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#Round 3: canonverse
arteastica · 8 months
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Early in the morning, especially when it rains, and a little before noon. (4)
erwin x fem!reader
chapters: (1) | (2) | (3) | (5) | (6) | (7) | (8) | (9) | (10) | (11) | (12) | (13) | (14) | (15) | (16) | (17) | (18) | (19) | (20) | (21) | (22) | (23) | (24) | (25)
summary: I basically took Isayama’s work, forced it into a romance story, and made Erwin the love interest. Commander meets cadet and they fall in love (not instantly though)
notes: very berry canonverse (but some events were modified to fit my narrative), wasn’t intended to be this long, but it all is in the details right?
content warnings: smut where it fits (or where I make it fit. Also reader is NOT underage, so likewise, MINORS DO NOT INTERACT, please.) slow burn (I really mean it. I’m not olympic diving into any form of smut for the first chapters). no angst. I dislike angst. I would never. I could never. (Although angst can be somewhat subjective so take it with a grain of salt?)
wc: 2.5k
“Everyone is to be positioned at fixed intervals, to extend the message relay range as far as possible.”
At the Survey Corps headquarters, time seemed to pass rather quickly. Two weeks had already gone by, and with them some of your insecurities. The more familiar you got with your job, the more comfortable you felt in your position. And the commander’s words had proven to be true: your days had grown repetitive indeed. But that was something you didn’t feel the slightest need to complain about. In a world where one moment you could be at home making breakfast, and the next, in a titan’s stomach, you found reassurance in the predictability of your job.
Every day, you woke up early, washed your face, walked into the office, disposed of the spent candle, replaced it, prepared the commander’s work space, received a thankful smile in return, brew his morning tea, received another one, organized his mail, wrote responses, then sent them, then trailed behind him, paused for lunch, then trailed behind him some more, sat at your desk, wrote reports, organized them, brought him his evening tea, heard a ‘thank you’, double-checked you had replaced the candle, asked if he needed anything else, got a ‘no’ followed by another ‘thank you’ and the respective smile that always came with it, bid him goodnight, wrote a diary entry, went to bed, and repeated it all over again the next day. Exhausting? No, not for you. Repetitive desk work happened to be your area of expertise. Oh, and once a week, you attended meetings like this one.
“A black smoke round will be fired as soon as an abnormal is sighted, which they will be since the area is full of them.”
From the secluded corner you liked to stand in, you listened attentively as the commander went over the formation one more time. Your eyes drifting from his face to the now familiar expedition plans that were laid out on the wooden table. Every morning, there was a new scribble on the paper, and it was getting increasingly difficult to see what was underneath. But maybe it was just you. Neither the commander nor his captains seemed to have any problem seeing through all the additional lines and hasty handwriting.
“And it’s primarily the forward recon soldier who will encounter them.”
The forward recon soldier. You checked in with your notes before fixing your eyes back on the table. Ever since you noticed it one morning while organizing his desk, you had been wondering if there was a particular reason why the commander assigned only one person for that position. The third column, however, was marked as multiple.
“Anyone who sees the flare should fire the same round to relay the signal”
And when the commander sees it, he’ll fire a green smoke round, and show the formation where to go. Impressive. The formation looked impressive enough on paper, but you wondered how it would look in real life, under actual life-threatening circumstances. And with the expedition quickly approaching, you were surprised to discover in yourself, even though slight, a tinge of excitement at the thought of seeing it all play out in the field. Impressive. The commander was really something. You thought as you watched him. Firing that green smoke round would be nerve-racking for anyone, knowing so many lives depended on whether you made the right call or not. A slip in judgement, even the slightest one, could mean his soldiers wouldn’t live to see another day. And yet, there he stood: solid and resolute.
Impressive, indeed. To think such complex strategy had been devised entirely by one man. Sleepless nights working tirelessly on his project. No, not his. Humanity’s. So many nights spent under the candle light, leaning over his desk, so focused, so determined. Just as he was now. And you couldn’t help but notice that the rumors you heard in the capital never mentioned how attractive he was. Sapphires instead of eyes; neatly combed hair, fair and trimmed short at the sides; well built and broad-shouldered, yet elegant and sophisticated. If one didn’t know any better, one could have assumed he descended from royalty.
“What do you think?” A question with your name attached at the end took you by surprise. The commander was talking to you. “I’ve noticed you’ve been staring at that one spot in the paper since the meeting started. What’s on your mind?”
“Sir, I-” the short woman with strawberry blonde hair, whose name, you had learned, was Petra, gave you an encouraging smile “I just think the third relay, the one in the third column, would work better as a one-person position” you explained, leaving your self-appointed confinement in the corner of the room to join them at the table “I mean, because of the place it is located in, I- I think it is unlikely that they will encounter a titan before the others” you said as you tried to focus your attention on the commander only, doing your best to make it past squad leader Miche’s sniffing and Captain Levi’s dead eyes. “And in the event that they do, I think it would be more efficient to use a strong soldier for that position, instead of multiple of average… strength” you continued, trying to convince yourself that ‘average’ wasn’t an insult “that- that way the strong soldiers could deal with the situation alone as a one-man team, and we would be able to send more people to the peripheral positions and support those who are more likely to find titans, like the recon soldiers, for example. I believe this way the chances of survival would be slightly higher for everyone” you concluded, relieved to have reached the end of your intervention “It’s just my opinion, sir.”
After, what you estimated, had been a century of the commander contemplating the paper before him, he finally grabbed his pencil and wrote something in his small black notebook. Then, he moved on to the next topic.
-
“You’re not one of many words, are you?”
“Sir?” You looked up from the papers you had been organizing.
“Strange. Something about you also tells me you are quite fond of talking. I can’t decide.”
Oh, you talked. Inside your head. There, you never shut up.
“I used to think it was an innate ability, you know, being able to choose one’s words intentionally” the commander told you as he drew his signature on a report “But one author I read once, said it was actually an acquired skill. And now I can’t decide either. But whatever it is, I respect that” he looked up and smiled softly “Today, however, was the first time I heard you string more than two sentences together. And I must say, I would be delighted to hear your input more often.”
You liked that. Very much. So you smiled back.
“Nanaba told me they had never heard a recruit speak so much for a first interview.” You had to pause what you were doing “She admitted she was overwhelmed at first, but then grateful, because, after such descriptive self-introduction, she knew exactly where to place you.” Did he know about all the things you told them? “I confess that, knowing that, it was starting to concern me, that you may be scared of me. That’s why you never talk. Am I that scary?”
Not scary. Intimidating maybe? But definitely not scary. So you shook your head lightly.
He smiled, looking a little bit defeated by the continuous silence on your end, and then said “In the future, share your ideas with us. There’s value in them. I won’t keep you any longer, you may go.”
But you didn’t move, instead you took a deep breath and opened your mouth. “I think that paper is a mess” you pointed to the formation plans “There’s so much written on it, and it’s getting difficult for me to understand what’s going on underneath. I mean, I understand because I saw it before it turned into the chaos that it is now, and because I go to the meetings every week, of course. And your explanations there are always very detailed. I think you’re great at explaining things by the way, you could explain chess to a titan. But I was just thinking, the other new recruits may find it rather confusing too. When we present the plan to them next week, they’re only gonna see scribbles and doodles and lines that go in all sorts of directions. And they’re gonna be left to wonder if your son grabbed his colored chalk and wrote on it while you were sleeping.”
He looked down at the paper, then back at you, and then threw his head back laughing.
“Very good. I’ll work on that tomorrow. Thanks” he concluded, seemingly satisfied.
“And also” he said as you were almost at the door “I don’t have a son.”
And you found yourself smiling back complicitly.
“Good night, commander”
-
You opened the map and when you saw it, it made you smile. The forward recon position was no longer a soldier but a squad.
Like hell you were going to let him rewrite the plans. This was the whole point of you being there, to take over trivial stuff like this so he could focus on more important things. So you showed up even earlier the next morning and started working on it.
When he opened the scroll later that day, his eyes immediately went to find you at your desk.
“Scribble on it as much as you like. I’ll make a new one when I see it starts getting messy” this time it was you giving him the reassuring smile.
-
“Erwin, it was about time you cleaned up that thing. It was starting to upset me.”
“It wasn’t me, Levi. The new recruits will be here” he pointed at the space between the wagon defense squad and the support squad. “They will be moving with the spare horses, as well as relaying signals.”
The one month anniversary of your enlistment had arrived, and the day of your first expedition beyond the walls was quickly approaching. As you had expected, the atmosphere at the headquarters had gotten more and more hectic. That week’s meeting had been significantly longer. They had taken hours going over each one of the soldiers individually, and deciding their positions in the formation.
Captain Levi’s squad was already in charge of Eren, so you assumed they would continue to serve that role for the expedition as well. But the commander hadn’t specified so, neither revealed their exact position yet. Not during the meeting, at least. You didn’t understand what was the reason behind all the secrecy. Did he suspect something was off? Was he worried someone might hurt Eren? If so, who and why? Eren’s name, however, wasn’t the only one missing. You couldn’t find yours anywhere on the paper.
“The forces this time are significantly smaller than in previous expeditions, we should concentrate on getting back with minimal losses. Any questions?”
“Yes, sir” you raised a hand “What is going to be my position?”
-
“Commander, please”
“I’m not risking losing my assistant to a titan” he said while opening the door to his office “I need you here, not in a titan’s belly.”
“If a titan grabs me I’ll scream for it to unhand me.” Not even you knew if that was supposed to be a joke “Unhand me, monster.”
He chuckled as he sat at his desk, still not bothering to look at you. “I can guarantee you that’s not the way things work out there.”
“I know those plans like the back of my hand. And that too” you said pointing at the map scroll he had just placed on the table. “Commander, I swear, when I close my eyes at night, I’m only able to see that thing. I’m forever haunted. By that and by your scribbles.”
“All the more reason to stay then” he looked rather amused, and for a brief moment you were tempted to ask if he derived some sort of enjoyment from the situation. But you settled for listening instead. “In the event we all perish out there, there needs to be someone left who’s able to pass on the knowledge to the next soldiers.”
“All the more reason to go then” you said as he gave his full attention to a pile of reports. What was he even doing? You were supposed to organize that later. “If you perish out there, so will my intentions of going beyond the walls. Because I’m not following anyone else out there.”
He put down the papers and finally looked at you. And something about his demeanor reminded you of that night.
Are you ready to die if I ordered to? But the memory didn’t make you think of him as much as it made you think of your past self. What would she say? How would she feel knowing that all it took was one month. One month working under Erwin Smith, and you were already begging to be taken on a suicide mission. Talk about unexpected.
“Commander, back then you said all the new recruits would join you in the expedition beyond the walls” You added in a composed manner, watching your tone the whole time because the last thing you wanted was to sound whiny. You knew that wouldn’t help. You needed to make him understand it was not an impulsive plea. Because it really wasn’t. You wholeheartedly believed you could be of some assistance out there. Maybe not fighting titans but helping with provisions, running spare horses, anything he needed. Him or anyone. Plus how would you call yourself a scout if you never, well… scouted.
He remained silent. So you took it as an indication that you could keep going.
“You said you wanted to hear my ideas. I can’t tell you what I think if I’m here and you’re miles away.” you stepped closer, the front of his desk meeting the front of your thighs. “Please, let me go with you.”
He stared back at you. All amusement seemed to have abandoned his eyes. But beyond that, it was difficult to guess what he was thinking. After a while, however, he spoke again.
“You’ll take the position to my immediate right.” You released the stiffness your muscles had been holding. The spearhead. Through your relief, you tried to go over the plans in your mind. “Don’t stray too far apart and keep your eyes open at all times.”
“Yes, sir” you didn’t try to hide the contentment in your smile.
-
next chapter
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sasiaucompetition · 13 days
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Prelim Round Poll
12. The Stowaway's Heart - @/thesympatheticvillain (ao3)
vs.
59. Vanished - @/red_imeanblue (ao3)
Propaganda:
The Stowaway's Heart:
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Image ID: A screenshot that reads: Fantasy soulmate au with intruloxiety! Virgil stows away on a ship and is rescued by a family of selkies.
End Image ID
Vanished:
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Image ID: A screenshot that reads: Amazing canonverse fic. Janus disappears from his bed and reappears 3 years later.
End Image ID
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levmada · 6 months
Note
Hii! I read some of your writings and omg I love you!I'd have a fanfic request if possible. if you don't like or care, you don't have to do it,I saw a tiktok in which Erwin and Levi are in Erwin’s office. Erwin, sitting at his desk, he should do his job, but instead stares at Levit. Then Levi suddenly speaks, not looking up from his book."Levi: If you keep undressing me with your eyes, I’m gonna catch a cold.Erwin: O /// O" So yes You would be the most perfect person to make it smut! Thank you!
ahhh hi :D sorry this took so long, and idk if this is what you had in mind bc it’s filthy😅i hope you like it🫶
➥ pairing: Captain!bratty sub!Levi x Commander!service dom!Erwin
➥ about: Levi has been keeping a dirty little secret since last night. Naturally, Erwin figures him out. But not even he predicted how delicious Levi’s secret would be.
➥ c/w: established relationship, multiple sappy monologues about how much erwin loves levi, abuse of authority but it’s consensual, touching over clothes, TEASING, lingerie/cross-dressing, abundant praise, toy (plug), canonverse, rimming+assplay, impact play, aftercare<3, rough desk sex
➥ wc: 4.7k
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The sun has set on another day on base. Quite a while ago at that. Erwin’s office is quiet except for his quill scratching parchment at his desk, and Levi occasionally sipping his tea. He stands at the window looking out at the countryside and the main road that leads to Shiganshina proper.
It's impossible for there to be foot traffic or otherwise this late at night, but whenever Levi is indoors he's bound to be looking out a window, even a few years later; outside at all Aboveground has to offer.
Erwin envies him at times. Levi's seeming childlike wonder at the outside world is also one of many things he loves about him.
He turns a page, silently chiding himself. Levi is distracting him. And he already threatened him that he’d drag him to bed sooner or later if he didn’t come to a stop with paperwork for the night.
Erwin had been more than prepared for the weight is responsibility the title of commander came with (as far as bureaucracy goes, at least), but it's integral to be on top of things at all times. But even so, Levi argues that he'll drop dead if he works too hard, and then he wouldn't work at all. Levi cares in his own way.
He really should wrap up.
So he slows down, glances at his inkwell and is reminded of how hard Levi has worked himself. He's cleaned the place from top to bottom in the meantime like every week, and they had their writing lesson. Levi’s handwriting has improved tenfold in the last two months, but he still seemed grouchy about not being able to help out with the papers.
Really though, he’s really been grouchy all day, more than he usually is. He barely saw him after waking up this morning, but he’s seemed flustered, too. He'd bat Erwin's hand off his waist before the latter showered, yet when he snuck a kiss to Levi's cheek earlier, he yanked him up by his bolo tie to kiss him, like a gunshot.
Ever since their duties were wrapped up today, Levi has used just about any excuse to close the physical distance between them.
And after last night… Erwin lets his gaze linger on Levi’s back. Outlines, his muscles, hint through his shirt, and his trousers hug his round backside tightly. He’s still gaining weight since life Aboveground lets him eat properly, and a proper amount.
But for now he’s not going to complain, especially knowing Levi would be stubborn about buying new clothes, again.
He's going to use the opportunity to stare.
He wonders.
“Hey Blondie. If you keep undressing me with your eyes, I’m gonna catch a cold. Are you tired yet?”
Erwin looks up. Levi is still facing the window.
“Come here, Levi.”
He sets his tea down on the saucer with a faint clink and turns, arms crossed. “Huh? Why.”
“Just come here,” he chuckles. "It’d be easier to drag me to bed."
He appears to consider this for a second or less, then comes over to him. Erwin is just as tall as Levi sitting, so he can easily open his legs for him to stand between.
He brings his palms to Levi’s soft round cheeks, smiling. Like this, his scowl just looks precious.
“Are you already getting a cold?—Your cheeks are red…” His thumb wanders, brushing against his plump bottom lip. “And you’re quite warm.”
Erwin’s eyes suggest the question is rhetorical. By the way Levi’s blush stretches to his ears now, that confirms it.
But he gives nothing away. “You think so?”
He senses a challenge.
"Let me see."
"Erwin..." he warns, but does nothing as Erwin steadies his hip. The tension in his shoulders loosens under his other hand.
Erwin digs his fingertips in just so, and skips down a little to caress his upper torso under his arm. The base of his palm can narrowly press on Levi's nipple through his short-sleeved shirt.
Levi makes a soft noise, and he meets it with a knowing hum. His nipple is firm underneath.
"You aren't cold, are you?"
"Shut up..."
Erwin smirks gently; Levi refuses to meet his eye.
It occurs to him—far from the first time—that both of his hands could close around Levi's waist; not just because of their size difference, but the slight feminine undertones that shape Levi's body.
Really, he loves it all.
Levi shifts his arm out of the way slightly, giving him more room. Erwin spots this.
“Stand at ease.”
He nibbles on his top lip, but obeys: he widens his stance, his back straight, and clasps his arms behind his back. Such a strict show of respect doesn't fit him whatsoever, but he flawlessly executes it when he orders him to.
His cock, already leaving his pants quite tight, twitches attentively. Levi looks a little humiliated. Is he perverted for this, or are they both perverted because Levi is willing?
He believes that that's what's attractive about this display... for the most part.
To debase his duty this way. Rubbing, then pressing Levi's pecs together through his shirt while he presents himself like his perfect Captain.
His nipples are pointed through his black shirt now. Unable to resist, Erwin taps them gently with his thumbs. Levi gasps sharply, his shoulders hunching. His glazed eyes are almost closed.
Pleased with his remarkable sensitivity—even more sensitive than usual...—he rubs the pricked swells, back and forth and around.
Levi, ever his perfect Captain, stays rigid as Erwin watches his thick erection strain against the front of his trousers. Levi notices him looking, and turns his head away.
He loves this about Levi—all he tells him without uttering a word. No matter what he does to him, to tease him to the brink, it's too embarrassing for him to be observed.
For now Erwin allows the mistake. With one hand still squeezing and stroking a gentle swell, he unbuckles Levi’s belt.
“Is this okay?”
“Wh-Why wouldn’t it be?” he rasps.
“You’re more shy than usual.”
He scoffs. “Yeah? Maybe I’m creeped out because you have me standing like this, you pervert.”
It’s so cute when he does this. Snapping like a dog with his cheeks glowing pink and his cock so obviously interested.
Erwin smirks to himself. “But your posture is wrong. You should be looking straight ahead.”
“Fuck you.” Levi fixes a glare at his eyes.
"Take off your shirt, too, soldier."
“Right away, sir,” he retorts back, but his attitude is now meek.
Levi is breathing heavier than when they started. He crosses his wrists at his hips and pulls off his t-shirt. Erwin relishes in the reveal of pale skin—like freshly fallen snow—contrasting against the here-and-there pale pink scar, and black trail of hair below his navel, which disappears below his trousers’ waistband. He watches his powerful muscles flex slightly with the movement. No one could come close to grasping the magnitude of the strength Levi possesses within for his short stature and slight feminine grace he was blessed with in his hips, shoulders, and waist. His biceps, abdominals and thighs are bulky, but Levi hides his body much more often than not in oversized civilian wear. He's the picture of peak physical shape. But Erwin would go so far as to describe his hands as dainty, if they weren't so tough. He could easily master the piano. His body is toughened by war, his skin is oven-warm; his body leans and seeks out Erwin’s touch wherever and whenever it nears.
Levi maintains eye contact the whole time he neatly folds it. He drops it down on his desk with a distracted hand.
That’s better.
"Good boy."
Levi's chest lifts as Erwin’s hands glide down his waist, just barely scraping his skin with his fingertips. The toned muscles under his skin twitch where they go.
“Hm,” he chuckles. "So sensitive."
He leans forward, kissing Levi’s lips gently as he grunts in what vaguely resembles annoyance.
He ducks down to close his lips on his nipple.
“Ah—…” Levi huffs harshly.
Erwin exhales slow and heavy through his nose as its firmness prods the flat of his tongue. He sucks rhythmically; at the same time sliding his hands into Levi’s back pockets, and squeezing the firm muscles hard. As he licks, he lets up on the pressure, and alternates like that.
Levi is well and truly squirming on his feet now. His chest rises and falls, against and away from his mouth. A small, breathy whine slips out under Levi’s breath.
He groans. With one hand, he keeps playing with his ass. His other tugs his leather belt off.
He pulls away to admire his work. Saliva makes Levi's blushing nipple appear to gleam, and his pinned cock is more pronounced than ever. Levi’s eyes are still on his, but they're dark and glazed-over.
“Why are you so hard already? Even faster than usual…”
He presses his palm flat on his cock.
“Hng…” Levi’s hips wobble forward in response. His brow is creased in focus.
He folds Levi’s belt, watching him with an innocent curiosity that couldn't be more corrupted as he trails the leather down Levi's bare belly. He stops at his crotch and taps, just gently taps his bulge.
Levi is tense like a live wire. Shockingly, his hips lean forward.
“You going to punish me? ...Just see why for yourself.” Levi stares at Erwin's crotch as he says this.
His brows raise.
So there's a reason why.
Mildly, he leans back in his seat and unbuttons his shirt as if he isn’t craving to tear Levi’s pants off at the seams and find out what he means. The silence is pregnant with anticipation.
When they’re parted like curtains, he slides the sleeves off. “Drop your pants.”
Levi grips his trousers’ waistband. He notices the red lines on his long fingers from wringing them too much.
When he finally drops his pants, Erwin doesn’t even notice him stepping out of them.
White, sheer panties ride low on Levi's hips and hug them. Next to nothing is left to the imagination through the intricate designs, like it matters while Levi's swollen cock distends the lace, despite its perfect fit. Down low, white is greyed and wrinkled-looking where his cock has leaked. He's been like this for a while. And that’s not all. He’s wearing sheer white stockings. They look delicate. Sheer mesh in a flowery design edges his pale, delicious thighs.
And his trousers hid this delicious sight all day. Did he train like this? As he sat in earlier's meeting among his squad, were his thighs spilling over the top of the lace then?
Erwin moans almost involuntarily. "Levi," he murmurs, voice low and heavy with a desire like a bottle fit to burst. He can't tear his eyes away. Erwin's hand slides from his thigh to stroke himself through his trousers.
The whole time, Levi's expression is unreadable, but his eyes are almost hopeful. A glowing blush has stretched to his ears and down his neck.
"Guess you like 'em, Commander," Levi breathes, parting his legs like an invitation. He continues standing like his good little soldier. Disgraceful.
Erwin almost laughs. He squeezes his cock as heat shoots straight down and pools thickly below.
"You have no idea."
He places his hands on the outsides of Levi's thighs and pulls him as close as possible standing, and ravages the skimpy outfit with his touch. For just a moment he takes the time to admire Levi's pale skin next to his much more tan hands before leaning in and dressing the pale column of Levi's neck with his lips and teeth. Levi whines, and moans sweetly as he squeezes his thick thighs hungrily, then rounds back and takes his perfect ass in his hands as if staking claim.
"Fuck, Erwin... That’s not all."
His gaze snaps up to Levi’s lidded eyes. His face is almost comically red, and he won’t look him in the eye; he stares at the bridge of his nose instead, imitating eye contact.
“Don’t you dare think you’re anything but gorgeous, especially dressed like this,” Erwin states, exactly like a command but even firmer, and brings Levi forward by his hips, slamming their lips together and instantly prodding between with an eager tongue.
Levi moans into his hot mouth, and finally, finally swings his arms around him. Erwin uses this to his advantage to raise Levi up and put him on his desk.
Levi moans like it was wrenched from him, his hips snapping forward and nails biting, scratching down his back. He’s whining louder than ever as their tongues swirl together. Levi's (relatively) cool demeanor has vanished before it could even melt.
Erwin manages to tear himself away and use his superior strength to lift his legs, guiding his feet to hook on the edge of the desk as Levi babbles a quiet chant of fuck, fuck, fuck. His cock strains and tenses, there, harder and restrained by his panties by only a thin sliver of lace.
“Erwin, hurry."
Levi gasps, forced back as he pries his ass apart and yanks the white cloth to the side.
Erwin's jaw slackens. His knees weaken as arousal rushes to his trapped cock, and it throbs to the brink of pain.
Levi's favorite plug is nestled in his ass. A rich green jewel marks its placement, to him like a prize.
"Ah, you're too good to me, Levi." Erwin takes hold of it, nudging back and forth. Levi's reaction is swift and dramatic, arching into his touch as if he's been tortured, and now finally, relief is just out of his reach.
"Sh-Shut up," he gasps, certainly shakier and weaker than he meant. Even his elbows are hardly holding him up.
"How long have you been like this?"
Erwin licks into one of the two ringed, cruel scars (courtesy of the ODM gear) on Levi's quaking thighs as he plays with the plug, and watches his face contort from pleasure. The skin of his very inner thighs is remarkably soft.
"Uh." A scratching can be heard from his nails digging into the wood. "This... this morning. I was still loose from last night, so I—sh-shit—took the opportunity."
"Good boy."
Erwin's hand closes on his heavy balls, massaging and squeezing as he lifts them out of the way for his tongue to press more against Levi's taint. His hips thrust down as a hand seizes the back of Erwin’s head and his shoulder, respectively.
"Fuck! Fuck-Fuckin' hell..."
"Mm..." Erwin kisses his sac open-mouthed, alternating between licking and suckling. Levi's thighs spasm at random, his heels dig into his shoulderblades.
As his mouth inches to his hole, Levi's breathing grows heavier and his hips raise in anticipation. "Erwin, Errwin."
He's slurring his words—he's delirious already.
He wants to think, Not yet. Bite those feather-soft thighs, tear those thin stockings apart and use featherlight strokes and kisses, but that's just it—Levi looks so delicious in his little panties and socks; he ate breakfast, and trained, and sat in a meeting with a toy in his ass and this sweet outfit.
Erwin takes hold of the lace at the crotch as he sucks, and pulls upward, inflicting tight friction on the plug inside him.
Levi coughs out a cry that sounds punched from him, thighs jolting almost shut. He's squirming so much, like he can't contain this much pleasure in his body. His panties are absolutely ruined, both by cum and Erwin's grip.
"Don't make me fucking beg," he rasps.
"Beg."
Erwin peers up at him as he orders this, and frees his cock entirely. Levi hisses through his teeth as he leans forward, and licks his gleaming cock clean while teasing his hole at the same time.
"Ah—!"
Levi never disobeys a direct order.
"Fuck you"—a knocking sound as his head falls back—"fuck... Please... I didn't... deal with that fucking thing all day to drag this out. Erwin. Fucking please."
He's satisfied with those pleas and the trembling within them.
He drags it on for longer, by kissing, suckling just his tip while fondling the plug in little circles.
"Please! Sir..."
Levi grips his hair so tight Erwin moans with the ache. He's dizzy.
Levi's begging dissolves into babbling, and he knows he's getting close, just from this teasing that should be doing nothing for him.
With that, he lets the rumpled panties go and raises his head. The lace is a ruined memory of what it once was; dragged down below his hips, greyed, laying stuck to one side. Levi's cock twitches eagerly under his gaze. His legs try to twitch together as it lingers.
"Don't start being shy again." Erwin looks up, although Levi's eyes are barely opened into slits. Slowly, he worked the plug out of him. "You're so beautiful."
"Ngh... Fuck... Shut up..."
It pops out of him, and a whitish ooze dribbles out. Erwin gasps softly.
Levi is just as loose and open as he said, but his pink rim is left puffy and swollen. With the loss of the toy, it quivers harshly around nothing. Cute.
Not having liked his answer, he remembers himself. He yanks his thighs wide part, and whips his hole with his palm, more than once.
His entire body jolts on each impact, his chest heaving and whimpers shaking. "Oh god... Fuck... Please, jus' please..."
"This seems sensitive." Erwin leans forward, finally, licking around his rim in firm, quick revolutions.
Levi cries out and shoves his ass down on his mouth, pushing his desire past the point of unbearable.
He starts eating him out with abandon. While clutching his thigh with one hand, he practically rips his zipper getting it open, unable to stop his voice; his cock strains just to finally be freed. His nostrils flare.
Next he slips the oil from the bottom drawer of his desk. It definitely pays to be prepared.
He gives Levi total control to grind and pull his hair as he pleases as he dribbles a generous amount of oil on his hand and gets his cock wet. From the first touch, he moans. His balls are already tightening; he shouldn't push it.
He wipes his hand on his trousers, then slots his fingers in with Levi's tangled in his hair. Regaining control, he pulls away and stands up, taking the bend of Levi's knee with him so he's forced to fold nearly in half.
Levi's subdued blue eyes, his wet eyes, are dark, with his cheeks a deep scarlet shade that stretches to his ears and down his pale chest. A tear has fallen, matching the drool on his chin. He's been playing with his nipples.
"Er-Erwin, please..."
"Fuck."
Like this, Levi looks defenseless, but only because he lets himself be—for Erwin and Erwin only.
Overcome, Erwin drags him towards him, making Levi gasp. He spreads his legs and raises his hips like a slut as Erwin seizes him by his hair and kisses him hard. Levi moans down his throat.
"Come here, angel."
Erwin brings him to sit up, and helps him off. Levi stumbles, while he's more than happy to support him the whole way, to completely steer Levi around and bend him over his desk.
"Are you ready?"
"W-Was ready a fuckin' hour ago..." He shoots him a painfully pleading gaze and bends his back, sticking his ass up. "Hurry the fuck up."
Erwin laughs, smirking as he presses down on his lower back, pinning him in place. With his other hand he spreads his ass open, along with the panties. It's better to keep them on.
He enjoys watching his cock disappear inside him almost as much as the feeling. It's hot. He hardly has to slow down; his soft walls part around his cock easily, but quiver tightly with a grip reluctant to let go. He's barely halfway when Levi starts whining and arching his ass back. "Stop—fuckin'... teasing..."
He chuckles, but a moan escapes anyway. "I promise I'm not. Perhaps you're just desperate."
Erwin squeezes one cheek and rocks back inside, reveling in the whimper he gets in return.
“Fucking prove it,” he growls.
How those words ignite a fire in him. Erwin pulls out until his tip is barely held in place.
Levi barks a curse and throws his arm back to grab the rear of Erwin's thigh, but he grabs Levi's wrist first, scoops up the other easily—his wrists being so small compared—and pins them firmly on Levi's lower back. With that, he grips Levi's hip and slams deep inside.
