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scoonsalicious · 2 months

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Unwanted: Chapter 3, Unbidden - Pt. 1

Pairing: Bucky Barnes x Avenger!Fem!Reader

Summary: When your FWB relationship with your best friend Bucky Barnes turns into something more, you couldn’t be happier. That is, however, until a new Avenger sets her sights on your super soldier and he inadvertently breaks your heart. You take on a mission you might not be prepared for to put some distance between the two of you and open yourself up to past traumas. Too bad the only one who can help you heal is the one person you can no longer trust.

Warnings: (For this part only; see Story Masterlist for general Warnings) Language, alcohol consumption, minor discussions of sex, drunk!Bucky, minor violence, FloRida's Low (that song slaps, okay?), minor anti-Winter Soldier sentiment, an unnecessary Ted Bundy reference just because. As always, let me know if I missed anything!

Word Count: 4.1k

Previously On...: You and Bucky had a heart-to-heart after you came back from your mission with Steve, and Bucky asked a very interesting question about the nature of your relationship with the Star Spangled Man.

A/N: I just finished writing Chapter 9 ahead of schedule, so here is Chapter 3 a little bit earlier than I planned on posting it! Consider it in honor of Sergeant Barnes' 107th Birthday! This is my favorite chapter; I had so much fun writing it, this part in particular (even though it took me a million tries before I got it to where I wanted it). Sam is finally given some page time, and I adore him, so I hope I've captured his essence sufficiently. I sort of love writing drunk!Bucky. Part three is where things are going to take an interesting turn for Bucky and Pocket so I'm looking forward to posting that soon!

Banner By: The absolutely amazing @mrsbuckybarnes1917

Taglist: (Please let me know if you’d like to be added!) @blackhawkfanatic @les-sel @marcswife21 @buckybarnessimpp @jmeelee @cazellen

Slapping your American Express Black Card onto the polished mahogany bar, you made sure the bartender was giving you his full attention. "Everything my group orders tonight goes on my tab, got it?" you told him. "If Tony Stark tries to pay for a single thing, tell him it's already covered and if he has a problem with it, he can take it up with me." The bartender nodded, taking your card and depositing it with the other open tabs behind the bar. It was going to be a very lucrative night for the bar.

You'd all come to Gino's, a downtown dive of place you all loved, to celebrate Bucky's clearance for missions. As a part of his presidential pardon for the Winter Soldier's crimes (completely unnecessary, in your opinion, because Bucky hadn’t been the one to commit them), he had been required to undertake 12 months of court-mandated therapy, and now that he had ten months under his belt, his therapist had signed her approval for Bucky to engage in real Avenger work, provided he was accompanied by another member of the team at all times for supervision. He'd be leaving tomorrow for a classified location with Steve and Sam; they'd be gone for about a week, so you'd wanted to commemorate the event and leave him with some positive memories before he left.

You rejoined your group in the far back, where you'd commandeered the largest corner booth and the surrounding tables. "Tonight's on me," you declared as you approached, "so drink up and eat well." Your friends cheered their thanks; Thor even banged his giant fist against the table in appreciation. You did a mock curtsey before coming to stand behind Bucky where he sat, draping your arms around his neck and shoulders and bringing your head down alongside his.

"Having a good time?" you asked him.

Bucky let out a soft chuckle, leaning back into your touch. "With you by my side? Always," he replied, his voice laced with affection. "But you didn't have to do this, doll. Pay for everything, I mean. We could have all gotten our own."

Letting go of his shoulders, you moved around to sit next to him. "Bullshit. My best friend is going on his first Avengers mission, this is the least I can do."

"Listen, man," said Sam Wilson, also known as The Falcon and, if you were being completely honest, one of your favorite teammates after Bucky, "I know things might have been different when you were younger, but in the 21st Century, when a lady offers to buy you drinks, the polite thing to do is just say 'thank you' and get hammered."

Bucky laughed and chugged down the beer he'd been previously nursing and took the bourbon you'd brought over for him from the bar. "Thank you, Pocket. Though, I don't think I'll be getting... hammered on anything here."

"You're most welcome, Buck," you said, patting his cheek, the stubble tickling at your palm. "But if you are looking to get hammered, I believe our resident God of Thunder has brought a little something extra you could sip on in between beers." You nodded your head toward Thor, who sat a few seats down, pouring a splash of Asgardian something from a flask into Steve's tumbler.

Bucky quirked an eyebrow. "Is that so? Maybe I'll take him up on that." The super soldier got up and, squeezing your hand, made his way over to Thor, who gladly poured a generous splash of spirits into Bucky's glass of bourbon.

You watched him for a moment as he sat and drank with Steve and Thor, a warm feeling building in your chest at the sight of him looking and doing so well. He'd made so much progress since he first arrived at the Tower and you were unbelievably proud of him.

"You've been good for him, Pocket," Sam offered with a raise of his glass. "But I gotta know, when are you two gonna stop tip-toeing around each other and make things official?"

You let out an agonized groan. "Not you, too, Sam. Why don't you and Natty get together and write some fanfic about it? That's about as close to reality as it'll get."

"What are Wilson and I collaborating to write smutty fanfiction about?" Natasha asked as she sat down in Bucky's vacated seat, passing you a shot glass.

"Za nashu druzhbu!" You toasted in unison before downing the sweet liquid. To our friendship!

"A Redheaded Slut shot? How very Natasha," you teased.

"Don't try to change the subject," Sam interjected. "Romanoff: (Y/L/N) and Barnes. They go together like Netflix and chill or what?"

Natasha's eyes lit up. "Absolutely! Oh my God; I'm so glad you see it, too. They're just screaming 'Let's fuck already,' right?!"

"I don't know that they haven't started already," Sam said, obviously pleased to finally have someone to talk about this with. "I've never seen Metalhead as content as when he's with Pocket. Figure she's gotta be doing something to keep a smile on his face, if you know what I mean." He waggled his eyebrows, setting Natasha off into a barking laugh.

"Jesus Christ, Sam!" you sputtered. "I'm sitting right fucking here!"

Sam gave you a sheepish smile. "Sorry, Baby Girl. 'M just calling it like I see it. And with you and Barnes, I see it."

"She's going to stick to the story that nothing's going on between them," Nat began.

"Because there is nothing going on between us," you interrupted.

"But I think we all know something is brewing between those two," she continued, as if you hadn't said a thing. "I mean, do you really think they're just sleeping in the same bed every night?"

"Hold up, hold up." Sam raised his hand to stop Nat. "You're telling me those two share a bed? How long has this been going on and why am I just hearing about it now?"

"Oh my god," you said, putting your head in your hands and wishing the floor would open up and suck you into a hell dimension. It had to be better than sitting here listening to the two of them talk as if weren't in the room.

"You didn't know?!" Nat's expression was incredulous. "Essentially since the moment Barnes moved into the Tower. They alternate whose bed they sleep in, but it's literally every. single. night."

"That's it," you murmured, though you were sure they weren't paying you any attention, "I am never telling you another thing, ever, Natalia." They weren't embarrassing you, per se. You felt no shame about your closeness with Bucky. It was more that you hated that they were making assumptions about him. You could take ones made about you; you'd been doing that your entire life, but Bucky was different. He was... fragile wasn't the right word, but it came close. You wanted to protect him from everything negative, including your friends gossiping about his alleged sex life.

"Guys, please," you said, loud enough to catch their attention. "I know that, whatever I say, it's not going to convince you that I'm telling you the truth, but I don't want Bucky to hear it, okay? You're just going to make him uncomfortable and he'll retreat into himself, close up. So, save it for when you're by yourselves, alright?"

The sincerity in your words caused Sam and Nat's gazes to soften as they looked at you. You hoped that, despite their ribbing, they understood that your concern for your shared friend was genuine, and that, of the three of you sitting at the table, you knew Bucky best.

"Alright," said Sam, "I'll drop it. For now. But know I've got my eye on you, Pocket." He gave you a shrewd look. "Don't think you can keep your secret from Ole Sammy forever."

You shook your head, annoyingly amused.

The evening moved on pleasantly: conversation and alcohol flowed, and you felt yourself loosening up as the shots you'd drank with Natasha worked their way through your system until you were sporting a pleasant buzz. Bucky eventually came back to join you at your table, eyes glassy and with a giant, dopey grin plastered across his face.

"How's that Asgardian liquor treating you, Buckaroo?" you asked him with a grin of your own, knowing full well he was sauced.

"'s real good, Pocket," he slurred, propping his head on his fist and gazing at you with a dreamy expression. "'s nice and tingly, like the sun is shining on my insides."

"I'm happy for you, Buck," you said with a laugh, shooting an amused glance over Bucky's head to Nat, who responded with a smirk of her own. "That's real good."

He put his arms around you and pulled you into him, almost tugging you off of your chair in the process. "No! You're real good. Sho good to me, all warm and fuzzy and pretty. Just wanna keep touchin' you, you know? 'Cause you make me think of happy things." He paused to nuzzle his face into your hair. "You're m'favorite person."

"You're my favorite person, too, Buck," you said, stifling a giggle, amused by this new soft, silly side of him.

"Me?" he squeaked--actually squeaked. You nodded and then let out a surprised squeal as he pulled you into his lap, holding you almost tight enough to be uncomfortable, his metal arm clinging you to his chest. But then he pulled his head back to look you in the eye, his face suddenly serious.

He slurred, leaning in closer. You could smell the sweet scent of the Asgardian liquor on his breath. "Don'tcha dare tell Stevie, though, doll" he hiccupped, "'cause he'd be real put out if he found out I was your fav'rite."

"Well, then we won't tell him," you assured him, casting a bewildered glance to Nat. She subtly shook her head, as if to say she was just as confused as you as to why Steve would care if Bucky was your favorite person.

Bucky nodded solemnly. "Good. Don't want 'im feelin' bad, but 'm not sorry. 'S not my fault, either. He had ages and he didn't do nuthin'. That's on 'im. Not on me, not on you. On 'im." He began petting your hair in long strokes, seemingly distracted by the feel of it and losing his original train of thought. "Mmmm, you're so pretty. M'pretty little Pocket."

"Why, thank you, my handsome soldier," you replied, tapping him playfully on the nose while wondering what the hell he had been going on about concerning Steve. You hoped he wasn't so drunk that he didn't remember this conversation in the morning, because you were going to press the shit out of him for details.

Oh, but then... the next song from the jukebox caught your attention, and you looked up as the opening bars of Flo Rida's Low filled the air.

"Oh no," moaned Nat with a trace of laughter. "You're gonna dance, aren't you?"

A broad grin broke across your face. You loved dancing to anything, but this song was your kryptonite. "I can't help it," you told her, "it calls me, I come. Let's go!" You stood up, taking Bucky's hand and trying to pull him along with you, but the super soldier just shook his head and refused to move. Apparently he wasn't that drunk. "Fine. Sam, Nat, dance with me."

"I'm coming, Baby Girl," Sam said, taking Nat's hand and dragging her to meet you.

As soon as you had the space, you began to move, the music pulsing through your veins, syncing perfectly with your heartbeat. You swayed your hips in time with the infectious rhythm, your body moving effortlessly to the beat.

You felt Sam come up behind you, placing his hands on your hips as he began to dance with you, bass thumping in your chests. You and Sam had danced together countless times before; he was one of the only ones in the Tower who enjoyed dancing as much as you did, so the two of you had had plenty of practice moving together. Your movements may have been completely innocent, but they gave the appearance of something much more intimate-- it was just the nature of the dance. You could feel the heat of Sam's body pressed against your back, the way his hands gripped your hips protectively. It was all in good fun, a playful dance between friends, until you felt Sam's hands fly from your waist as you were about to get low.

You spun around, finding Bucky standing where Sam had been just a few seconds before, Sam now several feet away, anger wearing heavy on his face.

"What the hell, man?" Sam barked at Bucky. "What'd you shove me for?"

Bucky, his face flushed and eyes narrowed with a combination of intoxication and something dark, took a step towards Sam. "Didn't shove ya, Wilson," he slurred, his words blending together. "Ya just...got in the way."

"Got in the way? Man, we were just dancing. How was I in your way?"

Bucky's jaw clenched, his metal arm flexing by his side. The atmosphere shifted, thick with tension, as if the air in the room had suddenly turned molasses-slow.

"Okay, boys." You stepped between them, hands down and palms open, trying to create as much distance between the two as possible. The last thing you wanted was a drunken argument devolving into some kind of brawl. "It's getting late, and we've all had a good amount to drink." You gave Sam a pointed glance. "Bucky, will you take me home to the Tower? I'm pretty tired and I think I'm ready to call it a night."

Sam nodded in understanding-- it would be a hell of a lot easier to get Bucky home in his current state if he thought he was escorting you, instead of the other way around.

"Yeah, 'course, Pocket," Bucky said, his eyes softening as he looked at you. You were able to call out your goodnights to the rest of the team and, leaving instructions with Nat to close out your tab at the end of the night, began making your way to the door. Bucky stumbled a bit, his balance compromised by the alcohol in his system. You wrapped an arm around him, steadying him as you both made your way outside.

Outside the bar, the cool night air was a welcome relief from the noisy atmosphere inside. Bucky leaned heavily against you, his arm draped around your shoulders for support.

"Fuck, Barnes. You're heavy," you groaned under his weight.

"Fuck me, Pocket," he slurred, head tilting to the side. There was that look in his eyes again. The same one you'd seen the day he'd gotten his new arm. You couldn't identify it, but it made the hair on your arms stand up straight.

"Yeah, that's exactly what I said." You could feel his warmth seeping through your clothes, his presence comforting even in his intoxicated state.

"You good to stand on your own for a second, soldier?" you asked him. "I need to hail us a cab."

Bucky nodded and you carefully eased yourself out from under his arm, scanning the street for a taxi. The bustling city night was alive with lights and sounds, creating a tapestry of urban energy that seemed to match the frequency of the electricity that ran through your brain.

God, did you love this city.

As you raised your hand to flag down a cab, you couldn't help but steal glances at Bucky, his hair in disarray, falling into his eyes and his lips slightly parted as he breathed in the cool night air. Even drunk and disheveled, he still looked so handsome. There was a softness to him in the moment that made him look younger, and for a second, you could imagine that beautiful, carefree young man who had been drafted to cross the sea to fight someone else's war, and had paid for it with even more than his life.

A taxi screeched to a stop in front of you, interrupting your reverie. You hurriedly opened the door and helped Bucky inside, sliding in beside him. The cab driver gave you both a curious glance before pulling away from the curb. Once you gave him the address to Avengers Tower, that look got more and more frequent as he kept checking his rear view mirror.

"Hey, eyes on the road, buddy," you snapped at him, probably putting more aggression into your voice than you had intended, but the way the cab driver was looking at the two of you made you uneasy.

The ride back to the Tower was quiet, the low hum of the taxi's engine serving as a backdrop to the thoughts swirling in your mind. Bucky slumped against you, his head resting on your shoulder as he dozed off. You gently ran your fingers through his hair, feeling the softness of it against your skin. The city lights blurred past outside the window, casting a hazy glow over both of you.

"Listen," the cabbie eventually began in his thick New Jersey accent, "sweetheart, ya seem like a nice girl, but I don't think ya know what you're dealin' with, here. That man right there's the Winter Soldier. He's a murderer, a nasty one. The kind that likes to take a sweet thing like you and do horrible things."

You rolled your eyes. If they were going to keep telling stories about the Winter Soldier, the least they could do was get the details right instead of making him sound like Ted Fucking Bundy.

"This nasty murderer is my best friend," you said, each word clipped and infused with the anger you felt on Bucky's behalf. "So, maybe you should stick with getting us to our destination instead of trying to lecture me on something you know absolutely nothing about."

The cabbie fell silent, his eyes darting nervously between the road ahead and the rearview mirror. You could tell that he was regretting his decision to say anything, realizing that he had struck a nerve. Or, you thought with an amused chuckle, afraid that you were just as nasty as the Winter Soldier. But you couldn't blame him entirely. The reputation of the Winter Soldier was notorious, and it was only natural for people to be cautious. You just wished they knew the name Bucky Barnes, and the actual man, himself, just as well.

You sighed and shifted your gaze to Bucky, still unconscious against your shoulder. It wasn't fair, you thought, how people judged him solely based on his past. Yes, there were dark chapters in his history, but he had fought tooth and nail to regain control over his life. He had redeemed himself in countless ways even before he had officially joined the Avengers.

As the taxi approached Avengers Tower, you leaned over and gently shook Bucky awake. His eyes fluttered open, confusion etched in his features for a brief moment before recognition set in.

"We're home, Buck," you whispered softly, trying to soothe away any lingering unease from your brief conversation with the cab driver. "Let's get you upstairs." You threw a handful of bills in the cabbie's direction, not even bothering to wait for him to give you your change; you just wanted out of his cab and away from his prejudice.

Bucky nodded, rubbing sleep from his eyes. With your help, he stumbled out of the taxi and leaned on you for support as you made your way into the building.

"'m sorry 'bout that, doll," he drawled as you passed the security desk, sending a quick wave to the night guard.

"Sorry for what, Buck?" you asked him. He was silent as you made your way to the elevator bay, waiting until you had pressed the button to summon the elevator car.

"'bout the cabbie." He avoided looking at you while you waited, and it was like a punch to your gut-- he'd heard everything that ignorant man had said. The elevator doors dinged open and you helped usher him inside.

You took a deep breath as you pressed the button for your floor, the retinal scanner making quick work to prove your identity and verify your security clearance. "Buck," you exhaled, "you have nothing to apologize for. That man was an asshole and an idiot."

Bucky leaned back against the elevator wall, his head thumping against the cool metal. "But he was right. I am a nasty murderer."

You could scream. You could strangle that cabbie with your bare hands. Bucky had been doing so well, had been having such a good night, and one person's careless remark had ruined all of it.

"Barnes," you said, turning to face him. "Look at me. Do you think I'm stupid?"

His eyes grew wide at the insinuation, even in his drunk state, he was with it enough to be taken aback by your question. "'bsolutely not, doll. You're the smartest person I know. Smarter than Stark, even, 'cause you can admit when your wrong." The compliment left you trying to hide a smile.

"Okay. Do you trust my judgment?"

"With my life," he breathed. The elevator opened to your floor, and you helped Bucky out into the hall and down the corridor toward his room. The soft glow of the hallway lights illuminated his features, casting a warm, intimate aura around the two of you.

"So, if I'm not stupid and you trust my judgment, trust me when I tell you are not what that man says you are. You are a good man who had too many horrible things happen to him. And despite all those horrible things, you are still the kindest, funniest, most gentle man that I know."

As you reached his door, Bucky turned to face you, his eyes filled with a mixture of gratitude and vulnerability. "Thank you, Pocket. Thank you for taking care of me, and for being my friend," he murmured, his voice hoarse with exhaustion and emotion.

A small smile played on your lips. "Always, Buck," you replied softly. "Now let's get you inside."

With a gentle push, you opened the door to his room and guided him over to his bed. Bucky collapsed onto the mattress with a heavy sigh, his body sinking into the softness beneath him. Once you'd pulled off his boots, you knelt down beside him, tucking the blanket around his shoulders.

As you straightened up, Bucky reached out and grabbed your hand, his grip surprisingly strong despite his intoxicated state. His gaze locked with yours, a mix of vulnerability and longing flickering in his eyes.

"I don't want you to leave," he whispered, his voice laced with a hint of desperation.

"I'm just going to hop over to my room to change into pajamas," you assured him. "I'll be right back. Promise." You smoothed his hair, trying to tame it from where it stood up in all directions.

"'kay," he said through a yawn, "but don't take too long. I got somethin' I need to tell ya. 's important."

"Okay," you told him, planting a kiss on his head. "I'll be just a minute." You hurried across the hall to your own room, changing into your pajamas and brushing your teeth in record time.

Re-entering Bucky's room, you were extremely curious as to what he'd wanted to say to you. "Alright, Buckaroo, I'm back. What did you--"

You smiled to yourself. Bucky was fast asleep, light snores emanating from him as he lay sprawled across the bed. You couldn't help but find him adorable in his slumber, especially with his hair sticking up in all directions.

With a soft sigh, you walked over to the side of the bed and gently sat down, watching Bucky's peaceful face. It was moments like these that reminded you of how much he had been through, how much pain and loss he had experienced. Despite his tough exterior, there was a vulnerability about him that tugged at your heartstrings.

You leaned in closer, unable to resist the urge to brush a stray lock of hair away from his forehead. Your fingers lingered on his skin for a moment longer than necessary, feeling the warmth radiating from him. The desire to protect and comfort him overwhelmed you, making your heart ache with affection, and something else that you couldn't quite identify.

Pulling down the covers, you climbed into bed next to him, snuggling up to his body for warmth. He grunted and wrapped an arm around you, pulling you closer to him. It wasn't long before you drifted off into a slumber of your own.

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andreafmn · 10 months

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Speak | Chapter 10

Word Count: 3.5K Story Description: Bella Swan was a disaster when Edward had left. Deciding she needed a little help, Charlie Swan receives with open arms his younger daughter (Y/N) Swan. She helps Bella during her depression and becomes inseparable from her long-lost friend Jacob. What she didn’t expect was falling for a hotheaded short-tempered silver wolf. Chapter: 10/? Warnings: emotional and mental abuse A/N: can't believe I finished this on schedule! the story everyone is obsessed with for some reason just got updated😂🤍 My content will always be free, but if you’re feeling particularly generous, you can leave a tip on any of my posts to support me and my love of writing or buy me a coffee TikTok • Instagram • Business | MASTERLIST If you’d like to be tagged in this or any other story: click here Make sure you have my notifications on so you know every time I post! Taglists for Twilight get filled quick and Tumblr only lets me tag up to a certain point. Notifications are your best bet.

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Chapter 10

"Do you want to stay over tonight?" Jacob suddenly asked as the pair made their way to his truck. "It's already so late and I don't wanna make the drive back to Forks right now."

"Uh, sure, that sounds great," she said, trying to contain her excitement. A surge of happiness took over her as she witnessed Jake trying. He was trying to keep them together, at least that's what it looked like to her. "I'll just let dad know."

"Yeah, sure."

After she had settled on the center of the seat, Jacob helped his father into the truck, stepping out to say goodbye to his friends.

"I'll let you know that there won't be any funny business under my roof, (Y/N)," Billy smiled teasingly. "Though I am glad that Jacob is seemingly trying to turn over a new leaf this new year."

"I promise we'll do nothing but sleep, Billy," she chuckled. "And I also hope this is a new start for Jake and me. That everything that happened stays in the past and we can just give it our all in this relationship."

"If it is meant to be, (Y/N), the universe will find a way," he said as mystically as he always spoke. "You deserve happiness, my child."

"People keep saying that," she responded, her eyes growing far more interested in the skin of her fingers. "Does no one think that Jake can make me happy?"

"That's not what I'm saying, (Y/N)," he smiled, his hand falling on top of the one she was picking. "All I am saying is that if the love and happiness that you deserve is with Jacob, then the universe will allow it."

"And if not?"

"Then, your paths will always align."

"Then let's hope that what's written on the stars is in our favor." And as she said that she didn't know if she was wishing that to convince him or to convince herself.

The three of them rode back to the Black residence in a comfortable silence. The sounds of the woods and the whistling of the wind filled their quiet. She wondered what they said. If they whispered words of encouragement or if they taunted her downfall. She wanted to believe it was the former, because the latter would wreck her.

"Well, you two. I trust that you will behave yourselves since you're under my roof," Billy told them, eyeing the teenagers suspiciously. "And don't start getting used to these sleepovers. This is only because it's already two in the morning and we are all tired."

"Dad," Jacob grumbled. "Just go to bed already."

"Ooh, never thought I'd be shooed away in my own home," the man chuckled. "But I will leave you two. Not because you told me so, but because I am tired. Good night, kids."

"Night, dad."

"Good night, Billy."

Billy rolled away to his bedroom, turning in for the night. He left the couple standing in the living room, a heavy and tense air blowing between them. They had yet to acknowledge everything that had happened between them, much less finally putting it to rest.

"Uh, I'll get you some clothes and you can shower first if you want," Jacob mumbled as he walked into his room before coming out with a folded t-shirt and some sweatpants. "Might be a bit big on you, but it's better than nothing. There're extra towels under the sink."

"Sure," she smiled. "Thanks."

There was still remnant awkwardness between them as they tried to waltz around unspoken words. She locked herself in the bathroom, finally allowing herself to breathe. Fresh start is what she told herself. Over and over again she told herself that they were having a fresh start. As she showered and cleaned away Paul's touch and the thought of him, she had to believe it.

Jacob was who she had always wanted. The boy she had grown up with, the one she had never forgotten. Still, her mind wondered what would have happened if Paul had been the one she had met first. If he had been the boy that was in her mind for the almost sixteen years she had been alive. Maybe she would have been standing in his bathroom instead of Jake's. Maybe she would have been wearing his oversized t-shirt.

"Hey," Jacob called softly from the living room as she opened the bathroom door. "Come here."

(Y/N) walked down the hallway to where he was, a smile stretching on her face as she was met with what Jake had done while she showered.

He had pushed aside the wooden coffee table that lived between the sofas and placed in its stead plush blankets and pillows, a pair of hot chocolate mugs in front of the fireplace. His long, wet hair was plaited back, and he had changed into pajamas. And he was waiting for her.

"What's all this?" (Y/N) smiled.

"I think it's about time we put things to rest already, (Y/N)," he said, patting the pace in front of him. "I don't like fighting with you."

"I don't like it either," she sighed contentedly as she sank into the warmth of his body, his arms wrapping around her. "I like things when they're like this. When we're together and happy."

"I know, and I want it to be like this all the time. But it can't be when I hear you're running around with Paul," he reminded her. His tone was soft, but his words were as snipping as a snake's bite. "I just can't stand the guy and it's embarrassing when it happens in front of the town."

"Jake, I..."

"Don't worry, baby, that's all in the past. As long as you promise not to see him again, (Y/N). I don't want you to fall into his trap."

(Y/N) couldn't remain quiet for long. She knew it would only work to anger him. But how could she promise something she didn't want to do? Something that her gut told her was wrong. "Of course," she lied. "I promise. Paul is a thing from the past."

"That's what I like to hear," he smiled before he turned her head to kiss her. "We need to focus more on us. Focus on our relationship."

"I would love that," she beamed. "I want this to work, Jake. I want us to work."

"Then let's," he smirked.

Jake attached his mouth to her neck, nipping at a spot that took her breath away. His hand held her head back, gripping her jaw. He took in her scent, the warmth of her skin, the sounds from her mouth. All as he imagined...

"Stop, Jake," she said, her voice treading between a moan and a chuckle. "Your dad is literally down the hall."

"He's a heavy sleeper," he chuckled against her skin. "He'll never know."

"No, Jake." She separated from him; a playful grin splayed on her mouth as she turned to face him. "Not here. Not now."

"Ugh, fine," he groaned, falling on his back. "Then, I guess we'll just sleep."

"Yes," she mused, crawling over his body and planting a soft kiss on his lips. "But together."

Jacob wrapped his arms around her and chuckled, positioning both of them comfortably on a blanket and draping another over them. Her body curled into his, his arms wrapped around her waist as he spooned her.

"We'll have to talk about taking things to the next level," he said against her ear, his breath tickling her skin. "I think it might cement everything between us."

"And I think you need to take a breather, Jacob," she chuckled. "We just got to a good place. Let's take things as they go."

"Ugh, fine," he muttered jokingly. "Then, let's just go to sleep."

"Alright, Jake. Good night."

"Night, (Y/N)."

If every night after was like this one, maybe it was the universe's way of telling her that Jake was the one. Laying there, wrapped in his arms, she could let herself believe that the tides were changing. That at the end of the day, Jacob would choose her. Maybe, just maybe.

***

"I can't believe she went home with him," Paul groaned, punching a nearby tree. The way the bark splintered helped ease his anger for a second, but the burning pain inside his chest remained. "I don't know what else I can do to make her understand what a shitty guy he is."

"You know there is," Jared teased. "You could always tell her how you feel and why."

Paul's stoic stare was clear even in the darkness of the night. He knew Jared was right. The more he pursued her without telling her the reason why, the harder it would be to explain his behavior. "You know I can't, dude," he grumbled. "I don't wanna put her in the middle of all of this bull."

"It's not that bad, man," the boy offered. "Look at me and Kim. She knows and nothing has happened to her."

"Yeah, she also liked you before you were a shapeshifting freak," he joked. "And look at Emily. She's forever scarred because didn't have a grasp on what was happening."

"Come on, you know that was an exception, Paul. What happened to her was a very unfortunate accident. But an accident, nonetheless. There's really no reason for you to be running from (Y/N)."

"Look how much shit happened to Bella in so little time, Jared. And it all started when she found out the truth about the Cullens," Paul said. "I don't know what I would do if I made (Y/N) go through any of that because of what I am."

"So you're gonna continue brooding and make our lives miserable? Just tell her, man. Maybe she'll fall in love with you and turn that frown upside down."

Paul picked up a stick and threw it at Jared's head, laughing as the other boy tried to duck but failed to; the piece of wood bouncing off his forehead. "You'll have to put up with me for a lot longer then," he laughed, swallowing the sadness that threatened to overtake him. "I just don't think I have it in me to do that to her. She deserves to be safe and happy."

"Even if it's with Jacob?"

"Unfortunately, that decision is hers to make," he sighed. "I just wish she didn't have to get hurt in the process."

Jared remained quiet for a second. He stared as his pack brother paced before him, his mind too quiet aside for the sporadic image of (Y/N). But even if he didn't say it, he could feel Paul's sadness. He could feel the tug in his chest that called him to go to her. He had felt it too. Every time Kim had to go to a family dinner or visit family out of state, he felt like someone had taken his heart off his chest and sent it away.

But (Y/N) was so close. All he had to do was have one tough conversation and he could soften the grasp of the claws that covered his heart. "What are you so afraid of, Paul?" Jared finally said. "I know you say you don't want to hurt her and all that, but there's something else. Isn't there?"

Paul stared at his friend, wondering if he was that transparent. "I've never been a, uh, a relationship guy. Haven't had the best role models," he confessed. "I guess I think that if I let myself get close to her, I won't be able to handle when she inevitably goes. Because at the end of the day, everyone leaves."

"Not everyone, Paul. We're still here."

"Because you have to be," he shrugged. "If you had the chance to go, you would take it. And don't try denying it."

"Come on, man. You're my friend. More than that, you're my brother," Jared reassured. "But, sure, if I had the chance to leave the rez one day, I would take it. But that doesn't mean I would leave my friends behind. Much less, family."

"Jared, we wouldn't have even spoken to each other had it not been because of the shift. I'm not that delusional to think otherwise."

"Regardless of how or why it happened, life brought us together, Paul. And whether you like it or not, you're my brother now," the boy smiled, draping his arm over Paul's shoulders. "Now, you need to let that girl prove that she would stick by you as well. And it starts by having that difficult conversation you're so scared to have. She's desperate for a reason, dude. All you have to do is tell her."

"She's going to think I'm crazy, J. That I'm making up stories to get her away from Jake," Paul whined. "Why would she believe that there are shapeshifting wolves roaming around the reservation protecting humans from threats? And what if she goes to her sister with the story? Then Bella will know about vampires and shapeshifters, and it'll just add more shit on top of the mess we're dealing with."

"How about you stop overthinking yourself into the ground and finally grow some balls?" Jared teased. "Don't think of what might happen and live in the moment. I know last year's Paul would've had the courage to ask her out. Jacob or no Jacob."

"I technically already asked her out once, and it ended up with me, by myself, in the diner," he reminded his friend, red flooding his cheeks as he recalled the embarrassing moment. "This is not just about inviting the prettiest girl in school to the prom. This is about telling someone that everything they had believed is not real. It's telling her that it doesn't matter what she might have wanted, that something out in the universe decided that we are bonded for life. It's telling a girl like her that she's stuck with a guy like me."

"Man, I can't keep trying to convince you that you are a good guy," Jared sighed. "I'm not saying you're the gods' gift to mankind. Certainly not the you from a year ago. But you're not that guy anymore. You're not even the same guy from six months ago. So, it's time to pick yourself up and do what you have to do. Stop moping about this and do something."

***

(Y/N) woke up with warm arms wrapped around her and a pang in her chest she didn't understand. She was supposed to feel happy. She was supposed to wake up that New Year's Day with an overwhelming amount of joy and the sense that things were finally on the right path. Instead, there was an aching void in her heart that was trying to eat at her insides.

It was the same void that had started festering since that fateful night at the bonfire. The one that seemed to calm whenever the fluke was around. The one that called out his name and she had let go on deaf ears.

That pang filled her with guilt. As she lay in Jacob's arms, she felt guilty that her head was thinking of another guy. And it was a guy she barely knew. A boy that she had no business thinking about, much less dreaming about.

But she couldn't help it. She couldn't forget the softness of his hands against her skin, the brightness of his smile as he looked at her, the glimmer in his eyes when he listened to her. She couldn't get him out of her head.

And as if by divine intervention, the very constant thought appeared in Jacob's window. He knocked softly, motioning for her to go outside. (Y/N) couldn't believe he was there, much less that Jacob had yet to wake up. But what was harder to fathom was the fact that she was tiptoeing to the front door dragging a blanket with her.

"What are you doing here, Paul?" (Y/N) said as she closed the door behind her, wrapping the fabric tighter around her body. "If Jacob sees you here, he'll kill you."

"I thought I was supposed to be playing nice with him," he grinned teasingly. "What if I was here to extend a truce?"

"It wouldn't have mattered because he made me promise him that I wouldn't see you again," she whispered. "So, imagine what he will do if he sees you here right now."

"And did you?"

"What? Did I what?"

"Did you promise him, (Y/N)?" Paul asked sadly. "Is this your way of telling me that you're cutting ties with me?"

