#you’d think after watching her reveal herself as one of their own I’d realize she totally be there the whole season

[wackachewbacca]

We need one of those I voted stickers but it just says “I Failed My Raishan Watch” cause I totally just did

[clumsiestgiantess]

Chapter 19 of The Other-world Universe; Alexis ignores her new responsibilities and.. goes home?

all chapters listed here

[Inspiration Strikes]

After double-checking with the outposts to ensure the town would be safe enough without me, I caught Erica just before she went into one of the secret little entrances.  Literally.  I scooped her up as she was walking.  “Oof!” she exclaimed as her chest collided with my palm.  “What-?”  Her disgruntled voice cut off as I curled my fingers around and beneath her, hoisting her gently up in front of my face.  “Erica, I think I’m going to head to my world for a bit.  I want to see if I can make something that’ll help this town, and maybe myself.  Do you mind if I leave you here?  I mean, it’s not like I can go with you into the mountain anyways.”  

Erica’s expression looked a little bit crestfallen for a moment, before turning her attention back to the present.  “Sure, go ahead.  You dragged me all the way up here to ask that?”  “Well, it’s honestly easier for me to see and hear you this way.  Sorry if I picked you up a bit too quickly.  I’ll just stick to talking to you on the ground — I don’t want to hurt you.”  Erica shook her head, reaching out to put an arm around one of my fingers.  “Oh!  No, I just didn’t realize-  You can pick me up whenever you want,” she told me, a shy smile grazing her lips as she turned embarrassedly away.

I squeezed her a bit in my hand, teasing her.  A slight blush crept over her cheeks as I rubbed the side of her arm with the pad of my thumb.  “I didn’t think you’d mind.”  Erica giggled, then shook herself off as if coming to her senses.  “H-Hey!  I’m the one who’s supposed to do the flustering!  Put me down!”  I exhaled a soft breath and let her off on the ground below.  She sauntered away towards the town, but paused at the entrance and turned to me.  “When will you be back?”  It was as if she completely forgot what I’d just told her about needing to be closer to hear her.  Her old house had been up on the cliff — close to my head.  For so long she didn’t have to worry about my ability to understand her, until now.

Thankfully, I caught the last few words of what she said and figured out the rest.  “I think I’ll be back by the end of the day.  If not, definitely sometime tomorrow.  Go enjoy your new house and have fun!  You’ll see me soon.”  Erica nodded, then disappeared into the rocks.

Soon afterwards, I vanished into my own world.  Maybe I can make something here that could act as a shield for the town.  Unfortunately, my father returned to the basement only minutes after I arrived.  I completely forgot what we’d been doing prior.  Next thing I knew, he had me working on disassembling the ping pong table he'd wanted my help with forever ago.  It was messing with my head, the way time was now off-balanced between the other-world and mine.  Technically, in my world, Dad had only asked me to help out about a half-hour ago, but I'd lived out several weeks since then — a month at least.

I worked in silence, thinking through different machines or objects I could create to solve the real problem at hand.  Not only did the town need protection, I needed it too.  Sure, intangibility kept me out of harm's way, but I couldn't pull a punch without my fist falling right through whatever I'd hit.  I needed a weapon.  A defensive weapon.  Something I could use to keep the scientists at bay and fortify the town.

With the work my father gave me finally out of the way, I could get down to business.  I sat in the living room and studied multiple types of weapons on my phone.  An internet deep-dive revealed several pieces of weaponry I had no idea even existed, but nothing felt quite right.  So, for the first time in what felt like forever, I socialized with my family.  My grandfather was more than happy to entertain me with a story from his past, and my grandmother baked us chocolate and peanut butter cookies.

Later, I watched Liam play with the puppy he'd gotten for his most recent birthday.  He was launching a tennis ball from a comically large gun; I even gave it a go, pulling back the reload slider and letting it fly.  I feared we’d give the little thing a heart attack the way his dog flew across the yard after that ball.  

That's when I got an ingenious idea.  I wanted a gun like this one, only instead of shooting tennis balls, it could shoot a barrier of some sort.  Giving a lame excuse, I raced into my room and sketched out the details of my weapon's design, working ceaselessly until I had it looking just the way I imagined.  I felt like a maniac, scribbling away design after design, note after note — listing out everything I could need from my new creation.

Alright, I thought as I stared at the drawing in front of me, it'll shoot a barrier for sure, but what if I need to go on the attack?  Thinking back to the reload track on the top of the gun's barrel, I added a slim light fixture with four even sections to the side of the gun, right beneath it.  So if I pull it back all the way to here, I marked out the very last section, it'll fire a barrier made of some unbreakable glassy-looking light.  Yeah, that way you can still see out of it and still breathe through it because it's technically made of light, but it’ll otherwise be impenetrable.  It was akin to creating things as a little kid, making up stupid completely unreal powers to deal with any possible problems.  However, if I could make boxes that generated both infinite money and food, who's to say I couldn’t make an impossible forcefield if I felt like it?  Checkmate, scientists.

I focused on the other three unmarked sections I added beneath the reload track.  The closest one will shoot bullets made of the same material as the forcefield, and for good measure, I'll make them explode whenever they hit something.  I don’t want to kill anyone with them, though.  They’ll have to be small explosives, just enough to tear through clothing or maybe a layer of skin.  The middle two.. I could make a half-barrier version of the original barrier.  A smaller one I could dispense as a shield whenever I need it.

Since I'm already going to make the bullets explosive, I might as well make the solid-light material itself explosive too.  Someone tries to get through the barrier?  They get an explosion.  Wait, my shield can't explode, I'm holding it!  So… it'll explode if I throw it at someone, or the ground, kinda like a smoke bomb.  That way, I can fight under cover without being intangible!  I’ll make sure to add that the smoke will be invisible to only myself.  That way I can still see everything while everyone else is blinded.

It seemed as if everything was coming together nicely, and I thoroughly enjoyed messing around with the properties of my new solid-light material; utilizing it to give me every possible advantage when I fought.  By dinner, I'd finalized my plans.  The shortest reload notch shot explosive bullets, the longest shot a barrier, and the two in between would either switch the gun to multi-shot mode or generate a shield I could 'break in case of emergency' as a smoke bomb.  I might just break one for a cool entrance, who knows?  

Only after Dad called the family together for dinner did I realize how long I'd been away from the other-world.  I doubted the scientists would come back on the day right after they'd been beaten, though.  At least, that's what I told myself as I sat at the table to eat.

Dinner that night was so mundanely normal compared to the many nights I'd spent in the other-world, that it was almost foreign to me.  Most of my days had been filled with such grand adventures, even the little everyday things suddenly seemed out of place.  Could I even call those days part of my week?  In this world it was still the exact same Tuesday it was when I left days ago.  Technically, when I woke up in my own bed earlier today, I had no idea that the scientists were even in the other-world.  Hell, I had no idea I'd even be in the other-world!  After one of the most mind-bending meals I'd ever eaten, I took my finalized weapon plans to the basement.

Unlike the years prior, I no longer had a curfew I needed to be in bed by.  I could stay up as late as I wanted to deal with the other-world.  The only thing I needed to worry about was someone coming downstairs to find me building with toys at eleven o'clock at night.

As I sat down with a bin of blocks, a sudden realization popped into my mind.  If the table and the things on it really have no correlation to the other-world, then why do I get this ability in the first place?  There had to be a reason.  I’d come up with theoretical reasons why from the very beginning.  They’d changed a bit over the years, but there was always some hypothetical reason that made some logical sense.

Invisibility always made sense because I physically wasn’t supposed to exist in the other-world.  Controlling and intangibility had originally made sense because I was puppeteering fake people, but now it took on a similar explanation to invisibility.  The two powers were my technically non-existent body finding a host, leaving my real one as nothing but a non-physical controller.  However, being able to create whatever I wanted and having it transform into something real in the other-world no longer made sense now that I’d found that the other-world was a real and separate place.

If it is truly separate from the building blocks, I should be able to use whatever I want to make something, right?  I wandered over to a cabinet and gazed into the top bin of office supplies.  Grabbing a packet of sticky notes, I brought them back to the table and pulled off three of them. Quickly, I stuck them together to form a flimsy triangle with an empty center.  I stepped into the strange-feeling spot where I’d fallen, giving it a few properties.  This little triangle is.. a camping tent.  The second after I assumed things had been established, I zapped into the other-world.  Sure enough, when I held out the little thing, it was made of canvas and fabric rather than yellow paper.  Huh, I guess I’m not limited to blocks after all.  

Returning again to my own world, I sat back down on the floor and got to work.  Even though I could use other things, the building bricks were probably the easiest and most versatile thing I could use as material, especially since the material itself didn’t actually matter.  I don’t know why I can do this, but I don’t think I really need to know.  As long as it works, I might as well keep using it.

I’d doubted paper or cardboard could make a better gun than the bricks could, but I was beginning to lose hope after the first hour.  Time and time again I tried to build something that at least somewhat resembled what I had on the paper in front of me, but try as I might, I just couldn't get all the pieces to hold on such a large build.  I needed the launch gun to be scaled to my own height, meaning I’d have to build a fairly large contraption out of the spare pieces still left over from my youth.  I was tempted to steal the gun I’d been inspired by in the first place — Liam’s tennis ball launcher — but realized that the gun I had designed featured a few other add-ons that his plastic one didn’t cover, and scrapped the idea.  

For what must've been hours of building and re-building, I worked late into the night.  However, nothing I tried worked, and I eventually lay down in a pile of discarded bricks, dead tired.  From the floor, I lazily reached across the carpet to my phone.  The clock read two forty-five AM.  It was later than I'd expected; I really should've been back in the other-world by then.  Yet my bed at home was so much more enticing than the literal empty field I slept in before.

In the end, I decided that since it was already late I might as well sleep the night in my own world for a change.  I said I’d be back today or definitely tomorrow.  So I’ll go back tomorrow.  I swear my back cracked in five places at once as I lay down on the blissfully soft mattress in my old room.  Was my bed always this comfortable?  It had barely been three minutes before I slid into a deep dreamless sleep.  I was that tired.  Morning seemed to arrive way too early for my liking.  When I checked the clock on my bedside table, I realized it was actually almost the afternoon.  Now I really should get back to the other-world.  Gun construction will have to wait until later.  

Once I finished breakfast, though it was more of a brunch, I snuck away to the basement.  Bricks were still scattered all over the floor from earlier, so I quickly stashed them away.  I didn't need any clues getting to my family about what I was doing down there.  Not only would they not understand, they would think I'd lost my mind.  I couldn’t even prove the other-world was real; only I could get there.  Though, I guess I could vanish right in front of them, but that would just screw over all of my plans.  No one needed to know, especially if the government, my government, found out about it somehow.  I didn’t need two worlds of people to fight with; one was plenty.  I’d already angered one government by disrupting their awful plans; I certainly didn’t need another.

Before I could delve further into the possible backlash that might occur after possibly getting two grown men from some unknown world killed, my brother came to the basement.  I practically flung myself away from the table, landing heavily on the couch.  “Oh!  Hey, Liam.  What’s going on?” I asked, hiding my panic as best as I could.  He shrugged, “Dad wants you upstairs.”  “Ok, in a second,” I replied, pretending to busy myself with something.  I was hoping to wait until he left to sneak into the other-world and leave my father’s request for another time.  However, true to his semi-annoying brotherly ways, Liam just stood there waiting for me.  I waved him off but he just shook his head.  He probably knew I was stalling to get out of whatever Dad wanted.  Both of us were guilty of that at one time or another.

The rest of my family was already there by the time Liam and I arrived.  When we stepped out of the basement, my father announced that we were taking our grandparents out to one of the large farms about an hour away.  There was a whole autumn festival going on, and Dad thought it would be a fun way for us to spend time together.  I was hoping to have more time for another trip to check on the other-world, as well as another chance to work on my weapon, but I was still stumped on how to build it without the whole thing falling apart under its own weight.  In the end, I didn't really mind.  I could use some fresh air.  My brother was adamant to stay home at first too, but once Dad told him that pets were allowed at the fairgrounds, he quickly changed his mind.  His new puppy was all the motivation he needed.

The festival was a nice change of pace from the other-world.  In my world, I didn’t have to worry about invading forces or terrified civilians; I could just be a normal person for once.  I still carried over a few habits from the other-world, though.  I kept checking the ground beneath me before I stepped down, and I was hesitant to run anywhere, fearing that I would cause small tremors if I did.

Once we found a place to park at the festival, we went apple picking, which tired my grandparents out fairly quickly.  Dad sat them down at a picnic table, and my brother and I silently groaned at the thought of sitting down when there was so much we hadn't done.  My father must've seen the identical bored look on our faces, because he handed me a twenty dollar bill and told us to go have fun.  Instantly, my brother made a beeline for the pumpkin smash.  I held his dog while he gathered up a bucket of mini pumpkins.  He loaded them into slingshots that had been constructed in a nearby field filled with wooden targets, letting them fly with zealous excitement.

After he had his fun, we moved on to the corn maze — one of my favorite autumn activities.  At the entrance, we each set a stopwatch on our phones.  We quickly counted down to the start, hit the button, and dashed off in different directions through the maze, Scruffy yanking my brother out of sight.  I found myself lost multiple times, even passing him once at an intersection.  Suddenly, I was wishing for my other-world height back, if only so I could see over the corn stalks.  

Against all odds, I managed to make my way out first.  I called my brother to tell him I'd won our race, and he burst through the side of the maze a few minutes later.  Now he was the one dragging Scruffy.  Having given up, he'd made his way directly through the walls of corn.  When at last we returned to the table, my dad ordered us food.  To top off the day, my whole family piled into the back of a tractor for a hay bale ride.  By the end, the sky had gotten dark and I was exhausted.  I hadn't exactly slept much the night before — working on my weapon and all.

Back home I lay on my infinitely soft bed, wishing I could have days like that in the other-world.  A day where I could take Erica, and maybe even Ivan, out to somewhere fun.  However, 'fun' was a lot harder to come by in a world ravaged by giants.  

I woke up feeling disconcerted the next day.  After breakfast I deduced that something in my dream might have caused it.  I didn’t remember much, and I don't think it made much sense, but I know for certain that it had something to do with my failed weapon.  Anxiety prompted me back to the basement as I realized that I should’ve returned last night.  Rounding the corner of the staircase, I stopped dead.  The play table was gone.  

Calm down, I reassured myself.  The table and the other-world have nothing to do with eachother, you know that.  That’s the big reason you left the first time. All I need is the spot on the floor where I fell.  Even with that knowledge in mind, it was still unnerving to see the place so barren.  My dad must’ve trashed the play table like he’d said he would.  Cautiously, I stepped over to where I’d fallen — where I’d always felt that strange energy — and warped into the standard original field, just to check that nothing was amiss.  It wasn’t, so I returned immensely relieved.

Again, I tried to make something structurally sound, but nothing stuck.  Well, nothing big enough for me to use stuck.  A small, hand-sized gun would easily stay in one piece, but when I tried to scale it up, everything broke.  Remembering that I could use more than just blocks, I ransacked the unfinished part of the basement for some empty cardboard boxes.  If the bricks kept crumbling apart, I would use something sturdier.  With a roll of masking tape, a pair of scissors, and a few boxes, I set everything up yet again in hopes that the change in materials would pay off.  Yet, after hours of work, I still had nothing but my sketches to show for it.  The gun held up well for a while, but as I sat in the warping area for a few minutes to give it its powerful attributes, the tape would always lose its stick and the whole thing would flatten out.  This happened again and again, no matter how many pieces of tape I plastered on.

Angrily, I threw my newly crumpled piece across the floor, breaking it further.  In vain, I grabbed a random chunk and thought: This stupid piece of cardboard is a gun.  Immediately, I disappeared to the other-world to see my results.  Despite my immense hatred for that piece of cardboard, I couldn’t help but burst out laughing at the result of my half-attempt at creation.  It was a gun alright, an extremely flattened one.  The pistol had taken the shape of the bent box, and looked more like a metal boomerang than an actual gun.  

Sighing, I chucked it into the field that I always warped into and returned home.  “I need a break,” I grumbled tiredly, “Something distracting, preferably.”  That's how I spent most of my day playing video games on the TV with my brother.  It was so distracting that I forgot I should have been back in the other-world that day.  However, after a rematch on the big screen once dinner was over, my day was gone, as well as my chance to properly return.  No, it was not an excuse for me to stay in my way less problematic, way more relaxing world.  Or maybe it is, but can I really blame myself for wanting to live in my own reality?

After three days of off-and-on weapons building and RnR, I returned to the other-world with very little fanfare.  Of course, the guards outside were a bit startled by my sudden arrival, but they quickly realized I wasn't a threat; I'd simply returned from my own world.  Much to my relief, nothing seemed amiss despite having been gone for longer than I intended.  I had doubted the chances of another attack in such a short time, but I couldn't help feeling slightly concerned about being gone for so long.

It's not like I'm leaving them without protection, I reminded myself, settling into my new mountain lookout.  There are still plenty of guards… not that they were very effective protecting the town the first time.  Perched on my stone seat, I could see miles around me in every direction.  As far as I could tell, everything looked normal by other-world standards, so I let my mind wander from lookout duty.

The plans I spent so long drawing up would be completely useless if I couldn’t create a weapon big enough to use.  I'd have to start back at square one with no way to protect the city.  Mulling about the mountains, I boredly watched the clouds slide slowly across the sky.  Suddenly, bits of rock tumbled down the slope beside me, announcing the arrival of someone new.  

Ivan struggled across a thin stretch of the cliffside, almost sliding off of it twice before I offered him my hand instead.  He glanced cautiously down at the steep slope beneath him and slid onto my palm.  “Thanks,” he gasped, out of breath.  Slowly, I brought him to a flatter part of the mountain on my other side.

“What brings you all the way up here?” I asked.  Ivan held up a hand to pause for a moment while he drank from a bottle he’d brought with him in his backpack.  “I wanted to see if you’d figured out a way to protect the town," he answered.  "I know I told you that it’s your job because you broke the ceiling, but it’s mine too.  If you still need ideas, I can help brainstorm.”  

I thought back to how he’d been standing guard a few days earlier.  When I'd first met Ivan, he'd driven out alone to find someone he didn’t really trust, unsure of whether or not they’d even help him, all for a chance to protect everyone else.  Not only did he risk getting attacked by a random ‘giant’ such as myself, he risked getting spotted by the portal ‘giants’ too.

“You really care about them, don’t you?” I asked, gesturing at the town.  He glanced up at me and nodded, looking back out over the view.  “My family lives down there.  Everyone I know who hasn’t been captured lives down there.  It's all any of us have left."  Ivan turned to gesture at the Cavern Town and the gaping hole in its side.  It had seemed like a good idea to create it at the time, but now it fills me with a sort of dread.

Erica keeps telling me that I'm changing for the better, but am I?  Ever since I came back I've hurt, no, killed people from two worlds.  I’d carelessly destroyed this secret place beneath the rocks without thinking of the people I might hurt doing it, or the consequences it might have on me.  That's the kind of thinking that got me into controlling Erica all those years ago.  Sure she says I've changed, but all I can see is me returning to my old habits again.  I don’t want to end up like we did.  Especially not now — not right after I’ve figured out this whole ‘girlfriend from an alternate world’ thing.

I sighed heavily. Ivan must have noticed the way I'd been guiltily staring at the opening into the city; he sighed too.  "To be honest with you, I wasn't that much of a defender before all this.  In fact, I was called out for being a coward."  Startled from my thoughts, I turned to Ivan.  Carefully, I lowered my head to rest on the rocks beside him, trying to better read his expressions.  "But you seem so fearless," I observed, " I doubt many of you from the town would have dared to approach me after what those scientists and I did, nevermind having the nerves to ask me for help.  I couldn't imagine you being a coward if I tried."

Ivan's face scrunched in a melancholy way as he glanced over at me.  "Well, I'd rather risk being caught by you than by the scientists.  I knew you'd befriended one of us, so it was definitely worth a shot.  I had nothing left to lose, anyway."  His expression suddenly darkened and I shuffled a bit further from him, confused.  "My dad was the real defender of my family."  

An uneasy silence rested between us for a moment.  Ivan tugged his legs up to his chest and continued.  "When your people first invaded, they dragged everything into complete chaos.  They tore people right off the ground, threw them into containers, and stepped off into some unknown place through those rifts in the sky.  There was so much screaming and yelling; no one knew what was going on; no one knew what to do.  My dad knew, though.  He kept us herded ahead of himself — every step he kept himself between us and everything else.  Dad was the last to get in the car.  We survived.  Mom, me, my little sister Kelly.  But they took him.  Why did it have to be him?"

The momentary silence before grew larger, an invisible force weighing down our words.  Ivan choked on his question and turned away from me.  His voice thinned to a hoarse whisper.  “It should've been me."  I reached out to comfort him, but stopped once I saw the size of my hand beside him, unsure if he would consider the massive appendage very comforting.

"Hey, don't say that.  It shouldn't have been anyone-"  "No!" he yelled harshly, cutting me off.  "You don't understand, I-  I froze up!  I was scared!  Dad came back for me.  I'm the reason he's gone.  Don't you see?"  Ivan turned back to me, looking up to meet my surprised gaze.  "I have to be strong.  I have to protect them because it's my fault he's gone!"  He seemed surprised by his own outburst — eyes drifting downcast to the rocks beneath him.  Blankly, he stared through them, entirely lost in thought.

Finally, he spoke.  "I.. don't think I've ever said that aloud before. That- It doesn’t sound right saying it aloud."  After another leaden silence, Ivan blinked, eyes going wide like he'd forgotten I was there.  "I'm sorry, I didn't mean to dump all this on you."  I shook my head before he could apologize further.  "It's alright," I told him, "Sometimes you need someone to vent to every once and a while, right?"  Ivan nodded, trying on a forced smile before dropping it again.  

"You aren't like those giants."  I wasn't sure if he was telling me this, or just reassuring himself of it, but I took his statement as a form of compliment and nodded slightly.  With a large, airy breath, Ivan steadied himself and stood up.  "I was hoping to help you come up with something, but I think I should just head back."  I nodded in agreement, "Did you want me to bring you back down?  So you don't have to climb all the way there?"  He nodded, silently grateful for an easier way back to the town. Once he slid off my palm, Ivan began to walk back, but stopped abruptly and turned to me.  "You're trying to make something yourself, right?  Like the box you made to take your meals out of?"  "Yeah, I have an idea in mind, but it's too complicated for me to build."  His eyebrows slid together in thought for a moment.  "That shouldn't be a problem, though," he commented, "Just make a container for it instead.  I assume you didn't build the box with all the food already inside it, right?  Make something simple to store whatever it is you're trying to make.  Then you don't need to build the thing inside it, just somewhere for it to stay in."  I thought about it for a brief moment, then gasped as everything clicked in my mind.  "Ivan, you're a genius!  I have to go!"  With that, I vanished to the basement.  I had work to do.

[triplesilverstar]

A conversation about Flowers

Rating: 18+

Pairing: Vash X F!Reader

CW: Body dysmorphia, Pre-Canon, Illnesses, Major Illness, Major Character Injury, Medical Inaccuracies, Medical Experimentation, Medical Examination, Dreams and Nightmares, Angst and Hurt/Comfort, Angst and Feels, Heavy Angst, Emotional Hurt/Comfort, Trauma, Fever, Running Away, Communication Failure, Soft Vash the Stampede, Mild Smut, Not Beta Read, Heartbreaking, Imprisonment, Dark Past, Murder, Cartoon Physics, Vashs' Coat as a blanket, Needles, Nightmares

Word count: Roughly 3.3K

A/N: Chapter Five of Even sand can't hide all the skeletons in your closet. I might have had a hard time with this one but it was fun.

You’re surprised when Luida doesn’t lead you back to the same medical laboratory, instead stopping inside of some kind of fabrication lab, opening a white box you realize is a first aid kit that was near the doorway. 

“I think, it doesn’t make sense to have you walk all the way back to the infirmary when you just need a little patching up.” This woman moves with a grace you feel slightly envious of, watching those dainty hands of hers that dart quickly, grabbing what she needs. When you’d felt her hand on your own, the soft skin had surprised you, now you're looking at your own palm. Nothing soft about them. Covered in callus and small scars, hands that were stained red, and nothing could ever wipe all of that away. 

Jumping when her hand landed on your arm, a soft smile of concern on her face “I need your arm to clean it up.” Right. Still wary, you let her have better access, holding it out and turning to reveal the inner part of your elbow, the bruises already a nice mottled green. “I have to say I am curious.” Great. The other shoe is about to drop, no doubt she knows more about you than even you know. Or at least as much as you yourself do. Flinching ever so slightly at the damp cloth wiping debris from your adventure away from the gouged tissue. 

