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astrobydalia · 3 years

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🌸OBSERVATIONS!! (finally lmao)🌱

Credit: Tumblr blog @astrobydalia

It's been a long time coming! So happy for spring being finally here! Here's the long ass observation post you guys asked for. Since it's quite a big amount of observations, I've decided it'd be a good idea to number them so that it's easier to reference them. As always, enjoy them!

🌸 1. Lilith in the 2nd house can indicate something fishy going on with the relationship between the native’s parents.

🌱 2. Malefic placements such as pluto, chiron, Saturn or Lilith in the 12th indicates a lot of skeletons in the closet when it comes to family and family history

🌸 3. Chiron in Aries/1st house or Leo/5th house is kind of bitch placement. The person basically feels like they can’t be themselves and there’s a lot of self-denial and/or not accepting themselves, how they really are, what they really want, etc. Lots of self-esteem issues

🌱 4. People with sexual placements in the 2nd house (Mars, Venus, Lilith, Eros, ruler of the 8th house) base their self-worth on how sexually attractive they are. If they don't feel sexually desirable to everyone, they feel like they're shit

🌸 5. Lilith is what people think Pluto/Scorpio is!!!! All that stuff about magnetic, sexual and intoxicating but dangerous? Lilith.

🌱 6. Scorpio/Pluto in 4th could mean that the person had to work hard to survive something growing up. It could be poverty, their parents’ expectations, an early trauma, etc. Whatever the situation is, the native felt like they grew up in a high-stress environment where they had to endure and survive

🌸 7. When it comes to degrees, the higher the degree, the bigger or stronger the effect. For example Leo degrees (5º, 17º, 29º) are fame degrees. 5th degree would give small fame, 17th degree would be normal and significant fame or recognition inside the person’s field and 29th degree is moreso widespread or permanent fame

🌱 8. Saturn in the 5th house is a huge indicator of turning your hobby into your job. Also these people can be very awkward in their personality

🌸 9. I’ve noticed people with Neptune in the 6th (maybe 2nd) house may have been hospitalized and if Uranus or Pluto are placed here also indicates getting surgery or operations for health reasons

🌱 10. People with Uranus or Pluto in the 1st, 2nd or conjunct the ASC could get surgery due to aesthetic reason

🌸 11. Mercury dominant people (or strong Gemini energy in the chart) like to have or get things quick and easy. For example they prefer a straight forward summary over an in-depth and elaborated explanation with too many details

🌱 12. Your moon sign shows how you see your past. Your 4th house represent how you see your childhood. But your moon represents under which light you always view your past and everything that has happened in your life in general. It also shows the type of stuff from your past you tend to focus on. Since Cancer and Pisces represent past and remenaicence, that's why Cancer and Pisces moons have trouble getting over the past.

🌸 13. Your 10th house on the other hand is how you see your future. Whenever someone asks you “where you see yourself in 5 years?” your 10th house is the one that’ll be answering that question

🌱 14. Gemini moon/mars are the LEAST likely to hold grudges (unless chart says otherwise)

🌸 15. The house where you have your Neptune indicates the themes you tend to lie about, don’t give much info, say stuff about it that are misleading etc. and in consequence people might not have a clear/correct idea of this part of your life

🌱 16. Virgo risings rarely or basically never pose for pictures. They just look straight forward to the camera, sometimes smile and maybe make a small gesture like putting one hand in their pocket or tilt their head but that’s it. (Virgo = minimalism)

🌸 17. Scorpios really don’t give a single fuck they just DON’T 😭💀 Remember this sign is all or nothing, they either care too or don't care AT ALL

🌱 18. I said it once and I’ll say to a hundred times more: Geminis are not two-faced, it’s LIBRA!! Seriously Libras are the FAKEST people I’ve ever met. Why? Because it's ruled by the planet of love (Venus), which means Libra has a knack for being liked by everyone and making everyone feel liked. HOWEVER Libra is an AIR sign and air represents mind, NOT feelings. In conclusion, Libra can make you feel "loved" (venus) and still not give a damn about you bc its air nature makes them prone to emotional detachment. That's why they are able to roast you and make it look like they're complimenting you, specially when they have Scorpio mercury.

🌸 19. Just like you look at where’s the ruler of your rising sign to get more info on your rising, check the ruler of your Sun sign for more info on your personal identity (check sign and house). For ex. I have Virgo Sun in the 9th. Ruler of Virgo=Mercury. I have mercury in Libra in the 10th house which makes me more serious (10th house) and diplomatic/people pleaser (Libra)

🌱 20. If you found that you “couldn’t” do what’s previously described because you’re a Leo sun, check the degree and decan of your Sun

🌸 21. I’ve noticed mercury retrograde people are the type of individuals who always know exactly the right things to say. You’ll always see them take a couple of seconds before answering but they tend to give very good responses

🌱 22. I’ve noticed many women with Virgo Venus/Sun/MC/Lilith have been slut-shamed at some point of their life or they’ve been seen as promiscuous/sexual/etc.

🌸 23. Capricorn moons are not emotionless machines. The thing with these natives is that their mothers treated them like an adult the second they came out of the womb, so basically they skipped the “love and affection” stage and went straight to the “grow up” stage, but they can love really hard and real deep (Capricorn is deep down a very sentimental sign). They are very ride or die people tbh, they are very patient, accepting and understanding

🌱 24. I've noticed that people at first deny their rising sign in Vedic astrology, but eventually they end up accepting it and they actually end up relating to it a lot. I feel like this is because our rising sign in Vedic astrology is usually the sign of our 12th house in Western astrology, which leads me to believe that our 12th house sign is not our shadow side but more like our deep subcontious personality and that's why we have a hard time accepting it when we see it as our rising sign in Vedic astrology. It's like your rising sign (in western) is the director of the play but your 12th house is the energy that previously wrote the script

🌸 25. So many celebrities have moon in the 11th house. Also this placement indicates that you had a mother that put you out there constantly like posting everything about you on social media, bringing you to big events or your mom was “famous” in some capacity

🌱26. Gemini risings tend to believe everything they are told. More specifically, once they find someone that knows a little bit more than them they’ll believe everything they teach them and will most likely rely on them intellectually, for advice, guidance, etc. This is bc they have DSC in Sagittarius which makes them see the people they associate with as masters and mentors while, as a Gemini rising, they identify as an apprentice.

🌸27. Both 8th house and 12th house have been associated with secrets. The different is that the 8th house represents what you CONTIOUSLY and deliberately hide from others and most likely deny to yourself (or not, depends on the person). 12th house on the other hand represents subconscious, things that are hidden even from you and you didn’t even know were hidden. 4th house is not necessarily secrets, it represents privacy, like when people have a sanctuary to just relax, unwind and feel secure, that’s the 4th house.

🌱28. Sun or Moon in the 4th house will make you a sociable but private person.

🌸29. Sun or moon in the 8th house will make you an intriguing and mysterious person.

🌱30. Sun or moon the 12th house makes you a very elusive or wishy-washy person

🌸31. I’ve seen many Scorpio sun/moon/mars/rising individuals obsessed with the idea of being prepared for a catastrophe. They could be the type to, for example, have some saved cash just in case something bad happens with their bank money, have a backup account just in case their main one gets deleted, could have a “leave before you get left” philosophy, etc.

🌱32. Is it just me or the astro community talks a lot about Aries moons???

🌸33. I’ve noticed people with 4th house in Virgo could have been raised in a very judgemental household where there was lots of taboos and prejudice as to what’s right and what’s not and the family was too preoccupied with a perfect and immaculate reputation. For example could have been raised with values such as “only criminals wear tattoos” or “you should stay celibate till marriage or else you’re a whore”, etc. and if the native broke those rules they could have been very criticized and almost loathed by the family. They native could have been highly criticized in general by their family

🌱34. I’ve noticed women that have their moon harshly aspecting Pluto, Uranus and Mars or overall have a very afflicted moon tend to have very painful period cramps

🌸35. Something I have noticed with Venus or Moon conjunct Saturn people is that the concept of unconditional love sounds like alien language to them. That of course doesn’t mean they can’t love but they have this deep belief that they have to achieve something in order to deserve love and stuff like that

🌱36. Also, I just noticed that people with Saturn conjunct sun/moon/Venus/ASC, Capricorn big 3 or Capricorn degrees in personal placements have gone through IT man, specially on an internal level. I've noticed going through depression is a common theme for people with this Capricorn/Saturn influence

🌸37. Virgo Suns could often struggle to find balance between having healthy ego and being humble.

🌱38. Also people with Virgo+Leo energy are the MOOOOST judgmental people out there. Imagine ego mixed with a sense of knowing what’s correct. They tend to believe they’re morally superior and easily liable people as inferior

🌸39. The underdeveloped energy of a sign asimilates negative traits of its sister sign. For example underdeveloped Virgo is overly perfectionist and judgmental to the point where they have unrealistic expectations (Pisces)

🌱40. On the other hand the developed version of a sign is balanced out by understanding its sister sign. For example Leo knows they are unique and special and deserves recognition but understands everyone is also unique in their own way (Aquarius)

🌸41. I’ve noticed a person can very easily manifest the stereotypical characteristics of the sign that naturally rules the house where their chart ruler is. For example if someone’s chart ruler (ruler of the ASC) is in the 7th house the person can easily manifest stereotypical characteristics of Libra like being a people pleaser

🌱42. Sagittarius ASC/Mars people are all fun, amicable and outgoing.... until they don’t get their way. They will get away from people and situations that won’t give them what they want and they can genuinely dislike people solely because those people don’t let them have their way. They tend to go around life like they have a free pass to get away with everything they want.

🌸43. People with ASC-Neptune aspects don’t have a very reliable vision of reality or themselves to be honest. I don’t know how people with this aspect haven’t lost their mind already. They are prone to subconsciously manipulating or easily getting manipulated. With hard aspects this is a lot more obvious but I’ve noticed with easy aspects this energy tends to go almost unnoticed and they easily get away with stuff

🌱44. Have seen many famous people with North node in the 2nd, 5th, 11th and 12th houses specially

🌸45. Air risings or air dominance with Sagittarius placements/degrees are people who love cartoons/animations/videogames regardless of their age.

🌱46. When I got into astrology I didn’t understand why Sun is in detriment in Libra, but oh man... All Libras I’ve met had HUGE issues with trusting themselves. They doubt themselves 24/7 and that’s not even an exaggeration and I’ve noticed they actually may have grown up doubting themselves for some reason or they had a family (their dad) that caused this feeling in them. Also I’ve seen that those Libras with Scorpio placements feel like they have to hide something about themselves otherwise they’ll be rejected. Yes they are endlessly charming, but that's because they have essentially created their personality around the desire of being liked/accepted. They always need to feel they have SOMEONE. Their sense of self, INDIVIDUALITY, independence and assertiveness is lost in the process. Unless they have fire and specially Aries placements to balance this out they can feel like they have no personality and that’s why they are often perceived as fake or shallow.

🌸47. Literally ALL Virgo placements one way or another will always suggest a way to solve your problems when giving emotional support

🌱48. I have a theory that, since 4th house is how you were raised, your home and your parents, your 10th house is how you’d be as a parent yourself and the type of home you’ll create yourself

🌸49. Contrary to my expectations, I’ve seen priests having a much more prominent 4th house (many times combined with 8th house/Scorpio energy) than 12th house. People with 12th house placements or stellium seem to prefer artistic fields rather than classic spirituality

🌱50. The house where you have your Pluto is a house you just can NOT take lightly EVER. This area of your life feels like a heavy topic to you in some way (you are either obsessed with it, find It traumatic, get extremely defensive over it, find it spiteful, you feel everything goes wrong, etc, etc.) Can also apply to the house where you have the sign of scorpio

🌸51. In synastry, Venus falling in the 12th house creates a healing dynamic in the relationship, the connection can feel cathartic specially for the house person. The house person might tend to always be comforted by the venus person’s support, always feel better (or even energetically “cleansed”) after being with them. The venus person never judges the house person and accepts them and is always willing to be there.

🌱52. I’ve noticed this pattern in people with mutable moons where they have absent mothers in some shape or form. Their mother is very inconsistent, she always comes and goes. Very often the native may have felt like their mother always “left them be” (virgo moon moms put restrictions but eventually are rather flexible)

🌸53. People with cardinal moons have bossy mothers. In many cases they can have the type of mother that is constantly making decisions for them, like their mother decides what/where they’re going to study for example (the house tells what type of things the mother tends to make decisions on).

🌱54. People with fixed moons have possesive and protective moms. While mutable moons have absent mothers, natives with fixed moons have mothers that are ALWAYS there in some shape or form. At the very least the influence of the mother is always there and they always have this sense of “loyalty” towards their mom.

Credit: Tumblr blog @astrobydalia

That's it for now, next observation post is just as long but much better, stay tuned and safe loves 💕

#astrology #astro #astro notes #astro observations #zodiac

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starsfic · 3 years

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Hair Dye Party Prep

Summary: Red's roots are starting to show and he wants to be rebellious. So he accepts Xiaojiao's offer of a hair dye party.

But first they have to prepare.

-_-

“Wanna have a hair dye party?”

Red stopped his welding, pushing his mask up. “What?” he repeated, not exactly sure he had heard that correctly.

Xiaojiao leaned over from her workstation, her overalls stained with whatever paint she was using on her sculpture. “I mean,” she gestured to the top of her hair. “Your roots are starting to show.”

Red set down his tool and pulled out his phone, flicking on the camera. With some careful angling, he realized that she was right. His roots had started to grow out and show, revealing the same dark tone as his mother’s. “Oh. Yeah, I should probably make an appointment to have that fixed.”

“Or I could do it,” Xiaojiao suggested.

He blinked, caught off-guard by the offer. He had always had his hair done by his parents’ hair salon, the same hairstylist carefully doing the dye over and over again. He wasn’t sure if he was willing to trust others with his hair.

But… the same hairstylist had always done it.

And…

“Okay.”

That was how Red found himself in front of Xiaotian and Xiaojiao’s dorm door. He raised a hand but before he could knock, the door swung open. “Hey!” Xiaotian said brightly, his bestie following him. “Xiaojiao told me that she was going to dye your hair.”

“Yes… why are you coming?”

“We’re making a party out of it!” Xiaojiao explained, grabbing his and Xiaotian’s hands and dragging them down the hallway. “Which means we need snacks! And drinks! And the actual hair dye!” Before he could muster a response to that, they were heading down the stairs and he felt a hand reach into his pocket and pull out his keys.

Then Xiaojiao was shoving him into the back of his own car. She jumped into the driver’s seat, Xiaotian scrambling into the back with Red. “Let’s go!” she called with a vibrant grin, starting the car and the radio. Pop music started to blast through the car and then they were off.

Despite Red’s surprise at the sudden outing and the fact that he had been booted to the back of his own car, he couldn’t help the smile that formed. It grew bigger as Xiaojiao and Xiaotian started to sing along to the music that seemed to be the perfect background to the cityscape outside. Before he could muster the courage to add his own voice, they were parking at a small convenience store.

Despite it not being that late, the store was empty except for a bored-looking worker. Bad pop music was tinnily placing through speakers. Xiaotian pulled out a cart as they passed by, beaming. “I’ll go get the snacks!” he called, already scrambling away.

“I guess we’ll get the hair dye,” Xiaojiao said, leading Red down the aisles. In the distance, they could hear Xiaotian loudly singing along to the bad pop music. Then they were turning into the aisle, revealing a widespread of dyes.

The two split up, scanning the shelves. Xiaojiao broke the silence with “You know, dying your hair sounds like something your parents would be against.”

Red shrugged, grabbing a bottle of red dye. “My father dyes his hair,” he said casually. “I think it might’ve been to make him look more… intimidating, I guess.” He turned to Xiaojiao who glanced from his hair to the bottle and shook her head. He set it back, stepping to the next bottle.

“But you?”

“I think I kept asking and one day my nanny gave in. It was horrible though.”

Xiaojiao burst into laughter.

“I’m serious! It was like this teal and lavender ombre mess!” He could barely remember the incident and his only proof was in his childhood album. “My parents came back and that nanny was immediately fired.” Which was… something he should feel bad about. Right? “And my mother said if I was so desperate, then fine.”

“And she chose red?”

Red blinked, thinking back. “Uh… no, actually. They started with purple so I matched with Father.” He could remember the yearly family photos, his hair tied back in a low ponytail and the same shade of lavender as his father’s. "Father said I could start choosing when I was eight." He didn't add that was after he had gotten the highest grades in his school.

Stuff like that ended up with pity.

A familiar shade of green caught his eye and he grabbed the matching bottle of his friend's color. Xiaojiao let out a cry of triumph before he could speak, holding up a bottle. "I found a match!"

"Good." A loud yelp rolled through the store. "We should probably check on him-"

She had already grabbed his hand and was going.

The scene they found was one of Xiaotian apologizing under his breath as he cleaned up a shelf of candy, having clearly run into it with the full cart. Red thought, for a moment, of just telling that worker, but he sighed and moved over to help.

He also threw in some of that candy.

Once everything was cleaned up, they headed to the register. The worker groaned as they approached, but went to work scanning everything. Xiaojiao thanked them cheerfully as she paid and they headed out.

The parking lot was empty.

"Get in." Red ordered, taking the handle of the cart. His friends grinned, catching on. As soon as they had gotten in, he backed up…

And then started running.

As soon as they had gotten a good speed, he hung on. The younger two screamed in clear delight, Xiaotian throwing his hands back like he was on a roller coaster. He couldn't help his urge. "HAIR DYE PARTY!"

"HAIR DYE PARTY!!"

When the car came into view, Red stomped his foot down, dragging them to the stop. The other two burst into laughter, their hair a mess.

And Red couldn't help his own laughter.

He couldn't wait for the hair dye party.

#Art School AU #my writing #Traffic Light Trio #Monkie Kid #Lego Monkie Kid #Red Son #Long Xiaojiao #Mei #Qi Xiaotian #MK #there's more than hair dye but dying Red's hair is the focus

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sunsetcurvecuddles · 3 years

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Road trip to nowhere in particular. Bobby just likes to drive. Reggie just likes to point out cows and horses out the windows. Maybe he counts them. Maybe he names them. Either way Bobby has to pretend to be annoyed/mildly amused even as he is experiencing SO MUCH LOVE

hi this is both sadder and longer than i intended for it to be so it is now also available to read on ao3 here. warning for allusions to child abuse.

seems like i’d take a new road | boggie | 2.1k

It's still barely bright outside when Bobby pulls up and parks the car a few houses down from Reggie's, so he doesn't risk waking Reggie's parents. As he gets out of the car and goes to knock on Reggie's window, Bobby rubs his eyes, wondering what kind of insanity possessed him when he suggested they leave so early.

Reggie's already sitting on his bed when Bobby comes up to the window, hands folded in his lap, backpack at his feet. The light from the lamp on his bedside table casts shadows across his face, makes him look thoughtful, and quiet. He looks up almost as soon as Bobby comes into view, like he knew, somehow, that Bobby would be there.

Or he just heard you coming, idiot, Bobby chides himself, but when Reggie grins, eyes way too bright for the hour, Bobby feels a matching smile tugging across his face without his permission.

—

"Okay, okay," Reggie says, as soon as he's plonked himself into the passenger seat, rifling through his backpack immediately, "I've got snacks, and soda, and sandwiches for lunch later, and some mix CDs, but I don't know which one we should listen to first, since—"

"Reg," Bobby interrupts him flatly, even though it's absolutely killing him not to laugh. "Seatbelt first, thanks."

"Oh." Reggie sits back, abashed, and buckles in before returning to the contents of the bag. "It's just very important that we have the right mix for the drive. It has to fit the atmosphere. That can make or break the whole trip!" He's gesturing all over the place with his free hand, still half-buried in the oversized backpack on his lap.

"Right," says Bobby, as though he's totally on board.

"So," Reggie hums, "We've got a selection, so, I'll just read them all out to you—"

"Don't worry about it," Bobby tells him, turning the key and pumping the gas a few times as the engine rolls over before it properly coughs to life, "you just pick something."

Reggie stops, looks up at him wide-eyed. "Are you sure? I know that I like weird music. Alex would die before he let me choose a CD."

"Do I look like Alex?" Bobby retorts, and Reggie's face splits into a huge smile.

"I know the perfect one. It's gonna be so good, Bobby, promise."

—

This is how Bobby spends the next half an hour listening to a burned CD of all Reggie's favourite country songs, as the sun rises over the road and he takes them out of the city. Even this early, there's traffic, because LA is a nightmare city from hell and Bobby hates it, but leaving early has definitely given them an advantage. Reggie winds his window down and rests his arms on the window edge so he can sing Tim McGraw out to the city of angels to wake her up and ready for her the day, and Bobby settles in for the drive.

They'd both been going nuts, was the thing. Bobby’s just had too much work to do, and there’s always so much noise at home, his little siblings underfoot and on top of him and exhausting, as much as he loves them.

Bobby knows Reggie doesn't have such benign reasons for wanting to get away for the day. However, Bobby also knows better than to push him on it, especially when he's in such a good mood, belting the lyrics to Memory Lane (when Bobby swats him and tells him the song sucks, Reggie just smiles bigger, belts even louder). Reggie pretty much universally refuses to acknowledge that there's a problem until it becomes impossible to ignore.

Like last week, when he'd called Bobby from his home phone, whispering a request to pick him up — please, just for a few hours, Bobby, and then I'll get out of your hair, it's just — and Bobby had been able to hear the banging and yelling even on his end of the call. Or when he'd turned up at Bobby's place with a black eye last month, had ended up sleeping in Bobby’s studio, curled up to Bobby on the couch, shivering even under the blankets Bobby brought out for them.

It's difficult to reconcile that image, of Reggie teary and silent and meek as Bobby had given him a pack of frozen peas to press over his eye, who had only shaken his head when Bobby asked him what happened, with this image, of Reggie with his head half out the window, singing and beaming in the morning sun. Tim McGraw's voice fades out, only to be replaced by more guitar (which sounds exactly the same to Bobby's ear) and Reggie's face lights up as he whoops, says, "This song is SO good, can I turn it up?"

Forget the morning sun. Reggie's brighter than it is.

Bobby makes sure his resigned sigh is extra theatrical before he says, "I guess so."

