#i drew this at 2am at some point i apologize | Explore Tumblr Posts and Blogs

fatedtime · 3 years

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hello i wrote this at 2am in a feral haze. the premise: confessing to Servants who would be Difficult About It until their master starts breaking down in the Lostbelts.

I'd like to do more but for now here's Bedivere and the Phantom of the Opera.

Bedivere

Oh, he breathes, and his face reddens from the effort of restraining tears because he is so, so very unworthy.

He knows it is neither dream nor trick, because the air is too sweet for a nightmare and you are far too sincere for those sorts of childish pranks. He cannot fathom what must have possessed you to say something like that to him - I love you, Bedivere in a voice that drowns in honey - and he plays dumb because Bedivere is such a very well-practiced liar.

How wretched that he wants you, he numbly thinks as you stutter and stammer before him. How horrible it is that he is such a greedy man.

(As if he is worth even kissing his Master's feet. He is a steward. A servant. A knight. How dare he let such desires bloom within him? How dare he feel as such for his lord?)

It is art, the way he avoids your confession. It's such a fine line to balance - he must not refuse you, because to do so would break your heart, but he must not accept you, for to do so would invoke upon you only shame. He hides in the shadows of plausible deniability, of being the dense, airheaded, gentle and pure Bedivere whose humbleness blinds him to the feelings of others.

He feels no pride when he brushes the topic away with an offer of tea and chocolates and ever more servitude, and you let the subject drop.

When had it happened, he wonders? What had he done? Bedivere is not an audacious enough man to think that he had seduced you, but he knew what a burden you held on your shoulders, and he knew that sometimes feelings of reliance and gratitude could be mistaken for... other things, feelings with a similar palatable sweetness.

That had to be it, he was certain. A mistaken, misallocation of emotion. Because if not, because if otherwise --

(His most important and sacred duty was keeping you safe and how could he do that if he shattered you to pieces? And of course he would, how could a man like him not end up doing so, it was his failure that had turned the King of Knights into the Lion King, his selfishness, and if you let him into your heart like that he knew he would do the same to you, he knew it he knew it and that could not be he would never let it be.)

These boundaries were necessary. He was supposed to protect you, among all other things. If you loved him, he could not protect you with everything he had, because the wounds sustained during that protection would wound you as well.

...He may not even be able to give up what was necessary, at the end, just like with the king he never wished to die, because the idea of a future with you would be too tantalizing to ignore.

And that is why he would lie to you, and suffocate this wretched flower blooming in his heart. Thorns pierced him as he smiled and bowed his head before you. You had lead him to a victory he had sought for over a thousand years, and in his cowardice, he would wield his sword for you forevermore.

***

You were breaking down, and he was watching it happen.

He wondered if this meant that he had learned from his prior failures with King Arthur, that he had even noticed it, or if you simply were too honest of a person to conceal your grief. Neither thought comforted him.

He did what he could to ease your burdens as you tore reality after reality between your fingers, condemning them while fighting for your own version of history. For all of his flaws, he was an astoundingly loyal man, and his trust in you never wavered once.

But still, he kept his distance. Though those words you'd said that day haunted him daily (and sometimes, nightly as well) he always asked himself this: what use was that sort of love under the weight of all your sorrows? You had far more important matters on your mind than pining after a ridiculous fool like him, he was sure and he told himself that his rejection had meant nothing.

Changed nothing.

Even though there were ever so many things he wanted to do, so many moments when he had to practice such restraint. He did not take your hand when the two of you walked side by side, even though - unoccupied - your nails drew blood from your palms. When you stood in the snow-fields of the Kingdom of Beasts, he waited behind you, watching as the wind stung your cheeks and never broaching that gap. How would a hug from him then change anything?

Would it have kept the warmth in you from slipping away?

One day, you looked up at the sky, and began to muse about the relationship between gods and men.

That back then, it had felt so easy to be defiantly human, but more and more you wondered about the righteousness of your cause. Did it even matter? Did this suffering, this agony even matter, or was it something that you long ago should have thrown away? You felt so far removed from other people now, so distant, and you wondered if this is what gods were like - deciding who would live and who would die.

"What separates me from the Lion King?" You cried, slamming your fist against the wall with your teeth bared into a pained snarl. "Preserving my desired humanity at the detriment of everything else in the world? Perhaps, back then, I was nothing but a hypocritical fool."

It was at that moment that Bedivere snapped.

Everything you were saying - he rejected it down to his very core. You were nothing like the Lion King, you could never be anything like the Lion King because you were so wonderfully, beautifully, terribly infuriatingly human and the things you fought for were flawed, broken, illogical, and human just the same. He wanted to scream at you that because you worried about these things proved you were nothing about that imperial woman, that your feelings mattered simply because they existed - that even if feeling was shitty it was also right - but he found that things got a little twisted when it came from the 'putting thoughts out of the mouth' department and, instead, got a little more direct.

More specifically, his mouth on yours.

When his brain finally caught up to his body, he had his teeth on your neck and his hands in some very unknightly places. He would have shoved himself away, apologized, gotten on his knees and begged that you behead him for his impropriety, but the parched soil of your spirit greedily drank in any affection he had to offer and, at this point, you could hardly let him go.

The partitions of distance had worn you away, left you chilled and frozen, and so fervently did you seek touch, warmth, honesty, especially from your trusted ally and the foolish man you happened to love. After tasting it, there was no turning back for you, and quite honestly, none for him either. Barriers had been torn, and in his arms, you cried for how vehemently you felt human once more.

Your mutual search for 'something perfect that will cause no pain' was a doomed one from the start, and wiping frozen tears away, he murmured, "Once more, I fear that I have kept you waiting."

Still, at the end, he faced his own cowardice, and it was enough to hold together a fractured heart for just a little longer.

Oh, there is joy, yes. There is such impossible warm joy, a radiant magma spilling through the ugly, malformed rot of his insides. It's the sort of rabid delight that drives a man to madness, and he sings to choke it down, sings of your beauty and your purity and your praises to the sun and moon and stars alike. It is how he disguises the disgusting urge within him to take you into the dark so he may envelope himself utterly in your light.

Phantom of the Opera

I'd say that you're going to destroy this entire man's career, but the truth of it is this: you are this man's entire career, and that is why the melodious lilt of those words devastates him so utterly.

...It’s not that he mistakes you for her -- Christine, that is, the songstress that he did such terrible things in his desire to claim. He knows you are the Master of Chaldea, and that the entirety of human history is the stage for your song of salvation. The power of your voice - your existence, and your ability to enforce your will upon the world - shall transcend time and space to stand against the Incineration of Humanity.

It’s more accurate to say that you are his Christine, the thing that defines his existence, because what would the Phantom of the Opera be without a Christine to love?

Oh, he knows his love is a terrible thing. Oh, he knows he is ugly because of it, and so wretchedly he wishes that he could be unrepentant like Kiyohime, could be unabashed like Serenity, could be fanatical in his desires like Minamoto no Raiko. But he knows what will happen if he does that, doesn’t he? He knows what will happen at the climax of this performance if he does not stretch the first and second acts into eternity.

You confess to him, this man that wishes he was truly a monster and not a monster of a man, and he wants to weep from the agony of it, of how much he wants to TAKE.

But he cannot do that. This is why he sings. For if the performance is still ongoing, he can stave off its terrible end, for he does not want to do harm to you, his light, his love, his foolish, glorious master. In the wake of your confession, he takes your hands with hands not meant for it, balancing your fingers on those delicate blades, and responds to it with an aria of how much he adores you in turn.

He may not be able to accept your love, because to do so would lead to him drowning you in the depths of his monstrosity, but the Phantom of the Opera will pour his soul into ensuring that you know that he loves you, he loves you, always and forever it is you, it is you, it is you --

(Even if that mental corruption twists it, and all he can say is Christine, Christine, Christine -- )

And so, he keeps the mask of monstrosity on. This is the part he has been summoned to play.

***

The distance torments him, the dance destroys him, and he recreates the illusions of his existence in a thousand new phantoms as he simply tries to survive as ‘another performance’ in your glory.

He loves you but will not be with you, this man who must admire you from afar. He has his role and you have yours, and the two of you are not lovers, even though the love you each bear for each other is aching in its desperation. Distance defines him, like the negative space in a photograph, and he cannot broach that barrier without the ruination of everything he so rigidly clings to.

This is how things are until the Lostbelts.

What is the difference between singing and screaming, he wonders, as he watches you condemning another world to its fate? What separates those distinctly raw vocalizations of agony? Because it still sounds like music to him, your wretched sobs as he watches you cry, and he can already see the ending to this tragedy, so crisp and clear like a stanza written in blood.

“Why do I have to be so human?” You had asked him, fingers tightening in his cloak. “It seems all I am destined for is the folly of human mistakes.”

It almost breaks him again, when you grab hold of him and nearly beg him to take you away, because he must be wrong, he has to be wrong, for you are not angelic or glorious or a light that will rise boldly forth to protect the world. If he still wants a thing as wretched as you, then he should lock you up so you can incinerate no more worlds underneath the force of your conviction.

“It might even make you a hero,” you breathe into his neck and - no, it does not almost break him, it does break him, but not in a way he ever could have hoped to expect.

The Phantom of the Opera knows that to keep you would be one of the greatest joys he could ever know. He would find some way to do it, and in that prison, he is certain he could return you to a state of glory untainted by the monstrous guilt weighing on your own heart.

But that is the one thing that he must not do.

Taking his mask off, he removes with it his false monstrosity. He is human as he kisses you. He is a human who kisses you to know and be known, to love and be loved, and in the tide of his want, he will let you drown all of your sorrows within him.

You are not Christine, because Christine does not actually exist. But because you are lovely and righteous and kind, he will give his everything to you, for you are the thing he shall love till the end of every world and then his own.

“Know me now, both in body and in soul,” he asks of you in turn, for if the actor who plays the Phantom of the Opera wants any other sort of role, this is the price he must pay. He can no longer maintain his perfect devotion, that perfect idealized love held at an appropriate length, because only a human - a human born with the gift of possibility - could ever change his role as he wishes to do, change his story and with it, your own.

“I will recast myself in a role that can be by your side,” he whispers into the darkness, and he closes the curtain around you with a blanket that blocks out the light. "For you, I shall be a pillar in your grief."

{Your saga will not end in tragedy; this, to you, he swears.}

#fgo headcanon #fate grand order #fgo #phantom #bedivere #me: its christmas what do i want to write?#hurt/comfort that's what #how far i have fallen that i have been sucked back into the fate rabbit hole to want to blog and write about it but #quarantine sucks so i'm allowed some measure of madness i suppose #fgo headcanons

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snowdice · 4 years

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Finding the Time to Study Fic 2 [Day 25]

Here is my starting post for today’s study break stories session. See this post for more details and feel free to send me asks to keep me going! It’s been a lot of fun so far! I will reblog this post with the story as I write them today. I’ll be constantly looking for ideas of times and places for Janus to have missions, so feel free to send in any you can think of at any point!

If you are a new follower or just don’t want all of these posts clogging your dash, please feel free to block the tag “study break stories” as all posts and voting about it will go there. You can still see the finished product of the story even if you are blocking that tag as I will not tag the edited chapters with “study break stories” but with the tag “folds in paper.” See edited chapters below. Chapters 3-8 and what I have of Chapter 9 are under the cut.

My Masterpost Part 1 Part 2 Part 3 Part 4 Part 5 Part 6

I also have a playlist on youtube (because Spotify didn’t have one of the songs I wanted). It’s short, and not really for serious listening, but I had fun with it.

Alright. I have a midterm that is due in 24 hours so we’re going to be going quite a while today. I’ll probably even stay up late since that class is canceled in the morning and I’ll sleep better if I go to bed at 2am with it done then I will if I go to bed at 10pm with it not done. I have a lot of water, tea, and snacks. Feel free to send me Lo-fi playlists because I’m not sure what vibe I want today and took 15 minutes to pick out my first one. XD

Chapter 7

“Him,” was the only thing Janus said before taking off after the figure who had just disappeared into the game area.

“What?” Remus’s voice followed after him. “Janus! What?!”

Janus did not pause, just continuing to run after Pat, hopping over two barricades as a shortcut. Janus cursed when he lost sight of the man for just a moment near the prize table filled with colorful goldfish, but he was able to spot him once again walking into one of the tents. Janus blasted into the tent. It was a game where they raced rats, and when Janus entered, Pat was cooing at one of them.

“Who’s a tiny little squishy precious baby?” he was asking one of them, wiggling his pointer finger at it.

“You,” Janus growled stepping up to him.

He turned and tilted his head at Janus with a frown. “Um, me?” he asked, pointing to his chest, all sorts of innocent, but Janus could see a spot of hidden amusement in his eyes.

“Where is it?”

His eyebrows drew together, but it was an act. It was clearly an act! “Where is what?”

“The…” he glanced around them at the people surrounding them. “Thing you just took.”

“I didn’t take anything,” Pat said with a frown.

“Oh, no,” Janus said. “Fool me once, shame on you. Fooling me twice is not an option.”

“I’m sorry sir,” Pat said. “I really don’t know what you’re talking about.”

“Bull. Shit.”

Just then, Remus jogged into the tent. “What’s going on?” he asked.

“It’s him,” Janus said pointing. “He took it. He has it.”

“I… don’t know what you’re talking about,” Pat said. He looked over to Remus with a confused frown.

Remus looked at Janus. “Are you sure?”

“Yes,” Janus said. “It’s him. It has to be him. He’s the mask guy.”

Remus squinted at Pat. “He is?”

“Whoever you think I am, I’m not. I haven’t worn a mask all night. I just did the face paint,” he pointed to his cheeks.

Remus raised his wrist and his timepiece lit up green. He looked at Janus.

“I lost sight of him for five seconds. He must have stashed it somewhere,” Janus said. He turned on Pat. “Where did you put it?”

“…Are you,” Pat asked, his eyes going back and forth between Janus and Remus, “… the police?”

“We are, actually,” Khalid said as she stepped into the tent. Remus must have called her. She inserted herself between Janus and Pat. “Agent Khalid,” she said, offering a hand with a smile. Pat looked at it in surprise and then smiled back hesitantly as he took it. “Apologizes, one of the big game prizes was stolen by someone matching your description. Would you mind coming down to security for questioning? Just to clear it up.”

“Oh,” Pat said, hesitant. Janus expected him to refuse outright, but then he said. “Uh, sure.”

“Thank you very much, Mr…”

“Jonas,” Pat told her earnestly. “Do I need to be handcuffed?”

“No,” Khalid said. Janus frowned at her, but she ignored him. “It’s just a talk for now.” She gestured to the tent entrance. “Come with us.”

He did without argument, and Remus and Janus followed behind the both of them. Khalid did not lead them back to the base, but to a little spot that said “security” near the center of the event. Remy was already there waiting for them at a desk.

“Remy, would you please take Mr. Jonas to go sit down?” she asked.

“Sure, boss,” Remy said, standing up. He led Pat away.

Khalid turned to Janus and Remus once they were out of earshot. “What is going on?”

“It’s the mask man,” Janus said, “the one from 1923, and my scanner said the time bomb was on the Millenia Bird outside the games entrance, but then it was gone the next second, and I saw him, and then he ran away.”

“So, does he have it on him?”

“No. I lost sight of him, and he must have stored it somewhere, but I know he took it.”

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“He’s the man from 1923?” she asked.

“Yes! Remus, that’s him, right? You recognize him.”

“Well,” Remus said thoughtfully. “He was in a mask, and it was dark in the room with the necklace. Other than that, I only really saw his back, and he was wearing pants. Mr. Jonas is wearing a dress, so I can’t really tell if their asses match.”

“Okay, but I was with him for hours. I swear it’s him, and I swear he took it,” Janus just about shouted.

“We’ll question him,” Khalid placated, “and Fred and Lena will keep looking in the meantime.”

“He knows where it is,” Janus insisted. “I swear.”

“Okay,” Khalid said, before leaving to follow where Remy and Pat had gone. She stopped Janus with a hand on his shoulder. “I think Remus and I will do the interrogation.” He opened his mouth to argue. “You know the most about him, so observe from the sidelines and see if he makes any mistakes that indicate you’re right.”

“That’s just to placate me and you know it.”

“Observation’s over there,” she said pointing.

He got a thumbs up from Remus as he walked by, and Janus glared at his back before walking off to the indicated location.

He watched as Remus and Khalid entered the room, and Remy left it. Remy joined him in the observation room after leaving and leaned against the wall.

Pat was sitting at a table and watched Remus and Khalid with that same rubbish placid confusion that he had before. “So,” Khalid said, “Mr. Jonas.”

“You can call me Nick,” Pat interrupted.

“Lia,” Khalid replied. He smiled at her happily. “So, are you enjoying your day?” she asked.

“I am!” he replied. “It’s a big day. You only get to see the turn of a millennia once in your life.”

“Ah, yes,” Khalid said. “Doing anything special for it?”

“Um, not really,” he said. “Other than the party. I’m going to meet up with my roommates after dinner. Kevin doesn’t like this sort of thing, and Joe couldn’t come.”

“Your roommates,” Khalid said, considering him. “Do you live around here?”

“Uh huh,” Pat replied.

“Do you have any ID?”

“I do, want me to get it?”

“If you wouldn’t mind.”

Pat unzipped one of the bubbles on his waist and handed her a chip. “Remus, would you mind going out and getting the ID scanner?” she asked, even though her timepiece would be able to read it.

“Ah, shit,” Remy said. “Props. What do those things even look like?”

As Remy scrambled to find something that would pass for an ID reader so “Nick” didn’t get suspicious of Khalid using her timepiece, Janus watched the two alone in the room like a hawk.

“I see you’re wearing a dress inspired by the 2770s,” Khalid noted, as Remus came to stand next to him.

“Yeah!” Pat replied. “Joe made it for me. He’s really good at fashion design!”

“Can I see?” she asked.

With a happy smile, he reached over the table to let her get a look of the sleeves. Janus saw her subtly scan the fabric, probably to make sure it was from the 2990s and not actually from the 2770s. Considering she didn’t mention it, Janus assumed it checked out.

Remy came back with some sort of device then and handed it to Remus who saluted and wandered back into the interrogation room. Khalid pretended to scan the ID in her hand. She handed it back to him without comment. “So, you said you live with your roommates: Joe and Kevin?” she asked.

“Yep!” he replied. “We’re practically like brothers.”

“Would you mind calling them?”

“Erm,” he titled his head like he was confused by the question. “Well, like I said, Joe is a bit busy, but I could definitely call Kevin.

“Here,” Khalid said, “use my phone.”

“I have my own,” he said with a frown.

“Humor me,” she requested.

“Uh, okay,” Pat agreed. He took the offered 2999 phone and dialed a number on it. Khalid reached over to put it on speaker.

“Hello?” a voice asked after a few seconds.

“Um, hey Kevin, it’s Nick.”

There was a sigh on the other end. “Hello Nick, is something wrong? Why are you calling me from someone else’s phone?”

“I’m fine, I think.” He looked up at Khalid. “Why am I calling him exactly?”

“Hello, I’m Officer Khalid,” Khalid said. “I just wanted to confirm that you are Nick Jonas’s roommate, and he does live in Manaus.”

“Yes, we live together with our other roommate,” the man replied flippantly. “Officer? Is something wrong?”

“I believe there was just a case of mistaken identity,” Khalid said.

“Bullshit there was!” Janus hissed, though she could not hear him.

“No need to worry,” Khalid continued.

“I’m good Kevin,” Pat said.

“Are you absolutely sure?” Kevin asked.

“Don’t be Paranoid, Kevin. I’ll see you Tonight for the New Years Celebration. You know I Live to Party.”

“I am hanging up now,” Kevin said.

“No! Comeback.” The line went dead. Pat handed the device back to Khalid.

She took it and smiled at him. “Give us just a couple of minutes,” she requested. He nodded easily, and she and Remus exited the interrogation room. “I… think we’re done here,” Khalid said.

“No, he’s lying,” Janus insisted, and got a dubious look in return. “I know he is! Remus!”

“The alibi is pretty solid…” Remus said, “and he doesn’t have the bomb on him.”

“Oh, come on,” Janus said. “You can’t say there is nothing fishy going on here.”

Khalid and Remus shared a look. “Janus,” Khalid said. “I respect your intuition. It is usually very good, but you have been a bit intense about the man from the 1920s, and I think that may be blinding you a bit...”

“I am not imagining this!” Janus said. “That’s him and he took it.”

“You only met him once while he was wearing a mask,” Khalid pointed out with a frown, “and you didn’t see him take the bomb, did you?”

“No, but he looked at me and I knew,” Janus argued. They both gave him a skeptical look. “Oh, come on!”

“You know that’s a little weak, Jan,” Remus said.

“Let me talk to him,” Janus requested. “Just give me five minutes to talk with him.”

Khalid raised one eyebrow. “Fine,” she agreed. “You have five minutes, but after that, you have to let it go. We can’t waste any more time.”

Chapter 8

Pat looked up as Janus stepped into the interrogation room. “Hi,” he said with an innocent smile that could cut steal.

Janus didn’t say a word as he took a seat; he just watched him intently. He leaned slightly over the table and steepled his fingers in front of his chin. “So, your name is Nick this time?” Janus asked.

“Nicholas Jonas,” he said. “Always has been.”

“Stop it,” Janus said.

“Stop what?”

“Cut the crap. I know.”

Pat leaned forward, mirroring Janus as he leaned closer, interlocking his fingers and laying his chin on top of his knuckles. “What did you say your name was again?” he asked, pleasantly.

“Janus,” Janus replied.

“No, I’m Jonas,” he said, pointing to his chest.

“Not Jonas,” Janus spat. “Janus.”

“Um,” Pat said, eyes alight with amusement. The bastard. “Those are the same words.”

“No, they’re not. It’s Janus. J-A-N-U.-S.”

“Well, that’s confusing,” Pat said with a frown, but his nose was crinkling. “It’s close to my name. You should go by a nickname instead.”

“What?” Janus said. “No.”

Pat hummed. “How about Love Bug?”

“What! No!” Janus sputtered, almost flipping the table, as Pat winked at him.

“BB Good?”

“What does that even mean?!”

“Mandy.”

“No!”

“Okay, okay, how about Macy Misa.”

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Janus stared at him for a moment. “Fine. Whatever. What was I even talking about?”

“Hmm. I Believe we were talking about my name and how you think it’s not my name.”

“Right,” Janus said. “So, Nick. That was your roommate, Kevin on the phone, right? He seemed a bit unhappy with you. Any reason?”

“Nah, we’re Cool” said Pat. “That’s Just the Way We Roll.”

“Not because you’re messing up a mission right now?”

Pat’s eyes crinkled together. “A mission?” he parroted. “I’m not messing up a mission.”

“Oh, really?” Janus growled. “Because you’ve been captured by the TPI, and I know who you are and what you’ve been doing.”

“I have no idea what the TPI is,” he claimed.

“Yes, you do!” Janus said, standing up. “You obviously do! Or you wouldn’t be playing this game!”

“Game?” Pat asked. “Macy I ask you what you’re talking about.”

“This is all just a game to you isn’t it!” Janus said, slamming his hands down on the table in front of them.

“Whoa,” Pat said, putting his hands up. “Calm down. Your face is getting all red. You must be Burnin’ Up.”

“I’m not sure what, but something about what you just said pisses me off.”

“And that is five minutes,” Khalid said, bursting into the room. He felt a tug on the back of his shirt and glared back at Remus who was putting his own body between Janus and Pat.

“There was no way that was five minutes,” Janus growled.

“It was five minutes,” Khalid gritted out. “Remus, get him out of here.”

“Come on Jay,” Remus said, dragging him back towards the door.

“Remus, I swear to god.”

“Just chill, Janus,” Remus said, slamming the door closed behind them.

Janus shrugged him off. “You chill!” he snapped. “He’s playing you all for the fool.”

“Wow, Macy,” Remy drawled like an asshole. “I’ve never seen you so fired up.”

“Oh, my gosh. No one is going to believe me, and he’s going to get away with this.”

“You’re not really helping your case, babe,” Remy said.

Remus grabbed him by the shoulders again. “Here, let’s go get some water.”

“I don’t want water,” he said even as he let Remus lead him to another room to get a glass of water.

“Look,” Remus said. “I know the Mask Guy thing really sucked, but you have to look at the facts.

“I am looking at the facts,” Janus insisted, “and the facts are, he’s fucking with me.”