His hips smack his ass with a wet squelch. Levi cries out at the top of his throat. "Fuck, yeah!—Like that—fuck!"
Erwin groans. It's really like he was made for him. He bears down on him and shows him no mercy.
As Levi’s ass bounces along with his brutal thrusts, joining in tandem the sweet moans escaping him, Erwin can't tear his eyes away. His palm comes down, the impact yanking yet another cry from Levi's throat. His hands squeeze into fists and his insides clamp tightly before he's slurring his words, begging for more. Immediately a pink handprint blossoms to the surface of plump pale flesh.
“God—you’re so beautiful, angel.”
Praise wrenches from him a whine all on its own. When he spanks him again, he arches perfectly.
“So beautiful…”
This time he looks to Levi’s face for the reaction. An iridescent puddle paints the wood Levi's cheek is pressed against. The sideways angle has his bangs tossed to one side, giving a messy imitation of a fringe over one eye, tightly shut. Levi must’ve lost himself in the haze of sex a while ago, because he’s drooling, too. His lips are parted as he moans nonstop, just enough to see a sliver of white canines. It's no wonder—he's been torturing himself all day long. A compliment turns his expression into something almost pained.
Erwin mouths a curse and takes Levi's hip in a bruising grip. "Hold onto it."
Erwin frees his wrists, but apparently he needs to be guided, so he pauses with his hips pressed against his ass to bring them above his head. Levi slaps the edge of the desk and snags it. He makes a subtle whine of confusion.
"That's it."
Erwin uses brute strength to lift him up. He's just short enough for his feet to lose grasp on the floor, and, with a sharp gasp he kicks at first, spitting Erwin's name. His sweet muscles flutter so tightly for a moment that his pace stutters. But ultimately, Levi submits to being treated like a cock sheathe. Nothing traps him in place or holds him up except Erwin.
He takes a moment to check Levi's face for pain or protest, but he sees none, and he doesn't utter the safe word.
“That’s a good boy. My perfect boy,” he moans. Still bruising Levi’s hips with his grip, he slows to a grueling pace, but not without impaling him on his cock so hard that the desk scoots forward. The change in angle has him slam directly into Levi’s prostate.
“Fuck!” Levi shouts. “Ah! Fuck me fuck me fuck me—”
Erwin obliges with each curse from Levi’s mouth serving as a punch of encouragement. The desk creaks in protest, and that pushes him harder. It’s not a distant possibility that they'll break it at this rate, but in this state, he wouldn’t mind it. In fact it turns him hot, imagining that not only Levi’s limping tomorrow, or the blossoming bruises on their bodies are to show for how good he really fucks him.
In the process Levi once almost kicks a drawer open. Erwin's palm comes down on his ass twice as hard as the other times, chiding him, “Too loud.”
He doesn’t respond but with a hitched, slurring moan.
Curious, Erwin, clutching his hip with one hand, reaches around and feels his cock.
Levi’s whole body comes alive with a sporadic jolt. “Don’t…!" he warns. “Gonna—fucking come too fast...”
Erwin sinks his teeth hard in his bottom lip. That’s almost too much.
He ignores the warning. Levi’s cock is hot and throbbing where it’s pinned against Levi’s navel, and too slick to resist rubbing just a little. It’s painfully hot how receptive he is to just his touch.
With his hips squished up against his ass, Erwin hauls one of Levi’s legs up, letting his knee catch and get vantage on the desk. The stockings finally tear with a thick and satisfying ripping of fabric.
Levi gasps and claws at the wood as he’s more or less dumped onto it except for one leg, his foot rooted again on the floor. “Erwin—you’re fucking crazy!"
His cock throbs. He curses, no more that a sharp discharge of air really.
His fucking grows short, fast and deep as he brings his arm around, forcing Levi’s head towards him. So he can see the lust overflowing from his blue-silver eyes. "Is that surprising for you?"
Levi almost laughs. Erwin thrusts his tongue inside his mouth before he can.
Erwin grips his plump thigh, digging his nails in properly until he whines from the exquisite pain.
Erwin sips at much-needed air through his nose—but Levi is barely cognizant enough to kiss him with tongue anymore—as his cock plunges into his messy hole, the squelching slaps obnoxious. Somehow, they’re so connected that he senses Levi's approaching climax with as much clarity as his own.
He's becoming stiff, and crying out soundlessly. "Ervy, Er—Ervy Ervy—"
As Erwin's mouth dips down to his neck, and his teeth sink in, Levi kicks once more. Sweat coating his neck smears on Erwin's face.
"Are you gonna come on my cock, baby?" he murmurs sweetly in his ear.
"Hng—p-please—" High-pitched, tight. Levi claws at the desk with a violent scratching.
"Mhm?"
"Yeah—"
"S'my slut gonna come?"
"Yeah!"
Erwin slaps his palm down hard on Levi's ass then wraps his straining cock in his fist and pumps rapidly.
It's almost redundant because he's already froze. Erwin listens closely, shuddering, and when the gasping cry in his voice reaches a scream, he sinks his teeth into Levi's shoulder.
Erwin is forced almost to a stop as his walls squeeze him, practically milking his climax, taking him over, dragging him over the edge with him.
It's intense, Levi kicking and convulsing, practically, his palm slamming the desk edge as Levi's cum shoots across his knuckles and squirts onto the floor. This is Erwin's favorite—making Levi lose all control over himself, making him show how damn good he feels, making him come hard.
Erwin explodes inside him. His cock pulses eagerly and pumps deep inside in his waiting hole. He fucks it into him as deep as he can, the wooden creaking a cacophony of sound. The final times he slams inside, groaning, he savors Levi's small, sated cries.
Levi just about collapses when they reach an end. Erwin keeps him relatively upright with his arm draped across his chest. Even so, Levi's thighs are quaking, and their shared panting is harsh.
Sloppy, bordering on drunken, Erwin lets him down, and slips out of him carefully between the mess dribbling from his hole. Levi sighs shakily, his breath passing over his lips.
They open their eyes at the same time. Erwin presses his lips to Levi's, kissing lazily.
Erwin inches away. “Are you okay? That seemed intense.”
Levi nods, looking relaxed and sleepy now that he’s caught his breath. He cranes his neck a little, seeking refuge. Erwin helps him to turn around, where they embrace there.
“You're so incredible... You were so good for me, angel. You always are.”
Levi presses impossibly closer. He's dropping already. He gives him every praise that runs by his mind, without any restraint, because whether they make love gently or fuck like animals (like they just did), Levi can always suffer a nasty drop in mood which lasts hours. He's particularly sensitive in that regard, probably the most. He knows that Levi despises it, so he's never pointed it out. So taking care of Levi directly after is his top priority even more so than if he wasn't susceptible to it.
Levi hums lazily, soaking in all the affection.
Their size difference is too steep for Erwin to kiss him. He strokes Levi’s damp, but otherwise fluffy hair, fixing his bangs.
"Let's run a bath."
“Mm,” Levi agrees.
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nelapanela94 · 2 years
Note
Hey Nela! Hope you're doing great. I wanted to ask for canonverse where reader is having her first symptoms of pregnancy, canonverse, post war, and Levi's reaction! Just an idea! Love your work and writing! <3
ANON!! You know I'm a dad Levi sucker!! Working on this had my weak heart fluttering.
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WC: ~5.5k
TW: A bit of mild language (It's Levi's fault)
Years after the war, Levi and you have earned the respite you deserved. You both live a quiet life, sticking to the routine, until one day, unexpected news turns your world upside down.
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“Have I gained weight?” You can’t resist spinning around and around, catching all your angles in front of the mirror. The lightweight skirt billows like a bell around your knees with every swirl.
Why do you have to be so heartless and trap Levi between Scylla and Charybdis? Now, he faces a question with not right answer. His arms are folded over his chest, the back of his knees pressed against the end of the bed. His mouth twitches as he rummages in his head for something that would not unleash a war.
You loop the golden stem though your lobe and lean forward to admire the glint, but his sour grimace eclipses the earrings effect. You swivel around, your hands anchored to your hips, and you cast that look that tells him he’d be sleeping on the couch tonight.
“I think you’re prefect.” He shoots, hoping the bullet doesn’t ricochet and pierce his leg.
Now your reflection is scowling at you. A drawer creaks open, and you pick out the paddle brush. “That doesn’t answer my question, Levi.” You wince as the bristles struggle to run through the knots of your disheveled strands.
“It’s all in your head.” The bullet strikes right next to his foot. Cold sweat dashes down his spine.
Your eyebrows sink, and creases knit between them. “Levi…” Pouting, you split a lock that cascades from the curve of your thumb and forefinger. The wooden pins sink and slip through the ends.    
“Spare me.” He tosses his hands in the air for surrender.
“It’s just, the dress feels tighter around my waist.”
“Sure it shrunk in the dryer.” He shrugs.
Making a face, you put the brush on the vanity, tuck your hair behind your ears and turn around. The wrinkles between your brows smoot down, and you pad toward him, moistening your lips. “You’re just trying to be nice.” Your hands roam up over his chest, drinking the steady beating through the linen as you reel to place a sweet peck on his cheek.
“You know I’m always a dick.” He rasps, closing his eyes. His arms wind around your waist, drawing you into a melting embrace. The pads of his fingers play a soft melody on the small of your back.
And there you are, nestled and safe in his arms, imbibing his warmth you forget the shot-at-close-range question, and the matter that’s been tugging at the edge of your head for days. Sandalwood and bergamot sail into your lungs. You gaze up, prodding your chin against his chest, relishing in the sudden flare of joy, and the closeness. “I love you, Levi.” You purr and plant another kiss beneath his jaw.
A faint laugh pours out from him at the tickling your lips elicit in his skin.
This is the side of Levi you wish the entire world knew, and at the same time, you yearn to keep all for yourself.
Levi’s downy cheeks dimple when he smiles.
His laugh is mellow like a cotton candy melting in your ears.  
The Levi with the purest heart, which, owing to the blows of life, he had to keep hidden inside a safe for so long. Years impersonating an aloof lunatic.
But the war is long over, and with the rocks you stumble upon in your road you built an empire. Your empire. And it’s perfect.
His hands sneak south, breaking goosebumps on your flesh, and you snatch the dimpled grin beaming on his face. No matter how many times his hands have traversed the lines of your skin, and the lighter spot cased under the band on your ring finger, your body still reacts to his caresses as it did the first time.
His fearless fingers dive into the supple roundness of skin, squeezing and closing any gap between the two. And you feel it. Your eyes widen as something stiff nudges your lower belly.  “You get me so hard.” He grunts, rubbing his cheek against your head, and his hips against your tummy.
“Levi!” Flattered and indignant, you break apart, blowing out your cheeks.
“You knew what you were getting into when you said yes. And worry about it when it stops happening.” He twits, looming closer, rubbing the tip of his nose blithely over your cheek.
You bite off a giggle, feeling your face tingling with heat. A coltish snort breaks from him as you playfully shove him back, but he immediately grabs you by the shoulders so as not to lose his balance, and you go on with your silly game of pushing and pulling, lighting up the room with your guffaw, until his leg gives up, and you both, in a tangle of limbs, topple on the bed.
A mesh of belly laughs whips through the room as you try to peel off him before he suffocates. You sprawl next to him, with your cheeks suffused in pink and sparks of bliss shimmering inside you. His husky voice, laced with mirth, caresses the syllables of your name. You roll onto your side, and the dwindling tittering leaves behind that toothy smile that reminds him that the universe can still surprise him with beautiful things. The one that knocked down his walls and made him realize that crying inwardly is a torture. That pretending to be strong all the time is an act of terrorism to the heart. After all these years, he still wonders what the fuck you saw in him that no one else could. Maybe your eyes were made different. Made to rive his layers; and your heart was molded to stay with his.
Levi is facing you. His knuckles brush down your cheek as you thread your hand with his free hand. You bring it to your mouth and press plumose kisses on the stumps. His chest flits with suppressed giggles as your lips devour his hand with woolly caresses. Kissing every inch of him is therapeutic.
His gaze flicks to you, seeing his image flaring in your eyes. A fingertip traces along the line of your upper lip and he muses, “you do look different.”
“How different?” You smile amusedly and raise an eyebrow, bending your elbow to casually prop your head on your hand.
“Radiant.” He smooths your hair behind your ear. “More radiant. I don’t know how to explain,” he says, pinching your cheek with the back of his fingers, “but you glow.”
Your hand splays on his chest as you lean closer to kiss him, a butterfly flutter against his lips, and you mutter, “you’re doing great, Levi. Keep going on and I might reward you tonight.”
His tongue slips between his lips. “Now I’ll be thinking of that pretty ass all day.”
“You’re like a hormonal teenager.”
“It’s you.” He captures your lips. “I.” Kiss. “Fucking.” Kiss. “Love.” Kiss. “You.” His palm baths your cheek with his warmth.
Time freezes as you stare at each other for a while. Your fingertip redraws his lines, tracing the bridge of his nose and his cupid’s arch, his rosy bottom lip. It marches up, guided by the large scar, and he closes his eyes as your finger follows the path of his lash line. Three years ago, he wouldn't have let you touch him, he would have pushed you away. He would’ve hidden from you. Levi has never been a shallow person, but seeing the vestiges of war in his reflection, a constant reminder of what would never be again, lacerated him. It felt like barbed wire scourging him, tearing off his skin. And even though he behaved like the king of assholes to you, to the person who least deserved his rage and bitterness, you stood by his side. Always his light, his support, his guide. Now, he revels when you touch his scars, his heart flutters when he feels your fingers wandering over the bumpy tissue, when your lips curve against his right eyelid. A sweet reminder that, through good and bad, you’re fighting together.
He and you, the perfect tune. What else can he ask for?
You are the first to roll out of bed. You flatten the rumples on your dress and lend him your hand to tow him on his feet. Levi wraps up his sleeves while you tug at the collar of his shirt. “I don’t want girls staring at your arms. Makes me jealous.” You fake pout and split in giggles as your hands slip down his shoulders.
“It's called marketing strategy or so.”
You pat his cheek and kiss him again. “Winter children are not compatible with summer.” You tease.
You’re right. The clock hasn’t struck eight yet and he swears he’s going to melt as soon as he sets a foot on the street. He sweeps some messy strands away from his face and groans. “Damn weather.”
Another kiss. “Are you ready to adult today?”
He ducks his head and sighs, then straightens his back and meets your eyes, pinning his thumbs in his pockets. “Do we have another choice?”
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His arms hook around you from behind as you cross the living room in your way to the kitchen. His chin huddled on your shoulder. Lavender suffuses the air, the curtains dance at the rhythm of the soothing morning breeze in a golden glow stage.
You split ways. Levi trudges to the stove and swings out the copper pot filler. Waters gurgles out, echoing against the bottom of the kettle, and he eyeballs for two. He turns off the handle and buckles back the faucet. A fleecy whistle wrests out, pleading for oil, and he pins a mental note that will soon fall off. Blue flame rings around the burner. An ashy thread swirls up and ebbs, and Levi dumps the corpse of the match on the granite counter.
While he handles the tea, toasts, and scrambled eggs, you finish packing his lunch. One compartment, the largest one, brims with rice for an army; the other third you fill with a stir-fry of shrimp and veggies. Levi became a huge fan of seafood ever since he tried it for the first time on the island, and luckily for him, you listened heedfully to Nicolo’s lessons, grasping his finesse and knowledge. Shrimp season began about two months ago, so at least once a week, you've been pampering your husband with a good dose of…
Your eyes bulge out when realization dawns.
You gulp, and the stainless-steel lid clacks close. The dull thud of the food container, the one with kitties doodled on the top, yanks you out from your reveries.
“Are you ok?” He reels and busses you on the side of your head.
“I’m alright.” You give him an assuring smile he doesn’t buy, yet he doesn’t push.
Your eyes glint with curiosity as your fingers slit open the lid by a wedge, taking a peek of what he made for you last night. You suck in a long whiff, relishing in the blend of basil and parmesan.
Fusilli with pesto, dried tomatoes, and grilled chicken breast. One of your vices.
With a swap of lunch pails, you set the first stone of your morning ritual.
The slices of bread jump out of the toaster, and the kettle shrill bursts through the kitchen. Levi plates the eggs and pours the tea. A smidge of honey for yours. Sacrilege.
You set the jar of blueberry jam and the butter dish on the table and retrace your steps. The cutlery drawer pops out. A rustling sound raises as you delve into, slinking through the knifes, and a simper plasters on your face when your fingers sweep over the cow handles. You pluck them out. A quick hip nudge, and the drawer reels close.
 You shuffle to the table, humming a song you listened to in the radio last evening, so sticky you couldn’t wrench it out of your head.
“Mine with double jam.” You slip one butter spreader into his hand, the other you set it on the toasts plate. Wooden legs creak against the floor, and you dunk onto the chair.
One elbow tucked on the table. You prop your cheek on your hand and watch him slathering a layer of butter, topped with a thick slab of jam. From time to time his gaze scoots to you, stealing glances, exchanging smiles. Words are not needed. Levi talks louder with his eyes.
“Here.” He slides the toast on your plate and grabs the naked one. A thin coat of butter is enough for him. His teeth clamp and tiny crumbs pelt onto his dish. He freezes with the toast in his mouth, squinting at you.
A hill of scrambled eggs lies over your toast, threatening to spill over. You set your fork down, and bring up your breakfast to your mouth. The soggy toast sags in the middle, cradling the blend of sweet and savory Levi finds gross. Eggs with specks of marmalade fall from the other end as you claw your menacing fangs on your bizarre meal.
He eyes you with concern, crinkling up his face at your odd combination, but you fend off his grimace, humming in delight as you rub your fingers clean.
“You should try too.” You fold the napkin and dab your lips. “The flavors are so balanced.”
“No thanks, I’m good.”
You shrug. “Save me some chocolate cake for this afternoon.” You chime in and nab the last chunk. “And quiche too.”
You’ve never been a calorie-counter freak, and back on the island, it wasn't like you had a huge fan of options to whim on food, but lately, you’ve been quite lenient with your choices, leaning towards high sugary treats. But he keeps quiet before you bombard him with questions he doesn't know how to answer.
He leers at you, smirking.
Delicate fingers loop through the handle of the floral mug. Your palms flood with the balmy heat through the ceramic, and you smile back at him, raising the cup to your mouth, the spiciness stroking your lungs. Your breath fans over the rim, conceiving waves.
“I was thinking of refurbishing the guest room.”
“What’s wrong with it?” He takes another swig.
You raise your shoulders. “It kinda lacks personality, I don’t know.”
You baptized it ‘guest room’; in truth, it’s only a soulless room with a single bed and a nightstand. And you’ve never had any guest camping there. It’s the only place in your apartment that doesn’t have your stamp.
“It’s a guest room, it doesn’t need a personality.”
“But-“
The pendulum clock strikes eight thirty. Your eyes go round, and jumping off the chair, you gobble down your cool down tea.
“We can continue during dinner.” Levi jabbers, picking up the dishes.
You nod, rushing to your bedroom while Levi does his magic to leave the dining room and kitchen sparkling clean.
You brush your teeth, wash your face, and put makeup on to conceal the dark circles under your eyes. The lipstick glides smoothly. You rub your lips together and apply the second coat.
A smile framed in red gives you the thumbs up, and you hustle to the entryway, passing by Levi at the hallway, walking in the opposite direction.
From the shoe rack you pick the flat sandals, and slump down onto the cushioned bench. You buckle them on. Your forefinger cleaves inside the strap and gauge the tightness, so it doesn’t mar your ankles throughout the day. It must be the heat that worsens fluid retention.
Levi sits next to you, the lunch bags perched on each side of him. While he finishes putting on his shoes, you give the house one last look so as not to forget anything. The breeze falters, and the natural light turns off.
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You hit the lively streets. Car honks, engines revving. Levi’s cane sets the speed. You strut down, hand in hand, people making way to the limping man. Levi despises being treated differently because of his condition. He prefers to stand in the regular line rather than use his priority pass, but in emergency situations, he takes advantage of its benefits.
The blazing sun melts your layers and chars your bones. August's sticky heat, and the tree leaves hardly whir. A cough muzzles in your fist. The dense air polluted with the lurid smoke is something you have not been able to get used to.
Three stoplights later and a right turn, the beaming postman carboard cutout greets you. You stop before your workplace, and Levi slings your lunch bag on your shoulder. He kisses you good-bye and brushes off the warp smudge of red of your lips, and you do the same on his.
“See you at The Burned Leave.” You muse and dash into the post office.
Your coworkers whisper, their eyes nailed on you as you duck behind the counter. Not to brag, but yes, you are the luckiest person in the world because you have Levi by your side.
You uncap the pen with your teeth and jot down the tasks for the day as well as the ‘to buy’ for tomorrow’s breakfast. You also need to stop at the pharmacy for Levi’s medicines. The pen swings between your index and middle fingers, tapping on the desk a melody that conveys your concern. A mangled paperclip slips off from your idle hand.
At the end of your list, you scrawl ‘Iron supplements.’
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With one hand in his pocket, Levi continues his way. The Burned Leave is just a few blocks further downtown.
“It tastes like burned leaves, Levi.” You scrunch up your face at the bitterness. “A bit of honey might help.”
He wishes he had you with him all day. Sure, your smile would lure more customers, but you didn't want to get in the way. It was him, his space, his dream, the corner where he could do what he loved best. Plus, during dinner, you could exchange anecdotes of hesitant customers and pain in the ass Karens.
It's just another ordinary summer day. The sky is clear, and the sun scorches the city without a bit of mercy. The teashop stirs up with the motions of customers entering. They dive in for the cold drinks and the famous lemon cheesecake. Something Levi owes you.
It’s noon, and there’s a huge line before the counter. Falco takes the orders diligently; Levi scurries around blending, steeping, pouring as Gaby completes the orders with the desserts and summons customers to the Pick-up-here. A perfectly synchronized sequence that doesn’t allow room for error.
Drained and sweaty, respite swaddles them by 2PM. The afternoon runs smoothly since most clients are office staff who return to their hives as soon as lunchtime is over.
“You did great, brats.” Levi ruffles Falco’s hair as the teenage boy sweeps the floor. The ravenette leans against the counter, arms folded over his chest and his legs crossed at the ankles.
“You should consider a raise.” Gaby prods while wiping clean one of the tables.
“Don’t get too smart.” He raps his fingers on his upper arms. The brunette traipses back to the counter, flings the cloth on Levi’s shoulder, dodging her boss’ deathly glower. Her hands hook to the edge, and she heaves up on the wooden surface.
“Oi! Don’t stick your ass on my counter.” Levi blows off a lock of hair of his face, his eyes plunged into a scowl. But she ignores him and reaches out for the slice of oreo cheesecake that Falco had started and left in plain sight of predators.
“Gaby!!!!!”
“What’s yours is mine, and what’s mine is mine.” She licks the spoon.
“Go grab lunch.” Levi breaths, tossing a thumb over his shoulder. “No making out in the staff room.” He casts a mocking grin, and from the corner of his eye he catches them, brushing fingers as they head to the backroom. Gaby fiddling with her necklace and Falco rubbing a hand behind his head.
Thank goodness they don't know the beginning of your story. Flustering and stammering whenever you came around.
His smirk falters, and his face unsettles with disquietude when he spots his lovely wife through the glass. Head bowed; arms wrap around yourself.
His hand curls around the grip of the stick, and he plods to the door. He wedges it open with a foot and welcomes you in an embrace. “Hey.” He croons, caressing your hair.
You pull apart and gaze up, your stinging red eyes crash with his. A drumbeat of pain and concern spreads in his chest. Your eyes are dull and leaden, lacking all their gleam from this morning. His brows draw together, and he tilts his head. Apprehension grazes up his features. You nuzzle your face on his chest as the tip of his finger assuages you with lazy circles on your shoulder. “What’s wrong?”
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Levi helps you to the couch in his office and sits next to you, drawing you to his chest.
“I started feeling sick in the morning, so they took me to the infirmary. They told me I could take the rest of the day off. I didn't want to be home alone, so I came here.”
“Do you want me to call a doctor?”
“No, I need some rest.” You mutter, pressing a hand on your forehead, your face crinkling in discomfort. “It’s just a headache.”
“I’ll get you a pill.” He kisses your head, but you don’t let go.
Running a hand through his hair, he sighs. He pats his thighs, inviting your feet, and you shuffle on the couch, raising your legs. The ghost of a smile flickers on your pale lips. He frees your swollen ankles from the ordeal, and blood fizzes back to your toes, delivering alleviation to every inch. His fingers pamper the red marks where you were mauled and strangled. Your shoulders feel light, and you slump against the arm rest, cocking your head and perching your cheek on your hand.
“I love you, Levi.” You give him a weak smile.
He brings one of your legs up, and his lips douse your shin with a trail of tickles. “I love you too.”
Your eyes leap from the picture of you and him roasted in the beach, to the lamp on his desk, to the succulent Gaby and Falco got him for his last birthday, to the clock on the wall, and after a tour around his office, they land back on him.
A lock of hair twirls around your finger. “You know, sometimes I wonder what I did to deserve someone like you.”
If only you knew he mulls over that every night, wondering what he did for the universe to grant him so much bliss.
A tangle of voices buzz from the corridor, dwindling when the sappiest couple– only one step above you–frosts at the door. Blushing, they snap each other’s hands away, smuggle them behind their backs.
“Hey,” you spout, waving a hand.
They gasp your name in unison. “Are you–“
“Go get the first aid kit.” Levi cuts them, and next second, heavy steps are filling the air.
“Are you treating them nice?” You raise a brow.
His deft hands allay your upset feet. He knows where to knead, and squeeze and press his knuckles. “I’m not a nice person, Y/N.”
“You can deceive them all, but not me.” Light fades behind your lids, and a moan of relief falls of your lips.
“Something’s wrong with your setup.”
You bite your lip and nudge his thigh with your toe. “You’re saying I’m blind?” Your eyes greet light again.
“I can't find any other reason for you to have fixated on me.”
“C’mere.” Your arms stretch out, grabby hands persuade him. You make room for him, wriggling and shifting into a more comfortable position, and he curls by your side, half his ass suspended in the air. Levi holds you in his arms, nestling his cheek on the side of your head.
“I can assure you that madness didn’t sting my eyes.” Your voice comes out in a weary whiff.
“You sure you’re ok?”
Your fingers plait with his, seeking shelter. “Yeah.”
“Did you like your lunch?” His voice caresses your temple, soft and husky like evening breeze.
You contort your face, scratching something behind your ear, eyes scooting around “Well…” You don’t want to break his heart.
“You didn’t eat…”
“I wasn’t hungry.” Maybe it's not a good idea to mention that you almost threw up as soon as the smell of parmesan and basil hit you.
Levi’s eyes twitch, and he opens his mouth to speak, pausing to collect his thoughts. You could eat a jar of pesto by spoonfuls as if it were not an olive oil bomb and carry on with your life. Something is wrong. Definitely wrong.
Falco breaks into the room with an ibuprofen tablet and a glass of water.
Lines pleat on the boy’s forehead. “Should I call a doctor?”
“I’m alright, Falco. Thanks.” The corners of your lips quirk up in a gentle smile. “It’s not necessary.” You swallow the pill, and close your eyes, cuddled on Levi. Your unfurled hand swills the beats of his heart.
But before Falco is dismissed, he reads from Levi’s mouth ‘call them.’
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With his head down, and his hands fumbling in his pockets, Levi paces from side to side, impatient, trying to chase away the bad thoughts before they drive him mad. His heart pounds in his ears. His jaw clenches tight. For the nth time he glances at the door, then at his watch. It’s only been five minutes, Levi. Relax. Grumbling, he stops, and takes a long, appeasing breath. He slants against the wall and runs a hand down his face.
As a pester as they might be sometimes, he wishes those brats were here, but someone needs to run the shop and take orders.
The door clicks open form the interior and Levi’s straightens up in a lurch. The man, with salt and pepper hair, smiles at him. An assuring smile. Levi tips his head. Creases in his forehead tug up one eyebrow.
“Congratulations, Mr. Ackerman.” A gentle squeeze in his shoulder, and amid the mental blur only few words he grasps. “…six weeks pregnant… nothing out of the ordinary… regular checkups…” His mind yanks him back to the word ‘pregnant’.
It bangs in his head like a bass drum.
Suddenly, his legs begin to weaken, the ground moves, or so he feels, and he scrambles forward, clinging to the wall before he smashes his face at the doctor’s feet. “Hey, Mr. Ackerman.”
A pat on his back.
Then an arm winds around him; next, he’s sitting on his chair. Levi blinks several times until the light sets and the edges of reality smooth down. Dr. Ziegler is waving goodbye; a broad smile strains his pink, plump cheeks.
“Pregnant.” Slurs out of his mouth. His face snaps at you. You’re staring back at him, chin tucked on your arms folded over the armrest. Your head swing from side to side.
Wide eyes startled, white specks, like tiny diamonds, flicker on is quavering irises. His hands clench at his thighs. He fills his lungs with the scarce air and puffs out “Pregnant?” His chest rises and falls, trying to ski down the hill of shock. “You’re with child?”
“Well, I guess that’s the definition of pregnant,” you quip.
Battling against his quivering legs, he urges himself on his feet and slogs to you, shutting his mind to the lash of pain whipping though his leg. But it yields, making him topple before you.
“Levi!!!” Your voice is a shrill with worry. “Levi!” Your hands grapple him by the shoulders, waggling him to wake up.
And then, you feel a velvet touch sauntering up and down you’re your calves. A sob wrings out from him, followed by a long sniffle. Dazed with the news, he bottles up his breaths trying to calm down, unsuccessfully, and raises his face, stained with tears of joy. His eyes red and swollen; his chin wobbling as his lips try to pull out a smile.
His heart burst, and his thoughts, scattered around, curb him from thinking straight.
Fuck. He’s going to be a dad.
Him. A dad. Someone will call him dad with that chirping voice. A little brat will wake him up in the middle of the night with their strident cry. Between him and you, they will seek protection from the monsters that lurk in the night, thwarting any indecent approach. Changing diapers, preparing bottles, reading bedtime stories.
Is it too soon to buy a toy tea set?
New papa guide.
Fatherhood for dummies.
We’re pregnant!
The expectant father.
He scrolls down through infinite titles that doubtlessly will join his collection. Tomorrow he will start with the sketches to remodel the room.
Feather-like tingles swamp his chest, enraptured with waves of love and pride and joy. 