—

The next hour or so continues mostly this way, as Los Angeles becomes a more scattered, widespread set of houses and then eventually not much except desert. They share a packet of Haribo bears, Reggie insisting on giving Bobby the 'best colours' even though Bobby is almost certain they all taste pretty much the same, but he rolls his eyes and gives in when Reggie insists there's a subtle difference. At one point, the CD comes to an end, so Reggie swaps it for the next one. Which is also full of country. "Alex never lets me play any of these," he says defensively, even though all Bobby had done was glance at him out of the corner of his eye.

Bobby just shrugs and says, "I can see why."

And Reggie delightedly retorts, "Hey!"

After winding through the open, rocky expanse for awhile, things turn a little greener. Suddenly, Reggie breaks off singing to lean so far out the window that Bobby instinctively grabs the back of his shirt in his fist.

"Jesus, Peters, ass in the seat!" he huffs, mostly because his heart is still pounding.

Reggie has the decency to look a little sheepish as he sits back down, but still more excited than anything. "Sorry, Bobby, just — there's cows! Look, a whole field of them!"

There is, in fact, a whole field of cows. "Well, don't traumatise them by falling out the window."

"There's so many," Reggie continues, like Bobby didn't even speak, and then continues at a muttered volume, "one, two, three, four—"

"Are you seriously going to count all of them?" Bobby asks. This needs to stop. If Reggie's going to be this distractingly cute — no, just distracting — the whole trip, Bobby's going to crash the car, he can feel it. "You know they're going to move around and stuff."

"Oh," says Reggie, humming, "you're right. Hang on, I should name them so I can tell them apart. What are some good cow names? I think the big one up on the hill looks like a Betsy. And the brown one is totally a Buttercup."

Bobby groans, his heart growing three sizes in his chest, like he’s the Grinch or something. "Franco," he suggests at last.

"Franco?!" Reggie bursts out laughing. "You think 'Franco' is a good cow's name?"

"Is it not?" Bobby retorts, and Reggie laughs harder, throwing his head back and wrapping his arms around his stomach. The sound of him cackling almost drowns out Dolly Parton's voice still crooning from Bobby's stereo.

This Reggie. Versus the one who lives in Bobby's memory, tiny and silent, frozen peas held to his face with one trembling hand.

"Francesca," Reggie is saying, through his wheezing laughter, "now, Francesca is a good cow's name."

"Would you shut up about naming the cows and pass me a soda?"

"The calf is called Henry!" Reggie insists, as he leans to dig through his backpack. When he pulls out a can of soda and holds it out to Bobby, still flushed pretty-pink from laughing, his hair sort of a mess in his eyes, nose scrunched up extra cute, and Bobby feels his stomach softly flip over.

Well. That's a feeling he should repress.

"Thanks," he says, careful not to brush Reggie's fingers as he takes the can from him. Reggie doesn’t seem to notice. Thank god.

"You're welcome," says Reggie quietly, snuggling back down into his seat, looking out the window again. He points and says, "That one's called Oscar."

Definitely repressing, Bobby decides. Immediately. Forever. He can't have a crush on Reggie. Like, the band, and the fact that the last thing Reggie needs is for one of his friends to have feelings for him, as if he doesn’t already have enough going on. There are so many reasons he shouldn't have a crush on Reggie. Down, he tells the feeling, pushing at it in his chest, go down, stay down. "Is he?"

Reggie is oblivious, cheerfully rambling on, with no idea that he is causing Bobby a serious internal crisis. "Yeah. And that one's called—"

Bobby hopes it stays that way. He turns Dolly Parton up a little bit, and keeps driving.

—

They park and have lunch at the top of a hill looking over the valley. Reggie regales Bobby with some needlessly complicated story of the relationship between all the cows, as if they’re living a little soap opera down in the field. If Bobby’s going to be honest, he can’t follow the plot, but that doesn’t stop him staring at Reggie’s profile, the way he looks perfect here, at home among the grass and in the bright sun, how he comes alive being out here.

Bobby’s never really known what to think of the future. Before the band, he didn’t have much in his head to imagine. All his thoughts of the future were of his little siblings, what their lives would be like, but it was Luke who had first interrupted him and asked, “Well, yeah, but what about you, man? What do you want your life to be like?”

Maybe Bobby will save up and buy a farm out here, when all the band and touring stuff is done. So Reggie can come visit. Hell, maybe he’ll just buy Reggie a farm, with their millions of dollars they’re going to make when they’re all famous rock stars like Luke says they’ll be.

If we all have that much money, Reggie will buy his own farm, the voice in his head that keeps him in line sharply reminds him. Push them down. Push the feelings down.

“Here,” he says to Reggie, shoving his sandwich over. “You wanna finish this? Then we can get going.”

—

On their return drive that afternoon, Reggie is quiet. When one of the CDs loops back to the beginning, Reggie ejects it and doesn’t put in another one. The quiet is okay, Bobby thinks. It gives him a chance to catch his breath, to focus on the road, to forget all about his revelation from earlier in the day.

Winding back through the city, the sun dips lower in the sky. The city lights start to come alive as the evening sets in. Reggie starts to fiddle with the edge of his flannel, shift in his seat, like he’s nervous. A few times he breathes in, like he’s going to talk, and then doesn’t.

Bobby waits him out. He knows Reggie hates being pushed, hates stammering and fumbling for words when he doesn’t have them yet.

Still, he’s surprised when Reggie actually does break the silence. “Can I—” he starts, swallows, and then stops.

“Can you?” Bobby prompts, when Reggie doesn’t continue. His instinct is to reach for Reggie’s hand, but he does what he’s been doing all day, and pushes the thought down. God, what if Reggie’s noticed? What if that’s what he’s about to say? For a moment, Bobby feels cold, and nauseous. He sets his jaw.

“CouldImaybestayatyourplacetonight?” Reggie blurts out, all in one go.

Bobby breathes what he hopes is an imperceptible sigh of relief. Sure, it means a night of knowing Reggie’s out in the studio, probably cold. It means Bobby will inevitably climb out of bed, and out his window, bringing his extra blankets, to curl up with Reggie on the couch, to make sure he stays warm. Because that’s what always happens when Reggie sleeps over. And that’s a whole lot more complicated now that Bobby knows that he—well.

But Bobby looks at the worry on Reggie’s face, his stupid puppy eyes, and he can’t say no. Could never say no to Reggie anyway, he thinks. He needs to be there for Reggie, and that’s why his feelings have no place in this mess. “Of course, Reg. No problem.”

No problem, he tells himself, and does his best to mean it.

jatp taglist (lmk if you want to be added or removed!!): @queenmolina @nickalicious @bi-reginald @jughead-is-canonically-aroace @multifandom-queer @cinnamonstickrayofsunlight @malecacidd

#chickwiththepurpleguitar #jatp #julie and the phantoms #boggie #bobby wilson #reggie peters #ask #my fic #boggie brain rot

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aetheternity · 3 years

Text

Ok, but if you had to pick ~Aot x Y/N

"How exactly are we gonna get into Levi's office?" Sasha asks

"Maybe we should go through the window?” Mikasa replies

"Or.. we don't play ninja and just use the door. This is around the time he heads to the kitchen to get his nightly tea anyway." Ymir remarks heading through the hallway ahead of everyone.

"How exactly do you know that?" You ask, mouth slightly agape.

"If I told you, I'd have to kill you." Ymir replies to which Sasha snickers, elbowing you in the stomach as you all walk down the hall. "Why're you laughing? I'm not kidding."

The hallway is dimly lit aside from the candles placed on either sides in their individual holders. Whispers of conversation float to your ears as you follow Mikasa with Sasha practically clinging to your back and Historia and Ymir just behind her. Mikasa stops in her steps gesturing to you as you all finally stop in front of Levi’s door.

“Well, go in.” She points

“By myself?!” You squeak

“Ugh, move.” Ymir pushes past you opening Levi’s door with zero hesitation.

“Ymir!” Historia grunts following

Sasha is the last one to enter behind you. Her fingers still hooked into your sleep shirt. Ymir gestures to the empty office with widespread arms and a look of ‘I told you so’ plastered onto her face.

“Great! Grab your rose and let’s go.” Sasha pushes

“Where is it?” You gesture to the brown couch in the corner of his office. “I remember leaving it here.”

“Shouldn’t someone be keeping look out?” Historia asks

“Mm, is this it?” Ymir points to a long stemmed rose slightly hunched over in a clear small vase in the window sill.

“I’d assume, unless someone was giving Levi roses.” Before you’d even realized you were doing it your eyebrows scrunched.

“Ooooo is someone jealous?” Sasha cooed with a giggle

“I thought you weren’t into Levi.” Historia replied

“Hey, what’re you all doing in here?”

You grumbled out some words before plucking the rose on the window sill from Levi’s vase. “I needed this back.” You held the rose up for him to see. “Please don’t punish the others it was my idea. I just need to figure out who gave me this so I can return it to them.”

“Captain’s here.” Mikasa announced

"Congratulations you're the worst look out ever." Ymir huffed

Levi let out a deep sigh, stride short as he walked his way to the middle of the room. “The rose is where it belongs then.” Without another word Levi made his way over to his desk plopping into his chair and placing his tea cup next to his paperwork. “And if you all want to escape extra cleaning duties for breaking into my office you’ll leave now.”

Without another word Mikasa snatched Sasha from where she’d been holding onto your waist followed by Ymir and Historia who didn’t hesitate to march right out the door.

“Goodnight Captain.” You weren’t too surprised that he didn’t reply back as you shut his large wooden door behind you quickly met with six pairs of wide eyes and Ymir who looked thoroughly done with tonight.

“It was him!” Historia bounces with delight, lips parted into the letter O.

“Captain understands romance??”

“Can we please go?” You huff pushing past all the girls already ready to plop into your bed and go to sleep.

“One down four to go.” Ymir snorted

“When’s Armin gonna confess?” Sasha chimed in

“Maybe you should just tell him you know, it might help get the ball rolling.” Mikasa said

“Yeah but won’t he be embarrassed?” Historia asked

“Does he seriously think he’s been subtle enough this whole time that everyone in the entire survey corps hasn’t figured it out yet?” Ymir questioned

You turned in your stride, “Ok that’s it. For the rest of the night please no more boy talk.”