“Vash never brought anyone home before.” That. Is not where you were expecting this conversation to go. Not in your lifetime that’s for sure. “He stayed with you most of the time you were sick from the moment you both arrived.” Nodding to herself as she spoke, she placed some ointment on the edges before covering the area in some sterile bandages. You almost want to tell her it’s a waste of effort since any sign of the wound will be gone in the morning, catching her eye and realizing she knows that as well as you do. 

Swallowing around a mouthful of cotton, while Luida keeps talking in that reassuring tone of hers. “I never thought I’d see the day that Vash would bring a young lady home with him. Pretty one too.” Thinning your lips, trying to keep the blush from overtaking your face, you’ve never thought of yourself as pretty. With steady movements she has your arm wrapped, bending it to make sure you still have the ability to move while keeping it secure. “You may not see it, but I think you have to be quite special for Vash to bring you home.” 

A pat on your arm and you swallow back the tears that want to run rampant down your face again, you have no idea how to respond to those words. Too much of you is still torn between wanting to run away and now wanting to hide in a room away from sight. “I-” Nothing comes to you and just ball your hands into fists, looking down at your hands. 

“Now that we have wrapped it to keep it clean, would you like to have a shower? Maybe some clean clothes?” Is this some kind of trick? Something to lull you into a false sense of security? No. You have to have to shove those thoughts down, remember you need to start at least trying to trust people. Baby steps. Even if you suspect Vash is going to want to part ways after this, you have to trust he didn’t bring you somewhere for them to try and slice you open and see what else is inside of you. 

A hard swallow, raising your head and looking into her warm brown eyes. “I’d like that. Please.” Her smile seems to only grow, reaching her eyes and making the edges crinkle. She motions for you to follow her, doing your best to keep your steps steady while you walk even if the two of you don’t go far down the hallway before she brings you to a side hallway with a row of doors, opening one. It’s a small room, with a few lockers and benches, and it looks like from the way the room is set up it’s communal showers, something you’re very used to and makes sense for a spaceship traveling to a new planet. 

Opening one of the locker doors Luida is handing you a towel and a few small containers labeled with what they are from inside of it. “I’ll see about getting you some clean clothes.” Leaving you standing there holding the items tight to your chest. Looking around you find the shower area glad for the doors and curtains separating the areas, stripping down to bare skin before heading closer to it. Pausing at the full length mirror, letting your gaze rake over your form, hissing at what you see. 

Your ribs are visible along your chest, skin taut over your frame, scars highlighted by the pallor that has overtaken your body. Your Hair is more like a rat's nest, going every which way and covered in grim. A snort of laughter before you move on from your self-depreciation, to think, someone had called you pretty. Something you doubt given you’re nothing but skin and bones at the moment.

Sighing when the first beads of water hit your skin, a pounding tempo against your sore muscles as you watch the grime slide away from your body and down the drain. Doing your best to keep your wrapped elbow from getting wet you clean your body, working quickly, knowing you might not have the strength to keep yourself upright now that all the adrenaline has left your body. As the water hits parts of you revealing the tenderness in your flesh, that has you leaning against part of the wall when you need to.

Towel wrapped around your body and toiletries under your arm as you leave the shower area, confusion clear on your face as you look around. Your dirty clothes are gone, a pile of white and gray fabric neatly folded on the edge of the counter near a row of mirrors. Picking at it, you realize it’s clothes, similar in style to the ones Luida and Brad wore. 

If it’s your only option you take it, glad for a pair of underwear tucked between the shirt and pants. 

You don’t see the older woman anywhere, opting to return the items to the locker Luida had taken them from. Something white catches your eye as you close the door. A sheet. Grabbing the soft fabric between your fingers you head towards the door, the urge to try and hide still hovering at the edge of your mind. 

Careful steps take your back to the atrium. In a way you’re hiding, but at least it’s out in the open. Somewhere that they won’t assume the worst if they can’t find you. 

Watching you follow Luida, Vash feels his heart sink in his chest, hand rubbing the back of his neck, sighing as he stands. 

“Don’t be so mopey” flinching as Brad chastises him. “Give her a bit of time brat, she’s shaken up over something.”

“Yea. You might be right.” There’s no might about it, hands in the pockets of his cargo pants Vash starts walking towards the infirmary. Watching his feet, head hung low, he knew you didn’t like doctors. But something about the way you were acting just wasn’t sitting right with him. 

Pondering all the while as he made his way, planning to clean up the mess from the IV and get working on the blood trail you’d left across the ship. It was the least he could do while Luida was looking after you. 

Stepping inside the room, he made his way over to where the two of you had been, bending to scoop his coat from the floor, glad at least it hadn’t been close to the liquid pool that had formed. 

As the fabric rose, a clattering reached his ears. He turned his head to see a small metal device lying on the floor with the smallest light shining from it after being inactive for so long. 

The tablet. 

The realization struck him with enough force to make his knees cave. Dropping to the floor as his heart shuddered in his chest and his head felt like it was on fire as sweeping waves of nausea overtook him.

You knew what he had been reading about you, and came to the worst concussion. “Oh, Mayfly. I already told you before, you’re not that person anymore.” No wonder you had been rambling, telling him you weren’t worth it. 

The sound of the door opening, hope springing in his chest, let it be you as he looked up with a fake smile plastered on his face, to see Luida there. “Vash?” Her voice carried the weight of her question, seeing Vash crumbled on the floor like he’d lost everything all over again, his fake smile a mask she had long learned to ignore. His eyes are wide in panic, the normal rosy shade across his cheeks gone, chest heaving.  

“Luida, I know why she’s upset. She thinks I think she’s a monster.” His tears won’t come, not for himself “I need to tell her I don’t!” Trying to stand on wavering legs wanting to run to her, surprised when it was Luida’s gentle hand that stopped him by the door, placed on his shoulder. “She’s run away before when she thought I thought that worst. That I thought she was a monster, she just left a note and tried to run! Please Luida, I need to see her!” Voice panicked, surprised as that gentle hand gave his shoulder a reassuring squeeze.  

“Vash. She’s shaken up at the moment. Let her have a little time, I left her some clothes to change into. I imagine she’s trying to process all of this right now.” The way Vash is biting his lip has her relenting, but only the slightest amount. “I’ll go stay with her, Vash. Keep her company, alright?” Her tone is soft as Vash gives her the briefest of nods, looking at the fabric of his coat held between his fingers.

“Will you bring her this? Please?” Pleading as Vash looks into one of his oldest friends' eyes, he needs something, anything to show you he still loves you. Still needs you with him and doesn’t think any less of you.

“Of course Vash.” Taking the coat she had gifted him so long ago from the entire ship, heading back towards the shower area Ludia had left you in. 

Sitting there in the grass, sheet over your head staring out vacant over the flowers, mind running, thinking over and over again. How the hell were you supposed to get out of there now? You have no idea where your bag is, or your rifle, or your boots. Fuck. Vash had said you needed a few more days to recover then you could both be on your way again. Both. Yea right. 

You wrap yourself tighter around your legs, face hanging over your knees, the occasional round of tears falling silent. Part of you should have been grateful Luida had lent you some clothes, you can only assume they belong to her, unaware where any of your own are, but you’re too consumed with what’d you done. Vash could say what he wanted, but now, you had nothing left to hide, there was no way you could keep that facade going anymore. Everything about you had been on that chip, and now someone had accessed it, leaving all your secrets bare. You’d kept it for the worst reason, a remembrance of all your sins. You felt raw.

All those layers you hide yourself in, are gone in an instant, just leaving the mess of the monster you had become left standing in the light of day. A monster of your own making so fueled by chasing after revenge you wanted and would never be fulfilled by. 

You heard the footsteps as they were approaching you, but didn’t bother to lift your head, hoping whoever it was would go away. Instead, they came closer, and you felt the weight on your shoulders when something was dropped on you. A hood fell forward to cover your eyes, and you felt a fresh round of tears. “Vash. Please. I can’t do this right now.” You need him to leave, you can’t handle speaking to him right now in the state you’re in.

“It’s a good thing I’m not Vash then” Luida’s voice surprises you, and you feel the fabric being adjusted around you. Engulfed by the scent of sunbaked sand on arid winds, used gunpowder, and a hint of citrus, Vash’s coat, even if the color had given it away. You stay silent, unsure of what the older woman wants. Torn between thinking you’re about to be thrown off the spacecraft hidden in the sandstorm, told you’re about to be sliced apart, or, or you don’t even know. How could they let a monster like you stay here in this hidden sanctuary? You can sense as she sits beside you, an arm's length away, she’s settling in for the long haul. “It’s a little odd to see someone other than myself here for something other than checking on how the flora is doing. It’s nice to have some company for once.” 

Small talk. Not your forte at all, even when you weren’t an emotional train wreck. “Most people seem surprised when they see flora, but you seem rather.” Her speech pauses for a moment as if trying to find the right words. “Unimpressed by them.” You snort at that.

“I’ve seen flowers before. I grew up on a green planet.” The reality was, you had, flowers were just ornamental objects growing in the wild and occasionally seen as a pest when they were growing in the field or sprang up in the greenhouses. “It’s just. Been a long time since I’ve stopped to see them” Your words are slow, measured. Because it has been a long time since those days when you only heard of violence on the radio. You haven't been that young in a long time, or naive. Too much destruction to observe something so small and delicate, something that brings joy. Then again, you haven’t seen anything green since you came to this planet that wasn’t synthetic.

“I guess that confirms you aren’t really from Earth then.” Her voice is wistful and while you’d love to give her your full attention you won’t. You want to keep hiding, left alone with your thoughts. Her comment is laughable, if she read the files it’s more than clear you aren’t from Earth. Fuck you aren’t even sure where you’re from anymore, not with how everything regarding your trip to this planet played out. Her comment is simply proof that she knows about the monster hiding in the guise of being a human.

“Do you have a favorite?” You aren’t sure what kind of noise passes out of your throat but she keeps moving forward, clarifying. “A favorite flower that is?”

Not really. The only thing that comes to mind if you think about it, were the little blue flowers with yellow centers that grew around the front garden of your home. Thinking of them, all you can picture in your mind's eye is a few stems, flecked with blood and swaying from the inferno surrounding them. You aren’t even sure if it’s real or if your mind throwing the worst together. “Don’t think so. But I guess.” Pausing, the dream/memory from earlier is fresh in your mind. “Forget-me-nots” words solemn, thinking of your long gone home makes you think of your parents. You can’t even remember their faces, not even in your dreams. It's been so long, a somber occurrence given the crusade you’d given yourself to avenge what you’d lost. 

In the end, you’d just lost even more of yourself. You don’t remember the girl you had been before then. The girl that in that moment, thought she had a bright future waiting for her before everything went crashing down. 

You aren’t aware of Luida looking at you, hidden in the red fabric all she can see is the lower half of your face, lips downturned as she watches the liquid bead on your chin. Growing as it collects before dropping to hit your leg. “Forget-me-nots? You know, it’s a flower that has lots of meaning.”

“Yea. Not forgetting someone is supposed to be one of them.” It’s biting, digging at yourself, you can’t remember the person who loved them the most. 

Luida seems unfazed by the snap in your tone, far too stubborn to give up on trying to pull you from the mire of fear that is taking hold of your mind. Making you think you need to run away. “That is true. They’re also said to be able to represent loyalty, true love, faithfulness, keeping promises, and hope. You’ve got a rather interesting flower as your favorite.” 

Every word she says makes you flinch, those aren’t things you associate with yourself, you don’t have faith, you don’t keep promises because you don’t make them, how can you be loyal when you used to work for the highest bidder? The other two options burn at your soul. Hope and true love. Those are both things you don’t deserve. Which burns all the more, because a part of your soul is screaming, thrashing inside of your head, you love Vash. True love isn’t real, a fairy tale, and Vash could never love you, not now. 

A sigh breaks the silence that is reigning around the two of you, still curled in on yourself. “Vash is worried. He told me you might have pulled something similar before. Thinking you aren’t worth the trouble.” That makes you swallow hard, you don’t like adding to the remorse and guilt that Vash carries.

“You read the file” licking your lips. “Vash should be more worried about the monster he chooses to travel with stabbing him in the back instead of its mental wellbeing.” Another dig at yourself, but the truth has always been a hard pill to swallow for some.  

“I did.” At this she pauses and you feel more tears fall. “I will admit. Some of the things I read certainly did frighten me. But, I also read a lot of impressive things. You saved a lot of lives, all at a cost to yourself. You remind me of Vash that way, and I can’t see you ever stabbing him in the back.”

“How could I remind you of Vash?” Mind reeling, you are anything like Vash, you changed because you had no other option and started working to save people hoping to die in the process. Somewhere along the way that had changed to wanting to live so you could keep trying to do the right thing. 

Looking towards tomorrow.

“Well. You’re both quite stubborn about thinking you’re undeserving. Another is you both have no issue with sacrificing yourselves to save others. I can see why you hold his heart in your hands, even if you don’t see it.” 

Reeling, the tears stopping in their tracks and your breath going cold in your lungs. “I can’t. He’s like a pillar of selflessness I could never be.” Her voice had been so calm, so certain, and it’s shattering your world. Had you missed it, sure you both said you loved one another and were dating. You still hadn’t had sex yet, but that was a physical intimacy you didn’t care if either of you ever reached it, expected to never reach it now.

Hearing the sound of Luida standing, a clasp of her hand on your shoulder and giving it a squeeze. “I’ve known that boy for well over a century. Believe me, when I say, you too are more alike than either of you wants to admit.” You have no idea how to take those words.

Back to Masterlist for the series

[ravenprinzess]

hii! could you possibly write a Kazuha fic where the reader is apart of the crux and often confides to Beidou about her feelings for Kazuha but he somehow overhears their conversation. Thank you!

we were always meant to be.

pairing ; kazuha x fem!reader

genre ; fluff.

word count ; 1.2k.

summary ; there is a certain samurai she adores, however she wasn't sure of his own feelings. one day he overhears her conversation about him.

warnings ; brief mention of violence, blood, injuries.

note ; this is adorable- KSHHE thanks for the request !! hope you like this. <3

---

for as long as she could remember, she was always on the run. that is when she found out about beidou and the crux. soon she managed to befriend beidou, resulting her ultimate join to the crux mates. the ship went across sea, from mondstadt, to liyue to inazuma - and even as far are sumeru and snezhnaya. they have helped people to escape, wether it was from the fatui or from the vision hunters. and one practicular person that they had managed to save, stood out to her the most. kaedehara kazuha. a lone samurai who was on the run from the vision hunters - soley because of his anemo vision. (y/n) found herself hanging out more and more with him, all whilst sailing along the calm waves of the ocean. she remembered their first meeting.

once there was enough space for him to come onto the ship, a gentle hand reached out to him. he looked up, seeing a young with (h/c) hair and (e/c) eyes staring back at him. he froze for a moment, letting himself indulge in her beauty. it took him a couple seconds to grab onto her hand, allowing her to pull him onto the ship before quickly sailing away. he sat himself down, watching the waves, and watching inazuma straying further away from them.

a young man who was covered in dirt and blood, stood alone at the shore of inazuma. his red hues stared out at the open sea. just barely he managed to escape - but now he had no way to go and no home to return to. and as if the archons heard his prayers, he saw a pirate ship coming to his vision. hope began to fill him up as he waved his hands in the air in order to get their attention. and luckily for him - they took a notice of him, sailing closer to him.

"the view is lovely, isn't it ?" he heard a sweet voice talking to him. he turned his head, meeting the gaze of the same girl that had helped him earlier. he nodded in response - the view was truly magnificent. "my name's (y/n)." she soon added, her gaze averting from him to the blue waves underneath the ship. he repeated her name a few times in his head, making sure to remember it. after all, he owes her now that she had saved his life. "kaedehara kazuha. but please call me kazuha." the male responded, a small smile formed on his lips. it was nice talking to someone who didn't try to hurt him.

"so, kazuha. what's your story ?" the girl asked out of curiousity. and yet her gaze remained away from him. his eyebrows furrowed. she wanted to know about him ? but why ? no one had ever shown that much interest in him. the feeling; it was quite refreshing to him. "my," he paused for a moment. "story ?" letting out a sigh, he hugged his legs to his chest, his blood-like hues staring off to the sunset. ah, it has been a while since he had properly admired the nature.

"i had pretty much ran away from inazuma." he began, and thought it was quite obvious already - she didn't say a word. "the dirt and scars you see on my clothing, i got those when i fought for my life against the vision hunters." needless to say, it was pretty impressive how he had managed to kill off a group of assailants all by himself. "well then, i'd get you clean clothing then." (y/n) responded with a smile, which had soon made his heart flutter.

---

"what should i do with my feelings ? what if he doesn't feel the same ?" he heard (y/n) letting out. a sharp pang pierced his chest. she liked someone, and was afraid that he wouldn't like her back. if he doesn't like her back then he's most likely insane. she was beautiful, funny, nice and had a kind heart - how could someone not like her ? and yet he decided to remain silent, hoping to learn the identity of her 'mystery man'. "you surely have to try. if kazuha doesn't like you back then so be it - at least you'd know you were pining after the wrong person."

it was time for him to show off his gratitude for saving him. of course, he'd thank beidou later as well. but now it was time to look for (y/n). his eyes wandered across the ship, his eyebrows furrowed when he couldn't catch a glimpse of her. a sigh escaped from his lips when he made his way inside, only to stop by beidou's captain room. he heard voices from there, which were quite familiar to him. taking a step closer, he realized who it was - beidou and (y/n). the two ladies that saved his life. but what were they talking about ? the boy got closer and decided to eavesdrop out of curiousity.

kazuha.

that's him. that's his name. does that mean- oh, he leaned on the door too much and accidentally opened it, revealing the figures of the two women that were chatting with one another. his face flushed red out of pure embarrassment before blurting out a small apology. he couldn't bare looking at (y/n) in the eyes due to her sudden, indirect confession. beidou let out a sigh. "i'll let you two talk alone." and with that being said, she walked out. while passing by kazuha, she squeezed his shoulder gently to reassure him everything was going to turn out okay. he nodded shortly before entering the room, turning to face the latter soon after.

"so, you heard it, huh ?" (y/n) let out a nervous chuckle out of her lips. there was no point denying anything - especially not when he had heard it. after all; you cannot get what she said wrong - unless you're utterly stupid. but kazuha was not. he was the smartest guy that she had ever met - he went through so much despite his young age, so of course he was wise. wiser than most people, that is. "i did." the male confirmed shortly, his pale fingers fiddling with the red streak in his hair. "so, you have feelings for me."

"i do." the female nodded shortly, her gaze averting from him. "and if you don't feel the same just say it already. i hate standing here and feeling like a complete moron." after she said that, the male's eyes widened in surprise. why did she think so lowly of herself ? it pained his heart more than he had thought. letting out a hsavy breath, he approached the latter and reached his hands out, pushing strands of her hair behind her ear.

"i don't think you look like a moron. in fact, i was about to say that i love you too. without you, i wouldn't be standing here now. well, without beidou too. but, you were the one who pulled me into the ship before i could get caught, and you were the only one willing to talk to me on my first days here on this ship." the male hummed, wrapping his arms around her figure before pulling her in for a warm embrace. "perhaps we were always meant to be, (y/n)."

[biggest-stupidhead]

Heyy!!

I dont think there's such think as semen donors in aot cannon?

BUT WHAT IF Captain Levi agrees to be the donor to squad leader (or just cadet) reader in a platonic relationship/eventual romance?

Just cute ackerbabies!

Lmao you’re probably right, no semen donors in canonverse. But I honestly love this idea so much, I feel like it would be hard for Levi to make that romantic connection so I could see him making that choice, and maybe it developing into something more!

Summary: Levi can’t wait any longer to start a family, and you are willing to take that step with him.

Word Count: 1.7K

__

You choked on the small sip of tea that you had taken. Catching the small drops of liquid that had escaped your lips.

“Come again now?” You managed to form words after a moment, Levi seemed uninterested as always, those charcoal grey eyes dull and apathetic.

“You heard me just fine, you know that I hate repeating myself.” He scoffed as he shifted so that his leg was crossed over his opposite knee,

“Yes I heard you but....marriage?” You were shocked to say the least. Levi had never shown any prior interest in any long term relationship with anyone, although the two of you had hooked up a handful of times.

“I don’t see why not. We already share a room, not to mention that we-”

“Okay I get it, just...it’s a big commitment and I’m not sure that I’m-”

“Oh please, what else do we have to look forward to anymore? No more fighting, no more political issues to deal with might as well settle down and...” He trailed off, his gaze cast downwards into his cup of tea, which was probably cold by now. You sighed deeply, placing your cup down gently and leaning back into the sofa that the two of you were seated on. His arm was slung casually across the back of the sofa, his finger tips ghosting over your shoulder.

“I know but Levi...marriage?” you were a bit disappointed. He had said it so casually, as if he was asking you if you wanted to run to the market to grab apples.

“If you don’t want to then just say no.” He snapped, clearly getting frustrated, he rose to his feet and began to march towards his desk. You chased after him, catching his wrist. You knew it was difficult for him to express himself, to put things lightly or being considerate to your feelings.

“It’s not that...I’m just a little caught off guard.” You admitted as you held his wrist gently. He let out a breath that he had seemed to have been holding in, he turned and laced his fingers through yours, his other hand diving into his pant pocket. You waited patiently for him to say something, but he only pulled out a small black box. Your heart skipped a beat, this was more how you had pictured being proposed to. He fell onto his knee and opened the box slowly, revealing a modest silver ring with a small diamond embedded in the ring.

“Oh Levi...” Your fingers were still laced with his as he knelt down, you squeezed his hand affectionately.

“I already bought the damn ring, just say yes.” He grunted, averting his gaze as his thumb glided over your knuckle.

“You have a point there.” You chuckled as you gave him a small nod, which was enough of a yes for him.

__

You were married by the end of the month, a simple court house wedding with Armin and Mikasa as your witnesses. Afterwards you had gone home and eaten dinner as usual. Just another week, except now the sex that you and Levi occasionally had, became a hell of a lot more regular. You had no complaints, or at least that was until you were hunched over the kitchen sink puking your guts out. You had missed your period as well, and it didn’t take a genius to know what that meant. You decided to wait until you were certain to tell anyone this however, seeing how difficult pregnancy could be, and the unlikeliness of carrying to full term seemed high.

So you made sure to go to the doctor twice before telling Levi that you were pregnant. He’d had a very similar reaction that you’d had when he had asked to marry you.

He choked on his tea, his hand flying to his chin to catch the liquid.

“Pregnant?” He repeated, and you nodded, leaning against the table where he was sitting.

“H-How long until...”

“Give or take seven months.” You shrugged, trying to put on a brave face, after seeing how frazzled he was you wanted to make this as casual as the rest of your relationship.

“So...we should probably start cleaning out that spare room and-” You cut him off by kneeling down and placing a chaste kiss to his lips.

“We’ve got plenty of time for that, for now let’s just...enjoy not being responsible for a helpless shitty baby.” You said softly as you slowly sank onto his lap. He hummed his approval, but still seemed rightfully on edge.

“We can start cleaning the room in few weeks, there’s no rush.” You assured him as you scattered kisses across his sour face.

“I’ll start tomorrow.” Levi hummed as he tilted his head to the side.

__

Turned out that you were both in way over your head. Around 12 weeks into your pregnancy Hange was pressing her stethoscope to your rapidly swelling belly when she froze. Levi tensed when he noticed this, and you frowned.

“What is it?” Levi asked as he gripped the back of the exam table.

“Nothing’s wrong...just-”

“Doesn’t seem like nothing.” Levi scowled as he watched Hange continue to feel around your stomach.

“That’s cause it isn’t nothing, I’m hearing two heart beats.” Hange told you as she stood to her full height.

“Two heart beats?” You felt feint at the news, you had known that twins ran in your family but you had never expected to have them yourself.  

“Yes, it appears that you are having twins” Hange said with a wide smile as she folded up the stethoscope. Your vision blurred, the worry that you had been experiencing prior to the appointment had doubled along with the number of children you were having. 

“No shit.” Levi replied breathily as he held your shoulder firmly. 

“If I were you guys I’d go clean out that room now.” Hange advised as she cleaned up the space that you had been using as a makeshift exam room in her office. 

“I’ll get right on that.” Levi said, shooting you a concerned look as he helped you up onto your feet. 

