#really wish we got to see more with all the others too aside from the coach dialogues

[aliencatart]

a summary of mochi mayhem minus the mochi mayhem

#pokemon #pokemon scarlet and violet #pokemon scarvi #mochi mayhem #trainer arven #trainer kieran #trainer juliana #generation 9 #comic #my art #i just love arven and kieran's quick frienship sm #really wish we got to see more with all the others too aside from the coach dialogues #grr i hate you 'several days later' timeskip #just let me live them and hang out with my friends!! #btw kieran is so fun draw #>new purple(ish) blorbo to draw endlessly has been unlocked

[rafesslxt]

please please please do some hardcore fluff! i just want to see Theo really showing his love language (physical touch) like randomly touching y/n and doing anything to be close to her! kind of “i wish i could be in your skin” kind of thing, if you can!

touch starved | Theodore Nott

note: hi, thank u so much for my first request! I wrote a little bit with my ideas too, hope you still like it <3

warnings: some cursing, angst, arguing, hufflepuff!reader, me trying to write hardcore fluff, lmk if there are more

note: request are OPEN! English is not my first language

Theo was always interested in being as close to you as he could. He would love to just crawl under your skin if that was somehow possible. He loves to touch you, no matter where you are or who’s around you two.

But there were moments when this also brought its difficulties.

"Now, everything you need for the potion is at the front, take the ingredients you think would be suitable and get started." Professor Slughorn said.

Theo stood up like the good boyfriend he is and got all the Ingredients that he and y/n needed. "Here principessa, got everything we need." "Thanks Theo.“ You gave him a small kiss on his left cheek and started with the potion right in front of you.

Your boyfriend stood as close to you as possible, sometimes even right behind you. He wrapped his arms around you and stirred the kettle. He knew that other students gave him looks sometimes, but he didn't care. He just had to be near you and touch you in some way. He couldn't help it, you're like a drug to him that he can't get enough of.

Whether it was your soft skin, which smelled of vanilla from your bodylotion or your long shiny hair that smelled of peaches and was so easy to wrap around his fingers.

Your own scent drove him crazy the most. When you came fresh out of the shower, with nothing on you. Sometimes it took hours before you could finally get dressed and Theo would take his hands off you.

But he especially loves it when you play with his hair while you're both lying on the sofa in the Slytherin common room. The light tugging on individual strands made him moan softly and drove him crazy. Again, doesn‘t matter If you‘re alone or with your friends beside you. They all knew that Theo was completly smitten for you.

He also liked it when you gave him a massage after training Quidditch. "Yeah, right there baby, that‘s it.“ He groaned. He needed this. Your touch, your skin on his skin, your hands on his muscles. 

" Theo? You there ? I think it is ready, you can stop stirring." He woke up from his daydreams and looked down at himself. You were already looking up at him, chin resting on his chest. " Yeah, sorry." He put the trowel aside to stir and put both hands on your hips now. His lips just touching yours slighty as he whispered " You're beautiful." " Thank you." She smiled at him and placed both her hands on his abs above his shirt now.

His head lowered next to your ear " I need to feel you amore. Need to feel your skin on mine." He whined.

You giggled and looked around embarrassed. " Teddy, we're in the middle of class, you'll have to be patient." " Ugh... I fucking hate school."

That was a week ago now.

It had been a week since he had been able to touch you. To say Theo was on the edge was an understatement.

" Where's your other half Nott?" Blaise, who took every chance to gossip, asked. " What do you care?" Theo bit back, knowing that he didn't ask because he cared. "Oh just so, I'm just surprised as you were inseparable before and now you're hardly ever seen together. Trouble in paradise?" He provoked.

Mattheo had to hold Theo back so that the situation didn't escalate completely, but truth be told, Theo was just as worried. For different reasons to Blaise, but he wasn't entirely wrong. It was as if you were slipping out of his hands like sand. It was the weekend now and just like every other weekend before, you and the boys were always out together as a group in Hogsmeade.

What Theo didn't know, however, was that you weren't ignoring him on purpose, let alone ignoring him at all. You just had a lot on your plate, helping other students with their lessons, being a assistant for some teachers with extra work, doing your own homework and being Head Girl of your house. You had so much on your plate that you didn't even realize Theo was feeling like this.

"Where's y/n?" Mattheo asked his best friend a little more quietly so that the conversation remained private. " She's helping some first years with their studies and finding their way around Hogwarts now that the new year has started. "

Just as your boyfriend was about to hit his head down on the table, a soft voice sounded next to him " Hey baby, why are you hanging your head like that?" " Principessa?" His head shot up and his face began to beam with joy. " Come here sit with me." He scooted a little closer to Mattheo to give you more room. A few Slytherins gave you looks because you were sitting with them as a Hufflepuff, but you were already used to that.

You grabbed something small to eat and chatted with the rest of the table. You immediately feel Theo scoot close to you and put his hand on your leg. You smile a little and look at him. " What's wrong?" " I missed you." He whispered against your head, smelling your hair for the first time in a week. " When are you free again?" He asked and reached for your hand, but you stood up again at the same moment.

" I have to go, but I'll see you later, yes? " You quickly gave him a kiss and grabbed some more fruit. " What? But you haven't even eaten properly? Where are you going?" " Helping first graders, you know that." You smile and disappear from the Great Hall just as quickly as you came.

" Ugh…" Now he dropped his head on the table.

The day passed and it was time to go to Hogsmeade. "Hey man, maybe she's already there or she'll be coming after, don't worry." Mattheo tried to reassure his friend.

" It pisses me off. I'm her boyfriend! I should be more important than some stupid first years." Theo paced up and down the common room. " Yo, can we go?" Draco asked, coming out of his room. " Go ahead, I'll catch up with you." Determined, Theo got up and walked in the direction of the Great Hall first. Maybe you were hungry and came back. As he searched half the school for you, all sorts of thoughts and worries ran through his head.

What if you deliberately seek out so many tasks to keep your distance from him? What if your relationship is coming to an end? No, that couldn't be. He's the perfect boyfriend. He always listens to you, is always there for you, supports you in all your decisions, is attentive, loves spending time with you, even if it wasn't that important to you, but he also showered you with gifts.

Where could you be? He thought until a light bulb came on above his head. The library, of course. He ran up the many stairs until he stood in front of the library. Nervously, he looked for you. What happens if he asks you about it? What should he do if she says that she no longer wants to be in a relationship with him?

Although all the girls in Hogwarts were after him and he's extremely self-confident, he only had eyes for you and you were probably the only person in the world who could make him feel that way.

His heart skipped a beat when he discovered you with three first years. He cleared his throat quietly so as not to startle you. "Teddy? What are you doing here?" y/n whispered. You're the only one who's ever been allowed to call him that. The boys sometimes made fun of him, but were very quiet as soon as he threatened them.

" Can we talk for a moment? It's important." He urged, looking between her and the students. "You keep working on the task I gave you, okay? I'll be right back." The little ones nodded obediently and continued to work diligently.

You walked with Theo a few shelves to the back where you could talk undisturbed. "Is everything all right? Did something happened?" You asked worriedly. "Don't you want to be with me anymore?" He asked directly. " What? What are you talking about?" Confused and a little disappointed, she looked at her boyfriend. " You're not here all week y/n, no matter when we see each other, I have the feeling that you're taking every opportunity not to be with me. I - I'm scared for us. I miss you, damn I can't be without you around." He confessed.

"Teddy, that's absurd. I just want to help! You know I need good grades for my degree and it's easier to get them that way. I would never want to hurt you." She took a few steps towards him. "But you do! We are a couple! Shouldn't we be together more? I miss you so much, it's like my air is gone to breathe. I - I love you, y/n. Fuck I love you so much!"

Although they were together, neither of you had ever said the L word before. " You- You do?" " Of course! Why else would I be with you? Why else am I looking for you all over the school? Why don't you understand me?" Frustrated, he ran his fingers through his hair, completely enraged. " Theo I l - " " No you know what ? Forget it. It was stupid to come here, don't let me bother you. " " But - " but he was already out the door. " - I love you too." You whispered as he disappeared from the library.

On the way out, he realized what he had said. Fuck, wasn't he wrong after all? He knows how important your future and grades are to you. The more steps he took towards Hogsmeade, the more nauseous he felt. For the first time he told you that he loves you and then left you like that? Merlin, he has to straighten that out.

When he arrived in Hogsmeade, he bought a large quantity of your favorite flowers and lots of roses, chocolate and a present.

He was walking through the alleyways when the boys came towards him, Mattheo at the front. "Hey man, we've already seen you - what's wrong with you? Didn't go so well huh?" Theo shook his head. " No, not a bit, to be honest, I completely messed it up."

" Good luck then, don't mess it up again. She's pretty cool for a Hufflepuff," Mattheo grinned.

Back at Hogwarts, Theo already had a plan but he needed help. "Jane! Hey, I need your help, please." He looked at your best friend, who only returned his look in confusion. "What do you want, Nott?" She wasn't the biggest fan of his, but respected y/n's decision and trust in him. " I know it sounds crazy, but you have to let me into your common room." Jane started to laugh out loud " What? Have you gone crazy? In case you haven't noticed, you're a Slytherin."

" Jane please, I messed up and I need to apologize to her. I have something planned for her ." He pointed to the flowers and presents in his hand. "And you have to do this in her room?" She asked with a sigh. "Please." He swallowed all his pride and tried to be as convincing as possible.

Annoyed, your best friend exhaled and shook her head. "Okay, but let's keep this between us and for the record, I'm only doing this for y/n!" If Theo wasn't himself, he would have loved to squeeze her for joy. "Thank you! Can you give this to y/n? It says that she should meet me in her room." She took the note and pocketed it.

"Then come on, I don't have all day." She led him to the entrance of the Hufflepuff. " You never tell anyone about this, understand?" He nodded and continued to follow her. They walked through the same corridor as the school kitchen was. Suddenly, Theo stood in front of huge barrels, looking questioningly at them

Jane tapped on a barrel that was stacked between two others. She did it in a certain rhythm. Suddenly, the path to the common room opened up. Theo had never seen it before, let alone heard of it. " Through there, up and you're inside. Her room is the tunnel on the far left." " Thanks again. " He walked through the middle barrel and then up a short steep path through an earthy corridor, which brought him to the common room. The room was empty, probably everyone was out in Hogsmeade or somewhere in the castle for the weekend. As Jane had told him, he went through the small underground tunnel on the far left. The doors were round and looked like the lids of barrels.

Not quite his taste, but it all looked very cozy and sunny. (JKR had probably once described it that way.)

Inside y/n's room, Theo started putting up his favorite flowers and scattering rose petals around the room. He placed chocolate on the bed and kept the present in his pocket. It wasn't long before he heard the door open.

"Theo? What are you doing here?" You spoke a little more quietly, afraid that someone would notice that he was here. "Y/n please listen, I'm incredibly sorry. I shouldn't have hit on you like that, I know how important your grades are to you and I should have known that you wouldn't ignore me on porpose. And I'm also sorry that I just left like that after I said I love you. "

" Oh Teddy… " You walked up to him and hugged him tightly. He threw his arms around her and hugged her as tight as he could. " Is it true what you said?" " What do you mean?" " That you love me? " He looked down and took her face in both hands. " Of course, I love you amore. You're all that matters to me. That's why I reacted the way I did. I was… desperate and so… fucking touch starved. " I love you too, Teddy. " you told him with a smile on her face, looking into his eyes.

" Really?" He couldn't have been happier. " And all this wasn't even necessary." She pointed to the rose petals and chocolate. "Because I'm sorry too, I really should have thought more about us. Jane's going to help me tutor the children from now on. That way I have more time for us."

" I'm so glad everything is okay." He whispered against your forehead. " Me too." He took your chin between his fingers and lifted your head. " You're driving me crazy, dolcezza."

His lips brushed yours just softly at first, until you couldn't wait any longer and filled the gap between you two. The kiss was gentle but passionate. Theo grabbed both of your thighs and lifted you up, whereupon you wrapped both legs around him.

He sat down on the bed behind him, with you on his lap. You started giggling as he began kissing your neck. " Teddy… I don't know when Jane is coming back." " I want you so so so so bad… " " I know, but now is not the right time. I'm sorry… " He brushed a strand of hair behind your ear and smiled gently. " It's okay, don't worry about it. Besides, I have something for you. " He reached into his pocket and pulled out a cute little package with a bow. " Here baby, open it. " " Theo… you didn't have to do that, really. "

"Open it, trust me you'll love it." You carefully open the bow and flip open the small box. You accelerate quickly. " Oh Merlin, it's beautiful Theo. " With tears in your eyes, you took the golden necklace out of the box. On it hung the letter T which was set with small individual diamonds. "Will you put it on me?"

He took the necklace from your hand and pulled your hair to one side. He carefully put it around your neck and then put your hair back over your shoulders. "Thank you Teddy, I love it." Full of love, you kissed him, causing him to fall backwards onto the mattress. He briefly parted from your lips and looked down at your decollete, where his letter T now lays. " Fuck, now I want you even more than before. " You had to start giggling again. " Trust me Teddy, the right moment will come. " you said and sealed your words with a kiss.

Hope u enjoyed! Part 2 ?? Let me know ;)

my master list

xoxo Sarah

#theodore nott fluff #theodore nott oneshot #theodore nott x reader #theodore nott imagine #theodore nott smut #slytherin smut #slytherin boys #mattheo riddle x you #mattheo riddle imagine #mattheo riddle x reader #mattheo riddle smut #mattheo riddle #slytherin imagine

[specialagentlokitty]

Hotch x reader - everybody’s favourite

Sorry for requesting something so soon after my Wanda ask... But all I can think of is like Hotchkiss with reader who just absolutely spoils him and jack because their like a CEO or something and want them to have the best. And one day they send Hotch to work with a gift for Spencer after a hard case (maybe a book he's been looking for but can't find). So the team get a little jealous and want to meet her. - @azeal-peal 💜

Looking at your phone, you smiled at your lock screen and went back to looking at the people you were sat in a meeting with.

“How about we take a small break?” You asked.

“Your boyfriend calling?” Someone chuckled.

You laughed softly, standing up as you grabbed your phone.

“Actually my boyfriend is here, and we’re in no rush to finish this project, I trust you all. Go take a few hours, we’ll meet back just after lunch.”

Everybody seemed happy with this arrangement, and you quickly tidied a few of the papers away, setting them aside and picked up your papers.

Heading to your office, you set them on the desk, then walked back outside, making your way across the office.

You saw him before he saw you, and you grinned from ear to ear as you walked closer.

“Hello sweetheart.” You greeted.

Hotch turned around, a smile gracing his face as he saw you.

He opened his arms and you wrapped your arms around his neck, letting him wrap his own around you and you pulled him down for a kiss.

Letting him go after a minute, you played with the hairs on the base of his neck.

“I just got back, Jack is at school so I thought I’d come see if you’re free.”

“I’m always free for you my darling.”

Hotch chuckled a little bit, letting go of you he held his hand out and you took it, letting him lead you back to his office.

He gathered your phone, your keys and your wallet for you, putting them into the pockets of his blazer, then held out his arm.

You looped your arm with his, making your way down to the parking lot.

“I was thinking about jacks trip, and I want to get him some new clothes for it, oh and a new suit for you, we have an appointment with the tailor.”

“You don’t have to do that.”

“I know, but I’m going to do it. So, suck it up and tell me about your case.”

Hotch nodded, opening the car door for you, and you got in.

When he was in the drivers side, he began to tell you about the case on the way to the tailors.

He explained how hard the case was for Reid, and what had happened, the fact that Reece had been hurt, and he’s really struggling with the fact he was hurt.

You listened carefully as he talked.

“The poor kid has it hard.” You sighed.

“I know, but honestly he’s one of the best agents we have, if not the best agent. I just wish there was some way to boost his confidence in himself.” Hotch sighed.

“Give it time, I imagine life has been hard for him because of how smart he is, and we know this world isn’t too kind to people who are different. Just keep supporting him Aaron and let him know you’re there for him.”

You guided your boyfriend into the tailors and over to the man who was waiting for him.

While they were measuring up a new suit, you were flicking through some others, looking at the colours and designs, then you made your way over to the accessories.

You found a nice, though expensive watch in the glass case.

“It’s nice isn’t it?” Another man asked.

“Absolutely, though I was wondering if you have something a little less flashy and more work appropriate. My boyfriend wouldn’t be able to wear this to work.”

The man nodded his head, pulling out some watches.

“Some of these are more expensive due to their unique design, but they would be more appropriate for a working environment if you didn’t want it to be easily damaged.”

You looked through them, and you looked at a pure gold one, small intricate designs carved into the links of the watch.

“I like this, I’ll get this one. He’s currently getting a new suit fitted so I’d like to wait for that before paying, I’ll probably get him a few more ties as well. Something that says professional, but can be used for formal meals and such as well.”

He nodded.

“We have a few I think you’ll like them.”

You carried on picking some stuff up for Hotch, then waited by the counter for him, also getting yourself a new watch since you wanted a change.

When Hotch had his new suit fitted, it was brought over and he stood next to you.

“(Y/N) no, you can’t. This is all too much and it has to be expensive.”

You grinned a little bit, handing over your bank card.

“Oops, too late.”

He sighed, giving you a small smile as he shook his head and he leant forward, kissing your forehead.

“You’re too good for me…” he whispered.

“I’d say it’s the other way around sweetheart, oh, and before you go to work tomorrow I have something for you to take it.”

You never told Hotch what it was, but you did go pick it up later on that night before heading back home.

Jack was happily trying on all of his clothes, and you handed the box to Hotch with the instructions to give it to Reid first thing in the morning.

And he did, when he got to the office he waited for Reid and made his way over.

“(Y/N) wanted you to have this.”

He set the box on the desk and Reid furrowed his brows a little bit.

“Oh? The mysterious rich partner has a gift for the pretty boy?” Emily asked.

They all walked over to watch as Reid opened it.

He set the lid to the box aside, and he picked up the note that was neatly placed on the top.

“What’s it say?” Rossi asked.

“It says to always believe in myself.”

He set the note aside and picked up the very old book.

“It’s a first edition of a Russian novel I’ve been looking for…” he whispered.

“Oh my god that’s amazing!” Garcia gasped.

“Damn, that must’ve cost a lot.” Morgan whistled.

They all nodded in agreement and Hotch just chuckled a little bit, shaking his head.

“They don’t care about cost, to (Y/N) they just want everybody to have the best.”

“Seriously Hotch, we have to meet them this isn’t fair.” JJ laughed.

Everybody immediately started asking him and begging him to be able to meet you.

They’d all heard about you, they knew about you from being the CEO of a large company, they’d seen photos of you and seen interviews of you thanks to Garica.

But they hadn’t had the chance to meet you, and they wanted to meet you, finally get to see the person who keeps gifting them all expensive gifts

#criminal minds imagine #criminal minds #criminal minds x reader #criminal minds x you #Hotch #hotch x reader #hotch x you #hotch x y/n #Hotch imagine #aaron hotchner #aaron hotchner x reader #aaron hotchner x you #Aaron Hotchner imagine

[softxsuki]

FOR YOUR EVENT !!

it’s meee, your number one fan :))

congrats on hitting 1.5k! you already know what’s up ｡ﾟ(ﾟ´ω`ﾟ)ﾟ｡

may i have the trope drabble one, with trope #13: “who did this to you?” and the fandom is for obey me! shall we date? with fem!reader pleaseee !!

