation into Richy’s death and Hannah’s kidnapping, when he questioned us, he never asked me to come to Duskwood. We’d done way too many video calls and phone calls and at one point, I had asked if he thought it would be easier for me to come to Duskwood, to which he responded back, are you ready for that?

No, I hadn’t been. I’m not even so sure I was now. But knowing that Jake was alive, that here was the last place was, I had to try.

“Can I help you?” The woman at the front desk asks.

I clear my throat. “I was wondering if I could speak to Alan Bloomgate. I’m one of—I was involved in the Hannah Donfort case. My name is [MC].”

Her eyes widen. “Give me a moment.” She stands and heads to some back office—which looks to me more like a closet—and then returns with a clipped smile. “He’ll be right out.”

Apparently, she isn’t lying, because not two minutes later, Alan is stepping out from the same door and staring me down. I hold his gaze and hope it says that I’m not here to argue. I will tell him my truth, but only my truth, not Hannah’s, not Jake’s, not anybody else’s.

“I was wondering when I would see you.” He says.

I shrug one shoulder. “Isn’t a few months later better than never?”

“Let’s go into my office.” He says, and leads me around the desk and back into the closet space he had come out of. He sits behind the desk and motions for me to take a seat opposite him. “I’m just going to guess you’re not here to talk about Miss Donfort.”

“I want to see them.” I tell him. “His things. I want to see them for myself. And whatever you want from me in return, I’ll give to you.”

“You’re playing a dangerous game here, [MC].”

“He isn’t a game to me.” I snap back and then sit back and try to relax. “I appreciate that you called me. It’s—I helped you find Hannah. I would do it again. Even with knowing the things that we do now, I would do it all again. That’s how much that group means to me. That’s how much he means to me. I’m not asking you to break any rules or to lie for him or to—to let him hide in your basement for the next five years. I’m just asking you to show me what you found.”

He stares me down for a moment. Then, he sighs, says “wait here for a minute” and disappears to another room. When he comes back, it’s with an evidence bag in his hand filled with the objects I saw on his bodycam footage. My breath hitches in my throat.

“I can’t let you touch them.” He says as he lays them in front of me.

I stare into the eyes of the mask. “Did you tell anybody that he’s alive?”

“I don’t know that he’s alive,” is all the answer he gives, which is an answer to my question. I slide my gaze down to the black hoodie, to the dirtied sleeves and muddy hood, and think about the fact that Jake wore this. I’m so close to him.

And yet I’ve never been further away from him.

“Thank you.” I tell him. “For—for this. And for listening to me about Hannah. If you hadn’t, I—I don’t know what would have happened. How much longer he would have gone on for. If he would have ever stopped.”

Alan’s silent for a minute. Then, he clears his throat. “You know, it was strange to me. Both Hannah and yourself swore to me that neither of you knew the other.”

“I don’t.” I swear.

It was one of the (albeit many) things that didn’t make sense to me. How Hannah got a hold of my number. How she sent it to Thomas. She’d told Alan she hadn’t really remembered texting him my number at all.

“I believe you.” He reassures. “I just think it’s strange. One mistake, if you can call it that, and you throw yourself into a missing persons case to help a stranger.”

“They’re not strangers.” Even though Hannah is kind of still a stranger.

“But they were.” Alan reasons. “You had no reason to say yes to helping Thomas. I doubt anybody would have held it against you if you turned the other way. But you decided to follow this until the end. To make sure they found Hannah. And you care about them. Maybe that’s why I find that I’m more lenient with you than maybe I should be. Why you’re sitting across from me right now calling the shots. Why I’m not asking you about the hacker.”

“I wouldn’t tell you if you did.” I look him in the eye so he knows I’m telling the truth.

He returns my gaze. “Maybe that’s the other reason.”

“Hm.” I acknowledge before I turn my gaze away—from him, from the objects that I know belong to Jake and it takes everything in me not to snatch them up and run. “Well. Thank you for allowing me to steal some of your time. For letting me—” I cut myself off before I say something that makes me break down in a fit of tears in front of him. “—just thank you.”

Leaving the station is easier than coming in. I’m still not any closer to knowing where Jake is than I was when I arrived here, but there’s a comfort in knowing he walked these streets. I wonder what he would think if he knew I was here. He hadn’t wanted me to come to Duskwood when everything was happening…but now that it was over, would he be happy that I was here? That I had come to Duskwood to piece together where he might have gone? Would he track my location and come to find me and…or was I grasping at straws?

It felt like I had just gotten him back. Not really, not entirely…but knowing that he was alive, that he was out there somewhere, maybe thinking of me and looking for ways to come back, to live the life we talked about when he asked me if I was sure…that was worth it. The thought that we could maybe someday have that—even if it was a twenty percent chance.

I check my phone again to see a new message from Ash. She’s asking me if I’ve heard from Charlie in the last few hours. Apparently, he’s AWOL, and I want to help, really, but…it doesn’t really feel like that’s where I am at the moment. Not just physically—obviously—but mentally. We got lucky with Hannah. And that was really only because we had Jake. Adam didn’t have a Jake. Or…maybe he did and I just hadn’t met him yet. But I already had a Jake and I didn’t want another one.

Maybe—if I found him, I could convince him to help. That was a big maybe. Not because I thought Jake would say no. He would say yes to anything I asked of him. The maybe was whether or not I could find him. More likely, the maybe was whether or not he would find me.

Three months ago, I would have been able to come to Duskwood and have no shortage of things I wanted to do and people I wanted to see. Now, as I stand outside Duskwood’s police station, I feel nothing but loneliness. Nobody knows I’m here. I could pass Thomas on the street and he wouldn’t even know it. I could run into Jessy at the library and she would walk by me without even a second thought. Why would they? I hadn’t told them I was here.

So, with nothing left to do, I walked. Toward the town center. Toward the library that Jessy showed me on our walk through Duskwood. Toward the Rainbow Café where I knew that Cleo and Hannah had spent a lot of their time. Toward the Black Swan. Toward—

Ah, what the hell.

I had nothing better to do and The Aurora seemed like a great place to drown my sorrows. To think about my next steps. To figure out—now that I was in Duskwood—what I planned to do. The thing about Jake being so secretive (and on the run) was that I couldn’t retrace his steps. I wasn’t able to ask if anyone had seen him. One, because he would make sure nobody had. And two, because three months was a long time to forget somebody’s face if you didn’t know who you were looking for.

I pull open the door to the bar and step inside. Immediately, I’m hit with the stench of whiskey and a handful of chatter. Duskwood’s a small town. And The Aurora definitely proves it. The bartenders move melodically around each other, serving patrons on the other side of the bar. If you walk down further, there’s a handful of tables.

And dead in the center is a table with my friends. Or, some of them. Dan and Cleo and Lilly. Could I still call them my friends? Ex-friends, maybe? Acquaintances? I didn’t know what they were. Or how to address them. It wasn’t like we had gotten into a fight. We didn’t stop talking for any reason other than that we did. We stopped talking.

I make a beeline for the bar to avoid a confrontation and plant myself on one of the stools. One of the bartenders—a girl cute with bleach blonde hair and brown Bambi eyes—asks what I want and I channel my inner Dan to order a whiskey—neat.

Looking over my shoulder, I focus on the table of them. On Lilly, who’s smiling at something Cleo said. On Dan, who’s the only one of them who actually knows I’m here. But even he’s focused on the conversation they’re having. It’s strange—to see Dan a part of something I’m not sure he would have been before. It’s nice.

“[MC]?”

I turn my head away from the table of my friends and focus my attention across the bar on someone I should’ve expected to see. “Phil.”

“I thought I recognized your voice from when we talked.” He smiles. “I wasn’t sure, but I saw you staring longingly at them—” He nods towards Dan and Cleo and Lilly. “—and I knew. What brings you around here? I expected you to show up maybe a few months ago, but by now, I thought you’d moved on without us.”

I was tired of the words move on. Like I’d had a choice. Like the people from this town might open their arms and welcome me back into their lives. So I’d been part of the group who’d saved Hannah Donfort. So had a lot of people. It didn’t make me special and everyone here knew it.

I offer him a smile in return. “I’m looking for somebody.”

“Anybody I know?” He asks.

I shake my head. “Nah. At least nobody you would recognize.” I pause. “How’s Jessy?”

“She’s—Jessy.” He answers, like that is an answer. “I don’t know if she’ll ever really be okay with the way things happened with Richy. I wouldn’t expect her to. Obviously. But I don’t know. I think I just thought she would have gone back to her normal life by now. And then I remember that most of her life revolved around him. He was her best friend. She worked for him. And I’m trying to be patient about that. But—” He shakes his head. “Maybe you should talk to her.”

“She doesn’t know I’m in town.”

“Okay.” He hums. “So, you’re not in town for my sister. And you’re not in town for your group of friends because they’re over there and you look like you’d rather be anywhere else. There’s always Hannah, but I don’t think you knew her that well. Or at all. Would I be right to assume this is about a certain hacker who helped to find Hannah?”

“He didn’t help find Hannah.” I defend. “He was the entire reason we found Hannah. I would have never been able to do it on my own. Even with the others’ help. He’s the only reason we found out about—” I pause before I say something I maybe shouldn’t. “It doesn’t matter. He’s the only reason we found her. Everything I did was just dumb luck.”

“That wasn’t what the news said.” A voice cuts in and I turn my attention from Phil to focus on the stranger that slides into the seat beside me. Not too close—a couple inches away. I don’t recognize him. I don’t know him. But I don’t know every person in Duskwood. Maybe a total of like nine or ten. “I’m sorry to interrupt. But I heard you had a lot to do with finding Hannah Donfort. The news said you were some kind of hero.”

I offer him a tight smile. “That’s nice of them. But…if they knew my—friend—knew what he did to find her, I don’t think I would be as much of a hero as everybody says.”

“That’s noble.” He says, eyes meeting mine, and it strikes me at once how handsome he is. He has dark hair. Bright green eyes. Focus, [MC]. I scold. You have a…a someone.

My phone buzzes.

ERIC SENT A PHOTO.

ERIC: What do you make of this?

I sigh and click on the photo. It’s of—some object. Much like the one that was addressed to me on the envelope in Adam’s glove compartment. The image is a bit different—but I don’t know enough about what it means to have an answer as to why.

ME: Was this one addressed to me?

ERIC: Nope. Ash.

“Are you okay?” Phil asks.

I clear my throat. “I’m a popular person—apparently.” A thought strikes. “Have you ever heard of a place called Redlog Pines?”

Phil frowns. ���No.”

I turn to look at the stranger. “You?”

“Redlog Pines is a small town about two hundred miles north of Duskwood.” He answers. “Known for their wooded forests, much like Duskwood.”

“Why are you looking into a place with forests as creepy as ours?” Phil asks, incredulously. “Didn’t you get enough of that with Hannah’s case?”

“Yeah.” I sigh. “You would think.”

“Hey, [MC]!”

I wince at the sound of Dan’s voice. Shooting Phil a look that screams please help me to which he shakes his head amusedly, I turn and plaster on a fake smile as I take in the shocked looks on Cleo and Lilly’s faces. I should have known better than to come to The Aurora and talk to Phil when the three of them were having a conversation across the room. I should have known they would sooner or later see me. I just hoped it was later.

“Hey.” I hop off my stool and make my way across the bar to them. “It’s, uh, fancy seeing the three of you here.”

“What are you doing here?” Cleo asks.

“I haven’t really figured that out.” My eyes meet Lilly’s. “It sounds crazy to say it out loud. But I was hoping that—I’m not sure if Lilly told you—”

“That Jake’s alive.” Cleo nods. “None of us ever really thought he wasn’t.”

I don’t think she means it as a dig—but it still feels like one. Like she’s saying you gave up on him you gave up on him you gave up on him even though she’s not and she didn’t really know him and the only person I can talk to at this table who even might understand is Lilly and even—Jake didn’t confide in her the way he did me.

“Right.” I acknowledge. “So I thought that maybe if I came here, I could trace his steps from when he was here and—I haven’t really thought that far ahead. It’s not like I thought he left me any clues in the forest or anything like that. I don’t think he expected me to be here. He hadn’t wanted me to be the last time we talked. But that was before everything happened.”

Lilly’s eyes track behind me. “Does Jake still have Nymos on your phone?”

“Uh.” I furrow my brows. “I think so. I hadn’t heard from him in a while, but I went back and read through our messages after I talked to Alan and…my phone glitched, like it used to when Jake had hacked it. And then this message appeared on my screen.”

“And by chance, can Nymos track your location?”

“What—” I shake my head. “Maybe. I don’t think I ever really asked him. It didn’t seem necessary at the time.”

“Uh huh.” She focuses on me once more. “Let’s say, for one minute, that Jake has access to Nymos who has access to your location.”

Cleo must catch onto something I’m not sure of. “Jake didn’t want you here.”

“Uh, thank you?”

“You know that’s not what I mean.” She waves me off. “He didn’t want you in Duskwood. He had been adamant about that when we were talking about the mine. That’s why he went. If you showed up in Duskwood—”

“Nymos would have alerted him.” Dan finishes.

“Okay…” I’m not entirely sure I’m on the same page as them. “So—you think that Jake found out when I came to Duskwood.”

“Correct.” Lilly beams like she just solved life’s greatest mystery.

“And you think he would—come find me?”

She smiles sympathetically at me—like I’m the world’s biggest idiot for not realizing what she has been trying to say sooner. “I think he already has.”

“You think Jake’s in Duskwood.” I deadpan.

“[MC].” Cleo grabs my shoulders and turns me around. “We think he’s in this bar.”

Stranger, as I had nicknamed him—AKA the guy sitting beside me at the bar, with Phil and Redlog Pines (which he probably only knew about because of me) and the whole Hannah being kidnapped and not taking any of the credit thing—was looking back at me. So was Phil. Like they thought I was the crazy one. Like it would’ve been so hard for him to look and me and say it’s me or anything that might have clued me into the fact that—

“Jake?” I whisper, because I’ve lost quite a bit of sleep over the past couple of months and I’m not one hundred percent sure what—or who—I’m seeing is real. “Are you here?”

He tilts his head and smiles at me. Actually smiles. A bit shyly, like it’s something he’s not used to doing, but maybe like it’s something he could get used to. And I think about how terrible I probably look right now because I’m not wearing makeup and my hair is tousled from constantly pulling at it and my clothes are wrinkled from the plane and the police station and I look like a mess. But our relationship has never been about looks. Clearly. I didn’t even know the person I’d been talking to until Lilly and Cleo and even Dan pointed out the obvious.

“If I—” I close my eyes and open them again. Nope. Still there. “I need you to still be there by the time I reach you because it’s been a—” I sniffle. “—it’s been a rough few months and I don’t think I could handle you disappearing again.”

He stands from the stool he was sitting on and shuffles his feet. Like he’s not quite sure where he’s supposed to stand. If he thinks about moving, I’ll tackle him onto the floor of The Aurora and then apologize to Phil later. It feels like everything I wanted is right here in front of me. And I’m scared to death that it’s not real.

“What’s one thing you would take with you if you were stranded on an island?”

His smile stretches. “My computer.”