__

The twins were born premature, the labor itself wasn’t nearly as bad as you had expected. But you realized that it wasn’t that bad because of how small they were. The only reason that they both survived was thanks to the Marleyan medical equipment that had been shipped over courtesy of Zeke and Yelena. You and Levi spent countless hours in the hospital as you awaited for the twins to be discharged. In that window of time you decided on names, it was difficult but you decided on Harrison and Harper. You weren’t surprised to find that they both took after their father, dark bluish grey eyes with a full head of black hair. The one thing they seemed to have gotten from you was your facial structure and your complexion. 

It was a massive relief to bring them home, now instead of staying up until the wee hours in the hospital you could do it in the comfort of your own home. 

One particular evening you were walking laps with Harrison, gently patting his back as you bounced off of your heels as he cried. On your third lap around the entire cottage, you peeked into the nursery to see Levi reclined on the rocker with Harper fast asleep. His eyes were closed, his naked chest rising and falling evenly as he slept. You envied him as you rubbed circles on Harrison’s back once more. His cries slowly died out and you managed to drag yourself to your bed and place Harrison down gently. Using the extra pillows, you managed to make a small barrier between him and yourself as well as the edge of the bed. It wasn’t often that you got to do this, seeing as you usually slept with Levi. But Harrison seemed content with laying in his dad’s spot for the night. His big blue eyes were watching your hair sway over his face as you adjusted the pillows. He cooed and babbled for a few minutes before falling silent, his tiny breaths putting you at ease. 

It couldn’t have been but an hour later when the sound of Harper crying woke you once more. Levi was pacing around the same way that you had been earlier before he finally managed to put her at ease. He returned to your room to see you sitting up, Harrison fast asleep at your side. 

“Care to join us?” You asked, voice gruff with sleep, or rather the lack there of. 

“Would I ever.” Levi groaned as he placed Harper in the pillow barrier with Harrison who was still fast asleep. He managed to squeeze onto the bed, laying on his side like you were as the two of you watched Harper sooth herself into sleep. His gaze left the small baby in favor of studying your features. 

“What would you have done if I had never asked you to marry me?” The question caught you off guard, your fingers were tracing the soft features of your babies. You hummed in thought but the answer was already on the tip of your tongue. 

“I’d have asked you to marry me.” You said with a wry smile and Levi rolled his eyes at your cheesy reply. 

“That’s not what I meant...well not really.” Levi grumbled, you paused again in thought. What would you have done? Certainly no more military work, that chapter was over for you. 

“Maybe I’d open a bakery. My grandmother left me all of her recipes. What would you do?” You asked, finger running along the soft dark locks of hair that were growing from Harrison’s head. 

“I’d open a tea shop.” Levi answered quickly, his own gaze back on the babies, his hand resting on Harper’s stomach, rising and falling with her breathing. 

“Why don’t we just say fuck it and do it?” You asked, not sure if you were serious or if it was the lack of sleep talking. 

“There was that space for lease last time we went into town...” Levi offered thoughtfully. 

“Yeah, we could fix it up and open a cafe.” You said excitedly as you leaned over the sleeping babies in hopes of coaxing a kiss from Levi. He nodded in agreement before leaning over and planting a kiss to your lips. 

“We’ll talk about it in the morning. Go to sleep.” Levi sighed as he stretched out on his side, and closing his eyes. You smiled and mirrored him, your hand resting on Harrison’s stomach now as well, your fingertips brushing his. 

You knew that you’d made the right choice. Marrying Levi was the best decision that you’d made in a long time. It may not look like the typical love story, but you knew that it was real, realer than most relationships. And you wouldn’t want to have it with anyone else. 

[loving-all-for-loki]

Can you write one where the Rogers is assigning a new recruit to each avenger for training? Loki gets the new girl and he’s irritated thinking she’s just some normal human that hasn’t a clue how to fight properly because of her petite size. When it comes time for them to spar, she gives him hell. She fights with swords and is very skilled in the art. He says something to piss her off and she ends up blasting him away with powers she never told anyone about. Loki realizes what she is since he knows the magic she used. She’s part light elf but being half human she was abandoned and left to die just like Loki was. They end up bonding and work together on the team.

A/N: I hope you like it! I didn't focus a whole ton of them working together, but I feel like you get the point. It's a bit longer than my other one shots.

The Moon And Her Darkness

Summary: Y/N, the newest avenger, starts her first day of training. An unimpressed Loki’s doubts are proved to be wrong when she reveals herself to be stronger than he knew.

Word count: 2744

Warnings: angst, dick Loki

Forever Tags: @mm2305

-

Your blood pumps fast through your body as you stare at the raven haired god. Ever since you joined the team, he’s been giving you dirty looks and eye rolls. You tried to not pay attention to it since you know of his past (and have been warned by Tony), but as the newest Avenger trying to prove herself, you find yourself longing for his approval.

It has been a week since Nicky Fury showed up at your home, extracting you from it, and throwing you into the lion's den you called the Avengers. You never signed up for it, but given that you were on the government’s radar for a long time, you’re not surprised. A couple mishaps here and there made them take you on their own terms. They’ve decided that having super powers is not something to be normalized and that you couldn’t live like a normal civilian.

Although you want to be home, the Avengers have already shown to be a great family. Nat and Wanda have already taken you shopping while Steve gave you a tour of the tower. As far as the others, they have been out of sight. Bucky avoids everyone, Sam with him because they’re glued to the hip, and Tony is somewhere else working on new technology with Bruce. Clint? Thor? Who even knows. You’ve been thankful for the attention they have given you.

Except for Loki.

You remember the attack in New York and you won’t lie when saying that approaching the god is intimidating. He stands with great pride and power, it’s hard not to feel small, but when he stares at you the way he does, it’s harder. He doesn’t stop looking at you as if you were a rat he found in a sandwich. Disposable. Replaceable. Disgusting. You don’t expect much from the God being that he’s only staying here out of punishment for the attacks, but you had hoped for a little something more. Even a prank or two.

When Steve told you that you were going to start training, you expected hand to hand combat like the rest, not whatever involves Loki being in the gym at the same time as the two of you. He hasn’t said a word, but just stared at you as Steve goes over some basic disabling techniques and defense. Most of it is already burned in your brain from your childhood, being a warrior and all, but you still manage to learn some new things.

But learning as to why Loki is there, that still remains unclear. Everytime you throw a punch or try to block one of Steve’s, Loki scoffs at you and rolls his eyes. He looks completely relaxed on a bench in the room, yet he could not be looking at you with a more tense gaze. He looks worried, as if you’re going to get beaten to a pulp.

“Okay, what’s wrong?” You yell at him.

Panting, you block Steve’s last hit and turn to the younger Odinson.

“Sorry?”

“Oh, don’t sorry me. Cut the crap, Loki. What’s up?”

“I believe the sky is.”

You grab a knife off the wall and aim it in his direction, startling him slightly but not even shocking Steve.

“You stare at me with daggers in your eyes and judge my every move. You have yet to even talk to me since I joined the team. What do you have against me, you ass?”

“Y/N-”

“Shut it, Steve!” You yell, quickly aiming the dagger at him before returning to Loki, “You. Talk.”

“It’s just pathetic, that’s all.”

“Pathetic? You’re calling me pathetic?”

You start to charge at Loki, but Steve quickly wraps his arm around your waist, holding you back from gutting the god.

“Y/N, I wanted you to spar with him after me,” he cuts in.

“And why would I do that?”

“Because he's a skilled fighter who matches your level.”

“Oh, so I spar with the tricker who decides I’m too pathetic to fight. He’s going to teleport or some shit and stab me like he does with Thor.” Loki’s eyebrows raise at the mention of Thor getting stabbed. “Yes, I’ve heard the stories. I’m not that naive, Steve.”

“I won’t leave you alone with him. I’ll be here to watch and guide.”

“What do you know about fighting with me? I have magic beyond belief” Loki asks the both of you.

“I know more than you think,” I spit, turning back to Steve, “Can we do something else?”

“Well, you coud-”

“I am not sparing with Loki.”

“Okay, then how about weapons? Whatever one you want to start with?”

Loki scoffs again at the mention of you fighting any other way than hand to hand combat. He’s lucky you’re on the same team as him or else you would have decapitated him by now just because of annoyance. How can a man so attractive be so obnoxious?

You walk over to the wall of weapons were Steve and quietly discuss which ones you’ll practice with. He recommends knives so you can spar with Natasha when he’s gone, but the swords are more up your alley. They remind you of your childhood, the weapon of your people. Some days, you miss them, but you know they are fighting their own battle that is too dangerous for you.

Picking up the swords, Steve warns you he is not good which makes Loki laugh again. He has the right to this time because how do you practice with a man who doesn’t know what he’s doing. You can’t last ten minutes with Cap before you’re tired of his flailing. He’s really not good.

“Loki, you wouldn’t happen to know how to use swords would you?”

“I have some experience. Asgard knights and Valkyrie used them, we were forced to learn.”

He stands and takes Steve’s sword from him. Turning to you, he smirks, taking you in. Your frame looks so small compared to his, nothing but a mortal. He’s never admit it, but he finds you slightly adorable, in a helpless baby sort of way. You take proper stance and stare at Loki dead in the eye, determined to prove him wrong.

The two of you run at each other, swinging at any unblocked area you can, yet never hitting. He blocks your swing, pushing you back but not down. Looking up at him, you scream and run, thrusting your sword towards his neck and legs. He blocks you again, but not without stumbling. Before he’s able to get up, you land a blow right to his chest, knocking the air out of him. He hooks his foot around your leg and flips the two of you over so he hovers above you, sword to throat.

“I’ll admit it, you are good, but not great,” he laughs.

He stands up and walks off, setting the swords back on their holder on the wall. You gradually stand up, fury in your bones for the way he speaks to you.

“You… are irritable!” You yell.

Right before Loki gets to the door, he turns to face you. Steve rushes to your side.

“Y/N, stop. He’s not worth it.”

“Oh, he’s not worth it, alright,” you mutter to Steve, “He’s not worth the pride. The praise. Whatever the ‘glorious purpose’ he thinks he has. He’s just an insecure little boy who needs to prove himself over others, make them feel small so he feels superior. Just a bully.”

“I’d watch your tongue,” Loki warns.

“Or else what? You’ll challenge me to a words competition? See who has the best insults or can sound like the biggest douche because I think we all know who would win! Another check mark for your book of things you’re better at than ‘midgardians’ or ‘mortals’ or whatever degrading nickname you think of next.”

Loki’s chest heaves in anger. You’ve never seen someone so angry or heard anyone yelling at you with concern like Steve. Nothing he says registers in your head as Loki’s daring looks fill your mind. You’d almost be scared if you didn’t know he’s full of empty threats. Just a scared little god boy.

“You imbecile, think you can scare me?”

“Actually, I think anything can.”

“I can take words from someone who does not know me, but to be called a coward is not something I take lightly.”

“So what are you going to do about it? Huh?”

“Nothing, I don’t waste my time on people like you.”

“Oh, people like me? Because the great Frost Giant Asgardian is sooo superior.”

“Don’t you ever say that.”

Loki rushes to your side, grabbing you by the throat and lifting you up against the wall.

“Loki, stop it!” Steve yells.

“This is not about you, Rodgers. I suggest you leave before getting in the crossfire.”

“I can’t do that. The safety of this team-”

“Is your priority. I know you are honorable, but I highly suggest you leave.”

Steve hesitates at the sound of you gasping for air. You cling onto Loki’s hand, tightly wound around your throat. His veins pop out of his hand like a dehydrated man. Steve looks back at you, eyes now closed to focus on your breathing.

“Put her down first,” Steve orders.

“Fine, always have to be the hero.”

Loki sets you down and your body goes numb. Everything hurts, your throat swelling. You gasp for all the air you can, feeling it go down your throat and enter your lungs. It’s fresh, comforting, healing. Leaning your head back against the wall, you barely open your eyes to see Steve by your side.

“Are you okay?”

Not energized enough to speak yet, you nod your head and place your hand on his shoulder. Steve looks over at you with worry before turning back to Loki.

“Leave, now.”

“Gladly.”

Loki turns to walk away, but doesn’t. He stands there to listen to you and Steve. At this point, neither of you care. You’re too focused on not dying.

“Can you breathe?” Steve asks.

You nod your head.

“I can get you help. We have a hospital room.”

“No,” you choke, “I’m fine. I just need a moment.”

Steve nods, but doesn’t listen. He gets up and leaves the room, rushing down the hallways to get a nurse, leaving you alone with Loki.

“Why haven’t you left?”

“No reason.”

“Please, just go. I’m tired of fighting. You’ve done enough.”

Loki turns to look at you. You look weak, but actually weak this time. The purple tint to your skin is fading as your lungs self regenerate as you keep breathing. Gripping onto the wall behind you, you stand up. Your knees are weak, making you wobble as you do. You’re not lying. You’re tired of Loki. You’ve barely spoken to the man and he’s made two attempts on your life in ten minutes. Sure, you teased him, but doesn’t he deserve it for being an ass.

“Weak.” He mutters.

That was the last straw. You look up at him. He stares at you as if the devil himself has entered you and your eyes glow bright red, but you know what is wrong. Holding out your hand towards Loki. A glow erupts from behind you, bright yet dark. It’s dark blue like the night sky and Loki watches it in awe. In seconds, Loki’s body is flung through the training room doors, blasting him into the wall of the hallways. He feels his rib breaking, his head hitting the wall. He yells out in pain as you slowly approach him, the anger seeping through.

“Never call me weak.”

Loki flips his head up to look at you, shock running through his body. At the sound of his body collapsing, the other Avengers come running forward. They look upon the sight of you towering over the trickster god with a look they’ve never seen before. Ethereal. Godly. You look as if you’re a queen staring at her peasant handmaid. Anger. Controlling. Power.

“What the-” Bucky mutters.

“You,” Loki gasps.

He struggles to stand as the team tries to help but he refuses. You two locked eyes but nothing was said. “You’re an elf.”

Everyone looks back at you with confused faces, but you don’t say anything. Your body goes hot at the mention of the word ‘elf’. The fire inside you fades out as anxiety places it, waiting for Loki to continue.

“I knew if someone was here to figure it out it’d be you,” you whisper.

“Light elf yes?”

“Yes, moon elf to be exact.”

“How are you here? Aren’t the-”

“Yes, they’re away. I was left to die. Our town got ransacked, everyone fled. No one stopped for me.”

“Then how are you here?”

“The Air elves. They got word of what happened and came. Found me. Took me back, but-”

“You weren’t suited. They found out.”

“Yes.”

There’s a moment of silence between you and the god. His eyes shine with sadness, tears coming to the corners. He looks at you with great pity as the wall inside you breaks.

“Can someone explain what’s happening?” Steve asks.

“Can you tell?” You ask Loki.

He nods, “Yes. Y/N is a moon elf, a tribe of light elves. They’re as high up as Asgard in the nine realms, powerful warriors. They’ve been at the center of every creature out there. People have been after them for their weapons, gems, and wealth. A landmark for every thief and warrior in the universe.”

“My town was destroyed when I was a little girl. Nobody wanted me because I was a child. I was a burden to them.”

“She was left for dead to be found by the Air Elves. Another tribe. Not as powerful. But they didn’t want her and there’s only one reason why they wouldn’t want a moon elf. She’s a half-breed.”

“Moon elves are the only ones who tolerate them. Half human, half elf. Considering many of them come from moon elves, they’re not despised, but Air Elves.”

“They dropped you off on Midgard to be picked up by someone else. I assume you hid your powers?” ���I had to. I acted out once when I was little and my parents freaked out. They sent me away. I lived in a orphanage before some group took me, trained me, helped me hone in my powers. They saved me.”

“Until you got to old and left.”

“Didn’t know where to go. I became a waitress at some back alley bar, lived above it in an apartment with my manager. Lived paycheck to paycheck.”

“Then?”

“Nicky Fury came to me. I was on SHIELD’s radar and they wanted me on the Avengers.”

The room goes silent. Throughout your talking you missed the way Loki got considerably closer to you. You practically stand right under his nose. Loki raises his hands and places them on your shoulders, getting your attention. You two look each other in the eye for a long moment.

“I am… so sorry.”

You feel the tears forming in your eyes as Loki pulls you into his chest, holding you by your waist. The team watches in awe as the closed off god embraces you. Slowly, everyone leaves you two in the hallway. An hour goes by as you cry in Loki’s eyes.

Eventually, Loki picks you up bridal style and brings you to your bedroom. He helps you get dressed for the night and settled in bed before you grab his hand, making him turn back to face you. His eyes are no longer riddled with anger or hatred, but kindness and pity. He looks at you like you’re a little lamb to be protected.

“Yes, darling?”

“Stay with me?”

He nods before undressing and getting in bed with you. He pulls you close, your head leaning on his chest, and places an arm around your waist.

Every night goes on like this. No matter what happened in the day, even if you two got into an argument, Loki always found his way back by your side in your bed. You would have never expect it from how he treated you at first, but after the last few months since you met him, you find yourself growing closer to the god.

Loki slips into your bed for what feels like the 1482nd time. Resting your head on his chest, Loki pulls you close to his body.

“Goodnight, darling.”

[monodipita]

There's a Fire in My Heart (Yandere!Rengoku x Reader)

Hello! I wanted to start this post off by saying that I am aware that shorter reader-inserts often garner more attention, but I don't mind that my longer reader-inserts don't garner as much. I hope you enjoyed this piece as much as I enjoyed writing him! And a shorter version may come out soon.

Word count: 4,010

Warnings: YANDERE CONTENT. MENTIONS OF SELF-HARM/SELF-MUTILATION.

Everyone knew about Kyojurou Rengoku. He was the kind, sincere, hard working Hashira who worked his way into the hearts of many. He was handsome and elegant despite being so hardy, with the callouses that adorned his hands like a second skin, and the scars that littered his body. He was able to sway the hearts of many, including your own. You'd been a secret admirer for a while now, writing him cute little notes and leaving them at his post every sunrise that always seemed to make the man smile brighter than the charming smile he always held on his lips.

You knew this because you overheard him talking about the notes with his fellow Hashira Mitsuri Kanroji. "I'd love to meet my secret admirer one day." He told her. One day.

He was always busy, so it became hard to capture his attention... or, rather, it was.

It felt like a stroke of luck so strong that you were going to have bad luck for the rest of your life when you twisted your ankle—because Kyojurou wasn’t looking, and you tripped. Purposefully, yes. You immediately regretted it. Your body came clashing to the forest floor, and the wood inside your basket spilled out onto the ground below you. "Ah!" You whined aloud as an instinctive reflex.

"I'm so sorry!" Kyojurou shot to your side. "Here, I'll grab your things, and then I'll take you to the Butterfly Estate. I'm so sorry!"

You were unable to talk because of how dazed you were, from hitting the forest floor, to the fact that he was now so close to you. You stared at him through bleary eyes as he picked up the long logs of wood and put them back into the basket that was once on your back. He slotted his arms into the straps and helped to hoist your body against his, wrapping his right arm around your waist while his left arm held onto your right. "Stay close, okay? Let me know if I'm doing too much for you."

Shinobu revealed the unfortunate news of being bedridden some few hours later.

”Oh... that’s awful,” he put his right hand over his lips and furrowed his thick brows with worry. His fiery golden eyes looked down at you and caused you to look away before your blush became obvious. “I’m so sorry... [Y/N], was it?”

He knew your name...

“I’ll make up for it somehow, I promise.” He told you. “For now, I must go, I have other matters I must attend to. But I will return, every day at the same time, until you’re better. Okay?”

"Okay."

DAY 1

"I took your wood to your home." He started off the conversation now that he was in the room. "You live alone, [Y/N]?" Alone... if that was a way to put it. "Recently, yes," you admitted aloud, "my family moved away after I passed the The Final Selection. They couldn't agree with my decision to become a demon slayer. I miss them." You smiled wistfully as you recalled the day they cast themselves out of their own home.

Though Kyojurou looked saddened by that answer, he didn't comment on it much further. "I brought your breakfast. Kocho-san was too busy to bring it herself." He set the tray down on your lap. You cringed at the hot feeling, visibly enough to draw his attention—but that might've simply been because you yelped short after. You fought the feeling to reach down and grab at your propped up, sprained ankle, as pain ricocheted through your leg.

"Oh!" He quickly lifted up the tray off of your legs. To your surprise, he didn't spill the contents of the food anywhere around you or on the floor. "I'm sorry, was it too hot?" He asked, causing you to look up at his face. He was blushing out of embarrassment! He looked so cute!

His eyes bulged wide with worry, and the same, saddened frown appeared on his face from moments before. "Just a bit... I wasn't expecting it." You chuckled wryly. "Sorry, you can put it back down." You reassured him and gently pat your lap. "No, it's fine, I'll hold it. I don't want to put any unnecessary strain on your ankle." Kyojurou stated. "It'll be fine! I won't leave until I know you've eaten breakfast."

A blush spread across your own features. He was a selfless man and it showed in every action he performed. How could people not fall in love with him? "Oh, okay," your breath was taken away, clearly. He even went through the act of holding the tray out for you so that you could eat your food. You looked down at what you had to eat—miso soup and onigiri. It smelled delicious. "The cooks here are fantastic." Kyojurou remarked. "I'm sure you've had to spend a lot of time in here, haven't you?" You asked him.

"Mm? Oh, yes." Kyojurou nodded his head. "If I don't come back from a mission with some type of injury, then something is wrong." He chuckled.

"How are they?"

"What is it?"

"I'm just asking, how are the missions? I haven't been able to go on one yet," you admitted, "I've been dealing with a lot of training. Ooyakata-sama says that I'm not ready to go out on my own yet."

Kyojurou looked more than surprised by that answer. "When you live out so far on your own?" He furrowed his brows. "Are you at least training yourself when you cannot attend daily training sessions?" You nodded your head. Of course you tried, but sometimes, training could be too far away. You wouldn't tell him that—you feared that he would pull something out of his sleeve and try to— "eat please, [Y/N]."

"S-sorry," you squeaked. You didn't waste any time digging into your meal. First with the onigiri that seemed to fill you up almost immediately upon biting into the second one. "I don't think I can finish these," you looked up at Kyojurou. His eyes were already on you, as if he was watching you eat. You didn't think anything of it. "Would you like one?"

"I shouldn't... but..." he trailed off as he thought about it, before nodding his head. "I'd appreciate it. I haven't ate, so watching you eat has made me hungry."

"Never starve yourself!" You gently scold him. You reached down and took the rice ball into your hand to give to him, smiling gently at him... until your smile dropped when you realized that you couldn't give it to him. "I-I'm so sorry!" You sputtered. "It's fine. Just feed me," he spoke casually, much to your surprise. You swallowed thickly. Your lips parted to say something, anything about what that man just said, but nothing came out. Your hand instinctively drifted toward his lips, while his head met you halfway. The bite into the food made you jump, your eyes wide as if you were a deer in headlights. You tried not to pay too much mind while you fed him, but it would eventually become apparent that you were embarrassed to do something like this for him. He didn't seem to mind one bit... maybe even he was enjoying it? You had to stop this somehow!

"Do you think the soup has cooled off enough by now to set the tray on my lap?" You asked. The onigiri were delicious, and you weren't joking about it possibly taking up all the space in your stomach. But food was food, and you didn't want to get rid of it all.

Kyojurou hummed and pressed the tray onto his lap. He hovered his right hand over it. "It does seem to be that way." There was the slightest hint of undetectable disappointment in his voice. Had you been better at picking up facades, you would've been able to catch up on it. "Here you go, [Y/N]." He sat the tray down in your lap, engulfing it in warmth. He took the rice ball from you and continued to chew on it while you dug into the soup.

The meal was finished, even though you didn't want it to be. It was filled with eerie silence, because you didn't have anything to say, and Kyojurou was... well, eating. "It was a fantastic meal!" Kyojurou beamed, "I'll be sure to thank them on my way out. Now—" he stood straight, “I have to go. It was nice eating with you, [Y/N]—“

The two of you were interrupted by the sound of a shoji opening. You were surprised to see two butterfly attendants making their way into the room with a room service cart. “What is this?” You asked, “I thought Rengoku-san had the breakfast covered for me?”

”I believe there’s been some sort of mixup. We just finished making breakfast ten minutes ago—but this tray does look like ours.” They picked up the tray and observed it. “Maybe we—“

”There’s no need to conduct an investigation.” Kyojurou spoke up. “I lied about the breakfast. To tell you the truth, I am the one who made that breakfast, and I hoped that we could eat it together.” He smiled apologetically and bowed, “I’m sorry for the confusion I’ve caused, but I truly must take my leave. I’ll see you tomorrow, [Y/N].”

H-he wanted to eat with me?!