"No, of course not," she quickly replied. "I mean, I did promise him. But I never intended to keep it. I would just find a way to keep you two separate."

"So, what? I'd just be your dirty little secret?" he replied, anger clear in his tone. "Yeah, no, thanks. I'd rather take my chances with other friendships."

"What did you want me to say, Paul? Did you want me to tell my jealous boyfriend that I wanted to maintain a friendship with the one guy he seems to despise more than anything?" (Y/N) spoke through gritted teeth. "Would you have wanted me to tell Jake that I wanted to spend time with a guy he was close to dragging into the middle of town and beating the living daylights out of him? Sure, that would have ended great for me."

"Why would you wanna be with a guy like that, (Y/N)? If you're that afraid of his reaction over something as small as a friendship, what do you think will happen if something bigger happens?"

"He only reacts that way with you, and I don't get why," she sighed. "And I wanna be with him because I... because... because I..."

"Why, (Y/N)? Tell me!"

"Because I love him, Paul," she cried, shame cracking her voice. "I've been waiting for this chance for the better part of my life. I've been in love with him for as long as I've known what it was. And he wants me back, Paul. He wants me. And I'm not giving up at the first sign of hardship. So, if you really want to be my friend then you're gonna have to live with that."

"What if I don't?" Paul grumbled, his voice low and hurt. He got closer to her. So close she could feel how warm his body was, even through the blanket. "What if I can't stand around and watch as he mistreats you? Someone that loves you would never treat you like that."

"Don't make this harder than it already is, Paul," she whispered, warm tears falling down her cheeks. "For some reason I want you in my life. But I won't screw up what I just started with Jacob for a friend."

"I just don't wanna see you like this," he said, wiping away the tears with the pad of his thumbs. "You deserve to be happy, but not when it has rules and regulations like this. You should be allowed to still be yourself when you're in a relationship."

"Paul..."

"Listen, (Y/N)," he sighed. "I can't tell you what to do, nor would I want to. But I can't just watch in the sidelines as he treats you like shit when you deserve someone that will worship the ground you walk on."

"What are you saying, Paul?" (Y/N) croaked. "Are you saying you won't be my friend if I stay with Jacob?"

"(Y/N), I'm saying that I won't keep quiet if he keeps mistreating you."

"He doesn't," she said, but she knew it wasn't convincing. She didn't even believe it herself. "He just... he's just passionate, I guess."

"Then can you promise me something?" Paul sighed, his eyes glossing with tears. "If he ever –and I mean ever—gets physical with you, even as much as lifts his hand at you, you will tell me. The second it happens, you call me."

"I don't think it'll come to that," she forced a smile. "He would never put his hands on me."

"Just, please, (Y/N). Promise me and don't lie to me."

"Alright," she said, looking straight into the brown of his eyes. "I promise, Paul."

"I'll make sure you're always safe," he promised. His hand had not fallen from her face, his thumb caressing over her cheekbone. "No one is going to hurt you, (Y/N)."

(Y/N) had no idea why, but she believed every word he said. So, she promised. And, unlike with Jacob, she intended to keep it.

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my-great-big-book-of-fan-fiction · 14 days

Text

The Taming of Man: chapter Eleven - Dragon Shifting!Katsuki Bakugou x F!reader

I'm really excited right now, wrote all of these chapters so fast because we're FINALLY at the good parts! Let me know what you think!

Words: 2,707

This is incredibly based on the song The Willow Maid by Erutan, I highly recommend giving it a listen for the best experience.

Warnings: Cursing, reader is She/Her and will be AFAB in later chapters, angst, reader is manhandled and locked up, Katsuki is hurting, reader is hurting

The air left your body as you let out a reflexive yelp, big bubbles leaving your mouth in groups as your vision was reduced to the bright light of the moon refracted through the gleaming multicolored water. Whoever grabbed you had a strong grip, their nails digging into your skin as you tried to pull away, water filling your lungs as you attempted to gasp for air. tears flowed from your eyes, mixing into the freshwater around you like grains of sand in a desert.

You were so close. So, so, close.

You had been dragged through the portal, and before you knew it your were clawing your way up to the bank of your own stream, any and all excess water leaving your system as you laid on the shore, taking deep breaths. You quickly sat up, wanting to face your captor.

There your mother was, hair hanging sopping wet before her face, eyes containing a gleam of unfiltered anger you hadn't seen from her in so, so long. Her midnight blue column dress clung to her body, and as she trudged over to you, getting dryer and dryer, her levels of lethal elegance seemed to grow.

"After all that has happened," she started, her voice just barely above a whisper, heels panging against the ground as you scooted back and away from her, her eyes never leaving yours as she pushed her undone hair out of her face.

"You dare to return? To disrespect me? To disrespect the memory of your father?" her words grew in volume, before she towered over your physique. She grabbed a hold of your wrists, pulling you up to her face with all the intensity of a lioness hunting her prey. Gone was the sweet, gentle mask your mother wore daily, here was her in her true form.

Angry, volatile, deadly.

"I-I..." you stuttered, unable to come up with any sort of excuse.

"Enough," she spat, pulling you along the path you had traversed so many times before, perhaps for the last time. "You can forget about ever leaving my sights again," she snapped, her grip unrelenting.

"You...you can't be ser-"

"As the plague, (Y/n). You will stay in your room until the day of your wedding," she announced, dragging you through despite your heels digging into the ground in protest. She stopped for a moment, turning her head to glare at you, saying, "and if I hear another word from you tonight, you can expect to sleep in the dungeon. You're lucky enough to stay in your room, thank the stars for that."

You stayed silent, partially out of fear, partially out of bewilderment. You knew your mother was crazy, but you didn't know she was this crazy. How did she even find out? How could she have...

Ochako.

You did this. You let your guard down. You trusted someone blindly. Look where that got you.

The walk home was silent, save for your sniveling, and when you got to your room, you found it different from before. there was iron lining your room, rendering you magickless. You also noticed that when checking the depths of your closet, where you stashed your red dress and all of Katsuki's gifts, nothing was there. You had been robbed not only of Katsuki, but the memory of him.

As for your door, it was manned by two guards posted outside and an iron lock, something you hadn't experienced since you were a little rambunctious girl. You simply collapsed into bed, not bothering to change out of your dirty clothes or brush your hair or clean up. What was the point? You had nothing, you had no one, all you had was a sense of dread.

The next morning, there was a knocking at your door, before it creaked open. There Ochako was, a shameful frown on her face as she brought you some breakfast. "I...I had the chefs make your favorite..."

"Funny that only now you seem to care about what I want," you scoff, not bothering to turn over in bed to face her. "Eat it yourself."

"Listen, I didn't know she'd...I only did this because I thought..." Her voice waivered, and she took a deep breath. "We've known each other since we were girls, I only wanted what was best for you."

She was right, you have know each other since you were girls. You'll never forget the day you met, probably a year or two after your dad died, the day her parents got hired as servants and she moved into the maid's quarters. The two of you played together in the garden, any game you could play you did. You liked to expose her to all the luxuries she hadn't ever previously seen, and she liked to show off all the skills she acquired that you were never taught, like sewing and fixing broken toys.

Eventually, her parents got too old to work, and she began to work to support them, becoming your handmaid. You've been through so much together, through thick and thin. She was your best friend, and you were hers, and yet here you were. betrayed.

"Great. Thanks. You can go now."

She sighed and set down the tray of food, leaving it on your dresser, before walking out and gently shutting the door behind her. Locking it.

For the next 5 days, you did nothing but cry, hardly eating, hardly moving, just laying there and crying. Ochako kept bringing you food, and you kept shutting her out. Then, on the sixth day, something clicked. You were hopeless because you thought you had no choices, but truly, even without your magic, you had opportunities. Opportunities like that stained glass window.

You started by "accidentally" spilling food onto your sheets. Then, when ochako came in to give you lunch, you asked for a second set and for her to fetch another maid. She did so, and you asked the same of that maid. And the next one. And the next one. By the end of it, you had 8 sets of king sized sheets, including the one that had the spill. You took those sheets and made a rope, tying the ends together and checking routinely to be sure it was sturdy.

You were getting the hell out of here.

Meanwhile, Katsuki had spent his week studying. All he did was study, studied politics, studied battle strategy, studied science, studied math. Anything but think of you. He hadn't left the vast palace in days, he hadn't gone outside, he hadn't tended to Versengen, he hadn't talked to Kirishima besides ordering him to get more books and paper for him.

His usually bellicose nature had been amplified, any conversation lasting longer than a second or two cause Katsuki to lash out at anyone and everyone around him.

He spent his evenings staring out the window, daring to look past the wall at that well trodden path he had so desperately wanted to see you walk out of, to see you run to him and apologize and swear to stay with him forever. He knew that was a fever dream, you were probably getting married as he sat there, unable to do anything...Maybe he should go, maybe he should go and enter your world, just to force you to come back to him.

He hated this feeling of nervousness, he was so angry and ready to do something, but for once his common sense wasn't on his side. He couldn't rationalize this one, he just had to sit here and cry into the dead of night, not a sound leaving him, his words instead leaving through his tear ducts.

He needed you.

The time was 11:58 AM, when you were sure everyone would be asleep, your plan ready to be set into motion. You anxiously watched the giant clock in the center of the city, viewable from your window, the second hand ticking by, the pendulum swinging. That was the thing about Gildflå, Every city contained a clock with a big bell dangling in the center. No matter the time of day or night, there was always someone ready to ring that bell to mark the hour. You were counting on it.

You brought your sheet rope closer, taking a second to tie one end to your sturdy vanity. By the time you had finished you were 5 seconds from midnight.

4...

3...

2...

The bell rang, the first loud ding of the night. You rammed your side into the window, holding your head back so you wouldn't get a concussion. Another ring, again you slammed into the window. And again. And again. And again. You threw yourself into that blue window as many times as the bell rang, and each time you felt as if you were getting closer to freedom. One last time, and...

the door creaked open. You whipped around, to see Ochako's shocked face, carrying a tray with cookies and milk. The tray clattered out of her hands, her expression unreadable as she took a couple steps back. "Ururaka..." you whispered, your eyes a silent plea. She rushed out, shutting the door behind her.

"No," you shrieked, running after her. You collapsed to the ground halfway to the door, reduced to a bundle of tears. It was over. No way you'd be able to make it anywhere once she told everyone.

You cried pitiful tears into your hands for who knows how long, before the door swung open once more. You looked up, ready to accept your fate, when you were greeted with the sight of Ururaka bounding in, sliding to her knees before you with a bundle of red in her hands.

She quickly and silently grabbed your basket from the table, unravelling the mass of red fabric. It was your dress, wrapped around a couple of healing potions and a loaf of bread. "Ochako," you started, watching her frantically stuff the bread and potions into your basket.

"Shh, there's no time," she whispered, handing you the dress. You quickly and obediently slipped it on over your baby blue nightgown, Nothing but confusion adorning your face. The second you were ready she lifted you to your feet, handing you your basket.

"The guards will wake up any minute," she muttered, grabbing your hand, running you out the door and to the window you always escaped out of. She put the guards to sleep? You saw them slouched over as you ran past, snoozing. That must have taken a lot out of her, she wasn't nearly as powerful as you were, given her status. "I...I thought you...Why...?"

"Like I said. I only want what's best for you," she panted, swinging the window open for you. You moved to jump out, but stopped as you sat on the windowsill. "I...come with me! You can stay with me, we can live there together," you offered, grabbing her hands.

She smiled, tears welling in her eyes, before she shook her head. "My life is here. I have a family, my parents...You can go, you should go. Life will be better for you there."

"I'll miss you, please," you whimpered, bringing her into a tight hug. Despite the mistakes she's made, she was your best friend. You loved her, like a sister.

She hugged you back, with all the strength she could muster, before whispering, "I'll miss you too. Don't forget about me." Then, she pushed you. You fell from the window as if you were in slow motion, her face contorted into a bittersweet smile as tears streamed from her face. you reached out to her, your dress flowing around you like the wings of a bird, golden shimmer drifting from your fingers to her as your magic returned to you. You landed in the hippogriff down, staring up at her with a bewildered expression. "Go," she shouted, before clasping her hands over her mouth. "Hey," you heard a voice shout, a guard, and she ran out of your view.

Go, Ochako. Run.

A guard peered down at you from the window, and you wasted no time climbing out of the hippogriff fluff, taking a second to flip him off, and climb up the wall. You could hear him and another jump out after you, and you could hear the doors outside open. A quick glance behind your shoulder told you that at least 6 guards were chasing you now. You jumped from the wall, and from there you ran. You ran like you would die if you stopped, because you just might. Not in body, but in soul. The wind seemed to carry you, pushing you forward as your angel sleeves acted like sails, your feet barely touching the ground. "

"Stop right there!" "Get her!" "Don't let her get to the water!"

You just kept running, looking back might be the end for you. You felt a hand grab at the back of your dress, but before it could pull you back, the person it was attached to tripped on a root. The forest, like always, was on your side. You kept going, the river in sight. A bird whizzed past you, and from the sound of it, said bird attacked a man.

You only turned around when you reached the river, facing the group of armed guards as they all dove towards you. You turned back around and balanced on the slippery rocks leading to the portal, the rainbow mushrooms never before looking so comforting. You jumped in, swimming in what was now the river in the Circle. You were almost there when a hand grabbed at your ankle, yanking you back down.

Not this time.

You looked down and kicked, getting the hand off...but destroying the mushrooms in the process. The portal was closed. forever.

You couldn't think about that right now, you had to get to the surface. You pulled yourself onto shore, spluttering before the water left you. You had no time to run, you had to get to Katsuki now. You were going to teleport, for real this time. Your body warmed, your heart swelled, as as you dettached from the earth glitter rained from your figure. It was as if a symphony of love and hope lifted you, and when your feet hit the floor, it was within the Forrmidūl palace dining room.

You ran around aimlessly, not knowing where to go as the only place inside you had been was the dining room. Walking through the halls, you found Kirishima, and you've never been happier to. "Where's Katsuki," you demanded, grabbing him by the shoulders. "Uh...in his room...? How did you-"

"Thanks, take me there, please?"

"...Sure," he finally sighed, a small smile on his face.

You were standing just before his bedroom door now, panicking a little as tears welled up in your eyes. Kiri had left you alone to give you time and space together, but now you just felt silly.

You had to get it together. You gently knocked on the door, preparing your big speech in your head, but the last thing you expected was for Katsuki to shout, "Fuck off!"

You should have known, that was just like him...still, his voice was music to your ears, a nostalgic song that made your stomach do flips.

Instead of saying anything, you just knocked again. Like an idiot. Who does that?

Finally, you heard him stand, stomping to the door.

"Katsuki, I'm so sorry, It'll never happen again," you started in your head, before the door slowly creaked open. There he was. The man that looked like the sun. Golden hair. Ruby red eyes. That muscular body. The love of your life.

You opened your mouth, but words escaped you as you took in his wide eyes.

All that emerged was a choking sob.

You reached for him, so afraid that he'd push you away, but found no resistance. You held him tight, like you might never hold him again, because you've learned how precious he is.

"I fought for this," was all you could manage to say between silent sobs.

He brought his arms around you, slowly, tightly, and you felt tears drip onto your scalp as he pressed his lips to your hair.

"Good."

Ahhhh let me know your thoughts! I hope I'm not drowning you guys in content, I just really love this series.

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hoodharlow · 1 year

Text

No One Else

AN: I'm so sorry I haven't posted this. I was struggling with the beginning and cut a bunch of stuff bc I wasn't vibing. Anyways we get to see Jack work on No Enhancers 🤞🏻 and tyyy to @nattinatalia for the Oscar Isaac edit <3

Requested? 2 of my lovely anons sent in concepts that fit the chapter <3

Warnings: almost smut, brief tension/angst and mentions of vomit

Word Count: 3.8k words

Miriam hugged her Max Mara teddy coat tighter. She was outside in the private landing strip waiting for the jet to open. Jack and his team were in Berlin for one of his shows last night and they flew back to London earlier today because Jack is one of the honorees for GQ's Man of the Year awards. The ceremony was being held later in the evening. Miriam was in London because she was presenting her co-star, Oscar Isaac, at the GQ awards as he's also an honoree.

In addition to that, Miriam was also in London for work. The show she was filming with her mom and Aaron Taylor-Johnson was going to have time jumps throughout the season, but they filmed everything from the past first in Atlanta then the 'present'. The present was taking place in London so that's why she was there with AaronTaylor-Johnson. Her mom's character was only needed for the 'past' scenes. The present is actually the ongoing investigation of her character's random death and the past were what led up to her mysteriously passing.

The private jet finally opened and Jack and his team came trailing behind. Miriam smiled seeing Jack thud down the steps, dick first, but her smile curved down when he walked past her. He turned around and scratched his head as he walked towards her.

"Oh shit I almost didn't recognize you with your new hair." He joked.

"You're not funny." Miriam deadpanned.

Her hair used to reach the middle of her back but she cut it for work and now it's up to her shoulders, but when she straightened it reached her shoulder blades. She was supposed to wear a wig to indicate the time jumps in the show, but the hair stylist couldn't get it to fit without making it obvious she was wearing a wig. So Miriam suggested that they just cut her actual hair to the length they wanted. Either way she was due for a trim because her ends were a mess. Now she rocked curls in a lob.

"I'm just playing." He said, leaning down to kiss her, but she curved him.

"What's your girlfriend gonna think?" She joked.

"I don't know, what do you think?" Jack retorted.

Miriam rolled her eyes in response.

Jack laughed and pulled her into a deep kiss. He slipped his hands inside her coat and slid them down to her ass. He backed Miriam into the SUV. Jack wedged one of his legs in between hers and let her slowly rub herself against his gray sweats. Miriam stood on her tippy toes, pulling him closer. They slowly devoured each other, bodies melting into each other.

Urban cleared his throat dramatically, “You nasties saw each other a week ago fucking chill.”

“I swear I heard the pornhub theme song the second y’all started dry humping each other.” Ace piped up behind them.

“You wish we were on pornhub.” Jack said, hugging Miriam from behind.

“Whenever you guys are ready we can get back to the house.” Miriam said.

“Yeah, me and Urb are staying at the hotel with the rest.” Ace said.

Urban nodded. “We would like to actually sleep and not hear you two go at all night.”

“We’re not gonna go all night, just all afternoon.” Jack smirked.

“I can’t stand you.” Miriam rolled her eyes then got in the car.

Jack jogged to the sprinter van to let his managers know he and Miriam were leaving. They told him that they were getting picked up at seven. He got in the back seat of Miriam’s car and then Beto drove them back to her family’s house.

They arrived half an hour later. Miriam led him inside the house. In the living room were the twins watching tv.

“Shit let me get my noise canceling headphones.” Joseph joked, seeing Jack and Miriam walk passed them. “I want to sleep tonight.”

“It was one time–” Miriam began but she was cut off by her older sister.

“No because these two snuck off to fuck and they were found in a broom closet because of Miriam’s loud ass moans.” she told her twin.

Miriam rolled her eyes as her siblings imitated her and her sex sounds. She grabbed Jack’s wrist and tugged him upstairs. Her siblings always found ways to embarrass her in front of Jack. He found it endearing that her siblings liked him enough to include him in their banter and teases.

“I’m gonna hop in the shower.” he said once they reached her room.

Miriam nodded as she took off her coat and hung it on its hanger. She felt Jack’s eyes on her ass. She overslept and rushed to get ready to pick him up, so she threw on the first pair of leggings she found. What she realized later was that they were a pair of worn out leggings that looked like panty hose around her ass with how thin they got in that area. Thus revealing the bright pink thong she wore under.

“Don’t start.” She warned him.

“I haven’t said anything.” Jack said defensively.

“But I know you.” Miriam eyed him.

Jack didn’t respond. He went into her bathroom and showered. Fifteen minutes later, he came out with a towel wrapped loosely around his hips. Miriam laid in her bed reading a book with her knees bent in only a t-shirt, giving Jack a peek of her thong. He put on some navy blue boxer-briefs. After he did his after shower routine, he climbed on top of Miriam and laid on her chest. He sighed contently and nuzzled his face into her breasts.

Miriam bookmarked her book and set it aside. She brought her hand down and gently scratched Jack’s scalp.

“Are you hungry?” She asked him.

“Not right now. I wanna catch a quick nap.” He mumbled.

“Okay.” She nodded.

Miriam kept playing with his hair, eventually making her way down to his shoulders. She rubbed her thumbs into his shoulder blades, earning a moan from Jack. He was tense as fuck.

“Get off.” she told him.

“Why?” Jack frowned.

“You’re stiff as fuck.”

“My dick isn’t even on you, how did you know?” He smirked.

“No, bro, seriously, I can feel that you're tense. Are you good?” Miriam asked him softly.

“I’m good.” He insisted, trying to shrug it off.

“Jack…”

“Miriam…”

When he started his tour, Jack had been working on his new album to pass the time. Ever since he performed at the Today Show he confessed to Miriam that he had been feeling overwhelmed and overworked, but at the same time it felt like he wasn't doing enough for him and how he had to keep pushing himself to keep the momentum going.

“Let's talk about it later, yeah?”

Miriam nodded, not wanting to pressure him. She got out from under him and grabbed a lotion. Taking advantage that Jack was still laying on his back, she straddled his ass. Miriam pumped a generous amount into her hand and smacked it down on Jack’s back. She rubbed all over his back then she applied more pressure onto him. She worked her fingers into his shoulder blades, making him groan.

"Fuck, Miriam," he whined, "You're so good to me."

"Can you lay on your back porfis?" She asked him.

"Yeah," he nodded.

She got off him allowing him to roll on his back. Jack patted her thigh and Miriam straddled him once more. She put some more lotion on her hand and rubbed his on his chest.

Jack smiled to himself watching Miriam be so focused and diligent. She took her time massaging him. Once she was done with his body she moved up to his neck and face.

"You're my favorite view." He said as he was eye level to her breasts.

"You're annoying." She shook her head, smiling.

"I was expecting a more sarcastic response." He

"I wasn't in the mood to banter." She shrugged.

"But you love my banter." Jack frowned playfully.

"Who said that?" Miriam giggled.

She looked down at his lips then back his blue eyes. She was about to pull back but Jack held her in place by her neck and claimed her lips. It was a slow kiss. She had one hand on his chest balancing herself as Jack moved his hand to cradle her face. His other hand tightly gripped her thigh. He moaned into her mouth, feeling her slowly rutted her hips against the very tall tent in his boxers.

Miriam pulled away and sat, removing her baggy t-shirt. She cupped his cheeks and pulled him into a needy kiss. Jack pushed her down on the bed and continued kissing as Jack skillfully managed to pull her panties and pulled down his boxer-briefs, just enough to get his cock out.

They were interrupted by a loud shriek and her bedroom door slamming shut.

"Miriam, if you're gonna fuck have the decency to close the fucking door." Joseph yelled through the door.

"Hola Vogue, soy Miriam Dominguez and today I'm going to show y'all how I do a simple red carpet glam for tonight's GQ event." Miriam said into the tripod she set up in her large bathroom.

She was filming a Vogue Beauty Secrets video. Originally she was going to do a video of her nighttime routine for when she got home after a long day of filming. But she procrastinated and now she was filming a grwm video. She was going to straighten her hair as well but the nap she and Jack took was longer than expected.

Miriam caught herself in the bathroom's reflection. Her neck and some of her cleavage were marked up.

She looked at the camera like she was in the office and said, "But first we're going to do a quick lesson on how to cover your hickies because my partner is part octopus."

She pulled out her cream color kit. Miriam explained color theory and how complementary colors work in order to mute each other so foundation could cover what needed to be covered.

"See, like nothing." She showed the camera. She was about to put it away but then she remembered that Jack’s neck looked like hers.

Almost like he sensed she needed him, Jack walked in the bathroom with a matcha for her. He was wrapped up in a fluffy robe and had some gel patches under his eyes. When they woke up from their nap, Miriam noticed he had some dark circles from not properly resting. So she put some hydrating gel under eye patches on him so they could make him look more awake. She also put on a pimple patch on his forehead.

"Sit," she motioned at the bidet.

"I was joking when I said we should film a sex–"

Miriam clamped her hand over his mouth. "I'm filming for Vogue."

"Oh," he said softly.

"Let me cover your hickies, so your manager doesn't beat my ass." She said.

"I've seen you kickbox, you can take Neelam." He joked.

Miriam rolled her eyes and got to work. She did the same technique she did on herself, but the only difference was that Jack's hickies were more pronounced because he had lighter skin than her. She also made a foundation base to go on top of his covered hickies that matched his skin tone.

"All done." She said rinsing the pallette where she mixed her colors.

Jack got up and inspected himself. He had no idea how Miriam managed to do that. His neck and collarbones were all one even shade. He wasn't even sure where Miriam marked him up.

"You're fucking talented." He said, sitting back down on the Bidet.

Miriam smiled and went on doing her makeup. She did a set by set process on how she prepared her face with sunscreen, toner, moisturizer and primer. Jack leaned against the sink and watched her in awe as she talked to the camera. He had no idea what she meant but he couldn’t stop staring. Miriam sighed, reaching for a clean makeup wipe. It was her fourth attempt at doing a cute eyeliner design. She wasn't good at eyeshadow so she mainly stuck to one color then did a fun design with eyeliner.

"Am I distracting you?" Jack asked.

"A little." She said, quietly.

"I'll leave you to it then." He said.

"No, it's fine." She waved him off.

"I know you, bro. I gotta work on some stuff anyway."

He got up and squeezed her hips as he passed through.

Miriam smiled to herself then dabbed some more of the soft orchid liquid eyeshadow on her pallette and dipped her thin eyeliner brush over it. She went on talking about Halsey's brand, About Face, has some of her favorite colors to work with for eyeliner looks. She also talked about her look for the night.

It was a vintage long black dress from Gianni Versace’s Fall-Winter 1994. It had the iconic gold-tone Medusa buttons going down the length of her dress. The back was held together with a long strip that went down the middle of her back kinda like overalls. Since the gold buttons were a lot Miriam was keeping her accessories to a minimum. Once she finished her makeup she thanked Vogue and went to her room so she could upload her video to the Vogue team so they could edit and post it in afew days.

She found Jack sitting on her bay window with his MacBook and a notebook on his lap. She liked watching him in the zone. She just hoped that he wasn't pushing himself too much. She knew that he wanted to work on something new that felt more personal to him. She read a few lines that he showed her when she visited him on tour back in October and as a fan she was excited to see where he took his music this time around.

"I can feel you starin'." Jack said, putting his things off to the side.

"Damn, I can't admire my man." She said in a playful tone.

"Knowing you, no." He said sarcastically.

Miriam sat on his lap and ran her nail along the designs of his robe. It was them when noticed that she got them done. They were long and nude pink.

"What are these called?" He said intertwining their fingers together.

"Acrylic nails." She replied.

"No smartass, the shape."

"Oh," she giggled. "These are coffin shaped. Why do you ask?"

"Just wonderin'," he shrugged, looking down at his notebook.

•••

Miriam via Instagram Stories

•••

"Work husband?!" Jack confronted Miriam when she walked in the studio.

Jack, Urban, Ace, and Nickie were at a friend's studio while Jack recorded some of his songs. Miriam had the day off from filming but she spent the day self taping for an audition. She finished that and went to Nandos to bring them food.

"Huh?" Miriam looked at Nickie, Ace, and Urban confused.

"Bro, they're eating me up on Twitter." He said, passing her his phone.

'Dating a bad bitch like Miriam Dominguez is not for the weak. Idk how Jack Harlow is dealing with this.' 'What if Miriam calling Oscar Isaac her work husband was Jack Harlow's 13th reason?' 'Jack Harlow and Oscar Isaac's wife are braver than any US Marine.' She read the tweets to herself. Evidently annoyed, she passed him back the phone. "I'll delete it damn. It was just a joke."

"Bro I'm just kidding, why are you getting so worked up?" Jack asked in an irritated tone.

"And that's our cue." Urban mumbled as he walked out of the room with Ace and Nickie trailed behind him, taking the food she brought them.

"What's up? Like everything was good and then you brought down the vibes." Jack told Miriam.

"Oh so my presence bothers you. Got it." She said, turning on her heel.

"Miriam, that's not what I meant." He sighed. "Obviously something is up, and you're taking it out on me."

"I'm fucking done." She said with her voice cracking at the end. Tears rolled down her cheeks. "I'm so tired. I'm so fucking overwhelmed and…and…"

She didn't finish her sentence. She ran to the nearest trash can and threw up everything she had for breakfast which wasn't much to begin with. One of the tell-tale signs that Miriam was going to have a panic attack was that she threw up. Jack had seen her have her fair share and knew the drill. He knelt behind her and gathered her curls into an oddly shaped bun. He helped her out of her coat and rubbed her back whilst she vomited once more.

"Let's go outside and get you some air." Jack said softly after a few minutes.

Miriam nodded and stood up with his help. Jack draped her coat over her shoulders and took the trash bag out of the trash can. They made their way out to the parking lot. He sat her down on the curb while he went to throw away the bag in a large trash can. The guys were in the sprinter van eating so he went over to get some water, hand sanitizer, gum, and wet wipes for Miriam.

"Here." He said, sitting next to her.

Miriam took a generous sip of the water, swishing it in her mouth before spitting it out. She cleaned her mouth and hands then popped the gum in her mouth.

"I'm sorry for blowing up in your face like that." She said quietly, resting her head on knee.

"Can I ask what made you upset?" He asked, gently pulling her curls out of the bun he did.

"I got my schedule for Poison Ivy. We start rehearsals on the 28th." She sighed. "I thought I was going to have a few weeks off to rest. But I don't even get a week off. We're scheduled to finish filming the show on the 23rd. I won't be able to fly home." She said before tearing up once more.

"C'mere," Jack said, pulling her to his chest.

"I'm so exhausted." She sighed defeatedly. "The show is draining. We're doing fifteen episodes and each one is somewhere between forty minutes to an hour long which is rare for a show on a streaming service."

"I'm sorry."

"Jack, you have nothing to apologize for."

"I know but part of me feels like I should." He said, making her snort.

Miriam nuzzled against his chest. That was when she noticed he was only wearing a long sleeve.

"Bro, why are you only wearing a long sleeve?! Let's get inside before you get sick and your manager beats my ass." She quickly got up and pulled Jack upright.

"I'll be fine."

"Inside now." She said sternly.

"Inside you? Out here? In the parking lot? Damn, you're a freak, Miriam." He smirked.

"You're so unserious." She rolled her eyes.

They went back inside. Surprisingly Miriam had an appetite and ate her food. While the guys went over the beat of a song where Jack talked about himself through different ages of his music career, she pulled out her sketchpad and worked on her designs. It was her design for the upcoming Met Gala. They announced the theme a few weeks ago at Paris Fashion week so she was getting a head start because she was making her own outfit.

If Miriam were being honest, she didn't like the theme. Sure Karl Lagerfeld was iconic, but he'd done her mom and sister dirty. In the 90s he didn't believe that Isabela was the right look for Chanel. Then when Katalina started modeling he would take her out of runway shows at the last minute because she wasn't fitting the vibes for the show and then would get replaced with a white model. There were also some comments he made about women and diversity in fashion that just gave Miriam a bad taste in her mouth. It was also why she didn't own that many Chanel pieces. She didn't feel comfortable spending her money on someone who had those ideals. In addition to him, she stopped supporting brands like: Dior, Dolce and Gabbana, Carolina Herrera and Alexander Wang.

She was invited to the Met Gala but she was planning on walking the red carpet. Though she was positive that what she had planned to wear would get her banned from future Met Galas by Anna Wintour, that wasn't going to stop her from doing what she was going to do.

"Are you busy?" Jack asked, walking up to her.

"No, what's up?" Miriam asked, closing her sketchpad.

"Wanna do some backup vocals for me?"

"You have to contact my manager for payment methods."

"I got a few options but I don't think your mom would want to know what they are." He smirked.

"Okay, jokes aside, my mom does need a contract or whatever y'all have to have on file." She said.

"I'll have Chris send it to her." He reassured her.

"Okay, what do you need me to do?"

Jack pulled her to the soundboard. Miriam sat on one of the spinning chairs and listened attentively to Jack as he explained he wanted her to do a short freestyle at the end for the outro of the song. Truthfully, she was nervous. She's never done something like that. Sure she's quick with her comebacks, but this was different and she didn't want to disappoint Jack.

"Okay we're gonna play the song a few times so you can get a feel for it and when you're ready just go for it." Nickie told Miriam.

"Okay," she nodded, giving him a toothless smile.

Miriam made her way to the soundbooth. She removed her blue sweater vest and tossed it at Jack. She pulled her hair into a ponytail and put on the headset. She kicked her feet on the stool, waiting for the song to play. Within the first seconds, she knew it was the instrumental of the song he wrote for her over a year and a half ago. The lyrics were different from the original. She figured since he used part of the original lyrics in Lil Secret.

She smiled to herself when Jack rapper 'and my baby she a natural.' It had more than one meaning. Of course the obvious was that Miriam has a natural body and she hadn't got any cosmetic surgery done. But the second meaning was something he would sometimes tell her when he'd catch her belting out ballads and be impressed at how effortlessly she would sing.

At the mention of her nails, she looked down at hers. They were exactly like the ones he described in the song. They were her go-to design when she wanted to get her nails done but didn't want to commit to a color or design.

She listened to the song a few more times and eventually she said, "I can't believe you said 'You know I make you laugh like no one else' as if my job isn't acting and I know to fake laugh. Hell, I even fake org–"

"That's good." He cut her off, making her cackle loudly.

•••

@'mdm: in my pop girl era

@'jackharlow: relax, you're just doing backup vocals for me

-> @'jackfan: backup vocals?!?!?! Are we getting a new album

->@'fanofjack: bffr, when would he have time to make it?

