#he’s down for whatever game or activity his sisters drag him along too | Explore Tumblr Posts and Blogs

missyasf · 3 years

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Game Of Hearts

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↳ Summary: Your life is in monotonous tones of grey, day in, day out. Nothing matters besides your sister, the only thing you remember is seeing fireworks before waking up to Tokyo abandoned . Soon enough you are properly introduced to the deadly Borderlands where you must fight for your life in Games to survive. When things can’t possibly get worse soon division arises and rivalries are made. No matter what though, you are constantly plagued by a blonde who, no matter how hard you try, just can’t seem to go too far without.

↳ Pairing: Chishiya/Reader

↳ Genre: Angst, smut, thriller

Word Count: 11k

___| Next

Trigger Warning: ⚠️ much like the manga/Netflix adaptation this will be a dark fic which includes mentions of prostitution, attempted murder, child ab*se, sexual harassment, heavy grief and attempted suic*de among other things. Additional warnings will be added for chapters when triggers are brought up. Please read with caution if these are triggers for you or just skip all together!

Side mention: This could be considered a prequel to the current Alice In Borderland. I’m writing based off the Manga bc I was a glutton and couldn’t wait no spoilers will be present as of...

Escapism

noun

the tendency to seek distraction and relief from unpleasant realities, especially by seeking entertainment or engaging in fantasy ♡

You had known all about this during your short lifespan, as a child you’d often play pretend with your sister that you were movie stars living in a five star hotel rather than the shitty busted up apartment on the wrong side of town. Escapism came in, many forms. It was often a way for people to cope psychologically, simply because sometimes, facing the reality of your situation can be too much for one person to handle mentally.

Or at least, that was the topic of your lecture today in class. The human mind always fascinated you. Even at the young tender age when your mom died and you watched your once cozy little family fall apart piece by piece until nothing was left in its wake.

It was your fascination that drove you now for most things, why? Why, why, why? You always wondered what the motive was behind someone’s actions, not only thing but you wanted to understand them better, to try and sympathize. You were already fairly intuitive in nature. It wasn’t difficult to read people. In fact your line of work made it easy, you’d watch a man who would be excited to be with you reach for his left finger as if used to touching something. A wedding band perhaps?

The lowlife cheater was fairly common in a whore house after all. Or the man who had been pissy this morning behind you in line because you had decided to try something new on the menu and you weren’t fast enough, obviously because he was tardy and woke up late, his shirt unbeknownst to him was button the wrong way and his tie loose and even the way his hair fell were all signs of being late to work.

It was the little things you noticed in people’s facial expressions, the way they moved and spoke. You could read people like a book, and sure sometimes it was useful. But you often wished you weren’t so perceptive. It drove you mad knowing when a potential love interest was no longer interested through a simple text or a friend not wanting to talk by their tone. Sometimes you wished you could just blot it all out, still, you lived like this day in and day out, you were used to this kind of thing and honestly. Friends? Love? Your gaze dropped a little to your feet, the pumps you were wearing a jet black and the heel too high for any respectable woman to ever wear.

...It wasn’t like you ever had any of those in your life and you had struggled to come to terms with the fact that you could survive without that kind of support. Still...it made you envious, the couple happily holding hands on the sidewalk. The group of friends all laughing at a table while they studied. Oftentimes these feelings are muted, but when you’re faced with something you’ve always craved, those muted feelings suddenly become hyperactive in your mind.

It’s pathetic, honestly.

“How dare you! You disgusting slut!”

In this moment however, you were brought back to reality at just what was happening, you squeaked loudly as you dodged the shoe the woman had thrown at you. This was all a regular occurrence, you had a lot of regulars who weren’t the most amazing people but hey, money was money. But along with them they also left a trail which their wives and girlfriends always followed. And then they always blamed you instead of their partner for leaving them for a prostitute despite you never having agreed to anything such as that.

It really wasn’t your fault, you were just trying to make a living while juggling with keeping up your own education, paying your fathers debts, rent and still somehow getting food on the table. What part time college job could provide that?

Prostitution wasn’t a job you would’ve gone into willingly but given the past and your trauma that was already laced in it you had been learning that sometimes because of the trauma we experience, sometimes people go back to that same trauma and actively participate in it as a way of feeling like they’re in control.

That whatever happened before, would never happen again if you were in control. You weren’t sure if you qualified under this category, trauma came in many forms but the one most used as an example in your class was that a study showed that women who were assaulted often develop a kink for consensual non consent as a way of coping with what happened, except this time, it’s in a controlled environment where it can end the moment they want it too.

Again, you weren’t sure you fell into this category, but you often wondered if your line of work was intertwined with your earlier memories when you were younger, if anything it brought comfort to you. Much of it, blotted out now simply because your mind couldn’t take it. Trauma expressed through amnesia was also much more common than many thought, and it’s so small, so easy to miss. After all how can you be aware of something if you have no memory of it anymore?

“Security!” Your manager screeched, two of the bodyguards were already between you and the feral woman who was ready to gut you clean as she screamed hysterically, her husband...your regular....at her side trying to get her to calm down only for her to come to her senses and slap him clean across the face. You didn’t condone violence, but he did have it coming...

You weren’t about to justify cheaters, you couldn’t imagine the hurt someone had to feel that not only did their partner cheat on them, but it was with someone...like you...You had been trying not to put down your job occupation, sex workers were just as valid as anyone else...you knew you would’ve thought this way if it was anyone but you in this position.

You sighed as you ran your hands through your hair, watching the couple get dragged out of the tight space of the brothel, “Jesus christ....didn’t you say you stopped using perfume because of this?” Miki, your manager sighed as she crossed her arms. You didn’t want to say your manager was your friend but she was the closest you had as you’d often complain to her about most of your problems. Sex work often attracted broken people, it wasn’t something she wasn’t used to.

“Yeah, but apparently he never got around to washing his clothes…” You wiped your mouth on the back of your hand, “Lipstick stain,” You glanced down at the ruby pink color that stained your skin now, “Fuck...that did hurt.” You rubbed your sore cheek that was still throbbing from where she had first slapped it when she ripped the door open of the room where she got to see with her own eyes you riding her husband.

It had happened so many times now you weren’t even embarrassed about someone walking in let alone a partner. Miki gave you a lopsided smile as she patted your shoulder, “Guess that just pays for being one of the best here. Did you at least get paid.”

You nodded, “Yeah, I always make them pay in advanced but I was hoping to get a tip afterwards...He was a lawyer so you know he had good money.” You sighed, crossing your arms, you were well aware of his partner because a lot of the time he didn’t even come in for sex anymore. It was funny how humans work.

He often felt his wife was overbearing and you had suspected some sort of verbal abuse by the way he talked about her constant screaming. Truthfully, you don’t think he ever intended on cheating with her. He just wanted someone to talk to without being judged, you could relate with sympathy to that, but he unfortunately chose to walk into a brothel instead of a therapy clinic and this truly was the only inevitable outcome. Still, you hope if for anyone’s sake, he gets that divorce for himself.

“Hey I think I’m gonna call it a day. I need to get back to Nanami, she was wanting to talk to me about college applications.” You sighed as you rubbed your neck, ever since she had graduated high school she had been chomping at the bit to start applying for college, maybe to just get out of the house and into a dorm. You couldn’t blame her and if she did that it would lighten your load a little.

Guilt washed over you at the thought as Miki chuckled, “They grow up pretty fast huh? My brother was the same way, except the moment he found out I was a sex worker was the moment he called me a whore and we haven’t talked since. That was probably about five years ago,” She crossed her arms as she sighed, “Crazy how the things we do for the ones we love, never appreciate our effort...I’ll see you tomorrow then?”

“If I’m not bruising.” You offered a weak smile as you nodded at her before going back to your room to get changed. Truthfully, you much like anyone else, often wished you could go to a world where reality wasn’t a concept any longer. Where you could lay out in the sun for the whole day and just soak up it’s rays with no worries or trepidations.

But sooner then later everyone had to face their fears. Even you, you supposed. But no matter how hard you fought your demons, they always came back tenfold. Again, you supposed your story was no different from tens of thousands, and yet you all live on regardless. Maybe it’s you who should be the one seeking therapy. Pulling on your jeans and the cropped top over your head before pulling the jacket over your arms and grabbing your bag.

The walk home was as quiet as ever, your hood over your head and earbuds any unwanted attention, it wasn’t too late at night, only eleven PM and your work had just been getting started but that had ruined the night for you and besides, you had already failed a test today, you could use the sleep tonight.

Occasionally you’d hear the sirens of a cop car passing by or a bystander shout, nothing out of the ordinary in this neighborhood. Walking up to the apartment complex you pulled the key from your bag as you unlocked the door. Quietly stepping insides as you shut the door before locking it once more. Your nose wrinkled at the smell of stale air mixed with rotten...something…

If anything, you were always lacking in something, you had been so busy most of the day that you never had time to clean anything leaving the house in a horrible state. Not that you thought this was much of a house.

Walking down the narrow hallway you opened the rickety door with a missing lock as you gave a brief smile to the small clump of bedsheets. Your sister was curled up and on her phone, eyes darting to the door with a hint of fear before she jumped up, “Y/n! You’re home earlier from night shift already!?”

You offered a smile as you set down your bag and nodded, sitting down on the mattress that laid on the floor as you replied, “Yeah, a coworker needed the extra hours so I let them cover for me tonight. Besides, you wanted to talk about college applications?” Your sister was under the impression your late night job was bartending at some hole in the wall downtown, where in all actuality you just went there to drink a few days and talk to the loud and sometimes obnoxious, but good hearted bartender who loved talking about his nerdy underaged friends that couldn’t do anything beside stay and drink soda.

It wasn’t that you didn’t think your sister would accept you, if she knew what you were actually doing. Fear, most times came in many different forms and this was one of them. You simply didn’t want to be judged, even by her. So nobody in your life truly knew who you were, and therefore, how could you hold the expectation for people to accept you into society if you were already self sabotaging yourself?

All philosophy aside, you were simply a lost soul, looking for your way in the cruel reality called life.

“Yes!” Nanami was chipper as always as she squealed, clapping her hands, “I…! I was thinking about applying to the university you attend! Maybe I'll get a grant and move into the dorms there? I already applied for several jobs, I’m just waiting on a callback!”

You offered a small smile as you hugged your knees to your chest, “I think you’d like it there, there’s lots to do around campus. But what will you go in for? The only advice I can offer is be sure it’s what you want to do.”

Nanami’s face faltered a little as she hummed, “Well...I thought maybe working with animals? I’d love to be an assistant surgeon in veterinarian? I know it’s a pretty...sad job but...I really like the idea of being able to heal such innocent things.” Your smile tugged into a gentle one at your sister. She was too tender for this world.

It had been your goal sense the day your mother died that you took care of your sister, it didn’t matter what happened to you. You could rot for all you cared at the end of the day, all you wanted was to look up and see your sister's smile and her happiness in life blossom. She more than anyone deserved it.

“I think you’ll be great at it.” You encouraged as you rested your chin on your hand, always happy to see her bounce in excitement as you yawned, your body was used to your demanding schedule but it was always more than happy to welcome a few extra hours of sleep.”

Hearing the door loudly slam close caused you both to jump, Nanami hurriedly crawled back in bed, pretending to be asleep as you frowned. Your dad must’ve come back home from wherever he was.

“Y/n! Just stay here! Can’t you talk to him later?” Nanami looked scared, she always did when he was around. But you weren’t about to stand down to the bastard any day of the week, you offered a weak smile as you replied.

“It’s fine Nami, I’ll be just a few minutes.” You replied, you knew that she knew, that was probably a lie. But you’d try your best, for her sake at least. But somebody had to put this guy in his place occasionally and it was always you. It results in a lot of screaming sometimes, other times he’d break down in tears or on a bad occasion you’d get shoved to the ground, a few times hit. Nothing major.

Walking out of the room you leaned against the wall of the entrance of the hallway watching your father stumble around in the living room, “Did you finally talk to the loan company?” You called out as you asked, not in a forgiving mood tonight. He had said he’d do this for two weeks in a row. The company that sank your whole family into the ground. The reason your mother couldn’t take it anymore and put a blade to her wrist.

Your father stood up, looking a little wobbly, obviously drunk, “Now listen here little girl I don’t have shit to own to you or anyone else.” You sighed as you tucked your tongue into your cheek, annoyance flowing inside you as you straightened up. You weren’t going to be bullied into being scared of this guy.

“Actually you do,” Your smile twisted into something more sharp, more bitter and sinister as you walked forward, “See, if you hadn’t of gotten involved in something shady like loan sharks we wouldn’t be drowning in debt and mom wouldn’t have killed herself because of you and both your daughters wouldn’t hate you. I know you drink away all our money in some pathetic attempt to escape from the cold reality that you fucked up your whole life and watched your family slip from your fingers while not even trying to do anything other then put us in further shit,” You closed your eyes as you tilted your head, “But the least you could do, is admit that. You owe us at least that for being a total fuck up.”

You opened your eyes to find pure rage brewing in your fathers eyes as you smiled once more, this time a false sense of sickly sweet tone to it as you shrugged, “Or you could live in denial, at this point, there really isn’t anything you can do to get anyone back ♡ ”

You had turned around, planning to tell Nanami that maybe she should go sleep over at a friends house today but you never got the chance, suddenly being slammed into the wall and flecks of spit hitting your face, “I am your fucking father! I deserve respect from you and your worthless sister! Do you know how much I provide for you both?”

Anger splintered through your veins as you grabbed onto his wrists, his fingers digging into your neck as you squirmed, “Like fucking what!? A shitty broken down apartment that your vacant from because you’re too fucking ashamed of yourself to even look at us sober!?”

Much like years in the past you weren’t surprised to hear Nanami cry as she rushed out of the room at the sound of you both screaming, “Stop!” She cried out, trying to break you both up, “Stop! Don’t fight! Why…! Why can’t we all just get along!” She sobbed only for your dad to shove her down making her curl up in defeat.

Alarm bells were triggered in your head at the sight of Nanami on the ground, she had never actually gotten hurt while in your sight and it was triggering something deep inside you as you watched him stalk up to her. Your hands shaking and rage boiling in your mind as you grabbed the closet thing you could find. An empty beer bottle on the table.

Your vision blurred and you don’t quite remember what happened other than glass shattering over his head and the brute force of you shoving something before blood was stained on your hands.

How did you end up sitting against the wall? Why was there….blood on your hands…? Your fingers trembled at the metallic sticky substance. All you could hear were Nanami’s sobs and cries as she frantically pushed herself away from the body slumped on the ground.

“You…! He…!” Nanami’s eyes brimmed with tears as you heard a loud boom making you jump, your eyes darting to the open window where….fireworks, big and bold crashed and crackled before you felt like you were sucked into a vortex making your whole vision black out.

Your head felt fuzzy and there was ringing in your ears as you groaned, curling up into yourself as the darkness beckoned you closer before you forcibly opened your eyes. You were laying against the hardwood floor. Beams of light streaked through the window and you could see dust particles in the air against the shower of sunshine that streamed in.

...Wait...Light? The thought had perplexed your head enough to make you push up from the ground, memories pulling into your mind as your breath became shallow, suddenly looking to the side where...you slumped against the wall. It must’ve just been a bad dream….your eyes flickered to Nanami’s curled up figure...a really vivid dream…? Something wrenched in your gut as you rubbed your eyes. What happened? “Nami…!” You whispered, forcing your muscles to move despite their protest as she whined.

After another moment she reluctantly opened her eyes, flickering around before she suddenly scrambled up, taking a deep breath as if realizing what had happened before, looking towards where your dad once was she frowned, “...I...What…” She seemed just as perplexed as you and if her face was anything to go by, last night had obviously happened, “Is dad…” She looked at the absent place of the floor.

Leaning against the wall your eyes darted around the room, “I guess so…” You silently felt relief at knowing your dad was still very much alive as you leaned back as you closed your eyes, trying to remember what had happened before everything went dark...oh..! The fireworks...had it been a celebration last night? Your brows pinched together, something felt...off...getting up you opened the door to the apartment walking out.

“Y/n? Y/n! Hey! Where are you going!” Nanami called out, quickly chasing after you as you frowned, cars were parked odd and there was no one out on the street...as in...at all...Something was very wrong and you couldn’t figure out what.

“Wow...it..must be a slow day…” Nanami felt a sense of discomfort at the lack of life as you both walked down the side walk, it didn’t just feel like a slow day it felt, apocalyptic. As if humanity just left on it’s own leaving nothing but an empty city behind. Cars were parked on the curb and a few even left in the street.

“No, it’s like everyone vanished...This is really weird.” You wrapped your arms around yourself as you frowned, looking around as you came closer to where typically it would be a booming part of the downtown but it was empty, just as everything before.

“Well, maybe it’s a national holiday?” Nanami rubbed her head, trying to make sense of the situation just as much as you, surely everyone wasn’t...gone...right? She looked around as she bit her lip, second guessing herself at all the cars that were vacant, “Hey Y/n.”

You paused as you looked at your sister, curving an eyebrow as she offered a weak smile, “What if everyone got raptured away like they talk about in christanity?” Your expression flattened as she giggled, obviously getting a rise out of you as you crossed your arms.

Raptured? Where? To heaven? “Wouldn’t it be fire and brimstone then if that was the case?” Nanami pouted at your words as you shrugged, snickering yourself at her expression, the tables now turned as you sighed, “I don’t think there’s anyone left in Tokyo...I mean, it feels like...we’d have seen someone by now...right?”

“Well…” Nanami frowned once more, a little disturbed at your words as she spoke, “There’s no way everyone could be gone I mean, where would they go? And how could we miss something like that...Maybe the police found us and now we’re under some weird simulation.”

Chills spilled down your spine as you shoved her making her whine, “Don’t say that! That makes me feel all weird…! I didn’t…!” You cut yourself off, you didn’t what? Murder your own dad in cold blood...you looked down at your hands, they were free of any blood but it still felt like something like sin lingered. Like no matter where you went, it would always be stuck to you.

You didn’t like this, not one bit. Briefly you felt the urge to go hunt down your dad, he was a deadbeat but you would never...you’d never kill him....Right?

“Well…” Nanami hummed her eyes scanning ahead before they jumped to the mall that was up ahead, “Hey…! If nobody is here...maybe we could make use of it! Come on! Let's go!” You yelped at her grabbing your arm before dragging you ahead. Cars were all parked and yet not a single person exited through the mall's entrance. Something just felt off! You wrapped your arms around yourself as you warily looked around the empty mall, “Nanami I really don’t like this!” You looked around, concern bubbling inside you as she ran ahead into the store, digging through the section of clothes as she giggled.

“Relax! I doubt any of this is real and even so…! Who’s going to stop us!?” She shrugged as she bounced in excitement, “Oh my god! I had dreamed of something like this happening! Now we can do whatever we want! Go wherever we want! Y/n!” She gasped with a smile, “Now we don’t even have to worry about money!”

“We don’t even know if this is permanent.” You looked around warily, not partaking as she began plucking off the racks, “Regardless of what this is, I don’t like it. I want to go back home, our home. This just doesn’t…” You shook your head, “This just doesn’t feel right.”

“Well you can feel that way!” Nanami clacked her tongue as she gave a childish smile, “But I’m gonna go through this whole store and get a new wardrobe so feel free to sit on the bench and tell me what you think looks good!”

Looking away you sighed, unable to pinch the anxious feeling you had away as you sat down reluctantly as Nanami went into the changing room. Well...at least she was smiling and she was happy...With each outfit Nanami tried out and giggled, you giggled with her and maybe things weren’t so bad after all…

“What a perfect day.” Nanami hugged you close as she sighed, yawning as you looked up at the sky in awe, you had seen a single star while living in Tokyo before, but now it was filled with constellations and millions of stars that stretched for miles. You could stare at it for days and days. The sun had just set a little over half an hour ago and you were ready to retire and find something to eat at the apartment.

You and Nanami had tried going to the food court but much to your dismay everything had been...rotten...soiled and ruined, meaning there was no point in trying to find anything there and you were getting really hungry despite devouring bags of chips you had both got at the convenient store, another thing that stood out to you was that there was no electricity...at all..

Looking back up to the sidewalk something caught your eyes...was that…! Light!? “Hey! Nanami look!” You shook her making her squeak as she looked up ahead, “It’s the hospital! They have electricity there which means there’s other people! Of course! Why didn’t we think to check essential areas!? Come on! Lets go! I wanna figure out what happened.”

“Alright! It sucks that this is already over but at least I can finally charge my phone, the battery is pretty low.” Nanami nodded in agreement as you both made your way up the road.

The walk wasn’t too far and you felt excitement fill you at the sight of the hospital all lit up as you walked into the entrance, a frown slowly setting on your lips once more as you walked past the receptionist desk and…! Oh there’s other people!

You felt relief wash over your as you ran up, there were at least seven other other people here at least! “Hey! Guys oh my god. I thought everyone was gone! What’s going on?” You asked, smiling bright in relief that you and Nanami weren’t the only ones left behind. Was this some kind of evac point or…?

Silence ensued and you slowly began to frown as you felt everyone stare at you as if you were insane, “Um…” You wrapped a hand around your arm, suddenly feeling as if everyone knew something you didn’t, “What’s going on…?” You furrowed your brows as you tilted your head, unsure of why everyone was looking at you like this.

Somebody looked like they were going to talk to you, a guy relatively around your age but a woman stopped him- his girlfriend maybe? “Stop, the less that know the better chance we have.” She said quietly though you still heard just enough. Fear twisted inside you as you took a cautious step back...The...the less you knew?

“Wow, you guys are assholes,” A girl suddenly whistled out, she was sitting in a waiting chair, a cowboy hat on her head paired with distressed jeans and...a bikini top? Strange but you’d roll with it if it meant getting answers. She stood up as she offered a smile, “Akari, nice to meet ya’. You folk must be new to the Borderlands huh?” She jutted her bottom lip a little as you frowned.

“Um I’m Y/n and this is my sister Nanami...?” You introduced yourself despite feeling confused as you raised a brow, “Borderlands…?” You echoed, what was that supposed to be? Other than Tokyo?

Akari gave a nod as she let out a brief chuckle, as if amused by your confusion but you sensed she had no real ill will unlike....your eyes checked to the couple that stood off in the corner on their own, “That’s what they call it here,” She nodded in affirmation as your eyes darted back to her in confusion, “To be frank with ya’, I don’t have a damn clue what's going on. Nobody does. But ever since you crossed the threshold there’s no going back, so I’ll be brief. We’re all considered outsiders here and we participate in games at venues such as this to extend our stay.”

Nanami and you looked at one another confused as Akari waved you over to the table in front of a TV, “Here, you’ll wanna put these on, it’s for the game.” She explained as you carefully picked up the metal bracelet, something about it felt ominous as you reluctantly put it on, jumping at the way it latched together and there was no getting it off now, “Word of advice, just don’t panic and you probably won’t die.”

“What?!” You screeched as Akari smacked your back, panic evident in your voice as you turned around to face her making her laugh again, this girl was insane! She had to be! “You’re…! You’re joking!”

Akari wrinkled her nose as she tilted her head, “Ah shit, I wish I was- Oh…! There’s the last player!” Just on que everyone turned to look at who had arrived, someone heaving breaths with their hands on their knees as if they had sprinted. You were mildly worried at why he seemed so scared but you had a feeling that was the least of your problems right now.

“Y/n what’s going on…?” Nanami frightened grabbed your arm as she hid a little behind you due to all these immensing strangers that looked like they were ready to feed you to the sharks, literally.

The guy walked past you both as he put on his bracelet, your eyes sharp as you watched it latch together automatically, your gaze jumping to everyone's wrists to notice you were all now wearing one. The TV suddenly lit up.

Game

You squinted your eyes a little at the sight of the screen, just what were you about to unwillingly participate in…?

Difficulty: 5♣

“The game you will be participating in is, Monster under the bed.”

A playing card? Monster under the bed? Your brows furrowed as you looked at Nanami who shrugged a little despite her concerned expression, looking just as confused as you. You could’ve made a joke out of this, surely it would’ve been easier. Maybe everyone would bust out laughing and you’d be at the end of a poor joke but...somehow you felt that wasn’t the case. Thus paying very close attention to whatever was on this screen,

“Everyone will be sectioned off into pairs by the number chosen on your bracelet, when the doors to the ward open you will have three rounds ten minutes each to figure out who is the monster under the bed that must be returned to its own, once the ten minutes is up you must hide before you are found. If the selected pair that is the monster is chosen correctly it’s a Game Clear. If the monster is not found by the end of the third round or if the pair fails to hide it’s a Game Over.”

Rules:

Once the doors are open you and your partner must find a hiding spot by the time limit

Both partners must be hidden. If one is exposed to the monster it’s a Game Over for both partners

There will be an X marked on the ground to place the monster of your guess onto.

You will have three rounds of ten minutes each to find the monster.

Any attempt to remove bracelets results in a Game Over

If the monster is not found by the third round a Game Over.

The only Game Clear condition required is for the monster to be returned by the third round.

What…

What!?

“Now the game will commence, you have five minutes to figure out who you have been paired up with before the doors open.”

Your mind was blanking as you watched everyone look down at their bracelet, hurriedly you lifted your arm as your mind blanked 2 looking back at Nanami her lips were already quivering as she sniffled lifting her arm in defeat as your lips dropped open, 5.

“Hey! Guess you’re my partner!” Akari grinned as she wrapped an arm around Nanami who sniffled, “Oh…” She looked between you both, “Oh! Oh don’t worry! We’re not the monster so I’ll make sure your sister lives! You should go find your partner.”

Your hands trembled unsure of what to do before you went to hug Nanami, “Whatever happens just stay calm okay! I need to go find my partner now!” You whispered, kissing her cheek as she sniffled while nodding.

Everybody was shuffling around looking for their partner now, you passed by a few people, 4, 1, 3...did you even have a partner…? You scanned around, your throat tightening a little in panic, there had to be a mistake! There were only 8 people surrounding you- you yelped at the tight grip that suddenly held your arm forcing you to turn around to be met with a white hooded figure, a lollipop handle hanging and earbuds in before sighing, “So it appears I’m stuck with someone useless.” The man concluded as he stood up making you back away a little as your lips parted somewhat indignantly.

How...how rude! You looked up, unable to fully make out his face but you could tell you didn’t like him one bit, “I’ll…! First of all I’m not useless! I’m just trying to understand what's going on! This is insane! We aren’t actually going to die from this, are we!?” Pushing his hood down you were immediately met with a snide gaze and cat eyes that leered at you like you were nothing more then dirt beneath his feet, long blonde hair pushed behind his shoulders and his bangs hanging low, suddenly a viscous side smile appeared on his lips, “Apparently so, otherwise I wouldn’t have watched half my last game get their brains blown out and the other half hung.”

You reeled a little away from the blonde, your face dropped in semi horror, unsure if this was just a sick joke or he was serious. You searched his face a thousand times over, but for the first time in your life, you couldn’t figure out what his goal was. You couldn’t figure out anything about him, except he was exceptionally cold, “Well I don’t suppose I have much choice to doubt you,” He said with an annoying sing song tone as he rattled his wrist that showed the bracelet with a matching 2 on it, “My name is Chishiya, just stay out of my way and we’ll both live.”

How arrogant! You scoffed as he walked past you, not the least bit bothered at your offense as you whipped around, glaring at his back. How come out of everyone you got stuck with the most…! Pompous! Arrogant! Ugh! You crossed your arms as you followed behind him, stilling secretly sending daggers into his back with your eyes as everyone shuffled into the ward.

Hospital beds were scattered around the room, a few closets and one large vent at the bottom right corner of the room ahead.

“Wait, what is this?” The first person to speak was a fair thin older gentleman, he appeared friendly as he observed the room around him, everyone looked around in confusion as you noticed what he meant.

Any possible hiding spot was covered by either sheets of metal or locked tight...How were any of you supposed to hide if…!? The rules mentioned nothing about solving puzzles to gain access to a hiding spot!

“Forget that,” Another man said with a sneer he was broad and a bit older, well into his late twenties at least, perhaps a gym coach? Or maybe a wrestler of some sort? He looked like he could break you and nearly every other person in this room like a twig, “We need to figure out who’s the monster. “ He cracked his knuckles as you leered a little away and nobody spoke for a second.

Of course, who would out themselves as the monster, more importantly, how does one even know they’re the monster? You could immediately feel tension rise as the previous, more patient man spoke, a little more collected, “How about we just check one another's’ watches! If anywhere it would show us on that! One pair should work on solving these puzzles here so everyone has a place to hide”

“Unless the monster is among us and it sabotages us so we all die by the time limit.” The girlfriend crossed her arms as she darted her eyes around. Truthfully you didn’t know what to believe, the wording on the soundbox was rather confusing as to just what were you looking for. Was the monster supposed to be in the group or it’s own entity?

“If that were the case it would’ve showed up on our watches, which it didn’t. So that won’t work.” Chishiya spoke matter of fact, his tone cool as his eyes gazed across the room before he walked away from the group inspecting various hiding spots granted you didn’t think he was about to help anyone but himself, if anything you were at least lucky that him securing a hiding spot meant it was one for you as well.

You looked at everyone in confusion, some arguing while others scattered to look for a hiding spot as the clock ticked down. You breathed in relief at the sight of Nanami and Akari both going for a bed to hide under. Your gaze finally found Chishiya’s form before following him, unsure of what you were supposed to do, if anything outside trying to figure out just what the monster even was.

You glanced up at the digital clock that stood above the entrance you had just come in from, it was already a minute in before you searched the floor where you found a red X in the center of the room, that must’ve been the...what? Offering spot? You cringed a little at the idea. Looking forward you peered behind Chishiya’s shoulder deciding to not think about that, it seemed the metal sheet that had wrapped around the bed and was sealed to the ground was locked by some sort of metal device…? Contraption? Lock?

“Isn’t hiding under a bed a bit obvious…?” You frowned as you crossed your arms, unsure as you looked behind your shoulder once more to where accusations were already being thrown in the group.

“The vent is a decoy to make you waste time, I already checked,” Chishiya replied, his fingers nimble as they rattled the metal, “And even if someone were to accomplish it in the time limit it’s the most obvious spot the monster would first check. Next would be the closet given it’s at eye level and the first thing one is drawn too when they walk into a room.”

Your lips parted a little in surprise at his assessment...obviously he wasn’t just overconfident, “And why this spot?” If he had really thought about all this in less than a minute then...did he have a reason for this spot? You now found yourself, slightly less annoyed and a little more curious as to what was going on in his mind.

“If the monster were to check a bed it would be after his eyes are drawn to the closet. Next in that line of sight would be the vent directly across it, which would be his next place to look if not his first and vice versa. The beds are all staggered throughout the room making them less conspicuous compared to the other hiding places, the bed on the far end of the room would be no good.”

Your brows furrowed in curiosity at his assessment as you watched Chishiya blow a piece of hair from his face, wiggling out one piece of the knotted metal, “It’s too far from the entrance where as the one in the middle is by average the one most people would start with, where as the first? It’s almost too soon in the start to look there thus making it the safest.”

“It’s them! They’re over there conspiring!” You both twisted around to watch the broad man point an accusing finger at you both as your eyes darted from him to the clock on the wall, which read at six minutes. A few other pairs, relievingly so was your sister had started working on a hiding spot while a few others stood around and argued.

Your face coiled a little as you replied, not appreciating the accusation to such a baseless accusation, did they not realize the longer they argued the less time they had to secure a hiding spot? “Someone who’s terrible at playing the minority would often be the first to point fingers. There’s only six minutes left before the first round is over and we need to hide. But if you want to talk about this then sure,”

You stepped closer as you crossed your arms, scanning over him before continuing, “Let’s talk about the chances of you being the monster, ever since you first came in you’ve been all twitchy and acting like something is wrong. Even when we first got paired up, you seemed a little panicked. Anyways,” You turned around as you spoke, “How do we know one pair is a monster and not one single person?”

“Eh,” Akari sat on the bed that her and Nanami chose as Nanami fumbled to work out the puzzle, she had always been good at those! You felt assured as your heart beat frantically at the idea of them not being able to get a hiding spot in time, “Let’s all calm down,” She gave an awkward laugh, “This isn’t a hearts game, we shouldn’t divide our trust. This is a team building after all which means this game should be making us work together, the last thing we need to do is throw that away on our own accord.”

“...Team building?” You frowned as you murmured having not been aware that this was some sort of game category...Hearts? Clubs? The memory of the playing card flashing on the screen appeared in your mind again, right...was that to stand for some kind of game genre? If Clubs stood for team building then...there should be no reason that the monster is any of you. Why would they even suggest that to begin with?

Then...what was the monster?

“One minute remaining.”

The lights suddenly began flickering, “Got it.” Chishiya yanked the last piece of metal undone as he pulled the sheet of metal off, everyone was now scrambling and the few who had not done their puzzle were now panicking. Getting down you crawled under the bed, your back flat to the ground as you inhaled sharply as you noticed the lights beginning to dim, “This is...uncomfortable.” You mumbled, trying to ignore being pressed shoulder to shoulder with a man you didn’t even know besides him having a god complex, “We should’ve went with the vent.”

“By all means, if you want to try and get yourself killed already. Go for it.” You turned to look at him, dark endless cat eyes meeting you as you harshly glared at him, why was he so condescending!?

You were about to snap back something before you realized it was completely dark and the door slammed open causing you to jump. Was your heart always this loud? You could see the heavy boots step against the ground making you unsteadily inhale, swallowing as you closed your eyes. You could only place your trust that Chishiya hadn’t picked a horrible spot.

