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headcanonsandmore · 3 years

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For Once

Summary: Hermione and Ron share a tender moment but, as is sadly so often the case, Ron's siblings make it their mission to upset things. Turns out this was one time too many, however.

I always get frustrated when, in fics, Ron's siblings deliberately ruin moments between Ron and Hermione, and recieve no comeuppance for it (even if Ron had suffered yet another hit to his self-esteem) . So here is my response.

Not bashing but definitely critical of Ginny, Bill, Fred and George, so a warning for that.

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Read on FFN. Read on AO3.

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Hermione climbed the staircase of the Burrow. She had been here for a few days so far, and she was loving every moment of it, as she always did whenever she was here. Everything from the Devon countryside, to the food, to the sweet redheaded boy that-

Wait, no. All the Weasleys were sweet, Hermione told herself. It wasn’t like the youngest Weasley boy was especially so.

Oh, who was she kidding? She’d stopped believing that her feelings were just platonic well over a year ago.

Anyway, sixth year would be beginning in about a months’ time. Harry had not arrived at the Burrow yet, but he was expected to be picked up by Dumbledore sometime over the next week. Hermione was looking forward to seeing him. Harry was her best friend and, well, he was like a little brother to her as well. Neither of them had any siblings, although at least Hermione was welcome in her own home.

Her brow furrowed as she remembered the last time she had seen Harry’s aunt and uncle. Both of them seemed deeply unpleasant people. Harry had never really spoken about how he had been treated by them growing up, but Hermione could tell that it was far worse than he would ever let on.

She was so wrapped up in her thoughts that she walked straight into someone on the next landing.

‘Oof, you okay, Hermione?’

Hermione felt her face flush slightly. Of course, it had to be that redhead she’d bumped into.

Ron stared down at her, his blue eyes looking slightly concerned. He was carrying several folded sheets, his biceps slightly tensed and looking more-than-just-slightly attractive. His freckles had multiplied due to the summer heat, and Hermione was very aware that they covered him head-to-toe, seemingly even in places she had never seen (except in dreams that made her flush upon waking). Ron had always been cute but, good grief, when had he gotten so… hot?

‘O-oh, yes,’ Hermione replied, hoping he wouldn’t notice how flustered she was. ‘Sorry, I was… thinking.’

‘Always dangerous,’ Ron said, grinning. ‘But you wouldn’t be Hermione otherwise.’

Hermione smiled, trying to ignore her stomach flipping at his words.

‘Thanks,’ she replied. ‘Are those for your mum?’

‘Yeah, she asked for some fresh sheets,’ Ron said, as she followed him back downstairs. ‘What are you up to?’

‘I was actually looking for you,’ she said.

‘What? Why? Did mum say something?’

‘No, Ron,’ Hermione said, nudging him fondly with her elbow as they descended onto a landing. ‘I just happen to enjoy your company and wanted to spend time with you.’

‘Oh, yeah?’

Ron’s mouth slipped into that lopsided smile. The smile that never failed to reduce Hermione to a flustered mess, as much as she tried to hide it. It was a miracle that Ron never seemed to notice.

‘Y-yeah.’

‘Good to know I’m wanted,’ he said, grinning down at her. ‘I was-’

‘DRAT!’

Both of them jumped. Ron turned to where the sound had come from, and opened the door.

Mr Weasley was scrambling around on the floor, trying to retrieve his wand from underneath a chest of drawers. His balding head was bobbing up and down in frustrating.

‘Dad?’ Ron asked. ‘Everything okay?’

‘Oh, hello Ron,’ Mr Weasley said. ‘Sorry to yell; it just dropped out of my hand. Looks like it slipped under her.’

‘No worries,’ Ron said. He placed the sheets he was holding onto the bed, crouched down and, with a flourish, retrieved the missing wand. ‘Here.’

‘Thanks, son,’ Mr Weasley said, as Ron handed his wand over. ‘‘I just reinforcing the charms around the house. I see you’re helping your mother with those sheets?’

‘No worries. Yeah, just finished,’ Ron said. ‘Which charms are you doing?’

‘Oh, just the muggle-repellent ones. I hate putting them up, but it’s important for security.’

‘Dad, if you had your way, you’ve been asking the muggles in the villages for plug-making instruction manuals,’ Ron said, good-naturedly.

‘Well, you did inherit my love for all things muggle, Ron,’ Mr Weasley said, chuckling. ‘Wouldn’t you say?’

Hermione couldn’t help noticing that, at Mr Weasley’s words, Ron’s ears went slightly pink.

Don’t be silly, she sternly told herself, she just means that Ron likes hearing about the muggle way of doing things. He… he doesn’t mean…

‘Anyway,’ Mr Weasley continued. ‘I’m almost finished now. Hermione, I believe Ron said that you’ve been doing extra work about charms during the holidays.’

‘Er, yes, that’s true,’ Hermione said, quickly as she tried to ignore her own confusion. ‘It’s fascinating, isn’t it? I mean, all the different ways that charms can be used to obscure and hide things. I’ve always wondered how long it took for the spells to be standardised…’

She trailed off, as she saw Ron grin.

‘What?’

‘Nothing,’ Ron said, his cheeks dimpling under his freckles. ‘I’m never gonna get sick of seeing you all excited about magic.’

Hermione felt her face flush.

Mr Weasley seemed to smile to himself.

‘Well, like I said, I’m almost finished now,’ he said, raising his wand to the ceiling. He began to utter a spell, and stepped forward.

However, his foot collided with an old teddy bear, and he slipped, stumbling over the end of the spell.

Mr Weasley’s wand shot out of his hand, and fired a spell, which headed straight for Hermione.

‘Hermione, duck!’

Before she knew what was happening, Hermione found herself pushed out of harms way by Ron.

The spell hit Ron squarely in the chest. He gave a gentle groan, and fell backwards on the floor.

‘Ron!’

Mr Weasley had hurried over, and knelt down beside his brother. Hermione dashed forward, and dropped down on Ron’s other side. With thinking, she eased Ron’s head off the floor, so that he was resting on her lap. Ron stirred feebly.

‘Mr Weasley, is… is he okay?’

‘He’ll be fine. Just a little confunded,’ Mr Weasley said, smiling faintly down at Ron. ‘I’m sorry, son. Hermione, It’s best if you stay with him while I go and get the healing supplies from the kitchen.’

‘O-okay,’ Hermione said, suddenly aware that Ron’s head was resting in her lap.

‘Thanks,’ Mr Weasley said, moving to the door. ‘Don’t worry; I doubt Ron will complain. He did take that spell for you, after all.’

With a knowing smile at Hermione’s flustered expression, Mr Weasley left the room.

‘Mione?’ Ron mumbled, his eyes still half-closed. ‘W’happened?’

‘You… you got hit by a confunding spell,’ Hermione replied. ‘Your dad’s gone to get you something for it.’

‘You… you okay?’

Hermione smiled.

‘Ron, you’re the one who got hit by it. Worry about yourself.’

The redhead smiled.

‘So you didn’t get hit…that’s good… glad you’re okay, ‘Mione…’

Hermione felt her heart well, as she stared down at the redhead. His smile was happy and utterly genuine.

‘T-thank you, Ron,’ she whispered. ‘You’re… you’re too good to me.’

‘Naaah,’ Ron mumbled. ‘You’re important… especially to me.’

Hermione smiled, as her heart threatened to burst open. Ron was such a lovely person. No wonder she had fallen so hard.

The door opened, and Hermione looked up. Mr Weasley had returned, carrying a medicine kit. Kneeling down, he pulled out a small vial of potion.

‘Here; it’ll take away his dizziness.’

Hermione nodded, and took the vial. She gently tipped the contents into Ron’s mouth. The redhead swallowed slowly, and he seemed to return somewhat to his senses.

‘There we go,’ Mr Weasley said, as Ron sat up, holding his head. ‘You’ll feel wobbly for a while, so wait until the potion takes full effect before standing up.’

‘R-right,’ Ron said. ‘Dad, can you take those sheets downstairs? I think mum wanted them.’

Mr Weasley nodded, picked up the sheets, gave a brief smile to Ron and Hermione, and then left through the door.

Ron seemed to suddenly realise that his head had been laying in Hermione’s lap.

‘Er, sorry,’ Ron mumbled, his ears going pink. He smiled softly. ‘Thanks for looking after me. Guess I behaved like a right twit, right?’

Hermione opened her mouth, intent on telling Ron that he had been brave and sweet, how much it meant to her that he was so kind, and how much she admired him for it.

‘Yeah, “twit” is right!’

Hermione stopped, her mouth half-open. Her eyes widened in horror as she turned towards the door.

Fred and George had walked into the room, followed by Ginny and Bill. All of them seemed to be snickering to themselves.

‘He got knocked right out! Ickle Ronniekins had to be the big brave knight, didn’t he?’

‘Nevermind, Ron,’ Bill said, chuckling. ‘I’m sure Hermione doesn’t mind you dribbling on her jeans.’

Ron’s ears burned further pink, and his shoulders seemed to slump. The smile on his face had vanished, and now he looked awkward, uncomfortable and -above all- resigned.

‘Er, sorry,’ he said, quietly to Hermione. ‘I… I best go help Mum with the dinner. See you later.’

‘No, Ron,’ Hermione began, frantically. ‘You don’t understand! I…’

‘It’s fine, Hermione,’ Ron said, quietly. ‘You… you don’t need to explain anything.’

Still looking unsteady on his feet, Ron walked out of the room. Hermione thought she heard a sigh as the door closed behind him.

‘Come on, Hermione,’ Ginny said, still chuckling. ‘Wait, he didn’t really dribble on you, did-’

‘What is wrong with you all?!’ Hermione cried. ‘Why can’t you all keep your mouths shut?’

The room went very quiet as Fred, George, Ginny and Bill all stopped laughing to stare at her.

‘He was being brave and kind, like he always is,’ Hermione exclaimed, tears began to streak down her face. ‘And you made him think I was just pitying him! Like he was just being an idiot for being so selfless! How dare you?’

The Weasleys all went silent. Hermione didn’t know where her anger was coming from; it could have been from the years of teasing she had seen Ron be subjected to by his siblings, or the fact that any moment between her and Ron seemed to be constantly ruined by his siblings mocking him, or maybe it was the fact that she couldn’t begin to fully explain to Ron just how much she adored him. All she knew was that she could stay silent no longer. This was one time too many.

‘I’m sick of this! He’s your brother; he’s kind, and sweet, and brave. More than you could ever imagine, and yet you all treat him like he can’t do anything right!’

Her body wracked with sobs, Hermione slammed the door behind her, and stormed upstairs to the room she was sharing with Ginny.

She could distantly hear the sounds of a returning Mr Weasley asking his remaining children why Ron had gone before the potion had taken full effect, and of the other Weasleys stumbling through their explanations.

Good luck trying to explain that to your consciences, Hermione thought, bitterly, as she closed the bedroom door behind her. She sank into the mattress; angry, frustrated but most of all devastated that, no matter how much she adored Ron, it seemed like all of his siblings seemed to act like he could never be anything other than an object of mockery and pity. A clown. A twit who only ever made pratfalls and embarrass his friends.

Or, at least, Ron certainly wouldn’t think they saw him as anything more than that. And that was possibly the worst thing about it.

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Thanks for reading, everyone! Hope you enjoyed it!

#harry potter fanfiction #romione fanfiction #romione fanfic #fred and george weasley critical #ginny weasley critical #bill weasley critical #tw: anxiety #tw: mental health #tw: self-esteem issues #tw: low self-esteem #tw: injury #ron weasley #hermione granger #romione #ronmione #tw: self-doubt

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eliemo · 4 years

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Getting There

Part Two of The Worst Thing in the World

Summary: Logan says it will take some time. He promises the others will always be patient. Virgil knows this, he just wishes it wasn’t quite so easy to push him back over the edge.

Masterpost

Notes: I plan on writing a bunch of these, so don’t worry! Janus and Remus’s reactions will come soon!

Learned behavior, especially in cases like this, was incredibly hard to unlearn. Logan had made that very clear, many times, assuring Virgil that it was perfectly reasonable to have some occasional setbacks.

A long talk and a cuddle session, while Patton’s go-to medicine, wouldn’t magically fix all their problems.

Logan had insisted on pulling all four of them aside the next day, delving into research and tactics to use to ensure Virgil felt safe, to gradually undo the damage that had been done.

Patton and Roman had been listening intently, nodding along, sure to pause and ask for Virgil’s input whenever it was needed, holding his hand and making sure he was never overwhelmed.

There were some...unpleasant phrases thrown around during the talk. Abuse, trauma, conditioning...it all felt like something dirty. Like he was tainted, broken.

And of course they knew what he was thinking, they were all so kind and attentive, so openly worried, quick to reassure and comfort.

It helped, but...but still. Virgil was still struggling to wrap his head around the fact that all the things he went through, all the things he’d been taught were normal and expected weren’t...weren’t ok. That it wasn’t normal.

He’d deserved it. That’s what they told him. He went through all of that pain because that was just the way it was, and there was no other choice.

Had he really been stupid enough, pathetic enough to just believe that and let it all happen? If he was so easy to take advantage of, so easy to hurt, then why wouldn’t the light sides end up doing the exact same thing, no matter how well meaning they were in the beginning?

He knew it was stupid and unfair to have those thoughts. And to make it worse, he knew they knew he was thinking it.

They wouldn’t do that. They’d sworn it to him too many times to count. Like Logan said it was just...going to take some time to believe it.

And things did get better. Slowly. He might not have even realized progress was being made if it weren’t for the less than subtle praise the three of them kept offering, the pride and hope that was impossible to miss.

As embarrassing as it was, being practically applauded for something as small as forcing himself not to fall into a desperate string of apologies for bumping into someone’s shoulder, he couldn’t deny that it helped to some extent.

He did wish he was doing a little better, though. Sometimes he had to force himself not to flee if someone was in a bad mood, silently remind himself that no one was going to hurt him, that he didn’t need to be afraid, didn’t need to protect himself and hide.

It didn’t always work.

And there were always going to be slip ups. Little mistakes and thoughtless behavior that Virgil would never hold against the others. They were trying so hard and like Patton had said, mistakes were part of being human.

There had been a...particularly bad day during a rather stressful filming week. Their schedule was finally allowing them all a bit of a break, and Virgil had taken up residence in the living room for the afternoon, lost in his own head in a futile attempt to relax.

He hadn’t even realized he’d left some things strewn around. Just a few pillows and blankets- it wasn’t a big deal, he’d clean it up before he headed back up to his room like he usually did. At the time, he was too tired to really give it much thought.

And then Roman had stalked through the living room, nose buried in his notes, mumbling something under his breath. He was clearly swarmed with the work Thomas needed from him, lost in thought and stress, and on his way to the kitchen he’d stumbled over one of the pillows.

Virgil smirked and sat up with the intent of calling the Prince a clutz, hopeful that their familiar banter could reduce some of the tension from the workload, but Roman beat him to it.

“Jesus, Virgil will you clean up your mess?” He snapped, kicking the pillow aside. “I don’t have time to be tripping over your stuff!”

And then he was gone, disappearing into the kitchen, and Virgil had...froze.

It was fine. He knew it was ok, he knew…

But all of that had disappeared in a second, all rational thought drowned out by cold, all consuming fear and memories, harsh realizations that Roman was angry- angry at him, and Virgil had left a mess, and whenever he’d left a mess before he’d been punished--

That snapped him out of his shock, instinct and panic taking over, and he threw himself from the couch and dropped to the floor, gathering everything into a pile and frantically trying to fold the blankets with trembling hands.

It was fine, it was fine, it was fine. He’d made a stupid mistake but he could fix it. It would hurt less if he just cleaned it up.

God why wouldn’t his hands stop shaking? His chest was aching, his grip weak and unsteady. It took far too long to get the blankets folded, and when it was finally done the end result was uneven and lumpy, nothing that would get him out of any trouble.

He didn’t even know when he’d started crying, fear and hopelessness setting in all at once, but suddenly he was sobbing, breaths quick and ragged as he desperately tried to smooth out the blankets, refusing to focus on getting a hold of his breathing until it was fixed, until the room was clean and Roman didn’t have to be angry anymore—

“Kiddo?”

Oh no. No no no, he wasn’t ready for anyone else to see what he’d done yet. It was still a mess, he’d still left everything a mess and he was a mess, and he was just going to make them more upset with him and then it would be worse.

“Virgil.” There was someone kneeling beside him, and it took him a moment to realize it was Patton. “What’s wrong?”

Virgil shook his head, knowing Patton was looking over the mess Virgil had created, growing just as angry as Roman.

“I-I’m cleaning,” he managed, wincing when his voice came out a pathetic, weak stammer. “I d-didn’t mean to- mean to leave it a m-mess, I was- I was gonna clean it up, I didn’t mean to upset him, I didn’t--”

“Hey, it’s ok.” Patton’s hands were suddenly over his own, squeezing gently to stop Virgil from frantically trying to fix the wrinkles, the folded blankets still not even remotely acceptable. “Breathe, honey. Can you look at me?”

Virgil obeyed almost immediately, not willing to risk making anybody anymore angry than they already were, trying to stop his ragged sobs to no avail.

“There you go, kiddo. Can you take some deep breaths for me?”

Virgil shook his head. “I- I can’t, I have to fix it, I- I’m trying to clean it up, I promise.”

“It’s ok,” Patton said again. “It looks fine, Virge. You know it doesn’t need to be perfect.”

“Yes it does,” Virgil argued, because he knew it did. He was already in trouble, making it perfect and spotless was the only way to lessen the inevitable punishment. “I already made him mad and he’s gonna- he’s gonna...I have to fix it, I have to--”

“Nobody’s going to do anything to you, Virgil.” Patton frowned, moving Virgil’s shaking hands from the pile of blankets. “Who do you think is mad at you?”

And for a second, Virgil wasn’t even sure. Just for a second, he almost said another name, too many memories overlapping.

But then it cleared slightly, and he was only blinded by the current panic of what he’d done, still unable to fully grasp what was being said to him.

“R-Roman, he...I didn’t realize that he wanted it clean I-I didn’t know and I ruined it and he’s upset and he’ll--”

“Slow down, kiddo,” Patton said, for some reason looking even more distressed when Virgil snapped his mouth shut, watching the moral side with wide, wary eyes. “Roman’s a bit distracted today, I’m sure he isn’t upset. He probably doesn’t even realize.”

Virgil hadn’t even noticed until Patton frowned down at their hands, but he’d been desperately fighting against the other side’s hold, frantically trying to go back to smoothing out the blankets without even realizing.

“Here,” Patton said, gently easing him back. “How about I go get Roman, and then we can--”

“No!” Virgil had ripped his arms out of Patton’s grip, scrambling backwards without any clear thought of what he was doing. “N-no, no Patton, please let me finish, let me just try, I can do it I swear, he doesn’t have to be upset, I can be better, I can fix it please--”

“Honey,” Patton tried, and Virgil knew he was scaring him but he couldn’t seem to stop. “You’re ok. I promise. Remember what we said? You’re safe with us.”

Virgil curled in on himself, hunched over on the living room floor, mind scrambling desperately to latch on to what Patton was saying, trying and continuously failing to make sense of the warped reality his panic had created.

“Please don’t get him yet,” he found himself begging. “Please, not while he’s angry, please, he’ll hurt me, I don’t want him to hurt me again.”

And that was when Virgil had known, both he and Patton, that he wasn’t talking about Roman anymore.

But he didn’t stop his pleading, and Patton didn’t even hesitate, carefully lowering himself beside Virgil who forced himself not to flinch away.

The thought of fleeing to hide briefly crossed his mind. Patton would eventually call Roman in, and Roman would see the mess Virgil still hadn’t cleaned up, and he’d still be angry.

Virgil had tried hiding before. It didn’t always work, and it often led to worse punishment once he was caught, but on the off chance that he got away, the anger had usually faded by the time he resurfaced.

Usually. It often wasn’t worth the effort.

“You’re ok,” Patton said again, pulling him from his thoughts. “I’m right here. I won’t let anyone hurt you, Virgil. Ever again. Can you breathe with me, please?”

Virgil nodded, something screaming at him to obey, just do what they wanted and it would be ok…

It took an embarrassingly long time for Patton to talk Virgil down, for Virgil to even remember where he was, what exactly he was so afraid of.

But it all came back, slowly, the real world filtering in around the panic, the soothing voices, the gentle reminders that he wasn’t in any danger.

Oh. Great, he’d done it again.

It took Virgil a second to come back fully, blinking as he registered Patton sitting beside him, watching with wide, teary eyes.

Oh, god.

“I’m sorry,” he managed, now for an entirely new reason. “I’m ok Patton, I just thought...fuck, I’m so sorry, I didn’t mean to freak out like that.”

“Language, kiddo,” Patton said softly. “You don’t need to be upset with yourself, and you have nothing to apologize for.”

Virgil’s breathing was still too shallow, his chest aching with each gasp, and before he knew it he was reaching for Patton, letting himself melt into the other side’s embrace.

He managed to keep himself from crying again, just barely, closing his eyes against Patton’s ever soothing words of comfort and safety.

They’d been down this road too many times by now, some days worse than others, and Virgil had no idea how long his family was going to put up with this. Their patience seemed endless, but everyone had their limit.

“I’m trying,” he said after a moment, desperately needing Patton to understand. “I’m trying, Pat. I‘m trying so hard to be better, I swear I’m trying, I don’t want to keep doing this but I just--”

“You’re making more progress than you think, kiddo,” Patton said, cutting off his frantic rambling. “And we’ve already told you, there’s no rush. It’s gonna take time, and that’s ok. We aren’t going anywhere.”

They’d all told him that at some point. Told him he was getting there, that it wasn’t his fault when he slipped up, that they wouldn’t give up on him.

They’d all promised, all in their own way. Virgil only wondered if they’d realized just what it was they were signing up for.

He didn’t get a chance to respond before Patton was carefully pulling away, smiling almost apologetically.

“I’m going to get Roman now.” He frowned at the way Virgil’s shoulders tensed, eyes cast downward. “I’ll tell him what happened. But we can’t just leave these things unaddressed, you know that.”

He did know. Logan had said it enough times, along with countless other tactics and behaviors to help Virgil that never seemed to work.

Nothing ever worked. He couldn’t even recover properly.

But when he nodded miserably Patton just gave another small smile, squeezing his hand before standing from the couch and hurrying into the kitchen.

It couldn’t have been more than five minutes, Virgil left to hunch over himself beneath his pulled up hood and press into the corner of the couch, when there was the sound of footsteps rushing towards the living room.

He managed not to flinch, just glanced up and watched as Roman practically came barreling into the room, eyes wide and face flushed.

Princey looked like he wanted to rush across the room to Virgil’s side without a second more of hesitation, but a glance back at Patton in the doorway stopped him in his tracks.

“Virgil, I-I’m so sorry.” He was breathless, and Virgil’s throat felt tight at the waver in his voice. “I should have known...I wasn’t even thinking--”

“It’s ok,” Virgil said, willing his hands to stop shaking, pushing down the cruel, nagging voice shouting warnings in the back of his mind. “Really, Roman. It was a stupid overreaction. It’s on me.”

Roman took a careful step forward, only moving the rest of the way to the couch when Virgil didn’t immediately tense up or move away.

“I am sworn to protect you,” he said, voice oddly small as he lowered himself beside Virgil. “I was stressed and distracted- but that's no excuse. I should never have allowed myself to do or say anything that could make you feel unsafe.”

Virgil let out a trembling sigh, the obvious guilt in Princey’s eyes like a punch to the gut, so painfully undeserved, and all his fault.

He took Roman’s hand, noting how the creative side almost instantly relaxed at the physical contact. “You were stressed, and you just asked me to pick up my things off the floor. I shouldn’t have freaked out like that.”

“And I shouldn’t have been so aggressive,” Roman said. “You have no reason to be ashamed of your reaction, especially with the stress you’re under. I promise it won’t happen again, Virge.”

The reassurances, as always, settled something in Virgil’s chest, breaths coming a bit easier, a weight gradually lifting from his shoulders. But it still just felt...wrongly placed.

“It’s ok if it does,” he said, finding himself leaning against Roman’s side. “We’re...learning, right? All of us? It’s- it’ ok if we have slip ups. It happens.”

Logan had said something similar to all of them countless times before, his words of course were much more steady and eloquent, but Virgil knew Roman would recognize the words for what they were.

“You’re right.” Roman still sounded unconvinced, but Virgil couldn’t bring himself to dwell over it too much when he was being pulled close, once again enveloped in strong, safe arms. “And we’re getting there. Together.”

It wasn’t the first slip up that had sent Virgil back into that awful, panicked state, and it definitely wasn’t the last.

It was stupidly easy to trigger him back into that mindset, convinced he was too much, that he’d done something horrible, that he would be punished and hurt accordingly.

He was assured it was ok, that it was “normal” to react like this after going through the things he had, but Virgil was almost sure he was taking an absurdly long time to show any improvement.

But then again...maybe that wasn’t entirely true.

Improvement could be so slow, so small, that maybe the bad just sometimes happened to overshadow the good.��

The first time Virgil really noticed it, he’d been finishing up putting away some clean dishes, Logan setting the table for dinner while Patton and Roman idly chatted over their cooking.

“Virgil?” Logan called. “Those glasses actually go in the other cabinet to your right. Do you mind moving them?”

Right, he’d known that. “Oh, yeah. Sure.”

It was only a few cups, and he wordlessly moved them to the next shelf over before closing the cabinet and making his way over to the couch until dinner was ready.

Or at least...that was what he planned on doing before realizing that everyone in the kitchen was staring at him.

They were trying to be sneaky about it, but Virgil could very clearly see everyone was watching him with wide, poorly hidden smiles, looking ridiculously giddy like he’d just announced he’d won the lottery.

What the hell?

“Uh, guys?” he asked. “Everything ok?”

Logan was the first to speak, and Virgil wondered if he was imagining the pride radiating from the logical side.

“Everything is satisfactory, Virgil,” he said, reaching forward and squeezing the other’s shoulder.. “Thank you for doing the dishes.”

Before Virgil could even consider calling him back as he walked away, Patton let out a noise that could only be described as a squeal, practically flinging himself forward to envelope the anxious side in a tight hug.

“I am just so gosh darn proud of you, kiddo!”

“I- what?”

Even Roman was looking like he was forcibly holding himself back from joining in, and the Prince was actually bouncing on the balls of his feet, smiling so wide Virgil felt something in his stomach swoop.

“Give him some space, Patton,” Logan spoke up, having stopped to watch from the doorway. “You responded extremely well to my request, Virgil, but apologies if we overwhelmed you.”

As Patton pulled away, Virgil once again opened his mouth to ask what on earth everyone was so happy about, before it suddenly dawned on him.

He’d put the dishes in the wrong cabinet, a mistake that had been pointed out by another side.

It was exactly the sort of thing that would send him into a panic, make him lose himself in a fit of frantic apologies, paranoia and anxiety rising up to choke him, to send him under a wave of regression.

But...that hadn’t happened this time.

It hadn’t even occurred to him to apologize. No panic, no fear, no flood of memories and guilt. Just a simple mistake that he’d quickly corrected and then promptly forgotten about.

And he still didn’t feel the need to apologize or get out of the enclosed space.

Huh.

“See? I told you,” Roman said, leaned up against the kitchen counter. “We’re getting there, Stormcloud.”

And...yeah. Virgil supposed he was right. It was slow, sometimes almost invisible, but that really didn’t matter. They were getting there.

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jupitators-queen · 3 years

Text

Get your crush || Choi Yeonjun

Summary: y/n and or nameless character happens to have things happening to her in a way that seems like a dream. The things happened seemed like they were in her imagination, cause why would her popular known crush notice her, but oh they’re a reality.

Word count: around 1.3k

A/N: This is my first time posting on tumblr so bare with me, though it’s not my first time writing. I have a couple of stories on ‘wattpad’ and i thought “why not post some of my quick story ideas to tumblr?” so here we are after a long ass debate with myself. also, the mention of ‘she’ is just to give out the idea that there’s an extra person but they don’t have much relation to the story and i got lazy with coming up with names (hence why the reader is y/n) but lets not talk about that. I hope you enjoy my stories :)

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"I'll quickly go get it then i'll head out" I told myself after debating whether or not I should go back to class to get my pencil case. At first I got lazy cause I got plenty of pens and pencils back at home, but after I remembered my favorite pens being in my pencil case, I headed back to get it. As I got to the classroom I heard voices in there so I peeked to see who's in there. And to my displeasure 'she' was there with none other than 'Yeonjun' with her. Let's just say that I have developed a liking towards the boy for sometime now, but that's a story for some other time. She was known as one of the bad kids whom you shouldn't hang out with. As for her name ... It doesn't really matter here anyways; but all I know is that Yeonjun and her have a project together. Yeonjun on the other hand, was an amazing person. He was smart, hardworking, sporty (strong ;)) and nice but never a push over. If you don't like him, then you must be jealous of him, its one of the two. And I... Well I study hard, do my best and I mind my own business. She sat there writing down on some paper with her cigarette between her lips, with no care in the world. As if its not allowed to smoke in school. is she even real? She let out a puff bothering Yeonjun, so took away the cigarette from her with distress and irritation written all over his face. For a second, I thought he was going to smoke, but eventually he threw the item on the floor and stepped on it to turn it off. She simply eyed him then continued on with her work. Yeonjun looked up at the slightly opened door which made me jump and stumble backwards "I guess I'll just come back later" I quickly got up and rushed away. 3rd P.O.V : Yeonjun got up from working on this unpleasant project to see what happened to the person who was behind the door. Once he opened it fully, nobody was there. Confused, yeonjun went back to his seat shaking his head to shrug away the idea that a ghost might be there and continued focusing on working so he can finish his parts of the project faster. *end of 3rd P.O.V* My week went on at a very routinely pace. Go to school, have classes after classes, go back home, do work, sleep and repeat. I ended my weekend hoping that next week would be slightly different and hopefully feel lighter.

