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whatsnewalycat · 4 months

Text

RUTHLESS

Stepdad Joel Miller x Reader

Rating: Explicit (18+ ONLY)

Word Count: 5.1k+

Warnings: DDDNE, literally just a fucked up stepdad/mom's bf fantasy, could read "mom" as tess but I don't name her or assign physical features to her or reader, post-outbreak, reader is def over 18 but not by much so yeah age gap, NON-CONSENSUAL, power imbalance, unethical d/s dynamic, slapping, spanking, punishment, orgasm delay/denial, humiliation, degradation, face fucking, anal sex, little to no aftercare

A/N: Category is "That old man would fucking never... but if he did..." Please be mindful of the warnings and don't read if it might trigger you. Sorry, mom. Sorry, God.

[ my masterlist ] [ taglist ] [ AO3 ]

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Within the secluded world of your big noise-canceling headphones, you scan through silence on the CB radio, pausing for a few seconds on each channel before moving on to the next.

Channel 11: Nothing.

Channel 12: Zilch.

Channel 13: Nada.

When you turn the dial to channel 14, though, you pick up chatter and start transcribing.

Channel 14 7/17/22 19:56

—got a bundle of carrots today. Budaydas, onions, too. Want me to come by tomorrow and make some stew? Over.

Got enough for the kids? Over.

And leftovers. Over.

I’ll be at Margie’s around supper time. Over and out.

The air goes silent.

After a minute goes by with no follow up transmissions, you glance at the clock. 7:58. Almost time for check-in.

You tune the radio to channel 32 and review your transcription.

Many people speak in code, encrypting their messages in seemingly benign conversations. To the untrained ear, they’re normal exchanges, people making small talk about jobs and rations and kids. Goodnight calls and check-ins that use predictable inquiries to convey messages.

—got a bundle of carrots today. Budaydas, onions, too. Want me to come by tomorrow and make some stew?

Most of it you can translate from memory. The drug traffickers that use channel 14 have frequented the same lingo for years. Likely because of the high turnover rate of personnel. There’s less confusion that way. Confusion in communication raises more alarm bells for eavesdroppers than using the same code words across the board.

You flip through your cipher for channel 14, searching for budaydas, but find nothing. Scrunching your nose up, you say the word out loud, “Budaydas. Buh-day-das.”

Carrots, onions, budaydas in a stew.

“Oh,” you nod in understanding, then jot down your translation, muttering under your breath, “Fucking Boston accents.”

(Someone) picked up tranquilizers, benzos (budaydas = potatoes), and opioids. The caller wants to meet up and trade as previously agreed.

The rest of it is easy enough to interpret without the use of a cipher. You probably don’t need to write down the translation, but do it in case your mom or Joel need to reference the notes at a later date.

There’s enough to distribute product across their network of dealers in Boston QZ, plus more to stockpile. They’ll meet at their hub in Area 1, Margaret St, at midnight.

You exhale through slack lips, glancing at the clock as it ticks over to 8:00, then pick up the microphone and hold down the speak button.

“Radio check.”

A few seconds go by before you hear a familiar gruff voice crackle over the radio waves into your ears, “Loud and clear. Over.”

Your nostrils flare when you hear him. Joel Miller. The bane of your existence. Your de facto stepfather, only because you don’t really remember life without him by your mom’s side.

This isn’t to say he’s a father figure to you by any means. The two of you never shared the kind of heartwarming paternal bonding moments you read about in books. That would require warmth and vulnerability, which he distinctly lacks.

Once, when you were maybe 11 or 12, you made the mistake of calling him Dad. The way he looked at you made you feel like dirt. Fire burning behind his dark eyes, he corrected you with one stern syllable that taught you your place: “Joel.”

You sit up straighter and take a moment to gather yourself before responding.

“Did you get your message from Uncle Paul? Over.”

“I did. Over.”

“How’s the weather in Kansas City? Over.”

“Cloudy. Over.”

Fuck.

You swallow around nothing, then clear your throat and ask, “And Grandma, how’s she? Over.”

“Fine, just busy is all.”

You exhale a sigh of relief that melts the tension between your shoulders. Joel continues.

“Anything new with you? Over.”

Tapping your fingers on your notes, you answer, “Rumor has it the market is gonna be busy tomorrow. Harvesting time, I guess. Other than that, same old same old. What about you? Staying out of trouble? Over.”

It feels strange, having a casual conversation with him like this. Even if it’s just a data exchange dressed up as a casual conversation.

There’s a long pause, then he says, “Fine, yeah. Well. See you soon. Over ‘n’ out.”

Stiff as a board. Cold as ice. Joel Miller, everyone. Round of applause.

You snort, rolling your eyes as you unplug the headphones and toss them on the table. It takes a moment for you to re-acclimate to your surroundings.

The dingy two-bedroom apartment is quiet and still. Outside, the setting sun casts the world in a dark golden haze. A FEDRA patrol vehicle roars down the street, broadcasting the curfew alert from a loudspeaker. Faint shouting from a few units down momentarily piques your curiosity before you decide it’s none of your business.

You stand from the chair and reach your hands above your head, lungs expanding in a powerful yawn, then take a lap around the apartment to stretch your legs.

Something catches your eye when you walk by the entry. A note slipped under the doorframe. On the outer fold, your name is written in a familiar scrawl.

Your heart skips a beat.

You pick it up and unfold the paper, revealing an invitation.

I miss you. Come over when you’re done surfing the airwaves. XO, Bert.

Warmth trickles down between your thighs. A smile spreads across your face. You glance up at the door, then to the CB radio and scanner on the desk.

Indecision churns in your belly.

You are explicitly forbidden from leaving the apartment while your mom and Joel are out on runs. A safety precaution you’ve protested dozens of times to no avail. They expect you to stay put and warn them if you notice any signs of potential danger. In return, you receive a cut of the profit and a roof over your head. Security, in short. Which is more than most could say.

That being said… You break this rule from time to time, when the circumstances allow.

Like when the Fireflies and FEDRA have been quiet for weeks and there are no smoke signals in sight. Like when you’re five nights into a seven day seclusion and think you might die of boredom if you don’t get the fuck out of here. Like when your boyfriend slips a note under the door and asks you to come over.

You look down at the paper in your hands, re-reading the words I miss you.

Fuck it, what’s the worst that could happen?

—

Just before midnight, you wander down the hallway to your unit, jelly knees wobbling with each step. As you absentmindedly trace your tingling lips, still puffy from kissing, you unlock the door and push it open, then frown.

The lights are on.

They were off when you left, you’re sure of it. When you step further into the apartment, your foot catches on something. A backpack. This faint buzzing starts behind your ears as you blink at it, wishing it would go away.

Motherfu—

“Where the fuck have you been?”

Your stomach plummets to the floor when you hear his voice. A thick knot of panic tightens around your windpipe as you look up to find Joel standing just a few paces away in the living room.

He stares you down, dark eyes glowing with fury, and questions you again, “Where were you?”

“N-nowhere.”

The blatant lie sits sour on your tongue. His lips purse, so you fumble out another, “I went for a walk.”

“A walk,” he repeats, tone disbelieving, “You went on a walk after curfew wearing that?”

You look down at your clothing. A short skirt and tank top. Your throat bobs in a guilty gulp, then you meet his eyes again and nod.

“And when did you leave on this ‘walk?’”

Your mind whirs as you try to come up with an answer. It feels like a trap. You try to calculate an answer that will provide minimal blowback.

“I don’t know, maybe twenty minutes ago?”

“Try again.”

The electricity humming through you takes on a red, frustrated edge, and you snip, “I don’t fucking know, dude. It was a while ago, I wasn’t paying attention. Where’s my mom?”

“Your mom sent me here to make sure you were alive,” he says pointedly, taking slow, deliberate steps towards you, “We’ve been tryin’a reach you for three hours. I got here an hour ago. That’s a helluva lot longer than twenty minutes, ain’t it?”

Shrinking into yourself, you search his face. Jaw set, eyes boring into yours. Waves of anger roll off him as he approaches, and you remember all those rumors you heard about him on the radio. The fear you heard in grown men’s voices when they recounted run-ins with that bitch and her guard dog.

You remember what Bert said about him: He’s fucking ruthless.

“You aren’t supposed to leave the apartment when we’re outside the QZ.”

“I know.”

“Then why did you?”

Your heart thuds against your ribcage.

Joel has never directed this kind of outright anger towards you. Sternness, sure. Contempt, maybe. But this is different. You’re in fucking trouble.

There has to be a way out of this conversation.

You drop your gaze to the floor and ask, “Is my mom ok? Did something happen to her?”

“Don’t change the subject.”

Righteous indignation straightens your spine and wills you to meet his eyes again, “I’m not saying shit until you tell me what happened to her.”

“She sprained her ankle, but she’s fine. She’s safe,” he tells you, then takes another step forward, “Why did you leave?”

You respond by rolling your eyes.

“Answer the question.”

With an irritated sigh, you search his face, then tell him, “You don’t know what it’s like to be here. Isolated for days or weeks at a time. I fucking hate it. It’s so lonely and boring, I feel like I’m losing my mind—”

“Oh, cry me a goddamn river.”

You scowl at him, staring him down, “Fuck you.”

“Watch your fucking mouth, you disrespectful little shit.”

Red flashes through your field of vision, hot and angry and defiant. You gather the moisture in your mouth on your tongue and spit at him. It splats on his cheek.

His face twists up with fury for one second before he charges, closing the distance between you. The impact pushes your back to the door with a thud.

He grabs your jaw, fingers digging hard into the soft flesh of your cheeks. His eyes are hot coals, burning into you. The muscles in his jaw twitch, nostrils flaring, breath shaky.

When he speaks, it’s through gritted teeth, “You don’t know what it’s like out there.”

“No, because you won’t let me fucking leave—”

“You should be fucking grateful, you know that? Being here is a fucking cake walk. Your mom ‘n’ I have seen things, done things—horrible things you couldn’t even imagine,” he husks, searching your face, grip tightening so hard it makes you whine. “We keep you safe, and all we ask is that you stay put and keep a lookout for us when we’re gone.”

Even if you wanted to respond, you can’t. The vice grip he has on your face renders your mouth immobile.

All you can do is stare back at him, studying his furrowed brow and clenched jaw. Full lips pinched thin as he glowers at you.

You notice how close his broad body is to yours. The heat radiating off his tightly-wound muscles onto your skin. His ragged breath scatters across your face and wafts into your open mouth. You taste the bootleg whiskey on his breath and your pulse jumps.

Warmth drips down your spine and pools at the center of you, a horrifying sensation that makes you squirm.

“Were you with your little boyfriend? Hmm?” he asks, eyes darting around your face, trailing down to your body for a moment before returning, “That boy downstairs? Figure you musta been, on account of how you’re dressed.”

You don’t say anything. You can’t. But it doesn’t matter, because it’s not really a question.

“Abandoning your post to go out and get fucked, is that it?”

A whimper slips from your throat as heat swells beneath your skin.

He wouldn’t be treating you like this if your mom was here. He wouldn’t say these things or be this close to you. Knowing this, you understand that whatever is happening right now is wrong.

You also understand that you like it.

You hate that you like it, and hate him for making you like it, but you like it all the same.

Letting go of your face, he demands, “Answer me.”

“Fuck you.”

Before you even realize what’s happening, you feel a sharp, hot sting on your cheek and yelp.

He fucking slapped you.

“Wrong answer.”

“What the fuck is wrong with you?” you retort, bringing your hand to the welt forming on your cheek, “I’m gonna tell her.”

“Yeah? You gonna tell her I found you sneaking in at midnight, too? That you compromised our safety to go out ‘n’ get dicked down?”

You harden your gaze on him, lips pressing together with disdain.

“She wouldn’t like that, would she?” he asks, the smallest smirk tugging at the corner of his mouth, “She’d probably kick you out on your ass.”

“She wouldn’t. You guys need me.”

“And you need us,” he counters, searching your face, “So what do we do to make sure this doesn’t happen again? Hmm?”

A dozen inappropriate images flash through your head, each more lurid than the last. An electric, tingling feeling shoots out from the base of your spine and works through your extremities.

You swallow hard and shake your head, “I won’t do it again.”

“If I don’t punish you, you will. You’re fucking disrespectful. Selfish. You need discipline.”

Again, a flash of frustration taints the world red. Crossing your arms over your chest, you scoff, “Just because you’re fucking my mom doesn’t mean you’re my dad. I am an adult and you are not the boss of me.”

He sighs and takes a step back, planting his hands on his hips. His gaze drifts around the empty apartment, jaw gnashing back and forth for a moment before he returns to twist the deadbolt closed and grab your arm.

“What the f—” you swat at him and dig your heels into the floor, but it does nothing as he drags you by his steel grip, pulling you stumbling along behind him into the living room.

He sits on the couch and forces you to lay over his bent knees, one big hand securing your wrists behind your back while the other flattens against the swell of your ass cheek. As soon his touch leaves, it returns, a sharp snap tingling across your skin.

Shocked doesn’t even begin to describe the chaos throbbing through you.

“You’re right, you’re an adult. And I’m not your dad,” he asserts, lifting his hand. Your whole body clenches in anticipation. “But as long as you live here, I am the fucking boss of you,” he slaps your ass again, “Do you understand me?”

It surprises you when you hear yourself sob, “I’m sorry—”

He does it again and again, hissing, “Yeah, you’re fucking sorry now, aren’t you?”

Each firm slap he lays down is firm, unflinching. Ruthless.

It overwhelms your senses and becomes the only thing you feel. The universe world narrows down to just his palm on your skin. The reliable and exquisite pain ringing through you. Smack. Smack. Smack.

Every time he draws his hand back, you don’t think you can handle it again. But you do.

Soon, you start to crave the impact. His skin on your skin. You can’t feel the start or end of it. It’s just him and you. Pain and pleasure. Sobs and moans, all blended together.

Far away, you hear him chide you for not wearing underwear beneath your skirt. Then he asks, “Are you fucking enjoying this?”

Too ashamed to admit it, all you do is whimper in response.

Smack.

He sucks in breath through his teeth, then grabs the meat of your ass and rumbles, “You do, don’t you?”

When his grasp on your wrists releases, you pull your elbows beneath you and look over your shoulder at him, watching as he spreads your cheeks apart and stares down between your legs. You’re probably shiny and wet with the evidence of your desire.

His lips form an ‘o’ when he kneads you back together and spreads you apart again. The motion teases all your hungry nerves and makes you moan. It feels so fucking good.

You realize then that he’s grown stiff against your belly, hard cock leaving no mistake.

“You fucking like it, too, don’t you?” you ask him, your voice breathy and amused, “I can feel how turned on you are.”

Slipping a hand between your bodies, you press against his strained zipper. His cock jumps at the contact, and he groans, dragging his fingers through your slick lips.

“Oh my god,” you gasp, eyes fluttering closed as you nod in approval. He works your clit in steady, firm circles while you smooth your hand along the big bulge in his pants, letting out a string of whines at the bubbling pleasure inside you.

You lose yourselves here, both of you squirming and panting and petting the other. So wrapped up with how fucking good it feels that you forget to feel ashamed.

When he smacks your ass now, you croak through clenched teeth, “Fuck yes.”

He likes that you like it. You can tell by the way he groans and throbs beneath you. This knowledge inspires your pulse to pound and your muscles to tense.

“Joel,“ you whimper, opening your eyes to meet his heavy-lidded gaze, “I’m gonna fucking come, don’t stop—”

“Did I give you permission to do that?” he asks, slowing his touch to a torturous rhythm, “Did I say you could come?”

You shake your head and whine, “Please, Joel, please—”

“Are you sorry for what you did?”

“I’m sorry—”

“Are you gonna do it again?”

“No no no, I won’t, I promise, I’ll be a good girl—”

He groans, tossing his head back as you frantically rub at the bulge in his pants. Your palm chafes against the stiff denim, but you don’t stop. You would do this for eternity if it meant he’d let you find your release.

“Oh yeah, you’ll be a good fucking girl for me?” he asks, touching you just soft and slow enough to twist your nerves ragged, but keep your orgasm out of reach.

“I will, I promise. Please, Joel,” you whisper, holding his gaze as your face gets all hot, “Please make me come, please please—”

“Show me you mean it.”

He doesn’t need to explain what he means. While he takes off his jeans, you scramble off his lap and kneel between his spread knees. His eyes stay glued to yours as you slide your hands up his thighs.

Batting your lashes at him, you wrap your lips around his swollen cock. He fills your mouth. He feels smooth but hard against your tongue. He tastes salty and heady and when you inhale the musk of him, you moan around his girth.

Nodding, he anchors his grip behind your head and bucks his hips, forcing his dick down your throat. When you gag, he doesn’t let up, but thrusts into the sensation, grunting, “Fuck. Yes,” before letting you pull off, gasping for air.

You wrap your hands around him, all shiny and slick with drool, and pump his length for a moment while you catch your breath, then take him in your mouth again.

This time, you sit up taller. You relish the stretch of your lips as you bob up and down. Savor the tug of his fingers curled tight in your hair. Memorize the sound of his huffs and grunts as he fucks your face. The wet squelching gurgle of his cock squeezing down your windpipe.

“Look at me,” he orders, so you do.

He’s all blurred from your watering eyes, but you can make out the dark irises and stay locked onto them while relaxing the muscles of your throat to take him easier. When you make an enthusiastic humming noise, he groans. It’s wanton and lusty and lights a fire in your belly.

Joel has never treated you this hard or soft. His regard for you has always been callous. Closed-off. Indifferent. With your assistance on the radio, he treated you like a tool for survival. Before that, or even in-between smuggling runs, he treated you like some kind of a household pet he had little regard for. Your mom’s responsibility, never his.

For years and years, you ached for more.

When you were younger, you used to sit up nights and wonder if he’d ever consider you his daughter. He wouldn’t, though. He won’t.

But this is something.

Distinctly, you want to please him. Be the best he ever had. You want to sink your claws into his brain and leave your mark for years to come. You want him to look at you after this and feel a flicker of desire and self-loathing. You want him to think of you when he fucks your mom. You want him to hate how you made him feel.

When you pull off him and start to work his soaked length with your hands, you pant, “Does that feel good? Am I doing a good job sucking your cock?”

“It’s good,” he nods, lets out a groan that pinches his eyes shut, then meets your gaze again, “So fucking good, Jesus Christ. Is this what you were out doing tonight? Sucking cock?”

“Not tonight.”

“But he fucked you, didn’t he? That boy?”

You nod, stroking him slower. His eyelids flutter.

“Did he fuck your pussy or your ass?”

The question sends a jolt through your middle. You recall the sex you had with Bert. Barely an hour has gone by since he pulled out of your cunt to shoot his load on the mattress, but it feels like a lifetime ago.

“My pussy,” you answer, then gather a thick, hot wad of saliva on your tongue and spit on his cock. You spread it with a slow churning motion, watching Joel’s face twist up with pleasure.

“Were you bein’ smart about it at least?” he asks, studying you, “We don’t need you getting knocked up.”

“He pulled out,” you shrug.

He grunts in acknowledgment, then sits up and pulls on your arm to join him on the couch, “C’mere.”

You follow his guidance, lying back on the cushions as he strips off his shirt.

The only times you’ve seen him shirtless were accidental and slightly embarrassing for both of you. But now, you notice how his smooth chest glows in the dim light. Now, when you drink in the sight of his big arms and broad shoulders, heat bubbles up your spine.

While you pull your tank top off over your head, he tugs your skirt down your thighs, asking, “You ever taken it up the ass?”

You shake your head.

His eyebrows jump a little like he’s surprised. A sadistic kind of smirk plays across his lips as he pushes your knees up to your chest, then spreads you apart, the head of him nudging at your backdoor.

He doesn’t ask for permission. He doesn’t ask if you want it this way, or if you want him to be the first. He doesn’t even warn you about the initial shock and pain you experience when he rocks his hips forward and breaches the tight hole.

You yelp and try to lurch away from the sharp pain, but he grabs you and holds you there.

Sitting up on your elbows, you cry, “That fucking hurts, Joel.”

“Wouldn’t be much of a punishment if it didn’t hurt a little, would it?” he murmurs, disinterested, watching your asshole stretch to accommodate the head of his cock.

The sensation is overwhelming. Like being stabbed or split open. At first, you hate it. You sputter and gasp and shake your head as he pushes himself in further and further.

Then he pauses the invasion, releasing his steel grip on you to tilt your chin up and meet his gaze, “Just relax.”

His eyes burn into yours, making your pulse jump. You bear witness to his heaving chest and parted lips and feel him twitch inside you. Sparks sizzle across your body, but you still scowl at him.

“It hurts, I don’t like it.“

“It’ll get better, you just gotta relax,” he coaches.

“Why can’t we just have normal sex?”

He grunts, thinks about it for a moment, then tells you, “First off, this is not normal sex,” he points between your chest and his, “This will not be a normal thing, you understand?”

It stings a little, if you’re being honest. But you nod, “I understand.”

Nodding, he licks his lips. He throbs inside you, hips jerking a little in reaction. This time, the friction feels good enough to make you whimper.

“Second, we don’t need another mouth to feed around here,” he says, searching your face, “We’re stretched thin enough as is. You know what I mean?”

“But if you—”

“Pulling out can still stick. This way’s tried and true, trust me.”

“Trust you,” you scoff under your breath and roll your eyes.

“What’s that?”

You meet his hardened gaze, feeling emboldened enough to ask, “Do you fuck my mom in the ass?”

“That’s none of your business,” he warns.

“So, what, you can interrogate me about my sex life, but I can’t do the same?”

“That’s right,” he barks, “Know why?”

In response, you glare at him.

He takes this moment of bitter silence to drag his knuckles up your slick, swollen lips. The light touch branches out beneath your skin and makes your heart pound. You gasp a little, but try to hide it. He clocks it immediately.

“There we go,” he murmurs under his breath, almost as an aside, smoothing the pad of his thumb in soft circles on your clit. Pleasure churns beneath the touch, hot and hungry for more. When you whimper, Joel’s eyes go wild for a second, then he says, “I am the fucking boss of you, understand?”

You swallow a moan as he arches forward and starts to roll his hips. It feels better now. Good. Fucking amazing, almost. Electric and gooey. He fills you so completely with each thrust, you wonder how you can even breathe.

“So if I tell you to be home, that’s where you’ll be. If I ask you where you’ve been, who you were with, what you were doing—you tell me the truth. Understand?”

Nodding, you gasp, “I understand.”

“You don’t get to ask me about your mom. You don’t tell your mom. You don’t sneak out to go get fucked by some boy who doesn’t even know what to do with you—”

“Holy shit, Joel I’m gonna—” you gasp at the pressure building at the base of your spine, spreading thick and hot and delicious across your body.

“And you don’t come without my fucking permission. Understand?”

“I understand I understand,” you cry, literal tears burning behind your eyes at the ache of trying to keep the ecstasy at bay, “Please can I come, please please please—”

“Are you sorry?”

“I’m sorry, I’ll never do it again—”

“That’s right, you’ll never fucking do it again. Why’s that?”

“You’re the boss,” you beg, your voice so raw and pleading it sounds foreign. He pounds into you now, a wet slap that echoes off the apartment walls. It takes all your concentration to keep your pleasure contained, to not spill over the edges, but you hear yourself babble somewhere far away.

“You’re the fucking boss. I’m sorry I’m sorry I won’t disobey you again I’ll be a good girl I’ll do anything just please give me permission to come daddy please please please—”

When he moans, loud and depraved, it just about breaks you, but you manage to keep your resolve long enough for him to pant, “Go ahead, let it go.”

With a choked sob, you untether your pleasure and allow it to expand, growing hot and wide and unlike anything you’ve ever felt. Every muscle in your body tenses up as the sensation swallows you whole, then spits you back up, sending wave after wave across your body.

“That’s it, that’s a good girl,” he grunts, taking his hand from your clit to hold your knees down and fuck your ass hard and fast and ruthless.

It surprises you when heat starts stretching out from the middle of you again. Your heart starts to race as the feeling grows.

“Ffffuuuuck,” you whimper, “That feels so fucking good—”

“I told you, didn’t I?”

“You did you did holy shit,” you meet his eyes and nod frantically, “I love it I love it—please can you come in my ass?”

“Is that what you want? Want me to come in your tight little asshole?”

A feral noise escapes you, and you sob, “Yes—”

“Do you wanna come too?”

“Yes—oh my god, yes, please please please daddy—”

“Come with me, baby.”

You let the feeling overtake you again, gasping out, “thank you thank you thank you,” as it takes you strong and fast. Pleasure pulses through your body, causing you to convulse and strain against Joel’s grip spreading you open. He releases a moan from his belly and gives you a hard, deep thrust that he holds for a shuddering moment. After emptying himself inside you, he pulls out, falling back to his seat on the couch.

Chest heaving, you prop yourself up on your elbows and study him. He pinches his eyes shut and catches his breath before meeting your gaze again.

His expression goes soft long enough for something dangerous to flicker between you.

Then he turns away and starts getting dressed.

“Get yourself together, I’m gonna go get your mom.”

As you sit up, you fold your legs into your body and watch him button his shirt.

“Joel—”

He looks at you, searching your face expectantly, but your brain goes static and you’re not even sure what you were going to say.

“This stays between us, understand?”

His tone is firm but gentle. You swallow hard and nod, “I understand.”

Nodding, he glances down at your lips, then back to your eyes. He rises to his feet to leave, but before he does, he leans down to press a kiss into your forehead.

“Good girl.”

[ NEXT PART ]

2K notes · View notes

phantom-0-writer · 2 months

Text

regular boy: daniel wayne

masterlist/link to ao3

summary:

“Reporting live from Gotham City!” The reporter spoke “Here at the scene of the crime where Dr. Collin Kilye, renowned geneticist, has shot himself and has been declared dead by the paramedics. Dr. Kilye is suspected to be responsible for the purposeful switching of newborns between families under his care, where an estimated over 500 babies have been swapped in the last 20 years of his employment here. Based on the information provided to the Gotham PD by Nightwing and Batman, the vigilantes investigating the crime, we are led to believe that Nightwing has been investigating this case after an anonymous tipoff of Dr. Kilye’s suspicious activities. After a month and a half of investigating, Nightwing reason to believe the Dr. Kilye of malpractice and came to his office to investigate-” - Dick had learned that people never know a situation as well as they assume they did. Dick had always assumed that he wouldn’t be one of those people. He was a detective, a Bat, the first Robin. The case file in front of him glared tauntingly. Danny Fenton; Birth Parents: Bruce Wayne (father) and Clarissa King (mother). Status: Alive

chapter 01: breaking news

tw/cw: mentions of infant death and fictional medical procedures

dick: 25 jason: 20 danny: 16 tim: 16 steph: 17 cass: 15 duke: 17 damian: 13

Danny sighed, stepping through the front door and into the empty living room not bothering to turn on the lights and tossed his hoodie onto a nearby sofa. Normally Jazz would have berated him for being messy, or maybe Mom would have nagged about Danny being older and needing to clean up after himself. But Jazz was off studying neurology at Harvard. And his parents had gotten an “an amazingly irrefutable offer, Danno” to work at Dalv Co. under their new ecto-technologies sector, that partnered closely with the GIW. So they were usually busy with that.

Not that Danny wasn’t glad to have time apart from his parents. After what Danny only referred to as The Chicago Incident, he could barely stand being in the same room with them. Danny kept quiet about what happened. He hadn't told anyone, not Sam or Tuck or Val or Wes and especially not Jazz. He couldn’t. He’d only managed to survive thanks to the timely aid of Fright Knight and Firebolt (a ghost friend he made when he was stuck in the Ghost Zone during the GIW’s six-month Martial Law lockdown- but that was a story for another time).

