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yoongi-sugaglider · 3 years

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Daegu Quarantine

Jungkook x reader

Gang/ zombie apocalypse au

Warnings:

Gore, violence, zombies, mention of drugs and drug dealing, weapons discharge in self defense, main character death, zombies, course language, zombies, drinking, did I mention zombies?

Summary:

They were the top of their game, known throughout the city as the smartest and most dangerous crew to ever hit the Daegu streets. But what’s going to happen when this group of young men encounter something right out of a horror film?

Word count: 2833

A/n: Just a heads up, mild torture beat em ups this chapter, and the opinions of the military are (Mostly) purely for the story.

Part 17===Part 18===Part 19

By the time my brain even attempted to register what was going on, Jenkins had already dragged me from the kitchen into the main bowling area.

The pitch-black lanes loomed before me, gaping chasms yawning in the darkness like the monstrous face of some multi headed monster preparing to swallow me whole.

Jenkins shoved me ahead of him, causing me to stumble into one of the ball returns. I choked back a cry as the cool and unforgiving metal dug into the wound on my thigh. The last thing I needed was to give him the satisfaction of knowing he’d hurt me, especially with the implications of what he planned to do to me.

As I pushed myself to stand he grabbed my arm, growling his impatience in my ear and shoving me around the machine.

“Keep it moving, I don’t have all day.”

I frowned, shuffling forward a pace or two before finding my stride once again.

“Shame, last I checked I had the whole apocalypse.” I laced as much sass as I could manage into my tone, earning myself a jab to the ribs from his weapon. The bruising force had me cackling into the darkness like a mad woman.

We passed several of his soldier buddies. Some camped out on the seats around the score monitors while others milled around in small groups or by themselves. All of them seemed desperate to stick as close to the lanterns as they could though.

Of the ones that I could see, including the three I’d seen stationed at the front doors, I counted 14 bodies, 26 total if I included the civilians I’d been grouped with in the kitchens. There was no telling really though how many of the soldiers had weapons and special combat training, and that alone set me on edge enough to keep me paying attention.

“Home sweet home huh?” I muttered as we made our way through to the lobby and towards a set of very dark looking stairs.

Jenkins paused for a moment and I watched by the light filtering in from the front doors as he dug angrily through the pockets of his army issue cargo pants.

“Gosh, and here I thought the torture was gonna be getting my fingernails ripped out or some shit. No, it’s waiting on King Flaccid to figure his shit out.”

The comment may have earned me a rifle butt to the stomach but damn if it wasn’t worth seeing Jenkin’s fellow soldier snickering behind his back.

“Shut it Riley…” Jenkins grumbled.

By the time the semi functioning man had his flashlight out and shining at the stairs I’d recovered from my forced Lamaze class enough to walk upright again. Which meant once more I was leading the way in a building I’d never been in before.

Using my still cuffed hands I felt along the walls as I climbed, finally emerging on the pitch black landing with a sigh.

“Lovely place you have here.” I grumbled, impatiently tapping my foot as I watched the bobbing beam of the flashlight slowly ascending behind me. I suppressed a shiver when the light highlighted several dark smears and handprint splatters on the wall.

“Yooo!! Welcome to my crib MTV!” I grinned, leaning against the wall as nonchalantly as possible when Jenkins and his buddy finally huffed and puffed their way to standing in front of me.

“Fuck sake Jenkins. Can we shut this bitch up already?”

Apparently the men had finally had enough of me as the next thing I knew I woke up with a blinding headache and a distinct inability to draw a full breath from the fact that my arms were now wrapped around the back of a chair and cuffed in place.

“Jeeze, you would think being in the military somebody would have taught these boys how to treat a lady.” I grumbled to myself, earning me a quiet snicker from somewhere ahead of me.

I opened my eyes, blinking rapidly to adjust to the relative brightness of the room after so long spent in the dark. A grin leapt to my face at the sight of Rose, slightly bruised to the face but no less alive and well.

“Well shit, fancy meeting you here hot stuff!”

She grinned back at me, the expression coming across as mildly manic since the swelling to her lips and cheek made her face slightly lopsided.

The room itself was about as boring as an office could get. My brain only half way registered the handful of candles that lit the place, making the bowling posters and filing cabinets feel almost sinister.

Almost.

“Homey.” I smiled, eyes seeking out Jenkins and his buddy who stood back by the door, whisper arguing with each other.

“Boys? Fancy getting a girl a drink?” I asked, head tilted awkwardly so I could catch their eye when they turned to glare at me.

Neither answered though and I went back to taking in my surroundings. Taehyung sat in a chair just opposite Rose, facing her as if they’d been making him watch them torture her. Amatures.

I nodded to him, knowing he’d always been able to handle the harshest of treatments thanks to having watched Hoseok initiate him ages and ages ago. He didn’t seem too happy to see me there but I shrugged his way, sending him a grin that had his frown deepening.

“You do realize if we duct tape her mouth we won’t have to deal with her bullshit right?”

I turned to look at the two soldiers, quirking an eyebrow at the younger one and smiling flirtily his way.

“Aww, tie me up and gag me. I like the way that one thinks.” The bright blush that exploded across his cheeks was well worth what came next.

There was no warning. I don’t know why I expected there to be one.

One minute Jenkins was by the door, the next he was right in front of me.

The pain that lashed across the left side of my face had me seeing stars. Almost immediately Rose was screaming, struggling against her restraints and threatening the men around us.

“You low life piece of garbage! I swear to fuck I will expose every internet search you ever tried to hide! Every tiny dick pic you ever took. Every depraved piece of porn you ever Googled or downloaded!”

She continued on, practically foaming at the mouth as Jenkins laughed out loud.

“Ah, see now. I had a feeling this one would be useful.” He snickered, eyes filled with glee as he watched me spit out the blood that’d filled my mouth when my teeth scraped the inside of my cheek. He pulled a butterfly knife out of his pocket, flicking it back and forth a few times before flashing it open before me.

“Come on now Army boy, my grandmother hits harder than that.” I grinned up at him, knowing I looked half way to deranged with my swelling cheek and the blood that I could still taste covering my front teeth.

My insult must not have sat too well with his ego as he bent over me and jammed the handle of his knife into my thigh wound.

“Cheeky little cunt.” He growled, breath a hot mask of cigarettes and whatever canned goop he’d eaten for lunch.

I cried out from the shock of the pain, eyes watering as I sought out the comforting sight of my friends.

Rose was openly sobbing, head hung low as she continued to mutter threats in Jenkins’ general direction. Tae on the other hand was stone silent, eyes awash with rage as he opened his mouth as if to speak.

I returned my attention to Jenkins, though I made sure Taehyung had his eyes on me before I spoke.

“Silence is golden. It’s better this way.” I knew it was cryptic, that much was obvious in the way Jenkins hesitated in raising his hand as if to hit me again.

More importantly than his reaction though was Tae. I knew he would understand my words without me having to say anything.

I glanced over at Tae, watching his eyes go from blind fury to a quiet resignation. Despite everything on the line he knew better than to go against my silent orders.

“Well?” The man called Riley demanded.

Jenkins continued to twirl his butterfly knife, face a mask of cold indifference as he watched the edge glint in the low candle light. He pulled an empty chair over, sitting down and leaning forward, elbows on his knees as he scratched at his chin with the knife blade while watching my every move.

I squinted at him, watching the rusted gears turning in his head before realization struck.

“You’ve never done this have you?” I asked, grinning brightly before throwing my head back to cackle aloud into the darkness.

“Good lord Tae no wonder you haven’t said shit!” I leaned to the side a bit, sending the stoic hacker a wink. “Hobi would have had any one of us howling out secrets by now. And here I thought I was actually in trouble. That boy could get a baby to snitch on their mother’s breast milk and here you two are barely struggling to even get me to shut up. Can you imagine!”

***

They tried. They certainly did.

By the time Jenkins had worn himself into exhaustion I’d grown bored with all of it.

He’d hit me sure, bruised my face and arms several shades of ugly. But in the end I’d been untied and sent on my way back to the kitchen with the others along with Rose and Taehyung.

I could tell the entire experience had demoralized poor Jenkins. His shoulders slumped as he followed behind Riley before disappearing into the darkness of the lobby after we’d been delivered back to the kitchen.

Once the soldiers were gone Jimin immediately rushed over to fawn over the three of us. He did the best he could with what the kitchen had available, substituting a tiny bottle of vodka that one of the civilians had found for rubbing alcohol and patching up everyone’s wounds as best as he was able to.

After my injuries had been attended to I made my way over to what remained of our crew, hugging a sobbing Jeanette tightly while sending Yoongi a reassuring smile before allowing myself to be wrapped from behind in the warmth of Jungkook’s grounding embrace.

“How bad was it?” he muttered into my shoulder blade.

“Not too bad. Pretty sure Jimin would have had a better time of it compared to what those amateurs attempted to accomplish.”

“Fucking Air Farce.” Came Rose’s grumbled remark as she collapsed gracelessly beside where Jeanette and Yoongi were sat.

“Air Farce?” Namjoon’s voice came from behind me and I turned to give him a smile, shrinking away slightly with a playful squeak when he reached out to ruffle my hair.

“Yeah. American military has several branches, just like most countries. There’s a bit of a hierarchy on respect levels though. Marines are hardcore, either single minded dogs or gung-ho and always ready and looking for action. Army are the boys on the front lines, some call them cannon fodder.” Rose shrugged as she leaned into Taehyung, finally relaxing for the first time since we’d been taken from the house.

“Nobody really pays attention to the Navy honestly. I mean, there’s the occasional sailor comes to port joke but really the just… It’s like everyone knows they exist but nobody wants to talk about them or admit that they do.”

“And the Air Farce?” Namjoon, ever eager to learn new things, seemed almost to be bouncing in place where he sat on the kitchen floor across from Rose.

“Air Force.” Rose corrected with a smirk. “Every branch has their own air support division. Planes, jets, choppers. All of that. The Air Force is strictly flight stuff. Air cargo, air support, blah blah blah. And while that would sound pretty epic, it’s the way they’re treated that pisses off the other branches.”

“What do you mean the way they’re treated?” One of the civilians chirped up, a young girl with eyes sparkling almost as brightly as Namjoon’s who’d wandered over and had been hovering awkwardly at the edge of the conversation. Her mother hushed her, though Rose smiled and motioned to the mother that it was okay.

“Well, actually Jeanette knows more about that than I do.” Rose smiled.

The woman blushed, having been caught listening in on the conversation as well. I glanced around the room, eyes widening when I realized that most of the people who’d been locked in the kitchen with us had their full focus on those who’d been talking.

Jeanette swallowed, nerves clamming her up at the attention. The young girl sat at her feet though, and so she chose to give her attention to the younger audience. The shift in her focus seemed to calm her enough that she was able to tell her story.

“My...recently deceased husband was in the Army. He’d been part of a war not too long ago and spent a lot of his time deployed in the desert. It wasn’t exactly the most comfortable of living arrangements as you can imagine.”

The girl giggled, “Wouldn’t it be like living on the beach though?”

“Oh sure.” Jeanette replied. “If that beach was nothing but sand with no water and all the crabbies were just a bunch of grumpy people.”

Namjoon jerked up, eyes wide and sparkling as he practically shouted. “There are crabs in the desert??”

Rose snorted, covering her mouth to stifle a giggle. “No Joon, but there are definitely some awful big spiders there.”

“Ewwwwww, I don’t like spiders.” The girl cringed, shuffling closer to Jeanette who instinctually gathered her into her arms.

“Me too neither.” Jeanette giggled before returning to her story.

“Well, I have a younger brother. He’d been slated to be a pretty amazing athlete. But his final year of high school he messed up his knee pretty bad and his basketball career was pretty much over. So he asked Dean for some advice. Dean pointed him towards the air force.”

The girl snuggled into Jeanette, being careful not to crush her belly and causing her mother to send Jeanette an apologetic grimace of a smile. Jeanette shook her head though, sending a reassuring smile back to let the mother know it was alright.

“After basic training my brother was sent on his first deployment to an island outpost. He’d set things up so that he could communicate with his family while he was gone, his wife and myself included. One day he messages me, and so we get to talking about his living arrangements, which of course Dean decided he needed to chirp in his two cents about.” Jeanette smiled down at the girl, brushing her hair out of her now sleeping face before turning to Namjoon’s rapt attention.

“You see, when my brother was deployed, instead of staying in a tent as if he was in the desert, or being forced to sleep on a hammock like those in the Navy had to do when they were deployed on their ships, the Air Force had put him and his squad up in a hotel. He had messaged me to complain that room service hadn’t brought him fresh towels in a week so he’d been forced to do his own laundry.”

Yoongi snorted, arms crossed over his stomach and chin buried in his chest as he struggled to contain his mirth.

“Wait so...what was wrong with that?” Namjoon asked and Yoongi barked out a bitter laugh.

“He’s deployed Joon. Life isn’t supposed to be easy on mission. You’re there to do a job. What Rose is getting at is that these Air Force men are spoiled, allowed to live the easy life while the real military men toil in the dirt.”

“Well...I mean..”

Yoongi cut Namjoon off, giving him a deliciously evil grin. “This is a good thing. With the way these three looked after their so called torture interrogation, those dense fucks outside don’t have a clue what they’re doing. Just a handful of shmucks with guns.”

“So then…” I paused when Yoongi turned to me with a confident grin.

“Enough planning and the right upper hand, and maybe, just maybe we can get out of this completely unscathed.”

I could feel the change in Jungkook’s body language, as he’d never let go of his grip on me from behind.

“Well shit...if that’s the case…”

Jungkook was interrupted though, as suddenly, as if the universe had decided to finally give us a break from the madness, a tiny voice chirped out from the chest pocket of my shirt.

“Hey...Boss Lady...can you hear me?”

I stiffened, eyes wide as I turned to stare at Jungkook in shock.

“.....Jin? Seokjin is that you?”

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borathae · 4 years

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↳ Index [Drabble 03 - Secret Meetings]

“You and Taehyung have a meeting to discuss the printing layouts for this months issue, winky face....”

Genre: Smut

Warnings: car sex, fingering, handjob, impregnation kink, dirty talk, semi-public sex

Wordcount: 2.5k

a/n: Not gonna lie, I’m sweating bYe

"Where are you off to?" Hoseok asks, looking up from his afternoon snack, convenience store sushi, to follow you with his eyes.

"Delivering those templates to printing", you state calmly.

"You do know that we are living in the 21st century? You can send them per email", Hoseok mumbles, mouth stuffed with a piece of spicy tuna roll.

"No I can't, I need to discuss them with the head of printing first", you state calmly as you stuff the papers into your handbag.

"You mean Taehyung?" Hoseok wiggles his eyebrows at you, grinning.

"I'm running late, see you later", you ignore his teasing words and strut off afterwards.

You make your out of the building and over the parking lot. The publishing firms sister building is just down the block, maybe a ten minute walk away and not even two minutes with the car. It is not the greatest distance and yet it still sucks having to walk all the way over just for discussing some prints. You grin, checking your reflection as you pass a mirror in a shop window. Your lipstick needs some freshening up. In two expert swipes it looks as good as new, bringing out your lips beautifully against your glowing skin.

You continue your way down the block, past the bakery from which you had to get all those latte macchiati back in the day. They are selling oatmeal cookies today. You stop, looking inside for a moment. Should I get a few?

A moment later you skip down the street with a paper bag of oatmeal cookies in your hand, a smile on your face so bright it could blind.

They are going to give you lots of energy for all the discussing you are going to do. You can't wait to taste them.

You take a turn to the left, over the street and up a few stairs until you reach a small plaza with a water fountain in the middle of it. There are surprisingly many people on the plaza today, but who can blame them? If the weather is that nice. You pass by an old woman, who is scolding her little Italian greyhound, who seems to only have eyes for the turkey breast in the ladies hands. Cute.

Just down the lane of birch trees and you will reach it. There. You already see it. Waiting there for you, red against a grey background. You quicken your steps, shouldering your bag. Past a few benches then over a bike lane. Look left and right, to the front and behind your back. Then. In you go.

"Hello Mister Kim I'm terribly sorry for running late to our meeting to discuss this week’s prints. I had to stop at a bakery and get a few oatmeal cookies", you giggle, sitting down on the passenger seat of Taehyungs red Porsche.

"Miss ___ I was growing impatient. How unprofessional of you to keep me waiting. I am a very busy man", Taehyung says in a serious voice, shaking his head.

You look at him, he looks at you. You both start grinning and a moment later you pull him into a deep kiss, fingers twisting in his tie and knees almost breaking the gear stick as you are practically close to crawling on top of him. You are nibbling and sucking on his lower lip like there is no tomorrow, ruining his entire lower face with your red lipstick. It's been too long. You pull him closer, making him moan deeply as his fingers twist in your hair. He pulls at it, forcing your head to tilt back.

"Miss ___ where are your manners? We didn't even drive to our discussion spot yet."

"I missed you", you reach out to clean some of the lipstick off of him, "I couldn't wait."

Taehyung smirks, eyes darkening, "then I guess I have to drive just that faster", he rasps, starting his car and steering it up the road.

His big hand rests on your thigh, fingers caressing the insides of them deliciously. Your hands are in his hair, playing with it as your eyes race over his face. He looks so handsome today, even with lipstick all over his chin.

"How was the business trip?" he asks, eyes still glued to the road.

"Not cool. I was so bored, also the newest editor-in-chief is the biggest idiot I have ever had the honour to work with."

"Even a bigger idiot than me?" he jokes.

"You were practically a gentle ocean breeze compared to that fartbrain."

Taehyung snorts, sneaking a glance your way, "fartbrain?"

"Yeah, that's what he is. He thinks he knows everything better and other than you, who actually knows what he was talking about, dead skin cells. Nothing but dead skin cells come out of that guy's mouth. He has no idea what is he talking about. Like how many incompetent people does Seokjin want to keep hiring until he realises that you are the perfect candidate. He’s so petty."

"Not going to lie, hearing you talk like this", Taehyung clicks his tongue and gestures down his crotch, "it makes Taetae Jr all tingly."

You scoff, "just say it makes your dick hard, no need to sugar coat it baby."

Taehyung looks at you from corners of his eyes, playful smirk washing over his lipstick stained lips.

"Fine", his hand travels up your thigh, punching up your skirt as it goes. Your legs part in reflex, arousal soaking your panties.

"You make me so hard baby", he growls, "it's been too long, I want to feel you."

His fingertips tease your clothed core, up and down agonisingly slow. Your legs part, your hands falling from his hair to rest on his thigh instead.

"You're so wet", he snickers and pulls your panties to the side to tip his long middle finger into your core, "look at that. I can slip in so easily", he rasps, pumping his finger in and out of you.

"God Tae, I missed this so much", you groan, arching your back so he could get even better access to your core.

His ring finger joins his middle finger, the cold metal of his ring a delicious feeling against your skin. Your hips start circling themselves on his hand, the sensation mindblowing. This man is killing me in the sweetest way possible.

"Yes that's it, fuck yourself on them. Shit baby you look so sexy like that", he lets his eyes race between the road and you, the temptation of looking at you is too big to resist. Have to touch him too.

You open his zip.

"What are you- oh fuck", he groans, gripping the steering wheel as he tries his hardest not to swerve the car into upcoming traffic. Your hand is palming his swollen length, stroking him so good over his thin underwear. Taehyung shivers, parting his legs, making his foot almost slip from the gas pedal

"___ I'm driving", he warns.

"And I'm horny. I want to jerk you off, I know you can take it", you coo, still fucking yourself on his fingers as your own free his cock from his pants and pull it through the opened zipper.

Taehyung sucks in air through his teeth, head falling against the headrest as your fingers get to work. You jerk him off what can only be described as sensually fast, not wild and rough, but quick and calculated. You have touched him enough times by now to know which parts of his beautiful cock drive the sweetest sounds out of him.

"Baby p-please", Taehyung wants his words to sound authoritative, but they aren't really convincing when he accidentally swerves the car over the centre line and arches his back so prettily.

His fingers curl inside of you, the heel of his hand pressing down on your swollen clit.

"Mhm Tae, baby your hand feels so good", you moan happily, speeding up your movements as a reward.

Taehyung hits the steering wheel, "fuck!" he chokes out, hitting the steering wheel again to gain his composure.

This is so reckless, but he is just too hot to resist.

"Okay no this isn't working", Taehyung says, shaking his head as he pulls into a random back alley and stops the car under the shadow of a high wall.

"This isn't our discussion spot", you say, looking around.

"I can't drive like that. I'm going to kill us. You're really reckless, jerking me off like that when we're in the middle of busy traffic", he spits, not in anger but in pure desperation. He is just so turned on for you.

"You make me reckless", you coo, fingernail dragging down the vein on the underside if his cock. The sensation makes it twitch as Taehyung bites down on his lower lip and furrows his brows in pleasure.

"Come here. Sit on my lap, I want you to ride me", he says, pulling his fingers free from your pussy.

Upset from the loss of contact you scurry on his lap, even if it does take you a few tries to sit down. First your skirt gets stuck on the gear stick, making you bounce back onto the passenger seat. Then your ass hits the horn, startling you so much you scurry of his lap again in fear someone might have heard you. Then on the third try you hit your head on the roof, making you fall into his chest as you rub your aching head.

"That's why I hate your car. It's too small for fucking", you whine, pinching his shoulder.

"I wasn't the one jerking my dick off and distracting me from driving", Taehyung retorts.

"You had two of your fingers inside of me first. You started it", you throw back, straightening your back to send him an annoyed look.

"No you started it when you kissed me like that", he insists, brows furrowed.

"I only kissed you like that because you look so good today", you retort, nostrils flaring.

God he upsets you so good. Your eyes race between his' before they flint to his lips. One twist in his tie and then you are kissing him, sinking down on his length at the same time.

You moan into each other’s mouth, both needing the feeling of finally being one again. His hands are on your hips guiding your very restricted movements as he tries his best to thrust his hips up.

His car really isn't made for fucking. Do I care though? No, not when he feels that good.

"You're driving me crazy Taehyung", you moan against his lips, "fuck I wanted this all week long", you shudder, fingers twisting in his hair at the back of his head.

"I, I can feel. You’re so wet fuck", he stutters, hooded eyes watching you in hunger, "keep riding it like that. I like it so much."

"Didn't plan on stopping", you growl, kissing him again as you bounce on his cock like there is no tomorrow.

The entire car shakes from your movements, the windows are fogging up from your hot bodies and your moans drown out the slow jazz music coming from the radio. Every idiot walking by your car will know what is going on and yet you don't seem to mind that much anymore. Let them see how good your boyfriends dick makes you feel. Let them know how irresistible he is. Let them imagine what it must feel like to get fucked by him or to fuck him.

"Wait, baby, wait slow down. Fuck, I'm going to cum if you keep doing that", Taehyung chokes out, “you weren’t the only one missing the sex. You need to go easy on me”, he groans, fingernails digging into your hips.

"That's so hot", you rasp, feeling the way new arousal squirts out of you at his confession.

"Slow down, please. I don't want to cum yet", he moans, dark eyes looking at you over the rim of his glasses, teary eyed from all the pleasure. You don’t listen, bouncing on his dick with a taunting smirk on your lips. Fuck he looks so good, so fucked out and dirty with your lipstick all over him. Only Kim Taehyung can rock a messy lipstick look like that. With a face like his’ he can wear anything and it’d drive you crazy.

"I want you to baby, I want you to fill me up with your cum", you leaning down to moan into his ear, squeezing around him, "feeling your seed cover my walls would make me cum so hard baby", you rasps, nibbling on his sensitive earlobe.

Taehyung moans desperately, hands pulling you onto his cock before he cums with a guttural growl and a hard thrust of his hip.

Just like you promised him, feeling his hot cum shoot up into you is enough to throw you over the edge as well. You bury your head in his shoulder, holding onto him until you both stop shaking. You don't get off from him immediately, instead you keep him buried deep inside of you.

"This was one the hottest things you ever said to me", Taehyung pants, trying to catch his breath.

"I figured, given how often you talk about wanting to put your babies into my belly", you say, fingers playing with his hair.

"I'm not that slick with my weird impregnation kink, aren't I?" he sounds slightly embarrassed.

"Not really", you chuckle, "it's fine though, I think it's hot."

"You know what would be even hotter? When you'd stop taking the pill and actually you know?" he thrusts his hip up lazily, not enough to turn either one of you on again but still enough to get a reaction out of you. You squeak, holding onto his shoulders.

"Okay hold your horses. It's only been four months, our relationship is far too fresh to even consider it", you have to tell him or else he'll get caught up in his family fantasies again.

"Fine, first we have to come out to the office am I right?"

"Yes, exactly. God this is going to be so stressful."

"Mhm, we can do this."

“Want to munch on some oatmeal cookies now?” you ask.

“Like the good old days, mhm?” he nudges your side, “you softie.”

“Hush”, you mumble, making him chuckle.

Half an hour later you are back at your office, looking as if nothing ever happened. You sit down on your chair, ignoring the way Hoseoks eyes linger on your face.

"Hey ___ you still have a little bit of lipstick on your chin", he says, grinning knowingly.

"What?" you squeak, looking at the little mirror on your desk. There is nothing there.

"Ha! Gotcha! I knew that you guys were getting it on. Jung Hoseok strikes again, my deduction skills are amazing”, Hoseok throws his hands into the air in celebration, grinning from one ear to the other.

"Quiet before people can hear you", you hiss, looking around nervously.

“Relax, your dirty, little secret is safe with me”, Hoseok snickers, sending you a teasing wink.

You groan, hiding your face in the palms of your hands.

This is so embarrassing.

#taehyung smut #taehyung romance #taehyung fluff #taehyung drabble #taehyung fanfic #taehyung fanfiction #taehyung scenario #taehyung x reader #bts smut #bts romance #bts fluff #bts drabble #bts fanfic #bts fanfiction #bts scenario #bts x reader #fanfic: seeing red

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its-nebula · 3 years

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You Could Do So Much Better

Leon Kuwata x Fem!Reader, inspired by the song "Girlfriend" by Avril Lavigne

Warning: Some cursing, slight NSFW?

I wasn't really that fond of Leon before starting to write this, but then this idea popped into my head and as I did more research I think I like him a bit more!! Anyways there's a lack of fics for him so here y'all go. This is looooooooonnng so enjoy

You were starting to get impatient now. You looked like a loser sitting on the bench by yourself, with your arms crossed wondering where the hell he was. He was never usually this late! Seriously, he could’ve at least called ahead and told you he was going to be late, or even a text would’ve sufficed! Well, whatever. He would explain himself whenever he showed up.

“S/O! Hey!”

Well, speak of the devil, and he shall appear. With... oh no. Oh, no, no, no, no he didn’t. Who was that clinging onto his arm, giggling like a little schoolgirl? Did he really have the nerve, the audacity, the gall to bring his girlfriend Sayaka along? Without so much as warning you? Immediately, you could feel the blood inside your body start to boil, but you kept your calm, putting on the must realistic smile that you could.

“Hey, Leon.” You greeted, and then you turned to Sayaka. He didn’t seem to notice, but she also seemed to be displaying the fakest grin that you’ve ever seen. “Hello, Sayaka.”

“S/O! It is so good to see you again!” Sayaka greeted back, in the most annoying voice that you’ve ever heard in your life. “Sorry that we were late, buuuuuut Leon and I got stopped on the way here by some fans, and we just HAD to take some pictures with them!” You winced as you heard the emphasis she put on the word “fans”, as if to rub it in your face that they were famous and you weren’t. She was doing it on purpose, you could feel it in your bones. It made you want to scream inside.

Leon nodded as he agreed, with a sheepish look on his face. “Yep, hate to disappoint the fans, y’know? But really, we’re sorry. Come on, let’s go now. Are you hungry?”

You were honestly famished after waiting all that time. “Actually. I’m-”

You were interrupted by Sayaka getting in Leon’s face, a pleading look on her face. “Would it be alright if we went in the music store first? I’ve been meaning to get a new tuner.”

Leon smiled at her. “Sure thing, babe! S/O, you coming?” He and Sayaka were already walking, so all you could do is follow behind them. At least you didn’t have to put on that stupid happy grin for a few minutes as the 3 of you walked around the gigantic mall. You did, however, notice her glance over her shoulder, smirking at you for a quick second before turning her head back to Leon. Oh, his girlfriend was such a bitch. Why was he with her again?

Well, he wasn’t always the “deepest” guy, in fact it wouldn’t be too inaccurate to call him quite shallow. She had everything he’d probably ever wanted in a girl; she was stunning, she was talented, she was insanely popular, and everyone seemed to like her. How could he not fall for her, while you were just some lowly Reserve Course student that he just so happened to take an interest in? He’d compliment you and pay attention to you sometimes, sure, but when Sayaka was around or when Sayaka called he would drop his so called “friend” and bow to her. Sayaka this and Sayaka that. Sayaka, Sayaka, fucking Sayaka. You hated it. You hated how he would talk about how hot her body was, or how good it felt to touch her in various ways, but he could talk about this stuff to you, because you’re just friends, right?

Oh, whatever. All that did for you is confirm how you definitely won’t be anything more than friends anytime soon. Yes, you longed to be the one to feel his touch. How desperately you wanted to feel his lips on yours, his fingertips sliding up and down your sides, trying to pull you closer to him. “Sayaka who?” Is all you wanted to hear him say to you, before he started kissing slowly down your neck, biting and leaving marks that would surely be there for days.

Alas, it was just a fantasy, and you were stuck with the couple laughing giddily with each other, listening to samples off various music CDs and commenting on them. It made you want to throw up, but you couldn’t help but think as to why that couldn’t be you. She was not right for him, and you knew it. That made seeing them kissing and forgetting about you-- even when you’re right there-- all the more painful.

Finally, Sayaka found her way to the tuners, and she said that she would check out and would be right back.

“Leon, you know you can do better than her.” You said bluntly, but quietly, as she sashayed off.

“Pfft. What, better than a pop star? Do you think I’m stupid or somethin’?” He laughed, placing a hand on your shoulder. “Get real, what isn’t there to like? I’ve met a lot of ladies, but she’s totally hot, she’s-”

“Rich, popular, blah blah blah, I know, I know.” You interrupted him angrily, rolling your eyes and turning your back from him, shrugging his hand off. You let out an even angrier sigh, trying your best to calm yourself down.

“Yo, are you okay?” His voice lowered. “You’re not still mad about us being late, right?”

“I’m fine.” You grumbled, and walked out of the store, deciding to just wait for them outside. You leaned against the wall, attempting again to calm yourself down.

“Where are you going?!” So he’d run after you then. Just great. Why was he pretending to care about you now? Didn’t he have a girlfriend to look after? “You don’t look alright to me. Really, what’s wrong?”

“I said nothing, Leon, I’m fine.” You stated again. “Go back to your girlfriend who you love so much.”

“But I don’t...!” He let out a long sigh, crossing his arms. “What is it, did she say something to you? I wanna know!”

“Why do you care?” You snapped, raising an eyebrow. “Obviously you worship the ground she walks on.”

Leon’s eyes darted back to the door for a second, but he moved closer towards you. His voice got quieter, and his expression got more serious. “But that doesn’t mean that I don’t care about you, S/O.”

You could feel yourself blushing at his sudden closeness, but you couldn’t let yourself lose composure like this, or else he would definitely know how you felt about him. Instead, you avoided eye contact, but you couldn’t help but glance into his eyes occasionally. God, he was so close. You could smell his cologne wafting into your nose, and lord, did he smell good. All you wanted to do was just pull him closer and...

“Leon? Where did you go?”

“Shit!” He whispered and turned around quickly. You could’ve sworn you saw a blush on his face, but now the moment was ruined. “U-Uh, I’m right here!”

“There you are! What are you two talking about?” She asked innocently, her eyes darting back and forth between you two. However, you could tell by her expression that she saw at least something.

“It was nothing! Nothing at all.” Leon laughed nervously, scratching his neck. You didn’t say anything, just looking away from both of them.

“Right...” She eyed you suspiciously, before clinging on to her boyfriend’s arm once again.

Leon cleared his throat and decided to change the subject. “H-Hey, um, do you guys wanna see me hit a few pitches? I know where the batting cage is around here!”

“Sure!” Sayaka chirped as they started to move together again. Well, it was fun while it lasted, but now it looks like you were the 3rd Wheel once more. Just what you always wanted, right? Yay!

As he went to set himself up in the cage, Sayaka turned to you. If looks could kill, you would most definitely be on the floor right now, dead as dust. “I see the way you look at him, you know. You need to stop.”

“Leon’s my friend.” You defended yourself. “We’re just friends. It’s not my fault you cling to him like a crazy bit-”

“Don’t. Say anything. About me. Do you really think he would believe me over you? All I have to do is give him one little night of fun and you’ll be gone so fast your head will spin!”