--- As I watched the teacher give the lecture absent mindedly, boredom was slowly taking over me, I can only hear my thoughts and my quiet breathing. Class ended with us assigned to do even more work, so I got straight to it. I looked up from my work because of some noise and chatter. I saw yeonjun standing there with his hands in his pockets and a small smile adoring his features. My heart did a little thing and I had to look away.

ugh if only i can have small conversations with him between classes... i can only dream.

My peace was soon ruined as one of the witches sitting a couple desks away, decided to throw shade at me. I looked up at her, raised my eyebrow clearly irritated but she dismissed my expression and continued on. "Stop starring at him weirdo, he won't like you" she remarked as she laughed with her friends. I took in a deep breath as I ignored her once more. And honestly it was embarrassing that she said that while he's here.

I know i sometimes stare at him but not for too long cause i don’t want to be a creep.

"Pretending to not hear me loser? Yeah you're silent cause you know I was right" "hey stop it!" The whole class went dead silent once his voice was heard. why is he standing up for me? no he’s quite literally standing up. I stood up to go out of the room put got stopped mid way.

I turned around to see yeonjun behind me holding my wrist. Though his grip was quite firm, it was still gentle. nooo i don’t have time to get butterflies now!

My eyes went from starring at his hand on my wrist to his face. I had confusion written all over my face.

"Oho, I didn't think you'd have such a taste in women, boring ugly weeb-" stepping forward, my hand grabbed her hair, pulling her head and smacking it against the table; with a loud smack, she fell to the ground whining in pain. Everything happened too quickly and I just moved subconsciously. ooohh i’m gonna get in trouble for this.

"That was the last straw, mess around with someone else b" I huffed and sat back down on my chair, 'she' came in and looked at me up and down then looked at yeonjun. She chuckled then went to her seat. For days after that, nothing remarkable happened, other than the few laughs and words that get thrown at me, but nothing big.

----

It’s finally the weekend! and right now, i’m at one of my favorite parks. it’s not as known, so it’s always quiet .

I was standing at the railing on the small bridge, looking down at the water. This place always calms me down but its a bit dangerous as it gets slippery so you have to be careful.

3rd P.O.V: yeonjun was walking around breathing in the beautiful air, taking in the scenery. As he walked by the lake, he saw a familiar person, he sensed their familiar presence too. He looked at her from a distance. Her hair waving around because of the wind as she looked around with the softest smile on her face.

She leaned forward to touch the water but it was a bit far from her touch, she then looked up at the tree that had flowers growing on it. She reached forward to grab one but still it was a bit far from her reach, so eventually yeonjun walked over to her so he can help her get one of the flowers of the tree. but a step away from her, she got frustrated and stomped on the ground.

She reached farther and as she was about to grab the flower she slipped falling into the water, and in no time yeonjun was right behind her. Luckly she didn't fully get into the water cause she held onto the bottom of the rail. She let out a scream of fear cause she wasn't any good at swimming. Yeonjun came from behind her wrapping his arm around her waist and slowly pulling her with him to the side. At first she flinched as a small gasp escaped her mouth, soon after she recognized yeonjun she felt her body relax. "Hold on to my shoulders, so I can swim with both arms to get to the side faster" she carefully did as he told her but she was shaky cause she was somewhat afriad of drowning "its OK don't worry!" Yeonjun kept on reassuring her constantly until they safely arrived.

They sat there heavily breathing, trying to calm down and realize what happened. she couldn’t believe what was happening! is she dreaming?!

Yeonjun chuckled "this is interesting .... Are you OK?" He turned to her, eyes sparkling with a little smile on his face. She blushed "y-yes, i-im fine" she stuttered a bit, mentally cursing at herself for this, but she liked him too much to not be affected. "T-thank you for helping me, I was afraid I'd drown" she mumbled while fiddling with her fingers.

He was able to hear her despite how quietly she spoke "Don't mention it... Though you'll most likely not drown cause its not as deep as it seems" he leaned closer to her nearly making her stop breathing "oh.. I didn't k-know that" with a slight confused face she looked down again.

He noticed how she was acting, he found her very cute, so he decided to tell her "Relax, I like you too!" He softly stated. Her head snapped to the side looking at him with wide eyes and her mouth slightly open, he let out a hearty laugh that sounded heavenly to her "a-are you serious?" She asked in disbelief "a hundred percent!" She felt her heart about to burst as she couldn't get any redder. is this really happening?!!!!! her thoughts were a mess.

He leaned closer and kissed her cheek, she laughed in shock, but what surprised him is that she happily and boldly returned it making him blush.

They were one unique couple. But they were happy to be together. Their differences made them closer and their likenesses connected them further. The end

P.S his outfit for the weekend that i imagined had this shirt on but imagine it with black hair instead. if that happened i would just e v a p o r a t e

30 notes · View notes

anika-ann · 4 years

Text

Attached - Bonus

Words Read After the Lights-Out

Type: (mini)-series, college AU, professor AU (technically)

Pairing: Steve Rogers x reader Word count: 5500

Summary: Modern-college-professor AU… aka the wrong attachment AU ;)

Time apart is usually unpleasant and this time wasn’t as exception. With messed-up sleep schedule, Steve helps himself with one of your writing he knows you finished. Will it help him fall asleep?

Warnings: smut, 18+, nsfw, semi-public masturbation, oral (fem receiving), PIV, hints of dom/sub, and fluff… and language (always)

A/N: @donutloverxo is ‘bad’ influence on me. Hopefully it will make up for me still not participating in the wonderful weekly challenge.

So here. Have a tiny bit more of smut and then I’m done with it. I am not a smut writer, no, no, no, no… but yeah, I had plenty of fun with this. It’s smut in a fluffy wrapping, because of course it is. I’m me. So, enjoy?

(Also, I copied the start of reader’s fic from the epilogue, so just you’re not surprised)

Story masterlist

⊱-◦-◦-◦-◦-◦-◦ ✉ ◦-◦-◦-◦-◦-◦-⊰

Steve knew he had permission – a half-heartedly mumbled one, somewhere between consciousness and drifting to sleep, but still a permission –, yet he felt a bit dirty.

He had printed the pages few days ago before he left, knowing you finished the story for now named ‘the second encounter with Professor R’, morbidly curious, but hesitant to dive in. These were still your writings, your imaginations and they might have concerned him, but they were still very intimate. And he wasn’t just thinking sexual intimacy – it was simply something coming from the very depth of your mind and Steve honest to god didn’t want to invade your privacy.

However, he had asked if you’d mind if he read what you had written, and you said no. He had asked if he could read it then – and you said yeah.

Here. Permission. Clear as day. And you had left your laptop open, still logged in, as if in invitation. So he had downloaded it and printed it out.

And now he was watching you lying on your stomach, hugging the pillow that was very much on his side of the bed as if you wished you were cuddling him instead and Steve didn’t crave anything but sliding beside you and pulling you to his side.

The problem was that he had been to a conference on the other side of the country and he nodded off on the plane and not even the long shower made him relax properly. And the last thing he wanted was to wake you up, because the last time you Facetimed, you looked like you could sleep for a year.

Steve knew that the fact he had left you alone for the first time since the rumours started that you two were together and it was no surprise that facing the vultures without the possibility to find solace in each other’s arms was taking its toll on you – he wouldn’t like it either. You wouldn’t admit it to him; you kept the distress about it to yourself, not wanting to burden him. The bed was lonely without him, you had said instead, a claim no doubt true as well – and boy, could Steve relate to that.

So now he fished out the few pages and settled at the desk, only the dim light revealing your words to him, as if they were something that indeed should remain a secret.

Steve spent one more glance at your sleeping form, serene, your lips parted as you softly breathed into the pillow, eyes closed, eyelashes casting weak shadows over your cheeks with the little lamp on and Steve couldn’t stop the corners of his lips rising. You were beautiful and his, lying in his bed, practically begging for him to come and take you to his arms.

Steve promised himself that once he would finish reading, hopefully tire his eyes for a bit, he would do exactly that – falling into a blissful sleep with you in his embrace.

He should have known better, really. He should have known that your story would do everything but lull him to sleep.

⊱-◦-◦-◦-◦-◦-◦ ✉ ◦-◦-◦-◦-◦-◦-⊰

Your pen was half-heartedly scribbling on the paper, your brain not quite registering the words coming from his mouth.

You weren’t prepared for a damn history lecture; mostly because when you knocked on the door of the professor’s office, you did not expected to find him not alone; his colleague, the grumpy old idiot, was sitting at his desk, making nots from a book which you probably wouldn’t even be able to lift with how thick it was.

Speaking of thick things… one was meant to be between your legs now, but no, the other prof just had to sit there third-wheeling and cock-blocking—dammit.

Now here you were, sitting opposite to Professor Rogers at his desk, pretending to be taking notes while he kindly filled in your missing knowledge, talking about god knew what.

His voice was a balm to your ears, deep timbre echoing in your ribcage, stirring heat in your abdomen. His voice did things to you no matter what words he spoke and from what distance, but you much rather had him whispering filthy suggestions to your ear, teeth grazing your skin, praises for all the things you allowed him to do to you, with his fingers, with his tongue, with his-

“Miss Clark!” Professor Rogers snapped all of sudden, voice stern and minutely louder than before. Your head snapped to him at instant, meeting his intense glare and a raised eyebrow. “Do I need to remind you that you were the one who expressed a supposedly genuine endeavour to earn your credit? If you could take notes instead of…” he eyed your wannabe notes with the scepticism they deserved “-doodling, that would be splendid.”

The smirk on his lips gave him away as he met your gaze, rising from his seat pointedly.

“Yes, Professor Rogers,” you said meekly, speeding up the circles and other random motions with your hand. “I’m sorry. My mind wandered off, I got lost in your narrative. It won’t happen again.”

You were so full of shit, because the only thing you got lost in was your own imagination, unholy pictures filling your impatient brain. Professor Rogers certainly knew that too – but he kept the front up for his colleague who just couldn’t seem to leave the damn room if even for a minute.

“It better not,” Professor Roberts commented gruffly, circling the hardwood desk slowly, fingers tracing the top of what he was meant to be fucking you against shall your fantasy come true any time soon. You shifted in your seat, feeling slickness gathering between your lower lips in anticipation. “As I was saying, the battle of Stalingrad…”

A sudden thought struck you when he stood beside you; for the first time in the past hour, you actually wrote something down instead of drawing random patterns.

Professor Rogers looked over your shoulder, reading the line about Professor Banks being a pain in your ass and you going crazy with need for your tutor’s cock. Peripherally, you saw Professor Rogers’ hand curl up in a fist, one corner of your lips rising in a smirk.

If you were to suffer, then so could he. It was a bold move, bratty even, one he might punish you for, but you were willing to take the risk, even feeling a tingle in your abdomen at the premise. Would he punish you? How? Were you in for some impatient manhandling today?

Caught up in your musings, you nearly jumped when his hot breath caressed your ear, a whispered promise causing air to get stuck in your throat, your heart speeding up insanely in your chest.

“Patience. Once he’s gone I’m gonna bend you over this desk…”

Your eyes fluttered shut, your mind supplying you with a helpful visual. You could almost feel his hand stroking the back of your thighs, the curve of your ass over your skin-tight dress, your lower back, and roughly pushing between your shoulder blades to trap you against the desk.

“…the German offensive to capture Stalingrad began in August 1942, using the 6th Army and elements of the 4th Panzer Army. The attack was supported by intense Luftwaffe bombing that reduced much of the city to rubble,” he continued the lecture as he straightened again, as if he hadn’t just vowed to get freaky with you.

His hand grazed the back of your chair, painfully close and still so far, moving to your other side, the heat of his body once again teasing you, his mouth an inch from your skin.

“…and fuck you ‘till you can’t walk…”

Your breathing picked up, your mouth suddenly feeling dry, the urge to lick your lips stronger than you. You glanced in Professor Banks’ direction, but there was no way he could hear what his colleague was whispering to your ear, the filthy promises made in between lecturing you about one of the biggest and most important battles of WW II. How could Professor Rogers even focus-

“You certainly have to write this down, Miss Clark—November 19, the Red Army launched Operation Uranus, a two-pronged attack targeting the weaker Romanian and Hungarian armies protecting the 6th Army's flanks.”

“… and ‘till the only thing you remember from this session is my name...”

You couldn’t even make out the words he spoke on normal volume anymore. Your fingers gripped the pen, the echo of sensations from the last week that had haunted you for days ghosting over your skin, your lips, your-

“…and how good my cock feels in your cunt.”

As if on command, your core clenched around nothing, the desperate craving to relieve some of the gradually building desire causing your thighs to rub together on instinct, hoping to create some friction at least. You could imagine Professor Rogers’ pupils dilating at that, a cocky smirk playing on his lips as one simple sentence of yours backfired unexpectedly.

His lips actually brushed over the shell of your ear with his next words, making you suck in air in a sharp inhale.

“You better get yourself ready, ‘cause I won’t waste any time with that.”

You blinked furiously at the statement, your head once again snapping to the other man in the room, who could turn to you any moment, catching you red-handed if you actually went through with it.

No way, no fucking w-

“Did I stutter, Miss Clark?” Professor Rogers hissed irritably and you dared to look at him, shocked to see a wolfish smile, a hungry glint in his eye that filled your stomach with butterflies, causing you to practically drip into the fabric of your dress.

“No, Professor Rogers,” you whispered obediently, your mind racing as you couldn’t make yourself to slip your hand under and just… listen to the command. “I understood.”

He held your gaze as he stepped to your right to partly shield you from view.

Be a good girl, he mouthed, sending a pleasant shudder down your spine, your pussy weeping for him, something inside you begging for you to obey just so you could hear him say it out loud later.

“Then we shall continue. At the beginning of February 1943, the Axis forces in Stalingrad…”

You inhaled shakily, your hand trembling a little as you let it fall from the top of the table, landing on your leg instead, your thumb grazing the sensitive skin on the inside of your thigh.

Professor Rogers’ eyebrows jumped a fraction, his chin motioning for you to go on, his eyes dark and lustful like a night.

Not daring to cast a single glance at the other man, because he would only make you lose your nerve, you moved your hand under the hem of your dress which was slightly below your mid-thigh, fingers trailing up until they reached the very high thigh-highs you were wearing.

“You seem to be forgetting to take notes, Miss Clark, my patience is truly wearing thin. Let’s move to another battle which was critical for the development of the war, the battle of Bulge…”

The words fell on deaf ears. All you could hear was the pounding of your own heart as your fingers slid right into the slickness pooled at your core; just like he had asked a week ago, there was nothing in the way, no underwear. You nearly whimpered when the tips of your fingers touched your opening, the barely-there contact blissful and yet torturous as you craved so much more.

You could feel his gaze on you, studying every quickened rise and fall of your chest, every single motion of the tendons in your forearm and thighs, flexing when your thumb circled your aching swollen clit, your eyes sliding shut at the tingle that ran through your nerve endings, your forefinger dipping into your cunt. You bit on your lip to stop yourself from releasing the whimper threatening to spill from your lips.

His stupid talk, momentarily empty promises, his voice on your ear, his lips brushing your skin, the light pressure on your clit, the finger moving slowly inside you— it all felt amazing, way too good considering that you knew you weren’t alone, but by God, did it add a tiny bit of a thrill, causing your heart to flutter, your core to burn.

You could still hear Professor Rogers talking, not one of his words registering until his fingertip grazed your collarbone, a breath of ‘such a good girl’ caressing your ear. You gulped, feeling your pussy clench, a shudder running down your spine.

“Go on, make yourself feel good. Add another.”

You had no idea how he knew what you were doing under the fabric, but he retreated again, to talk armies and bloodshed and all you could think off was being the good girl he had proclaimed you, worrying your teeth over your lips strongly enough to draw blood almost, third finger slipping into your heat. Your eyes fluttered open at the sensation, gaze stubbornly fixing on Professor Rogers’ chair, your breathing shallow and quick as you felt the pressure building.

Your mind was turning hazy as you tried to comprehend whether you liked the presence of the unsuspecting professor or were ashamed doing this while he was right there. You massaged your inner walls slowly, carefully despite how much you needed the release at this point, barely moving in or out in the fright of making noise. Your head spun, your thighs trembling softly with your climax nearing, the pleasure on horizon setting your blood on fire.

And then there was a pinch to your shoulder, nearly making you yelp in surprise—but somehow, even in the fog your brain was in, you understood that it was an order to stop and your hand instantly disappeared, curling into a fist on your thigh.

You tried your best to stop the shaking, to ignore the slickness on your fingers, now hopefully hidden in your palm and not on display – and peripherally, you could see Professor Banks rise to his feet, picking up items from his desk.

Your heart was beating its way out of your chest, air caught in your lungs as you attempted to calm yourself just in case he would look at you. As if your sex wasn’t practically pulsing because of the abrupt neglect, so so close to the release you craved.

In a sudden clarity of mind, you swiftly took fresh paper and set in on top of your ‘notes’ and gripped the pen again, seemingly ready to continue writing down important dates and names. You heard Banks steps nearing and you instinctively looked up. You had no idea what face you made, because you had zero control over your mimic muscles, too busy trying not to spontaneously combust.

Whatever he read from your expression, it made him eye his colleague.

“Don’t keep her for much longer, Steven. I’m sure she deserves some fun today too,” the older professor remarked, shooting you an uncharacteristic smile and walked out of the office, his old-fashioned leather case swinging. Professor Rogers’ ‘Don’t worry, Bradley,’ followed him and finally, the door clicked shut behind him, allowing you to release an exhale.

“He has no fucking idea,” you muttered, tossing the damn pen aside, running a hand down your face, while your other one remained curled up in a tight fist.

“Shut you dirty mouth, babygirl,” Professor Rogers hissed, crossing the distance to the door in few long strides, glancing at Banks’ desk to make sure that the man hadn’t forgotten anything he could come back for, and only then locked.

The next thing you knew, you were on your feet, the edge of the hardwood desk digging into your ass, your wrists pinned by his hands.

Your breath was stolen by his mouth, lips taking yours, warm, sweet, soft and demanding, a hungry kiss that had no end, one of your wrists suddenly free as his fingers curled around your nape, tangling in your hair, pushing and pulling, just to get more of you. You submitted easily, gratefully even, blissed out at the feeling of his tongue exploring your mouth, taking everything he wanted.

You gasped for air when he withdrew, his forehead resting against yours for a split moment, his touch on you almost tender now, more so when he brought your wrist to his mouth and left a brief kiss on your knuckles, inhaling deeply, causing your face heat up.

“So obedient, such good girl,” he whispered in a husky voice, thick with arousal, and you could swear you were about to burst. “Sweet, sweet girl.”

You were caught between embarrassed and aroused when he pried your fingers open, his tongue tasting your drying juices. Your core clenched in need and as if he could feel it, his hips rutted into yours, his own excitement evident as his cock poked your lower stomach, his mouth once again on yours, your hand trapped between your bodies, his fingers gripping your sides tightly.

“I promised you something, didn’t I?” he mumbled to your mouth.

Recalling just what a vow he had made you with the other man still present, you gladly let him spin you around, manoeuvre you to press your front to his desk with no regard for the notes scattered over it. You instantly missed the warmth of his body, but his hands went to knead the flash of your ass, one sliding to your lower back, the other hiking up your dress.

A groan escaped him at the sight of you bared for him, his foot nudging yours apart, his grip on you tightening, fingers digging into your flesh enough to bruise before they slid lower, dipping into your slickness. His fingertips spread it, circling your clit, nearly causing your knees to buckle at the shot of bliss sent through your veins. A pathetic mewl fell from your lips and you could only imagine the indulgent smile on his face.

“God, look at you, so pretty, so ready for me,” he praised, fingers tracing the lace of your thigh-highs. “I really like these. Good choice…. Hold on tight, babygirl.”

You wasted no time and listened to him, grabbing the edge of the desk as his touch disappeared. You closed your eyes, anticipation building when you heard the tell-tale of him unbuckling his belt and unzipping his pants.

You couldn’t wait to feel him inside you again and as wrong or right as it was, you couldn’t help yourself, missing him. You knew things weren’t as simple as they could be seen – you noticed the little things, unnecessary tenderness peeking through, showing you that you were more than just a mindless fuck.

His warm palms spread your cheeks almost lovingly, slightly guiding you up so you stood on your tiptoes, bracing on the hardwood desk, so close to beg for him to finally fill you up, so con-

“Oh my-“ you cried out, your thighs clenching when instead of his hard cock nudging your slit, a velvety-soft warmth licked at your opening, eager and hungry, wasting no time and opening you further, the tip of his tongue pushing in, his lips sucking every drop you offered. Blood rushed to your head and to your centre, fingertips tingling, your most sensitive parts feeling like on fire. His beard was a stark contrast to the softness of his tongue, rough sensation making you dizzy. “Prof-“

His fingers applied pressure on your clit again, the circling motions making your head spin, your thighs shake again with the intensity of the approaching orgasm as professor Rogers fucked you with his tongue relentlessly, reaching even deeper, flicking his tongue and driving you absolutely crazy with pleasure.

A cry ripped from your throat as your climax shook your whole world, knees giving out, your fingers weakly clutching at the edge of the desk, your body slack against the wood. And he didn’t stop. He helped you ride it out with vigour, humming against your cunt, sending aftershocks through your veins. Only when he stopped, you felt you could finally breathe— his mouth moved just a fraction, a sting on your inner thigh as he sucked a mark of possession, one he kissed afterwards; even in your haze, a soft warmth enveloped your heart. Not a mindless fuck.

“Sorry sweetheart, I couldn’t help myself…” he muttered to your skin, stroking, squeezing, kissing, moving up and whispering to your hair. Did he just apologize…? “You’re even sweeter than I hoped.”

Your heart fluttered, your hand blindly finding his as it still clutched on your waist. He didn’t retreat, gently squeezing back, knocking the breath out of you when he simultaneously entered you, his whole length in one swift motion, sinking so easily into your weeping cunt.

Professor Rogers moaned as you gasped, your core instinctively clenching around him.

“So tight… so good-“

His hands moved to your hips, his cock driving in and out, slowly at first, letting you feel every inch, his thick member stretching you pleasantly after such delicious preparation.

“Professor Rogers,” you gasped when he hit the right spot, his grip tightening.

“That it, babygirl?” he teased, purposely changing the angle, barely brushing your g-spot with his next thrust. You couldn’t help the mewl of frustration, attempting to shift and help yourself, only to meet with the steely hold he had on you. “Ah-ah, none of that, babygirl… you want more? Want me to make good on my promise?”

You really wanted to sneer at him, to snap, but—God, he moved so right the next moment, giving you another taste of the delicious sensation and you nodded fiercely, only for him to still in his movements, thumbs drawing a circle on your skin.

“Yes,” you voiced your request then, earning a satisfied hum and a tap of his fingers. Words are good, now do better, you almost heard him say and you clenched your jaw in frustration. For God’s sake- “Yes, please.”

“Please what?” he urged you as he rolled his hips lazily, dragging his cock alongside your walls so painfully slow.

You sighed, rocking yours hips just a bit – vainly, again.

“Please, fuck me against the desk… Professor Rogers.”

It worked like a charm, a kiss landing between your clothed shoulder blades.

“Good girl,” he hummed, the praise giving you as much joy as it did to him, apparently. “Brace yourself, sweetheart, I’m not holding back on you. I waited long enough…”

And that he did; the lecture had been a torture until it changed into a different kind of-

The half-unpleasant memory vanished from your mind, quickly replaced by the sensation of his length filling you up again, and again, again, speeding up, angling his hips so he finally hit the spot you craved to have stimulated, driving in and out with force that made you see stars, sharp gasps escaping your lips with each thrust.

You clutched at the table, unable to hold still, trying to meet him halfway, adding to the pleasure that had tears gathering behind your closed eyelids.

“Shit, I’m gonna-“ he groaned and freed one of his hands in favour to take you with him, playing with your clit and making you moan his name as the coil in your abdomen snapped again, causing you clench around him. It tipped him over the edge and you felt him spill into you, some of his seed tickling your opening as he rode his climax out.

You were both breathing heavily as his body laid over yours, the sweat gathering on your forehead and back be damned. You melted into the comfort his weight offered, pleasantly surprised when one of his hands found yours, still on the edge of the desk, fingers interlacing, a wet sloppy kiss landing on the side of your neck.

You could feel him soften inside you, a new sensation that felt strangely intimate, and yet he stayed a little longer.

“Stay right here, babygirl,” he rasped out, the warmth of him disappearing as he stood up fully and pulled out.

You obeyed despite not being sure what was about to happen… your first thought was a photo and you weren’t sure how you felt about that.

However, your first thought was wrong.

You heard rustle as he pulled out a wet-wipe, a sharp exhale following – warming it up, you realized later – and then he carefully cleaned you up, soft and wary of how sensitive you were, his mission ending with a brief kiss on the spot where the bitemark was probably already blooming.

“You can get up,” he encouraged you, standing by your side, hands hovering as if ready to catch you.

Now your head spun for a whole different reason. What the hell was happening? What was he doing? What did this mean? You weren’t about to complain in the slightest, but… what.

Professor Rogers was observing you wordlessly, intense gaze you couldn’t hope to understand and you couldn’t help the shame warming up your cheeks, knowing that even with waterproof mascara and quality lipstick, you were far from looking perfect – and still, he appeared to be feasting his eyes on you.

Before you could try and fix it, he caught your hand halfway to your face, planting a kiss on your wrist and reaching for another tissue, taking care of it himself.

You were rendered speechless, eyes wide, lips parted as his own spread in a gentle smile, gaze almost fond as his thumb caressed your cheek.

“Pretty girl,” was all he said, a kiss landing on your forehead, causing your breath to hitch, your eyelashes fluttering as you blinked several times, unable to comprehend.

You were too stunned to say a single word, frozen on spot and yet you could feel your bones melting under his gaze, still unwavering, focused, boring into yours.

Neither of you made an attempt to move – neither of your reached for your handbag so you could be on your way. You just stood there in silence, lost in how incredibly handsome, beautiful he was up-close, finally having time to fully appreciate it – and with the softness of his features, you felt yourself fall for him, caught in the safety net of his kind eyes.

Your mouth opened uselessly and the pad of thumb moved to run over your lips, ending up in the corner of your mouth, raising it in a lopsided smile.

“You called me my first name,” he whispered, effectively bursting your blissful bubble and invading it with horror.

Oh god, you had? When—oh. Oh. Now you recalled it, a tiny bit horrified that you actually called him ‘Steve’ when reaching your peak.

“I’m sor-“

He shook his head and before you could finish, he pulled you in for another kiss, slow, deep and meaningful, his arm curling around your waist as if he couldn’t get you close enough and once again, you weren’t about to complain, placing one palm on his shoulder, the other on the side of his neck instead.

“I liked it,” he breathed to your mouth, pecking your lips once more before releasing you. “I’ll see you next week, Miss Clark.”

You nodded automatically, still stunned by the whole turn of events and accepted the handbag he gently handed you.

“…thanks,” you muttered and let him lead you out of the office.

When he unlocked the door, you readjusted your dress, making sure that in any normal circumstances people could see the lack of your underwear; what a reminder of Professor Rogers – Steve – being no less kinky than the first time, no matter how his demeanour now. You glanced at his face again and lost all remnants of sanity.

You placed your hand on his broad impressive bicep and dropped a light kiss on his cheek, enjoying the tickle of his beard once more.

“I’ll see you,” you echoed his words, meeting his twinkling eyes before walking out of the door.

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Steve had to blink several times as he finished reading, trying to get a grasp on reality again, the words and images still swimming in front of his eyes. He needed few moments to process what he just read for more than one reason; he certainly didn’t feel sleepy as he had naively hoped.

He found the story hot, yeah, he wasn’t kidding himself, he was rock hard and aching, but what took him aback greatly and rendered him speechless was the sentiment. The shift in the relationship, the parts of Steve you got to know that you had implemented into the story with ease, the story in which ‘Miss Clark’ was surprised by the professor’s affection.

Steve read in the words the same astonishment and tender awe he saw in your eyes when you first exchanged ‘I love you’, after he had read the very start of this story for the first time and told you that he loved your mind as well.

Even when he glanced at your form now, so tempting in his bed, practically begging for him to satiate the hunger that your words spurred, it was impossible to ignore the warmth in his chest, his heart suddenly feeling too big for his ribcage.

Delicately placing the pages down, he turned off the lamp and carefully made his way to you, the mattress dipping under his weight, the motion drawing an adorable but barely audible whimper from you. Steve smiled for himself and slid beside you, curling his arms around your form and pulling you to his chest as much as he could without poking you with his hard-on, having decided to ignore it until it went away. He just-- honestly, he wouldn’t say no, but just holding you would suffice tonight.

You melted into his body so trustingly and naturally it made his heart ache and sing at the same time—God, he loved you. Then, as your mind registered that he was technically not supposed to be there, your form stiffened before pressing into him further, curling in his embrace, allowing him to nuzzle his nose in your hair.

“Hi,” you greeted him sleepily, but no less sweetly.

Steve dropped a kiss to the back of your head, his smile widening. “Hi, sweetheart. I’m okay, I’m glad to be home and you can go back to sleep.”

“Mm-mm, thanks for the report.”

You turned your head to catch his lips in a welcome kiss, one Steve wouldn’t refuse in a million years; sleepy, a bit sloppy, but one that tasted like home. Yours. And with both of you smiling into it.

“Welcome back. I missed you.”

He brushed the strand of your hair from your face, kissing you once more at your admission.

“Missed you more.”

Your grin only widened when you rolled over to him fully, tangling your limbs with his and accidently – possibly on purpose – brushing his erection with your thigh. He hissed despite himself and he would swear he could see a glint of mischief in your eyes despite the lack of light in the room.

“Oh, I see how it is, you missed me,” you giggled adorably and Steve couldn’t bring himself to be exasperated at you breaking the magic of the moment. And he certainly didn’t feel like telling you what exactly got him into this state – at least not now.

“Not just like that,” he grumbled and you giggled once more, finding his lips with yours, your hand surprisingly moving to rest on his chest, right over his heart, rather than heading down his torso.

“I’m hopeful,” you whispered, looking up at him from under your eyelashes and even in the dark, Steve felt his heart stutter. God, you were beautiful. Breath-taking. His. “But we should take care of this.”