More importantly your mind was plagued with worry for your sister, you had been so caught up you hadn’t even tried to help her yet...did she even…! You heard a sudden loud scream from two people causing you to stiffen as you looked up at the bed frame lined with wooden planks. You could only cower back down at blood suddenly painting the floor.

Your stomach suddenly churned as you covered your mouth. So he wasn’t lying. Chishiya however looked just as nonpulsed as he did when he first told you himself, his eyes blankly staring up at the bed frame as if this was just a regular game of hide and seek as people screamed as they were torn apart.

Or that’s at least what you assumed it was.

After an agonizing few minutes the doors finally closed and the lights flickered back on making you breath in relief as you waited a moment, could you even bear to face what was waiting on the floor? You winced a little before something caught your eye. What was with all this extra wood stuck in the frame?

Chishiya had already gotten out from under the bed and before you suddenly heard a few girls scream, your sister among them making you puff and breath as you scrambled from beneath the bed.

Standing up your mouth agape at the horrid sight of the female and the broad male that had been too focused on accusing others, they didn’t have...enough time...it looked like they had been completely mutilated, blood pouring on the floor and the smell made you want to gag as you looked away.

“Well, now what do we do.” Akari scratched her head, also not looking phased that two people had just been brutally killed. Your eyes stayed placed on the bodies before they slowly trailed to your hands, the memory of blood staining them still fresh in your mind.

“Well we have to figure out where the monster is?” The girlfriend of the couple spoke up, she looked around somewhat suspiciously, “But I’m not sure where we could find it? Maybe it has to do with the bracelets? Maybe there’s a clue hidden.”

“Oh what about in the cabinets?” The collected man from before offered as he went to search the cabinets, your frown furthered as you glanced around. Everyone was now getting along, still on edge but along at least.

Chishiya only leaned against the wall, his hands in his pocket as he rolled the lollipop in his mouth, his gaze the same steely one it was before as if he had done his job in securing his temporary salvation and was now done.

Or maybe he just didn’t know what to do? It was obvious his strength didn’t lie in teamwork, clearly. But then again, you weren’t sure what was going on, you couldn’t get a read on him. Crossing your arms you stayed beside him, your eyes briefly washing over your sister who was working Akari to dig through a desk together.

“Cabinets and drawers are too obvious.”

Chishiya’s eyes flickered to your figure, his expression just as cold if not...a little smug maybe? He said nothing in return as you continued, “If we’re looking for a monster, it’s obvious it’s a metaphor for something. Inanimate most likely,” Your eyes flickered around the room, inhaling sharply, why did it feel like the answer was right in front of you?

Think…! You glanced at the clock, only six minutes left. The rounds were really short…! “It’d be something small and inconspicuous, something that’s in plain sight….but easy to miss...and the game said it was a pair which means there’s more than likely two.”

“Three,” You glanced at Chishiya as he spoke, pulling the lollipop from his mouth, that permanent smug look on his face as he answered, “Two is what they want you to think and if you spend a round searching for each like they hope it’s game over by three.”

You rubbed your neck as you frowned, “It’s already the second round and we haven’t even found one…” You glanced around before you suddenly perked up, “Wait…!” Getting back down on the floor you laid on your back as you pushed yourself under the bed, “Chishiya! Help me get this thing out!”

Within a moment the blonde appeared as well, his eye sharp and keen as they noticed straight away what you were tugging at, “You think this is the monster?”

You looked at him as you raised a brow, “We have less than four minutes left on our second round, you have a better idea?” Chishiya said no more but helped regardless, successfully with the both of you maneuvering it around from beneath the wooden boards you managed to get it out.

Holding it up you looked at it, “It’s a poppet doll.” You turned to face him as you smiled in accomplishment, “They’re typically used as curses to place upon people in folklore. If anything is a monster, this would be it.”

Excited at your first victory you pulled out from beneath the bed as you waved it up, “Hey guys! We need to start looking for something similar to this! If not a replica.” Everyone huddled around you examining the doll before the microphone sounded, “One minute remaining.”

Everyone had immediately scrambled back to their hiding place as you ran to the red X, placing the poppet on it, that's the reason that had to be there right!? You’d just have to see, hurriedly you ran back to your spot under the bed. Making it just in time as the lights flickered off.

The door slamming open once more as you slowly inhaled, it had to work right? If not...then you were at a loss for what to search for and you were utterly screwed.

The boots stomped against the floor past the bed as you closed your eyes, unable to calm yourself. After a moment you heard a screech and something rip open before screams followed making you jump. Chishiya’s eyes were on the feet that stood by the closet that had been obviously ripped open.

You heard the sound of something wet and a gurgle before a body slumped to the floor and you could hear begging before something got snapped in half causing you to close your eyes once more...Did you make it angry!? Was that not it? Fuck. You had never felt this stressed before as it roamed around, passing in front of your bed as you tensed.

Was this your last moment alive? Truly?

Much to your relief, the door closed once more before the lights followed, flickering on, relaxing a little you sighed as you reluctantly got out from underneath the bed with Chishiya to see what had happened. Much to your horror it was the man who had been so kind this whole game and his partner.

The monster didn’t check anywhere in the first round, yet he did this round? You tried to block out the bodies slumped in the corner as you glanced at the red X, the poppet doll gone.

“Why- why were they killed!” Nanami’s eyes began to water as she grabbed her head, “This makes no sense!”

“If it accepts the doll that means we only need two more. What happened to them is irrelevant.” Chishiya stuffed his hands back into his pocket as you glared at him sideways, not appreciating his careless tone. You could deal with it, but you didn’t want your sister dragged into it.

Grabbing your chin you thought about it for a moment, “Well...the game said to return the monster to its own and…” You glance down at the X, was there some kind of unsaid rule that if you didn’t get all three of them on the first try that it would start hunting down players? “How would a mother feel if they only returned one of its children?”

“This thing doesn’t have feelings,” The girlfriend of the partners replied coldly, her eyes like steel of her own as she clung to her boyfriend, “It’s as he said,” She waved to Chishiya, “It doesn’t matter, we’ll be like them if we don’t figure this out.”

You glanced around the room, “Tell me this, if it doesn’t matter, then why did they give us all these different hiding spots?” Everyone was silent, all eyes on you as if your question didn’t make any sense, your eyes flickered to the clock that was nearing eight minutes, you didn’t have time to monologue, “No think about it. The monster never intended to look for us- that was never stated in the rules. So why did they give us all of these choices if we only needed one per pair? My point being, if we found one poppet in our hiding spot then...You get where I’m going with this? Chishiya.”

He glanced up at you acknowledgement as you curved a brow, your lips threatening to tug into a smile as you tilted your head, “How confident are you in solving that vent?”

He glanced back down and for the first time, you watch a cocky wide smirk twist onto his lips, “You’re lucky to have someone as smart as me here to be able to open it.” You tucked your tongue into your cheek as in annoyance as he sauntered over to the vent already getting to work, “As for everyone else, we need to open up as many of these as possible to find the other two.”

Everyone immediately scrambled to get to work, with only seven minutes on the clock this was...going to be difficult. First Nanami and Akari searched all the opened spots as you worked on another bed. Rubbing your head as muttered, “Shit...I never was good with puzzles.” You awkwardly hung your head in defeat temporarily, briefly letting your eyes shift to Chishiya who was fiddling with several locks, his gaze sharp and you couldn’t even imagine all the calculations going on in his mind. You were somewhat envious of what it would be like to be that perceptive to anything adhering to logic and solution.

“Aha! Found one!” Akari yanked the poppet from the top of the closest as Nanami covered her mouth, looking like she was gonna throw up being so close to so many dead bodies. You ignored the grisly sight at the second victory of the poppet doll. Akari quickly placed it on the X as you began to work on the puzzle once more, looking up at the clock. Oh no...Oh no there was only three minutes left!

“Chishiya! Hows that puzzle coming along.” You called out, trying not to sound alarmed but you could see the clear cut annoyance on his face as he continued working through the locks, “If you’d like to help while struggling on a novice lock feel free.” He replied condescendingly, not appreciating the pressure.

You rolled your eyes with huff as you finally managed to get it undone, feeling triumphant as you searched under the bed but there was no luck, “There’s nothing here!”

“Or here!”

Several people called out as well as you rubbed your head, standing up, “If the only other place that hasn’t been searched is the vent then maybe there’s only two? It did say a pair.” You felt a lump of anxiety well in your chest at the sight of the clock ticking close to a minute and half.

“Should we really take the risk?” The boyfriend asked as he rubbed his neck, concern on his face as he looked around, “If we’re wrong then we’ll all…”

You hadn’t even thought of that…

“...! Hey.” You turned to Chishiya who seemed to be trying to get your attention making you immediately come over, if he was asking for you it’d have to be for something important given there was nearly less then two minute on the clock, “Hold this right here.” He immediately pushed your hand onto the lock right where he wanted it, “This is a two handle mechanism meaning that there needs to be two people unlocking it. Push down and out at the same time.”

“Hide! Everyone needs to hide now!”

The lights were beginning to flicker as everyone scrambled to hide, stress evidently put on your shoulders now more than ever. You could only hope he was right with your life on the line, “Now!” You pushed down on your side, the lock sliding as you pulled out, pulling a piece of metal holding up the lock directly out as Chishiya did the same with his side.

The lock fell off as well as the metal of the gate of the vent, you immediately with no hesitation leaned inside it was dark and hard to make it out anything besides the steep drop off. So he was right, this was a waste of time for a hiding place.

Looking down you caught sight of wood before laughing in relief, “It’s here! Wait shit! Chishiya! It’s too far down in the vent, you’re gonna have to lower me down to reach it. Time?”

“Forty five seconds.” You felt unfamiliar hands on your hips lifting you up as you were lowered down, “We have time.”

You squinted trying to see as you reached down, “Lower me further! I’m not quite in reach,” Your muscles began to ache in your shoulder as you reached harder, growling in frustration, “Time!?” You were lowered a little further, the wooden poppet brushing against your fingers.

“Thirty seconds! Could you go a little faster?”

“Could you lower me a little quicker- Ah! Hey did you almost let go!?” You snarled back, grabbing the poppet doll, giving a good yank as it lodged in between the crevice it was in, “Get me back up! I got it. Time!”

“Twenty seconds.” Chishiya called back, pulling you up as you gasped, pain from the metal jabbing into your stomach evident as you were met with a darkening room. Setting your feet firmly on the floor your eyes flew to the flock fifteen seconds and your spot was all the way across the room….!

“Where are we supposed to hide!? We can’t get all the way there in time!” You hissed out running to the X as you dropped the poppet down. The lights shut off as the final five seconds counted down and before you could do anything you were shoved to the floor as you squeaked. Your body throbbing in pain and your mouth immediately covered as you were met with the coverage of a bed but neither one of you were bold enough to try and scramble beneath it as the doors slammed open.

Fuck.

Your whole body was tense as your eyes squeezed shut, you were just a little ahead of the X here, if this is all the poppet dolls...they’d have no reason to go further into the room...unless...Your hand squeezed tight around the wrist of the hand that covered your mouth as you tried to calm yourself at the loud thudded footsteps.

It was quiet for a moment before you heard more walking before the doors closed.

“Game Cleared”

The lights turned on as you fell limp against the side of the bed, Chishiya’s hand removed from mouth as you pushed your hair from your face, closing your eyes as you breathed in relief, “Holy shit.” Was all you could mutter to yourself, you had never been more grateful to breathe air in your whole life.

“I guess you weren’t that useless after all huh.” Chishiya clacked his tongue as you turned your head to look at him, raising your brows as your face contorted into something between insult and amusement.

You’ve only known this man for a half an hour and yet...something about his words, if you dug down deep past that smug expression of his, was this a compliment? Looking away you pressed your tongue into your cheek, trying to keep from smiling, “Yeah, and you’re still conceited and arrogant but, I guess you have a good reason to be.” You glanced back at him again but you could hardly hold his gaze, something in that brief moment was electrified between you both as you laughed somewhat sheepishly, closing your eyes as you looked away once more.

What the fuck was even wrong with you? If this was back before today you would’ve totally kicked this guy in the balls and went about your day.

“Y/n!” You straightened up at the sound of Nanami’s voice, your expression brightening as you stood up, quickly running to her as you hugged her tight, “I can’t believe that just happened…” She whispered to you as she pressed her face into your neck. You couldn’t either but, you were thankful you had survived this game. Whatever it was.

“Come on, let's get out of this room.” You tugged on her arm, no longer wanting to be in this death room despite knowing it was all over. Pulling her out you paused at the sight of the TV and a...register…? You bracelet unlocked as you took it off, tossing it on the table as you tilted your head.

“Congratulations Game ''Clear ``.''

“...Now issuing visas to those who survived the game…?” You furrowed your brows as you glanced at Nanami who rubbed her head in confusion. You grabbed the receipt as you looked it over with a frown before picking up the 5 of clubs playing card along with it. Odd.

“It’s how many days you’re allowed to stay now! Almost a whole week, that's a good score for a first game!” Akari called out as she patted your back making you jump a little.

Almost a whole week…”Until we have to play again to...continue our stay?” You raised a brow, deciding not to ask what happens if you refused. While you had many questions, you had a feeling you knew the answer to that one.

A part of you couldn’t even believe this had happened, or was it all still a dream.

“Hey…! Sorry for all of that in there,” You turned to see...oh…! It was the boyfriend of the partner, the gifrlfriend stayed behind looking brooding, “I’m Ryu and that’s my girlfriend Hiroko I was...ah…” He faltered a little, rubbing the back of his neck as his gaze flittered to his girlfriend who was glaring him down, “You should stop by the Beach- I...I think you guys would make good additions! Bye!” He hurried not even finishing his original sentence before scurrying off making you furrow your brows at what he even meant.

“The hell?” Akari raised a brow as she watched the guy run off, “Seems to me he wanted to chat more…guess we know who's really pulling balls in that relationship.”

Nanami suddenly snickered, covering her mouth as she giggled, “Hey Akari! Why don’t we stay together! We did really well in the game together!”

“Awh shit, if you guys really want me too!” Akari offered a quirky smile as you laughed, you had no problems with someone staying behind with you. Looking past Akari your smile faded a little at the sight of a white hoodie exiting the entrance.

“Hey- I’ll be right back!” You pushed past the both of them who paid you no mind as you pushed out of the exit and down the stone steps, not sure why your feet were making you chase after such an egotistical man but…!

“Chishiya!” You called out, making the man pause, he turned around, pulling the earbuds out as he glanced up from his hoodie, raising his brows in acknowledgement, “Um…” Why did you even chase after him…? You stepped down the last step as you wrapped your arms around yourself.

It was silent for a moment as you berated yourself internally for why you seemed so speechless all of a sudden. Chishiya however didn’t seem to mind, his eyes absent now as he stared up at the hospital, “I used to do my clinical rotations here.”

You were broken out of your silent thrashing of internal humiliation as you raised your brows, lips parting in curiosity as you asked, “You were a doctor?”

“No,” Chishiya snorted, that amused calico look of his on his face once more as he looked down at you, “I was a medical student. Training to be a doctor but that obviously didn’t happen…” His lips curved into a frown, his eyes cold once more as they looked back up at the building, “I came here tonight to see if anyone I knew would be here.”

“Oh…” You looked away, feeling somewhat awkward and unsure of how to reply to him as silence took over once more beside the occasional rustling of the wind in the tree’s, the urge to speak overtaking you to the point you couldn't resist, “Chishiya...I…” You looked away, feeling somewhat bashful, “We...made a really good team back there.” You forced yourself to look up at him as you offered a bright yet subtly shy smile, “If you want...you could stay with us…?”

Chishiya pulled the lollipop stick from his mouth, letting it drop to the ground as he spoke, “No thanks.” You turned to him in surprise as you frowned a little, you shouldn’t have expected anything less…

“Oh...I understand.” You offered a weak smile as he turned his back on you and began to walk once more, “I just have one more question,” You called out causing him to pause, “...Do you by any chance know about a place called the Beach?”

Note: Whew...! As a lurker in the Alice in borderland fandom I saw a lot of people complaining about the lack of Chishiya fics so I decided to volunteer myself and take on for the team to write a series for this little blonde fucker so PLEASE let me know your thoughts and I hope you enjoy!! Also

#alice in borderland #aib #alice in borderland imagine #alice in borderland x reader #chishiya x reader #chishiya x reader smut #shuntaro chishiya #shuntaro chishiya x reader #aib imagine #aib x reader

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ultimatetornshipper · 3 years

Text

Steam

A lot of facts could be seen as only opinions. A lot of facts could be seen as flexible depending on one's experiences and perspectives. Facts could change and facts could be more than just the part of it that you're made aware of.

Blossom knew this.

But there was one simple fact that would remain the same for all of eternity.

Blossom Utonium hated Brick Jojo.

And he hated her.

Nothing, NOTHING would change this simple fact. They were natural enemies, opposites made to challenge and contradict one another.

It was simple.

Key word being was.

It's easier to hate and despise one another when your siblings weren't all friends and dragging the two of you along every chance they got.

It's easier to hate one another when your morals are directly clashing on a weekly basis.

Yeah, they still didn't exactly agree on a lot of moral questions but the boys aren't really evil anymore either.

But when the boys stole something the girls would fight them, take it, arrest them, they'd escape and everyone would let bygones be bygones.

By everyone she meant the blues and the greens.

She was pretty sure Brick was the only one who actively wanted to still do that stuff and Boomer and Butch just followed his lead. Or maybe Mojo still had something on them. She couldn't be sure, but the point was that they still committed crimes and that was illegal so it was their job to stop them.

And she wasn't stupid, she knew full well that she and Brick were the only ones who weren't pulling their punches and treating it all like a game.

So like she said. It was simple.

Until her sisters decided to make it complicated by befriending their rivals.

Blossom despised complicated social situations.

In any other context she could handle complicated. Fights? Sure. Science? She adored it. Books? What other kind is there?

But in group and friend dynamics? It annoyed her more than yarn catching on her nail, more than nails on a chalkboard, more than a dirty, uncleanable chalkbo-

It annoyed her a lot.

Why? Because it created situations like the one she was in right now.

Where her sisters and their counterparts were play fighting and joking around while she and Brick maimed eachother.

And it was always followed by a lecture by Bubbles on how she was too hard on him and Buttercup telling her to chill out while Brick and his stupid smug smirk would mock her and wouldn't leave her alone and how his red hair would be messy afterwads and half out of his ponytail and wisps falling into his face surrounding his gorge-

No.

She flew up to dodge a kick and landed behind him, pushing him forward so that he lost his balance.

She was fighting him right now. She couldn't think about his eyes or his pink lips forming a smug little grin and how she just wanted to kiss that stupid little smile off of his dumb face-

She froze in shock.

Kiss Brick?

Since when had that been an option?

She felt him get a hit in her stomach and her bottom collided with the ground.

She shook herself out of it. Later. She could analise... whatever this was... later.

She started getting up but suddenly he was straddling her waist and pinning her hands down above her head.

She stared at him in silence for a few seconds, because he was really close now and she could see the light freckles dancing across his nose up close and-

Bad Blossom! Now is not the time! You hate him, you despise him, he is the enemy! Stop checking out the guy you're fighting!

He smirked down at her victoriously, "At a loss for words, eh, Pinky?"

She felt him lower his guard and loosen his grip and quicker than lightning she flew out beneath him.

What in the name of Einstein was wrong with her?

She flew quickly and as high as the tallest building in Townsville, then she stopped and turned around and the handsome bastard was right there in front of her-

Wait a minute- handsome?!

Blossom needed to lie down.

Sadly, he seemed determined to keep this going.

They traded blows and each time he said something she didn't reply.

She was too busy freaking out about the fact that she had not only wanted to kiss him but also mentally referred to him as handsome and what the actual frickty frack?!

"What's wrong Bow Pink? You're awfully quiet today, afraid me and my brothers are finally gonna beat you and your sheep?" Brick taunted.

Blossom's brain with all its genius level intellect then decided that the only way to deal with whatever was happening to her heart was to stuff it in a jar and bury it deep, deep down and pretend it wasn't real.

She hated him.

He hated her.

That was a fact that couldn't and wouldn't ever change.

So she did what she did best.

She riled up Brick Jojo.

"I'm not the one here with sheep, Rock," she said mockingly.

He narrowed his eyes, throwing a punch that she quickly dodged, "Oh now she speaks?"

"You finally said something worth replying to. Though I must say, Rick, I'm disappointed, I can't believe you've been reduced to using puns," she replied, kicking his side and pulling away quick enough that he couldn't grab her leg.

"It's Brick and you know it, and don't pretend you don't pun, Pinky, we both know that's a lie," he said with a small growl in his voice. Dodging her once more.

"I still think your insult was just some good old projecting. Clearly if one of us have sheep it's you. My sisters fight of their own violation," she taunted, smirking. He grabbed her and they wrestled midair, each one gaining and then losing the upperhand.

Suddenly they pulled apart, flying in circles, eyeing one another. They were both panting, clearly out of breath.

Anyone could sense the electricity crackling through the air from a mile away. Out of the corner of her eye she noticed that her siblings and their counterparts have stopped fighting and were now eyeing their leaders wearily.

She'd deal with it later.

She turned her full attention back to the man in front of her as the silence grew sharper.

His shirt had small tears in places, his hair was all over the place and he sported a few new injuries. She was certain she was in a similar state.

"They choose to fight," he broke the silence, glaring at her, "I don't force them to do anything they don't want to. I don't control them,"

The sharp, delicate silence fell apart and she felt her temper flare. The electricity turned to fire and she launched herself at him and felt her eyes heat up.

"The only reason for that is the fact that you're too busy being controlled," she screamed.

She could almost taste his fury at her words and their fight went to a whole new level.

Neither of them held back anything as they shot lazerbeams and went for one another unlike ever before.

She pushed him against a building, trapping him. And for a moment they locked gazes and time froze. The anger and frustration and denied attraction flared between them like a wild electric cable, their faces only inches apart.

"Are either of us really in control, Pinky? Or are we all just the result of someone else's choices?" he whispered harshly as they gazed into one another's eyes.

She felt her guard lower only for a split second before he grabbed her and pushed her against the building.

"But then again," he said quietly, and she felt his breath mingle with her own, "maybe if we want control we need to take it ourselves,"

He closed the distance between them and she only felt his fire approach for a second before she reacted with her ice.

So that's the was he wanted to play this?

She deepend the kiss and poured all her hatred and love and frustration and attraction into it.

She bundled up his shirt in her hands and felt his own get tangled in her hair. She faintly heard his hat fall to the ground not too far below.

Yet she couldn't care less as she kissed him the way she'd never allowed herself to kiss anyone before for fear of their life.

But she could do this with him because he could counter her perfectly.

He really was her opposite, huh?

Then she registered the fact that the air around them was slightly more humid than before.

She ignored it though, because this was the best kiss she'd had in... well, ever, and she was not going to pull away because as soon as she did that it would be over and it wouldn't happen again because now that they knew that it didn't-

Blossom felt him pull her closer and pushed all her previous thoughts away. She'd worry later, for now she just allowed herself to disappear into the kiss.

A few minutes later she became aware of a rather large amount of water hitting her.

They pulled away from one another in search of the source.

She quickly noticed that Brick was in a similar state as her and they turned to find their siblings staring at them.

Bubbles was holding the hosepipe that was likely the source of the water and Buttercup handed Butch 20 dollars.

"Really?" Her black haired sister asked, "You couldn't have waited just three more days for your murder make out session?"

"Our what?" she asked while Brick replied with a simple, "Fuck you,"

"Actually, Brick, you've got the wrong sister, I'm Buttercup, the one you wanna fuck is in your arms, her name is Blossom," Buttercup replied slowly, in a mocking tone of voice.

The red heads turned to look at each other and when they noticed their proximity, they jumped away from one another like the other had the plague.

Brick turned to them, "I was trying to kill her!"

And Blossom followed suit, "And I was just defending myself!"

"Nothing else!" They said at the same time.

Bubbles rolled her eyes and Boomer smirked. Butch waved them away, "Don't worry we have a completely different bet for when you two will acknowledge and accept your feelings for one another,"

"Yeah, and I can still win it!" Buttercup agreed.

"Feelings? What feelings?!" Blossom screamed, "Bubbles, tell Buttercup she's being ridiculous,"

Bubbles rised an unimpressed eyebrow, "Bloss, you're both redder than Brick's cap,"

"And you just spent 10 minutes making out so much that literal steam started surrounding you," Boomer snickered.

No matter how much Blossom or Brick denied it, no one in all of Townsville believed their denial after that day.

Buttercup won the second bet.

Approximately 3 months after what was dubbed their first Murder Makeout session the two finally confessed to one another.

Those 3 months are another story entirely.

But it was this that proved to Blossom that truly no fact was concrete, facts changed and facts expanded. Facts were flexible depending on your experience and perspectives.

And the fact was that while once upon a time, maybe Blossom did hate Brick and maybe Brick did hate Blossom, things changed.

But that mutual hatred melted away into something new, something beautiful, something flexible.

Something a little bit like steam.

Authors note:

Inspired by this post

I don't plan to continue this but if someone wants to continue or expand this idea or world like tag me I'd love to read it

Thanks to @maltrashdump for coming up with this idea, I love it, hope u enjoy my version of it

Also sorry for not putting a read more thing I'm on mobile atm

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rudemaidenswrite · 3 years

Text

Don't Belong Here

Part 1

Fandom: Bright

OC Fogteeth Orc x Reader

By: @pusantheamazonian

You're dragged to one of the monthly Fogteeth party's against your will. For once it doesn't end up a bad night for you.

The music's too loud, there's too many people and now this. You’re staring up at the orc, and he’s standing in front of you mumbling something.

"Sorry but you're going to have to speak up. Bad hearing." Tapping your right ear, you scoot over on the couch. Allowing him to sit down.

"You don't belong here." Huffing he leans over before sitting.

Chuckling, you already knew that. A packed house party with strobe lights, mosh pit and dubious activities is not your idea of a fun time. You'd rather be at home under a mound of blankets with all the food watching Gravity Falls.

Why not amuse him. It's not like you're going to come to another one of these ever again and he'll probably be with someone else by the end of the night.

"Flaming red asshole hair." Pointing at the bar. "My sister and her girlfriend. They are the ones who dragged me here."

"Yeah they've been here before." Nodding he takes a drink.

"Said I was a bad night shifter and needed to socialize. So this." Gesturing at yourself. You had purposely worn an oversized hoodie and sweatpants. Sat in the back corner away from everyone. So that people would avoid talking to you but not this guy. Apparently he didn't get the memo.

“Sitting in the corner is not socializing.” Teasing he gives you a lopsided grin.

“Eh, close enough.” Waving your hand you dismiss that accusation.

The more you look at him, he's kinda cute and not entirely threatening looking. You know orcs have quite a bit of range on them. From looking terrifying to absolutely adorable. He's chunky but it works for him, honestly it's doing it for you.

God this not what you are supposed to be doing. So what if he's your type. Stop oolging. The Fogteeth jersey he's wearing means he's bad news.

"Name's Ronnie."

"Y/N." You quickly scan the crowd to make sure you haven't lost your two hooligans. Cause those bitches would leave you for a dirty alley quickie. And you’ve lost them. "Is it always this loud?"

"The barbeque is a lot quieter."

"I would hope so." You don't know why but you find yourself smiling and laughing. The more you talk to him the less grumpy you are about being here. His humor is out there but he's very pleasant to talk to.

God. He doesn't know what's going on. You smell faintly of blackberries. He keeps getting a whiff every time you lean in to hear him. Most humans run away in disgust from him, especially women. But you're still here.

You don't know how long it's been, hours you imagine but you're ripped from peace very suddenly.

"Y/N! Y/N! Y/N!" Your sister is screaming at the top of her lungs.

"What Charlie?" Panicked, you immediately stand up.

"Come on! You're up next. You can't miss your turn!" She’s jumping excitedly.

"Turn for what?" Confused, you look at Ronnie hoping he might know. He shakes his head no. You haven't seen anyone playing games that would require turns.

"You'll see." Giving you a suspicious smile and pulling your arm.

As she starts to drag you away, you instantly grab a hold of Ronnie. Dragging him with you through the sea of people. You know her suspicious smiles never lead to anything good. It’s best to have another witness or at least someone on your side.

To his surprise he lets you drag him along. Your warm hand tightly interlocked with his. Whatever your sister has planned can't be that bad.

He was wrong.

"You got to be kidding me." Horrified you let go of everybody and back away. Charlie has led you to a back room where it is fight club night.

"Nope!" Olivia is squealing, suddenly appearing on your left. Trying not to shake in excitement or else she'll spill the contents in her arms. "Three shots of Everclear and a can of Fat Orc."

"Are you serious? This the real reason you brought me?" This is so uncalled for and obviously something that they have planned. They've been doing shit like this a lot lately.

"No we did want you to socialize but then we found this and everything else was thrown to the side." Olivia rambles on.

"I hate y'all so much." So offended you can't process what’s really happening.

"Awe come on you can do it." Charlie tries to pep talk you further into it.

"No I'm not! I'm not thunderdome-ing it so y'all can win some money. This-" In processing of telling them off you're interrupted by an asshole.

"Yes run on home girl. This is a man's room. Don't want you to hurt yourself." Sneering he leaves just as quickly as he appeared.

"That's your opponent." Olivia whispers.

"How much Charlie?" Glaring you watch him disappear back into the crowd. Fuck it. Eye twitching, inner alpha bitch activated.

"$100." She knows you're hooked now.

"Give it." Still staring off into the direction he went, you hold a waiting hand out. Grinning wickedly Charlie tosses the Fat Orc at you. Cracking it open, you chug the entire thing in one go. With the boiling rage inside of you, the can is crushed with one hand. Everything else can wait. This asshole needs to be taught a lesson.

The current fight ends and the orc ring leader is yelling out different things. The bookie next to him is frowning. Apparently he betted on the wrong guy.

"Give me your sweatshirt and finish the shots.” Olivia giggles.

"Hold your horses." Grumbling with a grimace you downed the last shot. Somehow your sweatshirt’s already off and Charlie's pushing into the ring. It's a stupid makeshift ring. Just a circle outlined in chalk.

"Place your bets!" The ringleader shouts.

"Oh you going to stay?" He smugly questions.

"To beat your sexist ass? I wouldn't miss it." Snapping back you're fueled with liquor and hatred. Dude looks like a unsanitary version of fuck boy. Which just further fuels the fire.

He can’t believe what he's seeing, you have transformed into a completely different person. The quiet girl who didn't even want to be here is now a feral animal.

A crowd is gathering. Often it's human men that enter the ring on these nights. Testing how long they can last against an orc or other humans. Rare is it that a woman enters, even rarer that they win. Causing this much uproar has reached the top of the command chain. Seeing Dorghu enter the room. Everything has escalated and Dorghu happens to stand next to him.

"With the house cut, she'll get over $900 if she wins." Craft informs.

“Who is she?” Dorghu demands, not many capture his interest.

“She came in with Ronnie.” Craft grins at him.

"Ronnie?" Dorghu turns in surprise.

"We were talking then her sister brought her back here.” Nodding at Charlie. “He made a sexist comment and she flipped. Did three shots, a can of Fat Orc and got in. She’s been drinking water all night."

“Interesting.” Dorghu turns back to the match to watch you counter a punch and punch him in the middle of the throat. With a kick to the stomach you knock him to the ground.

"The winner!" An orc yells to a sea of angry groans, briefly holding your arm up. Exhausted everything is spinning, ears are ringing and the liquor burps start.

"Give me my stuff." Slurring you almost lose your balance looking for Charlie and Olivia. Staggering a few steps you make it safely to them. You have forgotten everything about Ronnie and exactly where you are. It's too hot in this room and you need a nap. You are going to regret everything in the morning. Tugging your hoodie back on you doesn't bother zipping it.

The bookie appears as you're putting everything back into your pockets. Of course you have to be the one to collect the money.

"$936 all yours." Smiling he hands you the cash. You see his eyes dip for a second before leaving to collect money for the next round.

"Thanks." Great, he just got an eye full down your shirt. What a pervert. Spinning back to the hooligans, it is time for their punishment. "Ten for you and ten for you. Two four six eight for me."

"Come on-" Whining Charlie starts pouting.

"Zip it! It's whatcha get for signing me up without my permission." You whip around determined to give it back to the bookie.

You visibly pause when you make eye contact with Dorghu. You're not stupid you vaguely know what he looks like. Change of plans. Drunk you who is still pissed has decided on a new dumb plan. You march straight to Dorghu, maintaining eye contact. Everyone watching you is confused.

Out of sheer intoxicated boldness you grab his hand and put the winnings in it.

"Keep it. Fun party. It was nice talking to someone besides Ronnie's kinda cute. So do what you do."

The room freezes. You can feel the tension but could care less about it. Clear as day you touched the leader like it was nothing then spoke perfect Bodzvokhan to him. Before toddling off complaining about getting fresh air and water.

Your sister said you were probably at the car cooling off. He checked the parking lot twice. No sign of you. That's until he gets a whiff of you.

After making it outside you disappeared down an alley by the car. Much quieter, no people and the breeze is nice. Sitting on the ground you can feel yourself nodding off.

"Ah!" Jumping from the sudden cold against your neck. It's Ronnie holding a water bottle. "Dang it Ronnie you scared the bejeezus out of me." You accept the water bottle.

At this position you can really see how tall and massive he is. Sort of reminds you of the Strongman Champion Brian Shaw. Your mind drifts, wondering how he would taste and feel in your hand. Your insides quiver from the thought. What the fuck? Trying your hardest you focus on the bottle.

"You shouldn't be trying to sleep in the alley then."

"Fair point. Thank you for the water." Struggling for a second you finally open the water.

"You speak Orc?" From this angle he can see straight down your shirt. He can see that you were hiding a great set under that hoodie.

