#anyway. stayed up late thinking abt it and now I’m in bed late writing it out | Explore Tumblr Posts and Blogs

jungxk · 4 years

Text

crush

filed under. i totally forgot i wrote this. also i like the name eunmi sue me

notes. thank you to @lonelyending for reading thru this crusty story and making me feel good enough about it again to post it. also @suga-kookiemonster bc im pretty sure i sent u this like a year ago and u told me to post it it but....i forgot abt it shdgjsgd. writing/life in general has been hard recently so pls accept this kookfic to hold yous over until i update just one

genre. fluff, light comedy, light angst, smut

warnings. smut (oral sex: f receiving, penetrative unprotected sex)

length. 5.1k

the first thing jungkook thinks when he sees you is wow.

he hasn't been up for very long, and you don't even know he's looking at you through the window. yoongi-hyung has wrapped you up in his arms as you sob and sob, muted behind the protective hospital glass. even with messy hair and wet eyes he's starstruck. it's why he recoils slightly when jimin and namjoon explain to him that you're his wife.

"my," he can't even say the word. "my..."

"your wife," namjoon repeats. "you know what a wife is, right? marriage?"

"yes," jungkook huffs, digging his nails into his scalp. "i lost my memory, hyung, not my fucking brain cells."

he suddenly registers the gold band glistening on his left hand, simple and heavy. he has to take a second to collect himself. "but...but i'm twenty-three. right? i am twenty-three, yeah?"

"yeah. you are," jimin says softly.

"then how the fuck am i already married? not that i'm complaining i just," he suddenly turns pink at the thought of you in a wedding dress, clinging onto his arm, breakfast dates, late night ramen runs at the convenience store, painting the living room in a house you probably share, naked in bed on top of him. jungkook clears his throat. "it just seems a little out of character for me. i can't commit to a pair of shoes for a week let alone-"

"i think it's best if you just spoke with ____," jimin finishes before jungkook can work himself into a frenzy, a comforting hand laying on his shoulder. "you two need to talk anyway and it's best if all these answers came from her."

jungkook gulps at the thought of speaking to you, seeing you face to face. suddenly he's a cripplingly shy fourteen year old again.

"okay." he croaks. "okay."

you were even more beautiful up close.

your tear stained cheeks are glowing and blotchy when you perch on the chair beside his bed, big eyes fluttering up at him nervously. you're soft and plush and shorter than he thought and jungkook has to fist his hands in the sheets and play a counting game with the heart rate monitor in order to maintain eye contact. he feels himself start to sweat when you smile sadly at him. "sorry, i just...i don't know how to be around you normally without making you uncomfortable," you say quietly, wringing your hands together to avoid touching him.

"uncomfortable?" he queries, gaze latching onto the ring on your hand. seeing it on you gives him a nice feeling.

you nod into your lap. "yeah, um..." you look at your scuffed shoes, searching for the word. "we're usually very...touchy."

he can feel himself turning red again. "t-touchy?"

you meet his eyes and a pretty smile breaks over your face at how bashful he looks, making jungkook's cheeks tinge even pinker than they already are. you nod cutely so your earrings tinkle, eyes shining, and suddenly he understands without any context why he fell in love with you, why he married you so young. you let a comfortable silence settle over the room before taking a deep breath, bracing yourself. "how much do you remember, jungkook?"

he tries not to cave under the weight of his guilt. "not a lot about...you, that is," he finishes with a wince, your sad eyes immediately making him wilt with shame. "i remember everything up until a couple of years ago. we had a show at the japanese dome, debuted in america, and then...nothing. and now..."

"and now," you echo softly. your eyes look distant, staring at the floor.

"i'm sorry," jungkook whispers, chin touching his chest. "hyung told me...they all told me how much i loved you and...and i'm sorry i don't remember any of it. i'm so sorry."

you shake your head gently. "don't be sorry, jungkook-ah," the pet name makes his ears perk up. its a familiar, calming sound. "none of this is your fault. you didn't ask to get hit by that car." your expression turns remorseful, tugging at his heart. "if anything, this is because of me. the only reason you were out was because i asked you to go and get eggs and formula even though i should've remembered to pick some up on the way home and-"

"no, no! please don't blame yourself," jungkook tries, wishing he was close enough or even brave enough to take your hand. you look up at him and he catches a glimpse of the endless pool of love you harbour for him, like a punch to the chest. "i don't ever want you thinking this was your fault. so ple-" he pauses. "wait, formula?"

the door bursts open before he can finish, pitter patter steps rounding his bed until it reaches the other side, where you sit. a little girl with big dark eyes and curls of dark hair stares at him in wonder and elation, her cheeks dimpling just like yours before she screeches, "appa!"

jungkook's mouth goes dry. appa?

you're quick to intervene, putting yourself in the toddlers path to scoop her up in your arms. her grabby little hands struggle over your shoulder, fingers wriggling in attempt to get as close to jungkook as possible. he only stares with wide eyes and an open mouth, heart hammering in his chest when he sees the uncanny resemblances: his round nose. your brown skin but just a twinge fairer. his hooded eyes. and his stomach lurches.

"shhh, eunmi," you coo as you carry her away even with her squirming. "remember what i said before? appa is sick. appa is sick, baby-"

"we have a child?" jungkook wheezes, eyes starting to glaze over. there's a bout of silence when you look back at him guiltily, the baby's fumbling grinding to a halt when she registers the tension in the air. jungkook's breath is barely a whisper. "is that my daughter?"

your face crumples with a fresh bout of tears and eunmi looks on worriedly. she pushes her little lips into your cheek in a baby's kiss, like she's seen her father do so many times to get your attention. the word "amma," is muffled into your skin until you get yourself together and press a short kiss to her head.

yoongi rushes in, face twisted in apology. "i swear to god i turned around for one minute and-"

"it's okay, yoongi," you say quietly, stroking the baby's head. "eunmi, stay with uncle just a bit longer, okay? amma will be back in a minute..."

"appa," she whines over your shoulder, reaching for jungkook who sits helplessly in his bed. he watches with tears wetting his eyelashes, heart twisting in agony at the sight of his child he doesn't remember stretching her arms out for him. she begins to cry when he doesn't react or coo her. like he used to.

"take her, yoongi," you say shakily, passing the baby to him. the sound of eunmi's crying makes your heart shatter all over again, yoongi's quiet hushing doing nothing to qualm her sobbing as the heavy door closes behind them.

the silence that falls between the two of you is nothing short of excruciating. jungkook's head spins, completely overwhelmed: is that why you both got married so young? because of a child? was this why jimin and namjoon wouldn't say a damn thing about his life until he spoke to you first?

and then all the other questions that followed: was he a good father? when was his daughter's birthday? did she like kimchi and banana milk too? did he sing to her? read to her often?

would she ever forgive him for not being able to remember her?

"her name is eunmi," you say, looking down at the floor when jungkook starts to cry.

jungkook doesn't understand how his baby could be so pretty. she's golden brown like those sandy beaches on postcards, with chubby cheeks and twinkling dark eyes that resemble yours to a t, and that's when he realises of course she's beautiful. she's yours. you balance eunmi on your hip while you make coffee - decaf, since you're still weaning - and despite the amnesia jungkook feels like he's been here before, in this warm, happy place that is the kitchen.

"she got your nose though," you remind him, dumping the baby in his lap upon her fussing. she always seemed to wind down under his touch, and although nervous about the sudden responsibility of fatherhood, jungkook is compelled to give it. eunmi doesn't understand anything's changed so he doesn't see why he should act like it. "she's whiny before her milk too. like you."

"hey!" he retorts, but can't exactly defend himself. he twirls his fingers around her curly pigtails until she catches on and tries to stand on his thighs, reaching for his hair to yank. jungkook lets her. he's barely known his daughter a week and he's already so smitten he'd let her gut him open with a butter knife.

"she missed you, you know. when you were in hospital all this time," you say, making him look up to watch you stare into your drink. the fear still lingers in your eyes, faint and persistent. he can see it every time you look at him and it makes his body yearn to touch you like he once did, like he once would have before his brain unlearned everything his heart didn't. you laugh while watching eunmi pull his hair again, making him hiss. "even yoongi tried but no one coddles her as much as you."

"really?" he asks, face lighting up. he's so happy to hear that. jungkook hates the way the question bubbles up in the back of his throat, like it'd make a difference or it'd change how he felt. but he has to ask it. "is that why...is that why we got married so early, then?" he says, trying to sound as offhand as possible. "because of eunmi?"

you chew your lip. "yeah. i mean, you said it wasn't a big deal. because you were going to marry me eventually so it didn't make a difference, but...it doesn't really matter i guess, because that's not what everyone else thinks," you pause, tracing the rim of your mug again. "that's certainly not what your fans think."

jungkook doesn't even want to think about it. the backlash, the gossip, the name calling and dehumanisation. for the first time in his life jungkook couldn't give less of a shit about his reputation. "i'm sorry," he says, feeling like the word has lost meaning by now with how much he's said it. "i'm so sorry. not for this, for us or for eunmi. i don't regret any of that i just," he shifts the baby in his lap, still getting used to her weight. "i can only imagine what you went through."

you look a bit bewildered. "...you said that last time too." you smile again reassuringly. "please don't feel solely responsible, kook-ah. you didn't exactly get me pregnant on your own."

he flushes tomato red and you giggle at him until eunmi joins in too.

jungkook can't keep his eyes off you while you play with the baby, comb out her hair, sing her lullabies while you bathe her together. he'd always wanted a whirlwind romance as a teen and it looks like he finally got it, because he can feel himself fall head first in love with you (all over again). it didn’t make sense for someone to be so collected and easygoing after having motherhood forced onto you so abruptly. you tell him often that he's a picture-perfect dad, but jungkook still doubts he compares.

"does she need a change?" he asks, struggling to keep all of eunmi's wriggling limbs in his grip.

"nope, just hungry," you say, reaching out when he passes the baby to you. you're about to stand up and go to the guest room to feed her, but jungkook is already arranging the pillows next to him for you, grabbing a baby cloth on the side too.

"do you need another pillow?" he muses aloud, but he's already grabbing the ones on his side of the bed before you can answer, forming a wedge for you to sit nicely beside him. he looks up at you when you fail to move. "are you okay?"

"yeah i, um," you chew your lip nervously. "you don't...mind me feeding here?"

you immediately regret the question once it leaves your mouth. jungkook's crestfallen expression hits you right in the stomach, round eyes glittering up at you. he hasn't looked this upset since he woke up nearly a month ago. "why would i ever mind?”

"oh jungkook," you sniff, sitting beside him. he pulls you into the nest of pillows beside him, arm winding protectively around your shoulders. your eyes brim with sympathy tears, tired and angry and upset with treating him like a stranger.

"if i make you feel uncomfortable, i can go," he offers quietly. "if it makes you feel weird i understand..."

"no, not at all," you rush to stop him, suddenly realising how close you are. you could kiss his pink little lips if you just tilted your head up. "i just didn't want to make you feel weird. all this new stuff is happening to you, you're suddenly a husband and a father with no recollection of signing up or it and i just...i don't know how much you want to invest the second time around," you scramble to finish your sentence when he pins you with a concerned expression. “as in, i understand if you don’t want to make the same choice twice. it’s a big decision.”

he shakes his head dismissively. there wasn't a thing in the world that could make him turn his back on his family but it looked like you still needed convincing. he peers at you curiously when you position the baby. "so i can stay?"

you smile at him eagerly. "of course," you undo the nursing strap of your bra before the baby finally latches. "i actually prefer it when you're here. it makes me feel safe."

jungkook watches quietly while you hum for the baby, playing with her little hand while she drinks. the adoration seeps out of him in waves, how serene you look while you rock her, how angelic eunmi looks while she blinks her big doll eyes up at you both. she won't stay this little forever. he feels so overwhelmed by it, gathering you further in his arms with the urge to hold his family in his hands like a diamond. you don't question the little sniffles jungkook buries into your hair, resting your head on his shoulder wordlessly. you missed being held by him, missed his cotton scent and gentle breath.

"i love her so much," he whispers into the shell of your ear, entranced by the baby's little gurgles and gulps. he reaches out to run his knuckle over the velvet of her cheek, round and stuffed with milk. "i feel like i'll die, i love her so much."

"me too," you smile. "it was scary and hard for a long time but...i'm so glad we had her. i wouldn't trade her for anything."

you feel jungkook's lips trace your temple, heart stuttering upon the sudden contact. you hear what he doesn’t say: i wouldn't trade either of you.

"why are you so sweaty?" jimin scowls, noting the dark patches under jungkook's t-shirt when he tries to take the baby from his arms. "it's not even humid today."

jungkook doesn't do anything but gulp and cuddle a sleeping eunmi closer to his chest. she's become somewhat of a security blanket for him; even if she wasn't awake to play, he was always itching to hold her and nuzzle into her head when he's tense or embarrassed. like now.

"leave him alone, you know he sweats when he's shy," yoongi grins.

"stop it," jungkook mumbles.

"shy? what for?"

"because he's got a crush on his wife," namjoon snickers, knowing jungkook would whack him one if his arms weren't around his kid. "why are you looking at me like that? it's true!"

"but you can't just say it! she'll hear!" he hisses.

"you're married," jimin deadpans but it only makes the younger boy curl in on his baby more. "god, this reminds of when you two met. remember how he used to hide behind manager hyung every time ____ came in? and then i had to listen to them fuck in the next room for a year only to end up back here all over again-"

"jungkook," you call. "where did these come from?" you walk into the sitting room with a bouquet of yellow roses nestled in your arms. "did a fan send them? i didn't see a note they were just on the worktop-"

"th-those are for you," he mumbles. "i got those for you."

you look so pretty when you stare it makes him sweat harder and the three older boys all but burst a vein in their head trying not to laugh when leaving the room. there's an awkward silence where you clutch the flowers and he clutches the baby. "thank you," you say finally. "they're beautiful, i love the colour yellow..."

his big doe eyes round up to look at you even though the lower half of his face is smushed into pigtails. "you're welcome."

"can i kiss you?" you blurt out, too fast to stop it. your cheeks are still stinging and you're pretty sure you have baby powder in your hair but jungkook looks at you with awe as he nods so vigorously his earrings shake.

so you do, leaning over the arm of the sofa to press your mouth over his long enough for both your breaths to catch. you pull away, moving to sit next to him so his free arm can wind around your shoulders when you kiss him again. "please," he mumbles when you part. "please don't ask to kiss me. just do it," he leans for another long, warm kiss that leaves you light headed. "stop tip-toeing around me, okay? we're married. i know i scare easy, but not that easy."

you feel giddy, finally feeling the weight being lifted piece by piece. "okay," you peck his mole endearingly before scooting up for another kiss. "i missed this."

"me too," he hums into your mouth. "it feels like the first time but also...not the first time, you know? not just because i don't remember but like," he doesn't know how to say it, wetting his lips thoughtfully. your chapstick is cherry flavoured, his favourite. "like we've been doing this for longer than both of us even realise. longer than this life."

"i know," you nod. "i know."

after a while, you forgot about jungkook's amnesia altogether. even though the chances of him making a full recovery were slim, it all felt so normal and back to routine, all the kissing and the cuddling and the playing with eunmi. there was almost no room for trepidation anymore. until now.

you moan into jungkook's mouth when he pulls you onto his thighs, big hands palming your ass when you grind into him. he's only mildly concerned that he'll cum in his pants at this rate but he doesn't fret too much: that was secondary to undressing you and touching you and pleasing you and making you scream as loud as he could make you without waking the baby. he has nearly three years of re-learning your body to catch up on and he's eager to start.

he's quickly reminded during this process that you are a master. you know exactly where to kiss him, exactly how much pressure to kneed into his cock with your hips, exactly how much tongue he wants in his mouth until he's whining and damp for you. of course you know his body like the back of your hand - your child wasn't conceived from thin air. it makes him all the more desperate to learn, almost antsy to get his mouth and hands on you until you're writhing and breathless beneath him.

you gasp when you feel his hand slip between your legs, rubbing his fingers over your shorts. you automatically rock your covered wetness into his touch, the long whimper you muffle into his neck sending jungkook soaring through the clouds with pride. you're so lost in the feeling, having missed it so much, you're barely able to squeak a stop! when he hooks his fingers inside the waistband of your panties.

his eyes shoot open. "what's wrong?"

"j-jungkook," you shuffle in his grip, feeling so embarrassed under his scrutiny you don't know where to look. "it's not that i want you to stop but. listen, just," you cling to his shoulders, shivering when his hands drag reassuringly up to your waist. "just remember that...i've had a kid, okay? i'm not gonna look like before."

he blinks. "i don't remember what you looked like before."

"no, i mean like," you lick your lips, tasting him there. "it's still something to keep in mind. i'm not gonna be as smooth and perky in places like all those idol girls you perform next to, so just-" he watches you fumble nervously in his lap, the growing disbelief making him blink. "don't expect too much okay? things might not look the way you imagine them to and i don't want you to feel-"

"stop," he cuts off, tugging you so you're seated over his erection again. the look jungkook pins you with is so intense you can feel your pulse thrum in your ears, the harsh rise and fall of his chest making him appear that much more passionate. "this body," he slips his hands up your top, palming your skin. "made my child. i take offence to it being spoken about with anything less than admiration, even by you."

"kook-ah," you say nervously, but still let him remove your pj top over your head before you laying you under him on the bed. you don't know why your eyes suddenly prick with tears when he traces over your stretch marks and discoloured skin with his smooth lips. "this kept my daughter warm," he kisses under your navel, sliding up to your heavy breasts. he kisses each darkened nipple, swollen from the baby's mouth. "these feed her." he rises further still, before planting his mouth on your forehead in a short peck. "and this raises her. so how can i be anything but proud to touch you?"

"jungkook, stop," you sniff, tears wetting your lashes. your eyes fall shut when he wipes them away with his thumb, lips ghosting over your cheeks and nose.

"what did i say about tip-toeing around me?" he whispers, forcing you to look him in the eye. only then do you see the tears there, all the ardour and respect he holds for you pooling in those brown depths. "i'm your husband. let me be your husband."

you kiss him before you can start crying again, letting him part your mouth and taste you long and hard before finally undressing himself and slipping your shorts off. this is all a first for him, and it's been so long since you've done this it's almost like a first for you too, frantic and messy and desperate to feel jungkook lodged inside you where he belongs. you know he must share the sentiment when he splits your thighs over the narrow of his hips, hooking them there while he gets a good look of his erection rubbing through your slick.

no wonder i knocked her up, jungkook muses faintly. i don't think i can ever stop doing this.

"jungkook, please," you run a hand through his hair, grinding against his cock in encouragement but he still won't take the plunge. instead, your voice reminds him of his initial objective, causing him to saunter down between your legs faster than you can process. he's licking into you before you can have a second thought about it, mouth falling open with a loud moan when he traces around your clit in firm circles.

he has your knees over his shoulders and his arms wound around your hips so you have nowhere to go, nothing to do but buck into his attentive mouth, jungkook's groans vibrating against you until you can barely keep yourself together - he's always enjoyed this as much as you have. which is why he takes his time, explores every crevice and subsequent response, relishing in the gush of wetness when he does something right. he even goes as far as holding his tongue stagnant against your folds so you have no choice but to rub yourself into him for friction, so entranced he is by your invigorating reactions. only when you're squirming and whimpering with deliriousness does he finally give in and resume a steady pace over your swollen clit, two fingers sliding in home so you have something to come around. and you do.

messy and wet and shrieking into the pillow by your head so that you're muffled enough to not wake the baby down the hall, your orgasm drawing out longer than normal as you do your best to ride it out. jungkook carries you through it, gulping down as much of your arousal as he can manage until your hips finally drop back into the bed in post-climax exhaustion. on the contrary, the only reason he stops lapping at you is because you tug him away by the hair, bringing him up to you and between your legs again before he can do anything about it.

he splutters with a moan at the sudden contact of your wetness against his cock again, eyes fluttering shut and allowing you to bring him in, arms and legs winding securely around him so that you're flush against each other, hips rocking in tandem. jungkook is so caught up in the feeling - not the sex but the safety of being held, being connected like this - that you're the one to reach down and position his tip against your hot center, before finally running your hands down your husband's back to cup his ass and shove him into you.

jungkook gasps, breath shaking at how tight you are. you're so hot, so snug around him his eyes shut upon instinct, letting your hands guide his hips and showing him how to move in that perfect rolling motion that you're only familiar with after years of practice. and jungkook, of course, is a fast learner. it doesn't take long for him to take the reigns and fuck you just how you like it, adding in a sharp snap of his hips every now and again just to listen to you squeak in surprise. the wet sounds of your joined arousal coupled with you moaning under him is near cathartic, sending him hurtling to his finish line.

but before he can get there you shift him over, thick thighs helping you roll and pin him under you on the bed. jungkook grapples at your waist when you resume a slower but harder rock of your hips that has his length grinding against your clenching walls, his head thrown back at the intensity of it. you ride him through it, peppering the moles on his pretty neck with kisses and sucks, mouth finding his stiff little nipple to give it a swirl too. it's exactly what he needs to finish off, fingers digging into your flesh as he bucks wildly, filling you full of his seed while he calls your name. you slow to a stop when his hands finally fall limp on your thighs, his chest heaving under you and covered in sweat. you giggle. he always got so sweaty.

