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7-wonders · 11 months

Text

To the world we dream about (and the one we live in now)

Calliope & Reader, Morpheus/Dream of the Endless & Reader

Summary: Being in the right place at the right time turns everything you thought you knew on its head when a woman, imprisoned and battered, is literally thrown into your life. Left with no choice but to do the obvious, you offer her shelter and support in her time of need.

Unbeknownst to you, said woman is a powerful and ancient being who now belongs to you in accordance with the old laws. This situation definitely won’t become complicated, right?

Word Count: 14.5k

Author's Note: A couple of months ago, I received an ask, seen below, and have not been able to stop thinking about it since. After a lot of brainstorming with the wonderful sender of the ask (not sure if they want to be named!), I finally sat down to write it.

So, here we are! This story took on a mind of its own the longer I wrote (perhaps the Muse Calliope paid me a visit haha), and it's genuinely something that I'm so proud to have produced. It's not necessarily an x reader fic—right now, though depending on reader reaction there may be future parts (including a Calliope/Morpheus POV of these events)—so I absolutely understand if you choose not to read, but I hope that you do. In the end, this is truly Calliope's story.

A story of empowerment, friendship, freedom, and self-discovery.

Content warnings for this work include allusions to sexual assault, general trauma, Richard Madoc, vomiting, kidnapping, realizations of inadvertent kidnapping, mentions of death, and Nightmare!Morpheus. Reader discretion is advised.

The man standing at the front of the room taps his fingers along the edge of his lectern, savoring the enraptured faces that stare back at him. For those in his class, this is expected of him—he always gets a dramatic air about him when he’s on the verge of making the point that he had been working towards for the entire lecture and looping it back to the thesis statement from the beginning of the hour. Though it was routine by now, practically tradition, the students still ate it up every time.

“The theme between all of these authors–the Fitzgeralds and the Hemingways, the Tolkeins and the Orwells–is that their words carry power and strength. While they may look like mere letters strung together on a sheet of paper, when read together, these words have a weight behind them. They can conjure up worlds, inspire the masses, make readers think critically; it’s a type of magic when you really think about it.”

He checks his watch before clapping his hands together in finality and smiling out at the room.

“Well, my friends, I’m afraid that’s all the time we have today. Thank you very much for joining me, and please make sure that you have your essays on the influences of World War One and its aftermath on the literature of the time ready for our next class. See you then!”

When your university announced that world-renowned author Ric Madoc would be a visiting professor for the semester, you immediately jumped on the long list of students interested in taking one of the three classes that were going to be taught by him. You had absolutely no hope that you would get into the class, not when it seemed like half the student body was also signed up, but you had to at least try. The Spirit Who Had Half of Everything was one of your favorite books of all time, and you’d be remiss not to attempt to learn from the master himself.

Somehow, much to your surprise, you had received an email informing you that you earned a spot in Madoc’s “Great Works of the 20th Century” class. The class had lived up to the hype so far and you were thoroughly enjoying it, even though it wasn’t exactly related to your field of study. In fact, you enjoyed it so much that you normally stayed behind with a group of students to continue having a discussion with Madoc about the aforementioned great works. Today, unfortunately, you couldn’t, having to rush out immediately after class was over to make it to your group project meeting in the library on time.

Of course, it’s difficult to get any sort of work done when one happens to be randomly paired with their best friend, but you’re trying your hardest.

“Psst.” You don’t look up, choosing instead to try and finish the sentence you’re writing, but a balled-up gum wrapper hits you smack in the center of the forehead. “Hey!”

After you’ve finished typing, you look across the table at Evie, your best friend. “Can I help you?” you ask.

“Do you wanna come out with me and a couple of others tonight?”

“It’s Thursday.”

She shrugs. “So?”

Points were made, and who are you to resist a good argument? “Convincing. I’m in! I just have to run home real quick and get changed.”

As you search through your bag, you start to feel your heart plummeting in your chest as you realize that you can’t find your keys. Digging through the contents furiously in the hopes that they’ll turn up yields no results, and neither does patting at the pockets you know are empty. With horror in your eyes and fear in your heart, you look back up at her.

“Fuck, I lost my keys.”

“Shit, dude. Do you remember where you last had them?”

“Um.”

You have to think for a moment, mentally retracing your steps until you can definitively pinpoint the last time you saw your keys. They were with you in the parking lot, because you remember locking your car twice just to be sure that you did. From there, you would have been holding them in your hand as you walked to Madoc’s class. Considering you went straight from class to the library, there are limited options for where they could be. Either you left them in the lecture hall or you dropped them somewhere on campus. For your sake, you hope it’s the former.

On the syllabus, Madoc had given the class his work cell phone number in case of emergencies like being unable to make it to class or an act of God destroying your homework. Though you doubted you would need it at the time, you still saved it in your phone to be on the safe side. Now, as you pull up his contact and start a new conversation, you thank past-you for having such good foresight.

You: Hey, great class today! Did you happen to find a set of keys left behind in the lecture hall? I’m missing mine.

After a second of contemplation, you send another text with your first and last name when you realize he probably doesn’t know who it is texting him. It only takes a couple of anxious minutes before your phone chimes.

Richard Madoc: Hello! Would these happen to be the keys in question?

Richard Madoc: Attachment

The keys are immediately recognizable as yours, thanks to the keychain of a possum wearing a cowboy hat that’s attached to them. You sigh in immense relief before glancing up at Evie, who’s been watching with bated breath the entire time. “I left them in Madoc’s class.”

“Oh thank god!”

You: They are! Any chance you’re still on campus so I can swing by and grab them?

Richard Madoc: I’m afraid I’ve already left for the day, but I live pretty close to the uni if you’d be willing to pick them up from my flat.

He sends an address in the following text, which you promptly input in your maps app so you can see where said address is located. It’s maybe a five-minute drive from campus and conveniently located in the direction of your apartment.

You: Will be there in a bit! Thank you :)

“He already left, I’d have to pick them up from his place,” you explain.

Evie immediately fixes you with a look, one that says she’s seen this particular move before (and she didn’t like the ending). “Do you want me to come with you?”

The unspoken words hang in the air between you: Do you feel safe going to an unfamiliar man’s house alone? Should I come to make sure nothing bad happens? It’s very thoughtful of her, and you consider saying yes for a moment.

But Evie lives in the opposite direction of you, and she doesn’t have a car. While you don’t know Madoc well, you’re also not expecting him to try anything on you, especially when it’s still light out.

“I should be okay,” you say.

“You’re sure?” Evie double-checks, and you nod. “Call me before you get there, okay? Just…have me on the line, in your back pocket. It’d make me feel better about letting you go on your own.”

How did you get so lucky to have such a great friend like Evie? Of course, you would do the same for Evie in a heartbeat, but it’s so nice to have found a kindred spirit, someone who truly understands you and all your little quirks, so early in your adulthood.

“You’re not letting me do anything,” you tease. “But yeah, I’ll call you when I get there.”

“Thank you,” she says sincerely, sliding her papers and her laptop into her backpack. “Now let’s go. The sooner you get your keys, the sooner we can go and get drunk.”

It feels a little dumb to be driving such a short distance, from the campus to the address that Madoc had given you. You’re exactly the type of person that’s killing the planet with unnecessary carbon emissions when you could just as easily walk, you chastise yourself on the way over.

But you had driven to class this morning, that being a distance actually too far to walk, and it would be stupid to walk to Madoc’s, get your keys, walk back to campus, and then drive home. So here you are, beating yourself up over something stupid and inconsequential while you try your best to parallel park in a respectable manner in front of Madoc’s little townhouse.

It’s exactly the type of lodgings you’d expect a university professor to have, yet almost the opposite of what you envisioned as a successful author’s home; a small, yet stately, townhouse with a little fenced-in front yard. Plants try their hardest to survive in the patch of dirt that’s probably supposed to be a garden, and there’s a small chair and table perfect for Sunday mornings sitting on the front stoop.

The gate creaks when you open it, and even more when you close it behind you. At the last second, you remember that you promised to call Evie, so you pull out your phone and do just that.

“Hey, you there?” Evie answers her phone.

“Yeah, just got here. Putting you in my pocket now.”

Even though the idea felt a little like an overreaction, you can’t deny that you feel safer now knowing that Evie’s listening on the phone.

You knock on the dark blue front door once, twice, three times before taking a step back and waiting patiently. After about thirty seconds, you start to worry that Madoc’s not home. But no, that wouldn’t make sense; you talked to him maybe half an hour ago, and he knew that you were on your way to pick up your keys. Frowning, you knock again, followed by holding your ear to the door to see if you can hear anything.

He’s definitely inside. Though the sound is muffled, you can hear what sounds like him yelling at somebody through the door. Who the source of his ire is, you can’t say, because there’s nobody saying anything back to him. Maybe he’s having a really heated conversation on the phone? If that’s the case, it’s a pretty inconvenient time to launch into a virtual argument.

You don’t want to be rude and knock for a third separate time, but you really do need your keys, and you’d prefer to not be kept standing out here waiting. Begrudgingly, you knock yet again, putting a considerable amount of force behind it this time.

“Mr. Madoc?” you call through the door, raising your voice enough that you’re sure he’s heard you. By the way that he suddenly falls silent, you’re assuming that you’ve been successful. Pulling back from your position right up against the door, you wait for him to appear.

When the door is yanked open, you’re shocked at what you see. Gone is the confident lecturer who stood at the front of your class this afternoon. The man in front of you looks positively haggard. His eyes are bloodshot and red-rimmed, and his bottom lip quivers almost as furiously as his hands shake. His hair is a mess, as though he’s been pulling at it, and his shirt is weirdly rumpled like he fell asleep in it.

You take a big step back when his eyes land wildly on you without really seeing you. Your hand goes to your back pocket, hovering just above your phone in case this encounter goes south and you need to have Evie do…something. Call the cops? Yell at Madoc through the phone? Scream? Whatever it is, though, she’ll do it for you.

“Hi. Um, you–”

Madoc shakes his head back and forth and begins to mumble something, completely ignoring you and your presence. He reaches one of his hands further inside the house, grabbing at something unseen. Your body tenses, preparing to fight this man that, up until two minutes ago, you had believed to be completely sane and rational.

His hand comes back into view, tightly gripping a woman’s upper arm. She’s barefoot and clad only in a thin silk nightgown, and you can see the goosebumps already appearing on her skin.

“A city in which the streets are paved with time,” he mumbles a little louder, allowing you to hear what he’s rambling about. “A train full of silent women, plowing forever through the twilight. Heads made of light. A small piece of blue cardboard. A plum, sweet and tart and cold.”

“Mr. Madoc, are you alright?”

Instead of answering you, Madoc throws the woman across the threshold and towards you. You catch her in your arms, both of you stumbling backward, but you let go when you notice how she immediately tenses at your touch.

“She’s your problem now, I can’t do this anymore!” Madoc begins to pull at his hair, so hard that you think he might end up pulling it out of his head. “I refuse to be tortured any longer!”

“What are you talking about?”

He’s lost his damn mind, you think to yourself as he continues to spout the most random of ideas. You thought that you had properly calculated the risks of coming over here on your own, but apparently, you’re bad at math.

“A were-goldfish who transforms into a wolf at full moon. Griffins shouldn’t marry. Vampires don’t dance.” Madoc shakes and smacks himself multiple times as if to try and snap himself out of whatever he’s gotten into. “A man who inherits a library card to the library in Alexandria. A rose bush, a nightingale, and a black rubber dog collar!”

You’re so thrown off by what you’re witnessing that you don’t even realize he’s closing the door until the sound of it hitting the doorframe reminds you why you’re here. You bang your fist against the door and yell at him, “Hey! Give me my fucking keys!”

Madoc opens the door just enough to throw your keys at you, which you fumble and nearly drop until catching them by the stupid cowboy possum keychain, before slamming it shut again. From within, you can hear several locks clicking shut loudly in quick succession.

The speed with which this entire interaction has occurred leaves your head spinning, and you have to take a moment to realize that yes, what you just experienced was real. Even then, you stare at the door bemusedly. “What the fuck?”

“I do not believe he will be coming back,” an accented voice says from behind you.

You can’t stop the little scream of surprise that leaves you when you whip around to face the woman who, until this moment, you forgot had been kicked out of Madoc’s house. She stares at you, just as warily as you’re probably staring at her.

She’s otherworldly beautiful, with olive skin, dark hair, and dark eyes. But what stands out the most is just how visibly scared she is. She watches you like you’re a predator readying to attack. You hate it because you’d never do anything like that to anybody, but especially her. What had Madoc done to cause her to have this reaction to a stranger?

Evie’s voice rises tinnily from the phone in your back pocket, loud and panicked, and you remember that she’s been on the phone this whole time. You pull your phone out and hold it up to your ear, having to put a little distance between it due to how she’s yelling.

“—I swear, I’m two seconds away from calling the cops! Please just let me know you’re okay!”

“Evie, hey, I’m here,” you say, making her cry out in relief.

“Oh my god, are you okay? I was scared when I heard yelling!”

“Yeah, yeah, I’m alright. Pretty sure I just watched Madoc have a mental breakdown?” Is that what that was? You can’t say for certain, considering this is your first such occasion.

“Seriously? Well, did you get your keys, at least?”

“After he finished rambling about were-goldfish and plums.”

“Jesus Christ. Are you going to call somebody?”

“Who would I call? And anyway, maybe this is normal for him.”

“If that’s normal, I’d hate to see what abnormal is.” She sighs. “So, I’ll see you soon?”

“Um,” you trail off, looking at the woman. “Y’know, I might take a rain check, if that’s okay. I’m a little shaken up by everything that just happened.”

“I bet, that sounds like it was really scary. We’ll miss you, but take care of yourself. If you do decide to come out, just text me and I’ll tell you where we’re at.”

“Thanks, Ev. I’ll, uh, talk to you soon.”

You hang up the phone, and now you and the woman are left awkwardly staring at each other. How are you supposed to approach a situation like this? Sliding your phone back into your pocket, you hold your hands with the palms facing out so that she can see you’re not holding any weapons and decide to just start from the beginning.

“Hi.”

She nods back in greeting, trying to hold herself with as much dignity as she can in this situation. The chill of the night and her lack of proper clothing leave her trembling in front of you, though some of that is likely from fear too, and you can see bruises in various shades of healing up and down her arms. Worse, there are visible fingerprint-shaped bruises ringing her neck. Though you’ve never been particularly violent, you’re tempted to break down Madoc’s door and do unto him what he’s obviously done to this woman.

“Are you cold? I have a spare jacket if you want it.” You point the hundred or so feet to where your car sits. “Here, let’s go over to my car, I’m just parked on the street right there.”

The woman attempts to gauge you and, presumably, your intentions. Though this is her decision to make, you give her a friendly smile in the hopes of convincing her that you have no ill will toward her. After a moment, she nods hesitantly.

You take the lead as you walk down the front path to your car, mainly to show that she holds the power here. There will be nobody sneaking up on this woman or trying anything, and she’s free to run far away from you if that’s what she chooses.

Still, she follows you, and waits patiently while you dig around in your back seat until you finally come up with the light jacket that you had tossed back there after an outdoor movie night. You hand it to her and she shrugs it on, holding it tightly around her and trying to hide within the cotton fabric.

You don’t want to ask the question that’s on your mind, but you know that you have to. You need some sort of context for the situation. “Was…Madoc keeping you locked up in there?” She nods, and you feel your stomach roil with sick nausea. “Okay. We need to call the cops, so they can come and arrest him.”

“No!” she says firmly, a departure from how soft-spoken she previously was. “Please, I beg you, no authorities.”

“But…”

Maybe he hadn’t kidnapped her like you found yourself assuming at first. Perhaps this is a severe case of domestic violence? Regardless, she looks like the poster child for abused women, and you’re not about to disrespect her wishes when this is probably the first choice she’s been able to make for herself in a long time.

“Okay,” you agree. “No cops.”

“Thank you.” She sounds so relieved that it makes you want to cry.

An idea begins to form in your head, but one that you’re not sure how to begin to broach. After all, the woman in front of you has absolutely no reason to trust you. “I’m guessing you don’t have anywhere to go?”

She shakes her head. “No, I have…nowhere, and nobody.”

That settles it. You’re not about to leave a battered, formerly-trapped woman to fend for herself on the streets. “So listen. I have a spare room at my place, and you’re completely welcome to it for as long as you need.”

“Oh, I could not impose.”

“You wouldn’t be!” you assure her. “Please, it’s the least I can do. At least until you get back on your feet.”

She studies you again. Though you don’t know what she’s looking for, you can tell that she’s the kind of intuitive person that sees beyond that which is only skin-deep. Finally, she says, “Alright.”

You grin and open the passenger side door, gesturing for her to get in. “Alright.”

After getting the car started and the heat turned up all the way, you watch as the woman fiddles with the airflow of the heater until it’s blowing directly on her delicate hands, which she holds in front of her to warm up. She looks at you as if realizing for the first time that you could betray her trust much in the same way as Ric Madoc had. To prove to her that you won’t, you unlock the doors when they try to lock automatically in response to you putting the car in ‘drive’.

You tell her your name, and for the first time, she smiles. It’s a small thing, barely a quirk of the lips, but it’s there. “I am Calliope.”

“Oh cool, like the Muse!” Her smile widens until she’s actually smiling, leaving you delighted. “Your parents were into Greek mythology, then?”

“Something like that, yes.”

As you drive to your apartment, Calliope turns in her seat and watches as Madoc’s apartment grows smaller and smaller behind your car. Even after it’s disappeared behind turns and other buildings, she still watches, perhaps waiting for him to come back to his senses and come after her. But there will be none of that tonight, or ever again. Not as long as you have anything to do about it.

When you get home, you continue the routine of taking the lead and allowing Calliope to decide whether or not she wants to follow you. Calliope lingers in the entryway of your apartment, taking her time carefully cataloging everything that she can see as you work at getting the lights turned on and trying to clean up a little bit—after all, you hadn’t exactly expected a houseguest when you left for class this morning.

She runs her fingers along the walls and the frames of artwork that you’ve acquired at festivals and flea markets. She feels the coats on your coat rack, and her dark, inquisitive eyes scan over the battered toaster and soft fruit in your kitchen. As she walks further into your home, she takes care to take up as little space as possible until she reaches where you stand in front of a closed door.

“My old roommate moved in with their girlfriend a couple of months ago, and they don’t know what they want to do with her furniture, so they’re just storing it here until they can figure it out,” you explain as you open the door and flick on the light switch to reveal a bare bedroom. It’s sparsely furnished, with just a full bed, a nightstand, a dresser, and a desk and chair. “Now, it’s yours.”

“Mine?”

“For as long as you need it,” you repeat.

Hesitantly stepping inside, Calliope looks over the room before nodding in satisfaction. You can only hope that she had a space of her own in Madoc’s house, but by the way that she looks around like she’s never seen something so wonderful as an empty bedroom before, you’re left with a sinking feeling that this wasn’t the case.

“So! I’ll grab some sheets and a blanket from the linen closet and get the bed made up for you. Um, all of the doors lock on the inside, so feel free to keep yourself and your space private. Do you want to take a shower? Because you definitely can. Avery—that’s my old roommate—left some of the clothes they didn’t want behind, and they’re about your size, I think.” You’re rambling, but you just want to make her feel as welcome as possible.

“A shower would be…nice,” Calliope decides.

“Awesome! The bathroom’s right through here, c’mon.”

In the bathroom, Calliope watches as you grab a couple of towels from the closet, along with the sheets and blanket you mentioned earlier. You set the towels down on the closed toilet lid next to the shower.

“Feel free to use any of my stuff here, it’s totally fine,” you explain, pulling back the shower curtain so Calliope can see your haircare products and body wash.

Instead of looking over that array, she simply stares at the chrome of the shower faucet in confusion.

“Oh yeah, the shower’s a little weird here. All you have to do is turn the handle, and then pull the plug on the faucet for the shower.” You show her as you explain it. “Turn the handle left for hot water, and right for cold. Got it?”

“I believe so.”

“Alright, I’ll leave you to it, then. Just yell if you need anything from me.”

You close the bathroom door behind you and after a long moment, you finally hear the lock turn.

Good. In the meantime, you’ll make a quick meal for her, in case she’s hungry. Plus, you need to keep your hands busy. It will help take your mind off of the horrors you’re trying desperately to forget that you witnessed.

•••

Four days later, Evie runs up to you on campus when she sees you and wraps both of her hands around your upper arm before pulling you towards her. “Did you hear?”

“What?” You’re more focused on not falling over your feet at the sudden change of pace you’ve been forced into than you are wondering what you did or didn’t hear.

“You were right. Mr. Madoc had a complete mental breakdown! Somebody called in a welfare check on him, and the cops found him curled up in a ball mumbling gibberish. He hadn’t moved for days. You know the worst part, though?”

You shake your head.

“He covered every single wall of his house with the most random words and phrases, and they were all written in his own blood.”

You reel back. “Jesus!”

“I know, totally gory.” By her laugh, you can tell that she enjoys the gore.

It’s at this moment that you realize that you haven’t told Evie anything about what happened after you hung up with her that night. It certainly wasn’t deliberate; you’ve just been so caught up in the sudden change in your living arrangements that you haven’t had the time to text or call her about what you went through.

With that in mind, you say, “I have something to tell you.”

Evie’s eyes immediately light up at the prospect of gossip. “You do?”

You nod. “That night, when I went to his house? He grabbed this woman from inside his house and just threw her at me, saying that she was my problem now. She was all bruised and wearing nothing but a nightgown, and he treated her like she was his property. Evie, she said he kept her trapped there.”

“What the fuck.” Evie stares at you in horror. “Is she okay now?”

“Physically, yeah. She’s staying with me.”

“At your apartment?”

“Where else? Her name’s Calliope. I’m letting her stay in Avery’s old room until she gets back on her feet again.”

Evie whistles lowly. “I can’t tell if that’s kind of you or stupid of you.”

“Probably both.”

“Yeah, probably.”

As you walk, an astute observation comes to your mind. “Y’know, it makes sense that he’s such a piece of shit. Now that I think about it, the only authors we ever discussed in class were white guys.”

“Hmm, typical white man.” Evie rolls her eyes before she grins. “Hey, can I meet her?”

“Calliope?”

“Who else?”

You have to think about that for a minute. Would she be comfortable with meeting new people and putting herself out there? While you think that your friends are great, especially Evie, you just don’t want to force her into anything before she’s ready.

Evie seems to sense this hesitation, and explains, “She just seems like she needs some friends. A support system might be good for her while she tries to get her life back!”

“I can’t make any promises, but I’ll ask her if she wants to do something like that.”

“That’s all I ask,” Evie says. “In the meantime, is there anything that I can do to help? Like, does she need clothes? Kiara’s aunt owns that boutique, and she would probably be willing to help out.”

That’s a good idea and one that you hadn’t even considered. Obviously, Calliope’s going to want some clothes of her own instead of Avery’s hand-me-downs. It’ll probably help her to feel more like a human being, one with choice and agency over herself.

“Oh, would you ask her to talk to her aunt?” you ask. “That’d be great.”

Evie nods. “Definitely. I feel like that’s, like, the least I can do.”

“I wish there was more that I could do,” you admit.

“You’re doing what you can, and that’s what matters. Hell, most people wouldn’t have even offered to let a woman in Calliope’s situation stay with them. You’re a good person, you know that?”

“Thanks.”

“Eh, what are friends for, if not to reassure you that taking in a random woman on a whim is the right idea?” You huff in mock anger, and Evie laughs. “Anyways, you’ll never guess what the university is trying to do about the whole Madoc situation now…”

•••

Calliope doesn’t come out of her room when you’re around, not that you blame her. If you had gone through even an ounce of what you suspect she had, you’d want to be safe and alone for a long time, no matter how nice your new roommate is (and you like to think you’re pretty nice). You hear her sneak around when she knows that you’re in your own bedroom, as quiet as a mouse, and every night without fail, she takes a long shower. Other than that, it feels like you’re still living alone.

Since you don’t know how often she’s eating, and she doesn’t leave dishes or any sort of indication that she’s getting food for herself, you leave meals out in front of her door for her, breakfast, lunch, and dinner. Sticky notes accompany them, because you have things that you want her to know and this is the only way to communicate with her right now.

“Feel free to grab food from the kitchen whenever you want!”

“I have great books, and you’re more than welcome to them.”

“If you find yourself wanting to watch TV, the remote is on the coffee table!”

Each message is signed with a smiley face, and each one is gone when the empty tray is returned outside her door.

The empty trays and, eventually, the books that go missing from your bookshelf are the only signs of life that you receive from Calliope.

When Calliope finally emerges while you’re home and not in your room, it’s six days after Ric Madoc threw her into your arms. You’re sitting on your couch reading fanfiction, a random YouTube video playing in the background when Calliope’s door creaks open and she peeks her head out hesitantly. Immediately you pause the video, smiling brightly when she notices you looking at her.

“Hi!” you greet.

“Hello.” She slowly exits her room clutching the book she’s been reading, as skittish as a feral kitten, and you slide over on the couch before patting the now-empty other side in invitation.

“You can come sit if you want. I’m just reading.”

“What are you reading?” Calliope asks, perching on the edge of the cushion as though she’s preparing for escape at any moment.

The smile freezes on your face. Just because you’re happy your new roommate is here doesn’t mean you’re about to out yourself as a fanfiction reader. “Oh, just a fantasy book.”

“Why do you have that…television on, then?” Calliope says this as though she’s still unfamiliar with the concept of television.

“I like the background noise of putting on shows that I’ve already seen. Helps me focus.”

She looks at you like that’s one of the oddest things she’s ever heard. Maybe it is, but it’s your little habit, and it has been for so long that it’s normal now. You hit play again, and Calliope starts a bit as sound comes through the speakers on the TV. Funnily, even though she seems to not understand your reasoning, the sound itself helps her to relax enough that she’s sitting on the couch with you instead of hovering like she’s preparing to bolt at any moment.

You don’t say anything, not wanting to make her think that you’re dictating what she can and cannot do. Eventually, Calliope decides to follow your lead and open her book, though she keeps getting distracted by the TV and eventually forgoes the book entirely in favor of watching the show.

“The tall one does not believe in ghosts, but the little one does?” Calliope asks out of the blue. You swallow down your laugh at her description of the hosts and nod.

“Mhm, and that’s what makes the show so good, is that dichotomy between the two hosts. One is so serious about everything they do, every noise that they hear, and the other is just dancing around and begging the demons to possess him or whatever because he thinks they’re not real and so saying this stuff can’t hurt him.”

She watches silently for another few minutes before asking, “Why are they searching for ghosts in the first place?”

“Well, because people love trying to solve the unsolved. And I think ghosts and the question of their existence is one of the ultimate unsolved mysteries.” She nods in satisfaction and turns back to the show, and you decide to turn off your phone and join her.

Calliope, as it turns out, enjoys television, if only for the strange concepts of some of the shows. You’re more than happy to show her all of the strangest and best shows, with the bonus of getting to see them anew through her eyes, which seem to be watching everything for the very first time.

•••

It’s mid-afternoon, and instead of being outside on what’s turning out to be a beautiful day, you’re stuck doing homework.

Everybody had assumed that Ric Madoc’s classes would be canceled after his abrupt admission into the Saint Dymphna Mental Health Hospital. The university, however, not wanting to just give out automatic passing grades without merit, had scrambled to try and find professors to teach Madoc’s classes. Somehow, they had succeeded, and you were now once again immersed in the world of 20th-century authors. Though your new professor didn’t have the ability to truly capture a room in the same way Madoc had, she was a fine replacement, and she devoted a good chunk of class time to women authors.

It’s too nice of a day to not take advantage of, though. That first true spring day after a long, harsh winter has finally arrived, and you won’t let it pass you by. All of the windows are open to allow the stale air of the apartment to dissipate, and as you write, you listen to the birds chirping and people doing yard work. Maybe, if you finish quickly enough, you’ll be able to take a walk yourself.

Calliope would probably enjoy that as well, you think.

The woman in question knocks on your open bedroom door, and you look up at her with a smile from your desk. She clocks the computer and the notes spread around you and grows sheepish.

“I’m sorry, you are busy. I’ll–”

“No, don’t worry! Just finishing up an essay for a class. Got a crazy burst of motivation for it, and ended up knocking it out in a couple of hours. It’ll be good to look away from the screen.”

Calliope gets that funny little smile on her face, the one that says that she has found something amusing but is going to keep it to herself. She waits patiently as you stretch, wincing when she hears the way that your shoulders pop and crack after hours of stagnancy.

“What’s up?” you ask. “You seem like you want to ask me something.”

Calliope points out of your bedroom. “What is out there?”

You stand so that you can see what it is she’s referencing, and find that she’s pointing to your sliding door.

“Oh, it’s a little balcony. I don’t go out there much right now, still a little too chilly, but it’ll be nice to sit out there once summer comes. Here, I’ll show you.”

It’s the first time this season that it’s been nice enough to have the door open, which is probably why she’s only just now realized it’s there. You open the screen door and lead her out onto your balcony. It’s small, but you spent last summer adding to it and making it a comforting place to relax. Now, there are lights strung up above your heads, and there are two chairs with a table in between them. Planters sit lined up along the iron of the balcony railing, ready to be filled when planting season comes around.

Calliope gasps, and you’re about to ask what’s wrong (part of you is worried that a snake managed to find its way up to the third floor), when she tilts her face up to the sun, leaning over the railing to try and get as much of the light on her as possible. She looks like a painting come to life, probably with a name like “Muse Bathed in the Sun”, because truly, Calliope seems like the type of person to inspire every person lucky enough to make her acquaintance.

“Helios,” you hear Calliope whisper reverently.

It’s obvious that she isn’t aware that she said that out loud, and you start to feel embarrassed before she turns back to you with a true smile and tears running down her face.

“I have not been outside in the sun in so long.”

She explains this simply and factually, as if she’s talking about why the sun is where it is and not about all that she was deprived of during her captivity. Madoc didn’t even let her go outside. It’s a good thing that he’s under secure watch 24/7, because there have been many times over the almost-three weeks that Calliope has lived with you that you have wished to be able to go and inflict upon him a modicum of that which he did to Calliope.

Now tears are running down your face too, and you wipe at them harshly with the backs of your hands. This is Calliope’s moment, Calliope’s joy, and you won’t have her feeling sorry for making you experience such happiness and broken-heartedness by watching her.

“It’s here no matter what. Even if it’s a little cold, bring a blanket out and sit whenever you want. Soon, we’ll be able to plant some stuff. You can help me if you want!”

Calliope’s back to facing the sun directly, but she still nods to let you know that it’s a good idea. Quietly, you back up into the apartment and close the screen door behind you, letting her have this time of reconnection to herself.

Most mornings after this rediscovery, you find Calliope already sitting on the balcony by the time you wake up, a blanket around her shoulders, a mug of something hot in her hands, a book on her lap, and the sun bathing her skin.

•••

“Y’know what, I’m gonna give that one a three.”

“A three?” Calliope tuts. “That is cruel. His performance was at least a six.”

“C’mon Cal, you’re just saying that because you see the best in everybody! The rest of us saw a douchey frat bro drunkenly singing ‘SexyBack,’ which earned him a three. And that’s me being generous.”

Calliope and your friend Ethan are, of course, judging the karaoke performances of the bar patrons brave (or stupid) enough to sing in front of others. They, along with your friend Kiara, take this tradition very seriously. For every performance, the three of them have detailed notes and a rating out of ten to go along with it.

