#why does staff put so much effort into ruining this guy's day | Explore Tumblr Posts and Blogs

shotorozu · 3 years

Note

hello!! i hope you’re doing well and taking care of yourself ❤️ please remember to take breaks and drink some water !!!!

i was wondering if i could request headcanons for izuku, denki, and kirishima comforting a reader (gender neutral if you don’t mind) after their birthday absolutely sucked? it’s my birthday and my mom went out of her way to ruin it, my best friend is barely talking to me which idk why, i got my period which makes me sick, and it’s finals so i’ve spent the day crying, sleeping, and studying. if not i completely get it!!!! don’t feel pressured ❤️

s/o’s ruined birthday

character(s) : midoriya izuku, kaminari denki, kirishima eijirou (bnha)

legend : [Y/N = your name] they/them pronouns used; gender neutral, quirk not mentioned

headcanon type : comfort, (angst if you squint) fluff (x reader)

warning(s) : reader’s mom being mean, and waking up to cause unnecessary chaos just because she felt like it :( period mention in izuku’s but it’s not,, even descriptive. and it’s i one bullet don’t worry :))

note(s) : omg i relate to you so much anon, my past birthdays got ruined by mom just because she woke up on the wrong side of the bed 💀 and this year i got my period the day before my birthday— so i was cramping the entire time 😐 in short, i relate to you ‼️and i’m sorry your birthday got ruined :( i hope this helps

im also sorry for the delay :,) also no proofread 🧍‍♀️

➽───────────────❥

midoriya izuku

help omg he’s in a state of panic

HE DOESN’T KNOW HOW THIS HAPPENED— like,, the person that cares about your birthday the most (besides you) is him‼️

izuku must’ve planned things out precisely, even going to the point that he’d buy your birthday present 2 months ahead

because he’s just so worried about messing things up. he’d never live it down if he failed this one day

he walks excitingly to your room, ready to pick you up for the day— since he wanted to take you out on a birthday lunch, to celebrate the day

well, it was mostly for a birthday lunch, but also because he wanted you to feel better

you’ve told him that the day had started out on a wrong foot— since you woke up to your best friend ignoring you for a reason you couldn’t figure out.

you reassured him that you’d find out later, but regardless, you wanted to cheer up— and not waste this day on sadness, and have a nice lunch with izuku.

“today is going to be wonderful, i claim it!” izuku exclaims excitingly, gently squeezing your hand— and you can’t help but be uplifted by his words

temporarily

you felt a weird feeling in your stomach, and it was all familiar too, the cramping in your abdomen—

oh, it was that. and izuku was able to recognize what it was. way to start of this birthday experience, right?

the both of you guys end up dashing to the nearest washroom, taking care of it immediately— there’s a concerned look on his face

“are you okay? are you in any pain?” he’d ask, running the back of his hand along your cheek in an attempt to comfort you

“i’m fine, izuku, it’s all good. now, let’s go!” you’d beam in excitement, which started a chain reaction— and lightened up izuku’s mood.

the discussion was put to rest on that, and the two of you went on like normal— as the both of you headed to the designated restaurant

there would only be more misfortunate events to happen, as it appeared to be that the moment you and izuku stepped in the restaurant

the waitress that was serving you both had an interest in your boyfriend, even though you were RIGHT there to see all of it

and oh wow, it was so subtle— you wouldn’t have guessed from the airy laughs, her lingering gazes, and the way her hand would touch his shoulder

and also the way she’d get your order wrong, or she’d spill your drink on you as an ‘accident’

oh and your boyfriend definitely knew about what she felt, and he was not pleased

she even went as far as to ask him if the date was boring, and if the complementary cake would make up for it— her efforts on being subtle making quite the jump.

which made you super frustrated and just overall,, not good, on your own birthday— and even izuku could see that, despite you not saying a word

so, izuku quickly paid for the food, and the both of you guys bailed the restaurant swiftly

it was still pretty early in the day, but all you wanted to do was sleep, and forget that today was even supposed to be a special day.

he left you alone in your room for you to change into comfier clothes— to your requests, and when he came back, you were in a state of distraught

and he’s super bothered, brows furrowed and everything. why must you be sad on your own birthday? how did this all go wrong? and how can he fix this?

“please don’t cry, Y/N, i’m so, so sorry.” he apologizes, his hands rubbing your back as tears dripped into your pillow

“i don’t,, know how this happened! if i knew the staff there were like,, that, i would’ve not picked that place. today was supposed to be an amazing day for you but..”

“don’t apologize izuku,” you reassured, rubbing the incoming tears away, “none of this was your fault, i love your efforts! this,, just sucks.”

“i know sweetie, i’m sorry for that,” he rubs your stomach when your face scrunches up in pain, “you know what? i’ll be right back!”

he quickly leaves for a bit, only to come back with a selection of desserts, your gift and his laptop “we can watch disney movies! or well,, anything you want. i know that disney movies make you feel better!”

you stare at the selection of desserts, and you finally smile, “yeah, yeah. that doesn’t sound bad.”

he sighs in relief, and presents you your birthday gift “open this while i set things up!”

you stare eyes wide at the bundle of desserts, “thank you, izuku!”

“anything for you, lovely.” he presses his lips onto the temples of your cheeks— happy to see you smiling

oh and he definitely filed a complaint to that restaurant when you weren’t looking, the girl got fired :))

kaminari denki

also in a state of panic

his plan for the day wasn’t very descriptive, and he decided that he was just going to go off what he wanted to do

rather than what izuku did— which was planning in advance.

‘i’m just gonna go off what i want, no plans made!’ is what he told himself in his head, as he went straight for your room

he’s puzzled when he enters your room, and sees a not-so-happy Y/N, face contorted in dismay

“is,, something on your mind? it’s Y/N day! why do you look so,,”

“sad?” you finish his sentence, “ah, no!” you shake your head— dismissing your expression just now “it’s just that,, my best friend is ignoring me. i don’t know why though, and she won’t tell me.”

and he’s like 😃❓what kind of friend ignores someone on their birthday? he’s gonna find out later, for sure!

“don’t worry, babe! we can always find out later, right? today should be filled with happiness, right?” he jabs your abdomen, tickling you— effectively earning a giggle

“right,” you smile, because denki always knows how to make you feel better. “let’s go!” you exclaim, holding his hand as you leave your room.

yes i’m reusing the best friend ignoring you think im sorry i can’t think

so kaminari’s walking you to the place he figured would be a great place to celebrate your birthday at— for once, he doesn’t look that lost

“are you sure you know where you’re going?” you’d tease, which would cause him to intensively reassure you that he does

“of course i do!” he says proudly, “i’m just gonna do my thing, y’know? i’m in charge of the destinations”

and before you know it, the both of you guys run into someone you weren’t expecting.

your bestie 🤩 oh the luck you genuinely have.

they scowl just looking at you, and denki didn’t like it— like,, the nerve? ignoring you and then giving you the skank eye?

but still, denki tried to keep a conversation, “didn’t expect to see you here! how are you?” he stammers, trying his best to make the tense atmosphere disappate

“i’m doing good, denki!” they exclaim excitingly, almost as if you weren’t there “where’re you heading off to?”

denki tilts his head in surprise, “y’know,, just heading off to celebrate lovely Y/N’s birthday, of course!” you give denki a small, tight lipped smile

but your best friend doesn’t seem to budge, “who?” they reply, as if they don’t see you

it’s disheartening, honestly. disagreement are inevitable but,, you didn’t understand nor did he

denki’s even more confused, but decides to cut the conversation of it’s length, thinking that the misfortunes could just end at that

they didn’t stop there

you’ve also managed to run into your mother outside of the restaurant, when you were taking a quick phone call

she, normally— would’ve been very pleased to see you, let alone on this special day

but it appeared to be that she wasn’t happy at all, and in fact— showed that very well when she saw who you were with

her eyes narrowing, “this is who you decided to spend your birthday with?” she asks, a smile is plastered on her lips, but it lacks authenticity when she glances back into the restaurant

you nod, feeling a little too intimidated to even speak with the mood she’s in— she glances at your boyfriend, who’s oblivious to your encounter with your mother

“keep your mouth in check, child. make sure you don’t do anything to embarrass yourself even more.” and with that, she leaves— her words lingering in your mind

you enter the restaurant again, feeling 10x shittier than you were when you left to take that quick phone call

you’re aware that your mother would support any relationship you were in, but you could tell that she didn’t like denki— but accepted him because ‘whatever makes you happy’

it was a downer, you didn’t need this today— and your sudden mood change was bound to get noticed by your boyfriend

“what happened?” he asks with concern, “did bakugou rain on your parade?” he asks, and you would’ve laughed but,, you honestly couldn’t find yourself to

“oh, it’s just..” you struggle to find yourself finishing your sentence, when the employees of the restaurant start singing you a happy birthday

you’d hate to say it but,, your mood was like that for the entire date, even when you brushed it off like nothing— and acted as if nothing went wrong

and when you flop onto your bed, eyes welling up in tears— he panics

“oh no, no, no!” he panics, dropping down to comfort you “baby what’s wrong? did you not enjoy today?”

“denki, i enjoyed today, of course.” you state, hands wandering up to pet his blond hair

“but then, why,, are you crying right now? i don’t want you to feel sad today! i know i’m not someone that looks serious, but i’ll definitely make things work!” he states with determination, and denki finds relief when he hears you laugh

“i saw my mom today”

“oh,” his brows furrowed, “i’m sorry, sweets. did she say anything rude?”

“oh uhm, im not sure if she meant it but it did hurt my feelings,” you simply state, not wanting to give the specifics, “plus with the best friend thing,,”

he’s silent for a bit, before he speaks “you know what? it’s okay. it’ll be okay. your best friend- not sure why she’s like that, but she’ll come around. and with your mom? don’t worry, and don’t let it worry you! it’s your special day, and you will feel special.”

denki backs away, and before you knew it, sparks radiate from all around his body— making sure he doesn’t touch you at all

“yaaaay!” he’s drowsy, and he dumbly raises his thumb high— which makes you burst out into giggles and pure laughter

“denkii, you cannot keep doing this!” you exclaim, but you still laugh when he replies with the same comedic ‘yaaay!’

you finally calm down, and you lean to press a kiss onto his lips, “thank you, denki. i,, really appreciate your efforts.”

he might feel stupid at the moment, but he’s glad that you’re happy again.

kirishima eijirou

looks like his usual self, but he’s internally panicking— he just figured that he needed to get himself together, for you

he had an idea on what he was going to do for you on your birthday, he even prepared a gift for you— 3 weeks in advanced (with the help of bakugou, his secret wingman)

it wasn’t an impromptu celebration like kaminari, but it also wasn’t super planned out like midoriya

eager, he approaches your room to give you a simple happy birthday— followed by a small shower of kisses

there was only one class for that day, so the rest of the day would’ve been lenient, right? wrong

on the contrary, his plans are disrupted when he sees you scrambled on the floor, notebooks splayed across you, as you memorized various things all at once

“h-hey, happy birthday!” he greets with his usual smile, and it falters slightly when you don’t showcase that delightful smile

“hey eijirou,” you say, eyes glued onto a section of your notebook “apparently, two extra topics were added into the math and physics finals test! and i had no clue!”

eijirou probably should be worried like you, since the written finals exams does somewhat impact his grade— and on top of that, the finals are in 3 days

and he knows that he should let you prepare BUT! it is your birthday,, why should he not celebrate your birthday?

“i feel like you shouldn’t be too worried about it babe, it’s your birthday after all!” he reassures, but he continues before you get to question him “you’re a hard working person, and even if you don’t absorb those extra topics— you could always run to bakugou, or yaoyorozu for a quick run down!”

he’s not wrong

you give a tired smile, a genuine one— which makes him silently cheer out of success “thank you, eijirou. i guess you’re right. it is my birthday, and i should be celebrating.”

and with that, eijirou takes you out for a simple celebration! he’d take you out for some food at a good restaurant, and then he’d take you out on a nice walk— as the both of you ate your dessert

he thinks that the celebration is going smoothly, despite the fact that you seemed fatigued, restless even— just from studying four extra topics back and fourth

otherwise— you seemed happy, eagerly blowing out the candles on the birthday cake the restaurant presented to you, and even grasping his arm closer as you ate your dessert

but it all crumbled down when you got one simple call that afternoon

looking at the caller’s id, it was your mother— who, otherwise would’ve been happy or at least calm on the other side of that phone, but you were greeted with hostility

“what are you doing?” she chides with a brash tone, and you try not to shiver, and when you answered that you were out celebrating with eijirou, she wasn’t pleased

“what?! just because it’s your damn birthday, doesn’t mean you get to relax around, kay? exams are this week! and you’re aware of what’s going to happen if you don’t pass, right?” though she’s not physically there, you can feel her sudden criticism

“..yes, mom.” you decide to take it all in, not wanting to anger her

“good.” and with that, she hangs up without a proper goodbye, the only time she acknowledged the current date was when she was scolding you

you brush it off, when you’re asked if you’re okay— the blatant yelling from your phone being difficult to ignore.

while the two of you start heading back to the dorms, you’re informed of quite the terrible news

“class 1-a, i must apologize since this is abrupt, but your math and physics finals are set to a day in advance, due to an urgent faculty meeting. but we can all assume that all of you have studied the material, right? take care, and don’t be out past curfew.”

this pushes your stress levels over the roof, and you ended up running back to the dorms— just to study the unfamiliar material

being your concerned boyfriend, the red head goes to check on you— only to be saddened to see you in such a distraught state on your bed, tears running down your face as you examined the material through watery eyes

“hey, sweetheart, it’s okay.. it’ll be okay,, i’m sorry that you feel this way, especially since i promised you a good day today!” despite displaying a gentle smile, you could sense that he was feeling terrible too

“don’t apologize,” you wipe your eyes, which only continue to generate more tears “i know you’ve tried, really! and i’m sorry that i had to bring you along. you definitely didn’t need to see all of that.”

he sits next to you on your bed, pulling the covers over your legs “i know it’s just,, i wish i could’ve done something more, y’know? i would’ve helped you study but you know that i’m well,, me!”

you giggle at his insinuation, and he moves closer to you, head leaning on your shoulder “man, i wish i knew what was going through the teachers’ heads. i could’ve— oh wait!”

he springs up, as if he suddenly remembered something important, and he sprints to his room

when eijirou comes back, he’s holding a tiny box, that has a bow— placed neatly on the center of the lid

“open it, babe!” he smiles, “i can’t believe i almost forgot! oh— just open your present!”

and when you open it, you’re ecstatic— unsure how to describe the sudden surge of happiness. “eijirou, you bought me a,, promise ring?”

he kisses your cheek briefly, unable to hide the blush adorning his cheeks “yeah,, you don’t have to accept if you’re not into jewelry! i could just switch it out for something—”

“no no, stop kiri!” you stop him in his tracks “i love it, so much. thank you for everything. especially for cheering the stressed and gloomy person i was today.”

he smiles, “it’s no issue, really. if my Y/N’s happy then i’ll be just as happy.”

and with that, you spent the rest of the day in eijirou’s affectionate arms— and you passed the exams with flying colors because kiri managed to get bakugou to give you a quick run through the day before

likes and reblogs are appreciated, thanks for reading!

i do not own bnha/mha and it’s characters. boku no hero academia/my hero academia belongs to horikoshi kohei, i only own the writing and i do not profit off of my hobby

do not plagiarize, reupload, translate, or use my works for audio readings without permission

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supersilversleuth · 3 years

Text

Your Words Aren’t Real (So Why Do They Hurt So Much?) by SuperSilverSpy

Rating: Teen and Up Audiences

Fandoms: DCU, DCU (Comics), Batman - All Media Types Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings, Dick Grayson & Batfamily members, Dick Grayson & Jason Todd, Dick Grayson & Damian Wayne, Dick Grayson & Bruce Wayne, Dick Grayson & Stephanie Brown, Dick Grayson & Tim Drake, Dick Grayson, Jason Todd, Damian Wayne, Bruce Wayne, Stephanie Brown, Tim Drake, Hurt Dick Grayson, Dick Grayson-centric, Dick Grayson Whump, Whump, Dick Grayson Needs a Hug, Hurt, Hurt No Comfort, I seem to be doing a lot of that these days…, Whumptober 2021, Mind Control, fear toxin, Hallucinations, anyway, Angst, SuperSilverSpy, SilverGrayson, SilverWhump, Taunting, Insults, ”who did this to you?”

Summary:

“Sometimes I wish you were my father, but I know you could never be. Bruce will always be my real father. You were just an inadequate stand-in.”

Dick choked, barely noticing the swift kick to his ribs before he was already stumbling back, ducking around Steph’s fist as he fought to regain his balance.

“You were a terrible brother,” said the voices of Jason and Tim. “All you ever did with me was make mistakes.”

OR Mind Control with a heaping of Angst

No. 3 - STICKS AND STONES MAY BREAK MY BONES BUT… taunting | insults | “Who did this to you?”

Series:

Part 3 of 2021 Most Whumperful Time of the Year - Dick Grayson-centric

Language: English Words: 1,645 Chapters: 1/1

Nightwing awoke in a warehouse, surrounded by Batman, Red Hood, Robin, Spoiler, and Red Robin. They were all passed out on the ground, strange devices wrapped around their heads. They seemed relatively unharmed, not a bruise or laceration or twisted limb in sight. He sighed in relief.

Looking around, Dick noted the absence of visible hostiles. He turned to Robin, who was closest to him and inspected the device around boy’s head; whatever it was, it couldn’t be good. He felt along the smooth metal, searching (or feeling) for a way to remove it.

A moment later, several ding! sounds echoed in the warehouse, emitting from the head devices. Damian’s eyes opened, glowing a vibrant yellow. Dick backed up as the rest of his family began to rise around him. He knew mind control when he saw it, though that didn’t stop him from asking, “Uh…guys? You still in there?”

Their faces remained expressionless as they turned threateningly towards him.

“Guess not,” he answered himself. “Looks like it’s just another exciting day in the life of the great and eternally stressed out Nightwing.”

He’d probably have to come up with yet another insightful and compelling speech to snap them out of it, par for the course for him at this point. Oh but how he wished it wasn’t. Every single time somebody in his family got brainwashed, or mind-controlled, or possessed (all of which happened way more often than it should), he was pretty much always the one to talk them down, or get beaten up and nearly killed for his efforts. It had reached a point where he wondered if Bruce was actively trying to get one of Dick’s siblings to accidentally kill him.

Well, at least one thing was different this time—he was facing off against five family members at once, instead of one, or two, or his entire f***ing team. But that was a story for another day.

Maybe, he could actually fight close to his full capability against them, without too much fear of hurting them. He didn’t have to knock them out or sedate them after all, he just needed to damage those device things around their heads.

Hood lunged at him first, guns drawn. Dick dodged, wrenching one of the man’s guns away with a grunt. He threw it across the room, knowing it did nothing for him in close quarters combat wherein he was attempting not to hurt, kill, or maim any of his would-be killers. There was no time for him to contemplate Jason’s likely reaction to the discovery of his ruined gun that would surely come later. Batman was already springing into action, fists swinging through the air in an unnaturally aimed-to-kill way.

Dick flipped around, dodging attacks from the two. He needed to bide his time, wait for the right opportunity to strike. He tried to electrocute them to short-circuit their metal head-band device things, but it didn’t really seem to do anything. He did, however, manage to get in a good hit to Jason’s head, which disoriented the man—and likely the person in control of him. Bruce went down next, Dick slipping the man’s belt out from around his waist in a move no one else in the world knew, and throwing a flash bomb in his face.

Pocketting what he could from the belt before tossing that too away (the emergency beacon didn’t work), he turned to face his new opponents. Spoiler and Robin, the short little duo wreaking havoc to his right, with Bruce and Jason getting back up on his left.

Whoever was controlling his family wasn’t the best at it, though forcing them to attempt murder against their own instincts was a feat in itself.

“You failed me,” said two very familiar voices in unison. It was Bruce and Damian.

Dick was so startled he almost didn’t manage to dodge the sneak attack Red Robin was attempting from behind.

“You failed the mission, our mission, you’ve failed the family I’ve given you, and the city I put in your responsibility.” It was just Bruce now, speaking blankly, words flowing out with no restraint.

Dick swallowed, but forced himself to ignore the man, ignore the words. It was probably just a program to detect negative emotion associated with thoughts of Nightwing and force the mind-controlled victim to...to say the thoughts out loud. Logically, he knew this.

Logic couldn’t prepare him for what came next.

“Sometimes I wish you were my father, but I know you could never be. Bruce will always be my real father. You were just an inadequate stand-in.”

Dick choked, barely noticing the swift kick to his ribs before he was already stumbling back, ducking around Steph’s fist as he fought to regain his balance.

“You were a terrible brother,” said the voices of Jason and Tim. “All you ever did with me was make mistakes.”

His vision had blurred at some point in time, he wasn’t sure when. A fist slammed into his jaw, a bow staff swiped at his feet. Purple flashed in the corner of his vision as his wrist was brutally snapped. Dick opened his mouth, but nothing came out.

“They say never meet your heroes. I guess they were right then, hmmm? Except you were never my hero, and yet you still managed to disappoint me anyway.” Steph’s tone was sharp and biting as she jammed a shuriken into his shoulder.

Dick pushed her away, doing a messy backflip to land on Bruce, using what little momentum he had to push off towards Jason, tackling him for the umpteenth time.

“You were unfit to be a mentor, just look at you now. And the students become the masters…” said the scathing voices of Dami, Steph, and Tim. Laughter echoed in his ears, sounding cruelly amused. No, this wasn’t them, they would never say such things…

“Oh it’s all true,” said a voice from behind him, Jay’s voice. “What is it, Goldie, can’t handle the pressure?”

Dick tried in vain to block the voices out, focusing just long enough to knock the device around Tim’s head askew.

The boy fell to the ground, reality mixing with fantasy as Tim’s eyes looked up at him, cold and lifeless, as blood pooled around Tim’s twisted body, as if he’d fallen… Corpse-pale lips parted, harsh words spilling out onto unforgiving ground, “You think I’m just like you, but you’re wrong. I’m better. You couldn’t beat me if you tried. I’m too pure, somehow untainted by your doomed soul, even after all this time.”

Crazed laughter echoed in Dick’s ears, even as he blinked and saw Tim as he actually was, lying unconscious—and alive, on the ground.

“Look at that, failing to protect those you love most? You’re worthless to them, and to me. I should never have taken you in.” The words were growled in a familiar deep register, and yet...the tone was unusually cruel—

Dick found himself sprawled on the ground, back still smarting from where he’d been kicked. He struggled to his good hand and knees, only to hear the sound of a gun cocking. He looked up. Jason stood above him, Steph and Damian on either side.

“Tt, Grayson, always so pathetic.” For a moment, Dami seemed to be wearing an older version of his uniform, from when he was still Dick’s Robin…

Steph tossed her hair back, giggling, and Dick saw her in a different costume, that of Robin, and then it changed to Batgirl. Gah, he was so confused.

She wasn’t. “You’re not going to make it this time around. How does it feel knowing we’d all be glad? You’ve hurt us more than helped us, Dick. It’s time you’ve faced that fact.”

Jason smirked down at him. “Any last words? We all know you don’t deserve them, but, well,” he smirked, “I’m feeling charitable today.”

Dick lunged upward, body tensed as if to tackle, arms outstretched as if to hug. Dick himself wasn’t quite sure what it was meant to be, what he wanted anymore…

Bang!

The gun went off, bullet burying itself in Dick’s side.

Three pairs of feet began to kick at his prone body from all sides. He curled in on himself, clutching desperately at the bullet wound, mind hazy with blood loss and something...else… A scraping noise, close to his ear. Dick barely registered it through the pain of the systematic blows raining down. Another pair of feet entered his vision, Bruce’s Batman boots. Dick panicked, using one hand to staunch the blood flow while the other went to his neck, to where he instinctively knew the real problem was. There was a device, attached to his neck, like a mini version of what the others had, but missing a few parts. He yanked it off, and immediately, he heard the thumps of his hopefully just unconscious family members falling to the ground.

Dick squinted at the device, as he felt himself joining them in the land of darkness. A familiar scarecrow label stared back at him, Jervis Tetch craftsmanship was practically written all over the thing as well…

—

Jason woke, groggy and disoriented. He found himself amongst other bats, all lying on the floor in a circle like some kind of crazy sorcerer spell gone wrong. The others were slowly waking, blinking and shaking their heads as if to clear the fog away. And in the middle of it all, at the center of their little coming-back-to-the-land-of-the-living circle, lay Dick Grayson, covered in blood, close to passing out.

The guy was nearly unrecognizable, but Jason would recognize that ridiculous hairstyle anywhere. Scrambling over to his brother’s side, Jason ignored the way the room spun, placing a hand on Dick’s shoulder and looking down at the man, brow pinched in concern.

“Dickie?” he asked, “Who did this to you?”

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stillebesat · 3 years

Text

An Unconventional Defeat

Sanders Sides: Patton, Virgil Blurb: Patton knew that heroes started out young, far younger than villains ever did. But this young? Inspiration: From the Anon prompt: “I can take care of myself just fine.” with Virgil. Fic Type: Superhero!AU, Villain!Patton, Hero!Virgil Overall Fic Warnings: Near Death Experiences, Death Talk, Injuries, Hospitals Taglist in Reblogs:

He’s fourteen.

Patton stared down at the prone form of his nemesis, Onyx, in the darkened hospital room, mind racing.

He knew that heroes started out young, far younger than villains ever did. But this young?

Sure, that no good empathy that the heart twinged with seemed to chime all stronger for the children. For those naive fools who were still optimistic about life and wanted to believe that good would always win out in the end. That being good was the best way to live your life. That you could change the world for the better.

Patton had been a fool like that. Once.

He’d wanted to be a teacher. Once. Be an example to the rising generation. Once.

And then he’d had his eyes forcibly opened in college to just how cruel and heartless the world actually was. Goodness only got trampled. Squashed. Taken advantage of. Goodness only got used until it wasn’t useful anymore and then got dumped like so much trash. If one wanted to change the world permanently. One couldn’t do so by being good.

Kids though?

The poor fools didn’t realize that yet. That being good wasn’t well...good. For anyone. Hero work? Pointless. Especially with how active Patton was in the city.

Hero work didn’t put food on the table. Hero work didn’t pay the bills. It was a thankless never ending job.

A job that landed a fourteen year old in the hospital with head trauma, a broken leg, arm, fractured ribs, and multiple puncture wounds in the shoulders and abdomen that had only avoided killing the kid by sheer dumb luck.

A fourteen year old that Patton had been fighting for a good three years now, not that he’d known that until nine hours ago.

Onyx had always snarked at him in a deep distorted voice, had always been covered by an ever shifting melee of shadows that never showed just who was manipulating the darkness around him.

He growled under his breath, rubbing the back of his neck. Eleven. The kid had been freaking eleven when he’d first shown up to stop Patton from razing the police department to the ground.

No wonder Onyx had been so ferocious in defending the place. He’d still been of an age to see the cops as fellow heroes. The good guys. He hadn’t yet discovered their darker side. Just how much like school ground bullies most of them could be to the weak.

Patton clenched his hands, conscious of the frost coating his fingertips, of the room getting noticeably colder. “You’re an idiot.” He told the sleeping hero in a low voice, tensing as the shadows sluggishly stirred at the sound of his voice. “Ruining everything.”

He’d been trying to take down Onyx for ages. Perfecting the best way to use his ice bolts to freeze those shadows of his once and for all. It had been the best moment of his life seeing the hulking figure finally stagger when his ice had successfully pierced through the darkness and not fly out the other end. To know that they had stuck. To see those dark wisps vanish like so much smoke as the hero plummeted from the sky. To have a crater form from the impact that left a dust cloud floating in the air with no hint whatsoever of his shadows preparing to strike back.

It had been his greatest moment of triumph. The final defeat of his main nemesis.

An icy javelin had already formed in his hands, aimed for Onyx’s heart before Patton’s feet had even hit the ground.

But instead of the square jawed overly muscled hero he’d expected to finally see underneath that murky shadow disguise...he’d found a freaking child laying there, bleeding, broken, and unconscious.

One Virgil Hawkins. Fourteen years old. Orphan. Parents dead since he was nine. Grandmother dead since he was eleven though apparently no one else had realized that little tidbit yet besides Patton because he’d actually tried to find the woman last night after he’d rushed the boy to the hospital for emergency surgery only to discover the little urn with her name on it on the mantle of the fireplace in her home.

It was one thing to kill a Hero. And Patton...well he’d done in his fair share of heroes over the last decade. But killing a child? His heart might be cold. Frozen even. But as much as he itched to end Onyx the hero permanently...ending Virgil the child was an entirely different matter.

Not that anyone would know. Not that anyone would care if Virgil vanished the same evening Onyx died. He could freeze the kid’s heart here and now and not even the staff supposedly watching the boy would think much of it, injured as he was.

Patton frowned, breath misting in front of him as he held out an ice coated hand over the child, an icicle easily forming in his fist.

It would be so easy.

Who would care about the disappearance of a single boy? One who was practically a ghost in his civilian life. Certainly not the news. Certainly not the cops the kid had risked his life to defend. A kid only surviving as it were because he’d been clever enough to keep his grandma’s social security checks coming to the house as a source of income.

No one would notice if he just...vanished. Not even the school the kid attended would. Not when they couldn’t even tell him if he’d shown up yesterday for class.

No concerned teacher. No concerned counselor. No friends to worry about him suddenly vanishing. Not even the staff here in the hospital cared enough to keep more than a cursory eye on their John Doe as the police attempted to track down the boy’s nonexistent family.

Virgil had no one.

Patton let the icicle dissolve back into his skin, his hand lightly resting on the boy’s warm forehead, fingers lightly brushing the stitches there.

No one to pay the hospital bills. No one to look after him once he was released. No one to ensure that he had food, clothes and shelter. No one to stop him from being a fu-freaking idiot and going out to attack a villain old enough to be his Father.

Patton shuddered, pulling his hand back. Crofters forbid that. Teenagers were the worst. Onyx only proved that tenfold with how easily he’d wound up Patton in their fights. To have one living in his own home? With their constant mood swings, inability to do chores, and dependence on social media? Ha. No.

A groan from the bed drew him from his thoughts right as the shadows around the bed surged at him, latching onto his arm and jerking him forward with a startled yelp.

“Cold.” A hoarse voice whispered as pale fingers shakily rose from under the blanket, twisting to catch Patton’s wrist as the shadows pulled him within reach. Onyx’s eyelids fluttered as he placed Patton’s hand on his forehead. “Cold.”

Was he insane?! Patton growled, the temperature in the room dropping another ten degrees as he struggled against Onyx’s shadow grip. “Let. Go!”

The hero had the gall to smirk, dark eyes unfocused as he opened them fully, the shadows pulsing around them. “No way, Icy.” He whispered. “You cold. Feels good. You stay.”

WHAT?! He wasn’t an icepack! “I’ll freeze your burning head off! LET GO, you idiot!” He allowed a thin layer of ice to form under his hand to prove his point. It was bad enough that Onyx could match him throw for throw on a good day, it was worse knowing that a fu--freaking half-drugged teenager could still hold him with minimal effort.

Virgil closed his eyes, stupid smile growing wider. “Rubber. Glue. Back to you.”

Patton blinked. “Huh?” What was that supposed to mean?! This was why he hated teenagers. They didn’t make a lick of sense whenever they spoke.