"you did so well, kookie," you whisper, kissing his damp neck and collar bones. his arms are suddenly around you again for comfort. "you were so good for me...always so good to me..."

"you," he croaks finally, eyes half lidded and a little delirious. "you didn't finish?"

you giggle at his genuine concern, pecking his wet lips. "i got mine, remember?"

"how many times?" jungkook is suddenly alert, tugging your wrist to get your attention before you can climb off him. his other hand is still around your middle so moving was out of the question until he allowed it. he was still inside you. "how many times do i usually make you come?"

you blink in embarrassment. you never really thought about it, let alone counted. "um...i don't know..." he waits for an answer, awfully serious about it. "a-at least two or three, i guess."

you yelp when he flips you back over, fingers immediately prying your cum soaked folds apart to nestle inside. "then don't act like we're done."

#jungkook x reader #bts x reader #jungkook au #jungkook scenario #jungkook smut #myfic #dont we all love a memory loss au

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geminil0vr · 3 years

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it’s not what it looks like! [remus lupin, marauders era]

i wanted to write this because i’ve decided to shift to the marauders era and be the fifth marauder because... why the hell not? and i thought abt this scenario with remus :)) i also tried to write this skin colour and hair texture etc. neutral so you could put urself in the place of y/n because i see so many fics who talk about y/n blushing when some people’s blushes don’t show. thanks for reading !!

fem!reader/fifthmarauder!reader/gryffindor!reader gets caught making out with marauderera!remus in their room when the other marauders were meant to be out at hogsmeade.

warning: fluff, kissing, mentions of sex, dramatic james, remus actually talking back, nosy sirius and very confused peter (1.29k words)

♗ ♗ ♗

“YEAH, I THINK I’M JUST gonna stay in and get some homework done.”

“I’m not feeling too good, I reckon I’ll just sleep in instead.”

Those simple lies are what brought you to your boyfriend Remus’ dorm room, finally finding excuses to be free of James, Peter and Sirius for the morning, at least. No one from the common room noticed as you slipped out of your dorm room (in your pyjama shorts and a too-big sweater) and into his, most students out at Hogsmeade at this time of the morning, anyway. Pressing your hands and back against the wood as the door quietly clicked closed, you sent him a giddy grin and a ‘morning’ before jumping oto his bed with no time to spare. He was sitting up, pyjama-clad body on top of the scarlet duvet and head in a book that was, at that moment, definitely not more interesting than you.

He set it aside, smiling lazily and tilting his head. “Morning, Y/N.”

“Morning, morning.” You huffed. “Kiss me, now? Please?”

“Since you asked so nicely.” His smile spread as he eagerly shut his tired eyes and your hand met the nape of his neck, fingers lightly drifting over an old scar and lips meeting properly for the first time in a long time. Other than stolen kisses behind tapestries, you and Remus rarely got a moment alone, what with the other Marauders’ never-ending torment. Part of you felt eternally guilty that you’d never told them about your relationship, but you two were just trying things out, hesitant for now. If they knew, there would be no privacy. If they knew, there would be no time to make mistakes and figure out what you two truly meant to eachother.

Though if anyone asked, you’d be forced to admit that you were falling for him already. In fact, you reckoned you’d been falling for him since the day you so gracefully tripped over his shoe and fell into the door of another compartment on the Hogwarts Express. You weren’t ready to deal with that, just yet. Remus Lupin was everything you could have ever imagined. He was the sun, the moon, the rain, the snow. He thought so little of himself but you, you saw him as everything and more. And you couldn’t ever fathom that he’d feel the same way about you. Not now. Not yet.

After transferring from Beauxbatons, you only met the Marauders for the first time in your third year on the train ride to Hogwarts, when you quite literally stumbled and fell into the group, losing your grip on your suitcase and your mental stability, too. Now in your sixth year, you’d all grown impossibly close, even becoming an Animagus to help Remus out when they finally gave in and told you why they’d been sneaking out late at night. When you wrapped your arms around Remus in safe distance of the Whomping Willow tree after he told you his story only a few months after meeting, and swore to them you’d do anything and everything to help, you sealed your place in the Marauders for life.

You loved each of them so much, your admiration growing stronger day by day as they helped you through everything, James making your jaw ache from smiling too hard in class, Sirius making you choke on your orange juice at lunch when he said something even more outrageous than usual, Peter making the corners of your eyes crease up even with a tear-stained face. You never thought you’d have friends like this. And you never thought, after three years, that Remus would kiss you in an empty stairwell on yet another night adventure, pressing his lips with a much softer decadence to yours than he was right this moment, and apologising profusely afterwards.

He’d blushed, you’d frozen. He’d sputtered out a few curse words until you grabbed him by the jaw and pulled him to your lips again, because he tasted like chocolate and parchment and need.

From then on, you couldn’t get enough.

Remus slid down into a lying position, both on your sides as your teeth crashed clumsily against one another, lips moving hastily, tongues entwining with fervour. Wrapping your bare thigh between his legs as you pushed even closer to him than possible, neither of your ears perked up to the clicking of the door, too entangled in the heat of the moment as your fingers curled into his mess of hair, one of his hands wrapped around your waist, the other softly gripping your cheek with his thumb tracing over your jaw.

“What are you doing to her, Moony?” James exclaimed in horror as Peter and Sirius stood beside him in the doorway, light spilling into the room and the voices making you both look up, too frozen to pull away.

“Well, he’s kissing her, I think.” Peter’s brows were raised. Sirius shook his head in disbelief, a crooked smirk splitting across his face as he leaned in the doorway, arms folded across his chest. Finally, you and Remus found it in yourselves to jump away from eachother and stand up on either side of his bed.

“It’s not what it looks like!” You exclaimed, brows furrowed, cheeks burning, lips swollen and hair in disorder.

“So, you two weren’t just snogging?” Sirius quirked a brow.

You and Remus exchanged a panicked glance.

“No.” You both spoke at the same time, smoothing out your clothes.

James breathed heavily, eyes wide as if he’d witnessed a crime. “B -- But she’s like our little sister! It’s Y/N! Y/N/N!”

“I don’t think you’d kiss your sister like that, Prongs” Sirius’ smirk grew wider.

“Well, he doesn’t have a sister.” Peter frowned in confusion.

“Merlin’s beard, could you two get any dimmer?” Sirius spoke once more, stepping closer to the bed and eyeing you both closely.

“Rich, coming from you.” Remus couldn’t help himself from commenting, earning a piercing glare from you.

“So, since when ‘as this been going on, then?” He gestured between the two of you with his index finger, eyes narrowing. “You two. Together.”

“Oh, Merlin, they’re together.” Peter held his palm to his face, as if the scene before him was unbearable. James shook his head, eyes screwed shut -- in fact, this might’ve been the quietest you’d ever seen him.

“Oh please, you lot are so dramatic.” You rolled your eyes, leaning your weight onto one foot and crossing your arms.

“Well, it started before the Christmas holidays and --”

“Christmas? Since Christmas? Oh no, no, Merlin, no!” James finally opened his eyes, taking his glasses off and flopping onto his bed. “He’s been ‘aving sex! Here! With our little sister!”

“I’m not actually related to any of you, you do know that, right? And, no, we have not had sex.” You and Remus awkwardly avoided gazes, cheeks heating up at the prospect.

“Well, why not --”

“-- Shut it, can’t you see you’re embarassing them?” Sirius sighed dramatically, going to sit down on Remus’ bed before thinking better of it and choosing James’ instead. Speaking of, James had his face pressed right into the duvet. “So, why not?”

Remus chewed at the inside of his cheek. “Oh, come off it. It’s none of your business why we -- why we haven’t --”

“It’s because they’re both prudes. Boring! I expected more from you, Moony. You know what they say, it’s always the quiet ones.” Sirius’ words made both of your faces heat up as you once more looked anywhere but each other. “You too, Y/N/N.”

Biting anxiously on your lip, nostrils flaring, you looked over at Peter who’s lips were drawn into a thin line, James who looked distraught, and Sirius who was awfully too smug. “I’m sorry we didn’t tell you! But we knew you’d be drama queens about this.”

“I? Me? A drama queen?”

“Shut it, James.”

#harry potter #harrypotter #harry potter fluff #marauders #maraudersera #marauders fluff #marauders era fic #hp fic #harry potter one shots #harry potter one-shots #harry potter fic #harry potter fics #harry potter smut #remus #remus x reader #remus lupin #sirius black #james potter #peter pettigrew

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havenoffandoms · 3 years

Note

and “So why do I have to punch that guy?” if u wanna write abt it pls geralt x fem!reader

This one is longer, but it’s also angsty. I hope you enjoy it, nonnie.

Warnings: angst, canon-typical violence (someone gets punched), swearing, degrading insults (start under the cut), toxic masculine behaviour (not from Geralt), but fear not, there is a happy ending.

Prompt: 36. “So why do I have to punch that guy?”

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You have always been a little… well, you don’t like to use the term “odd”, because that implies that you’re in some way abnormal to everyone else. The entire village may think that you’re a bit strange, but that really shouldn’t colour your own perception of yourself. You’re unique, you’re one of a kind, and you’re different from all the other narrow-minded people in your village. So what? A little diversity never hurt anyone.

It turns out that your neighbours don’t like diversity. You found a way to deal with their judgement and their disapproving looks. It certainly didn’t stop you from attending the farmer’s market or visiting the local inn and at least trying to mingle. You can deal with the hushed whispers that follow you everywhere, you don’t mind the way people suddenly stop talking when you appear, and you certainly don’t pay any attention to the glares the elderly village women shot your way.

You aren’t looking for their approval, but the fact that you started, ahem, being involved with a certain witcher didn’t make things easier for you. When you first met Geralt, he was just passing through the village hoping to find a blacksmith to repair his sword. It turns out that the alderman had been looking for a witcher to get rid of the many wolf packs prowling the nearby forest, and attacking the farmers’ livestock. The entire village had been asked to pitch in to pay for the witcher’s services. You weren’t aware of the presence of a witcher that day, since you somehow managed to get lost in the woods yourself.

Geralt saved you from a very horrid death that day. You can’t imagine being mauled by a pack of wolves being all that terribly pleasant.

One thing led to another. Geralt saved you, so you welcomed him into your home, offered him a warm meal and refreshing ale, let him sleep in your guest room on a decently comfortable straw mattress. You didn’t have much to offer, but to a witcher, it was the very definition of luxury to not sleep under the stars for one night. So, you decided that Geralt could stay for as long as he needed… or wanted.

He stayed for a whole week before you two parted, and since then, he makes sure to stop by your village every year at least once.

This year, Geralt surprised you by dropping by for the second time in the span of two months. You’re happy to have him back, to the point where you simply don’t want him to leave anymore. But you know that the call of the Path will eventually take your witcher away from you. Until then, you’ll make sure to spoil him as much as you can, with good food, strong drinks, and a warm bed which you two now have taken to sharing.

Your trip to the farmer’s market is about as uneventful as it gets. You left Geralt to sleep in while you go fetch some food for breakfast. You know just how much he loves scrambled eggs in the morning, but his visit took you by surprise, and you had just freshly run out of eggs that you could use. While you’re out, you decide to buy some meat as well (the butcher’s son likes you, though, and he’s one of the rare ones not to sneer at you when you interact with him). You make sure to purchase locally grown fruit and vegetables too. It’s all shaping to be a very uneventful morning.

Until you make your way home again, and get stopped on the way by a group of men who have been following you since you left the market. You try to walk past them, but they crowd you and stare at you with lecherous sneers plastered on their faces.

“Well, well, lads,” a young man you recognise as the innkeeper’s son speaks first, “what do we have here? The witcher’s whore, completely unguarded. You know, I heard a rumour that the mutant was seen around your house late at night last night…”

“It’s none of your business just who is seen around my house, Thomas!”

You turn around, intent on getting away from these men as fast as you can, but Thomas is quicker and snatches your arm, whirling you around until you’re staring into his cruel eyes. His breath stinks of alcohol.

“Now, now. You really ought to be nicer to us, whore!”

“Let me go,” you hiss, making sure to maintain eye contact and not let Thomas see just how scared you are, “let me go, or I’ll cry for help, and I guarantee you don’t want the witcher having to come to my rescue and beat the living hell out of you!”

“Awfully bad mouth you got on ya,” Thomas’ mocking tone sends chills coursing through your body, “but that’s to be expected from a whore.”

“So why do I have to punch that guy?” a rough baritone voice suddenly echoes behind you. Relief washes over you when you recognise Geralt’s voice. Thomas’ hold on your arm tightens, and when he turns to face Geralt, he twists your arm in the process, pulling a pained yelp from you and causing you to drop your basket.

“He called me a witcher’s whore!” you cry out, your voice trembling as you fight back the tears that threaten to well up in your eyes and run down your cheeks. You see Geralt appraise the three men before him, but to your relief, he isn’t carrying his swords. You’d much rather avoid a bloodshed, not because you care about what happens to Thomas, but because you don’t want Geralt to be stoned out of the village (and out of your life).

“That’s certainly more than a good enough reason to punch him, then.”

Before Thomas’ brain can catch onto what’s happening, Geralt’s fist collides with his jaw, and a resounding crack follows where the witcher probably broke a bone. In his pain, Thomas let’s go of your hand long enough for you to run to Geralt’s side and hide behind his larger frame, a place from which you can watch as Thomas spits blood and howls in pain. Geralt is staring at the other two men, who look torn between helping their friend or running from the witcher.

“Anything else you’d like to add to that statement?” Geralt asks Thomas, taking several threatening steps forward as he does so. A pleased smirk graces your lips as you watch Thomas scramble to his feet and run, quickly followed by his friends. “No, I didn’t think so.”

“Thank you for saving me,” you throw yourself at Geralt, and in your relief, you finally let out a breath you didn’t know you were holding. “Your hand! How’s your ha-”

“Don’t you worry about that, dove,” Geralt tells you, his voice now much softer as he cradles your cheek in both his strong hands, forcing you to look into his kind eyes. “Are you hurt?”

“He twisted my arm, but nothing major. Shaken, that’s about it.” You look forlornly at your now spoilt purchases. The eggs broke when you dropped your basket, and the meat is scattered all over the sandy path. “And there goes your breakfast and our dinner.”

“I’ll hunt us something for dinner, dove, don’t worry. In the meantime, let’s skip breakfast and get packing.”

“Packing?” you parrot back incredulously, “where are we going?”

Geralt rests his forehead against yours and huffs impatiently.

“I don’t want you to stay here a minute longer, and soon the villagers will demand that I leave anyway for hurting that boy. I’m taking you to Kaer Morhen with me.”

Kaer Morhen, the famed witcher’s keep, Geralt’s home. You’d heard stories of the place, but you never thought you’d ever get an invitation, and you certainly didn’t want to impose your presence either. But Geralt sounds so genuine, and the pleading gaze he shoots you tells you just how much he wants you to agree to this plan.

It’s not like there’s anything holding you back in this village, anyway. “We should get packing then before there’s a mob at my door.”

The next couple of months were probably the happiest of your life as you travelled the Path with Geralt, met his family and spent all winter cosied up to him in the witcher’s castle. For the first time in years, you finally feel like you belong.

#geralt #geralt z rivii #geralt of rivia #geralt x reader #geralt x y/n #geralt x you #the witcher x reader #the witcher x y/n #the witcher x you #angst #havenwrites #request

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iam93percentstardust · 4 years

Note

Okay, since I'm a rare pair monster: ThunderIron with Tony visiting Asgard and meeting Thor's parents? And Tony being super excited abt science and stuff? I'd love it if it also included a little heart-to-heart talk with Loki, where the friendship between Loki and Tony helps Thor to find the connection back to his brother... if that's something you're intrested in writing. Thank you!

Okay so this wildly deviated from the prompt but after four attempts of starting, stopping, and throwing away what I’d written, this is what came out and since I don’t write a lot of outsider POV, I’m pretty pleased with it. I hope you are too!

Also on ao3 here

It’s an accident that Frigga finds out about her son’s future queen.

Sort of.

It’s no accident that her son’s future queen is on Asgard. Thor’s entire team is on Asgard for two months to learn their warriors’ techniques and he’d warned her and Odin before he came that his future queen would be among them. So when they arrive, she eagerly looks amongst his team in an attempt to determine if there’s one that her son seems closest to.

The problem is that Thor has been careful—or accidental—not to use a pronoun to describe the person he’s seeing and while “queen” is merely a term to describe Thor’s future spouse, be they man, woman, or any of the other thousand genders across the universe, Odin assumes that Thor must have been referring to the red-headed woman he walks beside as they enter the throne room, eagerly telling her about the wonders of Asgard.

“If he were going to choose a Midgardian, couldn’t he have at least chosen their leader?” Odin grumbles, missing the way Thor’s entire team pauses.

Frigga bites back a wince. Her husband has grown complacent in his diplomacy during his centuries as king but she hadn’t thought he would say something like that.

“Odin,” she says softly, trying to warn him off, but he just frowns.

“She isn’t worthy of him,” he hisses and that at least goes unheard by all except Thor and the one in the spangled uniform judging by how they wince. “She’ll die before he is ready.”

“You don’t know that she is his chosen one,” she murmurs back.

Odin gives the others a dismissive look. “Who else would he choose?”

She isn’t really that surprised when Thor doesn’t introduce them to his queen during that first meeting.

She goes to Thor’s room later that night, after the feast, after Natasha and Clint have thoroughly trounced all but Sif and the Warriors Three and Tony has gotten himself set up in the forges, to find him sitting on the edge of the bed, holding a watch.

“It was a gift,” he tells her as she sits beside him. “From Tony. It turns into a robot.”

Frigga has her suspicions then but she doesn’t share them with him. It is Thor’s decision when he wants to tell her who he is courting and she won’t ruin that for him. “I’m sorry about what your father said,” she says quietly.

“He’s hurt,” Thor says simply. “He doesn’t think highly of himself at the best of times and Father’s words hurt him. I don’t believe he’s ever thought he deserves me. What Father said confirmed it in his mind.”

“No one deserves another.”

Thor chuckles sadly. “Try telling him that.”

“I will once you introduce me.” She smiles to tell him that she won’t hold it against him if he decides not to and true to her expectations, Thor shakes his head.

“Soon,” he promises. “But not right now.”

In the coming weeks, she sees her son divide his time amongst his teammates: with Clint on the ranges, with Natasha and Steve on the training grounds, with Bruce in the libraries. But if she wants to find him, she goes to the forge first because he can nearly always be found with Tony. The suspicion grows in her mind into a near-certain fact but she waits still for his confirmation.

And then she stumbles across them.

It’s late at night, nearly a month after her son has returned home, and she intends on asking him if he plans to visit his brother during his stay. Thor isn’t in his room so Frigga goes down to the forges though she isn’t sure why he would be there at such a late hour. Their blacksmiths tell her though that Tony spends most of the night there, sleeping only rarely, and so she expects that there’s a chance Thor is there too.

She hears them as she draws closer, murmured voices only barely audible above the noises of the fires .

“—you don’t like it,” Thor says softly, sadly.