You had finally given in to Evie’s pleadings and decided to broach the subject of going out in public to Calliope. Much to your surprise, she accepted when you first invited her to karaoke night with your friends at the group’s favorite bar. She accepted when you offered to bring her to trivia, and she accepted when your friends finally got around to doing a book club meeting—which was mainly just drinking and eating appetizers while you talked about the books you’d read, but it still counted.

(Taking Calliope to her first drag show quickly became one of your favorite and most cherished memories)

She took to your friend group like a duck to water, and in return, they embraced her wholeheartedly. Now, none of you could imagine a life without her in it.

And slowly, it seemed as though Calliope began to start to heal. With every bar meetup, movie night, or random coffee date, you saw a bit more light return back to Calliope. Flashes of the woman that she once was, vibrant and funny and elegant and wise, begin to become more frequent as the days pass. Every time she allows for a hug or every time she smirks into her glass after saying something that has the group erupting in laughter, she becomes more and more herself.

“Oh my god, it’s our turn!” Ethan yells suddenly after the karaoke emcee calls his and Evie’s names. He stands and holds his hand out to Evie, who happily takes it and jumps up with him. “Let’s go knock some socks off.”

This will either go one of two ways. They’ll either perform their serious song, “Bennie and the Jets,” which they’re surprisingly good at, or they’ll go funny and perform the Sharpay and Ryan version of “What I’ve Been Lookin’ For” from High School Musical, which they’re also really good at. By their tipsy giggles, you’re guessing it’s the latter.

The second they both start doing the Sharpay and Ryan hype-up routine, Kiara sighs and grabs her drink and phone.

“I promised these dumbasses I’d film them the next time they performed this,” she explains before going to work as an unpaid videographer.

Throughout their entire routine, Calliope’s enthralled, as she should be. It’s a good performance, of course, but Evie and Ethan together are a true comedic duo. The matching jazz squares during the instrumentals truly bring the whole piece together, and you’re in tears from laughter by the end of their routine. When they return to the table after a rousing standing ovation from the patrons of the bar, Calliope gives them her own round of applause and beams.

Naturally, she bestows upon them the highest ranking one can receive during karaoke nights. “Now that was a ten.”

Ethan bows as Evie kisses Calliope’s cheek. “Thank you, m’lady,” he says proudly.

“When do you get the time to practice this?”

“Nights like this, usually,” Evie explains before Ethan interrupts.

“Though we have been known to skip a class or two when we were trying to work out the kinks in our performance.” Ethan picks up his drink before frowning when he sees there’s nothing but melting ice cubes in the glass. “Well, apparently I need another drink. Anybody else?”

Everyone at the table shakes their head, but Kiara reaches into her jacket. “No, but I am gonna go hit my pen.”

“Ooh, I’ll come with you,” Evie volunteers cheerfully.

“Weed thief,” Kiara teases.

“Are you telling me no?”

“You’re ridiculous.”

“That’s not a no!”

Your friends go their separate ways, leaving you and Calliope to sit alone at the table. The next singer has already started, and you grin when you hear what it is.

“Oh, I love this song,” you tell Calliope before singing along. “‘Cause I’m dreaming of you tonight, ‘til tomorrow I’ll be holding you tight!”

Beside you, Calliope grows a little gloomy. She’s frowning a bit; even if it’s barely there, you can always tell because it completely transforms her beautiful face into something so sad. You stop humming and look over at her, watching as she slowly swirls her straw in her drink repeatedly to give her something to do.

“Having fun?” you ask, slightly worried at the sudden melancholy that seems to have draped over her like a shroud.

“Yes,” she tries to assure you, but it sounds clipped, like she’s holding back.

“You know you don’t have to come just because I invited you, right? You can do whatever you want.” You never want her to feel as though you’re forcing her to do anything, and even though she’s been having fun up until now, there’s still that anxiety that tells you that she’s just going along with it because she feels like she owes you.

“I know,” Calliope assures. “But I enjoy you and your group of friends. You make me feel…welcomed, and accepted, in a way that I have not felt in a long time.”

“They’re your friends now too. Pretty sure they decided that the second they met you.”

“I consider them friends as well. I consider you a friend as well, though I hope you know that by now.” She smiles down at her drink. “Besides, I quite like the karaoke nights.”

“I can tell. You never sing with us, though.”

“I don’t need to, I just enjoy listening. The people singing, and enjoying themselves, it reminds me of my son. He, too, loved to sing, and he was gifted with such a beautiful voice.”

“You have a son?” This takes you by surprise. Though Calliope seems to be very maternal, she’s never mentioned anything about a child until now. The fact that she talks about him in the past tense has your heart sinking into your stomach from the implications.

Calliope nods. “My sweet boy, my Orpheus. He was beautiful, and heartbreakingly sweet. He had a voice that could bring even the gods themselves to tears. He was taken from me…far too soon, and I miss him every day, with every fiber of my being. Being here, among so many people happy and making music—I see his face in all of theirs, and it brings me some sense of peace, to know that I can find pieces of him here, in the most unlikely of places..”

It’s sweet that she kept the Greek mythology theme going with her own son, you think, though it’s tragic that he suffered the same fate as his namesake.

“He was so lucky to have a mom like you, Calliope. Any child would be.” You lick your lips and taste the sweetness of alcohol on them as you ponder what to say next. “His life might have ended too soon, but he knew that he was completely and truly loved until the very end, which is such a gift.”

Tears well up in Calliope’s eyes, and she dabs at them with a napkin grabbed hastily from the table. “Thank you,” she chokes out. “You have no idea how much that means to me.”

“Ah, now you’re gonna go and make me cry too. Can I hug you?”

You always, always ask for permission before hugging her or touching her. She doesn’t seem to mind anymore when friends do it without asking, but you can’t break yourself of the habit.

Not after seeing what you saw the night that you met her.

She doesn’t give you an answer in the form of words. Instead, she simply falls into your arms, both of you clinging to the other.

From behind you, Ethan whispers, “Uh, are we interrupting something?”

•••

Evie has a date tonight and is naturally freaking out about it. She doesn’t know what to wear, she doesn’t know what she’s going to say, she doesn’t know if she’s even going to like the girl. Though you can provide her with all of the moral support in the world, there’s only one problem that you can currently help her with, which is how she ends up rifling furiously through your closet on a random Wednesday night.

You and Calliope sit on your bed, watching as Evie grabs different outfits and either critiques them herself or holds them up for you to do so. This is a tried-and-true routine for you, but Calliope’s experiencing the joys of helping a friend in need pick out a first date outfit for the first time. As a result, she puts far more thought into her responses when Evie asks for an opinion.

“You know, I believe I may have just the shirt for you in my room,” Calliope says after the outfit rejections have reached double digits. “Come.”

Calliope has truly made her room her own in the almost two months that she’s lived here, which makes you so happy to see. She’s decorated with items found antiquing (Calliope always manages to come out of an antique store with a haul—you think it's her superpower), and her room has an actual personality now.

She goes to her closet and begins searching through it before finding what she’s looking for; a white blouse with bell sleeves and delicate embroidering along the cuffs and collar. It’s beautiful, and exactly what Evie was looking for. Her attention, however, is drawn to something else in the closet, and she grabs at one of the hangers after approving Calliope’s choice. To your surprise, Evie comes up holding a cream-colored, silk nightgown.

“Wait, Cal, you still have the nightgown you were wearing the night you got away?” you ask.

It would be cruel to say anything more than the most vague descriptions regarding Calliope’s imprisonment. Nobody particularly wanted to remind her of that dark time in her life, so great care was taken to make it the least bit triggering as possible when it needed to be brought up.

She nods.

“Why?”

Calliope thinks about that for a moment. “I am not sure, to be honest. I certainly do not want to keep a relic of such a terrible time, but throwing it away does not feel…right.”

Evie perks up. “Ooh, y’know what we should do? We should burn that bitch!”

Calliope looks perturbed. “I thought you said that he is still in a mental hospital? Besides, I believe that immolation is still a crime.”

You and Evie both laugh when you realize that Calliope thought she was talking about Madoc.

“Not that bitch, though you’re giving me great ideas. I meant that we should burn the dress. I saw it on TikTok; these friends did a ‘burn and release’ ritual. They had a fire going in their backyard, and they all wrote down and talked about things that they wanted to release before burning it and physically releasing themselves of that. It looks like it’s super empowering, and it might give you the closure that it seems like you’re looking for.”

She doesn’t say anything, but you can tell that she’s intrigued.

“We’d participate, too,” you chime in, Evie nodding along with you. “I think we all have things we want to burn so that we can give ourselves permission to move on.”

“I would like that, I think.”

Evie smiles. “Perfect. Leave it to me.”

It only takes Evie a couple of days to coordinate everything. Her parents live just outside of town, and they happily offer up their backyard to their daughter and her group of friends. When you and Calliope arrive, there’s already a fire pit set up with a ring of camping chairs surrounding it. Kiara waves from one of the chairs, a bag of marshmallows sitting in her lap, as Evie works at getting the fire going.

“Yay, you made it!” she says when she can finally trust the fire to not go out the moment she looks away from it.

Calliope nods graciously. “Thank you for hosting us this evening.”

“You’re so formal sometimes! If anything, I should be the one thanking you for going along with my crazy idea.”

“I do not think it is crazy at all,” Calliope assures.

“We’ll see, won’t we? Anyways, pens and paper are over in the empty chair next to Kiara, and there will be drinks and snacks momentarily.” Evie turns to you. “Wanna help me grab said drinks and snacks? I need an extra set of hands.”

After helping Evie with procuring and setting out a few bottles of wine, plastic cups, and a bunch of different snacks, the four of you each pick up a pen and paper and begin to write. Calliope writes furiously, her pen seeming to fly over the paper as she jots down her thoughts, and is done first as a result. The rest of you take a bit longer to write, needing to stop and think about what you want to put down before you do so.

In a group chat, you, Kiara, and Evie had decided that one of you would automatically go first, to make Calliope feel comfortable about participating. When you’ve all finished writing, Kiara stands and clears her throat.

“Well, guess I’m first up,” she says.

In hindsight, you should have guessed how emotional a night of talking about things that you need to release and then burning them as a physical manifestation would be. Still, the teary eyes from everybody when Kiara finishes reading her letter to her ex-best friend and tosses it, along with a small box of mementos, into the fire catch you off-guard. Though you said that everybody had things that they needed to release the night that Evie first brought this up, you just didn’t realize that everyone was carrying their own burdens that, to them, are just as heavy as Calliope’s is to her.

You volunteer to go next, reading about how you release all of the expectations that you’ve had about your life and where it’s meant to go. Even before Calliope arrived in your life, you struggled with the idea that your life was not going according to the plan that you had in mind. You weren’t hitting milestones that you had plotted out, and your life “schedule” kept imploding time and time again. Now, you hope to be rid of that, and the constant feeling that you’re failing yourself and your life.

As you watch the paper burn in the flames, you try to convince yourself that all of those feelings are burning along with it.

Evie follows, with a big “fuck you” to her biological dad, who she recently found out only tried to form a relationship with her so that he could get money from her. It’s such a terrible situation, and though she’s handled it with her classic brand of humor, you can all see the hurt that she carries with her. Her letter is funny and biting and makes you all laugh, but she’s openly crying by the time she tosses it into the fire, and she gets a long hug from each of you after.

Finally, it’s Calliope’s turn, and she takes a long moment to stand. She’s been holding your hand since you finished reading her letter, and you give her a comforting squeeze before letting go so she can properly hold the letter. After taking a deep breath, she looks around the fire at the encouraging faces before her before she begins.

“I have often lived my life in the service of others, though most of the time, it was something that I willingly and happily did. That choice was removed from me when I was stolen from my home and bound to a truly vile and horrid man. He took everything from me. My thoughts, my inspiration, my—” Calliope’s voice breaks. “My body. Nothing was mine anymore, and I was told that that was how it should be, that it was the natural order of the world. He beat me down, physically and emotionally, to the point where I started to believe it.

“Though I had long since lost hope, I prayed for some sort of salvation, and I prayed to whomever I could think of. Nobody answered, either because they could not or would not, and I believed myself truly alone. Eventually, my former lover, Morpheus, was the only one who could, or would, help me, and even then, there was only so much that he could do. I do not fault him for that, because he did the most that was possible for him to do.

“And then one day, somebody knocked on the door of my prison and demanded their keys back.” She looks at you with a wobbly smile, and you sniffle in an attempt to hold back tears. “I know not why that was the tipping point for my captor, and frankly, nor do I care. He threw me out like trash, but I was not really in a place to question a gift such as this. And it truly has been a gift for me. In the two months since I escaped captivity, I have been able to heal, slowly but surely, even though I did not think such a thing was possible. I have found my laugh once more. I am free to do whatever I want, whenever I want. To sit in the sun, or read a book, or be with my friends.”

Calliope picks up the nightgown from where it sat next to her chair. “With this, I release every last hold that my captivity has had on me. From now on, when I think about that time, I shall think about survival, and how I refused to be kept down. I am free, and I shall remain forever free.”

She tosses the dress and the letter into the fire, watching intently as the flames catch the fabric and begin to work through it. Then, she laughs. Her laugh is beautiful and like the peals of bells, and it’s infectious too. Soon you’re all laughing, and you all have the same idea to hug Calliope. It turns into a group hug, the four of you laughing and hugging and watching as the smoke of the fire carries away that which you do not want to carry with you any longer.

•••

Calliope takes her time getting out of the car when you arrive back home, still basking in the euphoria of emotional release. When she turns to look at you, you already know what she’s going to say.

“Go in without me.” She sighs happily and looks up at the moon. “I wish to remain outside for a moment longer.”

You squeeze her shoulder before letting go. “Alright. The door’ll be unlocked whenever you decide you’re finished.”

You hum while unlocking the door, kicking your shoes off and hearing them thump against the wall of the entryway. Fumbling, you curse under your breath as you try to find the light switch—really, you’d think that after living here for almost a year, you’d be able to turn the lights on on the first try.

Light finally floods the room, and your humming resumes as you head into the kitchen to grab a drink. There’s a chill in the air, more figurative than literal, that causes goosebumps to rise on your skin. Your heartbeat quickens as you remove a glass from the cabinet, like your reflexes are trying to warn you of some unseen danger. Nervously, you hum a little louder while filling your glass up in the hopes that you’ll feel better.

You don’t. How could you, when you look over the kitchen island into the living room and see a figure standing silhouetted against the back door? In fact, you feel much worse than nervous; now, you’re scared out of your wits, enough so that you scream upon realizing that there’s actually a man in your home, a man who is most definitely not supposed to be here.

You scream.

“Hello.”

The man’s voice is deep, deeper than you think you’ve ever heard before. If he wasn’t currently in the act of breaking into your home, you’d think about how nice of a voice it is. Right now, it’s simply disturbing.

His eyes seem to twinkle in the darkness before he takes a step toward you, thus putting himself in the light. He’s paler than any living being you’ve ever seen, with long, unkempt black hair and cold blue eyes that seem like they can tell everything about you just from looking at you. He’s dressed in all black, with a long black coat completing his ensemble.

He’s not human, that much you’re sure of. You’ve spent enough time around Calliope in the past couple of months to guess that she is something more, and this stranger is the same. Power radiates off of him in waves, the same as it does with Calliope. Both are ethereally, sharply beautiful, in a way that lets lesser beings know that these are the true apex predators.

Even though it probably won’t help (now that you have the barest idea of what you’re dealing with), you pick up a kitchen knife from the dish rack and brandish it in front of you, thankful that you had cut up an apple last night and thus had needed your largest knife to do so.

“Get the fuck out of my apartment!”

He doesn’t move, choosing instead to just keep staring at you with those piercing eyes. You come out from behind the island, still holding the knife towards him.

“Seriously, leave or I’m calling the cops,” you threaten, pulling your phone out of your pocket with your free hand.

This decision quickly has the situation going from bad to worse. The man seems to cross the entire room in a single step before slamming you against the wall, one hand wrapped dangerously tight around your throat. You gasp at the sudden violence, as well as the strength that he possesses under his lean figure, and both the knife and the phone fall from your hands as you try to figure out what to do.

“Be quiet, mortal,” he spits venomously, his hand flexing around your throat. You attempt to grab at his hand to get him off of you, but he doesn’t budge. When you try to kick at him, he just leans more of his weight against you and renders you virtually immobile. “You are keeping a woman here, against her will. You will release her immediately, or suffer the most dire of consequences.”

“What? No, I’m not!” you argue.

Is he talking about Calliope? If so, he’s about two months too late in coming to her rescue. The only one that was holding her against her will was Ric Madoc, and he’s facing his own set of consequences for what he did.

Speak of the devil. Calliope chooses this moment to come in from her nighttime sojourn. You and your attacker both stare at the door as Calliope enters the apartment. She’s humming, much as you had when you first came in, completely in her own little world.

“Cal!” you cry out helplessly in an attempt to warn her, the only sound you can make before the man’s hand tightens again and cuts off all but a bit of your air supply. If given the chance, you’re not sure if you would tell her to run or ask for her help.

She takes stock of the situation before her with calculated eyes. Instead of surprise, shock, or fear, Calliope just looks…angry. Her bag drops to the floor next to her feet, and she makes sure to shut and lock the door behind her.

“Let her go, Oneiros,” Calliope commands, her hand landing on his shoulder.

Wait, Calliope knows him? Internally, you chastise yourself; obviously, she knows him, she called him by name! Still, you find yourself confused. She hasn’t mentioned having any contacts in the area. In fact, you distinctly remember her saying that she had “nobody” that first night you met her.

The intruder—Oneiros, apparently—does as Calliope asks, and you slide to the floor without his interference keeping you upright. Calliope slides down with you, landing on her knees in front of you as she looks you over with her big, brown eyes.

“Are you alright?” she asks, using her thumbs to wipe away your tears, tears that you weren’t aware you were shedding.

You nod. “I–I think so.”

Despite your reassurance, your hand goes to your throat, and you try to rub away the soreness that’s already settling beneath the skin. When she begins to rub her hands up and down your arms, you realize that you’re shaking violently. Calliope stands and briefly leaves the room, leaving you and Oneiros in awkward silence until she returns with a blanket, which she gently wraps around you.

After she’s completed this task, Calliope wheels around to point accusingly at the man. “You are a fool, and you allow yourself to act without first thinking far too often.”

“Calliope–” he tries to interrupt, but Calliope shakes her head.

“What are you doing here?” she demands.

He scowls. “You called for me again, did you not?”

“I did no such thing!”

“Really?” he questions with a raised eyebrow. “You did not write my name down prior to burning it?”

Calliope falls silent, because apparently that’s exactly what she did.

“I thought that what I had done to Richard Madoc worked, Calliope. Why did you not come to me sooner to tell me that he had sold you off instead?”

“Nothing of the sort has happened!”

“Then how did you end up bound to yet another mortal?”

“It is not what it looks like, Morpheus.”

“Explain it to me, then,” he pleads.

As the two continue to bicker above you, you feel increasingly like you’re interrupting in your own home. You shift uncomfortably, and Oneiros—Morpheus? Seriously, how many names does this guy have?—turns his sharp gaze upon you.

“You. How did you come to bind the Muse Calliope? What spell have you used to bewitch her?” He demands answers that you don’t have, and your shaking becomes worse under the full brunt of his stare.

“What?” You scramble to your feet so that you can at least pretend to be on the same ground as the two others here. “I don’t know what you’re talking about.”

“Please, let us sit down and discuss this civilly,” Calliope interrupts, gesturing both of you towards the living room.

After a moment of consideration, Oneiros/Morpheus nods tersely and walks in the direction that Calliope had pointed as though this is his home and not yours. You try to get your legs to move, but they steadfastly remain stuck to the spot you’re standing in. Calliope notices this and loops her arm through yours before gently guiding you into the living room.

“Why did he call you a Muse?” you whisper to her.

She presses her lips together in a thin line. “I will give you answers, I promise. It is…complicated.”

Though you’re not exactly satisfied by this answer, you trust Calliope, so you nod and silently agree to wait.

You don’t have to wait for long. Once everybody is seated (you in the chair perpendicular to the couch, with Oneiros/Morpheus on the couch and Calliope sitting next to him while simultaneously acting as a buffer between you), Calliope takes a deep breath and begins to explain everything. About who, and what, she is, how she came to be bound by a writer named Erasmus Fry, and how she was basically bartered for by Ric Madoc. She explains what they wanted from her, and she explains, unflinchingly, what they did to her to get it. Though it’s horrific, you listen to all of it. After all, if she’s willing to give, it’s only fair that you be open to receiving.

Calliope’s words seem to hang in the air long after she’s finished. The three of you sit in silence; Oneiros/Morpheus with a stony expression, you crying (you think you’ve cried more today than you’ve cried in a long, long time), and Calliope waiting calmly for you both to digest what she’s said.

In the end, it’s you who speaks first. “So you’re a goddess?” you ask.

“A Muse, yes,” she says.

“Like, of the Greek variety.” You need to confirm this for some reason, even though you already know the answer.

She laughs. “Yes.”

“A literal Muse is my best friend and roommate?”

You think that you might be going into shock right now

Oneiros/Morpheus scoffs, and you glare at him. “You have something to say?”

“You say that Calliope is your best friend. Then why do you not set her free?”

“Set her free? She’s a person, she’s free to do whatever she wants.”

“No, she is not. Calliope is bound to you, by the old laws.”

“Morpheus,” Calliope says sharply, a warning, but the man continues.

“You are enslaving a goddess and calling it friendship.” The disgust is clear on his face. “How can there be any sort of friendship when she is unable to leave, to do anything, without your say? You have complete and utter control over her, and you force her to pretend that it isn’t so. This farce that you’ve concocted must end now. I implore you to free her before I am left with no choice but to take further action against you.”

The room begins to tilt, and you shake your head in disbelief. “No…”

“They don’t know, Morpheus!” Calliope snaps.

“Cal, you—”

You feel sick, and you genuinely think that you’re about to throw up. All this time, you thought you had helped to free her from her prison. Instead, she’s remained trapped, bound to you just like she was bound to Madoc and, as you’ve now learned, Erasmus Fry. These men took everything from an unwilling goddess, a Muse, and you’re basically no better than them.

Swallowing down the bile that rises in your throat does nothing, so you close your eyes to take a couple of deep, shaky breaths in an attempt to calm down. That doesn’t work either, and you rise shakily to your feet before rushing over to the trash can in the kitchen and throwing up the wine and snacks that you had eagerly partaken in at Evie’s.

It’s humiliating, doing something as base and human as retching in the presence of two godly creatures. Everything about this situation is humiliating, if you’re being honest with yourself. You’ve unknowingly extended Calliope’s incarceration and deluded both of you into believing that it was friendship. How could you be a part of such a heinous act? Truly, are you no better than Madoc?

When you’ve finally thrown up everything in your stomach and then some, you’re full-on sobbing as you clutch at the trash can. Your knees give out, but Calliope catches you as you fall to the ground and wraps you in her embrace. She soothes you and murmurs words of comfort as she runs a hand through your hair, letting you cry in her arms when it should be the other way around. You don’t deserve her comfort, you think to yourself.

Once you finally have enough breath in your lungs to be able to talk, you gasp out between hyperventilating, “I’m so sorry. I–I didn’t know, and if I did, I would have never–”

“Shh,” she hushes you, grabbing your hands in hers. “My sweet friend, you have done nothing wrong.”

“But I–”

“I am the one who chose not to tell you. I trusted you in the beginning, and I trust you now. You have not failed me or abused me, or been a captor to me. Do you hear me?” She holds your face in her hands to make you look at her, and she waits until you nod to hug you once more.

“How do I free you?” you ask her. “Please, let me free you.”

“You must say that she is free,” your uninvited guest speaks up, making you remember that there’s a whole other person here. “And mean it.”

“Calliope, you’re free. You’ve always been free,” you say immediately, looking at her earnestly and hoping that she can see in your eyes how sorry you are.

Nothing physically changes. No burst of light envelops her, and she doesn’t undergo any sort of transformation. Yet, something in the air changes and becomes lighter. That inner glow that Calliope’s always carried seems to beam brighter now. Her shoulders look less weighed down now, no longer burdened by her forced captivity.

“Thank you,” Calliope says profusely.

“Don’t do that,” you say, feeling sick all over again. “Don’t thank me for something I should have done the second that Madoc threw you at me. I should have been smarter, more observant than I was. God, you deserve so much more than anything I can ever begin to give you.”

She’s not happy about your self-deprecation, but you will not be the source of her rage tonight. No, as she helps you once more to stand, her anger lands squarely on the man who barged in here and turned everything on its head.

“Apologize. Now,” Calliope demands. “What you have done here tonight is completely unacceptable and a new low, even for you.”

After thinking for a moment, perhaps to consider if he did transgress against you, he nods and stands like some sort of gentleman to properly address you. “The lady Calliope is right. I have acted deplorably towards you this evening, when you have done nothing but offer shelter and companionship to one needing it. I sincerely apologize for the pain and anguish that I have caused you.”

You nod warily, still tucked into Calliope’s side. “Thank you,” you say quietly.

Truthfully, you do appreciate the apology. If he’s as powerful as you think he is, then he could have just as easily decided that you weren’t worth the breath it would take to form words, and that would be well within his right.

“Well, now that we’re all close to being on the same page here.” Calliope gestures to the man. “Allow me to introduce you to Lord Morpheus, Dream of the Endless, King of Dreams and Ruler of the Nightmare Realms, et cetera, et cetera.”

“You’re a god too?” you ask.

“Not a god. I am Endless, one of seven anthropomorphic personifications of natural forces. I am far older, and far more powerful, than any god, and will remain long after all of your gods are dead and gone,” Morpheus explains.

You try to ignore the fact that one of the most powerful beings in the universe is currently sitting in your living room, lest you start to have an existential crisis in front of him. Now that Calliope’s told you his name, it rings a bell. “Wait, is he your ex?”

Morpheus looks at you both in surprise. “You’ve told her about me?”

“Only tonight,” Calliope assures him. “When I…accidentally summoned you.”

The longer that you can think clearly without the threat of bodily harm, the more the puzzle pieces keep clicking into place for you. “He’s Orpheus’s dad, isn’t he?”

Calliope nods, and so does Morpheus, though he’s far more reluctant than she is. You don’t notice that, though, too caught up in your thoughts.

“Ha, Morpheus and Orpheus.” Maybe all of the crying has made you dehydrated, which in turn has left you a little delirious. That’s the only reason why you say this train of thought out loud. “What, if you had a daughter were you going to name her Alliope?”

Calliope snickers at that, though Morpheus doesn’t share her amusement. “His name fit him perfectly, even though it was quite the coincidence that it was one letter off from that of his father’s.”

“God, I’m so stupid,” you bemoan. “How did I not know you were a goddess? I literally said, ‘Oh cool, like the muse’ when you introduced yourself! You must have thought I was an idiot.”

“It is difficult for the mortal mind to comprehend that which it believes to be fake. To you, that was the only connection that you subconsciously deemed possible,” Morpheus explains. Though he does it to make you feel better, it feels a little patronizing when it comes from someone as powerful as him.

“I wish you would have told me. Did you think that I wouldn’t have freed you? Because I would have!”

“I know that,” Calliope says. “Truthfully, I…forgot to tell you.”

“You forgot?” Morpheus says in disbelief.

At the same time, you ask, “How the fuck do you forget to tell someone that you’re accidentally bound to them?”

“At first, I was scared. That it was a trap, that you would be worse than Madoc. Of course, that lasted about twenty minutes.”

“What made you realize I was different?”

She smiles. “When you told me that the doors only locked from the inside. You cared about my privacy and that I was feeling safe, and I figured that you had no clue about anything that had happened, or about who I was. From there, it just wasn’t something that I thought to bring up. I was too frightened to leave the apartment, and I had been cut off from the world for over sixty years. Frankly, the idea of going out without you terrified me. As I began to regain control of my life and heal, it just became something that I thought about less and less. You are my best and dearest friend, and we do everything together, so why would I think about a bond other than the one that formed naturally?”

It’s very sweet of her to say, but you still have questions. “So you were just going to continue to live like this?”

“I did not have a plan, but I suppose so. I was happy here, with you.”

“Okay, but what happened if I got married one day, or like, had kids?”

“I would just be the fun aunt that lived with you and your family?”

“Jesus Christ,” you groan before sitting up suddenly. “Wait, is Jesus Christ real too?”

Calliope and Morpheus share a look, and you’re suddenly frightened of the answer.

“No wait, don’t tell me, I don’t wanna know.”

You really, really don’t want to have an existential crisis until you can be alone in the comfort of your room.

Thankfully, Calliope and Morpheus take over the conversation from there, because you don’t think you have the mental capacity to try and further any conversation right now. They obviously have a lot to catch up on, since it seems like the last time they saw each other was when Calliope broke down and asked him for help escaping Madoc.

Instead, while they converse, you take a moment to zone out and try to process just what has happened in the past hour. The stranger that broke into your apartment turned out to be the powerful, eldritch nightmare king ex-husband to your roommate, who’s actually a goddess that was unintentionally bound to you. For reasons beyond your comprehension, he thought that she needed rescuing, and that you were the one that she needed rescuing from.

Your thoughts chase each other like a cyclone, and you try not to panic as you think about all of this. God, you need a drink right now.

When Morpheus and Calliope both rise, with Morpheus saying that he really must return to his kingdom, you rise with them. After all, how will you ever feel at ease if you don’t ask him what’s on your mind?

“Are we good now?” you ask. “Like, you’re not gonna hurt me or curse me? I promise I had no idea about any of this.”

“Yes, I know that now,” Morpheus says. “I will not harm you. If anything, I should be offering you a boon, for being such an immense help to one such as Calliope.”

“You owe me nothing. Neither of you do.”

Calliope leans in and kisses Morpheus on the cheek, so gently that you wonder if she even made contact. “Fare you well, Morpheus.”

He bows his head. “Goodbye.”

Between one blink and the next, he’s gone as though he was never here at all.

•••

That night, you dream, and for the first time, you’re aware of the fact that you’re dreaming.

You don’t know where you are, but it’s the greenest, lushest meadow you’ve ever seen. Wildflowers dance lazily in the breeze, and you can hear the low rush of a river behind the treeline. You’re tempted to lie down in the impossibly soft-looking grass and watch the clouds drift overhead, but before you can, you see them standing next to you.

Morpheus looks just as he did when you saw him in your apartment, only a lot less like he’s ready to murder you. The main difference is that he now sports robes fit for a king instead of his coat. His eyes, you also notice, are black pools of stars.

On the other hand, the Calliope you see before you is a complete departure from the Calliope you know and love. She’s wearing a white chiton that’s belted at the waist and her hair, which normally falls in curly waves, is braided back intricately. She shines, in a way that you’ve never seen, looking every bit the goddess that she is.

“Is this real, or am I dreaming?” you ask.

“Dreams are real,” Morpheus says with the slightest of smiles.

“Of course, my bad.”

Though it’s a picturesque dream, it’s stained with strokes of melancholy. On some level, you know what’s going to happen, and what Morpheus has brought you here for.

“You’re gonna leave, aren’t you?” you ask Calliope.

Selfishly, you’re hoping that she’ll say no. That she’ll tell you that your home is her home and where she’s meant to be. Yet even as you foolishly hope, you know that your ordinary apartment, your ordinary life, is no place for a goddess. No, she deserves far greater than that.

