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harrysdimplles · 5 years

Note

64!! Super angsty with smut pls!

"64 angsty pls"

"Yell, scream, cry, please, just say something, anything."

It's worse than torture.

He knows she's not doing it on purpose too, that pulling back is how YN process things on her own mind. He knows he fucked up, badly this time, and that he ought to give her space...he's aware of all of it, he swears.

But he can't take it anymore. It's been days, and even if there's a lot Harry learned he can live with over the years, having the girl he's utterly in love with act as if he's invisible is not one of those things.

He's no stranger to missing her: they had to make their way through a world tour within the first year of dating, after all, and there were days where he almost said fuck it and hopped on a plane back home just to have her mumbling at him for getting up too damn early every time one of them slept over. This is different.

It's worse, cuz she's right there. It hurts, to be so close knowing that she won't give him more than an angered look before finding something to busy herself with so they don't have to talk about the elephant in the room.

If only his manager had kept his mouth shut...

Okay, blaming other people is a low blow, but Harry's a desperate man at this point.

A stupid one too, saying yes to another stunt after all the bullshit he was put through, after all the things he saw his friends having to endure. They didn't know better, back then, plus, it wasn't long before he discovered it was easier to go with it than try to fight the tide.

So, that's what he did, when a room full of people suggested creating some buzz before all the new things were set in motion.

Stupid.

He wants to believe things would be better had he gotten a chance to tell YN about it himself, but that's mostly wishful thinking: the surprise morphing into hurt in her eyes when she heard the words is the problem he has no idea how to fix, not whose mouth it came from.

xxx

"We need to talk" his voice wavers in the dark kitchen, YN's focus remaining on her computer screen.

"I'm working, Harry" her fingers haven't stopped hitting the keys, but she's tensing up more and more with each passing second. Because he's still there, standing closer than he has for the entire week, so she knows he's not going to take the hint and leave.

Not this time.

"Babe, please." the singer isn't even sure what he's begging for. Please, look at me. Please, let me explain you date the biggest idiot in town. Please, say you don't hate me.

For a second there it feels like she's gonna turn around, Harry's heart beating on his throat, but then YN climbs off the stool, shuts her laptop down and pushes it into her purse. She's leaving. Again.

"Wait." he's on her way now, hand on her shoulder, the small touch practically making his head spin. "I'm an idiot. A complete ass. I know that, love. I just..." there's so much he wants to say the words feel like they are stuck, like he can't get them out fast enough. She's still not turning around, won't look at him even when he pulls her body towards his "I'm sorry" her face is stoic when the smaller one finally looks up. "I'm so sorry, and I know just saying the words won't change anything, but please, baby" the fact she doesn't recoil from his touch is a small victory, but the silence is still hanging in the air and Harry thinks he's about to suffocate.

"Talk to me" he begs "Yell, scream, cry, please, just say something, anything."

xxx

"You didn't have to lie" YN knew that conversation was coming from the moment she understood what the meeting she had unintentionally crashed was about, however, now that it's here, she wishes Harry would let her pretend for a little while longer.

"I didn't! I was gonna tell you, swear on me mum"

"That's...that's not what I'm talking about, H" her feet are moving before she can stop herself, breathing suddenly easier when there's some space between them "I won't act as if I'm an expert, but public stunts are part of the job at this point...this will not be the first one you pull, nor the last....it's just that it hurts. I know what I walked into when I said yes to you, but this...this is more than I can take"

"I called it off. The whole thing. It's not....they shouldn't have suggested it, and I was a fucker for even considering the idea..." he was talking faster than ever, and fuck, why were they having this discussion at 3 a.m?

"Harry, stop. Please, stop it. This is not about the stunt. Do it, if you have to. I don't think you need it, and I'd rather you let your talent speak for itself, but what do I know? I believed you when I shouldn't, I'm too weak to just leave, and that's why we're here, stuck" the words are heavy on her tongue, heavier on her heart. This is it.

This is the end.

"Wha...I don't..."

"Come on, H. I get it, alright? You're a private person, the fact that your life hasn't been only yours in almost a decade has got to make it worse. I understand why you want us to be careful, I love that you think what we have is special enough for you to want to protect it from the outside world, but I'll not be your dirty secret" there. She said it. YN managed to turn her worst fears into a couple of sentences that hopefully make sense. "I can't let myself go there, no matter how much I love you." she makes a good job of holding back the stupid tears, but then he's there, standing so close they are breathing the same air and it's just. "I love you so much, Harry" she has to say it. He needs to know. "I love you, and I can't, okay. So if you're....ashamed of me, just say it."

"Don't say that. Love, no" he's bending himself down as he speaks, hands on her face so she can't look away. "I'm not ashamed of you. I would never be, YN. You're brilliant, talented, caring. You're the strongest person I know, baby. Most days, I'm asking myself how I got so lucky to have you by my side" he's almost choking on the words, and there's so much truth in his eyes, YN wants to forget, turn back time and not interrupt that stupid meeting, but she can't, not when she hasn't told him everything.

"Then why do we have to sneak around like we're doing something illegal every time we go out? Why is it so important that everyone thinks you're single, unless they are convinced you're fucking some perfect model?" she hated how one event could set her back like that. YN won't forget the girl she used to be, but she's worked too hard to believe she's better than all the fucked up people in her life made a point of telling her she was, over and over again. "Why am I not good enough?"

He's crying when his mouth crashes on hers, pressing himself so close she can feel every hard muscle on his body, even if his lips are as gentle as ever, moving against her with barely any pressure, the salt from the tears mixing in.

"I'm the one who's not good enough" it's barely a whisper, so easy to miss in the craziness of her heart plummeting into her ribcage, the woman reads the words in his lips more than she hears them "I'm just not. I made a choice that means I have to live in an insane, cruel world. I don't regret it, cause I get to do the one thing I'm truly good at, I touch people's lives with what I have to say, but...it was my choice. Not my family's, my friends' or...It's not that I don't want people to know I'm in love with you, YN. I'm terrified of what happens once they do. What if you wake up one day and realize it's not worth it?"

"Harry..."

"It's hell, baby. I have to live with it, but it's not long before people remember they don't. I'm not trying to turn you into my dirty secret, I'm trying to keep you from leaving me. Please, don't do that"

xxx

Harry's not sure what it means when she pulls at his shirt, whining at the back of her throat the second their mouths touch, but he's too desperate to ask, so he just presses forward, deepening the kiss, trying to use his body to say what the words failed to: he can't quite explain what it feels like to just be himself some days, but he'll be damned if his insecurities take her away.

So he kisses her, harder and deeper every second, kisses her until they are both lightheaded and struggling to breathe, kisses her til he convinces himself she's not about to slip away the minute they are apart.

It's still somehow not enough, Harry decides, manhandling the girl so she's sitting at the kitchen table, with him standing between her legs, the spark in her eye that tells him she's thinking about something smart to say drowning in a moan when he grazes his teeth against the sensitive skin of her neck, biting down when YN's nails press down on his bicep.

"Harry" his name is a warning and a plea, stirring the part of the man that wants to mark her up again, make her his, so keeps at it, making sure she's got a couple hickeys to look at in the morning, ones that are going to match the scratches on his body, the sting of it sending waves of pleasure to his hardening dick.

"Want yeh" he confesses, lowly, knowing she's gonna like to hear it, needing her to say she feels the same. It's been too long since last time, and he knows, knows that the talk they were having is far from over but...later. "Can I?" she nods and he gets rid of her pajama's shirt in one go, pulling back a bit to just look, but then YN is hooking her calves into the small of his back, trying to bring him closer, her smooth palms sliding over the muscles in his abdomen, goosebumps rising up all over the inked skin.

She falls back a little when her shorts and panties come off, holding her body up on her elbows, trying to bite back a moan for the feel of his fingers lightly tracing the skin of her inner thighs, closer and closer to where she needs him, the hunger rolling off of him making YN impatient.

"Take me" she wants to be embarrassed about it, but then Harry's in her, first finger sliding in with ease as he nips about on the expanse of her tummy, leaving more marks on his wake, his rigid cock just a layer of clothing away and yeah...he should just take her already. Please.

"Fuck, baby" she's desperately trying to close her legs when the second digit slides in, the change of pace kind of overwhelming, especially when she can feel the pad of his thumb rubbing circles on her clit, the wet sounds amplified in the silent room "That feel good, love? Gonna gimme one like this?" she doesn't want to, not yet, but her body became a traitor the first time Harry touched it, each of his thrusts making her head spin faster, need and pleasure moulding into something that's closer and closer to taking over her body until it does just that, until all she can feel is him: the way he's pumping in and out of her wet cunt, the way each sliver of his skin that comes in contact with hers seems to be burning up, the tone of his voice ordering her to just let go and cum for him. There's nothing but Harry, and yet, it's not enough.

The protesting sound makes her open her eyes again, body tingling and suddenly empty, only for YN to be graced with the sight of Harry using her juices to slick himself up, hissing as his fist moves over the hard shaft a couple times. He moves closer when he sees she's come back down, kissing her again as he enters her body in a slow way, panting into her mouth with every inch.

"You can move" the girl whispers only seconds later: she's still pulsing and sensitive, but she wants him. Needs it. "Wanna cum on your cock"

Then Harry's moving, going a little deeper within every thrust of his hips, harder, faster. For the first time, he loses control. Just fucks her, and it's rough and glorious. It drives YN over the edge a second time in no time, his weight on top of her overdriving her senses when his hips finally still, Harry pulling out on the last second, marking her once more.

xxx

The rising sun finds them curled up against each other in the living room rug, YN tracing the ink on her boyfriend's arm to stay awake.

"I'm sorry" he drops a kiss to her hair, dragging his eyes down her face and the bruises starting to bloom in her body. His.

"I'm sorry too, H" she should've talked to him sooner. Harry's not like other men, well, not like the men that have broken her heart before, at least, but that's easy to forget when things go wrong. "Sometimes I forget you can't read my mind"

"Not yet. Give me a few years and I might" His tone is playful, but his eyes are full of promises it's too soon to voice, they both know. Still, they are there.

"I don't plan on going anywhere, just so you know" the perfect moment is interrupted when her stomach growls loudly, making them both laugh. "Except for breakfast, but I'll let my rockstar boyfriend join me"

Harry's up before she can even finish the sentence, holding out his hand for her to take.

No more hiding, not for them.

#harry styles smut #harry styles angst #harry styles fluff #harry styles imagine #harry styles imagines #harry styles blurb #harry styles blurbs #harry styles concept #harry styles concepts #harry styles one shot #harry styles one shots #harry styles fic #harry styles fics #harry styles fanfiction #harry styles fanfictions #lari's 1k tag #feedback please?#if you read this tell me what you think

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werezmastarbucks · 4 years

Text

Whitmore Guy and the eternal studs

Part One Part Two Part Three Part Four Part Five

Part Six

Part Seven

Part Eight

word count: 3158

warnings: language

As summer exams were approaching, the pressure on the students of Whitmore grew immensely. And Y/N was the one who felt it clearest of all. Each student, whether depressed, or just stressed, felt only their own weight pulling them down. Y/N had to be the anchor for all of them at once.

In the incredible fuss of early June she didn’t notice that a bunch of young people were very behind in their studies. When she finished filing out all of their graduate papers and closing documents for their rented apartments, she realized at least twenty people from the whole Whitmore did not show up for their preliminary sessions in the end of May. Three of them were missing, and the police already knew about it. A week later, after Damon had finally submitted the heads to the Mystic Falls sheriff, their identities were confirmed, and the college had a big wake for them. Their names were Sheila Bent, Christopher Harris and Taylor Whitaker. Y/N remembered them from her everyday work, and they weren’t unusual; all three, like the rest of the bodies dragged to Damon’s lawn, were Mystic Falls residents. Rebekah left the town for some time, led away by Klaus. Of course, her brother was defensive of her, aggressive, even, however, the pressure of the surviving town, the main core specifically, made it uneasy for him. Y/N was honestly baffled by how him being in love with Caroline changed his attitude. How easy it is to break you, and to manipulate you, when you’re into somebody. And how nasty it is, when this somebody is not entirely on your side.