“You don’t know what mask guy looks like,” Remus said. “You didn’t see Nick take the time bomb, he has an ID from this time period and a roommate in this time he called on the phone, and he legitimately seems to not know what any of us are talking about.”

“Did you even listen to our conversation?” Janus asked. “He was screwing with me the entire time!”

“Janus…” Remus said.

“What?” Janus said, narrowing his eyes at Remus’s tone.

“I know you recently had a bad experience, but not everyone who flirts with you is doing it out of evil.”

Janus’s mouth hung open for a few seconds. “That’s what you got out of our conversation?”

“He called you Love Bug.”

Janus felt his face heat a bit at the reminder. “That’s not… I. I’m stealing your cat and then never speaking to you again.”

Remus laughed. “Ah,” he said. “Young lust.”

Janus elbowed him roughly in the side. “No!”

“Yes!” he crooned, pleased.

“You are the worst partner,” Janus hissed. “When I’m right you owe me 10 loafs of your fresh bread.”

“Branching out from poptarts?” Remus asked.

Janus shook his head. He still wasn’t happy about the state of things, but he could feel himself cooling down a bit.

Khalid came out of the integration room after a few minutes, leaving Pat with Remy. “What was that?” she asked him.

“He got under my skin,” Janus said.

“We’ll talk about it later,” she said. “For now, we’re letting him go and then going back to looking for the bomb like we’re meant to be.”

“Fine,” Janus relented. “Just do me the favor of tagging him before he leaves. Just that. I beg of you.”

“Sure,” she agreed. “If it will calm you down.”

He nodded.

“Then, let’s go,” she said. When they met back up with Remy and Pat, he saw Khalid make the subtle gesture that would tag Pat like they would have for the Millennium Birds. Pat sent him what could pass as a sweet smile if Janus didn’t know better. Then, they walked him outside, leaving Remy on clean-up duty for the make-shift security office.

“So, I’m free to go?” Pat asked. His bemused expression edged far too much on the side of amused verses confused for Janus’s taste.

“You are,” Khalid said. “Have fun at the festivities.”

His hands went flapping about. “Oh, you too!” he said. “Well, I guess you’re working, but you can have fun anyway, I’m sure.”

“We’ll do our best,” she said.

He gave her a blinding smile and reached forward to shake her hand enthusiastically. Janus rolled his eyes and looked up at the heavens. “It was nice to meet you!” he said, “and you too, Remus!” He turned to meet Janus’s eyes. “Macy Misa.”

Janus pressed his lips together.

Then, Pat turned and walked away.

“Well, now that we’re done with that,” Khalid said, turning to them. “We have only a few more hours before midnight and we really need to find the time bomb.

“Oh,” Pat called. He’d paused a few yards away and turned back to them. “Thanks for letting me go so easily by the way,” he said, “and just in the Nick,” he winked, “of time too.” Janus narrowed his eyes at him. He smiled back. “Wrist check,” he said holding up his arm to show off the timepiece there. Khalid immediately looked down at her own wrist just to see that the one timepiece that could move through the time lock was no longer there. Pat made a gesture and disappeared.

All three of them stared at the spot he’d been for a long moment.

Janus was the one to speak first. “I want. The yellow. To be erased. From my record.”

Chapter 9

Khalid immediately called everyone back to base.

“What happened?” asked Fred when he and Lena arrived. The tech people were already scrambling to get through to the TPI and get the time lock broken from the outside.

“Remus, Remy, and Khalid got played by Pat or whatever his name is. It certainly isn’t Nick. He was just setting up a joke,” Janus told him.

“Stop being smug,” Remy said. “It’s not a good look for you.”

“Pat is…?” Lena asked.

“They guy who fucked me over in 1923,” Janus said, “and is currently in the middle of fucking us all over because he stole the pin timepiece, and by extrapolation, probably the time bomb too.”

“It will be fine,” said Khalid, “because what he doesn’t know is that timepiece has a tracker on it. Wherever and whenever he went, we’ll have his coordinates.”

“Speaking of,” one of the techies said. “It’s about to break. You might want to hold onto something.” Janus grabbed for a support beam next to him as the techie put a device on the ground in the center of the base. It blinked once, twice, and on the third blink the ground rumbled. There were sounds of panicked yelps outside. The fail safe for the time lock was not nearly as gentle as ending it correctly.

Everything settled after a few moments, and they all straightened themselves out. Janus’s timepiece buzzed to indicate it was now functioning normally. Khalid had returned her usual timepiece to her wrist and now used it to open a display they could all see. “The pin timepiece’s closest time/space coordinates are…” she trailed off. “Right outside?” She frowned. “That’s strange. Why would he still be here?” She turned to march outside, following the coordinates to a trash can. She pulled the pin timepiece out and stared at it. “Fuck,” she said.

“What just happened?” Remy asked.

“He ticked us,” Janus said. “Again.”

“He was stuck in the time lock,” Khalid said. “That’s why he got our attention. He couldn’t leave with the time bomb unless he had the pin timepiece or we broke the time lock. Apparently, he’s smart enough to know that if he took the pin timepiece away from here, we’d probably be able to find him, but he knew we’d break the lock as soon as the pin went missing. So, he must have stashed his own timepiece and went back in time within the time lock to grab it while we were distracted with the past version of him. As soon as the time lock went down, I imagine he left.”

“Probably with the time bomb,” Janus said.

“Probably with the time bomb,” she confirmed.

And everyone knew the only thing worse than a time bomb was a time bomb you didn’t know the location of.

They evacuated after that, of course, and time locked the location once they were out just in case they were wrong, but midnight 3000 struck without thousands of people dying in Brazil, so the time bomb had defiantly been removed from then.

The, they initiated a time travel lockdown for all nonessentials, not willing to let random history students get caught up in an explosion if Pat decided to set the thing off somewhere.

Then, it was a matter of figuring out everything they could about ‘Pat.’ First, they checked the tracker data as Khalid had tagged him with one of the Millennium Bird trackers. It wouldn’t work outside of the zone they’d set up that day, but the record would show his behavior during the time lock after he’d escaped with the pin timepiece.

There had been many little green dots on the map that day as Fred and Lena had actually been doing the job they’d set out to do, but most of those were running around in the south. There had been one green dot, however, that appeared suddenly in the game area about 10 minutes before the time bomb had been stolen.

They could see Janus’s yellow dot almost brush his when he’d been chasing the earlier Pat down, around when he’d lost him briefly. The earlier Pat must have all but handed it off to his future self.

“He doubled back,” Remus commented when they watched the recorded data. It was a ballsy move and one that most people balked at, because there were inherent dangers any time you interacted with yourself from a different point in the timestream. It was ripe for paradoxes. It made everyone at the agency even more worried, because if he was willing to risk that, then what else was he willing to do?

Because of the lockdown of all nonessential time travel, people working for the TPI were not allowed to go home for the night. They were allowed to pick up anyone or anything dependent on them for care like kids and pets if there wasn’t someone in their home time to care for them, but other than that, they were unfortunately all sleeping in their offices for the foreseeable future.

“You are the only tolerable one,” Janus told the cat who upon being let loose in the office by Remus, immediately jumped on Janus’s lap.

“I have literally done nothing to you,” Lena said, but then added. “Yet.”

“You exist. In my space.”

“Can’t we just all get along?” asked Fred. “It’s only been an hour past when we’d usually go home. I went and grabbed milk and I have my giant thing of different flavored hot chocolate under my desk. We can try them all and vote on which is better.”

“Fuck your hot chocolate, Fred,” Janus growled, having been one of the three who had chipped in to buy it for him on his last birthday.

“Don’t go after Fred, jackass,” Lena spat.

“He’s just testy because his boyfriend escaped,” Remus contributed.

Janus’s lips turned down into a frown and he cupped Diesel Fuel’s face. “We agree we’re eating him first, right?” he asked her.

She purred her agreement.

“I’d have it no other way,” Remus replied.

“There is plenty of food,” Fred said, sounding stressed. “In fact, I was thinking we should all chip in on ordering take-out soon. “What does everyone like on pizza?”

“This is not a slumber party, Fred,” Janus pointed out.

“Shut it,” Lena snapped and turned to Fred. “I’m fine with almost everything, except…”

“Bananas and tuna salad!” Remus interrupted.

“…whatever Remus is about to say.”

Janus rolled his eyes as that started a debate about whether or not fruit and/or fish belonged on pizza. He leaned back in his chair and closed his eyes, which was when there was a knock on the door.

He froze when he heard the familiar voice. “Hello, hello,” said Emile, cheerfully. Janus looked up to see Emile standing at the open office door. Shit. Apparently, the man had decided to give up on sending lackeys to come fetch him and had decided to track him down himself when Janus couldn’t even escape without breaking a time lockdown. They met eyes briefly and Janus could see irritation if not anger in his eyes despite his otherwise cheerful expression and tone.

“Janus,” he said when he’d gotten their attention. “I’d like to have dinner with you.” The word choice told Janus everything he needed to know. Usually Emile was careful with how he said things to make sure people knew they had a choice. Typically he’d say something like, “I was wondering if you’d have time to have dinner with me tonight,” or “I’m about to go get food, would you like to come?” Today, there was no choice in the statement.

Janus still dried to dodge anyway. “Uh,” he said. “We were actually about to order pizza.”

“Go ahead,” said Fred kindly. Janus wanted to strangle him. “We can order pizza with olives if you’re not here.”

“I…” said Janus. “Guess, I’ll be going with you.”

“Great!” Emile said. “Let’s go.”

“Oh,” Janus said. “Uh, now?”

“Now,” Emile said a bit of uncharacteristic steel to his tone.

Well, Janus was screwed. He swallowed his nervousness and got to his feet, taking Diesel Fuel with him. He turned to hand her off to Remus with a plea in his eye, but he just got an eyebrow raise in return. Traitor.

Then, he followed Emile out of the office door. “What would you like to eat?” asked Emile.

“Uh,” Janus said. “I don’t know. You asked me to eat, don’t you have any ideas?”

“I don’t actually,” Emile replied. Right.

“…Noddle Bar?” Janus threw out the nearest restaurant he knew.

“The one noodle restaurant? Sure,” Emile answered simply. They walked side by side out of the front doors of the TPI building. Janus actually couldn’t remember the last time he’d taken these stairs. He usually used his timepiece to get in and out.

The noodle bar was only moderately busy at this time. They were quickly able to find a table near the back and Emile pulled his menu up in front of him. Emile hummed as he flipped through the different displays. “What are you having?” he asked.

“I don’t know,” Janus said, only then pulling up the menu himself, but still not quite looking at it.

“What about the fortune noodles,” Emile suggested.

Janus shook his head. “I don’t like those,” he said.

Emile glanced at him through the menu displays. “You used to.” Fortune noodles were a bit cheekily named. They didn’t actually indicate anything about your future. They were just supposed to taste like what you wanted from your future. A grad student might experience a feeling like they’d just aced a paper. A child that they got to stay up an hour later that night. Janus had liked the experience when he was younger, but in recent years, he’d begun to taste the underlying chemicals in the dish until that’s all he could.

“Well,” Emile said lightly, eyes on his menu. “That makes me even more worried for your mental health than I already was because of the almost three years of you avoiding talking to me.”

“No small talk, huh?” Janus asked.

“Forgive me,” Emile said, eyes now focused on Janus, and tone much darker. “How has your life been since I last saw your face 5 months ago during a business meeting and you refused to look me in the eye? Anything interesting happen? Shave your head and let it all regrow? Develop an allergy to peanuts? Join a convent and take an oath of silence that you only just broke today?”

“No,” said Janus quietly into the table.

“Great,” Emile said clipped. “Small talk over. Order your food.” Janus reached up blindly to select the first thing that came up on the food and drink menu as Emile punched something into his own and both menu displays disappeared, meaning there was nothing between their faces anymore. “You know, I was willing to give you a year,” Emile said. “I was willing to let you deal with it on your own because I thought eventually, you’d come talk to me about it, but apparently I was mistaken. The next year, I thought maybe you thought I didn’t want to talk to you, so I subtly made myself available, and you never took me up on the offer. I thought maybe I was just not being clear, and I should make my desire to talk to you more explicit, but as you have been routinely, clearly avoiding me at every single turn, I’ve decided I’ve had enough. So, let’s lay it all on the table. Is it me or do you need help?”

Janus closed his eyes. “It’s not you.”

“Then you need help,” Emile concluded.

Janus shook his head.

“Yes,” Emile snapped. “Whatever this is has gone on far too long.”

Janus stood up and slammed his hand down on the table. “And it’s going to keep going on!” he said. The food popped up at that moment. It appeared Janus had ordered lasagna and bubble tea, and Emile had ordered something with spaghetti and a fizzy drink.

“So, you’re just planning to go on being miserable then?” Emile asked, and Janus wasn’t sure if it was worse or better that he didn’t sound angry anymore.

14656

Janus slapped his hand down on the “To Go” button and his dinner was insta-wrapped by the table. “Yes,” he said.

“What exactly do you think you’re paying penance for, Janus?” Emile asked.

“You wouldn’t understand,” Janus said, paying for both of their meals with his fingerprint.

“That’s a cop out and you know it,” Emile said. “All you’d have to do is talk to me. Or even just talk to someone else. Please.”

“Just…” Janus said, grabbing his bag of food to avoid looking at him. “Just, leave me be.” He walked out of the noodle shop without another word.

Chapter 10

“And I thought Remus was going to be the most disgusting roommate in this equation,” Lena grumbled. Janus and Lena were apparently the earlier risers in the group as Fred was still curled up around a pillow and Remus was sprawled out under his desk.

Janus flipped her off.

“Protein infused Poptarts and caffeinated orange juice for breakfast?” she asked. “Just eat an energy bar and have a cup of coffee like a normal person.”

He took another pointed bite of his Poptart.

“You’re a horrible roommate. This is why they gave us different partners.”

“Yeah, well you snore, asshole,” Janus said after finishing off his meal.

“I’d tell you to go eat shit, but you already did that once this morning.”

A pillow flew across the room and somehow managed to hit the both of them. “S’op fighting,” Fred mumbled. “It’s sleep time.”

“It’s morning Fred,” Lena said.

“No,” Fred mumbled.

Janus ignored them, turning back to his integration port to continue to keep plugging in phrases of interest, but he kept getting nothing.

“What are you doing?” Lena asked after a few moments of him huffing at his screen reader.

“Trying to do anything that may change our current living arrangements.”

She puffed out an amused breath. “Can I help?”

“Can you see any connection between these words and phrases?” he asked, pulling away his screen reader and tapping at the words he’d typed out.

“Paranoid, tonight, I live to party, comeback, love Bug, BB good, Mandy, Macy Misa, I believe, cool, that’s just the way we roll, burnin’ up,” she said. “What are these?”

“They’re things Pat said when we interrogated that struck me funny,” Janus explained. “I feel like he was saying something more than what he said.”

“Hmm,” she said. “PTI for the first three?”

“Maybe,” Janus agreed, “but what about the rest of it? I feel like I’m missing something.”

15080

“Millennia,” Remus mumbled from under his desk. Janus hadn’t been aware he was awake. “He said something something about it being the only time he could see the change of the millennia.” He turned his head to look at Janus. “Considering he’s a time traveler, that’s definitely a weird thing to say.”

“Millennia,” Janus contemplated. “A different turn of the millennia. Oh no.”

“What?” Lena asked.

Janus sighed, and rubbed his temple. “I know someone who studied the 1700-2200s.”

“Isn’t that good?”

“No,” Janus groaned, “because now I have to go talk to him.” He stood with a sigh and then paused. “How do I even get to Silver Mountains University without my timepiece?”

Luckily Sliver Mountains ended up only being about an hour away from the TPI by time adherent travel, but considering Janus was used to his travel being instantaneous, it was an aggravating trip. He had to show ID and be buzzed up to the fourth floor since it was usually locked to everyone not traveling by timepiece or who worked in the office.

The receptionist was the same man as before. “I’m here to speak to Professor Eran,” Janus said.

The receptionist nodded. “He mentioned you asked to meet him but didn’t know when you’d arrive. He’ll be done teaching his class in about 5 minutes. You can wait over there.”

Janus nodded and sat, waiting for time to slowly tick by. Virgil arrived after a few minutes, lugging a giant bag with him. He caught sight of Janus and wordlessly jerked his head towards the hallway. Janus followed him.

“What’s in the bag?” Janus asked.

“Early 21st century cell phones,” Virgil said, dropping it on his desk. “I let my students mess around with them for their lab.”

“I see,” Janus said.

“What did you need?” Virgil asked. “You said it was official business.”

“You’ve heard about the lockdown, I presume,” Janus said.

“Yeah, it really screws up my research schedule for the summer,” Virgil said.

15412

“Do you know why the lockdown was instituted?” Janus asked. Virgil shook his head, so Janus explained briefly that they had been trying to find a timebomb on the eve of the year 3000, but it had been swiped by a free agent time traveler. “Some of the things seemed to be references to things that I couldn’t place, and I was wondering if you would recognize any.”

“Shoot,” Virgil requested, seeming intrigued by the prospect.

“Okay,” Janus said. “First, the alias he was using was Nick Jonas.” A weird expression crossed Virgil’s face immediately and Janus paused.

“You said the year 3000?” Virgil asked.

“Er. Yes.”

“Nick Jonas. Year 3000,” Virgil repeated with a snort. “Were Joe and Kevin a part of this too?”

Janus blinked. “Yes, how did you know that?”

“Yo-you’re going to have,” his sentence was broken by a giggle, and actual full-fledged giggle, “have to give me a minute.” With that, he sort of listed to the side and seemed to purposefully fall off his chair onto the floor under his desk.

Janus blinked and when he didn’t surface after a moment, he stood up to lean over the desk and look down at him. Virgil had his arm thrown over his beat red face, as he shook from what Janus thought was suppressed laughter.

“What?” Janus asked. “What’s wrong?”

“Just…” Virgil said, sobbing through his laughter. “Just tell me the things he said.”

“Er, mostly he just had weird inflections on words and phrases. There was ‘paranoid, tonight, I live to party, comeback…’”

“Wait, stop,” Virgil said. “Let me guess a few. That’s Just the Way We Roll, Burnin’ Up, Sucker.”

“The first two were, but not the last one.”

Virgil laughed. “Maybe the last one was just implied.”

Janus frowned down. “What are you talking about? What does this all mean?”

Virgil pulled himself out from under his desk and grabbed his bag of phones. He dug through it for a few seconds before pulling one out and handing it to Janus. “I have a lab for my students where they get preloaded phones from the early 21st century and are supposed to guess the demographics of the person who owns it. This one is an iPhone 3 meant to belong to a pre-teen to teenage girl from the year 2009. Look under music artists starting with the letter ‘J.’”

15810

Confused, Janus scrolled through the old style phone, finding the music app and opening it easily. Upon getting to the ‘J’s, he immediately paused on an artist called the ‘Jonas Brothers.’ He clicked on it and read a few of the song titles. They weren’t all there, but…

“That rat bastard,” Janus said.

“Scroll to the bottom,” Virgil said. Janus did and found a song titled ‘Year 3000.’

“You’re kidding me.”

“Click on it,” Virgil requested.

Janus did, listening to the fairly standard pop like intro from the time period. It wasn’t until he got to the lyrics saying, ‘He told me he built a time machine’ that he cursed, understanding exactly what Pat had been doing. When the singer a few lines latter proclaimed that his neighbor said ‘I’ve been to the year 3000’ he almost smashed the artifact to pieces right then and there.

“I have no idea who this guy is,” Virgil said, “but he’s a comedic genius.”

Chapter 11

Khalid caught him on his way back into the TPI building. “I heard you went to Silver Mountains to follow up on a lead,” she said.

“Yeah, but it was garbage,” he seethed. “All I learned was ‘Pat’ knows early 2000s popular culture and likes to fuck with us.”

She hummed. “I’d still like a report about whatever you found. Who knows what we might end up getting from seemingly inconsequential data.”

“Sure,” he said.

“Anyway,” she continued. “I have a mission for you.”

“We’re on lockdown,” Janus pointed out with a frown.

“For nonessentials,” she said. “This is essential.”

“What happened?” Janus asked.

“We picked up a small time distortion in France 2027. At the moment, it is small enough not to cause any disruptions, but it is slowly growing, and we don’t know what caused it. Usually we’d just send surveillance agents at this stage, but considering what’s going on, I think it would be best to send a field agent. And it would just be you, because we don’t want to send too many people out at once.”

“Is this related to the time bomb?” Janus asked.

“I’m not sure,” she said. “At the very least, it’s not it being set off as it was in 2999, but if it’s been altered for some other purpose…”

“I’ll go,” Janus said.

“I’ll send over the mission directive to everyone who needs it. You’ll go in around 3 hours.”

He nodded. “I’ll be ready,” he agreed.

In less then 3 hours, he was dressed for 2027 France and in decontamination. “Well,” he said out loud when he was given the all clear sign, “I hope I don’t explode.” He selected the coordinates on the timepiece and the next moment he was in a small alleyway in the city of Montpellier, France in 2027.

It was a little bit warm, but not stifling even in the mid-afternoon and he could faintly smell the sea on the breeze.

After a moment to get his bearings, Janus made his way out of the alleyway and onto a small street. The street was lined with restaurants and shops as people went about their daily lives. He carefully integrated himself into the crowd and began weaving his way through them. He needed to find the source of the distortion but doing a quick scan with his timepiece told him there wasn’t any sign of it yet. He’d have to wait for it to act up.

For now, he decided to get slightly away from people by heading towards the river. He found a park that had benches along water.

As he walked towards the river, he noticed a man on the bench, angled slightly away from Janus and looking out at the water. He immediately recognized the man. “You!” he exclaimed.

Pat’s head shot around to look at him, and he gave a slight head tilt. Then, he smiled, amused. “You are not the person I’m here for,” he said.

“Well, I am now,” Janus snapped. “Where’s the time bomb?”

“Time bomb?” Pat asked, eyebrows drawing together, but amusement on his lips. “Oh sweetie, the time bomb happened a long time ago for me.”

“What?” Janus asked.

“Oh, you’re just a baby,” Pat laughed. “Don’t you get it yet? The two of us are out of sync timeline wise. You’ve been apparently running around with a much younger version of me, but all of that happened quite a while ago for me. Don’t worry though, it gets better.”

“What are you talking about?”

“The time bomb has been long deactivated. Here,” he reached into his pocket and tossed him something. Janus caught it on instinct. “Proof. Don’t worry, we took all of the dangerous bits out years ago from my perspective.” It was the core of a time bomb, the time bomb Pat had stolen if he was to be believed. “You can tell your people it’s safe to remove the lockdown.”

Janus curled his fingers around it. “I don’t get it.”

Something on Pat’s wrist beeped and he looked at it curiously before he stood from the bench, “and I don’t have time to explain it.”

Janus jerked forward to grab his wrist. “Don’t you dare.”

Pat reached up to pat his face. “Don’t worry honey, you’ll be seeing me later.” He twisted his wrist and a small electric current sparked between them. Janus jerked his hand away, and Pat smiled at him. “Or… earlier.” He winked, and then he was gone.

Janus cursed, but he didn’t have more than a moment to be angry because in the next second there was a yelp, and something landed on top of him. He was bowled over into a tangle of limbs and pained noises.

“Oh my god, we need to figure out the height thing,” a familiar voice groaned, just as Janus managed to pull himself away. Pat blinked up at him and his eyes narrowed. “You,” he hissed.

“…What?”

Pat jumped to his feet, leaving Janus on the ground in front of him. “What are you doing here?” he spat, his tone much different then the one he’d been using a moment earlier. His hair was longer than it had been before, and if Janus looked closely, he did seem like he was a couple of years younger suddenly. Out of sync timelines. I’ll see you earlier. Holy shit.

He was suddenly very glad he’d been forced to let the other Pat (the older Pat?) go, else they’d have a whole thing on their hands.

“What are you doing here?” was Janus’s retort as he stood up and dusted himself off.

“It’s none of your business,” Pat told him.

“It is my business,” Janus said, “because for all I know, you are the cause of the time distortions I’m after. Considering that I doubt you have a license for that,” he waved at the odd looking timepiece of Pat’s wrist, “it’s very possible.”

“What are you?” Pat asked, “the time police.”

“Yes.”

Pat dared to roll his eyes, but then he tilted his head slightly. “Time distortions?” he asked.

“Yes, that’s why I’m here.”

He still had a confused frown on his face. Did… did he not know what a time distortion was?