“I do,” Tony reassures him. “Darling, your world is incredible and your use of language to describe concepts… Do you know, just yesterday, I was talking to one of your healers and they used the term ‘soul forge’ to describe what we would call a ‘quantum field generator.’ I couldn’t believe it; it’s amazing.”

“But you’re not happy.”

Tony hesitates and then he admits, “I wanted your father to like me.”

“My father doesn’t like anyone.”

“That doesn’t make me feel better.”

Thor sighs heavily. “Beloved, I wish I could tell you that it will all work out—”

“But you can’t, I know.” Tony doesn’t really sound upset, just disappointed, and Frigga’s heart breaks just a little.

“I’m sure my mother will love you,” Thor offers.

Tony laughs. “Your mother seems like she would love anyone as long as they loved you.”

“And do you?”

She can hear the smile in Tony’s voice when he says, “You know I do.”

“Tell me again anyway.”

There’s the sound of a soft kiss and then Tony says, “I love you.”

“I love you too.” Another kiss. “Are you coming to bed soon?”

“In an hour or so. I want to get this last piece finished. Thank you, by the way, for letting me use the forges. I need something like this in the workshop. Can you imagine what I’d be able to get done?”

“I’d never see you again,” Thor says with a light chuckle. “I’m going back to the palace.”

“Hmm, see you in a bit.”

Frigga doesn’t bother hiding when Thor steps out of the forge. He raises his eyebrows at her, silently asking her for her opinion. She wonders if he’s silent because he doesn’t want Tony to know that she’s there. She smiles reassuringly and nods. Tony had put it best: as long as her son is loved, she’s happy.

And Thor is definitely, decidedly loved.

#thunderiron #alle writes #alle answers #if you like please consider reblogging #odin's a+ parenting #implied homophobia #justsomeoneunordinary

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sunshinesukuna · 4 years

Text

hogwarts school of sorcery and sweethearts

✨pairing : magic!kuroo x magic!reader ✨genre: angst then fluff ✨tw: light swearing, bullying ✨ insp: night changes — 1D, 18 — 1D, Somebody to You — The Vamps, The Gifted (if y’all watch ep 5 and 7 y’all know what i’m gonna write abt) ✨ wc: 6.5k i rlly don’t know how it got to be this long it just... did. lest those plot holes come for my ass. ✨ uwu i officially graduated last week. they leech rally made us sit in front of our computers and graduate like? so damn cringy tho. but now it’s school admission season and you know what that means? a lotta stress as my grades try to get into a good school. TT

𝐜𝐡𝐚𝐩𝐭𝐞𝐫 𝐢: 𝐡𝐞𝐫𝐛𝐨𝐥𝐨𝐠𝐲 (𝐢𝐧𝐟𝐚𝐭𝐮𝐚𝐭𝐢𝐨𝐧) | 𝐜𝐡𝐚𝐩𝐭𝐞𝐫 𝐢𝐢𝐢: 𝐭𝐫𝐚𝐧𝐬𝐟𝐢𝐠𝐮𝐫𝐚𝐭𝐢𝐨𝐧 (𝐚𝐟𝐟𝐞𝐜𝐭𝐢𝐨𝐧) | 𝐦𝐚𝐬𝐭𝐞𝐫𝐥𝐢𝐬𝐭

𝐜𝐡𝐚𝐩𝐭𝐞𝐫 𝐢𝐢: 𝐩𝐨𝐭𝐢𝐨𝐧𝐬 (𝐜𝐨𝐧𝐟𝐞𝐬𝐬𝐢𝐨𝐧)

Sorceress Saeko’s Guide To Potent Potions:

The Babbling Potion is an extremely inebriating potion that, as stated in its name, causes the consumer to spout lies. Each and every statement said by the user under this potion’s effect is a complete and utter lie — according to the user’s knowledge of course. It is said that the Muggle tale of Pinnochio was inspired by a wizard who accidentally poured several drops of the potion onto an enchanted doll.

Effects last for 72 hours, or until an Antidote is administered. For safety reasons, ingredients are kept confidential unless under emergency. Recipe for the Antidote is as below:

(For one person)

5 leech stomachs

Petals of the Laughing LIly (crushed finely)

Ginger ale

Root of Bubotuber Plant

Mandrake shavings

MIx together in a cauldron for two hours until brilliant orange. Stir with your wand counterclockwise for one hour, then set to simmer. When done, it should resemble the scent and taste of Pumpkin Juice.

Kuroo always marched into the war armored to the teeth with plans. Every action he did always had a clear intention behind it and was well thought out, with all the consequences and alternatives mapped out. Even the most trivial of things. Kuroo wouldn’t argue that the situation in question was as far from trivial as it could get, but he digresses. Which is what landed Bokuto, Akaashi, and Kenma standing over a fretting Kuroo.

“If you like (Y/N) so much, just say it to (Y/N)’s face, Kuroo!” Bokuto said. Kuroo gives him a sour look. Kuroo’s normally calm and suave front was reduced to a boy fiddling with his wan with pursed lips. Occasionally, bright red sparks popped out from the end of his wand, nearly obliterating a vase on top of the fireplace.

“Heh. You go up to that pretty third-year you saw last week and tell her that you like her, go on,” Kuroo egged.

“Well now that you put it that way…” Bokuto’s hair deflated along with his ego.

“Then what’s the point of you making these…” Akaashi gestured to the wads of parchment over the covers of Kuroos’ four poster. Some of them were complete with the red circles and arrows unique to Gryffindor Quidditch captains. They flitted around the parchment, akin to the moving pictures that were the norm in the wizarding world. “Battle plans?”

Kuroo chuckled. “Battle plans,” he muttered. “You’re right there, Akaashi.”

“Bokuto has a point though, Kuroo,” Akaashi said. He looked at a piece of parchment and threw it away in disgust.

“I do?” Bokuto asked. His eyes became starry again. The hair that once laid low with shame and insecurity now promptly stood proudly again.

“No use making it long and complicated if she’s just going to reject you in the end,” Akaashi said. His tone made Kuroo’s heart clench a bit at how honest Akaashi was being.

“Well yes, but when we’re dating, I don’t want to hear (Y/N) complaining about how un-thought out it was!” Kuroo said.

“Now you’re just thinking too far,” Kenma piped up from his spot on the chair. “You’ve been friends for six months Kuroo,” he went back to his book, “stay in your lane.”

Kuroo scoffed defensively. “We’re quite good friends, I’ll say!” Bokuto stifled a laugh, while Akashi snorted openly next to Bokuto.

“Go to sleep, you all.” Kuroo swiped all of the strewn parchment from the bed and stacked it onto his nightstand. “I need to think about this by myself.”

Kuroo laid on his four poster, mind amuck with thoughts and complications. Both the dark outside and the dark in his mind left him more confused than ever. Now that he had become better friends with you, he had a slightly closer view of all your thought processes, all your likes and dislikes.

You liked Herbology and magical plants. Should he do it in the greenhouse? No, you had been there too many times for it to have any special meaning to you. Not to mention that he wouldn’t want to do it while soiled in Mandrake piss. Kuroo shuddered at the thought.

The common room? Too many people that could walk in. An empty classroom? Too suggestive.

Kuroo sat up on his bed. Everyone had fallen fast asleep, Bokuto snoring the loudest out of the four. Kuroo slumped back down on the bed before catching sight of the bulletin board in his room. Besides the parchment of Quidditch moves and formations, there was a moving photo of the four of them.

Crude mustaches were drawn over their magical lips. A magical doodle of a flying Bokuto was scribbled in the corner, flying around the photo’s sky. Even the pictures were asleep. Not Kuroo’s. His was still awake.

Kuroo’s photo looked at the real version of him. The photo couldn’t talk, but Photo Kuroo looked at real Kuroo expectantly. Kind of like he was asking ‘What are you going to do now?’

Not bearing to lock eyes with the photo, Kuroo found himself looking at the schedule he had for tomorrow. Potions first thing in the morning. Ugh, he had to deal with Snape again. After Slytherin’s defeat against Gryffindor a few days ago, their head of house would be even more bitter than he already was toward the innocent Gryffindors. There were even rumors that next morning’s pumpkin juice would be laced with Draught of the Living Death or Babbling Potion. Kuroo shuddered.

Potions was followed by History of Magic, Arithmancy, Charms, and Astronomy. His mind went silent for a little while, concocting an all-new plan.

Maybe something could be arranged.

Kuroo walked into breakfast the day after that with a spring in his step, the hair on his head finally seeming to bend to his will. The rest of the Gryffindors gagged at the 180 his appearance had taken on.. Had their mouths been anymore agape, they would have been the gargoyles that stood proudly on Hogwarts front gates.

“Top of the morning to you all, fine gentlemen,” Kuroo said. Akaashi and Kenma exchanged a look.

“Game day, huh?” Akaashi asked. Kuroo nodded, grinning from ear to ear. Kenma pursed his lips.

“Astronomy Tower, right after classes.”

“Really? Good luck, bro!” Bokuto says. He clapped Kuroo on the back.

From the tip of his wand, Kuroo conjured a sticky white liquid and proceeded to slather it all over his hair. It was hair gel, Kenma realised. The morning sunlight streaming through the windows made it shimmer in Kuroo’s onyx locks. “I look fine, right?” Kuroo asked. Kenma could only nod half-heartedly.

Kuroo tapped his fingers on the wooden tables. He gritted his teeth. “You’re going to be fine, Kuroo,” Kenma says. He smiles a little at his friend's concern over confessing.

“Yeah, I think (Y/N) has a thing for you too Kuroo,” Bokuto says. Kuroo furrowed his eyebrows.

“You sure?”

“Don’t let those battle plans go to waste, man.” Kuroo laughs at the support his friends are giving him. There’s a nagging feeling in the back of his head that something, something is just going to go wrong. Then again, he gets that feeling every time he has a game. But they’ve won a majority of those games, so he chalks it up to nerves.

Kuroo reached for a pitcher of pumpkin juice that no one had touched before. He took a sniff before furrowing his eyebrows. “Does the pumpkin juice smell a little off to you today?” Kenma shrugged. Kuroo poured some in his goblet anyways.

Kenma was the first one to see it coming. He was sitting opposite the Slytherin Quidditch team, so he had a bird’s eye view of their actions. A glint in Miya Atsumu’s eyes, Daishou’s curl of the lips, and the scent from the pitcher akin to unicorn poop; sickly sweet but could kill a man if inhaled directly.

“Don’t drink—” Kenma started, but the gulp in Kuroo’s throat makes any of his actions futile. Kenma is half-standing, one arm raised to keep the goblet from touching his lips, but it’s too late. Akaashi and Bokuto look at Kenma like he’s swallowed a hedge of Gillyweed.

“The pumpkin juice today tastes amazing, doesn’t it?” Kuroo said. He set the goblet down like nothing was wrong. “Do you guys have any plans for later? I’m free tonight, so let’s all sneak out to Hogsmeade if you—”

Kenma snatches the goblet from Kuroo and puts it to his nose. The scents of Bubotuber pus and lily roots sting his nose. A waterfall of regret and shock crashes over the rocks that are Kenma’s heart. He shoves the goblet toward Akaashi, who does the same thing. They exchange grave looks before looking at Kuroo.

“Guys?” Kuroo and Bokuto ask in unison. Kenma spots Miya Atsumu and Daishou Suguru giving each other claps on the back from his seat. ‘Slytherin’, he mouths to Akaashi. Akaashi rolls his eyes. The audacity! Akaashi takes the first plunge.

“U-um Kuroo?” Akaashi asks. Kuroo looks at his friend, the confusion on his face now replaced with blank indifference. “Don’t you have to meet (Y/N) later today?” Akaashi asks, prompting his memory.

“That ugly shrew? I’ll pass, thanks.”

There are always going to be variables that are impossible to factor in an equation. Not all equations have rational results either. That was fundamental in Arithmancy. And as a student of Advanced Arithmancy of two years, Kuroo should probably have that ingrained into his mind right now. It was something that Professor Vector always berated him on. That he never left room for unknown variables that could come up in another problem in his equations.

Kuroo would have never thought that he would encounter one in a situation like this.

“Not cool, man!” Bokuto cried. An insult to Bokuto’s friends was an insult to Bokuto himself. But when one of Bokuto’s friends insulted Bokuto’s other friends...

Kuroo shrugged and took another sip of the pumpkin juice. “Just saying.” Akaashi and Kenma were still standing agape at the words tumbling out of Kuroo’s mouth. One minute he was fawning over you, fussing over every detail. Out of everyone, how could Kuroo have the audacity to say something like that about you?

“Anyway, what are you all off to? Anyone want to join me on the pitch during Arithmancy?”

Kenma choked back a gulp of air. “You’re skipping class?”

“Yeah.” Seeing his friend's dumbstruck expressions, Kuroo threw his head back, laughing. “What’s the old hag gonna do?” He waved his fingers around his head in imitation of the innocent Professor Vector. “Oo, you have blundered in the ancient arts of the numbers! Prepare to die!” he said mockingly.

In an instant, his smile dispersed in favour of a scowl that made itself at home on Kuroo’s face like a parasite on an unsuspecting plant. “Like hell am I going to do that.”

Kuroo started packing his bags. “You guys aren’t coming with me, huh?”

“Well unlike you,” Akaashi started, “we actually care about our grades.” Kuroo raised an eyebrow.

“Suit yourself. I’ll be in the Astronomy Tower after class if you need me.”

Enter a happy you trotting over to where the quartet were sitting. It seemed like you had just come back from the greenhouses, as evident from the leaf in your hair. You brushed it away.

“Hi guys! Hi Kuroo!” you greeted. You sat yourself down next to Kuroo, but he suddenly scooted away from you like you were the plague. He grimaced before looking you up and down. He might have muttered something under his breath, but you didn’t catch a word. You could hear, however, that it was said in a venom-laced tone that could kill a bear with just a word.

“I’m off,” he said curtly. Kuroo slung his bag over the shoulder and walked out of the Great Hall. You pursed your lips as you look at his retreating form. Something was up with him today.

“What’s up with him?” you ask, taking a piece of toast from a tray.

“He’s just feeling a little under the weather today… yeah!” Bokuto answered. His eyes looked to Akaashi for help. Either Akaashi didn’t get the hint or just decided to ignore Bokuto altogether. “That’s it! Kuroo’s just a little… sick!”

“Poor him. Why isn’t he off at Madam Pomfrey’s?” You pouted. He promised to help you harvest Bubotuber Pus later today. But he could take a break from helping you all the time, you supposed.

“Well, you see—” Bokuto said. You set your food down on the plate abruptly.

“Never mind, I should stop by later to give him a healing potion or something.” At this, Akaashi and Kenma looked at one another with baffled faces and parted lips.

“We… really think you shouldn’t—” Kenma said.

“He said he would be in the Astronomy Tower later after class!” Bokuto suddenly blurted. Akaashi sighed and put his head in his hands, the cereal in front of him taking the brunt of his frustration.

“Oh, okay then. Thanks!” you said. Not having much of an appetite, you grabbed another piece of toast and pranced off to your next class.

Classes went by as usual. You didn’t catch a glimpse of a certain black-haired Keeper that day. Kuroo would have been good at this, you think, as the goblet in front of you squawks in distress. You wave your wand, reverting it back to its original form as a crow before proceeding to try again.

What do people say again? If you tell someone you can’t have it, they want it even more? Usual classroom days with Kuroo would have never left you wanting for friends or platonic affection. But now as Professor Binns drolled on, you found yourself missing the occasional paper airplanes Kuroo would send your way during times like these. Or the inside jokes you shared about Professor Trelawney, who he hated with a burning passion, even though he didn’t attend Divination.

Once classes were over, you decided to help Kuroo get a little better. Since you often stopped by the infirmary to drop off medicinal magical plants, you could say that you knew your way around here. Madam Pomfrey trusted you enough that you would mind your own business. But that didn’t mean you couldn’t pull in a few favours from time to time.

Your reflection stared back at you from the cabinet marked ‘Healing Potions.’ The frontmost bottle always freaked you out a little. Why couldn’t the makers of Skele-Gro taken a design class or two? Putting a skeleton on the cap of a medicinal potion surely couldn’t have been the best way to attract customers.

Other potions bubbled in their flasks as you shoved them away. Draught of the Living Death, was engraved on a bottle. Sleeping potion; use only in cases of extreme pain. Yikes. Was the red bottle to its side the one you were looking for? Babbling Potion Antidote. Use in large doses for immediate effect. Not this one either.

The blue bottle on the very end was probably the one. You pushed past the other bottles, some with disturbing symptoms described on them. A jolly cupid with rosy cheeks flew around the blue glass, fit as a fiddle. On the cork was engraved ‘Pepperup Potion.’ Exactly what you were looking for.

You pocketed the bottle in your bag and made your way across the hall. Classes were finally finished, judging from the sea of black robes engulfing the hall. You hopped over a trick step on the stairs and looked up. The Astronomy Tower should be empty by now. Professor Sinistra should be enjoying a hearty meal down at supper. You trudged up the winding staircases.

You opened the topmost door to be rewarded by a gust of fresh air. The balcony above was empty save for a figure sitting on the ledge. His red Gryffindor robes were draped over the stone walls. A parchment peacock preened over by the empty tables as two tabby cats chased a crumpled rat around the chairs. Monkeys slung their way around the chandelier as sparrows nested in the mahogany shelves. It was a zoo, brought alive by the lazy swishing of Kuroo’s wand.

“Kuroo,” you said. His head lolled over to where you were standing. Kuroo blinked slowly— exactly like a cat, you noted, and raised an eyebrow.

“What are you doing here?”

You shuffled around in your bag. “Bokuto told me you were up here, and I thought that...”

“Ha?” Kuroo looked at you with a gelid distaste that stopped the vocal cords in your throat from working right then and there. He never looked at you like that. Did he have a problem with you? ‘He’s always stared at you like that when you aren’t looking, you know?’ egged the voice in the back of your head. That’s why he’s called you here. He hates you and wants you to bugger off.

“What the hell would I want with someone,” his eyes looked you up and down, “like you?”

“‘Like me?” Your mind stopped all other body processes as all your energy went to processing the words you had heard just now. “Are you implying something?”

“That you’re a half-witted witch,” he snarled. Kuroo hopped off the ledge to make his way over to you, “that couldn’t survive at Hogwarts even if I shoved all the books in the library down your big pie-hole?” Each word was interpolated by a languid step in your direction, backing you down to the cold walls that held the Tower up.

“I—” Kuroo leans on the wall, supported by an arm that pins you below his glare. Your muscles are held captive by his pernicious slights and the sheer denial that someone that treats, treated, you as nicely as Kuroo did could say things like this to you.

“I don’t even know why Hogwarts let people like you in.” He wrinkled his nose. “Hell, first time I saw you I thought you came in to replace Filch, the old bugger.” Okay, now this was just getting to be too much.

“What’s gotten into you?” you ask. Your brain wants it to come out as somewhat of a polite query, but your voice betrays your brain and lets it loose with the same shrill naivety a child would scream at their mother with. It almost cracks in the middle, but you push forward.

“What’s gotten into me? Honey, that’s what McGonagall was thinking when she sent the letter of acceptance to you.” Kuroo puts his hands on his hips and leans back — as if that would let him throw more insults with better finesse.

“No one likes you, see? That’s why you only go to those plants for comfort.”

“Shut up!” you screech. How could he say that with such nonchalance? It looked like he was being possessed by Peeves. How hard the poltergeist would laugh when he caught wind of this. You put your hands on his chest and push him away with the remaining strength in your arms. Kuroo staggers back, but quickly regains his balance. Out of your peripheral vision, you spot shards of red glass from the bottle. You don’t bother to clean it up as you try to distance yourself as far away as you can from the monster in front of you.

The Astronomy Tower, true to its name, towered over the rest of Hogwarts. Everything below lay in its gargantuan shadow, being a great place for picnics on hot summer days. It was even tall enough to shield the students from the rain, if you were unlucky enough to not know a Rain-Repelling Charm. The only thing that was collectively despised from it was its long, winding stairs.

The same ones you were stooped over right now. You could feel tears making their way over your eyelids, but then again, what did you have to cry for? It wasn’t like you were exceptionally close to Kuroo like he was with Kenma or something. You deserve to cry, you thought. He said all those horrible things; it was okay for you to feel insulted. Especially coming from him.