"Learned it in high school trying to impress a boy. Some of my co-workers are orcs so it works out." Shrugging speaking Orc isn't a big deal, anyone can learn it.

"You didn't say you could fight."

"Honestly, it's like some drunken boxing Kung Fu shit but the more intoxicated I am. The more berserker I get when fighting." Taking a swig of water. "I don't usually drink or purposely get into fights."

"Damn baby." Taking the risk, you have been an enjoyable companion tonight. Why not see what the limit is.

"Don't call me baby." You aggressively glare at him to make a point.

"Whatever you say, Sprinkles." Putting his hands up in surrender, he needs to change the subject quickly.

"Sprinkles? That…that's different but okay." Weird name to choose but he seems to get the point.

"How's your hearing?" Lowering himself, he sits down beside you. He has no plans for tonight.

"Much better. I can clearly hear you and not have to be all up on you just to listen."

You see his ears twitch at that comment. Maybe he does like being close to you.

"Brave move you did. Handing the money directly to Dorghu."

"Yeah. But it's the only way I knew how. The money would make it back for the next party. Does that make sense?"

"I get your point."

"I don't need the money and it's payback for them setting the fight up in the first place." You give him a mischievous eyebrow wiggle.

"So you think I'm cute?" Blurting out the question was not the smoothest thing he had planned but it’s the easiest way.

"I don't know what you're talking about." Your face gets a little warmer and you stare at the opposite wall. Hard. You forgot he could speak orc.

"Don't worry I think you're cute too."

"What?" Surprised and suspicious. You can't help but to stare at him like he’s crazy as you feel your heart rate speed up. "Are you sure it's not because I just kicked someone's ass?"

"About 90% sure." Teasing he gives you a genuine smile.

"Y/N!" Charlie yells.

"Y/N! We're ready to go!" Olivia is screaming.

"Y/N! Where - oops sorry for interrupting." Charlie yells louder, now walking down the alley. Until she sees you two.

"You two could wake the neighborhood." Groaning, you're still annoyed with them. It's going to be a long car ride home.

"Rude! Not my fault you're deaf." Charlie scoffs.

"Wait by the car!" You fling a rock in their direction and they scamper away.

“Oh I'm going to end up snapping one day and killing them.” Groaning you heave yourself off the ground. Ronnie does the same while trying not to laugh.

"Sprinkles, you get more interesting by the second. How about I get your number so I can stay up-to-date?" In bold fashion he holds his phone out.

"Really?" Stunned, no one’s asked for your number before.

"Yes." Nodding in reassurance.

"I guess since you're so adamant." Pretending to be exasperated, you enter your number under the name Sprinkles. Turns out socializing for once wasn't that bad.

#reader insert #rudemaidenswrite #fanfiction #reader inserts #fogteeth #bright fandom #bright #OC #original character #orc x reader #OC Fogteeth Orc #orc #orc boyfriend #thunderdome #bad hearing #chunky bois #fight club #fluff

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yandearest · 4 years

Text

May The Odds Be Ever in Your Favor (Hoseok x Reader Hunger Games AU) Chapter 3: The Assessment

Summary - Living in District 4 you never thought you would have to worry about being selected for the Hunger Games. With a training centre right near the dock of the houseboat you lived and fished from, your district was known for volunteers who trained their whole lives for a shot at glory and riches. But at age 18, your name is called and no girls volunteer to take your place. Your devastation is answered when Kim Namjoon volunteers for the males shortly after. Tall, muscular, highly intelligent and charming, the years of diligent preparation have bestowed Namjoon with the expectation of being the next District 4 champion after Finnick Odair last won 3 years ago.

Fishing for a living has granted you skills with a knife but, as your mentor Finnick is quick to describe, your beautiful face may well be your best asset.

Upon arrival in the Capitol you are quickly faced with the reality that Namjoon may not even be the biggest danger inside the Arena. Especially when you capture the obsessive attention of District 2′s own volunteer, and killing machine, Jung Hoseok. Hope soon fades from ‘survival’ to ‘the mercy of a painless death’ but Hoseok certainly has other plans.

Pairing - Hoseok x (fem)Reader

Genre - thriller, angst, yandere

Word Count 7K

Warnings - [in later chapters] major character death, graphic depictions of violence, swearing, obsession, dubcon-smut (smut will be marked so reading is optional), gore, unrealistically beautiful oc because I’m a sucker for that shitty trope and want to live vicariously through my writing (sue me)

The following is a dark fic featuring a yandere character, violence, obsession, and coercion. By no means does writing about this in a fictional setting condone any of those behaviours, much like Stephen King writing horror doesn’t mean he approves of psychotic killers in reality. Please avoid reading if any of these warnings makes you uncomfortable.

Previous Chapter: 1, 2

Cross posted on A03 so people can subscribe for updates/notifications

Throughout the course of your life you had found that the more you dreaded something, the faster it arrived. As you sat in the waiting room, waiting for the call to go into the training center alone for your final assessment, you couldn’t help but think of just how fast the training process had gone by, and that in less than twenty-four hours you would be inside the dreaded arena.

During your knot tying session after your incident the on the first day, you had formed a slight friendship with Krystal, who had asked if everything was okay. You had lied, saying you were fine, too afraid of telling her the truth after Namjoon had just blown up on you, and she simply had nodded in acceptance. But you could tell she didn’t buy that answer from the way she seemed to treat you with a little extra kindness. You stuck to her like glue for the rest of the training period, refusing to separate within the career pack without Krystal by your side. It was an odd dependency given she was the smallest of the lot of you, but she had taken to it rather well. She never asked you about it, but immediately went along, making sure you were always by her side during any activity. You could tell Hoseok was furious – constantly shooting glares in Krystal’s direction – but there was nothing he could do without disrupting the whole alliance, and proving that he was indeed the psychopath he had revealed only to you in private.

You had spoken briefly to Finnick about things the night after the incident with Hoseok. As a mentor he wasn’t happy, but his hands were also tied as there was nothing he could do to interfere with another district. He had suggested he could speak to District 2’s mentor to try and get more information on Hoseok’s background but you had immediately shut that down, terrified that it would somehow get back to Hoseok and he would think you were reciprocating his own interest. The idea was also dangerous because it would expose just how threatened you were to their mentor, who could easily use that to their advantage when coming up with game tactics. Finnick had reluctantly agreed not to do anything, but turned the topic of conversation onto your remaining training time. He had suggested a focus on weapons, particularly knives given you already had some experience with them.

“Focus on what you already know,” he had said “Don’t waste time trying to learn new things that others are already experts with. You cannot hope to beat a master with only a few days of training. Hone the skills you already have.”

So that’s largely what you had spent the rest of your training time doing. By her own admission Krystal’s report card had suggested training with a weapon that could compliment her own agility, which worked out well with knives too, so you spent a lot of your time training together. You found out that despite being a District 1 tribute, she was also reaped, and not a volunteer, like yourself. But unlike you she had been trained at an academy, which was standard practice in 1. A far more interesting detail you had learned was she was Yoongi’s younger sister, and he had volunteered after her reaping. You filed that detail away in the back of your mind for future reference, grateful that some sort of partnership already existing in the alliance could potentially lessen the target on yourself later when it came to splitting.

You played off each other, regarding your knowledge of knives. Krystal was far more skilled in close range combat, and she gave you pointers when you trained in sparring using a prop version (made from a material of the same weight, which still caused some bruises, but wouldn’t actually cause stab wounds). She also helped you improve your skills in countering attacks and using a larger opponents’ body weight against them. Looking at Hoseok and Namjoon respectively you were terrified to know her lesson would very much be a life or death skill you needed to learn. In return you talked to her about your experiences with spear fishing and occasionally using a knife instead in shallow waters, passing on what you could about how to throw a knife. It was a skill you had picked up when you much younger, after being taught by your father when you were seven. Your mother had been furious when she found out and immediately banned you from knives until you were old enough to be working on the boat, but your father had still snuck in training sessions whenever the two of you were alone. It was never something you thought you would be using to potentially kill a human, rather than a salmon or tuna. You hadn’t even thought of it then, but it was likely his way of trying to prepare you for if your name was ever drawn from the reaping. Even though it was essentially impossible, a part of you desperately hoped you would survive in order to be able to thank your father in person.

You and Krystal worked well together, you had a natural chemistry, and both of you didn’t feel a need for wasting oxygen with meaningless small talk or chit chat. Your skills both complimented one another and you found yourself learning a lot. It wasn’t much of a bond from merely a couple of days, but you hoped whatever you had worked to build would translate into some sort of partnership in the arena.

The remaining of your training had passed as well as you could have hoped for right up until the final moments of the last day. You and Krystal had taken a bathroom break. Afterwards, when you were about to walk out of the washroom and back into the hallway outside, you could hear familiar voices beyond the door. Frowning, you opened the door just a crack to hear Namjoon talking to Yoongi, Hoseok and Athena.

“Seriously, she thinks you’re in love with her,” Namjoon laughed, clasping his hand on Hoseok’s shoulder. You felt the blood immediately drain from your face and a stone cold chill run throughout your body. You had seen Namjoon and Hoseok getting on better within the last day, but you weren’t expecting Namjoon to be at a level of already throwing you under the bus.

“Really? When did she say that?” you could hear Hoseok ask, although you couldn’t see him from the crack in the doorway.

“First day, back when she was in tears over that pathetic report,” Namjoon replied with a scoff. “Asked her what happened and she went on some crazed rant that you were going to save her. Honestly lost her mind on day one, why the hell we’re supposed to drag her around the arena is beyond me.”

“She’s not that bad, have you seen her throwing the knives with Krystal? Could be useful,” the only female voice had to have been Athena, and you made a mental note to thank her later.

“Please, she’s a baby. Wouldn’t be able to hurt a fly,” Namjoon scoffed. You wanted to storm out and show him how willing you would be to hurt him, but remembering a warning from Finnick held you back, ‘play along and act dumb so they think you trust them and are too stupid to make plans for yourself'. You couldn’t wait for the chance to stab Namjoon in the back at this rate.

“So why are we keeping her around then?” A bored voice you had rarely heard asked. That had to have been Yoongi.

“Her brains may be non-existent, but the empty head that carries her around isn’t too bad to look at. I say we keep her for the sponsors, get us some supplies from her capital fans. Maybe if we can get her to flash those perfect tits she’s covering up we can get extra out of them. Plus, if the arena gets cold I’m sure she can also make herself useful as a bed warmer too.” Your jaw dropped open at the vulgar way your supposed teammate was talking about you. You hadn’t even spoken to Namjoon since the incident on the first day, ignoring him whenever you were in the same living quarters and spending your training time with Krystal. Like hell you would be going anywhere near his ‘bed’ in the arena. Krystal looked equally as disgusted.

“Gross,” Athena deadpanned.

“What? It’s not like what I’m saying isn’t true, and it’s better her than you, right? Beautiful face, hot body, but not the sharpest tool in the shed. Throwing knives from a distance isn’t much of a threat in close combat so we can easily take her out at the end. Hey, Hoseok seeing she acts like you’re going to be her precious Romeo you can be the one to take care of our dear Juliet when the time co-” before you could snap and storm out to attack Namjoon yourself, Hoseok beat you to it. Like a viper, his hand shot out in lightning speed to grasp Namjoon by the throat and slam him into the nearest wall.

“Or how about I take care of you?” he practically purred, springing a jackknife he had somehow slipped into his clothing out and holding it against Namjoon’s throat, until you heard a scuffle of someone trying to pull him off. Yanking the bathroom door open you rushed out into the hallway, Krystal following quickly behind, to see Namjoon leaning against the wall rubbing his throat, as Athena and Yoongi restrained a livid Hoseok.

“What the hell is going on?” Krystal asked, looking between everyone. Even if you had overheard everything, you just stood there next to her, wanting to play up the ignorance they dismissed you as having.

Nobody answered, looking between each other as if waiting for them to be the first to talk. Of all people, it was surprisingly Yoongi to be the one to break the silence.

“Put that thing away,” Yoongi snapped, nodding at Hoseok’s flat knife. “Do you want us to all get beaten to a pulp by the guards before we even get to the arena?” Hoseok complied without any words, smoothly placing the knife back into a hidden pocket in the front of his pants.

“What the hell do we do now?” you asked, staring at the others. “A day before the games and a fight breaks out? How are we meant to work together in there?”

“Nothing changes,” Hoseok spoke. You frowned back, like hell nothing had changed.

“You just pulled a knife on my district partner,” you replied. You weren’t complaining but he didn’t need to know that.

“Nothing changes,” Namjoon repeated to your surprise.

“Seriously?”

“Yes, seriously. We’re men. Men fight. Shit happens but we get it out of our system. Logically we’re still each others best bet in the arena.” Namjoon continued. You had to physically restrain yourself from rolling his eyes at the ‘men’ declaration.

“He’s right,” Hoseok agreed and all you could do was stare dumbly, wondering how the hell the two of them had gone from pulling a knife a second ago, to now suddenly agreeing.

“Like hell I’m leaving you, Athena isn’t leaving me, your district mate isn’t interested in leaving you either, and I assume Krystal has interests in working with you from all that training you’ve done together. Yoongi’s not going to leave his sister, so we’re all stuck together.”

“What if I don’t want to work with any of you?” you challenged.

Namjoon scoffed.

“If you really had the balls to walk away, you would’ve done it on day one. Especially given how I treated you when you were telling the truth.” You glared back at him for blatantly exposing you.

“If you split, you’re the easiest target for all the other tributes.” Hoseok stepped away from Yoongi and Athena to walk towards you. “That’s 18 other people trying to kill you, so you know I’m not going to let that happen. As I just told you, I’m not leaving you.”

You hadn’t heard much from Hoseok since that moment in the hallway on day one. A part of you had managed to convince yourself it was all a stunt, just like Namjoon had said, to psych you out and cause division in your alliance. Hearing him bluntly announce his intentions to the whole alliance, as he came to stand directly before you, caused the delusion to shatter.

“Leave her alone.” You were becoming so entranced by Hoseok’s presence that it took you a moment to process Krystal’s voice as she moved herself closer to you, standing so her shoulder was slightly in front of yours. Your heart momentarily warmed at the gesture before it was doused in the cold ice of your conscious as you remembered his sickening threats from the last time you and Hoseok were alone ‘I don’t care about the others… I’ll slaughter every one of them in cold blood… I’m going to kill them all for you baby and I’ll make you watch so you can see just how far I’ll go for you’

“No Krystal, don’t!” you cried in a panic as you reached out for Krystal and pulled her into a protective hug, putting your body in front of hers before Hoseok. “You don’t understand,” you whispered in a rush to try and explain. “He’s crazy, he said he was going to kill all of you. I tried to tell Namjoon and he didn’t believe me so I was too scared to tell anyone else, because I was scared you’d think I was crazy.”

You were trying not to cry, you couldn’t panic, you couldn’t be weak again like the state they had found you in last time, but it was so fucking hard. Why did you have to be reaped? Why did one of the tributes have to form an obsession with you? Why was your own district mate an asshole who had invalidated you when trying to protect the alliance? All you had wanted was to not be alone in the arena, and now you had a hope of someone you could trust and she was in danger because of you.

“It’s ok, I’m ok,” Krystal whispered back, patting your lower back reassuringly. But a sudden grasp on your waist from behind pulled you away, causing you to lose your hold on Krystal as you slammed backwards into a hard chest with a cry.

“Yoongi take care of your sister unless you want me taking care of her in the arena,” Hoseok’s voice hissed from behind your ears, making your blood run cold.

“No, don’t hurt her, please, please don’t hurt her,” you begged, twisting in Hoseok’s hold but his arms were locked around you tightly. Yoongi didn’t say a word, walking over to Krystal and putting his hand on her shoulder to lead her away. She initially moved to shake him off but you vigorously shook your head and mouthed ‘go’ to get her to leave.

“We’ll see you at the cornucopia tomorrow,” Yoongi turned back to say, before you exhaled in temporary relief as Krystal reluctantly left with her brother.

“Whatever you do with her, I don’t want any part of it. We’re aligned until six and then that’s it,” Athena sneered, drawing your attention over to her as she glared between Namjoon and Hoseok.

“Fine with me,” Hoseok shrugged. Namjoon who was now leaning casually against the wall merely nodded. You could swear you saw a torn look of sympathy from Athena in your direction, but it was gone in a second as she shook her head in disgust and walked off to re-join Krystal and Yoongi.

With Athena gone the tension that hung in the air was so thick it was suffocating. Namjoon continued to rest against the wall, his arms crossed over his wide chest watching as Hoseok still held you by the waist. With Krystal now safe with her brother away from him you realized there was no longer a need to stay compliant in his grip.

“Namjoon, help,” you hissed, trying to move your arms to shove Hoseok off but they were both pinned to your sides by his hold. Hoseok merely chuckled, instead flexing his muscles and causing his grip to tighten.

“No can do little dove,” Namjoon mocked with a pout, moving off from the wall to stand to his full height. “Your boyfriend here’s the one with the knife in his pocket, and I’m unarmed.”

Namjoon raised his hands in mock surrender, his long legs taking lazy steps to walk around the two of you. Hoseok turned, forcing you to turn with him, to avoid his back being left open. Namjoon ignored him, keeping his eyes on you.

“But don’t worry, because in that arena I’ll be armed, and I’ll take really good care of you then.”

“Like hell,” Hoseok scoffed causing Namjoon to laugh.

“Oh, would you look at the time?” Namjoon was now further down the corridor that separated the bathrooms from the training center, where he could see the large clock on the wall.

“Only five minutes left until end of training before they start preparing for our grading. I’ll leave you two alone for now, but don’t expect this generosity again from me in the arena, 2. I trust you won’t harm our little dove until then…”

And with that lingering comment, Namjoon was gone, abandoning you when you needed him.

You felt Hoseok’s arms beginning to loosen, briefly you thought he was going to release you. But instead you found yourself being turned around to face him and backed against the wall. Any thoughts of pushing him off vanished upon feeling the hard metal of the folded pocket knife pushing against your hip as he caged you in.

“What are you doi-” your question was cut off by Hoseok raising his hand to the side of your face and pushing his thumb over your mouth in warning.

For a moment Hoseok was still. He relished the feeling of your plump lips falling silent beneath his thumb, so pliant, like a kiss against his finger. He watched the rise and fall of your chest as you tried to regulate your breathing, inhaling deep breaths in through your nose causing your lungs to expand and your full breasts to push against his chest. Every little detail about you was so soft, so warm and inviting, like you had been designed purely for him. He was absolutely enamored by you and could spend the rest of his life in this exact moment, feeling you against him, but time was not on his side.

“Look at how they all just left you,” he maliciously purred, his eyes narrowing into a focused glare, “you know they’re going to do the same thing in the arena, darling.”

“That’s not true,” you hissed back, “Krystal tried to stay.”

“And yet all it took for her to leave was a simple pocket knife and her brother. And really, when it comes down to it, who do you think she will choose, Her brother or you?”

You tried to swallow the growing lump in your throat and stayed quiet… he’s just trying to psych you out.

“Meet us in the cornucopia tomorrow, you’ll be much safer with us six than left to fend off eighteen others on your own. You’re smart, you have to know they will chase down any career left alone.”

You frowned but nodded, you had already agreed on this, so you didn’t know why he was bringing it up again.

“Good girl, then you know you have to stay with me once we’re all together. Yoongi sees you as a threat to his sister. Your friendship makes her judgment weak so he will take you out if you’re alone with him. And like I just said, do you really want to side with Krystal when she would choose her brother over you at the end anyway? Athena is threatened by you; thinks you’re distracting me from protecting her in the game as part of our district alliance. I don’t blame her for that though, she is right. I would choose you over her. You know I’d choose you over any of them. And then of course there’s your own district partner, who I’m sure you just heard before… would you trust a man who wants to use your body to sell you to fans from the capital for supplies? The one who didn’t believe you when you tried to warn him about me? The one who just walked away and left you to me now?”

An aching wave of hopelessness washed over your body as you slumped back against the wall. If it wasn’t for Hoseok’s arm holding you upright, you would have just let yourself fall to the ground.

“Please stop,” you whispered, the lump in your throat felt like a golf ball choking you inside.

“I can’t, darling,” Hoseok murmured, his fingers over your lips moving to smooth the faint hairs that had come loose from training back behind your ear.

“Not until you understand that you need me in that arena.” His hand came to rest on the side of your cheek, cradling your face in his palm.

“I’ve trained for this my whole life, I’m the only one you can trust to protect you.”

“But how can I trust you? Like you just said you spent your whole life training for these games, training to kill people like me. It’s all hopeless, no matter who I choose.”

“Don’t say that,” He scolded, shaking you by the hold on your waist.

“You saw me pull that knife on Namjoon before, and I didn’t even know you were there. It’s exactly like I told you on the first day of training, I’ll kill anyone who tries to harm you. No one in that arena matters to me, only you. You’re mine.”

“How can you keep saying that!? We don’t even know each other. I don’t understand how you could possibly feel this way about me. It all just sounds like a cruel way for you to take me to the e-”

Hoseok’s mouth silenced your protests, his lips pushing against yours and hands holding you in place. His kiss was searing and dominant, offering no chance for refusal, though as you felt the shivers running down your spine, you didn’t know if you would have been capable if a chance were provided. You had found him physically attractive the moment you had met, and somehow it was like the passion you had seen in his eyes was magnified a hundredfold through his kiss. He was strong and powerful, yet simultaneously gentle. His arm supporting your waist held your body impossibly close to his, whilst the fingertips from his hand on your face were tenderly stroking the skin on your cheek.

Your eyes had unconsciously closed when his face had moved in to meet yours, which only seemed to heighten your other senses. The places where his body made contact with yours were tingling as if flames from a nearby fire were licking against your skin. Everything about Jung Hoseok was warm; his sun kissed skin, copper hair and the heat radiating from his body into yours. You were stunned, and in your frozen state Hoseok moved his lips against your pliant ones to deepen the kiss, the tip of his tongue dancing along the line of your mouth before sliding inside to meet your own tongue and try to coax it to return with his.

What somehow felt like an eternity was in reality a mere few seconds before an announcement echoed through speakers throughout the training center, instructing tributes to cease everything and make your way to a designated area for the mandatory final assessments to shortly begin. Hoseok broke the kiss, leaving you breathless as he whispered upon your lips,

“If you can’t believe my words, then believe that.”

Pressing his lips back to yours quickly once more, he finally pulled back.

“Come on, we have to go.”

You mutely allowed Hoseok to lead you out of the corridor and back into the training center where a Capitol representative with a clipboard was lining everyone up to be taken to the waiting area. There was no talking from anyone as you were all put into your lines and made to follow the representative into a smaller room, whilst the training center was to be rearranged. The waiting room was small and cold with metallic coloring. Black chairs were organized by districts and you were told that one by one you would be brought before the judges to present your chosen skill, where you would then be graded on a score out of twelve. The scores would be announced later in the afternoon, before your final interviews with Caesar Flickerman in the evening.

You wordlessly sat beside Namjoon, not even looking in his direction even though you could occasionally feel him trying to catch your eye. No doubt he would want to dissect your conversation with Hoseok but you had no interest in telling him about anything that had happened. Especially not after how he had treated you the last time you had tried to warn him. Instead you kept your eyes solely on the ground, nervously bouncing your leg as you worried about your upcoming grading.

Everything was happening so fast. It felt like only moments ago when your name had been reaped, since then you had already travelled by train, appeared in the parade and completed your three days of training. You felt sick in your stomach at the thought that the short time that had passed between your reaping and this very moment could possibly be longer than the time you had between now and when you would meet your end in the arena. You immediately tried to stamp that thought out, trying to hold back the overwhelming wave of grief threatening to crash over you. You couldn’t let yourself go down without a fight and giving in to the misery would only reduce you to a walking corpse.

“District 1, female.”

The man with the clipboard had returned to the room to officially begin the assessments. You noted how he didn’t even call for Krystal by her name, just a district number and her assigned gender. How cold and clinical, much like the room they were keeping you in. You wondered if reducing tributes to numbers without names made it possible for the man to sleep at night, knowing he was part of a system that sent innocent children to the slaughter every year.

“District 1, male.”

As Yoongi left with the clipboard man you couldn’t help but notice Krystal didn’t come back into the room with him. So you would be allowed to return to the dorm and prepare for the interviews as soon as you were done. You were grateful this would at least mean a few hours’ break from Hoseok, you would just have to lock yourself in your room quickly before Namjoon would finish after you, and try to interrogate you in your living quarters.

“District 2, female.”

No one had spoken since the line up. All too focused on mentally preparing for the assessment. You felt for the younger tributes who had never picked up a weapon before a week ago, now having to present themselves as fighters before a panel with only 3 days of training. Once again you were grateful for your father for his insistence on training you with a knife, which at least gave you somewhat of a starting point to work with.

“District 2, male.”

You kept your head down and eyes on the floor, watching as two pairs of shoes walked directly past you on their way out of the room.

“No kiss good luck?” Namjoon snickered next to you, deliberately keeping his voice quiet enough that only you could hear him.

You ignored him.

“What’s the matter, trouble in paradise?” he mocked again.

You continued to ignore him, making sure your eyes were pointed on the exact same spot you had been staring at on the ground since you had sat down. Your knee continued to bounce at the exact same pace. You didn’t want to give him a single flinch, not even a minute sign of a reaction, given that was exactly what he was trying to get. You wondered what he was trying to achieve by riling you up. Did he want you to snap back at him and get in trouble? There had been no specific instruction not to talk, the weight of the occasion had instead resulted in the silence, so you doubted it. Most probably, he wanted to get in your head and psych you out before your assessment, likely trying to lower your score. Internally you scoffed, it’s not like you were a major threat to him anyway. You both knew you weren’t a trained career like he was. He was already going to outscore you anyway.

“District 3, female.”

Namjoon had gone from dictating your alliance, to spitting in the face of your concerns, to now mocking you. You wondered if he would’ve treated an actual trained career better if someone had volunteered for the females of 4. Perhaps it was to do with his ego that Hoseok had singled you out and wanted to work with you, even though he was clearly the more powerful tribute between you. He had taken it as a threat. A threat to his chances if you did side with Hoseok given Hoseok and Namjoon were on near equal footing, and the thought you had chosen Hoseok could have been seen as some act of betrayal. Never mind the fact you had done everything you could to try and avoid Hoseok, including telling Namjoon himself and asking for his help. Was he really that stupid enough to be mad you didn’t continue to beg him after his rejection?

“District 3, male.”

You supposed if he hypothetically succeeded and did psych you out into getting a terrible score it would be his own way of re-establishing himself as the desired tribute from 4. A reminder over your head that you weren’t a real career, and being brought into their alliance was an act of charity. A mercy killing to grace you with their presence before taking you out later in the game as an easy option. You longed to prove him wrong. Not just him but Hoseok also, the both of them for thinking you were pathetic and in need of their protection. His mockery and attempted sabotage was only acting as fuel to your fire.

“District 4, female.”

Your head snapped up to see the clipboard man standing in front of you. Wordlessly you nodded and got to your feet. You ignored the feeling of the eyes from the other tributes in the room staring at you as you had to walk past them to the exit. You were lead back down the same pathway you had taken from the training complex to the waiting room, only this time when you re-entered the training center you were the only person inside. Clipboard man hung back in the corridor and the only other people you could see were the game makers through the window in their viewing room. The center layout had been rearranged, with dummies and targets placed in optimum viewing range from the game makers’ vantage point.

“L/N, F/N, District 4, Female, 18 years of age” a voice crackled through the speakers overhead by means of introduction, as you walked over to the marked spot on the floor you had been instructed to stand.

It was a strange feeling looking up at the pompous judges dressed in their flamboyant outfits with pretentiously fluorescent dyed hair and beards. It was as if they were dressed up for an expensive night on the town and you, and the other twenty-three, were their performers for the evening. It was weirdly easy to put the judges in the back of your mind, despite being able to clearly see the room of around twenty people intently staring at you with interest. The all looked so fictional and outlandish that it was easy to dismiss them as some sort of strange figment of your imagination. They didn’t look like real people, which somehow made it possible for you compartmentalize them as imaginary, and instead focus on the task at hand.

Looking at the assortment of weapons on display, you mostly ignored the large range on offer and went straight for the knives. Running your fingertips along the handles you picked out a hunting knife with a blade that would have been around 8 inches long. There were smaller, thinner, knives specifically made for throwing on offer, however the ones you had practiced with back at home were the larger kind on your boat. Gingerly you bounced the handle in your palm, trying to get a quick feel for the weight. Looking up you examined the range of targets that were on display – some quite close and others much further.

You went for the closest target, that was five meters away, as a warm up.

Thwack

The blade sailed easily through the air landing in the yellow zone, on the first circle outside of the bulls-eye. You shrugged your shoulders and rolled your neck with an exhale, not a bad start and a good way to get the nerves under control.

You retrieved a second knife from weapons trolley and took your aim for the next target that was ten meters away.

Thwack

Another yellow circle, except this time your knife landed in the second circle outside from the bulls-eye. Your pursed your lips with a shake of your head. It was still in a decent range but you were hoping to improve on your last throw rather than getting further from the bulls-eye.

You went back for another knife, choosing another one like the last two you had thrown, and lined up for the fifteen-meter target.

Thwack

Red zone, just outside the yellow. If you were aiming at a person, rather than a circle, that would have been lucky to connect. You let out a sharp exhale with a sigh, you weren’t doing bad – you’d made contact with all three targets so far – but you weren’t establishing yourself as a threat either. Not on the level that you knew the other careers were going to be scoring.

Returning to the weapons rack you found there to be one knife left that was in the same size range as the others you had used so far. You turned the knife over in your hand weighing up your final options. There was a final target twenty meters away, but with the rate you were throwing, you’d highly likely just continue to move further away from the bulls-eye. You could always try to throw on one of the other targets again and work to improve your existing result, but it would be difficult to improve much on the first impression of being ‘good, but not great’. Your last option would be the dummies. The dummies were situated on the opposite side of the targets and provided a more human edge to demonstrations. You had elected to use targets in the hope of showcasing solid aim through a bulls-eye, but that hadn’t exactly worked out. With one knife left you decided to try and showcase something a little more realistic.

The dummies were grey and faceless, just human shapes of rubber, which was a lot different from what you would be facing in real life within the arena. If you couldn’t land a shot on a stationary figure you were practically as good as dead. Not only did you need to prove a score to the judges, but you wanted this for your own confidence. With a frown, you turned and launched your blade ten meters across the room into the head of a dummy with a satisfying Thwack.

You didn’t bother to look up to the balcony and see their whispers and nods of approval, instead walking straight over to the dummy and pulling the knife out from the rubber. You weren’t finished yet; you were going to show them what a fishing district knew how to do best…

Grasping the handle, you plunged the blade into the sternum, deep enough to reach what would be the back bone of a human, and dragged the blade down to the pelvis. Pulling the knife out you made horizontal slashes along the chest and the hip where your line down the body had began and ended. Tossing the knife aside, you reached your hands inside of the dummy, pulling it open.

Granted the physical anatomies between a fish and a human were quite different, but the concept of gutting was quite easy to get across.

Once the assessment was over you were lead back to your living quarters. With the pressure subsiding and adrenaline wearing off, you found your hands beginning to tremble. You were thankful to have your water bottle as some sort of distraction, shakily taking sips to try and calm yourself down. By the time you finally arrived back to the dorm you were only able to answer Finnick’s “How did you go?” with a quick “fine” as you hurriedly rushed to your bedroom, not wanting to stick around and see Namjoon again until you absolutely had to.

The assessments were scheduled to run until 4:00pm, with the results being broadcast at 4:30pm, before tributes were due to report at the auditorium at 5:00pm to begin preparing for interviews. You were grateful to be from one of the earlier districts, which left you with more free time between the conclusion of your assessment and your next schedule. Your bedroom contained its own en suite bathroom so the first thing you did upon entering was strip off your clothes and head for the shower.

You spent a long time under the hot running water, sitting on the tiles and letting the shower cover up the sound of your crying. It had become somewhat of a routine for you to return from training and cry under the safety of your showerhead where no one else could see or judge you for it. The emotional toll it took to bury your feelings and avoid crying in the training center, in front of the career pack, in front of the judges, or out of fear every waking moment of your life now was strenuous. The shower was your haven, a place where you could wash away the sweat and grime from your day, and allow some form of pent up release. Today’s shower would be the longest one you had taken since entering the capital.

A knock and Finnicks’ muffled voice through the door told you it was after 4:00pm and the results would be broadcast soon, so you reluctantly turned off the taps and began to dry off. You were told that hair, make up and styling would take place in the auditorium later, so you dressed in the most comfortable clothing that you had been provided with; a cashmere sweater and matching sweatpants. You waited in your room as long as possible, before putting on a pair of slippers and walking out to the lounge room at 4:30pm.

Finnick, Periwinkle and Namjoon were all seated on the sofa facing the giant television, which was currently displaying Caesar Flickerman and a co-host you didn’t recognize behind a desk. Wordlessly you joined them, choosing a spot next to Periwinkle on the lounge, the opposite side of where Namjoon was sitting.

“And now for the moment you’ve all been waiting for, the scores!”

You frowned at how enthusiastic Caesar seemed to be over his job. His mouth was spread into a wide grin, showing off his artificially white teeth, and his emerald green eyes (that had to be contact lenses) were practically glowing with excitement. You all sat in dead silence, if it weren’t for Caesar’s voice reading out District 1 you would have been able to hear a pin drop. The results weren’t surprising to you in the least. Krystal and Yoongi both scored 9s, Athena a 9 too and Hoseok 11. The girl from District 3 who had fallen in front of you on the monkey bars only managed a dismal score, the same as her district number. Her male partner only fared slightly better with a 5.

