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therealvinelle · 4 years

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I would 100 percent love a rundown of every vampire and how they would react to the option to be human again.

... every vampire..?

I guess we’re doing this.

Afton is more useless to the Volturi than ever. This changes nothing, in part because nobody notices. Afton dies of old age in a cry for attention.

Alec can have puberty?! Get tall? Have sex? Sign him the fuck up. Alec spends ten years as a human. Unfortunately it turns out he has the worst genes, so he stops at 5 feet and doesn’t grow an inch taller. He is Volterra’s short king. Even more unfortunate is the fact that the ladies still see him as a kid and would feel weird about sleeping with him, so no luck on that front either. (Somehow, Jane is both taller and gets all the hawt dewds)

Alice would not like this at all. Having a human is nice, that’s fun. Alice loves her Bella Barbie. Being a human? Oh god no.

Alistair’s whole thing is that he’s living as a hermit because he’s terrified of everyone and everything. If he became human again, he would still be a hermit, but lacking any of the survival skills or basic equipment that human hermits accrue he would quickly die out there in the wild.

Amun might just be the oldest vampire in the world, and he has been a god. Going back to being human would be too low, it would be the greatest humiliation imaginable. Hard no from Amun.

Anne was Victoria’s sister, the two girls were impoverished and Anne prostituted herself to feed them. Since she was executed by the Volturi within that same century, she would be returning to that same, horrible life. All the nopes, Anne gets her creator to turn her again.

Aro would be very practical about it, I think, and find someone to turn him back before the plague got him. Though I’m sure he’d be too curious not to try for himself the modern, global, human cuisine, so whoever was turning him has to sit by and wait while Aro drinks all the margaritas and eats all the sushi. And probably human flesh, gotta know what it tastes like from the other side

Athenodora has spent a very long time in that tower tripping on Corin’s gift. As she walks into the Volterra town square she has a full on Plato’s cave allegory epiphany, as she realizes that the tower was a fever dream and the real world is blurry and she doesn’t want to eat anybody. She comes to the conclusion that vampires aren’t real.

Bella would feel like Cinderella at the end of the ball, her beautiful gown turns back into rags and she’s an unworthy human again. Edward is overjoyed she smells delicious is fragile again and refuses to turn her back. Heartbreak ensues.

Benito invented newborn wars, he’s got a million enemies. He better become a vampire again immediately, or he’s dead.

Benjamin is the avatar, which is great. He lives in hiding because Amun has him convinced that Aro would enslave him, which is less great. Being human would not solve this.

Boris was living his best life being a fake Russian noble in the court of Versailles. Being a fake noble as a human is just not as fun, and he finds himself a vampire to get turned back.

Bree was miserable as a vampire, but her life wasn’t great to begin with. She was homeless and starving. I imagine she’d say no to humanity because she had nothing to return to, but this would be a survival move that had nothing to do with what she wanted in life.

Caius has no time for this nonsense, he turns back immediately.

Carlisle I’ve outlined in this post, but to repeat it here he is quite happy being a vampire, humanity has nothing to offer him. His ridiculously large network of friends would be put to good use once again as he tries to find someone who’ll turn him. (He has a surprisingly hard time, as no one wants to risk being the asshole who ate Carlisle Cullen. He eventually comes crawling back to a delighted Aro)

Carlisle’s creator is the lowest of the low, trash who lives in the slums, gets caught by humans, eats half a mob and then lets a newborn loose in the middle of London. This guy is a slob who does not have his life in order. Without vampirism, he starts shooting up under a bridge and dies within a few weeks. He does not get turned back into a vampire because nobody’s touching that.

Carmen would probably want a baby before turning back. The problem with trying to raise a human child as a vampire is that children bleed all the time. Eleazar Jr. scrubs his knee, Carmen goes full Cronus on her son, and Dostoyevsky is proud.

Charles... I don’t know if anybody agreed with my post on Renata, I for one think Luca is horrifying, and based on that Charles would turn back immediately because he’s not leaving Makenna on her own. Not to mention, Charles is one of the few vampires in Twilight who chose his fate.

Charlotte and Peter are living happily, thinking the Cullens are crazy for appreciating humans, so no changes there.

Chelsea might actually be a bit allured by humanity, since this way she can find out once and for all if she can form organic, normal relationships. However, she’s been a vampire for millennia, which makes it impossible for her to relate to humans. She makes no friends, and comes to believe that she is unlovable. She becomes a vampire again and, after an extended existential crisis, eventually becomes Marcus.

Corin would want to try all the human drugs. Gotta find out if weed is better than she is! Unfortunately half of Volterra is hooked on her, and she’s turned before she can find a good dealer.

Didyme would immediately suffer a brain aneurism, and die. Marcus becomes Marcus, but this is ultimately the better timeline since Aro can mourn his sister normally.

Diego’s life was pretty much over since gang members were out to get him, so he’s not returning to humanity anytime soon. Although vampirism means that now everyone he meets is a potential gang member out to get him (indeed, Victoria gets him), so maybe humanity would appear comparatively peaceful.

Demetri seems to be having a cool time being a vampire, so back into the ranks of the unholy he goes.

Edward, oh boy. I can’t imagine it, and I don’t want to.

Eleazar is a pretty self-righteous and sanctimonious fellow, I am sure he would not only choose to remain human, but talk about how noble it is that he’s staying human. He would not enjoy being human.

Emmet would be a miserable human, but to turn back would be to turn his back on Rosalie, and so he would dutifully remain, even as he grew to resent her for it. Once again I have a post.

Esme would not want humanity given the choice, but if she suddenly is human then provided Carlisle was as well, I imagine she would want to get a do-over. However, trouble is that if she wants to have a baby, then she’ll have to stick around with said baby as well. Sticking around means remaining human. Honestly, I’m not sure where that would go. Terrible places once Carlisle runs off to Italy, I’m sure.

Felix is another dude who seems pretty happy with vampirism. He sticks his hand into the first fanged mouth that he can find.

Fred is having a good time as well now that he has left Victoria’s army, no arguments here.

Garrett seems quite happy to be a vampire, although he enjoys new things enough that I think he’d want to spend a few years experiencing things from this human perspective. Alas, he’d have pictured the life human influencers and fictional humans were leading - it can’t be too far off, right? Well, real humans need jobs and housing and health insurance. One thing leads to another, and Carlisle finds himself bankrolling Garrett’s human adventures.

George is a seriously amazing guy who goes around pretending to be a demon called Astaroth and making fake demon deals with people. He’s an amazing conman, but his whole schtick depends on being a vampire, so it wouldn’t work if he were human. Vampirism it is.

Heidi apparently lived a terrible life as a human and was pity-turned into a vampire, so I don’t think she’d have any happy associations with humanity at all. She buys the first ticket back to damnation.

Hilda was a feminist bleeding heart who made suffering women invulnerable. Vampirism, to her, seems to have been salvation, with humanity a miserable state. Hard no from Hilda.

Huilen didn’t want anything to do with this supernatural horrorshow that killed her sister, and I imagine she’s one of the few who’d actually fare well as a human again, even though time has passed.

Irina drowns her Laurent-shaped sorrows in booze and men.

James would be furious with everything for letting this happen to him, and want to be turned back again.

Jane, like Alec, is overjoyed that she can have puberty again. This works out great for her. Like a middle school goth phase, she sort of pretends that whole 1200-year-stint as an actual twelve-year-old didn’t happen, going “oh, yeah... that” when it’s mentioned.

Jasper isn’t eating people anymore, praise Jesus. I think he’d actually fare quite well, he’d become a dusty professor in philosophy at some college and the violence would truly be behind him.

Joham is a monster and I imagine his children would eat him before he could get turned back. Good on them.

Kachiri is quite happy with Senna and Zafrina, she wouldn’t want that to change.

Kate loves Garrett very much, but there are all these human men she won’t have to worry about killing..?

Kebi was a slave who was chosen by Amun to be... well, his slave forever. As an unchanging vampire she’s stuck, but humanity could represent real hope for her, the only hope, really. Hard yes from Kebi.

Kristie is one of the two Victoria recruits who managed to turn the army into a high school, where you were either in the right clique or you were a square. Kristie is clearly an opportunist who’ll make the best of any situation, human or vampire.

Kumboh is a highly eccentric vampire who works in a mental hospital and gets attached to the humans there, to the point where he dies for one. This is not a man I can predict.

Laurent spent his existence in a pursuit of power without understanding what power is, and ended up stuck with the white trashiest vampires ever to white trash. Several logical leaps based on 18th century French Versailles logic later he endeavors to marry into the British royal family.

Liam is living quite happily with his wife and surrogate daughter, and even if he wasn’t then Siobhan is going to want her hubby back. And what Siobhan wants, Siobhan gets.

Luca is quite happy being the family patron who sometimes takes niece-brides (or family demon who keeps stealing their daughters), so he would want his fangs back. But, I’m sorry but I think he’d seize the opportunity to impregnate one of his descendants, because if this guy is all about preserving his family line then I can’t imagine he’d be able to resist a son.

Lucy, like Maria, would be in so much trouble. Honestly, I think Maria would eat her immediately. Easiest way to get rid of competition.

Maggie might want to grow a bit older and less emaciated before turning, but like Liam, Siobhan’s gift would see to it that the coven became whole again.

Makenna wanted vampirism once, I imagine she’d want it again. She seems quite happy with her life.

Marcus is finally able to kill himself. Happy days.

Maria would be in so much trouble. She is a human in newborn war territory, all the vampires around her have terrible control, and the ones with good enough control to turn her are enemy army leaders who want her dead. She is forced to make a phone call to Jasper and ask if he can put in a good word with Carlisle.

Mary (Carlisle’s friend), it’s been over a century and she’s still living alone. Sounds lonely, so maybe she’d be down for the change.

Mary (Hilda’s coven) is living that feminist liberation life with Hilda, and humanity would throw her right back into poverty and misery. Big nope.

Nettie would be eaten by Jasper, since Maria already ate Lucy.

Noela is a member of Hilda’s coven, meaning her life was awful. She would not want it back.

Peter is living happily ever after with Charlotte, it’s a good life. Peter does not want things to change.

Randall was turned in the 1960′s, so I’m sure he’d want some of that sweet weed again.

Raoul was a gangbanger and humanity is better off without him. So are vampires.

Renata had awful circumstances around her turning, and nothing to return to. Her human family either sold her out or were unable to protect her, my money’s on them thinking that her fate was a great honor, and either option makes them someone I imagine she has put behind her. As it is now, she has purpose with the Volturi, and no one is making her be anybody’s bride. She would not want things to change, nevermind becoming human.

Riley thinks he has found true love and glorious purpose, and would remain the way he is.

Rosalie would be delighted, but she has poured years of bitterness and crushed dreams into the dream of the perfect human life. Reality wouldn’t live up to her ideal and this time she can’t blame vampirism. I think she’d start drinking.

Santiago presumably has an alright time being a vampire, he has purpose and community with the Volturi. No changes here.

Sasha wanted a big ol’ family, turning first her niece and then women who resembled her niece enough to look like her sisters, so I imagine that, like all good Denali women, she’d seduce a sexy human male and give herself a few more daughters. Disaster would ensue if they were sons, or not blondes.

Senna is living happily with her girlfriends, let nothing disrupt that.

Siobhan’s life is great, with her gift her life will be as she wishes it to be, and she seems to truly enjoy being a vampire. It wouldn’t even be a question for her.

Stefan and Vladimir (no, they don’t get individual entries) are has-beens. Without vampirism, they would be greater has-beens than ever. This makes Aro’s century, and he makes it clear to the vampire world that no one is to turn these two back. Their lives suck and then they die.

Sulpicia is above pesky human sustenance, the mere thought is revolting. She accidentally starves herself to death.

Victoria would be at once more and less paranoid. Her gift isn’t going haywire telling her about all the danger, but she’s a human, so all is danger. I think she’d start drinking too.

Victoria’s NPC army recruits are newborns who love that sweet sweet blood, ain’t nobody turning their back on that.

Tanya would be so fucking happy, oh my god. She can bang all the dudes, and she won’t have to worry about killing them! She forgets that human women have to worry about STDs and pregnancies. Now she has chlamydia and a baby.

Tia’s big problem is that she’s stuck living with this ancient and bitchy loser who takes himself way too seriously. Vampirism on its own is great, she’s down for that.

Unnamed tracker formerly employed by the Volturi was relieved of his duties in the most “oops, you’re useless now” way possible. That hurts your self esteem. Becoming a powerless human would hurt it even more. Unnamed tracker formerly employed by the Volturi does not want this.

Vassilii would grow up, and have a host of issues because being a toddler with memories of bloodthirst and killing people is bad for child development.

Zafrina is having a great time with her girlfriends and her illusions. And it’s been a very long time since they were human, I don’t think anything remains of their culture. At least not anything they’d recognize.

Hope this answers your question, anon...

Edit: Added Carlisle’s Creator, Sasha, and Vassilii. If I’ve missed anybody else, let me know.

Edit 2: Added Bree, Diego, Frank, Kristen, Raoul, Riley, and Victoria’s NPC army recruits.

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rivers-rambles21 · 3 years

Text

The one where Y/n’s a tease

Part 4 of The one where Bucky has a cute neigbour series!

Pairing: Bucky Barnes X Reader (f)

Summary | Reader and Bucky become friends after he saves her from a creep in their apartment building. Each chapter explores a different point in their friendship - very slow burn!

Warnings | 18+ only, Smut in later chapters (this is a slow burn), swearing, unprotected sex, oral sex, cockwarming (later chapters)

Will include elements of TFATWS in later chapters

Chapter 4 | Chapter 3 | Chapter 2 | Chapter 1 | Masterlist

I now realise the general theme is Y/n not being able to find her keys.

Whoever invented sundresses either needed a medal or slap. Bucky was in agony. The city was in the middle of a heat wave and neither of you could get comfy. You’d taken to dressing in sundresses every day, the soft fabric having a tendency to rise higher and higher up your legs throughout the day. There was something about the way they hung on every curve, how they framed your chest and revealed inch upon inch of tanned skin.

You’d met one another in Central Park, intending on grabbing an ice cream and relaxing in the sun after a challenging day at work.

“He’s such a dick, I can’t see how they can make it compulsory to attend but won’t pay over time!”

Bucky merely nodded in response; he’d quickly learnt you’d rather he listen to your rants than fix your issues.

“If I could change jobs I’d do it in a heartbeat” You continued as you reached the front of the icecream queue.

“Hi, one strawberry and one mint choc chip please - oh and make the mint one two scoops” Bucky dug around in his back pocket before pulling out his wallet, handing over a few bills to the server. “Thank you.” He took both cones and handed you your favourite.

“I’ll get the next one” You promised. Without thinking, you took a long lick of your icecream, moaning as the coldness hit your tongue.

Bucky choked.

“C’mon lets get somewhere cooler, you look hot” Your eyes bugged out as you realised what you’d said. “I mean you look warm! With your long sleeves and gloves!” You were quick to correct yourself which earnt a chuckle from the man besides you.

It didn’t take long for you both to reach a quiet vacant area which offered a gratuitous amount of privacy. Dropping down onto the grass, you stretched your legs out as you continued eating your icecream.

“Do you mind?” Bucky asked, holding out his cone. You took it from him as he peeled his gloves off, sighing as the gentle breeze hit his fingers. He then began trying to roll up the sleeves on his henley, grunting in frustration as it got caught on his forearm.

You glanced around double checking there was no one in sight before offering a solution. “You could just take it off, would do your skin some good, getting a bit of colour”

Taking another lick of your icecream you attempted to look indifferent on the matter.

Bucky took a hold of the bottom of his shirt before pausing.

“What’s up?” You asked, taking another bite from your ice cream.

“The scar isn’t the prettiest to look at.” He confessed, his head bowed in embarrassment.

Your elbow jutted out and nudged him, forcing him to look back at you “Hey… it’s only me” You smiled back at him, trying to reassure him how little you cared about the scar.

He smiled back before taking the plunge and lifted the shirt over his head. You tried, you really did but you couldn’t help but stare at his chest. To say he was ripped would be an understatement. You weren’t overly bothered when it came to body types but fuckkk his was doing something to you.

Snapping yourself out of your trance you noticed how his shoulders hunched over, as though he was trying to make himself as small as possible.

“Trust me when I say this Buck, no one will be looking at your scar.” You laughed, fanning yourself in an attempt to boost his confidence and take the edge off.

He chuckled in response and visibly relaxed, the pink in his cheeks growing from not only the heat.

You handed him his ice-cream back and returned to your earlier conversation. Your prick of a boss had reiterated today how important it was you attended the charity gala that night, some bullshit about being a team player.

In the midst of yet another rant, Bucky hadn’t been able to take your eyes off you. You looked radiant in the sun, a single bead of sweat every now and again trailed from your neck, down into the valley of your breasts. It took all his self discipline to not reach over and have a taste. And then there was the damned ice cream. He shouldn’t have ordered you two scoops as you took your sweet time licking and sucking on it, completely oblivious to the show you were putting on for him. What he’d do to replace that ice-cream with - no he couldn’t let his mind wander there. He felt his cock twitch as he watched you swallow the cream, your throat bobbing with the motion.

“I reckon if I implement the Jim Halbert approach I’ll be home by ten”

“The what now?”

“Jim? From The Office?”

“You’ve lost me doll. I don’t remember you mentioning Jim before? Is he in Legal?”

“It’s a TV show, he basically said you should have a memorable moment with the host and take a photo to prove you were there. Once that’s done you can leave without it being questioned.” You handed Bucky your empty cone without question, it had become somewhat of a habit. You ordered two scoops and he finished off your cone.

He took it from you and finished it in a couple of bites.

“Well if you make it through and get home early enough I’ll order us some pizza and we’ll spend the rest of the night watching The Office, deal?”

“Deal”

_______________________________________________

You made it back in record time. You laughed, even danced with a few people, took a couple of photos and was there for when your boss got slapped by one of the waiting staff much to your delight. In and out in under 2 hours!

“Hey Buck! Have you ordered yet?” You yelled as you knocked on his apartment door, looking for your keys with your other hand. “C’mon where are you” You muttered.

Bucky's door swung open and was instantly stunned at your appearance. He hadn’t seen you before you left for the evening and he was glad he hadn’t as he was sure he would’ve crossed a line. Your dress was strapless and fell to the floor, hugging every curve you had. The black velvet looked soft to touch and flattered your chest.

“Wow”

Your head snapped up and looked back at the man in front of you. His eyes trailed up from your legs, over your stomach and to your chest before meeting your eyes.

“How do I scrub up?” You joked, giving him a twirl.

“Beautiful doll” Your cheeks flushed at his compliment and you looked back into your purse, struggling to locate your keys.

“Can I come in?”

He stepped to the side and gestured you in. Once in his kitchen you turned your purse upside down, realising your worst fear. “Oh god, this can’t be happening.”

“Whats up?” Bucky decided to torture himself and stood behind you, peering over your shoulder.

“I’ve left my key in my apartment” Not realising how close he was, you leant forward, your head falling into your hands as your elbows rested on the counter. Unintentionally, your ass had stuck out, pressing back into Bucky's crotch. The super soldier couldn’t believe his eyes, it was as though the very fantasy he’d played out in his head countless times was finally coming true. From this angle he couldn't help but imagine gripping your hair as he pounded into your tight pussy, filling his apartment with your screams as you milked his cock for all its worth.

Before he could get away from himself he took a step backwards, despite every fibre of his being screaming at him not to.

He wasn’t the only one affected as butterflies exploded in your stomach, your core aching with the possibilities of what lied beneath his jeans. But, before you had a moment to enjoy it, the moment was over and Bucky, ever the gentleman, had stepped aside.

“I’ll call the super” You grumbled.

“I’ll order the pizza” He replied all too quickly.

20 minutes later and you were at your wits end. It took forever to get through to the super and when you eventually did, you were hardly reassured by his response. He’d advised he would try and get to you within the next two hours but he wasn’t making any promises - so much for looking after your tenants.

“Am I okay to hang out here with you until he arrives?”

Bucky simply raised his eyebrow, finding it amusing you’d even have to ask.

“Thanks Buck” Lifting your hands to your hair, you started removing the pins, letting your head relax. Whilst putting your hair down you couldn't hide your discomfort in your dress as it restricted your movement.

“Do you want to borrow some clothes?”

“That would be amazing”

You watched as he went off into his bedroom - could you even call it that considering there wasn’t a bed? You sighed in relief as you ran your fingers through your hair, gently massaging your scalp, welcoming the relief.

“I’ve left them in the bathroom for you”

“Thanks Buck” You flicked your heels off your tired feet before padding into the bathroom, gently closing the door behind you. It didn’t take long for you to change into the sleep shorts and t-shirt he’d given you. Using your hair tie, you tightened the pants to stop them from falling down. Rolling your bra into your dress, you returned from the bathroom feeling far better than you did when you entered.

“Better?” He asked, pizza box in hand as he pulled two plates from the cupboard

“Much” You replied, sitting down on one of the dining chairs.

An hour later and you were both stuffed and the effect of the beers you’d been stealing from Buckys fridge were starting to have an effect.

“C’monnnn it will be fun!” You whined as you tried your best to tuck your toes under Buckys leg in an attempt to warm them up.

With a sigh he lifted your feet from under him and stood from his seated position, heading back towards his bedroom. Returning a moment later, he resumed his original position and started slowly slipping socks onto your cold toes.

“I’m waiting doll”

His voice snapped you out of your trance - you’d been watching his every movement, how he gently cradled your feet as he slid a sock onto each one before squeezing them gently.

“Okay, I’m going to fire these over to you quickly so just respond with whatever comes to mind okay?”

He nodded in response.

You scrolled through the list on your phone before settling on a set of questions.

“Favourite snack?”

“Cashews”

“Favourite Avenger?”

“Cap”

“Least favourite Avenger?”

“Hawkeye”

“Huh wow didn’t - anyway! Age you had your first kiss?”

“12”

“Age you lost your virginity?”

“17”

“Favourite place?”

“Wakanda”

“Any secret talents?”

“I can play the piano”

“Really?”

Bucky nodded in response, taking another swig of his beer.

“Cats or dogs?”

“Cats”

“Favourite neighbour?”

“Y/N”

You smiled at that one before becoming a little bit braver.

“Favourite position” You asked, mumbling your words as you quickly took a sip of your drink.

“What was that?”