Leaving his shoes somewhere by the door, Danny made his way into the kitchen, perusing through the remnants of edible material. The equipment in the basement would have been collecting dust if Danny hadn’t taken his liberties with it. Apart from his newfound and unbounded freedom that he regarded with gratitude, Danny even began dabbling in cooking real people food. And it was definitely because he wanted to and not because he was sick of microwavable food, Jazz.

With Danny’s rendition of chicken alfredo ready, he ate in front of the TV. He flipped through a few channels before just landing back on the news. He half-listened to the anchor telling him about the incoming weather front before the screen abruptly changed, flashing a bright red Breaking News sign for a moment before panning over to a lady in front of what looked like a crime scene.

“I’m Jenifer Blair, reporting live from West Gotham City with Z News!” The reporter spoke urgently over the loud sounds of police and ambulance sirens in the background. “Here at the scene of the crime where Dr. Collin Kilye, renowned geneticist, and lead researcher at West Gotham General Hospital, has shot himself and has been declared dead by the paramedics. Dr. Kilye is suspected to be responsible for the purposeful switching of newborns of families under his care. It is estimated that over 500 babies have been swapped in the last 20 years of his employment here. Based on the information provided to the Gotham PD by Nightwing and Batman, the vigilantes investigating the crime, we have been told that Nightwing has been investigating this case after an anonymous tipoff of Dr. Kilye’s suspicious activities. After a reported month and a half of investigating, Nightwing had reason to suspect Dr. Kilye of malpractice and came to his office to investigate where--”

The sudden sound of his phone ringing brought Danny back to his living room. “Hey, Tuck,” Danny answered, lowering the volume of the TV.

“Danny! Dude! Have you seen the news story of Batman and Nightwing’s recent bust?” Tucker asked, his voice radiating fanboy excitement.

“Wasn’t it mostly just Nightwing?” Danny raised an eyebrow at his friend, even though he couldn’t see it. “Batman showed up later.”

“Yeah, well, Batman and Nightwing-”

“Nightwing and Batman.”

“Okay, whatever- but isn’t this totally insane? It’s like Parent Trap- but illegal.”

“That’s not what happens in Parent Trap.” Danny pointed out for the sole purpose of being annoying.

“It’s the essence, Danny!” Tucker groaned. Danny could practically hear him rolling his eyes through the phone. “We’re still on for the new Doom game tonight?”

“Wouldn’t miss it for the world. The others come by yet?” Danny put his plate in the sink.

“I’m adding them to the call.”

On the third ring, “‘Sup Fenton ‘n Foley. Ready to get your nonexistent butts handed to you?” Val goaded, already hyped for their game.

“Hey! I’ll have you know I have a very nice butt. And Danny’s isn’t anything to scoff at either-” Tucker snapped only to be cut off by Danny.

“Okay! Thanks for the defense, Tuck.” Danny stepped in quickly before the conversation took a turn he did not want to witness.

---

Dick was alone in the BatCave, working out the final details of his case before sending it off to be released publicly. In all of Dick’s years as Robin to Nightwing, this case was easily one of the most disastrous to the general public. Given that it was his case, Dick wanted to make sure it went smoothly. Or as smoothly as telling a family their child isn’t biologically theirs can go.

Sorting through the files and pairing up the families with the correct child was relatively easy, thanks to the incredible details Dr. Kilye stored in his files. If the circumstances were different, Dick would have been amazed at how much data the doctor managed to keep collecting for 568 different subjects of his experiment. Silently praising himself for having already made his way through about half the files, Dick stretched his neck as he clicked the View Next button.

In his line of work, Dick had learned that people never know a person or situation as well as they thought they did. Dick had been confident he wouldn’t be one of those people. He was a detective, a Bat, the first Robin. He knew better than to assume anything. The file that showed up next was chilling proof that he was wrong. For a Bat, the past never stayed in the past.

File Number: 6678

Date of Birth: 12 February 20XX

Name: Thomas Wayne Jr

Assigned Mother: Clarissa King (missing)

Assigned Father: Bruce Wayne (alive)

Biological Mother: Madeline Fenton (alive)

Biological Father: Jack Fenton (alive)

Medical Conditions:

Malformations of the heart and lungs

Unidentified chemicals present in blood test

Updates and Notes:

Deceased on 23 February 20XX (11 days old)

The memories he managed to keep buried for years seized Dick’s senses, and he was back in the hospital waiting room at age 9. None of the others had known about the time Bruce and Thalia had tried to work things out and had given having a family together a try. No LoA business. No Bat or JLA. Just regular(ish) people in a regular(ish) family.

It had gone well for the months before Talia had become pregnant. Even most of the pregnancy had gone smoothly. Dick got to be in an actual family again after the death of his parents. They had dinner together. Talked about their day. Watched movies together.

But then Talia had gotten sick, and the baby ended up coming out a little early. The doctors had told them it was normal and that the baby would probably still be healthy. So Alfred sat in the waiting room with a nervous Dick, excited to meet his first-ever little brother. He’d always wanted a little brother. Bruce came to the waiting room after making Dick and Alfred wait forever and told them they could come in now. Talia, under the alias Clarissa King, was asleep when they entered.

Bruce had told them the doctors had taken Thomas to get cleaned and do a few check-ups. Dick remembered the anxious but excited look on Bruce’s face as he kept glancing at the door, ready to pounce the second the doctor would come back with Dick’s new baby brother.

Except that never happened.

When the doctor came back into the room, he had a clipboard in his hand, not a baby. The Doctor told them to follow him, and they went inside a room with a bunch of machines in it, and in the middle of the room was Dick’s baby brother.

The baby was mostly bald, but he had little bits of black hair on his head, like Bruce and Talia. Dick wondered what color eyes the baby would have. Talia had green eyes, but Bruce and Dick had blue eyes. Alfred had said the baby needed a lot of rest and that’s why he was sleeping so much. Dick would be a good big brother and wait patiently until his baby brother woke up.

But the baby had to stay in the hospital for 10 whole days since Bruce had told Dick that his brother was really sick. Dick would check the nursery to make sure it was ready for his brother before Alfred would take him to the hospital to visit. Dick’s baby brother hadn’t been awake any of those days and Dick never got to find out what color his eyes were.

On the eleventh day, they didn’t go to visit. When Dick asked Alfred why, the butler had walked him to the patch of loose dirt in the backyard marked with a little piece of rock with his brother’s name on it.

Dick had seen that type of rock with his parent’s name on it before.

It meant that he was gone, and Dick would never get to see him again.

When Bruce had introduced Jason Todd and said he would stay with them in the manor, that was the first time Dick had truly ever been betrayed by Bruce.

Jason wasn’t his brother. Thomas was. But Thomas wasn’t here. Jason may get to say he was Bruce’s son too, but he didn’t get to know about Thomas.

Not letting his childhood tears deter him from his new goal, Dick quickly found the associated file. Dick’s heart pounded in his chest while his breath was still stuck somewhere in his throat,

File Number: 77563

Date of Birth: 12 February 20XX

Name: Daniel Fenton

Assigned Mother: Madeline Fenton (alive)

Assigned Father: Jack Fenton (alive)

Biological Mother: Clarissa King (missing)

Biological Father: Bruce Wayne (alive)

Medical Conditions:

Normal Birth

Age 12: Electrocuted

Hospitalized for 24 hours.

Developed Acute Bradycardia

No follow-up medical procedures

Updates and Notes:

Prefers “Danny”

Dick looked over the file again and again. His baby brother was alive. He had come back.

Should he tell Bruce? Obviously, that was a dumb question. How should he tell Bruce?

Well, Richard Grayson was nothing if not tactful. He pulled out his phone from his jacket pocket, pulled up both files next to each other on the large screen of the Bat Computer, snapped a picture, and clicked send. Bruce was supposed to be having dinner with some important business people or whatnot, so Dick decided he should flee the scene before the Big Bad Bat found him, not wanting to know what his wrath would bestow on him. Heaven forbid, Bruce might even talk about emotions.

He closed all the files, stored them in a flash drive, and wiped them from the computer. After all, this was his case, and he’d be the one to see it through. Dick was right in front of the elevator when the doors opened to reveal Tim.

“You’re done?” Tim asked, raising a suspicious brow.

“I have a flight to catch.” Dick said, “I need to pack.”

“Is it for a case?” Tim asked, putting his phone in his pocket.

“Yeah. Be the bestest brother ever and cover for me?” Dick pleaded, flashing his signature smile.

“Why should I?” He huffed already a few feet away from where Dick stayed.

With a smirk, “‘Cause you don’t want Bruce to know what taking the Batmobile out for a ‘joyride’ was really for,” Dick said with a smirk.

Tim turned around, alarmed. “Fine, I’ll cover. But you better not tell.” Tim hissed at him.

“Scout’s Honor.” Dick winked before catching the elevator.

“You weren’t even a Scout.” He heard Tim complain before the doors fully shut.

Three hours later, Dick landed in Chicago, Illinois and hailed a cab to take him the rest of the 1-and-a-half-hour drive to Amity Park. Where Thomas Daniel Danny lived. Dick hadn’t exactly planned this whole excursion through, which wasn’t very trained-by-Batman of him. But Dick knew how to do things by the nose when he needed to.

He had used the time in the plane to finish the rest of the files, which he completed quickly with his ultimatum in mind. Dick purposely ignored every notification vibrating in his pocket knowing he would be facing the wrath of either Tim or Bruce.

But now he was sitting in a car for one-and-a-half hours with nothing to look out for except the darkness of the night and a relatively empty road. He opened his phone to 56 messages and missed calls. He scrolled through the groupchat, ignoring it when it was just talking about regular stuff. Next, he opened his messages from Tim.

Timbers: Dick.

Timbers: what did you do?????

Timbers: when you said cover I thought you meant for patrol or smt

Timbers: not whatever beef Bruce apparently has with you??

Timbers: I demand compensation!!!

Timbers: [1 video]

Dick opened the video Tim sent him. It was 90 seconds of security camera feed from right above the elevator. Bruce’s hair was disturbed from his usual well-done look he kept for business meetings and his tie was undone. He stormed towards the Bat Computer where Tim was doing whatever Tim does on the computer. Despite being dressed in business attire, Dick could practically see the flurrying of the Batman cape behind him as he walked. Bruce whipped the chair Tim sat on around to face him so fast that Tim nearly fell off.

‘Where’s Dick?’ The camera was a bit far but still picked up Bruce’s echoing voice. To Dick’s surprise, and seemingly Tim’s as well, Bruce didn’t seem mad. Disgruntled, alarmed, slipping from sanity? Yes. Genuinely angry? Not quite. It made Dick feel a little guilty. Only a little, though.

‘I dunno,’ Tim said, still reeling from the surprise attack.

Bruce pushed Tim’s chair away from the computer, scavenging through the files, no doubt looking for the files on Thomas and Danny. Unfortunately for Bruce, every single one of those files was secure in Dick’s jacket pocket. Bruce would come to realize that soon enough, as he took a shaky breath and stepped away from the screen.

The video ended.

That explained the 12 missed calls from Bruce. Dick debated calling him back. No doubt Bruce would ask for an explanation. An explanation he still has yet to come up with.

Deciding this was a problem for future Dick, present Dick decided he would let himself doze off for the rest of the cab ride to his destination.

#danny fenton #dpxdc #dpxdc fics #danny phantom #danny and dick #bruce wayne #dick grayson #richard grayson #nightwing #batpham #batfam #batman #danny and bruce #bruce and dick #bruce and talia

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kikikigrah · 1 month

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unlikely duo

lando norris x singer!yn

summary: following y/n, an international superstar, invited by mclaren to attend the monaco gp. after that, it’s all go from there with a certain no.4 driver.

faceclaim: jazmyn makenna!

_____________________________________________

yourusername posted

liked by mclaren, landonorris, and 1,392,902 others.

yourusername omggg! thank you so much for having me @ mclaren this has been a life long dream. the little girl in me is sooo happy, and i had THEEEEE most fun! mclaren girl until i die. 🥹

78,628 comments

mclaren Guys shut up, y/n y/l/n is officially a part of the papaya fam! 🧡

liked by yourusername

user1 THIS IS THE CROSSOVER I DIDN’T KNOW I NEEDED!!!

—> user2 wdym girl y/n has been saying she was a fan of f1 since before you could talk 😭

user3 do we think she’s a lando girlie or an oscar girlie?

—> landonorris Obviously Lando.

—> user4 AGHHHHH HE REPLIED TO YOUR COMMENT!!

—> user5 Lando being messy as usual. 😭

f1 Was y/n here for us or were we here for her?

user6 she’s really doing every side quest to avoid dropping a new album.

—> user7 WE ARE HUNGRY GIRLLLL

user8 lando’s comment… let him cook.

—> user9 So true give y/n a good man for once.

—> user10 y’all are MADDD weird, they literally just met y/n went to ONE race.

—> user11 @ user10 they’ve been following each other wayyy before she went to this race.

—> user12 I’m here for it.

f1wagupdates posted

56,892 likes

f1wagupdates International music sensation y/n y/l/n was spotted in a club in Monaco with Lando Norris. The two were reportedly seen both arriving and leaving together.

8,397 comments

user8 I WAS RIGHT SHUT UP OH MY GOD.

—> user 13 Can you be right about a P1 for Lando next?

user14 how is she casually in a club in monaco without being swarmed with people this can’t be her 😭

landonorris uploaded a photo to their story

yourusername posted

Liked by landonorris and 1,003,893 others

yourusername monacoooo baby, best week of my life!!!! will be back asap <3

45,903 comments

user15 SHUT UP THE LAST PHOTO, LANDO WAS ON A BOAT TWO DAYS AGOOOO

—> user16 y/nDO IS REALLL!!!

—> user17 HOW IS THE PAPARAZZI NOT CATCHING THESE TWO?

—> user18 @ user17 just a normal day in monaco 😭😭😭😭

madisonbeer come back to LA girl i miss u 🥹

—> yourusername ily bby see u soon!

—> user19 y/nson stronger than y/ndo could EVER BE!

—> user20 WHERE IS THE COLLAB?

liked by yourusername

liked by madisonbeer

landonorris I’ll show you around next time?

—> yourusername if you’re driving!

—> user21 LANDO STOP ACTING AS IF YOU WEREN’T ALREADY DOING THAT!

—> user22 why are we being gaslighted rn.

user23 drop the album queen!

y/n_updates posted

liked by carlossainz55, and 973,893 others.

y/n_updates Y/n spotted last night in her current home city of LA getting cosy with Formula One driver Lando Norris who just drove in the Canadian Grand Prix. The two have been interacting on social media, and have been rumoured to be dating since they first met.

Y/n has not been involved with anyone romantically since her whirlwind romance with the rising star Jacob Elordi last year. Elordi is believed to be the mystery man she was referring to in her hit song ‘ballad of broken promises’.

Read more about the singer and her supposed new flame through the link in our bio.

69,683 comments

user23 WHATTTT THEYRE ACTUALLY A THING?!

user24 y/nDO IS CONFIRMED

user25 omg his outfit… girlfriend effect at its finest. 🙏

—> user26 still had to keep the cap though 💀

user27 jacob elordi to lando norris… they couldn’t be more different from each other 😭

—> user28 that’s what i was thinking, the height is the first thing!

—> user29 mother has amazing taste 😩

—> user30 @ user29 ik u didn’t just say that having listened to ballad of broken promises 💀💀

user31 THE WAY CARLOS LIKED THIS POST IM SCREAMING!!!!

—> user32 HIS BEST FRIEND JUST CONFIRMED IT HAHAHHAHAHAHAHA

user33 CARLOS SAINZ STIRRING THE POT

user34 omg my girl has a man 🥹 i am so so happy for her if they are official

user35 Am i the only one who has never heard of Lando 😭

—> user36 UMM YES 💀

yourusername posted

liked by madisonbeer, landonorris, and 2,389,683 others.

yourusername i am super excited to announce that my new single ‘high-heeled sweetheart’, ft my bestest friend @ madisonbeer , will be coming out next friday! i had so much fun making this track, and i’m sooo super proud of it. thank u to all the beautiful ppl out there who keep making this dream of mine possible. i just want to hug each and every one of you. <33

and a special thank you to @ landonorris for taking the beautiful photo i now get to use as the cover. you’re incredible! :)

96,682 comments

user37 SO LAST NIGHT WE GET THE Y/N X LANDO PICS IN LA, AND TODAY WE GET A SONG DROP Y/N UR LIFE IS SO WILD

—> user38 AND HE TOOK THE COVER PHOTO

—> user39 i fucking love the cover but it’s so risqué, they are 100% dating.

—> user40 THE :) FACE OH I AM SICK!

madisonbeer my ANGEL!! I loved finally working with you

—> yourusername thank you for being here with me every step of the way madi

mclaren We will be streaming as soon as it comes out. 🧡

liked by yourusername

user41 the way she still hasn’t adressed the dating rumours, queen shit.

—> user42 she don’t need to, the pics are confirmation enough. 😭

landonorris y/n called me incredible, #winning.

—> yourusername lando norris noticed ME #winning.

—> user43 ARE Y’ALL GONNA COME OUT AND TELL US UR DATING OR DO WE NEED TO FORCE IT OUT OF YOU?

—> user44 MOTHER AND FATHER?

iamrebeccad Will be listening on Friday! So happy for you ✨

—> yourusername i absolutely adore you 🥹

—> user45 HIS BEST FRIENDS GIRLFRIEND IS EVEN COMMENTING NOW!

—> user46 oh theyre locked in.

#f1 #f1 x reader #f1 imagine #f1 x you #f1 fanfic #f1 fic #f1 smau #f1 social media au #lando norris #lando norris x reader #fame au

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elodee · 22 days

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HERMIT A DAY MAY - DAY 13

Cubfan135 x Courage the Cowardly Dog

For Cubfan I picked Courage the Cowardly Dog! Courage has an unusually high mad scientist per capita so I wanted to do either Cub, Doc or Zed in this style. I chose Cub because a scientist creating talking horns that mimic people and end up terrorizing a neighborhood sounds like something that would happen on the show.

To learn more about Courage the Cowardly Dog and see my style references, continue below the cut.

Courage the Cowardly Dog was one of my favourite cartoons as a kid, which probably explains more about me than I'd like to admit. It's a comedy-horror with a lot of genuinely disturbing and surreal moments.

The show is technically safe for everyone, but anyone who watches it will be altered forever by the Return the Slab guy. If you know you know.

The show centers around a little pink dog named Courage who lives with an elderly couple, Muriel and Eustace Bagge, in a farmhouse outside of the town of Nowhere. They are also figuratively in the middle of nowhere. Courage is scared of everything, but constantly thrown into life or death situations where he needs to save his family from often supernatural threats that just show up for some reason.

The visuals of the show are creepy and at times even upsetting, but the stories are nearly always about how Courage overcomes his fear out of love for his family (Muriel specifically). The show has a lot of different visual styles and even uses different kinds of animation, but for Cub I designed him in the style you would typically see in recurring characters. Style references:

The characters in courage usually have large heads and spindly limbs. The settings often look aged and discolored.

For Cubs shape and features I pulled a lot of influence from Freaky Fred, who is a barber with severe serial killer vibes that I think might be a Sweeney Todd reference. I didn't want Cub to be that scary, though, so I gave him a normal smile.

One of the Courage the Cowardly Dog TV logos

#hermitaday #I think Cub would be one of those characters that Courage is distrustful of #but ends up not actually being villain #also I know Cubs eyes aren't blue #but I wanted to make them skulk colored #because that's fun :)#cubfan #cubfan135 #hermitcraft #hermit a day may

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rascalentertainments · 2 months

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"Wish Granted" AU: Asha

All right, you voted for Asha and her family first, so here we go! (Above concept Art by Bill Schwab. I was really drawn to this one, so I'm gonna use thus as her design.

So for this Wish AU, Asha was raised partially in Rosas as a kid, but then after father passed, and some of the citizens learned of Magnifico's true intentions, her family and other citizens quietly moved to the Hamlet known as "The Enchanted Forest". (Basically reached age 12 in Rosas, and then 13-18 in the Hamlet.)

As a kid, she was full of curiosity about the world around her, especially wildlife. She learned about how the stars guided people from her father Tomás, which inspired to want to see more of the world outside the Kingdom. When her father grew ill for seemingly unknown reasons, Asha's mother Sakina pleaded with the King to heal him. The man promised her this, but time went on and eventually Tomás passed. Maginifico had never intended to help.

Because of this, Asha grew to be more pessimistic as she got older. She no longer believed in the impossible or anything good to happen relying on magic, or anyone else to solve her problems for that matter. Even so, part of her desire for excitement still lingered, and nobody knew this better than her grandfather Sabino, whom she grew closer with over the years and became a second father to her.

With her wonder all but gone, she would end up getting help to save her family from the most unexpected source. For she wished on a Star, and the Star answered.

Now since Asha got along with other kids when she was little, part of that still stays with her, as she does read to the other kids there from time to time. (Think of this as a reference to Belle, who also loved to read) Even though she lost part of her childhood, didn't mean they had to lose theirs. So she enjoyed reading stories to them.

As for my choice of a Voice Actress, surprisingly my mother suggested Diamond White. Right now she's mainly known for being Lunella in "Moon Girl and Devil Dinosaur" She's already a talented singer and play a range of emotions while still acting in character for her.

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For Sakina, I'm still planning her story out, but I can say that she does have a wish herself. It is in fact is similar to Asha's, but I'll reveal more in the story.

Sabino.....he was so underutilized in the movie, its criminal. Victor Garber deserved better. While he's not 100 years old, he is in his late 80's. Normally, he's a spry old man and actually still carries a lot of youth in his personality. However, with his wish never being granted, its started to affect his health. He does his best to stay active and gives advice to Asha during that "Wishing Tree" Scene. When his health starts to deteriorate faster and renders him nearly bedridden, this starts Asha drive to return to Rosas and save everyone's wishes

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And lastly: Valentino!

No, Valentino doesn't speak in this version. 😅 That'll be saved for the end, and he'll be voiced by an actual kid. (Disney, we didn't need a Donkey knock off, you do realize he was a parody right?) He might be only be three weeks old, but he's very attached to Asha from the start. He was a gift to her by Sabino as an early 18th birthday present in case his declining kept him from celebrating it with her.

The little goat is the runt of the litter, but has the heart the size of the forest itself. Always sticking by Asha's side and cheering her up when she really needs it.

Valentino is also very trusting of new people, but when Star comes down he does freak the heck out and doesn't him for a while. I mean he's not even human!

Oh and just as an extra character addition, I'm also having Flazino in this AU, since many people pointed out he was originally part of the film and had a bigger role. He's closest to a human friend Asha has in the Hamlet, as he gives them supplies and updates about the kingdom as Magnifico's apprentice.

That wraps up my first character list! Next up will be Star and then the King and Queen. Hope you enjoyed reading this preview to the story, or have any suggestions in the comments! 🌟

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spicybylerpolls · 2 months

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It's a shame how guarded the fandom is regarding sex. First and foremost because sex, and specifically shame around sex, is heavily, heavily tied to Mike and Will's story.

If Lucas can have a 69 sign above his head while he's sleeping, why is it so hard to believe Mike and Will are having sexual dreams about each other? Especially if you ship them and acknowledge the 69 sign was obviously signaling a sexual dream?

If Lucas can have a reference to dirty magazines under his bed, why is it so hard to believe Mike and Will also have dirty magazines hidden around their bedroom?

If Dustin can have a reference to masturbation, why is it so hard to believe Mike and Will are also interested in masturbation as well?

They specifically put these references in the other, ORIGINAL, party members, who are the same age as Mike and Will, while also including references for them too (that people just can't accept), signaling all these boys are starting to think about sex. The difference is, Lucas and Dustin don't have any shame surrounding who they're attracted to.

I don't know about you (however I imagine this is a common experience for many queer people) but before I accepted that I was attracted to the same sex, I'd constantly find myself watching the women in porn and consciously trying to focus on the man. I'd tell myself things like "oh - you're just interested in how your body will look when you're older" or "oh - it's normal when you watch porn" etc - basically anything to reaffirm that I wasn't gay. And this is all between ages 13-16.

This is exactly how I see Mike, specifically. Starting to notice his attraction to men but consciously repressing it, telling himself he's normal and it doesn't mean anything. And I think people forget (or maybe just feel uncomfortable talking about) this part - that the sexual attraction, the shame in the sexual attraction, is a huge, huge part of realizing you're queer and coming-of-age as a queer person.

And that's why Mike doesn't want to hug Will at the airport (or a big part of it). It feels awkward, even if he doesn't know why. It feels awkward because he feels ashamed for liking Will. I mean the first shot we get of Mike setting eyes on Will in Season 4 is of him looking at Will's chest and then quickly averting his eyes. This tells us everything we need to know - Mike is attracted to Will, feels ashamed about it and doesn't want anyone to know (or likely doesn't even fully understand it himself, but at the very least, knows it's not "right").

Point being, his shame surrounding specifically his sexual attraction to men is one of his biggest issues and failing to talk about it is a HUGE DISSERVICE to his character!

It also does a huge disservice to Will's character, too. The repercussions of this shame, a lot of the time, is Will's situation - not having your first kiss, all of your friends growing up before you, hating yourself because you have a crush on your best friend. All because he's romantically AND sexually attracted to men. This is what Will's thinking. If he wasn't such a freak, if he didn't want to kiss boys, if he wasn't starting to feel sexually attracted to men, then everything would be so much easier. He wouldn't feel like such a mistake.

This is why I think they'll absolutely have a sex scene in S5 and also why I think it will be explicit. I previously thought it'd likely be implied and that that'd be enough but I don't see it the same anymore. Now, I don't think this means it has to be racy, obviously, but just that the audience would see some of it. Quite frankly, doing an implied sex scene, while I wouldn't be dissatisfied, is a disservice to the story.

See, with Jancy, the implied sex scene works. The tension between these two characters has been building for a season and a half and we know they want to have sex. We don't have to see it, we just need to know that they do.

But with Mike and Will? That's not the case at all.

First of all, the tension has been building for 5 seasons, which is the entire series. An implied sex scene would ultimately be a tame ending to this storyline.

Second, Mike and Will specifically feel shame about this act, Jonathan and Nancy don't. We don't need to see their reaction but we need to see Mike and Will's reactions because it completes their characters. Because they have felt shame about this specific thing, not showing them feeling comfortable doing this, with each other, would be incomplete.

Third, think about Steve and Nancy's sex scene - we're shown it specifically because Nancy feels uncomfortable.

Ultimately, there's no need to show Jonathan and Nancy having sex because there's nothing left unresolved. That's what the Duffers actually get right - only showing a sex scene when it's important for the narrative and for the characters. Even Hopper and Joyce point to this, despite them being the oldest characters and the most suitable to have an explicit sex scene, opposed to Steve and Nancy. That's because there's nothing else to tell us about Joyce and Hopper through this sex scene - we know they love each other. I don't see why the Duffers would break this pattern now.

And well, even if you don't want the scene, I don't see how you could argue that the moment Mike and Will decide to have sex isn't extremely important for their characters and would tell us A LOT about how they both feel, especially Mike seeing as we don't get his perspective.