However, all those ‘what ifs’ push him down into a vortex of insecurities and self-consciousness. All those questions pricking in his chest, spreading their venom like a scorpion sting.
What if the brat doesn’t like me?
What if they don’t love me?
What if they’re scared of embarrassed of me?
He is about to face something he wasn’t groomed for. But he wouldn’t let panic weighed him down. He has you, and now he has to be stronger than ever to fight for two.
A dazzling smile and a lulling caress quell his fears. Your fingers curl under his chin.
“I told you I wasn’t sick.”
“You knew?” He snivels as your thumbs, fuzzily, brush his tears away. Levi ties his arms around you, snugging his face on your lap, your fingers weaving through his hair, coddling his scalp. The weight of age peeks in the form of gray strands.
You are that love song on the radio, the warm sun caress on a winter day. An ice cream of lemon and vanilla in summer. A gentle kiss; a clumsy ballroom dance. A soft squeeze of hands.
And soon, the mother of his child. His child. Your child. Shit. He’s created a life with you.
He shudders, grasping the oxygen he can.
Your walk without a destination it’s not intimidating because he is with you.
“I was suspicious.” Scratching the side of your face, you bite your lip. “I didn't want to tell you until I was sure.” A nervous laugh ripples out of you, taking your lips from hooked to a beam. “Can you believe that? We’re having a baby.” You chirp excitedly. “What do you think they’d look like? I hope they have your hair and your eyes and your nose.” You pinch his cheeks. “And these too.”
“They will have your eyes.” Levi burbles.
“I can’t wait to tell everyone!” You fiddle with the hem of your dress. Levi hums, those brats won’t leave him alone. He can already hear Connie squeaking in disbelief.
You scavenge in your thoughts, a finger tapping over your mouth. “You know what? I am actually surprised it took so long.”
Levi chuckles. You offer him a hand, hoist him up, and he flumps at your side.
A webbing of emotions he can’t unravel and put into words clogs up in his throat. But thank walls Levi ladles out his feeling through his eyes. Now, it’s him curled up in your chest, unfurling his hand on your bloated belly. A new life is forming in you, a life that’s half him, half you.
Shit. He’s terrified.  
Your fingers sink through his, impregnating him with the reassurance he needs.
“No onesies with the word brat.”
He pulls away, bumping with your furrowed eyes. “I already have three designs in mind.” He wipes his tears with his forearm and snorts. “And I'll sign up for embroidery classes.”
A thread of giggles spools out from your lips, and with a silly smile, he watches you until your laugh peters out.
Mindful of his overprotective instincts, you remind him, “I don't want you to overexert yourself, Levi. Don’t sling more weight over your shoulders. Don’t forget I'm not sick.” You stress out the last words.
To treat you like a goddess and cater to your every whim so that you only have to worry about that life growing healthy inside you?
Message sent. Message received.
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TROPED TIMELOOP — Round One!
Hey, Tropesters! Welcome to the very first round of TROPED TIMELOOP! All of the prompts for this event will feature the Time Loop Trope! The Writing Period for Round One starts NOW, and will be on a rolling basis, with a new TIMELOOP Prompt dropping about every twenty-three (23) days! While the OFFICIAL writing period for Round One goes for three weeks, you can submit a fic based on this prompt until the end of the event in September and it will still be included in voting! Be sure to include the theme, tropes, and timeloops into your fic.
For Round One, please write a fic that includes:
Theme: Canonverse
Trope 1: Time Travel
Trope 2: Unreliable Narrator
Trope 3: Tea Party
Trope 4: Zeugma
Event Trope: Time Loop AU!
In depth definitions of the tropes and the theme will be linked under the cut! Please take a look at this Google Doc, as there will be extra information you NEED to know regarding how to use the tropes, and if you have questions don’t hesitate to ask!
There is NO Word Count Limit! You may write as much or as little as you like as long as you fully incorporate the prompt!
All Fandoms are welcome to participate!
Don't forget to follow our rules (no incest, no rape/abuse, no underage, etc), and to have fun!!! Please submit all fics to our AO3 collection linked in below the cut, and the name of the collection that should be entered when submitting your fic is ‘TROPED_TIMELOOP’! If you need a tutorial on how to add a fic to an AO3 collection, one can be found below!
TIMELINE:
Round 1 Writing Period Begins: NOW!!!
Writing Period Ends: SATURDAY, September 23rd at 11:59PM PST / SUNDAY, September 24th at 2:59AM EST
Good luck and happy writing!
Links for this event & Round One can be found under the cut!
Round 1 Prompt Definitions and Guidlines: https://docs.google.com/document/d/1u8mMgRTyU176M_TeRiG0FSgyTBDGchBPELnexrhSBe0/edit
AO3 Collection: https://archiveofourown.org/collections/TROPED_TIMELOOP
Tutorial: https://troped-fanfic-challenge.tumblr.com/post/648540929960132608/if-i-write-a-fic-for-one-of-the-rounds-how-do-i-go
TROPED TIMELOOP INFO POST: https://www.tumblr.com/troped-fanfic-challenge/720467832679399424/troped-timeloop
If you have any questions about this event, prompts, fandoms or pairings, or any other concerns please send them to our Ask Box: https://troped-fanfic-challenge.tumblr.com/ask
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20 questions For Fic Writers
tagged by @queen-of-the-wallflowers15 – thank you so much darling!!
1. How many works do you have on AO3? 76 on my main account, 3 on my secondary
2. What’s your total AO3 word count? 889,141
3. What fandoms do you write for? The 100, Stranger Things, and Six of Crows are my main three. On my semi-secret 🌶️ AO3 account, I did one Until Dawn AU and I could see that account exploring a few more fandoms. As for my main, I'm not sure if it'll change up any time soon!
4. What are your top 5 fics by kudos?
"Stardust, In You and In Me" [Bellarke] | wc: 32.7k | rated: T | tags: soulmate/soulmark au, college au, slow burn "I Heard You" [Mike x Eleven] | wc: 24.6k | rated: G | tags: college au, fluff, dating "Traces of You" [Bellarke] | wc: 23k | rated: T | tags: royalty au, arranged marriage au, slow burn "In the Gravity of You" [Bellarke] | wc: 7.6k | rated: T | tags: sci-fi setting, fake dating, fluff "Prisoner's Dilemma" [Bellarke] | wc: 2.3k | rated: G | tags: canonverse, season 5 au, hostage taker and his GIRLFRIEND
5. Do you respond to comments? Why or why not? I try to! I've recently fallen a bit behind, but I'd love to wrap them up before the end of the year. It's rare enough (at least for me) to get any comments so I do try to make sure I follow up even it's just a quick thanks!
6. What is the fic you wrote with the angstiest ending? For one of @troped-fanfic-challenge 's old Chopped Challenges, there was an angst round and I absolutely wrote the most angsty thing I've ever written.
"and the road gets tough" [Harper x Monty] | wc: 4.5k | rated: M | tags: roadtrip au, season 4!Harper, warnings for implied character death
7. What’s the fic you wrote with the happiest ending? A lot of my old Stranger Things fics are pretty fluffy, but I'd say that my Bellarke/Gilmore Girls AU is definitely a pretty specific happy ending. Especially in terms of how happy I am I guess with capturing the feel I wanted for it!
"dance away your fear of love" [Bellarke] | rated: T | wc: 6.1k | tags: Gilmore Girls AU, exes to friends to lovers, pining, co-parenting
8. Do you get hate on fics? I never really have, I feel thankful! I get the occasional odd comment but nothing has ever come across as actual "hate" in my opinion.
9. Do you write smut? If so, what kind? I do! Sort of. I'm a bit of a fade to black writer on my main account. I'm someone that's very comfortable with sex being in stories, whether simply for pleasure or for plot/character devices, but I actually rarely write it myself. It doesn't always feel authentic for my own stories or necessarily for it to be explicit. Except of course for the fore-mentioned 🌶️ account, that naturally is extremely explicit lol. And for that smut, it's more the themes that I try to push than the actual smut itself.
10. Do you write crossovers? What’s the craziest one you’ve written? If I'm remembering correctly, in middle school I tried writing a Harry Potter x Young Dracula AU. But I'm not very interested in crossovers in general!
11. Have you ever had a fic stolen? Not to my knowledge! Hopefully not!
12. Have you ever had a fic translated? I haven't, or at least no one has ever reached out if they have. It's such a cool concept though! Fanfic is such a cool community overall!
13. Have you ever co-written a fic before? So approximately 15+ years ago, an old friend and I co-wrote a "book" together (it was absolutely just OC-based fanfic for Peter and the Starcatchers and definitely not actually as original as we thought). And I'd get feedback from my friends for our old OC-insert Harry Potter stories, but I did write those on my own. But all of that was in middle school so it's been a long time!
14. What’s your all-time favorite ship? I'm pretty equally feral for Bellarke (The 100) and Scully/Mulder (The X-Files), even though I don't write anything for the latter!
15. What’s a WIP you want to finish but doubt you ever will? Let's pretend in good faith I'll finish all of the ones I've started. Though this might be awarded to my Bellarke, dark magic fantasy AU one. I have a lot of cool ideas for it but I have a hunch it'll be one that's always out of reach of being completed. Also seemingly no one checked it out compared to my usual fics so I don't think anyone is curious, which shouldn't ever really be a deciding factor but never helps!
16. What are your writing strengths? I'd definitely say world building! I'm a designer/artist/occasional photographer outside of ~fandom~ so I'm actually much more of a visual person than I am anything else. And writing gives me a chance to create the visions I have in my head! World building and atmosphere is my favorite part and I like to think it's my biggest strength! Also I like to make things feel canon, which I think I'm pretty good at.
17. What are your writing weaknesses? I routinely say dialogue, though I think scalable levels of plot that feel both interesting but still fun. I'm much better at themes and main concepts than I am at smaller plot points to get there.
18. Thoughts on writing dialogue in another language in fic? Probably a great idea! I've just never really had a need to, but I think if it fits then it's a fun detail to add. I'd just try to really make sure I did it correctly (or as close as possible).
19. First fandom you wrote for? I'm about 98% sure it was Harry Potter. Peter Pan holds a potential close second option.
20. Favorite fic you’ve written? This is a tricky one, probably comes down to two for different reasons. One because it was incredibly self-indulgent and an AU of one of my favorite movies. The other because it was my longest fic and I actually think I maintained the quality the whole way through, while also finishing it at a normal pace!
"Most Sacred" [Bellarke] | wc: 48.8k | rated: E | tags: Midsommar AU, character death, slow burn, season 7 inspired "Somewhere in These Eyes (I'm on Your Side)" [Eddie x Chrissy] | wc: 78.9k | rated: M | tags: falling in love, no upside down, strangers to lovers
Tagging: @kinetic-elaboration, @carrieeve, @thelittlefanpire, @lucascsinclairs, and uhhh anyone else who wants to do this and tag me!
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codegeassfacts · 1 year
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Code Geass Lelouch of The Rebellion R2 Novels by Mamoru Iwasa // Non Canon
There are 4 novels for Code Geass R2, always written by Mamoru Iwasa, and a last one, the Knight of Rounds novels, which focuses mostly on Suzaku, Gino and Anya, as well as a part focused on Marianne. You can find additional info + Season 1 novels translations right here. Aside from the first one, Turn 1, R2 novels weren't translated in english like the season 1 novels and while the novels in japanese can be bought, and are actually available in chinese online, no one actually had the courage to translate those fully; **Still you can find some part of the novels which were translated amongst various places of the internet right below**
I'll be honest, I don't have it either, novels aren't very interesting to me since they are merely an interpretation from an author who isn't part of the writing team, so no canon information can be found, and i'm not a fan of this type of merchandising as i'm more of a fan of the CanonVerse than i am of the various AU/Fanon verse.
Season 1 novels were already translated and not much enjoyable to read for me, so i didn't read the R2 novels, that means unless someone is motivated enough, or if someday i am motivated enough, I'll only post some novel bits that can be found over the internet, or some summaries found in Animesuki when the novels aired ;
If you are fluent in chinese and want to fully read them, you can find the novels right here
R2 - Turn 1
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No information for Turn 1
R2 - Turn 2
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No information for Turn 2
R2 - Turn 3
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For Turn 3, you can find some tibdits that were translated, mostly about C.C., because you could get some interpretation by Iwasa about what could possibly go on within some character's head.
Original translation can be found there, I pasted it here because it's put in the middle of various texts about C.C., both mixing canon stuff and not canon one, so it's a bit messy to link it directly;
It's supposed to be an insight of Lelouch's thought after he comes back from C.C.'s inner world/past in Turn 15.
I’m ‘too kind’? What stupid words!    
Who’s the one being ‘too kind’ here?    
C.C., when you first made contract with me, you didn’t reveal anything. I was afraid that I was nothing more than a tool to end your eternal life. But now I know your weakness that differs you from the nun, the Code bearer from your past; you are too kind. No matter where you go, even when your body is immortal, your heart is still that of human. Whenever you make a contract, at first you have no feelings for your contractor. However after spending some time together with them, you change. As your heart longs for love the most, the girl longing for love would appear. You become confused, and finally come to conclusion: as long as the contractor grows to hate you***, they would leave you on their own. This way, you wouldn’t have to assign the same pain to them as the nun did to you. How stupid. You are really an idiot. Then why make contract? Wouldn’t it be meaningless? How could you have feelings for the person you intended to use?    
Here’s one thing I can tell you clearly.
“Don’t underestimate me, C.C.! Do you think I didn’t know your weakness? Do you think I fell for your cheap ploys? For being manipulated by you, do you think I would hate you?”
(*) In the novel, it’s explained that one of the reasons C.C. sent Lelouch into her memory (and not just him, but many of her past contractors) is to make them hate her by showing them that she would ultimately betray them just like the nun did her. That is, if they haven’t hated her yet for ruining their life by giving them Geass.**
**This is one of the various instance where novels contradicts canon, as it was stated C.C. sent Lelouch within her past to actually protect him from the emperor, it is atually even stated by C.C.'s dark double herself who understood Lelouch was someone important to C.C. for her to send him over there My Own Thoughts : C.C.'s past didn't show her betraying her past contractors, it mostly showed how she came to acquire her geass and Code, the suffering she had to endure and the nun's betrayal, so it really doesn't make sense, Those image are unlikely to spread hatred, and Lelouch had already witnessed how C.C. was dealing with her past contractors with Mao, he didn't came to hate her anyway. R2 - Turn 4
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Once again Mononoke no ko translated some stuff about C.C. in the same post i linked above so you can check it again right there
It's a Monologue that Iwasa pictured right after C.C. and Lelouch's scene in Turn 23, after she comforted him about Zero Requiem being the right path to take.
‘I do not want to lose this man.’ Thought C.C. without any hesitancy. There’s a way for her not to lose him. However, he wouldn’t want to use this method, and even she… did not want to. Then what should she do? C.C. hadn’t come to understand the way of the world, even when she had lived for who knows how many years she still didn’t understand, had no way of knowing what is right and what is wrong, but she was sure of one thing. That he, the man named Lelouch Lamperouge, would not stop running toward death. He chose this path on his own will. He’s like a horse that couldn’t be stopped. She wanted to blame him, but couldn’t… She wanted to cry, but couldn’t. So… "Lelouch.” He said “Hm,” in response. “Do you remember, that time in Narita?” C.C. asked a bit out of the blue, that Lelouch felt a little confused. “Why suddenly…” She leaned on his back, then continued, “Why snow is white?” There’s an instant blank, before Lelouch immediately answered, “Because it forgot its original color.” “Then do you remember, Lelouch? Your original color.” “Stupid question,” he replied, finally back to his conceited tone. “I am me, I would never forget.” “Is that so…” “What about you, C.C.? Do you remember your original color?” “Who knows, but -” “But?” “At least right now, my color is your color, Lelouch.” Silence came. Then Lelouch laughed softly. “You selfish.” “Of course,” she wanted to cry a little - but instead, her face revealed a smile from the bottom of her heart, “it’s because I’m C.C.”
Another scene that was summarized is the Lelouch/C.C. hangar scene from Turn 24, you can see it in it's own post, once again by Mononoke no Ko, so no need to copy paste this time it's right here
My own Thoughts : Basically it doesn't say anything new, Iwasa tries to expand on the position of Lelouch and C.C. (But since we saw the whole scene between them without any cut till they even stumbled from the Guren crash, it's yet another contradiction with canon)
And the final scene which was translated is the ending of Turn 4, which is basically giving food to Lelouch is alive theorists, when, once again, this novelization contradicts canon in every way, shape or form, as you can see in this post here
The wagon was filled with hay. There was a girl sitting on it with waist long hair and incredible appearance, that's the first impression she gives to others. She was focused on folding a japanese origami, something completely irrelevant to the surroundings. Finally, the origami gradually took shape, it was a crane. The girl gazed satisfactorily at the crane for some moments before putting it on the hay. Then after stretching her body, she laid down on the hay vigorously, the wagon shook slightly, the horseman glanced backward without turning around. The girl didn't care, she inhaled the smell of the herbs bathed in sunlight, stared up at the sky and smiled sweetly. Then-
"The power of kings, Geass, will make you lonely." The blissful and ringing voice of C.C. echoed in the sky. "Heh, not at all, right, Lelouch?"
The horseman holding the reins still, glanced back. Before turning around, a faint smile suddenly appeared at the corners of his mouth. The wagon continued moving forward slowly with the pull of two bad horses.
The weather was mild and sunny. The sky was cloudless.
Translation courtesy of Ok_Wallaby9160 on Reddit.
That's about it for the Main story R2 novels; As a side piece, just like in S1 with the Red tracks Novels we have the Knight of Rounds novels
Knight of Rounds Novel
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Knights of Rounds (a novel following Suzaku alongside Gino and Anya, set mostly during the time between R1 and R2, although there is a special chapter that goes into the past and follows Marianne as a Knight of Rounds before she became an Empress) Once again, not much was translated, and I can't blame people on that, still you can find a translation of the first chapter about Gino by the amazingly motivated Ellen right there
For the Marianne chapter, I read it a long time ago and I only remember she was quite blood thirsty and mostly seemed to care for her children as long as they didn't get in her way (so very fitting with the Canon Marianne)
That's it for the R2 novels, There will probably a third post about miscelleanous novels, like the Talkin Rebellion that can be found in the Guidebook, But I won't mix those in there, they'll have their own post. Hope you enjoyed !
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the-pale-goddess · 11 months
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Do you think it would be somehow inappropriate if Ethan had a mentee in the same capacity MC was to him in book 1, once he and Tiffany are dating/married? I.e. An intern who he'd prefer to work all the time, long nights, ordering food, even meeting somewhere else, etc. Completely platonic because he’s whipped for Tiffany of course, but same dynamic. If yes, would that make their (E/T) professional relationship in book 1 inappropriate too? From a professional perspective.
Sincere apologies for my incredibly late (and pretty long) reply ❤️ I appreciate you more than words can express, lovely, thank you for sending this ask!
I put a lot of thought into the topic, and my conclusion is that it wouldn’t be possible in the first place. Here’s why!
In my HC, Tiffany’s intern year was actually the last year when Dr. Terminator was actively involved in supervising interns. The chief plotline (just like the entirety of Book 3) do not take place in my canonverse. Instead, Ethan remains in charge of DT after Tiffany’s boards; his duties as the managing director force him to maintain his sole focus on navigating the team and treating patients. There’s not much time left for him to spare on teaching, though of course he’s still often found doing rounds and helping in any way a workaholic genius like him can. But he doesn’t take part in the official training program anymore, which means that Grumpsey’s interaction with residents is limited to sharing his unrivalled knowledge and vast experience only on rare occasions (much to his relief kdhdkhdkb).
Apart from that, Ethan’s past mentor/mentee relationships could never compare to the one he had with Tiffany—everything that happened between these two was against his professional rules, and if it hadn’t been for Naveen’s illness, its emotional burden and the secrecy, I believe that E&T’s love story would have developed differently. Irrespective of purely platonic sentiment, lunching together, working long nights and spending time outside Edenbrook, etc. definitely equal inappropriate in the Ramsey dictionary. I don’t think that Ethan would ever entertain the thought of forming this kind of personal bond with his protégés—Tiffany is the exception that proves the rule.
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lady-lunaaa · 2 years
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Part II: We Carry On (because we have to)
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Part 1 | Part 2 | Part 3 | Part 4 | Epilogue
Pairing: Porco Galliard x fem!reader
Rating: MATURE, minors dni
Warnings: death stranding au, female reader, post-apocalyptic, description of injury, a little blood, reader trusts no one/porco is an idiot, nightmares, mention of minor character death, grief, slow burn, skinny dipping and eventual violence (but only a smidgen)
WC: 19.2k
Masterlist🕊️
a/n: uhhhh it took a while and you can see why. 19k? I don't know what happened. The plot kinda follows canonverse in game, they're on parallel tracks put it that way, but it's just a little mention - not super important to our endgame here. Also ik the medics in game wear red buuuuut I cannot get the idea out of my head of Porco wearing the green paramedic uniform that we have in the UK so...that's what I chose (also it's the same colour as his canonverse jacket and you can't deny, our boi looks good in green). I have to give a huge thank you to my besties and beta's @dabilove27 and @gixxie, you are both incredible for reading through this monster for me. I adore you and wouldn't be me without you 💙💙 and with that, go forth, and (hopefully) enjoy yourselves.
🎶
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“What do we have here?” A mocking voice rings out beside you. The sound is too loud in the now silent forest, nature deathly quiet after the encounter with the BTs, as if the very wind itself is scared to show its face.
You turn your head towards the source of the noise, broken hood crunching underneath you and hindering your movement. Your vision is blurry, only roughly making out the figure standing over you; messy caramel hair, porter suit, wide smile. You groan and raise a shaky hand to your face, fingers grazing over the bloody slash across your temple and your breath hitching at the sharpness that shoots through you at the touch. Your senses dull as pain takes over, your body highlighting all the areas that have been battered, scraped and bruised.
Your saviour holds out a tanned hand and waits for you to grab onto it weakly with your own, “So, whose ass did I just save?” The words reach your ears slowly, as if swimming through treacle to get there, his voice tinny and far off. You search through the fog inside your brain, looking for the answer to his question, as he hauls you to your feet.
You manage to answer at last and speak your name, but the voice doesn’t sound as if it belongs to you. You try to frown as your vision tunnels, black static obscuring your sight as you pitch forwards. The last thing you feel are strong arms holding you upright before consciousness swims away from you into the inky blackness.
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You open your eyes to blinding white and immediately throw an arm over your face to shield you from the worst of it, eyelids fluttering rapidly as you adjust to the light and head pounding. You gradually lower your arm as your pupils dilate and scan your surroundings. You are in a pod of sorts, strips of LEDs running around the circumference of the floor and ceiling. Every surface is a stark white, throwing the light around the room.
In front of you, one wall is covered in glass, encasing porter suits of varying colours and designs. The whole display is lit up, and that is where most of the harsh light in the room comes from, spilling across the floor and over your form. To your left is a floor-to-ceiling glass shower stall and to your right a small, rounded table and chairs. You move to sit up and the makeshift bed you are lying on squeaks and crinkles underneath you. It is a hard surface covered in padded plastic, and it does nothing to soothe your aching muscles and tender skin. A thin woollen blanket has been thrown over your legs and your head is resting on a singular soft pillow, probably the most comforting thing in the whole room. But you’ve seen enough to deduce that you are at a Waystation rest stop.
It’s then that you sense the presence beside you, feel the slight temperature change at your side as a body gives off heat, hear the soft breathing of a person asleep. You snap your head to the side and scramble to your knees, the blanket falling around you, as you stare at your bed fellow.
That caramel-blonde head of hair was familiar...this was the man who saved you? Which means he brought you here after you passed out. You shriek in shock and scoot away from him to stand at the edge of the bed; it’s more of a platform, hung from the wall with metal hooks and steel cable. Your noise startles him awake and he sits bolt upright with a gasp, eyes searching for the source. When they land on you, his shoulders relax, and he runs a hand through his bangs; pushing them back away from his forehead. A few strands fall loose around his face again anyway, and he huffs, before offering you a muted smile and a two-fingered salute.
You stare at him for a few moments before you repeat the action, albeit awkwardly and not at all enthusiastically. The silence stretches on a little too long and your eyes dart from him to the bed and back again, he follows your gaze and his eyes widen in understanding.
“Oh, right! You passed out on me back there, so I hauled you and your stuff to the nearest Waystation. Figured you were heading here anyway.” When you only nod in response, he continues, “I delivered your cargo with mine and then brought you here to rest.”
You nod again, too stunned to really come up with words, your head still aching terribly and notice that his hair is damp. It’s the only reason it is staying semi-slicked back to his scalp. You realise he actually has an undercut that you didn’t see before and he looks clean, fresh tank top sculpting his body, and not leaving much to the imagination. His muscled arms are on display and you can see his broad chest and the faint outline of his abs where the fabric is clinging to his skin. He wears a strange cuff-like bracelet on one wrist and for a moment you wonder if they are actually handcuffs, before you dismiss the idea. A quick glance downwards reveals that he’s only wearing a thin pair of sleep shorts.
You glance away just as quickly, face heating up, and fidget on your feet. That’s when it dawns on you that you are no longer wearing your own suit, you are stripped down to your underthings; shirt and panties. Your leggings are gone, your legs bare, and you shiver. Not from the cold, but from the exposure. Your temperature rises to nuclear proportions and you snap your gaze up to his face again.
“Why the fuck am I half naked?” You demand in an accusatory tone, crossing your arms over your chest in an attempt at modesty. That finally sparks fear in his eyes, eyes that are a stunning mix of hazel and olive, you note. Your lips downturn at the thought, and that only causes him to look more panicked, his cheeks flushing a dark red.
“Woah, hey! It’s not like that, your suit was ruined, and your leggings were- uhhh,” he looks away from you sheepishly, words tapering off lamely and hanging in the air. He lifts a hand to rub at the back of his neck awkwardly, eyes flicking to yours and away again. Your face morphs from anger to horror as the realisation dawns on you -- you pissed yourself.
“Oh my god,” you half-shout, “Oh my god!” You cover your face with your hands, pressing your palms into your eyeballs, as if that will make the situation undo itself. The poor guy is babbling at this point, and you would very much like for the floor to swallow you whole.
“So anyway, yeah- and I couldn’t exactly remove your underwear- so I just left them and placed the blanket over you, that’s it. I swear.”
“Please, stop talking!” You fume, your embarrassment palpable and hanging heavy in the air. You fumble for the blanket on the bed and snatch it up, throwing it around your waist in a fruitless effort to gain back some dignity.
“Hey, listen. You were chased by invisible monsters and almost drowned in their spooky plasma shit, that would have made anyone piss themselves.” He attempts a hand at humour, tone light and his earlier panic pushed aside. You are still thoroughly mortified, but you appreciate his effort to not judge you, or completely rip the shit out of you for it. You don’t think to tell him you can actually see BTs, you barely know the guy, why tell him anything about yourself.
Speaking of, you are at a disadvantage, not even knowing the man’s name. You vaguely remember telling him yours before passing out earlier. A vague flicker of embarrassment licks at your skin before you push it down, and choosing to ignore his statement, you ask boldly, “And you are?”
He swings his legs over the edge of the bed as he responds, “Ah yeah, you passed out before I could introduce myself.” He stands in a fluid motion, rocking onto his tippy-toes, and stretching his arms above his head. You watch a little too closely as the hem of his shirt rises a few inches, giving you a flash of toned stomach. He holds the stretch until an audible crack resounds through the room, and then he relaxes with a sigh.
“The name’s Porco,” he offers with a grunt, and you nod your head again, in acknowledgement.
You both stand there in your underwear for a disgustingly awkward pause, before he comments, “It’s pretty cramped in here...only made for one, and to be honest, you’re stinking up the place. Might wanna take a shower.” He walks around the bed and past you, his arm brushing against your own. You sputter and turn your head to glare at him as he squats and starts rummaging through the cupboards lining the wall behind you.
You decide not to fight the insensitive comment too hard seeing as he did you a solid earlier and you are still standing in your pissy underwear (not to mention he is also correct, you reek). So, you settle for an “Ass,” mumbled to yourself while you march to the shower, holding the blanket around you in a bunched fist. You hear him scoff, but swear there is a chuckle hidden beneath it, at the same time you remember that the shower is completely see-through. There’s a small strip of textured glass running around the middle, but it’s not enough privacy for your liking, and your new acquaintance has seen quite enough of you already.
“I’m gonna get in the shower now,” you call hesitantly to him.
“Cool, thanks for the announcement,” comes the reply, followed shortly by a string of curses as several boxes come tumbling out of the cupboard and spill their contents onto the floor.
“I meant,” you enunciate with a bite to your tone, “I’m getting in the shower so yaknow, don’t turn around.”
“Wouldn’t dream of it,” his head is now deep inside the cabinet, appearing to look for something, and his muffled tone is laced with irritation.
You bite on your lip to stop from laughing when he bangs his head on the edge of a shelf and sits up rubbing the spot with a scowl. In his arm, sitting in the crook of an elbow, are a couple of cans and some plastic packets, although you can’t make out what exactly.
“You sure? Don’t want to remove the rest of my clothes? Or can I do that myself?” You can't help the snark that creeps into your voice as you stand there, still unsure about the shower situation.
“Why, that an offer?” He turns his gaze to you, with a smirk tugging at the corners of his lips, and you pull the blanket from around you to whip it at his head. He ducks deftly and catches it mid-air, still smiling as he adds, “Relax. Just a joke. I’ll sit facing away from you the whole time, promise.”
Your eyes narrow at him slightly as you try to gauge how much you should trust this stranger.
“You’ll be able to see me, so you’ll know if I peek. Which I won’t.” He reassures you and pulls out the chair from under the table with a screech, before plopping down into it, facing away from you. As promised.
You sigh and start to undress, watching him closely, as you pull your tank top over your head and step out of your panties. You quickly unbind your chest, whipping the fabric round yourself until it falls to the floor, breasts achingly heavy now they are freed from their confines. You always wrap your chest before you set out on a job, keeps your boobs exactly where you need them, out of the way. You stand in front of the curved glass, checking behind you to make sure he’s staying true to his word, and will the mechanism to hurry up. The sensors eventually detect you and the glass parts to the side with a soft whoosh. You hop in immediately and press the button, stepping under the hot spray and sighing as the warmth smoothes out the knots in your muscles – instant relief. You pump soap into your palms from the dispenser on the wall, and begin gingerly massaging your skin, careful not to press too hard over the bruises littering your body.