THANK YOUUUU :D

1.5k Follower Event Trope #13 Obey Me

Trope 13: "who did this to you"

Check out my event here! Event requests are CLOSED

Pairing: Lucifer x Fem!MC

Warnings: mentions of cuts and bruises

Genre: uhhh slight fluff, and comfort???

Post-Type: Drabble

Word Count: 500

Note: I think this trope fits with a few of the obey me characters like Solomon (he's mysterious but imagine him seeing you hurt and he just snaps, his usual cool exterior crumbling away AHHHHH). But ultimately I picked Lucifer. He's probably the most protective and possessive of everyone combined so it was a no brainer to pick him. THANK YOU SO MUCH LOVIE, ILY and I hope you enjoy! <33333

“Who did this to you?” Lucifer grits, staring at the cuts that weren’t there this afternoon when he saw you off after class. He had to stay behind for an urgent student council meeting, leaving you to walk back to the House of Lamentation alone, much to his hesitance.

“It’s just a few scrapes, there’s no reason to get so upset,” you mumble, not really wanting to think of the group of demons who decided to surround you and pick on you due to your lack of security. One of the brothers usually walked home with you, knowing how some of the residents of the Devildom felt about you, a human, living in their world, attending their school, but they happened to all be busy today.

It was already late as Lucifer stood in your room, his brows furrowed and a scowl on his face at your not-so-pleasant appearance. He knew he should have just walked you home and then returned for this meeting after. 

“Which lowly scum decided it was okay to place their filthy hands on you while I wasn’t around?” He seethes, “Even if you don’t tell me, I’ll find out. And once I do, just know that they’ll pay.”

He was beyond furious. As your lover, he felt responsible for you, especially in a world like the Devildom that was dangerous for a human like you, yet he was too selfish to send you back to the human world. He loved you and needed you beside him.

“Luc, it’s really not a big de-”

“Enough! Come with me,” he shouts, grabbing your wrist, surprisingly gently despite his clear anger at whoever harmed you. Though he was powerful and easy to anger, Lucifer would never harm you.

The halls were empty and dimly lit, the other brothers already tucked away in their own rooms for the night, aside from Beelzebub who was likely scouring the kitchen for more food; Lucifer led you through the halls all the way to his room.Closing the door behind him, he placed you on his bed before leaving for a first aid kit, something he kept around, specifically for your sake since he and his brothers never got hurt.

“Let me see,” he says softly, now a little calmer since he knew you were safe and with him. You raise your face to him, and once again a small frown appears across his lips, unsatisfied with what had happened. 

His long fingers trace over the small cuts and bruises on your face, mostly upset at himself for letting you walk home alone–he should have known better.

“I’m sorry,” he sighs, gently cleaning up your injuries with the utmost love and care, wishing he could magically heal you in moments like these. “They’ll pay, I swear they’ll pay.”

There was nothing you could say or do to convince him otherwise. Those lowly demons had chosen to place their hands on you, his woman, so they were bound to face the wrath of your man.

EVENT REQUESTS ARE CLOSED :D

REGULAR REQUESTS ARE OPEN :D

Posted: 9/11/2023

#obey me shall we date #obey me x reader #lucifer x reader #obey me lucifier #obey me x y/n #obey me x you #obey me x mc #lucifer x mc #lucifer x y/n #lucifer x you #obey me drabble #lucifer drabble #lucifer fluff #obey me fluff #lucifer comfort #obey me comfort #obey me x female reader #lucifer x female reader

[maritotoy]

MAUGA X Support/Medic Reader ((Part. 1))

NOTE: Believe it or not, I never realize how long I've written this one.

This narrative tracks Mauga's obsession with Y/N as it grows to the point where he is prepared to kill everyone who stands in his way. With this in mind, Mauga's commitment would gradually grow. He would start out softly and then this need on you would get stronger.

It all began when your talents were initially utilised for recruitment. You were a terrific help, willing to assist your teammates in whatever way they needed.

Your main issue was that you could never truly let them handle things on their own. As a result, it became increasingly difficult to care for yourself.

They promised you riches if you helped them fight back against their threat. There were only so many ways to profit from rival worlds, after all. You were aware that you were going into a whole new universe when you agreed, but you also felt that you had no choice but to accept them.

Ultimately, you didn't wish to pass away, did you?

It was stated to you when you first joined TALON Organization, that you should concentrate only on the battlefield. Up until you met Baptiste, an exceptional combat medic, it was great with you. Your shared enthusiasm for curing illness is what unites the two of you. It turned into a shared passion. As you try to acquire experience in several areas, like medical supplies, you both hope to discover some more useful abilities, like healing or even a unique kind of combat capability.

But you can hardly ever get to Baptiste, he's constantly at the top. Both a combat mercenary and medic. You're always looking for ways to sharpen your skills.

Even after meeting him again at your base and on missions, you are still determined to improve your ability to deal with any possible emergencies. Not until later do you find out what happens when a member of your unit gets injured.

Baptiste surged in, carrying an imposing stature and a solid, muscular frame. His voice sounded desperate, asking, "I'm sorry if I came to you! I know you are busy, but I need help with my friend, please, Y/N!" The urgency was so obvious that there wasn't much resistance. Even if he was a doctor himself, it must have seemed urgent enough.

Besides... You were in the right place to help.

You rushed over to his side and helped him stabilize his huge friend. "What happened, Bap? Are you hurt?" He didn't reply, but his eyes told you all you needed to know.

You fix your sight on his pal. He does not appear to be hurt or seriously damage. However, the man's body is completely soaked, which looks very suspicious to you. "Is he alright, Bap? I don't see anything wrong." He shook his head and gave a sigh.

"We were attacked. Mauga and I found the source of the enemy attack and got separated."

"How long has it been since then?"

"Four hours, maybe five."

"Do you have any idea of what may have caused the damage?"

"I'm not sure. However, I had already discovered him unconscious but unharmed on the ground. It should not take long for him to awaken.." You glance at the unconscious man again before you say, "Let me take a look at him." He nodded and stepped aside.

"Mauga could never be wounded by shots like that. Despite his size, he could easily absorb one hit thanks to his physique." He explains.

You crouch down and check on his comrade. He seems fine to you. There's nothing unusual about him, other than the fact that he's a bit too heavy.

You knew Mauga.

And with such.

You just don't know how to engage with him.

On a conversation? Yes. Your profession is your duty.

You don’t really get along with those who rely solely on themselves as an advantage, even though you respect their abilities.

The feeling is mutual. Every time someone gets hurt because of something beyond their control, you are there to help them.

Because that's your job as a medic.

You both have quite a difference in interests, though. You can't stand the fact that he’s so reckless, you can't understand why he doesn't think more carefully before he acts. As soon as he sees blood, it's always the most important thing.

Mauga stands tall, towering over his opponents with an impressive height of 7'5 ft tall. (My headcanon)

Mauga is a formidable opponent on the front lines thanks to his strong, muscular physique. His broad shoulders and thick neck gives off an air of strength and power, and his body is well-built, demonstrating his strength and capacity to deal severe damage to rivals.

Did I mention he has two hearts?

Unlike you, Mauga is a ruthless and cunning individual, driven by his own motivations. He never lets anyone interfere with his goals, whether or not they involve you. While he might act with reckless disregard sometimes, he is also able to calculate the best course of action.

Not anyone knows this. But you knew nontheless with Baptiste.

You may be underestimating him in some way, or you may have witnessed the genuine thing, up close and personal, but he always brags about his achievements without hesitation or shame. His fighting style turns wild and unpredictable when he fights. If Mauga doesn't want to win, he will take his time, before using ChaCha and Gunny, his chainguns, to grab the victory, and he won't give up until he achieves his objective.

He definitely is careless, isn't he?

"He's breathing just fine, Baptiste. I would say he is in perfect health, aside from the injuries, I can't detect any signs of any damage injuries either." You said as you stood up. Baptiste sighs relief. "I'll leave him to you doctor. Don't worry, I trust that you have everything under control." He says this to you while nodding in satisfaction.

This gesture of his is a way of gratitude towards the medic's work.

"I will be back later," he says as he leaves to make a round to prepare for battle.

While Baptiste was gone, you sat next to the downed mercenary soldier and begin to observe him. In the midst of his unconsciousness, he seems to be in a good state. There was no sign of discomfort or pain. His pulses are fast but steady, knowing that Mauga have two hearts, one that allowed him to replace his damaged, organic heart with a cybernetic one. That way, his heart will beat twice as fast. You can easily tell that Mauga is in his natural state.

Your eyes began to feel heavy after observing him for some time. You weren't sure if it's due to fatigue from watching him, or simply exhaustion from your duties as a medic.

Before you knew it, you fell asleep.

When you awoke, you find yourself staring back into the face of Maugaloa Malosi, whose lips formed into those flashing, same pasted smile as usual. “Ah, Doctor. How nice to see you again.”

You quickly wake up, sitting straight up on the chair. “M-Mauga!" You exclaimed, alarmed. "H-How is you- I mean are you feeling alright?”

He grinned at you. “I am feeling rather fine.” You let out a long, sigh of relief. However, you didn't anticipate that this would happen frequently. “I see..." You replied.

Silence takes over for a while. Mauga stared at you intensely before taking a step forward. “Your Y/N, correct? Baptiste little assistant. I've heard much about you, but never expect that I would get to get treated from you.”

You flinched slightly at his words 'assistant' and the word 'little', but you remained calm. “I'm glad that you feel better now. You should rest and recover. If you still need them..."

“I appreciate the concern,” he says as he reaches towards your shoulder. You instinctively raise your hands in preparation of blocking. This caught him off guard, causing him to pause in his movements, then booms laughing.

“My apologies, Teuila. I thought that you might have forgotten what I do here,” he said in that familiar, friendly tone.

“If I recall correctly, I haven't given you permission to touch me.” This comment caught him off guard as he chuckles deeply.

He stares at your hand for a while longer. You're beginning to become worried. After a brief silence, he reaches forward and lightly holds onto your wrist.

“That’s a very sensitive spot…” He whispers gently. Your heartbeat begins to accelerate. “And your pulse is fast. Is this normal?” he asks. “Yes,” you respond in a soft voice.

“Then why are you afraid? You know I'm not going to hurt you...” He grinned. His sharp teeth glinted menacingly in the dim light. "Surely you've already made a friend? You also gave him a lot of attention than you do with me. Or have you grown to dislike me?"

"...I... I beg your pardon-" your speech is interrupted by Baptiste with a tired expression.

"Hey... Sorry that I took so long. I went to gather supplies. Mission was a success." He sighed in relief as he approached you.

"Mauga, I'm glad your awake bud." Baptiste sighs in relief and smiles at Mauga. Mauga returned the gesture before looking back at you.

He still has that huge grin plastered across his features while his eyes darted towards yours. "You're crazy out there Mauga. Do you really think that you can defeat the enemies single handedly?" Baptiste says with a chuckle. “You know me Baptiste, I never do things without planning them out.” He grinned, revealing that row of dazzlingly white teeth. “I still don't understand how you've been knocked down so easily. It's hard to believe that you can be beaten like that.” Baptiste gives a half smirk, half frown.

You listen to their conversation, and you try to make sense of it. Mauga laughs at the situation, as if it's all so obvious. "C'mon, Baptiste, we have bigger problems than me right now. The mission is a success because we finally found the enemy camp. But it was a close call, and we needed your medical expertise to treat the wounded," Mauga explains to Baptiste while looking directly into his eyes with a sly smile. "I carried your massive ass in this camp with support of your weight alone. You ought to be pleased to have a subordinate with such skill." Baptiste smirks. He was referring to you. Mauga laughs at his friend's criticism, displaying his amusement at the circumstances.

"So yeah. It was pretty rough, but we managed to secure the objective! Isn't that great news?"

It's not really a surprise to you.

Mauga does tend to put himself in danger, especially when he's in an unfamiliar place.

This guy is completely reckless, which is why you can't believe that he managed to survive so many battles without falling apart or breaking down.

"Your a loose-canon, but I hope ended well..." you say calmly, hoping that you sound convincing enough.

"I can assure that I have the highest respect and admiration for your abilities as a medic. I would never doubt your skills, even if I hadn't personally experience how skilled you are in dealing with wounds." Mauga comments, he sounds sincere as ever.

Baptiste grins again. "That's a big ego of yours, my friend. You should consider giving a few compliments to the people who did more than you."

"I would love to, my friend, but there's nothing wrong with being modest about our accomplishments."

"Alright," Baptiste said, sounding annoyed.

--------

After several hours, days, months of treating your patients at base. You cannot help but wonder seeing Mauga quite often, whether that is purely because of duty or something else. Although it is difficult to tell what he's thinking, there are moments where you notice the way that he is constantly staring at you. Like he's trying to figure out something about you:

studying your appearance, facial expressions, mannerisms. Sometimes he gets lost in his thoughts, sometimes he appears to be lost in his own world, occasionally, you could catch him smirking knowingly, or even smiling to himself. These small gestures usually only occur during times when it's with you with him. Sometimes, the man is just too cheerful, or too energetic in general.

You could hardly handle the stress of handling all these patients in the infirmary on your own. You're starting to miss having Baptiste around to keep him occupied while you go through patients. You sighed loudly not until Mauga appears behind you

You found him with wounds on his chest and torso. You turn to look at him, "What happened?"

"Nothing serious..." He grins, showing his sharpened teeth.

"Just a minor injury, eh?" You raise an eyebrow at the mercenary, crossing your arms over your chest. Mauga simply shrugs as he sits on a table.

There was another period of silence between you two, and the atmosphere seemed to tense up considerably. This time, it's you who breaks the silence. "I'm sorry that you got injured. I don't know how I should react seeing someone else getting hurt so casually. You could have died out there. And that's not the worst thing that can happen," you said sarcastically and sternly.

He chuckles. "Oh really? Tell me more." He leans closer to your face, gazing deeply into your eyes. "Ah. So that's how it is."

You glare at him angrily, but he ignores you as you continue working. "Are you seriously going to mock me for worrying about you?"

"Not at all," he replied, with a hint of sarcasm. "But there is one thing that concerns me."

"What? You're going to insult me too, aren't you?" Mauga laughs while Y/N tends his injury.

The felt of your touch sends shivers throughout his entire body. He tries hard to suppress the sudden urge to grab her hand and hold on tightly. It's becoming harder to control these urges though. He shakes his head rapidly as he pulls away from you. He looks at you with narrowed eyes. "I'm not mocking you, you know?"

Your gaze flicks briefly to his. "Hm."

There was a short silence between you two, until you began to clean a cut on one of his legs. You noticed his gaze follow every movement of your fingers. "Why are you staring at me like that?"

"I'd prefer that you didn't ask questions so frequently, Teuila."

"Teuila?" You face him. "You know, I never asked you of this... But why do you call me that?" He lets out a deep chuckle and replies. "Because you look like Teuila. It fits well, doesn't it?" He flashes you a warm smile before turning his head away again.

You shrugged of his answer, continuing your work without saying anything further, although you were extremely curious. "Teuila... What does that word mean?" There's a brief moment of silence in between the two of you once you finished cleaning up the blood staining his leg. A faint smile plays across his lips again. "I thought you were better than that."

"And you think that you're better than me?"

"Yeah," he replies smugly.

"Then... You've obviously underestimated me, don't you?" You give him a challenging smirk. He returns the smile with a smirk of his own, but he then turns serious again. His eyes narrow. "Let me enlighten you. That name means 'flower'. Do you understand what kind of flower it means?"

You gave him a blank stare. He continues to smirk, waiting for you to understand his meaning. Eventually, you sigh, putting your hands on your hips. "Do I look like I care to know?" You scoff, rolling your eyes lightly.

Mauga laughs. "Well, I guess it doesn't matter what you think of it..."

There was silence between you two for a few seconds, and you looked away with furrowed brows.

You finish patching up the mercenary, placing some bandages around him and securing them securely. "Now that I finished helping you, you're dismissed." You professionaly said after you made sure that everything was covered properly. Mauga laughs at this. "Really? Now? Just like that?" He asks mockingly.

"Yes Mauga, I don't have any other duties besides tending to your wounds. I've been doing that for quite some time now," you responded coldly.

Mauga raises an eyebrow at this. "You know, if you start beginning to care about those wounds, you might find yourself losing them. If you want me to leave your clinic quickly, then you'll have to earn my trust first, which requires some work."

You sigh heavily. Of course Mauga will insist on making things difficult for you. "I am no doctor Mauga, I cannot cure your injuries." You sarcasticly said.

"Oh I know that. But you're still willing to take the risk." He chuckled.

"You wouldn't had to waste precious time coming here in order to talk shit."

Mauga laughs at you again, grinning like a cat that ate the canary. "I wouldn't waste too much time coming here either, but I also wouldn't be able to enjoy it quite as much because you'll be gone by then," he says confidently. "Besides, you're not exactly known for your patience." You roll your eyes, turning back to the table in front of you.

"You know I've always wondered what it feels like to be your patient," Mauga mused. "To be the one receiving the attention of the most skilled medic in your battalion."

"You must be joking," you replied, you know what he meant, not wanting to think that you would ever become his patient.

"No. You know me... " He grins. You groaned. "Don't' make such assumptions, we don't know each other all that well yet."

"Yet..."

You glared at him as he laughed. "Whatever. It seems like there's no stopping you, is there? We haven't even officially met yet, and already you're acting as if you have a good relationship with me." You sighed exasperatedly, massaging the area of your forehead in irritation.

"Listen, Mauga. My job is simple, I care for my patients and treat them well. Nothing more, nothing less."

"Oh yeah? Well, maybe I'm different," he said cockily.

"How? Are you not afraid of dying?"

"No... No I'm not... I've done so much more reckless things than death." His expression suddenly shifted to an emotionless one. For a moment, it felt almost as if he wasn't looking at you anymore. Then he chuckled softly, giving you a playful wink. "But I'm no saint."

"It must be hard to admit being human." You shook your head slightly.

"Sometimes." His grin returned to his features.

You couldn't help but stare directly into his eyes for a little longer, taking in how dark they actually are.

Mauga shows a huge plastered face. His still wearing his dumb smile.

You blinked at him.

He blinked back.

You rolled your eyes. "Stop smiling so much." He continued to laugh, as you turned away from him again. Mauga stood up and stretched lazily, "I have something to attend to, I'll be seeing you later," Mauga teasingly said as he made his way towards the door. He opens it, but he glances back.

A small smirk forms on his lips.

You watch him disappear outside the door, closing it behind him with a click. Once the door closes you let out a heavy sigh, resting your back against the wall behind you. Your heart is racing a mile, a minute, both at the prospect of having finally been alone with Mauga again, and the strange feeling within you after you spent several hours alone with him.

This feeling...

It's definitely not normal.

End of part 1

Part 2- ???

#mauga #maugaloa malosi #mauga overwatch #overwatch mauga #overwatch #mauga x reader #ow mauga #mauga ho'okano #overwatch x reader

[antianakin]

Pong Krell. It’s universally agreed that he deserved worse than what he got and I get that. I just wished we got to see what he was like before he Fell. Did he always hate clones, was it gradual? Did he suspect something off and went over paranoid?

I’ll say this one and I’ll say this probably a thousand more times but I wished the creators focused on more details with characters. It’s absolutely fascinating that they created a Jedi that Fell but did nothing with it besides outright evil.