->@'anotherjackfan: they're probably just messing around, they're both busy working

@'urbanwyatt: "urb take pictures of me like I know what I'm doing"

-> @'mdm: shushhhh

@'mackshipper: omg they're gonna pull a Big Sean and Jhené Aiko and make a joint album

->@'hater: as if Jack and Miriam had their talent

@'haileesteinfeld: obsessed <3

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Taglist: @cherry4everrr @heavyhitterheaux @carma-fanficaddict @youngharleezyxo @youngharleezy @babyharleezy @that-90s-girllll @alinaharlow @harlowcomehome @nattinatalia @webinurcloset @gassyandsassy1 @jackharloww @awhore4moree @noescapricho-essentimiento @a-moment-captured @neon-lights-and-glitter @purecinnamonextract

#jack harlow smut #jack harlow #jack and miriam #jack harlow insta au #jack harlow instagram au #jack harlow angst #jack harlow fluff

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sirowsky-stories · 3 months

Text

The Old Prince

Part 10

Author's Note: I had hoped to post this on Friday, but a pesky work-weekend got in the way. Also, this was one of those chapters that never wanted to end! Which is why it's easily the biggest one yet.

Description: Your confrontation with Simon reveals some very big obstacles. (Sorry, it's a bit short, I don't wanna spoil anything.)

Rating: Mature 18+ONLY Warnings: Monster Oberyn Martell x Female Reader, AU fic, obviously Halloween themed, reader cusses. Smut. And a kinda weird situation occurring in relation to the smut. Word Count: 9862 Author's Masterlist

He reacts to the name as if he too remembers it, and somewhere deep within him, a rumbling which could rival even the toughest thunder starts to build. It’s so immense that the very air vibrates with it, and when he opens his jaws to release it, you can hardly believe what you’re seeing when actual lightning accompanies the flame of magmatic intensity, destroying trees and unnatural creatures alike everywhere it goes.

Then, just as your hope rekindles with the apparent shift of odds into your favor, the dying flames reveal that the spirits have finally arrived. But the reason for their tardiness becomes painfully obvious when you realize they’ve all been corrupted. No longer the lightly glowing figures of mystical energies, they now appear to be solid, straining under their own weight, looking as though something’s tried to rip them apart, leaving strangely thick black smoke pluming out of their open wounds.

Positioning themselves in a circle around the two of you, their new master commands them to destroy, and as if they’ve become puppets on strings, they obey without hesitation. The polar bear, Ursa, is supposed to be able to freeze things at will, but her powers have also been mutated, so when she tries to create frozen spikes, like spears out of the ground, what happens instead is that she cleaves the ground, creating massive crevasses from which more roots and evil beings spring.

Lupus normally channels the power of the earth to make things grow, and she still does, except there’s only darkness to feed. Only the destructive and malicious beings brought to life by the Darkling are aided by her efforts, doubling in size in mere seconds. Meanwhile, Caelum is generating multiple twisters where she would ordinarily only manage to spark sudden microbursts for a few minutes at a time. The butterfly is somehow creating toxic spores where she would usually just be able to pollinate anything that grows.

How Octopus is managing on land you have no idea, but she’s covering everything she touches with some kind of corrosive grey slime, which is especially bad considering the area she can affect with her size and the reach of her tentacles. The bat’s normal power is giving sight to those who wander in the dark, but she’s now creating clouds made of soot, removing all visibility wherever she flies. Although she’s struggling so badly against the forces of gravity, usually not able to affect her much at all, that she’s barely able to get off the ground.

Scarabaeus is supposed to be able to move through any solid structures, but her corrupted form is instead incapable of remaining solid at all, changing from liquid to gaseous form at random, which also has the very disturbing effect of leaving anything she passes through, completely disemboweled. As for the deer, Cervus, who’s original power is the absorption of both energy and matter, she seems to be in a state of continuous implosion, like a star perpetually about to collapse, sucking everything into its core to be crushed.

In your human form, you’ve never met the spirit of summer before, although you do know her from your other life. She’s easily the largest of the land-living spirits, rivalling Oberyn’s green dragon, although her current mass is much more concentrated than his was. Also, she wouldn’t normally have much mass at all. But tonight, her might has been transformed from a benign gigantic horse, capable of bringing warmth even to the coldest of places, into a burning demon, seemingly made of oil.

They attack without any coordination, or pre-determined plan of any kind, it seems, coming at Tyrannus from all angles at once. His size puts them at a disadvantage since only the flying ones can reach further up his body than his legs, but they’re unfortunately also highly tolerant to his flame, even with the lightning. His scales are thick, though, shielding him from their mutated powers, leaving him mostly concerned with keeping you out of their reach.

You know that even Lux has never witnessed all the spirits succumb to the dark one’s power before, because it’s never been allowed to get this far. But Simon’s clever deceit must’ve blinded them until it was already too late. Which begs the question: Why are you not turning dark as well? If the Darkling can have such a crippling effect on all the others, how is it you’re not feeling so much as a tingle in your fingertips?

It could be your connection to Oberyn, since love is still more powerful than anything, but the more you think about it, the more it seems like it’s your human form which shields you from his influence. Strangely, it makes a lot of sense. Because ordinary humans can’t see or be directly harmed by spirits, so logically, your alter ego should be impervious to his manipulation.

However, your body might not be safe from his powers or the spirits’ ability to cause you serious physical harm. You have demonstrated that you’re capable of incredible healing, but you don’t know how far that reaches. Even Oberyn isn’t completely immortal, so it stands to reason you might have a few limitations as well.

He moves incredibly fast despite his size, having lost none of his usual agility since his body is still the same snakelike shape. So, even though his enemies are repeatedly attacking him from all sides, he manages to evade them while striking both punches and flames at them, slowing them down if not seriously damaging them. Until Caelum manages to slip past his limbs and teeth, using one of her twisters as camouflage.

Staying in your blind spot, she sinks her claws into your back before you’ve had a chance to notice her, and aside from the fact that having your skin ripped open is always terribly painful, it seems that the black oily stuff which covers them all is also either poisonous or acidic when it enters your blood. Because holy fuck, does it sting. You’re already laying down as flat over the base of the dragon’s neck as you can manage, but the sharp, lasting pain makes you lose your grip just as Oberyn turns sharply to the left.

“Kaivalya!” you hear a thunderous roar exclaim while you’re falling through the air, which confuses you.

He can’t speak. Not as himself or as Tyrannus, his mouth and throat are incapable of forming words, so how did that just happen?

It doesn’t matter much anymore when you realize you’re falling much further than what should be ground level, which must mean you’re careering into one of the many crevasses Ursa’s made in her attempts to unbalance the dragon. Your front is facing up, so you can see the darkened sky as you continue to fall, until you drop far enough that the edges of the abyss come into view, crawling with roots and other malicious things, feeding off the conflict and the violence above.

Then suddenly, a bright white tail is breaking through the increasing darkness around you. It effortlessly breaks through the meager defenses put up by the wormlike appendages of this evil Earth, reaching you with such speed and forcefulness that it sends you hurtling upwards instead, as though you were a tennis ball and his tail the racket. And once you’re back above ground, easily reaching a thousand feet height at the crescent before you begin to fall back down, all three of the flying spirits are converging on you.

A twister forms right beside you, sucking you in and then spitting you out even higher up, before Vespertilio sends a cloud of absolute darkness around you. You know you’re far enough up that Oberyn has to fly to reach you, and if he was, his wings would create a thunderous sound as they beat against the air and the atmosphere, and you can’t hear anything like that. But you can hear the rapid, strained flaps of the bat’s wings as it struggles to get to you.

The darkness is so thick you can’t see your hands in front of your face, but you can feel that you’re once again falling and without seeing, you have no way of knowing how long it’ll take before you hit the ground. Can you survive a broken neck? You don’t know. Just like you don’t know what happens if you get torn to pieces by the spirits. You might simply revert to your spirit form, but then that would likely make you corruptible again. And maybe that’s exactly what Simon is after. Maybe all this is just about darkening you, because if he can do that, then there won’t be any more hope for the world.

A sound reaches you from somewhere below, and then a strong huff of warm air disperses the cloud underneath you, letting you see that you’re still hundreds of feet from the ground. But you also see a pair of bright blue eyes, which then quickly disappear from your view when the largest jaws ever to exist on this planet are opened wide, right beneath you.

“Trust me,” the same rumbling voice as before sounds, even though his mouth hasn’t moved.

But it’s him. Either inside your head or somehow speaking to you through the ether, but you know without a doubt it’s your Oberyn. And you do trust him. Which is why you let yourself fall forwards, straightening your arms out in front of you, turning your body into a spear so you’ll fall quicker. It’s not without fear you pass his rows of giant teeth, falling paralleled to his tongue and heading right for his throat, held perfectly straight to facilitate your journey into his stomach, but he must have a plan.

He closes his jaws in the same moment you reach the bottom of his mouth, and everything becomes pitch black. You can feel your body continue to fall, even as the walls of his throat begin to close around you, slowing your descent surprisingly gently. And before you know it, you’re at the bottom. Although, it’s not how you might’ve imagined a dragon’s stomach might look, if you’d ever had the crazy idea to imagine being swallowed by one.

There’s no fluid in there at all, to help break down your components and extract the nutrients from your body. And it’s anything but dark. Just like with humans, his stomach sits adjacent to his lungs, so when the fire is sparked, his entire torso is lit up internally. You can only see the shine, nothing of what else is actually inside of him, but it’s kinda beautiful.

There’s an intricate and very symmetrical network of veins within the lining of the stomach, and when the fire illuminates them, the heat within his blood makes them glow. And yet, the temperature inside remains unchanged. Probably around forty degrees Celsius, feverishly warm for a human, which is how Oberyn has always seemed to you. However, the sounds he makes are even louder in here, so when he suddenly roars, you’re instantly on your knees and doing your best to cover your ears, hoping your eardrums haven’t already burst.

“Stop!” you try to yell when it never seems to end, but you can’t even hear yourself over the deafening vibrations.

Apparently though, he can, because he immediately goes quiet, and then that deep voice finds you again.

“Are you alright, my lady?”

You must be hearing him inside your mind somehow, because even if you haven’t already gone deaf, your ears can’t possibly have recovered enough for you to hear normally yet.

“No!” you half-shriek, confirming at least partial damage to your auditory system because you can hardly hear your own voice. “Keep it down, you just blew my ears out!”

“Oh… My apologies. In my defense, I have never done this before.”

“No shit…”

-=<>=-=<>=-=<>=-

He knows you will be safe within him as this much older dragon ate only stone and magma to support his being when there was no other life on this world yet. It has no means of digesting human tissues and bones, nor the need for it. From the beginning of this battle, the spirits have aimed almost exclusively at you, leading him to the conclusion that Simon has no interest in him, merely in acquiring the last free spirit and completing the Darkling curse.

If this happens, the entire planet will become as the North American continent in a matter of minutes. All of it consumed by death, darkness and despair, with no hope or end in sight. And without Lux to bring back the sun, it will likely remain so for thousands of years. Tyrannus is too powerful even for all of them combined to vanquish, but Oberyn is equally unable to annihilate Simon while the spirits fight for him, so until the two of you can discover how to liberate The Decem from the dark one’s sickening grasp, the best he can do is keep you safe.

Gambling on the notion that these debased beings all seem unwilling to stray too far away from the group, he remains airborne after swallowing you, intent on leaving the scene as quickly as he can. Of course, Caelum, Vespertilio and Papilio do not approve of this plan, and follow as he departs due east, back towards the coast.

Their perverted powers are thrown recklessly in his path, the desperation to not disappoint their master now the single goal of their altered reality. But their quarry is not only much larger than before. He is also armored with scales so thick not even the pressure and heat of the planet’s core could undo him, leaving their mediocre displays of strength little more than an irritation to his ascent.

His theory about their tendency to remain with the group prove accurate when the three flying spirits veer off and return to the blackened landscape before he’s even left the American continent. This thought, however, offers him no peace. For they are stronger as a group, and the longer they remain so, they will fuel and feed the growing energies of hate and depravity until it eventually transforms them completely.

They are still only darkened versions of their original selves, but if Simon has his claws embedded within them for long enough, he will turn their hearts to stone, and then they shall truly become the monstrosities of men’s most feared nightmares. If this comes to pass, they will never again be returned to their former glory, no matter how much light you might shine upon them. And without them, the world will never truly recover.

He heads northeast across the Atlantic, flying fast and very high now that you are travelling safely hidden from the extreme temperatures and lack of oxygen. The sky is remarkably clear once he leaves the ashes and unnatural darkness of America behind, and he wishes that you could see the beauty of the world from the thermosphere, nine kilometers above the surface. As Lux, you probably have, but as a human, you never could.

And there is something truly beautiful within such fragility.

It doesn’t take long once he returns to the more familiar troposphere, before he is joined by yet more man-made flying machines, although this time, they wisely keep their distance and merely follow his journey, rather than attempt another confrontation. Oberyn is glad for this, because aside from the fact that he does not wish to harm them, they may also become most important to the survival of the world, as even their relatively small firepower could prove crucial within the larger picture of this war.

So, he makes no attempt to frighten them, flying calmly even as they dare a closer look. Despite their oxygen masks, he can see their eyes quite clearly, and when one of the pilots pulls up alongside him, he can see how she tries to measure him from nose-tip to tail-end, raising her eyebrows in disbelief at whatever number she settles on. He estimates roughly five hundred yards himself.

These are British RAF fighters, which must mean that word of his existence has spread since his latest encounter with such crafts. Although, they all probably think there are two dragons at this point, as there is little resemblance between Tyrannus and his comparably puny longtime green alter ego.

Whatever they believe is irrelevant. So long as he must not fight both humans and dark souls the world’s armies may create their own explanations for his presence. He requires only that they act to protect their lands, as even a small grenade lobbed at the spreading weeds of death will slow their advancement somewhat. For now, the darkness is contained on the North American continent, unable to spread further until the air and the oceans have also been sufficiently infected. But it is only a matter of time.

As he crosses over the British Isles, a warm updraft fills his wings, allowing him to soar effortlessly. Which is good since just one flap of his enormous wings will displace enough air to potentially create massive wind-shifts on the ground below. The warm air sits lower in the atmosphere, however, leaving him quite visible to anyone who happens to look high enough, and given the sudden changes in the sounds he can hear from down there, at least some people do spot him.

To that end, the fighter planes are no help, as their noisy engines easily draw people’s eyes upwards, but again, this is largely irrelevant. Unless the two of you can discover how to defeat Simon, these people will know of worse things than dragons soon enough. Dodging numerous commercial jets at various altitudes as he crosses directly above Manchester, Oberyn then leaves Great Britain behind, heading for the quieter skies of the Nordic countries.

The RAF apparently are not cleared to continue following him into Norwegian airspace, veering off well before he crosses over land again. For a moment, he amuses himself by imagining the communication between these pilots and Norwegian air traffic control, because he could picture how it must have sounded if they requested permission to continue following a dragon into Norway’s domain.

Once certain he is alone, he finds a nice large mountaintop with a solid flat surface and sets down as gently as he can to avoid kicking off a rockslide. You have been quiet since he accidentally broke your eardrums, and he hopes you will have healed already, but he worries that the injury might have nothing to do with your lack of interaction.

“Valya?” he prods, keeping his volume low, and he can feel how you begin to move inside of him.

“Yeah?” you reply, and you sound mostly tired.

“We are safe for now. Would you like to come out?”

“That depends… Would I be going back up, or continuing further down?”

“Up, of course, my dear.”

“Okay, just tell me what to do,” you sigh, but it is clear from your tone that you were only asking about the direction as a way of relieving tension.

“I would prefer not to regurgitate you, but if I lay my head down and keep my body standing, you should be able to crawl out on your own.”

“Alright, give it a try.”

He does as he has suggested, and then experience the peculiar sensation of what a human might compare to an ant trying to crawl out of their throat. It tickles, but not enough to cause him discomfort, and before long he can feel your footsteps pattering over his tongue and then climbing past the row of teeth on his lower jaw, before a muted thud lets him know you have hit the ground. Closing his mouth and raising his head enough that he can see the ground directly before him, he finds you brushing snow off your pants, and you appear unharmed.

“How are your ears?” he asks, and you stop moving to meet his eyes.

“Better. But how am I hearing you? Is this some kind of telepathy?”

“No, not quite. As I understand it, this is only possible between the two of us, and only because of the unique bond we now share.”

“Right. Which bond, though? I can think of at least two.”

“Love and Tyrannus?” he guesses, to which you nod, so he elaborates. “All these years, you’ve carried the white dragon within you, unknowingly becoming one with it, so familiar with its energy that you didn’t even realize it when you began to feed it to me. Because to your heart, there is no distinction. We are the beings you love, and we love you equally.”

“Do you feel different? I mean, like there’s two of you in there?”

“Tyrannus has not been alive for eons. He is only energy now. But I do feel some things so deeply engraved into his soul they cannot be erased. His anger… and his hope. Mere echoes now, and yet, so undeniably clear. He was truly mighty.”

“So are you, Oberyn,” you say softly, smiling slightly as you admire his new form, before you seem to will yourself to return to darker matters. “Unfortunately, we have less pleasant things to talk about, starting with where we are.”

“I believe it’s called the Scandes. The mountain range between Norway and Sweden.”

“Okay. And why are we here?”

“Because we need to think, and this place is quiet. This far north there’s hardly any air traffic and aside from the occasional hiker, not a lot of people. This time of year, it is a bit cold, but nothing I cannot shield you from. I have wandered these hills and mountains many times in my life, and they have always helped to soothe my worries.”

“I believe you. I feel calmer already. And it does seem prudent to steer clear of the States until we at least have a plan.”

You cross your arms over your waist but then remember that you are still wearing the same torn clothes as before, and this seems to deflate your energy somehow.

“So, can you still change back, or will all that,” you gesture to his general enormity, “not fit within the human form anymore?”

“It will. Although I am hesitant to leave us so vulnerable. My human form is still the weakest part of me.”

“And who’s gonna come after us here?”

“It is the threats one doesn’t see coming that are the most dangerous. But I see your point.”

Strangely, it feels exactly the same to return to this shape despite the extreme change he has undergone. The dragon folds away as fluently and easily as it always has. But it does throw him for a moment, to suddenly lose the higher perspective, and he hadn’t considered just how much better Tyrannus’ senses are. He feels almost blind at first, even though his own senses are still far superior to ordinary humans.

“Are you alright?” you ask, noticing his disorientation.

“Yes. Just slightly jarred. The difference in size is a bit befuddling at first.”

“I’m sure it is, but at least I can hug you now,” you say while closing the distance between you and wrapping your arms around him in a firm embrace.

“Oh, I have missed this,” he admits while he mirrors you, breathing in your scent once more and relishing in the feeling of your body pressed against his.

In that regard, there is no comparison. Nothing ever feels as good as your skin against his own, no matter how incredible the dragon’s senses are.

“It’s hard to believe it was still just this morning that we woke up together in your bed. I mean, we’ve been jumping between time zones, so the actual hours might be more, but it’s still the same date.”

“Indeed. How strange that everything seemed so simple then,” he observes, recalling the hours he spent watching you sleep, thinking of nothing but you and how you make him feel.

His entire world had fit into that bed in those precious, serene hours.

“Fucking Simon…” you growl after a minute, pulling away from him as your stress once again increases. “I can’t believe he manipulated all the spirits. I mean, I know they’re emotionally driven, but aren’t they supposed to have better instincts than to be fooled by a Darkling?”

“Well, no, actually,” he replies simply, to which you seem quite perplexed, so he continues. “The only way for any spirit to discern the presence of a Darkling is by the effect it has on the world. To find the being itself, only its capacity to see and interact with them is what provides them a definitive answer. They can immediately sense if darkness is tainting the world, and where, but they rely on evil to reveal itself, as it always does.”

“Wait… that would mean Simon must’ve understood more about them from the start than any other dark one before him, to let him use their blind spots against them like that. But I don’t get it. He said he’d been practicing, using his powers, honing them for a long time. How could he do that without them reacting to it, at some point?”

“How he knew about his powers I cannot fathom. No Darkling is born with this understanding. However, if he discovered a way to use them without allowing them to infect anything, then it is possible The Decem were unable to detect it.”

“Not even Caelum? She can’t just sense darkness in the air somehow?” you wonder, getting frustrated enough to start pacing around him, but remaining close since his warmth is all that shields you from the Nordic winter chill.

“No. Only if that power manages to dilute the air, as it now has over the American continent,” he answers, and you throw your arms out to the sides in a gesture which he interprets to be burgeoning anger at Simon’s apparent advantages.

He understands your feelings, especially since you cannot recall any of the details surrounding the spirits and their capabilities, but unfortunately, your foe is the very worst this world has to offer. As much as he wishes to shield you, he must also make sure you realize exactly what it is you are up against.

“I don’t know if you noticed, but the clouds there are no longer clouds, just dead spores and ashes, remnants of nature now reduced to particles of death. And once he gathers enough of them, he can send those clouds across the seas to infect other parts of the world. In time, his evil will turn all oceans into vast fields of mud and oil, impossible to travel over or through, filled with the same mutated monstrosities we saw over there. And eventually, the air will be so thick with these ashes that no sunlight will reach us anymore, at which point… salvation will no longer be possible.”

You stop pacing then, once more wrapping your arms around yourself as if the winds have sent a chill through you, despite the heat he radiates towards you. There is fear in your eyes as you are probably imagining the world his words are painting for you, but you bite it back, determined to find a solution.

“So, what can we do? How do we stop him? Because I doubt we can save the spirits without first freeing them from his darkness.”

“You are correct. Only the destruction of the Darkling will end his reign. Unfortunately, aside from the spirits, I know of nothing which can kill him,” he admits, but you are undeterred by this.

“You were there when they killed the last one, right?” you recall, to which he merely nods since he can guess where you are going with this. “So, how did they do it?”

Oberyn has avoided visiting the details of this memory for a very long time, but you are right to ask this question, as even though the spirits are not going to be able to help you this time, their methods might reveal some useful information.

“It happened nearly four millennia ago. He was a simple farmer, a good man by all accounts. Until a conflict in their settlement broke out and his wife and two children became the victims of circumstance.”

“The Darkling had a family?” you skeptically question.

“Unlike Simon, they are usually unaware of the evil within until something happens to them which is so painful that their souls are torn apart. This unleashes the darkness and forever destroys the person they once were. This man went from a loving husband and father to a vicious beast, holding nothing back and sparing no one from his rage. He turned the lands upon which he had lived from a jungle teeming with life, into a pit of death into which countless thousands of people and animals were pulled and tortured to death. He had no wish to corrupt them or turn them into evil beings, he merely wished for all things to die as painfully as anything can. Today, the place is known as the Lonar crater of southern India, but it was neither made by a meteor strike, nor as long ago as science estimates.”

“His evil created a crater?”

“When living things rooted to the ground are tainted with darkness, they spread it through the bedrock in search of other things to infect, which can lead to the collapse of entire mountains, given enough time.”

“How much time?” you ask, and he can see in your eyes that you are worried about how long it might take before Simon’s evil will create eternal scars upon the Earth.

“This Darkling reigned for three centuries before The Decem was able to stop him. And at that point, the entire European, Asian and African continents were covered in darkness.”

He gives you a minute with that, because it seems to affect you most severely, but the story is not yet over.

“I had no intention of joining the fight, as I could simply fly away from it, not wanting to realize that as it continued to spread, there would eventually be nowhere left to go. But in the end, it was not the understanding that the world was ending which convinced me to go back, but simply the thought that I would not be the worst monster among such things. That in their midst, I might actually appear… beautiful.”

You step closer to him then, unfolding your arms to place a gentle hand over his cheek. A silent reminder of how you see him, regardless of his form, and he takes a moment to lean into your touch.

“I was late to the party, however,” he continues then. “For a mere fortnight I battled the darkened vegetation at the heart of its outbreak, trying to carve a path to the man responsible, unaware that I was closely monitored by the spirits. At this point, only four of them had avoided getting caught by the darkness. Ursa, Papilio, Cervus and Equus.”

“The elements,” you observe. “Are they somehow stronger than the others?”

“Not stronger, but perhaps more resilient against corruption. Although, I don’t know why. In any case, my efforts eventually led them to the Darkling, and once they had access to him, he never stood a chance. He couldn’t see them coming, so when they all charged him together, he was immediately overpowered. Ursa impaled him with her icicles, and then each of them took one limb and one direction, pulling him apart, not at the joints, but at the weakened area at the center of his chest where the spears of ice had already broken his spine and sternum.”

“And that was it?”

“No, he was still alive afterwards, bleeding black goop into the soil which seemed to superpower the mutated vegetation. Roots the size of redwoods erupted from the ground, all aiming for the spirits, because so long as he was still alive, the Darkling could reassemble himself. But the elementals knew better. They had already abandoned the severed pieces, locating his heart instead. Not a lump of red flesh, but rather a small grey stone covered in coiled up vines.”

“So, his heart has to be destroyed before he’ll ever really be dead? How predictable.”

“Indeed. Had Scarabaeus been able to, she would’ve been the one to do it by simply passing through the stone, turning solid in the middle of it. But as she was already dead, Equus was the one who delivered the final blow,” Oberyn finishes, recalling the quaking bedrock in the aftermath of the horse’s powerful stomp.

He closes his eyes for a few seconds then, hoping you have not detected the sorrow which plagues him at the memory, for he knows not how to explain it. As much as he wishes to ensure you will be well informed of all aspects of your foe, he is leaving out one detail of this gruesome story. Which is that the man, the grieving human, had reemerged once his body had been broken and the darkness within him begun to pour out. In those final moments before his life had truly been ended, he was just a devastated father, as tortured and tormented as those whom he had killed.

Simon might be different, but he was not born with malicious intent. At some point, something must have happened to him to make him aware of his own darkness, and rather than fear it, he chose to embrace it. But before this, he was likely a normal human boy, with normal human feelings. Which means if you succeed in stopping him, he might revert to that being in the moments before his end, and if this should happen, you will be forced to watch that boy die in agony.

“Okay, dumb question maybe, but it still needs to be asked,” you sigh, while attempting to massage your own neck. “Can’t we just drop a small mountain on top of him, then? I mean, if all we need to do is crack his dead heart to pieces.”

“Unfortunately, that won’t work, because even if his body is damaged, he can heal it so long as his heart is intact.”

“And, let me guess: because it’s made of stone, the vines around it are enough to make it nearly indestructible from the outside?”

You read the answer in his eyes without him even changing his expression, and you let your head hang low for a minute while you try to think.

“You said that the other Darkling couldn’t detect the spirits. Is the same true for Simon?”

“Yes. But since you’re human, he will be able to detect you.”

“God damned it. Can’t we just catch one fucking break!” you end on a scream, turned away from him, sending your voice out over the mountain range where it echoes around for much longer than your ears can hear.

He steps closer and wraps his arms around your waist from behind, feeling you relax into his chest almost as if unaware of it yourself.

“How do we stand a chance without the spirits?” you ask, and in your voice, he can hear such pain.

Not for fear that you will suffer, if he knows you as well as he believes to, but for fear of how much the world will suffer in each moment you stand idle, unable to act because of the staggering lack of options.

“As Oberyn, I was able to carve a path for them through the death-lands. As Tyrannus, I am certain I can do the same for you, however powerful our foe might be. The question we face is not how to reach him, but how to get close enough to rip his heart out when he is protected by the mighty nine.”

For a long while, you stand silent within his embrace, although he feels certain he might be able to hear how hard you are thinking if he should focus well enough. Then, something moves through you. He can feel it, not because you actually move, but through a sudden and very distinct shift in your energy. No longer somber and despondent, you whirl around and take his hands, abruptly confident, as you appear to have uncovered something workable.

“I might be human, but I’m also light itself. And if there’s any reason I can think of to keep me separate from the other spirits, it must be because I’m their protector. My place in all this isn’t to fight the Darkling, it’s just to save them. That’s my purpose,” you animatedly explain, your eyes alight with understanding, while he remains uncertain.

“But… how can you? They are no longer spirits at all; their very essences have been destroyed.”

“No, I don’t believe that. Because if it was true, their mystical powers would’ve disappeared completely, but they haven’t, they’re just corrupted. I can bring them back, Oberyn. Don’t you see? My light heals me because that’s what it was always meant to do: heal spirits.”

Suddenly your confidence becomes infectious, as he realizes how much this all sounds true and right. There must be a reason for your detachment to the others, a reason behind the fact that not even the protectors of this world can recognize you, and this might well be it. But his hope is still stunted by one stubbornly persistent problem.

“Alright. Then I suppose all you need to do is figure out how to use it,” he says, and sees the optimism disappear from your frame as if an arctic wind has swept by and stolen it.

He takes a deep breath to re-center himself, reaching the conclusion that none of this is going to be solved right here and now. The world suffers while solutions evade you, but there is nothing to be done about that. If you rush in without a plan, one that actually has a fighting chance, you may well doom the earth to eternal darkness.

“Come, my love. You need new clothes, food and a night’s rest. There’s a village close by; we will go there to recover for now.”

You are not happy with this suggestion. He can see protests wanting to escape your mouth in the way you repeatedly search for the right words to voice your complaints. But in the end, you find none, allowing his reasoning to stand unchallenged. Backing away, he brings forth the ancient beast, once again slightly offset by the extreme shifts in perspectives and sensory input. You look so small as he offers you his front paw and then lifts you up to his shoulder.

Not wanting to scare people with a dramatic entrance, he decides to walk down the mountain, surprisingly well camouflaged against the snow and protruding rocks in the dark. But this does not prevent him from being spotted by a couple apparently living on the damned mountainside, where no one should have been able to build anything. Slightly shocked to suddenly hear voices beneath him, he stops, finding their house perched on an outcrop, seemingly without any road or lift leading up to it. How do they even get to the village for supplies?

They are understandably equally shocked to see him, merely standing paralyzed as he observes them for a few moments.

“Norwegians are unusual people,” he says to you in his mind, to which you chuckle.

“The Vikings wouldn’t have been nearly as successful in their conquests if they’d allowed terrain to stand in their way.”

He does not argue this point, as he has seen Vikings for himself and knows firsthand just how hardy and resilient they were. You are still several miles from the village at this point, so the couple will likely not cause any widespread panic. He leaves their home untouched, walking carefully past it so as not to trigger any avalanches, and when he reaches the little town down by the fjord, it looks perfectly calm and still.

Creeping as close as he dares, he doesn’t change back until he is just a few hundred yards from the closest houses, to keep the distance you will have to walk as short as possible since it takes so much more time. But no one seems to notice. It’s late, but the tourist center should still be open, and they often have emergency supplies for unfortunate travelers, such as clothes, in the event someone’s luggage is lost, and stores are closed. It is easy to find, sporting large flags on top of the single-story building, and it is still open.

“Hei, vhordan kan jeg hjelpe deg?” a tall blonde woman behind the reception greets when you approach her desk.

“Hi, we’re American,” you start, and the woman immediately repeats her greeting in English, which you politely thank her for before continuing. “As you can see, I’m in dire need of some new clothes. You wouldn’t happen to have some sweaters and jackets for sale, would you?”

“Certainly, follow me and I’ll show you where,” the receptionist smiles while getting up to assist you. “May I ask what happened?”

“Oh, that’s a long story and I’m very tired. Do you know if any hotel in town might have a room available?”

“There’s only one hotel here, but last I heard they weren’t fully booked for this week. It’s easy to find, just head down to the water and follow the road, you’ll see the signs.”

“Thank you,” you reply as you arrive in the gift shop area of the center, where there is an entire section devoted to equipping both humans and common pets to survive arctic weather.

You know your size and pick a thinner sweater along with a thicker jacket, to give you more options based on where in the world you and Oberyn might end up next. But as you are beginning to move back towards the receptionist’s desk, where the items must be paid, you lean closer to him and whisper.

“Uh, I’m assuming you have some way of paying for this, because I don’t.”

“Not to worry, darling. I never go anywhere without this,” he says, while pulling out a blank card from a concealed pocket in the side of his coat.

It connects to a bank account in the name of one Christopher Wilkins, who does not exist except on paper, but has a few million dollars all the same. Oberyn has twenty of these identities, all of which have similar accounts at dozens of different banks around the world, which all together adds up to over one billion dollars. He offers the card for payment and the purchase goes through without difficulty. You get changed in the bathroom before you leave the tourist center, walking towards the hotel hand in hand, when northern lights suddenly appear above you.

“Are you doing this, Valya?” he asks with a smile, knowing he is probably wrong but wanting to believe it could be true.

“If I am, it’s not by choice,” you sigh, looking up at the dancing green spectacle with awe. “I wish it were, though.”

The hotel is as easy to locate as the receptionist suggested, and you arrive to find the doors open despite the clock on the wall next to it reading nearly 11 pm. Only half of the thirty rooms are occupied, so he pays for a night in a larger suite even though the two of you do not require so much space. He just wants you to be comfortable, and the suite has a bathtub, which he feels might be needed to get you to relax.

The hotel uses old-fashioned keys for the rooms, so once inside, he drops them into a plastic bowl on a sideboard in the hall, and then immediately begins to work on the buttons of his coat. You hang up your new jacket, kick off your snowy wet boots, and head straight for the double bed to lay down.

“I feel like I could sleep for a week. But you’re probably not even tired.”

“Not like you, but I could do with a few hours. Adjusting to Tyrannus has taken a bit more effort than my usual transformation. Plus, we don’t know when we might get the chance to rest again.”

Shrugging off the coat, he hangs it up in the hallway closet and sits down on a stool helpfully placed beside the closet, to unlace his shoes.

“And what about food?” you inquire, turning your head towards him as you have undoubtedly not forgotten the green dragon’s appetite and likely draw the conclusion that the much larger white one must require much more.