Just then there was a sudden flash of lightening through the sky despite the absolutely lack of clouds. He and Pat both looked up.

“Is that the time distortion?” Pat asked.

“It’s probably the beginning of it,” Janus said.

“That doesn’t look good,” Pat said as he squinted at the sky.

“Just wait,” Janus answered grimly. He looked at Pat. “Usually I’d arrest you on the spot,” he said, “but I’m alone for this one, and that is far more important at the moment. So, have a nice day doing whatever bullshit you are doing.” He glanced at his timepiece.

Janus turned to walk away from him.

“Wait!” Pat exclaimed, and Janus turned back to him to see that his eyes were wide. Janus raised an eyebrow. “So, this time distortion thing is dangerous, right?”

“Depending on the severity, it could cause time to fracture around this place and time, basically erasing it from existence and killing everyone in it.”

“Well, in that case, I should go with you. To help.”

Janus looked him up and down. “You… have no idea what’s happening, do you? You’re an amateur.”

“I’m not,” he claimed. “I just. Pooling resources. You know?”

Janus sighed. “Well, you going around mucking about this time period without knowing what you’re doing could just exasperate the situation, so fine, you can tag along.”

“I know what I’m doing,” he grumbled even as he rushed to Janus’s side at the permission.

“Sure,” Janus said with an eyeroll. He guessed he was a babysitter now. “I believe you.”

Chapter 12

There was something off about his readings. Clearly the time distortion was starting to pull at this place with the way the weather was flickering between storming and sunny, but he still couldn’t quite pinpoint the exact location of the source of it. He could, however, get that it must be somewhere on this side of the river more into the downtown area, so that’s the way he was walking, Pat close on his heels.

“What’s your name, by the way?” he asked.

Janus shot him a glare. “Elvis Presley,” he said.

Pat frowned, clearly knowing who that was. “There’s no reason to be mean.”

“You did it to me first.”

“…Introduced myself as a famous musician?” he asked. Janus didn’t respond, and after a moment, Pat laughed lightly. “You really don’t understand time travel, do you?”

“Oh, yeah,” Janus said. “Name the three types of time distortions.”

“Just because I don’t know the names of things doesn’t mean I don’t understand them.” He stuck out his tongue. Janus was dealing with an actual toddler. “Unlike you who has a bunch of fancy words, but just caused a time loop.”

Janus scoffed. “I did not just cause a time loop.”

“Maybe not a big one,” Pat agreed, “but you did.”

Janus raised an eyebrow. “I’ve never introduced myself to you with a musician’s name, but now you’ve told me that I will. So, at some point in the future I will have to, thereby making you think to say that now. Time loop.”

“That’s not… that doesn’t count.”

“Does too,” Pat claimed. “Like I have said once before and you may or may not have heard me say before, anything you do to me to get back at me for something I haven’t done yet, just causes whatever that is to happen in the first place.”

“But you’re still going to do it.”

“Then take it up with future me. I haven’t done anything to you.” Then he paused and sighed. “…Which I guess means you’ve done nothing to me.” He seemed to mull this concept over for a long moment. “Well you were a bit crabby about me not knowing what a time distortion was, but I can forgive you for that.”

“And I’m supposed to forgive you?”

“Like I said,” Pat said. “I haven’t done anything yet.”

“You also haven’t done anything to endear yourself to me either,” Janus grumbled.

“Hmm,” Pat said. “Fine.” He pulled something out of his pocket. “You’re obviously not having much luck finding whatever you’re looking for. Tell me what it is and I’ll help.”

Janus squinted at what was in his hand. “Is that… an iPhone 5?”

“No!” he said. “It’s super-secret time travel tech disguised as an iPhone 5!”

“We’re in 2027,” Janus said. “Not a great disguise. Those things have been obsolete for a decade.”

“Well I’ll keep in mind to have my tech disguised as phones from the right year next time,” Pat said, sticking out his tongue. “Now what are we looking for?”

“If my timepiece can’t find it, I’m certain yours can’t.”

Pat rolled his eyes and tapped on the device’s screen a couple of times. “I’m going to guess it’s that,” he said proudly.

Janus leaned over to look at the screen. “Are you using google maps?” he sputtered.

“It integrates time relevant data like traffic conditions and local weather warnings with time travel technology,” Pat explained. “Something seems to be going on in a museum a couple of blocks that way.”

“I…” Janus said. That was actually a really good idea, usually unnecessary with scouts observing that data beforehand, and Janus wasn’t sure how good the accuracy would be considering whatever was taking it into account was automated, but still a good idea. “Well, I guess since we have no other leads, we can check it out.”

Pat looked far too proud for having only used a piece of tech that hadn’t even been confirmed as accurate. “Then, let’s go,” he said right as a chilly wind started to pick up and a couple of snowflakes began to fall around them. “Before that gets worse…”

Janus let Pat lead with his iPhone. Janus’s timepiece still wasn’t picking up a clear signal for some reason, but it seemed to point in the same general direction as Pat’s. Strangely though, as they got closer to their destination, the signal started to get fuzzier. Pat’s tech seemed unaffected leading them closer to the museum.

When they got to the Musée Fabre museum, Janus stopped. “What?” Pat asked. He was shivering slightly in the cold and holding his arms around himself.

“My timepiece stopped working completely,” he said.

“I’m assuming that’s weird?” Pat said.

“It is,” Janus confirmed, turning to squint at him suspiciously. “How do I know you’re not the one doing it?”

“If I was doing it, wouldn’t I have just knocked it out from the get go?” Pat questioned.

Janus pursed his lips. “I don’t know,” he said. “Would you have? Maybe it’s a trick.”

Pat’s eyes narrowed a bit on him. “Think what you want, but I’m freezing. Come in with me if you want.”

He dithered from a few moments before following Pat inside. Pat had already struck up a conversation with the woman charging admission into art museum. She was looking at him, her brow knit as he spoke. Janus nudged him away from her getting a confused glance from him in return. He shot a smile at the woman.

“Two adult passes for the museum and the Hotel Sabatier d’Espevran, please,” he said, placing down 14 euro.

“Ah,” she said, still looking at Pat oddly. “Yes sir.” She gave them the passes and Janus quickly shuffled Pat away.

“What is wrong with your French?” he hissed once they were out of earshot.

“What?” he asked, bewildered.

“You sound like you’re reading Le Comte de Monte-Cristo. No one talks like that anymore.”

“I’m a little rusty,” Pat defended himself.

“Two centuries?” Janus asked. Pat stuck his tongue out like a child once again. “Is that your only way to respond to legitimate criticism?”

“What does it even matter anyway? No one ever expects time travel, at least not for something so silly.”

“It’s not silly,” Janus said. “It’s a legitimate issue. The wrong person who’s watched too much science fiction notices and you’re putting the timeline at risk. Not to mention if there are other time travelers around that aren’t as nice as me.”

“Are there a lot of time travelers around?” Pat asked, sounding intrigued.

“There are plenty, both legal and not.”

“Huh,” he said, “but what are the chances we’ll run into another one?”

“Considering the time distortion? There could be many. Opportunists wanting to capitalize off the chaos, people trying to stop it, like me, and not to mention the person who caused it.”

“Wait, someone made it happen?” Pat asked.

“These things don’t just happen naturally.”

“Huh. So, something like this has to be caused by a person?”

“Yes,” Janus said. “…Why?”

Pat smiled. “No reason. I think we should head upstairs. Whatever I’m picking up says it’s around here, but I don’t see anything. Maybe it’s a floor or two above us.”

“Which is why it’s ridiculous to use Google Maps.”

“Would you rather use yours?” he asked sweetly.

“I’m still not convinced it’s not your doing,” Janus growled. “Why does your tech still work when mine doesn’t?”

“Probably the same reason the ring did,” he muttered.

“What?”

“You may be the most aggravating being in the universe.”

Pat glanced at him with a bit of a smirk. “I can’t tell you,” he said. “It would be a much bigger risk to the timeline than me speaking in French from the 1830s. But, I’m pretty sure the reason mine still works is just a software difference.”

“What the hell do you mean a software difference?”

Pat opened his mouth, doubtlessly to supply him with yet another frustratingly cheeky and unhelpful answer. Yet, Pat did not have a chance to do so as, just as Janus stepped onto the second floor of the museum, the ground started to violently shake. Janus tried to turn to catch Pat as the other man’s foot slipped on the last step, but he couldn’t do so in time. Pat fell onto his hands and knees, sliding back a few steps and smacking his face into the stairs hard once and then a couple of times more after that as he slid.

Chapter 13

The room stopped shaking after a moment. “Ow,” Pat said. He seemed a bit stunned but was still moving at least. He carefully maneuvered himself into a seating position. “Ouch. Owie.” He reached up to poke his own nose. “Ow!” Janus slapped his hand away when he got there. A bit of blood was already trickling from his nose and there was a small cut over his eye, but it wasn’t bleeding too much.

Janus pushed him so he was leaning slightly forward and produced a pack of time appropriate tissues from his pocket. He pulled one out of the package and offered it to him.

He took it and pressed it up against his nose to try to stop the bleeding. He seemed mostly alright though Janus imagined he’d have plenty of bruises down the line. The power in the museum flickered and Janus looked up. Now that he was listening, he could hear people panicking in and out of the museum.

“We should probably get off of the stairs,” he suggested.

“Yeah,” Pat agreed. Janus helped him to his feet, and they climbed back up the steps. Janus looked around and found an employees only sign a few feet away. Usually he’d not risk that as it could get him into trouble he didn’t want to be in, but considering the earthquake that had just happened, he could probably play it off as panic.

He ushered Pat into a small room and found a chair and table. He had Pat sit in the chair and pulled out another one of the tissues to dab at the blood coming from the cut over his eyes. “Here,” he said. “Hold that there. I’m going to go see if there are any bandages about.”

Pat took the tissue with the hand not already holding one to his nose. “Thanks,” he said.

Janus nodded and got to his feet. The lights flickered once again but didn’t stay off for now. He didn’t know how long that would last.

He couldn’t see anything that might hold bandages in this room, but there was a second door. “I’ll be right back,” he told Pat, exiting through it.

The lights flickered once more as the door closed behind him and he cursed. When they came back up Janus’s eyes immediately fell on a man. They both froze.

“Remus!” Janus hissed the second their eyes met. “What are you doing here?”

Remus blinked at him for a moment. “Hi. Janus,” he said. “I… come to France for… tea sometimes?”

“There isn’t any tea back here.”

“So, there isn’t…” he said. There was a moment of silence. “Uh, so I actually cannot talk to you right now.”

“What do you mean?” Janus asked. Remus grimaced in a way Janus had never seen from him before. It immediately set off alarm bells in Janus’s head. “Oh my god,” Janus said. “Oh my god. You’re not from the same time as me.”

“Oh, you have no idea,” Remus mumbled.

“Holy shit, you’re looping?!”

“It’s… not looping if I wasn’t here the first time.”

“Remus, we spend more than 12 hours a day together most of the time. The only thing worse than this is if I looped back to this time myself.”

“…Yeah. Anyway, I need to leave now.”

“Please do.”

He turned to go, but then stopped. “Oh, and,” he reached into his pocket and tossed something at Janus. Janus caught it.

It was Band-Aids.

“Oh, shit,” Janus spat at the clear use of foreknowledge. “I hate this. I hate you. I’m going to kill you the next time you see me.”

“Sure, Jan.”

“Go.”

He did, slipping into the next room while Janus took a deep breath and then turned back to the door behind him. He schooled his face before Pat looked up. “I found some Band-Aids.”

Pat nodded and Janus came over to squat next to him.

Janus opened the box and Pat looked down. His eyes lit up with sudden joy so intense that Janus felt like he’d just gotten a punch to the gut. “Kitty Band-Aids!” he exclaimed. Janus bothered to actually look at the design on the container, only to note the cartoon cats on the front. Pat was almost vibrating off his seat. “Look they’re all so cute!” He grabbed the container from him to inspect the different designs printed on the back with glee even as a bit of blood was still trickling from his nose.

Janus took the box back gently and guided the wad of bloody Kleenexes back to his nose.

“Which would you like?” Janus asked.

“Oh, they are all so cute,” Pat cooed. “Um, how about that one!” he pointed. “Or that one! Or that one!”

“Pat you only have one cut.”

“But they’re all so cute!” Pat said, tongue tucking into his cheek. He contemplated the box again. “Let’s do the black one,” he finally settled on.

Janus selected one of the Band-Aids with a black cat wrapped around a pink ball of yarn and staring back at them with wide green eyes. The think looked like it had partaken in one two many doses of catnip, but Janus didn’t mention that.

Instead, he just carefully unstuck the backing from the Band-Aid and motioned for Pat to remove the tissue from his forehead. He smiled at Janus as he drew back.

Janus cleared his throat. “How’s the nose.”

“It’s slowing down,” Pat replied. “Thanks.”

“No problem,” Janus replied. They met eyes for a second before Pat looked away back at the box of Band-Aids.

“Oh,” Pat said. “There’s a grey one. I didn’t notice.” He pointed to it. “I should have used that one.”

“Do you like grey cats?” Janus asked.

“I like all kitties,” he said, “but one of my roommates loves grey cats. He had one when he was a kid and thinks of them as good omens. Seeing one always brightens up his day.”

“A friend of mine has a grey cat,” Janus said. “She’s much more tolerable than him.”

Pat laughed a bit. “Don’t be mean,” he said.

“Oh, he deserves it, don’t worry.” Janus considered him for a moment. “Here,” he said, pulling out one of the Band-Aids with the grey cat on it. It did, actually, look a lot like Diesel Fuel.

“But I don’t…”

Janus just shrugged and stuck it on his cheek where there was no wound. Pat giggled and touched it with a finger. Janus stood back up.

“Can I have another tissue?” Pat asked.

“Sure.” Janus handed a tissue over to him and he crumpled up the bloody ones in his hand.

“I think I’m good to keep going,” Pat said, putting the new tissue under his nose. “The nose will stop soon.”

Pat got out his iPhone and directed him back out of the room. They checked the second floor and didn’t find anything and so went to the third floor. The second they arrived in the room that Patton’s phone was directing them too, Janus knew that it must be right. There was a strange, distorted whirling sound and the entire room was shaking slightly like they were standing next to a railroad track.

“I’m guessing this is it,” Pat said.

Janus nodded and looked over his shoulder at the screen. They both cautiously walked towards where the little dot was on the phone.

“Is that it?” Pat asked, pointing at a small device on the center column in the room. Janus reached forward to flip the switch on it. The whirling stopped and the room settled. Janus’s time piece vibrated as it came back online. They waited for a few moments. “I assumed… time distortions would be more…”

“They are,” Janus said. “This one is artificial.”

“What does that mean?”

“It’s a simulation,” Janus said. “It causes similar symptoms to a time distortion, but it’s not actually fracturing time at all.”

“That’s good, isn’t it?” Pat asked.

“I don’t know,” Janus said. He took the piece of tech of the wall and carefully stored it in his pocket, “but someone’s trying to get our attention.”

Chapter 14

20204

Janus didn’t feel comfortable leaving France 2027 just yet, still weirded out by the strange turn of events. So, he and Pat ended up sticking around for a couple of hours. They looked through the art museum for a bit, but Janus was having trouble focusing on the pieces, and Pat eventually suggested they get some air. Janus agreed considering the museum would close for the night soon anyway.

They wandered around the downtown for a bit. The people seemed to jump back from the strange weather and earthquake that afternoon rather quickly, and there were plenty still about to blend into.

#study break stories #not writing

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emergenciesstory · 3 years

Text

Marriage Interrupted

Writing prompt: “Where’s Marcus?” “You mean the guy you sent to kill me? At the bottom of a river.” “Ouch. Those cost quite a pretty penny. Please be more considerate of my money next time I send an assassin.”

SSB: Vacation Ruined

Steve x Reader

“I have to go in.” Steve’s voice grumbled in your ear. You sighed, rolling over to face him in bed. The light from sunrise trickled into your loft as you opened your eyes. You curled yourself around Steve, a hum of discontent leaving your lips.

“You could say you're sick.” You mused teasingly. “You did miss your run this morning.”

“After last night’s workout, I think I deserved a morning off.” Steve rubbed your noses together before kissing you softly. His pager beeped again, a special beep reserved for mission briefings.

“Go. I’ll still be here whenever you get back.” You released your hold on him, rolling to your back.

“One week.” Steve kissed your forehead as he flipped the covers off.

“Whatever you say.” You laughed, watching as he ventured to your closet. “If it looks like you’ll be late, let me know. I need 24 hours for Pepper to make the arrangements.”

“Yes ma’am, Mrs. Rogers.” Steve smiled, buttoning his shirt.

“Come home in one piece Mr. Rogers.” You teased before flopping back into the warm covers. “I’d like to marry someone alive.”

________

“She’s not a part of this life, you know? And after we get married, she will be in danger.” Steve said softly.

“And she will have us and Shield protecting her. She’s one of us.” Nat said, looking over at Steve.

“Yeah. I mean, Pepper wasn’t a part of all this, and she and Morgan are doing amazing.” Tony chimed in from his spot at the controls.

Steve sighed, nodding his head. They were right, of course, but he didn’t want you wrapped up in it all. You were normal, you could walk down the street without risking your life or having to look over your shoulder. You weren’t as nervous about it as Steve, but something ticked in the back of his mind.

______

“We should be home tomorrow.” Steves voice came across the phone a week and a half later. You smiled thinking of the look of apologies on his face.

“Okay. I’ll tell Pepper Saturday?” you went to the fridge and wrote it on the board. “Friday we can go out with our respective friend groups and I’ll see you at the end of the aisle in the morning.”

“Sounds good. I miss you.”

“Then hurry back.” You mused. “See you after debrief.”

Steve hung up, dorky smile on his face. Tomorrow, it wasn’t a lie. It would be after midnight when they landed. 2am, you’d be his. He already had someone from shield go pick up your favorite flowers before the store closed.

____________

Steve walked through the gardens towards your door. The lights were still on, the balcony doors open to the cool spring evening. Steve heard your laugh and slowed his walk, peering curiously up. A male voice drifted through the air, impossible to make out your conversation to the normal ear.

Steve stopped, leaning on the wall under your balcony, listening.

“By the way, Where’s Marcus?” The voice asked curiously.

“You mean the guy you sent to kill me? At the bottom of a river.” You chimed out casually.

“Ouch. Those cost quite a pretty penny. Please be more considerate of my money next time I send an assassin.” The man mused. Steve tried to process what he was hearing, were you in distress? Your laugh floated out again.

“Send a better one next time.” Two glasses clinked. Not distress, comradery? Steve didn’t know what he was hearing.

“The plan is in place.” The man said under his breath.

“By this time next week, it will be done..”

“Are you sure I can’t convince you otherwise?” The man said. Steve didn’t hear you respond, just a momentary quiet before the soft voice broke the quiet. “Till I see you again, may it be in a body bag.”

“And you with a gun to your head.” Your voice was reserved, but Steve couldn’t tell if it was from anger or sarcasm. He heard the door open, sliding around the building as to not be seen.

Steve listened as the man came down the steps, moving to be able to see him, but he had vanished without walking through the gardens. Looking down at the flowers in his hand, he was torn. Who was this man? More importantly, who was the woman he was going to marry? Steve mulled over his options, still listening as he heard you move around the apartment. When the lights clicked out, he took a breath and moved up to the door, knocking softly. He heard you shuffle across the apartment, clicking the lock open on the door.

“Steve?” you said softly, taking him in.

“I’m home baby.” He said with a smile, taking the flowers out from behind his back. You wrapped your arms around him, capturing his lips with your own. Steve picked you up, walking back into your loft. When he released you, you took the flowers and went to the sink, filling a vase. Steve looked around, no sign anyone had been there just an hour prior.

“I didn’t expect you till morning.” You said softly.

“I wanted to surprise you.” He smiled, looking you up and down. Your cardigan was open, your sleep shorts and tank top barely disheveled, showing you just put them on.

“You did. Bed?” You smiled sweetly, holding out your hand.

“With you? Always.”

_____________

Steve’s phone rang from the bedside table, killing the happy mood.

“It’s our honeymoon.” He grumbled, resting his forehead on yours from where he hovered above you.

“Just answer it before you get in trouble. Avengers don’t get honeymoons.” You kissed his cheek, giggling as his scruff tickled your face.

“Go for Steve.” He said into the phone, looking down at you as his fingers danced across your bare skin.

“I’ll get right to the point. We have reason to believe the infamous Mob boss, Lucas Giavanno, is linked to HYDRA. And he’s there,” Maria said. “He’s notorious for working in the city, so we need to act fast before he finds out we know.”

Steve’s face dropped, him getting concerningly still.

“The team is 5 minutes out, and they need your help.” Maria’s voice said softly. “I’m sorry.”

Steve threw the phone down harshly. “There’s a threat. Here in the resort.” He said coldly, moving off you quickly.

“Okay. I have that appointment anyways.” you said softly, reaching down to grab his t-shirt from where it was discarded on the floor and slipping it on. You moved behind him, wrapping your arms around his waist.

“This was supposed to be a vacation!” Steve said harshly, clearly frustrated but trying not to let it show. “Nothing but you and me, relaxing, enjoying two weeks without the world interfering.”

“And it still is, I’m sure we can extend our stay.” You murmured, placing soft kisses on his back. “Hey, look at me.”

Steve turned slowly in your arms, tension still in his shoulders.

“It’s ruined now.” He said softly, defeated.

“Nothings ruined, go, be back in time for dinner reservations this evening. They can have you for a few hours.” You kissed him softly. “Maybe they can join us and celebrate.”

“Okay.” Steve sighed.

“Okay.” You tapped him on the ass as you let go. “I’ll see if I can extend our stay, on Tony’s dime. See you at dinner.”

_______

“Ah, right on time! Come in, come in. I have something for you.” You smiled as the warm voice filled the hall.

“You shouldn’t have.” You smiled, giving him a hug.

“It’s a wedding gift, I definitely should have.” The man said with a smile, pouring some wine. “How is your vacation?”

“It's great dad, but really, you didn’t need to come out here. I know you were busy.” You sassed.

“Never too busy for you. Besides, I heard from your brother you killed his hitman?” You father looked at you pointedly, passing you a glass.

“He should know better. It takes more than a subpar hitman to take me out.” You laughed.

“Keeping you sharp. Are you sure you don’t wish to take part in our empire?” Your father gestured towards the guards at the door, a conversation you had many times over.

Before you could answer, a scuffle outside the suite drew your attention to the door.

“Get in the office.” Your father commanded, moving around the room to sit facing the door. You rolled your eyes at the dramatics but did as he asked, nonetheless.

You waited silently, listening as the scuffle got closer to the room you were previously sitting in. You heard the door bust open, then quiet.

“Ah, welcome. Normally my guests knock.” Your father soothed out, and you knew he was turning to look at the guests.

“Funny, I thought I did.” The voice sounded familiar, too familiar.

“To what do I owe the pleasure of you barging in on my vacation?” Your father soothed, his glass echoing as it set on the table.

“I think you know.” A third voice, but there was no mistaking this one. It was the same one you woke up to for the past two weeks. Realization crossing your features, you grabbed the handgun off your fathers desk and stepped out. Eyes, and guns, quickly moved to you as you took in the company. Tony, Steve, and Bucky stood in the room, weapons pointed at you and your father.

“Y/n?” Steve said, Weapon lowering slightly. Your father looked between the two of you with a smile.

“This must be your Husband! “ He said, a smile crossing his face. “A pleasure to finally meet my Son-in-law.”

Eyes moved between the two of you as you winced at the admission.

“Wait, Mob Boss Lucas Giavanno,” Tony pointed at your father, then at you like connecting dots. “Is your father?”

“Talk about a complicated honeymoon.” Bucky smirked behind his mask, gun still trained at your father.

“Can we all please talk without guns, please?�� You asked, dropping your weapon from where it was trained on Tony.

“You’re part of a Mob family?” Steve asked, gesturing at Bucky to lower his gun. “And not just any Mob, but one coresponding to HYDRA.”

“A simple misunderstanding,” Your father chimed in, standing to refill his glass. Bucky’s gun shot up at him again, eyes trained on his every move.

“I wasn’t talking to you.” Steve said harshly. Tony was leaning against the wall by the door, mask off and smirking at the entire situation.

“Can we talk?” You asked wearily. “No guns, No raised voices. I’ll tell you everything.”

Steve nodded curtly and you gestured to Bucky. Steve tapped him on the shoulder and he lowered the weapon again, eyes still not leaving your father.

