#whispering it so light and free. I'm convinced you could say it anywhere

[decisions-at-3am]

You gave me a nickname, One so light and free. You could say it anywhere, I'd know you were calling me.

[malleleothreesome]

Fellow Honest Drunken Confession Feat. Playful Land Cast

(Ch.1 & Ch.2)

🌟 summary: Rewriting the end of Playful Land event where instead of Fellow Honest running away, he tries to convince you and your classmates to go out drinking with him. Cause he's super into you. ༶༶༶ 🌟 warnings: gender neutral reader, SFW so far (undecided on the end), fluff, romance. This is a slice of life comedy. You're just gonna have to go into it blind. Take my word for it. You're gonna love it. If you don't, don't tell me. All characters assumed to be of legal drinking age besides Gidel. ༶༶༶ 🌟 inspired by: this ask from @omo-kitty thank you! ♡✧*:･ﾟ

🌟 song: Trust Fund "Oh, where, oh, where is my trust fund? Why can't I get ahead? 'Cause I have to work My daddy's such a jerk For not givin' me all his cash" ༶༶༶ 🌟 word count: 4.7k

Fellow Honest lets out an exasperated sigh, perched next to you and your classmates as the massive cruise ship that housed Playfulland amusement park sinks into the ocean’s abyss. With his hands clasped behind his head, a carefree grin lights up his face. 

"You know what?" He asks, turning to you. 

His fox ears twitch atop his head as a salty breeze sifts through his orange hair. Night was encroaching, a half moon suspended in the starry sky, pale and glowing. You stare back into his face, noting the visible points of his fangs, and the tip of his curly orange tail swishing happily. 

Fellow winks as he laughs his signature haughty cackle. "Do you want to grab a drink sometime?"

Ace Trappola perks up at the mention of alcohol and barrels forward, face beaming with naivety. "Hey, free drinks? You're talking to the right person, Man. You gonna let us drink free? I mean, it's like, the least you could do for trying to traffic us, am I right?" 

Trey Clover hisses, “Ace!!!” in a desperate (and failed) attempt to shut him up. 

Fellow regards the spectacle with the blankest of stares, his ear flicking as a whisper of a wince flickers across his visage.

The monster of a man tilts his head and smiles slyly to you—and only you. 

His eyes sweep you up and down as he croons, "just you and me, Hot Stuff. We're talking romantic, steamy even. We’re connected… don't deny it. Whaddaya say?" 

Fellow steps closer, tongue running along his canines as he looks you up and down with a cheeky grin and a twinkle of mischief in his eyes. "You, me, alone, drinking, talking... I'll be real good to you—I'm an honest guy! All my business is legit now!" 

He throws his head back, and with a flourish of his arms, roars with a particularly raucous laughter. Upon composing himself, his piercing orange eyes turn sharp, and he flashes you another lecherous look. A smirk plays on the corner of his lips, an eyebrow rises suggestively. Fellow leans to whisper in your ear, lingering in the electricity of your aura a bit too long before speaking. You shiver. 

His voice drops to a low, suggestive purr as hot breath grazes your neck, "but, if you like, a little bit naughty ain't out of the question... "

Before you can respond, Ace—unable to be subdued by Trey—makes his way back over and elbows you in the arm. As clueless as ever, his freckled cheeks flush bright pink from excitement. 

"Free drinks, Bro! He's an underworld mobster, Dude—a high ranking one—we'll be VIPs anywhere we go. We’ll be sipping absolute top shelf… not that gross, warm piss from a barrel everyone else gets!" 

Ace is giving the performance of his lifetime, gripping his heart and holding out his arms in utter theatrics, then leaning heavily on your shoulder. 

"Free… top shelf… liquor!" Ace shouts to the rest of your classmates, waving them over.

Fellow's eyebrow elevates further, threatening to leave the confines of his forehead. His eyes remain dead, cold. His tail, for once, stays perfectly still, frozen in an upright arch. When his lips part in a rigid smile and his shoulders begin to shake, a venomous displeasure radiates from him, palpable enough for you to feel on your own skin. Out of his mouth spills a jumble of fragmented curse words and giggles. You look at him in mild alarm, unsure if he has finally reached a state of losing his goddamn mind, or if he's about to commit a violent murder—starting with Ace.

Fellow holds up both gloved palms, covering his face. Slowly shaking his head, he doubles over, wiping away tears of hysteria in an uproarious guffaw. You are stunned, staring as Fellow wheezes and struggles to get ahold of his faculties. 

Catching his breath, he throws back his head and bellows with unrestrained joy, "The sheer audacity! The unmitigated gumption of this fool—oh my GOD.”

In a valiant effort to calm himself, he holds up his hands, as if praying, a wicked grin plastered across his face. Ace squints suspiciously at his antics, still totally clueless to Fellow's intent. Trey shakes his head slowly, rubbing his face in abject defeat, looking as if he's willing his brain to purge the trauma of ever coming to this place. 

Fellow breathes deeply. "Sorry, sorry, it's just funny, oh my God. Wow. He has some balls on him, I'll give him that! I really admire the gall. You know what? This brat might have a career in the biz." The fox beastman reaches out and condescendingly ruffles Ace's head of red hair.

"Alright, tough guy. Yeah, let's go get boozed. And hey, little Bastard—" his fiendish grin takes a more sinister tone, fangs slightly exposed. "Just so you know, if your pathetic college didn't send that sweetheart…” He winks suggestively at you, before his eyes wander across the crowd of students, utterly unimpressed, “I'd never be letting any of you idiots go. No way! I’d have dragged each of you back to my boss by force. Don't test my generosity or my kindness." 

Smirking, he shoves his finger into Ace's face, leaning towards him with intent to intimidate.

Fellow takes a sharp inhale and clasps his hands shut. "Now, just for fun, let's get liquored up on the highest rooftop bar, play some poker, do a little dancing..." His eyes flit back over to you— "...maybe some smooches, hey?" A foxy yip punctuates his sentence. His eyes return back to Ace, whose lips are pressed in a firm, disapproving line. Fellow's eyebrow twitches with delight as he takes in Ace's defiance, biting his lip for a second so as not to cackle.

"There isn't going to be any 'VIP treatment,' 'free drinks,’ or 'top shelf.' Is that clear? Who do you think I am? You think I like doing that type of shit?" 

He points to the water, gesturing to the decimated remnants of the amusement park. "I'll let you in on a little secret, Kid, people don't do those types of jobs because they're loaded.” 

He leans down to get eye level with Ace, using expressive jazz hands and a pompous voice. “'Oh, man, my yacht's all paid off and ready, better become a goddamn kidnapping organ trafficker—oh, the glamor! The luxury!' Do you understand what I'm saying, you dinky little shit?"

You can't help it—you burst out laughing. His grin returns full force, and he winks at you knowingly. He looks back to your classmates, and you consider his movements. The pure self-assurance in his stride, his careless and brazen attitude, his cheeky cockiness—intricate pieces of exactly what drew you to him initially. While his irreverence for any societal construct has both scared and enamored you, the sheer madness he exhibits on a regular basis is so addictive. How could you deny a guy with this level of audacity? You really, really want to give it a whirl—experiment with what might be if you throw caution to the wind.

His smile grows, noting the chagrin across your classmate's faces. Fellow gestures dramatically once more, his gloved hands clawing through the air, his gesticulations growing increasingly overzealous as he waxes poetic on the harsh realities of adult life. 

"So, listen up. Listen very carefully. Picture this: I'm poor. I'm scrappy. I was homeless. I don't even own the suit you're seeing right now! My clothes are stolen off the street." His expression darkens, ears and tail drooping, shoulders slumped, and head lowered. For a fleeting, transitory instant, there's an indiscernible emotion that flickers through his eyes—something genuine that betrays his frivolity. "That boy is the only family I have, and we've got nothing to our name."

He stares forward at something only he can see, his gaze boring a hole into the horizon. It is a wistful, haunted gaze, a longing and lost memory in his eyes, a sad sigh that drifts on a gentle summer breeze, lost within its dreams. "Not a single thing. Just the two of us, struggling and barely making ends meet, scraping by in this horrible, unforgiving, greedy world that cares not for the innocent and goodhearted folk. We need to be greedy. Selfish, if we want to keep each other safe. So, excuse me for being just a tad on the offensive side, you entitled fucking brats! I had to be the strongest so I could support the both of us. You truly know nothing about suffering—this isn't a pretty life to have and it isn't fair, yet, what can you do? Adapt, or die. There is no romanticism about hunger, about living like animals, constantly scrambling for scraps of food like the world is a bottomless garbage can and you are its filthiest dog." The sardonic chuckle he gives isn't unkind, merely tinged with bittersweet longing. You reach a hand out, resting it on his shoulder, and his fingers close over it with a soft caress.

There's a touch of vulnerability in his eyes, and his words strike a cord that resonates deeply within your soul. Though it hurts and grieves you, his explanation was enough for you—a starting point of understanding, as you accept him exactly for who he is. You see beyond the facade—the sheer intensity of the desperation that underlines his words and actions, that hollowness within him that yearns for more than the world can provide. 

Fellow seemed to awaken with greater purpose when you looked into his soul and told him he didn't have to do bad things. Something shifts in his eyes as he considers new paths. You see the stitches holding his tattered spirit together loosen slightly, revealing glimpses of his raw wounds, the aches and scars that he buries with sarcasm and callousness. His vibrant, intelligent, playful nature deserves more—his life isn't meant to be wasted, yet he feels as if that's precisely what he has done, resigning himself to this existence of bitter hatred against the world. When you meet his gaze, you feel a tenderness blooming in the chilly winter frost of his chest, like the first glimpse of spring. At last, you can sense the farce crumble, and the real Fellow taking shape underneath. You wish you could spend the rest of the evening talking to him. 

Fellow's fingers remain intertwined with yours as the moment passes and his flirtation returns. There is an uncanny ease with which the man is able to keep his expression blank while swapping personalities, as if each identity is a costume he wears as long as it suits him. A fleeting look of sadness drifts over him before being replaced by his cheeky, foxy smirk. He reasserts the cocky, irreverent demeanor—his favorite cloak. His orange eyes flit towards yours before gazing into the crowd of your classmates. You squeeze his palm reassuringly, and he beams down at you with gratitude. His finger swipes across your cheek, gently brushing it.

Fellow smiles his carefree smile, but there's a warmth and gentleness behind his orange gaze now. 

"All that being said,'' the beastman claps his hands together, grinning widely and putting on another showman's performance, "I bet I could do a little persuading to get us some free booze. We're going drinking, my new friends!" He throws his hands up jovially. 

A chorus of voices in front of him ring out in dissonance at the thought, except for Ace—who is whooping and hollering triumphantly, and Kalim, who is cheering in earnest. Before the rest of your classmates have time to voice their objections, Fellow shouts out, pointing at everyone, a finger dramatically extending in the air.

"Ah, ah ah—none of your whining and sniveling bullshit, you snot-nosed punklings. We're all getting our rocks off tonight and it's on me. Consider this the apology tour for almost making you all... well, go into involuntary servitude, to put it lightly." 

The corner of his lips twitch as his orange eyes scan the crowd for recognition, yet remain friendly despite his teasing. 

"Besides, a celebration is due! What I learned tonight was so startling to me—I did not foresee myself going down an honest path, a career in helping the helpless. This is truly life-altering, and it's all thanks to you folks." 

Another moment of vulnerability flickers in his eyes and his mouth is slack, letting the raw honesty and realization of change settle. A stunned silence from the crowd ensues.

Flailing his arms wildly to keep up and air of lightheartedness, Fellow huffs, the first signs of exertion finally showing. He was beaten up pretty badly while trying to detain your classmates, after all. He continues his pitch. 

"Of course, no hard feelings or anything. Just a nice fun night, free drinks, music, laughter—how could any of you possibly turn down such a gift?" 

With a grin and a gesture to the amusement park's busted entrance gate, he declares his final verdict. 

"It is your final day off before a lifetime of school, study, stress and commitment to society—your youth is ending, friends. Embrace this wonderful last sunset of freedom—because by tomorrow, we will all be under the yoke of labor, spending our lives slaving away to pay rent while we deal with taxes and the true horror of capitalism! At least, those without trust funds, right? Hah." 

Once more, your classmates all clamor with protests. 

"Like Hell I’m goin’ out drinking with that guy! Don't take orders from that shady jackass," Leona roars through the crowd.

Fellow’s scowls, tail swishing vehemently back and forth. 

"Ya just met him yesterday and he was about to sell us all off! Does a sociopath's Nice Guy act not make you the least bit suspicious or even nervous? Don't fall for it. No one's that forgivin' or stupid." Leona stares coldly at the conman with an indignant sniff as he crosses his arms over his broad chest.

Vil stands with his arms crossed as well, but his posture and expression exude boredom as he blows out an annoyed exhale, visibly judging his idiot classmates. "Unfortunately, I have to agree with Leona once again," he chimes in, ignoring the aggravated huff from the Savanaclaw dorm leader. "Our kidnapper is insistent on buying us drinks? Who does that?! Clearly, this guy has something up his sleeve." Vil clicks his tongue derisively, and flicks his purple hair over his shoulder in dismission.

Floyd, ignoring the forewarnings entirely, throws his arms up happily. He bellows, "hell yeah! What's better than a night of heavy partying to lighten up the mood, right? Bring it on. There's alcohol involved? It’s free? I’m in." He giggles maniacally, wrapping an arm around Fellow to pull him in for an enthusiastic noogie (and completely ignoring the pained squeaks coming out of the conman's mouth). Floyd’s twin brother, Jade, grins in agreement to the proposal.

Trey adjusts his glasses nervously, brows knitting and mouth stuck in a grimace. He opens mouth and closes his mouth a few times before suggesting, with trepidation, “it is... quite unusual for him to take us out drinking all of a sudden... are we sure this isn't some sort of trap, or a game, or—"

Trey is cut off by a loud groan from Ace. "Weren't you guys paying attention?!" Ace shakes his head rapidly and scoffs with derision. "He's obviously trying to get into Y/n's pants! The guy's totally thirsty! How are you not seeing this? He was checking Y/n out when he was doing all that crazy shit in the amusement park." 

A tense moment of silence falls across your class as they turn their heads towards you, eyeing you with surprise. "He's been hitting on the prefect this entire time! His weird-ass obsession is for real—no joke or scam. He's interested, I know it when I see it. He knows Y/n's not gonna go unless he takes all of us. So, like... yes, of course I'm into free beer!" 

Ace's red eyes gleam like he's just discovered the polio vaccine, proud of his insightfulness and intellect. The other students look back and forth between you and the notorious criminal fox beastman, noting his nonplussed smirk, calm tail wagging, and the way in which his ears prick up in excitement at the conversation about you.

Another uncomfortable moment passes. Your cheeks feel warm, knowing everyone's eyes are still on you, but you can’t bring yourself to meet them. 

Kalim claps his hands together and chirps, "oh yeah, come to think of it, he does seem like he's super fond of you! All his cute talk and that sparkle he gets in his eyes when he looks at you and listens to your every word—he clearly really, really likes you, Y/n! That's totally awesome you found someone special in such a dark place!" 

Kalim is—almost comically—unaffected by Fellow's unsavory reputation. "And isn't it great if he's truly starting down a righteous path instead of being a bad criminal who hurts and steals from people? We've got to support him, this could be his fresh start! We're his friends, and that's what friends are for—they help each other out. We'll save him from evil!" 

Kalim is positively beaming now, his energy infectiously reassuring and radiant. "I’m looking forward to a fun night, count me in!" 

Leona scrunches up his face and screws his eyes shut before looking into the distance. It’s as if his consciousness has departed, from the sheer idiocy of this conversation. 

“How much has that fuckin' clown got you brainwashed already to make you spout such delusions of grandeur?!" He gapes at Kalim's relentless positivity. "C'mon Jack, we're goin' back. They can handle themselves." Without a backward glance, he walks away, trusting that the freshman will follow suit.

With a short sigh of resignation and a brief incline of his head, Jack follows along in his dorm leader's wake. "Sorry, guys," he murmurs. "I gotta agree with my Housewarden. Something doesn't feel right. Hope to see you all later." The wolf man turns his back and trots to catch up with Leona.

Fellow wears an indecipherable expression as he watches them leave. The muscles around his eye twitch slightly and an ear has flattened against his hair in annoyance. Though Fellow is doing his level best to remain unaffected by the sour reactions, a tiny tendril of disappointment wavers briefly over his features. His resolve steels, yet he keeps his smile, resolutely ignoring their mutterings as his fox tail sweeps side to side. His body language remains relatively casual and open, save for a subtle defensive set in his posture and shoulders. He stands a little taller in an attempt to maintain his cool.

Vil scoffs and walks over to the gate, holding up his perfectly manicured hands in mock surrender. "There's no amount of liquor on the planet worth suffering his disgusting presence or getting tangled in whatever diabolic schemes he's attempting. He's a repugnant vagabond with nothing but deceit and manipulation oozing from his vile, malicious tongue. Y/n, you can do far better—really, anyone with a proper background and education instead of someone from the fringes of society who can't even feed himself." 

With a flip of his hair, Vil sniffs dismissively. He gives you one last look of disapproval before strolling away in search of a less irritating place to be.

Ace begins to panic, feeling his chance at free drinks slipping through his fingers. "Wai- Wait- wait, WAIT—everybody STOP," Ace frantically exclaims in desperation. "Come back, you can't just leave! Come on! There’s free alcohol at stake here! Please?! Dammit. UGH!" 

Vil's words seemed to hit home. Fellow's unbreakable poker face crumbles as his ears pull down flat against his scalp. His tail stiffens, lowering between his legs in utter humiliation. The fox beastman swallows thickly as the tides of his happiness drain. Gidel scurries up to Fellow and places a hand gently on his back to console his guardian. Fellow tries to plaster a makeshift grin back on, but his pain bleeds through, brow furrowed and eyes darting, suddenly unable to meet your gaze.

Ace blinks and smiles awkwardly before muttering, "Well, now I actually feel pretty bad." His freckled face reddens slightly, cheeks taking on a darker tinge of rose as the color creeps out to his ears. A soft, self-conscious laugh tumbles from his mouth. He runs a hand through his copper-red hair, clearly caught somewhere between guilt and shame—internal conflict is evident. 

Despite all the flippant, disrespectful comments, teasing and general disregard Ace has shown Fellow, this complete and public emotional breakdown appears to hit Ace harder than he'd care to admit, and perhaps—just maybe—a faint sense of kinship forms at the connection he sees between himself and the conman. Two jovial and clownish individuals—born entertainers. Suddenly, this moment strikes Ace more so than anything else Fellow has said or done thus far, leaving the redhead oddly touched. It’s as if his own heart was personally struck by the kind, selfless soul Fellow seems to be deep down, no matter how hard the foxman tries to keep it buried.

"Listen, man," Ace smiles shyly, shifting from foot to foot with his thumbs stuck in his belt loops. "You know, even if nobody else says it, I, uh... Well... If you're going straight," Ace chuckles, clearing his throat, "like you say, then you're pretty cool. Besides, all your antics are pretty funny. And... The way you really care for him..." Ace stares with admiration, nodding his head towards Gidel, voice low with reverence. His cheeks are completely red now, unable to formulate words, just awkwardly shuffling around trying to escape his own embarrassment. 

"You're a... a really good big brother. You know," He sputters, blinking and glancing to the side before slowly looking back at Fellow, and then you. "So... Just forget about Vil's stupid bullshit and move on. Because..." He pauses for a second before nodding assuredly, his confidence growing. "Because you've got plenty to give! It might not feel like it, and sometimes there will be a moment where all seems lost..."

You shake your head in disbelief. Had Ace just openly spoken words of wisdom? Such kind words, too—from him of all people! That, surely, is the sign of an actual miracle happening, since Ace, your dearest friend, is not typically one for… sincerity. ‘Shocking’ would be an understatement. Ace's friendly gaze causes Fellow's orange eyes to grow glassy. Your classmates, equally as stunned, stare at Ace in open astonishment.

Ace presses on with his impromptu speech, conveying the utmost sincerity, "You've got to be strong and push past your misfortune, and not allow yourself to think you're not worthy of love or care." His smile grows warmer and he turns his face to you, making brief eye contact before casting his gaze back towards Fellow. "I just know that somewhere out there, a happy life awaits you... and maybe... there's someone wonderful to share it with."

Now why would Ace allude to you when you haven't even decided your feelings yet? You quickly turn around to conceal the rising flush in your cheeks. You’re somewhere between mortified and thrilled for Ace to publicly express his support of your romance. Nerves flood your stomach—the anticipation, the prospect of falling in love has made you equal parts anxious and giddy. A mixture of euphoria and despair hits you all at once—how beautiful to acknowledge your affections for the fox man—yet, can you commit?

You look over at Cater and mouth with abject horror: 'What the fuck is going on?'

Cater looks thoroughly entertained by the entire event, flashing you a thumbs up. He bites his lower lip, silently giggling to himself. He snaps a picture of you on his phone—the audacity.

Cater mouths back, “looks like someone has a cru-ush.” 

Your face displays all of your confusion. “Stop—shh—be serious, this is real,” you whisper, stifling a tiny, strained giggle and putting an end to the banter by sternly holding out your index finger.

This is too much—too fast—you feel helpless, swept up in the stormy waves of fate and romance. One single day has dragged on and on, as if stretched forever by the overwhelming events of your trip. Even Fellow's unexpected change of heart is but a fleeting part of some fever dream—it couldn’t have all been real. An insane whirlwind romance, a kidnapping, a deadly amusement park, and a desperate con artist—who you’ve become increasingly drawn to. This has been one of the strangest experiences of your entire life.

Glancing quickly over your shoulder, you catch Gidel grinning and bouncing happily, his eyes bright with energy, seemingly thrilled at the idea of you and Fellow becoming partners. His excitement is contagious, and it only adds fuel to the fire in your heart. To know the little boy holds high hopes for the two of you—maybe something is already blooming? Blood pounds in your veins and a tightness builds in your chest, causing your heartbeat to drum ever faster as Fellow takes a step toward you.

He gently turns you to face him. His grip is strong, yet soft. A twinge of hope tugs at the corners of his lips, though his posture betrays his vulnerability and fear of rejection. His interest in you is palpable, and the seriousness of the impending moment makes you want to run away. As hesitant as you are to admit it, you definitely feel a connection to this man—one beyond lust. A deeper bond transcends physical attraction, as if your hearts are bound, stitched with a million red puppet strings of fate. With each pump of blood, another thread pulls taut, drawing the two of you closer together.

You're nervous, embarrassed, and entirely unsure of what you want. In an attempt to stall, you address your remaining classmates. "Well, I sure could use a drink right now! How about it?" Slight panic italicizes your statement.

Ace raises his hands in the air with triumph. "Fuck yeah," he laughs, looking around eagerly. Cater looks relieved to have the perfect excuse to drink a ridiculous amount of booze without getting nagged by Riddle for acting inappropriate. Trey sighs deeply, pinching the bridge of his nose in a strained manner, as if resisting another stress-related aneurysm. He nods with resignation that he won't be back at Heartslabyul any time soon, committing himself to making sure none of the trouble-making underclassmen get up to their usual antics of havoc, mayhem and chaos. You catch Trey mutter, "I will definitely regret this," to himself, but you still allow a surge of gratitude wash over your anxious heart at his kind gesture.

Lilia's laughter rings out, the night breeze sweeping back his hair to reveal a playful grin. "The Pop Music Club is always down for a fun time. This will be the perfect opportunity for me to show Kalim and Cater how to really party! Oh, what a splendid evening this will be," he gleams, patting his clubmates heartily on the shoulders. They both gulp, nervous about his declaration.

The gentle moonlight reflecting off the ocean catches Lilia's irises in a breathtaking display of shimmering crimson. In a flash, he materializes in front of Fellow, nearly scaring the poor fox out of his skin. Lilia's lips are curled in a wide, sly smile and he stares deep into his soul. 

After a moment of silence, he narrows his eyes and clicks his tongue, stepping forward and speaking conspiratorially. "But tell me the truth. What really is the score on this entire set-up?" The sinister, terrifying nature Lilia exhibits makes Fellow's ears tremble and tail swish madly in defense, eyes large and alert. Fellow lets out a nervous yelp, frozen as the staring contest commences. After what appears to be some type of mental standoff, the vampire's demeanor eases. 

Lilia puts a comforting arm around Fellow and hugs him to his side, eyes glowing brighter. "Ah, young love! So fun to watch! You two have my blessing," Lilia beams at the stupefied Fellow, whose ears still lay flat against his scalp in terror. His tail is tucked tightly between his legs in an act of submission, a concession of defeat.

With that, your classmates trail out of the boardwalk, away from the ruins of the defunct Amusement Park. Their loud banter fills the night air, a jovial cacophony of nonsense and delirium. Fellow places one hand between Gidel's shoulder blades to gently guide him along, and he extends his other to you, silently inviting you to interlace your fingers with his. His expression is relaxed and expectant—but his eyes show his nerves. His smooth, gloved palm envelops your hand and together, the three of you follow your classmates.

🌟 song: Violence (Club Mix) - Grimes ༶༶༶ 🌟 word count: 1.8k

The dark streets of the city are lit in an amber glow from the many shops that stay open late, with neon signs boasting special deals and hot food creating a gorgeous rainbow of flashing colors in the night. Bustling crowds move briskly, pouring in from all directions. They mill around, eager to engage in the nightlife of the entertainment district, excited to partake in their desired sins. You follow a group of partygoers through an arching entranceway that has the phrase 'Hell's Den' lit above the metalwork in garish crimson lights. Passing underneath the grand entrance and entering the gaudy exterior is another world of sound, color and light—a vibrancy not meant for the meek. The entirety of the complex is covered with glowing tiles, casting a radiant aura in such a dazzling fashion it reminds you of a place in your home world: Las Vegas.

Welcoming aromas of cigarettes, alcohol, and cheap cologne, and the buzzing, neon atmosphere draws a content sigh from Fellow. The wide array of faces passing by—all of them new and shining with happiness, seeking to escape their own respective realities. There is something inspiring about this bustling den of iniquity. The electricity that percolates within the underground is like a shot of adrenalin. It's pure magic. It is no wonder all of this serves as an irresistible lure for those craving freedom. In this night-city, any sinner can find solace.

As you pass the main foyer of Hell's Den, an enormous set of double doors lies ahead. Three large, burly bouncers loiter at the entrance and peer closely at you all.

"Now what do we have here?" the bouncer booms, zeroing in on Gidel. The bouncer points towards the kid, accusatory. "Ain't he a little young for this joint?"

All heads turn towards Gidel, who stands proud and fearless in the face of these mountainous men. While most everyone else shifts nervously, Gidel plants his little hands on his hips and looks up at the bouncers unabashed, pursing his lips in an indignant pout and giving an extra little sassy bob of his head. He stands his ground with the cold, fierce and commanding presence of someone much older. The way his stance radiates authority, even in the face of danger, is both admirable and comical. The usual slouching and youthfulness of his mannerisms and body language are totally eradicated as the imperious stare he fixes on the bouncers bears down. Gidel is a fearless soldier—a fiercely determined, stalwart pillar in the face of adversity, daring the guards to deny him passage.