And that—that’s what breaks me. I think I might start blubbering like an idiot but I don’t remember the time it takes for me to cross the measly twenty feet between us. All I remember is grabbing his black hoodie—because of course—and dragging him to me. I don’t kiss him, despite how much I want to, because I don’t want our first kiss to be tainted with my snot and tears. Instead, I bury my face in his collarbone and wrap my arms around his neck and hold on for dear life.

Because I can. Because he isn’t dead.

“Y—You’re here.” I pull back and cup his face with my hands. “How are you here?”

“You came to Duskwood.” He responds, and then—hesitantly—he presses his lips to my forehead in a kiss. “Alan called you.”

“He found your things in the forest.” I whisper back. “He said they’d been there a while. The police hadn’t searched the forest because they assume you died in the mine.”

“They aren’t looking for me here.” He confirms. “I didn’t expect it to take so long for them to find my belongings, but I anticipated that you would find out. At the time, it wasn’t safe for me to reach out and contact you. They kept on my trail for a while before they assumed I died in the mine with Richy.”

“Why didn’t you contact me then?” I ask. “Is it because of what I last messaged you? I didn’t mean it—I swear, I thought you were dead. If I had known you were alive, I would have waited, however long it took. I wasn’t trying to give up on you.”

“Hey.” He places both hands on either side of my face. “I know. I know that, [MC]. That was never why I didn’t reach out to you. I know you said you wanted this life with me. But I didn’t want that for you. But I was selfish. I couldn’t let you go. So I was trying to find a way to make both of those things true. But I was always coming back to you.”

“And did you?”

“Come back to you?” He asks.

I sniffle. “Find a way to make both of those things true.”

“Not entirely.” He admits. “Nymos alerted me you had boarded a plane headed in the direction of Duskwood and I—” He shook his head. “I knew I would find you here.”

“You could have found me sooner.”

He lets go of my face and he feels like he takes my skin with him. “It wasn’t that easy.”

“It could have been.” I demand.

I’m angry again. Now that I know he’s alive and okay and that he could have found me, I’m angry that he didn’t. I told him I would choose that life with him. Over and over and over. He didn’t need to make the decision for me. He didn’t need to try and protect me. And yes, maybe the fact that he did makes my heart flutter a tiny little bit, but that’s besides the point.

“I told you before you left me.” I tell him and I’m aware it sounds like we’ve been in a relationship for five years and I’m aware that everybody in here is watching and listening in on our conversation and they probably all know we’re who we are, two people involved in helping to find the kidnapped Hannah Donfort, and maybe that’s all we’ll ever be in this town. But I would rather be the girl who found Hannah Donfort in Duskwood with him than be me anywhere else. “You told me you would let me go with you.”

“That was before I told you I loved you.”

My heart skips a beat. It screams I love you I love you I love you back, but I say— “What does that have to do with anything?”

He looks somewhat amused. Like he knows I would never hold it against him. It’s clear to both of us that I wouldn’t because even though I’m glaring up at him with my furrowed eyebrows and my lips pouted, I’m still pressed tightly against him. His hands—even though they’ve moved from my face—are now resting on my hips. Pulling my tighter to him. There’s no space in between us. If it was up to me, I’m pretty sure there never would be again.

“[MC].” He says, and oh god I wish he would say my name every day for the rest of his life. “Have I—in the short time we have known each other—ever struck you as the type of person who says I love you? But with you…” His words are a whisper against my lips. “It’s easy to fall back into old emotions with you.”

“I want to be angry with you.” I tell him.

He shakes his head. “No, you don’t.”

“No, I don’t.” I agree. “But I might be if you don’t kiss me.”

He brought one finger underneath my chin and tilted it up until our lips were separated by a fraction of an inch. My eyelids fluttered. I didn’t care that everyone in here was about to see just how much Jake meant to be. I didn’t care because I had waited too long for this. And then—just as I’m leaning toward him to press our lips together, he whispers— “[MC]?”

“Hm.” I acknowledge.

“Who’s Eric?”

My eyelids crack open and I shove at his chest. “That’s what you’re worried about right now? Here I am, in front of you, covered in snot and tears and who-knows-what-else because you’re here right now, and you’re worried about some guy I don’t even know?”

“Who’s Eric?” He repeats.

“Ugh.” I run my hands through my hair and take a step back. “I don’t know. He’s the other side of Thomas or whatever you want to call him. If we lived in a different town.” I glare back at him and try not to admit that I think his jealous side is a little cute. “He messaged me. Thought I picked up his friend from some parking lot and I didn’t, but his friend sent him my number, and it was Hannah all over again. I’m trying to help them.”

“This Adam has been sending you a lot of videos.”

“You know I hate when you hack my phone.” I complain, even though I really don’t. Even though I had prayed for him to help me with this case. “I really don’t know Adam. Like—even less than I know Eric.

“But you know Eric.”

“For like a week.” I reassure. “He added me to this group chat with him and like three other friends of his. They’re desperate to find Adam who has apparently dropped off the face of the earth and I don’t know what to do. I had you with Hannah’s case. And you knew her. And they—” I look over my shoulder at Cleo and Dan and Lilly, who are pretending like they’re not listening in even though I know and Jake knows they are. “—they knew her. And obviously Adam’s friends must know him but I don’t and you don’t and there is no Jake in Redlog Pines.”

“I don’t trust him.” He shakes his head. “Any of them.”

I laugh. “Jake, you didn’t trust half the people in this bar when we first started talking.” I look over at Phil and then Dan. “It doesn’t mean they committed a crime. If I had backed off when you asked me to help you find Hannah, we may never have.”

“I thought that was all thanks to me.” He sounds smug, like that little smiley face he loved to annoy me with (AKA make me fall in love with him). “Did he flirt with you?”

“No.” I deadpan. “I think he was focused on his missing friend.”

“I was focused on my missing sister.” He shoots back.

I close my mouth. Alright. He has a point. But I wasn’t flirting with Eric. He was focused on finding Adam and I was focused on mourning—and then finding—Jake. Maybe it felt like Eric and I were two sides of the same coin. Maybe that’s why I agreed to help him. Because I didn’t want to happen to him what I thought had happened to Jake—to me.

“You’re being ridiculous.” I say instead. “How do you think I could ever entertain the idea of being with somebody else when for the past three months—more than that if you count the time we have actually had together—I’ve been focused on you? On discussing Hannah with you and then talking to you about anything and everything and then worrying about you and then hating you a little for convincing me you should me the one to go into the mine and then mourning you when it was hard to even think about you and then finding you?”

His eyes are wide. I think I’ve rendered him speechless. Which—serves him right. I know he’s not somebody who serves their feelings up on a silver platter. I know that. Obviously, I knew that from the first time I spoke to him. Back when he was nothing more than ??? and I was almost convinced that Dan was right and he was the Man Without A Face—a thought that I now hate with everything in me. But I need him to trust me. Jealousy streak and FBI and the missing persons cases aside, he needs to trust me.

“Trust me.” I cup the sides of his face again. “He’s nothing like you.”

He swallows. “Some people might consider that to be a perk.”

“I don’t.” I say.

And then I’m kissing him and it feels like coming home.

[fallingdownhell]

Going with the theme of your recent 2 fics, can i request lighthearted/silly fic of diluc x reader in which he forgot your birthday but you also forgot about it and you both dont realize until someone asks what your plans are for the day or smth lmaoo

I see you xD of course I can do that!

Pairing: Diluc x reader

Content: gender neutral reader; not really anything specific, should be safe; not proofread yet!

Word count: 1,1k words

Please enjoy!

It was finally here.. the day your boyfriend had dreaded so much finally arrived..

Today, he would have to attend an official event alongside the knights of Favonius, within their headquarters.

And since Dawn Winery was providing the drinks for the event, and Diluc was the Master of the Winery, it was required for him to attend as well, to represent his work.

You knew that he really wasn't looking forward to this. He had complained about it almost daily for the last few weeks, and it only got worse the closer the event came.

Now, as he was getting dressed to attend, he almost looked lifeless, already bored out of his mind.

"I know a thousand other things I would love to do rather than this.", he complained as you helped him organize the last few details of his attire.

You smiled, still concentrating on his clothes, but asked nonetheless. "Oh really? Like what?" Your tone was teasing, but Diluc payed no mind to that.

Instead, he leaned down to you, grabbing your chin as he held eye contact with you.

"Wouldn't you like to know.."

Then, he closed the distance and placed a soft kiss on your lips. You couldn't help but smile into the kiss as you wrapped your hands around his neck and deepened the kiss like this.

But before things could get too heated, he parted from you again. You were both catching your breath as an idea came into your mind and you had to refrain from slapping yourself on the forehead. How come you hadn't thought of that sooner?

"Say, Diluc.. how about I accompany you? So you don't have to be all on your own there."

He looked at you for a second, eyes wide like he had the same thought you just had. Why didn't he think of that sooner?

"I would love that, darling."

So, you quickly scanned through your closet, trying to find the right clothes for the occaision.

After picking out an outfit and getting ready, Diluc took you hand in his as you set out on your way, getting seen off by the staff of the winery, wishing you lots of fun.

And you really thought, that with Diluc there, this could actually turn out pretty funny.

You both walked the familiar road to Mondstadt, conversing the entire way there, with a bit of teasing here and there from both of you.

At one point, Diluc even leaned down to whisper compliments about your appearance into your ear, making you blush.

"You look absolutely breathtaking."

"This outfit really compliments you."

"I wish I could just pull it iff you right now."

All those words brought a blush to your cheeks and ears, and every time, you would lightly hit hin on his arm, making him laugh at your cute reaction.

Soon enough, you arrived at the gates of Mondstadt, the guards recognizing you both and letting you pass with no issue.

Only a short walk after, you saw Kaeya standing by the fountain. He noticed you two and walked over.

You smiled as you greeted him, yet Diluc had returned to his usual stoic expression when approached by the man.

"Ah, Diluc. Glad to see you made it here safely. And you even brought company. It's a pleasure to see you, (Name)."

Saying that, Kaeya took your hand and placed a quick kiss to the back of your hand, but quickly let go of you again as he saw Diluc's piercing glare directed at him.

"It's nice to see you too, Kaeya. We haven't seen each other in a while. How have you been?", you tried to stay calm, gently squeezing Diluc's hand that was still holding yours, reminding him to stay civil.

"Oh, you know, the usual. I'm doing quite well for myself. Ah, but that reminds me..", he trailed off as he looked around. It seemed like he was searching for something or someone, but didn't seem to find it. He just sighed.

Then, he took your free hand again, this time ignoring the glare Diluc threw at him.

"Happy Birthday, (Name). Thank you for participatikg today, even though the event fell on your special day. Still, I wish you all the best."

You were taken aback by Kaeya's words.

Birthday? You? No, that couldn't be..

It was today??

Shocked, you looked at Diluc next to you, who wore the same expression as you. Seeing as you had the same reaction as him, it took a few seconds, but then you both burst out laughing.

Confused, Kaeya looked between the both of you. Did he say something wrong? He didn't mistake the day, right?

Meanwhile, you were still laughing so hard that your stomach started to hurt. You held it with your free hand, trying to calm yourself down again to catch your breath.

"And what's so funny about that?", Kaeya asked, clearly not amused about this reaction.

"We forgot!", you said, still trying to breath properly again.

Baffled, Kaeya looked over at Diluc, who was covering his mouth, but his eyes still betrayed that he was laughing as well. Dilic just nodded, confirming that he had forgotten about it as well.

There has been so much going on for the both of you that it simply slioped your minds. Once calmed down again, Diluc turned to you, gently taking your face in his hand.

"Is it too late to congratulate you now?"

"It's never too late for that.", you said as you gently placed a hand over his, closing your eyes as he leaned down to kiss you. You return the kiss, completely forgetting about the world around you.

As you both separated again, Diluc still held your face, holding your gaze. "Happy birthday, (Name). I thank the Archons every day that you were born and for bringing you into my life."

You smiled and were about to pull Diluc into another kiss when an awkward laugh sounded from next to you guys. Suddenly, you remember that Kaeya was still there and that you were here for a reason.

Awkwardly, you separated from Diluc as you both followed Kaeya the the headquarters of the Knights. Along the way, you felt a gentle squeeze on the hand Diluc was holding, making you look at him.

It didn't matter to you that he forgot about your birthday. All that matters was for you to be in his life and to know that he loved you, entirely. That was the greatest gift you have ever recieved in this life and nothing could top that, anyways.

[spotty-bee]

I watched the three Troll Movies the last few days and got inspired to make an Au! I was like, what would happen if a troll didn't turn grey all the way? What if they had lost hope, but not all of it? So I thought drew some fun designs and here they are!

Basically King Peppi was separated from Poppy's group and ended up with Viva's, causing poppy to think her dad is dead and is more frightened of the Burgens because of it. She starts to get grey marks on her body, but thanks to her still somewhat happy, bubbly personality, she doesn't go fully grey. The group has leadership issues since Peppi is gone, with a lot of infighting about what they should do and where they should go. Rebuilding society is a lot harder on the group, which is why it's so easy for kids like Poppy to get lost in the shuffle, nobody to really, fully take care of them.

Branch, still grey after the loss of his grandma and abandoned by his brothers, is there for Poppy when the adults are busy fighting or Poppy's friends have to go home. The two have a lot more in common in this Au, both fearing Bergans and their possibly return. So Branch gets her to help build his bunker with him, as well as explain his backstory to her far earlier than the movies.

Eventually the Burgans DO find them as the adults make too much noise both partying and fighting over what to do. Poppy and Branch are the only ones to realize and Poppy manages to convince her friends and a few others to hide in the bunker with them. More Trolls are lost to the Bergans but Poppy is fully recognized as leader by the ones she's saved. Branch and Poppy both agree to abandon their current location, going deeper into the woods where the foliage is so thick no Bergan can enter. Though there are a lot of dangerous wild animals and very little light. The entire town starts living in bunkers interconnected by tunnels. Rarely singing or dancing. They remain pretty undisturbed until the events of either the second or third movie... depending on weather Poppy got the pop string or if Peppi took it with him.

Other than that, Viva and Clay are the ones who carry out the events of the first movie. (Its not quiet the same, Creek is with Poppy's group and still a coward that gets kicked out, but he doesn't effect Viva and Clay's story.) For the second I'm leaning toward Peppi taking the string with him (but that can be changed), so Barb attacks the Putt Putt Trolls instead. However Viva and Clay also handle that, and Viva manages to steal Barb's heart in the process. (I'm not sure if Barb is the same age as Poppy or not, but in my Au she's between Poppy and Viva in age, so its fine.)

So right now its not until the time around the third movie that Branch and Poppy make contact with their siblings. Branch is more cold and doesn't talk much outside of to Poppy. Poppy is more withdraw, reserved and nervous. Both have continually greyed under the stress of taking care of their people, fighting off predators, getting supplies and hiding from Bergans. However Poppy's hope for her people has kept her going and Branch's belief in Poppy keeps him going.

Branch and Poppy also get together sooner than the movies, as they knew each other longer. (Poppy has a brief stint of dating Creek first before he betrays them and gets kicked out. ) Their relationship is good, they can talk without words and are almost always on the same page, but they also feed each other's anxieties and pessimism. Once reunited with their families and the more nitty gritty details have been sorted out (Who's the Pop Queen, ect, ect.) the two actually have to be separated for their own health, as they keep feeding each other's fear, dreaming up worse case scenarios and how to get out of them, trying to make a new bunker, hording supplies, ect. This temporary separation gives them a chance to get to know their families again.