Everyone looked to each other before nodding in silent agreement. “It’s about time this topic has never interested me anyway.” Ymir said quickly walking ahead of everyone.

~~~~

"They were that worried?? It's been two days."

Mikasa shrugged, "Yesterday he passed out because I mentioned your name in conversation, honestly I don't think he's ready to confess yet."

"I'll be honest I'm not ready to hear it yet." You groaned. Mikasa's eyes narrowed and you shook your head. "I'm not gonna hurt him! It's just.. letting the other guys down would be way easier.."

"So you've already told Eren, Jean and Connie no?"

"By tell them no-" Mikasa let out a long sigh. "Yeah, yeah I know."

Mikasa crossed her arms against her chest, "Are you sure this isn't just you liking the attention?"

Your lips popped open before shutting again only to repeat the same action a couple more times. Mikasa's smile making your face warm. When you pout she let's loose a little giggle.

"Just let me go see Armin."

"I'm right here if you need me."

"Mm." You pushed the door in making your way to the stool sat directly next to Armin's bed.

The open window let in a cooling breeze that made the soft white curtains flutter. The trees outside swaying in unison to the comforting air as you looked over at Armin. Unsurprisingly his cheeks already had a delicate pink coloring to them from the moment you sat down.

"Hey, how're you doing?" You scooted your seat closer contemplating reaching out for his arm but ultimately decided not to.

He didn't make eye contact but his voice was timid as it exited his mouth. "I'm doing better."

"Are you mad at me?"

The bed creaked under Armin's weight as he slid his body up till his back was flat against the headboard. When his blue irises fell on your eyes you felt a tinge of warmth spread in your stomach. The corners of his lips lightly raised.

"I don't think I could ever be mad at you." He admitted, playing with the tips of his fingers.

"That's good." You exhaled with relief

"I'm guessing you know.." This time when you look up at him you're met with his side profile. Gorgeous blond lashes flush over his cheeks. "It's ok. I don't know who told you but I hope this doesn't put unnecessary pressure on you, I know Eren likes you too."

A partial cough/chuckle/scoff leaves your lips and his head darts over to you.

"And Jean and Connie.... Captain Levi.."

"The Captain too!'

"Shhhhh!" You reach out for his shoulders. "Wait, nevermind no one's gonna hear you." You huff, slumping back in your chair. "I don't know what I'm gonna do." You stood walking to the other end of the room to place your hand on the wall.

"Well.. who do you want?" Armin's fingers came up to twist in his short sleeved white tee.

"See that's the real problem." You walk all the way back, stride short judging by the way Armin slinks back against his pillow. "I already hurt the Captain and I didn't even have time to properly think over his confession."

"Do you think of him that way?"

"I don't know how I think of him."

"And Eren?"

"Gave me this." You point to the piece of jewelry you're still sporting from Eren the green perfectly cascading with the light from the open window. Almost missing the small twitch of Armin's nostrils.

"Jean? Connie?"

"The sweetest guys i've ever met.."

Armin's chuckle is faint almost inaudible as he shifts his body turning to properly face you. "So, when are you going to tell them you like me?"

The motion you'd done in the hall with your lips makes a reappearance now. "I-i'm sorry wha-" Your voice comes out dry and choked.

"You really don't remember the night we kissed do you?"

"What?"

Armin sighs crossing his hands against his knees. "The night we all got drunk. You woke up the next morning and you told me you didn't remember a thing so I didn't say a word. But that night before everyone passed out you jumped into my arms and kissed me."

Before you could say a word the door to the infirmary slammed open. Sasha, Historia and Mikasa all stood deadly still with wide eyes.

"What!" Was the first thing to leave Sasha's mouth.

"You kissed Armin!" Historia squealed "Holy sh-"

"That's not royalty language." Mikasa silenced her.

You grunted turning back to Armin. "How- Why- When?.."

"That night you'd gone on and on about your parents. I'd only drunk a couple beers and everyone else including you was drunk off their ass. At some point you left me to go throw up or something and then you came back, ran into my arms and kissed me."

"Holy sh-" Sasha started immediately cut off by Mikasa's hand slapping over her mouth.

"I just don't think you should curse." Mikasa explained

"There has to be more to this story." Historia replied "Did anyone else see this happening?"

"It was just us in the room." Armin said

"I- I'm sorry Armin.." Your heels clicked over the tiled floor as you walked your way out of the infirmary closing the door.

#aot x reader #shingeki no kyoujin x reader #levi ackerman x reader #snk x reader #eren yeager x reader #armin arlert x reader #jean krischtein x reader #connie x reader #aot imagines

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captaingondolin · 3 years

Text

(imagine if Jango had been around during the war, imagine the 212th finding out and all the terrible jokes Obi-Wan and Jango would be subjected to. this idea came from comments to To Share All Joy and Grief by MadLulu)

When Master Kenobi first saw the Clones on Kamino, there were a great many things he found surprising. Among them, why in all Sith Hells there was a whole army of men who looked exactly like his sometime partner, sometime enemy and occasional lie Jango Fett - bounty hunter extraordinaire, Jedi-hater-who-made-an-exception-for-Kenobi and unpredictable bastard.

Obi-Wan: What is this all about? Jango: What do you mean? I thought you Jetiise knew. Obi-Wan: Don’t you ise* me, you lying- Jango: Did you ever ask? Obi-Wan: Did I ever ask if you had created millions of clones of yourself? Of karking course I didn’t!

They argued. They made up. They made out.

CC-2224 was just leaving the weapons range, when he nearly collided with an unknown human man. The man looked dishevelled, red hair hurriedly combed down, his clothes slightly askew and cheeks red. The Progenitor left the room right behind him, in a very similar state.

(and then when Obi-Wan gets assigned to them, Cody can’t help blushing at the memory of that)

“We’re flattered, sir,” Trapper deadpanned in the silence [or some other terrible terrible joke about how clearly Obes finds their shared face very attractive]

The tension snapped and hysterical laughter followed, so widespread General Kenobi had no chance of stopping it.

He turned towards Jango, making a helpless gesture towards the troopers. “This is all your fault.”

“In more ways than one,” Wooley snickered.

“If we’re all his fault, can he get latrine duty instead of us, when the General inevitably snaps?” Asked Trapper.

Jango couldn’t help but laugh, even as Obi-Wan’s expression grew more thunderous.

* the “ise” thing comes from meta i’ve completely last track of, about how “ise” seems to be a suffix used for negative things in mando’a, which tracks, jetiise weren’t exactly the mandalorian’s greatest friends. a more “friendly” plural could be something like “jet’ade” or there was some better stuff in the same post about how there could be a translation for “children of the force” or something equally cool. anyway. i’ll shut up about fictional languages now.

#jangobi #gondolin's endless plotbunnies list #my tag #clone humour #free to adopt

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theyarebothgunshot · 3 years

Note

hmm, I always feel a bit skeptical about the back pocket bandana thing because jensen seems to mostly wear his bandanas in the "rock star" sort of way (with the usually black/blue/red bandana hanging loosely down from the back pocket), like a lot of guys in rock and metal bands from the 80s used to do. guns n roses is an obvious example, all of them at some points had bandanas (sometimes multiple ones) hanging from their back pockets and some of them (like slash) still do. none of them are gay to my knowledge and it definitely does not have those connotations in that context (though I think I remember reading that the source of this trend among rock stars WAS in fact the gay hanky code, which entered the rock and metal scene via people like rob halford, gay lead singer of judas priest).

anyway, jensen has worn a guns n roses shirt, has commented on what a great band they used to be and has dressed up as slash from guns n roses for halloween. and they were at the high point of their popularity when jensen was a teenager, so he probably would have seen and heard them a lot on TV, magazines etc. all of which is why I think jensens inspiration for his back pocket bandanas mainly comes from that direction.

he also doesnt seem to care about the colors of his bandanas, but mostly just seems to choose ones that match the rest of his outfit. and I think he's also worn them on different ("contradictory") sides.

(I'm also unsure of how widespread knowledge and awareness of the gay hanky code even is among younger gay men nowadays or if it's very much a thing of the past for the most part.)

on the other hand, jensen has also worn back pocket bandanas in different ways (with the bandana mostly tucked in and only partly visible), he does have quite a lot of gay culture knowledge you wouldn't suspect at first glance and the bandana gesturing at jib 10 that you mentioned really was... something. he definitely seemed like he wanted to convey a message there (which would have been "I'm a top" by the pocket he indicated iirc.... adsjbsjs idek).

I'm undecided on this one. my best guess is he may be aware of the hanky code to a certain extent and might enjoy playing around with it a little, but doesn't know or care about the meaning of the colors (and sides... mostly) and mainly just wears them for fashion reasons and because he thinks it looks cool and rock star-like.

- 🔍 og skeptical anon

ahhhh great insights!!

and yeah exactly, i think we're pretty much on the same page here. the jib 10 thing really felt very very On Purpose so he has to know some of the hanky code history/meaning, but other than that.... could just be him being extra (affectionate) (i mean it i really love that and i love that he is able to express his fashionista side so freely, that cant be easy)

#i immediately knew you were og skeptical anon when you started with 'hmm i was always a bit skeptical' sjfhdsjhf #skeptical anon

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jae-canikeepyou · 4 years

Text

| closer | j.jh

pair: jaehyun x fem!reader

genre: au + idol!jae & choreographer/dancer!yn

a/n: this request is long overdue but here it is! :) i’m sorry for the long wait ;-; it’s challenging to write since i’m not a dancer so my explanation’s a lil’ suckish. also! i had to edit a song remix for this oneshot, so the dance and imagination’s clearly up to you *wink wink* enjoy reading! ~j

━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━

though you lost count of the frequent, unexplainable somersaults you experienced in your stomach, you weren’t sure whether this always happen whenever you were told to join other dancers to monitor a routine for a group. perhaps it was just you, that today felt entirely different compared to when you first started.

as far as your career went, this was the only time you felt so stressed. and by ‘stressed’, it didn’t mean that the boys’ couldn’t get the steps right— they were fast learners and the choreography you helped co-create wouldn’t be a problem to them.

nct 127’s rehearsals were at a spacious backstage for straight two days now. in those short days, there was a certain air that lingered and you couldn’t fathom it properly. with you around, the boys would suddenly crowd in a circle, anywhere in the area, and began to utter out whispers you hoped your ears were able to hear. maybe if you were reincarnated, you’d choose an animal with great hearing to be able to hear what they were saying.

and honestly it got you wanting to pull your hair out because.. what if?

what if they disliked how you were a person of few words during practice? or that they preferred if you gave more feedbacks toward their dance like other choreographers who came before you? there weren’t any hints leading to the source of action and really, if this was an actual investigation you’d be removed from the team for not having quick-wits.

taeyong immediately became your close friend right when you were introduced to them by your seniors. he had this you-can-tell-me-anything aura all over him and was the only person you always conversed with among the boys. given that you were part of the choreo team since kick-it era, the boys welcomed you; like so much. but in those greetings, a gut feeling kept bothering you that you would be pulled into something.. perhaps something you might not be able to handle? you wouldn’t know. it was a gut feeling anyway, fifty percent of your intuition were always proven wrong.

you stared at the widespread mirror, arms up to record them while examining their moves and rhythms to the beat. they were tired, you could tell with the way they swayed and continuously wipe off the sweat rolling down their temples. so you decided to give them a break after three hours of practice.

replaying the video over and over to check if they got the timing right, taeyong went to sit by your side gulping and squeezing the water bottle. “relax y/n. you’ll get more wrinkles if you keep doing that.” he nudged you gently to catch your full atttention from the phone.

“do what, exactly?” you looked at him, eyebrows furrowed tiredly above your death-gazing eyes.

he poked you with the butt of the cold bottle he held, where beads from it soaked your forehead. “this.” he lectured you again, almost annoying to the ears. “it’s not at all attractive.”

“we both agreed you have better brows than me but ouch that’s rude. i think i’m quite pretty and you know it.” you return a playful poke that had him nearly trampling backwards, a slight sting felt by your ankle once you regained balance.

per usual, you disregarded his innocent comment and continued to monitor the practice via phone. he didn’t mean it and you knew that. taeyong kept bugging you to cool off from work and hang out with them since you were all good friends to begin with. of course that development happened in a span of few months to be able for you all to reach that certain relationship.

however, was it possible to attain the level of intimacy when recently, all you felt from the other guys was the weird gap? you couldn’t even describe the awkward distance. taeyong shook both of his sleeves into sweaterpaws to rub the droplets on your forehead.

“quite pretty? you’re beautiful! you’re like a cool princess every guy wants and i’d honestly date you if what we are isn’t platonic.” he danced in a wave effect with his arm. you gently hit his chest for being very vocal even if it just was the two of you.

“aww, you always know how to make me feel better! thanks.” you sweetly compliment him for a second before your smile turned into a frown.

at the corners of your peripheral, johnny, jungwoo, mark, donghyuck and yuta all averted your scrutiny. the action was obvious and quick, but what made it more suspicious was that it happened respectively like falling dominos. although they did typical and cliché gestures of escapism from your response, still they pretended to ignore you either with their hands shoved in pockets or whistles of their own song.

a surrendering huff caught taeyong’s attention. you never sighed nor show any emotions of distress before and this was a little concerning to him. “what’s wrong y/n?” he turned around to see the others minding their own business despite taeyong already realising the edginess they showed.

“can you help me figure something out with them?” you begged as you tilted your gently slightly to the side. “it’s been weeks and i have no idea why they’re acting this way. am i that unapproachable compared to my seniors?”

taeyong suddenly pursed his lips to a small circle as if he was hiding some top secret information that was ‘exclusive for members only’. “oh- y’know.” he nodded quite repetitively but with hesitating breaks in between. he knew what you were going to ask him since it hasn’t been the first time. he usually could dodge your curiosity and wondered why he couldn’t now. “they’re p-probably just chilling.. like always.. yep.” he popped the ‘p’ and stood. “i’m sure it’s because they’re tired from rehearsals!”

things couldn’t just get any weirder. you squinted your eyes as you scooted in closer to him. “you’re stuttering. you never do that.” you pointed out, observing his wavering eyes. “do you know something-”

he stammered and gently pushed you away a little like it would stop you from asking further. “i-i don’t know what you’re talking a-about.”

“hm you sure about that?” you hummed and he mouthed a ‘yes’. “you don’t know what’s coming after you if i figure it out buddy.”

“i’m sure, y/n. stop being a worrywart.” taeyong pinched your cheeks. “i’ll let know you right away if i hear anything out of the ordinary.”

“uh-huh. jaehyun’s the one i think who’s ’out of the ordinary’. we never talked. just hi’s and bye’s and he doesn’t smile at me.” you commented as you spotted him at the entrance door. “bummer, i really find him good-looking..” your phone buzzed a message from your leader. technically he wasn’t, but a person in-charge of your schedules to teach other idol groups.

somehow you felt a wave of relief that you would be out of the venue for the day. it would be assuring to not be around 127 for a while when they behaved like they did. who knew thinking too much would bring exhaustion? this was more tiring than dancing. a lot more. you swung your phone to taeyong, telling him that you were going to leave. “i gotta go, see you.”

“oh, alright. take care.” taeyong waved subtly, confused as to why you suddenly spoke of jaehyun out of the blue.

you let out a long sigh and exited the venue with thoughts of wonder; they were good people and most definitely you were the approachable type, so why were they keeping distance besides taeyong? johnny, yuta and donghyuck were super friendly, and it’s unlike them to suddenly keep quiet. mark and jungwoo were fun to tease; seeing the expressions they usually don’t put on around you was really fishy. taeil and doyoung have similar affection for you because you were like a little sister and.. jaehyun?

well.. jaehyun’s jaehyun, and among them, he was the far-fetched one. that was what you felt from him,

from the beginning.

because every single time you crossed paths, he would look away right when you locked eyes with him. there was no smile, no expression.

nothing at all.

maybe it pinched your heart a little. and maybe there would be a right time for this. just maybe not today. hopefully that wouldn’t extend for another month. hopefully you would get to talk to him like you did with the rest of them. it was a challenging to be patient when you’ve kind of taken a liking on jaehyun despite the inexplainable treatment. he was.. cute.

once you were out of the group’s sight, jaehyun came in with a duffle bag and a beanie— that basically made his hair in a frenzy- along with taeil & doyoung. he had his arms frantically shaking as if he was trying to reason out. “i can’t hold a normal conversation without tensing up.” he dropped his belongings and joined the crowd, not noticing the growing smirks slowly coming into view from his friends.

“and you think choosing to freeze and stare would make her talk to you?” taeil asked straight up. “that’s called cowardice bro.”

jaehyun combed his hair back and wore his beanie again when the focus was shifted to him. “no it’s not. it’s called being shy.. i guess.” he crossed his arm, unsure of his answer as well.

mark took a sip of watermelon juice, later eyeing a bowl sitting peacefully on one side of the table for seconds. “hyung, do you expect to get closer to y/n if you act like that though?” he gave johnny a side-eye as he hid his smile behind the cup, to whom the latter responded the same.

“all of us are trying to keep quiet of your ecstasy towards her like you asked us to.” jungwoo implored because what was done has to be said eventually. “and now she thinks we’re hiding something from her, i can feel her suspicions for the past weeks.”

“did you make it obvious?” jaehyun hissed a little. “i warned you to act natural-”

johnny wrapped the young man in his arms, earning laughs from the others. “the one who’s not acting natural is you. i thought you’re a straight-forward kind of guy. this should be a piece of cake for you.”

“everyone, please come to the center.” their manager called them to gather up, informing details regarding the next schedule for the week.

sm town concert was just a week away and they’ve been practicing nonstop for it. the exhaustion on their faces fled when the manager said something that would make the fans see them in a different light. some staff giggled at their reactions, some told them to go with it, the rest just wanted to see how it would turn out to be. the boys weren’t expecting it, not at a sudden time like this when they’ve gotten the rundown memorised already.

normally they complied and no arguments were brought forwards. now they managed to scream all vocabularies to reason out that another dance routine would make them more exhausted than before. “we’re not pulling a prank nor a hidden camera if that’s what you’re thinking. anyway, the added part is around a minute interlude.. it’s before the actual track. only one of you will dance it.”

yeses and cheers of relief made majority of the staff exchange looks because they weren’t finish with the information they received. “this interlude is by volunteer, so whoever wants to do it just raise your hand or come up front.” the manager instructed as he wrote down the minutes, later both of his brows arched high forasmuch to his surprise, the decision was quickly decided; it would usually take the boys a while. “oh! thanks for being cooperative, jaehyun! the rehearsal starts tomorrow...”

jaehyun’s head never shot up as fast as it did just now. he didn’t pay attention to the short meeting and since all of the voices were indistinct to him, he was astonished with hearing his name being said. he wondered why they concluded with him doing the interlude. in his head a second ago, he was coming up with plans to finally— and normally— conversate with you. and upon turning around, his friends failed to keep their snickers in. they all simultaneously took a step back, leaving the dimpled boy remain standing in his position.

“...and take ten, then we’ll proceed to the last two songs for today.” the manager left the boys for a break.

wheezing breaths and heavy falls on the floor were soon followed by exploding laughters. they were like fireworks, jolting the nerves out of jaehyun and he rolled his eyes at his friends’ intentions to tease him. “that’s not fair, you guys plotted against me.” he pinched the bridge of his nose when a flush of betrayal finally covered his entire conscience.

they laughed since it was a reaction they expected, but more so when he missed out the most crucial information. “oh my g- he doesn’t know! hahaha!” haechan and jungwoo clung onto each other for support. it was too much to handle.

yuta scooted close to johnny, who had his phone up the whole time. “that was on record, yeah?” he asked and the latter grinned devilishly.

“rgha!” jaehyun growled, soon accepting the role that was predestined to him. “i swear john if you-”

“he didn’t really hear it!” mark cut him off and joined the younger ones, hitting each other and as they couldn’t believe that jaehyun, could be this dense. “wow this is insane!”

jaehyun’s ears turned faint pink. he didn’t like the excessive attention he was getting from his friends, and he has no idea what the sudden outbursts were all about. “hear what, exactly?” he had a petulant expression and shifted his weight on one leg as he waited for the answer.

taeyong choked a giggle at his question. it was similar with yours when you innocently asked earlier. “jaehyun, he said the other half of the remix duet is y/n. you’ll dance with her tomorrow, and until the concert.”

his heart pumped so fast that he didn’t know how to react; whether it was due to obvious fact that he would see you again for the third time this week, or it was your name and his.. in the same sentence.

━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━

if there was something you didn’t like to experience again in your life, that would be spraying your nose in public. good grief, and it had to happen nearby the boys. you shut your eyes closed at the sprinkly yet piercing shock rising up from the nostrils to your head. after few seconds of calming down, youngjoon pat your head as if that would bring you comfort. not really.

“i thought hana’s doing the nct dance duet?” you rubbed the small tears from the corners of your eyes, the striking pain still lingered around your senses a little.

he shrugged that his shoulders the action made you think he has something to do with the sudden change of plans. but assuming too much would ruin your mood and affect the way you dance later, so you let it slide for today.

“i’m your senior. you’ll do what i decided on,” he gave you his phone; the title of the track was one that you were told to choreograph. “it’s about time your monitoring days are over. anyway, you’ll dance with..” youngjoon trailed off himself.

you scanned the spacious venue to figure who he was referring to. none came into your mind until jaehyun walked past by you, and youngjoon pulled him close. “ah! with him!”

oh great, i’m dancing with mr. far-fetched.

staring off into space, taeyong appeared briefly in your peripheral, mouthing that jaehyun ‘volunteered’ for the interlude— which didn’t really add up why he would decide to do this performance when he hasn’t talked to you at all.

it was funny how friendly and warm jaehyun was to your fellow choreographers. he would smile freely and offer spare bottles or snacks. however, he looked stiff now and you craved for answers for strange his behaviour. still, you would be lying to yourself if you said he somehow made you.. squirmy, in a good way.

“let’s work well.” he heard you speak as you began to walk to the centre of the venue, jaehyun soon following you from behind.

he noticed the boys sitting on bleachers for a break, secretly snapping pictures to tease him later on. they mouthed and told him to talk— he was leaving you hanging and making a lady wait for a response was not a gentleman thing to do. he was stunned with your natural beauty and to think you were before him, just made him realise that this was the chance,

to get closer.

because remembering what taeyong told him yesterday, his friends told him to step up his game after it was revealed you found him good-looking. that alone should be enough for jaehyun to have the courage to hold a conversation with you. soon jaehyun cleared his throat, pulled his t-shirt collar and bit his inner gums. “yeah, likewise.” jaehyun cleared his throat. “this should be easy. where should we begin?”

“this is the track we’re dancing to.” you fished out your phone to let him listen to the new version, noticing how youngjoon nod at you.

the said man approached, whispering words that had you wanting to facepalm. a gasp escaped your lips and jaehyun raised a brow in curiosity. “i’m gonna kill her-” your face bubbled up in subtle anger.

jaehyun couldn’t hear much, the volume of the interlude was loud enough to make your voices inaudible. he wasn’t good at lip reading too, but he felt different when his eyes met with yours. a smile you wore earlier flattened, your positivity was still there, yet little did he know the changes made on the spot. youngjoon walked back to the mixer and made jaehyun’s hair a mess.

oh how the gods and goddesses of love must’ve liked shooting arrows continuously at his barely-comprehending mind. he almost ran out of breath hearing those words come out of your mouth and he knew it wasn’t going to be that easy for him.

because to him you were a beautiful distraction.