“Strange though it may seem, aside from a rather unusual craving for pistachios, both my alter ego and I are perfectly fine,” he explains, momentarily wondering if the hotel restaurant might be open, and if he should go in search of some nuts.

However, once the moment passes, he feels only confused by his own hankering.

“But you haven’t eaten anything all day, and you’ve been fighting a lot.”

“Actually, I did eat some unfortunate bystanders in Detroit,” he recalls, which prompts you to sit up on the edge of the bed.

“Detroit was horrible. In every way. All those emergency responders… they died horrifically, and I just stood there,” you remember, and tears form in your eyes at the images which must be burning the insides of them. “I couldn’t do anything.”

“No, you could not have helped them. Those creatures may have been alone, untethered to the greater darkness, but that is also what made them so erratic and unpredictable, though still just as deadly.”

“Yeah…” you agree, turning your gaze down to your own hands, but then something seems to occur to you, as a crease bothers your brows. “But I made one of them stop.”

This surprises Oberyn, who is just about to stand having finished with his shoes, and instead remain still as he waits for you to elaborate.

“I yelled at it to stop, and it did. Just for a moment, and right before you came barreling onto the same street, but it stopped. And it looked angry about it.”

“As if it had been halted against its will?”

“That’s what it felt like, but I can’t be sure. Do you think I could’ve managed to command it somehow? Is that something Lux could do?”

“Possibly. The true power of Day is her ability to spread hope. If you were desperate enough, it is conceivable that you could have forced this creature to stop by using the sunlight as a physical barrier.”

“I can do that?”

“I should think so. You created an entire human being with it, I’d say you could definitely stop one little monster if you set your mind to it,” he winks at you, before getting up and moving towards the bathroom.

“If only I knew how the hell I do these things,” you say as he disappears into the tiled space and turns on the tap for the tub.

“You’ll figure it out, I have no doubts about that,” he replies while checking the temperature of the water, returning to the bedroom before he continues. “On a more positive note, the innocents I killed in Detroit will be the last innocents ever to fall victim to my beast. Nothing like that will ever happen again, because this dragon doesn’t need food of any kind.”

You have your head resting in your hands when he emerges from the bathroom, but you straighten out as you hear his words, and quietly trace his path over to the bed where he takes a seat beside you.

“Really? How can you be certain? You’ve only had it in you for a few hours.”

“Did you not notice the complete lack of stomach acid in there.”

“I did, but I figured maybe you had another stomach somewhere and I just wasn’t far enough through the system to be at any risk of digestion.”

“No there’s only one stomach, but this dragon stopped eating long before Lux changed him. And even when he did eat, it was at a time before organic life had evolved into actual creatures, so he fed only on magma and rocks. It’s what made him grow to such a size and develop those incredibly thick scales.”

“Yeah, I’ll bet. Who needs protein when you’ve got minerals.”

He smiles at you then, even though you are not trying to be amusing, delivering the phrase with sarcasm rather than joviality. You are too tired to enjoy yourself now, so instead of contesting your mildly snarky attitude, he sweeps you off the bed and into his arms in a swift and soft movement, returning to the bathroom where he puts you down in front of the just filled up tub.

“Are you trying to tell me I’m dirty without using any words?” you ask, still presenting the same general irritation, which is why he merely continues to smile warmly while he undresses you.

It takes only minutes for the hot water to begin relaxing you, while Oberyn gently helps you wash your back and shoulders, then your feet, before leaving you to just soak and warm your battered muscles while he steps over to the shower and rinses himself off. He is surprised to find that he has neglected to notice you leaving the tub, when your hands are suddenly returning the favor, rubbing liquid soap into his back. But he loves the feeling, having never experienced such care from a partner before, and remains still to let you work.

Before long, you are both clean from head to toe, which is when the caring touches change character, becoming craving instead. He brings you back to the bed without bothering to grab a towel on the way, abruptly needing you so badly he cannot wait long enough even for you to squeeze the bulk of the water from your hair.

Last night had been soft and tender, but when he enters you tonight, it is with fervency, perhaps even a streak of frenzy, giving you hardly any time to adjust before he is already working up a strong rhythm with firm snaps of his hips, making you jolt with each one. He feels strangely uncontrolled. Fully aware that such treatment could hurt you, but utterly unable to stop himself. Something drives his body which is not so simple a thing as lust. There is a deeper purpose at work, one he cannot discern, but remains a slave to for now.

You seem only pleased with him, though, showing no indication of distress or discomfort, meeting his forceful movements with an equally firm resistance, as if under the same spell he is. The need drives him so relentlessly that he reaches his peak in mere minutes, coming hard within the depths of your being, where he is so warmly received. But you do not follow.

As he stills above you, your body remains unsatisfied, which gives him a sickly feeling to his stomach, because however much he seeks his own pleasure, yours is the real price. But this entire copulation has felt off, which intensifies his disappointment with himself, so when he pulls back, seeking your eyes so that he might beg your forgiveness, he is more than ashamed of himself. He feels rotten.

The feeling leaps away, however, when shock takes its place as he sees your face. Your eyes are frozen, staring at nothing, and the tension in your body has given way to complete relaxation. Too complete.

“Valya?” he whispers, unable to bring any strength to his voice because what he sees within your eyes now is not life.

“Lux?” he tries, even weaker now, hoping merely your human form is lost to him, while the spirit remains.

Your own alter ego taking over, much as the dragon has done to him in the past. But there is no response from you. No breath. No pulse.

-=<>=-=<>=-=<>=-

You feel wonderful. Even when he pounds into you, all you experience is pleasure, wanting more no matter how good he makes you feel. The pressure builds and shifts, flowing through you at different intensities depending on your breaths, which muscles are tense and which nerves are most directly affected. It feels like flying through clouds of pure pleasure, devoid of thoughts or intentions.

And then it just… stops. You feel how he comes, and you’re just one moment away from following up with the best orgasm of your life when everything suddenly goes quiet and still. Not just around you, but in you. No more pleasure, no more heat or sweat or even the cold sensation of the sticky fabric underneath your head, drenched by the water from your hair.

Opening your eyes, you find yourself elsewhere. There’s no Oberyn, no bed, no hotel room. You’re not even sure there’s an Earth. But there is a presence. Nothing around you is identifiable, the best you can come up with is that it looks like something Jackson Pollock might’ve painted if someone had asked him what life on a gas-giant might look like. And yet, something here is familiar.

It’s neither light nor dark, and at the same time it’s both, but it’s almost like your eyes and brain aren’t designed to interpret what they’re seeing, so all you get is a colorful mess with the appearance of a flashlight slowly spinning around in the middle of it. Then you seem to blink, and suddenly you’re staring at yourself, as if there was a mirror in front of you. Only your reflection doesn’t move with you.

“Hello?” you try to say, but no sound comes out, leaving you wondering if you even have a mouth here.

That’s when you realize you aren’t breathing either, so wherever you are, this is a place outside of normal space. You wonder if it could be some form of heaven, although you don’t believe in that, but it also doesn’t seem like it would be. No, in your heart you know this is something else. Important to you, specifically.

Your reflection doesn’t move, but you feel certain it holds answers for you, so you try walking towards it. Your legs don’t seem to move at all, but you still glide closer to the other you, so perhaps all you need to do is think of the movement. When you get closer, her chest starts to glow, as if there’s a shining gem halfway between her throat and her breasts. Then she raises her hands to show you how they’ve started shining as well, right in the centers of the palms, getting brighter with each passing moment.

Eventually, the light becomes so bright you can’t see anything anymore, but your eyes remain open, unbothered by the complete whiteness. And that’s when you suddenly understand what this is. Why it happened in the middle of a moment of passion, you have no fucking clue, but given how important it is, you don’t linger on the inexplicable, taking the win instead.

Because you’ve finally found Lux. Somewhere within yourself, she connects you to this other place. Her world. Outside all other aspects of reality, by the looks of it, but clearly also able to interact with everything, everywhere. She made you, but at the same time, she is you, and here in her world, you’re able to see things the way she does. You understand the power of light and the ways in which you can bend it to your will, as if you’d done nothing else your whole life.

And once everything is clear to you, once you’ve unlocked all this knowledge she put in you from the start, the whiteness turns to dark, gravity returns, your lungs expand on reflex as oxygen once again exists, and you open your eyes to find that the darkness was just the insides of your own eyelids.

Surprisingly, though, it isn’t Oberyn’s face you look up at, but rather two very shocked paramedics, who despite their training, freeze when you come to. Apparently, you’ve been “dead” for a while.

“Oh… Well, this is awkward,” you say to try and relieve the tension, and then there’s a loud racket before Oberyn appears beside you, having risen so quickly his chair fell over.

He doesn’t speak, but his eyes scream of the pain he’s suffered in however long a time you’ve been unresponsive, so to ease his worries, you ignore the urgings of the medical staff for you to remain still, and sit up to hug him. He trembles like a leaf in your arms, holding you very tightly, before he reaches down behind you to pull the covers up over your bare shoulders. You hadn’t even reflected on the fact that you’re naked.

“What happened?” he finally asks, his voice sore with how hard he must’ve cried.

But you smile in return, so filled with hope now that not even his sorrow can dampen your spirits.

“You brought me to the light, honey,” you tell him, and his sadness gives way to confusion.

There’s no quick or easy way to explain what you’ve just experienced, so you settle for the most important part, which can’t be seen, only felt. You reach out and place one hand on the shoulder of the paramedic closest to you, locating the darkness in her heart without effort.

“Don’t worry about your father, Nora. He’s not going to hurt himself, he just needs you to stop and listen to his pain,” you say, feeling her father’s agony through the bond of love between them. “You always want to fix everything that hurts, but sometimes pain has a purpose. Let him tell you about it, and I promise you, he will be alright.”

The middle-aged woman looks at you as if you’ve just reached into her heart and given it a good twist, which in truth, you sort of have.

“H-… How do you kn-…?” she tries, but then sorrow rocks through her, stealing her voice.

To answer her, you let the hand at her shoulder channel the light from your own heart, and it glows for just a second as you pour hope into her being. Her sorrow immediately lessens, brightening her eyes and smoothing the tense lines around her mouth. You smile softly at her, and she nods in gratitude, even though she doesn’t understand what’s just happened, before starting to pack up their gear. Her colleague looks like one giant question mark, but apparently decides not to argue.

They leave a minute later, and Oberyn places a hand at your jaw, drawing your gaze back to him.

“I do not pretend to understand anything of what has just transpired here, but… you are ready now. Aren’t you? To fight.”

“I am,” you confirm. “I know what we need to do.”

“Does that mean we’re going back to America?”

“No,” you firmly state, finally without a shred of doubt within you. “It means we’re going everywhere else.”

Part 11

The Ten Spirits of the World Air - Forest - Water - Stone - Night - Autumn - Winter - Spring - Summer.

Thank you so much for reading and I hope you enjoyed it! If you wish to be notified when this story is updated, follow @sirowsky-stories and turn on notifications, or just ask nicely, and I'll tag you.

@harriedandharassed @kittenlittle24 @joelswritingmistress @pedrostories

#oberyn martell fanfiction #oberyn martell x female reader #oberyn x reader #prince oberyn #au fic #game of thrones fanfiction #game of thrones au #modern au #pedro pascal characters #pedro pascal character fanfiction #halloween writing #halloween fic #spooky season fic #sirowsky stories

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starsandhughes · 1 year

Text

Penalty Box— Quinn Hughes Edition (Part Twenty-One)

SERIES MASTERLIST

previous: twenty

if you saw the premature posted version of this… no you didn’t! welcome to the final game edition of penalty box! thank you for loving and supporting this series! it would not have evolved into this (47 penalty box chapters plus bonus chapters and now imagines! wow!) without any of you! i got some surprises coming soon! i hope you enjoy it!

THURSDAY, APRIL 13, 2023

yourusername

liked _quinnhughes, colemcward, and 18,486 others

yourusername welcome to my final 2022-2023 season postgame penalty box update show: quinn hughes edition! tonight, my best friend ended his season strong with a penalty! for what? stick holding! this beautiful dum dum held somebody else’s stick during his 25:54 minutes of ice time! goodness gracious great balls of fire that’s a very funny penalty. hockey has playground rules, people! hands to yourself! there was actually eleven penalties during this game, and two of them brought us power play goals! p.s. shoutout to my fav canuck (sorry bestie & co.) petey for getting the opening goal! i love you!!

to the team, this game was a beautiful way to cap off the season. i’m so sorry you all didn’t get the ending you wanted, but i’m really proud at how hard you all pushed through the hardships that this season brought. you deserved this win tonight, and so much more. thank you all for accepting my unhinged love and affection. and thank you burroughs for getting a fighting major as an end of the season present to me! i love each and every one of you💚

to garly, congratulations on your hat trick tonight!! you won the game for us in overtime, and were truly the star of the show. for those wondering, yes, i gave him a sticker book as a reward and he cherishes it! to my son, cole, you’re kicking butt out there and i can’t wait to see how this summer treats you! love you!

and to quinn, my best friend, an absolute light in my life whom i would do anything for, you worked your ass off this season and i could not be any prouder of you and admire you any more. the second you got that A on your jersey, you immediately stepped into the roll. hearing you be more vocal and outspoken and hearing the praise you receive in interviews has made me the happiest person in the world. you’ve always been a big brother to me, even before i moved in, and now it’s like you’re a big brother to the team. maybe that’s a bad term for it, but it’s the best analogy i’ve got because you’re always going to be the best big brother in the universe! for those wondering, yes, i have given him a giant trophy when were kids for being the best big brother in the universe and he still has it!

i love you, quinn, bigger than life. i can’t wait for that sweet spot in the summer where we can all relax and bask in each other’s company before i sit back and relax and watch you doofs work out! you’re going to do amazing things next season, and i can’t wait to see what i brings for you <3 i love you, bubba!💙

tagged _quinnhughes, colemcward, and canucks

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_quinnhughes can't wait for our yearly tradition of making you work out with me the day before i leave for training camp💙 i love you, too, sissy!

yourusername i can wait for that <3

jackhughes @/yourusername then why do you still do it six years later?

yourusername @/jackhughes because you’re all superstitious dilholes i’ve been cursed to love

_quinnhughes there’s the sissy we know and love!

lhughes_06 @/yourusername be nice, sissy! it’s my first one as an nhl player!

yourusername @/lhughes_06 don’t tell me what to do

trevorzegras THERE’S the sissy we know and love!

yourusername @/trevorzegras try again.

trevorzegras THERE’S the y/n/n we know and love!

user6 this was so cute omg

trevorzegras my post had a play by play of penalties and quinn’s team gets a love letter?

yourusername I WAS AT YOUR GAME AND GAVE MY LOVE LETTER TO YOUR TRAM IN A VERBAL SPEECH

jamie.drysdale it’s true and it was very sweet!

_quinnhughes @/yourusername put him on probation for throwing a fit in my post

yourusername @/trevorzegras sorry babe

trevorzegras this is a public announcement that y/n and quinn are the worst over the summer and i am still traumatized by them

lhughes_06 this is a public announcement that it was worse when we were kids

jackhughes this is a public announcement that me and sissy might’ve been worse

lhughes_06 i take mine back. jack and sissy are menaces.

_quinnhughes i agree

yourusername whoopsy daisy

user15 i cried over garly’s hatty that small bearded man was brilliant out there

colemcward i love you, too, mom! can i join for the before training camp work out tradition?

_quinnhughes if you find yourself in michigan, sure, kiddo!

yourusername whatever you think it is, it’s not

trevorzegras that is very true

colemcward well that’s… off putting

jackhughes that’s kinda our thing

yourusername <3

user57 i’ll be sobbing until preseason and then there will be single tears until the real season

_eliaspettersson i’ll miss you over the summer! and i love you, too, girly hughes!

yourusername i’ll miss you, too, petey! don’t forget to facetime!

_eliaspettersson i won’t!

_quinnhughes please remember because she gets spazzy if she doesn’t get one

_eliaspettersson @_quinnhughes that’s sweet!

_quinnhughes it is not

user55 i’m heartbroken that the season is over, but i’m elated for hughes bros and sissy content!!!

jackhughes i’ll be searching for you two in the stands at playoffs!

_quinnhughes i won’t be sitting with her. she’ll give me away.

yourusername i’ll be wearing my custom lukey moosey and jacky boy jersey and shoving quinn in a devils hat <3

_quinnhughes this is sadly true and my previous statement was a lie

lhughes_06 @_quinnhughes thanks for all the brotherly support ❤️

jackhughes @_quinnhughes might want to remember what that trophy says in your room

_quinnhughes @/jackhughes don’t tell me what to do

user40 we need to address that picture of quinn and cole because cole has the hughes dead eye stare😭

lhughes_06 i have to admit, you did good, shorty

yourusername why? just why? i have to deal with the damage

lhughes_06 how?

yourusername idk buy him boots? maim you?

jackhughes @/yourusername do the second one but after playoffs

yourusername @/jackhughes deal

lhughes_06 MOM! DAD!

trevorzegras @/lhughes_06 i’ve been told to tell you that your parents fled the county

_quinnhughes @/trevorzegras did you mean country?

trevorzegras @_quinnhughes sadly that is not what they said

user81 the hockey gods really gave y/n the greatest night ever with the ducks and canucks

yourusername this is true! i had an amazing night!

_alexturcotte can’t wait to see you this summer, mr. record breaking season!🫡 @_quinnhughes

yourusername come early so we can roll out the red carpet for him!

_quinnhughes @/yourusername i’ll sell you

trevorzegras @_quinnhughes it’s a little late for that

jackhughes @_quinnhughes waayyyy too late

colecaufield sweet y/n alarms me

yourusername all i do is love you!

_quinnhughes she definitely likes you more than the rest of us

colecaufield @_quinnhughes i meant when she’s sweet to you

_quinnhughes oh yeah no that’s fair

_eliaspettersson added this to their story

_quinnhughes added this to their story

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tickletastic · 4 months

Text

Fear Toxin, Love, and Other Sh*tty Drugs

Fandom: DC

Ship: JayRoy

Warnings: canon typical violence, panic attacks (sort of- after effects of fear toxin?)

Summary: Jason and Roy have a rough night out on patrol in Gotham, nothing goes as planned, and an Arkham breakout is just the cherry on top. (not a whole lot of tickling, i got carried away, cross posted to my AO3 bc I planned a second, non-tickly chapter)

The streets of Gotham had not been kind last night.

The previous night started just as expected, a crime syndicate carelessly offloading giant tin shipping containers of the world’s most dangerous weapons, a plan in the works for them to leave them in crime alley, to leave them with the most desperate people in the city and watch Gotham crumble. It was a kid that had tipped Jason off, just some kid with a shitbag dad who thought Jason could save them, thought Jason could save anyone. Jason found out the rest from some of his undercover contacts, who sounded nearly afraid when discussing the kinds of weapons that would soon reach Gotham’s streets.

Jason was now waiting, impatient and annoyed, on the corner of a tall building, waiting for the right time to jump into action. The building used to have some mom and pop restaurant on the main floor, one that Jason would frequent after long nights of patrol, when he couldn’t drag his body any further. Apartments were above, but they had been condemned at some point after the restaurant closed down. Now, Jason has a safehouse set up in one of the old rooms, and, though he’d never admit it, he uses Wayne funds to stock the old restaurant with frozen pizzas, chips, mac n cheese, and other snacks for the kids that wander by, hoping that they’ll find food somewhere like this.

Roy is at his back, eating greasy chips from a tupperware container. Jason had insisted that Roy didn’t need a patrol snack, but, after caving in, he made sure, at least, that the snack wouldn’t be so loud. If it weren’t for Roy, Jason would’ve lunged into the action by now, not caring if the syndicate dealt him a broken leg or a dislocated jaw while he took down enough of them to get the weapons somewhere far from here. Roy had always been the patient one, and he manages to keep Jason’s irritability at a low by talking about some book he wanted to read.

The crimes are cresting, the final load now on Gotham’s dock, a sound of trucks in the distance. Now would be the best time, Roy can see every opportunity laid out in front of him, but then Oracle’s voice is ringing out over the comms, panicked and urgent, announcing that tonight, some random fucking night that was just supposed to involve stopping petty robberies and killing a syndicate boss, was the seemingly biannual Arkham breakout.

Roy and Jason are caught in a heated, whispered debate, Jason thinking they should strike before some goofy D list villain can come interrupt them, but Roy thinks it’s too unpredictable now, that they should return the following week, when Jason knows the syndicate planned to do inventory of their new stash. Jason stands up, Roy grabbing him by the leg of his pants, just as Oracle makes another announcement, the silence between Roy and Jason so tense that it could be broken in half. Roy’s heart started to beat faster, his palms suddenly sweaty where he gripped his bow, the world around them suddenly a cacophony of noise. In spite of the precautions, the two-foot thick concrete walls, and the fucking manual entry external lock system for the cell, he had gotten out too.

Jason tensed, but otherwise showed no emotion towards the situation– no reaction to the fact that the man who killed him is roaming the same Gotham streets that he is. It was always like this when it came to the Joker, Jason always tensed up and pushed people away, claiming he’s okay until the second he’s not.

Bruce had a protocol for this exact situation– Jason would be moved to Star City, or JL Tower, or Central City, or even the Amazons– just as far as Bruce could get him as quickly as possible. Then, Tim would find Bruce, Duke, or Steph, and stick to them like glue. Damian was expected to find Dick and stick by his side, but that was more of a formality of the plan, since Damian was usually glued to Dick’s side on patrol anyways.

Jason had never been aware of the plan, too stubborn to ever leave in the face of danger, too eager to throw himself back into fear. Sometimes, Wally would come, taking Jason back to Dick’s apartment in Bludhaven despite Jason’s displeasure and squirming. Sometimes, it would be Diana, or “Aunt Di,” as the Robins had always called her, and Jason couldn’t help but agree to whatever she asked, still awestruck by her presence. One, it was even Hal and Barry, Barry gushing about having gone back in time and seeing a Shakespeare play at the Globe. Usually, though, it was Roy calling Jason, coaxing him back to Star City by faking some non-emergent emergency or begging for Jason to help Lian with a spelling test. Usually it was Roy, but Roy was in Gotham tonight. Roy was in Gotham and he would have to physically pry Jason from the roof to get him to give up the sting he had been planning, and there would be nothing that would convince him that his life, his sanity, might be more important for the time being.

Nothing except for Oracle’s frantic voice, followed by Nightwing’s– Red Robin hasn’t reported, and nobody’s seen him for at least half an hour, caught up in the noise of the Arkham breakout. They have no clue where he is, and, before Oracle can formulate a plan, or even examine the situation with his non-functioning tracker, Jason is hastily grappling from building to building, searching the database in his helmet for a list of every abandoned warehouse in Gotham.

The communications system is entirely silent, creeping on as each of the bats scramble to understand where Red Robin would have gone, how they had managed to lose track of him for so long. Roy gives panting, out-of-breath updates periodically, telling of the buildings Jason has checked, falling behind as Jason throws himself from rooftop to rooftop.

Oracle’s gasp rings out over the speakers, hollow and practically shouting, “we have CCTV! The car manufacturing place on the East Side, the corner of 2nd and Church– Hood is the closest!”

“No!” Bruce shouts over the comms, the worried ebb in his voice coming out more like Bruce than Batman, “Signal and I are not much further, we’re on our way.”

“Absolutely not, 30 minutes is more than enough time for the clown. I’m not letting another fucking Robin die tonight,” Jason grits, hauling ass towards the building as soon as he can see it, the car company’s logo practically decaying, peeling off the building’s facade.

“Arsenal, do not let Red Hood enter,” Bruce grits over the line, a hardened command, before his voice softens, “please, don’t let him go in.”

Bruce sounds the most scared Roy has ever heard him, and Roy is terrified. He’s desperately trying to keep up with Jason, throwing himself recklessly over the edges of roofs and down rusty fire escapes, but the distance keeps growing.

“Jay, I can’t keep up,” Roy shouts, a desperate tone, almost a plea, “Jason Peter Todd, you better not go in without me, you better fuckin’ not.”

“It’s him or me,” Jason grunts, “it’s him or me, and I’m not letting him kill another fucking kid.”

Jason disappears from Roy’s vision, dropping from the sky, and Roy curses, desperately trying to catch up. When he finally drops from the roofs himself, Jason isn’t there, and the door to the warehouse is wide open, dented where a heavy boot kicked it in. Roy rushes in, zeroing in on the direction of the noises he’s hearing– loud clanging and snotty begging– but there’s another door in the way, another door between him, Jason, Tim, and the monster.

“Fuck- fuck! Jason, let me in!” He screams, throwing his body against the door, desperately trying to make a dent as he bangs and kicks and yells. Over the comms, his own voice, shaky and desperate, shouts to the bats, “he’s in there! He’s fucking in there and I can’t get in, I don’t know what’s happening!”

Roy isn’t calm enough to hear any of the responses, breathing heavily, fighting the encroaching panic. He takes one of his explosive arrows, backing up until he thinks he’ll be able to take the door off its hinges with his shot. He lines it up, shaking in spite of all the practice he’s had, all the years he’s spent protecting himself, protecting Jason. There’s a thick thud heard from the other side of the door, and a staticky buzzing playing out in the building, and Roy sees plumes of smoke seep out from the door’s cracks, he hears maniacal laughter announcing itself, the sound of metal dragging on concrete.

“Jason, if you can hear me, tell me if there’s someone on the other side of this door,” Roy tries to sound commanding, supportive, but his voice is betraying him, hoarse as he shouts, “Jason, I’m going to blow this thing to shreds, I need you to fucking answer me!”

There’s crashing on the other side of the door, noises that sound pained, gasps and shouts and pleas. Roy starts screaming Jason’s name again and again, desperately hoping he has clearance to blow the door to pieces. He finally backs up, aiming again at the rusted, bolted door, when it swings open, Roy hearing the voice over his comms and in person simultaneously.

“We’ve got them,” Nightwing announces, and he emerges with Tim over his shoulder, gas masks on both of their faces. Despite the masks, Tim looks less than conscious, slack where he hangs over his older brother’s shoulder.

“Where the fuck is Jason?” Roy asks, shaky and scared, caught somewhere between vomiting or hyperventilating, “please, Dick, please don’t tell me-”

Bruce emerges, the sweat on his face visible between the cowl and his own air mask, one arm under Jason’s knees and the other under his back. Unlike Tim, Jason’s eyes are wide open, frantic, while he shakes violently in Bruce’s grip, muttering horrified under his breath.

“Why isn’t he wearing a mask? Dick, why isn’t Jason wearing a mask?” Roy shouts, hysterical, “Jason, Jace, are you okay? What the fuck happened?”

When Roy approaches, Jason flinches away with a piercing scream, fighting desperately to get out of Bruce’s grip, seemingly terrified.

“It was fear toxin, Arsenal,” Bruce responds with a grunt, working hard to keep Jason in his grasp, “Jason was given a direct dose, the mask wouldn’t have helped.”

“What the fuck will help? He looks terrified, what is he seeing? What did that fucker do to him? Where the fuck is he?”

Dick takes a second to turn around, having begun making his way to the front door, “Arsenal, the Joker’s dead.”

Roy just gapes, obediently following Bruce and Dick out the door, hoping to god that the bat won’t use this as another opportunity to ice Jason out, hoping the bats have some hidden remedy to Jason’s current paranoia.

The Batmobile awaits them outside when they get out, the Gotham streets feeling quieter than they had when Roy entered, his heart beating in his ears. The Batmobile is small on the best of days, but Roy ends up taking Damian back to the docks and equipping him with enough padding for a skydiving mission, strapping him securely to the back of Jason’s motorcycle before climbing on. Jason would never forgive him if he left the bike in crime alley anyways, knowing a bit too much about crime alley kids and their penchant for stealing expensive tires.

By the time the two are back at the manor, Tim and Jason are in separate medical rooms, Tim out cold, hooked up to machines galore, and Jason fighting with everything left in him to escape the room. He still has the same terrified look in his eyes, and he’s begging, over and over, not to die, crying for help as if he’s back in Ethiopia.

Roy can hear Bruce trying to shush him, saying comforting, paternal things in Jason’s ear in spite of the physical force he’s using to keep Jason in the room. “You’re not there, Jay. You’re home, you’re with your dad.”

In spite of the comfort, Jason keeps thrashing, tears freely streaming down his face. Roy looks on from outside for a moment, scared that he’ll make it all worse for Jason if he tries to intervene.

Roy visibly jumps when a voice sounds from next to him, turning to see Dick, discowled but otherwise still in his costume, his brow furrowed, “we gave him the antidote, but it’s going to take a couple hours. The Joker gave him three times what Scarecrow would have, and strapped the mask to his face so he’d have to breathe it all in.”

“Fuck,” Roy sighs, rubbing over his face with one of his hands, “there’s nothing we can do until then? We can’t just let him go through this.”

Dick sighs, mirroring Roy’s tense expression, “Bruce is trying, I’ve tried, you can give it a shot? Maybe you’ll be able to remind him he’s older than he was back then, that might break the illusion, at least a little bit.”

“Okay, yeah,” Roy says, dropping his hands to his sides, “yeah, I’ll try.”

Dick gives him a reassuring pat on the back before entering the room, dropping his voice to say something hushed to Bruce. Bruce nods, turning to glance at Roy, exhaustion written all over his face. He motions for Roy to enter, and, once he’s sure Roy could hold his own, exits with Dick.

“Hey, Jay,” Roy says, just above a whisper, “Jay, it’s Roy.”

Jason is silent now, entire body shaking violently, entire face painted with terror. He’s got a thousand yard stare, seemingly aware that someone is in the room, but looking past Roy.

“I’m going to come closer, Jason,” Roy announces, stepping towards Jason as if he were some scared animal, because, in some way, he is.

Roy is afraid to touch Jason, afraid that it would trigger him to fight off whatever the hallucinations are making Roy look like. What does he do when Lian’s scared? How does he get her back to sleep when she thinks there’s something lurking in the darkness of the bedroom?

Roy tries to touch Jason as little as possible, maneuvering him so he’s at least close to the edge of the bed. He then rounds the bed to the other side, dropping the weird hospital handle softly so it doesn’t block his way, lying down on one side. He laughs a bit to himself under his breath, trying to shed the shyness from the possibility that one of the other nosy bats could walk in at any time.

Softly, just loud enough to break the room’s silence, Roy starts to sing Total Eclipse of the Heart, melodic and sweet, like he would sing to Lian when she got scared and crawled between him and Jason in their bed. Roy gets through three quarters of the song before he notices Jason’s shoulders are no longer tensed, that he’s leaning against the bed voluntarily.

Just as Roy is about to start his lullaby rendition of Faithfully, Jason slumps, turning his head. His face is still covered in nervous sweat, and Roy still gets a sense that Jason is not really seeing him, but Jason tries for a hoarse whisper, “R-roy?”

Roy reaches out carefully, easing Jason so his back is on the bed, so he can maneuver them so Roy is holding him, Jason’s head listening to Roy’s heartbeat. “It’s me, Jaybird. Just close your eyes, it’ll all be over soon.”

Roy feels the spot Jason occupies on his chest getting damp, and starts to run a hand up and down Jason’s back. “I c-can’t stop seeing him. He’s here, he’s g-going to kill me.”

Roy shakes his head, though Jason doesn’t see it, “he can’t hurt you, Jay. He’s gone, and I’d never let him.”

Roy is not entirely sure if Jason believes him, not sure if Jason even knows where he is, but he keeps singing until Jason is shaking a little less, until his breathing has evened out and the spot on his shirt starts to dry.

When Jason wakes up the next morning, feeling like he has the worst hangover of his life, he coughs hard and long until he’s being manhandled upright, a glass brought to his lips. Dick is helping him drink before passing him a handful of pills. Jason has no clue what any of them are, just that he’ll swallow all of them dry if it means he won’t have to deal with the headache and the nausea anymore. Instead, he feels almost instant drowsiness, and he falls asleep yet again.

The next time he wakes up, the pain is mostly gone, though there’s something foggy in how he’s perceiving everything around him. He hoists himself up so that he can see the entire room, sitting on the edge of the bed. Sitting with his legs open on the floor, facing the bed, is Roy, reading Jason’s well-worn copy of Pride and Prejudice.

“Didn’t know you knew how to read,” Jason tries to joke, but his voice doesn’t work the way he wanted it to, coming out garbled and hoarse. “What the fuck happened to me?”

Roy looks up, a soft smile on his lips when he sees how different Jason is from last night, “you don’t remember?”

“Ran into a warehouse,” Jason shrugs.

“And after that?”

“Not a lick.”

To Jason, Roy has a weird glint in his eye, a slight strain in his brow, “I honestly think that’s for the best, Jaybird.”

Jason rolls his eyes, sore as he picks himself up from the bed. He goes to where Roy is sitting and plops himself in between his boyfriend’s legs, his back to Roy’s chest. “You know, it’s pretty fucked up not to tell me what I experienced first-hand.”

It's Roy’s turn, now, to roll his eyes. He sighs, putting Jason’s book off to the side and hugging Jason tight, his chin on Jason’s shoulder, “it was fear toxin. Fear toxin, you, Tim, and the Joker.”

“Fuck,” Jason sighs, “of fucking course it was.”

“You’re fine, Tim’s fine, everything is alright,” Roy says, running soft fingers through Jason’s hair, curly and unruly from his sleep.

Jason turns his head to the side, making quick, anxious eye contact with Roy, “I think I’ll take your word for it.”

“You better.” Roy has a mischievous smile on his face, one that Jason can’t see, but he senses the shift in tone, feels Roy’s fingers migrating down to his tummy. He’d rather huff fear toxin for a second, even third time than admit it, but sometimes, when he feels the fear thrumming in his veins, feels like if he’s not touching Roy then he’ll disappear, that he’ll be underground at 15 again, he yearns for Roy’s soft fingers, his teasing touch that ebbs all the fear from Jason’s system.