Poppy didn't remember Viva at all in the third movie, so I don't think she'd remember her father either in this AU. So she has to build a relationship from scratch with people who already love her in Putt Putt Pop Village. Branch, meanwhile, hates being away from Poppy and hates his brothers who abandoned him. (Though deep down he really wants them back in his life.) It also doesn't help that he has essentially gone from a perpetually dark, dangerous forest to the brightly lit, busy beaches of Vacay Island, getting constant over stimulation. He's very resistant to his brother's help at first, but eventually realizes that their just trying to improve his health (Physically and mentally) and that fighting it is just hurting Poppy. (Poppy makes a turn about much easier than Branch does, reversing some of her greying. However when she and Branch get to visit during the temporary separation, Branch actually causes some of it to come back, which is when he realizes the others are right and tries to do more to get better himself.) After they do improve they're free to do as they please and reunite as an even better couple.

As for the events of the third movie with Floyd, either Viva helped the brother save Floyd by stealing him back, still inside the diamond prison, or Floyd gets taken after these events.

Anyway! Thats what I have for now! Let me know what you think and if you have any ideas or questions!

[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.

[strxnged]

TIGHNARI: # the roots of ambition.

CHAPTER III. In which your secret is out, and you must decide on the next step.

Word count. 2.1k. Genre. Found family, gn!reader.

Table of Contents. / Next chapter.

The light smell of eucalyptus roused your senses and you blinked awake. You recognized the faint morning glow through the entry and the medicine and herb-covered shelves as indicators of your position—the patient bed in the medical hut. By the door sat a Forest Ranger with a tray of seedlings on his lap, who stirred as you sat up.

“You’re awake! I’ll fetch the General Watchleader.”

You thanked him and swung your legs off the bed. No shoes were around you on the floor, but this wouldn’t stop you from reaching for your jacket from the hanger so that you could get yourself out of this rather embarrassing situation as soon as possible.

As you pulled on your jacket, something felt very wrong about its texture. It didn’t take you long to realize with a glance at your fingertips that the Eleazar had spread suddenly and quickly up your fingers, all the way to the second joint. This, you couldn’t hide with dirty fingertips. Your fingers were scaly, rough as you dragged them on your arm, and worst of all: numb. You could feel nothing from the knuckles out.

It must have been all the contact with that soil. That’s all it could be. Proximity to Withering Zones was hard on anyone—but for Eleazar, this confirmed, its spread could be accelerated exponentially. 

“Were you born with it?”

Tighnari was in the room.

You only nodded, still staring in misery at your fingers. You could barely do research like this. You’d find a way, of course, but… It was an omen.

“I commend your choice to join the Amurta Darshan.” His voice was calming, understanding, as he walked over to you. “It’s smart of you to get as much time in the forest as possible. Good for lengthening what time you do have.” His voice broke a little as he took your hands in his to inspect their state for what couldn’t have been the first time since last night.

You looked up at him.

Despite his composed voice, his eyes were grave. He met your gaze with red rings and dark shadows. At this sight, you felt yourself tearing up and you averted your attention to the bottles of assorted colours on the shelf near the door. 

“I’m so sorry,” he said in a whisper.

“Me too,” you replied.

“I should have figured it out. I should have helped you sooner.”

“I wouldn’t have let you. Besides, we barely know each other.”

Tighnari sat down beside you. “While that may have been true a few days ago, having spent so much time with you by now I’m not sure that excuse still applies.”

You pulled your hands from his grasp, inspecting them again. “This stays between us, okay? I don’t want anyone else to freak out.”

He paused. “Do I seem like I’m disturbed?”

“Yeah, you do. Of course you do. How misfortunate that you put the time into befriending someone who’s bound to die soon—bound to live atypically and miserably. I bet you’re wishing now that I didn’t have Eleazar.”

“Naturally, yes, I wish you did not have Eleazar. It is a grave diagnosis indeed, and I hope you know how deeply I wish there was a cure. Seeing as it is associated with the sickness that resides in Irminsul itself, you and I both know how distant hope is.”

“I don’t make a good research partner, Tighnari.”

“Nonsense. You’ve been brilliant to work with. So passionate, as I’ve said before.”

“That’s not what I mean.”

“Help me understand.”

You searched for the words. “Many of my samples will outlast me.”

“Then… those are lives privileged to have been touched by yours.”

You bit the inside of your cheek, raising an eyebrow at your companion.

“Was that too sappy? Well, I’m sorry to hear that you can’t handle a bit of sap from someone who cares about you.”

You shook your head at him scoldingly and flopped back onto the bed with your eyes on the ceiling. “I don’t want to be a sad sick person.”

Tighnari mimicked you, flopping next to you compliantly. “Then—let’s not be somber any longer. Let’s discuss mycelium.”

As the two of you discussed mycorrhizal networks and how the nature of relationships between plants through such a web varied between mutually beneficial to exploitative to draining, you thought about the ties between you and Tighnari—between you and the rest of the Forest Rangers—as compared those between you and those you came into contact with at the Akademiya. The Akademiya… you hadn’t thought about it since the day you arrived here. You didn’t miss it one bit. You were engaged and intertwined with a network of mutual benefit in a grand forest of wealth.

A forest whose future was threatened by only one disease.

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⸙

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A new study was in the works.

Tighnari had the research in his hut. Open system experiments were out of fashion for recent Akademiya research, but for your study, it was necessitated. There was simply no ethical way to recreate a web of mycelium still connected to the deepest parts of Teyvat without leaving the microscopic roots in the soil and bringing the experiment to them.

To your brief dismay, Tighnari insisted on doing a brief checkup on your health before you left to locate a prime site. Afterwards, you made him promise not to do it again while you worked on the second study.

“If I die, I die. I can’t just live on edge every moment, so please don’t live that way either.”

“I won’t forgive myself if I don’t do everything I can.”

“You can’t be my doctor without my consent. There, that means you’ll be doing everything you can.”

It really was a joy to get your toes immersed in the dirt. While working in Gandharva Ville had been nothing like Akademiya research laboratories, there was still the element of taking a sample from its “home” that didn’t always sit well with you. At least now the samplings in the control group would be returning into the earth to flourish. As for the experimental saplings… one had to believe damage done to young flora would be merited by scientific progress.

During the mundane parts of preparations, you and Tighnari had fallen into habits of chattering about this and that. Normally it took the form of observations of nature or the telling of interesting botany facts. Today, however, was different.

“Since my secret’s out,” you were saying, “you owe me an explanation of your history. Where’d you get the ears and tail?”

Tighnari cleared his throat. “I suppose you’ve been wondering for a while.”

“I’ve seen another of your species once or twice before at the Akademiya but she was quite consumed with her independent research. Much like myself, actually.”

“My species is traditionally called Valuka Shuna, which means ‘large desert dog.’ I find this to be a bit of an inapt name, but the other name is rather nondescript for myself in particular. I don’t like to tell people I’m ‘Tighnarian.’”

“Ooh, yeah,” you concurred. “So, you’re descended from Tighnar?”

“Something like that. My forefathers were closely engaged with Greater Lord Rukkhadevata, King Deshret, Eremites, and the like. As far as I know and have experienced, our green fur is something of a curse. Because of it I am very sensitive to overexposure and heat. I understand that those left of our race tend to prefer solitude, much like myself.”

“You know, for an introvert, you sure do have a lot of pals,” you observed.

“It comes with the job. I don’t hate people. Though, I’ve had enough run-ins with ignorant scholars and travellers for a lifetime.”

“Hey! Don’t be mean.”

“Like I said, I don’t hate people. Even if it’s a reckless student like you.”

You tsked at him. “You don’t strike me as someone quite capable of hate. It seems to me that you can be as angry as a Rishboland Tiger and you’ll still be understanding of another point of view.”

Tighnari glanced at you. “That may be true. But do not mistake me for a pushover.”

“No, I’ve seen how you are with Collei. And me, I guess.”

“I make sure to treat all of the Rangers the same.”

His expression was serious. You supposed he meant that if another Ranger came down with Eleazar, he’d worry and care for them just as he did for you and Collei. But you thought it over as you continued preparations. You considered it as he volunteered to record data in your place on your weaker days. And you could not stop ruminating over it after Collei spoke to you later that day, running into Tighnari’s hut while you worked on the report.

“Y/N! How are you feeling?”

You froze. Had he told her? “Hi, Collei. I’m quite alright. Why do you ask?” 

“I heard you pushed yourself too hard a few nights ago. Master’s worrying about you like I’ve never seen before.” She smiled sweetly. “I’m glad you’re okay. He doesn’t get like this often, so he must really care about you.”

You felt a sinking feeling in your gut. “How have you been? Sorry I’ve been so busy these past few days, I haven’t been able to come and see you.”

“I’ve been busy too! I was helping a Ranger with his seedlings, and I’ve gotten to practice some of my survival skills—and Tighnari’s given me a few more responsibilities so that he can help you out! Of course, he said not to push myself and to let him know if it was ever too much, but I’m learning so much I don’t think I’ll want to give it up in that case!”

This gave you pause.

“Do you need help with anything?” she asked.

Was Tighnari really treating you like he’d treat any Forest Ranger? Or were you an exception?

“Why don’t you come here,” you offered to Collei, “so I can show you what Akademiya reports look like in their drafting stages. I know you like to read.”

“Really?” she asked, coming further inside. You rose from the chair and told her to take it as she read.

“Let me know if you have any questions. I’ll just be over here.” You stood by Tighnari’s pinboard, studying the current features: an assortment of mushroom samples and a branch of an Adhigama sapling. 

As Collei neared the most recent part of the draft, Tighnari arrived in his hut. “Look who’s here,” he said, stirring the young Forest Ranger to stand up.

“M-Master!”

“What are you up to?”

“Reading a draft of Y/N’s report. There are a lot of big words I don’t understand.”

You cut in. “Hey, you were supposed to ask me about them!”

“I—I’m sorry. You have super cool handwriting, though!”

Tighnari asked Collei about her day and encouraged her to run along and get some rest. After she left, he gave you a proud smile. “Like I said, she looks up to you.”

You returned the smile. “She really is a sweet girl. She’s found a home here.”

“Yes, and she’s so diligent. I just have to make sure she doesn’t take on more than she can handle.”

You felt oddly that he meant you.

This couldn’t go on for any longer. 

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Dawn was red and howling with gales. Tighnari awoke with a knot in his stomach and a pounding headache. He disliked storms and wind. Not only did they cause him physical aches and uncontrollable, carnal fear, but they also seemed to carry misfortune into the lives of himself and his friends. With a pang he wondered how you were handling it. City folk were used to thick walls and ceilings in this weather, and also had a tendency to be unaware of the dangers of the forest. If you weren’t still asleep, then knowing you, you might have wandered off to check on the saplings.

He pulled on his boots. A flash of lightning illuminated his room as he pulled his hood over his ears. He noticed something white on his desk that had not been there last night with a scrawling of his name. With a great deal of haste and no disparity of panic, he opened the envelope and read the note inside, only hesitating at the shaking of his hands from a boom of thunder.

“Tighnari,

“I will finish the experiment by myself.

“You’ll get to see the final report by mail—you’ll be credited. Thanks for everything. 

“Don’t look for me.”

Lightning flashed once more. You had signed your initials at the bottom.

And he knew you were gone.

Table of Contents. / Next chapter.

[nowandajenn]

Blue Christmas-dirty shame

Series warnings: angst (like a lot), mentions of infidelity, language, family drama, pregnancy, sexual situations.

This chapter contains smut. No minors!!!

December 17th

I let out a frustrated sigh as I look again through the clothes that are hanging in the closet in the spare room at my brother’s house. I’m scheduled to shoot a wedding tomorrow and I don’t have anything here that’s remotely suitable to wear, and the thought of venturing out to the mall or any of the shops in Boston this close to Christmas has me breaking out in hives. The original plan was to come back to work after the holidays were over, but I had forgotten about the Greenberg wedding, which I’d been hired for about eight months ago. 

I glance over at my cell phone sitting on the nightstand. Chris hasn’t called or texted since we last spoke almost a week ago, and the sane, rational part of me is glad that he’s backed off and given me space and time to try and figure out the mess of thoughts and emotions going through my head. The other, less sane, part of me that’s still in love with my husband is aching at the loss of contact. I keep waiting for the day that I wake up and find out that this has all been some horrible nightmare. 

I should call him or at least text to let him know that I’m coming over. I can be in and out; grab a dress and go. No muss no fuss. Although on the other hand, why should I have to announce that I’m coming to my own house to pick up an outfit? Honestly, it might be easier to just brave the rabid, pre Christmas crowds at this point. 

I let out a sigh when I turn onto our street and see that Chris’ car isn’t in the driveway. As much as the traitorous, emotional side of me is wishing that I could just see him again, I know that I’m not ready for that. Hell, just getting out of bed and out into the world at this point is a major achievement in my eyes. 

I pull in the driveway and shut off the car, mentally preparing myself to walk in the home that we share together, that up until recently, was filled with only good, warm memories. The second that my key hits the lock, I hear Dodger on the other side of the door going crazy. I manage to get the door open and turn off the alarm before I’m knocked to the floor by 60 pounds of pure love and crazy puppy energy. I can’t keep myself from laughing as Dodger jumps all over me, trying frantically to lick me to death while jumping all over the place. 

“Come on! Dodge! Let me up, come on! I’m happy to see you too!” I laugh. 

I finally manage to get up off the floor and take my shoes off before heading into the living room. It’s not as clean as it normally is, but at least the house isn’t trashed like I thought it might be. My gaze sweeps around the room, and again, I’m struck dumb by the realization that despite my whole world going crazy, nothing here has changed. It all looks exactly the same. All of the pictures are in the same spots, the candles and knick knacks are all still there, the Christmas tree that Chris and I picked out and cut down is still there, decorated and ready with the presents underneath. 

I close my eyes and take a deep breath. This isn’t why I came here. I came here to get a dress, and the sooner I get it and get out of here, the better. I walk into the master bedroom and almost do a double take. The room is absolutely pristine. There aren’t any stray socks on the floor, the bed is immaculately made, there’s no sign that anybody’s even set foot in here. Curiously, I walk into the ensuite bathroom and again, it looks like it hasn’t been touched. 

Immediately, a million thoughts race through my mind. Has Chris not been sleeping in here? Has he not even been sleeping at home? Did the cleaning lady come today? Has Chris been sleeping in someone else’s bed while we’ve been separated, or whatever? I shake my head and try and focus on the task at hand. It takes longer than I would have liked, but I finally settle on a floor length burgundy dress that’s light and flowy with off the shoulder sleeves. I actually wore this to a wedding that Chris and I went to last October, and I remember loving the way that it looked on me, while still being loose enough to move around with ease. 

Just as I’m grabbing a pair of shoes out of the closet to go with the dress, I hear a car door slam and then the chirp of an alarm. I shut my eyes and groan soflty. So close. I hear the door open and like clockwork, Dodger goes nuts. Trying to delay the inevitable, I go into the bathroom to grab my flat iron and my makeup bag, throwing it all in a small carry on bag from the closet. 