“You’re the idiot here.” Virgil dropped his hand, the shadows releasing their grip. “Coming in uniform? To a hospital? To see me? For shame.”

Patton scoffed, taking a step back. He wasn’t some first year amateur to walk in the front door dressed like this. “Like I care if anyone sees me, kid.”

If it weren’t for the fact that he couldn’t afford to let anyone see him actually caring about anyone’s welfare, especially some ‘random’ kid found on the street after the big fight with Onyx, he would have blasted the front doors off their hinges and made a grand entrance instead of manipulating the ice of his clothes to resemble simple civilian attire before sauntering inside, no questions asked. After all, no one ever looked twice at some guy walking around in a black shirt and blue jeans, not even in a hospital.

Though. He flexed his fingers. It wasn’t like it was outside his wheelhouse to freeze people to death if they got in his way.

Onyx frowned, the shadows pulsing as he opened his eyes again, making eye contact. “No...you wouldn’t would you….why are you here--No.” The darkness gathered underneath him, carefully carefully pushing the kid upright in the hospital bed. He hissed, uninjured arm moving to wrap around his stomach. “Why am I here and not dead, Icy?”

Patton lifted his chin, glaring at the hero. “Did you want to be dead?” He asked, hefting a javelin of ice in his hand.

The teenager had the gall to roll his eyes, though Patton didn’t miss how the shadows surged around him in a protective shield. “Missed your chance, buddy. Don’t tell me your frozen heart actually thawed a little during our fight.”

“No.” Patton jabbed at the shadows, not at all surprised when they easily shattered his weapon with a quick twist.

So the kid wasn’t as out of it as his dilated eyes made it seem. Good to know.

“So I’m alive then….why?”

Why did it matter? “You’re fourteen.”

Virgil scoffed, slowly moving the arm that was in a cast so it too rested against his stomach. “So? You’ve killed kids before.”

Patton stiffened, ice flashing from his feet to cover the floor like a mini ice rink. Did the boy honestly not care about his own life?! “You shouldn’t have been fighting me in the first place, Onyx! You’re a kid. A Fu-FREAKING KID. Your biggest worry should be passing some stupid Math test! Making friends in school. Not squaring up against the worst villain the city has ever seen!” A villain that always, always killed his nemeses no matter what.

Virgil huffed, spreading his arms, the shadows twisting around them. “Last time I checked, this kid could wipe your ass into the dirt without breaking a sweat. I can take care of myself just fine, thank you very much.”

“But you shouldn’t HAVE to.” This wasn’t some stupid dystopian novel. No normal eleven year old should have such a stupidly high Chosen One complex.

“And who’s fault is it that I have to, Icemas?” Virgil’s eyes practically glittered like obsidian shards as the shadows lifted him off the bed, turning him to face Patton properly, the machines squeaking in protest as the various tubes connecting them to the hero shifted out of alignment. “No one else was stepping up. No one else would face you.”

“That’s the point!” Patton hissed, shooting a ray of ice to the door, crystals covering the window there and locking it in place so no one else would be able to investigate the alarms going off, before stepping forward to jab a finger at the boy’s chest, though he was careful to not actually touch the wounds there or send any ice bolts at him. “I’m showing everyone that being a hero is a useless archaic practice! No one should have to risk their life day in and day out for complete strangers who will never appreciate your sacrifice! If you had died tonight, Virgil, who would have cared?! The media? Ha.” He shook his head, gesturing to the blank TV screen in the corner as the shadows pulled back to quiver behind the young hero. “They’d mourn you for maybe a week tops before moving onto the next sensational story, the next stupid hero trying to make a difference. Maybe, maybe they will name some shiny new building after you, to remember you by, but then what? NOTHING. You’d be DEAD before you could ever drive and it would have all been for naught!”

Virgil frowned, shadows lowering him so he was sitting on the bed. “...You know my name?”

Patton stiffened. That’s what the kid was worried about? Him figuring out his civilian identity instead of nearly dying?! That was so messed up. “Someone had to try and track down your family, kid. The idiots here weren’t gonna do it.”

The hero had the gall to grin, though Patton didn’t miss how his fingers clenched the sheets. “Aww, well isn’t that sweet of you, Popsicle. How did that go?” He tilted his head to the iced over door where distant voices could be heard as the handle rattled. “Good old mom and dad waiting outside to see me? To check in on how their ickle Virgikins is doing?”

Teenagers. He hated them. “You know they aren’t. You have no one.”

Something flickered in the boy’s eyes. “Oh! Then let me guess.” He rested his chin on his uninjured hand. “You let the staff know I’m on my own? Do I get the oh so fun opportunity to experience our stellar A+ foster care system now?”

Patton rolled his eyes, shooting another bolt of ice at the door for good measure. “Please. They still think you’re a John Doe.” The lazy bums were waiting for him to wake up first. Hoping that Virgil would tell them who he was before trying to track down his identity or family.

“Excellent.” Virgil gave the door an appraising look. “Think they’ll believe amnesia?”

Patton blinked. “....Do you not feel the stitches holding your head together?” Or the baseball sized lump on the back of his skull from hitting the pavement?

The hero shrugged. “Honestly?” The shadows pulsed around him. “It’s all kinda fuzzy agony currently. Can’t differentiate what parts of me hurt and what doesn’t.”

How was this kid even awake?! Patton stepped forward, pushing the boy back down flat on the bed. “Then REST before you hurt yourself further, idiot.”

“Aw, love you too, Popsicles.”

“DON’T CALL ME THAT.” He would never be a fu-freaking Father to anyone.

“Or what?” Virgil relaxed against the pillows, even as his hand twisted to catch Patton’s wrist again. “You’ll kill me?”

If he wanted to do that the kid would be dead already. Patton jerked free, another ice spear forming in his hand, pointed to the boy’s throat. “No.”

“Aw. You scared to?”

“NO. I’m not killing a KID. Our fights are done with, Virgil. No more Onyx. He’s DEAD.”

The boy scoffed, pushing the spear to the side. “Last I checked, Icy,” The shadows surged over him in a swirling mass until the familiar shadowy form of Onyx stared back from the bed. “We’re the same person.” His voice echoed. “And I’m still alive and kicking.”

Ooooohoooho. Patton could feel his eye twitching as ice crept up the walls and window. If it were just Onyx he’d take great pleasure in killing the hero here and now. He itched to do so. But he couldn’t. Not with knowing that Virgil the child hid underneath the darkness. “I won’t fight you, kid.”

The shadows pulled back, revealing Virgil looking far paler than before, his face glittering with sweat. “Coward.”

“Idiot.” The kid needed to see a shrink. No normal fourteen year old would be this stubborn about wanting to constantly go up against him and face death by his hand!

“I know you are but what am I?”

The window shattered, sending frost covered glass glittering to the floor. “Hopefully grounded by the fool that ends up taking you in.” He got out through gritted teeth, ice particles shimmering in the air, ready to defend as the shadows around Onyx sprung up like a series of blackened tentacles writhing behind him.

He pitied whoever ended up with this troubled teen in their home…though...maybe he could arrange for the kid to be shipped across the country to live far far away from here. Getting out of this place could set him straight. Snap him out of this stupid hero phase he was in.

Virgil threw his head back, laughter ringing throughout the room as banging sounded from the door, the ice blockade cracking under the strain.

Judging by the way the ice was shearing off, someone with heat abilities had finally shown up.

Virgil shook his head, still grinning, though his eyes held no laughter as the shadow tentacles sharpened into jagged points, all aimed at Patton’s chest. “Oh that’s rich. Me, grounded? Like a normy would be able to stop me from coming after you the next time you decide to wreck the city.” He pushed himself up onto one elbow, jabbing his cast at Patton, the shadows quivering behind him like a pack of hunting dogs waiting to be unleashed as the temperature in the room dropped even further. “Face it, Popsicle. If you’re not gonna kill me then you’re stuck with me being your nemesis. If you want me to stop being the hero and keep me alive, then you have to stop being the villain. And we both know you’re not gonna do that. Your precious plan is too important to just give it up for my sake.”

And that was the crux of the matter wasn’t it? Patton snarled, raising his hands, the ice particles in the air morphing into a slew of arrows all directed towards the boy. He didn’t want to kill Virgil. But he couldn’t give up his plan. Give up being the villain. Not after a decade of fighting to get all those idealistic fools to see what a farce being a hero was. He was so close to winning. So close. “Fine.” He surged forward, grabbing the boy by the throat, ice arrows darting about to block the shadow tentacles of the kid’s from interfering. “You value my plan more than your pathetic life? Then you should--”

BANG.

The door behind them shattered, sending a heat wave full of shrapnel blasting into the room.

IDIOTS.

Patton whirled, flinging a wall of ice towards the figures in the doorway in an attempt to block the worst of the heat from outright killing Virgil then and there. IDIOTS! Did they not care at all that an already injured kid was in the ro---

A half melted silver door knob burst through the resulting steam before Patton could react to it, clocking him between the eyes with enough force to knock him backwards, his world vanishing into cold, silent darkness as the hospital floor rushed up to meet him.

#An Unconventional Defeat #stillebesat #Sanders Sides #Patton Sanders #Virgil Sanders #Morality #Anxiety #Superhero!AU #Villain!Patton #Hero!Virgil #Near Death Experiences tw #Death Talk tw #Injuries tw #Hospital tw

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makeste · 4 years

Text

BnHA Chapter 290: It’s Touya Time

Previously on BnHA: Iida and Hadou showed up like a couple of Pennsylvanias and Georgias to bail Shouto out at the last minute. Ochako and Toga had an exceptionally strange fight which consisted of Toga being all “guess what Ochako, I used your quirk to murder someone, how do you feel about that”, and Ochako being all “I do not like that”, to which Toga was all “:(”. There was some doll-stealing and some bookcase-yeeting, and then Toga left in tears because Ochako was all adamant that murder has consequences. Anyway so I have absolutely no idea what Toga is thinking now, but I guess we’ll have some time to stew on it, because we ended the chapter by cutting back to the Iida+Hadou+Shouto VS Afomura battle, which was interrupted by Gigantomachia and the LoV showing up like a bunch of Floridas to ruin everyone’s nice day.

Today on BnHA: Horikoshi hands the mic over to Dabi and is all “take it away, kid.” Over in Room 315 of Musutafu General, Rei is all “may I please watch some TV” and the hospital staff is all “sure”, and so she tunes in just in time to catch Todoroki Touya’s Peabody Award-winning documentary “Number One Hero, Number One Fraud: The Todoroki Enji Story”, which is being broadcast nationwide courtesy of Skeptic and his magic laptop. Meanwhile in Jakku, Dabi is all “I’M TOUYA, BITCHES”, and Shouto and Enji are all, “(゜◇゜ )”, and Dabi is all, “anyway so just to sum it all up, because of how much of a jerk Endeavor was, I am now Evil.” Everyone continues to be all “(ﾟoﾟ)” except for Dabi, who is all “└(˘▾˘┌ )≡ ( ┐˘▾˘)┘≡┗( ˘▾˘)┛≡┏( ˘▾˘)┓≡┗( ˘▾˘)┛” for pretty much the rest of the chapter. Idk. Just let the man have his fun, guys. He’s waited a long time for this.

y’all I have a confession to make. I am technically not spoiled for this chapter thanks to my robustly paranoid system of spoiler-tag-filtering, which is extensive enough that it pretty much will catch whenever someone so much as breathes something even remotely new-chapter-related. that being said, I like to think that I am capable of making basic logical inferences! and so the fact that for the past 36 hours, my dashboard has pretty much nonstop consisted almost entirely of this...

...has led me to conclude that MAYBE, POSSIBLY, PROBABLY, BUT ALSO DEFINITELY, a certain someone is finally going to reveal his ~secret identity~ woop woop. lmao

anyway so everyone, please remember to act surprised though, as we would not want Dabi’s feelings to be hurt at all. he has been planning this moment for the last decade or so and I wouldn’t want him to feel like all of that effort was for naught. so just play along, okay. OH MY, IF IT ISN’T THE LEAGUE OF VILLAINS’ MYSTERIOUS DABI. WHATEVER COULD HIS ARRIVAL POSSIBLY BE HERALDING, I JUST DON’T KNOW

“Dabi’s Dance” lmao. I’m sticking with Touya Time myself. ngl I had this recap title planned out for at least the past year or so. just waiting for that day to finally come

anyway so some people in some building somewhere are all “TURN OFF THE TV IN ROOM 315” and idk. I’m guessing the LoV is hacking the airwaves to livestream the reveal, as predicted

-- oh shit. UHHHHHHHH

did she always have this TV or did she get it just recently?? jfc of all the times for the hospital staff to finally loosen up

um... so that’s... (・＿・；)

well but I mean, she was gonna find out one way or the other at some point though. like you can’t really just keep her locked up and isolated from all news of the outside world forever and ever and ever. granted, this isn’t exactly the ideal way for her to learn this particular bit of information, but it’s not really ideal for anybody else either! EXCEPT DABI, THAT IS. have yourself a day you funky little terrorist

oh shit what is this?? it’s not live???

over in Jakku, a red-faced, sputtering Dabi makes a frantic grab for Skeptic’s laptop. “WAIT, NO, JESUS, NOT THAT TAPE!”

lol. but seriously Dabi are you even wearing a shirt. like I’m not one to slutshame anyone bro, but it’s just, exactly what type of mood were you looking to set here??

anyway so we really are cutting back to Jakku now, and Gigantomachia is all, “MASTERS”! which, I wonder if he really did use the plural? that’s right Machia, both of them in one place now! that sure is convenient for you huh

lol what is this with all this AFO monologuing. you’re really gonna make me read through this when I’m sitting here all sleep-deprived from election week. JUST GET TO THE TOUYAS. WE WERE PROMISED TOUYAS!!

sigh

“tee hee it’s fucking hilarious how goddamn powerful I am now lol”

alas, in spite of myself I do have two serious takeaways from this. one is that AFO is still controlling most of Tomura’s body behind the scenes, which both does and doesn’t bode well for Tomura (like, at least he’s not dying, but the long-term implications of this for his free will and such certainly are not Good). and two is that this confirms that Ujiko did give Tomura at least one powerful mutant quirk, which explains why he was still so deadly and indestructible even when Aizawa was using Erasure on him (since Erasure doesn’t work on mutant quirks, just emitter and transformation ones)

MEANWHILE ON TODAY’S EPISODE OF “TODOROKI SHOUTO’S TERRIBLE, HORRIBLE, NO GOOD, VERY BAD LIFE”

I like how he doesn’t actually say that he can’t take on Gigantomachia. just that he can’t take on him and Afomura at the same time. that’s confidence, baby. that right there is why you always draft Todoroki Shouto in the first round for your fantasy team

HADOU!!!!

OOOH, TOMURA’S ALL “MAN, THIS GIRL’S WAVE POWERS AND THIS KID’S ICE POWERS ARE A SUPER-STRONG COMBO DAGNABBIT.” YESSS I LIKE THAT, TELL ME MORE ABOUT HOW COOL AND POWERFUL THEY ARE

HOT DAMN LOOK AT THAT

um but not to take away from this exceptionally cool moment or anything, but why is Endeavor dying and shouting “RUN” down there in the corner um

excuse me. not to take away from How Bad This All Is, but!!

just a little, smol, IidaBaku for everyone. Iida, who apparently doesn’t know a damn thing about first aid and is all, “hmm that’s a pretty bad-looking puncture wound he has in his left shoulder there, I think I’ll just let his arm dangle freely like that and I won’t bother taking off his heavy gauntlets either. I mean. he’ll be fine, probably.” smh. at least Shouto probably cauterized the wounds

EXCUSE ME WHAT

TIME FOR MORE OF THAT GOOD OLD FASHIONED SHOUNEN RIDICULOUSNESS I GUESS LMAO. KACCHAN YOU HAVE A HOLE IN YOUR TORSO. THERE IS A HOLE IN YOUR TORSO, AND YOU LOST LIKE FOUR GALLONS OF BLOOD, BUT SURE. “PUT ME DOWN” HE SAYS. FIRST OF ALL, PUTTING ASIDE THE FACT THAT YOU ABSOLUTELY SHOULD NOT BE CONSCIOUS, THE FUCK ARE YOU EVEN GOING TO DO, LIE DOWN AT THEM?? LISTEN, YOU SWEET IDIOT. TAKE HEED, BELOVED DUMBASS!!

ah well. I guess he gets to watch the Touya Show now too then lol

LMAOOOO now Machia’s lifting Tomura carefully in his palm like a broken action figure and Spinner is all “THE FUCK, YOU LOOK LIKE DEATH WARMED OVER”

“oh hey there Spinner. well let’s see, I woke up from my three-month coma and destroyed a city, had my body incinerated, and am currently being possessed by a diabolically evil potato. but please, tell me more about everything you've been through”

AW YISS AND THE FOCUS NOW SHIFTS TO THE TODOROKIS. EVERYTHING IS PROCEEDING EXACTLY AS WE HAVE FORESEEN

Endeavor my dude. it’s as if you want to die here. also holy shit, that bit about his lungs definitely does not bode well for him either

MOTHERFUCKER

GO AHEAD AND SIGN YOUR OWN DEATH CERTIFICATE, WHY DON’T YOU!! FLAGS UPON FLAGS. JESUS CHRIST

meanwhile Dabi’s just waving at ‘em

lmaoooo please oh please Caleb please keep this ‘EYYYYYYY’, it’s fucking perfect kdlshk;hg

AHHHHHHHHHHHHH

(ETA: so as you will see very shortly, I completely missed this detail in my first read-through because I was so anxious to get to the reveal page, but THIS MOTHERFUCKER LITERALLY DOUSED HIMSELF WITH INSTANT HAIR DYE REMOVER THAT HE’S JUST BEEN CARRYING AROUND IN A LITTLE HIP POUCH APPRENTLY SINCE THE BEGINNING OF TIME. MOTHERFUCKER. I HAVE NO WORDS.)

IS THIS THE TIME. IS THIS THE MOMENT?! HERE IT COMES SLKFHS BRACE YERSELVES LADS

EYYYYYYYYYYYY

OKAY EVERYONE JUST LIKE WE PRACTICED!! SURPRISED FACES ON THREE! ONE... TWO... (•̪ o •̪) !! okay how was that

LMAO ENDEAVOR

at least Shouto looks properly stunned. Enji just looks like endeavor.exe just straight up stopped working

meanwhile Deku’s out here trying to do the math on this latest surprise family reveal! first Tomura is related to Nana, and now this. what’s next. who are you related to, Spinner. he rips off his boots to reveal engine legs and declares himself Iida’s long-lost uncle

oh shit Touya

it’s as if a million fanworks suddenly cried out in terror and were suddenly jossed. who knew that all this time he was secretly sporting a crop top scar

also, THIRTY?! holy shit son you been busy

la la la two-page spread of Touya casually driving the dagger into Endeavor’s hero career and rocking the foundations of hero society as we know it la la la

la la la!!!

OH IS THAT THE END OF THE STORY THEN

almost got confused for a sec. there’s two monologues happening at once here. Endeavor doesn’t even know that his dirty laundry is being aired out nation-wide as we speak ffffff

btw while I appreciate the close-ups of Enji and Shouto here for sure, ngl I would also really love to see everyone else’s reactions right now. SHOW ME BAKUGOU AND THE LOV YOU COWARDS

is his hair actually turning white all of a sudden?? your hair dye just reacts on command??

(ETA: in all seriousness though, the hell kind of hair dye was he using? all he has to do is pour a bottle of that stuff and not even lather it in and it’s just gone just like that?? what the fuck would have have done if it ever rained lmao.

and this motherfucker just goes and leaves the dye remover in afterwards, too. I have never dyed my hair in my life and even I can tell you that’s probably not a good idea, Dabi.)

is this it. is this the legendary Dabi Dance in action. lmfao

oh hey what the fuck

so you figured you’d just murder your innocent younger brother to get revenge on dad, huh. well that’s nice

is that really all there is to the origin story though?? feels like we’re still missing a huge chunk of it. what was it that finally sent him over the edge? or was the trauma of being created as Endeavor’s perfect little hero tool and then being subsequently rejected by him enough on its own? because I’m still kind of confused on the part where he goes from “abused and discarded by his father” to “killed thirty people and was plotting the murder of his own brother” to tell you the truth

(ETA: lmao the initial fandom reaction to this did not disappoint. listen guys. people can be traumatized and shaped by awful circumstances that are completely out of their control, and grow up to be people they wouldn’t have grown up to be if things had been better, and all of that absolutely sucks, but. it doesn’t mean they get a get-out-of-jail-free card for all of their future actions, either! the tragedy of this situation is that terrible things happened to Touya, and he then went on to do terrible things himself. the tragedy of it is that this is exactly how the cycle of abuse keeps repeating itself on and on and on. maybe one of the people Dabi killed had a child who will now grow up traumatized themselves, and potentially go on to pay it forward themselves when they grow up. the tragedy is that the eye-for-an-eye justice that Touya is seeking out won’t actually make anything better in the end. the tragedy is that we understand why Touya is so angry, but that anger has basically warped him into the gleefully sadistic dancing figure we see in this chapter who has stopped caring about anyone else’s pain or suffering and just wants his own revenge.

anyway. basically what I’m trying to say is that it’s possible for the concepts of “Todoroki Touya was an innocent child and a victim of abuse” and “Dabi is a grown-ass motherfucking adult who killed thirty people and PROBABLY NEEDS TO BE HELD ACCOUNTABLE FOR THAT” to coexist lol. like, y’all wanted your moral grey, well HERE YOU GO lmao, eat up.)

lol but LOOK AT THAT BOY DANCE HIS LITTLE HEART OUT though

Todoroki Touya confirmed not a fan of the Endeavor redemption arc huh. well we all saw this coming lols

anyways here’s a sexy Touya for y’all

you really are the most theatrical bitch I s2g lmao

also for real though, what is happening with his hair? anime team in shambles here. they’re probably just gonna double down and keep it red. too bad though cuz this is a surprisingly good look on him

SO MANY CLOSE-UPS OF THE TODOROKI FACES

friendly reminder that Dabi without a doubt REHEARSED this speech like a thousand fucking times. LET US FALL TOGETHER!! COME DANCE WITH YOUR SON IN HELL. apparently if you fake your own death in middle school you will never mentally age past that point and will remain a permanent chuuni

OH LMAO THAT’S THE END

we really just gonna end on “DANCE WITH YOUR SON IN HELL”, huh. very well then. you know what song to play, Horikoshi. one, two... YOU ARE MY DAD. YOU’RE MY DAD!! BOOGIE WOOGIE WOOGIE

#bnha 290 #dabi #todoroki touya #todoroki enji #todoroki shouto #todoroki rei #bakugou katsuki #bnha #boku no hero academia #bnha spoilers #mha spoilers #bnha manga spoilers #makeste reads bnha

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captainsimagines · 3 years

Text

To Topple A Giant || Chapter Nine

Summary: You had made it your mission to destroy even the smallest evils. When the opportunity arises to finally take down your own family after years of gaining their trust, you reach for it. And so does Steve, the man who represents a symbol of everything you hate.

Pairing(s): Steve Rogers x Reader || Avengers x Reader

Part 9 of 10 ~ Mini-Series

Warnings: This story contains mature themes and discussions such as extreme canon violence, strong language, emotional angst, mentions of Endgame deaths and recoveries, sexual situations, and emotional/physical abuse. This is purely fanfiction.

Warnings in this Chapter: strong language; use of a derogatory slur/racist language (not said by any main character); mentions of blood and injuries; angst!

Word Count: 11,200+

A/N: One more chapter after this - I should really stop labeling this as a mini-series considering it’s already over 100,000 total words lmao. Thank you for staying with me this long! I love you guys soooo much!!!

Utah Merry Hotel, January 2025, 2:09pm

“I’m being an ol’ sport, why can’t you?” You whine, stomping your feet as you trudged up the stairs to the hotel roof. “It’s our first serious stakeout in forever! I’m pretty sure Wanda shaved her legs for this.”

Steve shoots a flustered and unsettled look over his shoulder. He’s lugging the rifles and extra equipment on both his shoulders so you know he’s truly baffled because to even attempt a look over… well, that required real effort. He doesn’t answer, however; he continues upward.

Bucky and Clint are following close behind. They’re tired, huffing every few steps and grunting while doing so. Finally, Bucky whines and throws himself against the wall dramatically. “Remind me why we couldn’t just get Wanda and Sam to lift us up there?”

Steve readjusts one of the rifle straps while he replies, “Buck, I told you not to skip leg day.”

“I skip ‘everything’ day. I’m just now employed as a superhero, thank you very much. The serum should be enough.”

“Are we even close?” Clint asks and passes Bucky on a few steps. Bucky takes that as a challenge though and hoists himself more steps before giving up again.

You just watch in pure amusement. Makes you really proud that your thighs are stronger than theirs. “Just a few more flights.”

They both groan in unison. Steve has already rounded the next flight, no longer waiting on the three of you. It takes several more minutes until you kick open the roof door Steve had left slightly ajar. It’s cold outside, wind howling with icy droplets whipping through your hair. It’s only fifty stories up but it’s pretty high - you can see the tops of the trees, or branches really. It’s winter in Utah and most of the trees are naked and covered in snow. You hope Bucky and Clint, the dynamic duo no one saw coming, still have good aim in this wind after a year of vacation.

“Alright. Buck - Clint, set up over there. Y/N, you’re over there.”

“Aye Aye, Captain.”

You set up where Steve instructed. You’ve got a simple magnifier and some binoculars - you won’t have to do any shooting today, thank the Gods. Clint’s got his arrows and Bucky’s got his sniper. Steve’s waiting for a signal from Sam if need be - he won’t need to shoot today either.

“Wanda and Sam will let us know when the cars pass the barrier. The tech cannot, under any circumstances, pass through the gate right over there.” Steve points to the giant, black coated metal gate. There’s no one on duty. You made sure to evacuate the area and any staff before. The tech these goons are bringing in is all stolen Stark Tech. And according to Happy, strict instructions are to ‘blow it to Hell’.

“And if it does?” Bucky asks, grinning mischievously at Steve’s pointed look.

“What’d I just say?”

Bucky laughs and puts his hands up in surrender. “Damn, Stevie. Calm thyne tits.” He goes back to fiddling with his rifle. “Blow the tires before they reach the gates but after they pass the barrier. Got it.”

“Peter, you in position?” Steve asks and adjusts his earpiece.

You can hear Peter over your own mic. “Seatbelts look easy enough to break. I’m in position, I can easily pull them from the trucks.”

“Five minutes then.”

You all settle in. The cold has passed through the leather of your boots and your toes are paying the price. It makes you miss the rain of spring and the sprinkles of fall, when everything is drenched rather than frozen and your toes still have mobility. Your jacket is big enough but it scratches your neck every time you lean down to look through the magnifier. As the minutes tick by, you brave the cold and take it off. You’d rather conduct your part efficiently and without the constant distraction.

“It’s almost forty degrees out,” Steve mumbles beside you. He’s looking over the roof balcony and into the trees. He’s squints and refuses your offer of binoculars.

“So I get a sore throat.”

Steve rolls his eyes, “Tony put a heater in all our suits. You should have worn yours.”

“My suit is half nano. It’s excessive for a stakeout.”

He huffs but you ignore him, choosing to look through the rejected binoculars instead. He shuffles, and then there’s a warm weight enveloping your shoulders. It’s his sweater, cotton and baby blue, and he lifts the hood to cover your cheeks and ears. Your stomach flip-flops.

“Uh, thank you,” you say and zip it closed.

Steve shrugs lightly, “Don’t mention it.”

So you don’t. He doesn’t look cold besides or he’s just really good at masking it. It’s quiet now; you can’t really hear the quiet mutters of Clint and Bucky enough to join in and to not mention the jacket is eating at you. You opt for a casual conversation instead while you wait.

“Soooo… how’d your date go last week?”

Steve clears his throat and turns to you, a forced grin on his face. “They, uh, they were sweet.”

“Sweet,” you repeat, nodding at nothing and cursing yourself for creating such an awkward moment. “Going on a second one?”

He sighs and his expression actually turns truthful. “No, don’t see that happening.”

For a second, you’re appalled. Who wouldn’t give Steve a second date? He’s an absolute catch and being a famous superhero wasn’t exactly a dealbreaker for many. Or maybe it was and Steve was blaming his alias once again for no fairytale ending. “Are you kidding? Who wouldn’t want you?”

The words leave your mouth too quickly to reel them back in. Steve’s cheeks turn pinker, both from your words and the chill, and he ducks his head low as he answers. “It’s my fault, really. They were sweet but I wasn’t paying much attention.”

“Mm, on your phone? Daydreaming? Were they a bore?”

Steve chuckles, “I pulled out my phone, like, once to answer a text but I was a proper gentleman!”

The tension is slowly melting and there’s a soft twinkle in his eye as he laughs. It’s been so long since he’s looked at you this way: on his own accord and not on order. “Bucky said they were, and I quote,” you lower your voice and look over at Bucky to make sure he’s distracted. “‘Cute as hell’.”

Steve gives Bucky a warm look. “Eh, it’s fine. Wasn’t the one.”

“The one,” you mock in a deep voice. “Who texted you that it was so important to ignore someone cute as hell?”

Steve hesitates and looks over the balcony as if wishing for an interruption. But the trucks aren’t near yet and Sam hasn’t given the signal. “Uh, it was Peter.”

“Oh, don’t tell him that. He’ll feel incredibly guilty if he ruined your chances at getting laid.”

Steve shoves your shoulder a bit harder than he intended and it makes you stumble back. He quickly catches you by the arm and holds you still, a sheepish smile painting his pink face. He mumbles a quick ‘sorry’, and goes back to lean over the railing. “It’s cool, he knew.”

You fake a surprised gasp, “Even worse!”

“He needed me to stop by the compound and I did. Really, it’s okay,” Steve assures and he’s speaking a little quicker. He fidgets with his thumbs and it looks like he wants to wrap up that portion of the conversation. But he looks over at you and sighs deeply, and he rolls his eyes as his upper lip tilts upward. “Ask.”

“What’d he want?” It makes your belly all warm to know he expects this enthusiasm from you.

“Wanted me around. Buck and Wanda were out getting dinner.”

“Yeah, but like, what for?”

He gives you a knowing smile, like you walked right into that trap. “You made dinner but Peter was too nice to say he didn’t enjoy it, so he texted me knowing I would like it. Knowing I had it before. He didn’t want there to be leftovers because then you’d be sad.”

You step back and shake your head like there’s a fly swarming around. It startles you. “You left your date… during dinner… to come to the compound to eat the dinner I made instead?”

“Don’t think too much about it.”

“How not?”

It’s five minutes when Sam calls it in. You groan in frustration and give Steve a look that says the conversation isn’t over.

There are four armored vehicles and the magnifier illuminates three bodies per car. The targets will be hit starting from the last to keep the explosions out of each driver’s line of sight.

“Target acquired,” Bucky mumbles and clicks off his safety. He closes one eye and settles comfortably as he awaits Steve’s signal.

Clint tugs back an arrow, “Same here, Cap.”

“Wanda, you ready?” Steve’s voice is lower when he’s focused. He looks over at you, your hand up with an index finger raised, and waits. Wanda answers that she’s ready and Sam counts it down. The first truck crosses the barrier, then the next, next, and finally the fourth and you drop your hand in a fast swipe.