When the fingers start to move, Jason doesn’t even try to hold back, giggling freely into the sleeve of the old Gotham Academy hoodie he’d been put into sometime last night. Roy’s fingers tickle in teasing circles around his belly button, clawing at the skin.

“C’mon,” Roy says, his voice dripping with the sickeningly sweet softness he always showed Jason at times like this, times when Jason would just accept it rather than prickling away from it, “I want to hear you.”

Jason blushes a light pink, his face heating up, but he moves his hands from his face in favour of lightly grasping Roy’s wrists. “Yohou’re a dick!”

“Oh am I?” Roy’s voice rumbles in Jason’s ear and Jason squeaks, throwing his head back. Roy is grinning so hard it almost hurts, and he kisses the top of Jason’s forehead. Jason scrunches his nose, shaking his head back and forth.

Roy leaves soft kisses down Jason’s neck, his hands moving up to draw soft shapes over Jason’s sides. Jason’s giggles are bubbly and uninhibited, letting Roy explore. He starts to squirm when Roy’s fingers nearly reach his ribs, scratching just below and eliciting a snort and an embarrassed whine.

Jason leaves his neck wide open, and Roy takes the opportunity to give him a raspberry, Jason kicking his legs out with a squeal, on the verge of real laughter. Roy makes sure his fingers stay just soft enough, his lips just teasing enough, to have Jason giggling himself silly, happily leaning in to the redhead.

Roy’s fingers slow a bit, wanting Jason to hear everything he’s about to whisper, “you don’t even know how fuckin’ glad I am that you’re alright.”

Jason’s blush grows hotter, feeling another wave of shyness creeping up. He moves his head to give Roy a kiss on the cheek, his boyfriend’s blush almost matching his, just to even the playing field and all. “I’m soho glad you’re hehere.”

Roy smiles before leaning in for a proper kiss, his fingers just barely grazing over Jason’s sensitive spots. When they both pull away, breathless and awestruck, they’re wearing matching goofy grins, Jason still giggling under his breath.

Jason spots his book again and uses the very tips of his fingers to pull it close enough for him to pick up. He places it into one of Roy’s hands, smiling mischievously at Roy’s confusion. “Nohow read to mehe, asshole!”

#jason todd #roy harper #arsenal #red hood #dick grayson #nightwing #bruce wayne #batman #dc #batfam #lee!jason #angst out the wazoo #angst #hurt/comfort #fear toxin #the joker fucking sucks #jayroy

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age-of-greta · 1 year

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The Moon

The Moon represents illusion and deception, and therefore often suggests a time when something is not as it appears to be. Perhaps a misunderstanding on your part, or a truth you cannot admit to yourself.

Author’s note: hi!! Welcome back to The Moon. Sorry it’s been a few weeks, life has been busy. As always I proofread, but typos happen. No posting schedule, but all parts will be posted Wednesdays at midnight EST. There are only a few more chapters left eeek! Thanks for reading along :) enjoy!!

Paring: Sam x reader & Jake x reader

Warnings: cursing, alcohol consumption, sort of angst, adult content

Word count: 3.7k

PART 10:

“Hey, there is nothing to be nervous about babe.” Sam says, rubbing his hands on your shoulders.

It was the night of Danny’s big party. You were uneasy to say the least. You and Sam had decided to come out of hiding and announce that you were together. Not like making a grand announcement or anything, but allowing yourselves to hold hands and be as touchy as you liked. Danny and Margo were still the only ones who knew. You knew they would keep it a secret for as long as you wished. Tonight was a gamble. You would be staying the night at Sam’s house because everyone would be drinking. The party started ten minutes ago and you were still at your place, dragging out the inevitable. Sam noticed and tried to comfort you.

“I know. It’s just going to be… weird?” You say, unsure of how he might react to that.

“We don’t have to tell anyone if you’re not ready.” Sam says, lightly.

You shake your head. “No, I want to. It’s just- fuck it. Can you pour me a shot of tequila before we go?”

Sam laughs. “I can do that.”

After your shot you collected your things and got in Sam’s car. You had an overnight bag packed and ready. Currently you wore a strappy black bikini top with frayed jean shorts and sandals. Your hair had a nice beach wave and you wore natural makeup. You felt cute, but you were still ridiculously nervous. You had gone over a million scenarios in your head as to how this evening might play out. The shock that would grip the twins. How Jake would react. Of course it’s not like you didn’t want to tell Jake because you feared it would diminish your relationship. It was more because you were scared that what happened between the two of you might come out. You never wanted Sam to know that. In that moment it’s like Sam could sense your tenseness, because his hand found your knee and he lightly rubbed his thumb on you.

When you pulled up, you decided to take a deep breath and put on your big girl panties. The last thing you wanted was anyone to see that you were anxious and think Sam was holding you hostage or something. You giggled at that thought.

“You good?” Sam asked with a puzzled smile on his face.

“I’m great Sammy. Let’s do this.” You muster up and say, taking his hand.

There was a considerable amount of cars already outside. Knowing how these things go though, you knew more would show up. Sam left your bag in the car for now focusing only on holding your hand and getting you inside. It smelled like beer, hotdogs, and rum when the door opened. You heard Jimi Hendrix playing the Star Spangled Banner inside and you could already see that there were more people inside than you had thought there would be. Your eyes scanned the room, so far no familiar faces. You really didn’t recognize most of these people at all. They had more friends than you thought. Then your eyes landed on curly hair bouncing through the crowd heading straight towards you.

“Well look who finally showed- No fucking way!” Josh yelled through the house.

Then all eyes were on you and Sam.

“Birdie? Samuel?” Josh questioned with a huge smile on his face as he approached you two. “Is this why you haven’t been around much these days Birdie?”

You feel your cheeks turn pink and you start to answer but are cut off again by Josh.

“And you!” Josh says, pointing at Sam. “Is this where you’ve been running off to after sessions? Holy shit! I cracked the code!”

“Settle down Josh. You’re going to bust a blood vessel.” Sam says, nonchalantly.

“Settle down? This is a revelation unfolding before us!” Josh shouts. “Daniel, did you know?”

Danny just raises his eyebrows and his cup.

Josh scoffs. “Jake?”

Then you find yourself flicking your eyes over to Jake for the first time. His hair cascades down an off white linen shirt. Sunglasses dangling around his neck next to his silver necklace. His stance becomes abrasive. He looks pissed. There is a scowl on his face and he’s gripping his glass so hard you can see the white of his knuckles. He just shakes his head at Josh’s question.

“Well I’ll be damned! Congratulations you two. I think I already hear wedding bells in the distance!” Josh continues.

Sam laughs and shakes his head at his brother’s antics, giving your hand a squeeze. “I’m going to go grab us some drinks and say some hellos. Are you okay here?”

You shake your head. “Yeah I’m going to go annoy Danny.”

Sam kisses your cheek before he takes off through the house. Then you feel a hand grip around your wrist.

“Can I fucking talk to you?” Jake says, with annoyance in his tone.

You suck in your cheeks and nod your head. Jake never lets up on his grip as he leads you through the house. He takes you downstairs and inside of the recording space, shutting the door.

Then he turns around and glares at you. “What the fuck?”

“What?” You say back, crossing your arms.

Jake lets out a dry laugh. “Don’t fucking do that.”

You stay quiet.

“So what, you’re just with my brother now? Like you two are together or something? I mean you show up here with him holding hands and then he kisses your cheek. What are you in eighth grade?” Jake spits.

Now you’re irritated. “Oh Jake will you just fucking spare me?”

He scrunches up his face. “Spare you? You’re walking around publicly all cozied up to my little brother.”

“Oh would you prefer I do it in private?” You ask, condescendingly.

He scoffs. “Are you really going to act like nothing happened between us? Like nothing is here between us?”

You feel a hot bubble of anger rise. “Are you fucking kidding me Jake?” Then you laugh. “You must actually be joking.”

“I’m not, and I’d love to know what’s so fucking funny.” Jake says, crossing his arms.

“Oh fuck you!” You yell. “Jake I have been pining over you for half of my fucking life! Yet time and time again you gave me nothing except little shreds of hope. Leading me on, flirting. Then you pop back into my life like Freddy fucking Kreuger and what do you do? Continue to flirt with me, touch me, kiss me, oh and fuck me! Then say oop nevermind! I don’t want to be with you, I just want to fuck you.”

Jake is quiet for a moment. “Birdie… I- it’s not like that. I’ve felt things for you for years. I always thought you would be who I would settle down with. But it’s just… it’s not necessarily what I want right now. There’s just so much going on and traveling and-“

You cut him off with a laugh. “So you want me to be the person you end up with, but only when you’re ready right? So you can travel the world and fuck whoever you want. And I’ll stay here like a good little girl and wait for you to return in the hopes that one day I’ll be your fucking girlfriend?”

Jake sighs. “No, that's not what I meant. I do care about you.”

“Save it.” You say spitefully. “I’m not someone who is just here out of convenience anymore Jake.”

He then takes a deep breath and runs his fingers through his hair. “Fuck. Birdie will you just listen? I’m not just saying all of this shit to you. I’m not blind, I’ve always seen this thing between us.”

“But you’ve ignored it because you want to fuck other people?” You spit.

“No- I. Goddamnit okay fine. Here you go.” He pauses and paces around the room for a moment before continuing. “I care about you. I do. Hell I even think I might I lov-“

“Stop.” You say shaking your head and putting your hand up. “Stop. Do not say that to me. I’m not doing this with you. I am with Sam. I’m happy with Sam. I’m going to continue to be with Sam.”

Jake clenches his jaw. “I don’t want that.”

You feel the threat of tears brimming in your eyes, you need to get out of there. “Well this is what I’m choosing. So you’re going to just have to come to terms with it.”

“My brother? Really? Is this your way of getting back at me?” Jake says, absolutely dumbfounded.

“Fuck Jake not everything is about you!” You say, storming off.

You climb up the stairs as hot tears stream down your face. As soon as you emerge upstairs you beeline to the bathroom. You give yourself a few minutes to cry, before cleaning your face up. You know by now Sam is looking for you and you pray to god Jake doesn’t do anything stupid. Finally your face has returned to normal, so you clean yourself up and head back out to the party. You see Sam talking with Danny and his face lights up when he sees you.

“There you are. Here’s your drink.” Sam says, giving you a cup.

“Thank you.” You say with a smile. “Sorry Margo had called me.” You lie.

“No worries. Care to go for a swim?” Sam asked.

You nodded your head and took Sam’s hand as he led you outside.

Sam introduced you to a few people along the way, but no real conversation stimulated. Surprisingly, no one was in the pool. There were a few people outside, but no one was actually swimming. You stripped out of your shorts and Sam winked at you. You laughed and took his hand as he guided you in the pool.

“Fuck it’s cold.” You said as you submerged your legs.

“Aw Birdie, don’t worry, I’ll keep you warm.” Sam said, pulling you further in.

You giggled. “Sam!”

Then you’re almost all the way in. Sam grabs you by the waist and sits you on his lap as he squats in the shallow end. You wrap your legs around him and he keeps his hands on your waist.

“Told you I’ll keep you warm.” He says with a smile.

“Oh you’re too kind sir.” You jab.

“Sammy sweetheart right?” He jokes.

You laugh. “I never saw myself dating a comedian.”

You didn’t really even think about it before you said it.

A smirk spreads on Sam’s face. “Date huh?”

Your cheeks turn pink, but you don’t back down.

“Yeah.” You say, wrapping your hands behind his head.

“Now I like the sound of that.” Sam says, kissing your shoulder.

You bite your lip and your mind slips elsewhere when his lips touch your skin.

“Um, excuse me? PDA take it upstairs!”

You look up and see Danny grimacing in your direction.

You roll your eyes at your cousin.

He walks over and starts fumbling with the grill that’s next to the pool. “Josh! The grill is on. Tell Jake to get out here.”

You see Josh walking around with a cocktail, but nods his head to go retrieve his twin.

You decide to get off of Sam, but he halts you.

“Hold up baby. Let me adjust myself.” Sam says, almost in a whisper to you as he fixes the bulge in his shorts.

Right on cue Jake walks out and locks eyes with you still on top of Sam. He clenches his jaw and looks away. Well.

Jake heads to the grill and begins working on burgers and hotdogs for the party.

“Hey Jake, did you grab those veggie burgers I bought?” Sam asks.

Jake doesn’t look up from the grill or respond.

Sam makes a face. “Hello?” Then he cups his hands around his mouth. “Jake! Veggie burgers!”

Jake spins around. “No Sam I haven’t seen your fucking burgers.”

Sam sighs. “I’ll be back. I’m going to go grab our burgers and give them to captain pleasant while he has the grill on.”

You nod your head. The air is thick with tension when Sam leaves. But you nor Jake speak to each other. Jake lets out a snicker, but no words. You suck in your cheeks and let out a deep breath.

Well, this was awkward.

“Guys food is ready!” Josh yells.

You were sitting on a lounge chair with Sam, securing your spot for the fireworks.

“Hey I’ll go make our plates and get drinks. You stay here so no one steals our spot.” Sam says, rubbing your back.

You smile and nod your head, then Sam disappears. A few moments later Josh saunters by with Jake behind him.

“Birdie, you aren’t eating?” Josh asks with a puzzled expression on his face.

“No I am. Sam’s getting plates. I was instructed to save our spot.” You say, meekly.

Josh grins. “Aw Sam is making your plate. How cute. Danny and I are starting fireworks as soon as it’s dark. I’m excited to play with fire!”

Then Josh jets off. Jake pauses and looks at you. “So cute.” He says flatly, then follows his twin.

You take in a deep breath and close your eyes.

“All good?”

You open your eyes and Sam is back with plates in hand.

You give him a smile. “Yes, everything is great. Thank you for making my plate.”

He sits down next to you. “Of course babe.”

That made you feel warm inside. Sam kissed your cheek and you two ate while you waited for the show. It had just begun to turn into the beginning of dusk and you knew fireworks would follow shortly. You also knew Josh was itching to play with lighters. Sam laid back on the lounge chair with you in between his legs. You were laid back into him and his arms were wrapped around you. You felt comfortable, secure, and happy. You would stay wrapped in Sam’s arms forever if given the chance. Just then, you were jolted out of your thoughts when a flare of red shot up into the sky and sparkled.

“Woooooahhhhh.” Sam said, being a little cheeky.

You giggled. “Horrible for the environment, veterans, dogs, and generally all other creatures that don’t understand what’s going on. But yes, woah.”

Sam let out a laugh and rubbed your arm. “There’s my cynical girl.”

Then you caught a glimpse of Jake heading back towards the house.

“Jake!” Sam yelled.

No response.

“Hey Jake! Come watch with us!” Sam continued.

Jake threw his hand up and continued inside.

You could feel that Sam was furrowing his brows, even though he was behind you.

“The fuck is his problem?” Sam asks, with a hint of nastiness in his tone.

You swallow slightly hard and then shrug.

After the fireworks, a lot of people had cleared out. Only a few stragglers remained, and it seemed like they were just waiting on their rides. Josh was positively buzzed while simultaneously high on his firework display. You were currently sitting in the kitchen nursing a margarita with Sam by your side, listening to Josh ramble to the remaining guests. Jake and Danny were still cleaning up outside.

“Tired?” Sam asks, wrapping his arm around you.

You look up and nod.

“You better not be! The night is still young and we are playing poker!” Josh says, entirely too loud.

Sam groans and you sigh.

“No no none of that now! I’m going to grab the other two and I’ll meet you guys in the living room. Sam get the poker set from under the table.”

Then Josh pads off while the last of the guests exit. Sam takes your hand and leads you into the living room.

“One game.” He says, trying to reason with you.

You nod. “One game.”

Josh returns with the other two and they all plop down on the floor. Jake makes a point not to look at you, in fact he looks bored or annoyed.

“What kind of poker are we playing here?” Danny asks.

Josh lets a smirk creep up on his face. “Strip poker?”

Sam shakes his head. “I’m going to go ahead and veto that one.” Then he puts his hand on your leg.

Jake scoffs.

“You’re no fun Samuel. Texas hold ‘em it is then. Jake you’re dealing first.”

One game turned into about 6. Danny had won the most, he was a card shark.

“Okay okay I think we’re out.” Sam says, placing his cards down.

“Aw, how come?” Danny says with a laugh.

“We are ready to go to bed and I’m tired of getting my ass kicked.” Sam replies.

Josh whistles at that. “Uh oh! Try to keep the noise to a minimum please.”

Your face burns red at that. Jake crosses his arms.

“Didn’t need that visual, Josh.” Danny says lightly.

Sam takes your hand and leads you upstairs to his room. Already you feel as if a weight has been lifted off of you. It’s been so full of tension, but you persevered for Sam.

“Fuck.” Sam says with a chuckle sitting down on his bed.

You laughed and sat down next to him. “Tell me about it.”

Sam wrapped his arms around you. “Shall we have a shower?”

“Hmmmmm.” You contemplate. “I’m game but we have to be quiet, remember?”

Sam smirks at you. “Oh baby I’m going to have you screaming my name.”

You let out a laugh and lightly smack his chest. “Yeah right loverboy.”

“Okay, maybe just lightly moaning my name then?” He suggests, cheekily.

You get up and take your shorts off. “Maybe. If you work hard enough.”

Sam smiles at you and follows you into the bathroom, undressing himself as well. His mouth meets yours before the water is even turned on.

You awoke the next day wrapped in Sam’s arms. You smiled to yourself. You loved waking up this way. Sam was still peacefully sleeping, but woke up when you began to stir.

“Good morning, beautiful.” Sam said, in the raspiest voice you had ever heard. Then he planted a small kiss on your jaw. Your heart swelled at that.

“Morning Sammy.” You say softly.

“Did you sleep well?” He asks.

You nod your head. “I did. Did you?”

He grins. “Best sleep of my life.”

“You’re so cheesy.” You say, joking while getting up.

“I’m going to pee and brush my teeth. Do we have plans today?” You say stretching.

Sam eyes your body before responding. “Babe, we always have plans.”

You let out a laugh. “Thought so.”

When you came out Sam went in. He needed to shower, so you decided to get dressed. You threw on a black tank top with the same shorts and sandals from yesterday. Then you slapped some makeup on your face and decided to go find Danny. But, to your dismay when you came down the stairs all you saw was Jake sitting at the counter with a mug.

You chewed on your lip for a bit before finally deciding to say, “Morning.”

Jake glanced up at you. “Morning.” He replied flatly.

It was quiet for a few minutes and you were plotting ways to get out of this situation, but then Jake spoke again.

“Coffee?”

It was good he was talking to you, you guessed.

You shook your head. “No thanks. I think we’re about to go get breakfast.”

Jake looks at you blankly before letting out a snarky laugh. “Right.”

You were annoyed with his attitude. He had no right to be acting like this, and you were about to let him know.

“You know Jake you don’t have to be such a fuckin-“

“Ready babe?” Sam cuts in, entering the kitchen.

You take a small breath and smile. “Yes.”

Jake smirks at you and raises his mug.

Asshole.

You walk over to Sam and grab his arm while he leads you to his car. Your inkling was correct when you pulled up outside of a pancake house. Sam grabbed your hand and took you inside to your table.

“So.” You say, sitting down.

“So.” Sam replies back.

“Did you have fun last night?” You ask.

Sam smiles brightly. “Oh I had a lot of fun last night baby.”

You snicker at that. “No I didn’t mean that. I meant at the party.”

Sam shrugs. “Yeah I guess so. I wouldn’t say I’m the most patriotic guy out there, but the red, white, and blue shots were damn good.”

“I know what you mean.” You say through a chuckle.

“Jake seemed weird though.” Sam said, grabbing his coffee.

You felt your blood run cold a bit at that, you have no idea what to say so you just nod.

Sam looks at you. “I mean I’m not crazy right? He did seem like something crawled up his ass last night.”

“Yeah, I noticed too.” You say.

Sam nods his head. “Oh well. He’s probably just weirded out about us. But I’ve got to say, they all took the news pretty good. Josh was annoying, but that was to be expected.”

“Feels good just to get it out there. Not have to hide or keep some big secret.” You say.

Sam smiles at you. “Birdie, are you getting soft on me?”

“Never.” You reply back with a smirk.

After breakfast Sam took you home. You two spent the day cuddled up on your couch watching movies. Then Sam put on some records and you two cooked dinner and baked cookies. While the cookies were in the oven Sam slow danced with you in your kitchen to John Denver. It was a perfect day. One of your favorite days. That night you couldn’t sleep though.

You glanced over at Sam. He was sleeping so peacefully. He was so beautiful, inside and out. You wished you could engrave this view into your brain forever.

You weren’t sure why you felt this impending doom sensation in your chest. You were prone to self sabotage, but you didn’t want Sam to go anywhere- ever. He made you happy, deeply happy. But there was that part of you that still deep down felt something for Jake. You weren’t sure what that something was, and it wasn’t close to being on the same caliber as to what you felt for Sam, but it was there. You let out a small sigh and stared at the ceiling until you had fallen asleep.

The sensation of impending doom had faded.

Eventually you would find out why it was there.

But that’s a story for another day.

***

• the next chapter is…. well just buckle up!!

#greta van fic #greta van fleet #greta van fleet fic #jake gvf #jake kiszka #jake kiszka x reader #sam gvf #sam kiszka #sam kiszka x reader #the moon #gvf fic #gvf series #sam kiszka gvf #gvf #sammy gvf #gvf smut

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summercourtship · 10 months

Text

stay to burn (only to drown instead): chapter five: sanity in the honeymoon phase [part I]

masterpost | ao3 link

jonathan crane x reader; bruce wayne x reader; edward nashton x reader | warnings: canon typical violence, sexual content (oral sex fem receiving, PIV sex- JONATHAN AND READER HAVE SEX IN THIS ONE) | word count: 6011 words

DISCLAIMER: these chapters are not meant to be read alone. not every chapter has content for one of the three pairings listed. this is an ongoing fanfiction that I am cross-posting here on tumblr, not a series of one-shots.

chapter one

Somehow, the stars were out tonight, though only a few were able to beam brighter than the light pollution and smog. Perhaps they were actually distant planets, but you’d never learned how to tell the difference. No matter what they were, they looked so far away from where you stood on the sidewalk. Not at all like how they’d seemed to glitter on the night of the gala. No, these were just barely pinpricks of light, cold as they blinked down at you like they were watchful eyes, the rare spectators of Gotham. The moon was a cruel smile, grinning down at you like it was privy to something you had yet to find out about.

You scowled up at them before continuing on your walk. It was the rare night where you weren’t even walking home from work but instead trekking back from Gotham University’s library. You rarely did any of your work there but you’d been feeling pretty productive earlier that day and had little else going on, so you made the journey over. And you were happy to say that you got some good writing done- you did have other classwork to worry about, classes that had nothing to do with Dr. Jonathan Crane. Who, aside from your few conversations after his class, you hadn’t really interacted with since he took you home a few nights ago, though this time it was your own embarrassment that kept you from reaching out to him.

Needless to say, you were tired but in a good mood. The library was always practically empty, save for the cafe on the first floor and the few project rooms that were always booked by groups of people taking much more intensive classes than you ever seemed to take. Tonight had been no different- only a few students were in the designated quiet areas, and even then, two of them were just using the study stall to nap.

It was a productive night but now all you wanted to do was get back into your apartment and sleep.

You passed by a wide alleyway, the kind that led to a parking lot for the buildings on the street, stopping briefly to change the song playing in the one earbud hanging from your ear. From behind your phone screen, you caught the reflection of the moon in a puddle before you frowned at your shadow in the tiny sliver of light. As you finally found the song your brain was itching to hear, the hair on your arms stood on end, goosebumps rising over your skin as your world narrowed into a pinprick moment of focus.

You were being watched.

You had stopped by the mouth of the alleyway, peering into its dark depths as you prayed to whoever might be listening that you were just imagining the sensation of eyes crawling over your body, or that it was at least a harmless hermit perched in the alleyway for the night. But the longer the sensation continued, the more you doubted it was just a homeless person looking at you. You pulled the earbud from your ear, managing to barely catch it before it fell into the puddle, the cord swinging from your phone which was gripped in your now limp hand.

Keep it moving, your brain whispered, trying to move your legs away from the alley, you shouldn’t have stopped here. You shouldn’t even be out at this time of night, in this part of town. You know this.

But, though you were certainly frightened and your heart was threatening to break out of you with how aggressively it was beating in your chest, your curiosity was piqued, a rare surge of recklessness overtaking you as you decided to wait and see what would happen.

And for a moment, it seemed like nothing would. You were about to sigh and continue on your walk, ready to blame the events on a random bout of anxiety (which you had noticed were becoming more frequent but just chalked it up to stress from the semester), when there was a flicker of movement in the darkness.

A street lamp in the alleyway flickered on for a brief moment like a flash of lightning and you saw it, standing amongst the dumpsters and fire escapes, facing you. It’s eyes watching you.

No, not it. His.

The Scarecrow.

Gasping, you staggered backwards, eyes glued on the now dark void where you had seen him. The darkness became your enemy. Because now you couldn’t see him and instead could only imagine him slowly prowling closer to you. Taking calculated steps your way, able to see you in the light from the street that didn’t reach his position in the alley. He was at an advantage and you were a deer in the headlights. Frozen, fear rooting your feet to the cracked concrete beneath you.

But then the streetlamp flickered on once again and he was gone, his absence releasing you from whatever spell had kept you glued to the sidewalk. You didn’t think about what you did next, just spun on your heel and ran, rushing to the next corner as you forced deep breaths into your lungs.

Hands shaking, you pressed the button to change the crossing signal, bringing your phone close to your face.

Okay. So you just had an encounter with Gotham’s newest anonymous criminal... What do you do next? You’re a bit surprised that there wasn’t a handy online guide already for this kind of thing, but you were sadly on your own here.

But if there had been a friendly guide to villain encounters, you’re sure the first piece of advice would be to call the police but you hesitated.

The police certainly didn’t need to hear about you seeing him.

You were acutely aware of how often you encountered events that warranted a police presence, even if they rarely showed up or were even called.

Next option would be to… tell Batman? No, that’s not right. Firstly, you had no way to contact him. But more importantly, you didn’t even want Batman to show up now. You weren’t hurt, just frightened and more importantly you had someone you could call, someone to take this tension from your shoulders and offer you comfort. (Maybe, you think as you shakily dial your phone, you don't need Batman anymore. He’d saved you enough times already.)

Jonathan picked up on the third ring and you had to stutter out a quick, stilted greeting before you stopped, trying to figure out how to tell him exactly what just happened to you. But then the words just tumbled out, not refrained and barely audible over the city’s nightlife in the background.

“I saw him.”

He’s quiet but you know he’s listening, that he’d been able to hear what you’d said. That he was just waiting for you to continue, giving you the time you needed to collect your racing thoughts. Finally, you swallowed the lump of fear in your throat and whispered into the phone.

“The… Scarecrow.” In daylight, you might’ve laughed at how ridiculous it sounded coming from your mouth. But here, pressed against a corner street lamp as you waited for the crossing signal to change, the lamp flickering above you like a firefly in a jar, the title sent an involuntary shiver down your spine.

You knew nothing about the masked man. But now, after seeing him and the effect he was able to have, you figured that he relished in the fear that he caused, that that was why he took the moniker he did.

Jonathan was quiet for a moment, and you tried to picture him in his apartment, or his office. Sitting at his desk, working his jaw as he did when he was trying to figure out what to say next.

“…did it frighten you?”

“Yes. But… I don’t know.” You almost chuckle in the silence that hangs between you, trying to figure out how to put into words the gut feeling you had. You worried your lip as you debated expressing your next thoughts, before deciding that it was important for Jonathan to hear, even if he ended up deciding that it made you insane to think. “I didn’t think he was going to hurt me, it didn’t feel like it.”

You can feel the question hanging in the air, the question that you would’ve asked someone if they’d just said that to you. How did you know?

But you didn’t know. You were just basing your assumption off of a brief gut instinct and the fact that he didn’t hurt you even though he certainly had ample opportunity in the moment where you had been frozen and waiting.

“Where are you?”

“I’m almost back at my apartment.” A bit of a lie. You were still at least seven blocks away, the crossing signals taking longer than usual due to the nighttime traffic. “I was studying at the library earlier.”

“I’ll come over.”

“For what?” You hadn’t even thought about the implication of him offering to come over when you asked. The idea of Jonathan in your apartment was so foreign it hadn’t even entered your mind. Sure, you’d had the odd fantasy of him there but those tended to be focused in other areas, not centered around a casual visit.

“If you don’t want someone with you right now-”

“No, I do!” You practically leapt into the street as the signal finally changed, cutting Jonathan off as you spoke. You wondered if he made the annoyed face he always did when he was interrupted. “Sorry, I’m just… frazzled over this, I guess.”

“I would expect nothing else right now.” You imagined he smiled when he said it, something comforting. You’ve never seen this imagined smile on his face but you liked to think you could figure out what it would look like if you really focused on it. “I’ll leave here in a minute to head down.”

If you had been listening closely to his side of the conversation, you would’ve noticed the typical city and traffic noises in the background, noises that indicated he was already outside during your conversation and not in his apartment or office. But you were barely listening to what he was saying, unable to focus on any sensory input for more than a few seconds at a time. Your nerves were frayed, your mind keyed up and over sensitive.

“Okay, cool. That’s cool. I’ll see you there.”

Slowly removing your phone from your ear, you pressed the button to hang up.

The same feeling from the alley, which had disappeared with the Scarecrow, had returned a few minutes after. The rest of your walk home was full of you constantly glancing behind yourself to ensure you weren’t being followed, unable to shake the feeling of predatory eyes on your body.

As you turned around a corner, a fat drop of water hit your cheek, signaling that the sky had, ultimately, decided it wanted to rain. One after the other, raindrops hit you and the ground, ensuring that by the time you got back to your apartment, you and your clothes were soaking wet, leaving puddles behind you as you trudged up the stairs.

Slamming your door behind you, you rushed into your room to change from your drenched clothes into comfortable, dry ones. The wet ones were thrown into your hamper with a squelch that you ignored as you tried to change as quickly as possible. You hadn’t forgotten that Jonathan was coming over and you didn’t want to be caught with your pants down.

With your new clothes on you walked into the living area, shaking your head and sighing as water droplets flew everywhere, the faint sound of them hitting random papers and the floor loud in the otherwise silent room. You were looking around, trying to figure out if you could somehow clean up your space quickly when a loud knock startled you back to the present moment.

Wrenching open the door like it weighed a ton, you stared at the man in front of you. Jonathan was still dressed like he did every weekday, minus his tie and jacket, leaving him with just his dress shirt on his torso, the sleeves rolled to his elbows exposing his forearms to your gaze. You noticed, then, that his shirt and pants were damp from the rain but his hair was bone dry.

You decided not to comment on it.

“Hi.” Your hands were still shaking but your voice was steady.

“Hello.”

“Thanks for coming over, you really didn’t have to-”

“I wanted to.” He took a step towards you, leaning against your doorframe, his arm placed over his head. You were crowded backwards against the door to your own apartment, which was sitting open behind you.

With a shaky breath, you stepped back, finally allowing him into your sanctuary and out of your personal bubble. You closed the door behind him, locking and sliding the deadbolt before tugging on the doorknob to make sure it was actually secure. The locks may be shitty, but you’d read somewhere that the smallest barrier can sometimes stop an attacker. You’re not sure how applicable it is here (it seemed to apply more to robbers and opportunistic killers). And what you were afraid of was someone following you and watching you and waiting until you fell asleep to break into your apartment specifically, but it was all you could do.

Lock and unlock and lock it again.

Satisfied that your door was as secure as it was going to get, you turned to look at Dr. Crane, who was watching your routine with the locks.

“You can replace the locks if you’re so nervous about them.” The unspoken I could help you hung in the air.

“That’s okay, the door is so shitty someone could easily kick it in.” Your attempt at nonchalance falls flat, your nerves still shot from earlier. It’s all you can do to keep your voice from wavering.

Jonathan nodded, turning to examine your apartment. And suddenly, you were hyper aware of everything you’d grown numb to over the two and a half years you’d been living there. The creaks in the floors, the cracks in the walls. The aforementioned shitty door. The way moisture had stained your windows and how the lights above your oven flickered ominously like they belonged in an old gas station. At least you decided to put away your clothes from your last load of laundry so they were no longer in a pile by the couch, thrown there to wait for folding. But there were plenty of other piles of clutter, papers and books and trinkets you had nowhere else to put. The odd card, too sentimental for you to throw out even though you never looked at them again after you received them.

“Um, so I was thinking I could make some… soup? Stew?” You move to the stovetop oven to avoid sitting in the awkward moment for any longer. “Tea?” You spin around, facing him again in your frantic quest to figure out an acceptable nourishment to offer him. “Would you like tea? I can make tea.”

“Alright.” He leaned against the counter, his tongue resting on his teeth as he observed you floundering in your natural environment.

“Great.” It’s more than the Batman ever stayed for. But mostly, you were grateful that he was letting you do this to distract yourself from the other events of the night. You faced the stove again and turned the knob for your designated kettle burner, smile fading when the oven simply click-click-clicked and the gas didn't light.

“Shit.” You mumbled under your breath, deciding to try again and sighing when the result is the same. Nothing. “Well, fuck- sorry. I guess the oven’s out of commission for the moment.”

You’re occupied with trying to figure out why your gas isn’t working- did you forget to pay that bill this month?- that you almost miss what Jonathan says.

“I’ll order take-out.”

It took a moment for the words to sink into your brain, and when they did you spun towards him.

“No, you don’t have to-”

“Please. You’ve had a rough night, let me do this for you.”