The rest of the students, who were now in the danger of getting kicked from the college, swarmed her office for the whole first half of June; pleading, begging, crying hysterically, and throwing tantrums. Yesterdays’ mature young people transformed in an almost inexplicable way. There were some athletes among them; there was a brilliant science student Alana May, whom Y/N always liked for her reasonable attitude. All of them changed into these whining kids who did not know what to do now, that they spent half a month somewhere, and couldn’t cope with their deadlines. The situation got thousand times weirder after Y/N found that they all said one and the same thing when asked what the hell they’d been doing.

They said, we were having a party. Fifteen people from different faculties, studying different things, who have never been seen before, of different age and interests, were all having party for at least two weeks, all together.

It was Damon’s birthday, and he could not wish for anything better than investigating the college drama. Although, Y/N did not call it a drama specifically; she said it was more of a sinister mystery. Damon strongly advised her not to contact the failing students again before he gets his head in. When people go missing and then return, having completely changed their behavior, there can only be one explanation, that is – in his world. They’ve been turned.

“Ah-what?!” she yelled.

“When did they come in?” Damon asked knowingly.

“All at a different time – but in the working hours. Which are during the day”.

“Did you look for the lapis lazuli?”

“No, I did not. I’ve been more busy trying to calm down four people at a time. I don’t even have lunch these days, I have so much work”.

“God, the IT guy must miss you”.

Y/N snorted bitterly.

“Joke’s on you, Damon. He brings me coffee every morning”.

“Ew. Anyway, try something if you see any them. I’ll be there by three. Gather them all in one room and I’ll stake them”.

She pressed her fingers between her eyebrows, trying to pull the migraine out. How is she not screaming at him yet.

“You’re not going to come to Whitmore and stake fifteen people who you think are vampires”.

“I’m pretty damn sure gonna. I have a lot of things to do today”.

“Like what? Buy yourself a cake?”

Damon gasped on the other side of the line.

“What? You’re not getting me cake?”

Of course not, she thought. Cakes are traditionally on Caroline.

“Damon, you gotta have at least a picture of a plan before we do it. It’s your faint assumption. Maybe it’s something worse. Or something else. Maybe they joined a cult or something. Maybe they’ve turned into very normal human terrorists”.

“Good thinking, Y/N. Get them all together. By three”.

“Don’t you think it would make more sense to first talk to one of them if you want to check?”

Damon was silent for a moment.

“Yeah, good idea”.

He hung up.

She thought, standing by the window, as she looked out on the parking lot and the football field behind it. Why would Rebekah turn all these people? Was she bitten by the same family craving bug as Klaus once was? In what world all this turning, heads ripping stuff made any sense to her? The summer solstice was getting dangerously close, and Y/N had a bad feeling. There was always a massacre timed to a big cosmic or festive event in this god forsaken town. Every Founder’s Day – someone tries to butcher half of population. And she didn’t even want to remember the Halloween party back in 2009. Or the Perseids night four years ago. Some freak put a bunch of people inside of trees everywhere in the park using magic. They never caught him, of course… those were the weird times, when they failed, once and again, to prevent tragedies. Then it just ended. There were couple of strange cases in Mystic Falls, never solved. The greatest regret of the former sheriff Liz Forbs, before she died, was never solving the case of who killed her father and grandmother.

Thank God she didn’t live to see what happened to Matt.

Y/N decided to find and secure Alana May when Damon comes. She liked her the best, and she had a great hope to save her, if anything as horrible happened to her.

Y/N closed her laptop and left her office, walking to the teacher’s room to see Alaric and involve him a bit. His life has been getting far too boring lately.

She also discovered Mal together with him. The Occult Professor was sitting in his chair, looking into his computer intensely, and Mal clearly did not read the signs of his body – or didn’t want to. Standing right behind his shoulder, he pushed Ric’s back with his stomach, and spoke straight into the poor man’s ear.

“Huh, and then she was like, I don’t really believe that you’re already closing to thirty. I was like, ma’am, just because I’m clean shaven, like any other civilized individual… I mean, you know, not to say anything about your majestic beard, Ric, but I’ve never been able to grow anything like that. There are some people, you know…”

All the while his fingers were working on the keyboard disconnected from his brain completely. Ric’s face expressed misery, and Y/N chuckled, watching them, as she sat down behind someone’s unoccupied desk.

“Hey”, Mal smiled, looking at her briefly.

“Y/N”, Alaric stood up with a swing, almost hitting Mal in the face with his elbow. “I was just thinking about you. I need to talk to you. Can we…”

Mal looked up at them curiously, and a sly smile curled his lips. Half of the time he was pissing Saltzman just for the sake of it.

“Yeah, same”, Y/N gestured, inviting him to leave the room since Mal was working. Together, they stepped out into the corridor, which was sunny, smelled of summer, and stood half empty as it was morning.

“Heavenly God”, the man puffed, looking her in the eyes, “how do you stand that person?”

She was still giggling.

“Serious stuff, Ric. You remember I complained to you about those students who chucked on their studies and were running around on fire?”

A line lay between his eyebrows.

“Uh-huh”.

“Damon thinks they’ve been turned. It’s a bit soon to tell, but when I think about it, it makes sense. They all became like one: impatient, nervous, and very short-tempered. There haven’t been any killings yet… that I know of”.

She looked at him with a question. Saltzman shook his head.

“That’s a morbid picture, if he’s right. You think they’re connected with that massacre at the Salvatore mansion?”

“We don’t know if they are vampires yet. Let’see first. He’s coming over today at three”.

Ric put his palm on Y/N’s shoulder.

“Shall we give him his present then?”

The door opened, and Mal walked into them.

“Aw, my bad. The room’s free, if you want it. Y/N, you wanna grab a beer after work?”

“Not today, Mal”, Y/N watched him tilt his head musingly. “We got uh- a thing to do”.

“Oh, the hybristophiliac police gathering. Got it”.

He looked hurt though. Y/N understood very well what he felt at that moment. There they stood, two very different people, part of her outer world, and part of her inner dimension. Ever since Mal came round, the prose of her life became even more boring. Mal was like leaving your house on a fresh morning. You don’t really wanna do that shit anymore. You want to make lava lamps in his basement, listen to his favorite music, and watch Dr Pepper cans fall out of their slots.

“Not really, it’s…”

Ric was watching them both with mist in his eyes.

“Anyway, let’s do it tomorrow”.

“Whatever. Not like I wanted to tell you something super important. It’ll wait”, he smiled and waved them with his quick ringed hand.

“I’ll go get Alana”, Ric put his hands in the pockets of his jacket. “And you watch out for the rest of them”.

“Uh-huh”, Y/N said, still watching Mal walk away. Cindy/Sandy caught her eye. As he walked past her, the girl followed him with a glance, too, and then turned and looked directly at Y/N. Something was off about that look, more than just a “woah, we’re checking out the same guy”. Y/N brushed it off. Not now. Not fucking now.

“Alright, I’ll get her into your office by three”.

“Call me if something happens”.

All those phrases were rehearsed and vocalized hundreds of times. All that routine was suffocating. Y/N walked back to her place thinking about Cindy/Sandy. Maybe she should check her name after all, to finally memorize it.

Damon was there by two-fifty. At three straight, there was a knock at her door, and Alana, led by Alaric, came into her office. Damon’s eyes were highlighted by the sunlight penetrating through the windows like juice. All pale, with bright turquoise, focused and a bit frustrated already, he moved towards the girl without a word.

Alana didn’t have time to react. The vampire took her by the shoulder, as Alaric snapped the door closed, and looked at her like a doctor with at least a century experience.

Only, Salvatore gaze wasn’t caring or curious. It was examining the depths of Alana’s majestic dark brown eyes with cold concentration, and his hard hand never left the girl’s shoulder. Y/N stood next to her, a kind of a maternal instinct rising in her, to protect her from… whatever.

“What are you now?” Damon asked quietly. Alana was looking at him with confusion on her beautiful face. She eyed the man almost angrily, and then replied,

“I’m Alana. Who are you?”

She looked at Y/N for assistance.

“What’s going on?”

“Look at me”, Damon ordered quietly, but with great significance. Y/N got a glimpse of what attracted her to this individual long time ago; he was a very obvious alpha. He was also extremely irritated all the time, which somehow added to his charm. Maybe she just liked the mean type.

Alana stared at Damon, looking all the more lost, and suddenly he straightened up, his face going a dead mask, jaws clenched.

“She’s been turned”.

“What?” Y/N barked, leaning to the student. Alana was turning her head absently at this point, trying to gain someone’s attention, but afraid to stand up as Damon was towering over her.

“Who turned you?” Y/N asked. Alana looked at her, and her eyes went blank.

“What do you mean? What the fuck is going on here?”

Heating up, the girl tried to get up, but Damon pushed her back down roughly. Y/N took him by the shoulder, and he didn’t fail to catch her hand in his inescapable clutch.

“Look”.

He bared his teeth like a tiger yawning, and bit her wrist in a flash, so fast, Y/N couldn’t feel pain at first. She only felt stinging when the first thick, dark drops of blood started to fill on her skin. She could yell at him later, and roll her eyes, too. She looked down at Alana, whose gaze was now focused on her completely. Suddenly, the girl’s face grimaced in pain, and she pushed herself deeper into the armchair, crying out,

“I can’t! Please”, her mouth opened in horror, long fangs growing out of her gums; a familiar black web of swollen veins evened out under her eyes, but she looked at Y/N.

“Your blood, I can’t take it, I can’t…”

But her thirst was stronger. Shaking and convulsing, Alana jumped out, throwing herself over the armchair, just as Damon wrapped his arms around Y/N. It was all too fast, at the vampire speed which always made everything look like changing pictures. Alana threw herself back, right onto another human: Alaric. He was a bad victim, all with instincts and ready hands that never failed him. Y/N bumped into her desk, moved it with her body, pushed away by Salvatore. Damon wanted to step forward to Alana and pushed away the armchair she’d been sitting in, so hard that it collapsed into the bookcase, breaking the glass and scattering the pieces of it. Alaric was pinned to the door, head tilted down, and Alana was immediately pushed to him. She gave out a groan, all too familiar, for Y/N not to understand.

She balanced herself back to her feet, but it was already too late. Salvatore took the student’s body away from Ric, and, having checked that she was dead, took the stake out.

“Good reflexes”, he nodded, carefully placing Alana on the floor.

“Not her”, Y/N moaned. It was her mistake. She chose her to bring here, to Damon. This death was on her.

Y/N ran her fingers through her hair, thinking. She looked at her bookcase and the glass on the floor. Oh how she could’ve used that beer after work.

“God fucking dammit”, she uttered, taking the armchair and pushing it further, to the window.

“How many are there left?” Damon asked. Y/N thought about them with horror. Right now, there’s a group of young vampires, high on thirst and anxiety, getting their blood devil knew where, scattered around the campus. One of them could be flirting with Mal.

“So, we’re not gonna talk about it?” Alaric walked towards the body and then looked at Y/N. “A newly turned vampire, that’s unable to withstand the call of blood, manages to avoid biting you, because, apparently she’s been compelled. If that’s still Rebekah, then I’m completely confused”.

Damon turned to her and gave her the longest look. Y/N felt like the vampire was staring right into her, down to her every little bone, and a nasty feeling crawled into her brain. There was something to do with her. There was a thought, in the back of her mind, almost on the brink of subconscious, that she pushed away and couldn’t reach anymore. The only sensation left was guilt. Why did she feel guilty, like she was hiding something? Why was Damon staring at her like that? He was the third already, that day.

She was walking across the football field. Thank God they didn’t make her run around the campus and look for the remaining fourteen failing students. She was swinging Alana’s keys between her fingers, looking for her car on the other side of the road. She failed to find it in the parking lot and decided to check in the street. It was a normal thing now, deaths. People died pretty often in Mystic Falls and its suburbia. Weird things, awful things happened there. They knew about it even back in Seattle. So, technically, if you come to study or live here, you claim that you’re ready to take the risks. It just bothered Y/N that deaths didn’t bother her anymore. How much does it take off a person to become jaded? It certainly wasn’t that much for her, and yet, she was calm. She’s just seen one of the best Whitmore students die pointlessly; out of Alaric’s paranoid stake throwing. And all she felt was frustration. The new knot to untie, the whole new bunch of threads to pull on. And what if someone really important gets in the way?