he recalled how you first met in the practice room during kick-it era; comfy clothes, a chill person with light make-up colours and pretty much his friends instantly introduced themselves. he wished that he was close to you as taeyong was. hopefully by the time the whole concert video was out, fans wouldn’t make a meme out of him given the fact that they did when mc-ing for broadcasts, he unknowingly created a gap between himself and other girl groups.

half an hour had passed and perhaps at this minute, you decided to take back what you said; that they were fast learners. proven you wrong, again. some of them were but jaehyun kept messing up and you were close to losing your patience. he couldn’t get things right. whenever you asked him if he was alright, he claimed to have gotten the hang of the steps taught earlier.

what a lie that was. so far he has stepped your shoes, bumped you though they were minor, and missed some moves. what made you teeth grit was that he looked like he wasn’t aware he did those at all.

ugh look at him. he can do better than this. if he doesn’t catch up, i’m requesting for another member to dance with me.

although he quickly memorised his solo part before dancing with you, the one second break in between have already made him forget the next step. he wasn’t in the right mind, he knew that much and was continuously questioned himself why he lost concentration. dancing with naeun was an exemption. she was a fellow mc, and even then he was shy to hold her hand. but this? this was different. this was more than just holding hands. this included skinship he has never done before, let alone executing intimate movements.

“pretend you’re pulling a lever as she flicks her hips side and back the second time. your hands should be by her hips.” youngjoon instructed, observing jaehyun’s shaky movements at the mirror reflection with reference from the video you sent him before. “good. jae, body wave to the left. y/n to the right and both swing your shoulders outwards..”

but if he wasn’t in the right mind, you were slowly getting there too. the more you were faced with jaehyun, the more you head became fuzzy. you could feel yourself heating up and this wasn’t due to the dance at all. “y/n, caress his jaw and grab him close.”

jaehyun gulped, trying not mind his friends and focus on the routine. “oi, step in closer.” your senior said, nudging the boy at the back. “i said closer like you’re hugging her- ah.” youngjoon realised he made a mistake. the boy froze again and his figure hovered you, the lights above blocked by his shocked expression.

you were falling back.

at this rate, both of you might cause the other an embarrassment of a lifetime. you braced for impact and it was written on your face. jaehyun saw how you shut your eyes. he was afraid of injuring you and somehow did the unthinkable; not even his friends expected that from him and were worried the big guy might crush you. he flipped you around the moment you both were inches above the ground, landing on him instead. “mfgh. ow.” you heard him groan, followed by few gasps and shocked voices.

hesitantly, you opened an eye and felt his palms around your torso. he too had a sour face from the fall. “that was close.” jaehyun squinted you take a peek of you and let out a sigh, which already brought guilt showering over you. “glad you’re not injured-”

“are you two alright?” hana with concern, asked as others repeated the same question.

you got up to sit on your calves in apology but soon spotted hana and youngjoon grinning like their plan worked. so they did have something to do with this. “are you an idiot??” you sighed with a drumming heart, taking jaehyun aback. “you’re performing in two days and it’s best if i’m injured than you are.”

“hey, you’re dancing too..” jaehyun chuckled though was surprised with your sudden fits and tone of your voice, standing up to lend a hand. “..so it’s best if you’re not injured.”

he waited for you to respond to his offer and as you took it, you felt a painful throb at the left ankle. tsk, must’ve twisted a bit it when we fell. dammit jaehyun. you cleared your throat loudly. it came out more of a growl in an annoyed tone. “look, i don’t think you get it. you have two days to practice and there‘s only one you. there are many dancers who can replace me-”

“no, i don’t think you get it. you’re the only one who knows the choreography. you’re basically irreplaceable.”

perhaps if this was told to you in a different sight, you would be squirmy and walking on flowers now. but this was nothing of it. you had to remain professional and set your personal feelings aside.

“not unless if another dancer perfects the dance in two days..” you trailed off.

“okay okay, stop the talking and continue where you both left off. a fall like that shouldn’t be a reason why you’re quarrelling.” youngjoon clapped his hands, moving you in front of jaehyun to start from the top.

when you said that, jaehyun was unsure why you were suddenly irritated. he held his position for the duet before speaking words that had you all fluttery again. “well, i’m dancing with you and staff said it’s final.”

━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━

the following day, your ankle swelled overnight and informed that you would teach jaehyun and yeri, whom you’ve chosen to be his dance partner— the only idol available prior to nct 127’s performance. you crossed arms, observing how she got the steps quicker than jaehyun. “i want you to pop your hips a little more and match the timing with jaehyun. look at him intently before he holds your hand and you letting go.”

a pout then was seen on her face, hesitant and shy to do what you instructed. “i know it’s weird but i’d like you to think what you’re doing is art..” you tried to sound encouraging and later saw jaehyun taking a break at the far end of the stage. “just expressed in forms of movements.”

yeri stifled a laugh, feeling a lot better now she saw how you looked at her fellow label-mate. “yeah that’s not how jaehyun sees it-” she hushed immediately for speaking her thoughts. “y/n, how has he not learned his part yet? didn’t you teach him yesterday?”

“trust me i did! jaehyun’s a great artist but he just doesn’t seemed focused like i imagined him to be.” you took a bite from your sandwich, and yeri giggled that you unconsciously ignored the first half of her sentence. “i mean his solo was a 15-second one. i don’t see why he would forget the rest of the 35-seconds.”

she pursed her lips and took sight of taeyong winking at her, hinting your density with these situations. “well i think he actually got the steps now.” she arched her brows, pointing at the direction where jaehyun was at. “i heard he works hard alone- not that i’m offending you! you’re a great teacher and dancer!”

you smiled as you crumpled the plastic wrap and tossed it in the bin. “none taken, i kinda understand why he would be nervous around me.”

her ears perked up and pulled you to the side. “ooh ooh you do? what is it? i’m in for the tea!”

“i pull a resting face while i monitor them. probably why he found it hard to approach me. he thinks i’m the kind who doesn’t want to be disturbed.” you and yeri walked further off the stage to sit at the very front.

she held her chest hearing how awful you might’ve felt from him. “aw that’s bitter tea! y/n i’m sure he doesn’t think that way! it just takes time, might be longer than the other guys but you’ll get there.”

“get to where?”

“to being friends, and not only the professional level.”

at another side of it, taeyong and the rest heard the whole conversation. they shared looks knowing that they had to relay the news to jaehyun, who was staring at you giggling away with yeri. he met eyes with them and had a thin lipped smile, walking towards his friends. “you guys are weird, quit the creepy smiles.”

doyoung smacked the boy’s head for the density his currently possessed. “do you know the impression she has on you?”

“who? yeri?”

now it was taeil’s turn to smack his head. “y/n, you dimwit.” he sighed, looking at your silhouette under dimmed light then onto jaehyun. “she thinks you’re great..”

“but what you do around her seems to have shown you’re not interested in her.” jungwoo completed his sentence.

jaehyun never felt so attacked by both from them and the facts thrown upon him. “what? no! i am interested in her!”

“then tell her that. it isn’t that hard to say you’re interested in being friends.” haechan bent to release the tension in his muscles.

they wanted to encourage him a little more yet were then called to stand-by for another practice, with the interlude as the beginning. the signal from the staff have ordered for the lightings and music to be queued and readied.

mark nudged him in a strength that nearly made him fall. “hey, it’s about the right time you get closer to her,” he said in a low voice, highkey referring to your ruptured ligament on your ankle yet jaehyun seemed to have missed the point. “or else there’ll be no development.”

jaehyun chugged on his bottle in silence. “what do you mean?”

“youngjoon hyung said she’ll be on leave for weeks. i don’t know how long but if you don’t do anything now, you’ll continue to live up to the impression without even talking to her.” he explained and cringed afterwards feeling taeyong and johnny’s presence among them.

“show her that what she choreographed for us is not in vain, okay?” johnny made his hair a mess, before leaving the stage to go to where you were. the stage director said his count down. you cheered on yeri with a thumbs up and the music started its tune.

a/n: can’t seem to add song in between texts, so here’s a link instead ;-; let me know if it doesn’t work :3

it was your choreography up there, that was soon to be shown to the world, recorded to be part of the rundown and later burnt in c.d’s. you felt nervous at the fact if they would really execute what you wanted to show— the form of art you put your sweat upon even if it were just 50 seconds. when jaehyun began taking yeri’s hand after his solo part, leading her then mirroring her movements, your heart squeezed for no reason. they should be able to nail this part until the last beat of the song.

but as you clenched your chest to prevent your hands from shaking, taeyong saw your expression, convincing him enough that your reaction towards this said otherwise.

the boys usually held a small dinner a day prior to the concert, for a good show and performance. yuta decided to invite you to a japanese restaurant nearby so you wouldn’t feel left out or feel a lot distant than you already were with them.

you prepared your essentials before meeting them, the tapes of your ankle band came loose and you reached to adjust it as discomfort was all you felt for a while. jaehyun knelt down to sit across you, licking his dry lips to simmer the nervousness he felt inside. “do you need help?” he asked when you looked up to notice his presence. “or is there anything i can do to help?”

“y-yeah. it needs a proper tightness to it.” you gave a faint nod. he smiled and held your left leg to rest it on his thigh.

silence was slowly killing him, he had to admit that at least. now that you both conversed, what then? would this just be another acquaintance talk like yesterday, where it was only a mere one? nothing else to it? nothing happened?

jaehyun wanted to set the professionalism to the side, heed to his friends’ words and actually become close to you. perhaps put his feelings for you behind him for the meantime. “sorry.” he conceded, which made you confused for a second. “i’m sorry.”

“from the fall yesterday?” you stretched back that your palms were your support as he taped the band around. jaehyun shook his head, making you more confused. “then what are you apologising for?”

“for making you feel like i didn’t want to talk to you since you arrived.”

you stared at him, lips parting when you finally grasped his purpose. “oh.. that! it’s okay. i’m not expecting to be that level of friends immediately.” you chuckled awkwardly because it was a bit of a lie. i mean it took a while to be good friends with the others-”

“i’m sorry that i chose not to talk to you and it might have given you a bad impression of me.” he took your shoe so you could wear and head to the restaurant. “i guess it really is difficult to when i admire you a lot. heck i even asked my groupmates to tone down their knowledge about that because they have plans to embarrass-”

he jolted at the drop of your phone and your sigh, eyes wandering and wavering at it then looking to you. he helped you stand up and when he did too, you sighed heavier, flattened lips and a smile. “my anxiety convinced me that you hated me.” you confessed, finally letting out the worry that has been bothering you for months.

you shyly looked back at him and noticed how he was fidgety as you were. you couldn’t handle the visuals he has— even more now that he was close to you. so ethereal and magnetising.

maybe this was what the somersaults you’ve been feeling all the time. the unexplainable gut feeling that you’d be pulled into something you couldn’t handle?

it was him.

jaehyun panicked at the word. “h-hate? i don’t! not even a bit. i really like you!” he sputtered, then waving his hands to deny his feelings. “i mean like as in like you as person and your dedication to all this.”

“heh..” you both turned to the voice and taeyong smirked what he heard. “just tell her already, jae.” he pointed out, and you were left clueless as they shared the same brain cell. jaehyun’s eyes grew, hoping that his friend wouldn’t expose him, but taeyong answered him with his eyes, as if his voice was almost telepathic.

‘not confessing! you’re not at that intimacy level yet! tell y/n that you wanna hang with her!’

“i-i just wanna get closer to you?” he pondered, scratching his neck from the tornado of feelings whirling inside. “as friends, not as workmates or anything.” he waited for your response, staring in your magnetising orbs that lured him into something deeper.

“we would’ve been if we talked earlier on.” you smiled, hinting that you didn’t mind taking that step with him too. “but yeah, same here, jaehyun.”

jaehyun smiled genuinely at you for the first time, no awkwardness nor forcing himself to. “yes!” he had his fists up with ecstasy that you said his name, only to panic at the time. the dinner was already starting.

taeyong exhaled and swung his arms to let the blood flow normally. “ah, now that’s settled. let’s get to the restaurant too.”

you punched his arm and he flinched at the impact and hissed that it came out more of a question than a reaction you expected. “what you get for lying that you didn’t know anything.” you stuck a tongue out.

“and i’m supposed to pay the price for it?” he rubbed to sooth the pain. “not fair.”

walking to the backstage, you slowly lifted your foot to head down the stairs. “don’t worry, they’ll get their punches from me real soon.” you whistled.

jaehyun took your hand, supporting your weight at the same time. he couldn’t rush you in the state you’re in.

“what about jaehyun? he’s the one who did all this, and had the rest of us included.” taeyong jut his lips to point to the boy, shoving his hands in the pockets of his jackets. “he should get a punch too.”

“i’m not punching someone who wants to be closer to me. it’s not a good.. first impression.” you hid a laugh with flattened lips, jaehyun mirrored you and gave a flirty wink.

with that, he managed to magnetise you, just to make his gap with you,

closer.

#nct 127 #jaehyun oneshot #jung jaehyun #jaehyun imagines #jaehyun scenarios #jaehyun writings #jaehyun au #jaehyun fluff #jung yoonoh #nct jaehyun #jaehyun #nct #jaehyun nct #jaehyun x reader

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wiypt-writes · 3 years

Text

Stark Spangled Banner

Ch34: Paper

Summary: Following the events in Siberia, Katie, Steve Wanda and Sam all struggle to adapt to a life on the run. The Roger’s first wedding anniversary isn’t spent the way Steve would have hoped, but as Fall arrives, he finallly gets the call he’d been waiting for from Wakanda.

Warnings: Bad language, Smut! (NSFW, Under 18s) Bad Language words.

Pairing: Steve Rogers x OFC Katie Stark

A/N: Wonderful edit again from @angrybirdcr and a new part means a new banner!!!! Here we go, into the Nomad/IW years...

Disclaimer: This is a pure work of fiction and classified as 18+. Please respect this and do not read if you are underage. I do not own any characters in this series bar Katie Stark and the other OCs. By reading beyond this point you understand and accept the terms of this disclaimer.

Chapter 33

Stark Spangled Banner Masterlist // Main Masterlist

August 2016

Following advice from Coulson, the group of Outlaws decided to lay low for a few months until interest died down, although Katie and Sam were pretty amused to find out that there had been widespread protests across the US after Captain America had been declared and Enemy of the State, especially when someone (no names were mentioned, but Katie was laying odds on it being Murdock to help Clint and Scott’s very publicised hearings) had leaked to the press details of exactly what had taken place in Siberia, and how they had been treated by the Government. To Katie’s further delight, Ross was facing a public enquiry as well with regards to their unlawful arrests.

All in all, that part of it had worked out pretty well. And whilst she knew Ross would get away with it, the thought of him being pissed off and inconvenienced filled her with a very smug sense of satisfaction.

The place they were living was called the Isle of Lewis, approximately twelve miles away from Stornoway in the northern part of the inter-connected Islands in the Hebrides. Coulson wasn’t lying when he’d told Katie it was isolated, in fact the only connection to mainland Scotland was either a two hour ferry or a half hour flight, so with that respect it was absolutely perfect.

The old farm house was secluded, the land surrounding it sprawling for miles, shielded by a large thicket of trees on three sides and a cliff edge which dropped down to a small beach on the other. There was no reason for anyone to visit or pass their house, bar the odd dog walker they saw treading the cliff footpath. They were always careful when seeing people to greet them politely so they didn’t attract attention by being suspiciously aloof.

The first rule of going on the run? Don’t run.

At first they strayed into town for supply runs only. Katie was surprised just how well she adapted to living with two additional people. At first she had been worried, Steve and her having had their own space for such a long time. Even in the tower and compound their living quarters had been spacious and private, meaning they could hide away from everyone if they wanted to. But in their safe house they didn’t have that luxury. Nevertheless, it was adequate enough meaning they all had their own rooms, even if they were on the small side. And whilst there was only one full bathroom upstairs, so far there had been no squabbles about who used it when.

The large sitting area had been kitted out with a state of the art entertainment system, they had a decent sized farmhouse style Kitchen-Diner, and a smaller sitting room off the back of the kitchen with a smaller TV and a a piano much to Katie’s delight. Practical things like bills etc were coming out of an account belonging to Mr and Mrs O’Rourke, one of Katie and Steve’s covers- the name being Steve’s Ma’s maiden name. Coulson had advised them it was the least suspicious thing to do and would attract less attention than trying to pay cash at a bank. They’d also acquired a ten year old 4x4, bought for cash of course, and it was subtle enough to blend in as a lot of the locals seemed to drive them too due to the terrain and climate of the Island.

But whilst everything seemed to go according to plan and was, when all was said and done, fairly easy, Steve was struggling. He was antsy from the lack of action, and from a purely carnal point of view was missing the fact he could slam his wife up against any surface he wanted to and not worry about them being caught. He hated the fact their room was right next to Sam’s, concerned with the amount of noise they might make after Bucky’s jibe about the hotel rooms, and it wasn’t long before Katie noticed a dramatic shift in his attitude towards her. He was snappy, short tempered and Katie was often the one that bore the brunt of his temper. They bickered, on a much larger scale than she could really ever remember them doing before, over really stupid things as well like the fact one evening Steve couldn’t find where she’d put his favourite cookies in the kitchen. He became less tactile, less handsy and their love life dwindled dramatically, but she tried not to let it get to her, which was easier said than done especially when she was so used to the fact that he basically worshipped the ground she walked on.

The morning of their first wedding anniversary, Katie woke alone, her husband nowhere to be found. After laying simply staring at his empty side of the bed for a moment, remembering he blinked back tears of frustration and headed for a before she wandered downstairs into the kitchen to be greeted by Sam and Wanda both sat at the table.

“Steve gone for a run?” She asked, after greeting them both good morning.

“Yeah, I offered to go but he wanted to go on his own.” Sam said, shrugging “Didn’t want me slowing him down.”

“He actually said that?” Katie frowned.

Sam nodded.

“I’m sorry Sam, don’t take it personally.” Katie poured herself a coffee and sat down, taking a deep breath. “Is everything okay?” Wanda asked, looking at Katie “You’ve both been a little tetchy recently. Granted you haven’t been as bad as him, but…” “Yeah, you guys not err…getting enough?” Sam quipped, earning himself a slap round the back of the head from Wanda, the younger woman giving him a glare.

“Fuck off Wilson.” Katie rolled her eyes.

“I’m just saying.”

“Well don’t.” She snapped, taking a sip of her coffee then swiping a piece of toast off his plate. “He’s just not coping well with being cooped up, it’ll settled down. I hope.” She added, biting her toast.

“Look, we know it’s your anniversary today.” Wanda looked at her. “You got anything planned?” “Not really possible.” Katie shrugged. “Thought I might try and convince him to take a walk later, just the two of us but…”

“Well,” Sam looked at Wanda then over to Katie. “We thought we might head into town for the evening, hit a few bars. Give you two a bit of space.” Wanda nodded, eagerly. “You have to do something, even if it’s just cooking a meal and having a bit of you time.” Katie pondered this for a moment and found herself smiling “Actually, that’s not a bad idea. I can go to the store later.” Her spirits raised a little as she started planning a menu out in her head. She was jerked from her thoughts when the security system clicked and Steve walked through the door of the kitchen that led to the grounds, the door shutting behind him, the keypad beeping as he typed in the code to lock everything down. His T-shirt was damp with sweat, clinging to his torso, the pair of dark sweats fitting snugly to his hips.

“Hey.” She looked up at him. His face was tired but nevertheless she was relieved to see him smile as he walked over and dropped a soft kiss to her head, their argument from the previous night forgotten.

“Happy Anniversary.” He whispered, and she smiled up at him, understanding his gesture to also be an apology of sorts.

“Back at ya, Soldier.” She swallowed back her tears, “You want breakfast?” “I’ll shower first.” He nodded to Sam and Wanda before pausing, and with a playful smile he stole the last piece of toast off Sam’s plate.

“Not cool man!” Sam groaned. “That was the last of the bread.” Steve simply shrugged at Sam’s protest, before he headed down the hallway to go and freshen up. Katie watched him go before she turned to Wanda.

“Fancy coming with me to the store?”

She nodded “Sure.”

***** When Steve came back to the kitchen half an hour or so later he was surprised to find the girls gone.

“Supplies.” Sam answered his unasked question as he was flicking through the television in the lounge, settling on a British Chat Show called ‘This Morning’, easy daytime TV that didn’t require thinking about. Steve made himself a coffee before he sat down next to his friend with a sigh.

“So, first anniversary.” Sam spoke, not looking at him. “Be this isn’t what you thought you’d be doing?” “You can say that again.” Steve mumbled. Just twelve months ago at that exact time he’d been bustling about his apartment on the compound in a fluster getting ready. It had, without a doubt, been the happiest day of his life. But this was not how he wanted their first wedding anniversary to go down. He’d always planned spoiling Katie a little, maybe a nice getaway, somewhere warm, but that wasn’t an option.

“Me and Wanda are clearing out later.” Sam’s eyes remained on the TV. “Give you two a bit of alone time.” “You don’t have to-“ Steve started but Sam cut him off with a snort.

“Man, you need to make some lovin’ on your girl.” He turned to the soldier who felt a flush rise up his neck. “Because we know you ain’t been getting enough, you’ve been a bad tempered bastard for weeks.”

“I have not.” Steve shot back indignantly, causing Sam to raise his eyebrows. Steve let out a sigh, knowing he was well and truly busted.

“Look, if you two ever need some space, all ya gotta do is ask.” Sam said sincerely, looking at Steve. “Couples need that time. This is bound to be stressful for you both.”

“I doubt it’s easy on you two either.” Steve looked at him and Sam shrugged, before he smirked.

“Difference is if I wanna get laid I’ll just head into town. There’ll be some sap out there that likes George Fletcher the Geologist from Georgia.”

“You’re terrible you know that?” Steve smirked at him over his coffee mug.

Sam simply smiled back. “You get her anything?”

“Yeah.” Steve nodded “We agreed months ago on something paper themed, you know, on account of the anniversary being paper. I had planned to get the lyrics to our wedding song printed and do a sketch of one of our photos to hang up in our apartment but that kinda went out of the window.” “So what did you get?” “A book.” Steve let out a breath “I spotted it in the second hand shop in town last time we did a flyer. It’s a leather-bound complete works of Shakespeare but it was published the year she was born and has all these handwritten notes in it from someone. Just the kind of thing she’ll like. And a couple of albums of sheet music, I know she’s missing hers back home and she hasn’t been playing the piano as much as I thought she would.”

“She’ll love it.” Sam smiled encouragingly “I hope so Sam.” he sighed, leaning back against the couch cushions, scratching at his chin “I hope so.” *****

True to their word, Sam and Wanda headed out just after five, leaving Katie and Steve alone. As Katie bustled around in the kitchen, Steve couldn’t help but watch his wife as she cooked, a small smile playing on his face. And then, realising they were truly alone for the first time in months he placed his beer down on the side and crossed the small room, wrapping his arms around her from behind and dropping his chin to her shoulder, nuzzling at her neck. She smiled at his display of affection, something she’d been aching for, and as the scruff of his almost-beard scratched at her skin she gave a soft sigh.

“You okay?” she asked.

“Yeah.” He said, before he shook his head “No. Not really. Doll, I’m sorry for being so distant. You don’t deserve this.” He sighed. “After the accords, when the dust settled we were supposed to have a normal life, a simple life. I can’t even give you that.”

“It’s a good thing you’re cute because at times you’re incredibly stupid,” She smiled making him breathe a laugh. “Steve we’re here, together after everything. I made that vow, until death do us part and I mean it. I love you.” She finished simply, shrugging. “So stop wasting time worrying about it. You’re stuck with me, Captain Dumbass.“

Steve looked back at her, before he gave her a small smile.

"Now I know this probably isn’t what either of us had in mind, but we’re on our own, I’ve got a pretty large batch of Mac and Cheese, and an apple pie in the oven, a steak ready to grill so let’s just try and enjoy it.”

“You made mac and cheese?” Steve’s face creased into a boyish smile “And apple pie? What happened to not baking pies unless it’s Autumn?” “Well its September tomorrow.” She shrugged. “And I thought it might cheer you up.”

"Sorry.” He half grimaced, half smiled apologetically back at her. “I know I haven’t been the easiest to be around lately ─”