You could argue the kiss would suffice but... does it? A kiss isn't really... sexual. And Romantic, sure. But this wouldn't address the shame they specifically feel about sex. Mike starting to cry while having sex with Will tells us so much more about his character than him crying while kissing Will.

Kissing is also a thing children do. Ending a 5 season, 9 year long coming-of-age project, with two characters who have fought inter-dimensional monsters that quite literally represent their shame, simply kissing? Something we've already seen one of these characters do, multiple, multiple times?

Okay, I guess.

Anyway, I know a lot of these points have already been made, and that this was really long, but I just wanted to say them again because it upsets me so much, especially during rewatch when I see all the themes right in front of me. And I know it upsets other people, other young adults, too. Seeing this experience represented so accurately - one that you might even still feel shame about, one that you went through not too long ago - and not even being able to discuss it openly in the fandom, is sad. Being called a freak or a pedophile for simply suggesting that sex is important here and the Duffers are telling us so. Sex... the thing that literally created us all. And that almost everyone starts thinking about between the ages of 13-14.

Sigh. At least we have this blog. Thank you for that. 🫶🏼

#byler #spicy byler #mike wheeler #will byers #no poll

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gentlebeardsbarngrill · 4 months

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02/13/2024 Daily OFMD Recap

TLDR; Kudoboard; CaseyBloys/David Zaslav Shenanigans; Cast&CrewSightings; Samba Schutte; Con O'Neill; Ruibo Qian; Wendy Andersen; In Person Events; WatchParties; LubeAsACrew; People of Earth; Articles; Netflix WooAsACrew; Love Notes;

== Kudoboard Last Chance ==

Throwing this up top so you don't forget-- anyone who wants to add anything to the Kudoboard please message me tonight so I can get you the password to post. I'll be up for the next two hours so we've still got time.

== Casey Bloys ==

Whelp, Casey Bloys stepped in it again by posting an article by The Wrap about how True Detective was the most watched season on max. As you can imagine, a good chunk of the crew started calling BS on that, what with the Parrot Analytics stats from yesterday. Well, some of our favorite hashtags started trending this morning... #OhBloysHeMad and #TheNumbersWereThere

And in case you needed to see some more data that Bloys was full of crap--- Thank you to our dear friend @quirkysubject for pulling in Rotten Tomatoes Average Tomato-meter Ranking in with the Parrot Analytics Data in this awesome chart!

Not terribly long after, apparently the comments on The Wrap article really started to irritate ol Casey boy because he turned off comments on the post.

BUUUUUUT Our dear crewmate @spanishjenkies was kind enough to save a video before hand! So there's evidence of the trolling. Visit their twitter thread here.

Some of the crew has decided to go a bit further with the glorious Passive Aggression and started sending Casey Bloys gifts! @single_cat_mom sent him a Casio Compact Calculator to help him with his future numbers!

Annnnd our crewmate @ofmooshd got a cockroach at the zoo named after ol Casey Bloys!

Truly legendary levels of Polite Menacing today, m'dears! What a day!

In other WB/Max related news:

Did you know there's a petition to get this ... person... fired? If you wanted to sign that, here you go: Only if you wanted to of course.

== Cast & Crew Sightings ==

= Samba BTS =

Samba went hog wild today with the BTS, some lovely folks on tumblr posted the videos. (THANK YOU SAMBA!)

Just a couple of highlights, please visit this post to see all the pictures. You can also visit Samba's IG.

BTS Video 1: Cast Reading - ty @fuckyeahworldoftaika,

BTS Video 2: Con & Rhys - @fuckyeahizzyhands

BTS Video 3: Izzy Flipping the Bird - @fuckyeahizzyhands

= Con O' Neill =

As usual, our favourite Unicorn, Con O'Neill is over here supporting the hell out of the saveOFMD effort and sharing the Parrot Analytics results.

= Ruibo Qian =

Our Venerable Pirate Queen Ruibo Qian is back on Instagram with more inspiring words for us.

= Wendy Andresen for #TaikaTuesday =

So I know that normally #TaikaTuesday is a thirst factory (and don't worry it still was) but I just had to make a shoutout to our absolute gem Wendy Andresen (one of our Red Flag crew) for posting a picture of her pup Peanut cosplaying as Taika for #TaikaTuesday.

For those of you unfamiliar with the reference shirt:

She was kind enough to post more too when asked!

I adore how much she supports the #SaveOFMD effort and she is always a delight to chat with. Sending all the love her way! <3

== In-Person Events! ==

Today at the Our Flag Means Death Matelotage Processional several of our crewmates came out in costume with signs and showed support at the WB Gates! Thanks to all the crew who attended! Thank you @aimeekitty for sharing these pictures! Their IG and Twitter

== Watch Parties ==

= Lube As A Crew =

It's baaaaack! Valentine's Day: 4PM PST, 8 PM ET, 12:00 AM GMT S1 Ep 8, 9 10 with @astroglideofficial

If you've bought Astroglide recently please consider doing some reviews! They would love the support. You can @Astroglide and use #ReviewAsACrew

As you can imagine, the memes are back too <3

== Feb 15: Uncle Season 1 ==

This is mainly for UK folks but non-uk folks are welcome to vpn in as well! Here's an article on how to join via vpn!

Thurs 02/15/2024 + Friday 02/15/2024 - GMT - 8 PM, ET - 3 PM, PST - 12pm

WatchParty Hashtags:

#ForTheNewUncle

#SaveOFMD

#AdoptOurCrew

== People Of Earth S1 Ep 5, 6 ==

#PiratesOfEarth has been going great these last couple days! Thank you again to @iamadequate1 for organising it! Next episode 5 and 6 tomorrow the 14th! at 10PM GMT / 5PM EST / 4PM CST / 2 PM PST /

== Netflix #WooAsACrew Video ==

More love for the streaming platforms! 🌹💕🐙 Vocals: @sgtbeatlespotter Video: @giulianaazr on Twitter

youtube

== Updated #WooAsACrew Calendar! ==

Looks like tomorrow the goal is to WOO FX! Twitter / Instagram / Tumblr Tomorrow is also a great day to be creative! Make some cakes! Or flowers, or drawings! Anything! Let's see some sweet stuff!

== Articles ==

Have we seen this one? I can't remember anymore, some more Parrot Analytics from January. Ty to @drcfxtina on discord for sharing!

== Uk Crew Updates ==

Thank you to @queerly-autistic for capturing this! Guess who's front and center on the top recommendations? You guessed it! OFMD!

== Love Notes ==

Hey there lovelies!! Guess what time it is? I've had too much caffeine and I've taken my adhd meds on time so I'm Here, Queer, and ready to Cheer!

Look at everything you all did today! Do you see this list? And that's just a minuscule coverage of the pure polite chaos that ensued! I literally cannot add any more pictures because just so much has happened. We are 36 days in the Gravy Basket and you all are just ramping things up!

The tenacity, and creativity of this crew never ceases to amaze me!

There are more fundraisers in the works... (I'll post more when I know more) there's a slew of events, watch parties, and pure camaraderie everywhere! Everyone's making amazing memes, and artwork and fics! Seriously, you all should be proud of yourselves!

Not to mention, some of the most important things of all-- I am seeing SO MUCH SELF CARE. You are reaching out to the crew for support, you're taking days off, you're having fun and being creative for you... getting back to pet projects and doing things you enjoy!

You all are doing SO WELL. You are kicking ass, don't forget that! We'll have our down days, but no matter what you are making waves all over the place, bringing positive things to this world! As a side note, I wanted to mention, I know tomorrow can be a tough day for a lot of people. It can be lonely, or bring up good or bad memories. Please be sure to reach out to your crew for love if you're struggling. We love you, and even if it's a platonic love, it's overflowing here for you. You are wonderful, and we want to send you all the love we can.

That being said, I'm gonna end tonight with another note from @thelatestkate that I needed to hear a lot recently so I'm gonna share it with you too <3

You got this! Sending so much love m'dears!

== Daily Darby / Tonight's Taika ==

These were the two gifs that murdered me today so I hope you enjoy. These goofy buggers always make my day.

Rhys Src: @bizarrelittlemew Taika Src: @ofmd-ann

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strangersteddierthings · 1 year

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Fic Masterpost

General Fic Tag Ao3 Account - All fics with [Ao3] next to them can be found here. Reference post for Steve's BMW

Bad News First, Eddie - Completed [Ao3] Part One 🦇 Part Two🦇Part Three🦇Final Part

Shovel Talk(s) - Completed [Ao3] Part One 🦇Part Two🦇Part Three🦇Final Part

Porcelain Steve - Completed [Ao3] Part One🦇Part Two🦇Part Three🦇Part Four🦇Part Five🦇Part Six🦇Part Seven🦇Part Eight🦇Final Part

What's Eight Plus Seven? - On Going - [Ao3] Part One🦇Part Two🦇Part Three🦇Part Four🦇Part Five🦇Part Six

The Interview - Completed [Ao3] The Interview (Part One) The Response (Part Two) The Conversation (Part Three) Untitled Song - A The Interview Tie-In Fic [Ao3]

No Regrets - On Going Part One🦇 Part Two🦇Part Three🦇Part Four🦇Part Five🦇Part Six

Good People - Completed [Ao3] Part One🦇Part Two🦇Final Part

My Default’s Self-Destruct (Oh, I’m Not Used to Normal) - On Going Part One

Steve and Robin talk about how Steve wants to be romanced, instead of always doing the romancing.

Eddie's over dramatic, Steve talks him down, and they're okay in the end :)

Steve reflects on how other people make the decisions in his life and decides, y'know what? No. Fuck that and fuck you.

Beg You to Love Me - Steve and Eddie talk for the first time two and a half years after they break up. [Ao3]

Steve pines for Eddie and carves a pumpkin for the first time. He is completely normal about both things. [Ao3]

Eddie left, and has to face the consequences of that

Steve has great parents and goes to therapy. Too bad he forgot to tell his friends that [Ao3]

Middle School Meet Cute? [Ao3]

One sentence and one phone call are all it takes for Steve to realize he needs to go after what he wants [Ao3]

Steve's sad, Eddie's an (accidentally on-purpose) jerk, and the miscommunication gets solved? [Ao3]

Steve gets Vecna'd and a terrible rendition of Bohemian Rhapsody saves him

Angsty Ella Enchanted AU

Steve finds it funny, the differences between him and Eddie.

#81. “We’re in the middle of a thunderstorm and you want to stop and feel the rain?” [Ao3]

#23. “Just pretend to be my date.” and #60. “If I didn’t know any better, I’d say you were trying to seduce me.” [Ao3]

#60. "If I didn't know any better, I'd say you were trying to seduce me." [Ao3]

#13. "I dare you to kiss me"

Requested by Anon - Eddie catches Billy throwing Steve around in the locker room; it leads to an unintentional deescalation of the situation and a conversation Eddie's surprised to have. [Ao3]

Steddie Week 2023: Day 1: Pining [Ao3]

Anon Prompt - Robin brags about her boyfriend to Steve. He's a little jealous, because he wants to brag about his own boyfriend but doesn't know if Robin is safe to tell that too. Until, whoops, turns out Robin's BF and Steve's BF are the same boyfriend. [Ao3]

Steve doesn't want to be put on a pedestal. Eddie doesn't understand, and tries to reassure Steve. [Ao3]

Eddie's friends try to prove Steve's cheating on him. Eddie doesn't take kindly to them trying to ruin his relationship for no reason.

Plot Idea I’ll never fully flush out or write but gotta get out of my head or it’ll never let me know peace again. It’s basically Steve sent from the future going all John Wick.

Steve-focused ficlet exploring the idea of Steve becoming a Mean Girl because he learned his tactics from Carol Perkins rather than Tommy, and how he regrets the results of that.

Domestic Bliss fluff fic that ends in a loving blow job. Minors DNI. [Ao3]

Childhood Best Friends AU where Steve and Eddie agree to learn the elvish script from The Hobbit so they can pass notes and no one can read them. Things get a little messy when Eddie moves away with no notice but Steve takes it upon himself to learn Elvish anyway. [Ao3]

Steve doesn't think before he all but crawls seductively into Eddie's lap accidentally. There's also not much thinking once he realizes what he's done, or in the aftermath of it. [Ao3]

Steve, Gareth, and Chrissy Are Cousins [Ao3]

Steve, Gareth, and Chrissy are all cousins, and Gareth doesn't want anyone to know that. For his street cred.

The Steve, Gareth, and Chrissy are cousins AU gets sad (Sad AU Part 1).

Steve realizes he's the only adult left In The Know in Hawkins; Gareth wants answers, one way or another (Sad AU Part 2).

Steve doesn't attend a funeral; Gareth goes with Jason&Co to Reefer Ricks (Sad AU Part 3).

The gang arrives at Skull Rock and Steve learns Gareth's now involved. Robin learns the truth (Sad AU Part 4).

Vecna gives Steve the vision and forces him to make a choice (Sad AU Part 5).

Everyone learns they are cousins now and it goes well. Gareth makes his own plan to save the day. (Sad AU Part 6).

Wayne joins the fight and Gareth ensures that Max gets saved (Sad AU Part 7).

The cousins reconcile. Max and Steve don't (yet). It's as happy an end as a Sad AU can get (Sad AU Final Part).

Time Travel Fix It Fic

Class of '85 [Ao3]

Save Max [Ao3]

September Prompts 2023

Coffee Smell ○ Horizon ○ Foggy Mornings ○ Jukebox ○ "Kiss me or leave me" ○ "Did you lie to me?" ○ Bonfire ○ Recipe Book ○ Gas Station

#my fics #masterlist

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kangals · 3 months

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writing this down for my own reference, since i've realized i can't remember shit about stellina's puppy phases: grading Kepler on how he’s been progressing over the past month (8 - 13 weeks):

food (drive, appetite, sensitivity): 🟢 loves to eat, very motivated but not frantic/pica-esque, no GI upset so far

leash walking: 🟢 doing really well on both flat collar and harness.

sleeping: 🟢/🟡 - GREAT at night, sleeps for a solid 8-9 hours. during the day seems to fight against tiredness and naps very lightly, then gets cranky/overtired.

crating: 🟢/🔴 - GREAT at night. during the day he'll load up happily into the crate but has issues actually settling/sleeping. need to figure out where the discrepancy is coming from.

potty training: 🔴 this boy be pissin

general training: 🟢 loves loves looooves being trained, super focused. knows sit, come, crate, nose target, paw target. working on a down and stay/leave it currently.

manners: 🟢/🟡 good about not biting, takes treats nicely, generally listens to my verbal warnings, isn't destructive. he is starting to demand bark/jump up on me, which we're working on curbing.

grooming: 🟢/🟡 needs to be distracted with food but he's tolerated a bath, nail dremeling, brushing, tooth brushing, and ear cleaning. due for another bath soon so we'll see how that goes.

cars: 🟡 whiny but does ok on car rides. no car sickness.

outings/socialization: 🟢 has done really well in new environments, very engaged and curious but doesn't get overwhelmed. have gotten spooked a few times but recovered well.

other dogs: 🟡 very dog-focused (typical for puppy, he may grow out of it), doesn't bark or get frantic but he has a hard time shifting attention from them. does listen to stern corrections, but tends to bulldoze through more gentle ones - plays overly rough and has to be separated from stellina frequently.

other people: 🟢 friendly and curious and loves to meet people, but focusing pretty well when i ask him to ignore. did good around a small child but was a little wary of being approached too fast, which is normal.

small animals: 🟢 curious and excited about the cat but not obsessive, called away easily. will chase squirrels and birds but not intensely.

overall i'd give him a 🟢 with a few caveats (really need to work on daytime settling/crating, and god please make any sort of progress with house training). my overall impression is that he's confident and stable, with a little more innate caution than stellina but conversely he also doesn't get overwhelmed nearly as easily - less impulsive and more resilient, which has both pros and cons. i'll repeat this in another month and i'm very curious to see how he progresses as he starts growing out of the generic-puppy personality.

#long post #kepcollie #personal notes that only i care about sorry but i want to give myself a more thorough memory of his puppyhood

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thewiz9062 · 2 months

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Smiling Critters AU: Dogday's Psyche

NOTE: THIS IS NOT RELATED TO CANON IN THE SLIGHTEST. An accurate description of this au is that I took every playtime.co poster art and promotional material from the game and lit up the rest of canon in a bonfire. Meaning that EVERY character is part of one big cartoon. Thats it. No bigger bodies project, no child souls, no experiments, just a depiction of a cartoon. PLEASE do not ask me to do anything suggestive with anyone.

OK I know it's been a while since I posted one of these but bear with me here this one was interesting to write

So dogday

In my other posts, I've already made him a constant in everyone's lives (as he's the main character) but I want to go into how he thinks because that explains alot of his actions and most importantly, his interactions with catnap.

Tldr, dogday is elation (que demoic giggling if you get the reference)

Now usually when you see a happy go lucky character you immediately go "they've either had the happiest childhood ever and are genuinely like this or they didn't and they're faking it" and that was gonna be my original assessment with dogday. But yk.....that's bland. So i decided to mix the two: pretty bad childhood but they're happy....unhealthily so. Hear me out here:

In my au, dogday was abandoned as a baby at a foster home. So they "raised him" (they just did just over the bare minimum, I don't wanna villianize the workers though because they did have like a bunch of other kids there as well, not excusing them of course) but he was mostly left to his own devices. Normally this would dampen a child's spirit but dogday is quite a fighter, finding joy or happiness wherever he could. Whether it be picture books or TV shows, he found a way to make himself happy. And All the media he knew subtly shunned sadness or anger or anything of the sort. So now all dogday knew was happiness, as anything else was 'bad' and needed to be fixed.

The people around him didn't help his mindset either. After interacting with the other kids there, they usually had some semblance of an uplift in mood for the rest of their day. It usually didn't last long, though, because while dogday lived there their entire life, the others were there due to...unfortunate circumstances. He also could notice how the workers felt like he was a breath of fresh air compared to the other children, who mostly needed consoling, while dogday was 'self-sufficient' (they try I swear they're just not good at it)

So all in all, after 13 years of this dogday... was in a very unique state of mind. If you want a simple explanation, then he has this mental limiter. Anything happy or can bring joy can stay, and any other thoughts get snuffed out immediately. So he's not faking happiness. In a way, he just doesn't know anything else. Present him a situation where someone is sad his first instinct is to cheer them up, and usually it works, but in the situation it doesn't, he'll pretty much blue-screen. Cuz after all, it's always worked before, what else does he know?

So enter catnap.

Catnap is essentially his foil, and his main purpose is to help him see the other side of things because sun and moon dynamic yk I had to do it

Someone like catnap won't be cheered up normally, catnaps sort of nihilistic when it comes to problems, believing nothing can be done about it, cause in his situation he had no control over what happened, so why try and fix what he can't, that's meaningless. So letting his emotions pass by and move on is his way of 'comfort' So dogday's attempts at cheering him up doesn't work, and as Dogday does in those situations, he blue-screens. Normally when dogday fails to cheer someone up and he visibly panics, they'll give him a smile or a laugh, and seeing that instantly fills dogday with relief, even though he doesn't see that it doesn't reach their eyes.

Catnap won't do that however, because of his own coping mechanism. So dogday will panic, quietly spiraling into thoughts like "why isn't it working, what do I do, how do I fix this" and catnap reads his face and tells him to stop, he just needs a moment. Dogday wouldn't understand, he's never seen sadness be good for someone.

And from there his learning journey begins (aka how to feel other things)

God I love making them mentally unstable

#poppy playtime #smiling critters #smiling critters poppy playtime #dogday #catnap #alternate universe #angst #sorta?#btw the refrence was hsr

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wardenparker · 1 year

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Sassenach and the Spaniard - ch 14

Pero Tovar x female reader Co-written with @absurdthirst

Delirious with sickness and near to death, Pero Tovar finds himself on the doorstep of a village outsider who nurses him back to health just before the winter snows descend. With a black cat for company, a mask on her face, and a biting wit that intrigues him, Pero comes to find out that his new companion is more than what she seems. ✨ Inspired and influenced by Diana Gabaldon’s Outlander series. ✨ Reader is described as disabled and having hair long enough to cover part of her face.

Rating: E for Explicit! 18+ just like this blog Word Count: 18.1k Warnings: **Blanket warnings for this fic include cursing, food mentions, references to previous sexual assault (multiple characters).** Pero versus the modern world, reader being an absolute cat mom, discussion of past lives, implications of past lives, wedding talk (I’m not sorry), more dubious Spanish. Vaginal sex, unprotected sex, outdoor sex, public sex, clothed sex, Summary: Building a modern life with Pero may have ups and downs, but the way he adjusts shows just how glad he is to be with you again. Notes: This is it, folx! The last chapter of Sassenach and Pero’s love story for the literal ages. Look out for the epilogue next week and then we’ll be moving on to the ✨6th✨ installment of the Soulmate universe!

Ch 1 ~ Ch 2 ~ Ch 3 ~ Ch 4 ~ Ch 5 ~ Ch 6 ~ Ch 7 ~ Ch 8 ~ Ch 9 ~ Ch 10 ~ Ch 11 ~ Ch 12 ~ Ch 13

Travel has changed. Pero exhales quietly when you stop your car - a different one than you had driven him around in first time. It had been a conversation about renting cars that he vaguely understood but just figured it was like borrowing a horse. The plane taking off had left him white knuckled and shaking and he didn’t know how people acted like it was normal. Although once you were in the air, it had become a smooth experience and he still couldn’t believe that he had traveled so far so quickly.

“Well…this is it. Home sweet home.” The apartment building you’ve been living in for years has looked the same since the day you moved in, and the off-white walls and brick trim are comforting after all these years. “Our apartment is on the fifth floor,” you tell him, pointing up at a set of windows with blue curtains and some plants visible on the inside of the sill. “Beth will be home from work in about a half hour. Which will give you time to meet your new cat roommate.”

It amuses Pero that you have a cat in this time as well. “Binx missed you.” He hums with a smirk on his face. “But she was happy with Wena when I left.” The building is huge, and he cannot imagine living so high, but it will provide a clear view of the surroundings.

“She was the best familiar I could have asked for. I guess I’m just not happy unless I have a mouser in the house.” You pop the trunk of your little car and reach in for the bags but Pero is there before you, lifting both bags easily and shooting you a sour expression for even thinking he would let you do otherwise. After seeing other men do the same at various places and in the airport there had been an explanation of the term ‘chivalry’ and he was appalled that you had not told him that he was expected to behave this way in your time. You had insisted that it wasn’t necessary, but he hadn’t let you lift anything beyond your own purse since.

The compartment on this car was most convenient and Pero slams it shut, shooting you a slightly sheepish look when it was too harsh. Shouldering the bags, he turns towards the building. “It does not have defenses.” He mutters to himself, remembering you say that there is no need for fortifications in your time. “Where is the stable for the horses, the animals?”

“People who have horses keep them separately. It is a luxury now. Almost everyone has a car but keeping horses is mostly for the rich.” The lobby of your building is accessible by a keypad that you punch a code into, and the mailman inside greets you with familiarity. Pete has been the postman for this building longer than you’ve lived here, so you smile reassuringly at Pero and introduce him to the kindly mid-50s man who brings the post every day. “Name on the mailbox will be changing soon,” you tell Pete with pride.

Pero watches the interaction with interest. He’s had to watch you, his own demeanor not very welcoming. He can tell that he cannot be quite so intimidating or threatening in this time.

“Pete’s a nice man.” You press the button for the elevator to bring you upstairs and lean into Pero’s side while you wait. “His wife throws this big Passover Seder every year and a giant Hanukkah party on the first night and they invite people that he knows from work. I used to go with Beth every year so she wouldn’t have to go alone. But I have a feeling she and Will will be throwing the parties now.” Your best friend and her soulmate are definitely those kinds of people - the hosts with the most, as you like to tease them. You won’t be surprised at all when Beth finally announces that she’s moving in with him.

Pero nods, recognizing the holidays from the communities that he had grown up around in Spain. “That sounds like a good thing. There was food and music and laughter every time I went to one.” He only remembers them with the innocence of youth, but it was always fun. His parents were happy and it makes him smile.

“Here we go.” The elevator doors open and you step forward, bringing him with you by the hand. “You flew in an airplane, this should be easy,” you tell him encouragingly. “You just press the floor number that you want to go to, and the elevator will lift or lower us to that floor.”

This is even more amazing than the stairs that moved on their own. His eyes widen and he grunts when the car lurches up and he grabs onto the side of the wall as the sensation of being lifted once again races through his stomach. “It will only take a minute.” The way he’s clutching the wall and your hand makes you smile and squeeze his hand gently in response.

“It is— so…sudden.” Pero huffs slightly, embarrassed that he is so affected by things that seem so normal to you and everyone else. “I will become accustomed to it.”

“And if you don’t like it, we can always take the stairs.” Five floors is a lot, but with so many things to adjust to, you wouldn’t begrudge Pero deciding that there are some that he doesn’t like or isn’t comfortable with.

He glowers at you slightly, taking it as an insult that he would not be man enough to handle this box you have him in. “No.”

“Okay.” All you can really do is nod, knowing the both of you have your stubborn moments like anyone else. Although maybe more often. When you get out of the elevator you show him down the hall, stopping in front of the door marked 5C. “This is it,” You tell him, pulling your key from your pocket. “I already sent the landlord a note asking for a key for you. It should be made for tomorrow. So you can come and go anytime you like.”

Pero looks at the key, frowning in concentration as he watches you use it. He doesn’t understand why a bar on the door is not good enough anymore, but he just considers it a modern thing and nods when the door swings open.

The agonized screaming of an obviously neglected, dramatic-as-hell cat is the very first sound you hear, and both you and Pero smile reflexively. “Hi, Bow-baby!” You laugh when the black and white cat comes trotting into view. “Mama brought you a new friend.”

The first gato had been wary of Pero, watching him with intelligent, wary eyes. This one is the complete opposite. The moment the fat black and white cat spots Pero, it’s like you do not exist. He makes a beeline for Pero, screaming his head off and immediately climbing his leg to get into the Spaniard’s arms. Apparently telling him about every wrong done to him as Pero blinks in bewilderment.

“Oh, I see how it is. Furry little traitor.” You grouse only for comedic effect, loving to see your usually picky cat go straight to your soulmate for attention. “It’s okay, amor. You can pick him up. He’s much cuddlier than Binx was.”

Reaching down, Pero pulls the cat up into his arms, rewarded with immediate head butts and the cat rubbing his scent all over him while purring loud enough to sound like the thundering of hooves. “It seems he likes you.” And it seems Pero returns the affection, or at least doesn’t hate it, from the way he is already scratching under Bowie’s chin and letting the cat inspect him fully.

His time with Binx is so recent in his mind that he doesn’t mind the affectionate cat. “At least you were not alone when you came home, bruja.”

“Not at all.” Leading him through to the back bedroom, you realize what a whirlwind you were in the morning you got the phone call from Sarah at the roadside. There is a mess left behind and you clear your throat slightly, obviously embarrassed. “This is our room…I, erm…I usually keep it neater than this…I was kind of in a hurry to get to you a few days ago…”

“I have lived in your bed before, sí?” Pero reminds you, unconcerned with mussed bedding and clothes thrown around. It does not matter to him, as long as you are here. “Does your ’roommate’ know what has happened? That I am here?”

“Yes.” That had happened immediately. As soon as you had hung up with him and Sarah, you had started texting Beth frantically. “She knows everything. I just don’t know how much she’s told Will — her soulmate.”