“District 4, F/N, L/N! Oh, she certainly captured many people’s attention at the parade, but is she as deadly as she is beautiful?”

You rolled your eyes with a scoff.

“You better not do that when he talks to you on stage,” Finnick warned.

You sarcastically put on an overly fake smile and fluttered your eye lashes back at him, until your expression was wiped blank by Caesar’s next words.

“Miss L/N, 10.”

Your jaw dropped as Periwinkle burst into enthusiastic applause, Finnick cocked an eyebrow with an impressed nod and Namjoon let out a low whistle.

“Someone’s been hiding something~,” Namjoon sing-songed as you closed your open mouth and took in a deep breath. You shook your head.

“Just the same knife throwing I’ve been practicing,” you replied.

Technically that was not a lie, just an omission of the gutting part. You wondered what it was about your little stunt that had pleased the judges so much. You were hoping to bump yourself to an 8 or 9 to at least try and blend in with the careers, instead you had somehow managed to establish yourself as a threat amongst them. With how much you had been pushed around so far you were glad to at least have one moment of impact. But now you had to be worried about the extra target being a threat could potentially put on your back.

Namjoon didn’t reply further as Caesar read his name and announced his score of 9.

You blanched. There was no way in hell you were more skilled than Namjoon was with a weapon. You looked over, expecting him to be furious, but he merely sat there with a content expression on his face nodding at the TV.

“Someone’s been hiding something,” you repeated Namjoon’s words back to him.

Namjoon’s only response was a smirk.

You didn’t like the way he looked like he knew far more than what he was sharing.

I'm a bit annoyed because I planned to combine the final training day and interviews into one chapter. But I found it was starting to get too long, as this part was already hitting 7000 words.

Next chapter will be the interviews and fallout from certain things the characters say in them

Chapter after will FINALLY be what everyone here wants (especially me) - the actual Hunger Games in the arena

Sorry to keep dragging it out, my brain hates me.

#yandere hoseok #yandere bts #yandere #yandere bts fic #yandere jung hoseok #bts x reader #dark bts #dark bts au #y!hoseok #hoseok fic #hoseok x reader #hoseok au #dark jhope #HUNGER GAMES AU

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kickin-with-dixon · 4 years

Text

Dreams Into Reality

Rick x Reader, Rosita, Maggie, Daryl

Prompt 100: “So I had this really vivid dream….”

Word Count: 1892

Warnings: NSFW 18+ , Language, Teasing

PART 2 COMING TOMORROW!

Masterlist | Tag Lists | Ask Me Anything | SPN Blog

A gasp falls past your lips as you sit straight up in bed. The cool air sends chills over your body as it touches the layer of sweat that broke out in your sleep. “What the hell?” You pant, “What?” The confusion of what your dream consisted of fogged everything else in your brain. Good luck getting through today.

You pull your shirt and jeans on, lace up your boots, and head downstairs. Rosita’s sitting at the bar finishing off the apple in her hand,” You okay?” She asks with a head tilt, “I heard you talking to yourself this morning. Did something happen?”

Rounding the island in the middle of the kitchen, you shake your head, “I uh… no. I couldn’t find one of my boots is all.” Oh yeah , real convincing, you mentally kick yourself, glad your back is to her.

She raises her brow, not quite buying it, but she doesn’t really care enough to press any further. “Oh, okay. whatever .”

You look around the kitchen, “Hey, are there any of those apples left?”

“In the basket.” She says pointing towards the sink.

“Thanks,” you grab one and head for the door. She raises her hand and mumbles something as she walks off in the other direction. The sun hits your skin as you step out onto the porch, and you sigh, grateful for a beautiful day after the rain you’ve had.

Just as you take a bite of your apple, Rick comes strolling by. He smiles up to you waving, “Mornin’ Y/N.” You just about choke on the piece of apple at the sight, and have to fight the onslaught of images from your dream that are replaying. That damn smirk. He was so cocky in the dream. Holy hell. Today’s gonna be fun. You do your best to stifle the heat flooding to your cheeks and the one settling in your core, offering a simple wave back.

As soon as he’s gone, you take a hesitant step off the porch and head over to your post at the lookout out front. It’s a quiet morning, not much activity. After about an hour, someone climbs up the ladder to the platform, “Hey! How’s it looking today?”, the familiar drawl of Rick’s voice triggering new thoughts. Echoes of the filthy things he’d said start floating around in your head. There’s an internal battle happening. You absolutely don’t want to make any sort of eye contact right now, but that’d be a dead giveaway, and he’d ask you what’s wrong.

Finally, you look up to see Rick’s crystal blue eyes trained on you. Oh shit bad idea. Bad idea. “Uh.. pretty quiet. Only seen one walker.”

“Good,” he smiles, placing a hand on your shoulder,”Let me know if that changes.” Your breath hitches as you think about the feel of his rough, calloused hands against your bare skin.

Later in the afternoon, there’s a meeting about the upcoming run in the morning. Rick’s making it impossible to focus on any of it. If you didn’t know any better, you’d say he knows and is messing with you. He keeps stealing glances, and god the way he looks at you. As much as you try to fight it, you can’t help but to squirm under his gaze, a rosy tinge staining your cheeks.

Maggie starts picking up on it, watching you more closely. “Alright so it’s settled,” the clap of Rick’s hands snapping you back to reality, “Daryl, Abraham, and Sasha will head in from the East, Y/N and I from the West.” Your eyes go so wide they probably look like they’re about to pop straight out of your head, and Maggie caught every bit of it. You’d been so out of it, you weren’t aware that was the arrangement being discussed. How the hell am I supposed to be trapped in a car with him for hours?!

While you’re walking back to your house from the meeting, and hand grabs your arm, yanking you between two of the other homes on the block. “Maggie! What the hell!?”

She leans in, “Yeah exactly, what the hell?!”

“Excuse me?” You say, trying to play innocent.

Her eyes scan your face, and then land right on your eyes. They could damn sure see straight into your soul, “Oh I saw the way you were acting in there. Did something happen between you and Rick?” She’s not really angry about there potentially being something going on, but rather that you haven’t told her. She quickly became like a sister to you after you’d joined the group. You tell each other everything.

You look to the ground, kicking a stray rock around by your feet, “Uh… not exactly.”

She shakes her head, “What does that mean?”

Your cheeks flush for the fifteenth time, “So I had this really vivid dream…”

“Oh, honey.”

“Yea…. and I mean like really vivid and now I can’t look at him or be near him without thinking about it.” You admit.

She sighs, “Well I mean I guess that would explain why you were so weird about going with him. You’ve ridden with him before so I didn’t understand why that was such a big deal.”

You look at her with pleading eyes, “Maggie, how the hell am I supposed to do this?”

She just shrugs, “I don’t know. But it’s not like you can go tell him no. Not now. Not unless you wanna tell him why you can’t be around him.” She starts laughing, “Sorry I can’t ride with you, I think about you-”.

“Shut up.” You punch her in the arm, and walk away, leaving her still giggling in the alley.

The next morning you head to the front gate where cars were being stocked and weapons checked. You bite your lip as the reality of what’s to come sets in. Rick comes up behind you, brushing his hand along your back as he steps towards the car, “You ready?”

“Huh? Oh uh yea.” You look around at pretty much anyone but him, “Good to go.” Real smooth, Y/N.

He smiles at you, crinkles forming at the corners of his eyes, “Well alright then.” He raises his hand, moving it in a circular motion, “Let’s load up.”

About fifteen minutes into the drive, Rick looks over at you, “Hey, you okay?” His voice conveys genuine concern, not just for the sake of his safety on the run, but for your well being. “You’ve been awful quiet since yesterday.” He rests his hand on your thigh, “Did somethin’ happen?”

Holy shit. Holy shit. Holy shit. “Um, Not. not really. I just. I’ve just been doing a lot of thinking.”

“Oh yea? Anything I can help with?” Oh god, he did not just ask that. “I mean. I know I’m not Maggie, but I can do my best.”

You look out the window desperately trying to hide the ever growing redness appearing on your face. After a second of regaining your composure, you finally speak up. “Thanks, but I already talked to her about it. Not much to do honestly.” You can feel his eyes on you, “It was just a strange dream.”

Rick’s a smart man. He’s picked up on all your little moments. Truth is, he just likes to watch you try to hide it. “Alright. I get that. Should the need arise, I’m here”, he says rubbing your thigh lightly.

The rest of the ride spent in mutual silence, each of you stealing glances at the other. The time for squirming, and nerves has passed when you turn the corner about two miles out from the target. Game faces have to be on. There’s no room for anything else.

No casualties, no shit for once, just a successful run. “Meet y’all back home?” Daryl asks as he shuts the hatch on the SUV.

Rick looks around, “Nah, saw a couple little places that I wanna check out.” You can’t help but give him the wtf are you talking about look. There was nothing out there. “Go ahead back, we’ll be back soon.” Daryl nods in agreement.

Once they’re gone you turn to Rick with a boldness you’ve lacked in the past 24 hours, “What the hell are you talking about? There’s nothing out here, Rick.”

“Oh, I know.” He has a smug look on his face when he turns back toward you. “I wanna talk more about this dream you had.” Fuck. “It’s got you really messed up, huh?”

“ I wouldn’t say-”

He shakes his head, “Y/N, please. I’ve noticed a lot over the last 24 hours,” He steps towards you, “You won’t look me in the eye, hell, you avoid me if you can.” He grabs your chin between his thumb and index finger forcing you to look at him, “Oh and this is my favorite. That nice shade of pink in your cheeks.” His eyes scan over your face, “Tell me, Y/N, was I in your dream?”

Damn cocky asshole. There’s no use in lying, he’ll see right through it. “Yes.”

He smirks, running his free hand over the back of your head, “Mhmm. I could see it the minute I saw you in the meeting. You wouldn’t look if I was looking at you, but oh when you thought I looked away, those eyes were begging me to fuck you.” Your breath catches as he backs you up against the van, “Is that what you were dreaming about?”

His strong arms trap you against the warm metal, suddenly making you feel small. “I…mmm.” A small escapes your lips as his travel along your neck.

The scratch of his beard causes a delightful shiver to run down your spine , “Use your words, babygirl.”

“Y-yes.”

He pulls back, head tilted, “Yes, what? I wanna hear you say it.”

“Yes. I dreamed of you” His brow raises, and he stares you down, not satisfied with your answer, “fucking me.”

That damn smirk spreads across his face once more, “There it is.” He shifts his weight, and places his hands on either side of your head. “Do you want that? Do you want me to fuck you?”

“Yes,” Your voice barely above a whisper, “Please, Rick.”

A low growl rips from his chest as his lips capture yours in a demanding kiss. There’s fire behind every movement. Has he been thinking about this too? As if he read your mind, he breaks the kiss, and spins you around so that your back is to him, “I’ve wanted this for so long. You don’t know how hard it’s been to watch you everyday not being able to do a damn thing about it.” Rough hands come up to cup your breasts as his lips and teeth drag over the sensitive skin of your neck. “God, it took everything in me not to take you right then in that meeting yesterday.”

Gasps fall past your lips as his hips grind into yours, letting you feel just how bad he wants you. “Rick…”

His finger runs over the soft flesh of your lips and he lets out a groan, “Oh sweetheart…” Breath fans over your ear, “I don’t think I’ve ever heard a sweeter sound than that.” His deft fingers make quick work of undoing your belt and jeans, “Get in the van.”

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PART 2 COMING TOMORROW!

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jalapeno-princess · 4 years

Text

Chapter 2: Bump in the Road

(Yo man all these Mark pre debut pics got me feeling some type of way) (Why did nobody at my high school look like that idgi???)

Mark Tuan X Reader

Part of the Crazy Little Thing Called Love Series

Genre: Fluff, angst and awkward, experimental and extremely adorable smut

Word Count: 13.7K (Daaaaamn I really thought it was longer) (Still long as hell though)

Summary: Falling in love with Mark had to be one of the easiest things you have ever done in your entire life. However, the trials that came with loving him were all the more challenging and you didn’t know how much of it you could possibly take.

A/N: Okay so this one is all over the place (I say that about all my imagines recently) but seriously this one is kind of complicated but please bare with me. I also am not particularly a fan of how I ended this chapter but oh well. Happy reading! (The smut scene in here is actually more humorous and meant to be clumsy and inexperienced lol but honestly it sucks hahahahaha)

“Y/n! This is the mile run, not the mile walk! You have exactly twelve minutes to run four laps around the field. This is only your second lap and you’ve wasted seven minutes just dragging your feet through the dirt. Pick up the pace or else I’m failing you for not putting in effort!”

You released a frustrated grunt at your p.e. teacher’s words, but did as you were told. Back in elementary school, p.e. was one of your favorite subjects. You loved taking a break from your studies and getting to play all kinds of different sports; dodgeball, sham battle, volleyball, basketball and even doing all kinds of relay races—but middle school ruined the class for you entirely when you realized that you were no longer allowed to play around and have fun.

No. Middle school was serious business now. You were being graded on whether you changed out in to your uniform, how many jumping jacks you could do in one minute, how many times you could kick a soccer ball in to one of the field goals and today, you had to run one mile which you and the rest of your classmates have been preparing for every single day in the last two weeks. It wasn’t like you weren’t physically active enough to run all four laps; you joined cross country only two months after transferring over to Middle school from Elementary.

Running long distances were something you were used to. What you weren’t used to, was the fact that your boyfriend had p.e. during the same period you did. It’s as if fate wanted you to fail miserably. Over the last two years, Mark only grew more and more attractive and your mind always drifted back to when you first saw him going through physical changes when you were in the fourth grade. What you thought back then to be his beginning stages of puberty or so you’ve been taught in health was nothing compared to the change he was currently going through as of right now.

His features became even more prominent; his jaw was more defined, his eyebrows were sharper, his chubby cheeks were slimming down immensely and his lips have grown fuller. His voice that was once squeaky and high pitch was now deeper and more “manlier” in his words. He was even excited to tell you that he was slowly but surely growing facial hair.

It was hard for you to prevent yourself from laughing when he pulled you to the side one day at recess and showed you the two strands of hair on his chin—but it was also very cute. From the time he entered middle school, Mark would always complain about being scrawny and not masculine enough for someone in middle school. Although you were still too young to really understand what was expected to happen to both girls and boys while puberty transformed their bodies entirely, you had a feeling Mark was taking this whole “growing up” and “maturing” too seriously.

You were only two months away from moving on to the seventh grade which also meant that Mark was going to become a high school freshman. Nothing much has changed since you graduated from Elementary school and settled in to Middle school other than being able to see and spend more time with your boyfriend. From what the older boy would describe over and over to be some of the best years in school he has experienced so far—well, educationally.

All those years in elementary that he spent with you; learning more about you, getting to see that contagious smile of yours and being the main reason behind it, falling in love—or what he claimed his parents called “puppy love” with you, those had to be some of the best years of his life. Unlike you, Mark enjoyed school. He loved learning about all kinds of things. Right now, his favorite subject was social studies specifically because he and the rest of his classmates got to watch all these documentaries about some of the most important events to go down in history.

Since he had every intention on being with you as much as he possibly could, Mark brought up the suggestion that you’d joining an after school activity together. You had yet to tell anybody other than your older sister and a couple of your closest friends about your relationship in fear of your parents finding out and forcing you to break up with him. Your family was well aware of your friendship though and they genuinely really liked Mark.

For someone who was right about to turn fourteen-years-old, it was evident that he had a excellent head on his shoulders. You would always think back to the first time he introduced himself to you and how he told you his mom said he was a good boy in order to get you to trust him. He always had your best interest at heart—he did whatever it was for you in order to help you in any way possible, or just to make you happy.

Your happiness was Mark’s sole priority. Almost every single day, he would walk you back home before walking back to school for practice. On the days he had nothing scheduled for after school, he’d be over at your house playing video games with your older brothers or watching a movie with you out in the living room. It always made you smile seeing how well he got along with your family and although you had yet to really get to know his, Mark told you he was confident that they would love you just as much as he did.

In his three years of middle school, he had built quite the reputation of being the campus’ all around student. Although he could be shy and introverted towards students he wasn’t all too familiar with, he was very kind and thoughtful to anyone who had entered his path. It was also known throughout the school that Mark had one of the highest g.p.a.s in his grade. There were a few occasions that his teachers would have him tutor other students for extra credit and being the polite person his mother made sure she raised him to be, he always said yes—even if he didn’t particularly want to.

He was also very involved in sports and extracurricular activities; soccer, football, baseball, water polo, cross-country, student council—you name it. Mark just really enjoyed making new friends and taking on new challenges. Since you were the only one out of your siblings that would return back home once school was over, your parents recommended that you’d look for some kind of activity that you would find interest in. It was actually your boyfriend’s idea to join cross country with him; it was pretty much the only sport that he knew you wouldn’t get hurt in and that helped keep his mind at ease.

The last thing he wanted was something bad to happen to his favorite girl under his supervision. On the first day of practice, you didn’t think it was all that bad. Your coach had the team run five laps around the tennis court before calling it a day. Unfortunately, you couldn’t say the same thing for the rest of that week when you found yourself running up and down an extremely steep hill ten times. By the end of it, you felt as if you were about to throw up your lungs—it was terrible and what was even worse was the mocking laughter that came from a few of your teammates since you were the last one to finish.

Mark tried to stifle back a laugh, but it wasn’t a laugh to insult you in any way. The word proud didn’t even describe half of what Mark felt watching you put in so much effort to finish your rounds, no matter how visibly exhausted you were. He found himself giggling because he thought you looked so adorable with your flustered, pink cheeks, hair sticking out all over the place and the fact that you flopped on to the grass without even worrying about getting dirty. He waited for your coach to inform you all what he had planned for the rest of the day and allowed you some well deserved rest before pulling you up. As soon as he noticed that everyone was out of sight, he all but gently yanked you against his chest and placed a reassuring kiss on your cheek.

“Hey, ignore them. You’ve tried your best y/n. You’re the only six grader here—everyone else, they’ve been running for years. You only joined a week ago. I’ve seen a lot of them having to stop in the middle of a race because they’d get side pains from eating right before a competition. Hell, some of them even walk when no ones watching. So don’t beat yourself up about it too much okay? You have me. I’m here. I’m always going to be here—nothing to worry about baby. Let’s go. If we have enough time, I’ll buy you some frozen yogurt before I take you home.”

You beamed up at him as your heart fluttered hearing his words. Sure, the idea of him treating you to your favorite dessert excited you—especially after all you had to suffer through, but hearing that you had nothing to worry about because Mark had your back was such an amazing feeling. Even after all these years, not once had he ever shown you otherwise. He was practically glued at your hip and you wouldn’t have it any other way. You placed a small peck on the corner of his mouth before intertwining your hands together and you grinned to yourself when you saw the blush rise upon his cheeks.

“Can I get extra toppings?” He playfully squeezed your hand before bringing it up to his lips and placing a sloppy kiss on the back of it.

“Of course you can babe. God—you’re so cute you know that?”

Although there were some days you felt as if you were still too young to be in love or to know what love actually was, you knew in your gut that what you felt for Mark was extremely intense. Hell, if what was going on between the two of you wasn’t love, you didn’t think you’d actually get to experience it because you had no intention on being with anybody else. You were overjoyed with what you had with Mark.

From what you’ve seen in movies and television shows, what you’d hear your sister go in to detail about over the phone with one of her friends and just witnessing your parents interacting with each other, you had an idea of what being in love was. You saw the way Mark would look at you; as if time stopped whenever the two of you were together and all he wanted to do was look at you in admiration—in awe of your beauty. It was in his actions; he made it a point to continue his overprotective habit he started in Elementary school—walking you home to make sure you got back safe and pushing you on the inside of the sidewalk to keep you away from the road. It was in the way he would leave his friends to go be with you.

Every single time you’d have a rough day, you would find a candy bar or a bag of skittles in your backpack as his attempt to cheer you up. He might have said it repeatedly on a daily basis—even if he didn’t understand just how powerful that four letter word was, but you’ve witnessed the love he harbored for you with his many sacrifices and sweet gestures. Nobody would do even half of what Mark does for you if they didn’t love you and honestly, Mark’s love and just Mark in general was all you could ever need.

Even if he were to be the only friend you’d have in your entire school career, he was the only friend that mattered. If the butterflies that would swarm in your tummy whenever you’d see him were any consolation, that breathtakingly beautiful boy was the rightful owner to your heart. You did whatever you could in order to even pretend that you were going to put more effort in to your movements, but you were too busy watching Mark swing his bat at the baseball.

Out of all the clothes he owned, why did he have to wear a muscle tank? You didn’t think biceps came with puberty but you weren’t complaining. Since all of your focus was on your boyfriend, you failed to notice the rock that was dead center on the track until you face planted right on the dirt. You heard a few people calling out for you; you assumed one of them had to be your teacher while the others were your classmates—but the voice that was quick to grab your attention belonged to none other than the person who was to blame for your accidental fall.

“Shit—y/n are you okay? You ate the ground pretty badly. Are you hurt? Does anything hurt?”

He brought his hand up to your face and squeezed both your cheeks. Immediately, your boyfriend began to scan your face for any cuts or bruises and his brows furrowed once his eyes landed on the huge gash in your arm. You were always so clumsy and sometimes you failed to pay attention to your surroundings—however, this was the first time you ended up practically face planting on to the floor. Before you could say or do anything, he was picking you up from right of the ground and briskly walked over to your teacher.

She was obviously worried for numerous reasons, but you had a feeling she saw that you were distracted. If so, you could only hope she didn’t know exactly why—but it didn’t matter. What now had your full attention was the throbbing pain in your right ankle. You were no doctor, but the pain was excruciating and it didn’t move when you tried to twist it a little bit.

“Would it be okay for me to take y/n to the health room?”

She had no choice but to say yes—not that she planned on saying otherwise. Mark had you pressed tightly against his chest as he carried you bridal style; your teacher wasn’t born yesterday. Anyone could see that Mark wasn’t only volunteering to help you out because he felt bad. Also, the way he was holding you; so tightly and protectively as if he were to lose you if he set you down led everyone to believe that the you both were well acquainted with one another. As the two of you began making your way to the office, Mark pressed a sweet kiss on your nose all the while giving you a concerned look.

“My clumsy girl—how did you even fall? I saw the custodians smoothing out the track yesterday. Were you not paying attention? Did your shoelaces get untied without you noticing—“

“Stupid muscle tank.”

You were currently hiding your face against his chest, so your sentence came out as a mumbled whisper. As much as you hated to admit that your boyfriend was the reason you were probably minutes away from heading to the hospital, it was the truth. You were surprised that only now you made a fool out of yourself and got in to an accident. It was currently three months in to the last semester and you found yourself ogling over Mark with every chance you got during p.e.

There was one time your class and his class had to share the basketball court and instead of teaming up with his classmates and playing games with them, he decided to teach you how to make a jump shot for that entire class period. You secretly thought it was his excuse to have his hands grip your waist, but you never said anything or questioned him about it—and you were quite a fan of his touch, so you weren’t really bothered knowing that he needed to always have his hands on you.

“I didn’t quite hear that, what did you say?”

You shook your head, hoping he would just drop the entire thing. Even if you were to lie and give him another excuse, Mark knew you like the back of his hand. You’d feel pathetic if he knew you lost your balance because your focus was directed on him and his ever-changing body. He could tell right off the bat when you weren’t being completely honest with him.

“I think my ankle is broken.”

He looked down at you and frowned. Mark has been playing sports long enough to know what a sprained ankle looked like. To his dismay, the area was bruised and swollen. Yeah—you definitely twisted your ankle. Good going y/n. You didn’t realize just how popular Mark was throughout the school until you heard almost all the staff currently in the office greet him. You were in a trance; completely mesmerized with how friendly and respectful the older boy was. It was one of the things you admired about him the most.

He had so much confidence in his personality and he had every right to—he was the actual sun in human form, radiating positive energy everywhere he went. The nurse smiled up at the two of you as soon as you both entered the room, but her smile was quickly replaced with a look of worry and concern when she saw the look of discomfort on your face.

“Hello Mark dear, what brings you two here today?” He gently placed you down on one of the beds and grazed your cheek with his thumb before turning back towards the elderly woman.

“Y/n tripped and fell in p.e. and she thinks she might have sprained her ankle. I also noticed a couple of cuts and bruises on her arms and her left knee.”

“Oh no—that’s not good, let me take a look.” She pulled a rolling chair over to where you were lying down and reached for your leg. “Do you mind if I take off your shoe?” You shook your head in disagreement and allowed her to examine your swollen foot. You looked up at Mark and gave him a sad smile when you saw that he was already looking at you.

If this was under different circumstances, your heart would’ve fluttered with the way he was looking at you, but the pain was unbearable. She had you prop your foot on a few pillows while she began inspecting just how much damaged your fall did to your leg. You couldn’t help but hiss at one particular lift of your leg—not once in your life would you have ever thought you’d twist your ankle—it was even harder to believe that your boyfriend was the reason.

Sure, you knew you were at fault; if you just did as you were told and completed your run, then there was a chance you wouldn’t be having to ice your ankle as you watched the nurse call your parents. However, you weren’t really all that upset and it was probably because deep down, you knew you’d do it again and again. All you ever wanted to do was take as much time as you could gazing at your boyfriend in adoration while mentally tracing out his charming features.

Whether or not he was there, you were sure that you’d get distracted by him one way or the other. Your mind would always drift off to him—sometimes even when you weren’t aware of it. Honestly, the hollow and empty feeling you would get when Mark wasn’t around and the indescribably warm and ardent feeling that built up in your chest as he held you in his arms was enough proof that he was your purpose; the reason why you’d wake up excited every single morning knowing that you’d get to see him later on that day.

Your mood for the entire day depended on whether or not you got to see or hear from him. If this was how you felt for the older boy as a pre-teen; still having yet to gain more knowledge about life and it’s many ups and downs, you were excited to see just how much better things would get for you and your boyfriend as the two of you got older. Mark motioned for you to sit up so that he could take his place behind you; he had you lay your head on top of his lap in the hopes of making you feel the least bit at ease. He began running his fingers gently through your hair; twirling some stands in between his fingers and smiled lovingly at you.

“Hey—I’m sure you don’t want to hear this right now, but can I be the first one to sign your cast? Ow—what? I’m being serious babe—with the amount of times you’ve hit me just now I find it hard to believe you’re in any pain at all. Fine, fine, fine. No jokes about your temporary disability. Although, I’m sure hopscotch would be all the more challenging now that you can only use one leg—you know what? I think it’s time for me to head back to class. It’s obvious that someone isn’t all that appreciative for carrying her all the way here—“

To his surprise, you made sure the nurse was still busy on the phone with your mom before you pulled at the collar of his shirt and smashed your lips all but innocently against his. However, right as he was about to deepen the kiss, you pulled your mouth away before things could escalate any further.

“I’m very thankful for all that you’ve done for me and continue to do for me. Not just today—for every day I’ve known you for. Thank you. I’m very grateful for you. You mean so much to me Mark, I don’t think I say it enough.”

You could tell your words visibly moved the older boy by the way he couldn’t stop the huge smile from occupying his entire face. While Mark was a boy of both words and actions, you didn’t think you were all that smart to actually form sentences to describe your feelings for him. Little did you know, on the rare occasions that you did express to Mark how happy you were being able to call him your boyfriend—each and every single word tug on his heartstrings.

God, he was so in love with you.

Just like how it always was when the two of you were together, you and Mark were too caught up in your own little worlds that you failed to hear what was going to happen to you. The nurse walked back over to you and your boyfriend from behind her desk and gave Mark a knowing look. You wouldn’t have been surprised if she caught you and Mark being affectionate—and honestly you were beginning to care less about your teachers and faculty members finding out that you and Mark were in a relationship.

If they weren’t too favorable towards the idea of middle school relationships, it wasn’t like they could really do anything about it anyway. Who were they—or anyone else for that matter able to tell you that your feelings were invalid because you were “still too young”? Love was valid for anyone and everyone of any age.

“Y/n, your mom is on her way to take you to the emergency room. I don’t want to scare you, but I think you might have to get surgery on your ankle or else that part of your foot will be permanently paralyzed. As for you Mr.Loverboy, I think your job here is done. Thank you for helping y/n out, but it’s time to head back to class.”

You quietly sighed to yourself at the thought of not having Mark with you while you went to the hospital. The thought of surgery didn’t worry you as much as it should have; needles, knives, blades and anything sharp never failed to make your skin crawl. However, you were too upset knowing that Mark wasn’t able to be there with you. You knew he’d be able to take away any feelings of anguish and despair just with his presence alone. He was quick to notice your sullen expression and brought his hand up to tenderly cup your cheek.

Other than your older brothers and hanging out with your boyfriend’s friends, Mark was the only boy you really got to learn about. You didn’t think teenage boys were capable of such compassion and tenderness, but Mark wasn’t a normal teenage boy. He put the feelings and well-being of others before himself. Sure, he loved playing video games, reading comic books and going to the park to practice his free throws, but none of that could compare to the sheer happiness you would bring him.

“You’re going to be just fine okay? It’ll be over before you know it. I’ll try my best to make it there to you, but if I can’t—please remind your mom to call me when it’s over? I hate the thought of you suffering. Forget froyo this time baby, I’ll buy you a whole gallon of ice cream. I’ll see you later, I love you.”

He felt extremely shy having to kiss you in front of any adult; even more so now that the nurse was aware of your relationship, but he wasn’t too sure when he was going to be able to see you next. Mark would lose all his sanity when it came to you. You just had that effect on him; but it was something he was very fond over.

He loved being in love with you.

“I—um—I’m sorry Mrs.Kim, do you think you could turn around?” His cheeks were red from having to ask such a question and he scratched the back of his neck in embarrassment. The older lady giggled softly at his request and nodded in agreement before giving you and Mark your privacy. While grazing his thumb over your forehead, he lowered himself so that his lips were barely touching yours and finally did both of you a favor by connecting your lips together. His lips were soft and his kisses were gentle; he kept his hands to himself because he knew he wouldn’t be able to leave if he were to touch you.

Not wanting to get either of you in any trouble, he stole a few more fleeting kisses from the corner of your mouth before wishing the kind woman a nice day. “That boy must really like you. I’ve never seen someone his age so starry-eyed over a girl before. I must admit, the two of you are very cute together. I’m just assuming by your age that your parents have no idea about your relationship so—I guess it’ll be our little secret.”

You gave her a tired smile before murmuring a quiet “thank you.” As kind as she was, you were grateful when she left the room to talk with one of the other staff members. It was nice having people around, but you do enjoy the moments you had to yourself, by yourself. The only person you didn’t think you could ever get tired of being around was Mark, but that was a given.

Even if on some days he could joke around during the times he was supposed to be serious, no matter how much he could get on your nerves, you could never stay mad at him for too long. Almost fifteen minutes later, your mom was frantically storming through the office asking around for you; but once one of the counselors led her to the health room and she saw that you were taking a nap, she immediately relaxed and the nurse began to inform her of what happened.

Although it was expected, you needed to get surgery to help with the swelling and the tension. This also meant that you had to stay out of school for the rest of the school year. You’d be lying if you said you didn’t enjoy getting to stay home and having your siblings wait on you hand and foot. The only thing that really upset you was not getting to experience all the festivities that came at the end of the year. Mark in more or less words was an absolute angel.

He came to visit you after school was finished almost every single day. There were days that he even asked his mom to call him out sick so that he could tend to you as much as he possibly could. Both the Tuan family and your family were understanding when it came to the older boy going over to your house in order to spend time with you. Your sister let out snarky remarks and a couple of eyebrow raises here and there since she had a feeling what went on between you and Mark behind closed doors, but it was all in good fun.

You weren’t going to lie; it was extremely frustrating not being able to move around as much, Mark did whatever he could to help uplift your spirits and take your mind off of your leg. Once you and your mom arrived home the day after your surgery, your brothers were quick to want to write on your cast as soon as they realized you had one, but you were adamant on having Mark be the first one in doing so—even if you playfully threw punches at him when he brought up the idea.

“I can’t believe you actually let me write on here. I hope you feel better soon princess.-Mark”

He told you he wanted to write something more romantic but he didn’t want your parents getting suspicious as to what your real relationship with Mark was. From what he’s told both your mom and your dad and what they witnessed, he was like an older brother to you—and because he got the chance to watch you grow from this tiny, adorable kindergartener who was a Picasso in the making to the upcoming seventh grader who only grew prettier and sassier as she got older, they understood why he was so protective and so fond over you.

Over the course of a month and a half, you continued to do your school work at home; you kept your leg elevated on a couple of pillows and hardly ever left your bed unless you really had to. You were upset at the idea of not being able to witness Mark’s graduation, but you were even more worried knowing that he was moving on to high school. It didn’t really occur to you that your boyfriend was going to be a high school freshman—nor did you think that things were going to change in your relationship.

Nothing happened when Mark transferred over from Elementary school to Middle school and honestly, the distance helped your relationship thrive. If he was willing to walk twenty minutes in order to visit you two years ago when you were just about to move on to the fifth grade, and how he was eager to ditch both school and practice to give you any assistance you needing during your healing process, then you were sure nothing was going to change—or so you could hope. Your parents surprised you with a pair of crutches and informed you that your doctor said it was okay to get up and start moving around if you were physically and mentally ready to do so.

As much as your family loved helping you out, you understood that they all had their own things to worry about and having to tend to you practically every fifteen minutes was a lot to handle. You decided to keep it a surprise from Mark that you were going to be there for his graduation; your mom already told him that she didn’t feel like it was a good idea seeing as how you weren’t really ready to be mobile and the look of disappointment on his face really made both your stomach and heart ache. You never wanted to see Mark anything but happy. All he ever did was put others before himself; and the happiness of the ones he loved—you especially was his main focus.