She finally found it, a dark blue Honda. Y/N took it back to the campus, circling the building and stopping it at the back entrance. Damon came out with the body and put it in the trunk.

“Tha-ank you”, he clicked his tongue, taking the keys from her. Ric appeared next to him and looked at Y/N with the same silent question.

“You know, if they all were compelled not to feed on you, you’re going to lure them all by yourself”.

“I won’t be luring anyone”, Y/N protested, “we don’t have to kill them. I’m sick of this… favoritism. Either kill all new vampires, or save them all. Imagine it was Bonnie, who’s been turned yesterday. You wouldn’t have staked her”.

Damon puffed.

“Oh, sweet lord. Don’t tell her that. The idea of being a vampire makes her go suicidal this quick”, he snapped his fingers and got into the car.

“Damon’s going to take care of little Alana” he announced, letting down the window, “and you find the rest of their bunch and assess them”.

Ric’s phone rang. He answered it quickly, lifting his palm as if to say, wait a second. Then he looked at them both:

“Caroline’s asking if we’re still up for tonight, at the Grill”.

“Are we really doing the party?” Y/N inquired, morosely.

Damon hummed like he did when a very bad, murderous idea came to him.

“Make it Craze. And Y/N, let everybody know that there’s a lit party tonight. It’s going to be totally sick or whatever you kids say. Let them all come”, he winked, and started the engine.

“That would be dangerous”, Ric tried to reason with him.

“Young vampires won’t be able to resist an opportunity to party”, Y/N thought out loud. “Loud music, lots of hot blood, and excitement”.

“And piles of dead bodies”, Saltzman noted, watching as Alana’s car sped away from the campus.

#kai parker #kai parker imagine #kai parker x reader #vampire diaries #vampire diaries imagine #damon salvatore #ric saltzman #whitmore guy

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dearlazerbunny · 4 years

Text

Ignite (Redux); Ch. 3 of 5ish

Pairings: Kylo x Reader

Genre/Ratings: T for intensely injured reader

Words: 2700

Summary: After an accident aboard Starkiller Base, someone unexpected proves invaluable.

This is a rewrite of Ignite, which I published two-ish years ago. Same story, incredibly expanded upon. Enjoy!

Requested Tags: @jellyfishpoptart, @starfishfaerie, @swagaliciouspupper, @jessiejunebug, @irrelevantbutembarrassing, @drawlfoy, @sunflowershine-s, @ben-plus-rey, @ucy161

Burning. Scorching. Writhing. You’re a wraith consumed by flames, ashes decorating your body like the tattoos of ancient tribes on planets unknown. You rise, and something screams- you don’t know what, but it sounds melodic and desperate and something like fear

You heave yourself awake, hands clenched around your blankets like you might rip the fabric to shreds. Every deep breath tugs at the bandages wrapping your chest and torso; the discomfort of the wounds compounded by restriction and sweat and heat. Two weeks have passed since your release from medical; despite swallowing pills by the bottleful, bathing in thick creams that do nothing to quench the dry scorch rolling though your body, and daily trips to medbay, nothing seems to be getting better. If anything, they’re getting worse.

The pain is constant, even in your sleep. Your joints feel as though they’re made of stone. Comfort is a thing of the past. You haven’t worked up the courage to tend to your bandages yourself, so you had yourself to the nurses on the daily and have them do it for you. Their hands are much more careful than yours would be, and their faces mercifully impassive. They can look at you with a neutrality that you can’t muster even after an hour of staring in the mirror.

You wonder if you’ll ever get used to this new body. This new you. The alien you.

The crackling of the comm above your bunk startles you out of your half-lucid thoughts, sending sparks through your nerves. Do you answer? You know you’ve been marked in the system as on medical leave- no one’s let you so much as pick up a wrench or get within ten feet of a circuitry panel. It’s maddening, but secretly you don’t know if your wrecked hands would even be capable of the dexterity your job requires. “This is Y/L/N. Go ahead.” You try to keep the strain out of your voice.

“Y/N Y/L/N has been requested, effectively immediately.”

“Request to defer.” You’re exhausted, in pain, and due for yet another round of medication in- you glance at the clock- under an hour. Normally you’d never defer a request- if a senior mechanic is being called upon, something is seriously wrong- but currently it doesn’t look as though you’ll be able to put on a proper shirt, much less service whatever’s fallen apart. The doctor said you’re on one of their do-not-call lists, so this is probably just a mistake…?

“Negative. Y/N Y/L/N was requested specifically; medical override. Your presence is required as soon as possible.”

Motherfucking bantha shit- “Message received. Please stand by.”

Okay. How are you going to do this?

Putting on actual pants is a no; you can’t do up the buttons or zippers. Your hair stays in a messy ponytail only barely kept out of your eyes. A plain tank hugs your body and separates the bandages wrapping your back from the rest of the world, but does nothing to hide the bulkiness of the gauze- you grab a shirt you borrowed from your friend who’s at least three sizes bigger than you. It’s roomy enough to slide over your hips so you can avoid raising your shoulders, and though it hangs off you like a tunic, it ensures there’s nothing to rub against irritated skin.

One, two, three- you grit your teeth as your heels hit the floor, sending a jarring jolt all the way up your spine. Your nerves burn, your cheeks flush. Shoes, shoes… yeah, that’s a hopeless case. Eventually you just slide your feet into them and tuck the loose laces into the side.

You grab your tool belt, wincing slightly at its weight, and belt it at the loosest possible loop so it hangs precariously off your hips and avoids your owner back. You look a right mess, and no respectable First Order officer would ever go out looking how you do now- but if someone on their high horse is going to call you off of goddamn medical leave, then they’ll take what they’re gonna get.

You can practically feel the pity radiating off the troopers who were sent to fetch you. Their masks are expressionless, but you can see the one to the left tilt his head a bit as he takes in you and all your patheticness. “Lead the way,” you say gruffly, not in the mood for questions or anything even remotely resembling sympathy.

They start out at a pace that would make you hustle on the best of days; now, it’s basically impossible to keep up. Your bruised pride won’t let you speak up and tell them to slow the hell down, so they only notice you’re not right behind them once they’re three corridors away. They double back and find you with a grimace contorted across your face, trying desperately not to look as frustrated as you feel. You amble behind them as best you can- it isn’t agony, yet, but the pain is slowly ratcheting up in increments with every step you take, and you really just want whatever goose chase this is to be over with so you can go back to silently screaming into your pillow.

It’s early, so thought the base never sleeps there, are at least slightly fewer people walking by to stare at you. Gradually, you recognize the sector your escorts are shuffling you towards- command’s private quarters. Figures. Only command would have a high enough clearance to override medical leave, and also they’re big enough dicks to not care enough in the first place. You probably got dragged out of your bunk just to tell someone to turn their datapad off and on again, never mind the fact that that is not your department and someone in goddamn command should be able to figure that out for themselves- the thought practically makes you livid, and gives you enough strength to go up to the door you’re dropped in off at and bang your fist against the metal. “Engineering!”

Your voice echoes through the empty hallway and prompts absolutely no response from said door in front of you. Shit, that hurt. You put pressure onto the side of your fist with your other hand, tears nearly springing to your eyes. “Engineering!” I did not drag my ass out of bed in enough pain to make Captain Phasma take a day off for you to not be home! “Hello?”

Miraculously, the door finally retracts and grants you entrance to a room entirely shrouded in dark. There’s no one there to greet you. Cautiously, you take a few steps inside, letting your fingers trail against the wall beside you to give you some sense of direction. “Um. Hello? You requested Y/N Y/L/N from engineering?” Your eyes adjust with the help of starlight streaming through an unshaded port. It’s huge- large enough to be installed on one of the observation decks rather than personal quarters- and gives you an impressive view of the atmosphere beyond. You aren’t sure if it’s comforting or unsettling.

The room itself is almost bare- no décor or knickknacks or personal items, just a single bed centered on the far wall. Someone- or something- is curled up amongst its sheets, shifting almost imperceptibly here and there. “Hello? Sir? Or- ma’am? You requested me?”

“Yes.”

Sir, then. His voice is so low and hoarse you can barely understand him. Briefly, you wonder if you should ask if he’s okay, or if you should call medical- then you realize you’re the one who should be going to medical right about now, and he’s the one who couldn’t call anyone else to fix his problem, and then you get impatient again. “Do you have something that needs to be fixed, then?”

All at once, the man sits up, dark eyes glinting and hands frantically combing through unruly hair. “You.”

That’s… not what you were expecting. Even though you can’t hardly make out his features, you can feel the intensity of his gaze practically burning through you. In other circumstances, you’d try to be a little more polite to someone who so obviously outranks you, but in your current state all you manage is an unintelligent “…huh?”

“You. You need to be fixed- how can you stand it, it feels like I’m dying and it doesn’t stop-” his rant propels him forwards just a bit, enough to where you can begin to see his face: angular, sharp nose and jawline, cheekbones that practically reflect the light. His eyes are haunted and exhausted, pleading with you to give him answers when you don’t even know what the question is.

“I’m sorry? I- I don’t understand. Do you need medical?”

He puts a careful hand on his chest, near the intersection of his shoulder- right where one particular hotspot is causing you a tricky amount of pain. “I can hear you- screaming in your sleep. I can feel it.”

What the fuck?

“I’m in your head, and I can’t. Get. Out.” He grits his teeth and presses his fingers to his temple, like he’s trying to keep his skull from splitting apart. Your heartbeat quickens, unsure what sort of madman’s ravings you’ve just walked into. You start to back towards the exit. “You’re crying, even now. The bandages are suffocating you.”

And that stops you. Because they are suffocating you- they feel like a vice wrapped around your middle, constantly limiting your air as though you’re caught in a downpour. Something in this man’s voice- how desperate it is, how it sounds like he’s a frayed rope about to snap- makes you unequivocally believe that what you’re feeling right now; he feels it too.

But how the hell is that even possible? “I’m sorry, do I- know you?”

There’s a huff in the dark. “You don’t recognize me. Of course you don’t. How could you?” Another sharp flare of pain rolls through you, and as you wince the man groans in unison. He stands, restless, throwing aside already rumpled sheets. He’s been awake for a while. Silhouetted in the light, towering over you even in plain sleep clothes, you catch a glimpse of something in your mind’s eye- the man in front of you, but draped in a dark cloak and thundering down the halls.

You reflexively take a step back. “C-Commander Ren?” But even that sounds so foreign in your mouth, so when he turns to you you try again- “Kylo…?”

“Y/N.”

So many things are flitting through your mind it’s hard to pin down a single thought. This is Commander Kylo Ren, in nothing but a sleep shirt and pants. Kylo Ren negated your medical leave and called you to his quarters. Kylo Ren is very tall, has dark curly hair, brown eyes, and a razor jaw. Kylo Ren is inside your head. You feel more comfortable calling him Kylo than Commander Ren. “You’re in my head? How? Why-?”

“I don’t know!” He begins to pace, and in his movements you can easily see the imposing Commander who stalks the corridors every day. You can imagine his mask over his face and his hands fisted in leather gloves- he’s definitely one in the same. “Ever since the explosion-” his eyes go a bit wild- “I could sense the moment it happened; the moment before it happened… the spark caught fire.”

You grunt, still in disbelief. “I know. I was there.”

“I couldn’t stop it. I got there as soon as I could, but everything was in flames- you were already-”

“Stop it?” You shake your head. “It was an accident. I’m an engineer, shit happens. This is-” you grimace a bit, trying to subtly roll your shoulder- “a little more critical than most, admittedly. I don’t even know why you’d be on the flight deck, unless-”

“Stop it.” He’s close enough now that you can pick out the dark circles under his eyes, the tension in his gait, the furrow in his brow. Any arguments you have die on your tongue. “You’re in pain. I can’t stand it.”

“I-” You have absolutely no idea what to do with this information. The intimidating Jedi Killer who terrifies everyone- except for you- day in and day out, the one whose name is infamous across the galaxy and whose turn of mood could send any stormtrooper running- knows your name? And cares? He knew you were hurt and he came running.

“I can help.”

You shake your head, trying to dispel your confusion. “You can what? How?”

“I can help,” he repeats, so insistent you can’t help but listen to him. “I can make you- I can let you sleep.”