“Fire! Go Parker!”

Bucky shoots the back tires of all four vehicles and Clint shoots his arrows to penetrate through the passenger doors. Peter works fast, webs slinging from side to side grabbing one passenger right after the other. Once the trucks are empty, Clint activates the arrows and you all prepare for the explosions. The fourth car catches flame first and Wanda contains the explosion perfectly, balling it up into a weak bundle of light and string. She does the same to the third and second, bundles extinguishing just as quickly as they burst. But the first car swings out of control on manual and the explosion is delayed.

“Clint?”

Clint leans over the balcony and squints, as if it would help. “I don’t know. It’s not going off.” He’s clicking the detonator repeatedly, holding it up for all of you to see.

“Wanda, the truck! The truck! Sam!” You scream as the truck crashes through the gate and hurls closer to the hotel. The commotion is enough for Bucky to pop out from his cover and the four of you watch in horror as the truck still doesn’t stop. Clint has stopped clicking the button, but it’s no use. The truck finally explodes in an outbreak of debris and electricity. The Stark Tech reacts poorly to the strain, electric gusts of smoke fire left and right and rattle the building. It feels like an earthquake, shaking the already weak foundations and old brick. Wanda catches the bottom to better contain it and tries desperately to smother it. But the shaking doesn’t stop and the corners of the roof are collapsing.

Steve leaps to grab and pull you away and just as quickly to catch Clint’s leg before he falls over the edge. Clint is thrown back rather harshly but Steve isn’t thinking about the abuse of strength right now - no, not while Bucky slips and hangs on to a rogue pipe. Steve crawls and latches onto his hand before the pipe gives way. He yells as he tugs Bucky up with only one arm, the other having to hold onto undisturbed brick. He won't let Bucky fall. Not again.

Bucky throws his leg up and over solid ground, and you go to help Steve pull him up. Bucky’s heavy and his metal hand pinches your skin bad but he’s safe. Wanda struggles to contain the electricity but she’s succeeding. The rumbling slows until nothing moves anymore. You collapse back in exhaustion.

“Well, that didn’t go as planned,” Bucky gasps as he rubs his face.

“Is Wanda okay?” You mumble more to yourself and struggle to pull yourself back up. But the sudden weight of your body proves too much for the edge and in a horrible wave, you’re falling through. You practically file your nails as you try to latch onto falling brick.

“No!” You feel the scratch of someone’s fingers along your forearm and soon they’re digging into your skin, and it hurts but you figure it’s better than splitting your skull open. Pebbles of concrete are falling down onto your face and the smoke from the explosion is clogging your nostrils. You hang for a few seconds, like the person can’t believe they actually caught you. Then they begin pulling you up, lifting you to safety, and you claw the rest of the way only to tumble into Steve’s chest, shaking.

He pulls you into his arms but they’re restless, roaming over your shoulders and through your knotted hair clumsily. “Are you okay? Are you hurt?” His voice wavers and he’s on the verge of tears, it seems. His waterline is glossy and his lips are quivering. “Answer me.”

“I’m fine, hey. Steve? I’m good.”

He pulls away and his hands hover you like he doesn’t know what else to do with them. “I’m sorry. I should have kept you close. I-” His voice cracks and he swallows hard. “You sure you’re okay?”

Disregarding his words is difficult, especially when you feel a second meaning to them, but you force yourself to do so. It’s been such a long time since you’ve seen him like this. And each time you have, it was never because of anything good. “Y-yeah. I’m good, Rogers.”

Bucky and Clint look at each other, they look at Steve, to you, and back to each other. Finally, Clint breaks the silence and huffs a light chuckle. “Are we really THAT rusty?”

Present Day, 2025, 11:45pm

The Montana skies are clear and free of passenger planes, allowing the Quinjet to swift easily on autopilot. You could never drive this thing and the building anxiety of that reality bubbles each time it makes an unsteady bounce.

Steve’s laying in the makeshift medical wing and though it’s against protocol, he’s on a secure line with Dr. Cho. She takes her time, albeit working as fast as possible too, and her light voice is fairly calm. It settles you to hear her speak this way.

‘I need you to use this disinfectant, Captain Rogers. Do not pour it on all at once… Good, now dig through gently and make sure the pliers are sanitized.’

Steve digs out the bullets himself and bites down on a clean towel. He’s biting down hard enough that his teeth make a squeaking sound against it. It takes every ounce of your willpower to not do it for him. The Montana skies are beautiful, at least. It’s a good distraction.

Steve gives a rather painful yell as he finally plucks the second bullet, cursing as a stream of blood drips onto the table. He’s got such tough skin - miracle or serum - that the bullets didn’t pass all the way through. Dr. Cho moves on to how to properly bandage the wound but Steve begins to tune her out.

Two years mucking through mud and bodies and getting patched up every other day has prepared him for whatever life may throw during this new century. Not much has changed, it seems.

When the line disconnects, Steve can finally just relax. He focuses on the soft rumble of the engine and your steady breaths.

You hold your breath as you settle the Quinjet on the open field, only half of you actually trusting automatic tech. Steve coaches you the whole time too, the little shit, and promises you’ll never be doing that again.

Steve stumbles and teeters and falls on the porch steps with a low groan. You let him fall because you know you’d only fall with him. He catches himself with the hand he’s been pressing over the bandage while the other still holds on to you. You fight the urge to crash down with him and bite your lip as you look up to the night sky.

“C’mon, Rogers,” you swallow down the increasing worry, “We’re almost inside.”

Steve huffs a pained laugh and nods. He grabs your arm again and with his remaining strength, pulls himself up,

The inside of the cabin looks comfier than the outside. You help Steve to the couch closest to the unlit fireplace before going out back to turn on the power. There’s a thin layer of ice in the grass so just in case, you scope out the garage and make sure there are snow supplies. Not that you really know what the hell snow supplies actually look like, but there’s a shovel and you figure that’s as much as your brain is going to piece together.

When you get back inside, Steve’s fumbling with the coffee maker and leaving tiny fingerprints of blood over every surface he touches. You don’t comment on them, just step back and discreetly wipe the counters each time he passes.

“Figured you’d like a pot,” Steve says.

It damn near breaks your heart how small his voice sounds. The fact he’s stumbling around the cabin making sure you’ve got your coffee fix while he’s nursing two bullet wounds damn near snaps it in two.

“Thank you,” you respond and go to lead him back to the couch. He moans quietly when he sits and again as you lay him down. “I hope you don’t think I’m sleeping here,” Steve laughs and tries to hide his wince due the uncomfortable rumble.

You smile and touch your hand to his hot cheek. His body is working overtime fighting off infection and regenerating tissue. His cheeks are a lovely scarlet red and so is the beautiful bulb of his crooked nose. He’s a little shiny, like varnish over light paint strokes, and taking the fever like a champ. “I’ll help you to the bed in a little bit. Let’s get that fever down first.”

Steve sighs, defeated, but nods. He lays his head back on the pillow and once he shuts his eyes, you get to work. The bathroom is stocked with the simple necessities: aloe vera, vapor rub, heating and cold pads, dozens of towels, and painkillers. You pop two painkillers yourself before gathering everything and dropping it on a nearby table in the kitchen. The coffee is about done brewing so you fill up a mug with bottled water and set it in the microwave for two minutes. You dip a chamomile tea bag a few times once the water is heated. There’s no teapot - you’ll apologize to Steve later.

Once Steve’s happily sipping his tea, you start on the medicine. You wet the small towels and lay them over his forehead and bare chest. You rub aloe vera on the other cuts he obtained from hand-to-hand and finally rub the vapor rub in the dip of his neck and just below his nose. Steve gives you this funny smile as you do so, scrunching his nose and wiggling it back and forth.

“Vicks,” you say as you show him the small container. “Heal you right up.”

“I bet,” he laughs. “Stuff smells like what I think liquid morphine would taste.” A laugh bursts from your chest, your first real instance of calm during these last few hours. You ignore his protests and smother more across his chest.

Steve settles deeper into the couch and returns to his tea. He’s got less sweat on his skin now but he’s still red. You go to pour yourself that coffee and return to his side. The nanotech is growing stiffer and scratching your skin but you refuse to get comfortable until Steve’s fever breaks. You’re still covered in Ernesto’s blood, the red now a hellish brown, and you try not to move your face much for risk of feeling the dry pull of it.

“Steve,” you try, but Steve shakes his head and makes sure to meet your gaze before he speaks.

“No. The less I know the better.”

It surprises you, makes you feel more guilty, but you understand. Not telling him the full truth would be beneficial in the long run. Still, your hands hug the mug closer to your chest. “Do you think I did something bad?”

His upper lip tugs upward, “Do you think you did something bad?”

You don’t think for long. There’s not much need to. “No.”

He nods, “But you care what I think?”

“Of course I do. You’re not just my Captain anymore - you’re my friend. I care even when I’m asking you if my eggs need more salt.”

“You trust me enough to correct your cooking?” He teases, but it’s a question disguised as another.

“I trust you enough to tell me if I need more salt. You’re not correcting it.” He laughs and dips deeper into the couch. The bandage is bleeding through, only slightly, so you move to find the first-aid kit.

“Hey, it’s okay. It’ll stop bleeding soon.”

You hum your disagreement. “I’m gonna keep it clean until you’re strong enough to shower.”

“You can always help me shower,” he mumbles into his tea.

Rolling your eyes, you gently nudge his shoulder as you sit back down with the kit. “If you fall, I can’t catch you, you big lug. We’d have to tell everyone we screwed in there because you falling on top of me, injured, is somehow more embarrassing.”

He allows you to remove the soiled bandage and dab around the healing wounds. He’s bruising around the sides, multiple shades of green and yellow already, and the holes are stitched rather poorly. It makes you feel a little better about your own criss-cross work - even Steve sucks at it.

“I’m sorry I had to go and get myself shot,” Steve apologizes and sucks in a deep breath when the towel drags a little too roughly.

“Yeah, what the hell happened there?”

He almost mimics you in the way he shrugs his shoulders and lifts his arms in that ‘well, fuck if I know’ position, pursing his lips and expelling a chuckle. “Had my gun trained on Ernesto. Ernesto had his own on Ramirez. Then Seda came in and Ernesto ordered Ramirez to hand his over to Seda. Played right into Seda’s hands.”

You process the explanation slowly and dab his wound a few more times before unwrapping the clean bandage. “And the damn shield?”

Steve’s embarrassed by that small detail, he’ll admit it, because he truly was blindsided by Seda’s appearance. You were supposed to be holding him down after all. “In my defense! When it’s shrunk down and in your pocket rather than latched onto one’s arm, it’s easily forgettable.”

You clean around the wound softly before placing and taping the new bandage. The conversation settles and you’re both quiet for a long, long minute. He thanks you for cleaning him up by rubbing sweet circles into the knuckles of your right hand. Finally, you can’t take it anymore. It’s like a wave of irrefutable worry and rage, all bunched together with each emotion trying to outweigh the other. That goddamn riptide, sucking you in and keeping your head below water just for the hell of it. Breathing in harshly, you fail to keep yourself from stuttering over your words. “I’m sorry.”

Steve bites back a groan of pain as he leans over to take your cheeks in his palms. The brush of his fingertips lets you know that you’ve already started crying. You don’t much care about the facade anymore. “Doll, listen to me. Listen.”

“I never meant to leave you alone.”

“You never did.”

You bark out a wet laugh, sarcastic. “I should have run faster. I should have killed him all those years ago. I should have never brought you into this.”

“You did what you had to do,” he says, fiercely. He forgets his own strength for a second, only slightly diminished from the healing process, and loosens his tight grip against your cheeks. “You did what you had to do to survive.”

“I wanted to hate you,” you admit. Your bottom lip is trembling and your hands clench together over your thighs. “I wanted to hate you so much. If I did, then you getting hurt or killed on this mission wouldn’t hurt so bad. I hated you for what you did. Because it made me realize that I could never hate you at all.”

“Hey,” he tries, hands now lowering to clutch at your own. “Stop apologizing for having a heart. Stop thinking you’re not worthy of even having one.”

Your face crumbles and Steve realizes for the first time in a long time just how much you’ve been holding in. “Why didn’t you use the stones?”

Steve’s heart clenches at the sound of the crack in your voice. He hasn’t heard that crack since Clint fell to his knees without Natasha by his side. He holds onto you tighter and prepares himself for an admission he never thought he would ever have to give. “Because Peggy told me not to.”

Something confusing happens in the middle of your chest. It clenches with anger but understanding. The answer to your question was always this simple but it looks like it’s tearing Steve apart from the inside-out.

She’s as beautiful as the day he went into the ice. All he has to do is whisper her name so sweetly, delicately, and she turns her head like she’s answering the prayer. First her knees buckle, eyes watering and blotching her vision, and she collapses on the soft grass of her backyard. Steve’s holding her the very next second, repeating that he’s real, he’s here.

“Steve,” Peggy gasps, hands shaking as she brings them to his wet cheeks. She grips and pokes and does everything so comically that Steve laughs a wet laugh when she starts smacking him. “What is going on?”

And he tells her. Everything he can remember: the good, the bad, the wretched. He spills everything, and he spills the most delicate information of their time: he’s alive, just frozen; Bucky’s alive, just hurt; the world is saved, just broken. Whether she believes it or not Steve’s not sure, but he’s so goddamn happy to see her again that he chokes every other word.

“And you? You’re happy?”

His eyebrows come together and he looks at Peggy like she’s speaking another language. She’s got the same red lipstick, same curl in her hair even if it’s longer now, and she’s filling out her dresses more. “Pegs, don’t ask me that.”

She detaches herself slowly from his arms, pausing their dance as she speaks. “Why not? You can’t expect me to accept that you stopped by to see me all willy-nilly after saving the universe.” Her lips twitch into a knowing smile and Steve melts. Her voice is sending him into a spiral, a world he never thought he would see again, and he realizes just how much he loves accents on women - especially this woman.

“I just,” he chokes out, and brushes his index finger down her cheek. “I had to see you again.”

“I get that,” Peggy says and pays no mind that the record player has stopped; she still sways gently with Steve. “But you’ve just mentioned a whole other world you’ve been a part of. You’ve got your best guy back, that Wilson fellow sounds like the life of the party, and this Agent Y/N certainly sounds like she’s been by your side through it all.”

Steve stutters in his step and holds her closer. Her stomach presses against his, and he stops abruptly. He looks down between them and runs his hand from her shoulder, down, to lay across her growing belly. “Pegs.”

She gives him the same wide and proud smile she gave him when he returned with the 107th. She lays her hand over his. “I know.” She laughs and tilts her head lovingly. “I’m happy, too.”

Steve bites his lip to keep from sobbing. He was so stupid for coming to this timeline, for ruining Peggy’s chance at happiness, for interrupting the life he already knew she created for herself. He inputted the wrong year, he suddenly realizes, and steps back arms-length from her. “I’m sorry, I was stupid to come here. I just wanted to see you and then I did, and I… I still love you, Pegs.”

“Oh,” Peggy gasps, bottom lip trembling. “Darling, do not mistake yourself, even for a second, into thinking that I do not love you too.”

“I’m sorry.”

“Stop apologizing for having a heart.”

He wants to argue, say he’s stupid a million more times, but he finds himself listening to her gentle words. It’s Peggy, Steve thinks. She’s always been right.

“In this world you live in, you have James?” He nods. She continues, “In this world you live in, you just lost two of your most loved friends?” He nods again. He wipes his face from forehead to chin. “In this world you live in, you have met a woman who has the same stubbornness as you; has the same self-sacrificing streak, who has your heart in such shambles that you dare call her one of your best friends?”

Steve thinks of you and how broken your smile was as you waved him goodbye, hand clenching Sam’s as Steve gathered the stones and Mjolnir. He thinks of the times you’d leap onto his back and demand a ride; the times he’s saved your ass in a firefight; how his sleep has definitely improved ever since he started calming you from nightmares - he hasn’t slept so well since before the war. He nods again.

Her eyes go soft. “Steve,” she starts and Steve knows. He doesn’t want to know. “Don’t abandon the world you’ve built for yourself. Surround yourself with the people you love. Do this for me.”

“There’s so much hate and blood waiting for me when I get back, Pegs. I don’t want to-”

“There is a difference between you not wanting to and you having to.” He drops his head and focuses on the floor. Peggy isn’t done grilling him, however, and he looks back up to grant her the respect. “You must not abandon the world you helped create. I’m not saying this to be mean. I’m saying this because I know you don’t want to.”

“Pegs.”

“I see right through you, Steve. We marched together through mud and blood before. We’ve got two years of fighting side by side under our belts. I’ve seen you at your worst, and you I. I know that face anywhere.”

“I missed you, Pegs,” Steve breathes. She cups his face with her hands and draws their foreheads together.

“The stars weren’t written in our favor. But to know that you’re alive, and that you make it, and that you actually get to live,” she bites back a sob. “I couldn’t ask for anything more.”

“It isn’t my world to begin with.”

“No, you’re a man out of time. But so is James. You won’t abandon him now, will you?”

He chuckles low and their noses touch. “Stop making me feel guilty for wanting to find you, Peggy.”

She presses a soft kiss to the side of his mouth and finally breaks away. “And you won’t abandon that sweet girl who has put up with your nonsense for the last five years, you say?”

Steve shakes his head and meets Peggy’s gaze. “I’m just tired.”

“They are too, I bet.” He turns to the door and to Peggy, and she figures it’s almost time for him to leave. “You have been the archer and the brave, Steve. I’m absolutely certain you’ve been more. You will be more.”

Steve says his final goodbyes and stops to remember the fine details of Peggy’s face. The fifties are treating her well. Steve expected nothing less. Bright lights flash around him and he’s back to the world he wanted to leave, to hide from, and he sees you - and your mouth parts in shock.

“And you listened to her?” you ask.

Steve smiles, although it’s hard for him to remember that conversation. “I came back. I didn’t listen to her when she said to surround myself with people who love me, and who I love in return.”

“No, you made damn sure of that.”

“Hey,” Steve chuckles. “Don’t take smacks at me when you’re down.”

You can’t help but laugh. “Sorry, it’s just too easy sometimes.” Laughing about the two years of missed chances and spoiled friendship was not on your bingo card for this week.

“I don’t know how this is going to play out,” you admit. Steve looks so young with a somber expression: his eyebrow creases gently without wrinkling the rest of his forehead, the side of his mouth tilts downward, and his eyelashes kiss the pink of cheeks. “I decided in the moment. So I’m fuck all out of ideas on how to proceed.”

He nods in understanding. “Guess we just have to look over our shoulders three times instead of two now.”

“Simple like that?” You scrub a hand over your face and curse inwardly when you smudge your lipstick down to your chin. You ignore it. “I know we’re Avengers, but.”

“No buts,” Steve says and moves to sit up. You help him by pushing his shoulders and he accepts your help as you struggle to the bathroom. “You helped the guy and his daughter. I’m sure he’s going to be watching our backs from now on.”

You help Steve strip from his dress pants and shoes and finally remove your suit as well. The graze on your arm is covered in brown, dried blood but the wound isn’t deep. It’ll sting like a sunburn, you know that, but it’s better than being shot through. You watch Steve enter the shower and leave the curtain drawn. His bandage is soaked again but thankfully it’s from the water and not more blood. You grab a spare towel and soak it with water and soap, and rub it across your lips and chin.

“Let me do that,” Steve calls. You strip bare and bring the towel with you into the shower. Steve takes it and scrubs over your face, gently but more rough as he gets to your eyes. It’s an innocent moment of ‘ouch, scrub softer!’ and ‘surprised I didn’t take all your lashes off’. He helps clean your wound as well and once you’re both clean, he bandages you up and you him.

The master bedroom is the only room without electricity so you gather some candles. It’s like the two of you won’t admit you’re currently afraid of the dark or what may lie in it. They illuminate the room in a delicate orange and it’s such a peaceful color to briefly see before falling asleep, head tucked into Steve’s chest and his heartbeat thrumming gently with your breath.

It’s a wonder what a night’s sleep can do. Steve’s wounds are sealed and his fever is gone, but there’s a signature left behind. A pink and white patch of skin as tender as a newborn’s, a memory. Steve pours your coffee and his tea while you trace your fingers over it.

Two hours after eating a small breakfast and securing the perimeter, a soft ding startles you from the random book you’re reading. Steve’s phone shines with a message from Sam. It simply reads: ‘Clear’. Grabbing the phone and walking out onto the porch, you find Steve sitting on one of the steps he tripped over just yesterday. He’s sketching the sky and the trees, taking his time on the lines of the branches, the strokes of the leaves, and the frost over them. He looks up, studies his surroundings, and looks back down to add a detail he previously missed. He sniffs, rubs his nose, and finally notices you leaning against the doorframe.

“Hey,” he says, soft. “Any news?”

You hold up his phone and nod. “Sam says we’re clear to fly in.”

Steve looks back to his drawing. You hesitate before speaking, knowing damn well an all clear means get your ass back as soon as possible. “Finish your drawing. I’ll pack whatever we need to.” Steve’s mouth parts but he shuts it just as quickly. Slowly, he nods.

There isn’t much to pack since you brought nothing but the clothes on your backs. Everything at the hotel was collected before the wedding and should have flown back with Scott and the others. It feels awkward stealing bottled water and processed foods to hoard on the quinjet, but it’s a necessity. Steve meets you at the quinjet doors, shows you his drawing, and volunteers to take the wheel.

“You’re not volunteering. You’re ordering.”

Steve rolls his eyes, “No license, no drive.”

“What are you? A cop?”

“Don’t think for one second I won’t actually hand the wheels over and happily crash while screaming ‘I told you so’.”

Steve steers for the duration of your flight. The next few hours are spent just enjoying each other’s company, speaking of all things and simply catching up. It’s amazing how much you two missed from one another’s lives those two years.

The landing base is clear and it’s Sam who’s waiting for you as the Quinjet manually lands itself. He shoots you a gap-toothed smile and extends his arms, pulling the two of you in at the same time for a strong hug. He’s talking a mile a minute about how successful the mission was, how Fury is over the moon that it’s finally over, how the DEA is thinking of congratulating everyone one by one. It’s enough to distract Steve, who’s just happy to see his best friend again, but it isn’t enough for you. The large metal doors sealing the storage facility from the rest of the compound are thrown open. Bucky stumbles through and practically sprints over to the three of you.

“Get back on the jet,” he orders, already pulling you by the arm. You all look at one another like he’s gone mad but that’s impossible. Bucky’s paranoia isn’t something to take lightly; he’s right nine out of ten times.

“Buck, what-?”

“Rhodes couldn’t hold them. They have warrants, Steve.”

Steve hauls Sam onto the jet as well. “Warrants for who?”

“Get down from the jet without a fight and this will all go smoothly.”

There are about twenty uniformed officers surrounding the jet. They spread out in case anyone decides to run but it seems pointless to even try. Secretary Ross points his gun directly at you, proud and tall and looking just the same as you remember him. Last time you saw him was at Tony’s funeral.

“What do you think you’re doing?” you bite, and raise your hands in cooperation. Ross shakes his head and his expression contorts into one of disgust. There are red beams coming from each gun but your friends are clean - the beams are only pointed at you.

“Agent Y/N Y/LN, you’re under arrest for multiple charges of drug smuggling, trafficking of illegal goods, the murder of Ernesto Vega and Daniel Seda, aiding and abetting drug-lord Omar Ramirez, and for conspiracy against the United States of America. You have the right to remain silent. Anything you say can and will be used against you in a federal court of law...”

You drone out half way through. Ross finishes up the speech but no one is listening. Sam is already yelling over your Miranda Rights and Bucky’s frozen in place. Steve’s fighting his way through to Ross, pushing through the muscle until he’s face to face with him. But Ross isn’t fazed. There’s nothing left to do but exit the jet.

Immediately there are handcuffs slapped to your wrists. Two men drag you over to the containment car that’s enforced with so much indestructible material it’s almost insulting. You weren’t enhanced - they were doing this for fun.

“You’ve got it all wrong! Y/N! Y/N!”

You don’t fight. Conspiracy… you’re surprised they didn’t just shoot you dead. Steve’s still yelling, begging to be heard, but you try to block him out. It’s not your first time being arrested but it is your first time being charged with something you didn’t do. As funny as that sounds, it’s terrifying.

“Steve,” you say, and Steve breaks through some more hired muscle so he’s within earshot. “It’s okay.”

His face pulls up in pain, “No, you didn’t do this! They’re not listening!”

One of the officers pushes your head down roughly and tries to shove you in the backseat. You’re still looking at Steve. And those eyes, wounded and vulnerable, haunt him even after the door shuts and the car drives away.

There’s a privilege attached to the mantle of Captain America. Perhaps he was too blind to see it during the war or just too proud he was finally being heard and respected, but now he sees it for what it really is. It’s a mantle this country has never truly associated with the person but with the purpose. Steve was manufactured to help protect this country under government orders and when he defied that purpose, he disgraced the mantle. Seems like some people idolize the role a little too much.

But he’s still Captain America. This reality has continued to clear his name from stunts he pulls and laws he breaks. And once Steve is able to walk away without so much as a scratch, he leaves bodies behind.

Sharon. Sam. Bucky. Wanda. And now you. All people who fought his fight and weren’t granted the quick privilege of that perceived pureness and holiness. He was always ready for combat, he was built for it, but he didn’t really want it.

Did he?

Ripping that star off his chest was one thing. Accepting his new shield cemented his continual legacy as the Star-Spangled Man. He deserved to be in that cell with you. But if he learned anything about how the world works, it’s that cruelty doesn’t just win in the movies. All of his enemies started out friends and if he had to bet, he’d bet the reason they’re labeled as such is partially because of him.

So he sits and listens to everyone’s ideas and plans, vetoing and dismissing one right after the other, his mind doing jumping jacks. He’s both there and not, drowning in the fact that he made it home and you didn’t. He doesn’t know how to sleep without the sound of your snoring anymore.

He sits and listens.

The cell isn’t one you would expect for someone who has been charged for betraying her country. It’s modestly furnished: a black cot in the far right corner with a mini table beside it, a desk with some paper, and a door that leads to the private bathroom. All in all, the room’s size is that of a child’s bedroom; there’s no actual pens and pencils for risk of violent behavior and there’s a bulb camera that moves when you move.

You’ve been trapped in worse.

Countless detectives and investigators have visited already. They all ask the same questions: Why did you do it? Did Captain Rogers know? Who are you, really?

You give the same answers: I didn’t do it. Of course, every single person knows. Who do you think I am?

Every time they leave more discouraged than the one before them, refusing to compare notes with one another in case they were in possession of gold. They all ignore you when you try to ask for Steve and his wellbeing. Their faces contort, they whisper to their partners, and they shake their heads in disappointment. One even goes as far as to threaten you, warning you to keep Captain Roger’s name out of your wetback mouth or else, until he’s escorted from the cell. Not that it really matters - the manipulated ideals of these people will always blur their search for the truth. And when the truth fails to satisfy such greedy manipulations, they choose to create their own.

There is one agent who peaks your interest. He offers you gum when he settles in the chair near the door. His name badge reads ‘Kavert’; it glares in the bright lights overhead and he makes no other attempt at small talk once he gets comfortable and opens his little notepad.

That goddamn notepad, you think. Every single person before has prided themselves over it, scribbling little notes about your tone of voice, body movement, and vague answers. You never give much, Natasha had taught you better, so they always end up writing less than two bullet points before giving up.

But Agent Kavert surprises you by opening up to a blank page, spitting his chewed gum in the middle, and then he shuts it closed. He offers you a real smile, one that doesn’t look practiced or forced. It lets you study him without being so guarded or uncomfortable. He seems young, not really a rookie but it’s obvious he’s spent more time behind a desk than out in the field. His dark hair is short, sprinkled grays near his temples, and his attire screams upper level. His build is lean, his gun is in the holster on his right hip, and a part of you knows he’d put up a hell of a fight if you tried to escape.

“I was gonna comment on what lovely weather we’re having, but I don’t think you get out much.”

You’re startled into a real laugh. Satisfaction washes over his face.

“I think you’re wasting your time, Agent Kavert.”

He grins and moves to proudly pull at his jacket and present his badge. He sets the notebook to the side and leans forward to cup his hands together on his knees.

You squint at him. There’s nothing interesting about you right now: back against the wall as you sit criss-crossed on the cot, sweatpants and an oversized t-shirt, hair brushed but a little greasy. Your last shower was two days ago and you figure they’ll let you have one tonight.

“Yeah, you’re right. There’s no point in hoping you’ll tell me anything you haven’t shared yet.”

“Nope.”

He hums low in his throat and tilts his head to the left. Now, he squints at you. “I just don’t get it. How did you do it? Not show up on our radar, I mean?”

It doesn’t seem like he’s calling you guilty or innocent. Already he’s one-hundred percent different from the other agents. “I wasn’t exactly hiding.”

He sits up to lean back in the chair, “Different last name, government and Avenger protection, covering your tracks so carefully even the DEA missed you.”

“You’ve done your homework.”

“Yes, but,” he starts. He acts like he’s having a normal conversation on his front porch. “It still doesn’t make sense. How could Nick Fury miss this? Tony Stark? After the whole Obadiah situation, I expected him to-”

“It’s simple, really. Do you want to know or do you want to keep making assumptions?”

He’s watched the other agents leave by this point. Some couldn’t even make you talk. So he shuts up and waves his hand for you to continue.

“Cool,” you breathe out. “First of all, I’m literally only telling you this because I’ve already been refused a lawyer or some crap like that and I highly doubt this is going to actual court. The publicity would be horrible.”

He bites his lip but you catch the little smile forming. You continue, “And I have nothing to hide. I’m sure my Captain, my teammates, and Fury himself have given their sides. Am I right?”

Agent Kavert adjusts himself in the seat and nods in response. He doesn’t dare interrupt you now.

“Good, then I’ll keep it sweet. They knew who I was. I was recruited to be an inside source, a double agent, and this wedding was the perfect chance to corner those men,” you declare, turning your hands palm up and shrugging your shoulders. “There, happy?”

“Double agent.” Agent Kavert chews over the words, rolling them around on his tongue a few more times. He’s squinting harder and you can see his brain working. The next sound to leave his lips is a heavy sigh and a feeling of immense irritation washes over you. It wasn’t enough. “Are we going to be truthful yet, Agent?”

Chuckling lightly, you rest the back of your skull on the wall. It was wrong to assume he’d be any different from the others. “Of course you don’t believe me. You want more, they all do. I don’t suppose I have anything better to do.”

He claps his hands on his thighs and leans forward again, loud and restless. “Then let’s get started, really: Did you or did you not let Omar Ramirez, Mexican drug-lord involved with Ernesto Vega, your father... imagine that, run away from a crime scene, evade arrest, and possibly leave the country?”

“You expect me to follow all those questions?”

“It’s not the time to be funny.”

“You were enjoying it just a second ago,” you mumble. He raises his eyebrows, still waiting for an answer. “Then let me put it simply: no, I did not.”

“Did you or did you not assassinate Ernesto Vega?”

“I would have remembered such a brilliant kill if it came from my gun.”

“So that’s a no… Daniel Seda?”

“His gun was pointed at my Captain. Yes.”

“Against orders, then?”

Confusion is written all over your face and you make sure the camera knows it too. There are only so many times you can repeat yourself. “Don’t you have Steve’s report? Scott’s?”