Pero hums, wondering if it would seem crazy to a man who had not witnessed your return like your friend had. He has to thank Beth for saving you when you came back through the Stones, getting you a healer.

“I mean, he knows about you,” you clarify quickly. “Beth doesn’t keep anything from him, including what happened to me. I just don’t know if she’s told him yet that you came home with me.” It had taken over a month for Will to stop looking at you like you might have a nervous breakdown at any second, but the discovery of Arwena’s grimoire among your grandmother’s things had been a convincing argument. After that, he had started to come around to the craziness of it all.

He grunts, holding the cat still as he looks around your room. It is all different from the room he had stayed in at the inn, but it must reflect you in your own time. Like your cottage had in his time.

“We’ll make it into both of our space.” For some reason his silence is making you nervous, even though grunts and huffs are practically a second language for Pero. “Or, if you hate it here, we can…we can find something else. I don’t really care as long as you’re happy.”

"Why would I hate it?" Pero asks, turning towards you with a quizzical expression on his face. "This is you." One hand leaves the cat to wave around the room. "All of this. It is – it is like your cottage. Telling me who you are here."

“I don’t know.” You shrug slightly, looking around and avoiding his eyes as you move to make space for his clothes in your dresser. “I just know that everything here is so different and I wouldn’t blame you in the least if you didn’t like it here.” It’s nerves, you tell yourself, trying to steady your own breathing. Bringing him home - to your actual home - is the scariest thing you’ve ever done. Even though he chose to come here, he didn’t really know what he was choosing until after he arrived.

Pero huffs, rolling his eyes at you. "Sí, it is much different, but I don't care." He tells you bluntly. "I want to be where you are, when you are. The only thing that will change that is if you no longer wish me here." You are unsettled and he doesn't like it. He doesn't want you to worry about him.

“Of course I want you here.” The idea that you ever wouldn’t is so unbelievable that you actually can’t even imagine it. “I’m sorry. This is just…I know it’s hard for you. And don’t tell me that it isn’t just to make me feel better, because I’ve also time traveled.” Shaking your head slightly, you come back across the room and take a very indignant Bowie out of his arms so you can situate yourself there instead. “I love you, and I’m happy that you’re here.”

"It is different." Pero hums, not denying that he is out of his element. "But I am warm, I have food in my belly, and you are here." He reminds you. "I am a simple man, maybe too simple in your time, but I am who I am."

“There’s nothing simple about having your needs met. Survival is still very hard for some people.” Holding on to him tightly, you blow out a breath when you hear the front door open and Bowie hiss dramatically from the hallway. “Sounds like Beth is home,” you laugh, knowing that a cursing match between your best friend and grumpy cat is all but assured each and every day. “Would you like to meet her?”

"Will she approve?" He asks, suddenly nervous. You had spoken about this Beth woman and how much she had meant to you. Now he is afraid that he might not live up to her approval.

“You have nothing to worry about.” If anything, Beth is endlessly curious about Pero. She has been hearing about him for months, and you doubt you’ve done any description of him justice.

He would do anything you want, including meeting your friend so he just nods and wipes his hands on his new jeans. The shoes you had bought him, ‘sneakers’, were comfortable and he rocks on them slightly.

“Bethy!” Calling her name out into the hall, you step out of your room with Pero’s hand tangled in yours. “We’re home.”

Pero holds your hand tight, eyes widening slightly when he hears a screeching that is undoubtably excited and hears the pounding of foot steps rushing towards the two of you.

“Wait wait wait wait wait!” But you’re already cackling as your best friend launches herself at you, practically jumping up into your arms excitedly. “I missed you, too,” you laugh, hugging Beth tightly.

It is exuberant, the type of greeting Pero had seen Arwena give you during those last lessons in the cottage before having to flee. He can’t help but grin at the sight as he folds his arms over his chest and tries to smother it so he can look serious.

"Beth." You're both still giggling, but you try to compose yourself long enough to talk. "This," you motion to the man beside you as Beth sets herself on her own two feet again. "Is Pero. Pero, this is my best friend, Beth."

Pero nods to the woman who you call your best friend. It’s shocking to see her, because she looks nothing like he had imagined from your glow descriptions of her. She is pretty, but doesn’t hold a candle to you. “Señorita.” He murmurs.

"The famous Pero Tovar." Beth is practically vibrating with excitement, truly not having thought that this day would ever come. Though she believed your story completely, she never really thought that your soulmate would be able to come through the Stones. When you had texted her a few days ago that he was successful, she had been in a state of near shock all morning. "Welcome to the twenty-first century."

Pero grunts, his lips twisting slightly and there is an amused gleam in his eyes. “Yes, where green and purple hair is now common.” He jokes, having asked you questions about the wild shades he has seen. Beth is sporting bright blue streaks in her black hair.

"Surely you can adjust to multi-colored hair in a world that also has every flavor of ice cream you can imagine." Beth grins. You had told her about Pero's brand new addiction to ice cream, and his unfortunate first encounter with brain freeze as a result.

He huffs, smirking slightly at her sass and nods. “It is more colorful.” He admits, not minding it at all and asking if you liked colors like that.

"Did you get screamed at by her demon child on the way in?" Beth asks, shaking her head on a grin. Bowie has unceremoniously disappeared, probably to his scratching tree in the living room.

“Gato?” Pero asks, sending you a confused look. “The cat is very loving.” He insists when Beth nods. The cat was very greedy for attention and was not happy when you took him away from Pero.

"Bowie and Beth aren't huge fans of each other," you tell him with a grin, seeing the frustrated twist on your best friend's face that your cat has clearly taken to Pero immediately.

"He's a menace!" She insists, throwing up her hands dramatically.

"He's a darling angel and my fluffy little son." You insist, knowing full well how ridiculous it sounds.

“He came right up to me and demanded to be held.” Pero tells her, watching her eyes widen and he can practically see the steam pouring out of her ears.

"Menace," she mutters again, shaking her head. At this point, though, she has somewhat of a sense of humor about it. If she didn’t, she'd have lost her mind at that cat a long time ago.

"So, are we seeing Will tonight?" Turning the topic away from your cat and onto her soulmate always perks her up, and you motion toward the living room to suggest a change of scenery. This way you can all at least be comfortable in the same space together.

“Will…” Pero murmurs the name, a flash of nostalgia for his friend from so long ago. “I knew a man named William once. His bow was—” Pero chuckles. “We had a lot of free drinks showing off his skills.”

"William was your best friend." Beth nods. "She...she told me all about you. You, and Arwena, and Briac. You're practically all she's talked about since she came back."

“That is—” Pero is surprised that you had talked so much about him, but his chest puffs out slightly in pride. “I can’t imagine there is much to have talked about.”

"Are you kidding?" In the living room, Beth kicks off her shoes and takes out her phone as she sits down in the armchair to let you and Pero sit together on the couch. "Adventure after adventure. And fighting monsters on the Great Wall of China? It's incredible." She smiles when her phone buzzes in her pocket, and then again more broadly when she taps the screen to open her text. "Um...so Will is finishing up at work and wants to know if he can bring over take-out to say 'welcome home'."

"It's up to you," you tell Pero honestly. Your internal clocks are five hours ahead of schedule thanks to jetlag and you'll end up crashing earlier than Beth and Will, but you don't want to overwhelm Pero with meeting more people after a full day of modern travel if that is going to exhaust him.

Pero immediately nods. “This is your home and he is your soulmate.” The feeling of being apart from you with the possibility of never seeing you again had made him wish that partners could never be parted. “But— what is ‘take out’?” He asks.

"Take out is ordering food from a restaurant but instead of eating it there, you bring it home with you." Leaning into his side on the couch, you shoot Beth a mischievous grin. "Ask him if Chinese is okay. We can put in an order to the place on the corner if he doesn't mind picking it up for us on his way over."

Pero’s eyes light up. “Chinese?” He demands, nodding quickly. “Yes. That—you told me about it. I want to eat that.” He nearly begs. “And ice cream.”

"There's Häagen-Dazs in the freezer." Beth shoots Pero a grin. "I picked some up as soon as your girl said you fell in love with it." She taps out a quick reply to her own soulmate, smiling all the while, and then opens a different app to order food. "Anything special I should add to our regular order?"

"Yeah..." You grin at Pero. "Spicy noodles and mandarin beef. And an extra order of fried dumplings." Since your 'usual' order is already quite large this should be enough food for lunch again tomorrow, but Pero has a way of making that food supply dwindle that you don't mind. It's not as though food was ever plentiful enough in his life before for him to eat his fill.

“There was this dish.” Pero tell her. “Roasted bird – duck, with a honey sauce on it.” He doesn’t know if they would have it now, but maybe. His mouth waters as he remembers it. “Do they have that too?”

"Peking duck?" Beth nods, mouth watering immediately. "It's my favourite. We're absolutely ordering one." Hell, if she could she'd be adding bottles of plum wine and enough fried ice cream for it not to matter that there's six different flavours of Häagen-Dazs already waiting in the freezer to be consumed.

“Yes. That.” Pero nods, nearly rubbing his hands together as he thinks about the tender and juicy meat. “It was the meal we had when we celebrated defeating the monsters.”

"It might be slightly different than you remember...being a thousand years later and all of that." Beth adds the duck to the order and ignores the growing total, knowing that this meal is a celebration all its own. "I'm glad that there are some things that transcend time, though. Delicious food being one of them."

“Food is food.” Pero huffs. “Some is better washed down with ale to ignore the taste. Some is good with water.”

“Food can be pleasurable.” Beth smirks as she gets up from her chair to grab a drink from the kitchen. “Especially when licked from the correct surface.”

Pero narrows his eyes before he leans over to you. “She is talking about—” He flushes slightly. “That thing that you told me about?”

“It doesn’t have to be chocolate syrup,” you chuckle softly at his reaction, knowing how crass he can be when he wants to. “I just suggested that because you love chocolate.”

“I do love chocolate.” Pero groans, reaching out and pulling you close. “And it would taste sweeter from your skin.”

“I guess you’ll have to make sure you save room for dessert then, won’t you?” The salacious wink you give him is met with a grin and you don’t hesitate to steal a kiss. “It’s a damn good thing we always have chocolate sauce in the fridge.”

He growls quietly and tugs you closer, not happy with such a brief kiss. “Bruja.” He hisses playfully, nipping your lip.

Pulled directly into his lap, you stifle a giggle and do your best to look very, very serious as you drag your knuckles along his jaw. “I thought you like that I’m a bruja?” You tease, knowing very well that he had said the words himself on more than one occasion.

“Never doubt that, mi sol.” Pero murmur, leaning into your touch and his eyes flutter quickly. “It is why you could come to me. His hands squeeze your ass possessively. “And why I am here now.”

“Does that make you a brujo? Is that even a word?” Whether it is or not, you’re just glad Beth hasn’t come back from the kitchen yet since your hips seem to grind down on his automatically at the grip of his large hands.

Pero snorts and shakes his head. “No.” He leans forward and drags his nose along your throat, pressing kisses with his lips along your warm skin. It does, but he is not going to admit that. Preferring to distract you.

“Pero…” He has this way of making your skin tingle everywhere and your eyelashes flutter when he kisses that part of your throat that has you whining in no time - and it’s nearly impossible to remind yourself that there is someone else in the apartment right now. “Estas siendo travieso, mi amor.” You’re being naughty, my love.

“Me gusta ser travieso.” I like being naughty. Pero grins against your skin and leans back to send you a smug wink. “I have not had enough of you.”

“If you’re gonna fuck on the couch, please put a towel down first.” Beth snorts, standing in the doorway with a glass of ginger ale in her hand and a smirk painted across her face.

“I promise,” you huff, cheeks more than a little warm with embarrassment as Pero’s fingers dig a little more into your hips.

Pero grunts and gives Beth a small shrug. “I will fuck her with your towel down then.” He agrees. “We will wait until you are not here.”

“Oh, I don’t care about that, I just don’t want to be watching tv in a pile of dry cum.” She shrugs matter-of-factly and steps back, waving as she goes. “I’ll be in my room until my boyfriend gets here! Have fun!”

Pero smirks as he admires your friend’s teasing, which has you looking as if you want to melt into the floor in embarrassment. “What is ’boyfriend’?” He’s learned that if he doesn’t understand something, it’s best to ask right away. “Is that what you call soulmates now?”

“Sort of?” Still perched in his lap, you turn your full attention back to Pero and shrug off Beth’s teasing. “A boyfriend is a man that you are having a relationship with, but you have not yet agreed to be married. Like when Arwena and Briac used to spend time at the cottage with us, I would have said they were ’boyfriend and girlfriend’ back then.”

Pero scowls slightly and shakes his head. “They have not agreed to wed? Why do they wait? They are soulmates.”

“Some people like to take their time with important life decisions, and some people dive right into them. It’s all personal preference.” Of course, his visa - no matter how legally or illegally it was obtained for you - does put you on a bit of a schedule. But 90 days is nothing for two people who are already married. The modern paperwork is merely a formality.

“There is more freedom in this time.” Pero admits. “For women. I can see that.”

“There is. But we still don’t have all the freedoms that men do.” Gender politics isn’t really top of your list for a discussion right now, though, and you tuck a stray hair behind his ear affectionately. “Honestly? I don’t think they will wait too much longer before they get engaged.”

“What is this William like?” Pero asks, sensing you aren’t enamored with the conversation.

“He’s a good man.” That much you can say without hesitation. “Competitive but caring, loyal, and very helpful. And he makes Beth happy, which is what matters most to me.”

Pero nods and squeezes your ass again. There have been a lot of changes for him, but for you as well. “She likes me, sí?” He asks, suddenly nervous that the reason Beth left was because she did not like him.

“If she didn’t, she would still be here interrogating you like a criminal.” You dip your head, kissing him softly and feeling the heat of just a few minutes ago melt away into sweetness and reassurance. “You have nothing to fear, amor.”

“I feel like a brat.” Pero complains, hating the unsettled way that he feels. He knows it’s because everything is different for him, and that he relies on you to make sure that he navigates this world properly. Still, he feels like he is a boy who knows nothing of the world.

“You have been in this world for only four days, love.” The frown on his face isn’t his usual scowl, but something far more sincere that makes you soften and sit back in his lap with your brows knit together. “I know it’s frustrating. Truly I understand. But you’re doing wonderfully. No one could learn an entirely new life in just four days.”

He sighs, knowing you’ve seen his true meaning. “I know, but I should be able to.” He insists, being stubborn about it. “Perhaps I need to write things down.” You had started his writing and Wena had continued it during the year without you.

“Would you like a notebook for your thoughts?” A journal isn’t a terrible idea at all, actually, and you wonder that you didn’t think of it before. “We can certainly do that for you.”

“Paper is not costly anymore, is it?” He asks, amused at everything they considered luxuries in his time are common objects.

“Not anymore.” You shake your head, still smiling at him softly. You really just can’t help yourself. “And we have pencils now. Instead of ink, you write with something called graphite, which can be erased if you make a mistake.”

“Next you will tell me that scars can be removed.” Pero chuckles, not imagining such a thing to be possible. But then again, he never imagined things like a car or a plane. It makes him wonder about weapons.

“Welll…” The best you can do is shrug sheepishly. “In a way, yes. They can. It is expensive, but there are surgeons - special healers - that can do it.”

He tilts his head, thoughtful as he brushes the apple of your cheek and his thumb caresses the bottom of your scar. “Have you thought of such things?” He asks curiously. He knows scars are different for women than men, but he wants to know if you are trying to hide it here like you first had when he saw you.

“Why would I hide the marks that we share?” Nothing in the world could be less desirable to you, especially when he is here in front of you for you both to see the proof that you belong together.

“I do not see why.” Pero admits, but he leans in and kisses your brow, where the scar causes your hair to not grow. “But I am different from you.” He hums.

“Would you prefer to remove your scars?” It’s a decision that would be entirely up to him, although you have to admit it would surprise you. While Pero is proud, he has never struck you as particularly vain.

“No.” Pero immediately shakes his head. “I have noticed that women in this time are very…adorned.” He murmurs. “They wear a lot of face paint and put a lot of value on their beauty. I do not wish you to be upset because of what that bastard did to you.”

“I don’t care what anyone else thinks.” Certainly you’ve gotten more than your fair share of funny looks in the last six months, but it doesn’t bother you as much as you thought it might. Your scar shows you have survived. It’s as simple as that. “As long as you love me, that is all that matters.”

“Siempre.” Pero murmurs, turning his head to kiss you again. Always.

The knock on the door keeps things from getting carried away, and Beth buzzes past in the hallway to let William inside with dinner. She’s practically squeaking with excitement - never one to hide how she feels about anything - and you climb out of Pero’s lap reluctantly to take the heavy bags of take-out from his hands. Dinner sounds great, but you’ll definitely be saving room to have Pero for dessert later on.

The smells take him back. To that large dining hall filled with soldiers. Closing his eyes, he can almost see the wooden tables ladened down with bowls of rice and plates of bread, the fragrant meats and vegetables to be spooned over the top. It was probably the best he had ever eaten as a man until your cottage. He’s taken back to China as he inhales, so when he opens his eyes, they settle on the man who had brought the food and he gasps. “William!”

“Oh! Uh…hello!” Will isn’t sure what the expectation is in this situation, but he puts his hand out automatically to great the odd man in his soulmate’s living room. There probably isn’t a protocol for meeting your soulmate’s roommate’s time traveling soulmate, but he’s just going to be nice and hope that’s enough.

He’s staring, and he knows he’s staring, but he can’t help it. Grabbing the other man’s hand, Pero drags him closer, the sight of him almost too much even though he knows this cannot be his William Garin. He looks exactly like his old friend. Right down to the gold flakes in the blue of his eyes.

“Pero, right?” He knows. He’s heard all about the intense warrior from your stories. But he hadn’t expected to feel so…connected to the man. Especially one that he arguably has nothing in common with. He can’t deny the tug in his gut, though. The one that says he is supposed to know this man.

Pero nods, eyes narrowing and his grip on William’s hand increases in pressure. “Who are your people?” He asks gruffly. “Where do you come from?”

“Chicago.” The question seems strange when this man knows barely anything about America, but William holds the handshake and Pero’s eyes. “We’re Irish, if that’s what you mean? Irish and English.” Is this how medieval people used to greet each other? If it is, it’s weird.

“Irish.” Pero huffs, rolling his eyes and he looks over at you. He knows he looks crazy. “He is the spitting image of the bastard I left in China. The same one I had parted with right before I met you.”

“Really?” That shakes off your concern right away, and the effect is like dominoes. You relax, so Beth does, and Will does as well. “I’m getting really good at ancestry research, maybe we can figure out if Beth’s Will is related to your William?”

“Did you have a rumor of China in your family?” Pero asks Will, finally letting go of his hand. He flexes his hand and huffs out a laugh. “And do you shoot better than anyone else?”

“I was Army before I started my security company, so I’m— yeah, I mean, I was a sniper. You have to be a good shot.” Will follows you and Beth with the bags of food and Pero is at your other side as the four of you file into the dining room. “But China?” He thinks for a second, hands automatically moving when Beth takes things out of the hutch and starts to pass plates and flatware around. “I know my great-grandma loved Chinese stories. Like fairy tales and stuff. But I don’t know if she thought we were Chinese.”

“William— my friend, he stayed in China after we defeated the monsters.” Pero tells him. “He married a General of the Nameless Order.”

William’s head pops up in surprise, and he sets the plate in his hands down much more heavily than he meant to. “The Nameless Order was real?”

“You have heard of it.” Pero nods, sure that this man is somehow related to his friend.

“My great-gran’s stories.” The younger man shakes his head in disbelief. “She would tell us folklore as bedtime stories when she babysat us growing up. Some Gaelic stories, American folktales, but mostly Chinese. I just thought she was really into Chinese history.”

“We went to China in search of black powder.” Pero tells all of you. “It took us nearly a year to get there, we lost all of the men we traveled with, nearly thirty.”

“Thirty?” Beth’s jaw drops a little as she brings cans of soda to the table. “And a whole year? Jesus. Where were you traveling from?”

“We started in Brittany.” Pero smirks slightly. “Although if I had met Sassenach, I would not have gone.” He jokes, knowing he had been a far different man before China. One you wouldn’t have put up with him.

“We would have had a much different meeting.” You can’t even imagine what it would have been like to just run into him in the village or meet him on the road. Your relationship would have been very different right off the bat.

“Yes we would have.” Pero can admit that and he reaches for your hand to pull you into his side. “I much prefer you saving me.”

“I much prefer you surviving your illness as well.” He earns a kiss for saying something so sweet, though, and you urge him to sit down next to you afterward.

“But William was the most annoying Irish bastard that I’ve ever met.” He grumbles, even with a fond smile on his face. “Impossible to kill.”

“We must be related then,” Will jokes, laughing as he and Beth start to open containers and pass dishes around. “My brother’s the most annoying shit in the world. And I never did manage to kill him when we were kids.”

Pero snorts and shakes his head. “He was like my brother. Making me want to kill him. Nearly getting blown up because of him, twice.”

“Sounds like a brother to me.” William laughs. “Blood brothers, brothers in arms, it’s all the same. You love them but you wanna strangle them with your bare hands sometimes.”

“Absolutely.” Pero grunts, relaxing a little bit more now that William understands the bond he shared with the other William.

Plates are filled in just a few minutes’ time and everyone digs into dinner. Bowie’s mournful yowls from the other room are only squelched when the cat wanders in and twists his body up at Pero’s feet, making Beth huff indignantly, and you and William only laugh.

“What?” Pero frowns as he reaches down and slips the cat a bit of the duck and scratches behind his ears until his purrs sound like a loud motor. “He is a good gato.”

“I’m apparently the only person in the world that he doesn’t like,” Beth complains, but there is a smile underneath it. It’s been so long now that it’s almost an affectionate joke.

“Maybe he doesn’t like you because of his past life.” Pero suggests, still scratching his ears.

"What do you mean?" Asks Beth, who obviously was not expecting that answer.

“Cats have lives. Many of them. Just like we do.” He explains. “Maybe your previous life intersected with his.”

"So...Bowie doesn't like me because of something that happened between us in a previous life?" It's as good an explanation as any, Beth decides, and she picks up a piece of duck from her plate to offer to the typically bristly feline. "In case, Bow, I sincerely apologize."

There’s a moment where Pero, probably everyone else in the room too, thinks that Bowie will hiss or swat at the offering. There is the slight sniff from the tuxedo cat, as if to say ’about damn time’, and he stretches away from Pero to take the morsel of duck from Beth’s hand and even brushes his cheek against her skin, marking her with his scent. Seemingly accepting the apology.

"Well I'll be damned." The whole table seemed to hold their breath but when Beth laughs in surprise, everyone exhales in relief. "I guess the war is over?"

Pero smirks slightly when Bowie yowls in agreement and curls up next to her feet, settling down to nap.

******

After the intrigue of that first dinner together, Pero and Will’s friendship blossomed immediately. His social circle grew to include some of Will’s previous gym buddies and friends from work, and though Pero isn’t necessarily social by nature it has helped immensely in getting him settled into his new life. Will had even had Pero into the office a few times in the last month and he was now talking like joining his security firm might be a chosen career path.

Pero comes rushing into the apartment, opening the door and stomping towards your shared bedroom. He hadn’t quite gotten into the habit yet of walking softly when he’s exited much to your downstairs neighbor’s dismay. He throws open the door and pins you with a harsh stare. “When were you going to tell me?” He huffs, feelings obviously hurt.

“Tell you what?” The pair of jeans in your hands crumbles instead of getting folded neatly, and you look at Pero with utter confusion. “What’s wrong?”

“You said that modern marriages are very ‘low key’ things. Basically just signing a piece of paper.” He frowns and shakes his head. “This is not true.”

Shit. You slump a little, feeling caught, and wonder what the guys must have said to him at the gym today. “They can be, amor. There is no law that says we have to have a big, fancy wedding.”

Pero frown grows even deeper, eyes shuttering slightly. “Are you— do you not wish to have a wedding?” He asks quietly, wondering if you are ashamed of him as your soulmate. He has been working hard to adapt, but maybe it is not enough.

“I wish to have a marriage.” You stress the word, laying down the jeans from your hands and coming to put your arms around him. The rate at which he has been adjusting to modern life is fairly astounding, but you see how hard he works every day to do things ‘right’ and how much having friends has helped him. “We have already had a wedding. In Gretna. And it was beautiful. I didn’t think we needed to make a fuss out of the second one. But obviously you feel differently?”

He nods. “You deserve it. Our vows were rushed and while beautiful, you deserve a party for putting up with me.” He smirks slightly at his joke. “What is a bachelor party? William said I must have one and you must have a…a woman’s party.” He cannot remember the term his friend had used, but it sounded like it was necessary to a wedding.

“Will wants to throw you a bachelor party?” That honestly makes you chuckle a little, and you squeeze your arms around his waist in a gentle hug. “It is a party to celebrate a man who is getting married and also mourn the loss of his time as a single man. Usually, the other men of the wedding party take the groom out and get him very drunk, feed him well, and sometimes take him to see women dance with very little clothing on. The version for the bride is mostly the same, but sometimes instead of dancing men, women will go and have their own fun. Dancing or pampering themselves. It all depends on what the bride and groom like.”

Pero frowns slightly and tries to imagine seeing a woman that is not you without her clothes on. “I do not wish to watch some woman who is not you dance.” He huffs, finally figuring out why everyone chuckled when Will had told him that he would take him to the ‘club’.

“Then you don’t have to.” It’s actually quite charming and romantic, how deeply loyal Pero is and how he doesn’t even like to look at models in clothing ads. “You can do anything you like at your bachelor party. You just have to tell Will what you want it don’t want.”

“Yes, I will tell him.” Pero nods and turns the conversation back to you. “Be truthful.” He murmurs. “Would you like to have a wedding here with your friends and family?” He asks. “We had one we think of often with Briac and Arwena, should we not here?”

“Big weddings cost a lot of money.” And the practical part of you says that you’ve already had a wedding - so why bother? But there is also the part of you that wonders what a modern white wedding with Pero would even be like. “We couldn’t do anything too big anyway, since we only have two more months on your visa. But…” The shrug you give him is somewhat sheepish, as you can feel the warmth in your cheeks admitting it. “I wouldn’t mind a celebration. I do want you to meet my family at some point, and a wedding would definitely make that happen.”

“You said we could do what we wanted, sí?” Pero asks. “That would be fun. Tell me what all a modern wedding requires?”

“Well…” Out in the living room, you sit down on the couch together and you pull out your phone to show him some pictures of wedding aesthetic boards and other ‘typical’ American wedding images. “We would rent out a place we think is pretty, hire people to cook and serve our food, have lots of flowers, and have a big cake to serve to everyone for dessert. The reception has lots of dancing and I’m supposed to wear a special white dress. You would have at least one person stand with you and sign our marriage certificate as your witness, and I would have one as well. At the reception people sometimes make speeches, or just wish us well in our married life. And there is a rehearsal dinner the night before where we practice the ceremony so everyone knows what they’re doing. It’s…a lot of work, honestly. But we would have a photographer there to take pictures like these so we can remember our day for the rest of our lives. It’s…like I said, it’s a lot of work, but weddings can be really special and really fun.”

“Do you want to do it?” The last thing that he wants is to make more work for you, but it does sound fun. Especially since he’s found that he loves pictures. To be able to see something to remember it is incredible. And to be able to have pictures of your modern marriage would be very nice.