She smiles sadly, and that’s all the confirmation you need. “I think I must, at least temporarily. There is…much for me to do, back home on Olympus. I wish to reconnect with my sisters, for one. And though it is lofty of me, I wish to change the old laws so that we may never be enslaved on the whims of mortals ever again.”

“If anyone can change laws that are thousands of years old, it’s you.”

“Thank you…for everything these past two months. Truly, I do not know how I can ever properly thank you for what you have done for me.”

“You don’t have to do anything; just knowing that you’re safe and happy is enough for me. I’m so proud of you for taking your life back after everything you went through. You deserve all of the happiness and goodness that the world has to offer you.”

“I would not have been able to do it without you, you know. No matter how we came to know each other, I am glad that we did. You saved me.” She says it so earnestly, needing you to truly understand your impact on her recovery.

“You did that yourself, Cal. I was just along for the ride.”

“You have my utmost respect,” Morpheus says. “Not many would have taken in a stranger needing help from off the streets with nothing but the purest of intentions, and fewer still would have offered them friendship. Your bravery and kind heart shall not be forgotten.”

“You have my respect too, for what it’s worth.”

He looks at you in surprise. “Why?”

“Calliope told me that you didn’t end things on the best of terms. But still, when she called for help, you answered with barely a second thought, and did all you could to help.”

He stares for a moment before nodding and turning to gaze out across the meadow. To your unabashed delight, his cheeks tint a light lavender in embarrassment, unsure of how to take your compliment. You bite your lip to stifle your laugh and decide to not tease the King of Dreams…for now.

Though you’ve been putting it off, some sixth sense tells you that your time here is nearing an end. You turn to Calliope again, who already is trying desperately to keep her tears unshed. When you meet her eyes, she holds out her arms to hug you, and you gladly accept.

“I’ll miss you,” you mumble.

Calliope kisses your forehead before pressing hers to yours affectionately. “I shall miss you as well, more than you can even imagine.”

“Call me if you need anything, okay? If–if your sisters are ganging up on you, or if you need someone to watch the best movies of the two-thousands with you, or if you’re missing going to karaoke with the gang. I’ll drop everything and go to Greece, just say the word.”

She laughs, the sound uninhibited and joyful. “I know you will.”

“Goodbye, Calliope." You have no choice but to finally, reluctantly say the words you've been dreading to say. If you weren't to do it now, you know you'd never let go of her.

Calliope pulls away just enough so that she can look you in the eye. “May fortune go with you, my sweetest friend.”

•••

Calliope’s gone when you wake up, her belongings the only sign that she even existed here in the first place. Though you cry, they’re not tears of sadness; rather, they’re happy tears, because how could you not be happy for Calliope? She’s found her freedom and the strength to return home, to try and make a better world for herself and her fellow gods and goddesses. Truly, this is all that you ever wanted for her.

On her nightstand sits a folded-up note, your name written on the front in Calliope’s ornate script. You open it up to read it, and when you finish, you hold it to your heart.

I will always be close by in your heart, as you will always be in mine. No distance can change that. Should you need me, you need only pray to me, and I shall hear you. Continue to make the world as bright as you.

-Calliope

#dream of the endless x reader #dream of the endless imagine #dream of the endless #the sandman imagine #the sandman #morpheus x reader #morpheus imagine #morpheus #calliope the sandman #calliope the sandman imagine

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drgenius-reid · 6 months

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War and Peace, and Coffee

A/N: It's down to the wire but I just about managed to get something together for @imagining-in-the-margins Meet Cute Challenge. Summary: Spencer finds himself meeting a lovely stranger in a coffee shop where they read together. Pairing: Spencer Reid x Fem!Reader Category: Fluff Content Warnings: Use of Y/N. Word Count: 920

Spencer didn’t think he had ever seen someone more beautiful in his life. Even as she sat in the corner of the coffee shop, curled up on a chair with a pair of glasses perched on the end of her nose, she looked adorable as she succumbed to the words in front of her.

She read 1984 by George Orwell. Spencer could tell what book it was just from seeing a tiny piece of the cover that poked through her fingers. He noted how delicately she was holding the book, being careful as to not ruin the spine of it.

On the small table in front of her, Spencer could see an untouched cup of coffee, a bookmark with a quote that he couldn’t figure out from where he stood, and a banana peel on a plate. He was intrigued by her. Even though he didn’t know why.

The woman looked up from her book before Spencer could look away. Their eyes met and Spencer’s cheeks grew warm, embarrassment flooding over him at being caught watching her. He tipped his head forward towards her when she smiled softly at him, her eyes wandering back to the words that had pilfered her attention.

Spencer walked up to the counter at the front of the coffee shop and ordered himself a black coffee with plenty of sugar, and an orange, paying for them before he headed to the bottom of the shop where a tall shelf sat, completely filled with books. He grabbed a copy of War and Peace and took a seat at the table next to the woman’s.

‘You know you can always take the spare seat at this table,’ she said softly.

Spencer looked to his right to see the woman now holding her cup of coffee, hands wrapped around it securely. Her glasses were back on her nose properly and her book rested on the table near her knee.

‘I wouldn’t want to ruin your reading time,’ Spencer smiled. ‘Thank you though.’

The woman let out a small chuckle before motioning her head towards the door. ‘See that woman who just walked in? That’s Margaret. She is about to order herself a port of tea and a slice of cake. You, my friend, are sitting in Margaret’s seat and trust me, you don’t want to be there when she gets here. She will either flirt with you until you leave to try and get away from her, or she will pick you apart.’

‘And what if I’m into older women?’ Spencer challenged the woman, who threw her head back in laughter.

‘I promise you, if you want to read your book and actually enjoy it, you’d be better coming to sit here with me.’

When Spencer saw the older lady ordering the exact thing he was told that she would, he moved his things across to the next table as quickly as he could, sitting down just in time. His new table mate picked her book back up to continue reading.

‘Nice choice of literature you have there.’

The woman smiled at Spencer as she shrugged lightly. ‘The best books are those that tell you what you know already.’

‘But one must know that there was truth and there was untruth, and if you clung to the truth even against the whole world, you were not mad.’ Spencer smiled at the woman who looked at him in disbelief.

‘You’re an Orwell fan?’

‘More like a literature fan. I’ve read this book multiple times already,’ Spencer said as he lifted the book into the air slightly.

‘Quote it,’ the woman challenged, placing her bookmark back into the book so that she could put her attention on him fully.

Spencer took a deep breath and looked at her, trying to hide the smile that wanted to spread across his face. ‘Yes, love, but not the love that loves for something, to gain something, or because of something, but that love that I felt for the first time, when dying, when I saw my enemy and yet loved him.

‘I knew that feeling of love which is the essence of the soul, for which no object is needed. And I know that blissful feeling now too. To love one’s neighbours; to love one’s enemies. To love everything - tol;ove God in all His manifestations.

‘Someone dear to one can be loved with human love; but an enemy can only be loved with divine love. And that was why I felt such joy when I felt that I loved that man. What happened to him? Is he alive? Loving with human love, one may pass from love to hatred; but divine love cannot change.

‘Nothing, not even death, can shatter it. It is the very nature of the soul. And how many people I have hated in my life. And of all people none I have loved and hated more than her. If it were only possible for me to see her once more.’

Spencer trailed off. The woman was staring at him, mouth agape. It was a look that would normally make him extremely uncomfortable but with her, it didn’t.

‘I’m floored,’ she said finally. ‘War and Peace was the first book I read for my undergrad and I remember reading that passage for the first time. It really made me think about the nuances of love and what it means to love everyone. I’m Y/N, by the way.’

‘Spencer.’

‘It’s lovely to meet you, Spencer.’

‘And you, Y/N.’

#spencer reid #criminal minds #dr spencer reid #spencer reid imagine #spencer reid fanfic #spencer reid fanfiction #spencer reid fluff #my writing #spencer reid writing #reidingmaterial

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kiiwiigii · 6 months

Text

Twilight

Alec

Series:

Heartbeat - Alec x OC - by awriterwithnostory (ff.net)

Summary: "Watch your tongue." He murmured dangerously as he trailed his nose along my collar bone. The pounding of my heart was picking up speed and his eyes grew darker with every beat. "You first."

Jasper Hale

Oneshots:

Dandelions - Jasper Hale Reader - by @junkdrawerfics

Series:

Redamancy- Jasper Hale x Reader - by @bless-my-demons

Summary: What happens when your soulmate is a vampire that struggles to maintain a diet of trying not to kill you? Common sense says run for the hills, nothing is worth your life - but my heart is whispering why not, what’s there to lose?

Collar Bones - Jasper Hale x Reader - by @ashcal99

Summary: Camila Johnson was only 16 when she was diagnosed with leukemia. By the time she had turned 17, the doctors had tried everything to save her. Her family is close to giving up hope when they hear of a doctor who may be able to help her. The only problem is, he lives on the opposite side of the country. The small family soon decides to move to the small town in Washington, in efforts to prolong her life. In doing so, her life changes forever.

The Jasper & Danielle Trilogy - Jasper Hale x OC - by Carrot Top (ff.net)

Summary: When Danielle Clark moved to Forks, Washington, she hadn't really known what to expect. But she definitely hadn't planned on falling in love with Jasper Hale, and she certainly hadn't known he would turn her life completely upside down.

HEAVY - Jasper Hale x OC - by bluemountainbayou (ao3)

Summary: Jasper really wanted nothing to do with Abigail Finley. Until he did.

BLUE MOON pt. One - Jasper Hale x OC - by xdeserteyes (wattpad)

Summary: "The smell of her hair, the taste of her mouth, the feeling of her skin seemed to have gotten inside him, or into the air all around him. She had become a physical necessity." [George Orwell] "I've waited for you for a long time, Evelyn Masen. I don't wish to be without you again."

SUPERNOVA pt. Two - Jasper Hale x OC - by xdeserteyes (wattpad)

Summary: "They slipped briskly into an intimacy from which they never recovered." [F. Scott Fitzgerald] "Do you hate him? For what he did?" Despite wanting to say yes, she knew that she couldn't. "No, I don't hate him." "But you don't love him anymore?" Evelyn shook her head, fresh tears threatening to fall. "I don't know."

INTERSTELLAR pt. Three - Jasper Hale x OC - by xdeserteyes (wattpad)

Summary: "𝙗𝙪𝙧𝙣 𝙤𝙪𝙩 𝙩𝙝𝙚 𝙨𝙩𝙖𝙧𝙨 𝙬𝙞𝙩𝙝 𝙢𝙚." Jasper could taste the salt of Evelyn's tears on her lips, feel her shaking beneath his hands, hear her heart beating wildly in her chest as he touched her. Perhaps they were moving too fast now, but neither of them seemed to care. He kissed her deeply, drinking her in as if he were a man dying of thirst and she was the only thing that could sate him. *:･ﾟ✧

Poly

Secretarial Desk Series - Demetri x Reader x Felix - by @alecvolturi

Summary: Multiple Summaries & delicious smut.

Pt. One | Two | Three

The Lord of the Rings

Aragorn

Sweet Metamorphosis - Aragorn x OC - by WhileISleep (ff.net)

Summary: "That, miss, is the root of bravery. You worry about survival, about being a burden. Consider this: you have been thrown into a world unfamiliar to you. Even more challenging, you were left to fend for yourself in a cave with no light, resources, or knowledge of your whereabouts, and yet you live. That is a feat. You are stronger than you think." Tenth walker; Eventual Aragorn/OC

#kiiwiigii's fic recs #fic recs #twilight fanfiction #twilight #the twilight saga #lord of the rings fanfiction #the lord of the rings #lotr #alec volturi x reader #alec volturi fanfiction #jasper hale x reader #jasper whitlock x reader smut #jasper hale fanfiction #jasper whitlock fanfiction

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racefortheironthrone · 4 months

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Do you think Charles Xavier is a good person? Or, if not, how close to the mark does he consistently land?

"In judging a man like Gandhi one seems instinctively to apply high standards, so that some of his virtues have passed almost unnoticed."

"...Moreover, if one is to love God, or to love humanity as a whole, one cannot give one’s preference to any individual person. This again is true, and it marks the point at which the humanistic and the religious attitude cease to be reconcilable. To an ordinary human being, love means nothing if it does not mean loving some people more than others."

("Reflections on Gandhi," George Orwell)

I've talked about this here and here, but yes, I think in order for Charles Xavier to work as a character he has to be a good person. I would argue that the Charles Xavier of the Silver and Bronze Ages was always a deeply flawed man, prone to manipulation and deception and overriding people's free will in the name of the "greater good." Later writers, in their efforts to write their own stories that seek to make Xavier even more complicated, have had a cumulative effect that eventually becomes overpowering - to the point where the complications are all that's left. As I've said before:

"In recent decades (certainly since Brubaker’s Deadly Genesis, although I would argue you see signs of it in Morrison’s New X-Men), there’s been a tendency to deal with this issue by giving Xavier such increasingly large feet of clay that it’s become an active hindrance to how the character is supposed to function within the story and vis-a-vis the audience. I would argue this created a great deal of unnecessary tension in the fandom come HOXPOX, where a significant part of the fandom was convinced that Xavier was mind-controlling characters who were supposed to have had a sincere change of mind, because if Xavier was involved, whatever he was involved with had to be bad or dangerous."

This becomes a problem of audience buy-in when you try to write stories in which Charles Xavier is supposed to be on the side of the angels, because now you have to overcome decades of the readers being conditioned to the opposite before you can get them to engage with the story on its face.

To Morrison and many of those who came after him, the answer is that Xavier is simply an exhausted concept that needs to be pushed aside, so that the franchise can be led by new characters with new ideas. With all the best will in the world, this was tried repeatedly, and it failed. First, it was "killing" Xavier so that he could be replaced by Cyclops as the new leader of mutantkind on Utopia - only for Cyclops to basically do the same shit he was pissed at Xavier for having done; then in the Carey run we had Xavier's amnesia, the reconstruction of his mind by Exodus, and the retcon of his childhood connections with Mr. Sinister so that he was alive but totally distrusted; then in Avengers vs. X Men, Cyclops killed him; then in 2018 there was the whole mystery about whether his soul on the Astral Plane been swapped with or merged with the Shadow King.

After a decade of attempts to push Xavier out of the franchise, they finally gave up, in part because I think they ultimately realized that Charles Xavier is a load-bearing character for the franchise. Even just as a foil, he's too important to the themes and character dynamics, and if you try to replace him you usually end up just replicating him inside another character.

To my mind, the most successful writers to deal with Charles Xavier in recent years have been those, like Jonathan Hickman and Kieron Gillen, who have managed to lean into the idea (expressed in those Orwell quotes above) that what makes Xavier interesting and complex is precisely that he is a good man. Out of his universal love for all, he will turn the individuals he loves into pawns to be sacrificed for the cause; in order to achieve an outcome of a better world for mutants and humans, he will violate any procedural ethic; to save billions, he will trample over the free will of hundreds of thousands.

And that is precisely what ORCHIS weaponized against him to bring down Krakoa.

#xmen #xmen meta #professor x #charles xavier

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the-au-thor · 2 months

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A la Velocidad de la Luz (at the Speed of light) PART II | Steve Harrington x Fem!Reader

Second part for this story, and yes, you should read it first

Word Count: 11.6 k

TW: Read here!

"I think you're young," your new psychiatrist spoke. "And you need a different dose of sleeping pills. But I also believe you shouldn't depend on them for too long," she said after starting to write on her prescription pad. "I'll give you a monthly prescription, then you'll come to see me, and depending on how you're doing, we'll see if we continue with the same dose or lower it. The next time you see your therapist, you can ask to teach you some insomnia management exercises. You need to tackle this at its roots and not just put a Band-Aid over it," she looked at you seriously. "You must understand that what happened to you before is something you can't control, but this you can," she handed you the prescription sheet and smiled. "See you next month, and I hope you can get some rest."

You tucked the prescription into your purse and stood up from the chair with a smile, thanking her and saying goodbye.

Your usual psychiatrist, Dr. Orwell, was on vacation, and the first few weeks back at the clinic were fully booked. You had no choice but to call Owen and get a good contact in Indianapolis for a reliable psychiatrist. The truth was, you weren't as bad as you were a few weeks before Steve Harrington's intervention.

Steve.

It was strange what was happening with Steve. When you weren't with him, you missed him so much that you felt desperate and genuinely wanted to cry. When you were with him, your desperation turned into something different; you wanted to kiss him and run to a place where he would never find you. Yet, he wouldn't let you miss him or escape. He had behaved like your true personal hero; every night, right at 10pm when you took your insomnia pills, he would call your phone, and then he would start talking. He talked about his parents and how much he wished for less money and a bit more affection. He talked about Hopper and how even though he hadn't told him, he was grateful that he had believed in him and supported him. He talked about Nancy and how different he felt about her now, saying he loved her and always would but felt more ready than ever to love someone else. You wondered what kind of person he was looking for, but you never dared to ask; you told yourself it was to respect the rule that only he talked and you had to focus on sleeping, but they were just excuses. You were dying to know if you had a chance to be even a tiny blip on his radar, but you were a coward, so you supposed you would just have to live with that uncertainty.

You left the building where your new psychiatrist's office was and crossed the street halfway because you were too lazy to walk a few more steps and wait for the traffic light. When you reached the other side, you clutched your purse and walked towards the train station to go back home. You liked traveling by train; it was one of your favorite experiences. You could read a book, explore places you wouldn't on foot, and listen to your favorite songs with your headphones on without being judged; the old folks still disapproved when they saw other kids putting on their headphones and disconnecting from the world. Many said it was the end of civilization; you had witnessed the end of civilization, and it definitely wasn't because of music. If anything, music had saved you all. Maybe one day your kids would be able to walk down the street listening to music on their headphones, getting a bit away from reality without earning judgmental looks from older people.

You pressed the button on your Walkman and opened one of the books Lewis had sent in a very early annual reading list for the next semester. You definitely wouldn't fail his class if you wanted to have a future, a job, a family, and a movie adaptation of one of your books someday. You rested your forehead on the train's window and started reading while Peter Gabriel's music filtered through your headphones.

"Steve's voice to sleep?" Eddie asked, furrowing his brow, then snorted. "Well, I must admit he has a soothing tone with a moderate pitch, so I can see why it relaxes you," he shrugged, his face more relaxed, and then glanced at you as if he suddenly realized something. "Steve Harrington talked you to sleep."

You rolled your eyes.

"I thought I mentioned that."

"Yeah, I know," he set aside his guitar and then settled on the carpeted floor of Family Video. If Steve were there during Eddie's shift, he'd probably be lecturing him about responsibility, but it was a darn Tuesday morning, and everyone was at the lake, on vacation, or at the public pool, "what I mean is that he talked to you; do you know how hard it is to get Steve to talk? How long does he talk to you?"

You shrugged.

"It's not hard. And I don't know; I usually fall asleep after a few minutes."

Eddie clapped as if you were telling him juicy gossip.

"It's hard. Most of the time, Steve says three or four stupid sentences, usually to argue with Dustin, to receive Robin's teasing, or to tell me how uncomfortable he is with me getting too close to his perimeter."

You raised your eyebrows.

"Well, Eddie, you always get too close, and we like our personal space."

He nodded in agreement. "I know, and I understand, I also like your personal space," you laughed at his cheekiness, "but we're getting off track, honey, about what?"

"About what, what?" you asked back.

Impatiently, Eddie rolled his eyes.

"What does he talk about?"

You shrugged.

"I'm telling you I fall asleep within minutes, and I'll guess the things he talks about are private, and he doesn't expect me to be gossiping with the most impertinent man in Hawkins."

Now he was offended.

"I'm not the most impertinent person..."

"I said man, the most impertinent person is Robin."

"Ehhh, not to defend my dear friend, but she was injected with truth serum or something."

"You weren't even there!" Younprotested with a laugh..

"I heard about it, and you weren't there either; you were busy running with Dustin and stealing pants from a Russian soldier that Erica knocked out because you couldn't hold it and got your pants wet."

You furrowed your brow.

"And how do you know that?"

"Well, Robin told me..."

You cut him off.

"You, couple of blabbermouth ol' ladies!" you exclaimed with a victorious smile.

You saw Eddie rest his chin on his palm thoughtfully, then he smiled at you, a genuine smile; not one of those reckless smiles he always had when he mocked something or tried to be sarcastic.

"Harrington loves you."

You furrowed your brow, and the sensation in your gut as if something had suddenly hit you hard didn't go unnoticed.

"I know; he wouldn't do all this if he didn't love me." You tried to play fool about it. You knew what Eddie truly meant.

Eddie shook his head with a half-smile and then took your Walkman and opened it to reveal the copy Steve had given you a few days before leaving on a trip through a couple of states with Dustin to visit Suzie that Monday.

"He made you a freaking mixtape, woman!"

You raised your eyebrows as you watched him almost offended shaking the cassette in his hand.

"So?"

He dropped his arms defeatedly as he pressed his lips in consternation.

"Sweetheart; that man swims in money."

You shook your head slightly.

"Well, now his folks don't support him much anyway..."

"The point is he could buy you an original copy, and our Lord and Savior knows the government owes us so much that he could even ask them to have Peter Gabriel himself come and sign the cover and leave," he argued. "But no; Steve Harrington took the time to strategically copy..." he began reading the song names listed on the cover of the copy. "In your eyes... Don't give up... Look! Book of Love and Solsbury Hill."

You rolled your eyes.

"And what's that got to do with anything?"

"Those songs are from the early '80s, Solsbury Hill came out in 1977," he pointed as if he had suddenly found the solution to some complicated arithmetic problem. "He used different albums to record you a copy; he took the time between his silly dates and his hair sessions, the ones he denies but we all know he has, to take different songs with clear meanings and give you a mixtape; not to Tina, Rebecca, Raquel, Luciana, or whatever the last girls he..."

You shook your head.

"I don't need a recap of his dates; I'm aware he has a bunch."

Eddie took a deep breath and looked you straight in the eyes.

"Steve Harrington loves you."

You chose to ignore the conversation you had had with Eddie the previous week whenever you pressed play on your Walkman and listened to that mixtape. Now you couldn't help but value that mixtape more just because you were delusional and wanted to think it was true; that Steve had gone through that trouble because he loved you.

When you got off the train and left the station, you were taking off your headphones and wrapping them around the Walkman when you almost bumped into Steve, with Dustin next to him with a huge smile. You hugged the boy first, stroking his curls and kissing his cheek, then tried not to make it too obvious that you almost lunged at Steve to wrap your arms around him. Steve was trying to do the same; not to take you by the waist and kiss your forehead before descending to your lips. The past week had been hell being apart; the phone bill would've been terrible if Dustin hadn't brought his portable radio tower to chat with you during the nights. You had to endure not only Dustin's teasing but also Suzie's sharp impertinence, who had no qualms about subjecting him to a tough interview involving feelings and too much adult talk that those kids shouldn't have to handle.

"I can't believe you're already here!" you greeted them with a big smile. "What are you doing here?"

"Dustin's mom is making dinner for all of us, and Dustin wants us to go so his mom won't ask too many questions about Suzie," Dustin grinned from ear to ear.

"Hey, I won't be persecuted by the inquisition, and you guys will have the best dinner ever - everyone wins," Dustin said with a smile

You raised an eyebrow and then burst into laughter

"I'm happy for you, Dustin, and I'm glad to know you can stop swearing for a while," you laughed and tucked your hair behind your ear, "and you?"

Steve started his car and shook his head.

"A nightmare; Suzie is like the female version of Dustin, but smarter and with better hygiene."

Dustin, far from being offended, seconded his friend, agreeing.

"I would be offended, but she's my girlfriend. Of course, she's better than me!"

You turned back to Dustin, smiling proudly.

"I'm glad you had a good week and that you've been kinda approved by Suzie's parents"

Steve pulled the car out of the parking lot and took one of the alternative routes to the Avenue that was being fixed. Since the last incident, Hawkins had been left without a mayor, and new elections had to be held once the situation was contained. The government, of course, decided that a large sum as compensation for the huge civil and structural loss wouldn't hurt, and the mayor's first measure was to start renewing Hawkins' roads and improving the civilians' common areas, as well as generating new jobs and housing. Once you all saw Nancy's mother cutting the ribbon for Hawkins' improved school, you knew Nancy had brought out all her qualities and problem-solving abilities from her mother.

She said her mother had been restless for a while. Nancy had noticed it even amidst Karen's unsuccessful efforts to mask it with a smile, neatly painted nails, and a new perm in her blonde hair. That was until after the huge disaster in Hawkins, Nancy dared to encourage her to run for mayor since many people knew her, and she really had good ideas to improve the town. Besides, nobody wanted the story of a new Larry Kline to repeat itself. According to Mike, his mother couldn't stop laughing at Nancy's suggestion until she realized that the only one finding it amusing was her, and that Ted seemed incredibly serious. When the table fell into a dead silence, the man spoke, shrugging, "And why not?" he said, "Holly will be entering school, Nancy will be going to college, and given Mike's grades, we'll probably have him for an extra year," he sarcastically mentioned the latter and then smiled at Karen, "You run this house perfectly; you can handle a town that clearly needs someone like you." And that was it, I mean, how could anyone refuse a reinvented Ted who had suddenly earned the respect of his family and all he had needed to do was support one of his oldest daughter's brilliant ideas?

When they arrived at Dustin's house, Claudia had already set the table and had the rest of the kids eating snacks in the living room. Claudia was the first to strangle Dustin in a tight hug, kissing his cheeks and forehead, and even though Dustin complained beneath the teasing giggles from the rest, you knew he enjoyed it.

"Oh, oh," Claudia murmured minutes later when they were all seated at the table as she got up to get an extra napkin for Eddie, who was at one end of the table sitting next to Steve, "Here, honey, we don't want that jacket to get ruined with meatball sauce."

Eddie smiled, covering his chest with the napkin and looping one end around his neck.

"Thanks, Mrs. Henderson."

The woman smiled.

"Oh, honey, call me Claudia, I've told you already," she patted Eddie's back and Steve's, "Oh, Lord! Did you get hurt in your mechanics classes again, Eddie?"

Eddie looked at the back of one of his hands, which was covered with a kind of translucent plastic fabric.

"This?" he waved the hand in front of her, "No, don't worry, it's just a new tat I got; I'll show you soon."

Claudia smiled again, concern leaving her face.

"Oh, that's fantastic," she encouraged him, returning to her seat and starting to eat.

"Fantastic?" Lucas frowned.

"Mom, you hate tattoos," Dustin reminded her, exchanging looks with Will and Lucas.

"Know what?" Claudia put down her fork to look at Dustin and shook her head, "This boy has shown me that I shouldn't judge a book by its cover and that tattoos are... what did you call it, Eddie?"

"Expression of the soul."

If she had rolled her eyes any harder, they would surely have popped out of their sockets, or so it seemed when Max adjusted her glasses and subtly reacted to Eddie's comment.

"Yes!" she pointed, smiling, then looked back at the rest of you who witnessed that exchange, "It sounds so good that I'm thinking of getting one myself."

"Mom, noooo," Dustin gestured without speaking aloud.

"I got this super talented buddy who'll do a bang-up job, Claudia," Eddie offered. "Just say the word, and I'll make a call."

"Oh sweet," Claudia glanced at Dustin. "Take notes." She got up again because she was Claudia Henderson, and she wouldn't be Claudia Henderson if she ever stayed quiet when you guys were around. "I'm gonna grab more lemonade."

"Just saying you can't get a tattoo!" Dustin said out loud with a little frown

"And why not?" Robin asked, sliding some noodles into her mouth with a smirk, like she already knew Dustin's response.

Nancy tried to hide a smile and lightly nudged Robin's arm, making her giggle and return the gesture. Jonathan seemed to catch the little exchange. Argyle didn't.

"'Cause it's old!" Dustin hissed a bit too loudly.

"Dustin!" You and Steve scolded him.

"Hey, Henderson," Eddie called out, and when everyone quieted down, he grinned. "Show some respect for my future wife."

That just made the rest of you burst out laughing and Dustin even more embarrassed.

"That's gross, man, don't go there, screw off," he spat out with disgust.

"What's up?" Claudia returned from the kitchen with another pitcher of lemonade and one of her smiles.

"Nothing, Claudia, just talking about how good this food is, right guys?" Eddie smiled innocently, and all of you except Dustin and Argyle had to bite your lips to hold back laughter.

"Of course," Mike was the first to chime in. "It's excellent, isn't it, El?"

She nodded silently beside him as she took another sip of her lemonade.

"Wonderful," Nancy twirled pasta around her fork with a smile.

"Better than my mom's," Robin affirmed.

"See, Claudia?" Eddie grinned innocently, making her blush at all the attention from you guys.

"Oh, how kind, and that's why I'll fill up your glass first," she offered, leaning in to fill Eddie's glass.

"Stop calling her Claudia," Dustin gestured without speaking aloud only for Eddie to understand

Eddie raised his middle finger subtly without Claudia seeing and shook his head, blowing a kiss with a huge smile.

After that, Mike, Will, Lucas, and Dustin decided to stay at home for a sleepover and D&D. The rest of you bid farewell to Claudia after El and Max decided to do the same at Hopper's house, and talked as you left Dustin's house to decide on the next plan for the night.

"What the heck are we gonna do?" Eddie stretched his fingers, loosening the rings adorning his phalanges.

"Yeah, bro it ain't cool that our social life depends on those little munch-truos," Argyle agreed with Robin.

You checked the time on your wristwatch and shook your head.

"Nah, guys, I'm in treatment, need to go yo bed early if I want it to work," you said, pouting a bit.

"What? Hey, will you be able to come to California with us then?" Eddie suddenly asked, becoming completely serious.

Nancy, Jonathan, Argyle, and Robin turned to look at you impatiently. Argyle's cousin was like the Californian equivalent of Eddie and had been visiting during winter break when Argyle camr back too, something about wanting to see snow, and that's when he attended one of Eddie's performances at the Hideout. Anyway, he was fascinated by the way the band played. He said he knew an up-and-coming band that he knew would someday be big just like Corroded Coffin had the potential to be, and he was sure they could play with them at one of their gig at some California club. Nobody believed him, especially because Argyle had mentioned that once, at a party, his cousin had gone missing and they found him the next morning naked and huddled next to a dying bonfire. Surprisingly, Franco came through, and now he had catapulted Corroded Coffin to California where they would vacation and play for the wonderful band that was gaining fans on the coast. Of course, as always, all of you would travel to support them because, if you're there in the bad times, why not in the good times too?

"Of course, Eddie," you assured him.

"Plus, we wanna meet that band. Who can be named Billie Joel Armstrong and not be cool?" Jonathan raised a half-smile, hugging Nancy who smiled back, snuggling against his side.

Quickly, his blue eyes locked onto yours.

"You owe us a girls' night out," she reminded you, pointing at Robin who raised her eyebrows with an enthusiastic smile.

You laughed.

"I know," you replied, burying your hands in the pockets of your knit vest. "I gotta bail, guys," you bid farewell to everyone, including Steve, and he stopped you as the guys started walking to their cars to go somewhere where they would surely drink and chat.

"Hey, hey, hey, where do you think you're going alone?"

You looked at Steve on the sidewalk as his warm hand embraced your shoulder.

"Steve," you whispered with a smile, "There are no more demogorgons."

"I know, but there are murderers and creeps, and I'm not gonna let you walk alone in the middle of the night to your house."

"But we're so close by," you complained, "and the night's perfect for a walk," you muttered, and Steve started guiding you along the sidewalk toward your house.