Warily, you removed your hand from the oven knob. He does this a lot, you’ve realized. Insisting that you allow him to do things for you, to relinquish a fraction of your power to him. But he was right. It had been a rough night, and now that he mentioned it, you did have a hankering for anything but what was in your cabinets.

“What food are you thinking?”

Thirty minutes later, you were sitting at your cluttered kitchen table, Chinese take-out containers haphazardly scattered among the books and folders, placed on-top of and in-between the piles. Jonathan had looked like he was going to suggest cleaning the table off but seemed to realize that there were no other places for all that junk to go so he let it slide, instead helping you place the food around the clutter.

“I don’t know why these things keep happening to me.” You stabbed a piece of chicken with your fork, staring at it for a few seconds before popping it into your mouth.

“Like what?” Jonathan wasn’t eating. To be fair, you had headed out of the library at a time of night where most people were well into their first hour of sleep. He probably just wasn’t hungry at this time of night (though, now that you think of it, he rarely ate around you) and you, having just thought you were maybe going to die, were peckish.

“First it was the Riddler shit, you know. The funeral, Gotham Square Garden. I was there for both of them. Then I’m mugged. Then held hostage at the gala. Then this… it’s just-” you sighed, running a hand over your eyes- “-why has Gotham decided that I’m a victim?” You cut yourself off before you added why can’t I be a nobody like everyone else? Why have I been in harm’s way so often that Gotham’s premiere vigilante recognizes my face from saving me multiple times?

“Everything you just said happened within a year and a half. Gotham’s dangerous, you know this.” He smiled, in a way you were sure was meant to be reassuringly. But it fell flat, instead coming across as condescending. “Maybe you’re just unlucky.”

“Unlucky.” You repeated, stabbing another chicken slice, gesturing at him with your fork, “I’m starting to not believe in luck, I think this-” You swirled your fork around you, meaning everything that you had mentioned before, “-means something.”

“But what? If it means something, what does it mean?” He leaned forward, placing his elbows on the table. You were well aware that he was indulging you, that he probably thought you just needed to get some sleep.

“That-” You put your fork down, leaning back in your chair, “-is something I need to figure out.”

You neglected to mention who was the connecting string between it all, with the exception of your Scarecrow encounter. Batman connected every event you’d witnessed or been victim of, either by design, like the Riddler’s crimes, or just by the fact that he was there when it happened, like the muggings.

“Some sort of destiny? That’s what you’re talking about?”

You narrowed your eyes at him, tilting your head at the tone his voice had taken.

“Are you talking to me right now as a psychiatrist or as my….” You trailed off, realizing you had no idea how you should refer to Jonathan. Boyfriend sounded stupid and too mundane and juvenile for a man like him. Lover was inaccurate, at least for the present moment. Friend was downplaying the fact that you had made-out with the man twice in the past week. Professor was… problematic, considering everything else. “Colleague.”

At least it was better than calling him your crush.

“Gotham has a way of making people feel more important than they are.”

“So I’m not important?”

“Not in the grand scheme of the universe, no.”

It shouldn’t sting. It was the truth, a fact of life. You weren’t important, especially not to a city like Gotham.

You stood up, blinking quickly to hide the fact that maybe some tears had sprung into your eyes. Mentally, you write them off as being a release from the stress of the night, not from his comment.

“Hey.” He stood up, crossing to you and grabbing your arms, holding you in front of him like you were a fragile bird that he’d grabbed from a cage. “I didn’t mean it like that. I just see people every day who think that their role in this city was bigger than it needed to be. I don’t want you to get wound up and do something reckless from assigning meaning to random events.”

“Right.” You softened against his grip, willing yourself to calm down.

“Let’s talk about something else, then?” He sat you back down, his hands lingering on your shoulders, moving to stand next to you, leaning against the table. You looked up at him as you absentmindedly picked at your thumb nail, not convinced of what he had tried to tell you but unwilling to argue about it.

But even though he suggested speaking about something different, he didn’t start up a new conversation. You sat in a tense silence before you spoke up.

“It’s weird.” The words escaped from your mouth. You cleared your throat, blinking a few times before trying again. “Having you here, I mean. My professor is in my apartment.”

He didn’t respond, obviously waiting for you to continue.

“I mean, I’ve thought about it before but it never seemed right-“

“You’ve thought about me in your apartment?”

“I-” You couldn’t help the smile that spread across your face. “Yeah, I have.”

For all the ways that you found to dance around topics when talking with him, it felt good to just be open and honest for once. You had nothing to lose, here. You already knew that he reciprocated your desire, that he knew exactly what you wanted from him. For once, you had no shame about admitting to him that you thought about him in that very specific way.

He gave you that wry, knowing smile that he had been throwing your way more and more often lately.

“And what was I doing in your apartment in these… imaginings?”

Quietly, you rose from your seat, trying to hide your nervous swallow by ducking your head against his chest.

“A little bit of this, a little bit of that.”

With a gentle hand, he tipped your chin upwards to look at him.

You hadn’t kissed him since that night in his apartment, too afraid that the same anxiety you’d felt then would overcome you again. That, maybe, you weren’t meant to be kissed or touched after all.

But your kiss this time held none of those overwhelming feelings of dread. Even when Jonathan’s hands moved from your hips to your breasts, similar to how he had previously, all you could feel was the heavy pangs of desire building in your core. You pressed yourself against him, opening your mouth against his and gasping in his air.

His hands moved behind you, sliding down your body to your ass. Like the night of the gala, he lifted you up, but instead of placing you back on the table behind you (which was good because there was no room for you to sit comfortably on it) he began to carry you through your apartment. You wrapped your legs around his middle, keeping your arms around his neck and shoulders to steady yourself as he moved the two of you through your apartment.

Kicking open your bedroom door, he placed you down on your bed, keeping his lips on your own through the entire time. You pulled away from him for a breath, a string of saliva connecting your lips to each other after you parted.

“How did you know where my bedroom was?” Your voice was a whisper, deepened with lust. He kissed you again, quick, before answering.

“Your apartment isn’t that big.” He matched your tone, his voice soft. But you heard the hint of condescension laced through what he said but decided in that moment that you couldn’t care less. You would let him be condescending for the rest of your life if it meant you were able to keep his lips and hands on you like this.

His fingers danced around the hem of your jeans, toying with the button before undoing it swiftly. He didn’t ask you if you were okay with this, but it was another thing you brushed aside in favor of keeping his hands on you. Lifting your hips to aid him, he rolled the fabric down yours legs, moving with it to kneel at your feet. With your jeans tossed aside you were vulnerable to his hungry gaze, practically ravenous as his eyes swept up your bare legs to your underwear, to where your fingers fiddled with the hem of your shirt.

Propping yourself up on your elbows, you looked down, meeting his eyes as you did. Silently, you observed how he held your right leg in his hands, gazing up at you with such reverence that you should’ve had a halo. His own eyes were shrouded in darkness, only a few streams of light from the street coming in through the window. It was barely enough to illuminate the room, let alone show you all the small expressions that flitted across his face at any given moment. He was very good at hiding them, but you were becoming very good at reading them.

Still, you wished in that moment, more than any other moment you’d had before, that you could read his mind. Learn the truth for his behavior after the gala- because you still didn’t quite believe his story about being embarrassed. Find out what he wanted from you- was he going to fuck you right now and then ignore you for the rest of the semester? Was he going to string you along until summer and then leave you stranded? Or did he plan on actually romancing you, did he actually care about you? Was this just a physical attraction or did he like you?

His soft voice from between your legs broke you out of your downward spiral or uncertainty. You blinked down at him, shifting from the sudden pressure of his gaze.

“What are you thinking about?”

You debated whether you should tell him the truth or not. But you decided to bite the bullet and ask him, even though it might ruin the moment and make him leave.

“If I let you do… this with me, what happens next?”

He cocked his head to the side, like he didn’t know exactly what you were talking about. You sighed, resisting the urge to cross your legs, to block him out with your insecurities.

“Are you going to ignore me after you get what you want?”

“And what is it that you think I want?”

You paused, furrowing your eyebrows. He was kneeling between your naked legs, surely he meant to get lucky, or some variation of a similar vulgar expression?

“I didn’t come here to fuck you. You’ve had a stressful, scary night,” He pressed an open-mouthed kiss to your inner thigh, slowly traveling upwards until he reached your underwear, to the crease where your legs met your torso. “Let me help you forget.”

You think you forgot to respond.

If you did, it was probably incomprehensible because your sole intent was now watching as he hooked his fingers underneath the elastic of your underwear, as he began slowly dragging the fabric down your thighs, over your knees, and finally off of your body. They were tossed in the same direction as your jeans had been and were almost immediately forgotten about by both of you.

You stared at your discarded clothes, trying to ignore your racing heart, trying to hope it wasn’t loud enough that he could hear it, that it wasn’t so powerful that he could feel the reverberations against his fingertips on your hips.

With a gentle push, he spread your legs, and when you looked down you saw him smirking up at you, the blue of his eyes a thin ring around his pupil.

“I’ll help you forget.”

You started to respond but were cut off with a sharp gasp that escaped from your mouth as he licked a thin stripe up your cunt, his tongue hot against you. He tapped the muscle against your clit before he began eating you out in earnest, his mouth seemingly desperate to devour your essence whole.

Broken noises were leaving your mouth without you even realizing it, your chest heaving with how quickly you were gasping and trying to breath amidst the barrage of sensations- new sensations- that you were experiencing. Maybe you’d had a tangle or two in years past, but quick, meaningless fucks were nothing compared to this.

With each new pass over your clit, you twitched, your legs instinctively trying to close around his head. But he held your thighs apart with his hands, his grip strong enough that you knew you’d have bruises coloring your skin in the morning.

Holding you open for him, not allowing you to hide yourself.

Then he pressed a finger against your opening- you hadn’t even noticed him moving his hand off of your thigh- barely penetrating you, toying with your skin and gathering the combined wetness of your cunt and his mouth on his finger.

“So wet,” He murmured, muffled in between your legs, the vibrations of his voice against you sending a shock of pleasure up your spine. He flicked your clit with his tongue before bringing it into his mouth and sucking. With a cry, you clutched his feather-like hair in your fingers, drawing him closer to your core. His only response was to hum again- resulting in another sharp moan- and ramp up his enthusiasm, his finger back to toying with your entrance.

“Please,” You were cognizant of your babbling, though you’re not sure when your thoughts turned into spoken words. “Please, god, I need-”

You’re not even sure what exactly you were begging for, your mind empty except with thoughts for more, but he seemed to understand what you wanted and surfaced from between your legs for a moment to speak before diving back in, his mouth wet and glistening from his enthusiastic efforts.

“Go on.”

Then, he brought your clit into his mouth and with a final brush of his knuckle against your opening, you gasped, your head thrusting itself backwards against your bed. You were familiar with the sensation of your impending orgasm but this was so much more potent, so much more. With a final shuddering inhale, your body arched in on itself, your cunt clenching around nothing but the whisper of Jonathan’s knuckle inside of you. He continued to lap at your wetness, your oversensitive nerves screaming at you to stop the barrage of stimulation but you couldn’t do anything about it until he pulled away.

Rising from between your legs, he slid up your body until you were met eye to eye. He watched, his face impassive, as you tried to catch your breath, your eyes half-lidded and hazy. When you finally exhaled heavily for the last time, Jonathan captured your lips with his own, the taste of your own cunt overpowering on his lips.

You pulled away from him first, propping yourself back up and looking down his body to where his own arousal was evident.

“Do you want to-”

He took your lips again, effectively shutting you up as he pressed you backwards so you were laying down completely on the bed again, his body perched over yours. Your mind conjured up an image of a predator devouring its prey and a shiver ran through your body. It didn’t even cross your mind that that was the second time that night you’d felt like helpless prey, but for two completely different reasons.

The glittering noise of his belt buckled being undone drifted up to you, and you closed your eyes at the pressure of the head of his cock against your opening, taking a few deep breaths to calm your frantic heartbeat and prepare yourself for what was to come.

“Look at me.”

You opened your eyes and the moment you made eye contact with Jonathan, he began to slowly enter you, his cock splitting you open deliciously. The hand that he had placed beside your head was clenched tightly in the sheet, like it was all he could do to hold himself back from just bottoming out and fucking you ruthlessly. Part of you wished he would.

Quietly, you said his name. He stilled himself, forcing his eyes to focus on your own as they had slowly become more and more unfocused with each inch he sunk into you.

“Are you okay?” He asked, his voice strained and quiet.

“Uh-huh,” You took a deep breath, “But don’t try to hold back for me. I can handle it.”

His hips stuttered, forcing another inch into your body, wrenching a sharp gasp from you. He stopped himself again, his blown out eyes searching your face.

“Are you sure?”

“I can handle it.” You repeated yourself, even though you weren’t actually sure that you could. Already, the tight pressure of his cock in you was overbearing and it wasn’t even fully sheathed inside of you yet.

But he didn’t ask for further clarification before he was pushing further into your wet heat, his lips parting at the all encompassing heat clenching on his length.

His hips flush against your core, he waited for a brief moment for you to adjust before he pulled out and immediately slammed back into you, setting a rough and almost punishing pace.

It was uncomfortable at first and you’re positive it read on your face, your eyebrows scrunched and eyes shut against the pain. But with each thrust into you, something else was added to the pain, a deep seated pleasure that you’d never felt with anyone else before.

Slowly, you began to move your hips along with him, moving up to meet his thrusts halfway. Your eyes slid closed before he delivered a small swat to your thigh, causing them to fly back open.

“Keep your eyes on me.”

He leaned down, and you thought he was going to kiss you but instead he placed his forehead on your own, maintaining eye contact with each thrust. His hand moved under your body to grip you by the back of the neck, lifting you up to gain better leverage on your body as he used you.

“Gonna, fuck, fill you up-” You gasped at the sudden change in his demeanor, clenching slightly at the idea of him finishing inside of you, marking you as his from the inside. He blinked down at you, his eyes darker than you’d ever seen and hungry, even hungrier than when he’d first laid you down. “Is that what you want?”

All you could do was nod and whisper please.

He groaned against your neck as his hips stilled against yours, his cock nestled tightly in you as he came, spilling inside of you. At the warm sensation of his cock inside of your cunt and his wet mouth against your skin you whimpered.

Slowly he pulled out of you, his head still buried in the crook of your neck. You remained laying like that for a minute, catching your breath as you slowly came down from the high his body had created.

As you fell asleep, you could’ve sworn you heard Jonathan moving around in the darkness, but you blamed it on the rain outside your window.

part II

#stbotdi #jonathan crane x reader #jonathan crane #this fic is so hard to tag over here bc not every relationship appears in each chapter lol #my writing #my fic #jonathan crane smut #there yall go

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fratboykate · 1 year

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Hi again,

I’ve loved the angst of Kate and Yelena dealing with Tom’s temper tantrums. I am curious of Kate and Yelena’s early relationship though. Like if Kate didn’t know she was a lil fruity when was her first gay panic moment after her and Yelena first started being more than friendly? Was Kate like “shit…am I gay for this little Russian grinch” or was she just chill with it and like “okay… so apparently I like women now.” I guess I’m asking was she in an experimental phase that turned into not a phase or was it like she was low key always curious about dining at the Y. Like in my head cannon I can totally see Kate calling Suze or Greer and being like “help…I think I’m gay” after a long day of flirting with Yelena and a somewhat naughty dream starring Yelena shattering Kate’s back🤭

p.s. this is the same 2 barbie’s/ken scenario anon

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Yelena’s such a grump! Honey you’ve got a big storm coming. I’m loving this early dynamic between them though! Would love to know who initiated/ finally made the moves on the other?

///

Here's 8.3k of what happens not too long after Yelena's birthday. I'd say within a few days. Mild sin included lol. This is this long and it's 90% dialogue. Imagine if I fully wrote this out like I did CFAU or even the AO3 KYAU chapters? It'd be like 20k 🤓

---

Yelena buzzes around the kitchen, gearing up to make herself a post-workout smoothie. Her skin is still damp and covered in a thin layer of semi-dry sweat, strands of her hair spill out of her messy braid, and she wears nothing but a sports bra and matching Jiu-Jitsu spats.

Yelena pours almond milk into the blender when she’s interrupted by thumping on her door. For an instant, she considers ignoring it. That would mean pretending she’s not home, but that seems short-sighted when she’s seconds away from running a blender within earshot of the door.

Yelena grunts and stomps to the entrance, knowing only one of two people could be on the other side. She swings the door open to predictably find an upbeat Kate resting her shoulder against the doorjamb with a silly grin on her face.

“Hi.”

“What do you want?”

“Sometimes a ‘hello’ goes a long way, you know that?” Yelena stares at her impassively, not giving Kate an inch, but Kate is not playing her game today. She’s going to force Yelena into small talk because she now knows for a fact that Yelena is perfectly capable of being pleasant. Kate takes in Yelena’s appearance - the disheveled look, the sweat, the fitted clothes - and decides to pursue that angle. “You were working out?”

“Just got back from the academy?” Kate looks stumped. “Jiu-Jitsu.”

“No clue what that is.”

“Martial arts thing. Doesn’t matter. What do you want, Kate?”

“Ohhh...she has hobbies! Is it like a fighting thing?”

“Yes. What. Do. You. Want? I’m closing this door in fifteen seconds if you don’t tell me.”

“You’re impossible...I have a big work thing. Fundraising gala for our national trade org. Fancy schmancy dinner. Open bar. Don’t worry about the expensive tickets. I already made my mom pay for those. It’s her charitable deduction for the month. Thing is…I have two of those tickets…”

“No.”

Kate presses forward.

“…I HAVE TWO TICKETS and my friend who was supposed to go with me just came down with strep. All my other friends have plans tonight. I already have a sitter and it would look REALLY bad to have an open seat at our table.”

“I don’t do…social things…people.”

“It’s for charity.”

“You said you already paid for the tickets. Charity was already made. Who cares if the seat is open?”

“Half of charity work is optics. Photographers are there. Photos go out to donors and press. They want to see overflowing events so that more people want to go to their next events. Vicious cycle.”

“No.”

“It’s free food and drinks…and I’d like to think not terrible company.”

“You’ve lived in New York your entire life. I’m sure you have other people you can call. Good night, Kate.”

Yelena shuts the door in Kate’s face.

—

Not five minutes later, another knock interrupts Yelena’s highly anticipated smoothie time. Yelena opens the door halfway through an eye roll seeing as she's fully expecting Kate again, but, to her surprise, it's the little one.

“Mommy’s on the phone with Suzu and she says she asked you to come to a party with her and you said no. Why did you tell my mommy no?”

“Ereka, that’s none of your business. Go home.”

“Why did you say no?”

“Who’s Suzu anyway?”

“My mommy’s big sister. Like I'll be when I get a little sister.”

“Why is she telling her sister that she asked me to come to this party?”

“She was asking my Suzu too, but she can’t come to the party. Why can’t you come?”

“Because I’m busy.”

“With what?”

“Things.”

“What things?”

“You said your mom was on the phone. Does she know you’re out here?”

“No.”

“Go back. Go. I’ll watch you and make sure you close the door.”

“Not until you say yes to go with my mommy.”

“I’m busy!”

“I think you’re lying and mommy says lying is bad.”

“Ereka. Go. Home.”

“I go home if you say yes.”

“Why is a five-year-old trying to blackmail me?”

"What does blackmail mean?"

"What you're trying to do right now."

They scowl at each other in silence for a beat, sizing the other up.

“Can we make a deal?”

“I’m not making deals with preschoolers.”

“You have to go with my mommy.”

“Why are you so intent on me going to this party?”

“Can you keep a secret?”

“Depends.”

“I can’t tell you if you won’t keep it.”

“I won’t keep it if it’s illegal or dangerous to keep it.”

Ereka huffs.

“Miss Mary falls asleep on the couch almost right as my mommy leaves. If I move the breakfast chair in front of the fridge really quiet, I can climb it and get to the cookies mommy hides up there. I’ve been wanting cookies all day. If you don’t go with my mommy, then she’s going to stay home and I won’t get cookies, so I need you to go with her.”

Yelena makes a concerted effort to remain stoic, but after about ten seconds, she cracks and smiles.

“You want me to say yes to going to a party only so you can Oceans Eleven yourself some cookies while your babysitter sleeps? I will get you cookies myself if I don’t have to go to this thing.”

“My mommy won’t let you. You have to go…I’ll save you some. As payment.”

“EREKA!” Kate scrambles out the door, panicked, the phone still glued to her ear, to find the two blondes chatting at Yelena’s door. “How the hell did you get out?! Get back here right now! What is wrong with you?!”

Before Ereka can incriminate herself, Yelena perplexingly steps in to defend her.

“She didn’t. Get out, I mean.”

“What?…Suze, I’ll call you back.”

“I knocked. To…” Yelena glances down at the kid, already regretting the words about to leave her mouth. “…let you know I changed my mind. I’ll come tonight.”

“Yessssssssss.” Ereka quietly rejoices.

“She told me you were busy on the phone and would pass on the message, then offered to escort me back to my place.”

Kate squints her eyes, struggling to believe this whole scenario, but choosing to let it be.

“Right…We have to leave by six fifteen. Gala starts at seven. Ri, come on. I need to get ready.” Ereka runs off and past her mother into their apartment. Kate lingers. “Thank you.”

Yelena offers a single, firm nod before disappearing back into hers.

—

Fifteen minutes later, Ereka entertains herself in front of the bathroom mirror, messing about with Kate’s makeup while the older woman hums a tune in the shower. There’s a knock on Kate’s door.

“Someone’s knocking on the door, mommy.”

“Don’t open it! Ask who it is.” Ereka jumps off the counter and out of the bathroom. After a beat of silence, Ereka runs back into the bathroom. “It’s Yelena.”

“Are you sure?”

“She says it’s her and it sounded like her.”

Kate wavers for a moment while thinking.

“You can open the door. Ask her what she needs.”

Without hesitation, Ereka bolts toward the front of the apartment. After another long pause, Ereka returns to the bathroom.

“She says she needs to talk to you.”

“About what?”

Ereka runs off again and is back shortly.

“She says she has nothing to wear to a ’schwancy wancy’ thing.”

Kate chuckles.

“Tell her I’ll be right out.”

“Okay!”

Ereka rushes out the door once more.

—

Moments later, Kate steps out to the living room, dripping wet and wearing no more than a minuscule towel wrapped around her torso that barely covers the important bits. She finds Yelena and Ereka engrossed in one of the little girl’s didactic games. The scenario makes Kate involuntarily smile.

“I hear you have a fashion emergency?”

Yelena looks up, ready to make a snarky quip, but her words get caught in her throat and her hands become clammy when she takes in the sight of Kate in the towel.

“Uhm…sorry…I…uh…forgot I already had most of my stuff shipped out. My formal clothes are in some container crossing the ocean right now. I don’t have anything to wear.”

Kate gives Yelena a thorough once-over. Her eyes study Yelena with such assiduous detail that it eventually makes Yelena squirm.

“I should have options for you.”

“Kate…you’re so much taller than me.”

“Lucky for you, I like short things.” The women internally wince when they realize those words come across much flirtier than they initially intended to. “They’ll look right on you.”

Kate glosses right past it and Yelena is thankful for it.

“I…uhm…don’t typically…” Yelena searches for the right words. “I don’t think our styles overlap very much.”

“Oh, come on. You can pull off a dress. It’s one night.”

“I can wear them. I know how to. I simply prefer not to.”

“I think it’s not a matter of preferences tonight, is it?” Kate saunters into her bedroom. “Let’s see what we can find.”

Shortly afterward, when Yelena hasn't walked in behind her, Kate steps back into the living room.

"Are you like a vampire? Do I have to outright invite you into rooms before you walk inside?"

"I figured you needed to put clothes on..."

"If you prefer I put clothes on now, I can. I think it'd be more efficient if we find you something to wear and then you can go shower."

"Sure. If you're fine, I'm good. I'm good."

"You can come in." Kate makes a point of saying.

"For the record, if there wasn't a child in the immediate vicinity, I'd be flipping you off."

Kate chuckles.

"Good to know."

---

The pair make their way into Kate's sweeping walk-in closet. Ereka darts in after them.

"Oh..."

"Yeah, I have a bit of a problem." Kate turns to Ereka. "No. No no. Out. You're only going to get in the way and we're in a rush. Go read something. Out."

"A bit?"

Kate closes the closet door, leaving a pouting Ereka standing behind it.

"Stop. What's your cup size?" Yelena gapes at her. "Why are you looking at me like I'm some creep catcalling you from a corner? We're standing in my closet, trying to find you something to wear. This is 'need to know' info."

"B." Kate’s eyebrows shoot up, incredulous. Yelena rolls her eyes. "They can be! Depending on the bra. Shut up...You need me to go to this thing, remember?"

"I said nothing."

Kate scans the dozens upon dozens of pieces in her wardrobe.

"How tall?"

"Five foot five." Kate pivots to look at her with a cocked eyebrow. "What are you? A lie detector machine?"

"What are you? A man? I have eyes! Tell me for real!"

"Five foot three."

"We're getting somewhere. Shoe size?"

"Six."

"Okay. Can't help you there. I'm a ten. We'll figure it out."

"What were you thinking in terms of look?"

"What do you mean?"

"Make-up?"

"Zero?"

"What I heard was 'bit of a soft smokey eye in metal and a bold red lip'. Got it. Genius. I was thinking the exact same thing."

"Kate......"

"Shhh...I'm working here."

Kate begins pulling items from the racks and setting them down on the center island while Yelena watches on, increasingly horrified.

"No...No...Absolutely not...No...Never...Kate, no."

Kate lifts a gold sequin-covered gown with a plunging v-neckline and a risque thigh-high slit. She holds it up next to Yelena for a beat, then nods.

"This one."

"No! Look at the cleavage on that thing."

"It'll look great on you."

"I said no."

"I said yes...we need a tiebreaker." Kate declares as she heads for the closet door.

"No, we don't? That's not how this works?"

"Ri, I need you! Fast!"

Ereka speeds over and into the closet.

"What, mommy?"

Kate holds the dress up under Yelena’s neck to give Ereka the most accurate visual possible.

"What do you think?"

"OOOOOOOOOOOH, SO PRETTY AND SHINY! YOU LOOK LIKE A PRINCESS!"

"Is that a 'yes' to the dress from you?"

"Yes! Yes! Yes!"

"Two to one. Democracy in action." Kate tells Yelena nonchalantly while hanging the dress on a hook next to the full-body mirror. "You need to go shower right now. Don't put anything on your face and come back. I'll do your make-up."

"NO! No dress, no make-up."

"OOOOH, MAKE-UP PARTY! YES YES! WE'RE GONNA HAVE A MAKE-UP PARTY!" Ereka scuttles between the two excitedly.

"You already agreed to come."

"Maybe I'll change my mind."

"You can't do that!" Ereka tells the older blonde firmly. "You made a promise and breaking promises is bad."

"What she said." Kate backs her daughter up. Yelena stares at the women and then stomps off in a huff. "Be back here in no more than forty-five! Hair done! It'll look better up with that dress!"

Kate hears her door slam.

"I don't think she likes the dress too much, mommy."

"I don't know...I don't know.”

“She's very grumpy too."

"VERY GRUMPY, baby.”

“But I like her, mommy. Grumpy and all."

"Yeah. We like her. Grumpy and all...Are you gonna help me pick a dress too?!"

"YESSSSSSS!"

Kate commences selecting pieces from the racks for herself this time and Ereka offers detailed feedback on each along the way.

---

An hour and a half later, Kate and Ereka sit on Kate's bed, facing the closet with anticipation. Kate is dressed in a figure-hugging black gown and her hair is down, styled to look like an effortlessly slicked-back center part. Shimmery eyes and a bright red lip round out the outfit.

"Coming out at some point before next year would be great. We have to leave in ten minutes and I still have to call the car."

"Kate, I hate this." Yelena gripes from inside the closet.

"I'm sure you look fine." Yelena doesn’t answer and there’s no sound of movement inside the closet. "Any day now. We should..."

Yelena testily swings the door open and Kate's words get caught in her throat there and then.

"WOOOOOOOOOWWWWWWWW!!!! SO PRETTY!" Ereka exclaims as she hops off the bed and runs around Yelena to look at her from all angles. "YOU LOOK LIKE A REAL-LIFE SUPER PRINCESS!"

"Kate, I look ridiculous."

Kate shakes her head.

"No."

"I do."

"You look beautiful." Kate half mutters, marveling at the sight in front of her.

Yelena would love to prevent the rush of blood she feels forcing its way up to her face, but unfortunately for her, she's yet to learn how to master her body’s involuntary reactions. Her only alternative is to deflect.

"Don't we have to leave?"

Yelena does her best to redirect, forcing Kate to snap out of her mild trance.

"Yeah...yeah. I'll call the car."

"Are you and mommy going to dance tonight?"

"I don't dance."

"Mommy likes to dance."

"Good for her."

"Mommy, you should ask Yelena to dance."

"Car will be here in two." Kate squats down to chat with her daughter at eye level. "I think we gotta take it easy on her. Dancing might be one step too far today." Kate smiles and steals a glance at Yelena before kissing Ereka's forehead. "I want you in bed right when Miss Mary tells you to. Not a minute after. I want to get zero complaints when I get back, okay?"

"What if I'm not tired? Can I wait for you if I'm not?"

"You better start tiring yourself out now then, because you're going to bed and your butt better be in bed when I get home."

"So unfair."

"UGH! Worst mom ever. How dare she not let you stay up until all hours?” Kate smiles at her daughter, who rolls her eyes. “I have to go. Be good, please. I love you."

Kate forces an over-the-top smooch onto Ereka’s cheek. The little girl “yucks” and wipes her skin with her open palm.

"I love you too. Even when you lick me and try to control me."

Kate chuckles.

"Licking and controlling are the two most important tasks parents have, Ri." Kate looks at her phone then turns to Yelena. "One minute. We should start heading down."

Yelena nods.

"Hey," Ereka whispers and beckons Yelena down to her height with her index finger. She brings her tiny hand to cup Yelena's ear in an attempt to speak to her in secret. "I'll save you two cookies. An extra one because you look really, really pretty."

Yelena can't help but smile.

"No need."

"I will. I'll give them to you tomorrow."

"What are you two whispering about?"

"Mommies don't need to know everything friends talk about."

"Kid has a point. I’m invoking our attorney-client privilege." Yelena backs her up.

"You two are trouble. Car's here. Your plotting will have to wait for another time."

Ereka wraps her arms around Yelena's neck, giving her a warm hug. Yelena reciprocates.

"Have fun. Don't forget my mommy likes to dance."

"Good night, kid."

Kate rushes into the room and yanks Yelena by the hand.

"So slow!"

"I was coming!"

"Not fast enough. Night, Mary. We'll be home by one."

"Ten." Yelena refutes.

"One," Kate confirms as she yanks Yelena out the door.

Ereka chases them to the door.

"I love you the most!" Ereka screams at her mother as the elevator door closes.

"I love you the mostest!" Kate yells back.

(NOTE: For reference, Kate is wearing that black dress/overall look from the “Capital Letters” music video. And Yelena’s look is the 2020 Vanity Fair After Party look. Pics below.)

---

The gala is in full swing. Kate is deep in conversation with the person sitting next to her. On the other hand, Yelena has yet to speak to anyone except for uttering a handful of words to Kate and speaking her order to the bartender. She savors her drink and surveys the event space, making mental judgments of all the guests.

"Socializing is a vital part of the human experience, you know?"

Kate tells her in a hushed tone with a soft smile.

"I told you I didn't do parties."

"Well, you're at one, so...can't you just enjoy it?"

"No."

Kate laughs.

"You're a hard nut to crack."

"Have you considered that maybe I don't want cracking?"

"I think you certainly tell yourself that."

Yelena glares icily at her, pushes her chair back, then stands.

"I'm getting another drink."

---

Yelena sulks at the bar while waiting for the bartender to approach her.

"I'm not trying to annoy you."

Yelena looks over her shoulder to find Kate standing behind her.

"Could've fooled me."

"Is the only way to get you to be nice to call you out when you're being a dick then feed you mac and cheese? Because one: you're being a dick. And two: I will talk to a waiter and see if we can score you some if I need to...I had a good time the other night. I know you're capable of smiling and laughing. I've seen it with my own eyes."

"Kate, what do you want from me?"

"Right now? For you to relax."

"I am relaxed."

Yelena grits through her teeth and scowls, then turns back to the bar, desperately trying to get the bartender's attention. Kate chuckles.

"Oh yeah, chillest person in this room." Kate steps forward, stands next to Yelena at the counter, brings her index finger to the older woman’s chin and pulls it, turning Yelena's head and making their eyes meet. "Give me an hour to prove you could be having fun. Say 'yes' to everything I say for an hour."

"No."

"Failing the exercise already."

"I'm not doing that."

"Are you allergic to fun? What did you and your sister do together? I'm sure you guys had fun."

"Keep my sister out of this. I'm plenty fun."

"Life of the party...An hour." Kate extends her hand, waiting for Yelena to shake it. "Are you this much of a baby that you won't leave your comfort zone for an hour?"

Yelena lours at Kate. She is certain Kate is purposefully trying to push her buttons now...yet, for some reason, she acquiesces.

"An hour. Within reason. Nothing illegal or too crazy."

"What if we have different definitions of illegal?" Kate fires back with a smirk.

"There's only one definition. Take it or leave it."

Kate extends her hand again for Yelena to shake. Yelena looks at the hand, then at Kate and after a beat, she takes firm hold of it and shakes it. When they do, Kate hits the lock screen on her phone to look at the time.

"You're mine to do as I please until 8:52 PM."

They tense up when they realize the potential for misconstruing the statement as innuendo...but before they can dwell, the bartender approaches.