“I...” You didn’t have a rebuttal, because you knew she was right. You knew for a fact she was correct. After all, she had him, and you didn’t. She already won. “Fine. I’ll leave you both alone then.”

“He doesn’t need you, you know. You’re nothing. He has me. He probably won’t even notice that you’re gone.”

“Shut up.” Your expression darkened, and you balled your fists by your side.

“As if you actually have a shot with someone like him. Please, don’t make me laugh, If you know what’s good for you, you’ll stay in your lane.”

Without thinking, you pushed her. She gasped, and she pushed you harder, causing you to fall on the ground with a thud. Leon heard this, and he turned around, his eyes widening as he saw the scene before him. “Huh? What the hell’s going on over there?!”

Sayaka instantly stopped what she was doing and started tearing up, trying to wipe her eyes of tears. People started staring at the both of you as she started to sob. Oh, now you’ve done it.

“S-She h-hit me! Why is she so mean to me?” Sayaka cried, and you could hear the crowd’s disapproval. Leon didn’t say anything as he looked at you pick yourself up and run out of the area.

Specifically, you ran to the nearest restroom, and started to cry to yourself while leaning on the wall. Who were you kidding? Everything she said was the truth. She and Leon were together, and you weren’t in her position, and you probably never would be. Why would you ever allow yourself to gain such an unattainable crush? You felt really, really stupid. Stupid, stupid, stupid, stupid...stupid.

It could’ve been hours, it could’ve been minutes, it could’ve been seconds, you weren’t sure, but you heard someone opening up the door, locking it behind them. Wow, you didn’t even lock the door to the bathroom. How else were you going to mess up today?

“I’m sorry, S/O.” You heard a very familiar voice say softly. You lifted your head up to see the face of the one that you love. You were a bit confused as to why he wasn’t consoling his girlfriend right now, but you were in no mood to argue.

A bit of silence passed, and he decided to speak up again as you dried your tears. “So, she told me what happened. At least, her side of the story. I should’ve known.”

“Her side...? Y-You mean...?”

“I barely ever believe a word she says anymore.” He scoffed, crossing his arms. “You’re lucky you don’t have to hear her whining and complaining every single day. Every time I try bringing you up, it’s like she turns into a total bitch.”

You blinked at him. You could honestly believe what he said, but why would he stay with her then? “But you always seem so in love with each other. You call her hot every single day.”

He shrugged. “She’s attractive, but truthfully, she’s nothing compared to the girl I really want to be with. At least she’s got brains, beauty, and personality.”

“The girl you really want to be with.” You repeated, thinking to yourself. “Who could that be?”

Without warning, he leaned down and connected his lips with yours. Instantaneously, your eyes fluttered to a close, and now you could feel yourself smiling. It just felt so right, being here in his arms. He laughed a little when he felt you smile, and he pulled you closer to him, wrapping an arm around your waist.

After a minute or two, you pulled away for air, both of you gasping breathlessly. “But what happened to Sayaka?”

He kissed over your ear, before he whispered into it, “I could do a lot better than Sayaka, don’t you think?”

That was all you needed for you to passionately kiss him again, one of his hands in your hair, with the other one sneakily creeping up your shirt, which you happily let happen.

Looks like fantasies come true after all.

#danganronpa x reader #danganronpa #leon kuwata #thh #imagine #leon x reader

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taetaespeaches · 4 years

Text

“How do we ever make it through your tours?”

hoseok x reader (or oc) genre: smut; fluff word count: 2.9K

a/n: Hi lovelies! Here’s a Hobi “established relationship smut” fic that was requested... Hobi’s lady comes home from vacation and they bang one out. That’s really it haha, so thanks for reading and I hope you enjoy! :))

SCOOPING his keys off his dresser, Hoseok exited his bedroom to the sounds of Taehyung and Tae’s friend goofing off in the living room.

“Wait, wait,” Tae’s friend yelled through her laughter, “let me see that again.” Taehyung leaned over her frame to replay some video on his phone that Hoseok was sure was not near as funny as they were making it out to be. Regardless, he smiled as he walked through the dorm, shaking his head at the two.

At the sound of Hoseok lightly tossing his keys up and down in his palm, Taehyung looked up to see Hoseok slipping his shoes on.

“Are you leaving?” Taehyung asked making Hoseok look up in surprise.

“Yeah, I gotta get over to the airport,” Hoseok replied as he put on his other shoe.

“Oh,” Taehyung realized, “you’re going to see your girl.”

“She’s back?” Tae’s friend asked, more excitedly than Taehyung. “Oh my god, yay!” Hoseok giggled as he shot the sweet girl a happy smile.

“Definitely yay,” he grinned, Tae’s friend shooting him a thumbs up in response.

“So you won’t be back tonight?” Tae asked.

“Definitely not,” Hoseok smirked. “You two have fun, I’ll see you later.”

“Be careful, hyung,” Taehyung called out as Hoseok closed the door, exiting the apartment.

He walked quickly through the apartment complex, making his way to his car before speedily pulling out of the parking garage, heading toward the airport.

You had been on vacation with your family for a week and a half and he fucking missed you. However, his need to get to you was not only a matter of the heart, but a matter of lust. You teasingly sent him a risqué photo earlier that day, and that image had stuck with him the entirety of the afternoon and evening.

The images you sent him was burned right inside his corneas as his heart ached to be near you. Every red light felt like it lasted an eternity, taunting him as they glowed brightly in the night sky. As he got closer to the airport, he could see planes clearly as they landed, and his heart pounded at the possibility of you sitting in one of them.

Making his way through the airport traffic, his phone started ringing, your contact information popping up on the screen. He quickly answered the phone, greeting you with a “You land, Petal?”

“Hi sweetheart, yeah I just made my way to baggage claim and they’re already getting the bags out,” your sweet voice soothed through the phone, sending comfort and chills through Hoseok’s body all at once.

“Perfect,” Hoseok smiled as he spoke. “Want me to park and come get you inside or—”

“I think if you just pull up in the pick up area then that will work. I already see my bag,” you told him.

As you walked toward your bag on the carousel, Hobi took the right lane that would take him to the arrivals.

“Ok, I’ll go park outside. I drove the Cadillac,” he informed you, letting you know what vehicle to look for.

“Ooh,” you said with an impressed tone. Lifting your suitcase off the carousel, you said with a huff, “sexy.”

Hoseok laughed through the phone, the sound lifting your mood that was dampened with exhaustion.

“Ok, I got my bag so I’m on my way to you Sunshine.”

“Stay on the phone with me,” he insisted with his eyes glued to the exit door.

“I will,” you assured.

“Did your parents make it back ok?” He asked curiously.

“Yeah, I just got a text when from my mom when I landed. Sounds like they got home about an hour ago,” you told him as you quickly swerved through crowds of people, driven to get to your boyfriend.

“Good, I’m glad. Did you have fun?” His gaze didn’t leave the exit door as he impatiently awaited your arrival.

“It was good,” you said with some apprehension.

“What’s the matter?” He asked, sensing your trepidation.

“No, nothing, it was nice to have everyone together, it’s just,” you paused as you began climbing the stairs to the exit doors. “It’s not everyone if you’re not there, ya know?”

Hoseok nodded before answering. “Yeah, I know.”

“But no, it was good, I just missed you,” you giggled at your admission.

“I missed you too,” he told you sincerely. “What do you think, should I get out of the car and wait for you?”

“You better not,” you warned sternly, Hoseok laughing at your reaction. “I can see the headlines now, ‘BTS’ J-Hope greets unknown woman with a kiss at the airport’,” you laughed.

“What makes you think you’re getting greeted with a kiss?” He teased.

You paused a moment, smirking to yourself before cooing in a sultry voice, “Oh, Hobi,” your boyfriend’s ears perking at the tone of your voice. “I know you didn’t forget about that photo.”

Your boyfriend groaned into the phone as he rested his chin on the steering wheel. “Sometimes I forget that you know exactly how much power you hold over me,” he chuckled. “Fuck.”

You giggled in response as you stepped out into the cool air, your eyes scanning the line of cars for Hoseok’s Cadillac. “Where are you?”

“I see you,” he said happily. “I’m getting out.”

“Don’t you—”

“I’m getting out,” he repeated as he swung his door open, stepping out as he waved at you. You tried to glare at him, but you couldn’t help the smile that spread across your face as you watched your boyfriend slam his door shut and quickly make his over, taking long strides to get to you.

“Hi petal,” Hobi smiled widely as he stepped in front of you, not pausing before encompassing your frame in his arms, tugging you against his body.

“I missed you,” you mumbled into the t-shirt that covered his chest, your arms tightly wrapping around his waist. He swayed your bodies back and forth for a moment as you held onto each other before he pulled away just enough to look down at you.

“God, I missed you too,” he whispered before leaning down and catching your lips in a desperate kiss, though neither of you deepened it. He left a few pecks to your mouth before pulling away from you, your hand coming to smack his side gently.

“You don’t even have a mask on, what the hell are you doing?” You nagged him, Hoseok laughing as he pretended to rub his side in pain.

“How am I gonna great you with a kiss with a mask on?” He countered, you shaking your head as you smiled at him.

“Just grab my bag for me before someone recognizes you,” you playfully demanded as you walked ahead of him toward the Cadillac.

Giggling to himself, he called out, “Yes, ma’am,” as he grabbed your suitcase and followed behind you. You hopped into the passenger seat as he tossed your bag into the trunk of the car and hastily made his way to the driver seat. As soon as he shut the door and turned toward you, your hands were on his face as you pushed your mouth against his, immediately deepening the kiss as you ran your tongue along his lower lip. His hand gravitated toward your side, gripping your flesh before running it down your body to land on the top of your thigh. The kiss was needy, tongues massaging one another and moans sounding from the both of you until a car behind you honked. You both quickly separated, looking back at the car that had its blinker on, indicating it wanted your spot.

Hoseok groaned as he waved them off, putting the car into drive as he pulled away. “Put your seatbelt on,” he told you, only for you to reach over his frame, grabbing his seatbelt and in the process, rubbing your chest against his, your breath heavy on his neck. You clicked his seatbelt into place, pressing a kiss to his jaw before retreating back to your seat, putting your own seatbelt on.

“Jesus, how long is the drive back to your place?” He asked you, his voice rough, filled with lust.

“Mm,” you hummed in thought. “About thirty minutes.”

“Fuck.” You chuckled at his disappointment, his need for you making you want to tease him further.

You set your elbow onto the console as you propped your head up on your hand, looking up at your tense boyfriend. “Relax,” you said sweetly, Hoseok cracking a grin as he shook his head. You grinned, asking, “Was that photo ok?”

Your boyfriend scoffed at you as his lips curved upward even more, his leg bouncing up and down in impatience. “Petal,” he warned.

“I wasn’t sure of the angle,” you furthered your teasing. “Maybe it would have looked better if I pushed my tits up more.” Hoseok sucked in a breath as you continued. “What do you think, Sweetheart?”

His eyes flickered down to see your wide innocent eyes mixed with your devil-like smirk and he scoffed. “I think you better watch it,” he told you.

He slowed the car as you approached a red light, you briefly looking at the street before looking back at him. “I don’t think I want to watch it,” you told him, sitting up so you could place a finger to the opposite side of his face, turning it to make him look at you. “Do you really want me to?” You asked before placing a gentle kiss to his lips. He opened his mouth against yours and you let him for a moment before pulling away but not without nipping his bottom lip and dragging your teeth over it, letting go with a plop. “The light is green,” you said as you sat back, looking straight ahead.

Without a word, Hoseok sped down the street, eyes focused on the road as his hands tightly gripped the steering wheel. Driving past a nearly empty parking lot at a super market that was clearly closed for the night, your boyfriend quickly flipped his blinker on and turned into the lot, not caring about the lack of notice to the driver behind him.

“Jesus,” you giggled out, looking over at Hoseok who was still tense as he held back a smile. He parked the car in the corner spot that was least visible in the street lights and was the most secluded and he shut the car off.

“Get over here, Petal,” he demanded, looking over at you before gesturing for you to come to him with a flick of his head.

“Right now?” You gawked. “Hobi, this is a public parking lot.”

“I know, now come here,” he told you, taking your hand and tugging on it.

“You’re insane,” you smiled, trying to hold out on jumping onto his lap right that second.

“I know that too,” he chuckled. “Now, come.”

The sternness of is voice had you clenching and it didn’t take anymore telling on his part for you to unhook your seatbelt and not so gracefully crawl over the console. With a few squeals and a helping hand from your boyfriend to keep you stabilized, you were uncomfortably straddling your boyfriend’s lap, your backend bumping against the steering wheel.

His hand slipped around you to the back of your neck, pulling you toward him so he could kiss you hungrily. You moaned into his mouth, the sound making Hoseok twitch. In an unspoken understanding, you both knew you couldn’t take much clothing off. Still though, your boyfriend’s hand found their way to the back of your bra, unhooking it, allowing it to loosen up enough so he could slip his hands underneath the material, his palms pushing against the flesh of your breasts as his fingers squeezed.

Pulling away from him a bit, you pulled the bra off your shoulders, through your short-sleeved t-shirt, and threw it in the backseat.

Your boyfriend smirked as he pushed your shirt up toward your chin, his mouth wrapping over one of your nipples, groaning as soon as it touched his tongue. You moaned out, arching your back, effectively pushing your chest further toward his face. His hands ran down your sides as he switched nipples, his fingers slipping underneath the waistband of your leggings.

“How the fuck are you supposed to take these off?” You asked with a wide smile, Hoseok laughing as he rested his forehead against your bare chest.

“Here,” he said as his laughter slowly faded out. “Sit up here,” he patted the console. You managed to un-straddle your boyfriend to sit on the console, your legs positioned over his lap. You tugged the leggings and your panties off your ass before Hoseok took over, pulling them the rest of the way down your legs. He conveniently left them pooled around one ankle as he patted your calf.

You shook your head with a smile as you moved back onto his lap, your hands immediately attaching the waist band of his sweats and briefs. With his hands on your waist, he lifted his hips just enough for you to drag the material down to his thighs. You continued tugging with small grunts, Hoseok chuckling at you as you did so. Your hand then moved to grip him as you moved your wrist up and down a few times slowly, Hoseok breathing out as he laid his head back against the headrest.

“Fuck Petal, condom,” he gestured toward the glovebox with a point of his finger.

“Oh, I have some in my purse too,” you giggled, Hoseok smiling at you as you reached toward the glovebox. As you did so, your boyfriend moved his hand down to massage your clit, you jolting in surprise.

“Goddammit, oh my god,” you bit your bottom lip as you tried to focus on opening up the packet. He kept gently rubbing you with his index finger as you placed the condom over him.

You stabilized yourself against him, your hands on his shoulders as you lifted your body and allowed Hoseok to guide you down onto him. You both moaned out, Hoseok biting his lip as you tossed your head back.

Grinding your hips on top of him, you whimpered as his hands grabbed onto your hips, helping guide your motions. “It’s only been two weeks,” he chuckled, making you looked down at him with a smile.

“How do we ever make it through your tours?” You asked as you continued to rock your hips.

“Ah shit,” he groaned out as you increased your pace. You held eye contact as you rolled your hips atop him, the tension inside you building more and more the longer you stared into his hooded gaze. Wrapping an arm around your lower back, Hoseok quickly sat up with the intention of putting his mouth on your chest, his movement forcing you to sit up straighter. The car that was previously filled with nothing but the sounds of both of your moans, heavy breathing, and your bodies moving against each other’s, was suddenly invaded with the sound of your ass pushing against the car horn in a long and loud beep.

“Fuck,” you shoved him back against the seat, Hoseok looking up at you with wide eyes, only to meet your own startled gaze.

“Oh my god,” you breathed out before both of you fell into giggles. Before you could even steady your heart, Hoseok’s grip around your body tightened as he slammed his hips up. Gasping, your head fell to rest on his shoulder as he continued to snap up into you.

“Oh fuck,” you breathed out harshly, lifting your head enough to place your forehead against his own. Your arms wrapped around the back of his head as he kissed you deeply. Your lips moved across his cheek, trailing quick kisses before reaching his ear. Your breathing pushed him closer to the edge and as you fell into your high, he reached for your face, guiding you back to his lips so he could kiss you through your climax. He followed shortly after you, gasping into your mouth as he came.

Your exhaustion from traveling and your public escapade with your boyfriend hit you all at once as you relaxed against his body, nuzzling your face into his neck. Hoseok’s arms wrapped around your frame as he sighed against you. “My sleepy Petal.” You hummed into his neck before lightly kissing the spot. “Let’s get your pants back on,” he breathily chuckled.

You allowed him to help you sit back up on the console so he could help pull your leggings and panties back up. He then pulled the condom off before tossing it in an empty plastic grocery sack in the back seat as you got situated in the passenger seat.

Pulling his pants back up, he looked over at you and took your hand in his, bringing it to his lips to leave a sweet kiss to the back of it. “I love you,” he reminded you.

“I love you too,” you smiled. “Let’s go home.”

“Ok, sweetheart,” he agreed. “You get some rest and I’ll take us home.” It didn’t take any more convincing for you to curl up in your seat and rest your head against console, shutting your eyes to take a nap. You however reached your hand up, moving it around until your boyfriend got the hint that you wanted to hold his hand.

With your hand in his, resting in his lap, you slept while he drove you to your apartment, sneaking several glances at your sleeping form, feeling extra thankful you were home.

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kpop-zone · 4 years

Text

Back To You | Jennie

Warnings: mentioning of blood, death, physical injuries

Genre: angst, fluff

Wordcount: 2,914

Request: You got into a bad car accident on your way home and you’re pretty sure that you will die soon. So you phoned her and talked like nothing happened, telling her how much you loved her. ANNNDDDD of course since I know I won’t be able to stand the angsty ending, pls don’t let me (or you?) dieeeeeee 😭 but you can make it difficult for the doctors to keep you alive due to the extensive injuries

A/N: 1. I’m not a doctor, just pretend it sounds realistic please :D 2. I really struggled to keep this one gender-neutral, so I’m sorry if it sounds weird sometimes :/

You muttered curses underneath your breath as your wipers swiped in full speed over your windshield. You always knew that those darn extra hours at work would kill you sooner or later. You just hadn’t thought that it would be because you had to drive home in the middle of a violent storm.

Despite the wipers, you could only see the blurry lights on the side of the road and had to guess were your lane started and ended. You were glad when you would be finally home, cuddling into the arms of your girlfriend and savoring the calming sounds of the storm from underneath a thick blanket. But for now, you had to fight your way back home.

Your phone started ringing and you just averted your eyes off the road for a split second to take a quick glance at the screen. But it was still a second too much. Out of nowhere there was another car standing right in front of you when you looked back on the road again and you hectically jerked the steering wheel.

You could feel yourself losing control over the car. The wheels started sliding over the wet asphalt and the curb was enough to cause your car to overturn. Everything went so fast that you only felt the hard collision of your roof with the ground and your body being forcefully held in your seat because of the seatbelt, knocking all air out of your lungs.

Your sight went black for a second, before you regained consciousness. Your ears were ringing, and you felt like everything was spinning around you. There was a liquid running down your face and you couldn’t tell whether it was rain, tears or blood. You grunted, trying to move, but you were too weak to lift your hands to unbuckle the seatbelt, leaving you hanging upside down in your seat.

Hectic voices were yelling something from outside.

“We’ve called an ambulance! Stay calm!”

Slowly you started to be able to discern your surroundings again. There was shattered glass everywhere and when you looked down on yourself, your white shirt was bloodred. It was hard to breath and you assumed that the force of the seatbelt had saved your life but broken a few of your rips the same time.

A fit of coughs left your mouth and you tried to suppress it by pressing your hand over your mouth. When you pulled it away again, you could see red sprinkles all over it. Of course. What should have saved your life, would be killing you in the end. You had watched enough TV shows to know that coughing blood was always the last step before a character died.

Slowly you continued scanning your surroundings. Right underneath your head, you could see your phone.

Jennie.

You suddenly remembered that she had called you and slowly you stretched your arm to reach your phone. You had to hear her voice one more time before you left this world.

“Please. Please.”

You muttered under your breath, hoping that your phone had survived the collision. When you tapped the screen, your girlfriend smiled brightly at you and you reciprocated the expression. Her smile had been the first thing that had drawn you to her. You picked up the phone and dialed her number, listening patiently to the beeping of the phone until your girlfriend finally picked up.

“Jagi!”

Her voice sounded happy and tears immediately started springing to your eyes.

“Hey baby.”

You almost whispered and you could hear plates clattering on the other side of the line. Jennie was probably just preparing dinner, waiting for you to come home.

“What are you doing? I can hardly hear your voice.”

She said with confusion in her voice and you quickly cleared your throat, not wanting to make her suspicious.

“Oh I just had my phone on speaker. Is it better now?”

You asked her nonchalantly, not wanting your last conversation to be a sad one.

“Yes, much better. Are you going to be home soon?”

You covered your mouth with your hand to suppress a sob, because you wouldn’t love anything more than to come home right now.

“Yes, I’m already on my way.”

You lied instead, hoping that your voice wouldn’t betray you.

“Great, because I’m just making your favorite for dinner.”

Jennie answered with a smile in her voice and you could feel your tears running silently down your face.

“You’re the best girlfriend in the world, you know that?”

You asked her rhetorically and you could hear her giggle.

“Of course, I am.”

Jennie answered jokingly and you wondered if she would ever laugh as freely again after tonight.

“I love you, Jennie.”

You said completely serious now, needing her to know how you felt before you left.

“Is someone feeling cheesy tonight?”

She cooed and you chuckled lightly. You had truly dated the biggest dork, even if people always made her out to be arrogant and cold.

“I love you too, Y/N.”

Jennie added after a second and your heart fluttered. You were ready to go now.

“Ok. See you soon, jagi.”

You could hear the sirens of the ambulance nearing and you didn’t want Jennie to hear what would happen once they were here.

“See you.”

She said cheerily before the line went dead. You closed your eyes, wanting to safe her sweet voice in your head. If you had to go, you wanted it with her being the last thing on your mind.

“Hello?”

You could hear another voice from outside the car all of a sudden and you turned your head.

“Yes! I’m stuck here!”

You tried to yell as loud as possible, but a sharp stinging in your lungs made it almost impossible to talk out loud.

“Ok. Don’t worry. My name is Hyunjin. I’m with the paramedics team and we’re going to get you out of there.”

The voice answered and a few seconds later a young man squeezed through the shattered window of your car.

“Hi! Can you reach your seatbelt to unbuckle it?”

He asked you as if you were just having a normal small talk and you shook your head.

“Ok that’s no problem. I’m going to cut you lose. But it’s probably going to hurt.”

You nodded in response and he moved scissors to your seatbelt, cutting through the fabric and causing gravity to pull you to the ground. You winced in pain and you heard that Hyunjin was saying something to you, but his voice sounded more and more distant. It was feeling like the pain was closing in on you until you were freed by sweet unconsciousness.

Jennie impatiently paced up and down the living room. It had been 45 minutes already since you had called, and you still weren’t home yet. At first, she thought you simply were stuck in traffic, but slowly she began to worry. She was about to call you, when her phone suddenly rang. Without looking on the number, she picked up the phone.

“Y/N?”

She asked hopefully.

“Miss Kim Jennie?”

An unknown voice asked on the other line and Jennie’s heart dropped.

“Yes?”

She answered with a shaky voice.

“Seoul National University Hospital. Do you know Y/N L/N?”

The voice asked with an almost robotic voice and tears started to sting to Jennie’s eyes.

“Yes, we are dating.”

Jennie tried to answer as calmly as possible, but her voice betrayed her and cracked at the end.

“I have to inform you that your significant other has been hospitalized. We ask you kindly to come to the hospital as quickly as possible.”

Jennie’s knees gave in to her weight and she sunk to the couch slowly, burying her face into her hand.

“Wha... Why? What happened?”

She stammered and she could hear paper rustling on the other side.

“I can’t give you exact information. All I know is that your significant other has been involved in a car accident and is currently on the wait for an emergency surgery.”

Surgery? This meant that you didn’t only have a few scratches. Jennie wanted to curl up into a ball and cry, but then she remembered that you needed her right now. She leaped to her feet and ended the call, putting on some shoes before running out of the building without even taking a jacket with her.

The storm was still bad, but she didn’t care, speeding to the hospital to be by your side as quickly as possible. She stumbled to the front desk, not caring about the other people already waiting in line.

“Y/N L/N.”

She panted breathlessly, earning herself a few strange gazes from the other people around her, but she didn’t care.

“The patient was admitted not too long ago and should be in surgery right now.”

She clarified, so that the lady behind the desk could give her the information she needed. She glanced at her critically.

“Are you the emergency contact?”

She asked and Jennie almost lost her patience.

“Yes. Kim Jennie is my name. Please just give me the information.”

Jennie sounded desperate, but she needed to know how and where you were.

Although she still seemed to be skeptical, the lady started looking through the database and finally gave Jennie the number of your operating room and the name of your physician in charge. Not caring about the etiquette, Jennie sprinted to the elevators without saying another word.

As soon as she was standing in front of the operating room, she started pacing again, because there was nobody in sight. Apparently, the universe was against her today. The uncertainty went on for another 15 minutes until a nurse finally left the room.

“Excuse me! Please! Stop!”

Jennie almost tackled the nurse, in desperate need for any sign of life from you.

“Yes?”

The nurse asked confused.

“Are you treating Y/N L/N?”

Jennie knew that she sounded like a crazy person right now, because her whole body was shaking, and her voice was hoarse from all the crying.

“Yes. Are you the emergency contact?”

The nurse asked with concern in her eyes.

“Yes. Please can you tell me how Y/N is?”

Jennie was ready to do anything if the nurse would only give her some information. She couldn’t lose you. You were the only thing that she needed in life. The nurse looked hesitant but reached for her hand eventually.

“I think it’s better if we sit down for this.”

She had pity in her eyes and new tears started to run down Jennie’s cheeks. She wasn’t dumb. She knew when she was put off. Put off because no one liked to be the messenger for bad news.

“Your partner is still in surgery. And I want to be honest with you. It doesn’t look too good. Because of the collision, some rips have been broken. Which wouldn’t be life threatening under normal circumstances. But the lung has been punctured in the process causing blood to get into the lung. Therefore, the right lung has collapsed. We’re trying to get everything to work again like it’s supposed to. But I can’t make any promises.”

The nurse ran her hand in circles on Jennie’s back to comfort her, but nothing could help her right now. You were fighting for your life right behind this wall and you were losing. Sobs were shaking Jennie’s body violently and she felt like losing consciousness.

“Can we call somebody to take care of you?”

The nurse ripped her out of her hysteria and Jennie shook her head. Who should they call? She was just losing the only person that managed to catch her in her darkest times. The only thing the nurse could do for her right now, was to safe your life. Jennie abruptly got up, wrapping her own arms around her body. She heard the nurse calling her, but she needed to keep her body moving. Otherwise, she would lose her mind.

Apathetically she walked the hospital hall up and down countless time, fixing her gaze on the door of the operating room as soon as it opened, but was met with apologetic looks every time. So she kept walking to stop her thoughts from running wild. She was on her 60th round when her torture was ended.

“Ms. Kim?”

She could suddenly hear a voice behind her and Jennie ripped her head around so fast that she felt dizzy for a second.

“Hi. My name is Dr. Choi and I’m the physician in charge of your partner. The surgery is finished. We did everything we could. Now it’s up to Y/N to do the rest.”

He stated with an empathetic look in his eyes.

“Your partner is in the intensive care unit, but you can go down there for a while if you want to.”

Jennie didn’t even wait for the doctor to finish his sentence, before she nodded vigorously. She needed to see you. Even if you were still asleep, she needed you to know that she was by your side. Give you a reason to come back.

She followed the doctor to another wing of the hospital where she had to put on some protective clothing. The doctor led her to a room where you were laying in your bed plugged in to several machines. Jennie couldn’t move a muscle. You looked like you were dead.

“Don’t be afraid. Y/N is just sleeping.”

The doctor encouraged her as if he could read her mind.

Slowly Jennie moved to your bed, where she could see your chest lifting and falling in a steady pace. Hot tears streamed down her face. You were alive.

“Can I?”

Jennie asked while gesturing to your hand and the doctor nodded with a smile, so she softly took your hand in hers.

“Please, Y/N, you have to come back to me.”

Jennie sobbed and collapsed onto the chair next to you.

She buried her head on the bed, letting her tears stream freely.

She stayed in this position for hours, not caring about the nurses that rushed in and out of the room, checking up on you.

“Miss, you have to go. The intensive care unit has strict visiting policies.”

One of the nurses urged her after a while and Jennie looked at her pleadingly.

“Please, just let me stay five more minutes. I want to be there when Y/N wakes up.”

She begged and the nurse clearly pitied her.

“Oh love, I don’t think that Y/N will wake up soon.”

Jennie grabbed your hand tighter, hearing the words of the nurse and the nurse looked at her apologetically, but let her stay a few more minutes, nevertheless.

Jennie observed you closely. Except for your steady breathing, you didn’t move at all. But at least you were breathing. After ten minutes the nurse appeared at the door again and Jennie nodded understandingly, slowly dragging herself to her feet. She felt like she was giving up on you when she left, but she didn’t want to cause a scene either.

She was at the door, taking a last glance back at you when she imagined seeing your head move. Hastily she rushed back to your side.

“Y/N?”

She asked agitated, hovering her face closely above yours. But you looked unchanged. You didn’t react to her touching your arm and your eyes were tightly shut.

Depressed she dragged her feet to the door again, accepting that her mind was already playing tricks on her and ready to let your body recover in peace.

“Jennie?”

Jennie stopped her movements like she was frozen. Was she dreaming or did she just hear your voice rasp? Jennie’s breath hitched in her throat and she slowly turned around.

She could see you fighting to open your eyes and Jennie gasped in relief.

“Oh my god, Y/N.”

She toppled to your bed, resting her hands on both sides of your head.

“Baby can you hear me?”

You grunted silently, needing a while to rip yourself out of your slumber. You were scanning your surroundings, trying to fix your gaze on your girlfriend, but you zoned out over and over again. But Jennie patiently waited, stroking your cheeks and talking softly to you. Eventually you managed to open your eyes completely and Jennie looked at you nervously. Were you really fully conscious? Did you remember her?

“Sorry I didn’t make it to dinner.”

You breathed eventually and Jennie pulled herself on top of your body, laying her head on your chest, crying and laughing at the same time. When she looked at you, you still looked a little drowsily, but she could recognize your look in your eyes. The look that you only gave her. The look that she thought, she would never see again.

“I was so scared.”

Jennie whispered and she could feel your fingers softly brushing against her arm.

“I am sorry.”

You answered silently and Jennie softly pressed her lips on yours.

“You can’t leave me.”

Jennie sobbed once she pulled away and you interlaced your fingers with hers.

“I’ll always come back to you.”

You smiled at her, making her bury her head into the crook of your neck, inhaling your scent and feeling the warmth of your body. It was true. There was blood running through your veins. You were alive. The nightmare was over.

You came back to her.

#blackpink scenario #blackpink #jennie scenario #jennie #girl group scenario #kpop scenario #kpop #femaleidol

196 notes · View notes

yourdeepestfathoms · 4 years

Text

The Crucible (part seven)

[UK Tour; Carrie AU]

Part 1 Part 2 Part 3 Part 4 Part 5 Part 6

Word count: 10,140

TW: Child grooming, abuse, suicidal thoughts

------------------------

-The Time Is Now-

“I just can’t quite figure you out.”

“I’m an enigma.”

“No, you’re just hiding something.”

“I’m not hiding anything.”

“Yeah, you are.”

Katherine sighed and crossed her arms on the table. It was the second day of inspection, a second day full of he said-she said, repeated questions, and Mulaney frantically trying to catch her in a lie. But she held strong, not letting her nerves take over. She had nothing to hide, and there was nothing Mulaney could do to arrest her because there was no evidence of her working with her cousin. She was innocent.

So why didn’t anyone believe her?

“I used to think you were part of Anne Boleyn’s agenda,” Mulaney said, sifting through his notes for the fifth time, like he was hoping some kind of evidence would appear in the pages, “but Thomas Culpeper has pretty much exonerated you.”

“I’m not hiding anything.” Katherine told him firmly. Shouldn’t Thomas saying she had nothing to do with the blood drop be enough?

“It just seems strange to me that you’re not more upset.” Mulaney said.

“It’s been two weeks.” Katherine said. “They’ve had all the funerals. Am I supposed to wear black for the rest of my life?”

“No, that’s not what’s bothering me.” Mulaney said.

“Then what is?” Katherine asked, impatience growing in her voice.

“You just went through the single most traumatic event of your life--knock wood--and you’ve got something more important on your mind.” Mulaney stated.