You remember hearing a conversation between your sister and her boyfriend and he told her she deserved the entire world. For the entirety of that day, you tried to think about what exactly that meant. Instead of asking your sister in fear of her getting mad at you for eavesdropping, you asked your mom out of curiosity. It means that person really adores you and wants nothing but the best for you. That’s exactly how you felt about your boyfriend. Mark Tuan deserved the entire world on a silver platter and you were going to take the time to learn what you had to do in order to give it to him.

You did particularly enjoy knowing that he wanted you there—you would be upset if your favorite person just so happened to get injured and wasn’t able to see you on one of the most important days in your educational career. But it proved to you how important you were in Mark’s life. It wasn’t like you weren’t aware of how much Mark adored and thought the world of you. The older boy practically had it tattooed on his forehead. You just loved being reminded of the love you had for one another.

On the day of Mark’s graduation, you and your family picked up some gifts for him and planned on sitting a few rows back from the stage so he didn’t see you just yet. Hearing your principal describe Mark as such a hardworking, dedicated student who was so caring and quick to lend a hand to whoever needed it made you feel proud of him. Today was supposed to be a happy day for him, yet his smile didn’t completely reach his eyes and his shoulders were slumped. Your sister playfully nudged you knowing that you were the reason for his sullen demeanor.

Once the graduation ceremony was over, everyone made their way towards the football field in order to congratulate the graduates. It was hard to describe the feeling that built up in your chest when Mark’s eyes landed on you. Although his entire family came out to congratulate him, it was obvious he wasn’t all that happy and honestly, he looked as if he couldn’t wait till the entire thing was over. However, as soon as you came in to view, his jaw dropped and he wasted no time in running toward you and picked you up as if you were as light as a feather.

Neither of you even seemed to care about your crutches falling to the ground; he was just feeling so many different emotions in that moment to even bother about anything or anyone. Mark was extremely grateful that his grandparents flew all the way from Taiwan to come and see their grandson shift over to high school—graduation of any sorts was a huge milestone in their family—but he was most excited for your appearance. He didn’t even give himself time to think before smashing his lips against yours out of pure happiness.

“You came—I can’t believe it, you don’t know how much this means to me—God, you’re so amazing. I love you so much—“ If you didn’t hear the cough that you assumed came from your mom, you would’ve continued to kiss him; but it was in that moment that you realized you and Mark weren’t alone and he just gave away your relationship.

“Oh—I—um—I—I’m in love with your daughter. I hope you’re not mad.”

You didn’t even want to look at either of your parents; you were sure they either had looks of anger or disappointment on their faces and the last thing you ever wanted to do was go against their wishes. However—your relationship with Mark was the only thing you had no problem breaking your parent’s trust for. He whispered a mumbled apology in your ear and was right about to say something else, but your mom was quick to respond to his sudden outburst of love for you and her next few words shocked you.

“I know. I’ve actually known for a while now. You’re not particularly as discreet as the two of you probably think you are. I wanted y/n to be honest with me instead of forcing it out of her. You’re a good kid Mark. Although I still feel as if you both are too young to be dating, I see how much you care for my daughter and as a mother, that’s all I could ever want for her. You make y/n extremely happy. Thank you for taking care of her. With that being said, there will be some ground rules for your relationship—but we’ll talk about it another time. Congratulations again sweetheart.”

Your family stuck around for a couple more minutes—allowing you enough time to celebrate Mark’s big accomplishment. When your parents did decide it was time to go, you said your goodbyes to Mark and his family before leaving a quick kiss on his cheek.

“Congratulations again baby.”

You got an earful in the car while the six of you made your way back home, but you were just so content that you no longer had to hide your relationship with Mark from your parents any longer. It took one more month for your ankle to completely heal and for the rest of that summer, you and Mark found yourselves going anywhere and pretty much everywhere your hearts desired—well, anywhere your parents allowed you to go. One of their rules was that you had to be under adult supervision, but it was expected.

Your sister and oldest brother got a kick out of having to take you to the arcade or to the movies. The love you held for Mark continued to grow the more time you spent together. You learned something new about him every single day. His favorite color was blue—specifically navy. He loves ketchup but hates tomatoes and his favorite tv show was Full House. Sure, any time spent with your boyfriend never failed to send you over the moon, even if the two of you were doing nothing at all.

You’d rather do nothing with him than to do something so exciting with anyone else. But it was in the moments where he’d tell you his dreams and worries for the future that you savored the most. Knowing how introverted Mark could be, it must’ve took him a lot of courage to tell you about his fears and doubts and to trust you with his deepest secrets. Your seventh and eighth grade years went by in the blink of an eye. If you were being honest, you didn’t particularly care of any of it.

There wasn’t much excitement that came with middle school and you couldn’t wait to move on to the next chapter of your education. Mark raved about how exciting high school was. He claimed it was the most fun he’s had in his eleven years of being in school. There was more freedom for High school students; they could eat lunch wherever they wanted, they no longer had to wear uniforms, there were more sports that Mark wanted to get involved in and there were a lot more places on campus that he could study at other than the library.

To your dismay, your fears of growing distant with Mark came true as soon as he started high school. Being the adventurous and athletic guy he has always been, it was only natural for him to join practically ever single sport his school had to offer. High school sports were a lot more different than middle school. The athletes were expected to give all their time and effort in to the sport that they played; this meant more of Mark’s time spent on the field and in the gym and less time with you.

You only really got to see him on the weekends and you tried your best to show that it didn’t bother you—but you did worry that he would one day forget about you completely. There was a point where you wondered if you and Mark should take a break; you were at that age where you understood how to manage someone’s priorities and what needed to come first. It took a while to accept it, but you were no longer Mark’s main priority and it did hurt you—but there was no way you’d allow yourself to interfere with that part of Mark’s life.

What really made you sad was that Mark didn’t think anything was wrong—but why would he? He was too busy experiencing the dream life; he became captain of the baseball team only a month after he joined. He was the first freshman to ever be captain and you were elated that he was having a good experience so far. However, you couldn’t stop the tiny voice in your head telling you that Mark was better off without you. It was something that began to plague you more and more each day.

The last thing you ever wanted to do was be a burden to your boyfriend. On the days you did get to hang out with him, all your worries seemed to disappear. Mark was extremely apologetic with not being able to see you as often and he did remind you that he hated not getting to spend time with you. That’s the reason why you allowed yourself to stay with him. With time, you knew things would get better.

It wasn’t like he was purposely ignoring you—when he did have free time, he always called you and sent you text messages to see how you were doing. The effort he put in, no matter how tired he probably was never failed to tug on your heartstrings. You loved Mark and you knew he loved you. That’s all you really needed. After what felt like forever, you finally completed middle school and made your way in to High school. Mark was more than happy to welcome you with open arms and to show you around the campus.

On your first day of school, he barely even gave you two seconds to take in your surroundings before introducing you to his group of friends. They all seemed to be very friendly and outgoing; they were quick to offer you help if ever you needed it. Your boyfriend was extremely excited now that he was going to see you more; and he began planning out so many things with you. He was quite the gentleman; seeing as how he got his license back in his sophomore year, he would pick you up from school every morning and if he had the time, he would drop you back home.

He would walk you to class and even waited outside so that he could go with you to lunch or to your next class. His friends would tease him about it, but he would even feed you out of habit. You were able to attend some of his practices and even a couple of his games and it didn’t take you long to understand why Mark enjoyed being in High school so much. There was just a lot to get involved in and be excited for. At least once a month, there were pep rallies held and it was always so much fun.

Your High school was also very supportive and involved when it came to sports. The seats would always fill up at a lot of Mark’s tournaments and you knew seeing all those people in the crowd gave him the motivation to do his best. His friend Jackson joked around about you wearing his jersey so that girls would know he was in a relationship and back off. You didn’t know that your boyfriend had girls chasing after him, but you weren’t surprised.

He was a sight to behold; plus, he was so gentle and sweet. He was soft spoken and just so happened to be the MVP for both the basketball and football teams. Every time you attended one of his games, your cheeks would get sore from how many times you would smile hearing all these people cheer him on. He was quite the popular guy, but he always was. Mark stood out from the crowd whereas you believed you blended in, but not in a good way.

It wasn’t until Jackson made that comment did you find yourself observing the way that other girls would look at him or interact with him. A lot of these girls were very pretty—prettier than you thought you were and you soon grew very insecure about being the lucky person who Mark was in love with. You felt as if you needed to change your look to impress him—you didn’t think skinny jeans, band tees and converse shoes were going to cut it anymore.

Most of these girls wore dresses, curled their hair and put on makeup. It was only a matter of time that Mark would come to the realization that he wanted someone more mature who actually took care of themselves. You were too focused on having to worry about other girls that you failed to notice Mark never batted an eye at any girl that would approach him. His heart has been yours since the day he approached you over ten years ago.

You were the most beautiful girl in his eyes and you’ve captivated him in ways that he never thought he was capable of experiencing. Mark believed he was one of the lucky ones. It’s rare to hear about couples who started dating when they were really young that were still together. Mark knew even at seven years old that you were going to be someone very special in his life.

Actually, he was growing irritated every time a girl would come up to him because he made it very clear with how he would always hold your hand or wrap his arm around your shoulder that he was in a relationship. At first, he did like the attention he was receiving for his athletic talents—but when it came to romantic feelings, you were the only person he wanted to receive attention from. He did feel bad letting girls down, but he was more afraid of you growing insecure if you were to see just how many girls had a crush on him.

There was nothing you had to be insecure about—nobody held a candle to you. There’s a saying, “nobody’s perfect”—Mark believed it was complete and utter bullshit. You were nothing less than perfect in his eyes. As soon as he received a team jacket with his last name and number on the back, he gave it to you and asked you to wear it so that everybody in school knew that he was yours and that you were his. You never gave him any reason to be jealous—you only made three friends and even then, they weren’t ones that you’d spend time with other than when you had class with them.

You were always with Mark and his friends and you’ve grown very close to them in a matter of days. Your freshman year was a great start to your high school experience and as excited as you were to become a sophomore, you weren’t excited knowing that this was Mark’s last year in High school. He never told you his exact plans once he were to graduate, but you did hear his mom talking on the phone with his grandmother one day when you were at his house and you heard her mention that he was looking at a University in Massachusetts that specialized in engineering. You asked him about it a few times; out of sheer curiosity but he always seemed to redirect the question as if he didn’t want to answer it.

A part of you felt as if you deserved to know—it was just as much your future as it was his, but you didn’t want him to get annoyed with your continuous pestering. In your first semester, health was your first class and to your delight, BamBam and Yugyeom had it during the same period. It was nice seeing familiar faces and Mark’s friends always make you feel so safe. However, you were soon regretting your excitement when your teacher began covering sex. You and Mark had yet to get intimate and honestly, sex wasn’t something you were all that interested in just yet.

In fact, from what you’ve learned in class so far, you were terrified. BamBam and Yugyeom always made dirty comments about you and Mark—they even had the audacity to ask if you guys did it yet. You ignored them because it wasn’t any of their business, but you couldn’t help to wonder if they asked Mark and what he said about it. Did he want to have sex? He had to at least thought about it once or twice; you learned in health that boys desire sex earlier than girls do.

There were a few instances where your make out sessions would get a little too heated and Mark would excuse himself to go use the bathroom. It didn’t make sense to you why he always seemed to have to pee whenever the two of you would kiss, but after taking health, you realized that he wasn’t in the bathroom for the reason you thought he was. The more you learned about sex, the more curiosity ate at your conscience. Was it as amazing as people claimed it out to be? Did it hurt as much as you felt it would? What happens after the first time a girl has sex? It didn’t take too long for your curiosity to get the best of you and you wanted to know your boyfriend’s outlook on it.

One night, you were sleeping over the Tuan’s residence in order to keep your boyfriend company. His family went to Taiwan for his cousin’s wedding but because he had a tournament, he wasn’t able to go. At first, your parents were hesitant to let you stay over because they didn’t like the thought of you and Mark being alone—but they trusted you and they trusted your boyfriend. Sometimes more than they trusted you.

The two of you were cuddling up on his bed, watching a movie; his thumb was gently grazing your thigh and you didn’t think much of it. Skin ship was something normal in your relationship and this wasn’t the first time he had his hand on your leg. However, there was a feeling in the pit of your stomach that you’ve never experienced before. You felt as though you wanted him to bring his fingers higher up to where there was now a warm and tingling sensation. Neither of you expected it, but a sex scene came on out of no where and it felt awkward watching the two characters naked and pressed up against one another.

You could tell it was also affecting Mark with the way he sat up and pulled his hand away from you. You decided that you would use this time to ask him the question that’s been on your mind the day your class was learning how to put a condom on a wooden penis.

“Hey Mark?”

He paused the movie before turning towards you—giving you his full attention. You quickly picked up on how red his ears were and it was something you’ve discovered would happen when he was either embarrassed or flustered. He hummed in curiosity before bringing his hand up to your cheek.

“Do you—have you ever—do you want to have sex?”

The fit of coughs that fell from his throat made you feel like a child; stupid BamBam and Yugyeom for telling you that sex was a natural way of life and that Mark told them that the two of you already had sex on multiple occasions. You’ve been with Mark long enough to know he wouldn’t do such a thing. Whatever went on with you and Mark stayed between the two of you. He was just as defensive when it came to his privacy. He looked at you in shock before taking his hand off of your cheek and bringing it up in to his hair.

“Wait—what? Sex? Are you asking me—I mean—right now? Wait—sex? You want to have sex—please correct me if I’m wrong babe—are you insinuating that you want to have sex or—where is this coming from—“

It was always a sight to see whenever Mark would get shy or flustered if you were the cause behind it. He was eighteen years old now and it made you laugh that even as an adult, he still had his childlike qualities to him. You could only hope he’d continue to be a child at heart because you’ve grown to learn that sometimes life isn’t all that kind to us and we tend to lose track of ourselves if we become too serious. Mark looked as if he was on the verge of a mental breakdown; so you crawled over to him and did the unthinkable—you sat on his lap and wrapped your legs about his back while you brought your hands around his neck.

You were well aware that you were stepping in to new territory. This was the closest you’ve ever been to your boyfriend and it was a closeness you were quickly growing to enjoy.

“I’m sorry—I didn’t mean for it to sound like I’m asking you straight out to fuck right now—“

“Woah, language missy—“

You playfully rolled your eyes before thumping his forehead for interrupting your confession. “I was just curious if you wanted to have sex—theoretically. We’re learning about sexual intercourse in class right now and I just—I don’t know. I’m sure you have your needs and desires or carnal urges as my teacher refers it to—you’ll be going off to college soon so I was just wondering if it ever crossed your mind that you wanted to have sex—and if you’d want to do it with me.”

Your last words caused him to look at you as if you grew another head. He couldn’t process the idea that you felt he would want to have sex with anyone else other than you. Once he finally decided to take a look at you and saw you biting your lip in anticipation of his response, he all but gently gripped at your chin and pulled you in to a searing kiss. He playfully licked a few stripes against your bottom lip and nibbled on the top teasingly before pulling away.

“Look at me.”

This all felt like deja vu. You were reminded of the day back in elementary when you confessed your feelings for Mark and refused to look up at him. You could feel your heart racing because of the proximity and because you knew he was probably going to be upset with the fact that you were questioning his future plans.

“Babe, you’re crazy to think there’s ever going to be anyone else in my life for me to do anything with other than you. I’ve loved you and I’ve been in love with you for over ten years now. You’re stuck with me y/n. I plan on loving you for the rest of my life. I’m not going anywhere and neither are you. You silly girl—why would you even think I’d want to do something so important with anyone else? You’re my person baby—my soulmate. Yes, I’ve been thinking about sex a lot these days—especially because I can never seem to take my hands or eyes off of you. You only get more and more beautiful as you get older and it’s getting harder for me to resist wanting to finally relish in our love together in that way. I just wanted to wait for when you were ready. I’m sure the idea of losing your virginity is scarier as a girl than it is for a guy—but just know that when that time comes, I’m going to take such good care of you okay? Wait—BamBam and Yugyeom didn’t set you up to this did they?”

It was your turn to look at him in confusion and he giggled softly at your expression. You wouldn’t have been surprised if they did talk to him about what they’ve been bugging you about for the last three weeks. They were all guys; you were sure they were all excited talking about their sexual lives amongst each other. It was something you assumed all guys did.

“Those assholes weren’t bothering you too much about were they? I’ll kick their asses if they ever made you feel uncomfortable. They told me they had class with you and then they began asking me all kinds of questions about our sex life and if we did it yet. I guess for guys, it’s a competition to see who does it the youngest or the most—it’s really stupid if you ask me. Sex is supposed to be romantic—making love to someone is more than just penetration and reaching an orgasm. It’s two people connecting on a spiritual and intimate level. Sex is just a body count to the guys; to me it’s something so special. To be honest with you, it doesn’t matter how old we are when we both agree to have sex—just know that I’ll wait however long you need me to baby.”

With the way he was looking at you so lovingly; holding so much tenderness in his eyes, you were just seconds away from saying fuck it and giving him what he’s been wanting for some time now. Like Mark said—sex was more meaningful than what a lot of people painted it out to be. You didn’t really look at it like that, but hearing him speak so passionately about it sent off a burning sensation in your chest. A part of you was very nervous, but it was expected. You were still learning about your lower region—hell, you were still getting used to menstruating. You didn’t think you were desiring sex as of right now but that was because you didn’t understand it completely. You didn’t know what took over your body in that moment, but you found yourself leaving sloppy kisses along Mark’s jaw while running both your hands through his soft, curly locks. He let out a soft sigh and his hands made their way down to your lower waist.

“Baby, what are you—“

“It’s time we get BamBam and Yugyeom off our backs. Let’s give them something to talk about shall we? I—I want to be one with you Mark. I don’t want you thinking I’m doing this for your sake; I’ve actually have grown curious to see what sex is actually like and I’ve always wanted to take things further in a sense with you. I trust you Mark—with my entire being. I’m safest with you. I’m yours if you’ll have me baby.” The noise that came from the back of his throat wasn’t one you’ve heard before. It was a mixture of a growl and what you assumed was a moan—it was extremely sexy.

“Fuck—I—you’re otherworldly you know that? I love you so much—so so much. I got you y/n. I’m gonna take really good care of you okay? Just tell me if it hurts or if you want to stop okay? I’m so fucking excited.”

The laugh that fell from your lips hearing how eager he was to finally make love to you was natural. He was so adorable—what did you do to deserve him? It was a question you always seemed to ask yourself even after a decade of knowing him for. You didn’t doubt that he was going to be gentle with you during the process of taking away your innocence. It was obvious that he was nervous—he had no idea what to do himself. This was going to be a learning experience for the both of you.

As he reconnected his lips with yours and tightened his grip on your waist, you could feel the adrenaline running through your bones. You were about to give yourself—your body, mind and soul to the breathtakingly beautiful boy in front of you. Your relationship was going to change but you knew it was in a good way. Goosebumps began to rise on your skin with every graze against your arm and every moan he hummed against your lips. There was a fire building up inside of you that you were dying to put out and you had yet to learn what it was exactly. Less than five minutes in to your steamy make out session, you felt something hard press up against your thigh and the feeling made you giggle. “Mmm—Mark—“

He pulled away gently in fear that he was doing something wrong. Your sudden mumbling made him worry; was he taking things too fast? “What’s wrong?”

“Nothing, I just—every single time we’ve made out in the past—you’d leave to use the bathroom. You never actually used the bathroom while you were in there—did you?” He shook his head in disagreement while a cheeky smirk rose on his face.

“I’m gonna tell you this right now; I get hard just by the thought of you alone baby. So anytime you touch me, hug me or kiss me—I get kind of excited, if you know what I mean.” The two of you laughed at how blunt he could be but the playful banter was quick to end as soon as he felt you palming him through his sweats.

“Shit y/n—“

You continued your movements while bringing your face in the crook of his neck. Everything about your boyfriend was so flawless; so pretty. His skin was so soft and milky—his neck was long and you wanted nothing more than to leave love bites along his nape, letting everyone know his bed was spoken for. You grazed your teeth right above his collar bone and absentmindedly began grinding your self against his hardened member. You must’ve been doing something right with how he was helping guide you along his girth and by the way he was growing vocal the longer you continued.

He brought his hands up in to your shirt and you shivered at how cold his fingertips felt against your skin. When he started to play with your bra, you had an idea of what he wanted to do and so you unclasped it in one swift movement—taking it off and flinging it somewhere in the room. You then brought his hands up from your lower back to your breasts and squeezed them all but lightly. It was your turn to let out a moan—the feelings of his hands gripping on your perky mounds only made the coil in your stomach tighten. You never really thought much about your boobs; they were a part of women bodies—you weren’t someone who necessarily obsessed over them.

There were girls in your p.e. class that would compare their bra sizes and some of them would grow excited if they noticed their boobs got bigger. You didn’t think you had the biggest breasts ever, but then again you were still going through puberty. What you had thought may not have been big in your eyes as a completely different story with your boyfriend.

He never had the guts to admit it to you, but there were times where he had to force his stare away from your chest. It was as if your breasts grew overnight and he wasn’t complaining at all. Every time you wore a tight shirt to school, he had to bite back his tongue. He loved every single thing about you; but your breasts were now one of his favorite body parts of yours. He began to show love to your mounds—massaging and kneading them while pinching and twisting your nipples. Right as you were going to make a comment to get him to continue his movements, he playfully jiggled both your breasts and earned himself a punch on the shoulder.

“Ow—what was that for? I’ve been dreaming about the day I got to play with these pretty titties of yours. They’re so big and bouncy—you know, I’ve heard from some of my friends that it’s normal for women to be rough during sex but I don’t think this is what they meant. Having you hit me isn’t the way I’d be getting bruises tonight. Fine, fine—I’ll stop. You’re no fun. I hope you know I plan on fondling and playing with these every time I get the chance so start getting use to it. Would it be okay if—I um—can I take off your shirt now?”

Did he really go from confidently playing with your breasts to shyly asking if he could take your shirt off? He was so whipped for you. As soon as you pulled your shirt off and tossed it to the side, his mouth widened in shock. It was one thing to cup and fondle your sensitive buds, but it was another thing to actually look at them. How were you so perfect? There was absolutely no flaw on you.

“Close your mouth Tuan, you’ll catch flies.” You knew he was about to retaliate so you decided to tug at his shirt with every intention of him discarding it.

“Someone’s eager.” He wiggled his brows contently.

“Shut up.” One by one, every piece of clothing was now scattered throughout his room. What you felt as you gazed at him with nothing but his underwear on was hard to fathom in to words—sure, you’ve seen him shirtless whenever the two of you would go to the pool, the beach or after practice but this was the first actual time you’d be seeing him naked and bare.

“You’re so hot.”

His cheeks grew pink at your compliment—anytime you were to tell him how handsome, intelligent, talented and hardworking he was never failed to fluster the older boy and you would purposely say or do whatever you could to see him so bashful.

“Well—then, that must make you fucking sexy. You’re so breathtakingly beautiful my love. God, your body is a wonderland. I can’t wait to be inside of you—ah, hold on. I’ll be right back.”

A smirk rose on your face watching him practically run out the door as your eyes fell to his cute little butt. It wasn’t really hitting you that you were just moments away from losing your virginity; you were now more excited and ready to give yourself completely to your boyfriend. What should have been some of the most nerve-wracking minutes of your life waiting for him to return and being alone with your thoughts were eerily calm. Less than a minute later, he came in with a tiny piece of foil in his hands and from your lessons in health, you were sure it was a condom. He held it up as if it was a trophy of some sort and the concept caused you to giggle.

“I had to dig in my parent’s drawer for this. It’s fucking gross thinking that they’re still doing it at their age—“

“Only you could ruin a sexual moment with such an unnecessary comment. Just hurry up, put the damn thing on and fuck me already. I’m going insane here.”

“Wow, never in all my years of knowing and loving you would I have ever thought you had such a naughty mouth on you. I love it. Your wish is my command baby.”

He made his way on to the bed, crawling towards where you were waiting for him up against the headboard. You kept your eyes on his—he held so much emotion in them. Lust, excitement, happiness, worry, nervousness—losing your virginity was a huge deal and he wanted to make sure you had an amazing experience. Right as he took his underwear off and you saw his hardened erection, you couldn’t help but stifle a laugh.

It wasn’t because of his size—no, definitely not. You didn’t have anything or anyone to compare him to, but he was extremely big in your opinion. His cock was long and pretty girthy; you didn’t know how it was supposed to fit inside of you but you were so ready to finally find out.

“Don’t get me wrong, I really enjoy hearing that contagious laughter of yours—especially when I’m the reason behind it. But I don’t know how I feel hearing you laugh right after I pull out my dick.”

“It’s not—I’m not—it’s just—penises are really ugly.”

“Babe seriously?”

“What? I’m being honest. Yours is an exception though. I guess it’s attractive? M—Mark stop! Please—I’m—sorry—babe!!”

He was quick to pin you to the bed with one hand while tickling your sides with the other. You didn’t think sex—or what you were told was foreplay could be all that humorous, but it was your fault you were so ticklish. Thankfully, Mark seem to have read your mind and placed a sloppy kiss the corner of your mouth. Hearing him rip apart the conform wrapper brought your attention to his pelvis and you could physically feet your throat choke up.

He kept eye contact with you as he rolled the thin rubber on to his cock. You had a feeling he was more nervous than you were; his Adam’s apple bobbed up and down and his movements were shaky. Once it was finally on, he lined himself up against what he believed was your entrance. His lips were rough against yours—his tongue was needy; the need to kiss you with so much passion and fervor was all he could think about.

“Ready baby?” You gave him a gentle smile—hoping you weren’t underestimating him and what he was capable of.

“Remember, if it hurts or if you want to stop, just let me know.” Since you were well aware that he was right about to make his way inside of your soaking walls, you took in a deep breath to calm yourself down. However, the penetration you were expecting never came.

“Wait, what the hell? Where’s the hole?” This earned him a look of confusion and you had to cry out in laughter—honestly you were growing to believe that tonight wasn’t going to end the way you anticipated it would.

“Y/n, I’m gonna need you to help guide me, I have no idea where your vagina is.”

It took your boyfriend almost five minutes to finally line himself at your core—two of those minutes were filled with laughter and snarky comments; more so from you about how unprepared the two of you really were but it made tonight all the more memorable. He kissed you with all the passion and energy he had in his body and it wasn’t until you felt him finally make his way in to your pussy did you understand why he did that.

The stretch was exceedingly uncomfortable; more uncomfortable than it was painful, but still. It felt as though someone was pushing their hand down on your clit with so much pressure and it wasn’t a feeling you particularly cared for. Your boyfriend—just like he always seemed to in every single situation picked up on your uneasiness. He brought one hand up to cup your cheek as the other was placed in to your hair.

“You okay?”

“Mhm, just a little uncomfortable. How are you feeling?”

“Incredible. You’re so fucking tight and you’re practically soaking.”

“Is that a good thing?” He nodded adamantly and smiled at your innocence.

“Well, it feels fucking insane. You feel so amazing. I—uh—please tell me when I can move. You feel so good baby—but like I said, I’m not doing anything until you give me permission. Tonight is all about you.”

After you non-verbally gave him the okay to quicken his movements, he started to pump himself in and out of you. You weren’t going to lie; the first couple of thrusts felt like hell and you were worried that there was a chance he could have been doing something wrong since it was his first time also. But soon, the pain turned to pleasure—sweet, fervent pleasure. You both began to moan together in unison at how wonderful it felt.

There were so many kisses shared between the two of you—some rough and needy while others were sensual and feather-light. His thrusts only fastened and grew harder the longer you continued your love making session. Countless love confessions, sweet nothings and dirty fantasies were thrown back and forth to each other.

All-in-all, it had to be one of the best nights in your entire life. Albeit a little clumsy and hesitant at some points, Mark fulfilled his promise of allowing things to escalate at your pace and ultimately taking good care of you. You could tell he was holding back a lot of the time not wanting to harm you if he acted on his desires. Once you both reached your highs, Mark left you for a little while and came back with a wash cloth and a water bottle. You were too exhausted after spending almost two hours exploring the depths of one another.

Mark loved on your body like a man starved; he left multiple hickeys across of your chest and on your lower stomach. After cleaning you up, putting one of his shirts on you and giving you a pair of his underwear while he also got prepared for bed, he took his place right next to you. His arms were wrapped tightly around your waist while he placed his cheek against yours.

“So, is sex everything you could ever hope it out to be?” He beamed down at you while furiously nodding his head.

“It was so much better than I was already expecting it to be. You were perfect baby. That had to be one of the best experiences I’ve had ever. I’m gonna have to make love to you at least ten times a week from now on. God—I can’t even describe in to words how much I love feeling you wrapped around me and how beautiful you look right as you were about to come. How was it for you though? I didn’t hurt you too much did I?”

You shook your head and left a quick kiss right above his eyebrow. Less than twenty minutes ago, he was pounding his dick inside of you as if he had vengeance against you. Now he was treating you as though you were such a delicate flower. Mark Tuan—always the charmer.

“No, not at all. That was honestly so mind blowing and I know it’s because you were trying your best to make sure I was having a good time. You always put others before yourself and tonight was no exception. I’m also going to second that notion—I love how you stretch me out. It felt so good. I love loving you and being loved by you. Thank you baby.”

From that night on, you and Mark had a sexual awakening. Whenever you had the chance, the two of you would relish in your love no matter where it was. There were countless times where you’d find yourself sucking him off in a janitor’s closet or being pressed up against the lockers in the boys locker room; Mark took advantage as team captain having access to the keys and took you up against every surface the locker room had to offer.

Unfortunately the closer Mark got to graduating, the more time he took signing up for scholarships, applying to many different collages, taking up as much extra credit as he could and completing his senior project. He finally admitted to you that he had no plans on staying in your town for college. The only thing holding him back was the thought of leaving you.

All he really wanted was to stay with you and wait until you finished graduating so you could both attend the same college together, but you refused to let him give up on his dreams and being able to experience better opportunities that your small town didn’t have to offer. You knew there were so many colleges out there with better sports teams and even better choices of majors that he could choose from.

Mark always wanted to be either an architect or an engineer and you were very supportive of each and every one of his endeavors. However, you hated overthinking what would happen to your relationship if he did get accepted to a university in a different state. You knew the love you had for one another was undefeatable; indestructible.

Deep down in your heart you believed your relationship with Mark wouldn’t falter even with 5,000 miles in between the two of you. But the doubt that weighed heavy on your heart taunted you—what if he were to get frustrated with the distance? What if he didn’t want to be alone and found someone new at his university? What if he decided that your love didn’t mean as much to him anymore? You tried your best to stop the negative thoughts from taking over, but he was never around anymore to prove otherwise?

As dramatic as it sounds, if you were to lose Mark, you’d probably die of a broken heart. He loved you more than life itself; there was no doubt about it—but sometimes love just wasn’t enough. It was the last semester and you secretly wanted the days to go by slower to prolong Mark’s stay. You couldn’t help but feel selfish wanting him to change his mind about leaving you—but you wouldn’t be able to live with yourself knowing you were the one to prevent him from having a fun college experience.

You were currently in science class; everything your teacher was explaining about mixing carbon dioxide with hydrogen peroxide went through one ear and out the other. Thankfully, your lab station was in the far back, so she wasn’t able to catch you texting your boyfriend about your plans to hangout after school. You didn’t even realize she stopped speaking until you heard a different voice—one much deeper and obviously belonging to someone younger. This caught your attention; it wasn’t one of your classmates—you’ve been with them for five months now, you would have recognized them immediately.

When you looked up to see who it was, your eyebrows raised for reasons you didn’t quite understand. He had to be a new student; you don’t remember seeing him once on campus and although your school was enormous, he had a distinct look to him that stood out. His face was sharp and so were his eyes. There were two tiny freckles right below his left eyebrow, his hair was dark and just below his ears. His skin was pale and he had extremely broad shoulders.

You had to admit, he was very good-looking—but you’ve become desensitized to anyone other than your boyfriend. Something about Mark—well, many things about Mark drove you to the brink of insanity and you didn’t think there was anyone who could set your bones on fire like he did.

“Everyone, this is Im Jaebeom. He is a foreign exchange student from South Korea. He plans on staying with us for the next two years, so be nice to him, introduce yourselves to him and try to make him feel welcome. Jaebeom dear, you can take a seat at the empty chair next to y/n in the back.”

When his eyes landed on you, he sent a flirty smile your way and gave you a wink. He placed his bag on top of the table and took his seat next to you. Your eyes were quick to land on his hand that was now right in front of your face.

“Hey, it’s nice to meet you y/n. I look forward to having you in class.”

Yeah, you were screwed.

#got7 imagines #got7 #mark tuan #mark tuan imagines #got7 mark

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cordonian-literature · 4 years

Text

The Aftermath - Ch. 29

Outside the Bakery

Summary: Drake tags along with Liam and the kids during the country jamboree. The day after, he has to babysit.

Word Count: ~2.7k

Warnings: none

*All characters belong to Pixelberry, except those that are unique to my story (I’ve also used some characters and fictional instances from Donna Tartt’s book “The Goldfinch”)*

Catch up here!