“You-” oh. Oh. Your eyes widen just a bit. “With the…?” You drag a hand through the air, a poor imitation of what you’ve seen him do when he uses the Force. To you, it’s basically fairy tales, bedtime stories of heroes and villains from your childhood. You’ve never seen it up close. You’ve never even really considered that the man you sometimes try to chat with casually in the hallway probably has more power in one finger than you ever will. The man who’s standing in front of you right now. Who can feel that you’re hurting.

That earns you just a hint of a smile. It tugs on the corner of his lips. You’re surprised at how much it softens his face and rearranges him into something more human. “Yes. With that.”

“Will it hurt?”

“No! I would- I would never do anything to hurt you. It would be just like-”

“-falling asleep,” you finish. Your head tilts to the side, considering this strange new promise, but the movement sends a ripple of pain down your spine and you almost start to tear up. Stars, you’re tired. You’re so tired. And you want to not hurt, to not be in pain. You just want to stop. But… “why are you helping me?”

Now he ducks his head, avoiding both your gaze and your query. “You- helped me, as well. I won’t be indebted to anyone.”

There’s so many unsaid things hanging on the end of his sentence. You can’t tell if they’re malicious or not. You suppose if he wanted to hit you, he’s had plenty of opportunity before now. Things can’t get any worse. “Okay.”

He almost seems surprised. “Okay?”

You nod. “What’s going to happen?”

“It’ll be just like this.” He touches his pointer and middle finger against his temple. “Nothing more.”

You glance down at where the two of you stand in the center of the room. “Should I sit…?”

He holds out a hand and you take it. Leads you to the bed, where you sit on the edge. He must see the anxiety in your eyes, because to your surprise, he actually kneels in front of you so he can meet your gaze. “I promise- I swear. I won’t hurt you.”

“I believe you,” you whisper, and as the words leave your mouth you realize you do.

He doesn’t let go of your hand, and lets the other wander up to your cheek- slowly, like he doesn’t want to spook a wounded animal. His thumb brushes some hair behind your ear, and you find yourself holding your breath. You aren’t sure about this. About any of this. But if it means it could stop, even for just an hour-

The sensation is akin to floating underwater- everything is muted and heavy, the light refracting into something softer than moonlight. It’s blessedly cool, better than any balm concocted in medical. For the first time, your scars don’t feel as though they’re still aflame. You want to sob with relief. Briefly, you realize that you have no way to ensure you don’t land in a heap on the floor, but just before the water envelops you- there’s a voice. It’s calm and reassuring and strangely familiar- and you realize it must be Kylo. Don’t worry. I’ll catch you.

#kyle ren #kylo ren fic #kylo ren imagine #kylo ren x reader #kylo ren x you #kylo x reader #kylo x you #Star Wars fanfic #Star Wars Fic #star wars angst #star wars fluff #kylo ren angst #kylo ren fluff #reader insert #injured reader

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theadorablespderman · 5 years

Text

Hair: Chapter 6

Stars Pt. 3

Peter/Michelle

Rated M for language

Wow, this has been crazy guys! I would not have continued this story without your love and support. This chapter is dedicated to everyone who pushed me to continue a story I lost track of. I really can’t express how grateful I am to everyone who has read Hair....So without further ado, I’d like to thank my amazing beta @you-guys--are-losers who has been with me from the start and is always my amazing friend.

Now I want to present, after a long hiatus, the next chapter of Hair!

________________________________________________________________

Michelle flipped over another page of her book. The slight whispering of the page was the only sound in her room besides a small electric fan beside her. She’d managed to get halfway through Things Fall Apart in a few short hours. The intricacies of African culture pulled her into the pages early on. Sitting on crumpled white sheets atop her bed, head resting against the coarse brick exterior wall in her room, Michelle flipped over another page. With eyes flying across the pages, she thought about how much of African culture has been destroyed. The title indeed fit the book; things do fall apart, often, it would seem.

Dog-earing her page, Michelle took a sip of her long-forgotten tea. It was cold and bitter on her lips. Abandoned when she sunk into her book. Michelle made a note to make a new cup. When she picked the book up again, her eyes started tracing back over the pages until her phone vibrated against her leg. Placing her book down again, she used her good hand to pick up her phone. The message was from Peter.

Peter Parker (8:57 pm): can i come over?

Embers ran down her throat, stoking the small fire in her chest. The fire pulsed, each beat larger than the next. It echoed in the battered knuckles of her fist.

Michelle left Peter standing in the abandoned physics classroom this morning. Unable to release any words or explanations, she merely retreated to safety. Safety she found with a book in her hands, tucked away in her bedroom, and wishing she could disguise herself in a flash of sarcastic remarks and cool stares.

Michelle pored over the text a few times, her mind spinning. She didn’t know how to reply. If he just wanted to assault her with more questions, she’d rather sink further into her book.

You (9:01 pm): if you’re looking for your hobbit box set i didn’t take it because the movies sucked and the book was better.

Peter Parker (9:02 pm): what? no…i haven’t even mentioned that to you how the hell do you know about it

You (9:02 pm): I’m omniscient, Parker, I know all.

Peter Parker (9:03 pm): then youd know why i’m coming over. which would suck since it’s a surprise…

She stared down at her phone. Michelle wasn’t sure what Peter’s angle was. After a few minutes without her reply, another message popped up.

Peter Parker (9:06 pm): soooo…can I come over? promise not to annoy you

Grunting, Michelle tucked her legs closer to her body. Her interest had piqued. Besides, she thought, maybe it would be a good opportunity to shrink the gap expanding between them. Glancing out her window at the inky sky, Michelle decided on a reply that was neither an invitation nor denial.

You (9:08 pm): You annoy me regardless.

Peter Parker (9:08 pm): i’ll take that as a yes?

You (9:09 pm): Shut up and just come over, loser.

Peter Parker (9:10 pm): thank you! youre not gonna regret it!

Peter Parker (9:10 pm): be right there :)

Michelle glared down at her screen blaring harsh blue light back at her. She had no idea what Peter was planning, and she was frankly starting to wonder if she wanted to.

It would take him a few minutes to get to her house if May drove him, but he could easily walk, which could take as long as fifteen minutes. Michelle flopped back onto her bed, resisting the urge to go fix her hair, or change out of her pajamas. Peter had seen her at her literal worst, and if he hadn’t been chased away by now, a few snarls in her hair and some tattered pajamas wouldn’t make a difference. Besides, she wouldn’t try to make herself look nice for Ned, so why should she do it for Peter?

The thought of prom popped into her head. She clucked at the thought, telling herself that was different. If she wanted to get made up for prom she damn well could, because she wanted to. But right now, she didn’t give a shit. Maybe a little less than a shit, but still it wasn’t enough to make her do more than smooth out her pajama pants and throw on a hoodie to hide her braless chest.

Michelle was running her fingers through some of her worst snarls of hair when she heard a tap on the window, right beside her ear.

She wasn’t one to frighten easily, but she catapulted away from the window, her nerves buzzing.

Michelle’s apartment was on the fifth floor of her building, so getting random taps on her window was abnormal. A bird once flew into her window, but that had the sound of a sickening smack, very different from light tapping. She attempted to calm the rushing pressure pounding in her skull while she tried to see what had caused the noise. Her reading lamp cast only crude shadows outside. Whatever tapped her window was hanging upside down on the opposite side of the glass. It was too massive to be a bird.

Giant eyes glinted in the light of her lamp. The body looked blood-red. “What the fu—” More tapping. It pressed its face against the glass and that was when Michelle realized what it was. Or who.

It was none-other than Spider-Man. She had a hunch why Queen's resident superhero was currently tapping on her window. It was a suspicion she had for a while, but all she ever had in support was circumstantial evidence.

Spider-Man tapped again. It sounded like a finger tapping on a terrarium. Unsettling. Flipping upright, Spider-Man looked at her properly. “Is there a reason why you're tapping on my window?” She spoke loud enough that it would carry through the glass. Standing, she placed distance between herself and the window.

“MJ, it’s me.”

She stopped on her toes, tilting towards the muffled words a fraction. Her balance tipped, forcing her to take a step forward. Michelle’s knee knocked against her mattress. It buckled and gave way until she was back on her sheets.

The eyes on Spider-Man’s suit twitched. Something floated down her spine, exploding into a barrage of light and fire that took hold of her like flames on flash paper. Michelle felt it take over her the same way the reveal at the end of a book took hold of her system. It clicked and everything crashed into place. “Holy shit. I knew it!” Michelle yanked open her window, letting the masked hero slide into her room. His arm brushed against her as he smoothly bounced from her bed onto the floor. He pulled the mask from his head.

Under the mask, Peter Parker emerged. His hair stuck about at odd angles and his cheeks were flushed the slightest color of pink. Michelle hated to think it, but he looked damn good in that skin-tight suit. She sighed, looking away from him to take another chilling sip of her tea.

Trying to seem unaffected by his silent stare was harder than usual.

“So, you’re the one that’s been swinging around in pajamas.” Another sip. It was uncomfortable going down, cooling the flames licking at her ribs. Michelle focused on the smooth ceramic of the mug in her hands instead. “I can’t say I’m surprised.”

Peter fiddled with the mask in his hands, tugging the fabric between his thumb and forefinger. “I, uh—I’ve been thinking about telling you for a long time, but I just couldn’t bring myself to. I don’t really know why.” Peter looked down. “But now—”

The air between them swelled, wrapping suffocating hands around Michelle’s neck. Why would he be telling her this now? There was a devastating realization that maybe Peter thought this would get her to open up. Now that he’s shown her his cards, he would want to see hers.

A tear was breaking through her, right through her center. She was stuck on the growing crack, wondering where she might fall.

Michelle could plummet back to familiar ground. Where she buried so many emotions it was a graveyard for every broken piece of her. She could always tip to the other side. Into woods where she could pave pathways that would deliver the words writhing inside her out of the trees, and into the light. And, there was always the third option. If she fought to keep the earth inside her from splitting open, she could collapse into a chasm she had no way of escaping.

The earth was breaking, crumbling, and she still didn’t know which way to fall.

“Why are you telling me about this now?” It was a standoff. The defining moment. She could see so much swirling in Peter’s eyes. The flutter of his lashes showed a similar rift dividing him.

Peter leveled his eyes with hers. The intensity of his gaze swallowed her, sent crackling flames slithering over her arms, up her legs. Everywhere. His gaze was hollowing her out in the best way possible. He stepped toward her, one-foot fall after another. The fire was eating away all her oxygen. Michelle couldn’t possibly breathe. The air had been licked dry of her lungs. He was right there. They were stars orbiting each other once again. As if that space between them had shrunk in only the span of a breath. “I want to show you something.”

“You already showed me something. I’d say that whole Spider-Man reveal was a pretty big something.” Michelle crossed her arms, putting distance between them, until she realized Peter wasn’t even in arms reach. He felt so much closer.

Peter chuckled. Tension diffused from his shoulders and Michelle pictured it floating away like smoke. “Yeah. Sorry I didn’t give you more of a warning. It looked like I freaked you out.”

Michelle snatched the mask from his hands, hiding her embarrassment. “What the hell are you talking about? I didn’t freak out.” She held his mask up to the light. The stitching was incredible, and its milky eyes looked like camera lenses. Michelle flipped it over to peer inside. It looked like a regular mask. What she really wanted to know was how the eyes moved—and if there was a screen or onboard dash—how it was powered. She was just about to slip her head inside when Peter lifted it from her grip.

“You kinda freaked out.” He was smiling like an idiot and Michelle snatched the mask back. She did nothing but hold it, but she felt like it proved something.

“I didn’t freak out, nerd.” She tossed the mask up in the air and caught it before Peter could take it back. Running her fingers across the glassy eyes, she remembered DC; when he’d raced up the Washington Monument. She remembered the odd urgency to his voice; how it was muffled through the fabric. News feeds flashed through her mind. She’d seen this mask millions of times, yet now it changed. Now looking at it, all she pictured was Peter with his boyish grin and understanding gaze.

When she looked up Peter’s eyes were scouring her face. She wasn’t sure what he was hoping to find written on the surface of her skin. His gaze lingered on her cheeks, the corners of her eyes, the place where her hair kissed her forehead. The way it penetrated her already fragile mask made her uncomfortable. “So,” Effectively cutting the spell between them, Michelle threw Peter’s mask back across the short distance between their bodies. He caught it with ease. “What do you want?”