“Hey.” 

Chris looks up from where he’s got his head buried in the fridge, putting groceries away when he hears my voice. 

“Hey back.” 

I shift my weight from foot to foot awkwardly, trying to figure out how to navigate this. It feels so wrong to be alone in a room with Chris and feel this nervous and unprepared for anything that might come next. Even when we first met, there were never any weird silences or awkward moments; everything just came so easily when it came to us. 

“I’m sorry I didn’t call or anything……I have a wedding to shoot tomorrow and I needed a dress, and I didn’t have anything on hand.” 

I watch as he shrugs slightly, going back to putting groceries in the fridge.

“It’s fine. It’s your house too.” he tells me. 

“I know……it’s just…..I don’t know. I felt weird just walking in. Like I didn’t know what I was going to walk in on.” 

Chris looks up at me and I can’t place the exact emotion on his face. 

“What’s that supposed to mean?” 

“Nothing, I just didn’t know what the house was going to look like…..” my voice trails off. 

“Or if you were going to walk in and catch me balls deep in another woman? Is that what you’re trying to say?” he asks bitterly. 

“No, that’s not what I was going to say, but since you bring it up, where the hell have you been sleeping? Because the bedroom doesn’t look like it’s been touched since I left.” I snap. 

Jesus Christ. Abort. Abort. This is starting to get really hostile and it’s definitely NOT how I wanted things to go. 

“It looks like that because I’ve been sleeping on the fucking couch since you left! I tried sleeping in our bed, and I can’t fucking do it. It’s hard enough being just in this house without you, but being in that room, in our bed, where the sheets still smell like you, it’s torture. So I sleep on the goddamn couch. Is that what you want to hear? Huh?” I watch as he turns away from me and grips the granite counter top, his weight shifting to lean more on his hands. 

“What do you want from me Chris?” I ask tiredly. 

“I want you to come home! I want us to try and fix this. I want you to give me a chance to try and fix this epic fuck up of mine. I want you to tell me if you even want to fucking let me fix this. I want you to talk to me about something, or anything for that matter!” he exclaims. He’s pacing the floor and gesturing wildly with his hands, and I can tell he’s incredibly worked up. He stops right in front of me and looks me dead in the eyes. 

“I just want you.”

His blue eyes, eyes that I know just as well as my own, are shining with sadness, desperation, longing…..and lust. He’s standing so close to me that I can feel his body heat, and he smells so fucking good, and goddammit, I can’t fucking BREATHE when he’s looking at me like that….

When I feel his lips press against mine, the moan that tumbles out of my throat would be downright embarrassing if I even gave a shit right now. His left hand cups my cheek gently but firmly, his right hand gripping my waist. Somewhere in the back of my mind, I know that if we do this, it’s only going to complicate things more than they already are, but dear God his hands feel so fucking good on me, and it feels like it’s been so long.

“Oof.”

The breath gets knocked out of me momentarily as Chris backs us up to the dining room table and the edge digs into my back. 

“Sorry.” he mumbles, barely taking his lips away from mine to make the apology. His tongue sweeps into my mouth, touching against my own, and I moan into the kiss, arousal spiking in my tummy. Our hands work swiftly and diligently to get rid of the fabric that’s rudely separating us from blissful skin on skin contact. My heart is pounding in my chest and the feeling is so damn reminiscent of how flustered and excited and nervous I got when we first started sleeping together, when everything was new and exciting and we were still figuring out what made each other tick….and moan. 

I throw my head back in pleasure as Chris moves his lips from mine down my throat and neck, nipping and sucking at the delicate skin there, the feeling of his beard making my skin tingle. His hands find my full, firm breasts and he cups them gently, kneading the supple flesh and rubbing his thumbs over my nipples, making me squirm. 

“Fuck, Chris……” I moan, lost in all the sensations. 

“I know, baby. I know.” he groans, his voice low and husky, his accent thicker in his arousal. 

When he finally brings his fingers down to the apex of my thighs, I’m practically dripping for him. 

“Fuck, sweetheart. You’re so wet.” he whispers, his lips a mere breath away from mine as he drags two fingers through my wetness, making me jolt when he touches my clit with just the slightest touch. He spreads my wetness around a bit before sinking two long fingers deep inside of me, thrusting them slowly but firmly in and out of my pussy. His lips capture mine once more as he works his skilled fingers in and out of me, bringing me to the edge in an embarrassingly short amount of time. 

The pads of his fingers hit the spongy tissue of my G spot with the precision of a goddamn sniper while rubbing my clit with his thumb. When my orgasm crashes over me, Chris swallows my moans while gripping the shaft of his almost painfully hard cock to keep himself from coming; the sight of me falling apart under his touch almost more than he can take. 

“Tell me you want this. Tell me you want me. Please.” 

I respond by taking him in my hand and running my fingers up and down his length, giving him a few long drawn out strokes before guiding him into me. Despite the orgasm that Chris drew out of me with his fingers, it still makes me gasp when his cock starts pushing into me, my walls stretching to accommodate the thickness of him. I can tell he’s moving slow, taking his time to either savor it or keep from coming too fast, or both. But I’m not in the mood for gentle right now. 

“Chris.” 

He looks up at me and I lock eyes with him. 

“Fuck me.” 

Without a word, he hitches my right leg up so it’s resting over his hip and shoves the rest of his cock into me with one harsh thrust. I cry out at the sensation, but he doesn’t give me much time to dwell on it before he’s setting a punishing pace, his hips snapping back and forth. I hold onto him for dear life as his lips and teeth move over my neck, my chest, and my breasts, marking me as his and making sure that I remember this for at least a few days. 

I squeal as Chris suddenly grips the back of my thighs and lifts me onto the dining room table and places his hand on my sternum, silently urging me to lay back. 

“Legs up.” he says in a low voice. 

I bring my legs up so the bottom of my feet are resting right against his pecs, and he gives an experimental thrust into me, making me gasp out at the change in angle and position. 

“Yeah? Like that?” 

It’s all I can do to just nod as Chris fucks into me over and over again, leaving me panting and breathless and moaning like a whore. He looks down at the place where his hard length is disappearing inside of my pussy, his cock, pelvis, and thighs wet from my arousal, and groans. 

“Fuck, Chris….oh God, oh fuck…….” I moan out as I feel that familiar tightening in my belly. 

“You look so fucking beautiful taking my cock inside of you. So perfect. Come on, come all over me. I wanna feel your pussy strangle my fucking dick.” he groans out. 

The second that his thumb touches my clit, I’m done for. My back arches off of the table and I dig my nails into Chris’ arms as I come, screaming his name. I hear Chris grunt, and with two more deep thrusts, and with a broken cry, he reaches his end, filling me up with come. 

My eyes fly open when I feel Dodger jump up on the bed. Jesus Christ, when the hell did I fall asleep?! I look over and see that Chris is, thankfully, still asleep. After thoroughly defiling the dining room table, the party moved into the living room, the master bathroom, and then finally the bedroom. I squeeze my eyes shut and groan. 

Shame. Low down, dirty shame. I did not come here for this yesterday. This was the absolute last thing on my mind, and the last thing in the world I imagined would happen. Oh my God, we didn’t even use a condom. Not a single one. Jesus fucking Christ. God, I hope he used a condom when he fucked whoever it was that he fucked. I should probably get tested just to be sure. Goddamn it. 

It takes me a good ten minutes to find all of my clothes and once I’m dressed, I grab my purse and the dress and bag that I originally came for, and head towards the door. I bend down and scratch Dodger behind the ears for a few minutes, my heart breaking at the look on his face. 

“I miss you so much bubba. I love you, okay? I’ll come back and visit you soon, I promise.” I whisper to him. 

I make sure I have everything before setting the alarm and locking the door behind me, leaving Chris sleeping peacefully and undisturbed in our bed. 

[lightning-writes]

good heart (faulty machine of a man) - 17/30

fic summary: bucky meets someone at therapy

chapter summary: there are amends and apologies.

word count: 1887

tags: post endgame, pre tfatws, slow burn, canon divergent, canon compliant, au

warnings: transphobia

a/n: a quick dip into TFATWS canon. also rue's last name is david (like dah-veed) - she is of Indian-descent, I just haven't decided specifics.

AO3 MASTERLIST X

Bucky remembers them all.

All of the people he’s killed, maimed, hurt. All of the corruption, extortion, affliction. All of the fear, shock, indignation. All of the cries, the trembling, the fighting - all of their will to live, to survive. He remembers snuffing out the good and upholding the immoral.

If someone received a swift death, it wasn’t because the Winter Soldier was merciful. It was because he had a mission to complete and would not tolerate deterrence.

When Raynor tells him to write down every person affected by the Winter Soldier, Bucky writes for days. She then tells him to cross off the people who had died by the hand of the Winter Soldier or by the hand of time. He’s left with a page of the victims’ family members and corrupt persons in substantial power.

She gives him two rules and a script that they create together:

I am no longer the Winter Soldier. I am James ‘Bucky’ Barnes, and you are a part of my efforts to make amends.

The rules are simple - nothing illegal, no one gets hurt. He disagrees, knowing that some people on this list deserve illegal and harmful things done to them, but he will play by her rules.

(For now.)

////

(The assignment gives him a new purpose, something he realizes he misses.)

Bucky starts right away. He contacts the independent digital investigator he had used in the past to find targets. Mikhail Novikov, known as Жаба, The Toad, has been on both sides of civilian uprisings, systematic rebellions, political wars. His loyalty is to the payment, never an organization or government.

He delivers his amends list to Novikov in person and, at the last minute, adds one more name, with the special request to do a full deep dive.

(Dread and guilt flood his brain as his pen falters. Ruby David. He’s conflicted between thinking he shouldn’t do this and he should have done this sooner.)

Жаба produces locations of each person; Bucky will do the rest. He tells Bucky the deep dive will take more time and will cost more money. Bucky reminds him he’s Novikov’s only ally in times like this.

With some basic research, he finds Yori Nakajima. The father of one of the Winter Soldier’s victims. Bucky remembers his son. Hell, he’s dreamt of his son, his feeble attempts to escape.

(The swift execution he received.)

Bucky doesn’t approach Nakajima for days. He takes his time slinking around the old man’s neighborhood, tailing him through the park to markets and restaurants. He notes who he interacts with, what kind of person the man is.

Bucky’s memorized Nakajima’s routine when he finally lets himself be spotted.

“I think you and I are the only regulars here, at this time.” Yori’s smile is kind, drawing lines across his whole face. He shuffles his way to Bucky’s small table in the corner of Izzy’s, a Japanese bar Yori frequents.

(Bucky’s throat seizes, but he offers a weak smile.)

“I’m Yori.”

“James.”

“Do you mind if I sit with you, James?”

“Uh…”

(Bucky knows he shouldn’t entertain the man. It’s like a predator playing with its prey. The news Bucky had to deliver will gut this old man, and it would be a twisted knife if they become friendly first.)

“Yes, you can sit here.”

“Thank you.” Yori waves over to the bartender. “Have you had Sake before?”

“Can’t say I have,” Bucky lies.

“It’s the best part of my day,” the old man admits with a sheepish chuckle.

(Bucky was going to hell for this, but what is one drink with a kind old man compared to his lifetime of sins?)

////

“Hey - I’m hungry.”

Rue hasn’t texted him since Thanksgiving, which was only a week ago, but when he had walked into the waiting room, she barely looked his way either. She’d been busy on the phone, taking notes, or on the computer, typing diligently. She’d offered him a terse smile upon his arrival, but her eyes never meet his.

(He’d take it as a coincidence if he didn’t know any better. But he knew the intricacies of shame, so he’d given her space.)

This is why her declaration throws him off as he exits the therapy room.

“You should eat then.”

(His statement is surly. He feels out of rhythm with her, which is foreign to him. He knows the main reason is he’s afraid of what Novikov will find. His learned predisposition to be suspicious has been both life-preserving and eternally daming. He feels like he’s stepping into dark water, not knowing if his foot will land on solid ground or something sharp. His gut has been pointing out the inconsistencies with her, but… isn’t it just human to be inconsistent? He feels like there’s more at stake here… and he doesn’t know what he’ll do with that information.

Another reason, he thinks, is the way he wanted to end the pretenses that night and give in to the charged moment between them.)

“Are you hungry?”

Despite her matching his energy, he recognizes the veiled invitation.

“I’m… not,” he admits, “but I could join you.”

“Well, I don’t want you to ‘join me’ if you have plans or–” She’s fighting with her coat, and he sees her frustration with the garment, with him, with herself. “If you’re hungry, we go. If you’re not–”

Bucky offers his gloved hand. She’s fixing her collar when she notices it. He’s half worried she’s going to scold him for being behind the desk again, though technically, he’s adjacent to it. She shoulders her bag and grabs his hand.

“Let’s go,” she drags him out of the room.

(Bucky can’t fight the smile growing on his face as he follows along.)

////

She says she’s craving Indian food, so they go to a pretty famous restaurant twenty minutes away. The place is loud and packed, and Bucky is bombarded by the crazy Christmas lights piled onto the ceilings, some hanging low enough to graze his head. Surprisingly, there isn’t a wait.

“I’m dying for some tikka masala,” Rue tells the waiter with a more polite smile than her usual flirty one. She looks to Bucky, with a meek expression he’s never seen before. “Are you sure you don’t want anything? This place is amazing, and it’s my treat.”

“I’m okay for now.”

(He sees recognition from Thanksgiving, the last time he’d said that, flash over her face. Her gaze flits away but gives a clipped smile to the waiter.)

Now that they are in close proximity, Bucky really looks at her. She looks… rough, like she hasn’t been sleeping. When they aren’t making mundane comments to one another about the restaurant or the weather, her expression is flat. Eyes sullen, almost heavy. The corners of her mouth slightly down.

“Sorry I’ve been so quiet,” she finally says. Again, her eyes barely meet his. “Like, texting and stuff. I’ve been swamped at my other job. The holiday season and all.”

“That’s fine.” Bucky leans into his chair as much as space will allow. He combs his hair back with his fingers. “Raynor gave me a project, so I’ve been working on that.”

“A project?” There’s humor in her tone but not on her face. “She’s graduated from homework to a project, then?”

“Yeah, it’s for my amends.”

Her food comes incredibly fast, Bucky notices, and she hums with delight. She thanks the waiter, with a more genuine light in her eyes, and starts to eat. She offers him a forkful, but he just shakes his head.

“I haven’t had good Indian food in forever,” she mumbles through a mouthful. “My brother was going to hook me up with some this Christmas, but a few days ago, he told me they decided to go to his in-laws at the last minute.”

(Bucky feels something when he sees how Rue is with him. Open, untethered. Vulnerable. It makes him feel less… monstrous.)

“What about your parents?” Bucky ventures. He’s never cared to figure out her ethnicity, but her features lean South Asian.

She doesn’t skip a beat when she spits, “Fuck them.”

“Oh.”

“Sorry,” though she doesn’t sound it, “that’s just my knee-jerk reaction when talking about them. We don’t talk to them since they kicked Mikey out for being trans.”

“Oh,” he repeats with understanding. Her gaze is wary. “When did he come out?”

(Rue gives him a brief yet approving look as she drinks her water. Pride buzzes in his chest.)