"What can I get you, ladies?"

"Four shots of tequila, please." Kate rushes to say before Yelena can speak. As Yelena is about to start protesting, Kate lifts her finger and stops her in her tracks. "Ahhhh…can't say no. We just made a deal."

Yelena grunts.

"That's not illegal, but it's certainly irresponsible."

"Live a little."

Moments later, the bartender returns with the shots as well as limes and salt on a tea plate and places them across from the two women.

"Bottoms up, council." Kate urges Yelena as she downs her first shot. Yelena gawks at her. "Come on! You're on my clock here. Move it." Defiant, Yelena slams back the first shot and immediately takes the second. She grimaces. "That's more like it!" Kate kills her remaining shot, interlocks her arm with Yelena's and drags her away from the bar. "We'll be back for more in a second."

"Where are we going now?" Kate's face lights up with a devilish smile as she heads for the dance floor. "No. Nu-uh. Kate..."

"Those words are out of your vocabulary for the time being."

"Kate, I don't dance."

"You do tonight."

Kate forces her way past the crowd and drags Yelena to the center of the dance floor. Once there, Kate begins swaying to the music the DJ plays. Yelena stands stiffly. When Yelena doesn't move, Kate brings her hands to Yelena's hips, trying to coax them into rocking along to the beat. Their eyes meet. There are no reasons this should be as intimate when there are hundreds of people around, but it undeniably is.

"Come on...I know you're not as much of a robot as you try to make it seem. Feel it."

The last two words slip out barely above a murmur. Kate's hands remain on Yelena's hips while she takes a step closer, making the distance between them damn near nonexistent. Something about Kate being this far into her space fogs up Yelena's mind and before she knows it, her hips follow Kate's lead.

"See? Not too bad." Kate encourages her.

The music transitions to an even more uptempo song and Kate ensures they match the beat to this as well. For a moment - more like three consecutive songs - it's only them in this room. Kate's hands on Yelena's hips, their eyes on each other, breaths on their skin, and bodies in sync. They could've stayed that way all night had they not been interrupted.

"Kate! I thought that was you!"

Kate and Yelena are snapped out of their trance by another woman on the dance floor. The intruder has a handful of friends with her and what was a private, lust-filled bubble for two becomes a wide circle of yappy, gyrating, drunk women. Kate senses Yelena tense up beside her and, without thought, she brings her hand to hold Yelena's. Their fingers intertwine while Kate has small talk with the woman who approaches her.

"The infamous Kate Bishop in the flesh. What are you up to?! Where have you been hiding?"

"It's been a crazy, busy year. I made VP and my accounts have pretty much tripled. I’m drowning half the time."

"Oh my god, congrats! I didn't hear about that."

"Yeah. Thank you! It wasn't too long ago. Happened at the top of the summer and..." Kate feels Yelena pull on her hand, trying to get away. Kate holds on tighter and runs her thumb over Yelena’s skin, soothing. "...I haven't exactly had time to celebrate. It was so nice to catch up, but we were on our way to the bar. Let's get drinks on the books. Have your assistant call mine."

"Of course, yeah! Have fun tonight."

Kate turns and pulls Yelena behind her towards the bar, hands still locked together.

"Sorry. I didn't..."

"It's fine." Yelena hurries to divert. "You probably know everyone here."

"I wouldn't say everyone...99%?" Kate looks over at the shorter woman and grins. "More tequila?"

"That's a terrible idea, Kate."

"Which is exactly why we should do it."

They land at the bar and Kate orders four more shots.

"Four is unreasonable."

"I think you can handle it." Kate hasn't let go of Yelena's hand and continues to run lazy circles over her skin with her thumb. Kate turns to face the crowd. "Who do you think is the hottest guy here? Who'd you get wasted and take home tonight for a crazy, sloppy one-night stand?"

Yelena chuckles.

"Are your observation and deduction skills that poor?"

"What do you mean? Ohhhh...you want me to guess who you think is hot?"

Yelena laughs harder.

"We'd be here all night."

"Why?"

"Because I don't think any of these men are hot, Kate."

"A picky girl! I like it. Okay. What's your type then? There HAS to be someone in here that comes at least close."

"My type is ‘not men’."

"What...oh...OH..." Kate takes a step back, studying Yelena. After a beat, she nods. "No, yeah. That makes sense. It's all clicking now."

Yelena hangs her head back, laughing.

"Glad we got that sorted."

"But like...never? Not even once?"

Yelena shakes her head.

"Have never seen a penis in real life."

"God, I'm actually a little jealous. They're...kinda just...there...flapping around...being an inconvenience."

"Yup. Every word is making me gayer."

Kate surveys Yelena's face and notices her eyes becoming glassy due to the alcohol.

"We need to get some food and water in you. Let's go back to the table. They're serving dinner soon anyway."

Kate pulls Yelena's hand and guides them back to their seats.

"That might be the only good idea you've had tonight."

---

Kate and Yelena talk and stuff themselves full of bread while waiting for their full-course dinner to be served. A waiter drops by to offer the table drinks immediately before dinner is catered and, never knowing when to say no, Kate orders them a round. Yelena is thankful it’s at least a pair of cocktails, not shots.

They continue conversing about nothing and everything throughout their meal. Kate brazenly ignores her coworkers the entire time.

Once dessert makes its way to the diners, the DJ shifts from the mellow playlist guests could have a conversation over back to danceable jams. Before long, Kate is squealing and declaring something "her song" and forcing Yelena back onto the dance floor.

On this occasion, with alcohol and hormones coursing even more freely through their veins, Yelena doesn't resist when Kate eventually presses her back to Yelena's front and starts grinding against her. Yelena's hands find a home on Kate's hips and they move together. As one. They do this for another song before Kate turns to face Yelena. Kate places her elbows on Yelena's shoulders and wraps her arms behind her neck. Yelena's hands move from Kate's hips to the small of her back, right on the curve of her derriere. They're pressing themselves against boundaries at full tilt.

Kate brings her lips to Yelena's ear and her lips graze against the skin of Yelena’s earlobe as she speaks.

"I have to pee like a fucking racehorse." Yelena bursts out laughing. "I'll be right back." Before she pulls away, Kate's lips travel a few inches below Yelena’s ear and press a soft kiss on the woman’s cheek. "Thank you for coming tonight."

Yelena offers a firm nod and Kate disappears into the crowd.

With Kate gone, the illusion breaks and the reality of tonight...of the last couple of hours (because this has gone well and beyond the "one hour" deal by now)...smashes into the forefront of Yelena’s mind like a stray cannonball. Whereas it felt as if it were only the two of them in a room before, now it's back to Yelena being alone in a sea of strangers she has no interest in becoming familiar with. The dance floor becomes speedily suffocating and, before she knows it, Yelena is rushing to the table to snatch the bag with her phone and keys in it and flees.

---

The line to the women’s bathroom stretches down a hallway and wraps around a corner. Kate’s leg bounces impatiently whilst she waits near the end of the queue. Kate brings her manicured thumb to her mouth and begins to chew on it. Now that they’re apart, the veil of the alcohol-induced, nirvana-like state she’s been immersed in has lifted and all Kate is left with is the feeling of an anvil weighing her stomach down.

What the hell? That is the one query that continually loops in Kate’s mind. Kate racks her brain, striving to figure out when and how her truculent temporary neighbor got under her skin like this. Did it start tonight? Have these feelings been simmering and only boiled over in the last few hours? Kate has an endless stream of questions - questions that can mostly be summarized as “Fuck fuck fuck what the fuck?” - but none that she thinks she’ll have an answer to by the time she gets to a stall. Particularly not when her brain keeps wandering to those moments on the dance floor when her body was pressed against Yelena’s and the woman’s hands were all over her. Those mental images are distracting and certainly not conducive to critical thinking during a seemingly impromptu life crisis.

For now, all Kate can do is stew in her feelings and hope the rest of the night will further assist in her quest to find explanations. That, and bite her nails to keep her mind off how urgently she needs to empty her bladder.

---

It takes Kate longer to return than she would've liked; therefore, she doesn’t consider it exceedingly strange when she can’t spot Yelena on the dance floor. The blonde must have returned to the table and is waiting for her there. Kate arrives at her company’s table, but Yelena isn't anywhere to be found there either. That’s when Kate notices Yelena's bag is also missing. Kate digs through her purse, collects her phone, and texts her.

Nothing.

---

Half an hour later.

Kate stares at her phone, glaring at the message that has ostensibly merited no response from Yelena. More than worried, Kate feels herself growing angry. She has a fairly solid inkling of what happened and by no means is she allowing their night to end on this wretched note. Kate snaps her handbag up and storms to the entrance while calling a car.

---

The longer the car took to make its way to her building, the more livid Kate felt herself growing. Thus, it is no surprise to her when she finds herself hammering her fists against Yelena's door. To Kate’s satisfaction, she doesn’t have to stand there for long before Yelena stares back at her.

"People are sleeping, Kate."

It’s clear the older woman has been home for some time, seeing as her face is washed, her hair is braided, and she’s now clad in sweats and a t-shirt.

Kate barges into the apartment, explosively hurling her bag on the couch the moment she’s inside.

"Where the hell did you go?"

Yelena points around her, as if stating, ‘here?...where you found me?’.

"You make it a habit of vanishing and abandoning all your dates at parties?"

"That wasn't a date, Kate. That was a kidnapping."

Kate paces in furious silence.

"Maybe not at first."

"Maybe not at first what?"

"A date...maybe it wasn't a date at first."

"Don't," Yelena replies angrily.

"Don't what?"

"Don't do that...the whole ambiguous-and-maybe-even-curious-but-really-straight girl game. It's sad."

"You're such a fucking prick. We had a great night, you got scared, bailed, and now you're trying to shit all over me so I leave. You're not super enigmatic and frigid. What you are is a really predictable coward and THAT is what’s a little sad. A lot sad."

"Get out. Get the fuck out."

Yelena pushes past Kate on her way to open the door and kicks Kate out, but Kate grabs her arm, pulls Yelena towards her, and into a torrid kiss. Kate ends the kiss yet doesn’t pull away. She holds Yelena’s face, keeping her in place, and presses their foreheads together.

"I should have more self-respect than to do the whole 'crush on and chase the one who’s mean to me’ thing, but...here I am." Kate chuckles and presses another soft kiss to Yelena’s lips. "There's more to the grump. I know it. I've seen it."

"Kate, get out. I'm not going to be the person you experiment with. Been there, done that, didn't end well for me."

Kate takes a step back, aggravated.

"Yeah, you're right. I've never been with a woman. I'd have a lot to learn. Learning doesn't mean I'd be "experimenting", at least not in the negative way you're trying to imply."

Yelena takes advantage of the fact that Kate has put distance between them and marches to the door, swinging it open while pointing outside.

"Go home to your kid."

"Is it this hard to admit that someone might actually give a fuck? Ignore me for a second. She adores you. You know that, right? Talks about you all day long. Is constantly looking for excuses to come and see you. I have to stop her all the time, or she would've moved in here by now. People care about you. She cares. I care. You make it hard but not impossible."

"I'm leaving. In November. I'm leaving."

"That's November. This is now."

"Nope. No. I don't work that way. I like plans and order and control."

"Life is messier than that."

"Kate..."

Kate closes the distance between them, slides Yelena’s hand off the doorknob, and pushes the door closed.

"Ignore November. Ignore anything outside that door. Right now, what do you want?"

"What I want right now will lead to chaos in the morning."

"Are you clairvoyant?"

"I'm smart."

"But not psychic. What if what you want right now simply leads to morning sex instead of chaos?"

"Because that's not how life works...not mine anyway."

Kate presses her body against Yelena's. Yelena initially tries to recoil, but, much like she did on the dance floor, Kate holds the sides of Yelena's shirt, by her hips, and settles her.

"What do you want right now?" Yelena doesn't respond. Kate leans her face closer, making her lips hover above Yelena's. "What do you want?"

"To fuck you."

Kate nods, smirks, and a soft ‘hmmm’ escapes her mouth.

"I want you to do that too."

Kate ghosts her lips over Yelena's.

"You're drunk, Kate."

"I'm really not. Buzzed at best. But turned on?...Definitely. And I want you to do something about it." Yelena doesn’t move or speak. "You really gonna make me beg?"

Yelena’s eyes shoot up to meet Kate’s. Kate grins when she sees the desire burning in them.

"Maybe," Yelena states with an undertone of cockiness Kate hasn’t seen all night.

"Please," Kate adds with zero hesitation.

"What if you wake up and regret it tomorrow?"

"I thought we were ignoring anything except right now."

"Humor me."

"I don't think you'll give me any reason to...but even if you do...what's the worst that can happen? You leave in November, remember? If it goes TERRIBLY WRONG tonight, then worst-case scenario is we have to awkwardly cross each other for a few more months in the hallway and then, that's it. Never see each other ever again...No downsides."

Yelena’s forest eyes study the azure in Kate’s, attempting to spot any hint of vacillation in them.

"What about Ereka? You said she's always looking..."

"You're overthinking it...and trying to find excuses that don't exist. Right now. You. Take what you want. It's already yours."

After a brief delay, Yelena joins her lips with Kate's in a searing kiss. Within seconds they're stumbling back to the bedroom while clothes are flying off.

---

Kate’s arm swats around the mattress, searching for the body that should be there but come across nothing. Her eyes flutter open and Kate lets the dismaying fact that she woke up to an empty bed sink in. She buries her face in the pillow, trying to shield the blinding sun rays from her eyes, and sighs. Then it hits her...the sun is out. She isn't home and the sun is out. OH FUCK.

Kate gets dressed in a hurry and sprints over to her apartment.

"I'm sorry...I'm so..."

Instead of finding a disgruntled babysitter, what Kate comes across when she bursts in is Yelena and a cheerful Ereka making pancakes in the kitchen.

"What's going on?"

The sound of Kate’s voice makes Yelena look over her shoulder for a brief moment before turning her attention back to the pan.

"You slept in." Yelena casually responds.

"You left me. Alone." Kate admonishes her.

"I woke up after we...it was a little past one, so I ran over and relieved Mary. I figured you'd be up soon enough and crashed on the couch until you came. About an hour ago, I opened my eyes and her face was two inches from mine. I checked in. You were still asleep. Figured I'd let you sleep. She got hungry and I couldn't let her starve on my watch, so we're making food."

"We're making strawberry pancakes for you, mommy."

Kate softens up.

"I'm...I'm gonna brush my teeth and wash my face."

"Okay." Yelena turns to look at what Ereka is doing. "No! NO! Too many. That's waaay too many."

Yelena starts fishing out strawberries from the batter, now cooking on the hot pan.

"Yelena, can you come here, please?" Kate calls from her room.

"In the middle of something."

"I need you for a second."

Yelena turns off the burner and looks at Ereka seriously.

"DO NOT TOUCH IT. It's hot. You'll hurt yourself. You can't touch anything until I get back."

Yelena insists while heading towards Kate’s bedroom.

"I’m big! I can make pancakes on my own!"

"NO TOUCHING! I’ll be right back."

Ereka pouts and crosses her arms over her chest.

"FINE!"

---

Yelena enters Kate's room and finds the brunette waiting for her by the door. The moment Yelena steps in, Kate holds her face and kisses her.

"One: you should've woken me up." Kate kisses her again. "Two: Thank you for staying with her. It was...amazing. That has never happened before. I swear. I've never not come home when I say I will. I think your bed was so comfortable and it smelled like you and..."

Yelena kisses her to quiet her.

"You're a great mother, Kate Bishop. You deserved a late morning. It's fine. All I did was cross the hallway, freeze on your couch for a night, and make pancake batter this morning."

Kate laughs and pecks Yelena’s lips.

"There's blankets in the hallway closet."

"I didn't know that. How would I know that?"

"I could've told you if you would've woken me up." Kate kisses her again. "Thank you."

Yelena closes her eyes and inhales sharply.

"What are we doing?"

"I don't know about you, but I'm about to go try some of these pancakes."

"You know what I mean, Kate...I'm leaving."

"You're here now."

"Doesn't change what happens come November."

"We can worry about November later. Right now, I'm hungry and want pancakes. Do you have plans today?" Yelena shakes her head. "She's supposed to be with me this weekend, but one of her dad’s cousins is getting married. He’s picking her up at eleven and she's staying the night. I need to get her ready, pack her bag, and get her out the door. Then we have the place to ourselves until tomorrow at ten. I do believe I promised you some morning sex, so as long as he's on time and you have me naked in bed before noon, it'll technically count."

Yelena shakes her head while a smile creeps up on her.

"You're something else."

Kate kisses her.

"Is that a good thing or a bad thing?"

"Remains to be seen."

Yelena kisses her this time.

"CAN WE FINISH BREAKFAST, PLEASE?! I'M GOING TO DIE OF HUNGRY!"

A little voice pleads from the kitchen. Kate and Yelena are forced to separate and snicker.

"Yup! Coming! Helping your mom with a thing, but I'll be right there."

"You'll definitely be helping a lot more once she's gone for the day."

Kate smirks at Yelena before stealing one last kiss and heading to the door, dragging the older woman behind her.

"Alright, where are these pancakes I was promised?"

“HERE! We’re making them, mommy.”

---

Kate’s legs are draped over Yelena’s thighs, their interlocked fingers casually fiddling while they speak in hushed voices. Yelena leans in, intent on stealing a sneaky kiss when there’s a knock on the door.

“Ri, your dad’s here!” Kate rudely screams millimeters away from Yelena’s mouth. Yelena flinches at the volume.

“DADDY!” Ereka shrieks from her bedroom, followed by the rustling of last-minute stuffing of things into a backpack.

When she realizes what she did, Kate offers a bashful smile and plants a series of soft, rapid kisses on Yelena’s lips.

“Sorry.” Kate mouths before stealing another kiss.

“Should I go to your room or something?” Yelena asks as Kate untangles herself from her.

“No. No. I’ll make sure he’s in and out. It’s fine.”

There’s another, more impatient knock on the door.

“I’m coming!”

Kate speeds up the pace and swings the door open to find Tom holding a bouquet of deep purple tulips on the other side.

“Was walking by that little florist on 84th and 2nd and saw these. They reminded me of you, KitKat.”

“Thank you. They’re beautiful.”

Kate expresses genuinely before smelling the flowers. Tom smiles, proud of himself, and places a lingering kiss on Kate’s cheek before stepping inside.

“I was thinking…maybe you can come to the wedding. With us…me and…” Tom’s train of thought gets derailed when he notices the stranger lackadaisically lounging on the couch in what seems like sleepwear. “Hey.”

“That’s Yelena.”

“DADDY! DADDY! DADDY!”

Ereka rushes Tom, who swings her into the air and smothers her face with kisses.

“Hi, lovebug! You look gorgeous today. Mommy did a good job with those braids on your hair!”

“Mommy didn’t do them! Yelena did!”

With the little girl now attached to his hip, Tom takes a step toward the couch; his hand extended in a polite greeting mode.

“I guess you’re the neighbor.”

Yelena stands and shakes his hand.

“I’m the neighbor.”

“She doesn’t shut up about you.”

“She’s a great kid.”

“She is. Perfect kid. We made a perfect kid. I keep telling KitKat we should make more.” Tom laughs. “Isn’t that right, baby? I always tell you how we should give her that little sister she wants.” Kate forces an awkward smile. Tom turns to face Kate and holds her hand in his. “So, about you coming today. How do you feel about that? I talked to my aunt because of the RSVP and headcount thing. They said it’s perfectly fine. They’d love to have you there. They haven’t seen you in a bit.”

Tom runs his thumb over Kate’s cheek. Kate takes a step back, putting distance between them.

“I’m busy today. I think it’ll be great for you guys to have one-on-one time.”

“We have one-on-one time all the time, KitKat. You know what she hasn’t had in a while? Family time. The three of us. Together. Wouldn’t you want that, princess? The family at a family event.”

“YESSSS! You should come, mommy.”

“Tom…”

“I’m gonna go. You guys can figure that out.”

Yelena mumbles stiffly as she starts to head for the door.

“See you, neighbor lady.”

Kate steps in Yelena’s way, using her body to block her path, and almost imperceptibly shakes her head while painting a massive fake smile on her face and addressing Tom.

“Her dress and shoes are in the bag. She can probably keep the braids for the wedding if you don’t rile her up too much. They’ll look cute in pictures. If they get messed up, let them loose and brush her hair out. It should be fine. If you’re not sure if the braids still look good or not, don’t let her run around looking crazy. Ask your mom or your sister. They’ll tell you. I put a headband in there in case she needs to have it down.”

Tom zoned out after the first few words. As his ex talks, his eyes dart back and forth between Kate and Yelena. Their shoulders are pressed together and their hands are nearly overlapping.

“Hmmmmm…okay. So that’s a ‘no’ on coming with your husband and your daughter to the family wedding? Even though she clearly wants you to come.”

“It’s a no. I’m busy.” Tom scoffs. Kate takes a step forward and plants a kiss on the little girl’s forehead. “You and daddy have the most fun, okay? You’re staying with him and grandma tonight, but I’ll see you in the morning. I love you.”

“Why are you not coming, mommy?” Ereka pouts.

“Yeah, KitKat. Why are you not coming?” Tom asks, accusatory and eyeing Yelena surreptitiously.

Kate glares at Tom.

“Because that was never the plan.”

“Our daughter wants you to come.”

“That wasn’t a thing she wanted until you brought it up. She’ll live. Alright. Isn’t the wedding in Connecticut? That’s a drive. You guys should get going because I don’t want you rushing on the interstate. Please let your mom or someone else drive tonight if you drink at the wedding.”

“Right.”

“I mean it, Thomas. I don’t want her in the car with you if you're drinking. I’ll pick her up if I need to. Just call me if it gets to that. I’ll come.”

“You could come with us now.”

Kate kisses the girl again, then bends over to grab the backpack she had discarded as she ran out and places it in Tom’s hand.

“Everything she needs is in here.”

“Except for her mom being there with her and daddy.”

“BYE! Have fun!” Kate smiles and nudges him in the direction of the door. “I love you, baby.”

“I love you, mommy!”

“See you tomorrow!”

Kate closes the door on Tom, leaving him staring at Yelena from the door.

“That was…interesting.” Yelena ponders for as long as it takes Kate to close the distance between them. “Did he call himself your husband...?”

“He does that sometimes.”

“But he’s…”

“Not. Definitely not. We got divorced when Ri was two. He’s still getting used to it.”

“That was…three years ago?”

“And we were together for almost seven. It’s taking him a bit.”

“That sounds messy.”

“I’m not with him. I have no interest in being with him.”

“Does he know that? Because he brought you flowers, wanted you to be his date to a wedding, and calls himself ‘your husband’.”

“Can we not talk about him? Please?” Kate steps even closer and intertwines their fingers. “Still very much into the idea of morning sex WITH YOU and noon is creeping up. We should get on that…”

Kate’s lips fly to Yelena’s neck and start peppering kisses on the exposed skin.

“You have convincing ways, Kate Bishop.”

“I like to think so.” Kate kisses her way up to Yelena’s mouth. “Are you gonna keep spiraling about my ex, or are you gonna fuck me? One sounds A LOT more fun than the other.” Yelena studies her face. A mischievous grin appears on Kate’s face. “You like it when I beg you for it, don’t you?”

“You look good begging.” Yelena smirks confidently.

“Please,” Kate whispers against Yelena’s lips. “Please…I’m dying to be under you again…Please.”

Yelena smashes their lips together and taps the back of Kate’s thighs. Kate takes the hint and wraps her legs around Yelena’s waist and arms around her neck. Yelena brings her hands to Kate’s ass to hold her up while she starts guiding them toward the bedroom. As they’re getting to the door, Kate leans back.

“Stop. Hold on. Hold on.” Yelena quietly panics and puts Kate down. “Wait here.”

“What?”

Kate hastily pecks Yelena’s lips before vanishing into her room.

“Wait there.”

“Kate, we don’t have to if you don’t want to. If you changed your mind…”

“Shut up and wait before you freak out, will you?”

Moments later, Kate reappears on the threshold, clad in the skimpiest lingerie. She wears a black triangle bra with leavers lace and a matching lace thong. The outfit (or lack thereof) is capped with an untied purple silk robe lazily draped down the sides of her body. Yelena purses her lips and dramatically exhales.

“You like?” Yelena nods and hums. “Then will you please come and fuck me before I ruin this underwear any more than I currently am? They’re La Perla. They’re expensive.”

Kate offers a rascally smile before disappearing into the room anew.

Yelena lingers at the threshold for a moment and softly bangs her forehead against the wall. There's no way this isn't going to be a disaster come November.

She was right.

#kate x yelena #yelena x kate #bishova #bishlova #kate bishop #yelena belova #kymaup #kymau #the way that...without fail...evey AU update starts getting progressively fucking longer never fails to amaze me #i swear im like 'this is SURELY only like 1k...and then the word counter laughs at me #anonymous #answers

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ismelinor · 10 months

Text

Who did it better? (2/2)

Chapter 1 | Read on AO3 | tagging @today-in-fic | word count: 1,209

Summary: Post-Dreamland, Mulder and Scully are beginning to make sense of what happened. Mulder’s not so damn ugly any more, and he’s pretty sure Scully promised him a kiss.

By the end of the night, they’d filled in most of the gaps. Extraordinary as it seemed, Scully was really starting to believe that they had somehow lived this week before – and that in that…alternate timeline, Mulder’s consciousness had somehow been switched with someone else’s. An agent working at Area 51, he said.

Langley had pulled up the footage of the previous evening, and just like with the CCTV from the Hoover building, there were two recordings. In one, the gunmen sat around the table drinking beer and playing cards well into the night; at around midnight, Frohike had apparently gotten drunk enough to think it was strip poker and started flinging his clothes off, which was, quite frankly, upsetting. They turned the tape off after that.

In the other recording, Mulder and Scully had dropped by. Mulder wandered around the room, fiddling with the gunmen’s odd collection of memorabilia and machines as if they were unfamiliar, while Scully spoke to them. They tried out some lip-reading software Byers had designed, and though they could only capture fragments of the conversation where the speaker happened to face the camera, it was enough to confirm that that Scully did not think that Mulder was…Mulder.

Of course, the lone gunmen were then convinced that this Mulder was an imposter and launched into a barrage of questions, varying from invasive to downright bizarre, which they apparently had prepared for this exact situation. Even after Mulder had told them who really killed John Lennon (the CIA, obviously) and who Frohike’s ideal woman was (his eighth grade math teacher, which was both disturbing and sad), Langley wasn’t convinced.

“He’s obviously a mandroid. Look at that tie. They never get the details right.”

It was a very nice tie, unlike Mulder’s usual fare.

“Scully got me this tie for my birthday,” he said, stroking it like he was offended on the tie’s behalf.

That earned him a ‘Dude, you’re so whipped’, but seemed to convince the gunmen enough to move on.

Next, there was the matter of the nonsense that the fake Mulder had been spouting on the tape. Scully tried to convince them that the agent must have been making things up to mess with them, but it was no use. Langley was writing down every word like it was the Rosetta stone of nutty conspiracy theories. Mulder and Frohike were trying to one-up each other with more conspiracy theories that were actually, definitely government cover-ups of even deeper operations: Matryoshka dolls of moon landings and political assassinations.

By the time they finally stepped out into the cool evening air, Scully’s vocabulary had been reduced to “You can’t possibly believe that” (they could) and “Oh my God” (there was no God in this place; God wouldn’t have allowed Frohike and Langley to steal all her pizza while she was examining the recording).

Mulder didn’t seem to be in any rush to get home. He stopped in the street, looking up at the sky with a wistful expression on his face. It was nice to see him so peaceful – he’d been smiling to himself all evening, actually – but Scully’s bed was calling to her.

“Come on, Mulder,” she tried, well aware that he was an immovable object when something caught his attention, and she didn’t have the energy to be an unstoppable force right now.

“Look at the stars, Scully. They’re so bright tonight. Doesn’t it make you wonder what’s out there, scattered across the Universe like stardust?”

It was a remarkably clear night. Most evenings in the city, the air pollution obscured all but the brightest of stars.

“Mulder-” He interrupted her by clasping her hand, aligning their index fingers and using them to point up at the night sky.

“Look, Scully, there’s Arcturus: twenty-five times the size of our Sun and over one hundred and fifty times brighter. And, there, next to it: Corona Borealis. According to the myth, it was the crown worn by Princess Ariadne at her wedding to Dionysus, and he set it in the heavens for her. Isn’t that beautiful? A celestial consummation of marriage.”

Scully smiled, happy to indulge Mulder’s enthusiasm even though her father had taught her all the constellations the moment she was old enough to stand behind a telescope. When Mulder had finished, she retrieved her hand and nudged him.

“Come on, Mulder. I’m hungry.”

He laughed softly and dug into his pocket, pulling something out but hiding it in a closed fist. She rolled her eyes fondly and held her palm out.

Only – the second the sunflower seeds hit her palm, the memory struck her like lightning. She drew back in shock, scattering sunflower seeds around them. The look in Mulder’s wide eyes told her he was remembering the same thing: another handful of sunflower seeds, this one a parting gift. A Mulder who didn’t look like Mulder. Who was, in fact, damn ugly. Maybe this Mulder – her Mulder – didn’t remember that part.

“I’m not so damn ugly now, am I, Scully?” he asked, eyes sparkling with mischief. Of course he remembered. When did the Universe do her any favours?

“Well, that’s debatable,” she said.

He wouldn’t be deterred, though, leaning into her space with a grin that was becoming positively shark-like. “Debate me, then, Scully. We both know how you love proving me wrong. Tell me who you’d rather kiss, me or Mr Wife Guy.”

“Mulder,” she whined, “You know it was just a joke.”

“I don’t think it was a joke. What I think is that I was promised a kiss.” He waggled his eyebrows at her. It made him look ridiculous, and to make him stop (yes, just to make him stop), she grabbed his coat by the lapels and kissed him.

Cross her heart, she only meant to give him a quick peck – because he thought she wouldn’t really do it and she loved proving him wrong.

But, God, his mouth. He opened up to her in an instant, because of course he did, and she was lost. She told him she’d follow him to hell and back with her tongue – tied her soul to his with her fingers in his hair.

It took an indecently long time for Scully to pull back because Mulder was answering every oath with one of his own: I’d destroy myself for you in the feather-light stroke of his thumbs up the side of her jaw and I love you I love you I love you in the pounding of his pulse.

When she did drag herself away, she was greeted with a comically dishevelled Mulder: hair sticking up, eyes hazy and dilated, lips swollen and smeared with lipstick.

A laugh bubbled out of her. It wasn’t even the state she’d left Mulder in. It was the total absurdity of it: that she’d finally kissed him after six long, long years because of an offhand remark she’d made in an alternate timeline she wasn't even certain she believed in.

Mulder was still just blinking at her, shellshocked expression on his face. She had to squeeze his arm to get him to move.

“Come on, Mulder, let’s go home.” She walked over to his car, opening the passenger side door and hoping he was in a fit state to drive them.

“I’ll bring the handcuffs,” he mumbled.

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tinyywriterr · 3 months

Text

WHO WILL IT BE?

*+:｡.｡.·:*¨༺༻¨*:·.｡.｡:+**+:｡.｡.·:*¨༺༻¨*:·.｡.｡:+*

{NANAMI + TOJI + POC READER}

∘°∘♡∘°∘𝓒𝓗𝓐𝓟𝓣𝓔𝓡 𝓢𝓘𝓧 ~ 𝓣𝓞𝓧𝓘𝓒 𝓘𝓝𝓒𝓞𝓝𝓥𝓔𝓝𝓘𝓔𝓝𝓒𝓔 𝓣𝓞 𝓑𝓘𝓖 𝓒𝓗𝓐𝓝𝓖𝓔𝓢 ∘°∘♡∘°∘

⟿ Song to Go with the Chapter: Francis Forever by Mitski [Your theme song this chapter]

⟿ Word Count: around 7,400 +

⟿ introducing Toji | Nanami fluff w/ reader | st*kler Geto & Gojo

⟿ Summary: You’ve been working at the club earning a good amount of money for being a baby stripper. But, on one night you run into some people you really didn’t want to. Afterwards you are pretty shaken up and Nanami makes a proposal to you that you end up taking. Who shows up at your place of work? And what does Nanami offer you?

*+:｡.｡.·:*¨༺༻¨*:·.｡.｡:+**+:｡.｡.·:*¨༺༻¨*:·.｡.｡:+*

𝓒𝓸𝓷𝓽𝓮𝓷𝓽 𝓦𝓪𝓻𝓷𝓲𝓷𝓰: contains dr*g use, inferred st*lking, pet names, fem reader, black fem reader/you, alcohol use, and etc. [please don’t read if easily trigger]

◈━◈━◈━◈━◈

𝓐𝓾𝓽𝓱𝓸𝓻𝓼 𝓝𝓸𝓽𝓮: 18+ please & please don’t copy and paste my story anywhere else. I finally uploaded this chapter and once again there’s more build up along with a new character being introduced. IT ONLY GETS SPICY FROM HERE! Next chapter will contain Nanami smut so can’t wait to post that. ANYWAYS, this is my first tumblr fic so if you leave a heart, reblog, or comment it’s greatly appreciated! If there are errors I am open to anyone correcting me in the comments or leaving feedback. I hope you will enjoy this as much as I did when I wrote it!