“Well,” Peter said, his fingers tracing the same stitches Michelle traced moments before. She averted her eyes, somehow feeling the moment to intimate to share with him. “I got to thinking about today and—If I’m crossing a line here, you can tell me,”

“I always do, don’t I?” The banter helped keep Michelle focused on reality, instead of the soft edges of his eyes or the agile curves of his fingers.

Chuckling, Peter squeezed the mask in his hands. He twisted the fabric, ringing out non-existent water. “Yeah, you do.” He cleared his throat, expelling nerves. “But what I’m trying to get at I suppose is—well, uh. When you were talking earlier today and said you wanted to escape and stuff. It, um—it really got me thinking, basically, that maybe I could help. And you’d mentioned stargazing, and I got this idea. And I thought, maybe—I don’t know. I thought, maybe, if you wanted, I could help you escape for a few hours. No strings attached. I mean we don’t even have to talk… If you don’t want to.” After a cumbersome sentence, and the constant avoidance of any visual contact, he finally looked her in the eye once more.

She hated how endearing he was. She hated he’d managed to chip away her walls to the point the thought of keeping everything from him seemed impossible. She hated everything about him, but it was coursing through her veins in the most intoxicating, beautiful way. She wondered for a moment if that was what love felt like. God, how much she wanted to scream at his persistence, yet the warmth of his selflessness melted and filled her at the same time. Looking at him—eyes warm, a soothing balm to her fiery soul—she thought, this must be what love feels like…

“MJ,” Her name floated in his voice, into her ears. The beautiful raspy sound was alcohol to her bloodstream. It enveloped her in light-headed warmth. She couldn’t focus on anything but him. Peter deserved so much more than her. He’d found so much more than Michelle ever could be. He found it in Gwen.

Michelle blinked, breaking her of her trance.

Looking at Peter was like gazing into the sun. The threat of falling hopelessly into him terrified her. If she fell, she’d be eaten by a disastrous fire before she even reached the surface. She fell back against her bed, not trusting the slight wobble of her knees. “MJ, did you hear me?” Peter asked, advancing the smallest bit toward her.

It took every fiber of her resolve, but she forced her face back into the cool mask. “Yeah I heard you,” She leveled her gaze at him, exuding a sense of calm indifference. Still, there was a pounding in her chest that screamed for help. Michelle cleared her throat, smirking. “You want to take me to some mystery place to ‘cheer me up’.”

Peter’s mouth jumped open, ready to disagree, because since when did MJ need cheering up? But he snapped his jaw shut as soon as she smacked him with a hearty glare. A laugh brushed past his lips. “Well, yeah.” He paused. “But the thing is—well, you need it. Not to say you need me—I mean…God—I just thought maybe you’d be interested in it, and now I realize I’m being stupid. I’m really sorry. I just thought that maybe—”

His words cut off when Michelle wrapped her fingers around Peter’s wrist. She had to tell herself fire didn’t exist just so she could ignore the delightful burn under all five of her fingers. “I’m in.”

“Really, you’ll go?” His smile faltered. It was nothing more than a flicker in his eye. Michelle saw it as the nervous smile it was. “Do you—I mean—well. Is it okay if I go with you?” His gloved fingers twisted around his mask once more, twisting a knot into Michelle’s gut.

The answer came easier than it should. It came a welcome rain to the desert floor. “Yes." Shrugging, she feigned aloofness. "Besides I have no idea where it is.”

“Right.” Peter stepped up to her, his arms reaching out for her. Until they stopped. They deflated, awkward, to his sides. Words tumbled from his lips. Michelle barely managed to catch the sentence; he spoke so fast. “Um, is-is it okay to, um, pick you up? I mean, it’s just...” He paused. Raked a hand through his already mused hair. The action managed to tame most of the strands, laying them back away from his face. “Do you trust me? Because I don’t know how to explain it.” He put his hand out, an invitation. Peter’s gravity was yanking at Michelle’s stomach.

Making show, so not to focus on the heat at the tip of her ribs, Michelle slapped her hand into Peter’s palm. “What is this? Aladdin? God, you’re so dramatic.” She may have imagined the way his thumb, covered in leather and cotton, swept along the back of her hand. Michelle told herself that his index finger had no ulterior motives when it kissed the tendon on the inside of her wrist.

Peter smirked, but she caught it out of the corner of her eye before he was stepping up to her and pulling her towards the open window. “You know me. Always one for the dramatics.”

If she was thinking, a snarky retort would have slithered out past her lips. But that didn’t happen because Peter stood on the ledge of the window and dragged her closer. It knocked the breath out of her. Each step was a kick to the gut. Fear was a winding serpent, squeezing her throat closed. When Peter let her go to put on his mask, she found herself reeling a few steps back. The eyes of the mask narrowed in her direction and Peter’s head tilted to the side. “What’s wrong?”

“Is there a reason why we have to jump out of my window?”

Peter stepped back into the room, his foot making a mark on her sheets. Michelle shot him a look and he stepped back over the sill. “Well, yeah. I mean, it’s either that or walk all the way downstairs, and then just climb back up another building.”

“And why are we climbing so much?” Michelle forced her eyes to harden, masking the anxiety writhing within her.

Peter’s head tilted from side to side, deciding if he should let her in on the little surprise. “There’s nothing to be afraid of. Not with me.” Maybe he had that dorky, sweet smile beneath the mask. She would never know, but she liked to think he did. “I promise.” His voice came muffled through the mask, yet it pierced through Michelle. She swore his words rushed right through the space between her fifth and sixth ribs. They lodged somewhere in the flesh beyond. She could feel them, and if she gasped in just the right way, they pushed up against her heart.

This time she took his offered hand softer, gliding her fingers into his palm. For a moment, she couldn’t distinguish if there was fabric between their skin.

Peter pulled her up on the bed. She wasn’t wearing shoes, but she had a feeling she wouldn’t need them.

“I’m gonna wrap my arm around you, so don’t hit me or anything.”

He was taller than her for this one moment, and the way his head ducked minutely closer to her ear sent shivers down her arms. “No promises.”

The solid weight of Peter's arm drifted around her waist. Once he trailed his hands around her waist's circumstance, he latched her against his body. Firm, strong... She felt every inch of his chest along her own. Michelle’s toes lifted from the bed, skimmed the edge of her windowsill, then there was nothing but air and Peter. Her arms, which wound loose around his neck, squeezed tight enough to cause a grunt. “MJ,” Peter sounded strangled, so she forced herself to let up. “MJ,”

“What?” From the spot in Peter’s neck where she buried her face, her voice wafted into the wind.

"Choking. Not breathing." He rasped; she allowed her arms to relax until she had just a firm hold around his neck.

"Sorry."

Hearing something smacking against the wall, she dared to look around. Peter had strung up a web against the wall of her apartment. She could see small strands of it glistening in the light, leading back to Peter’s hand. She tried to disassociate with the fact she was dangling off the side of a building by stating, “That’s some crazy chemistry, Parker.”

“Yeah, I know.” Michelle felt Peter’s chuckle in her chest, felt the rush of air pass through the mask onto her neck as he leaned back against the strand. Her entire body fell against his. The solid warmth of him pushed against her chest. She was mesmerized by the way he’d exhale just as she’d inhale. It was pure harmony. Like the way the sun kissed the horizon goodbye and the moon kissed it hello.

They were at a forty-five-degree angle when Peter turned his head, his chin trailing across her forehead. “I’m gonna let go for a minute, okay?”

The delusional world of touch and sound faded away into crushing anxiety winding back around her chest. Her arms squeezed him ever tighter. “What?”

“I’m just gonna close the window. You just need to lean into me, and you’ll be fine. You know, because of gravity and all.” She swore she could feel his smirk through the mask against her right brow. “It’s basic science, MJ. I thought you’d have known that.”

She’d smack him if she wasn’t dangling five stories in the air with nothing between her and death except a teenage boy. “You’re such a dick sometimes.”

The muscles in Peter’s chest stretched as his arm strained to pull her window shut. Every detailed movement of his arm translated into Michelle. She felt the flex and elongation of his shoulders under her arms.

“A nice dick, though.” Peter exhaled across her neck. It sparked little fires on her skin. When he inhaled it left a breathless vacuum.

It took approximately three exhales for Michelle to think up a proper thing to say. “I’m sure the girls fall all over that.” Michelle tilted her lips towards the faint outline of Peter’s ears. She brushed the fabric with each whispered word. “Hi, I’m Peter Parker and I’m a very nice dick.”

A shiver passed through Peter. He slipped a few inches, causing his body to turn ridged against Michelle’s. She felt her heart drop into the acid of her stomach. Peter yanked her impossibly closer. Her arms tightened around his neck, his pulse racing against her own. “J-Jesus, MJ. You can’t say things like that.”

Not factoring in the actuality that she could have just died, Michelle smirked against the tough fibers covering Peter’s neck. “I say things like that all the time.” She was breathless; her lungs starved of oxygen.

The slap of her window closing delayed Peter’s retort. As he began pulling them into an upright position, he finally grunted out a response. “You know, I could let you fall right now. I have that power.” Michelle felt her body sliding down Peter's as he pulled them upright.

Gravity was daunting as Peter’s weight shifted from beneath her. “Such a charmer. You tell all the girls that?” She allowed sarcasm to soothe her.

“Shut up.”

She heaved a breathy laugh as her arms flexed around his shoulders. The more they straightened the more her feet found a perch atop his. Her back kissed the wall. Peter stuck to it as his moniker implied. He was Spider-Man after all. Michelle would have to ask about how he stuck to flat surfaces later; because right now she could only focus on a few things at a time. At the current moment, it was the utter fear gripping her system. And then it was the way Peter’s nose bumped into her chin. She was at least three inches taller than him with her feet resting atop his.

The pull of gravity itched to yank her away from Peter, yet his arm seemed unbreakable around her waist.

There was something different about when someone was the ground beneath you, and the stars above you. His arm reached above her, his hand holding them against the wall, He was no more than a breath away. Michelle never felt so completely entangled in another person. She briefly wondered if Peter felt the same, even though she knew he didn’t. Not in the way she wanted him to.

Peter swung around Michelle, positioning himself in a makeshift squat against the wall. Michelle sat on his bent legs.

He pulled something out from a pocket in his suit that was virtually invisible. It looked like it was a rope woven from web. Careful not to let her go with his other arm, he hung the rope around his neck, before his free hand slapped back to the wall. “Just in case, thread that around my waist and around yours.”

Michelle laughed. “You know, people use full harnesses for rock climbing? If I fall, tying this around my waist isn’t gonna do shit.”

“It’s a work in progress. Jesus, why are you so difficult?”

Regardless of how absurd it was, she leaned into his bent legs, loosening her arms from his neck. She picked the rope up. It felt oddly cold, but it was more so the texture that made it feel that way. The elasticity and strength of the stand was astonishing. She threaded it around their bodies, careful of Peter’s hand wrapped around her, and tied it in a figure eight knot.

And then, they were ready.

It took them ten minutes of swinging to get to Peter’s mystery location. Michelle swore she’d jump off a building before she let Peter swing her around Queens again.

He was now scaling the side of a building, slower than she was sure he could go, but then he was only using one hand. Michelle kept Peter in a bear hug, her legs wrapped tight around his waist. After they passed the tenth floor, she glued her eyes shut to keep from throwing up. Peter was trying to keep her talking. He could probably feel the thundering of her heart against his chest and knew she was scared out of her mind. If there weren’t more pressing things to worry about, Michelle would be embarrassed by how typical she was acting. Shouldn’t she be able to dangle fifteen stories in the air and be completely neutral about it?

She forced her eyes open, convincing herself that she was being ridiculous. If she was on the other side of the glass, looking down from the interior of the building, she would be fine. Now, seeing the shrunken effect on cars and the few people mulling about below, Michelle felt a new wave of nausea and promptly shut her eyes again.

Peter was babbling on about something, she could hear snippets of Star Wars, and how The Last Jedi wasn’t that bad after he watched it again. A particularly nippy gust of wind washed through her hair, smacking into her body, Michelle shivered through her teeth, “Peter, this is not the time to nerd out on me.”

“Are you cold?”

“What was the first clue?”

Peter huffed, pulling them both up another floor. “You know, I drag you up her with your boney hips and I don’t even get a thank you. Frankly I’m shocked. Your manners are appalling.” He said it with a quiver of laughter in his voice.