Your heart couldn’t stop pounding a furious beat against your chest. You just couldn’t believe the words that came out of his mouth! Eat with you?! You barely knew each other! “Bye,” you weakly called to him while he left the room. If this was going to happen every day? Why, it didn’t feel too bad after the initial impact...

DAY 2

Hours poured into the morning. It felt unusually past the time Kyojurou said he was going to show up... not that you had a way of knowing. Breakfast had already been served, and you were left with the displeasure of eating it on your own, in the silence of your room. You thought you would've been used to the quiet, after all, you lived alone now—but he seemed to dull that pain. Now you missed him.

“[L/N]-san. Are you busy?” Shinobu’s voice was a break in the thick silence, and very much welcomed. The presence of another person was soothing.

You glanced up from your lap and nodded. “Not at all. Please, come in.”

Shinobu slid the shoji shut behind her and stepped over to the bed. She sat down in the bedside chair and elegantly folded her limbs atop one another while she addressed you. There was a warm, inviting smile on her face, much like the one Kyojurou held. “How are you feeling?”

”I’m feeling alright.” You responded. “My foot seems to be doing better than before! I think I’ll be able to get back on my feet by the end of the week.” At least you hoped so. As much as it was nice to be able to have the Flame Hashira see you in personalized visits, you had a life that you needed to live outside of these four walls.

“You’re right about that,” Shinobu started, “but that doesn’t mean I want you to immediately start hopping on your feet and walking around one-legged. In order to make a full recovery, I want you to stay for another two days. Is that fine with you?”

You winced. Two more days of staying in this bed? What if Rengoku-san didn’t show up again? Was it worth it? “That’s fine,” you weakly respond. No it isn’t. But did you have a choice? Not exactly.

”Thank you.” Shinobu stood. “With the more important information out of the way, I’ll allow visitation now—after what happened yesterday involving the mishap with Rengoku-san, I shortened your visitation hours. I didn’t like having to dispose of a good meal just because someone wanted to be friendly.” There was scorn in her voice. You nodded your head slowly in scolded understanding. “I’m sorry about that.”

”You don’t have to apologize,” Shinobu said. She walked over to the shoji. “Please, be well.”

As soon as she left, Kyojurou emerged from the shoji. He looked radiant, as usual, like the sun on a beautiful day with clear skies. His smile acted as the ray of sunshine that would blind your eyes, but at least you welcomed this form of sunshine. A smile bled onto your own lips as he fully made his way into the room and shut the shoji behind him. Alone, the two of you.

“I’m sorry I couldn’t make it.” He let out a sigh while he walked over to the bedside chair. “Kocho-san is strict, but with good intentions.” He said aloud, as if to convince the two of you of that fact. "I know that. I'm still appreciative of what you did for me, even if we might've gotten into trouble."

You reached over and gently grabbed his forearm—noticing that he winced from that feeling. “Oh, did you just come back from a mission?” You asked. There must’ve been a cut under his uniform’s sleeves. Come to think of it, you could see a faint spot of blood where your hand pressed against it. "Does it need to be patched up?" You frowned with worry.

”Oh; no, that’s not it. I happened to get into a bit of an accident earlier this morning while I was cutting wood,” he explained, “I’ve already patched it up. No need to worry—it just hurt a bit, that’s all.” He smiled reassuringly, one that nearly melted you. You smiled back at him just as much. “I see.” You responded, “well, I have exciting news.”

He perked up. “What is it?”

”I’m going to be discharged in two days.” You told him. “You won’t have to worry about me anymore.”

”Two days?” Kyojurou’s face contorted. He looked... worried. He was quick to voice his thoughts about the decision. “Are you sure that’s going to be all you need? I thought sprained ankles needed more time to heal,”

It was so cute. How could he be so worried about someone he had just met? You found yourself giggling at him. “Relax. I feel much better now than how I felt yesterday. If I could, I’d even try getting up and walking around to see how it felt.” Being able to walk around would’ve been a relief. As enjoyable as it sounded before, being bedridden felt much like a nightmare. “I definitely don’t recommend it,” he said, clearly half-joking. “Please take care of yourself. Well—I have to go.” He rushed to get out of his seat. He stood tall, reaching over to gently pat your leg before he half-turned to face the shoji to leave.

”So soon?” You frowned. You were going to be lonely for the rest of the day...

”Visitation hours were cut short; remember, silly?” Kyojurou chuckled. “I’ll try to see you and stay for longer tomorrow.” He stepped out of the room as quickly as he came in, leaving you in the silence.

DAY 3

No sign of Kyojurou—just another quiet day. He said he would come... was there something wrong? You wanted to ask someone so badly, but you didn't even know how to voice it. For now, you would just stay quiet about it. Maybe he had to go on an actual mission. Aww... that would've meant that you couldn't see each other when you were discharged...

DAY 4

Discharge day. You couldn’t wait for this day as much as you dreaded it. It would be fantastic to finally get out of this room, out into the world, where you could go home and be in the comfort of your own bed. You awoke early to catch Shinobu just in time, who stepped into the room with the same, happy go lucky smile on her face. “I know you must be excited about today, [L/N]-san.”

”I am,” you beamed while you began to sit up. You slowly, steadily raised yourself off the bed and met her halfway. The sensation of walking... felt strange, after not doing it for so long. Your legs felt partially asleep, and there was a dull pain in your ankle that was sure to become annoying after a while. “How are you feeling?” She asked. “If I need to change your compression bandages for you, then I can.” She held out the gauze for grabs. ”I’ll be fine. Thank you for your magnificent service, Kocho-san.” You bowed to her and took the gauze out of her hand.

"[Y/N]-san!"

Kyojurou's voice grabbed your attention and made you nearly squeal with excitement. You hurried as best as you could to reach the shoji and thrust it open to eagerly meet the sight of him. He smelled faintly of burning wood... "did you just get done with doing something?" You asked. "Maybe something important?"

"Not important, no," the beaming, fiery-haired man shook his head and continued to smile. "I wanted to walk you home." A walk home? That sounded so sweet of him. "Oh," a blush spread thinly across your cheeks, "that's very nice of you. Thank you, Rengoku-san." The two of you stepped out of the Butterfly Estate. The walk was a quiet one... Kyojurou seemed so fixated on simply walking, and your mind was occupied by the fact that you were even having the chance to walk home with him made it so exciting.

It came into view. It took longer to get there than what you normally remembered it taking, but you shrugged it off, merely thinking of it as nothing more but a slow pace. He was just so considerate, after all.

You stepped in behind him after he opened the shoji for you. Home sweet home... it smelled like it, felt like it. Everything looked unchanged—but there was something off about it all. You could tell. "Wait... this isn't my home," you narrowed your eyes. Bewilderment seeped into your brain while you tried to make sense of it. "Why are all of my clothes and belongings here? Where are we truly at, Rengoku-san?"

Tricked. You were almost tricked, but you recognized your home anywhere you were at. These walls weren't the same. You didn't have an irori...

"I thought long and hard about it, but... I can't keep hiding the truth from you, [Y/N]-san." Kyojurou reached over to grab one of your hands, pulling the limp appendage into his own and giving it a gentle squeeze. What is he talking about? "For some time now, I have admired you. I liked watching you take your daily walks. I liked seeing that you were healthy, I liked seeing you take care of yourself."

What?

"I liked the notes that you left on my engawa—seeing you play dumb as if you weren't the one who put those notes there. The cute little smudge-marks your fingers would make when you were finished with the ink," he gently squeezed your hand.

How did he know?

"When you told me that you lived alone, it only confirmed my suspicions. You don't have anyone else to go to. I would hate such a life for someone who is so deserving of any love that comes their way."

Why was he talking about it?

"I did what I thought was the best thing to do..." he trailed off to take your other hand in his, squeezing both of them as he made his way in front of you. "You don't have to love me, all you have to do is trust me."

"Why?" Your lips were trembling. You felt sick. Yes, everything or what you could see of everything from your home was inside this single room, but it wasn't what mattered. You grew up in that home, and he... and he... "You took everything away from me. Y-you burned my home."

"No... no, don't think about it that way." Kyojurou looked all over your expression for some sign of comfort. His hands dropped yours to cup your cheeks, staring into your own with a worried expression. "That's not how you should think about it, [Y/N]-san. Don't you understand? This will be the opportunity to start your life anew with me."

It was so deranged, so sick. You barely had the physical power to shrug him off, but you managed to pull through. You needed to go back, you needed to see what he did to the only place that reminded you of your family that you had left.

"No... please, [Y/N]-san, you don't want to do this," Kyojurou tried to reason as he trailed behind you, off the engawa and into the barren yard, "you're going to see things that you don't want to see. You don't have to subject yourself to that torture." His hand touched your forearm and gently grasped it. You lashed out at him and ripped your arm out of his grip. "Leave me! Don't you see that you've ruined my life!?"

Kyojurou stood still. "Y-you don't get it," he stammered, "[Y/N]-san, I need you too. You have the energy I want in my life!" He raised his strained voice as he ripped both sleeves of his uniform up on his body to reveal scars. Plenty of them. It was alarming, but in your mind, it couldn't have hurt as much as seeing your childhood home burn down. "You're speaking like a madman," you scolded him. "I don't even know why I'm entertaining someone so delusional."

"...I'll do it."

The blade came as a shock. Your eyes widened, how did he get his hands on one so quickly? You thought you couldn't even see his arms moving... "I deserve it for being a bad significant other, don't I?" He sounded so creepy. His voice sounded off; desperate, but loving. "I've hurt you, so I must hurt myself, right?"

"..." you grimaced. How did you respond to an emotionally taxing situation like this? "You wouldn't...Rengoku-san, I don't even know you!"

"But you do!" He blurted back at you. "I'll do anything for you, [Y/N]. I just ask that you come back! Walk back to me... you don't have to see what happened to your home, you can just be with me," he pleaded.

But you didn't listen. No, you wouldn't. You turned and ran as fast, and as hard as your feet could take you into the forest, into the direction of your home. The scent of something burning helped with your path-finding, but it didn't matter. Your ankle started hurting. Hurting, hurting, and hurting. You'd forgotten that it was even strained until just now, where the pain became so severe that you ended up toppling over your injury.

"AH!"

You fell to the forest floor and squeezed your eyes shut out of pain. "Hoo... oh fuck," you hissed, clenching your teeth and bowing your head. What a painful feeling to come across, it was almost excruciating. But you needed to keep going... he was coming after you. Even if he threatened to do whatever he did back there, the pain of going through it wasn't going to stop him.

"[Y/N]-san... please."

He was already on you... maybe he was even behind you the entire time and you were under the foolish assumption that you'd escaped his line of sight. No, not at all.

"Get-get away from me!" You yelled at him. "Please!"

You stifled a gasp and a sob as his bloodied hands caressed your face. His hands trembled while his thumbs pressed directly into your cheeks while his thumb smeared the blood from his hands onto your poor cheeks. His blood. You knew what he did to himself. "Finally," he whispered, "I've finally caught you...and you can't leave me anymore. Please, [Y/N]-san, for our sake... think of this as our new life together. How I've waited so long for this opportunity, and now that I have it..!"

[beyondspaceandstars]

Take Me Away

Relationship: Wanda Maximoff x Reader Warnings: slight angst, eventual fluff Summary: Royalty!AU - You and your lady-in-waiting Wanda have been in a secret, forbidden relationship but everything gets tested when your father, the King, announces you are to be wed to a prince from a neighboring country. A/N: i’ve been loving royalty!au stuff lately and wanted to take my own stab at it. it’s not the most complicated, spectacular piece but i enjoyed writing it!

Masterlist

Wanda always arrived to your chambers right at the crack of dawn. Ever the punctual one, your lady-in-waiting never wasted a second once that bright light of a new day came through the windows. Sometimes she was even tasked with waking you up, ranting and raving about how your gown was going to take forever to lace up or that your hair wasn’t going to be dry enough to meet your family for breakfast.

Her frantic attitude always made you laugh. You thought her worrying heart was so silly and to show for it, you’d sometimes make it a point to shut her up with a kiss. One thing would lead to another until you two were lost among the silk sheets.

That all, though, had come to a stop today. Wanda was late this morning and you sadly knew why. Her heart must’ve been breaking, taking all her energy to pick up the pieces one by one this morning. You didn’t blame her, really, you felt the same break within you.

It had all fallen out last night. Your father, the usually benevolent King, had held a feast for your court and the royal family of a neighboring country. This wasn’t unusual for him as he very much loved to entertain. Everything had been going smooth. You were lost in the dancing and laughing with the patron, eagerly showing off the brand new dress your tailor had delivered that morning. You even got to sneak some cheeky glances at Wanda who stood off with the other servants, ready when needed.

Everything came to a screeching halt the second dinner had concluded. In between the refills of wine and arrival of dessert, your father had a surprise announcement to. It was as if a million bombs were going off. He revealed you were set to be married to the bordering country’s Prince. No one had told you, not even a hint from your mother, just this public declaration. You looked towards the king and his son — your soon-to-be-husband — and they were just beaming with joy. All plans and politics were falling into place for them while your world was crumbling.

You had excused yourself to the bathroom where you vomited profusely. Wanda, though, didn’t arrive to help. In fact, she didn’t arrive to your room for the rest of the night, sending one of the temporary servants instead.

You fell asleep feeling the loneliest you had felt in a long time. And those feelings certainly weren’t subsiding as you sat at your vanity the next morning, still waiting for Wanda.

You had been sitting alone for so long you thought she had abandoned her duties — or maybe she had just straight up retired last night and you were waiting on nothing — but then there was the unmistakable sound of your heavy door creaking open followed the gentle clicking of it closing. You peered into your looking glass, shifting it so slightly to show you the presence behind you.

"Wanda," you sighed, her naming falling from your lips as if it was the sweetest honey.

"Your Highness." While unsurprising, her cold and stoic response cut you. Your body tensed. Last time she had called you that was upon your very first meeting. Before she was the lover you kept in the shadows. Before there was ever a chance of losing her. The royal title felt like a death sentence now.

After a deep breath, you slowly placed the looking glass back on the table. You felt Wanda approach you from behind with caution. You didn’t know whether to turn around or ask her to begin her morning duties. If you were to be really honest with yourself, you just wanted to grab her and hold one another.

But Wanda seemed to have decided for the both of you. Hesitantly, she reached for the brush on the vanity and gently began on your hair. You wanted to cry.

"Wanda, please," you mumbled. "Talk to me."

"Talk to you?" She repeated, her fingers now running through your hair giving slight pulls as she fixed the curls. The actions reminded you of when she would… "And what would you like me to say?"

"Something, anything!" You were nearly crying, your words coming out in weak begs. "I didn’t know anything about it, you have to trust me on that. I—I don’t want… I could never—,"

"Never, what?" Wanda cut you off, the brushing motions in your hair suddenly halted. "You couldn’t possibly think we could ever be together fully. I’ll admit, I indulged in this fantasies but I’ve stopped. We weren’t meant to be and you sure weren’t meant to be a single princess forever." She cleared her throat. "This was bound to happen, I fear."

"No, no," you fought back, shaking your head insistently. Wanda placed a hand on your shoulder, trying to calm you down, but you only jumped at the touch, feeling that burning connection between you two. You couldn’t believe how much hold she had over you. How much you had over one another.

"Your Highness, I’m afraid—,"

"We can run away." The words slipped out of you so fast you never had a chance to bite your tongue. It felt like the world stopped, like you had created your own bomb to set off. Wanda’s grip on your shoulder got tighter. You straightened your posture, meaning business now despite the tears still flowing. You placed your hand atop of hers and continued, "I really think we could do it, dear. I can access the family funds, we could pack a few things, then be off in the night. Wouldn’t that just be nice? We could go wherever, start whatever life we want. You’re not wrong to say this was bound to happen but that doesn’t mean we can’t escape it."

"My Lady… There must be some consideration for the prince, the kingdoms, your subjects—,"

"They’re better to have no ruler than one who lives in constant agony."

The declaration was bold but it was the farthest from a lie. You decided to finally turn and face Wanda, your hand now holding hers with the greatest, most loving strength. The first thing you noticed were her eyes. They were so red and heavy, no doubt from hours of crying. Her hair was a mess as well, complimented by the worn down servants gown she wore. She hadn’t put any effort in today, probably dragging herself about as you predicted.

Slowly, you pressed a soft kiss to the back of her hand. Wanda let out a breathy gasp. When you met her eyes again, it appeared the deal had been sealed. But you needed her to say it.

"We can really do this, can’t we?" She asked shyly.

You nodded, a little grin playing at your lips. "I think we could go anywhere," you confirmed. "Maybe we can start a farm, raise some chickens or cows. Or — Oh! We could start a nice garden. I loved the one here but father wouldn’t let me learn how to care for it."

Wanda sighed as she watched you get lost in a new fantasy, one way beyond just being together but having a life. "Speaking of your father, he will send people after us, won’t he? The palace guards will die trying to find us if they have to."

You simply shrugged. Sure, she wasn’t wrong, but this was a big place and who knew what bigger places were out there. "Let them," you finally said. "We’ll be so far long gone before they realize it they won’t know what hit them."

Silence fell between you two.

"You’re going to give up all this for a chance for us to be together?" Wanda finally asked, motioning towards the gloriousness of the castle chamber. She was a very thorough one, extremely detailed-oriented, which made her the best partner-in-crime you had decided before ever engaging romantically. Eventually, it was one of the things that made you fall head over heals. She noticed everything, always the sweet and cool observer. You didn’t blame her for using the skill now.

"Wanda, dear," you sighed as your hand crept its way to her neck. "I’d give it all up a million times over to be with you."

Your sweet lover looked like she was now going to cry so you took the leap to lean up, catching her lips with yours. After a stunned moment, she returned the kiss, your lips moving in a familiar sync. It was electrifying knowing you hadn’t lost her. Knowing she was most likely going to be it for you, forever. Completely devoted to one another, comfortably and freely.

Wanda’s hand begin caressing your cheek when she pulled away slightly. Your foreheads were touching now but it still wasn’t close enough for you.

"Let’s do it," she whispered. "Take me away."

Words seemed so hard, something only the presence of Wanda could do to you. Unable to figure what was right to say now, of all times, you nodded and wrapped one arm around her waist. You pulled her into you, hugging her with all your might. She didn’t hesitate to return the embrace, soaking each other in.

"Of course, dear," you eventually said. Such small words they held the mysterious beginning and marked the glorious end.

[pigeonp0st]

could u do nat taking care of r when r gets sick (pretty please i beg of u)? preferably lots of cuddles 🥺🥺

idk i just love soft!nat 🥺

Natasha Romanoff x Reader #5

Words: 1,689

Warnings: none?

Notes:

I didn’t really like how this one turned out but i’ve finally decided that staring at it in my drafts with disappointed isn’t gonna make it any better...so here it is. Thank you for requesting, and sorry for spelling mistakes. Hope you enjoy!

———

It started with a cold. Just a couple of sneezes, a runny nose, and a sore throat...the usual.

It started out with you trying your best to hide it. Hide the sickness. That plan went under the moment Natasha heard you sneeze during training... she had you confessing to your sins much too quickly.

Suffice to say she immediately kicked you out of the training area with demands to take some medicine.

So she was the first to realize that you were sick, and she was the first to realize you were getting worse instead of better. She’d pester you endlessly when you wouldn’t want to talk about it, and watch over you like a hawk.

It was sweet, but you also didn’t think it was necessary. You were sure you’d be fine in three or so days.

How wrong you were.

When you wake up with a 103° fever for the third day in a row it has you layed in bed for the whole day groaning about the inequalities of the world, and begging Natasha not to get a doctor for the 100th time.

You were fine. Totally fine.

Natasha watches you with a mix of amusement and concern from the corner of the room and suggests, gently, that maybe you’re not.

You peak over your covers to glare at her in something like betrayal. “I’d be fine if you’d stop pacing and come cuddle with me.”

She seems to think about her options for a long moment and right when you think she’s going to reject you she relents with a heavy sigh and gets into the bed.

She’s so blissfully cold it has you snuggling into her side immediately, both to warm her up and use her as your own personal ice pack.

“You’re burning up,” Natasha whispers, but she pulls you closer to her—like somehow if she’s close enough she can absorb some of your pain and make you feel just that little bit better. “If your fever rises even a little bit we’re going to the doctors, okay?”

She’s concerned and worried, and even though a stranger fussing over you is the last thing you want you know you have to give her this.

As soon as you nod your head in agreement some of the tension seeps out of her body, much to your relief. As ridiculous as it is, you’re worried about her worried about you—if that makes sense.

“Around 100,000 people died from the flu in 2019,” Natasha mumbles against your forehead. She adds quietly after a moment, “just in case you were wondering.”

You were not wondering. What the fuck.

“Nat...that statistic is mostly old people.”

“Yeah,” Nat agrees, “you’ll be fine.”

And despite your body's protest, and how much of a pain it is to pull away, you do, just so you can give Natasha an incredulous look so she knows just what you think about what she’s doing right now.

Her face is unexpectedly vulnerable when you see it. She isn’t trying to bother you...she’s just…she’s worrying herself crazy.

“Nat,” you sigh, ready to embark on the most comforting and articulate speech you can think of, but a sudden fit of coughs has you turning away hurriedly to muffle your face in a pillow.

When your lungs finally decide to stay in your body for now, and Natasha stops rubbing your back, you’re too tired to try and comfort her, so instead you mumble, on the verge of sleep, “if I die; just know I love you.”

Which, in hindsight, probably doesn’t help much.

But she doesn’t sound worried when she replies, just exasperated and fond. “I love you, too.”

———-

When you wake up again it’s to a bunch of kisses and beautiful red hair.

“Stop attacking me,” you grumble, trying to push her away, but you're not able to hide your smile. God, you love your badass (soft) girlfriend.

“Look who's not dead!”

Remembering your last words to her before you went to sleep has you finally opening your eyes and giving Nat a sheepish smile. Oops. “Look who really wants to get sick…”

“My immune system is stronger than yours,” Natasha scoffs, shoving both your medicine at you and a bottle of water.

“Asshole,” you mumble, moving to open the medicine bottle only to get stopped by a hand on your wrist. “What?”

“You need to eat first.”

Thus, starts the trip towards death.

————

“Oh my god, how much farther is it…”

Your fever is finally down and back to safer levels so naturally Natasha has insisted that you’re able to go to the kitchens yourself and sit outside to eat.

You need fresh air, she said.

The room is getting stuffy, she said.

It’ll be good for you, she said.

What a fucking devil.

“You’re literally the most dramatic person to ever grace this earth,” Natasha tells you for only the millionth time since the journey began. “Maybe if you stopped sliding against the wall and crawling on the floor like you got shot three times we’d get there faster.”

“Maybe if you’d help me—”

“I tried! But apparently i’m ruining your image.” She rolls her eyes when she says that, then turns away to grin like she thinks you won’t notice.

You’re a whipped idiot who's decided to make a complete full of yourself and waste what little energy you have just to get your girlfriend to laugh, and to prove to her that you’re doing better.

You’re definitely going to regret this later, but now, in the moment; This is totally worth it. No doubt.

————

Wanda is in the kitchen.

As soon as you see her you straighten up and stop leaning on the wall (and limping). Natasha laughs next to you when she notices.

“You’re doing better, Y/N?” Wanda asks, glancing over you before returning back to the soup she’s making. For you. She’s making soup for you.

You adore her. She’s your favorite person, she’s—

“Not your girlfriend,” Wanda interjects, amused, “and doing this as a concerned teammate, and because your girlfriend asked.”

“Yes, well I love you anyways. Your cooking has gotten very good,” you say, shooting her a grin while you practically bounce to the dining chair, in stark contrast to the way you were dragging yourself down the halls.

Natasha does a good job at trying to not look confused, but she clearly is. Unfortunately, or fortunately, Wanda informs her before you get the chance to.

“Favorite person for making you soup?” Natasha asks once Wanda’s done relaying your thoughts. She narrows her eyes at you then. “Not the person who has been taking care of you since you became an avenger, not the person who—”

“It’s very good soup, Nat.”

“Very,” Steve agrees from the living room.

Natasha sighs, takes a sniff of the soup, and resigns herself to the facts she’s faced with. “Yeah...it is.”

——-

“Close your mouth,” Natasha orders, tapping your chin. You listen, waiting patiently for the beep of the thermometer to signal it’s done.

When it does, Natasha pulls it back to study it. There’s a small lapse of anxious silence before Natasha reveals the results. Then...“Ninety-Nine. You’re officially a healthy woman.”

And with that, you’re finally free of the bed rest and able to walk the halls as a newly restored human being.