Your hand slid considerably lower, giving some attention to his aching hard-on, softly curling your fingers around it and stroking and his resolve was slowly – very quickly – turning non-existent.

“I didn’t want to wake you at all. You need to sleep-“ he tried out weakly and you eyed him again, kissing his sternum, still smiling.

“Don’t feel sleepy. And I missed you too. In all the ways possible. I want to feel you, Steve.”

And fuck, he was lost. To your hands, to your lips, to your voice – when did it grow so sultry? –, to the smell of your shampoo and bodywash and your skin and to your damn face he couldn’t even see properly.

“Hey,” he mumbled in a spur of the moment, catching your hand to still your delicate strokes before they clouded his mind completely.

You blinked in an understandable surprise; but he had an important thing to say, simultaneously making a mental note to emphasize it again when telling you he read the second story too.

“Wha-“

“I truly missed you, sweetheart. I love you.”

Your surprise melted into something much softer and Steve couldn’t but meet your lips again, catching a glimpse of that same awe he marvelled at when reading. Your fingers in his hair were an epitome of bliss as you kissed him back with care.

“I love you too, Steve. So much…” you vowed and then there were no more words needed.

Steve devoured your lips, your body, revelling in every soft sigh of his name. And soon worn out after you both tipped over the edge, you fell asleep, tucked under the covers in his arms, the pair of you finally sleeping soundly again after being apart.

⊱-◦-◦-◦-◦-◦-◦ ✉ ◦-◦-◦-◦-◦-◦-⊰

‘One-shot’ Hurtful Words part 1

S.R. masterlist

⊱-◦-◦-◦-◦-◦-◦ ✉ ◦-◦-◦-◦-◦-◦-⊰

Thank you for reading :-*

I felt like I owe it to you, to them and to myself after the story she was writing didn’t get to be read (Steve caught her writing it). I hope you enjoyed :)

I’m thinking one more one-shot, maybe, will see how it goes, I’ll be pretty busy from the next week, so...

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suffering-and-happy-about-it · 3 years

Text

Best Friend (Stressed Out, Part 4.)

Happy Hallowe’en!

Series despription: Once upon a time, there was a lonely dog locked up in his own home. The lonely dog became sad and angry - until a woman came to stay at the lonely, sad house one day.

Part summary: As you got ouf the stoic state, Grimmauld’s place started to shake under your presence - the house hadn’t been through such a great cleaning in ages and the only one who couldn’t get over it was Kreacher... About whom you decided not to care about in the slightest.

A/N: First signs of affection, I REPEAT FOR PEOPLE IN THE BACK: FIRST SIGNS OF AFFECTION. We really be taking our time. As one very wise, red-head boy once said... “You’re gonna suffer, but you’re gonna be happy ‘bout it.”

Word counter: 3.9 K

Tagging: @missdictatorme, @siriusly-padfoot

Playlist: The Black Vibe ™

Series masterlist: H E R E

The night, there was a promise made on the sofa. Neither of you knew if it was to be taken seriously; Sirius was still half-drunk and you were sobbing more than talking; Black couldn't understand the better half of what you've been mumbling. Yet you promised to confiscate every bottle of alcohol in the house, letting Sirius drink only a bit each day. On the other hand, Black promised not to let you sit around various parts of the house and stoically gaze into oblivion. It was solidified by a handshake just before you fell dead asleep as if someone hit the back of your head.

Black wasn't wondering why did it happen; you must've been tired after everything that was going on inside your head for the last couple of days. And to his unpleasant surprise, he didn't even have to worry about you being lifeless. You continued right where Molly left off, cleaning the rooms. Kreacher, as expected, was revolting heavily against your doings. Yet the house-elf was forgetting that you were now as angry as he was... All the time. Every time he started to curse in your presence, you turned into a furious hag and yelled at him to leave you alone finally; usually grabbing him by his clothes and shoving him into the nearest cabinet. After each of those extempores, Mrs Black started to yell her lungs out once more and you were wondering if it's worth it, to shout at the elf and so. Yet every time Kreacher came by to continue his daily dose of making you sick, you knew that it's bloody worth it.

After some time, you started to answer the painting back in the same enraged tone. While Walburga was yelling that you were just a scum, a traitor and an overall disgusting piece of filth, you've been yelling back at Walburga various not-so-nice things. And to be honest... Both Kreacher and Walburga were helping you to get past your grief sooner than you'd do so normally. It felt good to let all of the pressed anger out of you in such a way, especially if it meant that you didn't have to be angry with Sirius, who was your only so-called friend at the time. But that didn't mean you were good all the time either.

This was caused mainly by the fact his drinking got a bit out of hand when you had your weird phase. Now, it was hard to stop with it from an evening to an evening. Sure, he wasn't near close to being an alcoholic, yet the beverages became a part of his day-to-day life for a few weeks. It was hard to cut it off just like that.

Yet when he saw your outbursts of pain (it was simply the pain you've been feeling you've been yelling out at his mother and Kreacher) he decided it might be better not to try to sneak for the beverages into your room. You'd know; Sirius wasn't sure how would you find out, yet he was certain you'd find out easily. In the end, he was allowed two big glasses when you sat on the sofa every evening, so there was nothing to riot against.

One late October morning, it was three days before another meeting of the Order, he had woken up to a particularly amusing sight. Kreacher was crying out inaudibly as you were trying to set the damn portrait on fire with a torch you've found somewhere in the house. The said portrait was screaming on the top of its lungs with fear - and such sound was enough to make Sirius' morning a bit better. Against his better judgement, he flicked his wand and the fire was extinguished immediately. While Kreacher was still angrily yelling things at you, Sirius swiftly covered the portrait. Then, he turned his as Kreacher who was now kicking your shin as you sat in front of the wall, breathing heavily. - "Go to your place, right now, Kreacher." - Sirius muttered out with amusement, offering you a hand. The house-elf shot a last hateful gaze at you before he bowed to Sirius, apparating into the thin air.

"How are you doing?" - The man asked you with an entertained smile, patting your shoulder. With a sigh, you swung the put-out torch next to your leg, rubbing the nape of your neck. - "I think that I am perhaps short of a marble, or at least that I am starting to losing it." - An answer sounded through the staircase as you walked to the dining room side by side. - "This is the magic this house has. A charming one, am I right?" - Sirius let our a breathy laughter as he put a kettle to the fireplace, preparing the water for a cup of tea. - "Fancy a cuppa?" - He mumbled from searching for a particularly old tea set. To his surprise, you were kneeling in front of the stove and checked something, that was backing inside. - "What you got here?" - The man stuck his head next to yours, freaking you out so much that you almost burned his face with the hot stove door.

"You'll see, shush now." - You pushed him aside with a giggle. It wasn't too hard to figure out what you were trying to bake since there was a cookbook opened at the page 'Pumpin Pasties and other Hallowe'en treats'. - "What's the date? I lost the touch with the outside world." - Sirius, who was now paying attention to the flavours of the tea, asked silently. How long have you been there already? How much time had passed by? - "That's another thing I wanted to talk to you about. Can Kreacher go to the market for me?" - You wondered innocently, covering the book with your body.

Sirius now shot an interesting gaze your way. - "Hallowe'en is around the corner and since the members of the order will be here for the evening, I thought we might make it pretty in here. I've already found me some candles I can enchant to fly around," - A smile broke out on your face and it was the first time Sirius saw you excited about anything. There were small sparks in your eyes as you spoke of the subject and there was a whole new expression in your face; when Kreacher moaned in horror (since it were his Mistress' candles), you kicked the door with your heel to shut him up. - "But I was thinking a few pumpkins here and there, some Hallowe'en baking and such. I might pull out some of the bats from Buckbeak's attic." - With that, you smiled more subtly than before.

The water was already boiling as Sirius watched you with a moron-ish gaze. Kreacher sure was allowed to go outside, yet the directions must be complex. He wasn't allowed to talk about where you've been or where Sirius is hiding, he can't tell how to find the place or who is the secret keeper. Yet Sirius didn't find the will to tell you no. It might lift the spirits for a moment. It might be fun, to carve pumpkins and prepare the house for a befitting jolly mood. - "Of course he can leave the house. Write me a list and I will send him out." - Sirius answered with a subtle smile resembling yours. With that, you jumped on your feet and took your cup of tea from his palm. - "That's why I'm trying Pumpin pasties from the old book I've found here. I think you might like them. And Kreacher can take one if he fancies it, I'm in a generous mood."

As you've said, so Sirius did. He recited the whole list to Kreacher - eleven big pumpkins, fifteen small ones, another pack of candles, a whole lot things so you could bake, some lemonades and butterbeer; to make Sirius happy, you've asked Kreacher to take a big bottle of fancy whiskey. Both of you gave Kreacher some money, you've been more than willing to invest in the holiday celebration, and while Black was more generous and gave Kreacher two Galleons, you've only given him a few Sickles. As soon as you were done with the first batch of the pasties and it got a bit colder, you've made the man taste it.

Honestly, when he saw your expression, Sirius expected a whole rodeo. He was worried for a moment, but then the salty caramel and sweet, spicy pumpkin pasta hit his tongue. - "Merlin's beard." - The man hummed after eating two of them. - "I last had such good pasties back in Hogwarts." - This started the whole topic about if you should make both sweet and savoury treats, or just stick with one of them; to which you decided you'll make both just to be sure.

For the next two days, after Kreacher was unwillingly sent to shop while Sirius hissed a whole lot of comments regarding your safety at him, Grimmauld's place was turned into a bakery and also became a lot more lively than before. You've spent a whole afternoon figuring out how to make the candles fly without setting anything on fire (there were a few spots that were soot-coated by the candles), then you craved the pumpkins, both small and big, arranging them around the whole house. Even though you used magic at most of them, you've craved at least five of them by hand, arranging them around the house in various places. Some were flying along with the candles, some were put on the railing to shine through the pitch-black corridors, some were put into the tapestry room where you've been spending the most time.

The house itself was suddenly bursting with the right creepy atmosphere it was all the time, but now it was enhanced by all the Hallowe'en decorations. Sirius liked it the end - the whole dining room was decorated with small bowls of candy, pumpkin pasties (both savoury and sweet) and a pint of butterbeer for everyone who was supposed to come.

When Moody entered the Grimmauld's place, his eye was flying in every direction so he'd figure out if the decorations were something dangerous or not. Tonks was so taken away by it that her hair changed into bright orange colour and Lupin just told you it looked wonderful, which was the biggest compliment you were able to get out of him. Dumbledore practically waltzed into the room, Hogwarts were in the jolly mood at this time of the year as well, and all the decorations made him smile widely. You've been wondering how is it that Dumbledore is staying so jolly in times like these, yet eventually, his mood became quite contagious.

Severus Snape ignored all of the treats you've presented to your guests, but it was greatly appreciated by Minerva McGonagall, the headmistress of the Griffindor house of Hogwarts. - "See, Black? I knew you had it in you." - She sang out with a small smile, making Sirius huff out with laughter. There was not much to talk about at the meeting - there were only new people with new information who were able to tell you something. Some of the guests stayed a bit longer and drank a few glasses of whiskey before they left. Yet just before you joined the lively group in the dining room, you've caught up Dumbledore.

Minerva McGonagall gave you a confused look as you gently gripped the man's upper arm, yet she nodded when Dumbledore smiled at her kindly. She remembered you, of course, she did. You, Brian McLeavey and Charlie Weasley were an inseparable group back in your Hogwarts days. Back when you were still studying at the school, it wasn't even that long ago, you've been in the Forbidden forest almost all the time; it was mainly caused by Charlie's persuasive skill and your thrill for a bit of adventure. When she heard that Brian had died, she fell silent for a moment - neither of you were great at Transfiguration, yet Charlie and he were known lovers of the wild beasts and you've been really great with herbs. Such a nice man's life lost... What bad news.

"I never had seen Grimmauld's place looking so sharp, miss Y/L/N." - Dumbledore told you kindly and moved out of Alastor's way with one elegant move. - "It was your work, wasn't it?" - He smiled as if you've been gushing about a secret of sorts. - "Sirius helped me greatly. When it comes to silly things like these, this man can be brilliant." - You answered honestly. - "Yet this is not what I wish to speak of, sir."

It was still within you. Even if Album Dumbledore wasn't your headmaster anymore, there was this respect deeply craved under your skin. This man was most probably the most brilliant, the smartest and kindest wizard you've ever had the luck to speak with. Dumbledore sighed, looked around the decorated hall and nodded at what you've been saying. - "I know it's not what you want to talk about, but take this as my answer. It is too soon for you to leave the hiding you have at Grimmauld's place. As I wrote to you in the letter, it will be wiser to stay here until we know what curse is ailing you. This is the safest place you can find yourself at. How's Buckbeak doing, when we're chatting away anyway?" - The headmaster asked kindly and made sure his beard still looks presentable. Your answers were now much less enthusiastic and quieter than before; you were hoping to hear that you can, in fact, leave the house at your will.

It wasn't right to leave Black there all along, yet you were surely slowly losing your marbles while staying there with Kreacher. One of you will be found dead in the following weeks and you were sure it won't be you. The Grimmauld's place wasn't a location you'd voluntarily stay at, but there was something inside you telling you that you should stay inside the house. As you watched Minerva gently placing her palm on Dumbledore's forearm, you sighed out loud before they disappeared right in front of your eyes. Slowly, you closed the door and walked back to the kitchen. Tonks, Lupin and the Weasleys stayed there for a little longer. As to be expected, you've slipped into two groups - the women were gushing over the latest news and men were drinking a bit to get into mood (Sirius might have drunk a bit too much) and talked about various topics. Molly even brought you a few of the latest Daily prophets so you would have something to read through.

"How are you doing, darling? it must be horrible to live... Here." - Molly looked around and searched for Kreacher lurking around the table somewhere. For a moment, you've been quiet; until you shook your head. You decided not to tell her about the few crucial weeks you and Sirius had before the first meeting of the school year was called. - "It's not that bad, really. Kreacher and Mrs Black can be a whole lot at times, that I admit, but this house has its perks." - You looked around with a soft smile. Over the last few weeks, you've grown to know every small detail of a few rooms. - "For example, there's always something to do and to clean up. Mostly, Kreacher is fast and slips with a few trinkets to hide them away, so then I can argue with the old moron for a while, letting all the stress out. Which wakes the hag living in the portrait." - Then, you and Tonks chatted about Kreacher calling you all these names at which you just laughed carelessly. Around eleven in the evening, Molly and Arthur left the house, hugging you as if they were seeing you for the last time ever. You've grown to appreciate both of them during their first stay at the Grimmauld's place (since Charlie never introduced you to his family) and you liked the pair ever since.

It was after they both left the house when Sirius finally managed to talk you down to have a good, big glass of the whiskey with him and Lupin. Tonks, who certainly wasn't afraid of alcohol, had drunk much more than she was capable of handling. When Lupin was leaving, she persisted on walking him out of the door. To keep the discretion, you and Sirius sat in the dining room and continued to sip on the whiskey. He pretended that he's sober, but you knew he drank at least a whole bottle on his own. - "Most of the members were blown away by the decoration. It was something magnificent in my opinion." - The man whispered to you as you heard Tonks and Lupin conversating about something very loudly in the hall. With a flick of your wand, the door to the dining room had closed while your gaze slipped from the fireplace to Black.

Even he was now looking like a changed man. The company you've had poured some energy into his veins, that was clear as a day. Suddenly, he looked at least ten years younger than he did before, mainly because he trimmed his beard and moustache and made sure his hair was somewhat presentable. His blue eyes now had small sparks of happiness inside them - which was partially the alcohol's doing. The only thing you were afraid of was that once this excitement flushes away, he maybe will be an insufferable moron. This time, you wouldn't be able to just sit through all of it, gazing into the oblivion. - "We better raise the bar on Christmas, then." - You said with a small smile, pouring rest of the booze down your throat. Then you picked one of the sweet pasties, biting off the better half of it.

"What do you mean by that?" - Sirius leaned his back into the chair, being taken away for a moment. He didn't know for how long Dumbledore is planning for you to stay at the Grimmauld's place, yet it couldn't be that long, could it? Sirius had already a bit of experience with isolation, he knew how bad it can get with him - but you were a young woman. You'd surely lose your marbles if you'd stay longer than three months. Not to say that it was almost two months already. - "I mean that you probably won't be able to drink like a local drunkard for some time because Dumbledore hadn't disclosed any certain date. And I think I might be stuck here until the New Year. Poor you." - You snickered with irony, yet it seemed to take Black away even more for some reason.

Was he a bad person for being... Happy after you learned such news? Sure, in the beginning, it was not too charming to live with you under one roof. Yet once you got over it and moved into the stage of being angry, living at Grimmauld's place wasn't feeling like such a prison. Sometimes he joined you with cleaning up the mess after his family, sometimes he chatted with you for a while - but when you realized it's almost Hallowe'en and you could surprise your guests, it was one of the funniest weeks he lived through in the last few years. You could be funny, especially when you were cursing about the damn candles falling on your head, you could be overly energetic with it (which made Sirius filled with energy as well) and you could be... Nice. Especially when you just told him stories about the Hallowe'en celebrations in your household. He enjoyed your company and by Merlin's beard, a part of him relaxed when he realized that you weren't about to leave just yet. - "Poor me." - Sirius tried to agree with the same amount of irony in his voice, yet the mascarade was easy to look through. - "Poor me."

Just before the conversation could go in a different direction, Tonks opened up the door with tears in her eyes. You and Sirius exchanged a glance before she sat at the chair Lupin was sitting at just a moment ago, drinking straight out of the bottle. - "You, my friend, are sleeping here tonight." - Sirius told her and patted her shoulder as he picked himself from the chair. It was probably the best idea. Tonks, who didn't leave the bottle out of her palms, started to sob, yet refused to tell you what was going on. Shortly after, Sirius led her to one of the empty bedrooms. As you were walking next to them, each of you at least a bit drunk, you stopped at the ajar door leading into the tapestry room. There were no words needed - Sirius simply nodded at you while climbing upstairs with Dora, chatting with her about something quietly.

As usual, it was your time to cry and get the sadness you before you'd start your yelling competition with Mrs Black and the ungrateful house-elf in the morning. It was a daily convenience that Sirius found you sitting on the sofa, all curled up into a tight ball, staring into the flames. With the bottle he managed to wiggle from Tonks' grip, he sat next to you as he always did. Usually, you've been crying and he was just sitting there, as emotional support. For several hours until you decided it's time for sleep. Well, it certainly wasn't the best thing he could be doing, but what were his options? To sit with Buckbeak in the attic? Lay in his bed? Cook? No, Sirius got used to this already.

It was as that moment you took the bottle and took a long swing out of it too. This was different. He had never seen you drink during there before. It was not too long after when you managed to speak out loud. - "Can you do something for me?" - You mumbled, pitting the bottle on the small decorative table next to the sofa. The man turned his head at you, giving you a curious gaze. - "Can you hold me as if you really mean it?" - A whisper hit his ears loud and clear. It wasn't making much sense, the whole plea was nonsense.

To hold you as if he's meaning it? What precisely were asking for? What was the thing he was supposed to mean? Should he be worried about the thing he was supposed to mean? And were you about to explain it to him at some point? - "Of course." - He answered nonetheless with politeness and scooped closer to you. It was really awkward for a moment there, as he put his arm on the back of the sofa, not touching you in any way. With your nose red and eyes smudged, you've scooped so your head rested on his shoulder and one of your arms circled around his side, making sure you're as close as you could be.

After another prolonged moment, Black's hand gently slipped on your shoulder and squeezed you for a moment as he let out a contained sigh. He didn't know how long you've been pressing yourself to his side, yet at one point, you stopped sobbing and a long breath escaped your lips; you've fallen asleep right there and then. Sirius rose his other hand slowly, putting your hair in place before planting a long kiss on your temple, cradling you a bit as you huffed out unpleasantly. He did hold you as if he meant it. And the best part? Sirius Black really meant it that night.

#sirius black #sirius black x reader #sirius black x y/n #sirius black imagine #remus lupin #nymphadora tonks #alastor moody #albus dumbledore #minerva mcgonagall #harry potter #harry potter movies #harry potter books #harry potter fandom #mrs walburga black #kreacher the house elf #they are the stars of this fic #get over it #they are hilarious in my opinion

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seiin-translations · 3 years

Text

2.43 S1 Chapter 1.6 - Young Yunichika

6. ENTRY SHEET

If I get anything about volleyball wrong, let me know

Translation Notes

1. Tokyo is called a city, but it’s treated as one of the 47 prefectures since it’s so big. Its official name is Tokyo Metropolis or Tokyo-to (東京都)

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His class duties took longer than expected and he rushed out of the classroom later than usual. As soon as he turned the door at a right angle, he ran into Itoko coming out of the classroom next door. He barely caught her wrist when she bumped her face against his collarbone and got bounced back.

“Ow… Yuni? That’s dangerous, you know.”

“I didn’t know. You’re the one who was looking away.”

While insulting her back out of habit, he was inwardly flustered because her wrist was thinner than he thought, and immediately let go.

“Hmm? Are you going to club now?”

Itoko let out a “Hmm?” with a rising inflection when she looked at Kuroba’s bags. He was feeling like he had been using the enamel bag he carried on his shoulder for a long time lately. Starting this month, they would be wearing their summer uniforms, and his t-shirt could be seen from the front of his wide-open shirt.

“Do your best, sports lad.”

“Don’t, don’t make fun of me!”

“How? I wasn’t. Wasn’t I praising you?”

“You sound like you’re looking down on me when you say it like that.”

“Even if I wanted to look down on you, I can’t!”

She gestured to compare the heights of their heads by holding up her hand. When he felt an itchy feeling down his back and bent back, Itoko leaned forward on her tiptoes and looked up at him from under his chin.

“W-what? Don’t get so close to me, it’s weird.”

“You got taller again, haven’t you?”

“Huh? R-really?”

Now that she said it, the position where Itoko’s face bumped into him was considerably lower. Recalling the scent of her shampoo, the itchiness ran down his back again.

***

“One-seventy-nine-point…zero.”

“It’s true! I did grow taller!”

It had been a long time since they measured their heights at that scale on the door of the equipment room. He smoothly removed himself from beneath the powder drink box that was held up by Haijima and checked the scale for himself.

“Hm. Isn’t it…nine-point-two? Don’t cut it off.”

Haijima didn’t even hide his tongue click when he corrected him. Haijima was 176.9cm. Even without being jealous of Kuroba, they were growing together, but he didn’t like the fact that their height difference of 2.3cm wasn’t shrinking even a millimeter. Well, I’m in a good mood now, so I can tolerate Haijima’s aggression.

“Fufu…Fufufufu…I’ll be one-eighty soon, with this.”

“Don’t your knees hurt?”

“It doesn’t bother me that much. It just feels a bit uncomfortable.”

He answered, tilting his head as he bent and stretched his knees. “You’re too healthy,” Haijima said, half-opening his eyes with a look of resentment.

“Does your knees hurt?”

“They do. I can’t even sleep some days.”

“Ho. Heh. So that’s how it is.”

“Tch…that loose face is pissing me off.”

Currently, there were eight active members on the boys’ volleyball team. There were some dropouts during the intensive spring break practices, but three people joined miraculously in the new school year. They could be in matches if they had seven people, but it was great that they could have one member in reserve (Since it was six-people volleyball, there were six people standing on the court at the same time, but the player specializing in receives called the libero could be registered separately, and they rotated while replacing a player on the court).

Within the club, Kuroba was the tallest, and his position was outside hitter as well as opposite hitter. Simply put, they were the positions that spiked the most. Next was Haijima, whose position was the immovable setter. It was the position where one set the ball up. And after him was Nagato, who was 175cm tall and also a third-year like the two of them, and his position was the center. It was a role that was the center of the blocking in front of the net and to act as a decoy. Other than those three, the rest were on par with the average middle school boy, and none of them were outstandingly tall enough to surpass 180cm. It was undeniable that they didn’t have the fighting power, but those who had good physiques drifted to more popular clubs.

“We’re having a meeting!”

The advisor called for them to gather while they were being noisy in front of the equipment room. Their ghost advisor, who had been grumbling about his holidays been used up for accompanying their club activities, seemed to have gotten more enthusiastic about it in the course of going along with them seriously. Lately, he had started to cooperate with practice, not just watch, and he was studying from the coach’s manual.

Haijima’s frank way of doing things and his single-mindedness towards volleyball infected everyone else before they knew it. An unfamiliar but not unpleasant something permeated their cells and remade their bodies unnoticed—.

It had already been three months since that incident with Yorimichi before spring break, but there was still a faint scar on Haijima’s right temple. If you asked him if there was any change in Haijima’s personality after that incident, he could tell you that there was absolutely none at all, and that he was still the same volleyball fanatic who went his own way.

But thanks to that…he felt in his body that he had gotten better. This week was better than last week, today was better than yesterday, and he was able to move up a level. Kuroba especially liked the back-row attack hit from right in the center of the court. Hitting from there, he was able to jump the highest, hit the hardest, and get the best view.

“This is the entry sheet for the middle school prefecturals. This year it’s two days from July twenty-six to twenty-seven.”

In a corner of the gym, they sat in a circle with the advisor in the center. Except for Haijima, everyone peered at the sheet curiously and said, “Wow, this is?” They had a few practice games with the middle schools in the city, but now it was time for the summer prefectural tournament, their first official game.

“It’s right after we go into summer vacation.”

“You get to play around for the rest of summer if you lose,” their advisor let slip out of his mouth, then cleared his throat when Haijima glared at him. Kuroba had almost blurted that out as well, but he was glad he hadn’t. “Ahem. Well of course since we’re going to compete, our goal is to win. I was told that for last year’s schedule, the first day was the first and second rounds, and the second day is the semifinals, third-place deciders, and finals. The top three schools will advance to the Hokushin’etsu Tournament.”

“That’s all?”

It was Haijima who raised his voice in surprise.

“No subdivision qualifiers, already the prefectural finals?”

“Hmm, you’re referring to the block qualifiers below the prefectural level, Haijima. To tell the truth, we’re lucky that our block doesn’t have qualifiers. The girls do, but it seems that the number of participating schools for the boys has been below the minimum for the past few years. The number of schools where Haijima’s from can’t be compared to here, and you have to win a lot of block qualifiers before you can get to the prefecturals, right?”

“It’s the metropolitan tournament, but yeah.” (1)

Haijima nodded, and Kuroba and the other members blinked in surprise. As he stared at the entry sheet, his face became tinged with red and his eyes turned piercing. Uwah, it’s that face, the dinosaur-loving boy…Kuroba had an ominous feeling that he was going to say something bothersome and felt like holding his head.

Haijima raised his eyes from the entry sheet, and then looked at his teammates one by one, as though confirming something. His gaze stopped on Kuroba’s face. In a hoarse yet somewhat lively voice that sounded like he was repressing his excitement, he said,

“We win the championship if we win four. If we win at least three, we break through the prefectural tournament.”

A “Huh” slipped out of Kuroba’s mouth, and he gulped.

“That’s surprisingly…”

Close, he was about to say, but felt ashamed at himself for forgetting their position. Excepting Haijima, it was an amateur team where everyone else had no experience with regular games. If they won once, that was all they could ask for, but if they somehow won twice against all odds, then that was a remarkable achievement. They should be thinking that humbly.

However, even the letter H in the word “humble” didn’t exist in the dictionary of the man named Haijima Kimichika. He didn’t have the sensitivity for being embarrassed about his overreaching statement, nor the thought of making a precautionary low estimate.

“We can do it.”

He said confidently, without a hint of doubt or hesitation.

“We’re gonna win.”

He always wondered how this guy could boldly put such words on his tongue as though they existed just for him. Win? Did that mean being the best in the prefecture? Those were words he thought he would never have any relation with. Or rather, he was so far removed from them that they never even crossed his mind. The reason was because he never devoted himself to anything that he wanted to be the best at. Although he was passionate about volleyball now, it wasn’t because he wanted to win, but more because at this point, he just enjoyed the feeling of getting better at it.

But, only four wins. Or even three wins.

It would be easier to become defiant and fight back if it was some eternally distant place like having to win dozens of times or something like that… He still couldn’t accept the fact that it was in a place they might reach if everything went well, and now he was just bewildered.

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#2.43 book 1 #2.43: Seiin Koukou Danshi Volley-bu #2.43 translation

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bookscoffeeandracoons · 3 years

Text

366 Days Reblog Challenge - October 2020

And another Masterlist to flood your inboxes 😅 I’m running out of things to say because I’m finishing them all in a few days rather than spread across the year. Welcome to my pro-level of procrastination.

Again, just in case you haven’t read it yet, thank your for the words you put out here and i wish you the happiest New Year! Lots of love to you all!

Call Sign: Renaissance by @captain-kelli

Steve Rogers x Reader, Sam Wilson x Reader (platonic)

Warnings: slow burn, fluff, angst, violence, alcohol + drinking, definitely and always language, optional smut (be sure to read the individual tags of each post)

Summary: After a rescue mission gone wrong, you retire as a pararescue airwoman. When an old friend of yours comes calling, asking you to spearhead a disaster response team for the Avengers, you have to decide if you can let go of the past in order to save lives. Will you move on and possibly fall in love? Or will the demons of your past come back to haunt you

01. 05. Beast of Burden

02. 05. Interlude

03. 06. Ring the Bells

04. 07. Redemption

05. 08. From the Ashes

06. 09. The King’s Gambit

07. 10. The Days in Between

08. 11. These Things We Do

09. Epilogue

10. Sentimental by @evanstarff

Bucky Barnes x Reader

Warnings: Mostly fluff with a Barbershop Quartet cameo.

Summary: Bucky Barnes gets shaved for Christmas.

11. The Hamptons’ House: 2003 - 2 by @avengerscompound

Tony Stark x F!Reader

Warnings: Smut (MF, sleepy sex, vaginal fingering, oral sex, vaginal sex)

Synopsis: You and Tony meet up again for your week again. You both look forward to spending the time together, but when it becomes clear Tony’s life is spiraling out of control, you wonder how many more of these meetups you’re going to get.