“We have to hear the story from you, Agent.”

“But that’s just the thing, isn’t it? You don’t believe me.”

He shrugs and quickly scans you up and down. Even if he doesn’t have the tangible notepad in his hands, he’s getting away with making mental notes. “The story just isn’t piecing together the way it should be. Why would Daniel Seda murder his greatest ally and friend?”

“Our mics have already transcribed that answer for you, sir. I’m sure of it. And I’ve got sources outside of the DEA and Avengers-”

“Like Maribel Rodrigo? Another smuggler who has operated inside the cartel, HYDRA, Madripoor…”

You cut him off, angry. “Not the full story.”

Tone of voice: defensive.

“Then that leads me to my next question.”

“Oh, fun.”

Tone of voice: sarcastic.

He speaks with a tinge of astonishment hidden in every syllable. “Why didn’t you do it? Kill Ernesto, I mean.”

“I was disarmed at the time. The Captain and I both were,” you answer, growing more impatient by the second.

He uses his hands to speak now, finger pointing along an invisible timeline detailing the order of events. “So you admit you were going to kill him if you had your weapon.”

“Don’t put words in my mouth.”

Body movement: rigid.

“Or maybe you weren’t. Maybe my boss is right, maybe the FBI is right in thinking that you are a double agent leaning more towards your roots than our boys in blue.” He says this like its scripture; like it’s some holy conspiracy he’s just found evidence for. He wants you to plant words in your mouth and in this discussion so he can pluck the evidence from the ground and water it with fire.

You scoff hard, “I hardly ever wear blue when doing your job for you.”

“Was letting Omar Ramirez escape our job or just yours?”

Telling him the truth would mean losing all credibility, all titles, all trust in your work. You know what you’ve done and you don’t regret it. Ramirez was never the biggest fish and if you spun this right, then he was simply a fish who got his meal and promptly swam away. “You assume I let him go. What evidence tells you that?”

He ignores the question and instead asks another of his. “Why were your relations kept hidden from SHIELD and the FBI?”

“That’s a question for you know who.”

He shakes his head in disappointment. “You’re in a lot of trouble.”

“I bet I am. But this is not some precinct where you can get my team to turn on me so easily. And this is not a situation in which they’re lying for me. I trust that whatever the Captain has said is the answer to all your questions.”

“We’re gonna unravel this case. We’ll get to the bottom of it.”

You’re suddenly overcome with a wave of sleepiness. These past two weeks have been exhausting even if you haven’t moved more than five feet from wall to wall. Having to repeat yourself to people who have already written the story for themselves is tiring. “I don’t know why you guys can’t just believe the words of myself and everyone vouching for me. We got you all the evidence. We have given you more names and connections that you’ll ever know what to do with. You don’t need to unravel anything; it’s all there! But because we weren’t able to arrest the one person you wanted, that being Ernesto, you go after me. You have White but I guess he’s not talking. And you��ll believe what you want to believe.”

“I trust my gut.”

“As simple as that, huh?” You sigh deeply and cross your arms over your chest. “You know, there’s a saying the late Agent Carter used to tell all SHIELD agents when they first started out and when they came back from missions. When she retired, it was Fury who then eased our minds.”

Agent Kavert has a harsh line creasing through the middle of his forehead and he looks deeply interested.

“There are three sides to every story,” you recite. “Your side, my side, and the truth.” A gentle shrug of the shoulders feels like all you’re allowed to give him. “I’m not lying to you but I’m not telling you the full truth either. Just my side.”

Agent Kavert shuts his eyes and bounces his left leg. He looks conflicted and unable to formulate a response at all. He’s shaking like he’s at war with himself or with the suits on the other side of the door, but no one has come knocking yet. “Let’s say I believe you. Just for a second.”

You nod.

“Daniel Seda murders Vega at his own daughter’s wedding. We managed to catch Marcus White and because of fault entirely, Omar Ramirez gets away. Because from what I heard, Ramirez was working with you.” He paints the picture rather mundane, but you shoot him a smile that tells him he’s on the right track. “And you and all the other Avengers were blindsided by Ramirez. You gathered all the evidence you were told to gather, worked together and played your cards right, infiltrated one of the most secure estates in the country, and fucked up so badly that you managed to let two of your biggest giants die?”

“I really think you got it spot on.”

He laughs dryly, “But it still doesn’t make sense. Once Vega was gone and Seda survived, where would you have fallen in this tree?”

He wants to retract his question the moment he sees your face fall with such a sincerity he wasn’t ready for. “That’s just it, Agent Kavert. I would have fallen.”

“And the other two? How would business work? Would Daniel Seda have been the head of it now?”

“Your answers are in the evidence we gathered. I know you guys aren’t touching it because you think I’m compromised.”

He stands from the chair and dusts off his jacket. “Your side, my side, and the truth,” he repeats. He goes to open the door but you speak quickly before he can leave.

“They think I infiltrated SHIELD, the Avengers, and am in bed with HYDRA because they’ve been helping Ernesto’s vision all along.” Agent Kavert stops and turns back to you. “I am a double agent whose identity was kept secret to aid this country and not raise suspicions from your part. I have seen a lot of things, have done things I’m not proud of, but I’ve done it all for a reason.”

Agent Kavert looks almost ashamed. Tone of voice: sincere.

“Me and my Captain saved lives, our own as well, and we stopped three of the most notorious drug-lords who have been at large since the eighties. We got your giants for you. And the truth is, I have discovered: through all my pain and experience... that it’s excellent to have a giant’s strength; but it is tyrannous to use it like a giant.”

Agent Kavert doesn’t know if you’re talking about Ernesto, the U.S Government, yourself, or him. His eyebrows pinch together and he slowly moves to leave the room.

It’s another week before you’re visited by someone who isn’t bringing you food or extra toilet paper. You’re picking at your cuticles when the vents above your cell begin rattling with the obvious weight of a human being. You sit dumbly on the bed, straining your ears and trying hard not to laugh as each rattle is returned with a muffled curse. The vent on the ceiling right outside your cell drops to the concrete floor.

Ernesto’s men wouldn’t go through all that trouble to kill you James Bond style. They would have just bribed a guard. So it’s a treat when the door swings open quickly and in comes a staggering Clint, keys in one hand and his phone in the other. The screen is illuminated, showcasing what looks to be blueprints. He’s got a bandaid over his left eyebrow and dust all over his clothes.

Your upper lip twitches into a silly smile. “You’re ridiculous if you thought you wouldn’t be heard in those damn vents.”

Clint makes a noise that sounds like he’s saying ‘maaaf’ and he plops down beside you on the cot. It’s absolutely hilarious he traveled in the vents and that the team approved this when in reality, they could have just sent Scott. “Just had to get past the first line of security. Plus, the blueprints said they were wider... I figure we’ve got a good three minutes before they check the cameras.”

It’s not the first time you sit in a cell with a time crunch.

The Raft is nothing special. They have you all separated by rank, meaning you were in the same vicinity as Clint, Sam, and Scott. Wanda was moved to a more secure location and you haven’t seen her since they brought you in.

There isn’t much to do in a place like this. You tried counting how many strands of hair you had but gave up once you counted two hundred; you tried seeing if the others could hear you when you yelled out to them but the cells were soundproof; you even tried filing your nails against the uneven paint on the wall. It’s like they made life in these cells purposefully horrible - like you didn’t save the world a couple times over, c’mon.

The camera fidgets over your head where you’re laying down and after a few seconds, it stops. The red light slowly fades and turns a bright yellow. You move to stand on the bed and reach for it, but a voice startles you from doing so.

“Don’t mess with my magic!”

You topple over the single pillow you were given and fall flat on the bed, scrambling to shield yourself from whoever intruded. “Jesus!”

“Oh, I met him. Strange lad, didn’t deserve what happened to him.”

There’s a moment where you think you must be dreaming. His hair is longer and hits his shoulders and he’s added some blue and yellow to his usual attire. But other than that, he’s alive. Truly, brilliantly, really alive.

“Loki, what the fuck?”

“Right!” Loki claps his hands and extends them outwards, smiling. “Ta-da!”

A few beats pass. You blink a few times just in case you’re hallucinating. Barely a week in containment…

“I’m sorry… I’m still trying to process the fact that you’re still alive!”

He scoffs low and goes to sit at the edge of the bed. “A God never truly dies, darling.”

“Well in Greek mythology-”

“Greek mythology and I have this unsettled beef that’s been going on for about five hundred years. Do not mention Greek mythology to me.”

“Excuse me, right, I should have known that was a sensitive topic.”

Loki swipes his tongue over his bottom lip and expels a laugh. “You’re lucky you’re cute.”

Your restraint is gone and you lunge forward to envelope him in the tightest hug you’ve ever given anyone. He returns it, sighing into your shoulder and holding you close. You pull away just to stare at him, watching his features as they move ever so slightly. It’s really him.

“I-” Loki tries but stutters. He’s studying you too and he almost looks sad. “I’m sorry I didn’t tell you sooner.”

“Does Thor know?” Loki shakes his head at your question and winces when you smack his shoulder. “Loki, Thor has been grieving you for months!”

“I’m planning on it!” You don’t believe him. He goes to rub his shoulder. “Gods, I forgot you had excellent aim.”

You look back at the camera and find that the yellow light is still glowing, dim. Loki’s magic is blocking footage out or putting footage in, you really don’t know. But it’s allowing you a few moments with the man you thought you’d never see again. “Spontaneous reincarnation aside, what are you doing here? How did you even know I was here?”

“I’m on this planet for five-FIVE minutes, and the television has all these reports about you and everyone fighting each other?”

“Mm, right, right.”

Loki stares at you, amused. “... Care to explain?”

Your face contorts into a hundred different expressions until you finally settle on one of gentle guilt. “The person we were after was a friend of a friend. I made a judgement call and let him go.”

“You went against orders?”

“I went against the law.”

“Even better.”

With an eyebrow cocked, you give him a judging look. “Loki.”

His eyes crinkle from the intensity of his smile and you’ve missed him, you missed him so much. “That’s what I love about you. Barely starting out as an Avenger and you’re already realizing you can do more good in your own way.”

You groan quietly and rest your head on his shoulder. He wraps his arm around your waist and tugs you closer. “I mainly did it for Steve. Wasn’t like it was a big ‘fuck you’ to one-hundred and seventeen nations for the hell of it.”

“Do you regret it?”

“No.”

“Spoken like a true anti-hero.”

“You comparing me to yourself?”

Loki chuckles and runs his fingers through the strands of hair closest to your cheek. “Darling, I’m a God. No one comes close.” He sighs, serious again. “All I’m saying is that it’s refreshing to see the young break the rules.”

“I missed you,” you softly say. You can feel the nudge of his cheek turning upward against your head.

“Always nice to hear.”

Rolling your eyes, you move to meet his gaze. “So, no reason why you came to visit me specifically?”

Loki takes one cautious look at the camera, to outside your cell, and back to you. “I too do things for your lovely Captain.” His smile grows wider.

“What?”

He winks and tilts his head over to the giant metal doors that are starting to pry open. “See you in a minute.”

The alarms begin blazing; there is fog filling the room, and Steve emerges from that fog with a winning smirk.

You look over at Clint, half selfishly wishing he was Loki on another one of his midnight visits, and quickly do away with the thought. “So how’s life without me?”

“Oh, it’s great! The flowers are in bloom, the kitchen isn’t always a mess, and my bow and arrow aren’t misplaced because you wanted to have some fun with it,” he jokes, stretching far enough that his feet dig into your thigh like he’s trying to make more room for himself.

“Not like it’s your only bow and arrow.”

He chuckles and sits up. He does a once over of the room and adjusts the frequency on his hearing aid. “They read you your rights at least?”

You wait to respond until he finishes fixing it. You speak and sign the words slowly, “I don’t think any lawyer in America will want to take this case anyway.”

“Yeah, you’re right. It’s a career killer.”

Trying to refrain from smiling around Clint was nearly impossible. You look to the door quickly, “Two minutes?”

He shoots up straighter as he watches your hands, “Right! So we’re currently tracking down your sister-”

“My sister?”

“Steve thinks she’s our only hope at clearing your name.”

“Why is that? I told her to get as far away as possible.”

Clint sighs and scratches the skin just above the bandaid. “She stayed in Mexico all those years you were gone. By all accounts, Ernesto adored her. Because of that, her influence might clear your name.”

“But she stayed. All the more reason to believe she was involved as well,” you say, shaking your head.

“She’s barely out of her teens. Everything that happened, happened when she was a minor. She has a first hand account of the abuse Ernesto caused you. And Steve thinks that the Julian fellow might even come clean and admit to the arranged marriage. Shows a pattern of abuse by Ernesto to his own children. Could spin it to make it seem like you had no other choice but to follow his orders.”

You follow his hands slowly, some signs difficult to read but you latch onto the gist of his argument. You groan and lean your head back on the wall with a small thump. “They go against Ernesto and they have targets on their backs. Even my other siblings who are still involved with all of this won’t let it go.”

“Y/N… Ernesto’s dead. You know that.”

“His influence isn’t.”

There’s minimal commotion a few doors down. Clint realizes it’s time to leave. “It might never be. But we don’t get to live in the future.” He stands with another small groan and stretches as he prepares to lift himself back into the vent. “We’re living now, and it’s all any of us can do.”

“Clint?” You also stand and have to wave in his peripheral to get his attention. He turns and knows what you’re about to say even without the hand gestures. “They won’t answer me when I ask.”

His lips pull into a perceptive smile, “He’s okay. Doing what he does best - blaming himself.”

“Oh, okay, good.”

He’s had enough practice reading your lips to notice the sarcasm that drips from them. He hurries to lift himself up. “We’ve got about a million tricks up our sleeve. If Jackeline’s word or the evidence isn’t enough, we’ve always got Fury and his blackmail.”

“Yeah, half the guys who interviewed me look like they cheat on their wives, so.”

He genuinely laughs and jumps high, muttering more to himself than to you. “Up we go…”

The team locates Jackeline just a few days after your run-in with Clint. The building saw a triple rise in security but even then it didn’t prevent undercover agents passing all the checkpoints and sliding notes with your meals. They’d leave the tray, tip their hats, and smile like they knew the cameras wouldn’t suspect a thing.

The first note is from Bucky, with the simple message of ‘I watched a few episodes of The Crown without you… I’m sorry.’

The second comes on the same day at dinner time, this one from Wanda. ‘I think Peter is trying to flirt with your sister.’

The third isn’t slipped through with any meal, but rather through the tiny opening beneath the door. ‘Surprised we did this the legal way this time! See you soon! - Rhodey’

The final one is actually hand delivered when several guards come in to tell you you’re free to go. They’re mumbling amongst themselves, cursing the system and the privileges Avengers always get, when the smallest of the five turns to you and hands you the note. ‘I owe you one. You owe me one. Who’s counting anymore? - Joaquin’

Jackeline had been able to track down Maribel and the two of them, with such accuracy in their stories and their timelines, constructed your defense perfectly. They showed them phone records, all of the recordings from that week, had proof that you never signed a thing, and made several special deals. Jackeline promised to reveal where bodies were buried, where business was dealt with, who else was involved with Ernesto and Seda. Maribel managed to get a message to them from Ramirez, which basically cleared you from the crime they were trying to stick. Ramirez was a damn good liar, you’ll give him that, and it made you the tiniest bit sad that you’d probably never see him again.

The tipping point was when Steve turned himself in. There was no evidence that you did anything, never signed anything, never conspired behind your teammates backs. Fury made sure not to keep a paper or electronic trail. But there was evidence that implicated Steve - the contract. No matter how badly the FBI and CIA tried to make it go away, to absolve Steve from it, he didn’t back down. It was like the story they originally wanted toppled in on itself and it was actually Steve who forced you into all of this - playing your connections and forcing your hand. The contract hadn’t been voided, still hasn’t, and they really couldn’t risk another SHIELD fiasco. So it was destroyed to protect the Stars and Stripes, and in return they promised to let you go if you didn’t tell a soul. The image you’d come to despise, that tacky red, white and blue, is starting to grow on you.

‘Let me think about that and get back to you,’ you had joked. You think they let you go sooner because they feared the truth in your joke.

But there wasn’t anything to think about, ever, still isn’t. Steve pulled another sacrifice play and you wanted to get out as soon as possible to kick his ass.

You leave the prison with the same clothes you had on when you entered. They smell washed and you’re thankful they allowed you to shower before you left. You ignore the looks guards and prisoners aim at you, each trying to somehow get their hits in without actually pulling their punches. This would be a media disaster either way, didn’t matter the outcome of a supposed trial, and PR was most likely struggling to prepare their defense.

You resist the embarrassing urge to run into his arms. He’s standing right outside the gates, leaning back on the passenger side of his rusty old blue pickup, positively glowing underneath the blazing sun. You’re blinded by it, skin thanking the dangerous rays for its first touch in weeks, but it only takes a moment for your eyes to adjust. He still hasn’t shaved and his hair is getting longer, and instead of his usual tucked-in dress shirt, he’s wearing a brown leather jacket over a faded graphic tee that reads AC/DC. It was Tony’s.

You’ve only got the broken burner phone and a hair tie in your possession; it’s what was on you when you were arrested. You drop the burner in a nearby trashcan and head on over to the truck. Steve’s wide smile buckles your knees and it damn near breaks your heart. Even when the two of you weren’t on speaking terms, you still saw each other at least twice a week. Going two weeks without seeing him feels like a lifetime.

Once you're a few feet away, you stop in front of him. There are no immediate words you know to say, so you simply shrug your shoulders and give him a look that asks ‘What now?’

“Home.”

TAGLIST: @dumb-ass-writer @justab-eautifulmess @supraveng @mycosmicparadise @missnighttigress

#captainsimagines #captain america x reader #steve rogers x reader #reader x steve rogers #avengers fanfiction #avengers x reader #steve rogers fanfic #steve rogers fanfiction #marvel masterlist #marvel fanfiction #mob fanfic #reader insert #trigger warnings listed #you x steve rogers

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blu-joons · 3 years

Text

DATING DAY6 HEADCANON A⇴Z ⇴ Yoon Dowoon

A ⇴ AFFECTION

Dowoon can be quite needy when he wants to be, which means he craves a lot of affection from you. Affection will usually make him turn quite shy, so he’ll often nuzzle into the crook of your neck whilst he’s holding you.

B ⇴ BEFORE DATING

It will take a lot for Dowoon to approach you, especially when he knows that he likes you. He’ll turn to the elder members for a bit of advice on how to play it cool and approach you without making a fool of himself. He’ll be nervous, but with their encouraging words, he’ll find it in him to go over and introduce himself.

C ⇴ CONFESSION

Just like saying hello, confessing will make him incredibly nervous. He’ll turn to the boys yet again to try and help him plan the perfect way to ask you out. A lot of planning will go into it, Dowoon is a perfectionist when it comes to impressing you, he wants to make sure that he sweeps you off your feet. With that, he’ll take you out to a fancy dinner and make sure to make a whole evening of things before confessing to you.

D ⇴ DATES

He tries hard to be the perfect guy for you, you’ll often tell him that you’re happy with a pizza and a movie at the dorm, but that simply won’t be enough for Dowoon. He’ll feel like he has to take you some place nice or do something to impress you otherwise he isn’t doing his job as a boyfriend properly. You love how much effort he puts into your dates and how sweet he is making sure that the two of you are able to do enjoy yourselves. At some point you always imagine this trait will stop in him, but somehow, it never does.

E ⇴ EXPERIENCE

You were the first girlfriend that Dowoon had had, in fact, you were his first for everything. You were his first kiss, first love, and he definitely hoped that you’d be his last too. Being a first for him, he wanted to make sure that each of these milestones that the two of you reached together were special. You would know when something was coming as Dowoon would put a little extra effort, if that was even possible, into your time together. He wanted to make your firsts as a couple memorable, things that you’d look back on when you were old.

F ⇴ FIGHTING

If you were to ever pick a fight with Dowoon, you’d definitely make a mistake. He would refuse to ever argue with you, even if you were desperate for one. He was far too focussed on making you happy to ever snap back if you made a comment or groaned at him. If you had a complaint, he’d take it on the chin and listen, and figure out what he needed to improve rather than try and protest against you. You loved and hated the considerate side of Dowoon, sometimes you were itching for him to give you a bit of a fight back, but he never did, he was far too respectful to even try and disagree with your opinion.

G ⇴ GETTING TO KNOW HIS FAMILY

His family trusted Dowoon that he was ready for a relationship, they knew his career was important to him, but if he felt that he could balance a relationship too, then they’d definitely support him. They knew how happy you made Dowoon, and that was all that mattered to them, anything else was just a bonus.

H ⇴ HOME

You knew how happy he was at the dorm, so each time Dowoon mentioned finding your own place, you always said no. For now, his focus was on the music, you knew you had plenty of years to live with each other, but it was more important for him to be around the boys for now and be accessible for work than away and with you.

I ⇴ “I LOVE YOU”

Dowoon was of course, the first to say, ‘I love you.’ He said it quite early on in your relationship, to be honest, he was a little nervous that he’d ended up saying it too quickly. But as you always reminded him, he had to follow his heart, and if that was how his heart was feeling, you were more than happy to hear him say it again and again.

J ⇴ JEALOUSY

At times he couldn’t help but be a little jealous if you were with someone else. Even if you were at the dorm and talking to one of the other boys, he couldn’t help but feel a slight twang of jealousy that you were talking to them and not him. Whilst he trusted that nothing would ever happen, you’d all be able to tell how he was feeling as he’d casually slide into conversation, pretending that he’d been there all along. You’d constantly be on hand to reassure him, but secretly you loved how protective he often got.

K ⇴ KIDS

There were definitely no immediate plans for Dowoon to settle down and start having children, but he wasn’t afraid to admit that it was definitely something he wanted in his long-term future. He hoped that it would happen with you, but he was real, and he knew that in a few years a lot of things might have changed. He tried not to get his hopes up too much, but most of the time he couldn’t help but run away with his dreams.

L ⇴ LAUGHTER

He loved to make you laugh more than anything else in the world, you embraced his quirks and randomness more than anyone else in the world, so he always made sure to act a little bit crazier around you. Just like Dowoon had his quirks, you definitely had yours too, and Dowoon would always laugh and encourage you with all of them too. The two of you made the perfect pair as you both shared such a similar sense of humour making it impossible for the two of you not to always laugh around each other.

M ⇴ MISSING

Dowoon would definitely pretend to be fine whenever he was on the road, the boys, and you, would constantly push him to be honest, but he’d still always lie and force a smile. He didn’t want to be the young one that everyone needed to protect, he wanted to be strong and the one to protect you and care for you whenever he missed you. However, when he was alone, he’d often take a few moments to himself just to catch his composure. There were a few times when one of the other members had walked past his hotel door and heard him snuffling, but they knew Dowoon was too proud to ever really admit to them how, he was feeling, reminding everyone again and again that he was doing just fine.

N ⇴ NICKNAMES

You tended to call him ‘dimples’ because you loved how his cheeks would turn up whenever he smiled. You’d often poke against his dimples which would only make them more prominent as his smile grew bigger.

O ⇴ OBSESSION

He was most obsessed with your smile, he loved knowing that he was making you happy and doing all the right things that as a boyfriend he should do.

P ⇴ PDA

From time to time, Dowoon wasn’t afraid to be affectionate with you in public, a lot of it depended on where the two of you were. Around the boys and staff, he didn’t mind too much, but if the two of you found yourself in big crowds or around the fans then he’d be a little more cautious about how he handled himself around you.

Q ⇴ QUESTIONS

He loved to spend as much time with you as possible, so he’d often get in contact with you to see what you were doing. If you were at work, then he’d often stop by, or at the end of the shift he’d be there waiting to take you home.

R ⇴ RANDOM FACTS

For your first anniversary together, you bought Dowoon a pair of drumsticks, and to this day, they were a pair that he never used. It never quite made sense to you why he didn’t use them, but Dowoon wanted to keep hold of them forever and he knew using them on the drums would only ruin them. He used all the other pairs that you bought for him, but that one pair always stayed in their box and were never played with.

S ⇴ SEX

Dowoon loved to try and be the dominant one, but he would always end up getting too shy and taking himself out of the situation. You were a lot more happier being the dominant one in the relationship, you loved to see the effect that you had on him and you definitely loved to tease him about it when the two of you were intimate. He’d lose himself often under your touch, he couldn’t help but be guided by you.

T ⇴ TEXTS

It’s a very rare occasion for Dowoon to text you, he much prefers to ring you and hear your voice. If he calls you, he can gauge a lot better at how you’re doing as well rather than just guessing from a text.

U ⇴ UNIVERSE

At times it felt like Dowoon had found his twin in you, the two of you were almost identical to each other in your personalities and interests. It felt like a dream that he’d managed to find someone as perfect as you in his life.

V ⇴ VACATION

Dowoon loved to spoil you when it came to your vacations together. He’d go all out to find the best places for the two of you to visit and make sure that you had the time of your life. He wanted to make sure you felt special and appreciated whenever the two of you went away, as he finally managed to escape from work.

W ⇴ WHINING

He’d whine quite a lot if he didn’t have you with him, the boys would often get fed up with listening to him go on about how much he was missing you.

X ⇴ XXXXX

He knew that his lips were one of your favourite features about him, so he definitely used that to his advantage. He loved to take you by surprise when he kissed you, doing it as frequently as possible. Dowoon would also always make sure that he kissed you every night before you went to sleep and did the same first thing in the morning when the two of you woke up to remind you that he was there with you.

Y ⇴ YOU

You were like his shadow, together you were the perfect match for each other.

Z ⇴ ZZZ

His arms would always be around you when the two of you fell asleep, Dowoon would want to make sure that you felt as comfortable when you slept and would often try and stay awake for as long as possible to make sure you were asleep before he did.

---

Masterlist

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kiarcheo · 3 years

Text

Omne Trium Perfectum

The Clarrward fic I promised @pikapals16.

Arranged Marriage AU, set in an imaginary past and world where women can rule and homophobia is not a thing but arranged marriages are.

Can read it on ao3

—————————————

‘Cheer up, lass, you will want for nothing.’

It takes all the etiquette training she had ever gone through to stop her from rolling her eyes at her chaperon’s words. She knows he means well, but he is just telling her what she already knows. What is pretty much the only thing she knows. Or that she has been promised, at least. That her future spouse is abundantly wealthy. Enough to make the arranged marriage seem like a pondered, planned and advantageous choice for her family rather than what actually is. She has no misconceptions. She is on her way to a foreign land to marry someone she has never heard of before because her family hopes that over there the echoes of her....missteps will have not been heard. If you can call trusting the wrong guy a misstep. She protected her virtue, she is not an idiot. Even when she expected to marry him, she still would not give in, no matter how much he pleaded and asked and cajoled. And she has never been happier considering how it ended. But apparently nobody cared for that. Nor that she had been unaware and completely foreign to his actions. She had been his intended for years, everyone knew that, and that simple fact was enough to ruin her and her reputation.

So her family, the very same people who had chosen him for her in the first place, are now acting as if it is her fault that Thomas revealed himself to be a sorry excuse for a human being, and as if she should be grateful that they managed to find her a spouse despite everything. All the while not so subtly implying that she better not mess up this opportunity too...because they have no intention of taking her back.

And that’s how Catherine Parr finds herself travelling across nations to marry the head of the House of La Marck.

Why someone who holds three duchies and two counties needed to look so far away to find someone to marry, a complete stranger who will bring no lands, no political power, and no exceptional dowry is beyond her comprehension.

Age, looks, health, they all count nothing compared to power and money. Not matter how ugly, stupid, old or sick...if someone is wealthy enough, or powerful enough, there will always be someone willing to marry them. So why could they not find a single willing woman in the vast lands under their control? Or even nearby?

Did they look for someone who would have no knowledge of what she was getting into? For someone who would be so far removed from their homeland and family that she would have no way to escape?

Nobody will ever accuse her of lacking imagination...and none of the answers Catherine comes up with are comforting.

But then she arrives at what is going to be her new home, at least according to her chaperon. The same man who seems to decide that it might be important to let her know that her spouse is going to be a woman before leaving her in the hands of a welcoming committee that does not include her future wife…and...everything is nice.

The palace is impressive but not intimidating, and she looks forward to the tour promised by Lady Joan, who had introduced herself as the one in charge of her personal attendants. She is informed that her name is Jane but to distinguish her from another Lady Jane, who is momentarily absent, and apparently higher in ranks, she is known as Joan.

From Lady Joan to Lady Elizabeth, who fills the same position but for her spouse, to every staff member she encounters, they all seem nice. They greet her cordially, spare her too long introductions in favour of leading her to her chambers. Leave her food so that she can rest and eat when she feels like it, rather than having to put up appearances.

And yet, there is something....off. They are all pleasant and kind, but they all look at her with something akin pity.

Which she doesn’t get.

At first she thinks it’s because she looks dreadful, exhausted from the long trip.

But it doesn’t change once she is fully rested and she makes herself presentable. No, not just presentable, but putting extra effort to impress, both the household and her betrothed.

Then she wonders if perhaps it’s because of the situation she finds herself in, but all the staff has nothing but good things to say about her fiancée. Just like they seem to enjoy working at the palace. And she thinks it is genuine.

Her interactions with her future wife are sporadic and impersonal, but always cordial. Just like the first time they had met, the duchess nothing like she had expected.

‘Lady Catherine,’ the woman had bowed her head shallowly, ‘I hope you found your accommodation to your satisfaction.’

‘I did, Your Grace,’ Catherine had curtsied, ‘thank you very much. Lady Joan has been most helpful, just like everyone else.’

‘I’m pleased,’ the duchess had nodded in appreciation towards the attendants, ‘let her know if you need anything. Or anyone else. We will do our best to make you feel at home.’

Then she had swept out of the room.

She had been utterly polite the next few times they had met. Even going as far as graciously telling her she could call her Anna if she wished so, forgoing formalities. Not that she had many chances so far. Catherine imagines she is very busy. The alternative is that Anna is going out of her way to avoid her.

Still, there is nothing alarming or worryingly. She isn’t sure if she should trust her gut feelings and her reading people skills, considering how they failed her for years, leaving her blind to who Thomas really was. So she wonders if she is wrong. Maybe they are not pitying her. Perhaps they just...know things she doesn’t. Easy since she just arrived, with barely a clue about the new life she was getting into.

She certainly feels her inexperience days later, when the palace seems to be buzzing and she has no idea why. Nor she has any idea who the young woman at the center of the activities is. Or why everyone seems to be waiting on her words. Even Lady Elizabeth seems to defer to her.

She has barely asked Lady Joan if she could make the introductions when she is spotted. Everyone seems to move aside, letting the lady approach her, an older woman at her side.

‘Lady Parr, it’s a pleasure to meet you,’ she curtsies, ‘this is Lady Jane Rochford,’ she motions to her companion, ‘and I’m Katherine Howard. I hope your stay has been pleasant so far.’

Catherine curtsies back, suddenly aware that everyone’s attention is on her. She keeps feeling eyes on her as they exchange pleasantries. It doesn’t feel malicious, like they are waiting for a misstep, but rather out of curiosity...and she is curious herself, as well as confused. Why the interest? Lady Howard had said similar things to those her fiancée did...albeit the interaction had been much warmer and longer, the young woman enquiring about her trip as well as how she is enjoying her new home and whether there is anything they could do to make the transition easier.