How other Jedi reacted to learning that a fellow Jedi betrayed everyone? How did the Republic?

I just wished they did more with him than just, yeah that dude was a dick and killed clones.

Yeah, it's one of the things I don't like as much about TCW, the extremely episodic nature of it means that there really is never any build-up to anything or lasting impact from anything. Unless it's happening within one of the 2-4 episode arcs, we RARELY get to see any kind of build-up or fallout. It's one of the major issues with Barriss, too, we see her ONCE in season 2 and she's calm, kind, methodical, and selfless. And then three seasons later in season 5 she's suddenly ruthless, selfish, doubting everything and everyone, merciless, etc. There is NO BUILD UP to that radical 180 to her character and there's no real exploration of how Ahsoka really feels about that particular betrayal afterwards, the focus in later episodes after the Wrong Jedi focuses only on Ahsoka feeling betrayed by the COUNCIL and her feelings about that. Nothing since TCW has ever touched it either (Rebels, Mandalorian, the Ahsoka show). Satine's death never really comes up again after it happens aside from Bo-Katan being an asshole. Obi-Wan goes from being totally fucked up about Maul coming back to being chill enough to take on Maul and Savage alone and winning without us getting to see him actually deal with those emotions.

Pong Krell and the Umbara arc IN GENERAL falls into this category easily (so do the Zyggeria and the Deception arc tbh). Krell is such a basic evil character, there's so little nuance to him and we never get to see the Jedi react to the revelation that one of their own turned at all. Dooku turned after he had already left the Order as far as any of them really know, but Krell was still IN the Order when he decided to betray them and it would've been really interesting to see the impact of that on them. It would've been ESPECIALLY interesting to explore that more during the Wrong Jedi arc in particular in how the Jedi feel like they can't trust their own people not to betray them anymore after Dooku and Krell.

Krell is presented with like. Zero nuance. He is just unequivocally evil and despite Anakin greeting him in a friendly way at the beginning, the visuals tell you this dude's no good right from his first appearance. There isn't really any chance that he's going to be a good guy at all. So all we are left with are headcanons.

And I remember discussing my Krell headcanons somewhere, but I think it might've been on a Discord server I've since left, so I unfortunately cannot find them again. So I'll try to remember them and immortalize them here, I guess.

Here's the thing about Krell. NO ONE suspects him. So he cannot be overtly acting like a bigoted asshole from the jump at any point, he HAS to be acting in such a way that it's not trickling out to the other clones and to the Jedi themselves that Krell is an absolute monster. Even Fives takes a moment to decide that Krell is suspicious and only brings up Krell's casualty numbers after he sees Krell's behavior for a minute and combines that knowledge with what he's now personally experiencing and is starting to come to conclusions based on that. He doesn't go into the relationship thinking Krell is worse than any other Jedi already.

And based on what we know of EVERY OTHER FALLEN JEDI (Dooku, Anakin, Barriss), they didn't start out as monsters. Dooku was a highly respected Jedi Master who seems to have had a really positive relationship with Yoda and Qui-Gon and simply became disillusioned with the Senate and his care for the people of the galaxy got twisted into something darker over time. Barriss was kind, selfless, compassionate, brave, and resourceful, and it was the war that caused her to start letting her fears and pain consume her into turning on the Jedi. Anakin was kind and spent years having his fears and doubts twisted into selfishness and greed and darkness that allowed him to justify murder and genocide for power. So it wouldn't make sense to me that Pong Krell wouldn't fall into the same pattern where he was once kind and good and selfless and brave, but that the circumstances surrounding the war caused him to lose faith and fall.

My headcanon is that he lost an entire battalion early in the war, much like we see happen to Plo Koon during the Malevolence arc and that that loss and failure just BROKE him. Krell DID care about the clones, he cared about his men, and he FAILED them all. And I think that he saw all of these clones dying by the dozens in all of the other battalions and instead of choosing to let go of his pain and fear and lean into his compassion, he chose to distance himself from them entirely to make it hurt less. If he didn't care about the clones, if he just saw them as the cannon fodder that the Senate treated them all as, then it would hurt less when they died. Maybe the Senate itself even dragged him over the coals for that initial loss. Or perhaps it was the opposite, maybe most of his battalion was killed, but it ultimately ended in a victory anyway because they were forced to just keep going despite the consequences. And so Krell decides to enter this mindset where he is disillusioned with the Senate and just CANNOT allow himself to care about the clones, because it won't change what the Senate is going to do to them anyway, so he may as well just treat them the same way.

And this wouldn't have happened overnight. It wouldn't have been a sudden 180 where he decided he was just going to treat them like shit. But he maybe decided to put some more professional distance between himself and his new battalion, not get close to them, not use their names (although he still knows them, still remembers them all). Maybe one day they're in a tricky situation and all of his options are bad, he HAS to sacrifice some of his men in order to salvage the situation at all, and it's a choice between a full retreat that he KNOWS the Senate won't take well, or sacrificing the men to achieve the victory. So he sacrifices the men. It's not an entire battalion, it's not even a whole company, but it's more than it would've been if he'd retreated. Maybe next time, there's a choice between going back to save some of the men even if it poses a risk to his own life or the mission or something, and he chooses not to go back for them because the mission is more important, or he rationalizes that his life is more important as the Jedi General. And it's just more and more little decisions like that that add up over time to being able to see the clones as nothing more than tools.

The disillusionment with the Senate leads to him sort-of agreeing with things Dooku and the Separatists have said and he can look at the war and realize that it's entirely possible that the Republic is going to LOSE, and he CANNOT be the one who loses again, so maybe he starts bouncing around the concept of maybe switching sides. And of course initially he rejects the idea. He's a Jedi, he won't just abandon the Republic, he can't be a traitor, who in the Separatist side would ever trust him anyway. But once that seed is planted, it doesn't go away and it keeps coming back up and he keeps finding ways to rationalize why it might be a good idea and then deciding not to do it over and over again. Until one day, he can't convince himself that it's a bad idea or that it wouldn't work. He tells himself it's the ONLY option, if he doesn't change sides then he's dead. But Dooku WON'T trust him unless he can prove that he's not on the Republic's side, so he has to come up with a plan to gain their trust. And what better way to earn that trust than to ensure a Separatist victory in an important campaign by double-crossing the Republic.

And once he's chosen to go down that path, it's even EASIER to stop caring about the clones because, well, they're all dead anyway. The Republic is going to lose, the clones are all dead men walking no matter what, so why bother caring about them or trying to keep them alive? He can't lose so often that the Jedi or the Senate become suspicious of him, of course, but it's REALLY easy then to get to Umbara and treat the clones like crap and turn them against each other and intentionally try to get them all killed. They're dead anyway, he's not the one killing them really, is he, the Senate is, the Jedi are, the war is. They were dead from the moment they were created in that test tube because they were created for this specific purpose. It's not his fault.

And much like Barriss turns against the Jedi in part because she did LOVE the Jedi and was devastated by what she saw happening to them and the pain of seeing her people forced to become something they were never supposed to be, as much as her actions were intended as some kind of message to try to sort-of save the Jedi from a course of action she saw as their downfall, I think that Krell turns on the clones because at some point he DID care about them. A lot. And that care became his downfall, the pain at what was being done to them just absolutely gutted him and it threw him down a path that ultimately led him to turn against the very people whose deaths had hurt him so badly just a few short years ago.

Krell might not have been the most effusive or emotional person prior to the war or anything, he might've been a more reserved person similar to Mace or Dooku or Luminara, but I think he probably was a perfectly good Jedi who was kind and selfless and compassionate once upon a time.

And none of the headcanons above have even touched what his relationships with other JEDI must have been like. It's just as possible that he did have friends and people he considered family among the Jedi. Maybe he had a padawan once at some point. And maybe all of those people had died by the time we get to Umbara. Maybe he had to watch a lot of the people he was closest to just fall like flies, and so it starts feeling like nothing matters. Maybe one of the Jedi who died on Geonosis was a former padawan of his, but Krell himself obviously wasn't there and the pain of THAT loss and the guilt he feels at not having been there (even though this padawan had been knighted for a while and there was a good reason Krell wasn't there that day) just sticks with him, too, and he never quite manages to let that go, either.

I think a lot of people choose to just headcanon Krell as having just always been kind-of an asshole even when he was a Jedi, but that doesn't work for me. If Krell was always an asshole, I feel like the Jedi would've stepped in at some point before the war even HAPPENED and tried to manage that situation. And it doesn't match up with the way pretty much every other fallen Jedi has ever been written, where they were GOOD PEOPLE once upon a time who saw awful things happen that they couldn't stop or had an awful thing happen TO them that they couldn't stop and the pain of that experience consumes them to the point that they spiral into darkness as a result. Krell should be the same way, which means he likely was a perfectly good normal Jedi before the war. He would've been kind, he might've been good with younglings (he's tall, maybe he was the one the younglings went to all the time for piggy back rides, maybe he often taught dual wielding to padawans who asked because of how clearly proficient he is at it), he might've taught a student of his own successfully, he would've been wise and selfless and compassionate, he would've loved the Jedi and the people of the galaxy.

Like, to be frank, if Tales of the Jedi HAD to explore a fallen Jedi story, they should've explored Krell instead of Dooku. Dooku has been explored before, we know quite a lot about him and his motivations and his backstory, but Krell, as you noted, is left a mystery and is stuck in the realm of being just purely evil for the sake of the story they were telling in this one arc. Krell needed more nuance in a way Dooku just did not.

#star wars #pong krell #tcw #the clone wars #umbara #umbara arc #krell

[hwadam-stories]

⊹ PHANTOM PAINS ⊹ PILOT EPISODE

(black!fem!) mea harper!reader x ceo boss!dhan tae-oh

ᴍɪɴᴏʀꜱ ᴅᴏ ɴᴏᴛ ɪɴᴛᴇʀᴀᴄᴛ

I do not consent to my work being reposted, — stolen or translated anywhere else.

⊹ CW: long post, emotional cheating, unrequited love, depression, fluff, drama, etc.

⊹ SYNOPSIS: Celebrating his niece's birthday at a restaurant, Dhan recognizes you from across the room as his past lover from five hundred years ago and is determined to stop at nothing to be with you again.

⊹ A/N: this is my first serious fanfic, feedback on this pilot (comments, messages & reblogs only!) will help me consider continuing it with motivation. Canon divergent / somewhat canon compliant to the MEA CULPA (2024) film by Tyler Perry with some crossover aspects thrown in. I hope you enjoy!

⊹ ⊹ ⊹ ⊹ ⊹ ⊹ ⊹

"Does Your Majesty wish to meet again in our next lives?" You asked, wrapping your arms around him.

"Of course, were you considering abandoning me?" Dhan replied, chuckling.

"Okay then, when the time comes, I'll be your master once more." You promised. "Your love. Your pain. Even your very last breath, please give them all to me."

"They are all yours, y/n."

⊹ ⊹ ⊹ ⊹ ⊹ ⊹ ⊹

There was a time when those words meant everything to him.

A time when finding you meant everything to him.

But after his fifth life, Dhan had given up on his search and the phantom pains have haunted him ever since.

It was a pain that wasn't his, a pain that never faltered in reminding him of his failure despite the many times you two were reincarnated throughout the last five hundred years.

Your souls were connected after all and even though this pain has brought him a great deal of misery, part of him hoped you weren't feeling anything.

Presumably, because he was always reincarnated as a man, he assumed you would be reincarnated as a woman but other than that, he never really had any concrete way of finding you. It was safe to assume that since his ethnicity changed, yours did too.

Not that he particularly cared what race you were now, all that mattered was that he was reunited with you. But that promise has become nothing but a fleeting dream. A delusion Dhan couldn't completely let go of because this pain meant that you were alive, somewhere out there. Hopefully looking for him too.

In every lifetime after the first one, he always accumulated a great deal of wealth somewhere in his mid to late twenties under the name of Dan.

In this era, he was Dhan Tae-Oh, the boss of a CEO corporation in Korea and came from a long line of gangsters that reinforced the values of family and business to a rather high degree.

⊹ ⊹ ⊹ ⊹ ⊹ ⊹ ⊹

Tonight, he was celebrating his niece's 9th birthday and his sister-in-law's most recent promotion in the fashion industry.

His younger brother, Charles Kang, arranged everything at the finest Italian restaurant in all of Chicago, Illinois, called up Dhan three days before and here they all were.

"You know, we got lucky tonight." Charles set aside his fork and knife for a sip of wine.

"I initially planned to invite more people for Abby's dinner party but a larger group had already reserved a bigger table and I snagged us the only one they had left."

Now that Dhan gave it a second thought, Piccolo Sogno was unusually packed tonight and much busier than he had initially anticipated.

Even looking over his shoulder he could still see the glimpse of the same crowd he passed through, still waiting in line outside.

His assistant, Seon-woo, mentioned something about a on the rise celebrity artist being one of its more known customers over the last couple of years. No one Dhan had really heard of or cared to for that matter.

"Their celebrating their mum's birthday, I heard." Susan remarked, her posh accent gleaming through. She looked past her husband and over her shoulder, seeing the large the table behind them.

There were about five people and that one particular redheaded woman must've been the birthday mom. "Surely Abby won't mind sharing her special day when two cakes come out." Susan teased.

"You got me a cake?!" Abby gasped, beaming with a smile. "Is it a big one?"

"You can only have two slices, young lady." Susan tenderly pinched her daughter's cheek. "The last thing we need is you bouncin' off the walls at 2 o'clock in the mornin' on a school night."

Abby pouted and brought those puppy eyes straight to her uncle.

Dhan stifled a laugh, hiding that cheeky smile behind a half closed fist. "I'm sorry Abby, not even that can convince me to break your parents rules but I'll make it up to you when dessert arrives, I promise."

⊹ ⊹ ⊹ ⊹ ⊹ ⊹ ⊹

Dessert was served in the form of a double stacked white and pink frosted cake decorated with strawberries and red icing for the words "Happy 9th birthday, Abigail!"

Candles were blown and nine year old Abigail Kang became tonight's birthday girl that the staff (and some nearby tables) sang to. Pictures were taken and there were smiles all around.

The gift that Dhan purchased was a reasonably expensive one but not something he would ever think to showboat about. He simply had some connections here and there and thought to put them to good use for the short time he was going to be in Chicago.

"All fourteen of Taylor Swift's albums!?" Abby squealed, wrapping her arms around her Uncle Dhan and squeezing him tight. "I love it! I love it! I love it!"

Dhan laughed nervously, patting her head and squeezing her shoulder tenderly. "Your arms squishing my insides make that explicitly clear."

Everything was going great. Dhan was feeling great.

That is, until things weren't great anymore.

⊹ ⊹ ⊹ ⊹ ⊹ ⊹ ⊹

Dhan suddenly gripped the edge of the table to stop himself from keeling over on the floor of the restaurant.

His chest became uncomfortably tight and his head began throbbed with a splitting sensation.

The phantom pain had returned.

For the sake not wanting to make a scene or ruin what was already a perfect night, Dhan got his breathing under control, keeping some stoicism to his face to not alarm anyone.

The tightness in his chest seemed to lessen but the throbbing in his head wasn't going anywhere.

"Pumpkin, why don't me and you freshen up in the girls' room and leave the boys here, yeah?" As if on cue, Susan took her daughter by the hand and headed straight for the bathroom.

"Dhan." Charles sighed, addressing him in a somber tone of their birth language. Entirely oblivious to what his brother suffering with. "I know we haven't always seen eye to eye but I'm really glad you could make it tonight."

He listened to his brother -- or at least tried to.

The words were being drowned out by a sudden ringing in his ears, leaving him momentarily stunned that it almost felt like the world around him was going to spin.

But he wasn't feeling nauseous from the alcohol or a sudden fever. It felt more like ... resentment.

It put a bitter taste in his mouth and made him clench his fist at the end of the table until his knuckles went white.

His brother hadn't done anything wrong and yet Dhan was being swallowed whole by the sensation, not knowing where to place it.

It's just ... if his brother wasn't the problem, then who?

"Oh look! Her Majesty, The Queen has finally arrived." A woman's voice cackled in the air.

She was an older looking caucasian woman with red curly hair and wine red lipstick, belonging to the group that booked a table for a total of nine and judging by what the already opened and nearly empty wine bottle, she must've had a bit too much to drink.

That's when he saw you approach the table.

It was you. It was really you.

His soulmate.

⊹ ⊹ ⊹ ⊹ ⊹ ⊹ ⊹

"Don't worry son, your second wife will be on time." Azalia, your mother-in-law cackled, caressing the cheek of Kal, your husband.

His awkward shuffle of a smile made it crystal clear that whatever came out of her mouth tonight, he wasn't going to come to your defense anytime soon.

What can you expect from a man that holds his disrespectful mother over your marriage of three years?

What's worse is that Azalia had the nerve to invite the one woman she favored more.

Your husband's childhood friend, Jenna.

The same childhood friend that had become the topic of your marriage counseling session that your husband Kal had ditched midway through for this dinner party.

A session that you had to finish by yourself, making you the one who arrived late.

Jenna was a tall, light skinned woman with dark curly hair and a bright red dress with a V neck to show off a window of cleavage and a shortened skirt to show off her toned and slender legs.

And to add salt to fucking wound -- Azalia made sure Jenna sat next to your husband while you sat at the end of the table with your only friend and sister-in-law, Charlise.

"I'm sure you won't mind, y/n. You and Charlise probably wanna talk anyway."'

You looked at Kal, searching his gaze for something, any sign of him speaking up to his mother but to your utter disappointment he just let it happen.

You can only push down the intense feeling of resentment and agitation with a passive aggressive smile, taking your seat at the far end with Charlise.

This was going to be a long dinner to get through.

⊹ ⊹ ⊹ ⊹ ⊹ ⊹ ⊹

Apart from a brief exchange of words from your brother-in-law, Ray Hawthorne, and the couple sitting across from you, Charlise was the only saving grace at this table and frankly the only reason you kept it together as long as you did.

As much as you wanted to tear off that terrible red wig and burn it, you tuned out your mother-in-law whenever she made any more chide remarks about you.

Not much of a point in ignoring your husband, he was too focused on Jenna and giving Azalia one of the most expensive birthday gifts you had ever seen.

A silver and gold watch that you knew your unemployed husband didn't have the money for.

"Happy birthday mom, from me and y/n."

You scoffed in utter disbelief and stood up from your seat, grabbing your purse. "If you'll excuse me, I think I need some fresh air."

"Oh, well you take your time. We're doing fine here." Azalia insisted, smiling from ear to ear.

Kal was on the verge of getting out of his seat, expressing concern. "I can come with you babe--"

"No." You snapped coldly, barely sparing him a glance as you waved him off dismissively. "I'll be fine on my own, thank you."

Kal frowned, lowering himself back down with a defeated expression. "A-Alright, just don't stay out there too long."

You sighed into the night air, hands pressed against the metal railing while the people behind you carried on with their evening under the lit up patio roof. Glasses clanking, people laughing, wine pouring and plates clinking.

All of it was just background noise to drown out one particular thought that you couldn't run away from.

Maybe it's time to put this relationship on permanent leave.

It's not a pleasant thought. It never was. You and Kal had known each other for eight years and had been married for the last three of them. You've had your ups and downs like any other couple and got through it but this? This was too much. His mother was too much.