"We'll walk then," he replied with a smile and determination as he followed, nudging and massaging your shoulder a couple of times before letting go.

You wanted to tell him not to stop, but you remained silent.

"You don't have to take care of me, go hang out with the guys and catch up; this week, Eddie gave a demo to some guy from a record label in Indianapolis, Jonathan's gonna present an exhibition of his photographs, and Argyle finally managed to do that thing he does when he smokes; the rings that disperse in the air."

"Great achievements, apparently," Steve hid a small smile, burying his hands in the pockets of his blue windbreaker, the one that had torn while trying to kill a demodog before it could eat Lucas when they started coming out in droves from the huge cracks that formed after the big earthquake. "You've just summarized everything in a sec; I don't see what else the guys could add."

You tilted your head, looking at him almost sternly, but you couldn't manage it, not while he smiled at you in that way illuminated by the streetlights.

"The truth is, Eddie tells his stories very well, I think is becauseof those campaigns he made for D&D" you smiled back and kept walking toward your house, unconsciously taking slow steps to make the journey home longer and have a bit more time with Steve Harrington. "When's your graduation ceremony?" you asked then, breaking the silence.

"They're supposed to give us the exam results this week, and then they'll give us the date," he replied. "Hopper says I should invite my parents."

You nodded, knowing that would be another disappointment for Steve if his parents refused to show up.

"I agree," you nodded, then looked at him, shrugging with a smile. "It's one last effort on your part, Steve, and if it doesn't work, it won't be because you didn't try."

He raised a sad smile.

"I wish...you know, they were less like my parents and more like, I dunno; Claudia or Joyce, or your parents. Damn, almost all those kids have good parents, look at Mrs. Wheeler, Jesus...even between council meetings and events, she was at Nancy's graduation and Holly's ballet presentation," he almost lamented, tapping the tip of his sneaker on the pavement. "Now I'm whining like a baby," he frowned. "I shouldn't be bothered, I'm used to it."

You observed his anguish through his voice and his gaze. Steve had become very good at turning the pain from his absent parents into false indifference.

"Do you remember what you said once...? ...that time in the trailer. You said you wanted to have a family, kids, and go on a trailer vacation like that one..."

If it weren't for the night, you couldn't be sure if Steve's cheeks had flushed or not.

"What about it?"

You took his arm, and Steve could feel a slight short circuit in his nerves, as if a single touch of your hand sent signals from your body to his. He looked at you, waiting for your response, and you smiled at him proudly even before speaking.

"The point is, even in your plans, Steve, you broke the cycle. You'll have a beautiful family, you'll fall in love with this... wonderful woman who'll see the person we all see, and you'll have kids whom you'll support in every dance rehearsal, every soccer practice, and every darn Christmas recital because that's the person you've become despite your parents, not thanks to them," you let go and looked at him appreciatively, as if the words weren't able to contain what shone in your gaze. Steve wanted to figure out what it was.

He struggled to understand what the rest saw in him when his training officers told him that his effort was commendable or that he was doing really well, he didn't believe it. He didn't believe it when Hopper patted his shoulder, pressed his lips, and told him it would be a great honor to see him become an officer and then the next sheriff. He, Steve Harrignton, doing something more than just working for his father.

But when you said those things and looked at him in that way, for a brief moment, he believed he was all those things.

"Are you-are you...?" he stammered and tried to compose himself. "Are you going to be at the graduation?"

You let go and nodded enthusiastically.

"Of course, I'll be the loudest cheerleader in the front row," you promised, then kept walking without looking back at him. Sometimes it hurt just to see him for a few seconds. "I... I made a decision while you weren't here."

Steve put his right hand on his chest, pretending to be offended.

"How dare you?"

You laughed, shaking your head and biting the inside of your cheek.

"I'm going to stay in the university dorms," you replied. "I feel it's the healthiest thing to do. I want to keep studying, but traveling and having to say goodbye every Sunday is torture."

That sentence was like a kick in his stomach, capable of leaving him breathless, and he knew that, he had had enough of suffocating blows in his life to be able to say that this one was undoubtedly the worst he had felt.

He cleared his throat.

"That's... are you sure?"

You weren't, but you nodded. You thought about what the psychiatrist had said that afternoon, about pulling it out by the root and not putting a band-aid patch over it. She was referring to insomnia, but you supposed you could apply it to many things.

"Yeah," you finally said. "I mean, I'll still come back for holidays and vacations. It's just... three years, they'll fly by."

Neither you nor Steve believed that. You were lying, and Steve was helping you maintain that lie. He helped you hold it heavily all the way to your house. Because he knew it wouldn't be just three years. You were brilliant, and there was no way that in all your right mind you wouldn't want to get a master's and eventually a doctorate. It was like sand slipping through his fingers, only it wasn't simple sand, it was you, and he would be an idiotic selfish jerk if he tried to persuade you not to do it. There was no way you would leave university, and he wouldn't subject you to the torture of constantly saying goodbye to your family and missing them so much during the week. You had the right to choose, and you were doing it.

He said goodbye to you at the door of your house and did what he hadn't been able to do in front of Dustin outside the train station; he kissed your forehead, which felt as eternal as it was brief, and promised to call you as soon as he got home and help you sleep.

You wanted him to, but you also hated the idea. You wanted to feel eager to reinforce that decision that had been rummaging in your mind all last week, not to realize that if you missed Steve during the fifteen minutes it took him to get back to his car and get to his house, you didn't want to know how much you would miss him if you couldn't see him for a whole semester.

So the summer passed, like a bittersweet orange blur of trips to the lake, afternoons in the sun at Steve's pool, whispered nights with his soft monologues inviting you to deep sleep, and more reasons accumulated as to why you fell more in love with him. Two weeks had passed since that conversation on the way home, when Hopper announced at a barbecue that they would throw a party for Steve to celebrate his graduation. Jim didn't say it, but you noticed from the way he hugged Joyce and held his beer without alcohol that he was proud of Steve and how much he had changed since the police found him fighting with Jonathan in that alley next to the movie theater. You screamed with all the force of your lungs when you saw him receive a Fitness Award and a Leadership Award with a smile as you had promised, and Steve didn't have time to miss his parents because all of you called your own to cheer for him and show him off as if he were their son. Your mother used to joke about it at home, saying she loved him like one but wished she could call him one, but that only depended on you. That summer passed, and you couldn't do anything about it, or maybe you could, but you didn't dare. You didn't even dare in California when you traveled in Eddie and Argyle's vans and spent nights on the beach and watching Eddie and his band rehearse to play alongside Billie's band, who did exist and yes, was pretty good. Not even after having that conversation with Nancy while trying on clothes at South Coast Plaza.

It was the day of Corroded Coffin's big concert, Nancy and you had decided to buy an outfit according to a great Rock concert at The Whisky a Go Go, one of the famous venues in West Hollywood where emerging bands usually performed.

As they ate ice cream and dragged their bags, you decided it was time to talk to someone about it. If not with Steve, then with the only person in the world who could perfectly understand how you felt. The only other person who had fallen deeply in love with Steve and had broken his heart.

"Nance..." you spoke after a moment of silence while you had taken refuge in the least crowded corner of the food court. "I need to tell you something."

"Okay, go ahead," she asked after seeing that you were having trouble continuing the conversation you had started.

"I have feelings for Steve," you said, after discovering that there was no correct way to say it except to say it.

Nancy looked at you for a few seconds with her huge eyes and then raised a half smile.

"No shit."

She resumed eating ice cream, and you resumed breathing.

"I know there's an unspoken policy about dating a friend's ex, but I promise I have no remote intention of dating him. In fact, I fully intend to take all this and bury it with... I don't know, Henry Creel?" you asked nervously, earning a laugh from Nancy.

"You're too funny," she replied. "Listen," she sighed, "Steve doesn't belong to me. He can date whoever he wants, and honestly, I'd rather it be you."

"I'm not going to do anything about it, Nance. I'm going to college, and it would be very complicated," you said.

She snorted.

"As if you're not magically going to miss him just because you don't dare tell him you love him," she muttered, savoring her strawberry ice cream with sunglasses still covering her eyes.

"Nancy, it's your ex-boyfriend we're talking about."

She smiled, even with the cone in front of her mouth.

"Yeah, I know. He broke up with me, and then I broke up with him, or something like that. The truth is, we've never really agreed on that."

You looked at her, not understanding how she could be so calm having this conversation with you. You hadn't even said you loved him out loud yet, and you already felt like your body was catastrophically sweating. Seriously, this couldn't be normal.

"It's... your first love, the person you experienced everything with... how do you compete with that?"

Nancy left her ice cream and looked at you seriously.

"You don't have to," she settled next to you to face you. "It's true, there's a lot of our history with Steve that I'll always cherish, but you don't have to compete with that, believe me," she affirmed confidently. "Steve... was different, and I was different. I broke his heart; my relationship with Steve taught me the wrong way I can love someone. We were both so... childish and selfish, we distrusted each other and hurt each other. It was love, but it hurt, and it shouldn't hurt," she confided in you. "And not content with that, I almost made the same mistake with Jonathan," she added, almost embarrassed.

You watched her for a good moment, then picked up that ice cream that was still halfway through in your hand.

"I've always felt a little jealous of you, you know?" you admitted and laughed nervously. "You saw it, Nance; you saw who Steve was behind all that facade."

"In those days, I just wanted to fit in," she said.

"But you did see through him," you smiled. "Nancy Wheeler always one step ahead of all of us."

She glanced at you sideways and smiled.

"Well, if we're admitting our female jealousies, I must say I've always envied the way you talk about what you feel; I've always wanted to be a little like that, I mean if I had spoken clearly about my emotions, I probably would have avoided a lot of misunderstandings," she shrugged, and then smiled sadly. "You've always been able to start the most difficult and most necessary conversations, so please, let this not be the first time you're going to stop doing this, because if you don't talk to Steve for real, I'm going to be tragically disappointed."

You couldn't promise her that, because you knew you couldn't keep it.

After that unforgettable night for Eddie and the rest of the members of Corroded Coffin, they returned to Hawkins, the kids to their first day of school, Nancy to pack for her first year of college with Robin, Eddie to work, Steve to wear his police suit, and you to move to the University.

If you thought saying goodbye to your parents and Steve was painful before, now facing the prospect of a whole semester away from them was even worse. You felt a terrible knot in your chest, it hurt so much that you believed it couldn't be good for your health, and you tried to convince yourself all the way to Indianapolis that you had definitely made the best decision.

"Hey, wait," Steve called to you before you entered the building and he left. You turned, trying to hold back the tears and not letting him see how pathetically they were following an invisible path down your cheeks. You looked at him, and he seemed suddenly lost, as if he weren't this adult guy who had to do away with his self-proclaimed best feature to fulfill the obligation of short hair at the Police Academy and thus do what he was destined to do; take care of others honorably, but a little scared little kid.

You raised your eyebrows.

"What's wrong?"

"Don't let Lewis intimidate you again. You fought against many monsters for you to let a simple human belittle you when clearly you don't deserve it."

You smiled and nodded. "Thanks, Steve."

"There's something else," Steve looked at the building behind you and nervously opened and clenched his palms.

You looked at him curiously.

"What?"

"You won't have a phone in your room," You confirmed that statement with a nod, and then he walked to his car to take out a shoebox and hand it to you. "I... did this; it's the best idea I could come up with, there's also the radio, but you'd spend too much on batteries, and this is something similar, right?" he asked when you opened the box to reveal a large number of homemade cassettes. "I recorded myself talking; most of it is nonsense, but that's not the point of all this, right?" he smiled. "It's so you can sleep."

You looked at him and the box, and his hands still surrounding the cardboard material next to yours, and you set that box aside to hug him in silence because the truth was that a thank you felt very little. Not even that hug felt enough. Steve sniffed your hair one last time because he wanted to memorize it. This didn't feel like a simple goodbye. Maybe he was being dramatic, maybe it was because of the words that were never expressed, or the fact that he simply loved you and wouldn't be able to do the most he had aspired to do in this life: share it with you, even as friends.

"Steve," you spoke and let him go to look at him, and it felt like a mistake, "you know you're very important to me, and I'm going to miss you very much, right?"

I love you, you make me happy. I feel protected even though I know I can perfectly be alone, but I prefer you to do it. You make me take care of myself. Everyone thinks we should be together, even me, but I can't bear the idea of you not loving me back. I love your hair, long or short. You drive me crazy in uniform, just like you'll probably drive all those available girls waiting for you in Hawkins crazy. I want that life with you; the house, the dog, the six little Nuggets, and traveling across the country in a caravan to vacation in California where Nancy and Jonathan will surely live when they get married. Where Eddie will buy his first house after his first world tour with Corroded Coffin. And where San Francisco is, the place where Robin will surely move to once she discovers there's a quieter and more acceptable place for her, where she'll surely take Will with her once the boy tells them about that part of him he's so terrified of. Where they'll be able to see their friends, and surely those six Nuggets will make friends with their kids because that was the life you wanted with Steve. Because I love you.

But no.You didn't say it.

You smiled. He smiled, kissed your forehead, and said goodbye.

And you suffered again as you watched Steve drive away in his car.

Steve had learned a few things from you. Remember that one time, Mike had been disrespectful to Nancy, and of course, you stood up for her. Mike didn't take it well; it was a stupid sibling fight, couldn't even tell how it started, but the kid got mad at you because it wasn't your problem, you weren't his sister. Steve wanted to yell at him, wanted to tell him he was a spoiled, ungrateful brat who still couldn't understand that he was loved by more people than he probably deserved at that moment. But you seemed to anticipate that situation because only the Lord knew how well you had come to know him, so your hand wrapped around Steve's arm, and your finger briefly traced circles on his wrist, as if calming him down, and you decided to give him the space the furious Mike demanded. Hours later, he saw you approaching him, where he had isolated himself that afternoon by the lake, not even Eleven could get close to him. He saw you timidly take his arm and link yours with his as you talked. The rest of you were preparing a bonfire, Dustin and Steve had wandered off a bit to make sandwiches while Dustin chattered about something he couldn't quite remember. From that distance, he could see you put your hand on his shoulder and smile at him, then you told him you loved him. Steve thought Mike would be embarrassed, would frown, and probably leave you there alone with just your words of affection, but no. Mike smiled shyly, scratched his head, and nodded back, telling you that he loved you too.

You had managed to turn the little spoiled brat into a functional human who had learned the power of saying "I love you" to his friends.

Steve then felt it, as if suddenly something sprouted from within him.

"Dustin, shut up for Crying out Loud," he stopped looking at you and Mike to look his little friend in the eyes. "I swear, Henderson, if you talk any faster, you're gonna make me puke. You talk too much," he gestured with his hands, met with Dustin's serious gaze, "You talk a lot, you're annoying, and I love you," he said abruptly, and after saying it, he realized it was something he had always wanted to say and that it hadn't been so hard, "I love you, dude."

He saw Dustin's bewildered look, who dropped the sandwich from his hands onto the rocks surrounding the lake and hugged Steve tightly, a gesture Steve had to accept because he had opened his mouth in the first place. He didn't look at him; he looked out at the water while unconsciously patting the kid. He heard him let out a small, almost imperceptible sob.

"I love you too, Steve."

That afternoon, he had learned that the best things must be said, and as he drove back to Hawkins after dropping you off at your dorm, he couldn't understand what had really stopped him from telling the truth. Maybe he just made excuses; there had to be a way for you to keep studying without feeling miserable about being away from home and for him to keep loving you without being afraid of not being what you deserved, what you needed, or worse; what you wanted.

But it was too late for regrets. You had a degree to pursue and he had a job to get to.

But he should have spoken, he should have spoken, and that was the repetitive thought that haunted him in the days and weeks after returning without you and with a defeated feeling weighing heavily on his shoulders.

It wasn't easier for you; you constantly found yourself daydreaming in class, and weekends were the worst; if you couldn't talk to your parents, Steve, or the rest of the group on the phone, you'd find yourself depressed in your room reading books and filling your notebook with poems dedicated to someone who would never know. The only time of day that became a bit easier was when you went to bed and put on your headphones, listening to Steve's voice. You had heard him talk about the silly things he did as a child to get his mother's attention and the time Dustin found him trying to climb to Nancy's window with roses. You never got very far in the narration; you always fell asleep quickly, but it wasn't until one particular night that your curiosity was piqued when you woke up from a nightmare and discovered that the cassette was still playing, and you heard Steve's voice talking about something very different from what he had chosen to talk about initially. You rewound the tape a bit, and as you tried to shake off the remnants of a nightmare you were starting to forget, you heard him, unintentionally falling asleep in the middle of his monologue.

"... sometimes I believe all those things," a weary laugh, "I can believe I'm capable of doing all that; because, you know? The real reason I thought I needed my parents' money to sustain myself was that was the only thing that could keep me close to them in some way. Can't they love me? Fine; then let them give me something of themselves. But the thing is, they don't care. Dad stopped giving me money not because he cared about wasting it on me, but because he wanted to teach me a lesson, and it wasn't a life lesson like any parent would do. No, that's not Mr. Harrington's style. What my father wanted was to show me that I'm nobody without him, that my identity is to be a Harrington," he paused, as if it cost him every ounce of his oxygen, and you held your breath along with him, fearing that something would happen and prevent you from continuing to listen, "So... I don't know, Nancy was the first person I wanted to fight for, the one I wanted to get out of that bubble and challenge everything my parents taught me to value. Then when I no longer had Nancy, I realized that without the money, without that house, without the friends who kissed my ass... there was nothing in me to give to anyone else; I was empty," his voice sounded sad, "it was the reality check I needed..." the sound of the tape grain could be heard for long seconds before he spoke again, "And one day, there I was, Robin telling me all the reasons I sucked, and then you showed up with your smile and your hair and your eyes, and you were the same girl I saw all those years in school but at the same time not, and then you asked me what I was doing there. You did it while you waited for me to put your ice cream in a cone, you asked it as if we were old friends, people used to talk. I told you I worked there because I didn't want to work with my father," he laughed, "I don't know why I told you that. Then I handed you the ice cream cone, sure that you thought I was a loser, but you smiled again as if you saw through me. As if you knew exactly what I was talking about and you said, 'Well done'," he laughed again, "just that, you said goodbye to Robin, left me a tip, and smiled at me once more before leaving. I had so much to say to you that I just stayed quiet there at the Scoop's Ahoy counter while Robin put a mark on the side of the board claiming that I didn't suck as much as she thought and that was the first day of my life that I believed there was something more in me than the empty and frivolous king Steve who left high school without a care in the world... darn it, sweets, I'm going to miss you so much..."

You didn't realize you were crying until the tape ended and felt your cheeks damp. You wiped your tears and settled on your side for a sleepless night full of enormous curiosity. You repeated Steve's words to yourself, What would Steve have told you that afternoon in the ice cream shop if you had stayed a little longer? Maybe you wouldn't have to wait another week to see him again, when you went to visit Robin and found her translating a cryptic message in Russian with Dustin Henderson. Maybe things would have been different; maybe since Steve and you didn't quite know each other yet, he would have asked you out, but you would never know.

The next morning didn't help your mood starting with Lewis's class and his very disastrous grade delivery. He gave you a grade low enough that your lack of sleep, excess caffeine, and frustration got you out of your seat and led you to his desk with a furrowed brow and a lot of verbal vomit to let out.

"Can I help you with something?"

You nodded at the disdainful look from your narrative professor.

"Yes, I want to know why I can't get good grades on your exams even though I'm very good and I work very hard."

He looked at you for a few seconds like a snake studying its prey to know the best way to attack.

"Maybe because you try too hard; there's something sad about those who are always trying to please others."

You listened to his words attentively and then let out an incredulous little smile.

"I'm not trying to please others. I know I'm good, I don't need you to pat me on the head or praise me, I just want the right grade to pass this class and graduate the way I want."

He laughed, surprised at your words.

"Oh, is that what you want? Wanting and deserving are not synonyms; one thing is what you want and another thing is what you deserve, and what you deserve is right here in red numbers," he replied, tapping the paper of your exam.

You looked at him for a good moment. To this man with a superiority complex and remembered Steve, who was this bitter man next to Vecna? What was Lewis compared to a demogorgon?

"Allow me to disagree," you murmured back.

"And what do you deserve then? Enlighten me."

You thought about your options. You had a full scholarship like the rest of the group, courtesy of the government as a reward for saving the world without dying in the attempt. If you wanted, you knew you could get into any university just by saying please. You were sure that if you had been more petty, you could have managed to get Lewis fired because that's how much the government kissed all your asses.

You knew at least what you didn't deserve after years of fighting monsters and thinking you would lose your friends and family more than once: you didn't deserve this. You didn't deserve to leave everything you loved in Hawkins for a person who apparently had made it his life goal to ruin yours.

You leaned over his desk and smiled at him.

"Listen to me. You and I both know this is not my grade. You and I both know that for some reason, you hate me and I could live with that if you weren't constantly trying to sabotage me. You know why I'm here," you whispered seriously, "because I did something you'll never do in your life, judging students unfairly behind a desk, and you know that reporting your lack of ethics to the university council would be the easiest thing I've ever had to do in my life. So let's do this; keep hating me and see where that gets you. I'm going to leave my exam here again, and you're going to review it again. And since it's time for the end, I think you can handle me being absent from your class for the next few minutes, can't you?"

He called your name as you turned around and went to get your things from your seat, he was furious but trying to contain himself.

"Where do you think you're going?"

"What I deserve isn't here, Professor Lewis," you replied with determination, some students had started to notice the tension, "And I'm going to find it now. Remember what I told you," you announced with a smile and walked out of the room with a newfound courage you didn't know you had.

Steve missed you too much. Many afternoons he had been on the verge of taking his keys and driving to Indianapolis to visit you, but he knew that went against the whole purpose of you moving to the dorms in the first place. Sometimes he sat alone on his couch, the nights he missed you so much that it was impossible to sleep, and accompanied by a beer, he watched The Princess Bride while imagining that you were there saying how similar the actor who played Westley was to the former mayor of Hawkins, the one Powell had had arrested. Steve laughed because he didn't see much resemblance except for some gestures. It was a painful exercise, imagining you by his side, but it was the only thing that had helped him when not even going on dates with other girls had worked.

"Listen," Phil Callahan approached him with a smile as Steve filled out a form about a recent arrest he and Powell made last week when Mrs. Driscoll's vacant house had been vandalized.

"I'm busy, Cal, what do you want?" he muttered under his breath without looking at him as he wrote, concentrating on the paper.

"My girlfriend has a friend who thinks you'd like to meet her, she's a bit older..."

Steve set the pencil aside and looked at him.

"I'm not interested," he said, moving to the IBM to make a copy of the paper.

"Oh, come on!" Callahan protested, "She doesn't even look her age, seriously, she could pass for 23, 25?"

Steve sighed tiredly, touching his nose with his hands and then running his fingers through his hair.

"It's not because of that, Phil, I just don't want to, period."

He could see the disappointment on Phil Callahan's face as he shook his head.

"Is it because of your friend, right? The one who always carries that book, what's her name...?"

Steve frowned, and it was as if defense protocols within him started to kick in. Even before Callahan kept speculating about you, Steve began walking towards Hopper's office where Joyce and he were sharing lunch and laughter. He knocked on the door that was already half-open and entered the office, interrupting their laughter.

"What did you tell Callahan?"

Joyce tensed up in her seat, leaving the plastic fork in her salad container as she glanced uncomfortably at both of them. Hopper, on the other hand, seemed somewhat pleased, his eyes narrowing slightly, though he remained silent, watching Steve.

"Uh, I'll be going…" Joyce began to rise, grabbing her bag. She went over to Jim and leaned in to give him a gentle kiss on the lips goodbye, promising to see him at home that night. As she passed by Steve, she of course touched his shoulder and squeezed it gently before leaving the office and closing the door behind her.

Steve and Hopper shared a staring contest until Hopper adjusted his belt, the one he had to poke another hole in because he had lost weight since Russia, weight he had made an effort not to regain.

He gestured with his hand and spoke up, "Sit." When Steve complied, Hopper leaned back in his chair. "What happened?"

"Callahan wanted to set me up on a double date and I turned him down. He then asked me if it was because of a friend...so I knew you had mentioned something because who else would he talk to about this?" Hopper interrupted with a nod.

"Yeah, I might have mentioned a thing or two about you being in love with a lady who went off to study in Indianapolis."

"Why would you tell him that, of all the cops, to the most annoying one?" Steve asked, puzzled.

"Why not? I knew he'd say something and have you storming into my office, interrupting my quality time with my lady to give me a lecture I don't need," the police chief seemed totally content despite what he had said.

"Jim, you're not making sense and I've got a ton of bureaucratic paperwork to do," Jim rolled his eyes and leaned his elbows on his desk.

"If I hear you say 'I've got a ton of paperwork' one more time, I swear I'll kick you out of this station," he muttered, then covered his mouth with his hand thoughtfully and watched him, "You're miserable, Harrington," he declared, "You were one of the top graduates of the academy, you're one of the youngest people ever awarded the Presidential Medal of Freedom for saving the world, not once, not twice, but five times from extinction. Everyone out there knows it; they saw the TV coverage and saw you receive the medal Reagan gave you, and yet here you are; walking around like a pre-programmed robot and bugging me about what I should or shouldn't talk to my police officers about."

"You did it on purpose!" Jim smiled at Steve's protest.

"Touche," he murmured, "The thing, Steve, is that it's really sad to see you like this. You're young, you're smart, you've got the looks, and you've been busting your butt at work. Last week you raided two drug houses, two!" he reminded him, "You need to slow down a bit and live, and you won't, I know, because she's not here."

That left Steve somewhat perplexed. "I… uh… Hopper."

He stopped him. "If you're going to deny it, don't even bother," he retorted, "You know what? You and I are alike." Steve snorted, earning one of Jim's pseudo-threatening looks. "Yeah, we are. Deep down, we're lone wolves. I lost my little girl, you've heard about that, right? I lost her and I wrecked my whole life; my marriage, my friendships. I breakfasted on whiskey and messed around with so many women I frankly don't remember their names, and it doesn't make me proud. I'd come home late at night because I preferred spending more time at the station than in my own place, after a long day to sit in my armchair, alone in my house, living on memories because I was too scared to make new ones," he admitted, "I had the love of my life right in front of me, and it wasn't until we faced a potentially dangerous situation that I realized I could lose everything I wanted without even having had it."

Steve, silent as a tomb, had to admit inwardly that, much to his dismay, Jim Hopper and he were alike.

"I'm sorry, Hopper."

"Don't be sorry," he replied, "I don't regret any of that because it brought me to where I am now, but I do regret that you have to put yourself in a similar situation when you have the choice to spare yourself and that brilliant young lady all that grief."

Steve furrowed his brow and shook his head somewhat nervously. "She already chose…"

"She's scared," Hopper said intensely, covering his eyes with some impatience, "Damn it, why do we have to explain everything to you guys?" he ran his hand over his face to his chin,

"Hopper, I appreciate your concern, but this isn't your problem…" Steve began to get up.

"It is," he argued.

Steve furrowed his brow. "It isn't."

"It is because you're my problem, kid," he pointed to the chair again, "Sit." Steve sighed wearily but obeyed his police chief, "I'm sorry you lucked out in the crappy parent distribution, but life's unfair, and honestly, you've managed to pull through despite not getting the love you deserved and needed," he murmured, "but you have us. You have me and Joy," he admitted, "She always talks about you guys as our kids, and I've never corrected her, you know why? Because you are, our kids. You're mine, kid. And when I see you sad or tired or angry, I'm going to try my damn hardest to make that stop," he let out that last sentence almost halfway, and for the first time, Steve caught a glimpse of the vulnerable man under the sheriff's facade, Hopper always wore. "Joy did it, Steve: without her, I'd be miserable," he half-smiled, letting out a soft chuckle, "I don't want you to reach my age wondering what could have been if you had gone to find your Joy and given your heart, so do me a damn favor," he settled back into his chair, "Get your butt off my chair, get out of my office, and take the day off. And don't come back until you've gone for her and gotten your smile back," he asked for the form paper that Steve still had in his hand. Steve was frozen, his stomach feeling light, and his mouth somewhat dry from the shock.

Jim Hopper wanted him like a son. Him; the real son of the person he used to hate in school. The guy who wasn't the easiest to deal with on earth, to whom he had given the chance to be and do something despite his fears.

He owed a lot to Jim.

He handed him the sheet and got up from his seat again to walk to the door, but he couldn't leave without saying anything, so he swallowed that lump in his throat and turned back to Hopper.

"Thanks," he barely managed to say.

He saw the sheriff's eyes somewhat cloudy with emotion and nodded.

"Get going, and tell Callahan I want him here in my office yesterday."

Steve gave a smile and left Hopper's office with a new mission that wasn't within that station.

"And?" Cal asked as he ate a donut with a relaxed posture.

Steve went to grab his favorite jacket, the blue windbreaker that had been almost destroyed by a demogorgon and that you had secretly stitched up to surprise him.

"I gotta go. And Hopper's looking for you," was all he said before leaving the station.

When you arrived in Hawkins, you took a taxi that dropped you right outside Steve's house. The huge house looked totally deserted, and the lights remained off. His car was not there, and only the distant chirping of crickets could be heard. You wondered what to do. You didn't want to go to your parents' house and explain your unexpected return to them without first telling Steve. You looked around the house and told the taxi driver he could leave. You'd wait, you told yourself as you sat on the stairs leading to his house. Yes, you would wait; after all, he had to come back at some point, right? So you took out the flashlight that Dustin made you all carry along with a pocket emergency kit and opened one of your books to start reading. If you had defied Lewis this morning, you wouldn't give him reasons to think you were a failure, oh no. Now you were even more determined to graduate from college with or without his approval.

You were not in your university dorms. Your roommate claimed that morning you had returned very early from your classes, grabbed your bag, and announced you were going home for a few days. That abrupt decision made Steve's gut twist with a bad feeling. What if something was wrong? What if you were having another one of your insomnia crises and all the recordings he had made for you had been useless?

So he rushed back to Hawkins with his badge in hand, ready to say his pregnant wife was having strong contractions if any interstate cop stopped him for speeding. When he arrived, he passed by your house and peered through the windows because he didn't want to alarm your parents if you hadn't gone there. You weren't there; you weren't at Robin's or the Wheelers'. And you weren't at Eddie's house because he had had to travel to the West Coast a few days ago. You weren't at Family Video, and you weren't at the lake. So, worried to the tip of his hair and distraught, he thought of one last place you would probably go back to in Hawkins. So he drove his car there and started driving to his house because he was desperate and really wished he could find you there. It was beyond just wanting to see you; it was about making sure you were safe.

The powerful headlights of a car interrupted your reading. You raised your hand in front of you to shield your eyes from the light. You closed your book and set it aside on the paved path when the lights dimmed, and you managed to recognize Steve's vehicle. He abruptly stopped the car, almost on the lawn of the driveway, and got out of the vehicle quickly, slamming the door shut without the consideration he usually gave to his BMW. You waited standing in front of the door of his house and saw his worried expression.

"Are you okay?" he asked when he stopped in front of you, studying you, as if making sure you weren't harmed.

You furrowed your brow. "Yeah, of course, what's wrong?" you asked when you saw him covering his face and running his hand through his hair with relief.

"I… I went to Indianapolis to look for you, and you weren't there. I thought something had happened to you."

"You traveled all the way there and back?!" you asked, seeing his disheveled hair and the traces of concern in his eyes. Then you took him by his arms and nodded. "I'm fine, just… I missed home and needed to come back."