“When he was sixteen. I was nineteen.” She combs both hands through her hair, locking them in, leaning on her elbows. “It was a wild time. I was training for this really big job, and I had to drop out when I was almost done, to take care of him.” He watches her remember. “I started working at Waterway Brewery, where I still work, and I had to pick up a bunch of little odd jobs to put food on the table, pay for rent. I wouldn’t allow Mikey to get a job, and when he got into MIT on a full ride scholarship, it had been worth it.”

“That’s a pretty good school,” Bucky says thoughtfully, “or, at least, it was, back in the ‘40’s.”

Rue laughs for the first time of the night. Her face is soft and rosy from the Christmas lights, and despite the large crowd in the cramped restaurant, she still garners curious looks from nearby diners.

(And Bucky loves it.)

////

Rue’s skittish energy reappears as she fumbles with her keys.

(He stands with her on the top landing, both protective against people walking by and the cutting wind.

It’s then he suddenly realizes it’s his proximity that’s making her so nervous, not the cold.)

He takes a step down, not wanting to crowd her, ready to leave the moment she’s in. She turns once the door is unlocked, making no moves to open it. Her eyes fall to him, a few inches shorter than her.

(If he notices disappointment, it’s gone before it registers.)

“Thanks for walking me home,” she says. She puts on her usual grin and says, “You know, you didn’t have to. I know how to defend myself.”

Bucky’s brow furrows deeply. “That’s news to me.”

She swats his shoulder with a laugh. “I’ve… taken a few classes.”

“You’ll have to show me sometime.” Despite the icy night, the air between them is thick. He finally says, “Have a good night, Rue.”

She grabs his shoulder before he’s off the steps. She’s on the last one, so close, he sees the smile lines at the corner of her eyes when the wind blows, and she squints them shut. Her hand slides from his shoulder to his chest before falling away.

(The buzzing is back.)

“I’m… sorry. For the other night.” Her voice is low, fragile. Her eyes are on her shoes. “I was drunk, and…” she huffs a laugh, pressing a hand to her forehead, “and horny, for a lack of a better word. I was being… messy and destructive–”

“Don’t be sorry.” Her eyes snap to his, finally. Like magnets. He sees her pupils, nearly lost in her dark eyes. She’s not searching. It’s like she’s been waiting for him to just say it. “There’s nothing to be sorry about.”

[jmrothwell]

"I can't be a dad, I don't know how to braid hair." "That was not what I expected you to panic about, but okay we can fix that." / writer's choice

Also for @invisibleraven who asked for the same prompt for rulie. A sort of spiritual successor to this prompt fill

Six months. 

Reggie’s not sure if he’s ever had any relationship last this long. Technically, he’s not even sure if this relationship has lasted this long. It all depended on where he wanted to start counting. 

If he started from the night he and Julie first got together. The night that was meant to be a one time thing. Then they’ve definitely hit that six month mark. 

If, instead, he counted from when they sat down and actually talked about what they were. The day they openly acknowledged that maybe this wasn’t as much of a casual thing as they were both pretending it was. Then well, it’s still the longest he’s ever been with anyone but not by much. 

Which was great, more than great, it was awesome. Reggie never knew any relationship could be like this. And he really wanted it to keep going. Which is why he wanted to talk to Julie about finally letting everyone know they were dating. 

They’d agreed to keep everything secret, first because well they weren’t exactly dating. Then because, well, after the media circus their last relationships had turned into, it was nice having something be just theirs. Plus, though he didn’t tell Julie, he didn’t want to jinx it. It was an entirely irrational chain of thinking but after so many of his past relationships had gone down the drain after he told his friends and family, he’d sort of started keeping most of his relationships secret in the early stages. 

He thought he wouldn’t have to worry about that with Julie but he didn’t want to risk it. Not at first.

Except now, he’s wondering if he was right to worry. In the few days since he’s decided to bring up the subject with her, Julie she’s been acting…off. Withdrawn, distant, avoiding being alone around him. Every quickly averted guilty gaze and hasty excuse rending another piece of his heart.

By the time Julie finally asks if they can talk, he’s worried himself to the point where he’s resigned himself to the idea that she’s about to end things with him. Unsure of what it is he’s done wrong. Maybe they should have just been more open about the whole thing from the very beginning.

He sits stiffly on the edge of her bed, fingers fidgeting with the edges of his flannel. She’s just as stiff beside him, staring at her shoes, clearly chewing the inside of her bottom lip. He can’t recall there ever being this much awkward tension between the two of them, his mind races trying to think of anything to fix whatever it is he’s broken. He can’t come up with anything but his mind runs away from him regardless.

“Julie, I’m sorry.” 

Her curls bounce around her, nearly hitting her in the face, she turns so fast to finally, finally look at him. Her eyes glittering under her plethora of fairy lights, heavy with that guilty look again under her confused brows. Definitely not helping know what to do. 

He doesn’t even realize he’s continued to ramble, more apologies if he had to guess. He honestly doesn’t know, and he pretty much forgets entirely when Julie’s hands cradle his face, gently forcing him to keep and maintain eye contact with her. 

“No, no Reggie. I’m sorry. I know I should have said something sooner but I wasn’t sure how, and I didn’t want to scare you off.”

Slowly her hands drop from his face and now she’s back to averting her gaze. “It’s not something we’ve talked about. We’ve been so careful I didn’t think we’d need to talk about it.”

Any theory and worst case scenario he’s had continues to run through his brain but not one of them fit quite right with what she’s saying. “I don’t….what’s going on?”

She sighs deeply, “I’m late.”

“Late?”

“My period, Reggie.” She says through a groan. “It’s late.”

His mind goes silent as her words sink in, realization slowly dawning on him. “You’re pregnant?” He barely manages to whisper out. “I-I can’t, Julie, I can't be a dad, I don't know how to braid hair." 

"That was not what I expected you to panic about, but okay we can fix that." She says, wrapping an arm around his shoulders, her other hand grabbing hold of his. “Besides, I don’t know if I’m pregnant yet.”

“You don’t?”

“I haven’t taken a test yet,” She guiltily laughs “Not really sure, if I’m ready. For any of it.”

He pulls his hand out of hers but only so he can wrap her tighter in a hug. “We’ll figure it out, Jules, I promise.”

[ch3rryc4ndy]

Only Way Pt. 3

Relationship - haechan soft!dom x fem reader

•

Summary - barley passing math class, Your mom

insists on getting you a tutor. She ensures you her best

friend's son which you've had an irritating past with

would be the perfect fit for you. After a few sessions he

learns of a way to motivate you like no other tutor

could.

-

Warnings - 18+ MINORS DNI. Includes language !

Masterlist

My date with hyuck was perfect. We went to a coffee shop near my house and learned a lot about each other. He’s way more caring than I expected, I can tell he loves physical contact I guess that’s his love language. we haven’t got to see each other in a few days due to the over flow of work we both got but sooner or later we’d see each other again.

I walk out of math anxiously as I just turned in my math exam . Our professor would be giving us our grades in a few days so all I can do is wait in agony… I hope I pass this exam I want to get my first A in math EVER. I’ve gotten A’s in all tests and exams expect math…

My phone dings notifying me that Karina just finished class. I look down at my phone in confusion as I see haechans name pop up “ hey y/n it’s haechan, how’d the test go ? “ I read as I roll my eyes in a chuckle “ good, well I think I did good but who knows…I said that the last time. Also how did you get my number? Why are you in my contacts? “ I reply. “ Karina helped me with that “ he reply’s.

After our last session I honestly got motivation from his proposition but quickly lost all of it after I realized it’s really just sex…I mean what if he’s bad ? Just because he knows how to use that tongue of his doesn’t mean he knows how to fuck. Also I shouldn’t let sex motivate me to do well, I should be doing that on my own!

“ hey babe “ I hear Karina squeal from behind me “ hey rina, how did you get haechans number into my phone?“ I ask “ oh he told you that… well I ran into him while I was buying you some coffee and I got his number for you since I know you aren’t one to ask. Once I met you after that I put his contact in your phone and didn’t worry about it since you never check any of you contacts” she smiles “ weird much “ I chuckle as we hug each other tightly “ you are welcome my dearest y/n” Karina coos “ come over babe I have so much to tell you “ I say as she drags me along. “ of course, tell me all about that sexy tutor of yours “ she winks.

We make it back to my place and to my relief see no one’s home “ I’ll be right up babe I’m going to get some snacks “ Karina hums as I make my way up stairs. I hear my phone ring and see hyucks number calling “ hello ? “ I reply “ can I come over right now ? “ hyuck asks eagerly “ I’m sorry haechan Karina is over right now and I want to spend some time with her alone, we can hang out tomorrow if you want.” I sigh.“ Y/N TELL ME ABOUT THAT HAECHAN “ Karina yells out as she bursts into my room.

“ bye hyuck I’ll see you tomorrow- or text me if you want to “ I blurt out and hanging up the phone. “ KARINA I WAS ON A CALL WITH HIM “ I yell as I feel myself get red from embarrassment “ oh and how was I supposed to know that? “ she replies with her arms crossed.

“ sooo how is he “ she coos as we lay on the bed “ he’s kind of too good to be true….. There’s something he’s hiding for sure I’ve never met a guy like that “ I reply “ oh you need to stop being so paranoid, he isn’t like jeno y/n… he won’t treat you the way he did” Karina sighs “ and how do you know that? He was friends with jeno, what if he’s just lying to me to prove a point to jeno “ i mutter out as I start to feel convinced by my own paranoia.

“ y/n what motive? What point would he prove? Stop over thinking this “ she reply’s slightly agitated “ oh jeno would gladly do something like this, stop acting like he wouldn’t “ I chuckle “ I’m not saying jeno wouldn’t do this but why would haechan? He has no reason to do any of that “ she replies “ I don’t know….im sure many people want to please jeno for his status or money I mean he buys all his friends so much stuff who says haechan isn’t doing it for that “ I sigh

“ y/n stop it! Enough of this negative talk, tell me the good! How is it when you’re with him” she groans “ I didn’t tell you but we made out and he gave me head “ I say nonchalantly “ WHAT??!!l Karina yells loudly “ AND YOU DIDNT TELL ME THIS BECAUSE?” She says as she smacks my arm “ ow! “ I laugh out as she sits there mad.

“ so you guys didn’t actually fuck right “ she asks “ no….he said if I passed my next exam he would reward me, it kinda motivated me but now I’m realizing it’s just sex and that shouldn’t motivate me “ I reply “ well that would’ve gave me a lot of motivation “ Karina chuckles “ but was he good? “ she asks as she winks “ oh he amazing…… I’ve never came that quickly, not even with myself “ I groan

“ looks like my girl finally found someone to spend time with “ Karina chuckles as she hugs me “ I think he’s a good person y/n, I did my research and I didn’t see anything bad on him. He’s only dated one person and he got cheated on so I guess both of you just need someone to genuinely love “ she sighs “ I don’t do love Karina you now that “ I reply

“ sureee y/n “ Karina hums “ I’m serious “ I reply with my arms crossed “ and look who's calling “ Karina coos as my phone rings and haechan’s name pops up on my screen “ it’s fine he can wait “ I reply as I see Karina grabbing  my phone quickly from my hands “ GIVE IT BACK “ I yell as she gets off the bed and runs into the bathroom “ please Rina don’t say anything weird “ I plead as I hear her talking in that tone she uses when she’s up to no good.

- haechan pov -

“ hey haechannn y/n’s been telling me so much about you but be honest with me, do you like her in a I want to fuck her or I want to love her kinda way “ I hear Karina blurt out “ I- hi karina “  I respond “ so are you going to answer “ she groans “ KARINA IM NOT PLAYING GIVE ME MY PHONE “ I hear y/n’s muffled yells threw the phone

“ Both if I'm being honest “ I reply in a smile “ good, she’s a little hesitant with you for reasons that will probably hurt that ego of yours but if you hurt her you will not see the last of me “ she threatens “ what would hurt my ego “ I scoff  “ well y/n is worried you’ll suck in bed or even using her to get back at jeno or something, I know y/n has a lot in the little mind of hers she's quite the over thinker “ karina replies.

y/n thinks I wouldn’t satisfy her? I don’t blame her for thinking that honestly, it just makes me want to do the job right even more. Why would she think I’d use her? FOR JENO? That son of a bitch? I have respect for her and myself to not be in the same vicinity as jeno. “ she can think what she wants about me in bed she’ll be finding sooner or later. Also I would never use anyone to get back or prove a point, y/n is the first person to treat me like a person “ I sigh. A high pitched squeal echos through the phone “ Karina please “ y/ns voice echos “ well it was nice talking to you haechan, please treat her well “ Karina giggles.

- y/n pov -

I hear Karina unlocking the door as I stand in-front of my bathroom door with my arms crossed. “ I approve of that one“ karina chuckles as she hands me my phone and lays back on the bed “ what did you say…” I reply in a sigh “ nothing that you haven’t said already, don’t worry!! “ she replies in a smile “fine” I sigh “ I can’t be mad at you “ I laugh as I hug her “ you better have not said anything crazy….I couldn’t really hear you it sounded like you were whispering or something “ I reply

“ oh I was, you DONT need to hear my conversations “ she giggles “ rina….I have a feeling you said something crazy” I sigh “ mmmh maybe but let’s watching the movie “ she groans.

- time skip -

It’s been a few days since Karina coming over and I’ve been bombarded with messages of haechan pleading to come over, I don’t know why I’ve been making excuses when in reality I wanted to see him and always stayed home I had no reason to lie lied on why I couldn’t see him in person.

“ mom Im home “ I blurt out as I walk into the kitchen “ hey honey I just finished up making some food for you since I know you’ve been working hard on that test of yours, have you gotten your results? “ she asks “ they came in today but I’ve been too scared to open them “ I chuckle nervously “ come on honey open them! “ she replies as makes her way towards me “ ok…” I sigh. I unlock my phone and go to my class grades “ I GOT A 98% “ I squeal as my mom pulls me into a hug “ WE HAVE TO CELEBRATE! let me call jaz to thank haechan for helping you “

“ there’s no need to mom “ I reply nervously “ JAZ y/n passed her exam CAN YOU BELIEVE IT! A 98%! “ she squeals “ yes yes come over “ she adds “ mom no Can we just celebrate on our own “ I whisper but my pleads go unheard “ ok see you soon! “

“ I’ll be back I need to go get some more bottles of wine, open the door when jaz and haechan get here okay” she smiles as she grabs her things to head out. “ ok mom” i smile waiting for her to step out of the house. As soon as she closes the door I run upstairs and throw all my mess into my closet and trying my best to look as clean and organized as I could. I grab a black mesh dress and some Dior pumps, throwing it on and straightening my hair as fast as possible. I feel myself start to sweat and run towards my deodorant and perfume spraying on my neck and wrists.

“ make up make up “ I mutter as I look around my room for my small bag of makeup “ AH “ I yell as I place it on my desk and put some mascara and gloss on. I hear the doorbell ring and groan as I haven’t finished but try and make myself as presentable as possible. “ perfect “ i sigh as I place my things back in place and make my way down stairs.