But that's probably what SHE wants. The sooner you're gone. The happier she'll be.

You only stuck it out this long because you genuinely loved Kal and Charlise was the anchor keeping you grounded.

As one of Chicago's most successful defense attorney's alongside your brother-in-law, you had everything and yet nothing at all with how your marriage was starting to fall apart, on top of shouldering the numerous bills since Kal lost his job as an anesthesiologist.

God, where did it all go wrong?

"Having a rough night?"

You were snapped out of your thoughts by the deep and smooth voice of a man walking up beside you. The cool night's breeze washing over you both.

He was a tall and handsome man of Korean decent. The darkness of his long hair making the crimson color of his eyes seem as though he were some beast straight out of a fairytale.

Alluring eyes that stared into you with a hint of sincerity and invitation.

You can barely hold in a chuckle, crossing one arm over the other to let your wedding ring glint in the moonlight. "That would be the understatement of tonight."

He sees this and can't hide the smirk on his face. "I don't blame you. In-laws can be infuriating like that sometimes. Especially mother-in-law's."

The restaurant wasn't exactly that big in terms of table arrangements so it makes sense one's antics would be overheard when they're standing around the biggest table in the room.

You chuckle again. The tightness in your chest starting to lighten but your smart enough to keep up you guard to shut down any potential flirting, even the harmless kind. "Can you expect anyone to act cordial on their birthday? I've been here all night without a single drink of my own and tolerating her has been exhausting."

You certainly weren't the type to open up like this to a stranger of all people but it felt good. Yes, you had your friend, Charlise, but there was something different about this man. Something oddly familiar.

"Because she's acting like a cunt towards you and only you and you feel that if you didn't step out when you did you would've tore her a new one right infront of her favorite son and the entire restaurant?" He guessed your exact feelings with a cheeky smile.

You exhale a baffled laugh.

It's like he knew exactly what you were feeling.

"Oh, so you're a mind reader now?"

He raises his right hand, jokingly. "Guilty as charged, your honor."

The both of you laugh.

"Dhan."

"Y/n."

Dhan smiled, staring longingly into your eyes. "A pleasure to meet you, y/n."

⊹ ⊹ ⊹ ⊹ ⊹ ⊹ ⊹

Eventually, you were back inside the restaurant. Sitting comfortably beside Charlise and ignoring another passive aggressive comment from Azalia.

You had been gone for a solid eight, maybe ten minutes tops.

The dinner eventually ended and everyone was putting aside their plates and gathering up their coats and belongings while Ray generously secured the bill.

That's when the waiter approached with an expensive looking bottle of wine.

Ray dismissively waved his hand. "No need to send over anymore wine, sir. You can take that back, the dinner party is over."

The waiter shook his head. "I'm sorry sir this isn't for the table. I'm looking for a y/n, is there a y/n here?"

You raise your hand slightly to get the waiter's attention. "I'm y/n."

The waiter smiled at you, presenting the bottle. "Piccolo Sogno would like to formally gift you our most exclusive wine to enjoy right at home. On behalf of a generous courtesy from Mr. Tae-Oh, ma'am who wishes you a fine night. Thank you for you dining with us."

A bit stunned, you still accepted the bottle. That name alone already clued you in to who this was from.

Unaware of your husband's jealous gaze, you can't hide the smile on your lips as you read the note on the bottle.

A drink to wash away all your frustrations - Dhan.

#mea culpa 2024 #mea culpa x reader #kelly rowland #trevante rhodes #kelly rowland x reader #mea harper x reader #black!fem!reader #black!reader #black fanfiction #elixir of the sun #dhan x reader #manhwa x reader #manga x reader #reader fic #black reader

[icallhimjoey]

AAHH my favorite bitch back at it again! This will be a 5 chapter fic, correct? Because we best make him the FILTHIEST of martinis that makes him drop to his knees and kiss the floor we spill drinks on walk on. He better recognize we are more than just cute 😤😤😤

well, best we can do is TRY, isn't it? And that is, if Martin will let us... Wordcount: 3.7K

---

Mistaken, Not Stirred

part one - part two - part three - part four - part five

“Surprise, surprise. Look who's back again. For the, what, fifth time this week, is it?”

“That’s... that’s no way to speak to a customer.”

You let your mouth smile so hard, it made your sarcastic eyes disappear entirely.

“What can I get you?”

“Oh, that’s all right, I think...” Joe started, and Martin reached to place a drink down on the bar where Joe would usually sit. Joe pointed at it for you to see, like you were dumb to even suggest you had to take his order. “I’ve already got one waiting. But thank you. Next time.”

Disrespectful idiot.

You didn’t like Joe.

You did. You liked Joe a lot. But you didn't like him, you know?

It had been a few weeks of this now, and the comments had become more and more biting. Always said with smiles – ones that didn’t reach your eyes, nor his. Never mean or actually bitter, but there was definitely a “you suck at this job you stupid cow” vibe coming from him, and a “you come here too often you sad sack of shit” vibe coming from you.

It made Martin bite away sly smirks and swallow his obvious laughter when he witnessed you interact with each other.

You just didn’t like how Joe seemed to act like he was above you in this bar, even though he didn’t even work there. Only vaguely knew the manager. Came in a couple nights a week, mostly by himself because he didn’t have any friends.

You didn’t know if that was true, but who the fuck spends hours in a bar by himself if they have actual friends to hang out with, you know? Man was a loner. A real loser.

Shame he looked so good. And shame that it always made your heart beat faster when you saw him walk in every couple of days. You’d tell it, fucking knock it off with the palpitations, I don’t have time for this shit, he called us inadequate, you stupid bitch.

Cute too, sure. He had called you cute as well. It was why he made you blush just by looking at you.

But he’d wished Martin good luck with that one and he obviously had meant you. So you didn’t like Joe. Even though you did. And even though he’d been right.

Because Martin really did need good luck with this one, you thought, mentally pointing a fat thumb at yourself. Martin hadn’t called you inadequate to your face, yet, but… the message was clear.

No one else got told to just go sit and to closely watch what he did. See how he made drinks. Learn from what you could observe. 

Martin had said it all politely, but had grabbed onto you by the shoulders and steered you around the bar without any hesitation. Gestured at the barstools there and… you were a little dumbfounded at first. 

“Just... so I just sit…? And watch?”  

“It’s a little too busy to have so many bodies behind the bar.” 

You were in everyone’s way a lot, is what he meant.

James had shoved you aside more than once and had dropped a bottle of sticky syrup when he bumped into you. Somehow that was your fault. You’d been standing in a spot you weren’t meant to be standing, because apparently you had to by now be able to anticipate his every next step all night long.  

You sat down closest to Martin’s station.  

Decided if you were going to be tasked to watch and learn, you might as well watch and learn from the best.  

It had been three days since you’d been called cute by a stranger and three days of trying to mix the perfect dirty martini.  

And it really shouldn’t be so difficult. You knew the steps. You knew what went into the glass. You could do everything exactly the same as Martin would do it, but somehow, you thought it always didn’t come out right.  

Martin said yours was good. Had tasted the dirty martini you’d mixed before opening just to show him you knew exactly how now, and he’d said, “Yea. Good. So that’s one drink down.”  

Only thirteen more to master from the current menu.  

And then whatever other random off menu drinks people would ask for. Like frozen cocktails that weren’t on the menu. But there was blender behind the bar, and people would go, “I see you have a blender, can I have this drink, but have it frozen, please?” and Chloé would tell them, of course! And then would have you try your hand at it. 

You weren’t sure if she was giving you the orders she knew you were going to fuck up just to mess with you.  

But you were kind of fucking everything up, off menu or not, so, probably not. It was likely more an issue of incapability on your end than a malicious thing on hers.  

Martin made you sit and watch him, and after a little while, he passed you a little notepad and a pen. It was weird to have someone rest their head on two stacked fists on the bar all night. Taking notes made it look like you were actually doing something. So Martin started giving instructions on what he was doing whenever he could, whenever he felt he had the time to do so, to give you things to write down.  

He didn’t have a lot of time to do so, though, so you just started writing down what you saw. Wrote down ingredients. Step by step instructions. Utensils and glassware used. 

You had to be quick though. 

Martin was fast.  

You had to keep eyes on his hands and hope that what you were writing down was still readable after.  

In your focus, you hadn’t noticed that someone sat down next to you. 

Someone who now had to sit at the long end of the bar, cringe, eyeroll, so very annoying, because you so happened to have taken the seat he’d usually occupy.  

Joe sat down and sort of watched you for a little bit. Looked at what you were doing. Puzzled together why you weren’t behind the bar doing your job, or trying to do so at least, and instead hogged his favourite seat.

He saw how you didn’t break eye-contact with Martin’s hands and chuckled to himself when he saw your handwriting.

There was no way you’d be able to decipher that. Didn’t even look like you were writing down words.

He looked on as your pen slipped off the paper and left a mark on the bar. 

“Careful, that’s the end of the note right there,” Joe said, condescending, too late to actually be helpful.  

You rubbed at it with a finger and quickly got your eyes back on Martin. 

You’d missed a step. 

Shit.  

“I’m sorry, I’m trying to pay attention because,” you paused, wrote down what Martin did with some lemon zest.  

“Because…” Joe egged you on. 

“Because apparently, I can’t mix my cocktails right.”  

“Oh,” you heard next to you as you watched Martin finish the drink, followed by, “So, you’re aware?” 

Hm?

What the fuck? 

You frowned as you looked down at your note and tried to process if what you just heard had been right. Then you slowly looked up, eyes first, then your head followed, and, oh no, this was the guy.

There wasn’t even time to think of a smart comeback quick enough, because the realization immediately made you move onto different things.

“Dirty martini!” you exclaimed, eyes wide, and you immediately got up. Well. You tried to immediately get up. The barstool scraped against the floor loudly, but it didn’t move back far enough, and you got caught between the chair and the bar and it made your tits land on the edge awkwardly before you turned and let your feet find the floor properly.

The whole scuffle of it made the little smile on his face break into an actual laugh.

“Careful,” Joe laughed as he hovered a hand near you that did nothing, all pretend helpful.

But the second you were off the seat, you got instructions to get back on.

“Sit back down.” Martin said, eyes not even on you, and it was stupid how quick you climbed back onto the seat again. It was also stupid how you were legitimately proud of yourself for succeeding at something Martin asked of you.

“This one’s for Joe,” Martin said as he placed the drink he’d just finished right in front of this guy. Joe, you’d just learnt. “But you can get him a dirty martini next if he’ll have one.”

Martin looked at you like you were a child, eyebrows raised up high on his forehead, and then when he turned to Joe, he broke into a grin. It felt like it was a smile that made fun of you a little, but then he said, “Let me know what you think, I need to sort the Christmas menu.” and you hadn’t even considered the menu changing soon.

Fuck.

That meant there were more drinks you were going to have to learn how to make. Things with seasonal ingredients. Things that were more festive. Things that included fire maybe, and you weren’t ready to light yourself on fire. You weren’t ready to see the horrified reflection of your hairdresser in the mirror as you explained that it was just an accident, and could she please fix it because you had a big New Year’s Eve party to attend soon?

 You didn’t get to make Joe his dirty martini that night.

Or the next time he came in.

Or the time after that.

Instead, you got to listen to him wince, hiss and then laugh when you dropped a full tray of drinks over yourself before you could even step around the bar to bring them over to the right table.

Instead, you got to see him hide a giggle when you held a bit of orange peel the wrong way when you squeezed it over a drink, spraying the juice right into your eyes.

Instead, you got to see how he seemed playfully impressed when you bit back at a comment Chloé made about you needing to get out of the way after she bumped her hip into you, and you’d said that it wasn’t your fault she had a fat arse.

When you looked at him though, he’d pretended to be absolutely scandalized. Like he was on her side for it. Like he was about to go, "Are you just going to take that, Chlo?" and egg this on.

When he didn't see you look, you'd seen him smile softly to himself and, you know what, he could actually piss off for real, who did he think he even was in the first place?

You’d apologized to Chloé immediately after, terrified Chloé would be offended, mortified you’d started an actual fight, but you’d seen a flicker of joy across her face, and you had felt comfortable enough to show a little of a smile in return. Felt like the first little bit of acceptance, of you speaking her language, and all it took was a little gas to the fire.

Instead of getting to make Joe a dirty martini, Martin made you do a million other things. He had you take peoples orders, had you learn how to close the bar to make opening easy and efficient the next day, had you prep ingredients the correct way, and had you do mundane shit like cleaning floors, tables, toilets, et cetera, et cetera.

You basically got to do anything but make drinks.

And Joe was the type of person to give you tips from where he was sat. Unwelcome shit. Things like, “Missed a spot here,” when you would wipe down the bar, or, “That table has been waiting for ages,” when you were just about to go over to take their order.

But Joe was a guest, and you were meant to be friendly and polite.

So you’d smile your most inauthentic smile and would tell him thanks in your flattest voice.

It always made him laugh.

Which, in turn, always made Martin smile.

Weird how that worked.

“Good evening,” you’d tell Joe when you’d see him walk in, all exaggerated faux politeness which he easily accepted from you. Before he’d even be able to go and sit down, before the coat was even off, you’d raise your pen to your pad and would ask, “What can I get you?”

And Joe’d just smile, like he couldn’t help the grin, and then he’d nod his head down, scrunch up his nose and point towards the bar before walking over to where he always sat. Where he’d take his coat off and reveal he was wearing a shirt with the first three buttons undone, sometimes even four, showing off literal cleavage. You didn’t need to get him anything. He’d get whatever Martin was already loudly shaking in his shaker.

It felt a little like you were put on the bench. By Martin. By Joe. Like you got to be a part of the football team, but didn’t actually get to play at all.

Didn’t get to take Joe’s order.

Didn’t get to make any drinks.

After a few shifts like that, James took pity on you, and when Martin left him in charge for the rest of the night, he’d given you an order to make.

Fuck yes.

Excellent.

And Joe was there, too!

Maybe if you did this right, James wouldn’t bat an eye if you just started on a dirty martini after, to slide over to Joe and to do what Martin always did. Ask him what he thought of it. Ask him to give a lengthy review which you knew was going to be nice words only, topped off by the satisfaction you’d get from him expecting the worst and then tasting the best.

You wanted to see that face. Feel it in your bones.

The Simon-Cowell-watching-Susan-Boyle-for-the-first-time face.

But then you didn’t do it right, did you?

You poured all liquids into the cocktail shaker and closed it properly, like you’d been shown how, but, you weren’t meant to put all liquids into the shaker, were you?

You were meant to keep the carbonated drink to the side and add that directly to the glass after you’d mixed the rest of it.

You only shook it twice.

Maybe three good, violent times, to really get the ice to rattle.

The cocktail shaker exploded in your hands.

You gasped as the cold drink hit your front, and stood there, frozen as the drink dripped down your face.

You saw Joe very slowly reach and wipe underneath his eye with his middle finger as he rapidly blinked, like a little drop had made it onto his face.

There was no way any of that had gotten onto him, but the fact that he pretended that it did was just as infuriating as it was embarrassing.

James and Chloé stood there frozen also, until James reached for a dishtowel and hit you in the face with it.

“I think maybe Frank needs help,” he had then said after you’d finished cleaning, and were sent upstairs to join Frank by the door.

Not the worst job.

Frank was nice, didn’t mind a break from playing solitaire on his phone for a chat, but... joining Frank by the entrance was the bar equivalent of being put on time out, and Frank knew it too.

When he saw you come into view as you dragged your feet up the stairs to where he was sat, he smiled and said, “What’d you do this time?”

You plonked onto the barstool next to him in the small little hallway and sighed as you leant back against the wall.

“Put fizzy drink into a shaker.”

You bonked your head against the wall behind you, once, twice, three times.

“Shook it.”

Frank huffed a laugh, said, “Nice.” and got back to his game on his phone.

“When do you think I'll get fired?” you asked jokingly.

“Hmm, a week, give or take.” Frank answered, eyes on his phone, and you couldn't help but laugh.

“Nice.”

As the night came to a close, you saw people out along with Frank. Opened the door for them. Wished them a lovely rest of their night.

Just when you thought you might as well go down to help James and Chloé with closing, the both of them came up the stairs, talking, laughing, both in their coats already.

“Hey, what’s...” you faltered, confused. There was no way they’d actually finished already.

“We’ve done most, you’ll be fine finishing up, yea?” Chloé asked. It wasn’t a question for you to answer though. She was already standing outside when James tried to give you some last instructions.

“Use the key in the cash register, leave it in the letterbox after locking up.”

You just looked at him. Blinked a few times, because, were you allowed to do this on your own? Would Martin be okay with you closing the place by yourself?

“You got this!” James smiled, and you knew it was just that he was happy to be fucking off early for once.

When the heavy door fell shut behind them, you stared at it a second before you huffed a humourless laugh.

“What the fuck was that?”

“I still got half an hour on my clock,” Frank said after checking. “Do you need any help?”

You considered it for a moment.

“That's kind of you, but... I actually don’t, thanks.”

You didn’t.

Martin had practically let you close on your own before. He’d just been sat at the bar whilst you worked around him, big grey folder opened and pen in hand, doing whatever admin needed doing.

“Join them. Have a... somewhat early night.”

It was late.

“You sure? Can’t place blame with me for anything if I’m not around.”

“Fuck off,” you laughed. “I’ll be fine.”

You said goodbye to Frank, closed the door behind him and sighed.

Fine.

This was fine. You could close by yourself. Lock up by yourself. You’d be there for opening the next day anyway, so if you were to leave anything undone, you’d be able to pick up where you left off, stepping on your own toes, no one else’s.

You made your way back down the stairs.

Around the corner. 

Past the toilets.

Down the dark hallway. 

Into the bar, where... there was loud music playing. Loud music.

When you stepped inside, you were fully expecting to be alone but then realised: you'd not said goodbye to Joe yet.

And there he was.

Behind the bar.

Hands near the sound system, like he was trying to figure out how to use it. The song skipped to the next one, and Joe clapped his hands together once before he held both arms out wide as he spun around.

Teeth bitten into his lip, he made eye-contact with you near the entrance and... danced. Did a stupid hip and shoulder shake to the beat before he clapped in his hands again.

You frowned, loudly shouted, “Guests aren’t allowed behind the bar!” as you made you way over.

Joe completely ignored you. Got really into his old-man-at-wedding dance as he lipsynced along, all playful, all goofy.

When you were close enough, he grabbed a wet dishcloth and was about to throw it over. He waited for you to hold you hands up, to get ready to catch it, but you just said, “Yea, great, the tables probably still need doing, thanks.” as you slapped him on the shoulder, passing behind him to get to work behind the bar.

Not before you changed the song to something you liked, asserting power over Joe, because you worked here. Not Joe.

He could treat this place like a second home all he wanted.

You were closing the bar, so you got to choose the music.

And you expected to turn back around and see Joe get into his coat, dishcloth abandoned on the side.

You expected an overdone smile, a snarky comment, a mocking smile with narrowed eyes as he’d insincerely wish you good luck.

You expected to have to go and look to see if Joe paid for this drinks.

You expected he probably hadn’t, because by now you’d clocked in on this weird agreement Martin and Joe had, but you were going to make him pay regardless.

What you weren’t expecting was to turn back around and to see Joe bent over a table, hips wiggling as he wiped it down, focussing on a seemingly extra sticky bit, mouth pouted and brow furrowed.

Oh shit.