12. The Hamptons’ House: 2003 - 3 by @avengerscompound

Tony Stark x F!Reader

Warnings: drinking

13. Shockwave (2) by @amanda-teaches

Bucky x Reader

Warnings: Medical situation, swearing, intense moments, injuries

Chapter Summary: In the aftermath of the attack, you wind up unconscious in a hospital bed surrounded by Avengers. Upon waking up, you feel fine, but all of you quickly discover that is not, in fact, the case.

14. Come Home by @portals-to-a-new-world

Billy Butcher x Reader

Warnings: S P O I L E R S, Hurt/Comfort, Language.

What?: (SPOILERS FOR THE BOYS SEASON 2 EP 4) Billy is in a whirlwind after the incident with Becca. What’s gonna happen when he comes back to find you gone too? (Connected to “Black Dresses and Back Alleys”, but can be read as a stand alone)

15. Mornings Are For Coffee and Contemplation by @star-spangled-man-with-a-plan

Clint Barton

Warnings: Grumpy Clint, language.

Summary: Clint just wants to drink his coffee in peace.

16. Hot Wheels by @jobean12-blog

Tony Stark x Reader

Warnings: A very hot car, Tony and his sassy mouth, bow ties (I love them), little teasing, some soft sweet fluff and car sex on the softer side, smut (18+ only please)

Summary: Tony makes a new purchase without your knowledge but it’s hard to be upset when you see it and take it for a ride…

17. “You Promised” by @bolontiku

Steve Rogers x Reader

Summary: Steve makes promises, as we all know, not all of them can be kept.

18. The Hamptons’ House: 2003 - 4 by @avengerscompound

Tony Stark x F!Reader

Warnings: Smut (MF, oral sex, vaginal sex, light d/s)

19. The girl next door by @rainandhotchocolate

James Potter x muggle!Reader

20. Maybe He’s Born With It by @inber

Geralt of Rivia x Reader

21. Forged by @abovethesmokestacks

Bucky Barnes

Warnings: Angst, brain washing, all in all a very unpleasant part of Bucky’s life,

22. Exhale by @abovethesmokestacks

Andy Barber x Reader

Rating: All audiences

23. Hall Closets by @jewels2876

Bucky Barnes x Reader

Warnings: smut, hand jobs (m & F), sex without a condom - 18+ ONLY!

24. The Drawing by @bucky-the-thigh-slayer

Pre Serum Steve x Female Reader

Warnings: Some fluff. Some very likely historical inaccuracies (so sue me). Mentions of blood and death (war related). Some angst… *cough* character death *cough cough*

Summary: Sarah Rogers has just one request, which Steve Rogers wants to fulfill… except his friend couldn’t possibly love him back, could she?

25. On the Rocks by @nomadicpixel

Steve Rogers x Female Oregonian! Reader

Rating: Explicit

Summary: Steve asks you to go camping with him in your home state. Can you last the trip without Steve finding out you’re in love with him?

26. The Hamptons’ House: 2006 - 1 by @avengerscompound

Tony Stark x F!Reader

Warnings: Poor body image, Smut (Bisexual orgy, oral sex, vaginal sex, vaginal fingering)

Synopsis: When you return to the house in the Hamptons’ it’s both with a fear or the direction Tony’s life is taking and a concern about him no longer being interested with you.

27. I Swore I’d Protect You by @star-spangled-man-with-a-plan

Oliver Queen x Reader

Warnings: Angst, fluff, character injury

Summary: The one time Oliver isn’t in control of his own facilities, you’re badly injured.

28. “Kiss & Tell” by @bolontiku

Thor x Reader

Summary: getting back into the dating game is no fun. Thankfully your friend is there to listen.

29. Yippee Ki Yay - Chapter 9 by @nomadicpixel

Bucky Barnes x Reader

Summary: This is a post-endgame AU, Peggy and Steve have lived their life together, however, both are still alive. Steve and Peggy’s granddaughter track down Bucky and Sam. She makes no secret of her attraction to him, but Bucky has his doubts.

30. Moodboard-tober 20 by @abovethesmokestacks

Drabble by @hispeculiartreasure (if i got this wrong please let me know!)

Bucky Barnes x Reader

31. Pumpkin Seeds by @star-spangled-man-with-a-plan

Bucky Barnes x F!Reader

Warnings: Fluff, one curse word, brief sensuality.

Summary: You and Bucky get ready for Halloween by carving pumpkins, toasting pumpkin seeds, and making pumpkin butter.

31. Trick or Treat by @nerdy-bookworm-1998

Steve Rogers x Reader x Bucky Barnes

Warnings: None

Request: “ If your requests are still open, may we have stuckyxreader taking their little ones trick or treating? Extra points for any avenger uncle/auntie that just melts at seeing the kids all in costume“

Back to main Masterlist

#becca's reblog challenge #becca's reblog challenge masterlist #fic rec #fic rec masterlist

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losvcr · 5 years

Text

all i want (reddie)

Summary: Eddie is dying. He knows he’s dying. He can’t die without telling Richie the truth. If it’s the very last thing he does, Eddie will make sure that Richie knows how he feels about him.

Pairing: Reddie

Word Count: 3.2k

Warnings: a homophobic slur, cussing, near death

A/N: y’all are probably gonna see a shit ton of these fics around bc we’re dramatic hoes who need to see our boy live and get the ending that he deserves. this is not beta’d, but the spirit hit me and i had to write it. hope y’all enjoy!

AO3 link: here

“I fucked your mom..”

Eddie let out a choked laugh before rather quickly easing off of it, not enjoying the extra dose of pain his body received from moving even a little bit. At least the severe pain he’d been feeling was starting to numb.

Fuck. That’s not what I meant to say.

There was so much he wanted to say.

Eddie had pondered death before. Who didn’t? He had faced it several times, in fact. But it was real, now. Eddie knew that he was dying. He was running out of time.

There was still so much he had to say.

Eddie could hear them talking. He watched them make a run for it so that they could continue the fight. But not Richie. Richie stayed right next to him. Richie.

Richie.

A small smile came onto Eddie’s face as he gripped Richie’s jacket tightly, not even remotely thinking about ever letting go of it. “..h-hey, Rich...?”

“Shh.. save your energy, Eddie. I’m getting you out of here as soon as I can. But until then, shut the hell up.” Richie whispered as he held onto Eddie tightly, and Eddie watched as Richie’s eyes flickered back and forth between him and the horror that their friends were trying to overcome.

Eddie loved that about Richie. That trashmouth idiot might always talk a lot of shit, but he cared. He cared about them. Richie cared about him.

For so long, Eddie had tried to deny it. Even when he left and his memories became repressed, Eddie had always known that something had been missing. He’d known that his marriage with Myra was safe, but it wasn’t what he wanted.

Coming back home and seeing that goofy grin and huge bifocals made him remember.

Now he was at death’s door and Eddie knew it was now or never. If he didn’t say it now, he would never get the chance to. He had already lost that opportunity once.

“R-Richie...”

“No.” Eddie stared over the side of Richie’s face in confusion, shakily reaching one of his hands up to cup Richie’s cheek that was wet. Richie was crying. “You’re not leaving me, alright? Whatever you have to say, just don’t. You can tell me once we get out of here.”

There was something in Richie’s tone. It took Eddie a second, but he was quick to pick up on it. It was desperation. Richie was scared. Richie didn’t want to face what was happening.

Eddie could feel his vision fading in and out, just wanting to close his eyes. But they were almost there. Eddie could feel it.

He also had something to say before that. He had to say it.

“Richie--” He could see Richie gearing up to interrupt him again, a fire in his eyes, but Eddie rushed to get it out before that could happen. “I love you..”

He watched as Richie froze momentarily, any berating dying in his throat. Eddie didn’t care what happened after this. He just needed Richie to know the truth before he left the world. If he died, if they all died, he just wanted Richie to know how he really felt about him. His best friend. The boy who made terrible mom jokes and baited Eddie like no other. The boy who never shut up but made him laugh all the time. The boy who didn’t want to share the hammock when his ten minutes was up.

Now they were adults, but Eddie didn’t feel any differently. Richie was the same person he had loved all that time ago.

“H-hey, what’d I tell you? No more bombshells until I get you out of here. Give a guy a ch-chance to stop shitting his pants before--” Richie choked up, unable to finish, but all Eddie could do was smile fondly at him―the same person he’d fell in love with.

Eddie’s eyes fluttered closed, his thumb softly stroking over the flesh of Richie’s cheek and feeling hot tears continuously flowing. “Please open your eyes, Eds. We--we’re almost there. You have to wait for me to say it back.”

"Don’t... call me Eds...” He barely got out through a chuckled whisper. Eddie couldn’t hold on any longer. He felt drained and he just wanted to sleep. So he did.

---

Lights. That was the first thing. Lights.

Then there was noise. It sounded muffled, but it was there. The muffling noises slowly began to turn into ringing, and then the ringing shifted into voices.

After that? That was when sensation started to return. There was a tingling sensation in both his arms and legs and Eddie felt like it was impossible to move. Along with that, it felt like his whole entire chest was burning and he wanted that to stop. Except, it was as if he were in a fog; A half-sleep, half-awake state.

But then there was a gasp that made his muscles twitch with a jolt of fear. That had been much louder than the voices he heard in the background. It wasn’t until he heard a familiar voice practically screaming for a doctor that Eddie realized something.

He wasn’t dead.

Blearily, Eddie began to blink his eyes open slowly and drowsily, everything a blur to his vision. He wasn’t all the way there yet. All he knew was that he wasn’t dead and that Richie was there.

That was enough comfort for Eddie to give in to the wave of exhaustion that kept trying to pull him back under.

---

This second time around was a lot more unpleasant.

Where before he had been slowly trying to adjust to becoming conscious once again, this time had no compulsion or the sympathy to make his awakening less harsh.

Eddie could feel something in his mouth and throat that was making it difficult to breathe and immediately, he reached his left arm up to try and pull out the offending device, eyes still closed and the action more subconscious than anything else.

But a hand grabbed onto his and stopped him, easily lowering his hand back down to the bed. “Hey, relax. Open your eyes, Eds.”

That voice.

It was like that was all he needed and after blinking a few times, Eddie was finally seeing.

There Richie was, sitting right on the bed next to him and looking like he hadn’t seen a shower in weeks.

Eddie tried to grumble something, but the tube prevented him from speaking and again, he attempted to reach up to dislodge it, but Richie was still holding onto his hand and keeping him from doing so.

“Someone is coming right now.” He heard a female’s voice and turned his head slowly to see Beverly standing at the door, her arms crossed over her chest and a look of relief on her face.

Now that he was starting to come to even more, he could see that the others were there too, every pair of eyes trained on him. It didn’t take Eddie long to figure out they were at the hospital, but now he had to recall how he got there in the first place.

It.

Eddie could feel a small dread building up in his stomach, and it was like that reaction was enough to remind him of the fact that he was injured, feeling a pang in his lower shoulder that started to throb the faster his heart began to beat.

“Eddie, breathe.” His eyes flickered right back over to Richie again, watching tears stream down Richie’s face. “It’s okay. You’re okay. We did it.”

We did it.

Before he could even try to process it, they weren’t alone anymore.

Hours later, after the assisting tube removal, multiple test, and pain-killer induced sleeping, Eddie was finally coming to. This time, he was alert.

He looked around the dark hospital room and his friends were no longer there, but there was one person there in the chair besides his bed, body draped over and face pushed into Eddie’s bed.

A fond smile came onto Eddie’s lips and his hand moved to rest against the top of Richie’s head, gently running fingers through his hair. There was so many questions Eddie had, but he didn’t think he could voice any of them. He was just so relieved. He was relieved that he wasn’t dead; Relieved that he saw the others were okay; Relieved that Richie was here.

It was foggy, but Eddie remembered. He remembered entering Neibolt. He remembered going to the well. He remembered entering its lair deep in the ground. He remembered the horror and he remembered saving Richie, only to feel the worst pain he had ever felt in his lower right shoulder―it felt like he had completely lost that part of his torso.

Eddie’s gaze hesitantly drifted over to his right side and he saw a huge white bandage running down his arm, a sling holding it up. The discomfort he felt throbbing there, pain muted by the opioids, let him know that he hadn’t lost that side like he had been so sure he had.

Swallowing hard, he turned to look back at Richie and felt a shock run through his system when his eyes met with a pair of gorgeous blue ones.

“You’re awake.” They both said at the same time.

Richie snorted and started to sit up, and Eddie placed his now-free hand into the bedding, pushing so that he could sit up as well. He winced at the wave of pain the sudden movement created, hissing low.

“Hey, take it easy.” Richie said, his tone laced with concern as he stood and helped Eddie to sit up against propped-up pillows. Eddie threw Richie a fleeting, but thankful smile as he settled again. “You’re acting like you didn’t get skewered by a demonic spider clown.”

Eddie glared at Richie playfully, but his expression immediately softened when he looked over Richie again. Richie looked like he hadn’t slept in days and despite the joking, he could tell that his best friend was still shaken up.

“It’s okay, Rich.. we did it, right..?” Eddie’s voice was a little rough and quiet from disuse, but he knew that Richie could hear him.

Richie let out a soft sigh as he sat on the edge of Eddie’s bed, and Eddie couldn’t help the warmth that shot up his spine when Richie was grabbing onto his hand. “Yeah, we.. it’s dead. For good, I think.”

Thank fuck.

Silence soon settled between them and Eddie suddenly remembered his confession just before he caved into unconsciousness, causing a bright red blush to take over his face and for the hand Richie was still holding onto to feel like it was on fire.

He should probably say something.

“Rich--”

Eddie stopped short when he heard a quiet sniffle, and his gaze lifted from their hands to look at Richie who was crying again. He could feel his heart break a little at the sight, confused as to why Richie was crying if it was finally over.

He didn’t have to wait long for an answer.

“Don’t do that to me again.” It was whispered, but Eddie could hear a pin drop in the silence of the room. It was like the air was vacuumed so that he and Richie could talk without any interruption or overhearing. “You... you didn’t wait for me to say that I love you too.”

Eddie could feel his face becoming hot again, the heat rushing through his body and making him shudder involuntarily as tears began to develop in his eyes. Richie loved him too. “Richie...”

“No, Eddie. They thought you died, that you would die if you weren’t already dead, but I didn’t care. We carried you because I knew.. I didn’t know, but I just didn’t fucking care. I needed you to be okay and for fucks sake, if you weren’t, I wasn’t gonna leave you down there. Eddie, just let me―I have always been in love with you, okay? Ever since we were stupid fucking teenagers. I wanted to tell you back then. I did. But.. I was so fucking scared. I couldn’t lose you. I would rather have you in my life than not at all. We all know how they treated fags, right? I should have known you would never be like that.”

There was an intensity in Richie’s voice that had Eddie in awe, unable to blink or speak. Richie had loved him this entire time? “Even... even when I forgot, there was always something missing. Not just our childhoods or friendships or family, but you, Eddie. I might not have been able to name it, but fuck, it’s always been you, Eddie.”

Richie’s voice grew weak, probably from trying not to sob, and Eddie knew he needed a moment. Gently, he broke his hand from Richie’s grasp and moved it to cup Richie’s cheek instead, giving him a watery smile as tears silently streamed down Eddie’s face as well.

“You know, Richie.. I would watch your comedy specials sometimes. I.. of course, I couldn’t remember you. But I would always laugh. I would sit there thinking ‘god, this idiot reminds me of someone who I grew up with’. I was always on the cusp. Always so fucking wistful whenever I watched those specials.

“S-so... y’know.. you weren’t the only one missing something. It took me coming back here to realize that I married someone who was exactly like my mom.” Eddie made a face of distaste, gently slapping at Richie’s shoulder when he laughed at the revelation. “Fuck off, alright? It’s fucked up, I know. But Myra was safety, Rich. I.. I didn’t have to think about the way I felt about other men when I had her constantly reminding me that I had to be good.

“I thought I was gonna die down there, Richie. I knew that if I died, if we all died, that I needed you to know the truth of how I felt about you. You made me feel like it was okay to be myself. You.. you just make me feel okay, Richie―”

Eddie cut off short when he suddenly felt a warm pair of lips pressing to his and he was already melting, eyes wide and body shaking from it.

It was too quick. The kiss was only for a moment and Eddie couldn’t stop the soft whine he let out when Richie pulled away before he could kiss him back.

His hand shot up, fingers brushing over his lips as he stared at Richie shyly with a bright red blush on his face. It definitely made him feel better to see Richie’s ears flushed just as brightly, looking as if he would freak out at any second.

Eddie couldn’t let that happen, could he?

Thankfully, Richie hadn’t gone too far and Eddie was able to lean in and close the space between their lips again, kissing Richie with a tenderness he hadn’t realized he was capable of. Once he felt Richie relax and kiss him back, his hand moved to the back of Richie’s neck, allowing their connection to continue for a little while longer.

When they pulled away this time, they both were a little breathless and Eddie couldn’t help the smile that found his face when he saw Richie grinning at him.

“I’m not letting you go this time. I swear it.” Richie promised. Eddie’s eyelashes fluttered when he felt Richie cup his cheeks and he sighed quietly when Richie pressed a small peck to his lips.

“Good. I don’t want you to. Now, tell me where the others went and how you were able to stay.” Eddie demanded as he relaxed back into the pillows, and Richie grinned sheepishly at Eddie after dropping his hands.

“I might have lied and told them that I was your husband.”

“Richie, what?! What the hell were you thinking? You know that they can figure out if that shit isn’t true, right?”

“Oh, relax, spaghetti. I had to find a way fucking somehow, didn’t I? S’not like it won’t be true in the future.”

Eddie could feel his heart squeeze hard in his chest and he knew that he was fucked in the best way possible. He would have to deal with Richie ‘the trashmouth’ Tozier for the rest of his life, now.

He was okay with that.

---

“Richie, I thought we were meeting with the others one last time.”

Eddie huffed out as he followed Richie across the bridge, wishing he could take his itchy cast off. He had broken in his arm in several places and apparently had been lucky that his arm wasn’t gone, or better yet, that he wasn’t dead. Eddie knew that he had almost died a few times, but he liked to believe that he had held out for his friends. For Richie.

“Yeah, yeah, yeah.. Look, I just have one thing to show you, and then we’ll go. Calm that cute ass of yours down.” Richie winked, and Eddie rolled his eyes playfully at his boyfriend.

“You’re the worst.” He mumbled out as they finally seemed to walk up to what Richie wanted him to see. “What’s this? Oh god, Richie, did you really just take me to this damn―“

Eddie stopped short when he saw what Richie had crouched down in front of, and he was soon walking in closer and bending down to see if he hadn’t been imagining it.

‘R +’

Was that...?

Eddie could feel tears springing into his eyes when Richie held out a pocket knife to him, his gaze warm and excited. “I.. I started it a long time ago. I.. was hoping you would finish it.”

The breath was knocked out of Eddie and he let out a choked laugh before he carefully grabbed the knife and started to kneel, helped down by Richie.

‘R + E’

The E was faded, but it was there. He had never doubted that Richie meant it when he said he had feelings for Eddie back then, but Eddie didn’t know he had done this. So many times, he walked past this bridge without thinking twice about it, and this secret had been etched there for years for only the two of them.

Eddie glanced over at Richie with nothing but love and fondness in his teary eyes, and then he got to work with his left hand. It was a little shaky because it wasn’t his dominant hand (and also because he was trying not to cry - god, Richie was such a sap), but the job got done and Eddie could feel his chest tightening. It was completed.

He thanked Richie quietly once he was helped back onto his feet, and once the pocketknife was put away, Eddie was quick to grab Richie’s hand. “Okay, loverboy. We’re etched into this bridge forever. How about we go say goodbye before we go home?”

There was no way he was going anywhere that Richie wasn’t. California had just as many people who needed limo services and it was about time that he expanded his business anyway.

When instead of a verbal answer, he got a kiss, Eddie’s eyes fluttered closed and he pressed into it, feeling a happiness he couldn’t describe.

“Yeah, guess we can go say goodbye to those fucking losers.” Richie smiled, starting to lead Eddie back the way they’d come.

Everything would be okay. They were all okay. It was over. They had defeated It, and now, they all had each other again.

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blackevermore · 3 years

Text

x Wade In The Water

{ Chapter 5: Leak In This Old Building }

Summary: Ester Scott was once in love. She thought the days of her shortcomings were over and that the man she found was her one and only. But all that was taken away when the demons she had became too accustomed to finally took the one thing she had left. Louisiana was her home but the devil down below was calling her name. She only has herself to blame when it came to the hands dragging her under.

Notes: It’s Hazbin Hotel, be ready for everything. Also I apologize for all my mistakes in advance!

Word Count: 3,950

Souls can sing songs, they can sing you harmonies that have been lost with time. When I rest my feet I sit with waiting souls that sing the blues. They sung me gossip and I told them to hold their tongue for the Lord’s words no longer apply to me. They seem to be saddened by my tainted sweetness and I offer them a coin. Place this in your mouth and do not swallow, when you get there you’ll be rich, that’s what I tell them. It’s all I have to send them off.

- Ester R. Scott

People are going missing again. On the board next to the bus stop are faces of people of all ages. Some photos are drawings, some are handpicked from someone’s personal album, and others are clipping from the newspapers. They are all smiling, unaware that in reality they are gone and may never come back. These photos were the last memories anyone would have of them. Even in passing everyone was affected by the smiling faces of missing people asking for help in black and white. As I look over all the faces, I notice that there aren’t as many black folk as there is white folk. This is odd considering my people go missing left and right and their faces are the ones that go unnoticed for years. I look at the few black faces and they are all women with fancy hair and fancy dresses.

They aren’t missing. They were killed, as simple as that.

I look towards all the white faces and it's mostly men, older men with wrinkles on their face. Men in suits and hats that had their pictures taken when they weren’t working. The women are just the same, beautiful and casual, untouched by reality and living comfortably. These women, until the men, were probably still living somewhere with a lover in hiding. The men were most likely six feet under from a lousy gamble and a terrible fate. On the lower row are children, precious babies that didn’t deserve whatever happened to them. I close my eyes and say a small prayer for them before I turn and walk away. Behind me, I know the angels that were following me are still looking towards the board. Maybe they are checking off their list of people they’ve gathered or maybe sent off to hell. Maybe the devil does the same thing, with a smile wide on his face as he chuckles deeply at all the faces and names he knows. Maybe he turns to his side and gathers someone's attention and tells them ‘I know them, they died last month, we play poker every Saturday’. Then he would laugh and smile at the person creeping them out and watching them hurry off to get away from them.

Or, in a turn of events, the devil’s heart grows heavy as he realizes there is more work to be done with the souls waiting down below.

“Ester?” I stumbled through the front door and Chemintine came out of the bathroom. “Welcome home Ester, I’ve already started cooking.” She smiles at me and I knot my brows. It’s been two weeks since she’s moved in and every day since then she’s been doing more and more for me. First, it was cleaning up the few messes I had left about during the long nights I couldn’t sleep. Then it was washing my clothes on days she didn’t have to go to work but I did. At first, I fussed at her for touching what didn’t belong to her, but when she gave me those big baby eyes I knew it was better to just allow her to do as she pleased. Of course within the range of asking me first, it was my house after all. Now she was cooking for me and I started to feel a bit uncomfortable. The last person that cooked for me was my mama and I would have liked to keep it that way.

“Chemintine, you don’t have to cook, I could have done that.” I take off my shoes and place them by the door along with my coat. Chemintine shakes her head and crosses her arms across her chest.

“I can cook Ester, I’m not gonna kill ya.” She said, shaking her head and moseying off to the kitchen to finish what she was doing. “If I’m going to be staying with you for the time being I need to pull my weight.” I walk up behind her as she is stirring something in the pot.

“Fine, but a rule mama used to have was that if you cook I’ll do the dishes.”

“Fine by me,” Chemintine nodded then turned the burner low for the food to simmer. “Where’ya go today? I thought you didn’t go out much on the weekends.”

“Shopping for the house and for supplies,” I answer. I wanted to tell her to stay out of my business but there was no use when she would be staying here. She would eventually get curious about everything. And me being a kind person would treat her like a child and answer all her questions.

“You sure like to bring work home, don’tcha.” Chemintine laughed and grabbed the bowls.

“Not supplies for work, supplies for my paintings.”

“You paint, Ester?”

“Sometimes. When I have the time for it or if I’m inspired.”

“Will you show me your work, Ester?” Chemintine sets the steaming bowls of porridge on the table.

“I can.”

“Goodie!”

I have to say when Chemintine was given the freedom in the kitchen she could cook. Or maybe I was just hungry. Either way what she made was tasty and left me full and dazed. When I asked her how she knew how to use spices she playfully huffed at me.

“I can season food, Ester, I might be white but I know that pepper and salt isn’t gonna make a person happy. Be kind to me.” I shook my head and laughed, she was right, I should have a little more faith in some white people. Not all of them were terrible cooks and not all of them were terrible people. Some just didn’t want to be the odd man out, no one wanted to be seen as a traitor. But then there were those like Cheminiten that couldn’t give a care in the world and would show her ass to her family if it meant being a decent person. ‘I was raised poor, Ester, but I chose to be a decent person’ is what she told me one night.

We were now in my bedroom on the floor with papers scattered about as Chemintie looked at my art. I didn’t take pride in my art as I did in making clothes. It was just something I did when I wanted to keep my hands busy. Sometimes I would sketch or paint without realizing it. My hands were restless and they had to move or else I was sure they would strangle me. I told that to Mrs Birdy and she laughed at me but I was serious.

“Ester, these are so beautiful! How come you don’t talk about it?” Chemintine held up a sketch I did of my mother when I was younger. It was rough and wasn’t as clean as my newer works but it was timeless as it held my mother’s face. I missed her dearly.

“It’s nothing to talk about. Not like the clothes I can make out of nothing.” I smiled gently and Chemintine shook her head.

“This ain’t nothing, these are something, you could sell them and make big money.” The stars in Chemintine’s eyes weren’t for me in reality. I could see in her eyes I was a world class famous artist, sipping wine with big shots and dancing with millionaires. In her eyes we weren’t living in the 30s anymore, we were somewhere in the future where blacks and whites could sit together. She sure did have an active imagination.

“These aren’t meant to be sold, Chem,” I tell her and she shakes her head again in disbelief. She picked up one piece after the other and fell in love with them. “Ester what in the world are these?” Chemintine moved the papers in front of her to the side and placed down five similar sketches.

I sat up and scooted closer to look at the papers before taking a deep sigh, “Those are angels.”

“Ain’t no angel looking like that, Ester, those are demons.” Chem cocked a brow and gave me a funny look as if I lost my head.

“No Chemintine, those are angels in their purest forms. Angels don’t actually look like us, they take our forms so they don’t scare us.”

“Are you sure?”

“Yes.”

“Well I’ll have to take your word, I ain’t been to church ever in my life but I’m sure you have.”

“I go every Sunday, never miss a day. Mama might roll out her grave and haunt me if I do.” I laugh and Chem joins me.

“How ya know these are what they look like?” Chemintine question made me stop for a moment. I could tell her the truth but she wouldn’t believe me. She thought I was telling lies just to pull her leg. Or maybe she would think I’m crazy and take off running for the last bus that came this way. I bit the inside of my cheek and picked up one of the more outlandish sketches and looked it over.

“I can see them, believe it or not, I can see them and could have seen when I was a child.” I put the sketch down and wait for her to say something to dismiss my claim. I looked at her and she looked at me with so much wonder and curiosity. Though I knew it to be true I hoped Chemintine didn’t believe everything she heard. I hoped to anyone that would listen that Chem had some brainpower to be sceptical. But the more I watched her and waited for her to say something. The more I realized she hung onto every word I said and didn’t dare question me.

“You believe me?”

“I have no reason to doubt your words, I’ve known you for three years and you’ve done nothing but spoke the truth to me. The brutal, harsh, unpleasant truth, if you told me the sky wasn’t actually blue I’d believe you. You’re not much of a liar Miss Ester.”

“Well, I’d be.” I couldn’t help but laugh at her nativeness and my foolishness. Clementine giggled and gathered up all the sketches into a neat pile with the angels as the first few pages.

“How come they don’t look like humans to you?” She asked me.

“Ma’am said that God told them to be as truthful with me when they come. They are scary to look at but I’ve gotten used to them.”

“I would scream to the heavens if they came to me like this.” Chemintine body shook and she let out a noise of disgust.

“Maybe they’d react.”

“Maybe,” Chemintine handed me the sketches then stood to go and look at the finished canvases in the corner of my room. She flipped through the few scenic paintings with ‘ooo’s and ‘ahh’s then she got to the portraits. She stopped on an old painting I did of myself right after mama died. I had just turned nineteen and Mrs Birdy had given me work. I was sad during that time and I captured it perfectly with the stroke of my brush. She pulled it from the bunch and held it up to the light in the room. “Why didn’t you smile?” She looked over her shoulder to me.

“That was the year after mama died. There wasn’t much to be happy for, not when you’re treated the way I am.” I got up from the floor and came to her side. My eyes in the painting looked on for miles and miles, searching for something.

“Are you happier now?” Chemintine’s voice lowered an ounce of worry on her lips. I looked at her and sighed before putting my hands on my hips and shrugging.

“I’m not happy but I am better than before.” Chemintine seemed to agree with me and put the painting back in the pile against the wall. The night was coming to an end and she told me she wanted to get ready for bed. I nodded and she was off and out of my face faster than I realized. Now alone in my bedroom, it felt colder, as if Chemintine’s happier energy was what was warming my room. I looked around at all the things that were either mines’ or mama’s, memories hung on these walls along with many restless nights of worry. I went and sat down at my small vanity and started to get ready for bed myself. Slowly I took out the pins in my hair and watched as my faint curls fell down to my shoulders. Mama always told me to take care of myself and my hair, our hair was our pride. My pride wasn’t in my hair, never really was, my hair was just hair and my pride was in my heart. I looked up to myself and just like the portrait, my eyes looked on for miles. I didn’t really know what they were looking for.