You wince as you clean out the cuts and scrapes along your arms and neck, the sting setting your teeth on edge. It’s not until you start lathering the soap into your hair, that you notice Porco has moved. You start, and try to squint through the glass and steam to find him – he’s in another storage cupboard. Whatever he finds, he bundles into his arms. You notice with amusement that he walks backwards and moves in a side-to-side shuffle around the room to avoid catching a glimpse of you in the shower. You decide not to stress over what the heck he’s doing, and instead focus on showering as quickly as possible, rinsing out your hair thoroughly.
When you stand in front of the curved glass again, it parts smoothly just as before, steam rushing out of the cubicle and into the cool air of the room. It mists and curls around your body as you step onto the smooth, cold flooring. You take note of the fact that your soiled clothes are missing and nowhere to be seen and that Porco is back in his seat hunched down and still facing away from you. You can tell his arms are crossed over his chest and can only imagine the look of impatience painting his features.
Your own arms are crossed over your chest as you shiver, a trail of water marking your walk from the shower to the bed. There is a small and fluffy white towel with a pair of basic underclothes perched on top, all folded neatly waiting for you. You waste no time in wrapping yourself in the towel the best you can, and rigorously drying your body.
You let out a content sigh once you pull the fresh long-sleeved shirt over your head, yanking the hem down and straightening it out. Porco managed to find another pair of leggings similar to your previous ones and you quickly pull them on over your fresh cotton underwear. The fabric smells new and feels heavenly against your clean skin.
Your feet stick slightly to the floor as you pad over to the table and pull out the chair across from your new companion. His arms are indeed crossed, his dimpled chin resting on his chest, eyes closed. You can tell he isn’t asleep by his breathing, and the way his eyes twitch underneath his lids as he tracks your movement. You pull at the crease of your shirt and smile thinly, “So, this is why you were scurrying around the place backwards.”
He cracks one hazel eye open and flicks it up and down your frame briefly, “You’re welcome.” The response was short and clipped, but held an amused tone, as if laughing at your obvious reluctance to thank him.
You sniff, narrowing your eyes at him, and instead turn your attention to the items scattered across the tabletop; four tall cans of energy drink and an assortment of protein bars and crackers. You can’t help the smile that fights to spread across your face at the exact moment your stomach decides to rumble, “We’ve got a feast.”
You chance a glance at Porco, who has straightened at your tone, and reach across the table eagerly for a protein bar. He hums, “Bit bland but beats munchin’ on Cryptobiotes,'' you grimace at the word, stuffing your mouth with the snack unceremoniously. Cryptobiotes are small life forms found out in the wild that are rife with protein and nutrients; they supposedly replenish red blood cells at a faster rate and are a steady component of your diet when you are above ground and have run out of food rations, but you can’t say much for the taste.
Porco snatches his own bar, flipping the packet up and back into his hand, before grabbing a can of energy drink and popping it open with a thumb. You unwrap the crackers, packet rustling loudly as you rip it almost down the middle and grab a handful. Porco sputters into his first sip of drink and is quick to comment on your messy eating habits. You only give him the finger before shovelling several into your mouth at once, chewing loudly.
Finally, you can eat, and it tastes better than it should. You finish eating in relative silence, Porco only breaking it to throw a jab your way, huffing dramatically as he cleans up the crumbs and wrappers. You grab the last few and follow him to the small pedal bin by the bed which he holds open for you with a foot so you can drop your mess in.
But apparently that isn't the only cleaning up he had in store because you soon find yourself sitting on the edge of the bed while Porco sits on the stool seat in front of you, first aid kit spilling its contents onto the bedspread as he rifles through it with one hand. He washed his hands a moment ago and donned the powder blue gloves he found in the cabinet when he was looking for the first aid kit. He leans slightly towards you as he tries to find what he’s looking for, and you tense at the sudden closeness. You feel his breath puff across your skin as he grumbles and groans to himself, his almost-dry hair starting to fall around his face again, framing those rounded cheekbones and sharp jawline. You flick your eyes down to notice that his button nose has a slight upturn to it, cute.
You quickly shake the thought away and clear your throat before speaking, “You know I really can do this myself, there’s a mirror over there.” You glance at it with longing, hoping the man before you will retreat and leave you to your space.
“Not willing to let the dashingly handsome stranger clean your wounds?” He jests as he upends the first aid bag completely and continues rummaging.
“Yeah, well the last stranger I ran into didn’t treat me so kindly.” You reply dryly, gripping your fingers tightly in your lap. You catch the concerned look he throws your way, but ultimately, he decides to gloss over it.
“Damn, do you ever relax? You act like I took you hostage.”
“Didn’t you?” You counter with a glare.
He ignores you, “I get it, there are some really shitty people out there. But lemme ask you this -- have I treated you unkindly?” He stops his searching to look up at you earnestly, neat eyebrows arching ever so slightly, as his eyes meet yours. This close you can see every swirl of colour in his eyes, the golds and browns flecked with varying shades of green.
You shift under his gaze, eyes flicking away from his own and back again, trying your hardest not to flush under his honest scrutiny. “Well, you could take some lessons in tact,” you mutter pointedly, pulling a snort from him, “but...no.” You finish begrudgingly.
He laughs, “Hey, I don’t sugar-coat it.”
“Now that, we can both agree on.” Your lips twitch upwards and when you look at him this time you force yourself to keep your eyes on his. He looks back at you, smile faltering slightly as he takes you in. His gaze dips lower, lingering on your mouth, and he swallow. You find yourself mirroring the action, throat suddenly dry. You realise that he is a lot closer than you initially thought, and although you hold your breath unconsciously, you aren't quite as tense. A little more confident that he isn't likely to lunge and attack.
He blinks, and suddenly he’s leaning back and away from you, as he begins to appraise the slash on your forehead as if nothing happened.
“Anyway-” you clear your throat, the sound too loud in the quiet room, a thread of tension shimmering in the atmosphere, “-just because you haven’t treated me unkindly yet, doesn’t mean you won’t.”
Porco lines up the items he needs: a bottle of saline solution, gauze swabs and some wound cleansing wipes as you speak. He tears open an individual sachet and pulls out the small, damp cloth before holding it up in front of your face, “You’re right-“ he grins, “-guess you’ll just have to trust me.”
You frown at him. You can’t work him out and that makes you apprehensive, but you have questions and you need them answered.
“I can’t trust you because I don’t know you,” you respond, “why did you save me?” The question comes out in a rush, and you clamp your lips together in embarrassment.
He looks at you, bewildered, “Do you make a habit of leaving fellow humans to get eaten? Remind me not to rely on you if I’m ever in a pickle.” You give him a wicked look, and he rolls his eyes and carries on, “plus I’d die from the resulting Voidout. So yeah, I saved you.” Right. Stupid question.
“That better?” he asks, and you furrow your brows in confusion.
“I need to have a self-serving reason for saving you? That makes you believe me more?” You lock up, his words hitting a little too close to your chest, and you look off to the side, determined not to let him get under your skin. But God, is he really sinking those hooks in.
He scoffs and holds up the gloved hand that is still clutching the wipe, “You gonna let me clean that wound before it festers?” He uses a softer tone this time and you eye him warily before nodding once, back ramrod straight as he leans in to dab at the crusted blood around the knife wound. “You rinsed most of the blood off in the shower, but there’s some stubborn spots here and there, so I’m just gonna clean it up, ok?” You breathe out a quiet “okay” and try not to squirm, letting him clean the area so he can see the extent of the damage. He’s surprisingly gentle with you and you find yourself relaxing a little as he focuses on the task. You stay silent for a while, enjoying the quiet, even if it is a little awkward as you think of the next question you want to ask him.
There’s so much you want to know, curious nature always getting the better of you, but it’s weird to probe into a stranger’s affairs. Instead, you settle on asking what concerns you, the obvious question.
“How did you get rid of the BTs?” Porco takes a beat to finish his task of wiping your forehead before he throws the bloodied wipes into the bin at his feet and finally looks at you.
“A blood grenade, would you believe it? Some hotshot Porter that works for Bridges supposedly has special blood that can kill them, he’s a Repatriate.” You perk up at the name, eyes widening and following Porco’s movements as his deft fingers undo the cap on the bottle of solution. He takes a gauze pad out of the box and places it over the opening of the bottle before upending it. You can’t believe he’s so casual about this. Repatriates are rare, you’ve never met one or known anyone who has (coming back from the dead is hardly an ability many possess), and if his blood can kill BTs? This is huge.
“A Repatriate?” You echo eagerly, sitting up a little straighter and shuffling forward on the mattress. Porco flicks his olive eyes to yours in amusement before humming in confirmation. He holds the soaked gauze out and raises his eyebrows at you, a silent request. You nod quickly before getting back to the topic at hand, “And?”
“And what?” He asks as he delicately begins to dab at the slice above your brows. You roll your eyes at him impatiently; he really enjoys pushing your buttons it seems. You are hardly in the mood for it, but you want to get answers from him so playing nice is your best bet.
“Tell me about the Repatriate,” you comment carefully, masking some of your earlier excitement. He tries to hide a smile but fails and you wince as he prods your sore flesh a little too hard.
“Shit, sorry!” he curses, and discards the pad for a fresh one. He sighs as he busies himself with the saline again, “we weren’t told much really, so I’m assuming that means the higher ups know fuck all about why he’s so special. They rounded up a bunch of us higher-ranking Porters, handed us a couple grenades each and told us to go crazy, see if they worked effectively on BTs.”
You look him in the face as he dabs the last of the liquid onto your sliced skin, the sting bringing tears to your lower lash line and sending a wicked throbbing through your skull. Everything is starting to catch up with you, exhaustion settling in your bones and aches returning to your limbs. You set your teeth as you breathe through the pain and blink away the tears, a few escaping from your lashes and falling down your cheeks. Porco absentmindedly reaches out to wipe them away with a thumb, and after the initial shock, you realise you oddly appreciate the gesture. It doesn't stop you from flinching at the contact. He pats the wounded area dry with a clean pad before pushing away from the bed and standing up.
He crosses the short space to the wall by the shower, and the sink unit automatically pops out to greet him, the mirror lighting up his profile. It’s as he is peeling off the gloves and washing his hands that you realise something.
“So, you didn’t know if those grenades would work?” you ask, voice a little too high-pitched.
He chuckles and shoots you a look across the room, hair falling over his eyes, and you watch incredulously as he runs a hand through it once more, pushing it back and away from his face as he says, “Lucky for us both, they did.”
You contemplate arguing his nonchalant behaviour, but you are too spent, and suspect that your berating wouldn’t change much anyways. They worked, and you both lived to survive another day, so that is that.
“And that’s what you were doing when you found me, hunting BTs?” You gingerly roll your neck from side to side, pushing through the nausea that surfaces from the persistent and near agonising ache in your skull.
“Amongst other things, don’t get up-,” he warns as you move to slide off the bed, “-gotta wrap ya up.”
You freeze mid-action and shuffle backwards again. He appears at your side once more and reaches for a roll of bandages. He quickly presses a pad to your now clean cut and asks you a question in turn.
“So, what’s your story? Pretty nasty injuries you’ve got, wicked bump on the back of your head.” You don’t even bother to avoid the question and redirect the conversation, you just don’t answer, and he frowns.
He unrolls the bandages and mumbles a short, “Can I?”, waiting for your answering nod before he begins to dress your wound, winding the material around your head. He secures it at the back and you feel all at once a little better. The material isn’t too tight but holds firm, it feels like it’s holding you together, keeping your head from fracturing in two.
“The stranger,” he starts, and you must look confused because he continues, “the stranger who didn’t treat you too kindly. Was this courtesy of them?” His words are quiet, unobtrusive, a tone tinged with mild curiosity. You feel at the back of your head with soft fingers, skimming over the lump there and clamping down on a whimper at the pain.
“Yeah.” You don’t elaborate, and he doesn’t ask you to. You are starting to lose focus, thoughts fragmenting and wandering, limbs heavy. He must notice your eyelids drooping because he places a hand on your shoulder, grip warm and firm, “Come on, you need to rest, you’re lucky you don’t have a concussion.”
You yawn wide as you lean your weight onto your arms and lift your feet onto the platform, shuffling back towards the wall. You lay down gently and settle on your side to avoid any sore spots, curling into a foetal position. Porco grabs the blanket that’s off to the side and flicks it out and over you. As you pull the material up to your chin, seeking warmth, Porco settles beside you with his back to the wall. He rests his elbows against his knees, the muscles of his arms rippling as he does so, and his broad shoulders hunch forwards to curl around his frame.
He’s still in sleep shorts and a tank, and vaguely, your syrupy thoughts wonder if he’s cold. He taps a cuff attached to his wrist and a holographic screen is thrown upwards, showing some sort of map. You realise it isn’t a bracelet at all, and remind yourself to ask him about it later. You make a conscious effort to keep your eyes open and mutter out two words around a fresh yawn.
“Huh?” He questions, head turning to look at your face peeking over the top of the blanket.
“Thank you,” you say, louder this time. He cocks his head to the side a little, thick neck on display, his eyebrows raised in alarm.
“For what?” His smile is all too teasing, and you wish you had the energy to roll your eyes at him.
“For everything, just. Thank you.” Your voice sounds thick, exhaustion evident, and your blinks become slower, last longer. He smiles then, a genuine smile that lights up his face, so different from the teasing grin or the near-permanent frown that you have been given up till now. His cheeks bunch adorably, apples even rounder with the movement, and you note that he has dimples. His teeth flash at you, neat and white, plump lips stretched around them. His smile curves up higher on one side, barely, but you catch it. You dislike the thought crossing your mind that he is handsome, it swims around your brain and you think you smile back at him, his easygoing nature a little infectious.
“It’s nothin', now sleep.” You are all too happy to oblige, but not before you pull the blanket over to his side a little and offer up a corner, your way of making nice. You can hardly leave him cold all night after everything he’s done for you. He takes the material offered to him and slides a little closer to your form, laying his legs flat and wrapping the blanket around his waist. You let the rest drop between you and snuggle into your half. Sleep claims you quickly.
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The next few days pass in a haze of boredom, each day bleeding into the next as you heal from your encounter with the MULEs. Porco makes you rest more than you would like, and you find yourself leaning into his easy personality and letting your guard slip.
At first, it was merely something to do, to wile away the hours cooped up in this tiny room; but after the first 24 hours, you find yourself looking forward to his witty remarks and teasing nature, finding particular enjoyment in the little crease between his brows when he sports a frown. You especially like being the cause of said frown when you bite back at his blunt delivery or whine extra loud about his choice to keep you inside for longer than necessary – to “make sure you recuperate fully”.
“What would have been the point in saving you, if I let you wander off half delirious and fainting all over the place?”
You object to that phrasing because you only fainted once since the attack and you aren’t as weak and hopeless as he makes out. You have, and probably will, survive worse. He makes it seem like you are a burden, a gigantic pain in his ass, and you almost wish it was true (and not more of his teasing) so that you can just get out of here. But another part of you, a much bigger part than you want to admit- and what mostly makes you stay seeing as you could leave if you really wanted to- needs this house arrest to last just a little longer, despite the obvious cabin fever.
You hate being below ground, it is the main reason you took up the occupation of Porter, so that you could spend your dwindling days out in the fresh air. You feel most centred, most yourself, out in nature and the inherent risks are worth it in your opinion. Worth it to feel the sun on your skin, the wind in your hair, to remind yourself there is a world out there waiting to be explored, ripe for the taking.
Sometimes, it is the only thing that gets you up in the morning and you can’t understand the individuals who are content with being stuck in the underground cities. To you, it is a prison sentence. That being said, you are lonely. The profession you chose and the path you took in this life isolates you from humanity, which in the past was just fine by you, preferred even. But you quickly realised that loneliness consumed one from the inside out and having someone to talk to meant more than you ever thought it would. It keeps one sane.
Especially someone who understands the difficulties of what you do every day. And that is how you also found yourself realising that you enjoy Porco’s company, are grateful for it even. His reminders to eat and exercise keep you grounded and the menial tasks he throws your way (despite your resentment at the order) gives you something to focus your mind on and do, besides sleeping.
What was initially reluctance at his commands turns into a begrudging gratefulness as you sort through the supplies in the room and pick out anything useful for travel. You make two piles, one for yourself and a near identical one for your current roommate. The supplies include food rations, water, clothing, mini first-aid kits and back-up items such as spare lights and rope. You also found some boots in the display cabinet housing the new and shiny Bridge’s suits, one of which you already have your eye on. It is of similar design to your old one but far fancier, state of the art technology and materials used with a myriad of adjustments that will make travel more comfortable than you are used to.
Porco told you, the day after you met him, that he has a contract with Bridges, he works for them not just with them as a freelance Porter. That’s what the clunky cuff on his wrist is, a way to connect each one of the Bridges staff, a communication link as well as a handy tool. He patiently showed you how it functions and let you play around with it and ask questions. You were surprised to find that he could be serious when he wanted to be and was a pretty good teacher. Not that it lasted for very long before he was back to his usual insults and cocky smirk.
You have come up with a nickname of sorts for Porco in the time you’ve spent with him. It was your third day at the Waystation when you had voiced the idea.
“You need a nickname,” you had spoken the thought aloud, and it hung heavy in the quiet of the room, as you sat cross legged on the floor sorting through more clothes.
“No, I don’t,” had come the near instantaneous reply.
“Yes, you do,” you retaliated immediately, indifferent to his rebuttal.
“And why’s that?” you heard a sigh in his voice that he tried to mask under feigned interest, but you picked up on it, nonetheless. You have learnt the tells that indicate his annoyance and what is merely teasing pretty quickly since you have nothing better to do than sit around and analyse the man.
You know that being stuck with you in this room for three days straight has not been easy for him -- you whine and moan and blame the situation on him and you are reluctant to offer any information about yourself while demanding answers from him. In your defence, he has left the four walls of this room, and you have not. You are bound to be a little stir crazy and cranky, entitled to it really.
“So, I don’t laugh every time I use your real name,” you smiled to yourself from your position across the room. He had been leaning against the opposite wall marking a route on his map using the cuff. He spent most days when he wasn’t out on deliveries (only local since he had to “keep an eye on you”) mapping a route to what you assumed was his next destination. Although you weren’t sure what delivery route could require such time and attention.
His seething silence and the muscle you just knew was jumping in his jaw, was evidence enough that he had not been in the mood that day, and so you had relented with a cheery tone.
“I’ll keep you posted.”
He ended that conversation with a grunt.
It isn’t until today that you speak up about it as he saunters over to you.
“Pock!” you exclaim, neatly folding undergarments into a small bag.
“Umm, sorry?” He stops just in front of your seated form at the table, and you look up at his arched brows and cocked head.
“You’re real cute when you’re clueless,” you coo at him, and he meets it with a scowl, but you notice a pink hue to his complexion. “Have you forgotten already? It’s your nickname,” you smile big as you focus on your folding again, expecting him to argue the point. To your surprise he laughs.
“I was expecting a lot worse,” he plops down into the seat across from you, “I can work with Pock.”
“Well good, better start getting used to it,” you finish your folding and lay your head on your arms atop the table. You hear the squeak of steel against plastic as he leans back in his chair.
“You’re doing well,” he comments. You crack open an eye to peek at him over the top of your arm.
“It’s just folding laundry; you could do it too yaknow.” You watch as he presses his tongue to the inside of his cheek to stop a grin from splitting across his face.
“Funny. I meant your injuries,” he crosses his arms over his front, forearms flexing in a delicious distraction, drawing your attention from his mouth to his chest, something that doesn’t go unnoticed by him.
His eyes follow your gaze and there is a flicker of amusement and...pride? in them when they return to your face. You groan and close your eyes, burying your face into the crook of your elbow.
“You don’t seem to have any lasting effects from the head injury and your cuts and scrapes are healing nicely.”
“Nice observation skills, detective, I could have told you that” you mumble into your skin, deflecting your earlier embarrassment of being caught staring into humour, your tone dry.
He ignores the remark and continues, “I think tomorrow’s as good a day as any.”
You perk up at that. “For what?” you ask eagerly, lifting your head to meet his hazel eyes.
“To leave, can’t stay here forever, I know it must be tempting for you when you’ve got all this to look at,” he gestures at himself with a smug smile, “but I’ve got places to be.”
He is in casual wear again today; wearing loose fit joggers (that have become his usual since he found them in the clothes bin) slung low on his hips, the waistband snug against his pelvic bones and the light grey fabric hugging the curve of his thigh muscles. Paired with those too-small white tanks he favours little is left to the imagination, although your brain tries anyway, filling your head with unwanted images of him sprawled out beneath you.
Being cooped up is turning you into a pervert; it is an effort to look away when he showers, to look anywhere but the glistening drops of water that roll off his abs whenever he steps out of the cubicle, fluffy towel wrapped loosely about his waist and accentuating that delicious V that disappears beneath the material. You swear he does it on purpose, just to see the struggle as you attempt to keep your eyes locked on his and do your best to keep a clear head, spitting out some half-hearted lie about how he doesn’t look as good as he thinks he does.
“Oh, so you have been looking, then?” He always catches you out, always. It’s what fuels your snarky attitude and ill attempts at insults, purely because you know that he is having more of an effect on you than you want. You figure it’s probably the Stockholm Syndrome talking (a fact you teasingly remind him of every time he suggests that you are warming up to him), although that body doesn’t hurt either, and chalk it up to basic human desire at being stuck in such close quarters.
You break out of your reverie when he waves a hand in front of your face, “Hellooooo! It’s only been three days; you can’t have lost your mind already.”
“Tomorrow?” you repeat slowly, dawning excitement bubbling in your chest. Outside. You will be outside in less than 24 hours.
“Yeah, you almost done with those bags?” he nods to the small packs you’ve been preparing.
“Just gotta pack away the rest of the spare clothes,” you answer.
“Good,” he comments, “So we should talk about what’s next,” his tone is firm and his stance immediately changes. His arms tighten across his chest as his spine straightens, casual demeanour immediately morphing into that serious ‘this means business’ face, that you have to admit he wears well.
“Who’s this we you keep throwing around?” You challenge.
“Alright, I won’t beat around the bush- “
“Do you ever?” You mutter, interrupting him mid-sentence. He gives you a look and you back down with your hands raised in mock defeat, “-given your circumstances, I think you should come with me. We can travel together.”
You stare at him for a few seconds to ascertain whether he is joking or not, but his face is more serious than it has ever been, and you think back to an earlier conversation you had a day or so ago.
He had been cleaning your wounds and checking the lump on the back of your head when you had finally spoken up about what had happened on that fateful day on the mountain with the ambusher…with Zeke.
His face had transformed at that name drop, from deep concern to something resembling fear, it was the first time you had seen it on him and it sparked something animal in you, a fight or flight instinct that made your skin crawl and heart rate quicken.
He had shakily dropped the roll of gauze in his hand and sat back with a deep exhale. It felt like the silence between you had stretched on for an eternity, the atmosphere roiling with tension, before he had spoken two words. Two words you hadn’t wanted to hear.
“We’re fucked.”
Needless to say, it did little to ease your nerves. After a drink and some mild coaxing on your part, Pock had revealed what he knew about the man and his motley crew. It turns out that Zeke is a psychopath, not really a surprise, but something you had hoped was a stretch on your part after your short encounter.
He told you that he knew of the Yeager’s, many people around these parts did, apparently they were not only thugs but kidnappers, taking women they came across that caught Zeke’s fancy.
“He’s bad news, and I mean the worst kind, he’s obsessive and has made it his hobby to collect people…women,” you shuddered at the revelation and thanked the universe that you had gotten away that day, but Porco made it clear that you weren’t out of hot water just yet.
“Don’t look so relieved,” he spoke sharply enough that your heart had dropped, “he will stop at nothing to get what he wants…I’ve seen it first-hand,“ he lapsed into a grim silence after that. Your stomach rolled, chest heaving at the thought of what befell those women, of who Porco had lost to that disgusting monster.
“What happened to her?” you uttered the question quietly, not wanting to pry or upset him, but needing to know the answer.
“Nothing good,” he grunted, and the air left your lungs in a painful whoosh, as if he punched it right out of you. When he spoke again, you startled so badly that you knocked the first aid kit off the bed, contents spilling across the floor.
“My brother went after her, but-“ the sentence had been cut short by a pained crack in his throat, eyes swimming with a haunted look.
You grabbed his hand that day, and he had grabbed yours back. You hadn’t said a word, hadn’t even looked at each other, only gripped the others hand like a lifeline; his warm palm pressed against your own, rough fingertips squeezing yours, his touch indented into your flesh long after he let go. A memory that lingered on your skin.
It was the first time you touched him since you took his hand the day he found you, the first time you had willingly gotten closer to him without hesitation. You hadn’t been able to help it when you saw the look in his eyes; the grief, the loss...the despair. You knew it all too well, it was mirrored in your own gaze, something impossible to hide from those who felt it too, despite how desperately one tried. Neither of you had brought up the topic again, until now.
And as you look into those eyes of green and gold now, turbulent with unspoken emotion, you think that you maybe understand his motivation for the question he asked. And you realise that you were strangers, but not anymore, he knows you even if only a little. And what if, maybe he too, is fed up with being alone. Maybe he has grown to appreciate your company as much as you have his.
But it isn’t just that, things have changed after your conversation about Zeke. Pock had known someone who had been in your position, who he couldn’t help, who wasn’t saved before it was too late. And maybe him finding you in the wilderness was an odd twist of fate, a chance for him to right the wrongs of his past, to deal with it head on and heal from it.
And who are you to stand in the way of fate, to reject help when it is so willingly offered in a time of crisis, in a time of loneliness? But all of that reaching is a smokescreen for your true desires on the matter, for the thought you had as soon as the words fell from his lips -- you want to go with him.
But that’s not what you say.
“Wait, what? You want to travel together? Travel where? Everywhere is a wasteland plagued by dead souls, not exactly prime sightseeing locations.” You frown at him, your voice laced with sarcasm. Is he pulling your leg? What does he even mean? You come from different compounds, have established lives completely separate from one another, and porters aren't known for travelling in groups. It's a lonesome job that rarely requires more than one pair of hands.
“Listen, I’ve got a plan. Sort of,” his face scrunches in contemplation, “I’m leaving here, leaving this island. I’m heading to Lake Knot and from there I’ll catch a boat to greener pastures, and then I’m gone.” Greener pastures, you process the two words in disgust, not quite believing or understanding what he’s saying. This is an insane journey he's proposing, and certainly not one you spring on a person you've known for all of four days.
“Are you crazy? There are no greener pastures,” your voice rises in pitch as you lean forward in your seat and stare at him incredulously across the table, “and you want me to leave my home, the only place I’ve ever known, and go on some wild goose chase with a stranger across the sea…for a pipe dream?”
Porco frowns at you, any playfulness still in his posture gone now. “We’re hardly strangers,” he says as he shoots you a grim look, “and why not? What’s tying you to this place? Do you even have anyone to stick around for?” He means well, you know he doesn’t mean to hurt you with those words, but he does anyway.
You don’t have anyone to stick around for, but he doesn’t know that, and it isn’t the point. You know he understands that emptiness all too well, the loneliness, that he is only offering you a way out.
But you can’t stop the anger that bubbles up inside you at his insensitive words and blunt delivery, at the spike of pain and flash of memories that threaten to overtake you. You never had been good at controlling your anger, “You don’t fucking know anything about me, so don’t you dare pretend that you do,” you seethe, spitting out the words like venom.
“Yeah?” His eyes flash, and now you know he’s pissed, “Well, whose fault is that?” He jerks his head at you, and you bristle, but he continues before you can interrupt, “It’s dangerous out there, you know that as well as I do. If we stick together, we can have each other’s backs, sounds a hell of a lot better to me than going it alone.” He drops his forearms onto the table with a thump and goes to push away from the table, effectively ending your little spat, but you are determined to have the last word.
“So, that’s what this is about,” You comment, and it stops him in his tracks, his eyes darting to your face, “You think I need protecting? I’m not her, Pock, and you aren’t your brother. This isn't something you need to do, for me or yourself. I’ve survived just fine on my own my whole life and you know what? I’ll continue to survive on my own. I don’t need you to swoop in and save the damsel in distress!” Your words are a shout now, emotion bleeding from each ragged breath you take, heart slamming against your chest. You hate confrontation, it makes you sick. Yet here you are starting it, acidic words rising in your throat like bile and spilling from your mouth, a mouth twisted with cruelty.
You hate the bitter words in your mouth, the metallic tang they leave on your taste buds. You went too far, and you can’t take those words back, can’t take back the look on Porco’s face, back stiff and teeth clenching together so hard you half-expect them to crack. Those eyes that have only ever been kind aren’t shining anymore, the sparkle gone from them, only white-hot rage remains. He stands up abruptly, knocking his chair over, the clatter resounding through the room and making you jump.
“S’not what it looked like when I found you screaming and pissing yourself a few days ago.” His voice is low, so unlike your loud and explosive anger. It’s a quiet rage that simmers beneath the surface; his body taut, every muscle straining against his skin, as if he is using all his strength to rein it in.
“If I remember correctly, I saved you. Why are you so fucking determined to push people away, so scared of connecting with someone? You ever think that you’re on your own because you made it that way?” His words are justified, you deserve them, hell they’re the truth. But they sting anyway, pricking at your eyes, and you stare resolutely ahead to keep the tears at bay. You are shaking, with frustration or guilt, you don’t know. Maybe both.
You look down at the table and mumble, “And this is why I work alone.” Your voice is barely above a whisper, all traces of anger swept away with the slump of your shoulders, your admittance of defeat.
You hear Porco shift on his feet, a step toward you, and then he halts. You can almost see the words in the forefront of his mind, tripping over his tongue trying to rearrange themselves, to come out right. But they never come, as if he realises there is no right thing to say.
You hear the scrape of his chair as he rights it and his footsteps as he turns to walk away, but he stops one last time, and speaks so quietly you almost don't catch it all. "You're wrong. Maybe I don't need to do this for you, but I do need to for myself."
You suck in a stuttered breath, air catching in your throat, and chest aching. Fuck, why did you have to open your big mouth and ruin everything. He throws one last line over his shoulder before he leaves the room, “We’ll talk about it tomorrow.” Dismissive. Final.
You sigh, a shaky exhale of built-up emotion, and the first few tears of many finally fall and spatter against the plastic beneath you. You look up, to make sure you see him leave, a small punishment for yourself. You hate staring at his back as he walks away from you, knowing that you crossed a line and hurt him, in doing so.