“Lucas Giavanno is my father. I took my mothers name when I left the family business, that’s when we met. My brother, well, he’s not so good at running the business, hence the rumors surrounding the family.” You said softly. “We are not with HYDRA, we are helping wipe out their power. That's what the family business is.”

“Yes, Y/n excels in doing so, we’ve been trying to get her back to help gain the trust of the last HYDRA cell we know of.” Your father chimed in.

“How do we know he’s not lying?” Bucky said to Steve.

“Bucky, you’ve known me for years. You let me marry your best friend.” You rolled your eyes.

“Obviously I didn’t know how far the deception went.” He shrugged.

“I swear to the gods.” You muttered, rolling your eyes. You walked over to the desk, slamming the handgun down and ripping open a drawer. Steve flinched, the movement catching your eye and making you stop, gun trained on you again. “Are you really going to shoot your wife?”

Steve’s silence spoke volumes. You moved slower, pulling out the large file of documents, spreading them out on the livingroom table. Tony stepped out of his suit, coming to look as the map you were forming. Little X marks scattered the map, circles around many of them.

“Friday, overlay our previous HYDRA missions to this map.” The suit let out a projection, their missions being the X’s circled in black.

“What do the red circles mean?” Steve asked softly.

“Those are the ones We took out.” Your fathers voice rang out from where he sat at the desk, refilling his glass. “You’re welcome.”

You looked at Steve, trying to read his expression. You could tell he was thinking, trying to put pieces together, then it dawned on you.

“You overheard my brother the other night, when you got back from that mission and surprised me.” You said, suddenly understanding.

“You said the plan would be done by the end of the week.” He said, a broken look on his face when he looked at you. “That was marrying me.”

“What? No! No no no.” You moved around Tony, taking Steve’s face between our hands. “The plan had nothing to do with marrying you. I was signing over my responsibilities in the business. I wanted to enter this life without any confliction from this. I didn’t want to drag you into it.”

A long silence filled the room, Steve watching your face, and you his, everything else fading away.

“I love you.” You said softly.

“I love you, too.” He kissed you softly, before looking at everyone in the room and clearing his throat. “I think we have a misunderstanding to clear up.”

“And a wedding to Celebrate!” You father exclaimed, cheersing the group. “Perhaps we can discuss taking down the last cell together over dinner, my treat.”

You looked over to Tony and Bucky, a soft smile on your face and a shrug.

“I’ll make a call to clear up the confusion.” Tony said quickly. “See you for dinner.”

Maybe you’d never get out of the Family business.

#SSB2021 #Vacation Ruined #Writing Prompt #Steve x reader #Mafia

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girlofmanyfandoms · 4 years

Text

Kiss It Better

A/n: It’s like two or three days late (under the prompt of cuddles), but it has a decent word count so I’m not too upset with myself! It kinda accidentally turned into a hurt/comfort thing but that helped with ✨plot✨ So it’s okay! Also @titzweek here ya go-

Word count: 3000

Trigger warnings: mention of mild aggression (throwing plates), blood mention (nothing too graphic)

Warnings: it’s not the greatest and also i edited it at like 1 or 2am in the dark so like, maybe errors? Idk

Writing taglist: @everyonehasthoughts @imaramennoodle @bookwyrminspiration @percabetn @an-absolute-travesty @linhamon-roll @a-lonely-tatertot @loverofallthingssmart @vibing-in-the-void @clearlykeefitz @callas-starkflower-stew @enbies-and-felonies

The morning mist held strong, reinforcing gravity and making it even more difficult for Tam to drag himself out of his makeshift bed by the lake. Leaning over the fogged up waters, he wrung out his bangs, combing them back into place with his hands. The water here could hardly be trusted.

“Well,” he grunted as he stood up, patting an old dying tree with a gloved hand. “It was nice seeing you, Wildwood. You take it easy, alright?”

The trees groaned in response, both from age and from the weight of all that it had undergone and seen from the hazy backgrounds of the world. Maybe that was why he cared for Wildwood. It was like him. From the shadows. Ignored until needed. Cast aside when they differ from the norm. To him, he and Wildwood were one and the same. Or at least, they used to be. In the past months, Tam had found what Wildwood could only hope to receive: love.

And as the colors of the sunrise faded into blue, Tam was comforted by that one constant he had in his life. His perfect golden boy there to bring light into his world.

————

As soon as Tam walked into the Vackers’ territory, he was yanked to the side, knocking the breath from his chest. He prepared for a fight, but upon seeing a stylized sparkling fabric blinking in and out of sight, he relaxed just a bit.

“What the hell, B? I thought you were trying to attack me.”

“Quiet,” Biana scolded, finally coming into view. Her annoyed expression quickly changed to fear and dread as a shattering sound echoes across the stone walls of the extensive landscape. Biana shut her eyes and winced noticeably. “He’s been at that ever since Dad stormed off.”

“Rough day?”

“I guess you could say that.” Biana bit her lip. “Mom went after Dad after he yelled at us.”

“But the two of you are okay, right?”

“I’m alright. It’s Fitz I’m worried about,” she admitted. “I’ve been too scared to go up to him because of… well, you know.” Biana’s thumb traced over her scars absentmindedly.

Tam squeezed her shoulder comfortingly. “Hey, you did what you could. It’s not your job to stop him from doing something irrational, and you’re not expected to do something that’ll trigger you. I’ll go after him.”

“Tam, it’s fine, I’ll do it-”

“I’ll go after him, you get some rest.”

“Only if you promise to be careful,” she warned. “Use your cloak as a shield, so that you don’t get caught in the crossfire of his throws. And put your gloves back on!”

Tam slipped off his gloves and tossed them behind his back without a second thought. He dropped his cloak in a similar fashion, only going back to fold it neatly and add it to the pile. “I’ll be fine.”

“Tam, you know how he gets when he’s upset. The rage, it blinds him, it blurs anything and everything around him to the point where the only he knows is that fire of hate. He’s not going to register that it’s you approaching him.”

“I’m his boyfriend,” Tam pointed out in an exasperated manner. “I think I’ll be okay.”

“Well, you thought wrong.”

“Isn’t that a shame.”

Biana huffed, rubbing the crease between her brows. “You’re just as stubborn as he is.”

“Don’t they say that birds of a feather flock together?” Tam asked, walking backwards and opening his arms in a gesture that said That’s just how it is.

“Yeah, until the cat comes,” she shot back.

“Then let’s hope that cat doesn’t arrive.”

“You two idiots deserve each other!” she cried in one last attempt to get him to turn back.

“Thank you!” he called back, already headed towards the horizon.

Biana sank to the floor, scowling as she dragged Tam’s belongings closer to her for protection. “Dense fool,” she muttered. But Tam was already out of sight.

--------

Tam approached the area in a calm stroll, but as he drew nearer, the cold dread that Biana had described filled him and dragged him back, just like the familiar, addictive pull of the shadows. They gathered at his feet, shadowflux begging to be called on, but Tam was far too busy trying to calculate a way to coax his boyfriend into putting the crystal dishes down.

He was like a rampant bull, hurling plate after plate at the wall. His hands had small cuts, but overall he seemed to be unscathed despite the several hours this had clearly been going on. Tam avoided clumps of shattered pieces so as not to startle him. While his movements proved to make him a berserker, it was also an art. One slight decibel off might send him on the attacking side.

“Fitz!” Tam shouted. He didn’t even glance his way. “FITZ!” Still no response. He just kept on launching silverware as far as he could. Tam sighed. He didn’t want it to come down to this, but if Biana had waited hours just for him to show up and put an end to this, he was not going to let her down. He seized the tendrils of shadows that had been itching to be used and directed all of his focus towards the cup about to be thrown with the hope that if he used his ability instead of telekinesis, he would recognize his beloved.

Shiiiing!

Fitz immediately put his hands over his mouth in shock and guilt, rushing over to check the damage.

Tam cupped his hand, blood gushing from the wound like a river. “Guess you ran out of throwing stars, huh?” he joked halfheartedly, wincing as he applied pressure to the cut.

“Oh my goodness, I’m so dumb.” Fitz ripped off a sleeve from his shirt to wrap around the slice in his partner’s hand. He cupped Tam’s cheek, the boy gladly moving towards the physical affection. “I’m so sorry, Tammy.”

“It’s okay, you didn’t mean to do it,” he replied nonchalantly. Upon seeing the great panic spreading through Fitz’s person, he took a more gentle approach. “Hey, it’s okay. You’ve had a bad day and you just made a mistake, and I forgive you.”

“I hurt you.” Fitz’s voice cracked, and it became evident that Tam’s words had gone over his head. Fitz scooped Tam up in his arms and raced into the house.

“Relax, golden boy.” Tam rolled his eyes, but even he couldn’t deny that he enjoyed the attentiveness he was being given. “It’s just a little cut, it’ll heal.”

Fitz scrambled through the drawers until he found the bandages, a Bottle of Youth, and the antibiotic ointment. From there, his panic switched to precision, first rinsing the wound, then applying the ointment, then wrapping the gauze bandage. It was a completely different side of him, one that would sacrifice the world for the ones that he loved. And despite Tam’s rough exterior, he couldn’t help but lean his head on his other hand in admiration.

Once he had finished, Fitz sat on the bar stool next to Tam’s and combed through his rosy pink locks in distress. Tam nudged his shoulder with his nose several times, earning him a side hug and a kiss to the cheek, but no words other than the repeated apologies and self-deprecating phrases.

“Babe,” Tam said helplessly. “Let’s go upstairs at least, so we can talk about this privately.”

Fitz nodded, letting him lead the way. He was so preoccupied with his own thoughts that he didn’t notice when Tam had tucked him into bed and wrapped an arm around him, burying his face in his neck.

“I’m so, so sorry,” Fitz mumbled again. Tears welled up in his eyes, and Tam used his abled hand to wipe them.

“I told you it’s forgiven,” Tam gently reminded him. “Everyone makes mistakes.”

“Not the Vackers,” he countered, sniffling. “We always have to keep up our reputation, keep on smiling and charming everyone just to go to the store. I can’t go anywhere without people expecting me to be the perfect golden boy.”

“No one is perfect. We’re all flawed and traumatized and hurt, and we make stupid decisions because of them. You’re a kid, Fitz, it’s not your job to hold your family together.”

“I guess. But Biana…” he sighed, pulling Tam closer as he facepalmed in guilt. “I shouldn’t have done that with her here. And how am I supposed to clean up the yard before Mom gets back?”

“Don’t worry about that, the gnomes are already on it,” he coaxed. “And Biana understands. You can talk to her later. For now, the golden boy needs to rest.”

“I can’t,” Fitz protested, trying to get up. Tam flipped himself over him, ending up besides Fitzroy once more. “Tam, I have to take care of you, and help the gnomes, and apologize to Biana, and-”

“And all of that can wait until tomorrow,” Tam finished for him. “Except me, of course.”

Fitz laughed, a real, rich laugh, and he could tell that it was the first time he had done that in a while. “I’m guessing you want me to stay here all day, all night?”

“Well, I do need medical and physical attention you know.”

He kissed Tam’s nose, making him blush furiously. “Well then, I guess I’ve got to cancel my plans. But seriously, is there anything I can do to make it up to you?”

“You could kiss it better,” Tam suggested cheekily.

Fitz said no more, gingerly taking his wrapped hand and peppering kisses around where he knew the injury to be. He trailed them up his arms and neck until he finally met his lips.

“I am really sorry, babe. That got all out of control. My father, he… he’s done some messed up things to this family, and as the proclaimed ‘Gifted Child,’ I felt responsible for stepping in. And like everything else, I ruined it.”

“You don’t realize that the good you do purposely outweighs the slip-ups you make along the way.”

“This was more than a slip-up, Tam. I became a monster, something I’ve never seen before. I was a violent beast that lost control, all because my Dad yelled at me for being a ‘disgrace to the Vackers’ for being gay. And because of that stupidity, I hurt you, and scared Biana outside of that.”

Tam’s eyes widened with shock. “Wait, you got angry because you were protecting me?”

“Well, yeah, of course. My father can drag me down all he wants, but he’s not touching the people that I love.”

“Love?”

“I-I’m sorry, I should’ve known you weren’t ready-”

“I love you too.”

“I- Wait, really?”

“Duh,” Tam chuckled, before his expression grew shadowed and weary. “Besides… we all have a dark side. I know I’d do anything for the people I care about.”

“What does yours look like?” Fitz asked. “Your dark side, I mean.”

He smiled bitterly, shadows of his past trauma flashes before his eyes in a relentless, rough grip. “You don’t want to know that part of me.”

“Babe, I want to know every side of you.”

“You’re sure about that?”

“Of course,” Fitz grinned eagerly. “I want to know everything you’re willing to share.”

“Then cuddle with me. Get to know another part of me.”

Fitzroy rested his chin on Tam’s chest and brushed his bangs away from his eyes, just as his own were dancing with glee. “Gladly.”

—————

Tam woke up to a loud series of sharp knocks on the bedroom door.

“Your breakfast is gonna get cold,” a feminine voice told him.

He inhaled sharply and ruffled his hair, using his tunic to rub his eyes, all in an attempt to focus on the figure leaning against the doorframe.

“C’mon, it’s past noon.”

Tam bolted upright, rushing to the bedside to pull his boots on. It could’ve been Fitz calling to him, but his mind was cloudy, warping any and all audio that reached his ears.

“I knew that would get you up,” the voice snickered. “Fitz told me to get you up in time for breakfast in bed.”

Tam chanced a glance up to see if his vision had finally cleared. Yup, definitely not Fitz. “Oh hey, B. I take it you and your brother talked?”

She nodded, arms still crossed tightly around her lilac fleece-like pullover for warmth. “Came running to me and went on his whole apology speech once you passed out. It was dorky, but it was also very… him. If that makes any sense.”

“It does.” He took a moment to inspect the tray and found a neatly folded piece of paper. A note from him. He read through it as Biana kept talking.

Good morning dearest, I just wanted to leave you this note to remind you that I love you and to apologize once again.

“When I saw him rush outside a few minutes after Mom left with an armful of tupperware, I was confused, but when he started throwing them in the yard, I was terrified for him. He’s lost control, but never like that. I felt powerless.”

“You did what you could, no one can ask you for more,” he mumbled.

“I stood to the side and waited for his boyfriend to come and stop him, and he wound up getting hurt. Real brave on my end.”

“It’s not being brave you should be aiming for, it’s doing what you need to do in order to protect the people you live for.”

I’m sorry. I know you’ll probably tell me not to apologize, but I really needed to get that out there in ink. Thank you for being there for Biana, I don’t know how I would live with myself if I had traumatized her or made her feel unsafe around me, but we talked for a bit and she helped me find better coping mechanisms, so all is forgiven. Well, as long as I give her my desserts for this month.

“I don’t think I did that yesterday. I chose the coward’s path.”

“You took the wise path, and you protected number one,” Tam corrected. “You know your brother better than anyone, and you knew the right choice was to let him blow off some steam until someone who wasn’t present when everything went down could talk him out of it. That was brave, and I think it’s quite admirable, too.”

“I guess you’re right.” She sighed, pulling her hair into a messy ponytail to give her hands something to do. “Still, I’m sorry about your hand.”

Tam waved it off. “I’ve gotten enough Vacker apologies over that. There’s no need.”

“If you say so.”

You were completely understanding last night, even while I was breaking down. You guided me through everything, and you were there for me, even when I couldn’t be there for myself. Thank you for being there. For letting me shadow you until I could be whole and healed again.

“You’re good for him,” Biana blurted out abruptly.

Tam furrowed his brows, sure he heard that wrong. “I’m what?”

“I said that you’re good for him. Fitz. I meant what I said when I told you that you two idiots deserve each other.”

“Thank you,” he breathed in shock.

“Remember the idiot part and don’t let it get to your head.”

“Yes, ma’am.”

You are my healing darkness. No, not light. Darkness. Because I never understood why darkness was so demonized. Shadows are what keep you cool on a hot summer’s evening, what provides cover from the rain, and what puts you to sleep at night. The color black is as natural as the air flowing into our lungs, the blood circulating through our bodies, and the dirt under our feet. So when I think of darkness, I don’t think of fear; I think of hope. I think of you.

“You better not hurt him.”

“I won’t.”

“I’m serious, Tam. I know it sounds hypocritical considering what happened to you yesterday, but I’m just as protective of Fitz as you are of Linh. Understood?”

“Yes, Ms. Vacker.”

Biana relaxed a bit at the confirmation. “You promise to look after him?”

“I promise,” he agreed.

Y’know, when you called me golden boy, it got me thinking. Gold is the weakest metal, and for a while I thought the nickname fit me perfectly. A boy who was seen as the perfect, charming, valuable golden boy who could break in the blink of an eye. But the more I was with you, the more I thought about it. If shadows were misunderstood, maybe gold was too. And here’s the thing: gold doesn’t rust. You can break it and bend it and try all you want to ruin its life, but no matter what, you can’t make it rust. And second to you, that is the strongest thing I can imagine. So for you, I’ll stay strong. I won’t give up. I won’t rust.

“One last thing before I leave you alone.”

“Go right ahead.” Tam let himself free fall onto the mountain of pillows behind him, note still in hand.

“Don’t take advantage of him. He may be a pain in my neck, but he’s valuable,” Biana mentioned, clearly having so much more to say. “You’re… incredibly lucky to have him.”

So let’s work jointly on this. On healing. I’ll be your gold, strong when you’re weak. And you’ll be my darkness, always there for me. But we have to do this together. I’m willing to take a leap of faith if you are. All of my trust lies in you, and I hope you’ll pay me the same honor. So what do you say? Circle yes or no and meet me by Moonglade with your response. Last I remember, I still have to kiss it better.

With love,

Fitzroy

Tam picked up the pen tied to the tray and circled yes without hesitation. “I must be the luckiest man in the world.”

#pls give feedback!#kotlc #keeper of the lost cities #fitz vacker #tam song #titz #fitz and the tantrums #kotlc fanfic #Cade’s writing #titz week 2020 #should i post it this early? No #but I’m impatientttt #lemme know what you think about this one cuz i have mixed feelings

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kunderdogs · 4 years

Text

Ateez / GF Defending Them Part 3/3

Sorry y’all. I know I was supposed to have this up yesterday but I got drunk at my friend’s party and we went Christmas shopping at 2am at Walmart. Anyway here’s part 3!

Part 1 / Part 2 / Part 3

Wooyoung:

Wooyoung was born loud and exuberant. It was a fact of life that his close friends and members have grown to love. Many people who didn't know him mistook him for obnoxious or rude, especially when he exclaimed loudly one night at a local BBQ joint. It wasn't overly crowded; a lovey-dovey couple who were much too close off in the corner ignoring everyone else, a couple of school girls who were nose-deep in thick texts book and piles of coffee cups, and three older men who were throwing back soju bottles like they were about to be discontinued.

You had just walked in behind your bestie, hungry and ready to show her your favorite item after showing her around Seoul for the day. Eight boys in the back caught her attention and she quickly pointed out the one who she found the most attractive as you two found a seat. Just as you looked over, one of them yelled before they all broke out into manic laughter.

They drew everyone's attention for a second before they went back to their own conversations, thoroughly unphased. Except for one of the older men. They had to be in their thirties, probably on some kind of lunch break from their office job, if their business suits were anything to go by. Either way, one of them scoffed, eyes rolling so hard, you could hear it from three tables away.

You and your friend exchanged looks before greeting the server as she took your order. She left with the promise of food in ten minutes as your bestie leaned over to you.

"The loud one with bleach blond hair has been giving you the look ever since we got in here," she whispered with a smirk. "Go talk to him."

You gave her a disbelieving look, "He's way out of my league. I'd just embarrass myself."

Chancing a look at the eight boys in the corner, your eyes made contact with the one she was speaking of before his eyes widened and he quickly ducked his head. You smiled a bit as the two flanking him noticed his blush and nudged him with their elbows, jeering loudly.

This time the office worker slapped his beer on the table, his two coworkers looking nervously between themselves. He turned before they could talk him out of it and locked eyes with a few of the boys, "Yah. Pipe it down over there. Some of us are trying to enjoy a meal in peace."

A few of them looked miffed, yet the loud hottie stood and bowed while loudly proclaiming, "We apologize. Please ignore us."

You thought that would be the end of it but it seemed the man didn't take it well and the next thing anyone knew, he was on his feet. The two near him couldn't reel him in fast enough and suddenly, he was standing in the blond's face.

"Are you mocking me, kid? You should show some respect to your elders."

The boys around him stood protectively, but didn't actively come to defend their friend. It was then you noticed the brightly dyed hair some of them have, along with almost all black attire, baseball caps and face masks that something clicked. They glanced around in a panic as their whispered voices finally tried to defuse the situation. Ah, they are idols. No wonder they looked hauntingly familiar.

"No," the guy growled angrily as one of his coworkers tried to physically move him away. "This little bastard wants to be a comedian so let's hear what's so fucking funny."

Slamming your hands on the table loud enough to have many pairs of eyes on you, you stood and walked over, "They're kids. They get loud, and they apologized. Don't make a big deal out of nothing."

It was silent for a long pause, and the raging guy in front of you obviously didn't expect you to speak Korean but when he recovered, he was sticking his finger in the hottie's face and poked him in the head. "I'm not going to sit back and let some obnoxious brats disrespect me!"

With one hand on your side, you made your way to Wooyoung's side before the other hand pushed the older guy on his shoulder, causing him to take a step back. "Let's not get physical here. He apologized. Accept it or leave."

Turning his anger to you, he grabbed the hand you pushed him with tightly, "Just who do you think you a-"

You gripped his wrist and twisted his arm behind his back in defense while he screamed, pushing him towards his coworkers. "Don't put your hands on other people."

His coworkers worked quickly to drag him outside, and you watched to make sure they were a good distance away before turning to the hottie standing next to you. "You okay?"

He was already staring at you, a blush quickly taking over his face when you spoke. "A-Ah, y-yeah...Thank you, for that. I'm not very good at...confrontation. I'm Wooyoung, by the way."

"Y/N." You smiled. He was really cute up close, especially when he was figiditing. "It's alright. I don't mind saving princes in distress."

His friends burst into laughter while he felt his face heat up. "Aish...now I look so lame! I'm supposed to be saying that to you! Let me repay you by buying your meal then."

Your bestie popped up from behind you with a twinkle in her eye, "OR you can buy her dinner later on? Tell him what I said." Before you could translate, one of the shorter boys (Hongjoong) to the back did with a sly smirk.

The "Oooooh"s and "Aw yeah!"s in the back made you both giggle, but Wooyoung just smiled. "Yeah, I like that idea better."

Wooyoung is all about a strong woman, but he definitely feels some type of way when you defend him. He's torn between loving it and wanting to be the one to protect you. He's absolutely make it about himself, and complain when you're the one always defending him. He'll get over it in a second and then he'll brag to the other members that his s/o can kick anyone's ass so they better be good to him from now on.

Jongho:

Our precious maknae is the strongest of the members, we all know this. And he's so incredibly caring as well. So when he noticed some young teens, around his age, being rude to an elderly man that worked at the corner store, he couldn't sit back and let it happen.

The kids were making a big deal out of the man taking too long to scan their twenty items, to which he just nodded and apologized. You had just walked in, on your lunch break to grab something quick to eat and went to stand behind Jongho. It didn't take long for you to notice the tense muscles in his back or the annoying howling from the teenagers.

"Come on, old man," one of the males nearly shouted. "We've got places to be!"

The other hoodlums chuckled before resuming their conversation, some complaining about him taking too long to get their change.

Jongho could feel the tightness in his jaw start to ache when he opened his mouth to say something. "Shut up. Don't be such assholes."

The ring leader, or at least that's what it seemed like he was since the other teens looked to him as they all turned around, cocked his head to the side. He snatched the plastic bag from the old man, jerking the poor guy forward slightly. Jongho glared at the boy. Seeing this would get interesting, you paused the song on your phone and held your drink with one hand.

"Why don't you mind your own fucking business, punk?" The other teens agreed yet none were stepping up to say more than that.

"The only punk I see around is you. Your parents failed you, raising such disrespectful trash."

Just as you were snickering from behind the taller of the two, the teen pushed Jongho back, which made him stumble back into you. You lost your grip on your phone, dropping it to the hard ground. There was a collective moment of silence as everyone within a ten mile radius watched you pick up the device and flip it over.

A cracked screen. On your new phone. Your one week old phone.