You gulped down another lump in your throat. One of his enchanted paper animals had hung onto your robes as you were making your way down, and was now perching on your knees. The cat with scribbled on whiskers and eyes lounged on your lap, unaware of the turmoil going on inside you. You clicked your tongue. If this was how Kuroo was going to humiliate you even further...

Then he could have a taste of his own medicine! You ripped up the innocent cat, setting it aflame for good measure. The smoke drifted out the vents above. Blood trickled from a cut on your index figure onto the stone stairs.

“Look what we have here,” a scratchy voice crooned. The blood and emotions hammering in your head inhibit your senses. With the right honeyed tone, you would have thought the voice in front of you belonged to the very man who spurned you moments ago.

“Go— go away, Kuroo!” You stand up, moving to go back to the dorms when a face that fills you with dread blocks your way.

“Kuroo? Well, well, well, who would’ve thought that Princess Plant Prick would have had a…” Peeves pokes his cheek with his finger. “Boy toy?” You’re able to at least shoot him a dirty look, but you stay in place in case anything happens. Who knows what fishy pranks he has up his sleeves?

“No?” He twirls around you in a flurry of ghostly white. “I’m guessing… crush?”

Peeves’s childish insulting was almost soothing. Different from those from Kuroo, Peeves’s jabs were more like one from a little sibling to another one. Rough on the outside, but well meaning on the inside. The tears seemed to stop their torrent a little, and your knees find themselves buckling back down on the stairs.

“Neither. Please leave me alone.” You take a handkerchief from your bag and wipe the mess on your face with it.

“You sure, Princess Plant Prick? I’m not sure someone in your state is in any condition to be left alone.” The poltergeist moved to take a seat on the window ledge beside you. The previously bright corridor darkened a little bit with the new obstruction.

“Certain—certainly” you choked, “not with anyone like you.”

“Oh? And you would prefer it if I was, say…” Peeves leaned in closer to you. You could almost see the mosaic through the pale film of his skin. “Kuroo?” You rolled your eyes at the poltergeist.

“See, I even made a wig to impersonate him if the occasion called for it!” With a snap of his fingers, he conjured a mop of what seemed to be black rooster feathers. Peeves set it on his head and smiled in imitation of Kuroo. You allowed yourself a small smile.

“Could have fooled me,” you said.

“And what if I did? If you thought that it was actually Kuroo here in my place?” You turned your head away, avoiding the question. “Assuming the previous events didn’t happen,” Peeves added hastily.

“We wouldn’t do anything, if that’s what you mean.” Peeves gave you the side eye.

You pondered a bit. What would you do if Kuroo was sitting here next to you? Would you push him away in fear of him making you hurt even more? No, Kuroo was the one to talk things through whenever there was a problem. So then why would he lash out at you when you didn’t do anything (as you remembered) wrong to him?

“I’m really starting to agree with him on your…” Peeves’s eyes raked your form up and down, “astuteness.”

“You heard us back there?”

“And on the Quidditch pitch.” Peeves lifted a finger. ”And in the greenhouses. And near the Fat Lady. And near that nasty painting of the raccoons on the third floor.” He held four fingers up. “And many more too.”

You tilted your head to the side. What did eavesdropping on conversations have to do with the situation? Seeing your confused expression, Peeves rolled his eyes and clapped his hands smack dab in front of your face.

“I have a bet with the other ghosts, darling! Snape’s diary is on the line here, so you better wisen up!” Now he was just leading you even further and further on from a simple answer. Peeves stood up from where he was sitting and floated back up the stairs, stopping a flight just above you. A trail of mist followed him.

“And you know, Princess Plant Prick,” Peeves called from upstairs, “he did reek of Babbling Potion, earlier today.”

“Babbling…” You sucked in a gust of air. The haze in your head finally cleared up, allowing you to see what you were missing the entire time. You pulled your mouth closed, not even realising that it had dropped to the floor in the first place. You tapped your feet vigorously on the stairs, formulating your next plan of action.

Reinforcements were needed.

The Gryffindor common room was empty save for the trio of friends that looked a little out of place with the absence of the fourth. Three pairs of shaky eyes met yours as you stood in front of the table where they were all huddled. Kenma gulped. “You met Kuroo, didn’t you?”

You grimaced, but tried as hard as you could to look at the fireplace on the other side of the room. “I did.”

“How bad did it hurt?”Akaashi asked. The edges of your eyes stung as fresh tears pricked your eyeballs like needles on a pincushion. You wiped them away with your fingers and put your hands on your hips.

“Only a little. Now come on, Kenma.” You put a hand on Kenma’s wrist and yanked him out from his sitting position. He was the best one that could help you for a task like this. “We’re going to make him regret it.”

There was a potion supply available to students filled with harmless ingredients that wouldn’t harm a fly, but was enough for the potion you had in mind. Bokuto and Akaashi eventually started trailing behind you, and after enough explanation, they were on board with the plan that you had.

After four gruelling hours of rotating between actually making the potion and keeping guard in the boys bathroom at 12 o’clock, the finished product was finally in your hands. With a swish of your wand, all trace of the four of you was gone.

“Let’s do this again, shall we?”

The boyish flouncing of the previous day, turned into an arrogant saunter the very next. Yesterday’s naive smile had soured like spoiled milk and turned into a shit-eating smirk that was fouler than Miya Atsumu’s when Slytherin won a game. The potion still hadn’t worn off, Kenma noted. It must have been potent. Luckily, he and (Y/N) had been prepared for this, with a little help from Bokuto and Akaashi.

Kuroo gives a curt nod in Bokuto and Akaashi’s direction on the other side of the table as he moves to sit down next to Kenma. He doesn’t take his eyes off of the scrumptious feast laid in front of him.

“So,” he says as he piles eggs and toast onto his plate, “anyone finally coming to skip with me today?” No one answers at first. Then, being the brave soul he is, Bokuto replies to his friend’s question.

“I don’t know man,” Bokuto says. “You got a lot of flak from Flitwick yesterday after you skipped. You’re lucky your grades from last week saved you.”

“Did they, now?” Kuroo drawls. He swills the juice in his goblet a few times before downing it one gulp. The goblet magically refills itself as Kuroo sets it down.

His mouth moves to make another brash statement, but contorts into a fanged scowl when you walk up the halls. Kenma and Akaashi don’t even have to look at you to know that it’s you coming down to sit next to them.

“Fancy seeing you three here,” you say. Kuroo’s eyes twitch as you so blatantly ignore his presence. There are no signs of the pain he inflicted on you yesterday, and you seem as chipper as you can get. Frustration bubbles in his chest, at the thought of someone being so happy, even after he did all of those things to you. If you could just show an ounce of inconvenience at—

Something splashes in his face. The fiery undertones of fall and cinnamon tell him that it’s from his pumpkin juice. Kuroo draws his wand in reflex, but nothing else seems to be out for him. Worse still, the four people around him seem to pay him no attention. He catches Kenma giving you a short glance. Pearly droplets of orange liquid drip down your finger.

“What did you put in my drink?” Kuroo mutters. You pay him no mind and go back to your cereal with your soggy fingers.

“Hey.” Kuroo raps on the wooden table with his fist. “What did you put in my drink?” His volume has increased by now. So much so that the trio next to you has taken notice.

“Nothing,” you say.

“If she was actually trying to poison you, wouldn’t you think Dumbledore or McGonagall would have caught on sooner?” Kenma asked, trying to reason with his friend.

Kuroo deflates a bit, leaning back before looking at the goblet in his hands. He takes a long sip from it, his eyes never leaving you the entire time. Perhaps he did see the drop you put into it, but he shows no signs that he knows you know.

And then it happens. Kuroo slammed the now empty cup on the table. He clenched the golden material until his knuckles reddened, paled, and went back to his normal skin tone again. Something from the back of his throat sounded like it wanted to claw its way out of his mouth. People on each side of you were starting to look over. Any minute now, you think, biting your lip. You had read that the antidote’s effects could be a little painful, but you hadn’t prepared yourself for any of this.

Kuroo’s closing his eyes shut in pain. Every nerve in his throat has gotten ten times stronger, every breath next to him getting amplified by a hundred times. Ten thousand needles prick his throat as he gasps for air in the cramped space he is in right now. Kuroo forces an eye open to look into the eyes of his assailant: you.

“You little—” he rasps.

But just as he is about to force another curse word to come out of his mouth, all of the needles in him force their way out. His lungs suddenly fill with air as the pain in his neck and head dull to normal. His eyesight sharpens to its usual levels; which means he can feel the other eyes on him right now.

Kuroo sits straight again as four pairs of eyes take in his current condition. They all have their lips slightly parted, eyebrows furrowed. The one in front of him looks the most expectant. Kuroo closes his eyes and shakes his head. He opens them again to be greeted by a sudden rush of light in his eyes and… your hesitant form in front of him.

Orange droplets drip from your fingers, a remnant from his pumpkin juice. There is a paper cut you got from yesterday when...

“Hey, listen, I—” Kuroo starts. But your trembling lip and reddening eyes are too much for him to go on with his sentence.

Your feelings also seem to be too much for yourself. Even though you’re in the middle of the Great Hall, where anyone could pick out drama even if it ran around in an Invisibility Cloak, ‘discrete’ is not something you have apparently mastered.

“Hey!” he calls out after you. But by the time anyone can react, you’re out of the hall, face buried in your long, black, sleeve as you avoid the conflict. Kuroo is half-standing out of his seat. An arm raised that is lowered disappointedly as you make your way out.

The rest of the day goes on as usual. The sheer proximity of being in the same room with Kuroo is able to make your heart lurch in your ribcage. You want to have him so close by your side, so close that you can hear the steady thumping of one another’s hearts. So close that the very pheromones that make up his scent and self are etched into your mind as deep as they can possibly go.

But at the same time, you hate being in his presence. His observant eyes that scan the room like a predator its prey linger a little too long on your back. If you could, you would put a thousand miles of distance between you two, until the mere memory of him is a speck of sand in the vast plains of the universe. Of course it’s not his fault for anything that happened, but still...

It’s only later during lunch when everything seems to be pulled back together. For a fleeting moment, you pass Kenma. He mutters a quick, “Meet him in the greenhouses after class,” before disappearing among the sea of black robes. You think to call after him, but you realise that Kuroo would have easily been the one that had sent him. And Kuroo always had a plan.

So when you open the door to the greenhouse later, it doesn’t surprise you that there is absolutely no one there. Save for a certain Quidditch Captain.

He’s playing with the lilies. Your lilies. The same ones that had made their way around your head the first time he had really approached you in the Great Hall that time. They snap up happily at the slightest brush of his fingers that easily retract back from the lethal petals.

“You’ve made friends with the lilies,” you say. Kuroo stills in his seat on the stool. He turns to face you and blinks slowly, like a cat would.

“If you don’t want to be here right now, then… I understand. I understand.” Kuroo stands up. He holds his arms out in a show of surrender. “So will you let me take up some of your time this afternoon?”

You teeter between the balls of your feet. The words want to come out of your mouth so badly, but your heart seems to be keeping your lips shut. You count to five.

“Go on,” you say.

“I’m sorry, (Y/N). I get it if you don’t forgive me, I said some really bad stuff back there. If you want to cut off all ties with me, feel free to, and—” You put a hand on one of his broad shoulders.

“Kuroo.” He stops all his rambling and looks up at your eyes. “You were under a potion, it’s alright. I… I forgive you.”

“You do?”

“I do!” Your arms find their way around his neck. His jaw tickles your shoulder as the rumble of his laugh shakes your body.

“Thanks," you catch him whispering into your ear. None of you say anything as you dangle from his neck in the bone-splitting hug you give him. You linger for a while before peeling your arms back. Kuroo wants them back in their rightful place, his neck, so bad. “So are we back to normal, now?”

“Only if you’ll let me trash-talk you as revenge.” You both laugh in unison.

“Hey, (Y/N)," Kuroo says. “Can I tell you something?”

“You can tell me anything, Kuroo. What’s up?”

He takes your fingers between his. You find yourself walking backwards and backwards in a twisted dance. And Kuroo holds the lead.

Your back makes contact with the wall behind you. Hot breath fans your neck. Kuroo holds out a hand to hold himself up, effectively trapping you between the wall and his tall body. You could just as easily whip out your wand and hex him where the sun doesn’t shine. But this was too good to be true. Didn’t all teenagers dream of someone doing this to them?

Now that someone’s finally doing it to you, you can only freeze as your brain goes haywire.

“Kuroo! What are you—”

“I like you,” he says. It’s quick and simple, but smoother than a drawn out love letter from those horrible Cupids that Gilderoy Lockhart had sent that year. It makes your blood roar in your ears, yet the only sound that comes through to your brain are the three words that just came out of Kuroo’s mouth.

“A lot.” The words come out of your mouth at the same time. Kuroo looks up, meeting a playful smile on your lips. He raises his eyebrows.

“How did you?” he asks. You cock a shoulder in his direction.

“I have my ways.”

Instead of pressing further, Kuroo just bows his head down between his arms, you may add, are still entrapping you. He laughs. “If you know only that much, then let me elaborate.” Your face suddenly feels very warm.

‘Well of course, you would, it’s a greenhouse, (Y/N)!’ says Common Sense. The giddy teenager overtakes you and plays it off as Kuroo’s hot, and extremely close, breath.

“You’re really cute when you’re embarrassed, aren’t you?” He taps your nose. You want to swat his hand away, but remember that your arms are currently trapped under his much bigger ones.

“You’re even cuter when you teach me Herbology at 3 in the morning. And way cuter when you have a milk mustache during breakfast.” Kuroo had removed his hands by now, but it still felt like there were invisible tacks pinning your arms to the wall behind you.

“Am I?” you asked.

“Nope.” His sudden statement has you furrowing your eyebrows, but he quickly follows it up with a flick to your forehead. “Silly. Do you think I like you based on physical appearance alone?”

You manage a giggle. Kuroo leans back on the wall as he observes the greenhouse around him. You scoot closer to him and take his fingers into your hand. They're calloused after years of holding brooms, but they're soft and plump. He doesn't seem to mind when you wordlessly slip your hand into his.

Kuroo turns to look at you. He smiles. "We should spend more time in the greenhouses, you know?"

“Yeah, I think dates like this would be really good for our relationship," you say.

“Our… what?”

“Our relationship.” You pull your hand away from his. “Do you not want to?”

Now the positions are switched. Your hands lock Kuroo from both sides as you pin him against the wall. His lips are inches from yours.

"Can I?" you ask. Kuroo chuckles. He pulls your jaw closer to his, pressing both of your lips together in the process.

"Well this didn't go as planned," he comments, before pulling you in for another kiss.

BONUS:

Kenma passes Kuroo in their dorms. "You're welcome," he says.

Kuroo is about to reply, but the blond Chaser has already settled into bed.

𝐜𝐡𝐚𝐩𝐭𝐞𝐫 𝐢: 𝐡��𝐫𝐛𝐨𝐥𝐨𝐠𝐲 (𝐢𝐧𝐟𝐚𝐭𝐮𝐚𝐭𝐢𝐨𝐧) | 𝐜𝐡𝐚𝐩𝐭𝐞𝐫 𝐢𝐢𝐢: 𝐭𝐫𝐚𝐧𝐬𝐟𝐢𝐠𝐮𝐫𝐚𝐭𝐢𝐨𝐧 (𝐚𝐟𝐟𝐞𝐜𝐭𝐢𝐨𝐧) | 𝐦𝐚𝐬𝐭𝐞𝐫𝐥𝐢𝐬𝐭

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har-rison-s · 3 years

Text

hot chocolate

anonymous asked: hi! i was wondering if you wrote stuff for ron weasley or if you only wrote for the twins? if you do write for ron could you do a fluff piece? it could be abt anything honestly

a/n: thanks for this lovely request. i’ve never really wrote for ron, he was sort of a side character in one of my abandoned stories, but i’d love to explore him, this is wonderful for that. he’s my favourite out of the trio (though i can never really choose, ofc), we both hate spiders and love chicken and eating in general hahahah i feel like we’re so alike. ANYWAY, here is something fluffy with ron:) i chose quite the cliché setting, but i think it’s nice. nothing much romantic, bcs ron is a brother to me and i’d be uncomfortable with that, i’m sorry. it’s still fluff:) stay safe, enjoy. happy reading!

fyi: not proof-read, definitely gonna edit later :) (also it's short, sorry)

main masterlist

warnings: none!

The fireplace, which seemed always ablaze, was warming the remaining Gryffindor students’s feet with its fire. The students weren’t great in number, they were five in total because most were done studying late and had gone to bed already. Ron was keeping Y/N company while she studied for a test tomorrow that she shared with Hermione. But the Granger girl had already, of course, studied for it, so she had no problem on the night before.

It wasn’t like Y/N was stressed out of her mind, she was quite calm about the test, she just needed to revision a few topics. There were books and notebooks and random pieces of parchment scattered across their table’s surface. Ron was leaned back in his chair, rereading a book on Quidditch History for (Y/N was sure) the thousandth time already. Y/N’s forehead was on her hand as she continued to make her conspect on the farthest planets known to wizards.

“How’s it gooooing?” Ron asked from his chair. Y/N lifts her head up momentarily as a smile tugs at her lips, and she sighs to herself.

“Just fine.” She said and then looked at Ron properly, locking her hands together before her on the pile of books. He looked at her through his forehead, sort of, but never menacingly, only curiously. “How many times did the Cannons win the League again?”

Ron chuckled and glanced back down to his book, though he knew the fact so well that he’d tell it to you without struggle if you woke him in the middle of the night. “Twenty-one, but only in 1892.” He said. “Which is the farthest planet from ours?”

Y/N smiled wide. “D’you want the muggle truth or our truth?” She asked, resting her chin in her hand. Ron grinned wide. “Saturn, for the muggles.” She said, then. “But Alastar for us.” Ron’s eyebrows furrowed.

“I think I knew a bloke called Alastar…” He admitted, scratching the back of his neck, he really looked like he was trying to remember. Y/N couldn’t figure out whether he was serious or not, and she chuckled. “D’you think the star’s named after ‘im?” She chuckled again.

“People are usually named after stars, not vice versa.” She pointed out. Ron leaned forward, his elbows on their table. He raised his eyebrows.

“But what if he discovered the planet?” He suggested and raised his index finger in the air. “Then it would be named after ‘im.”

Y/N smiled wide. “Wow, you’re better than my astronomy and history books.” She said, shaking her head and smiling wider with every second. Ron blushed and laughed and hung his big ginger head lower, not wanting her to see his blush. But she did, alright, and she had nothing to say about it other than that the blush was cute, to her, at least. But she didn’t care about anyone else. “That could be on the quiz.”

“What exactly? The question whether a star is named after a person or vice versa?” Ron precised and made her laugh again. He smiled. Y/N glanced down at her empty pink cup once her laughter had sort of died down, and she turned the cup around between her hands. “I think that needs refilling.”

She nodded at his empty orange cup with raised eyebrows, it was sitting next to hers. “Yours does, too.” She stated, and they both laughed again. They’re probably too tired, that’s why they’re laughing so frequently.

“Mine’s not empty, actually.” Ron said, lifting it up to his mouth. Y/N held her tongue with something to say right on the tip of it, and watched as Ron drank in the remaining of his hot chocolate. They both had got one for each from the kitchen before they came to their common room and started to study, and no wonder her cup was empty and his was—“Ah, it’s cold!” Ron retracted the cup and cringed expressively at what he’d drank. Cold hot chocolate was never pleasant, especially when you live somewhere with stone walls and floors, it gave you more chills. And especially when you’re tired and everything’s bound to get on your nerves. Y/N chuckled at his facial expression and took her pink cup between her hands. “Sure, laugh at my misery!” Ron complained, but she saw a smile tugging at his lips.

“Shall we go and get a refill?” She asked then, looking suggestively at Ron.

“What, now?”

“Yes, now, when else?”

Ron was hesitant. His voice quieted down to a whisper when he spoke, “I don’t think we should. Isn’t there a curfew or somethin’?”

Y/N shook her head. “There’s no curfew. And we’ll be quick, come on, everyone’s almost asleep, anyway.” She already rose to her feet, but Ron still sat in his chair. But she gave him her hand to motivate him to get up, and he did eventually.