He nodded silently, allowing himself to breathe and then pulled you to him to envelop you in his arms and breathe in your shampoo again. Steve closed his eyes and enjoyed the scent for a few moments. It had been a long time since he had smelled that scent, and it felt like a damn eternity.

"I came home because I confronted Lewis," you said finally, still with your face against Steve's chest, your hand inadvertently brushing the fabric of his uniform, which could be seen under his windbreaker.

Steve opened his eyes and let you go, enough to be able to look you in the eyes with curiosity.

"What happened?"

You made a somewhat embarrassed grimace.

"I may or may not have used America's debt to us for our heroic sacrifice to threaten him with getting rid of him if he keeps using his privilege to treat me unfairly," you said, then tilted your head, "or maybe he thought I'd get rid of him like with the demogorgons, but either one works if I want him to leave me alone once and for all."

Steve raised a smile, and the small laugh he let out turned into a bright laugh.

"You're… you're…" he looked at you, embracing you by your lower back and pulling you closer to him, "Joy," he murmured thoughtfully, remembering Hopper's words and starting to laugh, "Damn it, Hopper."

You furrowed your brow and looked at him confused.

"What are you talking about?"

"I had…" he slightly tightened his grip on your back as if giving a small caress, smiled with a look of disbelief on his face as he looked at the ground, trying to find the right words, "...the must surreal conversation with Hopper, and he told me I should look for my Joy, that's what he calls Joyce, so I thought he meant a person to love, but it's more than that, isn't it?" he smiled at you.

You studied him with confusion, unable to understand him.

"I heard your recording. It was about the day we saw each other at Scoop's Ahoy, I didn't even remember what we had talked about that day; you told me about how you didn't want to work for your father so you had chosen to work there instead," you smiled, "It was brave, Steve," you smiled and then swallowed hard, looking at the ground, you were still very close to Steve, maybe you had to take a step back and clear your mind? But his arms still surrounded you, and it felt good, and there was a chance that after this, this would be the last time he would hold you like that. "In the recording," you finally said, "you said you had a lot of things to tell me, that day at the mall, what was it, Steve?"

He observed you in silence, and one of his arms let you go so his hand could comb the hair on one of your sides. His eyes studied your face, and he seemed calm, as if he had made peace with any thoughts inside him, he looked resigned, but happy.

"I don't remember," he half-smiled, "but I'm glad I didn't talk to you that day; I probably would've flirted with you in the worst way possible and invited you to a disappointing date. I would've missed out on everything else…"

You half-smiled, "Do you mean making me pee my pants while trying to save you and Robin from the Russians?"

He chuckled.

"Of your friendship, of… the trips, the afternoons at the lake, and of," he turned his hand to hug you, "this."

Your stomach churned with surprise, and you looked at him expectantly.

"This?" you asked ",What is this?"

He took a deep breath and never stopped looking at you for a second, called you by your name, and then rested his forehead against yours.

"I want you to be happy always, that's why I didn't stop you from moving to the dorms even though just the thought of having to miss you half the year was killing me," he admitted.

You furrowed your brow sadly.

"I wanted to leave because I couldn't bear the goodbyes every Sunday, but the truth is, what would break me the most would be having to say goodbye to you without knowing if while I was there you would meet your girl and suddenly forget about me," you confessed back, practically declaring your feelings for him to his face, "I preferred to run away than to have to see you all the time and just be your friend."

He closed his eyes with his forehead still against yours.

"You are my happiness," he whispered with his breath hitting you, "I want to love you."

"You've already been doing that," you murmured as you felt his nose touch yours and his face turned to meet yours, his lips meeting yours.

"Then I'm going to love you more," he promised just before kissing you.

That kiss didn't feel like any other kiss you had given before. It was as if you were finally home, and this was the way Steve welcomed you. The softness of his lips sent small electric shocks through your body; you could hear the beating of your own heart as Steve caressed your face. Steve smiled into the kiss; this was much better than he imagined every time he looked at your lips and wondered what it would be like to kiss you.

This made it real; Steve's dream and your dream becoming one.

When you separated, you didn't do it much, just a few inches, enough to breathe and look at each other with fascination. It felt like the first time Steve saw you.

"Did you visit your parents when you arrived?" you shook your head, and Steve smiled, "Do you want to stay?" he asked, and you nodded again, still catching your breath and unable to speak yet. Steve laughed and then moistened his lips with his tongue, combing your hair, "Do you know what that means?"

You shook your head, "What does it mean?"

Steve lowered his hands to your thighs, lifting you up in the air, and making you cling to him, hugging him with your legs as your arms wrapped around his neck.

"You're going to sleep like a rock ronight, Babe," he said with a laugh, and you cradled his face to give him another kiss while Steve walked to the door and opened it quickly with you still in his arms.

He didn't let go of you, not even when he put you in bed with him and talked to you until both fell asleep.

The next morning, Steve arrived late at the station, his hair still wet, and he entered apologizing, but from the expression on his face, he didn't seem to regret it. The smile never left his face, and Hopper hid his behind his coffee mug when he saw him leave in a hurry as soon as the shift ended.

Well, now he had a reason to go home.

#steve harrington x fem!reader #steve harrington x reader #steve harrington x you #steve harrington fluff #steve harrington comfort #friends to lovers #steve harrington stranger things #steve harrington fanfic #steve harrington imagine #steve harrington

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charliedawn · 1 year

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Not sure if requests are opened rn (or if it's ok to request this sort of thing, so please ignore me if not)?! How would Slashers (I'm ok with whoever, but I'd prefer the more 'quite/introverted' ones) react to finding out the reader (who is their friend) is only comfortable enough to talk when they are alone with them, like the second someone else walks in, they become unresponsive? Everyone else at the hospital though the reader was mute at first, until they got comfortable enough. (I had a friend like this, who just couldn't speak in front of strangers, he even learned sign language to comunicate, despite having normal hearing!) Sorry if this doesn't make sense, english is my 2nd language

Jason Voorhees :

Jason was in the same situation a couple of years ago when he first arrived...He refused to talk and didn't let anyone near him.

He would understand.

He would also listen if you want to talk.

But, he wouldn't necessarily talk back, which is kinda the reason why he is so easy to talk to.

You would also talk in sign language in front of the others and have whole conversations that only the two of you could understand.

Freddy : "...What the f*ck do they talk about ?"

Pennywise *shrugs* : "Don't know. Don't care."

Jack : "...I feel like they're talking about us somehow."

Jason and yourself *laughing during your silent conversation*

It would drive them mad and you would take some pleasure in making a fool out of the slashers who usually were the ones making fun of you.

You : "Say Jason...Do you like when I talk to you ?"

Jason *surprised face and signs* : "Yes. It's nice. You have a nice voice. Not loud or rude like the others. Y/N. My friend."

You smiled and you never doubted Jason again.

As he had the honor of being the only one to enjoy the sound of your voice, you were also the only one to enjoy the sight of his face without the mask.

Jason is very self-conscious, so for him to show you his face, you might be one of the people he trusts the most.

Michael Myers :

Michael didn't actually notice when you started talking to him..

He only realized it was rare when Freddy tried to talk to you, but you hid behind him and refused to answer the obnoxious slasher.

He would then observe you a bit more and realize you only talk when no one else than him is around.

He would eventually grow curious and ask you for the reason, surprised to find out that you are in fact very shy and couldn't utter a word when surrounded.

Michael would keep the secret of your conversations to his grave. He would also protect you from the other more exuberant slashers.

Michael *sees Freddy trying to intimidate you into talking*

Freddy *leers* : "Come on..I know you can talk. One peep. That's all I'm asking for.."

Michael *suddenly grabs him by the collar and yanks him out the window*

Problem solved..

Michael doesn't tolerate bullying, especially from the other slashers that he learned to view as his children.

He wouldn't let anyone bully you or force you to do anything.

Father Paul :

When Father Paul was admitted in St Louis, he was hurt, lost and confused.

He had survived his island burning into ashes, but didn't understand how or why ?

Not until he found out some officials had managed to rescue some of the inhabitant of the island and send them to different facilities for research..

He had been sent to St Louis, but had refused to talk to anyone—not after losing everything he ever believed in..

Not until he met you.

You were timid, quiet and didn't even dare make eye contact the first few times you were assigned his cell.

He found an anchor in you.

Something he could get used to.

This is why the only time it wasn't you taking care of his cell block, he went on a killing spree and only stopped when you returned.

You : "STOP !"

He immediately obeyed and even though his mouth was still covered with blood and his hunger was more than present—he didn't try to hurt you.

He restrained himself from talking and you both stared at each other until he finally spoke.

Father Pruitt : "I...thought you wouldn't come back."

You smiled and trie not to think of the dead bodies you had to walk over to him.

You : "I know. I'm sorry."

You then brought him back to his cell and even though you closed the door, he didn't attempt to stop you. He was happy you were there.

Pennywise :

Meh. Understandable.

Pennywise isn't much of a talker.

His favorite time of the day is in the morning when everyone is still asleep.

Pennywise *smiles when he sees you awake as well* : "Long night or early morning ?"

You *yawn* : "Very long night."

Pennywise *nods* : "One of those, heh ?"

It took a moment for Pennywise to recall not hearing you talk around Penny or the others.

He would find it odd.

But, he wouldn't ask you. He would respect your choice to remain silent.

However, he would grow curious as to why you you would talk around him ?

Pennywise : "Say...Why are you talking to me ? I noticed you weren't the chatty type, and I even appreciate you all the more for it...But, why do you only wanna talk to me ?"

You seemed to ponder on it before shrugging. You couldn't explain it. You just knew he wouldn't judge you. And..he didn't.

He shrugged as well and waved it off.

"Bah. Fine. Keep your mysteries then."

He wouldn't push and know you will tell him on your own time. And after all, what does Pennywise have but time ?

Kevin/Orwell :

Kevin and Orwell are both introverts.

They keep to themselves and rarely speak.

And as they share the same body, it is even more difficult to make out the difference between them.

But, you learned to differentiate them by studying them closely.

Kevin is more of a sheepish introvert. He is too scared to even speak to the other slashers. He was abused at a young age and it is part of the reason why he doesn't like to talk.

He is sad and often lonely. It shows in his eyes. It is the reason you started hanging out with him and you learned to appreciate his company enough to use your voice.

However, Orwell is another kind of introvert. He is the 'I don't have the time nor the energy for that' introvert.

He doesn't talk—not because he is shy—but because he is a history professor with a PhD in Ancient Legends and their origin..He already knows talking to any of the other more buoyant slashers would be a waste of his time.

But, he found someone worthy of conversation with you, so he does talk in your presence and is always glad when you talk to him.

Orwell *excitedly* : "Most Egyptian gods represented one principle aspect of the world: Ra was the sun god, for example, and Nut was the goddess of the sky. The characters of the gods were not clearly defined. Most were generally benevolent but their favor could not be counted on. Some gods were spiteful and had to be placated. Some, such as Neith, Sekhmet, and Mut, had changeable characters. The god Seth, who murdered his brother Osiris, embodied the malevolent and disordered aspects of the world. Isn't it just fascinating ?"

And when he smiles so widely as he keeps talking, how could you not agree ?

You *smile* : "Very interesting. They're a bit like you. The slashers I mean..They do have a good side and a bad one embodied by their killer instincts and inhuman capabilities.."

Orwell *smiles too* : "I mean, I've never seen it like that before..But, yes. You are absolutely right."

#fandoms #imagine #fanfic #pennywise 1990 #pennywise x reader #slashers #michael myers x reader #jason voorhees #jason voorhees x reader #father paul hill #father paul x reader #kevin wendell crumb x reader #the horde x reader #orwell x reader

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pepperonidk · 2 years

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When He Sees Me || k.mg

MASTERLIST

Pairing: Kim Mingyu x Reader

Warnings: none <3

Word count: 2.5k

Summary: What if when he sees me, I like him and he knows it? What if he opens up a door and I can’t close it? Catching feelings for your best friend is never easy.

A/N: If you like this story, please throw in a reblog lol. Inspired by true events. Obsessed with the quirky lil idea of bestfriend!Mingyu <3 this is also posted on my marvel account (@capwogers).

Oh God, please don’t walk this way, please don’t wa-

“Oh, hey Mingyu!” The crack in your voice betrayed your attempt at a casual greeting, despite your efforts to disguise it with a cough. “How’s it-- how’s it hanging?”

“You good?” Mingyu smiled at you but his eyebrow quirked upwards in concern. “I just wanted to make sure we’re still on for tonight?” His concern faded into a wide grin as you nodded in response. Mingyu gave you a quick goodbye before walking away towards his next class.

As soon as you saw him turn into the classroom, you turned to face your closed locker, letting out a groan before setting your forehead against it. Mingyu had asked if you were good, and although you nodded, the butterflies in your stomach threatened to give you away. You were very much not good.

A tap on your shoulder snapped you out of your thoughts and you turned to see your friend Minghao. “What did Mingyu do this time?” Minghao asked. For the last month, every interaction with Mingyu -- there have been a lot -- ended this way: a groan of defeat and a few welted lines on your forehead from holding your head against your locker. You turned to give Minghao a dirty look, annoyed by the amused smirk on his face.

“Absolutely nothing,” you sighed, finally lifting your head up to talk to him. You opened your locker as you talked, not wanting to make eye contact with Minghao as you confessed your feelings. “He just… smiled… and everything went downhill from there.” You rolled your eyes as Minghao laughed. “It’s getting worse, I have no idea how I’m going to get through tonight.”

Minghao laid a hand on your shoulder. “Well we’ll all be there,” he offered. “And if it makes you feel better, no one’s even noticed. Just act normal and you’ll be fine.” He shrugged his shoulders as if that was the easiest thing to do. But you couldn’t act normal anymore, not with Mingyu. Not when normal means resting your head against his shoulder every time he makes you laugh. Not when normal means borrowing his clothes when he tells you to stay the night every time a study session runs too long. Not when normal means wearing the extra sweater he keeps for you because you always forget yours.

Normal was when you didn’t feel butterflies everytime he looked at you, before your curious heart got the better of you and you began to wonder what it might be like to hold his hand. Now, things were just weird. At least for you. Nothing on the surface had changed, no one noticed how your heart rate picked up every time Mingyu touched you, or how you suddenly felt hot whenever he winked at you. But inside your heart was navigating uncharted territory in your friendship, trying to traipse along the thin line that separated how things have always been and how you suddenly wish things could be.

Pulling your textbook out of your locker, you shut the locker door a just a little bit more aggressively than necessary. Minghao gave you a small hug before linking grabbing your arm to drag you to your next class.

For the rest of the day, you found it impossible to focus on anything. Instead of taking down notes on George Orwell in English, you found yourself absentmindedly doodling hearts. Everything just reminded you of Mingyu and your own confusing feelings. Thankfully, you didn’t share any classes with him today, leaving you just enough solitude to think about just why you were so frustrated with yourself.

Logically, you knew there was nothing wrong with having a crush on someone. You’ve had plenty of crushes before, a few of which reflected a temporary lapse in judgement on your part. You remember telling Mingyu about each of them, gushing about the most basic acts of human decency as he rolled his eyes and told you that you deserve someone better, but nevertheless helping you pick up the pieces every time someone broke your heart. That, you realized, was what scared you the most.

If you were to date, and then break up… well who would be there with kind words and your favorite boba when everything fell apart? The thought of losing your best friend over emotions, feelings, left far too much to chance. Was the idea of holding his hand, of hearing him call you his enough to make you risk the friendship that has always been enough for you? It should be enough for you, you reminded yourself. There was too much on the line and not enough guarantee for you to risk it.

With that determination in mind, you steeled yourself for the rest of the day, determined to put your feelings to rest and go back to normal.

Unfortunately, that plan quickly fell through.

You got to the restaurant a half hour late with only a really good nap to blame. You felt bad that your friends were waiting for you, but when you got there, you found an empty spot next to Mingyu, where your usual order of ramen was waiting and against your will, the butterflies flew rampant. The noodle that hit Mingyu’s nose as he ate while waving you over made you laugh as you sat down beside him.

“I got you your usual,” Mingyu explained in between bites. You smiled and thanked him before digging in. Mingyu had done this for you many times, and you willed your body to fight against the flutter of your heart.

Thankfully, the rest of your dinner was going well, and everyone had plenty of stories to tell. Minghao had begun doing portraits of people in distress and revealed his latest piece -- a portrait of Mingyu slurping up a noodle only to get a rogue drop of soup in his eye. Jeonghan and Seokmin were fighting over something petty yet again, but of course they tried to keep it civil (they were fine again by the end of the night) so no one would have to pick sides. Seungcheol teased Mingyu about the B that he made on his literature exam yesterday over poetry and Mingyu’s face turned beet red.

“Hey,” Mingyu began, attempting to defend himself. “I totally could’ve made a perfect score. I was just distracted.” He shrunk down in his seat a little bit, and the rest of you laughed teasingly.

“Yeah, you’re telling me,” Seungcheol continued. “You’ve been drawing little hearts all over your notes, dude, it’s unsettling.” He rolled his eyes and took another bite of his food, swirling his fork around the bowl trying to grab as much noodle as possible.

Across the table, you and Minghao made eye contact, a look of surprise between the both of you. You tried to signal him to say something before a weird silence fell on the table, but he was not reading your cues. Thankfully, Mingyu spoke again.

“H-hearts?” He repeated. “Why would I be drawing hearts on my notes?” Although he tried to play it off, the rise in pitch gave him away. He scrunched his face in exaggeration.

“Actually,” Chan began. “Now that I think about it, you were doing that in chemistry class too.” You glanced over at Mingyu who looked at you with panic in his eyes. You took a long sip of water, suddenly feeling a layer of sweat form at the back of your neck. “Wonder what that’s about.” He shrugged and turned to Jeonghan asking if he wanted to split a slice of cheesecake with him.

Before Mingyu had a chance to try to defend himself once again, the waitress appeared. “Are you all ready for the check?” she asked.

“Yeah, but we’re splitting the check,” Seungcheol replied. Jeonghan rolled his eyes in response. “What? Just because I’m rich does not mean I have to share the wealth.”

The waitress nodded in response. As he was leaving Mingyu called her back. “Oh wait,” he called. “I’ll also be paying for this order,” he gestured to your bowl. She smiled at him and headed for the counter.

“Gyu,” you smiled. “I have money, I can pay for myself.” Although Mingyu usually had to order for you, he didn’t usually pay for you, unless it was a special occasion.

“I know, I just wanted to be nice,” he responded, giving your shoulder a playful nudge. “Plus, you seem like you’ve had a rough week. Every time I see you, you seem to be lost in thought. What’s been on your mind?” The sentence came out casually, but the furrow in his brows revealed how concerned he actually has been. Mingyu was nothing if not observant.

You let out a sigh, unsure of what to say. You didn’t want to lie to Mingyu, but you also didn’t want to tell him the truth, that you were thinking about him-- well, your feelings for him. Just when it seemed like he had backed you into a corner, however, the waitress had returned with the checks, and the question left unanswered.

After dinner, the six of you went to Seungcheol’s house to watch a movie. He had a home theater and loved to remind everyone about it. Not that any of you minded, especially if it got you free popcorn and a movie out of it. Every week, a different person got to select the movie and today, unfortunately, was Minghao’s turn.

You loved him, of course, but you absolutely detested his taste in movies. Mostly because he was a horror junkie, and you were absolutely not. His last few turns however had been spent making sure you all had seen all of the Shrek movies. But today, he actually picked a horror film. Something about demons and the like. Chan and Jeonghan cheered at his selection as Seungcheol groaned. You settled into the couch in the back of the room and grabbed a blanket. Seungcheol and Joshua sat together on a couch, and Jeonghan sat on the floor in front of Seungcheol’s seat, the perfect spot to be able to scare him with a single touch on his leg.

Mingyu sat down beside you, handing you a tub of popcorn and a soda. He pulled the blanket over his own lap as he sat criss-cross on the couch. You tried not to pay attention to how his leg was brushing against yours under the blanket, instead focusing on the screen as the room went dark.

The movie had just started, but you could already feel yourself tense up in expectation. The music was coming to a crescendo and you knew something was already going to happen. You didn’t realize just how tightly your fists had balled together in your lap till you jumped at the sound of Mingyu’s soft voice at the shell of your ear. “Are you okay?” He asked.

He tried to hold in a chuckle as you almost bounced the tub of popcorn off your lap. He grabbed it from you and set it to the side. “Look,” he pointed to the screen where the creature’s head had just rotated a full circle as it crawled up the wall in pursuit of the main character. “That thing kinda looks like the spider from that kid’s tv show, but not as creepy.” You let out a laugh, a little louder than you meant, and Jihoon turned to tell you to shut up.

The small joke was enough to dissipate the anxiety you felt towards the movie, but unfortunately only heightened your feelings about Mingyu. But he noticed how your fists unclenched and how your shoulders relaxed once you laughed, so he continued to tell you whispered jokes for the rest of the movie. Each time he noticed your body tensing, he tried his best to make you laugh, and god, how could you stop yourself from those butterflies anymore?

At the height of the movie, you found yourself with your hands over your ears, and eyes squeezed shut, unable to even look at the screen or hear a joke. When Mingyu realized a joke wouldn’t be enough, he slid closer to you and pulled you into his side and you buried your face into the crook of his neck. Before you had a chance to think about the spicy notes of his cologne or the softness of his skin, the sound of a high pitched scream in the movie caused you to jump with a gasp. In response, Mingyu wrapped his arms around you tight, with a gentle shush.

It was only after the music began to die down that you opened your eyes again, only to find Mingyu’s eyes fixed on the screen. Now that the worst was over, you no longer had an excuse to be in his embrace the way you were. You began to wiggle your way out of his arms, attracting his attention.

“What are you doing?” he whispered.

“Gyu, I’m a big kid,” you smiled, teasing. “You don’t have to hold me like a baby.” Mingyu let out a soft laugh before relaxing his hold on you just a bit.

“Okay,” he relented. “I’ll just hold you like this then.” He began to shift so that your head was on his shoulder, and one of his arms looped under yours, intertwining your fingers. The smile on his face was calm as if this was something the two of you did all the time, but his racing heartbeat reminded you this was new for him too.

The two of you remained that way for the rest of the movie. By the time the soft music began to play in the credits, you could hear light snoring from everyone else in the room. However, you and Mingyu made absolutely no efforts to untangle yourselves from each other. It was as if you were worried that once the lights came back on, you would never find yourself like this again, and what a sad idea that was. Normal, would never be enough for you again, not when you know now how much better life could be like in his arms.

You weren’t sure if it was the adrenaline from the jump scares, or the sureness of his hand in yours, like it’s always belonged there, that gave you the courage to finally break the silence.

“Mingyu,” you breathed out, lifting your head from his shoulder, but not letting go of his hand.

He turned to you, with a look of concern, afraid of what you might say.

“Kiss me.” The words came out so softly and so quickly that you weren’t sure if you said it at all.

“Finally,” he whispered as his lips fell against yours, softly and slowly. He pulled away after what felt like hours and yet not nearly enough time. His hands reached up to cup your face. “I like you,” he admitted. “So much.”

Suddenly, you felt it. You felt exactly what it must feel like to fly, to let yourself go without worrying about gravity or anything else. The risks were still there, the numbers hadn’t changed, but you knew that no matter what happened next, just having the chance to fly would always be enough.

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pepperonijem · 1 year

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ii. if you want to keep a secret || all my love

“If you want to keep a secret, you must also hide it from yourself.” - 1984; George Orwell

Summary: Bucky Barnes is a man of routine. But now that you’re here, his whole world is turned upside down. Pairing: high school!bucky x f!reader Warnings: anime mentions !! cursing Word Count: 4.1k A/N: yes i have a headcanon that natasha watches anime. if you don't agree keep it to urself luv !! natasha is a haikyuu enjoyer i'm so sure of this (also sorry for the late post... i was at disneyworld lol)

previous chapter || back to library || next chapter

Bucky Barnes did not like having his routine messed with.

Every morning he wakes up right at 5 a.m., enough time for him to go on his morning run and still have time to grab breakfast from the bakery near his house. Once he gets home, he grabs a glass of water and then heads to the restroom to take a shower, right at 7 a.m., like clockwork.

That is, until you came along.

Now he was here, standing in front of the bathroom door… at 7:45 a.m., pounding on the door.

“You’ve been in there for almost an hour,” he shouted. At first, Bucky was honestly not that upset that he wasn’t in the shower yet. It was your first morning in the house, and although he hated the arrangement, he knew it wasn’t really your fault that you didn’t know his routine. But the minutes kept passing, and you were still not out. You were in before he was even home, and now 35 minutes later… It had been long enough. For the last ten minutes, he had been standing outside the door, clothes and towel in hand, banging. But before he could pound on the door some more, it swung open, revealing you dressed for school with your hair wrapped in a towel.

“Oh,” you gasped, surprised to see him standing at the door. Bucky’s fist was still up, but fell limply to his side when he noticed your eyes widen. “Have you been waiting for long?”

Now it was Bucky’s turn to be surprised. “You… You didn’t hear me yelling?” He looked down at you, suddenly noticing the very little space between the two of you. He was close enough to smell the eucalyptus body wash you use and the coconut scent of your shampoo. He cleared his throat and took a step back, trying to stop the heat from creeping into his cheeks.

“No,” you replied. “I was listening to music.” You ran your hand through your wet hair, waiting for Bucky to reply.

“Oh, well,” Bucky began, breaking his calm and collected exterior for only a moment. “Please try to get out of the restroom sooner, I don’t want to be late for school.” He stepped aside to let you pass and turned to face you, switching your positions.

You looked back at him in confusion. “Wait but school doesn’t start until–” and the door was closed.

Now that he finally had the shower to himself, he found himself lost in his thoughts as he got ready for the day.

If he was honest, he really did hate this arrangement. He already had to deal with all of the questions from his friends at school about why he turned you down so harshly and so publicly and why he didn’t even take your letter. But now that you were living in the room next door, sitting at the dinner table with him… it felt as if he was living under a ticking time bomb, just waiting for shit to hit the fan, for you to ask him about it. What would he even say? That he turned you down because he panicked and it was just a knee-jerk reaction to say no? That he doesn’t care how you feel? He was well aware of the cold and distant persona he had built up over the years, but now he sometimes couldn’t tell if it was still a facade or if he’d internalized that coldness.

Despite his trying to rush you out of the bathroom, Bucky was in a rush to get out of the house until he was intercepted by his father who was waiting with his arms crossed by the front door. Before he even said a word, he already knew how this interaction was going to go.

“James,” he began sternly. “Aren’t you going to wait for our guest so the two of you can go to school together?”

Bucky groaned as he went to grab his car keys, surprised to see they were not on the hook by the door but instead, already in his dad’s hand. “She can take the bus,” he attempted to argue, as his father gave him a disappointed look. “Dad, I’m already late. I promised Sam and Scott I’d help them out with their college applications this morning.”

He reached for his keys again, only for his dad to yank them behind his back, just out of reach. “James.” He gave him the sternest of looks that only a father could give and he immediately relented, unable to say no to him. Bucky was many things and a good son was definitely one of them.

The whole car ride to school was silent. The radio was off and all Bucky could hear was the voice in his head reminding him about all of the commitments he was missing right now. He wondered if Sam and Scott figured out how to start their admissions essays without him and if they’d have time to help him out later. He wondered if Natasha was able to review the calculus homework with anyone before class, and if she had found a third member for their physics project. He tried to remember if he had all of his football gear in the back, hoping that in the rush of things he didn’t forget or else the captain would have his ass.

However, he did not hear the question you just asked him, only your mumbled “Cool. Good talk,” as you turned your head to look out the window. For a second, he felt a little bad that he didn’t hear what you said, but it quickly passed as he turned into the nearly full school parking lot, reminding him that he should be annoyed at you instead.

“Can you get out first?” Bucky blinked back at your incredulous look before he clarified. “Sorry, I just don’t really want people knowing you’re staying at my house. Rumors and all that.”

Bucky tried his best not to notice the way you pursed your lips and sighed through your nose as you nodded at him stiffly. If he noticed it enough, he would have felt bad enough to retract his statement, but his pride held up even as he watched you walk away from the car.

Bucky finally walked up the front steps of the school building at 8:45, with only 15 minutes before the bell. By the time he got to his locker, his friends had already gone to class. He quickly grabbed his calculus textbook and shut the door with a slam, annoyed at the fact that out of his entire school career today was the first time he might actually be tardy. All because of you.

Luckily for him however, he made it into his calculus classroom on the third floor with only seconds to spare before the bell rang. He took his place at the front of the class beside his friend Natasha who looked at him with a raised eyebrow.

“You okay, Bucky?” She asked. “You’re literally huffing and puffing. You don’t even look this tired when we hang out after your football practice.” The chuckle at the end of her sentence came out awkwardly as she sensed the anger that seemed to be radiating from Bucky’s body along with the smell of sweat.

“Yeah,” Bucky lied through gritted teeth. “Just got a late start today is all.” He took deep breaths to regain control of his breathing and relaxed his shoulders. Thankfully Bucky’s long legs had allowed him to run up the steps three at a time, but unfortunately… there were a lot of steps.

Natasha nodded, sold by his explanation. “When you didn’t meet us at the library this morning, Sam and Scott were concerned. They thought you got abducted by aliens or something.” She chuckled again, playfully patting Bucky’s arm and shaking her head at the silliness of her friends.

“Did they finally start their essays?” Bucky asked. The four of them, along with Natasha, had all planned to go to the same university and get an apartment together. Sam and Scott would go into engineering, Natasha would go for political science, and Bucky was… still figuring it out.

“Yeah,” Natasha replied. “If by ‘start’ you mean Sam opened up a shared document before he and Scott started uploading memes instead of starting to brainstorm.”

“That’s it? You didn’t stop them?” Bucky was surprised that Natasha wasn’t able to keep their other two friends in check. She was usually the one in the group to keep everyone on track, balancing out Sam’s tendency to be a constant distraction and Scott’s tendency to be constantly distracted by Sam. Bucky usually just laughed at whatever shenanigans Scott found himself in.

Natasha’s cheeks reddened as she replied. “They started calling Dragon Ball Z ‘Naruto’ and I couldn’t stop myself.”

Bucky chuckled, now a little bit more at ease. Sam loved to push Natasha’s buttons. Natasha was an avid anime watcher, and her friends loved to tease her for it. It was well known among their friend group that bringing up anime was a guaranteed way to distract her from whatever you didn’t want her to see. But before Bucky could crack a joke about it, the bell rang and the teacher began to speak. “Alright class,” he began. “Some quick announcements before we start. First, don’t forget that this Friday all seniors will be taking the scholastic aptitude test.”

There was a collective groan among the class as he continued. “Please be reminded that these exams will be a factor in determining what university you will attend after high school, so do try your best.” Despite the relaxed tone in the teacher’s voice, the sense of dread that filled the classroom was palpable, even among Bucky and Natasha who were among the top students in the class.

The rest of the period seemed to drag along for what felt like hours. The majority of class time was mostly spent towards reviewing math concepts for the upcoming exam, something Bucky was not particularly worried about. Math came easy to him, the logic and the concepts just made sense and he appreciated the very defined process. If you do the process correctly, you get the correct answer, the way everything should be.

At the end of class, Bucky was waiting for Natasha to gather her things so they could walk to their next class together when he saw your head peeping through the door, your eyes widening when you realized you’d been spotted. He let out a sigh and Natasha turned her attention to where Bucky was looking. “Oh hey!” Natasha greeted with a friendly wave, before turning back to her friend. “So are you guys like friends now or–” she began to ask, not realizing Bucky had already walked away from her, headed towards you and hoping no one else noticed.