Tags: @captain-kingliamsqueen @gkittylove99 @lovablegranny @iam-the-kind-and-thoughtful @mom2000aggie @kingliam2019 @queenrileyrose @shanzay44 @cordonianroyalty @hopefulmoonobject @hopelessromanticmonie @cinnamonspongecake @kuladekiwi @twinkle-320 @charlotteg234 @amandablink @texaskitten30 @tinkie1973 @queencatherynerhys @pens-girl-87 @ladyangel70 @sanchita012 @cordonianprincess @liamandneca @cordonia-gothqueen @pink-diamond13 @queenwalton @yourmajesty09 @alj4890

I’m not sure if the tags are working or not, but I hope I got everyone down! I’ve removed people who haven’t interacted with my posts in a while. If you would like to be added/removed, please let me know :)

✦✧✦✧✦✧✦✧✦✧✦✧

- Drake -

Since he was worried about Jessica, Drake had decided to skip the fox hunt and spend the day with her. He planned on bringing her to lunch, then a movie, but instead she dragged him to set up the wedding registry. The bridal consultant walked Jessica through her choices while Drake stalled behind. Whenever she asked for his opinion, Drake would just say to choose whatever she wanted.

“Chinois?” she would persist, asking for his opinion when really, he didn’t know what to choose and didn’t care that much. “Or Birds of the Nile? Do say, Drake, I know you must prefer one of the two.”

“You can’t go wrong with either,” the consultant said helpfully. “Both are fun and fancy. And this one is simple, for everyday.”

“It’s fine,” Drake said, his tone more curtly than he intended. Both Jessica and the consultant were blinking up at him, waiting for his decision.

“China—” the consultant started up again, staring down at a plate on display. “The way I like to think of it is that it’s the end-of-day ritual. It’s wine, fun, family, togetherness. It’s a great way to put some permanent style and romance in your marriage.”

Eventually, Jessica made a decision, and they were able to return to Applewood.

But the morning of the country jamboree, she said she had to go back to the capital but promised to attend the Beaumont Bash. Drake wondered what she was leaving for, but didn’t ask her to explain. He knew she must have been emotionally distressed by her father’s passing, even though she never hinted a tear. He kissed her, let her leave, then joined the court on the lawn.

Drake decides to join Liam, who stands with Gabriel and Eleanor. Both children look around the lawn, figuring out what they want to do. Liam spots Drake and waves him over.

“Dad, could we do archery?” Gabriel asks his father.

“Of course,” Liam says. A flash of worry crosses his face as he follows the children across the lawn. “No Jessica today?” Liam asks Drake as the two friends walk side-by-side.

“Nope,” Drake responds. “She’s at the capital. Had something to do.”

“I see,” Liam responds, turning back to the children.

“Where’s Riley?” Drake looks around the lawn for her, wondering what was keeping her occupied. He notices Neville’s son running around the lawn, along with some other children.

“With Countess Hana. Riley spoke with Rashad, who hold her that Hana is hesitant to file for divorce.”

“Do I hold it like this?” Eleanor asks Liam, referring to the bow that was in her hand and too far from her face.

Liam kneels down to the girl and corrects her form, then goes to his son and does the same thing. Once he tells the children how to hold the arrow, he lets them hit the target.

Eleanor’s arrow lands on the ground in front of the target, while Gabriel’s arrow hits the target at an odd angle and lands behind it. The children laugh at each other’s mistakes, and Liam chuckles at them.

They hit a few more shots while Liam observes them, making sure there was no chance of injury.

“Do you think we could all go camping tonight?” Liam asks Drake, his eyes focused on the children. “I can have someone get the supplies together and we can surprise everyone.”

“Sounds like a plan.”

“What are you two doing?” Olivia asks, walking up to them.

“Hello to you, too,” Drake greets her.

“Yes, yes. Enjoying the jamboree with your fiancée?”

“She’s not here.”

“She got tired of you? It’s about time.”

“Did you come all the way over here to talk about my love life? If so, I’d like to take a minute to discuss your’s—”

“Alright, you two,” Liam interrupts them. “Duchess, I hope you have news about the investigation?”

Olivia sighs. “No. There were no fingerprints on the painting, nor anywhere in Gabriel’s room.” Her shoulders fall. “I don’t know where else to look. There’s... nothing.”

Liam’s brow furrows, a dark shadow coming over his face. “Let’s not lose hope yet. Keep looking, and let me know if you find anything. And also,” Liam brings her attention back to him. “I think Riley could use your help convincing Countess Hana to divorce the Earl.”

“On it,” Olivia states, then walks towards the two women.

Drake and Liam follow the children around the lawn, watching them enjoy different activities. Liam suggests ring toss to Eleanor, who refuses, saying that she knows she’ll lose.

“Nonsense,” Liam says, then leads them over to the booth.

Her brother grabs three rings, and Eleanor’s shoulders fall.

"Here.” Liam lifts Eleanor over his shoulders, then hands her the rings.

“I feel like a giant!” she cries.

Gabriel lets her go first, and Eleanor throws her ring in a swift arch onto an outer peg. Gabe throws it onto a center peg, and when Eleanor goes again, she hits it onto the outer peg.

When it’s time for Eleanor’s final throw, Gabriel has more points than her. Liam secretly grabs the ring from Eleanor, and throws it onto the center peg. Gabriel looks back at his father and sister suspiciously.

Even though Gabriel won the game, Eleanor still laughed along with her brother and Liam.

They walk around for a few more moments, enjoying the view of colorful booths that had been put up. They reach the entrance of the maze, and Gabriel turns to his father. “Can we do something else?”

“What would you like to do?” Liam asks.

“How about maze-tag?” Drake suggests.

Both kids violently shake their heads. He remembers the time when Eleanor got stuck in the maze, and curses himself for not remembering.

“Can we play soccer again?” Gabriel requests.

“Of course.” Liam leads the group towards the orchard, but one of his guards approaches them and says his attention is needed elsewhere.

Drake says that he’ll keep the kids occupied until Liam gets back, and a servant brings out a soccer ball for them to use.

“Do you guys wanna make teams, or...?” Drake attempts to ask them.

“No,” Gabriel answers. “We can just choose positions and play.”

“I’m fine with that. I’ve played defense.”

“I’m usually midfield.”

“I wanna be goalie!” Eleanor cries.

“Well, Eleanor,” Drake says, focusing on Gabriel and the ball. “Guess I’m defending you.”

“Don’t lose,” the girl demands.

The three of them play for hours, oblivious of the sun falling and the air getting colder. Drake was surprised at how agile Gabriel was, and had to push himself to keep up.

Soon, Liam returns and tells them that it’s time for dinner. The children race towards the tables while Drake and Liam stay back.

“Everything okay?” Drake asks his friend. “You were gone for a while.”

“Yes,” Liam huffs. “Madeleine wished to speak to me.”

“What did she want?”

“She was concerned that the Anointing Ceremony would be held for an heir whose mother is not married to the king, or at least engaged.”

“You’re no closer to proposing?” Drake asks him.

“I’m not too sure. I... I’m waiting for the right moment.”

Relief washes over Drake, but in the next second he feels guilty for it. His feelings for Riley were beginning to fade, and he was engaged to another woman, why was he jealous of his friend?

At the dinner, Drake takes his seat. He sees the children sit with Leo’s kids. Riley, Hana, Maxwell, and Rowan sit near Drake. The court goes quiet when Liam clinks his glass.

“If I may have everyone’s attention, please, I’d like to say a few words before the evening comes to a close. Firstly, I would like to thank all of you for joining us at the country estate, your company has been a pleasure. The next time we meet, it will be the last event of the Social Season. Per tradition, it will be hosted at the distinguished Beaumont House.”

As Maxwell begins to cheer and Liam brings his speech to a close, the court finishes their meals and heads back to the estate.

When Riley stands, Liam offers her his arm. She takes it with a smile, and the two of them lead the group back towards the front of the manor.

As the house comes into view, they see a limo waiting. Riley asks who it’s for, and Liam tells her that it’s waiting for them.

As they get in, Drake quickly convinces Savannah to let Bartie come along. When they’re all in the car, questions are being thrown at Liam.

“I thought we could all enjoy a night under the stars,” he tells them.

After a short drive, they exit onto a campsite. There are tents already up for everyone: Liam, Drake, Riley, Hana, Maxwell, Rowan, Bartie, Gabriel, and Eleanor.

The children rush forward, claiming their tents. Drake goes into his tent, and comes out with a bag of sticks, marshmallows, graham crackers, and chocolate.

While the kids chase each other around, Drake gets to work starting a fire. He hands everyone sticks and marshmallows. Liam calls the children over and gives them directions on how to make s’mores.

The group sits in silence, watching their marshmallows cook. As a joke, Eleanor lowers her stick into the fire, and her marshmallow comes back up in flames.

“Spicy s’more,” she states. Gabriel and his sister laugh, while Drake takes the stick from her and puts out the fire.

Liam, chuckling, gives Eleanor his own s’more. While she eats it, she watches her brother cook his marshmallow. Once she’s done eating, Eleanor holds out her hand to her brother. “Can I have s’more?”

“Of course you can have s’more s’mores,” Gabriel responds. The children and Maxwell burst out into laughter, clutching their stomachs.

“Did you teach them how to make puns?” Drake asks Riley.

“Nope! Must be in the genes.” She laughs, and Drake rolls his eyes.

Maxwell grabs the group’s attention next, saying that he wanted to tell them a ghost story. The children lean forward, childish fear on their faces. Riley rests her head on Liam’s shoulder as they listen. Hana and Rowan talk quietly.

Drake looks at his group of friends. It had been so long since they were together, that the feeling of companionship felt new. There was peace and comfort, something he hadn’t felt for a long time. He wishes Jessica were here, but allows her to slip from his mind as he retreats into his tent and falls asleep.

...

Upon Liam’s suggestion that they go to Ramsford early, their morning is spent driving through the countryside. When they arrive, Bertrand greets them at the door and servants take their luggage inside.

Before they enter the manor, Liam turns to speak to Maxwell and Drake.

“Do you both think you can watch over the children today?” Liam asks. “I want to take Riley out on a date.”

“Definitely!” Maxwell cries. “Don’t worry about them, we’ve got it covered. You two go have fun!”

Liam thanks them, then goes into the manor. Drake tries to follow, but Maxwell blocks his path.

“What is it, Maxwell?” Drake asks, irritated.

“Okay so I know I told Liam I’d watch over the kids with you, but Rowan and I kinda have a date tonight.”

“Then why’d you say yes?”

“I don’t know!” Maxwell’s shoulders jump up. “I wanna hang out with the baby blossoms, but I also wanna spend time with Rowan! I’d ask Hana to take care of it but her dinner with Rashad is tonight, too.”

Drake pats his friend on the arm. “Don’t worry. I’ll take care of the kids.”

“Thank you!” Maxwell cries, then pulls Drake into a hug.

After a few awkward seconds, Maxwell pulls back and rushes into the house.

When it’s time for Liam and Riley to leave, they hug the children goodbye and step out. Maxwell waits a few moments, looking out the window to see if their car had left yet, then links his arm through Rowan’s and heads out the door.

Drake turns to the children, wondering if they’d just go do something or if he had to be with them at all times.

“Is there... anything you guys wanna do?” he asks them.

Eleanor shrugs. Her brother says, “I kinda want ice cream.”

That was doable. Drake ducks into the kitchen and opens the freezer, but finds nothing. He asks a servant if there was any ice cream, but they shake their head.

“Sorry kids,” he says to them once he’s returned to the lobby. “There’s no ice cream.”

“Can we go get some?” Eleanor asks.

Drake thinks a moment. Riley and Liam wouldn’t mind if he brought the kids out, right? “Don’t see why not.”

While the two of them wait in the lobby, Drake asks a servant to get a limo ready for them. Once the driver is outside, Darke leads the kids into the car and they drive off.

He sends Jessica a text, wondering what she was up to:

Hey babe. Got any plans today?

She texts back within a few seconds.

in a movie with some friends. text later xx

When they reach town, Drake tells the driver to stop, and that they could walk the rest of the way to the ice cream store. The driver says that he won’t move from this spot, and the kids lead Drake down the street.

He stops in his tracks when the kids halt in front of a bakery.

“Can we get cupcakes instead?” Eleanor asks.

“You sure?” Drake looks down at Gabriel.

“Please,” the boy says.

Drake shrugs and follows the kids into the store, the smell of freshly baked bread surrounding him. The kids walk towards the display cases, discussing what they wanted.

More and more people walk into the bakery, pushing towards the counter to get their orders. Drake pulls out his phone, wondering if Jessica was free yet. He taps Gabriel on the shoulder and tells them that he would be stepping out, but would keep an eye on them.

Outside the bakery, he watches Gabe and Ella poking at cakes and cookies that caught their eyes. He sees his own reflection in the display window, along with cars and buses on the street behind him. Drake dials Jessica’s number again and brings it to his ear, wanting to figure out if she was out of the movie theater yet.

But just as it was clicking towards voicemail, he notices a deep green sweater in the reflection, sharply contrasting with the pinkish colors of goods in the bakery. In disbelief, Drake turns.

It was Jessica, head down, in a green sweater, huddled arm in arm and whispering with a man Drake recognized — he hadn’t seen the man in what felt like forever, but Drake knew him instantly.

Boris wore the same coat from the day of the Derby. His hair is slightly ruffled, and he has a bag looped over his arm. But the astonishing part was Jessica, who always held Drake’s hand at a slight distance — tugging him along behind her, swinging her arm childishly — was nestled deep and sorrowfully into Boris’ side.

They were waiting for the light, the bus whooshed past. They were too wrapped up in each other to notice Drake.

Boris, who was talking to her quietly, tousled her hair and then turned and pulled her to him and kissed her, a kiss she returned with more tenderness than any kiss she’d ever given Drake.

They were crossing the street. Quickly, Drake turned away. He could see them perfectly well in the window of the bakery. They stopped suddenly, only a few feet away from him.

Jessica was upset. She was talking quietly, in a low voice overflowing with emotion, leaning into Boris wish her cheek pressed against his sleeve as he reached around lovingly to squeeze her arm.

Though Drake couldn’t make out what she was saying, the tone of her voice was too clear. Even in her sadness, her joy in this man — and his joy in her — was undeniable. Any stranger on the street could have recognized it.

As they glided past Drake — looking like two affectionate ghosts in the display window — he saw her reach up to quickly dash a tear from her cheek. Drake found himself blinking in astonishment at the sight: for the first time ever, Jessica was crying.

#trr fanfic #trr drake x oc #drake walker #trr au fanfic #cordonia #liam x mc #the royal romance #the royal romance fanfic #trh

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elizabeethan · 3 years

Note

14!

Hanging Up Mistletoe

This took a turn... so enjoy some smutty crack on this lovely Monday afternoon

Takes place in the My Hands, Your Hands universe!

Send me a Holiday Prompt!

Killian won’t stop humming It’s Beginning To Look A Lot Like Christmas.

It’s been eight weeks since their first date, just one night after their first kiss, and everything has been perfect. She’s never been so happy, day in and day out, and Killian has been a wonderful and respectful partner to her. The only problem is that they still haven’t told their friends, and he won’t stop humming.

“Did you know Michael Buble covered this song, Swan?” He asked her as he messed with a piece of tape, and she rolled her eyes.

It’s not as if they’re trying to keep it a secret. Both of them have been in relationships that have ended badly, and they agreed that it might be nice to keep things to themselves for the first little while, but they weren’t purposely not telling anyone. It’s just that no one has asked.

They all celebrated Thanksgiving together in the loft a few weeks ago and still no one noticed. It isn’t like Killian’s being shy with the way he flirts with her, and she certainly isn’t shy about returning it, but no one seems to give them a second glance. Perhaps that’s why they’ve gotten so comfortable with publicly and excessively flirting with each other and then sneaking off to bump uglies in his bedroom.

Perhaps that’s why hanging the mistletoe in the living room has led to Emma waiting for him in his room wearing nothing but her festive apron.

She sneaks across the hall into his room almost every night. Some nights it’s not for sex, but most nights it is. It’s just that he’s really good at it. She tries to brush from her mind the amount of practice he may or may not have had throughout his life, because she honestly doesn't care. Whatever it took for him to get like that is good enough for her.

She sees that her text has been read, then hears a slight commotion outside the door before it swings open much too quickly and she’s met with her grinning, already-slightly-hard boyfriend. She giggles. “That didn’t take long,” she says playfully.

“Well, when I get a distress call from a fair maiden, I’m on the spot.”

“I’m not distressed.”

“No? I thought you needed help with untying these…” he says, suggestively trailing his fingers along the bow tied at the front of the apron, just under her breasts. “Isn’t that what the photo you sent me was supposed to convey?”

She hums out a giggle again, tugging on the collar of his shirt and dragging him onto the bed on top of her. “I needed help hanging some more mistletoe,” she mumbles between kisses, “in here.”

“Over this?” He asks, pressing a kiss to the side of her breast exposed to the chilly air. “Or perhaps we should hang it a bit… lower…”

He trails his fingers down the front of the apron, tugging the bow undone and letting the ties fall to her side. “How low?” She asks breathlessly as he drags his mouth down, down, down.

He hums a throaty laugh into her skin and it makes her shiver. She lets her eyes slip closed as he drags his hand up her thigh, stopping to squeeze her ass firmly then moving swiftly to bury his head under the fabric of the apron and nip at her exposed flesh. She doesn’t hesitate to lift her knees, opening herself up to him easily and planting her heels on his back as he dives in with little preamble.

Did she mention that he’s good at this?

So good, in fact, that she has to grab his pillow and shove it over her own face to keep from shouting and alerting the others of their activities as he dives two fingers into her and curls them just right.

The only thing keeping the apron from falling off of her is the straps tied around her neck, and she’s about to tug them open so that she can remove it and see his dark hair between her legs, moving her hand from the pillow to behind her neck, when the door flies open.

“Killian, have you seen Em— ooooh, shit.” He stills under the apron. Emma stills under the pillow. She pushes it harder to her face in hopes that it suffocates her so that she doesn't have to face Ruby. “I see. I won’t tell her I saw you and… whoever this is,” she says pointedly, aggressively, and slams the door.

He hums in thought against her sensitive clit and she squeezes her thighs around his head. “Dammit, Killian,” she says exasperatedly. She expects him to stop and to pop his cocky face up from between her thighs, but he doesn't. She tosses the pillow aside so that she can look down at him, though he’s still hiding below the apron as he continues his ministrations against her. “You should,” she starts, but she can’t finish. Well, actually she can, and she likely will if he doesn't stop, but he really should stop, shouldn’t he?

He doesn't stop. He continues to curl his thick fingers against her just so, sucking and nipping at her clit until she’s putty in his hands. She presses her heels harder into his back to hold him in place, begging him not to move from exactly the spot that he’s in, then shoves the apron away so that she can grip his hair. “Fuck,” she breathes out. “Don’t sto—” He doesn’t stop until she’s seeing stars. Or maybe they’re silver bells. Whatever.

He laughs lightly as he crawls up her body, sucking on his fingers and licking his lips because he absolutely wants to drive her completely insane. When he reaches her head, he presses a soft kiss to her lips and runs his weakened left hand along the side of her face as best he can. “How the hell did she not know it was you?”

“Because I had my face shoved into a pillow to keep quiet.”

He laughs again, kissing her temple as he settles next to her and drapes his arm over the waist. “Well, it didn’t work very well in the end there.”

“I didn’t notice.”

“I’m sure the others did, love.”

She shrugs, snuggling into his side and biting against his collarbone. “Maybe we should go out there. Although I did lose my clothes, and I’m pretty sure Ruby’s probably waiting in my room.”

“You lost them, did you? Is that what’s happened here, you minx?” She giggles softly against his chest, the breath coming from her nose moving the hair just slightly. “Are you alright with them knowing?”

“Yeah. Are you?”

“Yeah.”

~~~~

Ruby isn’t waiting in her room, so she’s able to safely get dressed and join the small party after applying a bit of concealer to the side of her neck. Killian isn’t there, but she assumes that he’ll be on his way.

“There you are, sweetie,” Mary Margaret says as she re-enters and is tugged into the kitchen. “Ruby and I need to talk to you.”

“Emma!” Ruby calls once she’s in the kitchen, and she rushes over to her friend and takes her hands. “You okay?”

“Fine, why?”

Ruby sighs and Mary Margaret runs a hand comfortingly up Emma’s arm. Emma smirks slightly but holds it together as Ruby says, “I don’t want you to freak out, but I just walked in on Killian and the girl he’s been boning. I’m so sorry.”

“Ruby—”

“We really didn’t want you to find out like this, Emma. We know you’ve had feelings for him and you’ve seemed so happy lately, but he’s been sleeping around with some woman. David and Will say they hear them almost every night.”

They both look so concerned for their friend, and Emma finds it sweet aside from the fact that they’re completely off base. “It’s alright,” she says with a soft smile.

“No it isn’t, it’s completely insensitive. That’s why we sent David in to talk to him.”

Emma laughs and shakes her head as she makes her way to the fridge for some eggnog. “I’m sure that’s not necessary.”

“We just want what’s best for you, Emma. Ruby told me about a few weeks ago when you almost kissed, and if the two of you didn’t work out, that’s fine, but he shouldn’t be rubbing it in your face.”

“I think I’m the one rubbing it in his face,” she deadpans, and Ruby scrunches her thick, perfect brows together in confusion.

“What, the fact that you’re single?”

She laughs, then hears David’s booming voice coming from down the hall as he makes his way towards the living area and she knows that he’s pissed.

“Would it kill you to take this seriously, Jones? This is my sister we’re talking about here.”

“Aye, mate, I’m well aware. I believe I’m taking things very seriously.”

“Then at least have the decency to be discreet!” He shouts.

“David,” Emma tries.

“No, Emma, I’m tired of Killian being a huge asshole to you and having no regard for how you might be feeling. It’s not a secret how you felt that night the last time we played that stupid game.”

“I know it isn’t.”

“So don’t you want him to quit flaunting his new fling when he knows you live across the hall?”

“David, I’m his new fling.”

His face falls. He goes from angry to irate in a matter of seconds as he absorbs Emma’s meaning, turning slowly towards her with his eyes the size of saucers then back around to Killian. “My sister?!”

“Mate—”

“Don’t you mate me! You think you can get away with defiling my sister? My best friend and my sister?!”

“David, honey, just calm down,” Mary Margaret says, making her way around the counter.

“My best friend and my sister!”

“David, he isn’t defiling me! We’ve been dating for two months!”

He freezes. He turns back towards her and she can see the red flush fading as he seems to relax. “Dating?”

“Yes, dating. Like, we’re in a relationship.”

He turns towards Killian again, who looks to Emma and grins. “Relationship?”

“Aye, mate.”

“My best friend and my sister…” he says, as if trying it on for size now, rather than using it as an excuse for second degree murder.

“Right. Dating.”

“You two are dating?” Ruby asks from behind her, and she spins around and smirks.

“Yep.”

“So earlier… when I busted into Killian’s room…”

“Yeah, thanks for that.”

“Oh my god…”

“You guys need to learn to keep it down, then, bloody hell,” Will says from the couch.

Christmas goes off without another hitch.

They try really, really hard to keep it down later on when they pick up where they left off, honest.

Some things just don’t always go to plan.

~~~~

#ask #anon #writing prompts #holidays prompts #smut #cs smut #sorta #captain swan #my writing #my hands your hands #mhyh #my hands your hands ff

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gottawriteanegoortwo · 3 years

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Wilford Warfstache - A Personification of Death

Inspired by my obsession with the Hades game, I found myself watching William’s story in the WKM series in a different light. An idea crossed my mind - what if he was somehow connected to Thanatos, the Greek personification of death? This is my attempt to come up with a tale about it, complete with some cheesiness that would work in the context of a myth.

TW war (story discussion about William’s time in the war), death (discussed frequently), alcohol (mentioned in passing, but alludes briefly to using it to ‘help’)

Word Count: 4,242 (hence the much needed read-more. Enjoy the wall of text!)

In modern times, there are often tales of gods who parent children and abandon them to fend for themselves without the support of influential or important figures to help provide guidance for the young demi-god who is thrust into unfamiliar territory.

This isn’t a tale quite like that, for the ‘father’ never realised until it was too late to reach out. Otherwise, Thanatos would have been there all the way. Who can naturally embrace death when it becomes so normal in their life? But worse, how can one expect to approach a mother when she had never met him? Now, don’t take that the wrong way. Thanatos would never consider doing something immoral with any human. Thantao’s ‘parenthood’ is wholly indirect.

An ill man had died in his sleep, and Thanatos knew he was the one to collect the soul and bring it safely to the Underworld. The soul rose in the form of a pale blue wisp and drifted toward the figure cloaked in black in the search for comfort. At that, the door was opened by a young lady in the first trimester of pregnancy, the man’s sister. Though she could not see them, she locked eyes with Thanatos before he disappeared into smoke. However, a single black feather had come loose and fluttered to rest beside the man’s head, allowing it to become visible to the mortal eye. The lady, taking this as a sign that her brother was still with them even in death, kept the feather.

It was woven into a necklace she wore every day. It brought a sense of peace she didn’t understand, but could explain as her brother keeping her company like he promised. But it had a second effect. The magic imbued within the feather began affecting the baby she was carrying, giving him a divine connection that would otherwise never have existed.

When William J. Barnum was born, any onlooker would assume his only connection to death was simply through him being named after his deceased uncle. But to anyone who could sense the extraordinary, they would gather the clues and notice a pattern.

As a child, William was drawn to death. He would find abandoned, injured animals in gardens and parks and keep them company until they passed. He held a quiet curiosity about the topic, often asking about it when it appeared in childhood storybooks, questioning why adults were so keen to avoid talking about it. For him, it was something he found comfort in. When others were grieving, William was able to reassure them that no matter what, their loved one was okay. Like Thanatos, the one who gave him this mysterious connection to death, William’s energy was gentle like light ripples in the calm lake. He helped those that were dying accept their fate and face it feeling at ease, and provided a foundation for those left behind to feel comfort despite their grief. Death was no monster, he believed. It would never actively take lives for fun. Perhaps that was what drew him to Celine and Damien when they were children. Their family connection to witchcraft and communication with the dead (even if it was something neither twin touched on) was something that gave William a sense of familiarity, if one were to look beyond the surface.

As a teenager, this interest in death stayed. He had asked around and had managed to secure an apprenticeship with a local undertaker when he finished school. He was a natural. His calm, methodical approach was grounding when those around him were hurting. His voice was always low and polite, and he even offered hugs to those who needed reassurance. The only thing that stopped him was the war. He hadn’t fully qualified, but he knew he needed to help his country and protect those he cared about. Though he was barely an adult, William enlisted and promised his friends that he would be the only one of the four to have direct involvement with the war.

When there, he was faced with more death than he had ever seen, and how it made his stomach turn. It was loud. Invasive. Impersonal. It drove him to work harder, do everything he could to keep the soldiers he fought with safe. He learned tactics, organised routines, found ways to help keep morale boosted, argued with superiors over their poor opinions in seeing troops as ‘disposable’. It was no surprise that he became one of the youngest Colonels in modern history. He showed wisdom beyond his ages, and a keen sense of observation. He could bring a sense of calm when his men were stressed with the constant reminders of death and pain, and some would later go on to write in diaries and memoirs how William was able to help badly injured soldiers embrace death and pass in a more peaceful state of mind than they might have otherwise. But with others, he would will them on, encourage them to fight and win, and they would.

One winter’s day, when there was an ‘up and over’ order given, William and his troops were keeping the enemies at bay and refusing to lose ground. Something caught his attention, or rather, someone. A man dressed in shining armour and wearing a helmet with a plume of red feathers raised a sword high into the air, which coincided with a sudden rise in violence and bloodthirsty behaviour from the soldiers. Only William seemed to be immune to this, instead briefly distracted by the unusual sight. The man in armour turned his head, and the pair locked eyes. Even with the distance between them, William could see the look of realisation on the stranger’s face before he disappeared into thin air.

In the weeks that followed, rumours began circulating of seeing a man walking along the barren wasteland between the warring trenches late at night. Those that claimed to see him described him as wearing a long black cloak that matched the large wings sprouting from his back. The man appeared to be searching for something, but didn’t seem to notice any onlookers. If the rumour was passed to others, they would discover a trail of red poppies in the area the cloaked figure was spotted, and sometimes a black feather would be found. Troops believed it was the Grim Reaper himself coming to inspect the damage when the dust settled, but William felt it was something more. Was he connected to the armoured soldier William saw? Not only that, the black feathers resembled the one that was woven into William’s necklace (but felt colder, somehow). Unfortunately, he never caught a glimpse of the supposed Grim Reaper.

---

The Colonel earned his reputation of becoming rather eccentric, and it was put under the simple explanation of “war”. But it was more than that. It was being surrounded by a type of death that was foreign to him. He was the unknowing son of the being associated with peaceful death. Despite his best efforts to keep some sort of calmness, the sheer chaos of it all was too much for him. The sudden, violent losses were heavy and weighed down on his heart. It was suffocating. He should have been able to do more. He should have been able to help them. He managed to get his men home with no one dying for the final six months of the war, but it wasn’t enough.

He tried to resume his apprenticeship after the war, but both he and the undertaker agreed he needed a break from death and to learn to appreciate life again. It was both a good and a bad solution. Good in that it helped him recover from whatever injuries - physical and emotional - he endured in his years away.

Bad in that it gave him too much time to think when he wasn’t in the barracks.

He grew up surrounded by death. Excluding the war, he had witnessed far more death than someone his age should have, when his fairly quiet and untroubled upbringing was taken into account. In a way, it almost followed him, or did he follow it? Was he cursed? Death brought about loss, and he had experienced a lot of that in his fairly short life.

All this only encouraged William to embrace the here and now. Life was short, why waste a moment of it? Life needed some madness, otherwise you would regret it when you found yourself lying on your deathbed. Beyond his childhood friends, he kept a distance from everyone else. If he was cursed with death because of the war, he would run the risk of someone dying because they got to know him.

Alcohol helped. For little periods of time, he was able to not think about whatever was plaguing him and enjoy life like he used to. But he had to be careful. William didn’t need to look far to see what a mess a man could become if he relied on alcohol as his only source of joy. No, that was eventually found in Celine… And we know how the story goes.

---

Mark died by William’s hand in a round of Russian Roulette, but the Colonel couldn’t find it in himself to care. The two who were once as close as brothers barely acknowledged the other without an argument breaking out. One of them would have died that night. There was regret in what was done, but William was never one to mourn openly like Damien did. Perhaps that was why they argued in the theatre. It had been years since they both knew someone who had died. Had Damien forgotten that William didn’t cry or openly mourn? Had William neglected to consider that a sudden death would shake the gentle mayor to his core? Words were snapped, and William made the decision to avoid Damien until it was all over.

As the day dragged on, William decided to join in on the ‘game’ that seemed to play out before him. Pulling the Mayor’s friend outside to give an indirect confession, firing his gun indoors to deliberately wind up the detective… Trusting Celine.

When Celine arrived, he didn’t know it would be the start of a chain reaction that resulted in him losing everything. Celine and Damien disappeared. No body, no sign of life. That was the first time since the war that he felt true heartbreak. He had promised to protect them both, and he failed. He didn’t care that the detective was shot, but the poor district attorney should never have been wrapped up in the mess. They never deserved such a horrid death.

It was why William was by their side all night. He spoke gently to them, hoping that they would be alright until he felt the pulse in their wrist die out and their hand freeze. They were the only truly innocent soul in all of this, even he knew that. But what could he do about it now? Everyone that stayed was dead, except for him. Once again, he was surrounded by death, and yet escaped. No matter what he did, the cold hand of the Grim Reaper never reached for him… Unless it was because he was hidden, cloaked under the protection of the black feather necklace. It held a feather found upon death. It might be hiding him from the death he might deserve. He unclipped it and carefully placed it around the attorney’s broken neck. Maybe it would give them guidance to a peaceful afterlife.

Imagine his horror when instead, they rose to their feet as morning broke.

This was no homo necrosis, nor the more intelligent variant homo sapien zombifius. They were alive, right before his eyes! They struggled to rise to their feet and looked around, confused as though they were merely hungover. Their head turned effortlessly to take in the surroundings. That neck was definitely injured, William had checked it! But as he watched, he found the attorney being someone he knew and a complete stranger at the same time, like their face didn’t entirely belong to them. He didn’t dwell on it. In panic, fear, desperation, William clung to the extreme idea that maybe, just maybe, Damien and Celine were still alive. He’d pretend it was a joke, he’d slap them on the back and congratulate them for giving him quite a fright and getting even after all the pranks he himself pulled over the years. Just let them be alive and okay!

No matter how hard he searched, no matter how loud he shouted, neither twin appeared, Never would they come out of hiding. But it was okay! William was okay! Let bygones be bygones. They could all still be friends. He’d forget about this elaborate death prank.

...

It turned out that it wasn’t the only thing he forgot, but I’m sure you know about that already. This isn’t a story documenting the gradual descent to madness: the alias hopping, the loss of original identity; but rather one about death.

---

Perhaps now is a good time to reveal an important piece of information - death is represented by many beings, not just Thanatos. Many cultures depict an individual who bears the important task of guiding the living to an afterlife. These are all true, but there are more. In recent times, as the population globally has grown, so too has the demand. In America, where William grew up, there is what can be considered a ‘family’ of death. With guidance from Santa Muerte, younger figures from all walks of life with a common link with various aspects of death were found as humans and nurtured to allow their abilities to guide flourish in the Americas. It was only as they noticed a bottleneck of death in a city suburb in North America did they discover that they had a brother whose presence was so gentle, he slipped through the cracks. All it took was the discovery of a discarded necklace outside a derelict manor for Santa Muerte to recognise where the lost child of the family went, and which personification of death gave them their powers.

Thanatos was there within the hour. The moment the black feather necklace was placed in his hand, he could feel the comforting energy that was like his, but was so distinctly not.