“What if we did a small version of it?” It’s clear to you, from the concern and small amount of excitement on his face, that Pero likes the idea of a wedding. And god knows your parents would be over the moon about it. It’s no sacrifice at all when you know it will make the people you love happy and you’ll end up enjoying the day very much in the end. “Just my family and our close friends? I’m sure we can find some place that can accommodate us in the next few weeks.”

“How about outside?” Pero asks, finding there is a lot of natural places around your apartment building. “We could go to that place you showed last week.”

“The garden that we had lunch in with Beth and William and Beth’s abuela?” Pero’s affinity for gardens had taken you only slightly by surprise, but it has been fun to show him all the different plants and flowers that thrive in tropical temperatures he had never seen or experienced before. “Amor, that was Beth’s abuela’s house. I—I suppose we could ask her.” It never would have occurred to you, but Beth’s grandmother has literally won prizes for her gardening and her house is beautiful. It might even be a historical landmark, now that you’re thinking about it. “It might be much easier to have a wedding at a house, if she is okay with it. And of course I’ll offer to pay her for the trouble.”

Pero nods. “The abuela needed some work done. I can do it for her as well.” He offers, knowing that he will always try to barter even though it’s not normal now.

“Let’s ask Beth if she thinks her grandmother would be open to it when we see them for dinner tonight.” A week after Pero had returned, Beth and William had very gently announced that they were moving in together, and now the four of you have dinner together a few times a week on top of any girl time you spend with Beth or guy time that Pero spends with Will.

Pero pulls out the notebook he has started carrying. “We should write it down. What we want, sí?” He asks you hopefully, grinning because you are agreeing to have a wedding for him. You had said something about going down to the courthouse and signing some papers and that being it.

“We can absolutely make a list.” It’s very sweet, the way Pero has been carrying his notebook with him everywhere. The pocket-sized moleskin fits in his jeans or jacket and always has a pencil tucked inside it’s pages. Since his written English has improved, he has been very excited to employ it at every turn. “Would you like to have a very traditional wedding, amor? They can be very formal. But lots of younger couples these days do things less formally. It can be whatever we like.”

“I do not know what you mean, but I don’t think we would enjoy it if it was too rigid, amor.” He looks over at you. “William said most women dream of their wedding. What did you dream of?”

“You’ll laugh.” Or at least, most people would. But you roll your eyes at yourself and start looking for reference images for what you’re about to describe to him. “You know that television show I watch sometimes? The noble lady who does not wear shoes?” Your affinity for Ina Garten’s Barefoot Contessa had come back full force since returning home, and you find you love it even more now for the way it sometimes reminds you of life in the cottage in Brittany. The Barefoot Contessa’s generally French-inspired and ‘earthy’ upscale entertaining reminded you sometimes of the plates of vegetables, fruit, cheese, and cured meats you would put together for you and Pero. Simple dressings and dips and good bread had been something that you could use to make yourself feel particularly fancy. “I always imagined having a wedding like she would throw. In a beautiful garden with simple but really delicious food that goes late into the night because everyone is having so much fun eating and dancing and talking.”

“I will hunt for it.” Pero offers immediately, imagining bringing back game for you, for the wedding. “Roasted rabbit and a deer?” He asks, wondering if it would good. “Open spit? Like how I used to cook when we were traveling. Hunger made everything delicious, but I’ve wondered how it would taste with your herbs.”

“You could tell William that you want to go hunting for your bachelor party,” you offer, knowing that it’s something William and his friends also enjoy and that a weekend hunting trip would be right up all of their alleys. “There has to be a catering company somewhere this part of Florida that will agree to let us supply the meat and they’ll do all the cooking for us.”

“You could do one of those people that you watch on your…phone.” Pero frowns for a moment as he had forgotten the name of the device that seems to do everything for everyone in this time. Everyone is attached to it like it is their swords. “The people that come to you a cook? What was the word?”

“Caterers?” The nod you give him is fully encouraging. “Yes, I think we could find a caterer willing to cook what you hunt.” He writes it down when you speak the word for him and you smile again. “No one would know that your hunting is how you won a first kiss from me, but we will know.”

Pero smirks at the memory and bites his lip, his eyes flashing playfully. “I was showing off.” He admits. “I knew I could do it, but when you told me my prize was a kiss? I had to snare the rabbit.” He chuckles and leans in to steal another kiss. “Best hunt I ever went on.”

“With the longest lasting prize.” You hum into the kiss happily, settling into his side on the sofa. “Now…I know you will be excited about this. Modern weddings have elaborate and delicious cakes for dessert. And the bakery down in the corner that you like makes some beautiful ones.”

Pero groans, his love of food had definitely grown in this time. The sweets available mind blowing to a man who had only ever known honey or fruits as a source of sugar. The trips to the gym with William had been needed so he continued to fit the clothes you had bought him. “We must have that.” He decides, writing it down immediately and circling it for good measure. He’s enjoyed making his journal and re-reading through it when he feels unsure of himself, like training constantly when he was a boy.

“Yes, but what flavour will we have?” For a man who lived most of his life leanly, it has been the height of luxury for Pero to be able to eat whatever he wants at the drop of a hat, and your modern wedding day is no time to squelch that. You want him to have the most enjoyment he possible can.

His eyes lighting up at the prospect, Pero hums and his stomach grumbles on queue. “We will have to try them all and decide.” He announces, imagining going to that bakery and buying all the little cakes to stuff into his mouth happily. Everything in this time was so sweet and he was quickly addicted to it.

“We’ll get a cupcake in every flavour and try them all together.” You promise him, chuckling at how excited he is. “And then we can pick our favourite for our wedding cake. It will be a feast.”

That makes him grin, nodding quickly at that idea. It means that he will have dessert for at least a few days. Or he will make himself sick by eating them all at once. That has happened a few times. “What else do we need for a modern wedding?” He asks, not sure about everything involved.

“We’ll find someone to play music for us, and someone to take pictures for us.” He takes notes as you go and you press a kiss to his cheek with a grin. “You will need someone to be your best man and I will need someone to be my maid of honour. The people who stand next to us while we’re married and will sign our marriage certificate as witnesses.”

“Like Briac and Arwena.” Pero knows that you could have married with just Father Malcolm but both of you wanted the younger couple with you.

“Exactly.” He knows you’ve been missing the younger couple lately - he walked in on you telling Bowie stories of time spent with Arwena about a week ago. “Should we ask Beth and Will?”

Considering it for a moment, Pero nods. “It is a good choice.” There are more things about William that have Pero comparing him to the man he had traveled with to China and he has quickly become as close - although they have not battled together. “I will ask Will tonight.”

“I have a feeling this will be all we talk about at dinner.” And considering how adamant Beth has been about doing something wedding-y, you have a feeling she’ll be thrilled. “I’ll have to go without you to buy my dress. Superstitions say it’s bad luck for you to see my dress before the wedding.”

Pero frowns hard at this, but he eventually sighs when you just stare at him for a moment. “Truly? That is stupid.” He grunts, not having any clue what this dress shopping would include, but seeing a dress is not bad luck.

The way you smirk at him is nearly evil, knowing he’s going to be pouting even harder in just a second. “And we’re not allowed to spend the night together the night before the wedding. That’s bad luck, too.” And something you know your superstitious mother will enforce when she arrives, all in the name of caution and care.

“No.” Shaking his head, Pero’s scowl turns fierce. “Not happening. No way.” He’s adopted the phrase ‘no way’ from Will and it is very true here. “I don’t want to sleep apart from you.”

“I knew you wouldn’t like that.” The way this man love is fierce and doting, and you adore him for it. “We don’t have to sleep apart, amor. It’s just a superstition.”

“If you wanted to adhere to the superstition…I will deal with it.” He sighs with a very pouty huff as he reaches for your hand. “It is one night and I had far more without when you went through the Stones.”

“All the more reason not to waste the time we have now.” Never having been a particularly superstitious person despite being raised by one, you could care less. The reason you want to go dress shopping without him is to surprise him - not because of luck.

“Te amo.” Pero murmurs, unable to stop himself from stealing another kiss. “Flowers? Why do you need flowers? People are bathing regularly.”

"Because they're beautiful." You shrug, as though it were a silly answer. "Flowers are traditional for weddings, and people like to match their flowers to the colors they pick for the day. Make everything look coordinated." It's a lot of fuss, and you never intended to do all of this with him - but on the other hand? Now that you've started to plan, it is a little exciting.

“Colors?” Pero can’t even comprehend what you are meaning by that but he nods and writes it down. “What flowers would you want? Do you have a favorite?”

"Colors are...to make everything look nice, I guess." There's really no better way to describe it. "We can pick a couple of colors that look nice together, like...like green and yellow. Or blue and gray. And we would use those colors throughout the wedding. Like Beth would wear a dress in one of the colors or your suit might be in the other. The cake might be decorated with the colors, too. And I would probably have my flowers include the colors, too." Not that you have ever thought about wedding colors - not beyond thinking that your cousin's orange and pink wedding was a little too garish for your taste.

“Grey.” Pero decides immediately. “I like grey.” Shopping for clothes has introduced him to a plethora of colors but he has several shades of grey.

"Okay, we can work with that." Nodding into his side, you snuggle up again easily. "Grey and silver are pretty easy to work with. And almost any other color works with gray." Smiling, you tilt your head back and raise an eyebrow at him. "How about purple? We can be royalty for a day."

“Don’t you like green?” He asks, raising the question since he’s seen you wear a lot of that color. He will agree to anything you want honestly, but he doesn’t want you to pick colors he likes alone.

"I do." Words you will say to him in completely different context in just a few weeks’ time. "I like green and I also like purple. Actually...all three colors work together. We could have gray, green, and purple together?"

“That would work.” Pero bites his lip and thinks about it. “If you like it, that is what we will have.”

"I like it." And the purple bouquet with lots of greenery tied in a silky gray ribbon is already starting to take shape in your mind. You never really expected flowers to be the thing you fantasized about for your wedding, but here you are. "And I think you would look very handsome in a gray suit."

“Sí?” William had taken him to get a suit for the work that he wanted him to do. Pero found it rather restricting, but you had been very interested in it when he had shown you it to ask your opinion.

“Sí.” You tell him, a grin cracking the solemnity on your face. “A well-tailored suit is a thing of beauty, amor. Just the way you love when I wear a bikini to the beach, I enjoy seeing you in one.”

His expression is wolfish, about to devour you at just the mention of it. “The only thing better is having you naked, amor, and they would not allow that on your beaches.”

“I know another wedding thing you will like quite a lot.” You tease, sitting up in his arms to be nose-to-nose and grinning at him unrepentantly. “The brand new lingerie I will be buying to wear under my wedding dress just for my husband to take off of me that night.”

Pero growls, cock jumping in his pants and he narrows his eyes at you. “First you tell me I cannot sleep beside you, fuck you, the night before our wedding. Now you tease me with knowing something sexy is underneath it?” Sexy is another word he has learned and he uses it often where you are concerned. “I will drag you off over my shoulder once the vows are spoken, bruja.”

“You would not be the first groom to do it, either.” It draws a light laugh from you, and ringing your arms around his shoulders to hug him. “Our honeymoon will be nothing but sex, I can already see it.”

“The last one would have been more sex.” He reminds you, both of you now able to talk about you being so sick without breaking down. The first time you coughed around him after getting here, he had demanded you see a healer.

"I think we've been making up for lost time pretty well, don't you?" Since you have been working from home and Pero is doing some small freelance things for Will's security firm, you have had ample opportunity to fuck on every surface in the apartment. Multiple times.

“We have.” Pero smirks smugly, thinking about how he had woken you up this morning before he had been picked up so he could slide inside you. Both of you had rolled out of bed with a satisfied grin on your face.

"I, um..." Shifting slightly, you sit back on your ankles bite your lip. A thought had occurred to you about a week ago and you're not sure how he might feel about it. "I had a thought. About our honeymoon..."

Pero catches your hesitancy and frowns slightly, but he nods in order to get you to expand on your idea. “You wish to sleep apart? I will not do that. Not when you will be my wife. Never again.”

"Oh no way." You shake your head adamantly, trying to figure out where that idea even came from. "No, no, not at all. I meant I had an idea about where to go, that's all."

“Oh.” The jokes William and the others that he was around had made about Pero having to sleep on the couch after he got married were apparently wrong. The couch was comfortable and he had dozed on it, but he wanted to sleep on the bed where his wife is sleeping. “Where?”

"What if we went back to France?" The memories you have of the place aren't all positive, obviously, but everything involving him is wonderful. "I looked up the village that the cottage was near and...I mean, I'm not saying that I think our cottage would still be standing after a thousand years, but the village is still there. And I thought it might be romantic to go back there in our new life. To...remember."

“Yes.” His answer is immediate, almost forceful and he can see that it startles you slightly. “Sí.” He murmurs, reaching for your hand to hold it gently. “I would like to see it again. Where we found each other. I am certain I can find where the cottage stood.”

"Things will have changed a lot of the centuries, amor. It's okay if we don't find it." All you want is to breathe the air again, to feel those specific sunbeams and be in that place again with nothing but comfort and joy.

He hums, doubting that every natural marker the landscape had was removed. He will find your little cottage that he had shared with you. “We will find it.”

******

Dol-de-Bretagnac has grown since the eleventh century, rising up to swallow the little village you once called home and bringing it through the centuries beautifully. The inn you're staying in for your honeymoon is one of a dozen converted medieval estates in the area, but not a house you recognize from the first time you were in Brittany. It's newer than that, but so is almost everything.

The wedding had gone beautifully, and your family adore Pero, characterizing him as 'intense but charming' and they had just about gone crazy when they found out that the beautiful game meats they were eating for dinner had been the result of his bachelor hunting party. Your mother had practically batted her eyelashes at how masculine it was for him to provide for you like that.

Today is your second day in Brittany - with yesterday being spent either in bed or at a meal - and you had chosen to leave the rental car at the hotel and go for a walk through the narrow streets of town. Being married all over again feels like more of a relief than anything else. Like you're finally back to where you're meant to be.

“It is different.” Pero admits, looking around and huffing. Luckily some key pieces have been constant. The old town Well was preserved and from that, Pero can tell where your cottage was. “This was where I met Briac.” He motions towards a newer shopping center that had replaced the old buildings.

“There is still a bakery in the same place.” Pointing to a different part of what used to be the village center, there is a little boulangerie now standing where the baker’s shop once stood. “I doubt they still have his ovens, but it’s nice that it is accidentally consistent.”

“Yes.” The hands that are not pointing out pieces of your old life are firmly entwined, fingers laced together and you look like two soulmates should in this time. Two tourists, although you have more history in this village than the people here, or at least ancient history. Pero had been nervous about meeting your family and the wedding, but it had been nothing like the immigration interviews. Since he was a soulmate, he was guaranteed a ‘green card’, approval to stay with you, but Pero had taken offense to the man’s attitude and it had nearly made the entire process more difficult. “I wonder if the people now ever think of what came before. Without going to their museums.” He grunts as he remembers the stone church being much smaller than the one that is in its place.

“Oh shit.” You practically snort, giggling at him with wide eyes. “I never even considered that some of our things could be in a museum. What if the people who built where the cottage used to be had found bottles or tools or something?” Or even your cauldron, which would have given you a good giggle.

Pero snorts and shakes his head. He would not be happy about that if he were honest. “Why don’t we go see what is there?” He asks, smirking at you. “Visit your cottage?”

“Our cottage.” It doesn’t matter that you lived there without him for years - it was the first home you shared together and you will always think of it that way.

“You are a generous woman, Sassenach.” His tone is gruff, thick with emotion. A woman independent of a man was rare in his time and you willingly giving him what was rightfully yours even more so. It humbles him more than you ever could know.

The walk from the old village center is still a long hill, but the winding streets of this modern town are lined with shops and restaurants and homes. Businesses and offices have taken up where trees used to be, and the vast fields that lined your walk are filled with schools and more houses of worship. It is very different, and yet not so very hard to imagine what was once here, as you walk the once-worn road that led out of your small village.

“How are you feeling?” He asks, watching the changing landscape and imagining it as it once was. If he had not walked this land one thousand years prior, he would never have known it was the same place.

"Like I ought to be pulling my cart." You admit, holding tight to his hand. The uneven, cobblestone streets give you a little trouble with your lack of depth perception, but he makes sure that you never stumble. "I half expect to see Binx waiting for me at the bottom of the hill."

“She was a good gato.” Pero murmurs, feeling the same way. The opinionated cat had annoyed him at the start, but her loyalty to you and then Arwena had been admirable. “She was a clever thing.”

"She loved you." Both of your cats have adored him, which makes you happier than you can say. Bowie yowled his displeasure when you left for the airport yesterday, refusing to let go of him until Beth had arrived to see you off and check in with her furry charge. The truce between your cat and best friend has held, and she's promised to look after Bowie while you and Pero are on your honeymoon.

“Because I love you.” Pero points out. He had no question that if he had dishonorable intentions, your cat would have attacked him ferociously. “If I was a bastard, she might have tripped me off that roof.” He chuckles quietly, remembering how the cat had watched him patch the roof with the most judgmental expression he has ever seen on a feline.

"Does that mean you already loved me when you decided to fix my roof?" It's just a tease, the way you smirk at him, but the notion of it does make your heart swell a little in your chest.

He huffs at you, rolling his eyes and squeezing your hand. You both know that it wasn’t exactly true, but he had been unsettled by you from the beginning. Who knows? It might have been love. “I didn’t want to freeze.” He grumbles playfully.

"Nah." You grin, swinging his hand in yours playfully as you walk together. "You loved me. You're just a sweet, soft man. But don't worry, I won't tell."

Pero growls but it’s not in annoyance. Maybe a little annoyance that he’s so soft for you. It is such a change from the man he had been before you, but his other option is not to have you and he doesn’t want to ever think of that again.

“Grumpy and blushing.” Your grin turns into a giggle as you lean into his side in the walk. “That’s my man.”

“Bruja.” Pero mutters under his breath, no heat to his words. There are times when he wishes the magic was as strong now as it was back then, he would make you fly up in the air to hear you shriek.

“I miss it,” you admit, turning right with him at the bottom of the hill just like you were headed back to that little stone cottage with your garden and small barn. In this time your potions are only mildly effective and the powerful light or flame you once conjured is barely better than candlelight. “And I wish I could have seen what Wena taught you.”

“You wish to see me curse and throw things in frustration?” Pero had always been careful not to do it in front of the girl, knowing the abuse she had suffered at the hands of her father, but sometimes he had just needed to vent his underlying worry that he would not be able to learn.

“I wish that it could have been something we shared.” Ultimately, you missed out on a year of his life that you should not have had to miss - although if you hadn’t this walk would be very different. You might never have come back to Brittany for the rest of your lives if you had not had to come home.

“Perhaps we should try our magic together.” Pero murmurs softly, aware of how crazy it sounds but he is a man from a thousand years ago, walking on these grounds again because of magic. Surely together it would be stronger.

"Perhaps we should." Linking your fingers through his as you walk, you look up at him with a curious twist of your lips. "What would we try?"

“I— hmmmm.” That is an interesting question. “We will have to think of something, amor. First, let us find our cottage.”

The curve of the lane follows the curve of the old road that you remember so well, but the sight in far different than it once was. Private homes line what used to be the woods in the distance, but there is an enormous tree standing in what looks like a small garden just across the street from where you and Pero now stand. "Hazelnuts," you hum, seeing the clusters of nuts in the branches. "The baker and his wife would trade anything for fresh hazelnuts..."

“I remember you digging for them.” He thinks back to those trips to the woods while you were gathering the last of the herbs before they wilted under the snow and the hazelnuts were always wanted. “The bread was always tasty and fresh.”

"I know it's easier to buy them from the grocery store, but I do miss foraging sometimes." Crossing the street with him, your hand is still in his as you approach the enormous, gnarled tree. "Maybe when we finally buy a house, I'll start another garden."

Pero counts the paces and looks around back up the hill. “This is it.” He murmurs to himself, then squeezes your hand. “This is it, amor. Where our cottage stood.”

"Are you sure?" To be honest you feel a little turned around with how different everything looks, and you're not sure you could pinpoint the land you used to live on if your life depended on it.

“Yes.” He let’s go of your hand to stride forward. “The door was here.” He opens his arms wide to indicate the door. “This must- this is Tree I planted when I was here last.” He murmurs, looking up at the great, towering tree in wonder. It’s a true test of how much time has passed.

"You planted a tree the night we left?" He had never mentioned it, obviously, and you had spent so much time inside with Arwena as you packed up your necessities in the cottage that you wouldn't have ever seen him do it.

“No.” Pero turns back to you with a slightly guilty expression. “I came back on my way to the Stones.” He admits, reaching up and rubbing his neck as he examines the ground. “So if the tree is this large…it should be right around here.”

"What should be?" He is examining the ground carefully and you tilt your head at him in confusion. There is no anger or hurt feelings, just curiosity in your tone. "Amor, you never told me you came back to our home on your way north."

“I know.” Pero nods as he slips the bag he had brought off his back. “I did not know if we would return. Or if I could make it through the Stones.” He admits, kneeling down and unzipping the bag. He had requested these items from the hotel and to his surprise, they had provided them.

“What are you up to?” His mischievous streak has been fostered lately, mostly by Will and their friends, and just two days ago it had resulted in a beautiful wedding present of the necklace you’re currently wearing, but something tells you that this secret of his has nothing to do with jewelry.

“I did not wish to get your hopes up, amor.” He admits as he pulls a compact shovel and a pair of gloves from the bag. “But there is something I am hoping to find here.” The eagerness in his voice spells of it being a good discovery and he looks up at you and sends you a roguish wink.

“Can I help?” You’re immediately beside him with your knees in the dirt, assuming he has buried something when you see the shovel and gloves. “It doesn’t look like anybody owns this land, so hopefully no one will care if we dig.”

“I do not care if they care.” Pero huffs. “This land was ours and what is down here is ours.” He had buried it with the purpose of hopefully coming back to get it, in his time or in yours. With William’s help, there had been a lot of research that you were unaware of before the wedding. “If you wish to help, take the other gloves that I have in the bag.”

It takes time. Even with two of you, a thousand years of erosion and soil movement means that whatever is down here is not in the exact same place he left it - but in time it becomes clear that the roots of the tree he planted have protected his secret. One long, curled root has found its way around a small wooden chest which has been remarkably preserved. As if by magic, you think with a wry smile.

“She said it would work.” Pero huffs as he smirks, his shovel used as as axe to start chopping away at the root to pry the box from its resting place. “It is still here, amor.” He grunts, exhausted but exhilarated by the prospect.

“H—how?” You assume that ‘she’ is Arwena, but you’re too gobsmacked as he pulls the chest out of the ground to ask an intelligent question. “What did you bury?”

Pero brushes the carved lid off and carefully hands it to you. “Open it and see, amor.” He offers, wanting you to see what he had tried to do in order to plan for your future. “I had hoped it would be found by us, and now it has.”

It's remarkable, and the way the chest has survived the centuries almost unscathed. Whatever spell of protection he had placed on it, his magic was clearly much stronger then, than he had ever let on. The hinges creak when you pull at the rusted lock, but the butt of Pero's shovel soon sees it opened. Nestled in a clunky bed of fabric and leather is one of the few rare clear glass jars that you had had - the one that you had treasured for its clarity and stuffed full of beautiful dried rosebuds so you could still see the beautiful colors when it sat on the shelf. "Oooh..." You could cry just from the intimately familiar sight. "Amor, you..." You look up at him with your jaw fallen open. "You saved some of my things?"

“I did.” He nods and stares down at the box with the reminiscent fondness of someone opening a time capsule. “When I left Wena and Briac, I came back here. I needed to see it one last time and make sure that I left something of you- and myself behind if the Stones were going to reunite us.”

"Thank you." The kiss you give him is far more than well earned, but you don't let the moment run away with you just yet. There is a layer of fabric keeping the jar safe, but underneath is a large, thick, leather hide pouch that is unmistakably heavy when you pick it up. "Pero?" His name is a gasp from your lips as you untie the pouch to see a mass of coins gleaming and winking back at you from its depths. "H--how?"

"I earned coin as I made my way here." Pero murmurs. "Everything of value in the cottage was sold so I could bury this here." He wanted to bring it, but he also was not sure where he would end up or if he could go through. Burying it was safer in his mind. "I wanted to make sure you were taken care of in whatever time we ended up in."

“You promised your mamá you would provide for your soulmate…” It is not possible for you to be more in awe of him right now, and you wish you had some better way of expressing it than the shocked expression on your face. “Amor, do you have any idea what these are worth now?”

“William said that if we could find them, you would never have to work again if you did not wish to.” Pero hadn’t understood the amounts the other man had been talking but it was easily more than Pero had hoped to see in his lifetime.

“If we can find someone to buy these? Neither of us will ever have to work.” There are easily twenty gold coins, another dozen silver, and a large handful of copper pennies in the heavy bag, and you shake your head in disbelief. “We could travel all over the world if we wanted to. Never work again.”

“William already assured me he could find buyers if I found them.” Pero smirks at you, watching as you hold the coins as if they are precious. “If you want to quit your job and do something crazy with me.”

“Anything.” He knows you hate your office job, and that you would go or do anything with him that he wanted. Your hobbies are what bring you joy - your hobbies, your friends, and your incredible soulmate.

“I- William. He has found our little home in Valencia.” He explains. “There is- it is for sale.” He had to learn what that meant from Will. Apparently in this time, you had to buy the earth you worked. No rich lord owed all of it and allowed people to live on his lands.

“Oh my god.” Whatever you had expected him to say, that is not it at all. “Is it still a farm? Or is the house in some larger town now?” Moving to Spain is bigger than you had thought he would suggest, but it is not so crazy. And with the money these coins brought, you could hop on a plane and be across the pond to visit Beth and William any time you chose.

“It is still a farm.” Pero had been shocked when he had seen the old house was still standing in the pictures that Will had shown him. It was being used as a barn, but it was the same stones that Wena and Briac had sheltered their family inside. “You never got to see our home, amor.” Pero reaches for your hand. “Would you like to?”

"It will be a sort of adventure all its own, amor. Modern Spain will be very different from where you grew up and neither of us will know exactly what to expect." Still, the tears in your eyes are an obvious answer, especially when you lunge forward to throw your arms around him. "It will be a whole new life for us to start together. And...and I honestly can't wait."

“Or we could stay here.” Pero offers. “Rebuild our cottage.” Everything wouldn’t be exactly the same. He has learned to love indoor plumbing as much as you have. The extra-large tub in your hotel bathroom is a must wherever you live.

"I only care that I'm with you." You promise him, on the verge of having those tears that are building spill over onto your cheeks. "Here or Spain, whichever you dream of. We will sell these coins and build our life like we planned on a thousand years ago." Will you miss seeing Beth and Will every day? Of course. But in a world of video chatting and airplanes, you will have plenty of chances to spend time with your best friends.

“I only want that.” Pero murmurs, looking down at what would give him the fortune he had been chasing all those years ago. The fortune he had never found but had sent him straight into the arms of his soulmate. “All I wish is for the remaining years of my life to be spent with you, Sassenach.”

"How about this?" Hugging him tightly once more, you sit back on your ankles and wipe your eyes. "If your parents' farmhouse is still for sale once we have sold these coins and gotten the money that you saved, then that will be our sign to buy it. If not, we will find out who owns this land and rebuild our cottage beside your hazelnut tree."

“You have a good plan.” Pero holds you close and kisses your forehead. “It would be nice to live there like we planned so many years ago, or rebuilding the first home we had together. Perhaps one day we can do both.”