“Hey,” you began once he was in ear shot. “I–”

“Not here,” he said firmly, noticing the stares he was getting in the crowded hallway from people who should be minding their own business, he thought. He began making his way toward the courtyard, not bothering to check if you were still behind him.

Hands in his pockets and eyes trained forward, Bucky projected confidence. But inside his head, the facade was beginning to fall apart. He was anxious, honestly. As a member of the football team and class president, he was used to being the center of attention in the hallways, but this time it was different. They weren’t just staring at him now, but staring at the two of you together.

Only when the doors to the courtyard had closed and the two of you were out of earshot from the intrigued student population did he finally turn around to face you with the same icy blank gaze he gave you only a week ago.

“What do you want?” He asked bluntly, looking down at his watch. “I have to go to my physics class on the second floor.”

“Oh right,” you stumbled, looking everywhere but at him. “I just had a question, which I tried to ask you in the car but I don’t think you heard me then, so I thought I would try again after your calculus class since I’m in the next room over but–” you were rambling and Bucky didn’t have time for this.

“What’s your question?” He asked with as much fake politeness as he could muster. He didn’t miss the way your eyes snapped to him and the desperation in them when you finally made eye contact.

“Can you help me study for the exam?” You finally asked sheepishly. “I’m pretty good with the writing part, but math… is not my best subject. And your dad told me this morning that you’d be able to help me out and–”

Bucky rolled his eyes. His dad had only known you for all of 24 hours, but was willing to hang up the stars in the sky for you as if you were his own daughter. “Sorry, but I really don’t have time for this,” he replied, pinching the bridge of his nose in annoyance. “We have our last game this weekend. I have practice every night, and on top of that I have to study for myself as well.”

“Please,” you begged. “You’re top of the class, and I suck at math but I really really need to do well on this exam.”

“Aren’t you friends with Wanda?” Bucky asked, exasperated and looking for any way out of this situation. “Her math grades are just as high as mine, why not ask her?”

“Wanda lives almost an hour away now,” you reasoned. “I wouldn’t ask if it wasn’t a last resort.”

Bucky waved his hand back as he turned to walk away, cutting off your protests. “Sorry, but honestly it’s not my problem.” Now turned towards the doors he came from, he could see the faces of dozens of students pressed against the window, curious as to what Bucky was saying now to the same girl whose heart he broke just a week ago. Once again, he felt the same anxiety he did earlier, now even more desperate to flee the scene, until he heard you call out, with an arrogant chill in your voice that made him stop in his tracks and turn back to face you with eyes wide in panic.

“I didn’t want it to come to this,” You began. “But your dad said you might be stubborn, so he gave me this.” The new smirk on your face was infuriating, Bucky thought, as you held up a picture of 8-year-old Bucky with a pair of Spongebob underwear pulled over his head like a mask while throwing up a heart with his hands. You were clearly oblivious to the dozens of people watching the two of you through the windows of the courtyard. He walked as fast as he could, trying to grab the picture from you, before you snatched it just out of his reach.

Not wanting to cause even more of a scene, he stepped back, cleared his throat and spoke with as much reserved annoyance as he could. “Why do you have that picture?” He questioned through gritted teeth.

Bucky watched as you placed the picture back into your backpack. “I didn’t want to resort to blackmail,” you admitted. “But desperate times call for desperate measures, and my math grades are pretty desperate. As soon as the exam is over, you can have the picture back and I’ll leave you alone. I’ll even take the bus to school. ” There was a sincerity, albeit arrogant sincerity, in your voice that tugged at something in Bucky and he let out a relenting sigh, admitting defeat. Sympathy? This was new for him. Sure, he was being blackmailed, but he figured if he’s gonna study anyway, it couldn’t be that much more of an inconvenience to include you.

He had never been more wrong in his life.

“We’ve gone over this concept four times this week.” Bucky exclaimed in frustration as he set his glasses down on the table and rubbed his hands down his face. “If the problem says the triangles are similar, then the proportion of two sides will be the same. How did you get this problem wrong?”

For the last few days, each evening was the same. Bucky would come home from practice, take a quick shower and immediately grab his notes, his textbooks, and practice exams that he somehow found the time to make. Then the two of you would sit at the dining table with everything spread out in different organized piles. He was determined to make sure that this time was spent as efficiently as possible, and to his credit, it was very efficient. He was a great teacher, until tonight, the night before the exam.

All of the concepts that he had spent hours drilling with you had somehow disappeared, and Bucky was beginning to lose it.

“You literally got all the questions right last night,” he exclaimed. “What the hell happened?” he questioned, clearly exasperated.

“I don’t know,” you cried out, just as shocked as him. “Maybe it’s just nerves? I don’t know and I’m kind of panicking.” You stared at the paper in front of you, messy numbers and jumbled letters scrawled and scratched out in the empty spaces underneath the questions. Bucky could see the way your shoulders rose and fell that panic was the least of what you were feeling.

Honestly, Bucky didn’t have to care whether or not you knew what a special right triangle is or even how to factor a polynomial, but he had invested far too much time and effort for you to not learn something, damn it, so he wasn’t going to rest until you were ready for this test… and by extension neither were you. But, he realized, you wouldn’t learn anything if you were going to be on the verge of a breakdown after every question. After taking a deep breath to calm down, Bucky replied with a much softer voice. “Okay, let’s take five and then we’ll go over this again.”

After taking a quick restroom break, Bucky found you in the kitchen, staring at the selection of coffee, tea, and hot chocolate, eyes wide and blank as if you were going back and forth with yourself in your head. He raised an eyebrow in confusion as he reached for a mug in the cabinet above you, noting how you didn’t blink as he stretched his arm past you. “You okay?” He asked.

“Uh, yeah,” you cleared your throat. “I’ll uh, go wait for you at the table.” You nodded back to him before heading back to the kitchen, tugging on the sleeve of your sweater. Bucky noted the hint of panic in your voice, letting out a little sigh as he reached again for the cabinet.

When Bucky returned to the table, you were surprised to see him carrying two steaming mugs. He set one in front of you before clearing his throat. “It’s chamomile tea,” he explained. “It calms the nerves.”

He watched as you thanked him and took a sip of the hot tea, your shoulders immediately relaxing as a soft sigh left your lips. “Ever since I was little, my dad would make me hot chocolate whenever I’m up late studying,” you said. For a split second, Bucky felt like he made the wrong choice with the tea, until you continued with a quiet chuckle. “I’m actually much more of a tea person now, but I guess in his eyes I’m still a little kid sometimes.”

Not really knowing what to say back to you, he simply nodded with an understanding smile. “Do you miss him?” He asked tentatively. Bucky wasn’t much for deep personal talk and honestly, he was surprised to hear the words leave his mouth.

You nodded, still looking down into the steaming mug in your hands. “Yeah,” you confessed. “I mean he calls every day when I get home from school, but it kinda just reminds me that I’m here and not coming home to the smell of his cooking.” You looked up to Bucky, afraid that you accidentally insulted his dad’s cooking. “Not that your dad doesn’t cook well, he really does, it’s just that this is your home and–”

“Not yours?” He finished your sentence for you, shaking his head as you nodded sheepishly. Bucky looked down at the paper in front of him and added with a quiet voice, “Well it is. This is technically your home now too. So you can get all the hot chocolate and tea that you like.” You turned your head to him, surprised at the gentleness in his words. “I mean, for the year, or however long, I guess,” he added quickly, not meeting your eyes.

Before you could reply, Bucky pointed at the next problem on the page, taking a big sip of his still steaming mug of tea and clearing his throat. “So uh, triangles.” And just like that, Bucky was back.

The next morning, the school was buzzing with nervous energy. Usually, Bucky considered himself to be above the general test anxiety of his peers, but today he found it difficult to shake off the jitters he was feeling. He knew the cup of coffee he chugged down this morning was a bad idea, but when he woke up this morning head down on the dining table with a small drool stain on his paper and a blanket around his very stiff shoulders, he believed it was a necessary evil. He had no time to process how he woke up in that position, but figured he must have fallen asleep studying. Once again, he waited for you to get ready and rushed to school, was almost late, and made it to his homeroom just as the teacher began passing out answer sheets.

For the next three hours, Bucky’s mind raced as he answered the questions. He found himself pausing at a question about special triangles, wondering how you were doing on your own test, shaking his head, but then having the same thought a few questions later. It wasn’t until he saw Tony, then Wanda, then Natasha turning in their exams that he finally snapped himself out of it to finish the section before standing to turn his test in. He ignored their stares as he walked back to his desk with his hands clenched in his pockets, aware that they were wondering why it took him so long to finish what they thought was a straightforward test. And of course, he knew the answer. You.

As soon as the last exam was collected and the class dismissed, Bucky made a beeline for the door, stopping only to ask Wanda if she knew what class you were in, ignoring the disbelief in her voice when she answered. Wanda followed behind Bucky as he walked to your classroom, wondering what on earth he needed to find you for. Once they found your classroom, Bucky barged in, not caring about the handful of students who now stopped their conversations to stare at him. Wanda walked past Bucky to stand by where you and Steve were, shrugging his shoulders in response to Steve’s look of surprise.

To the confusion of Wanda and Steve, you smiled in excitement as Bucky approached you, even waving at him. “Oh Bucky!” you exclaimed, “The test went well, I didn’t panic and blank out like I usually–”

Bucky cut you off with an outstretched hand, and you blinked, taken aback. “Hand it over,” he demanded. The hand in his pocket, had finally begun to relax once he heard you did well, but he’d be damned if he let himself admit that he actually cared about that. He watched as you began digging through your backpack to pull out an envelope. You held it up, but your eyebrows furrowed in confusion. But before you could tell him that this wasn’t the same envelope you had last week, Bucky had already snatched the envelope and began opening it.

Unfortunately for him, the contents of the envelope were not at all what he was expecting and he let out a gasp in response as he handed the envelope to you, not realizing its contents were also visible to the two boys who still stood behind you.

“Is that–” Wanda began.

“You and Bucky?” Steve finished.

Instead of a silly picture of Bucky as a child, it was a picture of the two of you both asleep at the dining room table last night, elbows touching and legs practically smushed together with a note on the back in his father’s handwriting that read,

This is a good luck charm for your exam!

You can do it, Y/N!! :)

There is no word to describe the shade of red Bucky’s face turned when he realized he was screwed.

taglist: @charmedbysarge @girl-in-the-chairs-void @feral-pixie-girl @eat-limes-bitches @morgthemagpie @romanoffjohansson @its_londyn_official @yeehawbiatch @cjand10 @kittybeansbarnes @antisocialwritingx @geeklife314 @sjsmith56

#Bucky Barnes #Sebastian Stan #Bucky barnes fluff #sebastian stan fluff #sebastian stan angst #sebastian stan smut #sebastian stan fic #sebastian stan headcanon #sebastian stan x reader #James Buchanan Barnes #bucky barnes angst #bucky barnes smut

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stilemawillow · 2 months

Text

MTIJ | Ch.30 City of Dumbassery, Here I Come

|mtij masterlist|

pairing: levi ackerman x reader

word count: 13k

summary: a girl with a variety of hidden complexes has to live with a french asshole for nine months. easy? on the surface. problematic? definitely. romantic? not too much, or at least they’d make it a point to say so everytime when asked. the end? please, their dynamic isn’t as simple as that.

warnings: nsfw content; mentions of nudity; virginity loss; oral sex (f! receiving); protected sex; explicit sexual content; reader discretion advised

A hundred-dollar question: where do people go to blow off steam when their interns weren’t back back from their vacation yet? First and foremost, never City of Dumbassery as it’s not a place for relaxation. I might’ve been its main population these days, but I fancied myself a rational person capable of making the right choices when needed. Pretend you’re not looking at my romantic history. The right choice, however, wasn’t always right in the heat of the moment, only in perspective, so we begin this scene with me, seated on Erwin Smith’s couch with Hanji Zoe and a cup of coffee.

For more information on the right-est choice I made as of late, keep watching. Or as asshole-me insists on promoting: Come see the prequel to the biggest fuck-up of this girl’s life. I, though oblivious to its imminent eventuation at the point where we start, had a vague notion of what I wanted the next few days to look like. Let’s just say, humourlessly enough, that my wildest dreams came nowhere close to the reality that would take place.

“I’m sorry about last time, (Y/N). I didn’t know about you and Eren.” Hanji’s contrite apology made my smile widen as I lifted the cup of coffee to my lips. Dismissing the fact she brought the topic right back with the intention to make amends, Hanji was a good person and clearly sincere in her ways of regarding me. Kindness was one thing, but this woman’s pure cordiality was admirable.

“It’s not a problem. I could tell it wasn’t your intention to hurt me.” The corner of my mouth twitched in self-reproach at the manipulative bullshit I let slip. Instantly, I corrected: “Not that I was hurt.” If it’d been Annie, she wouldn’t straight-up laughed. Had it been Levi, he would’ve stared at me like I was dumb for thinking him dumb enough to buy it. But this was Hanji and she just smiled reassuringly.

“You can share if you want to. That’s what I’m here for with all my friends,” she offered. It sounded tempting but I couldn’t allow myself that kind of openness yet. Annie was, as always, the only person who knew the full story in all its repulsive glory but if I wanted to preserve (Levi’s privacy) my reputation, I couldn’t tell the whole thing here. The whole thing – look at me dodging the serious parts in an attempt to make myself feel better. I couldn’t tell Hanji about my intoxicated attempt to sleep with her friend, who gave dubious if any consent. Sounded appropriately disgusting like this.

“Mike and Erwin seem like they lead pretty decent lives, though.” Redirecting the topic, ignoring everything weird, dismissing all as a dirty scheme meant to humiliate me – a methodical step-by-step guide on how to be a paranoid bitch. It would’ve been my equivalent of the Bible if I weren’t an atheist. Even if I regularly used OMG, if I had to pick a fictional character to believe was real, at least I’d pick one from a book with a legit author – something by King, Thackeray, Hemingway, Tolkien, Orwell or Hawthorne. Following that train of thought, I might as well start worshipping Mickey Mouse – it’d do me more good than the big guy with the beard who loves me but would make me suffer for all eternity for stepping out of line once. I did it a lot.

“It wasn’t always like that. Not to mention Levi was stuck in the gutter a month back.” Hanji’s words snapped me out of my daze. “I know I told you to wait for him, but I don’t trust him, so make sure you keep this conversation a secret,” she warned while leaning forward as if afraid the walls would hear. The suspense, though exaggerated and a bit comical, made me put down my coffee. “So, you know how Petra is mentioned here and there?” I nodded. “She was Levi’s fiancé. She died in a car crash last October.” I knew I should’ve reacted appropriately but I couldn’t force it quickly enough. Hanji noticed. “You don’t look shocked.”

“No, but I am surprised. A lot of things make sense now. I’m sorry for your loss.” I hastened to make a recovery to lessen the doubt along the planes of her face. A pang tugged on my heart. When I considered the alternate reality where Petra hadn’t died, the notion of Levi not arriving for his internship was incomprehensible. He’d be studying hard at home and married. No rings, no chaos, no cheating for me – yes, good, but no company around the house either, no distraction and no comfort.

“You haven’t done anything to apologise for it,” Hanji said. “Anyways. Shorty was in a really bad place the months after. Working himself to the bone, no sleep, no food, no nothing. He just had to be doing something. The one good thing that came out of it was his weekly visits to his mother.” A small pause, a moment of consideration for her and an odd feeling of fascination for me. I was soaking it up like a sponge because I was seeing, at last, his angle. “Maybe it hit him that if death came for Petra, it could come for Kuchel, too. I can’t know for sure. All I know is he exhausted himself to the point he collapsed. Unconscious for three whole days. Isabel told him he’d gotten the internship when he woke up.”

“So he used it as an escape,” I finished. It was a logical conclusion. Hanji nodded. Avoiding pain wasn’t the way but he’d been desperate to get away and the internship had been the perfect opportunity. He’d grabbed his bags, boarded the plane and then… well, had to deal with me. Not a warm welcome by any means. He hadn’t even had the energy to get angry or look like he felt anything. I hadn’t known, hadn’t cared enough to see. It made me uncomfortable to realise it.

“Flew over a whole ocean and kept working,” Hanji proceeded. “He wanted something to distract himself with. When he ran out of work because he did overtime, he started calling home more often. Vague details were all he gave, but I got the feeling he had something else to work on.” Hanji’s words made a lopsided smile kiss my lips. He’d wanted to busy himself with my well-being, but I’d taken it the wrong way, as I often did. Nowadays the matter was often used against him but never by him – wasn’t that funny?

“Becoming the spoiled brat’s babysitter,” I filled in kindly, but Hanji’s disapproving frown meant to reproach along with the eloquent gesture of her crossing her arms. I didn’t regret the way I worded it. Eren, Annie, Mikasa and my mother had often tried to make me rethink my ways, but results were yet to manifest. This story, with me as the shitty protagonist most likely to be insufferable contrary to sympathy-inducing, portrayed reality as I saw it – and reality often neglected character development.

“He never called you either, but he did mention taking care of you had the same effect as working, if not better. I felt he might find himself a friend, so I supported him. I think I made the right choice. You have a lot in common,” Hanji declared. It struck a cord – did we really? Our arguments were fire lashing out at ice – not something that happened with people got along. Levi was hard to anger whereas I had a short fuse – everything was a personal insult. No easier target than a conceited paranoid.

“On the topic of that,” I piped. “How do you forget somebody?” The question was light-hearted. I decided to dismiss the whole story so I could ponder it later. Hanji’s brows furrowed as she smiled sympathetically. She couldn’t imagine the situation well enough. The question was I over Eren? had kept at a safe distance from my mind during my birthday vacation and the beginning of August only to assault it now with pitiless ire.

Things kept coming back when I least needed them. Thoughts of the twinkle in his teal eyes or the crooked smile he always wore before a kiss, the sound of his voice – the softness he’d told me he loved me with the first time, the haunting quiver in it when we were breaking up. I woke up at night with the howl of planes taking off and landing. On some mornings, I woke up, hoping to hear a knock at the door and see his face. Would he be more tan? Would his eyes be the same? Would his hair be styled differently? Would he have grown taller?

But, (Y/N), a voice would say in my head, people don’t grow taller just like that, it’s physically impossible.

Eren can, I’d argue, because Eren is my boyfriend and he can do anything if he puts his mind to it.

But Eren wasn’t my boyfriend and he wasn’t a miracle-maker. I’d sit in bed and argue with myself that Eren would come back, that I wanted the best for him and that wasn’t me, that we were done, but that he’d still come back. He never did. A small desperate part of me still hoped for the door to open – any door. Erwin Smith’s apartment’s front door right now, even. I could almost hear his footsteps going up the stairs. I swore I could. I turned to Hanji, a naïve question – can’t you? – flickering in my orbs. She didn’t catch it.

“I’m not an expert,” she said instead. “But Levi can be of help. His coping mechanisms aren’t the best example to follow, but he has a good head on his shoulders. He just doesn’t listen to it.” She might’ve thought, with how desperate I looked, that I might cry. She didn’t know pride would rather have me rip out of my tear ducts before that happened. I didn’t cry often or in many people’s presence. That wasn’t to say I didn’t like Hanji. But Annie and, unfortunately, Levi were the exceptions here. The latter was a mystery, probably my attempt to play a damsel in distress to ask for attention. Attention and help and fucking, might as well – a kiss. Couldn’t he just kiss me sometimes without me having to be in the middle of a mood?

“Yeah, well, I wouldn’t copy those coping mechanisms even if I wanted to. Work, sex and alcohol are never a good mix.” I let out an awkward string of laughter, weirded out by my abrupt disconnection from the conversation and how it turned my thoughts against me. I didn’t miss him that much. Also, he was coming home tomorrow. I had nothing to play the desperate whore for. There was the blondie. That wasn’t jealousy, though. I’d say it was my wish to prove myself better.

“Sex?” Hanji echoed with a conflicted expression.

“Sex with my father’s secretary. I think it was around May. He stormed out after calling her and came back drunk in the middle of the night,” I explained. The brown-haired woman took a second to process the story, then burst out in incredulous laughter. My brows twitched. “What’s so funny?” Was it something else or was I just weird for not thinking my father’s intern and secretary fucking the joke of the century?

“I remember him telling me about that,” she started, voice hinting at a new bout of cackling. “He went to her place for paperwork and she had her boyfriend over. They kept offering him drinks and he agreed to shut them up. Crossed the line at some point. He even got lost on his way back to the house.” I wanted to face-palm using the table and, hopefully, get myself into a coma. Was there a person on this Earth denser than me or was I a phenomenal idiot?

“Oh, God,” I muttered in a wheeze. “I’m so stupid.” Embarrassment and shame painted the tips of my ears bright crimson as I clenched my fists. Hanji patted my shoulder.

“You’re not stupid. I would’ve thought the same if I had no context. Levi would never just have a one-night stand, though. Not the type of person for it. He claims it’s the wrongest way to get over something.” Her brown eyes, previously fixed on me, were now directed at the coffee table. “Might work for you, but he most certainly hates it.” A snort was drawn from her lips as she withdrew her hand from my shoulder. I tried not to think about it, but it was inevitable. Hitch’s party, him refusing, refusing, refusing, because it would be “just like that” and “just like that” was a solution for neither of us.

“I’ll consider it,” I joked. “I was busy up until recently, but maybe university won’t be enough to distract me.” I smiled as Hanji chuckled, patting my back.

“Another boyfriend should do the trick in that case,” she said.

But I don’t want another boyfriend, I wanted to counter. I want your grumpy short friend. The thought froze me up. Asshole-me joined Hanji’s hearty chuckle. Bold of me to think it. Terrible of me to think it. Wrong of me to think it. It was complicated. If romance was not involved here, it was undeniable at this point. I could almost feel it written in capital letters on my forehead.

ATTRACTED TO LEVI ACKERMAN. VERY.

“I’m not ready for the commitment.” Was the only comment to exit my mouth due to the sudden discomfort nestling in the crevice of my ribcage. “I think,” I added awkwardly, reluctant regarding a relationship but very opinionated on the topic of engaging my father’s intern in something inappropriate that would make our relations twice as complicated as they were.

“A friend with benefits then?” Hanji’s mind-reading abilities amazed. I realised it suddenly – that it was natural, this attraction of mine, no matter how humiliating and inconvenient. It wasn’t weird and maybe it wasn’t all that wrong. It was a guy who was three years older than me who lived with me that I considered unreachable. The forbidden fruit, so to say. He was handsome, mysterious and had abs. Natural to be attracted to that. Natural to be attracted to it when I saw it every day and it saw me every day and most times it treated me with passive kindness. So there’d be no harm, I assumed, in initiating something a smidge bigger. What was stopping me? I didn’t have a boyfriend, I wouldn’t feel guilty and I wasn’t insecure because, hey, he’d kissed me last time. Obviously, I wasn’t nasty.

“Update from a virgin to a slut then?” I smirked, a decision born. Hanji’s mouth clamped shut shamefully and I laughed. “I’m kidding, calm down. It was just a joke.” I patted her back. The ring on my finger was cool to the couch and soothing. My resolve, for once, was there. I had a goal. A simple one at that – nothing dangerous. Two words: kiss Levi. I would do it because there was nothing to stop me. I mean, what was the worst that could happen?

…

Imagine an elegant expensive kitchen armed with all kinds of top-quality appliances. Paradise for all little housewives who greet their husbands with a warm meal. I wasn’t that type and the fact I spent four hours cooking more food than a family of six could eat didn’t make me one either. Judging was futile because I took care of that myself during the whole process. Currently, the fruit of my effort sat in front of me – a full three-course meal with different forks to go with the high-class atmosphere. I was far from a successor of Gordon Ramsay, but I outdid myself this time. Why? Last-minute anxiety maybe. Or fear. I needed a distraction because the thought of Eren wouldn’t stop pestering me. Added to that was the fact my father could walk in without Levi. Asshole-me didn’t help.

Bet on the outcome now! A once-in-a-lifetime offer that provides an endless amount of entertainment for the whole family! Fifty bucks says a discount version of William will use the vanishing potion and fly back to France! The other side of the bet? Sorry, I don’t know her. With such a commentator, it was early to skip the food and go straight to consuming my fingernails. Tick-tock, tick-tock, tick-tock. Place your bets right now, your bets need to go in the ballot box, quickly fill out the slips and put them in! Will he go or yes? And what’s the sweat for, princess? Don’t we like watching history repeat itself? I love it. So bet, bet, bet, bet! Come on, faster! If I had a penny for each time your father’s intern left you in the summer, I’d have two pennies. Which isn’t a lot, but it’s hilarious it happened twice!

The jingle of keys pulled the plug on asshole-me’s voice. I’d waited a whole hour now and my head snapped up so fast I heard my neck pop. The front door opened and my heart flinched when my father walked in, dressed in one of those hideous Hawaiian shirts they sold in souvenir shops and flaunting on his nose and cheekbones a really bad case of sunburn. He’d say the sun was harsh in Minnesota. I’d pretend not to hear because believing was impossible. He slipped out of his sandals and I clasped my hands together in excitement.

“Dad, finally! I was starting to think I’d have to reheat everything,” I said. He turned to face the fake exasperation masking the genuine joy I felt at his return. A doubtful smile tugged at the corner of his mouth and my eyes were frantically bouncing from him to the open door. Panic began to well up in my mind. Asshole-me was diligently digging a hole for it, to fit as much as possible.

“A pretty big feast you have there.” Rolland Raven took off the sunglasses he was wearing to eye the food a bit better. I cracked a smile I hoped wouldn’t seem constipated. My thought process was starting to lag due to overload when I heard a faint curse. Next thing, Levi’s pale figure, wearing a ridiculous straw hat. My heart dropped like a stone, plugged the pit of panic and made asshole-me yelp when it nearly crushed her fingers. I felt like stumbling back into my chair and never getting up.

“I guessed you might be hungry after the flight. You don’t have to eat all of it,” I said. It was then a pair of graphite hues shot up to my face. It felt like each muscle in it strained almost to the point of tearing. My father took a seat at the counter while the intern opted to drop off his luggage upstairs and change clothes. I stared after him a second too long while he was climbing the stairs.

“You’ve never waited for me after a business trip before.” (E/c) clashed with (e/c) as my father began picking his food and digging in with more enthusiasm than I’d expected. Levi had mentioned the almightly Raven had complained about the poor quality on the trip compared to what he had at home, but it was still a compliment to witness it manifested.

“I usually have things to do when you’re on business trips, father. This summer I needed a source of entertainment.” I rolled my eyes, letting them scan the interior during the roundabout lie. Lucky enough, they caught the exact moment Levi was leaving his room, tugging down his shirt. A glimpse of fit abdominals. A vague tan line. The food on the counter became a tad bit less appetising.

“Don’t you have Eren Jaeger to help with that?” My father’s question made my attention snap back in place just in time for Levi not to catch me staring. He took a seat at the far end of the counter but I was too preoccupied with a small freak-out fit to dwell on it.

“About that,” I squeaked out with a constipated expression, prompting both men’s attention to turn from half-hearted to wholly undivided. Amazing. I couldn’t have done a better job at it if I’d begun yodelling out of the blue. “Eren broke up with me two months ago.” The key to not sounding like a squeaky toy was to not meet anybody’s gaze. My father was blinking like something had gotten in his eye and Levi’s jaw clenched at the discomfort he was subjected to.

“And I wasn’t notified of that because?” Rolland Raven, among many a quality, was a proud man who, in spite of his profession, could never act quite as predictably as I wished him to. This was no exception because I didn’t have time to open my mouth before he silenced me with a hand in the air. “No, forget I asked. I need to have a serious talk with him. Maybe make him pay back all the dates you’ve handled with interest. We can make a fortune.” The devious plan was voiced in his typical cold-blooded businessman manner. I waved my hands around in discomfort.

“Hold your horses, father. You’re not the one who got dumped. Eren ended the whole thing because he went to study in Germany,” I explained but it wouldn’t satisfy my father, who only glared while putting a fork-full of potatoes in his mouth. Levi tried to become fully invisible. I thought if things got too heated for him, he might make a dash for his room with the dish.

“Unreasonable as can be. If he loved you as much as he had the balls to claim in front of me, he could’ve thought of an alternative that didn’t include breaking your heart. Because of something as insignificant as distance, too.” My father leaned back in his chair with folded arms. He forgot all about food so he could glare at me.

“4898 miles to be exact,” I murmured pitifully. Both men shot me an incredulous look, to which I switched on defence mode. “I did my research. I wasn’t crying the whole time.” Subconsciously copying my father’s position, I reclined in my chair and crossed my arms, glaring like a child prior to giving a sigh and smiling weakly. “I gave it a lot of thought and he did the right thing. So can you be the one to tell mom later?” The last inquiry seemed to surprise him, maybe because it was expected of me to share more with my mother and thus already have her know the super secret information I was handing him.

“I’ll try not to cry as I do.” A nod and a similar weak smile. “You did well not to tell me immediately.” He returned to normal – calculating and sharp, looking for weaknesses and thinking in numbers. Levi’s lack of shock went unnoticed, which I was secretly thankful for. The raven was looking at me playing with the silver band around my finger to soothe my nerves.

“Because you would’ve gone to the airport to kick him to the curb like a good father?” I smirked, a pointed look aimed at the dark-haired businessman, who only snorted in return prior to redirecting his attention back to the food.

“… maybe.” A small pause betraying care, an awkward glance in his intern’s direction conveying mild panic as a result of his feelings showing and a fake clearing of the throat to show discomfiture. He changed the topic immediately. “Have I told you you’ve become a better cook than your mother?” (E/c) clashed with (e/c) and I knew he could see I was holding back laughter by the way the corner of his mouth twitched downwards in displeasure.

“You have now. Congratulations on successfully dodging the topic,” I announced with a complacent grin as he scoffed, ignoring the embarrassment so he could go back to eating. Levi’s gaze was relentless but, once having resolved the current minor conflict, I felt too ashamed to return it. I couldn’t be speaking of Eren, thinking of Levi and acting like a professional whore. It went against my moral code. I wished it was as stable as my pride. Somewhere in my head, asshole-me was drafting an advertisement for the future demise of both.

The following day was unexpectedly laid back in terms of emotions – the process of waking up and going to work was starting to become mechanical. I disliked that I was turning into a nine-to-five zombie, but Melinda’s cross remarks did nothing to hinder my placidity and Adam’s request for a date was, surprisingly, accepted with a pinch of reluctance. It was time for something new, I defended when asshole-me breached the topic of my change of heart. I couldn’t go a whole life without clashing with a man who wasn’t Eren. To forget him, I actually needed to accept that. Because knowing he wouldn’t come back and I didn’t want to get back together was different from realising I couldn’t stay in the comfort zone of being endlessly attached to him and using it as an excuse to never move on.

I felt a smile light up my face the moment I saw Levi in front of the TV with a cup of tea in his hand. Unfortunately, I couldn’t use him to move on – it was the conclusion I drew from the quiet happiness gripping my heart at the sight of him beckoning me over. Everything I’d done had been quite enough. I wouldn’t turn him into a tool as well. So I settled on the couch and we led a half-assed conversation about the movie playing until my parents barged in, beaming and formal. Going for a date at a restaurant – yeah, no, I knew where they were going after. I smiled as we sent them off, and then the ebony-haired intern began choosing the movie we’d be watching and I worked on the snacks downstairs.