"You wound me, good sir," Fellow puts a gloved hand to his heart in a mock sign of hurt. "Of course, he is of drinking age. How insulting!" He levels them with his withering orange gaze. The muscle men shift uneasily at his silent challenge—the cocky facade is his customary tactic for warding off hostilities before they could grow and take root. "This here," he grabs the glowering Gidel, patting the child proudly on the head, "is the eldest of our party." The bouncers look at each other, then at the boy, then back to Fellow. The sheer absurdity of Fellow's statement is undeniable—no reasonable person would buy it.

Fellow goes on. "Cater, are you seeing this shit? Discrimination, in this day and age? Put these nitwits on blast," Fellow gestures to Cater's phone, and Cater begins filming. Gidel points aggressively at the bouncer, shaking his little index finger with the might of his wrath, as Fellow declares loudly, "I want everyone to know—this place is not welcome to those of different social stations, based on age or appearance. This is preposterous!" He turns his attention back to the bouncers, widening his arms to the gathering crowd.

"Bigotry, ageism, it's so awful! No wonder Gidel hides the fact that he's over 2,000 years old. Now I see why the man refuses to share the wisdom he's collected, the amazing anecdotes and experiences, and the undeniable brilliance he could impart upon the world—instead, he hides, ashamed, all due to the abuse he receives on a daily basis from these types of buffoons!" 

The surrounding individuals stare in stunned silence. "It's not Gidel who is the child here, but all of you. People should not be judged so harshly due to their appearance. Everyone should be accepted—their ideas, actions, and experiences embraced with respect, despite physical differences that set them apart. Everyone must be loved and appreciated, for there are precious gems everywhere we look in this beautiful world. The rich, diverse community of people who inhabit this planet should be able to share with all, learn from one another and work together in unity, free to be who they are without harassment!"

The neon light catches fresh tears running down various faces in the crowd. To add further insult to the bouncers’ injuries, Royal Sword Academy's Seven Dwarves—who happened to be waiting to get into the same bar—stare daggers at the gatekeepers and gather near Gidel in solidarity. Their angry, diminutive stature radiates powerful force when unified against a common enemy—it is truly a frightening sight to behold.

In one single swoop, Fellow swings public opinion in Gidel’s favor, inciting rage to right the wrong. The fervor of the crowd continues to rise. "Please, show our precious elder the respect he deserves. Do not look at him and see a mere child—look into his eyes to the aged visage beneath." His orange gaze bores into the guards. "Can you not sense his inner radiance, the power and splendor of his soul, and the treasures locked away within? Don't allow your prejudices and expectations to hold him back. Or you, for that matter. The sheer fact of his youthful appearance is no obstacle to greatness! And as long as you carry this narrow-minded sentiment, you will forever be barred from ever knowing the greatest secrets of the universe. Remember, folks! In the end, it isn't your status, money, or popularity that ultimately leads to a better future! It's our kindness, compassion, and tolerance." The conman punctuates his powerful speech with a satisfied swish of his fluffy tail, and the crowd cheers wildly in approval.

Cater is eating this up. His thumbs frantically type out a lengthy post that ends with his signature sparkling diamond hashtags, creating the most glorious online discourse. 

Trey is lost in thought, muttering to himself, "he does have the right idea, maybe he'd make a good Headmage after all." 

Kalim stares intently, with a faraway gleam in his eye, utterly entranced by Fellow. He’s just about ready to sign up for a personal tutoring session on the topic of the Universal Principles. 

The rest of your classmates have the most deadpan expression on their faces, looking at each other and silently communicating how deeply uninterested they all are at witnessing this bizarre, disturbing spectacle for the umpteenth time.

The guards can’t hide their bewilderment, and they reluctantly backpedal to let your group inside. You and Cater share a mischievous smile, impressed at Fellow's antics. 

Your devious fox pulls you flush to his body, ushering you into the club with a sly wink. "Shall we, dearest Y/n? Let’s make our debut, hmm?" He smirks in the direction of his brother as he spins you around, all while moving backwards into the bar. He bows deeply and gestures elegantly, indicating you should head inside first. You can't help giggling, covering your mouth to conceal the toothy grin that betrays your giddiness as you make your way inside. His eyes travel up and down your frame, marveling at your swaying hips, devouring every curve. His suggestive tongue wets his bottom lip before he bites it, fangs now visible. You're almost ashamed of how attracted you are to him.

Your classmates follow like ducklings trailing a parent, curious to see where the night will take them and if any of it will be blackmail-worthy. How amusing. They muffle laughter at Fellow's narcissistic flamboyance and over-exaggerated antics, taking note of every ridiculous attempt to woo you. A few pretend to gag, exchanging distressed, strained expressions—a theatrical attempt to shove down the raw, unbridled horror they feel at the thought of having to live through another performance of the clown show.

You're not even sure if he wears a persona—a true entertainer, for the thrill of it all—or if he's trying on sincerity for once. You suspect he's a walking caricature of his own making. Even so, the raw energy and manicured showmanship are alluring. His penchant for high-pitched laughter and dramatized emotion adds levity to an otherwise dark situation—something about it really tickles you. His potentially-feigned amusement lights up his impossibly expressive face in a manner that is genuinely contagious.

Slowly taking in your surroundings, your mouth falls slightly open. This was no ordinary dive bar—this was a full on club. A disco ball hangs from the ceiling, dispersing kaleidoscopic beams of color and light throughout the space. The rhythm throbs, perfectly synced with the strobe—each flash of luminescence reveals a slightly new scene. Sweaty bodies bend and sway to the thumping, seductive beat—you’re so ready to join them. Every face around you morphs into carefree bliss. From behind you, Fellow's presence is electrifying, playfully tracing his fingertips across the curve of your lower back as he leads you to the bar. His hand lightly smacks your ass, as if in approval, and your face warms. The effervescent air and residual excitement of escaping death creates an aphrodisiac unlike anything you’ve experienced. The pulsing bass, Fellow's slightly-territorial hand on your hip, and his sensual gaze makes your heart thump erratically. An aching want—no, need—simmers beneath your skin.

"May I get you a drink?" 

Fellow's soft words pull you from your daze, a mischievous sparkle in his eyes appraises your dilated pupils. His toothy grin widens. 

"You prefer sweet, don’t you? I know just the thing." 

He studies you lasciviously. 

"Freshly-squeezed juices and top shelf liqueurs always do the trick. I just love the taste of cherries." 

He brings his hand up to your cheek, the pads of his fingers hovering over the shell of your ear before landing around a stray tendril of hair. He twirls the silky strand between his gloved fingers and tucks it gently behind your ear. Tantalizing.

"Yes, please. That sounds delicious."

You giggle nervously, unable to break eye contact. You hadn’t noticed how full his lips were—the bottom pout most inviting. You hope he doesn't notice you gulp.

Somehow, the man's smile grows even bigger. He takes your hand in his, clasping it tightly and bringing it up to his mouth to plant a soft, chaste kiss. 

"Wait right here for me, won't you, my dear? I'll be back in a heartbeat." 

With a spin, he dances his way through the crowd towards the bartender, expertly navigating the chaos. You stand there dumbfounded, unable to keep the affection from blossoming in your chest; full, red, and so tight that you're afraid it might burst.

Hi, it's me again. Erica. The girl who said "my goal for 2024 is to spend the whole year writing!" Yeah. Sorry about that. Turns out that life sucks and writing is hard. I'm doing my best out here, though. I hope y'all enjoy this one! This shit really makes me laugh, so I hope you laughed too. If you want to create any art based on a scene from this, PLEASE do. I've already started working on chapter 3. I hope it won't take me forever to finish this story but, I'm really just taking my time with it. By "it" I mean, you know, getting to the whole point of this request, which is where Fellow Honest drunkenly confesses to you. But as you can see, we are going on a whole journey, here. I hope you love it! That's why I'm calling it a slice of life. I hope I get to talk to you all again really soon, in my next writing, which I hope... will be... soon. Love you all dearly, ❤️ Erica Malleleothreesome. P.S. I'll be at Anime Expo at the beginning of July. Come say hi!

[bakubro0]

Eng!Version of "Complete me - Shigaraki" from an anon ask. The PT-BR version is right here.

Complete me - Shigaraki

pairing: shigaraki tomura x reader warnings/tags: not sfw, minors dni, degradation, swearing, sub/dom, unprotected sex, cream pie, oral (f. reciving), slight exibicionism

The reflection in the large mirror in the living room caught your attention.

Shigaraki's long, pale hair shines in the yellow light. Sometimes you looked like yin and yang itself - but not in the way most people might think or expect. You completed each other divinely.

Your hands ran over Shigaraki's back, delicate fingertips against the bones of his spine to the shoulder blades, wandering in the beginnings of his strong shoulders. In response to your touch, his pale skin prickled and he lifted a hand, covered by one of those dark gloves that covered two of his fingers, brushing back white pale hair to give you access to his thick skin, covered in scars.

And that's how you made each other complete - with your soft touch, full of reverence and care for the brutal and reckless way of his being.

“What are you looking at there?” Shigaraki asked hoarsely, the harsh tone fading when he spoke to you.

“Nothing” you reply and kiss his shoulders. “You look tired. Had a rough day?”

His red eyes strayed from the mirror and he let out an annoyed sound.

"Those damn heroes," Shigaraki grumbled. “Always on my fucking way like worms…”

“No need to think about it now” you whisper.

Shigaraki turns to you, dark eyes measuring your face. Of course he doesn't need to think about that - you're right in front of him, your expression sweet, ready to satisfy whatever he wants.

‘Cause that's how you complete each other.

“I've had a pretty stressful day,” he says once more, leaning even closer, ending the distance. “I hope you don't mind if I use you to relax a bit”

You shake your head as you feel a shiver run down your legs. One of his hands travels down your body, slowly, taking advantage of every curve - from your hips, waist, ribs and breasts - to your neck.

Shigaraki is grateful for a few things, but being able to touch you is definitely one of them. He loves the feel of your skin against his callused and scarred hands - how he can destroy anything with those hands, but you trust your life on them. He loves the way you sigh as you feel his fingers that aren't covered by the gloves wrap around one of your nipples, squeezing the sensitive tip between his thumb and forefinger.

He melts at the sound of your low moan and the way you let your head fall back, your mouth opening slightly, letting his name escape.

“Say it again” he commands, a cocky smirk on his face.

“Shigaraki” you repeat the name that sounds like candy in your mouth. “Please…”

“Please what?” he questions. His hands in no hurry to leave your breasts and go up to your face. His thumb circles your bottom lip and he smiles when you open your mouth a little wider, hoping he'll let you suck on the fingers that are there. “You really a cheap slut, aren't ya? Offering yourself like this..”

You agree, eager for any contact from his hands. He smiles, so cruel and so delighted with the way you are. How you surrender completely.

And he gives you exactly what you ask for, lets his fingers be wrapped around your tongue, settling into your mouth, remembering for the thousandth time what your mouth feels like on his body. And suddenly he can't wait any longer. His free hand goes to your neck, closing around it, pushing you against the wall.

Shigaraki's fingers leave your mouth as he replaces them with his own tongue, so much desire it's almost a clumsy kiss. Dry lips are rough against your soft ones, but you like it.

When his tongue invades your mouth and curls against yours, the sensation is too good to process. Feeling his hands pulling your clothes, ripping out the thin dress you wore, tossing it anywhere and opening the door with violence, you're still too distracted by the kiss to question what he's doing.

Shigaraki's hands gripped your legs and you just took a slight leap, wrapping your legs around his hips. He immediately crossed the distance to the room's exit, but seemed to change his mind halfway through. Shigaraki leans him at the long league of villains conference table.

He lays you there, almost completely naked, exposed to him.

“You have to lock the door!” you protest when the heavy hands reach your panties.

Shigaraki raises an eyebrow. It's the only sign he does before tearing the thin fabric between his thick fingers. Your eyes widened and he let a cruel smile escape before he lowered his face towards your body.

You try to protest once more, your mouth even opens with words on the tip of your tongue to try to convince him to close and lock the door, but all that is lost when his tongue licks a slow, precise way through your legs - from your soaking hole to the swollen clit.

A soft moan escapes your mouth, legs trembling with the sensation.

"Ah," he exclaims, almost a laugh as he sucks on your clit. “Are you moaning like that for everyone out the room hear what a slut you are?”

Your head swings from side to side, but it's impossible to form words as he continues to suck on you like he's starving. Two fingers are easily pushed inside and the movements are slow, teasing and leaving you on the verge of an orgasm that he denies, pulling his face away from you, licking his own lips, enjoying your taste.

“What did you say about closing the door?” he mocks and lets his own thumb replace the work his mouth was doing before, circular movements on your little clit. “Something about closing…?”

“Y-yes” you try to say, sobs of pure pleasure at the constant movement of his fingers against the most sensitive spot inside you.

"Doesn't look convincing," he rambled and leaned his body to press his mouth against your breast, sucking unceremoniously. The sensation combined with the constant stimulation in your clit made your back arch, that almost heavy, warm feeling on your core growing stronger, covering you entirely like a wave. “You want everyone out there to hear how you moan when you come in my fingers, don't you?”

In response, feeling the way he rubs his thumb against the sensitive spot between your legs, you shiver a few times. Your orgasm is getting closer and closer when Shigaraki pushes his pants down and his fingers leave you for just a few seconds.

Before you can even protest that he's stopped, he thrusts his length inside you, making your orgasm hit you flawlessly. You try to contain your moans, but he doesn't stop. The uncovered fingers are again against your clit, circular and perfect movements as his hips crash into yours, fucking you so hard that it doesn't take long for you to feel another orgasm approaching.

It's too much, you wanna say. But it's not, it's never too much of him. The way he pulls your body close or the calloused hands squeeze you so hard they're sure will leave marks, none of that is never enough.

White flashes start to show in your vision when all you feel is Shigaraki. All around you, above you, inside you— grasping your legs and pulling them to his shoulders and reaching deeper and deeper.

"P-please," you say, choking on a moan, trying to take a deep breath and not cry out in pleasure, but it's getting harder and that seems to be exactly his goal. "G-gonna come again."

“What are you waiting for, hm? A whore like you who likes to be fucked for everyone to hear should be satisfied now” he teases, but the movement of his hips is getting more precise and deeper. “I want you to come on my cock. That's what you're going to do, isn't it?”

“Y-yes sir” you cry and pull him in for a kiss. It’s a sloppy one, far from the best it could be. But it's perfect in the way he grips your body and pushes his own length deeper, harder, making you come a second time, your eyes rolling and your fingertips, normally so careful, burying against Shigaraki's back.

He feels the way you whimper beneath him, how your walls are clamping on his cock while you're almost convulsing from feeling so much pleasure; that made a heavy growl leave his mouth and he held onto your neck tightly.

And you know he's also close ‘cause you know him like the back of your hand.

“I'm going to ruin that pretty little pussy you have” he growls before rolling or hips again, making you moan louder. “And you're going to walk out that door and greet everyone outside while my cum runs down your legs. You’ll do it, won't you?”

Your eyes are rolling as he talks. It's no secret that Shigaraki is a pervert and it always makes you feel turned on, more and more. Seeing you shyly nod, your cheeks turning red at the thought, he smiles.

"Exactly like the slut you are," he says before he comes, a husky growl escaping his lips as you can feel his cock throbbing inside you.

It only took a few seconds and he takes a deep breath, the smile spreading across his face. Shigaraki pulls something out of his pants pocket, which he still wore.

A pink pantie.

"Where do you…" you started to say but stopped when he pulled his own pants up and hiked the panties up your legs, fitting them with ease to your body.

He raised an eyebrow and when he smiled at you, your face was completely red.

-Put on your dress and go say hello to our allies, dear.

[starlessea]

Here Comes the Sun: XX. More Than A Feeling (Daryl Dixon/Reader)

Series Masterlist: Here Comes the Sun

Summary: Daryl Dixon scares the hell out of you climbing out of that damn creek. It takes hauling his ass halfway across Georgia and taking a bullet for him to realise that you're not half bad. He slowly starts to come around, despite grumbling about how much he doesn't like your singing, or that you can't use a gun for shit - and don't get him started on that ugly yellow tent of yours. It takes him a while before he starts to see for himself that he's found a best friend for life, and that he doesn't actually mind the colour yellow that much, after all.

Words: 6480

Chapter Warnings: Language, Violence, Injury.

Your head pounded like an alarm clock you couldn't shut off. The explosions hadn't done any favours for your tinnitus, either. The high-pitched ringing noise was constant, and only intensified the more you tried not to focus on it. Even now that everything had settled down, it still seemed like you could hear walls crashing around you, or feel the vibrations as the stone crumbled and settled at your feet.

Except, it wasn't brick walls that were sending shock waves over the ground; it was Daryl's footsteps as he paced. You could feel them through your own boots, and sent him a look to try and coax him to sit down. 

"It's a sprained ankle, Daryl. I didn't lose my leg." You said gently, before someone cleared their throat.

You looked down at Hershel, who was in the process of wrapping the bandages, and winced as he raised an eyebrow at you.

"Sorry." You muttered, awkwardly.

Everything had gone mostly to plan. The governor and his men had been driven away, and the others had returned from Woodberry with even more survivors. You hadn't gotten the chance to see them yet, but the ruckus drifted up the stairs and you could feel the marching of the stampede as though they had been part of the army themselves.

The prison remained standing, albeit missing a watchtower and seeming a bit dilapidated in a few places - but your home was once again yours. You'd sacrificed so much for it. Lori, T-Dogg, Axel, Oscar, and Merle had all lost their lives just so that you could sit here now, complaining of flesh-wounds and mild injuries like they were the most perilous problems you could face.

Daryl didn't seem to agree, however, and narrowed his eyes at you - or more specifically, at the bandage wrapped around your head. You'd taken a bit of a fall, but it wasn't like you'd cracked it open. Though, that didn't stop the man from treating you like Humpty Dumpty - trying to fix all of your pieces despite them not actually being broken.

"I don' care!" Daryl yelled, and you felt Hershel flinch as he made another pass with the bandages.

The man slung his crossbow onto the mattress, and you felt the bed dip beside you from the weight of it. His face was all scrunched up into a scowl, and you wanted nothing more than to hold it in your hands and bring his cheek to yours.

"What the hell d'ya try an' pull tha' for?" He asked, but this time his voice had lost its fight. "You could've gotten yerself killed." Daryl said quietly, like it almost killed him to say, too.

The older man stayed silent as he continued to do his job, and you felt guilty for having let him get caught up in this. 

"But I didn't." You reminded Daryl, before shooting a light-hearted smile his way. "Certain victory, remember?"

Your eyes glanced down to his hand, and at the shoddily drawn rune you'd given him with a sharpie earlier in the day. He didn't say anything back, but his pacing had stopped - and he looked straight at you as you spoke.

"And although the governor got away, don't you think he'll be easier to find with a bullet in his shoulder?"

If you had anything to show for your injuries, at least it was that. You offered a teasing smirk to the man - one that probably made him wonder if you had a concussion.

"I think I know a pretty good tracker, too." You joked, nodding in his direction.

Daryl didn't smile back. You watched as the man took a seat next to you on the mattress, and noticed the way his eyes rested on Hershel as he tended to your injuries better than he could have. 

"Ya should've followed the plan." He mumbled, so quietly that you barely caught it.

You let out a sigh, unable to hide your guilt. Daryl had an expression you'd only seen him wear once before, and you didn't like it in the slightest.

"I had a clear shot." You reasoned timidly, like you were trying to convince yourself of your words.

You had done; it was true. Except, you should have taken a moment to consider your actions. You thought that you were in fact the hypocrite - since when the time came, you'd been the one to shoot first, and ask questions later.

"If my aim was a little better we wouldn't even be having this conversation." You told him, and offered a sheepish smile alongside it. "I'm sorry I missed."

Hershel tightened the knot as he finished wrapping your foot. You lifted your leg and outstretched it to examine his work. Tentatively, you wiggled your toes, and thanked the man when you felt no pain in doing so. Daryl sent a nod in his direction too, before turning back.

"I don' give a damn if ya missed." He told you, barely above a whisper.

Hershel ushered himself out of the room as quietly as he could manage, trying not to intrude any longer. As soon as he'd left, Daryl let his head drop onto your shoulder, and you could feel his warm breath over the crook of your neck.

"I only care tha' yer alive." He admitted, mumbling against the skin there. "I can't lose you, too."

You leant back against the man. He seemed so downtrodden, but for the first time since the farm, you felt safe. You remembered that first night after you'd cleared the prison, sitting out in that field around the campfire. You'd asked him then if he thought this could be your home. Now, you decided, it was.

"Have more faith in me, Dixon." You told him, and stroked his hair - letting your nails run along his scalp gently. "I think I must be pretty hard to kill."

Despite the head injury, the events of that morning were as clear as day to you - as clear as the cloudless sky had been when you all took your positions. The strategy had been to ambush them when they came, and you had been the one to dissuade Rick from utilising the watchtowers.

"They'll be their first target." You'd said, and luckily he had listened.

You and Daryl had been checking the guns, before deciding to take one last walk around the perimeter. You'd scouted their vehicles en route to the prison, so you knew it was only a matter of time before all hell would break loose. The day was otherwise serene, and you hoped that once all of this was over you'd get the chance to revel in the sunshine and celebrate your certain victory.

You smiled over at the man, remembering what you'd wanted to tell him. The two of you were checking for breaches in the fences, making sure that the governor's men couldn't infiltrate from anywhere you wouldn't expect. You watched as Daryl pulled on the lattice wire to make sure it was secure, and you slipped your hand into his other, free one. 

He gave you a subtle glance, but didn't make any sarcastic remarks in return. The two of you walked hand-in-hand alongside the fences, as though you were going on a mundane, morning stroll in the sun. It was silent, and you both seemed to just bask in the peace whilst it still lasted. Though, once you had gone full-circle, and had ended up back where you'd started, you stopped in place.

You fished around in your pocket and pulled out the sharpie you'd scavenged from Glenn earlier in the day. Daryl looked at it suspiciously, but let you do as you pleased - just like always. Carol had noted how much of a soft spot the man had for you, and you couldn't even deny it at this point. The two of you had woken up entangled in each other this morning, and it had taken you the better part of half an hour to coax him to let you get up. You could tell he was scared of what the day would bring. Despite claiming to be a man 'not scared of nothing,' you knew that Daryl Dixon was afraid of one thing above all else - and that was losing you. 

"Give me your hand." You instructed, and pulled the cap off the top of the pen with your teeth.

The man eyed the permanent marker, before looking down at your interlocked hands.

"Yer holdin' it." He grumbled, and you rolled his eyes at his dry humour.

"The other one." You clarified, pointing in the direction. "It needs to be on the same side."

You took his hand in yours before he had time to question you further, and pressed the sharpie to it. You drew the simple pattern, watching as the ink bled out slightly over the cracks in his skin.

It was the same rune of Týr that you had tattooed on your hip - the one Daryl claimed 'looked like an arrow.' He stared at it once you'd finished, stretching out his fingers before balling his hand into a fist. Maybe it was a little childish to want to wish him luck in this way, and you thought that Daryl was a man quite capable of victory by himself, but you'd wanted to do it nonetheless.

"Look, we match." You exclaimed with a smile, but the words felt familiar on your tongue.

Daryl must have thought so, too, as you saw some kind of recognition flash behind his eyes. Then, you remembered it. The memory washed over you like a wave coming onto shore. It had been back on the farm, where you lay next to each other on that springy, double bed. He'd had an arrow wound in his side, and your bullet hole matched it nicely. You'd pointed it out to him with a grin, too doped up on medication for your own good. It felt so long ago - back when you'd been more young and naive to the world, and he'd been more angry at it.

"I guess some things never change." You admitted, and you could tell that he understood.

You felt him squeeze your hand, and looked back down at the semi-tattoo you'd drawn haphazardly. 

"An' other things do." He replied.

When the first explosion rang out, your mind immediately thought back to that moment. The front left watchtower had been decimated, just as you had predicted, and the tanks began to roll in through the field. Whilst some of the group were hidden away in the prison interior, waiting to ambush those who came in, you stayed outside with Maggie and Glenn - ready to catch any stragglers who made it back out.

Daryl hadn't wanted you to be in the thick of it, and you could tell why. From the looks of it, the governor's army was partially made of toy soldiers. From your position, you could make out young boys and girls barely through their teenage years, and adults who looked like they had never held a weapon before. You would have found it hard to kill them - even if you needed to.

From your hiding place, however, you couldn't see the governor. The group was too dense, and he was probably lurking somewhere in the middle - just like the coward he was. You stared down the scope of your rifle, trying to get a better view. All around you, you could hear the sounds of crumbling stone, and the flicker of flames as they burned the tower to the ground. There had only been a couple of warning rounds shot at the building, but they'd done more damage than you were comfortable with. You just hoped that Daryl and the others were alright inside. 

The whole thing seemed to last a couple of minutes at most. As quickly as the group had entered the cellblock, they were forced back out in a shroud of smoke and gunfire. Maggie and Glenn had their guns aimed, but it looked to be a clean retreat. The govenor's makeshift suicide army had all turned back, and were fleeing into the forest - so you didn't shoot at them.

That had been the plan anyway, until you caught sight of a familiar eyepatch and the man who wore it. You jumped up from behind the bushes like someone had set them alight, and ran over to the wall for cover. Maggie and Glenn shouted at you, but you continued until you reached it. It was part of the fence you'd reinforced with steel, and you ducked behind it to peer through the gunhole. 

The man was returning back to the tank, mowing down anyone who got in his way. You stared through your rifle scope, finger hovering the trigger. You would have pulled it, but a civilian got in your line of sight at the last second. 

"Shit." You whispered, below your breath, and slung the rifle back over your shoulder.

You hopped the fence and started running, making your way to the blazing watchtower that was set alight like a torch. The base was still steady, and it provided good cover whilst allowing you to move in closer. The calm summer's day had been transformed into a warzone in a matter of minutes. Shouts and gunfire rang out around you as you dashed to the burning building. When you reached it, you quickly ducked down and pressed your back to the stone as you set up your rifle. 

It hasn't been part of the plan; you knew that. Though, you didn't just want to let the man walk free, either. If you weren't the one to do it, it would be someone else - perhaps Rick, or Michonne, or even Daryl. You wanted to pull your weight, especially if it meant that their shoulders wouldn't have to bear the burden of it.

The tower creaked and groaned above your head, and your eyes quickly glanced upwards to catch sight of the flames that licked the sky - creating an amber haze that resembled sunset. You ignored the sound, and locked onto the governor once again. This time, he was clambering into the vehicle, and you knew that it would be your last chance. Your line of sight was clear, and so you let your finger squeeze the trigger - and felt the jolt of the gun as it hit back against your shoulder.

The bullet connected, and you watched the man stagger backwards. He turned to face your direction, and your gazes caught for a split second - like you could see it all unfold in slow motion. Then, you heard a crash, and time resumed as normal.