“I’m free,” you shout, tackling Natasha onto the bed and kissing her all over her face, completely overjoyed. “Natasha, I survived!”

You survived. It only took an exhausting week. When your fever went down a couple of days ago it spiked to 105° a bit after and you were sure you were going to suffocate in Natasha’s worry because of it. You had to go to the medical room...it was awful.

But now Nat laughs, and laughs, and then pulls you into a tight hug to stop all of the kissing. She seems to be unburdened and lighter now that she finally has the numbers she’s wanted.

“Loving you as much as I do is really just living in this constant state of worry and fear,” Natasha says when you’ve both settled down. “I do not like things being out of my control,” she admits, kissing the crown of your head. “Especially when it involves my heart.”

“Your heart,” you repeat, curious. “Is that what I am?”

“Ignoring the worry and fear part?” Natasha teases, quirking an eyebrow.

“We both know those feelings are accompanied with a multitude of good and beautiful emotions. I feel them too.”

Natasha smiles then, soft and gentle, and full of admiration. “Yes.”

You tilt your head. “Yes...what?”

“Yes, you are my heart. Or at least you feel like you are.”

At that, with a determination and seriousness that visibly shocks Natasha you say, “i’ll protect it. I’ll protect myself, and because you're mine also, I'll help protect you. Always.”

“Always,” Natasha agrees, her fingertips trailing across your cheek. “Thank you, Y/N.”

“Yeah,” you mumble, embarrassed suddenly, “of course.”

————

“Are...are you serious?”

Natasha scowls into her tea and says nothing in response. This is fucking hilarious.

Your lovely girlfriend doesn’t seem to think so because the second she sees your face struggling not to laugh she begins glaring at you. “Don’t,” Nat warns. “Don’t you fucking dare—”

“I seem to recall you saying, and I quote, ‘my immune system is stronger than yours.’” You grin. “Oh how ironic this is.”

“I’m not sick—”

“Aw, but baby, the amount of tissues on the floor seem to be saying otherwise,” you gesture towards the growing pile, feeling absolutely no sympathy until Natasha glances at the pile with a sigh of defeat. She looks so small and sad covered in her pile of blankets...it simply won’t do. “Don’t fret, my love. I will take care of you, just as you took care of me,” you assure her, leaning down to kiss her forehead.

“First things first,” you tilt her chin up, “i’ll get Wanda to make you some soup so you can take some medicine.”

“I hate the world,” Natasha grumbles, mumbling some curses in russian.

“I love you, too.”

[allisondraste]

Death and Other Things That Should Have Been Fatal

Fandom: Mass Effect

Pairing: Female Shepard/Garrus Vakarian

Word Count: 4715

Summary: A follow up to Cockroaches and Other Things That Just Keep Living, Shepard wakes up after destroying the Reapers and copes with the fallout. Thankfully, she doesn't have to do so alone.

[Click Here for AO3]

“Shepard?”

The voice was little more than static in her ear, jarring her back into excruciating consciousness, head throbbing, extremities numb.  Spears of pain coursed through her chest with each and every breath, and she didn’t know whether it was the several broken ribs or the sight of Anderson's lifeless body slouched next to her.  She tore her gaze away from the closest thing she’d ever had to a good father figure, eyes fluttering closed as she attempted to focus only on the person speaking to her.

“Garrus?”  His was the first name that rolled off her tongue, the only person in the galaxy she wanted that disembodied voice to be.

“No.” Came the stern reply.  There was a long pause as any hope for comfort in her final moments came crashing down around her.  Then the voice spoke again. “It’s Hackett.”

A jolt of resentment toward the Admiral coursed through her at his introduction.  What more could he possibly want from her?  Had she not already done enough, sacrificed enough for just a ghost of a chance to stop the reapers.  Surely someone else could take it from there.  Why did everything fall on her?

Because someone else would have gotten it wrong.

She shook herself out of her head and back to the present. She would have been mortified under normal circumstances, but she couldn’t bring herself to give a damn now. “I apologize sir, I’m— What do you need me to do?”

“The Crucible is docked, but is not activated,” he explained, “We think there’s something that needs to be done on your end.  Is there a trigger? Some sort of terminal?”

His words clung to the air around her, and her eyes locked onto the terminal the Illusive Man had used earlier.  It was just a few feet in front of her and still so far away. She tried and failed to bring herself to her feet, legs buckling beneath her and sending her plummeting to the floor.  Hot tears burned in her eyes as a new array of pain shot through her body, and she groaned in agony.

“Shepard?”

“I’m here, sir,” she growled, forcing herself up onto an elbow and dragging her body to the terminal, vision beginning to blur at the corners.. Not yet , she pleaded with her consciousness as she reached up toward the terminal, hand sweeping clumsily across the haptic display. Not. Yet.   “I’m at the terminal but I… I don’t— I can’t find—”

Her vision went dark, supporting arm trembling and giving out as her consciousness faded.  Hackett’s voice called out to her repeatedly, further and further away until it was gone entirely.

She awoke to bright, burning light, buzzing in her ears, sensations anyone else would have associated with death.  But Shepard had been dead before, and this was nothing like the last time.  She’d never forget that dark, quiet empty.

“Shepard,” shouted a voice, both familiar and foreign, “Wake up.”

“What?” Blood dripped into her eyes from a wound she couldn’t feel. “Where am I?”

She scrubbed her face with the back of her hand, blinking until her vision cleared.  Her body screamed in protest as she rose to her knees, louder still as she brought herself to her feet and searched for who—or what— had spoken to her.

“The Citadel,” came the reply, “It is my home.”

She snapped her head in the direction of the voice, it’s owner a glowing, translucent entity in the shape of a ghost.  Her heart slammed against her aching ribs, and a name rushed to her mouth before she could stop it. “Kaidan?”

The entity examined her for a moment that felt more like an eternity, long enough for her initial relief to fade, consumed by dread as she awaited its answer.

“No,” it stated in a cold, matter-of-fact way Kaidan could never have managed, “I am the Catalyst.”

Rage ignited in her stomach and chest at the sound of him twisted and distorted by a chorus of synthetic echoes, and she growled. “I thought the Citadel was the Catalyst.”

“The Citadel is part of me,” it explained, then paused, tilting its head in examination of her again, “My appearance disturbs you.”

Shepard let out a derisive snort. “Yeah. You could say that.”

“I apologize,” it said, “I chose a form that I believed would help us communicate. You had fond memories of this one.”

“Too fond.”  She looked down, unable to meet its vacant eyes. “I wouldn’t expect you to understand.”

“Is this one more suitable?”  It’s voice shifted registers and when she glanced up Thane stood before her.

Hot tears burned in her eyes but she held them back and shook her head. “No.”

“Perhaps you would prefer this?” This time it’s tone was higher pitched, clipped.  Mordin.

“No,” she spat through clenched teeth, “I’d prefer if you’d just pick a nightmare and tell me whether you can help me or not. ”

“Very well,” it said, Kaidan once again as it motioned for her to follow after it toward the beam of light before them. “Perhaps we can help each other.”

She limped after it, listening as it spoke, as it explained its creation, it’s function, the purpose for its very existence.  It was nothing the Leviathan had not already revealed to her, but spun in a way that painted the Reapers as innocent pawns simply fulfilling their duty, wiping out entire civilizations to ensure galactic balance, to protect organic life from its own chaos.

Bullshit , she thought as flashes of destruction played behind her eyelids with each laborious blink.  She remembered the sinking void in her gut as she fled Earth, watching it burn beneath Reaper hands.  She thought of Palaven, the harrowed Turian faces as their military and government collapsed, the anger and disbelief that vibrated in Garrus’ voice and beneath his skin. She recalled Thessia, the most advanced civilization in the galaxy reduced to rubble before her eyes and she, helpless to even salvage one artifact, Liara’s anguished sobs as she trembled in her arms.

The Catalyst and its Reapers were responsible for every lost colony in Batarian space that Shepard had shouldered instead.  Every single face on the memorial wall at the Citadel, every orphaned child and refugee, every life touched by this goddamn war, and the lives of those in every cycle that came before— it was all their fault.  They had corrupted and indoctrinated some of the greatest minds of her time, broken some of the strongest wills.  She wondered what had been said to convince Saren and Benezia. What had the Catalyst become to take hold of The Illusive Man?

The echoes of Sovereign’s boasts of supremacy and Harbinger’s threats of annihilation rang out in her ears as clear as the days they’d been spoken. And this entity, this artificial intelligence with the power and capability to stop it all, expected her to believe they were simply creatures bound to a purpose. The Catalyst truly believed she would help it achieve its pinnacle of evolution.

No, just because it was in a shark’s nature to eat her, did not mean she would allow it to do so. Despite the original intent behind their creations, the Reapers were monsters, and they had to be stopped. The galaxy deserved justice. She took one lumbering step toward the trigger on the right, one step closer to settling things once and for all.

“It will happen again,” the Catalyst called after her, “Machines will be rebuilt, and chaos will continue. Organics and synthetics cannot coexist separately.

“That’s…not true,” she grunted, and took another step, “The geth and the quarians have brokered peace.”

“It will not last.”

“You don’t know that,” she shouted, fists clenched at her sides, “The beauty of chaos is that you can’t know that.”

The entity fell silent, briefly considering what she said, then continued. “Perhaps not; however if you choose to destroy the Reapers, the geth will be destroyed as well. The two will not have the opportunity to disprove your hypothesis.”

A pang of guilt pierced her and she halted in her tracks.“All of them?”

“Yes.  The Crucible’s beam is powerful but unfocused.  It will be unable to distinguish between Reaper technology and other forms of synthetic life.”

Another pang of guilt as realization dawned on her. That meant EDI would die, too. Someone who was every bit a friend and member of her crew as anyone else, someone who had put herself on the line multiple times to protect Shepard, to make certain she could get the job done.  EDI, who confessed just before the battle that she finally felt alive. Now, Shepard was forced to weigh her newfound life and the newfound intelligence of the geth race, against the destruction of the Reapers.

What was it Garrus had called it? Ruthless calculus, that brutal math that awaited anyone who spent enough time at war.  Shepard had done plenty of those calculations, had made more than her fair share of difficult decisions, and she’d dealt with the consequences, good and bad.

This time, it was different, more final.  And she was entirely alone.  The future of the galaxy lay upon her weary back, and she was far past the point of compromise.

Shepard wanted the Reapers to pay for what they had done for millennia, wanted to watch them disintegrate in space as the cheers of her fleet rang out over the comms.  She wanted to know with certainty that the war was over.

More than anything, however, and most heavy on her mind,  she wanted to survive. It was a potent wave of selfishness that overwhelmed her as she thought of her friends back on the Normandy, of the relationships she’d forged and that had forged her.  Her heart ached at the thought of never seeing them again, never hearing their voices. She was sick at the possibility that her last moments with those who had carried her through every storm were hurried and spent in a war torn camp on Earth.

Knowing that they were worried and waiting for her to return, remembering Garrus’ desperate plea that she come back alive, it was more than she needed to motivate her to do so.  For the first time in her three decades of life, she had something to go home to. She had given so much of herself to save the galaxy, and she had more than earned the right to live in it.

There was no certainty that destroying the Reapers would ensure her survival, but it was the only choice without the certainty that she would die.  She was willing to take her chances. She had to. With a trembling arm she raised her pistol, aimed at the glass case guarding the trigger mechanism, and fired.

“I’m sorry,” she whispered as the glass shattered and her vision faded to white. “I’m so sorry.”

Shepard had been dead enough times to know that sound always came first, the discomforting beeping of medical equipment and garbled chatter ringing out in the darkness as her nervous system attempted to orient itself. Smell and taste came next, a package deal.  This time the antiseptic and the metallic tang of blood barely masked the rank of burnt flesh.

Then the pain set in, dull but constant and everywhere, numbed only slightly by neural blockers and local anesthetic.  She did not need to see her injuries to know how serious they were, how fatal they should have been.  Yet there she lay, once again waking up from something that would have killed anyone else.

And she was alone.  Again.

She began to panic as her eyes opened to the empty, sterile room, setting off the many monitors she was hooked up to.  Her heart pounded violently, each breath she took sharp and shallow as she yanked herself free from the dozens of tubes and IVs constraining her. How long had she been out this time? What covert operation for which secret, extremist organization had found and resurrected her for their benefit? How much more could one galaxy ask of her?

There was a hiss of opening doors and an unfamiliar asari entered the room urgently, arms extended out in front of her.  In one breath she reassured Shepard that everything was going to be all right  and in the next called for a medical restraint, a sedative.  She stepped slowly toward Shepard as one would approach a frightened, feral animal, and two more uniformed aliens entered the room.  Shepard stood tall, despite the ache in her bones and glared at the three of them.

“Ma’am, I know you must be very disoriented right now, and I am happy to answer any and all of your questions,” the asari said, holding her hands up, “But you are in no shape to be out of bed.  I need you to calm down before you hurt yourself further.”

Shepard glanced from the asari to the two salarians on either side of her.  They all wore generic attire that was standard for medical professionals across the galaxy, but their uniforms had no indication of their names or who they worked for.  She crossed her arms and winced through the pain as she argued. “How about you start by telling me where I am, then I’ll decide if I want to calm down or not.”

Just as she finished speaking the doors opened again, this time to faces she knew, and the subsequent wave of relief that washed over her nearly knocked her back into the bed on it’s own.  On the right stood Dr. Michel, who she remembered helping out on several occasions during the Reaper War.  A bit sweet on Garrus, if she remembered correctly. On the left, wearing a smirk and a raised eyebrow, was none other than Miranda Lawson.

“Sit down, Shepard,” Miranda asserted in her trademark tone.  She flashed the hint of a smile and continued, “The residents aren’t being paid enough for you to harass them.”

Shepard’s eyes flicked over to the three aliens who’d been tending to her just moments before.  They were now speaking nervously with the doctor, who muttered something about tests they needed to run followed by some other medical jargon that Shepard couldn’t decipher.  She did as her friend directed and eased herself back down onto her bed, offering a sheepish grin as she did so. “I feel like such an ass.”

“Don’t,” Dr. Michel chimed in as she approached the bed, and began to scan Shepard with her omni-tool, “You have been in a coma for almost a month.  It was expected that you would be agitated when you awoke, especially considering everything you’ve been through.”

Shepard’s chest swelled with something like gratitude.  A month .  She’d only been out for a month, and she had woken up in what she could now tell was Huerta Memorial under the care of a physician she trusted and one of her closest friends.  This was nothing like the last time she died. She looked up at Miranda and asked,“Had to put me back together again, I see?”

“I only helped this time,” Miranda explained as she worked to reconnect some of the IVs Shepard had ripped out, “Dr. Michel contacted me a few weeks ago for a consultation about your cybernetic augmentation.  I was already on the Citadel, so I came in person to oversee the repairs.”

“Is everything working?”

“Mostly,” Miranda shrugged, “Not quite up to specifications, but your injuries are still healing. With time, you should be fine.”

“And hopefully far away from any more life-threatening battles, yes,” remarked Michel, moving to a terminal near the wall and transferring data collected from her omni-tool scans.

Shepard let out a huff, and let herself recline onto the bed, walls crumbling away at the comforting conversation.  She took a breath and let her eyes flutter closed for just a minute, and said, “If I can. If the galaxy will let me.”

“The galaxy’s going to have to,” announced an unmistakable voice from the door, and Shepard bolted upright to face it.  To face him .

She hadn’t even heard the door open, and yet there stood her turian, with all that easy confidence he’d always carried himself with and a bouquet of indistinguishable gift shop flowers in each hand.  Her pulse jumped, a fact the vitals monitor in the corner was quick to inform her and everyone in the room about. She would never live that one down.

“Garrus!”

“Is that cardiac arrest—“ he motioned toward the screen with one of the bouquets— “Or, uh… are you just happy to see me?”

Shepard just rolled her eyes, unable to stop the grin that twitched at the corners of her mouth as he sauntered up to the bedside.

“I wasn’t sure which you’d like better,” Garrus explained, glancing with uncertainty between the flowers in each hand, “So I got both.  There’s also some chocolate and a few books of hanar poetry back at the gift shop if you just absolutely hate the flowers. I can run back down and—“

She laughed and shook her head at him. “They’re perfect.”

“Are you sure?” He examined each bouquet again.  “You might need the poetry to bore you back into a coma.”

“I thought that anthology was quite beautiful and romantic, myself,” Michel remarked, amused.  She approached Shepard again and administered something that relieved the throbbing pain in her head she’d barely noticed in all the commotion. “There, that should keep you comfortable for a time. I will come and check on you in a  few hours ”

“I’ll be going as well,” Miranda said, eyeing Shepard and Garrus knowingly. “Call me if you need anything.”

She turned to follow the doctor out of the room but stopped and looked over her shoulder. “Oh, and Shepard?  I’m glad we got to see each other again “

Shepard nodded. “So am I.”

With that Miranda left the room, the door sliding shut behind her.  Shepard turned her gaze up to Garrus who was already looking at her, pale eyes scanning every inch of her face intently.  His mandibles twitched and flared in the very specific way they always did when he was agitated or worried.  He shook his head, discarded both bundles of flowers onto the nearby bedside table, and sat down on the edge of the bed next to her, staring off at the wall in silence.

“Shepard I— I’m sorry I wasn’t here when you woke up,” he said finally, turning to look at her and placing a hand on her leg, “I’d just gone to get some air…I didn’t want you to be alone.”

“It’s okay,” she reassured him, reaching for his hand and wondering just how many sleepless hours he’d sat by her bed waiting for her to come to. “You’re here now. That’s all that matters.”

He leaned forward and pressed his forehead to hers, lingering there for several long moments.  She brought a hand up to trace the rough ridges of scarring along the right side of his face.  His eyes fluttered closed at the touch, and he let out a heavy sigh, as if she’d lifted some invisible weight off of him with just the tips of her fingers.

“You know,” she spoke up, breaking the powerful silence between them, “I think I finally have some scars that’ll give you a run for your credits.”

Garrus laughed, but it was quiet—almost sad— and he pulled back to examine her.

“How bad is it,” she asked, “There aren’t any mirrors in here.”

He laughed again, this time with more enthusiasm. “Hell, Shepard, I don’t know. You always were ugly, so it’s hard for me to say.”

“Okay,” she admitted with a smirk, “I had that one coming.”

The room went quiet again, with the exception of the buzzing and whirring of the equipment around them.  It wasn’t uncomfortable, though— nothing had ever been uncomfortable with Garrus— but it was heavy with unspoken pain and unasked questions for which Shepard wasn’t sure she wanted answers.

“How’s everyone else,” she ventured.

“Recovering,” he answered with a sigh, “Joker tried to outrun the blast, but even the Normandy wasn’t quick enough.  Crash landed on some human colony world. Everyone made it except—“

“EDI,” she said, name bitter on her tongue. She’d hoped the catalyst had been lying about the Crucible’s effect on synthetic life.

“Yes… how did you—“

This time, she was not able to dam up the wave of emotions that crashed into her.  Tears rushed to her eyes, shame and remorse tightening her chest like a vice. She was a soldier, and she knew that sacrifices won wars, but that did not make it any easier.

“It’s a long story,” she said with a sniff, looking away from him and attempting to wipe away the tears before he could see them, as if he hadn’t already.

“Well—” Garrus reached out and grabbed her chin, gently, giving it a tug until she brought her gaze back to him. “It’s a good thing I cleared my afternoon schedule, then. Tell me everything.”

And so she did. With a shaky voice, she recounted everything that happened from the time she called the evac for Garrus and Liara to the moment she was struck by the Crucible’s blast.  She told him about The Illusive Man, Anderson, the Catalyst who wore Kaidan’s face, and the impossible choice she was given.  He listened to every word, offered her his hand, and didn’t complain as her grip grew tighter and tighter with each devastating revelation.

When she was finished, eyes swollen and head throbbing, she looked at him and said, “I fucked up, Garrus. I had a chance to save EDI and the geth, but I just… couldn’t do it.  I was so angry and… scared , and—“

“Shepard,” Garrus interrupted her, laughing and shaking his head.

“What?”

“You’re about the only person I know who could save the whole damn galaxy and feel guilty because you didn’t save it better.”

“My life isn’t worth more than EDI’s was, and it definitely isn’t more important than the entire geth race,” Shepard argued.

Garrus blinked back at her a few times, then responded.  “It is to me.”

She opened her mouth to protest, but the words didn’t come, so she clamped it shut and frowned.  Her entire argument fell apart in the wake of his blunt confession. How the hell was she supposed to respond to something like that?

“It was selfish,” she finally managed past the lump in her throat, “It was genocide.”

“Maybe,” he answered, firmly, “Maybe not. We have no way of knowing that anything the Catalyst told you was true.”

“Why would it lie?”

“I don’t know, maybe to save it’s own ass?”  His words were pointed but not directed to her.  “It was clearly trying to get in your head, Shepard, using Alenko like that.”

“But—”

“No,” he snapped, “You made the right call, and no one is going to fault you for it except you.”

“ Garrus …” she began, but trailed off when she noticed him looking down at their intertwined fingers, shaking his head and seeming to struggle with his emotions.

When he spoke up, his voice was hoarse.  “You’ll forgive me if I say I don’t think you owe anyone—not EDI, not the geth, not the Alliance, not the rest of the galaxy— any more than you’ve already given.”

He paused for a beat, then added in a lighter tone, “Except me. You owe me a long retirement on your fancy Alliance pension.”

Shepard snorted out a laugh, despite everything, and reached up to take his face in her hands.  She pulled him closer to her, just so that she could press a kiss against the side of his mouth.

“I’ll think about it,” she whispered.

Just as they pulled apart, the door opened and they both turned to see who had entered. Dr. Michel stood at the threshold smiling at them apologetically.  “I am sorry for the interruption, but—”

“Someone tell Garrus to quit hogging the Commander,” complained an all too familiar voice as he pushed past the doctor and into the room. “The rest of us have been waiting just as long as he has.”

“Joker,” Shepard exclaimed, nearly jumping up out of the bed to greet him.

“The one and only,” he said proudly then held up a small plastic crate to show her, “And I brought you something.  Basically had to wrestle the Alliance brass for it when they declared you dead.”

“What—,” she asked as she squinted at the box, noticing movement in the corner, “Is that my hamster?”

He sat the container down carefully on the table next to the flowers Garrus had tossed aside,  “It’s not two bouquets of useless flowers or anything, but, well…you know.”

“We can’t all be as romantic as you,” Garrus said sarcastically as he stood up and stepped away from the bed, allowing the other man space to approach Shepard.

“Thank you, Joker,” Shepard said with a nod as she sat up in the bed, “And about EDI, I—“

He cut her off with the shake of his head, clearly not ready to discuss it. “Not your fault, Commander.”

Shepard just nodded, sorry, but not wanting to force the issue.  Joker puffed his chest out and saluted her, just as more commotion rang out from the door.  She darted her eyes across the room again to see the flood of other people pouring in from the hallway.

Ash was the first to rush to the bedside, throwing appropriate Alliance protocol out the window as she threw her arms unceremoniously around Shepard.  The embrace was firm, but not so forceful that it caused her aching body any extra pain, and when Ash pulled away, Shepard could see the tears glistening in her eyes. She stiffened up and saluted just as Joker had done, and said “Ma’am.”

Much to Shepard’s surprise, Ash then approached Garrus and embraced him briefly as well, pulling away and then giving him a pat on the arm.

The others followed suit after that, offering words of gratitude that she had saved the galaxy, and relief that she’d managed to pull through.  Tali and Liara had followed Ash’s example and hugged her.  The others didn’t but greeted her with enthusiasm all the same.  Vega mentioned how “epic” it was when the fleet realized she’d made it to the Citadel and got the arms opened while Traynor and Cortez nodded along.  Javik, in his typical fashion stood quietly in the corner but nodded at her with a look of admiration she had yet to see from the Prothean.  Dr. Chakwas and the crew from engineering squeezed themselves in the now cramped space as well. Chakwas approached the bed and gave Shepard’s hand a firm squeeze.

Humbling was not a strong enough word to describe the experience of seeing everyone who’d been on the Normandy with her in that final journey to Earth gathered around celebrating her survival.  They had all meant so much to her, and only now did she realize that she’d meant the same to them.

She’d grown accustomed to being a sole survivor, watching her own back and carrying on alone with each of her mistakes strapped to her shoulders.  She was used to blaming herself with the voices of those she lost, of nightmares and flashbacks and consoling herself back to sleep in the middle of the night.  She had trained herself to be numb because she could not bear feeling guilty.

Now, she didn’t have to.  For the first time in as long as she could remember, she had people who cared about her, people who she trusted, and they had survived. For the first time, she wasn’t alone with her grief and she didn’t have to be numb.  She had friends who would hold her together while she sorted herself out, just as she had done for each and every one of them.