You know he will leave you alone as best he can for the rest of the day so that you can stew in your own juices, maybe see some reason. You also know that come tomorrow, should you reject him again, he will let you leave. Even if the guilt of doing so tears him up inside. You hate that the look of absolute devastation that flashed across his face when you mentioned his brother, still lingers in your mind when you shut your eyes. But most of all, you hate you, and your inability to be honest with yourself and with him.
He still isn’t back after an hour; you’ve spent the time alternating between sitting at the table chewing on your nails and pacing back and forth in front of the glass display wall. You are tired from all the crying you let out as soon as he left the compound, and your toe hurts where you kicked it against the chair in another fit of rage shortly after that. You crawl onto the bed and curl up on your side, burying your face in Pock's pillow and inhaling the scent of soap and him. You've exhausted thoughts of what happened and how you could have handled it differently, spent far too long picking apart each word between you and him, obsessing over every little detail and what he could be up to right now. You squeeze your tired and puffy eyes shut, letting the negative thoughts spiral out into the darkness behind your closed lids, becoming less coherent and fuzzy at the edges. Your breathing deepens as your consciousness slowly slips away from you, the last thing your mind summons up is a face twisted with hurt, and a pair of sad, hazel eyes.
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Your dreams are disjointed flashes of memories, some far too old for you to possibly remember, perhaps just nightmares conjured up to haunt you. Others depict apocalyptic events spelling the downfall of humanity, nothing concrete, just blood and death and ash. You see the faces of people, some you know and others you don't, but each one slowly fades out into a haze of red – their lives wiped off the board one by one.
Leaving only a few remaining…and this is the only time you've seen something that wasn't in the past, that hasn't already happened, a chilling omen that cuts you bone deep. It's Pock; he's standing in front of you bruised and battered, tears shining in his eyes. He's attempting to mouth something to you, something you can't make out. Your hands stretch out into empty space, reaching for him…but they never connect.
You scream and cry out, but there's no sound here, everything is fuzzy and quickly fading into red. Not again. It's your fault, all your fault. Another life on your shoulders, more blood on your hands. You can't leave him alone to die, you won't, but no matter how much you struggle the image disintegrates into the background. The last thing you see is a wave of heat and light rushing towards him before the image shatters.
There's someone else here.
And suddenly you are struggling against a firm grip, harsh fingers digging into your flesh cruelly, and when you manage to turn… you are met with a blank face with soulless pits for eyes. The only discernible feature is a pair of silver-rimmed glasses perched atop a long nose. Checkmate.
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Porco paces back and forth outside the Waypoint obsessively, pulling at his hair and debating whether he should go back in there and apologise, talk it out with you. But he decides you both need some time to cool off and so he takes a short trip into the valley beyond the forest you currently reside in. He searches around the rocks, checking every nook and cranny, before he finds some lost cargo in a shallow river. Fortunately, it is labelled for delivery to the Waypoint you are currently stationed at. So he straps the cargo to his gear, going through the motions methodically and with a practiced ease, before he lugs it all back to base for delivery. 
The exercise took his mind off your fight, kept the bitter words and guilt at bay long enough for his head to clear. When he returns to your shared capsule, you are asleep, curled up in the middle of the bed with your face in his pillow. It sends a pang through his chest seeing the closest object to you with his smell and imprint on wrapped in your arms. He likes the idea that even in his absence he somehow brought you comfort.
He watches the rise and fall of your form for several minutes before shucking off his suit and then sliding onto the cot next to you, sacrificing his section of the blanket so he can wrap it around you carefully. You lay atop most of it but there is enough to keep you covered. He doesn't mind, he's hot after his trek back anyway. 
He didn't realise he'd fallen asleep until your screams woke him with a start. Porco isn't usually too alarmed with your night terrors, it's something everyone with DOOMs has to suffer through and also something he's become accustomed to while sharing a bed with you, but tonight is different… 
Your screams are piercing, your sobs shredding through his sleep-riddled brain as you chant his name over and over, practically begging. A sick feeling worms its way into his gut as panic takes hold, you are twisting yourself up in the sheets and thrashing around wildly, arms striking him in the process. 
He grabs your hands as they swing for him, restricting your movement so that you don't hurt yourself, and then calls your name over your yelling. A few more yells and a hand at your face and you jerk awake, eyes flying open in panic. You strain against his hold, leaning away from him and panting with fright, clearly terrified by whatever you saw. It takes you a few seconds to realise that he is the one beside you, that you are now awake, and not trapped in an endless nightmare.
Your thrashing has slowed, wide eyes crinkling as you take in his appearance, your fingers clutching at his biceps frantically. 
"I- I thought…I saw-" You take a shuddering breath, and then the dam breaks, tears flowing down your cheeks as you gasp out your sobs. Porco pulls you into his chest without a thought, your sweat-damp hair sticking to his bare skin. He startles when you wrap your arms around his neck without hesitation, tucking your face into his neck to muffle your cries. Now, that's unexpected. Usually you apologise for waking him, grab a drink, and then roll over again. Maybe it's because this one was particularly nasty, maybe it's because of your fight earlier...
He holds you gently, hand rubbing up and down your back as he recites calmly and firmly into your ear, "You're okay, hey, you're safe. Just need you to breathe for me, okay?" 
You nod your head, sniffling into his skin as you take deep stuttering breaths in, and then out. He focuses on that since it seems to be working and breathes with you, coaching you through it until your tears have stopped and you are breathing evenly. You stay wrapped in eachothers arms in the quiet, only the eerie glow of the display wall lighting the room. He's afraid that if he moves you'll pull away and shut down, so he keeps still, and continues brushing his fingertips over the bare skin of your shoulders. 
You've taken to wearing just a bandage around your chest at night, you run hot and can't sleep in the heat. Great solution for you, a huge pain in the ass for him. He tries his best to be a decent human being around you but fuck, do you make it difficult, swanning around in minimal clothing with that little smirk playing on your lips as you insult him. And the way you look at him sometimes…if he didn't know better, he'd say that you felt the same urges he does. 
You stay quiet while his mind wanders, clearly contemplating how to break the silence, what to tell him and what not to tell him. He lets you think it out until eventually you clear your throat awkwardly. 
"My answer is yes." Your voice is hoarse and dry from all the screaming, and sounds oddly loud in the silence. 
"What's that now?" He tucks his chin to look down at you with surprise and a little amusement. You always keep him on his toes, that's for sure. 
You look up at him with an exasperated sigh, puffy, red eyes narrowed at him. 
"You heard me. I said yes, I'll come with you." You look away quickly after speaking, probably realising how close you are to one another, it hasn't escaped his attention either. But now is definitely not the time to address it. 
"One little nightmare changed your mind? Realised you can't live without me?" You sit up at his words, slowly extricating from his embrace, and wiping an arm over your dewy forehead. 
Your answering wince makes him feel guilty for teasing, you seemed pretty distraught only moments ago. But then you cock an eyebrow at him wryly and he knows you appreciate the olive branch of normalcy he extended. 
"Never," you chirp airily, "but, and I say this begrudgingly, you are right. I could do with someone watching my back." He smiles lazily at you, it's a rare day you compliment him, let alone admit he's right about anything. 
"Don't go getting a big head," you warn him, stretching your arms above your head with a face-splitting yawn, "ahhhhh…besides, I'd feel guilty if you died out there with no one to protect you."
He snorts and gives you a look, one that suggests the idea of you protecting him is absurd considering how you met, but you both know he doesn't mean it. Not really. You've survived this far on your own out there, and if your lean build and the swell of muscles beneath your soft skin are anything to go by, you can take care of yourself. 
You scowl at him, and shove him away from you roughly, face glowing with delight when he nearly falls off the bed with the action. 
"Are you ever gonna let that go?" You demand, folding your hands in front of your bandaged chest with that unrelenting, headstrong attitude of yours. Porco finds it amusing that you can now tell exactly what he's thinking depending on his behaviour, the forced proximity has wrought a sense of familiarity in you both. 
"Probably not." His cocky response does nothing to assuage your fire, and he holds up his hands to ward off any further attacks, watching you amusedly as you give him a withering look. 
"Don't make me change my mind already."
"I'll be quiet as a mouse." He acts out the motion of zipping his lips shut and you roll your eyes before sliding off the bed and checking the digital clock on the table you use for dining. Perhaps dining is too generous a word for the meals you eat. 
"No point in going back to bed, we'll have to be leaving in a few hours anyways," you force the words out around another yawn, the dark circles under your eyes more prominent than usual, and head for the shower. 
He can't blame you for your urgency, you are probably itching to set foot outside. He wouldn't have survived these past few days without his little trips above ground each day. He gives you credit for not losing your marbles entirely. 
"With how long you take in the shower? Reckon I can get a couple winks in."
He laughs, as you raise a hand above your head and give him the finger, not even bothering to turn around to pin him with a glare. He collapses onto the bed with a huff as you begin to undress, the steel cables creaking with the weight, and closes his eyes. Any excuse to prove himself correct and hear you say those three, magic words again.
☾☆ ☽ ☆ ☾
You had set off early to mid-morning after you had showered and suited up, the day grey with cloud cover. You would have thought it the height of summer and not post-apocalypse with the way you frolicked and beamed in the brisk air. You were just happy to be alive, for once.
That was over a week ago now, and the mild weather has long since passed. The sun beating down on your backs is harsh and unforgiving, your damn bodysuits keeping in the heat and acting as your own portable sauna. You are exhausted, Porco has been riding you hard to keep up the pace all week, improving your chances of out-running Zeke and his goons. You understand the urgency, but boy is this a bitch.
The day you left the wind farm Waypoint, Pock spent the first few hours explaining his grand plan and everything he knew thus far, answering your many questions and concerns as you picked your way through the dense woodland. The short of it was that this special grade Porter, known only as Sam, was travelling the wasteland to connect Knot Cities to something called the Chiral Network. You honestly stopped listening during that part, you knew enough about chiralium and how it shaped this new world, but a lot of the heavier stuff went over your head.
The UCA government hoped that this would bring about order and communication between Knot Cities and act as a catalyst to revive civilisation. Porco wanted to be a part of that change, said he was sick of sitting on his ass between delivering packages, and he hoped that getting on a boat and leaving would put enough distance between you and Zeke Yeager.
So here you are, heading to Lake Knot to travel across the water to "greener pastures". You suppose you shouldn't complain, besides the gruelling physical aspect, it's been quite pleasant travelling with Pock. He always has a teasing remark or some stupid joke to throw your way whenever you think you are too exhausted to continue, a little distraction to keep your mind off the aches and pains. He always has a helping hand at the ready when you slip or struggle, and without his drive and determination you're not sure you would have made it this far, in all honesty.
You've noticed that your smiles and laughter come easier now, you no longer try to hide them or shy away from his familiarity and kindness. You've also noticed the changes in physical intimacy since the night you woke up crying for him…He's always finding some way to touch you, always keeping you close. It was subtle at first, a hand hovering at your back while you trekked up a cliff face, the light brush of his fingers as he passed you a spare snack from his rucksack.
You can't remember when the touches became more frequent, when you started to respond to them in kind. But now rest stops consist of the two of you slumped against one another under the shade of a pine, your head lolling on his shoulder as you nap idly. And your evenings now look like a scene out of a domestic romcom, your legs sprawled over his lap while you read whatever book/magazine they have in the rest pod, and he fusses around with his Bridges cuff plotting your next course.
It's alarming how quickly this development has arisen, and yet, you can't bring yourself to mind it. It feels good to have someone, to not be alone anymore. You hope it brings the same sense of comfort to him as well.
Currently, you are sprawled out over the rock-strewn grass, bodysuit open at the chest, as you lean back against the pack strapped to your shoulders, achieving a semi-upright position with your legs thrown out in front of you. As soon as you had happened upon the small clearing in the forest, and Porco had suggested taking a lunch break here, you clumsily stumbled over to the body of water further ahead and collapsed to the ground without a word.
The sun is high in the sky and you have been hiking all morning without a break. You are covered in a light sheen of sweat underneath your suit, but you are too exhausted to pull your arms out of the material and tie it at your waist, instead choosing to be content with it just unzipped at the front. The rush of fresh air against your damp skin is heavenly and you dangle your head backwards, no longer able to keep the weight of it upright, and watch the wispy clouds shift and move across the blue canvas above you. The waterfall that feeds into the lake next to you provides a calming static, white noise to your drowsy mind.
You think you might doze off, until Porco drops down across from you, his pack hitting the earth with a crunch. You startle a little at the sound, closer than you expected, and groan at the ache in your back and legs. You hear the crinkle of a packet and roll your head up a little to peer over a shoulder. Porco is already munching on a protein bar and wiggles the item at you teasingly when he catches you staring.
You groan once more and drop your head backwards again, not caring about the uncomfortable stretch in your neck at the sudden strain. Your stomach decides to rumble, as if hinting at you to move your ass and feed it.
“If you don’t move, you can’t eat.”
You ignore the amused tone in his voice and huff, closing your eyes in defeat, tiredness taking over your senses. You don’t know how long you remain like that, probably crushing half the contents in your bag, as you drift in and out of consciousness. It’s not until something is thrown at you, hitting your chest and dropping into your lap, that you sit up with the intention to eat. Porco has finished his lunch and is stripping his own bodysuit off his shoulders, letting it dangle at his waist. He begins to stretch as you focus on shrugging off your pack and opening up the protein bar, eager to fill your empty stomach.
You’re about halfway through the bar when you notice that Pock is pulling his suit down further, peeling it over his toned legs and yanking his feet out of his boots before stepping out of it. You swallow your mouthful before clearing your throat and speaking up.
“What the fuck are you doing?”
“Gonna take a dip,” he responds as his shirt is removed next. You fix your gaze elsewhere, eyes betraying you with a flick to the side, to catch a peek of those abs you’ve grown so fond of.
“I’m sorry, what?” You are dumbfounded. Surely, he’s kidding around? You’re in the middle of nowhere surrounded by human-eating monsters and rain that can age anything it touches. It’s hardly safe to let your guard down here. Is he insane? Not to mention that water is going to be freezing. But his shorts are next to go.
“Oh, come on-“ he laughs at your incredulous look, “-we deserve a proper break, besides I need to wash off all this sweat.” You stutter over a response to his absurdity, and without warning, he hooks his thumbs into the waistband of his boxers and pulls them down over his ass cheeks.
“Jesus christ!” You yell, wildly scrambling to cover your eyes and dropping the last piece of your lunch in the process. You catch a grin from him before he’s gone, leaping into the water and disappearing under the surface with a splash. You lower your hands and think about the flash you got, the supple curve of his ass. Great, now that image will be seared into your mind whenever you look at him, that bastard knows what he is doing all too well.
You can't help but laugh when he pops back up, breaching the surface, a wide grin on his face and wet hair sticking to his forehead. He uses a hand to smooth back his hair, an action so familiar to you by now after all these weeks together, and watch as a droplet of water rolls from his elbow down the curve of his bicep.
“You’re mental,” you call to him, and he shrugs in response, treading water slowly.
“Isn’t it cold?” you ask, cocking a brow.
“Refreshing!” He calls back, and uses a hand to splash water at you from afar, as if to prove his statement.
You shriek and cower back, “You ass! Don’t get my clothes wet!” You seethe at him as you shake the droplets from your suit and brush the front of your shirt. You have spare clothes to change into but nowhere to put damp clothing if they get wet.
“Wouldn’t get wet if you weren’t wearing any,” comes his sly response, he has moved to the edge of the bank, peering over the earth as he sinks a little deeper into the water.
You narrow your eyes at him, “You want me to get in there? Naked?” You punctuate your words with a stab of your finger, first at yourself, and then in his general direction.
He shrugs again and gives a short answer, “Up to you,” before he twists his body up and around and pushes away from the edge, cutting through the water as he swims away from you. Up to you.
You hate him. You do. You’re not sure if he’s expecting you to fall prey to his teasing or if he’s teasing because he thinks you won’t actually do it. Either way, you figure, you have to do this. Just to see the look on his face. So before you can overthink it, you remove your heavy boots and thick socks and stand up, hastily stepping out of your suit as you step closer to the water's edge.
You remove your leggings slowly as you watch Pock, he’s swimming laps, powerful arms driving him through the lake. Water ripples out from his frame as you watch the muscles of his shoulders and back flex with every stroke. It’s a mesmerising sight, oddly relaxing, and you almost don’t want to look away. But you do anyway, to pull your shirt over your head, and discard it behind you. Now you are standing in just your panties and chest wrap, the cool air licking at your skin and sending goosebumps scattering over your flesh.
You dip a toe into the water and suck in a large breath, oh it’s cold alright. But it’s nice against your feverish and sweaty skin. You take another deep breath for courage and unwrap your chest with practiced fingers before sliding your panties over your thighs and letting them drop to the ground.
Porco has finished his lap now, and before he gets an eyeful of your exposed body hovering awkwardly by the bank, you jump towards the blue-black surface with a small scream.
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Porco watches out of the corner of his eye (unbeknownst to you), as you dip a toe into the lake, obviously debating whether to get in or not. In all honesty, he didn't expect you to take his bait and actually do it, it was more of a desperate hope. One that is quickly blooming into anticipation as he watches you quickly unwind the bandages around your chest with expert fingers.
When you let the billowing fabric drop to the earth, he thinks that maybe he should look away, but fuck do your tits look good; heavy now they are supporting their own weight and nipples pebbling in the cool air. He watches in a kind of trance, still side-eyeing you surreptitiously, as you slowly pull your panties down your thighs and let the material join the bandages on the floor, stepping out of them daintily.
The brief thought that you might be executing this little show on purpose, for him, flashes through his mind before he dismisses it entirely. The way your head turns to him with squinted eyes indicates that you were not aware of his lustful gaze. He quickly wipes his face with a hand to act as if he hadn’t just been staring shamelessly.
When he is sure that you aren’t looking his way anymore, his eyes flick back to you, seeking out your familiar silhouette framed in the golden glow of the sun. He sees the hesitation, as you stand at the bank shivering, and staring into the waters below you. He sees the deep breath of air that you fill your lungs with before you launch yourself away from the edge.
Time seems to stand still as he watches you reach the peak of your jump, suspended in mid air, mouth open in shock (perhaps at the disbelief that you actually took this leap of faith). Your skin seems to glitter in the light, catching the sun's rays, and your hair is wild around your head. He smiles when you plunge into the lake with a yell and an uncoordinated flail of limbs. He definitely looked cooler when he jumped.
You come up sputtering and choking, no doubt having taken a lungful of lake water with the way your mouth had been hanging open like a fish. He slowly paddles over to you, trying not to laugh aloud at the curses spilling from your lips as you wipe water from your eyes, blinking rapidly. As he approaches you he stops to tread water, his movements light and slow; at odds with your fast, aggressive flailing as you continue to scrape at your face with a hand while trying to remain afloat.
Eventually, you calm down and acknowledge his presence, pinning him with an impressive glare that would have sent him scattering if he were not used to your temperament already.
“Wipe that stupid grin off your face,” you warn him, with an edge to your voice.
“What grin?” he counters, smiling impishly at you, doing his best to keep his eyes on your face.
“That one,” you splash a hand at his face, spraying him with water, and he manages to close his eyes at the last second.
“Feel better?” he asks, opening one eye to peek at you, ready for another attack.
“A little,” you respond with a pout, teeth chattering as you bob in the water, looking pathetic and ready to start complaining.
“Nuh uh, you’re not being miserable right now.”
“But-“
“Nope. We are relaxing, no pouting, no whining. You deserve a little fun, I think.”
You frown at him, but he sees a slight smile tug at the corners of your lips, and he continues.
“And I deserve a lot for putting up with your-“ you cut him off with another wave of brackish water to his face. He sputters in your direction, spitting the water that you got in his mouth at your face, before taking off towards the other end of the lake when he sees the look on your face. You howl in anger at his retreating back and throw a particularly filthy curse his way that has him chuckling.
“Catch me, if you can!” he yells over a shoulder, and you do your darnedest.
You both swim laps for a few minutes, exhaustion dampened by a second wind, a combination of the biting cold of the water and the thrill of your little lake sojourn. The murky water provides a shoddy semblance of modesty, both of you fully aware of each other's nakedness below the surface.
Porco has seen you undressed before, many times in fact, but always in your underwear or wrapped up in a towel. It is an awkward acceptance that you are both forced to wear given the situation.
But this is different, he has seen you fully now…everything bare to him. You took off your clothing, not because you had to, but because you chose to. Chose to be naked and vulnerable, to let slip the careful guard you had spent all this time frantically holding up – to let him in, if only an inch. You are trusting him at this moment.
He knows that the dynamic between you is changing, morphing into...something different. And it changed irrevocably the moment he stripped naked and goaded you like a child, and you joined him, taking that leap of faith into the unknown.
And he feels it now, that shift, as he looks at you; leaning against an outcrop of rock next to him, chest heaving from the race you just barely lost, the swell of your breasts breaching the water. Your shoulders are relaxed, slumped against the rock, and keeping you upright. There is a ledge of rock sitting below the surface that juts out from the formation, and you are both using it as a makeshift footrest, heels dug into the hard surface.
Damp wisps of baby hair are curling around your forehead, water or sweat or maybe both, dripping from your hairline and sliding down your temples. Stray drops drip from your lashes and hit your full cheeks when you blink. They look like tears when they fall and Porco finds himself reaching towards you on instinct. He uses the pad of his thumb to wipe at the soft skin under your eye, brushing the droplets away.
Your head turns toward him, eyes blinking up at him in alarm as his thumb traces the path of water down your cheek, stopping at the plump of your bottom lip. His touch ghosts over the flesh there. He notices your wide eyes glance down to his mouth unconsciously, before they flick back up to his eyes quickly. The moment stills for a heartbeat, the world falling away, as his touch lingers and your gazes meet.
It isn’t until he pulls away and clears his throat that sound returns, the waterfall behind you crashing into the lake and creating a buzz in his ears. The treeline surrounding the clearing you sit in the middle of provides a soft susurration of the wind through the leaves. Birds chirp and chatter as they pass through the clearing, flying low, their beaks kissing the ground as they pluck bugs from the earth. It feels almost normal, in this little pocket of tranquillity, where flora and fauna thrive. There is no rain nor dark cloud in sight, no monstrosities sucking the warmth and life from the air, no current reminder that this life is an apocalyptic wasteland; a waiting room for the stranded souls of the dead.
Porco leans back against the rock, mirroring you, and lets out a content sigh. His eyes fluttering shut as he pretends to act casually, but his heart is racing, and he’s sure you can see the blood that has rushed to his cheeks. Even with his eyes closed, he can see your pretty face. Your eyes boring into his own, searching for the hidden meaning in the gentle touches he bestows upon you, almost as if he can’t help himself. And he can’t.
He’s tried, God knows he has. He knows you find it hard to trust, he supposes everyone nowadays are the same. He knows you aren’t fully comfortable with unannounced touching, even with the simplest and most innocent of acts. That much is apparent from the way you jump at a hand on your arm, or flinch at his fingers examining the many injuries you seem to attract. It's what has driven him to do better, to prove to you that you can trust him.
And every time you accept his teasing and poking, or actively seek out his hand in the dark, clutching onto it to drive the nightmares away; it’s all the sweeter to him because he has earned it. And he finds himself wanting to earn more, to be privy to every part of yourself, to have you offer yourself up in the palm of a hand.
He groans inwardly. He is acting a fool, there are more important things at stake, but this world is cruel and unforgiving. Real connections are rare, friendship and intimacy few and far between. Even if you feel nothing for him, beyond this sense of circumstantial camaraderie, even if everything stays the same as it is now – he wants to hold onto this connection. A bond like this he hasn’t felt since Marcel-
His brother. He’s been trying to keep his face, the memories, out of his mind since your conversation about the Yeager’s all those days ago. He almost opened up, almost spilled his guts to a near complete stranger in a moment of weakness. It seems you have that effect on him, and he tells himself it is only fair since he seeks the same from you. He knows he can’t avoid the topic forever, can’t run from his past, from the reality that Marcel is gone. But fuck it, does he try most days.
You must sense the internal struggle raging inside him, for you speak up, breaking the tense silence between you. You ask in a hushed and tired voice, “Do you think there’s a future for us?”
His eyes dart to your face and notice the nervous squirming of your body, arms crossing over your ample chest in sudden bashfulness, as you realise the implication of your words.
He chuckles lightly and looks out toward the treeline, scanning your surroundings, ever the lookout. If you are caught unawares out here, then you’ll wind up dead. He thinks over your question seriously, “Us, as in humanity?”
He senses you nod beside him and continues, “Sure there is...humanity always prevails, holds on tight to life, kicking and screaming,” he smiles wanly, not at all amused by his own words. He feels you shiver beside him, the tinkle of water reaching his ears as you disturb the stillness around you. It’s not from the cold, you both adjusted to the water’s temperature long ago.
“Sorry. Yeah, I think there’s a future for us,” he smiles genuinely this time, at your chosen phrasing. “If I didn’t, then we wouldn’t be here right now.”
There’s a pause as you mull over his words, and then you ask quietly, “Do you think we will see that future? Something better than this?” So quietly, that he almost doesn’t hear over the rush of the waterfall, and this time he knows the ‘we’ is intended. You mean him and you, as individuals.
“Probably not,” he answers earnestly, in a tone a little too cheery for the grim reality of the situation. He side-eyes you, head still lazing back against the rock behind him, and catches your look of incredulity and slight distaste.
“Hey, I told ya, I don’t sugar-coat it,” you snort loudly at that, “but we can help carve out that future for the generations to come.” You turn your body slightly to face him at those words, features softening, some indiscernible emotion flickering in your eyes.
You stare at each other for a few seconds. When you look at him it’s as if you’re seeing him differently, looking through him, to what’s underneath. It sends a thrill shooting up his spine, a weight settling over his chest. You look at him as if you want to say something in particular, but you must decide against it because instead you mumble, “Yeah, yeah we can.”
The conversation lulls again, the both of you thinking over your discussion and the days to come, side by side in a comfortable quiet. Eventually, he decides to break the silence this time with his own question.
“So, in an ideal world, no Death Stranding,” you hum in acknowledgement and shift in the water to face him properly, “what would you wanna be? Besides a glorified delivery person,” he smiles at you knowingly.
Your brow wrinkles at his question and Porco thinks it adorable, “What would I wanna be?” you echo lamely.
He nods encouragingly. “Hmm, I guess I’ve never really thought about it.”
He laughs in disbelief, “No way, really?” He scans your face, looking for something, any indication as to what is causing the strange look of despair on your face. What are you thinking?
“Well yeah,” you respond a little awkwardly, “I mean, I didn’t really see the point, it’s never going to happen.” You poke your finger into a hole in the rock that’s been worn smooth as you talk.
“And I guess,” you hesitate, your words caught on your tongue, mind whirring away behind your eyes, as if finding the best way to phrase your thoughts, “I haven’t really felt all that inspired by life, considering we’re surrounded by death. It’s a little depressing, if you hadn’t noticed,” you tack on the last remark with a wry smile tossed his way, finger still working it’s way in the hole, a nervous habit he realises. You always find something to do with your hands when you’re uncomfortable, worrying at your clothes or twisting your fingers together.
His heart aches, because he knows that look on your face, he’s been there. Still is there sometimes. It was especially bad after he lost Marcel. He wants to hold you, comfort you somehow, but he instead chooses his next words carefully, as you had yours.
“Yeah, I get that,” he nods at you and you look up from the rock finally, assessing his features, perhaps to ascertain whether he really meant what he said. “It can be hard to see a point in living when life is...well, like this,” he gestures at your surroundings as a whole.
“But, we carry on,” he says lightly, studying your expression; the sad curve of your lips and the line of your nose, the set of your brows and the melancholy shining in those beautiful eyes.
“But why?” you whisper, searching his face, as if he holds all the answers to your uncertainty and pain.
“Because we have to,” he shrugs nonchalantly, despite the weight of his words, and the severity in his tone.
And then you surprise him, you always seem to, because you smile at him. It’s a small, wretched smile, and he thinks such a tiny action has never held so much understanding, so much emotion. Before he can think of a way to change that hopeless look painted across your delicate features, you speak again.
“I need some time to think about it, you go.” The worry and emotion has bled from your features, your careful facade back in place and tone casual again, but your voice laced with a tiredness that reaches bone deep. It’s that weariness that cemented his decision to rest here for longer than usual, it’s all you can afford if you want to stay ahead of anyone potentially trailing you. By tonight you will be inside in a real bed, sharing each other’s body heat, and the world won't seem so large and daunting.
“Okay, okay,” he starts, “I would study medicine, properly. I was always interested in it as a kid because of my brother but…wasn’t meant to be, I guess,” his voice falters slightly under your scrutinising gaze, suddenly very aware of the innermost parts of him laid bare for you to see. Your ability to make him nervous is really outstanding and becoming quite troublesome for him to hide.
He carries on in a rush, “I wouldn’t be a doctor, like Marcel was, but maybe a paramedic or even ju-“ you interrupt his anxiety babble with thoughts of your own, and he finds himself grateful for it.
“Hey, I didn’t say anything, that’s a noble dream,” You hum low in your throat, “I wasn’t expecting that answer from you, yaknow?” You ask of him with a crooked smile.
There is not a huge need for emergency response units in the underground Knot Cities, and above ground is too dangerous to risk sending out experienced medics, so he can understand your point. They exist, sure, and it's far more rewarding than delivering cargo but….that dream of his died along with Marcel.
The initial explosions marking the era of the dead wiped out a vast majority of the human population, and there aren’t enough qualified hands as it is, most medical professionals cover multiple areas of expertise these days to make up for their decrease in numbers. Something that Pock is sure he couldn’t do; he could resuscitate a patient, sure, stabilise them and assess the damage…but a surgeon he is not.
Of course, his brother could and did, always willing to go that extra mile for his people. The most Marcel had done on a day-to-day basis was wipe the scraped knees of snotty toddlers, sometimes set a broken bone of one of the older kids, and generally keep everyone’s health monitored; prescribing routine medication to the elderly and those with health conditions. He would let Porco help him during those easier days, showing him basic first aid and enlisting his help with keeping track of all the medication they had in storage.
It varied depending on the needs of the people, sometimes Marcel was called away further than usual, to fill in where a particular skill set he boasted was needed. When he was called in for surgery, those were the real tough moments, certain equipment and medicines were in short supply underground; and given the risks of a patient dying on the table, it was an immense pressure to bear.