She soon starts to understand. Because Anna might be the head of the house, but it is Katherine who runs it. It sort of makes sense. Anna has political responsibilities as well as administrative ones for five different territories, it is not surprising that she doesn’t have the time or desire to be bogged down in running the household. And Catherine certainly doesn’t resent that she had chosen Katherine to do so, not when it clearly had been going since long before she appeared on the scene, and Katherine had been doing an excellent job at it.

As she liaises with her to organise the wedding, her future bride apparently completely disinterested in the matter, she can see why everyone looks up to Katherine, and she dares say, even loves her. Spending so much time together, especially compared to the amount of time she spends with Anna (who, however, seems to be around much more often, if the glimpses she catches are any indication), it comes to no surprise that she is closer to Katherine than to the woman she is going to marry.

Perhaps that’s why on a wedding day that sees none of the brides happy, what hurts Catherine the most is how utterly sad Katherine looks, despite her best efforts to hide it.

She only has to wait until the next day to find out the reason.

Whenever Catherine had thought about her wedding night, whether with Thomas, with a mystery spouse when she didn’t know about the identity of the new match arranged by her family, and then with Anna, she had a lot of mixed feelings. Anxiety. Anticipation. Dread. Curiosity. Nerves. What she had never expected was that she would spend it completely alone, no trace of her new spouse.

The staff doesn’t seem surprised to see her leaving her rooms by herself...nor by her asking where her wife is, making it even more obvious she had not spent the night. She is grateful they don’t comment on it...and that they don’t direct her towards Anna’s chambers because she has no idea where they are exactly, besides in which wing of the palace they are in. Luckily she is much more familiar with the library location.

‘You were not in your chambers last night.’

‘You should not have been looking for me. Not on your wedding night.’

At least someone else seemed to share Catherine’s expectations.

‘Bessie told me you were crying.’

‘Bessie should mind her own business.’

‘Kat,’

Catherine had never heard her wife so gentle.

‘What?!’

Nor Katherine being less than gracious.

‘I’m sorry.’

Katherine lets out a heavy sigh. ‘Don’t apologise. I’m sorry for snapping at you. It is not your fault.’

‘I wish it could have been you.’

‘We always knew it was impossible…’ from her tone Catherine can imagine a bittersweet smile on Katherine’s face, ‘doesn’t hurt any less.’

‘I love you.’

‘I love you too.’

Catherine silently walks away. She can talk to her wife another time. She needs to process what she learned, anyway. She never had grand expectations of love from this marriage. Not with her family not even telling her whom she was going to marry, just sending her on her merry way to a foreign land to wed a complete stranger. Not after meeting Anna and being treated with polite, cool detachment.

Still, she surprises herself a bit when all she feels for Katherine is a new appreciation. She had been unfailingly courteous towards her. She went out of her way to make her feel at home, certainly more than her wife ever did. Not once she had betrayed her hurt or any kind of negative feelings towards Catherine for marrying the woman she loves.

Many things appear under a new light, giving Catherine a different understanding, from the way Katherine is in charge and treated as nothing less than the mistress of the house to why Anna keeps her distance, formal and aloof, seemingly completely disinterested in her.

Which is a far sight from the bad mood she seems to be few days later. When she cautiously enquiries where Katherine is, all she gets is a curt reply that she is away on business...it doesn’t feel her place to ask what kind of business or where, but it is evident to her the absence is the cause of Anna’s discontent.

Catherine resolves to steer clear from her wife, which is usually quite an easy feat. That’s why she starts to retrace her steps as she hears Anna’s terse ‘I’m sure that Lady Anne was only too willing.’

She is out of earshot when she stops. This is her house too now. If she wants to get a book from the library, she will. And if her wife has a problem with her entering a room she is in, she can vacate it herself. What she doesn’t expect approaching the library once again is to hear Katherine’s voice.

‘-with your wife.’

‘You did it on purpose.’ Anna’s statement sounds like an accusation.

‘I had some business to deal with,’ Katherine doesn’t come across as fazed, ‘but the timing was propitious, I admit. Giving you the time and space to get to know her.’

‘She is not you.’

‘And that’s not her fault,’ Katherine rebukes her, ‘Anna, you can’t punish her for that.’

‘I’m not.’

‘We both know that there are many ways to hurt someone-’

‘I’m nothing like-’

‘Of course not!’ Katherine interrupts her. ‘Of course not,’ she repeats softer, ‘have you at least talked to her? Explained the situation?’

‘And tell her what?’ Anna scoffs.

‘That she should feel free to find someone else too, for starters. It is unfair for you to enjoy...well, me, love, companionship, while condemning her to solitude because she thinks she owes you fidelity when you don’t give her the same. Catherine is smart. Caring. Beautiful. She will have no problems finding someone to appreciate her if you don't want to.’

‘Someone like you?’

‘Why not?’ Catherine barely suppresses a gasp because that is not what she expected Katherine to say. ‘If she’ll have me, of course.’

‘Where are you going?’ Anna calls after her. ‘Kat. Katherine. Lady Katherine!’

Katherine stops by the door, just in time for Catherine to slip into the adjacent room without being seen.

‘Be careful. One might think you’re calling for your wife.’

And with that parting shot, Katherine leaves.

Catherine tries to convince herself that Katherine had been joking. Or better, that she had talked like that just to needle Anna. But Katherine never makes her feel like she is spending time with her to spite Anna or to make her jealous. As a matter of fact, her wife is never discussed and most of their interactions seem to happen out of her sight, although she has no doubt that Anna knows they are taking place. So Catherine just tries to enjoy the very pleasant company and the warm feelings it brings her.

‘Lady Catherine, would you like to join me for a stroll in the gardens?’

‘What could I get you to make you call me Cathy?’ she asks putting down her book. She had obviously known about it before, but since overhearing Katherine’s comment, it has been on her mind, how there is no way to differentiate their names when spoken aloud.

‘What are you willing to offer?’ Katherine cheekily counters back. ‘Only if you call me Kat,’ she adds, taking pity on a flustered Cathy.

‘If you like this, I’m going to take you to another property, it has a path lined on both sides by cherry trees, and another with camellia. They are stunning when they are all flowering,’ Kat tells her as she looks in awe at the surrounding colourful scenery. ‘If you want, of course,’ she adds, sensing Cathy’s hesitation.

‘Just...I wouldn't want to upset Anna,’ Cathy is aware that the more time Kat spends with her, the less she spends with her wife.

‘She is welcome to join us if she wishes so,’ Kat doesn’t seem to see any issue. ‘Besides, it will be good for you to get an idea of what you are the lady of. I don’t want to presume anything, but personally I would be bored to death in your situation...so perhaps you would be interested in taking over some duties. Either from me or from-’

‘I don’t want to take anything away from you.’ Not anymore than she already did, Cathy thinks to herself.

‘What if I tell you that I would appreciate the help?’

‘Why are you being so nice to me?’ Cathy can’t stop herself from asking.

‘Why wouldn’t I be?’ Kat looks at her genuinely confused.

Cathy flounders.

‘I know how it is to be a girl in a foreign land, trying to find your place, barely knowing anybody, not even your spouse...not chosen nor liked.’

‘I like Anna.’ She doesn’t say it just because she is talking to her lover. Anna might be distant, but she has always been pleasant to her. And she has never seen nor heard of any ill-behaviour towards anyone else either.

‘She is very likeable, isn’t she?’ Kat smiles softly. ‘But it doesn’t mean it is an easy situation for you,’ she gives her an understanding look, ‘I know you are aware of me and Anna.’

Cathy gasps. She hadn’t realised Kat knew she knew. And she certainly didn’t expect her to broach the topic so openly.

‘You don’t seem to mind?’ for the first time Kat sounds hesitant.

‘I- it makes you two happy. And it doesn’t make me unhappy,’ Cathy tells her. Love would be ideal, but- ‘I count myself lucky for what I got.’

‘There you are!’ Anna sweeps into the library.

‘We have been going over the books.’ Kat had been showing Cathy the ropes.

Anna pointedly looks between the table where the accounting records are spread and the couch they are currently sitting on.

‘We are taking a break.’

‘You have been at it for ages, didn’t know we had so many books.’

Cathy dares say Anna sounds grumpy more than sarcastic.

‘If I am to seduce her, I will take my time,’ Cathy chokes on her own breath at Kat’s reply, ‘you should know better than to expect her to jump in my bed quickly. You should know better than to expect that from both of us.’

Anna merely grabs a nearby book and sits down next to Kat, huffing.

‘What can I do for you?’ Anna enquiries.

While they had been spending more time together, it had always been the three of them.

‘I was looking for Kat,’ Cathy admits. ‘She told me she would be unable to make our usual meeting, but I haven’t seen her at all since two days ago.’

‘She is away on business.’

‘What type of business?’ It comes out sharper than intended, but all Cathy can think is what could require staying overnight. ‘Where?’

‘You better not be implying what I think you’re implying.’ Anna’s reply is equally pointed. Then she peers at her wife curiously. ‘Are you jealous?’

Cathy doesn’t know what to say. It’s her wife. Asking if she is jealous of someone else. Who happens to be her wife’s lover.

Anna laughs, the lack of reply seemingly speaking for itself.

‘Proper business. She has a mind for it,’ she then graciously informs her. ‘Why do you think she runs the show around here?’

Cathy opens her mouth to answer before thinking better of it. She could be a lover without responsibilities. And she knows Kat doesn’t run just the household, but she also keeps an eye on other properties belonging to Anna too. She doesn’t know how she balances all she had shown her with other additional, apparently personal, businesses. But she understands even more why she was not upset about the idea of sharing some duties with Cathy.

‘I know I can’t compare to the one you’re wishing for,’ Cathy had not realised she was staring longingly out of the window until Anna’s voice brings her back to reality, ‘but would you like to go to the gardens with me?’

As they walk side by side, Cathy considers how, of all things, she had never expected to bond with her own wife over their shared fondness for another woman.

‘Speak true,’ Anna interrupts her musings, ‘you might have realised with Kat that I value honesty over politeness, especially when it’s fake.’

Yes. That should have been the first hint, how brazen and frank the younger woman was while talking to her wife, in a way no other at the palace would do, not even Bessie – Lady Elizabeth – whom Cathy had learned had been with Anna for a very long time.

‘Why call for me? When you had Katherine. And I’m sure plenty of other women around would have been willing to marry you too.’

‘Are you saying I’m an attractive prospect?’ Anna teases her. Then she gets serious. ‘Lady Catalina said you needed an out.’

‘You know my godmother??’ Will surprises ever cease? Catalina had promised that they would see each other soon in her last letter, but she had made no mention of knowing her wife.

‘Kat better than me,’ Anna doesn’t elaborate on the matter, ‘I needed a bride. Possibly one without expectations because-’

‘Kat.’

‘Yes.’ Anna had never been one for cruelty. She was getting a wife, but her heart was already spoken for.

‘We thought that someone just happy to leave, to start anew, would not care too much about love, as long as property and discretion was maintained.’

Cathy doesn’t miss the we. She can’t imagine being involved and planning for someone she loved to get married to someone else. But then again, Kat had planned their wedding...not for the first time she gets the urge to apologise to her.

‘Although perhaps we failed in that respect.’

‘Kat behaved exemplarily.’ Even while spending time together organising the wedding, Katherine had not let slip the tiniest negative feeling towards Cathy...or her affection towards Anna, not even once. Cathy would have not known if she had not overheard them...not that she will share that anytime soon.

‘And I did not?’ Anna asks, faking offense.

‘But why not marry Kat?’ Cathy has been asking herself that since she had heard them saying it was impossible. Can’t be a matter of status, Cathy had not much of it either. Kat clearly has the education and training of a proper lady. And it’s not like Cathy brought money or land or power.

‘That’s not my story to tell.’

Cathy adds it to the list of things to ask Kat, which range from how she knows her godmother to what her business is, exactly.

‘What a sight to come back to!’ Kat exclaims from the doorway seeing Anna and Cathy together.

Anna is immediately on her feet, reaching her in quick strides and drawing her in a hug.

‘Did you miss me?’ Kat wraps her arms around her with a laugh.

‘You know I did. I always do,’ Anna releases her from the embrace, ‘and someone else missed you too.’

‘If your aim is reached,’ Anna asks, a lady on each arm, as they are walking through the gardens together, ‘does it mean that you won’t leave on business again soon?’

‘The timing was purely coincidental. Of course, I’m pleased that my absence brought fruit. But I truly had business to attend to.’

‘Was it a productive venture?’ Cathy politely enquiries, still no idea what the business is.

‘Very.’ Kat gives her a shark-like grin.

‘Nothing illegal, right?’

‘Who do you think I am?’ Kat sounds amused rather than offended at Anna’s words. ‘There is no law against what I did.’

It doesn’t sound reassuring to Cathy, who squeezes Anna’s bicep. Her wife shakes her head. Sometimes it’s better not to ask. She doesn’t look worried, so Cathy lets it go, figuring she certainly knows better than herself.

‘Would you like join us for a nightcap in our chamber?’ Anna surprises Cathy with the invitation.

‘Nothing untoward.’

‘Unless you count drinking. Because there will be drinking. Plenty of that.’

‘Not that much,’ Kat smiles at her reassuringly, ‘it can be in your room if you prefer.’

Cathy has never seen their quarters. Their shared ones, since they also have separate rooms, she always thought for appearance’s sake...not that she had ever visited those either. And she can't say what she expected from her first visit...but it certainly wasn’t that the three of them would be lying around, just in their nightclothes, drinking and chatting.

‘How did you meet?’ Alcohol fuels Cathy’s curiosity. Or better, it removes her usual restraints that keep it from being sated.

‘I was sent away in disgrace. For sullying the good name of the family.’ Kat rolls her eyes.

‘Kat.’

‘You’re not the only girl married off and shipped to a foreign country to be hidden like a dirty little secret,’ she continues, ignoring Anna’s slightly scolding concern, ‘sorry,’ she apologises to Cathy after a beat, realising how it came across.

‘Unfortunate but true.’ Cathy shrugs it off.

‘I was married to the former secretary of my step-grandmother, before he oh-so-conveniently left the country. I was part of his severance pay, apparently. Though I’m sure they would have given me away for free if they were not so money-hungry.’

‘She gets bitter when she drinks,’ Anna tells Cathy, who is surprised by this new side of the usually sweet Kat.

‘I used to help him in his office,’ Kat lets out an unladylike snort, ‘at least he taught me something. Which got me a job here...and away from him most of the time.’ Cathy frowns. She doesn’t like the sound of that at all. ‘And then he tragically died and I found out that he had amassed quite some riches...though I’m not sure I want to know exactly how. And he left them all to me, as long as I do not remarry. Only good thing he did besides teaching me stuff. Leaving me everything, not the clause. And coming here so I could meet Anna, I guess.’

‘And dying,’ Anna adds.

‘And that too.’ Kat nods.

Legally married is different from promised to someone like Cathy was. Marrying a widow, for someone of Anna’s status, was perhaps frowned upon, but certainly not illegal. And even if it were to set tongues wagging, Anna has enough clout to ignore them.

‘Can’t believe I’m asking,’ Cathy’s head feels fuzzy, her own brain processing the words leaving her mouth with some delay, ‘but why didn’t you marry her? I would have married her.’ Even if Kat was to lose her inheritance or whatever, it’s not like Anna could not provide for her.

‘Thanks,’ Kat giggles, ‘I would have married you too.’

‘Oi!’ Anna protests. ‘What about me?’

‘You know why I can’t marry you.’ Kat reaches out to pat her hip sympathetically.

‘Why?’

‘Do we really have to bring politics in our bed?’ Anna complains.

Cathy blinks at the possessive pronoun before turning to Kat, waiting for explanation.

‘Francis left me some lands. Quite small, but the position is…strategic. Without getting into too many details, they provide access to the sea to various inland territories. Including this one. I’m keeping the area neutral. Despite common knowledge of my...links to House of La Marck, with no official connection and no proof of favouritism…nobody will support an attempt to invade or conquer it. They like the neutrality. If I were to lose the lands, they would go to someone who will block our access to the sea. Not to mention that if I married Anna, they would probably see it as an attempt on her part to expand her territories and get sole access to the sea blocking others...and I’m sure an attack or more would soon follow.’

‘You might have to repeat that another day,’ Cathy admits drowsily, realising she had lost focus a couple of times during Kat’s speech.

Kat chortles kindly, ‘Not used to drink?’

Not used indeed. Cathy wakes up in the morning confused by the warm presences beside her but more than that annoyed by their chatting. She turns, hoping to find a pillow to hide her head under...only to roll over a body. A hand comes up to rub her back and...fine. This is good too.

‘Good morning,’ Anna’s voice cheerily greets her.

‘Why?’ is her groaning response.

Cathy feels the chest she is resting her head on vibrate against her cheek as Kat chuckles. ‘Anna has a Teutonic constitution. I learned my limits years ago. You will too with time.’

They lie in bed quietly until a knock interrupts their peace. Cathy tenses, but Anna calmly calls to come in without hesitation.

‘Oh. Should I move Lady Catherine’s chambers?’ Lady Elizabeth doesn’t sound surprised to see Cathy in bed with the two other women. As Kat doesn’t loosen her hold on her, Cathy peeks up...and yes, she doesn’t look surprised either.

‘Not so fast. Give her some time to figure things out...she might want to keep some distance from Anna.’

‘Me? Why from me?’ Cathy’s rooms are in a different wing than Kat’s too, not just Anna’s…or their shared ones.

‘I can see you point,’ Bessie agrees, ignoring Anna’s protests. ‘Would you like to break fast?’ She then asks what she had come for.

‘Could we have it brought here? Something to settle the stomach...and the head.’

Hearing Kat’s request, Bessie gives her a once-over.

‘Not for me.’

‘Ah,’ Bessie nods, almost to herself, ‘I remember those days and you don’t look like then.’

As days pass, the three of them can often be found in the same room, whether working (with Cathy taking on more responsibilities for the household) or just spending time together. On one of such days, Lady Jane arrives bringing in correspondence. She hands one envelope to Anna, one to Cathy, and two to Kat.

‘Why does she get two?’ Cathy blurts out, prompting the others’ laughter. Blushing, she busies herself opening her envelope. She quickly reads the letter inside. Then she does it again. It’s from Catalina! She is going to see her soon! At a...ball? ‘Uhm, Anna?’

Before she can ask any further questions, her wife hands her her own letter. The invitation to said ball. Then Cathy looks at Kat, to see if she got something similar. After all, invitations commonly include spouses, so it makes sense that Anna would get one but not Cathy, and following that logic, Kat should get her own. But the younger woman is instead unfolding several sheets from one of her own envelopes.

‘Everything alright?’ Anna asks before Cathy can do it as they both watch a thoughtful frown appearing on Kat’s face.

‘Yes. I need to make a detour to take care of something before joining you at the estate,’ she replies while sending a meaningful look to Lady Jane, who nods in response.

‘Be careful.’

‘Always.’ Kat reassures Anna. ‘Besides, I have Rocky with me.’

Lady Jane gives them a feral grin that leaves Cathy half-terrified and half-reassured.

‘Tell me again?’

‘It’s the biggest ball in the land. It happens once a year and everyone who is someone is there. The ball is mostly an excuse to...trade gossip and make deals,’ Anna explains.

‘And my godmother will be there.’

‘Yes.’

When Cathy had learned of her arranged marriage, she didn’t know Catalina had been involved in organising it. She just knew that she would be able to see her again because she sometimes visited what would be her new country. During Kat’s absence, while talking to Anna, she learned that Catalina would visit them at least once a year – now she thinks in time for the ball – if not more...because apparently she is married to Kat’s cousin.

‘Who is that?’ Cathy hisses to Anna, glaring at the woman warmly hugging Kat for longer – and closer – that is appropriate.

‘Who knew that such a tiny body could contain so much jealousy.’

Cathy turns her glare to her wife, harrumphing both at the lack of jealousy and at the dig at her height, thus missing the object of her displeasure approaching.

‘Your Grace.’

‘Lady Anne, always a pleasure to see you again,’ Anna greets her.

‘I trust you are treating my Katherine accordingly.’

‘Like a queen.’

‘What about your wife?’ She enquires with a fleeting glance towards Cathy before giving Anna a pointed look.

‘She treats her like a queen too.’

Cathy gasps at Anna’s reply, but Lady Anne doesn’t seem fazed. She tilts her head, ‘Is that so, Lady Catherine?’

Before Cathy can say anything, the other woman is already turning around, ‘Elizabeth! What did I tell you about this kind of behaviour?’

‘To leave climbing her to Aunt Anna.’

‘Maybe don’t say that around other people,’ Kat puts the child down, smothering a laugh.

‘Why?’

‘Because then everyone will want to climb Aunt Kat,’ Anne replies.

‘I want to climb Aunt Kat,’ another child announces entering the room.

Anne gestures to the boy, ‘See.’

Kat leans over to hug him, before standing and moving to hug another woman....And then Catalina, as she appears behind them.

‘Well, we have some last-minute matters to discuss, so we’ll leave you to it,’ Anne announces, moving to grab both Kat and the other woman’s arms.

‘Can I least introduce my wife to my goddaughter?’ Catalina stops her.

Anne rolls her eyes. ‘If your wife wants.’

Catalina holds out her hand and the third woman steps forward, a warm smile on her face.

‘Catherine, this is my wife, Jane,’ her godmother says once she leads her over, ‘and this is her son, Edward.’

‘It’s a pleasure to meet you.’

‘I look forward to getting to know you,’ Jane reciprocates.

‘But not now,’ Anne reminds her, piping up from her position next to Kat.

‘Not now,’ Jane agrees.

‘Well, kiss goodbye and we will see you at the ball.’ Anne leans down to kiss the top of Elizabeth’s head.

Jane gives Catalina a peck and whispers some last recommendations to Edward, while Kat goes up to Anna and Cathy, kissing them both on the lips.

‘Guess that answers a question of mine,’ Catalina comments as the three women leave.

‘What?’ Cathy asks, once she recovers from the surprise. She had not expected to be kissed in front of people who are not in their household. Or perhaps they are, if they are Kat’s cousins...

‘Anna and Katherine are...not an open secret, but...if you know them, you know about them.’ Catalina gives Anna a meaningful look.

One day Cathy will ask her godmother why she suggested her for the marriage knowing Anna was taken...or perhaps it was exactly that. No hope for love, but also no risk of...unwanted interest? But that’s not the day. Besides, she got love. In spades.

‘Heaven helps us,’ Catalina mutters as a hush falls over the ballroom at the cousins’ grand entrance.

Cathy gapes. She thought Kat was beautiful at the wedding, but she had clearly gone for understated because that was nothing compared to how absolutely stunning she looks now.

Anna squeezes arm, ‘I know, but get a hold of yourself.’

Cathy closes her mouth and then turns surprised eyes to her wife.

‘I just have plenty of practice acting as if her beauty doesn’t leave me speechless,’ Anna whispers to her.

However, that doesn’t seem to be what had prompted Catalina's reaction. ‘They truly went all out this time,’ her godmother comments. ‘Don’t look at me,’ she continues, aware of their curious gazes. ‘I might be married to Jane, but it doesn’t mean I have any idea of what goes on in that mind of hers. Even less when all three cousins are involved.’ She chances a look at Anna. ‘Do you?’

‘She has been unusually busy lately but hasn’t shared so far.’

Catalina raises her head as they join her for breakfast, ‘Katherine was a no show too?’

It might take a while for Cathy to get used to her godmother knowing and not caring about her and her wife sharing...a lover? Mistress? Partner? Well, Kat.

Anna shakes her head. When they had left the ballroom to retire for the night, Kat and her cousins were still flitting from one guest to another, the remaining ones at least, weaving connections and networks as they had been doing the whole evening.

‘Lady Margaret, Lady Jane,’ Catalina calls their attention, ‘do you know where-’

‘They were in the library when we passed it,’ a third woman replies.

‘Thank you, Maria.’

Indeed that’s where they find the cousins, mess of papers on the table in front of them.

‘Did you stay up all night?’

‘We needed to check that everything was correct, make sure the deals are closed properly, didn’t miss anything.’

‘Deals,’ Catalina repeats.

‘Exchanges. Contracts. Transactions,’ Anne says.

‘Of course,’ Catalina mutters. As if she should have expected anything different. ‘Is it another gamefowl farm?’

‘I still don’t see what you have against that. It’s making us a lot of money,’ Jane points out. ‘But no. You have been talking about wanting to be closer to Cathy.’

‘And you about missing Catalina,’ Kat joins the conversation, addressing Cathy. ‘And I never gave you a wedding gift.’

‘But about me?’

‘You got Cathy,’ Kat tells Anna, who nods.

‘And she stayed,’ Anne adds, receiving a small glare from Anna. It is no secret that there is an open invitation for Kat to go and live with Anne...Invitation that has been repeatedly extended since the older cousin had first heard about Anna getting married…not to Kat.

‘But the new house comes with extensive stables. Horses included. All yours,’ Kat continues.

‘New house?’

Kat rummages through the papers. ‘Where is the map?’

Jane hands it to her.

‘No, not of the land. The one of the region.’

Another one is fished out from the mounds of papers strewn around.

‘So...Anne is the new owner of this area.’ Kat points a spot on the map, then another one. ‘Jane got this. Neither have legal connections to you-’

‘So nobody has ground for complaint.’

Jane looks at them expectantly.

‘I would say it’s the lack of sleep, but it’s not,’ Anne informs the married couple less acquainted with Jane’s love of puns.

‘Catalina loves them!’

‘Why don’t we let Kat continues?’ Catalina eagerly suggests before Anne can open her mouth and get her in trouble. She loves her wife, but she is not as fond of puns as Jane is...although she has yet to find anyone with the same love for wordplays.

‘As I was saying, officially they are completely independent, but we’re still securing the borders and sea access even more,’ Kat continues, ‘and everyone lives closer. Also I got this.’

Anna looks at the contract Kat hands her, then at the map. ‘Is this the one you have been eyeing for a while?’

‘Yes.’

‘And all of this...you got it legally, right?’

The three cousins in unison bring one hand to their chest. ‘Do you doubt us?’

‘Lady Catherine, a minute of your time.’

Waiting until they are alone, Anne then asks, ‘What do you know about Jane’s husband?’

Cathy is taken aback by the question. ‘Not a lot. Short-tempered. Openly pursued Kat despite being married to her cousin. Died falling from a horse.’

‘What about Kat’s?’

Cathy grimaces. 'Few things.’ Kat doesn’t like to talk about the matter so she never presses. ‘None too good. Or any good at all.’

‘I’ll tell you three things they had in common: they claimed to love my cousins, they hurt my cousins, they died in unfortunate accidents.’ Anne counts on her fingers. Then she looks at Cathy straight in the eyes. ‘Would be a shame if something were to happen to you...’

With her words hanging in the air, with a casual stride Anne leaves the room...and a gobsmacked Cathy.

Seeing her standing still, stunned expression on her face, Anna approaches her wife, ‘Are you alright?’

‘What happened?’ Catalina asks, joining them.

‘I’m not sure,’ Anna answers as Cathy gives no sign she is going to do so, ‘I saw Anne leaving and found her like this.’

‘Did she threaten you that if you hurt her cousin, you will meet your untimely demise?’ Catalina asks knowingly.

‘Oh.’ Anna nods in understanding. ‘Should have thought about that. I’m sorry, I didn’t think about warning you in advance.’

‘She did the same with you?’ Cathy finds her voice again, directing her question to both women.

‘Consider it the official welcome to the family,’ Anna grins at her.

Cathy smiles at the thought before it falls. ‘Wait- did she actually kill them?’

She thought it was merely a threat. A warning. Not-

‘I have no intention to find out…do you?’

—————————————

Not sure if I’m happy with this as I'm struggling to get a read on this trio, but I wanted to write some OT3 for Pika so this is what I got.

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mst3kproject · 3 years

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The Navy vs the Night Monsters

Of course, it’s not like bad things stop happening now that 2020 is finally over… we just get to start counting again from zero. Kind of like how I’ve started counting thirty-six Episodes that Never Were per year, beginning with this one. It was co-directed by Wyott Ordung from Robot Monster and features familiar faces like Russ Bender and Mamie Van Doren, the latter for once not playing a teenage delinquent. It also has one really obscure MST3K connection: it was based on a story by Murray Leinster, which the sharp-eyed will remember as the name of the ship attacked by Evil Count Zarth Arn’s lava lamp weapon at the beginning of Starcrash!

A plane carrying specimens of Antarctic flora and fauna makes a rather rough and unexpected landing at a naval base on remote Gow Island in the south Pacific. There appears to be nobody on board except the pilot and a few penguins – the former is in a catatonic state, and the latter are... well, penguins... so what happened to the rest of the passengers and crew is a complete mystery. Did the pilot go mad and kill them? Did the penguins? Or did it have something to do with those mysterious ancient trees discovered growing around a geothermal spring in the heart of the frozen continent?

The first ten minutes of this movie are spent trying to be a comedy. Before we get anywhere near the plot, we first have to listen to the guys on the plane try to be funny about their lunch and their tastes in women. Then on the island, we watch a guy who can’t seem to figure out how to inflate a balloon, followed by a dude talking to his dog, and then a really icky bit where two women convince a man he had sex with both of them, which he buys because he was too drunk to remember. Only then do we finally establish what’s actually going on. The impression one gets from this beginning is that The Navy vs the Night Monsters is going to be peopled entirely by Jackass Comic Relief characters, and I actually turned the film off and sat on it for a couple of days to psych myself up to watch the rest.

When I finally turned it back on, to my relief the movie turned out not to be quite that bad, but it’s still pretty damned bad. The dull and unfunny opening is followed by an abrupt shift of tone, as a man maddened by terror jumps from the plane to his death! The only thing set up by the opening that turns out to be relevant is Spaulding the meteorologist’s crush on Nora the nurse, when she’s in love with the base’s second in command, Lieutenant Brown.

I complain frequently about useless love triangles in movies. This one is very useless, and all the more so because the script totally forgets to resolve it. Spaulding hates Gow Island but stays because he’s in love with Nora – he wants her to go back to Miami with him and marry him. When he puts this idea to her, however, it becomes obvious that Nora can’t stand him, and it’s clear enough why: Spaulding is an asshole and he treats Nora not as a partner but as a possession. Never does he show any sort of tenderness towards her. Every time they speak to each other, he seems to end up shouting, and his jealousy of Brown repeatedly leads to violence.

Brown, on the other hand, treats Nora with respect and actually shows vulnerability around her. He’s been left in charge while the base’s commander is on the mainland attending an important meeting, and he’s really feeling the pressure as the base is surrounded by tree monsters in the dark. He talks about his anxiety and Nora comforts him, and the audience rolls their eyes because it’s perfectly obvious which of these guys she’s going to pick. And sure enough, at the end she’s in Brown’s arms… but nothing about the whole situation is exactly resolved.

Brown and Spaulding did get in a fist fight, though it wasn’t explicitly over Nora, but nobody ever talks about the problem. Spaulding never realizes that he’s treated Nora badly, and it never seems to even occur to him that she might prefer Brown over him, or even that she has emotions or preferences at all. He definitely never seems to understand that he’s lost. Brown and Nora seem to feel a need to hide their love affair from the other base staff, but we’re never given a reason why (although I guess ‘Spaulding’s a dick’ is reason enough). Nora never tells Spaulding that she prefers Brown… maybe she’s afraid he’ll assault her? I hate everything about this situation, but nothing more than the fact that as the movie progresses we get hints that Nora may be warming up to Spaulding, as if she’s supposed to consider these two guys equal contenders for her affections! Fuck everybody who wrote this, seriously.