“You okay,” Garrus asked as he approached the bedside again, letting a hand tousle her hair gently before falling to her shoulder.

“Yeah.” She nodded and glanced around the room slowly, taking it all in. “I really actually am.”

[c-optimistic]

Great! I asked because if you didnt take prompts I wanted to be respectful of it, also okay if you dont feel like doing it or if you take your time, I admire and appreciate all your work. It's an angsty one😅 after the supergirl reveal, all the events and their drifting apart, Kara and Lena are rekindling their friendship, kara tells lena she's in love with her, lena confesses her feelings too but tells kara that after everything they cant be more than friends, angst here, then a happy ending 😁

“You’re my Lois,” she said softly, almost to herself. 

(It had been on her mind for days and weeks and months now, words she was afraid to fully verbalize, thoughts and feelings she wasn’t sure she quite wanted to string into something coherent. 

But now, in the silence, in their solitude, the words slipped out as easy as breathing, slipped out without her consent, her knowledge, her desire.)

Lena didn’t turn towards her, just wrapped her arms tighter around herself to stave off the chilly bite of the air. “I don’t know what that means,” she finally offered, voice terribly soft, eyes still focused on the city lights below them. 

(National City was beautiful in the fall. Parks turned orange and yellow and red, pumpkins and cartoon turkeys and the strong scent of cinnamon could be found on every street corner. Jackets got dusted off and pulled on, scarves wound their way around people’s necks, the smell of hot chocolate seemed to permeate the air. 

And Lena looked at home in the fall. Her hair was down more often than not, gentle curls framing her face. She was wrapped in soft sweaters and warm colors, looking gentler, calmer, more at ease.

And she was, in every way, Kara’s Lois.) “It’s...I—well.” Explaining was harder than she thought. Giving meaning to what she said was harder than she expected. “You’re the one I’d spin the world the opposite direction for, you know?” “Don’t be ridiculous, Kara,” Lena scoffed, turning away from the city and meeting Kara’s eyes briefly before walking through the sliding glass doors and back into her apartment. Kara followed sullenly behind. “What good would that even do?” “Turns back time,” Kara joked softly, watching Lena pour herself a glass of wine. Once maybe, days and weeks and months ago, she would have offered Kara a glass as well. Now she just set the bottle aside and sipped slowly, as if daring Kara to comment. “Why would you want to turn back time for me? And what does this have to do with Lois?” She seemed genuinely confused, and Kara realized she needed to be more direct. 

(In and of itself, it was a scary thought. She didn’t want to confess her feelings and be rebuffed. She didn’t want to tell the truth and leave herself open to...what, pain? A lack of reciprocation? Laughter at her expense?

And yet, and yet...Lena was her Lois, and she was worth it all the same.)

“What I’m trying to say,” Kara tried again, biting on her lip as she attempted to find the right words, beginning to think there were only three, not quite sure how to gather the courage to say them. “Remember Mon-El?” she said, switching tactics.

“Vaguely,” Lena responded, amused. She walked over to her kitchen, pulled out a kettle, a mug, and a packet of hot chocolate mix (an item she only kept at her place because she knew about Kara’s preference for it over tea). “What about him?” she asked as she put the water to boil, raising her eyebrow and looking at Kara expectantly. 

“When I sent him away, chose to save everyone over keeping him, Clark told me he could never do that,” Kara explained, that moment etched into her memory, inescapable and dare she say profound in the absence of feeling. “He said if it came down to keeping Lois or the world...well, he wouldn’t know what to do.”

Lena looked down, focusing on pouring the boiling water into the mug and adding the hot cocoa mix, stirring it in slowly. “Oh,” she whispered finally, pushing the mug towards Kara, “that’s what you mean about my being your Lois.”

“Lena, I—”

“—to be honest, though,” Lena interrupted, frowning, “I don’t think you have a Lois.” 

(Well, if anything could make those three words Kara wanted to say shrink back into their shell, it was that.

And for it to be said so casually, so abruptly, so utterly convincingly, as though there wasn’t any doubt in Lena’s mind. Well. That more than hurt, that felt vaguely offensive.)

“That’s so—”

“—you’re too,” Lena waved her hands, struggling with finding a word, “honorable,” she finally settled on. “You believe in duty, in sacrifice, in putting everyone before you.” She smiled, looking inexplicably proud, and picked up her wine glass, taking a small sip. “You’re too selfless. If it came down to it, Kara, you’d break your own heart a thousand times over for the world.” 

Kara blinked, wondering how Lena misinterpreted her. “No, Lena, I’m saying—”

“—no, I know,” Lena interrupted, setting her wine aside and walking over to stand in front of Kara, so close that Kara could practically smell the alcohol on Lena’s breath. Rather than meet Lena’s eyes, Kara kept her gaze on the ceiling. “And I love you, too. But we’re not Clark and Lois.” 

(And oh, Lena got it. She got it and she was braver than Kara, laying the words out there, giving the feelings between them a name, finally, finally, calling it what it was.

Love. She loved Lena.)

“I don’t pull off the suit as well as he does, I know,” Kara joked sadly, eyes still on the ceiling, knowing where Lena was going with this. 

(It was too soon. It was too much. It was too hard.)

“Kara,” Lena admonished, forcing Kara to meet her gaze. Kara’s vision was a little blurred, so she wasn’t quite sure if those were tears in Lena’s eyes or if her allergies were just working up again. “We can’t,” Lena told her, voice trembling. 

“Right. No. Of course.”

“Kara, after everything, being friends is hard enough, do you really—”

“—I said I got it,” Kara interrupted, blinking, horrified when her vision cleared and she felt something wet roll down her cheeks. She was crying. Crying. How utterly embarrassing. 

(She looked away again, unwilling to see pity in Lena’s expression, unwilling to confirm for herself that what was welling up in Lena’s eyes was indeed allergies. 

She looked away again, because she was willing to break her heart a thousand times over for the world, but she didn’t know how to cope with her breaking heart now.)

“I’m just.” She stopped, heaved a breath, and nodded curtly. “Just friends sounds good. But I’m going to go now.” She stepped back from Lena, practically power-walked towards the balcony door, stopping only when she felt something tug on her cape.

“Kara,” Lena began, but Kara didn’t turn. Couldn’t turn. Whatever courage Lena had been on when she’d managed to say the words Kara couldn’t seemed to fade, however, and she released her grip on Kara’s cape and pulled back. “You pull the suit off way better than him, don’t sell yourself short.” 

(It wasn’t what Lena wanted to say, Kara didn’t need the uptick of Lena’s heartbeat or the soft, regretful sigh she released a moment after the words escaped her lips. 

It wasn’t what Lena wanted to say, but it was what she did say, and Kara managed nothing more than a strangled laugh in response, taking off into the night and leaving Lena and a mug of hot chocolate untouched behind her.)

xxx

The next time she saw Lena was at game night.

(This was not for a lack of trying on Lena’s part. She’d invited Kara to lunch, to coffee, to a variety of science-related events—even Lena’s TED Talk—but Kara had declined them all, citing work or Supergirl-catastrophes.

Finally, Lena had sent a text reading just hmph, and Kara had spent the rest of the afternoon asking Nia if it was a good or bad hmph.) 

Game night, however, Kara couldn’t avoid. Namely, because it was at her own apartment. She had managed to avoid directly inviting Lena, resorting instead to a group chat message, something that had Nia shaking her head and muttering “children.” 

(And rationally, Kara knew better. She knew that she was supposed to be a better friend, that they were working on repairing their tattered and bruised friendship, that they needed to reestablish all those lines of communication and trust that had been burned to the ground. 

She knew, but she struggled. She struggled with the thought of looking at Lena and not thinking about how much she loved her, not thinking that Lena felt the same way, not thinking that had she been better—a better friend, a more honest friend, a kinder friend—then there would have been nothing in the way of her reaching out to take Lena by the hand, tug her forward, chase her lip, and—

Well. All those were things she was determinedly not trying to think of.) 

She was a bit of a mess by the time Lena arrived, looking as beautiful and breathtaking as ever, a bag of takeout in her hand, an unsure smile on her lips. 

“Are you sure?” Lena whispered, not entering Kara’s apartment. “If this is too much—”

“—I want you here,” Kara cut in, not really embarrassed by how desperate she sounded. Because now that she was looking at Lena, she forgot why she had wanted to maintain distance in the first place. Self-preservation no longer seemed very important to her. “I always want you with me.” 

“As a friend,” Lena added, cheeks flushed, suddenly very interested in her shoes, her heart pounding away, teeth digging into her bottom lip. 

Kara wasn’t sure what it all meant. She wasn’t sure she wanted to know. So instead, she responded with the honesty she should’ve afforded Lena sooner—the honesty her best friend was owed. “In any capacity you’ll have me,” she said.

Lena didn’t respond, but as she walked by to enter Kara’s apartment, the fingers of her free hand ran over the inside of Kara’s hand, barely brushing over Kara’s palm, really, and it was like an electric shock, leaving Kara paralyzed to the spot until Alex took pity on her and unrooted her—physically dragging her over to the food and games.

(And the entire night, as Kara flexed the hand Lena touched repeatedly, she noticed that every time she looked over at Lena, Lena was already looking at her.

And the entire night, as Nia muttered “children” under her breath, Kara began to hope.)

xxx

As the weeks dragged on and Lena showed no signs of wanting anything to evolve between them, much of that hope evaporated. She was only holding onto the last tendrils when she had to show up at L-Corp (again) to stop some madman’s mad henchmen from trying to kill Lena (again). 

When the men were appropriately stopped and detained, Kara found herself on the balcony with Lena (again), staring out at the city (this too, again). Lena wasn’t drinking anything, and she wasn’t dressed in her soft sweaters. Instead, she was wearing a navy suit, hair pulled tightly back, hands in her pockets as she leaned against the balustrade, eyes on Kara. 

“You took awhile to get here,” Lena finally said, and Kara turned to her, a little offended.

“There was a fire, Lena. I had to make sure it was out before—”

“—but I thought I was your Lois?” she interrupted, with more than a little snark. Kara straightened, standing at her full height as she approached Lena.

“First of all, low blow. Secondly, you said it yourself, I don’t have a Lois. Maybe you need to find a less honorable friend,” Kara told her, eyes narrowed. 

Lena didn’t look sorry. If anything, she seemed...content. “I’ve been thinking about it, you know?” She tugged her hands out of her pockets, and Kara thought her heart slammed to a halt when Lena reached out and placed her hands on Kara’s shoulders, drawing her in. “I think the truth is,” she continued, hands sliding across Kara’s shoulders, interlocking behind Kara’s neck, “you’re my Lois. Because there’s nothing I wouldn’t do to keep you, even give up a chance at something more, something I really want, because I was scared it wouldn’t work and I’d lose you completely.” 

“Something you really want, huh?” Kara said, her heart jumpstarting at the feeling of Lena’s fingers against her neck, at the way Lena’s thumbs rubbed gently against the base of her skull, at the way Lena leaned up, pressing their foreheads together. “Are you still scared?”

“Terrified,” Lena breathed. “But I figure I could be a little more like you, potential heartbreak and all.”

Kara tried to nod, managing nothing more than gently head-butting Lena and making her laugh. “We probably need to figure out a better way to describe how we feel about each other, I think my cousin and Lois may get concerned—”

“—Kara?” Lena interrupted, pulling away just a bit.

“Yeah?”

“We can definitely talk about this if you want. Or you could just kiss me. Whichever you prefer.” 

(In the end, it was an easy choice.

And judging from the way Lena sighed into her mouth, she felt the same way.)

[etherrealoblivion]

We Both Know

Pairing: Spencer Reid x Reader

Summary: Spencer Reid is a virgin. Which he is totally fine with! The problem? He still hasn't told his girlfriend, Y/N, for fear of being teased. When he tells her, her reaction is ... surprising, to say the least.

A/N: Season two Spencer. Season two team. Prepare your self for all-knowing Gideon. Fulfilling this request. for @gublergirls​. “~” indicates a POV shift.

tags: Dom/sub, unprotected sex, choking, first time, Virgin!Spencer

RATING: EXPLICIT

Words: 7,014

MASTERLIST

~

Spencer Reid had never done anything remotely sexual before.

Okay, he’d kissed before. Once. In Highschool. On a dare. For half a second.

Okay … so he was pretty inexperienced. Which he didn’t mind at all! The one downside was he was now going steady with a wonderful, amazing girl who he was definitely falling head over heels for, and he had no idea how to tell her.

Luckily, they’d already been working together for about a year before they started dating, which made the shift to a relationship much easier. And them being together didn’t affect their job performance at all. For the most part…. So all Spencer had to do was avoid bringing up his … lack of experience, around her. Things were pretty good.

But things, in Spencer’s experience, had a way of turning sour.

“Hey, Spencer!” she found him standing outside of the elevator after work one Friday, standing up on her tiptoes and planting a soft kiss on his cheek.

“Y/N! We’re at work!” he muttered, glancing around as a light blush formed on his cheeks.

“Nobody’s here! It’s fineeee,” she whined, pulling off his glasses and bringing him down into a real kiss.

Woah. She’d never kissed him like this before. They’d only been dating for a couple of weeks now - though their relationship felt much older— and she’d pretty much only given him chaste kisses with very little tongue. 

Not because she didn’t want to! In fact, she had said multiple times that she did, but Reid wanted to take things slow and he’d expressed this to her once they’d started dating. She had told him she respected his boundaries no matter what and she was ready to wait for as long as he needed.

Clearly, though, she was starting to get a little impatient.

“Let’s go home,” she said quietly, pulling him into the elevator, Spencer staying silent the whole way back to her apartment.

He was trying to think of another excuse that was reasonable. She had told him over and over again that they could take things as slowly as he needed. But still, there were scary thoughts lurking deep in his mind that kept telling him to hold back, to keep distance between them.

If he told her he was a … if he told her he’d never had sex before, surely she’d make fun of him. That’s what everyone always did. Would she be any different?

“Spencer?” she took his hand as they entered, very carefully leading him back to her bedroom. 

“I, um … I have to finish some paperwork for-”

“Spencer,” she sat on the bed, slowly removing her blouse, revealing a dark red brassiere with a beautiful lace pattern. He unconsciously licked his lips. “I know you wanted to take things slowly, but … maybe we can try something … new tonight? If you want?”

She reached to the front of her bra where the clasp was, snapping it open and letting it fall down her shoulders, Spencer’s eyes feasting on her full breasts. 

His shock must have been very apparent on his face because she stood, slowly pulling down her work pants and moving to stand right in front of Spencer, her hands dancing down his chest, slowly unbuttoning his shirt.

“Is this okay?” she asked, watching him carefully. 

His eyes were blown wide and his mouth slightly open. The words froze in his throat, terrified to say anything.

But he hadn’t said yes, so she stopped, waiting for him to answer.

“Spencer?”

“I … I can’t, Y/N.”

“Okay. Can I ask why? You don’t have to answer.”

He backed away, feeling idiotic and ashamed. She’d never want to be with him once she knew….

“I’m…. I’ve never….”

A look of realization glanced over her face, sending a spark of sadness through Spencer’s heart.

“I should go. I’ll see you at work.”

“What?!”

She had reached out, grabbing his arm and holding him back. Spencer sighed.

“You want to end things between us, I understand.”

Surprisingly, she chuckled very softly, pulling him down to sit with her on the bed, sliding her blouse back on.

“Spencer, why would you think I … Do you really think I’d want to end things just because of that?”

“Well… yeah,” he said like it was the most obvious thing in the world. “You deserve someone who knows what they’re doing. You deserve someone who can actually make you feel good. I’ve never…. I can’t-I can’t do that.”

“Oh, honey,” she tilted his face up to hers, smiled warmly, and planted a tender kiss right on his lips.

What was she doing? Why wasn’t she laughing and kicking him out? 

“Spencer, I don’t care that you’ve never had sex before. I mean, I kind of thought maybe, anyway. You can tell me this kind of stuff, I’m not going to judge you. But, I understand if you aren’t ready. Spencer, I’d wait years for you. And don’t you dare think for a second that you don’t make me feel good!”

The neurons in his brain were firing at a million miles a minute. She really didn’t care? She still wanted to be with him?

“Really?”

“Yeah!” her smile could power every lamp in Washington D.C. “Plus, it’s not like there’s either having sex or not having sex. There’s a lot of in-betweens I’d be happy to work with, if you wanted to, of course.”

“What-um-what do you mean ‘in-betweens’?”

“Well, um … there’s-there’s oral-” Spencer jumped slightly at the word, bouncing the bed, “Or we can just touch each other? There’s so much between kissing and actual penetrative sex. Maybe, tonight, we can just kiss for a while, and if you wanna take things further, let me know, okay?”

Spencer nodded, following her as she pulled him further up the bed so they were lying side by side.

“Can I kiss you?”

He nodded his head and the moment he did, she surged forward, their lips meeting yet again.

God, she tasted so good. Spencer could do this for hours and hours and not go any further. She was intoxicating and he was addicted.

However, his hands moved under her blouse of their own accord, gently sliding up her stomach and hovering over her breast.

“Can I. . . ?”

“Yes,” she whispered in his ear, the sound sending a shock down his body to his groin and he moved his hand to cup her, moaning into her mouth at the feeling.

Unconsciously, his hips jolted forward, making contact with the top of her thigh. A low grunt left his mouth between them and he thrust again, gently grinding against her.

“Is this okay?”

“Yes, baby,” she whispered, “Actually, just put … there,” she sighed as she adjusted so that his leg was between hers, now grinding up against her thin panties.

To Spencer’s surprise, and delight, she began moaning and writhing, pushing herself closer to him, throwing a leg around his hips and yanking him against her so their clothed crotches finally met. Simultaneously, they gasped, forming a steady pace of gently grinding against each other.

Emboldened by her sounds, Spencer dipped his head down to the crook of her neck and lightly kissed. At her insistence, he deepened the kisses, starting to suck on the skin, leaving little red patches behind as he went lower.

When he reached right where her stomach stopped, he looked up, asking for permission to continue. She simply nodded, lacing her fingers through his hair and pushing him lower. A plethora of curses and moans left her as he gently licked a stripe up over her panties, thighs tightening around his head.

“Fuck, Spencer,” she groaned, trying to pull him closer and closer with each swipe of his tongue. “Wait, you’ve gotta stop!”

He snapped away, terrified he’d done something wrong but was quickly met with her tongue meandering around his mouth, coaxing moans and gasps from him.

He gently pulled back and moved to the side of her.

“Did I hurt you?”

She laughed, not meanly, not teasingly, but warmly, like he’d said something endearing.

“No, baby. Actually, you made me feel really good. I, um, If you’d have kept going I’m not sure I would have been able to stop.”

“Oh… Well, um, we can-”

“Spencer,” she spoke sternly but with a wide smile on her face. “As much as I’d love to do some horrible, amazing things to you, I don’t think it’d be a good idea to do that tonight, okay?”

Clearly that was the right call, judging by the wave of relief that washed over him when she said it.

“Okay,” and they cuddled up to go to sleep, peacefully slipping into dreams of future possibilities.

~

Sure, you were surprised when he’d told you, but it wasn’t like you hadn’t seen it coming. Countless times on cases, he’d freeze up at the word sex, or opt for a more clinical descriptor such as coitus or intercourse. At first, you assumed it was just to do with his innocent nature. It made sense; he wasn’t the type to go bragging about various conquests after a late night.

But, surely, he must’ve done something before.

I mean, he was twenty-four. The statistics spoke for themselves; for god’s sake, Spencer probably had them memorized. 

And even stranger, the more you thought about it, the more it made sense. He’d been twelve when he’d graduated high-school. Went to college at fourteen. Probably never really had the opportunity to … befriend … people his own age.

Of course, he didn’t need to worry at all. You weren’t going to judge him one bit. In fact, you were ashamed to admit the prospect might have gotten you the tiniest bit excited. 

All the men you’d been with had done it before with countless women, including your very first time. The only serious boyfriend you’d had was the one you hadn’t gotten the chance to sleep with yet. Spencer.

The thing was, if he hadn’t told you, you probably wouldn’t have known. There wouldn’t be any reason to believe the way he’d touched you last weekend wasn’t the millionth time he’d done it. He had moved with such tenacity, such nimbleness. Though there was a sureness, a confidence that was missing from his movements. He wasn’t lying. He’d never had sex.

Actually, that wasn’t what he’d said. He said: I’ve never… and then trailed off. 

At work on Monday, as the elevator doors opened, you found yourself wondering to what extent that ‘never’ went.

“Hey, Y/L/N,” Morgan called from the bullpen, holding up a coffee and nodding his head. “It’s got your name on it.”

Thankful for the caffeine, you took the cup and gulped down as much as you could stand. The hot liquid went down your throat smoothly and produced a wonderful placebo effect of instant energy.

“Thanks, I didn’t get much sleep last night.”

Morgan slapped you on the back and said, “My woman! Who’s the lucky guy?”

Right. Neither you nor Spencer had told the team about the two of you yet. Hotch, of course, was aware, making sure you signed the necessary papers and had you assure him it wouldn’t affect your job performance were things to go south.

But the rest of the team was blissfully ignorant as to the true nature of your close relationship with the good doctor.

“It’s not like that, Morgan. A damn car alarm was going off until two a.m.”

At that moment, Reid walked in gulping down his own beverage, an extra one in his hand, dark circles under his own eyes which remained partially closed as he sat and yawned.

“Woah, looks like Pretty Boy, here, also had something keeping him up all night, though I’m hoping he got a little more action than a car alarm.”

Spencer and you exchanged a worried look. Because, in fact, he had also been kept up by a car alarm, the very same one you had. So he needed to think of another excuse before it became apparent that the two of you had very similar reasons for insomnia.

“No, sadly. Just a bit late because the bus was slow and the fatigue is due to noisy neighbors who were probably getting considerably more quote-unquote action than I. Prentiss,” he handed her the extra coffee cup which she took gratefully. “Got you a latte.”

Suddenly, you felt someone’s eye boring into you. Looking to your left, you saw Gideon looking at you strangely.

Shit. Reid didn’t take the bus anymore, a fact he’d let slip a couple of days ago, prompting lots of questions from Morgan. Surely the Gideon wouldn’t miss a detail like that, being the seasoned profile he was.

Luckily, J.J. was there to save the day.

“We’ve got a case.”

And you were off before Morgan could question why you were able to hear a car alarm from your seventh-floor apartment uptown.

~

Once in a while, the team got a pretty open and shut case. A rare unsub would come along who was sloppy and left enough clues to have you home within a couple of days.

This wasn’t one of those times.

Spencer, as always, was working hard on the geological profile, mapping out the areas where the unsub had been killing. Normally, the work would have come easy to him; he could work the case like he always did, narrowing it down to a science, a pattern, a formula.

Which would have been easy if not for the fact that his secret girlfriend and partner was wearing the lowest cut tanktop on the planet.

“Hey, can you hand me a pen?”

And as she spoke, he made the mistake of taking his eyes off the map, coming face to face with Y/N, her chest far too on display.

“Huh? Oh! Yeah,” he muttered, handing her the closest pen and gluing his eyes back down to the chart under the guise of inspecting the distance between crime scenes. 

“Spence, are you seeing this?”

He looked up again reluctantly, trying to prepare himself for the sight of her.

“Look at the victim’s shoes,” she pointed to the drawing board where the mangled corpses of the first four women.

“Red Adidas, converse all-stars, yellow sandals, and pink Gucci pumps. I don’t understand, those are all very different shoes.”

He turned to her and was surprised to find a shocked smile on her face.

“What?”

Smirking, she said, “Okay, you are explaining why you know so much about women’s shoes later but now,” she yanked the pictures of the shoes off of the board, placing them on the map and leaning over it, her cleavage so exposed Spencer could have looked straight down her top … if he was a creep, which he wasn’t. He wasn’t. He wasn’t!

“Spence! Look at this. Each of the shoes matches the crime scenes, right?”

“Sure, pumps outside a nightclub, Adidas on a hiking trail—”

“Right! But the thing is, they don’t match! The woman found outside the club was wearing sandals. The woman found on the hiking trail had on, guess what—”

“—pumps.”

“He’s switching their shoes!”

He smiled brightly at her, happy they’d finally got a new lead. Sadly, the tight red tank top drew his eyes towards the curve of her breast far too enticingly. He couldn’t stop himself from wondering what she’d look like splayed out underneath him, writhing like she had last weekend, begging him to fuck her. He wondered why that thought was so enticing. 

Oh god, she was looking at him.