Katherine shook her head. She looked down at the doughnut that had once again been offered to her that morning, but she didn’t feel hungry. Just the thought of eating made her feel slightly sick.

“You know, I’m not as sorry as people think I should be,” She said. “Usually it’s them saying they’re sorry to me, as if I was the one who suffered. But they expect me to be sorry, too. For myself and everyone who died at the prom. I’m not, though. Not even for Anna. And I know that sounds cruel, but she just seemed more like a daydream that I would wake up from eventually. Most relationships end like that, you know? And I’m definitely not sorry for Anne. A month ago, she was my best friend, even a big sister of sorts, and if you were to tell that version of me that I would hate her guts in just three weeks, I would have laughed you right out of England.”

She paused for a moment, collecting herself. Her eyes stung like she was going to cry, but no tears formed. Because she wasn’t sad- not for any of those people. Not for all her dead friends or cousin or girlfriend.

“But Joan?” Katherine whispered, voice wavering, and the well behind her eyes finally bubbled up with hot tears. It was the first time she was actually close to crying over the Black Prom; she hadn’t been able to at any of the funerals, not even Anna’s or Maria’s, because nobody really deserved it, even the more innocent students. None of them deserved to be wept over after what they did. “Joan I feel sorry for.”

She sucked in a shaky breath, and Madeline passed her a tissue with a sympathetic expression. She took it and wiped her eyes. There was no makeup to smear, there wasn’t a point to have any on, so she rubbed and rubbed until her eyelids felt like they were tearing off of her face.

“They’ve forgotten her, you know?” She spoke up again. Her voice didn’t shake or crack or waver at all, despite her tears. It remained steady and calm. “They’ve made her into some kind of monster. On the way here I heard some kids making up a nursery rhyme about her coming to eat them if they were naughty and singing it while they jumped rope. But Joan wasn’t a monster. She was a human being. She was a little girl. And she was hurt. More than any of us were combined. She was hurt.”

She shook her head, sending the faded pink tips swishing around her tear stained face. She looked up at Mulaney, who appeared slightly stunned at her revelation, and pursed her lips.

“And sometimes I wonder if things would have been different if I had done something sooner. Or if I had just left her alone and didn’t ask Anna to go to prom with her.” She went on. “Too late now, though, right?”

A tight laugh that’s quickly bitten back. Katherine dropped her hands heavily to the tabletop and stared forward. Her eyes stung, laced with red vipers across the faded whites, and her mouth felt dry, but she still spoke again.

“Joan wasn’t a murderer. Or a killer. Or a monster. Those kinds of people kill because they can. They don’t have a reason. And if they do, it’s not a good one. They enjoy what they do.”

Her fingers clenched around her tissue, shredding it in her chewed nails.

“Joan...was an executioner. They kill people who need to be dead. Who shouldn’t be alive after what they’ve done. And me, everyone at that prom... ” She looked up and met Mulaney’s eyes. “We all deserved to die.”

------

It's raining.

The water pouring out of the sky felt dirty before it even hit the ground, gritty and grimy like everything else in this city. It sluiced into the gutters and mixed with only God knows what other filth, lifting and floating discarded food wrappers, newspaper ads, and other bits of refuse. Even a thunderstorm couldn’t wash these streets clean.

The rain pounds over Anna’s trademarked red umbrella, splashing her with stray drops as she half walked, half jogged down the street. A street sign swam up out of the sheeting rain as she neared the corner: 14th and Martin.

She stared stupidly up at the sign for a second, slack-jawed. Her heart, already racing from the adrenaline rush of being caught in a rainstorm, started thudding like a hammer in her chest. A fat, grimy drop of water dripped off the edge of her umbrella and down the back of her neck, breaking her bemusement with a violent shudder.

Great. Just great.

It's prom day, it's raining, and she’s about to be late. And now she’s pretty sure she’s lost.

Bessie was going to kill her.

Taking a deep breath, Anna stepped off the sidewalk and into the street, raising her hand to hail a cab. Her black sneakers soak through immediately, chilling her feet to the bone and making her shiver; they weren’t her nicest pair of shoes, especially given her family’s wealth, but no other footwear deserved to be tormented by being submerged in the hellish current splashing down the street. A discarded newspaper wrapped around her ankle for a second. She glanced down and half the headline--“NEW WEST END MUSICAL: HUGE HIT OR ABSOLUTE DISASTER?”--jumped out at her before the rushing water pulls it off and away toward the gutter.

She didn’t have to wait long before a cheerfully yellow cab flashed its lights at her and pulled to the side of the road. But Anna’s barely taken two steps toward it when a woman steps off the street in front of her, heading for her cab.

Scrambling forward, Anna waved a hand like she would do if she were grabbing the attention of a deaf person and the lady turned to her. Her hawk-like features didn’t intimidate Anna. She just gathered herself up as well, making herself look bigger.

“Please,” She said with as much conviction as she could muster over the downpour. “I'm about to be late to a meeting and I can't afford to wait for another cab.”

The lady looked Anna over skeptically. Her lie must be convincing, perhaps how young she was appealed to emotion, too, because she stepped aside and gestured for the girl to take the cab.

Dripping and cold but victorious, Anna thanked the woman profusely and then slid into the backseat of the cab.

“Twenty-third and Washington,” She told the driver. “As fast as possible, please.”

The cab pulled away from the curb in a muddy wave, weaving in and out of traffic in a way that made Anna decidedly nervous, given the way the cabbie was looking at her in the rear view mirror instead of at the road. She huddled into her wet clothes and watched the windshield wipers flop rhythmically back and forth, trying not to check the time every five seconds.

The radio was tuned to a couple of talking heads debating punishment for animal abuse.

“They’re just animals--” One of them said, but he was interrupted by the other shouting, “They’re living, breathing creatures just like we are. You don’t think they have feelings? Or can feel pain? I think the punishment should fit the crime. If you burn your dog’s head with a cigarette then YOU should be burned, too.”

“What's the big hurry?" The cab driver asked. The car cuts across two lanes to make a sudden right turn, leaving a cacophony of horns and screeching brakes in its wake.

“Today’s prom,” Anna said. “And I'm late for a very mandatory fashion meeting with some friends.”

The cabbie made a sympathetically amused face at the girl in the rear view mirror.

“I hope this fashion show is worth it.” Then, he squinted at her before raising his eyebrows up. “I remember my prom. I got my tux the week before, though. Did you not?”

“My friend, Bessie, REALLY likes getting things the day of so they’ll be ‘fresh’ and ‘new’.” Anna told him, trying not to grab the ceiling handle as the cab started to fishtail in the half-flooded intersection. I asked him to go fast, after all. “Doubt there will be anything left, though.”

The cabbie laughed, rocking his hand back and forth. “You’d be surprised. Lotta people just use their parent’s tuxes or dresses. At least they did when I was in school.”

“This is 23rd,” Anna pointed out when the driver seemed to be about to miss the turn. He wrenched the wheel to the right. The cab hydroplaned through the pool of water that used to be an intersection and for a second it tilted crazily onto two wheels. Anna grabbed for the ceiling handle again and hung onto it with white knuckles, but the cab made the turn and settled back onto all four wheels with a squeaking complaint from the suspension.

The driver grinned at the girl in the rear view mirror. “So, who’s the lucky guy?”

Anna forced her fingers to peel away from the handle, trying to relax. Just a few more blocks. “Her name is Joan.”

His grin doesn’t go away, even when it was revealed that his passenger was gay. That relaxed Anna mentally, but the fear of a possible car crash was still present because this guy wasn’t even pretending to watch the road. Her hand crept back up toward the handle.

“We’re kinda going more as friends, though,” Anna went on. “I have a girlfriend, but I wanted to be nice to this girl. She really deserves a fun night.”

The cabbie nodded. Was that...recognition in his eyes? Did people in this big city even know who Joan Seymour was?

Anna leaned further into the backseat of the cab. The rain slowed, then stopped, but surely just for a moment, knowing England’s awful weather patterns. As the driver turned the final corner, a ray of sun burst through a break in the clouds, glinting off the cracked, slippery sidewalks and flashing rainbows over the oily slicks coating the asphalt. It might be silly, but Anna could feel her heart lift at the sight of that little beam of light.

Then the cab pulled up in front of the prom outfit building, and her heart dropped right back into the hole it just crawled out of.

She could already see Bessie pacing inside, even through the large tinted windows. Her bleached white hair wasn’t exactly hard to miss.

Anna paid the cabbie, internally wincing at the cost of the fare, and stepped out of the cab, stumbling a little to avoid the muddy puddle lapping gently at the curb cut. The few steps between the edge of the street and the storefront--“Aria Bridal and Formal Wear” was what the giant letters above the front doors said--suddenly seem like an impassable distance. She rolled her shoulders uncomfortably, not enjoying the feeling of being all soggy. It stopped raining for the moment, but her jacket was still damp and it scraped wetly against the back of her neck as she walked.

Finally, the threshold was crossed and Anna was inside. The chill of the AC crept into her bones and the clean, crisp smell of the building tickled her nose. Everything looked so refined, even the workers, with their sparkling jewelry and ironed blazers and precise makeup.

And then there was Bessie, a bleached bundle of impatient rage.

“Where have you been?!” The girl squawked, getting after Anna instantly. “You were supposed to be here at 10! It’s now--” She checked her watch, only to realize she didn’t wear a watch and had to pull out her phone. “--10:34!!”

As hilarious as Bessie’s tantrum was, it was causing a slight scene, so Anna covered her mouth and began pulling her over to where some of their other friends were sitting, already trying on humorously large top hats that no self-respecting person would possibly ever wear to their school prom. Lara Knight, August McCarthy, Ari Carter, Violet Rodgers, and Nicola Duran, all looking like the epitome of high schoolers getting ready for prom.

“Sorry,” Anna said, uncovering Bessie’s mouth when they got to the corner. “I had to park my car in a parking garage because there were literally no other places to park. And then I got lost.” She ran her fingers through her wet hair, ruffling the curls. “God, I hate London.”

“You can say that again,” August McCarthy agreed. Beady blue eyes like sapphires in a dark cave peer out from under the wide rim of a feathered top hat, blinking curiously at Anna’s dripping form. Their hair was done in a style much too complicated for Anna to try and pick apart, but she did have to wonder what kind of tux could possibly go with the clash of purple and teal and red-brown aside from simple black.

“God, I hate--”

A hand was slapped over Anna’s mouth.

“It was a statement, not granted permission.” August said. They pulled their hand away and went back to pruning themselves in one of the full-body mirrors.

It wasn’t long before they all dove into the world of fancy party clothes, striking outrageous poses and yelping over the prices over some of the clothing.

“95 pounds for a single tux?” Ari Carter yawped, bug-eyeing the white suit they were holding. Their short brown hair was puffed up around their lean, warm face like a chocolate-covered dandelion. There was always something puzzling about them, perhaps it was a feeling of mischief or perhaps it was simply just their personality. But nonetheless, people tend to stay on their good side, while learning as much about them as possible. “God, I better get laid.”

“You’ve been praying for that since Year 9,” Nicola Duran called idly, not looking away from two yellow dresses she was comparing together, but Anna was sure she was smirking to herself. Ari glowered in her direction.

“Well, yeah,” They muttered to themselves. “It’s the least someone could do after I drain my entire bank account on a shirt.”

“I’ve got bigger plans, honey,” Nicola declared, tossing back thick locks of long brown hair over her shoulder and assessing how sunflower yellow went with the shade. “I’ll be gone from this stupid island by the final week of May.”

“Really?” Violet Rodgers raised an eyebrow, looking slightly skeptical. “And where will you be going?”

“I don’t know,” Nicola shrugged. “Paris?”

“I hear people pee in the streets, there.” Lara Knight put in helpfully, to which Nicola flung the dress she was holding into her face and making her fall backwards out of her chair. “Oi! Rude!”

“I could have gone without hearing that.” Nicola snapped.

“Well, sorry!”

Anna laughed and shook her head at her friend's banter. She moved over to some tuxes hanging up, which August was already going through very carefully.

“You know,” She said, “nothing is going to go with that dinosaur earring.”

August’s hand instantly shot up to their right ear, tentatively touching the glittering green stegosaurus earring they were wearing like they were making sure it was still there. They ruffled, glaring at Anna.

“It’s COOL!” They barked. “God, you are SO RUDE! I don’t even know if I WANT to go anymore!”

“Oh no!” Ari whipped around, sending the train of a rose gold dress they were holding right into Violet’s face. They don’t pay any mind to her sputtering. “No way! You’re going!”

“Anna has demoralized me.” August said.

“I gave constructive criticism.” Anna defended herself coolly.

“You were MEAN!”

“I am very sorry.” Anna said, putting a hand on her heart. “You’re right. Your fashion sense is very cool.”

August arched their eyebrows at Anna’s golden hoop earrings and impressively realistic fake ruby-encrusted choker and then turned their nose up haughtily. Anna snorted.

“I couldn’t imagine not going to prom,” Lara said. “After not eating since yesterday? And paying so much money for the tickets and preparations?” She shook her head. “It would be a nightmare.”

“Wait--” Nicola said. “Back up. You haven’t eaten since yesterday? Why?”

Lara laughed. “I don’t know!”

“Oh to be one of the girls who jams her fingers down her throat to prepare for prom,” Violet said wistfully, having recovered from being momentarily suffocated by the dress. “That’s a joke. I’m joking. Why would anyone do that?” She shook her head, laughed, and bounded over to some iridescent scarves. “Do you think these go with my skin? Or dress? I already bought it. It’s royal blue.”

“I can’t believe you missed the chance to wear a violet one,” August criticized.

“Oh, now who’s the rude one?” Anna said and smirked cheekily when August stuck their tongue out at her.

“I think they do!” Bessie said. She had been thoughtfully silent for a while, completely focused on finding the right dress, but finally decided to take a break and join the chitchat. “Here, let me help you with that.”

She padded over to Violet and helped her drape the silky scarves around her neck and chest and arms. They rippled in glittering rainbow shades against her tanned skin.

“You two are HOPELESS!” Nicola barked. She bundled Bessie out of the way and began rearranging the scarf herself. “Haven’t you ever worn a decorative scarf before? They can’t hang this way or else it’ll be hard to move your arms. And, besides, everyone knows a double wrap around the neck is most flattering.”

Anna, August, Ari, and Lara all burst into laughter as Bessie blinked and Violet held still so Nicola could “properly” adjust the scarf.

“There!” Nicola stood back, admiring her handiwork with a nod of triumph.

“It looks exactly the same.” Bessie observed.

“That’s because you’re gay and have no fashion sense.” Nicola said, bopping her on the nose. She glided back over to the yellow dresses.

“It’s true,” Lara nodded vigorously. “Gays don’t have any fashion sense.”

“Bottoms don’t, either,” Ari added. “Which you are also.”

Anna, August, and Violet nodded in agreement.

“I am not!” Bessie cried. “And I do too have a fashion sense!”

“You nearly threw a fit when that mom character in the school play last fall wore Birkenstocks with a white nightgown,” Anna pointed out.

“BECAUSE THEY DON’T GO TOGETHER!!!” Bessie warbled. “BROWN DOES NOT GO WITH WHITE! AND YOU DON’T WEAR BIRKENSTOCKS IF YOU ARE POOR!!!”

“Sweetie, white goes with everything.” Lara said.

“NOT WITH THAT SHADE OF BROWN!”

There was another loud uproar of giggles. Anna hoped they weren’t causing any disruption or annoying the staff too much.

“Let’s try to keep it down, guys.” She told her friends.

“Oh, Anna,” Violet said. “You eternally sweet female himbo.”

“Excuse me?” Anna snapped.

“Wouldn’t that just be a bimbo?” August said.

“On a different note!” Nicola said loudly, glancing up from a golden dress embroidered with indigo designs over the bust. “Did you guys hear the news? Anne Boleyn really isn’t going to prom.”

There was an immediate swell of cooing interest. Anna chuckled and shook her heads at their constant intrigue in piping hot new tea.

“Really?” Ari said, slightly disbelieved. “I thought she would have, like, sued the entire school board or something.”

“I heard she tried.” Lara said.

“Think she’ll crash it?” Violet asked. “The prom, I mean.”

“It’s Anne.” August said. “You never know with her.”

“Okay, now I REALLY want to point out the elephant in the room,” Lara said. She turned to Anna, and everyone copied. “Anna. Are you really taking Scary Seymour to prom?”

Anna looked up at them from the tux she had been examining. She’s been expecting this topic for a while, but was surprised it came later than she imagined.

“I know it sounds a little crazy,” She said. “But yes. I am.”

“Have you lost your freaking mind?” August gaped.

“Yeah!” Bessie nodded. “If you were that desperate, you should have just asked me!”

They all stared at her in silence, blinking. Bessie flushed.

“What?” She choked out. “Joking!” And then she slapped Anna’s butt and hurried away to another rack of dresses in embarrassment.

“Bottom,” Ari whispered as she went by.

“Anyway,” Anna said. “Kat asked me to, so I said yes. That’s all there is to it, really.”

They all (except Bessie, who was hiding her bright red face in between two purple dresses) looked a little skeptical, but let the topic go.

“Alright,” Nicola shrugged. “Oooo, let’s go look at the jewelry!”

“Ugh, jewelry,” August groaned.

“Dinosaur earring.” Anne reminded them.

“Shut up!!”

“You make it too easy!”

------

Back in Oxford, it was drizzling again by five that evening. The sound was soothing, but Katherine could tell the white noise was doing little to calm Maria’s nerves.

“Will you stop fidgeting?” Katherine scolded lightly from above her friend’s head. She was helping her style her hair in a very intricate bun, fit with braids and curls and a bedazzled orange clip, but Maria was making it very difficult to do so by the way she kept jittering in her chair. “I’m gonna accidentally pull your hair if you don’t. Or maybe I’ll just do it on purpose. We’ll see.”

“Sorry!” Maria said. “I’m just excited! And nervous.”

“I can tell,” Katherine laughed slightly. “Who were you going with again? William...William Wallow…”

“William Willoughby,” Maria sighed dreamily.

Katherine chuckled at her on-cloud-nine expression. She vaguely knew about the boy she was talking about. He was in her Astronomy class, tall and elegantly handsome with the aloof expression Maria always seemed to fall for. He seemed nice enough from the brief times they had spoken, but so had Richard Mathhews before he cheated on Maria, and Carlos Sanchez before he dumped Maria, and Issac Fisher before he cheated on AND dumped Maria, and--

“Agh, don’t make the face!!” Maria cried, slapping at Katherine’s hands. “I can SEE YOU thinking about all the ways this relationship could go wrong!”

“I am not!” Katherine said, even though she sort of was. Maria wasn’t exactly the best at love, so she just wanted to look out for her.

“You are too!” Maria barked. “This guy is the one this time, Kat! I’m telling you! He’s the one I’m going to marry!”

That’s what she said about Dalton Green…

“Aren’t we a little young to get married?” Katherine pointed out.

“I meant after college and stuff, dummy.” Maria clarified. “After we spend years and years together, realizing we can never live without one another and being so happy…” She sighed blissfully.

Katherine chuckled lightly, twisting together another braid. “If you say so.” She said.

“I did.” Maria said firmly. Then, she sighed, snapping out of her lovestruck giddiness. “I still can’t believe you’re not going…”

“Oh, come on, Mars,” Katherine said. “Cheer up. It’s just one night.”

“I know, but I wanted to go with you!” Maria said. “I wanted us to hang out with all our friends and have fun and be all wild, but now that you’re not going…” She trailed off with another sigh.

Katherine hadn’t thought of it like that until that moment. She didn’t realize how many people she was letting down by not going.

Too late now, she supposed.

“Don’t let William hear you say that,” She tried to joke to cheer Maria up. It worked slightly, because Maria cracked a small smile. “You’ll have fun.”

“Can’t I sneak you in?” Maria asked.

Katherine laughed. “I don’t want you not going, either, because you got kicked out for trying to smuggle me in.” She finished the bun and stepped back. “There! Now you’re gonna have fun AND look amazing!”

Maria’s smile grew a little bit bigger. She got up from the chair she was seated in, her long orange dress flowing around her, and pivoted in front of the mirror in Katherine’s room, examining herself from all sides. Then, she turned to Katherine with a smile that was finally full.

“Thanks, Kat,” She said. “You’re the best!”

Katherine smiled back at her. “Tell me something I don’t already know!”

“So, what are you going to do with your prom dress?” Maria asked, finally done inspecting herself. She began eyeing all of Katherine’s jewelry and Katherine waved a hand for her to go pick whatever she wanted. She lunged at a golden necklace instantly.

“I’m not sure yet.” Katherine admitted, sitting down on her bed. “Pay my sister back? I feel kind of bad for making her go get it made specially for me, only to not wear it. But maybe I can wear it during a graduation party? Or, I dunno, during your wedding?”

“With William,” Maria sighed happily. “How did your family react to that, anyway? You not going to prom, I mean.”

“Oh,” Katherine said, vividly remembering sharing the news at dinner and having all her siblings look at her like there were elephants parading out of their ears. “They were as shocked as everyone else, but understood my motives. They thought it was nice of me to do this for Joan.”

“It’s like you’re doing charity.” Maria said.

Katherine wrinkled her nose. She didn’t like when it was put like that.

“I guess.” She said uncomfortably, furrowing her eyebrows. “Anyway.” She shook her shoulders out like she was shaking off sticky cobwebs. “Just because I’m not going to prom doesn’t mean I can’t go to after parties. Also, that green does not go with your dress.” And Anne gave them to me, so wearing them to prom may be a bit weird, her mind went on.

Maria looked down at the green earrings in her hand, then set them down. There was hope in her eyes when she turned her head back to Katherine.

“Really?” She asked.

“Yes, really,” Katherine answered. “If I’m awake, then maybe we can go out after prom. Or we can get the gang together and go do something tomorrow. Party at my house! To make up for me not being at the real prom!”

That made Maria absolutely radiant. “Yeah!” She said excitedly. “That would be amazing! Our own mini prom!”

“Exactly.” Katherine beamed. “But make sure you still have fun tonight. And don’t do anything too crazy.”

“Crazy? Me? Really, Kat?” Maria drew herself up, trying to look very mature, but the effect was muddled by the six necklaces she was trying to fit over her head at the same time. “Please. Nothing will happen.”

Katherine chuckled. “I’m sure you’re right.”

But she wasn’t. By the time Katherine realized this, it was too late. Looking back, she wondered if she jinxed it somehow. Because that was the last conversation she ever had with her good friend.

------

Joan almost cried when she put on her dress for the first time. It was the most beautiful thing she’s ever seen before and was perfect in every way. Pale flamingo pink, with a soft, cross-folded bust that revealed the tops of her breasts ever so slightly and a loosely flowing skirt that reached down to her shins. She particularly liked the long, off-the-shoulder open sleeves, which hung below her elbows like silken moth wings. She couldn’t help but gleefully flap them a few times, imagining that she was actually flying away into a new life.

(pretty pretty pretty pretty)

Judgement watched her from her circular wool carpet. He was smaller so he could fit in her bedroom, but still had his menacing bladed tail and radio voicebox. His broken glass eyes glittered in intrigue in the candlelight when Joan twirled in front of him.

“How do I look?” She asked.

Judgement’s jaw creaked open and he said in a thick French voice, “Pretty.”

Joan giggled. “Thank you, J!” She patted his head, then sat down at her desk, where she had various makeup items set up. She bought them when she was at the department store two days ago, including the dark pink lipstick Katherine Howard had recommended for her. Remembering what the older girl had said, she carefully began applying it to her lips.

Then, the doorknob turned and Mama stepped inside.

In spite of herself, Joan hunched her shoulders in. Even with her newfound powers, Mama still struck fear into her so easily. She flexed something in her mind and Judgement slithered over protectively.

“I should have known it would be red,” Mama muttered.

“It’s pink, Mama.” Joan said.

“I can see your dirty pillows.” Mama went on. Her voice was raspy and distant, disconnected from the rest of her body. “Everyone will.”

“They’re breasts, Mama.” Joan said. “All girls have them. They’re very fashionable these days.”

“Stay here instead, Joan.” Mama strode across the room, her steps frantic and urgent. “Just--just tell me what’d you like to do! We can talk and laugh and I can even sing your favorite song to you. Just don’t leave. Stay here.”

“I’m going, Mama.”

“That girl doesn’t care about you, Joan. Not at all.”

“She’ll be here at 7:30. Now I need to get ready.”

Joan had hoped that would ward off her mother, but that was just wishful thinking. Mama got closer, her eyes wide and flashing. She looked absolutely mad.

“She’s going to just build you up to watch you fall,” Mama told her, her words like snakes in Joan’s ears. “Those people are not your friends, Joan. They don’t know you.”

“What if they like me?” Joan said.

“They’re going to tear you apart, Joan. Just like your father. When they’re done, they’re going to throw you away like garbage.” Mama continued. There was something terribly wrong about the way she spoke and the way she stared at nothing with dead fish eyes.

“They might like me.” Joan said, then more confident, “They’ll like me.”

“You’re such a fool!!”

Joan flinched back, scattering a few makeup items across the desk in fright and nearly tipping out of her chair. Judgement riled up with a flex of her mind, rattling his tail on the floor. Mama settled her tight facial features quickly.

“Joan.” She said softly. She took another step forward and cupped Joan’s cheeks. “Don’t you know how people are? They take you and break you and rape you and then they will leave you.” Her nails lightly graze down Joan’s jawline. “But me? Oh, I would never… I’m the only one who loves you. I’m the only one who will ever understand you. Nobody else cares about you, Joan. You know that. You’ll only ever be a monster to all the others.”

Joan fought to stay out of the trance, but those words were like a sedative curse that numbed her brain. She couldn’t think straight when she heard them. Mama has said them so many times that she didn’t know how to think otherwise.

And then, Mama’s hands began to glide down her chest, pinching and groping and caressing, her mouth growing closer to her tender neck, breath so hot against her skin, and she shoved her away. Judgement got in between them instantly, hissing static.

“Don’t touch me like that, Mama,” Joan said uncomfortably, hugging her arms around her breasts. “I-I don’t like it. It’s bad.”

“Oh?” Mama said. “Your clothes say otherwise, my dear. Isn’t that what you want? To be touched and loved? You don’t need to go out for that, Joan. I can give it to you here, if you just stay with me.”

“No, Mama!” Joan said, shaking her head furiously. Those words made her feel sick to her stomach, like she was about to throw up. “Please, Mama, please stop talking like that… I don’t like it. I just wanted to look pretty, like all the other girls. Miss Aragon said I am. Why can’t you be like her?”

Anger flashed in Mama’s eyes. Joan whimpered, guarding her breasts with her arms. Judgement hissed again, rattling his tail as a warning.

“Don’t. Try anything. Woman.” His words garbled together to say.

“Take off that dress, Joan.” Mama ordered.

“No.” Joan said. She turned back to her small mirror and makeup. Maybe if she just ignored her mother then she would go away…

“I don’t want to lose you, Joan.” Mama went on, not taking the hint. “Joan, don’t you see? You were the love I was betrayed for. My pride and my shame.”

(pride and shame Mama was forced to have me but Mama still loves me)

(Mama doesn’t love me Mama touches me)

(love that’s love that’s love that’s love)

(don’t like Mama’s love Mama’s love makes me feel weird and bad and sick)

“You’re making me nervous, Mama!” Joan said miserably. Her hand was shaking badly as she tried to put on some light pink eyeshadow that she hoped went with her skin tone. “Stop it, please. I really, really need to get ready.”

“Take off the dress so we can burn it,” Mama said, her eyes sparkling in an insanely overzealous way, like she was getting a thrill out of this. “We’ll do penance… Yes, yes. Together, on our knees, we’ll pray for forgiveness. We’ll incinerate that damned thing and pray. Together… Together…”

Joan grit her teeth. A headache bloomed in her temples, dull, but pounding like a hammer. She wanted to claw her ears off.

“Mama, go away!” She snapped. She smeared a glimmered line of eyeshadow across her left eyelid and reached for a tissue, rubbing it off roughly. “You’re making me mess up! I need to look pretty so the other kids will like me!”

“No, no, no, no--” Mama shook her head, rocking back and forth on her heels. “They won’t, Joan. They won’t. They never do. Nobody likes you. Only me. Only I love you, my sweet baby girl…” She laughed in a deep, sensual way that made Joan’s stomach churn. “Only I’m allowed to hold you. Only I’m allowed to feel your soft skin. You’re mine, Joan, all mine. And I love you more than anyone ever will.”

Joan glared at her reflection in the mirror. All she had on was lipstick and a very light coating of eyeshadow over her eyelids. The bags under her eyes could still be seen. Her cheeks were still hollow. Some of the lingering bruising on her jaws could definitely be covered some more. She had to put more makeup on.

She picked up some foundation and blush with a shaking hand. The fluffy brush was soft against her skin and tickled slightly. She focused on that sensation, and not the awful lingering feeling of her mother’s hands grazing her breasts.

Mama watched her, expression twitching. Then, she hooked her fingers into claws and dragged them down her face, bringing streaks of bright red blood. She scratched and she scratched, moaning at the ceiling and swaying back and forth. And Joan sat there in front of her, unable to breathe, listening as tears welled up in her eyes.

(i’m hurting her i’m hurting her i’m hurting her this is my fault my fault she’s sad and hurt and upset because of me i’m the problem it’s my fault)

“Mama, stop it!”

Mama’s hands froze. The nails were snagged in one of the many scratches she managed to open up, trailing blood around the fingertips. Her eyes were even wider, like they always got when Joan used her powers around or on her.

“Witch…” Mama whispered, tongue like lead.

“Please don’t call me that, Mama,” Joan pleaded. “And please don’t hurt yourself. You know it’s not going to make me stay.”

She released her mother from her telekinetic grip and sniffled, blinking back the tears. She turned back to the makeup and finished applying the blush, leaving her usually-leached cheeks all pretty and rosy. A tiny smile cracked to her lips for just the briefest moment.

“They’re gonna laugh at you.” Mama said. “They’re all gonna laugh at you. They always have.”

Joan squeezed her eyes shut. Judgement’s wooden body creaked and shuddered. He wouldn’t stop hissing out static.

“I’m gonna have to tell that girl,” Mama went on. “I’m gonna tell her your father took me and you were born of sin. That you’re a creature of darkness, a spawn of Sat--”

“You will say nothing, Mama!” Joan yelled. The entire house seemed to shake around them, the old wood creaking and groaning. The candle on Joan’s desk flickered and flared, the flame wreathing into the air and forming a small snake.

For just a moment, mother and daughter stared at each other in silence.

“Washed in the Blood of the Lamb,” Mama then whispered. “Many times. Many times he and I--”

“Leave me alone, Mama!”

Mama looked into Joan’s eyes, and there was a terrifying expression on her face. The tiny fire snake lashed in the air with Joan’s growing fear.

“The Lord is not mocked.” Mama said. “Be sure your sin will find you out. The worst sin. A man or a woman who was a witch among you was to be put to death. You are to stone them.” She shook her head wildly, sending tassels of tangled blonde hair whirling through the air. She lunged forward and grabbed Joan’s forearms with her bloody fingernails digging in. “Burn it, Joan! Cast that devil’s read from you and burn it! Burn it! Burn it! BURN IT!”

The bedroom door slammed open by itself. Judgement roared garbled radio static. The fire viper crackled. Joan shook her head.

“No, Mama! I’m going!”

Mama squeezed her forearms tighter and smiled a bloody smile. Her face was red with that blood, dripping and dribbling and drooling. Her expression was so very twisted, but there was something lustful about her insane golden brown eyes.

“As Jezebel fell from the tower, let it be with you.” She leaned forward and sloppily kissed Joan’s forehead, leaving a bloodied print of her hungry lips. “And the dogs came and licked up the blood. It’s in the Bible! They want your blood! Your blood!”

She began to slide backwards without moving her legs. Still, she screamed.

“He can smell the sin on you, Joan! They all will! They will know your name and know the sin you bear!” She howled.

She’s dragged out into the hallway. She grabbed the door frame tightly, but invisible hands pried her fingers away.

“They will all know, wretched devil!”

“I love you, Mama,” Joan whispered. Tears trickled down her cheeks.

“JOAN!!”

The door slammed shut. Mama was released from the telekinetic grip and pounded on it, but Joan kept it closed tightly. After half an hour, Mama gave up. Joan heard her stomp down the stairs and go out the front door.

(goodbye Mama)

Joan sniffled, bottom lip quivering. She looked in her small tabletop mirror and saw that her makeup was being washed away by her tears. She had to reapply it before Anna got there in thirty minutes.

(hurry hurry need to be pretty)

(not enough time gonna be late)

(Anna will be mad)

A shiny glossing of lipstick, a faint dusting of blush, a light coating of eyeshadow. When she was finished, she didn’t think she looked good enough, certainly not for Anna von Cleves, but it would have to do.