“Stop apologizing.” She interrupted him again.

He studied her for a second before he leaned down to give her a soft kiss. “I love you.” “I know.” Her hands slid down to his chest and she gave him a quick pat before playfully shoving him away “Now scoot, unless you want me to burn dinner. Go set the table.” Knowing better than to refuse, he did as he was told and it wasn’t long before they were settled down and eating. They talked about everything and anything, drank wine, and to the pair of them they could almost have been sat in their dining room at the compound. They laughed, they joked, they poked fun at one another. It felt normal. Once they had finished eating they cleared their dishes, Steve grabbed another bottle of wine and they headed to the couch to find something to watch on TV.

“I got you something.” Katie smiled when Steve dropped the wine onto the coffee table and she gestured to the small gift bag resting on the table.

“Oh, me too. Hang on.” He bounded up the stairs to retrieve his gift. As he returned, Katie eyed the two wrapped items with playful suspicion as he handed them to her. One was really heavy. She passed the gift bag containing his to him and he peeked inside, and they shared a childish grin with one another before they set about opening their presents.

“Oh, Steve.” She breathed out as she gently ran her hands over the leather of the anthology he had bought her. Flicking through, she smiled as she spotted all the notes that someone had written in the margins. They consisted of opinions on the plays, themes, characterisation plots, all the type of thing she had studied at University and she found it fascinating to read other people’s interpretations.

“I thought you might like it.” He watched her as she looked at him, her eyes bright, before she then let out another sigh of happiness when she opened the two sheet music books as they would give her something else to play other than the stuff she knew from memory.

And her gift to Steve was equally as thoughtful. He positively beamed when he opened the new blank sketch books, pencils, wax crayons and charcoals. All of his art supplies had been left behind and he’d been dying to get some more.

“Well, the sketchbook is paper.” Katie explained softly. “And I know it relaxes you to draw.” “Doll, its perfect” He assured her, dropping a kiss to her lips. “Thank you.”

“So, what film do you wanna watch?” She asked, moving for the remote but Steve had no intention of watching a film. Not now. He gently grabbed her wrist and she looked at him.

“Right now, Mrs Rogers, I’d really like to carry you upstairs and take you to bed.”

Katie grinned. “Well that can be arranged, but there’s something I wanna do first.”

He looked at her, puzzled for a moment but when she tapped on her phone and the opening sounds of ‘Only One in Colour’ sounded over the speakers he laughed and stood up, offering her his hand.

“May I have this dance?” He quipped, arching an eyebrow at her.

“Always.” She smiled, allowing him to pull her up.

They moved to the back of the couch where there was more room and he took her in a hold and they simply stayed close, swaying to the music, both of them thinking back to their first dance as a married couple twelve months ago. Katie pressed her cheek to Steve’s chest and he in turn rest his chin on the top of her head, revelling in her closeness. He heard her let out a soft sigh, but this one was contentment, and he gently moved to look down at her. For a moment Katie felt her breath catch, he was looking at her with nothing but unadulterated desire and love, the same way he had on their wedding day, and before the song had even finished, he’d captured her lips in a soft kiss, his hands moving to cradle her face. Hers fisted in his white T-shirt and it wasn’t long before the kiss had deepened causing a moan to catch in Steve’s throat. Without a word he pulled back and scooped her up in his arms, bridal style, causing her to giggle, a sound he would never tire of, and quick as a flash he carried her up the stairs and into the bedroom.

He set her on her feet but before he had time to do anything she’d shoved him backwards, catching him off guard slightly causing him to sit down harshly on the bed and he let out a smirk as she straddled him before she kissed him again and he was happy to reciprocate exactly how he knew she liked, firm and gentle, passionate and caring all at once. Katie gently bit his lower lip drawing another groan from his throat as he rest his head against hers, his hands gently gipping her hip.

“You know,” She drew back slightly to cup his face in her fingertips. “I really do like kissing you with this.” she traced her hand across the short beard on his face. She also liked looking at him with it too because, coupled with the fact his hair was also getting slightly longer, it gave him a rugged, harder, rougher look taking him farther and farther away from the Blue-Eyed all American boy day by day.

“I’m getting used to it.” He murmured pressing a soft kiss to her mouth before his head dropped, small kisses trailing up the length of her neck, that precious stubble creating an amazing contrast to the softness of his mouth.

“Yeah, me too.” She gave a soft moan, her eyes closed as she rolled her head back, giving him access to more of her neck. Steve smiled slightly, happy to oblige and just take his god damned time loving his wife. Eventually, his lips made their way up her jaw and then she sat up slightly, grasping at the hem of his T-shirt. He moved to allow her to take it off and then his fingers made short work of the sleeveless button down she had been wearing, shrugging it down over her shoulders before he peppered more kisses across her collar bone and down her sternum as he reached round to undo her bra. Gently, he lay her flat down on the bed, taking a nipple in his mouth, this time drawling a loud groan from her as her hips bucked involuntarily upwards at the sensations spiking through her body.

God it really had been far too long since he’d lavished attention on her like this and Steve made a mental note to tell Sam and Wanda to ‘take a walk’ a lot more often. It was almost two months now since they had last been intimate and, his body was aching for her, desperate to feel her, and from the noises she was making she felt the same. His lips made their way down, nose and beard skimming along the waistband of her jeans before he undid them, sliding them down with her underwear as he shed his own too before he crawled back over her.

Katie pushed on his shoulders slightly so she could roll him over and placed herself on top of him, brushing her lips across the hairs on his face tracing a path across from one side of his jawline to the other drawing a gentle moan from his lips, hands flexing on her hips as she shifted slightly to start taking him in. Her mouth dropped into a small ‘o’ as they both groaned as she slid down him, her hands falling to his chest and once he was fully sheathed inside of her, she began to work him gently. His hands slid up into her hair, as she leaned forward to kiss him and he raised his hips slightly and she whimpered, pushing down harder against him as his hands gently kneaded at her breasts. Her pace was slow, torturously so, but it wasn’t long before she began to move faster, working him harder as she chased her relief. The roughness of his pubic hair was grinding against her spot, the friction feeling amazing as she pushed down. With every push she made, his eyes grew darker, and darker, his hands digging into her hips as he pulled her down, grinding further and deeper.

He sat up suddenly, so they were face to face, the change of angle making her cry out, as he slid his hands round her back, pulling her closer to him as he bent to kiss her neck, biting at that spot whilst he held her still for a moment, gently thrusting upwards, deeply, slowly, savouring the moment. Katie rolled her head back, a louder cry this time tumbling from her lips and he felt her tighten around him, and he let out a groan of his own.

“Good?” He panted, smiling as she managed a broken noise of affirmation, as he pulled her to him harder, hands back on her hips as his rutting picked up speed.

“Stevie…” She mumbled, her eyes locking onto his as her hands slid up his back and fisted into his hair. A few more pushes later and they were both done for, her name escaping from his lips as her walls collapsed completely, and she let out a soft cry as she fell forward burying her face in his neck. He was close behind, letting out a gentle moan, his beard rustling against her ear as he jerked underneath her, clinging onto her as if he never wanted to let her go. And at that moment he didn’t.

After a minute or so he leaned back, his breathing deep as he brushed her hair back off her face before sliding his nose against hers. “Happy Anniversary, Kitten.” *******

Steve thought the fall in New York was gorgeous but that was nothing compared to what it was like where they were. He was feeling a lot more positive about things as well, as post their anniversary, he and Katie had made a pact that they would do something alone together at least once a week, be it a walk along the cliff the beach, or straying into town to one of the local restaurants. His hair and beard now rendered him pretty much unrecognisable and they never got a second glance at all.

Steve’s favourite ‘date’, if you could them that, was the walk they took in the pitch black to see the Northern Lights late one evening. Katie had been utterly captivated by the beauty of the Aurora Borealis and Steve had to admit, it was spectacular. Committing it to memory was easy, and a few days later Katie wasn’t surprised to find a perfect replica of them his sketch book.

Being on the run shouldn’t have been this easy, and they were constantly on edge, waiting for the time they had to split and run, but whilst they could, they made the most of it.

Thanksgiving came, then Christmas, the four friends making it as festive as possible. They got a tree, shared gifts, enjoyed a Christmas Meal, and after several drinks each, Steve wheeled the piano into the living room where Sam and Katie gave a rousing rendition of ‘Fairy Tale of New York’ along with a few other Christmas songs. It was different, but that didn’t make it any less enjoyable.

And then, in March 2017, they had a call from T’Challa. They were ready to bring Bucky out of cryo. Katie and Steve instantly set about making the arrangements to go to Wakanda, but it turns out they weren’t the only ones planning on taking a little trip…

“There’s something I wanted to discuss with you all.” Wanda said, the morning they were due to depart. “Please don’t freak out, but I talked to Vision last night.”

“What?” Katie’s voice was quiet as she merely looked back at the younger woman, her face passive.

Meanwhile, both Steve and Sam’s eyebrows shot up in their foreheads.

“Hold on, what do you mean you talked to Vision?” Steve asked. “How? Where?”

“This is going to sound really weird, but I saw him in my dreams,” Wanda carried on with her explanation.

“How do you know that wasn’t just a dream?” Sam asked.

“Because it wasn’t,” Wanda shrugged “I don’t know how to explain it, but I know it was him and I know it was real. I think we are connected somehow, because of the Mind Stone and because I was thinking about him before I went to sleep, it made some kind of telepathy possible.”

Steve pondered it for a second, thinking to himself how ridiculous that sounded until he realised they were talking about an enhanced human who had gained certain telepathic and telekinetic powers due to experimentation with the Mind Stone and an android that now carried within his synthetic, vibranium-mesh body said gem.

When you put it like that it seemed fairly logical.

"What did you talk about?” Katie asked after a moment.

“Just stuff, how I was, how much we, you know, miss one another” Wanda bit her lip. “We talked about actually meeting in person in a few days.”

“Okay, hold on,” Sam held one of his hands up, his brow furrowed. “How do we know this is not a trap? Like, I don’t know, Tony getting Vision to talk to you to get us back into the Raft?”

As soon as Sam said it Katie shook her head. Tony could sometimes be a jackass and he may have been hurt and mad at her and Steve, but she knew despite his stinging barb in Siberia, he wouldn’t want them all thrown in jail.

“He wouldn’t do that,” She looked at Sam.

“How do you know?” Sam pressed.

“Because Tony has way better tech than us, and there’s no accounting for what Vision can do with that Mind Stone.” Steve backed his wife up. This was something he had been pondering on for a while now too. “If anyone can find us, it’s them, yet we’re almost ten months down the line now since Leipzig and so far, there’s no sign of any one, so Tony’s either no longer working with Ross, or if he is, he’s dragging his feet deliberately.”

“Exactly,” Wanda nodded emphatically. “And Vision would never do anything to hurt me, not intentionally. I trust him with my life, but it’s more than that.”

Taking a deep breath, his mind made up, Steve turned to Wanda “You’re not a prisoner here Wanda. If you want to go then we can’t and we won’t stop you.”

“Do you want to go?” Katie looked at the younger woman who was wringing her hands together.

“I do but, well, I kinda feel like I’m fraternizing with the enemy.”

“He’s not the enemy. None of them are. Not Vision or Rhodey, Not Tony, none of them.” Steve ran his hand through his hair, sweeping the long strands back off his face. “We all wanted the same thing, to do good in this world but we disagreed on how best to make it happen. Doesn’t make us enemies.”

“But we’re on the run because…”

“This was always going to happen.” Katie cut her off, shaking her head “Ever since SHIELD collapsed and Fury stepped away there was a power vacuum. It was only a matter of time before the Government tried to step in to oversee us.”

“And let’s face it, I was always going to be considered a rogue threat the moment I refused to comply” Steve said, a wry smile on his face. “We all were.”

“Just be careful.” Katie looked at Wanda. “And whilst we’re away just make sure you check in once in a while? And the first sign of trouble, well, let’s hope it doesn’t come to that.”

“Well if Wanda’s being granted shore leave so to speak, I might take a bit of time too.” Sam chipped in as the idea came to him. “There’s an old RAF pal of mine, based near Liverpool that I aint seen in a while. He’s cool,” he anticipated the next question, “I saved his life on a mission so he won’t sell me out.” Steve took a deep breath and then shrugged “You know the risks, Sam. If any of us get caught then…” “Back to the Pokey.” Sam shrugged “Yeah, I got it. And don’t worry, I wouldn’t rat your location out.”

“Me neither.” Wanda added.

“I don’t for a second believe you would.” Steve shook his head.

“I suppose, to be fair,” Katie bit her lip, “we’ve been here for a long time now. It won’t harm us to disappear for a while, regroup in a few weeks. And we’ll draw even less attention apart as they won’t be expecting it.” And so, for the first time in ten months, the four went their separate ways. ****** True to his word, Steve was there when they woke Bucky up. Once he had come round the two greeted one another with the same love and affection they always did. Suri’s scans showed that the programming was no longer present in Bucky’s brain, but there was one last thing they had to do to make sure.

Say the trigger words.

Which was why Katie, Steve, a one armed Bucky and T’Challa were now heading to the underground fort of the palace. Katie clutching a rifle, Steve was unarmed bar his super strength, whilst T’Challa was in his black panther garb, the party flanked by two members of his Kings Guard.

As they were about to enter the underground cell, Bucky grabbed Katie’s arm and pulled her to one side.

“What the hell Bucky?” She almost yelped, and he let go of her arm and held his finger to his lips.

“Listen, Doll Face, I got a favour to ask. If this hasn’t worked…” He took a deep breath. “I want you to end it.”

“End what?” She arched an eyebrow at him. “Me.” He replied simply “Steve said you’re a good shot. I want you to put a bullet in my head.” Katie blinked, and then burst out laughing. “Whatever.” “I’m being deadly serious.” Bucky looked at her. “I can’t and I don’t want to live like that anymore.” He shook his head sadly. “I’d rather die that know that what they’ve done is still in there.” “Bucky,” Katie frowned, “you’d be safe here, you know that, no one would trigger you.” “No, we don’t know that.” He shook his head. “Please Katie, I’m begging you. You owe me.” “So you save my life and you want me to take yours?” “Yeah. Pretty much.”

“You’re an asshole, James Buchanan Barnes” She hissed, glaring at him before shooting a glance over his shoulder at where Steve was stood, talking to T’Challa. She shook her head sadly. “I can’t. It’d kill Steve and it’s wrong, you don’t…”

“Listen, I’m asking you because I trust you to do it.” Bucky cut her off, looking over his shoulder to where she had been watching Steve. He was now stood observing the pair of them and they both smiled at him. Katie took a deep breath, looking into Bucky’s steel blue eyes and gave a sigh. She knew how hard this was on him and she could fully understand where he was coming from but still, asking her to do it, especially when she knew Steve would be besides himself made her feel sick.

“I’ve written him a letter.” Bucky said quickly, as the Super Soldier was now making his way over. “It explains what I’ve asked you to do. So please, give me your word.”

She looked at him, swallowing, and gave him a small nod before her eyes flicked to Steve as he approached, a frown on his face.

“You two alright?”

“Yeah, Katie was just asking me how I was really feeling.” Bucky looked at his friend.

Katie shrugged and smiled at Steve in what she hoped as a convincing way “Wanted to make sure he was alright, that’s all.”

Steve studied her for a moment, and she smiled again before he turned to Bucky. “It’s gonna be ok.” Steve assured his friend, clapping him on his shoulder, shooting another glance at his wife who was nervously chewing her lip. He frowned again, but pushed the suspicion to the back of his mind and then nodded. “Come on.” “Yeah, let’s get this over with.” Bucky mumbled.

Steve and T’Challa stepped into the room which was sealed whilst Katie took up her position on the other side of the one way glass with Suri who pressed the microphone to talk into the room.

““I don’t know why you are all worrying, brother, it is like you do not trust me…” the young woman scoffed. “Take no chances Sister.” T’Challa shot back. “You know this”.

Suri made a noise in her throat and then spoke again “Ok, I’m ready when you are.” She held the red book in her hand that they had recovered from Zumo. T’Challa engaged his helmet whilst Steve stood stoic as ever, throwing a glance over his shoulder to the glass he knew his wife was stood at the other side of.

“Ready Buck?” he asked turning back. His friend nodded, taking a deep breath.

T’Challa signalled to Suri who, after a little hesitation, began to read, each word punctuated by a pause.

“Longing, Rusted, Seventeen, Daybreak, Furnace…”

Katie watched intently and saw Bucky was clenching his teeth and suddenly she started to get a little bit nervous. She wasn’t the only one that had spotted it either. Steve moved slightly, adopting a little more of a battle stance than he had been as he clocked his friends reaction.

“Nine, Benign, Homecoming, One, Freight Car”

The last words hit Steve like a truck. It was depraved that Hydra would use those words. Bucky had plunged from a train car to his supposed death. There was no randomness to that at all, unlike the seemingly obscure nature of the rest of the words, nor was it any accident it was the last trigger they would use. There were the final words because they signified the death of Bucky and the birth of the killer Winter Soldier.

Sick bastards.

Bucky’s chest was heaving, his fist was clenching, and for a split second Steve feared the worse. But when his friend looked up, he saw the blue eyes of Bucky Barnes looking back at him, and not the icy glare of the Winter Soldier.

“Buck?” He asked gently, his voice cracking slightly. Bucky looked at him, a single tear falling down his cheek.

“Nothing.” He croaked, and Katie let out a soft sigh of relief, her hands sliding down her face to cover her mouth. “Nothing.”

T’Challa threw a party of sorts that night which consisted of a bar crawl through the city. Katie and Bucky dubbed it a ‘Fuck HYDRA’ party much to Steve’s chagrin. But he couldn’t bring himself to care that much, as at the end of the day, if anyone had as much right to stick their middle fingers up to HYDRA it was them. There was still something troubling him though, so when T’Challa left the bar they were sat at for a few moments, he turned to Bucky and asked him outright what had been going on with him and Katie outside the cell before. Bucky hesitated before he hung his head slightly and peered up at Steve from where he was sat next to him, a tumbler of some kind of Wakandan alcohol in his hand.

“I asked her to kill me.” Bucky admitted, swilling the liquid round in the glass “If it hadn’t worked I asked her to put a bullet in my head. She didn’t want to but I told her she owed me.” Steve felt himself blanche. “You did what?” “You don’t know what it’s like.” Bucky shook his head. “Living with the fact that at any time someone could mutter a string of words and…” He shot back the alcohol and slid his empty glass back to the Bar Tender to top up. “I didn’t want to live like that.”

”You put that on her?” Steve’s eyes flashed with anger, “Damnit Buck, you should have asked me!”

“Would you have done it?” Bucky countered. Steve took a big sigh, knowing he was caught “Exactly.” Bucky scoffed. “And besides, you’re the one that said she was a dead shot.”

Bucky eyed his friend for a while before he slid his empty glass to the man behind the bar, gesturing for another top up. “Anyway, it’s irrelevant now because here I am.”

“That was still a shitty thing to do.” Steve frowned before he reached over for his glass, giving a little shrug. “But yeah, here you are.” T’Challa chose that point to come back and he settled at the bar next to Steve.

“So, Sergeant Barnes, we’ll have to see about getting you some permanent lodgings.” The King smiled “Maybe a private hut. There is a quiet tribe, not far from the river, unless you would prefer a post in my Kings Guard.” “I’m done fighting.” Bucky shook his head as he took another drink from his glass. “A hut sounds mighty fine. Maybe I can get some goats.” “Goats?” Steve looked at him.

“I like Goats.” Bucky shrugged “Do you remember the one in the petting zoo near School?” “Yeah, it set my asthma off.” Steve snorted before the pair of them descended into laughter.

Across the bar, Katie was stood with Suri and one of T’Challa’s personal guards, Okoye. She instantly warmed to Okoye, the woman reminding her a lot of Natasha. They stood chatting for a while before a loud roll of laughter caught their attention and they turned to see T’Challa, Bucky and Steve howling at something, as T’Challa gestured for the bar tender to top up their glasses whilst Okoye excused herself to head over to speak to her husband.

“Oh dear, they’ve broken out the Wakandan Spice.” Suri muttered, eyeing up the men.

“What’s that?” Katie asked.

“The only thing that gets my brother drunk!” Suri snorted “That stuff could knock out a rhino.”

“So it should have an effect on Super Soldiers?” Katie grinned.

“Let’s go find out!” Suri nodded, a cheeky grin on her face. They made their way over and Katie could see instantly the woman was right. Steve had a glazed look in his eyes and Bucky was leaning back in his chair, a pink tinge to his cheeks.

“Hey, Beautiful” Steve smiled up at Katie, pulling her into his lap, his hand trailed up and down her spine, lazily. “Where you been all evening?”

“About ten meters away over there.” She smirked, pointing. Suri was reaching over to steal a bit of the liquor from Bucky’s glass and T’Challa slapped her hand. “You are not even old enough to drink.” He glared at her.

“Tssk hush brother. Just because you are now well into your thirties. You always seem to be so bitter about me being much younger than you.” At that Bucky barked out a laugh.

“Don’t know what you’re snorting at old man.” Katie glanced at him and he quirked an eyebrow at her.

"Not exactly a comment I’d expect from someone who’s married to a hundred-year-old man.”

“Ninety-eight.” Steve corrected.

Katie leaned back in her husband’s lap to peer at him, her right hand running through his hair. "Doesn’t look a day over twenty five.” She grinned.

“Hey brother, why doesn’t your power stop your ageing?” Suri quipped.

“Shut up.” T’Challa glared at her. “Before I carry you back to the palace”

As the two siblings began to quibble, Katie glanced at Steve. “Been talking about the good old days?” “In a fashion.” Steve smirked.

“Anymore good tales of your misspent youth to tell me?” Bucky shook his head. “Sure Steve’s told you enough already.”

“I never told her about the time you set up a double date for us and then forgot to show up.” Steve looked at him, his arms tightening around his wife.

“That never happened.” Bucky shook his head.

“It absolutely happened. Caroline O’Hara and Deborah Smith”

Bucky’s eyes widened. “Oh shit, yeah. Brunette and a red head. A curly red head.” He grinned.

“Yup. Double date to the theatre, only you never showed up.” Steve looked at him, accusingly “And little old me was left to explain to Debbie why you had stood her up.”

Bucky smirked into his glass.

"I thought she was gonna kill me.” Steve mused, turning to look at Katie. “She kept hitting me with her purse. And then Caroline started, asking where the hell he was and why he thought it fit to stand up her best friend and try to fix her up with some kind of joke.”

Katie frowned, narrowing her eyes. “You weren’t a joke.”

“Thanks, Honey.” He grinned before he turned to fix Bucky with a glare. “And do you remember why you didn’t show up?” Bucky was now shaking with mirth, as he looked at Steve, his eyes bright with tears of laughter. “Go on, tell her Buck.”

“I was with Maggie Dougherty.” Bucky smirked

“Yeah, you were.” Steve pointed at him. “That was the night you got caught sneaking out of her room and down her fire escape by her dad who beat the crap out of you.”

“Worth it though.” Bucky snorted. “She was hot. Strawberry blonde waves, pretty face, nice ass.” “Yeah.” Steve nodded and Katie slapped the back of his head.

“Oww!” He looked at her as she glared at him. Grinning he reached up to give her a soft kiss “Not a patch on you though, Darlin’”

After another hour or so, Katie left them to it, heading back to the palace with Suri. She’d had enough, the alcohol she had drunk had lulled her into that happy place here she felt warm and fuzzy inside, and ready for bed.

Steve woke her up when he came crashing into the room a few hours later.

“Shit.” He mumbled, as he banged into the chair by the dresser. “Shhhh”

He staggered over to the bed before face planting straight down. Katie grinned as he peeked up at her.

“I’m drunk.”

“No shit, Sherlock.” She giggled and scrambled out of the duvet. “Come on, get in bed.” “Promises, promises.”

“Yeah, not a chance pal. I doubt very much you’d be of any use in this state.”

“Hey.” He pouted rolling over so he was on his back, turning to look at her as she moved to climb out of bed. “That’s my shirt.”

“I know.” She dropped to the floor to take off his suede boots.

“I like you in my shirts. I like you better out of them.” Steve grinned, grabbing hold of her as she stood up.

“How much have you had?” She laughed as he pulled her onto his lap, nuzzling into her neck.

“Enuff.” he spoke back, voice muffled. “You know you’re the prettiest gal in the whole world?” He peeked up at her and she had to laugh as she ruffled his hair.

“Arms up.”

“I like it when you undress me.” He grinned and Katie gave a chuckle, shaking her head. Eventually she managed to tug off his shirt and his jeans whilst he made some other reference to sex, before he pulled her back down onto the bed next to him, giggling like a school kid.

“Bucky told me.” He slurred.

“Told you what?”

“That he asked you to shoot him.” Steve hiccupped “But I’m glad you didn’t have to.”