You didn’t like how that worked something in the pit of your stomach.

You also didn’t like how you watched Joe clean a few tables and then saw him catch you staring.

You snapped out of it and pretended you dropped something, just so you could duck down behind the bar for a second.

When you got back up, Joe had moved on to do more tables, and you were glad that he ignored the staring. He could’ve absolutely made a sassy comment to embarrass you, but he’d chosen peace over violence tonight, so it seemed.

Dirty martini.

Yes.

A filthy one.

You could make him a dirty martini as a silent thank you, because there was not a chance you were going to say those words aloud.

Just make one and then leave it out on the bar for him to find as you cleaned up behind the bar so you could pretend you didn’t even care if he liked it or not. Be all casual about it.

But then Joe looked up at you again, and a small smile grew into a wider one and there was no way he wasn’t going to slag you off for something, so you abandoned all plans and just... went for it. Asked him in an almost challenging way, no smile to be detected, with eyebrows slightly raised,

“Dirty martini?”

---

The Taglisted

@adoreyouusugar, @alana4610, @ali-in-w0nderland, @alwayslindie, @babybluebex, @barfightzanddiscolightz, @bettyfrommars, @cancankiki, @capricornrisingsstuff, @chaoticgood-munson, @chrissymjstan, @choke-me-eddie, @demonsanddemogorgons, @did-it-work, @dirtyeddietini, @dylanmunson, @eddies-puppet, @electricmunson, @emma77645, @emmamooney, @everythinghasafacee, @figmentofquinn, @frootvelvet, @ghost-proofbaby, @ghostinthebackofyourhead, @harringtonfan4, @haylaansmi, @jasminearondottir, @jewellethief, @joesquinns, @kellyxo1, @kennedy-brooke, @lovelyblueness, @manda-panda-monium, @miserybeans, @nadixq, @notverywise, @pepperstories, @phyllosilicate-s, @roosterisdaddy36, @sherrylyn628, @sidthedollface2, @thebellenouvelle, @thewondernanazombie, @tlclick73, @werepartnersnow, @winterwakesthewolf, @witchwolflea, @yelyahcardella, @yunirgo

taglist currently full, sorry

#Joe Quinn #Joseph Quinn #Joe Quinn x You #Joseph Quinn x You #Joe Quinn x Reader #Joseph Quinn x Reader #Joe Quinn Fanfic #Joe Quinn fanfiction #Joseph Quinn Fanfic #Joseph Quinn Fanfiction #joe quinn x y/n #joseph quinn x y/n #icallhimjoey #mistaken not stirred

[snzunii]

YOU BREAK UP WITH THEM.

+ tags. angst, hurtful words (from ran huhu), breaking up, established relationships + characters. sanzu haruchiyo, ran haitani x f!reader (separately) + word count. 0.7k + note. hello. ><

sanzu haruchiyo.

“i’m tired.” 

sanzu looked at you with furrowed brows; the phone that previously got his attention was now discarded on the coffee table in front of him, his brows raised when you chuckled bitterly—you were wondering what would make him look at you—and now, you got your answer. 

“then go get some rest.”

“no, tired of us. tired of you.” you said nonchalantly, as if the words that you were saying weren't hurting him—as if it weren't hurting you. “let’s break up.”

sanzu wasn't surprised at all.

he also don't expect you to say anything anymore; that was enough for him. because that was it; you really became tired of him. 

your face and actions were enough to tell him that you weren't gonna do this anymore. that you were not gonna wait for him to tell you what’s wrong instead of setting you aside.

you weren't gonna wait for him to open himself up to you. he didn't need any explanation, you were simply tired of him. and for the first time you do not expect him to say anything, to finally say his feelings out loud.

you do not expect him to beg for you not to leave because you know that’s not him, he’s not going to do that. you know he would choose to stay quiet and the next, act as if nothing happened and everything was okay. 

you were tired of fighting for the two of you, for the mismatched efforts on your relationship. you were done defending him to yourself that maybe you can still do it—that even though he’s not showing it he wanted you to stay. 

it was the same one word but the impact on the both of you were different. you felt free as he was uttering that word, you felt like the big thing that was weighing you down was slowly getting light but for him, saying that one word was the hardest that he’s ever done.

he didn’t want to. he wanted to say that he would try, but he doesn’t know how to. he just wished that you’d stay a little longer until he figures it out—but he knows that you’ve reached your limit.

that you would crumble and lose yourself the longer you stay with him. 

“okay.”

ran haitani.

“could you give me some fucking space? it’s getting annoying.” ran said that made you stop, your hand that was clinging on his arm was discarded.

it’s been almost a month since you last saw him. this is the only time that you get to see and talk to each other because of your tight schedules and you wanted to cherish it—make the most out of it, but he was acting a bit different today.

“am i doing something wrong?” you asked, a bit teary eyed that made him roll his eyes. his actions feels like your heart was getting ripped into pieces. “i-i just wanted to be close to you. we barely saw each other this month.”

“i know but do you have to be literally on me-” he stopped and sighed, “see. this is why i don’t want to say anything. could you please not cry here. i feel like i can’t do or say shit cause it’ll make you cry like a fucking baby” 

you weren’t really crying but you couldn’t stop a tear from falling. you were getting embarrassed and hurt. though, the pain was much more prominent; your chest was tightening every second you were looking at his face.

he’s different because he’s tired. he’s unhappy. he has been for the past few weeks—how could you not see it? he doesn’t want any more of this. 

you almost begged him to go on this date too.

“then you’ll overreact on the slightest-”

“i wanna break up.” you said and he chuckled.

it took all of your strength to say that to him. to really mean it. this is how much you love him, that you’d want to set him free from you.

“see.” he rolled his eyes and shrugged his shoulders, “fine. let’s break up.”

ran thought that this was just one of your pretentiousness, that you were getting dramatic over the things that he said. you do this often before—break up with him but the next day you’ll text him and say that you couldn’t do it without him.

he was assured that you'll be back and take back what you said but why did it hurt the next morning when there weren’t a text from you? 

#sanzu haruchiyo #ran haitani #bonten sanzu #bonten ran #sanzu x you #ran x you #bonten x reader #bonten hcs #bonten headcanons #tokrev headcanons #tokyo revengers headcanons #tokyo revengers angst #sanzu headcanons #ran headcanon #bonten imagines #tokyo revengers imagines #sanzu angst #ran angst #bonten angst

[neonghostlights]

Fuckboy!Eddie Munson x Reader

Warnings: Cussing, Eddie’s history of being a fuckboy, Arguing, Mention of Eddie being slapped, cheating (not between Eddie and reader), a kiss without consent (not between Eddie and reader), 18+ only for this series, minors DNI

Series Masterlist

Previous Chapter

You will be the first to admit you tend to look at things a little more rationally after you slept.

You didn’t want to blame your attitude towards Eddie the night before because you were hangry, but you did happen to wander around the woods for hours while in some sort of trance and then didn’t eat because of how angry you were at Eddie and this whole mate madness when you got home.

You were so exhausted but you didn’t let yourself sleep for hours last night, listening for every little noise and creak of the house. Mostly because of the fact that thing was still out there. Who knew if it could get in your house some how and attack you in your sleep.

But now you were awake and ravenous. The clock beside your bed told you it was noon.

You never slept in that long. Usually you were up as soon as the sun rose these days.

You stumbled to your kitchen, sleepily rubbing your eyes at the sight before you.

Eddie was cooking for you.

He knew you were there, he peeked over his shoulder at you as soon as you walked in. You wondered if he some type of super hearing or sight.

If he had been here all night then you hated to think of what you may have done in your sleep that he heard. You pushed the thought aside for the sake of your sanity.

You watched as he flipped bacon in a pan, letting it sizzle.

“I hope you don’t mind. I sent Gareth to the store to the get the food while you were still asleep so we wouldn’t use up any of yours,” Eddie said before turning to face you.

He looked tired and worried. For some reason it made you a little sad to see the bags under his eyes when every other time you saw him before he had been suave, put together in an effortless way to woo the women of Hawkins.

“I don’t mind,” you sighed. He still wore the clothes from last night. Looks like hadn’t left like you asked him too.

As if he could read your mind, he started to apologize.

You put a hand up, stopping him.

“I was cruel to you last night even though all you wanted to do was keep me safe. I’m sorry for being mean,” you apologized and you wished you had a camera to take a picture of his shocked face.

“Did you hit your head last night?” He blurted out despite his better judgement.

You narrowed your eyes, considering taking back your apology. Maybe he deserved it.

“I-I mean, sorry. You don’t have to apologize to me. I know where you’re coming from and I wouldn’t be nice to me either,” he said before you could throw something at him.

“I don’t want you to expect a romantic relationship to happen between us,” you warned and saw his face drop in poorly hidden disapointment.

“But, I could consider being friends on one condition,” you offered.

“And what’s that? What ever you want it’s yours,” Eddie said enthusiastically.

“I want you to go around town and apologize to all of the women you have wronged,” you told him, crossing your arms across your chest.

He sputtered for a moment. You could tell he was fighting between telling you no and wanting to give you anything that you wanted.

He sighed before nodding his head in reluctant agreeance.

“When?”

“In just a little bit. I’m starving,” you said as you sat a the table to watch him finish cooking your breakfast/lunch.

Eddie smiled and shook his head.

“Tell me how you like your eggs.”

—

The first stop on the tour to make Eddie a better person was the trailer park. Eddie pointed out his trailer, letting you know that you couldn’t go inside to go through his things because his uncle was asleep but you would be able to soon.

Instead of parking in front of his own, he parked in front of a trailer a few doors down.

Eddie shot you a look that asked if he really needed to do this and you practically pushed him out of his van that he had run home to pick up before you left.

You hated to think of the things that might have taken place in the van. You fought a disgusted shiver.

Eddie sauntered up to the door, quickly knocking before shoving his hands back in his pockets.

A pretty woman that looked like she was in her thirties or forties came to the door with a baby on her hip. You felt your eyebrows shoot up your forehead.

She looked furious.

Oh shit.

She peered around Eddie, making sure that no one else in the park could see them. You sunk down in the seat so she wouldn’t spot you.

Eddie said something to her, swaying back and forth on his feet while she looked angrier and angrier. He reached in his wallet, pulling out some cash before she took it from him and stepped back in the house and slamming the door in his face.

Eddie spun around, skipping down the steps before getting back in the van.

“Okay, first one’s done,” he said nonchalantly as he put the van drive.

“What the hell was that? Please don’t tell me you have a kid,” you begged.

Eddie let out a snort. “Nah, she isn’t mine. She got pregnant a whole six months since the last time we…well….you know. It’s her husbands kid,” Eddie said as he pulled out of the trailer park. Thankfully it seemed as if he had only had a special relationship with only one of his neighbors.

“She has a husband?? Looked like you were paying child support.”

“Oh yeah, well she had a husband I guess.She told him about me and her even though I said not too and he left her. I try to help her out with formula and bills and stuff when I’m able to to try to help her out.”

You looked at Eddie in surprise while he kept his eyes on the road. Maybe turning him into a better person wouldn’t be that hard after all.

—

The rest of the stops were all interesting.

You thought this would be good for Eddie but it was taking a toll on you. Every beautiful woman you saw he had had some sort of previous relationship with was like a punch to the ego every time.

You didn’t even know why you cared.

One girl kissed him- which he reacted with violent disgust to that made you feel bad for the girl but Eddie said was a side effect of the mating bond, another slapped him, and a numerous amount yelled at him or told him go to hell.

By the time you made it to your final destination, the book store, you were in a foul mood.

The bell above the door dinged as you and Eddie walked in.

Tina stood behind the counter alone when you and Eddie approached. Her eyes were wide as they flashed between you and Eddie.

You gave her a small smile.

“Hey, Tina. Where’s Jessie?” You asked, making conversation when you reached the counter.

Her eyes kept glancing to Eddie as she answered. “She called in. She said she has the flu.”

You felt guilty being here and not helping.

“Do you need help? You should’ve called me and I would’ve come in!”

Tina waved a hand in the air. “No. It’s fine. I like working by myself sometimes. Can I help you with something?” She asked you but kept her eyes on Eddie.

“Eddie,” you said as you pushed him towards the counter “wanted to tell you something.”

Eddie shot you a look.

Out of all the stops for his apologies he had really been dreading this one. He said that he didn’t even have any sort of relationship with Tina but instead she had become obsessed with him after he flirted with her once at a party, even showing up to his house once in the middle of the night.

After he got repetitive phone calls from her he had to tell her to leave him alone and that he wasn’t interested.

You wanted him to apologize anyways.

“I’m gonna go look around,” you said as you walked to a stack of shelves like you didn’t see these books nearly everyday.

You heard them muttering but couldn’t make out quite what they were saying. Only a few words were exchanged before Eddie was meeting you in the aisle you were in, letting you know he was ready to go.

He walked you to the van, opening the door and letting you climb inside.

“So, how did it go?” You asked once you got some way down the road.

“She seemed….oddly understanding,” Eddie said as he stared ahead at the road before him.

“That’s good,” you hummed as you picked at your nails. “I have a question for you though.”

Eddie glanced over at you.

“Would you have been interested me even if there was no such thing as mates?” You asked, voice small.

“Of course I would have. Why are you asking that?”

“Because I don’t think you would have. Not that I care or anything,” you stated like it was obvious.

“You obviously care or you wouldn’t be asking me,” Eddie responded back with a smirk.

“I don’t though.”

“Yes you do.”

“You’re pissing me off.”

“All I have to do is breathe and I piss you off. I thought the whole point of this was to prove to you I could be a good enough guy so we can be friends,” he lifted his hands off of the steering wheel for a moment.

You rolled your eyes but didn’t respond.

“You know what, I think you like me. I think you’ve liked me since you first saw me because you’ve felt a connection but your brain is miscalculating it for hate.”

“I think the stupid mate thing has made you delusional,” you argued back.

“It is not stupid,” Eddie snarled as he parked the van in your driveway.

You stared at him, not liking the tone he had used with you before pushing the van door open and slamming it behind you.

You stomped up your steps, leaving him alone in the van to think about his delusions as you slammed your front door behind you and locked it.

You knew he could catch up with you if he really wanted to, but thankfully for his sake he left you alone.

—

There was a knock on your door hours later.

You had spent the rest of the day stewing in your house alone. But every little noise had you on edge especially with it getting darker outside.

You jumped when you heard the sharp rap of knuckles hitting your door and you looked out the window to see Eddie’s van in your driveway.

You opened the door to see him wide eyed and nostrils flaring.

“What are you-”

“We caught the scent of whatever the thing was that tried to hurt you in the woods. We’re hunting it tonight.”

[loviingpedri]

scooby doo - joao felix

warnings: cursing, halloween decorations such as fake blood being mentioned, drinking, grammar issues

prompt: halloween special with joao.

“joao! our costumes came in. come try it on. i even got floki something.”

“what are we even suppose to be?” joao picked up the white shirt and orange fabric in confusion. he was trying to piece the idea together, but it didn’t make sense.

“how do you not know what scooby doo is?” looking at him in pure disgust for not knowing the most iconic show.

“isn’t it that one show with that dog and haunted house stuff.” he got the idea, but he still seemed unsure.

“yeah it is. look, i even got floki the collar that scooby wears. try on your outfit!” halloween being a close second to your favorite holiday. mostly for dressing up without any embarrassment. and, spending it while hanging out with your soulmate.

this year was your turn to host the halloween party. fake hand prints of blood on all of your walls. brownies with zombie hands with skeleton cake pops. this event was too good to only happen once every year. little toy spiders hanging that cause floki to bark. stickers of bats that seem to lead inside the house from the front door.

without joao, your ideas would’ve never made it out of your head. it seemed only right you were celebrating a festive day with someone who matched your energy.

“our house is nice. we did good.” joao stood next to you with his hand on your waist. admiring the house in your couples costume. “you know what’s nicer?”

interrupting your thoughts, “what?” you thought you messed something up for a second.

“how good you look in purple.”

you quickly turn flustered at his words. laughing off his flirtatious comment, it was still time to get the house prepared for your guests and trick-or-treaters.

joao put on floki’s scooby doo collar as you made sure the drinks were cold for the night.

—————

more guests flowed in throughout the night. both you and joao taking shots for entertainment, careful not to get drunk so easily.

beer pong being a popular game. it reminded you of college, except you didn’t have to rush to class the next day. everyone was so happy, making you even happier.

setting aside with your boyfriend. it was finally time for some pictures. modeling for the camera as he held onto you tightly.

“i wish i could pause time right now.” he spoke gently, but loud enough for you to hear.

“how come?”

“i don’t think any other halloween can compete with this one.” joao was never the type to really sink in with the decorations. he only admired you being happy. you were glad he understood where the deep connection came from.

the door bell rang. more trick-or-treaters were coming often. opening the door as joao was getting the bucket of candy, you weren’t ready for the surprise.

joao almost dropped the bucket as in front of the door were two kids also dressed as fred and daphne. making eye contact with your boyfriend, you could only see what he was thinking about.

“trick or treat!” the two kids yelled as your heart melted.

“it’s our twins. very nice costume young man.” joao bent down to give them extra candy for their costumes. something about the kids warmed your heart.

as they said their thank you and you closed the door. you and joao shared a smile, knowing that you both wanted to spend the rest of your life together.

#football x reader #football fanfic #football imagine #joao felix x you #joao felix x y/n #joao felix x reader #joao felix imagine #joao felix #fc barcelona #joão félix #fc barca #barca

[chicago-pd-is-weird]

Jay Halstead x Fem!Reader

TW: main theme of eating disorders, reader has a panic attack

Requested by: @sorry-i-spaced

You walked into the bullpen, settling down at your desk for the day. You'd gotten there fairly early, early enough to be the only one there, aside from Adam. Seeing as he'd been having issues at home, he seemed to spend more and more time at work. You nodded to him. "Hey Adam, good morning."

"Morning, (Y/N)," he responded, humming as he looked up from the computer. "You're in early."

You shrugged. "I could say the same thing about you." You shook your head, getting logged on to the computer and working on some reports you had in your desk tray.

A few moments later, Adam scoffed at something on his computer, making your eyes jump up to him. He looked to you. "You see these new dieting trends?"

You took in a short breath, but shook your head, trying to play it off as you looked back down. "No, I don't follow that stuff."

Anymore.

Sometimes you missed it, in a way. You didn't miss the suffering, the growl of your empty belly, or the feeling of eating only lettuce for lunch. But you missed feeling skinny. You missed being able to fit in a size 2 pant and an XS tshirt. You missed getting compliments, people asking if you'd lost weight, and bonding with people over it. It was so unhealthy, and yet, you'd made multiple 'friends' that way.

"It says here a juice clense and intermittent fasting can help you lose twenty pounds within a month. That's insane!" Adam laughed.

"Yeah," you mumbled, trying to seem as disinterested as possible. You remembered all of your therapy techniquies, trying to calm yourself down and tune Adam out. He dropped it for a while, just scoffing at his computer every now and then as he seemed to deep-dive on some articles. Obviously, he had too much time on his hands. You wished Voight was there to assign the man some work.

An hour or so later, the others started to pile in. Hailey arrived and so did Antonio, the two of them chatting about boxing or something of the like. You hadn't really been paying attention, until Adam spoke up again. "Hey, guys, look what we found earlier."

We? No, not we. You.