She had twenty minutes.

Joan stood up and walked over to the dresser, where she had some jewelry waiting. A light pink bracelet, a rose gold necklace, and her personal favorite item, a beautiful flower crown. She delicately set it on her head, making sure not to mess up her neatly-combed hair, and then managed to smile at her reflection in the mirror.

(pretty)

She went downstairs. Judgement and the fire viper followed her. They both watched her as she put on her pale pink flats and then promptly began pacing around the house.

She checked the Black Forest cuckoo clock. It was 7:17.

(she’ll be here in twenty-three minutes)

Would she?

What if Mama was right? What if Anna didn’t come? What if this was all a joke just to humiliate her? What if she was left waiting all night in her pretty dress and faint makeup and slowly-wilting flower crown?

How would she recover from that?

Simple. She wouldn’t. She wouldn’t be able to go on if Anna didn’t come.

She’s considered it many times before. Suicide. She learned that word at school. The slaughtering of one’s self. Knowing it sent a strange thrill through her.

(a devil dying at a devil hand wouldn’t you like that Mama)

She doesn’t know how she would do it. Maybe with the butcher knife Mama tried to cut her tongue out with. She would slice down her arms like she was gutting a fish, like those kids in her Geography class had one joked about, severing every vein so death would be for sure. Or maybe she would turn her dress into a noose (once she learned how to tie one) and hang herself from the roof. Would she die instantly from a broken neck or would she be strangled for several minutes? Would her lightweight body be heavy enough or would she have to swing there and gag until her lungs gave out? Or maybe she could drown herself in the bathtub or drink all the cleaning chemicals under the kitchen sink or eat glass and slowly choke to death on her own blood. Maybe she could set fire to the house and sit in the den, sipping a cup of her favorite tea, letting the flames be her fury, burning and charring and devouring everything about this cursed bungalow that held all her suffering and agony. Then, finally, she would be at peace.

7:27

(three minutes)

Joan sat down at the couch, which was frayed and a little torn from her using it for Judgement’s large body, then instantly stood up again, too anxious to sit. She resumed pacing, trying to keep her breathing steady, trying to keep her nerves from taking over.

(it’s okay she’s coming she’ll be here)

7:28

Judgement watched her carefully. She turned to him, then the tiny flaming snake. She flexed something in her mind and watched as the fire shifted and expanded to form a more bird-like shape. An eagle. Like in Anna’s poem.

7:29

Restless, she began lifting things in the house. First, Mama’s throne chair, then the lamp, then the firewood, then the coffee table. They floated weightlessly in the air, like poised asteroids in outer space.

She was still amazed by her powers. She could raise all these objects, have Judgement summoned, and create an animal out of fire, and not be tired at all. Her heart was beating rapidly and she was sweating and she could feel her body getting lighter as calories and carbs and sugars and fats were burned, but there was so sign of a kickback for using her ability.

She was Powerful.

7:30

The cuckoo popped out of the clock and chirped loudly.

Joan turned to the front door, holding her breath.

Thirty seconds pass. No knock. She went to the window and peeked out. No cars. No Anna.

(it’s okay she’ll be here)

(no no no no no no no no no no no)

Joan paced again. More furniture raised around her. She walked into the dining room, where the table wobbled treacherously in the air, and snatched the flower crown from its surface. The petals were pure white and blood red, coiled together with precise weavings of ivy and pulled from the sides of the house. She made it herself, like her own.

For Anna.

7:32

(not coming she’s not coming she’s out with her friends laughing at you)

Joan couldn’t breathe. Tears were welling up in her eyes. Her chest felt like it was about to burst open.

She paced again. Her legs were weak, knees knocking together like silver spoons. She thought she may collapse or faint completely.

7:33

7:34

7:35

7:36

“She’s not coming,” Joan whimpered miserably, a tear slipping down her cheek.

She should have known. How could she be so stupid? Mama was right.

(i’ll just wreck the house then)

Yes… She imagined that. Furniture flying through windows. The pipes being ripped out of place and still squirting. The walls breaking open like the scab over a strained wound. The roof blowing off the top.

(yes yes yes yes)

Joan gripped Anna’s flower crown tightly, crinkling the petals. Judgement and the fire eagle were both growing bigger, swelling up with her increasing power and emotions. She wanted to bring this whole house down until there was nothing left. She wanted to make the damned place pay for everything that has happened to her within its walls. She wanted to--

7:41

A knock at the door.

Joan whipped around. Everything around her crashed to the ground. Judgment fell apart. The fire eagle burned out into harmless smoke.

Anna was here.

Joan wiped her eyes quickly, being careful as to not mess up her makeup. She smoothed out the petals on the flower crown, hoping it wouldn’t be completely ruined.

“Hello?” Anna called from outside.

“O-one minute!” Joan called back, her voice squeaking.

“Are you okay?”

“I-I’m fine!” Joan said while frantically looking around at all the ransacked furniture around her. She tripped over a chair and was nearly sent sprawling, but was able to steady herself. “I-I’ll be right there!”

She checked herself one last time, then took a deep breath, removed the silver cross necklace from around her neck, and opened the door.

There she was. Anna von Cleves, in a blindingly white tuxedo with a red bowtie and black dress pants.

“So, did your ceiling just, like, collapse or something?” She asked.

Glass shattered from somewhere behind Joan.

“Yes. Yes, my ceiling just collapsed. Just now.” She answered.

“Woah. Can I see it?”

“...No.”

Joan stepped out of the house fully, locking the door behind her. She went to say something to Anna, to ask her if she looked alright, but the long, shiny white car in the street distracted her from doing so.

A limo. Anna got a limo. For them. For her.

She couldn’t breathe. Her heart was beating so fast she could hear it in her ears. Tears were welling up in her eyes. She could see Anna grinning brightly from the corner of her vision.

Anna leapt forward and down the porch. She walked through the unkept lawn and opened the door to the limo with a grand wave of her arm. Joan couldn’t help but smile widely as she walked over, feeling like an actual princess for the first time in her life.

“You look really beautiful.” Anna said. There was honesty in her eyes. She was telling the truth.

(i am pretty)

“Thank you,” Joan choked out, her voice strangled with emotions. Anna chuckled and wiped away a tear threatening to fall down her cheek with her thumb.

“Do you want your corsage?” Anna asked.

Joan only then saw that she was holding a bracelet of flowers- a corsage, apparently. It was puffy and made out of beautiful tea roses that matched Joan’s dress.

“Yes please,” She answered, holding out her wrist. Anna clipped it on and she took a moment to admire how pretty it was. “I-I made you this.” She held up the flower crown, then immediately prepared to be laughed at, but Anna’s eyes lit up.

“Oh!” She said. “Like yours!”

“Y-yeah,” Joan said shyly.

“Oh, hell yeah! Put it on!” Anna ducked her head and Joan put the flower crown on her with the precision of a steward coronating a new heir to the royal throne. She stood up straight again, fixing her hair for a moment, then looked at Joan. “How do I look?”

“Very handsome,” Joan told her honestly. “Like a druid empress.”

Anna didn’t think this was at all strange, unlike other people would have. In fact, she seemed a little bashful and very, very proud. She flicked some hair over her shoulder and fluffed herself up importantly, adjusting her bowtie.

“Anna von Cleves,” She said in a deep, sophisticated voice. “Druid empress and lover of women.”

Joan covered her mouth and burst into giggles. Anna looked delighted at making her laugh.

“After you,” Anna said, gesturing for the open door.

Joan slid into the limo, amazed at how nice and big and fancy it was. Anna closed her door and then came around the other side and got in. Then, they were off to what Joan could only think was paradise and the best night of her entire life.

------

“I’m gonna pull the rope when they play the school song.”

Cathy turned her head and looked at Anne. They were sitting in her girlfriend’s G-Wagen at the back of the high school, waiting. Bright lights could be seen glowing from the top of the building, bleeding over the roof. The car still smelled like blood and guts. Cathy had told Anne to spray it down with something, but her girlfriend refused. She was starting to think she liked the smell.

“When the bucket goes, run.” Anne told her. Her voice was disconnected and low, but there was a diseased light lit up behind her eyes. A small smile pulled tightly on her blood red lips. “Don’t stick around for a reaction.”

Cathy wanted to shake her head, but knew Anne would probably see her. That girl was like a serpent, always watching, always knowing everything.

They had met at a pub on Anne’s eighteenth birthday. Something about the drunk-out-of-her-mind teenager was so endearing to Cathy at the time. If she had known that same teenager would turn out to be into hematolagnia and be perfectly okay with killing innocent animals, then she wouldn’t have bought her all those drinks and slept with her the same night.

“They’re more your crowd than mine,” She said gruffly. “No reason to stick around and watch the madness.”

“Wish we could, though,” Anne said with a sigh. “I bet it’s going to look amazing. I’ll have to text Maggie to record it for me.”

Cathy tried not to shudder. She could easily imagine Anne getting off to a video like that. A poor bitch getting dumped with three-day-old pig blood and guts. Anne could get more pleasure out of that than anything Cathy has ever done to her in bed.

God. This felt so wrong. The girl they were doing this to was only fifteen. And she seemed tortured enough by everything Anne had told her. Was this really necessary?

It seemed it was. There was no talking Anne out of this. Cathy was roped into her scheme, trapped in her web, and there was no way of getting out now. She had her chance to run. She didn’t take it.

“If you get caught and you even mention my name,” Cathy whispered into the darkness, voice quivering slightly, “I’ll kill you.”

Anne snorted. Cathy clenched her fingers into shaking fists in her lap. The smell of blood was starting to make her queasy. She wanted to roll down a window.

“I’m serious, Anne.” She said, steadying her voice. “I mean it. This isn’t some schoolyard prank, this is criminal assault. We could go to jail for this.”

“Okay,” Anne said with a laugh. “Calm your tits, will you? It’s going to be okay and it’s going to be hilarious.”

Cathy begged to differ. She knew Anne would make her beg if she said anything. She shut her mouth and looked out the window. The moon and stars couldn’t be seen at all through the thick wall of clouds blotting out the night sky.

She was never going to recover from this. She had wanted to have kids, but not anymore. Not after doing this to a child.

“Come on,” Anne said. She got out of the car. Cathy followed. They went around back and opened the trunk, where the buckets, rope, and cooler sat. It smelled even worse back there. Cathy almost vomited. Anne looked aroused.

“Get the cooler.” Anne ordered.

Cathy hated that she was being told what to do by a goddamn eighteen year old. She was twenty-one, damnit! She should be the dominant one! But there was something awful in Anne’s eyes that made her feel like she had to cower like a puppy with its tail tucked between her legs.

She picked up the cooler and set it on the ground.

“Hey, watch it!” Anne barked when the cooler jostled. A few trails of blood ooze free from the lid. “You’re going to spill blood everywhere, you stupid shit!”

“Who are you calling a stupid shit?” Cathy said. “This was all your idea…”

“I know that, doll.” Anne said. “And it’s going to be good, now don’t drop anything! If this blood gets lost…”

“Okay, okay.”

Cathy grabbed the handle to the cooler and began pulling it to the back entrance of the gym. Maggie had apparently left it wedged open when she came in early that day. She wished hadn’t, but she could see the door was cracked open slightly.

“Bless you, Maggie,” Anne said, then laughed. “Oh… Pig’s blood for a pig.”

“What?”

A sliver of moonlight slipped out through the clouds and illuminated Anne’s twisted smile and sick eyes.

“Nothing. Come on.”

------

The school seemed to be lit up from end-to-end. The night sky, even with the added darkness of the storm clouds, had hues of gold across its horizon. Bright fairy lights lit up the entrance to the prom, which was set up with tapestry-swathed and ivy-coiled tents lining the way. Beautiful flowers were blooming from the vines, dark purple and pale pink and jasmine white, and balloons were tied around the legs of the canopies, shiny silver and metallic gold. Joan was entranced by the outside decorations alone, and couldn’t even begin to think about what it must look like on the inside.

The limo pulled up to the start of the line of tents. Joan could see students chatting outside, meeting up with friends, loudly cooing over dresses and suits they saw. Tickets were being collected at a table adorned with harebells and bird’s-foot trefoils. Through the mass of people swarmed around the entrance, the archway into prom glowed brightly, awaiting new visitors.

“Nervous?” Anna asked.

Joan looked at her, hoping she wasn’t shaking as badly as she thought she was.

“Yes,” She answered.

“Don’t be.” Anna said. She leaned over to Joan, and Joan didn’t even flinch away. Her presence was so soothing. “You’re like Galatea.”

“Who?”

“Galatea.” Anna repeated. “My English class read about her. She turned from a drudge into a beautiful woman and nobody even knew her.”

Joan tilted her head, considering it.

“Treat this like you’re meeting everyone for the first time. Like you’re somebody else.” Anna suggested, wanting to help Joan calm down. “Maybe you should do an accent!”

Joan blinked at her.

“No, actually-- Don’t do an accent.” Anna said. “That’s dumb. Forget I said that. But you know what I mean.”

Joan nodded. “Like Pygmalion?” She said thoughtfully.

“Pig what?”

“My Fair Lady?” Joan looked up at her date, eyes gleaming.

“Oh!” Anna nodded. “Yeah, I guess!” She said, even though it was clear she had no idea what Joan was talking about.

Joan shifted. “I kind of want them to know who I am, though…”

Anna gently touched her bare shoulder. “I don’t blame you.”

Joan managed to give her a small smile. Anna’s hand was warm against her skin, comforting.

“You ready?” Anna asked.

“I--” The words caught in Joan’s throat. She shot a fearful look out the window. “Can we just--sit here--for a few more seconds?”

Anna didn’t even hesitate or look a little bit annoyed. “Yeah, of course.” She said. “Whatever you need.”

“Thank you.” Joan whispered.

She sat back against the seat, taking deep breaths through her nose and out through her mouth. She looked out the window, watching all the girls in pretty dresses whirl around with their dates, giggling and bustling inside hurriedly. If they could all do that with such ease, then why couldn’t she?

If she didn’t fall on her face immediately, if she kept her boiling panic attack at bay, then maybe she wouldn’t give the world a chance to see that she was completely a wreck on the inside. More so than usual.

Oh, she could just imagine the snickers now. The teasing and catcalling. She knew that kids would stare at her. She knew she wouldn’t be welcomed warmly in there with all of them, but she would have to hold her head up as high as she could and endure it all. It may be just a dance, but this was the start of something new for her. An opportunity for a change, a better life, real /friends/.

Because if all those girls belonged, then she did, too.

“Okay, I’m ready.” She said hastily. She unbuckled her seatbelt quickly, wanting to get inside before all her gathered courage slipped away from her.

“Uh-- Wait.”

Joan tensed.

(should have known better here it comes she’s going to throw you away you should have known Mama was right)

She turned to Anna slowly. Her date was grinning.

Anna got out of the limo and circled around to Joan’s side. She opened the door with grand flourish, still smiling her head off. Her flower crown glimmered like pearls and rubies in the fairy lights.

“Kat said she would cut off my girls if I wasn’t a proper gentlewoman.” She said.

Joan giggled, even though she had no idea what “her girls” were. Did Anna have daughters? And why would Katherine cut them if she weren’t nice? That sounded a little extreme to Joan… She hoped Anna’s girls would be okay.

“Thank you.” Joan said shyly. She stepped out of the limo, nearly tripping as she was admiring everything from outside. Anna steadied her, then locked their arms together. She was warm against Joan’s side.

“Good?” Anna asked.

“Good.” Joan nodded.

“Wonderful.” Anna said. “Let’s go.”

They walked under the tents and Joan could feel giddiness and anxiety fluttering inside of her. People were starting to stare, eyes bulging so much they may fall out and mouths hanging open. Joan tried to hold herself as modestly as she could before them.

Anna handed in their tickets to the Year 13 behind the desk, who ogled Joan for a long time. Anna glowered at him to make him look away.

“Here we go,” Anna whispered to Joan, squeezing her arm comfortingly.

Joan couldn’t reply. She was much too excited to muster up any words, so she just bobbed her head enthusiastically.

Arm-in-arm, they walked down the aisle of tents and pushed through hanging tendrils of willow, entering a new world full of colors and lights and music and opportunities. A giant smile broke out on Joan’s lips. Tears of joy filled her eyes.

(hey look Mama)

(i made it)

Everyone in that gym had less than three hours left to live.

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amalthea9 · 4 years

Text

LOTR FA: Frodo Marries Cornflower in Rivendell

My collab with @cinefantastiquemitho of Ian Holm's Frodo with my hobbit, Cornflower Baggins. I edited a few things, but the core is writing, so please praise them above me! The song featured is from the amazing Loreena McKennit, which I will link. It really projects how Cornflower feels towards Frodo leaving for Mordor later.

https://youtu.be/f5CPjlqZNfE

FRODO MARRIES CORNFLOWER IN RIVENDELL.

AN ORIGINAL IDEA BY: AMALTHEA9

WRITING BY: CINEFANTASTIQUEMITHO

The sun awoke.

And with him, the people of Rivendell.

Cornflower opened the curtains of her window, and saw a procession of elves, with Gandalf at their front, walking to sit on benches in front of a myrtle tree.

-Oh sweet stars, how many people!

Exclaimed Cornflower, surprised at the vision of the procession.

-Are you nervous, my dear?

Asked Arwen, sweetly behind her.

-Cornflower, nervous?! Ha! More nervous must be the groom!

Exclaimed Tulip coming to Cornflower’s side.

-I feel that I am just as nervous as him, Tulip.

Answered Cornflower shyly to her witty friend.

-There are almost more people here to watch our wedding than Uncle Bilbo’s 111 birthday party, back at the Shire. Seventeen years ago, our Uncle was the center of attention. Now, the center of attention will be Frodo and me. It’s difficult for us to get accustomed to it.

Arwen took Cornflower gently by the shoulders and slowly turned the sweet hobbit lady’s face to look at her warm blue eyes.

-From the moment you put on your dress and the niphredil crown, there will be no one watching you. There will be only Frodo, waiting to hold your hand and kneel at your feet under the myrtle tree.

Hearing these words of encouragement from the elven lady, Cornflower sighed with relief and gave her a joyful smile.

At this moment, Tulip took Cornflower’s hand, exclaiming:

-So let’s go to the baths and get ready! Because we cannot let poor Frodo wait! And Gandalf is impatient!

And holding hands, the two hobbit ladies ran swiftly from Arwen’s chambers, laughing in excitement and joy.

While the ladies were getting prepared for the ceremony in the baths, at Bilbo’s chambers, Glorfindel gave the final adjustments to a golden vest that clothed Frodo Baggins, who was looking anxious in front of a large mirror.

-And now we are... finished!

Exclaimed a proud Glorfindel.

-Earendil and Gil-Galad pale under my nephew’s handsomeness.

Said Bilbo proudly.

-Oh please, stop Bilbo, you are making me more nervous!

Replied Frodo, starting to tremble.

-Will you feel more calm if I say you actually look like an ugly troll?

Commented Boromir playfully.

-What he actually needs is a good cup of chamomile and fennel tea.

Commented Aragorn, offering a steaming cup to Frodo, who readily accepted it.

-But not the whole cup, Aragorn, or he will fall asleep for the rest of the day!

Now it was a concerned Legolas’s turn to remark.

-I think the groom would feel more calm if we give him some time alone. Come now, gentleman, let’s join the good wizard at the myrtle tree.

Suggested Gimli, gesturing like he was pushing all the man out of the chambers.

Aragorn was the last to leave,and he closed the door behind him.

Frodo looked around, realizing he was alone.

So he looked at his face in the mirror, and, with a handkerchief, cleaned a few drops of sweat from his forehead.

-What if she doesn’t want to marry me anymore? What will Ido?

Frodo asked his reflection.

Then he took a deep breath, and exclaimed, this time with a more confident voice:

-No, Frodo Baggins! She already made a dangerous journey away from the Shire to an unknown place, to be with you! She will not give up. Neither nor ever! She loves me and I love her!

As soon as he finished that proclamation, Frodo heard a knock at the door.

-Mister Frodo, are you ready?

It was the voice of Samwise.

-Yes Sam, come in!

Sam opened the door and entered.

-Sweet heavens! Cornflower will be the proudest bride when he sees you in that golden vests!

-Most proud will be dear lady Rosie Cotton, when you marry her.

Answered Frodo with a teasing grin.

Sam blushed at the remark.

-It is too soon to talk of dreams, Mister Frodo. Now, we must concentrate our attention on what is real. And what is real is that we are going to find Cornflower under the myrtle tree.

And quickly with a giggle and bright smile, Sam pushed Frodo out of Bilbo’s chambers. Frodo giggling along with Sam.

Finally, Frodo was under the myrtle tree, with Sam, Merry, and Pippin at his side. They were his three men of honor, who wore matching clothes of a fiery orange color.

Gandalf also was standing at their side. He still kept the grey clothing, but it appeared less ragged and more formal. Though his hat and staff were unchanged, because Cornflower insisted he wear the hat she loved so much.

In the front seats, there were sitting Aragorn, Arwen, Glorfindel, Boromir, Legolas, Gimli and his father Glóin.

Those men were also wearing fiery orange vests, while Arwen wore a beautiful blue dress.

Sam, Merry, and Pippin were watching Boromir’s lips, and ha the impression that he was saying something along the lines of “You still have time to run away, Frodo”. With a playful grin.

The three cheerful hobbits became anxious that Frodo would be seeing this and consider running away. But when they looked at the once blushing groom, they sighed with relief: His eyes weren’t looking in the direction of the benches, but instead to the free space between them, that was now being covered by a carpet of colorful flower petals released by Tulip, who came down the aisle wearing a pretty blue dress.

An female elf, adorned in white, began to play a golden harp and sing:

-The road now leads onward As far as can be Winding lanes And hedgerows in threes By purple mountains Round every bend All roads lead to you There is no journey's end

Here is my heart and I give it to you Take me with you across this land These are my dreams, so simple and few Dreams we hold in the palm of our hands

Right behind Tulip, came Cornflower, escorted by Uncle Bilbo, who was supported by his cane.

Bilbo was also matching his companions with fiery orange vests, along with a single niphredil pinned to his vest.

Cornflower wore a beautiful dress of a pale gold color, and her brown curls were adorned by a crown of niphredil flowers. The dress shimmered in the light of the sun, and to Frodo, she looked like an elven princess.

-Deep in the winter Amidst falling snow High in the air Where the bells they all toll And now all around me I feel you still here Such is the journey No mystery to fear

Here is my heart and I give it to you Take me with you across this land These are my dreams, so simple so few Dreams we hold in the palm of our hands

When Bilbo arrived with Cornflower to where Frodo stood, he kissed his beloved niece’s hand, and put it over Frodo’s hand. Then, the old adventurer walked away to sit at his old friend Glóin’s side.

-The road now leads onward I know not where I feel in my heart That you will be there Whenever a storm comes Whatever our fears The journey goes on As your love ever nears

Then, Frodo and Cornflower slowly dropped to their knees while holding hands.

-Here is my heart and I give it to you Take me with you across this land These are my dreams, so simple and few Dreams we hold in the palm of our hands

Lord Elrond came forward, and started to speak:

-It was the great Eru of the Iluvatar, God of Arda, that first gave birth to all of creation. He pledged to watch over us as his children. It is from his love of us that we first learned to love one another. It is from this love that we learn that a life lived alone is no life at all. We gather here today, under Eru's loving gaze, to bear witness to the union of two souls in eternal companionship. May they journey forth together in this life, and the next. Iin prosperity and poverty, in joy and hardship.

Frodo, son of Drogo. Do you agree to be bound together with Cornflower, daughter of Cotman, in love, now and forever?

-I do. Now and forever.

Frodo confirmed, beaming at Cornflower as tears ran down his blushing cheeks.

-And you Cornflower, daughter of Cotman: Do you agree to be bound together with Frodo, son of Drogo, in love, now and forever?

-I do. Now and forever.

Cornflower replied, her own eyes filled with joyful tears, beaming at her Frodo.

-If any of those who are here has any protests against this union, speak now...

Elrond didn’t even have time to finish the speech before Boromir was raising his hand. This worried the man and maid of honor. Fortunately, Cornflower and Frodo only had eyes for each other. So they did not seeing Boromir’s gesture.

-Please, my Lord, skip this part, the knees of those poor hobbits cannot stand the floor any longer!

Gimli could not resist nudging Boromir in the arm.

-Behave yourself, Boromir! This is a solemn ceremony!

-The wedding rings. Where are they?

Asked Elrond.

-Oh, give me just a moment.

Said Gandalf, taking off his hat and placing one hand inside it.

He searched inside it, making Cornflower giggle in delight, and from there made a clenched fist.

-There!

Opening his hand, Gandalf showed two silver rings.

-Fortunately I did not lose them!

Said the old wizard, handing the rings to the couple.

First, Frodo kissed the ring in his hand, and then placed it on Cornflower’s ring finger.

It was Cornflower’s turn to kiss the ring that she held, and placed it on Frodo’s ring finger.

-I proclaim you husband and wife. Bound together in love, now and forever. You may kiss.

With this declaration of Elrond, Frodo and Cornflower exchanged their first kiss as husband and wife.

The crowd of friends cheered with a chorus of “Long live Frodo, son of Drogo!” ;“Long live Cornflower, daughter of Cotman!”; “Long live the groom!”; “Long live the bride!”

And in that moment, the myrtle tree blessed the newly wed couple with it’s flowers.

#frodo baggins #frodo baggins romance #ian holm #sir ian holm #LOTR #romancefanfiction #lotr fanfic

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fourangers · 4 years

Text

Kakashi’s exposé

Dedicated to @rivaille-plisetsky that suggested the prompt:

Post-War shenanigans with Kakashi being the only one with knowledge of their relationship

So here it is! I hope you’ll like it. SNS, with a tiny bit one-sided Sakura --> Sasuke, and sex insinuations. Comedy and it’s a lil to the side of crack.

AO3 link

==.==.==

Somehow, some way, it just clicked. Maybe it was due to exhaustion, or Sakura's confession still fresh in his mind but Kakashi witnessed the way Sasuke was looking at his best friend/rival/nemesis, how affection warmed his black eyes mixed with longing and burning intensity and it was just…oh. Oh. OoooooOooH.

Everything made sense now. It's no wonder he was so desperate to cut off his bonds with Naruto and why it brought him so much pain to do so.

Kakashi just stood mildly shocked as his eyes followed his previous students' behavior, from Sakura's relieved smile, Naruto's wide beam and Sasuke's gaze constantly trained towards the blond nin.

Ah…to be young and naive.

⏤.⏤

Kakashi had a hard time feigning surprise when he saw both boys tucked together, blissfully sleeping on the small bed at the hospital. Sakura, on the other hand, was so happy about Sasuke's return that she didn't connect the dots yet.

The next few months was a cumbersome process of finding solid proofs about the Uchiha's massacre tying with Konoha's higher office corruption, since the elders were eager to throw Sasuke in jail while he was still recuperating from his wounds. Fortunately Naruto called Shikamaru for help as they searched in the archives with Tsunade's permission.

Soon enough all the guilty were charged for conspiracy in ethnic cleansing and thrown behind bars. Sasuke also spent some time in jail for multiple attempts of murder against the 5 kages, but thankfully due to his contributions in ending the latest ninja war and Naruto’s constant nagging with Tsunade, he was set free.

Naruto and Kakashi both expected that Sasuke would bolt out of Konoha the second he was unchained. However, much to their puzzled astonishment, the last Uchiha had decided to settle down. He even took the chuunin exams with Naruto as some sort of proof that he desired to get back being a Konoha citizen. As if there was something(someone) that rooted him to the ground.

When Sasuke reached 18 years old, Kakashi gifted him a special Icha Icha book with prim pride.

Sasuke glanced at the title, glared his ex-teacher with his face bright red, and promptly hid when they noticed Naruto’s chakra close by. Several comrades joined in afterwards, some were part of the rookie nine, other were Sasuke’s current teammates, all gathered to celebrate his birthday.

Through the course of that night, wherever Sasuke would go, Ino and Sakura were on his toes once again, vying for his attention. It was a confusing realization for Kakashi, that even if Sakura was now an accomplished medic-nin and jounin, she would revert to her pre-teen self once Sasuke was around. Kakashi simply observed in between sips of sake while Sakura fussed over Sasuke with her doe-eyed expression, and Sasuke tolerated her presence with the smallest furrow on his handsome face. Black eyes flickered towards Naruto’s back, before he exhaled a heavy sigh, calling Sakura much to Ino’s annoyance.

On the next day, the news about Sasuke and Sakura dating was the talk of the whole town. Or rather, how Sakura was running behind her beloved wherever they go, emerald eyes glimmering like a little girl winning the affection of her idolized popular boy.

This is bizarre; Kakashi concluded watching the one-sided interactions. Those youngsters were just too much for him sometimes.

Naruto swore that he welcomed this new development with open arms, really, like…really. He’d accept no one else but Sasuke, if he was going to lose Sakura’s hand to another man. But Kakashi could notice the tightness of his grins whenever team 7 would reunite, but whether he was jealous over Sakura or Sasuke, no one would ever know.

Months have passed and Sasuke was slowly entering a dangerous territory, returning to his personal darkness that few could reach. Maybe it was due to Sakura’s impatience that their relationship got stuck since day one, or how she finally broke the illusion that her idol was just a regular man, so she was currently much more content spending her time with Ino nowadays. Maybe it was because his friendship with Naruto was becoming strained over the days. Maybe the Hyuuga’s heiress bold approach towards his best friend was grating Sasuke’s nerves.

Kakashi sighed. They were so much cuter back when they were little genins.

But Kakashi was; he hoped, wiser now. The accumulated experience he built up all over those years brought him a wider scope about how he should handle human emotions and its complexities. He wouldn't make the same mistake he had done before, unlike last time when he failed talking some sense to pre-teen Sasuke.

He stood up, hopping on the direction towards Naruto’s house.

⏤.⏤

One year later…

Konohamaru cleared his throat, knocking on the door. He heard grumbles, quiet steps and then the door was pried open with a pair of glaring eyes.

He gulped. “Good morning. Is Naruto-niichan nearby?”

Sasuke thinned his lips, turning around. “Cooking breakfast.”

Konohamaru gave a brisk nod, striding towards the kitchen and being greeted by Naruto’s wide gin.

“Hey Konohamaru! ‘Sup?”

“Naruto-niichan! It’s your first day in the Hokage’s apprenticeship, are you excited?”

“Sure am! Man, can’t believe that Tsunade-baachan is going to pass the torch to me, I thought for sure they were going to choose Kakashi-sensei that⏤”

“Oh? Talking about me?”

Konohamaru and Naruto shrieked when they heard Kakashi’s sudden chime, Sasuke stood leaning on the wall unimpressed.

The older man said. “Ah, here I was coming here to congratulate my former protegée, and all I hear is Naruto-kun talking behind my back. You’re hurting my fragile heart.”

“Can’t you knock on the door like a regular person? You almost gave me a heart attack dammit.” Naruto complained, rubbing his chest.

“Another reason why I’m questioning Konoha’s decision to make you the next Hokage. I assumed the prerequisite for such an important job was to master basic moves like noticing someone’s chakra when they are close by, dumbass.” Sasuke scoffed.

“Say what, you asshole⏤”

“As much as I’d love to get down the memory lane watching you boys bicker, I’m here to give you a gift, Naruto.” Kakashi placed several books on the table. “My entire Icha Icha collection. All signed by Jiraiya-sama.”

Naruto stared wide-eyed once the information sank in, picking up one book as if it was the most precious thing in the world. He leafed through pages, smiling fondly when he read Jiraiya’s message. They let Naruto take his time browsing through the books, even Sasuke curbed his usual teasing barb too.

The Uchiha nin seemed to realize something, coughing. “Well, since Kakashi already gave you his present, I suppose I should also give you mine.”

Naruto’s eyes were narrowed and suspicious. “And what exactly you’re gonna give me, bastard?”

Sasuke smirked, throwing his arm around Naruto’s shoulder and directing to their bedroom. “You’ll enjoy it, for sure.”

Konohamaru and Kakashi watched as Naruto was dragged by Sasuke. Konohamaru muttered. “Well, I guess I’ll wait here until they are done. I was also gonna give Naruto-niichan my gift.”

Oh. “Ooooh, there’s no need for you to wait this long Konohamaru-kun. You can give him once we’re in Konoha’s headquarters.”

“What? I can wait a little, I mean⏤”

Kakashi patted the younger nin’s shoulder as he hurried them to the exit. “I have a feeling they are going to take a while, so we better go.”

Several months had passed and Naruto was beginning to get used to the hectic schedule of being Tsunade’s apprentice. The assistants were also smoothly adapting with his working style too, most comfortable with his friendliness.