Anger bubbling within you rapidly, you stood, not noticing Jongho's panicked look in his eyes. You stared right past him, glaring at the teen that pushed him. "Are you going to pay for this?"

"H-Huh?" He stuttered before pointing at Jongho, "He's the one who bumped you! Blame him, not me!"

"You pushed him!" The fire in your eyes was nearly an inferno while the teens cowered under the stare. "Do you have no manners?! Do you think you can just push people around? That's how fights start. Do you want to fight?!"

They all looked thoroughly terrified and shook their heads before running out of the store. Their change was still in the clerk's hand and an apple from their plastic bag fell out. You picked it up and called after them, "You forgot your apple, brat!" They didn't even turn around, even as you crushed the apple, effectively breaking it in pieces in your rage.

With hearts in his eyes, Jongho was jaw-dropped as he watched you sigh loudly before apologizing to the clerk and pulling out your wallet. "I'll pay for the apple. I really don't know my own strength some times."

From behind you, a twenty was placed over your hand and Jongho smiled at you. "It's on me. Hi, I'm Jongho. I, also, break apples in my spare time."

#ateez #ateez scenario #ateez reaction #ateez wooyoung #ateez jongho #part 3/3 #choi jongho #jung wooyoung

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dragonnan · 4 years

Text

Current WIPs Teasers

Because I cannot help myself and end up working on a thousand stories at once -

Some of these I’m working on more regularly than others so even if a WIP appears on this list I may not actually be actively working on an update. That said these kinds of things tend to help motivate me.

SO!!!

Here we go!

MCU:

Sed Diabolus (Chapter 7) The dry ache of her mouth was the first sensation to reach her as Wanda lifted out of the world of black. She could barely pry her tongue from the roof of her mouth and she must have made a sound of discomfort because soon gentle hands were brushing across her forehead.

“There is water; here.” Hear... she could hear again. Vision placed a hand beneath her head and lifted just enough so she could open her mouth for the straw and... oh... Cold and wet and she tried to drink too much too fast and ended up coughing rough for several seconds - finally blinking her eyes open to blearily take in the room she occupied.

Only she wasn't alone.

Untitled Tony Stark versus Wilson Fisk story “So what wrong side of the bed did I wake up on this morning to earn this clandestine meeting before my Kai Jiew has had time to settle?” One hip resting on the edge of the railing, Tony managed to shudder back a yawn before it became embarrassing. Behind him, the familiar snap of a briefcase lock barely drew a glance as “Dilbert” pushed up his glasses and withdrew a thick file from the depths.

The larger man, still comfortably standing behind his assistant, nodded towards the table. It was his assistant, however, who spoke.

“Apologies, Mr. Stark. I assure you this won't take long.”

The unstated request, of course, that Tony join them at the table. Tony raised an eyebrow. “You didn't say please.”

A smooth, tight lipped smile, followed his quip. Meanwhile, the still silent other member of their trifecta finally stepped forward – grasping one of the large office chairs and rolling it back before seating himself. Wilson Fisk wove his hands together above propped elbows. “I appreciate your willingness to meet me so early, Tony. I felt it best to speak with you privately given the... delicacy... of the issue at hand.”

Well that wasn't at all circumspect.

Returning the tight lipped smile in kind, Tony grabbed a chair at the head of the table and sat; leaning back and settling his arms on the padded rests. “You know, usually I let Pepper handle SI business. Not sure if you got the memo but I'm not actually CEO any longer. How was prison, by the way? I heard the kitchen got a new chef.”

Fisk grinned, briefly, before he nodded towards his assistant... Wilbur? Weston? “Mr. Wesley, if you would please?” He turned back to Tony – also leaning back and resting his thick hands over his thicker waist. “I'm afraid what we're here to discuss is a matter that falls somewhat outside the purview of Stark Industries.”

As he spoke, Wesley neatly stacked the pages of the file before sliding the bundle across the polished tabletop to Tony. Eager to just get everything done with, Tony flipped back the cover... and froze.

Sherlock:

What Dread Grasp (Chapter 2) The surgery had been 4 hours on when John had taken a break and walked back to the private waiting room to find Anthea curled on the short couch. Of Mycroft there was no sign.

“He needed to step out for a bit. There were a few things requiring his oversight.”

John wondered if that oversight involved Sherlock's surviving kidnappers but chose not to ask. Anthea, of course, being nearly as observant at her boss, offered a tiny smirk. “I don't expect it should take terribly long.”

Groaning as he sank down in one of the many chairs scattered about the space, John rubbed his shoulder while doing his best not to completely drift off. It was going on 2am which meant he'd been awake for the better part of... fucking more hours than he really wanted to consider, frankly. He was surprised he wasn't hallucinating tiny blue pixies by this point.

“I slept more than both you and Mycroft. Why not have a kip for a few hours? I promise to wake you if there's any news.”

John shook his head while shuddering through another jaw cracking yawn. “I... Christ, I can't even think straight.” He blinked - noting the black spots in his peripheral. Abruptly reevaluating his position he stood – staggering to one of the recliners and sitting, well, falling when his knees gave out.

“You'll promise to wake me?” he slurred – only just catching Anthea's nod as his eyelids forced their way down.

And then he knew nothing.

Psych:

Oompa Loompa Doom-Pa-Dee-Die (Chapter 2) “Oh you have GOT to be kidding me!”

After nearly a decade, Juliet O’Hara knew she shouldn’t be surprised by anything her fake psychic husband pulled. However, she found herself reevaluating many presuppositions upon finding said husband, along with his alleged better half, bathed head to toe in a hardening chocolate shell.

“Babe, I can explain everything.”

“Jztt!” Hand up in his face to cut off whatever incriminating babble that was about to sally forth, Juliet jumped with a squeal when Shawn licked the her palm.

“Shawn!”

Grinning back, he waggled his cocoa coated eyebrows. “Come on, Jules. Admit it. You’re sweet on me.”

Giggles threatened to bubble through her in spite of her desperate need to glare him down; not to mention the chocolate dipped corpse, lying under a tarp, ten feet away. A covered cough bought a second to pull back her composure.

That and the mental chastisement of her former partner, 'My God, O'Hara, you're a Head Detective! Act like it!' The final nail in the chuckles coffin was the following memory of her partner; still battered but recovering after his enforced vacation slash rehabilitation. She hadn't needed the confirmation from Marlow to know that being stuck at home, no matter how much he loved his family, was grating on her old partner.

Pushing fingers across her smooth hair, and blinking the sudden mist from her eyes, Juliet took a step back from the two candy coated idiots who were currently involved in some sort of battle.

“Dude, stop it! That's dead man's chocolate!” Both arms wrapped around Gus's bicep while Gus yanked hard in the other direction.

“I know, Shawn! I can’t help it! I smell delicious!”

Giving up on the both of them, Juliet rolled her eyes and turned to one of the lounging security officers; hoping to beg a change of clothes for the two vandals at her back. With any luck, there was someplace in the building where they could hose down.

#multifandom #wips #my fics

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lowkey-gt · 5 years

Text

a part 3 to my g/t marichat agenda which you should all consider thinking about as much as me

Side note: I don’t USUALLY like to elaborate on g/t AUs past their tender first-encounters stage and get into the “hijinks ensue” stage, but @miniature-knight sent me some TASTY stuff to go on so I think I can bring this full circle

tags: marichat, growth, angst, petting, hugs, purring

part 1 and part 2

—

after the fiasco at the hotel, chat is super out of it for a few minutes before he starts even processing that marinette is telling him to try and detransform, to leave, that ladybug took care of the akuma and he needs to go collect himself

eventually he focuses enough and marinette closes the door while he transforms back and escapes out the window, marinette retransforms and wraps things up in the hotel, yadayadayada

marinette is so distracted worrying about chat for the rest of the day that she doesn’t notice how pale adrien looks, or that he’s been looking at her all afternoon

—

marinette is visited that night by chat on her balcony. he looks shaken, perched on her railings, but is keeping at normal size

he tells her his memory’s really foggy about what happened - the more he panics at the time, the harder the haziness hits, he thinks. he stammers out apologies about how badly the whole thing went, and how panicked seeing ladybug made him - but also how grateful he was for her facing danger to come and find him, and help him yet again

“How am I supposed to face ladybug again like this?”

Marinette is close to bursting but she keeps her head, and pitches the best speech she can; “Ladybug can handle this. You said yourself Ladybug is so brave and so strong, this won’t phase her or make her upset. I promise.”

Chat disappears into the night, and marinette resolves to make sure those words will be true for him the next time they meet

—

Finally. Patrol, the next day. Ladybug receives a call on her yo-yo. She tells him how relieved she is to hear from him. He sounds....okay, actually? He apologises. And calls her his Bugaboo. Asks to meet her on the very edge of the city to explain everything. Ends the call with blowing a kiss. She’s startled, but thankful that he’s finally talking to her, and hurries over

Ladybug lands on a rooftop, in the quietest part of town, looks around for her Chat. Calls again - the tone rings out

but then she hears movement, and turns. Chat rises up, slowly, from behind the wall where he’d been crouched

the rooftop ladybug stands on only reaches his sternum. ladybug realises she hadn’t seen him upright like this yet. her heart catches in her throat, looking up at him, as she feels that sense of overwhelmingness return. but then she remembers her promise, and that this is chat, and quickly snuffs the feeling out

A beat as they watch each other. then, Ladybug gives him her biggest smile. “This was what all the fuss was about?”

A flash of something moves through his eyes - surprise?

Ladybug quickly makes a show of not being scared of him. Tells him there was no need to worry about frightening her and that she’d do everything in her power to help him make this right

She comes to expect what chat has been like with her these past few weeks; intimate, shy, looking to be close to her - she even has her hand extended, ready for him to move into it

Instead, startlingly, chat’s face breaks out into a familiar grin

Ladybug blinks shocked as chat responds with ease to her - starts joking with her, laughing it off. “Yes we could say this is a big problem my lady,” “I must say you look about the right size for a Ladybug to me now, Bugaboo,”

He gives her a wink and lets her know he’ll be back on missions with her at normal size, this may just “pop up” for them now and then

Ladybug is stunned. She‘s seen his fear, his worry, for weeks now - yet here he was acting the same chat he’d always been. She asks if he’s sure he’s alright. He tells her he’s flattered she’s concerned but not to worry about him

Before she knows it they part ways so he can detransform alone and get back to normal. She thinks about him the whole time swinging home

—

chat keeps his promise and shows up to the next akuma fight. but it doesn’t go as smoothly as planned

he’s his usual, flashy self to start, but it’s not long before slip ups occur. The first is when ladybug grabs his arm, pointing out a vantage point she wants to take - she loses her grip as it suddenly becomes too big for her to hold. She looks up, expecting fear in his eyes, ready to reassure and calm him, but instead he’s caught himself straight away, halting it, and he grins in what he hopes is a casual way. Instead it barely hides a grimace

Similar slips occur - getting hit by the akuma, falling from a rooftop - and every time ladybug is ready to offer her help, but every time chat plays it off with a wink and a “I’m fine my lady,”

He’s not even close to normal size by the time it’s over, but he salutes her goodbye and disappears with a final cheeky quip

Ladybug again worries the whole way home

—

Marinette is back in the woods where chat and her had been meeting. She holds the note she found from him, left for her on her balcony to find after school

“Chat? Chat Noir?” She wanders through the trees, and at her call, chat eventually steps into view for her

“Hi, Marinette.”

She stares at him. He sounded so tired. He was smiling, but wearily. He looked so different for her here

Marinette almost forgets herself, but catches her words. “How did it go?”

His twitches. His eyes look pained. “I uh...great! A few hiccups I guess but... you were right. Ladybug wasn’t bothered at all. Not one bit.”

Marinette listens, watching his hands fidget, his jaw tense, his smile tighten. She hesitates, but then starts moving forwards. Chat’s eyes flit to her nervously, and he starts to chatter again.

“And it made me realise. She- she’s so fearless, you know, and we’re partners, so I really should be as fearless as her. It was silly that I let this keep bothering me so much. If- if Ladybug isn’t bothered by it - then I shouldn’t be either, right?”

Oh no. Marinette feels the guilt churn in her gut. That wasn’t what she had meant at all.

She reaches him, and without thinking takes his hand. She tries to think of what to say, and opens her mouth, but his sharp inhale interrupts her, and she watches him quickly rise a few feet above her, his hand enveloping hers in an instant. He pulls back, and there it is this time - his fearful expression, the panic in his eyes. He cradles his hands away from her. “I-I- sorry— it’s still hard to keep it up—“

“Chat,” she interrupts, quietly, firmly. They stare at each other. Chat eventually quails.

“—there’s no way she’d understand. She’s so fearless. Nothing phases her. So what’s the use in talking about this with her— it’s better that she knows I can still be her partner to rely on— a-aah,”

He stammers, his eyes closing, and marinette watches him rise up again, his hand now pressing against his forehead. He apologises distantly, says it’s harder to hold it back once it starts, and marinette can see the haziness in his eyes as they flicker open again

He realises with a start how far down she is now, and anxiously lowers down onto his knees for her. He tries to continue, tries to fight back the fog and the panic, but marinette hushes him worriedly, her hand resting on his

“It’s okay. You don’t have to hold it back if it’s hurting. It’s only me.”

Chat is shocked how much her tender words rock him, and almost instantly he stops fighting it - marinette jumps at how quickly he stretches over her, and his head comes to lower beside her

She moves back as he fills up the space, and she hears the quiet groan from him even with his head down

When it stops, his huge hand is curled around her loosely again, and she swallows, then kneels down herself, trying to catch his eye

He glances up, and it’s all there on his face - he looks so sad, so vulnerable, so anxious and confused

They look at each other for a long time. Marinette extends her hand to him. His faux ears twitch down, then he lowers his head into her, and lets out an exhale that warms Marinette’s whole body

She strokes his cheek, and he quails more, his head tilting into her as he tries to touch as much of her as possible. Their foreheads bump together gently.

Eventually he’s almost on his side, curling into her again. Marinette pets the bridge of his nose, and then, begins combing her hand through his thick fridge of golden hair draped over her. Chat makes a noise, and then the purring starts

Marinette had heard chat purr before, but she flushes at the sheer volume this time around.

with his face against all of her, she could feel it to her core, her whole body wrapped in the thrum as he crowded up against her and her petting

she looked down at him pained, at how vulnerable he looked, how much he seemed to need this comfort, and stayed with him for as long as he needed

—

I DREW THAT SCENE HERE

Another 2am finish WOOF, please reblog or leave a comment if you enjoyed this!!!

#g/t #gt #giant tiny #miraculous ladybug #marichat #i wanted more fitted into this but im writing too detailed now for it to fit all at once #whoops #ml au

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kryptsune · 6 years

Text

Risk Drabble~ I Want to Love You

🎃A little context with this. It was late last night and I could not sleep at all. I saw a hurt/comfort prompt and this lovely piece of writing was born at around 2am I think. I don’t know. Enjoy it 💙{WTU SPOILERS AHEAD}

She had yanked her hand away yelling only for him to become a little overly aggressive. It had slipped her mind as she shook from his actions. His boney almost claw-like fingers dug into her skin causing a blossom of blood to form and trickle down her arm. He had released her when he didn't realize his own strength but it was too late. Her ears rang with his shouts as she ran clutching her arm. Her legs brought her to the only place she found solace. A small little place in Waterfall. She collapsed next to the glowing blue stream shivering as if the very ground she now rested was but ice. When she looked down at her arm, the wound was nowhere to be seen. That only meant that her mind had started to decay and old horrors were spilling out. Did he even grab her? Her eyes filled with tears as she placed her shaking hand against her lips. What was real? What was fake? She knew that he loved her but this. She was sure she looked at him with horror swimming in those cobalt depths. The fear was undeniable and he had done nothing to deserve it. How could you ever love someone that saw the shadow of your former self-overlaid over the present? Was she a hypocrite? She told him that she forgave him and yet her mind was wrought with rot. It's decay slowly creeping deeper and deeper into her mind. The ghosts of the past haunted her even to the extreme of physical sensation. What were you supposed to trust? She closed her eyes leaning forward in defeat. Her age was in its prime. A young woman with so much life to live and yet this disease had slowly consumed her sanity and with age, it would only devour what was left of the present. She couldn't put him through that. It would break her heart. She didn’t deserve him not after that. At that moment her heart began to break. She loved him so much that his happiness went beyond her selfishness. He was better off finding a monster to be with than her. She would get old, her condition would become worse, and he would be tied to a human with such a short life in comparison to his own. It was the way it truly had to be. No amount of apology could ever fix what she had just done even if it was not in her proper state of mind.

She just sat there staring blankly into the water only to hear a small noise off to the side. It was him. It was near impossible for her to truly be alone when he was able to track her down so easily. Even when he approached she refused to raise her head to look at him, “I’m sorry...” She nearly choked on her next set of words as they passed her wavering lips, “We can’t be together. I.... I can barely control myself any longer. All I see is the worst part of you when...” The tears began to form as she tried to stop herself, “I know there is so much I love. I...I don't even deserve you. I want to love you and keep you close to me but I fear I am losing my mind. I see things past and." She was cut off as she screwed her eyes shut only whimpering a few chosen words, "I'm so sorry I yelled.... That I ran... I don’t know what is wrong with me anymore.”

Physical ailments could be treated with simple medication or rest but the mind is a complex beast. Just as it’s physical appearance depicts it is a maze that one could be trapped in for all eternity with no hope of escape. She was shaking and nearly on the cliff of a panic attack. She didn’t know what he would do. What he would say but he didn’t have to say anything. All she felt was gentle arms wrapping around her from behind cradling her in that warm embrace. How could he even look at her let alone touch her? All she could hear was that soft twinkle of chimes that made Waterfall so unique. He loved her, cared for her, and comforted her. He was her best friend and now someone she couldn’t imagine being without. His silence only led to soft gestures like the wiping of tears, a soft squeeze, and a small smile. He didn't need words to tell her how he felt. When the silence finally broke she was staring up into those red eyes. Ones that used to frighten her but now drew her in with that brilliant ruby hue.

He knew what it was like to lose your mind as his father had made sure of it. The monster he once was and the one she had met were like doppelgangers and though those traits from his past had returned he still struggled with the one thing that stained his very being. The very thing that had nearly torn half the Underworld apart with its aggression and madness. To see her go through the same pains hurt his soul. He had learned to control his and yet hers only seemed to become worse. He feared one day she would harm herself due to some demon that crept into her mind once more. He wanted to take that pain away from her. He wanted it to end but even her outbursts could never change how much he loved her. Even if she tried to pull away he would always pull her back. He had done this to her and so he deserved what he was getting. He only threaded his fingers through her hair gently combing through the auburn strands, “Why would ya ever think I’d be mad at ya?” He had been working tirelessly for weeks trying to improve her mental condition and yet no amount of magic could fix her wounds, “Ya don’t deserve me? Sweetheart, ya got it backward. I did this ta ya and I’m sorry. I wish I could take it all back er’... erase all tha bad but I can’t. You could yell at me fer tha rest of yer life... I will never leave ya.” He just held her praying to someone, anyone that one day those demons would be purged from her mind even if that meant he had to be out of the equation. She deserved better and though he loved her with his every breath he could not deny that he was only causing her more pain. He could feel her small frame shuddering as she sobbed, “Shhhh I gotcha.”

It was ironic considering the place she had chosen to escape to. It was a special place for both of them. It did not look like much but this was the place where his once cold and ruthless soul had been soothed. No amount of words or magic could do what her warm smile had or just that sparkle of hope and love in her eyes. It was the moment he realized he had been horribly wrong about the seemingly fragile human girl sitting beside him and how much of the term monster he had become. A truly awful horrible demon of a skeleton that didn’t deserve her angelic mercy. He had a difficult time living with his past actions drowning in a regret that not even time could cure. He remembered finding her trying to hold back tears as she wrapped her pale arms around herself. Seeing his handiwork in full display only for her to panic at his snooping. She explained that though time appeared broken for her that did not mean there were no consequences to such a thing. She called it a curse and rightfully so. Even as they sat in silence he could feel his thoughts shifting. That was the moment that changed everything. That was truly the moment that he realized just how special she was and how important she was to him specifically. He nearly cursed himself for not seeing it sooner. It was the same exact spot. The only difference was that he had no hesitation in his comforting of her. He wanted her to know that no matter what he would always be there no matter what she did because deep down a little of her hope had made its way into him. He would save her just like she had saved him all those years ago. She deserved happiness and he knew that for her that included him just as much. She had said so herself.

He closed his sockets just resting his mouth on the crown of her head before slowly raising it to speak clearly, “Ya saved everyone Sweetheart... now let me save you, alright?” He continued to hold her like the little fragile thing she was letting her feel that warmth and comfort. That loving embrace that would never leave her. She looked up at him now calmed by the soft words and warm cradle of his arms. It was a simple word one that might make another laugh at its absurdity, “Red...” Ah yes, the nickname. The very one that had been a joke in past. A failed attempt at a kind of quip for his use of so many pet names for her. There was one that stood out among the rest, sweetheart. There was nothing as fitting as that one simple word for her. She had made a point about mocking his fashion sense and his unfortunate eye color saying that he should be nicknamed after the color he seemed to be drowned in but it was his. A name that proved that though he had become something he hardly recognized that was the person she had grown fond of and could call a friend. It was special even if to the untrained eye it would appear rather bland or foolish. When that word slipped past her lips his soul would thump in his chest skipping the nonexistent beat that filled what a heart would do. He stared into those blue eyes that were filled with so much love for him something he never thought he would ever deserve. No, no one could say that name like she could. She didn’t need to speak anymore he just swept her off her feet so they could once again return home. He would keep hope for a brighter future and one day all those grey clouds would give way to the most beautiful blue sky. She had already cleared away the storm for him now it was his turn to show her the true beauty of a night sky unhindered by a single cloud. A peace, love, and happiness unmatched and unequal to anything on this planet or under it.