“McGonagall’s gonna have our heads on sticks if she catches us.” Ron said as they walk through the common room’s entrance door. Y/N laughed quietly to herself, knowing how good the echo is in the Hogwarts castle, as she waited for Ron, her cup in hand.

“She won’t, trust me.” She assured him and took his hand again. Ron tried to match the speed of her feet that treaded so lightly on the stone steps of the moving stairs, and he started giggling after he’d almost fallen over. She hushed him and they continued their journey down to the kitchen.

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bloodpacks-archive · 4 years

Text

false god

word count: 5.7 babey

summary: it’s fuckin chandrila!reader x obi-wan kenobi bro idk she’s poltically charged and ready to fight and I love her and so does obi-wan let’s go

warnings/note: none. idk. politics. but. star wars. but also lowkey me ranting abt how i hate america. u can choose to interpret it that way or not. i do not care. it is 2 AM as i’m writing this. there’s not even violence. so my advice is to just enjoy it. also. u know what. i would die if obi-wan did to me what his does to padme in this gif. so enjoy that too. also i should learn how to make those header shits for fics i am tired of this layout. ALSO please send me prompts to write more abt these two i love them and will probably write shit abt them no matter what so. anyway im going to bed ENJOY

The sun just barely shines through the clouds on Chandrila. The air is cold, biting at Obi-Wan’s skin a bit more than it had on Coruscant. From beside him, Anakin pulls his jacket tighter around himself. Even five years after Tatooine, he still struggled in the cold. But as they walk through the streets of the lower sector on their new assignment, Obi-Wan can’t help but smile at the way his padawan crosses his arms.

“Cold?” He asks Anakin, not letting his eyes break from the path ahead of him. He hears Anakin let out a sigh beside him.

“I’ll be fine, Master,” He replies. Obi-Wan glances over at him for just a moment, eyebrows furrowed as he looks over him.

“I’m sure we’ll find a place to stay soon.” He brings a hand and places it on Anakin’s shoulder, for just a moment. He shivers at the touch, and Obi-Wan decides to walk a little faster.

They’re here under strict orders to gather intel on the lower sectors, both of them out of their usual, warmer robes and in outfits a bit more fitting to the area. Obi-Wan scans the city as he walks, making note of the towering buildings, the signs that hang out into the street, colorful and a bit too bright for his own liking. He catches sight of a market up ahead, and quickly guides Anakin forward. It’s lively there, large groups of people passing between each other and surrounding various vendors.

As he gets closer, Obi-Wan quickly realizes that what he once believed to be a place where he could find shelter is rather a place of chaos. He can barely see over the heads of the crowds, and trying to catch the words on any signs is proving difficult. Anakin pulls him forward, slowly making their way out of the middle of the crowd and into less dense areas. Still, both their eyes wander about the market. Obi-Wan considers for just a moment if he should ask someone for help.

“Are you lost?” They both turn, coming face to face with a girl. She has a hood on, but her eyes are still visible. There’s a softness to them, something he isn’t sure he could explain, but he feels… safe. Oddly enough, she seems safe. Concern flows off of her in waves, and he decides that they don’t particularly have much to lose. And if they do, well, there’s a lightsaber hidden on him anyway. They’ll find a way.

“We’re just looking for a place to stay,” Obi-Wan explains. He notices the way her eyes flit over to Anakin, who—despite being fourteen—still looks young for his age. Her lips purse for a moment, and then she brings her gaze back up to Obi-Wan.

“I can help you, if you’d like,” She replies. Her voice is soft, careful in every sense of the word. “We have some extra room back home.”

Obi-Wan pauses for a moment, but then he glances over at Anakin, who’s still pulling his jacket tighter around himself, and quickly agrees.

She guides them out of the market with ease. Obi-Wan makes note of the small pack hanging off her shoulders, wondering, if only for a moment, what might be in it. She moves her hood to hide a majority of her face as they walk, but he finds that when the sun hits it just right through the clouds, her silhouette becomes visible through the thin fabric. He absently wonders what the purpose of the thin hood could possibly be in this kind of cold.

As the crowd begins to dwindle, she slows her pace, coming to walk beside him and Anakin. She looks over at the two of them, and pulls her hood back slightly, allowing her hair to poke out around the edges. He can see her eyes again, and they still hold that same softness to them, something that screams a want to help others. He can’t quite place it.

They’re trustworthy, Obi-Wan thinks, as she glances between them.

“So are you two brothers then?” She asks. Before Obi-Wan can react, Anakin is already speaking, finally beginning to forget the cold.

“Yeah, something like that,” He says, and she smiles down at him, kind and welcoming in the way her lips quirk at his voice.

“We have a lot of that here,” She replies. Obi-Wan furrows his eyebrows, tilting his head at her only slightly.

“What do you mean?”

“You must be fairly new to the lower sectors.” She sighs, holding her gaze forward for a while before speaking again. “Lots of us were abandoned. It- It gets hard down here. When we get to the house you’ll see it. None of us are related by blood, necessarily, but we’re family.” She turns once again, her eyes flitting between Obi-Wan and Anakin. “I have to assume it was the same for you.”

They walk for a while longer, a silence settling between the three of them. Obi-Wan has a habit of checking up on Anakin every few seconds, and whenever he looks over, his eyes are flitting about the city. From the dirty, poorly maintained apartments down on their level, to the shiny speeders up above. Obi-Wan can’t help but feel that all of it is slightly unjust. Especially if what the girl says is true.

Abandonment, he thinks. Surely, no one would abandon someone to a life like this.

“I don’t believe I ever caught your names,” She says suddenly.

“Ben,” He replies.

“And you can just call me Ani,” Anakin says from next to him. Obi-Wan smiles at that, and Anakin earns a bit of laughter from the girl next to them.

“Ani and Ben, huh? I like that.” And she smiles, for the first time since meeting her. It’s polite in nature, not quite reaching her eyes, but Obi-Wan finds it pretty nevertheless.

He really has to shake himself out of thinking she’s pretty.

“And what’s your name?” Obi-Wan asks then.

She replies, with a lilt to her voice that makes him want to lean in closer. Her name is lovely. And he knows he isn’t supposed to have attachments, and he won’t. But he’s allowed to be a little curious, right? It’s not his fault that he has a habit of wondering.

Specifically, he’s wondering what her smile looks like when it does reach her eyes.

But he’s only wondering.

—————

They reach the apartment a few moments later. It’s a few floors above base level, and surprisingly well kept. He notices a twi’lek girl working at a desk in the corner, and there’s a boy who glances up from the datapad he’d been attentively scrolling through. His eyes flit between the three of them, and then he gets a bit of a breathless smile on his face.

“Now who’d you bring home today?” He asks, amusement mixing with his voice.

“Shut it, Luca,” She replies, and Obi-Wan almost expects her to roll her eyes before she breaks into soft laughter, throwing the nearest pillow at him. The boy—Luca, glares at her after he catches the pillow, just a few moments before it would’ve hit him square in the face. Obi-Wan has to hold back a smile.

“Anyway,” She begins, “This is Ben and Ani. They needed a place to stay.”

Luca turns to them, offering a small wave before he, finally, is able to focus on his datapad in peace. She makes her way over to the desk where the twi’lek is sitting, putting her arms on the girl’s shoulders and making her finally look up from whatever she was working on.

“And this is Le’Ana. She’s too busy working on her jewelry to pay attention to either of you.”

Le’Ana glances over at Obi-Wan and Anakin, giving a quiet wave before exchanging looks with the other girl. She rolls her eyes at Le’Ana, and something passes between them that Obi-Wan can’t quite understand.

“Hey, why don’t you give the kid my bed tonight? I can take the couch,” Le’Ana says. She’s playing with a piece of jewelry, letting it twist in her hands.

“Oh no, I couldn’t. We really don’t want to intrude-“ Anakin starts, but then she stands in front of them, hands on her hips while she shakes her head.

“We’re the ones who brought you here. You’re not intruding by any means,” She replies. She places a hand on Anakin’s shoulder, and he smiles up at her, silently giving her his thanks. And then she turns to Obi-Wan, soft smile on her face.

“It’s getting late. You should both head to bed.” She glances over at Anakin once more, laughing slightly at how his eyes are half-closed, sleep pulling at him. “Le’Ana’s room is just down the hall. There’s two beds in there for you.”

“Thank you for everything,” Obi-Wan replies. She simply smiles at him, before turning to speak with Luca.

The room is small—not much bigger than anything either of them would’ve slept in while on a ship—but it’s certainly got a personality to it. Pieces of jewelry hang off of hooks in one of the corners, each one intricately made. Anakin walks over to inspect the pieces, curiosity alight in his expression.

“Don’t touch, Anakin.”

“I know, Master, I won’t.” He turns, offering Obi-Wan an innocent look. He rolls his eyes at Anakin as he takes off his robe, folding it neatly to store in the space beneath the bed.

“You’re tired, Anakin. You should sleep, we have a lot of work ahead of us.”

He simply nods in response, shedding his robe and taking off his boots before settling into the bed across from Obi-Wan’s.

“Master, what is it, exactly, that we’re looking for?”

Obi-Wan lowers his voice, leaning in closer to Anakin as he speaks, “There’ve been talks of Separatist cells down on these lower levels. We’re simply gathering intel, running an investigation of sorts, and then leaving.”

Anakin nods, his eyebrows slightly furrowed together, but he drops it, moving to finally lay down in his bed. Obi-Wan does the same, letting his eyes fall shut.

—————

Obi-Wan can’t sleep. Anakin is soundly asleep beside him, chest rising and falling at a steady rhythm. Obi-Wan sits up, stretching his back and his neck, before grabbing his robe and padding outside and into the hallway, shutting the door quietly behind him. He shrugs on his robe, pulling it tightly around him. The air had grown colder as the night came, and a draft found its way into the apartment.

As he comes to the main room, he sees Le’Ana, fast asleep on the couch with a blanket wrapped tightly around her. He smiles. She looks peaceful.

“Couldn’t sleep?” Obi-Wan turns, and sees her sitting on the counter. Obi-Wan makes a concerned face as he glances in Le’Ana’s direction. “She’s fine. She sleeps through anything.”

Obi-Wan moves towards her, watching as she swings her feet over the edge of the counter she’s chosen to sit on. She’s without her hood this time, instead donning some loose-fitting pants and a t-shirt, a blanket draped around her shoulders. A mug of caf rests in her hands, and she moves as he approaches, grabbing a mug and pouring some of the extra caf she brewed into it. She hands it to Obi-Wan and he gladly takes it, letting the mug warm his hands.

“I guess you couldn’t sleep either?” Obi-Wan leans against the counter next to her, taking a sip from his mug.

“Never can,” She sighs. He glances up, eyes flitting across her face. She looks tired, but then she catches his eye and gives him another smile. “Wanna go for a walk?”

And he only nods, stepping away to allow her to get off the counter, both of them leaving their mugs behind. She trades the blanket around her shoulders for a long coat, and offers Obi-Wan one as well. He gladly takes it, wrapping it around himself as she leads him out into the city.

The moons are surprisingly bright despite the city lights. They shine onto the pathways, giving the city a pretty glow.

“I used to take walks like these a lot when I was younger,” She says. Obi-Wan stays quiet, watching her as she speaks. “I used to live farther into the outer reaches of Hanna City. Back then, I could walk for maybe two klicks and be out on the hills by the rivers.”

“Do you miss it?” He asks. She lets a breath of laughter pass her lips.

“More than you’d know. When I first moved here I would make the walk anyway but,” She pauses, sighing, “Hanna City isn’t what it used to be.”

A speeder passes over their heads, the soft whoosh causing them both to glance up.

“How has the city changed?” Obi-Wan asks. He notices the way her eyebrows furrow, the way her gaze falls to the ground. He silently hopes he hasn’t struck a nerve.

“Do you want to go out to the hills? We can talk there.”

And so they do. It takes them nearly 45 minutes to get to the outskirts of the city, and another 20 to get to the hills, but the moons are still bright, and the further they walk, the brighter the stars become. Eventually, they come to a point where the river is low, and they can sit on the grass nearby while still listening to the soft flow of water.

Obi-Wan looks over to her, and sees her staring back at the city, the lights softly reflecting in her eyes. They flutter shut for a moment, and she takes a breath.

“I used to think Hanna City was as perfect as any place could be,” She whispers.

“What changed?”

“I started listening. When I was younger, everywhere you turned there was a message saying you can be who you want to be. I believed that. For a very long time, I believed that Chandrila was the place where you could be anyone.”

She moves her gaze to her feet, tucking a piece of hair behind her ear before she lays her arms over her knees, lightly resting her chin there.

“I want to believe it, I really do but-“ her eyes close, “-I’ve seen so much, Ben.”

Obi-Wan, quietly, cautiously, raises his hand to her shoulder. She leans into his touch, letting him slowly rub his thumb back and forth across the cloth there.

“And now there’s separatist groups down here and while I don’t know if I agree with the Separatists,” She pauses, her eyes meeting Obi-Wan’s, “I understand their reasons for supporting them.”

“I didn’t know there was much conflict on Chandrila,” Obi-Wan says.

“There never used to be. But we were all told from a young age that this was the world of opportunity. Now we’re grown up and- and we can’t find jobs, or proper housing, or anything, really. Le’Ana, Luca, and I, we’re lucky. Le’Ana’s managed to make quite a bit from her jewelry from time to time, and Luca’s been able to fix up droids for an alright living.”

“I have to assume that’s not how it’s been for everyone,” Obi-Wan replied. She sighs again, and then brings her eyes up to meet his. They’re worn, but caring nevertheless.

“Certainly not. I mean, even for me, I’m between jobs at the moment, to say the least.”

A beat of silence passes between them before she smiles up at him, moonlight dancing across her cheeks, and turns to fully face him, legs criss-crossed and chin resting in one of her palms.

“But that’s enough about me. What’s your story, Ben?” His false name falls past her lips with a playfulness he could certainly come to enjoy. He laughs, leaning back a bit as he wraps an arm around one knee.

“I’m afraid there’s not much of a story to tell,” He answers. She rolls her eyes at him, leaning forward to push his shoulder back while he laughs at her.

“There’s always a story to tell.” She tilts her head at him, narrowing her eyes playfully as she thinks of a question to ask. “Where are you from?”

“I don’t know my home planet, but I was raised on Coruscant,” He answers, truthfully. There’s a bit of wonder in her expression at the mention of Coruscant, and he lets his lips quirk up in a smile.

“Is it really as nice there as everyone says?” She asks.

“It has its problems, just like Chandrila, but I did love it there.”

“So why’d you leave?”

“I had business elsewhere.”

She rolls her eyes again. “You’re being elusive.”

“I told you there’s not much of a story,” Obi-Wan explains.

“Or perhaps you’re hiding something from me.” She leans in close, he can see the way her eyes flicker across his face, the way the moonlight illuminates every aspect of her. He’s exceptionally curious.

“Now why would I do that?” He replies. A smile tugs at his lips. And then she laughs, softly, letting her head fall towards his chest. Her fatigue is getting to her, he can tell. But then she sits back again, and then she lays down, her fingers playing with a blade of grass above her head as she looks up at the stars.

“Well then,” She begins, her eyes flit over to him, “if you don’t have a story, what do you wish it was?”

Obi-Wan thinks for a moment, of Qui-Gon, of him training Anakin. He thinks of the rules of the Jedi. He can’t help but admit that, on occasion, he wishes the rules were a little more… lenient. But most of all, he wishes there to be no threat to the galaxy. He wishes for the Jedi to be peacekeepers and simply that. He wishes there were no Sith, that he hadn’t killed the first Sith in centuries. He wishes he still had Qui-Gon’s wisdom, however turbulent he may have been at times.

“I wish it was happier,” He replies, finally.

Her hand, the one that was playing with the blade of grass, moves then, instead going to wrap her fingers around his. A gesture of comfort. Her eyes meet his, and there’s a soft smile upon her face.

“Me too,” She whispers.

The sky is slowly becoming brighter in front of them, so she rises, pulling Obi-Wan up with her.

“We should head back, before Ani thinks you got kidnapped.”

“He’d live.”

She gives him a look, lightly hitting him on the shoulder as they begin their walk back.

“Hey,” She whispers after a few moments, “Thanks for walking with me. It’s been so long since I’ve been out here.”

“It was much better than staring at the ceiling until the sun rose.”

“Maybe,” She teases, “But we really should’ve brought our caf with us.”

Obi-Wan lets a breath of laughter pass his lips. He finds that his curiosity about her is continually growing. He can’t help it. The more she talks, the more he wants to listen, and the closer he wants to be. From what he’s seen, she’s calming, caring, lovely in every aspect. And she seems genuine.

He hates being curious.

—————

The next night, Obi-Wan awakens when the moons are still bright. Once again, he finds himself making his way to the main room, the moonlight guiding him through the halls. And there she is, perched on the counter amid the food items he’d bought (as a thank you) earlier that day, quietly sipping on her caf.

“Do you ever sleep?” He asks as he approaches. She just shrugs, already handing him a mug.

“There’s a lot to think about at night,” She replies. Obi-Wan takes his spot next to her, leaning on the counter as they quietly speak, attempting to not disturb Le’Ana.

“Like?”

“Oh, the state of Chandrila, how nobody’s doing anything about it, the lies I’ve been told since I was a child.” She waves her hand about as she talks, swaying with her words. “That sort of thing.”

“You seem to be very politically charged.”

She turns, “Are you not?”

“Oh trust me, I have my opinions.” They both pause, sipping on their caf and watching moonlight softly pool in from the window. “Have you ever considered running for an office?”

“Plenty,” She says. “But I think I’d rather work in the background. The forefront seems… too much for me.”

“Do you have any ideas?” Obi-Wan asks. She smiles at him, carefully hopping off the counter. She walks towards the hallway.

“C’mon,” She says. Obi-Wan hesitates, just for a moment. “I promise nothing’ll hurt you.” There’s a smirk on her lips as she motions him towards her room.

She grabs his wrist as they enter, just barely, her touch light and airy. Her fingertips brush his skin there and it draws Obi-Wan in.

She places a datapad on a desk, motioning at the chair for Obi-Wan to sit. He watches carefully as she works, pulling up some file. Hope, is its label.

“I think I’m most proud of this one,” She says. She sets the datapad in front of him, leaning over his shoulders.

And in front of him, there’s ideas for policies. All under one common theme, to make the dream of Chandrila a reality. For everyone. Better orphanage systems, job stimulation, efforts to make housing more affordable.

And then, no more forgotten children. An effort to take kids off the streets and into better environments. Providing them with schooling and the resources to further their education or find jobs, whichever they should prefer.

“This is…” Obi-Wan can’t even finish. Every policy has a specific plan, an idea on how to achieve the goals. They aren’t all perfect, but they’re something. They’re actions.

“I don’t want any more kids to go through what Le’Ana, Luca, or I did,” She whispers.

Obi-Wan turns, “How are you going to get this out there?”

She moves so she leans on the desk, looking down at Obi-Wan as she speaks.

“I have an interview tomorrow. It’s with a potential senator.”

Without even thinking, Obi-Wan grabs her hand.

“That’s,” Obi-Wan lets out a breath, “Amazing.”

She glances down at where their hands are, his lightly holding onto hers. Obi-Wan watches her, and consciously, he knows he should move his hand, knows that this is beyond improper and knows that this is wrong.

He doesn’t.

She moves her hand, moonlight dancing between their fingers, and intertwines them.

“I feel like I’ve known you for a thousand lifetimes,” She whispers. “You’re oddly easy to talk to you.”

Her soft laughter fills the room.

“It’s because I’m so charming,” Obi-Wan replies. She rolls her eyes, lightly hitting his shoulder with her free hand.

“I take it back, you’re annoying.”

Silence passes between them. Her eyes lock with his and—there it is again. That curiosity. Obi-Wan swears it’ll be the death of him.

Her hand delicately moves to his face. Her fingers brush his cheek. He leans into the touch, not entirely sure of what he’s doing, but he finds he doesn’t particularly care. It’s happy here.

“Ben,” She whispers again, “Tell me if this isn’t what you want.”