It’s kind of sad to see Mamie Van Doren in a role like this after meeting her in things like Untamed Youth and Girls Town. Those movies were gross and exploitative, but Mamie’s characters were central to their plots and she filled those shoes reasonably well. She wasn’t Oscar material but for what the films were, she was enough to carry them. The Navy vs the Night Monsters is a little closer to being a ‘real movie’, but in this respect it represents a step down for her, as she is relegated to being something for two men to fight over. Furthermore, Silver from Girls Town and Penny from Untamed Youth were both characters who required some range – Nora the nurse mainly spends the whole movie being annoyed with the men in her life. Van Doren could have done much more if anyone had bothered asking it of her.

Let’s see… what else do I hate about this movie? I hate Private Chandler, the guy who stays a Jackass Comic Relief character once that opening is over. Shockingly, The Navy vs the Night Monsters actually kills him off, but he’s not nearly as annoying as Dropo or the guy from Outlaw, so his death merely feels mean rather than having any entertainment value. The guy was just about to actually get laid by one of the women who’d made fun of him earlier – though she, like Spaulding, showed no sign of being sorry for past jerkitude.

I hate the monsters. Normally I have a soft spot for plant monsters. They’re a cliché in their own way, I guess, but they’re a fun idea. The ones in The Navy vs the Night Monsters kill and digest people with acidic sap, and a character theorizes about how and why such a thing would evolve, which is cool. The execution, however, sucks. While the poster for the film shows us a humanoid Treebeard-looking thing, the actual monsters in the film are dumb-looking stumps that waddle along like a couple of guys trying to move a piece of furniture corner-by-corner because it’s too heavy to lift. The result reminds me of The Creeping Terror, in that you have to want to get eaten by these things. At one point a guy walks right up to one, inspects it, and escapes its clutches merely by backing away slowly!

The trees reproduce using insect-like larvae that are, themselves, lethally venomous. This is also a neat idea which is, once again, ruined by the execution. The tiny ones are being pulled along the floor by a sometimes-visible string, and then they grow into stumps that look like they should be stools around a boy scout campfire, which move even slower than the adult trees! There’s a scene where the characters are holed up in the base under an onslaught of these, with planes arriving to napalm them just in time, and it is ludicrous in its attempt to feel threatening.

I do like that Gow Island is a bleak middle-of-nowhere rather than a tropical paradise. The landscapes kind of remind me of the Falkland Islands, though the weather on Gow is evidently better. You can see why some of the characters hate it here, surrounded by barren scrub inhabited mostly by ten thousand smelly, raucous seabirds. Unfortunately this backdrop makes the ‘comedy’ opening seem even more out of place, though it’s also kind of nice that they didn’t give us any stereotyped ‘natives’ as either comedy or monster fodder.

As for a theme… well, The Navy vs the Night Monsters is clearly about an invasive species. The biologist, in suggesting how the tree monsters evolved, points out that they are suited to the hostile environment of Antarctica in ways that make them nearly unstoppable anywhere else. We’re told that they devoured all the penguins the scientists were bringing back for study, and as well as eating the people, they wreak havoc among the Gow Island seabirds and reproduce out of control. The parallels to things like cane toads in Australia, or housecats just about anywhere, are obvious.

This isn’t something the characters care about, though, even the ones who profess to be scientists. At the end, enough of the trees are destroyed that the humans can safely evacuate, and what happens after that is clearly Gow Island’s problem, not humanity’s. I really would have liked to see the script go into this a little more, but then, The Navy vs the Night Monsters is not a movie that wants to go into anything, even stuff it sets up in some detail.

At the end, The Navy vs the Night Monsters feels pretty half-assed. Somebody wanted to make a movie, and then put in the bare minimum effort possible to have all the parts present. They clearly understood how movies work, but they didn’t have the money and didn’t want to go to the trouble. The result is deeply mediocre. There’s a few laughs out of the dumb stump creatures, but mostly it’s just bad.

#mst3k #reviews #episodes that never were #the navy vs the night monsters #tw: abuse #humanitarian vegetables #60s

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justshekthings · 3 years

Text

just for a moment - park jisung fanfic (part 1)

“Continuing to run you turn around with a huge smile across your face, locking eyes with the boy whos awestruck expression turns into a comforting smile. Somehow without even knowing each other's names you both felt as if you've managed to escape reality, like the two of you were the only people in the universe, a feeling so rare, a scene only in movies, an occurrence never forgotten and yet was just experienced by these two individuals, even if it was just for a moment.”

Park jisung x reader

Word Count: 8731

Reading time: 1h 7m

Italics = thoughts

“normal” = spoken

*IMPORTANT PLEASE READ*

Authors note: Since this a fanfic, therefore fiction, there story is set in your last year in highschool with the rest of the dream members who are all the same age. The school year will also be following the korean academic year system, just for some realism. I also made up a few characters with a korean name generator so please don’t overthink! I will also be releasing this story 4 chapters at a time with 3 parts in total, making a total of 12 chapters #quickmaths. Apologies in advance if my uploads are slow or my grammar is awful. Make sure to like and comment any suggestions or thoughts, but try to be kind, it’s my first time writing a fanfic.

Enjoy reading~

March: March, although somewhat an afterthought or rather a shadow of winter, left with only it’s remains, it sets the groundwork for the rest of the year. March plants seeds that grow from mere sprouts to full grown plants during the course of the year.

It’s early March, the month when the snow starts to thaw in preparation of the well anticipated season of spring. The feel of the winter air has managed to remain in Seoul, resented by the thousands of students forced to return back to school for the first semester. One of those poor unfortunate souls is you, y/n l/n, an 18 year old girl and you’ve come back to start and, hopefully, finish your senior year at Seoul Highschool. Although what does seem to make your experience there a little more bearable are your two friends Seo Kyung-Hu and Hu Mee-yon, while those two have been friends since primary school, you only met them in Middle school when you first transferred and they being the only nice enough kids willing to approach you, the three of you clicked instantly and ever since your trio have stayed a complete set.

Unlike your two friends, you could care less about school purposefully staying up late in hopes of sleeping through your alarm and having a valid excuse to miss the first day of school. And your plan worked… to some extent. Your mother on the other hand was keen to send you to the school you paid money for, as you should. You were fast asleep dreaming about exo performing as ot9 was suddenly awoken by the screaming of your mother. “YAH Y/N WAKE UP AND GET TO SCHOOL BEFORE I TAKE ALL YOUR EXO POSTERS AGAIN!” hearing that was enough to make you jump out of bed and start getting ready, not without a few complaints of course. Walking into your washroom you take one good look at your face in the morning, “oh god” you’re at least grateful your skin decided not to break out on the first day of school however your face was still puffed and quite dull. You continued washing your face, brushing your teeth and putting on that god awful, ugly, disgusting, and horrific uniform, as you described. Objectively your uniform wasn’t at all bad however you had the tendency to well… overthink. (the uniform looks like the A-teen beige uniform)

It being 8:35 and school starting at 8:45, you speed walked and slightly ran to school attempting to cut the initial 10 min walk in half with at least 5 mins to spare just in case. Fortunately enough you managed to get there on time to check what your classroom was, before the bell. Room 215? Ok… WHERE IS THAT AGAIN?! Somehow the break managed to erase most of your memory of the school, although there wasn’t much worth remembering about your most hated location on planet earth. You run around frantically desperately trying to find your homeroom before a teacher, or worse a hall monitor. You stop in the middle of an empty hallway to text your friends where the hell room 215 is, until you hear a unfamiliar voice reach out to you, “Are you lost babygirl” WHAT THEEE it took a second for you to process what the guy had said until out of instinct you start to laugh uncontrollably with your eyes starting to tear up. You turn around, hand holding your stomach, “What did you just say?” you ask, unable to take the male standing in front of you seriously. He stares at you, seeming to enjoy that you understood his reference, “What so you’re telling me you’re not totally turned on by that comment?” With a slight over exaggerated gasp at the end of his sentence, obviously showing that he was joking. “No no your question was valid just-” unable to finish your sentence you rerun the moment that had just unfolded through your head, succeeding in making you burst out in laughter again. His voice cuts through your laugh, “No but seriously you seem lost” finally regaining your composure, you take a minute to examine his appearance, and his attractiveness, and realizing you’ve been staring for a bit too long you panic quickly trying to cover it up, “YEAH UM i'm lost do you know where room 215 is?” “New student?” “no just dumb” He laughs at your honesty and points you in the right direction like a true gentleman. “Oh my god thanks so much, hope I see you again cute stranger!” you end your sentence with a wink and then run off after getting a glimpse of his dumbfounded expression although close enough to hear him yell out, “The name’s YangYang!”

The odds were in your favour managing to slip into class before your teacher arrived and you had a mini-mental celebration before choosing to sit in the empty window seat in the middle row with an empty seat beside you to limit the amount of human interaction you get. Sitting down in your seat and see the teacher walk in and start the generic beginning of the school year talk, you text your friends to pass the time, who were lucky enough to have their class together, while the class goes through the course outline. After waiting a few minutes at the front, you see both of your friends, Kyung-hu and mee-yon or as you called them kyuhu and mimi to simplify their names, walk out and you guys greet each other before the three of you walk in the direction of your neighborhood, talking about what you all did during the break, all the annoying teachers and most recent gossip.

You’d notice that the first week of school would follow this routine, passing by quite quickly and finding it uneventful as your teacher didn’t give a lot of homework as it was the first week of school. During the first week you concluded that there was no one in your classroom, or in the school for that matter that piqued your interest except for the fellow that helped you on the first day but has managed to slip your sight every time you scanned your surroundings to find him. Although just as fast as the first week passed by, the weekend went just as fast, and based on how your school operates, it’d be the only free weekend you’d have in a long time. And much to your dissatisfaction, you found herself in the same situation from a week ago, tired, lazy and lacking any motivation to go to school. Despite this you actually made an effort to wake up early, too early, to get ready for school to escape the never ending nagging from your mother over calls from the office over your tardy attendance. After eating a good enough breakfast, you open your door expecting a cold breeze to meet you as it did last week but to your surprise the outside was bright and dry, with no traces of snow, almost as if the weekend magically changed Seoul from winter to spring. However the leaves on the trees would need a lot more time than a weekend to grow back to their former glory. Remember when I mentioned you woke up too early, you were exactly two hours early when you arrived at the school, which suddenly made sense to you when you realized that no one in your house was awake yet and the roads in your neighborhood felt deserted. After walking around the campus you finally settle on a familiar tree on the outskirts of the school grounds, its location the very reason why you and your friends chose it as your casual lunch location for the past two years. You set your bag on your lap hugging it like a pillow laying your head on it for support and almost immediately you start drifting off the sleep.

Unbeknownst to you, your perfect sleep would be ruined by one Park Jisung, you see park jisung made the mistake of waking up 20 mins before school started not taking into account it was his very first day at the highschool and he was bound to get lost on the way to school and if he even managed to find the school, he’d have no idea where his classroom as he also missed orientation for all new students. Late and lost, jisung looked around the front of the building in search of someone to help him but since school had already started most staff and students were already inside. Although it would’ve been easier for jisung to walk inside the building somehow he noticed a figure under a tree not too far from him, jisung assuming it was a student figured it’d be easier to ask a student then suffer a scolding or even awkward small talk with a teacher. He runs up to the sleeping person under the tree and realizes it’s a girl from the long hair and skirt, legs criss crossed under a bag you is hugging and sleeping on. Reluctant to grab your attention, awakening you from your slumber, but he must do so if he ever wishes to get to class. “Excuse me?” Jisung repeats this a few times first with a shy voice growing in volume in desperation to wake you up. In your dream EXO OT9 were just about to sing love shot, one of the comebacks lay missed out on, when you heard a reluctant voice repeatedly saying excuse me disrupting your peace and not to mention exo’s performance. Jisung seeing that his voice was not enough to wake you up he starts to get physical. You try to ignore the voice hoping it’d go away until it actually starts poking your shoulder, now you have no choice but to let go of your perfect dream and wake up to respond to the thing that dares interrupt your nap. Jisung notices the girl moving, satisfied that he finally woke you up, he watches as you yawn and rub your eyes, cute he thinks to himself admiring the girl’s sleepy and adorable state. You open your eyes to see a timid but tall boy crouched beside you, finger still pointed after persistently poking you. “Yes?” glaring at the poor boy with the rudest voice you could muster expecting him to get the hint to leave you alone. “U-um can u help me?” Looking at the nervous state of the boy you empathize with his confusion seeing as you were in a similar dilemma a week ago. Softening your expression you say, “yeah what's up?” using a tone completely opposite of the one a second ago, causing Jisung to relax and become more at ease after noticing your change in attitude, “oh can u tell me where this classroom is?” Jisung points at his paper, saying Room 215. He watches your face light up, “Oh! That's my classroom you can just follow me!” And you give the boy an eye smile, happy that you can help him and possibly become friends with the boy. Jisung’s ears turn pink admiring how cute your smile is and touched by your hospitality. you stand up dusting off your skirt and checking if you had any dirt on your clothes or legs. Putting your backpack on and adjusting the straps you ask the boy what time it was. “Oh it's 9:00 am” Jisung says to you sheepishly hoping he doesn’t shock you by how late they both are, “OH SHOOT'' After hearing the time realizing just how fucked you were, acting quick you grab the new boy’s hand and start running towards the building. Jisung trailing behind the small girl is blushing due to the sudden skin ship and can feel his heart pounding due to the spontaneousness of the girl's actions along with the running not at all helping with his heart rate. Running across the field underneath the sunlight causes an increase in heart rate, a mutual feeling felt by the two, but you both recognize it as a mere adrenaline rush as you both try to take in the predicament you find yourselves in. Jisung staring at the hand who had taken his own so boldly, looked up staring at your hair that had turned from a raven black shade to a chocolate brown in the sunlight admiring how it swayed while you ran. Continuing to run you turn around with a huge smile across your face locking eyes with the boy whos awestruck expression turns into a comforting smile. Somehow without even knowing each other's names you both felt as if you've managed to escape reality, like the two of you were the only people in the universe, a feeling so rare, a scene only in movies, an occurrence never forgotten and yet was just experienced by these two individuals, even if it was just for a moment.

April: April bears us spring, which in turn prepares us for summer. The weather is unlike any other, it follows the frigid temperatures of winter and yet precedes the intense heat of summer, the month is in equilibrium.

You watch from the safety of the other side of the field as Jisung is teased yet again by his new found friend group. As cliche as it sounds he managed to land himself with the “popular kids'' group despite this school not caring much for social norms, even if there was a popular group it’d be them and they’ve accepted him wholeheartedly as if he spent the last two years with them. Much to everyone’s surprise Jisung was capable of fitting in despite him being the new kid and it being the last year, it was almost as if he was the missing part of their friend group. The group consisted of Chenle, Renjun, Jeno, Jaemin, Haechan and Mark and they weren’t just popular, they were rich and attractive as well. “Oh how he’s blossomed” you say to yourself while admiring Jisung for coming out of his shell and express himself freely “Oh god please don’t tell me you just said that” “You sound like a pedo” As if on cue your two friends arrive at your spot under the tree, slightly creeped out by your confession. “YA I didn’t mean it like that!” you say pouting at your friends' judgmental remarks. “It’s just that he’s grown so much and it’s only been a month'' taking one last glimpse at Jisung having fun before turning to your best friends who have already started to eat. “Jisung was an innocent shy boy when you met him, your maternal instincts kicked in when you first saw him, so helped him out and get comfortable at the school and now you feel like you’ve raised him but now that he’s found a proper friend group you’re sad blah blah blah yes we get it.” Shocked and speechless at what Mee-yon just said, you shake your head looking down before resting your head on your arms placed on your knees while meeting their gaze, “Did I really sound like a pedo?” this time Kyung-Hu was the one to reply “yes you definitely did” nodding innocently while getting it to you straight. And with that final blow you hide your head in your crossed arms similar to a fetal position, accepting your defeat at their teasing.

As you hear your friends move on to a new topic you just keep your head down too tired to raise it and decide to take a mini nap to hopefully make up for the 3 hours of sleep you got the night before. It wasn’t like you and jisung falling off bothered you that much you actually rarely thought about it, but for some reason today you were bothered. I guess we were never really friends. I guess more like friendly acquaintances? What about the time we hung out after school or skipped class together, did that mean anything? You sighed letting go of the memories of jisung and started falling asleep unaware of the glances from the same person you were just thinking about. You dreamed about the day you two met, after getting too tired to run the whole way there, since the two of you were already late you decided to just walk the rest of the way to your classroom while in the school, to give Jisung a mini school tour. “You just transferred here right?” “yeah I used to live in Inseon” “so why’d you decide to move here and transfer just a week after school started?” “My mom got an unexpected promotion she couldn’t refuse so we had to move to Seoul, but you sure ask a lot of questions'' you remember him teasing you for that “Well do you blame me? I’m curious.” You catch him off guard by your retaliation, “so do you miss it?” asking another unexpected question that causes a change in mood after bringing up his old home. “Of course I do, I grew up there, I had friends there and I had memories” you turned around noticing his melancholy expression while reminiscing and looked at him with concern, feeling sorry for the boy who was just staring at the ceiling almost as if he was trying to find something that was not even there. He notices the silence and makes eye contact with you realizing he must’ve worried you. “Oh but it’s better this way!” He says happily to ease your obvious concern and you stare at the nervous boy, eyebrow raised not convinced by his sudden change of heart. You let it go and the two of you walked a little bit more in silence before stopping, well at least you stopped, Jisung was absent minded enough to not realize you had stopped walking and bumped into back, you instantly looked up and stared at the boy directly over you. Jisung as the shy boy he was, panics and steps back slightly red which causes you to chuckle at his innocent behaviour. “Well here we are room 215” but before jisung was able to walk into the classroom, you turn around and stop him holding out your palm showing the universal symbol to stop, before extending it as a handshake. “Before you hear it from anyone else, I'm y/n” while grinning from ear to ear and jisung grasps your hand and gives you a light handshake, “hi i’m park jisung” returning you the same enthusiasm through a smile. After holding each others hands a little longer than expected, you let go awkwardly and enter the rowdy classroom filled with talking, laughter and pure ruckus.

You didn't know one was capable of dreaming of a memory but you just did, and just as it was before, your nap was interrupted by noise, this time in the form of whispers, many whispers. You lift your head using your right hand to rub your eyes to adjust to the light and you meet eyes with the very boy you were dreaming about. “Jisung?” you ask with open eyes, confused and surprised. “O-oh hi y/n we meet here again” he answers, scratching the nape of his neck sheepishly. His friends beside him, snicker at his awkward response and continue laughing amongst each other mocking him, jisung notices this and pretends he’s about to hit them so they’d stop making you feel uncomfortable. He looks back at you even more embarrassed to explain his presence in front of you, “so-” “Why are you here, and where's kyung-hu and mee-yon” You notice that your two friends are nowhere to be found and you become more and more anxious being alone with practical strangers. “Funny you should mention that, they actually-” “We went to get some snacks!” Although kinda mad at them for leaving you alone, at least they showed up before this conversation could get any more awkward than it already was. Jisung feels quite relieved sparing him from the awkward exchange however his friends can’t get enough of his uncomfortableness bursting out in laughter when he was interrupted, not once but two times. Jisung and his friends move themselves to the tree beside you guys resting under the shade after mee-yoon and kyung-hu return back to their seats. After waiting until they were at a comfortable distance you start yell/whispering at your friends, “WHat the fuck guys you dont leave me alone with strangers!” “Oh don’t worry at least you finally talked to him instead of staring at him all day. Plus we needed to get enough snacks for all of us and we all know one person can’t carry all of that food. So please consider this strawberry milk as an apology.” Kyung-hu offers you the drink with Mee-yoon nodding her head in agreement. “Ugh I guess this was worth that horrible experience” you take your favourite drink after barely eating anything due to your lack of appetite.

The bell goes off and everyone starts to leave the field and head under the main building including you and your friends and since those two had a class together you took a different hallway hearing footsteps behind you before realizing the only person that could’ve been behind you was someone in your class, god please kill me now. And before the awkwardness kills you, you turn around and break the silence “hey thanks for watching me while I slept I understand my friends prolly asked you to do it as a favour and I really appreciate it” Jisung looks up after staring at his feet initially scared to stare in your direction. “No problem, i'm sorry that woke you up from your nap under that tree, it feels almost like deja vu” Both of you shyly laugh at his reference to your first encounter reminiscing the past memory. “Tell me park jisung why is it always you that must ruin my napping time? What have I done to deserve such cruelty.” Your exaggeration and choice of words managed to put a smile on his face and even a chuckle out of him. “Hey that's not my fault you’re obsessed with sleeping under that tree.” “But it’d be a waste not to, the weather this time of the year is just right, you can feel the heat but it's not overbearing it comforts you, it doesn’t require you to add layers nor remove any. We don’t need to change, not one bit. I can’t afford to take these moments for granted.” Jisung stares at your back taken aback by your sudden seriousness, not to mention the topic being the mere weather. Coincidentally the roles were now reversed, it was now Jisung that was perplexed by the change of mood similar to how you were a month ago. Although he could tell your words held more depth than they let on and decided not to speak on the matter moving on with the conversation. “But seriously no need to thank me after all I do kinda owe you for helping me out, plus you’re my friend, actually my first friend at this school” flashing you a smile which eases the awkwardness of your conversation. “Friend?” you widen your eyes at the title, unaware he saw you like that considering the limited time the two of you spent together. “Yeah that's what you call people you care about right?” your eyes follow his figure with a speechless expression on your face as he passes by you and walks ahead to go back to class, but just before he walks in he steps back to look back at you, “are you coming, friend?” before winking at you, emasked in the sunlight coming from the classroom, changing his eyes a lighter shade, before completely walking into the classroom. He leaves you baffled and blushing at his new found confidence and you are still processing what just happened, did he just wink at me? You shake your head trying to forget his words in hopes of calming your heart rate and enter your classroom sitting in your seat, on the other side of the class. Despite how much you try to hide your embarrassment, you just couldn’t hide how pink your ears were, same as jisung who might have put on a brave front, is slightly regretting and yet at the same time, proud of what he said. Both of you refusing to look anywhere else but down and especially not at each other, lost in your own thoughts but if the both of you had just looked at eachother even if it was just for a moment, you both would’ve found out something crucial about each other.

May: May does not only serve as the last stretch of spring but as a period of freedom. It enables the ability to be free enough to have dreams and independent enough to act on them.

Unlike the last two months you and jisung actually managed to talk more, although more doesn’t necessarily mean a lot but considering you and him have only shared a few meaningful conversations over the span of two months, your current relationship was a huge upgrade. Disregarding the occasional partner project or pairing in physical ed, in which you and jisung had always chosen each other considering both of your friends were in different classes, you’ve developed somewhat of a casual and low maintenance friendship, that didn’t need frequent conversations but had few but worthwhile moments, all of which were cherished by the both of you, as they reassembled the same serenity the two of you shared the first day you met each other. The moments you shared rarely felt forced and if they were, due to the immature pressures of both of your friend groups, the two of you had no trouble slipping into your own world. As naive as it sounds the friendship the two of you shared was purely platonic, no doubt there were moments of butterflies and heart racing however it only lasted just for a moment, quickly fading away. However someone you were interested in was the guy that helped you on your first day, although all that you knew about him was his name, yangyang.

You and your two friends approach the stands taking your seats to watch the soccer game hosted by your school after getting invited to sit beside jisung and a few of his friends to cheer on Jaemin, playing as a forward and Jeno, the goalie. As you look forward at the field and someone wearing the number 24 caught your eye. You found the haircut and build of number 24 familiar. You struggled trying to figure out just where you saw someone with similar features as 24, but it was only until he finally turned in your direction, getting a good look at his face. “That's him!” you accidentally stood up, hands covering your open mouth and jisung who was having a conversation with his best friend chenle, turned around to look at your stunned expression. “Hm? What happened?” You looked around embarrassed by drawing attention to yourself and sat back down awkwardly, leaning towards jisung who sat in the row in front of you to whisper, “do you know who number 24 is?” “Yeah that’s yangyang but what about him?” “Yeah I KNOW what his name is, but like who is he?” “I hope you realize how stupid you sound, but why are you asking me, I’M the new kid remember? Not the person who has been attending this school for the past two years.” Jisung raises his eyebrow to you confused as to why you don’t know who this guy was, expecting the both of you to have already met at least once. “So what you’re basically saying is that you got nothing?” “No I never said that, for your information yangyang is our age but he only transferred here last year from Germany. I guess he keeps himself lowkey, soccer is really his only extracurricular.” “bruh you should’ve just led with that, not with any of this new kid bs” “I think you meant to say thank you” Jisung gives you a deadpan look disappointed by your ungratefulness, you catch a glimpse of his face and laugh at how annoyed he is. Hoping not to make your friend upset, you lean in and stick out your tongue playfully in a teasing manner before flashing him your signature smile, “Thank you Jwi~”. Taken aback by his nickname (jwi means mouse in korean) along with the hint of aegyo in your voice, blood rises to his cheeks and to his ears but before you properly see it, he covers his face with his hands while looking down although his ears, like always, were giving him away.

But before you could tease him the announcer's voice filled the outdoor stadium, “Ladies and gentlemen the game between Seoul Highschool and Apgujeong Highschool is about to commence!” Suddenly you hear everyone in the stands start screaming yelling to the top of their lungs. “We will first introduce the starting lineup of the home team, starting with co-captains Na Jaemin and Lee Jeno!” You, jisung and both of your friends stand up and start cheering on the duo running onto the field, as you have become quite friendly with jisung and his friends so it was only fitting for you to support them. After their introduction you paid no attention to the remainder of the names until, “Now introducing number 24 yangyang!” Your head that was previously resting on your palm was raised after hearing that familiar name and you lean in trying to get a closer look at him before going beside jisungs ear. “Ya” Jisung, scared by the sudden noise, flinches back leaning on to chenle, who was too distracted talking to Renjun to notice his best friend but jisungs reaction does cause you to grin. Pointing at the smiling boy on the field, you say “Do you know what class he’s in?” “Oh him?” He takes a double check looking you up and down weirded out by your enthusiasm and interest in the soccer player. “Yes we were literally talking about him like 10 seconds ago” you rolling your eyes at his forgetfulness, you find it hard to believe he could be this oblivious knowing he was acting like this to tease you. “Yeah I know what class he’s in” you glare at the boy already knowing you’d have to do the most for him to finally spill the tea. “Uh would you like to tell meee?” you, not caring if you seemed desperate. “Lemme think, hmmm yeah no i'm good” “YAH PARK JISUNG'' you see his amused expression before coughing to regain your composure and trying another strategy “Can u please tell me~” you try to act as soft and cute as possible and although aegyo tears away at your soul, you know jisung couldn’t bare the sight of it. “STOP OH GOD” He tries to cover your face so he wouldn’t need to watch your aegyo any longer but you being determined, keep dodging him so he could see every cute action you’d do. “Please jisung~” “OKOK FINE JUST PLEASE STOP!” You quickly change your expression to a serious one which slightly scares jisung “so tell me what his classroom is” you say in a threatening tone while stabbing his ribs with your fingers causing him to flinch away, he sighs and slouches showing his surrender, caving into your antics, “fine it’s room 105” “Thank you! See that wasn’t so hard now was it?” You happily smile at him but you can see he obviously didn’t reciprocate the same feelings of joy and instead glaring at you. “Easy for you to say I have to bleach my eyes and tend to my wounds” Jisung cries out while holding the ribs you just stabbed, you roll your eyes yet again and scoff at his over exaggeration. “You’re such a kid.” “I'm legit older than you soo you’re the child here” him feeling proud at his comeback, looks up to catch your reaction but you’re pouting, hand crossed over your chest upset by the undeniable fact, which he finds kind of adorable. “Anyways why are you so interested in this guy anyways? Do you like him or something” jisung asks with his eyebrow raised while poking your leg suggesting that you do hold feelings for the boy, you feel your face become slightly hot by his suggestion. You swat his hand away and say, “N-no, the answer is no. How can I even like him, I hardly know anything about him. I’m just...” “you're just?” you start glaring him for interrupting your sentence and for teasing you. “I’m just interested” you finally end your sentence returning a playful wink to jisung just as he did a month ago. “Uh huh” Jisung says with a suspicious tone before turning around showing his back to you and properly watching his friends play in their first game of the season. Not satisfied with his answer you decide to talk a bit more, “what, can’t a girl be interested in a guy? I can’t just sit around dreaming about the day he approaches me, when I want something, whatever that may be, I go get it! Plus don’t you have anyone you’re interested in?” Still refusing to turn to you, you assumed he was just ignoring you, not paying attention to your question but jisung’s act backfired when you noticed his ears turn pink after hearing what you asked. “Heoll~, our jisungie has a crush?” (heol is korean slang for omg) you start shaking his shoulders out of excitement of this discovery. Still not looking at you, jisung puts his head in his hands to hide his embarrassment, amused by his timidness, you try to make him turn to you but he won't budging, unable to look at you to spare himself further embarrassment. In truth jisung didn’t have anyone he was interested in, so he was confusing himself but it was probably the question itself and the possibility of him having a crush that made him embarrassed, or at least that’s what he told himself. “Yaaaaa jisunggg tell me~” You say in a teasing voice but realizing your strategy wasn’t gonna make him turn your way, you smirk hoping that if anything were to get him to turn around it’d be this. So you start tickling him hoping he was even ticklish which fortunately he was, severely ticklish at that too. He starts to spasm due to the tickling laughing uncontrollably using his hands to block your hands and move away from your grasp. “YA STO-” turning around to yell at you, unaware at how close you got when trying to tickle him, he stops mid sentence finally realizing the lack of distance between the two of you. He takes a small gasp interrupting what he was going to say, speechless by the sudden eye contact, but it’s too late your eyes were already locked. “Ah there you are~” you say that in such a gentle tone that it was more of a whisper, inaudible to anyone besides you and jisung. Once again you guys find each other in the sunlight, which lights up both of your eyes making them seem as clear as honey, unaware of everyone standing up, cheering as yangyang just scored a goal. Both of you too lost in each other's eyes to notice anything else besides the smallest details in each other's iris’. However the gaze is suddenly broken when you look around and realize the cause of celebration, clueless to jisung's lingering gaze. “Oh my god look yangyang just scored a goal!” You tell the boy in front of you eyes glimmering with admiration, much to jisung's displeasure. Jisung was slightly upset at the soccer player who was the reason for breaking your eye contact, along with the fond expression brought to your face when looking at yangyang rather than himself. And although jisung might never admit it, deep down he’d wish for you to look at him like that even if it was just for a moment.

June: After months in the cold waiting for the arrival of summer, at last June has arrived. The month does not only represent a drastic change in temperature but in emotions as well, this month is when mere feelings can finally develop, for better or for worse.