Glass shattered above your head and fell onto you like jagged raindrops, and the stone debrid came following like lightning after it. The tower shifted, and you watched it crumble for a brief moment before the adrenaline kicked in. You abandoned your rifle and jumped up, starting to run in the opposite direction. Rubble came pouring down and bounced over the concrete at your feet. You felt small pieces nick your legs, but continued to sprint as you heard Maggie and Glenn call your name in the distance. You couldn't outrun the collapse, but you'd managed to dive behind one of the fences just in time to shield yourself.

You'd squeezed your eyes closed as the tower fell, and huddled your knees to your chest to protect yourself. The stone structure made the most almighty crash as it caved to the ground, and suddenly the courtyard was completely shrouded in dust. It wasn't until the smoke cloud had settled and you recognised figures emerging from the fog that you realised you'd made it. 

Your head stung, and you pressed your fingers to your temple only to notice that something had drawn blood there. You must've been struck by some stray piece of rubble, you thought. You were a bit dazed, but you could make out voices clearly as they shouted your name. You recognised one in particular, and your heart sped up in response.

"C'mon, Teach!" Daryl yelled, but you couldn't pin-point where from. 

You tried to call back, but your throat was dry and your voice barely made its way out of your lips.

"Can ya hear me?" He shouted again. "Call out to me if ya can hear me!"

Clearing your throat, you tried again.

"Daryl!" You screamed, and this time it resonated. "I'm here!" 

You noticed a shift in the fog, and figures got clearer as they made their way through it.

"I'm over here!" You yelled again, your voice breaking over the words.

The man came running over to you as soon as he could tell where you were. You'd been hidden behind the sheet of metal, sat amongst a pile of debrid, but he still found you. You could feel the fresh blood trickling down your forehead, but you wiped it away with the back of your hand and sent him a watery smile of pure relief. Daryl took in the sight, and the way your foot seemed to be turned in an awkward angle beneath you - and his eyes widened.

"What did you do?" He asked, rushing over to your side in an instant.

You looked back at him with an equally dumbfounded expression.

"I shot him." You admitted. "I shot the governor." 

After Hershel had left your cell, you and Daryl stayed sitting on the mattress together for a little while. You let him rest his head over your shoulder, which soon turned into lying on your chest as you both slumped back into the pillows. It was a little different from what you were used to, but you held his head and stroked his hair gently. You thought that he needed the comfort, and you were fine with being able to return it for once.

Maggie and Glenn had informed you that they'd seen everything go down - and that you'd actually hit the governor in the shoulder, rather than his chest. It was a bitter disappointment, but they'd reassured you that you'd still done a good job - after they'd given you a scolding, that is. You weren't entirely sure what had possessed you to do it - to abandon the plan. Maybe it was the images of a beaten Glenn and an inconsolable Maggie that you weren't able to rid yourself of, or perhaps it was the nightmares you had of cowering beneath Axel's body. More likely, it was the recent death of Merle, and what it had done to Daryl as a result. Whatever it was, you didn't regret it. The governor had deserved everything that was coming for him, and you'd just happened to be the one to pass the sentence.

Daryl's eyelids seemed heavy, and his breathing had evened out. You knew that if you didn't rouse him now, he'd probably fall asleep within a matter of minutes. It was selfish, but you didn't want that. You wanted to celebrate your victory - no matter how certain it had been.

"I'm sorry, Daryl." You whispered, and gently moved his hair back from his face.

The man inhaled sharply, and you watched his eyes flicker as they adjusted to the light. You let out a soft chuckle, which you were sure he could feel resonate through your chest.

"Can you help me down the stairs?" You asked sweetly, hoping to coax him awake. "I want to meet everyone."

He'd already carried you out of the rubble once today, but you hoped he'd be generous enough to lend you an arm as you hobbled down the metal steps. Daryl sat up and stretched his neck side to side before glancing over at you, his eyes immediately resting over your bandaged forehead to check it was still alright. You offered a smile to reassure him, and eventually the man nodded in return.

"It's gonna get a lot nosier 'round 'ere." He grumbled, but it didn't sound like he really minded.

Daryl had your arm slung over his shoulder as you both attempted the stairs. His other hand was on your waist for support, and he waited patiently as you took each step - going along with your pace. You'd heard the commotion from your cell, but nothing could have prepared you for the sheer amount of people that had been brought back from Woodberry. 

As your foot hit the final step you were greeted by an unexpected round of applause, interspersed with the occasional cheers. You almost stumbled back in shock, but Daryl caught your arm before you could trip.

"There she is!" Glenn yelled over the crowd. "Our suicidal sniper."

You shot Daryl a side-eye glance, but the man just shrugged in response. Your gaze ran over the unfamiliar faces as they smiled, or looked at you curiously, and you suddenly felt inadequate in comparison. You stood leaning against Daryl in your dusty clothes and bandages, and sheepishly lowered your head as they stared. Eventually, Daryl shooed them all away, warning them to 'get out of your face.' 

It made you laugh, and you aimed some teasing remarks in his direction - pestering him if he'd like to become your bodyguard. The chatter buzzed around you like nothing you'd ever heard before. Even in the old world, the atmosphere couldn't compare. You didn't know how long it had been since you'd even laid eyes on so many people at once. You knew that you'd have to clear out some other cell blocks just to make room for them all. This was the start of something; you just knew it.

Someone called your name from amongst the fray, but Daryl didn't stop ushering you over to a nearby seat. You whipped your head around in confusion, but continued to shuffle along until you had the opportunity to sit down. He leant against the table next to you, resembling a diligent guard dog. Daryl was the most loyal man you'd ever met, and everyday he reminded you not to settle for anything less. You wondered how anyone could ever come close to him - past or present. Your ex had been a mere speck of poorly-chosen dust in comparison to Daryl Dixon. 

The man seemed to be able to read your thoughts, as he glanced in your direction with perfect timing - causing you to look away. You heard your name through the thick of the crowd again, and this time tried harder to locate the source. Only a few seconds later, someone emerged from the centre of the room, pushing past everyone so that she could get to you. 

The woman had neat brown hair to her shoulders, and was wearing a sundress that looked like it had been recently pressed. All of the former Woodberry inhabitants looked clean, but she definitely stood out due to how beautiful she was. Her eyes were a warm coffee colour, and her smile was bright as she looked over at you.

You choked on your words, immediately standing up only to stumble into Daryl's shoulder. He quickly got a hand under your arm to steady you, but had a disapproving expression on his face as he did so.

"Vanessa?" You spluttered out, and she gave you an excited nod in return.

Daryl barely had time to step aside before the woman bounded up to you and flung her arms around your neck. She squeezed you so tightly that you forgot how to breathe, but you hugged her back with the same force - clasping your arms around her back.

You were utterly speechless. The last time you'd seen the woman, the two of you were witnessing the complete horror of your camp being destroyed. You'd looked for her in the days following, but she'd seemed to simply disappear into the night. You hadn't even thought she'd made it out alive. She'd been your colleague before all this, and then your campmate. But, most importantly, she'd been your friend.

You stared at her as she pulled away, and she giggled at your dumbfounded expression. Her smile was as pretty as you remembered, and you suddenly felt pale in comparison to her rosy cheeks and honey complexion. She was as quick-witted as ever, and wasted no time in regaining her composure to tease you like you'd never even spent any time apart.

Daryl watched in silence, not wanting to interrupt, but you could tell that he was starting to put the pieces together.

"You were the one who shot him?" She asked, as though in utter shock.

She had her hands on either of your shoulders, and looked you up and down before settling over your one foot that you kept hovering above ground.

"Yeah." You replied sheepishly, and glanced off to the side.

The woman slapped your arm in disbelief, and Daryl shot her a warning look that made you snort. She looked over at the man, too, and raised an eyebrow.

"What on earth happened to you?" She questioned, meeting your eyes this time.

You stared at the floral pattern of her sundress, secretly wishing you had something equally as pretty, and shrugged.

"Well, I hit my forehead and sprained my ankle-" you started, but the woman cut you off.

"I don't mean that." She remarked, with a disapproving tone.

She sounded the same as she did on those days you'd spend your lunch breaks together, or go and get coffee at the local shop - trading gossip and work secrets. She grinned at you mischievously, and it didn't go unnoticed by Daryl.

"Where is the timid girl who sang 'Yellow Submarine' to us from her tent every night?"

The man beside you was the one to laugh this time, and you jabbed him with your elbow in response. 

"I really do miss that tent." You mumbled under your breath, and thought you could hear Daryl weakly protest below his.

Vanessa eyed the two of you, and her mouth upturned into a grin you recognised all too well. It was the one she wore when whispering to you about cute baristas, or when sliding her number across the bar. 

"And who's this?" She said, in a tone that was equally as familiar.

She turned to face Daryl, and gave him a quick once-over like she was checking for any visible flaws. You couldn't contain your laugh; she always did lack subtlety.

"This is Daryl." You told her, and slipped your hand into his. "My-" you paused, furrowing your eyebrows as you did, "boyfriend?"

It came out like a question, and Daryl snorted uncharacteristically from beside you.

"'M too old for tha' word." He grumbled, but it was still light-hearted.

You took the opportunity to have some fun, and pressed your chest against his arm as you got closer to his ear.

"What do you want me to say, then?" You asked teasingly. "My partner? Sweetheart?" 

The man seemed completely taken aback to hear you call him anything besides 'Dixon.' 

"My other half? The old ball 'n chain-" you continued, but were abruptly interrupted as he shrugged you off in embarrassment.

"D'you wan' another head injury?" He asked - a little too quickly and a lot too loudly.

Vanessa laughed her usual dainty laugh, and you'd almost forgotten that she was even there. Daryl's cheeks were dusted a light pink, and you knew he would remind you of this later when you were alone.

"You two are good together." The woman spoke, causing you to look over in her direction. "I'm glad you found someone in all of this." 

You gave her a shy smile, before looking down at your feet. You'd never been good with compliments, but she always seemed to have an abundance of them to give.

"After everything you've been through," she went on, this time glancing over at Daryl with a look that could only be described as approval. "You really deserve someone who can make you happy."

Happy. That is what this feeling was. You'd almost forgotten what the word meant, but you were suddenly reminded. Daryl had made you feel a lot of things since you'd met him - first a lot of nerves and sometimes even frustration, but eventually it became comfort and security. However, you realised that all along there were moments of happiness. Even back at the farm, the man never did fail to make you laugh - intentionally or unintentionally. Whether it was his dry sense of humour, or the wise-cracks he'd make in those days where he seemed younger, and more willing to fight the world. 

You looked over at the man like you'd only just come to the most obvious of realisations. Daryl Dixon made you happy - like nothing else had before.

As the night started to settle down, the atmosphere fizzled away along with it. Everyone had taken to their temporary sleeping arrangements, and you could tell that Daryl was holding back his yawns as he helped you clamber over the people left chatting on the floor. The day felt like it had gone on for a week, and you couldn't wait to just sink into bed and let your bandaged head meet the pillows.

Across the block, you spotted Rick talking to some of the new residents, and urged Daryl to return to the cell ahead of you. The man glanced down at your foot and then back up to your eyes, as though needing to state the obvious. You shook your head, telling him that you'd get Rick to help you up the stairs once you were done. You just wanted to talk to the officer briefly, and didn't want to keep Daryl up any longer than he needed to be.

He didn't seem entirely convinced, but he left you propped up against the wall where you instructed him to. His stubbornness had definitely rubbed off on you, you'd realised, and he could hardly attempt to fight against it.

"Deputy Grimes!" You called, once Daryl was out of ear-shot. "Get over here for a second."

The man looked up from his conversation, and you watched him excuse himself before making his way over. He looked equally as exhausted as the rest of you, and stepped heavily over the stone floor. Still, he gave you a small smile as he approached, and squeezed your shoulder.

"You did good today." He drawled, praising you for the second time tonight.

You rolled your eyes and slapped his chest with the back of your hand. 

"Don't let Daryl hear you say that." You warned, with a teasing look. "I could have died, remember?"

You'd said the words in Daryl's Southern accent, impersonating the man the best you could. Rick laughed in response, and you quickly glanced over your shoulder just to double-check that the archer wasn't still looming there.

"Never knew him to be so uptight." The officer replied, and you shrugged.

"He just needs a good night’s sleep." You explained, glancing over at the staircase leading to the second floor. "I think we all do."

Rick especially seemed like he was dead on his feet, but he held it together well. You couldn't imagine the pressure he felt having to keep everyone safe during times like these. You wanted to ease that burden a little, or even just throw some distractions in the mix to make him forget about it.

"Anyway, I heard that Glenn found a camera at Woodberry." You started, watching as he raised an eyebrow at you.

A few hours ago you'd hijacked it, and briefly kidnapped the Grimes children for that photoshoot you'd been threatening. The polaroid had turned out even better than you'd hoped - and you had almost been tempted to keep it for yourself.

You pulled the picture from your pocket, careful not to bend it, and passed it to the man. His eyes squinted as he looked at it, flat atop his palm. Both Carl and Judy were sporting their sheriff's hats, and the older Grimes had his sister perched on his lap.

"Thank you for everything you've done for us, Rick." You told him, and watched as he brought the picture closer to his face. "I'll never forget how you were always there for me."

It was rare that you ever saw the man speechless, but in that moment you were sure you saw a glimpse of the same Rick Grimes you'd first encountered back at the farm - that officer friendly who would give anything for his family.

He shook his head wordlessly, before tucking the picture into the inside pocket of his jacket.

"You don't give yourself enough credit." He said quietly, before slinging one of your arms around his neck. "And I don't think you ever will."

You returned to your cell soon after that, bidding the officer goodnight at the door. He gave you a quick kiss on the cheek before reminding you to change your bandages in the morning. You laughed in response, wondering why all the men around you treated you like glass.

The room was quiet as you ducked under the sheet hanging at the doorway, and you shuffled inside. Daryl had lit the small lamp on the table, and it cast a warm, golden glow over him where he lay. He had his eyes closed, but you noticed he had your headphones on - connected to the walkman that was left at the edge of the mattress.

You could hear the faint din of the music as some sound escaped, and slowly made your way over to the bed - not wanting to startle the man. He was still fully dressed, and had his arms tucked under his head as he lay on his back. You didn't think he was asleep; rather, he seemed to be waiting for you.

You knelt down onto the mattress, feeling it dip beneath your weight as you crawled up beside him. He didn't react, so you pulled one side of the headphones from his ear, and brought your lips close to it.

"Boo." You whispered, and blew hot air there to make him shiver.

This time he cracked an eye open, and pulled you down beside him gently. He continued to be mindful of your head, and plumped a pillow up for you to lay on. He then removed the headphones, and twisted the ends of them so that the speaker parts were facing outwards. 

You chuckled at the action, suddenly thinking back on your childhood where you'd share a pair with your friends. Daryl placed them in the space between the two of you, so that you could both listen to the songs together. You heard something by The Beatles play muffled, and closed your eyes to take in the melody.

The two of you talked briefly, and sleepily, for a bit. Daryl grumbled about you using him as a makeshift crutch for the majority of the night, and you just hummed in response. You caught him glancing over at you every now and then, but he made no attempt to pull you closer like he usually would have. You knew it was because of your head; he didn't even have to tell you.

"Hershel said it might leave a small scar." You told him, like it was a secret you felt needed to be disclosed.

You didn't really mind all that much, but you knew Daryl had a tendency to look at you guilt-stricken whenever he saw you injured. You just wanted to warn him - just in case.

"Like Harry Potter or some shit?" The man mumbled, and you rolled your eyes.

"Maybe." You replied.

The chatter downstairs had settled, and all that remained was the tinny sound of the music that quietly played near your ear. You swallowed thickly, staring up at the ceiling to see the uneven cracks that marred it.

"Will you still love me if I have a gawdy scar over my forehead?" You asked teasingly - but a part of you felt nervous to hear the response.

Then, your eyes widened as you realised your choice of words. You sat up, immediately feeling the blood rush to your head as you did so.

"Wait-" you stuttered, noticing the man's expression. "I'm sorry. I didn't mean-"

He cut you off before you could finish.

"I will."

You blinked, but he pulled you back down to him - this time letting you lay your head gently over his chest.

"Know I ain't said it before, but-" he paused, "I love ya." 

His heartbeat pounded quickly against your cheek, as though proving his words.

"I love ya so goddamn much, so don't ever pull that shit on me again."

You felt tears start to well up in your eyes, and hoped he couldn't feel them dampen his shirt.

"I love ya - you crazy woman who shot the governor an' took a bullet for me."

You swallowed thickly, trying to hide the wateriness of your voice as you responded.

"I love you too, Dixon." You admitted, wondering why you hadn't done so before.

You'd loved the man almost as long as you could remember; but it was one thing to love, and another thing to be loved in return.

"I won't let anything on this earth take me away from you." You mumbled against him. "You don't have to worry about that."

Daryl breathed in deeply, and you moved along with the rise and fall of his chest. This is what happiness felt like, you decided. Happiness wasn't as perfect as you had once thought it to be - back in the old world. It wasn't that amazing job, or the hard-earned paycheck, nor was it the men who called you pretty whilst giving you an ugly stare. Happiness for you was now walking around the perimeter of a dingy prison, hand-in-hand, as you stared up at the morning sun preparing for a fight. Happiness was those nights you'd stay awake, listening to the laughs down the hall of Maggie and Glenn as they whispered about their future together, and noticing that Daryl was eavesdropping, too. Most importantly, happiness was the man who you woke up next to, and the sound of his voice as he told you 'good morning.'

You looked down at his hand, resting on his chest, and saw the ink there that had smudged throughout the day. The walkman finished its tune, and there was a brief, few-second silence before it skipped to the next one. A familiar melody rang out, and Daryl placed a careful kiss over your hair.

"I like this song." He whispered against you, and you nodded in return.

"Yeah, me too."

A/N It took 20 chapters, 120k words, but they finally exchanged their ‘I love you’s.’ I think it was obvious that they already loved each other before this, but hearing them say it out loud just- 

Send me a message if you want to be added or removed from the taglist!

Tag List:

@xxboesefrauxx @youhavemyfantasticbeasts @teel-dinosaur @speakinglikeconstellations @bunnymother93 @alularae3 @death-becomes-her @royaleclown @alex-sulli @julesmalek @fuseburner @riverscyberwife @browneyes528 @julesclues @diaryofkali @solinarimoon @ssonia13 @phoenixblack89 @srhxpci @jocyc1997 @bvbwestfall @graniairish @bitchynicole @whitexwingedxdoves @potatochic2003 @suranne-doesstuff​ @witch-of-letters​ @sweatywildpanda​ @daryldixonstorm​ @btsiguess-kpop​

[jafndaegur]

Things Said and Unsaid

Jumin Han x MC

Mystic Messenger

a/n: now that the zine is long past, here is my story from the Garden of Eden Zine:) Enjoy!

Jumin twisted the flower stem between his fingers as he reclined further against the chair. Waxy pink petals mocked him in a way that he did not appreciate and the bright bloom weighed heavily, leaning forward in his careless grasp. He rested his chin on the back of his free hand, temple twitching at the not-quite perfect amount of wine for a buzz but enough for a headache. 

MC's voice still floated in the air as if she'd just called about her final report for the RFA event.

"All of the flower arrangements are ready for the party," her voice was stilted over the phone even as she tried to be chipper.

Jumin wondered if she felt uncomfortable around him with everything said and done. "They'll look beautiful I'm sure." He reassured. 

The pause and silence between them felt unnatural and constricting.

"What did you pick? For the bouquets." He finally peeped out, his voice rocking with concern. Had they always struggled with communicating? The memory of being able to freely converse with her, speaking of any little trivial thing that came to mind an easy and amusing way for him to pass the time. Surely he hadn’t ruined things so thoroughly during the time she had spent at the penthouse.

MC’s airy and pitched laugh reached his ears in a painful display of her discomfort. "That'd ruin the surprise."

And what a surprise it'd been.

Jumin had been eager, and even anxious, in awaiting her arrival to the party. Afterall they all owed its renewed existence to her. And he himself owed so much to her too. When they had parted the night before, V rightfully helping her return to the apartment, it had been with a tender apology. She'd embraced him—held him close and promised things would work out the way they should.

He wasn’t sure if it had been a lie or her convincing herself. Perhaps some odd adherration of both to her conviction.

The day of the party came, but MC did not.

It was obvious that Seven had hesitated his journey before finally making the reluctant trek to Jumin with a piece of paper in one hand and a tied bouquet of flowers in the other.

The pink camellia had seemed so bright and vibrant in the light of the ballroom. And even now in Jumin's hand, standing stark and vibrant, the bloom dazzled against the rest of his muted parlor decor. It smiled and flourished, and yet here he sat more dejected and more confused than ever.

Somehow, he managed his way back to the kitchen, where the rest of his  bouquet lay abandoned on his dining room table—scattered petals and bulbs strewn across the wood top due to his careless toss of the bunch. He had been angry and frustrated at the time, but now he felt guilt tugging at the span of his ribs when he thought of the disregard he gave to her last gift to him. The note lay innocently next to it, as if trying to appease him with the gentle slope of MC's handwriting.

I've meant everything Jumin. Said and unsaid. I don't regret anything and I hope you won't either. But we both need this to move forward, I think this is what's right...I hope you'll see that. I've left you the best.

-MC

Among the flowers, pink carnations were the easiest to pick out. The petals crimped and wavy, and the blossoms themselves the most commonplace and plain. And yet MC had made sure the flowers had stayed nestled close amongst bushels of goldenrod. Another odd pick for a formal party. His eye for detail made things easy to recognize that beautiful hardworking and problem-solving touch MC made with every  deliberate and precise choice. He knew that much. From the sorrel that warmly held everything together, to the pink camellias blushing prettily at the center wrapped in forget-me-nots.

In times such as these Jumin realized he had one consultant he could count on, a source where information passed easily from itself to him. Where he could learn unhindered and without bias about the best that MC left behind for him. Because surely, she did not simply mean the best flowers from the bunch. She was too clever for that.

He found himself at a library, in the area with the farmer's almanacs and horticulture how-tos. It was an aisle he frequented when seeking answers to inquiries about his vineyard. 

Heavy and cumbersome, he found an encyclopedic tome titled Whispers from the Flowers. It was an odd name but upon opening it he found satisfaction knowing that his assumption on its topic had been correct. The flower language. Something not in a million years he imagined himself researching. But for MC, he would do anything. And his beloved left behind one very, very important clue. "Things said and unsaid." And he hoped it was more than a mere sentimental way of saying she left him behind regardless of whether or not she was able to relay all she wished to. 

Jumin found the index at the back of the book, searching for sorrel first. MC had meticulously ensured that the green and stringy plant entwined itself around the main bouquet like a cradle. It was hardly a flower and yet the vibrancy of it added life and color outside of the thematic pink hues of the other blooms. Affection. Sorrel is the gateway to confessions and the key to unlocking the heart—it lays bare the raw and pure emotion of those who offer it. His fingers danced over the words, tracing the letters with the faintest of smiles. MC's disappearance seemed like a rather large lack of said-affection, but he knew there had to be further explanation. And all answers resided within the little puzzle she had set aside just for him.

Because she knew and understood he had every capability to solve it. He hoped.

Encouragement. Good fortune. Goldenrod offers the same blade with two edges. One of well wishes and the other of outstretched hands. It is an easy flower to convey both farewells and prosperity. 

Jumin’s breath curled within his chest and his fingers hovered. “Farewells.” It was a mutter, something that he dare not speak more than a whisper.  MC left behind hide nor hair of her existence. The memory of her laugh and gilded eyes were the only proof he could offer. Yet somewhere amongst the agonizing pull in his chest as he read the summary over and over again, he feared that she had truly meant her goodbye hidden within these flowers. 

He knew his own faults had greatly weighed upon her decision to leave with Jihyun that day. But had he really ruined things so much that she chose never to see any of them again to escape him? Were all affections between them nullified because of his shortcomings.

Breath hitched and his fists clenched the book. Memories of true love. Forget-me-nots are the staple flower of sweet love. Anyone gifting their sweetheart with these iconic blooms know every moment spent with their true love will be cherished and treasured. Jumin’s brow furrowed. Contradictory. This was all so illogical and contradictory. If he had not just recently gone through a week-long anxiety attack and now the loss of the woman he had planned to propose to, he’d chalk these meanings up to happenstance and throw the book into the closest recycling bin. But everything said had been meant. And everything unsaid had been meant. He needed for his own sanity and for his own comprehension to know if these flowers truly enveloped MC’s feelings for him. Or if he was just a fool trying to pry into a love that was never his to keep.

“I’ll never forget you.” 

A shudder. The words flowed past his lips as he read the phrase mechanically. “I’ll never forget you.” Each utterance a tremor to his heart as the walls constricted and shook.

I’ll never forget you. Pink carnations are easily the most misused and the most misunderstood. Believed to be a simpleton’s flower, the meaning behind this bloom is often lost due to being handed out of context. It’s beautiful and pastel color can often be misleading. It is a mournful flower, often handed at the cusp of goodbye. A beautiful tendril to remember a fleeting yet vibrant romance. 

The search through the index for the last flower was a trembling one.  Jumin’s fingers skimmed the crisp paper gentle against his skin as he tried to account his increasing pulse to apprehension or suspense. He was approaching the last piece of MC’s riddle and good or bad—real or not—he had been able to come to some conclusion about their parting. About their romance. About them. 

His vision blurred and he felt the world spin.

A note had been tucked away close to the spine where the pages parted. It was a small envelope, no bigger than an index card. “Jumin” had been scripted neatly on the front, and on the back, there was a little flower drawn over the edge of the opening flap. He recognized MC’s handwriting anywhere. Impulse struck a chord with his nerves and he plucked the note quickly before forcing himself to slow down. He wanted to finish this mission. 

Pink camellias. Longing for you.

No more waiting. Jumin dropped the book and tore the envelope open. His heart pitter-pattered and he double took the gentle slope of that oh-so familiar handwriting. The gentle sweep and slant of her penmanship was obvious the moment he gazed upon the ink. There before him, tiny and hopeful, was a phone number. He'd arrived at the end of her puzzle with a growing smile, shaking his head with a fond chuckle. His finger brushed the new note.

"You can be greedy, you know," he whispered reverently. "Around me don't worry. Whatever fears or struggles we may have to face, we'll figure them out together. You don't have to hold back for my sake or for yours."

He pulled two business cards from his wallet, placing one in the forget-me-knots section and the other in the section about pink camellias. Satisfied, he closed the book and walked to the front desk where the head librarian sat typing away on the computer. Noticing his approach, they gave him a warm smile. Holding out their hand, the librarian inclined their head.

"Got everything you need?"

Jumin nodded and handed the book over. "I will soon enough. In the meantime, could you place this on hold? A friend is going to pick it up."

"Of course," the librarian nodded. "Name and number."

"Han MC," Jumin decided with a touch of humor, a welcomed break to his multi-day anxiety high, before reciting the number from the note.