Accepted a date, claimed you won’t use him and now you’re pondering the kiss you’ll initiate. You know you’re fucked in the head, correct? Asshole-me piped mockingly, making me huff. I knew I was fucked in the head because she was there. Also, kissing Levi and using Levi were two different things. Different for him how? It’s kissing. It wasn’t. It would be exploring this time – not thinking about being distracted but feeling it for what it was. Jesus, that’s such a weak excuse. I felt she might be face-palming. Seriously, what’s wrong with you? You spent so much time telling your best friend you don’t like him, then you miss Eren, then you “date” Adam, then you grab your friend-zoned intern and decide you’ll be kissing him again – after you established you’re fucking inferior to the blondie who’s clearly hitting on him or clearly intent on doing it too. Can you not follow the timeline?

“Princess, why does Natalie tell me you’ve filled out all the forms related to the company’s income during our vacation?” Levi lowered the phone from his ear. The call had ended a second ago and he was glaring at me doubtfully. I was busy watching the movie – hopefully, excuse enough for scarce to no eye contact. I opened the pack of Doritos I’d dug up from my secret stash in the garage and warily eyed the pale intern’s expression.

“Because the forms were in the office downstairs and I figured they’d get in the way of our movie marathon, asshole. I haven’t messed them up.” My scoff was promptly returned to sender as Levi shoved his phone back in his pocket and clicked his tongue in exasperation. Another three minutes passed before I spoke up: “By the way, I need advice.” The room was dimly lit and the raven’s sharp gaze was on my temple.

“Will you have it in mind when you get back on your bullshit?” The inquiry was flat and doubtful. I tried to nod but it came out looking like a cringe and a shrug. His lips pursed in exhaustion. “Spill,” he ordered coldly, making me pout.

“How do I forget Eren?” Squeaky was the best I could do after becoming tense again. Nervousness was gnawing at the feeble stem of courage I’d managed to grow and my hopes for this to go as smoothly as a chat about the weather were stuck in an elevator on the top floor of a skyscraper. Even overthinking was useless here.

“Easy,” he said. Again, there was that breach of grammar. “Find somebody new. Judging by how much you’re smiling these days, you might as well be done with that.” The suspicious mockery made me snort.

“Don’t you think I might be happy to have you and dad back home?” I asked pointedly.

“No,” he countered with a defiant click of his tongue. What he said next sounded like an extract from a Jorge Bucay book. Something about self-love maybe. “Before you get with Rivers, however, you have to accept that Jaeger is now your ex. He’s part of the past and the past doesn’t hold power over the future if you don’t let it.” I bit back laughter to not offend him.

“Such a poet you are,” I huffed half-heartedly. “And how do I stop loving him?” Seriousness stood perched on my right shoulder, but the Doritos between us kept decreasing and I felt the soothing coolness of the ring on my finger. Our gazes locked and I stared, just because I could, because he was back, because he acted normally. And why wouldn’t he? Our circumstances surely weren’t enough to alter his demeanour.

“You don’t. You never will and you should get used to it.” His answer cut deep and I realised it might’ve confused me but I was too captivated by his eyes to process it. He forced himself to explain: “We never stop loving somebody once we’ve fallen for them. We just fall harder for another person.” It was as romantic as it was businessman-like. A bit too… systematic somehow.

Line up, line up! Asshole-me encouraged. I imagined a big queue in front of an entrance door with a sign bearing my name above it. Number 12, pass through, but beware – number 10 wasn’t careful with his words and number 11 made no effort to change that! The asshole side of me clearly fancied the idea. For all waiting, the Eren Jaeger mural is on the left and the guy on the right is the one you’ll never be! Keep trying but keep this face in mind – Levi Ackerman is hiding in a lot of the corners you’ll visit! He’s an invaluable guest at this establishment! Oh! Is it time for the next one already? Hurry up, number 13! Don’t hold up the queue, who knows how much capacity we have left. And so on until the last victim had walked in. It made my nose scrunch up.

“Does that mean you still haven’t gotten over Petra?” I piped curiously, bright eyes observing closely the intern’s reaction. The movie was no longer as interesting. Everything I could focus on was the furrow between Levi’s brows and the flat unperturbed look in his eyes. He grabbed a Dorito from the pack. I moved my hand away just in time to avoid a clash.

“It means I haven’t fallen in love with the next in line,” he said, reinforcing the notion of a queue. “I’m used to the fact she’d dead. Filling out every report in the world won’t bring her back,” he paused briefly and gulped, “so I go on with my life.” The explanation was simple but relatively quiet, like he was trying to say the words while not exactly aiming to have me hear them. His gaze was staring at the screen ahead as I looked down, trying to come up with a good one-liner to put him out of his discomfort.

“I feel like we’re becoming pensive,” I started with a lopsided smirk, “so let me pull a Reverse Uno card on this mood by saying I’ve reached a milestone in my life.” Licking the Dorito dust off my fingers, I puffed out my chest proudly, making the intern put a hand to his mouth. Maybe he’d bitten back a smile behind it. “I won’t get fined for driving without supervision now. Not to mention, I can have sex.” Waving an index finger in front of his face, I didn’t react when he grabbed it without warning.

“I don’t see what stopped you before,” he stated nonchalantly. I shrugged, concluding I hadn’t exactly shared with him details about my childish vow.

“There was this really religious teacher at school when I was ten – she scarred all her classes by giving them unsolicited Sex Education lectures mixed with Bible verse. Got fired because children complained to their parents, but she did a good one on me before that,” I explained with a smile, yanking my finger from his hold. “Since sex was for sinners – both began with the letter s, she explained to us – and I didn’t want to be a sinner because it meant… well, a bad person, I told myself I’d have sex only after turning eighteen, regardless of the temptation. So I held out. Proud of myself for that.” My complacent smile made him snort. He might’ve glanced at my lips right after.

“I’m sure there’s been a lot of temptation for you, princess,” he drawled in a deep sarcastic voice, moving the empty bag of Doritos away before wiping his fingers with as I processed the retort. I sat still, pouting for a fraction of a second, when it hit me this was my chance. The signal was there – shining in bright green, if I wasn’t color-blind – and it was time for me to grasp the opportunity.

“More than you can imagine, asshole,” I said with a scoff, not parting my eyes from his profile to observe his reaction. We cast aside the fact he could’ve poked fun at me being the furthest thing from a believer, yet such a big aspect of my life had been altered by a religious teacher. The tip of his nose twitched when he snorted in dismissal, not daring to meet my eye all of a sudden.

“The mood has been brightened. What do we do now?” He turned to face me, curious but hesitant, and I felt a surge of courage at the sight of the indecisiveness dawdling about in his grey eyes. The blue specks were calling me – count us, (Y/N), count us – and I concluded this would be the one time I initiated anything between us. It was stressful and scary, but it was Levi, so want overpowered fear, resulting in something we’d have a hard time sorting out our feelings on.

“Watch the movie you so diligently picked for us maybe?” But actions contradicted words because I was leaning in and he could see it. For two whole seconds, there was no movement on his end. Panic was about to make me pull back, pin it to something else, anything else, when his hand lifted, slender fingers gently tucking my hair behind my ear. This was it. It would happen. I was exploring what it’d be like without the guilt of purposefully seeking distraction.

It was slow – the first kiss – his lips barely landing on top of mine so we could taste the water even when we knew it was lukewarm. The movie was like white noise – I could catch fragments of dialogue and the screen illuminated Levi’s profile the few times my lids fluttered open. His hold on the side of my face was gentle, granting permission for me to pull back at any point. I didn’t know what he was thinking. I knew I was barely thinking and it felt nice, for my head to be so blissfully empty. It was all sensations and when he dragged his tongue over my bottom lip, my mouth opened to allow access for further exploration. The kiss deepened and I tried to push closer into him.

“Get on top,” he muttered into my mouth. His right hand dipped to grab my leg. I might’ve flushed bright red, but I still complied, slowly straddling him and letting his hands guide me to where he found it most comfortable. I was terribly aware of what I sat on. It might’ve been terribly aware of me, too.

It was slow and fast at the same time. We weren’t breaking the kiss but some moments of it – like his hand brushing my side and making me cover in goosebumps – were fleeting like blinks while others – like the weird scorching thing in my whole torso – felt endless. It was indescribable to a point, the heat of the moment but the moment was long and the pace was changing slightly the more it went on. It hadn’t been him either. It was him responding to me, because I couldn’t for the life not hold him tightly and subconsciously look for more. We were glued together and his fingers had tentatively pushed up my shirt at the back so they could trail up and down the curve of my spine.

My head was tilted, fingers tangled in his hair and heavy huffs escaping my nostrils. He smelled like lavender and rain and cologne, and my fucking conditioner I’d told him a thousand times to stop using because it was expensive. I didn’t bother scolding him about it now. My desperate want turned the kisses hungrier and there was this point – I might’ve wiggled slightly to find an even closer spot – but he stiffened and grabbed the back of my head, growing twice as persistent and passionate. Weird, using that word about him. It hit me the forbidden part of male anatomy I was seated on top of had risen to attention. It made me wonder if it had happened before and that, in turn, was simultaneously embarrassing and flattering. He was attracted to me, too. Duh. We were literally making out on my bed.

When more began translating as more of everything instead of more of this particular thing, he seemed to sense the shift. His hands guided me off his lap and back on the bed. My head was resting against the pillow and my head was empty, lids fluttering open to drink the sight of him the first time he broke the kiss – pale but handsome, tired but caring, bored but clearly moved by the happening. It was a miracle. I’d been begging for this statue to show me anything in the beginning of his internship. I hadn’t known it could show me this – it looked like a godsend. My heart was going a hundred miles per hour, my breath was unsteady and my body felt hot all over.

It didn’t matter where he kissed – my lips, my neck, my chest, my shoulders – I just wanted him to keep kissing me. Temptation had seldom been this strong and the vow was no longer active, it was fulfilled – an electrifying realisation. I didn’t need to have him stop. What my sinner’s hands did the moment that resolution snapped in place was to grab the hem of his shirt and, with pointed urgent eyes, plead with him to take it off. He hesitated for exactly one second, then complied, like he’d complied with everything else without having me say it. He was kneeling between my legs, arms going over his head so the piece of clothing could be discarded. His chest and abdomen flexed, the biceps, the triceps, all the other names of muscles I’d had to read about but hadn’t memorised. Adonis in the flesh. Fuck me for drooling. Oh.

If I could paint, I’d paint him. If I could sing, I’d write a song. If I had a taser, I’d tase myself out of being so cringe-worthy in admiring the body of a man. But when that body pressed against mine, everything became a bit too hot – literally and metaphorically – so I decided the next step was to cool down by taking off my own clothes. First the shirt, then the pants he helped out with. I almost laughed when they tangled at my ankles and he had to tug them off with an irritated frown. Here it was, having my father’s intern see my bra again. This time I didn’t mind.

“Frills? Seriously?” Well, now I minded.

“Do we have an issue?” I snapped with a pointed look. It didn’t help he was towering over me, sizing up my underwear with eyes that spoke simultaneously of him being amused and him being something else. I wondered if he was still hard. I hadn’t touched there once.

“It’s almost cute,” he mocked flatly. He didn’t reach to take it off – he just leaned down to mollify me with a kiss. It worked. I was carried off into wanting more again. The weight of him on top of me grounded the body and made the soul soar. It was a cringe comparison but whatever, it was true. I realised, right about the time I tugged on the waistband of his sweatpants and his brows flashed in unrestrained surprise, that I was an eighteen-year-old doing exactly what was expected of every single eighteen-year-old on the planet – sneaking a boy into my room while my parents were out.

This here was a boy I trusted and a boy I was halfway convinced was more of a man than a boy, mostly when it came to observing how he casually sat up and removed his sweatpants with precision contrary to clumsiness. My eyes flickered down to his boxers. Still hard alright. There was a rush of excitement and shame all at once when I realised it. A bit too late to stop and pin this a mere heat-of-the-momet make-out session. It was the real deal. Happening. Live. In my room. On a late August evening. Goodness gracious.

It took me a second to process it and he might’ve sensed that I’d grown a bit rigid despite remaining just as active. He didn’t advance the happening, petting my hair and kissing me, and trailing lower, but only as low as he’d gone before, finding the rest a sort of forbidden land. Didn’t even take off the bra with the frills he mocked me for. What a gentleman. He was kissing the curve of my breast and I was wondering how in the fucking hell I’d deserved this.

“We don’t have to,” he warned at some point. “If you don’t want to. Saying no is allowed.” He kissed me and it was intoxicating, but also the last snapped nerve. I arched my back off the bed, elbows bending so my hands could reach for my bra clip. The shoulder straps went loose and Levi paused for a moment to process what the act meant.

“I won’t say it,” I muttered with determination, eyes locked with his. Pride was strong within me even now and, having the wordless consent, he gently took off the bra before paying some attention to newfound territory. It was like being examined in a lab. Again, my boobs weren’t perfect. It was genetics and fate, and whatever else. In being embarrassed about him staring at my chest, I was graced by the thought I hadn’t shaved anywhere. Double embarrassed. Wasn’t it only right that the first time would come with presentability? There go the Raven teachings.

And the word nipple is somewhat lame – I’ve heard it from native and non-native speakers of English both – but there is no other word. So when his tongue rolled around my nipple, I forgot I hadn’t shaved and drew such a sharp breath I almost choked. My chest was heaving and he was thumbing my other nipple. I thought we’d get straight to it and was mistaken. He knew better, it seemed, because a virgin needed the bare minimum of this much and more foreplay to truly relax. It hit me for a fraction that this was actual foreplay while I was staring at the ceiling between trying not to make any sounds. I was like a dead fish, just letting him do things to me. More responsive than a dead fish but awfully inexperienced in any case. It made me feel just a bit guilty. My one saving grace was the fact his erection kept brushing against my leg – and if that was there, then it meant he wasn’t dissatisfied.

It was a black spot for a while because I couldn’t pinpoint between the overwhelming build-up of nice but not nice enough where exactly Levi was kissing or sucking or nipping or touching. Now it would be my thigh, now leaving a hickey on my shoulder, now trailing kisses over my jaw and down my neck, now caressing my side, now trailing a finger down to my navel, now my boob, intermission, the other boob – and the whole time there was that thing in my abdomen, the same one I’d felt with Eren, the hot knot begging for attention.

This was a new person and I hadn’t thought it’d come with a new person, but it was there alongside a brand new dynamic which wasn’t hurried or harsh or overtly passionate like I’d been used to. The pace was decent and steady and passion here didn’t amount to bruises – or at least not explicitly so. The new person made it thrilling, overwhelming. The new person made it a brand new experience. And when the brand new person’s hand gently dipped to touch the part where my legs met, I shivered all over, heart and lady boner flinching at once. Levi, with his obstinacy, refused to ask permission vocally. I still nodded, spreading my legs a bit wider. Slowly, like my panties weren’t in the way, he kissed from my knee to the base of my inner thigh, nipped slightly and made me yelp, and muffled something like a chuckle against the plush of my leg.

I didn’t know what he was thinking. I knew his fingers pressing against the spot where wetness had accumulated made my mouth gape slightly. I craned my neck and closed my eyes. There was embarrassment holding hands with excitement, with pleasure breathing down their necks. Nothing quite mattered. I breathed out like I’d been holding my breath for fourteen minutes when the raven’s fingers gently dragged back and forth against my core and then he might’ve been impatient, because he tugged my underwear out of the way, down my legs, past the knees and the ankles, dropping it with the rest of our clothes and the empty Dorito bag on the floor. It was a whole mess, this thing. I wanted it.

“The house is empty, princess,” he said while leaning down to kiss below my navel.

“What’s that supposed to mean?” I asked, almost out of breath in spite of my lungs functioning perfectly. His fingers were ghosting on the side of where I wanted him to touch. His mouth dragged lower. There was the jab of shame about not being shaved again. It hadn’t sent him to his feet and out of the room, so it was probably fine. A man wasn’t afraid to fight the jungle, I’d heard a few times before.

“That you can make noise without being scared,” he responded casually. I snorted and decided inwardly that I wouldn’t be making any noise whatsoever, just to spite him. It did feel good, though, so I doubted I could actually hold back effectively. As though to challenge the unsaid decision, Levi cut the suspense short. When his tongue rested where only one other had before, I came close to whining. My hand shot down to paw at his hair and he hummed against my clit. The vibrations of it made me writhe slightly.

He licked and sucked – nipped twice, which made me yelp both times – and did all sorts of other magic. Added to the title of mind-reader would now be the rank of mage. Then, there was this point when I could feel his fingers prodding at my entrance – a gentle warning of what was to come. First it was one. My mouth gaped and there was a slight flash of something like pain. More like discomfort. Now this was brand new wherever I looked at it from. Remember, my vow had its doors but none had included penetration. Officially the furthest I’d gone with somebody. Goodbye, hymen. You served us well.

He waited. Waited almost a full minute and distracted me with his tongue before I rolled my hips to give him the green light. Slow pumps. It was still uncomfortable, but the friction wasn’t painful. Just uncomfortable and new and I didn’t like change, but when this one found with its finger one particular spot sold off as the Bermuda Triangle for men to find, I might’ve liked this particular change. First, it made me moan. Second, the more he kept reaching that spot – because it was impossible to miss I liked it – the closer I was to coming. There were sloppy sounds and a second finger inserting itself in me, and my voice bouncing off the walls before dropping to the floor in a hush.

I might’ve said his name, actually, I might’ve half-screamed it. The orgasm hit me like a brick dropping straight on my genitals and he kept flicking his tongue slower and slower until I’d ridden it out in full. How considerate. When his fingers came out, there was a spot of blood. My mouth clamped shut in shame. He reached over to clean them with a wet wipe – then he cleaned me, too, because obviously he could see things that were invisible to me. There was slick on his chin and I glared half-heartedly when his eyes twinkled in amusement at me.

“Well, that’s done,” I muttered while he leaned over with the intention to kiss me again. “Wipe your mouth, asshole.” I put a hand to his chest to prevent my own pussy juices from coming in contact with my face. For a clean-freak, he sure didn’t seem to be in a hurry to get them off.

“You don’t want to see how tasty it is?” He was mocking me. I was red and hot all over still, a bit like a deflated balloon being refilled with exasperation contrary to air. No longer a virgin, as far as doctors would care. Still kind of in the middle, considering typical hetero interactions included something more than fingers.

“God, no!” I tried to push at his jaw and he almost chuckled when the pussy juice got on my fingers and I flicked my wrist frantically to get it off.

“It was god, yes a second ago,” he drawled pointedly. I burned bright red under his gaze, naked and not a hymen-bearer and kind of lost as to what came next. I pouted, swatted his shoulder and pretended to be very disgusted when he kissed me, making it open-mouted and sloppy for the sake of spiting me. In truth, it didn’t taste like much. Tasted weird, unlike food and drink. Well, that’s bodily fluids for you.

Remember the right-est choice I made as of late? Here it comes. The kiss guided his fingers down to my clit again and mine – to the band of his boxers. A tug and a snap, and he asked me three whole fucking times if I was sure. Not verbally, of course. It was just the particular way he stopped between each step to make sure, to look at me straight in the eye and have me nod my consent back to him. Like I’d change my mind that fast. God’s sake – if I would’ve said no, I would’ve said it before we’d kissed. But this wasn’t something he would do under normal circumstances – not a matter of alcohol, guilt or duty. It was free will and choice. Mine might’ve been made sometime last month, right around my birthday.

The boxers were gone. I blinked at it. A penis in textbooks, a dick in colloquial speech, a cock in smut books, a member in tame erotica. Length, girth, meat sword, love machine – could go on forever. We sat staring at it like it was an alien and while I was bashful, I was also bad with measurements without the aid of a ruler, hence why I safely concluded that I could stack about four donuts on it and put the zipper on it. There was that thing – precum, was it? – leaking from the tip. In all honesty, no I didn’t want to lick it off. Same went for sperm. In the history of mankind, I’d done the gracious thing and sucked off my boyfriend exactly once – the rest had been handjobs because blowjobs came with terrible pains in the jaw, a cramping of the tongue, a crap salty taste and the awkward detail of looking like an unattractive fish during the act. So, no, I didn’t volunteer to show off how bad I was at it.

“Condoms, shit.” It flew out of my mouth unintentionally. Levi’s face scrunched up. We were both visited by the bitter realisation that going further was not an option anymore, unless he wanted to don on a sock. Then the solution came to me. “Keep it up, I’ll be back in a minute,” I mumbled hurriedly, jumping off the bed and rushing butt-naked out of the room so I could go to my parents’ bedroom. Yeah, no, such was the reality of things. I tried to keep my conscience untainted while rummaging through the wardrobe. The hidden box of condoms in the back by the shoes was the saving grace. I wouldn’t speak of this to a living soul that wasn’t Annie Leonheardt ever.

The moment I returned to the room with the box held proudly over my head, Levi snorted. He laid me on the bed again and the mood returned, which was weird because I’d pinned him the type of experience one moment of interruption and consider it all ruined. Not that I’d thought about him during sex or having sex. I hadn’t. I promise. I was thinking it now, when I was about to have it with him. The kisses eased the natural awkwardness and by the time he was putting it in, I was a desperate mess again. Sweat stuck to skin and my breath got stuck in my throat when he pushed it in. I blanked, gaped like I’d received a headshot and felt him stand still to let me adjust. There was, again, mild discomfort. Fingers couldn’t compare to a dick.

I gave it half a minute and told him to move. The first thrust had me whining into his mouth. It was good. It was good, progressively becoming better and better and better, a surprise arriving with each snap of his hips. My father’s intern having sex with me, my father’s intern, my father’s intern, my intern, my Levi. The first five minutes were full of careful slow strokes to let the awkwardness dissipate and for me to get used to it. I won’t call myself anything but I’ll say I got used to it a bit too fast for comfort. So it went. Losing my virginity to my father’s intern.

“Faster, can you--- a bit faster?” The words were choked out and you’d wonder why I would ask for faster when slow was doing a good job of making my chest heave like I was running a marathon, but it was maddening and addictive.

“I can for you, princess.” It was a rasp against the side of my neck and I was blanking because the voice, paired with the hands, with the scent, with the sensation of being full and empty, then full and empty again was so mind-numbing I could melt on the spot and stay there forever. So slow and careful turned into fast and considerate. There was no harshness in him even when he kneaded my boobs or licked stripes down the length of my throat, no harshness whatsoever when he gripped my thighs or my sides. It was tight, but pleasant, egging me on further.

I bit down on the pillow when he found the spot. I bit his finger, too. I bit his shoulder and I bit my own hand to keep my voice down because how was something on this Earth allowed to be so nice? Fuck. He murmured at me to moan if I felt like it. There was a smug undertone. And when he reached between us to roll circles around my clit, I didn’t moan – I was a banshee impersonator, neck craning, back arching, toes curling, all that jazz. I came with a crash and a bang, and it might’ve been an hour by now, or maybe more, but the neighbourhood was asleep and I was wide awake, trying to wake them up, too.

A five-minute break of kisses served as an intermission to avoid me becoming overstimulated but Levi was still hard and still quite energetic in spite of the fact he’d been fucking me for an overall of thirty minutes without stopping or having his pace hitch. Round two started fast and I had my legs up, knees on the sides of my head. It was hot, seeing him through that kind of frame. Just one bead of sweat on his temple – not sticky all over, unlike me. Why was I the one becoming exhausted anyway? I was being a pillow princess. His eyes were gorgeous and his lips were slightly swollen.

“Please, don’t stop,” I whined at some point. He didn’t seem to have any prospects of stopping anyway, but I couldn’t help it. He huffed, chest heaving with lust and I knew it wasn’t easy to be the one doing all the work, so I mentally gave credit where credit was due. “Oh--- Levi, God!” He seemed like he wanted to laugh and my ring glimmered in the dark against his cheek while I tried to pull him down for a kiss which was simply impossible in our current position. He switched it five minutes later. It was not an understatement to claim I was seeing stars and everything was nice and nothing was awkward and this was the most handsome man with the most stamina on this land.

I lost my voice at some point, or I thought I did because my third orgasm couldn’t make me bite down on the pillow fast enough to muffle the literal holler that left my lungs. His name, by the way. If that hadn’t woken the neighbours, I wasn’t sure anything would. I was recuperating and he was trailing gentle pecks along my neck, still not finished. Was sex always this physically draining? My mind might’ve blanked during the third round and we were in missionary again because I insisted that I be able to kiss him any time I wished to. His hand was holding my wrist captive and the other was massaging my breast and it was all a giant whirlpool of pleasure and heat and fluids – the nasty and the nice in one, but I couldn’t care less about the nasty.

He came with a growl, biting down on my shoulder to muffle something that sounded like my name as his pace hitched and turned sloppy for the first time in what felt like hours. He slumped down on top of me and I was breathing more heavily than him, calmed by the weight. I was blinking at the ceiling and my heart was doing somersaults in my ribcage. He went to shower after a minute of rest, I called him out for being a clean freak and it just so happened that my perception of time wasn’t all too warped because checking my phone made me realise we’d had sex for about three hours, foreplay included. I slipped into the shirt he’d tossed on the floor, wiped myself and very considerately ignored the soreness in my hips while changing the sheets.

To my biggest surprise, he returned to my room in a new pair of boxers with his hair wet. There was no invitation. He joined me on the clean bed and wrapped his arms around me. This might’ve been aftercare. When our gazes locked, I didn’t dare avert my eyes in bashfulness. It was surreal and I wanted to memorise it. Then he asked me again – as voicelessly as the first time and the following ten – and I answered positively by flashing him the biggest smile I could muster. No words were exchanged. Levi rolled his eyes and I tucked myself under his chin, legs tangling with his. I was knocked out cold. I wouldn’t hasten to write this off as a happy ending but I wouldn’t immediately turn it angsty either. I explored. It was nice. I don’t think I regretted it for a second.

Waking up was a surreal experience because it included the added luxury of being bathed in sunlight with a warm arm draped around my midriff and a pale sunlit face inches from mine. A spot of purple in the crook of his neck and a few red crescents on his shoulder. Perhaps one or two leftover scratches on his back. I blinked at the sight incredulously, gradually coming to and realising what this position meant – prompted by last night’s three different ones, too.

It happened! Asshole-me hollered in my head, nearly hysteric, slamming a pan into a bell and making the echo of the toll ring painfully against the confines of my skull. You ruined it all! It was like an automatic switch – suddenly, the neutral was the bad and I had complicated it with my impulsiveness, my stupid hormones. I imagined four months of awkwardness and the wish to have more but being completely incapable of asking for fear it would mean feelings. I pictured a tense atmosphere, uncomfortable interactions, embarrassing thoughts, lame excuses. A friendship built with struggle and just barely reinforced annihilated to smithereens by my dumb ass.

I cringed, removing my hand from Levi’s chest to slap myself across the face for being horrible again – not in using him but in indulging my own selfishness. His eyelids fluttered open before the admonishment transpired and I was staring straight into the melted silver which had the tendency to read my thoughts. The current self-reprimanding cacophony would entertain him.

“… should make you coffee,” he mumbled half-coherently, making me blink wondrously at his hazy composure. This is normal, his eyes whispered, lips pressing nonchalantly to my forehead before he got up, so there’s no need to be so shocked. The trip down the stairs was silent. I had left scratches. More than two.

Currently, we were in the kitchen, sitting around the counter with our mandatory morning drinks. Unsaid words hung from the ceiling like dangling cobwebs. Levi, who’d needed a moment to retrieve his memories in full, was stiff and uncertain, and in spite of that visibly calmer than me. I could feel my face heating up as I thought of what to say. This wasn’t normal, even if both of us upon our respective awakening had pinned it such. It was something we had to discuss but how were we supposed to discuss sex when we sometimes fought over food? Deciding what to do seemed impossible.

“Are we going to talk about the elephant in the room?” The raven, of course, was the one who broke the silence while I was slurping on my coffee, gaze averted and heart beating erratically. “Princess, I’m afraid this is something important,” he said in the face of my silence. His piercing glare was on my temple but I wouldn’t turn, keeping my fingers glued to my cup and my mind grounded in panic. “Need I remind you exactly what happened?” Levi pressed additionally, husky voice raising in audible urgency. I felt completely and utterly naked – dressed in only his shirt and my own underwear.

“We had sex, that’s what happened.” I shrugged, mind preoccupied with the strange feeling eating its way into it. Deep into my stomach, up to my lungs, through the chambers of the heart, in the windpipe – but not painfully. “There’s nothing more to it.” The nonchalant statement didn’t get a warm welcome. That much was to be expected. The attractive intern was frowning, rubbing his temples with a frustrated sigh. I tried not to look at his fingers.

And I’m trying to do just that, asshole-me scoffed pointedly. There’s something different about them when they’ve been inside you last night, yeah? A good type of different. Imagine it. My shoulders tensed as I chased her around in my head with a frying pan. Levi ran a hand through his ebony locks. Wow, is that the sex hair? And I pursed my lips in displeasure, knowing the struggles of the current moment and choosing in spite of them to secretly a wish for a second time. No harm, you know, no harm whatsoever in wanting to fuck your father’s goddamn intern, yeah? No? Can you hear it? Does it sound like a good sentence? Does it?

“Where exactly does your lacking virginity fit into your nothing more to it?” His retort made me cringe, well aware of the virginity ace hidden up his imaginary sleeve. It was a bit harder to argue with him when he was half-naked, letting me see the spots I’d bitten and kissed. The situation: we’d had sex. My side: I had nothing against him being my first because I trusted him and he’d been experienced and careful enough to make it nice. The actual problem: he was my father’s intern.

The abstract part: intimacy often came with, well… intimacy. Casual sex had the advantage of not seeing your partner again afterwards and in our case, we’d had casual sex with somebody we saw daily. Future speculation: tension due to this adventure would brew either discord or twice the ferocity in repeating the adventure. A possible solution: talking about feelings. Additional issue: Levi and I talking about feelings? Not in this day and age. Not in this life either. Telling him he made me feel warm and appreciated? Impossible. Honesty in the face of something embarrassing? Sorry, I don’t know her. She must be really lame.

“Everywhere, because I don’t care for it. It might add complexity to your situation, but it doesn’t play a big role in mine.” Dismissing the whole of it and pinning it on him was wrong. My nonchalance was false. Maybe it was what made him take a deep breath prior to speaking up again, his tea untouched.

“You’re supposed to be freaking out, princess.” His eyes were on mine and asshole-me was screaming: Come on, do it! Just kiss him and make things worse! Go right ahead! I averted my gaze with a snort. He’d used my nickname last night. Added a shade of meaning to it. I tried to get a grip as my rational side reasoned with the situation. This had been a one-time thing – or at least for him. Following that train of thought, wanting more was useless.

“You think I’m not?” It was high-pitched and ludicrous. Memories were surfacing and it was somewhat unpleasant to think they wouldn’t repeat. Levi kissing me in the dark, almost saying my name, clearing the hair from my sweaty forehead, biting my neck as he came, smiling against my lips as I tugged on his hair and tried not to moan, holding me close afterwards, not once saying the wrong thing. “I’m freaking out. You just don’t see it.” My downcast gaze was thoughtful and the air was becoming heavier with something I couldn’t identify. I could feel him staring and it bugged me not to know what he was thinking. “What?” I snapped, refraining from playing with my ring.

“What do you want to do now?” He asked flatly, eyes pinning me in place. “Do you want me to pretend this didn’t happen or do you want us to keep going?” It was ridiculous hearing him say it because, usually, he wouldn’t. I blinked, thinking I’d misheard.