“I like you” the words you hear coming out of your newest friend, whom you’ve become quite close to and bonded with over the past month. “Yangyang I-” “it’s okay you don’t have to answer, I just wanted to tell you” The boy says before winking and smiling at you with confidence. In the distance you could hear his friend Hendrey call out to him in a distance and you see him turn around to wave at his friend and turn back around, “anyways y/n I kind of need to go now, my friend is calling me” He says scratching the back of his neck, reminding you of another male friend of yours, using his thumb to point back to hendrey. He runs off to his friend, not forgetting to turn around, giving a cute wave before Hendrey wraps his arm around his shoulders walking off to who knows where. Now you’re left alone dumbfounded, behind the school building with a stunned expression, while physically you look as if your mind is blank your thoughts were far from that of panicking at your friends sudden confession. In retrospect you were kind of expecting this to happen as at some point considering your relationship was never just friends, you yourself started talking to him with slight romantic interests involved. Although it was, at least for you, a bit too soon. Still baffled by recent events you failed to notice the running footsteps of two boys come from behind you. “YA CHENLE GIVE THAT BACK!” You remain stuck in your headspace as both boys suddenly stop when they notice your strange figure and start whispering to themselves. “Yah isn't that y/n?” Chenle says to the jisung who steps closer to get a better look at you standing alone, he turns back to his friend “Uh yeah I think so?” There’s a second of silence as the boys try to figure out the odd circumstance, before Chenle says, “oh well HAVE FUN!” sticking out his tongue and running away while laughing uncontrollably hoping jisung doesn’t try to go after him after successfully figuring out his password and stealing his phone. “YA” jisung lets out a heavy sigh giving up trying to get his phone back and turning towards the dazed girl, shaking your shoulder a bit to get you out of your trance “Y/n?” “H-huh? Jisung? W-what're you doing here?” “I should ask you the same thing, I mean you're all alone out here” “Oh I was? I guess I didn't notice.” You shake your head trying to forget yangyang’s confession and bring yourself back to reality not noticing jisung turning his head to the side to hide the slight blush after seeing you in a confused state. Confused as to why he had suddenly spaced out looking in another direction, “Jisung?” You ask him while tilting your head cutely, an action jisung was still able to see in his peripheral vision which made him want to keep his head turned away even more. It was now you trying to get his attention so you smile realizing the irony of the situation,”Y-yeah?” “You wanna go to class now?” You say smiling before walking ahead of him with a slight skip in your step. “Yeah sure” you hear him say awkwardly following you to class. The two of you walked in silence from that moment on side by side, you taking a few glances to check up on him as he did with you and whenever you two did make eye contact you both gave each other a smile that although a bit awkward, was comforting in some way.

It was almost a week after yangyangs confession and since then you’ve fortunately managed to avoid him, still confused with what your answer, but it wasn’t whether or not you had feelings for him or not because you knew the boy could make you laugh, smile and give you butterflies at soon as you laid eyes on him, but you felt as if it was rushed. You considered it as only a crush than deep feelings for a committed relationship, simply put it was too early. And yet you knew you’d regret rejecting him because you didn’t want your relationship to end, rejecting him would risk losing, what would've been a perfect relationship due to your own indecisiveness. Ugh I hate feelings, you trying to decide your answer, was exactly what caused you to get lost during your late night walk you took to clear your head. Realizing that you’d been spacing out, you take a look at your surroundings and you had absolutely no idea where you were. “Oh shit” although what you could recognize is a neon sign at the end of the street that spelled out Convenience Store with a couple tables and seats at the front for eating. Feeling your stomach give a loud growl, you unlock your phone just to check if you have time to spare to eat some ramen, before your mom yells at you for staying out too late, 9:00 only? “OK! Lets go!” you celebrate to yourself, pumping a fist in the air before skipping towards the store and greeting the cashier. While you run your finger through the shelfs scanning the inventory trying to find your favourite ramen, “cheese ramen, cheese ramen, cheese ramen” All of a sudden you hear the door of the store open due the iconic bell and you hear a voice, a male voice greet the cashier as well, “Good evening~” FUCK! You instantly recognize the voice cursing inwardly at the chances you’d bump into him at a convenience store of all places. You immediately move to the next aisle, away from the entrance praying that he wouldn’t see you hiding behind the end of the aisle. “This literally cannot be happening to me” “What can’t be happening to you?” you let out a shriek, jumping back startled to hear ANOTHER voice. Please don't be him, please don't be him, you open your eyes that were shut due to fright, to look up at the stranger that just scared you “J-jisung?” “Yeah who else?” You wonder why you didn’t recognize his voice initially but you see his confident grin while looking at your distressed state, it somehow pleased him to see you like this. “So you gonna answer my question or are you gonna keep on staring at me?” Realizing you must look completely crazy, you fix your posture to look at jisung straight in the eye, “none of your business.” And you walk away from the boy taking your former spot using the aisle to block anyone’s view of you. You occasionally peek your head out just to check on the whereabouts of the mystery boy and jisung takes notes of this, standing behind you, hovering like the giant he is. He chuckles at your childishness, “who are you hiding from?” He asks out loud not caring if anyone heard him, you panic quickly putting your hand over his mouth to shut him up. “Jheez can u be any louder? Plus did I not make it clear, none. of. your. business.” Jisung pouts at you before licking the inside of your hand causing you to let go of him and give him a look of a disgust while you try to wipe his saliva off your hand with your sweater, but all he does is flash you a playful smile satisfied with your reaction. You roll your eyes at jisungs shenanigans and turn around to continue your spying seeing that the boy stayed by the cashier examining the gums and candies. Jisung follows your gaze tryna figure out just who you’re so afraid of before realizing who it was and his smile then turned into a thin line. “Him?” “Ya what do you mean him? That's yangyang!” You hit jisung offended by his reaction to your crush. Jisung flinches pretending that your hit actually hurt, “yeah did I stutter?” you ignore what jisung just said, too focused on predicting the movements of yangyang, maybe focusing too hard that just when you thought he was going to leave without noticing you, you two accidentally make eye contact and you quickly hide behind the aisle hoping he didn't see you. With your chest going up and down, you struggle to control your heart rate placing your hand on your chest to hopefully help lower it down. Jisung widens his eyes seeing you so flustered, “why what happened?” he looks at you, concerned thinking you’re having a heart attack. “He saw me” you slide down now sitting on the floor with your legs folded in front of you while you hide your face in your hands breathing into them, trying to calm yourself down. “What am I gonna do, what am I gonna do” you continually repeat those words slightly scaring jisung in the process, although after seeing you in this condition he realized he needed to help in some way. “Okok just stay here” patting your head before walking off leaving you to curl up on your own. Jisung walks down the aisle that yangyang just saw you in, already meeting face to face with the boy that had walked in your direction trying to check if it was really you or a hallucination. He stops when he sees jisung, taking a step back confused as to why he’d see him there of all places, “Jisun-” “Oh hey Yangyang funny seeing you here, isn’t it a bit late tho? Based on what jeno and jaemin were talking about I swear you guys have soccer practice in the morning tomorrow at 6, no?” Jisung interrupted yangyang, rambling on about a made up soccer practice, jisung thought of on the spot, while putting his arm around the clueless boy's shoulders pushing him until they made it out of the store and before yangyang could process what was happening. “O-oh they never told me we had practice” “oh well good thing you heard it from me, tho you might wanna double check just in case, ok?” “y-yeah ok, but wait-'' but before jisung could hear his question concerning you, and then be forced to answer it he turned around and walked away allowing the convenience store door to shut thus ending their interaction, leaving yangyang completely dumbfounded as to how he ended up outside of the store instead of inside looking for you. Jisung gives a sigh of relief upon returning to the scared figure on the ground in front of him, “It’s okay now” you hear those comforting words escape his mouth and you lift up your head to look up at him, “is he gone now?” Suddenly, jisung feels heat rise to his cheeks when looking down at your curled up body, resembling a scared child and somehow your question triggered a protective instinct in jisung, who felt the need to protect you from all the things wrong in the world well at least all the things that you couldn’t protect your own self from. Finally calming down after your nervous breakdown you stand up wiping away the dust on your clothes before turning to jisung with a smile on your face, “Now let's go eat some ramen!”

Both of you walk out of the convenience store after finding your cheese ramen and his spicy one, cooking it using the hot water at the store. You both sit down on one of the tables in front of the store met with a cool breeze that cooled the two of you down a bit from the summer heat. After taking a few bites and many loud slurps from the ramen, the two of you take your time to chew creating a moment of silence so jisung turns to you, “so you wanna tell me what happened in there?” You feel obligated to give him an explanation especially after how he helped you out, swallowing your food you lay your chopsticks down and explain to him the situation of yangyang confessing to you and you being nervous and confused. “Heol, yangyang actually likes you? Whaa” You throw a piece of your trash at him offended by his question, “Ya what do you mean actually liked me, what is their not to like” you say while flipping your hair back confidently, “Mhm you keep telling yourself that” his comeback slightly surprising you but you stop there not trying to take anymore insulting comments. “Ok but I was really nervous back there, if I wasn't so antisocial or if I actually understood my feelings then maybe yangyang and I would’ve already been dating and doing whatever couples do.” Thinking about the possibilities you pout and shove a bunch of noodles in your mouth to chew angrily, showing just how stressed out you were. Jisung lets out a laugh which earns a glare from you after being charmed by your inexperience and instead of making fun of your fantasies with yangyang, he empathizes with your situation thinking of a mature answer to help you out. “Do you seriously think anyone understands themselves? Because they don’t. People may put on a convincing facade but trust me when I tell you everyone is just as confused as you are. We’re teenagers for god sakes, we’re supposed to be going through this. You may not know what you want now, but in the future you will and how are you ever gonna figure it out unless you try? I have no idea what you’re feeling right now but I do know it’d be a waste to push those feelings aside because you’re scared. You’re the only thing stopping yourself and for whatever the reason is to why you're scared, whether that be getting hurt or getting embarrassed, just know it's natural and what’s meant to happen will happen but only if you allow it to.” In awe of jisungs words and yet curious as to how he developed all that wisdom. You stare at him, trying to read his face trying to understand what he was thinking. Instead you notice the soft glow of the neon sign on his features, his hair and face slightly lit up. You soften your expression while examining the details of the boy in front of you, who’s sitting with a slight slouch while spacing out, looking down at his ramen that makes you giggle inwardly because it looks like he’s glaring at his own food. You notice just how innocent and vulnerable he looks, and yet on the contrary you are unable to understand his thoughts now matter how you try. You find yourself spotting traits about jisung that you never realized before, like the glimmer in his eye or the sound of his sniffle while eating hot noodles, or how his cheeks puff out in the slightest and his hands inter cross when trying to focus. Even if he was sitting right across from her, he felt beyond reach and in the perspective you found jisung in, he was what they call picture perfect. If only I could just read his mind, even if it was just for a moment. However you stop yourself from staring at your friend for any longer and look down to take in his words, the same words that caught you off guard. You take a minute to absorb jisungs advice and just as quickly as yangyang said those three words to you, three words of the same nature slip out of your mouth, delivering the long awaited answer you were trying so hard to figure out, “I like yangyang.”

If you were able to read this far, I love you~

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bqstqnbruin · 4 years

Text

Never Again

This took my forever to write, but in my defense, I was working on my lesson plan for my honors students on Monday morning. I still have more requests which I LOVE and will work on but I do have an assignment due on Tuesday on top of teaching so I might be slow because I have the attention span of a walnut and can’t sit and write for long periods of time without getting distracted by my phone.

I also have an idea for another story that I want to do set in Philadelphia, but I don’t want a flyer for the story and need a boy, so if you have an idea, send it!

BUT here it is and if you have requests, keep them coming I love this!

Here is the original request!

____________________

Enemies

You never thought you would have to see him again once he moved away to go play hockey somewhere else in the country. You didn’t even know what team he played for. When you moved to Columbus, Ohio, you found out who it was.

“You’ve got to be kidding, right?” you hear as you turn around to face the doorway of your new office. The voice gave you chills; you thought you never had to hear it again.

You had just been hired as the social media director for the Columbus Blue Jackets. Hockey was ruined for you thanks to him, but this was the only job that gave you an offer, so you had to take it. You moved there from Burlington last week, and today was your first day.

“Jesus Christ,” you say, seeing none other than Josh Anderson standing in the doorway. “Why are you here?”

“I was told to come see the new social media director, why are you here?” he snaps.

“Apparently, you were told to come see me. They didn’t tell me I was going to be seeing an absolute ass.”

The two of you guys were friends at one point. When you guys were fifteen, he had begged you to go to his hockey game. He shot the puck at the net, but it went rogue. It ended up sailing over the glass and hitting you in the head. After the game, he didn’t even apologize for it. You asked him about it and he said it wasn’t his fault you got his by the puck he shot. That’s what started argument after argument between the two of you for the next two years before he left for hockey. The day he got drafted and left was the day you told yourself you would never have to talk to him again, and it was the best time of your life. You kept your promise and didn’t even think of him, talk about him, or hear his name.

Until today.

“You’re still not over that? How old are you?”

“The same age as you except I have the human decency to apologize to people if I do something wrong.”

“I didn’t do anything wrong to you, you just started yelling at me for no reason.”

“You shot the puck that gave me a concussion and took me out of school for three weeks. I almost had to repeat the school year!”

“Maybe if you actually paid attention to the game then you would have seen the puck and not let it hit you in the head.”

“Look,” you snap, trying to cut this off before someone heard the two of you fighting. One step out of line and you both knew it would be your job on the line a lot faster than his would be, “If we have to work together, we’re civil for that and no other reason. Deal?”

“Fine, whatever,” he rolls his eyes. This is definitely going to be harder than it needs to be, “What am I supposed to be doing here.”

“I’m supposed to be doing a player profile on you for Insta as a countdown of the days before the season. It’s 77 days out, and since you wear number 77, you’re today.”

He takes a deep breath before sitting down in the chair opposite your desk, “So are we doing this in here? Or what do I need to be doing so this can be done as soon as possible?”

You roll your eyes as you walk to the other side of your desk to find the memo that was sent to you this. “It looks like the two of us are going to on the ice and in the locker room, so you need to have your jersey on and get up there in the next half hour.”

“Fine.” he says, getting up to leave, “See ya in half an hour, Y/N.”

At least you could be civil.

Half an hour later, you were surprised to see he had actually listened to you.

“Hey, my name is Y/N Y/L/N and I’m one of the newest members of the Blue Jacket’s family. I’m here today to get to know your one and only Josh Anderson, and everything I learn, you guys get to learn, too!” You put on your fake cheery attitude knowing that you had to be with him. “So, Josh,” you turn the camera towards him, “the first thing we want to know is about your childhood relationship to hockey.” You just have to follow the script you were given, you can’t imagine that you would have any reason to deviate from it.

“Uh, well, like pretty much every hockey player, I was skating when I was young, playing on youth teams my entire life and dreamed of playing in the NHL. My best and my worst memories are related to the rink.”

“Best and worst?” There’s that deviation.

“Best would be winning the Calder Cup in 2016, helping get the Jackets to the second round of the playoffs in 2019. Worst would be losing, obviously,” he laughs and sighs, “And a

good friendship ended because of hockey.”

Friends

“C’mon, Anderson, show the people what they want!” You yell from the bench. The boys had morning practice in Calgary, and you were in charge of the social media, that being your job and all. You were trying to get Josh to come over and say ‘hi’ to the fans; every time he was on camera, the socials were blowing up with comments. He was one of the most requested players to appear besides PLD and Alexander.

Josh was purposefully skating away from you as you tried to get him on camera. You got a video of him looking directly at you as you called his name, him laughing, and skating away. You captioned it “Andy’s shy today” with the emoji that has the single tear.

The season was almost up. Because of how much time you and Josh had spent faking being nice to each other, you actually started to be nice to each other. You would even say that the friendship you had when you were younger was back.

Pierre-Luc came up to you instead. “Can I get you saying hi to the Jacket’s fans?” You beg, “Josh is being an ass.”

“Of course, get my good side,” he says, striking a pose. You burst out laughing, pulling up the camera. Giving him the thumbs up, he starts, “”Hi Blue Jackets fans! Thanks for your support, we’re looking forward to getting two points against the flames tonigh-” he jets cut off by Josh sneaking up behind him and scaring him, pushing him a little closer to you. “Josh!” he yells, both of them laughing, Josh nearly falling over.

“That’s going on the story.” You say, trying to catch your breath. “I thought you didn’t want to be on the story!”

“Once I saw pretty boy over here flirting with you, I had to come stop it obviously. You know what they say about us hockey players: you get close to them only to hit you in the head with a puck.” He teases. He winks at you, skating away once the coach calls his line.

“Flirting?” you tease. PLD would never.

“If anyone was flirting, it was him with you. That’s all he ever does.”

“No, he doesn’t,” you argue, “We just got back to being friends from being literal enemies.”

“What are you guys talking so intensely about?” Alexander comes over to get some water.

“I don’t think intensely is the right word there,” you say quietly.

“Josh and Y/N always flirting.” Pierre-Luc spits out.

“Oh, yeah. Everyone knows about that.”

Lovers

“Alright, guys. Tonight we’re coming into some of your rooms so fans can see what it’s like on the road. So that means you can’t be disgusting or rude, so, basically, don’t be yourselves.” You tell the team once everyone is on the bus. Tonight the guys were staying over in Tampa Bay before their game tomorrow. The guys start screaming about being crude.

“So does this mean you won’t be in Anderson’s room tonight?” Zach teases, causing the entire bus to erupt in laughter, resulting in more crude comments.

Josh became your best friend on the team, and the guys knew that. They saw you turn from enemies to friends since you started last season. They also were all convinced that you and Josh were going to end up together, and they made no effort in hiding that.

“No, but it can mean that I can have you benched for being insubordinate to game day staff.” You shoot back with a smile, “If the Bruins can do it to Seguin for missing team breakfast.” All the guys start screaming again as Zach turned bright red. The bus started moving, but you had to keep talking so the guys knew what they had to do two hours after check-in, “So, I need the ok from Werenski, MacInnis, Merzlikins, Anderson, and Atkinson. If not I have backups, but these are who the fans voted on for this.”

The boys all say ok, still getting teased for having Josh on the list, but it was the fans who decided that, not you. You sit down in your seat near the front with the rest of the staff to feel your phone buzzing in your jacket.

“Please let me go last.” Josh sends you with the praying hands emoji.

“Fine,” you send back, “But that just means your room has to be the best.”

You take the free time to prep what you’re going to ask each of the boys. The questions are supposed to be minimal and different; the guys are supposed to show the fans what they want to show them.

Werenski was a pain in your ass, as always. He kept teasing about Josh the entire time; it took you almost an hour to get in and out of his room and get enough footage for the video that you had to make before the team was done with the roadie in five days. MacInnis was no problem, but only gave you maybe five minutes of something usable. Merzlikins was an angel, as always, Atkinson was no problem, but it took three hours to get through the four of them. You were exhausted by the time you texted Josh that you were on your way to his room.

“Your teammates are a pain in my ass,” you say walking into his room. You look around his weirdly clean and neat room, “You never keep your hotel room like this. When we were in Dallas it looked like a tornado hit within five minutes of you getting your key card.”

“I want to present well to the fans,” he says, throwing his hands up in defense.

“Josh, no! This was supposed to be real. I’m not recording this, I’ll text Pierre-Luc,” you tell him, pulling out your phone to call him and ask if you could do his room tonight instead, turning to leave his room

“Wait, no, Y/N,” Josh says, grabbing your arm. He spins you around, causing your phone to go flying, his lips crashing into yours. For a second you don’t think you can move your body, the utter shock of your lips moving with his, until your body practically melts into his, your arms up around his shoulder, your hands running through his hair as his hands find his way around your waist.

When he finally pulls away, all you can say is, “wow.”

“So if I need a messier room, what do you say we start with the bed,” he smirks.

“Watch it,” you laugh, pulling him in to kiss again. And to think: you never thought you would have to see him again.

#josh anderson #josh anderson imagines #columbus blue jackets #columbus blue jackets imagines #nhl #nhl imagines #hockey #hockey imagines #blue jackets #blue jackets imagines

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indiavolojones · 4 years

Text

3kish words, E, pr: dialuci, #frantic handsy grinding where both parties are grimy and trapped in a place. that’s what romance is, thanks @devildomz

“Lucifer,” Diavolo purrs, and Lucifer tosses a halfhearted glare up through his lashes at the ornately carved ceiling at nothing in particular. Spares a moment to wonder for the owner of this tomb, and if they ever had someone that said their name just the way Diavolo says his.

He shivers at the thought.

alternate summary: a dialuci addition to a modern magic!au i wrote, where Lucifer is a world-renowned curse-breaker that takes a teaching job at the academy Diavolo is in charge of. they then go on a field trip that ends with them trapped in a tomb! but don’t let this fool you, it’s a frottage pwp.

(based in the same universe as this asmo/solomon magic college!au)

because i have no impulse control, and because @kareirakugaki is a *terrible* influence that went “what if they went to a tomb” and