The person assured him that MC would be notified and that the book would be on hold for the next twenty-four hours. He bowed his head slightly and graciously thanked them before heading to the car where Driver Kim awaited. There was so little time to get ready but he wanted to make the most of this anticipation that clung to his lungs with baited breath.

[dreamescapeswriting]

The Coordinates Of My Heart ~ JJK [Request]

WORD COUNT: 2.4K

GENRE: Angst, fluffy ending, established relationship

PAIRING: Jungkook x fem!reader

It was no secret that Jungkook had tattoos all over his body, everyone had seen them by now but not every single tattoo that covered him. There was one very secret tattoo that nobody except for you and Jungkook knew about...Well, you, Jungkook and his ex-girlfriend that was. It was only a small tattoo on his left peck but it was one of the biggest mistakes Jungkook had ever made in his life, the whole time he was getting his collection of tattoos he swore he would never have someone's name tattooed onto his body and yet there it sat. Black ink across his peck with her name in cursive writing with a small heart attached at the end, "SeoJun" The tattoo bothered you a lot but you would never let that show in front of Jungkook. You'd been dating for almost three years now so you never brought it up except for the first time he showed you. He wanted you to know that she meant nothing to him anymore but that it was there and something he had to deal with. 

It was still a crushing feeling to see another girls name tattooed on his body and him always saying that he would never do it again, never tattoo a name across him anywhere on his body. You knew he was thinking rationally but there was a part of you inside that cried out to know why he wouldn't put your name on himself instead but the other part of you thought rationally. He probably didn't want to chance it by getting your name tattooed anywhere on himself and having the relationship fall through. 

"Baby I'm so tired," Jungkook groaned that morning as he walked down the stairs to you in the living room he was shirtless and wearing a pair of shorts, you were trying to convince him to go swimming with you. It was his week off from the studio, he took it off to spend time with you but for the last six days he'd done nothing but lay in bed gaming or go out to dinner with his friends, or hang out with the boys. 

"I'm only asking for this one thing baby...Please! I don't want to go alone." You giggled to him as you tugged on his hands trying to convince him to go with you, he looked at you tiredly as he shook his head.

"I'm busy today," He mumbled as he took his arm out of your grasp, ignoring the look of confusion written across your face as he walked into the kitchen. Jungkook hadn't told you he'd made plans with anyone which was why you'd woken him up in the first place if you'd have known he was busy you would have left him. Following after him, you went into the kitchen and he began to make himself something to eat,

"Busy with what? We haven't hung out all week, you said you took the week off to spend time with me." You uttered you knew it probably sounded as though you were being childish but right now you didn't care, you'd missed your boyfriend and this week it felt like you saw him less than you did when he was actually working. 

"I actually said I took the week off to relax, so far I haven't done any of that." He grumbled as he began pouring himself a bowl of cereal, not meeting your eyes as he spoke. Rolling your eyes at him you shook your head, 

"You've relaxed plenty, all you've done is game and sleep...As well as go to lunch, or spent time with friends...W-What if we went for walk instead? Namjoon said he found this really cute hiking trail..." You trailed off when you realised Jungkook was more interested in the phone that was sitting in his hand than he was in listening to you talk to him. The thought of him ignoring you was heartbreaking enough, you began to overthink everything, maybe he was getting bored of being with you...

"But of course, I wouldn't want to take you away from what is really important." You grumbled to him referring to the phone before storming out of the kitchen and into the living room to grab your swimming bag to go alone since he wasn't that bothered about you anymore.

"Are you upset because I won't hang out with you?! We don't have to be around each other 24/7 Y/n." He followed you into the living room staring into your eyes as he waited for you to say something back to him. He didn't mean for it to come out as harsh as the way it was.

"No, but it would be nice if my own boyfriend wanted to do something with me. Watch a movie, go for a walk, order food. All you've been bothered about is gaming or hanging with the guys, we haven't done anything this week." He rolled his eyes at you before going back into the kitchen without another word in your direction. You knew it wasn't supposed to start a fight but there was a part inside of you that wanted answers from him. 

"Tell me I'm wrong then. Tell me one time this week you've even wanted or offered to hang out with me." You stated as you walked back into the kitchen, he put his bowl down into the sink shaking his head at you. 

"I've been busy. I'm doing stuff all week, I don't need you jumping down my neck-" He stopped talking when his phone began to ring on the table in front of him for a second you could have sworn a panicked look spread across his face. Out of habit your eyes glanced down to see who it was but as soon as you saw the name you wish you hadn't. SEOJUN. Was written across the screen in big bold writing with a broken heart beside her name just like the tattoo Jungkook had only the heart was broken. 

"W-Why is she calling you?" Instead of answering you Jungkook just turned the phone over so you couldn't see it and shook his head at the question. 

"Jungkook..." You whispered feeling insecure at the thought of him starting to see her again, it wasn't that you didn't trust him. It was Seojun that you didn't trust. She was manipulative and cunning. She always got whatever it was she wanted if she used the right way on Jungkook it was like she had a spell on him.

"Y/n it's not what it looks like, she's just started to say sorry to me that's all. She wants to make up for all the awful things that happened, she opened up her new shop so I've been going to help-" The look on your face made Jungkook stop talking instantly and he knew he fucked up, it was a look of sadness and anger as you realised he'd been spending all of his time with her. 

"S-So you've been spending time with her? On your week off..." He nodded his head slowly not wanting to lie to you about where he had been anymore, 

"Because I knew if I told you, you would be upset-" He tried to rationalise it but you cut him off,

"Of course I would! You've been spending all of your free time with your ex-girlfriend and lying to me about it!" You yelled out as you stared down at his phone, it was starting to ring again but you both ignored it this time letting it go to voicemail.

"I was just helping out with her shop, she's straightened herself out." You scoffed at the thought of it all and the phone began to ring again, it was clear she wasn't going to quit calling him until he finally answered her call. 

"So she's trying to get back with you?" You questioned as you stared at him folding your arms over your chest,

"No! She's trying to say sorry..." You rolled your eyes at the statement, at how naive he was being about all of it and began walking away from him not wanting to listen to this.

"Am I not allowed, friends?!" He snapped at you making you turn to face him you were angrier now at the fact that he was making it seem like you were forcing him not to talk to her, 

"You can be friends with whoever you want...B-But didn't you think about how this would make me feel? Seeing her again? When she's literally tattooed across your chest?!" He heard the crack in your voice as you stormed out of the door, leaving him alone in the world of his own thoughts. He knew how much the tattoo hurt you even if you refused to show him that sometimes, he groaned picking up his phone to her. 

"I'll be running late today, come by about 2 pm? The place will be empty and it'll be just me and you, like old times." He sighed as he heard her voice down the other side of the phone, 

"We should stop, she's suspicious..." He whispered to Seojun as he walked out of the kitchen and towards the front door, you were sitting in the car so he walked up the stairs to talk. 

You whimpered as you got into your car, starting up the engine and driving off towards the pool. You didn't even need to go, you just had to be out of the house for a while to let your brain cool down from what was happening, you were probably just overreacting to it all. 

When you came in after swimming the house was empty, all of the lights were off so you knew Jungkook must have been out or up in bed asleep but it was only 7 pm so that was unlikely true. You dropped your keys down in the small bowl by the front door and kicked off your shoes wanting nothing more than to snuggle up beside Jungkook and say sorry for that morning but he wasn't there so you went for the next best thing. Having a shower and curling up in one of his shirts while you waited for him to come home, you'd left him some texts but if he was still upset about this morning you doubted he would answer you. 

As you walked into the kitchen you saw a note on the door, 

Went out to think. Don't wait up. Love you. x x x JJK x x x You smiled halfheartedly as you read the note from him to you and screwed it up before putting it into the bin. All you had to do was remind yourself that Jungkook loved you, he would never do anything to hurt you.

Later that night Jungkook pulled up outside the house and saw your car, 

"I'll call you later, Y/n's home so I'm going to talk to her if she's awake," Jungkook said to Seojun who hummed before hanging upon him. He shut the door carefully and headed up to the front door, it was almost 12 pm so you were most likely asleep in bed but when he walked into the living room you were out cold on the sofa. Draped in one of his jumpers and a pair of shorts with a blanket around you, the TV was playing to itself all of their Bangtan bombs and he smiled to himself. At least you weren't too angry at him to fall asleep to his voice, he turned off the TV and headed into the kitchen. 

A small hissing noise made you wake up when you heard small grunts of pain, 

"Guk?" You moaned out as you rubbed your eyes, the kitchen light was on and the moaning was coming from there. Terror ripped through you at the thought of him and someone else being in there together but Jungkook would never do that...Would he? Slowly sliding off the sofa you tip-toed into the kitchen to see Jungkook with his back to you, he was hissing as he pulled something off his chest, 

"Kookie? What's going on?" Jungkook jumped as your voice suddenly filled the air, he turned to face you and you saw what he was struggling to do. There was fresh clingfilm wrapped around his chest along with some pads, 

"Jungkook?" You frowned walking further into the kitchen as you helped him take off the cling film, 

"I did something." He mumbled as he took your hands into his own to stop you from removing the rest of it all, 

"We have to talk..." You stared into his eyes waiting for him to continue and he looked down, 

"I know how much the tattooed bothered you without you saying anything...That's the reason I've been seeing Seojun so much, she runs her own tattoo parlour instead of working for other people now..." You remembered him telling you once that she worked as a tattooist in someone else's shop, 

"S-So you went to her to get a tattoo done? Why didn't you tell me?" He let go of your wrists and allowed you to keep unwrapping the clingfilm until it got to the end and the flower could be seen, 

"Because we were working on something I couldn't tell you about," Sitting on his left peck, covering the entire muscle was a huge tattoo of your birth flower. Tears began to well up in your eyes as you stared at the masterpiece, 

"The best part." He whispered as he took your hand carefully and lead it over to the middle of his chest, written in small black in were some coordinates. 

"Do you know what that is?" You stared at them with a frown on your face shaking your head at him trying to work it out, 

"It's the coordinates of where I first told you that I loved you," You stared at the coordinates before wrapping your arms around the back of his neck and dragging him into a passionate kiss. Tugging him closer to you until he hissed out in pain, 

"S-Sorry, the tattoo is sore." He chuckled as you looked at it again, 

"Where's your cream? I'll apply it and then we can go to bed?" You questioned as he nodded at you, telling you where the cream he used for all his tattoo's was kept and went to sit on the sofa for you. Smiling happily as he waited for you to come back to him.

Tagline: @lyoongx​ @mitzwinchester​ @fan-ati--c​ @rjsmochii​ @kneel-begyourpardon​ @taestannie​ @bisexualmess007​ @innersooya​ @sw33tnight​ @jin-from-the-block​ @sweeneyblue1​

[chrisevansluv]

Here is the 2012 Detail Magazine interview with chris evans:

The Avengers' Chris Evans: Just Your Average Beer-Swilling, Babe-Loving Buddhist

The 30-year-old Bud Light-chugging, Beantown-bred star of The Avengers is widely perceived as the ultimate guy's guy. But beneath the bro persona lies a serious student of Buddhism, an unrepentant song-and-dance man, and a guy who talks to his mom about sex. And farts.

By Adam Sachs,

Photographs by Norman Jean Roy

May 2012 Issue

"Should we just kill him and bury his body?" Chris Evans is stage whispering into the impassive blinking light of my digital recorder.

"Chris!" shouts his mother, her tone a familiar-to-anyone-with-a-mother mix of coddling and concern. "Don't say that! What if something happened?"

We're at Evans' apartment, an expansive but not overly tricked-out bachelor-pad-ish loft in a semi-industrial nowheresville part of Boston, hard by Chinatown, near an area sometimes called the Combat Zone. Evans has a fuzzy, floppy, slept-in-his-clothes aspect that'd be nearly unrecognizable if you knew him only by the upright, spit-polished bearing of the onscreen hero. His dog, East, a sweet and slobbery American bulldog, is spread out on a couch in front of the TV. The shelves of his fridge are neatly stacked with much of the world's supply of Bud Light in cans and little else.

On the counter sit a few buckets of muscle-making whey-protein powder that belong to Evans' roommate, Zach Jarvis, an old pal who sometimes tags along on set as a paid "assistant" and a personal trainer who bulked Evans up for his role as the super-ripped patriot in last summer's blockbuster Captain America: The First Avenger. A giant clock on the exposed-brick wall says it's early evening, but Evans operates on his own sense of time. Between gigs, his schedule's all his, which usually translates into long stretches of alone time during the day and longer social nights for the 30-year-old.

"I could just make this . . . disappear," says Josh Peck, another old pal and occasional on-set assistant, in a deadpan mumble, poking at the voice recorder I'd left on the table while I was in the bathroom.

Evans' mom, Lisa, now speaks directly into the microphone: "Don't listen to them—I'm trying to get them not to say these things!"

But not saying things isn't in the Evans DNA. They're an infectiously gregarious clan. Irish-Italians, proud Bostoners, close-knit, and innately theatrical. "We all act, we sing," Evans says. "It was like the fucking von Trapps." Mom was a dancer and now runs a children's theater. First-born Carly directed the family puppet shows and studied theater at NYU. Younger brother Scott has parts on One Life to Live and Law & Order under his belt and lives in Los Angeles full-time—something Evans stopped doing several years back. Rounding out the circle are baby sister Shanna and a pair of "strays" the family brought into their Sudbury, Massachusetts, home: Josh, who went from mowing the lawn to moving in when his folks relocated during his senior year in high school; and Demery, who was Evans' roommate until recently.

"Our house was like a hotel," Evans says. "It was a loony-tunes household. If you got arrested in high school, everyone knew: 'Call Mrs. Evans, she'll bail you out.'"

Growing up, they had a special floor put in the basement where all the kids practiced tap-dancing. The party-ready rec room also had a Ping-Pong table and a separate entrance. This was the house kids in the neighborhood wanted to hang at, and this was the kind of family you wanted to be adopted by. Spend an afternoon listening to them dish old dirt and talk over each other and it's easy to see why. Now they're worried they've said too much, laid bare the tender soul of the actor behind the star-spangled superhero outfit, so there's talk of offing the interviewer. I can hear all this from the bathroom, which, of course, is the point of a good stage whisper.

To be sure, no one's said too much, and the more you're brought into the embrace of this boisterous, funny, shit-slinging, demonstrably loving extended family, the more likable and enviable the whole dynamic is.

Sample exchange from today's lunch of baked ziti at a family-style Italian restaurant:

Mom: When he was a kid, he asked me, 'Mom, will I ever think farting isn't funny?'

Chris: You're throwing me under the bus, Ma! Thank you.

Mom: Well, if a dog farts you still find it funny.

Then, back at the apartment, where Mrs. Evans tries to give me good-natured dirt on her son without freaking him out:

Mom: You always tell me when you think a girl is attractive. You'll call me up so excited. Is that okay to say?

Chris: Nothing wrong with that.

Mom: And can I say all the girls you've brought to the house have been very sweet and wonderful? Of course, those are the ones that make it to the house. It's been a long time, hasn't it?

Chris: Looooong time.

Mom: The last one at our house? Was it six years ago?

Chris: No names, Ma!

Mom: But she knocked it out of the park.

Chris: She got drunk and puked at Auntie Pam's house! And she puked on the way home and she puked at our place.

Mom: And that's when I fell in love with her. Because she was real.

We're operating under a no-names rule, so I'm not asking if it's Jessica Biel who made this memorable first impression. She and Evans were serious for a couple of years. But I don't want to picture lovely Jessica Biel getting sick at Auntie Pam's or in the car or, really, anywhere.

East the bulldog ambles over to the table, begging for food.

"That dog is the love of his life," Mrs. Evans says. "Which tells me he'll be an unbelievable parent, but I don't want him to get married right now." She turns to Chris. "The way you are, I just don't think you're ready."

Some other things I learn about Evans from his mom: He hates going to the gym; he was so wound-up as a kid she'd let him stand during dinner, his legs shaking like caged greyhounds; he suffered weekly "Sunday-night meltdowns" over schoolwork and the angst of the sensitive middle-schooler; after she and his father split and he was making money from acting, he bought her the Sudbury family homestead rather than let her leave it.

Eventually his mom and Josh depart, and Evans and I go to work depleting his stash of Bud Light. It feels like we drink Bud Light and talk for days, because we basically do. I arrived early Friday evening; it's Saturday night now and it'll be sunup Sunday before I sleeplessly make my way to catch a train back to New York City. Somewhere in between we slip free of the gravitational pull of the bachelor pad and there's bottle service at a club and a long walk with entourage in tow back to Evans' apartment, where there is some earnest-yet-surreal group singing, piano playing, and chitchat. Evans is fun to talk to, partly because he's an open, self-mocking guy with an explosive laugh and no apparent need to sleep, and partly because when you cut just below the surface, it's clear he's not quite the dude's dude he sometimes plays onscreen and in TV appearances.

From a distance, Chris Evans the movie star seems a predictable, nearly inevitable piece of successful Hollywood packaging come to market. There's his major-release debut as the dorkily unaware jock Jake in the guilty pleasure Not Another Teen Movie (in one memorable scene, Evans has whipped cream on his chest and a banana up his ass). The female-friendly hunk appeal—his character in The Nanny Diaries is named simply Harvard Hottie—is balanced by a kind of casual-Friday, I'm-from-Boston regular-dudeness. Following the siren song of comic-book cash, he was the Human Torch in two Fantastic Four films. As with scrawny Steve Rogers, the Captain America suit beefed up his stature as a formidable screen presence, a bankable leading man, all of which leads us to The Avengers, this season's megabudget, megawatt ensemble in which he stars alongside Scarlett Johansson, Mark Ruffalo, Robert Downey Jr., and Chris Hemsworth.

It all feels inevitable—and yet it nearly didn't happen. Evans repeatedly turned down the Captain America role, fearing he'd be locked into what was originally a nine-picture deal. He was shooting Puncture, about a drug-addicted lawyer, at the time. Most actors doing small-budget legal dramas would jump at the chance to play the lead in a Marvel franchise, but Evans saw a decade of his life flash before his eyes.

What he remembers thinking is this: "What if the movie comes out and it's a success and I just reject all of this? What if I want to move to the fucking woods?"

By "the woods," he doesn't mean a quiet life away from the spotlight, some general metaphorical life escape route. He means the actual woods. "For a long time all I wanted for Christmas were books about outdoor survival," he says. "I was convinced that I was going to move to the woods. I camped a lot, I took classes. At 18, I told myself if I don't live in the woods by the time I'm 25, I have failed."

Evans has described his hesitation at signing on for Captain America. Usually he talks about the time commitment, the loss of what remained of his relative anonymity. On the junkets for the movie, he was open about needing therapy after the studio reduced the deal to six movies and he took the leap. What he doesn't usually mention is that he was racked with anxiety before the job came up.

"I get very nervous," Evans explains. "I shit the bed if I have to present something on stage or if I'm doing press. Because it's just you." He's been known to walk out of press conferences, to freeze up and go silent during the kind of relaxed-yet-high-stakes meetings an actor of his stature is expected to attend: "Do you know how badly I audition? Fifty percent of the time I have to walk out of the room. I'm naturally very pale, so I turn red and sweat. And I have to literally walk out. Sometimes mid-audition. You start having these conversations in your brain. 'Chris, don't do this. Chris, take it easy. You're just sitting in a room with a person saying some words, this isn't life. And you're letting this affect you? Shame on you.'"

Shades of "Sunday-night meltdowns." Luckily the nerves never follow him to the set. "You do your neuroses beforehand, so when they yell 'Action' you can be present," he says.

Okay, there was one on-set panic attack—while Evans was shooting Puncture. "We were getting ready to do a court scene in front of a bunch of people, and I don't know what happened," he says. "It's just your brain playing games with you. 'Hey, you know how we sometimes freak out? What if we did it right now?'"

One of the people who advised Evans to take the Captain America role was his eventual Avengers costar Robert Downey Jr. "I'd seen him around," Downey says. "We share an agent. I like to spend a lot of my free time talking to my agent about his other clients—I just had a feeling about him."

What he told Evans was: This puppy is going to be big, and when it is you're going to get to make the movies you want to make. "In the marathon obstacle course of a career," Downey says, "it's just good to have all the stats on paper for why you're not only a team player but also why it makes sense to support you in the projects you want to do—because you've made so much damned money for the studio."

There's also the fact that Evans had a chance to sign on for something likely to be a kind of watershed moment in the comic-book fascination of our time. "I do think The Avengers is the crescendo of this superhero phase in entertainment—except of course for Iron Man 3," Downey says. "It'll take a lot of innovation to keep it alive after this."

Captain America is the only person left who was truly close to Howard Stark, father of Tony Stark (a.k.a. Iron Man), which meant that Evans' and Downey's story lines are closely linked, and in the course of doing a lot of scenes together, they got to be pals. Downey diagnoses his friend with what he terms "low-grade red-carpet anxiety disorder."

"He just hates the game-show aspect of doing PR," Downey says. "Obviously there's pressure for anyone in this transition he's in. But he will easily triple that pressure to make sure he's not being lazy. That's why I respect the guy. I wouldn't necessarily want to be in his skin. But his motives are pure. He just needs to drink some red-carpet chamomile."

"The majority of the world is empty space," Chris Evans says, watching me as if my brain might explode on hearing this news—or like he might have to fight me if I try to contradict him. We're back at his apartment after a cigarette run through the Combat Zone.

"Empty space!" he says again, slapping the table and sort of yelling. Then, in a slow, breathy whisper, he repeats: "Empty space, empty space. All that we see in the world, the life, the animals, plants, people, it's all empty space. That's amazing!" He slaps the table again. "You want another beer? Gotta be Bud Light. Get dirty—you're in Boston. Okay, organize your thoughts. I gotta take a piss . . ."

My thoughts are this: That this guy who is hugging his dog and talking to me about space and mortality and the trouble with Boston girls who believe crazy gossip about him—this is not the guy I expected to meet. I figured he'd be a meatball. Though, truthfully, I'd never called anyone a meatball until Evans turned me on to the put-down. As in: "My sister Shanna dates meatballs." And, more to the point: "When I do interviews, I'd rather just be the beer-drinking dude from Boston and not get into the complex shit, because I don't want every meatball saying, 'So hey, whaddyathink about Buddhism?'"

At 17, Evans came across a copy of Hermann Hesse's Siddhartha and began his spiritual questing. It's a path of study and struggle that, he says, defines his true purpose in life. "I love acting. It's my playground, it lets me explore. But my happiness in this world, my level of peace, is never going to be dictated by acting," he says. "My goal in life is to detach from the egoic mind. Do you know anything about Eastern philosophy?"

I sip some Bud Light and shake my head sheepishly. "They talk about the egoic mind, the part of you that's self-aware, the watcher, the person you think is driving this machine," he says. "And that separation from self and mind is the root of suffering. There are ways of retraining the way you think. This isn't really supported in Western society, which is focused on 'Go get it, earn it, win it, marry it.'"

Scarlett Johansson says that one of the things she appreciates about Evans is how he steers clear of industry chat when they see each other. "Basically every actor," she says, "including myself, when we finish a job we're like, 'Well, that's it for me. Had a good run. Put me out to pasture.' But Chris doesn't strike me as someone who frets about the next job." The two met on the set of The Perfect Score when they were teenagers and have stayed close; The Avengers is their third movie together. "He has this obviously masculine presence—a dude's dude—and we're used to seeing him play heroic characters," Johansson says, "but he's also surprisingly sensitive. He has close female friends, and you can talk to him about anything. Plus there's that secret song-and-dance, jazz-hands side of Chris. I feel like he grew up with the Partridge Family. He'd be just as happy doing Guys and Dolls as he would Captain America 2."

East needs to do his business, so Evans and I take him up to the roof deck. Evans bought this apartment in 2010 when living in L.A. full-time no longer appealed to him. He came back to stay close to his extended family and the intimate circle of Boston pals he's maintained since high school. The move also seems like a pretty clear keep-it-real hedge against the manic ego-stroking distractions of Hollywood.

"I think my daytime person is different than my nighttime person," Evans says. "With my high-school buddies, we drink beer and talk sports and it's great. The kids in my Buddhism class in L.A., they're wildly intelligent, and I love being around them, but they're not talking about the Celtics. And that's part of me. It's a strange dichotomy. I don't mind being a certain way with some people and having this other piece of me that's just for me."

I asked Downey about Evans' outward regular-Joe persona. "It's complete horseshit," Downey says. "There's an inherent street-smart intelligence there. I don't think he tries to hide it. But he's much more evolved and much more culturally aware than he lets on."

Perhaps the meatball and the meditation can coexist. We argue about our egoic brains and the tao of Boston girls. "I love wet hair and sweatpants," he says in their defense. "I like sneakers and ponytails. I like girls who aren't so la-di-da. L.A. is so la-di-da. I like Boston girls who shit on me. Not literally. Girls who give me a hard time, bust my chops a little."

The chief buster of Evans' chops is, of course, Evans himself. "The problem is, the brain I'm using to dissect this world is a brain formed by it," he says. "We're born into confusion, and we get the blessing of letting go of it." Then he adds: "I think this shit by day. And then night comes and it's like, 'Fuck it, let's drink.'"

And so we do. It's getting late. Again. We should have eaten dinner, but Evans sometimes forgets to eat: "If I could just take a pill to make me full forever, I wouldn't think twice."

We talk about his dog and camping with his dog and why he loves being alone more than almost anything except maybe not being alone. "I swear to God, if you saw me when I am by myself in the woods, I'm a lunatic," he says. "I sing, I dance. I do crazy shit."

Evans' unflagging, all-encompassing enthusiasm is impressive, itself a kind of social intelligence. "If you want to have a good conversation with him, don't talk about the fact that he's famous" was the advice I got from Mark Kassen, who codirected Puncture. "He's a blast, a guy who can hang. For quite a long time. Many hours in a row."

I've stopped looking at the clock. We've stopped talking philosophy and moved into more emotional territory. He asks questions about my 9-month-old son, and then Captain America gets teary when I talk about the wonder of his birth. "I weep at everything," he says. "I emote. I love things so much—I just never want to dilute that."

He talks about how close he feels to his family, how open they all are with each other. About everything. All the time. "The first time I had sex," he says, "I raced home and was like, 'Mom, I just had sex! Where's the clit?'"

Wait, I ask—did she ever tell you?

"Still don't know where it is, man," he says, then breaks into a smile composed of equal parts shit-eating grin and inner peace. "I just don't know. Make some movies, you don't have to know…"

Here is the 2012 Detail Magazine interview with chris evans:

The Avengers' Chris Evans: Just Your Average Beer-Swilling, Babe-Loving Buddhist

The 30-year-old Bud Light-chugging, Beantown-bred star of The Avengers is widely perceived as the ultimate guy's guy. But beneath the bro persona lies a serious student of Buddhism, an unrepentant song-and-dance man, and a guy who talks to his mom about sex. And farts.

By Adam Sachs,

Photographs by Norman Jean Roy

May 2012 Issue

"Should we just kill him and bury his body?" Chris Evans is stage whispering into the impassive blinking light of my digital recorder.