“Favourite...position” You repeated, meeting his eyes.

Bucky gulped, his eyes not moving from yours. “Cow girl when I’m generous, missionary when I’m in control”

You blinked a couple of times, your mind racing as you processed his words.

“Good..too...uh… know” You gulped before racing to the next question, trying your best to not think about just what he meant by generous and in control. “City or country?”

“Country”

“Bike or car?”

Before he could respond your phone chirped, signalling a notification. Glancing down, you read the message - Won’t be able to make it tonight, will try and get there in the morning

“Fuck.” You muttered, clearing the notification from your screen.

“What’s up?”

“I won’t be getting into my apartment until tomorrow, do you mind if I stay here?”

Bucky looked towards his bedroom, his heart sinking when he remembered he didn’t have a bed. Reading his expression, you began “The floor is fine, I don’t mind-”

“No” he replied, cutting you off. “You’re not sleeping on the floor.” Bucky thought it was bad enough you had to hang out in his sorry excuse for an apartment but hell would freeze over before he allowed you to sleep on the hard floor. “I’ve got an idea.”

You watched as Bucky opened his door and walked out into the hallway. He started fiddling with the window which filled the back wall between your two apartments; the lock snapping under his strength. Lifting it up, he swung his leg over the ledge, landing on the fire escape.

“Buck, what are you doing?” You whispered, conscious of your neighbours and the late hour.

He took a step backwards and leant down, his face visible through the window as he stared at you, his eyebrow raised slightly as though he was wondering if you really just asked that.

“Just… be careful okay?”

He nodded in response and went back to the task at hand.

A few seconds later you heard another snap and the sound of your window opening. Moments later your apartment door swung open with a smug Bucky on the other side.

“My hero” You beamed up at him, your appreciation evident on your face.

You quickly went back into his apartment, gathering your things in your arms.

“I’ve wedged the window shut so you’re safe for the night, I’ll get you a replacement lock in the morning.”

Returning to your apartment, you dumped your belongings on the side table, turning back to Bucky. “Thank you, I don’t know what I’d do without you.” You confessed, overcome with admiration. Before you lost your nerve, you pressed your body against his, your arms looping around his neck, pulling him into a tight hug. You held in a sigh as you felt his arms respond and wrap around your waist, returning your embrace. Rather reluctantly, you pulled back as did Bucky, his arms returning back to his sides.

“Goodnight doll”

“Night Bucky”

You slowly closed your door and smiled to yourself. Tugging his sleep pants down your legs, you folded them up and left them on top of your discarded dress. After completing your nightly routine, you sank into your soft bed sheets, inhaling Bucky’s scent left behind on his tshirt, silently wishing it was himself wrapped around your naked body and not his top.

#bucky #bucky barnes x reader #bucky barnes x you #bucky fanfic #bucky fluff #tfatws

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dovechim · 4 years

Text

a remedy for mondays 04 (m)

01 | 02 | 03 | 04 (final)

➾ 10.1k

➾ summary: all you wanted was just one day off work. but for that to happen, you need to invent a plausible reason. and then somehow, somewhere along the way, things get out of hand, and now people think you’re having a baby with your co-worker Park Jimin after a one-night stand. confused? join the club.

➾ warnings: romantic sex, unprotected/ pregnancy sex, creampie, cum eating... the usuals

➾ a/n: thank you for following through with this series so far. im sorry for the wait, but here is the final part :) I also realised that part 3 was not on my master list, but that has been fixed. I hope everyone is keeping safe during these times.

enjoy, and a happy Monday to you :)

(some people asked to be tagged in this, I think @pjmcth... I and forgot who else 😅)

The first Monday off work, you have grand plans for yourself.

Grand plans that include sleeping in until noon, getting up only to stuff yourself with whatever is left in the kitchen, and then going back to sleep until its dark outside.

It’s your first off day in the longest time that you can remember, and you’ll be damned if you have to move any more than strictly necessary. Finally, it’s time for you to lead the lazy life that you’ve always craved for.

But the best laid plans never come to fruition, and you are left staring miserably at the clock at 7am, wide awake and unable to go back to sleep. Your body clock has been honed after all these years, and it simply will not let you rest. Instead of feeling warm and content, snuggled up in your bed under the covers, you just feel empty and wronged.

Scrolling through social media only delays the inevitable for so long. Looking at all the meaningless memes and watching countless video after video until you finally cry yourself back to sleep again.

When you next wake, it’s noon. You still have the leftovers of the stew that Jimin made the last time he was here, and you spoon it miserably into your mouth after heating it up, but everything tastes like sawdust. The side dishes from Granny are lying untouched in your fridge, and you can’t bear to look at it for a moment longer.

When you lie in bed, you stare at the ceiling motionlessly. Your thoughts are scattered and you can’t help but feel as if your body is not your own anymore. Maybe if you close your eyes, everything will go away when you open them next and this will be just a bad dream.

The first Monday you have without work was supposed to be the best one you’ve had in ages, but instead it passes over in a blur of misery.

The days blur into each other as you cage yourself up in your home, too tired to go out, but too awake to sleep either. It’s only by some primal survival instinct that you keep yourself fed, not to satiate the hunger pangs, but with the lingering consciousness in the back of your mind that whatever is growing inside you at this very moment needs sustenance too, even if you do end up throwing it all up anyway. You’re far too gone to cook anything for yourself, so at this point it’s only Granny’s side dishes that are keeping you alive. What you’ll do when they run out, you have no idea.

You actively avoid thinking about the pea sized bundle of cells growing inside you that very moment. Maybe it’s because you’re scared of having to face a reality where you really might be a single mother, or perhaps it’s because they remind you of a certain man that you loved and lost.

On the third day, your routine of lying in bed is interrupted by a loud and insistent knock on the door that doesn’t go away even when you attempt to ignore it. Dragging yourself to your feet, you pull on a sweater that you pick up from the ground, aware that you haven’t showered or combed your hair in days, but you don’t have any energy to spare in making yourself presentable.

You answer the door, already opening your mouth to tell the delivery person or salesman or whoever that they’ve got the wrong unit.

But it isn’t some stranger. It’s Granny’s kind, smiling face beaming at you as she reaches forward to grasp your hand through the bars of your gate.

“_______!” The way she greets you is as if she hasn’t seen you in years. She looks so happy to see you that it feels as if the whole world brightens up a couple of notches just from her smile alone.

“Gr-Granny! What are you doing here?” Her grip on your hand is warm and reassuring, and she only lets you go for a moment as you move to unlock the gate and usher her in hurriedly.

You’re ashamed at the state of your house. Dirty plates and cups everywhere, empty containers of food dumped in the sink. You are a mess.

But Granny doesn’t say a single word about it as she bustles in, and that’s when you notice that she’s carrying a large bag that she carts over to the kitchen. It’s once again filled with her side dishes, and she stocks all of them into your near empty fridge without a word.

“Granny… that must have been heavy to carry all alone. You shouldn’t have come all the way…” You hesitantly watch her as she organises your fridge for you.

“Nonsense. I only tried that delivery service that one time because all my friends were raving about it. But it turned out to be such a hassle to pack and address everything. I rather do it myself!” She says in a matter of fact tone as she finishes stacking the containers and turns around to face you with a fond smile. “And this way, I get to see how you’re doing too.”

Your eyes brim with tears almost immediately, and you inwardly curse the stupid hormones.

“How did you… how did you know my address?” You watch Granny, and she doesn’t seem to stop moving as she picks up plates, containers and cups, puts them in the sink and wipes down the table counter.

“I squeezed it out from Jimin, of course,” she chuckles at the memory. “Silly boy tried to stop me from coming all the way down here by myself, but when I said I wanted to bring you food…”

Your heart skips a beat at the mention of him.

“But why me? What about Jimin? Shouldn’t you be bringing him food instead of me?” Worse still, the guilt threatens to overwhelm you with how selfless Granny is being, putting you over her grandson when you’ve been nothing but a curse to him.

Granny looks over at you with a confused frown on her face. “What? Jimin? He can take care of himself.” Her kind eyes are smiling as she turns to look at you.

And then it hits you, that she’s only being this nice because she thinks you’re pregnant. A lump forms in your throat as your eyes drop to your midriff. You can’t lead her on any longer. Granny deserves to know the truth, and like Jimin, she shouldn’t have been dragged into this whole mess in the first place.

“Granny… I have something to tell you.”

“Hmm? What is it, Puppy?” Her nickname for Jimin makes your chest ache, and you have to sit down for this. She is scrubbing the dishes at your sink, and the casual, fond way that she gives you his nickname makes what’s coming even worse. God knows you aren’t ready for the impending look of disappointment and anger on her face.

She’ll probably curse you and storm out. Maybe she’ll slap you with the kimchi she brought. Either way, you deserve it.

“Granny, I…” The words are stuck in your throat, and you just can’t find a way to word it. “We lied to you. Back when Jimin and I visited you and your family, and even before that. We… I wasn’t pregnant. We were only pretending to be so that…”

Your voice trails off, and you tire to think of explaining the whole story behind why you even pretended to be pregnant in the first place. You can’t think of a single thing to say that might explain why you deserve her forgiveness.

“I know,” Granny puts down the soapy plate that she was scrubbing. “I didn’t come here to bring you food just because of the baby. Or just because I thought you were pregnant. I came because I wanted to see you, and my silly boy was being so vague and avoiding my questions about you over the phone that I had to come down and see you myself.”

Her response catches you off guard. “Wait, you knew that we were pretending all along?”

Granny only smiles. “Not all along, dear. But when you were at my house, I was packing up the room that the both of you stayed in, and I found your bag of pads and tampons. Now, that wasn’t enough to make any solid conclusions, but combined with the fact that you weren’t showing yet…”

Your shoulders slump. “So you knew. Why didn’t you call us out on it? We were… we lied to you. No, actually, it was me all along. I dragged Jimin into this and made him lie to you. You should hate me, curse me, anything-!”

But Granny doesn’t do any of that. Instead, she approaches you, placing her hand on your shoulder in a warm, reassuring touch. “I could never hate you, Puppy. Not after I’ve seen how much Jimin likes you. You know, he used to be such a shy little thing. But after he met you, I saw how happy you made him. It’s like we all saw a side of him that only you could bring out.”

There is a moment of silence as you digest all this.

“And it’s not just because you made him happy either,” Granny continues. “______, it would be an honour to have you as an addition to my family. Baby or not. We all really like you. You’re strong, you work hard and you’re an intelligent young woman. What more could we want?”

“Granny…” your eyes brim with tears and they spill over, as you clutch her hand, feeling the guilt squeeze your heart over and over. Granny has treated you as part of the family from day one. She saw the good in you even when you couldn’t see it yourself. Her kind eyes and warm embrace makes you feel safe enough to pour everything out to her. The years of mistreatment at your job, all the humiliation that you endured from Bae Joohyun, how you got fired for committing fraud, and the ultimate irony of it all…

“Granny, I messed up. With Jimin. With everything. We said we’d try for a baby for real so that we wouldn’t get in trouble with the company, but they ended up finding out anyway, and now I’m really…” you stop to wipe your cheeks. “Really pregnant.”

A chuckle of disbelief leaves your lips. This is the first time you’ve said the words out loud, instead of just denying it and hoping that it will just go away on its own. You expect Granny to jump for joy or cry with happiness, but instead, she squeezes your hand.

“Does Jimin know?” She asks gently, handing you some tissues and stroking your hair.

Granny’s tender loving touch makes more tears well in your eyes. It’s been forever since you received the love and care that only a maternal figure can provide, and the thought itself reminds you of the tiny little spore that is probably growing inside you at this very moment. Your emotions are just all over the place, and one thought easily snowballs into another.

“No, he doesn’t,” you press the tissue to your damp cheeks, and it soaks through instantly. “I couldn’t tell him… not after everything I put him through. What kind of sick game would I be playing on him?”

Granny only lets you wallow in your ocean of self-pity for a tad longer before she tsks under her breath, straightening up.

“Well, that’s the least of your worries for now. If I were you, sweetheart, I’d think about suing that company of yours. Or at the very least, getting some kind of compensation from them.” Granny’s voice is a no-nonsense one, and it reawakens the rage and indignance that had been drowned out.

She’s right. Being down and feeling sorry for yourself like this is not going to accomplish anything. You’ve never been one to take things lying down, to take the cards as you’re dealt them, but somehow, somewhere along the way after working at this company, you changed. You got beaten down, slowly but surely, and you didn’t even realise it.

Hastily, you wipe your cheeks dry and try to push yourself to your feet. Your movements are fumbling. Where is that notebook with the evidence of all the mistreatments and humiliations you’ve endured over the years? If you’re going to retaliate, might as well mount a full scale attack against those corporate bastards.

But the lack of nutrition over the past few days gets to you, and your vision blacks out for a moment when you stand up, causing you to wobble dangerously on your feet.

Granny sees the look of resolute determination that comes over your face, and she reaches out to steady you. You make a weak attempt at reassuring her that you are alright, taking a few steps forward, but she stops you again.

“Where do you think you’re going, Puppy?”

“To- to get my notebook. And then… I need to get dressed.” Thoughts are racing through your mind of how you’ll storm into the office, fling the doors open with a cup of hot, steaming black coffee in hand and not-so-accidentally-

“You’re not going anywhere,” she says with a firmness in her voice that matches her grip as she forces you to sit back down.

Appalled, you open your mouth to argue back, but Granny shakes her head.

“Not until you’re eating properly and regaining your strength,” she clarifies, pushing up her sleeves once more. “And I’m here to make sure of that.”

The next few days, you’re treated like royalty. Even though you feel bad for making a woman of her age do all the housework, cook you meals with ten side dishes three times a day, Granny won’t have it any other way. Even when you try to sneakily help out with folding a piece of clothing or washing the dishes, all you get are looks of disapproval from the warm old woman, and you feel too bad to keep going.

You’ve never eaten so well before. Chicken, beef, fish, pork. Vegetables of every kind, roasted, stir fried, steamed and blanched, and plenty of fruits too. And along with all that are all the essential pre-natal vitamins that you’ve neglected to take up until now. Granny feeds you better than you could ever feed yourself, and you wonder how you lived without her all these years.

No wonder Jimin turned out so well.

Slowly, the colour begins to reappear in your cheeks. Your hollow, sunken face begins to fill out again, and you find yourself more energetic. Granny looks on with approval as you work at your desk, writing down a long list of everything you’ve ever wanted to say to Bae Joohyun. She listens with a beaming, proud smile on her face as you rehearse your figurative war cry, giving suggestions on where to embellish with more emotion, where to really let them feel the full extent of your wrath.

And on the day itself, she helps you pick out your outfit.

“This one, you look good in this,” Granny says finally, after you have tried on five different outfits.

You look at yourself uncertainly in the mirror, not used to what you see. The light makeup that you had applied for the first time in ages sits unfamiliar on your face. You’d given up on wearing makeup to work a long time ago. Your figure is clad in black from head to toe, dressed in a power suit that you could never bring yourself to wear. You had bought it on impulse years ago when it was on sale, and ever since then it has lived in the back of your closet, waiting to see the light of day. The lapels are made of satin, the suit jacket nips in at your waist snugly (thankfully not toosnugly, considering your current condition) and your legs are somehow longer than you remember them being in the tapered, slim fit dress pants.

Your hands linger on your lower belly for a moment, self-consciously turning to the side to see if it protrudes visibly. But at this stage, it’s barely visible. Then your gaze travels down to your bare feet, and Granny’s voice matches your thoughts.

“You should wear those,” she suggests, pointing to a pair of strappy, low heels that would compliment the outfit, lengthening your legs even more but still providing enough support so that you’ll be comfortable.

But you had something else in mind, and you have to tear your eyes away from the pair of plain old battered flats that you used to wear every day without fail. Similar to the power suit, that pair of heels has been sitting in your cabinet for as long as you can remember, never having the courage to wear it out.

“Women who wear heels with a suit are dressed to kill,” she says by way of explanation, and she sounds so logical that you can’t turn her down.

You bend down to pick up the pair of heels, placing them by the door as you head back to the kitchen, ushered by Granny, to finish the breakfast she made. Today it’s an omelette egg roll and soft tofu soup with pork slices. The egg roll has ketchup squirted on it in a smiley face, and you can’t help but laugh when you see it.

“Granny, I’m not five years old you know,” you pout at her, folding your arms in a gesture that would suggest otherwise. But the following grin on your face as you stuff your mouth with the warm, soft and savoury egg roll is unstoppable.

Granny only laughs as she sits down beside you with her own portion. “You and Jimin are the same. That’s how he likes his ketchup too.”

At the mention of Jimin, your chopsticks freeze in the midst of spearing another egg roll. Your hand shakes a little as you set the utensils down. The thought of running into him only to be faced with his cold look of rejection just chills you to the bone. There’s no way you could stomach that from him.

“What if… what if I see him?” You say in a small voice.

In all your practice runs, you had only gone over what to say to Bae Joohyun and HR. You kept yourself focused on the task ahead, not sparing yourself even a moment to indulge your emotions. But you hadn’t thought of what would happen if you run into Jimin, how you’ll tell him about the baby, or how you’ll make everything right again.

When you start to think about running into Jimin, your mind starts to overthink about what it’ll be like to step foot into that place again. The workplace that you suffered at for years, enduring all sorts of humiliation and injustice just to get to where you are right now. Your breathing involuntarily speeds up- some kind of post-traumatic response, and for a second, you think you might just chicken out of all this.

Just then, your phone placed on the table beside you lights up with a text.

Kim Taehyung: hey… um… i know it’s weird of me to be asking this since u already left us but… Kim Taehyung: if u can, can u come in today? we r rly shorthanded and could use ur help. Kim Taehyung: if it helps, bae joohyun said she’ll buy you a nice lunch if u can come in today. Kim Taehyung: please?

And then just like that, all the feelings of insecurity and cowardice disappear. The nerve of this fucking company. They fire you for fraud and then beg for you to come back and work for them for free? You honestly doubt that Bae Joohyun actually said that, but that’s not the point.

You can almost feel the rage heating up your entire body. Granny takes a look at your screen and tsks under her breath.

“I don’t know what kind of company that is, Puppy, but I’ve never seen one that treats its employees like that.”

Your fingers are trembling as you type back a reply. First, you type out a curt rejection, adrenaline filling your entire body as you imagine what Bae Joohyun’s reaction might be when she learns that for once in your entire miserable career working for her; you turned her down. But there is also a chord of fear that strikes you through the heart, borne out of an ingrained instinct to submit to your inner yes-man in order to please them.

You hesitate before pressing send, taking a moment to compartmentalise your emotions and think this through. There’s a chance that when you get to the office building, you might be turned away by security because you don’t have your access card anymore.

Deleting your entire message, you rack your brains to figure out how to field this situation to your advantage.

Up till now, they still think you’re this pathetic little girl who’d roll belly up to please them at a moment’s notice. They don’t even have the decency to feel a shred of guilt for asking you to come in and work practically for free.

Except you’re not intimidated by them anymore. Now, you are in the position of power.

And this is how you’ll take them down.

Holding your breath, you type out a short reply to Kim Taehyung.

You: I’ll be there at 10.

Granny nods her approval over your shoulder as you put your phone face down, not even bothering to check when Taehyung’s reply comes back.

“You know… I don’t think you’ll have to worry about Jimin. When he sees you dressed like that, he won’t be able to resist. He’ll fall at your feet,” Granny says with a mischievous smirk.

“Granny!” You chide her with a blush heating your cheeks.

“What? It’s true,” she says with a pout that looks oh-so-familiar. “Just be natural, Puppy. Say whatever that comes to mind. That silly boy is probably dying to see you but is too stubborn to come all the way here. Why, he probably looks a right mess too. I wouldn’t be surprised if he’s been crying his heart out the past week.”

You start to open your mouth to contradict her, but all Granny does is push another egg roll into your mouth as she urges you to finish your breakfast. “Eat up, Puppy. You don’t want to be late.”

It’s funny what a change of outfit and shoes can do to a woman. It makes you feel like an entirely different person as you walk into the office building at 10 am on the dot. You’re no longer the meek little employee stuck in a dead-end job who can’t stand up for herself.

No, today you are brave, you are confident, and you are here to give back everything that’s been dealt to you all this while.

Security stops you as you enter. You’re already kind of used to this, since you were never once assigned with your own photo pass in all the time you worked here. Everyday, you had to sign in as a visitor and go through the security checks only for visitors, which more often than not, made you late for work when they hit a snag in the process every now and then. Being made to feel like a visitor at your own workplace does things to a person’s self-esteem, but you grit your teeth and remind yourself that this is the last time you’ll be doing this.

“Who are you here for?” A burly security guard asks you with a stern expression, even though he must have seen your face on a daily basis for the past few years.

“Kim Taehyung.” You say truthfully, and the guard just nods as he waves at you to put your bag through the scanning machine.

Waiting at the other end after having stepped through the metal detecting gates, you scoop up your bag and walk to the elevator. Seeing as it’s past the usual reporting time, it is empty, and your heart pounds in your chest as you watch the numbers go by on the elevator display.

When the doors open, you have composed yourself again, a straight face as you stride towards the doors. You wave your temporary access card and enter, once again struck by the ominous familiarity of the entire place.

Kim Taehyung spots you from his workstation immediately. “______!” He calls out your name in nothing short of a yell, and you fight the urge to cringe, watching as multiple heads turn around to look at you.

Including Park Jimin’s.

Granny was right. He does look a lot worse for wear. He resorts to hiding behind his enormous geek glasses again, blonde hair limp and dull over his forehead, his pretty brown eyes no longer have that warmth anymore. His usually plush, luscious lips are pale, and he looks as if he hasn’t slept in days.

Out of the whole office, even with multiple eyes on you and voices whispering out of curiosity, he is the only one you can look at.

“I’m so glad you could make it!” Kim Taehyung is almost at your side as he spreads his arms in welcome. There is a wide grin across his face, not unlike how he was before. “We really, really need you here.”

Hearing those words makes you break the eye contact with Park Jimin to look at Taehyung. For a moment, you desperately want to believe that those words are true. And it makes you doubt yourself, makes you think that maybe this company isn’t so bad after all, maybe they do treasure you after all. If Taehyung says he needs you, then maybe they really do need you to help them out with a piece of work that no one else can do.

But no. They had years to realise your worth. Why are they only doing it now, after they fired you so unceremoniously?