tumblr user indiavolojones: oh fuck yeah

i also play loose and fast with the details. don’t look too into how magic works, guys.

~~~

“A university funded trip,” Lucifer summarizes, looking at the proposal in front of him, “You want me to take a group of children to an ancient tomb with a potentially large amount of obscure, lethal curses.”

“They’re hardly children, Lucifer!” Diavolo laughs, waving his hands. It’s partially true, the Advanced Curse-Breaking course hosts only students aged twenty and up, but Lucifer has seen much older adults lose their cool at less. Lucifer smothers the knee-jerk reaction to squint suspiciously as Diavolo just keeps giving him that megawatt smile. The same one that both charms and infuriates the Board, much to Lucifer’s secret, vindictive glee.

“Besides,” Diavolo’s smile softens, and softens Lucifer’s carefully constructed walls with it, “You said you missed being out in the field. I thought this might be fun for you.”

Lucifer sighs. Maybe this will be fine.

Never again.

Absolutely no more field trips for the curse-breaking department. Lucifer will bring back every obscure jinxed item he stumbles upon back to campus before he ever, ever goes on another university funded trip.

They’ve been trapped here for nearly a week.

More specifically, six days since Lucifer missed one curse, delicately woven into the surface of a pressure plate, and he hasn’t stopped beating himself up since. An ancient magic that had immediately sent shivers through the entrance hall, Lucifer barely managing to shout get back! at Mammon and the rest of their party when the foundations began to crumble.

Mammon and the others should find the exit easily enough, considering it’s only a few hours in the other direction. Getting back to Lucifer and Diavolo is the hard part, now that the site of their cave-in (aka the only known way out) is an unstable path, they have to find another way out or hope that someone out there can find them. Magical tombs are notorious for being hard to get in and out of without using the intended entrances, too many wards layered over the walls to dissuade those who would try to use brute strength to get through the labyrinth. Thankfully, Diavolo and Lucifer are both powerful mages in their own rights, so they’re far from helpless. Lucifer’s able to siphon water from the moss and wildlife to keep their water pouches adequately filled, even if it tastes a little strange. Diavolo has an intense amount of obscure knowledge of herbology, and somehow manages to deduce which of the strange plants won’t kill them to consume.

They stick close to the cave-in, but the ground grumbles in warning every so often, and Lucifer makes the call for them to venture further into the depths but... They aren’t any closer to finding a way out. They’re running out of supplies, their mana reserves at an agonizing all time low, and one can only live on bitter moss and plant water for so long.

The kiss itself is not a surprise, but merely a culmination of months of unspoken tension and lingering, awkward affection, spurned into action by the adrenaline, the danger. Diavolo’s hand massaging enticingly into Lucifer’s hip as he pushes him against the mossy wall, the wandering nature of the other hand as it traces up the side of Lucifer’s neck, cupping his jaw.

When his back hits the stone, Lucifer’s lips part to warn Diavolo against the act, as it might trigger any wall traps they might not have initially noticed–but Diavolo reads this as an invitation, tongue dipping deeper into the other’s mouth. Lucifer’s traitorous legs spread to accommodate Diavolo’s increased force, tipping back so that he’s balanced by Diavolo’s body and the surface behind him, so hm, maybe it was an invitation.

If this is how they’re going to go out, Lucifer would rather be kissed breathless than die wandering aimlessly through these ruins… Although, now that he thinks about it, it would hurt his ego terribly to be found mid-embrace, skewered by some magical spear trap.

After all his hard work, for his research and reputation to be dragged through the dirt at his tragic end...

Lucifer’s hand on Diavolo’s chest starts pushing insistently, until Diavolo tilts his head back. The kiss breaks, but not the heat between them. Lucifer can’t help the glancing down at the spit-slicked sheen of Diavolo’s swollen lips, dragging his gaze up to catch the burning gold of his eyes. His heart stutters, but Lucifer keeps his composure as he speaks:

“Do you think now is the time for this?”

As if Lucifer is not hard, hot, and wanting against Diavolo’s body, his breath rattling in his chest–but Lucifer’s hands are pressed flat against the cool wall behind him, fingers wordlessly easing magic into the stonework to search for signs of ancient curse-work.

“I think everything will work out in the end,” Diavolo says, calm and measured, yet light and playful–his words are vague enough that Lucifer’s eyes narrow.

Desperation is a heady, powerful drug.

It would make perfect sense for Diavolo to kiss him now, when their tension is at an all time high, when the harsh need for survival is offset by the human desire for comfort. There is a heat in the other’s motions, in how Diavolo’s hands twitch to explore Lucifer’s body, but none of the desperation that Lucifer would expect from a rowdy, passionate encounter in an ancient, abandoned tomb.

“Why is that?” Lucifer scoffs. Why does he have such confidence? What does he know that Lucifer does not?

Lucifer is no stranger to dangerous situations–curse breaking is the equivalent of bomb diffusion, essentially. Including all the morally dubious, soul rotting side-effects of knowing how to build those bombs. So Lucifer, who has on more than one occasion thrown himself into death’s arms only to come out victorious, should not be more frantic than Diavolo, a fucking chancellor to a prestigious magical academy.

A man that spends more time sitting inside, filling out paperwork, and guiding young, impressionable minds than anything else should not look so calm.

“Because you’re here.” Diavolo grins, a boyish honesty to his words. A record audibly screeches in his head. Lucifer blinks, magic stuttering to a halt at the other’s words, peppering out against the unforgiving stone.

“You’re Lucifer Morningstar–world-renowned curse-breaker.” Oh, he’s playing at Lucifer’s pride in the best way, and Diavolo knows it. “You have more accolades than most of the staff. You’re the best person I could have possibly been trapped with in a place like this.”

Diavolo raises the hand from Lucifer’s hip to gesture at the tomb around them, before reaching down to prod at one of the hands Lucifer has against the wall, urging until he laces their hands together. Residual magic sparks off Lucifer’s hands, and Diavolo rubs his thumb into the nooks between his knuckles.

“How could I not think everything will be fine?”

If Lucifer were Mammon, he would be spitting vehement dissent until the moment passed. If he were Levi, he might spontaneously combust. If he were Satan, he–Lucifer doesn’t have time to ponder what his stupid brothers would do when faced with such shameless praise. His parted lips speak no words, Lucifer knows that he likely has a few precious seconds before Diavolo teases him on his speechlessness–

–Diavolo kisses him, and it wipes away all coherent thought anyway.

Lucifer, a healthy thirty-something year old man, is not a virgin.

(Granted, most of the people he sleeps with tend to not have any knowledge of what he truly does. Being a world-renowned curse-breaker has its perks, but most people that find out his profession tend to be a little put off. Professor has a much more respectable edge to it, not that Lucifer’s been able to think about anyone but this absolutely infuriating chancellor.)

With this thought in mind, Lucifer will kill both Diavolo and then himself before he ever admits that Diavolo manages to work him into, dare he say it, a mess.

He’ll only acknowledge that Diavolo’s plans to completely blindside him with his honesty worked perfectly, much to his chagrin, however much Diavolo denies there being any kind of planning involved. (Lucifer hears Diavolo’s infuriating, lilting voice, full of amusement: How could he have planned a cave-in, Lucifer? Lucifer has too much faith in him!)

Regardless, Lucifer flourishes under Diavolo’s touch, the hand on his neck tracing back to fist into his hair, the hand laced with him against the wall refuses to let Lucifer go.

He’s sure that he doesn’t smell great, that they’re both covered in layers of grime–they’ve taken the best efforts to keep clean with what they have available, but Diavolo bites at Lucifer’s neck like he smells and tastes like a fucking delicacy, and Lucifer lets out a gasp too loud in the echoing chamber. His mouth snaps shut, fierce blush crossing his cheeks, but he can feel Diavolo’s smile against his skin.

He shivers at the thought. When Diavolo says his name again, it’s accompanied by a gasp turning into a muffled shout, bitten into the exposed skin just above the collar of Diavolo’s leather jacket when Diavolo slides a thick, muscular thigh between Lucifer’s legs.

Diavolo presses the weight of himself, slotting perfectly against the spaces of Lucifer’s body–Lucifer’s free hand flies to grab Diavolo’s bicep, marvels in the flex of it under the fabric.

“No one’s here, Lucifer,” Diavolo murmurs–Lucifer somehow spares another moment to curse him for this, for the quiet intensity that Diavolo only displays in the tenderest of their exchanges. Granted, before this, it was quiet evenings in the faculty room, a coffee gifted after a sleepless night of grading papers. Now it’s Diavolo grinding against him.

“You don’t have to hide your voice.”

Lucifer narrows his eyes, deciding that he’s been pliant and demure for long enough.

“You’d like that, wouldn’t you?” Lucifer replies, almost nastily, but it holds no true malice and Diavolo’s always been a sucker for Lucifer being a bit cruel anyway. Lucifer would have to be blind to not notice that when others shy away from his harsh tongue, Diavolo takes to it like breathing.

It’s a quick, easy motion for Lucifer to slide the hand from Diavolo’s bicep to his hair, to grab tighter onto Diavolo’s short red hair. Dirt streaks across Diavolo’s cheek from somewhere, and Lucifer has to fight to hold onto his feral lust, instead of the foreign burst of affection, the desire to dotingly wipe it away with his thumb.

“This is what you wanted, right?” He asks, and the question comes out quieter than intended.

“I want a lot of things, Lucifer,” Diavolo admits, and truly, his honesty will be the death of Lucifer. His head tilts into Lucifer’s hand, melts into his grip. “Pretty much all of them involve you.” His amused, lidded eyes drip with intent so pointed that Lucifer almost balks at the weight, hesitant at the promise Diavolo offers so freely.

Lucifer will forever claim his apprehension is a mix of exhaustion and concern for their situation, not an oppressive doubt, the latent insecurity that shades all of Lucifer’s decisions.

But when Diavolo shifts back to clumsily undo the button and zipper to Lucifer’s pants, slipping his hand in, cupping over the thick line of Lucifer’s cock through his boxers, Lucifer finds it hard to doubt the other at all. Groaning through grit teeth at the new, too-close friction, Lucifer tries to jerk away. Diavolo takes his face in hand, stares directly into his eyes.

“Just, just let me,” Diavolo stumbles over a laugh, huffs the rest of his sentence, his fingers dragging over the head of his cock, dampening the fabric with his precum. It makes Lucifer feel like a teenager again, each breath too hot in his lungs, nearly delirious with want.

Diavolo hisses when Lucifer tries to reach for his cock as well, batting the other’s hand away, warning, “Lucifer.”

While Diavolo is a powerful mage, there’s generally a difference in the level of skill between himself and Lucifer. Lucifer’s talents lay in the practical, in understanding the groundwork and complexities of something in front of him, something tangible. Diavolo is brilliant in his mastery of diplomacy and the theoretical, the open, endless possibilities that magic and its future leaders will present.

Physically, though... Not by much, but Diavolo is taller. Diavolo is broader. Lucifer is aware of his own physique, pleasant to look at, although slightly softened by the last few months of grading papers and helping students get uncursed by their own experiments.

Diavolo has a natural strength to his motions, a warrior’s confidence, a king’s authority–but Diavolo is an educated, if not eccentric, man. Lucifer has never seen him resort to paltry shows of brute strengths for anything his mind could conquer.

So when Lucifer makes another attempt at getting in Diavolo’s pants, Diavolo pins Lucifer’s hand against the wall by his shoulders. The jarring impact of the back of his hand hitting the stone wall sends an unexpected thrill through him, sends something like magic through his nerves, setting off his synapses. The novelty of it. Of Diavolo, so aloof, so charming–the intensity of his force is exhilarating, and Lucifer does not quite know how to temper the want in his chest at the sight of it.

Once Lucifer relents, folds to this interesting new sensation, Diavolo finally gets a proper palming grip on his cock through the boxer briefs. Lucifer groans, not entirely muffling his voice, but the hand in Diavolo’s hair tightens again, and he presses his lips to the shell of Diavolo’s ear so that the other can hear how he feels. It works as intended, because Diavolo lets out another quiet curse, his impossibly warm, big hand stroking faster along Lucifer’s shaft.

In the end, it’s easy to let himself get swept up in Diavolo. The angle is awkward, but Diavolo’s enthusiastic motions are consistent enough that Lucifer feels pleasure building low in his belly. Diavolo’s grip on his wrist loosens to the point, where his motions are jerky enough that somehow, he’s not sure which of them cause it, their hands lace again.

The act is so intimate that it almost startles a laugh out of Lucifer, or it would have, if Lucifer had any air in his lungs left to spare for such things.

It is laughable, to have them hold hands like this when the act they’re engaging in is so shameless in itself. There is nothing romantic or intimate about how they’re pressed against the wall of a long forgotten tomb, Diavolo’s hand shoved down his pants and Lucifer desperately holding onto him as Diavolo threatens to tear him apart from the inside out.

Lucifer is exhausted, strung out, his mana deficient a hollow ache inside his chest, but Diavolo’s touch is everything. Distantly, he wonders if Diavolo is adept at any kind of healing magics, but no, Diavolo is just as magically depleted as he is. There is no other reason for the scorching heat between them other than their own stupid libidos.

Lucifer can barely breathe, his nails dig into Diavolo’s skin hard enough to leave bright red, crescent marks in both the nape of his neck and the back of his other hand. Pleasure shoots up his body at the too-dry strokes, his toes curling as he rocks into Diavolo’s steady form. He kisses Diavolo, wet and messy. Their teeth clack, Lucifer bites down on Diavolo’s lower lip hard enough that he tastes a hint of blood, sharp and coppery in his mouth.

Diavolo keens, and the sound is so wanton, so needy, that it makes Lucifer’s entire body shudder.

Lucifer’s orgasm is a surprise that shoots through him like a flare. When he cums, he lets out a strangled cry at his release into their kiss– the sound swallowed by Diavolo’s greedy mouth. He arches against Diavolo, his entire body caught in a thin line of tension. He screws his eyes shut, shaking as Diavolo’s hand continues to work him through each wave of raw pleasure.

Diavolo talks him through it, murmuring quiet words of encouragement that would have Lucifer snarling were it anyone else. Diavolo does not mean to be patronizing, a voice deep inside Lucifer knows, and in the dreamy, post orgasm-haze, he clings onto it. He clings until his cock becomes too sensitive in his boxers, his body twitching away from Diavolo’s thorough touch.

It is now that he realizes the uncomfortable situation of having cum in his pants, a truly disgusting sensation as it drips down his thigh, embarrassingly coats the front of his boxer briefs.

“Don’t say anything,” Lucifer growls, and Diavolo pets his hair gently. Lucifer refuses to admit that it feels nice.

“I wasn’t going to,” he promises, and before Lucifer can say anything else, he feels the accidental bump of Diavolo’s hard cock against his thigh. Another flash of embarrassment crosses his features at his own selfishness, easily reminded of how Lucifer had so desperately chased his own release in Diavolo’s hands.

“Don’t get that look in your eye,” Diavolo croons, pressing an affectionate kiss to the side of Lucifer’s jaw. Lucifer stifles the instinctive reaction to jerk his face away, cheeks burning bright red at the action. “I wanted to do that for you.”

“I thought I said not to say anything,” Lucifer says, but then his hand is reaching down to cup Diavolo’s cock in hand, “And who said we were done?”

“Let me down,” Lucifer commands, still breathless, unsure of why he’s requesting that they move positions. What Diavolo thinks is going to happen when they both get to the ground is just as much of a mystery to Diavolo as it is to Lucifer, although there’s a stunned, somehow still turned-on part of Lucifer’s brain that demands Diavolo kiss him on a horizontal surface.

Maybe they’ll use some of their water rations to clean themselves, that way Lucifer can get on his knees, slide between Diavolo’s legs. Take the other into his mouth, heavy, thick weight of it on his tongue, and reduce the man to the same level of incoherency that Lucifer dreamily feels.

Diavolo, the hapless fool, does his best to help Lucifer accommodate the new uncomfortable wetness in his pants, but his attempts are quickly in vain. With a quiet oof, one of his feet tangles with one of Lucifer’s, and they crumble to the ground.

Lucifer lands unceremoniously on his ass, Diavolo on top of him. Diavolo’s hand reaches out to catch himself, bumping into a stone previously unnoticed. The stone shifts, unexpectedly, but what’s more of a surprise is the sharp sudden singing of triggered magic– –still reeling from his own orgasm, Lucifer reacts on instinct alone, one hand reaching out to grab a fistfull of Diavolo’s shirt, clutching him close to his body, another to sweep his arm up to cast a wide barrier around them. Diavolo grunts as his knees bash into the rough ground, propped up between Lucifer’s spread legs. He steadies himself on Lucifer’s knees, head twisting to turn around when nothing shoots out at them–

“Is that–” Diavolo begins, as Lucifer breathes, “–An exit.”

---

Once they meet up with the rescue team, Lucifer has to handle Mammon being annoying and fretting over him while he’s got dried cum in his pants. That’s the end. I didn’t write it, but just know that Diavolo cannot stop grinning. Mammon’s like, what the hell man, i just SAVED YOU?? and lucifer is like, YES YES now can we PLEASE get the fuck out of here

i’ve been feeling kind of self-conscious about my obey me content recently so... thanks if u got this far huheuehe

#ch: lucifer #ch: diavolo #pr: dialuci #writing #spicy content

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snowstorm808 · 3 years

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More than Friends review eps 9-16

I previously posted my review of the first half of the series because I could not contain what I felt. It was quite impulsive of me but I wanted to let out everything I thought and felt for this drama. It is becoming better every time in such a way that I see the little creative ideas the writer or director is putting into each episode along with the development of the story. Familiar yet refreshing. I decided to create a new post because I saw that the first half recap was way too long if I would still add the remaining episode reviews because I just could not help it. I do understand that the length could be frustrating but I want my words to be read too, so thank you for everyone patient enough to read my words.

Episode 9 - Watching this episode made me realize a double standard I never really noticed before but I guess drama watchers would be able to relate to; the difference of pitiful and pathetic for female and male leads. I’m not yet certain if it’s deliberate but female characters locked in one sided love often seem pathetic but when it’s a male character they seem pitiful? Woo Yeon did seem pathetic in her one sided love in the earlier episodes so why does Soo get to be pitiful? It’s the same for the past dramas I’ve watched too. It’s just a food for thought. Based on last week’s preview, I really thought Joon Soo would punch Lee Soo after the drunk call but he held back so good job, Joon Soo. Honestly, I thought he wouldn’t be able to hold back because not only was he angry of the fact that Woo Yeon was getting swayed by Soo, but also because he knew how much it hurt, and hates the fact that she would still be hurt over the latter after a decade. This is why I keep wanting Joon Soo because he never thought selfishly when it came to Woo Yeon. I also love the fact that his character is being shown as someone seemingly perfect with a lot of flaws too. I love seeing his flaws and even relating to them! Being used to holding back is probably the reason why I write so much because I swear I can’t talk this much at all. I really hope he would stop holding back for his own sake. I think the most favorable Soo I have ever seen was him drunk calling his dad. I love the fact his parents went to his house to talk and console him. I also realized that Soo really closed himself up enough to have no one but his dad to drunk call. That was sad because the high school gang never really shunned him but he was the one who kept his heart closed. I half expected his folks to announce that hey would be back together because I feel that’s where those two are headed to eventually. As for Woo Yeon, I’m somehow glad she mustered up the courage to break up with Joon Soo after everything. As much as I was dreading it, I also felt that it was the right decision. She knew that it was too cruel to let him hurt quietly so I’m glad she had that decency; I could see that she was doing her best to be firm with her resolve. On her behalf, I get it why it’s difficult for her to let go of her feelings for Soo so I do not think she’s a weird one for that. I know that this is where my ship stops its sail but I’m satisfied that it’s not as I feared it would. The fight scene was reminiscent of Jealousy Incarnate, I just hope Dong Jun faked the punch because I know how athletic he has been from his Idol days which is enough for me to be scared for Seung Woo. Conveniently, it was only after this that Soo decides to take a break from pursuing Woo Yeon after ruining her chance to start anew with someone. Eventually, I know that Woo Yeon would not be able to defy the flow of her feelings towards Soo but I hope he can also grow up more because right now, I can still see him being selfish and self centered in his approach.

Episode 10 - How can one episode contain so much emotions? And it was all types of emotions at that! I mean one moment it’s awkward, cute, upsetting, lovely, funny then sad and even more! This episode was a roller coaster of emotions in my opinion. First thing’s first, the younger guy Jinju dated is a total loser and a scumbag. Good thing Sang-hyeok was there to the rescue. I feel so bad for Young-hee because every time she takes a step forward, she’s always dragged two steps back. She has a strong personality but it does not mean her situation does not wear her down too. So here comes the roller coaster because Lee Soo and On Joon Soo drinking together and ending up at Woo Yeon’s place is super cute. That includes her parents’ “interview” with the two men while they try to show off their “qualities”. I literally said “boom” when Joon Soo “let slipped” that Soo was the jerk Woo Yeon’s parents have been hunting for. That was really petty but I guess it’s his little revenge on Soo for interrupting their relationship when he used to date Woo Yeon. I am not going to lie about not loving the misunderstanding Soo had when he saw them together in the restaurant while he was with his parents. He tends to act so victimized which I really dislike then he readily blows up at Woo Yeon. But then again, it makes these characters more human then the usual kdrama characters I watched in the past. Lee Soo should really learn to express things more clearly so Woo Yeon would stop thinking that he’s simply bored or fooling around. As for Joon Soo, it’s a lost battle and I feel bad for him because he has become a masochist which is why I need to take care of him. I need Woo Yeon’s cooperation for this...

Episode 11 - Soo is finally given the chance he keeps on missing. As much as I am sad for my ship, I’m happy Woo Yeon and Soo are coming around although it isn’t the full circle yet. I do feel really bad for Joon Soo but it has always been clear how strong Woo Yeon’s feelings have been for Soo. I like how she at long last clearly stated that she will always give Soo the chance whatever he does because it has been evidently true for the past episodes. I guess that’s enough proof that feelings can’t be controlled easily. My favorite part in this episode would be her giving Soo an ultimatum because I always had a feeling he thought of her as a port always there for him. My second favorite in this episode would be Sang Hyuk and Jinju! He’s so sweet and caring which is exactly what she needs. Will they be my favorite couple? Hehe. I just want to take a bit of time to swoon over Joon Soo because he cares a lot for Woo Yeon though it isn’t returned, I appreciate him wishing her well. I can’t help but wonder if there will be another drama between Woo Yeon and Soo, because if he hurts her one more time then I would prefer her to be alone (I’ll be taking Joon Soo.)

Episode 12 - I never thought Soo and Woo Yeon together would be this mushy haha. They are making up for the lost time and I like seeing them happy and somewhat letting go of the inhibitions they had. And for the first time, I think I want to scold the writer for adding a character like Yura because seriously, those two no longer need another person to interrupt them. I suppose it’s to make up for the remining episodes? But then it could be expound on things like commitment issues for Woo Yeon and Soo, and taking the next step for their relationship. I do secretly hope for Joon Soo to make a comeback but not necessarily in a romantic light. Obviously, Soo is the one being careful now when it comes to dealing with Woo Yeon. I like seeing him nervous of losing her because it keeps him on his toes though I hope he would be more direct about it instead of acting cool so she won’t misunderstand anymore. I remember him saying he dated around too but Woo Yeon seems more like the one used to dating. I guess he never really thought of the other party when dating. I can sort of imagine his ex-girlfriends putting more effort than him.

Episode 13 - Lol, Soo should’ve been more sensitive when Woo Yeon insisted on going home by herself. I find it so cute when she defended Soo from her parents, she was so cheeky to point out her dad’s faults. After everything they have been through I hope they can do well from now on but something tells me otherwise. At least Woo Yeon finally said the magic words Soo has been so anxious to hear. It seems she was too nervous and being careful to say it though I had the initial impression that she must’ve had a stigma of some sort to those three words. I somehow feel nervous about Soo’s job offer from the airline because it might lead to a fight or even a break up. Speaking of a break up, I’m sad Hyun-jae and Young-hee had to part ways though it was one-sided. I do get the pov of his family but I can’t relate to the pressure of marriage. By the way, am I the only one who thinks Kwon Yura’s character is waste? I mean I don’t see much purpose for her character because she does not threaten the main lead’s relationship other than making Woo Yeon want to doll up herself. I must say one of my favorite scenes in this episode is when Woo Yeon went to the salon and told the staff she’s meeting with her boyfriend’s woman. I love how the customers and salon staff reacted even calling in their boss to style her. Was it a parody? I’m not sure because I have sworn to lay my hands and eyes off all dramas that deal with a husband’s mistress. Nevertheless, it was super witty and I had a lot of fun watching that scene including the one where she deliberately posed further behind Yura to make her face look smaller. Lastly, Sang-hyeok and Jinju are finally together! They look so cute together and make the perfect couple. In fact, all three couples seem to be perfect for each other because they complement each others’ personalities well.

Episode 14 - This must be the episode where everyone breaks up or gets rejected. But before that, I can’t get over the expression Woo Yeon’s mom wore when she said to pack up contraception for her trip with Soo. One minute they were having a lovely mother-daughter moment then she suddenly brings that up. As much as most people would find it awkward, I think it was so funnily straightforward. Her mom cares which suddenly reminds me of the reaction of Young-hee’s mom when she found tons of condoms in her drawer. Another reaction I really enjoyed was when Woo Yeon and Soo found out Jinju and Sang-hyeok are dating! The way she splashed water out of shock really showed how it was the farthest thing in her mind. From the time Soo’s work offer came, it already seemed ominous along with Woo Yeon’s offer so I was not surprised with the break up. Maybe it was for the better; I have been mulling over Woo Yeon’s reasoning that she might end up hating Soo if they stayed together. The loneliness was eating her up which I believe is realistic in a long distance relationship like theirs. Soo shouldn’t have readily agreed regardless if he was thinking of her or not. Considering these two pursued their careers, I think this would leave less regrets in their hearts because they were able to fulfill the dreams they had. Their feelings for each other will always be there because they are Soo and Woo Yeon. I just need to wait how they will get back to each other.

Episode 15 - While watching this episode, I couldn’t stop thinking that this is the episode I finally see Lee Soo as someone heartbroken and not self centered, also, am I the only one who thinks his hair styled up is way better than his hair down? At last, I got to see Soo’s feelings of longing for Woo Yeon instead of his attitude of forcing his feelings like earlier into the series. I think it’s his maturity plus his sincerity in wanting her back because he now knows how it is to lose her. Their break up might just seem like another ploy by the writer to extend the series but I also think it was helpful to both Woo Yeon and Soo. In the first place, they decided to be apart so their careers could flourish which made them busy and drift apart. It also brought to light the insecurities they had especially Woo Yeon who had been so used to be the only one who in love. I think her fears of having the person she loved and wanted the most surfaced which keeps her from returning to him even if he’s practically begging her back. I just hope Soo would’ve made efforts to contact Woo Yeon or get her back after that break up call just as he was when he was courting her instead of stepping back. I guess it was partly a good thing because they were able to achieve certain things for their careers during that time too. Meanwhile Young-hee’s mom’s death was inevitable but at least they got to resolve the hard feelings and she was able to convey her love for her children. I think among the deaths I’ve seen in kdramas, this is the most touching for me. I must really be getting old to be sentimental like this. I also felt envious of the leads’ friendship. This episode showcased it the most especially how they supported Young-hee through the most difficult time in her life. I also love how they quietly support the complicated relationship of Soo and Woo Yeon. They have never attempted to kill him so yup they are good people.

Episode 16 - Loose strings are tied up in a pretty bow as the friends gear up for each of their happy endings. Joon Soo decides to let go of his feelings for Woo Yeon (he’s finally free to walk towards me! Yay!) I really like their hug because it sums up the affections and friendship they had. Good thing Soo wasn’t there to tear them apart. I also like that Soo is still a bit jealous of Joon Soo because whenever I remember how arrogant he was about stealing Woo Yeon away, I still want to punch him. His mom’s pushing aka guilting Woo Yeon was indeed effective, heh. Seriously though, it seems to me that his mom did it because she did not want him to end up like his parents and perhaps it was her way of making up for their negligence and mistreatment of him. I love the fact that Soo and Woo Yeon continued to fight and make up even after getting back together, it was very much in their character. It’s also nice that Soo’s parents decided to give their relationship another shot. It makes me think that they too learned from their son. Jinju’s and Sang-hyeok’s wedding pictorial was super lovely, it was very smart of them to trick Soo into it haha. Young-hee and Hyun-jae are finally back together too! Thank goodness, they’re getting married instead of returning to dating. As much as I cringed with their cheesiness, it was very much welcome and cute to watch. All six of them had their own cringey and cheesy way of saying and doing things. I think this drama has one of the most satisfactory endings ever, now, if only On Joon Soo can find his way to me...

More than Friends has met the amount of romance and tension that I always look for yet refreshing and not too cliché. I love the little details and the way it explored different types and stages of relationships including of different age groups. I hope other viewers would also get to see how the writer tried to portray these in the drama. Watching the ending made me realize the drama’s title was probably referred to these couples because they started as friends and became more than just that. Honestly, their situation is quite idealistic but I think it’s so cute if it does happen in real life. I’m happy I watched this even if it was mainly for Kim Dong Jun. Literally before watching this, I watched Moment of Eighteen then even prior to that, I watched Meow, The Secret Boy. MoE was sad because Junwoo had to put off his dreams and relationship to help out his mom. I initially wanted to skip or wait till later to watch it but ended up being hooked to it. Hehe.

One of the things I find fascinating in this drama is the casting! Shin Ye Eun’s step mom in MTSB became her actual mom while her dad became Lee Soo’s dad this time. There lots of familiar faces which made me like the drama even more.

#more than friends #shin ye eun #ong sungwoo #kim dongjun #p.o.#ahn eunjin #baek soo min #choi chan ho

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whatisnormalforthespider · 4 years

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Pictures of You

Pairing: Jonathan Byers x Reader

Summary: A fanfic I posted on AO3 for Halloween/Kinktober.

Jonathan always has been and always will be a creeper. Here he is at his very creepiest.

WARNING: this story contains graphic rape/noncon. Read with caution.

You had always liked Jonathan Byers. Ever since you met in the fourth grade, he had been your friend. You did everything together—homework, gaming, family dinners. Everything. As you grew older you started to LIKE like him. You were frightened by this, worried that if your feelings were revealed it would ruin your friendship. So for the past few years you’d kept things quiet. You tried dating other guys but none of them were what you were looking for. For the sake of your friendship, you’d resigned yourself to not being satisfied at this point.

But you still relished every moment you got to spend with him. So when he invited you into the darkroom with him you happily agreed. You watch as he dips each photo, handing them to you to hang up to dry. He’d always been an avid photographer and in your eyes, his pictures have only been getting better. “These are really beautiful, Jon,” you whisper, hushed by the pitch black of the room. Even in the darkness you can tell he’s blushing.

“Thanks, Y/N…” He shrugs bashfully. “They’re nothing, really. You just have to find the right lighting, the right angles…I could show you sometime.”

“I’d like that.” You try to ignore the way your heart skips a beat at his words, instead concentrating on the latest photo he’s handed you. It’s a picture of his little brother, all dressed up in a wizard costume complete with a staff and hat. He looks so happy, you can’t help but smile. “Is this one for Halloween?”

Jonathan glances at the photo and laughs. “Oh, no. He wears that when he plays Dungeons and Dragons with his friends. He’s such a nerd.” He says the word lovingly.

You raise an eyebrow. “If he’s a nerd, what does that make you?”

You just know he’s blushing even harder now. “I…I don’t know. A freak, maybe.”

“I’m just messing with you, Jon.” You nudge him playfully and his lips turn up again. “So…what are you doing this weekend?”

“For Halloween? I dunno.” He risks a glance at you but refuses to meet your eyes. “You could come over if you want…my mom has to work and my brother will be out Trick-or-Treating.”

Your heart leaps into your throat. Alone? With him? At his house? “S-sure, I’d love to.” You elbow him to cover up your own embarrassment. “I’ll dress up real fancy for you.”

He laughs. “Whatever, Y/N. I’ll see you then.”

“See you.”

************************************

You’re just in time to catch Ms. Byers as she leaves for the night. “Hi, Y/N!” She beams, wrapping you in a hug. “It’s so nice to see you. How have you been?”

You can’t resist smiling back at her. She’s like a second mother to you. “I’ve been great, Ms. Byers.”

“And you look so pretty!” She holds you at arm’s length to admire your outfit. “What are you supposed to be, a witch?”

“A mage,” you correct, showing her your dollar-store wand. “It’s a…modern interpretation. I thought Will would like it.”

She clasps her hands together, delighted. “He’ll love it. You’ll have to show him when he gets back home.” There’s a pause, and she looks at you knowingly. “Jonathan is inside. I’ll see you later, Y/N.”

You hurry into the house, ducking into the bathroom to check yourself in the mirror. Your hair falls in waves around your bare shoulders. You wear a tiny black witch hat on a headband, and it matches your short black skirt. You look down at your sparkling purple flats, suddenly hoping that Jonathan doesn’t think you look slutty.

“Jon?” You call to cover up your own nervousness. No answer, but you’ve been to the house more than enough times to know your way to his room. You knock gently on the door. “J? It’s Y/N…”

When he still doesn’t answer, you open the door gingerly. You’d been in this room plenty of times as a kid, but not in the last few years. It’s meticulously clean, the bed neatly made and the curtains drawn. The only messy part of the room is his desk, scattered with photographs of all sizes. You flip one of them over, curious. It’s of his little family, holding carved pumpkins that match their grins. It must’ve been last year, you think: Will has shot up like a rocket. You put it down to exchange it for another one. This one is of two beautiful girls. You know one of them as Nancy Wheeler but you’re not sure about the other one.

You continue looking through photographs, admiring their beauty but seeing nothing that really piques your interest. Then you find one near the bottom that stops you cold. It’s of another girl, but this one isn’t posed—it looks like it was taken outside of a window. The girl inside has her back to the camera. She’s undressing. Your stomach drops. Why would Jonathan have a picture like this? Who is she? You feel an unnatural twinge of jealousy until you recognize the curtains framing the shot. You only know of one person who has curtains with such a garish, 70’s-style floral print. It’s you. You turn over the photograph next to this disturbing shot and come face to face with yourself. It’s another candid one, this one taken outside of school. You’re reading a book. It seems innocent enough, but what about the other one?

You jump right out of your skin as the door opens. “Jesus, Y/N!” Jonathan looks just as astonished as you feel. “What are you doing in my room?”

“Uh, you told me to come over around five…”

He runs a hand through his hair, jaw clenched. “Yeah…guess I did…”

“Where were you?”

“Developing photos in the basement.” He holds them up for you to see—then suddenly pulls them back toward his chest. “Just…just boring ones. Nothing you’d wanna see.”

“Bullshit.” He looks up at you, startled. Wordlessly, you hold up the picture of you undressing. His mouth drops open for a second.

“Y/N, I can explain that…”

“Can you? I’d love to hear it.”

He runs a hand through his hair again, almost dropping the pictures he has in his arms. “Look, I…I really like you, okay? I have for years. You’re just so…” He pauses, giving you a once-over.

So what? You think. But there are more pressing matters at hand. “And you just thought taking a picture like this, without my knowledge, was okay? Are you…stalking me?”

“What? No, I’m not stalking you. I’m not crazy, Y/N. I was just out in the woods one day…it was a little after Will had disappeared, I was looking for him…and I saw you. And I just couldn’t help myself. You were just…” He reaches up to tuck your hair behind your ear, but you smack his hand away.

“I wanna see those photos you just developed.”

“Y/N…”

You practically tear them from his hands. They’re all of you. You at the library, you in your pajamas…you taking a shower. You feel your insides twisting into a fantastic pretzel shape. “Jon, what the fuck?”

“I know you like me too.” His tone changes suddenly, throwing you for yet another loop. “I’ve seen the way you look at me, Y/N. And all these photos…these were private, just for me. No on else was going to see them.”

You stare at him for a moment. “That doesn’t make any of this okay, J! I…I have to go. I need some time to think.” He slams the door shut before you can even take a step. “Let me go, Jon.”

“Y/N…can we just talk about this? Sit down, have a talk?”

“No!” You feel tears prick your eyes. You’re so overwhelmed… “I just wanna go home.”

Jonathan sighs like a tired parent, taking your arm and guiding you toward the bed. You don’t resist, knowing it won’t do you much good at this exact moment. You both sit down and he runs a hand tenderly along your spine. “You like me too, don’t you, Y/N?”

You refuse to look at him. “I did.”

“Well, this is great then.” He laughs but it’s clearly forced. “We both like each other, so—”

“What you did was wrong,” you interrupt. “I want all of those pictures burned.”

“What? I’m not gonna burn them.” He brushes his thumb down your cheek, catching a stray tear as it falls. “They’re precious to me. Just like you.”

You can tell he’s being sincere. How does he not realize how wrong all of this is? “C-can I go now?”

“No, wait a minute.” He pulls you closer and you immediately stiffen. “Knowing you like me back…oh Y/N….” Without warning he kisses you full on the lips. You can’t help but pay attention to how it feels—you had wanted this for such a long time. His lips are soft, almost like you imagine a child’s would be. One hand is still on your back while the other tangles itself in your hair. You’re so distracted you almost forget to push him away. Almost.

“I-I don’t like you anymore!”

He smiles gently. “I bet I could make you like me again.”

You take that as your moment to leap off the bed, making a mad dash for the door. Jonathan tackles you, wrapping his arms around your waist. “No!” You scream as loud as you can, hoping a neighbor or someone will hear you. He flips you over so you’re on your back, putting a hand over your mouth.

“Shhhh, Y/N, it’s okay…I’m not gonna hurt you. Don’t scream, okay? Be good and quiet for me?” You squirm under him but God, is he strong…how is he so strong? He reaches into a drawer in his desk, pulling out a long length of fabric. A tie. He’s so gentle as he ties it around your head, even as you kick and try to scream through the gag. You know what he’s planning and you do not want to be here for it. “Now.” He kisses your forehead. “You want this too, don’t you, Y/N?”

You shake your head vehemently, struggling as he pins your arms down. “I know you do.” He brushes his nose against yours. “My Y/N. I’m doing all this cause I love you, okay?” While one hand keeps your arms pinned above your head (how is he so strong?) the other snakes beneath your skirt. You kick as well as you can, trying to throw him off. He cups you carefully, rubbing your clit with a feather light touch. You try not to react but it’s impossible. In spite of your brain’s best efforts, you’re wet. Jonathan’s eyes light up. “You’re going to enjoy this, sweetheart. I promise.”

He continues working on your clit, eventually moving your panties aside. You gasp as he puts two fingers inside you. You don’t know how he’s so good at what he’s doing—he’s too shy to have tried this with anyone else. And you hate it, you tell yourself. You hate it. You hate him. It doesn’t matter how he’s spreading you wide and making your hips buck. He looks you in the eye and you’re terrified of what you see there—pitch darkness. “You like this, baby?” You scream “fuck you” around the gag and he actually looks hurt. He removes his fingers, bringing them to his mouth. You squeeze your eyes shut, not wanting to see him lick your essence off. “If I let your wrists go, will you be good? I can do so much more for you that way.” He grabs your chin, squeezing uncharacteristically hard, forcing you to look at him. “I know you can be good for me. I don’t wanna have to hurt you. Okay?” Your breaths are shallow and fast, your eyes wider than saucers. He releases you and you immediately start hitting and scratching at whatever parts of him you can reach. He sighs like a teacher who’s had to discipline a student one too many times.

Jonathan catches your wrist in his hand, twisting it into an unnatural position that makes you gasp. “I’ll break it.” His tone is flat, emotionless. “Do you want me to do that?” A tiny “no” leaves your lips. “Then put your hands by your head and keep them there.” He looks at you almost sadly, brushing your hair out of your face. “I don’t know why you’re fighting me. We’ve both wanted this for so long.”

You want to scream to the moon and tell him exactly why, but you know it wouldn’t do any good. The man is goddamn CRAZY, you’re sure of that. All you can think to do now is ride this out and hope he doesn’t kill you when it’s over.

You shudder as you hear him unzip his jeans. He pulls out his cock gingerly, as if even he isn’t 100% sure what to do with it. He gives you a reassuring smile, pulling your skirt and panties down to your knees. You don’t bother trying to stop the tears as they flow freely down your cheeks, wetting your hair. He kisses your nose tenderly. “Don’t worry, I have condoms.” You’re surprised at how much relief that brings you. At least, you think as you watch him roll one on, you won’t have to worry about carrying his baby after this. Although he’d probably like that…you shiver.

Sparks fly as he pushes in. You can feel every inch of him inside you, and it feels…good? No, you chide yourself immediately. Fuck him. You’re not going to cum from this. Your cervix, however, disagrees. As he thrusts in and out (gently, giving you time to catch your breath), you see blackness at the corners of your eyes. You’re going to pass out, you think, and what a relief that would be… But you don’t pass out. You feel every aching minute, every ounce of pain and pleasure, until finally you know you’re close. Jonathan notices this too, damn him. “You’re almost there, aren’t you sweetie? I am too. God, just thinking about you brings me to the edge. You’re just so—” He cuts off as he explodes inside you. Thank the good lord for condoms. His hand drops to your clit, touching and flicking till you can’t stand it anymore. With a whine so piteous it’s embarrassing, you come. Jonathan talks you through it, whispering sweet nothings in your ear and stroking your hair.

When you come down from your high, you’re still sobbing. You realize you never stopped. Jonathan gently removes the gag, massaging the corners of your mouth. “You did so good for me, sweetness. God, I love you. You’re so…”

“Let me go,” you whisper, and he acts like this is a new thing.

“Oh yeah, of course, baby.” He lets you stand and redress. “Oh, one more thing.” You turn to him, recoiling as a flash nearly blinds you. He’s taken another picture. “Happy Halloween, Y/N. I’ll see you soon."

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