“First of all, I was fine sitting at home, you begged me to come. Secondly, you can shut the hell up about my boney hips because literally you’ve got the boniest everything ever, so suck it up.” Michelle looked up to the sky because it was better than gazing at the distance between her feet and the unforgiving pavement beneath. She was pretty sure they were at the top of the building Peter had scaled for the better part of thirty minutes.

Peter hauled them both onto the flat surface of the roof. It took some work for him to pull them up as a unified pair.

His foot slipped against the gothic trimming of the building, causing him to crash into Michelle. The force knocked her off kilter. Gravel bit into her back. Peter fell on top of her, flopping on her chest and panting with anxiety. “Sorry. I slipped, but it’s okay. We’re okay… Are you okay?” He yanked the mask off, his breath washing across her cheeks, prickling her neck. His weight was still pushing into her. He asked his question again when she didn’t answer. His face was close. It’d been this close before, but this felt different. “MJ, are you okay?” It was a whisper, at least that’s what it felt like. Whispering always felt so intimate.

Gulping down the burn aching in her throat, Michelle shoved him away to save from doing something stupid. “Yeah I’m great. I really loved the part where we almost died.”

Peter laughed. He rolled from her and stored his mask in his backpack. “We didn’t almost die.”

“So, swinging around Queens and scaling buildings with crazy superpowers that make no scientific sense is completely safe? My life was in danger, Parker.”

Eyes rolled in his head, a smirk twitched on his face “For someone who seems so chill, you really are a drama queen.”

With a sly grin, Michelle started to pull herself to her feet. This banter was the most normal her and Peter had been in weeks. “I couldn’t possibly take Her Majesty's crown away from her.” Rolling to her feet, she slapped Peter twice on the shoulder. Her pointed look conveyed what her words didn’t.

Peter pulled back, placing a hand to his heart. “You can’t possibly mean me?”

“Seeing how you’re the one who wears red and blue pajamas while saving the city, I’d say yes.” The gravel was biting into her feet, poking her heels and toes with jagged edges. Without thinking, her weight shifted from foot to foot, trying to find a comfortable position. “What did you want to show me anyways, loser?”

Perking up, Peter slung his backpack from his shoulder to the ground. He reached into the mouth of it, searching for something until his face shifted into delight. He pulled a cube, matte black with glowing blue edges, from the bag.

Peter handed her the cube and she explored the surface with prying fingers. Smooth metal, cool to the touch greeted her fingertips. The neon blue lights flickered when her fingers brushed against them. “What is it?”

Peter took it from her palm. His eyes flickered over her injured hand and she knew he wanted to ask how she was doing. Instead he reverted his attention back to the cube. Fast as lightning, but Michelle picked up on it.

“Come on, I’ll show you.” He slung his backpack onto one shoulder and hopped away from her. Grinning wide, he was already halfway across the roof. He hunched over something that looked like blankets. He set the cube down as Michelle started to make her way across the gravel. She should have put shoes on. Every step lodged jagged rocks into the pads of her feet. She took her steps light and slow.

Once she managed her way to Peter and came up beside him, she saw blankets laid out over the center of the roof, taking up a good radius of space. Michelle stepped behind him and onto the layers of blankets. He was crouched down over the cube he’d been showing to her. He set it up around the fringe of the blankets. She noticed there were three more set up around the perimeter just like it. “What's—” she began to ask, until she realized Peter had his phone pressed against his cheek.

“Mr. Stark,” With Peter’s back turned toward her, he spoke hushed into the phone. She stared at the spider graphic sprawled across his shoulder blades. Peter continued on, “Well I just figured—no! I mean, yes. I know I shouldn’t have—but it was right there and—What? No, she isn’t. Oh my God, please stop. Mr. Stark, can you please just—? She isn’t my girlfriend. I’m just trying to be a good friend. Please can you stop asking me about—Oh my God.” Peter’s head dropped low enough that Michelle could see only his neck.

He was listening intent to Tony Stark on the other line, and Michelle couldn’t resist messing with him. Padding over, she placed her lips close enough to his ear that her voice could fill them completely. “What’cha doin’, Spidey?”

He shot into the air. Literally, Peter went about three feet in the air. “MJ!” he screeched. The phone was still tight in his fist. “Jesus! You scared the shit out of me.”

She shrugged, feigning innocence, and plopped down on the blankets. Peter must have layered them up because she couldn’t feel the gravel beneath her. “You didn’t happen to steal this tech from Tony Stark, did you?”

Peter yelped and covered the receiver of his phone. “I borrowed it!”

“Typical white person response.” Laying back, Michelle turned her face toward the sky. There was always the impenetrable glow of the city below. No stars, only light slung up into the heavens. It was the vast nothingness she accepted.

“How is that a—" Peter shot her a dirty look. His face always looked too much like a puppy to take him seriously. “Nevermind.” He spoke a few more hushed words into the receiver Michelle couldn’t make out. Not that she was trying to eavesdrop. She was naturally curious. All she managed to hear was an elated, “Thank you so much, Mr. Stark!” before Peter hung up the phone. He kneeled next to one of the cubes around the blankets and fidgeted with it. In the darkness Michelle could only see the flash of his fingers over blue light before the washed-out sky above her dissolved into a clear view of the stars.

Bolting up, Michelle’s eyes roamed over the dome now above her. Black around the edges, fading into a glittered peak. She curled her fingers through the flicker of the dome. The glowing pricks above her head dimmed as her hand moved through them. “Is this a hologram?”

Peter’s weight dropped beside her and he brought a blanket over their legs. His arm brushed hers. “Sort of. Mr. Stark created it to keep an eye on the sky after everything that’s happened. But living in light polluted areas he couldn’t just go stargazing. I thought he’d have like a giant observatory, but he doesn’t. Well, I don’t think he does…” He shrugged. “I don’t know. If he does, I don’t think he uses it. Either way, he started looking into creating a mini observatory that he could carry with him. It uses holotech to create a filter for light pollution, and since it creates a dome over the viewer, the micro telescope can filter everything out. Then, if you want, you can zoom, and the dome will project the magnified image. Watch.” With a proud smile, Peter swept his hands in front of the dome. His actions caused the sky to zoom inwards until Michelle was looking directly into the Milky Way. There were so many more stars above her than she had ever seen. Inhaling deeply, the pure sight of the sky filled her.

“Pretty cool, huh?” Peter asked, glancing at her for approval.

Michelle, with her eyes brimming in stars and her vision a typhoon of galaxies, smiled and nodded. “I’ve never seen so many stars. This is incredible.” Her breath hitched when she glanced away enough to look at Peter. All nose and eyebrows from the side. His lips a thin line per usual. “Thank you.” It was no more than a whisper.

Peter met her eyes. Only half of his face was visible in the reduced light, but Michelle could see the tender smile across his face. “You’re welcome.”

The realization that she’d been treating her entire team and best friends as punching bags because of her own personal insecurities struck her. The thought of her father bubbled up, knowing that was how he dealt with his issues. She couldn’t bear to look at Peter with the thought and turned her face away. Clearing his throat, Peter also turned his face back to the sky.

“So, if you want, I can show you how to work this. It's pretty easy. I'm sure you can figure it out yourself.... but just in case.” He made no assumptions and didn’t instantly begin explaining.

“You can just do it. I’d rather sit back and enjoy.”

“You sure?”

Nodding, Michelle adjusted to a more comfortable position. She inadvertently brushed against Peter’s arm and stayed with her skin pressed against his warmth.

Peter began zooming in on constellations. Text appeared next to the stars providing the information that Peter would ask for aloud. Michelle began asking questions too. The experience was incredible. They looked at the crater marked surface of the Moon in detail Michelle could barely believe. Peter was able to find the sea of Tranquility without the AI’s help. When they turned their focus to Mars, Michelle then pointed out Olympus Mons. The detail was crystal clear. It was raw, celestial beauty.

Being in their own world, with the filtered dome overhead, Michelle couldn’t help feeling a surge of fire in her stomach. Rolling against her ribs and licking lower into her abdomen. She could feel the gratitude crashing over her. The wave of gratitude gave way to purity. A sense that she’d been stripped of her barriers. Peter found a way to take away her varnish and find the natural grain under her surface.

Michelle felt the heat of the stars burning over her skin. They both stared at the Milky Way shining over their heads. Peter’s knuckles brushed against hers, and she forced her hand away, assuming it was an accident. The burn coursing over her skin contradicted wildly with the emptiness inside. She’d been decimated in the past weeks. Looking up at those twinkling lights in the sky, she realized many of them may have already met her same fate. “Isn’t it so weird that a lot of these stars could’ve collapsed, burnt out, or exploded eons ago, and we wouldn’t know. A star could’ve exploded yesterday, and we wouldn’t know on Earth until billions of years from now. It’s unnerving, when you think of it.”

Peter gazed at her, caressing the profile of her face with his gentle stare. Invisible burns arched up her cheeks and rounded over her nose under his steady observation. No mockery masked Peter’s face as a closed-mouth smile reached up to crinkle his eyes. “Yeah, that’s crazy,” He trailed his eyes back to the stars, prompting Michelle to bring her attention back to the glitter filled sky. Peter continued his sentence with his face still turned up. “It really makes you think about the power of those balls of gas. Even our Sun distributes heat for millions of miles. All that raw, plasmic energy. All that heat and power. And someday, it'll be gone. It’s crazy that things so powerful in the universe can just be gone one day.” Glancing at Michelle he began to rectify what he said. “Well I mean obviously they don’t just die out of the blue. They decline, or expand, or collapse. So, it’s obvious that the death is coming, but—I mean, you get what I mean.” He paused, “But they sure are pretty to look at right now.”

Words were picking up speed in her thoughts. She thought about the death of stars. Stars which cut such a puncture through space that with her naked eye she gazed at them; trillions of miles away. And one day, they would die.

Inside, she felt a decline. The plasmic core of her universe dropping in temperature by the day. One day, the gravity wouldn’t be enough to keep her together. She’d hurtle through the universe in billions of tiny pieces. She would turn into asteroids that left destruction in their wake. Peter’s words echoed in her mind at that moment. But they sure are pretty to look at right now.

“They’re harmless from all the way down here. But if you get too close to them, they can only cause destruction. You fall into them and you burn.” Her voice was small. The words muttered at a volume reserved for reverent prayers.

Peter turned his face away from the sky and back to focus on her. “MJ?” Some questions need not be asked. Knowing what Peter would gather from her dreary comment, Michelle knew the question he was asking with just her name. He wanted to understand.

With a heavy sigh she closed her eyes and counted to five. It was the same as jumping from a cliff into the waters below. The countdown until launch. “I feel like I blew up in every meaning of the word except physically.” Swallowing, Michelle continued beyond the grip of her insecurities wrapping around her throat. They coiled in her lungs. “There’s all of this stuff that I don’t like to think about, about my past. I’ve been thinking about it so much recently.” Taking a deep breath, she continued, “It all stems to my damn father. I have so many insecurities because of what he did to my mom and me. I’ve spent my entire life trying to distance myself from him, but there’s this part inside that just feels so disgustingly like him. Like he’s passed on being a shitty human to me.” She could feel Peter’s intent gaze.

Another swallow. Deep breath. “He’d beat my mother, and I was ‘always the cause of everything’.” Sarcasm bit her tone, a sharp bark to her words. “We weren’t enough for him. Not that I give a shit about that, because he didn’t deserve my mom. But he tried to solve all his problems with anger. I felt like it was my fault, I guess and so I just started building these walls. I looked into his eyes the night they took him to prison and told myself I’d never be like him. I never wanted to be someone I wasn’t so people might like me. It never worked on my dad, and after trying so hard to change his mind I wasn't interested in changing anyone else's. I just built up those walls so he couldn’t hurt me anymore, so no one would be able to hurt me. And I’m happy with the person I’ve become, because I made myself the way I am….” She swallowed. Pushed the emotions behind her exterior and kept her eyes trained towards the galaxies.

A long silence followed. From the corner of her eye Michelle could tell Peter was listening intently to her. His lips didn’t twitch to fill the void. He waited until she was ready. A minuscule smile flashed on her lips before disappearing into smoke.