So you placate him with a bland smile. “Sure. What would you like me to do?”

Taehyung practically skips to his desk. “Ok so we need you to go through some of the brochure material that we’ll be pushing out soon. Just another pair of eyes to make sure that we didn’t miss anything. I know you don’t have your laptop anymore, so you can borrow mine. Oh, and…”

You watch his eyes slide awkwardly to where your old desk used to be. In your absence, they had replaced the smaller desk with a full sized one, currently occupied by someone you don’t recognise.

“…uh, we’ll get you one of the empty meeting rooms to work in,” Taehyung motions for you to follow him, and it’s all you can do not to look in Park Jimin’s direction as you turn away. “You look great, by the way. Hardly recognised you.”

You clear your throat awkwardly as a way of responding as Taehyung sets his laptop on the table for you and plugs it in. He opens the required documents for you as you seat yourself in the hardbacked chair.

“So… here are all the things we need you to look through. Let me know when you’re done, okay? Thanks again, ______!” Taehyung beams at you as he lets himself out of the room.

Left alone, you relax a little. At least things seem to be going your way for now, even the parts you didn’t plan for. Minimizing the word document window, you open Microsoft Outlook and navigate over to Taehyung’s calendar. There, you scroll down to find Bae Joohyun’s calendar and all her appointments and meetings for today.

There. At 11.30am, she has a meeting with the Policy team, with HR in attendance. When you scroll down to the meeting details, you see that Park Jimin has been appointed secretariat for this meeting. You ignore the flutter of nerves that arise at the sight of his name to open up Taehyung’s instant messenger. What you’re doing could really get him in trouble, but then again, a part of you simply doesn’t care. He was complicit in all of this. You have no sympathy for him at all.

You send a quick instant message to one of the Policy team to let them know that the meeting has been cancelled so that you can hijack it for your own purposes. When they reply with an acknowledgement, you sit back in your chair, letting out a sigh of relief before quickly deleting any signs of evidence from his chat log history.

You spend some time going over what you prepared to say when you finally meet the witch, everything from past payrolls where you were underpaid for your overtime work, a draft from a lawyer threatening to sue for illegally divulging your medical information to a doctor’s letter proving your current pregnancy. Everything you need to take that witch on is right here.

A soft, timid knock sounds at the door, and you hurriedly gather everything into a pile and shove it into your bag. Can’t have your plan given away before you’re ready. You expect it to be Taehyung coming to check on your progress, but when the door cracks open, you see a flash of blonde hair, followed by a soft, sweet voice that you missed so much.

“Can I come in?” Jimin asks with his eyes trained on the floor in front of you.

“Come in,” your hands twist together out of nervousness, and you see that Jimin is carrying a cup in his hands as he approaches you.

“I uh… I brought you this. I know you need coffee every day at around this time, so…” Jimin gingerly places the cup on the table without taking a single step forward so that he remains as far away from you as possible. You can see that he is nervous, all the tell-tale signs are there. From the way he keeps running his fingers through his hair to the way he bites his bottom lip and avoids eye contact.

You never really realised it, but you do always go to the pantry at around this time for your before lunch coffee. It gets worse when you realise that Jimin used his cup to make you coffee, and as you stare at his beloved One Piece mug, you have to stop yourself from crying.

Jimin mistakes your silence for something else, and he clears his throat awkwardly as he takes another step backwards. “Well um… let me know if you need anything. I’ll just be… I’ll be outside.”

A part of you wants to call out after him. There are so many things you want to tell him, but before you can gather your scattered wits, he lets himself out of the room.

It’s okay. It’s the wrong timing anyway, you tell yourself in an attempt to calm down and put all thoughts of his sad puppy eyes out of your mind. There will be enough time to talk to him when this is all over. Right now, you have to gear up for the biggest battle of your life.

When 11.30am comes, you shut the lid on Taehyung’s laptop and let yourself out of the room. You know Bae Joohyun always likes to stroll into her meetings exactly 2 minutes late, so you take your time walking to the meeting room. When you are 10 steps away, you see her black clad figure just ahead of you. You watch her push open the meeting door, and you have to consciously fight against back the pulse of intimidation that runs through your entire body. You quicken your steps and push the door open after her.

Just as you’d hoped, the only people in the room are the witch herself, Kim Namjoon from HR, and… Park Jimin as the note taker. He looks surprised to see you in the room as he straightens his posture, eyes widened almost comically in the way that you’ve become all too familiar with.

“What’s this?” Bae Joohyun doesn’t look the least bit bothered, just continues to tap away on her special iPad without even looking up. “Why is she here? Isn’t this meeting with the Policy unit?”

Kim Namjoon looks flustered as he looks at you, gesturing with his chin for you to get out. When you don’t make a single move, he turns back to Bae Joohyun, visibly sweating. “Um… there must be some kind of mistake… _____, we could talk about this later?”

The way his voice rises in a desperate plea only makes the victory even sweeter.

“No. It’s not a mistake. I’m here to dispute the terms of my termination.” You take out your folder of evidence from your bag and drop it on the table. “Of course, we could invite our colleagues from the Policy Unit to sit in on this meeting as well, but something tells me that you won’t want them to hear about what I have to say.”

There is a beat of tense silence as Bae Joohyun contemplates what’s on her iPad screen. She hasn’t looked up even once since you walked into the room. She lets out a soft sigh, as if all this is beneath her and just a waste of her time. Seeing as you aren’t about to get her attention any time soon, you shift your gaze to Kim Namjoon.

“First of all, I would like to bring your attention to the unfair compensation that I have been subject to all these years. According to my calculations, I have yet to be compensated for 136 hours of overtime.” You push a stack of timesheets towards Kim Namjoon’s shocked face. “Time and time again I’ve submitted these, only for them to be rejected.”

Bae Joohyun doesn’t react at all.

“Secondly, I have consulted my lawyer about the illegal release of my medical information. He has advised me to take legal action both against the doctor who allowed my medical information to be leaked, as well as the company itself who illegally utilised the information.”

You pause for a moment to let the words sink in, and at the very same moment, you see Kim Namjoon’s face turn slightly green as he processes the meaning of this.

“Sure, you might be thinking that it’ll be easy to win a lawsuit against an individual like me, being a huge company and all that. But I don’t think it will reflect too well on your organisation as a whole, will it?”

Bae Joohyun blinks once, then taps a few times on her iPad so that the screen goes black. Then, she shifts her gaze to you, her face still unreadable, but you detect a hint of uncertainty in her eyes.

“So? What’s your point?” She folds her arms and addresses you directly.

A good sign. A very good sign.

It’s time for the final blow. You brace yourself with your fists clenched by your side, aware of the mounting tension in the room. Namjoon is practically holding his breath, you can see him shaking in his seat with his eyes darting back and forth between you and Bae Joohyun. Jimin has given up all pretence of typing and hiding behind his laptop, and he is looking at you with nothing short of awe on his face.

You reach in for your last piece of evidence. “You are aware that in this country it is against the law to terminate a pregnant woman without a thorough inquiry? And if a pregnant employee must be dismissed, it has to be based on relevant and objective performance criteria?”

A small raise of her eyebrow as her head nods imperceptibly, but you can see Bae Joohyun’s expression waver.

“Yes… we are well aware of that. It is a policy I have helped to implement,” the witch says with a hint of pride in her voice.

A satisfied smile spreads across your face as you draw out the doctor’s letter. You can hear Jimin’s sharp intake of breath in the otherwise silent room, and the shifting in his seat as he leans his elbows on the table. His mouth is slightly open, but no words are coming out.

“According to this letter, you’ll find that I am currently almost 2 months pregnant. As such, having been terminated whilst pregnant without further inquiry or offer of wage compensation, I am entitled to further legal action against you and the company.”

You toss the letter directly to Bae Joohyun, and it lands heavily in front of her. You can see Jimin’s fingers twitch as his stare burns a hole into the letter, before looking back at you with an unreadable expression on his face. The witch herself lets out another sigh before meeting your eyes, completely ignoring the letter.

“We will look into raising a fair and just inquiry.” Her words are brief, and she casts a sideways glance at Namjoon as she says this, as if this was all his fault to begin with.

Namjoon, on the other hand, rushes to accept the blame. “O-of course! We will ensure that the entire process is as transparent and fair as possible.”

“No need for that,” you say with an indifferent wave of your hand, and the satisfaction grows when the witch herself does a double take.

“What… what exactly do you mean by that?” Bae Joohyun is unable to believe her ears.

Jimin is looking at you as if you just saved the world from total destruction. The admiration in his eyes can’t be hidden as he grins. Namjoon looks sick.

“No need for the inquiry,” you say just to make things clear. “I’m aware of how things are done at this company, and sad to say that it’s anything but fair. I’m quitting. Notice effective immediately. You’ll hear from my lawyer regarding the compensation that I owe for my notice period.”

You reach into your bag for the last envelope, tossing your resignation letter onto the table with a practiced ease. Then, you gather your bag and make your way out the door, Bae Joohyun’s shocked expression burned into your retinas.

It feels like you’re walking away from an explosion like the cool guys do in the movies. For once in your life, you feel like the protagonist of your own movie rather than the side character.

Everyone else in the office is still working quietly, so you escape the office without being pursued further. When you stop to press the lift button, you hear the doors fling open, and a panting Park Jimin appears.

“Wait!” Jimin has his hands on his knees. “Le-let me drive you home.”

His eyes grow desperate as the lift doors open.

You owe him an explanation too. You hold the lift button as you turn towards him. “Will you?”

The drive home is silent up until he parks in front of your apartment. Neither of you make a move.

“2 months?” Jimin finally breaks the silence. “When did you find out?”

“After… after they fired me. They called me with the results from the free checkup. That’s how I found out.”

“So you knew when I called you?” Jimin’s heartbroken voice stabs you right in the gut.

There’s no excuse you could make for yourself. “It- it’s true though. Everything I said.”

“What?” Jimin looks and sounds like a puppy that’s been kicked.

“I did drag you into all of this. It was selfish to use you as my excuse the first time, and I couldn’t let myself go down that road anymore. You made all my Mondays better, but I made yours worse. You don’t deserve this. You deserve so much better than me, than all of this-“

“-but I want this,” Jimin grasps your hand and pulls it to his chest. “I don’t care if it’s selfish. All this while you’ve been assuming that you dragged me into this, that I was the unwilling party all along. But have you ever stopped to consider for one second that I might want this too? With you? That you made my Mondays better too?”

When you take a moment to look at his face, the Park Jimin that you’ve come to know and love over the past few months, the familiarity of him soothes you. The plump cheeks, rounded eyes, and the special smile he always has just for you. And he’s right. Never had you thought that he might want this- because why would he? How could he?

“You want this? But… why?” You are incredulous, unwilling to believe.

“Because I love you. And the thing growing inside you right now,” Jimin lets his emotions get the best of him, all the better to say the words he’s been struggling to say ever since he saw you that morning. And maybe it’s not the most romantic, but it’s filled with sincerity at the very least. “I’m in love with you, rash decisions and all. The day where you dragged me into your mess was the best day of my life. My Mondays have never been the same since.”

You can’t help but laugh aloud at how realistic his confession is. Classic Jimin style, savage as always. At the sound of your laughter, Jimin grins also, slightly shy from just pouring out his feelings like that, but proud of himself all the same.

“Granny knows, you know,” you say in between your laughter. “She knows we were faking it all along. And- oh! She came to visit me, you should come in and say hi to her.”

“What?” His comical gasp only sends you into another laughing fit. “Since when?! You could have told me sooner! She’ll spank me so hard for lying to her…”

“She’s not the only one who’ll be spanking you,” you can’t help but tease him, the opportunity is just too perfect.

“Agh! Don’t talk like that when my Granny is involved!!” Jimin buries his head in his hands in embarrassment.

You tug at his hands, opening your side of the door. “You have to come in, at least! She’ll be so happy to see you. To see us together again. She was the one who helped me with all of this you know.”

You drag a grumbling and still embarrassed Jimin inside, stopping every few seconds to tease him about his red ears and pinch his cheeks.

“Oh come on, Granny won’t be mad when she sees how cute you look. Wait, no. She’ll insist to feed us like there’s no tomorrow. She’ll say you lost your chubby cheeks,” you grin at him as you unlock the door, fully savouring the bubbly feeling in your stomach that makes you feel as if you are floating.

“Isn’t it good, though? It means I lost weight,” Jimin places a hand on his own face, as if to gauge whether his cheeks have slimmed down or not, still fretting over how Granny will react when she sees him.

“No! Of course it’s not good! You shouldn’t be losing any more weight, you’re perfect as is,” you drop your bag at the door and kick off your heels, groaning in relief. “Granny! We’re home!”

“That should be my line,” Jimin mutters under his breath as he braces himself to see Granny. But minutes pass, and he doesn’t see his beloved Granny.

“Hmm? That’s strange. Where did she go? She was just here this morning,” you mumble to yourself, walking towards the kitchen and wondering if she might be too immersed in cooking, but then you spot a scribbled note tacked to your fridge.

I left for Busan already, Puppy. You did well… I’ll leave you two alone. Side dishes in the fridge! Stay safe!

“Oh? Puppy? Why did she write that note to me? How did she know I’d be here?” Jimin is confused as he reads the note from over your shoulder.

You can’t help but smirk at his confusion. “Sorry, but Granny decided that the nickname belongs to me now.”

As Jimin protests with a pout, you can’t help but smile at Granny’s thoughtfulness. Seeing that your thoughts are somewhere else, Jimin rests his chin on your shoulder to demand for your attention like a cute puppy.

You turn to him and your attention is drawn to one of your favourite parts of him- his lips. Noticing that they are still a little dry, you frown and reach inside your pocket, taking out your favourite lip balm.

“Hold still. I’ve wanted to do this since this morning,” you place a hand on his chin and uncap the lip balm, dabbing and swiping it gently across his full lips. Though slightly dry, his lips are so soft and pliable under your touch, and the way he closes his eyes to enjoy your touch has you clenching your thighs together. With every swipe of the lip balm, his bottom lip looks plumper, and you can’t help yourself any longer.

Carelessly tossing aside the lip balm, you chase after his lips with your own, tasting the sweet peach flavour of the lip balm and feeling just how soft and cushiony Park Jimin’s lips are. He makes the cutest surprised little sound, eyes open for a second before he kisses you back with equal fervour.

You make sure to scrape your teeth against his plush bottom lip, fulfilling one of the fantasies you’d been dreaming about since this morning.

When you break away, Park Jimin has a teasing smile on his slightly swollen lips. “I guess that’s an efficient way to put lip balm on for two people.”

“Shut up already,” you say before you start to giggle all over again, and Jimin takes this as an invitation to go in for seconds.

“Since… since Granny said she’d leave us alone… shall we?” Jimin is somehow endearingly shy even though the two of you aren’t strangers to this.

“I thought you’d never ask.”

He tugs you into your bedroom eagerly, and on the way, you can’t help but grab a handful of his ass through his dress pants. Park Jimin pretends to be shocked as he turns around, arms around your waist as he makes you sit down on the bed gently.

“That’s sexual harassment, Ms.” His words contradict his actions as he runs his palms down your thighs, fingers dancing up your inner thigh.

“But I like your ass,” you say with a pout, imitating him and the way his cheeks puff up.

“I like yours better,” he says with an unabashed grin. “And I fucking love this suit on you. The moment you walked in this morning… I think Taehyung saw my boner.”

You can’t hide your squeal of embarrassment as you clasp a hand to your mouth, but Park Jimin only grins as he invites himself to undo the button on your pants.

“I said I really liked it… but I’m changing my mind. I want it off, now.” He bids you to lift your hips so that he can peel the pants off your legs, exposing your bare skin. His fingers on your skin makes your temperature skyrocket, and even more so when they tease at the edges of your underwear. He sees the damp patch in the centre, and glances upwards with raised eyebrows. “Are you wet already? I haven’t even done much yet…”

The cute way he glances through his bangs with the slight smirk on his lips makes you feel brazen. “I’m pregnant… I’m always wet these days.”

Park Jimin lets out a sharp exhale as he drags his thumb against the wet patch to feel for himself. You would be embarrassed were he not so clearly turned on by this, demonstrated by the urgency with which he pulls your underwear down and wedges his shoulders between your thighs. Without a single word, he kisses the inner flesh of your thighs, working his way up to where you need him the most.

It’s torture to watch his plush lips get closer and closer to your centre, until they finally envelope your swollen and aching clit. He wraps his lips around them and sucks, thick fingers digging into your inner thighs to keep them spread as he licks up every drop of your arousal. He eats you like a man starved, and your back arches under his ministrations. He gives your poor clit a break as he switches to broad flat licks with his tongue, and everything just becomes so much wetter. You can see that his chin is glistening, but he doesn’t mind in the slightest as he only spreads your legs wider, one thigh on each shoulder.

The lewd position in which you are in, seeing his golden head in between your thighs makes you want him even more. You are aching to feel him, to be closer than physically possible to him.

Jimin satisfies your hunger by introducing two fingers into you, and you whine at the stretch. His fingers have always been so deliciously thick, and he basks in your reaction.

“You like that? Like being filled with my fingers? Tell me how much you like it.” His vulnerable side shows through as he glances up at you while you thread your fingers through his soft hair.

“I missed this… missed you so much,” you voice comes out in a breathless whisper as you clench around him. You glance at him to see how he’s rolled back his sleeves to above the elbow, using his other hand to push his hair back and show off his forehead glistening with sweat and you swear you get a million times wetter at the sight.

“Like what you see baby?” Park Jimin shows off with a cocky little smile, pushing his hair back again just for good measure. He can feel how much wetter you are, and you can bet he’s not going to let this go just like that.

“Good looking bastard,” you swear under your breath as he rubs your clit with his thumb. “I sure hope our baby takes after you.”

“The good-looking part or the cocky part?” Jimin has the nerve to tease you, but you don’t have your wits to answer any more as he flattens his tongue against your clit, driving his fingers inside you just to send you over the edge.

Maybe it’s because you were deprived of his presence for the past week that this orgasm makes you realise how much you were starving for Park Jimin. Your thighs clench around him, shaking with mind numbing pleasure as he continues to thrust his fingers inside you.

He shows you no mercy as he continues to rub your clit slowly, the other hand stroking your inner thigh to soothe you. It’s characteristic of him, getting you used to the overstimulation whilst comforting you at the same time.

You push yourself up on your elbows, seeing the bulge in his dress pants and feeling the impatience fuel your actions. “I want to see you. Why are you still wearing these?”

He is preoccupied with licking the rest of you off his fingers as you struggle with the button on his pants, setting him free and reaching past his underwear to grasp his cock. The feeling of his thick length in your hands ignites a hunger inside you as you stroke him, running your thumb across his tip as he kicks away his pants. His abs tense as you palm his cock, and your mouth waters at the thought of running your tongue across them.

“I can’t wait to see you round and swollen with our baby,” Park Jimin says out of nowhere, his eyes hungry as he pushes your blazer off your shoulders, fingers working magic on the buttons of your shirt. He pushes that off your shoulders as well, eyes feasting on your breasts sitting so prettily in the cups of your bra. “And these. They’ll look so beautiful leaking with milk just for me.”

Jimin undoes your bra with ease, slipping the straps down your shoulders. He drags his thumb across your peaked nipple painfully slowly, then he pinches it sharply, eliciting a cry from you.

“The milk isn’t for you, it’s for our baby,” you remind him with a warning squeeze to his cock, sliding your own thumb through the messy tip.

Jimin meets your eyes with the cutest pout ever. “The baby can share. They’re not getting here for another few months yet.”

How he can look like a kicked puppy with your hands around his cock, you have no idea. The duality of Park Jimin will be the death of you someday. He crawls forward as your hands rid him of his last article of clothing, hungry to touch his bare skin and feel it against your own. Jimin makes sure your head is nestled comfortably against the pillows as he kisses his way down your body to your breasts, taking one nipple into his mouth and sucking, giving you a glimpse of what it would feel like when you do start producing milk later on.

You can feel his cock against your inner thighs as you cradle him with your body, feeling the hardness of his abs against your softer body, the curve of his ass. Jimin is still satisfying himself with sucking on your breasts, licking and teasing you to his heart’s content.

You twitch in response, feeling much more sensitive now that you’re a few months along, but Jimin looks as if he’s enjoying your breasts so much that you don’t have the heart to stop him. His fingers are delicately stroking your lower belly as he worships your breasts, muttering sweet nothings about how perfect you’ll be as the mother of his baby.

“Want your cock, now,” you urge him with your voice and reinforce it with your thighs nudging him into position. You feel the head of his cock blunt against you, and without taking his mouth off your nipple, he positions himself with one hand and enters you with a fluid thrust of his hips. As if he can’t take his mouth off your breasts for one second.

He continues to suck at your breasts as he fucks into you, the stretch of his cock and the welcome burn making you curl your thighs around him. Once he’s certain that you can take it, Park Jimin starts to pound into you with his cock, his rough thrusts contrasting with his gentle sucking and kissing.

He finally lets up with the assault against your breasts, pushing your thighs together and putting them on one shoulder. This suddenly display of strength has you gushing on his cock, and it only strokes his ego even more.

“You like getting fucked like this? Hm?” Jimin punctuates his filthy words with a particularly hard thrust that you can feel all the way to your cervix. “You like getting fucked so much, it was only a matter of time till you got knocked up like this.”

He watches your breasts bounce so deliciously, knowing that it is because of his fucking.

“I love it, fucking love it. Love you,” your reply is disjointed, every thrust of his hips sends his cock so deep inside you. “Want you to keep fucking me.”

“I will, baby don’t worry,” he places one hand on your hip and the other just under your breasts as he buries himself deep. “Give you all the babies you want.”

“Want you to cum inside me, give me all your cum,” you watch as his expression twists in pleasure, his cock twitching inside you as he pulls out almost all the way, only to slam back in. “Fill me up the way you did when you fucked a baby into me. Then I want you to fuck your cum into me.”

“Ahh, fuck,” he swears harshly under his breath, you always know just how to get him. Your cunt is so tight and warm around him, everything is so wet and he’s missed the feeling of you wrapped around him. He holds a tender hand to your lower belly. The thought that you’re giving him a baby, and he gets to be the one to hold you and fuck you and kiss you makes him feel like the luckiest man in the world. “I’ll come so soon.”