“Ester?” Chemintine stood in the door frame playing with the ends of her nightgown. I looked up from my book in bed and nodded. She came over to me and sat in front of me right at my feet on the bed. “I can’t stop thinking about what you said, about the angels.”

“So you don’t believe me?” I raised a brow and Chemintine shook her head wild.

“No, no that’s not it, I was just wondering if you could tell me if they are here. Like if you can see them does that mean they are here? Right now?” Chemintine was like a child whose stomach rumbled at the sight of food. She leaned in closer and hung on to the tense air of my prolonged answer. I sighed and closed my book and looked around my room. I then got up and looked around the house then came back to my bed. I turned towards the window against my bed and peeked out the curtain. If we were in here then surely if they were around they would stand outside. But at last, I saw nothing, just the darkness of the woods behind my house and the bright moon. As I looked back and forth once more something in the branches of the trees caught my eye. I narrowed my eyes to try and make it out but it was too far away. It was two twinkling lights that flickered then suddenly it was gone. Unsure of what it was I pulled away from the window and turned back towards Chemintine.

“They’re not here, normally they are but I guess they finally got busy and left.” I smiled weakly at my own joke.

“Can angels be shy?”

“Can demons?”

“I don’t know,” Chemintine whispered.

“Nor do I.” I patted her shoulder and Chemintine sighed and allowed her shoulders to drop. She must have been really excited.

“Well, goodnight Ester.”

“Night Chemintine.”

}~~{

I never had a problem listening to the word the pastor had to say during church. I used to be able to recite the message of the day to mama in the afternoon when we got home. I didn’t really understand what the messages meant but I knew that mama held them dearly in her heart just like she held me. Righteousness, forgiveness, suffering, overcoming and seeking the path that God had laid out before us. It all started to blend together the more I went and sat in the front of the church. The messages were all about us as black folk having to be strong and stay strong. Our lives were nothing but a game of unfairness that weighed our bodies down.

“They may not be kind to us but we must not stoop low like them. We must be God’s children and give them the same kindness God has given to us.” The church folk had lost their mind to that and started cheering and thanking. I sat in my seat looking around trying to find the reason this message was so powerful. I was tired of having to be the nice one when in town. To keep my head down and never look anyone in the face unless they were the same colour as me. To take all the harsh words white folk had to say to me. The spitting at my feet, the names, ignoring my presents, the waiting in the back, the whites from the blacks. I was tired of it. I was so tired I wanted to go to sleep. So I did.

“Did you hear about what happened up north?” One of the church women behind me started to whisper to the other at the door.

“In Kentucky?” The other woman replied.

“That family was drug out of their house and beaten then set on fire in the middle of the street and no one did anything.”

“That’s terrible, I swear this is too much, how long are we going to have to deal with this?”

“God knows.” The woman at the door shook her head and fan herself with. Dividing that was enough ear hustling for the day I walked passed them, casually bidding them farewell, and making my way down the stairs to walk home. But before I could make it down the church stairs I saw a very familiar face. The devil, like many years before, was standing and watching the people walk away from the church. When he saw me stood up straight and nodded towards me. I looked around to see if anyone else was around me to see him. But I was alone and it seemed like everyone was already gone.

“Evening my dear, how was the message of the day this fine Sunday?” His smooth and chipper voice sang into the air and I shivered. I knew better than to say anything to him but I really didn’t want to come off rude. What if he was to strike me down and drag me off? What if he was also waiting for me to say something to suck the soul out of me? But if he was going to do something to me he would have done it a long time ago when I met him when I was a child.

“Servus was good. The grace of God blessed it himself to make sure we understood it.” I stuttered over my words, careful and ready to run if need be. The devil seemed to enjoy my response and took off his hat to comb through his hair.

“I see that everyone has gone home now and you are walking.”

“Seems so, but that’s okay I can get home.”

“Mind if I walk you?” He asked. I looked around once more hesitant trying to find anyone that could save me from answering him. I truly was alone with him and I started to feel scared.

“I shouldn’t walk with you.” I gripped the bible in my hands tight, begging for any and everything to happen to stop this. If mama was here she would have rung me up sideways and carried me away with the fire of Michael on her heels. She would have told me off for entertaining the devil and giving him the slightest acknowledgement.

“I won’t do anything to you.”

“But you’re the devil.”

“That I am.” His sharp teeth gleamed in the sun and he seemed to notice how uneasy I became. He moved closer to the stairs and I jumped back, his smile softened and his eyes started to invite me. “The devil has morals, my dear, I won’t hurt you nor will I trick you. I simply wish to walk you home.” He held out his hand and I took a deep breath. I shouldn’t go with him. I should tell him I was fine all by myself and that the angels were there, that would have scared him off. Maybe.

“The angels-”

“Do they speak to you to not accompany a gentleman?”

“T-They don’t speak to me.” The devil lowered his hand and hummed, he slowly lit up as he thought it over.

“Then surely I can walk you home since the angels are silent and I promise to keep my word. No harm will come your way.” The devil held out his hand once again and foolishly I slowly took it. When I stepped down from the last two steps I felt something be yanked off of me. I quickly turned around to see what it was and it was two angels looking angrily at the devil. Their wings were spread and their shape features twisted in disgust. One of the angels reached out to grab me but for some reason when they got close they yanked their hand away. I quickly say a prayer under my breath and I feel the devil quickly remove his hand from mine. He quickly collected himself and cleared his throat. He took a step back and placed his hat back on his head.

“I think it’s better if we walk apart, and wouldn't want those nasty fellows assuming things.” He tucked his arms behind his back and started walking the way I was heading.

Careful. Be careful.

The voices in my ears were high pitched and sharp but hushed like a whisper. I had finally heard the angels. One angel looked right into my soul as the other watched the devil. All I could do was nod my head then stumble back to start walking away. I couldn’t take my eyes of the angels as I gripped my bible and my skirt. When I was next to the devil I could hear him grumbling under his breath.

“Nasty things. Nasty, nasty things. Gabriel, Michael, Uriel…..nasty.” His eyes gleamed and his face twisted slightly. He continued to mumble under his breath until he saw me next to him. Shaking his head he took in a deep breath and exhaled. He turned to me and smiled once more.

“Well, aren't they delightful?”

“Truly” Was all I could say.

“Ester?” Chemintine met me at the door, she hid slightly behind it as if she was scared of opening it any further.

“Yes?”

“Who were you talking to?” Chemintine looked back over my shoulder and around a bit before closing the door. I gasped and turned to peek out the window next to the door. When I looked outside the devil was still there checking his watch.

“The man?” I pulled the curtain back just as the devil started to walk away. I point towards him and Chemintine looks.

“Ester, what man?” I look back and see the devil walking but Chemintine shakes her head and pulls away. “I think it might be too hot outside, ya talking to yaself, I think you might need a cold drink.” Chemintine laughs it off and heads towards the kitchen to get me a drink.

I should have known she wouldn’t see him. I was blessed to see the angels but I was cursed to see the devil as well. If God really had a mission for me, he had to hurry up and tell me what it was before something bad happened.

#🔻Red Thread🔻#self ship #self shipping #self shipping community #hazbin alastor #hazbin hotel

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justmickeyfornow · 5 years

Text

Super{Delivery}Girl

Lena heard the knock on her door and didn’t need to look up from her work to know it was her secretary, Jess. She highlighted a line of the contract that she needed to speak to the legal department about and noticed Jess placing a covered plate of food on her desk.

Just as she was about to argue that she wasn’t hungry, Jess put a finger up, shutting her up completely.

“One day, this conversation is gonna get old.” Jess said sternly, as she began opening up containers and setting the utensils, “I bring you food, you say you're not hungry, I threaten to quit if you don't eat, you end up eating it. Let's just skip to the end, Ms Luthor.”

Lena sighed. The smell of the seasoned veggie stir-fry from her favorite Chinese restaurant making her regret claiming she wasn’t hungry, “I don't know how I'll be able to survive without you the next two weeks.”

“I told you I could set up a food delivery service for you.” Jess claimed, going to the other side of the office and grabbing a bottle of wine and a glass.

“No, no. I don't like being interrupted. Other than by you, that is. Can you imagine a delivery boy walking in on one of my meetings to give me my food? Besides, I don’t like eating from the same place every day, you know that." Lena said.

"So, hire a temporary assistant until I get back." Jess chuckled.

Lena narrowed her eyes, "Oh, I can never cheat on you, Jess. How dare you suggest I would even think of it?"

Jess rolled her eyes, as she poured a glass of red wine for her boss, "I'm serious, Ms. Luthor. She won't be responsible for anything but ordering your food. I’ll make sure of it.”

Lena leaned back in her chair and took a sip of her wine, "I'm very peculiar about who I have to deal with on a daily basis. Remember? It took me forever to choose you as my assistant.”

Jess feigned innocence, “I remember you choosing me in the blink of an eye,” she shrugged, “but tomayto tomahto.”

Lena found herself laughing at that, "I'm gonna miss your snarky comments."

Jess bagan clearing some of the documents that Lena had set aside and marked as complete, "If you want an assistant with my snarky comments I have one trained and ready for you."

Lena rolled her eyes, “I’ll pass, thank you very much. Besides, think of it as a challenge.”

“A challenge of what? How long can you last without food?” Jess deadpanned with a raised eyebrow.

Lena shook her head at her antics, “No. Of whether or not I’m a snobby rich CEO that doesn’t know how to function without an assistant.”

“Oh, you can function! Trust me! You just have a goldfish memory regarding your food!"

Lena rolled her eyes and drank from her wine. Jess tapped the pile of papers to straighten them out, before carrying them with her, "I'm gonna take these and place them on Richard's desk. Do you need anything before I head out?"

Lena smiled warmly, "Just that you have the absolute most wonderful time on your much needed vacation."

Jess already began walking as she chuckled, "That's impossible. I'll be too worried whether or not you've dropped dead from malnutrition." she turned to Lena just as she reached the door and flinched to make her next point, "Not really in the mood to job hunt if you die on me."

Lena breathed out a chuckle in response, "Go, before I extend your vacation to 3 weeks. You're more of a workaholic than I am." Lena exclaimed.

Jess simply smiled and leaned against the door frame, "Goodbye, Ms. Luthor."

Lena returned the affectionate smile with one of her own, "See you in two weeks."

"Take care of yourself." Jess shouted from the hallway, "Literally!"

"What's the worst that can happen?" Lena replied just as loud.

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

Lena stayed at the office much later than she had planned. When she looked at the clock it was almost 10 pm and Jess had walked out through her doors almost 6 hours ago. She sighed at her inability to have normal working hours these days. Taking over the company has been a grand decision. One she was forced to make rather than given the option. But now that she had, she was determined to make the most of it. To create a force for good. Which was why she was changing the company name to L-Corp. A fresh start that strode away from the death and destruction that her brother had caused to the family company.

She let out a tired breath, looking at the papers in front of her. It looked to be a long night. She was only halfway through with the reports she was supposed to present tomorrow at the board meeting. She needed a break but she was determined to finish. She looked at the clock and decided to give herself another hour of work before heading home.

A few minutes later, as she was deep in thought about her presentation for the board, she heard a tap on her balcony windows. When she turned around, she found nothing.

Must be the wind.

She went back to work, but another tap interrupted her. This one sounding more like a knock. She scrunched her eyebrows in confusion and marked the spot where she left off before getting up from her chair and going to the balcony doors.

As she opened the door, she didn't find the superhero she expected to find. She had only met the hero of this city once or twice and didn't expect another visit. But no caped blonde woman stood at her balcony. Instead, there sat a brown paper bag with a huge yellow label that read "Big Belly Burger".

"What the...?" she whispered as she picked up the bag. The whiff of hot greasy food filled her nose as she opened the paper bag. Her stomach automatically rumbled at the tempting smell, her stubbornness slowly wavering.

There was only one person she knew who was able to reach her balcony and the hero was nowhere in sight. Supergirl seemed to have dropped the meal off and flew away.

It was odd. But a gesture Lena didn't think too much of. Maybe it was because she had cooperated with the government agencies to disclose information about her brother. Or maybe it was simply a late welcome-to-the-city gift. An odd gift at that, but maybe that's all that it was.

Whatever it was, Lena made a mental note to thank the hero if she ever ran into her.

A phone number would've probably been helpful right now.

She took the bag inside her office and sat down on the sofa, grabbing her tablet to finish off reading while she ate. Right at that moment, her phone began to ring.

The number of that reporter that Lena had recently befriended appeared and Lena smiled as she answered, putting it on speaker.

"Ms. Danvers?" she asked, flinching at the use of her last name even though Kara had more than once told her not to call her that. They were still pretty new to their friendship. It was unexpected, if Lena was being honest. She didn't think she would make a friend in this city that easily. But it was no easy task to say no to Kara Danvers and her golden retriever smile.

"Lena! Hi! I hope that it's ok I called so late? You're not busy or sleeping or anything right?" Kara asked in her excited nature.

"No, no. Of course not. It’s fine. Was there something you needed?" she found herself saying, always eager to please the blonde.

"Me? No no. I just thought maybe we could chat. I just ordered in and needed some company while eating."

"Oh, that's odd." Lena couldn't help but say.

"What's odd?"

Lena attention darted from the bag of food on her table, "Hmm? No, nothing. I just thought that it was odd since I was just about to eat as well. But I thought about doing some reading while eating.

"Yikes, that doesn't sound so fun. But I'll leave you to your reading then."

“No, no. Kara, please. I need an excuse to stop working for a bit. A break might help me refocus.”

“And I'm that excuse? “

“It seems you are these days.” A very very distracting excuse, Lena couldn’t help but think.

“OK, then! But should you even be working this late?”

“Truthfully, no. But my assistant isn’t here to push me out the door.” Lena admitted, chuckling at the end. She cringed after uttering the sentence, finding it a bit self-pitying.

“Well, I’m just glad you found time to eat a little.” Kara mentioned.

Lena thought of mentioning the mysterious bag of food on her balcony but decided against it, “You sound like Jess.”

“Well, she is a very wise woman. Anyway! Let me tell you about the crazy day I had today!”

Lena chuckled as she opened the bag and pulled out the French fries.

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

Lena arrived to work in a hurry, speaking on her phone and dumping a pile of paperwork on her desk that she had just retrieved from on top of jess' desk. It seemed as though not everyone was aware that her assistant was on vacation and that said paperwork should be put on her own desk rather than her assistant's.

"Yes, yes. I understand, Mr. Michaelson. But I truly cannot postpone my Hong Kong trip to September. It has to be next month." she unceremoniously dropped everything on her desk and watched as her purse slowly leaned at the edge before it toppled down onto the floor, spilling half its contents. Lena closed her eyes and resisted the urge to let out a loud sigh. "The deadline for the project is nearing and I need to finish up the schematics of... Yes, I understand. Mhmm. Of course. I'll have my assistant talk to you tomorrow then, ok? Ok. Goodbye."

She sank down on her chair and finally let out that sigh, only to suddenly remember that her assistant can't call him tomorrow because she was on vacation.

She cringed before she opened up her calendar on her computer to schedule a phone call with him tomorrow morning. She placed two alarms to remind her.

After looking through some emails, that were quite unpleasing if she was being honest with her herself, she pressed the intercom on her office phone to call Jess into her office.

When the usual ' Yes, Ms. Luthor?' never came, Lena groaned remembering again that Jess was on vacation. She looked at her Nespresso machine in her office and remembered it needed some sort of repairs that she could probably fix herself if she had the time.

"Ugh, what I wouldn't kill for a double shot right now!" she groaned out into the empty room.

Just then, a tap came on her balcony doors and Lena snapped her head towards the sound to find no one. When she walked towards the doors and slid them open, she found a cup of coffee with a sticky note on it.

Please don't kill anyone for coffee.

Lena gave a confused smile, looking around the sky to see if she could spot the hero but found only scattered birds. It was odd. Very very odd, in fact. She needed to speak with the hero about this. Thank her or ask her or... She wasn't sure.

She was grateful for the coffee anyway, taking a sip to find it exactly how she liked it. Very odd, indeed, for Supergirl to randomly know her exact coffee order. But she didn't have too much time to dwell on it. She took it inside to start her day.

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

Noon came with another disaster.

"What do you mean that the arugula cashew salad has been discontinued." Lena asked over the phone, "My assistant orders it for lunch almost everyday!" she exclaimed, admittedly a bit louder than she should have. "I am perfectly calm thank you very much, but I would be much calmer if maybe I would have my lunch delivered! I don't want your apologies, I want - you know what? Nevermind. Thank you for nothing!" She hung up in the guy's face and puffed out in frustration.

"What do I have to do to get a simple arugula cashew salad with pear and stilton cheese? Honestly it's not that hard! I can hire my own personal chef to simply..."

Just then a familiar knock came from behind her and Lena this time turned faster and caught a glimpse of a red cape flying off. She rushed to her balcony to find the exact salad she was trying to order, with a sticky note stuck to it. She picked it up and read it.

Your salad was actually discontinued. So, Jess found a new place that was across town that made it and would order it from there. Delivery was extra because it was further, but according to her, the salad tastes better than the first restaurant. Please don't take it out on Gary, he only answers the phone and works part time there to pay for college.

Lena was baffled. This was getting out of hand. How on Earth would Supergirl know any of that? Did she and Jess speak often? Did Kara tell her? Did Supergirl just happen to eavesdrop on her every conversation?

Lena was furiated. Grateful for her rumbling stomach and her hunger-induced foul mood, but also infuriated. She didn't need a nanny. She could handle a simple task as ordering food.

Maybe she really should have taken Jess on her offer of a temporary assistant. But she was still new to the city. It's barely been a year since she has moved to National City. She didn't take too kindly to people. Nor did she like dealing with those questioning stares and curious looks. The pity is the worse. She still had so much to prove that she was nothing like her brother. And she thought coming to National City and away from Superman's territory was the way to do it.

Never did she ever think that she would be in a situation with Supergirl such as the likes of this.

She sighed but took the salad anyway. She had a meeting in half an hour and she needed all the energy to get through it.

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

The evening saw Lena picking up a plastic container of sushi and sashimi from her favorite Japanese place. A cup of Matcha green tea sat beside it.

She still didn't like it but took it anyway.

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

The next morning, she walked into her office and found the same croissants that Jess would get her every Friday. Fridays she almost always forgot to have breakfast. It was mainly due to the fact that Thursdays she had her international calls scheduled in the late hours of the night. Dealing with the other side of the world meant she had to call during their working hours. Which happened to coincide with 3 am for her. And Jess knew this. Which is why every Friday, Jess would get her breakfast to have on her desk while she read her emails.

Croissants and a banana kale smoothie is what she usually preferred. Which was what sat on her balcony table right in front of her. There was no sticky note this time.

"What on Earth is she on about?" she asked no one but herself.

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

The noon was the same. A tap on her balcony door and a package of food delivered by National City's very own superhero.

Lena held the fruit salad bowl in frustration, "Do you deliver food to everyone in the city?" she shouted to the empty sky, feeling a bit stupid.

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

The next day’s evening when she found a plate of Fettuccine on her balcony, she was ready for a confrontation with the Girl of Steel. She had already picked up both her lunch and her afternoon coffee from the balcony like it had suddenly become a drive-thru window in her very own office.

She was very much confused at this point.

Was Supergirl that different from Superman?

She stabbed the pasta with her fork as thought hard about the most complicated question of her life.

Why was Supergirl delivering food to her?

Maybe this is some sort of benefit of National City that I wasn’t aware of. Some sort of agreement between Supergirl and the people of National City that she would deliver everyone’s food and they would... What? Give her free food in return?

Lena suddenly gasped.

Was I supposed to leave money on the table for her for delivering my food?!

She suddenly felt ashamed. Her cheeks burned with the realization that she was not paying for a service she was clearly using as she sat there eating the Fettuccine that Supergirl herself had delivered.

It was all so confusing and Lena was determined to get to the bottom of it. Which is why, the next day she arrived extra early to her office and began setting up.

She dragged her wooden coffee table all the way across her office and into the balcony. Then came the comfy armchair that she liked so much. She half expected it wouldn't fit through the balcony door, but it somehow did. A sane enough CEO of a multi-billion dollar company would have asked someone from the many employees she had to do the job for her.

But she was in a stubborn mood.

She then took out her laptop, placing it outside on the coffee table. Her printed copies of the annual financial reports. Her coffee cup and everything else she needed to do her work.

She was going to work from her balcony and catch Supergirl in the act.

She needed to understand the reasoning behind it all. Needed to see how much money she owed Supergirl. It just didn’t make sense that Supergirl was delivering everyone’s food without taking any sort of compensation!

And so she began working.

"Hello, Mr. Michaelson.” she spoke through her bluetooth earphones, using her hands to edit a paragraph in her speech while talking to the man. “Yes, it's me. No, my assistant is on vacation unfortunately. Where? Oh, umm well she went to Vancouver actually. Yes, yes, I agree, beautiful place. Now, as for our agreed upon dates for the project sc- Oh. Sure I could ask my assistant for you if Vancouver has nice Japanese restaurants."

She held her hand to the bottom of her phone and sighed audibly looking up to the sky and wishing Jess would just magically appear.

After almost an hour speaking to the old businessman, and not all of it spent talking about work, Lena almost whined when she saw her coffee cup empty.

"I'm gonna need a whole gallon of coffee to deal with more like him." she spoke out loud to herself.

Taking off her heels, she folded her legs neatly beneath her and balanced her laptop on the chair's armrest. She began typing out a detailed email to the finance department asking for a budget increase on the project.

It was less than ten minutes later that she noticed movement in the sky. When she looked up, she didn't find anyone. Frowning, she went back to work.

The next thing that happened would never have even crossed her mind. Dangling from her balcony ceiling was a thick string, securely tied to a cup of coffee, and coming down slowly as though someone was gradually letting more of the string go until the coffee cup would eventually reach Lena's brick railing.

Lena gawked at the coming down cup with wide eyes.

There was a coffee cup dangling from the roof of her balcony! Swaying from the wind and slowly coming down like a hookline of a fisherman.

After getting over her shock, Lena immediately got up, letting her laptop fall in her seat, "Hey!" she shouted, very unlady like of her. She planted both hands on her railing and cranked her neck to look up. The string went all the way up to the roof of the building and disappeared there.

"Excuse me? I would like to speak to you." she shouted towards the rooftop. "Thank you for the coffee but it's really not necessary for you to bring me food and drink everyday. I am more than capable of feeding myself." Lena blatantly spoke to the rooftop, looking more and more like a crazy person. Somewhere in the back of her mind she could hear Jess snicker at her words.

Capable of feeding myself, sure.

"Supergirl? Or whoever you are, I simply want to thank you personally if that's all right." Lena tried again, but still no answer.

And just like that she saw a flash of a red cape in the sky before it disappeared.

Why won't she talk to me?!

And then the answer came to her.

She probably doesn't have time. If she delivers food to everyone in the city, not mentioning the fact that she saves people left and right... Then. When does she have time for anything?!

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

There was a fire. Lena was having a meeting with a client at a restaurant when the smell of smoke began to filter into the air. Suddenly, one of the chefs barged into the restaurant, coming from the kitchen and collapsed onto the floor. The smoke began to seep quickly into the restaurant and in under a few minutes it started to get harder and harder to breathe.

Unfortunately, for everyone inside, the restaurant was quite a large and crowded one with only one exit, aside from the kitchen exit that was probably blazing in a fire. Chaos erupted and everyone began stumbling towards the door to escape.

And just as suddenly as it had happened, Supergirl flew in and saved the day. She blew out the fire and began evacuating people quickly. Lena had been hunched over a table, coughing from the smoke and eyes watering. She felt herself be lifted off the floor suddenly and found herself in the arms of the blonde hero. Supergirl flew her to an ambulance that was administering oxygen to those who needed it.

"I'll be right back," she said to Lena before flying off to make sure no one else was inside the building.

Lena was checked up by a medic and was cleared. She felt a little dizzy but she didn't inhale too much smoke. She was however buzzing with energy.

Supergirl flew back down and nodded towards the fire chief shaking his hand and assuring him no one was inside. She smiled at the job well done and was about to go check up on the Luthor woman when...

"You!" Lena shouted angrily, pointing an accusing finger at her.

Supergirl turned to find the woman's narrowed eyes and immediately took a step back, terrified. Oh, yes. She was very much terrified.

Lena came up to her, her heels seemingly still making her look shorter than the well-built hero. But she was not intimidated at all, in fact she was angry. She was out looking for answers and she expected to find them.

She jabbed a finger in the hero's chest, "Why do you insist on feeding me?!" she accused, "What do you have to gain from it all, hmm?!" her eyes were predatory, filled to the brim with frustration.

"M-Ms. Luthor, I don't know what you're talking about." Supergirl stuttered.

"The coffees, and croissants, and sushi, and salads. All of it! Why are you bringing me food everyday? I'm not crazy, I've seen your cape flying about! I'm more than capable of feeding myself, you don't need to bring me food, Supergirl!

"M-Ms. Luthor, I believe there's been some sort of misunderstanding."

"I would just like to know why ?! I didn’t sign up for this service!"

"Ms. Luthor, can we please please talk about this when there aren't so many cameras a-and and..."

Lena jabbed her finger harder into Supergirl's chest, "You tell me right now!!" she barked.

"M-Ms. Luthor..."

"Why-" she punctuated her word with a harder jab.

"I really think-" Supergirl took a step back.

"Do you insist-" another jab to the chest and a step forward.

"It's just maybe this isn't-"

"On bringing me-"

"If we could just-

"Food!" Lena jabbed her finger harder to punctuate her question.

Supergirl seemed to make up her mind on something, nodding once to herself with a tight lipped smile, “Yup, you’re not gonna like this. I’m really sorry in advance.” she said

“Sorr-”

Supergirl bent down, fireman carried Lena on her shoulder and flew off into the sky.

Lena screamed immediately, her scream echoing in the city, “What are you doing?!”

Supergirl didn’t answer which immediately led Lena to believe that she was being kidnapped.

She started banging her fist on the Super’s back, kicking with her feet, “Why would you buy me food for days only to kidnap me in the end??!!” she shouted at the top of her lungs.

Supergirl made an accidental swoosh in the sky trying to balance the struggling woman in her arms, “What?! I’m not kidnapping you! Stop moving so much!"

"Stop kidnapping me then!!" Lena shouted.

"I'm not kidnapping you!!"

“Put me down this instant!"

Supergirl’s sight was blocked by a smooth thigh, and she was momentarily distracted with how it felt that when she refocused again she found a brick wall in front of them. She immediately turned full circle and redirected their course before slamming into the wall with a struggling woman.

Lena tried to thrust her knee into Supergirl’s nose, her plan was to maybe somehow break the unbreakable nose made of steel. It wasn’t her best idea, “Put me down!”

“I’m trying!” Supergirl shouted back, “Rao, woman, just calm down and let me take you where I’m taking you!

“So you are kidnapping me ?!!”

“What?! Why would I kidnap you?!”

“Then where are we going?!”

Supergirl flew down a little, holding on to the squirming woman as tight as she can. She dived beneath the ceiling of the balcony and safely landed with her two feet on the ground. “Here!” she voiced out loudly, “Your balcony!” she said as she set the woman down.

Lena Luthor wobbled on her feet and realized she was one foot short. When she looked down, one heel seemed to be missing. She looked back up, staring daggers into the hero.

Supergirl put her hands up in surrender, “Hey! In my defense it wouldn’t have fallen if you had just simply calmed down!”

Lena crossed her arms and discarded the other shoe before facing Supergirl, “Do you mind telling me what all of this is?”

“All of what is?” Supergirl deadpanned.

Lena rolled her eyes, “Oh for the love of...” she sighed. When she looked back to the other woman, she found her distracted, looking over the balcony. Lena was about to ask when she got her answer.

“Oh! Found it.” The hero exclaimed before jumping over the balcony railing and diving down to the street. Lena had a miniature heart attack, barely remembering that the woman wasn’t falling to her death.

Seconds later, the hero flew back onto her balcony with her missing heel, smiling widely, “Cinderella.” she curtsied and handed the show to Lena.

“Very funny.” Lena said sarcastically before taking back her precious louboutins. She placed it beside the other and faced Supergirl, “Explain, please.”

Supergirl gave an innocent smile, “Explain what?”

And Lena more or less lost it, “Explain to me why it is that you’re delivering my food? I’ve been trying to get you to talk to me for the past week so I could explain to you that I am perfectly capable of ordering my own food, thank you very much! I don’t know if this is a National City deal that you have going on, but I don’t want you delivering my food. Not to mention paying for it! Which reminds me, I owe you...”

"Jess and I are friends." Supergirl blurted out, cringing as though she wasn't supposed to disclose that particular piece of information.

Lena tilted her head in confusion, "Friends?"

Supergirl sighed, "Yeah. I saved her once from a bus flipping over while she was getting you coffee this one time." she mentioned casually, like a bus flipping over was the most normal thing in the world.

Lena's eyes widened, she choked on a gasp in her throat, "Bus... F-Flipping over?"

Supergirl however didn't notice her shock nor seemed to be listening. Her eyes were on her fingers, counting the number of times she had saved Jess, "And then there was that time when I saved her from getting caught in the crossfire of a shooting." Supergirl listed, as Lena watched in utter horror, "And the time those CADMUS guys came to take you, and she wouldn't let them through the door. So, they were about to attack her but she had already called me-" Supergirl paused, putting up her finger to add information, "I gave her my number after the third time I saved her. Anyway, so she-

"Num...ber?" Lena's mouth moved to form the word as she watched with wide eyes, still frozen in place.

"Called me and I came and took care of the two guys before anything happened. Which was a good thing because Jess told me you were in a very important meeting that day and you weren't to be disturbed. Not even by CADMUS goons coming to kidnap you apparently!" Supergirl giggled at that, only to continue her rant as though nothing happened.

"You'd be surprised how much that woman is a chaos magnet. Accident prone too! I once saved her from tripping and dropping two coffees, a stack of papers, a laptop under her arm, a box of pastries balanced over the stack of papers, and herself because she was talking to you and her heel got stuck in the pavement. It was almost a disaster, but I was near her and I managed to catch it all." suddenly Supergirl's face lit up momentarily as though she remembered something before it was replaced by a dopey grin at the memory, "She gave me a donut as a thank you I was really hungry that day."