“His name was William,” Thanatos murmured, closing his eyes to let the energy tell him the story of the human who became a kin of death. “He was the personification of the acceptance of death. If war had not broken out earlier in the century, he would have lived a humble life as an undertaker who would bring comfort and calm to those dying.”

“ ‘Was’?” one of the younger deaths repeated in a whisper. Thanatos nodded.

“He died, in a way. Without guidance, the war made him think it was a curse that death followed him.” Some of the younger beings nodded in sympathy. They knew how it felt when they were alone. “Something happened and… he cracked. I need to go to him.”

The plan was simple. Thanatos would be accompanied by several younger entities, but only he would enter. The rest would reclaim the souls that were trapped inside. The facade of the building was a disco, but it could be a trap. If there was a bottleneck where souls of the deceased were unable to pass, it could only mean bad news. William could have turned into an angry, vengeful representation of death, using the souls to fuel his power and cause unknown chaos. For the safety of the humans living in the area, William needed to be dealt with, and his ‘father in death’ was the only one who might be able to calm him down. Thanatos took a slow breath to brace himself, let his wings briefly disappear, and entered the disco.

---

A hand shielded his eyes to allow them time to adjust to the brightness. Slowly, Thanatos lowered it as he examined his surroundings. There was no mania, no anger. It was precisely as it seemed to be - a disco. The mood was jovial as the crowds danced. They were completely lost in the music, and Thanatos had to wonder how long some of them had danced for. As he made his way through the crowd, he noticed a clock over the bar. It worked, but the minute hand never moved when the seconds hand completed its cycle. Were they caught in a solitary moment in time? It would explain how the dancers never stopped for a breather. The song reached the big finale and finished with a spectacle. Thanatos lifted a hand and waved it in the direction of the band. To his relief, the members exchanged looks and decided that yes, a break was needed. They put their instruments down and hopped off the stage. As they did, the dancers began to follow. Thanatos stepped back to try and find the one person who didn’t react to the mob mentality of walking out. Sure enough, he spotted William. In the far corner, he had been finishing a chat with a still-living man in a black leather jacket. Even from here, Thanatos could sense the death clinging on him. Unlike William, the other’s presence of death was latched on the man. He was a soul that was cursed with witnessing the deaths of loved ones over and over. What being decided to leave such a foul mark on that man or his family? It was not something Thanatos could help with, but maybe one of the younger beings might be able to help that poor, tormented soul.

The host of the party turned, blinking in confusion to see someone still there. He said something to the other man, who nodded and made his way out.

"Thought ya woulda gone outside with everyone else," he gestured to the entrance, hand holding a martini glass that wasn't there seconds earlier. Thanatos shook his head.

"I was actually hoping to talk to you. I found -"

"Y'know, I don't think I've seen ya before. New ta th' disco, eh? I'll never miss a chance ta talk ta someone new. Wilford Motherloving Warfstache, a pleasure ta meetcha!" A free hand was boldly offered to Thanatos. Confused, he shook it.

"Wait… Wilford? But I thought your name was -" Thanatos was interrupted again, this time by Wilford tutting and pressing a finger against the other's lips.

"Ya got talkin' ta that detective, yeah? He knows me by a lotta names. But I like Wilford the best." He took a sip from his glass, an act that was interrupted by Thanatos dangling the necklace in the air. "Where'd ya get that?"

"I found it on my way in. Does it belong to you?" Wilford nodded, only to shake his head. Then, after a moment, his face scrunched up in confusion.

"I… I wanna say I've never seen it, but I feel like I’ve been reunited with somethin' precious…" Slowly, Wilford reached out to take the necklace into his own hand. Thanatos noticed how recognition lit up Wilford's face the moment he touched it.

"This is mine. Had it as long as I could remember. I think it was passed down ta me. Can't say fer sure, memories have been a bit funny fer me." His thumb gently brushed against the feather as his eyes lifted to the stranger. Something clicked, and he froze for several long seconds.

"This… this feather is yers, ain't it? Who are ya? What's going on?"

"I am Thanatos, one of the personifications of Death." A hand was placed on his chest to give a half-bow to Wilford. "And I believe you are one as well."

A silence fell on the pair. Wilford stared blankly at his drink, swirling it around for several seconds.

"Someone spiked my drink," he eventually grumbled, putting the glass on the stage. "I'm hearin' things. Death isn't real."

"It's as real as the necklace you hold."

"Ya don't understand. Of course ya don't. People don't stay dead. They get knocked out fer a while an' then they wake again." He raised the necklace to eye level, gears slowly turning in his foggy mind. "I've seen people die an' get right back up after a few hours. I've spoken ta people who oughta be dead. I've shot people, an' they come back ta find me, like Abe!" All the while, Thanatos was silent. It might have sounded like the ramblings of a madman to deny such a certainty exists, but every word was grounded with experience, with personal fact. "I'm sure yer tryin' ta be nice but… I don't believe in death. Not anymore."

"Then how did you know the feather was mine?"

"I can see yer wings."

"My wings are currently invisible to all but those who are Death."

"Bullshit."

"I've never been here before, so why did no one else stop to ask me about my wings?"

"Ya really think that's gonna bother anyone?"

"I was caught in the middle of a crowd packed together, and not one complained about wings being in the way." Thanatos rolled his shoulders, allowing the black wings spread to their full span before folding in neatly. "Even like this, they would be in the way of a crowd."

"But -"

"Wilford." Thanatos cut through whatever ramble Wilford attempted to start. "How long have you kept these people here for?" Wilford's eyes widened, before his head lowered in guilt.

"They were sufferin' with their problems an’ their struggles. I brought 'em in here so they could be happy. None of 'em deserved this." Wilford gestured around them. "It ain't much, but here, they can be happy, they can have fun. Nothin' hurts here. What's wrong with that?" Thanatos sighed at the innocent question, muttering something about 'another Dionysus' under his breath.

"You might not believe in death… but they do. We aren't supposed to play with lives like they are toys. We help guide them to their afterlife."

"Whoa whoa, time out fer a sec!" Wilford make a 'T' with his hands. "What's all this 'we' talk? I'm just a guy who runs a disco."

"Like I said, you're a personification of Death, just like I am. You've lost your way."

"I think I'd remember bein' some sorta skeletal guy with a scythe, thanks very much." A pause. "Do I have a scythe? That'd be cool ta swing an'-"

"You don't have a scythe. Your role is to help others find death -"

"Which I don't believe in."

"- to help them accept it. That's what you used to do. Do you remember wanting to be an undertaker?" The question hung in the air for several seconds, allowing Thanatos to realise that Wilford wasn't kidding when he said his memory was poor. "You're a good man, Wilford. Have you helped someone who might have been, say, confused lately?"

Wilford turned his head to the entrance. "Abe." One word, one name.

"And what was wrong?"

"He… he was lost in a moment. Hunting me for so long for something I did… He thinks he knows everything, but it fell apart the moment I asked questions that went just below the surface." Lost in thought, his accent sharpened to something more dignified. "No one can survive a bullet to the chest. But he did. But the others -" With wide eyes, Wilford looked back at Thanatos. "They're dead. All of them. I only wanted to help them be happy and have fun. That's not wrong, is it? Am I in trouble?"

"You're not in trouble. You didn't know. But now, they can be brought to the afterlife that suits their upbringing and beliefs - Wilford!" Thanatos hurried after Wilford, who had bolted to the entrance without warning.

"Abe!!"

The cry echoed in the empty car lot. Wilford was alone. He slumped on the top step, pulling his knees to his chest like a child. Not even the cold hand of Thanatos stirred him.

"Abe… Was that the man you spoke to?" Thanatos asked. Wilford nodded into his knees. "I don't know where he is now, but he is still alive. Close your eyes and hold the necklace tight. Can you sense him?" There was a slight shuffle as Wilford followed the instructions. A noise that could have been a content sigh or a relieved sob escaped.

"He's okay…"

"He needs time to heal. I know your paths will cross again one day, but you can't stay here waiting for him. Let's bring you somewhere where you can get a warm drink and a change of clothes. What do you say?"

Wiford has always been one to go with the flow of whatever might be happening at the time. This wouldn't be any different.

"So how does this work? Me bein' some sorta Death, but not believin' in death, an' even killin' some folks?" Thanatos gave a soft smile as he sat beside Wilford.

"Have you considered that you might be the side of death that gives the recently deceased extra time to process their own death before they are collected?"

"But can Death kill people?"

"No, no they shouldn't," Thanatos chuckled. “But we can work on that problem in time.”

A silence fell as the pair sat on the steps. There was a long road ahead of them. Thanatos knew that Wilford would never be ‘okay’, but Wilford wouldn’t be alone with this. Not anymore.

#writersofmark #wilford warfstache #who killed markiplier #wilford motherloving warfstache #william j barnum #Rose Petals (Wilford)

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slversoul · 3 years

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* mia goth, cis female + she/her | you know cecilia rutherford, right? they’re twenty-four, and they’ve lived in irving for, like, three hours? well, their spotify wrapped says they listened to summer wine by nancy sinatra and lee hazlewood like, a million times this year, which makes sense ‘cause they’ve got that whole strap of a silk slip falling down her shoulder, sitting on a sailboat and smoking, soft smile hiding shark teeth thing going on. i just checked and their birthday is june 1, so they’re a gemini, which is unsurprising, all things considered. ( cornelia )

death tw, gaslighting tw, animal death tw, murder tw, attempted murder tw

born at 12:02 am on june 1, three minutes after her twin brother, making her younger — a fact cecil never let her forget.

the twins shared one name. one head. two hands. two feet. one heart. it was impossible to tell them apart as small children, everyone assuming they were identical twins with their matching haircuts and outfits.

their parents had met when their father was shooting a movie in brazil, sweeping their mother off her feet, and bringing her to connecticut where they were married within three months. only four years later she was moving to italy to live with her young lover.

back and forth the twins moved between their father’s home and their mother’s home. the constant shuffling around led them to be homeschooled in their youth. all the better for them. the twins ran through the large houses, barefoot, with laughter filling the corridors behind them.

it wasn’t that their parents didn’t love them, but they had other things to preoccupy their time. cecil and cecilia only had each other.

when they turned 11, they were enrolled in a middle school, settling in with their father full time during the school year. the other kids might not have known them, but they certainly recognized their last name. despite their lack of early socialization, they made friends quickly. calm and easy to converse with, they were respected among their peers.

(attempted murder tw) the first incident happened when they were 12. with their friend over and their father gone, the three of them were swimming in the pool. their friend, wanting to show off, dived into the pool. in the blink of an eye, cecilia watched red bloom from him, seeping slowly into the surrounding pool water. she wanted to run and find the housekeeper, wanted to call 911. do something. do anything. cecil held his hand up, stopping her in his tracks. his eyes were on their friend floating face down in the pool, and her eyes were on him, searching for anything buried in his cold, dark eyes. as the seconds ticked by, he finally lowered his hand, and cecilia ran screaming into the house. the friend lived, but from then on, there seemed to be a separation between the twins and the rest of the world.

they skipped eighth grade, too smart for any of the silly assignments their teachers had for them that year. they played tennis and golf and even learned to sail. all activities they could do together. all activities their parents had wanted them to learn on their own.

(animal death tw) it was their trips to italy that got them interested in architecture and history and classics. places they could explore first hand, reconstructing history with nothing more than their imaginations. one night, they snuck out of their mother’s villa and stole three chickens from a neighboring farm. deep into the woods they went until they came across the smooth stone. it was cecil that butchered them, but this time, cecilia’s eyes were cold as she watched the blood spill down the stone and seep into the forest floor. the gods were appeased cecil had said.

every time a friend encouraged cecilia to step away from cecil, the friendship ended shortly after. he was her older brother. he knew the ways of the world and was helping lead her through it. she went on dates but she never dated, preferring to limit her company. perhaps that’s why everyone clamored to be around her, and even fought for cecil’s attention. they didn’t walk, they floated, in a reality of their own making. a secret universe that no one else got a glimpse of. but their classmates and their teammates and their neighbors needed to know what made them so different from everyone else, blinding them to the coldness the twins wrapped themselves in like a large quilt.

off they went to college, both of them double majoring in classics and history with a minor in latin.

the tipping point came when they were placed in different recitations for some general lecture. they demanded their parents try to convince the dean to place them in the same one, and the parents insisted they tried their hardest, but in reality, they were happy to see the twins apart. it was there that she made friends. friends who didn’t know her brother, and didn’t care to know him. it started with study group without cecil, but it grew bigger and bigger, until slowly, she became cecilia rutherford and not cecil’s sister.

of course, he didn’t take this news well. he was sick every month, needing cecilia to nurse him back to health. or he wanted to do a family dinner the same night she was supposed to go out. she tried reconciling him and her friends, but they never seemed to get along. torn between two worlds, she was tugged back and forth, helpless in the middle.

(murder tw) bunny, siobhan, cecilia, and cecil were at the marina late at night. they were tying the boat up, having spent the whole day in the sun, still tipsy from an afternoon of drinking. a comment about one of their classes, one cecil wasn’t in, struck a nerve, and he launched into a tiraid. a move to grab cecilia, resulted in him being pushed away, slipping and falling over the pier and hitting his head on the boat before he landed in the water with a splash. nobody made a move to call for help. a relief really. he had been but a stone, trying to drag everyone down to whatever sad pit of despair he lived in. it was a secret that they would take to the grave, binding them together.

they stayed close throughout college, drifting away as they graduated. cecilia moved from pursuit to pursuit, treating everything as if it was some kind of game rather than a career. she even tried her hand at writing a novel, growing bored after only ten chapters in. she had more fun laying around on the yacht of whoever she was seeing at the moment.

her brother’s death hardly left a mark on the family. they cried together at the funeral, but they floated apart again, dealing with the grief in their own way. she never talked about it, preferring to block out his memory entirely than deal with the consequences of their actions. this proved impossible when she received a note, slipped under the door of the penthouse she was currently renting out. a note, in her deceased brother’s handwriting. you can’t get away that easily. fear left her cold, and she tracked down her old friends, packing up and moving to irving, north carolina to confront the past.

PERSONALITY

she’s friendly and charming and outgoing. she can talk to everyone and be kind to everyone, but that doesn’t mean she likes everyone. it’s all about appearances. is very good at hiding things and keeping things close to her. she’s still struggling with the loss of her brother because he was her best friend. she’s aware of his flaws, but it’s hard for her to reconcile her fairytale version of him and the truth. cecilia is super smart and pretentious and snobbish, but she’s also a bit of an airhead in that she’s not aware of how the “common person” lives. she’s very out of touch with things because she lives in the bubble of her parents’ money. she’s calm always. it always seems like nothing fazes her, and it’s all a façade. um i think i’ll add more to this later but that is all for now :)

WANTED CONNECTIONS

okay, so as she is new, like literally just moved in hours ago, she’s not really going to have recent connections. but i’m so down for doing past connections :)) maybe a love affair when they were both on vacation somewhere, or someone who she knew in the past who hates how calm she is about everything. also someone who knew her brother and either hated or loved him bt that would be fun angst bc she doesn’t talk about him anymore :) anyway, if you think our muses could have met in the past, just let me know and we can brainstorm connections :D

#irvingintro

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mwolf0epsilon · 4 years

Note

Silly prompt Idea for if you feel like it: BATIM but the monsters are chill to humans but are still unnerving; Sammy doesn't care about sacrificing people and is instead constantly trying to commit theophagy, Alice just covers the ruined half of her face with a mask instead of seeking perfection but sings songs about dismembering people anyway, the projectionist is tame and comes when you 'Pspspspspsps' at him but he also plays with corpses. etc.

Summary: Sometimes Joey liked to shake things up a bit to keep Henry on his toes, but this particular loop was probably the weirdest of them all...

---

[[MORE]]

Joey Drew was a creature of positively maddening habit. He'd demonstrated this since he was but a little child, eager to run from the church service and get grass stains on his Sunday best, ready to go on imaginary adventures with his one best friend in the whole wide world. Indeed, a day could not go by where Joey and Henry didn't play pretend in the latter's backyard.

Now as an old and bitter man in a wheelchair, the same still proved to be unfortunately true, although the setting was much different. He'd drag himself out of bed every day, completed his routine, then off he went to put his "toys" and supposed best friend through the same nightmare over and over again.

Surely doing the same old charade had to grow stale even for him, right? Well... That's why once in a blue moon, Joey tried to get a little... Creative.

Henry found that he hated those times more than being a prisoner to a never-ending loop, because the unpredictable nature of Joey's creativity was truly something out of his nightmares. Such was his dilemma now.

The first sign that all was not as it should be was the fact the pedestals that allowed the Ink Machine to be turned on, were already prepared and ready to go. Items placed in their rightful positions awaiting the flick of a switch. The second sign was the apprehensive behaviour of the demon, upon Henry triggering its first appearence in this loop. It didn't jump out at him, instead merely pulled itself out of the ink with something akin to frustration.

"You too uh?" Henry felt for the wretched creature, knowing that it was as unwilling a participant in this show as he was. He also knew that it disliked when Joey shook up the plot a bit because it often ended with it finding a more painful demise.

The Ink Demon said nothing in return, but motioned for him to go with it's uneven limbs. Different or not, the path was a linear one and Henry had to go about everything as if it were a normal run... Except it was anything but. The Music Department was proof enough of that.

He fell through the floor, had the usual visions, acquired a fire axe, and was ready to find the music director creeping about as usual. Instead, the old veteran came face to face with a religious service in full swing.

Searchers and Lost Ones, gurgling and reciting along to whatever "words of god" Sammy Lawrence was currently preaching, were sitting in makeshift booths.

Several alters set up for the Ink Demon were brimming with offerings of dolls, trinkets and cans of bacon soup. So many, many, cans of bacon soup. Brought in by the members in attendance.

Henry paused, completely taken by surprise by this... Arrangement. If anyone noticed his presence, no one seemed bothered about it. If anything, Sammy glanced once at him and merely continued his sermons, giving Henry ample time to accomplish his tasks in the music department.

As he collected the abandoned pressure valve (because Jack had apparently also gone to the "Sunday service"), Henry wondered if the mad maestro would just let him leave peacefully.

When no blow came from behind, he felt pretty satisfied with the outcome. Until he had to pass by the large gathering of ink people again, that is...

The sermons had apparently come to a close, and it was about the time church goers were to perform their theophagy ritual. Henry expected them to just eat the soup as their "body and blood of god", but of course why would any sane man think that these people who followed the ramblings of a mad Prophet, would do so much as dare a glance at an offering to their Lord?

No, Henry should have honestly known better, and he came to a complete stop as he watched the once-respectable composer push a cage full of live rats, and a bowl full of ink, into the center of the room.

"Feast now brothers and sisters, for one day this flesh will allow us to regain our own physical bodies. But let us not forget our Lord's blessings. May drinking his blood infuse us with the courage we need to commit to such ritualistic prayer."

Henry didn't stick around to watch the "feasting", but the shrill screeching of rats and wet crunching of bones followed him all the way to Buddy's safehouse, where the poor cartoon wolf looked just as disgusted and horrified as him. Fur standing on end just as Henry's own skin got goosebumps.

Thoroughly disturbed by what he'd witnessed, the old cartoonist knew to be on guard for whatever came next. While the Ink Demon seemed to just linger and let them pass, Alice Angel was still a supposed threat he needed to contend with. Joey didn't do much with her, as far as petty resentment towards Susie went, so he expected a struggle. He didn't expect a cabaret show.

There, in a room fixed up to look like a stage with Butcher Gang clones working as some sort of bar staff, stood the malicious lady herself, performing with a mask fashioned from an Alice Angel cutout's head.

The left side serving to hide her deformities, while she seductively swung her hips to the beat of a song that was certainly less cartoony and more sensual. A tango of some sort, or perhaps even jazz. Henry had a bit of a tin ear, so he couldn't really tell...

She was pretty content just singing and dancing, although her words were ones that put both he and Buddy on edge.

Sweet words that romanticized death and dismemberment, because nothing spelled angelic mercy like hearing about your innards getting torn out and used in ways he dare not speak of.

At least the whiskey was nice, likely pillaged from a couple of employees's offices.

Wherever Henry went, he found no real danger. This loop was just weird. Of course before moving onto Bendyhell to see what in God's name Joey might have done to subdue Bertrum, Alice did ask him to check up on Norman.

He'd at least hoped the Projectionist was behaving as intended... Except he wasn't. Of course he wasn't. Henry nearly backed off into the lift as soon as he realized the hulking beast was playing with the remains of its dead prey, and then nearly straight up pissed himself when that blazing light fell upon him and his lupine companion.

But then the large beast did something unexpected. It lumbered slowly towards them rather than rushing them, and then gently head-butted Henry's arm, purring like a big twisted cat of some kind.

Buddy shrugged at him when he looked over with a raised brow, before the old cartoonist sighed and gave the object-headed beast a few scratches on the "chin" and left it to its... Morbid activities. Playing with its mangled food like an actual cat...

Bendyhell in contrast, was quite pleasant. Abuzz with the cheers of Lost Ones having fun with the games and rides. Bertrum looked annoyed, but entertained his guests nonetheless. Henry Eve caught sight and waved at the dancing animatronic that ran about checking in on the Lost Ones that were having a blast. Hopefully none belonged to Sammy's church, lest poor Bertrum ended up dealing with upchucked rat remains... Best not think of that.

The encounter with Allison and Tom was postponed to the giant Ink Machine itself. They were in the Ink Demon's throne room, playing card games with it. The absolute look of boredom twisting its grin into a grimace.

"You know what, I don't even care enough to ask..." He threw up his hands in surrender and simply say down with them. "What are we playing?"

"Go fish. At the best of three, then you can end this nightmare..." Allison sighed.

"Amen to that..." He took the hand the Ink Demon shuffled for him, then joined in their game, allowing Buddy to sit down besides him to doodle away in his notebook.

If Joey was going to weird him out with his freaky jokes, at least Henry would get back at him by leaving him waiting in his stuffy old apartment.

#eps writes:#bendy and the ink machine #batim

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rideboldlyride · 4 years

Text

The Morning of the Dragon (Pt. 1)

This is all @doodleladi‘s fault. I love the art in this post of theirs. Please go look at this art... and all of their other beautiful Zutara art! Here’s AO3: Link

It’s under the break- And this is just part one of two. I can’t guarantee part two will be out before Zutara Week (I’ve got to finish those prompts first) but the second half will come soon, I promise!

She had only been in Caldera City for a few days, staying at the Palace at the Fire Lord’s particular request. It wasn’t an unusual request; it was a standing invitation to all of his old friends. In official capacity as a representative of the Southern Water Tribe, she was making her semi-annual visit to reconfirm trade agreements between her people and the Fire Nation. In an unofficial capacity, she had been written by her friend, Zuko, to help with an imminent threat of unknown form. It was rumored as an attack against the throne but no intelligence had been retrieved to give this looming threat any substance.

Finally speaking in person with him, he had seemed only mildly concerned, in contrast to the tone of his letter. When she pressured him over this he moved from his desk and paperwork without comment. Upon reaching the door, he dismissed his guard retinue before closing and latching it tightly. He had been studiously avoiding her gaze during all of this, and when he returned from the door, he sat down in the second guest chair with a rather undignified flop. A deep sigh escaped him.

“Sometimes I forget that others don’t have to play the mind games…”

A dark brow rose at his words, her blue eyes questioning. He began to absentmindedly rub his forehead directly above his scar. Golden eyes avoided her.

“Yes, Katara, I am concerned. I’m too close to some major changes in the nation. Change doesn’t always sit well with those comfortable in their positions.”

“Meaning?”

“Meaning that they’d rather my father or my sister on the throne.”

Her eyes grew wide, and she now understood his request for help. But why her? Not that she was upset, she admitted only to herself. That question wasn’t worth asking, and she was quite content to metaphorically stretch her legs again in something other than politics.

“What can I do to help?”

With that, the next two days were spent elbow deep in intelligence reports, and meeting with the Fire Lord’s Head of Intelligence, a stern faced, graying woman. From as far as they could determine, it was Azula sympathizers. As for the date and actual form of the attack, Katara was at a loss. These dissenters were a well-organized crew and tight lipped. The first sign of their existence was a misplaced pamphlet. And while some of their activities were easy to track, there were large brush strokes missing in the overall painting. By the third morning, she awoke feeling more frustrated and inexplicably drowsy rather than rested.

As she withdrew the curtains, the brilliant morning light was sharp and piercing. Her head pounded. Pulling the water from her nearby water bowl, Katara’s hands glowed as she placed them over her temples. As the pain eased, she was surprised to find that the drowsiness refused to budge. On instinct, she followed her Qi lines downwards, following a small ripple in their flow. The ripples grew into a full turbulence in her belly. Even through the fog, her mind snapped into place.

She had been drugged.

With a wave, she leeched the toxin through her skin, and flicked it out the open window. Mind finally clear, a sudden litany of observations flooded her consciousness: there was no fresh water in her bowl, no attendant at her door trying to rouse her at this late hour, no Zuko doing his morning kata in the courtyard. Dread settled in the pit of her stomach. With a mad rush, she sprinted first to the Fire Lord's office chambers.

No guards outside the door.

No Zuko inside.

Next, to the throne room, and once more, there was no guard.

Another empty room.

With bile rising into her mouth, she bolted down the hallway. In the transit, she was amazed to find no staff or guards wandering the Palace. Outside the Fire Lord's chambers, two guards sat slumped. Scorch marks and melted armor told her who had been there. However, she was mollified, in a morbid way, to see that smoke still rose from their mortal wounds. Their visitor was recent. And potentially still within.

Moving quietly to the door, she laid an ear against the wood grain. Ever so slightly, she could make out the familiar quiet but frantic female voice. A meaty thump echoed, followed by a muted groan. Katara's heartbeat pounded in her ears. She didn't need to wait any longer. Pulling water from the very humid air about her, she coiled it like an angry snake, and with it's strike it broke open the door before her.

Anger sparkled like icy crystals behind her eyes, as the waterbender took in the room. While she was certain there were others involved, the room held only Zuko and Azula; the former, bound and gagged on the floor. A mist rested over his eyes, and Katara was certain he too had been drugged.

A cackle escaped his sister's mouth, and she turned to the angry gaze of her older brother.

"Look, Zuzu! We're having a reunion!" Wild amber eyes flicked back and forth between the two. The younger woman was ready for this insurrection to end before it had truly started, but as she reached out to pin Azula to the wall, she saw the fear slip over Zuko's eyes. Katara faltered in that moment.

Azula smirked, pointing two lazy fingers at her.

"Bam."

And Katara's world went dark.

***

She awoke again, sick to her stomach. While not sure of what had hit her, she was sure it was not Azula's lightning. For one, Katara was certain that if she had been shot through with lightning, she would not have woken back up again. Secondly, the only thing that ached was her head. The pain was only exaggerated, she found, by the pressure and sway from her motion. In her addled brain, Katara felt the sea swell around her but as she reached out blindly, there was only a haze of water about her. Something held her hands in a solid clasp, and they moved together only, still drawing nothing from the ocean that must exist beyond her eyelids.

Confusion seeped through the fog enveloping her mind. How could she sway without the sea, be bound without seaweed at her joints, have her head throb without the pressure of the ocean's depths?

Sway…? Bound, pain…? Her mind was jumbled, until they crested a wave, broached. The jostle forced her eyes open, as she struggled to make sense of her last waking memory. Through pure muscle memory, her body remained limp, allowing her eyes to take in her surroundings before moving. Her joints remained loose, and as she swayed, she attempted to make sense of what she saw.

Instead of the blues and greens of the ocean, or even the inky blacks of the sea at night, she found rock and dust, cast in a flickering red glow. She swayed, not with the waves, but with a gait. Seaweed did not rest around her wrists and ankles, but rather coarse rope. And the pounding in her head, she suspected, originated more from the cause of the drizzle of blood that seeped from her hairline to one of her eyes.

The waterbender was dazed, her thoughts still a jumbled mess, but she tried to sew together the tapestry. With a sudden pop of recognition, she saw her last moment before the dark.

Azula… Zuko!

The memory of her dear friend brought the unease from her stomach to the back of her mouth, and she swallowed the acrid taste back down. It was better for her captors to think her still incapacitated, and unaware, as she gathered whatever intel she could glean from them. Through the roar of a non-existent surf, she could make out the shape of the words spoken around her, but only with intense concentration.

"... over there. I want her fully within view." It was a growling voice. Angry, dismissive, sneering. Solidly masculine.

Her current mode of transportation stopped, pulling themselves upright, before moving again. As the joint of the wall and the floor came into view she willed her body limp. Her courier was less than gentle, but she forced the pain away from her face, allowing a neutral facade to stay in place, as she was dumped unceremoniously against the wall.

Keeping her eyes closed, she focused on the rest of her senses, including the pull of the moon on her skin. She knew they must not be too far from the surface, for while it was distant, it was not unattainably muted. Maybe midday? The waterbender had not been unconscious for too long.

The floor under her felt cold but dry. Around her, past the smell of dust, a faint rancidly sweet smell permeated from every pore and crevice. At the rustle of fabric, she heard metal jangle, being dragged both across stone and something else metal. Heavy metal. Desperately, she tried to piece together the puzzle, but the only connections she could make were hardly settling her concern. A hearty thump reverberated near her, bracketed by a pained grunt.

It took all of her willpower not to open her eyes at that moment. Fear danced in her belly, for Katara was certain she knew who had made that noise. Instead, she waited until footsteps moved towards her. They stopped just shy, closer to the origin of the enclosed space's newest inhabitant.

"Here, Father. And that peasant is the one I spoke about." Azula. Her voice was high. Too high. The water tribeswoman wondered if she had stopped taking her herbs, or if the seeming taming of the young woman over the past few years had been an act all along.

Wait. Father?!

Katara's heart jumped into her throat. She had never heard Ozai's voice before but it was easy to place that scathing voice with the warped scar on Zuko's face, and she felt a bitter anger grow from her chest, down to her fingers, tingling. All she had to do, Katara knew, was reach out, and she would be able to feel his heart beat, the blood rushing through his veins. And with a snap, she could end it right there. It's what Zuko would deserve- a fresh slate wiped clean with the blood of his father. Her mind wandered to Azula- how she might actually be able to heal without the presence of Ozai…

But in that half breath, she released the tension in her body, and let the thought crash upon the rocks of her mind. It's not what Zuko would want- not what would be good for anyone. Instead, she waited and the dark wave washed over and away.

"Good." The older man purred, and she listened as a ruffle of fabric brought him closer to the ground. "I thought I told you, Zuko. Defiance would be your downfall. Consider this the push."

With a flurry of sound, she heard the footsteps retreat, along with the scraping of bare skin upon the stone. A grimace tried to cross her neutral expression, but she caught it in time. The healer knew she was going to have her work cut out for her once it was all said and done. Far enough away now from the sounds, she felt confident to open her eyes to slits.

They were in a meat locker. An old, unused one, but its original purpose was obvious. Meat hooks of various weights and sizes hung across metal grids, above. Blue eyes watched worriedly, as the older man reached for one of the stockier hooks hanging, dragging it to where his son laid discarded and bound on the floor. A growl on his lips, Ozai snatched his bound hands and caught the rope on the hook overhead, latching it into place. It was just high enough that she recognized that Zuko stood high on the ball of his feet.

Father and son stood eye to eye.

"So." Ozai began, his voice only betraying disgust at the young man before him. Katara's heart sank, as she spotted the one thing Zuko was desperately trying to hide, to tamp into the deep recesses of his expression. Fear. "You thought you could usurp my throne."

A strangled noise came from behind the young woman and Katara recognized with a pang of surprise, that Azula stood directly behind her. The thought caused an immediate reaction, so quick that she couldn't suppress it. The waterbender jolted. Evidently Zuko wasn't the only one who couldn't control the fear these two wrought.

Azula jumped upon it like a cat-wolf on its prey. Fingers with jagged, raw nails, dug into the flesh in her arm. She felt the prick of blood breaking through the surface of her skin.

The pretense was gone, and Katara turned to face Azula, fury behind the tumultuous seas in her eyes. While Zuko had been gagged, she had not, and in the moment she took advantage of it.

"I wish I had been wrong about you." Katara's words were like venom, and the noble woman's expression fell. Taking advantage of the lull, and the sudden release of pressure from her arm, the waterbender turned, and bit down hard upon the closest thing she could find. It ended up being Azula's forearm.

There was a certain level of justice she felt when she withdrew, leaving bloody teeth marks embedded in her flesh. Azula withdrew with a cry and fell back, clutching her arm. With a spin, she knocked the young noble off her feet. Reaching for her bound ankles, Katara pulled at the water around, but could barely gather enough for a small wisp of a stream.

Behind her, she heard a degrading laugh, and it lashed like a whip across her back. Defiant eyes flashed towards the prior Fire Lord.

"You." Her voice was rough, growling. "You're out of your crate."

She watched with satisfaction as her words hit home. His unblemished gaze turned in rage towards her.

"Mongrel." He sneered.

Disgust rolled through her, as she pulled at the rope coiled at her ankles, feeling it finally break free. A sound caught her attention, as Zuko released a muffled cry towards her. His eyes were wide.

Water was nearby, but too far away for her to pull to her easily, and with an unhinged disgraced princess and an infuriated ex-Fire Lord so close, the effort would be deadly. For a moment, she questioned her verbal jab, but didn’t have any real time to consider it, before she heard the crackle of fire. Rolling, legs now free, she ended back on her knee and foot, sitting low, as blue fire licked at where she had stood just a few moments prior. As much as Katara wanted to focus on Zuko, and getting him away from his father, Azula forced her attention on to her only.