“But there’s this feeling that he’s lurking in there somewhere when I get angry or feel like I’m not the person people want me to be. All I can hear is him berating me, and all I can see is what he did to my mother, over and over. The walls I build... I feel like I’m protecting myself as much as everyone else. Because if I’m even a fraction of the person he is, I can’t let that be who I am. And when the walls crumble, I feel that part of myself lash out and it just goes to show he’s part of me. No matter how much I’ve tried to purge him. So much has been falling apart recently. And I’ve had to see that I’m not the—” …person you want…

Michelle cleared her throat, loud and violent to compensate for her near slip up. “I’ve just felt attacked for stupid reasons. Then, because I was mad, I pushed you away and acted out. And because I’ve been spiraling, the decathlon thing happened, then I punched Flash. And now to top it all off my dad wants me to come visit him in prison. And, Jesus, I’m actually thinking of going just to give him a giant, ‘fuck you for fucking up my life!’ But then I think it’s not even worth it because he doesn’t deserve that much.”

Michelle’s eyes stayed miraculously dry, but tremors crawled down her body. Her lip quivered in the slightest as she focused on trying to keep it still. Trying to laugh it off. “I’m not trying to throw a pity party here or play the misogynistic trope of the damsel in emotional distress who’s in need of your rescue.”

Reflections of the stars sparkled in Peter’s eyes. Every point of light highlighted the sincerity that Peter oozed. “That would make me your knight in shining armor.” And he chuckled, light and full of air. The breath of it broke over Michelle’s face.

She chuckled too. Now able to crease her lips into a smile, Michelle replied. “In your dreams.”

Smiling back at her, Peter said. “Yeah,” His eyes flitted down to trace the curve of her jaw. “You don't need a guy to save you.”

“I’d take Spider-Man if I was in a jam.

Peter threw his head back against the blankets with an infectious laugh. “Good to know.” When he turned back to her, that genuine, supporting gaze returned. “But seriously, MJ, you are nothing like your dad. I mean, you’re my best friend, and I like to think I know you. The real you. You could never be like your dad. Not from what you just told me. I think you know that somewhere deep inside. You could tame the sea, MJ. I mean—I’m pretty sure that you are God. I mean,” He blushed ever so slightly. “You’re one of the most badass, caring, mindful, intelligent, beautiful people I know. That may not help at all, because I get insecurities and have bad anxiety. I know that sometimes no matter what people say—I just know that sometimes it doesn’t help. You’re having a hard time right now, but just please remember that I—everyone—Ned, Aunt May, and I, all love you. I love you so much I—” He cleared his throat. “Ned does too. You don’t have to prove anything to anyone. Much less us. You are Michelle Goddamn Jones. And you, ma’am...” He brushed the knuckle of his index finger down the bridge of her nose. Fire woke in its path. “You are a national treasure.”

“Laying it on pretty thick, huh?” The smile wobbled on her face, but felt firm, her cheeks filled with burning plasma. A tear slipped from the edge of her eye and slid halfway down her cheek before Peter’s thumb caught it.

“Maybe.” As Peter shrugged, he shifted closer to her. His forehead a brush away from her own. In that minuscule void he whispered, “But it’s true.”

Images of her father flashed through her thoughts.

Before Peter showed up at her window, she’d thought of all the things she’d say to her father. The words she’d use to prove that she was nothing like him. That he had no control over her life. She wanted him to know the garbage he was as a father and human. With Peter’s words now swirling around her brain, a bubbling realization took over her.

At some point she’d lost herself in the rubble her father left. Somewhere along the line, she gave too many pieces of herself to the ghosts she chased. There were things she couldn’t control. She sure as hell wouldn't allow anything to control her.

In that moment, with her head pressed against Peter’s, their eyes closed and breath braiding together, Michelle let go of her father. She owed no piece of herself to him. The memories would always hurt, but she wouldn’t waste her time on him.

When Peter’s nose skimmed her own Michelle let the guilt and pain boil away.

She was not a statue carved from stone, unable to bend or move. Stuck in eternity as one person. She was an imposing wave that battered shore, and she was the wave caressing the sand as it tumbled back to the ocean. She would not be imprisoned in her own misconceptions of what she could and couldn't be.

The resinous smell of Peter engulfed her. His cheek was soft as velvet under her lips. In that moment, she realized he was not hers to keep. She knew that all she needed from him was friendship. Anything else beyond his friendship was something she wanted but would not allow herself to need.

“Thank you.” It dripped as honey would from her lips. It was a pure murmur into Peter’s ear. Michelle put to rest the idea that Peter’s glances and smiles meant anything beyond friendship. Regardless of if he would or could love her, it didn't matter. She was not his, and he was not hers. They both belonged to each other only in friendship. She accepted it and let that longing inside diminish to nothing more than a vague ache.

She pulled away from Peter, her lips brushing faint along his skin. As her body created space between them, she began filling the emptiness inside herself.

Finally, she was beginning to feel whole.

________________________________________________________________

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shitty-flangst-writer · 4 years

Text

Flower

Kenma woke up to a heavy body on top of his successfully trapping his body on the bed while simultaneously providing him the heat that he needed for early spring. He looked at the mess of hair on his chest and the pillow blocking the face of its owner.

He’s going to suffocate. He thought as he tried to remove the pillow without disturbing the sleeping guy.

When Kenma has successfully taken the pillow away and set it beside him, the face scrunched the other curled farther into his chest. Kenma’s arms wound around the others body then kissed his head.

Looking around there was barely any sun shining through the curtains. His eyes finding the clock, he finds that it wasn’t even seven am. His gaze lingering longer, he finds the button near his phone and beside that the accursed ring.

He remembers how his best friend changed his life with a few words.

===============

It was finally here, a time high school students were waiting for, graduation. As a spectator Kenma stood with his underclassmen as the ceremony draws to a close. With a final congratulations and a few ending and parting remarks, it was over. The volleyball club (or what has remained of it) goes outside of the auditorium to wait by the gym.

The volleyball team had planned it before they even went to nationals, Kenma would even go as far as to say that it was planned before Inter High itself. Sitting down near the door, he took his game out and began playing knowing full well that the confessions to his seniors will take fairly long.

He had already cleared three levels when someone sat down beside him.

“You’re not even going to congratulate me, vice-cap?” Tetsurou asked.

“You don’t need my congratulations.”

“You know you could be nice to me every once in a while Kenma.” He said while resting his chin on my shoulder.

“It would only do to your head, we don’t need you to have a bigger ego.” Kenma told his friend and the other only drew himself closer.

“Kuro, if you keep doing that I’ll lose.” He only grumbled and continued his cuddle attack.

“Kuro.” Kenma groaned.

“Come with me outside.” Tetsurou said finally creating some distance between them.

“Why? Isn’t the party gonna start yet?”

“No, we’re still waiting for Fukurodani. Please, Ken.” He said his gaze shifting nervously albeit fondly as he looked into the cat-like eyes of Kozume Kenma.

Able to sense the shift in his best friend, Kenma wordlessly stood up then waited for Tetsurou to do the same. Tetsurou called out that they would be back warranting him a few “Good luck”‘s and knowing smirks. Confused, Kenma looked to Tetsurou for an explanation only to find that he was shifting nervously. Odd. He thought, he was about to ask what it was about when they were stopped by a girl walking up to them blushing and near tripping on her own feet.

“Kuroo-san, congratulations.” she said.

She’s pretty. Kenma thought. With her wavy black hair reaching her waist, her curves, her almond-like eyes, pink lips and make-up perfectly done to complement every asset that she had. He knew where this was going and he didn’t know why Tetsurou had to drag him here to witness this.

“Ah, thank you, Hana-san.” He replied. What a fitting name.

“Uhm, Kuroo-san, it’s our last day here and I keep hearing that you haven’t given you button to anyone yet.” she said. What? Kenma thought surprised.

“Oh, yeah, I’ve yet to be alone with my special person.” Tetsurou said while scratching the back of his head.

“I know this is highly unlikely, but I’d just want to tell you before we part, but...” She bowed at her waist while holding out a letter. “I like you Kuroo-san.”

Oh, did he really take me here to accept a confession in front of me? Was I supposed to be witness of some sort? Kenma thought bitterly. She’s perfect for him, beautiful, caring and smart from what I’ve heard.

“I’m sorry Hana-san, but I’ve already have someone special to me. I really hope you find the one for you.” Tetsurou said smiling sadly. He’s turning her down.

“I know Kuroo-san.” She smiled back. “I’m just letting you know, I’ve been your classmate for three years after all.” She then winked then pushed the letter to his hands.

“I’m not asking for anything but for you to read this, I guess, it’s the thought of every girl that has taken way too much interest in you.” She said walking away.

“I know he feels the same, but...” She paused and looked at Kenma. Kenma staring at her in surprise and confusion for even acknowledging him. “Good luck anyway, be brave Kuroo-san, you’ve had longer than I did to confess.” Tetsurou laughs and nods waving as she turns the corner.

“You haven’t given you button to anyone?” asked Kenma when Tetsurou pulled him to the other side of the building, the side near the fence and far from the people who want to go to the gym. They stop before Tetsurou answers him.

“No, like I said, I haven’t had the chance.”

“Is it someone from Fukurodani?” Kenma asked.

“Uh, also no.” he then started fidgeting. Kenma was confused, the last time Tetsurou was with nervous when it came to him was when they first met.

“Oh.” said Kenma. Good going, Kenma. He though to himself.

“Is that all you’re gonna say?” Tetsurou laughed.

“What do you want me to say?” Kenma countered.

“Let’s leave that at that.” Tetsurou said then wiped his hands on his slacks then puts both his hands inside his pockets.

“Can you be honest with me?” He asked Kenma.

Kenma could only nod, confused and a little anxious. He was scared, he was always so good at reading Tetsurou, what made this any different?

“Please tell me you’ll listen, that you’ll let me finish, that you won’t run away?” Tetsurou near pleaded. Kenma nodded one more time.

“Please say it.” He said. It’s been so long since Kenma has seen him this vulnerable.

“I’ll listen, I’ll let you finish, I won’t run away. But you need to calm down Kuro.” Kenma told him in a soft voice, afraid to scare him further.

Tetsurou breathed out a laugh and straightened his body.

“Kozume Kenma, Kenma, Ken, my best friend, my other half. I’ve been hiding something from you...” He paused.

“I didn’t want to tell you, I didn’t want anything to come in between us. I wanted to be with you for the entirety of our lives. When you met Chibi, all I could think of was your face whenever you played him. How you were positively ecstatic when you looked at him. All I could think of was why couldn’t I have made you feel like that? It’s been so long since I met you but not once have I seen you react like that to me...” Kuroo smiled in the same way that Hana did.

Kenma wanted more than to stop him, to tell him he had always made him feel like that. That he didn’t need volleyball to make Kenma feel happy. That volleyball was trivial when it came to how much Tetsurou made him happy.

“But seeing you grow, it made me so happy Ken. To see you happy without me, to see you excited about something that I didn’t force you into. It made me so happy yet I kept wishing that was me that made you smile, that it was me that made you feel that way...”

You’ve always been, Kuro, Tetsu, it’s always been you.

“I was ready to surrender when you collapsed and said that volleyball was fun. When you thanked me for getting you into volleyball, I was happy yes, but mostly, I felt resigned. I resigned the fact that outside of being the annoying guy next door, I was nothing to you...”

How dare you say that?

“I hid my feelings for you for so long it’s become a second nature to me, but even I couldn’t help but feel hurt when you went after Chibi in the match with Kamomedai. I finally realized then that I had lost and it was Hinata that I lost to...”

You haven’t lost me Tetsu, I’m still here. Tetsurou took his hands out of his pockets and bowed, he held out both hands as it enclosed around something.

“I’m sorry to put all this unnecessary pressure on you Ken, I promised myself that. But please, at least accept this.” He said, his voice cracking by the end of it.

The wind blew and Kenma stood there shell-shocked. Tetsurou remained in his position until Kenma put his hand on top of the other’s.

Tetsurou slowly loosened his grip on whatever it was he was holding. It was a button. The second button of his uniform. The button closest to the heart. Kenma was speechless, Kuroo Tetsurou, his Kuro, his Tetsurou, had saved it for him. Only when he has taken the button did Tetsurou stood straight again.