"Chris!" shouts his mother, her tone a familiar-to-anyone-with-a-mother mix of coddling and concern. "Don't say that! What if something happened?"

We're at Evans' apartment, an expansive but not overly tricked-out bachelor-pad-ish loft in a semi-industrial nowheresville part of Boston, hard by Chinatown, near an area sometimes called the Combat Zone. Evans has a fuzzy, floppy, slept-in-his-clothes aspect that'd be nearly unrecognizable if you knew him only by the upright, spit-polished bearing of the onscreen hero. His dog, East, a sweet and slobbery American bulldog, is spread out on a couch in front of the TV. The shelves of his fridge are neatly stacked with much of the world's supply of Bud Light in cans and little else.

On the counter sit a few buckets of muscle-making whey-protein powder that belong to Evans' roommate, Zach Jarvis, an old pal who sometimes tags along on set as a paid "assistant" and a personal trainer who bulked Evans up for his role as the super-ripped patriot in last summer's blockbuster Captain America: The First Avenger. A giant clock on the exposed-brick wall says it's early evening, but Evans operates on his own sense of time. Between gigs, his schedule's all his, which usually translates into long stretches of alone time during the day and longer social nights for the 30-year-old.

"I could just make this . . . disappear," says Josh Peck, another old pal and occasional on-set assistant, in a deadpan mumble, poking at the voice recorder I'd left on the table while I was in the bathroom.

Evans' mom, Lisa, now speaks directly into the microphone: "Don't listen to them—I'm trying to get them not to say these things!"

But not saying things isn't in the Evans DNA. They're an infectiously gregarious clan. Irish-Italians, proud Bostoners, close-knit, and innately theatrical. "We all act, we sing," Evans says. "It was like the fucking von Trapps." Mom was a dancer and now runs a children's theater. First-born Carly directed the family puppet shows and studied theater at NYU. Younger brother Scott has parts on One Life to Live and Law & Order under his belt and lives in Los Angeles full-time—something Evans stopped doing several years back. Rounding out the circle are baby sister Shanna and a pair of "strays" the family brought into their Sudbury, Massachusetts, home: Josh, who went from mowing the lawn to moving in when his folks relocated during his senior year in high school; and Demery, who was Evans' roommate until recently.

"Our house was like a hotel," Evans says. "It was a loony-tunes household. If you got arrested in high school, everyone knew: 'Call Mrs. Evans, she'll bail you out.'"

Growing up, they had a special floor put in the basement where all the kids practiced tap-dancing. The party-ready rec room also had a Ping-Pong table and a separate entrance. This was the house kids in the neighborhood wanted to hang at, and this was the kind of family you wanted to be adopted by. Spend an afternoon listening to them dish old dirt and talk over each other and it's easy to see why. Now they're worried they've said too much, laid bare the tender soul of the actor behind the star-spangled superhero outfit, so there's talk of offing the interviewer. I can hear all this from the bathroom, which, of course, is the point of a good stage whisper.

To be sure, no one's said too much, and the more you're brought into the embrace of this boisterous, funny, shit-slinging, demonstrably loving extended family, the more likable and enviable the whole dynamic is.

Sample exchange from today's lunch of baked ziti at a family-style Italian restaurant:

Mom: When he was a kid, he asked me, 'Mom, will I ever think farting isn't funny?'

Chris: You're throwing me under the bus, Ma! Thank you.

Mom: Well, if a dog farts you still find it funny.

Then, back at the apartment, where Mrs. Evans tries to give me good-natured dirt on her son without freaking him out:

Mom: You always tell me when you think a girl is attractive. You'll call me up so excited. Is that okay to say?

Chris: Nothing wrong with that.

Mom: And can I say all the girls you've brought to the house have been very sweet and wonderful? Of course, those are the ones that make it to the house. It's been a long time, hasn't it?

Chris: Looooong time.

Mom: The last one at our house? Was it six years ago?

Chris: No names, Ma!

Mom: But she knocked it out of the park.

Chris: She got drunk and puked at Auntie Pam's house! And she puked on the way home and she puked at our place.

Mom: And that's when I fell in love with her. Because she was real.

We're operating under a no-names rule, so I'm not asking if it's Jessica Biel who made this memorable first impression. She and Evans were serious for a couple of years. But I don't want to picture lovely Jessica Biel getting sick at Auntie Pam's or in the car or, really, anywhere.

East the bulldog ambles over to the table, begging for food.

"That dog is the love of his life," Mrs. Evans says. "Which tells me he'll be an unbelievable parent, but I don't want him to get married right now." She turns to Chris. "The way you are, I just don't think you're ready."

Some other things I learn about Evans from his mom: He hates going to the gym; he was so wound-up as a kid she'd let him stand during dinner, his legs shaking like caged greyhounds; he suffered weekly "Sunday-night meltdowns" over schoolwork and the angst of the sensitive middle-schooler; after she and his father split and he was making money from acting, he bought her the Sudbury family homestead rather than let her leave it.

Eventually his mom and Josh depart, and Evans and I go to work depleting his stash of Bud Light. It feels like we drink Bud Light and talk for days, because we basically do. I arrived early Friday evening; it's Saturday night now and it'll be sunup Sunday before I sleeplessly make my way to catch a train back to New York City. Somewhere in between we slip free of the gravitational pull of the bachelor pad and there's bottle service at a club and a long walk with entourage in tow back to Evans' apartment, where there is some earnest-yet-surreal group singing, piano playing, and chitchat. Evans is fun to talk to, partly because he's an open, self-mocking guy with an explosive laugh and no apparent need to sleep, and partly because when you cut just below the surface, it's clear he's not quite the dude's dude he sometimes plays onscreen and in TV appearances.

From a distance, Chris Evans the movie star seems a predictable, nearly inevitable piece of successful Hollywood packaging come to market. There's his major-release debut as the dorkily unaware jock Jake in the guilty pleasure Not Another Teen Movie (in one memorable scene, Evans has whipped cream on his chest and a banana up his ass). The female-friendly hunk appeal—his character in The Nanny Diaries is named simply Harvard Hottie—is balanced by a kind of casual-Friday, I'm-from-Boston regular-dudeness. Following the siren song of comic-book cash, he was the Human Torch in two Fantastic Four films. As with scrawny Steve Rogers, the Captain America suit beefed up his stature as a formidable screen presence, a bankable leading man, all of which leads us to The Avengers, this season's megabudget, megawatt ensemble in which he stars alongside Scarlett Johansson, Mark Ruffalo, Robert Downey Jr., and Chris Hemsworth.

It all feels inevitable—and yet it nearly didn't happen. Evans repeatedly turned down the Captain America role, fearing he'd be locked into what was originally a nine-picture deal. He was shooting Puncture, about a drug-addicted lawyer, at the time. Most actors doing small-budget legal dramas would jump at the chance to play the lead in a Marvel franchise, but Evans saw a decade of his life flash before his eyes.

What he remembers thinking is this: "What if the movie comes out and it's a success and I just reject all of this? What if I want to move to the fucking woods?"

By "the woods," he doesn't mean a quiet life away from the spotlight, some general metaphorical life escape route. He means the actual woods. "For a long time all I wanted for Christmas were books about outdoor survival," he says. "I was convinced that I was going to move to the woods. I camped a lot, I took classes. At 18, I told myself if I don't live in the woods by the time I'm 25, I have failed."

Evans has described his hesitation at signing on for Captain America. Usually he talks about the time commitment, the loss of what remained of his relative anonymity. On the junkets for the movie, he was open about needing therapy after the studio reduced the deal to six movies and he took the leap. What he doesn't usually mention is that he was racked with anxiety before the job came up.

"I get very nervous," Evans explains. "I shit the bed if I have to present something on stage or if I'm doing press. Because it's just you." He's been known to walk out of press conferences, to freeze up and go silent during the kind of relaxed-yet-high-stakes meetings an actor of his stature is expected to attend: "Do you know how badly I audition? Fifty percent of the time I have to walk out of the room. I'm naturally very pale, so I turn red and sweat. And I have to literally walk out. Sometimes mid-audition. You start having these conversations in your brain. 'Chris, don't do this. Chris, take it easy. You're just sitting in a room with a person saying some words, this isn't life. And you're letting this affect you? Shame on you.'"

Shades of "Sunday-night meltdowns." Luckily the nerves never follow him to the set. "You do your neuroses beforehand, so when they yell 'Action' you can be present," he says.

Okay, there was one on-set panic attack—while Evans was shooting Puncture. "We were getting ready to do a court scene in front of a bunch of people, and I don't know what happened," he says. "It's just your brain playing games with you. 'Hey, you know how we sometimes freak out? What if we did it right now?'"

One of the people who advised Evans to take the Captain America role was his eventual Avengers costar Robert Downey Jr. "I'd seen him around," Downey says. "We share an agent. I like to spend a lot of my free time talking to my agent about his other clients—I just had a feeling about him."

What he told Evans was: This puppy is going to be big, and when it is you're going to get to make the movies you want to make. "In the marathon obstacle course of a career," Downey says, "it's just good to have all the stats on paper for why you're not only a team player but also why it makes sense to support you in the projects you want to do—because you've made so much damned money for the studio."

There's also the fact that Evans had a chance to sign on for something likely to be a kind of watershed moment in the comic-book fascination of our time. "I do think The Avengers is the crescendo of this superhero phase in entertainment—except of course for Iron Man 3," Downey says. "It'll take a lot of innovation to keep it alive after this."

Captain America is the only person left who was truly close to Howard Stark, father of Tony Stark (a.k.a. Iron Man), which meant that Evans' and Downey's story lines are closely linked, and in the course of doing a lot of scenes together, they got to be pals. Downey diagnoses his friend with what he terms "low-grade red-carpet anxiety disorder."

"He just hates the game-show aspect of doing PR," Downey says. "Obviously there's pressure for anyone in this transition he's in. But he will easily triple that pressure to make sure he's not being lazy. That's why I respect the guy. I wouldn't necessarily want to be in his skin. But his motives are pure. He just needs to drink some red-carpet chamomile."

"The majority of the world is empty space," Chris Evans says, watching me as if my brain might explode on hearing this news—or like he might have to fight me if I try to contradict him. We're back at his apartment after a cigarette run through the Combat Zone.

"Empty space!" he says again, slapping the table and sort of yelling. Then, in a slow, breathy whisper, he repeats: "Empty space, empty space. All that we see in the world, the life, the animals, plants, people, it's all empty space. That's amazing!" He slaps the table again. "You want another beer? Gotta be Bud Light. Get dirty—you're in Boston. Okay, organize your thoughts. I gotta take a piss . . ."

My thoughts are this: That this guy who is hugging his dog and talking to me about space and mortality and the trouble with Boston girls who believe crazy gossip about him—this is not the guy I expected to meet. I figured he'd be a meatball. Though, truthfully, I'd never called anyone a meatball until Evans turned me on to the put-down. As in: "My sister Shanna dates meatballs." And, more to the point: "When I do interviews, I'd rather just be the beer-drinking dude from Boston and not get into the complex shit, because I don't want every meatball saying, 'So hey, whaddyathink about Buddhism?'"

At 17, Evans came across a copy of Hermann Hesse's Siddhartha and began his spiritual questing. It's a path of study and struggle that, he says, defines his true purpose in life. "I love acting. It's my playground, it lets me explore. But my happiness in this world, my level of peace, is never going to be dictated by acting," he says. "My goal in life is to detach from the egoic mind. Do you know anything about Eastern philosophy?"

I sip some Bud Light and shake my head sheepishly. "They talk about the egoic mind, the part of you that's self-aware, the watcher, the person you think is driving this machine," he says. "And that separation from self and mind is the root of suffering. There are ways of retraining the way you think. This isn't really supported in Western society, which is focused on 'Go get it, earn it, win it, marry it.'"

Scarlett Johansson says that one of the things she appreciates about Evans is how he steers clear of industry chat when they see each other. "Basically every actor," she says, "including myself, when we finish a job we're like, 'Well, that's it for me. Had a good run. Put me out to pasture.' But Chris doesn't strike me as someone who frets about the next job." The two met on the set of The Perfect Score when they were teenagers and have stayed close; The Avengers is their third movie together. "He has this obviously masculine presence—a dude's dude—and we're used to seeing him play heroic characters," Johansson says, "but he's also surprisingly sensitive. He has close female friends, and you can talk to him about anything. Plus there's that secret song-and-dance, jazz-hands side of Chris. I feel like he grew up with the Partridge Family. He'd be just as happy doing Guys and Dolls as he would Captain America 2."

East needs to do his business, so Evans and I take him up to the roof deck. Evans bought this apartment in 2010 when living in L.A. full-time no longer appealed to him. He came back to stay close to his extended family and the intimate circle of Boston pals he's maintained since high school. The move also seems like a pretty clear keep-it-real hedge against the manic ego-stroking distractions of Hollywood.

"I think my daytime person is different than my nighttime person," Evans says. "With my high-school buddies, we drink beer and talk sports and it's great. The kids in my Buddhism class in L.A., they're wildly intelligent, and I love being around them, but they're not talking about the Celtics. And that's part of me. It's a strange dichotomy. I don't mind being a certain way with some people and having this other piece of me that's just for me."

I asked Downey about Evans' outward regular-Joe persona. "It's complete horseshit," Downey says. "There's an inherent street-smart intelligence there. I don't think he tries to hide it. But he's much more evolved and much more culturally aware than he lets on."

Perhaps the meatball and the meditation can coexist. We argue about our egoic brains and the tao of Boston girls. "I love wet hair and sweatpants," he says in their defense. "I like sneakers and ponytails. I like girls who aren't so la-di-da. L.A. is so la-di-da. I like Boston girls who shit on me. Not literally. Girls who give me a hard time, bust my chops a little."

The chief buster of Evans' chops is, of course, Evans himself. "The problem is, the brain I'm using to dissect this world is a brain formed by it," he says. "We're born into confusion, and we get the blessing of letting go of it." Then he adds: "I think this shit by day. And then night comes and it's like, 'Fuck it, let's drink.'"

And so we do. It's getting late. Again. We should have eaten dinner, but Evans sometimes forgets to eat: "If I could just take a pill to make me full forever, I wouldn't think twice."

We talk about his dog and camping with his dog and why he loves being alone more than almost anything except maybe not being alone. "I swear to God, if you saw me when I am by myself in the woods, I'm a lunatic," he says. "I sing, I dance. I do crazy shit."

Evans' unflagging, all-encompassing enthusiasm is impressive, itself a kind of social intelligence. "If you want to have a good conversation with him, don't talk about the fact that he's famous" was the advice I got from Mark Kassen, who codirected Puncture. "He's a blast, a guy who can hang. For quite a long time. Many hours in a row."

I've stopped looking at the clock. We've stopped talking philosophy and moved into more emotional territory. He asks questions about my 9-month-old son, and then Captain America gets teary when I talk about the wonder of his birth. "I weep at everything," he says. "I emote. I love things so much—I just never want to dilute that."

He talks about how close he feels to his family, how open they all are with each other. About everything. All the time. "The first time I had sex," he says, "I raced home and was like, 'Mom, I just had sex! Where's the clit?'"

Wait, I ask—did she ever tell you?

"Still don't know where it is, man," he says, then breaks into a smile composed of equal parts shit-eating grin and inner peace. "I just don't know. Make some movies, you don't have to know…"

If someone doesn't want to check the link, the anon sent the full interview!

[halfway-happyyy]

Until We Meet Again

this is absolutely something that nobody asked for, but here it is. short ‘n sweet and full of fluff.

A grotesque concoction of alcohol- some variant of overpriced vodka and lemon liqueur if she had to guess, set the delicate lining of her throat ablaze and she winced as she set the empty coupe glass on the tray of passing waiter. She glanced down at the watch face on the underside of her wrist and frowned at it.

An hour late to the event, and an hour left to go.

Eliciting a dejected sigh, she gazed past the expansive tent above her and at the night sky beyond it that blanketed the fountains of the Pacific Design Center in West Hollywood in inky darkness. The cacophonous roar of hundreds of conversations and pulsating music was unbearably loud and she cursed herself for leaving her phone at home. She could picture it now, lying face down on the glass coffee table just inside her front entrance and in total darkness and for a fleeting moment she found herself inexplicably jealous of it. She had given up on trying to locate her friends fifteen minutes ago- though she thought she had just spotted Keane through throngs of expensive suits and dresses in a straight bee-line for the bar and thought that she ought to head there. Taking a deep breath, she stepped out into the crowd before her in search of him, but stumbled back awkwardly when the bottom of her gown caught on something and ripped.

“Oh my gosh, I just ripped your dress. I am so sorry.” She peered up at the man towered above her, at the glassy blue orbs that somehow still glittered lively under the minimal lighting from the chandeliers around them. Everything about him was immaculate. From the perfectly combed back sandy blonde hair, to the blonde mustache that grew above his pink upper lip, to the black silk bowtie that sat snug against the base of his throat.

She found his visage oddly familiar, but could not place where she might have known him from if her life depended on it. She found herself shrugging. “Honestly don't worry about it. It's one of the many reasons I try to shop thrift before big events.”

Though he offered her a shy smile, his glassy blue gaze remained unsure and it was obvious that he still wasn't convinced. “No really- is there any way it can be fixed? I can get someone over here right now to look at it for you...”

She glanced down at the sizable rip in the fabric and knew with a slight pang that the damage was irreparable. “No, please. It's really fine.”

He chewed at edge of his lip as he mulled something over and cocked his head to the side, his gaze narrowed. “At least allow me to pay for it?”

She had purchased it off the rack at one of her favourite thrift haunts on Melrose for thirty bucks, two weeks ago. She couldn't, in good faith, agree to that. “Listen- this dress has probably had a fantastic life, you know? She finished it this evening at an Emmy award after party. How many other dresses can say that? She's good. This is the end of the line for her.”

They stood in thoughtful silence for a moment, the only sign of his defeat came in the form of a resigned sigh. “Alright. But please know that I still feel slightly terrible about it.”

“I can live with slightly terrible,” She smiled knowingly at him. “Are you having a good night, then?”

He gazed at her, a funny expression coloured his features and she suddenly felt very vulnerable. “I am having a great night, actually.” He eventually confirmed. “Are you having a good night? That is- despite the gown crisis.”

She hugged her arms tight to her chest and glanced around in awe at the sheer sumptuousness of the tent in which she was currently in. Massive, golden lion statues guarded pillars around the room and gilded archways had been erected over ponds so that guests could traverse them at their leisure. No matter how many evenings she spent this way, she doubted that she would ever grow accustomed to it.

“I've never really been one for big parties, but it's been alright so far I suppose. Even despite the gown crisis.” She found that she enjoyed the way a subtle, rosy hue tinted the apples of his cheeks at her slightly teasing lilt. Her stomach gurgled warningly just then- a gentle reminder that she had not consumed an adequate amount of food and she eyed the lavish, twenty-foot replica of a dragon above her head with mild contempt. “God, I'd fight that dragon for a plate of fries right about now. Every year I tell myself I'm going to be on time for one of these events, and every year I let myself down.”

He dropped his head to his chest and elicited a hearty laugh. “You missed out this evening I'm afraid. It was Wolfgang Puck on the buffet.”

“Damn it,” She giggled under her breath. “Every single year.”

He gestured out at the mass of conversing industry people and raised his voice so that she could hear him. “You work for HBO?” He asked.

She shook her head. “Nah, I snuck in an hour ago under the guise of free food and booze.”

“Neither of which you have yet to receive…” He grinned.

“Not exactly,” She giggled. “I snuck a cocktail minutes before the old dress debacle. Tasted somewhat like what I would imagine lemon pine-sol tastes like.” Genuine laughter rose up from the base of his throat like a favourite song and she waited for it to subside with an unabashed smile on face. “I'm a freelance photographer.” She admitted, eventually.

He cleared his throat, poised to ask her another question when his gaze lit up and he cocked his head to the side in thought. “Would you excuse me for a moment? I think I've found a way to repay you for your dress.”

Her eyes widened in mild horror and she shook her head in protest. “Oh- no. Please don't…” But her objections were for naught as she watched his imposing figure vanish into the thickening swarm of people. She chewed anxiously at the soft flesh of her inner lip as she awaited his return and when ten minutes elapsed, she began to grow skeptical.

Too tall. Too Scandinavian. Too beautiful.

But then, and to her pleasant surprise, she spotted his face through the crowd and her heart thrummed in her chest as he approached her. There, in the flat of his palm and high above the heads of everyone else so as not to drop the dish- was a plate heaped high with piping-hot French fries. “This is akin to Christmas,” She sighed longingly once he had rejoined her. “But somehow a little bit better. Thank you very much.”

Wiping the proverbial sweat from his brow, he managed a nonchalant shrug. “Oh, they were exceedingly difficult to procure, but I was persistent.” He handed her the plate with a lux serviette underneath and a fork on the side. “Wolfgang and I uh… we go way back.”

Glancing over her shoulder, she spotted a vacant table a few yards away and decided to be brave. “You know… If he supplied you with a second fork, I'd be happy to share some of these with you.”

His gaze followed hers to the table and he smiled sadly. “Alas Wolfgang let me down and I was not offered a second fork, but I would be delighted to sit and chat with you for a few more minutes.”

Sinking into the refuge of the chair beneath her, she was suddenly aware that she had barely been offered a chance to do that all day long. She was content to listen to him speak while she tried not to inhale her entire plate of perfectly fried potatoes.

“I'm sure your date is probably wondering where you've wandered off to.” She offered, after a few moments of comfortable silence had lapsed.

He smiled and shook his head. “I’m sure she’s used to it by now. Probably been wondering that very same thing for most of my life.”

She cocked her head to the side, and narrowed her gaze at him. “Have we met before? You seem so familiar.”

His expression dimmed and that same shy smile that he had given her half an hour earlier presented itself again, causing butterflies to take flight in the pit of her belly. 

“I don't believe so,” He gave his head a half-shake. “I would have remembered your face anywhere.”

Utterly grateful for the dim lighting around them, she opened her mouth to counter his last statement when a man she didn't recognize appeared at his side, in a hurry and out of breath. “Alex- you need to take this back now. I am sick of people congratulating me for it and I am entirely out of answers as to how it came to be in my possession.” Without another word, the man placed an Emmy award unceremoniously in front of Alex's amused figure and hurried away.

She nodded at the unsuspecting statuette of a woman laden with a golden atom and quirked an eyebrow in mild amusement. “You are having a very great night indeed, hm?” She simpered.

Sensing that her cue to leave had arrived, she rose from the table to bid Alex goodnight.

“Your company has been a pleasure this evening… I am sorry about your dress.”

She glanced down at the French fry plate, the few scattered crumbs the only indication that something had once been there. “Your penance was plenty.”

“Two questions before you go,” He murmured.

She peered up at him expectantly.

“A photographer without her camera?”

She shrugged and offered him a wry smile. “Everyone gets a night off every once in a blue moon. Next?”

His gaze travelled to the fabric napkin poking out from beneath the empty plate, then back to hers. “Thanks to Paul, you now know my name. What's yours?”

She tilted her head to the side, a half-smile tugged at her lips. “It's Grace.”

“Grace,” He repeated it in a whisper and she ignored the way that it caused goosebumps to bloom in patterns over her bare arms. “Goodnight Grace.” He rose from the table with his award at his side but faltered and turned back to her, remembering something. “Oh- and Grace? Maybe don't leave behind the serviette.”

Puzzled, she watched a hive of bodies swallow his frame, and when he was gone, she reached for the weighted crème fabric, smiling softly to herself. There, in loopy black script from a fountain pen was Alex's name and phone number and a short note that read,

“Until we meet again…”

[turinn]

Sometimes, the Best Laid Plans Work Out Just Fine

Hokuto Hidaka x GN!Reader

Summary: A notebook full of planning, and all the date going well relies on is the weather being right. Oh, and Keito not catching him sneaking out of the dorm at 11pm. Hokuto really knows how to keep things exciting.

A/N: Remember how I said I wasn’t up to full writing? My brain likes to do this wonderful thing where it makes me a liar, so uhhh. Hi!! I was thinking about how some popular tropes are popular because they’re good and I got the idea to write my take on one of my favourites- so here we go! This is inspired by a video I saw like 2 years ago and cannot for the life of me find. EDIT: for some reason this god awful website added multiple extra spaces between a bunch of words and deleted several words so? sorry abt that. fixed it now.

Word Count: 1.4k

Sneaking you out past curfew might not have been his best laid plan- it was a bolder move than he should really pull, and at the very least sure to get him on the receiving end of a very long Keito lecture- but for the chance to show you something magical, Hokuto was willing to take the risks. After all, you made everything seem worth it to him. Hajime's light breathing and the fans of his laptop were the only sounds in the room as he double checked both time and weather forecast once more, shutting down the machine and sneaking out of the room. He was extra careful to shut the door quietly, as not to wake his roommate up. At least Keito was working late as usual. He didn't want to be stopped before he began.

The cold tingle that hit him as he stepped outside sent a shiver right through him and he huffed, stuffing his hands into his coat pockets- but behind his scarf there was the hint of a smile. The chill and the light mist that lingered in the air and cast a white haze over everything the street lamps illuminated were both telltale signs of winter, and he was counting on the weather that usually followed to make tonight perfect. It had to be perfect. Week after week of planning and distraction and discussion had gone into this surprise. He'd zoned out thinking of it so many times that even Akehoshi had noticed something was up with him. A whole notebook was dedicated to the idea, from writing out the plot of the dream that had inspired it to finding a date he was sure he could make it work, and a place to actually do it. It was the most elaborate date he'd ever planned, and you had absolutely no idea it was coming.

Not a single light was on in your house, and Hokuto crossed his fingers with the hope that you'd still be awake. He'd never exactly climbed up to your window before, but he'd spent enough time with the rest of his unit- and various others- that climbing buildings had somehow become something he was fairly good at. There's a reason he doesn't try to think about his time at Yumenosaki in too much detail. With luck, it only takes you a moment to open your window after he knocks, a large can of deodorant in hand to presumably whack him with if he's dangerous. He tries not to laugh. He really does.

"Kuto??? It's like 11pm, what on earth are you doing here?" You half whisper and half hiss, clamping a hand over his mouth to silence his laughter. If your parents find your boyfriend on your windowsill in the middle of the night it's not gonna go down too well. "Get dressed," he's smiling so beautifully, face half illuminated in the dim light of the waxing moon, that you almost forget to question him, "we have a date." "Um, I have a curfew, and it ended an hour ago." "We can sneak out. Just this once, I promise it's worth it." "It can't wait until morning?" "It won't be half as beautiful in the morning, koibito." You've never seen him this close to pleading, and that nickname always gets you. You sigh. You never could say no to him. Not really. "Turn around, then." Hokuto stares at you quizzically, and you wave a sweater at him to indicate your desire to get dressed. He quickly obeys, grinning. Five minutes and 3 sweaters later- ’I can't go downstairs to get my coat, tenshi, they'll hear me. Leave me and my 3 sweaters alone’ -  the two of you are turning the corner of your street, and you're staring at him suspiciously.