Desperately, she reached again for water, but found it still inaccessible. But like a whisper in a room, she felt a tingle at her arm, now dripping with her own life force. There was another option…

***

Zuko watched the fight starting across the room from him, leaning into the heat from his sister’s fire. Straining against his binds, he had dismissed all thought of his now non-bending father, until his face swam before him. As powerless as Ozai now was compared to him, the young man was not naive enough to think he held no threat.

“This was going to be an easy transition, you ceding the throne to save your little peasant friend.” His words sneered, hinted at something more, but Zuko didn’t care. “But now, it seems we’re going to have to go about this the old fashioned way.”

A flash of light off steel, and Zuko knew what fate his father had in mind for him. Instead of watching what neared him, he tore his face away, desperate to watch for Katara’s success and survival. A hand behind his head, gripped at his hair, pulling him forward, and his father’s words were in his ear. Amber eyes refused to turn to him, but the words were as cold as the steel he felt slip through his skin.

“I should have just let you die the night you were born. You’ve been nothing but a disgrace to me.”

Zuko knew of the night he had been born, under a full moon, in the depths of winter, for he had barely breathed, and was far too cold. He had been told of how his father kept him warm for the next day, against his skin. That was when his family still had a chance of joy. Of happiness. And now… this final betrayal of his father’s love hurt more for the lack of surprise.

Abstractly, he felt the cold steel slide out of his side. The pain had yet to flare, but his knees gave way, and he sagged, all his weight now hanging from his arms. Ironically, he thought, the pain in his shoulders was worse than the one in his side. A shot of electricity from his side flared and a groan escaped him, unbidden.

Oh. He thought. Oh, there it is.

***

She danced, feet light, slowly working her way around, while the enraged princess spewed fire about. Katara's head still pounded, and it made her work hard to concentrate on through the haze. The small sliver of water she had pulled at earlier was slowly working its way through the ropes at her wrists as she twisted away from yet another geyser of flame.

A groan reached her ears, and she turned in time to see Zuko sag as a dark line grew across his abdomen, and slid effortlessly down his lines.

"No…" it wasn't a cry of anguish, a scream of rage, but rather a whisper of fear.

The distraction was all Azula needed, and she felt the heat wrap around her shoulder. A smell of scorched hair, fabric and flesh tickled her nose, as the fire blossomed on her. She rounded, fury now in her eyes, as the ropes fell away.

In her peripheral, she registered Ozai's retreat up the stairs, his prison garb flashing red, but she watched the more dangerous of the two- Azula. The action of the fight brought Katara to bear, and the wild-eyed woman now stood between her and her goal: Zuko, who's belly was becoming slick and dark in the dim light, and the skin around his eyes was becoming tight. Even still, his gaze was locked on the battle before him.

A new feeling coiled in her belly, one of warmth, certainty, when their eyes met over the head of his sister. She was familiar with the feeling- she had felt it years ago, when she had to fight her way to him across the coronation plaza. The difference now was that she was old enough and experienced enough to put a word to the feeling.

Now wasn't the time to name it though, and instead, she used it as fuel to clear her mottled brain. The tingle was back at the liquid pooling down her limp arm, since the pain of the fire rendered it temporarily useless. It wasn't water, but the flow of liquid, and intuitively, she knew that while it may be slightly more sluggish to move, bending it was fully well within her reach.

With her free hand, she pulled the blood away from her arm, and it twisted threateningly, it's shadow purple in the blue flames. Eyes narrowed, she matched the harried gaze of Zuko's sister, and dropped her tone to ice.

"You have a choice. Either you move," she dipped her head menacingly, "or I go through you, Azula."

An angry, broken cry echoed through the room, as blue fire flared from her fingertips, following the wild swing she took towards the tribeswoman. Uncontrolled and wild, Katara easily sidestepped, bringing her whip of blood around, grazing it's sharp edge against her cheek. It drew its own line of crimson. Light brown eyes filled with tears, and she stumbled for a moment.

Twisting to round again on Azula, her bloody whip (disconcertingly) growing, Katara turned onto her heel, leaned back, and softly molded the dark mass of fluid before her. Her fingertips danced hungrily at its shape, crafting something new. Standing back, one leg drawn in closer, but loosely placed before her, she eyed the other young woman. The look in Azula’s eyes was familiar, as she paced like a caged boar-hound. As she passed directly in front of the water tribeswoman, something popped behind her eyes, and the unsteady girl dropped low, knees bent and arms drawn up to her chest.

Letting loose a volley of fire balls, Katara’s dark mass of blood surged, flattening before her like a shield. Foot sliding forward, she leaned into the motion, dragging her arms, even as the smell of metallic burning reached her nose. She pulled more from the open wound in her arm to replenish the blood burnt away by the saving motion. A shift in her hands, and the free flowing blood became a circle over her head, as she swept the noble’s feet from under her. The strike of the bent material on Azula’s already wounded cheek acted like a splash of cold water, and she came up sputtering. Katara used the moment to keep her on her toes.

“What are you hoping to accomplish, Azula? Ozai’s already gone.”

“He’s gone to secure my throne!” Her dark eyes flashed, and she recovered, sending out a new spray of fire. Katara merely side stepped, gripping her wrist with the now-whip, and using it to tug her forward and off her feet.

“It didn’t sound that way to me…” A dark brow rose over a too-blue eye. “Sounded like he was warming the throne solely for himself.”

“That’s because you’re a peasant!” The girl spat back at her. “You wouldn’t understand the throne!”

There was no fire in Azula’s hand as she leaned forward again, still struggling to regain her footing. Her ragged nails were the only part that made contact with Katara’s cheek. Three new lines of crimson blossomed across her cheekbone. The blood bender merely added its contribution to the crimson pool before her.

“And I have no desire to, in the way in which you rule. Tell me, Azula,” she slid sideways again to avoid the flailing of the other fighter. She had no fire, no spark in her actions. Katara had no more fear for Azula. All of hers now waited on the other side of the room, where Zuko’s head now dropped forward loosely. “Tell me, who would you rather care for you? Rule over you? Ozai? Or… or Zuzu?”

The nickname felt like poison on her tongue, having only heard it used derogatorily. But she also knew that, once upon a time, that nickname was everything to both of them. She hoped her words might stir that memory more than before. Azula stood stock still before her for a moment, and blue eyes watched her warily.

The prior Crown Princess, however, was defeated, and not by Katara’s whip.

Slowly, a knee quivered, and then crashed to the ground, followed by the rest of the young woman’s body. The heels of her palms crushed into amber eyes. Sobs, slow and heartfelt escaped her as she crumpled onto the floor.

"...he left..." her words were full of pain, slipping between sobs, "... gone…t-took it all away… again... but Zuzu…"

Sharp nails clawed through disheveled hair. Katara sat up, recognizing the threat as now non-existent, but still moved cautiously around her. As soon as she moved away from the kneeling figure, the waterbender bolted to Zuko's side. His body hung limply from his wrists. With a twist of her hands, his binds fell away, and he slid to his knees with a loud thunk, but she caught him before he fell the rest of the way. His head slumped on to her shoulder. Panic flared in her belly, and tears sprung behind her eyes.

"Zuko? Zuko?" Fingertips slipped into his hair, trying to rock him into consciousness. "Please. Please. Don't leave me."

Desperation clawed up her throat. All the things that had sat unspoken, desires and fears, that were at the back of her brain, always at the tip of her tongue, and she couldn't do anything. There was no water, nothing she could pull to heal him. Eyes tight, tears began to trace lines down her cheeks.

Tears.

She pulled what she could: tears fallen, sweat on bare skin, condensation on the walls and steadily the water gathered at her hands and glowing, gently, she laid her fingertips on his open wound.

"Please, Zuko…" she pressed her lips into his hairline, "don't leave me. I have too much to tell you…"

***

Part One/Part Two

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gingyboo · 3 years

Text

Mirror Mirror

A/N: Again many thanks to @booglebug

Description- Soulmates existed. People knew that much. Soulmates were rare, a handful in each generation, an unexplainable phenomenon that formed a bond closer than blood and more sacred than marriage.

Bucky finds his soulmate when he needs her most. Little does he know how much she needs him too.

(Soulmate au that slots pretty much in to the MCU but with soulmates. Set after TFATWS.)

Pairing- Bucky Barnes x OFC

Warnings- Mentions of violence and guns, but its mostly fluff, drama and angst.

This is a multi chaptered fic.

Please like, comment, reblog!

prologue Chapter 1 Chapter 2 Chapter 3Chapter4Chapter 5 Chapter 6 Chapter 7 Chapter 8

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Chapter 9

Shuri led Nancy back to her lab, Nancy looked around in awe at the screens and monitors. She saw one with Bucky’s face on it, lines of data forming around the edge.

“I’m monitoring Bucky, trying to see what caused last nights relapse, but it got me thinking.” She explained leading Nancy to a chair beside her desk. “Soulmates have been around as long as anyone can remember, but no real research has been done, they tend to be quite secretive.” She said inspecting Nancy’s neck with warm fingers. “If your willing I have some theories I’d like to test.”

“What were you thinking?” Nancy asked,

“There’s some form of bio-chemical link between you and Bucky, symbiosis of sorts, I’ve seen your medical records, I know what happened to you following the blip. From what I’ve found those soulmates who were separated, well most of them didn’t make it, and their soulmates never returned.”

“And you want to test how far this link goes?” Nancy said, realising the plan.

“Exactly that.” She grinned opening a small metal box beside her. Inside was a small, round metallic device, it looked similar to the beads around her wrist only flatter. “May I?” She indicated to the back of Nancy’s neck. Nancy swept her loose hair round to her front as Shuri pressed the disk to the nape of her neck. It felt cool and weightless. “There, that’ll measure your brain activity, your vitals and the like. I’ll compare the two of you, see if there’s any consistencies.”

“That’s so cool.” Nancy remarked seeing her own picture appear on the screen next to Bucky’s, her own data starting to appear.

“It you think that’s cool, you haven’t seen anything yet.” She stood up gesturing Nancy to follow. “I was thinking about why you should have survived when the other separated soulmates died. I thought what the difference could be. The serum that runs in Bucky’s veins, it’s never run in yours, but you’re bound to him and you were born decades after he was experimented on. If I’m right about this link then I think you might have some of his capabilities.” Nancy stared at her bewildered.

“I have never had any form super strength.” She protested.

“Maybe not, but recovering, like you did, that was impressive.” Shuri insisted. She led Nancy to the training room.

“What do you need me to do?” Nancy sprung lightly from foot to foot, she’d missed her gym back in London.

“Just a few basic exercises at first, we’ll go from there.”

Shuri started her running on a treadmill built into a panel on the floor. Her heart rate was monitored as well as the impact her feet were having on the ground. She then moved her to some loose weights, measuring the nerve activity in her muscles. She led her over to some targets on the wall, passing her some throwing knives. Her aim wasn’t poor but far from perfect, Shuri kept tapping away on her screen in the corner. By the end of the session Nancy’s bones ached and her head was dizzy with exhaustion. When they returned to the lab Shuri indicated to a bed in the corner.

“Do you think you could rest in here, I’d love to take readings from your sleep state.” Nancy simply nodded, the poor sleep the previous night twinned with the exertions in the training room allowed sleep to come easily.

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“Buck we need you on your A game today,” Sam said coming to sit beside Bucky as Torres flew the jet over Europe. “We’re doing this for her.”

“I know.” Bucky said scratching his head, “I just thought this was over.”

“I know you did. This was just a relapse. Shuri will figure out what’s going on up there,” he indicated to Bucky’s temple, “And we’ll fix it.” Bucky shook his head.

“It’s not that simple he could’ve killed her Sam. I could have killed her” He almost shouted.

“No you couldn’t, don’t you see?” Sam persisted, “She stopped you, she brought you back. No Russian words, no powers, no helicopter to the head. Just her. Now I only know one other person who could do that.”

“Steve.” Bucky sighed.

“Exactly.”

“But I hurt her, how could she ever forgive me. Who wants to be with someone capable of that?”

“She’s your soulmate, you’re not capable of hurting her and she’s not capable of hating you.” Although Sam’s words were encouraging, Bucky still felt the guilt pulsing through his veins. Every time he closed his eyes her face appeared behind his lids, contorted in pain, pleading with him. He tried to focus on mission at hand, finding the dark-haired man, getting to the bottom of his pursuit of Nancy. He just had to focus. He dove into his pocket pulling out the compact mirror Nancy had given him the night before. Before it had all gone so wrong. He opened it seeing only himself staring back. He imagined her there smiling back at him. He snapped it shut again pulling out his phone to send her a text.

‘I miss you.’ He started, staring at his phone not knowing what else to say. He sent the text closing his phone and heading into the cockpit to see the sky opening up in front of them.

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“Miss Cartwright,” Shuri gently shook her awake. “There’s something I’d like you to see.” Nancy stretched out on the bed.

“Please, it’s Nancy, Just Nancy.” She protested, dragging her aching limbs out of the bed.

“Alright Nancy, look at this.” She enlarged a stream of data on the screen. “This shows your brain activity whilst sleeping, your subconscious.”

“Okay.” Nancy said following the rise and fall of the red line.

“Okay, so this is Bucky’s subconscious.” She dragged his data across to overlap Nancy’s. “Do you see the spikes here?” Nancy nodded, “it echoes the spikes in yours.”

“No, that’s not possible.” Nancy starred at the overlapping lines in amazement.

“You see the Winter Solider, he is part of Bucky’s subconscious,” Shuri explained.

“So you mean…” realisation dawned in her eyes.

“I think it’s possible something in your subconscious woke him up. And in waking him he reverted to what he knows.” Shuri continued.

“Killing.” Nancy sobbed.

“But you also managed to stop him. The winter solider stood down for you.”

“He did.” Nancy sniffed, she’d stopped him, she’d brought Bucky back.

“He did, and I think I might be able to figure out what it was that woke him to begin with, but I’ll need to do some more tests with you first. Are you up for it?” Shuri asked, excitement ablaze in her eyes.

“Could it help him, stop it from happening again, he’ll be tearing himself apart over this.”

“I think it might.”

“Then yes, whatever it takes.” Nancy said with all the conviction she possessed. “But I wonder if you could do me a favour?”

“Of course,” the Princess agreed.

“I’d like to look into the circumstances of my brother’s death, would you help me?”

“Sure.” She said smiling sympathetically. Nancy always hated other people’s pity, but she had gotten used to it. She closed her eyes.

“We can’t tell anyone what we’re doing though, please, not my father, not even Bucky, not till I know what I could be looking at.” Nancy bit her lip nervously, she hoped she was right in trusting Shuri, she knew she couldn’t find what she needed alone.

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Christopher Cartwright had been at the top of his game, fresh out of Eton, good grades, a loving family, when he’d decided to enrol at Sandhurst. He felt with everything going on in the world he had a duty to his country to serve. So, serve he did, throwing himself into military training with enthusiasm. He’d never seen his mother look as proud as the day he passed out, an officer of the Royal Navy. That night he’d partied like it was the last night on earth. After that he was fully committed, swearing his life to the military, dumping his then boyfriend, throwing away any previous ideas of joining politics like his father, rejecting his sisters calls. He was a solider now, his duty had to come first. Two tours and 5 medals later he was recruited by a specialist training facility. It was on one of these training missions that tragedy struck, and he perished at sea along with his whole unit. All further information was classified, an empty casket had been buried, no body could be recovered.

Nancy had been 18 at the time. It had destroyed her parent’s marriage, caused her father to flee the country, her mother to move county and Nancy to be left alone. Nancy remembered the funeral well, the black coffin draped in the union flag, Kit’s military portrait standing at the front, the rose arrangements reading ‘Brother’ and ’Son’. People she hadn’t known had stood up sharing stories she’d never heard. They’d shaken her father’s hand and patted her on the shoulder. The whole day had seemed surreal, like it was for someone else’s brother.

The months following were filled with crippling grief. Then university provided a helpful distraction and Nancy managed to throw herself into her degree. In all that time she’d never really dealt with what his death meant for her, her heart never could accept that her big brother, who had always been there, was gone. He was the one who’d chase her around the garden with a water pistol and the hottest day of the year. He had snuck into her room during the thunderstorms to hold her hand because he knew how much they’d scared her. They’d grown together and played together. He’d pulled funny faces behind their mother’s back when she was being told off. She’d snuck into their father’s study to steal back Kit’s Gameboy when it was confiscated for pulling faces behind their mother’s back. She remembered terrorising Acedown Court’s garden with screams and cheers playing pirates with the neighbour’s children. Falling asleep in the back of the car on the way back from holiday after eating too many travel sweets. They had been a double act. Until he’d joined the Navy.

Then a few weeks ago the first glimpse of hope, a hope she didn’t dare speak out loud, not even to Bucky. The man in with dark hair, he could be lying, he most likely was, but there was a chance. Kit might just be alive. She’d be damned if she didn’t find him.

#bucky barnes #winter solider #sam wilson #captain america #mcu #mcu fic #soulmate

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kamandzak · 3 years

Text

Into the Great Night - Chapter 2

I started writing this book about a year ago and finished it ~7 months ago. Performing a big rewrite and this chapter is so dismally beautiful I can’t keep it to myself.

Context: Andrew Garland’s boyfriend of eight years has passed away and he is struggling

Recommended listening: Compass and Miracle by Two Steps from Hell

It was foolish of me to think it would be any better at Tessa’s house. Merely leaving the place Greg and I had cohabitated didn’t mean our past would leave me; that my grief would leave me.

It was no better sitting on Tessa’s couch as opposed to my own.

It was still lonely. It was still joyless.

It was still too cold.

If that was my new normal…. If that was the life of which I would be forced to live for the rest of my days, I preferred to die.

Tessa was worried. Beth was worried. Sara and Clara were worried. They all had the right to be. Mom and Dad still hadn’t reached out. I couldn’t say I was mad about it.

For the first month I carried the same daily, depressive routine: Wake up, shower, watch videos, eat, shower again, sleep. Wash, rinse, repeat. Nothing to disrupt the morose mentality I held from the moment my eyes opened until they closed. Even in my dreams I continued being sad. I couldn’t escape – trapped forever.

Jake’s constant messages of concern did nothing but send me sinking deeper and deeper into hazy nothingness. Peppered with queries about when I planned to emerge onto the gaming scene, along with the occasional ludicrous statement about how he understood my stuffy brain, each message was deleted as it was read. There was no reason to have those hanging around, reminding me why I was in Reno and not where I had once dreamed of making a life for myself.

Whenever I closed my eyes, Greg’s face appeared in the dark. Maybe I was napping; maybe I was finally sleeping fully through the night; maybe I was simply blinking. Always, he was there.

Sometimes it was a fleeting glance of what used to be the best part of my life. Sometimes I dreamed of things that had already happened, or things I wanted to be that would never come to light.

One night, I dreamed we got married. Waking up was almost as painful as watching him die.

Tessa was worried I’d off myself. It wasn’t like we talked about it or anything, of course, but I could hear her and Beth sitting over tea every weekend, hushed mutterings coming from her dining room table or her room or her little porch. My grief had thrown a wrench into the lives of those around me, Beth worrying about my life when she normally would work on lesson plans for her rambunctious class of first graders. When she was feeling brave, Tessa would ask why I kept my secrets down deep for so long. That right there was why.

I had suffered from depression before but what I was feeling wasn’t just unadulterated sadness; it was a fierce, far more complicated set of emotions leading me to exist in a far more dangerous mindset than I had ever been in before. Instead of having an urge to kill the part of me that is making me feel so unbelievably yet nondescriptly sad, I wanted death. Death, full stop.

Mom and Dad and Sara and Clara and Beth and Tessa weren’t good enough reasons to stay alive, and all I wanted was to see Greg just for another minute. I wanted to give up a life with my own flesh and blood just to see him again. I would have given up all the time in the world for one more night of SNL and inside jokes with a man who made me feel like so much more than who I actually was; a unextraordinary nerd with awkward social tendencies and difficulty communicating. With Greg I felt like I was more than just me; without him, I didn’t know who I was anymore.

“Andrew! Your phone!” A crumpled ball of paper bounced off my head as Tessa’s voice cut through my outer shell, the sounds of my phone following her words. My phone beeped loudly, the tell-tale sign of a Facetime call on it’s way, and I dragged my finger across the screen to accept before I read the name. Each bodily movement seemed to take ten times longer than Before. I was living seconds behind reality.

“Garland.”

Jake’s face popped onto my screen. 5… 4… 3… 2… 1….

“Hi.”

“You look like hell.”

Jake’s mouth stopped moving before I even put together the string of letters that made up his blunt statement.

“Mm,” I managed.

“You in Reno?” I nodded. “I’m heading out that way this weekend. Never been to Vegas believe it or not. Figured I’d go explore. Have you seen anyone since everything happened?

“Andrew, want anything from the gas station?” Tessa stood in her door frame and as I shook my head she left without another word.

“I’ll take that as a no?”

“Yeah, no. No, I haven’t seen anyone. I don’t want to see anyone.”

“What if they came to you? So you didn’t have to leave where you are?”

“I’m not about to let a stranger into my sister’s apartment.”

“We’re not technically strangers at this point, right?”

“Why are you so hell-bent on meeting face-to-face?”

Jake paused, inhaling loudly, wheezily, in a way that reminded me of Greg; then again, everything reminded me of Greg whether it had anything to do with him or not.

“The best thing that came out of the worst time in my life is now I can be empathetic to other people going through the same thing.”

The tiniest part of me wanted to know what he’d been through but the larger part didn’t have the brain power to care because what actually mattered didn’t exist anymore. I didn’t think Jake was purposely jabbing at open, festering wounds for the sake of cruelty; he was just caring for me.

I didn’t want his caring. I only wanted one person’s caring and couldn’t get past the knowledge that I'd never have it again.

“Let me know if you want someone to talk to. I’m only in Nevada for a couple of days. I won’t mind stopping. Really.”

“Mm.”

“I gotta go. Message me.”

The screen went black. Please Rate the Quality of your Call, a prompt stated, with the outlines of five stars beneath. I did no such thing.

I wasn’t about to message him, even if I had a reason to do so. I wasn’t going to be messaging anyone because all conversations led back to Greg. How was gaming going? Was I still in Los Angeles? Was I still going to be on YouTube? All questions would eventually wind up being about him and the more I talked, the more I would have to remember. The more I would have to remember, the more I would have to feel, the more I would hurt.

It started happening when I arrived at Tessa’s; my need for answers led me to the internet and introduced me to the term dissociation; I would simply leave my body. Up to the ceiling I seemed to float as if filled with helium, watching what was taking place below. Tessa waking up and making breakfast before going to her gaming room; her video editor Reese chatting with her about her upload schedule; Beth coming and going; myself sitting in the same spot on the same couch day in and day out.

I didn’t know why it was happening, the only reasonable explanation being that I so desperately didn’t want to exist but was too much of a damn coward to kill myself. In the end, dissociation seemed like the best option. Just remove myself painlessly from my surroundings. Was certainly better than the alternative. It was peaceful, exiting the current plane and living somewhere else if only for just a few minutes.

Live. That was the key word. I was still technically alive, my heart still beating and my stomach still digesting and my eyes blinking and lungs expanding with each breath. The human being my brain commanded was still moving. My mind was developed enough to operate on autopilot, doing the dumb things it had to do to keep everything in stasis. I ‘lived’, for lack of a better word.

When I did gather the courage to look up what I was feeling on the internet, nothing made sense. Nothing could be remotely tailored to fit my situation. I could relate to none of it. These people with their inspiring stories and memoirs written in loving memoriam, and benches dedicated to loved ones… their experiences seemed to minimize what kept me awake at night. How were they able to do that? How could those strangers make me and my emotions feel trivial without even knowing me and without me actively posting in detail what was happening in my head? As hard as I tried to imagine those brave widows and widowers and left-behinds feeling the way I did, their stories always wound up being of getting over that tremendous loss.

I didn’t want to get over it. If I got over it I would lose Greg forever. I’d already lost him once.

The grocery lists of things I could do to help myself mocked me as I read the advice of people who claimed to know how to recover from the un-recoverable. Write them a letter, authors would write in silly, curly-cue fonts before giving me a whole page to write the letter, as if I was going to sit down and put pen to paper and tell Greg about something I saw that reminded me of our first date. List all the good times, one said, with bullet points for me to fill out five moments, as if every moment we had together wasn’t the best of my life. Find someone to talk to, another whimsically suggested as it reminded me that keeping my feelings inside was dangerous. As if I didn’t already know it was ripping me apart from the inside.

They didn’t tell me how to start a letter to Greg where all I could do was say how much I missed him. They didn’t tell me how to find someone to talk to when I didn’t want to talk to anyone about anything. They gave me five fucking spots to talk about good times as if our six-year relationship could be reduced down to that many moments and no more.

They said all of it was doable; they said that when the lost their husband or wife or boyfriend or girlfriend or best friend or grandparent or dog or whatever, those were the steps they took to recovering and moving on.

They weren’t me, though. They weren’t me and they weren’t Greg and they weren’t the set of circumstances under which we had lived. Even if half of the equation was there, the other wasn’t. Maybe their loved one was sick. Were they sick with the same ailment, or one that carried similar stigma? Did they purposely risk illness for the sake of their significant other or family member or friend? Did their risk become reality because fate can be an unnecessarily cruel mistress? Did they love the other person so much they shortened their own life?

The door opened and couch shifted as Tessa’s hands landed on the sides of my face.

“Andrew”

I cracked at her voice, her icy hands wrapping around my head and pushing me against her. Worming my arms under hers, I clung to her small shoulders, weeping into her jacket sleeves. Eyes screwed shut I gasped for air, seeing Greg in the darkness as he mirrored the same breathy sounds. While mine were of sadness, his were of death – the only sound of him I could manage to remember despite being together for so long. Tessa pulled at my non-resisting body and we sat together, tangled in a heap of coats and scarves and unwashed hair. Much like when we were young – when we didn’t understand what the world was about or why we were with the people we were with – and Tessa would protect me, we sat close, her love drowning out the pulsing drone of fear and hatred and sadness and anger rushing through my mind as it struggled to comprehend the incomprehensible.

For several minutes, we sat in silence.

“Andrew.”

“Mm.”

“I love you.”

“I know.” “And,” she finally pushed me off her body, holding me in front of her. Cold air hit my hot face, adhering the salty wash of tears to my skin, “And you can talk to me about anything you need to. I know you don’t want to. I know you think you’re strong enough. Maybe the only way to become strong is to not be.”

“Where do I s-start?” I hiccupped.

“Let’s get the team together,” she began, rising slowly and pulling me up with her. “Maybe they can help.”

“But-.”

“No one knows you like we do.”

Hours later, beneath the door of Tessa’s bedroom, I heard her. I heard them.

“You guys have to get here as soon as you can. Please.”

“What’s the matter, Tess?”

“I think it’s happening…. I think the numbness is wearing off. He’s starting to feel things again. It’s not that I don’t want to be here when it happens. I just don’t want to not have you guys here with us. I don’t know what do to.”

Greg’s death wasn’t supposed to be affecting my sisters as the sounds of their video call trickled through the under-crack of the door. It wasn’t supposed to be affecting Jake or anyone else but me and the Davis’.

It was a stupid thought and their voices continued, muffled by my sense of inadequacy. Of course it would be affecting other people. It started doing so the moment Tessa posted my video. It started affecting the girls the second I told them I was having an emergency and they needed to come see me. What I hadn’t wanted was exactly what I had dug myself into when I welcomed other people into the hell-circle I was stuck in.

I didn’t want them to come see me. I didn’t want Beth to take time off and Clara to leave Frank and Sara to leave Duncan to come take care of me. I was twenty-four. I should have been able to take care of me.

The front door opened several hours later and I looked up with a faux look of surprise. Out, I sent them telepathically. Please go.

“Why are you here?” Tessa rolled her eyes at my question.

“Boy, don’t pretend like you weren’t listening on my Zoom call with them,” she cracked a smile before reading the room and immediately coming back to our reality. “You know why.”

“We’re just afraid that there’s more to address than just your changing grief,” Beth began and bile began rising in my throat. It was only a matter of time really, before they put two and two together. I guess I had thought it would take a little longer. Her hand landed in the middle of my back, leading me to the same sofa where Tessa and I had broken down together.

“Don’t worry about me,” I began confidently. “I’m just-.”

But then I coughed. I coughed and coughed and the more I tried to regulate my breathing, the harder it was. Choking; gasping.

Hands rubbed my back while others pushed me down and a another lowered a glass of water into my field of vision. Sip, choke, swallow, repeat until I could finally shakily inhale with difficulty.

Looking down at me were four sets of beautiful, worried eyes with which I could barely stand to keep contact.

Clara spoke,

“Stage three.” “What?”

“That’s what you’re in, isn’t it? Frank just… just lost a patient and when I asked him, especially when Tessa told me about all of your shakes and fevers, he said he thinks it's stage three. I think I believe him.”

I was at a complete and utter loss. In my molasses-filled, sloths-paced brain, grief at the loss of Greg drifted beside my own secrets and the suffering of my sisters, bouncing off of one another like oil and water.

“You don’t understand,” I finally said.

“Don’t understand what, exactly,” Tessa asked pointedly, further questions and opinions trapped behind pursed lips. I could practically see them stabbing her mouth, begging to be released.

“Everything!” I exploded. I hadn’t been truly angry yet; up until then anger had taken too much effort. What energy grief didn’t zap from my system the HIV stole for its own selfish purposes. “It’s all connected, isn’t it?” I asked, huffing out laughs like a mad scientist whose madness had taken over the scientist within. “I can’t tell the world about me and Greg because I’m afraid of people finding out I’m not straight. Then I’m with Greg and he’s so afraid of never having love and I love him more than I’ve ever loved anyone in my life, so then we take a risk and guess what? Protection fails. The risk becomes reality and I get HIV but I can’t talk about the love or the disease because it’s been ingrained in me since I was a child that people who get sick with this illness get it as recompense for their actions. I don’t believe it when I look at Greg but when I stare at myself in the mirror all I can hear is Dad’s voice. I go to clinics occasionally but only outside of town and without people I even sort of know because I’m afraid subscribers who have never seen my fucking face will recognize me and assume I’m going there for a reason I don’t want anyone to know about and guess what? They’re right! I don’t want them to know about going to get HIV treatment because I’m afraid of people finding out I’m not straight.”

“Andrew-.”

“We keep loving each other because hey, once I’m sick, we might as well, right?”

“Andrew-.”

“And then Greg dies. Greg fucking dies and I can’t tell anyone because I don’t have anyone and the only reason I don’t is because I spent the first seventeen years of my life having it ingrained in my mind that if I don't date, marry, and have a family with a beautiful woman, I’m damned to a life of eternal suffering.”

“But we-.”

“I can’t tell the gaming community because then Dad could find out. I can’t tell you guys or Mom because I feel bad that I kept it a secret for so long but I had to keep it a secret so I could stay safe and love the man I loved because I knew he didn’t have all the time in the world. So now I’m one serious infection away from dying because I didn’t do serious enough treatments to start with because I was so afraid of people finding out I’m not straight,” I nearly screamed, throat raw, standing up and spinning around to face my audience. “How the fuck am I supposed to deal with all of this?”

From all four sides, warm sweaters hit my torso as each sister came from a different angle and held on tightly, two of them shaking against me with emotion. Long nails raked through my hair, hands rubbed my back and arm and nape of neck; hair tickled my nose. Cold, dry lips pressed against my forehead.

When I dared to observe who was directly in front of me, Sara had tears running down her slim cheeks.

“This is why I didn’t want to tell you,” I whispered. “All it’s doing is making you sad.”

“I would have been sad when you first told me, Andrew. Nothing keeps human emotion from happening. But you’ve kept it in for so long, and the longer it builds up the more explosive it is when you finally release the valve. If you told me six years ago that you were in love with a boy and were scared, I would have been so proud. I would have supported you in whatever you wanted to do… however you wanted to live your life. If you told me whenever you found out about being sick that you were sick, I would have been devastated. I still am. It’s just… complicated now,” she petered off as the others nodded in agreement.

“I’m not mad at you, in case you think that,” Clara spoke. “I don’t think any of us are. In a way it’s nice to finally know all your dirty laundry so we can be here as a family. I know you have your reasons for doing what you did. We all do. There’s a lot to sort out. A lot to do. A lot of catching up that has to take place.”

“There’s no timeline for this stuff,” Beth began and before I could stop myself, I opened my mouth,

“AIDS, Beth. A. I. D. S.”

“Grief, Andrew. G. R. I. E. F.”

“Awesome,” I mumbled. “How am I supposed to do this?”

“Not alone. We need to get you a doctor here,” Tessa said with a sad expression that, for a brief moment, I wanted to smack off of her face. “I haven’t seen you go since we moved. You don’t want to, but we don’t want to lose you.” I wanted to lose me but that was beside the point so I kept the words inside. “I can’t lose you,” she managed and faint sounds of stifled sadness cut through the quiet.

“I know you want to go,” Beth said as Clara and Sara ushered Tessa away from the scene. “Not to the doctor, but to him. You want to go to Greg. Right now what we say won’t change that. Nothing we say will change how you feel. Nothing feels worth living for right now and I know that. When you go through something like this, you can tell other people you really do know what they’re going through. We aren’t worth living for right now and I understand that. There isn’t much we can do, but what we can do is make sure you’re eating and at least taking some medication. There isn’t much more to do right now than sustain yourself. Let us help.”

“Okay.” “You loved him. I understand that,” Beth whispered, wrapping her arms around me. “And you both did what you could with the time you had. Life’s unfair. I don’t know why things happen to people the way they do. I’m sorry.”

“Why wasn’t my best good enough?”

“Oh, Andrew. It was. I promise. There are just some things we can’t control. It’s horrible, isn’t it?”

#writer #writing #novel #novelist #author #kamandzak #into the great night #grief #tw suicide #tw dissociation

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