Katie chuckled to herself “Me too.” “And now he’s all better.” Steve sighed. “Good, isn’t it?” “It’s awesome.” Shhe smiled, reaching up to bush his hair off his face. “You’re gonna be so hungover tomorrow.” He responded with shrug. “But I do love you. So much.”

“I know and I love you too. Now you gonna get into bed?”

He pushed himself up before beginning a monumental fight with the duvet to get underneath it, the whole thing a great source of amusement to Katie. She’d seen him tipsy from the Asgardian stuff Thor gave him before, but not flat out shit faced like this.

“Are you gonna puke?” She asked, stroking his head as he sighed, nuzzling into her chest.

“No.” He assured her, then paused, before he hiccupped slightly. “But I think I need water.” “Alright, wait there.” Katie climbed out of bed. She grabbed him a bottle from the mini fridge near the door but by the time she had turned back, Steve had his face buried into his pillow and made nothing more than a noise when she offered it to him, not looking up. Deciding she couldn’t be bothered to argue with him, she gently placed the bottle on the night stand next to him, and ran her hand through his hair one more time before she crossed to her side of the bed and settled down with him.

“Night, Soldier.” She smiled softly, kissing his cheek.

“Night, Princess.” He slurred into his pillow.

**** Chapter 35

**Original Posting**

#stark spangled banner #steve rogers #steve rogers fanfiction #Katie Stark #steve rogers x ofc #steve rogers x original female character #mcu #mcu fanfic #chris evans #chris evans characters

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xbunnybunz · 3 years

Text

the devil is always cold [jimmy bae x reader x jack kang]

Summary: You and Jimmy used to be close, or at least, as close as the public eye would allow. After he is defeated by Ben Park, he grows distant. As you struggle to hold onto the last pieces of yourself and the fourth strongest member of the Union, Jack Kang reaches out to you. Loving the devil has never been easy.

Genre: Angst, Romance

Date: November 27, 2020

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The act of loving goes far beyond things we hear from others.

Jimmy Bae is ferocious, people whisper. A person of violence, of destruction, of pride. He’s merciless, a real devil. Instead of a hot pitchfork, he saunters around Yoosun with a wicked grin and a balled fist. He punishes the good and the bad and everything in between.

Fire springs from the ground his feet have kissed, and making eye contact—even from a distance, has said to cause temporary loss of bladder control. (Noted from the Shuttle Patch itself.) His knuckles never fall dull upon any jaw, anonymous writers post. They say the crack can be heard resonating through the school lot, through the local park, through Yoosun alleyways.

He’s a dangerous man.

Jimmy Bae the fearsome, they say. Jimmy Bae the heartless.

And to some extent, you guess it’s true. You’ve seen the look in his eyes before, the life that sparks like an electrical fire right before the first swing—that look that completes Jimmy Bae’s desperate drive for adrenaline like a missing puzzle piece.

But to you, Jimmy Bae was none of those things. To your ever-expanding universe, he was the raging sun. He had a gravitational pull on you, managed to suck you in with nothing more than a look or a few words. A magnetizing man, a killer man, a lovely man.

You were no stranger to the rumors floating around Jimmy, but those words will always stay just words to you. After all, you’d seen firsthand how he cared for his closest friends. Cared for both you, and Jack Kang.

Jimmy knew of his reputation of course, and had a strange and lingering adoration for it. And so the affection that was dealt to both you and Jack was always subtle, always something that would appear like a wisp of smoke. There for one second and gone the next. It was always appreciated for the ephemeral moment it would show itself, and though Jack didn’t seem to mind the brevity, you always secretly yearned for something more.

At night alone in your room, you’d bundle yourself up nice and warm in blankets. Staring at the ceiling, thinking about Jimmy. Wondered if he did all this because he was fearful of losing claim to his title.

Jimmy Bae, fearful. Anyone else would’ve laughed at the incredulity, but you weren’t anyone else.

So you wondered more, pondered further. Wondered if he was afraid that he couldn’t convince himself he was a cold-blooded predator if he allowed himself to love, even just a bit. If he realized he hadn’t embodied the mask people had carved out for him, would everything he had been fighting for become a charade, gone up in smoke?

You both stir yourself from peace and lull yourself to sleep on these thoughts, in vain. Your concerns and curiosities did nothing to answer your questions. The most you can bring yourself to do is observe and understand.

So when he snarks you, feet propped on the table in the pools place for the third time that week, you do nothing but smile at him.

“What do you mean Jimmy?”

He groans and gets up, rolls his eyes like you’re a waste of his time and space.

“I told you I fucking hate coke. Pepsi, dumbass. Pepsi!” He taps the cold metal can on your head, but it doesn’t hurt and you’re not scared despite his looming height.

You’re sure he said exactly the opposite last time, but when you catch sight of Eunjang uniforms by the cue sticks, you swallow your words.

“Ah Jimmy, sorry about that. I totally suck, huh?” You laugh and let him keep pestering you with the can.

You glance at the Eunjang kids again and pause when you catch Jack’s gaze, eyes dark and hard like shining onyx stones. You recognize the look. It’s the shimmer he gets in his eyes when anyone talks shit about Jimmy, the twinkle that possesses him the moment his fingers itch to form a fist. Strangely, it’s been growing in him recently. Stranger yet, it seems to surface more frequently when Jimmy speaks.

Your eyes fall into a lock with his, and his brows are furrowed just slightly. Perhaps a bypassing detail for anyone else, but for the ever-reticent Jack Kang, this was a telltale sign of a temper quickly boiling over.

You soften your eyes and wink at him. This simple gesture is enough to derail him from his previous growing anger, simmering down to flickering embers. Jack turns away from the scene, but his fists are still balled.

It didn’t always used to be like this. You’ve found yourself reminiscing on the older days more than you care to say aloud. It was something you did in private, so you could pretend you didn’t notice Jimmy changing.

You recall when Jimmy used to loop his arm around your shoulders when the three of you strut down the street. His body was always pressed to yours, large and warm in the summer, arm weighing on you like a heavy blanket. The arm migrated to your back as the leaves turned crimson, then your waist when the wind blew harsher.

You would never say, but you ached for the feeling of his fingers on you again. It used to be so effortless, he was a casual man. A friendly pat here, and a loving ruffle of your hair there. It was addicting, he was a passionate man.

Once he had brushed his fingers along your jaw when examining a bruise you had gotten in the crossfire of a fight. Gossamer touch, but leaving searing skin in it’s wake. You remember the look on his face like it was singed into the back of your eyelids. A slight smirk, cocked head, eyes gleaming auburn—a kindling fire waiting for a forest to burn.

Jimmy Bae wanted you. You felt it with every aching fibre of your being, and you so desperately wanted him too. So you leaned in and let the flames consume you.

He reciprocated as much as he dared, which was enough to turn heads in public. Induce hushed voices asking who that was, standing so close to Jimmy Bae? The whispering was widespread, but no solid evidence of a relationship could be forged from any amount of blurry cellphone pictures, or firsthand accounts. This was, of course, because Jimmy Bae and you were stuck in the limbo between friendship and perhaps something more. Whenever you wanted to ask, your eyes meet his and there’s always a silent plead—sloppily hidden as a command—to never ask.

So you didn’t.

Somewhere between the brawl with Ben Park and Jimmy Bae, Jimmy had grown cold. Harsher on you, more secretive to Jack. Both of you asked, but he would say nothing worth noting. Always throwing red herrings, making shitty jokes. Brushing you off, brushing Jack Kang off, brushing you both off. Even smaller things, like his phone, would always be flipped upside down. Never answered when ringing. Never noticed when vibrating, at least, not around the both of you. A smile plastered on his lips like a dare to even fucking ask. Soon, all you and Jack had was each other.

You recall the week things shifted, even thinking about it left a creaking throb in your chest.

Jimmy had flaked out on Jack for a while and completely avoided you altogether. He’d be busy, he said. Union things, he muttered, before stalking away. He was always occupied now, always too focused on everything and anything but you and Jack. A month of diverted gazes, shifty feet and shitty grins later, he finally called you and Jack out again.

“How much of that shit are you gonna drink?”

You blink and look up at Jimmy, sitting across you with a sneer and some bruises on his pretty face.

“I’m sorry?”

He leans in and sucks his teeth audibly, almost obnoxiously. When he speaks, it’s slow like ridicule.

“I asked, when the fuck are you going to lay off on those sodas?” He scoffs and points at the drink in front of him, then at you. “You know how slow you’ve been getting?”

Jimmy laughs and elbows Jack, who sits stiffly beside him. “They think it ain’t shit enough that all they can do is run!” Jack does not utter a word. You can see his adam’s apple bob when he swallows, his jaw tense when he clenches his teeth. But he says nothing.

Jimmy doesn’t seem to mind. He turns to you again, gesturing in the air.

“Do us all a favor and get rid of that, will ya?”

All you can do is watch the words form and fall from his lips and nod. They descend deep into a cavern in your heart, which consumes it eagerly regardless of the sour feeling it leaves behind.

Jimmy was tenser. Meaner. More eager than ever to defend his title.

You forgave him, because he never seemed really happy about it. His eyes didn’t crinkle the way they used to when he made a jest, his teeth never flashed a smile quite the same. But the words that used to be just words still echoed in your mind.

Jimmy the wretched, Jimmy the heartless. Jimmy Bae, the real devil.

But not all was lost. Almost immediately, Jack caught onto your plight. He noticed the hurt in your eyes when you laughed at a particularly cruel joke Jimmy made about you, hears the drag in your tone when you’re asked to do another chore suit for a shuttle.

Jack Kang is a quiet one. He’s silent, but ever watchful. This makes him a hard opponent to read, a hard opponent to fight, and an even harder opponent to hide things from.

“It doesn’t bother me at all,” You say, picking at your fingers. “I hadn’t even noticed.”

You press your back into your bedroom wall, kicking your feet absentmindedly off the bed and hoping to recede into the cracks, away from his umber gaze.

He clicks his tongue and sighs, shoulders dropping, brown eyes piercing straight through you.

“’Doesn’t bother you?’ ‘Haven’t noticed?’” He sits beside you and the bed creaks under his weight, movie on the television long forgotten. He reaches out and places two hands, almost familiar, on your shoulders. “Tell me what’s going on. Doesn’t this…”

He hesitates, like he’s wondering if ‘hurt feelings’ is something he should talk about. Like he’s wondering about the implications between you and Jimmy, about the space he had to wriggle in between the both of you and ask. You hate that he figured you out. Hate that you even had feelings to be hurt in the first place. You despised that Jack and Jimmy were so hardened by the streets that even emotions were embarrassing to speak about in private, let alone display in public.

You place a hand on his wrist and feel his bone and tendons under your fingertips. Somewhere beyond that, there’s a faint pulse, quiet and steady, just like him.

“Jack, I don’t even know what you’re talking about.” You smile at him and hope it’s enough reassurance, but one look at him and you know otherwise.

Jack holds your stare. He’s calling out your bluff without speaking, and for some reason that hurts more than all the horrible things Jimmy has said to you. You never lied to Jack, because you never had a reason to. As close as he was to Jimmy, he was to you. He had unwavering loyalty to anyone he trusted, brutally honest and always genuine. You couldn’t ask for a better person to be by your side.

Jack hadn’t spoke much when you first met and that put you on edge. His gaze was too intense, eyebrows always set in a deep furrow. There was no way to read this man, and yet no way to read him wrong—don’t mess with him, and he won’t mess with you. You avoided him, much like everyone else does when they first meet Jack, until the day you watched him fight.

It was an accident. Your eyes were always on Jimmy, always following his bouncing feet, flying jabs and dirty mouth. Then Jack crossed your vision, and you were unable to look away.

He was fierce, hits landing hard, fast, and always right on target. Jack was like a machine, churning away at making the best hits with the fastest recovery times. Most shocking to you was, unlike Jimmy, he never lashed his tongue even once. He made no promises to take his opponent down, no taunts or mockery to discredit their fighting style. For what Jack lacked in banter, he made up for in actions.

It was then you noticed the way he purchased hot drinks for you after a cold day, how he offered you the spare motorbike helmet each and every time, opting to ride without one even if it destroyed his gelled hair. “I like the wind.” He’d say. But you knew he was lying the moment he looked in the first rear-view mirror you came across, re-styling stray pieces.

Even then, you hadn’t cared for him much. All your mind and body was dedicated to Jimmy, until one day you found Jack glancing over his shoulder in the middle of fights, something Jimmy never did, seeming to search for something in your direction.

It irritated you at first. Made you feel self-conscious, but then you realized he was checking to ensure you were safe from harm. He was sweet in a subtle way that was different from Jimmy, the sparseness in his care was due more to nativity than selectivity.

You learned to trust him, understand him through actions and not words. Jack always found the time to be with you. He’d listen to your doting on Jimmy, nodding along, pretending to be intrigued and only falling asleep once. From your time together, you had learned Jack was always honest, always straightforward, always speaking his mind.

You appreciated his commitment to tell the truth, which is why your inability to reciprocate was so painful now.

“Seriously.” You slide your hand from his wrist up his arm, the muscle rippling like a tide under his pressed white shirt. His eyes travel to the movement, stare weighing heavily between you two.

“I’m alright, Jack.” You try to pry him off you gently now that he was distracted.

“Confess to him.”

You stop short. “What?”

You look back up at Jack and he’s got those steely eyes trained on you again, pinning you to the spot.

“You like Jimmy, so confess to him.”

You falter for a split second, then create a diversion with raucous laughter. “Oh Jack, I thought you were being serious for a second. Geez dude!” You slap his chest lightly but he doesn’t budge an inch. “Confess? You already know how deep the Union’s got him.”

Jack remains unfaltering and you try your best to hide how it unnerves you, reminds you of when you knew so little about him.

“Do it. You have nothing to lose.” His words slice through you like a hot knife and it breaks your heart just a little bit more. Nothing to lose?

Jack’s lips are set in a straight line, like always. He’s always so monotonous, but when you speak it sounds like a squeak of the mattress springs, “Jack... Are you alright?”

He’s got a look in his eye you can’t understand. “He’s hurting you and I hate it. Tell him how you feel. If he likes you then it’ll stop.”

You almost want to laugh at how easy he makes it sound, how he just ignored years of your strife and struggle just to hold onto a piece of the ever-elusive Jimmy Bae. But when you look at Jack, you can’t bring yourself to do anything but shrink away.

“…I’m scared of what’ll happen after.” You say.

He looks at you, really looks at you, and like always, you feel so transparent around him, so naked and bared to the bone.

“Me too.” He says.

Before you can make anything of this, he pulls you into a hug. He’s much larger and envelopes you too easily, all the sharp edges of his bones and firmness of his muscles and the pounding of his heart boxed into one embrace.

Jack Kang was the turbulent one. The tricky one, calm on the surface and storming underneath.

You’ve seen him throttle men twice his size with no trouble at all, a fierce energy blazing through him thirsting for more bloodshed. His fists are iron, and he’s fast as a bullet. But in this moment, he holds you tenderly, carefully, as if you’d splinter and shatter under his callous touch.

“Jack…” You return the hug and wrap your arms around his shoulders, pushing your face into his neck. He smells like motorcycle gas and hair mousse. “I’m sorry for dragging you into this.” You say.

He swallows a lump in his throat, you can feel him gulp against your shoulder. When he speaks, his voice cracks. “You didn’t.”

“Jack?” You knit your brows together, using your hands to pry him away so you can get a closer look at him. “Jack, what’s wrong?”

He holds on tight for a long second, constricting his arms around your torso like it was the last thing keeping him afloat on a storming ocean, trying to drag him deeper, deeper, deeper. But he pulls back eventually, and it’s so sudden your teeth click with the motion.

His hair is disheveled, falling across his forehead and brushing his dark brown lashes, close enough for you to count, so close you can see the pang of desire, of reservation in his eyes, shining like wet gems, feel every single warm breathy exhale on your lips.

“…Jack?”

He doesn’t reply, holds you there, just watching, oozing restraint. Despite his stiffness, you become aware of the soft duvet beneath you both, aware of the deepening orange sky across the horizon, bleeding past your curtains, washing over the room, and the chill that comes with it.

His grip on your arms tightens and then relaxes, tightens then relaxes, like he’s debating something. You watch him, entranced by the way the sunset put embers into his chocolate eyes.

“I…” He begins, voice low, lower than you’ve ever heard, almost a whisper. “I…”

He cups your face with his fingers, just barely daring to touch you. Everything he does is done with hesitation. The moment feels fragile, like glass. Like a pin dropping, or just a fragment of doubt would shatter it into a million pieces, but now, this second, he was here. Moving closer so slowly, pushing his forehead against yours, eyes searching, breathing heavy and mingling with yours.

You were confused still, conflicted. Jack was so close, so warm, so enticing, and yet Jimmy lingered in the back of your mind, his auburn hair, chesire grin and cheeky personality burning a hole into your heart and shooting tremors through your hands. What would he say about this, about you, about Jack? And darker still, a thought slipped into the cracks of your heart: would he even care? Did you even mean anything to him anymore?

You knew Jack was thinking the same, knew he was keenly aware of his proximity, aware of how he was waltzing along the edge of no return—not just for himself, but you as well.

And this may have been what stopped him short. Pausing, he closed his eyes and took a few deep breaths, each seeming longer than the last. Then he pulls away, the space between you put a cold ache in your chest.

Jack puts his face in his hands, twisting his body away from you, like he can’t bear to see you.

“I’m… Sorry.”

You still feel an icy tundra washing over your body, but couldn’t understand why if Jimmy was the one you were thinking of. Still, for whatever reasons Jack had, you wanted to be there for him. You reached out a hand, caressing his back.

“It’s alright,” You say. “We’ll always have each other.”

He says nothing, but you think he leans into your touch just a bit more.

After this moment, Jack makes it a point to sit beside you, much to Jimmy’s surprise.

“Picking favorites now are we?” Jimmy would joke, but his laughter was always hard around the edges. Like he knew he missed something vital. “How the tables turn.”

Jack wouldn’t respond to him, instead finding your hand under the table to give it a squeeze. Just a simple action, fingers interlocking with your own.

This was enough to keep you going for another month—the time it took for you to find Jimmy squatting behind the school, smoking a cigarette and palming at his eyes.

It was chilly out, almost nearing the end of the winter. A thin sheet of snow covered the floor, and though you were bundled up, Jimmy was wearing the same old Union jacket Na had assigned to the Yoosun district. You learned a lot about that jacket, learned to love how Jimmy beamed, wearing it for the first time back in middle school, learned to hate how Na used it as a chain to keep dragging Jimmy back into the dark. Those harrowing nights he’d return from always beat, bloodied, but never defeated.

“Jimmy,” You start, and flinch at how your voice echoed, louder than you’ve heard it in months. You clear your throat, adjusting your volume. “Jimmy, what are you doing out here?”

He doesn’t respond immediately. Only exhales through his nose, something between a grunt and a gritty chuckle scraping past his lungs. He palms at his eyes for a few seconds more, turned away from you, spine curved into a lazy cove.

Then he looks up at you. His eyes are gleaming in the winter sun, bursting with something like adrenaline, anchored down by something so heavy, so deep in those spiraling fiery eyes.

His words make a puff of smoke in the air, mingling with the cold mist seeping from his lips, “The fuck do you want?”

You cringe at his tone and look away, sticking your hands into your pockets, swaying about.

“I was just…” You trail off, because you’re scared, that’s what you are. Scared of making him mad, scared of making things worse, scared of being pushed away. “…Wondering if you were cold.”

He gives you a look and shakes his head, turning back to face the furnace, gray smog exuding from the pipes.

“The fuck? Why would I be?”

You say nothing. His voice is clipped. Sharper than it usually is, and although you’re used to the pain, it cuts deep. You can tell he isn’t interested in speaking to you, that he’s telling you to leave in the subtle way Jimmy Bae always does, in the subtle way he used to hold you, touch you, worship you.

But you know what this means. You can feel the end creeping up on you like a shadow when dusk looms, rising from the grave you’ve dug so deep for it, hoping to never see it in the light of day again. If you leave now, you’ll never get the chance to speak to him again. He was closing you out, so slowly you hadn’t even recognized it at first. Looking back now, he had given you all the signs.

“Jimmy, I really—” Your voice flickers in and out like a dying flame. “I have something to tell you.”

He sighs. A deep, heavy, burdened sigh. You’ve never heard him sound like this before, you think he must be just as heartbroken as you, maybe, but then he flashes his teeth like he’s laughing at a joke.

“Listen. Babe.” He pivots himself, now facing you completely. He rests his elbows on his knees, propping an arm up and resting his chin on it. “Babe. You’re killing me here. People drift apart, you know that, don’tcha babe?”

He takes a drag from the cigarette, sucking so deep into his lungs you swear he’d turn purple. Pulls it away from his lips, chapped from the cold.

“I’m sure everyone else has noticed, catch my drift?” He cocks his head at you and suddenly you’re thrust back in time, back when he first looked at you like that under a spring sky. Eyes on fire, man on fire, Jimmy Bae and you, on fire. Then you’re back, standing frigid in the ice, snow dusting your lashes, your hands, your cheeks. Just you, in the cold.

“You’ve been pissing me off, babe. Clinging like a bitch. And I know ya know better than that, so I’m gonna ask you nicely, listen real fuckin' close.” He leans in like he’s telling you a secret, an eyebrow quirked up. “Give me some space, and I won’t take out your two front teeth.”

He takes another lengthy inhale of burning tobacco then drops it alongside the numerous other cigarette butts on the floor, crushing it underfoot his new sneakers.

Grins up at you. “Nothing personal though, right babe?”

You’re stupefied at first.

Jimmy bae, the fearsome.

So shocked and numbed that you can barely feel anything but your bursting heart.

Jimmy Bae, the heartless.

It itches like a fresh scab stretching across all the flesh of your insides, thrumming for the moment you reach the end of your rope, thrumming for release.

Jimmy Bae, the real devil.

You take the first faltering step backwards, and the spell he had over you is finally broken. Another shaking step, another, until you turn and run back towards the school, running past a blur of leafless trees and a halted figure, leaving Jimmy alone by the furnace.

Jack unsticks himself from the ground, wrenching around to watch your retreating figure, brows shooting upwards. “What the hell?” He spots Jimmy, a loose smile playing at the corners of his lips. “What did you…?”

Jimmy combs a hand through his hair and shrugs sluggishly.

“What? Don’t tell me you feel bad for them?”

Jack freezes, watching Jimmy. “Fuck,” He mutters, squeezing his eyes shut, harder and harder until he sees stars, sees your silhouette fading into the distance, sees himself telling you to confess. “Fuck!”

He opens then, shooting Jimmy a look that he’s never once in his life had the anger to muster. Jimmy hums, amused, as Jack takes off after you.

He hears the echoes of Jack calling you ringing in his head, ringing in that small enclosure, carrying long and far from the tiny alley leading to the school.

Only when he’s sure that both of you are long gone does he let out another exhale, body uncoiling and falling into itself, crumpling like paper. He pats his hair free of the snow and rubs at his reddened nose, snowflakes falling upon his face, melting instantly. Walking up to the furnace, he warms his hands and pulls the Union jacket closer to his body. Pulls out a cigarette and a lighter.

Click. Click. Click.

“Ah, forget it.”

He pockets the lighter and just lets the cigarette dangle from his lips, crossing his arms over his body, letting the frigid air slow his mind, his pulse.

Jimmy stands there for a long time, until the sun falls below the horizon, until the shadows cast by the trees consume him, all alone. He doesn’t mind. He conditioned himself to be alright with it last year, right before the fight with Ben Park. Right after he saw the way Jack looked back at you.

He takes out his phone, switches it on. The light is blinding for a second, like the sun, then his eyes adjust. About a dozen messages from Kingsley Kwan, a few from Phillip Kim.

Trash to him. Amber eyes search beyond that, swipes a finger to clear notifications.

Jimmy stands there, reveling in the image, basking in the light it sweeps over his face. The last bit of you he had to hold onto, a photo taken earlier last year. Just you, Jack and him sitting around a trashfire in the Yeongduengpo Local Park. Simpler days, easier days.

His eyes drift to your face, then to the arm he had wrapped around your waist. Hears the wind bellow, feels his fingers twitch, colder than ever.

“Hah, shit.”

He shoves the phone into his back pocket, shaking his head and speaking to no one in particular.

“I’m freezing my ass off here, you dense motherfuckers.”

#weak hero #webtoon weak hero #fanfiction #jimmy bae x reader #jack kang x reader #reader insert

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goblinkingdomsblog · 3 years

Text

Taehyung's Thoughts: "but does the Organization have a name?" - BTS as Mafia