The rare exceptions were when Naruto’s best friend would go to a long term mission, and the sunny personality will cloud to a petulant pout.

“Naruto.” Everyone jumped startled from the familiar baritone voice, swiveling their heads to see Sasuke perched on the window.

Naruto instantly brightened up, turning back to face their assistants as he declared. “Hey guys! Sasuke is here so I’m gonna go ok, ‘s gonna be really quick I swear. Be right back, be right back!” Both Naruto and Sasuke disappeared in a cloud of poof.

The assistants shrugged, some even rolled his eyes while they resumed their work.

⏤.⏤

How odd it was that whenever Sasuke was around though, Naruto would always blink out of their eyes. For someone who wore neon orange outfit and had bright golden hair in midst of an ocean of dark heads, Naruto could disappear without an effort.

Saeko rubbed her shoulders while she searched the aforementioned blond nin, seeking his signature. She’s way past her prime to be able to find a strong shinobi like Naruto-kun.

Fortunately for her, she spotted Kakashi from afar, calling him. “Kakashi-kun!”

Kakashi acknowledged her with a nod.

“Have you seen Naruto-kun? I really need his signature to authorize a new mission.” She sighed.

Kakashi chuckled. “Well…in case you can’t see him, I guess you could look around and try to find Sasuke instead.”

“Ah right…Uchiha-kun right.” Saeko shook her head. “They are almost attached to the hip.”

“Right.”

“Such a beautiful friendship between those two boys, right?”

Kakashi stared the old lady before settled with a hum.

“They need to settle down and find a good ladies in their lives though.” She quipped with chiding tone. “Why are they taking so long to get married, I wonder. Youngsters those days are in no hurry to build a family, they are exactly like that Yamanaka girl; living with her best friend Haruno-chan.”

Kakashi hummed absentmindedly once again.

Almost as if he was reading their minds, Sasuke exited the toilet in front of them, licking his lips as his finger wiped his mouth.

“Ah, Uchiha-kun!” Saeko tightened her steps, approaching him. “Have you seen Naruto-kun anywhere?”

Sasuke glanced at her back, then gazed Kakashi’s amused eyes, shrugging. “Behind me.”

“Behind y⏤?” Lo and behold, the future Hokage opened the door a little breathless and disheveled, hand combing through his golden hair.

His cheeks were tinged red but he soon recomposed himself when he saw the old lady. “Oh hey, Saeko-san, Kakashi-sensei! Why are you⏤”

“Naruto-kun, you’re going to be the death of this old woman, I swear!” Saeko interrupted him, shoving the papers on his face. “I know that Uchiha-kun is your best friend but do you really need to have him next to you 24/7?”

“I’m sure that Naruto-kun would happily perform his tasks as the Hokage apprentice, normally…” Kakashi muttered. “But I guess Sasuke just missed him too much.”

Sasuke glared, rolling his eyes. “I’ll see you soon Naruto.”

Saeko concluded that their friendship is really one of a kind, watching Uchiha-kun’s back as Naruto was signing her papers. Gossip around town said that a female shinobi might disrupt such cozy relationship, even though Sasuke kept turning down every date request. There was a bet about which man would find a girlfriend first, however, Kakashi almost zeroed his bank account with the belief that his former students wouldn’t find any girl whatsoever.

Every female shinobi dedicated their time to seduce either the last Uchiha or the future of Hokage of Konoha. This also meant that they were thinning Sasuke’s very limited patience, their constant pestering wouldn’t give them some time for themselves.

⏤.⏤

“Naruto-niichan! Wow, you lucky dog!” Konohamaru chirped when he spotted his friend in the corridor, punching the tanned arm playfully. “I can’t believe this⏤!”

“Believe what, Konohamaru?” Naruto questioned.

“Haven’t you heard? Tomoko Saiyuri, the most gorgeous woman of all Konoha is actually going to ask you on a date!”

“He’s not interested.” Sasuke grunted.

“Oh, c’mon Sasuke-niichan, I know you might be sore because she chose Naruto-niichan instead of you, but there’s no way Naruto-niichan wouldn’t be interested because⏤”

“But he’s not interested, he’s not available, he won’t do anything with her.” Sasuke hissed.

“Uh, yeah…Konohamaru, why would I be interested?” Naruto squinted his eyes puzzled. “I’m honored, honestly, but where did you get the idea I would⏤”

“You know that this is your fault right.” Sasuke snapped towards Naruto.

“What?” Naruto grumbled.

“You give too many openings, people are still thinking you’re available.”

“Uh…wait, Naruto-niichan, does that mean you’re actually seeing someone⏤?”

“Wait, don’t put the blame on me, asshole. Where in the hell did I show that I’m available?”

“Well, you’re such an oblivious dumbass, that you wouldn’t realize yours and anyone’s feelings even if it’s right under your nose.” Sasuke muttered under his breath. “Maybe this is the reason why everyone is also blind about us.”

Naruto stared for a while with his jaw slacked, before blurting out. “We live together, I thought everyone knew.”

“Most think we’re just roommates, some still believe that you’re guarding me while I’m on house arrest.”

“What? We share a bed.”

“They think we didn’t find a good house with two bedrooms.”

Konohamaru interjected tentatively. “Um, Naruto-niichan, what exactly are you talking about⏤?”

Naruto however, couldn’t listen to him, blue eyes still trained towards Sasuke. “I don’t get it, we haven’t seen anyone else so far ever since we decided to live together, I thought⏤”

Sasuke sighed. “They think we’re just taking our time to find a girl to settle down.”

Naruto nodded numbly, scratching his head. “Oh. Is that why Momiji-san wanted to cook me some obento?”

Sasuke grunted, his glare darkening. “And you almost fell for it, hook line and sinker.”

Naruto gazed back, studying the Uchiha’s activated Sharingan. Everyone was staring with growing confusion until Naruto snorted. “Are you jealous Sasuke-chan?” He laughed.

“No, absolutely not.” Sasuke promptly defended himself, raising his chin. “I’m staking my claim, that is all, since someone else is not making any effort over this relationship.”

“Awwww⏤you’re really jealous!” Naruto grinned.

“I’m not jealous, usuratonkachi, I just feel like you should have made everything clear to everyone so I can avoid all those troublesome harpies and⏤” When Sasuke saw the determined blue eyes, he tensed but all of a sudden, Naruto grabbed him and hoisted over his shoulder. "Naruto, what the hell are you doing, I swear I'm going to fry your sorry ass if you⏤Naruto⏤!" The door slammed shut.

Then, silence. All ninjas on the vicinity didn’t know whether they should intervene whatever skirmish because Naruto was going to be the Hokage, but still, since he’s the future Hokage, he didn’t need anyone to defend him, right?

Their thought process was interrupted when he heard a moan. But not any moan, it was specifically Sasuke’s moan. Every face was colored red. As the moans and groans were increasing in speed and volume, the shade of their blushes were darkening, and everyone froze on the spot.

A constant thumping noise joined in, eliminating whatever doubt they might had out of the window, in concern with the activity they were doing in the Hokage’s office. The banging grew faster and louder, that at this point everyone in the building could hear it out.

A guttural scream ripped from Naruto’s voice, that made all women fan to themselves and all men shuffle uncomfortably. Another pregnant silence reigned in the building, until Naruto opened the door beaming ear to ear, holding Sasuke’s hand while the latter was scowling, limping his steps.

“So!” Naruto proclaimed cheerfully. “As you can see, Sasuke and I are unavailable for any possible dates at the present and future moment. We’re pretty busy screwing each other, after all.”

“I am screwing you next time, usuratonkachi.” Sasuke grumbled darkly.

Naruto chortled, unaffected by his threat. “He’s so sweet right. I can’t ask for any better boyfriend.”

Sasuke kicked his legs. Naruto retaliated by slapping hard his back. As their skirmish was growing more violent, everyone scurried away from the couple.

Those two are insane.

(Kakashi later appeared in Konoha’s headquarters, ready to collect his money from the bet. It’s more than enough to secure a very nice retirement. The news about Naruto and Sasuke’s relationship reached to Tsunade’s ears but she was wholly unimpressed. She did punch her protegée to seven foot below ground for soiling her office though.)

#NaruSasu #SasuNaru #snstext #sn fic #drabble #snsourced #nssourced #a lil bit of lemon

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steebharringt0n · 4 years

Text

Shadows of the Night | Vampire AU

dusk | night | dawn

Billy Hargrove doesn’t remember the last time he’s seen sunlight, or the last time he’s stepped inside a church. For over 500 years he’s been a vagabond, a wanderer, searching for a place to call home - until his travels land him in Hawkins, Indiana and his whole existence as he knows it is turned upside down.

pairing: billy hargrove x fem!reader rating: m (blood, a tint of smut, abuse, language)

A/N: WOW SORRY THIS TOOK FOREVER TO POST BUT THANK U FOR ALL THE RESPONSES AND FOR YOUR PATIENCE ILU ALL

Tagged: @killer-queen-xo @ephmrl-love @charmed-asylum @aillle8 @mattysheelies

—

Part 2 - Night

You were panicking.

Your foot was glued to the gas pedal, racing to beat the clock as time continued to dwindle by. You cursed the long and windy roads in Hawkins, they felt like they went on forever.

Stealthily and quickly, you managed to switch out of your heels and fishnet stockings while driving, it was a skill that was now second nature to you. Reaching behind you, you grabbed your converse, shoving one foot in at a time while you pulled over a large sweatshirt over you, effectively covering the skin tight dress you had on.

As soon as you pulled into your street, you made a sharp stop before your house. Grabbing the makeup wipes from your glove compartment, you hurriedly erased any evidence, wiping the ruby red lipstick off your lips, and the fake vampire bite off of your neck.

Incidentally, you also managed to wipe away the concealer that hid the dark purple marks around your neck.

You ran your hand through your hair, trying your best to smooth out the large curls that bounced with every shake of your head. When you felt presentable enough, you finally pulled into your driveway. Your eyes were glued to the front window where the faint glow of the TV was illuminating the living room floor.

“Fuck, fuck, fuck” you quietly muttered to yourself.

You threw your heels and fishnet stockings in the back of your car, grabbing your large purse that you had purposely placed there as well. Stepping out of your car, you composed yourself, trying hard to calm your frantic beating heart. With a deep inhale, you took the cautious steps up your porch, opening the front door and was greeted with the harsh scent of beer hitting your nose.

“D-dad? I-I’m home”

You tip-toed in the foyer, poking your head into the living room where you were met with the back of your father’s head, several beer cans were discarded around his feet.

You waited for a response, for anything, but were met with silence.

Silence was either a bad thing, or a good thing. You held your breath as you quietly walked over to him, your eyes shut as you pleaded to whatever gods above that he was passed out. When you finally reached him, you let out a sigh of relief.

He was knocked out, his mouth wide open with a half empty beer can in his hand.

You didn’t want him to spill the beer, so you gently reached over to his hand, trying your best to pull it out of his grasp but his other hand suddenly shot to your wrist, squeezing it tight. A yelp escaped from your mouth.

“You’re late” he slurred.

Your anxiety was through the roof, tears threatened to spill from your eyes. “I-I’m sorry Dad, Amber and I lost track of time at dinner, I promise it won’t happen again” you blubbered out, hoping that he’d believe your lie. He wasn’t easing up on his grip, but after a few seconds he threw your wrist back to you.

“Don’t let it fucking happen again” he hissed, taking a large chug.

You nodded quietly at him, your other hand gently rubbing where his painful grip was. You were sure to see marks on it tomorrow but you were an expert at covering up your bruises.

You soundlessly made your way upstairs, not wanting to rile him up any longer. You shut your bedroom door and rested your back behind it, sliding down and letting all the anxiety disseminate in that moment. You held your face in your hands, trying to remember to breathe through it all.

He wasn’t always like this. You have fond memories of a happy childhood, white picket fence and all. But out of the blue, your mother had up and left the both of you, claiming that this wasn’t the life for her. She had disappeared into thin air and you hated her for it.

It was then your father turned to drinking and started to blame you for everything. His problems at his job? Your fault. Your mother leaving the both of you? Your fault. His alcoholism? Your fault.

Everything in his eyes was your fault, you could do no right, even when you pulled the best grades in Hawkins.

You became his punching bag, his release for all his anger, his issues, and you had no escape.

You lifted your head back up and glanced up at the calendar that rested above your desk. November 7th had a large circle over it, it would be the day you turned 18 - it would be the day you finally could escape his wrath.

“Just one more week, just one more week and I’m outta here” you muttered to yourself.

You weren’t sure where to go, but you didn’t care. Since you were still 17 you weren’t legally allowed to leave the house yet. You graduated from Hawkins High with top marks but you decided to put university on pause - wanting to taste the world before you settled on school again. You had some money saved up from odd jobs here and there but you wanted to stay far away from the monster in the living room. He would effectively have no power over you and for the first time in your life, you felt like life wouldn’t be so bad.

You felt your phone buzzing, you pulled it out of your sweatshirt and swiped it open.

amber: hey u made it home ok?

y/n: yeah, i’m home thnx for checking up

Amber was your best friend, she had urged you multiple times to go talk to Hopper, but you knew it would just cause more issues than solve them. You were strong, you could withstand him for just one more week.

Your mind suddenly remembered the pale boy with the vampire costume. You quickly searched through your contacts until you found his name. Your thumb hovered over the texting symbol, debating on whether bringing a boy into your life would be worth it.

But something about him was … different … you couldn’t put your finger on it but he seemed off. He was incredibly gorgeous though, and you were surprised that he, out of all people in the party, paid any attention to you. Not to mention you had never seen the guy before, and everyone in Hawkins knew everyone.

“Fuck it” you said to yourself.

y/n: hey billy, it’s y/n from the party?

Instantly the text bubble appeared, you were surprised at how quickly he responded.

billy: hey gorgeous, sad to see you leave so early

What you didn’t know however, was that he was parked right across the street. His eyes were hyper-focused on your bedroom window. He was debating on whether scaling the tree or just watching you from afar. He knew it was a creep move but he didn’t care, he just wanted to make sure you were safe.

You let out a snort as you read his text.

y/n: ha, quite the charmer are you?

billy: i tend to charm the ladies here and there, what r u up to tonite?

y/n: bed, maybe watch some netflix, nothing too crazy.

billy: when can i see u again?

Billy was impatient, he had to catch a glimpse of you before the day broke again.

y/n: idk … we could hang tomorrow? maybe grab lunch?

An innocent lunch wouldn’t hurt you thought to yourself. What’s the harm in getting to know a cute boy?

Billy let out a huff, damn being a vampire.

billy: can’t, i’m busy all day and afternoon. maybe we can grab dinner if u want? i can pay ;)

You felt your heart start to race. Was he asking you out on a date? He hardly knew you.

y/n: r u asking me out on a date? lol

billy: if you want it to be

y/n: you hardly know me

billy: i can get to know you tomorrow night

A tiny smile appeared on your lips.

y/n: sure lol. pick me up tomorrow at 8. my address is 3843 willow lane. dont knock on my door just give me a text when youre here.

billy: sounds good, sweet dreams gorgeous ;)

You locked your phone and tossed it onto your bed. You stood back up, pulling off your sweatshirt and kicking off your converse. You unzipped your dress, letting it fall to the ground and pulled on a pair of cotton shorts and your Hawkins High sweatshirt.

You grabbed your laptop from your desk and walked over to your bed, pulling over the covers and settling yourself into the warmth of your comforter. You opened up your laptop and proceeded to open up Netflix to help you fall asleep.

Billy’s leg impatiently bounced up and down as he sat in his car. He watched as the light in your room turned off and as the light in the living room also turned off. He figured whoever was in the living room had also gone to bed, so he decided to make a move.

Moving stealthily and quickly, he ran over to your lawn, hoping that none of the neighbors would spot him. With his cat like reflexes he climbed up the tree outside of your room with ease, perching himself on a large branch that luckily extended out to your room.

His eyes scanned your bedroom, posters of different bands were hung up on your wall, a white desk sat in the corner, but his heart leapt when he finally landed on your sleeping figure. The soft glow of the laptop illuminated your face as you quietly slept through whatever TV show you were watching.

Even with your hair messily scattered on the pillow and your cheek pressed up against your arm you looked beautiful, breathtakingly gorgeous. His fingers were aching to touch you, even if just for a second.

“Oh fuck this”

His hands found themselves on the bottom of your window, he gently lifted it up, opening enough space for him to squeeze into your bedroom. With a soft thud, he landed into your room. He waited a second to see if anyone or anything had been awakened by the noise, but luckily he was met with silence.

He walked over to your sleeping figure, he so badly wanted to crawl right beside you and hold you against his body but he fought strongly against it. He instead, sat right beside you, watching you as your chest rose and fell with every breath you took.

His fingers found themselves playing with the tendrils of your hair. He gently pulled back your hair to reveal your supple neck, but his eyes widened at what he saw instead.

Hot anger coursed through his body like poison. His eyes turned a dark red and his fangs promptly appeared. Billy was ready to attack, and your panicked demeanor at the party suddenly made sense to him.

His knuckles brushed up against the dark marks on your neck. The feeling of your skin on his hand sent shivers down his spine, it soothed his anger as it slowly dissipated out of him. He leaned down and pressed a soft kiss to your cheek.

“I promise to get you out of here … if it’s the last thing I do” he whispered to you.

He felt you stir in your sleep, shifting around soundlessly. You cracked open your eyes as you felt a figure hover over you. You lifted your head up, looking around your bedroom.

But there was no one there, just the soft breeze of the wind rustling your posters in your bedroom.

You frowned, throwing your legs over your bed and walking to your window. You poked your head out, looking to see if anyone was out there, but you were met with the still of the night.

You shut your window close and threw yourself back into bed.

“Huh, must have been dreaming … “ you said to yourself as sleep quickly overtook you again.

—

You awoke the following morning with a stinging pain in your wrist. You lifted it up, inspecting the dull ache as the dark marks began to stain your skin. You let out an annoyed sigh, walking over to your bathroom and promptly starting a hot shower.

After washing your hair and scrubbing your skin, you then did your usual routine of concealing your bruises. You popped some Tylenol in hopes that it would soothe the ache in your wrist.

You waited to see if Billy would text you throughout the day, but you were disappointed to find that he didn’t. You didn’t let it deter you from the date you had planned with him tonight.

You stayed in your bedroom for most of Saturday, only heading downstairs to grab a bite to eat. Your father mostly ignored your presence as you did his.

As it was nearing 8, you went downstairs to the living room to find your father still glued to the couch with a beer in his hand.

“Dad?”

His eyes were glued to the TV. He acknowledged your presence by letting out a grunt.

“I’m gonna grab dinner with Amber tonight if that’s okay … “ your voice trailed off as you anxiously chewed the inside of your cheek.

He rolled his eyes towards you, they were glossy and bloodshot.

“Fine”

You nodded at him, uttering a thank you and walking back up stairs. As soon as you reached your bedroom, you began to plan your outfit, You figured jeans and a cute top would be good enough for tonight. You kept your makeup simple, some mascara and lipgloss, you weren’t necessarily trying to woo him tonight, just getting to know him.

It was only a date anyways.

At 8 on the dot your phone buzzed, you were trying to play it cool, but you were lying to yourself if you said you didn’t feel a little excited. You hadn’t been on a date in a long time, let alone with a gorgeous boy.

billy: hey beautiful, i’m outside

Grabbing a light jacket, you walked down the stairs, trying not to seem hurried in front of your dad.

“I’ll be back around 10 dad” you told him as you left. But yet again, you were met with silence. You were trying not to let anxiety gnaw at your stomach, you refused to let your dad ruin your date. So you quietly left your house and ran over to the blue car that was parked across the street.

Billy was lucky enough to find a close friend of Walt’s living in the next town over. He had texted Walt around 4 AM to see if he could spot anyone who could house him for the next couple of days. Victoria Marino - a sweet old vampire who had lived for almost as long as Walt was happy enough to have Billy stay over. It had been years since she had company, especially a vampire stay at her home.

“Walt told me everything” she told him. Billy towered over her, she was a frail little thing, but was sharp as hell. She gently grasped his shoulders, “You musn’t give up on love Billy, fight for her. Finding your Beloved is a powerful thing for us vampires, human or not”

He was more than happy to have someone on his side - even though he knew Walt was still vehemently against all of this.

You caught him standing outside his car, a pair of aviators rested against his nose, his mouth in a wide grin. His heart sped up as you approached him, he instinctively wished to scoop you up in his arms and place kisses all over you, hold you close until the dawn broke, but instead he controlled himself as you stood in front of him.

With a soft smile you greeted him, “Hi”

He returned the smile back, “Hey”

He promptly then walked over to the passenger side, opening the door for you, “Our reservation at Enzo’s awaits for us”

You raised your eyebrows, “Enzo’s? That’s pretty expensive, you didn’t have to go all out”

Billy shrugged, “It’s no big thing, it is the nicest place in town”

You stared at him for a brief second, wondering why on earth this guy you’d just met was pulling all the stops for you. With the slight shake of your head you let out a soft laugh and entered his car. You gazed around in awe at how nice his car was, everything looked brand new, it even still had that brand new smell.

“Holy shit you have a really nice car” you told him as he sat down in the driver’s seat.

“Ah, you should have seen my 78′ Camaro, that engine purred”

“Big car guy eh?”

A smirked donned on his lips, “Yeah, I guess you could say that”

—

The car ride to Enzo’s was filled with good music and Billy asking you 101 questions about yourself - which you didn’t mind, but you found it odd that whenever you asked about his family, he instantly changed the subject. Anything personal about him was very vague and very brief.

You didn’t want to admit to yourself that it raised warning bells in your head, you wanted to stay positive about the experience, hopeful that maybe this guy would be the one you’d spend the rest of your life with.

He was a gentleman the whole way there, letting you pick the music, not speaking over you, genuinely interested in everything you had to say. It was refreshing to say the least.

When the both of you arrived at Enzo’s he instantly ran out and over to your side, opening the door for you. He extended his hand for you to take and you took it, gently pulling you out of your seat.

He tossed his key to the valet parking, “Take care of her will ya buddy?” he patted the guy on his shoulder, handing him a 50 dollar bill.

fuck I think this guy is loaded you thought to yourself.

Billy wrapped his arm around you, the both of you walking step by step into the restaurant. The gesture made you feel all warm and tingly inside, for once in your life you actually felt safe around a male presence.

The two of you were quickly seated, Billy specifically asking for a private table.

“Of course Mr. Hargrove, please follow me” the host said.

With his arm still wrapped around your shoulder, you glanced up at him, “Billy, seriously, you didn’t have to go all out … you only just met me yesterday … “ you muttered to him.

He shook his head as he pulled your chair out for you, “No, please, this is nothing” he waved your comment off.

You sat down on the chair, watching as Billy came around and sat across from you.

The entire dinner went pleasantly well. Besides some things that made you raise your eyebrow (He told you he was deathly allergic to garlic, and he rarely ate his food, just picked around it). Billy was nothing but kind, warming and inviting to you. It helped that he was charming as hell, and by the time dinner finished, you could see yourself going on another date with him - which usually doesn’t happen.

The drive back to your house was filled with laughter and long talks. You both bonded over bands and artists you both love, about movies, about tv shows. You truly didn’t want the night to end. As he pulled up across the street from your house you hesitated on leaving, anxiety started to pool within your stomach, dreading to be back in the same house as that monster you called your father.

“This was an amazing night Billy, truly, the most fun I’ve had in such a long time” you told him.

He gave you a wide grin, shrugging casually, “Well what can I say?”

The both of you stared at each other in silence, your eyes moving down to his lips. Courage surged through you and you leaned towards him, your one hand placed on his cheek as you placed your lips on his. Billy was surprised to say the least, his blue eyes widened in shock as he felt your soft lips on his, but the shock quickly wore off as he melted into your touch. The warmth of your hand burned the cold of his cheek. You gently pulled away, nuzzling your nose onto his.

Breathlessly, he spoke, “Does this mean I get to see you again?”

You nodded, your thumb rubbing soft circles over the apple of his cheek, “Text me tonight?”

Instead of responding, he placed a chaste kiss on your lips. He wanted the feeling of your lips on his to last forever, and now that he knew he was open to kiss you, he never wanted to stop.

He watched as you got out of his car and made your way back into your house. Before you opened the front door however, you turned around, faced his car and gave him a small wave.

You shut the door quietly behind you, resting your body on it. You had a crush and it was bad. You were grinning like a fool in love and for the first time, in a very long time, things didn’t seem so bad.

You quietly then walked through the foyer until you reached the living room. The TV still on from earlier, and your dad still sitting in the same position. You poked your head in, “Hi dad, I’m back … it’s 9:45 … I’m early” you meekly announced to him.

He gave you no response as he continued to chug his beer. You took that as a good sign.

The minute you reached your bedroom, your phone started to buzz. Instantly you pulled it out of your pocket and smiled stupidly at the text.

billy: did u make it in okay?

y/n: yes im fine lol, i want to see you again … is tomorrow a possibility?

billy: hmm … idk … dinner was kinda boring … ;)

y/n: ha ha ha very funny

billy: of course we can meet up again tomorrow, id love to

y/n: great! i want to take you to the quarry, its amazing, u can see all the stars out there

billy: getting all romantical on me now?

y/n: hey you started this lol, besides a little romance with a cute guy never hurt anyone

billy: you calling me cute?

y/n: duh who else would i be referring to?

Your fingers had never been more glued to your phone. You spent all night texting Billy until you ended up passing out with your phone gripped in your hand. By the time you had passed out, Billy was already getting ready for bed. Victoria had been watching him the whole time as he sat in her living room couch, his fingers typing away furiously with every text he received. Billy swore he heard her mutter an ‘Oy, youths … ‘ at one point which made him chuckle.

It was almost noon by the time you had awakened, the sun beamed in brightly through your bedroom windows. You pulled your phone towards you to check the time but was surprised to see a text from Billy at 4:04 AM.

billy: sweet dreams beautiful girl … <3

The text sent butterflies swarming to your stomach, you threw a pillow over your face to cover up the shit-eating grin you were currently sporting, but a sudden loud banging from your door quickly dissolved all of those emotions.

“There’s no fucking food in the house! Make yourself useful for once and go shopping!”

Your father’s voice roared behind the door, instinctively you pulled the covers over your head, fearing that he was going to come in and hurl more insults at you. But when you heard his footsteps continue down the hall you let out a sigh of relief.

You then quickly got ready for the day, running out towards the local market and buying food for you and your father - not that you ate most of the time at home, you were always feeling too nervous or anxious to eat at home. So you always made excuses to meet up with friends to grab lunch or dinner at a cafe or restaurant nearby.

You were hoping to hear back from Billy throughout the day, but just like the day before he was silent, not a call or text from him. You tried not to let it get to you, you distracted yourself by cleaning up around your room, or watching a show on Netflix, but by the time the sun had started to set you finally received a text from him.

billy: hey beautiful, im on the way

Billy too had fallen asleep in his coffin with his phone glued to his hand. You were the first thing on his mind the instant he awoke - already forming plans for the two of you.

Victoria was kind enough to always lay a full glass of blood for him every morning. The last thing she needed was a love-struck vampire to go into blood-lust mode, there’s no way a vampire can control their actions when going into that head space. They become vicious, relentless and absolutely terrifying. It has happened to Billy only once before and if it wasn’t for Walt being around he was pretty sure that Billy would have slaughtered more humans than intended.

You swiped your phone to unlock it, fingers working quickly as you texted him back,

y/n: c ya soon ;)

You held your phone close to your chest when you realized that you were nowhere ready to go out looking the way you did. You threw your phone on your bed, quickly hopping into the shower and prepping your face. You kept your outfit casual again, with a pair of high-rise jeans, black boots and a cute sweater.

When you heard your phone buzzing, signaling that Billy was outside, you realized one important detail - telling your father that you’d be going out.

There was no way you were going to miss hanging out with Billy, but you knew that if you were to tell your drunk of a father that you were heading out without notifying him earlier, that there was no way that he’d let you out. You glanced over at your window, it was the only option left.

You opened up your window, poking your head outside. Billy watched you with curious eyes from his car as you shimmied out of your bedroom window, reaching towards the large branch from the tree outside your room. Once you were safely perched on the branch, you were able to quickly scale down the large oak tree. You landed softly on the grass, taking in your surroundings before making a mad dash to the car parked across the street.

Billy unlocked his car as you flung open the passenger side door, quickly sitting down and pulling the seat belt over you.

Billy wasn’t stupid - he knew exactly what was going on since he saw the dark marks on your neck. Everything started to make sense to him, your punctuality, the fact he wasn’t allowed near your house. He’d even caught wind of your anxious ticks, the way you bounced your leg restlessly at dinner last night, or how you’d constantly be glancing at the time on your phone.

He didn’t want to pry, it was a delicate subject to touch upon. He just wanted you to be safe - and he only had less than a week to convince you to come with him to New York.

Billy played it stupid to keep you comfortable.

“Sneaking out today are we?” he smirked as he pulled out of your neighborhood.

You let out a nervous laugh, rubbing your neck, “Y-yeah, you know how parents can be”

Billy wouldn’t know, he hasn’t seen his in over 500 years and Walt always let him do whatever he wanted, just as long as he played it safe.

“So, where is this quarry that you speak of?” he asked, pulling up his phone and opening up Google maps.

“No need for GPS, I can guide you there, just take a left at this upcoming road, then keep going straight until you reach Richland Road, then it’s just a straight shot from there on out. You can’t miss it, trust me”

He nodded at your words, pulling out of the neighborhood and following your guidance until he reached the infamous quarry - and you were right, it was the perfect place to see stars.

You eagerly stepped out of his car, your eyes gazing up to the dark sky that was illuminated by thousands if not hundreds of bright speckles.

In all of his 500 years of living, Billy had never seen such a thing. Sure he’d been all around the world, but he had never seen the sky lit up so bright until tonight. He followed you, stepping out of his car, his eyes glued to the sky.

“Shit, you weren’t kidding ... “ he muttered to you.

“Yeah ... I’m gonna miss it” you spoke wistfully.

His eyes shot back down to you, his lips puckered into a frown. “What do you mean?”

You broke out of your gaze, not realizing what you had just said. A half smile formed on your lips as you tucked a strand of hair behind your ear. You rested against the trunk of his car, “I’m uh, leaving Hawkins, in about 5 days ... I’m turning 18 and I’m leaving”

There was a sense of hesitation in your voice, Billy heard it loud and clear. But the fact that you were planning on leaving right when he was supposed to head back to New York ... it was as if fate was working it’s magic. His heart wanted to leap with joy, but he played it cool, calm and collected. He joined you by the trunk of his car, resting his body against it as well.

“Where you heading to?”

You shrugged, “Don’t know, haven’t figured it out”

Billy nodded, still trying to play it cool. “You know, I have a place in New York”

You turned to face him, “Oh yeah?” There was a pregnant pause, “You propositioning me?” a slight smile spread over your lips, your tone turned playful as he blushed.

Billy shifted his feet, feeling the gravel dig underneath his shoes. “I - I ... you know, if you’re looking for a place ... I have a place you know? And New York is pretty cool, I could show you around ... if you want of course!”

You wanted to laugh at his bashfulness, how quickly he was able to go from Mr. Charming Man to a blubbering mess within 10 minutes. You leaned over to him, resting your head on his shoulder. Billy instantly froze the moment he felt your body heat on his. and became more of a statue when your fingers found his - linking them for warmth, but you frowned, squeezing his hand tightly.

“You’re so cold ... “ you commented.

You glanced down at the linked hands, and suddenly came the realization just how pale Billy actually was compared to you. You quickly brushed it off, continuing your gaze to the night sky above.

“Maybe you can join me in California ... get some sun in you eh?” you gently jabbed his side with your elbow as he let out a chuckle.

“I’ve thought about moving to California ... “ he paused as he lets his thoughts meander around his head. California was definitely on his list for places to live, but he couldn’t help but feel bitter at the fact that he couldn’t fully enjoy it. He wanted to learn how to surf so bad, to enjoy the beaches, to hang out by the boardwalk.

But he couldn’t do that without his Beloved by his side.

Your voice broke his thoughts, “Why didn’t you?”

He lets out a large breath through his nose. Sometimes he truly hated being a vampire. “Oh you know, life brought me to New York instead. Maybe one day”

You nodded slowly at his response. Silence then took over the conversation, the both of you just relishing in each other presence. You didn’t want to admit it, but a small part of you was falling for him - and falling hard. A constant battle between your heart and head was currently taking place, and your heart was in the lead.

You’re not sure why, but you felt a sense of peacefulness wash over you whenever you were with him.

But something - call it the universe, call it your gut, call it intuition, - was telling you to stay with him.

“Maybe New York would be good for me ... “ you suddenly spoke.

He glanced down at you, his mouth in a grin so wide you swore you saw all his pearly whites. “Oh yeah?”