"You know, if you wanted to murder me you could have done it at home?" "I'm not murdering you, idiot." "Oh, I see, when you want me to come with you, I'm sweetheart, but then when I agree to, I'm idiot?" "Exactly." There's that grin again, the one that could convince you to jump in a freezing lake without question- you're suddenly scared he's going to try that- and you're rolling your eyes and giggling. "All right, if you're not murdering me, where are we goi-" His hand on your shoulder stops you both mid-step and sentence, and he turns you around to face the docks you were about to walk past. "The docks??" "Yes." "It's-" "About 10 minutes before our boat leaves. Right on time, if you ask me." "Our what?" "Boat." "I repeat. Our what?" "Oh, just come with me." In another moment, he's tangling your ungloved fingers with his gloved ones, and the fleece dragging across your skin feels like fire when your nerves are so on edge from the cold. "Babe my hands hurt, could you loosen up?" "Oh no, I forgot." Hokuto groans. Suddenly, he drops your hand and passes you a pair of gloves from the inside pocket of his jacket, warm from their proximity to his body and double lined. You could cry from the relief they provide, and from how thoughtful he can be- even if he did forget about them. But as you board the boat behind him, the confusion settles back over you.

"So, where are we going?" "We aren't going anywhere." A beat. A glare. No response. "Where is the boat going." "Nowhere.... Out a little. Then back." "What's the point in that." "You'll see. Come, I want you to get a good view." The two of you find a spot on the deck just as the boat departs, and you lean against the railings with him. 5 minutes out, you realise just how peaceful it all is. "Is this what you brought me here for? The peace?" "Not quite." He murmurs, looking up at the sky. "Give it just a moment." As he takes a step closer to you, his hand linking with yours once more, snow begins to fall around you.

It's breathtaking. The way it falls, completely surrounding you, reflecting so beautifully off the still surface of the water. All you can hear is the gentle purring of the boats motor and the calm waves, and all you can see ahead of you is snow. You stand there, staring up at it, your jaw hung open slightly in silent wonder. And he stands there, staring at you- taking it all in. The way your eyes shine with awe, the slight upturn in the corners of your mouth, the way you fight to find something to say only to change your mind and decide to leave the moment silent for just a little longer. The way you repeat that motion three or four times.

"It's... it's gorgeous." You whisper eventually, as soft as you possibly can. "Yeah." He replies, just as softly. "Yeah, it is." You don't notice that you're talking about completely different things, that he's captivated not by the snow, but by you. A snowflake lands on your nose, and you scrunch it up at the cold sensation- an action he finds so adorable he can't help but laugh. "What?" He doesn't actually answer your question, instead catching your chin in his hand. With the free one he brushes what is now a droplet of water off the top of your nose, and then he’s kissing you.

As first kisses go, it's pretty good. His lips are cold, but so are yours. That comes of standing in the snow at nearly midnight, naturally. And while your back pressed against the railing of the boat doesn't make you feel particularly safe, you don't even realise that until you run it over in your head later. All in all, it's kind of romantic as hell, and something about that plus the cold and the late hour almost makes you cry. Almost.

"I love you." He whispers as he pulls back, hand falling away from your chin. "Oh..." You dip your head a little, avoiding his gaze for a moment. "I-I love you too." The both of you fall silent again, grinning, and you go back to watching the snow. If his cheeks are red, he's sure it's just because of the cold.

He gives you his coat when you start to shiver, ignoring your insistence that your 3 sweaters are more than enough. He reads you awfully well. Unfortunately for him, the cold his chivalrous gesture left him with does nothing to spare him the 3 hour lecture Keito had prepared about getting back to the dorm past 1am. For you, though? Well, he'd say it was definitely worth it.

[pink-peony-princess]

Deliverance| S.M Werewolf AU

Part One🐺

The woods had always been a place of comfort for me. A place to escape the madness of my life- of serenity. of course I'd heard the stories of vicious wolves who roamed the darkness waiting to prey on the innocent,but I always put it down to stories, gossip, folklore designed to stop kids from venturing too far. That was until the day I was taken.

A rogue pack had taken me as their personal toy, all the anger and frustration they felt was taken out on me. It was a good day if I got a bit of stale bread, and only one beating. On bad days there would be no food and constant, torturous abuse.

I had endured it for 13 year, my small body the reflection of years of malnutrition and hurt, but I'd finally escaped.

I had bid my time, waiting till they made an inevitable error, and it had finally happend. One of the younger wolves had forgotten to check the padlock when they'd had their fun with me and I'd seized the opportunity and run as fast as I could. but I wasn't fast enough. The alarm had been sounded and there were now several wolves hot on my heels and I could run no further I had to accept my fate. He was less than a metre away from me when our of nowhere another wolf - russet in colour intercepted him in mid air, knocking him over with the force of an elephant. I could hear the snarling and snapping of jaws as I finally collapsed and

surrendered, the last thing I remember was a tall young man walking towards me .

When I woke it was to a mass of activity.

I drifted in and out of sleep, hearing people talking.feeling hands on me, there was even something about the alpha wanting to see 'her', and a 'mate' and something else about ' killing the pack that did this'. What that meant I couldn't know in my delirium.

When I managed to finally open my eyes and get past the blindly bright light above me, I was met with the image of a man-pacing back land forth, muttering to himself. And the more immediate threat of someone fiddling with the sheet that lay over me.

Surely with a man this good looking, this close to me it had to be a dream, I tried to convince myself, but someone shattered the dream almost as soon as is materialised.

"Well hello sweetheart, I'm glad to see you're finally awake," the voice came from that of and older woman with long greying hair braided out of her face "My name's Judy, I'm your nurse," she smiled down at me. "Are you in any pain?" She asked.

I took a moment to take everything in, but I was still unable to make sense of it all.

"Where am I?" I asked, trying to sit up, but everything protested as soon as I moved, even muscles I didn't know I had.

"Just stay still for now dear, you don't want to hurt yourself further," the nurse-Judy spoke kindly, helping me to resettle myself.

Something, maybe me speaking seemed to wake the man from his trance like state and he turned to meet my confused gaze.

He was tall, he had to be at least 6 foot, with sliflghtly tanned skin, the most rich brown eyes I'd ever seen, and hair that was neatly cut, except for a few unruly curls at the front of his head which didn't want to co-operate with the hair gel he'd obviously used to style it.

"Oh,oh thank God." the man rushed over to the side of the bed stopping mere inches from my face.

I could feel my heart rate picking up as panic set in, not used to people (let alone males) being this close without hurting me.

I turned to Judy asking desperately with my eyes for help

She must have got the memo because she cleared her throat and spoke.

She seemed somewhat hesitant though "Alpha, I don't mean to overstep my boundaries, I know you must be worried sick as we all are, however would it not be prudent to give the girl some space?"

The man searched my face for a moment, before straightening and stepping backwards.

"I didn't mean to scare you," he muttered guiltily.

"You didn't," I lied before I could think about it.

"My name's Shawn what's yours?" he asked holding his hand out for me to take.

I kept my mouth shut, years of torture telling me to keep quiet. He dropped his extended up so it was back at his side.

"Alrighty then, when you're ready. I won't push you." He spoke, it seemed as though he was trying deliberately to keep his tone, soft, conversational and I appreciated it.

At that moment the doctor walked in. "It's good to see you awake Miss," he spoke echoing Judy's words.

"I'm sorry to say you're quite banged up." Shawn started pacing again at his words.

"

I would have sworn I heard a growl.

"Shawn you have to stay calm," Judy spoke, it sounded almost as if she was trying to comfort him, confusing me further.

Once the doctor left Shawn calmed down, having dragging a chair from outside my room to sit beside my bed.

"I heard something about killing another pack?" I asked weighing my words cafefully. "So are you all wolves too?"

"Yes, honey, but I promise you're safe here," he replied softly, looking over at me. I looked down again, not able to take the human interaction.

"Everytime I look at you, you look down. Why is that?"he asked, sounding sad.

" I didn't mean to upset you," I panicked.Starting to pick at the I.V in my arm, it was something I always did when I was nervous, picking things, my skin, nails whatever seemed to help.

"No, no, I didn't mean it like that, I'm not mad," he cut me off. "I just mean I've noticed it is all," he lay a hand carefully on my arm and surprisingly the contact helped.

"I don't know," I pondered, distracted by his touch. There was a weird, warm feeling flowing from the point of contact straight up to my chest, not dissimilar to when your hands or feet go numb and then start to respond again. It wasn't unpleasant, just strange. "I guess, I'm not used to positive human contact," I admitted, looking up to see him shaking his head.

"Are you the Alpha?" I asked suddenly. He looked at me, surprise washing over his face at the boldness of my question.

"Yes, I am," he spoke proudly. "Of the Shadowmoon Pack, greatest pack in all of Canada if you ask me," he smiled.

I liked the way he was so confident. It made me feel safe and secure. A few more hours past with us sitting in a comfortable silence, I couldn't help but feel safe around him, and as foreign as the feeling was, I also craved it.

"Are you ready to go home now Poppet?" Judy ssekd, making her way into my room again sometime later and starting to mess around with the I.V tubing.

I looked at her panicked.

"Home?" I squeeked. Surely they weren't really going to send me home. It wasn't a home where I'd come from it was a hell, my own personal hell and I'd be damned if I was going back.

Shawn seemed to noticed my emotions and stepped forward, slowly holding his arms out, and instead of backing away as I had done earlier,I surprised us both and stepped into his hold.

He was warm and comfortable, our bodies seemed to fit perfectly,denim of his jacket just scratchy enough and the now semi familiar tingling from our contact pleasant enough to ground me somewhat. I stayed like that for a minute or so before I became a little more aware of what I was doing. I was hugging a near stranger,worse he was a male, worse again Ii was actually lettung myself like it.

Sorry, I blushed, stepoing away quicky and looking down.

"You don't need to apologise," he smiled.

"What was the tingling I felt" I asked wanting to change the subject.

"That is what you get when two mates make contact" He smiled wider than I had ever seen a person smile, his fangs being exposed in the process.

I stood, silently, shocked.

"Are you okay" He asked moving to step towards me, I held a hand up and he halted midstride.

"I promise you. We'll take things slowly, right now I just want to get you home- to our home," he amended when he saw the look of panic in my face. "So you can rest."

I nodded. Still not entirely comfortable, but what other choice did I have? Go back to the pack that had tortured me all these years, or even end up homeless on the street? And from everything I'd seen Shawn seemed like a genuinely nice person, who everyone respected. Plus,if he was telling the truth, which from heat I could tell, he was, he was my mate and from all the stories I'd heard as a child, your mate was meant to be the one person in the world who would do anything for you, be anywhere for you. They would literally protect you with their lives.

"Shawn I don't have anything to wear," I whispered embarrassed again, looking down at the gown which barely covered anything as Judy finally finished what she was doing in the corner of he room having taken out my I.V. and left.

"I brought you some clothes, don't worry," he smiled.Pullnig out the most comfortable pale pink sweater I'd ever seen, he handed it to me and I was hit with his scent.

"This is yours?"

",Is that okay?" he worried. " I could go home and get something from one of the girls if you're uncomfortable," he offered.

I just smiled,letting out a little giggle at the extreme level of concern he was showing, which caused him to immediately relax l, shoulders dropping, a slight smile gracing his lips as he shook his head softly.

"Can you turn around please?" I requested. He did as asked giving the privacy I so desperately craved.

When I was finished he took my hand, holding his other under my elbow to support my weight.

He was so patient, never rushing me as he lead me through the hospital and out the doors into the world. I couldn't help but savour the fresh air,the cold winter air burning my lungs but in a good way.

"I bet it feels nice to be outside again,"

I nodded, "How did you find me" I asked, as we continued to walk. It was as if now that I was free my mind could finally ask questions and process all the stuff I had never done previously.

"That's a story for when you've had some more rest," he answered, coming to a stop in front of a Jeep, opening the door and lifting me in. The tingling was still a shock,l everytime he touched my skin.

"Feel free to sleep we've got a bit of a drive ahead of us" he smiled reassuringly, before turning the ignition,the car coming to life.

I woke to someone shaking me,it was dark now and I immediately jumped back in my seat, unsure, before my groggy eyes made contact with Shawn's and I realised where I was and relaxed.

"I won't hurt you, you're safe now Pup," he murmured, moving to brush some hair out of my face with a feather-light touch. I blushed at the nickname."I was just waking you because we're here, this is home" I took in the house illuminated by lights in complete awe.

"So you're an Alpha and you don't hurt humans?" I asked as he helped me cafefully from he car.

"You're not human, you're an omega, but no I have nothing against humans," he added, holding me steady as I swayed on my feet slightly, not used to standing anymore.

I stood stunned again," I know it's a lot to take in, but we'll get to all of that, for now though, you need rest.

We made our way through the house in silence, I could hear other voices, yet we never came across anyone.

"This is my room," he spoke, shifting his grip on me slightly to open the door.

The room was large with huge french doors leading out to a balcony overlooking a big yard and a lake, soft- what looked like silk curtains framing the windows, a guitar sat in one corner a futon in the other. There was a record player in the corner, playing a soft melody which filled the space, creating a warm inviting feeling. In the centre of the room was the biggest bed I had ever seen.

It had several large cushions on it and a duvet cover that looked like it would feel like laying on clouds. Just this bed was bigger than he cell I'd been forced to spend so many years in,I thought with a shudder.

"This is your room?I stumbled over my words.

"Well I'm hoping it will be our room actually." Shawn spoke, scratching at his neck.

I turned panicked. "But only when you're comfortable I'm not about to force you into anything I promise."

He held his pinkie finger out, and I just looked at it unsure of what he wanted.

"Here," he smiled, taking my hand and locking my own little finger with his. "This is called a pinkie promise. It's like a pact that you don't break," he explained with a smile.

"Oh,I guess, I must have forgotten." I felt extremely stupid and shit up quickly, the only sound that of the record player still in the corner. I found it so comforting, my own father had had one when I was little and I could remember watching the record and needle spin for hours.

"There's a room adjacent to mine which I've had the maids freshen up, there's a comfortable bed and an ensuite with fresh towels and a toothbrush." he continued as if there wasn't just a massive awkward silence emitting solely from my lack of understanding.

He turned leading me back out and across the hallway to another door. When he opened it, I saw a room, smaller than his, but still warm and cosy, with a big bed, a window, lots of pretty lights and yet more records, this time hung in the wall.

"You didn't need to do this for me," I told him, as I took it all in.

"I wanted you to be comfortable," he shrugged.

He lead me back to his room where he sat down on the bed, kicking his shoes off and patting the spot next to him.

"How long was I out" I asked after a minute. He got what I meant immediately.

"Three days," he answered somberly.

"How are you feeling? he asked.

"Still very sore," I admitted.

"Here let me see your injuries." he reached over picking up a box of what I soon realised was full of first aid stuff.

He was extremely gentle as he tended to he cuts and scrapes that covered my shoulders, arms,and legs. He even managed to convince me to let him check my ribs. This I found uncomfortsbly and awkward once again, but he was careful not to make it any worse than it had to be and he had rewrapped them quicky and easily.

"How do you know how to do all this?" I asked quietly as he gently dabbed at a cut on my hand. "We'll I'm actually a trained doctor. When I'm not working as the Alpha, I work at the pack hospital. There all done," he announced,packing up the box and disposing of he rubbish in a small medical waste tin.

Half an hour later and I'd gotten changed, again into one of Shawn's oversized hoodies and made myself comfortable in his bed after he insisted I stay in his room incase I needed him.

"Sleep well, Pup, I'll be here if you need me."

He went to lounge on the futon, and I was left to drift to sleep, exhausted by the day's events. My sleep was fitful to satly the least, dreams bad nightmares melding to form weird and wonderful scenarios which would never make sense.

When I woke, it was to a soft knock on the door. Opening my eyes, I could see that it was still slightly light out, though dinner than it had been, probably somewhere around dusk. A girl with dark hair, dark eyes and a kind smile stepped tenntively into the room.

"My name's Karla. Im in the pack. It's nice to meet you," she added warmly. "Shawn's had to go deal with some pack matters so he asked me to come keep you company. I brought you some food. He said you might be hungry." She held out what looked like a croisant, the smell of butter instantly filling the room."I also brought a hair brush," she added. "I thought you might like to brush your hair, I know that always makes me feel better. Or I could do it?" she added again, shyly.

"Thank you."I whispered, my voice still hoarse.

The girl, Karla, came to sit on the bed. She had to be the same age as me. Maybe a year or two older.

"I hope the pack meeting doesn't go too long," she said as I started picking at my croisant. "Shawn won't want to be away from you, it's hard to be away from our mates." She looked dreamy as she spoke, leaving no question that she too had a mate.

"I'm nervous to meet everyone," I admitted with a frown, suddenly not hungry anymore.

"Aww, don't worry everyone will love you," she smiled. "We've all been waiting for ages for him to meet his mate and you're finally here." she clapped in excitement, breaking E and forcing me to smile just as Shawn came through the door with another soft knock.

"Ahhh, I see you've meet Karla," he smiled, raising his eyebrow a little bit. " I hope she's been telling you good things."

"Yep, what were you doing" I asked watching as he took his deniem jacket off- the same one from earlier and chucked it onto the futon, coming to sit next to me on the bed, careful not to invade my personal space.

"Are you comfortable?" he asked watching as I pulled the crosiant to pieces no longer interested by the food, now that I had him here.

"I'm alright," I shrugged.

He nodded, and we lapsed into yet another comfortable quiet.

It was only then that I realised Karla had left the room, she must have excused herself, seeing that she was no longer needed and didn't feel the need to encroach.The hairbrush however was still laying on the bed.

"I just want you to know," he spoke, breaking the silence after a while, "that no matter what happeneds you'll be safe here. I'll protect you with my life, it's my job both as your Alpha and as your mate," he spoke earnestly.

He was looking at me with such an intensity as he spoke that something broke inside of me, and I cracked. "Lucy," I whispered looking down and away from his gaze.

"What?" I could here the confusion in his voice.

"Lucy, my name, my name is Lucy." I spoke more clearly this time, though I still couldn't bring myself to look at him.

"Lucy, that's a pretty name," he murmured. I could see from the corner of my eye that he was reaching for me, and as much as I wanted to move, my body was frozen whether in fear or anticipation I couldn't know, but the next thing I knew both his hands were cupping my face. He was so gentle, almost as if he thought I would break. I looked up at him, once again taken aback by the intensity of his stare.

I could feel the heat rising in my cheeks.

"You're so pretty when you blush," he smiled, caressing my cheek.

"Please don't compliment me, I don't deserve it, I'm ugly," I repeated the words my captors had drilled into me for so many years.

"You, Lucy," he put emphasis on my name. "are anything but ugly. You are the most beautiful person I have ever known, inside and out."

"How can you say that?" I replied.

"Because, I can feel it Lucy, right here," he took my hand in his and placed it over his chest where I could feel his heart beat strong and sure. "I've been waiting for you my entire life. And now that I have you, it's my job, my honour to protect you with my life," he explained fiercly.

"Thank you," I chocked out, tears welling in my eyes.Leaning into his frame just slightly despite myself and my fears.

"No pup, thank you."

[pinkpeonyprincessblog]

Deliverance| A Werewolf Shawn AU

Part One

The woods had always been a place of comfort for me... A place to escape the madness of my life of serenity. of course I'd heard the stories of vicious wolves who roamed the darkness waiting to prey on the innocent,but I always put it down to stories, gossip, folklore designed to stop kids from venturing too far. That was until the day I was taken.

A rogue pack had taken me as their personal toy, all the anger and frustration they felt was taken out on me. It was a good day if I got a bit of stale bread, and only one beating. On bad days there would be no food and constant, torturous abuse.

I had endured it for 13 year, my small body the reflection of years of malnutrition and hurt,.but I'd finally escaped.

I had bid my time, waiting till they made an inevitable error, and it had finally happend. One of the younger wolves had forgotten to check the padlock when they'd had their fun with me and I'd seized the opportunity and run as fast as I could. but I wasn't fast enough. The alarm had been sounded and there were now several wolves hot on my heels and I could run no further I had to accept my fate. He was less than a metre away from me when our of nowhere another wolf - russet in colour intercepted him in mid air, knocking him over with the force of an elephant. I could hear the snarling and snapping of jaws as I finally collapsed and

surrendered, the last thing I remember was a tall young man walking towards me .

When I woke it was to a mass of activity.

I drifted in and out of sleep, hearing people talking.feeling hands on me, there was even something about the alpha wanting to see 'her', and a.'mate' and something else about ' killing the pack that did this'.. What that meant I couldn't know in my delirium.

When I managed to finally open my eyes and get past the blindly bright light above me, I was met with the image of a man-pacing back land forth, muttering to himself. And the more immediate threat of someone fiddling with the sheet that lay over me.

Surely with a man this good looking, this close to me it had to be a dream, I tried to convince .myself, but someone shattered the dream almost as soon as is materialised.

"Well hello sweetheart, I'm glad to see you're finally awake," the voice came from that of and older woman with long greying hair braided out of her face "My name's Judy, I'm your nurse," she smiled down at me. "Are you in any pain?" She asked.

I took a moment to take everything in, but I was still unable to make sense of it all.

"Where am I?" I asked, trying to sit up, but everything protested as soon as I moved, even muscles I didn't know I had.

"Just stay still for now dear, you don't want to hurt yourself further," the nurse-Judy spoke kindly, helping me to resettle myself.

Something, maybe me speaking seemed to wake the man from his trance like state and he turned to meet my confused gaze.

He was tall, he had to be at least 6 foot, with sliflghtly tanned skin, the most rich brown eyes I'd ever seen, and hair that was neatly cut, except for a few unruly curls at the front of his head which didn't want to co-operate with the hair gel he'd obviously used to style it.

"Oh,oh thank God." the man rushed over to the side of the bed stopping mere inches from my face.

I could feel my heart rate picking up as panic set in, not used to people (let alone males) being this close without hurting me.

I turned to Judy asking desperately with my eyes for help

She must have got the memo because she cleared her throat and spoke.

She seemed somewhat hesitant though "Alpha, I don't mean to overstep my boundaries, I know you must be worried sick as we all are, however would it not be prudent to give the girl some space?"

The man searched my face for a moment, before straightening and stepping backwards.

"I didn't mean to scare you," he muttered guiltily.

"You didn't," I lied before I could think about it.

"My name's Shawn what's yours?" he asked holding his hand out for me to take.

I kept my mouth shut, years of torture telling me to keep quiet. He dropped his extended up so it was back at his side.

"Alrighty then, when you're ready. I won't push you." He spoke, it seemed as though he was trying deliberately to keep his tone, soft, conversational and I appreciated it.

At that moment the doctor walked in. "It's good to see you awake Miss," he spoke echoing Judy's words.

"I'm sorry to say you're quite banged up." Shawn started pacing again at his words.

"

I would have sworn I heard a growl.

"Shawn you have to stay calm," Judy spoke, it sounded almost as if she was trying to comfort him, confusing me further.

Once the doctor left Shawn calmed down, having dragging a chair from outside my room to sit beside my bed.

"I heard something about killing another pack?" I asked weighing my words cafefully. "So are you all wolves too?"

"Yes, honey, but I promise you're safe here," he replied softly, looking over at me. I looked down again, not able to take the human interaction.

"Everytime I look at you, you look down. Why is that?"he asked, sounding sad.

" I didn't mean to upset you," I panicked.Starting to pick at the I.V in my arm, it was something I always did when I was nervous, picking things, my skin, nails whatever seemed to help.

"No, no, I didn't mean it like that, I'm not mad," he cut me off. "I just mean I've noticed it is all," he lay a hand carefully on my arm and surprisingly the contact helped.

"I don't know," I pondered, distracted by his touch. There was a weird, warm feeling flowing from the point of contact straight up to my chest, not dissimilar to when your hands or feet go numb and then start to respond again. It wasn't unpleasant, just strange. "I guess, I'm not used to positive human contact," I admitted, looking up to see him shaking his head.

"Are you the Alpha?" I asked suddenly. He looked at me, surprise washing over his face at the boldness of my question.

"Yes, I am," he spoke proudly. "Of the Shadowmoon Pack, greatest pack in all of Canada if you ask me," he smiled.

I liked the way he was so confident. It made me feel safe and secure. A few more hours past with us sitting in a comfortable silence, I couldn't help but feel safe around him, and as foreign as the feeling was, I also craved it.

"Are you ready to go home now Poppet?" Judy ssekd, making her way into my room again sometime later and starting to mess around with the I.V tubing.

I looked at her panicked.

"Home?" I squeeked. Surely they weren't really going to send me home. It wasn't a home where I'd come from it was a hell, my own personal hell and I'd be damned if I was going back.

Shawn seemed to noticed my emotions and stepped forward, slowly holding his arms out, and instead of backing away as I had done earlier,I surprised us both and stepped into his hold.

He was warm and comfortable, our bodies seemed to fit perfectly,denim of his jacket just scratchy enough and the now semi familiar tingling from our contact pleasant enough to ground me somewhat. I stayed like that for a minute or so before I became a little more aware of what I was doing. I was hugging a near stranger,worse he was a male, worse again Ii was actually lettung myself like it.

Sorry, I blushed, stepoing away quicky and looking down.

"You don't need to apologise," he smiled.

"What was the tingling I felt" I asked wanting to change the subject.

"That is what you get when two mates make contact" He smiled wider than I had ever seen a person smile, his fangs being exposed in the process.

I stood, silently, shocked.

"Are you okay" He asked moving to step towards me, I held a hand up and he halted midstride.

"I promise you. We'll take things slowly, right now I just want to get you home- to our home," he amended when he saw the look of panic in my face. "So you can rest."

I nodded. Still not entirely comfortable, but what other choice did I have? Go back to the pack that had tortured me all these years, or even end up homeless on the street? And from everything I'd seen Shawn seemed like a genuinely nice person, who everyone respected. Plus,if he was telling the truth, which from heat I could tell, he was, he was my mate and from all the stories I'd heard as a child, your mate was meant to be the one person in the world who would do anything for you, be anywhere for you. They would literally protect you with their lives.

"Shawn I don't have anything to wear," I whispered embarrassed again, looking down at the gown which barely covered anything as Judy finally finished what she was doing in the corner of he room having taken out my I.V. and left.

"I brought you some clothes, don't worry," he smiled.Pullnig out the most comfortable pale pink sweater I'd ever seen, he handed it to me and I was hit with his scent.

"This is yours?"

",Is that okay?" he worried. " I could go home and get something from one of the girls if you're uncomfortable," he offered.

I just smiled,letting out a little giggle at the extreme level of concern he was showing, which caused him to immediately relax l, shoulders dropping, a slight smile gracing his lips as he shook his head softly.

"Can you turn around please?" I requested. He did as asked giving the privacy I so desperately craved.

When I was finished he took my hand, holding his other under my elbow to support my weight.