Supergirl scrunched her nose in thought, "What else? Oh yeah! There was this time I saved her from-"

"OK, I get it!" Lena suddenly interrupted her, if she heard one more story about Jess' life being risked because she was out getting her coffee... "I get it. I need to give Jess a raise. Or buy her a house. Maybe even give her my office while I'm at it. God knows she deserves it!" Lena mumbled the last part. She had no idea what Jess went through to simply get her coffee. What kind of world do they live in?

Lena sighed, refocused herself, "What does any of this have to do with you delivering my food to me?" she asked.

Supergirl furrowed her eyebrows like she didn't remember, before gasping and lighting up with wide eyes, "Oh! Yeah, sorry." she chuckled, scratching the back of her neck sheepishly, "I think I lost track of the story a bit there."

That's the understatement of the year, Lena couldn't help but think

“So, umm, after I saved Jess a bunch of times we eventually became friends. She also figured out I was Kara, so I pretty much-”

“You’re WHAT?!” Lena all but gawked.

Supergirl froze, hand in mid-gesture. Her face seemed very very confused, eyebrows scrunched together and mouth forming an O. She tilted her head to the side, “Kara?”

“You’re Kara?!!” Lena demanded, admittedly much louder than she expected to utter the words. "The-The..." the reporter, the friend I made, the possible crush. "Kara Danvers?"

“Well, yeah. I thought it was kinda obvious...”

Lena opened her mouth and closed it several times with no words making it out. With wide shocked eyes, she observed the blonde closely. Blonde tresses framing her face, blue piercing eyes. She imagined a ponytail, a pair of glasses.

“Oh God.” she half whispered.

She was crushing on Supergirl the whole time.

For some baffling reason that Lena couldn’t seem to fathom, Supergirl looked more confused than she was.

“I thought you already knew.” she noted.

“How could I have possibly known?! I’ve met you twice !”

Supergirl flattened her lips and swayed her head on each side, “Actually, it was three times.” she corrected.

“That is not the point!”

Supergirl backed away, putting her hands up in surrender, “Okay, okay. Sorry.” she shrugged then, “I kinda just thought you knew but weren’t saying anything. I mean Jess figured it out almost instantly and you’re supposed to be super smart-”

When Lena gave her a threatening glare, Supergirl realized her mistake.

“I-I mean you are super smart.” she backed up immediately, “You know, you were answering my calls and you laughed at my flew here on a bus joke.”

“You were being serious?!!!” Lena shouted unladylike. She was doing a lot of unladylike things today that involved this situation she found herself in.

There really wasn’t any possible way for Lena’s jaw to drop even more.

“Well, obviously not at first. But when you didn’t ask about it and then we met again and I mentioned flying again, you were totally okay with it.”

“People say stuff!! I didn’t think you were serious! I just thought you had weird expressions!”

“Huh.” Supergirl looked up and thought about it, “I never really-”

“Look.” Lena stopped her before she went on another rant. She was getting a headache from all that was happening on this God forsaken balcony, “Can we please go back to the food delivery situation?” Lena pinched the bridge of her nose.

“Oh!” Supergirl perked up again, chuckling, “I guess a sorta lost track of the story a bit there.”

“You seem to have a habit of that.” Lena muttered.

“I heard that.” Supergirl grinned.

“I know.” Lena deadpanned.

Supergirl ignored her, “Where was I?” Supergirl thought out loud.

“Literally still at the beginning.” Lena deadpanned again. When she saw that Supergirl was still thinking about it, she sighed and reminded her, “You and Jess are friends after you had saved her numerous times. What - for the love of all that is good - has that got to do with you suddenly being my delivery person?”

“Jess asked me to.” Supergirl miraculously gave the answer in less than a thousand words.

“She did what?”

“She said that she was going on vacation and that she didn’t trust you to properly take care of yourself. So, I volunteered to help.”

Once again, Lena found her jaw dropping and eyes widening.

“She even wrote me an instruction list.” Supergirl casually mentioned, not at all noticing the blood-curling shock on the young Luthor’s face.

“She...She wrote you...” Lena tried to mutter.

Supergirl began fumbling around in her suit, “I swear I had it somewhere here.” She patted her cape, “Darn, must’ve left it in my other cape.”

It must be a dream. There’s no possible explanation at how more and more absurd this situation was becoming.

Supergirl shrugged before turning back to her, “Anyway, she wrote me a list of instructions. Which restaurants to pick up from on which days, what to get from each restaurant, allergies. Days on which you might miss breakfast at home, days when you’ll be working extra late for a late second dinner. Important meetings I shouldn’t interrupt, stressful meetings that need a double shot afterwards. She wrote the type of tea you like to drink when you’re working on contracts, and the Kale smoothie that you drink when it’s hot out.” Supergirl made a disgusted face at that, “She even specified food items you don’t like in your food, like pickles in sandwiches and green olives in your salads. And other food items to add that aren’t in the ingredients, like cashews on your salad and-”

“Fuck me, I don’t pay that woman nearly half of what she deserves.” Lena blurted out, sighing out loud.

Supergirl suddenly stopped listing things - another habit of hers - and looked at Lena with a shocked face, before looking down and playing with her fingers with wide eyes and a blushing face.

Lena had a feeling that it had everything to do with the fuck me aspect of her blutness. It wasn’t her fault! All of this was too much! Was she really that snobby rich CEO who didn’t know anything about her assistant's duties. She knew Jess’ job wasn’t easy, sometimes Lena found her job harder than her own, but she never knew it was damn near impossible!

Lena pinched the bridge of her nose again, and sat down on the armchair that she had pulled out on the balcony the other day. She was honestly afraid to ask - if this whole conversation was anything to go by, she’d probably get some bizarre answer that’ll probably spin her head - but she needed to know one more thing.

She looked up at the hero, who was still very much blushing at the fuck me statement. She rolled her eyes and asked her question.

“I still don’t fully grasp why you refused to speak to me while delivering the food to my balcony. In fact, you avoided speaking to me so much to the point that you dangled my coffee cup by a string.”

Supergirl pointed with a finger, “Not my finest moment, I admit.”

“So, why? Would it have been so awful for you to-”

"I just thought you wouldn't like me." Supergirl answered sheepishly, rubbing the back of her neck.

And there it was. The bizarreness unleashed.

“I beg your pardon?” Lena cocked an eyebrow.

“I thought you wouldn’t really like me, you know, as Supergirl.” Supergirl replied again, kicking some non-existent pebble. “I can be a little awkward in front of beautiful, smart, brunette women. My sister always makes fun of me for it. Says it's my kryptonite. So, yeah. I figured to just drop off the food and just go. But then you had to pull that trick and work from the balcony so I had to improvise."

"You thought... You thought I wouldn’t like you?"

"Yup."

"Me?"

"Uhu."

"Not like you? Supergirl?"

"Pretty much, yeah."

Commence jaw drop once more.

“But you also thought that I knew that you were Kara Danvers?” Lena asked, the fact she even said that was still mind blowing. She was talking to Kara Danvers who was also Supergirl.

Supergirl shrugged, “Yeah, what about it?”

Lena furrowed her eyebrows together, “So why wouldn’t I like you as Supergirl if I like you as Kara, if you thought that I thought that you were the same person?” the question gave her a headache just saying it.

Supergirl’s eyes widened, “You like me as Kara?” she gasped out.

“Was that what you got out of that question?” Lena asked. She needed to redirect the topic away - very very much away - from the fact that she like Kara Danvers.

Who happens to be Supergirl.

Supergirl was still sporting a dopey grin at it, but then lit up when she remembered something else, “Also, Jess said that you don’t like people in general.”

“Jess said that I don’t like people.”

“No, she said something else. But I’d really rather not say that out loud to you.”

Lena crossed her arms, standing up and facing the Girl of Steel with steel eyes of her own, “What did Jess say?”

Supergirl pouted, “Do I really have t...”

Lena pushed her on with a raised eyebrow.

“But...But...”

Eyebrow seemed to go higher.

Supergirl sighed, “She said you were prickly.”

“ Prickly ?” Lena honestly expected something worse. Like bitch. Or monster workaholic.

“Yeah. You know, like a cactus. And that only people who really got to know you would find water inside. Or something like that. I can’t really remember. But she called you prickly.”

Suddenly, something began to beep from Supergirl suit. The hero hunched over and reached inside her red boot, taking her phone out.

Lena figure it must be some sort of emergency in the city. A fire, maybe. A bank being robbed. Someone needed saving. A car...

"Ooh, it's time for your 2 O'clock lunch!" Supergirl exclaimed.

Not that!

She expected sirens! Fire Trucks! People in danger! Not her 2 O’clock lunch!

“Oh God, I can’t believe Supergirl has a reminder on her phone for my lunch.” she whispered, falling back on the armchair, giving up on trying to come to terms with everything that had happened in the last half hour.

Supergirl was busy on her phone, typing something and mumbling to herself, “Today is tuesday, so that means it’s the...” she pursed her lips, typing more, before, “Okay, I just ordered your baby spinach salad.” She looked up at Lena, “Apple, pecan and honey dressing, right?”

“R-Right...” Lena stuttered. Supergirl was literally taking her lunch order.

This is a dream. There is no possible way that...

Supergirl nodded, “Okay, I’m just gonna go grab it. It’ll take me no more than a minute.” she said, shrugging.

“Uhh O-okay.” Lena said, still frozen at the idea of Supergirl going to get her her lunch.

Supergirl reached behind her, pulled out a bag that was ultimately tied to the inside of her cape it seemed, “Do you mind if I just leave my Potstickers, here?”

Seven. Lena counted seven times now that Supergirl had said something that had caused her jaw to drop.

“Did you just put off a fire, save countless people, and have this whole conversation with me with a bag of dumplings tied to the inside of your cape?”

Supergirl chuckled, “You’d be surprised how often I do that.” she said, “I’ll be right back.”

She flew away right before Lena managed to gather herself and utter a, “Take your time.”

A minute later, Lena felt her clothes ruffle from a bust of wind as Supergirl landed on her balcony once more. “One spinach salad with apple, pecan and honey dressing.” she smiled brightly, putting the bag on the table. She picked up her own bag of potstickers, “And I believe these lovely potstickers are mine.” she grinned, barely hiding her excitement.

Lena finally caught up with her everlasting shock in time to stutter out, "Would... Would you like to have lunch with me?" she blurted out.

Supergirl sported on a huge grin at the question, "Would I ever?!" she exclaimed, already sitting cross-legged on the coffee table like she had done so a thousand times.

Lena said nothing about the existence of chairs. She actually liked how at ease the hero was as she dug inside her takeout bag and pulled out a container of potstickers.

Lena shook out of her daydream, not wanting Supergirl to catch her staring and took out her own lunch. She looked up just as she opened her plate to find Supergirl had already stuffed three potstickers in her chipmunk cheeks. She giggled, causing the blonde to look up in surprise with wide eyes as though she had been caught once more without her table manners. She gulped down the unchewed contents and gave Lena a guilty smile with a cringe of her eyes.

Lena chuckled, “You’re very different from your cousin.”

“Yeah, I’m the weird one in the family.”

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

Read it on AO3 HERE

#the supercorp one shot where supergirl delivers food to lena's balcony and lena is very very confused #jess is my favorite person #awkward kara danvers #ranting supergirl #confused luthor #puppy kara danvers #This blog is no longer a Supercorp blog #Supercorp one-shot #writing #fanfiction #oneshot #my writing

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damienthepious · 4 years

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>:3c hey i got two this week. happy LKT babes!!

Scattered On My Shore (Chapter 3)

[Ch 1] [Ch 2] [ao3] [Ch 4] [Ch 5] [Ch 6] [Ch 7] [Ch 8] [Ch 9] [Ch 10] [Ch 11] [Ch 12] [Ch 13] [Ch 14] [Ch 15] [Ch 16] [Ch 17] [Ch 18] [Ch 19]

Fandom: The Penumbra Podcast

Relationship: Lord Arum/Sir Damien/Rilla, Sir Damien/Rilla

Characters: Rilla, Lord Arum, Sir Damien

Additional Tags: Second Citadel, Lizard Kissin’ Tuesday, Pre-Relationship, (for the three of them. it’s established r/d), Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence, Injury, Injury Recovery, Hurt/Comfort, (this will also be), Enemies to Lovers, (for damien and arum eventually lol)

Fic Summary: Strange things wash up out of the lake near Rilla’s hut, on occasion. But this monster… this monster is certainly the strangest.

Chapter Summary: Sir Damien and Rilla discuss the issue at hand.

Chapter Notes: did u want: canon typical Damien spiraling? <3

Arum is stable, the offending injury has been cleaned again and sealed and dressed and hopefully, hopefully, this time it will actually start to heal. Rilla’s mind buzzes, exhaustion and adrenaline and the satisfaction of a problem solved. That little shard of black talon (definitely talon, now that she’s seen it up close; add the satisfaction of a called shot, too) is safely and carefully stashed away in a clean sealed vial for later analysis, where it can’t do any more harm. And Arum-

The sedative probably won’t wear off for hours. Probably for the best, considering how exhausted he was before he went under. It’s probably just her imagination, just wishful thinking, but he looks… calmer. Like his sleep is more restful, now, than it had been. Imagination or no, she takes some satisfaction in that, too.

Rilla washes her hands, splashes her face, and when she meets her own eye in the little mirror above her washbasin she sees the bags under her eyes and the hair clouding around her face and the manic tilt to her expression and she- laughs.

Damien. Oh, Damien-

What the hell is she going to do about him?

She could be irritated with him just for coming into her exam room, whether or not the door was locked, but- well, it’s not like he wouldn’t have some rule breaking to throw back in her face. She sighs, dragging her palm over her mouth and noting the visible exhaustion that’s making her shoulders sag.

Well. No point putting it off, right?

She checks on Arum one more time, resettling the blankets more securely around his shoulders, ensuring that he’s warm enough, leaving a cup of water beside the bed in case he wakes before she does (whatever happens with Damien, however she gets him out of her hair, she’s going to get some sleep after this, she needs to).

Dead asleep, still, but- he mutters something, some whispery wordlessness as the back of her hand presses to his forehead to make sure his temperature is still consistent, and the breathy murmur and the way his resting expression goes even softer makes Rilla gently smile before she can help herself, and her brain is still buzzing as she thinks, rest well, you ridiculous monster, and heal.

She steps away from the cot, and she sighs, then. This next part is going to be unpleasant.

Damien is pacing in a straight line when she exits the exam room, turning on his heel to keep going in the same stuck path before he registers that she’s joining him, and then his eyes widen.

“Oh my heart, you are safe! Oh, my dearest Rilla, I was terrified that you had been- I felt only moments from bolting in to ensure that you had not been-”

“Damien. I wasn’t in danger,” she says, keeping her voice low and gesturing for Damien to follow her as she steps away from the door to the exam room, away from the possibility of waking Arum accidentally. Her hut isn’t that big, and it’s not like they could have this conversation outside, but they can at least stand in the kitchen, a little ways away where they won’t literally be shouting (she assumes they’ll end up shouting, frankly) so damn close to Arum.

“I know you are terribly brave, my love,” Damien says as he stumbles behind. “But surely even you must understand- I do not know what sort of- of experiment you are intending to run, but I must advise-”

“He’s not an experiment,” Rilla growls, bristling because she already, already regrets the brief window during which she… did kind of think of him that way. He deserves better than that.

“Regardless, regardless of the why, it cannot continue, surely you must understand that. The danger- the danger the creature presents, to yourself, to any other patients you may have, to the Citadel itself! Rilla surely you can see that it must be destroyed-”

“You’re not touching him, Damien. He’s my patient-”

“It is a monster-”

“Yeah, I gathered that Damien, thanks, but you still aren’t touching him. He’s my patient, and he’s one of a kind, and he’s not gonna hurt me. If he wanted to, he definitely already would have tried something. He’s still weak as hell but he’s stubborn and he would have tried, if he really wanted.”

“Of course the monster wants to hurt you, my precious flower. That is simply what monsters do.”

Rilla scowls hard, turning away from him to pull the curtains aside, realizing with no small degree of wonder that it’s dark outside again. Already. Already? Before she woke Arum to discuss pulling the talon out, she’s sure it couldn’t have been much past sunrise. Saints she needs to sleep. But before she can-

“Damien, I’m gonna put this as simply as I can. He is my patient. That means that it’s my job to take care of him, and to make sure he’s safe and that his injuries are treated. I’m finally at a point where I’m making progress, and-”

“Finally,” Damien echoes, his brow furrowing as his thoughts churn. “Finally? How long have you- how long has this been going on, precisely?”

“Few days,” Rilla says, noncommittal. She- she isn’t quite sure, anymore. She’s been keeping hourly notes, coded longhand, but she’d put it on pause for the surgery, and-

“So,” he says, sounding pained, “when I came to you last, and asked-”

“I lied,” she says flatly. “I lied, because I knew you would respond like this.”

“I am attempting to do my duty, my love. I must protect you and every citizen of the Citadel, must cleanse the monsters' blight upon this land-”

“Not this monster,” Rilla says. “Not him. He doesn’t need cleansing.” She grins, a little wildly. “I already disinfected him pretty thoroughly.”

“You cannot jest about this, Rilla. Surely, surely you know I cannot allow this, it is-”

“Treason?”

Damien blanches, his face going vaguely ashen, and his voice is near-mournful when he answers. “Rilla, my heart, my forever-flower you know that I would never accuse you of something so vile-”

“Even if it’s technically true?”

Damien’s entire expression freezes, as if she has stabbed him. “You can’t mean that. You wouldn’t-”

“He was hurt, Damien,” Rilla says. “And I’m a doctor. I’m just doing my job, as far as I’m concerned. But I very much doubt that the Citadel will see it that way.”

“He is a monster, my love- he could- he could do anything to you, he could kill you or steal you away or-”

Rilla rolls her eyes. “Or lie in bed complaining about the fact that he’s too weak to even stand. Oh no. Whatever will I do to defend myself against the constant annoyance of monsterkind.”

“Rilla you have seen as well as I have the cruelties done by its ilk, the violence and pain! Any benevolence must be a trick, it must be, meant to lull you into a false sense of safety around such a dangerous beast! A devious machination, meant to make you lower your guard for the moment he will strike and then what, my dearest love? What will happen, when you, with your gentle miraculous healing hands, deliver the beast back to strength enough that he may enact his plan? Oh Saint Damien protect us, what will happen when he has been healed enough to harm again? What then, my Rilla?”

“He’s not gonna hurt me,” Rilla says, entirely dismissive. “He won’t. He-” she interrupts herself with a deep yawn, jaw going wide as tears pop into her eyes. “Oh, Saints. I thought I could have this argument right now but I absolutely can’t, Damien. Can you please just trust me, at least enough not to do anything tonight? Go back to the Citadel and we can talk about this in the morning. Right now, I’ve barely slept since I found him, and now that I think I’ve finally dealt with the worst of it and got him stable- I could really use a frickin’ nap.”

“No,” Damien says, slashing his hand through the air. “No, I refuse to leave you helpless and unprotected while that- that creature-”

“My patient.”

“Awaits a moment of weakness! Awaits a moment of vulnerability, wherein he may creep close and destroy you, or curse you, or- or any number of terrible intentions that could come to pass the very instant your mind is settled into well-deserved rest, my love. I cannot stand idly by while-”

“Oh for Saints’ sake, Damien, he’s sedated. He’s not going to slit my throat in my sleep. I promise.”

“It could all be a trick, Rilla. Even with your brilliant mind- the machinations of monsterkind are often more clever than one would expect, and what if this is all some scheme? You are a genius, my Rilla, the greatest doctor in all of the Citadel, and certainly the monsters at large are aware of your prowess, are aware of how many precious lives you have personally gentled back to the realm of the living after countless heinous beasts have expended their most vicious effort to send them to their grave! A doctor of your skill and status- surely monsterkind must be desperate to remove your ferocious protective presence from thwarting their attempts-”

“Damien. First, please try to keep your volume down. I know this is- stressful for you, but the hut is small and the yelling is- not helpful. Second- it’s really flattering that you think they’d pay that much attention to me but I really think you’re overreacting.” She takes a moment to breathe, then sighs quite deeply. “Look, if you’re so worried about it, you can stay here for the night.” She smiles gently, reaching a hand to cup his cheek. “I’m sure you already had a long day before coming over here. Come to bed with me? If it’ll make you feel better, if it’ll make you feel like I’m safer, you know that I love sleeping with your arms around me-”

“I cannot lie idle and sleeping while such a beast rests but one room over, Rilla! I cannot sleep at all while it remains a threat-”

Rilla sighs and drops her hand. “Fine, Damien, fine. If you don’t want to rest with me, then you don’t have to, but I am going to bed and you are not touching my patient. Understand me?” She glares, and the force of her ire could knock Damien to the floor. His mouth goes dry, his words freezing. “If you undo any of my hard work I will not forgive you for that. Do you understand me? I will not forgive you,” she says in a low voice, and Damien swallows. “I don’t care if you wanna sit and guard the door, that’s annoying but it won’t hurt anything, but don’t you dare interrupt his rest.” She pauses. “Or mine, for that matter. Now if you’ll excuse me, Sir Damien?”

She gives him a tight, angry sort of smile, then excuses herself towards her bedroom, her shoulders already sagging again with the weight of her exhaustion, and Damien’s heart aches for her, aches for her to be safe and rested and in his arms-

But he must do his duty, first. He must protect her.

Damien paces outside the door to the room the monster currently occupies, his mind roiling and racing and terrified, and he whispers low for guidance. Rilla’s hut is not particularly large, and he has learned his lesson many times that if he prays as he naturally wishes to, he will keep his beloved from sleep rather effectively, and he does not wish to anger her any further just now. So: whispers. Saint Damien will hear him just as well, anyway. It is only for the throbbing in his own heart that his volume yearns to rise.

A monster. A monster, and his beloved Rilla so determined to see it healthy again. One of a kind- and certainly that is even more of a danger than if this were some ordinary ogre, is it not? What tricks might this beast possess? He could have any magic, and skill, any trick up his sleeve-

“What if it is is not sleeping?” He whispers, eyes sharp on the door as he paces, compulsively drawing his bow, the curve of it feeling like safety in his hand. “What if it is already scheming, already creeping towards my Rilla’s room?” His volume is rising, he can barely control it, he tries, but the words are a deluge he caught up in, helpless, helpless. “What if it is already crawling close to her bedside while she breathes light and lovely into her pillow and then it smiles a demon’s smile in the dark and it laughs at her precious kindness and then at last it raises a savage claw-”

Damien chokes a breath, pressing a hand hard over his heart and another over his mouth. No. No, he is between the beast and his beloved. He would have seen- he would know. That- that is merely his fear taking him by the throat. He must stand tranquil against it.

“Saint Damien- oh Saint Damien please,” he murmurs low, wringing his hands and trying, oh trying to slow his breathing. “Please your tranquility my Saint, I must be tranquil if I am to keep her safe, as she deserves to be-”

Rilla forbade him from harming her “patient.” Forbade him from disturbing its rest, as absurd as that is (what foul dreams fill a monster’s mind in repose? What passes for peace in such a violent, chaotic creature?). But-

She did not forbid him from entering the room. Did she?

He considers that. He looks to Rilla’s bedroom door, closed tight against him.

No- not closed tight. If he abandons his charge to protect her and goes to lay by her side, he is certain that she will gather him up in her arms and her bed and soon he will be blessed to hold her soft and lightly snoring in his arms. She is angry with him, in some misguided way, but she did not lock the door. She would not lock him out.

She did not lock him out of the room where the monster coils, either, though.

He ponders, for a few moments longer, before the thought springs unbidden again- the monster, slipping off of Rilla’s examination cot, slithering across the floor, up the walls, over the ceiling-

What powers it may have, Damien does not know. Camouflage? The ability to creep, silent? He does know of the viciously sharp claws this creature possesses, the jagged teeth that showed in his slackly open mouth-

What if it is attempting to escape?

Out the window, yes, and then- anywhere. It could slither off to find cohorts, other beasts with which to return, to raze Rilla’s cozy, humble home to the ground. It could slink around the side of the hut, could find another window- Rilla’s window, could insinuate itself back inside and-

Another deep, shaking breath.

No. Even if the creature is silent, Damien will hear the pane of glass shatter, if the creature escapes.

He cannot simply-

Damien cannot-

Every moment it is unoccupied, his mind will spin. It will tumble down into the darkness of catastrophe, will show him newer and darker possibilities, and so long as he does not know, not for certain, what the monster is doing in there, Damien will be trapped by these feelings, these foul potentialities.

He must enter. He must have his eyes on this beast. It cannot possibly harm Rilla nor anyone else, if he has it safely under his scrutiny.

And Rilla did not forbid him from entering.

He has one hand on the knob of the door, one on his bow, and he creaks the wood open. His entire frame tenses for the strike, whether that strike be his own or the leaping of the monster, but no such strike occurs. It is dim, in the room. Dim, and still, and quiet.

It is mostly quiet, anyway. After a pause, the door ajar but not yet passed through, Damien recognizes the slow, soft noise of breath, coming from inside. He frowns, but he supposes that it is better, is it not, to know that the beast is still where he can keep an eye upon it. If he had opened this door and it was still as death, and there were no noises of life whatsoever- certainly that would have been a more frightening outcome.

Damien takes a step, and then another, and he leaves his hand on the knob as he suspiciously enters this shadowed place.

Still, no attack comes. The light pouring in through the doorframe illuminates enough that Damien can see the shape on the cot, a long figure curled slightly on its side, covers shifting slowly above its chest.

The monster breathes.

It is repellent. This creature, this vile thing soft-sleeping here in a room meant for human healing, for care, for the comfort of his lovely Rilla’s talents and compassion, it is abhorrent. And Damien knows that Rilla is compassionate, oh certainly she is, but this- this? Certainly, certainly, love, there must be some limits, mustn’t there?

The monster breathes and sleeps and does not move, and Damien is even more nervous, even more furious than he was before.

He paces, but the sound of his shoes clicking on the floor sets his teeth on edge. What- what if his noise wakes the creature? If it attacks him, certainly it would be justifiable, to retaliate. Of course it would. But-

Rilla warned him not to disturb the creature’s rest.

So, until she wakes again, at least, he will not.

There is a stool, close beside the bed. When he had entered earlier, Rilla had been perched just in front of it with her hands on the beast, as if she had been seated at some point, and slowly edged forward in tension and focus until she had hovered entirely away.

If Damien wishes to sit, he is going to need to come close enough to the beast to take the seat for himself.

He takes each step across the floor as if it could be rigged with traps, as if more monsters might leap from any given shadow. This… proves unjustified. Yet again Damien is unmolested by monstrous intent, and when he comes close by the bed he stares down at the creature.

Evil. Evil made manifest. Long limbs hidden beneath layers of cloth, sharp claws obscured, the angularity of that body made slack and strange by sleep, that reptilian face-

The monster’s mouth hangs just slightly open, the tips of sharp fangs barely, barely visible behind his thin lips, the ridged line of his brow softened, the low light gleaming on his colorful, mottled scales-

Damien’s jaw tightens. He picks up the stool and moves it away from the bed, moves it to the corner nearest the door, and he perches up upon it facing the bed with a hand on his bow and a scowl set on his face.

The monster does not wake for this, either.

He scowls for quite some time, until his cheeks are a little bit sore. Then he settles into a glare, his determination too strong to be unsettled by boredom. This is only a trick, regardless of the way this creature looks- fragile, curled there on Rilla’s examination cot. More of his scales are bandaged than not, from what Damien saw earlier, when Rilla was working upon him, and the frill at his neck is nearly in tatters, one of his elegantly curved horns cracked (Damien wonders if that is the sort of thing that heals- not that this creature will have time to find that out, of course), and even despite the undeserved serenity of sleep this monster looks exhausted.

A trick. All of it a trick, of course.

… but a very, very convincing one.

[->]

#elle's fanfic #the penumbra podcast #second citadel #rad bouquet #lizard kissin' tuesday #amaryllis of exile #lord arum #sir damien #~~spiral time babeyyyyy~~#please im dying #god i can't wait for the next chapter of this too fjadslkjfa;sldjf #please. tell me. if you like this. i (like damien) am spiraling #scattered on my shore

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pettyrevenge-base · 5 years

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Revenge on loud partying college students, featuring my dad and dog

This occurred in the late 90's/early 2000s, when I was in grade school. I grew up on a street that was mostly old houses from the 1910s, and most of them were huge. Like built originally as single family homes, but massive enough to turn into apartments or studios. Which is what a lot of landlords did, to make a decent profit off of the kids who went to the college about 6 blocks up the street. I think typically 6-8 kids shared one house. One such house was directly next door, and another was down and across the street.

There was a lot of turnover in these houses as you can imagine, and it always stressed my mom and dad out to see new kids moving in. As an adult, I now understand why. A few times we had some really chill, nice kids living next door. And a few times, we had total assholes living there.

One year, it was assholes. They were hard party types who didn't care if it was the middle of the week or the middle of the night to throw an insanely loud, rowdy house party. And when I say loud, I mean that even with our houses being separated by a large yard, we could STILL hear their bass thumping from INSIDE our house. Sometimes until three in the morning.

Now my dad is one of the most laid back and passive people I know. He always started by going next door himself to ask them to kindly keep it down. This particular crowd basically blew him off and if I recall, had a few colorful words for him. Ok, fine. Police were called. The policy at the time, iirc, was if the police were called three separate times over the same house, a complaint was launched automatically. These kids literally did not care, the complaint happened, and I assume the landlord gave them mild shit for it. They quieted down for maybe a week or two, and started back up again. I don't know how they didn't get evicted, other than the landlord cared more about money than keeping the peace in the neighborhood. This went on all. Fucking. Semester. And to add to it all, the party goers would lob all their trash over the fence into OUR yard. This include glass, which broke often. Once there were broken beer bottles right under where my swing was. Needless to say, my parents were not happy. If either parent confronted these twats, they would be rude and unpleasant. My mom began picking up their trash and throwing it back into their yard, for what good that did.