Members: Sniper!Taehyung, Fighter!Jimin and Drug Dealer!Yoongi (mentioned).

Genre: mafia!AU, one shot.

Premise: during a short break from work, while waiting for the new shipment of weapons, Taehyung lets his mind get lost in thoughts. One of them is especially curious.

TW: (S) = Safe for reading.

Mafia Series Masterlist

Mafia Series Plot

"Your imagination is absolutely beautiful."

From the window of the empty bar, more specifically in the VIP area, Taehyung looked down. In the busy street ahead, crammed with people who looked like hurried ants, there was no sign of the shipment. Perhaps the fact that it was a busy neighborhood made it difficult to deliver the weapons.

Anyway, Namjoon had told Taehyung that, the major part of the time, the most obvious places were the most ignored. For this reason, they almost always received weapons among ordinary civilians, who had no idea of the content inside the luxury cars that entered the bar parking lot. Also... well, he didn't like to think about that part. Even if Namjoon didn't tell him directly, he knew: being in the middle of many people was an additional deterrent for the police, as it was much easier to miss the target in a crowd. And accidentally shooting innocent people while trying to capture mobsters was not something that would favor the image of the corporation.

Taehyung did not like to use people as a shield, but he knew that his boss was smart. Leading the life that both led, it was always best to "take precautions" as much as possible.

Not seeing any of the cars he had been waiting for at least half an hour, Tae felt boredom taking over his senses. Before he could avoid it, he was already thinking far away, distracted by thousands of different scenarios.

He liked boats, he always had. The image of two ships in the night, gradually moving away, was his favorite when he needed to calm down. Therefore, it appeared before his eyes.

Despite imagining several pleasant scenes, Taehyung's mind was almost always thinking too much. It was an endless stream of questions and answers, where one led to other 3. When thinking about his boss, he thought it must be quite difficult to control the Organization. It was such a wide and widespread thing that it must have been difficult to even name it...

But, wait there. Did the organization have a name?

Because "Organization" was not a name, at least not a very good one. Had Namjoon forgotten to think of a name? Or was it that he simply had no creativity at the time of creation? So he could have decided to adopt the easiest of all: just "Organization".

But then were they the criminal organization Organization? That seemed like a half-wrapped title, maybe even repetitive. Did the police think they were boring? Or that they were stupid and couldn't think of a better name? The police could also think that they were in a hurry, and so they had simply skipped the part of naming the gang.

This wouldn't be good for Namjoon's reputation. He was such a meticulous and intelligent person; it would seem that he was thinking impulsively.

Suddenly, Taehyung felt a touch on his shoulder. He would even bother to pull the revolver he kept in his belt, in case he didn't know exactly whose hand it was: Jimin, resting on his shoulder, looking at him with a smile.

- Lost in your brain again, huh? - the fighter asked, moving away slightly just to be able to fix his red suit.

- Yes. - Tae replied, without paying much attention - What are you doing here?

Knowing very well how direct the sniper could be, Jimin was not surprised.

- Yoongi is busy and asked me to come here to help you receive the shipment. You know well that our dear dealer loves to check the goods to see if everything is right. - Jimin examined his hands full of rings, with some wounds in his knuckles still to heal, just before making a dismissal gesture - He said something about being after a police agent... nonsense like that.

Taehyung nodded, tilting his head.

- Jimin. - he called.

- What?

- What is the name of the Organization?

The fighter frowned, staring at him in disbelief.

- You really don't know?

Then the organization was not called "Organization". Yes!

- No. So does that mean it has a name? - he was silent, waiting for an explanation - What name?

- I can't believe you don't know. Everyone knows! - Jimin punched him lightly in the shoulder - You must have forgotten to pay attention, as habitual.

- I didn't know! The boss never told me. - impatient, Taehyung insisted - What is the name?

- Bangtan Sonyeondan, of course. - Jimin rolled his eyes, not knowing if he was laughing at his friend or at the situation.

- Ahh. - finally, there was a real name. That explained almost everything - So why do they call us an Organization?

- It's the police that call us like that. - the fighter shrugged, smiling in a corner - Namjoon likes to keep the aura of mystery, you know.

Tae nodded again, finally satisfied.

- My God, Taehyung, you need to distract your mind. You even managed to forget that! - Jimin put his arm around the boy's shoulders, pulling him down with a little too much force to give him a flick on his forehead - After here I go to a party, and you come with me. Today is a day to enjoy!

Taehyung wanted to mention again that he hadn't forgotten the name, he just never heard it. However, he knew that it was useless to argue with a Jimin in a club mood.

- Come on, let's go down. The cars must have arrived outside by now. - and dragged Taehyung with him, descending to the floor below.

After that, Tae didn't have time to think about names anymore. At least during that day.

I hope you enjoyed the reading! Don't forget to leave a comment or to share this post (if you want it, of course).

If you liked the post, send me a request! I'm open to write about other groups too (as I explain here).

The images used on this post are not mine, credits to the owner!

Kisses from the Goblin Kingdom! :)

#fanfiction #writing #imagines #books and libraries #bts #bts mafia au #bts mafia fic #kpop imagines #kpop mafia #kpop oneshots #oneshot #kim taehyung #park jimin #min yoongi #goblin king

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misedejem · 3 years

Text

Date Nights

Series: Persona 4 Ship: Kannao (Kanji Tatsumi/Naoto Shirogane) Word count: 9196

If ever Naoto was feeling low, Kanji would try harder than ever to show her how much he cared. Little gestures of good will and love that would go towards easing the pain. It had been that way from when they first met, and was still the case after over fifteen years.

So when Naoto found herself with Kanji in a slump and a few hours to spare, she took it upon herself to do the same.

(Basically lots of domestic future headcanon shenaningans~ As a note, Naoto is genderfluid in my fics, and this one uses she/her. AO3 link in the notes)

It had been an awfully long time since the Shiroganes had been working away from home at the same time.

Kanji had become unemployed almost two years ago and had been pooling his resources into his online store since then. And Naoto had been on leave a full year now, because of Chihiro, and then the upheaval and transfer of half the Shirogane agency from Tokyo to Yasoinaba. Save the odd local case, she’d effectively been forced to hang up the detective cap until life calmed down enough for her to return.

It was… a much-needed break. They could mutually agree on that.

Then, less than a month between moving into a house and the agency reopening, Yu Narukami had appeared on their doorstep one evening with ‘encouragement bentos’ and a request. The middle school he worked in as guidance counsellor had suddenly lost a teacher temporarily due to illness. The art teacher. She’d probably need at least six months to recover, but the new semester started in September and it was far too tight a deadline for the board to submit a request for a replacement.

“I mentioned you used to work as an art teacher in Tokyo, Kanji, and they said to ask you as soon as possible.”

Neither of them could have foreseen such a thing… But in a week, their situation had changed from both of them being at home, to both of them returning to work just a day apart from one another.

One day.

What a rare commodity that was.

As much as she adored it, Naoto’s career had always been taxing, keeping her late at night and seldom offering her a chance to catch her breath. After all, the Shirogane agency was lauded all across the country. Grampa had made such a name for it before he had died, and the attention she had gained from the media as the ‘first Detective Prince’ had only served to bolster the Shirogane name’s shining reputation once she’d taken over. That, and the fact that it was the only remaining detective agency in the country that specialised in Shadow-related incidents. They’d become ever more prevalent since the mental shutdowns and the Phantom Thieves incidents a decade ago had made knowledge of them more widespread in the seedier depths of society, and the Shadow Operatives had ensured to keep her busy when the cases grew too complex for them to handle.

That’s why they’d come back to Inaba of all places. With the TV World still very much active, it was the most potent place for illicit Shadow activities to occur in all Japan. And with the murmurings of new information cropping up, the higher ups had figured it may be a good idea to have a team of investigators to hand.

The detective had a lot of work waiting for her when her leave expired.

So, for her to be the one left with the house instead of Kanji for a full day… Well, she couldn’t exactly waste such an occasion.

“Momo, no -! Don’t… climb in there…” Naoto sighed, watching as her orange tabby clambered her way into one of the cardboard boxes at the far end of the room. She knew it was a fruitless effort to try and stop her. Their other cat didn’t house much love for boxes, but Mochi had been found in one as a kitten and clearly had developed a natural affinity towards them as a result. Half their move had been spent trying to keep her out of them long enough to fill them.

“If you wish to help, the very least you could do would be to climb into the ones I haven’t yet searched,” she told her, crossing over to the box and hoisting Mochi out. “That way, I won’t be wasting any time by delving into boxes twice when I retrieve you.”

Unfortunately, Naoto’s request was not met with much approval. The cat just mewled indignantly, clearly unimpressed and unwilling to cooperate, and scampered behind the large pile in the centre of the garage, leaving the detective to continue her investigation on her own.

It was frankly impressive that all the miscellany crammed into these boxes had fit into their Tokyo apartment; big though it was, it had been severely lacking in storage. Half their belongings – all the stuff they didn’t desperately need - were all packed up in this room, waiting for a spare moment to be put in their rightful place. They’d had five weeks to unpack, and perhaps if they’d still been living as just the two of them, they’d have made more of a dent in it. That would certainly have made Naoto’s current task a considerable deal easier. But all the free time they had now was devoted to Chihiro. She was only just coming up on her first birthday, and she was still very much dependant on her parents every moment that she was awake. Even now, Naoto was only able to search the room because the infant was taking her midmorning nap.

She was looking for a binder Kanji had put together, containing a collection of their favourite recipes that he’d found online or written down over the years. Somehow, it had gotten separated from the recipe books when they had packed away their kitchen, and it had not yet resurfaced. This was a major blockade in her plan for the day. She needed that binder. Desperately.

Kanji had seemed rather perturbed as he’d prepared for work that morning. In fact, he’d seemed uneasy about it from the moment Yu had asked him to take it. It was… unlike him. He’d worked as an art teacher in a middle school back in the city for four years, and he’d loved every minute of it.

“Hmm? Course I want the job,” he’d told her when she’d questioned him about it over breakfast. “I miss this kinda shit, you know that.”

He had a smile on his face as he tried spooning a blob of mushed fruits into Chihiro’s mouth, but it was a strained smile if nothing else.

“You just seem tense, that’s all.”

“Yeah, well… So do you. Goin’ back to work after havin’ a kid is s’posed to be kinda rough.” He shrugged.

“I can’t deny that…” Naoto sighed. “Even knowing that your mother will be there for her, and that you’re only doing part time hours, the idea of leaving her alone at all is more taxing on me than I could ever have expected… That’s all it is though?”

Naoto could think of several other reasons Kanji might have to be nervous about this particular job. But on the off chance that they hadn’t crossed his mind yet, she refrained from bringing them up. The last thing she wanted was to make him feel worse.

There was a pause, filled only by Chihiro’s babbles and the sound of the cats zooming about the living room after one another in a burst of energy. As he scraped the last of the baby food from the pot and offered it to their daughter, Kanji’s face began to fall ever so slightly, and before long he was sighing.

“I really gotta… stop overlookin’ that I’m married to a detective. I am scared shitless of leavin’ Chihiro for the first time. If anythin’s wrong, it’s that most of all. But uh… Otherwise I’m just a little weirded out.” He rubbed the back of his neck. “Middle school – this middle school – is kinda… where I started to get a bad rep… What… I dunno, what if they take one look at me and realise who I am and kick me out? Like, they don’t realise ‘Shirogane Kanji’ is actually ‘Tatsumi Kanji’ an’ once they do they won’t want me anymore? They don’t know why I resigned from my last job either, what if they think I did something bad an’–”

As his voice grew louder and more sporadic, his panic becoming so apparent that it was palpable, Naoto scooted her way over to him and slipped her arms around his waist, resting her head gently on his chest.

“You left on your own terms because you disliked the way the school was being run. You don’t have to disclose why. And Kan-chan… you don’t mean to tell me that I’ve kept you from your hometown for so long that you’ve forgotten what it’s like? Inaba isn’t overly massive – rumours spread fast. I daresay there isn’t a person here who doesn’t know that the Tatsumi boy married that Detective Shirogane person. Especially not with how much your mother talks about us.”

She held him close for a while, rubbing her hand across his back even after his heart stopped pounding so hard, and his muscles began to relax.

“Yeah… I know… I know it’s a stupid thing to worry about, an’ that there ain’t no point in getting’ worked up about it…”

“Well, it’s not… stupid. I’d say it’s a perfectly reasonable thing to be concerned about, given the impact it had on you in the past. But I can assure you of this: they wouldn’t have hired you if they thought you were unfit for the position.”

He nodded, and a smile appeared on his face again – a genuine one, this time. For the rest of the morning, his dour disposition had dissipated somewhat, and his spirits certainly seemed higher when he had left the house.

But even if she had managed to cheer him up, Naoto knew the day would be a challenge for him no matter how many positive sentiments she sent his way. Returning to a place you had been mistreated, even after nearly twenty years had passed, was difficult enough as it was, without the thought of leaving your baby for the first time nagging at you as well.

That’s why she needed that binder. It contained the recipe for one of Kanji’s all-time favourite curries, one she believed even she could produce, and she figured he might need something like that when he returned home.

He often did little ‘date nights’ from home for them, for birthdays or anniversaries, or even just when Naoto was struggling with a tough case and needed a distraction or treat. They would put on whatever was comfortable, sit down with a meal and a drink, and more often than not, end up in a snuggled-up heap on the couch with a movie flickering on in the background. She hosted her fair share of them as well, but admittedly hers often involved an expensive night out at a restaurant. Kanji was the better cook, and he considered it a hobby more than simply something one needed to do to survive, but Naoto lacked the skill or drive to make a hand-crafted date night even without her long hours.

But this night would be an exception. She suddenly found herself with eight hours at home without him, and she would be a fool not to use that time to surprise him in the same way he always would with her. She’d throw him a date night so damn enjoyable that he’d forget all about his anxieties, no matter the cost.

That was… if she could find the damned recipe she needed to carry out her plan.

And so, she perused box after box in her investigation, leaving not even one overlooked. Old case files she’d had sent over from the Shirogane estate that had once belonged to her grandfather. An assortment of holiday decorations that really needed separating by date. Kanji’s miscellaneous box of scrap material. A box marked for charity of Naoto’s old clothes that had stopped fitting since she’d had Chihiro. Plushies. More plushies. Even the container of extra crockery, things that had come from the kitchen itself, bore no sign of the item she sought. An hour passed as though it were seconds, yielding nothing of value.

Had Kanji already moved it? It wasn’t as though she could ask him… Had they forgotten it? No, that apartment was spotless when they’d moved out. She’d triple checked it herself.

She foresaw herself spending all day searching at this rate… but she didn’t have all day. He’d be staying late for a debriefing, but even so, Kanji would still probably be home for five o’clock, and she still had to go to Junes to fetch the ingredients she was going to need.

Perhaps she could look it up online again? That was where Kanji had found it originally…

She sat herself, cross legged, on an old rug and pulled out her phone, plugging in the name of the recipe into a search engine, lifting her arm so that Mochi – tired of hiding – could come and curl up in her lap. And then, running the fingers of her free hand through Mochi’s fur, she began to scroll and click every site she could find.

But she recalled vividly the constitution of the page she was searching for, and none of these were it. She’d never read the words herself – having never made the recipe – and Kanji had decided to crop the name of the site it was from to maintain the ‘aesthetic’ of the folder, but she knew what it looked like. The colours, the typeface, the accompanying picture.

Nothing.

It was entirely possible the site had been redesigned or deleted. In which case she was out of luck online… It wouldn’t work for her to try a different recipe, it had to be that one. If it wasn’t that one, it wouldn’t taste the same, and then it wouldn’t be his favourite. Irritation began to swell within her as her endeavour began to look more fruitless, and she had to take a few moments to breathe and calm a little before moving onto her last resort: checking with Mrs. Tatsumi, with Yakushiji, and the Investigation Team on the off chance that maybe Kanji had lent them the recipe at some point.

Nos all around.

The irritation grew stronger.

And then, as though a timer had gone off signifying the end of her allotted time, the baby monitor sprung to life.

***

“Are… You even listening?”

Naoto huffed and folded her arms, wearing her most devastating expression of disappointment as she shook her head. She’d been talking for a good ten minutes, and she was beginning to wonder if any of it had been heard at all.

“’Course we are. You want to do something cute and romantic for the big guy, because you’re secretly a massive softie, but your first idea went bust.”

Yosuke offered her a cheeky wink and raised his soda cup in a mock toast, before turning back to fawn over Chihiro in Chie’s arms.

“But I dunno how you expect us to concentrate on anything else when you’ve brought this adorable little muffin along,” Chie added, putting on a baby voice and ‘booping’ said muffin on the nose. Chihiro giggled, her tiny face absolutely beaming with delight.

“Oh, I expect you to manage perfectly. If I can – if Kanji can – despite seeing every cute thing she ever does, then it should be no problem for somebody only exposed to it for a short while.”

A couple of hours had passed since Naoto had given up her search for the original recipe and had elected to change tactic. She would simply have to find… a different meal entirely. One that would still mean as much to Kanji. But a quick scour of the recipe books they had on hand in the kitchen yielded nothing. And so, once Chihiro was fed and dressed appropriately for the late summer warmth, she walked her over to Junes to grab some supplies, hoping that by some pure miracle, looking at the ingredients on offer would spark some form of inspiration within her. Only, out of sheer coincidence, she had managed to time her visit perfectly with the end of Yosuke’s shift, and Chie’s day off.

The two of them could often be found talking in the food court on their off-hours. It had been that way since high school, through all the changes and remodels they’d made to the layout of the store over the years and would likely continue to be that way as long as Junes stood and they remained in Inaba. It was the secret headquarters of the Investigation Team, after all. It wasn’t a place you could so easily give up.

So, guided by tradition, they all sat together, sharing a Takoyaki selection in the summer breeze – a welcome change from the mustiness of the Shirogane residence garage – Yosuke and Chie completely spellbound by the baby while Naoto explained her predicament. She had hoped they’d be a little more attentive, and frankly more helpful, but… she supposed she couldn’t fault them. Chihiro was effectively their niece, and she’d been in Tokyo for the past year.

But at least they were making her happy. Seeing her so ecstatic, despite Kanji being gone for so long, certainly helped ease some of the anxieties she had been feeling about leaving her. Getting her acquainted properly with the people who would likely be babysitting her until well into her teens was certainly not a bad thing… although… Naoto was on a tight schedule.

“Aaanyway.” She rapped the table lightly with the tips of her fingers. “Regretfully my first idea – the one that was ah… ‘bust’, as you said – was also my only idea. I’m currently running at a loss on where to proceed from here…”

At the very least they were nodding along now, and looking at her as she spoke.

“…Chie-chan, do you have date nights? What do you usually do?”

“Hmm? Yeah, of course we do! But, uh… Yukiko and I always go out for ‘em. You know, because the inn keeps her so busy and I –”

“Can’t cook anything without it coming out tasting of cardboard?” Yosuke supplied, grinning. Chie shot him a mean look, but nodded nonetheless.

“Pretty much…”

“In most instances, that would be my go-to as well,” Naoto said, holding back a grin at Yosuke’s comment. “Hand-crafted anything is Kanji’s forte, not mine, but… we both agree the ones at home are more enjoyable, no matter how good the food may be in a restaurant.”

“You’re like… the most private people I’ve ever known, so that isn’t surprising.”

She gave an affirming nod. Lovely as it was to go all out sometimes at an expensive eatery, there were always… stares. No matter where they were, people would see them and notice. Sometimes they’d simply recognise the Detective Prince, and that was all they’d see. But other times their eyes would linger longer. They’d take note of Kanji’s piercings and spikes combined with the cute animals and soft colours, analyse Naoto’s dedication to old English fashion and deliberate lack of conformity to any gender, and then keep their gazes trained on the two of them as they attempted to pick apart every contrasting aspect. The way they looked and dressed alone, the way they looked and dressed together… it made going out in public difficult for two people who both struggled to some degree with social anxieties and a history of being scrutinised for the way they were.

Kanji had left the house worrying he was going to be judged. She didn’t want to put him through that twice in one day.

“Well, is there anything else you’ve made before that you know he likes?” Yosuke asked, helping himself to the Takoyaki

Naoto frowned. “Well, yes, but all of it is rather… typical? I have a small repertoire, you see.”

“So you want something different? Hmm… Why don’t you just go ham?” Chie suggested with a genuine smile. “Grab stuff you think’ll go together and make a totally new curry. Heck, doesn’t even gotta be curry.”

“That’s how you end up with Mystery Food X: Redux,” Yosuke warned, and Chie’s smile instantly vanished. “Though actually, Naoto… In your sensible hands you’d probably be okay. You actually know how to cook.”

“If I wasn’t holding a baby right now, I would kick you.”

“Without a recipe at all…?” For a moment, the detective was left perplexed. But before long, a thought came across her mind, and that irritation from earlier came grumbling back into her periphery. “Yosuke-kun. Please. I simply don’t have the time to spare for your… japes and mockery. I need you to be serious.”

She expected him to laugh, as he often would when she caught him out while he was joking. She didn’t do so very often, loathe as she was to admit it, and it had become something of a game to Yosuke to see how long he could keep pushing her buttons.

But this time he threw up his hands instead, with… was that his face now contorted in confusion as well?

“H-hey, I am being serious. Promise. If you genuinely have no other ideas, then I begrudgingly accept that Chie might be onto something.”

“And I’m supposed to do that without instructions?” She asked incredulously, raising her eyebrows. Was she being foolish and naïve? Or was Yosuke the one reeking of inexperience? “You act as though you believe I have time to memorise every food combination, and how to make them work. I am a detective, not a chef, Yosuke-kun. Recipes exist so that I don’t have to preoccupy my brain with trivialities such as cooking from memory.”

“Hey, it was Chie’s idea, not mine!”

“You should know better.”

The raised voices and snipes were a staple of any conversation involving Yosuke and Chie, and at this point Naoto had come to learn that it was largely performative. They ‘fought’ with warm regards. She’d even reached a point where she was able to go along with it without utterly deflating the mood. But to Chihiro, with no grasp of the concept of banter, it was all just loud, frightening noises coming from people she didn’t know all too well. The conversation very quickly had to switch courses when a crying spell threatened to rear its head.

“You know… you never asked me what I do for date nights,” Yosuke pointed out once the baby had been settled. She now lay propped up on Naoto’s lap, nodding off with her little head resting on her chest. Naoto constantly considered herself fortunate that Chihiro wasn’t especially fussy. Sometimes on a good day all she needed to calm right down was a cuddle.

“Hmm?” she looked up. If Yosuke had said anything before that, she had been too preoccupied with gently coaxing her daughter to nap to hear it. “Oh, no, I suppose I didn’t…”

Chie, who had moved into the more comfortable position of resting her chin on her hand now her arms were free, scoffed slightly.

“Dude. Maybe because you don’t have anybody to date?”

“Well… No, but I’ve been on dates. More than one with the same person. I have experience, I’m just… not experiencing it right now.” He rubbed the back of his neck, casting his gaze off to the side. “Dinner dates aren’t really my thing though…”

“So, why’d you even bring it up?”

“Hey! I’ve been on… like, one dinner date. I’m just not the guru of them!” He shrugged. “It’s an interesting story actually… I got set up a few years ago by my bandmates, and it turns out the guy isn’t my type at all. But I didn’t want to say no without at least giving him a chance, so… Y’know. He wants to go out to this fancy French place, but we get there and they’re closing early because of… Uh, I think the kitchen flooded or something like that? So, he takes me back to his place and leaves me there, runs off to go shopping, and comes back and cooks a three-course French meal himself.”