“Cum for me baby please,” you play with your nipples, putting on a show for him as he groans, thumb finding your clit as he struggles to hold himself back. “Want to feel your cum inside me. I want to be dripping with your cum.”

Jimin quickens his pace on your clit as his thrusts start to become sloppy, and he throws back his head as his abs tighten. With three more thrusts, he buries himself as deep as possible into your warm cunt, feeling himself unleash ropes of cum into your depths. You can feel how warm and sticky everything is, and the feeling of his cock pulsing inside you sends you into another orgasm as well.

True to his word, Jimin doesn’t pull out immediately, giving you lazy little thrusts to fuck his cum back into you as if the two of you were still trying to get pregnant. It’s the little, silly things that he does- making you prop your hips up, pulling out his cock so slowly and plugging you up with his fingers that makes you fall even deeper in love with this fool.

“I heard cum is good for the cervix if you’re pregnant,” he says by way of explanation as he watches globs of cum escape from your lips. He indulges himself by spreading it a little, before pushing it all inside you. “Softens it so you’ll have an easier birth.”

“Bullshit,” you giggle at him. “Next thing you’ll be telling me is that cum facials make me look younger.”

Jimin frowns indignantly. “I would never say something as ridiculous as that!” He’s never really been into painting your face white with cum, he’d rather save it all for your sweet pussy. “But that cervix one really is true- I read it on the internet!”

Jimin swipes two fingers through the mess that is your pussy, bringing it to his lips for one last suck before he cuddles in beside you. Suddenly, he freezes.

“I wasn’t too rough, was I? I didn’t hurt you?” He runs his hands down your body as if to check for any sore spots.

“It’ll be a while before I’m at that stage- so we should have all the kinky sex now before I’m too fat for you to tie me up,” you reassure him with your hand over his.

Jimin releases a breath against the back of your neck. “Kinky sex hm? I could be down for that.” There is a moment of silence as he draws mindless patterns on your lower belly, and your eyes flutter closed before you hear his soothing voice again. “I’m so excited to see our baby. I want more babies after this. Hey, we should have a gender reveal party. Or a baby shower. For real this time.”

It’s so adorable that he’s so excited about all this. “We should invite Yoongi too. I think they should have popped out their baby by now. I want to put Yeji to shame by being hotter than she was when she was pregnant.”

“Of course baby,” Jimin muffles his laughter into your shoulder. “We’ll do that.”

You hear your phone ping from somewhere far away, and it wakes you up just as you’re about to drift off to sleep. You stir Jimin awake with your elbow and make him fetch your phone for you. With many grumbles about how he better get extra kisses for this, he leaves the bed for a moment, and deposits your phone in your hands before snuggling back under the covers.

You unlock your phone and open your mail app. Your delighted gasp wakes Jimin once more, and he’s wide awake the next moment.

“What is it!? Did the baby kick?” He doesn’t stop to think when he’s alarmed, but it’s adorable.

“It’s too early for that,” you say as you do a double take at the words on your screen. You can feel the smile spreading across your face as you read the email again. Jimin sits up in bed and squints at your phone screen.

“I got a job offer!”

#bts smut #bts #bts park jimin #bts park jimin smut #bts jimin smut #btssmutclub

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inkfingerprints · 4 years

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Class of 2020

You should be losing pennies down the footwells of taxis Belting chants and college songs till your throats get sore Facebook-stalking the strangers you half-remember kissing Docs and Adidas sticking to liquour-splashed floors. Right about now you should be spilling into cities Bumping shoulders in the queue for Costa and Greggs Piling into a single bed to share post-night-out stories Forgiving stupid arguments and recalling lousy sex Walking arm-in-arm down packed city streets Popping to the corner shop in your PJs for snacks Glancing over in a lecture to spot someone watching Netflix Becoming best mates with whoever crosses your path. Instead you're washing clothes in bathtubs Or the bottom of showers Forcing your weekly shop to last a fortnight Allowed out for only eight hours. Zoom is still the centre of your social life As it was all summer Paying nine grand for the privilege Of letting lectures buffer. When you filled in your UCAS you never pictured this. So stick up another string of fairy lights with BluTak - Give the batteries a whack if they start to flicker. Blast music from your speakers (just don't take the piss), Laugh at the concoctions people invent for dinner. Break more furniture than you ever thought possible Solve the ongoing mystery of the flat milk thief Keep filling your windows with Post-It jokes Give all your mugs tea stains that'll never scrub clean. Spill makeup on the carpet next to your mirror Glide down the corridor on your swivelling chairs Dance on the tabletops and sit near the sink Try not to scuff the paintwork - oh who's kidding, who cares. Pick up your playing cards soaked in beer Play drying-rack-Jenga with your dripping plates Share embarrassing stories that you'll remember years later Hand out nicknames that'll stick till your wedding day. I know you just met and I know that it's lonely The awkwardness will take a minute to thaw Those breezeblock rooms aren't fit to take a stroll in But it won't be forever that you're behind closed doors. And Christ, when you're out, the chaos you’ll raise; The people in the city might have to lose a little sleep As you make your voices heard in the clubs and the poll booths And you’ll hug your family tighter when you finally get to meet. You were the generation they tried to imprison The scapegoating headlines were more convenient than the truth But they didn't bank on you refusing to be blamed or stay hidden And we'll be cheering while you let all Hell break loose.

#uk politics #poems #poetry #poets on tumblr #coronavirus #university #students #student life #spilled ink

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yeeiguess · 4 years

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I lost the ask but if I remember correctly it was : Denki having vitiligo and hiding it with makeup and Katsuki finding out about it

(Warning for really fucking shitty parents who force him to hide it/think it’s disgusting etc and a panic attack )

Denki’s vitiligo started when he was around 6. As soon as the doctor explained what is was, his parents told him to hide. Which was pretty easy at first, when it was just a few discoloured patches here and here, but as it grew his parents’ disgust did too. Eventually, he started disliking it too.

He thought it was pretty, at first, strange but pretty. He wasn’t allowed to talk about it but he liked to draw the outlines and try to see what it reminded him off. He stopped pretty fast. After all, if wasn’t anything to be proud of, according to his parents.

When he couldn’t hide it under clothes anymore, his mom dragged him to a store -they rarely went out together- so they could buy makeup. The person who helped them find the correct shade was really kind, and didn’t comment on anything. Their hands were gentle when they took Denki’s to apply the product, and he got embarrassingly close to crying at that. He was a big boy, though, he wasn’t allowed to cry. Especially not in the middle of a store.

So he learnt to hide it, came back to the store and looked for the person of that day everytime. He hoped High School could be a new start. That he would be old enough to make his own decisions. But that’s just wishful thinking, and his parents don’t get any kinder with him. It’s worse, even, when they learn he wants to be a hero. There’s the habitual “you’re too stupid to do that” and a new “You really think you can be a hero when you’re like that ?” that hurt just as much.

He works his ass off and loses half his hours of sleep studying, and he gets accepted in UA anyway.

He makes sure to always have his makeup on- and if Mina asks about foundation he says it’s because he gets red easily and it’s embarrassing. He doesn’t draw on his skin anymore.

There’s no one like him, after all. The doctor said he wasn’t the only one who has vitiligo but he sure as hell hasn’t ever seen anyone else like him. Even less a hero. Heroes are perfect, and he’s not. (A part of him knows it’s stupid, because no one is perfect, but the idea that he’s wrong because of that thing he has no control over is so deeply implanted in him that he can’t think otherwise.)

Of course, his peaceful life where no one knew about it doesnt last. It gets so much harder once they get in the dorms -his parents happily send him there but not without threat and reminders that if people knew they would kick you out of school.

It’s Friday night, he received yet another bad grade and he’s exhausted. He turned down Sero when he asked if he would come to Game Night, inventing a headache that wouldn’t go. He scrubs the makeup off as soon as he gets in his room. He looks at the white patches all over his body for a few seconds before shame settles in his stomach and he looks away. He puts his pajamas on quickly and falls down onto his bed with a sigh.

His sleep schedule has been terrible ever since those months he spent studying to get into Yuuei, so he knows that even if he’s tired sleep won’t come until at least 1am. He tries anyway.

He gives up at midnight after turning around in his bed more time than he can count. He’s thirsty. He takes the empty bottle on his bedside table and opens his door quietly. Not everyone’s asleep, he knows, and being caught right now would suck. He takes the stairs and doesn’t switch the light on when he arrives to the kitchen. There’s no need to- he just has to do a quick wash and fill it again.

He’s rinsing the soap off when he hears footsteps. He stops breathing, hoping with all he has that whoever is coming won’t put the light on and see him. He turn back to the sink and hurries.

When he turns around, he can barely see Katsuki in the dark. They both look at each other, surprised, before Denki nods and run back to his room. He keeps his head low until he’s passed Katsuki.

The next morning, he’s woken up by knocks on his door. He groans and open an eye to see the time: it’s 7:47. Oh, he slept in today. Wow, he slept in ! He hasn’t woken up so late in... a very long time.

The knocks don’t stop and he gets up before one of his floormate complains about it. He puts a sweater on when there’s a chill dressing the hairs on his arms and open the door with a sigh.

Katsuki looks at him for two seconds before he pushes him out of the way and sits down at his desk. He let the books he has on his arms plop down on the wood and the sound it makes make Denki wince. It’s early.

“What is it ?”

“I know you got a bad grade, so we’re studying.”

“Now ? It’s Saturday ! It’s not even 8 !”

“Yes, now. You’re awake anyway.”

“Well, I wasn’t before you knocked.”

Denki’s standing next to Katsuki with his arms crossed when he looks up and see his reflection on the window.

He run to the bathroom, locks the door behind him and forces his breath to slow down. He doesn’t have any makeup on. And Katsuki saw it.

He’s going to think it’s disgusting and wrong, like Denki’s parents do and he’ll tell everyone and-

“What the fuck are you doing ?”

Denki can’t think, can’t breath, can’t look at himself.

“Opens the door, Pikachu. Fuck, I’ll open it myself and you don’t want that.”

Denki blindly reaches out to unlock it and get away as fast as he can. His rational mind can’t seem to work at the moment and he can only prepare himself to be hurt.

But when hands lay on his skin, they’re soft and hesitant. They open his finger gently but firmly so they stop gripping his hair, and when the silence becomes too much, Denki opens his eyes.

Katsuki’s looking at him, their hands together. He’s kneeling, non-threatening.

“Are you like that because I saw your vitiligo ?”

Denki closes his eyes again and tries to wrench his hands to his chest but Katsuki doesn’t let go. He puts their forehead together instead, and Denki can feel his breath on the wetness of his cheeks.

“You’re... beautiful.”

It’s a whisper, but they’re so close that Denki hears it clearly. It doesn’t make sense, though. He’s a mess, a total mess, and yet Katsuki’s eyes look back to him with affection. Or, thats what it seems like to Denki, at least.

He hugs Katsuki with all he has and sons and cries, for whoever knows how long. There’s knocks on his door at some point but they both ignore it. Katsuki is obviously not used to hug, if the way he put his arms awkwardly around Denki after a few minutes is anything to go by.

Later, they stand up and Denki does his best not to look in the mirror. They sit on his bed and he explains, just a bit. Talks about the diagnostic years ago and his parents reaction, and the way he used to love it. Katsuki gets angry, of course, but not at him.

“Your parents are shit, and they’re wrong. There’s nothing wrong with you. You don’t need to hide it.”

“Did you...”

“What ?”

They sit next to each other, shoulders touching. Denki wonders what would happen if he took Katsuki’s hand again.

“Did you mean it ? What you said earlier ?”

Katsuki looks away but his hears are red and it makes Denki smile. They start talking about something else, and before either of them notice they’re laying down, side by side. Katsuki’s fingers find Denki’s arm and he begins to trace with a feather like touch the light spaces, until Denki’s speech dies down. He closes his eyes and allow himself to appreciate the feeling. No one has ever touched him so delicately. Maybe his parents did, once. He can’t really remember.

It makes him cry again, and he remembers when he used to draw on it too at the start.

He still wears his makeup for a long time, but he slowly gets used to Katsuki’s eyes and hands on his bare skin. It gets easier to look at himself in the mirror, and Katsuki sends him links and pictures of heroes and other famous people with vitiligo, too. It helps a lot.

When they graduate, he moves out of his parents’ house and gets a flat with Katsuki. They tell their friends they’re together, and when he’s finally comfortable enough in his skin, Denki tells them about his vitiligo. They’re suprised but understanding, and they tell him they love him how he is, vitiligo or not.

Here’s another thing that ended up super long and the actual thing you asked for was super short 😎😎😎 I wanna write about him being trans...

Also I really need to learn how to put a ´next part under the cut’ thing because this must be SO annoying to scroll through

I did a few research on vitiligo but I hope I didn’t write/portray anything too incorrectly !

#bakukami #bkkmi ask #ask

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terrorhqs · 4 years

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𝟒 𝐉𝐮𝐥𝐲, 𝟏𝟖𝟒𝟓

You join the Promethean after thirty days at sea as they pull into a Danish whaling station in Disko Bay after rounding the southern tip of Greenland. The weather proves far chillier than Greenhithe and London, though it is nothing compared to what the sailors claim the Arctic will prove out. On the ghost-fringes of the horizon, bergy bits and growlers float silently upon the teal sea, enclosed by a grey basalt landscape. The colors are muted, milk-white and harsh - but islets of liveliness stand out. The shore is dotted by little red houses and shacks, their breadth already half-hidden by the lava plateau. This town, Godhavn, will be the last major stop before heading into the thick of the Northwest Passage and its merciless chill, and it is here that the Promethean, along with an accompanying transport ship, disembark for a week to restock. But the reasons behind this layover extend beyond coal and supplies. The crew aboard is getting ready to hunt for fresh fish and caribou, while the guests are stepping with dainty gait to pluck their impressions from this strange new earth. During the span of this week, the transport ship that was docked in Greenland will carry live cattle to be transferred onto the Promethean, as well as a surplus of medicine, spirits and rations. After the week is over, the transport ship will set sail for England once more, and with it, official dispatches from Captain Dowling and any personal letters from the crew and guests. The next missives, the captain says, will be sent from Hong Kong.

It is on the third day that the Commander proposes an idea: One last Carnivale before they buckle down and traverse the trying Northwest Passage - for the morale of the crew, for the leisure of the guests, he suggests. After the restocking, the Promethean has enough food and supplies to sustain them for nearly five years - more than twice the expected duration of the expedition. What is one night of revelry to the plenitude that abounds in the hold?

With the captain’s express permission on the strict condition that the crew be in proper shape bright and early the next morning to scrub the deck down with holystones, preparations begin.

Upon the barren grounds, a tarp-tent is raised, high enough to dwarf Godhavn and the stars alike - inside, lighted within and without by scores of torches, stretch canvas walls dyed in vibrant colors, sectioned and painted with images reflecting each theme. Brightly clad and strangely garbed figures with papier-mache faces twirl around with comet tails of gold-cloth, and the whole world yields to these fantasies. Pirates with masks of blue death, unicorns made from tin foil and brass, generals of Napoleon’s army, members of the Greek Chorus filled the space. Beside the entrance, a large trunk of costumes, masks, and props lay waiting. “Feel free to mix and match,” says a satyr with a paper fan. Along the walls are tables lined with punch bowls, from which princesses in feline masks and a Lady Brittania ladled the liquor into teacups. Where the cooks prepare beef tongue, smoked hams, and Gloucestershire cheeses for the officers and esteemed guests - with thin portions of roasted caribou, vegetables medley, and canned fruit for the rest - the tarp grows black with oven-smoke and humid with steam and scent. In the midst of all this...

𝐓𝐎 𝐖𝐇𝐄𝐑𝐄 𝐃𝐎 𝐘𝐎𝐔 𝐃𝐄𝐁𝐀𝐔𝐂𝐇?

✹ TAROT READINGS: One of the smaller tents houses a slender figure hidden behind a cloak and cloudy mystique - The Clairvoyant. The fortune teller’s tent is dimly lit, the only light permitted in is that of the undulating torch outside. Incense permeates the air - you sit, and a shot of whiskey is placed at your elbow. Have your cards or palms read or, if you’re feeling particularly brave, you may ask The Clairvoyant to hold a seance - alone or in a group. Don’t worry; the Chaplain is there to oversee the turning of this blasphemous tide. Do you call upon the spirits?

✹ THEATRE: A short walk away, sectioned off by stacked barrels and sheer sheets and hanging crepe paper, is a makeshift stage surrounded by wooden chairs hauled off the ship’s messes. Seamen with painted faces wielding props and steins brimming with strong grog reenact one of The Songbird’s operas in admirable falsettos. One might swear one of the men has nabbed one of her dresses and donned it just for the show. Loud music blares from a mechanical music player cranked by a wood sprite. Do you sing along?

✹ HALL OF GAMES: In another tent, racing horses painted into the canvas oversee gamblers engrossed in card games, ‘hazard’, and ‘chequers’. Tobacco are the prizes to be won, but some bet their favorite books or their week’s ration of chocolate and biscuits. The Veteran is seen taking the hide off several sailor’s backs at the card table. If one prefers to bet on horses, there are those who eagerly volunteer to don hobby horses and race laps around the tent to raucous cheers and jeers. Chiefly among these, the Scion leads the tracks as would-be winner. Do you make merry?

✹ TENT OF WONDERS: The intricate workings of a maze, but rendered picturesque enough to rival the best (and strangest) of palazzos. A projector, the most recent invention of the time, is casting fragments of wonder upon the walls - silhouettes that leave the seer gasping, morphing reality into a dreamlike land. Costumed crew and miscreant guests will jump at you from behind the scenery and boxes, and you catch sight of the Noble, a laughing blur racing past, just as you think you are nearing the maze’s end. The Lover is overheard saying there’s no maze quite like the court of England - but other sailors assure you the prize at the end is worth finding. Do you discover what the center leads to?

✹ TOPSY-TURVY SOVEREIGN: The stage of a contest, only not one of skill or mettle, but rather of the intrepid bravery it takes to render oneself a fool. For it is this that makes the target of this competition: who can play upon the highest jest - from pranks to games of imitation, form singing to hopping on a hobby-horse - earns their just reward (the Doctor, of course, standing by should he be needed). Whoever will stake the most refined act as royal buffoon is named topsy-turvy sovereign of the Carnivale. Do you earn your crown?

welcome to terrorhqs’ very first event! this event will start TODAY, 6/3, and extend until 6/19 when the second part of the event will be dropped. this also marks our very first task: post either a graphic of your muse’s carnivale finery OR write a diary entry containing their thoughts on godhvn and the carnivale! if you’re feeling especially ambitious, you may certainly do both! we ask that members keep their threads related to the carnivale event and to tag their task with THQTASK. happy writing!

#thqevent

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feather-aesthetic · 5 years

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The Rewards of Being Loved

A/N: Wrote this when I watched the show last year, never finished it... well today I finished it.

Rating: T

Fandom: The Haunting of Hill House

Pairing: Sisterly Shirley and Theo

Summary: Theo explains her powers to Shirley, and they grow closer because of it.

Words: 2,500

Night has fallen on the Crain-Harris household, and the oft-lively home is still, and mostly quiet. In the living room, two figures sit side-by-side on the couch, a cheesy Netflix rom-com playing on the television. Theo Crain curls her legs underneath her, internally rolling her eyes at Shirley’s choice of movie. Even though she doesn’t live right next door in Shirley’s guest house anymore, she still visits at least once a week, often bringing Trish along with her for dinner.

This week, though, with Kevin chaperoning Jayden’s Boy Scout camping trip and Allie at a sleepover for the evening, Trish invented a work function to attend, not-so-gently encouraging Theo to spend some quality time with her sister. And it’s not like she minds hanging out with her sister, in fact a growing part of her is so, so excited, but this movie is just… awful. Theo sighs again as the female lead complains to her friend group about her love life. She’s trying to contain her boredom, but she must not be subtle enough because Shirley shifts beside her, taking in a deep breath.

“Theo?”

“Sorry,” Theo sighs. “This just really isn’t my thing.”

“What? No, this movie is terrible,” Shirley hastens to reassure her. “That’s not what I…” Theo turns to her. It’s not like Shirley to avoid speaking her mind, so whatever she’s thinking about, it must be pretty important.

“What’s wrong?” Shirley’s eyes flicker around the room for a moment before settling on Theo, meeting her steady gaze. She laughs, then, breaking the eye contact.

“I can’t talk to you when you’re making your therapist face.” Theo cracks a grin, huffing out a relieved laugh, and the suddenly somber atmosphere is broken. Theo scrubs at her face, trying to wipe away the so-called ‘therapist expression’ and rearrange her features into something more sisterly, less professional.

“Sorry, sorry. What’s up, Shirl?” Her sister looks at her for a moment, fond smile playing on her lips, and Theo tries not to bask in it too much.

“Can you tell me about your... abilities?” Her gloveless hands feel suddenly bare. Theo instinctively stiffens, clamming up despite her best efforts to relax, and she can see Shirley cringe slightly. To her credit, though, she pushes on, trying to explain.

“I tried so hard, for so long, to pretend that we were normal, and—I want to understand you, Theo.” Theo pauses, processing for such a long moment that Shirley almost dismisses the entire idea. The movie goes on quietly in the background, providing a muted white noise to their conversation.

“What do you want to know?” Her voice is low and quiet, so much softer than the usual commanding tone or calm therapist voice she uses. Of all her siblings, Shirley was always the most resistant to Theo’s unique abilities. Theo explained it away as disbelief, or maybe even a fear of having her innermost thoughts broadcast over the surface of Theo’s skin. To have her openly talk about it means more to Theo than her sister will ever know.

“What happens when you touch something?” Alright, so they’re starting from the basics.

“When I touch an object,” Theo begins, twisting her fingers together, “I experience the memories and emotions attached to that object. The stronger the emotion, the easier it is for me to see the memory.” Her face darkens as she recalls the couch in that foster family’s basement, the terror and revulsion that overcame her as she stared up at the wooden ceiling.

“And when you touch another person?”

“I can feel their emotions, see things about them, things that they might want to keep hidden. I can tell if they’re lying.” An image of Luke, his young eyes filled with trust, gazing dejectedly up at her while he described his experience in the basement of Hill House, flashes through her mind. Nell, and that terrible nothingness that had infected her like a plague.

“So if you touched me right now, you would feel what I’m feeling?” Theo nods, a slow incline of her chin. “Do you… want to?” Shirley asks hesitantly. Theo shrugs.