The morning after one particularly loud party, I was out in the yard with my mom, and our dogs. One of the dogs was a hound; this information will be relevant shortly. I think my mom was picking up some of the trash. It was mid-morning, and the party people were next door sleeping off their hangovers. I had the idea of bringing one of my many pets out in its cage (honestly can't remember which one, I had a plethora of hamsters, guinea pigs, and rabbits growing up). I would sometimes take the bottom off of the cages and let the critter enjoy the grass for a bit. I did this, not thinking about our high prey drive hound being outside at the time. He got really worked up upon seeing a small animal. He started baying. Loudly.

Now I'm thinking oh shit, the dog is making noise, gonna take the critter back inside. My mom glanced over, saw what was going on, and said something along the lines of, "leave the critter out here for a bit."

So I kept it out of reach of the hound (who had to be on a long rope, as he would bolt and run off) and just sat there for a minute watching him incessantly bay over and over, before it dawned on me what my mom was doing. Mind you, we were as close to this other house as we could be without going over the fence. These hungover people were getting a rude awakening. Plus, this was one night we had called cops. They were going to have to deal with a complaint and their landlord when they got up.

Mom continued throwing trash over the fence back into their yard. Dog bayed. Critter didn't care; critter was safe under his cage and happily snacking on the grass. I doubt any of the other neighbors would have cared, as we knew most of them and they had all been dealing with the same noise we had for months. No one from the house ever came out but I know that dog made enough racket to wake them all up, hopefully feeling like crap. That was the last rowdy party that house had until the end of the semester.

I didn't find out about this next bit until I was well into adulthood. Part two of this revenge includes my dad, who to his credit always tried to deal with these people civilly. The victims of his revenge were in the house down the street. They were so loud that half a block away we could still hear their music and yelling. Except these people were meaner. They got really crazy, and sometimes the parties got violent. When my dad went to ask them to lower the noise level, they said not just nasty, but threatening things to him. Same complaints to the cops, same b.s.

After they kept us awake for the dozenth time, my dad went over to their absolutely trashed yard after dark. With him, he had a crock pot of chili that had been neglected in the fridge for far too long. My dad said it smelled and looked like vomit. And lo, there was the motorcycle of one of the assholes, parked in the front yard, uncovered. My dad liberated the rotten chili onto said bike. He told me he peeked out the window a few times, and actually got to witness the glorious moment the bike owner came upon his defiled cycle. The guy apparently actually PUT HIS HAND in this stuff and then proceeded to puke all over the lawn. I'm sure he thought someone else had been sick on the bike.

No one ever cleaned off the bike, either. It sat in the yard until it was nothing but rust. I still consider my dad to be one of the most passive human beings on this earth, but it shows that everyone has their limit.

Fortunately, afterwards both houses had decent kids every year until we moved away from that house.

Source: reddit.com/r/pettyrevenge

#pettyrevenge #lol #omg

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diffractor · 5 years

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Nuclear Physics Infodump: ~*The Island of Stability*~

So, you may have heard people talking about how there’s an “island of stability” for really heavy elements, where if we could just get a sufficiently neutron-rich isotope, it’d stick around for a while due to [handwaving about weird nuclear physics effects]. I’d actually think about that as the second island of stability. The first island of stability is everything from radium to californium!

If you look at your trusty periodic table, you’ll see that the most stable isotope of polonium has a half-life of about 100 years, then we go to astatine which has a half life of a few hours, then radon where most stable isotope lasts 3 days, then francium which has a half-life on the order of minutes. Then we’re up to radium, which has a half-life of 1600 years, actinium (27 years), and thorium (10 billion years). Why is there this dip in the half-lives?

Well, due to [handwavy nuclear physics effects], there’s a valley where everything’s super-vulnerable to alpha decay, then we get a bunch of elements that are much sturdier. As previously mentioned, fusion can’t land you on the more stable part of the first island of stability, you don’t have enough neutrons. To cross the gap, you need to add about one neutron every 10 seconds, to get a high-enough nuclear mass fast enough that you dodge all those polonium isotopes that alpha decay in under a second and thread the needle through astatine and radon and francium and radium and actinium to get thorium.

Fortunately, we have uranium and thorium (thank neutron stars). So we can start with those and add neutrons via the s-process (nuclear reactors) to explore the rest of the first island of stability (well, except the proton-rich isotopes, and the stuff that has unstable isotopes before it, as previously stated)

What about the second island of stability? Well, we’re quite sure it exists, for stuff beyond the actinides, the most neutron-rich isotope we’ve ever made is also the most stable, exactly as predicted. It should be centered at copernicium, although darmstadtium, roentgenium, nihonium, and flerovium might also be pretty stable (ie, have an isotope with a half-life longer than a day). It’s hard to predict exactly what the half-lives are. For copernicium and darmstadtium, I’ve seen projections that some isotopes have half-lives of 100 or 1000 or 300 years, which is pretty stable. Half-life depends very sensitively on the nuclear stability calculations, so this is plus or minus two orders of magnitude. There might be an isotope with a 30,000 year half-life, and maybe it just has a 3-year half-life. We don’t know.

I already talked about why it’s hard to get there, fusion alone won’t cut it, and the s-process can’t add neutrons fast enough. We can’t cross a 5-hour halflife gap, so we definitely can’t cross a 1 second halflife gap. To make matters worse, the “instability gap” for the first island of stability is composed of alpha-decaying isotopes, but the “instability gap” for the second is composed of spontaneously-fissioning isotopes. Also, when you take actinides and hit them with a bunch of neutrons, they tend to fission, so yield will be super-low.

So that basically leaves “get a big thorium target, we don’t have to worry about fission in that, maybe uranium will work too, and detonate a bunch of psuedo-nukes next to it to dump a ton of neutrons on it to emulate the r-process, and hope that we can get far enough in the isotopes that when they beta-decay down, a decent amount lands on the second island of stability”.

This would be a pretty big project, not gonna lie. Let’s say we build a giant metal chamber to contain the blast and the radioactive products, set it off, and wait a month for it to cool down, and the uncertainties in nuclear physics go in our favor, so it actually works and we get macroscopic amounts of stable-ish isotopes of superheavy elements that have never been seen before (copernicium and darmstadtium, mainly). Then getting the stuff out of that chamber is going to be unpleasant, to put it mildly. You just basically had a giant nuclear meltdown in there, and optimized it for producing a bunch of exotic actinides (all of which are really radioactive). It’s going to be hazardous getting all that matter out of there for chemical processing to search for your stable copernicium isotopes. Like “in the basement of chernobyl a week after meltdown” hazardous, where you’d get a fatal radiation dose in seconds.

But, in theory, it could be done, and it’d be really cool if someone did it and it worked. I want to see it done at some point. Also, since these rather-stable isotopes would decay mostly by spontaneous fission, which releases far more energy than any other type of radioactive decay, a lump of them would basically be like a continuously running piece of a nuclear reactor core, except you don’t have to build a nuclear reactor around it, just put the stuff in a box. It’d be the best compact energy source you could have, because nothing else besides antimatter has an energy-density-per-mass that high, and unlike antimatter, it doesn’t blow up if you sneeze wrong, it just emits neutron radiation and gamma rays and a whole lot of heat. (yeah yeah, nuclear fusion, but I’m counting the mass of the nuclear fusion supporting machinery in with the energy density).

Getting really speculative here, it might have a use as a von-neumann probe energy source, assuming the probe is incredibly radiation-hardened (which it’d have to be if it’s doing interstellar travel). Every gram counts in starships, so it may be more practical to take a few grams of the stuff for power and build solar panels on-site, than to lug along solar panels which weigh more than a few grams. It’d be cool if the stuff actually had a use.

One final note. Decompressing neutron-star matter should be able to make all the isotopes that are produceable by “add a ton of neutrons, wait for it to decay down”. So, if these elements are as stable as we think they are, they should be produced in neutron star mergers. I don’t know of any papers or research proposals which have searched, or tried to search, for copernicium spectral lines in neutron star merger spectra, and it really should be there. It’d be a pretty huge result if someone found that.

#nuclear_series #infodump

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mldrgrl · 6 years

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The Ties That Bind

by: mldrgrl Rating: R (language and subject matter) Summary: Back from the honeymoon, Stella receives some unsettling news she has to share with Hank.

*****spoiler warnings behind the cut*****

******************************Normally I do not do this, but some people might find the topic of this fic unpleasant. DO NOT READ FURTHER IF YOU DO NOT WANT SPOILERS OR WARNINGS. This piece will touch on the subjects of miscarriage and abortion. As in Juliette, the things discussed in this piece are the experiences of the characters only. *************************************************

Stella tapped her pen lightly against the agenda clipped to her folder. It was half past three and they were behind schedule. For a meeting to discuss interdepartmental efficiency, it was not a good sign. Only two items remained, but budgetary restrictions was the current hot topic and there seemed no end in sight on a debate over the cost effectiveness of upgrading their servers. It was a relevant subject, but they weren’t there to make decisions, they were only there to discuss options.

Beside her folder, the cell phone she’d on the table vibrated softly and she glanced at the display. She frowned slightly and excused herself to take the call, but no one seemed to notice when she left the conference room. ��Karen rarely called her, so she could only surmise that it must be of importance.

“Karen?” Stella answered quietly, keeping close to the wall as she headed to the end of the corridor away from the conference room.

“Stella?”

“Yes. Were you looking for Hank?”

“Is, um, is Hank with you?”

Karen’s voice trembled and was punctuated by soft sniffles, two qualities that Stella had dealt with quite frequently when interviewing the recently traumatized. She automatically responded with the tone she’d cultivated throughout the years when speaking with victims, empathetic yet firm.

“No, he isn’t,” Stella said. “I’m at work. Can you tell me what’s the matter?”

“I can’t call Hank. It just...It...you have to…”

“Karen, tell me what’s happened. Is it Becca?”

There was a long silence on the other end of the phone and then a cough and a sob. Stella put a steadying hand against the wall and took a deep breath.

“Something has happened with Becca,” Stella stated. “What is it? Karen, what’s happened?”

“Accident,” Karen stuttered. “Uh, I…” Her voice trailed off and then there was a staticky sound and low murmur of voices.

“Karen? Karen?”

“Stella, this is Fish.”

“Fish, what’s happened? What’s going on?”

“Sorry about Karebear, I told her I’d call you but she couldn’t wait.”

“It’s Becca?”

“Car accident. The Beckster’s in ICU, but they say she’s stable and it’s temporary. They just have to...I’m sorry, hold on a second…”

Stella brought the back of her hand up to her mouth and bit lightly at the skin over her knuckle. Her chest hurt and her stomach churned. She was brought back to the time when she’d been told that Hank was in an accident and those initial moments of shock and concern. It was her job to remain calm in the face of extreme stress, but it was hard to do when things were personal.

“Stella,” Fish said, back on the phone. “I’m sorry about that. Listen, Karebear called you because she doesn’t want Hank to hear about this over the phone.”

“I agree it would be best to tell him in person. I’ll head home now. We’ll catch the first flight out. I want to know everything about her condition though. Whatever you can tell me, don’t spare the details.”

“Yeah, um, let me just...there’s not very good reception right here...Karebear, I’ll be right back.” A brief silence followed and then Fish came back, his voice a little hushed than it had been before. “Becca will be alright,” he said. “What we know right now is that she’s got a broken collarbone and some cracked ribs, facial lacerations, and whiplash. She needs minor surgery on the shoulder.”

“Why is she in the ICU then?”

“Well, she was pretty disoriented at the scene, apparently, and...they weren’t quite sure why there was so much blood loss at first.”

“Blood loss?”

“Uh, I’m just gonna say this, Becca was pregnant. She was...well, she lost the baby.”

“Oh, for Christ sake.” Stella put a hand over her eyes and sucked in a breath.

“Look, we didn’t know about...well, we didn’t know. Did you or Hank?”

“I wasn’t aware. I’m sure if she had told Hank, he would have told me. How far along was she?”

“Don’t know. Becca would have to be the one to tell us. They’ve got her sedated right now. We haven’t seen her yet. We just got here though. The police called before they put her in the ambulance and we drove straight down.”

“How did this happen?”

“She was in a taxi and some chowderhead blew a red light, is what the police said. He hit the car going through the intersection. The taxi driver is banged up as well, but the chowderhead has minor injuries. Fuckin’ chowderhead.”

“Alright, I’m...call me if you have any news. I’ll head home now and fetch Hank. We’ll be there as soon as we can. Will you text me the hospital details? You’re in New York I assume?”

“Sure, sure. It’s New York Presbyterian. I’ll send it over.”

“Anything, any change at all, you call me. We may be in the air, but call me.”

“I will.”

Though she wanted to take a moment or two to breathe and compose herself, Stella also didn’t want to waste any time. She headed back to the conference room and gathered her folders while the budget argument still raged. Her office was one floor down and she took the stairs. The administrative assistant posted outside of her office, Gemma, looked startled as she hurried towards the young woman’s desk.

“I’ve an emergency,” she quietly told the assistant. “I would appreciate it very much if you would please book two flights from Heathrow to JFK as quickly as possible. What time is it? If we’re quick about things we can be there at half past five. Any flight as close to six o’clock or thereafter will be fine.”

“Yes, ma’am,” Gemma answered. “Do you have a return date?”

“Not at this time.” Stella grabbed a Post-it on Marie’s desk and began writing out the passport and relevant information that she had memorized for her and Hank that Gemma would need to book their flights. “Any issues arise, text me at once. I’m stopping by home first and then headed immediately to the airport.”

“Yes, ma’am. Is everything alright ma’am?”

“No, it is not.” Stella finished writing out the necessary details. She was not inclined to elaborate, but her assistant had proved to be discretionary in the few short months she’d been assigned to her. “My daughter has been in an accident in New York.”

“I hope she’s alright. I didn’t know you had a daughter.”

Stella nodded briefly and left Gemma’s desk for her office. She quickly gathered her coat and shoved her laptop into her attaché. She planned to email her superior from the car and request a short leave of absence.

“I’ve called your car,” Gemma said, as Stella closed the door to her office. “I told him you’ll be needing to go on to the airport after dropping home.”

“Thank you,” Stella said. She hadn’t even remembered to ask for her car to be sent around, and she was momentarily struck with a feeling of overwhelming gratitude for something so small.

“I’ll see to your flight now. My best to your daughter.”

“Yes.”

After sending off an email on her phone, she agonized over how she was going to break the news to Hank when she got home. He was likely to be upset. Any little thing regarding Becca sent him into a frenzy, and hospitalization was no minor incident. Fish texted her with a brief update that Becca also had ten stitches for a cut above her eyebrow and they’d be taking her into surgery shortly. Gemma texted a flight itinerary to her with a note that she’d reschedule her upcoming meetings for the week and to just let her know if she needed anything further. She did the calculations in her head. They’d need to be out the door in under ten minutes to have sufficient time to make the flight.

Hank was at the downstairs table with his typewriter when she came in. She hadn’t come up with anything to say to him that wouldn’t be upsetting, so she’d decided the only course of action she could take would just be to say it.

“Hey, Sherlock,” Hank said, not turning from his typewriter. “You’re early.”

“Hank, I need you to look at me and listen to me right now.”

Hank turned, his brows raised. Her request came out a little more forceful than she’d intended. “You have my attention,” he said.

“Karen called me just a bit ago. Becca’s been in a car accident and we need to go to New York. My assistant has booked us a flight that leaves at 5:55 p.m. You need to go upstairs and pack a bag and we need to get in the car within the next ten minutes. You can ask me any questions on the way.”

Hank blinked at her and his lips curled up as though he was about to laugh, but then he sobered and jumped out of his chair, knocking it over in his haste.

“You’re joking,” he said. “This is a sick, fucking joke.”

“Hank.”

“What car accident? When?”

“This morning. In New York.”

“What happened?”

“Hank, we don’t have ti-”

“Just tell me!”

“She was in a taxi and the taxi was hit. What I know right now is that she has a broken collarbone, cracked ribs, and some facial lacerations and a cut that needed stitches. She’s under sedation and she needs surgery on her shoulder.” She stopped short at telling him about the miscarriage. It was not the time.

Hank stared at Stella for a few beats and then swiped his phone off the table and turned his back to her as he opened his contacts. Only seconds later, before she could intervene, he was shouting at his phone.

“What the fuck, Karen? Becca’s in an accident and you don’t even fucking call me? I should be the first person you fucking call. Numero fucking uno. What the actual fuck? No, I won’t calm down!”

“Hank, stop,” Stella said, putting a hand on his back.

Hank shook her off of him and then growled and hurled his phone across the room. The screen shattered as it hit the kitchen tile. He kicked the overturned chair.

“Stop!” Stella demanded, grabbing his arm.

He whirled around and yanked his arm free from her. “My fucking daughter is in the hospital!”

Without thinking, Stella slapped Hank across the face with so much force that it hurt her hand. Hank gasped and stumbled back, his hand flying to his cheek. She cradled her stinging palm and grit her teeth.

“You hit me,” he accused.

“I understand that you’re worried,” she replied as calmly as she could. “But that does not give you the right to behave like a child.”

“You hit me!”

“Go upstairs,” she ordered. “Pack a bag, get your passport. Do it now if you want to make the flight.”

“You hit me,” he said again, like a pouting, petulant child.

“Yes, and I’d do it again if I had to. File an incident report if you’d like.”

She glared at him, unwavering. They did not have time to argue about this. Logically, she knew that upset people behave irrationally, but he’d never be allowed on a plane if he was belligerent. He also needed to pack a bag and so did she. Though there wasn’t much to throw together, they had things at the loft in the city, there were still things to grab. Passports, for one. She wanted to change out of work attire to fly as well, though she’d go as she was if they ran out of time.

Finally, Hank turned and shuffled towards the stairs. “She hit me,” he muttered to himself, still holding his cheek. Stella retrieved Hank’s broken phone and looked it over. The screen was shattered, but it was still in working order. She tucked it in her attache and pulled out her own phone to call Karen back and apologize. She got her voicemail.

When Stella went upstairs, Hank was sitting at the edge of the bed, his head in his hands, crying. She went to him and rested her hands on his head. He wrapped his arms around her waist and pressed his face into her belly.

“You can fall apart later,” Stella told him, her hands on his shoulders. Her palm still throbbed from when she’d struck him. “We need to make the plane.”

Hank nodded and then pulled away and wiped his eyes. He threw a few t-shirts and some underwear in a duffel bag and Stella added a change of clothes to it as well as some toiletries. She quickly changed into a pair of jeans and a sweater. She made sure their passports were in her hand and grabbed her purse and attache. She checked her watch. Eight minutes had passed between when she’d stepped out of the car and back onto the front landing. They were on track to make the flight, but she didn’t want to take any chances.

On the ride to the airport, she debated whether or not to tell him about the baby. She didn’t want to keep anything from him, but she didn’t want to upset him further either, especially as they were about to get on a plane. It was a hard decision for her to make, but ultimately she decided she needed to wait until they got to New York. He would probably be angry with her for withholding information, but at least they would already be in the city.

When they checked into their flight, with just about twenty minutes to spare, she made the executive decision to upgrade their booking to first class. It hadn’t occurred to her when she’d asked Gemma to get the tickets, but having experienced travel with Hank before, there was always a chance he’d be recognized, and people were less likely to bother him in first class. She’d install him in the window seat and be the first line of defense between him and any fan club member that wanted to harass him about his books.

They boarded the plane without any incident, but Hank was agitated and restless. She took his hand when they sat down. He bounced his knee and pulled at his bottom lip as he stared out the window. The boarding process dragged on, always a test of patience on a good day, but for people in an urgent situation, there was no such thing as patience.

“Why aren’t we moving?” Hank asked, stretching his neck to look towards the cockpit. The last of the passengers seemed to have trickled in at least five minutes ago but the cabin door was still open.

“Do not make a scene,” Stella told him, squeezing his hand and pulling him back down. “Do not get yourself thrown off this plane.”

“Why aren’t we moving?”

“Because we’re not moving. We will be. Try to stay calm.”

“I need vodka.”

“You absolutely do not.”

“I can’t last for eight fucking hours without a drink.”

“Yes, you can.” Stella was actually desperate for a glass of wine, but sobriety was a priority.

“No calls?”

She checked her phone. There was an email from her superior sending his sympathies and advising her to contact HR when she could to submit a leave of absence. God knew she had accrued an obscene amount of personal time over the years so she wasn’t worried about that. She would email HR after they spoke with Becca’s doctors and were fully appraised of the situation.

“Nothing,” she told him. “No news is good news right now.”

“Why the fuck aren’t we moving?”

Once they were finally in the air and cruising altitude, Stella pulled out her laptop and bought the internet package for the duration. Her text messages were linked to her computer, so she simply left it open on the chance that Karen or Fish might try to communicate with her.

It was a challenge keeping Hank in his seat and away from the alcohol. He refused the inflight meal and refused to watch the movies offered on the personal screens at their seats. He did listen to music for a time, but mostly he stared out the window like he knew the route and like he could will the plane into moving faster somehow.

Stella tried to work on revising a report, but it was too hard to focus. At some point in the flight, Hank began crying again, his head bent low and shoulders shaking. The cabin was dark and quiet with most people engaged in their movies or games. She unlatched her seatbelt and raised the armrest between them. He beat his fist against his thigh and she leaned against him, bringing her hand down to cover his fist and stop him.

For one of the first times in her life, Stella was unsure of what to say. Even if she knew for certain that Becca was going to be alright, Hank wouldn’t be satisfied until he saw her for himself. She understood, she really did, but her natural inclination was to identify a problem and solve it. The current solution was unfortunately hours away.

“This is a nightmare,” Hank said. “I’m going to wake up and you’re going to tell me it was all a bad fucking dream.”

“We’ll be there soon,” she said.

“I want to be there now, god dammit!”

“I know.” Stella glanced towards the front of the plane where a flight attendant had leaned out of her area to check on the slight disturbance.

Hank had already lost steam from his outburst though and he was back to his shoulder-shaking crying. At the very least, it was mostly silent. She used the napkins given to her with her Diet Coke to dab at his cheeks. The message notification on her computer pinged, which she heard, but Hank didn’t. She read the message from Fish out of the corner of her eye.

Surgery went well. Beckster awake. Groggy and incoherent. Doesn’t remember the accident. Doc’s going to put her back under so they can put a temp cast on her shoulder.

Stella quietly read the message to Hank. It calmed him a little. Enough that he stopped crying and wiped his eyes. He would sporadically wipe his eyes for the rest of the plane ride and he kept his gaze out the window after that.

They arrived at JFK just before 9 p.m. Instead of waiting in the taxi line, they flagged down an unmarked livery car. Rush hour was over, so traffic was lighter than usual. Stella waited until they had crossed the bridge into Manhattan to put her hand on his leg to get his attention.

“Hank,” she said, keeping her voice low so the conversation would be as private as possible. The driver didn’t seem to be paying much attention to them though, there was a Bluetooth in his ear and he mumbled every so often as though he may actually be on the phone.

“What?” he asked.

“There is something else you need to know, and I hope you understand why I waited to tell you.”

“Just fucking tell me,” he said, warily. He turned his bleary eyes to her and he looked so haggard she cupped his cheek, not the one she’d slapped earlier, the other one.

“Apparently, Becca was pregnant. The accident caused a miscarriage. We don’t know how far along she was. She didn’t tell anyone about the baby.”

There was a mystified look in Hank’s eyes, like he hadn’t understood a word she’d said. After a few moments of silence, he merely nodded and looked out the window. She kept her eye on him and listened to their driver carry on his hushed conversation as he mindlessly followed the orders of his GPS.

When they pulled up to the hospital, Stella was mildly surprised that Hank didn’t immediately bolt from the car. He waited for her while she paid, and even remembered to grab their bag from the trunk.

“Fourth floor,” Stella told Hank as the sliding doors opened and admitted them into the lobby.

They had to follow signs to the ICU, turning down one corridor and then another until they found a waiting room and Karen and Fish. There was only two other people in the waiting room, an elderly man with his eyes closed and a woman Stella assessed to be in her early 20s reading a book. Maybe it was the late hour or it was just a slow day at the hospital, but she expected there to be more there.

Stella took Hank’s hand as they walked through the door of the waiting room. Karen looked up from her hunched position in her chair as Fish patted her on the back and nodded to Stella and Hank. She first made eye contact with Stella and then Hank and time seemed to stand still for a few moments. Almost foreseeing what happened next, Stella let go of Hank’s hand and he dropped their bag.

Karen got up from her seat and both she and Hank crossed the room towards each other, meeting in the middle and crashing into an embrace. They clung to each other like the drowning to life preservers. Stella could’ve felt threatened by such an obviously palpable connection between the ex-lovers, but instead she found it sad. They were so very alike, Karen and Hank, that it made them immensely incompatible. Of course, when times were good very them, she was sure they were very, very good, but when times were bad, they both crumbled. It was where people like herself or Fish complemented them so well. Hank and Karen could offer spontaneity and adventure, but Fish and Stella balanced it out with stability. They were ports in the storm to the forces of nature that were Hank and Karen.

“I’m sorry,” Hank told Karen.

“I couldn’t just...not over the phone,” she said.

“I know.”

“I didn’t know how.”

“I know.”

“Any change?” Stella asked, directing her question more at Fish than Karen.

Karen and Hank broke apart and Karen moved on to hug Stella fiercely. Fish answered that there was no change, but they were expecting one of Becca’s doctors to come around at any moment with an update. Hank sank down in one of the chairs across from Fish and Karen stayed standing, holding Stella’s hands. Her eyes were wet.

“I saw her briefly,” Karen said. “When they were bringing her back from having her shoulder wrapped.”

“How did she look?” Hank asked.

“Like she’d been in a car accident,” Karen answered, her voice pinched and strained. Stella squeezed her hands gently.

Shortly thereafter, the doctor they’d been expecting came into the waiting room. Stella thought the girl looked not much older than Becca herself, but she spoke authoritatively and confidently. She was young, but clearly experienced. She explained that Becca would be kept in ICU overnight as a precaution, that the shoulder would stay wrapped for a few days, but then the temporary cast would come off and she’d need some physical therapy. There was some protesting when she suggested they go home and come back in the morning, but as though she foresaw a compromise was necessary, she said she would allow them a quick five minutes in Becca’s room for reassurance that she was doing well, and that they would be permitted to see her under the normal rules and regulations of visiting hours as soon as she was installed in a regular room upstairs.

They made a melancholy crew, the four of them, following the doctor down the hall to Becca’s room. Stella was fairly certain she was the only one, aside from the doctor, with experience in visiting an ICU, and she knew from experience, most treated the experience in the same somber, anxiety-fueled way they might treat a visit to a funeral home. She’d seen people completely break down, seen them refuse to even enter a room, seen the get angry, seen them bear the sight of a loved one in distress with restraint and stoicism. She was prepared for the reactions of Hank, Karen, and Fish, but she was unprepared for her own. As they neared the door, her impulse was to turn away. She did not want to see Becca in this position.

Had Hank not grasped Stella’s hand tightly when the doctor opened the door to Becca’s room, she may not have followed them inside. She did her best to remain cool and collected, but it was difficult. Rationally, she knew Becca was alright, that the damage could have been so much worse, but looking at her lying in her sedative-induced state of unconsciousness, the left side of her face cut and speckled with dried blood, a gash across her forehead, shoulder plastered and immobile, it was one of those obnoxious reminders of how fragile life was. She dealt with it on such a regular basis that she considered herself to be fairly numb to tragedy. Maybe numb was the wrong word, but she was rarely affected. The personal experience was almost indescribable.

“Can she hear us?” Karen asked.

“Well,” the doctor explained. “She isn’t in a coma. She’s asleep.”

“We used to turn the HiFi on when she napped as a baby,” Hank said. “And she didn’t wake up. Do you remember that?”

Karen nodded.

It was the only conversation to be had. For the rest of their time, the group maintained a silent vigil over Becca’s bed until the doctor looked at her watch and cleared her throat. Hank bent over and kissed the unmarred side of Becca’s face and Karen ran her fingers lightly over her hair. Stella was compelled to make a connection with Becca herself, to let her know she was there in some small way. She touched her wrist and slid her fingers down to her pulse. Feeling the tiny beats of life gave her a reassurance she didn’t know she needed. She backed away, and the doctor ushered them all out of the room.

Their morose bubble of silence burst as soon as they were back in the waiting room. They were all empty of their adrenaline-fueled energy once they’d seen Becca for themselves and it was clear just how tired everyone was. Fish was thumbing his car keys begrudgingly.

“It would be an act of insanity to drive back to Connecticut tonight,” Hank said, turning to Stella. “They should stay at the loft,” he said to her, and then turned back to Karen and Fish. “You should stay at the loft.”

“Of course,” Stella agreed, she’d been about to make the suggestion herself.

“Is that…” Karen seemed momentarily unsure, but then nodded. “It’s closer.”

“And we should take a taxi,” Stella added, looking into Fish’s bloodshot eyes. “You’ve been here all day. It’s nearly 4am London time. I don’t believe any of us are fit to operate a vehicle at the moment.”

“Sounds good to me,” Fish said.

Karen pulled out her phone. “I’ll look for a Lyft.”

They were home in under fifteen minutes, shuffling like zombies onto the elevator. The attache over Stella’s shoulder felt heavier and heavier as time went on. Hank practically dragged their duffle bag behind him. They pointed Karen and Fish to the separate den area that served as a guest room, mostly used by Becca, and left them to get settled.

In bed, Hank curled up behind Stella in a loose fetal position with his arm over her hip. His head was pressed lightly between her shoulders. She was exhausted, but she couldn’t seem to fall asleep. Neither could Hank, apparently.

“My biggest fear when Becca was a baby was somehow, inadvertently killing her,” Hank said, suddenly.

“I’m sure that’s quite common,” Stella replied.

“It was stupid shit, like what if I fed her something and it turned out to be poisonous for babies and I didn’t know. Or what if I was holding her and taking out the trash and I accidentally threw her down the trash chute instead because my brain somehow couldn’t tell the difference between a trash bag and a baby. Or what if I was taking her uptown in her stroller and I got too close to the edge of the platform and her stroller went over and she got hit by a train.”