He considers it, for just a moment. He hesitates. But the thing is—he wants to know what it’s like to kiss her. And so, for just a moment, he indulges in that curiosity. He leans forward, carefully, and kisses her. His hand goes up, tangling his fingers in her hair.

It’s happy here. In this moment, it’s warm. In this moment, the moonlight feels as though it is covering every inch of his body. In this moment, he feels as though he could stay here forever.

—————

When Anakin and Obi-Wan arrive back to the apartment from gathering intel the next day, she’s already gone to her interview. Luca’s working on an astromech as they all wait, eagerly, for her return.

“She’s been waiting on this for forever,” He says as he grabs another tool.

“She seemed awfully excited this morning,” Le’Ana speaks up from her desk. “But I don’t think she’s been sleeping much.”

“She never does when these things come up,” Luca replies. “Hey, Le’Ana, could I borrow-“

She’s already tossing the tool, something small that Obi-Wan can’t quite make out, before he’s even finished the sentence. He catches it, giving her a nod of thanks before he continues his work.

“How often does she have these interviews?” Anakin asks. Le’Ana shrugs.

“It’s been about two months since her last one, but it’s so sporadic.”

“We never really know what’s gonna happen,” Luca says.

The apartment returns to silence. Minutes pass that feel like hours. The holonet is playing on the table in front of Obi-Wan and Anakin, but neither of them are truly paying attention.

And then there’s the soft sounds of the door opening, and she walks in. She looks exhausted. Her eyes are low, her shoulders have fallen. She moves through the main room without really looking at anyone. Obi-Wan’s gaze follows her.

“Hey-“ Luca begins, but Le’Ana cuts him off with a look. The door to her room closes softly behind her, and the main room is left with a silence that feels much worse than before.

“I’ll go check on her,” Obi-Wan says. He can feel Anakin’s gaze on him as he gets up, but he continues anyway.

He closes the door behind him, and sees her sitting on her bed, head in her hands. He sits beside her, his hand going to her back. His touch is quiet, barely there, but she still leans into it.

“I’m so tired of this,” She says, muffled by her hands. Obi-Wan stays quiet, letting her continue. “I keep believing in the stupid notion that I can change things.”

“You can-“

“No! I can’t Ben!” She looks up then, her eyes watery as her eyes catch his. His chest sinks. “I’m sorry,” She whispers, “I’m not yelling at you I’m just so frustrated.”

“This wasn’t the one, that’s okay,” He says.

“I only have one chance left,” She replies. “There’s only one more candidate, and if I don’t get a job-“ She sighs, “I don’t even want to think about it.”

They stay quiet for just a moment.

“It’s just-“ She begins, “I’ve been told my entire life that I would find opportunity here. I was told that this was the place to be if you wanted to change things. If you wanted to work and help others, this was the place to do it.”

She stands up then, moving away from Obi-Wan as she stands near the front of her room.

“But I was lied to,�� She says. “My entire kriffing I was lied to!”

Obi-Wan stays on her bed, watching as she paces back and forth, her voice gaining volume.

“All of the kriffing posters, the messages, the ads on the holonet, all of it, was a lie! They told me I could be whatever the hell I wanted to be here! I never wanted to be kriffing jobless!—Depending on two kids that I was supposed to help.” She turns to Obi-Wan, “I was supposed to be the one helping them! I can’t deal with all these lies anymore, Ben, I-“

“Obi-Wan,” He whispers.

“What?” She asks. She stops her pacing, she looks frozen.

“My name. It’s not Ben, It’s Obi-Wan.”

“You’re joking with me, right? You’re not-“

“I’m being serious, I promise.”

Obi-Wan can’t bring himself to look up at her. He knows this was for a mission, that he had to be careful about it, but he can’t help how awful he feels.

“What else have you lied about?” Her voice is broken, wavering.

“Nothing,” He replies.

“Is that why you wouldn’t tell me anything about who you are? Because the entire time you were lying to me anyway?”

“I promise-“

“Stop with the promises!”

He looks up. He regrets it. She looked exhausted before but, here, now, she looks betrayed.

“I wanted to tell you.”

“Why couldn’t you?” She asks.

And once again, Obi-Wan hesitates.

“I- I can’t tell you that-“

“Get out,” She whispers. “Please. Leave.”

Obi-Wan and Anakin leave Chandrila later that night, when the air is cold and the moonlight is shining on the streets.

—————

Coruscant is especially warm this time of year. Obi-Wan’s hair has grown longer since those days on Chandrila a year ago, now sweeping around the side of his face elegantly rather than awkwardly kept short. And what was once just stubble has turned into a beard, which Anakin has described his adamant hatred for quite often. Obi-Wan keeps it partially to annoy him.

But it’s a year later when Obi-Wan and Anakin are called to guard Senator Mon Mothma on her visit to Coruscant. The assignment brings back memories. Ones that Obi-Wan wishes he could forget. He often lays at night, watching one of Coruscant’s many moons, and thinks about that night on the hills, or the night in her room.

He hates how he still feels that curiosity. And he hates how he still feels that sinking in his chest when he thinks of her.

Obi-Wan and Anakin stand on the landing port, patiently waiting for the transport to arrive with the Senator and her team. Master Windu is with them, fully prepared to give introductions when the time is right.

In the distance, Obi-Wan sees the transport. He straightens his shoulders and back, and Anakin follows him, both of them with their hands behind their backs. The transport lands with ease, guards stepping out before the Senator and the rest of her advisors.

Obi-Wan closes his eyes to take a breath, and when he opens them, he swears he’s seen a ghost.

Because what once was an exhausted young girl, with barely anything to her name. A girl who looked out at the stars with him the first night she’d met him, a girl whose laugh felt like home, and a girl who kicked him out a year ago, was now standing in front of him. Her hair had gotten shorter, and now she stood before him in regalia that was elegant enough to combat the Senator’s.

Where she once had her thin hood and her baggy comfortable pants, she now had red, formal pants with a white and gold top. Her gaze first met Master Windu’s, and then her eyes quickly scanned the room before, finally, landing on Obi-Wan.

And then, suddenly, she had that same caring look.

“Senator,” Master Windu said, “It’s wonderful to have you here on Coruscant. Master Kenobi and his padawan Anakin Skywalker will be escorting you throughout your time here.”

“Thank you, Master Windu,” The Senator replied.

Obi-Wan’s eyes flick back to her throughout the entire night. As he and Anakin guide the Senator, he finds that his curiosity has come back. He wants to know what she’s thinking. How she’s feeling. If she’s as much of a mess as he is.

It’s a lot, all at once.

That night, in his temporary room, just a few doors down from the Senator, he finds himself watching the moons again when there’s a soft knock on his door.

“Come in,” He replies, and he’s met with the sound of someone coming from behind him. He’s too busy watching the moonlight to turn, he already knows who it is.

“It’s not exactly the Chandrilan skies, but I suppose it’ll do,” She says. She comes up beside him, leaning onto the window sill.

“I assume your last chance worked out?” Obi-Wan asks.

“After you left-“

“You kicked me out-“

“You lied to me-“

“I couldn’t tell you I was a Jedi!”

Their eyes meet, and they both break into quiet laughter.

“You’re as annoying as ever,” She says.

“It’s part of my charm,” He replies.

She rolls her eyes, lightly knocking his shoulder with hers.

“Anyway, after that mess, I got another interview scheduled for the following week. Then, before I knew it, I was working for Senator Mon Mothma.”

The moonlight catches on her clothes, the gold detailing in her top lighting up. It gives her this glow, one that Obi-Wan can’t explain.

“I suppose I should’ve been paying more attention to Chandrilan politics,” Obi-Wan says.

“If you had you would’ve seen the implementation of a certain policy named no more forgotten children,” She replies.

Obi-Wan can’t help the way he breaks out into a smile. She notices, because her eyes light up in a way Obi-Wan would adore to see more of. She lets her eyes fall over his face, and slowly, carefully, she raises a hand up to his cheek. Obi-Wan lets his eyes close, leaning into her touch.

“Your hair’s longer,” She whispers.

“And yours is shorter,” He replies.

“It fit the whole ‘political advisor that could murder you if she wanted’ look.” Her lips quirk into a smile as she speaks, her head tilting as she jokes.

“Obi-Wan,” She whispers. His name feels like a calling when it comes from her lips. He closes his eyes again, letting himself lean in closer.

“Yes?”

“I’ve missed you,” She says.

“A little dramatic for only knowing someone for three days, don’t you think?”

Her head falls down to his chest, her arms going to wrap around his neck.

“You are so annoying.”

“And yet you came back.”

She looks up then, “I did.”

Obi-Wan brings a hand up to her cheek, and she smiles, bright, the kind that reaches her eyes. And then, without reproach, and without thinking about the Jedi, or the code, or his curiosity, he pulls her in, and kisses her.

The moonlight feels like home, when it wraps the two of them together in its glow. And in that moment, Obi-Wan felt happy. Truly, undeniably, happy.

#obi wan kenobi #obi wan kenobi x reader #obi wan kenobi x you #obi wan kenobi x y/n #sw

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consumedkings-archive · 3 years

Text

ancient names, pt. xv

A John Seed/Original Female Character Fanfic

Ancient Names, pt xv: down the rabbit hole

Masterlink Post

Word Count: ~10.6k ( i think? sorry? )

Rating: M for mature. You know; Far Cry 5.

Warnings: canon typical violence, some forced drug use (Bliss) that results in some PEAK emotional manipulation, a friendly reminder that this is not a love story about people in a healthy relationship but just a love story, sort of. Also I love tropes and no one can stop me.

Notes: HM not much to say about this chapter except that I had a ball writing it and I hope that comes through when you're reading it as well!! It's a joy to finally move some plot pieces a long and also explore some different narratives--especially Faith's, who I had been nervous about writing but made myself do it anyway.

I really hope you enjoy it! @starcrier blessed me with her input (per usual; she's an angel, what can I say) and of course I want to thank @lilwritingraven for helping me with the pacing of this chapter, as well as @baeogorath for letting me send them memes at like 3am and talk abt how Cora and Elliot are going to end up in a domestic partnership with many dog children.

She’s in a bar.

She’s in a bar, and she’s twenty-two, and Joey is off to go get a drink and she doesn’t think she likes the one she has very much.

She’s in a bar, and she’s twenty-two, and John Seed locks eyes with her from across the bar and it feels like her entire body is getting eaten up by flame. She’s never had a man look at her like he looks at her—starved, like he could never get his fill of her, prowling through the crowd of bodies milling about in the bar to beeline straight for her.

Wanted. He wants her—and it twists in her stomach, writhing, white-hot and intoxicating and the second he closes in he says, “I’ve been looking for you.”

“I know,” she says, feeling his hands on either side of her neck, cradling. Her lashes flutter and the oxygen is so thin, like they’re somewhere very high, but they aren’t; they’re just there , together, the wildfire of him greedily devouring the kindling of her bones.

This is the part where Joey is supposed to come in. A part of her knows this: that any minute now, she will get pulled away, that even as John leans down to kiss her, the dream will evaporate and she will be left remembering that moment that she missed so many years ago.

But the dream doesn’t end. John’s lips brush hers; his fingers wind through her hair; John, she says, because nothing in her is not for him, just the kind of girl that he likes—the kind that’s hurting, and that hurts others.

“Just like me,” John says against her mouth. He disentangles his hands from her hair and reaches for her own, bringing them for her to see.

They are drenched in blood. Sticky, wet, crimson. A small, tiny part of her brain says, we can’t know for sure whose, but she knows.

Joey.

“See?” John says, his fingers biting into her palms, his teeth catching her lip. “Just like me.”

━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━

Elliot’s eyes fluttered open. At first, she felt her body brace for some kind of impact—she had woken up in an unfamiliar bed, with unfamiliar sounds of voices outside, and someone’s breath fanning her neck. She shifted, forcing her eyes open despite the strange panic crawling up her throat, and peeked over her shoulder.

It was John. She thought, Oh. And then: Hm.

Not the kind of dread she had been anticipating. It was different than fearing a monster; it was the kind of dread that came with being known down in the most vulnerable parts of you, the kind that she’d felt after she’d stood up from laying everything out in front of Joseph. She’d felt sick, then, and slimy; every detail of every memory about that night years ago before moving back to Hope County had made her skin burn .

And then there had been John. Hands gripping, mouth hungry, but it was always: Anything you want, El. He’d done everything exactly the way she’d wanted it. John wasn’t the first man she had been with since her time in the city, but he was the first to—well, mean something, and wasn’t that a dreadful thought?

Pressing her face back to the pillow, the unfamiliar weight of his arm around her tightened when she shifted away.

“Stop squirming,” John rumbled. “I’m trying to sleep.”

“This is a twin bed, fucker,” Elliot replied, ignoring the unease that was beginning to knot in her stomach. She didn’t know why it was there, inside of her, until she realized she was—happy? “It wasn’t meant to hold both of us.” And then, bitterly: “ Fuck, you’re hot.”

She kicked her leg out from under the sheets, exhaling sharply as the complaint left her mouth. It was too late to choose better wording; she could feel John’s self-pleased aura radiating off of him almost instantly as he buried his face into her neck.

“I think that’s the nicest thing you’ve ever said to me,” he said, as his fingers skimmed beneath the sheet to trace the lines of her scars. She knew that it infuriated him that she hadn’t told him what they were from—but at least like this, he wasn’t interrogating her, contenting himself with feeling them rather than knowing them. She squirmed and grimaced.

“I mean like a space heater,” she grumbled. Tucking her arm up under the pillow, she added, “I don’t remember saying you could sleep here.”

John grinned against the back of her neck. “Are you kicking me out?”

A long, tired sigh slipped out of her, muffled by the pillow. Every part of her ached in a pleasant way, and John’s warmth pressed up behind her as they lay crammed on the bed in the bunkhouse was a grounding one; the kind that might let her sleep a little more. The darkness in the room meant that she hadn’t dozed off for very long, and even now her eyes felt heavy.

She knew that she’d barely gotten the amount of sleep that she needed since Joey’s death, let alone wanted . Every time she closed her eyes, all she could see was the gore and grit of it; it sat just behind her eyelids, waiting for her to try and get some rest and move forward to assault her with the memory of Joey’s gruesome murder.

The broken jaw, the gutted chest cavity. The flowers, packed so tight and full she could have rested her cheek on it and been held like a pillow.

And John’s arms, circling her: Don’t look, El.

“You can stay,” Elliot said after a moment, keeping her eyes fixed on the wall. “This one time.”

“You’re in an agreeable mood.” John paused, nosing past the hair gathering in the crook of her neck. “You want to tell me how your confession went now? Must’ve been pretty good, considering what you let me—”

She groaned. “I changed my mind. Get out.”

“You don’t have to talk about it, I just—”

“You are so fucking annoying,” she said, rolling over in the bed to look at him. With that grin slapped on his face and his hair tousled out of its normally meticulous slick-back, he looked boyish and young, not like a cultist maniac; it was probably the most frustrating thing about him, that he could look this way. That he could have moments of sincerity, but that he never seemed to fall into the realm of “good”, because every time she felt herself relaxing around him he did something to remind her why it was a bad idea . “I’m not going to talk to you about my confession.”

“Well,” John said petulantly, “why not ?”

Her fingers traced the Sloth scar just under his collarbone. He had a myriad of them—tattoos, too—and while she hadn’t quite gotten them all memorized, it was nice to let the buzzing of her brain focus on parsing them out instead of everything else.

The problem was that Elliot didn’t know how to tell him the truth of it; that she had only told Joseph those things about who she had been and who she was now because she knew that he wanted her to, just like she knew John wanted her to let him kiss her, and just like she knew Jacob wanted her to give him a reason to push her to her limits and really test her. She couldn’t tell John that, because even though it was true , it also didn’t change the fact that he complicated things for her more than she should have let him—like everything, John was an outlying variable which Elliot had no way to brace for.

“It’s not good pillow talk,” she said after a minute, skimming her fingers along the jut of his collarbone. “And I don’t want to talk about it, and that should be enough.” And then, decisively, when John opened his mouth, she said, “It is enough.”

John closed his mouth pointedly, and then said, “You certainly know how to ruin a good time.”

“Goodnight, John.”

She rolled back onto her other side and waited for the departure of his warmth. It didn’t go anywhere—instead, John buckled down, keeping his arm wrapped snug around her abdomen as his mouth traced the slope of her shoulder.

“You’ll tell me,” he said after a moment, his voice a pleasant rumble, “eventually.”

We’ll fucking see about that, she thought, closing her eyes with a muted sigh.

“ Goodnight, John.”

━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━

“You’re late.”

Jacob sounded fully unimpressed, arms crossed over his chest as John stepped into the chapel. It was to be expected, he supposed; after all, they were supposed to have been convening about ten minutes ago, but sleeping in the bunkhouse meant his alarm hadn’t gone off, and—

And, even if it had, he wasn’t sure that he’d have rushed out of bed anyway.

“Sorry,” John said, not feeling nor sounding very sorry at all, he was sure. Joseph was seated patiently by the table, the radio set to the side as it casually flicked through channels on a timer, meant to scan and make sure they weren’t missing out on any chatter. He glanced at John as he came in, his eyes inquisitive, but remained silent.

And then Jacob announced, “Your shirt’s all fucked up.”

“Didn’t have time to change,” John replied. He wanted to say it—he really did—but he mostly wanted Jacob to ask. “I came right over as soon as I woke up. What do we have on the Family?”

“Hey? John?” Jacob leaned down against the table, palms flat on the surface, fixing him with those steely eyes. “What the fuck?”

Faith stifled a laugh, her eyes glimmering wide and doe-like on her face. “You aren’t going to tell us what happened to your shirt?” she asked.

“I feel like this is detracting from the purpose of the meeting,” John answered, trying his very best to feign innocence and focus in the face of the attention, which—after all of Jacob’s moaning and groaning about his incompetency with the deputy, he was enjoying immensely.

Jacob pushed the collar of John’s bedraggled shirt aside with one brisk movement. “Are those nail marks?”

“Oh, John,” Faith sighed.

“Well, I don’t want to brag,” he said, brushing Jacob’s hand off of him, “and I won’t, because there’s no reason to. I’m just doing my—you know, my job.”

“So,” Joseph said, finally, “the deputy is...?”

His older brother arched a brow loftily at him, watching him from across the table. He didn’t seem to be enjoying John’s little show quite as much as his other siblings—in fact, Jacob seemed the most pleased, that wicked grin splitting across his face as soon as John said, “I think you could consider her converted. ”

“Little John finally got around to it, huh?” the red-head said, sounding quite amused.

Joseph waited. “Is that so?”

“She confessed to you,” John explained, “and then—well.” He glanced at Faith for a moment. “ Confessed to me. And actually, you know, Joseph, I was thinking about that little problem we were discussing a few days ago.”

He leaned in against the table, pleased to have their rapt attention—most of all, Joseph’s; his brother’s gaze was fixed on him expectantly, waiting patiently for the elaboration that he hoped was coming.

“Problem?” Jacob prompted. “You mean Burke?”

“I mean the whole thing,” John replied. “Burke, whether he got out or not, what’s going to happen once we get rid of the Family if someone tries to come down on us. Joseph’s right when he says there’s ways to make people not talk. Who knows if the Resistance members got out? And even if they did, who’s to say they won’t leave this place behind them forever and never look back?”

Jacob crossed his arms over his chest. “Okay?”

“Okay, so ,” he continued, and then paused and said, “bear with me—”

“John.”

“What if—Elliot and I got married?” he finished. All three sets of eyes blinked at him for a moment, and then he said, “ If this goes to court, and if we have witnesses pulled up against us, Elliot can opt out of testifying against me if she’s married to me. Only a complete moron would put her up on the stand after hearing that she’s a Seed, and—”

“Stupid,” Jacob interrupted. “Bad plan. If she does get put up on the stand against one of us , what is she going to say, John?”

“She likes Joseph,” he ventured. “Sort of. Right? The confession went well, you said.”

“And me,” Faith offered. “I’m probably her favorite.”

“That’s very true,” Joseph conceded.

John plunged on, “She has a good reputation. She grew up here, went to school here, knows all of the locals, worked on law enforcement—”

“And she’s fucking nuts,” Jacob deadpanned. “They’re going to take one look at her body count and put her in a psych ward. I don’t care if you want to have a bride, John, but don’t pretend that it’s for us and not for you. We all know the second you put your eyes on her—”

“Well, it was really fucking stupid of us to let Burke get out!” John snapped. “It doesn’t look good , you know? The prospects? Not to be a big bummer, but I’m trying to make a win out of a losing hand!”