“Sometimes,” she responds, deliberately misinterpreting the question. She sighs when Shirley fixes her with a look, one that lets her know her older sister sees right through her.

“Why?” Theo asks, years of secrecy making her blunt. Now it’s Shirley’s turn to shrug, albeit more cautiously than her sister had.

“I don’t know, you just talk about it like you only ever feel bad things. Don’t you want to feel good things sometimes?”

“Of course I do, I just—I never know what I’m going to feel until I’m touching someone, and then it’s too late.” Shirley flicks her eyes away, her equivalent of biting her lip nervously, then offers,

“I’m feeling good things right now.” Theo looks down at her recently ungloved hands, considering. It’s not just an offering for Theo’s sake, but a genuine ceding of ground on Shirley’s part as well. There’s a quote Theo has read in an article somewhere; “If we want the rewards of being loved we have to submit to the mortifying ordeal of being known.” In Theo’s case, her knowledge of whoever she touches is total, and she understands how terrifying that notion can be. For her sister to offer this is a huge show of trust. Shirley still isn’t looking at her, but she brings her head up sharply when she feels Theo hesitantly brush fingertips over her palm. Theo gasps at the sudden bursts of love, of pride, of joy that wash over her, filling up her chest with a welling sort of light and tingling down the backs of her forearms. Their gazes were locked, but Theo can’t experience her sister’s overwhelming love for her while looking into her eyes, so she drops her vision to their touching hands. They’re side-by-side on the couch, facing each other, and Shirley’s gaze is still locked on her face, studying her expressions.

“You feel happiness in your arms,” Theo murmurs, and Shirley’s face lights up with delight even as her cheeks tinge pink from the observation.

“You feel the way I experience emotions?” Theo grins at the revelation that’s just dawning on Shirley, and because she can’t contain two people’s happiness coursing through her behind a stony expression any longer. Her knuckles are resting in Shirley’s palm now, and she slowly lifts her hand to let the contact fall away.

“Mom said I was sensitive,” she offers as a response. There’s a moment where Theo’s afraid she might have ruined the moment by bringing up their mother, but then Shirley grins a little mischievously.

“Well I know you’re sensitive, Theo,” she teases, elbowing her gently. Theo relaxes into her role as a sibling, rolling her eyes and shoving Shirley in retaliation.

“Shut up, Shirl.” But the amused look hasn’t left Shirley’s eyes, and Theo recoils slightly at a nudge to her side.

“You know, you really should be nicer to your older sister, Theo.” Theo squirms at the continued jostling, trying to ignore the fingers that have drifted sneakily over to her sides and are prodding at the flesh there.

“Shirley,” she whines, hoping that it will be enough to deter her sister. Shirley grins wider, poking in between her ribs in places she knows Theo can’t stand. Theo’s been making a valiant effort of staring at the ceiling with her lips tightly sealed, hoping that her sister will get bored and abandon the game before it’s begun, but at this new attack she’s unable to remain still, and her hands shoot up to catch Shirley’s wrists just as the first burst of true laughter escapes her.

“Don’t,” she pleads, but it’s more breathless and giggly than serious, and they both know that if she really meant it Theo would be halfway across the room by now. Shirley takes this as an invitation, and when her grip shifts and skin brushes skin, Theo gets the barest glimpse of her plans just before she’s bowled over by one Shirley Crain-Harris. Quick fingers bypass her makeshift defenses like she’d never thrown up her arms at all, gently pinching at sides and ribs in a way that Shirley knows drives Theo crazy.

It’s been decades since Shirley has done this, but she still remembers all her sister’s ticklish spots from when they used to play together. The spots on her sides that make her bubbly laughter morph into more of a cackle, the way she squirms harder when Shirley pinches at her hipbones, the redness in her cheeks and the push of her heels into the couch when fingers manage to sneak under her arms; they’re still familiar reactions, but Shirley confirms each one with a widening smirk, reveling in her rediscovered power.

Theo, for her part, is in hysterics, bubbly giggles jumping or turning into squeaks when Shirley switches spots.

“Shirl!” she gasps between bouts of laughter, not ready to beg her to stop but unwilling to just lay there and take it. It’s been ages since she’s been tickled, especially by her sister, and she’s almost forgotten how simultaneously fun and maddening it can be. It makes her want to jump out of her skin in the best way possible.

“What is it, Theo?” Shirley asks, as though they’re having a normal conversation and she isn’t tickling her sister half to death. Whatever response Theo was formulating is cut off by her squeal when Shirley unexpectedly finds a weak spot at the base of her ribs. Shirley laughs at the reaction, squeezing sporadically and milking the spot for all it’s worth.

“Well, that’s new,” she teases, lobster-clawing her way up Theo’s ribs before sneaking back down to attack the recently discovered tickle spot. Theo squeals again, throwing her head back and squeezing her eyes shut at the sensation. She didn’t even know she was that ticklish before now, and the feeling is quickly becoming too much for her to handle.

“Shit, Shihihihirl!” she half-shrieks, thrashing. She’s lost all hope of dignity, and can now only hope that her sister will have mercy. Fortunately for her, Shirley seems to understand that she’s just about reached her limit, and retreats to the other end of the couch, bearing a sly grin that only a sound victory can bring. Shirley leans back against the arm of the couch, stretching her legs across the piece of furniture towards her sister and listening as Theo gasps for breath and tries to pull herself together.

“Been a while since we’ve done that, huh?” Shirley murmurs, smile still tugging at her lips. Theo sits up slowly, pink-faced and giggling while she recovers from the playful torment.

“Yeah,” she agrees, a certain lightness in her tone that Shirley hasn’t heard since their childhood. “You know what we haven’t done in even longer?” She’s crawling up the couch menacingly now, biting her lip to contain the brilliant smile threatening to break through. Shirley has a feeling she knows exactly where this is going, but she allows herself to sink further into the cushions, tamping down on a grin of her own.

“What’s that?” Theo is looming over her, fingers poised to strike, and Shirley shrinks back but doesn’t move to stop her. If she plays it cool, doesn’t provoke her sister by trying to run away or fend her off (turning it into a competition will only make it worse for Shirley when Theo finally manages to pin her down) then maybe she’ll go easy on her. Her ploy fails, however, when Theo raises an eyebrow at her, tells her she knows exactly what Shirley’s trying to do, and pounces.

“No!” Shirley squeals when Theo goes straight for some of her worst spots, spidering quick fingers across her stomach and fluttering gently around her neck. She scrunches up as best she can, writhing between her sister and the back of the couch. Unlike Theo, Shirley’s squirming is actually productive, and she actively tries to escape, so Theo has a much harder time getting her to keep still long enough to tickle with any intensity. Even without much tickling, though, Shirley’s a mess—arching her back and squealing whenever the lightest touches connect with her skin, even through her clothes. Theo might not fight back, but Shirley is way more ticklish than she ever was.

She looks up to find Theo grinning at her, and though she can’t feel emotions like Theo can, the love shining through her sister’s eyes and through her smile is clear. She reaches out, crippled by the fits of uncontrollable giggles Theo’s fingers are causing, to launch a counterattack, searching out Theo’s sides and digging in until the other woman backs off, unable to concentrate enough to continue her assault. Before Shirley can get herself together, though, she feels an elbow lock around her ankles, and then nails are scraping their way up her bare feet. She shrieks, arching her back and kicking her legs in Theo’s grasp. Theo tightens her hold in response, grin so wide her cheeks ache, and scribbles fingers all over her soles. Shirley loses it, dissolving into hearty, unrestrained laughter punctuated with little squeals when fingers dip dangerously close to the inside of her arches or underneath her toes.

“Theo! Theohoho—nohohohoho!” The pleas are barely intelligible through her laughter, but the torment ends quickly when Theo’s fingers start touching the skin of her feet and suddenly Theo is kicking out at nothing, overcome with the same breathless laughter pinning Shirley to the couch. Theo lets go of her ankles in an effort to escape the contact at the same time Shirley realises what’s happened. Shirley’s hoarse laughter turns genuine at Theo’s predicament, while Theo retires to her end of the couch to mock-sulk.

“That’s so unfair,” she grumbles, expression forming the beginnings of a pout. Shirley offers her a self-satisfied smile, stretching her back against the arm of the couch.

“For you, maybe.” Theo’s displeased expression only deepens. She leans forward, and for a moment Shirley thinks she’s going to try for a rematch and tenses up, but Theo just drapes herself across Shirley’s thighs, head resting on her stomach. One of Shirley’s hands goes automatically to the top of her sister’s head, beginning to smooth out the ruffled curls with slow, soothing strokes. Theo hasn’t been so tactile with her in decades, and she’s loathe to overstep… but her hair is still just as soft as when they were kids cuddled up in bed together, and maybe Shirley has missed this more than she realised. Theo squirms a bit, getting more comfortable, and mumbles something that Shirley doesn’t quite catch over the credits music of the romcom they were watching. She hums questioningly to get Theo to repeat herself.

“Love you,” Theo says, half asleep at the feeling of her sister petting her hair. Shirley smiles down at her, a tear deep inside her heart mending at the words.

“Love you too, Theo. Completely.”

#the haunting of hill house #tickle #tickling #tickle fight #shirley crain #theo crain #theodora crain #shirley harris #ticklish!theo #ticklish!shirley #ha bitches feast your eyes on what might be like the only thohh tickle fic on the internet

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wahbegan · 4 years

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Desecration (for anon)

All right here it is I ended up getting so many ideas of ways to go with the plot that the dirt under the nails ended up being more of a recurring thing than a focal point but whatever enjoy

Here’s the smell of blood, still: all the perfumes of Arabia will not sweeten this little hand.

-Macbeth, Act V: Scene I

Laßt die todten ruhen.

-Ernst Raupach

Lana was trying to get a promising femur fully unearthed when she heard Dani chime in behind her: “You know, this place is what J.K. Rowling named Harry Potter after. Well, I mean, you know, not THIS place, but just Potter’s Fields in general, I guess.”

“Yeah, that is so totally fucking fascinating, are you gonna come help me with this or what?”

Dani obediently jumped in the grave beside her, though grave was a bit of a loose term. Most of the burial sites around here were above-ground, and for good reason. When the flood waters had come, this place had been torn up and churned into a mass of mud, sink holes, and exposed bones. Which made it perfect.

Who would notice a few missing? It wasn’t like the corpses would feel the absence.

Lana and her sister were grave-robbers by trade, though they would never refer to themselves as such when asked. They were witches in a marketable sort of way, selling morbid curiosities to like-minded spirits and using them to adorn their apartment.

It was spiritual in a sense. It was an active deed of rebellion against the old religions and ways of thought that put these people in the dirt and forgot about them. It was a connection to the Earth and mortality...and it was a bit of fun, besides. Nobody robs graves because bones look cool.

But it helps.

Aesthetic witches, they would call themselves when making a sale. Profaning the sacred for fun and profit. But not the sacred to them. That’s what made it okay. These bones were sacred to a different time, a different religion. An oppressive artifact from dark times past that hated women and gay people.

In short, these were only sacred to the enemy. And besides that, just bones. It was Dani and Lana’s full belief that graveyards exist for the vain conceit of the living. An idiotic practice. Nobody living benefit from the dead staying in the dirt. Digging them up, however...

These particular bones’ rest had already been fairly thoroughly upset by nature, which seemed like a sign if there ever was one. The storm revealed the bones, and the moon herself smiled down and illuminated them, leading them surely and steadily to uncover more of the skeleton the femur belonged to. They’d become desensitized to the ghoulish nature of their work, the almost comical air of Gothic horror that surrounded them. In truth, it was nights like this they deliberately sought out to go gathering materials to turn into geode holders.

“Fucking Hell, that’s part of a spine. Hip bone, femur, spine...this guy’s looking great! Please have an intact skull, please have an intact skull...”

Dani was working farther up, uncovering smashed ribs and bits of sternum. “Nothing yet, Anal.”

The pet name had always incensed her, mainly because she couldn’t think of a good enough comeback. Dani’s a hard name to make fun of. Dandy? Danny boy? She usually just settled on kid, despite only being 3 years older.

“Then shut your ass up and dig more, kid. Any of those ribs look good? Got a shoulderblade?”

“No, the femur looks like the best part, maybe the hip bone. The rest of him is all smashed to shit. Kinda looks like...”

She paused and frowned a bit, her mind seeming to drift off to do its own thing somewhere else.

Lana crouch-walked over to her and gave her a playful shove to bring her back to herself. “Like he got fucked up, yeah, probably was. Here, I’ll do this end, you just work on getting that hip bone the rest of the way out.”

Dani obeyed quietly and continued to work in silence. Lana was too focused to really notice how strange that was until later.

Right now, she was focused on prying up the thick, sticky Earth where she felt this guy’s skull had to be. It was hard work, grime working its way into the lines of her hand and under her fingernails. She kept prying and pulling at roots, certain it had to be there.

This is right where it should be if the rest of his skeleton is here, there even seemed to be a bulge or a change in consistency of the Earth like it was packed in, and-

As she had clawed at the latest fistful of dirt, her fingernails had scraped down bone. It was an unpleasant sensation, and her nerves jangled a bit. She had to pull her hand out of the dirt and shake the unpleasant feeling out of it, but the look on her face was triumphant as she turned to look at her sister.

“Guess what I got, biiiitch?”

Dani looked up, still seeming in a bit of a daze. She had wrestled the man’s pelvic girdle out of the ground and was cleaning it off in her lap. “Huh?”

“The skull, dumbass!”

Dani returned to her usual self a bit, sarcastically craning her head to look around Lana and frowning. “I don’t see any skull...”

“Oh, fuck off, I’m working on it.”

It took several more minutes to get the thing out of the ground. It felt unusual: the wrong shape, the wrong texture. It was definitely a skull, but...

When she finally pulled it free, she understood. She held it in both hands, just staring at it in dumbfounded awe for a moment. Whoever this was, or had been, was hideously deformed. One eye socket was intact and full of thick dirt, but on the other side there was no depression at all. One nasal cavity was crooked, looking like it was about to collapse in on itself.

But the most remarkable thing were the growths. Rough, almost tumorous growths of bone protruded around the back left quarter of the skull, running up to the skullcap and around the left side of the face almost to the missing eye. Overall they seemed to form one irregular mass, giving the head a lopsided, half-sunken appearance. They were coarse, almost jagged to the touch, overlapping and stacking on each other like some kind of plant or fungal bloom. Like coral.

Then she noticed the scoring. Lines on the bone. Not natural ones. Incisions cut into it. Someone had sliced this man’s face to pieces. As she turned it in her hands, she saw the probable cause of death: a hole straight through the back of the cranium, almost perfectly square. A stake hammered through it, most likely.

Lana felt like it was Christmas morning.

She was still staring in silence as Dani turned over the pelvis and mused behind her. “Hmm...think it’s a woman, actually.” Dani had dreams of being a forensic anthropologist that were on the back burner for now. Mainly because it was exactly what she did now, but she’d be celebrated instead of given strange looks and possibly arrested.

“Fuck that. Come look at this.”

“Fuck that?! Well, excuse me for trying to be-woah. Holy shit.”

“Yeah. Holy shit.”

They both stared in measured awe for a moment before grinning at each other as Dani threw her arm around Lana’s shoulders and kissed her cheek.

“This is our Golden Ticket, Dan. I can feel it.”

In the end, they only took the skull home with them. They left the ribs, hips, and leg where they lay in the mud.

Neither of them noticed how dark it had gotten. The moon had gone out on them.

Dani sat cross-legged on their rolling chair, scrolling through articles on her laptop, which a decal helpfully informed all and sundry was located on Elm Street. Lana was still cleaning the skull slowly, meticulously. It was hard work, and she didn’t want to put even one nick on the thing.

“God damn it, wish we had some of those beetles. You find anything yet?”

“Shhh, shut up Anal, I’m working here.”

Lana rolled her eyes, even as she smiled a bit. She put it down to the fact that she was the younger of the two, but Dani seemed to get a little too into the stuff. She took it seriously in a way Lana just didn’t, couldn’t. She’d outgrown that phase. She knew Dani would too, eventually, wouldn’t pore over articles online so meticulously trying to figure out who it was they dug up, the exact history and superstition behind all their morbid little artifacts. The thought almost made her sad. She really could be a great Forensic Anthropologist if that’s what she wanted.

She put the brush and pick down and looked at her hands absently while she waited for the kid to come back with something interesting. They were almost black, filth-encrusted. Her skin was darkened in general, but it was the lines of her hands and fingerprints that the grave soil really threw into sharp relief. And her fingernails. Under the tips, in her cuticles...she hadn’t thought she’d gotten that much dirt on her hands while she dug.

“God, my hands are fucking filthy.”

Dani didn’t look up. “You know, a very long time ago, people invented this wonderful thing called soap, and if you mix it with water, do you know what happens? It’s really amazing.”

Lana made as if to punch her and then walked to the bathroom sink and started scrubbing.

The water going down the sink was almost black. Must have been the rain. She made a mental note to avoid digging in the mud in the future. The water ran translucent black, but somehow she STILL wasn’t getting it-

“Hey, get in here! I think I got something.”

She ran out of the bathroom so fast that she barely dried her hands, and didn’t see the dark stains left behind on the towels.

“All right, so,” Dani was thrilled enough with her discovery she didn’t even wait for Lana to say anything or get all the way over to her, she just started dumping. She was like that. “I haven’t got a name, but I was looking at old medical cases involving disfigurement or deformity. Turns out, first of all, I was right. It was a woman. See? I don’t even need no fucking doctorate! Anyway, I think this is our gal.”

The old monochrome photograph showed the side of a tent, presumably that of a travelling freak show. There was a bearded woman, conjoined twins, a little man, a man covered in thick fur-like hair...and on the far right, sitting in a chair, a black woman with one eye, a collapsing nose, and a swollen, lopsided head.

She had no hair on the deformed side, and the scalp looked rough and uneven in texture. From the photograph, it was clear her arms and the lower half of at least one leg were swollen and malformed as well.

“So THAT is a travelling sideshow that moved throughout the South at the end of the 19th Century. Apparently, her deformity started out relatively minor, but as she grew, her bones kept...” Dani looked away from the screen and nodded at the skull. “Doing that. I think it’s called...ossification? Atypical osseous growth? I’m not exactly sure. Anyway, like I said, her name’s not listed, but she was apparently something of an object of fascination to a white surgeon who lived right around here, one...Robert Ender, who wrote a first-hand account of his research into her affliction, but it’s behind a fucking paywall. Of course. Anyway, in 1893, says he paid the circus owner a lot of money for...her?”

“For her? What do you mean ‘for’ her?”

Dani was squinting at the screen, still reading. “Hold on, I don’t know, to study or something? Aw, what if they got married, wouldn’t that be-”

“What? Kid?”

Dani’s eyes looked different, the excited light had gone out of them. She suddenly seemed much older than she was, looked tired. Tired and a bit sick. She continued reading in a monotone voice. “Ender paid the circus owner an enormous amount of money to study her affliction. Medical experimentation on black women was on the wane since the end of slavery, but since she was a side show performer, and this WAS the deep-ass South...” she trailed off for a moment before continuing.

“He made several surgical incisions into her head and face and vivisected her. She eventually died during a trepanation. There was a minor scandal, but charges were never pressed and Dr. Ender kept his position in society. Her body was buried nameless in the Potter’s Field.” She cast her eyes down. “That’s what I saw...you know, in the ribs. It looked like they had been cut one by one. By shears, you know? Peeled back.”

There was silence between them for a moment before Lana grinned and patted her sister on the back. “Jesus, great job kid! That’s...incredibly fucked up, but look at us! We got a minor celebrity here. We can put her story everywhere. I’m not sure I want to sell her.”

Dani cringed at the words “sell her.” She chewed her lip for a moment in a way Lana had come to know well over the years. It was her designated “i’m going to say something that will upset you and trying to pick my words carefully” face.

“Lana...I don’t think I’m comfortable with this.”

“What are you talking about?!” Lana laughed a bit, still not taking her very seriously. “You’re the one who wants to go pro with grave-robbing, what’s the problem?”

“We shouldn’t keep it.”

“All right, I mean, if you REALLY want we can sell it, it just seems like a was-”

“That’s not what I mean.” She paused again, then looked Lana in the eyes for the first time. “We should put it back.”

“What?! Put it back? What, you think her ghost is coming for us?”

“You’re not listening!” her voice had a force in it that it almost never contained, and Lana was taken aback. “I’m not scared of it. It’s just so...sad.”

“Honey,” Lana put her hand on her sister’s shoulder and gave it a squeeze. “She’s already dead. There’s nothing we can do. But we can tell her story! We can make something out of her death, right?”

“We don’t even know her name.”

Lana stared at the skull, considering for a moment. “What about...Octavia?”

Dani cocked her eyebrow, but made no response.

“Yeah, Octavia! That’s a good name, right? Hey, Octavia,” Lana turned towards the skull on the counter with a friendly wave. “You cool if we take some pictures of you and put them on the internet? Not that you know what that IS, but...” she turned back to Dani, expecting a begrudging smile. There wasn’t one.

She just shook her head slowly, then looked over at the hand Lana still had on her shoulder. “Jesus, woman, I thought you washed your hands.”

Lana herself took a good look at them for the first time since she’d come out of the bathroom. If anything, they looked dirtier. She glanced under her nails to see a thick black line of accumulated dirt. “I did! I don’t know why this dirt’s so stubborn. Wait here,” she sighed and returned to the bathroom.

As she scrubbed, watching black dirt flow down the drain, she heard Dani get up and move around. “Hey, I’m going out for cigarettes. You want anything?”

Lana poked her head around the doorframe. “I thought you were quitting!”

Dani just shrugged and continued out the door.

It made her a bit angry, in all honesty. The kid was overreacting, which wasn’t that unusual for her. They had more than one fight in the past caused by Dani being too sensitive about strange things. But this was different. It was always petty shit, big dramatic blow-outs of the kind that siblings had, but that always blew over when they admitted they were both being assholes.

But Dani had looked at her with real reproach. With something accusatory in her eyes. She thought it was wrong. She thought Lana was a bad person.

The black kept flowing down the drain, and Lana scrubbed her hands harder. “Fucking thing...”

It wasn’t like none of the bones they’d taken before hadn’t been from people who died badly or had bad lives, was it? They were dead now. That was one thing the two had always agreed on. They were dead, and the dead have no use for their bodies.