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meggannn · 6 years

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LOL YOUR ROOMMATE?? I can't stop laughing omg

god did i ever share the full story of what happened with my housemate last year? i think i bitched about her a little bit but here’s the full write-up of my six months with that housemate. unedited and probably full of errors and discrepancies sorry cause im going off entirely from memory

i’ve now moved out of this apartment, but i was there for a year with three other girls. two of them i got along with fine, and we introduced ourselves to each other before we moved in because that’s common courtesy to see if we get along right? but basically before any of us could talk or interview candidates for the last spot in the apartment, this girl, i’m making up a name and calling her emily, this random girl named emily basically came in and signed on for the spot on the lease without talking to any of us. uh, okay? so we eventually all get in a group chat and talk and introduce ourselves and plan to move in. day one: emily moved in before me and i moved in a few hours later. i walk in and see the kitchen and she’s already covered the fridge with magnets and pictures and paper clippings featuring…. herself. like, a few of them had her friends, but most of the pictures were of her. basically. am i crazy or is that fucking weird? so from the get-go she just seemed……. if not privileged (which i also knew she was later), then definitely some sort of weird type of entitled but i couldn’t tell if it was maybe just cultural differences? (she was russian but had grown up in the states. idk)

anyway. she had this boyfriend who would come over occasionally, it was no problem since we didn’t talk and just waved hi to each other occasionally. but from the first week she and another housemate who lived on the far end of the apartment were both having trouble sleeping because someone else on the floor was blaring their tv loudly all hours of the night in the room next door. after several weeks of not being able to sleep through the night, they’d pretty much had enough and managed to track down whose apartment it was, and it turned out to be this elderly black woman’s apartment. i don’t really know if the woman understood why they were so upset because i think she might have been going slightly senile as well, so i think maybe the tv, or the volume, was something she wasn’t entirely aware she was doing? but the other housemate, i’ll call her veronica (who is more chill but was still upset) understood that this was probably not a fight they wanted to pick. veronica noticed that the elderly woman had a middle-aged male visitor, who looked like family, come visit the woman a few times a week and take care of her/take out the trash etc, so veronica decided to wait until she saw the visitor again to talk to him about lowering the volume or turning the tv off, or maybe getting his relative headphones or something. but emily, like….. kept pushing it every single night. every single night for the first month or so she’d stomp across the floor and rap on the door loud enough to wake up the entire floor (the walls were thin and it wasn’t a big building). and most of the time the woman didn’t respond, but there was one notable time someone else got fed up enough to wake up at 2am and yell at emily (deservedly so) for waking up the whole hall. all of which i heard very clearly because my room was next to the main door to out apt.

things escalated when i overheard emily talking to her friend on the phone about the situation and then she mentioned that in retaliation, she went over in the middle of the night and put vaseline on the woman’s door handle. i was kind of stunned and disgusted that a grown ass adult (she’s at least a few years older than me, i’d guess late 20′s/early 30′s?) would do something like that???? but anyway a few nights later iirc, once again in the middle of the night, i was woken up by a shouting match down the hall because apparently the male relative had come back to check in on who he said was his mother, and HE WAS PISSED, UNDERSTANDABLY SO, AT FINDING MY ROOMMATE IN THE MIDDLE OF PUTTING VASELINE ON THE FLOOR CREVICE UNDER THE DOOR. LIKE. THAT’S NOT JUST PETTY BUT REAL FUCKING DANGEROUS TO DO TO AN ELDERLY WOMAN. he basically shouted at her and she kept talking about how she can’t sleep for months because of the noise, and whatever, but she stomped back to our apartment and they had this argument loudly at the door (remember, my room was right next to the front door). i listened to it for a couple minutes wondering if she would like, acknowledge what she did was wrong? and it became clear that she was so focused on the noise she wasn’t listening to this dude, so i came out and i tried to be a voice of reason. the guy was understandably really pissed that she would do something like that and i apologized for her and said she was wrong to do that (she had stomped off back to her room meanwhile) and he seemed grateful to talk to someone who wasn’t batshit crazy in the meantime so he mentioned that he had grown up in this building all his life before moving out so it hurt to see someone treat his mother this way who had lived here for 50 years or something. and after that i was just thinking like, jesus, this is so not the kind of fight you want to have with a family like this as a white woman in a gentrified apartment complex. like at some point you need to realize this is not your fucking place and if you must settle things, do it civilly or just dip out entirely.

i think emily eventually apologized and he accepted and they found out that the tv wasn’t even coming from the woman’s room at all, but from someone on the floor above who THEY also had had problems with for months.

veronica was away on a trip i think during this climax, but before, while it was still escalating, i was talking with veronica and veronica mentioned she and emily had bitched about the noise to each other often, but veronica said she drew the line when emily basically started making her complaints race-themed ever since she found out the elderly woman was black. etc the complaints turned from “it’s too loud” to “this neighborhood is so ghetto” and “that’s what black ppl are like” and stuff like that. veronica wasn’t cool with that, so she planned on handling any other complaints herself directly so she could resolve things like a normal person, but ever since veronica mentioned that i knew emily was a pos

emily also complained about people partying/drinking on the street outside till ~11pm, which imo isn’t too unreasonable, like normal people do, and basically being too loud or whatever. on some level i get it cause she had to go to sleep early to go to work early, but also at some point i was just wondering how she functioned as a human being in the real world

ANYWAY THE STORY I TELL AT PARTIES IS THIS ONE, THE ONE IN WHICH SHE LEAVES (i will try to keep this as short as possible while still giving you all the details you need to understand just how fucking weird it was):

in early november, emily group messaged everyone asking if her boyfriend could come live with us. to her credit she said she wouldn’t do it unless everyone was ok, and she waited to hear back from all of us. i was out of town at the time but i remember being really put off by this idea and i was going to say no, when i noticed that my two other housemates had ALREADY said yes in the chat. just like that. i was stunned. what? like, no follow-up questions or “we dont even really know him” or “how is this gonna work”? were they fucking insane?

i messaged her privately saying i really wasn’t comfortable with it, for xyz reasons. among those being 1) rent, because nowhere did she offer to split the rent five ways instead of four (they were basically going to split her room between them, which, no). 2) fridge/living space, which was small enough with four people to one apartment as it is, and 3) just overall “i dont fucking know him” atmosphere. she messaged back saying she understood, and i got to asking why this was so important to her to do now, because she mentioned she wanted to do it “asap” if we’d said yes.

and this is where my “no” turned into “hell fucking no.” she told me this:

in response to my question of if she’d want to put him on the lease, she said no, she wouldn’t want her boyfriend on the lease in case “something happens so she could just tell him to leave” (raising my question: what, exactly, do you expect to happen? maybe the landlord, who lives in the building, finding out someone’s living here illegally? bc THAT WOULD DO IT FOR ME)

she was marrying him in december which is why she wanted it to happen “soon” so they wouldnt be living apart. i asked why she couldnt just wait until the lease was up to do all this, to which she said:

her boyfriend’s green card (he was russian) had expired so he was now paying month to month and that’s when i realized, oh. bitch he’s using you for a green card marriage and you’re trying to inconvenience all of us instead of owning your life like an adult, or something

at some point during the conversation she like tried to bribe me with a couple hundred extra dollars per month “to cover the cost of the extra utlities/wifi/inconvenience,” which i politely declined. this was when i said basically “look i never got the sense you particularly liked living here (massive understatement) and i think that it’d work out best if you moved out, which you’re clearly already planning to do”

and she did start looking immediately. at some point while she was looking i overheard her talking to veronica mentioning that he was a huge fan of putin and she’d asked him to like, politely, stop?, lmao because she didn’t like his entire yknow politics, and he basically said “i’m sorry, i can’t betray my personal/national identity, i just really believe in putin” or whatever the fuck and i thought to myself, this bitch is marrying him anyway for some godforsaken reason

i don’t know why i hoped that she would be any more considerate moving out than when she moved in, but somehow i was still surprised when the sublet she picked out was someone she never introduced us to or mentioned before, she literally just said “hey here’s your new housemate and when she’s moving in” and dropped us a phone number and facebook page.

one last thing: while emily was moving out, veronica mentioned to me that she was really pleased i stood up to her because she felt massively uncomfortable with the situation too. i asked why she didn’t say something, and she said she talked to emily privately airing out her problems, and emily had managed to talk her into accepting that sort-of bribe privately off message, and emily told her ‘just say yes’ in the chat, so she did and was kind of kicking herself for it after. (our other housemate was off doing fuck knows what at this point; she was gone for weeks on end leaving us to take care of her guinea pigs for her with little to no warning.)

but then, veronica says, the big thing that astounds her is that this wasn’t even the same boyfriend who she’d had when she’d moved in. six months had passed by this point. SHE HAD BEEN DATING GREEN CARD GUY FOR LIKE, THREE MONTHS WHEN SHE DROPPED THIS ON US

and then she moved to fucking harlem, one of the yknow most diverse neighborhoods in the city known particularly for its black heritage, so i guess have fun honey

(her replacement somehow turned out to be just as bad as she was, so you can imagine why i was eager for my lease to end in may)

#stuff #Anonymous #askbox

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claymorexpunisher · 2 years

Text

Lock & Key (Ch.2/?) (18+ Fic)

Pairing(s): Drew McIntyre/Fem. Reader

Summary: Reader discovers something... interesting about her boyfriend Drew while using his computer. Hellavu a lot of fluff in this chapter.

DISCLAIMER: This is NSFW. If that's not your thing, keep scrolling. I try to tag my work appropriately, so if you choose to click on my work regardless, use your own discretion. Thank you for the love always and enjoy this cheesy porno! 🥂

Tags: Domme/Sub, 18+, Fem Dom, chastity, orgasm denial... more tags TBD.

Total Word Count; 5,820

Even though he said not to, I still waited all night for Drew to come home.

At first I waited in the bedroom.

Then, I made my way downstairs to the living room at around 2am, and he still wasn't home.

Thankfully, our couch was comfortable enough to double as a bed, otherwise my neck and my back would've been going through hell by the time I woke up a few hours later.

I called Sheamus a little while before going to bed, feeling like I could breathe again when I was told Drew was in fact with him like I suspected.

Coming into the kitchen, I got a massive sense of deja vu when my eyes landed on Drew's broad back as he made breakfast.

I made sure he heard me shuffling into the kitchen before I snaked my arms around his waist from behind.

''Morning..'' he said softly.

From his tone alone, I could tell he felt regret about walking out the way he did, and I squeezed him affectionately, breathing in his familiar sent as I kissed his back in response.

''Morning,'' I said just as softly before moving to stand next to him, much like I had the day before, and I breathed in the sweet scent of French toast.

I itched lightly at my shoulder over Drew's shirt that I wore to sleep the night before and lightly bumped his hip with mine.

''French toast, uh?'' I teased him with a half smile, watching a crimson blush wash over his cheeks.

He moved quickly to plate our breakfast and we moved to sit at the table, sitting in silence for a few moments until I decided to be the one to break it.

''Is this your way of apologizing, D?'' I asked him, drizzling some maple syrup on my French toast and bacon before beginning to eat.

The way he looked at me through his lashes, and then back at his plate with his face still bright red almost made me giggle.

But I quickly took a sip of orange juice to hide it, wanting him to feel comfortable about talking to me.

''Is it working?'' He mumbled in his raspy voice, and now I finally chuckled watching him begin to smile shyly as well.

I hummed in thought and slowly nodded, winking at him as a single dimple appeared on his cheek.

''Maybe..'' I chuckled, shrugging loosely.

He took a sip from his own glass of orange juice and looked me in the eye with an earnest look on his face.

''I really am sorry for reacting that way. And for speaking to you that way. You didn't deserve it,'' he said, reaching across the table to squeeze my hand.

I gave his hand a squeeze in return.

''Look...I'm more upset that you left. I know I'm not one to talk- I've done that shit to you before as well. But I just...I don't want that to become a habit, y'know?...We pride ourselves in having so much trust in each other. But, being able to talk to each other is part of that. So...can we promise each other that we won't walk out when shit gets too deep? Especially if...if we wanna take this relationship in a different direction. You're gonna have to learn to trust me a hell of a lot more..'' I said carefully, completely expecting him to once again close off on me.

But to my surprise, he nodded after a few seconds and gave me a much broader grin.

''You're right.. I promise. It won't happen again,'' he stressed, squeezing my hand again.

''Good.'' I replied, playfully sticking my tongue out at him, letting him know it was water under the bridge at this point before we continued to eat.

——————-

Once we were done with breakfast and had taken showers and brushed our teeth, we laid down on the couch and cuddled while watching the morning news, until we decided to flick on a movie instead.

The silence was comfortable this time, with idle chatter every so often as we watched the movie.

I could practically hear him thinking, though.

I knew he was stressed out about this, though he promised to talk to me about it.

I knew there was so much he wanted to say, and so much to think about.

And I think I knew where his turmoil was coming from.

''Drew..I can hear you thinking, babe. What's up?'' I mumbled against his chest.

But instead of answering my question, he shocked me for a second time that day and answered me with a question of his own.

''Can I see the stuff that you bought for me?'' He asked almost timidly.

For a moment his eyes didn't leave the tv screen until he turned to look into my shocked gaze with a nervous yet determined look in his eyes.

I sat up straighter and eyed him before I nodded in reply.

''Mhm.. sure,'' I smiled at him. '' I'll go grab it. And..D?''

''Yeah,'' he replied, smiling as I threaded our fingers together.

I wanted him to know that there was no rush on my part.

That we could take our time if we needed to.

''We don't have to start right away, if you're not ready. Okay? We can take our time,'' I stressed to him, feeling my entire body grow warm as he kissed me lovingly and gave me a grateful smile.

''I know, love..thank you,''he softly said, kissing my hand before I got up to grab my recent purchases.

I could see how overwhelmed he became as soon as I began laying out everything onto the coffee table in front of us.

But I didn't say anything as he looked over the different devices and the lubes that I purchased.

I almost cracked a joke as I watched him reach for one of the items laid out in front of him, only to pull back as if he'd get bitten if he wasn't careful.

But I didn't say a word.

I let him take everything in, until he finally picked up a device called The Cell Mate and he began to inspect it with determined curiosity.

''How does this one work?'' He asked me as he looked the device over, then looked to me.

I played with the hem of my shirt as I dug through my brain for what I was told about that particular device by the saleswoman at the shop I went to.

''It's controlled with an app. Via Bluetooth. The app also has the option to match you with other key holders and stuff. Kinda cool!'' I said, hearing the excitement in my own voice.

I tried to dial it back but it was difficult, and he gave me a small smile, hearing the excitement in my voice as well.

''That does sound cool…what's with all the lube?'' He laughed softly, setting the device back on the coffee table and running his hands over his pants before bringing them back to his lap.

He still seemed a little nervous but, watching him relax back on the couch again in turn made me relax more.

I shrugged, laughing as I took in everything as well.

''I dunno. I mean either way we'd probably need the lube to use this stuff. Or if anything we could just try the lube itself, no biggie. Can never have too much lube!'' I chuckled with him joining in this time.

I ran my fingers lightly through his hair as he seemed to sag against me while we went back to cuddling on the couch.

''You ok, babe?'' I murmured, now lightly scratching my fingernails against his scalp.

I smiled as he sighed pleasantly against me.

''Yeah..I'm alright. Just..'' he trailed and I decided to help him out.

''A little overwhelmed?'' I chuckled softly and he nodded, confirming my thoughts.

''Well, that's okay. This is all new. For both of us. It's okay to be a little overwhelmed and nervous. Or even a lot,'' I said gently.

I felt him nod again and I kissed the top of his head, wanting to soothe his worries as best I could.

''..I don't know if I wanna try this out, yet..'' he mumbled.

He sounded almost embarrassed and I felt a sad pang in chest at the sound of it.

''Alright, it's okay.. Can I ask what's holding you back exactly?..Aside from this being a new thing, obviously.'' I asked as gently as I could, moving my hand down to comfortingly rub his arm.

He shook his head, staying silent for a moment as he gathered his thoughts and quietly began to voice them.

''I dunno! It's just..'' he began, sighing deeply as if frustrated with himself.

''It's just a lot. Our whole dynamic is gonna change and that's...I'm so used to being in control- and I'm so used to other people seeing me that way. And even though this is going to be kept between us, it..''

''You're worried that this makes you less of a man,'' I answered for him.

''Especially since you're like, quadruple my size..'' I chuckled lightly as he nodded in confirmation.

''…Okay. How bout this. Why don't you wear it- when you're ready for however long you're ready to wear it, and you be the key holder for a while? Just until you get more comfortable with even just wearing whatever device you choose? And then you could hand things over to me. I can't force you to be comfortable with this. That has to come from you.''

''But doesn't that kind of defeat the purpose?'' He asked, lightly running the pad of his fingers underneath my shirt, causing goosebumps to raise up on my skin.

''Hm...I don't think so! Cuz you'd still have the limitation of not being able to cum but, you're giving it to yourself. You don't even have to tell me when you have it on if you don't wanna. Plus maybe it'll make you feel more comfortable to wear it if you were the only one to know that you're wearin it,'' I shrugged, wrinkling my nose.

''Does that make sense?'' I asked him and I was relieved when he let out an affirmative hum and nodded.

''It does, love,'' he said, continuing to run his fingers along my skin rhythmically.

''I think if I'd actually give this a try I'd wanna do it that way.''

His words made me smile.

I was endlessly proud of this man.

''Alright, cool..I love you.'' I murmured to him, smiling and pecking his lips as he lifted his eyes toward mine.

''I love you more,'' he said smiling at me.

His eyes and his entire energy were less frenzied.

Less anxious.

And that made me so happy.

''I love you most,'' I smiled wider.

''…You win. This time,'' he mumbled, rolling his eyes playfully.

I giggled at the sight and gave him another, more sound kiss.

''I always win.''

(Next Chapter)

(Prev. Part)

#drew mcintyre #drew mcintyre x reader #drew mcintyre fic #drew mcintyre smut #drew mcintyre x female reader #wwe smut #wwe fanfics #wwe fan fic #wwe fanfic #wwe fanfiction #wwe fic #wrestling fic #wrestling smut #lock & key

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inevitably-johnlocked · 6 years

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Hey Lovely! I was wondering how you first became a part of the fandom? When did you start watching the show, at what point did you feel John and Sherlock might be(come) a thing, what made you start a blog on these two? I just want to know it all ^^ Hope you don't mind sharing a bit :) Thank you for everything you do for this fandom, love you lots!

Hi Lovely!

Oh gosh, what a nice question! I think I’ve talked about this in snippets in various posts, this post being the one talking the most about it, but never as a whole! Apologies if this turns into a long ramble, hah hah!

So I remember exactly when I got into the show SO CLEARLY. It was July of 2013, just a few months before S3 was to air in January 2014. I was over at my friends’ place, and they suggested the show to watch, since we always watch movies together whenever I visit. I remember asking, “Is that the show with Martin Freeman and that Khan actor from Star Trek 2?”. We finished Season one all in one go, and immediately fell in love with Ben and Martin’s portrayals and their chemistry. And then I had to head back home. I was ANGRY because OMG WHAT HAPPENS NEXT and my friends just laughed.

So as soon as I got home, I downloaded S1 and S2 and watched them ALL the way through. I needed more. So, because I already had a Tumblr and knew it was for fandoms, I decided to see what it had to offer.

Oh boy what did I get into???

So I lurked for a bit, and then I discovered something called “meta”, back when the TRF theories were the prominent meta in the fandom. So while I was getting deep into meta, I started switching my fanart from Ninja Turtles to Sherlock, because I was warming up to Ben’s ethereal face and I wanted to draw it. And I wanted to be a Sherlock fanartist. I briefly shipped Sher1011ie for a week or so, until I rewatched the series again and it just didn’t jive like it did the first few watch-throughs. I was too invested in John and Sherlock’s friendship – I saw them as bestest friends ever, too devoted to each other.

Now, at this point, y’all need to remember this: I was naïve, have never been exposed at length nor ever heard of subtext, was and am not part of the LGBT community (I grew up in a different time and in a conservative city, so being “gay” just wasn’t a thing), had a very heteronormative view on my life, and I just had always just insisted that in all of my fandoms, when I liked two male characters together, it was because “bestest friends ever!!”. I didn’t know I was ace and I’d never read smut up until 3 years ago (yes hi hello I’m so old and so innocent LOL).

Okay, so I was just lurking for a bit, learning my way around fandom, reading meta and just generally dipping my toes quietly into the fandom.

Then came Season 3.

As many of my followers know, a lot of my fondness for season 3 stems from this being the season that LITERALLY opened my eyes to EVERYTHING: subtext, Johnlock, my own sexuality, and my meta-writing career.

So, season 3 aired and I decided to dip my toes into “reviewing” the episodes as my first “meta”. They were posted onto my multi-fandom blog here, here and here. I was so proud of them, because it reinvigorated my love for writing (I used to be a pretty prominent Sonic fan-fic author back in the 90′s… I never finished my stories because my interest in the fandom died before I finished them), despite how laughably bad they were, haha. I got a couple compliments on them, but nothing beyond that, especially since I sat down and wrote them for HOURS after each episode aired.

Sometime between TSo3 and HLV, I discovered loudest-subtext-in-television (aka LSiT) and deducingbbcsherlock completely by accident and I was FASCINATED. I ate up everything they wrote. The first time I watched TSo3, something was niggling at my brain but I couldn’t quite place it. It was one of LSiT’s meta that twigged at it. That’s when I learned about subtext, heteronormativity and the queer community. And suddenly, just like that, something in my brain clicked.

Oh. My god. This show is gay, and I actually SHIP these idiots like I did in the Mother Ship (ie. The X-Files Mulder / Scully). That’s why I was SO ANNOYED with Irene. Why Molly was slowly grating on me. Why Mary’s introduction kind of annoyed me but okay I guess I can deal with it. Why everything seemed really romantic but it just couldn’t be, could it?

I rewatched the series. And it was gay. Y’all, those rainbow-coloured glasses were suddenly GLUED to my head, and I saw gay EVERYWHERE.

So, after HLV, I discovered The Johnlock Conspiracy and I was eating up all the meta about Johnlock I could. Around this time, I also was learning a lot about the LGBT community, its history and sexual fluidity from wsswatson. It was also around this time I discovered asexuality, and I started reading a lot about it.

In February of 2014, I started this blog because I wanted a place to reblog Johnlock meta. This was the first post I made on this blog, and looking back at it now, I am DYING because wow I never imagined I was going to be this deep into the fandom the day I wrote that. I don’t even remember writing it, to be very honest. I just shake my head, HAH. I think I really started understanding Johnlock because of this post here. It’s still one of my favourites and is one of the ones I credit for helping me understand what I was watching was actually a romance, not a “crime show”.

Anyway, after learning how to read subtext from mostly LSiT (they wrote a meta about how to read subtext and it was super informative) and other Johnlock bloggers, I wanted to try my hand at my own little Johnlock meta. It was more of an observational post, as my way of trying to interact with the fandom. I am a terribly nervous and shy person, so I never tagged anyone in anything. It was an overwhelming fandom, and it was terrifying to interact. A few bigger bloggers noticed me and were nice enough to comment on a couple of my posts, but I mostly stayed in my little corner, and interacted with my small little group of other smaller fans. I dabbled in both fanart and writing, just plopping my thoughts and art into the aether, hoping something would interest someone enough to start a discussion.

I started getting braver, and I was “moderating” some of my favourite posts that weren’t mine, but had my additions to it. Mostly, the Phones and Hearts post. I didn’t want to impede, but it was one of my favourite posts, so I went and copied all of the comments in the notes and put them onto one post. I don’t honestly remember HOW I ended up moderating it, but I just did because I was FASCINATED with symbolism, and I was excited because I could finally read subtext and understand it. I still had a small following, and a few people I regularly interacted with on my blog.

So, during the hiatus between S3 and TAB, somewhere along the way I suddenly had a sexuality crisis, when I suddenly realized I wasn’t broken and there was absolutely nothing wrong with me, and damn it, there’s such thing as split attraction model and asexuality?? Mind was BLOWN. I was also slowly becoming obsessed with Mary’s character, and at the time I couldn’t understand why (inevitably, it was because of events happening in my own life and me trying to understand them), but I really enjoyed just psychoanalyzing her. It’s something I’ve ALWAYS loved doing – character studies; I’ve done it in EVERY fandom I’ve been in – and I was doing it for her, Sherlock and John’s characters.

So yeah, nothing much really happened to me during the S3 hiatus, except my entire world view flipped on its head and I was completely Johnlocked beyond repair. I became known for some painful posts and some lovely revelations and writing a lot of character study posts on both John and Sherlock. I’m very proud of some of my earlier meta, just sad they never really got seen (some of my earliest meta can be seen on my Ao3).

Then came the announcement for TAB in 2015, and the start of my “Tumblr Career”. I put a lot of my energy into my fandom life. I was OBSESSED with TAB, and became known for it. I put my moderation skills to use and created the TAB Starter Pack, which started gaining me some followers because OMG some loser is taking the time out of their day to compile all the news about this new series! AWESOME. I remember, it was around this time I was excited because I got to 1895 followers and it was one of those milestones all Johnlockers like having, hahah.

In October of 2015, I lost my job and was unemployed. Conveniently, this is also the time when the promo season for TAB started, because we now had a name and airdate. I devoted a LOT of my time, when I wasn’t job hunting, to working on this blog. I was just writing a lot, and obsessing about the upcoming episode.

Then the trailer aired.

And immediately after that trailer dropped on October 24, 2015, I made this post here, which, some would probably say, was the beginning of everything for me. As I was writing that post, with a cracking headache, something clicked in my head, and several hours later, I had written and posted the original Mind Palace Theories of TAB at 2AM-ish, and went to bed.

When I woke up, my post had suddenly gone viral and I couldn’t figure out why. Then it just kept expanding from there, and I made sure to include everything I could onto it, because WOW something I wrote was gaining traction, and interaction, and I just wanted us all to have a good time with it. And as the time for TAB drew closer, suddenly I was gaining followers, and more people interested in what I had to write. I welcomed everyone to continue to predict the outcome with me.

January 1st. Was a complete and total mind fuck. I was liveblogging the episode, and inadvertently created another viral post with my Mycroft’s Death post because FUCK ARE THEY KILLING MYCROFT OFF?? kind of freaked people out (sorry loves!), which gained me some more followers, and at the time, my top post was my December 31st reblog of my Mind Palace Theories post, so anyone who came to my blog, it would have been on the first page of it.

After the episode aired, suddenly, EVERYONE had questions for me, about EVERYTHING, but mostly to scream at me that I was a mind reader, LOL. No, I’m not, I was just a sad, unemployed twat with too much time on my hands and was avoiding job hunting. But good god, all DAY on Jan 1, I was replying to asks, gaining followers like crazy, and pretty much just stating my opinion on anything that someone wanted to know.