Looking at him now, Kenma was reminded on how Tetsurou clutched his father’s pants in an attempt to hide from him.

Then Kenma hugged him, he hugged him until Tetsurou hugged back, until the other’s heartbeat returned to normal, until he can feel the other’s tears soaking his uniform, until his Tetsurou whispered a very soft I love you that was almost lost to the wind. Only then did he pull away, only then did he whisper his own I love you back while staring into the other’s eyes.

Tetsurou froze and stared at him, he then fell to his knees taking Kenma with him. He began weeping harder and holding Kenma closer and tighter to him. Finally calming down he spoke up.

“I thought you’d reject me.”

“Why would I? Do you have any idea how long I’ve wanted to hear you say that?” Kenma said. Tetsurou hugged him tighter.

“I have one more thing to tell you...” he paused then pulled away leaving them kneeling in front of each other.

“I don’t know what I did in my past lives that the gods have warranted me such a reward as our co-existence, but I’ll gladly take it. To think that you reciprocated my feelings is one of the best think that I’ve heard. I want to give you something, to confess with I guess.” Tetsurou takes out a small black velvet box and Kenma feels his heart speed up.

“It’s not a proposal, I swear, I just wanted to give you something, it’s actually for the two of us.” Tetsurou opens the box and there inside were two rings, he takes out the smaller of the two and takes Kenma’s hand. Before the ring was slipped into his finger, he saw something engraved and lined with black on the inside.

“What’s engraved on it?” he asked.

“相棒 (aibou), to remind you that before I loved you, you were my friend, my partner, the one that helped me out of my shell.” Tetsurou told him as he slipped the ring on his ring finger.

“Tetsu.” said Kenma. Tetsurou was moving to put the ring on his own finger when he took it from him. He took the other’s left and and slipped the ring into the other’s finger. before letting go, Kenma pressed a kiss to the ring then the knuckle of his ring finger.

Kenma looks up to Tetsurou’s face only to find him staring at him in shock with a blush tinting his cheeks. Tetsurou held the other’s face in his hands and leaned in to touch their foreheads together.

“Can I kiss you?” Tetsurou whispered. Kenma nodded in reply.

They eased into the kiss, it wasn’t fluffy, it wasn’t heavy, it didn’t cause sparks to fly. For them, it felt familiar, it wasn’t puppy love, it wasn’t searching for the one, it didn’t feel like a teenage dream. It was real, it was them.

#randomizer #kuroo tetsurou #kozume kenma

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cupidkihyun · 7 years

Text

Bad Decisions pt 2 [Jaehyun]

Genre: Angst

Scenario: Your long term friend Jaehyun is in love with your best friend. You want nothing but the best for them but silently dealing with your break up from BTS singer Jeon Jungkook has been weighing on you. One drunken night and one bad decision leads to risks taken and mistakes made.

Characters: Jaehyun; Reader (You); Your Friend (Y/F/N); Mark; small mention of other members

Word Count: 2007

Notes: Thank you so much for your feedback with part 1, reading your nice comments really made my day! Here’s part 2 I hope you guys enjoy it as well.

1 | 2 | 3 | 4 | 5 | 5.5

“Alright.”

He gave you a slow nod, his eyes telling you ‘its what’s for the best Y/N’, and he released his grip on your knee. You couldn’t necessarily poke any holes in his logic. It’s true that he and Y/F/N weren’t dating but they might as well have been. She was so in love with him and up until now you would have said he felt the exact same way about her.

As you sat with your thoughts he collected his discarded shirt off the floor and rolled it up into a ball in his fist. You watched him tug the wrinkled black material onto his body. He popped his head through the hole and shook his dark hair. You walked over to your bag, checking your phone one more time before slinging the strap across your shoulder.

“It’s almost 4am, you should just spend the night.” Jaehyun called after you.

“No I’m just gonna go.”

“Looking like that?” He gestured to your body. The deep marks his mouth left on your skin starting to turn a dull purple, “Just stay over Y/N. You can sleep in my room. It wouldn’t be the first time.”

“It’s different now. We can’t do that kind of thing anymore.”

“I didn’t want things to be different.”

“Well they are!”

Mark’s awkward cough caught your attention and you both turned to look at him, “You can sleep in my bed, Y/N. I can sleep on the floor.”

“Mark how long were you standing there.”

“I just came back; you guys are being hella loud. I’m surprised Haechan hasn’t scrambled out here at the first sign of drama.”

The next day you woke up to a sleeping Mark softly snoring on the floor beside you. You were lax for a moment seemingly in a limbo, until you remembered what you had done last night. Y/F/N had told you she liked Jaehyun many times over, always telling you about the little conversations they had and the compliments he would send her way. Guilty was not a strong enough word of how you felt.

You got up out of bed twisting your stiff limbs until you heard them crack and roll back into place. You quietly shuffled out of the room, entering the small kitchen and living area to find Haechan already awake munching on a muffin.

“Noona, are you alright? You have marks on your neck,” he said worried trying to get a better look at your neck.

“Uh yeah Haechan I’m fine”, you said hurriedly covering your neck with your hand and moving past him to get out the door and down to your car, waving half-heartedly at him as you left.

You had texted Y/F/N last night saying you had got carried away with the Uno game and didn’t realize the time had flown by. You hoped that didn’t sound too fake over text, usually you were more careful about sleeping over, being an idol you couldn’t ruin your image with something as little as staying over at a boy’s dorm.

She had texted you back not one second later telling you it was okay and that you had dance practice tomorrow and to be back early to get a shower, change, and eat before you both left.

You couldn’t help but let a few tears slip as you sat in your car looking at your messages. She was always so kind to you, especially after your break up with Jungkook. She won’t even yell at you for staying over, which she should, instead she’ll have breakfast ready and nothing but a smile on her face.

You drove back to your dorm, it was about 20 minutes away, giving you time to compose yourself before you met your members.

You walked into the dorm to find it empty, there was no music on, no one starting a food fight in the kitchen. You placed your bag down on the couch, going into the room you shared with Y/F/N and walked straight into her.

“Oh, hey there you are. I didn’t hear you come in”, she said as you backed up a little, your head hitting the back of the door.

“Are you okay? You look tired….”, she said as she peered at your face. It must still be puffy from you crying this morning.

“Uh, yeah. Fine, fine. Um why is no one else awake?”, you said diverting the question.

“They have the day off, because we’re practicing with Mark and Jae today for our sub-group. Are you sure you’re okay? You didn’t drink anything did you?”

“Yeah, yeah I am. I just didn’t get a lot of sleep last night, sorry. I’m gonna go take a shower before we have to leave”

“Alright, I’ll make breakfast. Bacon and eggs sound good?”, she said as she made her way out of the bedroom.

“Uh yeah that’s fine”, you said as you grabbed a pair of sweatpants and a t-shirt from your closet and rushed to the bathroom. Keeping this from her was harder than you expected.

Once you were done with your shower you did minimal make-up, being an idol you never got a day off to be “normal”. You stared at yourself in the mirror. The hickeys Jaehyun gave you still shone on your skin a deep plum color, making your thoughts drift back to last night. His lips on your skin felt so… right. But you couldn’t deny the amount of guilt you felt over it, it was slowly suffocating you like a flower wilting in the sun.

You covered up the marks he left on you as best you could, and made your way to the kitchen. The savory smell of bacon hit your nose as you rounded the corner, seeing Y/F/N bent over the stove cooking.

“Hey, I’m almost done, give me a minute”, she said smiling softly at you.

You took a seat at the breakfast bar, waiting patiently as she finished. Your phone vibrated on the counter, startling you. It was Jaehyun.

Jaehyun: “Remember what we agreed to last night. We can’t tell her”

Y/N: “The guilt is eating me alive Jae, I don’t know if I can be this fake to her and her not notice something is off with me. It’s only a matter of time”

Jaehyun: “Y/N you know we can’t tell. We’re just gonna have to forget about it”

Y/N: “Easier said than done”

“Here, I hope you like it!”, Y/F/N said as she placed a heaping plate of food in front of you.

“I always like it, you’re the best”

“Haha thanks. I’m looking forward to today, I think it’s going to be really fun and our song is really good! I hope the fans like it, there’s been a lot of hype around it. And I think Jaehyun likes me Y/N, like likes me likes me. He’s really cute, right? Do you think he’ll ask me out? I hope he does”

You swallowed thickly, “I mean he’s alright…and yeah I’m 100 percent sure he likes you”, You said trying to keep up with the conversation as best you could without sounding too “off”.

“Are you sure you’re okay? You’re acting… strange this morning”

“Y/F/N I SAID I WAS FINE” you snapped as you eyed the girl beside you.

She looked taken aback, her hair falling in perfect waves down her face, framing it in a soft halo. Her eyes told you she knew something was up, but you were unwilling to tell.

“Y/N, I was just trying to help. Something is obviously eating away at you”, she said as she stood up, her chair scraping along the floor as she did. She washed her plate, and put it in the dishwasher then turned back to you.

“We leave in 10 minutes, I’ll drive”, she said as she left the kitchen with a solemn expression.

Now you really fucked up. She knew something was up, why you thought you could hide it was beyond you.

You both sat in the car, not talking. “Singing in the Rain” by JinSoul was softly playing in the background, as rain drops started to lightly hit the roof of the car. You guys were usually singing and dancing to whatever song was playing and you had been vlogging your trips in the car, but Y/F/N turned off the camera as soon as you got in the car telling fans you would be back later and shut off the V-live. The camera turned itself on automatically when the car started, giving fans an inside look at what happened when you guys drove.

“Great,” you heard Y/F/N mutter as she put on the wipers as the rain started to pick up, thunder booming in the distance.

She pulled into the underground garage at your company and into the space closest to the elevator and shut off the engine.

“Hey I’m sorry about this morning, you don’t need to tell me everything and I’m sorry for prying into your business” she said as she broke the silence.

“It’s okay. I was being a bitch about it,” you muttered as you glanced at her.

“I mean kind of….” she said a smile on her face, “Okay we good? Let’s go!”, she said as she hopped out of the car.

You couldn’t help but admire how she handled situations, you guessed it came with being the leader of a popular K-pop group and the constant pressure.

You followed her to the elevator, pushing the button for the 6th floor. You almost forgot about what transpired the other night until the doors opened to reveal Mark and Jaehyun waiting outside the practice room.

“Oh guys I’m sorry, I forgot it was locked,” Y/F/N said as she came in front of them to unlock the doors. “No one is usually here this early”.

As Y/F/N was occupied with the doors and Mark’s comments about how “Noona’s shouldn’t forget such meaningful things” Jaehyun gave you a pointed look that clearly said “Don’t say anything” and slipped inside the practice room.

After about 4 hours of getting the dance moves wrong and “Noona that’s too sexy for my eyes” you guys had finally taken a break. You made your way over to where your bag was and fished out your water bottle you knew Y/F/N had packed for you.

“Hey”, you heard a deep voice say right behind you.

“Fuck Jaehyun, you scared me. And I don’t want to talk to you right now,” you said as you tried to get back to Y/F/N and Mark, who were currently playing “rock, paper, scissors” for who had to buy the food for lunch.

“You haven’t said anything to her right?”

“No, I haven’t,” you scowled at him.

“Okay, well I just asked her if I could take her out after practice and she agreed”

“Great, now move”, you said.

Suddenly you hear Mark’s voice boom through the practice room. “Yo I wouldn’t leave those two together for too long after what happened last night” he hollered and you immediately knew you were going to kill Mark.

“What happened last night?” Y/F/N asked as she counted out money for lunch absentmindedly on the floor.

“Nothing” you and Jaehyun said at the same time.

“You guys didn’t tell her?”

“Mark shut the fuck up”, you snarled.

“Oh just that they were all on each other last night.” Mark laughed/

Y/F/N turned to look at the both of you, raising an eyebrow in suspicion. “Jaehyun what is he talking about?”

“Y/F/N it wasn’t like that.” Jaehyun blurted out quickly.

Mark rolled his eyes, “Oh please, I could hear you guys with my door shut. And the way you guys were clinging to each other, oh my god, it was like you two were ‘bout to merge souls or something. I’m actually gonna have night terrors for the rest of my life.”

You couldn’t be more horrified. The look on her face was of utter disbelief, which turned to anger, then sadness all in a mere second.

-admin unnie & punpun

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