She looked at her hands, which felt raw. Dirty as ever. She grabbed a towel and scrubbed it over her hands and fingers. By the end, it was badly stained, the individual fibers clotting together.

But her hands were dirty. And there was that black under her fingernails.

“God DAMN it, how...” Lana felt a rush and a drop in her stomach, like she’d just fallen off a cliff. Something was wrong.

She was at the desk now, fumbling through implements, grabbing the pick she’d been cleaning the skull with to take it to her nails. She picked it up and stared.

The skull was dirty again. More than dirty. Its eye was packed with soil, just as it was when she first found it.

She stared, clutching the pick in her nerveless hands. In a moment the shock would wear off and she would truly panic, but for now, her brain was still trying to make some kind of rational sense of it, trying to parse what it was seeing. In a sort of faraway daze, she noticed a furtive movement under where the skull rested. She was dimly aware she was going to regret turning it over, but that didn’t mean she could stop herself.

A massive Devil’s Coach Horse scuttled out, raising its abdomen in a threat display and opening and closing its jagged mandibles at her. The panic broke forth.

Lana screamed and back-handed the thing, trying to brush it off the desk. It flew directly at her face, buzzing. She flailed and swatted blindly around her head in a panic, only to receive a painful pinching sensation in her forearm. It had sunk its jaws into her flesh and was holding there tightly.

She dropped the skull. She could punch herself in the face for doing it, always treated her bones better than that, would never risk breaking it, but it was a reflex. She dropped it and swatted at the horrible black beetle, only to make contact with her own skin.

The buzzing had stopped. The beetle was gone. So, too, was the dirt. The skull lay innocently on the floor, cleaned off, staring at her.

She stood there for a moment, breathing raggedly, hands shaking. “I’ve lost my fucking mind. I’ve gone...and lost...my fucking mind.”

She looked at her shaking hands intently. She closed her eyes and opened them again. She shook her head, bit her tongue and took deep breaths. But after all, the dirt was still there. The one thing that hadn’t left.

She lifted her pick up again off the floor. She didn’t dare touch the skull. She worked it under the crescent of her fingernails, scraping and tugging at the accumulated filth. It came free easily enough, she noticed. There was plenty of it on the tip of the pick and raining down on the floor. The problem was it kept coming back. She could see it now. As she pulled one line of dirt from beneath her nail, another seemed to seep out and take its place.

Jesus Christ, where was it all coming from?

She turned the sink on high, as hot as it would go, and got her pocket knife. She wasn’t thinking rationally, it was just animal panic and desperation to get the damned dirt out. She worked the blade under her nail until it flared with red hot pain.

She worked through her other nails, digging and stabbing underneath, biting down to keep from crying out as more and more dirt came out. Black was running down her fingers now, a translucent black like the dirty water going down the drain.

There was a source, there had to be a source.

“Fuck it.” Lana growled and wrenched a nail free, then another. She started screaming again as she saw what was underneath. There was no blood, no exposed bed of nerves. Just more dirt. Black powder. She dug at the miniature dirt beds in her fingertips with the knifepoint, prying more and more loose before giving up, throwing it down on the floor in frustration.

She wrung her hands under the water, trying to get it out, trying to get anything out at all. It was helpless, the water just kept flowing black, there was nothing but dirt underneath her skin and her nails. The pain was unbearable. She felt light-headed, on the verge of passing out, but she couldn’t stop. Not now.

Dani was only gone for about 15 minutes, but was already too late. There was blood everywhere. Running down the sink to the floor, on the mirror, on the knife. The sink was full of nails, and the water that ran past them down the drain was pink. Lana was slumped across the far wall of the bathroom, barely conscious. There was no skin left on her hands. She had scrubbed it off.

Dani didn’t ask her any questions. Not as she drove her to the hospital, not when she regained her consciousness. Not ever. What she did was take her in, leave her with the doctors, and drive straight back to the Potter’s Field.

What she did was put the skull back exactly where she found it, and say a tearful apology, and beg for mercy for her sister.

She told Lana later, as she was visiting her in the mental hospital she’d been referred to. She said it unprompted. Worded it gently, like she didn’t suspect damn well what had happened. “Hey, Anal.” She rested her hand on top of the gauze covering her older sister’s. “I, um...look, don’t be mad, but I got rid of that skull while you were recovering. It...I really wasn’t comfortable with it, you know, and I just thought that-”

“Thank you.” Lana’s smile was weak, but real. “I’m sorry.”

It was almost the last time they ever spoke of it. Once, as Lana caught Dani glancing forlornly at the gloves she had taken to wearing, the subject came up again.

“It’s not your fault, kid. You know that.”

“I stormed out on you because I was upset. That was dumb.”

“Yeah, well, if I’d listened to you...you know. I was just...excited. Felt like we found something real, you know?”

Dani let out a bitter laugh. “We did. Lana? Do you ever wish we did tell her story?”

Lana considered it for a moment before slowly shaking her head. “I think, maybe...maybe it wasn’t our story to tell.”

#writing #not sure i like this one as much as the others actually but i've been working on it for god damned AGES so #skimping on the editing for now oops

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victorineb · 5 years

Text

A (horribly belated) birthday fic for the incomparable @devereauxsdisease in tribute to her adorable but troublesome muse. Featuring a cannibal with a crush, an elusive profiler, and a tracksuit-wearing hamster named Mads.

Also on AO3.

“Hello, Han… uh, Dr Lecter?”

“I believe first names are acceptable post-midnight, Will. Especially when I am the one rudely encroaching on you in the small hours.”

“Wee hours.”

“Hmm?”

“It’s… doesn’t matter, not important.”

“Forgive me, Will, my grasp of the English idiom slips under stress. It is ‘wee hours’ rather than ‘small hours,’ yes?”

“Uh, yes. Sorry.”

“Nonsense, I prefer to know when a mistake occurs; means I’m unlikely to make it a second time.”

“O… kay. Good. Why are you stressed?”

“Ah, of course, the reason for my call. It’s… in fact it would be easier to show you than to tell you. Could I invite you for breakfast tomorrow?”

“Yeah, I can do that. It’s not… you don’t need me now, do you? I mean, uh, it’s not urgent? I can leave the dogs for a couple of hours if you want, drive over to you.”

“That is extremely kind of you, Will, but entirely unnecessary. Tomorrow will be more than sufficient.”

“Oh. Well, ok, tomorrow then. What time?”

“Shall we say around eight? My appointments don’t start until ten. Are you engaged in teaching tomorrow?”

“Not until the afternoon.”

“Good. I shall see you in the morning then, Will.”

“Yeah. Bright and early.”

“Goodnight, Will.”

“Night, Hannibal.”

“Well…” Will stared into the box, equal parts fascinated and taken aback. “I’ve never seen anything like that. You were right about showing rather than telling.”

Hannibal’s mouth ticked with amusement before settling back into an expression of mild alarm. “Indeed. I really have no idea what to do with it.”

“It?”

Hannibal sighed. “Him, I suppose.”

“So you called me?”

“You are the expert in such things.”

“Dr Lecter, owning dogs does not qualify me to deal with all furry little creatures.” Will tapped on the glass to get the attention of its tiny inhabitant. “And definitely not hamsters dressed in miniature tracksuits.”

Together, Will and Hannibal peered at the furry little newcomer, united in bemusement. In fact, it was less a tracksuit the hamster was wearing, and more a miniature onesie in fire engine red. The three tiny, hand-stitched stripes on each arm marked it out fairly obviously as sportswear, though, and as Will squinted, he was pretty sure he could see a teeny but perfectly-formed Adidas logo. Whoever had supplied the little guy with his wardrobe had clearly been a) a talented tailor, and b) completely insane.

“Well, I suppose it was a long shot,” Hannibal sighed, straightening up. “I can’t help but wonder what I will do now, though. You were my only hope, Will.”

Will scrubbed at the back of his neck and gave a huff of laughter, hoping that the heat he could feel rising beneath his hand wouldn’t make it all the way to his cheeks. “I- uh, I was?”

“My social circle is rather lacking in ‘animal people.’” Will could hear the quotation marks around the last two words and wondered if the dig was at Hannibal’s friends, or just the concept of people who liked animals.

“Alana likes animals, she’s good with my dogs,” he pointed out.

“True, but I happen to know Alana has a phobia of small, furry creatures. Something about ‘dead shark eyes and creepy pink feet,’ if I recall correctly.” Hannibal’s smile was fond and amused, and Will felt a sharp little tug inside himself. He forgot sometimes that Hannibal and Alana were so close, that they had a relationship that preceded his own with either of them.

“And my own experience with pets was decades ago, in my childhood,” Hannibal added, as though it was an afterthought.

For the first time since he set eyes on the Doctor’s new housemate, Will’s full attention was on Hannibal. In fact, he was pretty much failing not to stare, his jaw dropping a little, to Hannibal’s clear amusement.

“You’re surprised I could care for another living being?”

“No, that’s – Hannibal, no, of course not. I just never took you for a… what did you call it? An ‘animal person.’” Will grinned. “Can’t quite imagine you allowing hair all over your suits, or muddy footprints on your floors.”

Hannibal gave a little huff of amusement. “I suppose that is well-deserved, not to mention true. But there were others to worry about such things when I was young.”

Will was faintly aware that there were shadows lurking in Hannibal’s childhood that he didn’t necessarily want to raise during a friendly breakfast. But the image of little lord – little Count – Hannibal surrounded by a menagerie of exotic animals was irresistible; he had to hear more.

“What did you have? Peacocks? Horses? A herd of elephants?”

“I believe you have me confused with another Hannibal.”

Will grinned, always pleased when Hannibal got his jokes.

“In fact, we had several dogs,” Hannibal continued. “I couldn’t tell you the breed, now, but I recall them being enormous things. Officially meant to be guard dogs but really no more than very spoiled floor pillows that occasionally needed to be walked. They were very well-behaved and affectionate with my sister; I would remember them fondly for that alone.”

Will nodded, wondering dimly if he could bring Abigail to meet his dogs. Perhaps Hannibal could be there too, just the three of them tucked away in Wolf Trap, maybe for a whole weekend if the care home would allow it.

“I have a confession, though,” Hannibal said, his tone lightening into something playful.

“Oh?” Will followed his lead, allowing an insouciant raise of an eyebrow, and dispelling his thoughts about where everyone would sleep in his little house.

“Yes. I’m afraid that, fond of the dogs as I was…” Hannibal tailed off, theatrically drawing out the tension, “…I am more of a cat person.”

“No!” Will exclaimed, mock-wounded, clutching at his chest in a pretence of shock.

“I had hoped to spare you this blow, but I cannot betray the memory of the barn cat who was my best friend as a boy.”

Will could just imagine it, a young, fair Hannibal lying on his back in the warmth of the sun, a book propped against his raised legs and the cat sleeping curled up on his chest. Will felt that same warmth in his chest and he wished a little that he could meet that version of Hannibal, before tragedy had entered his life. He wished he could have known that boy when he was a boy himself.

“And did it have a name, this cat?” he asked, wanting to draw out the story a moment longer.

Hannibal blinked. “Of course. It was called Cat.”

Will couldn’t hold back a snort of laughter. “I should have expected that.”

Hannibal gave him one of those little knowing smiles that alternately endeared and terrified Will, depending on the subject matter. This, fortunately, was one of the not-terrifying versions and Will responded with a smile of his own, before looking back at the hamster, who was currently exploring one of the farther corners of his cage. Farther being the operative word – the thing was, frankly, enormous, split over several levels and fitted with what Will rather suspected was more furniture than he owned himself. There was even, he realised, looking through a luridly pink plastic tube, a hamster-sized hammock suspended from the bars.

It didn’t exactly fit in with Hannibal’s aesthetic. It did look pretty comfy though.

“Ok, look,” Will said, “I really don’t know anything more about hamsters than you, but I’ve probably got more experience in finding pet advice, given that Google hadn’t been invented when you and Cat were hanging out. So why don’t I do some research today, and I’ll come back over tonight and help get the little guy settled?”

“I would appreciate that very much, Will, thank you. Not least because of the chance to see you twice in one day.” He gave Will a look of such open pleasure at the prospect that he had to drop his eyes away to cope with it. He never knew what to do with Hannibal’s displays of friendship – which was bad enough when he was in one of his fancy suits, but now he was standing in his living room, all soft hair and immaculate robe and it was… causing a confusing reaction Will didn’t want to examine too closely. He diverted.

“By the way, what’s his name? Please don’t tell me he’s called Hamster.”

Hannibal smiled. He was doing a lot of that this morning. “Mads,” he said.

“Mass? As in weight? He’s called Fat the Hamster?”

The hamster in question glared at Will as if insulted.

“I don’t believe he appreciated that, Will,” Hannibal scolded, much to Will’s amusement. Defending his pack of one already, it seemed; Will would make an ‘animal person’ out of Dr Lecter yet. “In fact his former owner was of Danish extraction and Mads – spelled M-A-D-S – is a popular name there.”

“A psychiatrist with a hamster named Mads.” Will took care to pronounce it as it was spelled. “How appropriate.”

It was just after six when Hannibal put the phone down, murder – not, to be fair, unusually – on his mind. He did not have any current plans to transform Jack Crawford from dinner guest to entrée, but if the man continued to monopolise Will’s time with cases he should have been perfectly able to solve himself, well… he was sure he could find room in his freezer should the need arise.

“It should only be an overnighter, I’m hoping,” Will had said, apology coating every syllable. “Sounds pretty straightforward, I think Jack just likes using me to freak out the locals. Will you and Mads be ok for the night?”

Hannibal had assured him that they would be perfectly fine, that he had been left several days’ worth of supplies and basic instructions on food and hygiene when the little interloper had been dropped off. That had been over an hour ago, though, and he was now wondering if perhaps this entire scheme was a sign that he had taken leave of his senses. He was quite used, of course, to receiving bequests from patients, but they generally took the form of a generous lump sum, or perhaps a tasteful antique or piece of art. Why on earth Mrs Mikkelsen had chosen him, of all people, to become guardian of her beloved hamster, he could not fathom. Indeed, his first thought had been to quietly dispatch the little pest and claim the stress of changing homes had destroyed its fragile body. It had quickly occurred to him, however, that this might be a useful in with the still-elusive Will.

And it had worked so beautifully, up until Jack’s untimely interference. Hannibal hadn’t failed to notice the flush of Will’s cheeks with every compliment bestowed, nor the softening of Will’s eyes during his tale of a childhood surrounded by animals. He hadn’t thought of that cat in decades but he sent its memory silent thanks now, before locking the past securely back in his mind where it belonged. As for Will, his absence was frustrating but hardly a killer blow. He would surely return full of apologies and eagerness to help Hannibal with his predicament, which could easily be parlayed into more time spent in Hannibal’s presence, into visits that would extend into dinner, perhaps into nights spent in a guest room. And then, inevitably – Hannibal would make sure of its inevitability – nights spent in his own bed as he introduced his lovely Will to pleasures he had never before experienced.

In which case, Hannibal considered, it would behove him to make an effort with the rodent, that he might further Will’s growing image of him as a fellow animal-lover. He had placed its cage in his private sitting room, thinking that Will would object if he housed the rodent in his laundry and enjoying the idea of Will in one of the parts of the house where visitors were not normally allowed. He went there now, following a quick diversion to his study to collect paper and pencils with which to occupy himself while observing the creature’s behaviour. Later, of course, he would have to resign himself to clearing out its waste and providing it with sustenance, but he had dealt with far fouler things for far less noble causes.

Truly, if Will Graham ever realised the things Hannibal would do for him, one of them would be in very grave danger indeed. What worried Hannibal was, he wasn’t entirely sure which of them it would be…

Stepping into the sitting room, he set his drawing equipment on an armchair and crossed to the far side of the room, where he had placed the hamster cage on an occasional table.

“I suspect this will not be a long-term arrangement for either of us,” he said, leaning down slightly to address his companion, “but if you remain quiet and unobtrusive, I will ensure your stay is a pleasant one.” The hamster, who had turned at the sound of Hannibal’s voice, regarded him from behind its twitching nose and then promptly dove into its large pile of bedding, disappearing from view. “Very good instincts,” he murmured approvingly, before returning to his armchair and propping his sketchbook up against his crossed leg. He had plans for an attempt at capturing the expression on Will’s face during his earlier tale of feline friendship and wanted to get the preliminary sketches down while the image was still fresh in his mind.

Half an hour later, Hannibal sighed and placed the drawing to one side. Will was certainly a beautiful subject but also a remarkably challenging one, defying all standard knowledge about symmetrical faces being the most pleasing. His face was a jumble of mismatched features, a crooked nose and ears that were… generous, to put it mildly, all of which somehow came together to form a visage that would have made the old masters weep for joy and was currently causing Hannibal to come very close to snapping all his pencils in frustration. Perhaps a rear view would prove more productive.

Taking up a fresh sheet of paper, he attempted to conjure an image of Will’s derriere from the prodigious selection stored in his memory. His efforts were interrupted, though, by an odd chugging, clacking sound that put Hannibal strangely in mind of the kind of miniature train sets that children no longer had any appreciation for. It was, of course, coming from the hamster cage.

Hannibal rose from his seat, primarily in order to investigate the source of the noise, though possibly also in order to smother the little beast in its own bedding, he hadn’t quite decided yet. Subjecting the cage to the kind of stare that would make a rodent like Franklyn Froideveaux quiver in fear, Hannibal found that the noise was being created by the hamster’s furious running pace in its little plastic wheel.

“Is that entirely necessary?” he asked the creature, and then was forced into a moment of self-reflection as he realised he’d unthinkingly addressed it as if expecting an answer. That was behaviour verging on eccentric, which would have been quite fine had anyone been around to witness such a display. However, since it was only Hannibal and the rodent, he briefly considered whether he was becoming addled by his pursuit of a pretty boy, as though he were a teenager with a crush. Then again, no doubt Will spoke to his pack as he went about his day, informing them of the latest murder he was wrapping his delicious brain around or perhaps recounting his sessions with his dear new friend Dr Lecter. Perhaps this was an impulse he should indulge, so that he might convincingly repeat the act in Will’s presence…

He glanced back at the enthusiastically spinning hamster. The speed the thing had built up was, he had to admit, impressive, and Hannibal could appreciate the evolutionary efficiency of disguising raw physical power beneath a deceptively soft exterior. “Perhaps I will not kill you today, little Mads, not after such an impressive display of athleticism.” The hamster seemed to take his reprieve in stride, continuing to plough his infinite furrow with determination.

Feeling unaccountably buoyed by this little encounter, Hannibal returned to his chair, deciding to have one more stab at pinning his elusive muse down on the page before giving it up and starting in on dinner preparations. In the background, Mads continued to clack away in his wheel and Hannibal found himself tuning into the sound, letting it bleed into his mind like white noise as he sketched out a few foundational lines of Will’s fundament.

The next time Hannibal looked up, it was with a start that he realised the room had gone dark around him, the only light coming from the lamp angled over his work. He had experienced no sense of time passing, all his focus on keeping up with the suddenly steady stream of ideas fighting their way to the front of his mind. Piles of sketches surrounded him, so many that a good number had cascaded onto the floor, fanning themselves out like a halo around Hannibal’s chair. And from every one, Will’s wide eyes stared up at him, caught in every variety of emotion, from innocent suffering to wicked lust.

What, Hannibal wondered distantly, could have caused such a rush of inspiration in him? He looked up, a suspicion suddenly forming in his mind, to see that he was being watched from across the room. The hamster was standing quietly behind the glass of its cage, up on its hind legs, front paws folded neatly against its chest, black eyes glinting in the darkness. Hannibal rose from his chair as if pulled by a string, eyes never leaving the cage until he was standing directly in front of it.

“Hello, Mads.”

The hamster made a chirruping noise that, were Hannibal more given to flights of fancy, might have sounded a little like, “Hello, Dr Lecter.”

They gazed at each other for a few moments, Hannibal ignoring the creeping sensation that he looked rather foolish, apparently communing with a sportswear-clad rodent.

“I believe an experiment is in order,” he said, eventually, exiting the room with a thoughtful expression on his face. A moment later he returned, wheeling a drinks trolley in front of him, onto which he carefully placed the hamster house.

“Come, young Mads, we shall see if your helpful influence extends to musical composition.”

Hannibal didn’t startle awake, his reflexes were far too well trained to allow for that. He did, however, need a moment to take stock of his situation after raising his head from his desk. He had never, not even during the frenetic days of medical school, fallen asleep unintentionally and yet now he found himself roused from a sound slumber on top of another pile of drawings. Roused by…

Belatedly realising that it had been a knock at his door that brought him back to consciousness, Hannibal rose from his seat, peeled off the sketch that had attached itself to his cheek, and hurried to the front door, throwing it open with uncharacteristic haste. As he had suspected, the figure of the only person who would knock on his door unannounced at five thirty in the morning – possibly other than Jack Crawford and he would simply have continued knocking until the door was answered or pounded into sawdust – was halfway down his drive.

“Will!”

Startling slightly, Will turned back to Hannibal with a sheepish smile on his face. Which quickly twisted into an expression of apology as his eyes raked over Hannibal’s dishevelled state.

“I, um, I just got in – that is, the plane just got in and I didn’t want to leave you in the lurch with Mads, so I came here first and then I realised when I knocked what time it was and I figured you would still be asleep…” He trailed off from this rambling explanation and looked Hannibal up and down again before continuing, “…which, I guess you were from…” He raised a hand to his hair and made a series of swooping motions which Hannibal guessed were intended to convey that his own hair was not in its usual state of slicked-back neatness. He reached up to it and attempted to pat it back into something less eccentric, which caused Will to groan miserably.

“I didn’t mean it looked bad, it looks… I mean, I like it when it’s soft like that but-” He cut himself off abruptly, shoulders slumping in defeat. “I’m gonna go before I humiliate myself any further. I’ll just call the cab company,” he said, fumbling in his pockets for his phone.

Hannibal, only barely resisting the urge to grab Will and kiss the awkwardness out of him, instead reached out and put a gentle hand on his arm. “Will,” he said, firmly, “I am very happy to see you.”

Will’s frantic motions stilled and he turned a shy but radiant smile on Hannibal. “You are?”

“I am,” Hannibal told him, attempting to convey utter joy in a way that would not scare Will off with its intensity. “And I am certain Mads will be too. Why don’t you come in and say hello?”