"I don't think we'll be lacking for funding," you laugh, looking down at the pouch of coins again in disbelief. "I have only one request, amor. If I could?"

“What is it?” You already know that anything you want he will do everything in his power to make sure it happens. “Anything.”

"Whenever we decide to go, can we make sure that there is room for Beth and Will to come visit us?" It almost feels silly asking, but happily starting your life over again with him does not mean that you have to leave everything behind this time. "A guest room in the house. That's all I ask. For our friends, or my family to come and see us."

“Done.” Pero nods immediately. “We will make sure we have room for any and all to come stay.” He doesn’t want to take you away from your family to never see them again. His parents always wanted a large family on the land they lived on and worked.

"I can't believe this." Truly, in your wildest dreams, you never could have thought that anything could have survived the centuries. Let alone a chest of coins, a precious memory of your past, or his family home. That you could possibly have all three is too much to even wrap your head around right now. "Your magic must have been much stronger than you led me to believe, for this to have remained safe all these years."

“As long as it brought me back to you, I did not care how strong it was.” Pero admits, shrugging casually. “But I could raise Cabello into the air.”

"I bet he hated that." You laugh, nearly doubled over at the thought of his enormous warhorse floating above the ground.

“He did.” Pero chuckles, knowing the horse had been well taken care of in his retirement from war. The farrier had been impressed with him and had a gentle touch.

"Let's bring this back to the hotel." The chest is precious and very heavy, but it will fit in his backpack to be stored in your hotel room while you explore the area and enjoy your honeymoon. "If your magic preserved those rosebuds well enough, they will be the first thing I plant in our new garden. Heirloom roses straight from the eleventh century."

“I am having a thought, Sassenach.” Pero hums as he slides the chest into the bag and starts to cover the hole back up. It would do no good to have anyone discover that something had been dug up. “The original house. I would like to restore it as it had been in my time. As a means of showing what it was truly like.” There had been some little tour of what a house would have looked like two hundred years ago, something you had shown him. It had sparked the interest again, reminding him of the conversation you had in his time before plans had changed.

"You miss Valencia, don't you?" It's easy to see, especially in his enthusiasm, and you reach to rub your thumb over the peak of his shoulder. "We should reach out to the people who are selling your family farm. Speak to them about our interest and that your ancestors were the ones who built it. See if they will be willing to wait for us to bring the money together. Then we can restore anything you like." But you shoot him a knowing grin. "Restored, but with indoor plumbing."

“The house we live in should be modeled after it. But larger. All your modern stuffs in it.” He is happy you are so accepting of his idea. It might help him feel more settled here.

"A modern kitchen for me to cook in and a large bathtub for you to relax in." Standing again, you both dust off your knees and take hands again. "It will be the home we intended, when we spoke to Wena and Briac about wanting to stay."

“I only relax in a bath when you join me.” Pero grumbles at you, having complained that the bathtub in the apartment it too small to fit you comfortably. There had been a lot of shower sex though, he did like that.

"You will need a hobby for you, amor. Rich men have hobbies because they don't have to work." Both of you know very well that whatever bathtub you install in your new home will have to be big enough for two, but you do still like teasing him. "Sex with your wife does not count as a hobby."

“It should.” He huffs as he pats the earth down and stands up to lift the heavy bag onto his back. “I will show other rich men how to live simply. It will be popular among the lords of this time.”

"A garden, some travel, and our cat." You chuckle, thinking how much Bowie will enjoy being a mouser on a small farm. Even just in a house with a garden. "We would have space enough for two cats if we wanted to give Bowie a friend. Or even for you to have a horse again, if you wanted."

He had not thought about that and he immediately perks up at the idea. This is the longest he had ever been without a horse since he had become a mercenary. “Would you want another horse? Go for rides again?”

"I think it could be fun." Backtracking the way you had walked a few hours ago, you and Pero start up the hill to return to the old village center hand in hand. "I think you would ride your horse everywhere and entirely avoid cars if you could."

“It would be better.” He immediately agrees, even though he’s learning to drive, he does not enjoy it. “It’s exercise. That metal monstrosity does nothing but shorten my life.”

"I'll do the driving and you'll do the riding, then." Returning to driving is actually something you've enjoyed, but you know he hates it. It has, however, made you a much more cautious driver to have him in the car with you.

“I don’t know if that makes it better, bruja.” He snorts, smirking over at you when you huff, all offended at his words.

"I'll send you back to Scotland to drive around with Sarah and then you'll be glad to be riding with me again." As much as you adore her, Sarah MacLeod is not the best driver in the world, and you know that being in her car as his first automobile experience probably colored Pero's opinion of driving forever.

His face drops instantly and he looks like he’s going to get sick. “Never again, Sassenach.” He groans. “Not while my feet still work.”

That sends you into a fit of giggles, and you grip his hand as you walk up the hill together. "Alright, maybe I won't make you ride with Sarah again. But at least I'm not the worst driver you know."

The huff that comes out of Pero is very reminiscent of when Cabello would snort and blow before stamping his foot impatiently. “You are meaner in this time, Sassenach.” He grumbles even as his grip on your hand tightens.

"You like to be teased." He always has, that was apparent to you from the beginning. "And you know that I would never do anything to make you unhappy, cariño. It's all in good fun."

He rolls his eyes at you and let’s go of your hand to swat at your ass playfully. “You are a pain in my ass, so I will pain yours.” He jokes.

"Te amo mucho, mi amor." You grin, practically sticking your tongue out at him as you walk together. Everything feels as light as air today, and seemingly nothing could cut through the good mood that has settled between you.

“I will pull you over my knee when we get back to our room.” He huffs, knowing you will enjoy it if he does. “But I won’t let you cum.”

"Now who's mean?" You pout at him dramatically, knowing that he would give in and let you have your pleasure eventually no matter what he says, but enjoying the game.

“Born mean, mi amor.” He flashes you a wicked grin and winks at you when it just makes you pout even harder.

"You say so, but I have seen you misty-eyed at not just one but two of our weddings, and caught you having entire conversations with Binx and Bowie and Caballo." This man's many different faces have always fascinated you, but perhaps that is part of being soulmates. The great privilege of having someone close to you that will never tire or bore you. Someone who will challenge, love, encourage, and support you through the best and the worst of life. Someone to complete you - no matter where or when you are.

Pero grumbles under his breath, flushing slightly at your call out of his supposed tender behavior. It flies in the face of the hard facade he had shown the world for nearly his entire life. “Mean.” He huffs, as if he’s trying to convince you.

“Maybe I am.” You shrug, hand still in his. “Maybe you are. But I think we’re the best version of ourselves now that we’re together.”

"I can agree to that." Pero knows that he doesn't want to be without you again, it was too painful for that year once he had entwined his soul with yours. "Now we don't need to be apart." He chuckles quietly. "We will have our modern house and live everyday like we did in the cottage."

“Te amo, mi corazón.” Lifting His hand to your lips, you leave a kiss in his skin and smile. Te amo mucho.”

"Mi vida es tuya." My life is yours. Pero reminds you simply, knowing you feel the same.

“What else would you like to do today, amor?” There had been more to find at the site of your old cottage than you could possibly have anticipated, but you still have an entire evening ahead of you.

"That is up to you." Pero murmurs softly. "We can explore the village or we can see about getting a meal and going back to the cottage to eat there. Under that tree?"

“We could do both?” With both of you softened a little, you lean your head on his shoulder for a moment at the corner of a street waiting for a group of cars to pass so you can keep walking. “We could walk around until we find something good to eat and then walk back down to the cottage to have our meal.”

Pero hums his agreement, finding it to be a good idea. He also has another plan for tonight back at the site of the cottage you and he had shared so many years ago. Biting his lip, he nods. "Perfecto."

******

Once your things are settled back at the inn, the two of you wander town some more. Modern shops mix with historical sites in this place that is so obviously fond of its heritage, and you share a few good laughs about how you would be the town’s most treasured visitors if they only knew about your past. Eventually you wander into the bakery that stands on the same site as the old baker’s shop, and though they aren’t using his same stone oven, they are baking with the same ancient principles in mind. Tartines, a small loaf of seeded bread, and a few pastries are added to your accumulated picnic of wine and cheese, and you’re ready to head back down to the tree Pero planted by your old cottage.

When the chest had been pulled out of the bag, it had been replaced with the throw blanket the hotel had set out on the couch in the small sitting area. Wanting to use it to put down on the ground when you eat. You had told him that in this time picnics were romantic things, rather than just eating during a rest for the horses. Spreading it under the tree, the blanket sits where your bed would have been in cottage and Pero smirks, sitting down and patting the space beside him. "Sit, amor."

You’re careful with the food, seeing everything down gently, and setting down your own bag in the corner of the blanket to sit down beside him. It’s a beautiful, sunny day and warm, so a picnic is just the thing for your dinner.

“This was your safe fortress for a long time.” Pero murmurs, unable to see any of the Stones that had made up the walls of the cottage. Most likely it had been torn down to use for other things. “It was a nice cottage, better with a roof on it.” He teases.

“It’s useless for me to argue that I would have thatched it myself eventually, isn’t it?” You roll your eyes at him to make him laugh and reach for the wine bottle and corkscrew that you bought while you were out. “You kept me warm and safe that winter, amor. And I will always be grateful.”

"It was the most comfortable I had ever been." Pero admits, having taken pride in making sure there was a warm fire in the hearth and meat in your pot. It had felt like the first home he had since leaving his father's.

“And now that honor will go to our farmhouse after it’s built.” There is no need for glasses, the two of you can easily share a bottle of wine without having to be dainty. The box containing your tartines sits open beside the pastry box containing madeleines and macarons, with the baguette and cheese waiting to be devoured just beyond that. A veritable feast.

“The cheese maker’s shop being a what did you call it? A delicatessen? That was ironic.” Pero had groaned happily at the variety of cheeses available now and there are a lot of them in your picnic.

“It was exciting,” you contend, knowing that the cured meats in the cases and windows along with the dozens of varieties of cheese will be calling you back before the week is up. You’ll end up shipping a crate of things home, you can feel it in your bones. “Dig in, love. No reason to wait when it’s just the two of us out here.” A few passersby have been out, some of them with dogs, but no one has bothered you. They apparently know tourists when they see them.

“Remember that first day Briac brought all the supplies to your door? I thought your eyes were going to pop out of your head. They were so wide.” Pero chuckles as he pulls out the pocketknife you gave him to start slicing the cheeses.

“I had no idea you would spend so much on supplies!” Laughing with him, you reach for a piece of tartine and hum at the spicy scent of the mustard holding all the toppings on the fresh, crusty bread. “I was used to saving every single coin I could and trading as much as possible. It was like Christmas come early to me.”

“I was not going all winter without cheese and ale.” Pero hands you a slice of cabrales and takes another for himself. “I love cheese.”

“Almost as much as you love me.” You can’t resist teasing him, batting your eyelashes dramatically so he doesn’t pout about having to choose.

“Almost.” He huffs, popping the cheese into his mouth with a grin and then letting out a filthy moan. It’s creamy and slightly funky and he’s already cutting another piece off of the large wedge.

“That good?” As soon as you ask the question you pop the piece he handed into your own mouth and have a nearly identical reaction that sends you both into a fit of laughter. “Holy shit that’s good.”

“It’s that good.” There’s is a leer in his grin as he leans closer, waggling his brows slightly.

“Are you implying that this cheese is as good as fucking me?” You raise your eyebrows at him imperiously, trying not to snort or giggle at the little game. It is very good cheese, after all.

“This cheese is almost as good as fucking you.” Pero shuffles closer, smirking as he breaks off another bite of the cheese and pops it into his mouth. “But I must compare quickly.”

“Amor…” That combination of predatory gaze and a knowing smirk usually only means one thing, and if you weren’t literally out in the open you would be all for it. “We would be seen.”

Pero scoffs, not caring if he were seen making love to his soulmate - his wife. “We are behind the tree.” He argues, cutting his eyes over. “We will not be seen if you just lay against the trunk.”

“If we’re seen we could be arrested.” The argument isn’t exactly stalwart, not when you’re leaning into him and a mere fraction of an inch away from kissing him.

“Who cares?” Pero has been in a stockade more times than he can count, was chained to a wall in China. A modern slap on the wrist means nothing to him. “You do not want me inside you where we use to fuck so many years ago?” He asks, lifting a brow. “You could ride my cock, your dress would cover us from being seen.”

It’s strangely sentimental at the same time that it is breathtakingly arousing, and you bite your lip hard while considering the pros and cons. When the pros - i.e. sex with Pero - inevitably win out, you nod slightly and push in to capture his lips in a kiss. This might actually outdo the time you wrapped your legs around his waist and let the ocean waves help you ride him one night when the beach was empty.

The growl Pero lets out is feral. Twisting his body and dragging you into his lap so that you are blocked by the tree and his back so that none will see you. He doesn’t mind public sex, his cock is hard and he has every intention of sinking into you, but he is protective of you being on display to others.

“Shhhh.” It’s barely a chastisement as you squirm in his lap and bite back a needy gasp. “We have to be quiet, amor.”

“They will think it an animal and stay away.” Pero huffs, pushing his hands up under your skirt to fumble with his jeans. In this instance, he wishes he were wearing his easier to access breeches, although he’s grateful you are wearing a skirt.

It really is a useless endeavor to wear underwear around Pero, but when his fingers slip inside the slick fabric and tug your panties to the side, you tell yourself it’s your honeymoon and you’re not only allowed to be horny – it’s expected. Raising yourself up just a little is all you need for Pero to shift beneath you, and you bite down on your lip hard to keep from moaning as you sink down on his length.

There is magic in the way your body takes him that is it’s own web of power. Sucking the breath from his lungs and clouding his mind with you, pushing everything else aside. He pulses and twitches in the snug warmth of your walls, hands gripping your hips harshly. “Fuck.” He hisses quietly, already breathing heavily.

“Goddamn.” You hiss in agreement, starting out with just making small circles in his lap. There is barely any rise and fall to your hips yet, but partly because of Pero’s iron grip on that part of your body while he twitches eagerly inside you.

“You- mierda, you feel like heaven.” Pero praises, ducking his head and starting to kiss along your neck and across your collarbone. Ever since he thought of returning here he imagined you like this again, right here. The cottage fully reconstructed in his mind as you grind down on him.

“S-such a bad — fuck — fucking influence.” Careful to keep your lips tight by his ear, just only need to whisper the words for him to hear them. Your hips swivel and rock, taking him as deep as you can and giving you a surge of pleasure every time your walls pulse around him.

He knows his fingers dig into your skin through the fabric, you will have tender spots on your skin that will be loving reminders. The first time he had done that, he had been upset to hurt you, but you like it and Pero groans in agreement. “You and your -your cunt are all that matter right- right now.” He chokes out, trying to roll his hips up.

Kissing him is going to be the only way to keep yourself quiet, and you cling to him in the shadow of the enormous hazelnut tree. The whole rest of the world has dissolved from your mind and it’s only you and Pero - just two soulmates moving together in secluded pleasure. Nothing else exists.

Pero grunts into your mouth, absorbing your whines with pleasure. His hips push up and he tenses when you tighten around him. Loving how uninhibited you are right now, even though the two of you are completely covered.

It’s all about small, subtle movements right now. There is nothing in the world that could stop you at this point, as you rock closer and closer to the point of no return. Your legs tense on either side of him, gripping his thighs with your knees and holding on as tight as you possibly can even as your fingers dig into his shoulders while you try desperately not to cry out.

“Good girl.” He growls into your ear, hand splayed wide across your back and holding you close. “Mi esposa es tan buena para mí.” My wife is so good to me.

“Mi esposo es increible.” My husband is incredible. The shuddering tension in the depth of your belly is as familiar as breathing with Pero is your life, and you chase it with your cunt bearing down in his cock as tightly as a glove.

He can feel that you are close, starting to quicken his pace under you. “Cum for me.” Growling quietly, he presses his lips to yours to muffle the cry he knows is coming.

You hardly need the extra encouragement, but you whimper in agreement and nods eagerly as you pick up the pace just that much more. Discreet as you’re trying to be, you’re certain that anyone who saw you would recognize your movements - but frankly you’re so close to your peak that you don’t even care. Tighter and tighter, the coil in your belly snaps with one particularly well-placed thrust from Pero, sending you over the edge as your forehead drops to his shoulder so you can bite your lip and grip his shoulders as solidly as you need to keep quiet while you come apart on top of him.

His pleasure rumbles through him, like an avalanche as it sweeps over his body. Only allowing him to give into the need once your body bows and arches in pleasure. Curling around his spine and making him shudder, Pero pumps himself deep with a low groan of your name.

Gasping for breath includes a giggle, and you raise your head to press a kiss to Pero’s lips as your body against his. “Te amo, mi corazón. Eres el sol in mi cielo.” I love you, my heart. You are the sun in my sky.

He smirks, reaching up and cupping your cheeks. “Eres la bruja que me ha robado el corazón.” You are the witch who has stolen my heart. Pero teases and kisses the tip of your nose. “And I do not wish to have it back.”

______

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rosietrace · 11 months

Text

Meet the Addams

╔══ஓ๑†๑ஓ══╗

The Addams family ╚══ஓ๑†๑ஓ══╝

Reblogs > Likes

꒷︶ ̇ ̟ ෆ ‿︵‿୨❈ † ❈୧‿︵‿ ෆ ̟ ̇ ︶꒷

† - Deceased

Main family members

Father - Aldrich Addams(25)

Mother - Victoria Addams(25)

Daughter - Juvia Addams(13)

Staff

Butler - Soldiel(22)

Distant relatives

Ellis Clawthorne-Addams - Aunt(21)

Valentine Addams - Uncle † (24)

Evonie Addams - Cousin(16)

Warning: Potentially ooc

꒷︶ ̇ ̟ ෆ ‿︵‿୨❈ † ❈୧‿︵‿ ෆ ̟ ̇ ︶꒷

Aldrich Addams (@/revivemyreverie)

“Look at her. I would die for her. I would kill for her. Either way, what bliss.”

˚₊· ͟͟͞➳❥ Father of Juvia Addams and husband to Victoria Addams

↳ Aldrich is incredibly doting on his family, more specifically his wife - who he seems to be absolutely obsessed with to an almost unhealthy degree.

↳ His relationship with his brother - Valentine - is.... Complicated, to say the least. He didn't even care when he went missing, and soon went missing.

↳ Funnily enough, he was the one who married into the family. When he and Victoria met, he called her a heretical witch. How they fell in love - with Aldrich soon embracing his beloved's (and eventually his daughter's) love for the macabre - is beyond the comprehension of everyone around them.

↳ He regularly spoils his wife and daughter. It's going to the point where he's, as Victoria describes, “like a cat gifting its owner dead rats”

꒷︶ ̇ ̟ ෆ ‿︵‿୨❈ † ❈୧‿︵‿ ෆ ̟ ̇ ︶꒷

Victoria Addams

“Don't torture yourself, Gomez.... That's my job.”

˚₊· ͟͟͞➳❥ Mother of Juvia Addams and wife to Aldrich Addams

↳ Considered the head of the family, most servants Soldiel would most often go to Victoria instead of her husband.

↳ Juvia absolutely adores her mother, and Aldrich is utterly shameless when it comes to showering her in affection.

↳ She is a woman who doesn't question anything regarding the behavior of both her husband and daughter. To her, it's rather normal! At the end of the day, the family would choose each other before all else.

↳ Somehow managed to get Aldrich to embrace the macabre, which is quite honestly a miracle in of itself. Though, he does have his habits of referring to people as ‘witches’. As for Juvia, like her husband, Victoria loves spoiling her rotten.

꒷︶ ̇ ̟ ෆ ‿︵‿୨❈ † ❈୧‿︵‿ ෆ ̟ ̇ ︶꒷

Juvia Addams (@/windbornearchon)

“We're going to play a game.... It's called ‘Is there a god’?”

˚₊· ͟͟͞➳❥ Adopted daughter of Victoria and Aldrich Addams

↳ Juvia idolizes both of her parents. She can't help but admire her mother's grace and poise, and aspire to have as much devotion to someone as her father and his eccentricity. Like her parents, she doesn't seem to see anything wrong about their behavior.

↳ Despite being only 13, Juvia's actually quite smart! It's actually the reason she got into Nevermore academy so early before she could turn 16!

↳ Out of all her distant relatives, she adores her aunt Ellis the most. She doesn't know Evonie that well, and she certainly doesn't know how to feel about her uncle based on what her father said about him before his ‘death’.

↳ Though at first she was a bit insecure, given that she didn't look like her mother or her father, it didn't take long for Juvia to accept herself as she is after remembering: “You don't need to be an Addams by blood, to be an Addams at heart.”

꒷︶ ̇ ̟ ෆ ‿︵‿୨❈ † ❈୧‿︵‿ ෆ ̟ ̇ ︶꒷

Soldiel (@/abyss-wonderer)

“You rang?”

˚₊· ͟͟͞➳❥ Butler to the Addams family

↳ Soldiel is a calm, but quiet figure in the family. He doesn't speak much, only doing so when necessary, and more or less has a seemingly permanent smile on his face. Unless it is someone he's close with, Soldiel won't begin conversation.

↳ He once stood as Juvia's moral compass when she was first adopted, and they were practically inseparable ever since. If Juvia ever needs any advice, Soldiel is there to lend an ear. In the case of the parents, he mostly answers to Victoria, but that isn't to say he disobeys any orders given to him by Aldrich.

↳ The man is quick on getting work done, so it's no wonder that he was hired as the butler for the Addams family. And he can't help but feel endeared by the amount of love the family has for one another.

↳ He finds nothing wrong with the family's odd tastes and love for the macabre. Most people would call him insane for that, but to be frank, Soldiel doesn't care.

꒷︶ ̇ ̟ ෆ ‿︵‿୨❈ † ❈୧‿︵‿ ෆ ̟ ̇ ︶꒷

Ellis Clawthorne-Addams (@/starry-night-rose)

“That's not what I wanted! That's not who I was! I was a ballerina! GRACEFUL. DELICATE.”

˚₊· ͟͟͞➳❥ Aunt of Juvia Addams

↳ Ellis married into the family, but because of the person she married being.... Well, dead, no one really bothers talking about her husband. Not even Ellis herself.

↳ Relentlessly dotes on Juvia and frequently spends her time with her sister-in-law. As for Aldrich, she's more or less neutral with him, if not a little annoyed by him.

↳ Known as “The Black widow”, a murderer known for killing their husbands shortly after their marriage.

↳ Her aesthetics happen to contrast with the family a lot, but it isn't really something she considers a bad thing. In fact, the family doesn't really care!

꒷︶ ̇ ̟ ෆ ‿︵‿୨❈ † ❈୧‿︵‿ ෆ ̟ ̇ ︶꒷

Valentine Addams

“I will devote my entire waking moment to your happiness alone.”

˚₊· ͟͟͞➳❥ Uncle of Juvia Addams, deceased...?

↳ There seems to be no information....

↳ Please skip this segment until further notice

꒷︶ ̇ ̟ ෆ ‿︵‿୨❈ † ❈୧‿︵‿ ෆ ̟ ̇ ︶꒷

Evonie Addams (@/phoenix-manga)

“Woe to the republic.”

˚₊· ͟͟͞➳❥ Cousin of Juvia Addams

↳ Like Ellis, Evonie somewhat sticks out among the family due to her different choice of aesthetic. But also like Ellis, the family couldn't care less and love her either way.

↳ Evonie is a skilled swordswoman, and frequently challenges both her uncle and aunt into spars to test her abilities and improve.

↳ At the moment, she isn't particularly close with Juvia, but she wishes to grow a bond with her as time goes on!

↳ She doesn't really understand why no one seems to speak about Valentine. To be fair, though; she doesn't speak about him either.

꒷︶ ̇ ̟ ෆ ‿︵‿୨❈ † ❈୧‿︵‿ ෆ ̟ ̇ ︶꒷

Taglist (Please notify is you wish to join/if anyone wasn't listed in the taglist by accident)

🥥 @starry-night-rose • @windbornearchon • @authoruio • @nem0-nee • @fumikomiyasaki • @sakuramidnight15

@revolllutionary • @phoenix-manga • @sandbees • @celiica • @twsted-princess • @oseathepebble • @vivaresmala • @vaporvipermedia • @spadecentral • @geminiiviolets •

@angelthoughtz

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flyingraijin · 2 years

Text

One Day | A. Miya

Summary: When you get asked by Vogue Japan to be the star of their "Day in the life of a Pro Volleyball player" video, you agree because you don't think there's much that could go wrong. You just need to film one day in your life, from morning to evening, and show the world what the outside hitter of one of Japan's V.league Division 1 female teams does with their time.

Unfortunately, your boyfriend is an absolute menace, and decides to act as such for the whole world to see.

Pairing: ProVB player!Atsumu x female ProVB player!reader

Warnings: Post timeskip, fluff, humour, some suggestive jokes/references, swearing, established relationship, mentions of ankle injuries, reader is flexible, disclaimer: i'm not a volleyball player to i probably got some details wrong

Word Count: 13 007

Available on AO3 here

Note: so i'm currently going through an atsumu phase, and while I'm in the process of working on a longer story for him, I decided just to make this as a little side project. It really has no significance but it was fun for me to write, so i'm hoping it'll be fun for you guys to read too ;)

"Good morning everyone! I've just woken up and it's…" you check the time on your watch, squinting through sleep-blurred eyes down at the bright numbers flashing back at you. "... five thirty three am and I do not want to be awake right now."

From what you can see in the mirrored image of yourself on your phone screen, there's barely enough light in your quiet bedroom for the camera to pick up on you at all. Usually, it wouldn't be practical to film anything in this kind of lighting, but you've had very strict instructions from the team at Vogue to film as much of your day as possible, starting from the very second you wake up.

Under normal circumstances, you would just turn on the light so the camera on your phone could actually register the fact that you're there. However, you just so happen to have a certain someone snoring in bed beside you; a certain someone who has a day off today and would be very unimpressed with you if you woke him up by flicking the bedroom lights on at five in the morning.

A small smile crosses your face as you glance over at Atsumu, a smile you hope the camera doesn't pick up on. When being asked by the team at Vogue Japan if you would do a "Day in the life" video as a V.League Division one player for their YouTube channel, as well as a few follow-on interviews, you had tried to bring up the fact that your boyfriend, another div one player, lived with you, and so there was a very high possibility that the video may turn into more of a couple's vlog than anything else. You aren't personally bothered by this but the Vogue Japan people didn't seem to like the idea much, and had so given you instructions to keep Atsumu out of things.

"This is a chance for the female side of the V.League to get more coverage, " they had told you animatedly when you brought it up. "The men are so famous already, we want you to be the star of this video!"

Which you also aren't personally bothered by at all; being the star beside your "best setter in Japan" boyfriend is sometimes difficult, and getting your own little piece of fame to keep to yourself will probably be nice. However, you know Atsumu doesn't like the idea at all.

Which is why, instead of staying in bed for an extra five minutes to mess with Atsumu's hair, as you would usually do, you throw the covers back and haul yourself to your feet, taking your phone with you. You keep the camera recording as you tiptoe your way out of the master bedroom, being as quiet as physically possible so as not to wake Atsumu up. And then you close the door on your way out.

"Sorry about that," you mumble a little awkwardly down to your phone camera as you make your way down the hallway towards the kitchen. "My, uh, boyfriend was sleeping. And he's a bit of a menace if he gets woken up too early on his day off."