I became known as the unofficial TAB blog, and the one to come to with questions about my interpretation of the episode. I was SO obsessed with TAB, studied every nuance and narrative structure I could. 2016 was “my heyday”, and it was fun. I found my niche, and meta-writing is what I became known for. And until I got a job in April of that year, I was a pretty solid presence in the fandom, if I understand some of what I’ve been told correctly. I still ran my blog as full-time as I could having a full-time job, and still do in some ways, but yeah, 2016 is when I produced a LOT of meta, mostly Mary meta because, as I said above, I was and am obsessed with her character arc. I was learning about myself a lot more by writing meta, and my “original” meta turned into “asks” meta, which was fine by me, because I do like a good prompt to get me going.

Somewhere in there I also somehow became the blog new bloggers came to, which I didn’t and don’t mind at all, because being new in a fandom is scary and I wanted to be a friendly face because I like meeting new people.

Then we got an announcement for S4, and like TAB I also kept track of anything and everything S4-related, so once again I was sort of the “go-to” place for everything S4 because I compiled all the stuff from setlock bloggers and listed them all for easy-access. I kept track of everything promotional, and I reblogged some of my favourite pre-S4 meta here.

Essentially, I LOVE organizing things, and people liked that I LOVED doing it, so that’s sort of how I kept my following when I wasn’t posting as much new meta. I did make a few original meta before S4, and I made a 68 day video countdown to the series which is cringy AF and I’m not linking it (lol you can find it if you look hard enough).

We all know what happened in S4. I took a bit of heat after S4 aired, because I got people’s hopes up. I was discouraged for a bit, but then I started receiving asks that weren’t really asks, but “I need advice” and “I need support”.

And I started answering life questions, and realized people LIKED my responses, liked my little personal anecdotes in each of my replies, and felt comforted by it. So, after S4 aired, I became an eclectic mix of life advice, meta, fics, music and TJLC / tinhatting blog. I have a “no judgement” approach to my blogging, and I think that’s why I’m still gaining a steady dozen or so followers every couple weeks, rather than losing. The only time I took a big hit was the Tumblr Feedpocalypse, where they fucked up the algorithm and I’m not getting nearly as many hits on my posts as I used to, but that could also be because we lost so many people to S4, especially after Jan 1, 2018 when people were hoping for another episode.

I personally don’t think I’m popular, but I suppose I am by Tumblr standards. I dunno, I think we all have that “starry eyed” view of popular bloggers, and I just can’t picture myself as someone anyone would fawn over. I’m just me, and you can take it or leave it.

I think where I’m at now and what I’m known for is a good place to be, to be honest, despite how S4 turned out. I’m not certain, but I FEEL like I have a positive reputation here, but don’t quote me. I know I have people in this fandom who hate me, and quite frankly it saddens me that they feel they need to expel energy on me that way when they deserve to just be happy and forget about me.

ANYWAY, sorry that got long and rambly, but it’s something I’ve wanted to talk about for awhile, but I was waiting for the prompt to come because *shrugs* I dunno, self esteem thing, makes me think no one REALLY cares until someone actually asks, hah.

And if you made it all the way to the end here, Love ya Nonny, and thank you for asking and thank you for being a follower of my blog

#steph replies #about me #fandom life #steph's storytime #fandom history #Anonymous #long post #my blog

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imamotherfuckingstar-lord · 7 years

Text

All The Parts

Matt Murdock x Reader

A/N: Commission for @savinghellskitchenwithmatty

Summary: Someone had been trying to hunt down the Devil of Hell’s Kitchen and they finally caught up with him, breathless and tired in an alley with a woman. A woman who was helping him up. That woman was you, Matt Murdock’s girlfriend.

It was 2AM when your cell phone blared into your dark bedroom, trying desperately to cling to sleep, you ignored it. But it kept ringing and a sudden thought had you jerking from bed, tossing off the blankets and fumbling to where the cell sat on your desk, being charged.

Matthew, the screen lit up in your boyfriend’s name and you answered it, asking right away if he was okay. With a heavy breath, he murmured something about an alley a few blocks from the bar you two met. Urging him to not hang up, to keep talking, you grabbed a pair of old sneakers and a jacket, throwing it over your nursing scrubs you had slept in.

“I’m coming, don’t stop talking, Matt. Don’t stop talking..”

…

You found 15 minutes later, hidden behind a dumpster. The gash to his chest was deep, but the bleeding had subsided and you quickly pulled medical supplies from your bag, trying to calm your own nerves.

“I’m going to be okay,” he promised, grunting as you worked around his torn up suit.

“Jesus, Matt..”

“Don’t take the lord’s name in vain,” he teased and you chuckled, asking how the pain was.

“Barely a five,” he sighed, leaning his head against the brick wall. “I’m better now that you’re here.”

Warning him about the alcohol you were about to apply, you reached down for his hand and squeezed it.

“You’re lucky it’s just us two here, what would the papers say if they saw the Devil of Hell’s Kitchen bleeding in an alleyway?”

“I’m not bleeding anymore,” he pointed out and you smiled, telling him to be quiet.

Except, what neither of you knew was that someone had been carefully keeping tabs on the Daredevil and with a few snaps of a silent camera phone, he got leverage he needed to take down the city’s favorite vigilante.

...

A few weeks later..

Matt walked through the doors of Nelson & Murdock, hearing the murmured sounds of people chitchatting while they waited for their turn with the two humble lawyers. His cane moved from side to side, for show of course, as he made his way to Karen's desk, asking if Foggy was in yet.

“He’s with Mrs. Sanchez, the woman who needs help with her immigration papers,” she answered, flipping through some files before reaching for a vanilla folder on the pile of mail sent to the office. “This was sent to you, no return address.”

Matt held his hand out and Karen placed the envelope in his hands. “Thank you, Karen. Give me five minutes and then send in my first client of the day.”

She said okay and Matt walked into his office, closing the door behind him. He went to his desk, leaning his cane against it as he took a seat. His fingers brushed over the envelope, looking for a place to tear it open. When he did, he pulled out a single sheet of embossed paper with a message in braille.

Taking a deep breath, his fingers ran along the arrangement of dots, his heart pounding as he read the message: I know who you are, Matt Murdock and I have something very important to you. She’ll be fine as long as he shows up..

Matt left the office in a rush, blurting out a lie about an important client to Karen, asking her to tell Foggy he’d call him later. The blond was left to smile at the clients they did have waiting and apologized.

…

Matt changed quickly into his Daredevil suit and stood on the roof of his apartment building, waiting, listening. Trying to drown the white noise of the city, he took a deep and focused. A few minutes went by and then he heard it, your voice.

“Please, you don’t have to do this..”

Then it was your scream, your scream that had Matt sprinting into action. He raced toward the edge of the building, jumping to the next and onward for several blocks until your cry was all he could hear.

Trying to control his breaths, he ran toward an old factory building. His chest heaved up and down as he listened for heartbeats, voices - finding that there was only two people in the entire building, the would be kidnapper and you.

Anger boiled in Matt’s veins as he kicked opened the side door, making a loud noise to make his presences noticed. Who ever it was that took you, he knew they would pay.

The first room he walked into was empty, so he listened for your heart beat and followed it out the room and into the next - which was a large machinery room. He heard your throat clenching and he wanted so badly to race to you, but someone spoke out, making him stop in his tracks.

“The Devil of Hell’s Kitchen! I’ve been waiting so long to met you, Mr. Murdock.”

“Who the hell are you?”

Matt cautiously walked over to where you were tied up to a chair, but the man, a bruting fella, stepped in front of you.

“My pops was one of the men you helped put in jail,” he explained calmly, slowly pulling off his jacket. “A few months back, you busted their operation. You see we had a good deal going on, human trafficking is big bucks and you ruined it.”

“They all deserve to rot in jail, even your father,” Matt spatt back, tossing his billy club onto the ground. “And now you’ll be doing the same.”

The man grunted in anger and tried to rush Matt, but he stepped aside and grabbed the man by the neck. Matt dragged him to the ground and held him down, pressing his face into the dirty surface.

“He has evidence,” you spoke up, relieved to see the man in Matt’s hold. “Camera and photos, he showed me.”

Matt kneeled next to the man, telling himself to relax, to not let the anger overcome him. “Who else knows about me? About her?”

Matt’s words came out deadly and the man stood quiet, until his face got slammed into the ground.

You watched from the chair, wanting to tell your boyfriend to stop, but knowing he was doing what needed to be done. If anyone, anyone like the man, found out who the Daredevil really was, it would be a disaster. They’d find out about Karen, Foggy, everyone involved in Matt’s life, including yourself.

“TELL ME!”

You flinched at the sound of Matt’s voice, the anger practically crawling from his lungs.

Sensing your discomfort, Matt relaxed his body and asked again, this time at a lower volume, but nonetheless threatening.

“No one,” the man admitted. “It was just me, I swear. The camera and photos I printed out are in my bag.”

“Good,” Matt said, landing a powerful blow to the man’s face, knocking him out cold. He stood up and rushed to your side, lifting a hand to your face. “What did he do to you?”

“I’m fine,” you assured him, as he undid the rope, setting you free. “He didn’t do anything I couldn’t take.”

Matt helped you up and cupped your face. “I’m so sorry, I never wanted to drag you into this part of my life.”

“Matthew,” you sighed softly, placing a hand on the side of his mark. “I love you, all the parts that are you.”

He smiled softly and drew you into a long, hard kiss, sweeping his hand around your back and up to your neck. His lips danced against yours until the sounds of the man stirring on the ground made Matt pull away.

He sighed and asked again, if you were okay.

“Yeah, I’m fine,” you said, looking to your kidnapper. “Um, should we tie him up? Call the police?”

Matt chuckled. “I’ll do that. Get his bag and met me outside.”

“Alright.”

You reached down for the black bag and checked to make sure the camera and photos were inside it. “Everything's here, I’ll be outside.”

“Hey,” Matt said as you started to walk off.

You turned to him. “What?”

“I love you.”

Smiling, you threw the bag over your shoulders. “I love you too, Matthew.”

........

Forever tag (tagging in everything I write, no matter the fandom)

@my-amazing-nerdyness @naih-reedus @maciiiofficial @casownsmyass @jade-taillia@fangirlextraordinaire @indominusregina @feelmyroarrrr @my-rainbow-wonderland@myhopeisinfinite @girl-next-door-writes @dontbeamenacetotheforce @melonberri@superisatomboyuniverse @xloudwhocares @crownie-sr @dracsgirl @moonlight53@makemyownwonderland @dreamwhisper87 @trekken81 @barely-emily @winterboobaer@purelittleblueberry @goodnightwife @mishaissocoollike @stormyfandoms@foreverybodythatunderstands23 @gallifreyansass @flirtswithdanger @yana-tardis-drwho@myplaceofthingsilove @jchona @alyssaj23 @blackhoneybucky @urbanspacedecay@castieltrash1 @hannahsakorax3 @imagine-all-the-imagines @motleymoose@distinguishedqueenofbooks @kitkatgaming @fizzylollipop12 @iamwarrenspeace @darkmystress00 @lunarwolfrose @kapolisradomthoughts @sisinia13 @swiggityswagness @takemetoneverland91 @to-pick-ourselves-up-7 @sarah-mos @rubynationwins@padfootorionblack @kaywolves @wonderlace19 @yourxaveragexslythergit @purelittleblueberry @courtneychicken @rayleyanns @whatmakesmebeme-tblr @thewinterwitch@avengersgirllorianna @holywinchesterness @tatortot2701 @brewsthespirit-blog @seabasschino @lame-lozer @ex-bookjunky @travelwithwords @supernaturaldean67@thehuntchback @shoytai @besamiculo-puto @ign-is @zuni21798 @multipleuniversesinwriting@pleasantdreamqueen @damalseer @10kindsofderp @hennessy0274-blog @jodoethr @s-t-r-i-k-e-us @seeing-but-not-observing @happyskywhale @anyakinamidala @sebstanchrisevanchickforever19 @cinema212 @geeksareunique @potato69fan @snarkyturnip @thilbob

#matt murdock x reader #matt murdock #matt x reader #matt murdock imagine #Daredevil #daredevil x reader #daredevil imagine #marvel imagine #commissions

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soobadnoonecanstopher · 7 years

Text

2AM - part 12 (A Minseok Series)

Genre: Romance

Characters: Minseok X You

A/N: the next chapter will be the final, again XD for real this time.

2AM - [M] part 1, part 2, part 3, part 4, part 5, part 6, part 7, part 8, part 9, part 10, part 11, part 12, part 13 FINAL

The slamming sound of the door echoed around the room after Jongdae left. Minseok’s back was tense and his hands were balled into tight fists at his hips and you could see the slow rise and fall of his shoulders as he inhaled a deep breath.

“Shit,” you heard a soft curse echo between his face and the closed bedroom door and you fisted the shirt you wore that fell just at your upper thighs. The shirt that belonged to Minseok but no longer smelled anything like him, unless you counted the heady fragrance of the recent love that lingered in the air around his bed.

Your feet wanted to move. The pull to him was strong, to comfort him, to hold him and tell him that this little fight was nothing to worry about. An honest talk with his best friend and maybe a little steam would be let off and this would blow over.

You’d made it halfway to where he stood, his feet stuck deep in the flood waters of the dark mood that had come with Hurricane Jongdae, when a soft knock sounded out on the door in front him.

He sprung to life, hand on the knob he quickly turned and pulled the door open.

A swell of hope tugged at your throat. Something similar to you caught a glimpse of in Minseok’s side profile. Perhaps Jongdae had reconsidered. Perhaps he was back to apologize for his rash behavior.

“Uhh…” on the other side of the door, standing in the hallway was a sleepy, shirtless (and very toned, damn these idols) Yixing, rubbing at his eyes and extending a pointed finger down to the floor behind him, where you were certain his bedroom door was located. You moved from your hidden spot near the bed, curiosity getting the best of you despite your very definite lack of pants below this borrowed t-shirt so you could see what Yixing was pointing at.

It was a lump of a man, parked in front of Yixing’s door, where he had only made it a few steps before he had fallen over in a ball, still holding the overnight bag he had packed in a whirlwind of emotion only moments before.

It was Jongdae, and he was crying.

“I think he’s still drunk?” Yixing asked with an upward inflection in his voice, as he turned back to look at the man who he had to step over while exiting his room.

Minseok took a few quick steps out of his room and hunched down on his ankles in front of his friend and you rushed to the door to see if there was possibly anything at all you could do to help. If you had been wearing pants, you would at least get a bottle of water from the kitchen and some aspirin for the headache Jongdae would surely have soon.

“Why are you still so mad at me, Hyung?” Jongdae was sobbing in nearly unintelligible words through the dramatics and his eyes were squeezed shut tightly. No tears fell, despite the sorrow you could hear in his voice. He was clearly aware of Minseok’s presence beside him and was speaking to him now. “All I did was fall in love. I’ve told you again and again how sorry I am. I didn’t intend to love her. I didn’t do this on purpose. When will you forgive me? It’s been a month already, I just want my best fucking friend back.”

“Why do you deny love Minseok? Why are you so against love? Why are you so scared of love?”

“Jongdae, let’s not do this here,” Minseok’s hands were on the man and he gave a futile tug on his forearms. The weeping man on the floor gave a delayed resistant reaction as he dramatically pulled his arms back from where Minseok tugged.

“Why does it always have to be a secret?” Jongdae shouted and your eyes drifted to Yixing who stood, much more awake looking now with his palm running over the back of his neck. The man caught your eyes and turned to quietly bow his head in your direction with a small smile. Your own mouth pulled into a matching grin and you pulled at the shirt you wore, making sure it covered as much of your bare legs as it could.

“Oh, hey, I like your shirt. Minseok has one just like it.” Yixing said as he took in the colorful design that contrasted off the black background of the t-shirt.

“It…uhh…is his shirt,” you said quietly, feeling just a little embarrassed at having to explain such a thing to this man.

The wheels turned in Yixing’s head and his smile fell just enough for his features change as realization hit him when an outburst from the hallway drew his attention back to the commotion between the best friends on the floor.

“I don’t care who knows it! I’m in love!” Jongdae had amazing lungs and his volume had reached new levels now. Loud and slurred. Dramatic and drunk, it was clearer now the more he spoke, just how drunk he still was. You heard a door knob and saw movement further down the hallway. Black hair peeked around the door and you recognized Sehun, the man armed with the marker last night.

“Jongdae,” Minseok pleaded as he tried to pull at the man’s arms harder now.

“I’m in love and Minseok is in love! We are in love!”

You saw another face at the open door way down the hall, a head below where Sehun watched with eyes wide in shock upon hearing Jongdae’s declarations of love, was Junmyeon.

“Wait,” Yixing was speaking now, furrowed brows and confusion in his eyes as he tried to make sense of the words Jongdae spoke. He lifted a hand and pointed his index finger toward the pair of men on the floor, wagging it quickly from one to the other. His mouth fell into an O shape. “So you two are—“

“In love!” Jongdae shouted, droplets of saliva, visible from where you stood at the doorway flew, landing somewhere on Minseok still tried to get Jongdae on his feet.

“Yeah! One love!” Sehun shouted from the other doorway and smiled wide with his fist held into the air at his chest. You covered your mouth to quiet the small laugh that erupted from your chest. At least the youngest of the group was accepting.

“He doesn’t mean it like that,” Minseok mumbled with his fingertips resting against his forehead now. “He means he is in love with someone and I am … also– but with someone else…”

“I am in love with my best friend’s sister.” Jongdae sat up straighter, his hands moving dramatically as he explained to the now, small crowd of onlookers, an unfamiliar face, a girl was peeking out with long black hair and smudged eye makeup, from Yixing’s open doorway, where Jongdae explained what he meant to say. “And my best friend is in love with his sister’s best friend.” He slapped both hands against Minseok’s chest and gave a shove, sending him off the careful balance he held on his feet, Minseok landed with a soft thud on his butt.

The faces of the men who watched the exchange went blank, a few eyebrows furrowing and Yixing in particular took on an expression of extreme confusion as he lifted a hand and ticked off some unknown list inside of his head on his fingertips. Shaking his head once before he attempted the riddle again.

“Wait so are you gay or not gay?” Sehun asked, his face still scrunched up in confusion.

“Not gay,” Minseok said quietly and Jongdae groaned something unintelligent from his spot on the floor, “he is dating my sister.”

“Ugh, boring,” Sehun said and spun to return back to the quiet of his room, leaving a blindsided Junmyeon standing alone at the doorway.

“I don’t get it. Who is the best friend?” Yixing whispered into your ear as if you weren’t directly involved in this huge mess.

“Jongdae and Minseok are the best friends. Jongdae is in love with Minseok’s sister and Minseok is in love with his sister’s best friend who is…” The girl at Yixing’s door, with the long black hair, who you knew from your memory of last night was the owner of the bunny tail you’d seen carelessly dropped amongst the feathers of Yixing’s black angel wings, was explaining in clipped concise words the mystery of the drama unfolding before their eyes. Only her explanation trailed off as she furrowed her brows and came up short with the name of the person who fit the final piece of the puzzle.

Of course it was you. But you weren’t about to announce to this entire condo full of kinda sorta strangers that it was you.

It didn’t matter, because you felt the eyes of the sober people in the hallway fall onto you. You, the girl who came out of Minseok’s bedroom dressed in nothing but his shirt. The girl who they had all seen together with him the entire evening, even sharing a passionate kiss with during the punishment round of a party game.

Yixing watched your face curiously. His eyes no longer held that adorable confusion you had seen all morning long, but something else. Something softer perhaps. The girl with the black hair leaned against the doorway and watched you openly. Not a trace of bashfulness in her features and your eyes trailed over the length of her body. She wore a plain white t-shirt and what you were certain were men’s boxers and you pulled your gaze back up into her face only to find a shift in her expression. She smiled and gave you a tiny nod of her head.

There were no secrets here. There was no judgement. There was only sincerity and understanding.

“Come on my hunny-bunny,” Yixing spoke up, his attention back on the woman at the door and her smile transferred easily to the man who moved away from you in the hallway, and began to make his way carefully over the slumped shoulders of a now snoring Jongdae and back into his bedroom. “Didn’t you say your mom wanted to skype later? We shouldn’t miss calls with your mom.”

His hands were on her shoulders as he pushed her back into the room, a strange comfort and familiarity was obvious in his actions and the woman giggled and responded to him softly in Chinese. His response was a giggle as their conversation continued privately in a language you did not understand.

“Wait, are you two–” you couldn’t help yourself. You had been under the impression that the two had merely met the evening before…casual idol hookups and all.

“Dating?” Yixing supplied the word you had chickened out of saying. “Two years now.” He nodded with a grin.

“Two years and two months,” the woman corrected and his smile widened as he squinted his eyes and focused his attention squarely on her face..

“Eyy, come on, you know those first two months don’t count. You rejected me so many times”

“I was just playing hard to get.” Their bickering brought a smile to your face.

Someone else in possibly an even more difficult situation than Minseok, with Yixing’s frequent work in China, with the fame, with the busy schedule; he had made it work.

It wasn’t impossible for them.

Why had it always been so impossible for you and Minseok?

“You should have just confessed–Just confess and make her yours. W-What are you so scared of? You–You just–” Your attention was drawn down to Jongdae who seemed to have reanimated when Minseok and Junmyeon had wrapped strong arms around his waist to haul him up off the floor. “–just fucking do it man, don’t you have any fucking guts?”

“Jongdae,” Junmyeon said softly on one side of the drunk man with the wide smile on his face and eyes closed as he talked.

On the other side of him, Minseok’s face was stoic and his eyes were cast down on the ground.

“Look, he just goes quiet,” Jongdae was laughing now and you could see the tension in Minseok’s jaw as the muscle flexed. “Chicken,” Jongdae threw salt on the wound and you took a step forward with pleading eyes on Junmyeon.

“Do you think maybe you can take care of him from here?” Your own hands were empty, yet you grasped in Minseok’s direction. You longed to shield him from it. You wanted to protect Minseok from those harsh words. Something in Minseok’s face must have startled you. Jongdae’s words had gone too far. Had touched too closely to the truth for you to stomach and seeing the blank, yet troubling expression on Minseok’s face filled you with worry for him. Perhaps a warm shower and a run could help the mood that had clouded his beautiful face. Perhaps after Jongdae had sobered up and they had a good honest talk—

“No, he’s right.” Minseok held the grip around Jongdae’s waist tighter and his voice spoke up loud and bold; uncharacteristic of Minseok to say the very least. “He’s drunk and he’s an asshole, but he’s completely right.”

You dropped your hands, pulling down against the bottom hem of the t-shirt that left your thighs too exposed and your nervous eyes flashed around the hallway.

Someone from the kitchen was watching with wide brown eyes and a cup of coffee paused midway to his lips. Beside him another set of even wider eyes leaned back on a bar stool. Chanyeol. Kyungsoo. Sehun from the doorway of that bedroom that he had disappeared inside earlier, met your eyes as you looked around and from behind Kyungsoo popped up a face briefly. Jongin’s eyes met yours for a split second, then disappeared with a tiny brush of fingertips along the shoulders of both men in the kitchen who, with the gentle reminder quickly averted their eyes. Quickly looked away from the spectacle. The temptation to look had been too much. Even you had to admit that.

The averted eyes had little effect. With the silence that fell in the home you were certain every single one of them was still listening and would be able to pick up even the smallest of whispered words between Minseok and yourself…should he decide to speak again.

One voice. One noisy, loud, booming voice that had been the source of much of the drama in this hallway had gone suspiciously silent.

Jongdae was quiet. His smile gone, his lips closed and his focus to his left where Minseok, his best friend stood motionless, wheels turning furiously in his head and a growing pinkness on his face.

“I’m sorry Jongdae,” Minseok said as he looked squarely into the man’s face, “I’m sorry. I’ve been unfair to you and acting like a hypocrite. You don’t deserve that.” Jongdae stared into his best friend’s face for a long while, silent and deep in thought before he nodded his head twice and gave Minseok a small smile that seemed to start in his eyes.

“And I was actually going to do it.” Minseok spoke up again. A bit quieter than the outburst before and his face lifted, eyelids fluttering and that pink in his cheeks that almost made him look innocent. Those flitting eyes flashed to the man beside him, who stood up straighter on his own. Jongdae remained quiet.

Suspiciously quiet. You felt something strange in the air and you couldn’t quite get the look of confusion off your face and that feeling out of your mind. That feeling that somehow this was no longer real. This felt like a dream.

There was something brewing inside you. A foolish hopeful fantasy that you wanted to reject before it could set in like a poison under your skin.

“Before you came in– I was about to do it,” Minseok whispered to Jongdae beside him. Just loudly enough for you to hear and you shook your own head to clear the dream-like buzzing you heard inside your ears.