“Give me more time to think about it okay?”

He squeezed your small hand. It burned the coldness of his skin but he was far too in love to care. He leaned his head over yours, placing a kiss on your hair.

“Take your time. I’ll be here”

And he was. The two of you were completely attached at the hip the rest of the week, texting each other nonstop, sneaking out to hang with him every night. At this point your father’s drinking has become more rampant, he’d be passed out completely by 7 PM, which gave you a sense of security whenever you sneaked out of the house.

The more you hung out with the blue-eyed blonde, the harder you were beginning to fall for him. Billy was a complete dork in his comfortable nature, you two would blast out cheesy pop songs and sing them at the top of your lungs. Or sneak into a late night movie where he would toss popcorn at your hair every now and then to get your attention. You wondered why he was never available in the morning or afternoon - but when you brought the subject up he would just casually brush it off, explaining that he had work to take care of.

Billy on the other hand, was completely enamored with you. He was sure that the universe did the right thing and made you his soulmate because there was no way in hell he was ever leaving your side - and he was desperately hoping you felt the same way.

Of course things between the two of you got physical. If you both weren’t out doing something, you’d both be out at the quarry, usually in his backseat with his hands underneath your shirt and your fingers tangled in his short curls. He didn’t want to pressure you to go all the way - that would come when it came - but my god was he finding it harder to control himself around you.

It was November 6th - a day left - when the both of you were fooling around in the backseat of his car. Your thighs wrapped around his waist as your hands found purchase on his face. His lips were everywhere - he could feel your pulse race, your blood run, with every breath you took and it was taking everything in his power not to sink his fangs on your tender neck right there and then.

You pulled away from his lips, gazing into his eyes as you rested your forehead on his.

“I’m coming with you. To New York”

Your announcement almost made his heart stop. He gently pulled away from you, an incredulous look on his face, “A-are you serious?”

You bit your bottom lip to keep you from exploding from excitement, but you nodded happily at him. “Yeah, I’ve never been more sure before in my life.”

“Shit. Y/N. We have to celebrate!” He exclaimed. You swore you had never seen a man so happy before. You giggled at how boyishly happy he suddenly turned.

“Slow down there Casanova ... I still need to pack, get all my things together”

“Right, right, yeah, of course” he ran his fingers through his hair, trying to let the news sink into him.

His plan actually worked. He couldn’t wait to tell Victoria and to show boat to Walt.

You gently ran your fingers through his hair as it got quiet in the car. Your eyes filled with love as you gazed down on him. The moon was full tonight, and the bright light that it emitted shone through the car - illuminating Billy. He seemed much more paler than the last several days, and you were starting to wonder if he needed go to see a doctor.

“What?” he questioned urgently, “Do I have something on my face?”

His hands quickly shot up to his face, touching around. You giggled, shaking your head.

“No, you just look really pretty under the moonlight”

A smile spread upon his lips. His hands then reached up to your cheeks, stroking them softly.

“You’re beautiful Y/N. I hope you know that”

You let out a small laugh, “Billy, you tell me that all the time”

“I know but just in case you ever forgot ... “

You shut him up by pressing your lips onto his. He instead found it hilarious to drop his hands from your cheeks, and to squeeze your sides. You pulled away from him as laughter erupted from your mouth, throwing your head back and trying to wiggle away from his grasp. The effort came to be fruitless as you were caught between his body and the back of the passenger seat.

His actions finally stopped, letting you take a moment to catch your breath. He marveled at the way your cheeks glowed a rosy red, and how your eyes twinkled brightly under the moonlight.

You glanced over at the clock on his car, your eyes widened at the time.

“Shit. It’s late. I need to get back”

You pushed yourself off of him, adjusting your shirt and straightening your hair back down. The both of you stepped out of his car to move back up to the front. The entire way back Billy was animatedly talking about all the places he’d take you in New York - but in reality his mind was reeling, wondering how he was ever going to explain to you what he truly was - and if you were to ever accept him.

It was a risk he was going to have to take, and a risk that he was willing to die for.

He pulled up near your house, remembering your strict instructions to never pull up in front of your house.

“I’ll pick you up as soon as the sun sets okay? I’ll be finished with work by then, and we can make it a night trip” he told you.

You nodded happily at him, leaning towards him and pressing a kiss on his cheek. “I don’t think I’ll be able to sleep tonight ... I’m too excited”

“Happy early Birthday Y/N. I promise tomorrow will be a day you’ll never forget”

He grabbed your hand, bringing it up to his lips and pressing a kiss. You in return squeezed his hand before you exited out of his car and headed towards your house.

There was an extra hop in your step as you approached your front door, quietly unlocking it with your key. You entered your foyer, your head turning to face the living room, fully expecting to see your father passed out.

But he wasn’t there.

Fear ran it’s cool claws down your neck as panic began to set in. You ran into the kitchen, hoping to see him rummaging in the fridge for another beer. But he wasn’t there either.

You quickly ran up the stairs and ran straight into your room. You swore you had never felt such a sense of fear enter your body than when you saw your father sitting on your bed, his face completely stoic, his eyes blurry and red.

“D-Dad - “

“You little whore”

It was as if venom was pouring out of his mouth whenever he spoke. His eyes darted over to you as his mouth turned into a nasty snarl. He slowly stood up, walking over to you with his fists clenched by his side.

You began to hyperventilate as he towered over you. Your eyes filled with tears as you avoided his death glare.

His hands shot up and grabbed you by the collar of your shirt, pining you to your bedroom door as you yelped in pain.

“You think I’m fucking stupid huh? You think I haven’t seen you sneaking out for the past couple of days like some fucking slut?!”

You quietly sobbed, squeezing your eyes shut as he pinned you harder to the door.

“Answer me!”

He pulled you up, you felt your feet leave the ground as he threw you across your bedroom. Your body landed with a loud thud, spraining your wrist in the process. You let out a loud and painful wail, he watched you with a sick grin on his face as your body was wrecked with sobs.

Shakily, you reached for towards your pocket, pulling out your phone. Your fingers worked nimbly as you found Billy’s name through your texts. You hit the call button and slid your phone under the bed before your father could come and snatch it from you.

You tried pulling yourself up, but pain shot through you as you applied pressure on your wrist, bringing you back down to the floor. Your father stalked over your body as you desperately tried to crawl away from him.

Billy was stopped at a red light when he saw his phone light up with your name on it. With a soft smile, he picked up the phone, “Hey gorgeous miss me - “

“Billy! Help!”

His blood ran cold at the horrific sound of your voice.

“Y/N?”

He heard a loud thud, then followed by an ear-shattering scream. Without even thinking, he pulled a U-turn at the light, his foot pressing hard onto the gas pedal as he was reaching speeds of 90 MPH to reach your house in time. His eyes were turning a dark red, his fangs were fully visible.

There was no stopping in him getting him to you. He would slaughter anyone who would stand in his way.

He stopped his car in front of your house and darted out his car door. He was moving so fast it was as if a wind breeze was passing by. Using his shoulder he broke down the front door and ran up the stairs to your bedroom where he was met with a gut-wrenching scene.

Your father was on his knees, tears pooling out of his eyes as he sobbed over your unconscious body. Your body was splayed out on your bedroom floor, blood trickling down your nose and out of the corner of your head. Your father was too drunk to even realize that Billy had walked into the bedroom, but before he could even glance up Billy had thrown himself on him - pinning him down the floor.

“What the fuck did you do?!” Billy roared at him.

Your father continued to cry as Billy’s fingers squeezed his neck, cutting off his air circulation.

“I - I ... “

But before he could formulate a sentence, Billy had already sunken his fangs into him.

Your father screamed as Billy drained him from all the blood of his body. Leaving the man as a hollow shell, pale and empty. Billy pulled away from him, his body relishing the taste of human blood. He licked his lips, not wanting to drop a single taste a blood from the feeding.

After he was sure he drank all that he could. He ran over to your body, gently lifting your head onto his lap.

“No, no, no, no, Y/N, wake up, please wake up ... “

He put two fingers on your neck, trying to find any indication that you were still alive. He faintly felt a pulse - but he knew that your father had done too much damage.

He had failed you - he had failed to keep his promise.

He let out a whimpering sob, holding your limp body into his arms. Billy knew he could save you, but would you ever forgive him?

He had to make a decision - and quick.

So he scooped you into his arms, bringing your neck to his mouth.

“I’m sorry Y/N ... please forgive me”

He sunk his fangs into your neck and prayed that you would survive the next 24 hours.

#Billy Hargrove #billy hargrove imagine #billy hargrove x reader #billy hargrove fanfiction #billy hargrove x you

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benhardyisdaddy · 5 years

Text

1 Room For 2

MASTERLIST

RogerxReader

Word Count: 3,068

The employee that travels around the world for her boss and company. That’s exactly what you were. Your boss stayed at the company while you fly around and meet with clients, talking about work and how to expand. Your latest client was in the state of Minnesota and you had finished meeting with them, making more money than what you had expected. You were in the best of moods and nothing could ruin that. Especially since you found out where you’re flying out to next.

You’ve never been to England before, but apparently a new client was based there so, of course, it’s your job to go greet them and up-sell whatever you could. Your boss even told you that after this meeting, he was putting you up in the best hotel and giving you a weeks vacation for all of the hard work you had done. You were in need of a vacation, so you couldn’t wait to begin.

You had never been to Minnesota, so you weren’t exactly sure how bad they got when their annual snow storms hit. Well, today you got to find out. That good mood you thought nothing could ruin, well, it was now ruined. Snow gushed down from the dark sky and coated everything with thick, white sheets. The cab ride to the airport was excruciatingly slow as traffic was backed up due to the hard effort of seeing anything around you. It was like you were in a real life winter wonderland.

You were in the back seat as you continuously keep looking down at your phone and checking the time. It was nearing noon and you were supposed to have been at the airport an hour ago, seeing as your flight leaves in thirty minutes. You huff loudly and look out the window, praying that you get there on time. You weren’t far from the airport, in fact, you could see the building from where you were stopped. You groan and look back down at your phone when the cab began driving once more.

“I apologize for the delay,” your cab driver tells you. “I haven’t seen a storm this bad in a while. I’m trying to get there as fast as I can.”

You relax by his sweet tone and smile.

“Oh, this isn’t your fault at all. The weather clearly has an evil sense of humor.”

The cabby laughs and agrees with you as you get closer to the airport. It’s packed with cars and other cabs outside of the entrance. The man hurries to find an empty space and parks. He jumps out and rushes to the trunk and retrieves your luggage. You hold your purse close to you as you step outside and gasp. The numbing, cold wind hits your face and your eyes instantly water. It was almost hard to breathe by how freezing it is. You curse yourself and your boss for not checking the forecast before you flew here. You sweetly thank the cabby for his patience as you grab your luggage and hurry inside. The doors slide open and you’re greeted by warmth and far away voices. From the amount of cars outside, the airport was actually pretty dead. Your answer was the insane snow storm outside.

You quickly speed walk and find your check-in lane for your bags and ticket. You’re stood in line behind one person as the women helps someone else. You can’t hear what they’re saying, but the person walks away and takes their luggage with them. You watch them confused as the next person walks up to the counter and suddenly does the same. Someone behind you sighs and curses a bit as you ignore them and walk up to the desk.

“Flight to England?” asks the women.

You nod and dig through your purse to pull out your ticket for her to scan.

“Ma’am, I’m so sorry, but that flight has been canceled as of right now. All flights for that matter.”

Your heart sinks as you listen to her.

“Canceled?” asks someone behind you, as they walk up next to you.

You look over quickly due to the person being so close to you. You watch as a handsome man has his face scrunched up in confusion and impatience. He looks to you for a moment, causing you to look back to the lady fast.

“Yes, sir. Everything’s canceled until the storm has passed and it’s clear. I’m so sorry, but I can guarantee you that the airport will provide you a room to stay in at the hotel just next door. Let me scan your tickets and you both will be contacted via phone when your room’s ready. Once again, I apologize.”

You sigh and allow the women to scan your ticket and then the mans. You thank her as you grab your luggage and walk away in search of a cafe nearby. You were frustrated and hungry as you find a table and place your luggage beside it. You walk up and order a drink and food, making your way back. You sit down and are quickly typing away on your cell phone, explaining to your boss what’s happened. You’re continued looking down when someone walks up and clears their throat. You look up fast and it’s the same man from before, awkwardly smiling at you. You smile back and raise your brows, looking around real fast.

“Can I help you?” you ask, confused.

“Sorry, yeah,” he says flustered. “I saw that you and I are flying to the same destination. Not sure how long it will be until we get to the hotel. Um, do you mind if I join you?” he asks.

You smile and nod, moving your food back towards you. He grins and quickly takes a seat across the table from you.

“I’m Roger by the way.” he says, reaching his hand out for you to shake.

You take it and smile, your stress slowly melting away.

“Y/n.” you say back..

“So, y/n, what does England have in store for you? Business or pleasure?”

You sit your phone down and lean back against your chair.

“Both. I’m going for business first and then taking my vacation there. I suppose you’re from there?”

Roger laughs and nods, leaning back as well.

“Was it my accent that gave that away?” he asks.

You laugh with him and the two of you begin talking about anything and everything to pass time. You find out he’s in a popular band over in the UK and he was over here in the states visiting. He was in California for a meeting with his band members, but when they all left to head back home, he flew to Minnesota to visit a friend. And, well, now you’re both stuck.

An hour passed and you found yourself laughing at everything he said, something you haven’t done in a long time. You also couldn’t deny the fact that he was appealing to the eye, if you might say so. You both talk a while longer when you get a call on your phone, telling you that your room was available. You both stand up as he shakes your hand again.

“Well, it was very nice meeting you, y/n. Guess I’ll see you when our ban is up.” he teases.

“Likewise, Roger. Stay warm.” you tell him as you grab your luggage and walk away.

You couldn’t stop smiling as you walk around the corner and up to a desk marked HOTELS. You give them your name and they order you a bus ride over to the hotel. The ride was short and sweet, much better than the cab ride before. You arrive at the hotel and check in to your room.

“You’re in room 303.” says the lady at the front desk.

You thank her and make your way to the room. The hotel was absolutely packed and you realized no wonder the airport was dead, they were all here. You finally find your room and walk inside. It’s decent with a queen sized bed and large flat screen TV in front of it. The bathroom had a jacuzzi tub and you knew for a fact that you were going to put that to good use.

You prop your luggage in the corner and walk into the bathroom, shutting the door behind you. The hotel had a large, soft bathrobe so you slipped from your clothes and put it one. You were in the middle of pulling your hair up when you hear your door handle jiggle a bit, as if someone was trying to open it. You freeze and listen closely, hearing your door open then shut. You jump and look to the bathroom door, your heart pounding.

You spot the hotels mini hair dryer on the counter. You pick it up and hold it forward, using it as a type of weapon. You slowly walk to the door and take in a deep breath before turning it fast and jumping forward, looking into your room. A man is stood with his back facing you, but when he hears you jump out, he turns around and you both yell loudly. You stop when you realize who it is.

“What are you doing here!?” you yell at him.

“I could ask you the same!” yells back Roger.

“Um, this is my room!”

“No, this is my room! See, I have a key!”

“Well I do too! What’s happening?”

“I’m not sure!”

***

“What do you mean you overbooked us!?”

You both were at the front desk of the hotel as the lady apologizes over and over again for the inconvenience.

“I’m so sorry. All of our rooms are packed and someone made a mistake.”

“Are there any other hotels nearby?” you ask.

“I’m afraid not ma’am.”

“So, we’re supposed to share a room together? Me and a stranger?” you ask.

“I mean, we have met and already spoke to one another. Look,” says Roger. “There’s only one bed. Do you have a cot you could bring up?” he asks.

“I’m afraid not. They’re all being used right now.”

Roger looks to you and exhales while shrugging.

“Do you want to sleep in the airport?” he asks you.

“No way.” you tell him.

“Neither do I. Who knows how long it will be. I promise I’m not weird, I’ll stay on my side-”

“Are you serious!? You’d really share a room with someone you don’t know!?” you ask, shocked.

“I’d choose that before sleeping in an airport on their tiny chairs.”

You think about it for a moment and close your eyes, sighing. You slowly nod your head and turn around, walking away. You can’t believe you were doing this.

***

“I’ll take the left side and you can have the right. There will be a pillow between us at all times, got it?” you ask.

Roger puts his hands up fast in defense.

“Got it.”

You nod and look around awkwardly, not knowing what to do. Roger sits on the bed and stares forward at the empty TV.

“We could order room service?” you ask. “They say it’s comped.”

Roger sits up straight and nods. You make a call and order it fast.

“Oh,” you say before they hang up. “And send us up the strongest thing you’ve got.”

Roger watches you impressed as he smiles.

“Strongest thing they got, huh?” he asks amused.

“I think we’re gonna need it.”

“Now listen, I don’t know how long we’re gonna be stuck for, but don’t you go and fall in love with me.” he randomly and cockily says.

You’re taken back by what he just said and you laugh loudly, shaking your head.

“Wow. I can assure you that won’t happen.”

“Good. Same for me.”

“Well good.”

“Good.”

Good.”

***

“Oh, Roger…”

You’re not sure how it happened, but it did. You both had a drink and then another and then another and so on. Your mind was cloudy and the more you drink, the yummier Roger got. Something you didn’t think could happen to this gorgeous man. You both were sat on the bed with your drinks in hand while he was telling you stories about his band mates.

“That Freddie guy seems really fun.” you tell him.

“Yeah, he’s amazing. He’d really like you.”

Your confidence was high as you leaned forward and wiggled your eyebrows playfully.

“Do you like me?” you ask in a fake seductive tone.

You were just being funny, but Roger went serious.

“I do.” he whispers, looking from your eyes to your mouth. “A lot actually… And I just met you.”

Your smile slowly falls as you stare into his blue eyes, shocked by his blunt statement. You weren’t sure what to do or say to this stranger as you both just stared at one another. Before you can do anything, he had leaned all the way in and kissed you, causing you to gasp. You definitely weren’t expecting that. You never kissed strange men you didn’t know, but this was different. He didn’t feel like a stranger to you anymore. You felt like you had known him your whole life.

So, now the two of you were wrapped around one another as his mouth was attached to your neck and you were groaning loudly at every hard thrust he did. Your hands were pulling at his hair and you were high on this moment, feeling like you could melt at any moment.

“That feel good?” he whispers against you.

All you could do was moan out a noise, telling him yes. He speeds up his thrusting and before you know it, you both are gasping and moaning out as you reach your high.

“Fuck,” he whispers out harshly.

You’re both breathing hard as he lays on top of you, exhausted from your previous activities.

“I-” he breathes out. “I never do this.”

Your chest heaves as you laugh and nod.

“Neither do I.” you whisper back.

Roger laughs with you and sits himself up on his elbows.

“I don’t even know your last name.” he says, smirking.

You roll your eyes and shove him away playfully.

“Taylor,” he says. “Roger Taylor.”

You sweetly smile to him.

“Maybe if you’re lucky enough, I’ll tell you.” you whisper.

He laughs and continues to look into your eyes.

“This is weird, isn’t it?” he asks, suddenly insecure.

“Do you regret it?” you ask, bringing your hand up to move a piece of hair from his eyes.

Roger shakes his head and smiles.

“No. I don’t.”

“Then it’s settled. Not weird. Unless if you’re going to keep talking and officially make it weird-”

Before you can finish, you’re giggling as he leans down and kisses you.

“No talking, yeah?” he asks, a smug look on his face. “I think I can make that work.”

You’re laughing loudly as he begins kissing your neck and all of a sudden it’s time for round two.

***

RINGRING RINGRING

You’re startled awake as your cell phone goes off. You’re sore and exhausted as you reach around for it and bring it to your face. You notice sunshine beaming in from your window and your heart almost falls. The clock on your phone reads exactly 8am and you answer the unknown number.

“Hello?” you ask, your voice groggy.

“Hi, Miss Y/l/n? This is Julie calling about an update on your flight. We are ready for take off and your flight will leave today at 10am.”

You sit up straight and look over at Roger, who’s sprawled out still in a deep sleep. You thank the lady and hang up fast. You shake Roger a bit, causing him to stir awake. His face scrunches up as you lean down and sadly smile to him.

“We fly out today.” you whisper to him.

He can’t help but frown.

***

“32 F. This is my seat.” you tell Roger as you slide by the window and sit down.

He frowns when he realizes he’s sitting rows behind you. He finds the man who would sit next to you and starts up a conversation. Before you know it, Roger slides next to you with a smug smile on his face.

“Did you trade seats with that guy?” you whisper to him.

He nods proudly and you can’t help but smile. A flight all the way to England would be long and tiring, so you’re happy that you have him beside you to make it easier.

***

“Enjoy your stay in England.” says the pilot as you all begin to land.

You were exhausted, but excited as you finally land in England. Roger was just happy to be home. He helps you out of your seat as you all walk off of the plane. He helps you find the way to retrieve your luggage as you all stand there and wait for forever. You spot yours and he helps grab it. When you both have your luggage, you realize it’s time to go your separate ways. You both stand in front of each other and awkwardly smile, but secretly hoping this wouldn’t end.

“Well,” you start, not knowing what to do.

You hold your hand up for him to shake and he just smiles and takes it.

“It was very nice to meet you, Roger.” you tell him.

“Likewise, y/n.”

“Perhaps we’ll run into each other during my stay.” you say, smiling sweetly.

“Perhaps we will.”

You both stand there and continue looking at each other until you grab your luggage and take in a deep breath.

“Well, I guess I should go…” you say, not wanting to.

“Oh, yeah. Me too.”

You sadly smile and walk around him and towards the doors. Roger’s still standing there until something clicks. He turns around fast and yells for you.

“Y/n!”

You stop and turn around fast, happy he said something.

“I still don’t know your last name!”

You smirk and bite your lip for a moment.

“I’ll be staying in the heart of London at The Brewery. Find me there and maybe I’ll tell you.”

Roger’s face lights up as you both just smile. You hold your hand up and wave, receiving a small wave from him. Maybe he’ll go to the hotel. Maybe he’ll find you. Maybe you’ll tell him your name. Maybe you both will fall in love. Just maybe.

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#benhardyisdaddy #ben!roger x reader #ben!roger imagine #ben!roger taylor #ben!rogertaylor #roger taylor #rogertaylor #rogertaylorxy/n #fic #1 room for 2 #smut #angst #funny #queen #BoRhap

216 notes · View notes

leiascully · 5 years

Text

Fic: Sláinte

13600 words | slightly AU season 4 Scully/Pendrell relationship, Scully/Mulder UST | R for canon-typical violence/swearing/some sexual situations

Without the divine intervention of @mashnotesofthemythopoeic, this story wouldn’t exist. Thank you.

He approaches her on the oblique, scuffing his sole on the floor on purpose. A proximity alert. Early warning that he's about to cross her boundaries again. She startles easier since her sister was murdered, drawn into herself. He knows, if anyone does, the way grief rises and ebbs, an irregular tide leaving behind unexpected pools.

Weeks ago, there were miracles. Jeremiah Smith laid on hands and healed a man and then got Mulder lost in Canada. Somewhere in the endless plains, he met his sister again, or some facsimiles of her, like the articles in his files that have been copied so many times that their print is smudged and nearly illegible. The clones had lost their voices but still had her eyes. Meanwhile, Scully had to see X's blood on the floor in his building, the smear down the hallway where X had tried to drag himself elsewhere, as if anywhere could be safe. His apartment and hers have been haunted since the beginning. Her father's spirit in her armchair, speaking to her. Her sister's blood soaked into the pad under her carpet. She is mourning all of these things: the miracles, the silent toiling children in their hives and fields, the sanctity of their quiet spaces.

He wades into her waters like a penitent waiting for baptism. Silence billows around him, proof of a current in the stillness between them.

She looks up and her eyes are bleak. He can see her surfacing slowly from the dimly-lit depths of her mind. A measured ascent is necessary; grief, permeating the blood, can overwhelm a body that tries to come up too fast. It's a variety of decompression sickness the medical journals rarely cover, but he's been incapacitated before. He knows the symptoms. He felt himself sinking when his mother was in the hospital; despite everything between them, his mother is all he has left, even if somewhere, a hundred sisters with brown braids toil in strange fields with bees sketching paths in the air above them. Scully buoyed him then. He hitches his hip onto the corner of the desk and folds his hands. He waits, letting her breathe. He bows his head.

"Mm?" she says after a moment. It's a weary little noise, a question mark struggling to unfurl at the end.

"The boys in the lab invited us out for drinks after work," he says, his tone light. He's the sound of the ocean, a shell held to her ear. The only call she'll always take. She tips her head to listen. "They have some kind of Thursday night drink specials at their favorite bar. What do you say, partner?"

She starts to shake her head. "I don't think so, Mulder."

"You said that last time," he reminds her. He rounds the words off, offering them to her rather than accusing. A handful of sea glass to pique her curiosity. "And the time before. Danny said he was going to start taking it personally, just in case he ever meets you."

"I haven't met Danny?" Another question uncoiling as deliberately as a fern. She turns toward him just a little, bright head heavy on the stem of her neck.

"I can't believe it either," he says, and shrugs. "But it's been years now, Scully. Nobody can spend that much time cleaning their gun."

"Maybe it's always been a euphemism," Scully says, a glint of humor in her eye flickering and fading.

He huffs, a fragment of a laugh. "Not even I could euphemism that much."

"Hmm," she says. "Maybe you're not open enough to extreme possibilities."

"I'm going to ignore that obvious attempt to distract me and ask you again," he says. He rarely gets to see this side of her, the little sister who must have traded quips in kind with her older, worldly-wiser siblings. With Melissa. Their own banter usually feels rarified, precise, an academic exercise played out in cinderblock halls, all their humor cloaked in some esoteric code. "Come out with us. I'll buy you a drink. You can finish half of it and make your excuses. I'll even hail a cab for you if you need one."

"One drink," she says. He can see her weighing the offer against whatever she's got planned to fill the hours of her Thursday evening. He imagines a stack of books or back issues of medical journals. Maybe she really will clean her gun, or her bathroom, or maybe she'll turn on the tv and gaze mindlessly at it until she falls asleep on the couch.

"I know it's not easy," he says quickly. "When Sam...I didn't go to a baseball game for the next two seasons. And you're not exactly a social butterfly to begin with."

"No," she says. "Not exactly." There's a tiny thoughtful crease between her eyes. He lets the idea sink between them like a penny flipped into a fountain. Despite the occasional passing interest in dating, she passes the majority of her time with him. He's aware that he likes it that way, has been engineering Scully-traps since the slides he showed her the day they met. He baits her with conundrums and impossible questions and then sits smugly, luxuriating in her company. He has let her leave or lose anyone else who mattered to her. Maybe he can offer her the boys from the lab as a stopgap, a seawall built against her loneliness.

"Just come for an hour or so," he says. "Say hello to the boys. Spend a little time outside the morgue and the basement."

"In the land of the living?" she says wryly.

He lifts his shoulders. "If that's what you call it."

She sighs like the sound of sand shifting. "Then I suppose it's time I met Danny."

She drives. "I won't need a cab," she tells him, changing lanes carefully. "I'm only having one drink. I can bring you back to your car afterwards."

He gives her directions to the place. He would have thought that the crew from the lab would have had a local watering hole, something walkable, but apparently it's a place one of them knows from college: cheaper drinks and fewer government types, the right kind of music on the jukebox. It's for the best. Nobody knows better than Mulder how insufferable the field agents can be. He had, at one point, the password to the boys' club. He could again. It's something in his rich boy's grin, or in the lithe way he still moves. Most of them grew up wanting to be him; he could waltz back into the clubhouse and shotgun a Budweiser and they'd worship him again. But Scully is worth more to him than cigar smoke or golden idols to his glory forged of stories refined again and again each time they're told, until he is a god among men. He's tasted that world and choked on it. He'd rather drink with the techies with their minds full of gears, and Scully, wading through the shallows of her grief.

The bar is better than he expected: less sports paraphernalia and more beers. It's dimly lit, but not so dimly that he can't see Scully's eyes, wide and luminous. They are hailed joyously by the boys from the lab, who, judging by the collection of glassware, are at least one round ahead of them. "Everybody, this is Scully," Mulder says, sweeping his arm through the air, unrolling an imaginary red carpet at her feet. He pulls a chair out for her, enthroning her among the jovial crowd. She gazes beatifically at the crowd as they greet her. A queen among her adoring subjects, limned by the glow of the neon in the window.

He leans down to murmur in her ear, boxing off a space with the square of their shoulders, his stubble striking brief sparks off her cheekbone. There's tinder between them, no matter how sodden the atmosphere. He can feel her interest catch. "What's the lady's pleasure?"

"Surprise me," she says. Her voice smolders like a peat fire.

They don't have his favorite Irish whiskey from his Oxford days at this bar, but they have something a little better than Jameson, so he orders that. The bartender has to hunt for it, slipping through a door into a storeroom behind the mirror. Mulder waits, tracing sigils through the dregs on the bartop. He has this idea of how to honor the step that Scully's taken, how to honor the memory of Melissa, taken too soon. An Irish wake of sorts, the two of them united by their purposeful sorrow. He taps the bartop, syncopated impatience. It would be the perfect transposition of their peculiar solitude from their basement to a less isolated locale, if only the bartender would come back with his whiskey.

The bartender emerges finally. "Sorry, man," he says, brushing a hand over his hair. "I found it, but it's on the top shelf in the back. Must have gotten pushed around. I gotta get the stepladder."

"Sure," Mulder says agreeably, because that's all he can do. Scully promised him one drink. She won't leave before they sip this whiskey together, each knowing the other is feeling that slow burn spreading like a fire in a coal mine: lips, tongue, throat, heart, and belly, and the heat of it reflected in their eyes as they watch each other ignite. Whiskey comes the closest to making him feel like Scully does. He returns to his tracing, composing arcane texts with the rings of condensation and drips of the various potions the bar serves. A codex of Cosmopolitans. A grimoire of gin. The bartender shuffles back into the closet, a stepladder slung over his shoulder, and returns after a moment with Mulder's whiskey. He pours two generous measures, the amber liquid clinging to the sides of the glass, and Mulder slides his credit card over the bartop.

"Start a tab," he says, reaching for the glasses. He's feeling optimistic. Maybe the tide is turning for them, after what feels like a dark age.

A laugh rings out like a bell and Mulder jerks around. He knows that sound better than he knows his own name, for all that he's heard it so rarely. Scully is laughing. Her head is tipped back, her hair a russet cloak sliding over her shoulders. There are two empty shot glasses in front of her and Pendrell and Danny are laughing too.

"You never told us Dana was so much fun," Danny says, leaning over the table. His blond hair is ruffled. He's loosened his tie.

"I haven't tasted a Buttery Nipple since college," Scully says, smirking and patting her lips with the back of her index finger. Mulder can see the faintest breath of pink on her knuckle, transferred pigment from her lipstick. Pendrell's cheeks are painted with the same palette, a study in rose. It would mean something, if they were a piece of art: the two of them lily-pale, blush rippling past half-hidden freckles, and Mulder the shadowy figure hovering at her elbow. He didn't imagine this tableau littered with shot glasses filmed with cream.

"The shot?" Danny asks with a wink, and Scully just laughs and shrugs delicately.

"Isn't there some kind of injunction against kissing and telling?" she asks, ducking her head coquettishly.

"You can trust me," Danny teases, leaning forward on his elbows. "I work for the government."

Scully shakes her head, biting her lip. "I told you," Pendrell says. "She's too smart for you. She'll never crack."

"It might take a few more Nipples," Danny says, "but she'll confess." He slides out of his chair. "I'm going to get another round. Don't do anything fun without me."

Mulder sets the whiskeys on the table with deliberate movements. Now he's the one drowning, but it isn't the cold waters of grief that are closing over his head. This sea is hot; it's salty and bitter and filled with clinging green tendrils that wind around him and drag him deeper. He strains against the net of his own jealousy. He brought her here to share a blatantly solitary moment framed by their friends. Instead, she is giggling into Pendrell's shoulder, their ruddy heads together. She is gasping for the air he exhales, supporting herself with a hand on his arm, and he is holding her up.

"I never knew you were so funny," Scully says in a tone touched with wonder.

"You don't stick around long enough after the lab results come in," Pendrell says, and Mulder wishes he could believe that bashful tone was put on, but Pendrell really is that guy around Scully. "I only get funny when the lab door closes."

There's still an empty seat next to Scully. It isn't really empty; when Mulder settles into it, whatever fragment of his soul that's permanently attaches to hers clicks into place. It was his place whether he was there or not. He nudges Scully's whiskey closer to her.

"Here," he says, trying to keep himself from sounding sulky. "One drink."