You're able to switch the kitchen lights on once you get there, and as the screen of your phone is flooded with light, you get your first proper look at what your appearance is like so early in the morning. And it makes you snort in laughter.

You set your phone down on the kitchen island before holding out your arms and doing a little twirl in front of the camera, showing off your incredibly messy hair, the old Inarizaki High volleyball sweater you're wearing and the threadbare pair of boxers covered in cartoon foxes that you've got on as your pyjamas bottoms. "So yeah, guys, welcome to a day in my life! I hope you all enjoy!"

You hit the stop button on the recording then and save the video to a folder in your photo album title 'Vogue vid'. Then you switch your phone off and put it face down on the counter top before leaning forward to rest your head against the cool marble. It's not as if you're camera shy - you've been playing sports on TV for a while now- but filming yourself like this is already making you feel a little uncomfortable.

A long sigh leaves your lungs and your shoulders heave when you realise how long the day is probably going to be.

“Usually,” you say in as quiet of a voice as you can, as you chop up some banana on your countertop. “I start off my morning with a smoothie of some sort.” Your phone is balanced against one of the jars full of protein powder that live permanently on your kitchen counter, and you glance at it intermittently as you make yourself breakfast. “At lot of the time, you’ll see volleyball players eating a lot. We’re almost always hungry because of the amount of energy it takes in order to play any position on the court. And usually, it is actually recommended to eat a proper, solid meal before getting into hardcore practice. However…” you pause for a second as you throw the chopped banana into your blender. “I prefer smoothies. I used to eat a full solid meal for breakfast, but then during one morning practice a couple of years ago, I was jumping around so much that I threw up.” You grimace at the memory. “Since then, I’ve decided to stick to smoothies. Same amount of nutrition but not as uncomfortable to spike with.”

You shrug a shoulder nonchalantly and then press the power button on the blender, watching as all the carefully chopped fruits and vegetables you’d filled it with are churned up into a pretty gross-looking green mush. Thankfully, your blender has a muffling cover on it, so it isn't so horrendously loud early in the morning, but you still wince a little as what sound that is produced fills the kitchen. Atsumu still isn’t up; it’s only six am by now and despite the fact that you've been in and out of the bedroom since you woke up, changing into sweatpants and a jumper, and packing your bag for the day, you’re sure he’ll probably sleep until at least seven unless he’s woken up inorganically.

Which you don’t want to do because a) you’ll feel guilty of depriving him of the extra sleep he so desperately needs, and b) he’ll no doubt be a nuisance for the video you’re trying to get done.

Once your smoothie is mixed completely, you switch the blender off and then go to pour the green sludge into your shaker bottle. You make sure to show it to the camera, your nose scrunching a little as you watch the thick mush slide along the glass sides of the blender jug. Once it’s all been decanted, you set the blender back in place; you don’t bother with cleaning it out, preferring to leave that to Atsumu, since he loves to do that for you when you have days off and he doesn't.

“It doesn’t taste the greatest,” you say to your phone as you shake your bottle around a little, eyeing the mixture within it. “But I’ll die at practice if I don’t drink it so…”

You squeeze your eyes shut and take a sip, swallowing it before you can really get a taste of the mixture of banana, raw egg, spinach and other stuff.

You take the next few minutes to make your way through your breakfast, pausing every few seconds for a break. And as you do, you can’t help but glance at your camera awkwardly. The Vogue people had said they wanted every detail of your day, however, you have a strong feeling they’re severely overestimating how interesting your life is. Yes, being a pro athlete is amazing, however, a good chunk of your life is spent doing things like this; standing around as you force down a smoothie that tastes like algae and try not to wake your boyfriend up.

Which, speaking of….

“Who’re ya talkin’ to?”

The thick voice startles you and you have to slap a hand over your mouth to stop yourself from spitting your smoothie out. Whipping around, you find said boyfriend leaning against the counter at the entrance of the kitchen, still in his pyjamas and with his hair sticking up in every direction possible. Despite this, there’s a sharp glint in his amber eyes and you can tell he’s fighting back a smile - probably from seeing you almost choke on your breakfast.

You swallow what you’ve got in your mouth and then put your hand on your chest, feeling your heart racing beneath the thick sweater you’d changed into. “Atsumu, holy shit! Don’t do that?”

“What?” Atsumu asks innocently, stepping forward. “I was just askin’.”

“Warn me first,” you say back, rolling your eyes, before turning back to your phone. “I swear, I almost had a heart attack.”

“Sounds like a you problem,” Atsumu mumbles in reply as he steps even closer. In the mirror recording on your phone screen, you see him notice the camera. One of his eyebrows quirks.

“Watcha doin’?”

“Vogue video,” you say back shortly. Atsumu’s mouth opens a little in realization.

“Whoa, is that today?"

“Yeah.”

“Damn,” he mumbles, looking disappointed. “I was hopin’ it’d be on a work day for both of us, so I could show off."

You turn to give him an unimpressed look while you force yourself to take another sip of your smoothie. “I think it’s kind of the point that it’s about me?” you tell him, raising an eyebrow. “Since you’ve literally got a whole Netflix show following the Black Jackals?”

Atsumu just makes a face at you, waving away your words of logic. “More cameras, more coverage,” he mumbles back, moving closer to your back. You watch in the camera as he sidles up behind you, only to slip his arms around your waist and press his forehead into your shoulder from behind. The corner of your mouth quirks.

“What’re you doing up anyway?” you ask quietly, knowing the Vogue video editors can probably just cut this all out once you send them the footage. “Did I wake you up?”

“Nah,” Atsumu mumbles. “The bed was just cold without ya.”

“Aww,” you chuckle, and reach back with your free hand to scratch your fingers through his hair. “You’re such a sap.”

“Only for you,” he says, and then raises his head. You twist your own neck around so you can look at his face, and can’t help but smile when you notice the grin on his lips. Shaking your head, you lean back to press a kiss to his cheek.

“That’s adorable. But let me go, I’ve gotta get to practice.”

Atsumu’s grin immediately disappears and is replaced by an over-exaggerated, childish pout. It only makes you laugh harder. “C’mon,” you tell him. “Let me goooo.”

“Noooo!” Atsumu mumbles as his arms tighten around your waist. “Stay with me.”

“Atsumu,” you chastise, setting your empty shaker bottle down on the counter so you can use both arms to wrestle at his grip around you. “I need to go to work. And I need to film this video.”

“Fuck the video.”

"Atsumu!” you slap at his hand. “It’s still recording, dumbass.”

“Don’t care,” he grumbles as he buries his head in your shoulder again. You let out a long groan and then look back at your camera, hiding a smile.

“This is why I didn’t want to wake him up,” you say to the video matter-of-factly. “He’s like a spoiled toddler.”

That gets Atsumu’s attention and he raises his head to fix you with an incredulous look. “I am not!’

“You are,” you emphasis in return, and then take advantage of his distraction to slip out of his grasp and duck away from him. He grumbles in defeat but doesn't try to grab you again, obviously having accepted the fact that you do actually have to do your job. Chuckling, you turn to put your empty shaker bottle in the dishwasher. “Hey, could you get my bag for me?” you ask him as you do so. “It’s in the bedroom.”

Atsumu makes a face at you that you can just feel despite having your back turned. But then you hear his lazy footsteps shuffling out of the kitchen and back down the hallway, presumably to get what you’d asked. Your heart warms immediately.

“He may act like a toddler sometimes,” you say quietly to you camera once you’ve put your bottle away. “But I still love him. Don’t tell him that though.”

You stop the recording then, and save the video to the same folder as before. Then you take a few seconds to go through your messages, checking to see if you have anything urgent to attend to before you start practice. Thankfully, there doesn't seem to be anything, and you are ready when Atsumu slouches back into the kitchen, your volleyball duffle bag full of your uniform, shoes and other equipment slung over his shoulder.

“You didn’t have a practice shirt packed,” he informs you as he hands the bag over, “so I packed one for ya.”

You smile at him in thanks as you sling the bag over your own shoulder. Then you lean forward to kiss his cheek again. “I'll see you at lunch, okay?”

Atsumu nods. “I’ll bring you something from Osamu’s.” He reaches out to catch your arm and pulls you towards him properly before you can head for the door. His lips meet yours in a soft kiss that you both savour for as long as you possibly can. It's rare that you see each other on mornings like these; when one of you has a day off and the other has to go to training. Your rest days almost never line up so you’re not used to having so much lazy time with Atsumu, even if it is just a few extra seconds to spend kissing him. You appreciate it regardless.

“See you later,” you mumble when the pair of you do eventually break apart. He flashes you a sharp grin in response.

“See ya.”

And then you’re off, stepping out the door of your shared apartment and bundling yourself in your coat as you begin your journey to the gym that is your workplace.

A few of your teammates are already at the gym when you arrive, some of them already dressed in their practice gear and some not. You smile and wave to all of them as you step in and make for the locker room so you can out your bag down and change out of your sweats and hoodie, and into your volleyball clothes. As you dump your bag down on one of the benches, you pull your phone out again and, after checking to make sure there’s no one else around you changing, you hit record on the camera.

“So I get to the gym at around six thirty,” you start, deciding that sticking to narrating your day is probably the safest option in keeping things concise. “My morning practice starts at seven and then goes till around ten thirty. We do a lot of stretching in the morning to warm up and then we usually play a practice match; sometimes it's within the team, or other times we’ll have other teams in the area come play against us. It's never anything too hectic, since it is still practice, but it’s a nice way to start off the day.”

As you talk, you unpack your bag, first pulling out your water bottle and then the wad of medical tape you keep with you at all times. You hold it up for the camera to see.

“I’ve had to use a lot of this recently because I messed my ankle a little bit a few months back. I’m still cleared to play and practice, but it just adds a little extra support for my muscles and helps me keep it from getting re-injured.”

You look down again and pull out the next thing nestled in your bag; your shoes. You hold these up next.

“These are my volleyball shoes. At first glance, you can see they look a lot like normal trainers but”- you turn them over to show the soles of the shoes (you’ll never admit that you'd bought a whole new pair just so they would look nice for the video) -”they’ve got these special gel soles which provide better traction on the gym floor so we don't slide around when we’re playing.”

You put the shoes down on the bench and then begin with unpacking your clothes. You pull out the pair of practice shorts you usually wear; simply black spandex shorts that go to your upper thigh. Then you reach for the t-shirt.

Only to pull out something that is definitely not what you would usually wear for practice.

Immediately your face falls and you think back to earlier this morning. Atsumu had said he'd packed a shirt for you since you’d forgotten one - you’re starting to think that you actually hadn't left one out of your bag, but instead Atsumu had just swapped your usual shirt for one he liked better.

Because the shirt in your hand is not the plain white, slightly baggy shirt with just the ICS logo in the corner that's provided for all players sponsored by the brand; no, it’s one of Atsumu’s practice shirts, which is black and not white, and as well as having the familiar footprint logo on one shoulder, also has the logo of the MSBY Black Jackals on the other.

As you hold it up, you can tell it's not one of the ones he wears currently; it’s definitely too small. Most likely, it's one of the one's he was provided when he joined the team a few years back, when he was considerably less beefy. Despite this though, it's much bigger than the shirt you’d usually wear for practice.

You scoff openly and then turn to show it to the camera. “This is not my shirt,” you reiterate to your future audience, the disdain evident in your voice. “This is my boyfriend being a twat. But he stole my other shirt so I guess this is all I have.”

You double check just to make sure you hadn’t left one of your other practice shirts in here on accident. But there definitely isn’t one - probably Atsumu’s work again - and so, once you end your video and put your phone down, you're forced to pull the large black shirt on over your sports bra.

At least it's comfortable, you think to yourself as you put the rest of your things away in your locker. And it smells like Atsumu, which is an added bonus.

Still, you catch yourself rolling your eyes once again as you collect your water bottle, phone, medical tape, knee pads, shoes and socks before heading back towards the main gym. He is such an idiot.

There are about four other people in the volleyball gym when you get there; with both nets already set up and the courts ready for your usual practice match. It only takes you one glance around to judge that there won’t be any other teams joining for the practice match today, which allows you a sigh of relief. Wearing your boyfriend’s shirt in front of your teammates, you can handle. But if you had to do it in front of another team… no.

You wave at your teammates as you move over to one corner of the gym to set your things down. After balancing your phone up against the wall, you hit record for a new video and then sit back on the floor, keeping yourself in centre frame.

“So, we’re about to start practice,” you say to the camera, feeling a little self conscious of the fact that there are other people probably giving you odd looks. “And I’m gonna take you guys through my little pre-warm up routine.” You spread your things out in front of you, including your medical tape, shoes, socks and knee pads. First you grab the tape and then bend one leg so you can pull your right ankle towards you.

“I’m feeling a bit of tightness in my achilles from yesterday’s practice, so I’m gonna tape things up today,” you explain as you start ripping strips of tape and winding them around your ankle in a pattern you're very familiar with by now. “I did ice it last night, so I’m hoping it will all stay fine today,” you add on, as you rub the tape into place. Then you lift your foot to rotate your ankle a few times, testing out the feeling. Satisfied, you put your foot down and then go to pick up your knees pads.

“Right, next is my padding,” you explain to the camera. “I’m an outside hitter so I’m not usually diving on the floor as much as a defence specialist like a libero might do. However, it’s still important to protect the knees just in case I do have to pull off some kind of crazy receive.” You pull the black pads up over your foot and then along your shin until they fit snuggly over each of your knees. You bend both your legs back and forth a few times to make sure they’re properly in place. Then you look back at the camera.

“Sometimes,” you say, “I actually wear compression leggings under my uniform. Usually when I’m feeling extra stiff, or when I'm prepping for a big match. They help quite a bit because they stimulate the muscles more, and also protect more skin. But since today is only a casual practice, I’m not wearing them. So the knee pads will be just- ohmygod!’

You let out a small shriek as your soul seems to leave your body for the second time this morning. At that moment, you’d looked up at the screen of your phone and seen a figure leaning over your shoulder staring right at the camera, and it had scared the living shit out of you. Whipping around, you use one of your clean socks to smack at the person responsible, your face burning in embarrassment.

“Jesus christ, Kira, don't do that!"

Kira Chen bursts into soft giggles of laughter and collapses back onto the floor behind you, holding onto her stomach. “Holy shit, you should have see your face,” she brays through her giggles. For a moment she seems to mimic it, widening her eyes and opening her mouth in an exaggerated gasp. Then she dissolves back into laughter. “Priceless!”

You keep hitting her with your sock, your embarrassment turning into annoyance. “You’re such a cow,” you tell her. “You fucking ruined the video too!’

You turn back to look at the camera, where Kira’s head is clearly still visible behind you, tears of mirth streaming down her temples into her black hair. Looking right into the lens, you give an exaggerated shake of your head. “Sorry, she’s an idiot.”

Kira snorts a few more times before hiccuping herself into silence. Then she sits up again and turns to look at you and then the phone you have propped up against the wall. “What’re you even filming for anyway?” she asks curiously, hooking her chin over your shoulder. You shake your head at her and bend one leg, bringing your foot up close to you again so you can pull your sock on.

“I’m doing that 'Day in the Life' thing for Vogue Japan. Remember? I told you, like, yesterday?”

Kira’s eyes go wide as she finally seems to remember. Then she turns to grin evilly at your phone. “So this is going to Vogue, huh?”

“Yes,” you tell her, still preoccupied with putting on your sock. Then your mind registers the tone of her voice and you look up immediately to point an accusing finger at her. “But they will absolutely just throw it all away if you do anything too weird! So don’t ruin all my hard work for me!’

Kira holds up her hands in defence. “Don’t worry, I wasn't gonna,” she says in an innocent voice you definitely do not believe. “Sheesh, calm down, woman.”

You hit her again with your other sock before pulling it onto your foot. “Just warning you. I’ve already got Atsumu pulling stunts, I don’t need you to do anything as well.”

“I’m assuming that's what this is about,” Kira remarks, tugging at the sleeve of your shirt. You only nod in response as you focus on getting your socks even. Then you raise your legs to show your feet to the camera (not in that way).

“Socks are on! Now I would usually do some stretches and stuff just by myself to get my muscles all rolled out and relaxed before we start the proper warm up for practice.”

Kira leans around you to smile at your phone. “Our little Vogue girl here does this as an excuse to show off how flexible she is!” She pats a hand against your back and you thwack it away immediately.

“I do not!”

"Oh, come on,” Kira says, grinning. “We all know there is no other reason for you sitting here touching your toes and doing the splits and stuff other than to flex - literally - on all the rest of us.”

Your face burns because, maybe, she’s not entirely wrong. But it does also help you stretch properly, you swear it does! The fact that it comes with the ability to impress the rest of your team is just a bonus!

“Don’t listen to her,” you tell you phone as you pull your legs into a butterfly position to begin stretching. Already, you can feel the pull in your leg muscles as you use your elbows to press your knees to the wooden floor. “Kira is just salty because she can't do the splits.”

Kira scoffs and scoots around, looking like she’s finally going to get up and leave you to stretch in peace. “Bullshit,” she tells you as she heaves herself to her feet. Then something in her eyes glints and she leans down to get her head in frame on the video again. “You’re lucky there's at least one person who likes how flexible you are.”

You blink up at her in confusion. “Huh?”

Kira leans in a little closer, smirking. Then she says, “Atsumu.”

You mouth drops open in shock at the fact that she’d say that on camera. But it only gets worse when she leans in even further and whispers right at you - but loud enough for the video to pick up on - “Don’t worry, I’m sure he just loves the fact that you can get your legs up behind your head-”

You grab one of your shoes before she even gets to finish and hurl it as hard as you can at her head. It misses by just a fraction as she jumps away and sashays off, laughing.

“You know, for a spiker, you’ve got shit aim,” she calls back at you. And then she turns around.

It gives you the perfect opportunity to throw your other shoe at her, this time nailing her right in the centre of the back.

After apologising profusely to your captain, coach, and the rest of your team, and asking all of their consent to film your practice, your set your phone up in a makeshift tripod made out of spare volleyball shoes, water bottles and towels, and then take your future viewers through the warm up that you and the rest of the team do all together. It’s a mix of different stretches and a few exercises that involve setting, receiving and serving the volleyball just to get you bodies back in action. And then, by eight thirty, you’re starting with your first practice set of the day.

There are a total of fourteen members in your volleyball team, the MSBY (formerly NEC) White Foxes, with a starting line up which includes you as outsider hitter, Kira as libero, and the team captain, Mika Hori, who is a middle blocker and also a former upperclassman from your high school volleyball team, just to name a few. The whole group splits up into two teams of six for each practice match, with two people sitting out to play refs/scorers. Then each team will play a set before Mika scrambles the match ups again. That way, everyone gets to play, and if there’s someone who needs a break in particular, they’re able to sit out without disrupting the numbers. You explain all of this to your phone, and film the way the teams are positioned over the first of the two courts in the gym. Kira remains at your elbow the whole time, slipping in helpful facts when she can, and despite her earlier teasing, you actually appreciate her help a lot. This whole filming thing had been making you uncomfortable all day but now, with someone else around you help out, you don’t feel like a total idiot.

You stop filming for most of the practice matches, only asking the refs to grab you a few clips of certain rallies or serves when you can. One particularly good moment that gets captured on camera is when Kira jumps up to set from the back for you, and you pull of a pretty crazy cut shot right in from of the opposing blockers, which takes an easy point off the other team and has both you and Kira squealing in excitement and hugging each other. Kira is an amazing libero, but it’s taken her months and months to get the hang of doing proper sets instead of just bumping you the ball, and seeing that you’re getting somewhere makes both of you incredibly happy.

The team plays sets for the next two and a half hours or so before Coach Yamaha calls for a cool down. And then the whole team gets down to do some stretches before the midday break starts. You set your camera up again, intent on explain the process of the cool down and what you plan to do next, but it ends up being just you and Kira joking around for most of the video, until she eventually goads you into doing a perfect centre split for the camera.

Once that's over, you film yourself carrying all your things back to the locker rooms and slip a pair of track pants on over your spandex shorts. “It might sound gross,” you say to your camera as you throw your things back in your locker. “But most of the time I don’t shower during the midday break. There’s no point since we do even more training in the afternoon, which is usually much harder work, so we end up sweating more.” You pick up your phone and raise it slightly to show off your outfit, which now constantly of Atsumu’s shirt, your track pants and a pair of thermal booties which you'd slipped on after taking your volleyball shoes off. You point them out to the camera.

“Technically, these are for dancers. They keep the muscles in your feet warm in between sessions. But I like to wear them too, just around the gym during the break. I do a lot of jumping in the morning, so my feet can get really sore, and I prefer to keep them warm and comfortable throughout the day, instead of having to fully stretch them out again when we get started on drills later.” You lower the camera and then look down into it as Kira comes up behind you to peer over your shoulder.

“I like to tease her about it,” she says, poking you lovingly in the cheek. “She’s like one of those pretentious singers who wrap warm wet towels around their throats before they sing. It's hilarious. Plus, she looks so stupid.”

You shoot her a glare. “Hey, it’s not like I leave the gym or anything. No one but you is gonna see me!" Then you look back at the camera.

“Usually, in this break a lot of the team will go out to get lunch, or will go home and eat there. And sometimes I do that,. And when I do, then I do put on proper shoes. But I’m not going anywhere today.” You turn around to poke Kira’s cheek in return. “The both of us are just gonna hang around here fore the next couple of hours."

“Because we’re lazy pieces of shit,” Kira adds on brightly, to which you scoff loudly.

“You're a lazy piece of shit,” you clarify. “I just happen to have a boyfriend who has too much energy for a rest day, so he’s bringing me lunch today, that’s all.”

“Yeah, yeah, whatever,” Kira mumbles and turns away, grumbling under her breath about how disgusting people in relationships are. You snort quietly to yourself and then look back down at your phone. “Well, we’re gonna go get lunch, so see you guys later, I guess.” Then you hit stop on the recording, pocket your phone and go link arms with Kira as the pair of you leave the locker room and head towards the little courtyard around the back of the huge gym, where you like to spend your lunch breaks.

Atsumu arrives around a thirty minutes later, stepping through the doors into the courtyard to find you and Kira in the midst of as fierce competition of who can keep your volleyball in the air longer. Your phone is propped up against your water bottle, filming the whole thing, and Atsumu can't help but chuckle to himself as he makes his way towards the pair of you, shaking his head slowly.

You're so focussed on the ball in front of you that you don’t actually notice Atsumu until he snatches it right out of the air and drops a lunchbox into your hand instead. You jump in surprise and then bend over, pressing your hand to your chest as your heart races for what seems like the millionth time today.

“Why is everyone so intent on sending me to an early grave?” you mumble to yourself as you puff out heavy breaths. “God, warn me next time, stupid.”

Atsumu places his hand on his own chest, feigning hurt. “That's not a very nice way to speak to yer lovely boyfriend who just brought you lunch.” He starts to reach for the box in your hand. “Maybe I’ll just take this back…”

You snatch it out of his reach before he can grab it, however, and rush to duck behind Kira, who has stopped bouncing her ball to watch the pair of you in amusement. “No,” you hiss at Atsumu, staring at him from underneath one of Kira’s tiny pigtails. “My food.”

He raises his hands. “I’m just sayin’. Ya don’t seem very grateful.” He looks round to see your phone still filming. “We wouldn't want all yer Vogue viewers to think yer not treating me right, would we, sweetheart?’

You continue to glower at him but hide your face as you slink out from behind Kira. And then you plant a very sloppy, very exaggerated kiss on Atsumu’s cheek. “Thank you so much, dear boyfriend, I’m sure I will enjoy this lunch so very much!”

Kira snorts very deliberately at your sickly sweet voice and even Atsumu has to force back at laugh. He turns to you and then plants an equally sloppy kiss on your own cheek. “It’s my absolute pleasure, dear girlfriend."

You step back and then flip him off, turning away to go sit down at the outdoor lunch table where your phone is balanced. Without even having to be asked, Kira and Atsumu join you - Kira sitting opposite you while Atsumu slides onto the bench beside you. You turn your phone so the camera is now pointing at you, and give a short explanation about the nutrition of a pro volleyball player's diet and how your eating schedule for the rest of the day works. The whole time, you keep the camera focussed on yourself and much to your surprise, neither Atsumu or Kira mess with it. However, as soon as you look down to open but the box, Atsumu leans a little closer to you to pop his head into frame and smirks at the camera.

You push him away as soon as you notice, scowling. “Oi. Buzz off.”

“Aww, but I wanna be in the video-?”

You shoo him away again, and reach forward to turn your phone purposefully away from him. “This video is just for me and the girls,” you say, emphasising the last part. “Not you.”

“But sweethearttttt,” he whines, and gives you an expression that you're sure you’ve seen before on the face of a sad puppy. “I wannaaaaa-”

But this time it’s Kira who waves him off, leaning forward to swat at his face. “Go show off to Netflix,” she says, sounding just a little salty. “You don’t get Vogue as well.”

That catches Atsumu’s attention and he leans in towards Kira, a cocky smirk appearing on his face. “Oh? Are ya jealous the Black Jackals have their own Netflix show and the White Foxes don’t?”

Kira sticks her tongue out at him. “Of course not. I don't want a shitty camera crew following me around everywhere.”

“It does get annoying,” you cut it after taking a large bite out of the onigiri that Osamu has so generously made for you. It tastes absolutely exquisite, as does everything Osamu cooks. “I can’t go near their gym anymore without one of the Netflix crew sticking a camera in my face. I’m not even part of their team!”

“Yer an honorary member,” Atsumu says encouragingly, reaching out to pat you on the top of your head. When he receives a sharp glare from Kira, he holds up his hands in defence. “What? You all are! The Black Jackals and the White Foxes are subsidiaries of the same company, we’re all basically on the same team.”

He’s right. Since MSBY bought out the previous owner of the White Foxes, your team has been considered the female counterpart to the Black Jackals. You like to think that you’re known as that because you’re just as good as the men's team, however something your your gut always tells you not to be so optimistic. Still, you do have to shrug casually at Atsumu’s point.

“I guess. But still, those camera’s are so big! Even filming this little thing is awkward, I don't know how you guys can focus with an entire crew of people hanging around.”

You realise where you’ve gone wrong as soon as you say it because of course Atsumu can focus with a big group of people around. He thrives off attention and you can already see his chest puff out a little as he inevitably prepares himself to begin some speech about how the number of huge cameras is only proportionate to his massive talent.

You reach out the stuff his mouth full of rice before he even gets started.

Kira eventually moves inside to go fetch some food for herself, leaving you and Atsumu outside in the sunshine. You’ve pulled your feet up onto the bench so that you can hug your knees against the cold while you listen to Atsumu talk. Then, once he’s supposedly done describing the incredibly riveting interaction he’d had with Sakusa on his team’s group chat earlier that morning, you pull your phone out again and set it up - still keeping Atsumu out of frame - so you can narrate some of the smaller details of your life in the way the Vogue team had instructed.

When Atsumu sees you balancing your phone against your water bottle, he shoots you a scowl.

“I’m jealous of whoever's gonna be watchin' that stupid video.”

You pause what you’re doing, not yet pressing the record button, to turn and give him a questioning look. “Why?”

“Because s'been hogging yer attention all day,” Atsumu whines, furrowing his eyebrows as he pouts at you. “I feel neglected.”

You flick at his nose is a response, shaking your head. “Oh my god, you’re so clingy,” you tell him, only half joking, as you attention returns to your phone again. “It’s just one day.”

“But it’s my day off,” Atsumu continues to whine. “I wanna spend time with you.”