“Nice solve, Doctor.”

He glanced away, warmth flooding his cheeks and busying himself with dialing Garcia’s number, quickly spouting off what they’d found and asking her to relay it to the team. When he turned back, Y/N was smirking at his, arms crossed, pressing her breasts together every so subtly.

“Hey, Spence?”

He gulped, struggling to maintain eye contact.

“Yeah?”

She stepped so closely to him, their lips almost touching and Spencer silently thanked the local cops for the private room. When she spoke, her breath ghosted over his neck and her whispers in his ear were enough to cause an uncomfortable growth in his trousers.

“Hand me a pen?”

Motherfucker.

~

You weren’t an idiot, you knew the effect the tight red top would have on Spencer. What you hadn’t expected, though, was how much he’d let it show.

Every now and then, you’d wear a slightly more … form-fitting … outfit for the sole purpose of messing with him. He’d never really shown much indication that he noticed before…. Until now.

He had ogled you like a teenage boy seeing cleavage for the first time. You swore he licked his lips twice the usual amount.

Had something changed? Was your top too low cut? Oh god, had you gone too far? But he didn’t seem to mind the teasing before. Something had changed.

Oh.

Oh!

“Fuck,” you muttered under your breath, Gideon shooting you a look from where he sat across from you. The plane was dead silent but for the soft whirring of the engine. Most of the team was asleep, Spencer included. You and Gideon were the only ones still awake.

“Sorry,” you muttered, attempting to hide your face in the book you’d been pretending to read.

Gideon didn’t respond but you could feel the intensity of his gaze from behind the hardcover. 

Setting your book down, you shot him a very accusing look, shrugging your shoulders.

“What?”

It was the most incriminating word you’d spoken to him in the past ten minutes. You could tell just from the way his eyes narrowed that he was putting two and two together, although you didn’t know what the twos were.

When he finally spoke, it was to say something you’d seen coming from a mile away, though that didn’t make it any less surprising.

“Reid doesn’t take the bus anymore.”

You glanced away, damning yourself even further.

“Oh, yeah, he mentioned that a few days ago. Why?”

For an FBI profiler, you were a shit liar. You knew it and Gideon knew you knew.

There was a very long silence where he simply analyzed you, not in an intrusive way, but as though he was a faraway observer who could read your smallest movements like they were words on a page. His whole birdwatching thing made so much more sense now that you were the one under his gaze.

Gideon was a man of little words, making the ones he chose to speak all the more impactful.

“He’s a gentle soul. Be careful.”

After a moment of floundering, the reality hit you that this wasn’t a man worth trying to fool. Gideon knew. And when Gideon knew, there was no trying to convince him otherwise.

~

The case had ended amicably, the unsub captured after the fifth casualty but before he could kill the sixth. There was a strange sense of relief, pride, and guilt coursing through Spencer on the way back home.

Falling asleep on the jet helped, but only temporarily. The moment he got home, he jumped in the shower, hoping to wash away any memory of the horrible murders he saw on a daily basis.

The water pressure at Y/N’s place was heavenly. He hoped she didn’t think he just stayed the night so often because of that. Although, her apartment was much nicer than his. She was so nice to let him crash whenever he wanted, and he was always happy to return the favor.

He wondered what other favors she’d return. About this same time last week, he had his head buried between her thighs, licking up her—

Fuck. Now he was hard and he couldn’t bring himself to masturbate in her shower. The irony was too much, even for him. So, like a very sexually repressed gentleman, he turned off the shower and dried himself off, wrapping the towel around his waist and stepping out into her bedroom.

He really should have jerked off.

Because Y/N was sitting on the far side of the bed, letting her hair fall loose from the bun it had been in for the past few days, kicking off her shoes, and slowly pulling the tight red tank top up and off of her torso, revealing an equally red lace bralette.

He really should have jerked off.

She turned toward him, a smile lighting up her face at his appearance.

“Hey, Spencer. You okay? You look a little … red.” She narrowed her eyes and the word and puffed out her chest ever so slightly. A less experienced profiler may have missed it.

Finally realizing he hadn’t answered her, he grunted, “Yep. I’m okey-dokey. A hundred percent. I’m great!”

He cringed, knowing she’d pick up on the overcompensation.

She, being the awesome profiler and friend she was, did.

“C’mere,” she pat the space on the bed next to her, and Spencer was drawn to it like a magnet. He was a bit worried about the lack of clothes shared between them and the fact that he was sporting a rather persistent half-chub, well hidden under the fluffy white towel. Y/N had the best towels.

“What’s up, Spence?”

She was so perfect. Not perfect as in like, no flaws. But perfect as in, if her flaws could be personified, Spencer would hug and caress each and every one of them. To him, she was a treasure. She was perfectly imperfect.

“I’m okay, really, just … got a lot on my mind.”

She broke eye-contact at that, making Spencer start to think that she understood how he was feeling a lot better than he’d assumed.

“What about you? Are you … okay?”

“Yes. Yeah, I am. Just thinking about something Gideon … well, it wasn’t quite said, you know?”

Spencer chuckled. He knew all too well how a simple look from their mentor could speak volumes.

“Yeah, I know, but … it seems like there’s something more to it?”

She sighed, laying back and resting against the overstuffed pillows, staring up at the popcorn ceiling. Uh oh. Usually, she only did that when she was really troubled.

“Spencer, I need to tell you something. I feel awful because I’m not sure if you’re ready to hear it and I don’t even know if it’s ready to be said. God knows how the hell I’ve waited this long. I’m sorry if this is too much but …”

He froze, heartbeat quickening, and preparing himself for the inevitable bad news-slash-heartbreak. Y/N sat up and stared at him intensely, sending a jolt through him.

“... I love you, Spencer.”

~

You weren’t sure exactly how he’d take it, but this is pretty much what you’d imagined.

“W-what?”

“Spencer….” you took his hand, lightly stroking the back of it and trying not to pull away at his tension. “I love you.”

Before you could go into a long rant about your feelings, his lips were on yours, followed soon by his body, pinning you down and kissing you with a passion you’d never felt from him before.

But he was off of you just as quick as he’d come, a terrified expression on his face.

“I’m so sorry, I didn’t mean to—”

You pulled him back towards you to shut him up, shoving your tongue in his mouth, impatiently deepening the kiss. This time, he didn’t hesitate to let his hands roam your body, lightly trailing up your sides causing you to gasp breathily.

“Am I hurting you?”

“No,” you chuckled softly, “although,” you gently moved his hands down his bare torso, resting on the top of the towel, “you can if you want to.”

His eyes widened and you reached around your back to unclasp your bra, tossing it to the abyss next to the bed.

“W-what?”

“I saw the way you looked at me this week.”

Spencer twitched, breaking eye contact but staying close, unsure of what to say.

“How-how was I looking at you?”

His eyes were glazed over and you could feel his hardness against your thigh, pressing against you with only the towel between you.

“Like you wanted me,” you whispered into his ear, moving a hand under the towel and snaking around his length, slowly moving it back and forth. It was the first time you’d touched him there. At the movement, he dropped his head into the crook of your shoulder, cursing lightly.

You wanted to keep going so badly. You wanted to yank the towel off, flip him over and show him how you could make him feel. But you didn’t want to put any pressure whatsoever onto him. 

“Listen, Spencer, I meant what I said, okay? We never have to do anything you aren’t a hundred percent sure that you wanna do. We can stop right here if you want. But….” You gently shifted underneath him, slowly sliding your panties down your legs, moving Spencer’s hand to rest right above your entrance. There was a sharp intake of breath above you and you looked up to see his eyes the size of the moon.

“If you want to do this,” you leaned in, gently nibbling his earlobe and whispering as quietly as you could, “I need you to fuck me right now.”

~

All resolve left in Spencer left him the moment the words escaped her perfectly full lips. His hands flew to hers, lifting them up above her head and pinning them there, delighting in the grunt that left her as their mouths collided yet again. This time, however, Spencer did not pull back.

“Fuck, Spencer!” she yelped, hands running through his hair, pulling him tight against her. 

When he finally ran out of breath, he pulled back, leaving just enough space between them to say, “I want to. I’m-I’m ready.”

Her eyes shone with the love she’d declared moment earlier and Spencer’s heart swelled.  

“Are you sure?”

Of course she wanted to make sure. She was only the best girlfriend ever. And that’s why Spencer knew he wanted to share himself with her. Spencer wanted her to know how special she was to him. He wanted to feel how special he was to her.

“I’m sure.” Then, not sure what had come over him, he leaned into her ear, voice dropping an octave, and muttered, “I’m ready to fuck you.”

He could have sworn he heard her growl under her breath as she shot right back, “Do it then. Doctor.”

God, something about that title got to him like nothing else. The implied authority that came with it was just too delicious when it rolled off her tongue.

Emboldened by the honorary, he quickly kissed a trail down her chest to her stomach, lightly stroking his tongue everywhere but where she wanted it. 

“Mmf—Spencer…. Pleeease!”

His hand snapped over her mouth and she gasped at the sudden silence.

Okay, trust in the fact that Spencer had nooooo idea where what he said next came from.

“You want me to fuck you so bad? Huh? You think begging for it like a cheap fucking whore will make me wanna fuck you? You only get fucked when I say so. Understand me?”

Whatever she said was muffled under his hand which he kindly removed.

“What was that?”

“Yes,” she breathed, hands still where they had been pinned down, staying there only of her own accord. Beautiful. 

Reaching one hand up to her breast to lightly play with her nipple, the other went low, gently circling the area around her clit.

“Yes, what?” he said with the most authority in his tone that he could muster.

For a moment it seemed she wasn’t sure what he was looking for, but when it hit her, Spencer swore he saw her … you know … twitch.

“Yes, Sir,” she said with a filthy moan, finally moving her hands into his hair, pulling toward her center, begging him to do something— anything.

And, oh, boy did he oblige.

Now, Spencer had never really been anywhere near a woman’s … parts … before. But! He’d read up on this subject plenty in the recent weeks in preparation. In theory, he knew just what to do. In practice ….

“FUCK! Yes, Oh my goooddddd, Spencerrrrr!”

Well, he must’ve been doing something right.

~

Holy motherfucking jesus fucking fucking christ!

How the fuck was he doing this?

Jolts of pleasure burst through your body with each stroke of his tongue against your clit. Before you could enjoy the small circles he was rubbing there for too long, he slipped a finger inside of you, lightly curling it upward and thrusting in and out, searching for the spot to drive you wild.

Again, how the fuck was he doing this?

The only possible explanation was that he’s secretly had sex a million and ten times, becoming so aware of what exactly drove a woman crazy that he knew exactly how to move between your legs.

But this was Spencer. He didn’t lie to you. So all of … this … was coming naturally to him.

And soon, you’d be too. 

“Ah! Spencer, w-where is this c-coming from?”

His lips left you, pulling back just enough to give you a dazzling smile, his chin glistening gloriously.

“I’ve read over ten thousand pages of articles on pleasing a woman in the past week. Studies show that small circular motions of the tongue on the clitoris combined with one or two—”

“Spencer,” you panted, tightly grasping the wrist that was inches from your core, “I love you so much but if you don’t shut up right now—”

“—Hey, you asked.”

And he dove back down, continuing his ministrations, bringing you closer and closer to the brink of pure ecstasy. His tongue was flicking so quickly that you swore you saw stars. Every three or so seconds, a low moan left your throat, along with several curses and deep breaths.

The tension in your stomach was tightening, signifying the oncoming orgasm that was soon to come.

But all too quickly, and all too suddenly, Spencer withdrew, bringing his head back up to kiss you deeply, running his tongue along your lips and moaning onto your mouth as he continued to pump his fingers into you.

“You like this? You like feeling my fingers filling you up?”

“Yes,” you squeaked out, nails dragging down his back as you hoped and prayed he’d give you more. “Yes, please, Spencer….”

A sharp yank of your hair made your head fall back against the pillow, Spencer forcing you to meet his eyes. They were so dark. There was such desire behind them like you’d never seen from him before.

“Yes, what? Huh? Say it.”

You didn’t even need to think about what you were saying; the words sprang from your mouth with no effort at all, attempting any buzzwords that would set him off.

“I want you to fuck me, Spencer. I want to feel you fill me up and fuck me like I’m your little whore. I want you to hold me down while you do it, make me yours. I wanna be yours.”

He grunted, absentmindedly thrusting against your thigh as he listened to your words. When he spoke, you expected him to speak with the same commanding tone he’d been using, but were surprised to hear the familiar soft voice of your boyfriend.

“Hey,” he met your eyes, slightly frowning, “Is this okay? I mean … do you really want that?”

You didn’t even need to attempt to give him a reassuring smile; one came naturally.

“Of course, Spence. I want you. I’ll always want you.” Then, at his hesitation: “Do you want to take things slower? We can take a step back, just say the word.”

You placed your hand on his cheek, softly bringing his mind back to the present moment from where it had no doubt been drifting in waves of worry.

“I’m ready. I am ready. I want you,” he said, so gently, so sweetly that you knew with all of your being that he meant it.

More importantly, you know what else he meant. He wasn’t ready to say it yet, and you were fine with that. Besides, he probably knew that you knew. And if you both knew, why would he need to say it?

“Okay. Let’s go slow, okay?”

He nodded, eyes widening to the size of dinner plates. It must’ve finally dawned on him that this was really happening.

“Now, I got tested a few weeks ago and everything came back negative. I’m on hormonal birth control and have been for a while now. There are condoms in the drawer there, but it’s totally up to you. I’m comfortable with whatever you are.”

You could see the gears in his mind turning. In true Spencer Reid fashion, he was weighing the risks and rewards. You expected him to want to use a condom, which was totally fine and made sense with how responsible he was. But you selfishly wanted to know what he felt like skin to skin inside of you.

Which is why it was such a surprise when he said—

“Let’s do it without.”

“Wait, really?”

He nodded, drawing small patterns on your stomach absentmindedly with one hand, the other stroking your hair.

“We’re both clean, little to no pregnancy risk. Plus I … I’d like to know how … um.”

“How it feels?” you offered.

He sighed, relieved to not have to say it.

“Yeah. Is that okay?”

“Yes! Yes, Spencer. That’s kind of what I was hoping you’d say.”

“Really?”

You nodded this time, bringing him in for a soft kiss, keeping it rather chaste as you slowly slipped a hand down, guiding his member to your entrance, delighting in the gasp he let slip as you positioned him.

Slowly, keeping your mouth against his, you used his cock to gently spread you open, pressing the head just against your core. Above you, he was practically vibrating with the effort of holding back.

“Ready?”

“Ready,” he whispered through gritted teeth.

Hooking your legs around his back, you withdrew your hand and clenched your legs, slowly pulling him into you.

Both of you moaned simultaneously at the feeling, Spencer’s face falling into an open expression of pure ecstasy.

“Oh my god,” he groaned once he was completely sheathed within you. The feeling of him, bare, inside of you was so much to comprehend. You could tell he was probably thinking the same thing. Actually, it looked like all his effort was going into staying still, waiting for you to get accustomed to his size.

You’d told him that you’d never been with someone who was nearly as … well-endowed as he. He must have really taken those words to heart.

“Can I-can I move now?” he muttered, clearly straining to stay still.

“Yes.”

The moment you said it, he pulled back, grunting in your ear at the feeling and slowly slid back in, gasping when he bottomed out.

“Oh god, Y/N….”

“Please, Spencer.” You yanked him back by the hair so he could see your eyes, see how seriously you meant what you were about to say. “Fuck me.”

One of the many things you loved about Spencer: he always listened to you. Sometimes, to a fault.

Because the instant you asked, he delivered, pounding into you so hard that stars exploded in your eyes with each thrust. His hands dug so hard into your legs you were sure they’d leave bruises. With each thrust, his hipbones made sharp contact with your inner thighs and you grunted at the pain.

He started to hesitate, clearly clocking the pained expression on your face.

“Am I hurting you?”

“No! Please— oh god— don’t fucking stop, Spencer.”

His hands were everywhere all at once, pulling your hair, grasping your neck, your chest, your legs. Every time he pulled out of you, he would hesitate for a half-second, just enough to make you think he was done, then he’d fuck back into you, driving you further up the bed with each thrust.

You would have been moaning louder if you weren’t so scared of missing a single word he was saying.

“Fuck, Y/N, you feel so good. It’s really-it’s really tight.”

Laughing breathily in his ear, you said, “Yeah, well. That happens when it’s been a while.” Small moans broke through as he increased pace, hands slipping around your waist, pulling you down roughly onto him with each thrust. Your hips bumped together roughly every time, connecting painfully, wonderfully.

“Oh yeah?” Spencer lifted one of your legs up over his shoulder, driving much deeper now.  “Maybe your tight little cunt just isn’t used to getting fucked properly. Tell me, did the guys you were with before fuck you like this?”

Not able to bring yourself to speak, he pulled out completely and placed a solid hand around your throat, barely cutting off the circulation.

“Answer me, now!”

“No! Uhn— Spencer…. No, I’ve never been fucked like this. You’re so … mmm…. so big!”

He reentered you sharply at the last word, continuing the hard pounding only this time, moving a hand to roughly circle your clit unrelentingly.

“Fuck!”

His other hand was digging into your ass and his thrusts were starting to falter.

“Y/N … I’m not sure how much … how much longer I can …”

So lost in the pure bliss he was giving you, you barely were able to process what he’d said. When you did, you made sure to reassure him.

“Do it, come with me.”

“Fuck, Y/N. I-I lo—”

You placed a finger on his mouth, such a gentle gesture compared to the way he was pounding into you below that his eyes snapped open, locking with yours.

All you did was smile at him, an expression filled with as much energy as you could spare right now. A slight nod told him all he needed to know and he let out a sigh of relief. He didn’t need to say it right now. You knew and he knew, anyway.

He stroked you twice more before you burst, suddenly so overwhelmed by the feeling of him inside you as your insides clenched around him. He felt so much bigger as you came and after a few more thrusts, you felt a warm sensation fill you up as he yelped softly above you.

You both came down from the high so slowly, eyes locked and breathing heavily.

Surprisingly, he didn’t collapse onto you as had happened with so many other men. He was using all his remaining strength to stay perfectly still above you, staring into your eyes with a shocked expression on his face. 

Finally, he shook out of it, pupils contracting and gently pulling out, both of you groaning at the feeling.

Laying down next to you, it was a full minute before either of you spoke.

“Wow.”

“Hah. Yeah.”

You turned to him and he did the same, an adorable smile gracing his face.

“So? How was it? Everything you expected?”

He sighed heavily, closing his eyes momentarily before answering.

“Words aren’t usually lost on me. I always seem to know what to say even in the most ineffable of times. That…. That was indescribable.”

You weren’t sure how much more praise you could take; your heart was already so full and the more he filled it, the more you felt like you were about to burst.

“You can say that again. I must say I’m rather ... surprised. No offense! I promise! But, well, for a virgin you sure as hell don’t fuck like one.”

He smiled doofily, placing a hand on your cheek and stroking the skin under your eye, his expression shifting to one of worry.

“You’re crying….”

You pulled away, quickly wiping your eyes.

“Sorry…. That… that happens sometimes.”

“Hey,” he pulled you back to him, forcing you to meet his eyes. “Don’t ever apologize. It actually means that there are very strong feelings between us. In fact, it’s referred to as postcoital dysphoria and is normally caused by a particularly powerful orgasm. It’s a way of your body releasing the pent up feelings.”

Spencer Reid somehow found a way to be adorable while talking scientifically about orgasms and crying. What the hell did you do to deserve this man? You loved him so much and you’d spend the rest of your life proving it to him without hesitation. He didn’t even need to say it back.

But, as always, Spencer couldn’t seem to stop surprising you.

“Y/N … I love you.”

The tears came quicker now and soft sobs left your chest. He pulled you against him, you tucking your head under his chin and smiling at the speed his arms found their way around you.

“I know,” you muttered into his chest, feeling him smile above you.

“We just had sex, I told you I loved you, and you’re quoting Star Wars?”

You pulled back to beam up at him.

“Is that not the reason you love me?”

He smiled down at you, his nose scrunching up ever so slightly as it always did when he was happy.

“One of the many. Another very new one being added to the memory banks after tonight,” he grinned, tapping the side of his head.

“Oh yeah? You love me ‘cause of the way I let you fuck me like a little whore?” you muttered in a low voice, wiggling your eyebrows as his face fell.

“Y-yeah….” he was breathless again, watching you intently.

Leaning in to whisper in his ear, you said the very thing you knew that he knew he wanted you to.

“Wanna do it again?”

“Oh fuck yes.”

And he climbed back on top of you, attaching his lips to yours and kissing you with a whole new passion.

Because he loved you and you loved him. And you both knew it. And that made it all worth it.

~

TAGLIST

~

@whollytaciturn​ @101donuts​ @thegingerfairchild @safertokiss @happyiidiot @cielo1984 @thupidalethea @darkacademiacherry @matthewreid @aloha-ashley-taylor @justchiara-02 @spnobsessedmemes @sweet-darlin @matthewreid​ @brokenanxiety​ @thatsonezesty13​ @psychedellic-phase @beautifulalmondstudentduck @awhollandx @baddreamsandbrokenhearts @simp-for-mgg @swagdaddycam @gejatume @url-under-construction @radkryptonitepeanut @idontneedalltheseemotions @krymson182

[gophergal]

So I finished this a week ago, but I'm posting it now. Gotta pace myself, lmao. Take this smut, ya nasties (affectionate)

Only If You Want This

Word Count: 1k+ | Rating: N S F W | Fem! Jason Voorhees x Reader | F/F

Warnings: Smut, I wrote with a female reader in mind but I dont think it shows up (you could read them as gn, but im still warning just in case)

The sun hang low in the sky as you sat in the grass with Jay, the intense rays of gold catching in her hair, making it glow like embers. Your hands worked deftly weaving the wildflowers you'd picked earlier into a crown as you watched her. Jay's eyes were firmly fixated on the horizon, as far as you could tell with her mask on. She seemed deep in thought when you placed the completed crown on her head, startling slightly as it made contact, but quickly relaxing as you met gazes.

“Thank you, it's pretty,” she signed carefully.

“A pretty crown for a pretty woman,” you told her, watching as her body language changed. Her hands came together in her lap shyly as she tilted her chin downward. Slowly, you pushed a lock of her red hair behind her ear. She shivered slightly at your touch. “I really do think you're beautiful, Jay. Mask or no mask, you'll always be the prettiest girl I know. I'm lucky to have you.”

She looked up in slight disbelief, her blue eyes unsure.

“I mean it. I don't ever want you to feel pressured into anything, but I promise you, what you look like doesn't make me love you any differently. Every part of you is beautiful in my eyes,” you assured her.

She nodded and took your hands into her own larger, gloved hands. The two of you sat that way for a while as the sky grew dark and the air cooled. Eventually she stood, pulling you to your feet and leading the way back on the trail towards your shared cabin. She walked slower than usual, her normally long stride shortened. Her eyes refused to meet yours and you suddenly felt as though you overstepped a boundary. Anxiety twisted in your belly as you mulled it over. It wasn't that you needed to see her face to be with her. No, as much as you wanted to kiss her (other than on her mask) what you truly wanted was for her to feel safe and comfortable around you.

The two of you sat down for a brief supper consisting of whatever you could grow in the garden or hunt and gather from the woods. Jay waited for you in the main room of the cabin, staring intently at the fireplace. You leaned against her when you sat, pressing into her side quietly. For a moment, neither of you moved, until Jay moved away, turning toward you. She took your hands in hers, carefully bringing them up to the corners of her mask. There was a slight tremble in her movements, as she guided you to remove the fiberglass piece. Her face was revealed in all its asymmetric beauty. Her features were twisted in a nervous grimace, eyes wet as she awaited your reaction. Placing the mask to the side with care, you take her face in your hands with a loving grin on your face.

“Jay Voorhees, you are absolutely stunning. You ought to know that,” you say, running a thumb across her right cheek. Her eyes were wide and a hot blush fell across her cheeks. The taller woman's shoulders trembled slightly as her breathing picked up. You decided to go in for the kill. Slowly, you closed the gap between your lips, giving her time to push you away if need be. Instead, her dark lashes fluttered closed as you pressed your mouths together. She mirrored your soft movements, melting against you until she was quite literally in your lap.

Parting your lips, you took her lower lip between your teeth gently. A low, hoarse moan came from Jay's lips, and she stiffened in embarrassment, pulling away to bury her face in your chest. You chuckled slightly, carding your fingers through her auburn hair.