“And you didn’t marry him on the spot?”

“Nah. We did a couple more dates but it didn’t really work out. We weren’t super compatible...”

“Is this why you get Rise to vet anybody you’re gonna date now?”

“Pretty much. You guys know me best, so…”

The two of them continued to talk, but from Naoto’s perspective, their voices had been drowned by her thoughts into a dull and distant murmur. From the moment Yosuke had finished his story, the gears in her brain had whirred into motion, working their way into fabricating a plan formed from his words.

It had hit her at last. A wave of inspiration and relief, tantamount to the feeling she would have when she’d finally cracked the secret to a particularly arduous case.

A plan. Followed by a conjured image of how Kanji’s face might look when he saw it.

“Yosuke-kun…” she began, standing slowly so that she did not wake the baby and gently lowering her into the buggy she had parked next to her seat. “Would you be able to look something up for me? While my hands are full.”

***

January 19th, 2025. Little over a year and a half ago. London, England. They’d been abroad for a few weeks at that point, Naoto on a case for the Shadow Operatives, and Kanji taking advantage of her hotel room to table at an artist’s alley in a convention.

It was something of a special occasion. Kanji’s 29th birthday had been the original cause for celebration, but to him at least that was very much an aside. It was, what, only three hours prior to reaching the restaurant that they’d found out Naoto was pregnant.

There had been several sources for the reasoning behind Naoto’s choice in establishment, and unlike most of her destination picks while they’d been in London, none of them had a single thing to do with Sherlock Holmes. The ones that stood out the most: a churning in her stomach – simultaneously a mental and a physical reaction to her current condition – and a particularly mournful image of her mother-in-law from a few months prior.

“There was this little place my late husband and I would always take Kanji when he was young, if we had to travel to Okina. Italian, it was, family run. I just heard from a customer that it was recently shut down because the owner passed. It has me a little down to think of, that’s all Naoto dear.”

A precious memory from Kanji’s childhood was no small matter, harrowing as such a thing was to think. And Italian… parsing through her options in her mind as she browsed the local restaurants on one of those food apps, Naoto took note of how the one being advertised made her insides turn the least at the thoughts of it. It was one of those smaller, more community-based places, while the others were either going to be full of too-rich smells for her poor stomach to handle, or full of classy, antiquated rules and stares that she didn��t feel up to taking that day.

She didn’t want to make her husband eat hotel food on his birthday… And nor did she want to worry him all evening by being exceptionally edgy. So it didn’t take very long at all for her to have dialled the number for the family-run Italian place, and had booked them a table for two that evening.

The food had been… good. Standard fare for that kind of place. But Naoto was a harsh critic – even without feeling deeply unwell, she had been to Italy. And yet, in all the fifteen years she had known Kanji, she could not recall a single meal out where he seemed to have enjoyed himself quite as much as that. The rush of euphoria from learning he was going to be a father had apparently been enough to turn any experience he may have had that night into the best date night of his life. And Naoto knew the kind of man he was. Sentimental, perceptive, prone to dwelling on the little things. He’d remember, starkly, what he had eaten then.

It was just a pasta meal. She recalled it being made with chicken and a creamy, pesto-based sauce, and Yosuke’s internet search had quickly pulled up a recipe for something along those lines. It wouldn’t be the same – these places kept their recipes close to the heart – but that didn’t matter. Her plan had now become a case of finding something symbolic, over finding something that tasted good.

“I think he’s really starting to rub off on you,” Yosuke had noted as Naoto had prepared to rush off to grab the ingredients from the recipe he had found. “Kanji, I mean. In a good way.”

She’d queried him on that. Her own sharpness didn’t exactly extend to analysing herself.

“I just meant that five years ago, I don’t think you’d ever have thought to do something like this. I always took you for the… less cliché of the two of you. Didn’t you propose to him spontaneously in a cat café? If you don’t mind me asking… why is this the first thing you thought to do for him?”

A pause for Naoto to collect her thoughts. One that, much to everyone’s surprise, didn’t last nearly as long as it might have.

“It’s… because this is logical to me. A dinner date – it’s the simplest, most common activity in the books. It’s a cliché because its effective. Because food is one of those love languages that transcends barriers, and to somebody who struggles in most social situations, like Kanji, like me, you must understand that something like this is a life saver. It’s a change to our routine that really doesn’t change all that much.” She smiled to herself. “Kanji does this to make me feel happy. So many people do, for the person they love. It only makes sense to me that I follow their lead.”

It was that way for most matters of the heart, she thought to herself as she balanced a packet of chicken on the hood of the buggy. She had never known how to act in these situations, how to express the feelings she had. And while she’d devised some unique little ways that she had managed to convey to Kanji, oftentimes the most effective means of telling him that she loved him was to simply use another person’s idea as a foundation. She had her own experiences as proof that it worked. After all, Kanji was a person who had been so starved for and scared of affection as a child that now, almost anything that said ‘I care about you’ was enough to draw him to tears. And Naoto was no different. He was more physical than her, and really that was the only major way in which their feelings towards romance diverged. The things that made one of them happy was sure to leave the other in the same state.

***

Naoto loved Kanji more than she hated cooking. That was really the defining fact that made this entire plan of hers possible at all.

Because she really hated cooking.

“I’ll prolly be home in like… forty minutes,” Kanji had told her over the phone when she’d given him a tentative call at just gone four to gauge how long she had. Pasta wasn’t exactly something she could make well in advance – just the thought of reheating it or overcooking it made her skin crawl. It was one of those things she needed to be perfect. Kanji, thankfully, didn’t have a preference.

So, she’d had to leave making the actual meal until as close to Kanji’s arrival as she could predict. But it wasn’t as though she had time to spare… She had to make the table, feed the cats, feed the baby, put the baby down for a nap…

Then she had to cook the chicken and the pasta… that was fine, it just… radiated a lot of heat for a day that was already rather warm. Inaba’s houses were old, and they didn’t yet have much ventilation or air conditioning.

Then was the sauce, and she had to do some vegetables, but she had to keep stirring the sauce so it didn’t ruin the consistency, and she had to keep turning the meat and the veggies so they wouldn’t burn, and oh, the pasta might stick or become overdone if she wasn’t careful. Then it would just become stressful. Every meal, every time. No matter how methodical she tried to be, it would always devolve into this.

It was a focus thing, she was sure. When she homed in on a task or a detail, it became quite difficult to switch gears on the fly. A useful skill for analysing a murder case. Not so much for cooking.

It was why, when they were both at home, she and Kanji would often just cook dinner together.

But occasionally, and for the sake of somebody she cared about, it was worth it.

She was just at the stage where she was plating up the food, trying to get it to look as it did in the picture on the website, when the familiar sight of an old, dusty car that had at one point been purple staggered its way up their driveway, starkly contrasted with the shiny motorcycle it had pulled up next to. As Kanji climbed from the car, Naoto carefully studied his face, trying to glean from his expression how exactly he was feeling in that moment. But Kanji had a naturally angry look to him, so such a task was often difficult to undertake.

“You makin’ garlic bread, Nao?” he called from the porch almost as soon as the door had slid shut.

“You’ll see,” was all she said in response. With Kanji just moments away from seeing what she had done, she found herself buzzing with anticipation.

“Wuzzat s’posed to mean?” he asked, sticking his head around the door into the kitchen.

For a moment, his forehead crinkled as he took everything in, his eyes lingering on the table made up as closely to that of a restaurant as Naoto could manage, with cloth, candles, and an arrangement of Kanji’s favourite red roses (albeit that was rather haphazardly done).

And in that moment Naoto felt as though her heart had somehow managed to stall.

But the tension was brief, quickly dissipated by the biggest, goofiest grin taking up a huge portion of Kanji’s face.

He strode into the room and pulled his partner into a powerful hug all in a motion that was so fluid, you wouldn’t think it was Kanji performing it.

“I can see you’re ready to reopen the agency, huh?”

Naoto smiled and shook her head, before snuggling her cheek into Kanji’s chest. “Don’t mistake this for a fit of boredom – I’ve been anything but. Welcome to our first date night back in Inaba.”

“Huh? W-wait, hold up… Date night? You did this… fer me?”

His eyes threatened to grow wider than his smile had those few moments earlier, as the realisation of the circumstances slowly began to dawn on him.

Then, as was customary for Kanji whenever Naoto would do anything for him ever, his face turned a brilliant shade of scarlet, and he began stammering unintelligible gibberish.

“Quickly now, before it cools down!”

“Y…Yuh…”

This was… odd. Kanji seemed unequivocally, unprecedentedly broken. His movements as he crossed to the counter and grabbed his plate, were mechanical, shaken, even. They weren’t unheard of for him, but it was as though they had suddenly been transported fifteen years into the past once more. Before they had fallen in love, before they’d even been close friends, when Kanji was so overcome with embarrassment whenever they spoke that he would be unable to function.

Now they were married, it wasn’t exactly commonplace.

Had something happened to him at work which had left him overwhelmed?

“Kanji?” Naoto called out tentatively as they took their seats.

“…huh?”

“You seem… Rather out of it.”

He blinked a couple of times and shook his head. “Right. Yeah… Sorry…”

He cleared his throat and repeated the process of shaking his head.

“It’s just, uh… ‘M kinda at a loss for words. This is… Wow.”

A tension she hadn’t recognised until it was gone suddenly flooded from her body with a sigh of relief.

“For a moment there I was concerned that something was wrong, so –”

“More like… everythin’ is right. I never pegged you fer someone who’d do date nights Tatsumi style.”

“…Tatsumi style? So this…” she waved an arm across the table. “This is something you observed… what, from your parents?”

He nodded. Naoto didn’t realise it was possible for him to turn redder until just then.

“Ain’t really a lotta options for fancy restaurants like what you do out here. Ma and my old man always improvised at home. I know cookin’ yer partner a meal ain’t somethin’ my folks made up, they just ended up callin’ it that… Nickname kinda stuck.” He rubbed the back of his head.

“Well, I suppose I have rather adopted a Tatsumi way of behaving today. Our roles have been utterly reversed. Why, I daresay after dinner, I shall take up a crochet project, and you’ll lull our Chihiro to sleep by reading her more of ‘A Study in Scarlet’.”

“I love you, Naoto.”

“Eh?”

But instead of elaborating, Kanji simply left his partner to turn an equally furious shade of red while he took a bite of the food. Naoto found herself so flustered that she didn’t even have time to be nervous about him trying the dish.

But, she supposed, she didn’t really have anything to worry about. This was Kanji.

“…I better never hear the words ‘I’m not very good at cooking’ comin’ from yer mouth again.”

“Well… Regardless of the quality of the food –” she began, about to launch into a spiel about how the mess she made, and how stressful it was for her, suggested that she technically wasn’t exactly on the level of a master. But all it took from Kanji was a single glare, and she stopped herself.

This was supposed to be a pleasant evening. And he did hate when she was self-deprecating in any capacity.

“I’m glad you like it Kan-chan.” She smiled, taking her own first bite. Hmm. Not bad. She wasn’t sure how this was supposed to taste – she’d been feeling far too unwell that night in London to eat much at all, so she’d ordered a lighter dish – but how it did taste was pleasant.

“Better than it was on my birthday that one time. Dunno if you remember, but at that one Italian place when we were in England –”

“Where do you suppose I gained the inspiration to make this particular meal?”

“Huh? Well shit, haha. Last time I ever doubt yer memory.”

“Hm, well… I don’t think I’m capable of forgetting that day…”

Kanji slid his free hand across the table and placed it atop hers, rubbing his thumb soothingly over her knuckles. Strange, she noted, that the nail was still painted black; she was sure the school would make him take the colour off alongside his piercings.

A nagging feeling in her chest, her stomach, her mind was begging her to ask him how it had gone. But it was not the only train of thought on the feeling that she had. What if Kanji didn’t want to talk about it yet? What if it was best to simply… enjoy the meal in ignorant bliss? Was he waiting for the right time, or for her to say something?

He looked as though he were about to speak now, was that the subject he was going to bring up?

“How has Chihiro been today?”

No. Of course not. The subject of work would have to wait.

As with… most of their conversations over the past year, the rest of the meal was largely dominated with Chihiro. Naoto describing, in detail, exactly what she had done, and Kanji’s expression growing fonder and fonder with every word. By the time they were done eating, he looked as though he were going to cry.

“Kinda sad that this is our lives goin’ forwards…”

“Hm?”

“Nothin’… just been missin’ her at work is all.”

The nagging feeling was very quickly becoming anxiety. The first mention of his day all evening, and it was something negative.

“Kanji, was everything –”

A sound suddenly stole her words before she had the chance to finish. A baby crying, as audible through the walls as it was the baby monitor on the counter.

“Prolly needs changing, huh?” Kanji smiled, rising to his feet. “Mind if I take this?”

“Please… She probably misses you too.”

In the time that Kanji was attending to the baby, Naoto managed to load everything that needed cleaning into the dishwasher, and found her way to the living room, and then to the couch. But her mind wasn’t exactly responsive as she did so.

Kanji… was worse than she had anticipated… More than just a simple meal could possibly hope to fix. Why on earth… What delusion had she been under to think, with how he’d been these past few days, that a little romantic gesture would be all he needed to feel better.

Amidst the haze that was buzzing in her mind, she vaguely registered her hands clenching into fists.

At some point, goodness knew when, Kanji had reappeared in the room and had sat down next to her, taking off his glasses and rubbing the bridge of his nose.

“She’s back down. Heh… Wanted to play as soon as she saw me, the little tyke, but could barely keep her eyes open long enough to do it.”

“She’s had… a busy day.”

“Ain’t we all?” he said with an air of exhaustion about him, placing his glasses gently on the kotatsu in front of them and then sinking back into the couch. “You ready for tomorrow?”

“I’ve been ready for weeks. Waiting on other people…” Naoto mumbled in response. Her gaze had fallen as she’d spoken to her socks, and she could not bring herself to remove it until Kanji nudged her with his arm.

“Hey. You good, Nao?”

“…Are you?”

That brought the conversation to a standstill.

“Would ya believe me if I told ya I was jus’ tired?”

“Only… partially.”

He gave her a half smile and repositioned himself so that his head lay on her shoulder.

“It was… a pretty exhaustin’ day… Lotta new stuff. Lotta old stuff too… that school ain’t changed in twenty years. Amazing it’s managed so long.”

Naoto just made an affirming noise and let her hand come to rest on his shoulder, pressing her cheek onto the top of his head. Best just to let him speak, she thought.

“Ain’t none of the people I knew still there but… they knew who I was. Course they did… didn’t expect any different. An’ you know what?”

“Hm?”

“Most of ‘em just complimented me on the plushies. They knew me ‘cause of the shop, not… ‘cause of the delinquent shit.”

“Well, that’s… good, is it not? That’s what we hoped would happen.”

She felt him shift his head as though he were trying to nod. His arm had worked its way around her waist, and she felt him bunching up the fabric of her dress shirt in his fingers as he spoke. It was an unconscious habit of his. Most notable when he was nervous.

“Yeah… Never said it weren’t good. Jus’ that I was tired. And that I missed my kid. And you.”

Naoto drew a deep breath. “It seemed like something was wrong, that’s all. I’ve been worried about you. All day. All week.”

“…That why you’re not okay?”

“Yes! Effectively!”

Another brief standstill.

“Sorry ‘bout that… Really… Last thing I wanted was for my bullshit worrying over nothing to affect you too.”

Naoto squeezed his shoulder slightly.

“You should know by now that such a thing is impossible. The same can be said of you, to me. We’ve been in this partnership since we were in high-school, Kan-chan, we can’t simply… hide our true feelings any longer. We know each other too well to be caught out.”

“Yeah… s’pose you’re right… I did appreciate it though. Back before I went in today and realised my worries were a load ‘a crap. I… I dunno, I guess comin’ back to Inaba after so long had me thinkin’ that everythin’ was gonna go back to the way it was.”

“Kanji… You weren’t… Please don’t tell me you’ve been thinking that way since we first planned to come.”

Silence. Naoto’s heart dropped. Obviously, that meant she was right on the mark.

Good lord, she had still been expecting when they’d first discussed moving back! Their daughter was one in a week!

“’s in the past now though. All of it,” he said eventually. “Physically this place ain’t no different, but I guess the vibe has changed since we were kids. Maybe… Enough time has passed now that I ain’t gotta worry about… the guy I was.”

“Kanji… I rescind what I said earlier. About how it’s impossible to hide our feelings from each other. Please… when it’s something serious like this, I implore you to tell me.”

Her eyes stung, but she refused to cry. If she did, he’d try to make this about her, and dammit, she was tired of it being about her. The entire point of everything she had done that day was to make it about Kanji for once in his life.

“…’M sorry, Nao…”

After that, for a long while neither of them spoke. They simply adjusted themselves into a position where they could more easily cuddle and sat there, snuggled into each other as the dwindling oranges and purples of the twilight sky gave way to darkness.

Kanji was the one to break the silence, his voice so slick with sleepiness that it was demure in a way which was much unlike him.

“Hey Nao… Yer still awake, right?”

“Mmhmm…” she responded. It was… mostly true.

“Y’know, I’ve been thinkin’. I got a new goal now we’re back here… I wanna be able to look that bastard in the eye and tell him he ain’t me. Not because I’m denyin’ anythin’, but because he ain’t.”

“Him? Your Shadow?”

“Yeah. Like you can, y’know? If your Shadow popped their head back up and started sayin’ the same shit as before, you could just tell ‘em: ‘you’re wrong.’ ‘Cause they would be.”

“But they wouldn’t say something like that. My age and gender no longer cause me grief to the level they had in my youth, so my Shadow wouldn’t bring them up.”

Of course, they wouldn’t. Naoto thought that was obvious. She was thirty-one, very much an adult, and any doubt she had about whether she was a man or a woman were significantly eased when she had learned that she could be both and neither. She had no lack of confidence in those aspects of herself, regardless now of what other people thought, so there was no way the Shadow could use them as ammunition if they were to reappear.

But based on Kanji’s next statement, suddenly full of more vigour than his words prior, she wondered if perhaps she had misunderstood where he was coming from.

“Yeah, but that’s what I’m saying! The stuff your Shadow said back then… It ain’t even crossin’ your mind anymore. I wanna be the same… I mean… It’s not that I ain’t happy with who I am. I like cute shit, and sewing, and all the stuff like that. Shit, I’m bi as hell. I can say that stuff proudly. It’s…” he huffed. “For some reason, it’s like I can be confident in myself all I want, but in my head it don’t mean shit unless everyone else feels the same way. An' as long as I got a history as 'the guy who beats up bikers', it's like that day ain't gonna come... I’m… still scared shitless of bein’ rejected after all these years... It’s like… every time I meet a new group of people, I just end up wonderin’ how long its gonna be before they brand me a thug and cut me and everyone I care about off. Think that’s kinda the reason it’s been weighin’ on me again so much more recently. I start comin’ up with scenarios in my head where it gets outta hand and Chihiro gets hurt ‘cause of it.”

As he spoke, his hug became tighter.

“Kan-chan…”

“So, my goal is to get to a place where I don’t constantly worry about that stuff. Where if that bastard showed up again and said that kinda shit, I could deny him with my whole heart and know for certain that I’m right an’ he’s wrong. An’ before you say shit, I know that ain’t how Shadows work. That’s jus’ the image I use in my head to try an’ visualise what I’m itchin’ to do.”

He added that last part with a hint of a laugh to his tone.

So that was why he took a job he was so caught up about? As some concrete way of proving to himself that he would be okay if he did?

A self-destructive means of gathering evidence for a hypothesis… hm… perhaps Naoto’s inheritance of Kanji’s traits over the years had gone the other way as well.

“I didn’t realise it was possible to be so unbelievably proud of somebody, while simultaneously thinking them a fool…” Naoto ensured to keep her own tone bright, so that he would know she spoke in endearing terms. “You know I would have supported you through this if only you had told me –”

“Hah. Yer actin’ like you take me for the kinda guy who thinks this shit through… this ain’t exactly something I’ve been plannin’ or nothin’, it just sorta… came to me now.”

Oh, so it was a subconscious instinct?

Then perhaps he would be safe from her bad influence for just a little while longer…

“Well… regardless of how much preparation has gone into it… it is a good goal to have in mind, so long as you’re comfortable with the pain it may bring in the process.”

“Yeah. No problem. Anyway…” he sat up and looked her in the eyes. “What was that you were implyin’ with the whole ‘you know I would have supported you’ bull you just said?”

Naoto frowned. “It’s the truth –”

“Yeah, I know it’s the truth. Because you have been supportin’ me, dumbass. You ain’t ever stopped.” He thrust his arm in the vague, general direction of the kitchen, a wild delight dancing in his eyes. “You spent the last day of yer maternity leave makin’ sure I’d have a good evenin’ because you thought I needed cheerin’ up.”

Naoto felt her cheeks heat up. “I… I only did what you would do for me…”

“Yeah, but it ain’t like I made you do it. You still made the decision. It’s amazin’, an yer incredible, and adorable, an’ you make a freakin’ awesome pasta, an’ I can’t believe how lucky I am to have you.”

She knew she was blushing harder and harder with every word, to the point where all she could think to do was bury her face into his shoulder.

“Feel kinda bad that we kinda got side-tracked from the ‘date night’ though… Sorry if you had anything else planned.”

“No, no, don’t feel bad. I did this because I thought you needed it, Kanji. And I don’t suppose I’m wrong in suggesting that you very much needed this talk as well?”

“…You ain’t wrong… Not at all.”

“And do you feel any better for having it?”

“Mmhmm.”

Naoto lifted her head and gave him her warmest smile. “Then I can safely declare this date night a resounding success.”

“Damn right, you can! But uh… I don’t wanna take away from anythin’ else you mighta wanted to do, so –”

The heat in her cheeks returned as quickly as it had vanished, and she sheepishly averted his gaze. Right. Date night was usually more than a meal.

“Uhm... About that. Kanji, I’ll be perfectly honest with you, I… I was so caught up in trying to find a recipe for dinner that it never even occurred to me to look for a movie or something to do afterwards.”

She offered him an apologetic look, but his immediate response was only to laugh and hold her closer.

“Don’t think I coulda made it through a movie anyway… I’m beat…”

“As am I. I think I may drift off here…”

It quickly became apparent that each of their ideal end to the evening would be to turn in early and hope to gain a restful night – something that was near impossible with a small child. Whether such a thing was an indication of how eventful their day had been, or whether it was simply a sign of them getting older, neither really cared to consider. Instead, they just ensured the house was secure, called the cats to follow them, and moved upstairs as quietly as they could so that their footsteps wouldn’t cause Chihiro to stir.

It wasn’t until Naoto had switched her outfit for one of Kanji’s old shirts and was brushing her teeth in the upstairs bathroom that it dawned on her: there was still one aspect of her day that had yet to be cleared up.

And now that it had come to mind, she feared she may be unable to sleep until she had an answer.

“Kan-chan?”

“Hm?”

“You know the binder you keep with recipe print-outs…? Do you have any idea what box it’s in?”

His face was mostly buried by the bedsheets by now, but she could tell from the part she could see that he was thinking hard.

“Uh… Oh! My car.”

“…Your car?”

“Yeah. I didn’t want the other kitchen stuff to squash it, so I put it separate. I see it every time I go in there an’ I keep saying I’ll bring it in and never do. How come…?”

Naoto heaved a great sigh and flopped on the bed besides him. It wasn’t until her face hit the pillow that she realised exactly how exhausting her day had been. “So you had it all along… I never would have found it.”

“You were lookin’ for it?”

“I was. I wanted to make you that curry instead, the one you called your favourite.”

“Ohhhh. I getcha now." He laughed. "That woulda been a good choice. But y’know anythin’ would have been fine. I got a real soft-spot for Italian food, hehe.”

“I like that curry myself though,” she added, as she shuffled under the covers. “It’s rare to find something spicy that you can handle as much as I…”

“You do, huh? I see.”

There was silence for a while. And then…

“Hey, Naoto…?”

“Mmm?”

“When’s your next day off?”

“My next day off…? That would be Sunday… Why?”

But Kanji didn’t answer. Instead, he just leaned over to kiss her goodnight, and then, with a sleepy smile, he rolled over and went to sleep.

#persona 4 #kanji tatsumi #naoto shirogane #kannao #misede writes

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