I open the door to be greeted by jaz and haechan both smiling at me “ congratulations! I know how stressful it was to pass that pain of an ass class! “ jaz smiles as she hugs me tightly “ yeah I’m glad I’m glad I did well, thanks to haechan “ I smile looking at him “ your mom went out to buy some wine didn’t she? “ jaz replies “ yeah she did but she’ll be back soon” I reply “ hi y/n “ I hear haechan purr from behind me as he looks at his mom and sees her to occupied with the food “ good job in the exam, I know you could do it” he smiles as he pulls me into a hug and buries himself into my neck causing a quiet whimper to escape my lips. 

“ you look gorgeous as always “ he whispers into my ear “ thanks “ I smile as I step back and take in his outfit. I smile slightly as I see a black button up hugging his chest accompanied with some black slacks “ isn’t that funny you guys look like a couple with those matching outfits! “ jaz chuckles from behind us. I awkwardly laugh as I make my way toward the stairs “ I’ll be in my room jaz, haechan do you wanna come? “ I ask nervously as I look back at him “ sure “ he replies following close behind me.

“ you two are up to no good “ we hear jaz chuckle. “ why have you been ignoring me? “ haechan asks as he shuts the door behind him “ I’ve been busy” I reply “ and with what exactly? “

“ and thats your business because? “ I sigh as I turn on my tv “ if you don’t want to see me just say that y/n don’t lead me on “ he replies angry taking me by surprise “ n- no I do want to see you I’m not leading you on it’s just I was nervous to…I have no idea what Karina said to you and I have a feeling it was kind of embarrassing. I would never lead you on hyuck I can’t lead people on when I have feelings for them “ I blurt out anxiously.

“ you have feelings for me mmh? “ He smiles as he leans onto the pace next to me “ yeah I do “ I reply confidently knowing rejection was better than hurting myself in the long run.

“ good to see that the feelings are Mutual” hyuck smiles.

- Pt. 4 coming soon

[g0thicf0xskulls]

you should totally post what all the drama was now that they aren't in your life and its safe to do so. Cause holy shit am I curious. 🍄

this all goes years into the past for context, back to when i was 16. i’m 21 now, mind you. i first met the good one over instagram. they had began to date one of my partners, so my partner introduced us, and we hit it off immediately. a long time after they and i met, our mutual partner convinced me they were calling me abusive. so i blocked them on everything. a little while after, i broke up with our mutual partner because of reasons i can’t remember. so the good one and i lost contact before i turned 18. fast forward a few years, 19, having just given birth to a child, and the ex mutual partner comes back into my life, bringing the good one with them. and we reconnect as if nothing happened, and we’re talking and we find out how the mutual ex fucked us both over, so we cut off mutual ex together. and then we kept talking and we stayed friends, and so they let me know they were dating the conflicting one. i don’t remember if i had been told about it but apparently they had an agreement, anyone who was friends with either had to be friends with both, if anyone wanted to date either they had to date both. so i forced myself to get to know the conflicting one. we were all friends for a while, but the good one and i realized we still had feelings for each other. so we began to date, and because of the boundary i dated their partner too. but while we were with the mutual ex, i had heard some horrible things about the conflicting one, so for the longest time i was hesitant. but then they moved from their state to mine last year in june, and then i got to know them, and they seemed cool, but i didn’t want to be dating them and slowly the relationship between the conflicting one and i turned toxic (no thanks in part as well to our shitty living situations and stress), until sometime around christmas we had a huge blow up and i cut them out of my life. but the good one kept pushing and telling me to talk to the conflicting one. they always had been a fixer, so they were trying to fix things for the conflicting one and i, and i blew up on them. after my blow up, i was just exhausted, which gave me the clarity to think. so i tried to let the conflicting one back in, but there was a lot of lingering hurt and unhealed pain from how i had left during christmas. we were trying to heal together, but a lot of things happened so they had to move out of my state to a different one, this one being their hometown. they just moved at the end of february. and this is when i told them about my blog, and they both found it and were concerned. i explained to them it’s a journal blog, as most on this site are. but then i found the conflicting ones blog, and it hurt… so i blocked both of them in order to prevent myself from using the conflicting ones blog as a method of self punishment or self harm. but the conflicting one had a backup blog, and they used it to find mine again. so they confronted me about the asks. we spent nearly 2 days arguing (when i WOULD text back of course, they spent most of the time spamming my phone trying to push me into talking). by the end of the argument, i was spiraling. so i said fuck it, and i told them “if you’d like me out of your life, then that’s fine. and since you’re their partner, if you’d like me to break contact with the good one, then i’ll find a way to break it to them gently. it might be safer for both of y’all at this point if i do…” and they told me they’d get back to me after work. it was much sooner than after work… and i was told to break contact with the good one, but to leave the conflicting ones phone number unblocked in case i’m in an emergency or i move to the state they’re in so i can return belongings to them that have been left in my possession since it couldn’t fit amongst their belongings during the move. so there’s the drama, or at least what i remember/am willing to share

[amiramorozova]

Best Friends to Eternal Lovers - The Fete

When Genya was done she had an accessory for me which was black to wear in my hair but she went to put it up and I had her stop. "A half up, half down Genya." I said as she nod and did just that as she finished up. Just in time too since Aleks came in and got me as he nod his approval before Genya left and then he smiled as he pulled me close and kissed me and we smiled. 

"I love you Aleks." I said as he offered his arm to me and I took it and he held my hand and kissed the top of my hand. Leading me to the ball room as I realized I was going into something I'd been wanting to attend with him for awhile and hadn't been able to with Anna and Nikolai needing someone to help..I love the fact that things were working out but the King. Aleks looked at me and I looked at him seeing he was in his usual behavior infront of 2nd army. "When we walk in the King will see us and he will wish to speak with you..since you were unable to make it to the fetes the previous years." 

I nod knowing that it was going to work out one way or another so that we worked things out no matter what and I knew that this was good. Keeping hold of his arm I was able to remain calm as we entered. Nobles turned to look at us as for the first time in five year Aleks enters the fete with a woman on his arm and not just any woman but his fiancé. 

So many people staring at us..or are they looking at my soon to be husband? I thought 

Aleks adjusted my hold on his arm to get my attention as I looked at him "Seems the King has spotted us." He said as he looked at me "And if I have not said it you look lovely in my color Amira." His compliment made me smiled as he looked serious. "Now the Tsar is motioning us over." I nod as he led me over and we showed respect. "Moi Tsar." Aleksander said to the King

"General, is this her? The woman we spoke of who owns the Grisha Orphanage." The King asked as Aleksander held some admiration as he spoke. "She is, allow me to introduce my fiancé Amira Silina." Aleksander said as I kept my tone respectful "Moi Tsar, a pleasure to make your acquaintance." I said  as he looked at the two of us. 

I wondered how people saw us with both of us in his color and my secret small science just that a secret. "Well, I was hoping our meeting would have been sooner. I hear you have a Grisha Orphanage." The King said as I knew that was going to come up and I knew that there wouldn't be anything. "I do..I..well more my family now bring Grisha kids into their gifts and we teach them to survive" I said as the King looked surprised by my words. 

"Your family are Grisha?" He asked as it was clear not many must have had a full Grisha bloodline. "Yes, Tsar." I said as the King nod then looked interested. "How many of the children join 2nd army General?" He asked as Aleksander had kept a record between the last five years. "Numbers have increased in the last five years, her orphanage has found some of the hard to find Grisha." Aleksander complimented me as he kept hold. "I see, well that is something. And I hope the adjustment these past five years has been easy for you." The King asked

"Yes, I maintain contact with the family members in charge and my fiancé has helped my work to be able to be delivered easily to me." I said as the King nod. "I wish to offer more funding for your orphanage so things will be easier. A monthly contribution." The King said but Aleks knew I let the kids decide whether they came here or not and the King would expect all of them to come. "That is Generous of you Moi Tsar." I said as I saw Aleks give a look to me that said I should accept so I didn't refuse. 

After that we were able to socialize with people but Aleks had to work still and talk with Nobles. So when he left me alone I went and got a drink from the table but I heard the sound of the cane before she'd talked. "Amira..let's talk" Baghra said as I looked at her.  Baghra was always the grisha that brought up all my pain and suffering..so why now? What did she want to talk about?

I decided to humor her as we walked outside of the room to talk as she turned. "You've had five years, you have distracted him and now you need to go. Leave." Baghra said as I was shocked she'd say that but I clenched my fist. 400 years...four hundred years I'd waited to be with him and again she tried to get in the way. "I will not!" I said as she looked at me and I knew it was now or never. "You cannot and will not separate us again. We're getting married Baghra, get over it." 

Then I walked away and went in despite everything I got another cup as my current one was empty and had some of it. Aleks finished with his work and went over as he put a hand on my shoulder as I turned to look at him and I must of been on the verge of tears cause he wiped my eyes. "Come on" He said as he used his shadows to take me out of there and once we were alone in his war room he held me close "Now what happened?"  I told him everything about what Baghra did and said as I felt his anger rise and he was pissed. I couldn't blame him but he left the war room leaving me there for a minute as I had the drink.  Aleks's pov:  How many times would she continue to do this? Amira is the love of my life, my soulmate and now she's upset cause of that insufferable woman. When I found her she was in her hut and I burst in. "What is the meaning of this?" Baghra asked as I was pissed. "When are you going to stay out of my relationship?! First, you leave me with her to prove we can handle it then you made sure I went out and slap her. Then everytime I have found her, you've made sure something has happened I had to let her go! Well not this time!" I yelled in anger as she looked at me unfazed at my anger. 

"She's a distraction, she probably wants children which you don't have the time for." Baghra said, she was insufferable! I did want them and I knew Amira probably did too she'd waited for the chance to be with me all this time. "I can make the time, I have made the time for her and you don't get a say. Stay out of my relationship! She's going to be my wife and she is my soulmate!" I yelled at her which seemed to surprise her but I didn't care as I went back after calming down then hugged Amira. 

I will never let her go again..Mother will never come between us ever again. I thought

TagList: @lifeisingrey​,  @houseoftoomanyfandoms​, @mizelophsun11​, @budugu​ ,   @wheresthesunshinesblog  

[olivia-anderson-fanfic]

Trials and Defibrillations (Intermission 2)

Prev

Marinette thought Adrien was a little strange.

He didn’t often look her in the eyes, for one. He seemed to focus on a space just above her head when talking to her. Which, she supposed, wasn’t entirely off putting – she had met people who did not like eye contact before, though they typically looked at the ground rather than up.

It wasn’t like he wasn’t paying attention, though. In fact, he was weirdly focused on her inane ramblings. Even the patients that should have been hanging onto her every word, because she was trying to make sure they didn’t die, didn’t listen to her like he did.

It wasn’t something she had realized at first, he wasn’t exactly the talkative sort, not now that he had already gotten the job. Unless outright prompted to speak he seemed more than happy to just… nod along to whatever she talked about to fill the time. She had assumed that he just liked that she would fill the silence, or maybe that he didn’t want to talk to her but didn’t want to actually confront her about it. Either way, there was no reason for her to assume that he was doing anything more than hearing her, certainly not listening.

But then. He would point out when stories she told him would conflict, knew her routine well enough that he would notice when she had tripped up sooner than even she would, remembered what cures she had already tried on patients with more accuracy than she did.

It was… nice. Flattering. No one had cared for her since her parents. She had missed it.

She didn’t quite trust him, though.

There was something off about him. He was a doctor from another town, but he didn’t care much about protocol. He forgot gloves and face masks more often than not. He didn’t bother to stop himself from touching his face, even though she knew that he knew not to do that, since he had warned his patients more than once. By all accounts, he should have fallen ill by now.

But he was still alive.

It was weird. She didn’t like nor understand it. And she was going to figure out why it was happening.

The plague had forced her to specialize in medicine but, at the end of the day, she was a scientist.

Marinette stepped into the clinic the next day in normal clothes. They had been dusty, sitting in the back of her closet, and the pants were closer to capris now with how much she had grown since the last time she’d worn them. But that would only help her, today.

Adrien was already there, as he always seemed to be. Really, it was like the guy didn’t sleep.

He glanced up at the sound of the bell above the door, and his eyes went wide upon seeing her without her usual gear.

“Uh?” he said, eloquently. And then he shook his head to himself, as if trying to kick his brain into gear. A smile made its way across his face, but his eyebrows were still drawn together in blatant confusion. “Forgetting something?”

“Nope!” she said, breezing her way inside.

He didn’t seem to know how to respond to that. He followed after her as she went about setting up for the day, a shadow, looking confused all the while.

“Aren’t you going to… get geared up?” he broke, eventually.

She had to fight to keep the smirk off of her face. She looked at him, frowning innocently. “Well, I mean, you don’t wear anything special most of the time, and you’re fine, so…”

A couple of emotions flitted across his face, each more complicated than the last, too quickly for her to get a read on any of them. Until he finally looked resigned. He leaned against the table, sighing. For a moment, his eyes flicked to the place above her head that it usually landed whenever he was ‘looking at her’, before they slid to the ceiling.

“Okay, you caught me, I haven’t been entirely honest,” he admitted, slowly, mulling his words over carefully. “I… am the reason this is all happening.” He gave a bitter kind of laugh at the way she backed up a half step. “I was visiting, and I happened to spread it, I guess. I can’t just leave this place to die out, you know?”

She nodded slowly. That… checked out. She bit her lip. “And your old town…?”

“Gone,” he confirmed. “This place won’t meet the same fate. There has to be a cure.”

She crossed her arms over her chest. She felt bad, now, for forcing him to talk about this before he was entirely ready. But she wouldn’t have been able to trust him had she not, and she needed to trust him. They were coworkers, after all.

“If you don’t know the cure, if you don’t mind me asking, how did you… live?” she asked.

He gave a wry kind of smile. “I don’t know. I guess a god just favors me.”

“What do you think are the chances one favors me, too?”

He hummed thoughtfully. “Pretty high, I think. I mean, you’re so… you.”

She smiled a little at the attempt at comfort, but it quickly faded. Her eyes slid away from him, further into the shop. They should really start working soon, but she wasn’t sure she really wanted to, yet.

“So this is one of those miasmas where you either die to it or live on to never get it again,” she said, feeling utterly small. Because there had yet to be someone other than Adrien to survive it. And she wasn’t dumb, she knew that she was absolutely at risk. She needed for there to be a cure, because otherwise what hope did she have of surviving this?

“I could always pass it to you,” he said, leaning into her space, smirking widely. “I probably have a mild version of it right now. We could build up your immunity.”

Marinette gagged. “Don’t be gross. You’re, like, my older brother or something.”

Thankfully, he just laughed a little at the rejection. It hadn’t been much of an offer, anyway.

Still, he looked thoughtful. He smiled cheekily. “Your older brother, huh? Well, as your older brother, I must now make it my life’s goal to annoy you at every given opportunity.”

“Oh no! I’ve made a mistake!”

If only she had known how right she was.

Life seemed to be on an upswing for her for the next few months. Adrien chipped into conversations more, cracking jokes and telling her silly stories he had heard on his travels whenever the lack of progress she was making on the cure started to get her down. Though the ‘older brother’ thing had been more of a quip, something she had said because it was an easy way to reject someone without hurting their feelings too much, it started to become true.

(He still didn’t meet her eyes, but that was fine. She hadn’t expected that to change, anyway.)

It was nice.