He was so patient, never rushing me as he lead me through the hospital and out the doors into the world. I couldn't help but savour the fresh air,the cold winter air burning my lungs but in a good way.

"I bet it feels nice to be outside again,"

I nodded, "How did you find me" I asked, as we continued to walk. It was as if now that I was free my mind could finally ask questions and process all the stuff I had never done previously.

"That's a story for when you've had some more rest," he answered, coming to a stop in front of a Jeep, opening the door and lifting me in. The tingling was still a shock,l everytime he touched my skin.

"Feel free to sleep we've got a bit of a drive ahead of us" he smiled reassuringly, before turning the ignition,the car coming to life.

I woke to someone shaking me,it was dark now and I immediately jumped back in my seat, unsure, before my groggy eyes made contact with Shawn's and I realised where I was and relaxed.

"I won't hurt you, you're safe now Pup," he murmured, moving to brush some hair out of my face with a feather-light touch. I blushed at the nickname."I was just waking you because we're here, this is home" I took in the house illuminated by lights in complete awe.

"So you're an Alpha and you don't hurt humans?" I asked as he helped me cafefully from he car.

"You're not human, you're an omega, but no I have nothing against humans," he added, holding me steady as I swayed on my feet slightly, not used to standing anymore.

I stood stunned again," I know it's a lot to take in, but we'll get to all of that, for now though, you need rest.

We made our way through the house in silence, I could hear other voices, yet we never came across anyone.

"This is my room," he spoke, shifting his grip on me slightly to open the door.

The room was large with huge french doors leading out to a balcony overlooking a big yard and a lake, soft- what looked like silk curtains framing the windows, a guitar sat in one corner a futon in the other. There was a record player in the corner, playing a soft melody which filled the space, creating a warm inviting feeling. In the centre of the room was the biggest bed I had ever seen.

It had several large cushions on it and a duvet cover that looked like it would feel like laying on clouds. Just this bed was bigger than he cell I'd been forced to spend so many years in,I thought with a shudder.

"This is your room?I stumbled over my words.

"Well I'm hoping it will be our room actually." Shawn spoke, scratching at his neck.

I turned panicked. "But only when you're comfortable I'm not about to force you into anything I promise."

He held his pinkie finger out, and I just looked at it unsure of what he wanted.

"Here," he smiled, taking my hand and locking my own little finger with his. "This is called a pinkie promise. It's like a pact that you don't break," he explained with a smile.

"Oh,I guess, I must have forgotten." I felt extremely stupid and shit up quickly, the only sound that of the record player still in the corner. I found it so comforting, my own father had had one when I was little and I could remember watching the record and needle spin for hours.

"There's a room adjacent to mine which I've had the maids freshen up, there's a comfortable bed and an ensuite with fresh towels and a toothbrush." he continued as if there wasn't just a massive awkward silence emitting solely from my lack of understanding.

He turned leading me back out and across the hallway to another door. When he opened it, I saw a room, smaller than his, but still warm and cosy, with a big bed, a window, lots of pretty lights and yet more records, this time hung in the wall.

"You didn't need to do this for me," I told him, as I took it all in.

"I wanted you to be comfortable," he shrugged.

He lead me back to his room where he sat down on the bed, kicking his shoes off and patting the spot next to him.

"How long was I out" I asked after a minute. He got what I meant immediately.

"Three days," he answered somberly.

"How are you feeling? he asked.

"Still very sore," I admitted.

"Here let me see your injuries." he reached over picking up a box of what I soon realised was full of first aid stuff.

He was extremely gentle as he tended to he cuts and scrapes that covered my shoulders, arms,and legs. He even managed to convince me to let him check my ribs. This I found uncomfortsbly and awkward once again, but he was careful not to make it any worse than it had to be and he had rewrapped them quicky and easily.

"How do you know how to do all this?" I asked quietly as he gently dabbed at a cut on my hand. "We'll I'm actually a trained doctor. When I'm not working as the Alpha, I work at the pack hospital. There all done," he announced,packing up the box and disposing of he rubbish in a small medical waste tin.

Half an hour later and I'd gotten changed, again into one of Shawn's oversized hoodies and made myself comfortable in his bed after he insisted I stay in his room incase I needed him.

"Sleep well, Pup, I'll be here if you need me."

He went to lounge on the futon, and I was left to drift to sleep, exhausted by the day's events. My sleep was fitful to satly the least, dreams bad nightmares melding to form weird and wonderful scenarios which would never make sense.

When I woke, it was to a soft knock on the door. Opening my eyes, I could see that it was still slightly light out, though dinner than it had been, probably somewhere around dusk. A girl with dark hair, dark eyes and a kind smile stepped tenntively into the room.

"My name's Karla. Im in the pack. It's nice to meet you," she added warmly. "Shawn's had to go deal with some pack matters so he asked me to come keep you company. I brought you some food. He said you might be hungry." She held out what looked like a croisant, the smell of butter instantly filling the room."I also brought a hair brush," she added. "I thought you might like to brush your hair, I know that always makes me feel better. Or I could do it?" she added again, shyly.

"Thank you."I whispered, my voice still hoarse.

The girl, Karla, came to sit on the bed. She had to be the same age as me. Maybe a year or two older.

"I hope the pack meeting doesn't go too long," she said as I started picking at my croisant. "Shawn won't want to be away from you, it's hard to be away from our mates." She looked dreamy as she spoke, leaving no question that she too had a mate.

"I'm nervous to meet everyone," I admitted with a frown, suddenly not hungry anymore.

"Aww, don't worry everyone will love you," she smiled. "We've all been waiting for ages for him to meet his mate and you're finally here." she clapped in excitement, breaking E and forcing me to smile just as Shawn came through the door with another soft knock.

"Ahhh, I see you've meet Karla," he smiled, raising his eyebrow a little bit. " I hope she's been telling you good things."

"Yep, what were you doing" I asked watching as he took his deniem jacket off- the same one from earlier and chucked it onto the futon, coming to sit next to me on the bed, careful not to invade my personal space.

"Are you comfortable?" he asked watching as I pulled the crosiant to pieces no longer interested by the food, now that I had him here.

"I'm alright," I shrugged.

He nodded, and we lapsed into yet another comfortable quiet.

It was only then that I realised Karla had left the room, she must have excused herself, seeing that she was no longer needed and didn't feel the need to encroach.The hairbrush however was still laying on the bed.

"I just want you to know," he spoke, breaking the silence after a while, "that no matter what happeneds you'll be safe here. I'll protect you with my life, it's my job both as your Alpha and as your mate," he spoke earnestly.

He was looking at me with such an intensity as he spoke that something broke inside of me, and I cracked. "Lucy," I whispered looking down and away from his gaze.

"What?" I could here the confusion in his voice.

"Lucy, my name, my name is Lucy." I spoke more clearly this time, though I still couldn't bring myself to look at him.

"Lucy, that's a pretty name," he murmured. I could see from the corner of my eye that he was reaching for me, and as much as I wanted to move, my body was frozen whether in fear or anticipation I couldn't know, but the next thing I knew both his hands were cupping my face. He was so gentle, almost as if he thought I would break. I looked up at him, once again taken aback by the intensity of his stare.

I could feel the heat rising in my cheeks.

"You're so pretty when you blush," he smiled, caressing my cheek.

"Please don't compliment me, I don't deserve it, I'm ugly," I repeated the words my captors had drilled into me for so many years.

"You, Lucy," he put emphasis on my name. "are anything but ugly. You are the most beautiful person I have ever known, inside and out."

"How can you say that?" I replied.

"Because, I can feel it Lucy, right here," he took my hand in his and placed it over his chest where I could feel his heart beat strong and sure. "I've been waiting for you my entire life. And now that I have you, it's my job, my honour to protect you with my life," he explained fiercly.

"Thank you," I chocked out, tears welling in my eyes.Leaning into his frame just slightly despite myself and my fears.

"No pup, thank you."

[ambersky0319]

It's You

Prompt :

Warnings : Sympathetic Remus, panic attack

The lovely people who wanna be tagged in just Intrulogical things : @cress-the-fander @worm-does-shit

A/N : So um, this turned out longer than I was planning XD 1641 words... I rarely write that much for even actual chapters of things!

Thank you @cress-the-fander for suggesting this! It was a lot of fun to write, and I do hope you enjoy!

Fic Masterpost

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

Remus rocked on his ankles, biting his lip and trying to not crack his knuckles for the billionth time, nerves eating away at him. His heart pounded in his chest as he stood outside the logical side's door, waiting for the other to finish grabbing whatever he needed before they went into the Imagination.

He took a deep breath, trying to wash the terror off his face.

No one had ever been to his part of the Imagination. It was his sanctuary, his home-away-but-also-not-away-from-home. His safe haven. The one place he was allowed to be vulnerable and be truly himself. It was a place for him to escape the mind palace and just let loose.

And now he was inviting someone else in.

Thoughts raced through his head, what if Logan found it awful? What if he criticized the land? What if he wanted to leave there too soon? What if he wanted to leave Remus altogether?

That scared Remus even more, and he barely noticed that the door was getting increasingly more blurry. His vision swam but he wasn't actually seeing, instead lost in the horrors of what might happen.

What if Logan got hurt? What if one of the others saw them go into the Imagination together? What if they convince Logan to dump him if they find out about their relationship? What would happen then? What would happen if Remus lost control in the Imagination and hurt Logan himself, truly hurt Logan, and then everyone hated him even more? What if he couldn't see Logan after this? What if they're forced apart?

He muffled a sob, sinking to the ground in front of the pearly white door with blue lettering. His tears ruined his makeup, the eyeshadow dripping from his face and into his lap. His shoulders shook as he clenched his teeth and pressed his hands harder against his lips, keeping any wails or whimpers down so they'd only be a small whine from the back of his throat.

He was curling in on himself, thoughts spiraling and clouding his mind. Why did he agree to show Logan his Imagination? His home? His most prized creation? Why did he agree? Why? Why? Why?

"Remus?" That voice was familiar. A monotone with a hint of concern. Remus would recognize it anywhere.

"Remus, if you can hear me, try to follow along, alright?" Logan didn't expect an answer, and instead started to count. He instructed Remus on what to do, first trying out the technique Virgil had learned. Breathe in for four seconds, hold for seven, and exhale for eight.

Remus hugged himself tighter, his breathing still uneven as he tried to take deeper breaths and failed. But it had helped slightly.

"Alright, let's try something else, okay? May I hold your hand?" Logan asked calmly, and Remus took in another shaky breath before uncurling one of his arms from around himself and offering his hand to Logan.

Logan took Remus' hand in his, and Remus gripped it tightly, knuckles white. If Logan was in pain from the near-bone-crushing hold, it didn't show. His face stayed neutral as he guided Remus through another exercise- having him count numbers out of order, or answer problems that Remus would need to work out.

It took many tries, but eventually Remus had calmed down. His grip on Logan's hand had relaxed a bit, and he looked up from his knees, wiping at his face with his free arm. "Thanks," he mumbled.

Logan smiled warmly at him, a smile that reassured Remus. It was the smile that Remus fell in love with, the smile that always seemed to brighten up his day.

Logan leaned forward a bit to press a gentle kiss to Remus' knuckles, and Remus' cheeks flushed pink. "Do you want to talk about whatever happened?" Logan inquired softly, lifting his gaze slightly.

Remus shook his head, sniffing slightly. "I don't think it'd be too good to talk about it," he replied. Logan nodded in understanding and stood up. He pulled Remus up with him, and as soon as they were both on their feet, Logan pulled Remus closer and hugged his duke.

Remus sighed slightly, clinging onto Logan. "I think I'm ready to bring you to my part of the Imagination."

Remus could almost see the light bulb go off in Logan's head, despite his own face buried in the crook of Logan's neck. Logan's arms rested around his waist, tightening ever so slightly, making Remus feel just that little bit more protected.

"We don't need to if you do not wish to, Remus. We can always just hideaway in my room and watch those trashy horror films."

Remus' own arms tightened around Logan, and he shook his head, taking a deep breath.

"But I want to do this. Trust me."

Logan was quiet for a few seconds, pulling away just slightly so he could look down and examine Remus' expression. He traced a finger along Remus' jaw, meeting Remus' gaze and searching for any hint he may be lying.

"You're positive?"

Remus nodded.

"Alright then-" Logan pressed a kiss to Remus' forehead, a feather-light touch that made Remus' intestines turn to butterflies- "whenever you're ready, we can go."

Remus took in a slow breath. This was the easiest part. Sinking out with someone wasn't something foreign to any of the sides, even Remus. But he felt the butterflies in his stomach be replaced with nervous knots, and he chewed on the inside of his lip as they popped into Remus' sector of the Imagination.

He watched as Logan scanned the area they had appeared in, only releasing Remus with one arm. The trees seemed to all be dead, some charred as if struck by lightning, others of old age, and some had dried up. Between the trees what looked to be a deer three times their normal size raced through the trees, chasing after a bear only just a bit shorter.

Logan looked to the sky, taking in the stars in the broad daylight, the moon and sun forever stuck beside one another above. Dark clouds dotted the sky, winding around what Logan could only assume to be Remus' borders. A vulture landed on a nearby branch, peering down at the two curiously.

Logan saw the dark tower looming just down one of the paths, a dark shadow being cast onto the deceased trees. Logan could see the hints of green from where they stood, flickering against the black bricks.

"Well?" Remus asked, his hands above his mouth clamped together as he waited for Logan to say something. Anything. Logan's expression was unreadable, and Remus could feel that panic start to build up again.

After another minute of silence, Logan's voice was like music to Remus' ears.

"It looks a lot less chaotic than I expected, and a lot less gore." Logan commented, and stepped over slightly so he stood in front of Remus instead of beside him. He moved his arm from around Remus' waist and cupped his cheeks in his hands, running his thumb along Remus' lower face slowly, eyes full of adoration and love.

He leaned in and kissed Remus- such a gentle kiss that Remus felt lightheaded, getting chills as Logan's hands left his face and trailed down his arms to Remus' hands. When Logan pulled back slightly, Remus blinked a few times, as if trying to start working again.

"It's not what I expected, but it's still beautiful. Perfect, and totally you. Now-" Logan took a step back, tugging Remus slightly as the side seemed to come back to 'reality'- "I'd love to go visit that tower, and let you show me around. That alright with you?"

Remus expression shifted. Once a terrified look had morphed into one of confusion and a hazey feeling, but then even that shifted, shifted to a grin that Logan could only take as a yes.

The creative trait began to pull Logan along. It was as if his fears had melted away as he walked familiar paths and saw the strange creatures, his creations, his children. And he jumped into an explanation of anything that Logan asked about, but he missed every love-struck look that Logan sent his way.

"Hey Remus?" Logan asked, leaning against the cusions of the couch that Remus had conjured for them. "Can I ask you something?"

Remus looked away from the large tv playing some horror film that Remus didn't care to remember the title to. He smiled at Logan and nodded, and Logan smiled back,kissing his cheek lightly before standing up.

Logan looked down at Remus, a look of pure love on his face. And Logan was no longer afraid to say the three words that had previously taken him do very long to even whisper. He no longer felt shy about letting the words leave his lips, and he beamed whenever he saw Remus' face turn crimson.

"I love you-" Remus' cheeks heated up as Logan had suspected they would- "You mean the world to me, Remus." Logan took Remus' hands in his own, squeezing them lightly.

"You're courageous and affectionate and loving and despite how many see you, you're truly a wonderful person. I love your personality, your extravagant outfits. I love when you're proud, and you get really interested in a single topic.

"I love you, and the question I'm going to ask is a very important one." Logan kissed both of Remus' hands softly before he sunk to his knee, and tears pricked at Remus' eyes as he processed what exactly was going on.

Logan pulled a box from one of his back pockets, and held it out to Remus. Remus could see the way Logan's hand trembled slightly.

"Will you, Remus Creativity Sanders, marry me?"

TS Taglist

Just ask if you wish to be added or removed to either taglist!

@treasureofpriam @theloveliestjellyfish @tacohippy56900 @acompletemusicalnerd @romanknite @0beansprout0 @random-fandom-dragon @daflangstlairde @princerhubarb @that-one-ts-artist @heyitsmeimjustkindahere @aromanticandaromatic @theblankest123 @deliciouslycrookedme @batpinkstudentpersona @avocados26 @fandomloverangel @red-eyes88 @adarkgreensoul @analogicallythinking @thatreallyawkwardpotato @len-art-trash @insanegoldie2 @sos-fandoms @asthmatic-trash-bastard @alexkittycat1 @len-art-trash @faithyfander

[alovesthis]

Your Face, Your Voice — Destiel Drabble

also on AO3: https://archiveofourown.org/works/29315994?view_adult=true

Summary: He feels it now. Nerves striking up and down his body, his heart pounding against his chest and a weird tumbling in his stomach. His eyes finally reach the glistening blue ones in front of him, the same eyes he's always stared into for years.

Warnings: barn scene? (15.20 episode) angst, slight fluff

Pairing: Destiel

For what felt like forever, Dean kept breathing to try and calm himself down. But each exhale was quivery, and began to hurt. At first, with Sam right in front of him, he didn't want to be left alone. Everything began to hurt and he began to believe that this was it. Everything he had fought for, yearned for was all going to be for nothing. It wasn't until Sam had convinced and fought for his brother's life in that moment. He had left Dean for just a few seconds, running out of the barn in a focused panic. He felt like he was there, alone, forever and that he was going to die without his brother by his side.

His eyes were closed, but the tears continued to escape as they trailed down his cheek. He was growing tired, his lips quivering at the pain that had both kept him awake and slowly end his life. Pure agony; to be alone and dying after everything you've done to protect the world from crumbling. It wasn't fair, and he knew deep down inside that this isn't what he deserved.

Sam still hadn't come back just yet, and it hadn't even been more than five minutes yet. Dean shivered from the pain, but he suddenly felt a whoosh of air against his skin. He flinched, but kept his eyes close. The only sound he heard was someone calling out for his name. A faint smile formed on his lips. Is this what heaven for him sounded like? Was he here with him?

"Dean?"

He didn't want to believe that this was it. He was gone, never saw Sammy again.

"Dean, what happened?"

He didn't want to open his eyes just yet. His voice calling for him was enough.

"Look at me, Dean."

He still felt the sharpness stuck inside his body. His eyes slowly opened, his mouth agape as he gasped.

"Cas?"

Cas takes a step forward and grips Dean's shoulders. They stare into each others eyes, like they were both being hypnotized and moved by the rising heat between each other. Dean closes his eyes and leans into his touch, his heart fluttering both from pain and being with Cas again.

"I'm here, Dean." He assures him. "I need you to listen to me. Open your eyes, keep them on me."

"Cas, I-"

"Don't speak. Please, just focus on me. It's going to hurt, but I promise you Dean, I'm here. It won't hurt after."

"Are we going up together?" He closes his eyes. "You know, heaven. If it's still there."

"Dean, just focus on me." He repeats. "You're still here, still..."

He takes a few seconds to breathe before he grips onto Dean harder, and nods. "I need you to be ready, so just push through this. Keep fighting like you always do. Okay?"

Dean nods his head profusely and opens his eyes again. Cas pulls on his body, trying to take his body off the the rebar. Dean lets out a deep groan, almost yelling through the pain. His face winces, tightly squeezing onto Cas's waist, bunching up the trench coat. Cas's eyes begin to tear up as he watches the man he loves protest in undeniable pain. He whispers soft words of encouragement, making sure Dean knew he was strong enough to get through this. To make sure that Dean is worth saving and has a life he deserves to live.

Suddenly, Dean fell into Cas's arms as they both stumble for just a moment. Dean's eyes are still closed, but open slightly when he sees a glowing blue light in front of him. Cas moves his hands from his shoulders, placing one hand behind Dean where the rebar was and the other now on his heart. He was healing him. Cas still has tears in his eyes, and Dean exhales a shaken laugh.

Dean's hand shot straight up to his chest, his eyes widening in hope. There was no more pain. He was okay, alive and it was all because of Cas.

"You're here." Dean says.

"I'm here, Dean. We both are."

"Cas...what you told me. Every single word, every second..."

"It's okay, we don't need-"

"It's your turn to listen to me now." He softly says, as he raises his hands to Cas's cheek. "You told me there was one thing you want and that you couldn't have it. But you're here now, alive. And so am I. You have me. We get to live now, and you taught me that we deserve it. Cas, thank you."

"You do deserve it, Dean."

Cas pulls Dean into a hug by his waist, not wanting to let him go.

"Thank you." Dean breaths out, squeezing Cas tight between his shoulder blades right where his wings begin. Dean can't feel them, or see them, but his wings start to flutter as Cas feels a gentle kiss on his jaw, right where his ear is. "It's because of you that I'm okay."

"Yes, but..." Cas pulls away, even though he doesn't want to. He stares into his eyes, his stoic face now softened as he takes in the beauty that is Dean Winchester. "It's because you never stopped. You kept fighting, and now you get to live."

"What about you? You gonna stick around? For good?" His voice sounds like he's pleading, wanting Cas to stay.

"I'm not going anywhere." His eyes light up with happiness.

"Before...you know, when you saved me." Dean begins, slowly taking his time with words trying to register his own thoughts at the same time. "You told me that happiness isn't in the having, but in the being. In saying it."

"I remember."

Now, their hands are at their sides but they still stand close in front of each other. Cas continues to stare at Dean's freckled face -- he looks exhausted, but ready to leave everything behind. Dean uses his eyes to look up and down, all over, trying to run through his thoughts. He feels it now. Nerves striking up and down his body, his heart pounding against his chest and a weird tumbling in his stomach.

His eyes finally reach the glistening blue ones in front of him, the same eyes he's always stared into for years. What felt like forever, they finally get to see each others face. The way Cas sees Dean, his hard exterior now relaxed and at peace. A hero with many scars, but still beautiful. His deep voice suddenly soft and quiet. And the way Dean sees Cas. Also hero, an angel...someone Dean can always count on. The strength, the vision of the most handsome and graceful angel- person- he's ever seen and got to know.

The feelings now incredibly intensified, making Dean feel things he's always felt but now much more clear. He was ready; to be brave and speak his truth like Cas had. If he could do it, so can he. He's always learned from Cas, and that was never going to stop.

"But I think we can have and deserve to have it. To live it. To say it. Cas..." Dean takes a step forward and gently grabs his face. "I thought I was never gonna see you again. Cas, man, I love you. I've missed you, everything..."

"Dean?" Cas stares at him. He can't believe it. Is this real? Is he really alive, standing in front of the man he's always loved and having him reciprocate feelings. Dean loves him.

"I do. I should've said it then, but I'm saying it now. I want you to know because you freaking deserve it too. I love you Cas.”

Cas leans into his palms that are pressed against his cheeks, closing his eyes for just a second to absorb his truth and the love Dean radiates. Dean takes this moment to catch both Cas and himself in surprise. Closing his eyes too, to take it all in, Dean leans into Cas and presses his lips against his. Both of their eyebrows furrow in concentration on the fluttering they feel in both their hearts. Bodies close, hearts beating and a moment of happiness shining through. They're both alive, free to live all doing it together. And that's all they've truly wanted.

Sam stands by the barn door, looking in with faint smile at his brother and Castiel. It gives him hope, a sign for him that he deserves what they have right now too. Eileen. Clutching the first aid kit in his hands, he looks down and exhales a silent smile and walks back to the impala to wait for them, no matter how long that'll be. Dean's safe. Cas is back and alive. And so is Eileen.

They pull away from each other, both letting out a soft chuckle of disbelief. Without any words, Dean takes a hold of Cas' shoulder and smiles. Their eyes still glisten from the tears before, lips still pursed and reddened from the kiss. The feeling doesn't fade but instead sinks into each of their hearts as they walk closely together, out of the barn and into the next phase of their life.

———

Again, just a little Drabble for my OTP. I’m also on AO3:

https://archiveofourown.org/users/womanwhowritesformany/pseuds/womanwhowritesformany

[dunkshotdreaming]

Sugar

Pairing: Jaemin x reader

Genre: tooth rotting fluff; the classic best friends to lovers trope

Word Count: 1,584

Warnings: rated c for cheesy. (also there is like one cuss word, that’s it)

✎ A/N: Was influenced by my first ever blurb over on @hourly-dreaming + Jaemin's self professed sugar eating habit. Probably lame and cliché as hell. Self indulgent, sorry not sorry. (Did try to keep it entirely gender neutral though👍🏻)

You've just finished your nightly routine as you crawl into your sleeping bag, excited that your best friend Jaemin is staying over. As you both have some time off for the summer anyway, Jaemin pretends to be feeling "too lonely" to stay home alone while his parents are off on some business trip, the perfect setup that gave way to your week-long sleepover.

"Scoot over, I'm not going to bite," Jaemin states, impatiently dragging your sleeping bag closer to his. In all honesty, you both could have slept on the bed or couch just fine, but there was just something nostalgic about busting out your bags like this, something about making blanket forts and having pillow fights and staying up watching cartoons together, just like the good old days.

He laughs softly at the way you sleepily hug your teddy bear close to your chest, a sight he never grew tired of. As he leans over to speak to you, the gentle scent of brown sugar permeates his senses, and suddenly, Jaemin is reminded of the precious sugar cubes he's forgotten back at home.

"You smell sweet," he mentions offhandedly, distracted by how soft and beautiful you look in the dim glow of the night light you'd plugged in earlier.

After a beat, you nod to yourself before responding, "Must be my new sugar scrub."

"And here I thought it was just because you were a snack," Jaemin retorts, his eyes turning up into a nearly crescent shape at the way you cover your mouth, a poor attempt at stifling your laughter. He almost hated to admit it, but clichés were clichés for a reason; after all, it had to be something that happened often enough in the first place, right?

It had been earlier in the year when he'd noticed his feelings for you might not be exactly platonic, but he decided he'd rather stay quiet than risk losing you, the best friend he cherished more than anyone else in this world. But everyone slips up sometimes, and tonight, as he lays by your side, the part of his heart that wishes it could be like this every night decides it's high time it takes control.

The wave of feelings he's hit with successfully manage switch off his brain for long enough that he doesn't realize he's caressing your cheek until your eyes shoot open, eyeing him curiously. Jaemin had always been affectionate, and you were no exception to his ways, however... things felt different. There was tension in the room, a thick atmosphere created of unsaid words and pent-up emotion.

You'd swear Jaemin was staring at your lips, but there was no way that was possible, you're convinced it isn't. Your best friend you'd been hopelessly pining over actually returning the feelings? ...Yeah, right. This wasn't a Hallmark movie.

"Would you mind if I tasted your scrub?" The words are out of his mouth before he can reel them back in, hand freezing on your cheek, still not withdrawing from its position as his heart falters.

"Tasted? Uh, well... it's in the bathroom, if you wanna-" your words are cut short as he cautiously places his lips on yours, merely a brief touch before he pulls away. Stuck in a stupor, you have to blink yourself back to reality. A quick pinch to your cheek confirms that you're wide awake, hissing at the pain as you eye Jaemin with furrowed brows.