Joseph lifted his hand to signal that an end to the discourse had come. He settled back against his chair for a moment, pensive, eyes fixed on the Eden’s Gate symbol carved into the front of the chapel; it felt a little like agony to sit and wait for him to break the silence, and John could sense the unease prickling in his stomach.

“The deputy has confided in me the extent of her past,” he began at last, “which matches up with everything we dug up on her before, when she came back.” He sighed thoughtfully. “She was truthful, and willing, and so vulnerable. It really was remarkable—and with all that time she spent fighting us. You should have seen her, John.”

I know, John thought when the spiteful venom shot straight through him, taking away some of the victory that had rooted itself there in his chest. I know, I know, that should have been fucking mine.

“She confessed to me, and then…” His eyes landed on John. Delicately, he continued, “... willingly indulged you.”

“I’ll say,” Jacob muttered.

“It seems that our deputy is turning a new leaf, after all.” Joseph’s gaze flickered absently down to the table, and he asked, “So. She’s agreed to it? This idea of yours?”

No, John thought, with no absence of affection and frustration in equal amounts. If he was being honest, he thought that she wouldn’t have agreed to it even if every bad thing they had ever done to her was erased; that was just the kind of woman that Elliot was. All the more reason to want her. All the more reason to make the taming sweeter.

And if tying Elliot to him legally, by name, didn’t get them out of this mess, it would at least ensure that she stayed in it.

With him.

After a moment, he ventured, “It could require a little extra persuasion.”

“Hol-ee shit,” Jacob said. “You came with a half-baked idea that you haven’t even gotten confirmation on? John? John?”

Feeling another bout of bickering come on, Faith let out a little exhale of breath and came to a stand, smoothing her hands along the skirt of her dress. Both Jacob and John stopped their oncoming fight to look at her—almost as effective at garnering attention as Joseph, his little snake.

“I’ll talk to her,” Faith said. “It shouldn’t come from you. You’ll just piss her off.”

John narrowed his eyes. “It takes a rapport, Faith, and you’ve barely spent any time with her.”

“It’s not about the amount of time, it’s about the quality of the time,” she snipped. “Fifteen minutes with her and she was willingly offering up information about her childhood to me.”

“Okay,” John replied tartly, “and?”

“When I was kidnapped by the Family, they kept referring to their— substance as ‘opening them to the influence’,” the blonde said primly. “And when I heard that, I thought, what a good idea! It’s easy to overwhelm the body with Bliss, you know. Send someone on a nice trip. But if you just give them a little bit at a time? Over a longer time? Sort of like what Jacob does.”

“We’re not letting Jacob do his brainwashing on her,” he bit out.

“No, John , we’re not,” Faith sighed. “I just mean—give her enough where she doesn’t realize what’s happening. It just makes her…” She searched for a moment, and then smiled brightly. “Soft.”

Oh, he thought, I do like it when she’s soft.

“I think that’s a wonderful idea,” Joseph said, before he gathered up the threads of his thoughts from images of Elliot soft , burying her face into his neck and sighing prettily. “And if she’s more open to your influence because of it, John, then what’s to lose anyway?”

“Well, since we’re all settled on this fucking insane idea,” Jacob said, spreading the map back out on the table, “Faith will take care of that while I educate everyone on what’s going on with our Family, yeah?”

━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━

When she woke up, John was gone, and with him the satisfying warmth that had lulled her back to sleep. In his absence, Boomer had curled up on the floor next to her bed; John must have let him in on his way out.

“Hey, buddy,” Elliot murmured, reaching down and ruffling his dark fur affectionately. He made a low, whining groan, blinking big brown eyes up at her. “You’re ready to be done, huh?”

Boomer rolled onto his back, stretching his legs luxuriously as she patted his stomach. She was pleased to find that John had left almost no trace of himself—no articles of clothing, no sticky note left on the bedside table. It was as if he hadn’t ever been there.

Well, almost, anyway. She slid out of bed and grabbed some clean clothes from her bag, making her way to the bathroom to start the shower. When she caught sight of herself in the mirror, she almost started; there were marks blooming on her neck, her collarbone, her hips. Her lips were kiss-reddened, her hair disheveled. She thought for a second that she’d never looked more like a stranger and also felt like herself in a very long time—though perhaps that had to do with having a clear path out of Hope County. As close to clear as she could get.

About ten minutes into the shower and she heard the door to the bunkhouse open; Boomer barked once, and Elliot stuck her head out of the shower to say, “John, I really only just got into the shower—”

“It’s me.” It was Faith’s voice. Softer, sweeter, more welcome even all things considered. Elliot hadn’t forgotten the way that Faith had stuck around to try and comfort her, even if she knew she’d been told to do it, and even if she knew that Faith had to have been doing it for something. The only person who had ever done that because they cared for her was dead, now.

“Oh.” Elliot paused, clearing her throat. “Um—I’m sorry, I thought—” Fuck fuck fuck.

“I can wait,” Faith continued, closer to the bathroom door now. “I was just going to see if you would go on a walk with me. We’re not allowed to leave the compound alone anymore.”

Faith’s voice sounded small, filled with a kind of longing that Elliot recognized in places of herself, too—the kind of longing that she’d felt before she’d met Joey: to be around someone, anyone . She swallowed thickly.

This wasn’t on her agenda for the day. She was supposed to be grabbing a map, trying to get to the radio without getting seen, figuring out where they kept all of their guns. She’d gathered what ammo and weapons she could at Fall’s End, but it had been slim pickings.

“I’ll hurry,” Elliot said after a moment, and she meant it. She sprinted through the rest of her shower; somehow, the idea of keeping Faith waiting was more tragic than leaving any of the other Seeds waiting, and maybe it was because Faith wasn’t even a real Seed at all and somewhere along the way had gotten snared in their trap.

She had to be safe. She had to be careful. And that meant not trusting a Seed—even an honorary one. Especially an honorary one.

Once she had dressed, she stepped out into the main room of the bunkhouse to find Faith waiting patiently. Unlike John, she didn’t regard Boomer with a look of wary disdain (though it had been a while since he’d done that), but rather with a little smile planted on her face; the Heeler’s hair was up, and he made a low warning noise that rumbled right out of his chest, but he laid flat on the floor and looked instantly to Elliot for a cue on whether their new guest was dangerous or not. She waved her hand at him.

“Sorry about that,” Elliot said before she could stop herself—there was no reason for her to apologize for Boomer being wary of her, considering all of the variables, but Faith’s sweet face gazing wide-eyed and trusting at her was enough to dig right in the grit of her in a way that John or Joseph couldn’t have ever.

“It’s okay,” Faith replied amusedly. “I know John locked him up in a cage.”

“Yeah,” she said dryly, shifting on her feet. She was glad she’d packed mostly sweaters, a few high-necked, to help conceal the remaining bruising. With a gesture for Faith to head out of the bunkhouse, Elliot followed her out into the late morning—but not before she grabbed a handgun out from under the bed, flicked the safety on, and tucked it under her sweater and into the back of her jeans.

Outside, the sun had receded behind a thin veil of gray clouds, and in the distance thicker ones started to roll in. Angry, boisterous kinds of clouds. She hoped it was going to storm again; she loved an Autumn storm, but she had the feeling that it would only be a nuisance in the end.

“I can’t believe how gloomy it is,” Faith murmured, pouting. Without any ceremony, she took Elliot’s hand in hers, interlacing their fingers like they had been friends forever; a sweet perfume scent wafted off of her, and it smelled familiar , but Elliot couldn’t figure out what it was. Boomer sprinted on ahead of them, doubling back every once in a while as he got his stretch in, and the girl continued, “Jacob says it might even snow. ”

Elliot grimaced at the mention of Jacob but trailed obediently next to Faith. It was so much harder to maintain the anger, even knowing that she had been just as complicit. Faith was just so—

“It’s snowed as early as August here, once,” she offered, dragging her mind away from what it was that bothered her the most: that Joseph, Jacob, and John were all somewhere, convening, likely about her. Likely about things that she needed to know. “What are your brothers doing?”

“Talking about boring stuff,” Faith replied with a little laugh as they walked out from the gate of the compound. And then, with a sly little look on her face, she said, “Talking about you, too.”

A little lurch caught in her stomach. “What about?” she asked faintly, and Faith shrugged.

“John’s upset he doesn’t know what you talked to Joseph about.” As they broke away from the dirt path and went instead closer to the forest, Boomer ducking and darting as he chased a mouse, Faith gave Elliot’s hand a little squeeze. “He really likes you, deputy.”

“You can call me Elliot,” she clarified. The title felt wrong, now that Joey was gone. Now that Whitehorse was nowhere to be seen. She wasn’t really even a deputy anymore. “And did he tell you that? He’s got a funny way of saying things.”

“I can just tell. John’s my brother, and he’s bad at hiding his feelings.”

Elliot smothered a laugh before it could come out of her. “I suppose he is.”

They walked like that for a few moments; Faith, remarking often about something that caught her eye, Elliot offering whatever information she could about the flora and fauna, and on one occasion Boomer sat still enough to let Faith brush her fingers over his ears. It was a strange, suspended sort of moment in time, Elliot thought. Like they had entered a bubble entirely their own, perfumed by Faith’s floral-sweet perfume, the freedom of walking outside of the compound, and the gentleness that Faith carried with her.

She was so remarkably unlike any of her siblings that it was almost possible to forget she had ever been one at all. That at one point, she had held Joey captive at John’s behest, in a way to wrench on the softest parts of her.

“I’m very sorry,” she murmured after a moment, garnering Elliot’s attention. “About Miss Hudson. You know, they kept us together. The Family. She was…”

Oh, Elliot thought, as the faint wash of grief slipped up in her, trying to climb up her walls. Oh, please don’t say something lovely. I just can’t stand it.

“So kind,” Faith murmured at last, “to me. Even after everything. When I was crying, and scared, and thought no one was going to come for me, she held me. She always said that you were going to come, no matter what.”

The words rinsed her with a different kind of sorrow, then. Not even really for herself, anymore, but that Faith had known Joey’s kindness, and now she would be without it.

“I’ve always wanted a sister,” Faith continued after a moment, stopping their walk as they had looped back around and now the chapel was coming within sight. A swoon rattled around in her head again as a waft of Faith's perfume smothered her. “You know? Brothers are nice, but—”

Elliot felt a pleasant, dreamy buzzing in her head, and she thought it might have been from the words because— because, and that was all her brain could think to supply as the thoughts flickered around in her head. Because Faith wrapped her arms around Elliot’s midsection and hugged her, head tucked just under her chin, because the young woman felt so tiny and small and frail in her arms, because there was nothing about what she said that came with the same boxed, off-brand sincerity that the rest of her brothers used.

“I’m so happy you came, Elliot,” she murmured, her voice floating up to her muffled by the fabric of her sweater. She was holding so tight that Elliot could feel the rabbit-like fluttering of her own heartbeat in comparison to the slow, luxurious tempo of Faith’s. “I’ve felt really alone out here.”

When she tried to lift her arms, cautiously, it felt like she was moving under water; she rested her hands on the blonde’s shoulders. “Faith,” she started, “if you—if you’re—unhappy—”

I can get you out too, she thought, a little desperately. I can get you out. I couldn’t do it for Joey, but for you, I could.

“What do you mean?” The young woman smiled up at her, and their noses brushed, and that scent washed over her again. What was it from? She couldn’t quite muddle through her brain to catch it and pin it down. “I’m so happy. Now that you’re here.”

“M-Me too,” Elliot managed out. She thought, vaguely, that something must be wrong; before she could trouble herself with it anymore, Faith reached up and kissed her cheek, and then the corner of her mouth, chastely. A burst of floral raced through her mouth, humming between her molars.

“Are you?” Faith asked her as the world wobbled a bit around her. “Happy, Elliot?”

Was she? When she reached around inside of her, dug around deep, she had anticipated to find that sharp little jumble of glass inside of her, all of the anger and the hurt that had been wadded up and sat right locked away in her jaw: but it was nowhere to be found, then. In that moment, all she felt was a gorgeous swoon of delight race straight through her at the idea that she could still be happy.

“Yeah,” she said after a moment, feeling a little smile tugging at her lips. “I am.”

━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━

“So,” John said casually, “are you going to tell me what Elliot said to you?”

“Oh, fucking Christ,” Jacob muttered.

“John, you know that I can’t.” Joseph’s voice was mild, and patient, as he gathered his things from the table and came to a stand. “She confessed to me in absolute confidence. I could never violate that.”

“It’s important,” John replied, shooting Jacob a look when he scoffed, “to make sure that I have as much information as I can.”

As they walked toward the chapel’s doors that led out into the main yard, Joseph rested a hand on his shoulder and squeezed, rooting him to his spot for a moment. It was just a tiny gesture, but that alone was enough to make John hesitate, glancing over at his older brother.

“Everything that you need to know about our deputy,” Joseph said, “you do. The only advice I can offer you is that she’s already told you what she wants, more than anything.”

“Don’t,” John sighed, “ please don’t be cryptic with me. I don’t know—”

“You do,” his brother cautioned. “You do know, John. She’s just a woman, you know. She wants what anyone wants.” He gestured for him to move forward, and he did, albeit reluctantly, and Joseph opened the door to the outside. “A place to belong. A person to belong to, or a person to belong to them.” He paused. “A home.”

“John!”

As he stepped out of the chapel, Faith’s voice dragged his gaze to the small little space between the chapel and the building next to it. His sister waved at him with one hand while the other clasped Elliot’s tugging her along.

“We wondered how long you guys were going to be,” she said, beaming at him as they neared, Jacob and Joseph trailing after him out of the chapel. Joseph got as far as the doorway, leaning against it comfortably. Elliot’s face was flushed prettily, and yes, he could see it—the ever-so-gentle dilation of her pupils, a strange dragging smoothness to her movements, like each lift of her arm or flicker of her eyes was being done in a syrupy pool of molasses.

“It wasn’t too long, was it?” he prompted amusedly. “Only an hour and a half, I think.”

“Boring,” Faith insisted. “Elliot and I had so much fun. She knows so much about the plants around here, did you know?”

The sentence almost made John laugh. Faith knew just about as much as anyone could be around the plants in the area; he knew that she was capable of this kind of sweet manipulation, but to see it in action, to see the way that Elliot’s nose crinkled at the compliment, was different.

“Not,” Elliot managed out modestly, “that much.”

Joseph said something to beckon Faith; John couldn’t hear it, or if he did, the sound didn’t filter into his mental archives, because Elliot was gazing at him with something other than venom, and when their eyes met she waited a heartbeat too long to look away.

“I think I’m— gonna go lay down,” she said after a moment. “Thanks for talking with me, Faith.”

“I told you,” Faith replied sweetly from the doorway of the chapel, “I’m so happy you’re here.” And she swiped her thumb along her lower lip, like the dredges of a sweet-drink she didn’t want to forget, and John felt like he’d missed something important.

As Jacob brushed past him with one last meaningful look over his shoulder, John cleared his throat and asked, “Are you feeling alright?” just as Elliot caught herself from swaying on her feet.

“Me?” she repeated, and as she took a step forward it seemed to hit her really hard then, her hand flying out to stabilize herself with his shoulder. “I’m good. I’m pretty good, you know?”

“I don’t,” John replied. He reached up, brushing the hair from her face, and for a moment her eyes fluttered and she sighed. “Tell me.”

“Got food.”

“Mhm.”

“Got sleep.”

“Right.” John nudged her forward, walking her towards the bunkhouse.

“Got—” She paused, almost like she felt suddenly shy, opening the door and stepping inside. She looked at him over her shoulder, a little smile tugging at her lips. “ You. Don’t I, John?”

He thought very suddenly that he had been a fool to doubt Faith’s capabilities. A fool, certainly, and an even greater one to not have taken advantage of this sooner. Of course dunking her in a river bleeding Bliss had made her feel like shit. It was meant to disorient her. But this Elliot? Gently, sweetly catered into a bliss-buzzed reality?

“Yes,” he replied as her arms slipped around his neck. “You do.”

“Smell good.” Elliot nuzzled her face into his neck. She smelled like Bliss extract—like she’d taken a bath in it—and when she leaned up and kissed him leisurely, unhurriedly, she tasted like it too. It vibrated in his mouth, sharp and glittering and racing straight down his spine. “You left too many marks on me. It’s hard to cover up.”

“I’m sorry,” John said, even though he wasn’t sorry at all.

“You’re not.” She grinned against his mouth. “But you will be.”

The words sent an excited little thrill through him, anticipation prickling along the back of his neck. But he needed to stay focused; he needed to remember why Faith had done this for them in the first place. Not to get Elliot relaxed enough to actually enjoy herself, but to secure at least one aspect of their future that they could get their hands on.

He said, half-cocked grin on his face, “Is that so?” while Elliot nudged him to one of the chairs settled snug and comfortable in the corner of the bunkhouse. The table had been littered with her own belongings that she’d fetched from Fall’s End — her bag of clothes and things from the house, the two crates worth of supplies she’d hauled from the Spread Eagle. As soon as he was sitting in the chair obediently, she settled in his lap.

“Hey, El,” John said against her mouth, “what if we did something?”

“Kissing is something,” Elliot replied pleasantly.

“I mean,” he tried again, skimming his hands up underneath her sweater and down her back, “what if—we got—what the fuck is this?”

His hands hit lukewarm metal. He gripped it tentatively, feeling familiar ridges and lines, and pulled it out from where it had been tucked beneath the top lip of her jeans.

It was a gun.

In hindsight, John realized that it would have been stupid to think that she hadn’t grabbed weapons while they were in Fall’s End—she obviously didn’t think they’d give her any, and she was probably more right about it—but the absurdity of actually catching her with one on her was almost too much, in juxtaposition to the innocent way she was regarding him.

“A gun,” she said.

“I can see that,” John replied amusedly, making sure the safety was switched on before he set the gun on the table. “Care to elaborate?”

Elliot shrugged. The black of her pupils slowly ate away at the blue of her irises, until he thought that there could only be a sliver of them left now. “Not really.” And then she kissed him again, instantly pulling his mind away from the task at hand as well as the careful procurement of her firearm.

“You wanted to be—armed, walking around with my sister?” John rumbled against her mouth.

“Not getting caught unarmed,” Elliot replied. “Not again.” And she threaded her fingers through his hair and kissed him, sighing into the liplock prettily and reminding him, again, why he was actually here.

John waited until he could feel the flutter of her pulse under his fingers before he said, “What if we got married?”

Elliot laughed. “Don’t be stupid,” she murmured, while his fingers traced the bruise he’d left the night before.

“I’m not.” He kissed her again, distracting her for a moment. “What if we did?”

The blonde stilled and pulled back, regarding him with a gaze that was both unimpressed and confused. She didn’t say anything, and he didn’t say anything, and she pressed her lips into a thin line.

“Why?” she asked suspiciously. But John had been prepared for this question, because he knew it would come inevitably, and he leaned forward and tugged her down to kiss her again; her movements were more tentative now, as though she were trying to brace herself against him.

“I don’t want,” John said against her kiss, “you to be alone anymore.”

“Um,” said Elliot, sounding faint.

“And when this is all done with,” he continued quickly, “all of this stuff with—with the cult, you and I can get out of here.”

She stared at him. He could almost hear the sluggish churning of her mental gears, grinding and lurching against each other. In the time that he’d known Elliot, he’d come to understand that there were two things that she cared about: getting her friend, and getting out. And it was easy to promise both; by the time they got to the end of the line, it was time to make a decision about staying or leaving, Elliot would be so won over by him that she’d choose to stay.

What does anyone want?

“But what about…” She swallowed thickly and gestured with her hand. “What about—like—all the others—”

A person to belong to them.

“I want to be with you,” John said, low and easy. “I want to be yours, El.”

Her lashes fluttered uneasily. “John—”

“I want a home.” He studied her face. “With you.”

Come on, he thought as she worked the words through her Bliss-muddled brain. Come on, hellcat, come on, I know you want to.