“Keep going as in keep having sex?” I echoed to make sure I’d understood. It might’ve gone out a bit more shocked than expected, which made him sigh.

“I was listing options. In the end, it all comes down to what you want.” The flat voice made me realise I knew what I wanted well enough to have chosen during the conversation with Hanji three days ago or maybe even before I’d had the courage to admit it to myself.

“I don’t know what I want,” I lied with a pointed look, vehement embarrassment clawing up my throat and scratching at the back of it. I could say I wanted to keep going – his offer meant he might be willing – but his response was a fifty-fifty on whether he was sexually frustrated or would rather stick to decorum while living in the same house as the girl he was fucking and her father. I couldn’t turn the question on him because it was mean. I couldn’t call it a mistake because that would be another lie. I was tired of lying when it didn’t go to protect my pride.

“You don’t?” He quirked a thin brow mockingly, feigning the surprise he didn’t feel. “Or you just don’t want to admit your favour the more embarrassing option?” I sat motionless, knowing this wasn’t what I should’ve been doing – considering it. Maybe this was a test he had for me – to see if I’d be dumb or act like a reasonable adult. But (there came that stupid word again) if Hanji had been right, this wasn’t a random hook-up, which meant there might be something and---

Are you seriously considering a relationship with somebody who’s leaving in less than four months? Asshole-me interjected, making me sigh in defeat. Doesn’t fuck randomly, okay, fine, but this is an exception. How in the fucking hell would he grow to like you? You know that’s impossible. Methinks he went along with it because you clearly wanted it. Think about it, he does all sorts of bullshit for you. So what sounds more plausible? Him being himself or him liking you? The former, of course, but I couldn’t admit it. Like I couldn’t admit he was right to say I favoured the more embarrassing option.

“Even if it was like that,” I chose to return the favour and be doubtful, “I’m not inclined to think your morals would let you humour me.” My chin was tipped upwards while Levi shook his head and finally took a sip from his tea. The ghost of a smirk in the corner of his mouth disarmed.

“I have little to nothing against it. But,” (that fucking word again) the firmness of his voice was the only thing keeping my chest from swelling, “it doesn’t sound like an ideal course of action when you’ve almost got yourself a new boyfriend,” he reasoned calmly, somber responsibility lacing his tone.

“It’s not cheating if we’re not official,” I protested instantly, furrowed brows and a pout. He snorted.

“That’s not what I meant, princess.” My lips pursed at the jolt the nickname gave me. “I don’t want sex clouding your judgement. I get Rivers isn’t your boyfriend, but you shouldn’t exclude him as a possibility just because you’ve started thinking you have feelings for me.”

“Besides being a poet, you’ve turned into a psychologist, too,” I exclaimed with a genuinely cheerful chuckle that made him quirk a brow. Something in my throat shrivelled up. “Don’t dwell on my feelings too much, asshole,” I reassured. “I like this because it’s something new, not because I’m head over heels in love with you.” I was still chuckling as he sipped on his tea and fixed me with one of those firm looks that had the ability to bend the knees. The effect was doubled in intensity this morning.

“Make your choice then,” he said boredly, not wishing to be too imperious, seeing as the situation wasn’t taking place in a formal setting where he was the boss and I was the indecisive underling. I might as well have been, with how hot my ears got while I held his gaze, brave and stupid in the face of somebody who read me better than I sometimes read myself.

“I’m not saying it out loud,” I muttered, bashful. The ebony-haired intern watched me struggle before tilting his head to the side with a fake air of oblivion.

“Then I won’t know what you want,” he said innocently, attempting to mock my shyness and what was more – succeeding. I burned bright red, feeling heat creep up my neck and my glare was pointed and uncontrolled. It couldn’t pass as mere annoyance because Levi was hitting a nerve.

“I didn’t see you having a hard time knowing everything I wanted last night, but okay.” There was more spite than sass in the sentence, which only further conveyed my inability to stay nonchalant – something that clearly amused him. “I want us to… keep going. Satisfied?” Crossed arms, downcast gaze and a childish pout. I was the live embodiment of the word petulance and Levi wasn’t done having fun with it.

“Not as satisfied as I clearly left you.” He was smirking and I glared at him, furious and not knowing where the blood would go when there was no space left in my head. I hopped off my chair, turning my back to him and hearing how he moved to stand behind me. A well-meaning hand landed on my shoulder. “It was a joke, princess, there’s no need for the cold shoulder.” His tone was flat and disinterested, but there was a pacifying sliver. He might’ve been trying to make peace but I wouldn’t have it after all the embarrassment he put me through – just to have a good private laugh, too!

“Un-fucking-bearable, that’s what you are,” I hissed, brushing his hand off my shoulder and heading to the staircase in order to escape. He gave chase and set on ignoring the usual code that forbade touchy-touchy when unneeded. The pure and unfiltered imagination one must have in order to picture a shirtless Greek God chasing after a poorly dressed eighteen-year-old spoiled brat was too ambitious a requirement for anybody to fulfil. Turn to mythology for that, but it’s inappropriate there and this one meant well.

“I’ll stop embarrassing you if that’s what you want.” His hands were on my shoulders. He turned me around and I didn’t look at him, much less respond. He could sense I was ashamed. His hands slowly trailed down over my arms to hold my wrists in a grip I could, with effort, free myself from. “Does the mere mention of sex with no context whatsoever embarrass you, princess?” He knew it did, leaning forward with twinkling eyes and a complacent half-smile. “Your face is red.”

“And you’re a fucking genius, congratulations,” I spat with sarcastic disgruntlement. He pulled me forward so that I bumped into his chest. My shoulders jumped in surprise. I didn’t want to look him in the eye but the sight of the marks I’d left on him were no less embarrassing to behold. My heart sped up and I was pouting, flush against him with nowhere to go.

“It speaks,” he whispered by my ear. His hands retraced their steps over my arms and shoulders, gently gliding against the sides of my neck until they held my face. “Does it want to go up to my room?” Blue specks in a pool of melted silver. The question was genuine, in spite of being masked with slight mockery. The adult of us two. I tried to stay mad, but it was impossible. I promised the blue specks I’d count them later and then we were kissing. It was a funny picture – the whole of this situation – ridiculous but somehow not fictional. It was him lifting me off the floor and me wrapping my legs around him. It was him making step after step, steady and careful not to drop me while I snickered into his mouth. It was me being a literal koala and then it was us, hearing the jingle of keys.

“Shit,” I cursed, parting from him with a smack. He let go and I could catch only a glimpse of the panic on his face before I was running up the stairs. I’d barely closed the door behind us when I heard my mother greeting the empty kitchen downstairs. While I breathed out in relief, Levi was already heading to the balcony. It occurred to me that there was a pack of condoms on my nightstand and they were stolen. I’d need to make a trip to the pharmacy and replace the box. Talk about inconvenient. “Careful now,” I piped while the intern was preparing to make the jump, “we don’t want you to fall.” He gave me a half-hearted glare but said nothing.

When he was gone, I plopped down on my bed and grinned incredulously at the ceiling. This “secret sex” thing we were about to dive into wasn’t how I’d imagined the weeks prior to my first year in university, but oh, well. Expect the unexpected and if unable to – just accept it. This officially marked the beginning of my longest stay in City of Dumbassery. It was surprising, however, that I wasn’t alone in there. Twice as surprising that I’d be stuck with my father’s intern. Whom I was having sex with. Amazing. Spectacular. Asshole-me would have my ass for that.

tag list: @unloved-cadillac ; @donaldthrts

#mtij #levi x reader #levi ackerman fanfiction #x reader #levi ackerman imagine #reader insert #levi ackerman x reader #it finally happened #all i'm going to say: i wrote the actual sex scene while editing the rest of the chapter because i was too bashful in the past lol #sure hope it's not worse than the vague three paragraphs of the past #levi is a literal king who preaches consent and safe sex and nobody will change my opinion #also our drama queen is entering a brand new arc of her life #beware: storm incoming

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ichijager13 · 1 year

Text

Of love, books and your smile

pairings : Eren x reader (Jean x reader, Eren x Historia)

Raiting: Mature

Modern AU, aged-up characters, strangers to lovers, falling in love, fluff

Summary: His name was on every book you borrowed. you have even made a habit of looking for it eacht time you chose one. Eren Jager a combination of letters you grew familiar with, but what happens when you finally meet the man in question.

A/N: this was previously published on AO3, the story is inspired by seiji's confession from whisper of the hearts.

Picture credits to the artist

Dividers by @cafekitsune

the list of chapters of this work

Chapter I Your name on my books

Chapter II Sweet coincidence

Chapter III It feels right

Chapter IV First date

Chapter V Historia

Chapter VI Late night conversations

Chapter VII It’s time to go

Chapter VIII First time

Chapter IX It’s easier with you

Chapter X Confrontation

Chapter XI Late night confessions

List of books mentionned in this story:

The moment Douglas Kennedy The city of fallen angels Berendt John Beloved Toni Morisson The stranger Albert Camus The poisonwood bible Barbara Kingsolver Out of Africa Karen Blixen 1984 George Orwell Before I go to sleep S.J Watson The barefoot queen Ildefonso Defalcones Cathedrale of the sea Ildefonso Defalcones Anna Karenina Leo Tolstoy A wrinkle in time Madeleine L'Engle the fall of berlin 1945 Antony Beevor the tattooist of Auschwitz Heather Morris to kill a mocking bird Harper Lee sister mine Tawny O’Dell the Prague cemetery Umberto Eco When the Dawn Breaks Emma Fraser My name is red Orhan Pamuk

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deadolloading · 10 months

Text

Solicitudes

Presentación de mi perfil, lo que escribo, reglas.

¡Hola pequeña personita! Me presento, soy deadolloading aún que pueden decirme Joven D, Doll, Dolly o como gustes. Mis pronombres son She/Her/Him, ¡Pero puedes decirme como sea!

Mi blog es totalmente en contenido en español, esto es debido a que no se mucho de inglés y hasta que no lo aprenda en su totalidad, no haré contenido en inglés.

El contenido de mi perfil apunta específicamente a todo lo relacionado con fanfics, pequeños escritos míos, etc. Igualmente los fanfics van del famoso Character x Reader o como el famoso Character x T/N.

Personas de cualquier edad, genero, creencia o nacionalidad ¡Es completamente bienvenido! Ya que mi contenido va para todo público ya que me incomoda escribir cualquier cosa NSFW, por lo que todo mi contenido es SFW, en caso de ser lo contrario se pide que no interactúen con esa publicación.

Requests are open!

Lea esto antes de solicitar cualquier fanfic, headcanon y esas cosas (ㅅ´ ˘ `)

Nota: A veces no puedo publicar mucho debido a lo ocupado que suelo estar.

Soy muy imaginativo con headcanons, escenarios/drabbles y es posible que veas mucho de eso en mi perfil, pero nada de fanfics o one-shots y tendrás que esperar mucho tiempo para que haga uno.

Por favor, no envíe hagas spam de solicitudes porque en esos caso no lo haré.

Si no publico un post muy largo, puede ser porque no tengo mucha imaginación en ese momento, disculpas de antemano.

¡El inglés no es mi primer idioma! Así que lo siento mucho por lo que solo escribiré en español.

Cuando pida algo en mi bandeja, por favor dame detalles de lo que quieres, como una parte específica que desea que agregue, qué personaje, género del lector, etc.

Solo puede escribir de 2 a 3 personajes a la vez.

Quiero que este lugar sea seguro tanto para mí como para los lectores.

Tengo todo el derecho a rechazar una solicitud, especialmente si rompe con las reglas que ya tengo.

Acepto escribir

Relaciones poliamorosas.

Dolor/comodidad.

Pelusa.

Amor, oc x character

No acepto escribir

Incesto

Sexo/NSFW

Violencia

Pedofilia, zoofilia

Relaciones altamente tóxicas

Fandoms y personajes para los que escribo !

Videojuegos

Phantom of the Opera - MazM

Christine Daae Sorelli Dupont Melek Levni Detective Hatim Eric

Genshin Impact

Sucrose Rosaria Beidou Amber Kaeya Diluc Jean Aloy Lisa

Mario Bros

Princess Peach Princess Daisy Rosalina Pauline Mario Luigi

Cuphead

Baroness Von Bon Bon Chef Saltbaker Cala Maria Hilda Berg

Five Night's at Freddy's

Michael Afton William Afton Henry Emily Clara Afton Animatronics

Sims 4

Elvira Lapida

Series/Anime/ARG

The Mandela Catalogo

Cesar Torres Mark Heathcliff Adam Murray Jonah Marshall Arcangel Gabriel Alt!Archangel Gabriel Sarah Heathcliff

Popee the Performer

Papi Poppe Eepop Kedamono

Kimetsu no Yaiba

Tanjiro Kamado Nezuko Kamado Inosuke Hashibira Zenitsu Agatsuma Muzan Kibutsuji Kagaya Ubuyashiki Kyōjurō Rengoku Obanai Iguro Gyomei Himejima Tengen Uzui Shinjuro Rengoku Mitsuri Kanroji Shinobu Kochō

Welcome Home

Wally Darling Julie Joyful Barnaby B. Beagle Frank Frankly Eddie Dear Howdy Pillar Sally Starlet Poppy Partridge

My Hero Academia

Kyoka Jiro Eijiro Kirishima Denki Kaminari Mei Hatsume Mt. Lady Tsuyu Asui Tenya Iida Endeavor Ochako Uraraka Momo Yaoyorozu

Sakura CardCaptor

Tomoyo Daidōji Tōya Kinomoto Yukito Tsukishiro Maki Matsumoto Nadeshiko Kinomoto Syaoran Li Fujitaka Kinomoto Kaho Mizuki Sakura Kinomoto Clow Reed Caras Clow

Sailor Moon

Usagi Tsukino Rei Hino Makoto Kino Ami Mizuno Minako Aino Haruka Teno Michiru Kaio Setsuna Meio Nephrite Mamoru Chiba/Tuxedo Mask Kou Seiya Kou Yaten Kou Taiki

Dragon Ball

Gohan Veggetta Piccolo Trunks Broly Androide 18 Androide 17 Whis Krilin

Scooby-Doo

Vilma Dinkley Daphne Blake Shaggy Rogers Fred Jones

A Series of Unfortunate Events

Montgomery Montgomery Violet Baudelaire Klaus Baudelaire Georgina Orwell Justice Strauss Fernald Fiona Kit Snicket Lemony Snicket Gustav Sebald

Marvel/DC Comics

Solo agregare unos personajes

Doctor Octopus - Spiderman Miguel O'Hara - Spiderman Ghost Spider - Spiderman Spider-Man Noir - Spiderman Doctor Stranger - Marvel Peggy Carter - Marvel Raven - DC Comics Starfire - DC Comics Beast Boy - DC Comics Green Arrow - DC Comics

Moral Orel

Bloberta Puppington Clay Puppington Rod Putty Stephanie Putty Nurse Bendy

The Amazing Digital Circus

Ragatha x Reader Pomni x Reader Caine x Moon Caine x Reader Jax x Reader Gingle x Reader

Otros personajes (serie o película)

Miss Peregrine - Miss Peregrine y el hogar para chicos peculiares Carrie - Carrie 1976 Michael Myers - Halloween Jason Voorhees - Viernes 13 Thomas Hewitt - Masacre en Texas 2006 Ghostface - Danny Johnson Phantom of the Opera - Movie 2004 Blue Diamont - Steven Universe Yellow Diamond - Steven Universe Personajes de Disney - Solo si lo conozco

⠀⠀ ⠀ Reglas ⛧ ?!

ㅤㅤ⛧ Especificar por favor lo que quieren, no soy adivina. Si quieren cierta situación especifica, ese tipo de cosas ya saben.

ㅤㅤ⛧ Al momento de escribir para lectores, lo diré de una vez, no se mucho de pronombres. Por lo que si quieres de un personaje no binario o algo así, por favor dime como es su uso de pronombres para escribirlo y te sientas cómodo.

ㅤㅤ⛧ Esto totalmente abierta a la idea de escribir OC x Character, para eso pido que en privado me den algo de información de su oc. Alguna ficha, descripción de personalidad y física, ese tipo de cosas.

ㅤㅤ⛧ Pido que me tengan paciencia, suele escribir de forma muy tardada debido a mi gran bloqueo de escritor. Ténganme paciencia, soy nuevo en esto :').

ㅤㅤ⛧ ¡Pueden pedirme cualquier cosa! Romance, platónico, relación padre/madre e hijx, de hermandad, etc.

ㅤㅤ⛧ Por favor, pido respeto ya que esto es como un tipo de pasatiempo para mi. No vengo a molestar a nadie y tampoco vengo a que me molesten. Si no les gusta mi perfil o tienes problemas conmigo, te pido amablemente que dejes mi perfil y con gusto puedes bloquearme.

Eso sería todo por mi parte, bienvenidos a mi perfil y espero que les guste mi contenido.

¡Nos vemos!

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wildrangers · 2 years

Text

Chance Encounter {3} // Jake Kiszka

Jake Kiszka x fem! reader

Word Count: 3K

Summary: After a chance encounter at the bar, what happens when she realizes she now has to work with Jake and the guys?

begin here // continue here

Multi-part, lovers to friends to lovers tale ahead!

Warnings: I don't think any this chapter, let me know if I missed anything!

*18+ only, smut is featured in chapter one and will be back next chapter*

“I think it’s absolutely absurd—let’s do it” Josh grinned and you excitedly clapped your hands before grabbing your phone. You had just pitched his Rhinestoned Diary and he was, surprisingly, willing to give it a go.

“Just say whatever comes to mind and I’m sure it’ll be great or at the least very amusing” you encouraged.

You and the guys fought back laughter as he went on and on for about a minute before he yelled, “Now fuck off!”

Everyone gathered around to watch it and you giggled throughout, “Josh this is perfect, seriously.”

“I mean, it’s a little ridiculous…” Jake argued.

“Just because I’m the center of the attention right now doesn’t mean you have to be rude about it.” Josh replied, rolling his eyes.

“Josh, you are, like, always the center of attention” Jake retorted.

“Boys, stop!” you called as you saw Josh go to snap back at his twin. “You’re on in 30 minutes so let’s not get into a brawl, yeah?”

The two glared at one another before walking off to separate areas of the dressing room. “Do they usually get worked up that quickly?” you mumbled to Sammy, who shrugged.

“It usually blows up and over pretty quickly. They haven’t come to throwing punches in years, so I wouldn’t worry about it.”

“Well, that’s something, I suppose” you mumbled, sitting down to edit Josh’s Rhinestoned Diary before their set began.

***

Jake always forgot how much he loved being onstage until he was back up there. He knew it brought him joy but the magnitude of it always caught him off guard despite all the years he’d been doing it. The next show was back-to-back with this one so everyone was piled on the bus as it rumbled onto the highway.

“Bunks have long been claimed I’m assuming?” you questioned from the couch, Reginald curled up on your lap as Rose rested her head on your feet.

“Everyone always keeps the same one tour to tour but the extra is all yours…here, I’ll show you, it’s right next to Jake’s” Danny offered and you followed him into the back. Shit. He’d forgotten you’d be sleeping right across from him whenever you were all traveling overnight.

He’d been working hard to ignore his accelerated heart rate or nervous stomach whenever you were nearby but he feared they would never totally go away. He kept reminding himself that nothing would ever happen and the fling was a one-off thing. It was just taking his body awhile to catch up to that fact.

Jake glanced at the clock and yawned, deciding to just crash. He said goodnight to the guys and patted Danny on the back as he passed him on his way to the bunks. You glanced up from where you were curled up with a book in your bunk and smiled lightly at him.

“Hey roomie” you greeted and he grinned back.

“Living arrangements okay back here?” he asked, keeping it vague so no one would understand the implied question if they overheard them.

You shrugged, rolling over onto your side to face him fully. “I can’t complain, what with these handy privacy shades” you smirked, drawing the small curtain closed before peaking around the edge to meet his eyes.

He laughed at your playfulness as he settled into his own bunk. “What are you reading over there?”

You reopened the curtain holding up the book for him to read: Sharp Objects.

“It’s just this dark thriller type book, it’s pretty good so far.”

“Hm, that’s surprising. I thought you’d be reading. Virginia Woolf or George Orwell or something” he teased.

You rolled your eyes, “I read enough serious literature in college to last me a lifetime, thank you very much. It’s smut and thrillers for me from now on” you grinned, wiggling your eyebrows and drawing another laugh from his lips.

“Fair enough” he smiled, showing you his own book about New Age religion. You two discussed it briefly before settling into a comfortable silence as you read beside each other. He couldn’t stop himself from glancing over at you occasionally. Each time, your brows were furrowed as you focused entirely on the book before you. You’d tied your hair up and it was the first time he’d seen you bare-faced—your beauty made his heart ache.

Jake wasn’t sure what woke him up several hours later, just as he hadn’t realized he’d fallen asleep to begin with. He surveyed his surroundings, lips quirking up when he saw what had dragged him out of his deep sleep—two light green eyes met his own as Reginald settled into his side. Jake lightly pet between his ears before glancing across the way towards you.

Your book was resting on your chest, your mouth open as you slumbered—looks like he wasn’t the only one to doze off while reading. He took a moment to admire your features and how peaceful they looked while you slept. Moving carefully, so as not to disturb Reginald, he reached his hand across the space between you and grabbed your book. He found a spare book mark, marking the page for you before placing it back in your bunk, drawing your curtain closed to give you some privacy. As he settled back into his pillow, Reginald’s purring sent him quickly off to sleep again.

***

From your spot backstage a few weeks later, you could tell something was wrong. Jake didn’t seem like his normal self and Josh kept shooting nervous glances his way. As their set wrapped, Jake set his guitar down and walked offstage, storming by as if you weren’t even there.

“What was that about?” you asked Josh, who looked concerned as he watched his twin slam a dressing room door shut.

“He messed up some notes early in the set and got mad at himself, it happens a lot honestly.”

“I didn’t even hear that and I listen to you guys constantly” you pointed out, noticing how Sam and Danny went into their own dressing room rather than the spare one Jake had just entered.

“Besides us onstage, I’m sure at most a handful of people here noticed it but that doesn’t stop him from beating himself up. I’ll be grabbing my clothes and heading to the hotel, I advise you avoid him until tomorrow morning.”

You contemplated Josh’s words as the other boys quickly filed out behind him once they’d changed into their everyday clothes. You cautiously walked to the room Jake had gone into, knocking quietly.

“Yeah?” he called out, his voice muffled through the thick door.

You peaked your head in to see him lying face down on the couch. You closed the door behind you before sitting on the floor next to him. “Want to talk about it?”

“Don’t know what there is to say, I fucked up the show.”

“Jake, you did no such thing. I appreciate how you want to give your best each night, but you’re still human like the rest of us. Mistakes happen.”

“So, you did hear me fuck it up?” he asked, finally turning to meet your gaze.

You shook your head, “No, Josh warned me what had happened. I noticed you seemed upset most of the show but I didn’t understand why until afterwards.”

Jake let out a deep breath as he nodded, “People just pay to see us, you know? I feel so shitty when I don’t play my best.”

“I can guarantee you that no one left tonight thinking anything other than what a great show you all put on” you assured him, gently brushing a lock of hair out of his face. His eyes shut at the gesture and his shoulders seemed to relax the slightest bit. You stroked his cheek with your thumb and he nuzzled into your palm. Silence enveloped the room for several moments as you soothed him.

“If you keep doing that, I’m going to fall asleep on this old, ratty couch.”

“Well, we wouldn’t want that, now, would we? God knows how many people have raw-dogged it on there.”

Jake shot up at your words and you fell back onto the floor at the horror on his face. “What the fuck Y/N? That’s not funny.”

His response only made you laugh harder as you clutched your aching sides. Jake watched in unamusement before finally gesturing for you to take his outstretched hand.

“Come on, you, let’s head out then” Jake said. You took his hand and wrapped him in a hug once you were steady on your feet.

“You’re amazing at what you do, Jake. Even when you feel like you may not be.” He returned the embrace, nuzzling his head into the crook of your neck. “Come on stinky, let’s go.”

***

Since tour began a couple months ago, you had all settled into an easy routine together. As the bus rumbled along the roadway, you were curled up on the couch with your legs tossed over Josh’s lap.

“No, Y/N, we are not watching that” he argued, causing you to roll your eyes.

“Joshua, we have watched every single Stanley Kubrick film there is, a couple twice now. I promise, The Haunting of Hill House is more than just a ghost show, I really think you’d like it.”

You’d been discussing the matter for a while now, Josh being characteristically stubborn about what you’d be watching together that afternoon. Normally, you let him pick but you felt you’d been generous enough with how much of your viewing together you’d allowed him to choose since tour started.

“And all I’m saying is, if the show is on Netflix there is absolutely no way it’s a worthwhile endeavor.”

“You’ve got to be fucking kidding me!” you sat up abruptly, causing his eyes to widen. “Are you saying I have shitty taste when you haven’t even watched a single one of my suggestions?”

“I mean, you do read a lot of thrillers…”

Annoyance shifted into anger in your chest but Jake emerged from the back of the bus before you could snap back. “What are you two going on about? I can’t focus on my book back there.”

“Your brother is being a judgmental asshole is what’s going on” you muttered.

“How dare you!” he retorted turning to glare your way but Jake waved his hand between you two, forcing you both to focus on him.

“Is this because you’ve chosen every single movie you’ve watched together and now Y/N wants a chance?” Jake questioned.

“She can still pick, just something else” Josh sighed dramatically.

“I’m just trying to get him to watch one fucking episode than he can veto it if he hates it” you sighed back, earning another glare.

“Josh, you’ve enjoyed having Y/N join you for movies, right? And the discussions you’ve had about them afterwards?”

“Well, yeah…” Josh trailed off, knowing where his twin was going with this.

“Then why don’t you think she’d know you well enough to pick something out that you may like, hmm? I’ll even sit down and watch an episode.”

You paused, watching Josh weigh his twin’s words—he knew he had lost this particular argument. “Fine, load it up. And, Y/N, I’m sorry for implying you had poor taste. You’re the only one besides me on this godforsaken bus that thinks seriously about cinema.”

“Apology accepted” you grinned, stretching your legs back out to settle in for the show.

Within 10 minutes, Josh was hooked, like you knew he’d be, and Jake seemed to be enjoying himself too. You’d seen this show countless times so you shot Jake a text:

thanks for stepping in back there, you probably saved your brother’s life

You watched Jake’s phone light up across the way and saw his face break into a smile when he read your text.

always happy to take your side in any future fights you two may get into

what if I argue that Taylor Swift is a better lyricist than Joni Mitchell?

you wouldn’t dare

***

Jake sat in his hotel room a few weeks later, looking forward to the final show of the American leg of the tour. Sound check was still a few hours off and he lazily strummed his guitar, staring out at the view. A knock sounded from behind him and he opened his door to see your panicked face.

“Are you okay? What’s going on?” Jake said, guiding you into his room with a gentle hand on your back.

“I’m fine! Just trying to wrap up a few things before we head to South America in a couple of days. How many checked bags do you have again?” you asked, foot rapidly tapping on the floor.

“…2 but I don’t believe you. You look totally freaked out, Y/N” he replied, hands gently rubbing your shoulders.

“Great, thanks! That was all—.” Your phone ringing cut you off and you sighed before answering, stepping into his bathroom so you could close the door for some privacy. Jake tried his best not to eavesdrop but your raised voice was hard to ignore, even through the door.

Several moments later, silence filled his hotel room and he assumed you’d hung up the phone. He pressed his ear to the door and could have sworn he heard you sniffling behind it.

“Y/N? Can I come in, please?” Only more muffled crying answered him. “Please, I’m worried, can you unlock the door?”

A moment later he heard the lock click and he cautiously opened the door. His heart dropped when he saw you sitting on the tile, arms wrapped around your legs as tears streamed down your face.

“I’m sorry, this is so unprofessional of me, I’ll leave in a minute.”

“Y/N, stop it, fuck professionalism, you’re my friend. Tell me what’s wrong.”

Your sobs continued in earnest at his words and he sat down, wrapping an arm around you. You rested your head on his shoulder and he rubbed your arm lightly, trying to offer what comfort he could.

“I’m sorry, this trip to South America just got totally fucked up this morning. My one co-worker did the booking all wrong so I’ve been trying to fix it for hours now.”

“Shit, that sounds stressful. How can I help?”

“The funny thing is, everything’s settled now. I just submitted all of our information to the airline so we’re set.”

“Why are you still so upset then?” he asked, confused.

“Well, the thing about me is I’m great at handling things when shit hits the fan but the second it’s done? All the adrenaline just rushes through me and then this happens” you chuckled quietly, wiping the tears off your face. “Super helpful, right?”

“No one’s perfect” he assured you and you pushed him away lightly before meeting his gaze. “If everything’s resolved, who was on the phone?”

“My mother. She tried facetiming me so I could see Reggie before we left the country and I lost my shit on her because I’d already told her I couldn’t talk today given everything.”

“Poor Mama Y/L/N” Jake teased and you laughed.

“I know, I owe her an apology call in a little bit” you reached over to squeeze his hand. “Thank you, Jakey.”

“Nothing to thank me for, I’m always here if you need me. Help me figure out this melody I’ve been working on?”

You nodded eagerly as Jake helped you up, handing you his spare guitar. You settled opposite him on the bed and he started running through some of the ideas he’d had.

He smiled faintly as he watched you roughly strum the guitar strings; you were by no means an expert but, for some reason, he could understand what you were getting at whenever you sat down with him to work through his melodies. As you went back and forth, a song slowly revealed itself to Jake.

“What’s going on in here?” Sammy’s voice called from behind Jake, causing you both to jump.

“I know we have each other’s spare room keys but maybe knock next time? You scared the shit out of me” Jake replied, glaring at the rest of the band who appeared behind his youngest brother.

“We tried calling you both like a million times with no answer. Sound check starts in five minutes” Danny explained. Jake felt his shoulder tense as he noted the curious expressions on Sam and Danny’s faces.

“Shit, sorry we lost track of time” you muttered, quickly shooing the guys out the door and down to the waiting car.

***

Later that night, the five of you were celebrating in Josh’s room after the show. Alcohol was flowing freely and everyone was a little unsteady on their feet. You sat on the floor beside Danny, the others strewn about the other chairs and the couch. Everyone was chatting but you were you just soaking up the positive energy and excitement in the room—a welcome reprieve after the crazy day you’d had.

“You know what’s awesome?” Josh asked and your focus shifted to him when you realized he was looking right at you.

“What?” you asked, sure he was about to say something ridiculous. You half debated getting your phone out to film it but resisted the urge.

“How well you’ve fit in with us, it’s like you’ve been here all along.” You felt your heart warm at his words but it quickly sank as he continued, “Especially considering your history with Jake.”

A/N: One more part left, y'all! Thanks for the support and let me know if you have any feedback :)

(also I would fight them to the death that ms. swift is a better lyricist, just felt that needed to be said)

taglist: taglist: @sunshineonkennasshoulders @littlehorrorlover @gretavansteph @peacefulfuckinarmy @greta-van-chaos

#jake kiszka #josh kiszka #danny wagner #sam kiszka #greta van fleet #greta van fleet imagine #greta van fleet x reader #greta van smut #greta van fluff #jake kiszka smut #jake kiszka fluff #jake kiszka x reader #jake kiszka fic #jake kiszka imagine

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