The boy in question rolls onto his back, covering his eyes with one arm as the other lays between your bodies on the floor. "Ah shit, it wasn't supposed to go like this... I messed up. To think after so long, I ruin our friendship because I couldn't keep my feelings for you in check." He scoffs, furious with himself... yet he can't find it in him to wish it had never happened, having been able to satisfy his curiosity for your lips at long last. "I totally understand if you're mad at me, or if you wanna kick me out, or-" This time, Jaemin is the one who gets cut off, the softest press of your finger to his lips as you then envelop his free hand in both of your own, your plush bear forgotten with the wind.

"Are you telling me that we're both so cliché... that we fell for our best friend and chose to suffer in silence because... we couldn't bear the thought of splitting apart?" Your breathless confession makes him go cross-eyed for a moment, his arm leaning against his forehead now, all the while processing your words carefully, until his eyes land back on your face.

"That we both?.." is all he can manage to mumble out. "Wait, you like me too?" his voice cracks towards the end, the lilt in his otherwise rumbling voice making the two of you giggle like school children.

"And here I was worried it was painfully obvious... you really are so oblivious, Jaemin."

"You didn't notice either though!" he shoots back, almost as defensive as it was reflexive.

"Touché," is all you can offer in return. He looks over at you, at the way you're nervously chewing your lip because the smile threatening to break out would simply burst your cheeks. Decidedly, he brings his arm away from your face before returning it to where it had previously rested, cupping your cheek to force himself into your line of sight once again.

The dull thrumming of blood in his ears is all he can hear, senses heightened due to the surge of adrenaline. "Can I try again, for real this time?" he seems more confident this time, but still wary of potentially scaring you off, the skittishness making it hard to read your true emotions. Much to his relief, you lean in, a quiet sign of approval as you fear your voice may betray your deceptively calm expression.

There's no hesitation from there on out, and Jaemin kisses you the way you thought was only possible in fairytales. If it wasn't midnight, you'd swear the birds would be chirping at your windowsill, ready to help you get dressed for the day ahead. His pillowy lips press against your own heavily, but the he moves them against the skin of your lips is the complete opposite, gentle warmth spreading our from your chest. Not wanting to overdo it on the first kiss (of many more, he hopes), he draws away from you, chest heaving as he takes ragged breaths; moreso due to the overwhelming emotions blossoming in his bosom, truth be told.

A silent question lingers as he looks at you expectantly, wondering how you felt in the aftermath. "Much better the second time around," you say with a smile before it turns lopsided, "though you kinda hit my eye with your nose." Much to his chagrin, Jaemin's hopes of a picturesque first kiss with you shatter before his very eyes, only to realize that if it didn't bother you much, then why should he let it get to him?

"Would you do me the honor," he lifts both of your hands in his, lifting them towards his lips to place a peck on the back of each, "and go out with me? Anywhere you want to go tomorrow, it's on me."

"Kinda backwards, isn't this? First you stay over, then you kiss me, and then you ask me out?" you tease, taking pleasure in the sight of a pouty Jaemin scrunching his nose at you. "But yes, I will do you the honor and grace you with my presence. If and only if," you pause for dramatic effect.

"If?" the boy hangs on to your every word as his heart hammers in his chest, still in disbelief that you would actually be his to cherish and shower with love, even moreso now than ever.

"If you promise not to eat my sugar, scrub."

"Did you just-" he scoffs at your unbearably lame pun, groaning as he rolls his eyes. "Is it too late to un-ask you out now?" he raises a single brow in question, laughing at the mock hurt on your features.

"Guess someone isn't getting a good night kiss," you send a jab his way before facing away from him, collecting your bear in your arms as you try to quiet the rabbiting of your heartbeat enough to get a few hours of sleep.

A hand on your waist calls your attention as Jaemin comically scoots from within his sleeping bag, not unlike a caterpillar's movements, until he's hugging you from behind now, breath fanning over your hair as he sighs.

"I lost my teddy bear... can I sleep here with you instead?"

"Is it too late to un-agree to go out with you?" you parrot his earlier jest.

His next words aim for your heart and strike with dart-like precision, "You're stuck with me for good now, sorry sugar." Now, you could pretend your heart didn't just somersault from beneath your ribcage, but you'd be lying through your teeth if you did.

The rays of early morning sun cast stripes of golden light across your sleeping forms, bundled up in your own bags yet all curled up together. As your parents awake and go to check up on you two, they decide the peaceful sight before them is simply too precious to disturb. Turning to face the other, one of your parents quietly whispers, "I told you they were a thing! You owe me twenty."

[writemywaytoyourheart]

"Chocopies? Check. Hugs and cuddles? Check."

a/n: ugh I'm sorry this is a little late again, happy tuesday you guys <3 hope you guys like this week's post!

Masterlist← Find all my works here! Hopefully the bio ML will work soon🙏

Genre: FLUFF ❤️

Warnings: none :)

*JUST IMAGINE WHICHEVER MEMBER YOU'D LIKE*

🖤🖤🖤🖤🖤🖤🖤🖤🖤🖤🖤🖤🖤🖤

"Hey baby?"

You hear your boyfriend call out from the kitchen. You were in the bathroom trying to get your hair into a suitable hairdo and fix your smudged makeup- you were way too tired last night to take it off and too lazy now to do a whole new face of makeup.

"Yes love?" You call back then grunt in annoyance when the mascara under your right eye stubbornly refuses to come off, resulting in looking like a black eye.

"Do you have any ch-.....-ies..?"

You missed the last part of what he said, you squint, trying to listen harder.

"I'm sorry love but I did not hear you at all! Can you say it again?" You call out to him.

"I said do you ha-....-ny......-ies?"

Oh for pete's sake.... you sigh heavily and drop your tired arm, then apologize again.

"Look, baby I'm sorry, I'll be out in a second ok? I just can't hear what you're saying."

You grab another Q-tip and put more makeup remover on it then successfully wipe the stubborn mascara off the under part of your right eye.

"Aha! finally....now I'll just..." You mutter under your breath while you pull out your mascara wand and start refreshing your eyelashes.

"Baby?"

You jump and poke yourself in the eye when your boyfriend suddenly appears in the open bathroom door right next to you.

"Ahh! Ouch! Ow, ow, gosh dang it."

Your boyfriend immediately looks regretful and apologizes profusely.

"Sorry baby! I'm sorry! I didn't mean to scare you, are you ok?"

You giggle and kiss him on the cheek to show him he doesn't have to worry. Then you try to keep your eye from twitching as you fan it slightly, it hadn't hurt that bad but it made your eyes water and you really didn't need that right now.

"What was it that you needed Honey?"

Your boyfriend scrunched his eyebrows together in thought for a moment, making you giggle, and then he snapped his fingers.

"Ah yes! I was wondering if you had any...uh....Chocopies...?" He draws out the words slowly and his eyes dart around, looking anywhere but your face.

You laugh at his adorable expression, the fact that he was embarrassed was so cute. Unfortunately, you didn't have the snack he was obsessed with recently.

"Aw, no love, I ran out a few days ago. I'm sorry."

His face fell, but a second later he smiled and waved it off, saying he didn't want one anyway.

"I mean, I should probably be careful of how many of those I eat....ya know?" He chuckled.

You booped his nose and turned back to keep fixing your makeup and as you did you said nonchalantly,

"Hmm, how about we go and get some from the store? I needed to get some groceries anyway, I have like, no food. And a Chocopie sounds amazing right now." You wink at him through the mirror and smile as his face lights up.

_________________

"Careful baby, here." Your boyfriend grabs your hand and steadies you when an older man shoves past- jostling you on his way inside the subway.

You smile gratefully at him and squeeze his hand affectionately.

On a nice day, you two would walk all the way to the store; since it wasn't too far away. But it was hot outside and neither of you wanted to walk in the muggy heat, and standing on the sidewalk for who knows how long trying to get a taxi, wouldn't be much better. So the subway it is.

Subways were always cramped and uncomfortable; especially when rude people would knock into you without a second thought.

You feel a warm strong arm wrap around you protectively and pull you close. Leaning into your boyfriend's chest, you forget about the fact that you're crammed into a tiny space, standing uncomfortably. Your boyfriend kisses you on the top of your head and breathes in the scent of your new shampoo.

"Ohhhh, what scent is that? I love it."

You giggle and kiss his cheek, "it's cherry blossom, I saw it and wanted to try it out. I'm glad you like it."

"I do!.....hmm, but you know what scent would be even better?"

"No, what?"

He bends down and whispers in your ear, his soft breath tickling you.

"Chocopie scent...."

You pull back and smack him on the chest lightly, laughing at him.

"Oh my gosh, you're insane!"

"Why?? It would smell delicious!"

You roll your eyes, "you're definitely addicted to those things.."

He just smiles and winks at you before pulling you back into his protective hug.

________________

Finally off the subway and heading into your favorite grocery store, you feel a blast of blissfully cool air hit you right when you walk through the automatic doors.

"Ahh, oh my gosh this feels so good...just wait a second.."

You stand under the air vent that is responsible for blowing welcome coldness onto your sweaty face; your eyes closed in content. You don't realize that your boyfriend is watching you, smiling like an idiot.

Eventually you sigh and walk further into the store, grabbing a hand basket.

He follows you and just giggles at the way you walk; bouncing up and down a little and swinging the basket.

I love that girl.

"Come on slow poke~" you motion him to come catch up with you.

He takes a few long strides and catches up quickly. Then slips his hand into your free hand, entwining your fingers.

You smile at him and squeeze his hand, then start swinging your joined hands between the two of you. He just plays along and tries to hold back his laughs.

"Y/n? Ya know something?"

"What is it?"

"You're the cutest thing in the world and I love you."

"wha- I, I mean, ah haha" you stutter and a blush starts creeping up your neck. He just smiles at you and continues swinging your linked hands.

"What's the matter? Embarrassed?~"

"No, I just, thank you..... Iloveyoutoo.."

You rush out the last sentence and lift your hand that's still holding his to cover your face.

____________________

"I told you it was aisle fifteen...."

"You did not you little liar you said thirteen!"

"Uh uh, I distinctly said fifteen...you just didn't listen."

"Well I distinctly heard, thirteen."

You pout and cross your arms. He definitely said thirteen. He rolls his eyes playfully and pokes your cheek gently.

"Well either way, we're at fifteen now so let's go get that ramen you wanted. Sound good?"

You humph and walk into aisle fifteen, your boyfriend only a step behind you. You reach the end of the aisle and turn around again; confusion written all over your face. Then you turn around again, then again and start going back to the other side of the aisle that you started at.

"Baby what are you doing?"

Your boyfriend follows you and gently takes your arm. "Where are you going?"

"It's not here.."

"Huh?"

"The ramen, H/n....it isn't in this aisle."

"oh....they must've moved it..."

"Or you were wrong."

"Hey don't blame me!! You come here all the time, shouldn't you know where the stuff you get is?"

"Ugh, whatever. They must have switched everything around."

"That's what I said!"

"Shush, don't bother me, I need to concentrate."

The store did happen to switch a few things around, which you learned from the employee you asked for help.

Going around the store was difficult because they changed stuff, but also because the man-child that was attached at your hip; pulling stuff off the shelves to examine them and ask if you wanted "this too" or "this looks interesting, you want it?" He was obviously bored and trying not to think about his Chocopies that had yet to get a seat in the now stuffed hand basket.

You loved him to absolute pieces and you weren't bothered by it one bit, it just happened to make the trip last a bit longer.

It went on like this for a while, you picking out some rice, him asking if you wanted this weird looking rice because the container had a silly picture on it, you agreeing because it was too cute to say no.

Picking out vegetables, and seeing him come over with two handfuls of mushrooms for you to see if you wanted them. Needless to say, you got the mushrooms.

At one point you were grabbing another spatula and saw him looking over some weird cooking utensils; his eyes glued to a strange plastic thing....what even was that? A lemon juicer? Or a garlic peeler? Maybe it was a potato shredder.....

He started to reach out and grab it but you called to him before he could bring it to your attention.

"Hey, H/n! Let's go to the snacks now!"

He looked up quickly and nodded; coming over to you and completely forgetting the strange object.

You took his hand and started walking briskly, you had to get him to the snack aisle before he convinced you to buy the whole store because you just couldn't say no.

Finally in his favorite aisle, his face lit up and he started walking down; looking along the shelves for his new obsession.

While he scoured the shelves you look around for something salty to snack on along with the Chocopies. You settle on some chips that you both liked and a small bag of dried squid for whenever you crave it randomly.

When you look up again you see him hurrying toward you with a box of the special treat clutched in his arms.

_____________________

"Ok, we're checking out now...is there anything else you need Y/n?"

"Umm, I don't think so....let me check everything off. Pls tell me if there's something missing."

"Alright." He takes the basket and waits for you to start saying what you got.

"Rice?"

"Check."

"Vegetables?"

"Check."

"Milk?"

"Check."

"Eggs?"

"Check."

"Cheese?"

"Check."

"Seaweed?"

"Ok wait hold on..."

"What? Did I forget that? Dang it I thought I got it."

"No, no it's here. The word "check" is losing all meaning to me though." You laugh as your boyfriend shakes his head, trying to clear it. You guys finish listing out everything until you come to the snacks, but you had taken the basket back and were heading up to the cash register.

He follows closely behind and whispers in your ear,

"Chips?"

You laugh, "check!"

"Dried squid?"

"Check!"

"Chocopies?"

"Check!

"Hugs and cuddles?"

"Check!....wait what?"

He just laughs and hugs you from the back, walking with you to check out.

"I want hugs and cuddles too." You can hear the pout in his voice.

"You can have them when we get home, with your Chocopies too, hm?"

He nods happily.

__________________

Back in the comfort of your apartment after the long day of shopping; you quickly put everything away while he helps you, then you flop onto the couch.

He comes into the living room carrying the box of Chocopies and the chips you got. He sits down next to you and offers you the snacks, you smile tiredly and grab a Chocopie and a handful of chips, putting them on your tummy so you didn't have to hold them while you ate.

He munches away happily and pulls you into his chest.

"Thank you baby."

You look over at him and wipe a crumb from the corner of his mouth.

"What for? You paid for the snacks, so thank you, love."

He shrugs and laughs, "thank you for going with me and for dealing with me at the store."

You laugh and cuddle into his side. Breathing deeply you start to relax; hearing the steady thumping of his heartbeat.

"I love you, H/n."

You feel him kiss your temple. Then start stroking your hair softly.

"I love you too, little cutie."

[demiwitch527]

The Thin Line in Between | Sirius Black x OC | Prologue

A/N: Hi, I hope you guys like it. Feel free to let me know what you guys think of the story.

Warnings: my crappy writing... 😁

Description: People always say there was a thin line between love and hate.

She was a Malfoy and he was a Black. But growing up in the same circle doesn't necessarily mean that a good relationship will blossom between them.

She was not like other girls and he was not like most guys.

They were opposites from the very beginning. They had been at each other's throats even before they stepped foot at Hogwarts.

She was his curse and he was her plague. She desired nothing more than to live up to her name and all he wanted was to escape his.

But between their families and the raging wizarding war, the clear path they were once headed has blurred and it's now up to them to decide which side of that line they will cross.

Will they choose to fight together? Or will they remain against each other?

*ALL RIGHTS BELONGS TO JK ROWLING*

"I know a girl, she's like a curse. We want each other, no one would break first."

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

HOGWARTS EXPRESS ~ 1971

Sirius was sat in his compartment aboard the Hogwarts Express. He was finally on his way to Hogwarts School of Witchcraft and Wizardry and, most importantly, he was at last far away from his parents. He could finally have a chance to be happy for a change. There was no one around to tell him how to behave, what values he should believe in, what magic he should practice, and which people he should interact with. He was free.

Sirius was chatting with James Potter, a boy he met a few moments ago. When a girl with light blonde hair walked by and caught his eye.

She was dressed in a black dress under a black coat with gold buttons, which were completely undone. Her hair had been pinned back on each side with green hair clips. She had a neutral yet slightly haughty expression on her face as she followed an older boy with the same long blonde hair that had been tied in a low ponytail. Students at the corridor began to part for them as the siblings passed by.

"Not even at the school yet and you're already checking out the girls." James teased. "You don't waste time, do you mate."

Sirius rolled his eyes. "Believe me, if I were gonna check out a girl, it wouldn't be that one."

"Why?" James asked. "I thought she was kinda cute."

Sirius scoffed. "Yeah, maybe. But wait till you actually talk to her."

James arched his brows, confused. "Blimey, you sound like you know her."

Sirius knew that girl alright. How could he forget someone like her. Cold. Uncaring. Rude. Humourless. He could go on for hours. The night they met was one of the worst nights of his life.

"Isabelle Evanora Malfoy," he said. "Abraxas Malfoy's only daughter. My cousin Narcissa is engaged to her brother. Met her during their engagement ball at the Malfoy's manor."

"Ah, so she's your soon to be cousin-in-law." James said.

"My mother wants me to get close to her." Sirius said, with distaste. "She wants to solidify the merger of the Blacks and Malfoys. But there's no way I'm ever gonna go through with it."

He was no longer under his parents' roof. He could do what he wanted now. And what he wanted didn't involve Isabelle Malfoy in the slightest. 

Isabelle was quiet throughout the train ride. It was her first year at Hogwarts and her nerves were certainly getting the better of her.

"Evie..." called Lucius, her older brother. 

He sat right across from her in their compartment on the Hogwarts Express. He most probably noticed how quiet she's been since leaving the manor this morning. 

"Are you still upset about father not seeing you off for your first year?" he asked. 

"No, I'm used to it." she said, sadly. 

The great Abraxas Malfoy would never be caught dead anywhere near the King's Cross Station or Hogwarts, especially if it's of his own free will. After all, how could a Malfoy be under the same roof as the mudbloods and blood traitors that studied at Hogwarts?

Unacceptable, her father would say.

The only reason he had chosen for her and her brother to study at Hogwarts was because it was closer to home, which meant their father could keep a closer eye on both of them and of course there's the fact that there are a great number of notable pure-blood families at Hogwarts that would make for great allies and connections. But if it were up to Isabelle and Lucius, they would have chosen to go to Durmstrang Institute, where mudbloods were not admitted and all types of magic was part of the curriculum.

Their father had always taught Isabelle and Lucius the importance of blood purity and the superiority of those with pure-blood over those whose blood has been tainted with muggle blood. Abraxas Malfoy was never a very attentive father, especially since their mother passed according to Lucius, but he made it a point to educate them about the Malfoy family's values and beliefs. 

With a father like that you can just imagine how Isabelle's childhood was like. Luckily for her she had Lucius, who had always been there for her, especially when their father couldn't. He's the one person that Isabelle doesn't have to play the perfect little Malfoy princess for. But right now, there was one concern she had that she couldn't tell even her brother.

Isabelle smiled at Lucius. "It's nothing, Luci. Just first day jitters."

"Don't let father hear you say that." he teased. "You know what he always say." 

"A Malfoy must always present one's self with pride and dignity befitting the name." she said, briskly. "Don't remind me. I've been getting lectures about that non-stop for past five years since you left for Hogwarts. It was torture."

Lucius looked like he was about to laugh, when a student passed by their compartment. He immediately straightened and his face molded back to his practiced neutral expression. Not showing any signs that he was about to burst out in laughter just a few moments ago. 

The sun had already set when they arrived at Hogwarts. The first years were all led to the Great Hall where the house sorting will be held. 

Professor McGonagall, a tall, stern faced, black haired witch in emerald-green robes, started calling students one by one to sit on a simple wooden stool, that had been placed in front of the the first years, once the Sorting Hat had finished it's song. 

"Black, Sirius." Professor McGonagall called.

A boy with a slightly long dark hair and gray eyes stepped forward and sat at the stool. Some of the girls were giggling and whispering among themselves about how good looking the boy was and some of them were even from the higher years.

Isabelle just rolled her eyes. To her, Sirius Black was not worth swooning over. He was annoying and a pain in the butt. And his face nor his name was not enough to convince Isabelle that he's attractive. He wouldn't leave her alone through out Lucius's engagement ball at her family manor. And she wasn't looking forward to getting stuck with him for the entirety of her seven years at Hogwarts, if ever. She would literally go insane.

The sorting hat took a few moments on Sirius's head before...

"GRYFFINDOR!" it announced and Isabelle let out a breath she didn't know she was holding.

The table with students wearing scarlet and gold colors cheered as Sirius made his way to them.

Now all Isabelle had to do is to not get sorted into Gryffindor.

She waited patiently in the agitated crowd of first year students as the sorting continued. She turned to one of the tables in the great hall and locked eyes with Lucius, who was sitting at the table who's students were wearing the colors green and silver with a prefect badge gleaming upon his chest, but she looked away almost immediately. The brief interaction made her nervous.

What if the hat places her in a different house? She didn't know what her father would do if she wasn't a Slytherin. Her entire family had been sorted there since the founding of the school, and she was determined to not be the Malfoy that breaks that tradition.

"Malfoy, Isabelle." Professor McGonagall called.

Isabelle nearly jumped out of her skin when she heard her name. She gulped and made her way to the front of the crowd. She sat on the stool and almost as soon as the sorting hat touched her head...

"Slytherin!" the hat cried.

Yes, she thought happily. So long Sirius Black.

Her brother and the rest of the other Slytherins cheered as Isabelle joined them at their table. She sat on the bench across from her brother. Lucius just gave her a small, barely noticeable smile, but Isabelle could tell he was happy. Which was more than enough for her. 

Sirius watched from across the room as Isabelle sat with the other Slytherins. He should've known Isabelle wouldn't dare break tradition. He half hoped she would go to a different house to make her less appealing to his parents, but just his luck. Though, maybe there was still a way that he could break the perfect image his parents has of Isabelle Malfoy.

The next day, was their first flying lesson. The class was shared by the Gryffindor and Slytherin first year students. You can just imagine how fun that'll be.

Among the four Hogwarts houses, Slytherin and Gryffindor has had the fiercest rivalry of all. Stretching all the way back to the time of the four founders of Hogwarts.

Madam Hooch, the teacher who had short, gray hair, and yellow eyes like a hawk, divided the students into two sides, facing each other. Sirius stood on the left side and in front of him stood Isabelle.

Sirius was getting frustrated, he couldn't seem to get away from Isabelle. He constantly passed her in the hallways and they have almost all the same classes together.

And he thought things were finally going great for him for once. He was sorted to Gryffindor, he now has three new mates, and he kept getting sweets and all kinds of gifts from various girls.

"Stick out your right hand over your broom," called Madam Hooch at the front, "and say ‘Up!'"

"UP!" everyone shouted.

Sirius's broom flew up into his hand. He glanced in front of him and saw Isabelle call her broom with ease, almost like she'd done it in the past. The other students struggled to get their brooms off the ground. Some brooms rolled away or toward the student calling them, while some, like Peter Pettigrew's, didn't even move in the slightest.

Madam Hooch then showed them how to mount their brooms without sliding off the end. Afterwards, she walked up and down between the students correcting their grips. Isabelle was delighted when Madam Hooch commended her for easily following her instructions perfectly. But Isabelle wasn't surprised by that, she and Lucius had been taught how to fly brooms before they were even old enough to go to Hogwarts.

Across from her, she noticed Sirius rolling his eyes, when Madam Hooch complimented her. 

Oh, how she disliked Sirius Black so much. This day had been such torture. Isabelle had been very tempted to send an owl to her father, begging him to transfer her to Durmstrang. She just couldn't escape Sirius Black all day. 

“Now, when I blow my whistle, you kick off from the ground, hard,” said Madam Hooch. “Keep your brooms steady, rise a few feet, and then come straight back down by leaning forward slightly. On my whistle — three — two–”

PREEET!

Isabelle did as told and she hovered off the ground, as high as the topmost branch of an old oak tree. She was about to lean forward to get back down to the ground, when a broom zoomed past her almost throwing her off her own broom. She gripped her broom even tighter, trying to regain her balance. 

"WHOA!" said Sirius as he soared past Isabelle. 

He had only meant to slightly bump into her and make her lose her temper, since he knew for a fact that she had quite the temper, but the broom flew toward Isabelle at full speed. Sirius had barely managed to prevent himself from crashing into her by stirring the broom toward another direction. He pulled the broom to a stop and turned around to face a fuming Isabelle.

At least his plan had the same effect.

"SIRIUS BLACK!" She yelled. "HOW DARE YOU—YOU INSUFFERABLE ARROGANT LITTLE TWAT!"

"What?" Sirius taunted. "Couldn't handle getting shaken a little, Malfoy?"

Madam Hooch blew her whistle. "Black, get down he—"

But before she could finish Isabelle leaned forward and grasped her broom tightly in both of her hands. It shot toward Sirius like a javelin. Sirius only just got out of the way in time. Soon the two were in a high-speed broom chase. They could hear Madam Hooch somewhere on the ground, blowing her whistle and telling the two of them to stop.

Sirius glanced back and saw Isabelle draw her wand. 

"Oppugno!" she cast and a flock of yellow canaries flew out of the trees.

The little flock of birds sped like a hail of fat golden bullets toward Sirius. Sirius made his broom go faster. Unfortunately a few of the birds caught up to him and attacked, pecking and clawing at every bit of flesh they could reach.

"Gah!" he tried to swat them away, but to no avail.

For a first year student, Sirius couldn't believe she was already that good with magic.

"Immobulus!" They heard Madam Hooch cast.

Sirius and Isabelle were immediately immobilized in mid air. The birds that were attacking Sirius were also affected by the spell and froze.

"Descendo!"  

Isabelle and Sirius were both pulled toward the ground. Once their feet touched the grass, Madam Hooch unfroze both of them then she took both of their brooms.

"Both of you, detention after classes!" Madam Hooch sentenced. "And a deduction of 20 points each!"

"What!?" Isabelle exclaimed. "That's not fair!" She turned to Sirius with a murderous glare, he could have sworn flames would start shooting out of her dark eyes any second. "He started it!"

"I don't care who started it, my decision is final!" Madam Hooch said.

"Bu—" Isabelle tried to argue.

"No buts, Ms. Malfoy, unless you want me to deduct more points from your house. You're lucky I won't be notifying your father about this." 

Isabelle wanted to argue but she thought it best to bite her tongue. She didn't want to get a howler from her father. 

"Good." Madam Hooch said when Isabelle didn't say anything.

Isabelle wanted to murder Sirius Black more than ever now. 

You want me to play your little games, Black? Isabelle thought to herself. Fine. Let's play.

After classes, Isabelle and Sirius were in the Great Hall polishing the ornate candelabras. They were making very slow progress due to each being overly ornate. And they still had thousands more candelabras to polish all over the castle.

Isabelle and Sirius remained at opposite ends of the room, a deafening silence hung around the two. Neither one willing to break it. They would occasionally shoot death glares at each other but Madam Hooch being there prevented them from doing anything more.

Sirius was covered in bandages due to his canary induced wounds—all thanks to a spell Lucius once taught Isabelle—while Isabelle had received a lecture from her brother before she went to her detention.

But that was just the beginning of their story. Unknown to the two of them, their future held more twists and turns than either of them could have ever imagined.