A pressure that Pock knew well, the weight of it had been evident in the set of Marcel’s shoulders, in the flash of his eyes after a particularly difficult day. It was yet another reason he trained hard and got in shape to be eligible for a Porter position; so he could bring back those all-important items that could potentially not only save one life, but hundreds.
“That’s me, ever a mystery; tall, dark and handsome,” he jests lightly, trying not to let those bitter memories bleed into the lines of his features. He relishes in the way your eyes light up with mirth.
“Oh sure, you’re a real enigma,” you roll your eyes at him playfully, “but you’re 5”10, at best, and also blonde.” He pretends to be hurt at your words, recoiling back as if stung. You laugh, a melodious sound that carries over the water and echoes back at him in the small clearing.
You then pin him with a curious look, “But it suits you, the more I think about it,” you trail your hand over the uneven rock between you as you think, absent-minded fingertips skimming over the dips and bumps, and stopping just before you meet the curve of his upper arm. The proximity makes his skin prickle, and a shudder works its way up his spine involuntarily.
“You’re good in high stress situations, nothing seems to phase you,” his mind flashes to the first moment he saw you; struggling in a pit of black tar and screaming like a warrior on the battlefield as you fought tooth and nail against the ghostly hands imprisoning you. If only you knew how rattled he had really been, how close he was to turning tail and running, you wouldn’t give him any credit now.
But still you go on, “You’re firm, but kind, intelligent and resourceful.”
Porco is taken aback at your praise, it’s probably the only time you’ve voiced a positive thing about him with such sincere intention. He would never say it aloud, but he is touched at your sincere appraisal of him. Marcel sparked his interest in the medical field, and he often has this feeling of yearning that pursuing the same career path and walking in the same steps he did, would make him feel closer to the man again. Give him back a little piece of his brother’s soul, some physical connection to Marcel, something more than just the memories they shared.
But he had always hated being stuck underground. Day in and day out, and that only worsened after Marcel died, he couldn't stand to be cooped up around the people who knew, couldn’t stand their pitying stares and faux concern. It didn’t take long for them to move on and forget Marcel anyway, leaving his family lost and broken, never quite whole from that day forth.
He figured finding himself and his own sense of purpose out in the world, above ground, might bring him some sense of acceptance about what happened. And at the time, anything that reminded him of Marcel, was too painful to pursue. If he is being completely honest, at first, he hoped he might not survive long in the BT-ridden landscape; hoped he would at least be free of his grief. But after stepping out into the world, he realised there is no longer any peace for those who passed on, not in the Death Stranding.
Besides, Marcel would have been disappointed to see Porco like that, so hopeless and defeated. So, he carried on and fought hard to work his way up the Porter ranks, in the hopes he could one day make some sort of difference for humanity; no matter how small. And as he returns to the moment, shrinking away from those painful memories once more, he doesn’t regret his choices, because it brought him to you; perhaps the only person who has ever tried to understand him and see past the brash exterior.
“Plus, there’s the uniform,” you look up at him with a new shine in your eyes, drawing his attention away from his thoughts, and back to your beauty.
He laughs at that, your ability to lighten the mood always surprising him, “Oh yeah? You like thinking about me in uniform?” He attempts to nudge you with an arm, and you push away from the rock to evade the elbow in the ribs, water now up to your chin as you tread water.
“Anything but that bulky monstrosity,” you jerk your head towards the grass where your suits lay abandoned. “But a medic? Yeah, I think you’d look good in green.” Your voice is low, and he thinks he imagines the breathless quality to it, as you move through the water a little. He straightens involuntarily, pulse quickening at the shift in the atmosphere.
“You never answered the question,” he practically whispers, as you drift closer still. He feels himself leaning towards you instinctively, drawn to you as if by a magnetic pull he can no longer resist, rushing through his veins. The comfortable atmosphere that has grown between you from days and nights in each other’s presence has slowly morphed into something deeper, and he feels it now more than ever; thick and heavy, almost stifling in its tangibility.
You hover in front of him, so close and yet still so far, your legs kicking his as you remain afloat. Your gaze flicks up from his mouth to his eyes as you finally answer, “I’d want to be happy.”
The words fall from your lips in a murmur, eyes hazy as you look up at him through lowered lashes, and then your mouth is on his.
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Through this whole exchange you find yourself unable to think about anything other than the small space between you and Pock, the translucent blue barely concealing the outline of his waist from you. That glimpse of his naked flesh beneath the surface, so close to your own, has your thoughts spiralling. And none of them are safe for work.
You can hardly keep up with the nuanced conversation between the two of you, let alone keep your eyes to yourself, his damp skin shimmers so enticingly in the weak sunlight that filters into the little pocket of space you both occupy. You catch yourself glancing at the lean muscle of his arms and chest more than once. And now with him so close you see the flush of his cheeks, the light dusting of pink across his nose, those plump lips practically begging to be kissed. You aren’t sure when you instinctively began drawing closer to him, cannot pinpoint the moment you decided the hell with it.
But now you’re so close that when he whispers to you, you see the bob of his Adams apple, thick neck flexing and hazel eyes scanning your face before they settle on your mouth. You kick out in the water to push yourself up, and your legs collide with his, at the same moment you finally mumble a response to his question.
Within seconds your legs are tangled up in his own, your upper body breaching the surface and your hands pressing against the hard plains of his chest as your lips meet his, flesh against flesh.
Despite the urgency in both your movements; the push of your feet against jagged stone to reach his face, his rough hands that grip your elbows in a steadying embrace as he meets you halfway, the kiss is a gentle caress. It is hesitant at first, lips slotting awkwardly and noses bumping together, but slowly your mouths melt into one another; your skin moulding to fit his like liquid shifting to fit its container. It feels right, as natural as existing, and that scares the small part of your brain that is still coherent.
Neither of you dare move from your embrace, neither of you dare breathe even, for fear of breaking this sudden fragile intimacy between you. You lose yourself in the sensation of him, his heated skin and searing touch, the surprising softness of him despite all the muscle and hands hardened by work. The smell of damp and dirt and iron and sweat tugs at your consciousness, reminding you of where exactly you are.
It’s only when his tongue swipes against your bottom lip in a whisper, do your lips part in obedience, your mind hardly aware of your actions, letting your body talk for once instead of your mouth. As your tongues meet in a slow waltz, you taste the faint artificial sweetness of berries on his breath.
Your hands ever so slowly creep up and over his chest until you are resting your elbows on his broad shoulders, arms automatically winding around his neck. Your bare front is pressed to his own, and you find no time to care about the innate intimacy, no time to find your own insecurity. His own hands drift over you, slipping from your arms down to the curve of your back, fingertips pressing into your skin.
You play with the shaggy hair of his undercut with wet fingertips, it has grown out quickly, and you make a mental note to sit him down later and cut it. Your nails scratch against his scalp with urgent care; a silent plea for more, a desperate attempt to stay grounded in reality, a small release of the pent-up desire in your veins, thick and molten. You battle with the urge to devour him whole, and the voice inside your mind that tells you to quit while you’re ahead, to focus on the mission. On survival.
But the small gasp that catches in his throat at your hardened nipples against his chest, at your fingernails scratching at his skin and the low moan that follows, tears through your composure and last shred of rational thought. You press into him firmly, willing your body to eradicate any and all space between your two bodies, your hips canting forward into his own. It’s then that you feel his hardened length against you, the curve of him pressing into your flesh just above your belly button, and the growing pit in your core drops; the feverish want that licked at the edges of your sanity shooting straight between your legs and eliciting a breathless sound from the back of your throat.
Pock’s arms tighten around you before he slides his hands to your hips and pushes gently. Your lips leave his reluctantly with an embarrassingly loud noise, and you both breathe heavily into the new space separating you. Pock leans his forehead against your own on an exhale and you rub your nose against his own before you fully realise the affectionate nature to the gesture.
You shut your eyes for a few seconds and focus on your breathing, suddenly aware of your proximity now the bubble of desire has popped. Suddenly feeling very exposed and self conscious, but too reluctant to move. Fuck. What have you done? What a way to keep it professional, this just made things a lot more complicated.
Your spiralling thoughts are interrupted by Porco, his voice gruffer than before, the low timbre sending a shiver through you, “Well...”
“Don’t.” You warn, but there is no real conviction behind the word.
“I thought you didn’t like me,”
“I don’t,” you reply, scrunching your eyes tighter, trying to will the image of that damned smirk of his out of your mind.
“Thought you found me annoying,” he pushes.
“I do,” you are being a brat intentionally, both answers are a lie (well maybe just the first one), and he knows it as well as you do. You sigh, as if you are troubled by the current events, and pull your head away from his own. But your arms stay wound around his neck, tethering you to him in a way that feels all too comfortable.
“Huh, that was some kiss for someone who claims to dislike me,” he smiles at you wide, full lips curving so prettily over white teeth, a dimple set into one cheek. Your heart speeds up as you do your best to give him a cool look.
“I thought it might shut you up for awhile, but I was wrong, my bad,” you tug at the short hair by his nape with a flippant smile.
“That so?” His grin widens and he licks at his bottom lip, eyes darting back down to your mouth. “Guess you’ll have to try again,” he attempts to sound innocent despite his ‘cat that got the cream’ expression. You set him up for that one.
“But later,” he adds, his smile dropping and those soft features hardening. The familiar frown he so loves to sport works it’s way onto his face as he scans your surroundings; you think that he probably doesn’t even notice he’s doing it, or how cute he looks, but that’s neither here nor there.
You stiffen at his serious tone and watch him carefully, “Something wrong?” You flick your eyes to the left and then the right, scanning for danger.
“No, but we’re vulnerable out here,” he shifts in the water, tucking you to his side slightly.
“I don’t wanna say we’ve wasted time,” he gives you a side glance with a sparkle of mischief in his eye, “as productive as we’ve been, we have to move on.”
You sigh and nod, you really had let time get away from you, not a smart choice. Now, you will be making up for lost time and you are sure Porco will not go easy on you. You both swim to the opposite side of the lake where the water is shallowest and drag yourselves onto the bank, you a little less gracefully than Pock, but thankfully he says nothing on the matter.
Despite your earlier intimacy, you are both careful to look away as you trudge back to your suits and packs, giving the other as much privacy as you can afford given the situation. Pock allows you first dibs of the small towel you are now glad you packed (just in case) and you quickly pat your skin dry before handing it to him wordlessly.
You dress swiftly and don your suits again; you barely have your pack over your shoulders before Pock is making a beeline for the trees, his hand brushing your elbow as he guides you along.
The grind begins again, and you do your best to keep up with Porco’s hurried strides. Try as you might, the memory of your skinny dip in the lake doesn’t leave your thoughts, and you let them wander aimlessly as you trek along; the feel of his lips a phantom against your own.
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It takes about an hour for you to leave the lake and surrounding forest behind, clearing the mountains completely and dipping into the valley below. The change of scenery is welcome, but there is too much open space, and Pock insists you stick to the edge of the valley. Keeping the sloping mountains to one side means one less direction for enemies to approach from, and the lumps of jagged rock keep you semi-hidden as you continue your trek.
You are lagging behind, your energy and patience running thin, but you're so close…a few more miles and you'll hit your last Waypoint before you reach Lake Knot. Every time Porco looks back to hurry you along, you grumble at him under your breath. A heavy-footed step sends a small pebble skittering from under your boot, and you stumble, dangerously close to eating shit. You curse foully into the humid air.
You're not sure how much more of this you can take…you've just got to think of other things, like a cool shower and clean clothes, that's exactly what the doctor ordered. You hear the quiet thrum of white noise, but in your exhausted, daydreaming state you fail to acknowledge it. And when you finally realise the noise isn't a figment of your imagination, when you hear the scattering of pebbles and the splash of the stream, it's already too late.
The bike comes zooming past before you have the chance to cry out, your voice lost in sudden shock. But you recognise the rider's shaggy hair immediately, and you see exactly what (or who), he is racing for. Your vocal chords finally catch up to your brain as you scream out a warning.
Your heart sinks in your chest as you watch the scene unfold in slow motion, watch as Porco turns at your panicked voice, only for his eyes to widen as he spots Zeke hurtling for him. It all plays out within seconds, despite your slowed perception, and when you hear the sickening crack of the stick against the back of Porco's kneecaps the world resumes in real time. You break out into a sprint, the surge of adrenaline aiding you and pushing you past the hurdle of fatigue.
Porco drops to his knees with a pained roar, falling forwards onto his hands, his body spasming as the electric current frazzles his nerves. Zeke is laughing, loud and confident, and full of glee. He throws the bike into a u-turn, curving back on himself in an arc of dust and debris, before heading straight for you. You flinch, but pick up the speed anyway, racing towards Pock with a determination that surprises even yourself.
Your lungs are fit to burst and your heart is hammering so wildly it's a wonder it doesn't beat right out of your chest. But Zeke has other ideas, and he cuts you off before you can reach Porco, bike skidding in the dirt mere inches from you. You halt so abruptly that the force sends you sprawling to the ground, skinning your palms in the process. Thank biology for miss adrenaline, otherwise that would fucking hurt right about now.
You pant against the earth, eyes watering at the harsh sting, choking on the dust trying to clog your lungs. You push yourself onto all fours with trembling arms, blood smearing the grass and dirt beneath you, but you don't care. You only have eyes for the piece of shit before you, blocking your view completely from Porco, as he regards you with mild interest. Like you're an insect he's noticed on the ground while out on a leisurely stroll, not a human being he's hunted for his own sport.
He pushes his glasses up his nose before he speaks, "Hey, sweetheart."
You spit into the dirt at his feet with enough force that you hope he gets the message, fuck you asshole, as several more electric bikes halt around you – caging you in.
Zeke's face transforms into a sadistic grin as he leers down at you, and somehow, you know the word that is going to leave his mouth before it does, "Checkmate."
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page divider by @/firefly-graphics
Thank you for reading! 💙
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raybyanothername · 1 year
Note
I am always willing to spread some positivity! Especially for an author whose fics have quickly climbed to the top of my favourites list! If ur willing to share, have u got any other ideas for HotD?
Oh... you sweet summer child, you know now what you have done. You have given me a reason to 🌟 info dump 🌟 about my current obsession!
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I have many plots, thoughts, and numerous schemes. A selectionn, for your consideration - with chaotic summaries that I might use for their Ao3 debuts eventually - a round up of my current WIPs!
(Disclaimer: does not include the ongoing fics on my Ao3 or the 2 prompts I'm working on.)
Starting with the modern AUs, because we have so few:
1. There's the Grand Omegaverse Concept that I am both obsessed with and completely unable to start because I have no idea *when* to start. It centers around the concept of this glorious polycule.
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It would also include a Baela/Helaena/Aemond and Aemond/Luke/Rhaena polycule probably. And originated with the concept of Club Girl!Aegon of all things. But at one point in time does the fic start? Who is with who? Where is everyone? No idea. And thus, I have nothing written, but a glorious obsession with Girl Dad!Daemon trying to bond with Jace while said nephew/cousin is hiding Aegon in his closet. Or under his bed. Something of that sort. I might start there because I have 0% written for this despire it being the Primary Reason for my brainrot.
2. Targaryens as a Mobster Family? Jace might get to flip his lid in this one for once. Aegon would definitely end up giving him a lapdance at some point, but I don't know.
3. A Lucemond High School AU with a side of Jace/Aegon and very amused Matchmaker!Corlys. Rhaenys is both long suffering and entirely done with how oblivious her family is when it comes to love. She is probably also losing a bet with Laena and mocking Daemon. For reasons.
4. A non-shippy Rhaenyra and Aegon bonding at the dragonpit over music and the beauty of dragons.
5. Those Velaryon Boys, in which Aegon is in love with his lab partner and doesn't know Jace is his nephew. Aemond does know Luke is. Would feature Rhaenyra Harem (TM) meeting Aegon over breakfast when he stumbles down from Jace's room and critiques their taste in wine before stealing it. Adorable Joffrey is also present, at some point.
6. Laenor rescues Aegon from some creeps at a nightclub and realizes his father-in-law is a giant ass. Features Laenor/Qarl, Viserys Bashing, and probably some Aegon/Jace hints at the very least.
Oh! And then there's the pseudo-canonverse fics:
1. I refer to my favorite dark fic as The Second Dance and it basically boils down to the Velaryon boys surviving the civil war. All the faves are dead. Jace is locked in Aegon's bedchambers. Valyrian Sex Magic is abused. Somehow, there is still a succession crisis and Helaena lowkey might murder someone for insinuating that her only surviving child is useless. Would involve Jace/Aegon, Luke/Aemond, Daeron/Joffrey, Jaehaera/Aegon(the younger), and possibly a little Baela/Helaena/Rhaena.
2. A Lucemond fucking in the dragonpit scenario. Arrax is trying to sleep y'all, go find a different lair!
3. Pregnant Rhaena discovering where her husband at night when they visit the Red Keep. Eventually leading to some Rhaena/Luke/Aemond glory.
4. Valyrian Fertility Festival aka Targaryens Gone Wild. The Faith are unhappy, Viserys and Daemon are scarred for life, Rhaenyra is going to need more wine to deal with this shit. Also, featuring Alive!Laena as an accidental instigator and generally amused individual.
5. Kinky Small Council meeting ft. Queen Rhaenyra being absolutely done with her brothers' nonsense and a lot of Jace/Aegon giving Aemond headaches.
6. The OG Omegaverse Concept, which is Jace presenting as an alpha while ditching a feast with his omega uncle, Aegon.
7. Jace figures out why his mother didn't want him walking on this side of the keep. He cannot look away.
8. Viserys catches Aegon with 'one of his whores' and is completely unaware that said whore is the heir to his throne. Jace is very amused.
...I did say this show has taken over my brain. *gestures up* I was not exaggerating. I'm basically Sheska, about to drown in my WIPs.
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There was also that comment on one of my fics that made me want to write sub/dom one-shots for various couples... if anyone wanted to send some ships + prompts to help enable me... 😇
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anlian-aishang · 2 years
Note
Hello hello! May I request a Levi x reader where one evening when the reader helps Levi with his paperwork, she begs him to do a little experiment with her (he likes her so how can he say no). The reader thought it’d be fun to mix and match different tea flavors to see how they would taste. Levi enjoys seeing the various reactions from the reader and I imagine this would be super super fluffy! I think both would have fun! Thank you and your work is amazing, as always! ~~旦_(・o・;)
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Thank you for the cute request, love! I hope you enjoy ~ <3
Word count: 1300 Tags: levi x reader, fluff, canonverse, pining, gn!reader
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“Make yourself some tea, it’s gonna be a long night.”
For any other cadet, they probably would have felt forlorn at those words. The overnight shift, mountains of paperwork, such metrics were already demanding, but neither of them could compare to the intimidation from your shift’s supervisor: Captain Levi.
It was the end of the quarter, meaning it was time for the regiment to do some housekeeping. Some of that was literal, like laundry and deep cleaning. Other tasks were more logistical, like sharpening blades, refilling canisters, or raising the money needed to do so. Levi preferred the former, hated the latter. The paperwork he had rotated into today sat soundly in the middle. The labor was boring, but better than staring at a blank ceiling, which is what the insomniac would have otherwise been doing on any given night.
By the time you made your way to the sign-up sheet, only one option was left. One bright white blank spot next to Captain Levi - books - third shift. It felt that the entire commons was staring at you, eyes burning into the back of your head, as you picked up the pen and signed your name beside his. 
On one hand, it was just the kind of person you were, to take pity on those who had been picked last, jumping in to join them no matter the circumstances. All of your comrades knew you as that person, so as they watched you volunteer for the least desirable job with the most daunting superior, they assumed that decision was motivated by your kindred nature. On the other hand, there was another aspect to your choice, one not so obvious to rest of the corps. Even if it meant burning the midnight oil, even if it meant scanning hundreds of spreadsheets, in the end, it was still one-on-one time with him. 
Therefore, when he opened his office door to you at midnight sharp - dressed in an intriguing contrast of ironed uniform and dark circles beneath his eyes - and warned you that your night together would be long, it gave you more butterflies than nerves.
You had always wondered how many guests frequented his space, but at your first walkthrough, noting how pristine it was, you determined that invites must have been a rarity. You did not make much effort to stop it from getting to your head, a meek smile seizing your expression throughout your stay. 
Levi escorted you to his desk, a chair on each side. As he rounded the corner, he pulled your chair out for you and gestured for you to take a seat. Leaning back into his leather, he looked to you through sullen bangs, “Thanks for joining me tonight.”
You smiled, nodding your head hurriedly. 
“I know you had no other choice, but rest assured, I hope to make this easy for you.” Levi reached to the top of his desk and grabbed the thick binder. “The truth is, I can get through this entire thing faster than I can teach it to you, so that’s what I plan to do.” 
Levi donned his readers, unscrewed his inkwell, and wielded a fountain pen. Elbows rested rudely on the table, posed to power through. After a few seconds of silence, sans his swift scribbles, his silver stare rose above thin lenses to meet your eye contact. “Hope that doesn’t offend you or anything.”
The opposite. Placing your hands between your knees, tucking your lips beneath your teeth, shaking your head rapidly, you tried to hide the budding grin. He looks so cute in glasses. 
It was at that thought that you should have caught yourself. The particular concoction of Survey Corps stress, midnight tire, a night alone with Levi, and in-the-presence-of-your-crush adrenaline had started to take its toll on your composure. When he directed you to his tea supply and invited you to make a brew, those cracks dug deeper. When you asked if any leaves were off limits and he responded with a wink, “What’s mine is yours,” your dam crumbled completely.
Indeed, a daylit version of you would not have acted with the tenacity you did. Taking all ten of his mugs out from his cupboards, tucking one under each finger, you placed them stealthily on his counter. A generous amount of water, much more than needed, you brought to a boil. If you were only making one kind, it should have taken ten minutes. A half-hour later, you were just about wrapping up, but buried in bookkeeping, Levi did not notice the excessive amount of time - not until the ceramic clangs on his cherrywood captured his attention. A short startle at the sound, Levi clenched his teeth and snapped his gaze up to you.
You stood opposite to him, ten cups of tea between you both, “Levi?” You knit your hands behind your back and gave a flirtatious side-to-side, “Are you up for a little experiment?”
If it was Erwin, Don’t you have something better to do?
If it was Hange, Find another guinea pig. 
If it was anyone else, a plain and simple No.
But for a cadet as cute as you, Levi failed to summon any snark. Brows knit in confusion, lips parted in a stammer.
You took that as a yes.
Slamming your palms to his desktop, your voice was louder than necessary for the small space and two of you. Your excitement so visible, Levi did not mind it. “So, I mixed and matched your different teas...”
His wallet wept. Levi smirked.
“...And you and I are going to try them and see how they taste!”
The binder glared at him, only a fraction of it done. This little game you had planned would not make it go any faster, but Levi consciously turned a blind eye. He thrust his cupped hand towards you, “Hit me.”
Lavender-chai. Not bad.
Green-black. Pretty plain.
Honey-lemon, you both agreed, was the best of the bunch.
Especially after you were hit with the punch of double-licorice.
“What the - ?!” You wiped your mouth with your sleeve, struggled to swallow your sip, “It’s so bitter!”
Levi looked unphased, opposite to your comical reaction, but his words spoke for him, “Yeah, that’s bad.”
“Do you have any sugar or anything?” You coughed, “Something to wash this down?”
Levi’s gaze softened, heart melting, a single chuckle, “Sorry, wish I could help.” 
“Well, I’m bringing you some sweeteners the next time we do this!”
The next time?
Throughout the rest of your taste test, those three words rang on repeat in his mind. Eventually, you had gone to wash the dishes while he went back to work. While he stirred over your sentiment, wondering how he could ask precisely what you meant, he looked up from his paperwork to find you fast asleep on his office sofa.  
Looks like the caffeine crash got to you. Levi pushed himself back from his desk and sauntered over to where you slept. Tiny snores fell past your lips. Your knees were tucked to your chest for warmth. Levi exhaled a low sigh, sorry for the inadequate bed he had provided. He shrugged off his canvas coat and draped it over your figure.
After he finished his work, he would fetch you a real blanket and his best pillow. In the morning, he would have a pot of honey-lemon ready. And next time, he would have sugar for you.
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// masterlist //
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punkpoemprose · 2 years
Text
A Convenient Arrangement Part 12
Universe: Canonverse Arranged Marriage AU Rating:T Length: 3530 Words A/N: Thank you to the friends that lovingly remind me to write sometimes. Next chapter will be the engagement party, I promise!
[Part 1] [Part 2] [Part 3] [Part 4] [Part 5] [Part 6] [Part 7] [Part 8] [Part 9] [Part10] [Part 11]
The festival preparations were back in full swing in no time. Kristoff saw Anna every night now, they shared his bed every evening and woke whenever one or both of them were summoned by morning knocks against his door. Getting to bed together was an immense effort on both of their parts, but it was something that he knew they both treasured after long days with barely a glance at each other.
Given it was a festival in celebration of their marriage, he couldn’t help but feel that they really should have been allowed more time together to prepare, but unfortunately neither of them made their own schedules.
Anna promised at night, between sleepy kisses, that it would get better after the event was over. She told him that once they started their regular duties they would be apart less, or at least their time apart would be more regularly scheduled which would allow them to meet more often throughout the day. He wasn’t certain that she wholly believed it herself, but despite this, the hope was enough to buoy them both through the days of preparation. The quick morning kisses and embraces did their fair share to serve as encouragement as well.
“Does it fit well my lord?”
Kristoff smiled at his reflection in the mirror. His normal tailor, Anders Nilsson, had been more than happy to take up a royal contract, and had profusely thanked both Kristoff and Kai throughout the entire process of his making Kristoff’s festival wear. He’d had to ask him to stop using the words “thank you” after a while, simply for the fact that the man couldn’t stop saying it. Kristoff knew how much the commission had meant to the man, he didn’t want him to feel the need to express it in the first place, let alone repeat it.
He’d outdone himself. The suit was mostly black with green, purple, and golden details that marked him as a member of the royal family and were enough to make the garments stand out in a crowd. They weren’t so overembellished that they felt ostentatious but were rather inspired by his own plainer sensibilities.
Most blessedly it fit, and he could imagine himself wearing it without passing out.
“Yes,” he breathed with great appreciation toward the tailor, “Thank you so much Anders. I know it couldn’t have been easy for you to put this together so quickly.”
“You’d be surprised Kri… my lord.”
He settled into a deep bow and Kristoff could have snorted with how unnatural it looked given the man never had cause to bow before in his life until Kristoff had married Anna. There was no point to bow to harvesters and merchants who were just as common as you.
“Anders, please, just call me Kristoff.”
Kai smiled in the mirror behind him. He’d been encouraging him for weeks to insist upon others referring to him by his title, but evidently his valet found no issues with a man being informal with his own tailor.
“Kristoff,” the tailor said and visibly relaxed before continuing, “It didn’t take too terribly long. My wife likes to do the embroidery and she’s so far along now that she was practically begging me to give her something to do in her chair. She balanced the whole project on her belly as she worked. She insists, though I hope it’s not too forward, that I give her appreciation to your valet for sending her the exact patterns the Princess’s dressmaker was using for her gown’s embroidery.”
He thought for a moment about Ander’s wife. When he’d last seen her, she’d barely been showing. By now she must certainly be as round with child as the tailor described. He was pleased that despite the effort they must have expended working on his clothes, that he was able to send some money their way for that soon to arrive child. He nearly lost himself in a passing thought about how Anna might look with her hands pressed lovingly to her rounded abdomen, the ring he still needed to give her on her finger.
He forced himself out of the daydream. He’d told Anna that they never needed to have children together, that they never even needed to be intimate, and here he was dreaming of her carrying his child, instead of paying attention to the words that had just been said to him.
Patterns? For her gown’s embroidery?
Kristoff turned back to Kai then, who was smiling as broad as Kristoff ever saw him. “Anna and I are going to match?”
He wasn’t certain as to why it made his heart leap in the way it did, to imagine himself and Anna dressed as a pair. Everyone knew of their marriage, there was no doubting that, and yet a visual cue to their bond thrilled him in a way he’d never imagined clothes pleasing him. So many things that had never mattered to him before, now mattered because of Anna.
Kai nodded, his grin schooling itself somewhat into a more neutral expression.
“At the behest of the Queen, and the Princess’s as well, of course. She wanted no question of who her husband was. I have a feeling the regalia will leave no room for that question, but primarily I think the pair of them were hoping for a united front in every possible detail. Which brings me to our need to take our leave from this room, I’m afraid we’re overdue for our next appointment of the day my lord.”
Kristoff couldn’t help but to sigh, shaken from his momentary quiet revelry. He’d been rushed along every day for well over a week now, any of the relaxation of his and Anna’s “day off” was a distant memory now.
“Fine then, I’ll get changed.”
He looked down at the comfortably fitted suit and felt, strangely, like he didn’t want to take it off.
“Thank you, Anders, it’s fantastic. Please thank your wife for me and know that there will be more requests coming your way very soon. There will be no need for a rush of course, if I don’t see you again before your babe is born, my best wishes to you both for a happy and healthy child.”
Kristoff watched the man open and close his mouth, undoubtedly stifling a “thank you” Kristoff didn’t really want to hear in return.
There are some perks to a royal title certainly.
***
Anna hated schedules. She didn’t mind all the meetings in the day, but invariably someone always ran late and oftentimes her written schedule was so vague that she wasn’t even certain of why exactly she was waiting in the middle of the empty library in the first place. Were she not on such a tight timeline through the day she doubted she’d care, but she had a dress fitting and she had to meet with Elsa to finalize the festival menu and she’d been running late in a meeting before this so she’d skipped lunch. Which was all to say that she was generally cranky and exhausted.
When Kristoff walked in looking almost as cranky and exhausted as she was, still tying his sash on, Anna let herself relax. On days like today where her schedule was tight and she needed to focus she tried not to think about how badly she missed him. She couldn’t help herself when her feet moved of their own accord toward him, her body acutely aware of how much she missed him despite her brain’s unwillingness to address it.
He’d just finished tying his sash when he seemed to notice her crashing into him. His arms wrapped around her by what seemed to be initially a reflex, and then he squeezed her close.
“Anna!”
There was a smile in his voice that she couldn’t see with her face in his shirt front. She all but melted into his touch, and even though they were blocking the entryway to the room, they stayed that way for a good long time.