You huffed, trying not to let Adam get to you. It was just a touchy subject. It wasn't his fault, he didn't know, but it hurt you nevertheless. You just wanted the conversation to be over.

"Juice clense and fasting?" Antonio shook his head. "Nah, they got it all wrong. If you're going to diet, you have to go Keto."

"Antonio, that's so 2009," Adam mocked, rolling his eyes.

"Hey, Laura was on it for a while," he shrugged. "I think she lost a few pounds, but she gave it up after a while. It's hard to just cut out certain things."

"How about we cut out this conversation?" You growled from your desk, not looking up. "Bad for your health."

"Yo, (Y/N), what's your problem?" Adam asked, all three of them looking to you. "Not like we're actually doing it. Just talking."

"Yeah, well, some people do it. It's not funny, either." You looked up with the hardest glare you could muster, hoping your eyes weren't glossed over with tears.

Hailey, who hadn't truly joined the conversation until now, looked to Adam. "She's right, you shouldn't even be looking at that stuff at work. They're all gossip articles." She shrugged and moved to her own desk to get busy. Anotnio went to his own desk too, leaving Adam alone with your glare.

Jay walked in just a moment after, looking around at the silence in the bullpen, then sitting at his own desk. Kim and Kevin soon followed suit, walking in and chatting about some new trend on TikTok. You ignored everyone, just keeping your head down and finishing your case reports. Then, you went to the bathroom. When you came back, you could hear Adam talking to Hailey about you, wondering what was the issue.

Since you'd been dating Jay, Hailey had become like a sister to you. Hailey was practically ignoring Adam's asks. "Come on, Hailey, what's her problem today? She's been grumpy since she came in. Jay? Did you not satify her last night or something?"

"That's enough, Adam," Hailey huffed, shaking her head. "I don't know what's going on, but it's obviously none of our business if she didn't tell us. Drop it."

"Adam, dude, shut up for once in your life," Jay chimed in, shaking his head. "Just let it be. If you pissed her off, she'll come talk to you later."

"Dude, what did I do? All I wanted was to make conversation," Adam huffed. "Why did she come in so early anyways, huh? Did you piss her off first and she's taking it out on me?"

Jay stood from his desk. "Alright, shut up right now, Ruzek, or I'll lay you out in the middle of the bullpen."

Adam stood from his desk, huffing. "Yeah, I'd like to see you try, Halstead."

"Alright, that's enough," Antonio said, standing himself. "I'll lay the both of you out on your asses if you don't both sit down and shut up." He shook his head. "Ruzek, why don't you go check on this?" Finally, someone had found Ruzek something to do. You thanked your lucky stars Antonio was there. He had always stood up for you, even if you weren't close friends. Antonio handed Adam a paper with about twenty names. "Take Kevin with you."

Kevin looked up. "Hey, what did I do to deserve that?"

"Nothing," Anotnio said with a shrug. "It's not a punishment for you. Just go, now."

The two men looked at one another, then left together down the stairs. You sighed in soft relief, still standing against the doorway back into the bullpen. You looked at the four people left, nodding as Hailey met your gaze. You sat back down at your desk as if nothing had happened. You were relieved not only to have some peace and quiet, but to have the instigator removed. Adam wasn't a bad guy, but he was definitely still immature, being practically the youngest on the team. He didn't know how to pick up on social cues the way Hailey or Antonio did. It was his biggest downfall.

Some time later, Voight came into the office, having been at a ComStat meeting all morning. He looked around, seeing the silence, then hummed as he shoved his hands in his pockets. "So, I'm two officers down and the rest of you are silent? What's going on?"

Antonio looked up. "I sent them out to drop anchor on some streets we suspect trafficking patterns run through. Do we have a case?"

"No," Voight said, humming and looking to you, Jay, Hailey, and Kim. "What about the rest of you?"

"Finishing some reports, Sarge," Jay said, motioning to the stack on his desk.

"I'm helping with that," Hailey confirmed.

"Filing," Kim said from the filing cabinets near Antonio.

"I just finished my reports a few mintures ago," you said with a shrug. "If there's anything I can help with, let me know."

Voight hummed, then nodded and walked through to his office, motioning Antonio with him. The two shut the office door and talked, but they couldn't be heard behind the wood and glass encasing Voight's desk. You hummed and moved over to Jay's desk. "Need another hand?"

Jay hummed. "No, I think we've got it." Kim moved past the two of you to hit the restroom, leaving you and Jay and Hailey in the bullpen alone. "You okay?" Jay asked softly. "Listen, I know with this morning and everything, and I don't know what Ruzek did but-"

"It's fine," you cut him off with a soft sigh. You hadn't wanted conversation, you'd wanted work.

"It doesn't seem fine," Jay protested, putting a gentle hand on yours. "And about this morning-"

"You wouldn't understand," you mumbled, pulling your hand away. You didn't want to talk about the morning or about Adam. You just wanted to distract yourself.

Jay thought for a moment, ready to protest before realization washed over his face. "Oh... Did Adam say something about your body?"

"No, no, he..." You sighed. "It's fine. It's all fine, Jay."

"He was talking about some new diet fads or something," Hailey chimed in softly, meeting Jay's eyes and giving him a look.

Jay nodded to Hailey, then looked back to you. "You sure you don't want to talk about it?"

You shook your head and went back to your desk, trying to work on your therapy techniques again, then left your desk to go to the locker room without a word.

-

"(Y/N)," Jay said softly, a soft hand placed on your cheek. He ran his thumb over your cheekbone, which was fairly prominent. You pulled away slightly.

"S-Stop, you'll ruin my makeup."

"You don't need the makeup or the diet. You are beautiful."

"You'll never understand, Jay. Society just doesn't treat men the same way." You sighed wiping the tears from your eyes as you pulled on the pants. You'd been trying to get into the size 0 pants for as long as you could remember, and it was frustrating you that you couldn't get them completely on or buttoned.

"This isn't healthy for you, (Y/N). You don't need to be a size 0 to earn my love."

You let out a scream of frustration when you couldn't pull the pants up all the way. "Fuck! I'm just not losing enough weight!"

"(Y/N), please, please listen to me," Jay begged, walking over and prying your hands off the jeans. "This isn't healthy. You're not healthy. Please, stop trying to be like this. I love you, and I always will no matter what. You could be a size 100 and I would still love you."

You clung to the jeans like they were your life force, but when Jay finally got your hands off them, you hit his chest, then clung to him, sinking into his arms and to the ground. He knelt with you, holding you tightly to his chest, stroking your hair and rocking you slowly.

"I hate myself..." you mumbled. "I hate my body... I'm not skinny enough..."

"That's not true," Jay whispered in reply. "Your body doesn't define who you are... Running ten miles a day and starving yourself isn't healthy. If you don't stop, you won't have a body to hate, and I won't have anyone to give my love to."

You sobbed into his shoulder, still clenching fistfulls of his shirt. Finally, he coaxed you out of the state you were in, took the pants off you, and helped you into some sweatpants that were a size 4, which were big on you at that point. He picked you up with concerning ease and took you to the living room, settling you down and kissing your face. A bit later, he brought in some food he'd made, some chicken and gravy and biscuts with vegetables mixed in. Then, he sat beside you and handed you a small plateful. As much as he wanted to give you a normal or even large portion, he knew it wouldn't be right. He knew you had to start small. "Here," he said softly. 
"You don't have to eat all of it, but can you please at least eat a few bites?"

You sighed, but nodded. Jay had been so gentle with you and never really frustrated. He hadn't seen how bad it was until you'd started dating a few weeks back. It hurt him to see you like this, you could see it in his eyes, but you didn't know any different. High school had ruined you, and you'd been spiraling out of control since then. You took a bite of the delicious food Jay had made. You had to force yourself to do it, but the smile that came to his face when you did was more than enough to get you to take another. You loved him, truly, and wanted to get better, for him.

-

You sighed as you sat in the locker room, trying to keep yourself from crying too loudly. It had gotten to you. You now wore a size 8, and were in a generally healthy state. Sometimes you'd forget to eat or skip meals because you were working, but Jay always made sure to catch you if that happened.

You were terrified now, because the fight that morning had really hurt you and then you'd taken it out on Adam. It wasn't his fault, but he had triggered a fight or flight within you. You swallowed hard and tried to breathe, feeling a panic attack coming on. You moved to the wall shakily and sat down, just in case you passed out. You tried to control your breathing, breaking out into sobs.

-

"(Y/N), it's been forever since we had a night out. Come on, let me take you out to a fancy restaurant or something."

"Jay, I hate fancy restaurants." You rolled your eyes with a small huff. "What's wrong with having a night in?"

"We just go to work and come home. We never go out together."

"We go to Molly's all the time. More than I'd like to. I'm practically an alcoholic because of you, and it makes me gain more weight." You huffed and turned from the counter to look at him. "I never drank before I met you. Now we're there like every other night. Sometimes more."

"Well, yeah, because we never go anywhere or do anything. I can't be cooped up all the time."

You shrugged. "Then go out and do things. I don't see the problem."

"The problem is I'm not doing them with you. I want to do things with you, (Y/N)."

“And you know I hate going out. People look at me funny.”

“No they don’t!” Jay raised his voice at you. “And even if they were, you know I’m here for you! I’d never let anyone get away with hurting you!”

“Jay!” You yelled, huffing again. “I’m too fat to ever look good going out! I don’t want to go to some fancy restaurant and wear a dress! My makeup never looks right and I look dumb!” You slammed down the plate with your toast on it, shaking your head. “Forget this! I can't eat breakfast in peace even if I wanted to!” You grabbed your jacket, badge and keys, leaving from Jay’s apartment, despite his protests and apologies. You ignored him, then left for the district, the only other place you felt safe outside of your own apartment.

-

You tried to breathe deeply, but it was so hard. Between your fight with Jay and the ordeal with Adam, you just wanted to shrink into a ball and disappear. You sobbed, trying to keep yourself quiet as you spiraled into your own mind and thoughts.

Suddenly, there was a hand gripping your arm. "Breathe, breathe, (Y/N)," came a familiar woman's voice. You looked up, seeing Hailey through your tears. "Breathe in, as deep as you can. Come on, I've got you."

You breathed in as deeply as possible, but it wasn't deep enough. You breathed out, but back in fairly quickly, trying to catch that deep breath you desparately needed.

"Good, good," Hailey cooed. "Good, (Y/N), breathe."

With Hailey's help, you calmed down within a few minutes. You were able to breathe again, although your head was spinning. You looked up at Hailey, who simply held you by the shoulders now. You sniffled and nodded to her. "Thanks..." you mumbled.

"(Y/N), I've never seen you like this. What's going on? What happened this morning?"

You swallowed hard, getting up with her help and steadying yourself. You sighed, shaking your head. "Jay and I... We're just different. I don't like to be around people, you know? Not in public or at fancy places. I just want to be with him or my friends, like you. People I know won't judge me..." You shrugged.

"Judge you for what?"

Tears came back to your eyes as you wrapped your arms around yourself. "For... For my body..." you mumbled.

"What do you mean, (Y/N)? None of us would judge you based on how you look."

"I-I was really bad for a while... Before I met Jay, and before he helped me get into intelligence... Before I met you..." You sighed shakily, looking to Hailey. "I just... I had a really bad disorder..."

Hailey seemed to understand a bit, nodding. "We would never think of you as anything less than what you are: smart, confident, beautiful. I know Jay feels that way, and so does everyone else in the unit."

"It's all fake," you mumbled.

"Fake it until you make it," Hailey replied with a hike of her shoulders. "Maybe you can compromise with Jay on this. He wants to go out, you want to stay in, maybe there's some kind of middle ground."

"Like what?"

She hummed, thinking for a moment before nodding. "I'll tell Jay what I'm thinking, and you give it a chance, okay?"

You looked to Hailey, skeptical of whatever it was, but nodded. "Alright..."

"And about Adam?"

You sighed. "I was... I was stressed from this morning with Jay and on top of that, he was talking about diet culture and... Those were the types of articles I read about in tabloids in high school... You know, the fads? I didn't... I couldn't listen to that. After this morning, I-I just wanted to leave and be safe, and then I felt attacked again, like temptation to go back to that place... I don't know... It just hit somewhere too close to my soul." You sighed. "I'll apologize when I see him next, I-I just couldn't take his constant talking this morning."

"Hey, we all have a hard time tolerating him on a regular basis, let alone with you going through something like this. You don't have to apologize; you were only defending yourself."

You shrugged again. "I was still mean. I'll apologize and just tell him it bothers me."

"Okay," Hailey said with a small nod. "Alright. Do you need another minute?"

"No, I'm good." You stood, wiping your face and then taking a deep breath.

.

Adam and Kevin came back in after lunchtime. You hadn't moved from your desk for lunch but, like most days, Jay had left with Hailey to get lunch and come back with a to-go container with a small meal in it. Jay walked in and set it on your desk, then leaned down and gave you a small kiss to your temple before returning to his desk without a word. You nodded a small thanks as you looked up at him, then your eyes returned to your paperwork. You typically did this, either ate in the office or not at all. You used to leave the office to eat in your car, but as you gained relationship with the team, you became more comfortable eating lunch around them.

After Jay came in and everything was settled, everyone went back to their respective "busy work," seeing as there just wasn't a case to handle that day. Even Sergeant Voight looked bored, eyes glazed over as he stared at the computer in his office.

You looked up to Adam, waiting for the right time. He looked up and caught your eyes, you silently nodding to him and getting up, moving toward the interrogation rooms. As you moved into the viewing room, Adam was on your heels. "Hey, look, (Y/N), what happened this morning-"

You shushed him, shaking your head with a soft sigh. "I wanted to apologize. I was very rude toward you. It's just that... Things... Things like that bother me. Stuff about eating and diet culture and that kind of stuff... I just don't like it, okay?"

Adam's eyes softened a little as he looked at you. "(Y/N), I'm sorry, I had no idea."

"I was taking my anger out on you this morning, and it wasn't right, and I am very sorry, Adam. Look, you're a good guy and I shouldn't have been so rude to you, no matter what I felt."

Adam nodded and put a soft hand on your shoulder. "I'm sorry too, I didn't realize it was making you upset. I need to do better with that stuff. I shouldn't have been talking about it, and I won't again. I understand now that it's a touchy subject for you. I didn't mean to upset you. Again, I'm sorry."

You nodded and offered a small smile. "I'm glad it's all okay now."

"Me too." He pulled you into a short embrace, squeezing you softly. "And hey, for what it's worth, you look nice today."

You laughed, snorting a little at his remark. "Is that all, Ruzek?" You punched his shoulder. "Get out of here."

He chuckled and put his hands up, walking backwards and out the door, back toward the bullpen. You took the chance to use the bathroom before going back as well, sitting at your desk and finishing up your tasks while eating your lunch.

-

When the day came to a close, you stood and grabbed your jacket, looking to Jay as he approached your desk. "Hey," he said softly, low enough that the others wouldn't be able to hear. "Let's get out of here. We'll make a stop at your place, then I want to take you somewhere."

You sighed a little at the thought, glancing to Hailey who smiled and nodded at you, then looking back to Jay. His puppy-dog eyes pleaded you to say yes. You finally nodded. "Alright. You can follow me home. I'll just park and change, then I'll be back out to meet you."

"Perfect, I'll stop at my place on the way to grab a few things and meet you there." Jay smiled softly, glad you'd agreed to it.

.

When you got into Jay's truck outside your house, you hummed. "So, what is Hailey's crazy plan this time?"

Jay smiled and shook his head. "It's a surprise. I can't tell you yet."

You looked to him. "You're not taking me anywhere fancy, are you? Cause I dressed in sweats for a reason."

He laughed, looking over at you and grabbing your hand. "I would take you anywhere in sweats. You're beautiful no matter what."

You couldn't help but smile, bringing his hand up to your mouth and kissing his knuckles. Despite your disagreements, you loved Jay with your whole heart. No argument, despite how much it affected you, would ever change the love you held for him. He pulled your hand toward him as he drove, reciprocating the kiss to your knuckles. You smiled again, moving across the center console to lean against him. You just wanted to be close to him, and you hoped wherever he was taking you would allow you to do that.

You rode beside Jay in gentle silence for a while as he finally turned into a fast food place. You furrowed your eyebrows, sitting up in your seat and looking up at him. "A fast food place?"

"This isn't our final stop, just stay here a second." He got out of the truck, leaving you inside. Truthfully, you were fine with being in the truck as opposed to inside the store, but you missed Jay's warmth sitting beside you. In his place, you turned on the heater and let the vents circulate hot air into the car. You hummed at the warmth, closing your eyes and leaning your head back. Jay came back about ten minutes later, a bag in hand. He set it in the back set before getting in and kissing your cheek. "Alright, ready?"

"Yeah," you replied, still soaking in the heat. Jay rolled down his window, allowing you to keep the heat on while he stayed a bit cooler. You didn't mind, as it also circulated in some fresh air. It was nearly fall, so the nights were getting cooler, but not cold yet.

Some time later, you noticed Jay had taken you to the outskirts of the city. He parked his truck at a local park, away from the hustle and bustle. You furrowed your brow as he turned off the truck, the heat leaving you. You looked to him for an explanation, but he didn't say anything. He simply smiled as he got out, moving to your side to help you out (which you didn't need, but it wasn't unwelcomed). He then helped you up onto the bed of the truck, following. He had a goofy grin on his face as he laid out several pillows and blankets, enough for the both of you to be comfortable and warm. Then, he grabbed the food from the cab and laid it out, helping you to sit down. "Ta-da," he said with a small grin.

You couldn't help but smile at his smile, shaking your head. "A truck bed dinner and cuddling?"

"This way, we're alone and can eat and lay here in peace, together, but we're also not at home."

You hummed. "Hailey is a genius."

He laughed and nodded. "Yeah, she's pretty great for coming up with this one. And best part is, we can go anywhere, so I'll never get tired of being in the same place, but you'll always be comfortable."

You smiled again, this time wider. "Yeah, this is perfect."

"I'm glad you think so." He motioned to dinner. "Now eat, and then we can lay back and watch the stars."

You scooched over to be closer to him, leaning into his side as you ate, humming. "It's perfect, Jay."

He rubbed your back, kissing the top of your head. "Anything for you, beautiful."

#chicago pd #x reader #fanfiction requests #chicagopd #jay halstead x reader #jay halstead #detective jay halstead #cpd

[thewritersaddictions]

Day Twenty-Two: Bucky Barnes + Thigh Job

It had been to long since you had even seen Bucky. First it was a mission that they needed to go on, and then when they had gotten back you got just enouhg time to give your boyfriend a kiss and a flat hug.

Before Steve was dragging him away, "remember you said you wanted to go on a fishin' trip when we got back release some of the pent up enegry on something good." Steve said as he patted Bucky on the shoulder. You gave Bucky a sad look, and he retuned it.

Now that had been two weeks ago. The last time you two had laid together in the same, hell since you had even talked to him. You really needed to talk to him about getting a phone so you could at least call him.

The night Bucky left for his fishin' trip with Steve you were already aching. Panties soaked through with antipation that had been clouded and shoved away when Steve wisked your boyfriend away from you.

You laid in bed without your boyfirend and groaned in frustration. You hadn't been able to do a lot of things because Bucky was gone. Hell you missed him like crazy, and you hoped he did to. You yawned as another wave of tiredness washed over you.