Will’s smile grew at the invitation and though he hesitated a moment when Hannibal offered his arm, he took it without comment and allowed himself to be led into the house, where Hannibal steered him towards the study he had been sleeping in when Will knocked. He pointed out the hamster house, situated in front of the desk on its new rolling transport, and excused himself to make some clearly much-needed coffee for both of them.

When he returned, it was to find Will crouched in front of the little house, speaking in a low tone to Mads, who had taken up his apparently preferred position for conversation, nose practically pressed up to the glass, regarding his visitor with charged intensity. Stopping in the doorway, Hannibal tuned into Will’s soft speech, picking up what he was confiding in his new friend.

“You’ve landed on your paws here, really. He can seem pretty scary, Dr Lecter, but so long as you behave yourself, he probably won’t eat you.”

Hannibal raised an eyebrow. That was verging on suspicious.

“And if you manage to convince him to like you, well,” Will continued, his tone conspiratorial, “it’s amazing just what you can get away with.” Still crouching, Will turned his head and positively grinned at Hannibal. “Isn’t that right, Doctor?”

Hannibal regarded Will thoughtfully, his face placid as his mind briskly sorted through possible courses of action. Presently, having discarded the more fatal options, he set down both cups of coffee and came to stand by Will, who rose to meet him.

“Indeed,” he said, curling his hand into Will’s and finding no resistance, “once a person has won my affection, I’m afraid I’ll let them away with murder.”

Will looked, for just a moment, as if he were reconsidering all his life choices and Hannibal wondered if perhaps he’d misjudged the situation. He was quickly reassured, though, by the way Will squeezed his hand and stepped in close to him, a tilt to his chin that seemed to call out for Hannibal to kiss him…

…Which he absolutely would have done had Mads not chosen that precise moment to fall while trying to get into his hammock and make an almighty racket while righting himself.

Hannibal glared at him. “Your buffoonery is ill-timed, young man.”

Will sucked in a mock-dismayed breath. “Damn, maybe I overestimated that whole affection thing.”

Hannibal turned back to him with an indulgent smile. “In fact, no. Mads and I have formed an unexpected bond in your absence.”

“You… really?”

“Yes. Strange as it may sound, his presence appears to have had rather a positive effect on my creative output. Something about the rhythmic sound of his wheel, I suspect…”

“Oh, so that explains this sorta scary pile of drawings, then?” Will asked, drifting over to the desk to take a look at Hannibal’s work.

All of which, somewhat unfortunately, featured Will himself as the subject.

“Will, it might be better if you didn’t…” Hannibal said, attempting to put himself between the real Will and his charcoal avatars.

Too late.

“Oh… these are… these are all…” Will trailed off as his cheeks flushed bright red and he very deliberately didn’t look at Hannibal.

“I must apologise, Will, I realise this is a gross infringement of your privacy-” Hannibal stopped as Will held up a hand to cut him off. He could do nothing but watch as Will continued to leaf through the drawings, his eyes growing large and round as he took in each new image. At one point he seemed to choke a little; Hannibal imagined this was because he’d got to the sequence in which Will had a faceless (though, if Hannibal were honest, still fairly recognisable) male partner tied to a chair and was alternately riding his cock and wielding a rather extravagantly braided crop.

“Is this…” Will had to clear his throat before continuing, such was the roughness of his voice. “Is this really how you see me?”

Hannibal decided there really was no point in holding back. “It is an image I have entertained with some pleasure, yes. But were I to spend the rest of my life doing nothing but drawing you, Will, I could not hope to capture all that I see in you, nor a fraction of your beauty even in the most mundane of circumstances.”

This was met with a slight bulging of Will’s eyes as his brows attempted to rocket off his face, but no words. Instead, Hannibal watched, transfixed, as Will shuffled the offending drawings to the back of the pile and then riffled amongst the pages as if looking for something. Finally, he pulled out a single drawing, strode over to Hannibal and thrust the page against his chest.

“Let’s start with this. I think I’ll need to work on my horsemanship before attempting the more advanced stuff.”

Hannibal, too full with a sudden rush of hope to look away from Will in case he vanished, let the drawing flutter to the floor without even glancing at it. “In this, I shall be led by you, dearest Will. That you would allow my touch at all-”

“Oh, good grief, you really are way too fancy for me,” Will interrupted, though he immediately contradicted this statement by pulling Hannibal in by his lapels and kissing any further declarations of devotion out of him.

Some time later, having moved to Hannibal’s sofa and figuring out that it could hold two fully-grown men surprisingly easily and without creaking even slightly, Will propped himself up on his elbow and gazed down at Hannibal thoughtfully.

“About this burst of productivity your furry little muse inspired in you…” he said.

“Yes, darling?” Hannibal responded distractedly, somewhat preoccupied with deciding which side of Will’s neck he’d like to bestow a mark on first.

“Was it just the drawings?”

Hannibal raised his head but failed to quite look directly at Will’s amused expression.

“Hannibal?”

“There may have been a sonnet. Or two. And the opening bars of a composition.”

“Only the opening bars, huh?”

“Well, he had a nap at one point.”

“He looks a little out of sorts, don’t you think?”

“I believe he may be lonely. I have been rather… distracted, of late.”

“Are you claiming that I’ve usurped his place in your attentions with my hot body?”

“Yes.”

“Fair enough.” Will pressed said body back against Hannibal, who had just wrapped his arms around Will from behind. They both peered at Mads the hamster, who was curled up dejectedly in the corner of his house, his back – somewhat pointedly, it seemed – turned away from his audience. He was clad today in a tracksuit the colour of a pumpkin, the luridly cheerful shade in complete opposition to his demeanour. (Hannibal had made an attempt to introduce Mads to the joys of tailoring, having enlisted his somewhat bemused tailor to create a selection of miniature suits, but thus far the hamster’s response to each sartorial experiment had been to tear the offending article off and proceed to shred it and add it to his bedding.)

“Maybe he needs some companionship of the furry kind,” Will suggested.

“You are suggesting a second pet?”

“You want Mads to be happy, don’t you?”

Hannibal considered this. He owed the little creature a debt, it was true, not only for bringing him and Will together, but also because he had finally finished that composition that had been bothering him for years the other day. And two hamsters could hardly be much more of a nuisance than one, after all.

“All right, I agree to your proposal. On one condition.”

“What’s that?”

“Well, with a second housemate to take care of, I believe I will be in need of your excellent advice on a more regular basis. I will find a new companion for Mads, if you agree to spend the night here at least three times a week.”

“Damn, Hannibal, you might as well ask me to move in.”

“Well, as you have mentioned it, I would be delighted to share my home with you.”

“I… Hannibal, I…” Will stopped and took a long, assessing look at Hannibal, followed by an almost comedically deep breath. “…would have to bring the dogs.”

And that was how Hannibal came to share his home with one empath, seven dogs, and two hamsters. And also how Hannibal quickly decided they all needed to move to a rather bigger house in the country.

Epilogue:

“Would you like the honour of naming him, my love?”

“Really? Ok, um… how about… Hugh?”

They both looked down at the newly arrived hamster, still in his travel box, waiting to be introduced to his new housemate. It looked back at them, blinked and gave a small squeak, then went back to grooming its paws.

“I think he approves,” Will said.

“Winston, Buster, Hugh. You seem to have a predilection for giving your animals names that might better be suited to upper-class English gentlemen,” Hannibal mused.

“What can I say, I like posh foreign men,” Will grinned, groping Hannibal’s ass to underline the point.

“Hmm, I’m not sure I appreciate the implication that I am one of your pets,” Hannibal said, leaning into Will’s touch regardless.

Will leaned in and bit at the lobe of Hannibal’s ear, before breathing, “You sure about that?”

Hannibal shuddered despite himself and made a note to explore this avenue more thoroughly later. “If you continue to behave in this fashion, poor Hugh will be trapped in that inadequately sized box until tomorrow.”

Will relented, as Hannibal knew he would – Will might be many things, but a man who would put his own pleasure before the wellbeing of an animal was certainly not one of them. He detached himself from Hannibal’s back and retrieved the newly-christened Hugh from his box while Hannibal opened up the hamster house so Will could gently place Hugh inside.

They watched, tense with the knowledge that hamsters often did not get on well with each other, and that this could all go disastrously wrong. For a moment or two, Mads and Hugh did nothing but stare at one another, the strangely bright blue rings in Hugh’s eyes seeming to flash as they did so. And then, with a tiny chirrup from both animals, they scurried towards each other and began scenting intently.

Both Will and Hannibal held their breath. This was the moment of truth.

The hamsters scented each other for rather longer than seemed entirely necessary, and then suddenly Mads scurried off, followed closely by Hugh, towards his bedding. The two of them plunged into the depths of wood pulp and soon the sound of happy scrabbling could be heard as Hugh and Mads burrowed through their bedroom together.

Will and Hannibal let out relieved sighs.

“That seems to have gone well,” Hannibal remarked.

“Yeah, it did. In fact, I thought Mads looked like a hamster in love.”

“Given the way Hugh followed him into bed, I think it might be mutual.”

“Can’t blame them, really.”

“Terribly handsome fellows, both of them.”

Will shot Hannibal a conspiratorial glance. “Maybe we should give them some privacy?”

Hannibal tilted his head, considering. “I do have some laundry that requires folding.”

Will hummed in agreement. “Sounds good. Unless, of course, you can think of something else that would be fun to fold…”

The two hamsters re-emerged just in time to see Hannibal giving chase after a giggling Will.

Are they always like that? Hugh squeaked.

Ja, they’re horny bastards, responded Mads, wrinkling his nose. Sometimes they don’t even make it out from the kitchen. Humans, he added, with something that might have been a shrug in hamster.

Strange creatures, Hugh agreed. Mind if I have a go in your wheel?

Our wheel, wee man.

Hugh regarded Mads from beneath surprisingly long eyelashes. Our wheel, right.

Mads sidled a little closer to his new housemate. Could always give it a spin together, if you fancied it.

One wheel, two riders? Hugh’s head twitched to the side. That’s a pretty unorthodox suggestion.

I’m a pretty unorthodox hamster, kaere.

Oh yeah? Hugh considered his companion. Prove it.

A moment later, Hugh took off towards the wheel, squeaking happily, as Mads scampered after him in delighted pursuit. And soon, the only sounds that could be heard were that of bouncing bedsprings and a frantically spinning hamster wheel, all of the house’s inhabitants enthusiastically exploring the joys of cohabitation.

#hannibal #hannigram #hannibal fic #hannigram fic #madancy #i mean technically #but they're both hamsters so...#hamster!mads #hamster!hugh #my fic #mads mikkelsen #hugh dancy

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memescomicswriting · 5 years

Text

In the Pursuit of Happiness Ch. 5

Fandom: Marvel

Pairing: Reader x Bucky, Reader x Steve

Warnings/genre: Very Angsty Chapter, a few bad words

Summary: Singer!Avenger. Raised by Sheild since the age of ten, Y/N grew up without everyday examples. She only saw how to be an agent. Though as a grown woman she has surpassed that mindset, she still faces challenges from her upbringing- like how to handle feelings, unrequited love, and interpersonal challenges. Set after similar plot points in Civil War, Y/N must face returning home after leaving during an uncomfortable time in her life and facing the consequences

A/N: This is my first series in the Marvel fandom. I hope you enjoy it. I always welcome feedback. It is appreciated. This story does not follow the traditional Marvel timeline. I mess with it to make the story work, so roll with me.

Y’all I wrote most of this chapter to Youngblood by 5 Seconds of Summer and Pompeii by Bastille. You’ve been warned.

Story Masterlist

You woke up incredibly early. To be fair, seven am wasn't early to most of the adult world, but for you it was. Yet you didn't feel tired. You had a strange, almost giddy and childish energy to you. Today, Steve was more than your friend, possibly best friend. He was simply more. After harassing Peter into an early morning workout with you, you were off to start the day. Peter, the cute mess he is, was not ready for sparring. Even extremely holding back, you kicked his little spider butt. You made up for it with the promise of chocolate chip pancakes.

"But can't we skip the green juice this morning?" Peter whined as you made your way to the common kitchen. "Uh, I promised Tony I'd care for you, and if he caught me feeding you junk twenty-four-seven he'd kill me and then proceed to helicopter parent you to his grave." You retorted. You pushed the swing door to the kitchen open and held it for Peter. "Besides, this morning proved to me that you need more of a natural energy boost." "Like you-" Peter stopped mid comeback, freezing, and rebooting like one of his inventions. "Good morning Mr. Captain Sir, and Mr. Bucky." He was flustered but continued to an open seat far away from the buddied grown men. "Hey, guys." You walked in with a collected air to you, despite your internal giddiness. You continued to the cupboards. "I was about to make some pancakes for Peter and I. Want some?" "No thank you-" Steve. "I'd love some-" Bucky. You whipped around to curiously glance between the two. Normally, taking food orders like this held nothing over you, but their estranged looks towards each other threw you for a loop. "Sorry, Yes." Steve. "Nevermind I guess." Bucky. You raised a brow at them both. They looked at each other in frustration. Normally, you could read Steve like a book, but with Bucky back he was acting strange. You had no into their century's worth of intricacies, inside jokes, understandings. It was weird and you didn't like it, but you'd get used to it. Maybe one day you'd be apart of it. "I'll just make a lot and whoever wants them can take them..." The caution in your voice caught their attention. However, you ignored them and made quick work of developing a pancake batter. Peter was engrossed with his phone, Steve with the Journal, and Bucky with the circuits of his arm. You cleared your throat and all three men perked up. "Peter wants chocolate chips. I planned on adding pecans and peaches to mine. Either of you want something else?" "Blueberries!" Bucky happily chirped. The excitement was evident in his voice. "Steve and I can't cook worth a damn. Hate to say it, but this is the first homecooked breakfast I've had in decades." You found his easy confession odd. Apparently, so did Steve. From your understanding, Bucky was the last to share due to his guarded nature. Steve told you that. Yet, Bucky readily shared with you last night. Maybe your closeness to Steve eased his reserve. "Then I'll have to make it extra special." You picked up the conversation before it became an awkward starring match. "Eggs, bacon, potatoes, sausage, the works." Before Bucky could protest, Peter spoke up for you and Steve. "I wouldn't if I were you." Then he went back to his phone. "When she sets her mind to something Buck, you can't change it." That was Steve, settling the debate. You shot him a bold smile. It was the first time you'd directed your gaze solely to him this morning. He squirmed under it which you found disheartening. "Did you want anything different?" You asked with a soft, hurt voice. His voice was soft. "No, what you're making is fine." There was something behind his eyes that you couldn't quite place. You were so confused. After months of pining, you'd said yes to him. Shouldn't he have the same electric energy as you? Breakfast passed quickly. It'd been a while since you cooked in this kitchen. Even longer since you cooked this much. Your other teammates came and went, taking the food that enticed them into the kitchen. Eventually, Bucky left and Peter followed after eyeing up Steve. Despite Peter's fear and intimidation, he cared more for you more than he worried what Steve thought of him. You promised him you hadn't forgotten to call your director friend at MIT, as a reminder that Peter and Ned were coming for their all-access tour. You had connections. Steve stood up to make his exit but your voice commanded him to stop. "Steve?" It was gentle but powerful. You could make yourself heard when you wanted to. He turned to face you, maybe nervous. He was the opposite of how you left him the previous night. "Y/N." Maybe it was the nerves or hurt that quickly flashed in a blaze of emotions over your face, but Steve turned to fully face you. He even took a step towards you. "Yes?" "Did- did something happen? Or are you upset at something? Maybe I'm overreading things, but I can tell when you're off..." You trailed off, refusing to look at him. If you had, you would've seen the hurt that crossed his face like it had traveled from you to him. "No, not at all!" It was a hasty correction. "Guess I'm just nervous." You looked up to find him sporting a fragile smile and he shrugged. Relief instantly pooled through you. "Oh." You returned his smile. "Um, so what time are we going out tonight, and what should I wear?" Steve opened his mouth to answer your question. At least that's what you thought. Then he quickly pressed his lips together and ticked his jaw. "Eight." He replied firmly. "And dress nice." You reached out and took his hand. You hoped it was simple nerves that overtook him. His stern voice reminded you of the Captain. You'd seen him switch into that role when he was uncomfortable. Steve froze, unresponsive. You placed his hand on your waist and stepped into him. He shifted, softened. "I do want this to work." You kissed his cheek and then walked passed him. He was left dumbfounded by your actions. -- Despite Peter's attempts to drag you with him to MIT, out of obvious disapproval, you managed to pass the afternoon with peaceful work and some much-needed rest before your date with Steve. After an hour of primping, worrying, scrubbing with soaps scented by lavender and bayberry, and everything else you moved on to makeup. You chose a simple look tonight, elegant and beautiful. You only enhanced your natural features. Steve always commented on how beautiful you looked when you did your makeup that way. You followed his directions and dressed nice. You picked out a caesious colored satin cocktail dress. It sinched your upper body like a corset but skirted below your waist. It stopped at your knee. It was the perfect combination of drawl and grace to match your subtle sexiness. Your hair was placed into gentle waves, with one side pinned back across your shoulder like a drape. You knew you looked stunning. Steve knocked on your door at exactly eight like you knew he would. You swung the door open to reveal yourself to him. You were closer to his height in your suede heels. Steve made an audible gasp. You'd heard it before, but tonight you were sure it was directed at you. He was in a tailored pair of blue slacks and a blazer. Under it, he had a patterned button-up shirt, but no tie. You looked stunning together. If you hadn't taken Steve's hand in yours and led him down the hallway you might have stood there with a dumbstruck Steve the entire night. Halfway down the elevator ride, he regained some of his composure. "You look gorgeous." He mumbled softly. You grinned. "So do you." The drive into the city was long and silent despite your efforts. Fifteen minutes into the thirty-minute drive you gave up on attempts to make conversation. When you arrived at your destination- a fancy restaurant called Sage, it was no different. You tried for conversation and you received polite but short replies. You tried to hide your disappoint the entire night, but you knew it slipped. You could see it when Steve reacted in defeat. You kissed his cheek as you said goodnight. He dropped you off at your door. Silent dismay lingered between you two. Yet, you told him that you had a great time and couldn't wait to do it again. You both knew if the date had gone well you would've continued it by changing into comfortable clothes and watching a movie together. Every 'friend outing' before ended that way. This date didn't. The next day awkward glances and silence followed you two everywhere you ran into each other. You both tried to prevent that from happening. Whenever someone asked how your date went, you lied and gushed over the fantasy you hoped it would have been. You were lying to all your teammates, even Peter. You did it so well everyone believed you. You were trained by Sheild to be a top spy, of course, your acting skills were great enough to trick even earth's mightiest. Days passed and you questioned Steve about your next date. He seemed startled by your question. That hurt you. He informed you about a flyer he'd seen for a hotel's five-course dinner for two. You said it sounded nice. He said he'd pick you up at eight again. That date went as well as the first. It became harder to hide your disappointment from your teammates with every failed date. Five failed dates passed. You planned on being head over heals by date five. You expected butterflies and nervous kisses that lingered into needy makeout sessions. You expected your friend Steve Rogers with the heat of your past flings. Instead, you received a dull, impersonal, and distant companion. Something was wrong. He was wrong. This was wrong. His reluctance was wrong. You wanted to know why. You stormed into his room, a month after he first asked you out. It was a rare occurrence where neither Peter nor Bucky lingered around your wing of the compound. You took the opportunity. "We need to talk." You declared. Steve jumped from his work desk where he'd been reviewing papers on the recent uptick in organized global crime. "Y/N." He wasn't angry but slightly startled and maybe nervous. "What about?" "The elephant in the room." You stated bluntly. When he continued to blankly stare at you with no recognition behind his eyes you clarified for him. "Our five failed dates." He couldn't have deniability now. His demeanor shifted with acceptance and disappointment. "Yeah, I know..." He tried to hide his eyes from you, looking away, turning his head but you refused to allow him to escape. You gripped his jaw and made him face you. "You wanted this. I tried. I gave you everything I could and you- your acting like a whole different man from the night you asked me. What the hell did I do to deserve this? I can't live with this storm cloud over you and me." Steve's eyes set on you and they shifted from wandering in dispute to fixated and darkening. Yet he held himself back, like always. You hated that quality in him. It was harder to take him halfheartedly than fully with the good and the bad. "I did want this." He retorted. 'Did' rang through your mind. 'Did' was past tense. It was in the past. "Maybe you didn't know me as you thought." His voice was monotone but he might as well have spat it at you. It hurt in that way. You needed to be strong. "What does that mean?" Yet you were caving like an ill-supported wall. Steve never talked to you in this way and it made you crumble. "It's like you said." He continued. "You tried by giving everything you could. I guess it wasn't enough." What was this? Why was he being this mean and cold? You clenched your fists. He wouldn't see you break here if that's what he wanted. You'd fight for your clarity, so you'd know you did everything you could. "That's bullshit and you know it." You loomed over him, aggressive. Agitation was written across his face as you neared a line you rarely crossed. "That night, my bare minimum was more than enough for you and you were enough for me. Your lack of effort is what's not enough." Electricity danced behind you. Your energy was rising, but so was his. He shot up and a twinge of panic coursed through you. You crossed that line and you didn't know what would happen next. But it needed to be done. His frame blocked out the light coming from the window. His shadow swallowed you. "Months of waiting for a girl who doesn't want you, to come around isn't a lack of effort. It's more than what's deserved." Your heart broke with his words. It was strangled between his harsh tone and what he meant. He deserved more than what you gave. All the fears you tried to overcome in those three months battered you. "I left because I knew I couldn't be what you deserved." You were meek now. You'd abandoned your previous strength and determination for the hurt you felt. You refused to look at Steve. Maybe he softened as his tone suggested. Maybe he was simply quieter, but what he said next wasn't pointed. "You just didn't know how to love me as more than a friend." "What?" Your head shot up. Those words were too familiar. They were your words, and it clicked. Bucky. That night when Steve kissed you and didn't return; he and Bucky were discussing you, not some nightmare. "Oh, Steve..." You began, but he waved you off. "I get it. You tried for my sake, but this isn't what you wanted. Being with you in this way isn't what I wanted." He walked over to his door and opened it for you. Reluctantly, you followed. "There's no bad blood between us, Y/N, but it can't go back to how it was. It never could. You need someone who can make you happy and I need to get over you." You stared in disbelief, open-mouthed. "Steve..." His pleading eyes silenced you. "Let me go, Y/N. Do that for me. Let me go." He slowly closed the door and you didn't protest. Mysteriously, your feet moved with a mind of their own, taking you back to your room. Your body shifted into autopilot as your brain began its inward collapse. Once inside your bedroom, you shut and locked your door. Silent tears slipped down your checks as you slid down your door. You sat there until the light pouring into your room changed from the sun's rays to the moon's glow. You curled your legs to your chest, head buried in your lap until you could cry no more. Then you got up and went to bed.