“I didn’t think I was going to see you until tonight,” she said, “You weren’t on my schedule for the day. Did you come in for a book or…?”
“Dance lessons,” Kai said from behind her, “How serendipitous that you should be here as well.”
Anna could hear the conspiratorial tone in the man’s voice and with sudden certainty Anna knew why there was a lack of details on her schedule. This surprise had been orchestrated for them, and while it wasn’t necessarily a break, it was at least the least frustrating meeting either of them had on the docket for their day.
“Oh,” Anna said, trying to stay positive as her thoughts drifted to the last time she’d danced and who it had been with. Suddenly she wished very much to be out of the library.
“Just usual festival fare,” Kai said as if it were the simplest thing in the world, “Nothing too difficult.”
Anna felt her face go hot, knowing that she was meant to help Kristoff learn, but she herself had never learned any festival dances. Her dance education had been primarily focused on courtly dances. Waltzes and ballroom and other dances that would be expected of her as a princess. The lack of festivals since the gates had closed had never really afforded her an opportunity to learn.
“I don’t know any,” she admitted, letting herself slip out from Kristoff’s arms slowly as she turned to Kai.
Kristoff didn’t let her go completely and she was grateful for it. His hand rested sure against her midback, and she let herself lean into his touch for comfort.
“I do.”
Kristoff’s voice was low, but warm like his touch and it sent a flutter of excitement through her. She was more than happy to let him show her a thing or two.
***
Kristoff hadn’t noticed the fiddle on the wall of the library until Kai took it down and began to play.
He plays as well as he plans. A man of many talents.
Not that he was truly paying all that much attention to the quality of the music that the man was playing because he could only really focus on Anna.
She was spinning toward and away from him, picking up the dance with great speed. Most of the festival dances he’d danced were at small celebrations and in taverns. He had never been much of a people person, but the camaraderie of the harvesters had gotten the better of him a few times. Enough, evidently, to justify his teaching Anna how to dance.
Her hair had come somewhat undone as they danced, little wavy tendrils of it bounced and flowed as they moved. It was only the fact that he was supposed to be focused on the dance that kept him from twisting his fingers in the loose strands. It would be so easy to do so and then lean in to kiss her. He didn’t even mind that Kai was there.
She was beautiful when she danced.
She’s always beautiful.
He was lucky that his full focus didn’t need to be on the steps or his infatuation with her looks would have tripped them both. Most of the festival dances he was aware of were loosely structured, not like the dances Anna was used to, but he was able to lead without trouble and she caught on just fine.
He lead her under their arms, his lower than he would normally think to hold them to make up for their difference in stature. She wasn’t a short woman, but the difference in size between them was something he was coming to notice more acutely with each night they spent together.
She was light on her feet and despite a few clumsy moments of her crashing into him, which they’d both laughed over, she was a very good dancer. He was doing his best to be the same, which was something he’d never really cared about before.
“I’m going to stomp on your toes if we have to do this part after a twirl,” Anna announced, “I can’t believe how dizzy I am.”
He couldn’t help but to laugh as he pulled her back into his arms and held her tight. It wasn’t really part of the dance, but it could be given that it was more a loose mixture of different steps than it was a set series of movements. No one could tell him that holding his wife wasn’t an acceptable variation of the dance.
“You can step on my toes anytime.”
She leaned into him and Kai stopped playing. They’d been at it for what felt like hours, but regardless of how long or short they’d been dancing Kristoff knew that Anna was ready to stop, at least for now. He did get the distinct sense however that Anna wouldn’t want to stop dancing with him when the festival day came along.
“You say that now, but when I horribly disfigure your toes, you’ll ask for a divorce.”
He wasn’t sure when they’d gotten to the point where the concept of ending their marriage was comically unlikely enough to be a joke, but he was both taken aback and pleased by the development. He ducked his head down to press a kiss to the top of her head the best he could at their awkward angle. She turned red but pressed up into his kiss on tiptoes.
“I don’t think you could mangle my toes if you tried. You’re very light. If you could though I’d of course make you suffer having a husband with ugly feet before I’d let you go. Broken toes are a small price to pay to be with you.”
She laughed, and he could feel her squeeze him tight in return. He wondered if she could feel the way his heart raced.
It was only when Kai cleared his throat that he remembered that they weren’t alone. When he was with Anna it was easy to forget the world around him. He wondered if anyone else would have ever been able to steal his attention in the way she did, but he sincerely doubted it each time the thought crossed his mind.
***
Anna pushed the small tea cart into his bedroom herself, having sent away all the remaining lady’s maids and staff for the evening after her bath. Her hair was still wet down her back and she’d eventually have to braid it herself.
“Tea?”
Kristoff smiled softly at her from across the room. They hadn’t been able to manage to eat dinner together, but as they’d parted after their dance lesson, they’d agreed to try to spend the evening talking about the festival given it was only two days away. It wasn’t as if they hadn’t discussed it yet, but it had more to do with the fact that they hadn’t discussed it at any length. Each evening they tried, one or both fell asleep halfway through any conversation.
“If you’re having some.”
She thought that she might, someday soon, know exactly how he liked his tea. She wondered if that might be a metric of love that she could quantify, a milestone she could hit to prove to the rest of the world that they were in fact in love. She didn’t need to prove it to herself anymore, even though they hadn’t said it yet.
The words will come in time.
“Then how do you take it?”
He shrugged and Anna couldn’t help but crack a smile. It was very much like him to simply take it however it was served. He complained very little about anything that was given to, or foisted upon, him. She supposed that it was just his nature to be happy with anything, or at least to not complain. She hoped that someday soon she’d get to hear his opinions a bit more freely, that he’d come to understand that he didn’t just need to take what she’d give him.
She felt her cheeks heat at the thought, the way that the words could imply something else. That she wanted him to take from her. In a way she did. She wanted him to push against her boundaries, to help her see how much she was ready to offer him when he wanted more from her.
He gave her a quizzical look, his brow lifting in a questioning expression she wasn’t ready to meet. She turned her attention quickly to the tea and in her haste, splashed a bit of the still hot tea onto her hand.
“Shit!”
Kristoff was to her before she could even grab the towel on the cart to dry her hand.
“Are you okay? Did you burn yourself? Should I get some ice… or your sister?”
“No, I’m fine, I just splashed myself with the pot. It wasn’t boiling or anything.”
His hand was around her wrist loosely, and she let him inspect her palm to his satisfaction. No burns as far as she could tell and evidently, he didn’t see anything she didn’t feel because he gently released her hand without any argument and went about pouring the tea himself.
“Sorry,” Anna managed after a moment, her breath having been caught in her lungs and her heart having been racing in her ears as he inspected her hand.
There was a part of her that was still adjusting to the level of care and scrutiny he paid her when she was hurt or upset. She’d been cared for by house staff her whole life, wanting for nothing, but she’d been lonely, and she hadn’t truly known what she lacked emotionally until she and Kristoff had come to know each other.
“The only thing you have to be sorry for is that sailor’s tongue. Who taught you to swear Princess?”
She stared at him, watching him pouring her tea, and was caught between confusion and joy as she realized that he was adding spoonfuls upon spoonfuls of sugar to her tea, and that he was teasing her.
“I… I honestly don’t know… I think I might only know a few curses to be honest.”
“I could teach you more,” he teased.
She was flushing again, and it wasn’t from embarrassment about swearing or her lack of knowledge about curse words. It was from his closeness, the way his dark eyes shifted from the tea to her face, unabashedly staring into her eyes as he passed her the cup, cooled with cream.
Just like I like it.
***
Kristoff couldn’t help but sigh when his eyes wandered across Anna’s sleeping face. A small metal band in his pocket was all but burning his thigh, at least in his imagination.
He’d intended on asking her tonight. He wouldn’t have a chance until the festival, their festival, and he couldn’t help but to want this to just be between them. Everything about their marriage so far had been at least, in part, spectacle. He wanted a moment just for them, away from prying eyes, and he’d lost his nerve and lost his chance after she’d burnt her fingers on the tea she’d brought for them.
It was foolish, he supposed, to be so anxious about asking his wife to marry him again that he lost all courage and spent the night twirling a ring that was meant to be hers through his own fingers.
Doubt crept into his mind in these dark hours of night, watching her sleep and wondering why it was that she hadn’t asked what became of the crystal that marked them soulmates. Perhaps, he thought, she simply didn’t want to pry. The small voice that often brought him doubts, however, hissed in his ear that she didn’t believe in the magic between them. It told him that she didn’t care that they were fated, that she only counted him a friend and that their marriage, sweet and seemingly evolving as it was, was just as it had originally been, for convenience.
He reached the hand not toying with the ring out towards her, brushing a lock of curling red hair away from her cheek. She looked peaceful, and again he could not find it in himself to wake her. She needed her rest, and he needed, desperately, to not think about all the ways in which she and a small trinket of jewelry could crush a heart he hadn’t ministered to in years.
She could break me.
He thought it as he let his knuckles rub against her cheek gently.
What a way to go.
He hoped that she would not mind the kiss he pressed, gentle and slow to her forehead before blowing out the last candle brightening the room.
She made a soft sound in her sleep, something that to his eager ears, sounded almost like his name.
The voice of despair left his ears as the laid at her side, knowing that no matter when he asked her again, to marry her, it was inevitable.
For me, it was always going to be Anna. And it will always be Anna, whether or not she accepts my gift.
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ao3--gingerrose · 1 year
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comeonpeters · 1 year
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i realized i never posted this on tumblr so
together we can take on the world
this was my troped round 3 contribution last year
Theme: Canonverse
Trope 1: Secret Places
Trope 2: Neighbors
Trope 3: First Kiss
Trope 4: Time Jump
find it on ao3
 October 8, 1983.
        The house is loud today. It’s not actually loud, because it’s Friday afternoon and that means Jessie still has homework to do, so their parents don’t really let the house get too loud. Alex’s mother is flitting about the house, baking and anxiously cleaning the already pristine house, however, so it feels loud. It always feels loud when his mom is being… a lot. He just wants to go outside, but she already told him that he’s not supposed to go outside until the cookies are done, and if he asks again, she’ll give him the look. It’s better if he just waits. His only homework (so far as homework goes when you’re six years old and six weeks into the first grade) is to read for thirty minutes, which he’s already done, and he doesn’t particularly enjoy reading, so he’s not going to do any more of it than he has to.
        Instead, he taps a beat against the table and waits. He doesn’t think he’s being particularly loud, and he’s not even humming, but his mother comes and hovers over his shoulder within a minute anyway.
        “Just go outside, Alexander,” she dismisses him, sighing and gesturing toward the sliding glass backdoor. He jumps out of his seat and heads for their backyard, ready to wander and adventure, some of the very best things a person can do when they’re alone. Other kids in the neighborhood haven’t ever particularly liked Alex, preferring his older sister or the other children in general for company, so he’s learned well enough how to be alone. He’s too finicky about dirt, too scared of getting in trouble, too prissy about rules, too particular about things being the way that they’re supposed to be, he knows. But, even if he’s all of those things, he’s not going to stop being those things. Stuff is supposed to be how it is! If it wasn’t it wouldn’t be. Other kids just… need to understand that.
        He doesn’t stay in his own yard, but he never does. They don’t have enough trees, and trees are so much more fun than just getting into the dirt where nature keeps bugs, and while Alex loves nature, bugs are gross. The fact that nature needs bugs for stuff is just proof that the world just has to be gross sometimes, even if it sucks. And that’s okay. Alex just doesn’t want to be involved in it, so he climbs trees instead of being involved in the grossness. He’s going into the little park in their neighborhood (his mom is only a little angry at him if he says he left the house to go to the park when he explains where he was, usually, especially because it means that he didn’t cross the road) when another boy catches him by the wrist. Alex is proud of himself when he only jumps a little, and he spins around to find glittering green eyes and a smile with crooked teeth.
        “Hi! I’m Reggie. Reggie Peters. I just moved in down the road,” the boy says, pointing at the house with the moving truck that had sent Alex’s mother into a tizzy just this morning. Every time someone moves into the neighborhood, Elaina Mercer works herself to the bone to look like an effortless housewife, a perfect mother, the picture-perfect figurehead of the PTA and of the homeowner’s association. Alex doesn’t figure that he’s supposed to be meeting the son of the family before she arranges it, but he slips his hand from where Reggie is holding his wrist so that he can shake Reggie’s hand anyway, anxiously flicking his hair out of his eyes.
        “I’m Alex Mercer, I live over there. Want me to show you some of the cool stuff in the neighborhood? We have a park,” Alex offers, politeness and shyness both sticking together in his throat. Reggie’s smile flourishes into a grin.
        “That sounds cool! Do you guys have lizards? I have this research book on animals and it says that sometimes, if you move from one area to another, different species don’t live in the new area that lived in your old area, and we moved from really far away, so I don’t know if you guys have lizards. My favorite is the Northern Green An-an-. Hm. The Green An-ole Lizard. They’re small, and not really fancy, but they come on the porch back home and they’re so friendly!” Reggie rambles this all very quickly, so quickly that it’s almost hard for Alex to keep up, but Alex finds himself so enraptured that he nearly trips over his own feet while trying to show Reggie the park. Lizards. They have lizards. He’s seen a lizard. Lizards are cool!
        “We have lizards. Where’d you move from?” he asks, and that sets Reggie off again. He doesn’t actually answer Alex’s question at first, instead saying that it’s October 8th, which is true, but also that it was October 6th two days ago, which of course is also true, because that’s how math works, which apparently means that Reggie turned six two days ago and that he’s a Libra according to the magazines that Reggie’s mom reads aloud when Reggie paints her toenails. When he eventually remembers the question, Reggie says that he just moved to Los Angeles from Gatlinburg, Tennessee, a pretty small town in the mountains, and they’ve known each other a little less than five minutes and Reggie Peters might be the loudest, most obnoxious boy that Alex has ever met, and he absolutely has to be Alex’s new best friend. He’s pretty sure that Reggie Peters is his new favorite person in the world.
        “What’s your favorite color?” he asks, and maybe it’s a test, but Reggie doesn’t have to know that.
        “Red!” Reggie answers quickly, and with conviction. Alex nods. They don’t have the same favorite color, though Alex rarely does have the same favorite color as other boys. “What’s yours?” he asks, and Alex purses his lips. Now for the actual test of Reggie Peters. Is he like other boys? Or could he stand the first test of Alex’s general weirdness?
        “Pink,” he says, quiet and shy, and he doesn’t look directly at Reggie when he says it, instead looking at the trees and wishing he was climbing one right now. He’s surprised when Reggie bumps their shoulders, a little rough but much gentler than other boys would be with Alex Mercer, weirdo extraordinaire.
        “Pink is cool. I like pink flowers, the little ones that my grandma grows, beg- beg. Hm. Begonias,” Reggie says, stuttering over his words again like he did the other time, and Alex wonders how many words he keeps in his head that he trips over them even just talking. Reggie must be really smart. Alex looks around and realizes, suddenly, that they’re not really in the park anymore, that they’ve wandered further than the park’s little area of trees and toward the beach. That’s okay, he thinks. He doesn’t know where Tennessee is (he knows that it’s a state, or he’s pretty sure anyway, because it’s one of the longer ones and that’s easier to remember), but a lot of states don’t have oceans, and oceans are pretty cool, in his opinion. Reggie will like the ocean. He takes Reggie’s hand.
        “Come see this.” He guides Reggie toward the sound of the ocean like he has any idea where they’re going, like he’s ever been in this area of the neighborhood, and he forgets to be scared when Reggie laces their fingers together. It’s time to show Reggie a little bit of the ocean, and that means walking through a few more trees, and then some underbrush, and Reggie chatters about ferns when he picks leaves off of a plant and passes them to Alex delicately, his smile still confidently in place. It strikes Alex suddenly that Reggie Peters is probably also very weird. It makes Alex want to squeeze his hand and show him the ocean and be his best friend and keep him forever, and so that’s what he plans to do. They’re nearly to the beach when Reggie scares him deeply.
        “Woah, what’s that?! Lex, we gotta check it out,” Reggie says, and he uses their joined hands and Alex’s distraction to drag Alex along with him. When they stop walking, Alex finds himself standing on the land end of a half-broken, seemingly long abandoned dock, plants grown over enough of it to hide it from most plain sight. There’s about ten feet of dock left standing solidly in the water, looking like something out of a photograph before it gets to the broken, cracked off part. If Alex were to guess, he would suppose that an earthquake or a storm broke it. Immediately and without any regard or hesitation, Reggie makes to walk further down the dock.
        “Reggie! What if it’s not safe?” Alex asks, fear ratcheting up through his chest. Reggie squeezes his hand exactly like Alex wanted to do just a second ago.
        “We won’t know until we try. Come on,” he says, and it’s enough to make Alex come with him despite himself and every better instinct his mother has ever tried to instill in him. Together, hand in hand, they walk down the dock and test it out, though Alex keeps his firm grip on Reggie’s hand to make the other boy go slower than he originally intends. When they get to the very end, the dock is still safe. And the ocean is beautiful. The waves lap gently against the end of the dock and Reggie leans down to dip his hand into the salty water, coaxing Alex to lean down with him without even trying to, until they’re both dipping their hands into the Pacific with the hands that aren’t linked to each other.
        And so, at six years old, and for a long, long time thereafter, the hidden, broken dock behind the neighborhood park becomes the secret place of one Reginald Peters and one Alexander Mercer.
 September of 1989.
        Not many people ask Reggie how things are going, but if one were to ask an eleven (nearly twelve!) year old Reginald Peters his opinion, he would say that things are awesome. Ever since Alex started drums during the summer, he’d been begging his parents to let him try out guitar (he was gonna try drums too, but Alex convinced him that guitar or something would be more productive, so that they could play together rather than playing the same thing, which made a lot more sense, but Alex is really smart, so), and when school started, they finally agreed! He knows that it’s because they finally realized that he’s actually in the smart classes this year- surprising, according to everyone who has to listen to him talk- and they want him to keep it up. If they had read any of the letters from the school at the beginning of the summer, they would have known, but… well… they didn’t. And they never do. And they probably never will. And that’s okay.
        Things are going awesome! Elliot just started high school, so he thinks he’s too cool for anybody and everybody, so he’s not around as much, but who needs an older brother, really? He has Alex, and they’ve got Luke now! Reggie likes Luke a lot- he watches Star Wars, he plays the guitar, he’s funny, and he always goes along with Reggie’s impulsive ideas, and has impulsive ideas of his own to reflect right back. Best of all, Luke likes Alex just as much as he likes Reggie, which has been a deal breaker in the past with a few fair-weather friends that he and Alex had made in the past; you can’t just have one of them without the other. Luke might be the best thing about middle school so far.
 He met Luke Patterson in guitar lessons, and the three of them are gonna form a band and everything is going to be      great,    and things are going awesome, and he has no idea why Alex is in such a bad mood, honestly. It’s a problem for a multitude of reasons. The primary reason, of course, is that Alex is obviously upset (Alex can pretend that he isn’t all he wants, Reggie knows Alex Mercerology, practically invented the study), and then the secondary problem is that if Alex is upset, Reggie is obviously upset because he can’t imagine a world where Alex is unhappy and he’s somehow perfectly happy. That world just doesn’t exist. It’s like a world where he doesn’t like      Star Wars.    Come on! It’s just not likely.
        Because he’s the reigning expert on Alex Mercerology, truly the only professor of it, because neither of Alex’s sisters can claim this throne, Reggie knows that Alex isn’t going to talk about anything emotional with anyone else around. They don’t do the bro thing that other guys do where they get all closed off and gross, they never have, but Alex is a little bit more reserved around others than he is around Reggie. Their openness around each other is probably part of the reason why it’s always been so hard for them to get other friends, but if the alternative was to give that up, Reggie would take Alex any day. He made a commitment at six years old, and he’ll stick to it for the rest of forever, thank you very much. Anxious mess of a best friend and all. He sits Alex down on their dock and kicks his feet in the water, holding Alex’s hand like they always do.
        “Talk to me, Lexi,” he says, an opener as good as any, given that he knows that he’s going to have to wheedle Alex either way. Alex looks at him sharply.
        “About what, Peters?” the other boy asks, his tone harder than it usually gets in Reggie’s direction if they’re not fighting, and Reggie doesn’t want to fight. He doesn’t even know what they’d be fighting about right now. Everything is supposed to be going great. He can’t help the way that his expression dips into a frown, his brows furrowing.
        “You’re bein’ all mean and stuff. What’s up, Lex? You’re my best friend. Talk to me,” he repeats. He’s confused when Alex snorts.
        “Am I your best friend? You’ve been pretty cozy with Luke lately,” Alex says, and Reggie straightens his spine. Pardon?
        “Pardon?” he asks aloud, echoing his own thoughts, and he continues, “Alex, what are you talking about?” The hurt that laces through his voice, the way that he sounds like his mother, he hates how he sounds. He can’t decide between looking at Alex and looking at the sea. He looks at Alex. Alex looks away, his lips pursed.
        “Ever since you and Luke met, you’ve been really buddy-buddy with the guy. You’ve hung out with him a lot. You let him convince you to try out the bass. He eats lunch with us. It’s… you’re my favorite person in the world, Reg. You’re my best friend. I don’t… I can’t. Do you like him better than me?” Alex asks, blurting the question out at the last second, almost like it’s an accident to ask at all. It feels like Alex reached into Reggie’s chest and shattered something essential, like he shook up Reggie’s bones and made a bone salad.
        “First of all,” Reggie starts, and he hates the way his voice sounds, because he always sounds so stupid when he’s hurt, “you were both at the table when we were talking about me playing bass, and I thought you wanted that too, because, you know, drums and bass, they go together, and guitar and drums and bass, that’s a band, and we’re supposed to make a band, Lexi, that’s what we said-”
 “I know what we      said,     Reginald, that’s not what this is about-” Alex interrupts him and Reggie can’t take it. Not right now.
 “Alex!” he interrupts back, and he never does that, and Alex finally looks at him. He looks up from their still-clasped hands and sees Reggie’s hand yanking through his hair (Reggie doesn’t know when that started happening), and the tears at the corners of Reggie’s eyes (he doesn’t know when that started happening either), and the corners of his mouth turn down from their already downturned, collected sneer and he gathers Reggie up in his arms, hugging him for all he’s worth. Reggie, for all that he always does, sinks into the affection, buries his nose into Alex’s collarbone and smells the detergent that Alex’s mom uses mixes with Alex’s sweat and all of the other comforting smells of Reggie’s best friend, Reggie’s      person,    and he wonders how badly he’s messed up that Alex Mercer thinks that Reggie doesn’t want to live in this moment for the rest of his life.
 “It’s okay, Reg. I’m sorry for getting mad. I’m sorry,” Alex soothes, smoothing his hand up and down Reggie’s back, and Reggie makes a noise of protest.
 “I’m sorry I made you think that I don’t- that you’re not important. You’re the most important. We’re a      family,    Ali. I love Lu, I do, but part of the reason why I love Lu is because you like him too, and because he likes you. I can’t be friends with anybody who doesn’t like Alex Mercer. We’re a package deal,” he says, squeezing Alex’s waist and nuzzling further against Alex’s neck. They’re a      family.    Reggie’s parents might not be the best, and Elliot might not want to be around him anymore, and people at school might not like him, but Alex Mercer has always loved him larger than life, and      that    is dependable. Alex squeezes him back around the shoulders, and Reggie thinks he feels a kiss on the top of his head.
 “We’re a package deal, Reg.”
 December of 1992.
 “You’ve gotta talk to Reggie, dude,” Luke says, parking his ass directly on top of Alex’s floor tom, though thankfully he’s just balancing on it this time, and not actually putting his ass through it like that one time. Their moms had been      so fucking mad.     He’s uncomfortably close to Alex’s person this way, but he usually is, given that that’s just Luke’s      thing     (as if it isn’t also Reggie’s thing, but listen Alex has just had his entire life to get used to Reggie’s things, it’s not like he still gets butterflies when Reggie grabs his hand, or dances with him, or lays on him; that would be absurd!). Anyway. So totally not the point.
 “What do I need to talk to Reginald about?” Over the three years or so that he and Reggie have been friends with Luke, it’s fallen to him to manage Reggie and probably fallen to Reggie to manage him in a lot of ways. Luke has been picking up a few things here and there, but when behavior issues come out of the woodwork… turns out knowing someone since he was six years old really seems to do the trick. Since they’ve started high school, he has noticed some… weird things going on with Reggie, but he figured that he would settle things out himself. However, if      Luke    has noticed? Luke’s not dumb, none of them are dumb (Alex has decked people for saying less about Reggie and Luke, befriended Bobby for decking people for saying that about Reggie and Luke), but Luke isn’t always the most observant, so.
 “He’s being a bitch to Bobbers and Bobinald won’t talk to anybody about it because he figures that that’s either just Reggie’s typical behavior or just what happens when people join the group, but you and I both know that Reggie is nicer than both of us combined so something      has    to be going on. I’ve tried to get it out of him, but he just shuts down on me when I try. It’s gotta be you,” Luke explains, his lips pursed. He hates it when one of them shuts him out, hates being the odd man out, but what can they do? For nearly six years, all they had was each other. For nearly six years, no one else would even      talk    to Alex Mercer and Reggie Peters, the weird kids from down by the beach. For nearly six years, all Alex had was a little brunet boy and his big smile and all of their combined attitude problems, so yeah, sometimes, they’re the only people in the world who know how to fix each other. It is what it is. He has to make a joke to break any tension in the room.
 “Reginald Peters? A bitch? Language, Lucas!” For all that it’s just to break the tension, it’s also that Alex can’t resist commenting on it, he’s just a bitch that way. Luke rolls his eyes like he always does.
 “You’re six months older than me, Alexander, I swear to fucking God. I can’t help that I’m still fourteen!” Luke grabs his songbook and heads out of the studio, huffing as he goes. Alex can’t help grinning after him. He’s so cute. Oh no. Nope. Don’t have time to unpack all of that. Better throw out the whole suitcase. Bigger fish to fry.
 Reggie is home this afternoon, something about doing homework, but that has to be bogus and Reggie’s mom has always loved Alex, so if he’s the one to grab him, it’ll be fine. The walk from Bobby’s neighborhood to Luke’s neighborhood to Reggie and Alex’s neighborhood (because you can’t get to the last without going through the intermediary) isn’t awful, but Alex jogs it anyway. If something is wrong with Reggie, he has to take care of it. That’s his… they take care of each other. When things get out of hand in his head, Reggie helps him manage it, as best as he can. He spouts off whatever facts he can to keep Alex in the moment, tells him about pink begonias that bloom in June, or nocturnal flying foxes, and how someday, once they’re done being rockstars, maybe one day he wants to work with animals.
 He thinks maybe he knows more about animals than he ever would have known without Reggie Peters, but the idea of      without Reggie Peters    once made him read an entire animal encyclopedia, so maybe not.
 He’s sweating slightly in his pink hoodie by the time he gets to the Peters house, but Reggie’s mom still smiles when she sees him, which is more than Luke gets when he gets there, usually. It’s probably because he put a hole in their wall once, wrestling with Reggie and Elliot, but that’s none of Alex’s business. He’s a petty bitch who doesn’t make contact with Elliot unless absolutely necessary.
 “Hey Mrs. Peters. Is Reggie around? Would it be okay if I borrowed him for a few hours?” he asks, flashing his most charming, adult-attention-grabbing smile, and Mrs. Peters opens the door for him at once.
 “He’s in his room doing math homework. He’s all yours as soon as he’s done,” she says, and Alex knows damn well that that’s a lie. Reggie never has math homework. He always does it in class. It’s the      one class you can always finish the work there, Ali,    he can practically hear Reggie saying that to him, but he just nods at Reggie’s mom and follows the familiar path to Reggie’s room (only semi-familiar, because neither of them really use the door as much as each other’s windows, typically, but well). Alex’ll take his hoodie off and eat it if he finds Reggie doing      calculus    of all things. Reggie’s mom doesn’t bother to follow him past the entryway, but frankly, he’s surprised she answered the door, or that she was sober enough to hear him knock, really. They don’t talk about how much he doesn’t like Reggie’s parents. They don’t talk about how much he knows about them, either. They don’t talk about a lot of things. He just pushes open Reggie’s door when he gets there, not bothering to knock.
 “Mom, I’m doing home- you’re not my mom. Hey Ali,” Reggie says, looking up halfway through speaking and immediately looking cagey. It’s understandable why; Reggie’s parents wouldn’t recognize it right away, but the notebook in his hands isn’t for homework. It’s his songwriting journal, which definitely keeps Alex from eating his hoodie. Score one for Alex. He breathes out through his nose.
 “I’m not your mom and that’s not calculus. So, why are you pretending to do homework in your room instead of hanging out with us, dude? What’s the problem?” he asks, his voice on the careful edge between casually cavalier and gentle. If he gets too cavalier, Reggie will think that he’s only asking out of a sense of propriety. He knows how Reggie gets into his own head. If he gets too gentle, Reggie will clamp down even further, thinking that he’s being babied. In any case, Reggie looks back down.
 “There isn’t a problem,” he insists. Alex resists the urge to snort, barely.
 “I’ve known you your entire life. Try again,” he says, voice still carefully even. Reggie’s eyes are still on the floor. Alex doesn’t like it one bit.
 “I don’t wanna talk about it,” his best friend says, quiet and awful, and it’s heartbreaking in its own tiny way. Like glass in Alex’s chest.      Fuck.  
 “Reg. Please?” Reggie’s expression twists.
 “Then… not here? Can we go somewhere?”
 “Our spot?”
 “Yeah.”
 Despite insisting that Reggie would have to finish his homework before leaving, Reggie’s mom doesn’t even try to catch them before they go; Alex doesn’t even see her. The walk is quiet, near silent without Reggie’s usual chatter, and it’s Alex who takes Reggie’s hand rather than the other way around when they get past the treeline. He laces their fingers together and squeezes Reggie’s hand immediately, his thumb running over whatever parts of Reggie’s hand that he can reach. They’ve held hands since they were six, nine years now, and he doesn’t plan on giving it up. No one is going to make him give it up. They’re a package deal. Reggie Peters is his person, and that’s forever. Reggie curls around his hand as they walk, his entire body listing toward Alex’s, and if it wouldn’t be weird, Alex might offer to carry him.
 But that would be weird, right? That would most definitely be weird.