Until he came in one day, acting strange. More fidgety, antsy. He kept looking around, like he was waiting for something. He had never been entirely still, she knew, but this was different. He seemed… scared.

She didn’t think she had ever seen him scared before.

Which was weird. Because they had known each other for almost six months, by that point, and logic dictates that he should have been scared before. It was only natural. And yet she wasn’t sure he was even capable of being scared.

Though, if she had survived a deadly miasma, she would feel invincible, too.

And yet.

There was no mistaking it. He was terrified.

“Hey,” she said. “How about we close for the day? Go have a picnic or something.”

Adrien’s eyes widened, briefly. “You… you want to close the shop for the day?”

She never closed up shop. People were relying on them. There weren’t enough people in town, anymore, for it to be worth going out, anyway.

“That’s what I said,” she joked, lightly. And then she sobered. “You don’t seem up to working today, anyway.”

He nodded slowly, realization dawning on his face. He sent her a gentle smile. “I know a neat place just outside of town, if you’re willing to grab some food for us.”

And so they did just that, and the picnic was… nice.

Marinette was exhausted, though. She hadn’t really realized how much she had been running herself ragged, but now that she was actually sitting on an impossibly soft blanket, watching clouds pass overhead, she felt torn between passing out and breaking down crying.

An arm, hesitantly, looped itself over her shoulders. She jumped just slightly. She… wasn’t used to touch anymore, she hadn’t touched anyone since the miasma had started spreading through town. It felt weird. Kind of like a burn. But she liked the feeling, strangely enough. She turned to Adrien. His eyes were, as usual, locked above her head, but now that she was this close… she took in the deep bags under his eyes and gauntness hanging in his cheeks. He had always looked sickly, but now he felt… older, somehow.

She hesitantly leaned into him, burying her face in his neck.

Some part of her screamed at the idea of touching him, even now. She could get sick. She could die. She shoved those thoughts down. There was no point in trying anymore, anyway. Might as well take the comfort.

“I failed,” she mumbled. She could count the remaining townsfolk still capable of walking around town on two hands nowadays. Even if a few of them managed to make it, somehow, chances were it wouldn’t be enough to make them all last more than a few generations. “I… failed.”

Adrien dragged her closer, wrapping his other arm around her, pulling her into his lap, until he was practically engulfing her. Like he was trying to hide her from the rest of the world.

“I’m sorry,” he said.

She felt tears begin to spill over. She hugged him back, far more tightly than he was hugging her, probably enough to hurt. If Adrien minded, he didn’t let it on in the slightest.

“I wanted to – I was supposed to – fuck!” She pressed closer. She wasn’t sure if that was even possible, but damn would she try.  “I’m going to survive this, but what’s the point? I don’t want to be the only one to live! I – I was supposed to die, too!”

“You won’t be the only one to live,” he said. His tone was harsh, harsher than she had ever heard it. She fought not to flinch, but must not have hidden it as well as she hoped, because his voice softened immediately. “We’ll have each other.”

“I don’t want to be the last one,” she said. “I just want my parents.”

He squeezed her tighter. “It’ll work out, I promise.”

“You can’t promise that.”

“God’s favor, remember?” he said, and she was pretty sure it was supposed to come across as a joke, but there was too much desperation leaking into his tone for it to be taken as such. “You’re not going to die. And you’re not going to be alone, either. I don’t care who I have to fight or what I have to do, I swear on my life that I will make sure of those two things.”

She felt like a little kid, being comforted by promises no human could ever possibly keep, but she nodded regardless.

She drew back just slightly, enough to send him a watery smile. “And here I thought we went on this picnic to cheer you up.”

He managed a little laugh. “I think we both just needed a little time away to rest and think things over.”

Lips pressed to her forehead. They were strangely cold.

Like a –.

“Sleep,” he mumbled.

Her eyes fluttered shut before she had even finished her thought.

She drifted into a dreamless sleep.

When she awoke again, her brain felt scrambled, for lack of a better word. Like she had accidentally ground it up in her mortar and pestle. Something was weird.

Slowly, she peeled her eyes open. Her vision was dim in that way it always was when you spend a long time outside. Her shoulders ached, though she wasn’t sure why. Her neck had a crick in it where she had been propped up against a tree. Adrien was nowhere to be found.

The smell of smoke met her nose, and she almost gagged on it. She lifted a hand to cover her mouth and nose, looking around frantically for the source. It had been light out, so they hadn’t bothered with candles or lamps. There hadn’t been many clouds in the sky, so a sudden storm or lightning strike was unlikely, too. It hadn’t been hot enough for dry kindling to catch. So what had caused…?

The smoke was coming from where they’d come.

She jumped to her feet, panic gripping her. The village was on fire and Adrien was gone and what was she supposed to do –?

Adrien came tearing through the trees, a kind of wildness dancing in his eyes. He only relaxed somewhat upon finding her, still safe and sound where he had left her.

“It’s beyond saving, trust me,” he said. Soot dotted his face and arms. He must have tried to help.

She didn’t move.

She couldn’t move.

He must have tried to help.

“Why didn’t you wake me?”

“What? That’s not –! I didn’t want you to get hurt, okay? Now let’s go! The fire is going to spread, we need to leave!”

She couldn’t bring herself to nod along.

Because… he had been acting weirdly frantic and scared this morning. And now there was a fire.

Regardless of whether or not he had started it, he had known it would happen.

He hadn't told anyone.

He hadn't told her.

He made a frustrated sound. “You – just – come on!”

He grabbed her by the arm, moving as if to pull her along with him.

She dug her heels into the dirt.

Her eyes didn’t want to leave the village, but she dragged them away regardless, meeting Adrien’s carefully.

He was looking directly at her for once.

There was something… wrong in his gaze. The panic he was trying to portray wasn’t there, he almost seemed pleased. But that wasn’t even what she was talking about. No, when looking directly at him, her skin started to crawl. Something other lurked behind his eyes.

He had run through the trees, and yet he was not in want for air.

Whatever he was, he was not human.

Marinette tried to pull away from him, but he was quick to hold on, his grip on her arm only a step above bruising.

“Marinette,” he said, more firm. “Come with me.”

“Did you… did you do this?” she asked.

He gave her a confused look. For a moment.

But then he seemed to realize that she wasn’t falling for it.

He smiled, his head tipping to the side just slightly. Dark red blood could be seen splattered across the top of one of his shoes – dark red, not brown, fresh.

“Of course I did.”

She had known, of course, but the admission still takes the breath from her lungs. When she takes a frantic gasp of air, all she gets is smoke. She feels lightheaded. She might pass out.

Adrien – if that was even his real name – looked concerned. It seemed genuine, but then he always did. “We should go, before the smoke inhalation gets to be too much,” he said. He tugged on her arm and, this time, she doesn’t have enough strength to fight like she should. She half-stumbled into him, and he wrapped his arms around her tightly. It’s supposed to be a hug, but it only makes her feel trapped.

She felt weird, sick, wrong. Just touching him made her feel like she was going to shatter. She was not sure if this was in her head or not.

She pushed at his chest, but he didn’t let go. Instead, he maneuvered her into a carry, lifting her clean off the ground, and no amount of squirming in his arms can make him let go. She screamed, but no one came to help.

(Not a single soul was around to hear.)

And he had the gall to look hurt and confused as to why she was so upset.

“It’s not as if anyone there cares about you, anyway,” he said. His tone was flat and entirely too matter of fact when he said it, and somehow that only made it hurt more. “I care about you. They put you, a child, on the front lines. So, they had to go.”

As if it was that simple.

“They were people,” she stressed.

“I know.”

She realized, with startling clarity, that he didn’t get it. That he couldn’t get it. That, whatever he was, he just couldn’t understand why she was freaking out about the mass death. He was simply incapable.

Could she really be mad at him for that?

Perhaps so, but he was all she had, now.

So, she wrapped trembling arms around his neck to make carrying her easier, buried her face in his collarbone, and tried not to cry.

+++

Up next: Jonathan Crane struggles to blackmail someone who can't be killed in a way that matters See yall in like 4-12 months lmaooo

Next

Trials and defibrillations masterlist

[jeansplaytoy]

𝐂𝐨𝐥𝐝 𝐒𝐨𝐮𝐥

part six.

sorry for the late updates, i’ll make it up to y’all with more updates. fr this time😭.

conniexreader, the usual, alcohol, weed, mentions of violence

part five here | part seven here

two weeks later, no contact.

not like you cared, or expected anything. but it was strange. a little. you bit the inside of your cheeks, zoning out as you did your makeup. you haven’t been to a party since you went to connie’s house, simply because you needed time to yourself and you didn’t wanna have to fight a bitch again.

finishing up your makeup, you picked out your outfit. “shit ion feel like dealing wit these hoes.” you whispered to yourself while putting on your heels.

you put your jewelry on, which normally you wouldn’t do if you knew a bitch was gonna try you that same night. but you didn’t feel like fighting. really.

you made your way downstairs and to the front door, opening and closing it behind you as you left your house. you locked it and unlocked your car, putting on lip gloss as you opened your car door, putting your phone in the cup holder and getting yourself situated.

you left after a few seconds of contemplating on whether you should go to the party or stay home and not worry about anything else.

but to not miss out on anything, you looked at onys location to see where the party was.

even as you made it and stepped out the car, you still wasn’t in the mood. you barely made it to the front porch where people were drinking and smoking before you were greeted by a cheesing sasha and mikasa.

“girl what’s wrong, you ain’t in the mood?” sasha looked at you with her hands on your shoulders.

“at all.”

“we might have to find connie to straighten up that attitude.” mikasa mumbled, passing you a drink. “now sip. you’ll feel better sooner or later.”

you hummed, knowing you shouldn’t be, but drinking as you walked through the front door. there wasn’t anything morally wrong though, so there was nothing to feel bad about really. as soon as you made it to the living room where your group always was, you realized that it would’ve probably been the best choice to just stay home at that point.

because right in front of you sat eren, armin, jean, ony, and last but not least?

connie.

“wassup y/n. this ony and connie. i know y’all met before.” eren mumbled, rolling up a blunt. you slowly nodded. “hey ony. again.”

ony laughed a little. “wassup friend.”

it seemed like connie caught on to your little ‘joke’ because he looked up at you from his phone with dead eyes. you finished your drink and put it on the table, still staring at him before smiling a little.

connie smiled a little and shook his head, standing up and stretching. “we bouda go smoke, we’ll be right back.” he said, signaling you to get up and follow him.

even though you felt sasha and mikasa poke your waist as you stood up, you really had no intent to fuck him again. it couldn’t keep happening every week if there was really nothing going on between you, and you didn’t wanna be anybody’s fuck buddy either.

you almost didn’t even wanna go, but you were already following him to the backyard, so that was a mess itself.

“you know you play a lot.” connie slowly shook his head, lighting a blunt.

“some days.”

“you been actin’ weird.” he said, sitting in a chair near a table. you sat in another chair. “i wouldn’t want yo lil girlfriend tryna beat my ass again.” you stared at him while propping your leg up comfortably in the chair.

“that bitch ain’t my girlfriend.”

“bitch? y’all was just flirting. i’d hate for you to start talkin’ bout me like that.” you frowned a little.

connie only sighed and put the blunt out in an ashtray. “ion even feel like smoking no mo’.” he whispered to his self. you didn’t care though. you wouldn’t just wanna and up as one of his hoes that he used to fuck when he got bored.

“i’m just sayin. i don’t wanna be somebody that you just think you can play with til you feel like you done wit them. cus i know you got hoes on the side.” you rubbed at your freshly done nails.

“you sayin that like you my girlfriend.” connie raised his eyebrows and looked at you.

you didn’t wanna be labeled as his girlfriend, you didn’t care much about that girlfriend boyfriend shit that much. you just didn’t wanna be someone he thought he had access to anytime he wanted.

“it’s not about that. you not finna fuck me whenever, then get tired and walk around talking about me like you talk about her.” you furrowed your eyebrows in irritation. connie could sense your attitude. and you didn’t even know you got one at that moment.

“im not finna talk about you in no kinda way. she can’t even compare to you, so why you so damn worried bout the way i talk about her, let alone her in general?”

you just sat back and crossed your arms, looking away. you thought it made you look sick and tired of his bullshit, but to connie, you looked like a pouty child who couldn’t get what they wanted.

you thought about when he said she couldn’t compare to you, but you were too mad to pay any attention to that anymore.

what you did pay attention to was the sound of connies laughing.

“fuck funny?” you squinted.

“you cute when you act like that.”

he wasn’t telling the full truth. yes, you were cute when you got all mad, which is why he never had a problem with you being mad at him or anybody else. but it wasn’t the full reason he was laughing.

“i’m bein’ serious connie.”

connie’s eyebrows raised again.

“hol up, say that again… i like when you say my name.”

you smacked your lips, about to get up, but he started laughing again and stopped you. “okay my bad ima stop messin witchu.” he held your hand, looking at your nails.

“you got a big ass attitude problem… like a baby or sum.” connie intertwined your fingers with his and looked at you. “no. people just be pissin me off.”

“you ain’t act like this when we met.”

“i had the time and energy when we met. now shut up talkin to me.” you scratched your head, starting to get irritated again.

the peace was almost there. you were almost calm. but that same girl from about three weeks ago had to mess shit up again. like always. coming from around the corner, seemingly with her best friend or something, she stopped at the sight of you and connie.

connie didn’t budge, he didn’t care.

“every time i get around connie, he wit’ the same girl.” she pointed at you. “ain’t that the girl you fought?” her friend asked.

she was speaking like you wasn’t even there. you just stared at the girls, leg still comfortably propped up, because she can have one best friend but you got two that’s always ready. “to be honest, ion even know why the fuck i came to this party cus’ if i handle these bitches, i’m goin to jail.” you said, looking up at the sky, you let go of connie’s hand, standing up, about to walk back inside the house.

“naw bitch don’t be tryna leave cus i got my friend, now what?”

“girl fuck you and yo’ friend. ‘fuck? you got yo friend cus i beat the hell outta you? go get yo momma or sum.” you rolled your neck with a scoff, continuing to walk towards the door.

sasha, seemingly hearing all the commotion, which wasn’t even mainly you, the bitch was just screaming for no reason.

sasha opened the door. “what happened?”

you ain’t even feel like saying nothing no more. “Paris fuckin wit y/n, again, and y/n ain’t in the damn mood.” connie sighed, standing beside you and rubbing your back to calm you down. “don’t you think you need to get your bitch?” sasha squinted.

“that ain’t my bitch, damn. ion even want that girl, ion know why she trippin over me.” connie slowly shook his head.

sasha smacked her lips as mikasa walked outside behind her. soon came the rest of the group, seeing what’s going on.

“girl you need to find you sumn else to do, for real.” mikasa walked up to Paris and her friend. “aw now she wanna bring her friend” she mumbled to her best friend. “i got girls here too so ion really give a fuck.” Paris stared at Mikasa.

you stared from a distance before Paris’ friend looked at you. “now you back there lookin scared and shit. bitch ain’t shit wrong wit’ you, so why youn wanna fight now that i’m here?” she looked around mikasa.

you were quiet. you were quiet because you started feeling that one, dumb drink you had, come to you.