"Now the party can start," she says. Her body shifts toward his; the fact that her shoulder is nearly touching Pendrell's should mean nothing. She turns her brilliant smile on him, but the part of him that melts is plunged back into the well of jealousy by the fact that the crinkle in her nose was conjured by Pendrell. It sizzles inside him. She picks up her whiskey and touches the lip of her glass to his. They lift in tandem.

"For Melissa," he says quietly, and she echoes, "For Missy." Pendrell picks up one of the shot glasses that has a sip left in it and clinks it against Scully's glass, mumbling something about how sorry he was to hear about her sister, but Mulder doesn't care. Scully's eyes are on his as they taste the amber liquor: sunshine and grain, a breath of peat and oak, the taste of time and history distilled.

She winces as she swallows. "Ah," she says. "I can't argue with you this time, Mulder. This is definitely a one-drink drink."

Mulder huffs at the irony, almost chuckling. "You're Irish and you don't like Irish whiskey?"

"Missy did, but I've never...it's been a few generations," Scully mumbles, the spark in her dimming, and he hates and relishes the sight simultaneously, and then hates himself. Mulder takes another mouthful. He holds the liquor in his mouth until the roof of his mouth stings and a wash of saliva obscures the bitter honeyed flavor of it. His body's defense mechanism against a sophisticated poison. He wishes he had more ways to conquer the toxins his own mind secretes. He swallows at last and doesn't flinch as it burns down his esophagus. There's no more candlelight in his heart tonight. There's only a profound well the whiskey can't fill.

"Can I smell it?" Pendrell reaches over without waiting for permission and wafts the glass under his nose, swirling the whiskey. He tips the glass to his mouth and Mulder bristles. Scully, for all her knowledge of pathogens and every careful inch she's carved out as her personal space over the last few years, seems unfazed. She's smiling at Pendrell, her shoulders loose, the line of her neck soft as she tilts her head towards him. But they worked together, didn't they, unraveling the mystery of the Jeremiahs Smith while he was evading the brutish outlander in the apiary in Alberta and losing his sister all over again. He knows what it's like to work next to Scully, to see close up the sophisticated analytical engine of her mind. Pendrell smacks his lips. "Mm, that's the good stuff. I didn't know they had anything like this here."

"They almost didn't," Mulder says. "I sent the bartender on a treasure hunt. It's literally top-shelf."

"Didn't mean to commandeer your drink," Pendrell says, setting it down in front of Scully, but she waves her hand over it, dismissing it with her blessing. Saint Scully, who doesn't even need touch to impart her holy influence.

"Cheers," she says, and Pendrell reclaims the whiskey. Mulder leans back and toys with his glass. Every time he looks at Scully foregrounded against Pendrell, jealousy heaves in him.

"Sláinte," Pendrell tells her.

"Semester in Dublin?" Mulder snarks. "Let me guess, Temple Bar with the tourists?"

"Summers with my cousins in Galway," Pendrell says easily. "Hey, I guess you're not the only one with an international reputation."

"Jesus," Danny says, coming back with his hands full of shots. "I've never known this place to be so slow. Who's ready for fun?" He offers his handful to Scully and Pendrell. They each take one. Scully is smiling again, the full-on unguarded grin that shows her pink gums. Mulder narrows his eyes and plucks a shot from Danny's palm. He's fun. He's a barrel full of fucking monkeys. He spent fifteen minutes waiting for the bartender to unearth his close-to-perfect whiskey while Pendrell plied Scully with cheap shots, and now he's about to throw a Buttery Nipple down his throat after it.

The rational part of his brain understands the pressure of expectation. He coaxed Scully to come here, so that he could help her dilute her weary sadness with spirits. They are so often alone he forgot that there are other purveyors of leisure. They are not a lion tamer and her half-domesticated beast, united but solitary in the middle of the spectacle. The rational part of his brain is glad that she is enjoying Danny's company, and Pendrell's, and that the rest of the lab techs seem to be having a good time on the side of the table that isn't taking part in this tableau. But the rational part of his brain can't shout over the roar of the forge inside him.

"Let's do this," Danny says, and the four of them toss back the shots. They're sweet and easy, not at all what Mulder wanted. The Irish Cream coats his palate, oleaginous, the flavor enduring. He licks at the top of his mouth and throws back the rest of his whiskey to scour it away. Scully sets her glass down and giggles, tipping against Pendrell. Pendrell smiles down at her, his mouth half open. He clearly can't believe his luck. Scully's the unexpected gold at the end of the rainbow. Mulder wants to snarl. He stands up.

"Mulder?" Scully says, as if she feels the tug of his leaving, though she's still leaning against Pendrell.

"Bathroom," Mulder says shortly. He shoves his way to the restroom even though there's no one he has to push past. It's just the atmosphere of the place that crowds at him. He pisses into the urinal, aiming at a fleck of paint, wishing he could urinate with enough force to scour the porcelain. He washes his hands and dabs at his face with the damp backs of his hands. He needs to cool off. He should have eaten before they started drinking. He should have taken her somewhere they could be alone. Maybe then he wouldn't resent her for taking comfort in the company of others exactly the way a reasonable person would hope that she would. He offered her camaraderie; she accepted.

He steps out of the restroom and into the hall. Over the shoulder of one of the other patrons, he glimpses their table. Pendrell is rubbing Scully's back as she gazes up at him. Something quakes inside him. He feels the drag like the drain in the harbor before a tsunami. It isn't her fault that this experience doesn't align with his vision of it, and goddammit, he knows that, but he resents her all the same.

"I was just telling Sean about my sister," she says. Her eyes are glossy, but she's smiling.

"Sean?" Mulder says.

Pendrell holds out the hand that isn't between Scully's shoulder blades. "Sean Pendrell. Nice to finally meet you. Sometimes it feels like nobody in the Hoover Building has a first name."

"We'll stick to that," Mulder says, grinning in a way he can feel shows his canines. "Just Mulder."

"Just Mulder," Scully giggles. "Short for Justice Mulder." She puts her hand on his lapel. He would swear he feels his heart lurch toward her touch. For a moment, the jealousy within him stops roiling, a gentle simmer of longing.

"Are you sure it isn't short for 'just partners'?" Pendrell jokes, and Mulder grits his teeth. Acid washes through his stomach.

"Just partners?" Danny snorts. "I saw her when somebody tried to meddle with Mister Spooky over there. I've never done field work, but I can guarantee I wouldn't stand up to the big guns for anybody the way that she does." He nods at Scully. "Dana, you're basically Wonder Woman as far as I can tell."

"I left my Lasso of Truth at the office," she says, and winks at Danny.

He should be relieved to see her so happy and relaxed when she's been so steeped in misery he's almost caught her hand to check her fingertips for pruning. It's a remarkable transformation and most other days he'd be glad of it. But he wanted to be the catalyst of her sea change.

"You know what we need?" Danny says. "Nachos."

"Yes," Scully says decisively.

"You're a genius," Pendrell tells Danny. "Beers on me."

He goes to the bar and Mulder leans over to Scully. "You ready to get out of here?"

"Mulder, nachos," she says, pouting a little.

"I thought you only wanted one drink," he reminds her.

"I changed my mind," she says, turning away a little. Her hair brushes his lips. "I thought this was what you wanted."

It was. It wasn't. He says nothing to the back of her shoulder.

Nachos arrive in due time, preceded by Pendrell with IPAs all around. Mulder passes on the beer and takes a chip, but the sour cream curdles in his stomach. Scully sips at her beer, claims the one that was intended for him, and eats more nachos than he thinks he's ever seen her eat before. Her lips gleam with grease from the cheese. She licks at them and desire jolts in Mulder's belly, sloshing through the jealousy. Pendrell is watching her lips too. She's all rosy cheeks and blue blue eyes, her head tipping back as she laughs to show the pale slope of her throat. She has rarely looked so lovely.

When the nachos are gone and the IPAs have been drained to the dregs, Scully leans against her chair. She checks her watch with a deliberate gesture that lets Mulder know how tipsy she is. Three shots, two beers, and a swallow of good whiskey on an empty stomach: of course she's headed towards drunk. He goes to the bar and retrieves his credit card. Two expensive imported whiskeys and a proportionally large tip for the bartender who retrieved the bottle. It isn't his fault that the evening exceeded Mulder's expectations. He strides back to the table and stands behind Scully's chair.

"I hate to break up this party," Mulder says, "but we've got an early appointment. Scully?"

"We do," she says, her face lolling toward his. He could bend down and kiss her. He's close enough to catch the piney scent of beer on her breath.

"Too bad," Pendrell says, and then Scully's looking at him instead, listing toward him like she's in the trough of a wave.

"Give me your keys," Mulder says to her. "You're not driving."

She digs in her pocket, swaying gently. The keys clink into Mulder's waiting palm.

"Oh," Pendrell says, fumbling with his wallet. "What do I owe you?"

Mulder waves him off. "When I buy a lady a drink, it's her business what she does with it."

"Thanks," Pendrell says. His smile is genuine. Mulder flinches. "My round next time."

"Good night, Danny," Scully says, sliding out of her chair; the booze has limbered her and she's taken the shape of her container. She braces her hand on Pendrell's shoulder for balance. "Good night, Sean."

"Good night," Pendrell says in a soft voice that has Mulder gritting his teeth. He puts his arm around Scully's shoulders and steers her out of the bar. He has to slide the driver's seat of Scully's car all the way back on its runners. Her fingers fumble with the passenger side seat belt as he starts her car.

"Are you okay to drive?" she mumbles.

"One drink and a shot over two hours is not going to get me drunk," he says, adjusting her mirrors. Angles of refraction. He catches a glimpse of her face in the rearview mirror, washed blue in the underwater light of the street.

"I had...a few more than that," she says, her head sinking into the cup of her hand as she props her elbow against the window.

"You did," he agrees.

"Can we stop and get food?" she asks.

"Nachos weren't enough?" he retorts, but he's already scanning for options. She settles on burgers and orders a meal. The bag emerges from the window, a grease-spotted modern miracle that she's ripping open before he puts the car back in drive. Even drunk, she takes precise little bites of her burger, licking ketchup out of the corners of her mouth after each swallow. He picks at her fries as he navigates the road. It's all he can manage. He should be hungry, but jealousy still fills him up. The taste is bitter in his mouth.

"Thank you," she says when she's finished. She touches the tip of her tongue to the crystals of salt on her fingers.

"It's not hard to find a burger place," he tells her.

"For making me go out," she says, her face patched with wan gold from the streetlights. "I find grieving very difficult. I'm not dealing well with losing my sister. I didn't - I'm not dealing well with losing my father. In this job, sometimes it feels like we just keep losing people. Mister X. Deep Throat. Your father. The clones. You nearly lost your mother."

"She's recovering," he says, staring into the night.

"Maybe I've grown too sensitive," she sighs. "Every life we don't save feels personal. It's like the grief is still there, under my skin, and the slightest scratch has me bleeding. I feel some closure when it comes to the loss of my father, but Missy - she met a violent end in my home and some part of me is still lost without her."

"I didn't know her well," Mulder says, "Or your father. But she seemed like the kind of person who would want you to celebrate instead of mourn."

"You did know her," Scully tells him. "And Ahab - he wouldn't want this to founder me."

She leans against him as they walk into her apartment. He reaches into her cabinet for the ibuprofen and gets her a glass of water as she brushes her teeth. She winces, baring her teeth at the bitterness as she swallows the pills. She's already squinting in the light of the kitchen, ducking her head so that her hair glints. Mulder takes the glass from her again and puts it in the sink.

"Are you staying?" she asks.

"It would be a hell of a cab ride," he says, canting his body in submissive inquisition. "I wasn't expecting to have to drive you home."

She glances at her bedroom door. The look in her half-glazed eyes is either dubious or a drunk person's blurry version of calculating. Carry the one, into her bed. Divide the covers.

"I'll take the couch," he says quickly. "Although I wouldn't say no to an extra pillow."

"Your clothes," she says, narrowing her eyes as if she can conjure them out of whatever drawer or shelf she's assigned him, his corner of her world. "You have clothes."

"I'll be all right," he says. A pillow is not within her capacity at the moment, unless he retrieves it himself, and venturing into her bedroom is beyond the scope of what his mind is currently able to process. There be not monsters, but some edge of the world he can't chance tonight. Charted territory is safe: her living room, her couch, the cozy plane of her kitchen table. She let Frohike drink coffee there, not so long ago, when he himself was a ghost hovering in cedar-scented smoke. She proved him wrong there, peering at a photograph with a magnifying glass like a detective in a film.

She's still looking at him, tipping her head as if he'll get less out-of-focus if only she finds the right angle. Even intoxicated, she sees through him. He puts his hands on her shoulders and guides her to her bedroom door.

"Good night, Scully," he murmurs, putting his face unnecessarily close to her ear. The rising acid of his malaise is diluted in her presence. Scully, his universal solvent, washing away all his sins. She hums in response and goes into her bedroom. He kicks off his shoes and pants and stretches out on her couch, covering himself with the afghan she keeps there. Wherever she's tucked his things away, he has a fresh shirt and boxers. He thinks she might have some of his sweatpants too, a relic of the time his water was dosed with LSD and she had to put a bullet through his shoulder. As long as his suit doesn't smell like cigarettes and hops, he can get another day out of it. It won't be the first time he's shown up to the office in yesterday's suit, trailing an aura of poor decisions.

Scully's couch is comfortable, but he hasn't worn hollows into it yet. He turns over, tucking the afghan more securely around him. He wonders if she's tossing in her sleep. He hasn't seen her drunk before. The potential outcomes of his crossing her threshold flip through his mind, a slide show his unconscious mind prepared for him: waking twined together with her, beached on the gritty shore of wakefulness; her fingers working under the hem of his t-shirt in the middle of the night; the two of them on separate edges of the mattress pressed apart by their own magnetism; Scully waking suddenly, startled, her hair messy and her face creased by regret and her pillow.

Tonight isn't the night that will happen. He's too angry at her. He turns over again, onto his face, breathing into her pillows. Angry isn't the right word. He casts about for more precise nomenclature. There isn't a word to encompass the Celtic knot snarl inside him: frustration, envy, disappointment, longing. Tonight was supposed to be something else. Mulder and Scully huddled together, distinct from the others with their squat glasses of liquor, the calm in the eye of the crowd. He's aware that he should be pleased that she had fun instead of resenting that he wasn't the catalyst for it. It doesn't take a psychologist to realize he's gotten himself tangled up in her in a way he can't undo.

It takes him a long time to fall asleep. Insomnia is a circle of hell. Like Tantalus, what he wants is just out of reach. Like Sisyphus, he rolls the memories of the night over and over in his head. Like Prometheus, something vital is clawed out of him. In the daylight, loving her is generally a minor inconvenience, a jab in his heart or a catch in his breath. In the dark, time expands to encompass every sin of omission and commission he's ever even considered when it comes to her. No wonder he has bruisy circles under his eyes. He beats the hell out of himself every night. But her couch is soft as an embrace. It smells like her. Eventually, he drifts off.

+ + + +

Scully crawls into her bed, some part of her mind noting how clumsy and childish her movements are. Well, she's drunk, and she's allowed to shed all her poise in her own bedroom. No one can see her except the secret cameras someone has probably installed in her alarm clock or whatever. She clutches the duvet around her and lets the room wash gently back and forth. She used to be able to let her guard down with Mulder. Mulder, who's on her couch, not so far away. Only a door between them, and what's a door? Doors open. She knocked on his door in Bellefleur, didn't she? And showed herself to him: her sensible undergarments, her body. Her fears. He took care of her then. He's taking care of her now, from arms' length. Maybe if she opened the door, he'd come in and settle next to her and steady the mattress that bobs under her.

Sometimes she wakes up on one side of the bed, her arm flung over the space where she tucked him in after she shot him, a pillow bolstered against her. Her body has a hell of an imagination.

Mulder thinks she's too fragile now. Since her abduction. Since Missy. She has to be impenetrable, untouchably fine to avoid him overriding her better judgment in the name of protecting her. Nevermind that sometimes she'd really, really fucking like to be penetrated, or at least caressed. Nevermind that he's spent close to four goddamn years making eyes at her and all he offers her is a couple of ibuprofen. Fucking Mulder and his fucking knight in shining armor act, like she's in some kind of tower and he's carrying her favor into battle instead of her trotting along right behind him (when he hasn't left her rocking in his wake as he jets ahead to face the peril alone, as if sacrificing himself wouldn't mean taking the greatest part of her too).

Pendrell, though. Sean. He was right there with her all night, his mind and his body attuned to her. He made her smile, just to see her smile, not because he was trying to reestablish the parameters of their quarantine from the rest of the human race (ahem, Mulder). Sean puts her on a pedestal, maybe, but she could climb down and she's pretty sure he'd hold up his arms to help her descend. She wonders, idly, what's underneath the lab coat. If she unbuttoned his shirt, would she find chest hair? Mulder doesn't have much. Sean's should be auburn, a heathery thicket coordinated to his ruddy hair. She could run her fingertips through it, if it exists. She wonders if he's heard as many upholstery comments as she has.

She falls asleep all at once, sinking like a stone under the ballast of grief, of relief.

+ + + +

Scully has a hangover in the morning. He has to knock on her door to rouse her and retrieve his spare clothing. He showers quickly while she's still wallowing in her bed, trying to find her land legs. He drives them through a fast food place for a greasy egg sandwich and bad coffee, which restores her spirits somewhat. There are hash browns too. He pushes his toward her and she eats it with the eager reticence of the nauseated, smearing ketchup over it from the little foil packet. She moans.

"Mulder, you've saved my life," she says.

"I'll add it to the tally," he tells her. "TGIF, huh?"

"Thank you," she says. "As awful as I feel this morning, I think I needed that, or something like it."

"It wasn't exactly what I had planned," he says, eyes fixed on the traffic.

"I can't believe I didn't know Sean's first name," she says to herself. "I can't believe I'd never met Danny."

"We're busy," he offers.

"We're insular," she counters. "Maybe it's time we stopped isolating ourselves like we're rare specimens trapped under a bell jar."

"Next time you want to go to one of the Gunmen's parties, just let me know," he says.

"Maybe I will," she says, and stares out the window.

In the office, she nurses a cup of coffee and sorts through years of newspaper clippings. He leaves her alone. There were times he preferred the dull thud of a headache and the predictable churning of nausea to grief, an unsteady pier built of half-rotten timbers that still provided a few inches of clearance from his emotions. At lunch, she disappears and then returns with a slip of paper.

"What's that?" he asks.

"Sean's number," she says casually.

"Hmm," he says, staring into his screen. At least the light will reflect off the lenses of his glasses so she won't see the creases gathering at the corners of his eyes as he frowns. Silence tightens between them.

"Hmm?" she echoes, when the weft of wordlessness is stretched thin. "Were you going to say something, Mulder?"

He waves his hand in dismissal, brushing her question out of the air. "Just reading this article about crop circles in Kansas," he tells her.

Three years and he can count on one hand the number of occasions she's voluntarily spent time with FBI personnel who aren't him. One was the lunch with Colton that she came back from so irritated that she organized his desk drawers.

"Good night," she says at 4:59, picking up her things.

"Big weekend plans?" he says casually.

She pauses with her hand on the doorknob. "Danny and Sean invited me to try a new cocktail bar with them. I was promised something better than nachos."

"Enjoy," he says, turning back to his computer. It isn't what he means. He's certain that she knows that. He takes off his glasses and digs the heels of his hands into his eyes.

"Cheers," he says to the empty office. It sounds muffled, any sentiment soaked out of the word by the layered files and clippings. He's no better than Tooms, lining a nest to hide away in.

+ + + +

The cocktail bar is much more her style, but somehow, that's less enjoyable. She'd rather be out of her element. Easier to be swept off her feet that way. But it's nice all the same to sip from some elegant coupe scented with elderflower and to let Sean try to win a laugh from her. She makes it easy for him, but God, how sweet it is to do something easy. How nice to pretend for a few hours that she isn't perpetually embroiled in some kind of Kafkaesque imbroglio complete with extraterrestrial interlopers and a steady undercurrent of never-realized erotic tension with her leading actor.

She indulges herself in an idle fantasy of taking Sean home and letting him put all that starry-eyed reverence to practical use, but settles, this time, for kissing him on the cheek as they leave. Danny cheerfully presents his own cheek and she kisses him too, pleased that he's playing along. Danny is deliberate in showing that he's not interested in her, but in a friendly way. She appreciates that, after years of being ignored or leered at by most of the rest of the Bureau's male employees. He's a good wingman, a non-reactive catalyst encouraging and tempering Sean's eagerness. She tells Sean she'll call him. Danny whistles, glancing away.

In her empty apartment, she makes herself a salad and ignores the specter of Mulder stretched out on her couch. Of all the people who haunt her, he's the most accusatory. She eats in the living room, plopping down right in the middle of Mulder's insubstantial torso and turning on the ten o'clock news. She'll be damned if she lets him kill her buzz. She's lost too much already.

Missy would be proud of her.

+ + + +

A group of kids playing pickup baseball discover a newborn in the oozing mud under home plate. They go to Pennsylvania.

He imagines the two of them in a place like this forever: Mulder and Scully, gentled into quaintness, ordering pizza every Friday from the same place for the next ten years. Mulder and Scully, leaving the doors of their hundred-year-old farmhouse unlocked, tending a garden in the sun, greeting the grocer and the mailman by name, watching the fireworks in a field just outside of town on the Fourth of July. Mulder and Scully, brutally dismembered. He knocks the pig shit off his shoes and remembers that pigs will eat anything, including human remains. But then again, so did Queequeg. The anonymity of the city seems preferable; to be known and still lost is beyond his capacity to bear.

He had forgotten that the price of living close to the land is confronting the barely-latent savagery of humankind, the instinct to protect one's clan at all costs. The Peacocks might be an extreme example, but he isn't immune to the territorial instinct. Deep down, he knows that if he could rub his jaw on Scully's shoulder to mark her with his scent, he would. They have found subtler ways to demarcate themselves as separate from the others: his palm at her back, her fingertips pressed to his chest, the protective coloring of their dark suits. He's seen her eyes narrow to viper slits as she defends him. They've pledged their troth to each other in a thousand wordless ways, keeping vigil in a world that their watchfire can't illuminate.

He had thought that extended to all areas of their life together. At least, he'd never imagined she could be wooed with Buttery Nipples.

She calls Sean as they collect their luggage from the baggage claim. "I could use a drink," she sighs into the phone. "This case we just wrapped up. I'll tell you about it when we get there."

He would let himself be taken to pieces if it would save her. He wouldn't do the same for himself. For one illicit moment, he allows himself to imagine their clannishness extending to children. Scully, soft and round with the next Mulder scion. Home brought out the nesting urge in both of them, despite or because of the dark secrets stashed in the Peacock house. Something about the horror of it plants the seed of the idea of doing better, of passing genetic muster and passing on something more.

"Mulder?" she says, his name a gentle interrogative. "I'm going to get a drink with Sean and the lab techs. Coming with?"

"I'm tired," he says. A non-answer. He can't imagine her carrying his child and watch her smile at Pendrell. Even a masochist finds his limits.

She lifts one shoulder. "Suit yourself."

+ + + +

There's so much about this job that she loves, and so much more that she wishes she could forget. And she can, for a little while, at the bar with a beer in her hand. Enough booze in her belly and the froth of carbonation creates sufficient pressure in her system to push her concerns away like a pot bubbling over. Maybe she overindulges, but the burdens she carries are heavy. It takes a substantial heave to heft them overboard. She's been too tired lately to do it on her own. She needs the chemical crutch, just for now.

Sean, meanwhile, is openly flirting with her tonight, leaning closer and closer. He uses the noise of the bar as an excuse. She won't tell him he doesn't need one. Not yet, anyway - it's fun to watch him work to woo her. The thrill of being pursued by someone whose purposes are so transparent and benign is something she doesn't want to give up. Sean sees her as a woman, not just as a female body, a trauma site marked off with crime tape. There's no DO NOT ENTER when he looks at her.

She presses her knee against his under the table. For a moment, he gapes at her, astonishment overriding his composure. The next time he goes to the bathroom, she saunters into the hallway and flattens him against the wall with a kiss. She feels powerful; after having been flung around by so many unsubs and cryptids, it doesn't even take all her weight to sway Sean. He nearly swoons at her touch, putting his arms around her to steady himself.

"Wow," he says, dazed. She smirks at him and pushes open the door of the women's room.

She kisses him again when he walks her to her car, dragging him carefully down by his tie. It's something she's often been tempted to do to Mulder, some impulse driven by the electricity between them and the urge to shut him the hell up once in a while, but they resist each other at the most inopportune moments, their unwelcome better angels delivering them from whatever comfort they might take in each other. Sean doesn't resist at all. She arches up against the bulwark of his body and anchors herself to him. Her fist is clutched between their chests, still wrapped in his tie. The cautious way he holds her gets bolder; her pulse quickens. She's grateful, on some level, to know that people who aren't Mulder can still have this effect on her. It's been more than a while.

Sean kisses her fairly chastely, but the way he gathers her into him suggests he's got more to offer. She smirks against his lips and pulls away a fraction of an inch. He drifts after her, mesmerized, and then steps back. Mannerly. She appreciates that. Mulder likes to step into her space and she likes that even better, but that's strictly situational. She opens the door and gets into her car, rolling down her window.

"Maybe next time, you could invite me up to see your etchings," she says, and instantly regrets it. It's the kind of comment that's calibrated to Mulder's tastes, his love for the eccentric and the out-of-fashion. Mulder's a cabinet of curiosities; he probably does have etchings stashed away somewhere, and he'd explain them to her in excruciating detail, his face a breath away from hers, before finally, finally tearing all her clothes off.

"My...oh," Sean says. "Um, yes, definitely. Uh, any time you want to look at them."

She smiles at him and drives away. She's sober enough to drive, barely, navigating the streets in a dreamy invincible drift. She's really got to start taking taxis. There's already a headache pounding just behind her eyes.

When she gets back to her apartment, she runs a bath even though it's late, and slides into the hot water, letting herself dissolve. This too too solid flesh, she thinks. Her body already tells too many stories: scars and stretchmarks, earned and unearned. The knot at the nape of her neck where someone put a computer chip of unknown provenance. There's grief etched into her bones. It wouldn't show in the results of an autopsy, but it's there. Maybe it's the additional invisible weight of it that's made her so tired lately. The smell of witch hazel makes her want to cry. Missy used to use it on her face, especially in the summer. Scully bought some and she can't bear to use it. Where is that recorded in her body?

When she gets out of the bath, she's lightheaded from the heat. She drinks two glasses of water rattling with ice, her chest constricting painfully as the chill trickles down her throat. It won't help. Anything more than one drink leaves her with a sense of mal de mer the next day. She drinks the water anyway, rinsing down a multivitamin with it, and topples into bed. She has faith in science, or at least in the placebo effect. She wants to believe that this capsule will make up for the deficiencies in her life, and that gives it a stronger chance of doing so. Maybe that's Mulder's secret. He needs to live in a world where the shadows hold something besides horrors. The secret of the deep woods is Bigfoot instead of a grave full of the corpses of young women, culled while they were hiking and camping. The dead become benevolent spirits. Tape an X on the window and a messenger arrives with some part of an answer.

She's still afraid of the dark, but she takes her vitamins.

She puts on her old-fashioned, unsexy pajamas (another reason to avoid having sex at her own apartment) and watches the clock count up until the red numbers blur into black.

+ + + +

It happens again after Philadelphia. The bleached corpses of young black men rattled them both. Mulder goes with her this time. He was, during the case, acutely aware of his relative whiteness and the safety that came with it, but imagining what it was like to be hunted for some essential characteristic rattles him all the same. Aboah's need seems more personal than Tooms' or the lipophage poet; everyone has a liver and some proportion of body fat. Scully's quiet too on their way home, touching his neck with fingers as cool and brief as raindrops, checking the puncture in his skin. He's half-convinced that she's a haruspex, reading his entrails through the veil of his skin.

"This time I could use a drink," he murmurs to her.

"I'll call Sean," she says and he surrenders to the inevitable. The crowd is a comfort that night. He nearly feels unruffled watching Scully's shoulders settle as she curls into the corner of the booth. They're safe. He sips at his beer, wondering if it's contraindicated by the toxin on the dart, but Scully would have told him. He rolls up his shirt cuffs and she slouches against him, her hand on Pendrell's arm as she imparts some morsel of Scully wisdom. His jealousy stays sheathed, its edges blunted by her touch.

After that, it becomes a regular thing. It's only on Thursdays at first - the drink specials are irresistible tradition. He goes with them, usually at Danny's invitation. But he feels like a chaperone, scowling while Scully and Pendrell giggle into their glasses. The way they interact seems so simple; meanwhile he's doing calculus to determine whether he can bring Scully a cup of coffee without it having seventeen layers of indecipherable nuance. Pendrell likes Scully. Even a person who didn't make a career out of profiling human behavior could tell that. His gaze follows her like he's magnetized and she's true north. It's equally clear that she enjoys his company, though the exact parameters of that enjoyment have yet to be determined. And Mulder sulks in the corner of the booth, trying not to resent the hell out of both of them and their blithe joie de vivre.

He stops going after a few weeks. "Polishing your gun?" Scully says, the irony in her voice thick enough to spread on toast.

"Might be," he says with a wink, just to watch her roll her eyes. "I'm a man of mystery, Scully. I could be doing anything."

"Basketball, 1-900 numbers, and videos that aren't yours," she says, studying their latest casefile. "I think that about covers it."

After the Gerry Schnauz case, she comes in squinting with circles under her eyes and a brown paper bag in her hand, the cheery logo splotched with grease. She's replaced one kind of unruhe with another, but at least it isn't because Schnauz managed to slip the ice pick behind her eye. He wonders if the hangover is as painful as the raw edges on her wrists from the adhesive of the duct tape. He lifts his eyebrows at her, but she just mumbles and bends her head to her work.

+ + + +

She wonders if Mulder can tell that she went home with Sean. She had enough time to dash home for a shower and a change of clothes, but not enough time for breakfast. Eating fast food makes her feel like she's on the road. Maybe it's a way to distance herself from last night. Out of town in her own life.

Not that last night was bad. Sean does, as it turns out, have somewhere between a dusting and a pelt of rust-colored curls on his chest. He's extremely willing to take direction, and she's willing, at this point, to give it. He lit a fire for her and they sat in front of it, letting the heat bathe each new section of bare skin. He offered her wine, he offered her water, he had a ready stash of in-date condoms and a bottle of quality lube. He kissed her on the forehead afterward and didn't tell her he loved her. He didn't ask her to talk about the marks where Schnauz's bonds stripped off her skin. She appreciated all of it.

Mulder looks at her, a question in his eyes, and she schools her face into careful indifference. It's her default expression these days. She hopes it hides the ache behind her eyes. NSAIDs don't put a dent in it anymore, but the back of her neck is rebar-rigid. She'd schedule a massage if she thought she could keep an appointment. The job has gotten in the way of the dentist, the optometrist, and the gynecologist, to say nothing of the rest of her life. It isn't a surprise that her body is manifesting signs of being under stress.

Maybe the sex will drain some of the tension out of her. She can fuck her way back to health. It sounds more appealing than running.

+ + + +

After their failure with the Ephesians, Mulder expects it: the fast food, the squint of her eyes against the sifted light of the basement and the fluorescence of the tiled hallways. Through the ages, he thinks, wondering if they've gone through this before. But he can't talk to her about it, despite her assertion that she'd go through the motions all over again, ever moment except the Flukeman. He saw the look in her eyes as she watched him with Melissa. She mentions nothing about his weakness for brunettes with tragic pasts, offers no analysis. It's more than he deserves, but he feels the distance between them increase incrementally. More than his sergeant, less than his lover. She builds a wall of pint glasses between them, transparent and impenetrable.

From then on she wanders in just the wrong side of on time with bullpen coffee steaming in her hand once a week, when they're in town, usually on Thursdays. There's a trivia night on Wednesdays that's apparently superior to even the drink specials. He didn't even know she was interested in trivia. He tries not to interrogate her, but any question is beyond her capacity to tolerate, apparently.

"You can't give me a curfew, Mulder," she snaps when he asks if she had fun (in fairness, he heard the judgment in his voice even as the words left his lips, the astringent edge to them). "Yes, I had fun. I have fun when I'm with Sean. It's something of a novel experience for me after the last few years, as you might imagine. And let the record state that that you" - she stabs at his chest with one accusatory finger - "were the one who tried to get me to go out in the first place."

He holds up his hands. You wouldn't shoot an unarmed man, would you, copper? He isn't innocent, but he isn't culpable.

They barely speak for the rest of the day. He feels loss wash in, frothing around his feet, although she's sitting fifteen feet away.