---

A/N: Chapter 5! Y’all. this one was a heartbreak to write but it concludes phase one of the story! Let me know what you think about this fic so far. My asks and messages are open!

Reblog if you liked it!!!

What did you think of Y/N’s words being used against her like that? Should she or Steve fought harder for the relationship? What doors will open with this one closing? Are they done forever?

Also, let me know if you think I should share the songs I use to write my chapters!

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sheencarpet · 3 years

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FIVE CARPET CLEANING TRICKS THAT WILL CHANGE YOUR LIFE IN DUBAI

Cleaning is one of those painfully boring but ultimately vital parts of life in Dubai.

With sand everywhere and white floors showing dirt, you really need to keep up with your cleanings in Dubai. And let's face it, who wants to take your girlfriend, your parents, or your classmates back to a dirty apartment that looks like it's straight out of Trainspotting?

This is why we are big fans of Sheenuae.ae, which takes care of all the dirty work for us.

But if you're more of a DIY fanatic, here are five tips to help you clean and keep your home in shape.

Use old socks to clean

We love it for two reasons: it makes great use of old socks and it's super easy and lazy. Glue two old socks into each hand and then use them to clean and dry the surfaces. Better yet, use them to clean your blinds, just swipe your hands and then sweep the dust away.

Baby wipes to the rescue

Buy baby wipes in bulk and ideally biodegradable. Then use them to scrub, clean and absorb any spills or stains. Wonderfully lazy and wonderfully effective. They contain mild detergents, so they do not stain or damage surfaces and dry quickly. But please use eco-friendly wet wipes.

White vinegar

White vinegar is an excellent solution when it comes to cleaning. Use about 5% white vinegar in 95% water and you have a killer cleaning product, which is especially important considering the recent pandemic! It will take care of many bacteria and remove dirt. And it's great for making your bathroom accessories like faucets and shower heads shine.

Get a handheld vacuum cleaner

We love DubaiLAD's cool gadgets. But one of the best and most boring is our handheld vacuum cleaner. Yes, we know, we were cool. Keep it recharged and close at hand and you can order instantly on the go. Which is much easier than waking up the next morning with a headache and going through a mountain of cleaning.

Get creative with your dishwasher

Whoever invented the dishwasher is a genius. But take it a step further and use the dishwasher to wash other things like fridge shelves, exhaust fan filters, golf balls (in a bag, of course), garden tools, and more.

https://sheenuae.ae/

#Carpet #Carpet cleaning #Carpet Cleaning in Dubai #Cleaning Services in Dubai

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fromthedeskofelizabeththird · 7 years

Text

Fracture 6/10

Please note that this chapter references torture

If you like Juyeon, go love on @yoosungshoodie, since Juyeon is her OC and gave me her blessing to use her. The banner comes from @kiserusmoke!

There’s something else. I believe that whoever left the note is an employee of C&R.

“C&R?”

Suddenly, Seven’s mouth was dry and he mourned the soda Vanderwood scrubbed from the floor.

“I asked my security team for the full details of who came and went to the apartment today and the last people to leave were Nari, Juyeon and housekeeping, in that order.”

“I’ll look into it!” He cried out, hoping his enthusiasm masked his concern. “Don’t worry about---”

He hung up before Jumin could even respond and hopped out of his chair to gather together as many maps and files as he could carry.

“Hey, hey,” protested Vanderwood, “what are you-” He flinched as Seven threw car keys in his direction.

“Come on! We have to go.” “Go? Go where?”

Seven frowned over the top of the mountain of research in his arms.

“If there’s a mole in C&R, we need to warn V. There’s no telling exactly how much they might know or use to their advantage...it could jeopardize the entire investigation,” he said. “There’s a safe house not too far from the castle, so come on, we need to hurry!”

Vanderwood frowned, glancing from the messy floor to his flustered expression. Neither mentioned that the safehouse Seven referred to came into their possession in the earlier days of the Mint Eye investigation, nor that every single team to use it was MIA.

“Fine,” he said. “But just so you know, this means the photographer guy owes us double.”

Jihyun arrived at the castle boundary at midnight, which was strangely apt the more he thought about it. The outhouse he had previously used as a camp had changed a good deal in the last few months, which he supposed made sense. It belonged to the cult in the castle, after all, perhaps intended as a sentry post or something far more sinister. Either way, the last time he saw it it contained little more than a handful of water bottles, a worn bible and a pamphlet or two. He had been careful not to disturb the shelves much on his last visit, sniffing at the water in the bottles before taking a tentative sip. Whether or not it was clean was anyone’s guess, but at the very least it didn’t make him sick. Now that he was back, it had a few new boxes filled with musty uniforms and somebody’s shoes. In the far corner was a crate of wine bottles, though he recognised none of the labels.

Assuming the inner workings of the castle had not changed too much, the guard rotation changed at five o’clock every morning. He did not have the luxury of time, though, and after taking the tarpaulin from the back seat of his car and stretching it across until he was satisfied its dark shape was almost invisible in the forest, he shrugged on one of the newer looking sets of robes from one of the outhouse boxes.

He reached for his phone before leaving, sighing at its low battery and reaching to dial Nari’s number. He paused, though, taking in each of his missed calls from both Luciel and Jumin. Even considering the best case scenario: that Luciel was the only person looking for him, Nari’s phone was not at all compromised and she was being kept in a relatively safe environment, he did not know her well enough to presume her response to the revelation she was in danger. The worst case scenario, on the other hand, was one he did not want to entertain: that he was being traced by multiple hackers and had been for some time, Nari’s phone was compromised and had been bugged since her death.

He threw his phone into the river, watching it disappear into the darkness as he pulled up the hood of his robes.

A few hours from then everything would be changed forever, and though the optimism of it was clear even to him, he hoped it was for the better.

Ordinarily, Jumin took his good instincts for granted; he was confident making increasingly difficult business decisions and planning the future of C&R in an ever changing climate. Items and industries that dominated their accounts in previous years no longer held any value and keeping the company ahead of the game was as much about intuition as it was careful research.

When it came to Nari, though, he felt scrambled; every negative possibility equally as plausible as the next. Deep in his gut he knew there was something strange about Nari’s disappearance. Perhaps she was in danger, or had left him the note only as an afterthought.

It seemed almost distasteful to prefer the scenario where she was in danger, and yet he spent the night waiting for a callback from Luciel that ultimately never came.

After their argument, he had scooped up Nari’s engagement ring, meaning to give it back to her when they next spoke. In her absence, though, he placed it on his bedside table and hoped that when he woke up it would all be a bad dream.

Come the next morning, Luciel had not returned his call and any to Nari went straight to answer machine. As much as he wanted to dial her over and over again until she answered, the off chance that she genuinely meant to leave held him back.

He hoped he was wrong, considered that as he put on his tie the next morning. Before leaving for work, he put the engagement ring in his pocket, smoothing his fingers across the metal in the backseat of his car.

It took him half the journey to draft a message and even then it was only half complete:

We need to talk.

Nari woke early, the time on her phone screen one that would ordinarily leave her groaning and pulling the covers over her face. This time, though, she all but flew out of bed, changing into her clothes from the previous day and carefully folding the itchy nightdress. To say it was a relief to be out of it was an understatement; as she rinsed her face in the bathroom mirror, she saw that her neck and collarbones were red and blotchy from the irritation.

After dressing for the day, she dialed Driver Kim’s number and sighed when he did not respond. She doubted he was still asleep, for that particular time of day perfectly matched Jumin’s daily departure for the office. Juyeon did not answer either and Nari sank onto the bed, logging in and out of the messenger to no avail. She remembered the number Ray had written down for her as an afterthought and for a moment or two considered calling him; he had, after all, offered her an ear morning or night. It was very early in the morning, though, and surely he had a home to go to.

By something of a coincidence, he answered her question not long afterwards; barreling into her room with a tea trolley while she scribbled notes in her organiser. She had several appointments that afternoon that quite possibly needed rearranging, though the scent of Darjeeling made it more difficult than usual to pay much thought to problems beyond the castle walls.

“Good morning,” said Ray, “did you sleep well?”

He lifted the teapot into his hands as he said so, only turning to pour the tea when she nodded.

“I feel much better today,” she said, accepting the cup he offered. “I’ll be out of your hair in no time!”

It was good tea; its warmth spreading from the top of her head to the tips of her toes. At first she did not notice Ray’s expression of conflict.

“About that,” he said, “I received word from your driver this morning.”

“Is he alright?”

“He will be better soon,” he said, “don’t you worry!”

He seemed reluctant to tell her any more than that and, as a consequence, her imagination ran wild. Suddenly all she could think of was Driver Kim standing in Jumin’s office describing the events of the previous day; Driver Kim bed bound with the flu; Driver Kim receiving word of an emergency in C&R. Each possibility was worse than the next and Nari cupped her hands around her teacup, pushing each dark thought to the back of her mind.

Even so, she did not know what Ray meant by ‘better’.

“Our lady meant for you to take breakfast in the garden today,” said Ray, turning to her with a grin. “I wasn’t sure of your preferences, so I filled in a few of the blanks myself.”

“Will your boss be coming to eat with us?”

She had seen so little of the castle that she found herself increasingly curious of it. Were all of the rooms like her own? What sort of person was in charge? All she knew of the owner came from the few references Ray had made. Those small details were not particularly helpful in forming either an opinion or mental image, however, and Nari feared she had invented so much of the owner and her personality that the reality would leave her disappointed.

Ray had not expected her to ask such a question; it was written across his face. Almost immediately she wished she had never asked, for the owner surely had a busy schedule too and her overnight stay had inevitably left a few noses out of joint.

“Ah,” she said, “it doesn’t matter. I’ll grab my coat.”

When it came to his son, Chief Han liked to think that he knew him the best. Business was in the boy’s DNA and even as a child he had understood the proper order of proceedings for any given eventuality. His engagement to a commoner had come as a shock to everyone, Chief Han most of all.

Sometimes he forgot the circumstances of Jumin’s birth; forgot Jieun. Before Jumin, she had been the person he thought he knew best of all, only to learn otherwise when it was far too late.

“What was it you wanted to speak to me about?” He asked, sitting back in his chair to properly observe the man opposite. Jumin had skipped most pleasantries when they arrived at the restaurant, not even bothering to read the menu. In the end, Chief Han was the one to order coffee and light refreshments, wondering why he had been summoned for a meeting on such late notice.

“I wanted to talk about Nari,” said Jumin, his own cup untouched.

Retrospectively, he should have seen it coming. He had learned the hard way how difficult weddings were to organise, especially when the bride did not come from a privileged background as he had. More than one of his brides to be had ended their relationship without ever making it down the aisle, in part because of the influx of offers from media outlets and other companies. With this in mind, he had taken Jumin’s engagement as an opportunity to pursue every business deal and proposal he had previously dismissed. If the unreasonably short deadline didn’t strain their relationship, the more ridiculous of his suggestions surely would.

So far, Nari had not only been flexible, but almost excessively so. Chief Han knew it was only a matter of time before his requests became intolerable and doubtlessly that was why his son had insisted on a meeting. Perhaps the girl had already left him and his strategy had finally blossomed into fruition.

“I see,” he said, helping himself to coffee. “How is my future daughter in law?”

“Don’t speak as if you don’t know,” said Jumin, “I expected this sort of behaviour from my mother, not you.”

That was a low blow and Chief Han grimaced into his coffee cup before setting it down.

“I did not expect for my son to resort to petty insults,” he said, “and yet here we are.”

“As far as I can see, you have two options,” said Jumin, shrugging off the barb. “You give my wedding a wide berth and we start again with a clean slate.”

“Or?”

“Or I leave my post at C&R.”

Only then did Chief Han realise exactly how far he had underestimated his son. It was true that business was in Jumin’s DNA, but in his arrogance he had forgotten that outmaneuvering people was too. He had no idea if Jumin was serious or calling his bluff and that uncertainty was dangerous, as he was almost certainly aware.

Suddenly Chief Han was thirty eight again, with clammy hands and a fluttering stomach, staring down the mother of his son. It had been a long time since anyone backed him into a corner in such a fashion and for Jumin to do so twice in only a matter of months left him oddly sentimental, a fact that must have transferred to his face.

“Is something funny?”

“No, no,” he said, “it’s just that the way you said that...it reminded me of someone else.”

Only after he arrived at the castle did Jihyun realise any of the flaws in his plan. He had not thought very far beyond his arrival, heart thumping with adrenaline at the thought of breaking Nari out of one cell or another.

A lot had changed since his last visit to the castle, though. The staff he once knew by identification number had since been promoted, whether to a different division or rank, and many of the chambers that had been barricaded off were now fully realised. Worse, from what few tidbits of information he could glean from other acolytes, the saviour had devoted most of her attentions to the control room and a guest on the third floor.

The gardens were new; all manner of brightly coloured flowers where before there had been plain earth. There were mazes and archways, fountains carved out of stone and pathways so well worn that it was difficult to believe how recent they actually were.

Halfway through, towards the castle, he rested a hand against a tree and sucked in one breath and then two. His chest was tight, his mind foggy, and worst of all he did not know where he planned to go next.

No one he had talked to knew much about the mysterious guest on the third floor, only that she was important to the cause and being treated as a VIP. The obvious answer was Nari and Jihyun did not know if he should be relieved or not. Not one of the answers he had received confirmed or denied her involvement in the organisation and, as foolhardy as it was, he refused to accept it. There had to be a better explanation than Nari betraying the RFA.

He had thought about confronting Rika; begging and bartering for Nari’s life. Luciel’s words, though, were clear in his mind, that his plan was reckless to the point of suicide. Jihyun supposed he agreed with him, but there again, none of his imagined attempts at saving Nari ended with him going home. At some point, he had made peace with the fact that the chances of him leaving alive were slim to none.

If he was completely honest, he was ready to die; ready to rest his body and his conscience.

As if in response, someone called out from the garden.

“This place,” they said. “It must take you such a long time to maintain it!”

It took everything he had not to run to her the moment he saw her; Nari, her hair loose about her shoulders, hugging herself as she walked the main path to the pavilion in the center. Two steps ahead of her was a man in magenta clothes, pointing out individual flower beds as he walked.

“These are Lily of the Valley,” he said, stopping to kneel and lift one by the root. “Here-“

He twisted the stalk in his fingers as she turned to see, forming a simple chain that he lowered onto her head. Nari had not been expecting it, that much was clear and she took two steps back at his touch.

“Perfect,” said the man in magenta, turning to the side and giving Jihyun a clear view of his face. He had bleached his hair and his eyes were a different shade, but it was unmistakably him: Saeran.

“Oh,” said Nari, reaching up to the flowers in her hair, “I...thank you!”

Jihyun had no idea what Saeran was doing in the castle, nor what exactly they had planned for Nari. She did not appear to be in any immediate danger, though, which left one possibility.

A possibility that became far more apparent as someone behind him clapped a hand to his shoulder.

Breakfast that morning was no less extravagant than the one from the day before. Someone, possibly Ray, had assembled a feast under a large pavilion in the center of the garden, surrounded by sweet smelling rose bushes.

Nari wished she had several more heads so that she could better admire the flowers, and her heart skipped a beat when Ray placed a crown of lilies on her head. She was not sure how to thank him for the gesture and stammered a thank you before approaching the breakfast table.

“Is something the matter?” Asked Ray, noticing her hesitant steps.

“Oh it’s...it’s nothing,” she said, blushing a bright red at her own transparency. “I just thought Juyeon would be here.”

The prospect of her own increasingly complicated schedule and the absence of Driver Kim left her more desperate than ever to see Juyeon. Perhaps Juyeon had passed on a message to either Jumin or C&R already. At minimum she must have gotten in touch with everyone they had arranged to meet.

“Oh, don’t worry, your assistant will be here soon,” said Ray, reaching to pull out a chair for her, “she told me that she had business to attend to and will join us as soon as she’s done.”

That did sound like Juyeon, though Nari hesitated before accepting the seat he offered. The castle, the grounds, Ray...it was all like something from a fairy tale and at the back of her mind she had a strange feeling about it. Perhaps because it was so idyllic, she felt more inclined to seek out its darkest secrets.

“Are you alright, Miss Song?” Ray asked after she had been silent for quite some time.

“I,” she said, a sudden rush of guilt when she noticed the concern on his face. “It’s nothing. Thank you for this meal!”

She accepted the chair he offered and watched as he reached for a tea set, preparing her Darjeeling just as he had before.

“If there is anything I can do to make you more comfortable, just say the word.”

Nari sighed at that, wondering how she could explain to him-to anyone- her feelings from the past few days.

“Do you ever just wish that you could live your life again? The same years, but with different choices,” she said, absentmindedly running her fingers over the empty spot where her engagement ring used to be.

It was a question that had lingered at the back of her mind even before she entered Rika’s apartment. Before she even graduated high school. Just saying it out loud made it seem like nonsense, though, and she chuckled as Ray positioned a fresh cup of tea in front of her.

“I’m sorry,” she said, hiding her face behind the cup, “that probably sounds ridiculous...I’m sorry, I shouldn’t have-“

“Oh no!” Ray said, snatching up her hands in his. “I understand completely. Before I came here, I was…”

He shuddered at the thought, though tried -and failed- to pass it off as laughter.

“I was weak before,” he said. “Our Lady, she gave me purpose again, showed me the truth. I only wish I had known then what I know now, but spreading the word about everything we’ve accomplished here..well...it’s comforting. Surely there are others waiting to be saved as I was.”

Nari had yet to meet the manager of the castle grounds, but she thought she got a feel for her as she glanced around the garden. Only someone with a good deal of ambition and a kind heart would build such a unique environment and reach out to those in need.

“I think,” said Nari, squeezing Ray’s hand, “I’m going to like your boss.”

Believer B401 was far from pleased and Jihyun did not need to know the inner workings of the castle to guess why. He had frogmarched him out of the garden without so much as a word, pushing him through a side door and locking it behind them both. At first Jihyun thought he had been caught, only for Believer B401 to chastise him about his lack of discretion in regards to their guest.

“How do you mean to explain your robes,” he snapped. “Mister Ray gave us clear instructions!”

In a way, he was grateful for the interruption. Left alone to his devices he would almost certainly have acted without thinking.

“I’m sorry,” said Jihyun, “I’m on the intelligence team and only returned to the castle today.”

As excuses went, it seemed to do the job. Believer B401 let out a sound of annoyance and hit him in the shoulder.

“Don’t let it happen again,” he said. “If you jeopardize the operation, the Saviour might never forgive you.”

“What’s so special about the girl?” Jihyun asked, knowing exactly why Nari was important, but willing the acolyte to reveal more. Did they plan to recruit her? Was she a hostage, as her picture had implied? Just how did Rika plan to use her?

Unfortunately, he was out of luck in that regard. The acolyte did not know anything.

“All I know,” said Believer B401, “is that they put her under the care of Mister Ray and Miss Jenny.”

“Mister Ray?” He repeated, louder than he meant to.

“Ah, of course, you probably missed the ceremony. Mister Ray was the man in the garden.”

“Mister Ray,” said Jihyun, sounding out the name and wondering at its origins. There had to be a reason Saeran had chosen such a name…

And then there was the other question burning away at the back of his mind. If Saeran was Mister Ray, then who was Miss Jenny?

“Ahhhh, I always get the dirty jobs.”

Believer C607 leaned her head against the bars of the cell, taking in the shivering form of the prisoner.

“Hey,” she said, giving him a tentative nudge with her toes, “hey wake up.”

Despite her efforts, he lay still and she motioned for the nearest acolyte to open up the door. The cell smelled quite strongly of sweat, medications and other things she did not want to think about and she wrinkled up her nose in disgust as she stepped inside, taking extra care not to dirty her shoes.

“You had better start talking,” she said, kicking over the bucket of water they had positioned in the corner. The prisoner gasped as water spread across the floor of his cell, chancing a look at her as he repostioned his weight.

He froze on the spot as he took in her face, eyes suddenly desperate with recognition.

“J-Juyeon,” gasped Driver Kim as he reached to grab her by the waist, crumpling the magenta fabric of her blazer, “Juyeon, we need to get out of here, Miss Song-“

He groaned as she kicked him away, realisation setting in too late.

“First of all, don’t touch me with those filthy hands,” she said. “And secondly-“

She stepped back out of the cell and smiled at the second acolyte; a new girl whose hands shook as she held up a tray of instruments.

“If you want to leave here alive,” said C607, taking a set of pliers, “you will call me Miss Jenny.”

AUTHOR’S NOTES:-

Jumin’s Mum’s name is Ji Eun and she shows up in my other fic The Other Woman

My headcanons for her (or rather the head canons and backstory I put together for vabverse) are thus:

Like basically she is also from a chaebol family except all of her brothers went into the top positions and her parents wanted her to get married because it was like?? The 70s?? Maybe even the 60s man idk how old she is anyway, she studied corporate law and took on a job with chief han, since he thought she was hot and she used him to get a job

She planned to use her position at C&R to prove she was good enough for a job at her parent’s own company, all while taking C&R apart from the inside

She fell for chief han though and agreed to marry him, later stabbing her family in the back and ruining their company instead

And then she had jumin and chief han started seeing another woman while she was pregnant

She left when jumin was like 3/4. She said if was for work and a new opening but in truth she wanted him (Chief Han) to change and see sense

I bet she made it super hard on chief han’s other girlfriends

Like they’d sneak around her and lie and she’d be like... Cut the bullshit, i know youre screwing my husband

Blackmailing them through various means. Paying them off.

Jieun works in business law and im betting she created So Many Contracts with the Worst fine print

Chief Han’s lovers (the ones who have illegitimate children) receive this tiny ass stipend but come public about it and they’ll be sued and lose their home

Eunha got her bitchiness from Ji Eun

I love her.

#mystic messenger #mysme #jumin han #jihyun kim #saeran choi #ray #tw: torture

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