“Sweetheart, look at me. There's nothing to be embarrassed about,” you said to her, lips against her hair. She pulled back to look at you before initiating a second kiss herself. She gained confidence slowly, gauging your reaction to her actions. In an unexpected, but not unwelcome turn, her hands roamed further down your body, coming to rest at your hips. You followed suit, caressing the firm muscles of her abs before wrapping your arms around her waist. She whined as you pulled away for air, needy and addicted to the attention you were giving her.

You grinned, bringing your lips to her neck, pressing chaste kisses to the soft skin. She squirmed, skin growing hot beneath you. Her hands shifted across your back, trying to remain grounded along this overwhelming experience. Pressing your forehead against hers, you caught your breath, reining yourself in against the dirty images that crossed your mind. She shouldn't be pushed to do anything like that so soon, after all.

“C'mon, let's head to bed, honey,” you said, caressing her cheek. She obliged, climbing off your lap and helping to your feet. You careened into her chest, giggling. Having her weight in your lap had caused your legs to fall asleep. Changing into your sleepwear, heat pooled in your body. You swatted away your horny thoughts, trying to banish them so you could have a good night's sleep with your girlfriend. She took the position of little spoon. Imagining how you must look made you smile, the visual of your body curled protectively around her much larger frame comedic.

You couldn't recall falling asleep, but awoke suddenly to the movement of Jay in your arms. It was subtle and she made no sound, but she gently took your hand from where it was clamped down on her abdomen, then moved it to her chest. You let her, worried that if you let on that you were aware of what she was doing that it would make your relationship backpedal. When she gasped softly, you moved your hand experimentally, giving her chest a soft squeeze. The other hand reached around to her hip, running down her thigh and playing with the hem of her shorts.

“Oh, Jay. You react so nicely. If you wanted to mess around with me, all you had to do is ask,” you whisper in her ear. She turns to you, eyes bright in the darkness.

“It's dirty. I can't ask,” She signs.

“Of course you can. It's not a bad thing, but I'll only keep going if you ask me too.”

She hesitated, contemplative look on her face as she flexed her fingers.

“Could you...make me feel good?” she asks, cheeks darkening.

“I'd be honored to, madame,” you tell her as you crawl over her. You capture her lips once again, moving the kiss along swiftly to worship the sweet skin of her neck and work down to her sports bra. She mewled hoarsely, more vocal than you expected. With exaggerated movements, you help her relieve her breasts of their cloth prison. Palming, the pale globes, you marveled at the contrast between her tan lines, creamy chest, and flushed nipples.

You took one into your mouth, suckling and swirling your tongue around it as she grabbed your hair roughly. Slowly, you snake your hand into the front of her shorts, parting the lips of her mound and spreading the slick. She wiggles her hips, moaning as she bumps your fingers against her clit. You can't help but rub circles against the sensitive nub, occasionally grazing the tip so you might tease those soft sounds from her. Fingers probe her hole, and though she is nervous, she lets you work. Her head is swimming with warmth and she bucks against your hand.

You slip a finger into her warm pussy, massaging the soft walls within her. Then add another once she's relaxed. Your teeth find her neck, nibbling softly at her skin. She moaned sharply, louder than before, and you realize that you must have found her g-spot, the combination of that and the teeth on her neck surging through her body. You massaged that spongy part of her pussy again, curling your fingers just so and pressing your thumb against her clit.

Her ragged breathing quickened as she climbed toward her peak, fingers gripping the bed to find purchase. A soft cry cut through the night air as she came, trembling under your ministrations. You continued to finger her through her high, removing your hand when she finally relaxes. Wiping her juices off your fingers, you lay down next to her. She pulls you against her bare chest, putting her chin on your head.

[thisisawonderfulusername]

almost normal

five hargreeves x reader

summary: when you get stuck in the apocalypse, you try to make life as normal as possible before you can make it back to your time

warnings: drinking, baby (i hate babies eww), cursing, flufffffff

word count: 2.5k

a/n: this idea buried itself in my head and i’m glad people are interested in reading it :D they are a bit younger when they return to 2019, and i also didn’t know how to end it. enjoy! side ramble: while i was editing the first few paragraphs, i realized, wouldn’t more people with powers have survived the apocalypse? like, we don’t know what other powers there are, but surely there were some invincible folks or people who could somehow avoid being blasted. or maybe there were but they didn’t survive long enough for five to stumble upon them. anyways, ramble over, you can read now 😂

being the daughter of two people spontaneously born on the first of october in nineteen eighty-nine, you had been gifted with special abilities, just like them. they were able to teach you how to control it fully, and by the time you were thirteen, you were able to create an invisible barrier around yourself at will. at times, though, it still appeared on it’s own.

one of those times, it protected you at the end of the world. how you wished it hadn’t for the first few years. but you surprisingly weren’t the last person on the face of the earth.

-

you stood on the doorstep of your home- or what used to be your home. it had crumbled to the ground when the explosion wiped out the entire city, leaving a pile of rubble. it was surrounded by the other houses in the neighborhood, some of which still stood as the flames continued to burn.

this isn’t real.

you pinch your arm so hard that it stings for a few moments afterward, and you start shaking your head. “this isn’t real.” you tell yourself, voice shaking with the fear that this might not be a nightmare.

stepping back from your home, you turned on your heel to run to the closest house that hadn’t collapsed yet. mr and mrs peoples. you didn’t knock, bursting through the front door and rushing through each room that fire was beginning to engulf, searching for any sign of the old couple.

when you got up the stairs and to their room, you stopped dead in your tracks. on the bed, their charred bodies lay next to each other, and you feel your eyes beginning to sting- from the smoke and from what was happening.

the city.

there must be people in the city.

you dash down the stairs before they can collapse, sprinting out of the house and down the road as fast as you can. the route you’ve remembered from walking to school, the one that brought you through the crowded sidewalks.

by the time you get to the most populated part of the whole town you lived in, you’re out of breath, chest rising and falling quickly.

“help!” you shout as loud as you can, starting to walk through the streets, trying not to focus on the buildings that hadn’t made it. “please! there has to be someone.” the tears that had threatened you began to fall, running down your cheeks.

when you get farther down, you see what you think is a real, live person, searching the rubble surrounding him. but you can’t be sure. there’s smoke and your vision is blurry from your tears. “hey!” you shout, beginning to run towards the figure as fast as you can with your labored breathing.

he turns in your direction when he hears your voice, eyebrows raising in surprise. when you stop just before what used to be a building. “please-” you suck in a breath, “please tell me you’re real.”

-

he was the only reason you managed to survive. you knew now that you would never had made it this far without him.

ten years.

you’ve made it ten years so far, and the only reason the both of you keep going is each other- as well as his hope to find the right equation to get them back to their normal lives in twenty nineteen (and saving the world but that could be discussed later.)

until then, you could try your very best to make an almost normal life for yourselves.

after the first few years of moving across the city- and probably into other states as well, you couldn’t tell for sure- you had grown to have feelings for him. you didn’t know if it was because you two were the only ones left on earth, but you didn’t care. you wouldn’t want to choose anyone else to survive with.

eventually, after a few drinks to celebrate the finding of some wine, when your face was flushed with the alcohol in your system and your brain slightly fuzzy, you ended up kissing him.

the next morning, you woke up cuddled next to him, the empty bottle to your side. it brought butterflies to your stomach, and when he woke up after you, you had summoned the courage to tell him how you felt. you were lucky enough to know that he returned the affection.

you were nineteen then, only six years after the end of the world. and for another four years, you had been together.

on the third year of being together, pushing for survival, you found an old jewelry store.

-

you looked at the destroyed display cases, glass shattered and a few of them sinking to the ground. what this store looked like before the explosion, you didn’t know, but you could tell it’s purpose.

as you stepped over some fallen bricks, you look at the rotted wooden table that had once been surrounded by glass to keep people from attempting to steal what was inside.

there was surprisingly still jewelry left, some scattered across the ground and others that had managed to keep their place on display.

among the pieces, you see something shine in the sun light, buried in the bricks and dirt. after picking them up and brushing it off, you could see what the two pieces were. they were matching, two wedding bands in a smooth golden color. smiling, you stared at them for a moment.

looking up, your gaze traveled over the surrounding fallen buildings, before falling upon the man you were looking for, who searched for any food that may be buried somewhere nearby in the stone and brick nearby.

stepping over the bricks and onto the slightly cleaner streets that many people used to roam, you made your way to to where he searched.

you stayed on the street in front of the bricks that had somehow stayed in formation, creating some sort of a half-wall, watching him for a moment before glancing at the two rings in your hand.

“do you want to get married?” you call out, eyes squinted slightly from the sunlight and the strain to see him properly.

he turned at your voice, brushing his hands off on his pants. “what?”

grinning, you step over the wall. “i said,” you stop in front of him and reveal the bands, “do you want to get married?”

his eyes fall on the rings and he stays quiet for a moment, before he looks back to you, and your smile grows at the sight of his own.

“in the apocalypse?" he chuckles softly.

you shrug your shoulders. "we can't make it, like, official, but if we ever get back..." you press your lips together for a moment, "i think it'll have more meaning, since we found them here."

he seems to think about it for a moment, before he holds his hand out to you, and you clap your hands together from the joy you felt.

when you got stuck here at thirteen years old, you didn't think you'd have anything close to a normal life. but after a few years, you realized that you could try to make it as normal as possible for yourself.

you slide one of the rings onto his finger, the sun's light reflecting off of the gold. it's a silent moment, and you could feel your heart beating faster than usual.

once it is snug on his finger, he takes the other from you, taking your hand. "i never thought i'd be getting married in a wasteland."

chuckling, you watch as he gently puts the ring in it's rightful place. "i don't care where we get married. it would be perfect no matter what."

five looks into your eyes, and you know that you wouldn't have this any other way. as long as he was with you, you don't care where you are or what the situation is.

"i love you." you mumble quietly, bringing your hand to his cheek as you stare into his eyes.

"i guess i love you too."

you roll your eyes, moving the hand behind his neck to pull him into a loving kiss.

-

that’s what brought you to having with a giant bump in your belly.

what a great time to be pregnant, right?

when you found out (which took a while- you couldn’t really find any pregnancy tests and if you did you thought it was just some sickness and wouldn’t grab any), it was quite the surprise. you were terrified- who wouldn’t be?

how the hell are you going to have a baby in this world? there are so many things to think about.

like when the time finally comes for you to burst, what will you do? neither you or five had ever had a baby- you were thirteen when your normal life ended! no matter how hard you tried, you couldn’t find any books, or something of the like, that would tell you at least vaguely what to do. so many stories, so many ‘how to’ books, yet nothing came up.

you couldn’t find anything to guide you and that scared you to no end.

so when a woman showed up, dressed properly in a clean, well fitted dress, speaking of some sort of organization that- well you didn’t listen to what they did, really, because you were focused on the fact that with this, you would be able to return closer to normal, and you wouldn’t have to do some sort of extreme home birth, without a home.

and so, the both of you joined her- the ‘handler’ as she called herself- going back to this place that she spoke of.

when you got there, you actually listened to what she had to say. they preserve the time continuum. explained simply, they eliminated people that threatened a change in what is meant to happen in the time line of events. you would be working for them, in return for going back to twenty nineteen after five years. back to the timeline where the apocalypse would still happen.

but five had a different idea of what would happen. here, you would make time for yourselves- you weren’t really going to stay in this world, only to go through the apocalypse. this time alone, because he wouldn’t be able to survive the blast that you did.

no. you would have your baby, and he would find a way to get you back. he would find the right equation. he wanted to save the world.

so, you worked for the commission.

even being pregnant, you wanted to work along his side, so you were trained with him to be the perfect assassins. that took a few months, so by the time it was all over, you had given birth to your little bundle of joy. (i’ll let you choose the gender and name, idc lol)

and after that, it was an uphill battle.

you finished your training, only to move straight into doing the missions assigned to you. going to different points in time to make the ‘corrections’, killing people with a baby strapped you your chest with a sling.

-

after getting ready, you sigh, looking at the baby who laid in the collapsible crib that you carried with you on these missions. you hated having to raise her in this situation- but it was way better than in the apocalypse. who knows if you would have even survived giving birth.

you put the baby sling on with the help of five, before carefully getting the baby in place. this had become routine over the last year.

so you set out for another mission, guns in hand as you headed off to the grassy field that would serve as your perch while waiting for the victim to show up.

while you set up the sniper, five was off to the side, scribbling in the book that he carried around everywhere, until you heard a gasp. “i got it!” he says in excitement.

turning your head, you raise an eyebrow, “what?”

“the equation!” he holds the book up to show you, open so you can see everything that had been scribbled inside over all this time. “i finally got it right.”

your lips part in surprise, and you’re silent for a moment while you think, “so we can-”

“-we’re going back home! we can save the world and finally have the life we’ve always wanted.”

a grin spreading across your face, you drop the gun on the ground, not caring about it one bit anymore. “well then, get on with it!” your urge as you run over to stand next to him.

he nods, handing the book to you before closing his eyes and focusing.

without much time, a portal-like anomaly begins to form, and when you look into it you can see what you assumed to be a back yard, and people running out of whatever building was next to it.

when his eyes opened, the smile on his face is wide. “are you ready?” he asks softly.

“as i’ll ever be.”

he grabs hold of your hand, and with the other you hold onto the baby, not wanting anything to happen to it- but you trusted five.

going through the portal was nauseating. you had traveled through time before, but then, it only turned your stomach over, since it was in the blink of an eye that you were transported. this, though, felt like you were being pulled through and spun around a million times, before you were finally spat out onto the ground in front of the group of people.

the impact from hitting the ground forces a grunt out of you as you hold onto the child. your keep your eyes squeezed shut a few moments longer, before you hear an unfamiliar voice.

“is it just me, or do you all see little number five?” you open your eyes to see the man who spoke.

“and a little girl with a baby? yeah.” allison’s eyebrows are raised, and her expression shows confusion at the sight before her.

your eyebrows furrow at the use of the word ‘little’, sitting up to look down at yourself to realize that you are, in fact, little. you’re back to the little thirteen year old girl who looked like she was actually from your time, who got stuck in an apocalypse.

you no longer look your age of twenty-six years old.

“what the hell!” you nearly scream, causing your little child to begin to cry, and you curse under your breath as you scramble to your feet, wrapping your arms around the baby in the sling as you begin to bounce slightly to soothe it.

well, you may look thirteen again, but at least you’re out of the hell you were living. once the world was saved, you can finally have the normal life you wanted.

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[writeforfandoms]

Merry Go Round of Life 9

Find my masterlist

Part 9! I’m only a day late, it’s fine. We’re meeting another character in this chapter, and I hope y’all like who we meet. I’m super excited to see how you guys like this chapter. 

This will be Din Djarin x f!reader eventually. Don’t hold your breath folks, this one’s a slow burn. Sort of.

Word count: 2k

Warnings: People being Dramatic and Irritatingly Vague. 

Chapter nine: In which there are more wizards

You and Djarin stayed quiet around each other for the next few days. He hadn’t returned from his outing until the next day, as far as you saw. By that time, the child was awake and normal again, devouring practically his weight in breakfast. Peli, for once, didn’t offer an opinion and stayed low in her logs. 

Just as you thought you were going to break down and actually apologize to the wizard (if only to break the tense silence), he surprised you by speaking first.

“I need to go see my mentor tomorrow. You two are coming with me.”

You coughed as your tea tried to go down the wrong pipe. “Beg pardon?” 

Djarin sighed. “Please come with me,” he said, completely monotone.

“Not what I meant, but I appreciate being asked,” you told him primly, setting your cup down. “Where is your mentor?” 

Djarin hesitated for a moment before he sighed. “Mandalore.” 

“Right,” you drawled, watching him. “Why are we going with you? I’m not disagreeing. I just want to know.” 

Djarin sighed again, louder this time. He also tapped his fingers against the table briefly. “I need her opinion on something,” he spoke slowly, looking over at Peli instead of you. “And I’d like you two with me.”

“Alright,” you acquiesced easily. “Tomorrow morning?”

“Yes.” Djarin’s shoulders relaxed slowly when he realized you weren’t going to put up a fight about it. “I’d like to leave early, before the markets start.”

“You’ll have to wake me, then,” you told him. “I’m not normally up that early.”

Djarin huffed something that might have been a laugh and inclined his head to you. He stood, presumably to leave, and you spoke up again.

“Your mentor. Do they wear a helmet too?”

Djarin nodded. “This is the way,” he agreed. The words sounded like more than just words, though. Like something he’d said thousands of times. You felt a little ripple down your spine at the words. 

“Okay. Do I need to… do anything?” You waved vaguely at yourself. You’d cleaned up, of course, since the creature so you were no longer covered in mud and sand. But you didn’t exactly have anything better to wear.

“No,” Djarin assured you. “She won’t care.” He picked up the kid and headed back upstairs.

“Do you know who his mentor is?” you asked Peli, starting to feel a little anxious.

“How would I know?” Peli grumbled. “It’s not like I can leave here.” 

“That’s not what I meant,” you said, frowning at her. “Maybe she’s been here before? Or he’s talked about her?” You paused for a moment. “Well. Maybe not the second option, actually.”

Peli spluttered a laugh, sparks flaring bright as they drifted up and away from you. “Nope. No other helmets have entered the castle. Trust me, I’d know. Bad enough dealing with one, I’d have to quit if there were two.” 

You sank back into your chair, murmuring enough encouragement to keep Peli ranting while you tuned her out. Well, you weren’t exactly surprised that Djarin’s mentor wore a helmet too, but you were surprised he was taking you to meet her. You had no idea why he would. 

But you’d already agreed to go, so there was nothing more to be done about it now. Honestly, you were curious. This was the first time the wizard was going to show you anything more of himself and where he came from. Maybe, if you were lucky, you’d even get to know him a little better. 

Maybe.

True to his word, Djarin woke you early the next morning, and made tea while you hobbled about getting ready to go. The child was still half-asleep, cuddled into Djarin’s shoulder watching the two of you with sleepy eyes. You had to grin at the sight. Djarin was an excellent father figure, clearly. 

The two of you left, emerging onto the streets of Mandalore. It was early enough still that there wasn’t much foot traffic around the two of you. A few people here and there, really, but no more than that. You struggled a little to keep up with Djarin’s longer strides, and were quickly completely turned around in the city.

“Almost there,” Djarin told you after several minutes of walking. The kid peered over Djarin’s shoulder at you and cooed. You pretended it was encouragement, and not outright amusement.

“Wizard,” you huffed. You’d remembered to bring your walking stick along this time, and it thumped gently on the cobblestones as you walked. “I could clobber him,” you muttered to the stick. “If he’d slow down a little.” 

Djarin finally stopped in an alleyway, turning to look at you. You puffed up next to him, leaning a little more heavily on your walking stick. “This way,” he said, waving two fingers at the end of the alley. The brick shimmered and vanished, leaving an opening. Your jaw dropped. Djarin might possibly have chuckled before he stepped into the opening, heading down the narrow staircase revealed there. You followed him a little more slowly, your eyes taking time to adjust. 

You heard her before you saw her. The rhythmic clang of metal on metal echoed down the flat corridor you emerged onto, and Djarin pulled you up level with him as he walked down the corridor. You had no idea how far underground you were, but it was chilly. At least, it started out chilly. The temperature slowly rose as you approached a doorway. Djarin stepped through first, holding the curtain for you to enter after him.

The room was circular and mostly open, but largely dominated by a forge in the center. Tending the forge was a woman with a golden-bronze helmet, her back to the two of you. You sat where Djarin ushered you, and he sat next to you to wait, the child now perched in his lap, bright eyes surveying everything. 

“You brought them?” the woman asked. She set down the hammer and plunged the piece of metal she’d been working on into a bucket of water, which hissed and steamed. 

“Yes.” Djarin didn’t say anything else or move. 

The woman set the piece of metal aside and finally turned, looking at your little group. Her helmet was different from Djarin’s, and not just in color. The visor was different. And there were little… horns? Maybe? On her helmet. She took a couple steps closer to Djarin, looking at him. Or possibly the child. It was a little difficult to tell through the helmet.

Then the helmet turned to you and you froze, feeling abruptly like prey. You went very still, hardly breathing, eyes wide as you stared into the visor. This lasted for long enough that your heart started to pound against your ribs.

And then whatever it was passed, and the helmet turned back to Djarin. You swallowed hard, hiding your shaking hands against your legs. 

“You were correct,” the woman told him simply. “You were wise to bring them here.” 

Them? Wait, what? You had a feeling you were missing something.

“I brought the rest, as well.” Djarin nudged a bag you’d failed to notice earlier, and the bag clinked when the woman picked it up, looking through it. She pulled out a reddish crystal, holding it to the light and examining it for several moments. The child cooed, and for a moment you could have sworn the crystal started to glow. Then the woman put it back in the bag. 

“Well done,” she said. “These will be greatly beneficial.” She set the bag down by the back of the room before turning to look at the three of you again. “You know the king has been asking after you.”

“I know.” Djarin sounded like he was grimacing, voice a little tighter than normal. 

“Nothing from Viszla?”

“No.”

The woman nodded slowly, seeming to consider something. Her helmet tipped towards you again, and you swiftly looked away. Just in case. You weren’t keen on feeling that again. She was silent for several long moments before she nodded, seemingly to herself. “You are to find Viszla.” 

“And the king?” Djarin rasped.

“You will have some time before he becomes a problem.” 

Djarin nodded. “Anything else?” 

“You are lacking your heart, not your brain.” The woman stepped over and rapped her knuckles on Djarin’s breastplate. Djarin flinched but made no retort. “You have everything you need, Djarin.” She stepped away again, over to the forge, and started working. 

Apparently that was all the signal that Djarin needed, because he stood, still holding the kid, and assisted you to your feet as well. He stayed quiet as he led the way back out of the room, down the corridor, up the stairs, and back into the alleyway.

Enough time had passed that you could hear the markets opening, the calls of the vendors and the tapping of shoes on the stones. It was odd to think - you were in Mandalore, near one of the big markets. But the entrance to the castle wasn’t far, and back in the castle you would be roaming the area around Kalevala. And if you really wanted to, you could pop out to Kamino for an afternoon stroll. 

You tried to stifle your laughter. You really did. But a squeak escaped you. 

“What?” Djarin turned to look at you, giving you an obvious look over.

“Nothing, nothing,” you tried to tell him, waving him off and biting your lower lip.

“Tell me.” He wasn’t afraid of using his height to his advantage, looming over you. But far from feeling intimidated, you felt protected. 

“I just… never thought this would be my life.” You shook your head, incredulous. “A greater adventure than I could have dreamed, and all I had to do--” The words caught in your throat. Right. You weren’t allowed to talk about the curse. You shook your head again, this time to dislodge the magical blockage. “Well, all I had to do was get old, I suppose.” 

“Hm.” Djarin looked at you before he huffed a laugh of his own and shook his head. “We’re making a detour on the way back.”

“We are?” You scrambled to keep up with him, thumping your walking stick along. 

“Only a brief one.” Djarin didn’t turn to look at you again, instead leading the way straight into the market.

The market was incredible, unlike anything you’d seen in Kalevala. The vendors were varied, clearly from all over. There were vibrant colors everywhere, from clothing to awnings to fruits to spices. The whole place was a mess of scents that you tried to decipher - spices here, fish there, fresh bread off that direction. It was very nearly sensory overload, and there weren’t even that many people about yet. 

The only reason you didn’t get overwhelmed and stop at every other stall to try something was Djarin. He carved a determined path through the market, simply trusting you to keep up with him. And you did, although it pained you to go past a few of the stalls without even a look. There was one that you very nearly abandoned him for, full to the brim with colorful cloth and trims, ready to be shaped and created into something wonderful. 

Finally, Djarin stopped at a fruit vendor on what had to be the far end of the market. He passed over a few coins, and took a bag in return. With a nod to the vendor, he turned to you and held out the bag.

“Try one,” he offered, shaking the bag a little to help entice you.

You peered inside. The fruits were unlike anything you’d seen before - small and red and plump. You picked one carefully, examining it.

Djarin huffed at you again. “There’s a pit in the middle,” he told you. “Careful of that.” 

“Thank you.” You bit into it cautiously, and your eyes went wide at the flavor. Sweet and a little tart, juicy, delicious. You very nearly made an indecent sound, covering your mouth with your free hand as you chewed on your unexpected treat. 

“Come on,” Djarin told you again, ushering you along with him. This time, he stuck next to you, keeping close even as the market got busier and busier. “I have an idea where to look for Viszla.”

“That’s good,” you said, smiling. “I’m sure that will be helpful. Where are you going to start?”

Djarin was quiet for a moment, leading you now through side streets and back towards the entrance to the moving castle. “Kalevala.”

--

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