+ + + +

Sean is very sweet. He fills a vase with flowers at his place, fresh every time she comes over, but doesn't offer them to her. He pulls out his records. "La Vie En Rose" plays, Piaf's voice raspy and poignant, while his lips work his way down her throat. Once a week seems to be enough for him. If it isn't, he doesn't tell her. He lets her wordlessly work through her frustrations, exhausting herself against his body reaching for the moments of relief that release brings.

She isn't in love with him, but she could be. Though she can sense the longing in him, he offers her only as much as she can bear. They can talk about things that aren't work. He's interested in art and music for their own sakes. Mulder's seen the Mona Lisa, but he's more interested in the conspiracy theories that frame it. Bach fascinates him most when it's scrawled in binary by a child watching tv static. Sean listens to her without focusing his entire existence on the conversation.

Sean is fun. He makes her laugh. He makes her come. He makes her breakfast, when she stays. He understands when she slips away in the morning or in the middle of the night, seeking her own bed. Sean doesn't make her confront the mysteries of the universe or her own heart. Oh yes, she could fall in love. She holds onto the idea, mulling it over, a grain of a thought lacquered with potential. If it were a pearl, she would rub it against her teeth, testing its authenticity. Instead, she tucks it away without examining it. Some gifts are worth more than their value.

+ + + +

They're on an out-of-town case. Illinois. Witchcraft in a hospital. Pentagrams drawn in blood. She doesn't outright accuse him of picking it to drag her away from her standing hangover (he doesn't think she has a drinking problem yet, but exhaustion is intoxicating in its own right), but she does settle herself in the window seat of the plane and pretend to sleep so she doesn't have to talk to him. He sighs.

They follow the thread. The culprit slips through their fingers, but they save a life. They file the appropriate reports. Mulder wonders, on the plane home, how much of the labyrinth they build for themselves.

"Daedalus," he says out loud as the name rises to the tip of his tongue.

"This plane better not have wax wings," Scully mumbles, her face turned into the side of the plane.

"I was just thinking of how we ensnare ourselves," Mulder says cautiously. "Our habits. Our ways of thinking. Who has the patience to navigate our mazes. Who has a magic thread that marks the path we take trying to find the hearts of ourselves and how we get back out again, if we even want to."

She sighs. Her breath puffs white against the plastic window. "Do you know why I go out, Mulder?"

He lets the thin recycled airplane air fill his cheeks. "Your competitive side craves the victory you can only find in pub trivia?"

"It's easy," she says, her eyes closed. "Danny and Sean and their friends, they're easy. They're smart and they respect me and I don't have to know about the goddamn hero's journey to have a conversation with them."

He bites his lip. "I hope you know that I respect you."

She snorts. "Another masterful misinterpretation."

"Scully, I..." he begins and lapses into silence. Don't know where this is coming from? A lie. Don't deserve this? Another. Don't understand why this is happening right now in this enclosed space surrounded by strangers? Technically accurate, but not what she wants to hear.

"He likes me," she says softly. "Sean. I know that. But it's easy, Mulder, and it hasn't been easy in a long time. When you mention Melissa, I remember talking to her about you. I remember hoping the two of you would hit it off, and Mom had her half-convinced you should come for the holidays. But there's no history with Sean. He never met Missy. When he says he's sorry, it doesn't mean the same thing as it does when you say it. You knew her. I don't have any memories of waking up in a hospital bed having lost months of my life and seeing his face next to hers. She never told me that Sean wouldn't give up on me or the stupid things Sean almost did to protect me. I can just tell him the easy parts. I can tell him about the peasant skirt we shared until it ripped down the back or the cake we tried to bake for Ahab one Father's Day or the summer she decided she was a witch and mistook poison ivy for a rare and magical herb. I don't get an hour long lecture on herblore or have to see that face you make when you think something is your fault. It's simple, Mulder, and I like that." She lets the space between them hollow into silence. He tries not to make the face, even though this, and most things wrong in her life, are almost entirely his fault. She sighs. He drops his eyes, acknowledging his failure.

"Nothing between us has ever been simple," she says, and every word resonates.

Hundreds of years of complications, he thinks, if Melissa Riedal-Ephesian and his own deep memories are to be trusted. There's a snarl of wire in his chest, cutting through his ribs. It pulls tighter every time he glances sidelong at her, her profile stark against the backdrop of sky.

They don't speak again until the airport. He pulls her suitcase off the conveyor belt. She thanks him. He tells her she's welcome. They go their separate ways.

Mulder is reminded of how impossible it is to see the depth of the water until it swallows you. He drives home and lays on his couch staring blindly at his fish tank. The diver rises and falls, never out of his depth. Mulder, sinking, can't breathe.

+ + + +

She goes home after the airport and putters around her empty apartment for an hour picking things up and putting them down in almost the exact same place before she calls Sean.

"Of course you can come over," he says, his voice puzzled.

She's never gone home with him except after the bar. Keeping things simple has meant having certain rules outlined in her own mind, but her argument with Mulder prickles along every familiar circuit in her brain. She can't get out of her head on her own.

Sean is as tender as ever but she's not in the mood for sweets. She rakes her nails down his back and he gasps. There are livid marks on his pale skin after they're finished.

"Sorry," she says as she's getting dressed. "I don't know what got into me."

"It's okay," he says, propping himself up on one elbow. "It was kind of hot."

She smiles, but it feels lopsided and heavy. She kisses him to make up for it. He strokes her arm as she leans over him. There are stars in his eyes.

"You don't have to go," he says, quiet hope warming his words.

"I have some things to take care of," she says, and it's not exactly a lie. "I just missed you." That's not exactly a lie either, but it isn't exactly the truth. What she wants is to sink her teeth into Mulder's skin, to scratch him until he's branded with her mark. He's the bull and she's the china shop and once, just once, she wants to be the one crashing through his barriers. Sean doesn't deserve to be a proxy fuck.

She wishes she could just stop, smile, let her clothes fall to the floor, and climb back into bed. Sean is a ready harbor, if only she could drop anchor. Maybe there's something wrong with her. Maybe she came back different. She and Mulder have been holding themselves apart from the rest of humanity for so long that it's a habit now, to exclude herself from narratives like love and family. They're the matador's cape, flaunting themselves at a horned monster made of shadows. Falling in love doesn't make any sense when she's silhouetted against the ridgeline, a victim and a target of the Syndicate's schemes. Oh, yes, she could fall in love with Sean, but one way or another, he'd lose her, and she knows what that's like. Some strange wind is always howling through the empty places in her life. She will spare him that, if she can.

She's just so goddamn tired. The headache, so much a presence in her life that she considers naming it, throbs a gentle warning. Maybe she should call it Mulder. She kisses Sean again and goes home and falls asleep with her clothes on.

+ + + +

The next time she comes in with bloodshot eyes, he says nothing. Instead, he goes to Russia, dragging Krycek. The gulag is preferable to Scully's bad graces. At least she's relieved to see him when he strides into the courtroom, still astounded that he's in one piece. He has to go out after that. Danny insists.

"What are you drinking?" Danny asks. Mulder has to lean close to listen. His ears are still ringing from the explosion.

"Anything but vodka," Mulder tells him.

Scully and Pendrell are talking in low voices, laughing quietly. There's a knowing quality to the geometry of their bodies, the angles and curves between them. Tinnitus screeches in his brain, a death metal thrash. A premonition of the worst hangover of his life, maybe, or the newest symptom of his particular allergy to Scully's friendship with Pendrell. But she catches his eye and just the corner of her mouth quirks, just the slant of her eyebrow changes, and the howl inside him subsides.

The bartender delivers a glass of scotch, the scent of peat rising off it like mist. Scully's nose wrinkles delicately as he sits down. She's tipsy, just loose enough to be luminous. Pendrell basks in the glow of her; Mulder sees it reflected in his eyes. Scully has always underestimated her effect on people, some syndrome of middle-child-hood. He can't tell her that without situating her in a lineup that will always have an empty space now, but he can appreciate the nimbus of her attention as it brushes over him.

"I'm so fucking glad you didn't die in Russia," she tells him and he blinks, startled and a little intrigued by her expletive. She keeps herself under such tight rein normally, aside from the occasional blasphemy, as if swearing is too imprecise to encompass her thoughts. Good to know he can still bring it out in her: the mess, the yearning, the humanity.

"I'm glad too," he says, clinking his scotch against her daiquiri. She looks at him askance. Simple isn't always what works. Both of them know that. Pendrell leans in to ask her something. She gives him nearly all of her attention, but Mulder can still feel the last of her focus knotted around him, a filament like a spider's web that will twang if he tugs at it. He relaxes fractionally and feels her tension ease in proportion. He sips at his scotch. Pendrell may liberate some instinct toward giddiness tucked deep inside her, but Pendrell hasn't woven himself deliberately into her life. He and Scully are twined together as surely as if Clotho's bony fingers had done the work, no matter how much distance spins and strains out between them.

The rift between them can be bridged. Maybe the black oil, seeping out of his system, took some other poison with it. Even later, when she laughs at something Pendrell says, it only sets off a tintinnabulation inside him, where the warmth of the whiskey has opened him up like a cathedral and turned the snarl of wires into a nest of scaffolding.

It helps, too, that she doesn't go out that week, or he missed it, the days blurring in the air as he sat in the jets that ferried him across the curve of the sky from one land to another. He outpaced Apollo's chariot; his sense of time has never been reliable. He keeps losing it, minutes or months at a time. There's still a hollow in his memories from the span that Scullly was gone, an uncovered grave with nothing in it. But when he looks up, she's there, and that's what matters. Scully is the meridian, perfectly calibrated. Scully always knows what day it is. She winds him back to Eastern Standard and he feels the mechanism inside him click back into place.

But then there's Roche, and oh, he's always been susceptible, and everyone around him knows it. Sometimes he thinks the wound in him goes all the way through, and everyone can see the red throb of his pulse as light lances through his ribs. Scully leaves him in the office and he spends hours staring at the hearts. When she comes in the next morning, he's dozing in his chair. He startles awake at the touch of her hand, her fingers raking softly through his hair. She offers him a half-smile full of rue and ruth.

"I slept," he says muzzily.

"You didn't rest," she says. Reproach filtered through concern, aged in the oaky barrel of her chest: her voice is a rare elixir.

He shrugs, struggling up in the chair. "You know what they say about the wicked."

"Mulder."

"I'm fine," he insists, and she subsides, withdrawing by inches like the tide. He drags himself to the bathroom, misting himself with deodorant and dabbing at his face with a wet paper towel that leaves brown fibers in his stubble. He isn't even close to presentable. He's barely human. In the old mirror, he's phantasmal, his edges blurred. But he sits at his desk and he lets his mind sieve morsels of interest from the files he reads. A sandwich appears on his desk. Obediently, he eats it without tasting it. When he's finished, he doesn't even remember what it was. A Reuben? Turkey on wheat? His body grumbles appreciatively, turning the food into so many more potential mistakes. At the end of the day, there she is again, sidling slantwise into his field of vision. He recognizes the approach. What fragile creatures they are in each other's hands.

"Come on," she says, tipping her head.

"Where." The word comes out flat, a fragment of a thought.

"Out," she says. "One drink."

"I don't think..." he mumbles, and trails off.

She smooths his hair. "Come on," she repeats. "I'll drive."

At the bar, he's a promontory the conversation breaks around. Single words drift past, so much spume on the wind. He takes bitter breaths of a beer. Not even sips, just vapor that ghosts over his tongue. Scully doesn't take her hand off his knee, though she's talking animatedly with Pendrell. She has been buffered from the misery of the case, he thinks, her friendship with them like electrolytes in her system, cushioning the blow. Scully's always been smarter than he is. Mulder lets his hand drift under the table to find Scully's where it still rests on his knee. A featherweight anchor, her spread fingers a net to hold him in place. She turns her palm up under his, not weaving their fingers together, but he can feel the delicate pressure, the whorls of her fingertips catching on his.

"Tough week?" Danny asks, sympathy in his tone.

Mulder closes his eyes and opens them again, red light still etched in his vision. "Yeah."

"Sorry to hear it," Danny says.

"Yeah."

Scully takes him home. His beer is still half-full when they leave, but the rime of foam has dried, trapped bubbles prickling open. She sits and waits while he takes a shower and microwaves chicken soup in a mug, the noodles slipping unchewed down his throat. He lies down on the couch in the warmth she has bequeathed him and she tugs the blanket over his hip as she leaves.

"Scully," he says.

She waits. The negative space of his doorway frames her: she is the focus of everything, the vanishing point of his universe. All roads lead to Scully. All lines pass through her.

"Sorry," he says at last.

She comes back in, closing the door. She kneels beside the couch, her skin phosphorescing neon in the light from the fishtank.

"Mulder," she says, "it wasn't your fault. Roche was a monster. He was a fiend. The fact that he played on your sympathies, your fears and memories, says more about how kind you are than anything else. You did your best. You laid their memories to rest, as many as you could."

He cries anyway, and she cradles his head in her strong small arms and lets him.

+ + + +

The next case they take is a tangle of barbed wire: immigrants, alien fungus, racist bureaucracy, love triangles. They're two steps behind, stumbling through the mud. It's almost a relief to investigate something they have so little personal investment in. There are no sisters here. Mulder can unleash the frustration of the past months in service of a righteous cause. The subaltern in their rickety slum, simultaneously rejected and demanded by society, transformed by an unknown force into an unknown form. Shunned and doubly shunned, a monstrosity among the invisible. It would make a hell of a metaphor if it wasn't reality.

Scully drags into the office the morning they head to Pittsburgh to find a locomotory corpse. There are hollows under her eyes, a sepulchral cast to her skin.

"I didn't go out last night," she says without prelude. Her voice rasps lightly.

"And good morning to you, Agent Scully," he tells her.

She presses her fingertips to the exquisite camber of her eyebrows. "Just don't, Mulder. It's not a hangover."

"Is it my business if it were?" he asks evenly.

"You make it your business," she says with a sigh. "You make everything your business."

"You're my partner," he reminds her.

"When it's convenient, I am," she says.

"What does that mean?" he asks, although he could recite a litany of his sins. Bless me, Scully; it's been more than four years since my last confession. Even as recently as Roche, he has forsaken her, haring off into the wilds alone.

"Nothing," she says, her eyes sliding to the door. "Let's go."

She's disquieted on the way home too, the timbre of her silence dull, dampening the air between them. He opens his mouth to say something and the cottony hush swallows the words unsaid. She had to kill a man - a murderer, a parasite, another fluke of evolution feeding on his own parent species - with an AED. It was up close and brutal; Mulder still has the slightly rancid cooked-meat reek of Betts' corpse in his scent memory when he breathes too deeply. But Scully was the one canting her body to absorb the shock of the paddles' jolt, the one keeping Betts at arms' length as she stressed his unlikely body beyond the point of no return. She takes her vows seriously, his partner, but the honor demanded by Asclepius and Hippocrates is frequently at odds with her mandate to serve and protect and her basic instinct to survive.

Everything that rises must converge. He touches his knee to hers and feels the pressure inside her, the eggshell of her composure fractured but intact.

She goes to the bar that night, and he goes with her, and watches from across the table as she picks up the thread of some ongoing conversation with Pendrell, her shoulders lowering as she relaxes. Simple, he thinks, while covetousness rises in him like bile. He loves her more than he has ever loved anything in this world, including the memory of his sister; his envy battles with a genuine contentment that there is some comfort for her here, in this place he disdains, with this man he resents. He has spent decades analyzing the complex entanglements that support people, most often to understand the load-bearing beam he can use to dismantle them, the fulcrum from which he can shift their world. It isn't healthy or wise to lean entirely on one person; support works best distributed more evenly, a burden shared and divided according to the strength of each part. Gestalt. They aren't two vast and trunkless legs of stone, braced apart, the desert sand scouring them down to nothingness. Something should be easy for her. Something should ease her burdens. Despite all they share, it isn't him. He might, at the outside, through some miracle, be everything she wants, but he will never be everything she needs.

He loathes that, against all logic, and loathes Pendrell gently by association despite his best efforts. Well. He never claimed to be a good man or a well-adjusted one.

He sits and dissects sports with Danny. A show of normalcy, for her. A pretty mask of social graces, the one he used to wear before Diana left, before he met Scully. Once, she glances across the table and catches his eye, and the smile she offers him is so radiant, and so sad.

+ + + +

She goes to Philadelphia without him while he is in exile in some approximation of paradise. Mulder, riding the elevator at the hospital, reflects on her instincts: she solved the case, but fucked a person of interest. She turns away when he comes into the hospital room. The desire to comfort her, to wrap her in his arms and shield her from regret, tussles with his envy, his desire for her, the instinct to punish her for touching someone else, to remind her how unprofessional her conduct was. Every word he says is a lit cigarette pressing into her skin. He's no better than Jerse, trying to singe her clean. He wants to shake her until her teeth rattle. He wants to kiss her until she forgets her own name, to pass his hands and mouth over her body until he's rubbed away any trace of any other man. He wants to take the nape of her neck between his teeth, the agitated heat of her tattoo against his bare skin. He wants to examine her in minute detail until he is certain that she is whole and hale.

They leave Pennsylvania. They've spent a lot of time in Pennsylvania lately. He hasn't enjoyed any of it. He wants to take her somewhere else, with wild wide open spaces and room for the kind of mysteries that leave them awestruck and wondering. Somewhere with mountains as jagged and lofty as his love for her. Somewhere the wind can blow through them and scour their souls clean.

This time the silence between them crackles. Neither of them says a word.

Something is altered in her.

She goes out the night she comes back to work. That's what he assumes. At 5:00, she evaporates like so much mist, vanishing from the office before he can even look for her, and calls in sick the next day. When he stops by her place to check on her, her face is wan under the bruises. There's a delicate crust of blood under one nostril. She smells stale, a hint of acid on her breath.

"Go home," she tells him.

"I just wanted to see if you were all right," he says. His hands open and close on nothing.

"I'm fine," she says, and shuts the door.

+ + + +

She hasn't slept with Sean in a few weeks. Not since Betts. She hasn't confirmed Betts' diagnosis, but she can't offer herself to Sean when her life is on a short fuse. She won't detonate anybody else's happiness. Mulder, she knows, is a lost cause, but he's lost her before. He understands how to grieve her loss. The way they're intertwined is inextricable. In Sean's life, she'll be an empty space. She can't stomach that, not when she's already nauseous from the ache in her head, so she's stayed away: from the bar, from his apartment, from the lab. She flung herself into a dangerous case alone and fucked Jerse instead; he felt more like someone she could rasp herself against, all rough edges. She got an ill-advised tattoo and a collection of bruises.

But she isn't dead. Yet.

+ + + +

But she isn't fine. When he hangs up, he's numb all over, queasy. The world shifts under him, a following sea, and he's never found his sea legs.

All these months in and out of the bar and he never thought to question the change in her. Exhaustion has always been a consequence of their work. So has grief. So has death. Did she know, on some molecular level? Did discontent seed itself in her blood as the cancer grew? Maybe the Syndicate did this to her somehow, orchestrating the slow-motion denouement to her abduction. Sowing disease on a time delay. Removing the evidence.

Does she blame him?

He stops to buy flowers. He has to buy flowers; ritual is his only recourse, a ward to set between her and the susurration of fear in her breath over the phone as she gathered her words. A sacrifice in her name. The clerk beams at him. "That's a popular arrangement. We do a lot of them for weddings, actually. Are they for your wife? Do you want a card to go with them?"

All these months in and out of the bar, trying to help her say goodbye to her sister, letting go of her by inches: he's only been preparing to mourn her. His heart clutches. He braces his knee against the front of the counter to keep from sagging to the floor.

"No," he says. There's a hollow finality in his refusal. The clerk glances at him. He clears his throat. "No card. She, uh, she knows."

+ + +

He walks down the bleak hall, grim in his dark coat, carrying a wedding bouquet to the prelude to her funeral.

#xfiles fanfic #the x-files fanfic #xf fanfic #mulder x scully #msr #my fic

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angeme8een-blog · 4 years

Text

Casualties and Survivors

CHAPTER 1: AIRPORT LOUNGES AND FIDGETING LEGS

The romanticisation of airports has made life more difficult for travellers. It has permitted such overwhelming, not to mention unnecessary, public display of affection that inconveniences those who just want to methodically get from one country to another. Case in point are the hipster lovers who refused to detach their lips from each other, causing quite a ruckus at the drop-off lane. The already noise-polluted terminal air got more chaotic as several cab drivers started honking and yelling expletives at the tanned brunette and her blond lover.

“These young people know no manners anymore, aist!” Mr. Yang expressed his irritation as he scratched the side of his head. Brett wanted to give a cheeky response but he caught himself in fear of being given a proper lecture. Showing your dad how sassy your mouth is on a terribly hot day is a formula for disaster, and Brett knew well enough not to further rile-up his dad when his Chinese accent has already come through. Besides, he was just 30 seconds away from getting out of his dad’s 1997 Toyota Corolla. Might as well keep his thoughts to himself.

“Bretty boy, where is Eddy, huh?” his dad asked as he parked the car on an open drop-off spot and turned on the hazard light. Brett unlocked the passenger’s seat and began collecting his things while responding “he’s probably near. He told me his mom wanted to personally see him leave, unlike the last time we went on tour.” Mr. Yang helped Brett carry his luggage to the curb and onto a trolley before giving his son a hug.

“Now you go with my blessing. Be very good and kind, especially to Eddy. Call your mom from time to time, okay?”

“I will, dad. Thanks again for dropping me off. You should go back to the car before security decides to clamp your tire”

“Aist! I’m an old man, they should show respect!” Mr. Yang scratched the side of his head once more before going back to his car. Brett waved a final goodbye before he pushed his trolley towards the entrance. Once inside, Brett brought out his phone to check-up on Eddy.

“Bro, where you at? I’m already in line for security”

“Bro, please don’t kill me but I’m going to have to take the next flight out tomorrow morning. My sister went into labor five minutes after I left my house. We had to go back home to fetch her because no one else could drive her to the hospital. So now I’m here with Ma and we’re rushing to Queen Elizabeth’s” Eddy explained.

“It’s been 9 months already!? Damn, I totally forgot that Belle was pregnant” Brett slapped himself in the forehead.

“Dude…how could you have forgotten? Have you seen her tummy? It’s like she swallowed Pluto just after NASA announced it’s no longer a planet”

“I fucking heard that Eddy Chen!” Belle’s voice erupted in the background, prompting Brett to move his phone away from his ear.

“I’m sorry” Brett heard Eddy whisper to his sister. “Just hang in there, we’re about 10 minutes away from the ER. Now shush”

“Anyway, bro, so yeah. I’m really sorry about this” Eddy said.

“No worries! Just be there for your sister. Also, tell Belle I said goodluck! Wait, is that the appropriate thing to say to someone who’s about to give birth?”

“I’m not really sure but I think that kinda works. Update me when you’ve landed, alright? Don’t have too much fun without me. Also, practice!” Eddy said before hanging up.

Brett gave a small chuckle as he pocketed his phone. Leave it to Eddy to still be roasting his sister while she’s already in labor. The man’s sense of humour and quick wit are truly remarkable, not to mention unparalleled. Even Brett recognises the indispensable role of Eddy’s creativity in the growth of their channel. He concedes that most of the comedic content in their videos are products of Eddy’s ingenuity. There’s never a dull moment when Eddy’s around, and that’s why Brett is slightly disappointed that he would have to fly solo in his trip to the States. Just thinking about the long hours of sitting down and getting arse cramps every hour or so is already enough to bring Brett to a state of despair. Country hopping is fun, going from one city to another is too, but the actual travel is what really takes a toll on Brett’s energy and mood. He hates every single minute of it, especially the long wait in the airport. There are always way too many people, way too much noise, and way too much walking to do. He’s a musician, for Pete’s sake. His physical activities are limited to five minute walks (usually less since he spends most of his time indoors anyway) and the occasional Lingling workouts that push him over the edge. Just getting through security was enough for him to break a sweat.

After passing through the first round of metal detectors and the x-ray machines, Brett proceeded to the check-in counter of Qantas. It was a long wait before his turn so he decided to check on the ticket sales of their tour. Only two performances in the last city in their itinerary have not sold out yet, but he’s positive that it will eventually. TwoSet’s popularity suddenly grew during the first two weeks of January which the pair did not really expect. The abrupt spike in the number of views per video, not to mention reaching 2 million subscribers much earlier than expected, made the duo ecstatic and grateful beyond words. But their growing fame was a double-edged sword for it meant more work for both of them. It didn’t help that Eddy made a promise to their fans that once the channel reached 2 million subs, Brett would drop his Tchaikovsky recording. And so he had less than a month to perfect the popular piece before he finally performed it during the livestream they did last February. More than a million of the Lingling wannabes from all over the world watched him play the same piece he performed during his debut in 2012. It was nerve wracking, but it was pretty exciting too. Performing for his fans have always brought Brett so much joy, and he will gladly do it until the time when he physically can’t anymore.

“Sir? Please” the voice of the ground stewardess urging Brett to come forward to the counter broke his stupor.

“Sorry” Brett apologised as he handed his ticket. He was loading his luggage on the counter when he heard a pleading voice at the counter next to his. He decided to get a glimpse at the commotion, noting how disheveled and desperate the woman looked and how equally impatient the ground stewardess was becoming. Brett then abruptly withdrew his stare when he and the woman accidentally caught each other’s eyes. Brett continued to load his luggage so it won’t seem too obvious that he was eavesdropping.

“I’ll take any open seat. Please” the woman begged. The fatigue in the woman’s voice was evident, and Brett could not help wondering if she was hungover or she just came from baby-sitting seven toddlers all at once.

“I’m sorry, madame. But so far the flight is fully booked. If you want, there’s another plane coming in at noon. I can book that for you” the passenger service crew explained.

“No, no. That would be too late. But please, if ever an opening comes up, please do notify me. I’ll give you my number” the woman said as she started scribbling on the piece of paper that the lady behind the counter gave.

“Mr. Yang, here are your boarding pass and your luggage tag. By the way, you received an upgrade courtesy of the airlines. You can use the Business Class lounge while waiting for your flight” the lady smiled at him as she handed Brett everything he needed. Upgrade? Brett thought to himself. That’s weird, specially since the other lady just said the flight’s fully booked.

“That’s generous, thank you” Brett said gratefully. “Oh, by the way, my friend Eddy Chen was supposed to fly with me but he won’t be able to make it because of a family emergency” he added before leaving the counter. Brett internally cringed at what he just did. He knew for a fact that the airline could not possibly use that information. They had protocols to follow when it came to cancellations. Aside from that, it was a really random thing to do.

Well, not random. Brett thought. You just wanted to help the panda-eyed woman without being to obvious. Damn she was tired. And damn, was I really obvious though.

Brett decided to shrug off that awkward incident by texting Eddy while he walked towards the lounge. He did not get any reply right away so he figured that his best friend was probably still attending to his sister. Upon arriving at the lounge and finding a spot to sit in, Brett decided to do some work. After he finished, he went to the bar to get something to drink and eat. He was munching on his crisps when he got a text from Eddy.

Bro, update our fans. Was supposed to do it but I totally forgot. And I reckon they’re not really interested in seeing a bloody head emerge between my sister’s legs yeah?

Jfc Eddy, you could’ve spared me the mental image. But yeah, yeah. I’ll do it.

Brett opened their instagram account and started going live. He once again thanked their fans for all the support they have shown, and then proceeded to update them about why Eddy was not with him at the moment. He was doing a mini Q&A when it was announced on the PA system that his flight is going to start boarding passengers in 15 minutes. Brett bid their fans goodbye, pocketed his phone, and left the bar to go back to where he sat before. He was ten steps away from his seat when he noticed that someone else was occupying the chair near the window. It was the same woman from the other counter, the one who was desperately pleading for a ticket.

Lucky her. I guess she did get what she needed after all. Brett muttered to himself as he sat himself in the sofa facing the woman. He placed his violin on his left and his carry-on luggage on the floor before bringing his eyes back to the girl near the window. She was holding a book open in front of her, though it appeared that she wasn’t really reading it. Her hazel eyes stared blankly at the pages of Sara Borjas’ Heart Like A Window, Mouth Like A Cliff as she bit on her left thumb.

Is she nervous? Brett wondered as he continued observing her.

He brought his eyes to her hair and noticed how it was haphazardly wrapped around a bun on top of her head, and it seemed like it would unravel itself at any moment. She was pale for a person who lived in Australia (summer is just about to end after all), but her cheeks had a little bit of red in them.

Is she ill? Has she just cried? Brett pondered. He continued staring at her as if she was a specimen in a laboratory.

Brett noticed that her right leg, which was crossed over her left, would not stop fidgeting. It would slow down from time to time but the shaking did not cease. Sometimes her free hand would slide down to her lap and she would start tapping it in sync with her fidgeting leg. There were instances when she’d bring her head up from her book and her eyes would almost lock with Brett’s, but he was quick enough to avert his stare whenever she was on the verge of moving her head. It was as if they were playing a game of hide and seek, except that no one was really seeking because only one was playing and he wasn’t even playing it well. He was just there, in plain sight, in open space, staring and ogling with no particular purpose. Just staring. And wondering.

Like a creep. Aist. Brett huffed as he realised how wrong it was to be people watching. Well, not people watching in general. Just the one. More aptly put, person watching. Or stalking he thought if I’m going to be honest with myself.

Brett’s slow descent into his own thoughts was interrupted once again by the PA system. His flight number was called, and its passengers were informed that they were to board in Gate C7. Since Brett got an upgrade into business class, he had the privilege of being accommodated first. Not to mention not having to walk all the way to Gate C7 because the airline lounge had a direct jet bridge that connected to the Boeing 787-9 which would carry hundreds of passengers from Brisbane straight to New York. Brett collected his things and walked towards the airline staff who collected his boarding pass and assisted him to the plane. He was greeted by the plane crew once he entered, and was directed to his seat.

“Would you like me to put that away for you?” The stunning flight attendant gestured to his violin.

“Would it be possible for me to keep it on my side?” He asked.

“Of course, Sir. I’ll just fetch some straps to keep it in place. I’ll be right back. Make yourself comfortable” she smiled before leaving for the cabin.

Brett immediately took a selfie and posted it on instagram. He messaged Eddy about the upgrade and teased the latter of leaving the duo to become a soloist. Eddy immediately replied with a picture of him with tears in his eyes. This made Brett laugh but also feel a twinge of melancholy at the same time because bantering with his best mate was way better in person than doing it digitally. Moreover, Brett started engaging in creepy recreational activities because of Eddy’s absence, and it was so out of character for him that he gave an internal scream.

Thank god that’s over Brett told himself as he inhaled deeply and settled himself in the plush window seat. He sent last minute text messages to his friends and family before he turned off his phone.

“Excuse me sir, here are the straps for your violin” the flight attendant from earlier returned with a pair of 13 inch black straps which she handed to Brett. He gave a slight nod and mouthed a thank you while receiving the straps. He then proceeded to secure his violin to the side. Brett was about to close his eyes when the woman from the lounge entered and stopped at the chair beside him. She whispered something to the flight attendant who was assisting her before she took her seat.

Not again. Brett muttered to himself as he once again stared intently at the woman. He couldn’t take his eyes off her and he did not know why. She wasn’t exactly a head turner, but she had this aura about her that piqued Brett’s curiosity.

Curiosity. That’s it, I’m curious. That’s exactly the reason why I can’t look away. Brett thought.

There’s a story, surely there’s a story behind those tired hazel eyes. There must be because no one looked like that, like she carried the weight of the entire world on her shoulders, but at the same time radiate (but only minutely) a different, more positive energy.

Independence?

Brett guessed.

Gratitude?

Fulfilment?

Success?

It’s like he was playing charades with Eddy again, only this time the other person was a complete stranger and he can’t communicate, much more confirm, his guesses. He looked at her more intensely as he searched for more clues about the type of person that she was. First, he looked at her hands to check if she might have callouses similar to his. She had some, but it was on the wrong places. She was not a musician. Maybe she was a writer, or an architect. Brett was not able to come up with a proper conclusion as to her profession, but he decided that whatever she did had something to do with using her hands.

Second, he considered what she was wearing. She was just wearing tight jeans, black boots, and a plain knitted white sweater. She had no accessories nor any other apparel that would help her battle the weather once they land in New York.

Unless she has one in her carry-on. But I highly doubt that. Brett thought. He did not see her with any luggage at the check-in counter, nor in the lounge. She only had a big tote bag with her which she also declined to be placed in the overhead compartment. Brett inferred that this trip was a product of spontaneity, or panic. It really could go either way. But what was obvious was she did not plan this through.

Brett slowly lifted his sights up to study her face once more. But what happened next caused him to feel a rush of blood to his cheeks. She was staring at him. She saw him staring at him. And now their eyes were locked at each other and Brett did not know what to do.

Fuck.

#twosetviolin #brett yang #eddy chen #fanfiction

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