You really aren't sure when you settled in to Bucky's side of the bed. When your hand had slipped under the sheets, and pushed aside the wet cotton panties you were wearing. You just know that the feeling of your fingers ever so gently passing over your clit coverred in your own slick made your head fall back and into the pillow.

You came that night not as hard as usual by any means, so used to Bucky's thick, and rough fingers. Regardless you came with Bucky's name on your tongue, and your cheek in his pillow.

A week later when Bucky came walking into the bedroom. He held a doppy smile on his face, but smelt of fish and year old jerky. You looked up from your book, eyes scanning over the edges of your glasses.

"Decide to come back home to your girlfriend." You teased. He turned dropping both his work duffel, and his other personal bag from the boys trip. "You know I know you Y/n." He said, walking over to the side of the bed.

You shook your head, "I can…" Bucky went to say, "You smell Bucky, you need a shower." You weren't teasing him, so he frowned down at you. "Sersiously then you can love me all you want, but you need to take a shower." You said pressing a hand into his taunt tummy, and pushing him away.

He was in and out of the shower within minutes. "Baby!" he whined as he walked back into the bedroom. A white towels wrapped aroind his wasit every so loosely. Enough so you could see his v-line, and some short hairs.

"Better now?" Buckys drawl coming out. You nod your head, returning your attention back to your book. Bucky stood there for a moment. Normally a little tease here and there would put you right in the mood. Like water in his hands, but soemthing was off.

Bucky walked away confused and worried. "Baby?' he asked, sadness and worry in his voice. "Hmm." You hummed not bothering you to even look up. "What's on your mind dove?" He asked you. "I… Nothing I just missed you is all." Your tone has defintly dropped since the tease words you spoke to Bucky just a few minutes ago.

Bucky looks at you. "I missed you too doll." He says as he dress in sweatpants, and lays in bed next to you. You sit in silence with each other. "Baby." Bucky whispered real close into your ear. Shivers ran down your spine.

"Can I make it up to you?" Bucky asks his voice a little whiny, but you think for a moment. Normally if Bucky is making it up to you it's over dinner, or giving you gifts. "How Buck?" You ask him curoius about he's thinking about.

"How about I take care of ya? Take care of my good girl?" Bucky offers, and the thought intrigues you. You've missed him in more then one way. "Okay." You mumble. Bucky's face lights up with excitment, and his sweats grow tight.

Your boyfriend is also so sweet, and gentle with you. Sometimes you wished that he waqs rough, harder whenever the two fo you fucked. "Bucky plea-please" You moan out as Bucky sucks on your swoolen clit. Bucky looks up through his long, dark lashes. Popping off your clit, "What do you need baby." He drawls rubbing circles into your hip bone.

"Just… can we try something?" You ask even though your throughly fucked out of your life. You catch your breath, and explain to Bucky what you want to do. "Where'd you see this?" He asks first. You aren't caught, just have to explain yourself out of this one. "I… you were… and I was…" Bucky's hand lands on your cheek and realize that he climbed up the rest of your body in your mumbled words.

"I'm just teasing, I know you missed me cause I missed you doll." Bucky whispers up agasint your lips. The two you switch spots on the bed. Bucky leans his back into the bed frame, and waits for you. Bucky's large thigh lay out in front of you as you take a gentle seat. Shoving his between your plush thigh and infront of your bare, wet cunt.

The head of his cock bumping ever so slightly into your clit made you almost moan out strings of curses. You watched as Bucky thrusted his cock between the plush fat of your thighs. "Oh fuck…" "So soft, so fucking warm…" Bucky moaned out as he continued to pinsted his cock between your thighs.

You watched with awe, and as you bounced on his lap you leaned into the warmth and hands that wrapped around you.

Completed on: 08/06/23

Posted on: 10/22/23

Kinktober23 Tags- @lanad3lreyscokewhor3 @homelanderscumdump @hummusxx@chvnsdimple @vvitzvafflezvv @lokisivy @claud-blood0703 @iliketoreads-stuff @all-that-glitters-is-treasure@clearscissorsbonkgiant-blog @lxonix--ac @piecesofx @mortallyswimmingpainter @playwithfire99 @fucak @everythingneytiri @lovetheos @xxxxxoseungxoooo @durazopato @hotpead42069 @oddseabiscuit @capoda @witching-hour @viviwows @lover103 @alexlovesfiction @katiecat10 @electricfans @jianasmind @max-505 @powerbun21o @the-horny-simp @missy420-0 @jaq-dav @arescosplays

Marvel Master List // The Old Master List // Kinktober '23

#bucky banres #bucky barnes x reader #james bucky barnes #bucky barnes x y/n #fluff #fem reader #female reader #requests are open #requests open #open requests #bucky barnes x you #bucky barnes x female reader #bucky barnes smut #smut reading #smut writing #smut stories #smut warning #smut smut smut #bucky barnes #bucky fluff #bucky x reader #bucky fanfic #the winter solider #day 22 #kinktober 23 #kinktober writing #kinktober #drabble #marvel #marvel x you

[runnning-outof-time]

Happy Birthday/Congrats on 850 followers Daisy @peakyltd !! — to say I got inspired by the prompt list you shared is an understatement haha … I chose to use two different prompts, which I’ve italicized in the story. I also decided to go with John as an ode to the first moodboard/blurb that you shared with us. Enjoy! 💕

PLEASE LET ME KNOW WHAT YOU THINK!

Blood On the Carpet

John Shelby x Reader

Warnings: language, blood, injuries

Summary: (Y/N) gets a rather pleasant surprise on the morning of her birthday, one that she can’t quite say she’s surprised by…or maybe she is.

A knocking on the door of her home roused (Y/N) from the comfortable position she was sitting in on the couch. It was still rather early; too early for anyone to come knocking. Unless…

“Happy birthday, love.”

“John Shelby, what’s happened to you? You’re bleeding,” she disregarded her boyfriend’s festive greeting, her eyes on his nose, which was bleeding and already bruised.

“Well I was on my way here to come and see you, but then…”

“You know what…I don’t even want to know what happened,” she cut him off before he could explain his injuries further, “just come inside.”

She stepped aside as she finished speaking, allowing him to walk inside. We waited for her as she shut the door behind them, standing in the middle of her entryway like he had not a clue of what to do next.

“You really don’t want to hear what happened? I promise it’s nothing too bad,” he tried again to get her to listen to the story behind his injuries.

“No, John, I feel like I’ve heard them all at this point,” she waved him off again, “besides, your too bad and my too bad are two different too bads,” she added, spinning around to face him after she locked the door.

“But it’s actually nothing bad this time,” he persisted.

(Y/N) found it quite odd that he really wanted to tell her the story, but she just couldn’t budge from her stance. Like she’d said, she’d heard, and been through, one too many at this point, and honestly felt like she could go into the hospital and work as a nurse from all of the bandaging up she’d done in the three years that she’s known John and the Shelby brothers.

“Maybe some other time,” she decided to slightly concede, hoping that it’ll get him past his desire for story time. “Right now I need to get you bandaged up,” she then said, giving him a once over only to find that his hands were scraped up and bleeding as well.

“But I promise it’ll have you laughing,” he wasn’t giving it up so easily.

“You’re bleeding on my carpet, John,” she insisted, a bit more strictness seeping into her tone as she noticed the splotches of blood that were now covering her ornate, green carpet…one that she loved dearly.

“Shit…sorry, love,” he apologized sheepishly, finally dropping the persistence he previously held so that he could follow her into the kitchen area. He sat down on one of the dining chairs and waited for her to grab everything she needed to clean up his wounds.

(Y/N) got right to work with cleaning up his nose and making sure that the scrapes on it were only superficial. The same could be said about those on his hands, but she bandaged them just to make sure. “That should do it,” she announced, setting the remainder of the gause down on the table before she looked up at him. She had to bite her bottom lip to stop from smiling as she saw the soft grin that was present on his face.

“Always takin’ care of me, darlin’,” he mumbled, his eyes feeling heavy as he looked at her with adoration. It was still early in the morning after all, and he was about ready to go back to sleep.

“Who else would if not me?” she jokingly questioned then, allowing the smile to break onto her face as she heard him laugh.

“Was I the first person to tell you happy birthday?” he asked her after a few moments passed, his eyebrows raising in intrigue.

“You were,” she answered with a nod of her head, “I don’t think anyone else was itching to come wish me a happy birthday at…” she pause, checking the clock on the far wall, “six in the morning.”

“I was itchin’ to from the moment I woke up,” John told her, glancing down at his bandaged up hands then. “I even fell on the pavement while walkin’ over…nothin’ could’ve stopped me,” he worked in the story of how he got his injuries.

“You fell?” (Y/N) gasped, her eyes widening at his admission.

“Yeah,” he let out a breath of a chuckle, “right onto the bloody curb…got me pretty fuckin’ good if you ask me,” he added, shaking his head as heat creeped up his neck. He couldn’t help but feel slightly embarrassed as he told her the truth behind the brusies.

“Well if you ask me…I still think you look pretty handsome,” she told him, a smile full on her face.

“Pretty handsome?” he questioned her word choice in an incredulous manner, his ego now brusied along with his body.

“You know what I mean, John,” she rolled her eyes, laughing at his exaggerated expression. “You know…you’ve been here for a while now and you’ve yet to give me a birthday kiss,” she switched topics then, her eyebrows raising slightly as she hoped he caught onto what she was saying.

“I was slightly preoccupied before, dear,” he pointed out, chuckling at her suggestion.

“Well you’re not preoccupied now…” she trailed off, watching him intently.

“C’mere then,” he grinned at her, his words making her lean in closer to him. Her quickness made him grin as he happily closed the rest of the distance to match his lips to hers. A sweet kiss was shared before he pulled away just enough to whisper: “happy birthday, love.”

“Thank you, John,” she mumbled back, leaning in for another kiss before pulling away completely. They were both grinning like fools as they sat properly in their chairs once more. (Y/N) took that time to give him a once over. She couldn’t help but laugh as a thought came to mind.

“What?” John asked, wanting to know the reason behind it.

“I said that I’ve heard it all before when it came to your injury stories…now I’ve really heard it all,” she told him, making him roll his eyes this time before laughter left both of their lips.

What a memorable way to start off a birthday.

———

Tagged: @the-anxious-youth @mystcldydrms @look-at-the-soul @mrsalwayswrite @julkaamazing @evita-shelby @lilyrachelcassidy @shelbydelrey @onlydeadcells @peakyswritings @watercolorskyy @strayrockette @peakyduchesss @alexxavicry @stevie75 @dark-academia-slut @zablife @cillmequick @letal-y-poetica @depxiety @shelundeadxxxx @areyenotfondofmelobster @padfootdaredmetoo @crabat-the-queen @sebastianstangirl01 @everythingelseisextra @kmc1989 @papichulo120627 @brummiereader @valentinabloom @wildheartsalwaysburn @dragons-are-my-favorite @jessimay89

MASTERLIST

#john shelby #john shelby x reader #john shelby x y/n #john shelby imagine #john shelby blurb #john shelby moodboard #john shelby oneshot #john shelby one shot #john shelby fanfic #john shelby fanfiction #peaky blinders #peaky blinders x reader #peaky blinders x y/n #peaky blinders imagine #peaky blinders blurb #peaky blinders moodboard #peaky blinders one shot #peaky blinders oneshot #peaky blinders fanfic #peaky blinders fanfiction #fanfiction #fanfic

[teyamsatan]

Illicit Affairs | Chapter VIII: My Tears Ricochet

Pairing: Neteyam x Human/Avatar!Reader

Chapter I Chapter II Chapter III Chapter IV Chapter V Chapter VI Chapter VII Chapter IX Chapter X

Synopsis: All secrets are revealed and both you and Neteyam have to live with the consequences of your actions.

Warnings: pure angst, mentions of death, mental illness, addiction, self-injury, limited mentions of Y/N, did i mention angst, angst and more angst?

Word Count: 10,3k words (the first couple chapters were 3k, how did we get here??!)

A/N: This chapter killed me a little inside. I cried multiple times writing it, so I guess fair warning. I wanted really badly to build strong, round characters who had flaws and strengths and strong reasoning for acting a certain way/doing certain things. I wanted to write this story from both character's perspective, so it is clear that in life, each person will think they are right, that their reasoning was the correct one, when in reality, we are all a little right and a little wrong in everything we do, and it is always worth trying to see things from the other's perspective. We are coming towards the end of this first series, so I hope you enjoy this chapter and the rest of this journey. As always, thank you so much for everyone who engaged with it, I loved reading ALL of your comments and replies, they really make my day.

(Also, I feel like I am playing my own little game of "how many Taylor Swift and OG Avatar lyrics/quotes/references I can reasonably fit in a story without it being obnoxious" and I can't tell if I'm winning or not.)

I didn't have it in myself to go with grace Cause when I'd fight, you used to tell me I was brave And if I'm dead to you, why are you at the wake? Cursing my name, wishing I stayed Look at how my tears ricochet

You registered the girl asking you if you were alright, but you couldn’t see in front of you, the entire room spinning like the inside of a mirrorball. You felt your body rise from where it was sat next to Neteyam’s, and shakily made your way out. Neteyam’s mate. Neteyam’s mate was next to you, asking you if you need help. It all got too much, and you lunged your body forwards and threw up on the ground next to your tent. You were panting, trying to somehow get a grasp on your mind and push the hurt aside, enough so you can see and hear the world around you.

“I’m fine. Thank you.” you manage to blurt out weakly.

You heard more commotion, and faintly made out Jake’s voice and his arm on your shoulder, trying to bring you back to them.

“Neteyam, what the hell happened?”

You didn’t hear Neteyam speak. He was quiet and you were glad. You didn’t want to hear his voice, not now, and not for the rest of your life.

The world came back to focus eventually, and you spit aggressively trying to get rid of the taste of acid in your mouth. You removed Jake’s hand from your back, and left. The thought of speaking or even looking at any of them was too much to bear. You ran, harder than you ever had before, back to where you just came from, the Ikran nest in the village. You immediately recognised your own, beautiful, gold and white, pure, unlike the rest of this world. Neyn (light colours, shades of white)… fitting name, you thought. You made the tsaheylu quickly, and without a second thought, took off.

FIVE STAGES OF GRIEF STAGE III: DEPRESSION

You had no thoughts as you flew above the forest and made your way towards the general direction of the Hallelujah mountains. You realised you didn’t know where you were going, you didn’t know how you were going to find your way back, but it didn’t matter. Were you even going to ever return? There were no tears, no sadness, just emptiness. The pieces of your heart broke so finely they turned into dust, blown away in the wind of the night. Eventually you found the mountains, easy enough to spot, even in the darkness, the fluorescent flora marking the territory with an easy-to-see glow. You flew like this, for enough time that your lungs were running out of breath and your skin felt battered by the wind, but you kept going. You felt so free, so weightless. There was a calmness to your thoughts that you haven’t felt in years, probably since your mother died.

You saw a distant mountain that looked brighter than the others, and you made your way to it and were amazed to find a little cave in it, bright and colourful, a little piece of heaven on a planet that was heaven in and of itself. Neyn landed softly on the edge of the mountain and you dismounted effortlessly and approached her head, giving her pets on her neck, to which she cooed gently. She was the only friend you had, you realise. You were all alone.

“Neteyam, what happened?”

Neteyam was dragged in the tent by his dad, who was fuming. No matter what feelings his dad was feeling, they couldn’t compare to Neteyam’s anguish and terror. Why the hell was she there? She just had to wait another couple of hours and this would have never happened.

“She was patching my wound up when Tiongli came in the tent, announcing to the world she is my mate. Said mother told her about my injury.”

“Don’t you dare blame this on your mother, boy.” the Sully patriarch’s nose was flared, eyes looking at him intensely with anger and disappointment. Neteyam’s eyes filled with tears, and he felt his heart hurting so much like the gash was there instead of his arm.

“I was going to tell her tonight, dad. After dinner. I was going to tell her everything, and I was going to ask her to be my mate. I was going to come to you both and ask you to undo the engagement. I understand that a year and a half ago I gave up on her, I did it for a reason, I thought there was no future for us, and that we were hurting each other. But things have changed. She has changed. She’s going to be one of the people soon and I want her to be mine.”

“Neteyam, you can’t undo the engagement. You have known Tiongli your whole life, her family’s been expecting this since you were both young. You gave your word before Eywa, son.”

“I love her, dad. Do you understand that? I have loved her all of my life. It killed me having to leave, it killed me knowing there was no future, because she was human. But she’s not just human anymore. I was willing to go through with this for the sake of the village, for the sake of the family and the future, but if there is any chance I can have the love of my life by my side, instead, I will cling on to it for dear life. Mother was betrothed to uncle Tsu’tey, and she gave that up for you. It was done before Eywa, and she didn’t care. Because she loved you and she knew that was enough. She gave up being Tsahik, her birth right, so she can have you. I will not give up on her, dad. Mother wouldn’t have given up on you.”

“I have to find her. I have to make this right.”

You were sprawled on your back, feeling goosebumps form along your limbs from the cold grass. You were staring at the sky, noticing the bright stars you now knew were actually bright death sentences, each of them beautiful and devastating. Will you even still be alive when they come? Will everything you have gone through these few months matter? Will everything you have gone through in this life matter? All the pain, and the hurt, and the grief, just so you can die at 18 from a virus. The universe was cruel, you thought. It was a fitting end, though. Meaningless and daft, like your entire life was. Born on a planet you were not made to be able to survive on, your real planet a long-forsaken dream you will never experience for yourself, surrounded by nature that could kill you in an instant. Alone, never fitting anywhere, orphaned by human diseases: cancer and greed. Left to fend for yourself when you were just ten, learning to navigate a life that only seemed to want to clobber you to the ground whenever you thought you finally could stand up again.

There was no light at the end of the tunnel, not anymore. You wanted to fight for something, for the chance at life, or at retribution, or at love. You were dying and Neteyam killed whatever hope remained in you. They all did. Norm, Max, Jake, Neytiri, Lo’ak, Kiri, Spider, all accomplices, all aware, all willing to lie to your face for weeks with no remorse. You thought you were good at spotting liars, now you just knew how little you knew about everything.

The pain in your soul mirrored the one in your body, as you felt the morphine wearing off and your human body struggling to keep the mind steady for the link. You had to bear it, because this pain was more manageable than the one you knew waited for you in your human form, when you would be alone in a dark room with only your nightmares to keep you company.

With a sigh and a peer up at the sky, you hoped whatever comes after death was better than the hell you’ve lived in the majority of this life.

Neteyam waited the whole night in your tent, waited for you to come back, becoming increasingly worried as the hours passed and you didn’t show. He wanted to go and look for you, but knew that as soon as you got on your ikran, the chances of finding you were thin. He would go to the lab as soon as dawn broke, but for now, he was praying that you would just burst through the tent opening so he can talk you down.

He fucked up, badly. He cringed at the thought of how much he seemed to not be able to get anything right when it comes to you. Everything he did or didn’t do ended up hurting you more, the only thing he didn’t want, the only thing in the world he continuously tried to avoid.

He was consoled by the fact that he would have a lifetime to make it up to you. He will not give up trying, no matter how long, no matter how hard, he was determined to win you back and keep you, forever.