 “Alright, Peters. Talk to me,” he says when they get to the dock, sitting down cross-legged in the center rather than letting his legs hang over the edge like they do in the spring and summer, and sometimes in the fall as well. Reggie goes to sit across from him, facing him, but Alex resituates, uncrossing his legs and pulling Reggie to sit back between them, which Reggie settles into with familiar ease. Sitting up like this without something to lean against will make Alex’s back hurt after a while, but he doesn’t care. He knows that Reggie feels better when they’re closer. He wraps his arms around Reggie’s chest and hooks his chin over Reggie’s shoulder for good measure.
 “Do you remember… when Luke became our friend?” Reggie asks, and Alex feels it vibrate through his chest, and he has to focus on the words because he      cannot    focus on that. He hums.
 “Yeah, I remember. What about it?” Alex can’t help but feel embarrassed about that entire era in his life, no matter how much Reggie assures him that it was just a time in their lives (even if Reggie does reserve the right to make fun of him about it occasionally, though never in front of Luke).
 “When you… got jealous. I’m feeling that. And I need. Ali, I      need.    I don’t know. You’re still my favorite person in the world, and I love Luke, and I like Bobby and he’s our friend, but every time you guys are talking, I can’t help it, I get worried about you liking him more than me and not being your favorite person anymore, and it’s not      healthy,    and I don’t know what I’m      doing,”    Reggie rambles, and Alex is probably hugging Reggie’s person a little harder than a person should be hugged, but      fuck.    If this is how Reggie felt during that conversation, he’s sorry. He’s so, so sorry. God, they’re codependent. They probably need so much therapy, but the only kind of therapy his parents would ever send him to is-
 “Reg, you are still my favorite person. My best friend. The only person I can think about when I’m calming down, the only person I can think about when I want to feel safe, you’re my safe place,      this    is my safe place, here with you, this place where we’re probably one wrong step away from getting drenched in the ocean, and we’re probably trespassing, but it’s ours, so I don’t really care. I feel safe here because it’s ours. I’m scared all of the goddamn time, but you make me feel safe, Reggie Peters. How can you- how can you think you’re not my favorite person when you’re the only person I can imagine coming out to? The only person I can imagine feeling safe enough to say those words to?” Alex asks, and he      doesn’t mean to say that,    but the words come out anyway, unbidden, stuttered out and just      there,    and he doesn’t know what to do.
 Did he just come out to Reggie? As a part of a rant meant to reassure Reggie? Did he just-
 Oh God. Reggie is climbing out of his lap and he’s never gonna sit in Alex’s lap again and he’s gonna hate him and he’s never gonna trust him again and he-
 Reggie turns around and climbs into Alex’s lap facing him, arms around his neck and hugging him, forcing Alex’s arms back around his waist to catch him.
 “Thank you for telling me, and I love you, and I’m probably not straight either and we’re gonna be okay, Lex, I promise,” Reggie says, and he’s spilling into Alex’s lap and over him and Alex has to hold onto him to hold him in. It takes him a second to catch up to what Reggie said, too, and then he has to think about it for a second because- even in this- this- this thing that he thought was awful for so long, even in this, Reggie doesn’t let him go alone. His arms around Reggie’s waist grow tighter and he’s probably crying but he doesn’t      care,    because Reggie Peters is the most important person in his life and he’s      gay,    and Reggie doesn’t care in the best way possible, Reggie still loves him, and it’s the first time he’s ever- holy God. Holy God, he loves Reggie so much.
 For this moment, he pretends that all of his love for Reggie Peters looks like friendship. They’re a package deal. A matched set. And he can’t afford to do anything to fuck that up.
 July of 1993.
 He likes Bobby’s bed more than he likes his own, which might say something about the state of his homelife, but Reggie doesn’t like to analyze things like that. He’s more for shoving things like that to the side and putting everything into the music instead, or just hanging out with his boys and pretending everything is okay that way. That’s cool too. He and Lu are kinda similar that way; Ali and Bobbers are the ones who are gonna make them take it apart and look at the reasons for their concerns, unless those concerns happen to do with Alexander and Robert’s own emotions. If that happens to be the case, well then, those can certainly be ignored, according to their resident Virgo and Scorpio. Honestly, Reggie doesn’t know how they function. A Virgo (Alex), a Libra (him), a Scorpio (Bobby), and a Pisces (Luke) walk into a band, and somehow it stays together.
 Anyway, he likes to lay in Bobby’s bed pretty much as often as possible. It’s comfortable! Bobby has one, two, three- eight pillows, and still has three pretty large stuffed animals, and two heavy blankets, and stuff over the windows because he gets bad headaches, so it’s like a really comfy cave. He feels like a cave-dwelling lizard. It’s      awesome.    Until Bobby eventually discovers him burrowing in his bed, of course, and extracts him to come down to the studio for band practice, because he’s a party pooper who poops on parties.
 “Practice is cancelled, I can’t deal with whatever is going on with Alex, dude. He keeps being twitchy and bitchy, and I’ve tried to help with his breathing and shit, but he won’t let me in. Far as I’m concerned, that’s your demon,” Bobby says, scowl present on his face and marring his features. Reggie can’t help the way that he recoils, but he tries to keep his footing anyway. His friends are not his parents. They’re his family. They consider him an equal, and they love him. They’ve pressed this into his skin enough for him to know this.
 “Hey! He’s not-” He doesn’t get halfway through his response before Bobby folds.
 “I know. I’m sorry. I didn’t mean that. He’s just- stressing me out. Haven’t had a cigarette in four days, you know,” the other boy says, sideways and apologetic smile pulling Reggie back in. Reggie smiles back, nodding.
 “I’ll take care of Ali. And I’m really proud of you, Bobbins. Keep it up, I’ll take you out for ice cream, I swear,” he promises, his smile becoming more genuine. Bobby huffs out a laugh.  
 “Take me out for ice cream with all two dollars in your wallet?”
 “What can I say? You better be a cheap date.” Bobby’s eyes roll so hard it might just hurt.
 “Go take care of your actual boyfriend, Peters. I’ll see you tomorrow.” It’s a joke that Bobby has made before, and yet one still that Reggie always takes the time to deny. He doesn’t ever want it getting back to Alex; they’ve both come out to Bobby and Luke at this point, and the other two boys have come out in return (at which point all four of them had laughed over the overwhelming worry they had experienced beforehand), but Alex is still sensitive about being teased about it.
 “Not my boyfriend, Bobbers. Love you bunches,” he reminds Bobby. Bobby rolls his eyes again, but Reggie catches his blush.
 “Yeah, yeah. Love you more,” Bobby says back, and Reggie grins, waving as he leaves Bobby’s room through the window. He doesn’t have to- Bobby’s parents are never home, probably haven’t been home since they got out of school in the beginning of June- but it’s faster, and it’s kinda thrilling. He skips to the studio (because he’s fuckin’ whimsical), and finds Alex pointedly looking at his drum set, though not playing, as Luke lays shirtless on the couch, not doing much of anything.
 “Get hot, Lu?” he asks, raising an eyebrow. Luke grins up at him.
 “Come on, babe, you know I’m always hot.” He should have been able to predict that level of flirtation coming out of Luke’s mouth, but he always forgets.
 “You’re a menace. I’m grabbing Alex- Bobby says he’s not feelin’ up to practicing today. I’m worried he might be gettin’ one of his headaches or coming down with somethin’, if you wanna go check on him,” he says, which might be something of a lie, but Luke jumps up immediately, and blessedly puts back on his shirt, so at least there’s that. Alex gets up from the drum set without any argument, falling into step with Reggie as soon as he can. Even when he’s in a weird, shitty mood, they still go together. They’re still them. It assuages some of the tight feeling in Reggie’s chest, the one that never goes away when Alex is in a weird place, like the symbiosis of their bond won’t allow him to exist in relative peace if Alex isn’t okay. He’s okay with that, really. He doesn’t want to be okay if Alex isn’t.
 Don’t have time to unpack all of that. Better throw out the whole suitcase.
 He chatters inanely about his own classes, which are somewhat different from Alex’s; he takes more sciences and maths while Alex’s course load involves chorus and another music class, and musical theory. Those classes sound interesting, but Reggie’s parents would never in a million years let him take anything like that. He’ll be lucky when they let him take the art class that’s required to graduate. He likes science, though, and math isn’t awful. Calculus is pretty interesting once you get into it! The boys groan whenever he says stuff like that, but when they’re alone, Alex lets him talk about math theory for as long as he wants, even when he sounds weird and he knows he isn’t making as much sense anymore because he’s talking about universal theories and how they intersect with math, but Ali always tells him to keep going and-
 It’s nice, you know? To be listened to. It’s nice.
 He walks Alex past his own house and takes a turn before Alex’s house, guiding them past the park and toward the dock when Alex stops him with a hand on his wrist.
 “Do you need to talk about something?” Alex asks, raising an eyebrow. Reggie uses Alex’s loose grip to make it so that they’re holding hands instead, making sure that they’re far enough into the trees that it won’t freak Alex out.
 “I think you do, buddy. Come on,” he replies, and Alex digs his heels into the ground for a second, obviously not thinking he needs to discuss      anything,    but Reggie can be just as stubborn as Alex is when he needs to be, so he squeezes Alex’s hand, pulling him along. He only has to pull him for a second or two before Alex acquiesces, slumping onto Reggie for a second and startling a giggle out of him. “Come on, you mess,” he repeats, pulling the boy off of his shoulder and making him walk for himself fully. God, he loves this boy.
 “I don’t know what you think I need to talk about,” Alex says before they even get to the dock, breaking their earlier moratorium on discussion of private events outside of the dock. Reggie waits until his feet hit wood to respond.
 “You’ve been acting weird lately. Some would call it bitchy, but you’re my best friend, so I would call it… bitchy,” Reggie says, unable to make himself look Alex in the face when he’s talking about something that might… well it won’t make Alex happy, if you catch his drift. He’s not so good at the angry part. His dad… it’s not important. It’s not about him. This is about Alex. This is about standing on the dock with their hands still held together and waiting for Alex to get mad at him and not getting panicked about it, because it’s just Alex, at the end of the day. Even if Alex is angry with him, even if he deserves it, Alex has never hit him. Alex has never even yelled at him, not really.
 “I’ve not been acting-”
 “Alex,” Reggie says, makes himself say, because Bobby asked him to do this. Bobby and Luke always ask him to do this, whenever Alex gets too keyed up and his anxiety makes him mean, and maybe Bobby and Luke always ask Alex to reign him in too, he doesn’t know, they always end up      here.    Their place. The dock. Sometimes, they come just to hang out, just the two of them (they’ve never brought anyone else here, it’s just for them), but usually it’s for things like this. Alex folds.
 “I think I- IhaveacrushonLuke,” Alex rushes out, nearly incomprehensible, but Reggie understands, his years in the study of Alex Mercerology never going unused, and certainly not in this moment. He looks up at Alex and is nearly rocked off of his feet by how scared Alex looks, is nearly taken out by how scared      he    is, how much he loves Alex and how he wishes- don’t go there. Okay, so Alex has a crush on Luke. We can work with that, he tells himself, because he and Alex are a team. They work together on things. Anything Alex Mercer is anxious about, they figure out together. He’s broken down enough anxiety attacks into statistical probability to be able to handle a crush on a teenage boy, he can handle- he can handle this. No matter how much it- don’t go there. Everything is fine.
 “Alright. What’s freaking you out?” Reggie asks, his voice much more level than he’s feeling, carefully curious. Alex looks at him like he’s certifiably insane.
 “You- I- he’s our best friend! He’s our bandmate! He’s literally the guy who made the rule about dating inside the band! And he’s Luke! He flirts with      everyone    and literally everyone flirts back, because he’s      gorgeous    and how the fuck am I supposed to compete with literally every human person in the world, Reg, I’m not- I’m just-” and Reggie knows not.
 “Pump the breaks, Mercer,” he interrupts, “because I know you’re not about to disparage my totally hot best friend, Alexander Mercer, who could totally bag Luke Patterson, if that is what he so desires. You’re hot, and you’re mad fucking talented and you’re smart and you’re incredible, and you can do and anything you want and bang anyone you want because you’re      Alex fucking Mercer,    and that’s that on that. Anybody would be absolutely fucking blessed to have you.” He taps on Alex’s chest with the hand that’s not holding Alex’s own, just for good measure. Alex is his best fucking friend. He’s not gonna let anybody talk shit about the guy, least of all Alex himself. Alex catches that hand too and holds it to himself.
 “You’re so weird, and I love you,” he says simply, and Reggie grins.
 “I love you too, man,” he replies, his hand splayed flat on Alex’s chest, and he can feel the other boy’s still racing heart. He doesn’t think about his own. He doesn’t take his hand back either.
 “But what do I do if he      does    like me? Like I know you probably have a million counter arguments for why I’m awesome and Luke’s awesome and things aren’t gonna go horribly, so I’m not gonna cover      what if things go wrong?    side A of the tape, but on side B,      what if things go right?,    like, Reg, what do you even      do    if someone likes you back? I don’t know how to date someone! I know how to hold a hand and how to cuddle, you made damn sure of that, you little rat bastard, but I have no idea- how do you go on a date? I’ve never kissed anyone! What if he expects me to kiss him? What if      any boy    that I date expects me to kiss him? I don’t know how kissing works! How do people      do    this? How do- please interrupt me, I don’t know where I’m going with this,” Alex sputters out, breathing hard by the time he gets to the end of his tangent, and Reggie keeps his hand on Alex’s chest, still flat, and uses it to guide Lex through breathing with him before he talks.
 “First of all, kissing is not something anybody should      expect    from you, and if anybody ever makes you feel like they expect you to do anything you don’t wanna do, even and maybe especially Luke, let me know and I’ll punch their lights out,” Reggie begins, because that’s mega important and he should begin with the mega important stuff, especially if it’s gonna make Alex smile like it immediately does.
 “I want to kiss someone, Reg, I’m just… I’m not scared. I just don’t want to be bad at it because I’ve never done it before,” Alex says, clearly and boldly lying about not being scared, but it’s a good effort. That’s when Reggie gets an idea. It’s probably a bad idea, because a lot of ideas that he gets on his own are, well, bad, but, well, Alex is here, so if it’s a bad idea, usually Alex can stop him from his bad ideas before they can get out of hand.
 “What if you had done it before?” he proposes, looking up at Alex and trying, his own heart absolutely racing, to ignore how Alex’s heartbeat picks up.
 “What do you mean, Reg?” Alex asks, though he thinks the other boy knows, because his voice is so soft that it sounds like it could break beneath the waves on the shore. Reggie gives him a smile just as soft, humor just barely creeping in at the edges.
 “You’re comfortable holding hands and cuddling because of yours truly, Lexi, what’s trying out one more thing?” he asks in return, his own voice so much softer than he means as well, and maybe this is less of a joke than he means, but this isn’t about him. He won’t mention that this is his first kiss too, because he’s never talked about that; he flirts just as much as Luke does, talks to girls and boys at gigs just as much as Bobby does, no one ever questions what he does when he goes off with someone at a party. It doesn’t matter that all he does is let girls do his makeup and paint his nails, because no one ever asks. What’s more perfect than Reggie Peters and Alex Mercer having their first kiss together?
 “You would do that? You would kiss me?” Alex asks, and it brings Reggie back out of his head. He’s almost offended that Alex has to ask.
 “Dude, of course! Did you not hear my little speech earlier? I can give you a reprise. Alex Mercer is an absolute ten and anybody with eyes would absolutely-” He’s cut off by Alex’s hand slamming over his mouth roughly enough that he can feel it in his teeth a little. It’s not bad enough that it hurts, but Reggie is still pouting when Alex pulls his hand away, not least of all because Alex unlinked their hands. He takes the stolen hand back in his.
“You’re as much of a menace as Luke,” Alex says, rolling his eyes fondly. Reggie’s pout slips easily into a grin.
“Yeah, probably, but I’m adorable and you love me, so… can I kiss you?” he asks, because he’s already swung out and proposed it, might as well actually ask. He’s half-surprised when he gets a nod, but the hand on Alex’s chest slips to cup Alex’s jaw anyway, natural as you please. He looks up into Alex’s eyes for one last confirmation, suddenly and absolutely nervous as he could possibly be, but Alex just smiles at him, leaning down the last little bit necessary to connect their mouths, and in the next moment, Reggie feels completely different.
 He’s had thoughts about Alex’s mouth over the years, okay? He’s a healthy teenage boy, and he has a hot best friend, and they’ve been best friends his entire life, and he’s not a      monk.    He knows what he’s working with here. Alex’s mouth is soft and pretty and Alex leans down to kiss him and moves his lips carefully at first, but then, as he gains confidence, he grows more intense as well. Alex’s free hand moves to cup Reggie’s jaw, tilting his head as he pleases, and Reggie’s face has never felt more delicate than this moment. He’s never felt more cared for than this moment, and yet he’s never felt more set alight. He’s never felt more absolutely      right    than in this moment, in this exact space, kissing Alexander Mercer on the dock that the two of them discovered as children, in this secret place they chose together.
 Alex just told him that he has a crush on Luke, and Reggie might very well be in love with the best friend he’s ever had. For this moment, for the only one he may ever get, he presses closer to Alex and he kisses him for longer, holds him closer, and tries his damnedest not to cry. For all that Alex has loved him more than anyone ever has, he won’t ruin this moment of his own making. He asked for this. He might as well do what he can with it. He lets Alex pull away after maybe a minute, probably far too long for a first kiss, but Reggie wouldn’t really know anyway.
 “Wow, um. Okay. I definitely like kissing as much as I thought I would,” Alex says as he rests their foreheads together, laughter tinting his words. Reggie smiles. He lets his heart crack in his chest.
 “I’m sure you’ll knock him dead, Lexi. You did great.”
 August of 1993.
        “Don’t take this the wrong way but… I miss Bobby. And Reg, but. I miss Bobby,” Luke says, his voice slightly muffled against Alex’s shoulder. Alex snorts, but contemplates it.
 “We saw him an hour ago, but I think I know what you mean,” he replies, thinking about Reggie. And isn’t that the problem?
“Just, like, how they leave us alone all the time? I don’t really dig it,” Luke continues, sounding put out as he picks his head up to look at Alex well enough to pout at him. He receives nothing but a raised eyebrow for his troubles.
 “You realize that you’re literally in my lap right now, right? That’s something that you’re aware of? It’s important to me that you know that,” Alex says, looking down at where Luke is, in fact, straddling his lap, though it’s not like they’re really doing anything right now. Luke, like Reggie, just happens to be particularly tactile, and has told Alex that he likes to be held, so Alex takes the opportunity to do so whenever he can. And, the kissing is nice. He actively doesn’t compare it to that one time, because he loves kissing Luke, and he loves      Luke,    but-
     And isn’t that the fucking problem?  
 You get kissed by your best friend in the fucking world one fucking time and now you think you’re- well. He and Luke are in a relationship. They’re happy. It’s just like when they were friends, except now they kiss sometimes! It’s great. Alex is probably the second most observant member of the band (used to be the most observant member, but Bobby goddamn Wilson just      notices    things, like some kind of      wizard),    so he’s noticed that Reggie has kind of… pulled back a little, since he and Luke started dating. Bobby has too, in his own way, but it’s more noticeable to him that Reggie has, because of the way that he and Reg have always been. They’ve always been attached at the hip and the shoulder and the everywhere else, so he just doesn’t know what to do now that Reggie is acting like they aren’t. It’s not his fault. It’s making him want weird things. He wants to-      God.  
 He wants to hold Reggie’s stupid hand, and he wants Reggie to sit in his stupid lap, and he wants to run his fingers through Reggie’s stupid hair, and kiss Reggie’s stupid, pouty mouth, and he has no idea what to fucking do with that last impulse because he has a fucking boyfriend and Reggie helped him get that boyfriend because he’s the best fucking friend in the world and Luke is a good friend and a good boyfriend and Alex is a bad fucking person. He numbs out all of his negative thoughts against Luke’s mouth and Luke is more than happy to let him, because Luke has no idea. And he won’t.
 That feeling lasts until their next gig, because that’s when the bubble pops. It’s just a studio gig where they invite a bunch of people they know to come listen to them play, so it’s not like it’s a huge amount of stress, but after they’re done playing is more the problem. Reggie is hanging off of Bobby like it’s the only place he wants to be, and he’s flirting with girls and boys and anybody who will listen, and Alex feels like he’s going to snap one of his drumsticks in his hand like a pencil, which is pretty much impossible, and yet. He should be talking to some of the people who were invited by their extended friends, network with the people they don’t know, but he’s not in the right headspace for it; if anything, he’d drive them away. He doesn’t even notice Luke’s eyes on him until people are starting to leave, Alex himself having only talked to a few people, mostly having stared at Reggie and Bobby  (mostly Reggie)   all night.
 “We need to talk, dude,” Luke says, balancing on his floor tom and looking endearing like he always does, except that he kinda looks… not quite pissed off, but certainly not happy either. Immediately, an anxious thrumming starts under Alex’s skin.
 “What happened? Did I do something? Did someone else do something?” he asks, panic building up in his throat so quickly it nearly hurts to talk. Luke reaches out and takes his hand, but it’s not nearly so calming as- it works. It calms him down a little. It works enough. Luke shakes his head.
 “Whenever Reggie is doing his promo flirting thing that he does, you get super jealous and weird about it. You don’t even get jealous about it when      I    do that stuff. I don’t think we’re working out here, man. I don’t think… are you in love with Reggie? It’s okay if you are. I don’t wanna do this if you are, though. You should talk to him,” Luke explains it all in a jumbled mess, a very Luke-like jumbled mess, and he’s very cute, and Alex wishes very much that he was in love with him. He’s a sweet guy and a goof and a good kisser, and an okay boyfriend too, when he remembers that there’s more to being a boyfriend than songwriting, but he also might be right. Just this once. Can’t let him get a big head about it.
 “I’m really sorry, Luke,” he says quietly, dipping his head down. He likes the fact that he and Luke dated, but he wishes he could have had that without either of them getting hurt. Luke gives him a smile.
 “It’s okay, buddy. Don’t tell him, but I might have a thing for Bobbins. So much for not dating in the band, right?” he says, his smile flashing fully into a grin. Alex rolls his eyes.
 “You made that rule up before the rest of us even came out, dumbass,” he replies, a familiar jeer that puts him back on even ground. Luke shrugs.
 “I stand by it. I also stand by the fact that you should talk to Reg. It’s getting a little ridiculous, and I think he might surprise you,” Luke says, and then he stands up off of the floor tom and leaves the studio entirely, presumably to go find Bobby like he usually does after any emotional conversation. Bobby is an emotional void (i.e. he makes everyone else deal with the emotions once he identifies the fact that emotions need to be dealt with), so he’s a good landing place when one needs to be without them. Alex startles when he’s spoken to again.
 “Talk to me about what? That’s all I heard, I swear,” Reggie says, coming in as Luke leaves. Alex huffs a laugh at the circumstance alone.
 “Luke and I just broke up,” he says, which isn’t what Luke was talking about at all, but it’s important, probably. Reggie looks affronted immediately.
 “What? Did he- did you- I would hate to have to do it, but if he hurt your feelings, I can totally beat him up,” Reggie says, and Alex can’t help it. He laughs outright. He laughs because Reggie offered and he laughs because Reggie might actually think he can and he laughs because Reggie might actually think he      should    and he laughs because he’s the one who might have hurt Luke and he laughs because that      sucks    and Jesus Christ, what is his      damage    that that makes him laugh? The laughing might lead to tears or the thinking might lead to tears but either way he starts crying and Reggie comes across the studio in a flash, standing in front of between his stool and his kit, thin body carefully maneuvered to hold him close, to cradle him in and keep him safe.
 “We broke up,” he says again, and he can’t get the rest of the words out because Reggie is stroking his hair and holding him for the first time in at least a month, and he’s overwhelmed. Reggie hums.
 “I know, Ali, I’m sorry,” Reg says, and he thinks that might be the first time Reggie has called him a stupid nickname in a month too and this is so      stupid.  
 “We broke up because I’m in love with you,” he finally chokes out, and it’s out there, and Reggie’s hand in his hair stops and for a moment, the entire world stops, and Alex swears it’s going to crash down around his ears, he can feel the way that the world is going to end, he can feel the way that his best friend in the world is going to reject him, he knows it’s going to happen. But Reggie’s careful hands pry him away from the boy’s soft stomach and those careful hands cup his face so gently, as if it's made of the precious things, and Reggie wipes away the tears that are still on Alex’s face, and he just      looks    at Alex for a moment. God, how he fucking looks at him.
 “You know, when I said anybody would be lucky to have you, Alex Mercer, anybody included me. I love you… so, so much. Tell me this is real,” Reggie says, his voice breaking, tears welling up in his eyes too, and Alex has to stand up to hold him. He can’t do this without holding Reggie how he’s always held him, and holding Reggie has always meant being taller than him, because no matter how much Reggie has grown, Alex has always outpaced him by an inch or two. He wraps an arm around Reggie’s waist and pulls Reggie flush against him, closer than he’s been in a month’s time, and it feels so good that he can hardly breathe, can hardly focus at all, and he leans down to put their foreheads together gently, just like after they… just like when they kissed.
 “This is real, Reg. This is so real that I’m terrified, but I’m not, because it’s you. I’ve loved you my entire life. If there’s one thing I shouldn’t be scared of, it’s loving      you,    isn’t it?” he asks, the feeling burning through his chest, and the touch of Reggie’s holy fire hands against his skin enough to make him ready to cry again, but he won’t, not now. Reggie leans up, and he leans down, and somewhere, the waves crest against their dock and flick up against the shore, and he kisses Reggie for the first time in two months and it's the best thing that’s ever happened to him all over again. He bites Reggie’s lip and relishes in the noise he makes, chases it with his tongue, follows the sound and does whatever he can to make this beautiful boy make more beautiful noises like it. He holds Reggie’s face in one hand and it’s like holding the entire world, everything beautiful, and he never wants to leave this moment.
 Eventually, Reggie pulls away to breathe, and Alex lets him. He doesn’t want to, but, well, needs must. Reggie pecks his nose and smiles at him, so it’s not all bad. A pretty boy is still in his arms and smiling at him, after all.
 “Not bad for our first real kiss, huh?” Reggie jokes, and Alex immediately shakes his head. The first kiss, while it wasn’t the confessional that this one was, was real in its own way, raw and unfiltered, and so new that Alex doesn’t know how to describe it. But it was real. He can’t imagine anything with Reggie not being real. Reggie is the most real thing in the universe, maybe. Alex presses a kiss to the side of his head.
 “The first one was real too. Everything… everything with you has always been real, Reg. All of it.”
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biaswreckmepls · 3 days
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(Sorry for the delay in the poll y'all, life got in the way)
Remember to please reblog after you have voted, so that we get a larger sample size!
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TROPED: Bungou Stray Dogs — Round One
Welcome to the First Round of our TROPED Mini Event! We are so excited to host a two-round event for the Japanese Manga Series, Bungou Stray Dogs!!! If you’re new to TROPED, you can find a little more info on how our events work here! We have hosted multiple events, and we’re so excited to break into another new fandom with you! The mods for this challenge are @thelittlefanpire and @dylanobrienisbatman, and our personal DM’s as well as the ask box on this blog are always open to questions, comments, or concerns!
For Round 1, please write us a fic that includes:
Theme: Canonverse
Trope 1: Hurt/Comfort
Trope 2: Out of Place Intro
Trope 3: Good Guy/Bad Guy Team Up
Trope 4: Two characters give extremely biased accounts of the same event
More in depth definitions of the theme and tropes can be found here! Please take a look at this document, as there will be extra information you NEED to know regarding how to use the tropes, plus all the rules, and if you have questions don’t hesitate to ask!
HOW IT WORKS:
TROPED is pretty simple! This is a fully anonymous fanfic event where anyone can join at any time! We have provided the prompt above (four tropes + a theme) and you have a 7 day writing period to write the fics! All fics are submitted to our AO3 collections, which are specific to each event! After the writing period has ended, we host a community voting period where anyone can vote, based on a few categories that are announced at the beginning of each event (we generally include Best Use of Tropes, Best Use of Theme, Best Overall (Tropes + Theme), and then some bonus polls!) Once the voting has ended, we reveal the authors of the fics and announce the winners!
For these events, there will be two rounds each, which are separate from one another. You do not need to write in the first round to write for the second, and you are not obligated to write for the second round if you write for the first! We will reveal the authors at the end of each individual round!
A more detailed explanation of how our events work can be found on our FAQs page!
For this event, all fics are to be submitted to this AO3 Collection!
A tutorial on how to submit your fics can be found in the first three steps of this post! You do not need to input multiple chapters for this event, but follow the general steps on how to include a fic in our collections! For this event, the collection name is 'TROPED_BSD'!! If you have any questions, or would like a tutorial specific to this event, let us know, we'd be happy to make one!
TIMELINE:
Round 1
Writing Period: August 14th (12:00am EST) - August 20th (03:00am PST / 06:00am EST)
Voting Period: August 21st (12:00am EST) - August 23rd (11:59pm EST)
Winners: August 24th!
Round 2
Writing Period: August 25th (12:00am EST) - August 31st(03:00am PST / 06:00am EST)
Voting Period: September 1st (12:00am EST) - September 3rd (11:59pm EST)
Winners: September 4th!!
*All times are in Eastern Standard Time (EST) unless otherwise specified! Times are subject to change due to potential writing extensions.
RULES:
Don’t forget the rules! Please keep to the chosen fandom (Bungou Stray Dogs), include ALL the tropes, and follow the theme! You will be disqualified if you don’t! 10k word count max! Also, no rape. no incest. no underage. no negativity.
The General Rules for all TROEPD events can be found here and more event-specific rules in the Google Doc can be found here.
LINKS:
The AO3 collection can be found here, and the name of the collection that should be entered when submit your fic is ‘TROPED_BSD’ !!
AO3 Link: https://archiveofourown.org/collections/Troped_BSD
Trope/Theme Explanations: https://docs.google.com/document/d/1FsM8Ox2EnfTnJa2pnNBp5fODPjb0g0McX79GNiFQDEs/edit#
No sign-ups necessary! Follow along here on Tumblr, the TROPED Twitter, or our Discord Server for more information on the event! We will release the prompts in those places and then everyone is free to start writing!!! We are super excited to see what you guys create!
Remember that if you have any questions at all, including whether something would fit our trope requirements, would violate one of the rules, or anything at all, please don’t hesitate to contact us at @dylanobrienisbatman or @thelittlefanpire we are here to help!
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