You shoot him an exasperated look. “Well, it’s not my day off, and I have to work.” You turn your head properly and lean over to press a fleeting kiss to the line of his jaw. “I promise as soon as this is done, you will have all of my attention.”

That seems to satisfy Astumu for the time being because he doesn’t complain any further as you get your camera at the right angle and then press the record button. You wave at it, suddenly feeling awkward now that you’re out in a more secluded spot with no one but Atsumu around. Then, you pull up your lunchbox and tip it a little to show its contents.

“So, I usually eat something like this for lunch. There’s a lot of focus put on carbs and lean proteins for our diets, since getting enough energy is important for our performance but we need to be able to build and maintain muscle.” You move your food around a little to point out the different items. “Today I’ve got two onigiri, some chicken curry with lentils, and…” you point out the little closed-off box in the corner of the main lunch box -” something sweet too for that extra boost of glucose. Usually it’ll be some kind of tropical fruit, like pineapple or mango, which has a high GI but the actual amount is pretty small. Today I’ve got watermelon.”

You put your lunchbox down again and go back to eating. “Usually I'd make this all myself,” you say between bites. “I’d probably go home during the break and make it there. But today this absolutely fabulous meal was made for me by Onigiri Miya.” You pause to give the camera sharp look. “If you ever can, make sure to drop by that restaurant, it is amazing . And when you do-”

But your sentence dies on your lips when Atsumu very suddenly leans over to steal the piece of chicken you're holding right from your chopsticks and pops it into his own mouth.

You stare at him in shock for a second before your disbelief turns sour and you set your chopsticks down indignantly. “Hey. That was mine!”

Atsumu shrugs at you, still chewing. “I was hungry,” he tells you simply through his mouthful before shooting you a smug look. “And you were talkin' too much.”

You pull your lunchbox away from him, giving him a death glare. “Go ask your brother for your own food if you’re hungry,” you tell him sulkily. That was your last piece of chicken from the curry and not getting it has made you severely displeased.

Atsumu makes a face at you. “”Samu said it’s double the price for me if I want to get stuff from him. You think I’ve got those kinda funds?”

You roll your eyes, knowing that he absolutely does , considering the salary that a pro-volleyball player for one of the top teams in Japan gets, and the added cut the comes from starring in a Netflix docu-series. He’s just stingy and refuses to give into Osamu’s brotherly tormenting.

“You're insufferable,” you start, glaring at him. “You-”

But he cuts you off again by leaning forward to press his lips to yours, effectively muffling your complaints.

You let him get what he wants for a few tenths of a second, unable to deny the fact that kissing Atsumu will always lift your mood no matter what you’re going though. However, you pull back very quickly, making sure not to show him that. “That’s disrespectful.”

“Yer disrespectful.”

You stick your tongue out at him. “You really are a toddler.”

The corner of Atsumu’s mouth quirks and then he leans in a little closer, a dangerous glint in your eyes. “Huh. Didn’t think a toddler could rail ya the way I do…”

Your eyes widen at the string of incredibly explicit words that leave his mouth and quickly you shove him away, cheeks flaming in embarrassment. “Fucking hell, Atsumu, I’m filming,” you growl at him as you grab your phone and snap the lid back on your lunchbox. “Fuckin’ twat.”

With that, you rise to your feet and turn away without giving Atsumu a second glance, deciding to go search out Kira so you can actually spend your break with someone civilised. You can hear Atsumu cackling with laughter behind you but you do little more to acknowledge him than raise your middle finger in his direction. Glancing down at the phone at your hand, you roll your eyes when you notice it’s still filming.

“Remember that things I said this morning about loving that guy,” you say quietly to the camera. “Yeah, I’m taking that all back.”

You slam your finger on the stop button as you push open the door to the gym and storm inside, your face arranged into a heavy scowl but your insides churning with butterflies.

About thirty minutes later, Mika calls for the afternoon practice to start. You and Kira make your way back onto the court and you set your phone up to speed-run through your pre-warm up routine once again, not narrating it this time. Then, once you're done, you pick up your phone and flip the camera to show the rest of the court and team. “In our afternoon practice, we do mainly technique training and drills,” you say as you do, before flipping it back to show your face again. Kira is at your shoulder again, thank goodness, and you turn your phone slightly to give her some time in the spotlight.

She pouts exaggeratedly at the camera. “I hate afternoon training.”

You snort and focus the video back on yourself. “Since Kira’s the libero, she doesn't really have to do spiking or serving drills,” you explain as the pair of you move further out onto the court. “So she mainly has to practices spike receives and ball retrieval, which she’s great at already.”

“And sets,” Kira pipes in. “Like the one we did earlier. I still gotta work on that.”

“Right,” you nod along, looking away from the camera for a moment to survey the court. Everyone from this morning is back, and the energy is back up with the entire team ready and waiting to get on with practice once again. Your eyes pass over them before flitting up to where, on one end of the large room, there are a relatively small set of stands. Your eyebrows jump in surprise when you see Atsumu reclining across a few seats a couple of rows up. He almost looks like he’s asleep, with one arm thrown over his face. But then he seems to feel your eyes on him and looks up, his gaze catching yours for a second. You just shake your head at the cocky smirk that passes over his face and turn away when he blows you an exaggerated kiss.

Kira’s eyes follow the same path yours had and then she lets out a snort of her own. Jostling her shoulder into yours, she wiggles her eyebrows at you. “Your boyfriend is watchingggggg.”

You let out a huff through your nose. “He’s trying to distract me," you tell her as the pair of you move to join the rest of the room for your warm up. “He’s trying to make this video as chaotic as possible.”

“It’d probably be pretty chaotic anyway,” Kira points out. “Since the life of a pro-volleyball player isn’t… well, organised. Most of the time.”

She’s right, but you don’t want to voice your agreement so you just grunt in response. The pair of you move to sit on the floor on the side of the court with everyone else in your team and you balance your phone on your little makeshift shoe tripod one again. You guys breeze through the warm up this time, focussing a little more on arm and shoulder stretches now to account for the drills you’ll all be performing. Then Coach Yamaha starts all of your off with some serving drills.

Ever the competitive one, you spend your time working on your spike serve. You’ve already got a killer jump floater, since that was one of your specialties in high school, but after listening to Atsumu boast incessantly about his own impeccable serving abilities and the development of his new hybrid serve, you’ve set a personal goal for yourself to be able to match him with a spike serve that's just as powerful as his. You take a second to sit with your phone and explain what you're doing, how the serving works in volleyball and the difference between a jump floater and a spike serve. You don’t talk about Atsumu purposefully not to give him too much credit and instead bring up other players to use as examples, citing Tooru Oikawa as one of the people you admire most when it comes to power serves. You turn your camera for a second too, to film the opposite hitter and best server on the team, Asami as she steps up to do a spike serve. Then you set the camera back down and go back to your own drills.

After about forty minutes, you’ve practiced the damn spike serve to death, and while it’s still not anywhere near as powerful as you'd like to get it, you're as happy with what you'd done today as you can be. Coach then calls for a swap out and you move on to spiking drills. These are always your favourite, since they’re your personal specialty, and you have a lot of fun jumping around like a fucking insect as you slam volleyballs into the opposite court left and right. You won’t lie that you do make an effort to be a little flashier than usual, hyperaware of the camera filming you as well as Atsumu’s heavy gaze from the stands above. You know that he himself sets for some of the very best spikers in the country, Sakusa, Bokuto and Ojiro, so you're hoping you can at least match up to them with the way you're currently performing. The White Foxes have never gone up against the Black Jackals in an outright match, since it's not common for female and males teams to mix, but you'd like to think you could give those boys a run for their money if you ever had the chance.

Another forty minutes go by and after pulling off a few line and cross shots that would probably have the opponents head spinning if you were in a match, you change drills again. Coach splits the group into four teams and then had you play three on three matches in the two courts. Unfortunately for you, in your first set you end up going against Kira, and so you spend a very entertaining twenty minutes pelting balls her way only for her to dig most of them up. During the next switch, you rant about this to your camera for a couple of minutes as you take a water break. And then, when you head back in, you end up on team with Kira and Mika, which tuns into a hilarious game of just how many points can you beat the other team by.

These three on three games continue on for the next hour, until everyone on the team has had a chance to play against everyone else. And then Coach finally calls for stretches and cool down.

“You guy did well today,” she yells out to your team as the group of you all collapse on the wooden court floor, sweating like pigs, with muscles that have just about turned to jelly. You shuffle over to Kira so the pair of you can chat quietly as you roll out your muscles, taking your phone with you so you can show the cool down process in full. You're acutely aware of Atsumu the entire time, knowing that if he’s stayed this whole time, he’s probably gonna ask to do some set training with you once your official practice is over - seriously, it's his rest day and he still wants to practice? What is wrong with that guy - and so you make a point not to do you entire end of practice routine just yet. Kira notices this and wiggles her eyebrows at you, making a comment about you and Atsumu getting some alone time together, but you just shove her away in response, rolling your eyes.

When the rest of the team does eventually start to trickle out of the room, you make sure to hug Kira goodbye and have her say an official goodbye to your camera. And then you sit yourself back down on the floor with yours legs in the butterfly position and wait for Atsumu to make his inevitable appearance.

Not even two minutes later, you feel a thump beside you and turn to see Atsumu sitting there, rifling through a backpack at his side as he pulls out his knee pads, socks and shoes. You raise an unimpressed eyebrow in his direction.

“You’re not even going to ask?”

Atsumu turns to give you a smug look. “Well, yer already waiting for me so I figured…”

You swat at his bicep without any malice and go back to stretching. “You’re insufferable.”

Atsumu chuckles in response and leans over to kiss your cheek. “Only for you."

From then on, the two of you get to warming up again, and this time you spend most of the fifteen minutes talking comfortably to the camera while Atsumu stretches. “Technically, practice is over,” you explain to the video, “but since my clingy boyfriend is just so desperate to spend time with me, we’re going to stay a little long to work on some more stuff.”

From out of frame, Atsumu sends you a puppy-like pout. “Hey. I can just go home if ya really want?”

Immediately you reach out to grab him as he starts to shuffle away from you. “Hell no, you’re the best setter in the country, no way I’m missing out on hitting some of your sets.”

Atsumu’s face morphs back into a cocky smirk and he wiggles his eyebrows at you. “S’what I thought.”

You slap him away and then jump to your feet. Coach Yamaha is still standing in the corner of the room reading through something on her clipboard. You move you way over to her, to inform her of the fact that you and Atsumu will be staying overtime to practice. She gives you a sharp look in response over her glasses, a look that really makes you feel like a child being reprimanded. Then she nods once.

“As long as you watch that achilles,” she tells you. “And don’t be too long. We have a practice match against the Red Rockets tomorrow morning so I’ll need to you be in top shape, alright.”

“Yes, ma’am,” you tell her immediately, nodding. The Red Rockets are your biggest rivals in the whole of Osaka and you know that Coach Yamaha has a personal vendetta against their coach, so this is a practice match you can’t afford to screw up. It's with this in mind that you promise her to only spend an extra hour or so working with Atsumu.

Coach Yamaha nods happily at your agreement and then pats your shoulder, satisfied. “Alright. You did well today. I’ll see you tomorrow.”

You say your own goodbye and then move back over towards Atsumu while your coach leaves the room entirely. When you get back to your spot you find that Atsumu has supposedly gone through his entire warm up routine and is now lying on his stomach, kicking his legs as he makes faces at your camera, which is still filming.

You kick him lightly in the ribs, and make sure to give him your sternest scowl when he rolls over to look up at you. “C’mon, Miya,” you instruct. “We can’t be too long so let's get going.”

Atsumu’s eyes sparkle as he looks up at you and without hesitation he jumps to his feet. “Alright!’

You squat down to pick up your phone then, and place it back on its little tripod. Technically, you don’t need to film the extra practice you and Atsumu are going to do, however, you do feel like it’s something interesting the watchers would probably like to see. “I’ve gotta be a little careful of my ankle,” you say to the camera, watching in its screen as Atsumu goes to get a ball cart of volleyballs from the storage room. “I don’t wanna aggravate it more than it can take. But I’ll try to get some good shots for you guys.” You wink at the camera before getting to your feet once again and jogging over towards Atsumu, ready to start your training.

As always, you and Atsumu are a perfect match. You’ve known him and Osamu since high school, after all, and he’s been your biggest volleyball rival since the both of you went pro. You've been practicing against each other for years, and as a result you know each other’s playing styles both inside and out. Which just so happens to make you the perfect teammates when you actually get to play together.

Not that it would ever happen in a professional setting, but as you hit Atsumu’s beautiful sets agin and again, you can’t help but get the feeling that you’d be unstoppable as official teammates.

“Gimme shitty sets,” you instruct him as you move back to the line. “Yours are too perfect.”

He snorts in response. “Is that supposed to be a compliment?’

You shrug in response. “Maybe. But they're unrealistic for me to hit because not everyone is a machine like you. So give me your worst possible sets.”

Atsumu chuckles and shakes his head. But when you take your run up and he chucks the balls into the air for you, it’s notably far less precise than anything he’s given you so far. You still manage to get it, slamming it down into the opposite court with a satisfying thud, and when you drop back to the ground you can feel the happy smile starting to spread over your face.

“Again.”

He throws you another one, in first tempo this time, which goes a little too far out to the right. You have to stretch to reach it and the result means the spike isn’t as precise as you’d like it. But it still goes in with enough power to make you happy.

“Again.”

The pair of you keep playing, even swapping out a one point so that you can set and give your ankle a little bit of the break while Atsumu does a few spikes. Your sets are nowhere near as perfect as his are but you get the ball where it needs to be and Atsumu sends each one into the opposite court with an incredible amount of power. It makes you smile giddily, taking you back to your roots from before you and Atsumu were anything more than teenage rivals and neighbours, when you’d practice with each other until it was dark out in the park that was nearby both your houses.

“Here,” Atsumu suggests, once you swap back to your usual positions. He goes to get a second volleyball and places it on the ground in the opposite court, pretty far back and right on the outside line. “Hit this when you spike.”

It’s a challenge. The ball is right on the line, and it's difficult to pull off that kind of accuracy without any blockers to force you into taking that tight of a shot. You set your sights on it though, and for added effect, instruct Atsumu to keep throwing his worse sets.

The first time you try, you're a good three or four inches off from the second ball. As you land back on the ground, your shoes squeaking against the court floor, you curse quietly under your breath. Then you turn to Atsumu. “Again.”

He sets you another ball and this time, you're a bit closer. The third time the pair of you do it, the spiked ball bumps the still one, but not directly enough for you to be satisfied. And then finally on the fourth try, you’re able to smack the ball right down the side of the court and send the second volleyball fly off when the two of them impact.

You’re already cheering by the time you land back on the ground, and Atsumu too lets out a whoop of satisfaction.

“Hell yeah!” he exclaims, moving up closer o you with his hand raised. “That was awesome! And that was probably the worst set I’ve given you all day!”

You smack his palm in a satisfied high five, still smiling. "Again!"

You do the shot a good ten or so more times, until your legs are starting to turn to jelly. After sending both balls colliding with enough force to shoot them both off in different directions on last time, you land back on the ground and then turn to grin at Atsumu, feeling proud of yourself. “Damn, I’m so awesome,” you say, jokingly. Atsumu smirks.

“Ya sure are,” he comments, and then uses your freehand to pull you in close to him. One of his arms traps you against his chest with an iron grip around your waist while the other goes to ruffle your hair violently. “You could definitely beat Omi-Omi’s ass if you played him!”

You laugh as his teasing tone but let out a cheer anyway. “Hell yes!”

Atsumu laughs along with you, slowly pulling your closer in to him. And suddenly your face is right up in front of his, your noses bumping against each others as you stare deep into his amber eyes. For a moment you stand frozen in surprise before your cheeks flood with heat. You remember this feeling; just like before, when you were recalling playing with with Atsumu as a teenager, you remember this from your final year in high school when Atsumu became your unrequited crush. The way he used to mess with you, messing up your hair and pinching your cheeks, it’d all made you blush so hard because you were so in love with him. And now, despite the fact that you’ve been together for years at this point, he still has the very same effect on you.

And by the smug look on Atsumu’s face, he seems to know it too.

“See something ya like?” he asks you teasingly, his breath fanning out against your face. You can feel it on your lips, and the skin there tingles a little when you slip the tip of your tongue out to brush nervously over it.

“No?” you answer, only it comes out like a very unconfident question and only makes Atsumu’s smirk widen.

“Yer cute,” he tells you quietly, seemingly moving closer. And you don’t have it in you to step back as slowly he invades your personal space. And then his lips are on yours, and even though you’ve kissed a few times today already, there's something different about this one. You can feel his fingers digging into your waist, can feel the warmth of his mouth against yours. Without even thinking, you press back into him, sliding your lips over his for a moment before allowing your tongue to sneak out and press against his own. Atsumu lets out a soft groan at the feeling and one of his hands slides up, fingers tangling in your hair as he kisses you harder, and it’s all you have in you to whine back as everything about him totally overrides all your senses.

Atsumu mumbles you name, rough and broken, and you're on the verge of reciprocating before your senses suddenly snap back to you and you pull back with a squeak.

“Oh my god, I’m still filming.”

Atsumu stares at you blankly for a second, seemingly computing your words. Then his eyes widen slightly and he break outs into peals of laughter. “Hah, those Vogue people are gonna have a great time editin' this video!”

“If they decide to at all,” you grumble out as you move back towards your phone. After pressing the button to end the video, you turn back to Atsumu with your hands on your hips. “They might just scrap the whole thing once they see how much of a chaotic mess my life is.”

Atsumu shrugs one shoulder. “Fine by me. No one else will get to ogle ya online.”

You stick your tongue out at him and then go to check you watch. Seeing that it’s already almost seven pm, you decide that it’s time for the pair of you to call it quits for the day. “C’mon,” you instruct Atsumu, jerking your head in the direction of the balls scattered across the court. “Let's clean up and then we can head out, yeah.”

Atsumu nods in agreement and gets to work on collecting the balls. After locking them away in the storage room again, the pair of you sit on the floor to do a few cool down stretches. Then you gather up your things and make your way back towards the locker room while Atsumu stays behind to lounge around on the floor.

As you walk, you switch your phone on again, and start a new video. “So Atsumu and I just finished with our practice,” you say as you walk. “We did some stretching to make sure we won’t be all stiff and gross tomorrow, since we both have training. And now all that's left for me to do is grab my stuff and then get outta here.”

Once you get into the locker room, you set your phone down on your bench and then narrate your way through packing your duffel bag up again. You opt to just slip your track pants back on over your shorts and stay in Atsumu’s shirt, figuring you’ll just take a shower when you get home. “Sometimes I will shower at the gym,” you say to the camera as you pull on your outside shoes. “But since I’m the only one here right now, I’d prefer not to. And my boyfriend is waiting so I don’t wanna take too long.” You zip up your bag with a snap. And grab your phone once again. “I’m hoping,” you say, as you start the walk back to the entrance hall of the gym, “that Atsumu will make dinner tonight because I am exhausted.”

You meet Atsumu in the lobby of the gym. He reaches one hand out towards you when you appear and without even thinking, you take it, lacing your fingers through his. You nod at the secretary at the reception desk as you leave the gym, and then shiver as you step out into the cool evening air. Your face scrunches a little as a twinge of pain flares up you ankle.

Atsumu looks down, seemingly noticing the step you take gingerly. “Is your achilles still bothering you?’

You make a face and nod, stepping carefully to make sure you don’t roll you ankle on accident. “Yeah. I’ll probably have to ice it tonight and wrap it. But it’s not too bad.”

“Alright.” Atsumu accepts that, although you can still feel his eyes on you. “But you’ll get it checked if it gets worse, right?”

“‘Course,” you reassure him. “I’m not an idiot, ‘Tsumu.” You lean up to kiss his jaw and offer him a bright smile, trying to prove to him how fine you are. “Promise.”

“Okay.” He smiles back down at you, not a teasing smirk but an actual soft smile that has your heart doing backflips. “I trust you.”

Fuck, you think to yourself as you stare up at him. I love this man so much .

You jump straight into the shower as soon as you get home. Thankfully, Atsumu does take dinner duty tonight, leaving you to take as long as you need to scrub yourself down and then, once you’re dressed in your pyjamas, turn your phone on and take your future audience through your nightly routine.

“I don’t wear any makeup or anything while I’m playing,” you explain as you rub cleanser on your face. “But I do still like to just keep my skin clean. I sweat a lot during practice and it feels way better to get all that off and go to bed with my face feeling nice and clean.”

You make sure to plug a few brands that Vogue has sponsoring this particular video, showcasing their use and assuring the camera that you like them. And then you pick up your phone and take it with you back into the kitchen, to find Atsumu is almost done with dinner. He leaves you to watch it for a couple of minutes while he goes to take a shower himself, and while he's doing so, you take it upon yourself to set the dinner table. You smile at him when he returns, immediately grateful when he scoops food onto your plate, and then sit down at the table to start with dinner. Contrary to popular belief, Osamu isn't the only Miya who can cook, and the food tastes amazing, especially after such a long day for you. You and Atsumu make gentle conversation while you eat and then, once dinner is done, Atsumu clears away the plates while you go to get your cold pack and arnica gel from your little supply of medical equipment. Then you plonk yourself down on your couch and, after setting up your next video, get to tending to your ankle.

“My achilles is pretty tender and my ankle is kind of swollen,” you say as you uncap the arnica gel and grab yourself a decent amount. “This stuff just kind of helps with easing some of the tension.” You rub it all along you ankle and up the back of your calf, making a face at how cold it is against your warm skin. Then you grab your cold pack and yell Atsumu’s name, instructing him to come sit with you.

He does so, flopping down on the couch next to you, and without begin asked, pulls your ankle up onto his lap to massage it more as you get you pack ready. You sigh a little in relief, loving the feeling, and bask in it for a moment. Atsumu always seems to know exactly how to sooth whatever injuries you may have.

“When’s yer next rest day?” he asks suddenly, glancing up at you. Your nose scrunches a little as you think about it.

“Uhhh, next week Sunday, I think? We have a match this weekend so I’m not getting the usual Sunday break.”

Atsumu frowns. “Ya think you’ll be all good to play?”

You let out a huff and shoot him a look. “Hey, I said I was fine, remember. I promised and everything.”

Atsumu makes a face. “I just don’t want ya getting hurt,” he mumbles, looking back down at your ankle in his lap. His fingers smooth over your skin gently as he talks. “Omi screwed up his ankle pretty badly a couple of weeks back and he still isn’t totally recovered. This kinda stuff sticks.”

You reach over to scratch at his head, ruffling up his fluffy hair with your fingers. “I know,” you assure him. “And that's why I’m doing all this stuff.” You hold up the cold pack and arnica. “I’m being careful.”

Then you shake you head at him, a teasing look in your eyes. “Now c’mon, gimme my foot back. I need to put this thing on.”

Atsumu rolls his eyes and pushes your foot off his lap. He watches quietly as you wrap the pack around the back of your ankle, securing it with the straps over the rest of your foot. Then you pat the space on the couch between the pair of you.

“Come closer. I need to elevate this thing.”

Atsumu rolls his eyes. “You could just put it on the back of the couch of something,” he grumbles lowly. However, he still does as you ask and doesn't’ move away when you raise your leg to rest your foot on his shoulder. After shooting him a happy smile, you turn on your phone and start filming again.

“We’re just relaxing now,” you say to the camera, filming your own face. “Probably will watch a movie or read or something. It’s important that we get down time as athletes and then get a proper night of sleep so we can be well rested for tomorrow.” You double tap the screen to flip the camera and show Atsumu being used as your own personal foot rest. “I’ve wrapped up my ankle to hopefully get the swelling to go down and ease some of the tension in my achilles. And I’ve elevated it, which helps drain the blood so it doesn’t swell up any more.”

Atsumu gives the camera an unimpressed look. “Don’t date pro-volleyball players,” he says seriously to the video. “Ya get used as medical equipment.”

You reach out to swat at his shoulder, your mouth opening in a hurt expression. “Hey, that goes both way, jackass,” you say as you flip the camera back to yourself. “How many times have I had to bandage up your fingers after practice, huh?”

Atsumu just makes a face at you. However, you can see by the warmth in his eyes that he’s just teasing you, as usual. Making sure not to disturb your foot, he reaches over to the coffee table to grab the remote for the TV that is mounted on the wall in front of the couch. “Here, choose something to watch.”

You switch the TV on and go to Netflix, putting one One Piece without another word. The pair of you snuggle down into the couch a little more and stare at the TV as the familiar intro begins playing. For a moment, everything is still.

Then Atsumu reaches out one of his hands to grab yours. Your fingers lace with his, his palm pressing right up against your own, and suddenly you can’t control the happy smile that’s spreading across your face.

You watch One Piece with Atsumu for only around forty minutes before the pair of you decide to head to bed. You explain the last few minutes of your day to your phone while Atsumu moves around, flicking off lights around the apartment, and then the both of you head to the bedroom. After both brushing your teeth and taking whatever meds and supplements you might need, Atsumu does a running jump onto the bed, curling up against the duvet with a happy groan. You shake your head at him and make sure to snap a picture - not for Vogue, but for you - before you follow him. Slipping under the covers, you hold your phone above you and hit record on the camera for the last time.

“Well, it’s ten o’clock and we’re heading to bed,” you say, making sure to keep Atsumu out of frame. “It’s been a pretty long day, but that's kind of standard. I hope everyone enjoyed following me around today. Maybe you learned something, maybe you didn’t, who knows. It’s been fun guys!” You give the camera a final smile. “Goodnight!”

And then you press the stop button and save the last video to the same folder you’d put all the others in. Leaning over, you drop your phone on your nightstand and then turn to snuggle up against Atsumu. He shifts when he feels you, turning his body so he’s lying on his back and can pull you right on top of him. One of your legs slots between his as you bury your face in his neck. One of your hands weaves into his hair and you let out a soft sigh of relief.

Atsumu chuckles quietly. “So, did ya have fun today?”

“It was weird,” you mumble. “I’m not used to having a camera on me. But it was also kind of fun.”

“Yeah?”

“Yeah.”

“Fun enough ta be on my Netflix show?” he asks cheekily. You scrunch your nose against his neck and shuffle a little, getting more comfortable.

“Let's not go that far.”

“Aww,” he mumbles, but you can tell he doesn’t actually mean it. He shifts a little too, moving his head until you feel a soft kiss being pressed into your temple. “Well, I’m glad ya had fun.”

“Yeah. I just feel bad for whatever poor soul has to edit that crap.”

Atsumu snorts. “Well, they just get a nice honest look into yer life,” he mumbles, his voice thick with exhaustion. You can’t help but smile at that, thinking back on the day you’ve had.

“I guess so.”

“I love you,” Atsumu mumbles out to you and your grip on him tightens just a little.

“I love you too,” you whisper to him, feeling your entire body begin to sag with exhaustion. “Thanks for being there today.”

“'Course,” Atsumu says. “Can’t let ya have all the attention.” He gives you another kiss. “G’night, princess.”

Your eyelids are already drooping but you find it in yourself to smile happily into Atsumu's shoulder. “G’night, ‘Tsumu,” you mumble back to him. And then the both of you are fast asleep and there’s nothing but silence in your bedroom once again.

#💙 blue's fics #miya atsumu x reader #atsumu miya x reader #haikyuu #haikyuu x reader #haikyuu!!#miya atsumu #one day

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