“If you—I bet if you agree to testify,” she started, “then Burke could—”

“Cutting a deal only works if you can choose not to testify against me,” John told her. “You know that, El.”

She didn’t; she was only a small town deputy, but it didn’t matter. She nodded like she did. She was a small town deputy with nothing and no-one left, and now he was offering her what he thought she wanted the most: something. Someone.

“You said there was a John that you wanted,” he continued. He kissed her, his hand cradling the back of her head, and he felt her fingers fist the front of his shirt like she was afraid of disappearing. “I’m here.”

Voice barely above a whisper, she said, “Okay.”

John nosed past her hair, kissing the slope of her jawbone. “Yeah?”

“Yeah,” Elliot repeated. “I’m—yeah, I want—I want you to be… If you’ll go, when this is done—if you’ll cut a deal with Burke, and—”

A moment passed where she couldn’t seem to bring herself to say exactly what she meant. So he waited, and let her muddle through it, mouth twisting for a moment. A person to belong to, Joseph had said; he felt the absent fluttering of her pulse under his mouth. A person to belong to them.

“Then I want you,” she managed hazily, “to be mine.”

Mine. The word echoed pleasantly, over and over again, in his own voice. Mine. All mine.

“Of course,” John murmured against her skin, “all yours.”

━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━

Evening came, and with it, a plethora of new problems: chief among them, sober Elliot.

That is to say, though John had hurried from the bunkhouse and fetched the marriage certificate Joseph had figured up for him, and though he had made it back in time for Elliot to dimly sign it, she was nearly asleep. Which left the question up in the air as to whether or not Elliot would even remember their conversation, or if it would feel like a strange dream to her, and if it did, what was he going to do? Tell her?

By the time she’d slept off her happy little trip, John had filed the certificate away for safe-keeping, and she'd come barging into the chapel.

“Hey,” he greeted her, noting the sharpness of her eyes, the way she cocked her head and rolled her shoulders. “Get some sleep?”

“Yeah,” Elliot replied, her voice coming out a little hoarse from the sleep. “What happened? I was so tired, I can barely remember leaving Faith.”

Jacob looked at John pointedly, his brain rapidly scrambling for a foothold. Now, in the face of Elliot-not-under-the-influence, he had the distinct feeling that his assumption she would not be pleased at the idea of being a Seed felt truer than ever.

He should tell her. He should. He should tell her what they’d agreed to, that she’d signed a marriage certificate to be “witnessed” by Joseph and Jacob and Faith, that she’d said she wanted him to be hers. If he trusted her, he would.

“Nothing,” John said lightly. “You came back from your walk with Faith, said you were tired and wanted to go lay down. You look pretty flushed, though.” He feigned concern, reaching up to touch her forehead. “Are you running a fever again?”

Elliot jerked back, startled by the gesture, as though the display of affection in front of Jacob was a shock to her. Trying to look as though she hadn’t just acted like a cornered animal, she said, “I’m—no, I feel fine otherwise.”

“Okay,” he replied. “Well—”

“Faith said you guys were having a meeting earlier,” the blonde continued. “About what to do with the Family. I need to be in on those meetings.”

Jacob scoffed. “I don’t think so.”

“ I’m going to kill Kian,” she asserted firmly. “So I need to know what he’s up to.”

The two of them exchanged a glance for a moment. John said, “Elliot, are you sure you don’t—”

“Positive.”

“Well, sit down,” Jacob snapped. “Not gonna wait all fucking day for you.”

Relief immediately crossed her face. It was so potent in that moment that she didn’t even seem to have the heart to bite out a retort—Jacob’s venom meant nothing to her, not if she was getting what she wanted. Elliot sat herself down at the table and leaned over the map, stifling a yawn.

Jacob covered all of the information that he already had with John and Joseph in their own, which was just fine; John didn’t need to hear about how they’d dug up Ase Carnell, daughter of a Swedish hedge fund king who’d inherited her daddy’s billions upon his departure from his mortal coil. He didn’t need to hear about that, because instead , he could think about the way Elliot had said, I want you to be mine. How sweet she would be when she’d settled into being his wife, too; how delicious she would sound saying, come here, husband.

He was halfway through a daydream when Elliot broke him out of his thoughts. “Did we find out anything about them?” she asked.

“ We ,” Jacob said, pointing at himself alone, “found out that they’re no longer holed up at the camp, but they’re on the move. Like they’re heading out of town. Somehow, these people are well-funded, well-equipped, and they have nothing but time on their hands.”

“Ase told us that the end of the world was coming,” John clarified, “and that it was their job to help usher it in.”

“Well.” Jacob grimaced. “We can’t let them get out. We should choke them here on their way out of Hope County.”

“Do you think Kian’s there still?” Elliot asked. “After what he did to Joey, I—I have to think he’s really pissed off.”

“There weren’t any stragglers,” Jacob replied, “the camp was completely empty, and we haven’t seen anyone out on their own.”

“Then I’ll go cut them off.”

Jacob barked out a laugh, and when Elliot regarded him with an even, unflinching gaze, he crossed his arms over his chest. “You’re fucking joking.”

“I have guns,” Elliot insisted. “I can drive in a firefight better than any of you fuckheads. Just ask John.”

“Yeah, he told me about your little stunt. You almost killed Faith.”

“But I didn’t,” Elliot insisted, “ and I got valuable information, which was that they weren’t willing to kill her even if it meant killing us, so you’re welcome, you fuckhead!”

“Go fuck yourself,” Jacob bit out.

“Okay,” John interjected just as Elliot opened her mouth, “what if I went too?”

It wasn’t ideal. He didn’t really want to go on a happy little road trip to try and corner a murderous cult, he wanted to just let them fuck off and never come back, but that wasn’t the point. The point was that they had egregiously affected Elliot, and he had promised her, and if he went back on that promise now, the tentative peace they had come to would disappear instantly.

Whether she remembered the marriage or not.

His eldest brother stared at him for a long minute. John half-expected him to say no; after all, the whole point was to make sure they didn’t die, Elliot included, so that they could use her if something went awry after the Family was dealt with.

“Fine,” Jacob said after a moment.

“No!” Elliot protested instantly. “Fuck, God, no, I don’t—need a fucking babysitter.”

“On the contrary, I don’t know how you’ve survived this long without one,” Jacob replied. “John goes with you to choke them, or I go with you.”

Elliot’s mouth twisted in a vicious grimace. She tapped her thumb nail against her lower lip for a moment, her gaze sliding to him; their eyes lingered just a bit longer than normal, and for a second he thought she knew something that she wasn’t telling him.

“I’d rather drill out my own cavities than go with you,” Elliot said to Jacob after a minute.

“Great,” he said flippantly, “so you and John can have a nice little road trip down the highway—”

“Cool.”

“—and we’ll pin them in from the back. We’ve got enough explosives to light up the entire gaggle of them, but only once, so you’d better make it fucking count. Got it?”

Something was clearly brewing. It unsettled John, the way that she regarded him with a fixed, unreadable gaze. It struck John that Elliot hadn’t, in the last few days, mentioned anything about her plan, or her next move. It was the first time that he was not acutely aware of her intentions beyond revenge for Hudson.

What’s going on in that head of yours? He wondered. What’s storming around in there?

“Got it,” Elliot replied, at length. “So when do we leave?”

━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━

Elliot stood by idly while Joseph went about his work. His “work” being speaking in low murmurs to John and Jacob, hands on both of their shoulders, heads bowed together as he took them through what was certainly some kind of horrific disfigurement of a prayer.

Joseph had been pleased when she’d told him about that night in her apartment. He’d looked elated, to know the nitty-gritty details of her worst nightmare; of her then-boyfriend terrorizing her, for weeks, before breaking into her apartment. He’d been thrilled. He’d cradled her face and said, Don’t worry, Elliot. You’re safe now.

She had to bite back a laugh. Safe , like that meant anything to her anymore. Her apartment had been safe. Joey had been safe. And what had that gotten her?

Alone.

Alone, and with strange, broken moments of time. John had said that she’d gone straight to sleep, but if that was the case, she’d had uncomfortable dreams, too. Splintering fragments of what felt like a memory. John, kissing her, arms wrapped around her midsection: I want to be yours. I want a home, with you.

It was too much of a fairytale to have been real, she knew—John would never. He’d said it himself; he’d do anything for his family, and that meant dying, and lying, and squirming his way into her bed, and fuck him for being that way. Maybe she wanted him in her bed, and fuck him for that, too.

Because he had lied to her. Or at the very least, he hadn’t been entirely truthful with her. Elliot knew she’d taken her gun with her, and when she’d woken up, she’d seen it on the table.

“You’re not riding this time, bud,” she said to Boomer, the keys in her hand. “I don’t want you in the car if you don’t have to be.”

The Heeler gazed her, big brown eyes soft and trusting. His tail wagged softly in the dirt. If there was someone that was going to make it out of here, no matter what, she’d make sure it was Boomer.

“Elliot.” It was Faith’s voice. She had slipped up while the brothers spoke amongst themselves, smiling at her, small and tentative.

“Hey, Faith,” Elliot greeted her, clearing her throat. A wad of anxiety rolled in her stomach at the sight of the blonde—something she wasn’t expecting, and that she couldn’t quite parse out. “What are you doing up so late? Or—early, I guess.”

“I wanted to see you off,” she replied sweetly. “You’re going to get that guy, right? The one that killed Hudson?”

She swallowed thickly. “Yeah.”

“Good.” The blonde sounded oddly determined. “I hope he suffers.”

A wave of affection washed over her. It was an unexpectedly kind thing to say. “Me too.”

The brothers finished their convening, and as they divided—John to her, Jacob to a group of Peggies, and Joseph beckoning Faith to follow him into the chapel—Elliot felt something settle right in her, just under her skin, and John glanced back over his shoulder before he reached up.

His fingers brushed her jaw. She didn’t recoil the same way she had before, but steeled herself against the instinct to do so; the two combating urges to both lean and pull away. But she stayed perfectly still, and when John leaned down, she tilted her chin up.

Their lips brushed. She wanted to linger in the moment, to enjoy it, but she couldn’t brush off the creeping knowledge that he hadn’t been honest with her.

“Aren’t you excited to go on a roadtrip with me?” John said, his voice low as he kissed her.

Elliot tilted her head just a little bit out of his grasp. “So I can hear you complain about my driving?”

“Mean.” He smiled against her mouth. “Cruel. Wicked.”

“Are you trying to compliment me into submission?” Elliot asked, and then he kissed her again—slower this time, more leisurely; indulgent was the word he should have used for her, all things considered.

He looked at her for a moment, a little like he couldn’t get enough of her, and murmured, “Not into submission. Just complimenting for all the normal reasons.”

“Are you two leaving or what?” Jacob snapped from a few feet away. “We have time wasting.”

Elliot exhaled, sharp and tired, against John’s mouth, and he laughed, pulling away from her. He waved at Jacob before he walked around to the other side of the truck and climbed in; she hoisted herself into the driver’s side and rolled the window down and cranked the engine on. Everything she thought they might need had been loaded into the small space behind their seats—guns, ammo, what medical supplies she’d been able to take from Fall’s End, some food. She tapped a cigarette out of a carton she’d snagged and lit it.

“Really?” John asked, without heat, as she pulled the truck slowly away from the center of the yard.

“I’m tired,” Elliot replied, taking a drag of the cigarette. “If I am still sick, it’s really sticking with me.”

John was quiet at that, glancing out the window as they pulled out of the compound, and she whistled out the window and Boomer took off to dart through the underbrush like an arrow; dark and sleek and lethal. She could see his eyes glinting in the headlights as she turned onto the road and hit pavement.

“You shouldn’t have had to come,” she said.

“I would’ve wanted to, even if Jacob didn’t demand it.” John glanced over at her, and for a second she thought he looked almost sly as he continued, “You don’t have to do everything alone all the time, you know.”

“Please don’t try and Atlas this thing, deputy.”

Jerome’s voice clattered around in her, vibrating each time it connected with some surface of her memory; but she didn’t let herself feel them, didn’t let them wander into her conscience, because if she did she would have lost herself to the grief.

“I know,” Elliot said quietly, tapping the ash out the window. “It’s just hard. I don’t—I’m not—”

“A team player?” he prompted, reaching over and taking the cigarette out of her hand so that he could take a drag for himself. Before she could correct him on what she was going to say— good at letting go —he snagged her free hand and in a surprising act of affection, brought it to his mouth to kiss her fingers.

“We’ll kill him, El,” John continued. He carried an easiness about him now that he hadn’t had before, like he was suddenly very relaxed despite the task at hand. “And then this whole nightmare will be over.”

The irony that John Seed was assuring her that the nightmare would be finished was palpable, and certainly not lost on her. Even if it was endearing, the way that he snagged her hand and kissed her knuckles, the way that he smoked her cigarette down, like she could get a secondhand-decompression from it.

“Yeah,” she murmured, “I know, John.”

━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━

As soon as they hit the highway, the dark night sky stretching out above them, Elliot felt herself relax.

For the first time in a long time, she felt still ; as though all of that vibrating, all of that suffering, had ended, even if it was only for a moment. Even if that meant that John Seed was a part of the quiet.

“Remember the last time you were driving us somewhere?” John prompted from the passenger seat, rolling the window up against the chill of the late evening. “You stole my sunglasses, you smoked in the car, and then you tried to drive us into an oncoming car. With my sister in it.”

“This sounds like a lot of complaining for someone who’s still in one piece,” Elliot replied, hitting the cruise button on the truck and glancing out the window. She was going slower than normal, letting Boomer dart through the underbrush as he trailed them. He’d barely gotten half the amount of exercise he’d been used to since they’d been in the compound, so he was probably having the time of his little doggy life.

“I’m just saying, cruising at a cool twenty-five on an empty highway seems highly out of character for you.”

Elliot opened her mouth to say something, her head turning to look at John, but several things happened in very quick succession: Boomer barked, loud and sharp on her left, John leaned forward to look at him, and when John leaned, Elliot saw a dark, gray shape lurching its way from the far side of the road up onto the pavement.

Panic shot through her body. She slammed her foot on the gas, but it was too late; the van—and that’s what it was, a van —was quicker on the uptake and slammed straight into the back end of the truck, sending it tires-squealing across the highway and straight into a tree. The sound of crunching metal and glass breaking rang in her ears as her body lurched with the movement, wrenching against the steering wheel with a force that knocked the wind right out of her.

She was aware, vaguely, of airbags weakly deploying. Fucking Peggies, she thought through the haze of pain, fumbling with her seatbelt. And then her body kicked again: someone fucking hit us, fuck fuck fuck, oh shit oh fuck, her finger jamming uselessly on the mangled seatbelt clicker.

“John?” Elliot asked, as smoke billowed into the front of the car. The windshield was broken, and the engine sputtered dangerously.

“What—in the fuck—?” His voice was groggy, and through the smoke filling the cab of the truck and her own blurring vision she could see the dim shape of him moving.

The seatbelt finally released, and she fumbled blindly at John’s, ignoring the burning filling her lungs and stinging across her skin.

“John, we have to—John we have to fucking move,” she said, and then she heard the door behind her swing open; frantically she pushed at John’s seatbelt, trying to scoot away from the noise instinctively, but the second she felt a hand gripping the back of her shirt in a fist, she could feel the dread wadding up in her stomach.

Elliot wrenched her body hard, not bothering to look before she tried to kick whoever was grabbing at her. The hand gripping her sweater went harder, another wrapping around her calf.

And then yanked. Hard.

There was no collision of body; no one was trying to catch her out of the truck, but just haul her out, tossing her like a rag doll onto the hard ground beside the road. It was the second time in as many minutes where the wind was ripped straight out of her, and she coughed, struggling to sit up.

A booted foot planted itself on her shoulder and pressed her back into the ground.

“Sit back, mor,” an unfortunately familiar red-head cooed, digging his foot into her shoulder until she squirmed. “Relax.”

“Fuck—yourself,” Elliot ground out, wrapping her free arm around the offending leg to try and get some leverage to pull herself out from under him. But Kian easily breezed past six feet tall, and probably weighed twice as much as her. He grabbed the hand gripping his knee with a kind of bruising force and twisted until she couldn’t bite back the cry of pain.

She could hear the sounds of voices on the other side of the truck, the sound of a car pulling up next to the wreckage, and Boomer barking furiously.

John, she thought hazily, they’re grabbing him, and Boomer. I have to fucking—I have to get up, I have move, fucking move you useless fucking body.

“Did you get my gift?” Kian asked her, lifting his foot so he could haul her to her feet. Get out get out get out her brain was screaming when his free hand gripped her throat the same way it had done before. “Did you like it, mor? Picked out every flower myself and stuffed each one in. Her eyes —”

Elliot tried to throw her body weight one way, but to no avail; the images were already flooding over her. Joey, packed full of flowers. Joey, blooming from every part of her.

“—her mouth —”

“Stop,” Elliot begged, her voice coming out hoarse, grating on each sensitive part of her soul on its way out. “Don’t talk about her—”

“—her ribs and chest, those were the best parts to fill up,” Kian seethed. “Broke every one of her pretty little ribs and yanked them right out. Could not waste any space, could we, mor?”

He spat the moniker at her with venom. Where Ase had said it to her reverently, with adoration, caressing her with the single-syllable, he bit it out of his mouth: he sank his teeth into it, brimming with hatred.

Her vision fuzzed around the edges, and Kian dug his fingers into the soft skin of her throat. “Ase—said,” Elliot managed out, one last-ditch attempt at survival, “she said she was—she was waiting for me—”

Kian hauled her against the truck, all but throwing her against the dented and splintering metal as the smell of burning rubber filled the air. Every inch of her body was screaming , straining and aching, desperate for some kind of relief from the constant onslaught of pain.

“Ase,” Kian hissed out against her temple, so low that she almost couldn’t hear him, “is dead. Your man killed her. Or don’t you remember?”

Elliot wheezed. She did, but his grip on her throat was so tight that she thought she was going to pass out; there was no room to answer even if she thought that Kian wanted to hear it.

“We’re going to have fun, little one.” He punctuated each word as hard as he could, punching it out of his mouth. “We’re going to see how fast you can run. You and that man of yours. Did you know, mor —”

His fingers loosened on her throat, brushing over what she was sure was a bruise from John her neck, almost admiring. The sensation sent unpleasant goosebumps prickling along her spine.

“—that I have intimate knowledge of the human body?” he finished. “So much time digging around in one, you start to figure out how to make someone’s life end quickly—or make them die a long and suffering death.” He smiled, the gesture out of place on his face; in another life, in another world, Kian would have been handsome, but in this lifetime the expression on him only looked jagged and sharp. Like it didn’t quite fit into his skin.

Elliot gathered up whatever strength she had left and spit in his face.

She hadn’t realized her mouth was full of blood, but in hindsight, it wasn’t surprising; watching the crimson splatter Kian’s face was more a happy little treat, albeit short-lived.

“You ugly fuckhead,” she gritted out as he wiped the blood from his face. “I’m pretty good at making sure people suffer, too, let me go first and we can—s-swap notes—”

Too late, she realized that Kian was banking on her mouthing off; he fished something out of his pocket and then shoved it into her mouth. It was a wet washcloth, the taste of it earthy and reminiscent of the lingering taste that had been in her mouth when she’d woken up at the camp before. She tried desperately to spit it out, but her jaw worked tiredly, exhausted.

“Much better,” he said. “I’ll tell you what: I see your color too, mor, and do you know what I see? Not white, not perfect balance like Ase said. You are gray. Oh.” He clicked his tongue, gripping her neck to pull her forward and then slam her back against the truck again, sending her vision spinning. “So sad, aren’t you? Don’t worry. You’ll bloom for me.”

Kian beamed at her, almost boyish, holding her with his vice-like grip.

“They always do.”

#far cry 5 #john seed x female deputy #john seed x oc #far cry fic #ch: elliot honeysett #ch: john seed #my writing #fic: ancient names #hm. sorry the word count is so long and yet almost nothing happens in this chapter #boomer's a good boy #elliot is in a den of vipers #everything resumes as normal #THANK YOU EVERYONE FOR COMMENTING/REBLOGGING/LIKING tbh i #probably would not have written any of this without yall #anyway it's whiteclaw hour in the ash household so we're getting sappy up in here

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