“leave me the fuck alone. you dumbass bitch! ima sicka these dumb bitches… fuckin’ wit me like i really wanna be seen fighting these dumb hoes!” your words were slurred. it was like you was throwing a tantrum. you went from laid back to sick and tired.

“stupid bitches i’m tired’a this shit!” you leaned down and quickly kicked off your heels, throwing em to the side.

“wassup?! bitch wassup?!” Paris’ friend walked around mikasa. and mikasa didn’t stop it because jumping was dumb. unless it was planned by you, her, and sasha.

“don’t even do it bruh.” connie held your wrist.

you snatched it away. “no, get the fuck away from me! i’m tired of these dumb bitches acting like i’m fuckin scared of them! bitch i ain’t scared of you!” you yelled, walking over to her friend and posting up. “swing bitch.” you mumbled, waiting for her to do something.

she kicked off her slides and before she could even swing, connie snatched you back by your forearm. “bring yo ass on bruh.” he frowned. “you drunk.”

he picked up your heels and continued to block you from the girl and the girl from you.

“naw that bitch always wanna try me i will kill that hoe!”

“kill me bitch! try it!”

the yelling went back and forth, and sounded horrible from the slurring of your words. it got to the point where connie had to literally drag you by your waist to not get to that girl.

connie took you to your car, of course after almost begging you to show him where it was.

connie pushed you against the back of the car, holding his hand out for your key. you stared at him through your lashes, barely being able to open your eyes. you reached for your keys that were placed in the side of your outfit, by your waist.

it seemingly slid down your whole jumpsuit from your upper thigh and to your ankle. you tried to wiggle the keys out. connie sighed and grabbed your leg, you leaning on the car, pushing the keys out of your pants part.

you still had that pouty look on your face. connie unlocked the car and tossed your heels in the back. “come on.”

you lazily walked to the passenger side with a frown.

“the other side.” he said.

you sighed deeply, not even trying to put up with him. you walked to connie’s side to get in the backseat, pausing to look at him. he really didn’t care about the look on your face. you sat in the backseat, connie closing the door behind you. you didn’t even have time to process your thoughts. you really couldn’t.

connie sat in the front seat and closed the door, not even bothering to start the car.

he pulled out his phone and let the seat back a little, resting his arm behind his head and scrolling.

“ion wanna stay in this car.” you mumbled, reaching towards the door. it locked before you could get out.

“you gon stay in this car until you fix yo attitude.”

[peterpparkrr]

Pinned (pt. 3)

Series: Pinned

Pairing: Anthony Bridgerton x f!reader

Summary: Anthony attempts to apologize. The future is uncertain but neither of them are prepared to say goodbye.

Warnings: some mild period typical sexism, classism, brief mentions of sexual coercion

Word Count: 1.1k

A/N: Sorry for the short chapter! I was going to have something entirely different happen but I hated it so I’d decided to throw that out and rework the story from here so we can get a little more backstory and build up! 

prev. part // next part

You honestly don’t know why you’re surprised when Lord Bridgerton walks into the shop just before closing. 

A part of you had hoped that he would take the hint. Not that it was really a hint, it had been more of a clear request for him to leave you alone. 

But the little that you did know about Lord Bridgerton should have made it clear that he was not one to easily admit defeat.

So now he’s here and the shop is empty so you have no excuse to avoid or ignore him.

“I upset you the last time I was here,” Anthony states as he walks up to where you’re working at the counter, before you can say anything to him. “Don’t deny it, I have four sisters, so I am actually quite attuned to female emotions,” He adds as he smiles hesitantly.

“Yes, I was upset,” You admit as you look up from your work to make direct eye contact with him. You have nothing to hide, and you will not allow yourself to be frightened into submission by him.

You have spent your entire adult life trying to unlearn the shame that society has tried to instill in you. Shame in your position in the world. Shame for the situation of your birth. Shame in your sex. 

In a world where women like you are taught to be unassuming and quiet and to not draw attention to oneself it feels herculean and borderline sisyphean to allow yourself to speak up for yourself and speak your mind. To not bow down to a man who is your better in every which way that society creates its orders. 

But Anthony does not chastise you for speaking out of turn, for pushing back at him. He seems to relish in your honesty, in the ability to meet your challenge.

“Why?” Anthony presses. “You must know that I care about you, I would never judge you, I just want you to be honest,” He says as he stares down at you intently.

“I can not have this conversation, especially not here,” You say in a huff as you push past him to finish cleaning up and closing up the shop for the day.

“You’re closing up the shop, let me walk you home and then we can talk,” Anthony pleads. 

You take a long, hard look at Anthony as you consider your options. Clearly, he does not intend to leave you alone. And the quicker you give in to the chase the sooner he’ll tire of you and leave you alone. 

“Fine,” You huff.

As you walk the streets of London in the twilight neither you nor Anthony say anything. You can feel him watching you, though, waiting for your explanation.

As you near your flat you realize that you can’t avoid this conversation forever.

“You flirt with me, yet you are to be married. I had hoped you were different from other men of your position. I was disappointed to discover that you are like all the others,” You admit.

Anthony tries not to dwell on the idea of ‘others’. He’s heard tales from other men, of their working-class conquests. Ever since he was at Eton had heard countless stories from ‘friends’ about their seductions of washerwomen, farmer’s daughters, maids, and the like. He knows the type of man that preys on vulnerable women and the idea that that might have happened to you makes him sick.

“I am not engaged,” Anthony replies quickly. Wanting desperately to assure you that you are not a conquest for him. That his interest in you is genuine and that his affections are not engaged elsewhere. That he’s not trying to use you or take advantage of you, but that he just can’t stop thinking about you and doesn’t know what to do with himself. 

“But you will be,” You tell him with a shake of your head. “You told me so yourself that this is the season you find yourself a wife. Lord Bridgerton-”

“Call me Anthony,” He interrupts. “I am not engaged. I do not expect to find myself sharing affections for anyone, but you. You invade my every waking thought in ways you cannot fathom.”

“Christian names are hardly appropriate for us,” You tell him. “None of this is appropriate.”

“I’d like to make it appropriate. I’d like to spend time with you, if you’ll allow me the honor.”

His words are sweet, truly. And you can’t help but find yourself leaning into the flattery. But you still cannot understand what it is that he truly wants from you.

“Are you attempting to court me, Lord Bridgerton?” You ask, with a teasing lilt. Just light enough that he will not imagine that you are genuinely asking if that is not what he meant, but your eyes study his face as you try to read his response. 

“I would like very much to try,” Anthony admits with his own sincerity.

“Gentlemen don’t court women like me,” You tell him as you shake your head.

You don’t know why you’ve even allowed this to go too far. You’re not naive, you know what men like him want from women like you, and normally you are quick to turn down those advances. 

But you don’t know if it’s hopeful thinking but you want to believe that Anthony is different, and you feel inexplicably pulled in. He’s a handsome man and he knows it but there’s something more to him that attracts you, deeper than lust. 

Anthony called out your name with such tenderness that you almost gave in right there. 

“Please, I’d like to prove to you that I’m not the man you think I am. Will you let me do that?” He asks.

“You are relentless is what you are,” You reply with a shake of your head, though your exasperation doesn’t bleed through your tone, instead you just smile.

“But do you not find it terribly endearing?” He teases.

“That is not the adjective I would use,” You reply.

“You haven’t given me an answer yet,” Anthony says. “May I see you again?”

“We must entrust that to providence, Lord Bridgerton,” You tell him. “Though I imagine the fates have already deemed you more than responsible for orchestrating another meeting.”

“Goodnight,” You bid him farewell as you take a step away from him. “Anthony,” You add before you turn towards your door.

“Goodnight,” He calls after you as he watches from the pavement as you disappear through the doorway and close the door behind you gently.

[choking-on-tae]

ATEEZ Reaction to: You loving to hear them moan

A/N: This was not requested but I just got this idea. Mainly because I think it's hot when guys moan. Might have gone more out with this than I have in a while.. oops... Anyways... hope you guys enjoy! As usual gifs aren't mine and credits to the rightful owners! x

Seonghwa

Seonghwa was a little surprised when he heard you say that, but it didn't come out of the blue either. He noticed that you always clawed at his back whenever he let some of his own moans out, just like you're doing now. He smirks softly as he slows down his pace, almost coming to a halt as he looks you in the eyes.

"I already thought you liked them, but I'm glad you told me." He says, brushing your hair out of your face as he leans down to kiss you.

You tangle your fingers in his hair as you pull him impossibly closer, making Seonghwa smile against your lips. When you tug a little harder on the strands he can't stop himself from letting out a groan. Feeling you clench around him in response.

"Fuck you really love it when I do that, huh?"

You quickly nod your head before going back to kissing him. Seonghwa responds eagerly as he continues moving his hips, slowly picking up pace again until you pull away from his lips, throwing your head back against the pillow as your nails scratch down his back.

Seonghwa lets out a low grunt as he continues slamming his hips against yours, bringing you closer to your highs.

Hongjoong

Hongjoong wasn't quiet during sex, but he was definitely holding back his moans. Because he wanted to hear you since it really turns him on, little did he know that it was the same for you.

"Please don't hold back your moans, Joong." He looks up at you, his eyebrows furrowed as he takes in your words.

"But I want to hear you." He says, lacing his fingers with yours as he brings your hand to his lips, pressing a soft kiss against the back of it.

"I want to hear you too." You whisper softly, afraid of his reaction. It's then that it clicks in Hongjoong's head. A smug smirk spreads across his face as he raises his eyebrows playfully.

"Ah really? You like to hear me, hm?"

You nod your head as you try to look anywhere but his eyes. Hongjoong is having none of it and tilts your face so you're looking directly at him.

"Eyes on me baby. Let me show you how good you make me feel."

He crashes his lips against yours as he continues thrusting inside of you, making both of you moan in the kiss.

Yunho

Yunho is a sweetheart but can also be a teasing little shit when he wants to be. Yunho was never quiet during sex, always letting out low grunts that sound incredibly hot, but he still tried to hold back his own moans so he'd be able to hear you. When he discovers that you actually get off on hearing him moan he starts to use it against you.

Yunho stops holding back his moans when you have sex, letting his head fall back against the pillows as a low grunt escapes his lips. He instantly feels you clench around him and a proud smirk spreads across his face.

"You really like hearing me baby, don't you?"

You rest your hands on his chest as you lean in closer, so your noses are almost touching. You nod softly as you feel Yunho's hands on your hips, holding you down as he thrust up into you.

You throw your head back as a loud moan escapes your lips, Yunho does the same as he continues snapping his hips against yours.

Deep grunts escaping every time he does so, feeling you clench around him as you wrap your arms around his neck.

"Fuck Yunho you sound so hot."

A teasing smirk spreads across his face as he brings you down enough to kiss you, holding you close as he brings you over the edge.

Yeosang

You always loved hearing Yeosang's deep voice, but in certain situations it had a different effect on you. Yeosang took notice of this and one night when the two of you were having sex and he let out a loud moan, he instantly felt you clench around him. He stopped moving as he let out a low chuckle, looking at you with a smug expression on his face.

"Why did you stop?"

Yeosang rests both hands on either side of your head, effectively caging you in as he leans down, stopping just above your face. That same smug expression still plastered on his face.

"I didn't know you liked to hear me moan, baby."

You feel your cheeks heat up at his words as you try to look everywhere but his eyes. Which is easier said than done when he's literally above you. Yeosang grins at your shyness and leans down to press a kiss against your lips.

"It's okay sweetheart. I really like hearing you moan too."

He pulls back just enough to snap his hips against yours, making you dig your nails into his shoulders. Yeosang lets out a loud moan as he looks you in the eyes. His intense stare only bringing you closer to your high.

San

Listen. We all know San can't keep quiet, but he'd still try sometimes. He gets off on hearing you moan so therefor he tries to hold back his own sounds. When you notice him doing just that you pull his hair to get him out from the crook of your neck, your action causing San to let out a involuntarily loud moan. His cheeks turn a soft shade of pink as he looks up at you, feeling your wall clenching around him as he connects the dots.

His flustered expression makes place for a smug one as he smirks at you. "That's why you don't want me to hold back my moans. Does my baby get turned on by hearing me?"

Your eyes widen at his words as it's now your turn to be flustered. San chuckles at your expression as he hovers above you. That same smug smirk still evident on his face.

"Don't be embarrassed Y/N. Now I know how to make this feel even better."

You raise your eyebrow at his words until you feel him slamming his hips into yours at a fast pace, loud grunts escaping his lips as he places one hand next to your head, the other holding your hip tightly as his eyes bore into yours. The eye contact only making you get to your high faster.

Mingi

Mingi wouldn't be very good at being quiet in the first place, which was something you liked. You just never realized how much he was holding back his own sounds of pleasure whenever you two had sex. Because when you blow him he's a lot more vocal than he is during sex, which confuses you. So when you're having sex and notice him biting down on his bottom lip to prevent him from moaning, you stop him.

Mingi looks at you with confusion written all over his face as he stops thrusting into you. "Why did you do that?"

You wrap your arms around his neck as you pull him closer to you, brushing his hair out of his face as you lean in to press a soft kiss against his lips. "Because I want to hear you too."

"Really?"

You nod softly as you smile when you see him doing the same. "Okay, I just hope the neighbors won't complain tomorrow."

You want to laugh at his words but don't even have the chance to do that since he snaps his hips against yours, letting out a deep grunt as he closes his eyes in pleasure.

Wooyoung

listen, we know Wooyoung is loud and a tease. So expect that from him when he finds out just how much you like to hear him. He stops what he's doing and pulls back enough to be able to look at you, wiggling his eyebrows as he's smirking at you.

"Ah really? It turns you on, hm?"

You want to slap that smug smirk off of his face but instead just roll your eyes at your boyfriend. Wooyoung chuckles at your expression as he leans down enough to whisper in your ear, his hot breath tickling the sensitive skin of your neck.

"Well, maybe I should be even louder then, hm? Let the whole apartment complex know how well we fuck."

"Wooyoung!"

He laughs as he sees your flustered expression, quickly hiding your face behind your hands as you feel your cheeks heat up. Wooyoung chuckles as he pries your hands away from your face, looking at you with that same smug smirk.

"There's nothing to be embarrassed about baby."

"Can we stop talking about this and please continue?" You ask, wrapping your arms around his neck and pulling him down for a kiss.

Wooyoung eagerly returns the kiss as his hips start moving again, soon slamming against your own at a fast pace. Loud moans escaping your lips as Wooyoung grunts lowly, bringing you closer to the edge.

Jongho

Jongho would be so flustered when he first found out you like hearing him moan when you have sex. He always loved to hear how good he's making you feel and it didn't even cross his mind that it might be the same for you. So one day when the two of you are having sex he decides to stop holding back his moans. What he didn't expect however was for you to react the way you do.

As soon as he lets out a moan he feels you clench around him, his eyes growing wide momentarily as he realizes just how big the effect is on you. He lets out a soft chuckle as he feels his confidence rising.

"Y/N, why didn't you tell me just how much you like to hear me? If I had known this sooner I would have stopped holding back my moans a long time ago."

You don't even have the chance to response because Jongho continues thrusting into you at a fast pace, making you throw your head back against the pillow as you dig your nails into your boyfriend's shoulders. Jongho groans in response as he feels you clenching around him.

"Fuck baby I'm not gonna last long if you keep doing that."