'*•.¸♡ ♡¸.•*'꘎♡━━━━━♡꘎'*•.¸♡ ♡¸.•*'

✧･ﾟ: *✧･ﾟ:*𝑀𝐼𝒳 𝒪𝐹 𝒴𝒪𝒰 & 𝒩𝒜𝒩𝒜𝑀𝐼’𝒮 𝒫𝒪𝒱✧･ﾟ: *✧･ﾟ:*

You’ve been juggling a lot recently from meeting up with Nanami, keeping your little secret of where you work, and along with working nonstop. You work almost every night only giving yourself Monday and Tuesday of every week to relax. You mostly slept on Monday’s to rest so every Tuesday and any other day you could you hung out with Nanami to make up for being busy. He’s been taking you all around Tokyo to vintage antique stores, book shops, and clothing stores buying you whatever you point at or showed interest in. Nanami was spoiling you not like you could complain and you undeniably enjoy it. Working at the club made you somewhat of a grumpy person being you had to stay up most nights. But, Angel made working there doable and always cheered you on making you feel better. You and Angel were fast-growing friends from stripping together, walking each other home after work, and chilling at who’s ever house you decided to that night. Angel was a tall Japanese woman with long black hair with cute blunt-cut bangs covering her eyebrows. She had a slender build that complimented your curvy build when you’d both strip together. The men loved you two together requesting private dances from the both of you. Being under Angel's wing was helping you out financially a lot as well. She always gave you advice, tips, and when you’d work together the money was amazing. You’ve made at least ¥50,000 yen within your first week which only grew as time moved on. Today you counted your money before coming in and it totaled ¥350,000 yen which was about $2,400. Your rent was due this coming Friday so you wanted to get as much money as you could until then. Thankfully, it was Wednesday night and your rent was only ¥90,000 yen which was $600 but still, you wanted to be ahead of the game rather than behind. You sit at your vanity after a couple of stages and count how much you’ve made alone tonight sadly Angel got sick and had called out for the next couple of days. ¥40,000 yen, which is not bad for 3 stages and 2 private dances along with it only being 2 hours into your shift the clock read 11 pm. You sigh softly stuffing the money back into your money bag and fixing your makeup before you hear your name being called to the stage again.

“Star, you’re up next on stage. After this stage 2 men want you for a private dance. It’ll be in private room #1 also they paid for it already,” the house mother said hovering over you and passing you another ¥40,000 yen. You count out ¥10,000 yen giving it to the house mother.

“Thank you, have this for taking such good care of me.” You say sincerely as you place the money in her hand making her smile down at you and patting your head.

“You’re the nicest one here besides Angel,” she teases walking back to her counter. You take one last look at yourself; you wore a bright pink lingerie set tonight and had your hair up in two pigtails as the men loved it for some reason. You smile to yourself before walking out to the main stage. You stroll up seductively before twirling around the pole. You do some aerial tricks clicking your heels together to get the audience's attention. A lot of heads turn or get up completely to get a front-row seat for the show. Once satisfied it’s enough people you begin your performance as a new song begins. You’ve improved from when you first started grinding and twirling around the pole as you continued to swing yourself around it. You swiftly get off the pole then bend over with your ass facing the audience and elbows keeping you steady on the stage. You start shaking your ass earning some yells of excitement and cheers of satisfaction. Money starts to be thrown at you making you more confident and it was slightly exhilarating. You smile as you look back at it noticing some prying eyes and others clapping ready for more. After 3 songs you get off stage grab your money off the floor and head towards the back to the private rooms. As you walked to the back random men smack your ass and tuck more money into your thong strap which was normal for you at this point. Once inside you notice the two men sitting down on one of the couches chatting with each other stopping as you come closer to them. It’s so dark you can’t really recognize their faces but their voices sound familiar. You stuff your money into your money bag putting it around your left wrist.

“You liked the show?” You ask sweetly as you begin to walk towards them seductively.

“Oooh, darling we’ve seen much more of you than any of those pigs will ever see.” One teased grabbing your right wrist tightly but thankful those bruises Geto gave you have healed by now.

“We just wanted to see how you were doing but I think we got our answer doll.” The other voice teases as well smacking your ass hard making the sound bounce around the little private room. It took you a second but the use of ‘darling and doll’ cemented for you who it was.

“What are you two doing here?” You question trying to turn away with your back to them and pull away from Geto’s strong grip. Doing so only makes it worse as he grips you even harder making you grimace.

“We were just going out and decided to come here but we noticed you and wanted to talk. You left us without saying anything darling..” Geto hisses in between his teeth yanking you towards him. “Dance bitch we paid for you didn’t we?” He asks devilishly digging his nails into your wrist. You nod your head ‘yes’ and turn back towards them now. Geto lets you go so you can dance freely smirking at how weak you were in this moment. You lift your hands above your head swaying your hips from side to side before rolling them. Gojo grins which you roll your eyes to and continue dancing trying not to touch either of them really. All you can think about is how it was so easy for them to find you. It made sense mainly because everything was kinda of close together the office, your house, and the club. But still, maybe it was just a coincidence an awful one at that. Why were they surprised you left? They both were so cold to you; was that supposed to make you come back the next day?

‘Our personal office slut. Do you think whores get breaks?’ Those phases cloud your mind making you close your eyes hoping you could just forget they’re here. But you feel them staring at you and then a loud smack on your ass draws you out of your thoughts.

“So disappointing, you’re just a low-level whore showing your body to these pigs for money.” Gojo says coldly sounding truly disgusted he suddenly stands up and wraps his hand around your throat. “You thought you could get away without being punished? Remember you. are. nothing.” Gojo hisses in your ear pausing to add emphasis and hurt with his last few words. You tense up under his grip making him grin and he starts to squeeze harder around your throat trying to make you light headed. You hated that grin so much now soon enough tears begin to pool in your eyes but only one falls down your cheek. Geto stands up seeing this and licking up the tear before smacking you on the cheek making you gasp in pain.

“YOUR HOUR IS UP BOYS!” Mr. Yoshida yells through the door before moving on to the next door not knowing he secretly saved you. Gojo lets you go watching you crumble to the floor holding your throat and lets out an evil chuckle.

“Tsk such a waste come on Gojo..” Geto commands as he walks out of the room and soon Gojo follows slamming the door behind him and making you jump. You stand up slowly as you try to regain your breath coughing a little.

“FUCK!” You croak out loudly balling both of your hands up into tight fists. ‘How could this happen? Why did this happen? Where they watching my every move?’ You think to yourself as you walk out of the private room; you hadn’t been called on stage but there were some empty ones. You regain control of your emotions compartmentalizing them and pushing them deep down. You still wanted and needed to work so you look at the clock and it reads 1 am. You could do this with just 2 more hours to go and thankfully it goes by fast. At the end of the night you collect all your money, tip out, and you make your way to the changing room. All the girls that worked tonight began to change into more casual or lounge clothes for their travel home. You decide to wear a gray sweatsuit set with another bigger black jacket on top. It’s gotten colder which made the walk home a little more dreadful. You look at your wrist and neck as a slight bruise starts to form which you scowl at. ‘How will I explain this to Nanami? Maybe I should just tell him..’ you think to yourself before heaving a painful sigh. You stand up and make a choice you never thought you would or have made in a while. You walk towards the girl who’s always known to have some pills to sell on her. You walk up shyly waving at her before you open your mouth to ask she rattles off all the things she has.

“I got coke, xanax, ecstasy, and percs. So, what would you like my inventory is low so buy it while it’s still here.” She says in a quiet voice not wanting to catch the house mother's attention.

“Umm xanax, 2 of them,” you ask starting to pull money out of your money bag.

“I’ll give you a first time customer and stripper discount it'll be ¥5,000 yen please,” she explains holding the pills in her hand discreetly. You hand her the money in a subtle handshake as the exchange is quick. You walk away with the pills in your hand and thank her as you walk out waving goodbye to the house mom. You stuff the pills into your jacket pockets taking your time walking home tonight processing everything that happened within this short period of time.

‘Why did I get myself into this mess? Why are they so weird now? Along with being persistent in a creepy way,’ you think to yourself before you know it you're in front of your apartment door. As you unlock the door you kick your shoes off before plopping onto the couch. You pull out your money bag beginning to count everything soon your money is laid across the coffee table. You just stare at it for a minute a total of ¥70,000 yen staring back at you. You grab the shoebox with the rest of your earnings and just swipe your arm across the table pushing all of the money into the box. After hiding the box again in your closet you walk into your kitchen grabbing a bottle of some random juice that’s been sitting in the fridge. You pull the pills out of your jacket pocket and drop them into your mouth before taking a long swig of the juice. Swallowing you walk to your record player playing the ‘Deftones‘ AGAIN and sprawl out onto the couch. You stare up at your ceiling for a while before getting the urge to smoke. Thankfully, you were able to score some weed and bought yourself a pack of smokes as well. Being at the strip club made you pick up some habits you never thought you would. Pulling out one of both a cigarette and a joint you lay back on your couch sparkling the joint first. Your mind was still racing even though the pills started to take effect making your movements slightly delayed. Taking a couple of puffs you exhale slowly happy to be able to relax finally. Today was a lot and you didn’t know how to cope with what happened; within 15 minutes the joint was out and you put it out on the coffee table too lazy to get up to grab the ashtray. You lay there soaking in every emotion you felt and begin getting lost in thought about your family, your brothers, and how they were doing. Suddenly the phone rings and you barely pick it up in time to answer.

“H-helloo..” you say slowly as the pills have a hold of you making you sleepy which the weed didn’t help with.

“Y/n are you okay you sound super drunk?” Nanami asks from the other end of the phone making you giggle softly then drop your phone as your limbs have become weak.

“I-I am fine don’t w-worry about me..” you say softly trailing off at the end as your eyes closed for real this time. You hear the phone hang up you knew saying that would not make him any less worried about you. ‘Ughhh why did he have to call me right now????’ You question to yourself chuckling again as you found everything funny in this state. What felt like seconds had passed by Nanami was already knocking at your door; it had really been 20 minutes. You stumbled across your house knocking some things over and open the door. You lean against it as you look up at Kento. His hair is not neatly done rather covering his face this time, he’s wearing what looks like his loungewear consisting of grey sweatpants, and a black long-sleeve shirt. He looks down at you worry spread across his whole face. All you can do is laugh manically grabbing his hand and dragging him in with the little strength you had. Nanami stumbles in noticing how messy your house has become from the last time he’s come in along with the smell of smoke. He’s been picking you up lately outside in your complex parking lot so he hasn’t been able to see any of this. You’ve acquired takeout bags that are scattered everywhere, dirty clothes trailing from the door to your room, and your bags everywhere. Nanami notices your stripper bag which was a big sparkly duffle bag. It wasn't fully closed so he was able to see your extra lingerie sets and your heels peaking out. Nanami kept a note of that to ask you later first he wanted to figure out what was wrong. He sighs softly before noticing you sparked a cigarette once again sprawled across the couch. The music is loud so loud it kinda hurts his ears so he walks to your record player turning it down a lot.

“Kennnn! How are you-u?” You inquire sitting up slowly and leaning into the couch trying not to slouch. “I’ve been so busy-y I’m sorry-y,” you explain whining a little before taking another drag from your cigarette and exhaling just as slowly. All Nanami can do is look at you somewhat in shock at the state you’re in. He sits down next to you grabbing your hand. You pull it away as you honestly don’t feel like being touched right now. “I’m sorry-y no-no touching tonight. I’m tired of touching-g..” you slur over your words taking another drag and exhaling towards the ceiling not wanting to get it in his face.

“That’s okay princess. Will you tell me what’s wrong?” Nanami asks crossing his arms and leaning back into the couch as well. He looks at you as your facial expression changes from relaxed to tense.

“I-I've umm been wanting-g to tell you something...” you pause before looking straight into his beautiful brown eyes. “I-I am a stripper now..that’s why I’ve been so busy-y and-and not being able to hang out.” You pause again taking a drag of your cigarette as your anxiety rises. “You can hate-hate me I’d understand I just wasn’t getting hired anywhere and I needed something fast-t,” you expound lazily still stuttering as you speak soon your leg begins to bounce slowly. There was a long silence as Nanami just looked at you he couldn't care less that you have become a stripper but there was something else bothering you.

“I don’t care about you being a stripper lovely. I noticed some shoes and lingerie sets once I walked into the door. I’m sorry you felt like you had to hide it from me. I’d never judge you princess you could never disappoint me.” Nanami explains holding back from rubbing your back as you take your last couple of puffs of your cigarette before putting it out on the coffee table. He wanted you to not have to work at the strip club but he wouldn’t stop you from working there if that’s what you wanted to do. You crumble after processing what he said a few moments later. Sobbing now you lean into him as the emotions from earlier come to the forefront. He just holds you making sure you didn’t fall off the couch. He picks you up and takes you to your bed. Like clockwork standing up wobbling a bit crying still you strip off your clothes. You still had your lingerie set on from work mainly because you were rushing to get out of there. Nanami can’t help but blush looking at your body in the bright pink set you looked gorgeous in it but he starts to feel bad as you were crying. Even as you cried you looked so beautiful Nanami couldn’t help but think. You then take your lingerie off falling into your bed completely nude. He picks up your clothes putting them in a pile by your closet where a lot of your other sets are. You quickly fall asleep within minutes and before you know it it’s 11 am of the next day. No alarm this morning and no Nanami in your room or bed. You look around and see your room is clean. Your floor is clear of dirty laundry and all your late-night munchie trash is gone. Without thinking you open your closet making sure your shoe box and tin box haven’t been moved or taken from. Thankfully everything is still there you sigh in relief as your bedroom door opens.

‘Why would I even feel like he’d steal from me? He’s rich!’ You think to yourself as you shuffle putting both boxes back and closing the closet door. Nanami smiles at you walking towards you with a mug of coffee and a short stack of pancakes for you of course.

“Get back in bed you’re resting today all day unless and or until you have to go to work. You understand?” He asks making sure you understand before placing both items into your hand. You nod your head ‘yes’ hoping your bruises can’t be seen. But Nanami noticed he was gonna ask you after you’ve relaxed for a while. When he noticed last night he could barely control his anger wishing he could beat up whoever did this to you.

“Thank you Kento…I do work today actually but tomorrow; Friday I’ll be free. You can stay here today if you want to and wait for me to get off.” You offer looking at the clock you had knowing you had to be at the club by 10 pm tonight so you had time to relax. You settle back in your bed taking a sip of your coffee hum in satisfaction.

Nanami nods softly bowing his head looking at his feet now. “I was going to wait to ask you but it’s eating me alive. What happened last night how did you get those bruises and why were you so fucked up?” He asks hoping you wouldn’t get mad or uncomfortable with the question.

You sigh painfully rubbing your wrist as it had turned a little red. “Umm, remember when my wrist was hurting and bruised a while ago?” Nanami nods staring at you now with a stern look on his face. “I got it because of two men at my job Geto and Gojo. That’s truly why I quit I started there as a secretary but they wanted more. I agreed because they were attractive and I was lonely. They took me out fed me even paid me. I thought they’d treat me right but they became manipulative. They told me the day I quit I’m just their office slut so I left. I couldn’t bear it and they were hurting me. That day I deleted their number, blocked them, and didn’t show up for work after that. So, I started working at the strip club and it was going great but last night they popped up on me. I didn’t see them in the crowd the whole night but they requested me for a private dance. I-I was all alone usually my work friend Angel would be there with me but she’s been sick. Once I realized it was them I tried to leave but Geto grabbed my wrist and they both berated me as I danced for them. Before their hour was up Gojo choked me while Geto smacked me. I wanted to forget it all so I took some pills last night; that’s why I was so fucked up. Gojo told me I am nothing and I'm a low-level whore now. I felt so weak in that moment…” you explain in a shy tone before trailing off at the end. You could feel Nanami’s rage seeping through his pores.

“Geto and Gojo they were your boss?” Nanami asks as he pulls out his phone feverishly trying to unlock it.

“PLEASE! Nanami don’t do anything I can get them banned from the club they won’t be able to bother me anymore. I was even thinking about moving just to be safe. Please, please don’t do anything..for me.” You say frantically putting everything down standing up and grabbing onto him. You bury your face into his broad chest and sob quietly. Nanami's tense now but he looks down at you and can’t help but pat your head and rub your back.

“Okay, I won’t but you must call me or something if they bother you again; okay?” He commands grabbing your face with a spare hand and making you look up at him. “You are not weak and you’re not a low-level whore. You’re more than enough don’t ever let their words hurt you.” He says smiling down at you before kissing your forehead. You flinch slightly in his grip at the feeling of affection but try to relax. Nanami hated seeing you so upset and just wanted to hold you forever. This was hard for him not to act on impulse and go find those motherfuckers but he tried, for you. “Come stay with me it’s security at the lobby and I can keep an eye on you. I want you to be safe y/n..” He offers letting go of your face. “I can pay your rent here so you can keep it. Save your money so you can go see your family. I want to help you..” Nanami offers before kissing your cheek this time he hated to feel you flinch but he knew who to blame. He lets you go completely and smiles down at you again.

“Okay..I umm I can always repay you I hate to think I owe you, Ken..” you state bashfully bowing your head again.

He shakes his head ‘no’ before speaking. “Princess you don’t owe me anything as long as I get to see you smile and know you’re safe that’s enough,” Nanami reassures you.

✧･ﾟ: *✧･ﾟ:*𝒯𝐼𝑀𝐸𝒮𝒦𝐼𝒫 𝒯𝒪 𝒯𝐻𝐸 𝐹𝒪𝐿𝐿𝒪𝒲𝐼𝒩𝒢 𝒲𝐸𝐸𝒦 | 𝒴𝒪𝒰𝑅 𝒫𝒪𝒱✧･ﾟ: *✧･ﾟ:*

Like always Nanami kept his promise he paid your rent, utilities, and paid movers to pack up your things. He was happy to have you closer to him now he made the spare bedroom your closet/storage space for anything that didn’t fit in his home. You were able to convince Mr. Yoshida to ban Geto and Gojo which put your mind at ease. Looking at your empty apartment you thought about what Nanami said a while ago ‘Maybe ask your siblings to come out here.' You didn’t want to assume anything but you hoped Nanami would continue to pay the rent here you’d hate to lose this apartment. Angel has returned back to work which was a relief you were starting to get bored anyway. You’d be at Nanami's house while he was at work just relaxing before he came home. You’ve made a routine actually kissing him softly when he walked through the door, letting him pick out which set you’d wear to work that night, and letting him drop you off this routine and just really wanted it to last. Life was finally on an upswing thankfully because you really needed this. Today you didn't have to work thankfully it was the first Monday of December so you had all day to yourself. Nanami had a dinner date planned for you both later today that he told you about last night. Stretching as you sit up in the bed you look over at the bedside table next to you. You see a little envelope with your name on it so you open it frantically. You pull out a handwritten letter and his debit card he left you.

The letter reads; ‘Good morning Princess, I hope you slept well last night. I left you my debit card to treat yourself today on me. In the closet, you’ll find an outfit I picked out for you for later. If you hate it use my card and get something you like. Here’s the number for the driver I’ve hired for you. He’ll be here to take you around town will you're off work or I’m gone on a business trip. Call or text him and he’ll come by to pick you up out front. I also gave you your own door code. I should be home by 5 tonight. Nanami.’

You smile gleefully folding up the letter and stuffing it into the drawer of the bedside table. You jump out of bed skipping towards the closet to see what Nanami got you. When you moved in Nanami made space for you in his deep walk in closet; his stuff on the left and yours on the right. You see hung up and steamed a beautiful blue dress. It’s short looking like it’ll stop mid thigh, strapless, and an expense silk. To go with it Nanami got matching silk colored high heels from Jimmy Choo. You check the tag on the dress and it reads; ‘Clio Peppiatt size medium ¥200,000 yen,’ your mouth drops to the floor. ‘Why did he get this for me? It’s so expensive!?’ You question yourself still in shock, you let go of the tag and walk out of the closet.

“I guess today will be maintenance day,” you chuckle to yourself looking at yourself in the mirror. You desperately need your hair, nails, and even eyelashes done which where all way past due for a redo or touch up. You throw on some clothes you had lying around and decide to call Angel to see if she was free.

The phone rings a couple of times before Angel picks up. “Heyy girly, what’s up?” She asks excitedly on the other line.

“Heyyy I was wondering if you where free? Nanami gave me his card and said I can spoil myself today. I want to get my nails and eyelashes done do you wanna come?” You offer as you pace in Nanami's living room.

“Ooooo you gotta sugar daddyyyy! Did you give up any sugar? Or is he one of those rich guys that say ‘I just wanna take care of you, baby. You don’t deserve to live like this you’re too pretty for that.’” Angel teases cackling loudly as she says it mocking Nanami’s voice at the end.

“Oh. My. God. Angelllll, ” You say between laughter not being able to help it. “If you’re wondering if we fucked; we haven’t yet. But he did buy me a sexy dress to wear tonight maybe he’s gonna ask me out,” you say cackling loudly as well. “So you coming or not I can come by to pick you up. OH MY GOD I didn’t even tell you! He got me a driver too like what the fuck?!” You practically yell through the phone.

“Are you serious?! You gotta tell me everything about this Nanami! But hold on let me get dressed I’ll text you when I am readyyyy!” Angel also yells just as excited as you before she hangs up the phone. You go back to the room and pull the letter out Nanami left you. You find the number of the driver and text him you’d like to get picked up soon, and that you want to pick your friend up too, and want to go to a couple of spots sending a list of locations. You jot down the code Nanami gave you as well putting the letter back in the bedside drawer.

You get a message within minutes from the driver that reads. ‘okay. be there in 5,’ plain and simple.

Your phone vibrates again with a text from Angel that reads; ‘I AM READY LET'S GO SPEND SOME MONEYYYY!’ You laugh as you read the message and thumbs up the text. You run out of the house slipping on random shoes before running to the elevator. Once down in the lobby, you wave hello to the front desk lady and security as you make it outside. Thankfully you had put a jacket on with your outfit; today you wore baggy blue jeans and a thin black cropped tank top even though it was freezing outside. You see a black car pull up similar to Nanami’s car having blacked-out windows and a sleek design. A man steps out of the car once it’s in park and rounds the car opening the backseat passenger door. He was tall like Nanami also built in a similar way having a broad chest and shoulders just a tad more muscular. He wore a black tee shirt with some loose grey denim pants. You step into the car and he slams it behind you-you jump a little before he gets in the car himself. You stared at him taking in every feature from his shaggy black hair covered his face, his killer jawline, and a small scar on the corner of his lip.

“You gonna keep gawking at me or are you gonna send me the address of your friend?” He asks loudly interrupting your train of thought while looking back at you which makes you look into his eyes. They were a beautiful green which was a great contrast to the rest of his rugged look. He begins snapping his fingers at you slightly frustrated to get your attention since you didn’t respond.

“I’m so sorry, I was lost in thought it should’ve just sent right now.” You stutter out shyly while grabbing your phone from your purse and sending him Angel's address. He nods in agreement when his phone buzzes with the address and he puts it into the GPS. The car ride was quiet not an awkward kind of quiet more of a pleasant one. You both stole glances from each other looking away just as fast. Clearing your throat you open your mouth to talk but get interrupted.

“We are here,” the rugged man states suddenly as the car comes to a slow stop. You look around and you are in fact in front of Angel’s apartment.

“You can just honk the horn she’ll get the idea. Also, what is your name? My name is y/n,” you say softly looking towards driver side of the car. He smirks before turning around towards you fully to greet you.

“Fushiguro, Fushiguro Toji,” Toji says while honking the horn trying his best not to stare at you too long. Within seconds Angel was opening the other passenger side door flopping inside smiling as big as ever.

“Woooo your a hunk…You’re the driver?” Angel asks as she puts her seatbelt on raising her eyebrows at you like she’s trying to say ‘OMG THIS GUY IS FINE.’ You smile at her holding in a laugh as you nod 'yes'. “Damn, I need to find me a Nanami so he can get me a hot driver too.” Angel teases as the car pulls off swiftly Toji never responds or chimes in but continues to periodically eye you through the rearview mirror.

“We’re here our 1st stop..” Toji utters between sighs knowing today will be long. “Do you want me to get out with you guys or are you good?” He asks turning around to the backseat to look at both women.

“Aaaah we will be fine we aren’t delicate flowers. I can protect us anyways!” Angel explains flashing Toji her small switchblade. “I am really good..” she coos before getting out of the car. You follow closely behind her as you both walk towards the nail salon. You both are in there for about an hour before re-entering the car giggling and chatting to each other.

“Look at our nails Toji!” Angel commands not really giving the man a choice in the matter flashing her long acrylics to him. Angel chose a simple white French tip with some jewels on them that made them sparkle in the sun. You do as Angel does showing off your nails as well; you got long acrylics as well but got black French tips. You both decided you wanted to match somewhat but put your own twists on it. Your nails had a cute bow on both ring fingers giving a cute dainty vibe. All Toji can do is grunt in approval before pulling off again taking you both to get your eyelashes done. Once both of you are done there you get back in the car to drop Angel off. Angel continues to tease Toji the whole car ride over as they both start to grow on each other. You sat back and just enjoyed the show before you knew it you had arrived at Angel’s home.

“Bye girly, I’ll see you Wednesday night and bring Toji with you.” She whispers as she wiggles her eyebrows before turning away waving goodbye and blowing kisses in between. You laugh waving goodbye back and blowing kisses as well.

“So, do you have anywhere else you need to go? It’s 1 in the afternoon,” Toji expounds pointing around at random buildings as he drives off.

“I sent you another address it’s one of my girl friends house who does hair,” you say pointing in the general direction and he nods in agreement.

“Your friend Angel, she seems nice. You’ve been adjusting okay in the city?” Toji asks looking at you through the mirror and you can’t help but be shocked that he’s actually asking you something personal.

“Ya! She’s amazing we work together at the strip club and kinda do everything together. She’s truly my only friend other then Trina right now and yes I’m adjusting fine as best as I can honestly. Ooh, we’re here!” You exclaim pointing to an apartment building clapping with excitement as you pull up.

Toji has been smiling softly all day and he’s been eyeing you he couldn’t help it you are just so captivating. The way your skin glowed under sunlight was something he had never seen before. Your smile was the main attraction besides your beautiful body. Your hips swayed when you walked, thighs jiggling, and your ass looked like it was fighting to get out of your pants. He shakes his head as he pulls into the complex trying to get his ‘head’ out of the gutter. You open the door frantically as another black woman walks out of the complex lobby waving.

“Trina!” You yell happily running to her and basically tackling her in a hug. Being away from Trina was hard but you both had busy and conflicting schedules.

“Y/n, you look amazing come on let’s start on this hair. I can’t wait to hear alllll the tea bitch!” Trina exclaims dragging you into the apartment. You wave at Toji before turning around and letting yourself get dragged by Trina. You sat in between her legs and she began to take your braids out laughing at how you kept forgetting to put a bonnet on at night. “Ma’am with this hairstyle IMMA NEED YOU TO KEEP A BONNET ON YOU AT ALL TIMES!” She says pointing her finger to the side of your face acting like a mother. She was a great friend you both moved here around the same time and you found her on Instagram. You both kicked it off and she agreed to be your hairstylist because. ‘Don't nobody know how to do black people's hair out here LIKE ME!’ Trina said through text when you first began talking. She was the one to do your braids when you first moved and was shocked at how much your hair grew once she took them out. “So, we gonna braid this shit down and imma wash the bundles before sewing them in. Got it?!” She yelled again as she began to braid your medium-sized afro.

“I got it, MOM!” You tease sitting back and relaxing as she does your hair.

“So, anything you wanna to tell me? I see that sexy man is driving you arounddddd…” Trina inquires popping you with the comb when you start to tilt your head away from her.

“Wellll, I moved out of my apartment since working at the club I’ve had some weird encounters and wanted to feel safe. I’ve been seeing this guy and it’s at that stage just before the stage of being boyfriend and girlfriend. And he found me on a rough night offering me to live in his penthouse so I could save money to see my family. The hot guy in the car driving me around was just hired today to be my chauffeur or security.” You explain thankful you can’t see Trina's face as she had completely stopped what she was doing.

“1st, girllllll you are CRAZYYY. Do you even know the guy for real? 2nd, chauffeur? Your main got you sexy chauffeur and has been paying for everything. 3rd, where the fuck do you find these people?” Trina questions rapidly as she finishes up braiding your hair. She then gets up with bundles in hand heading towards the sink. Her questions really made you giggle but also think at the same time.

You blush softly thinking to yourself; ‘do I really know Kento? We always have time to get to know each other. We’ve grown attached to each other recently. Sleeping in the same bed but we just cuddle and talk.’ “I know enough to know he won’t do anything to hurt me. He’s been there for me during some hard times recently. Today, he has a surprise for me I think he’s gonna ask me out.” You try to explain yelling at Trina across the room over the running water of the sink. “But yes to all your other questions he’s paying for everything even giving me an allowance. The chauffeur thing was for protection the driver just so happens to be hot. And lastly I don’t know, I’ll ask if they have brothers for you.” You add and Trina hums in understanding and agreement before blow-drying the bundles as she had finished washing them. You picked a couple of plain black body wave bundles and 2 blonde bundles to put in the front to frame your face. Trina doesn’t take long finishing around 4:30 you thank her by giving her ¥30,000 yen and hugging her one last time. Waving goodbye you walk yourself out and see Toji sleep in the car. You knock on the driver's side window startling him awake. He takes a moment scanning you over while looking at your new hairstyle in ‘awe’ of how beautiful you are. Toji gets out of the car and rounds it opening the backseat door for you once again. You smile softly before sliding in and like last time he slams the door before returning back to his seat.

“You umm look beautiful Mx. Y/n,” Toji says softly trying to hide his face as he blushes slightly. This was the guy who hired him soon to be girlfriend; Toji saw how you made Nanami smile whenever you texted or called him. Toji hadn’t seen Nanami this happy in a long time so he didn’t want to stifle that. But seeing you in person and seeing how beautiful you are he can’t help the lewd thoughts crossing his mind. Not realizing it he was already in Nanami’s complex within a couple of minutes. The car comes to a slow stop and you try to hand Toji a generous tip. “No, no your ummm boyfriend already has paid me a good amount. This just feels like taking candy from a kid.” He pushes the money back towards you and unlocks the door. One thing about Toji he loves money but for some reason, he doesn’t want you to give him any. ‘Am I sick?’ Toji thinks to himself as you nod at him opening the car door to get out. You stuff the money into your purse again shaking your head at what Toji said. Once out of the car you walk towards the lobby but suddenly you turn around wanting to say ‘thank you’ but Toji is already gone. You do your usual thing waving at the security and front desk before entering the elevator. You had 10 FUCKING minutes to get ready you hadn’t even gotten in the apartment yet. As anxiety creeps in you open Nanami’s front door slamming it as you basically run to the bedroom. Swinging the closet door open you see the outfit it's still there and begin to strip. Thankfully you took a nice shower this morning and didn’t sweat at all today so you just slipped the dress on. It fits perfectly looking in the mirror you can’t help the smile that spreads across your face. You put the matching shoes on and hear the front door knob turning; you rush to put some jewelry on and opt out of being makeup on. Your lashes and new hair will make up for it.

“I am home princess!” Nanami yells from the front room as he places his belongings in their receptive locations. You walk out of the bedroom heels clicking every time they meet the ground. Nanami looking tired looks up at you as you walk towards him. His drained eyes shuffle to excited, loving, and slightly lustful. You can’t help but do a twirl to show every inch of yourself for him. Nanami smirks before walking towards you and grabs your chin with his free hand making you look up at him. Nanami leans in kissing you gently smiling as he does not being able to contain his excitement. He pulls away grabbing your hands and examining your nails. “You look as beautiful as ever. I see you put my card to good use today.” He teases playfully before kissing both of your hands softly making you shift your weight.

“Yes-yes I did I had a lot of fun I brought Angel with me. Sorry for the damage we did..how can I ever repay you?” You say in a flirtatious tone twirling his tie in between your fingers.

“Come on this date with me that'll be enough. It's a surprise location but I feel like you’ll love it. Just give me a second to change okay?” He states before kissing your cheek and walking to his room. Nanami changes into an all-black suit with a silky blue tie to match your dress. You can’t help but be excited for what’s to come.

✧･ﾟ: *✧･ﾟ:*𝒢𝐸𝒯𝒪 & 𝒢𝒪𝒥𝒪 ’𝒮 𝒫𝒪𝒱✧･ﾟ: *✧･ﾟ:*

“That bitch banned us from that dingy club I can’t believe she’d do that..” Gojo says angry at the thought you'd reject him pushing him even more over the edge. Geto sits in his office chair staring blankly at his computer screen. They both compiled a list of the places you frequented even going so far as showing up at your old apartment.

“She moved but didn’t leave her job so she’s still close by just gotta figure out where…” Geto explained as he stood up slowly. “I’ve gotten some tips of who she might be with that little slut moves on quickly. His name is Nanami and I’ve had someone keep a lookout on his apartment and car. Tracking his every move so we’ll be making a visit soon. Just wanna confirm that she is living with him. I got pictures of him dropping her off at work but that’s it..”

“Why don’t we just follow them why pay someone to do a half ass job..” Gojo hisses walking out of the office and then the building as he strolls up to his car. ‘You will be mine. I don’t care who I have to go through..’ Gojo thinks to himself gripping the handle of his car door like his life depended on it.

‘I’ll make you pay for leaving us high and dry, dirty slut..’ Geto thinks as he too follows behind Gojo. They both needed you and wanted you no matter what. They are willing to go to any extreme to make sure you are their’s.

'*•.¸♡ ♡¸.•*'꘎♡━━━━━♡꘎'*•.¸♡ ♡¸.•*'

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Once again I hope you enjoyed this one! Sorry if this triggers anyone. Don’t forget to comment, follow me, leave a note, reblog and or leave some feedback. Thank you some much!

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[Please don't copy or plagiarize my work thank you. I don't own any rights to JJK and all photos are from pintrest or here I'll try to tag people if I can]

⟿ Link for my AO3 lovers: {also it’s 24 chapters posted on here}

⟿ I can’t remember or find the credits for the inspiration of this chapter - if you know drop the artist name in the comments

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