“That sounds awful.”

“It was. And I always told myself it would get easier as she got older, because she would be less dependent on us as time went by and one day I’d stop congratulating myself for getting through 24 hours without killing my daughter.”

“When did it get easier?”

“It didn’t. It just became different.”

Stella shifted and then turned over. She bent her neck so that her forehead touched his and she cupped the back of his head. Her fingers sifted through his soft hair and her thumb traced the shell of his ear.

“That fear has been there since...not when I found out Karen was pregnant, but when I knew she was keeping the baby.”

“Was there ever a question?”

“Yeah. Yeah, there was.”

“I didn’t know that.”

“I keep wondering now if Becca had that same fear. And just...fuck, why didn’t she tell us?”

“I don’t know.”

“When you told me about it, all I could think about was finding the little fuckface that knocked up my kid and kicking his sorry ass.”

“Hank-“

“And that’s probably why she didn’t tell me.”

“Or perhaps she didn’t know.”

“She used to tell me everything. I was the one she told when she lost her virginity. Me, not even Karen. It made me nauseous at the time, I think I even threw up in my mouth a little, but...but…”

“She knew she could come to you.”

“Yes. Exactly.”

“I’m sure she still knows. If she has reasons, the only thing you can do is respect them.”

“I just...I need to see her awake. Even if she just sits up and tells me to fuck off, I need to see her eyes open.”

“You will.”

“Sherlock, I’m...I’m grateful that you’re here with me.”

There wasn’t an answer Stella felt like she could give for that, so she sought Hank’s lips in the dark and pressed her mouth to his. He rubbed her shoulder and returned her kiss, but it didn’t last long. He sighed when they broke apart and turned over, curling into a tight little ball. She put her hand on his back and waited until his breathing evened out to close her eyes.

Stella wasn’t sure what what her in the morning, maybe jet lag or a noise, but she opened her eyes to find that neither she or Hank had moved much during the night. He had loosened his body a little and she had moved close enough that her knees touched the back of his thighs, but their positions were the same. Judging by the grey shadows in the room, it was still early, but she felt rested enough.

A soft clatter outside the room caught her attention and she sat up. One of their houseguests were awake and her money was on Karen. She slipped out of bed and grabbed her silk robe from the back of the bathroom door, tying it on before she went out into the main living area. Sure enough, Karen was in the kitchenette, peering into cupboards.

“Can I get you something?” Stella asked her.

“Shit!” Karen said, turning quickly. “I woke you? I’m sorry.”

“I was awake. What are you looking for?”

“I was gonna make coffee, but…”

“I don’t know that we have any. We tend to frequent the bodega around the corner when we’re in town.”

“Well, that explains it then.” Karen rubbed one of her arms and looked around the room.

“I could go down and pick some up.”

“Oh, no, you don’t have to do that. I could...I mean, I woke you-”

“You didn’t wake me.”

“Can I go with you?”

“Of course. Give me a few minutes to get dressed.”

Stella went back into the bedroom and quietly shut the door. There was a nervous, fretful energy coming from Karen that she hadn’t experienced from her before. She supposed it had to do with the situation with Becca, but she had a feeling there was more to it than that. She dressed quickly in a dark blue wrap dress, clipped her hair back, and brushed her teeth. Hank was still sleeping, though he looked distressed. His jaw was slack, but his brows were pulled together. She ran her thumb lightly over the crease in his forehead and kissed the corner of his mouth.

“Going to pick up coffees with Karen,” she whispered.

Hank grunted softly and his mouth fell open. His brows twitched together with more tension, but then relaxed. She grabbed her wallet before she left the room.

It was cool outside, but the crispness of Spring was gone. It would likely be a pleasant day, not hot or cold. Morning traffic hadn’t reached peak yet, but horns still blared in the distance, and it was too early for the boutiques and restaurants on their street to be open, so pedestrian traffic was light.

“How’s Hank?” Karen asked suddenly.

“Fine,” Stella answered. “And not fine. The same as you I imagine.”

“You think I’m not fine?”

“Did you sleep?”

“Not really.” Karen looked up as though she were studying the townhomes they passed with an interest in their design, and perhaps she was. “I just forget sometimes, you know?”

“Forget what?”

“That Hank isn’t my responsibility. I feel like I’ve spent half my life making sure he was okay.”

“Were you up worrying about Becca, or about Hank?”

“Yes.” Karen stopped abruptly and took Stella’s arm to stop her as well. “It’s almost impossible for me to think of them as two people. If you knew what it was like...when Becca was a little girl, it was like...like they were one entity. What happened to one happened to the other. If Becca was upset about something, Hank was more upset. If Hank was upset, Becca was inconsolable. They liked and disliked the same things, which was cute, you know, it really was, but also almost...otherworldly.”

“Were you ever jealous of that connection?” Stella’s thoughts turned briefly to her own mother, but if she knew one thing for sure, Karen was nothing like her mother.

“No. Yes. Not jealous. I didn’t wish to have that extreme kind of connection, but it made my bond with both of them feel weak in comparison.”

“I do know what that’s like.”

“You do?”

“I was close with my father as well, but my mother couldn’t cope with that. She divorced him and blamed me for ruining their relationship.”

“How old were you when your parents divorced?”

“Around two.”

“Two!” Karen exclaimed, a look of outrage crossing her face. “She blamed a two year old for...Jesus Christ what a fucking cuntface!”

A soft laugh tumbled out of Stella’s mouth. It came and went quite quickly, but she couldn’t stop the smile it left behind.

“Hank more or less expressed the same sentiments,” Stella said. “To her face.”

“Oh my god, he didn’t!”

“He did. I only wish I’d been there to see hers.”

“You still keep in touch?”

“No, she passed away just a few months ago. Shortly after the wedding, actually. The one and only time Hank met her was the first time I’d seen her in over a decade.”

“I want to tell you I’m shocked and can’t imagine not being present in your own child’s life, but then I suddenly remembered that I have no idea when the last time I saw my parents.”

“They’re still living?”

“Yeah, they retired to Florida what seems like a million years ago. They weren’t hugely supportive of my choices in life and I guess you can say we just drifted apart as people. I mean, we do speak on occasion, birthdays or holidays, and that’s about it. God, I hope Becca never feels like that about me, or Hank.”

“I think that’s unlikely.”

“Why didn’t I ever know that about your mother?”

“It isn’t really dinner party conversation.”

“But, I mean...I don’t know what I mean, actually. I guess I shouldn’t be surprised, but you are so present in my daughter's life, and mine by extension, it seems strange not to know you better.”

“I don’t know that much about you either.”

“I would’ve thought that Hank...oh my god, how fucking narcissistic of me.”

“Of course Hank talks about you. That’s his perspective, however.”

“Well now I feel like I’m on a blind date and I don’t quite know what to say.”

“Let’s go get the coffee then and maybe something will come to both of us.”

“Coffee, yes. I almost forgot what we were doing out here.”

At the bodega, they picked up four coffees and breakfast sandwiches. Both Hank and Fish were up and about when they got back to the loft. Fish was rumpled, but I’m good spirits as usual. Hank was shirtless with his jeans partially unbuttoned and a bad case of bedhead and morning stubble. It was actually one of Stella’s favorite looks on him. She put her hands on his chest and leaned close to him as he hooked an arm around her shoulders and sipped his coffee.

“Ah, ladies,” Fish said, sighing appreciatively over his coffee cup. “Moody, we got the best girls in the world, right here.” He clapped Hank on the back, causing him to splutter and coffee to dribble down his chin. Stella held his coffee for him as he wiped his face with a napkin.

They arrived at the hospital before visiting hours and were made to wait in a smaller, less comfortable waiting room on the sixth floor. Becca had already been transferred out of the ICU. They just had to wait until the requisite hour and they could go in, two at a time. They all agreed that Hank and Karen should go in first.

A half an hour after Karen and Hank went into Becca’s room, they came back out. Hank seemed agitated and Karen had a list of items she wanted to get to make Becca more comfortable for the next few days she’d be in the hospital.

“Go on in,” Hank told Stella. “I just want to take a walk.”

“Is everything okay?” she asked.

“It’s fine. I just feel like taking a walk.”

Fish decided to go with Karen, so Stella went into Becca’s room alone. The girl was awake, but drowsy, probably an after affect of the medication they put her on. She regarded Stella with heavy-lidded eyes, but then stretched her fingers out to her and Stella took her hand.

“Do you have a mirror?” Becca asked.

“I don’t think so,” Stella answered, her hand going to the small handbag pressed to her hip. “Wait, I’ve my phone. That could work.”

“Yeah, good enough.”

Stella brought out her phone and opened the forward-facing camera on it before she handed it to Becca. Becca inspected her face in the mirror and lightly traced the line of stitches along her forehead. The right side of her face had been spared any damage, it was only the left that suffered cuts and bruises.

“There probably won’t be much scarring,” Stella said. “Except for that cut above the brow.”

“Scars don’t bother me. They’re like little badges of an interesting life.”

“That’s one way of looking at it.”

Becca handed the phone back to Stella. “Mom wouldn’t let me look. I thought I must look pretty hideous or something.”

“You don’t look hideous at all. How are you feeling?”

“Drugged up. Everything feels heavy. It’s kind of weird. I don’t remember the accident.”

“That happens a lot.”

“Are they mad at me?”

“Who?”

“Mom and Dad.”

“I can’t imagine why you’d think that.”

Becca turned her head a little towards the curtain separating her bed from the other bed in the room. It was empty. Stella had to pass it on her way to Becca’s. The curtain seemed to be closed out of habit than necessity.

“I guess you all know now,” Becca said, cutting her eyes back to Stella and then turned her gaze down. She plucked at the fuzz on the blanket next to her hip.

Stella sat down next to Becca. “Did you know?”

“Yeah.”

“How far out where you?”

“Six weeks. I’ve only known though for like a week.”

“Is the father in your life? Should we call him for you?”

“We have more of a casual thing. I didn’t tell him. He’s just a friend.”

“Your friends would still want to know that you’re in hospital, I’m sure.”

“No, it’s okay.”

“Okay.”

Becca stopped plucking at the fuzz on the blanket and moved on to chewing at her bottom lip. Her eyes became glassy and pooled with tears. She blinked and one rolled down the side of her cheek over the little cuts on her face. Stella took a tissue from a box next to Becca’s bed and dabbed lightly at the track left behind.

“I hadn’t decided what to do about it yet,” Becca said. “So, I didn’t tell anyone.”

“I’m sorry this is how we found out.”

“I almost called you a few days ago. I thought maybe...maybe you’d know what…”

“Are you asking if I’ve ever been in your position?”

“No, that’s none of my business. I mean, in your line of work maybe...I mean you must have seen…”

“I have been in your shoes, Becca, and I’ll tell you that without shame or regret, but I am not you and you are not me. The only advice I can give you is that you should do what you feel is right for you. It’s your decision to make, and only you can make that choice because only you will have to deal with the consequences of either decision.”

“Not anymore,” Becca said, with a tinge of bitterness in her voice.

“I wish that hadn’t been taken away from you.”

“I don’t want kids. It should’ve been easy.”

“Darling girl, it’s never easy.”

“I still feel sad about it. Is that stupid?”

“No.”

Becca sighed a little and then turned to look out the window. After awhile, her eyelids began to flutter and then closed. She shifted and sort of melted into sleep quite quickly after that. Stella waited for some time, just watching her, and then she quietly slipped from the room.

Hank was back in the waiting area when she came out, his head tipped back against the wall, eyes closed. She sat down beside him and put her hand on his thigh. He didn’t open his eyes.

“How is she?” he asked.

“She’s asleep.”

“Good.”

“Why did you come out of her room looking so disturbed?”

Hank blinked his eyes open and stared at the ceiling. “She apologized to us for our trouble,” he said. “Like it was her fault some asshole plowed into the taxi she was riding in. The only person who should be apologizing is that asshole, to my daughter.”

“That’s what upset you?”

“She’s too good to have anything bad happen to her.”

“Unfortunately, the world doesn’t work like that.”

“It should.”

“You’re right.” She squeezed his thigh and relaxed back in the chair next to him. “She gets it from you, you know.”

“Gets what?”

“You’re a good man.”

“Bullshit.”

“You are.”

Hank shook his head just as Fish and Karen came Into the waiting room. Fish was holding a gigantic helium balloon shaped like a teddy bear supported by a long plastic wand.

“What the fuck is that?” Hank asked.

“The others were too dinky,” Fish answered.

“You’re not in with her?” Karen asked.

“She’s asleep,” Stella answered.

“Go sit with her,” Hank said, nodding at Karen and looking up at Fish’s balloon. “Go give her that scaryass mylar monstrosity.”

“He’s using his big boys words ‘cause he’s threatened,” Fish stage whispered to Karen. “You hear that, he said ‘mylar.’”

Karen rolled her eyes a little and tugged on Fish’s elbow. “Come on,” she said.

“Still think I’m a good guy?” Hank asked, after they’d left.

“No, I’ve completely reversed my opinion of you after the terrible manner in which you insulted a balloon.”

“See.”

“Do you trust my judgment, Watson?”

“Always, Sherlock.”

“Do you think I’d be with you if you weren’t a good man?”

“Sounds like a trick question.”

“Why?”

“Because I have to answer honestly.”

Stella moved her hand off Hank’s thigh and laced their fingers together. She leaned back like he was, but put her head on his shoulder.

“If it makes you feel any better that balloon was quite hideous.”

Hank chuckled and displaced Stella momentarily to put his arm around her. “It does,” he said. “It does make me feel a thousand times better.”

The End

#i wrote this #hanella #family drama #hank moody #stella gibson #the fall #californication #their darling daughter

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intergalacticwartimespace · 6 years

Text

Scorpio Rising Chapter 2

Author: @intergalacticwartimespace (somelikeithoth on a03!)

Title: Scorpio Rising

Pairings: Poe/Finn, Rey/Rose, minor Finn/Rose

Summary: Poe has a panic attack after an unpleasant conversation with Finn triggers a wave of emotion he hadn't realized he hadn't been feeling. Afterward, General Leia asks Poe to lead a memorial service for those killed by the Dreadnought and on Crait. Leia can see Poe is struggling but she struggles herself how to connect with him when she and her son are partly responsible for his pain.

TW: Panic Attacks, nightmares, memorial services/funerals.

A/N: I have a busy day tomorrow so I am posting chapter 2 early so that I don't forget. Ahhh more angst. I really need to write a fluffy fic for how angsty this is going to be. It's gonna get worse before it gets better, but I promise a happy ending. There is a nice dose of Damerey friendship solidarity. Enjoy & leave a comment if you have anything to say! I am looking for a beta for this fic, so if you or someone you know is interested, let me know.

The emotions came quicker than Poe could possibly feel them. Poe walked quickly through the halls of the base, each step becoming harder to calculate. The lights seemed too bright and everything in his vision field distorted like a fish eye lense. His feet felt out of step and his whole body tingled. Finally Poe made it to the cool outside night air. Poe staggered off base and sat beside a large durasteel supply crate in the grass. Poe’s heart raced and his veins flowed with ice. The tears just kept coming.

I’m dreaming, I must be dreaming. Poe pulled his knees to his chest and buried his head in his knees, squeezing his eyes shut. Kylo Ren was in his brain, right there. He remembered the moment Kylo got it out of him. He hadn’t been strong enough. Shame threatened to swallow him whole right then. It’s my fault, it was all my fault. None of this would have happened if I hadn’t given up the base.

“Fuck,” Poe sobbed. “ Fuck , it’s my fault.” His chest heaved. I shouldn’t even be feeling this way, he thought. I can handle rejection and this has nothing to do with Finn-

Finn. He remembered with a certain clarity the moment Finn removed his stormtrooper helmet. “ This is a rescue. ” He remembered Finn wearing his jacket, and the careful way that he had tucked the blanket under Rose’s chin. Finn was so good . But for a split second, Poe thought it might have been better if he had never been rescued at all. So many less people would have died at his hand. Rose’s sister would still be here.

Poe Dameron did not want to be Poe Dameron anymore. It turns out that being the best pilot in the galaxy weighed heavy on one’s shoulders. All he wanted was to sleep, to just sleep and forget and not wake up.

Distantly he heard BB-8’s trademark warble calling out for him. [ Poe, Master-Poe; where are you? Don’t make me alert the general. ]

Poe huffed and stood up. He quickly wiped snotty tears on his shirt and wrung out his hands. He couldn’t let BB-8 see him like this. Slowly he walked to his droid.

“I’m over here buddy,” Poe knelt down and hugged his droid.

[ Poe… ]

“I’m fine, buddy. Let’s go to bed.”

[ Poe does not seem ‘fine.’ ] His eyes were red and his hair was a mess. His hands trembled and his voice quaked. [ Was Master-Poe having a panic attack? ]

“I’ll postpone your matienience if you keep this you yourself,” Poe offered.

After some careful consideration, the droid beeped, [ Deal. ] BB-8 happily rolled back to base.

Poe fell asleep quickly once back in his quarters, exhausted from his crying fit. He slept peacefully for a few hours when he was awoken by the sound of his door sliding open.

He tried to lift his head and call out but no words came. A tall black figure stood in the doorway. For several minutes the figure stood, unmoving, and Poe could not break his stare. He tried to move, to do anything, but his body wasn’t responding. The black figure took several slow steps towards him. He was at his bedside now, but Poe still could not see his face. He heard a click. Kylo Ren’s lightsaber roared to life. Leia Organa's son raised his arm ready to strike.

Poe was awoken by his own tongue-tied shout. It took a few moments for his eyes to focus. He was facing the wall of his bunk but he could sense something standing beside him. He was afraid of what he might find if he turned his head.

[ General-Leia wants to see you right away, Master-Poe. ] BB-8 beeped helpfully. Poe groaned and flopped onto his back. He did not want to fight with Leia.

“General,” Poe stood at attention. “You wanted to see me?”

“At ease, Captain.” Leia smiled at him, and though Poe had relaxed, there was an uneasy tension. He could not meet her eyes more than a few seconds at a time. “Please sit. There is something I wanted to talk to you about.”

Poe obeyed, taking a seat at across from Leia at her desk. Poe looked past her at the Rebel flag hanging on the duracrete wall behind her.

“Now that we have settled into the new base, I was thinking it was time we honored our dead.” Poe nodded. “I was hoping you would say a few words.”

Poe didn’t respond.

“Poe?”

“I don’t want to.”

She sighed. “Poe, Crait happened. The Dreadnaught happened. It’s time to cut our losses and move on.” Leia said.

“All due respect,” Poe said bitterly, “But if I recall you criticized my choices, and now you want me to memorialize them?”

“Poe.” Leia said sternly. His jaw tightened. He did not want to fight with Princess Leia, his mothers oldest friend.

“Fine.” Poe said. “May I leave?”

Leia inhaled. There was still so much more to say. So much she still needed to apologize for. But this was so much bigger than one fight. War, was complicated and messy, and she needed to find words that were enough for that. “Poe. I,” she paused.

Poe would rather be anywhere else but here. Leia knew this. It was easy to talk through the most logical action when you weren’t holding up the roof and knee-deep in it, like Poe had done on her behalf so many times. It was easy to call off an attack from the safety of the bridge when your best friends weren’t dying in real time around you.

“You may.” As Poe got up to leave, Leia shut her eyes and pinched the bridge of her nose. Surrogate sons were no easier than biological sons, Leia had discovered.

Later in the day, Poe contemplated his new task while he repaired old equipment on the previously abandoned rebel base. He was laying on his back underneath inside a dusty durastele cabinet, rewiring colorful circuits. It was not unusual for the general to ask the impossible of him. It’s just that if you do the impossible once, he had found, they don’t stop asking. Poe was tired. Broken like a scratched holovid, replaying the same scenes over, and over, and over again, ad nauseum. His conversation with Leia skipped in his head, superimposed on images of that week.

Kylo Ren, her son, had tortured him; an abuse that had left him on his side. And she protected him. Of course, she had. It was a bitter reminder who was Leia’s true son. She had slapped him, humiliated him, and finally shot him. Maybe he half deserved it, he wondered.

He zapped himself on one of the wires. An expletive escaped his mouth. He couldn’t say he was surprised that had happened. It seemed the Force’s way of reminding him of his place. He hadn’t forgotten; it was so shameful to say that Leia had in any way been inadequate. War was a profound sacrifice. Parenthood was a profound sacrifice.

But goddamn his mother and his father, this life that they had set him up for. He half loathed them, and fully loved them for it. He wanted to so badly to be able to blame someone, blame his mother for leaving him behind, for leaving him looking for mothers in inappropriate, authoritative positions. But he couldn’t blame her. Whether she lived or died, Poe would have likely still found his way to the resistance; that’s just the kind of person he was. He probably would have loved Leia just as fiercely because that’s just the kind of woman she was.

Poe swore again, and this time not because the wires had shocked him. The apple doesn’t fall too far from the tree, after all.

The next afternoon, Poe had tasked Rey with helping him search the basement of the old Rebel base for supplies for the memorial. Lights flickered in damp tunnels underneath the base. BB-8 quietly rolled alongside them, projecting a shining light. “So do you know where this supply closet is?” Rey asked. She idly kicked a pebble as Poe ducked his head into a room, he and BB-8 giving it a once over.

“Leia said it would be somewhere in one of these rooms,” Poe called from inside the room.

“Right. How is that, by the way, you and Leia? Finn told me what happened on the bridge.” Poe stepped out into the hallway again and gave her a dead-eye stare. “Oookay, forget I asked.”

Rey brushed her fingers over cobwebbed walls. These halls bore too much resemblance to the one she had found Luke Skywalker’s lightsaber in.

“Have you ever held a memorial before?” Rey changed the subject. Poe shook his head. “I spoke at my mothers funeral.”

Blast, she thought. “ Oh, Poe. I’m sorry. I didn’t know that you had…” It suddenly made sense, his relationship with Leia. She was clearly more to him than a commanding officer.

“S’okay Rey, you didn’t know.” He said with a weakly reassuring smile. He clapped her on the shoulder. “We’re at war. Everybody’s lost somebody.”

Rey pressed her lips together. “I know. I mean- My parents, they left me on Jakku.” Rey said.

“I’m sorry to hear that, Rey.” he said.

“Were you close with your mother?” Rey asked as she ducked her head into another room. Then, “Poe, I think this is it.” Her hands fumbled in the dark and found an exposed lightswitch. The fluorescent lights flickered over head. They were in a medium sized room with aluminum shelves lining the walls. On the largest shelf on the far wall, a stack of Rebel flags sat folded. On the shelf above them, several scraped up helmets left over from the Rebel Alliance sat covered in dust. Poe stepped forward and picked one up, dusting it off.

“I learned how to fly on my mother's knee.” He said, placing the helmet on Rey’s head. It was too large for her and fell to one side. Poe bopped her on the head, which only exaggerated the tilt. “There. Fits like a glove.” Poe grinned, and Rey grinned back. Rey didn’t know what a brother, or a friend, for that matter was supposed to feel like, but she thought that Poe must be pretty close to the real thing.

Rey and Poe had, with the help of BB-8, dragged crates of helmets and flags to the main hall of the base. At the front of the large room, Poe arranged the crates in a horizontal line, one for each of the transports and main fleets that had been taken out by the First Order. Traditionally, Poe had said, that a kind of battlefield cross would have been made for each fallen member of the resistance. However, it was glaringly obvious that they didn't have nearly enough resources for the kind of large-scale loss they had suffered. Rey was unsure of what to expect for a Resistance memorial service. But as she helped Poe set up for it the afternoon of, she couldn't shake the weighty feeling of tradition and ritual. Rey watched as with great reverence Poe draped the Rebel flag over each crate, the Rebel insignia hanging in front. Then, Poe took a helmet and placed one atop each draped crate.

With the stage set for the memorial, Poe left for his barracks to go over once more what he had planned to say. This was not to say that he something planned at all. What could he possibly say?

The thing about war in intergalactic space is that while there were often casualties, there were not often bodies. In his more halcyon, hopeful days, Poe liked to believe that if we were vaporized in war, then whatever weird, vague, nebulous shit we were made of would join with the Force or some Luke Skywalker shit like that.

Now, however, Poe questions what an “instant” death really means. He wonders about the nature of matter and if we really are greater than the sum of our parts. Nihilism never looked good on him, but he isn’t quite sure this whole Force thing means anything. Maybe we are all fighting for nothing, delaying nothing, he thinks. But he has to believe anyway because if it really is all for nothing, if Rose’s sister died for nothing, that might be worse than not knowing.

After setting up the display, Poe returned to his room on base to prepare for the service. When he entered the room Poe didn't bother flicking on the lights; he knew just what he would see. Bed sheets hung halfway off the bed in a tangled mess, a small pile of dirty clothes at the foot of the bed. Poe's usually fairly neat desk was strewn with loose papers, garbage, and spare parts for BB-8. The trash overflowed. Poe's holo-communicator blinked on the nightstand next to his bed. In the dim light of the early evening, Poe went to his closet and rifled through a basket of clothes. Poe picked up a grey button up shirt and sniffed it. Deciding that it met the bare minimum requirements, he swapped it with his other shirt. Poe quickly ducked into the bathroom, raking his fingers through his curly dark hair, but he couldn’t be bothered to do much more than that. It was good enough; appearances hardly mattered when everyone else feels like shit. Poe yanked on his jacket and went out the door.

Quietly the Resistance filed into the hall that evening. Rey and BB-8 had made quick work of setting up enough chairs for everyone in two columns. Poe paced about nervously greeting members of the Resistance. He played the part of ‘fearless leader,’ but inside he felt sheepish. Leia wore one of her glorious robes. She graciously walked from person to person, shaking the hands of low-level Resistance members, offering condolences, sharing memories. ‘ She truly is royalty,’ Poe thought. It occurred to Poe then that Leia had lost someone dear to her too.

The ceremony started on time, though Poe wished he could have delayed it just another moment. Quietly Leia took a seat behind the small tribute Rey and Poe had arranged. Rey sat in the first row, BB-8 seated next to her on the inner edge of the aisle. Beside her sat Finn. Rose cast her eyes downward as she walked into the room. She sat beside Finn. Finn gently placed an arm around her shoulder, but she shrugged it off. Finn placed his hands in his lap, fidgeting. There was a chasm between them.

Leia climbed to the podium to give an outline of the evening's plans. "We are gathered here to mourn our dead. After a few remarks from Captain Dameron, we will leave time for those who wish to spend a moment. Afterwards, there will be refreshments. We also invite anyone who is struggling at this time to visit the medbay for counseling." Someone in the audience scoffed. "Captain Dameron, the time is yours." Though Poe was a few steps from the podium, the journey seemed to take an eternity. Perhaps for those who did not know him well, Poe seemed to be coping, but the way he carried himself was louder than silence.

Grimly, Poe looked over the audience. Leia and Admiral Holdo were in the back of his mind. He is dangerous. He is volatile. And goddamn he has no right to be here. Finn looked to Rey. Rey merely shrugged. Poe had not told her what he had planned for the memorial, but something told her this was not it. In the silence, one could hear three things: BB-8 quietly whirring, a few idle coughs, and several sniffles and choked sobs. Rey silently communicated with Poe the best she could. She wasn't exactly sure how the Force worked in a lot of ways, especially regarding mind reading and such, but she hoped and prayed that her thoughts were loud enough for Poe to hear. 'You can do this.'

Finally, Poe lifted his head and cleared his throat.

'Reckless flyboy.'

“I know that this has been a hard few days, hell, it's been a hard few months... There has been more than enough to go around lately." then Poe laughed uncomfortably. Rose did not look up when Poe began speaking.

"There will be more to come. But listen to me,” Poe raised a finger, and nervously licked his lips. “I was aboard the ship of the First Order. These bastards don't care about anything. They will do what they must to get what they want. They are cynical and calculating. I know the odds are stacked against us…” Poe clasped his hands, he started and stopped again. Finally, he said, “This loss hurts. It hurts because it matters."

Rose finally raised her head, but Poe could not hold her gaze for more than a few seconds. He looked to Finn. Finn’s gaze held steady. "Don’t let the First Order take that away from you. If we are to have a fighting chance, you cannot become like them. You must refuse to join them. This hurt is the difference between us and them. On the memory of those taken from us, every night we survive, even if it is just one more day, it is total victory again and again. If you make it to midnight tonight, you can make it tomorrow.” Poe said the words with shaky confidence. He believed them, yeah, he had to believe his own words because the survival of the resistance depended on it, but even they could not fix the bottom line: He can’t look Rose in the eye because he got her sister killed and he’s in love with her boyfriend.

Poe returned to his seat at the front next to the general. Leia stood and dismissed the mourners. Poe sat hands clasped in his lap, head down low. He felt a gentle hand on his shoulder. “You did good, Poe,” Leia said. Poe said nothing. She seemed so much older than she had weeks ago. Poe looked past her and saw Rey smiling gently at him; Finn comforted Rose. Poe could hardly be mad at him, Finn was a good man. A tear missed his cheek and hit the floor.

Poe felt like a walking wound.

After the memorial service, the majority of the rebels shuffle to the mess hall for supper. Leia watched as Poe slunk away from the group and walked lonely down the hall to his quarters. Not even his faithful droid was with him.

The walls seemed to close around him as he walked. Leia felt an ocean of distance from where he needed her to be. From the back of his head, Poe looks so much like her, Leia thinks. She knows this is hardly the life Shara Bey would have chosen for her son, after all, she sacrificed for a better world for him.

But watching Poe walk down the back of the hall, his head of dark curls and the way he carried himself each gifts from his mother, Leia can’t help but feel that Poe is so himself that in past lives and future lives, it would always end the same: He would get himself killed fighting for a cause that he believed in.

Leia wondered now if her old friend could see her son now. Shara do you know you have a beautiful son? She wondered.

#fanfic #fanfiction #poe dameron #poe dameron fanfic #angst #star wars #star wars fanfiction #rey #finn #rose tico #reyrose #finnpoe #a writes #scorpio rising

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