Do what? The hope surged up bright within your chest.

“Do it then,” Jongdae said quietly and you heard a distinct lucidity in that voice that prodded at the man with the pink cheeks and fluttering eyes.

Minseok sighed and closed his eyes. The next breath he took was deep and steadying.

“Do you want to date me?” His eyes were closed and he spoke quietly right beside Jongdae and at least five feet away from where you stood, not looking at you at all as he whispered his question to no one in particular, it seemed, based on his secluded and closed off body language.

There was a frustrated groan from Jongdae.

“For the love of God,” he grumbled and shoved roughly at the man standing next to him, sending Minseok stumbling forward three big steps, effectively closing the distance between the two of you.

The closeness brought along his face and those pink cheeks and those eyes that zeroed in on yours and why did he look so nervous? Why was your own heart doing weird somersaults against your rib cage? Why couldn’t you bring yourself to look away from those eyes that were changing and brimming with raw honesty as he looked at your face and you felt the tips of his fingers as he reached, running lightly along the edge of your hand that hung lifeless at your side.

“Do you?” He said and he inhaled a breath again, licking his lips once before dipping his head and closing whatever imaginary distance might have been left between your eyes and his eyes.

“Do you want to try dating me?”

“It’s going to be hard. We can’t do it openly and I will be gone all the time. We will spend more time missing each other than actually together and if anyone were to ever find out about us there would be stalkers and death threats to deal with. And even if things do go smoothly and settle into something nice and something comfortable, let’s not forget that my enlistment time is coming and I’ll have to go to the army and I’ll be gone for even longer then”

Your face frowned on it’s own.

This sounded terrible.

All of it sounded just terrible.

“Way to sell it, Minnie,” you mumbled and he closed his eyes tighter and with a wrinkle of his nose.

“But, I’ll do better–” he said with another step closer to where you stood, your voices now a hush; mere centimeters between your faces where no one else could witness this. “–I’ll do better for you, I’ll be all yours, only yours… like I’ve always been— but, but this time I won’t hide it. I’ll give you the love you deserve, I promise I will.”

You wondered if they still watched. The silence persisted. Of course they would, yet as the silence around you continued, the space between Minseok’s and your noses was loud. Louder than anything you had ever heard, or maybe it just felt that way with that heavy significance in his words.

“Minnie,” you began, a small grain of doubt still on your tongue. Leftover from that bitter taste that had sat there for months. Yet his eyes watched yours with a the quiet intensity of a prayer.

“I just want to be yours,” he leaned again, reaching with both hands through the oxygen that separated your faces until you felt the tickle of his hair fall against your hairline. His forehead leaned against yours and his hands held your face.

“I just want to be yours–”

You could no longer see anything beyond Minseok.

“I want you to call me whenever you want to. I want you to touch me and kiss me and tell me when you miss me and when you want me. I just want to be yours.”

His fingers inched along your jawline, tickling down your neck to trail behind your ear, slipping into your hairline “–and you can be mine, if you want.”

He filled up your vision; too close and too blurry.

The man was already rooted so deeply inside your heart he would never be fully extracted from its deepest chambers. The bits of him that you loved the most were now a part of your own soul. No wonder you couldn’t find a place for any other person in there.

At last, he filled up your mind, making the decision for you.

“Okay,” you said, nodding your head against his. He felt the movement and although you could not see it, you could feel that the small kiss he placed over your cheekbone was toothy before it was soft and damp.

Your mind was a flutter of emotions and his hands pulled at you, making you spin in place as he steered you back into his room. The brief moment when you spun you caught sight of the barren hallway behind you.

By the workings of some gracious individual, not a single soul remained to testify of your answer to his question. Not a single witness remained to eavesdrop on the start of this relationship.

Beyond the doorway was his warmth, his lips, and his skin. His promises filled you just as eagerly as his body did, and when all that was left was the heavy gasping for precious oxygen, and a comfortable hum into your ear, his arms held you closely to his bare chest and he sang a quiet tune into the quiet of his bedroom with not another soul around to disturb the melody.

Until the shower called to him, begging to be clean, always to be clean. It was just Minseok’s way. He pulled you inside the warm water with him and gave you a pair of black athletic pants to wear. You recognized them as his usual fare.

As difficult as the separation was, you pulled yourself away from the man who couldn’t seem to keep his lips away from any bit of exposed skin he could find, and left to your own home to get ready.

You still had dinner at his mom’s tonight and you would be damned if you would show up there wearing a pair of Minseok’s sweats.

You had yet to discuss exactly what would be said about you and him, if the relationship would be mentioned at all. It felt almost unbelievable that it had even happened and as you did your makeup and hair in front of your bathroom mirror, you could hardly keep the smile off your face long enough to apply two coats of mascara.

Would he say something?

Would he, perhaps, make an announcement at dinner? A light clink of the silver fork against the side of a wine glass before he stood with his hand over his chest where his heart sang of its love for you.

“Finally.” Minhee would say as she rolled her eyes and smiled behind her napkin.

And his dad, finally home from his latest business trip, would cough, wide eyed and genuinely surprised; he would shoot you a curious smile and a wink before glancing at Mrs. Kim.

Mrs. Kim…

Would she be gracious and accept the news? Would you ever see the kind of sparkle in her eyes that you saw when she spoke of Sohee, the beautiful, well bred, daughter of a famous businessman, directed at you? Sohee who had the impeccable upbringing and style she had always envisioned for her daughter in law? Sohee, the kind of woman who you simply…weren’t.

Would she gasp in horror, her eyes wide and her mouth covered with a trembling hand?

Would she throw water in your face?

Or would she quietly handle the disappointment deep down inside. Would every look she threw in your direction be a stab at the lowly girl who weaseled her way into her family’s lives just to sink her jaws into her precious son, like a parasite whose rows of microscopic teeth were dug in too deep to smoothly extricate; the entire infected tissue would have to be cut out.

Your expensive, designer outfit was assembled, your hair was perfect and it framed the careful and tasteful makeup on your face that looked back at you, seeming just a bit bloodless despite the comfortable temperature in this apartment.

You reached for your blush brush, perhaps just another swipe would help your mood some.

A knock on your door interrupted the redundancy and you forgot the brush as the familiarity of the two soft knocks against the wood jumpstarted your heart beat like a spinning top.

He hadn’t mentioned picking you up for dinner. Although he hadn’t really done much with his lips other than the soft parting kisses as you left him behind in his bedroom and vacated that apartment before anyone else could make eye contact with you during your escape.

Minseok stood at your doorway looking fancy with his eyes down at his hands clasped together in front of his belt. As you pulled the door open his focus rose at a languid pace, beginning somewhere near the ground the sweeping a path up to your face.

His hair was styled. He had shaved the light stubble you had felt against your face after the shared shower and he smelled different. Something new to your nose. Something manly and heady with a familiar crisp cleanliness as a foundation. Gone was the casual sleeveless tee, black sweats, and black cap.

“You dressed up.” Your light tone pulled the smile to his lips and he ticked his head once, rolling it to the side to match the crooked grin that manifested on his face.

“So did you.” He matched your lightness and you tried your best not to get lost in the intensity you saw within his brown irises, or the appreciative way with which those eyes feasted on you.

Your feet lingered at the doorway for a second, the straight posture of his back told you that he was indeed only here to pick you up and you nodded once before turning to grab your bag and your phone, with just a hint of a nervous fluttering deep within your belly.

This wasn’t your first time being inside his car. This wasn’t even the first time he held your hand as he drove that car, but that didn’t stop the rush of excitement when he reached for your hand and linked his fingers in between yours, pulling it up to kiss the back of your hand before settling them, still joined in the space between the seats.

Your lips were tight as you fought against the smile. He bit down lightly on his bottom lip and held it within his closed mouth as his cheekbones rose and bunched slightly.

Your heartbeat was a mess. This man and his little gestures had so much power. Even the adorable expression he held on his face as he tried not to smile, tried not to give in to the elation you could see on that face, was making your thinking fuzzy.

Did he know the profound effect he had on you?

Did you have a similar effect on him too?

Your curiosity burned and you gave in to the urge. When you moved his hand, you felt no resistance. Your lips sank easily against the softness of the back of his hand and you let your lips linger with the kiss, going so far as to close your eyes as you drifted into it. His hand was warm. His skin was smooth and you felt his fingers flex and tighten around your hand as you did it. You loved this man. You longed for his skin against yours and a quick turn of your face to touch his flesh to your cheek matched your temperatures.

There was a change in the rhythm of the car that pulled your attention from his hand.

Minseok’s jaw was tight, a pinkness on his cheeks that made him look young and fresh and he was pulling the car off the busy street he had been driving on into an empty parking lot of a closed store.

What was he doing here? This was only halfway there, he still had another ten minutes of driving time for sure.

“What are you doing?” Your surprise made you drop his hand and the pinkness you saw in his cheeks was quickly covered by both of his hands as he closed out the world.

“Sorry, I–”

He stopped talking, the short mumble you heard below his hands was cut off by a quiet stifled laughter. Held in for too long and pushed down, his shoulders shook with the effort of containing it. When he dropped a single hand from his face, his face was pink. His eyes were screwed shut tightly and the smile on his face was as controlled as he could manage. He looked exactly like an over inflated balloon about to explode.

He undid his seatbelt while simultaneously putting the car in park and he was turning in his seat.

“I just need a moment,” he said with his back to you and you tried to swallow the shallow laugh that burst free from your lips.

The car rocked with his exit and the door closed loudly, leaving you alone in silence as you watched his torso from the driver’s side window.

You caught the spin. Light on his feet, he pivoted on the spot he stood before he dropped and vanished. Crouched down on his heels out of your line of sight. It only lasted for a second before the door was opening and he cleared his throat noisily as he climbed back into the driver’s seat of his car and buckled the safety belt. All the while avoiding your curious yet satisfied eyes.

“You okay?” He huffed out a quiet laugh.

“Yeah,” he said with tight lips, “I was just overwhelmed. I’m okay now. Totally fine. You can do things like that. That’s—“

He inhaled and exhaled through O shaped lips.

“Why did I wait so long for this again?”

“Because you’re an idiot,” you said and you giggled when his brows furrowed and he narrowed his eyes briefly.

“Because I’m an idiot.” He nodded in agreement with a shake of his head and a laugh.

You didn’t even bother fighting your smile. Not after that. Minseok was just as, if not more, affected by you, as you were of him. You’d never been so joyous to witness someone’s brief moment of weakness before.

He drove on in silence and he didn’t reach for your hand again. Your own hands wrung together in your lap as your mind wandered over the many temptations of affecting Kim Minseok.

Maybe you could do it again some time. You decided that this dinner would be pretty fun after all.

Until you recognized the cobblestone pathway he turned down that lead to his home and the excitement in your belly shifted and changed, making way for the nervous tension you had felt while you were getting ready.

The problem with the unknown. You had no idea how his family, namely his mother, might receive the news, and the more your stomach fluttered with nerves the more uneasy the whole situation felt.

You and him hadn’t even been official for very long. Not even a full 24 hours and while yes you both had quite a history together, the fact was that this was all rather new to you. Did you really want to add an audience into the mix on your first day as a couple.

“Umm, about your family—“ you pushed the words out of your lips as he slipped his fancy car into the open garage bay that his mother always made sure to keep clear for his visits, “—about us,” you added lamely, realizing that you weren’t actually using proper sentences that made sense.

He turned to look at you and shifted the car into park, leaving the garage door open as the car idled in its place, he merely watched you with a blank face as you backtracked to find the missing word.

“Knowing a-about us, I mean.” He was watching you too closely and the expression on his blank face wasn’t giving anything away. Why was he so good at putting up a poker face?

“Do you not want me to tell them yet?” He finally said softly with what you were almost positive was a gloomy blue tint to his tone.

Whatever it was, it was well hidden. What you thought you might have seen was gone in a flash with the small shrug of his shoulders and the carefully quick way he averted his eyes from yours. The soft smile you saw in his lips erased any bit of what you may or may not have actually seen take place in his expression and you couldn’t help but smile too.

“We can tell them whenever you are ready.”

He cut off the engine, closed the garage door and exited the car, making some sort of magic happen as he appeared by your side in record time, grabbing ahold of the passenger door from you to pull it open and reach for your hand.

You knew the way through the spacious garage of the home well enough, having been with Minhee in here more times than you could recall, yet with Minseok at your side, with his warm hand holding yours, everything felt brand new.

When you reached for the door that opened up into a hallway near the kitchen, a soft tug pulled you back, seconds before you could turn the knob. You spun with a surprised grunt and saw his face, his smile, and his hands closing in quickly.

Minseok’s lips covered your parted surprised ones and he kissed you deeply and slowly. The kind of kiss that made your spine tingle and your toes curl and you felt the frame of the door that you couldn’t quite make it to in time pressed up against your back.

Over the front of your body was his warmth, firm and tense muscles laid over your softer parts that his hands enjoyed exploring as he kissed you like this. As his mouth took from yours; your tongue, your lips, your oxygen, his hands kneaded and explored until you felt hot fingertips slide around the small of your back, down your ass to the hem of the short skirt you wore.

When his fingers met skin you felt the rumble of the groan from his chest and he broke and kiss with a rough lift of those hands upward, digging hard into your flesh the man was quickly becoming too affected and unlike you, he wasn’t nearly as able to hide such an event.

“Tell me something, did you wear this fucking skirt tonight just to torture me or do you enjoy seeing me like this?” He stumbled back, as if kicked back by some invisible recoil.

“Well I don’t not enjoy it,” you grinned as you answered honestly, if not a bit confusingly, through the labored breaths you took against his face. He honestly smelled incredible. You very much liked this new cologne of his.

His eyebrow ticked upward and the corners of his lips crept up. His eyes, dark enough to cover your head entirely should you choose to let yourself succumb to their depths, watched you closely for what felt like ages to your rattled mind.

His lips, already too pink and puffed from the heated kiss, lured you, calling to you to taste them again, despite the very real danger of doing this in his family’s home and you felt the pull of his eyes.

With him so close to you, so tempting, smelling the way he did and feeling the way he did, with his recent words dancing in your head—

I just want to be yours. His memory pleaded and your hands reached for him, claiming him for yourself. You gripped his shirt, probably wrinkling the fabric with as tightly as you clung to him and he stumbled into you, pulled roughly by your needy hands.

“I love you, Minnie,” you said against his lips moments before pulling him into you again. The kiss was needy. More so than before, you felt shameless in your need for him. If the old you could see this; Unapologetically making out with The Kim Minseok in the garage of his family’s home, where anyone could simply walk in to catch you.

You should not have been surprised to hear the scrape behind the door at your back and the shuffling of slippered feet along the floor. You really should have known it would happen, but that didn’t stop the dramatic gasp you took, and the rough way you shoved him away from you when you heard the door knob click as it was turned.

You pivoted, just in time to block the view of a stumbling Minseok from the opening door. Surely he understood what was happening enough to recover; perhaps wipe his mouth and assume some other position that wasn’t something that might be illustrated under the definition of heavy petting in a middle school sex-ed book.

Your smile was instant and as wide as your eyes must have been and the startled yelp from Mrs. Kim as she stepped backward and clutched at her chest brought a noisy awkward laugh from your lips.

“Oh! Good lord you startled me,” she said and took a moment to recover. When her eyes were closed you glanced behind you and caught the sight of Minseok shoving the sides of his dress shirt back into his slacks and pulling at his pockets and belt buckle in an attempt to conceal the obvious.

“Well look at what the cat dragged in. Why are you in my garage, dear? I expected to find Minseok. He didn’t drag you along with him did he?”

“Of course I brought her, Mom, you were about to issue an APB this morning when she wouldn’t answer her phone.”

He answered for you, his voice steady and his breathing even. More so than yours might have sounded. You thanked the excellent condition of his lungs for that.

Despite your best efforts to keep your expression light, you could feel the heat on your face at the close call and you had to force yourself to bring your breathing under control.

“Well what is taking you so long to come inside? I heard the garage door ages ago. What have you been doing in here?” There wasn’t a bit of accusation in her voice, yet the guilty run when no one pursues and you felt it deep inside your chest. Minseok’s face flinched and his mouth hung open in silence as he stared at his mother’s face.

“He was checking the tire.” Why was your voice so high sounding?

“The tire?”

“The tire?” Minseok and his mother asked in unison, their expressions remarkably similar before he dropped the upward inflection in the end of his response.

“–was low.” his eyes were wide and he looked behind him at the very obviously perfectly inflated tires on his very new and very shiny car.

You snorted at the grimace you saw on his face and quickly covered it with a cough when Mrs. Kim looked back at you.

“Minseok, you aren’t very good with cars. You should call roadside assistance.” Her voice had a sympathetic and understanding tone and his ears seemed to pinken before your eyes as he straightened out his shoulders and lifted his chin.

“What? I’m great with cars. I drive a car.” You could feel your nose wrinkle as you watched him lie through his teeth at the woman who simply shook her head in response. “I even fixed the tire, look at how great it looks.”

“It wasn’t actually low, Mrs. Kim. There was just a rock stuck in the treads.” You interjected. How in the world was the woman to believe that Minseok somehow re-inflated a flat tire inside this garage without a single tool required to do such a thing. When did he get so bad at this?

Your cover story hit a nerve and with his shoulders still held up too straight, and his chin high in the air he scoffed and crossed his arms over his chest.

You were pretty sure you saw a genuine glare in your direction and the shrug you gave him did nothing to soften his grumpy expression.

So you stuck your tongue out in his direction playfully, laughing when his eyes widened further. Of course you’d been playful with Minseok before, but honestly it had never been quite so much fun before.

“Oh you two are just like brother and sister,” she said with a wave of her hand as she turned to exit the garage.

You felt a burn somewhere inside your chest and your mouth went dry with the metaphor. Minseok must have had a similar reaction because he was following her steps as she made her way past you to enter the hallway that lead to the kitchen.

“What? No way, we are not, nor have we ever been anything like brother and sister.” His voice was high and his tone incredulous and when he brushed passed you to reach the doorway first, you felt pointed fingertips reach out and poke your ribs, making you jump and squeal in surprise.

You reached for him quickly, instantly needing retribution. Your swift steps behind him caught you up to his side and your fingers dug hard into the space just below his armpit. The space you knew would get him the most.

Shoulder to shoulder in the narrow hallway his fingers frantically tried to grab ahold of your attacking hands and your laughter echoed out, making Mrs. Kim turn briefly to glimpse the commotion.

“You’re exactly like brother and sister. Don’t you remember when you were little? I used to have to break up these fights all the time.” She was far ahead in the kitchen now, checking on something that one of the housemaids was fixing at the stovetop and you’d made it into the opening of the breakfast nook with both hands grasped tightly within his and his arms secured around your shoulders.

It could have been considered an embrace had it not been for the murderous look in your eyes as you tried desperately to get your hands free for one more tickle. It was no use. He had you pinned almost completely and his breathing against your neck preceded the quiet whisper you heard into your ear.

“Just give up, or I’ll tell her you are my girlfriend and definitely not my sister.”

“I don’t remember that at all, Mrs. Kim.” Your fingertips went slack, the muscles in your arms limp and useless as you gave up entirely.

He didn’t let you go. You gave it a good ten seconds before you looked back into his face in question. He had sensed your lack of fighting enough to relax his grip some, but to the casual outside observer, the fight must have been still on. What other reason would he have for this full body embrace in his mother’s kitchen while she fussed with a flower arrangement.

“You two even used to take baths together,” she said into her hydrangea bush and the grip he held around your shoulders changed when his hands roamed lower, sliding around your waist now you felt your hands freed and you futilely tried to smooth out the wrinkles in your top caused by the scuffle.

“We still do,” he said lowly at your back in a clear voice, just loud enough for you to hear over the sounds of the pot being stirred on the stove.

He shouldn’t have said such a thing right after freeing your arms. You quickly jabbed your elbow backward, aiming for his ribs, or his stomach, or anything that would shut him up, but it was too late. Mrs. Kim’s eyes were open and on the pair of you. He jumped backward at the contact of your elbow to his rib cage.

She wasn’t speaking but she watched you. Minseok still laughed playfully from the teasing until he saw her eyes on you where you stood like a deer caught in the headlines under her eyes.

Had she heard him? Were the wheels turning in her head, connecting pieces of the puzzle now?

“Did you hear the doorbell?” She finally spoke up and her gaze which had been on you sharpened and focused very suddenly. She was wiping her hands on the terry cloth that laid on the counter top and grabbing the vase of flowers to take with her toward the entryway.

Your curiosity burned and moved your legs to follow. Gripping the vase with both hands she peered at the screen on the wall of the foyer and her face lit up in excitement and recognition.

“Oh! He’s early. I just love a punctual man, as I am sure you do as well.”

She set the flowers down on the table at the entryway.

“Who?” You weren’t following her logic and while you weren’t involved in the planning of this dinner, there usually weren’t any guests other than yourself invited to these things.

“Your boyfriend,” she said with a light wave of her hand as she reached for the handle of the door.

“My what? I don’t have–”

Minseok lingered behind you near the doorway, leaning against the wall with his hands inside his pockets and a tense look on his face.

“No, Mrs. Kim, you didn’t invite–” a flood of recent images flashed through your mind of him. Close up images of his face. His charming smile. The tall posture he held as he looked down at you with a look of sweet adoration and the feeling of his soft lips pressed up against yours in that quiet bar.

“Kim Kwangseok, It’s so lovely to see you again, darling.” The door was open and she was already grabbing his hand to shake it enthusiastically.

The room was spinning with the images and one particular memory flashed up hot like the splash of hot oil against your skin.

The last time you saw him, in your kitchen with your long lost friend Minseok only recently returned, the jealousy you saw in both men’s faces and the way he leaned in to you, for Minseok to see that slow and deliberate kiss against your cheek.

You remembered now. You had promised to call him.

It was three days ago, yet it felt like it had been years with all that had transpired between you and Minseok. With all that had changed.

You had promised him, and you had definitely broken that promise.

Clutched behind his back you heard the crackle of plastic and kraft paper and he swung his arm around, presenting Mrs. Kim with a bouquet of flowers.

Her face was alight with delight and you felt like the oxygen had been sucked out of the room. Somewhere behind you, amidst the chaos in your mind, Minseok was watching this man enter his home like a shark waiting for the moment to attack. Somewhere behind you, you had left what was left of your sanity, because here, where you stood was nothing but chaos

“Kwangseok,” you said in too soft of a voice. The tremble was unavoidable, you could hardly keep yourself from running out of the room and the effort involved with keeping your feet steady on this marble floor was bound to have some aftershocks.

“There she is,” he said from the doorway and he was coming inside. Moving in closer to where you stood like a hostage held at gunpoint, “Hey, beautiful.”

The hug was one sided. You couldn’t get your arms to work, not with Minseok watching. Not with the love of your life, the man you had promised yourself to, having to be here for this nonsense.

“Oh, hey Minseok, it’s nice to see you again, man.” Kwangseok was casual and the mention of his name made your eyes seek him out instantly.

His face was blank, well rehearsed and well controlled.

You wanted to touch him. You wanted to put the life back into his eyes. You wanted him to smile and to light up the way he had when he was touching you moments earlier and you felt the crushing weight of the reality you had now put yourself in.

The sheer gravity of this situation was pressing down from above.

The truth was so heavy. How in the world had you simply forgotten about Kwangseok? How had you never once considered the fact that your on again off again, kinda sorta something – guy – who sent you flowers often, called you and texted you and invited you out for drinks and dinner and kissed you goodnight with the best of intentions and genuine affinity for your company, that he – HE – would have absolutely no idea about your very sudden, very new, very loved and crafted and cared for relationship with Minseok. He would have no way of knowing that this was the new reality and that unfortunately he would be cast aside.

You hadn’t had a chance to talk to him.

This was all happening too fast, too sudden, too desperate and now Minseok had gone blank, even as Kwangseok stood six inches taller than him, holding a hand out for him to shake you could feel the absence of the real Kim Minseok in the room.

“I’m sorry I forgot something in my car,” Minseok said softly, refusing to look down at the extended hand in front of him, he turned on his heels and was gone.

Kwangseok closed his hand with a small pout on his lips. “I guess I’ll greet him later.” He shrugged with a grin in your direction that you didn’t return.

2AM - [M] part 1, part 2, part 3, part 4, part 5, part 6, part 7, part 8, part 9, part 10, part 11, part 12, part 13 FINAL

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