As you made it back to your human body in the early hours of the morning, you regretted waiting so long, as your body was in indescribable agony, the likes with which you didn’t know was possible for the human body to ever experience. Your heart was beating a mile a minute, you were sweating bullets and every bone and muscle in your body throbbed with enough intensity to make it almost impossible for you to get up from the pod. Everyone must be asleep at this hour, you thought. You had to make it to your bed, you had to get at least a couple of hours of rest if you were going to live to see another day. As if you were taking the Iknimaya again, you made your way form the lab to the medical ward and injected another dose of the morphine in your system. There was no going back now, you were too far down the rabbit hole to stop and why put yourself through more unnecessary pain when this will all be over in a few days anyway?

You crashed in your room for a few hours and quickly made your way back to the pod before anyone else was there to talk to. You started the linkpod by yourself and got in without hesitation.

Waking up in your Avatar body was a strange experience, as you were still in the Hallelujah mountains where you fell asleep last night. Neyn did not leave you, you noted, and she was peacefully resting next to you, cooing softly in her sleep.

“Hey, beautiful girl. Time to go back. It would be useful if you knew the way.” you pet her gently, trying not to disturb her. She woke up and pushed her snoot in your chest, and you felt it swell for this animal that you had an unbreakable bond with; you were grateful you had done the Iknimaya and at least gained a life companion from that horrible day.

As suspected, Neyn knew where to take you, and in about an hour you made it back to the village. You dreaded it, dreaded the inevitable interaction, but you knew you had to go back at some point and inform them of your whereabouts.

It was still early, so the village wasn’t quite bustling with energy yet. You quietly made it back to your tent, which you found empty. You grabbed your bow and arrows, knife and gun and a couple extra magazines. You didn’t know if you were going to be back. As you were making your way out, your head bumped into a large, muscular chest.

Fuck.

“Where the hell were you all night, kid? None of us slept a wink last night worrying.”

“Out.”

“What the hell do you mean out? Out where? You leave without telling, you don’t come back the whole night, do you have a fucking death wish?”

You laughed at the irony of his words. He caught your arm as you were walking away and pulled you back forcefully so you can face him.

“You are not going anywhere.”

“Let go.” Jake raised a brow at your words. He was not used to being spoken this way, you realise.

“How long?”

His grasp on you loosened, and his gaze softened when you peered up at him through eyelashes to which tears clung.

“How long has this been going on?”

“Kid…”

“How fucking long, Jake?”

He let go of your arm at your curse, which had never been directed at him before.

“Watch your tone, kid.”

“You made me feel like shit for learning to shoot guns without you. It made you feel bad, right? Knowing I purposefully left you out of something you could have been useful at, something we could have bonded over? I hurt you, by pushing you and Neytiri away for so many years, and I am sorry for that, but you have never, in your life, tried to understand me. So you gave me shit about something you didn’t understand, and I hurt so much inside at the thought of all I gave away by my reluctance to trust, to love, to let people in. So I changed. I let you in. I was here, everyday, acting like a perfect little daughter for you, the daughter I knew you wanted. Strong, capable, skilled. I let Neytiri in. I started calling her mum in my dreams, and although the guilt for my own mother gnawed at my insides silently, I was also relived, to finally have a family again, or for the first time.

You made me love you and break down these carefully constructed walls so you can be comfortable and sleep well at night for not breaking your promise my mum, and then you fucking stabbed me in the back.

I trusted you, Jake. You fucking lied to my face for months. Every time I asked where Neteyam was at dinners and you told me he was practicing, every day you plotted to get me out of the village as early morning as humanly possible and get me back after everyone else was fast asleep, I knew it in my heart you were lying, but you were all so good at it, I thought I was going crazy. But no, it was all a carefully planned ruse to not find out you made me come here and be part of the people just to watch the man I love belong to someone else without even a chance to decide for myself how to feel about it.”

The fight brought out the rest of the Sully family out of their tent, and they were all watching you now, concern and sadness displayed across their beautiful faces.

“You all lied to me. Looked me in the fucking eyes and lied to me, every day, multiple times a day. You were supposed to be my family.

The humans are coming. I will be here. I will stand and fight, you know I will. I will be your little soldier, and be who you made me into.

But I want to make this perfectly clear. As far as I am concerned, you and I, we are done. I am done.” You looked at every Sully one last time, and left.

You were no longer delightfully numb, but burning with anger and earth-shattering sorrow as you stalked away from the village, leaving everything behind. Your eyes were blurry with endless tears, mourning this life and this family that you managed to gain and lose within the span of a few weeks, reeling from the wounds within your heart that never had a chance to mend before being opened again, over and over. You didn’t want to go back to the lab, knowing Neteyam was most likely looking for you there. You couldn’t go to the clearing for the same reason. You had no home anymore, no place in this world, once again. You could only think of one place to go, one place where no one would ever look for you.

Your knees were shaking furiously as you walked, and you were scared of another flashback that you would have to ride out by yourself, but it never came. You just walked, crying and panting from all the pain the last 24 hours brought, and eventually you made it to a place you never thought you would ever see again. The clearing looked peaceful, with rays of light penetrating through tree branches, creating Mandalas on the ground that you found yourself tracing with your eyes.

In the corner, lay a decrepit exo suit, and you made your way to it, settling on the ground next to it. You knew now this exo suit belonged to your dad, and you removed some vines that grew on top of his name, Gideon Barlowe. A beautiful name, you thought, and your mind wandered to the past, a past way before you were even born, and wondered what your grandparents did back on Earth. Did they encourage their son to leave his own planet in pursuit of planetary colonisation, monetary gain and murderous acts? Did they know? Did he know? Was he like that his whole life, or did he start off fighting the good fight, and was corrupted by the jagged and monstrous lifestyle? You wondered if this was what he has always dreamt of doing, or he had secret dreams of being a painter, or a gardener. Did he play guitar, too? You snored sometimes, did you get that from him? You had so many questions for this man you shared half your DNA with, but have never met. For the man that died on a planet far away from home, alone, with no one to mourn him.

Was that going to be you? Would Neteyam remember you in 20 years, when he would tell stories about his childhood to his kids, when he remembered the good old times? Would you get a Na’vi send off? Or were you going to be buried somewhere in the forest, for someone to stumble upon in a distant future you would no longer be a part of?

Sobbing uncontrollably, you heard yourself speak in between wails. “Why am I here? Great Mother, please tell me there is more to this life, there is more to life than this, because I cannot do this anymore. I am so tired. I have tried to keep going my whole life, even when I wanted nothing more than to cease to exist, blissfully collapse in an ether where I didn’t have to feel anything anymore. I kept going because I wanted to make my mum proud, I wanted to honour the body and life she has given me. I am trying so hard, but I am really fucking tired.”

A little past eclipse, you arrived at the lab, and used the keycard you remembered to bring with you. You hoped Neteyam would be gone by now, in case he was trying to find you here. You made your way through the hub and into your bedroom, which looked tiny in your Avatar body. You realise how uncomfortable it must have been for him to be here so often, then cursed your brain for making you think about such things. Your Avatar body needed a bed, so you walked slowly to where the other Avatar bodies usually were laid to rest for the night. There should be an empty space where your mum or Grace used to sleep. It didn’t take long for you to wake up back in the linkpod, as with most nights recently, you were barely able to maintain the neurolink by the time evening came.

Max was waiting for you. “Neteyam came by. He’s been looking for you, said you left the village yesterday and didn’t come back. He was worried sick.”

You didn’t answer him, as you slowly got out of the pod and tried to steady your feet on the ground, harder than it seemed when the entire room was spinning around you.

“What happened?”

“The mate you all hid from me for weeks came announcing herself in my tent as we were just about to kiss.”

“Any other questions?”

You didn’t wait for a response before you made your way out of the room, stalking towards the medical ward.

As you retired to your room for the night, you noted the morphine was not working as well as used to anymore. You sat on the bed, looking at the arm that was getting blue at the amount of needle holes it had, and you knew then you didn’t have much time left. Maybe a couple of days. A couple more days of this. And then it would finally be over. You gave it a fair shot, this life thing. You couldn’t say you felt particularly sad at the thought of it ending. You pressed play on your vintage record player and let yourself sleep.

“Even on my worst day, did I deserve, babe, all the hell you gave me?

'Cause I loved you, I swear I loved you, til my dying day”

You spent the next 2 days in a haze, drugged out of your mind, waking up before eclipse and leaving to your dad’s grave and sleeping in the woods until the night, barely able to make it on your own two feet. Even in your human body, Neyn recognised you, and stood by you, which gave you some peace of mind. You made sure to bring her fruits from the lab, and she cooed warmly as she settled next to you.

When you made your way back that night, Norm was waiting.

“Where the hell have you been? Everyone’s been looking for you for 3 fucking days.”

You removed your oxygen mask and made your way to the room, where he followed you. You were in so much pain you couldn’t see straight.

“I am talking to you!” he took you by your arm and spun you around. The motion made you instantly sick, and you struggled to keep down the fruits you shared with your ikran.

“Let go of me, Norm.” you had no strength in your body anymore, so it took you awhile to shake him off.

“You look like shit. What did you do?”

You managed to make it to the bathroom, where you shut the door behind you and got in the shower. Fortunately, for you or him, you couldn’t tell, Norm was gone when you came out.

The next morning, you woke up desperately searching for pain relief and didn’t know if you were going to be able to make it to the ward before your knees would collapse on themselves. You were shaking and dizzy, out of your mind with agony and walking to the bathroom felt like the most intensive workout you have ever done. You peered up at yourself in the mirror and were scared at the eyes watching you, rabid and wild, like an injured animal waiting to lash out. It was too much for you to bear, and before you could even think or rationalise, you felt your fingers curl into a fist and make contact with the cold glass of the mirror, shattering in dozens of pieces, and it made you weirdly happy to have a visual representation of how your soul felt. The instant pain of the all the wounds the smash caused also gave you a weird sense of euphoria, and you realised it was taking away from the pain in the rest of the body, which was only able to focus on one agonising sensation at a time. This felt like a kiss by comparison, and you knew then you could go on a little longer, you could continue with the rest of the day.

Norm came bursting through the door at the loud crash.

“What the hell happened? Are you okay?”

You came out of your bathroom, blood dripping all over the floor as you made your way to the bed, sitting down on it.

“Leave, Norm.”

“What?”

“Leave.”

“What the hell has gotten into you recently. you are rude and brash, and you hurt people’s feelings with no remorse. This isn’t you.”

“What the hell do you know about me, Norm?” you say, laughing bitterly.

“Ace, stop.”

“You don’t know anything, Norm.” you kept going, the fury and hurt getting the best of you, once again, your need to destroy everything in your path as a way to cope with your own heartbreak winning by a landslide.     

“Did you know I have needed pills to sleep and to live a normal day-to-day life since I was 13? I have been slowly depleting our sleeping pill and benzodiazepines inventory and replacing it with multivitamin pills I found in one of the drawers. I mean thank God none of you suffer from anxiety or panic disorder or need help sleeping cause I would have been busted so long ago.”

You laughed mockingly at his shocked face, jaw so close the floor now you could trip on it on your way out.

“Did you know I am about a week and a half away from dying after I accidentally smashed a vial of infected blood and got it in my mouth?”

You stand corrected, you think now his jaw was close enough to the floor to trip on it.

“Did you know I have upgraded from a pill addiction to a full blown opioid addiction in order to not collapse on the floor in excruciating pain because of the way this virus is eating at my insides? Yeah, yeah, that’s right. We’re almost out of a whole vial of morphine after I injected it in my veins every day for a while now.”

He had no words. “That’s about right.”

“I do know one thing you do know, though. You know that Neteyam had his mate announcement ceremony that day I took off. You were there to see the two love birds announce their love and pledge their commitment to each other the one day I was not there. And that’s why you were acting shifty. You know about that. And somehow you forgot to tell me, every day, for weeks. How does that work out, Norm, hmm?”

“I felt so bad for snapping at you a couple of days ago. I felt like a horrible fucking person for hurting your feelings. I should have been watching my back, instead.”

You got up from your bed and started walking towards the door.

“If I were you I would not linger in a room with poisoned blood dripping on the floor for too long.”

You found some paper towels at the side of your bed and wrapped them around your bleeding, pained hand, and with that, you left.

After you upped the morphine you usually took, you went to the lab and prepped a hood for some more experiments. Work was a good way to get your mind off things, to mindlessly do something that had a purpose other than driving you to the brink of insanity.

You heard a loud banging noise coming from the entrance, and you had a sneaking suspicion you knew who it was. You heard Norm open the door.

“Is she here?”

“Yeah, but Neteyam, I think you should go. She’s not in a good place, and I really don’t think doing this will end well for either of you.”

“I don’t care, I have to talk to her, I have been looking for her for 3 fucking days.”

You heard the door to the lab slide open and hissed at the man you knew would be trying to come in, realising hissing in a human body doesn’t have nearly the same effect.

“Get the fuck out, Neteyam. This is a sterile room.”

“I don’t fucking care about the room, Atan. Where the fuck have you been? Please come out so we can talk.”

You threw your head back and laughed, really laughed.

“You really are delusional if you think there is any way in heaven and hell I would want to hear anything you have got to say. The time for talking was a couple months ago, Neteyam. The time for talking was the first day I got my Avatar body, where in addendum to telling me you own my ass now, you could have also sprinkled in the fact your are now mated with someone else.”

“I am not mated with anyone, for fuck’s sake. Just come out so we can talk, please. I will explain everything, please!”

You stopped what you were doing and looked at him, for the first time since that day. He looked exhausted, anguished. Deep purple bags under his eyes, that were burning red where the whites should be. He has been crying. Good, you thought. He looked panicked and miserable and desperate for you to give him the time of day, for you to allow him to explain the unexplainable.

You sighed and your heart constricted in pain. Neteyam will not be happy until there was nothing left of you, until he took everything from you. At the same time, you were curious, morbidly curious as to what has actually happened, what led to this moment. You knew he loved you. You knew that much, but it didn’t seem to matter in this moment, as he broke your heart for what felt like the thousandth time in your short life.

“Go to the clearing, I’ll come when I’m ready.”

You half considered just leaving him there to wait, abandoning him just he did to you. You finished splitting your cells and treating them, and in about an hour, you went into the linkpod and took your Avatar for a walk in the woods. You reached the clearing shortly, as it was close enough that even child you could do it without getting too far away from the building.

You saw him standing there, his back turned to you and his legs submerged in the river that was rushing violently downstream. It was a cold day, and rain was trickling down your body like shivers from a kiss. There was tension in the air, and you knew a storm was coming. You could practically feel the charge in the atmosphere, and were expecting thunder to start any minute now, ready to mirror the agony in your soul.

“I’m here.”

He didn’t speak for a while. Just stood looking at the river, deep in thought.

“So many of our moments throughout the years happened here. Remember when I taught you to swim in the river? Now, in retrospective, that was a bad idea since the water kept taking you away, to the point I had to wait at the end so I could catch you in my arms, like you were a baby.”

You winced at the memory.  You thought you could do this. You felt numb in that lab, numb on the way here, but as soon as your eyes focused on him, tears starting pooling in your eyes and pain overtook your body, that you tried to counteract by wrapping your arms tightly around yourself. He’s caused you so much hurt, so much grief in the years he’s known you. But he was also at the forefront of most of your happiest memories. You could fill endless manuscripts with the beauty of his love, that shone so brightly over you your whole life. He was the light in all the darkness and you honestly didn’t think you would have survived this journey without him.

That is why this hurt so much, why your body was convulsing on itself in insurmountable grief. And also why you owed him this much. Owed him this conversation, and the right to explain his point of view, that you were still unfamiliar with.

“I remember. I remember even at the time, thinking this was a good metaphor for our relationship. Life kept sweeping me off my feet, but you were always there to catch me, before it could take me away. I had so much faith in you back then, you were a fact of life, like the eclipse. You were the one person in this world I thought would never hurt me.”

“Fuck, Y/N, all I did before I left is hurt you.”

“What are you talking about?” You were confused at the turn this conversation took. What did he mean? You couldn’t recall a single time Neteyam hurt you before you left. Sure, you would fight and bicker sometimes, but it was a normal part of any relationship, you thought. And he always made it up to you, would always come to the lab and sit with you with flowers he collected or trinkets he found in the woods, always holding you and kissing your forehead to make sure you were over it before he had to leave. Fighting with him was ironically one of your favourite things, because you knew the aftermath was the closest you ever felt to being in heaven.

“I almost fucking killed you. Or have you forgotten? Have you forgotten how I manipulated you into getting on top of an ikran when you were just a 13 year old human and almost watched you die? Have you forgotten I took you to the woods and raced you to your dad’s remains? I was a walking magnet for disasters in your life and I was tired, so fucking tired of watching your life fall apart all around me. I had to watch you learn to walk again, limp because of my actions, for years. I had to pull you out of flashbacks and nightmares you developed because of ME. You were always fine in the woods with Lo’ak or Kiri, but everything bad that has happened to you happened around me.”

He was crying, panting and angry, at himself or you or the universe, you couldn’t tell.

“I thought that if I left, you would be ok. I just wanted to protect you. My whole life, all I have wanted was for you to be ok. But it seems no matter what I do, I keep fucking up.”

You had no words to speak as you lay there, listening to him letting you in to a secret you have spent so many months agonising over. The reason for his departure haunted you for a year and a half, even when you refused to think about him, about it, it was there, constantly emerging from the depths of your subconsciousness, taunting you in your dreams. Why? Why? Why?

Because he wanted to protect you?

You didn’t have time to process all of this new information, before he continued.

“The night you found your dad, I was shaken to my core, in a way I have never truly been before. I was so heartbroken, for you and for myself, for knowing this will haunt you for the rest of your life. I went home and mother found me, and told me that maybe I can’t help you in the way I’ve always wanted. That maybe it’s better for you that I remove myself for a while and leave you room to breathe and heal. So I did. It took me a long time to get the strength to do it. Every time I thought today is the day, I would see you and you would smile at me, and we would sit on your bed and you would read to me or play me songs or just be there, just you and me, and I couldn’t. I couldn’t bring myself to do it. You were everything to me, my light in all the darkness.

A year later, you sang me the song and you were smiling at me singing it, and I knew you were confessing feelings we have both felt for years and couldn’t say out loud. And I knew that if I stayed, whatever we had would escalate past the point of no return. If I stayed, that would be it. And that’s when I decided. I thought I was doing us both a favour. I knew it would hurt you, just as much as it hurt me, but I thought the pain would subside in time.”

You were crying now, you realised, tears falling silently and effortlessly down your face, with no intention to ever stop, instantly washed away by the pouring rain. There were no sounds, no sobs or wails, or panted breaths, just the sounds of rain and hopeless, soft cries and muffled sniffles, for the man in front of you, for all that you have lost, for the past you shared and the future that you would never have.

He got up from where he stood and turned around to face you. He walked towards you until he was so close to you could feel his breath on your face. His stare made goosebumps appear on your entire body, so earnest and desperate, so full of intensity for the words he was trying to convey to you.

“It didn’t.” He said, at the same time you thought the same words in your mind.

“A few years ago, mother and father told me I would one day have to find a mate. They knew and I knew it was expected of me, but I always put it off, so they eventually dropped it. I learnt later they both knew about us, so they didn’t push me into anything until they felt I was ready. A few months after they realised I decided to leave, they started bringing it up again. I didn’t want to hear it, but they said it was time, as I had refused for years longer than what was acceptable in the clan. I met with so many girls, all from good families, all healers in training, all wrong. Beautiful girls, smart girls, skilled healers and singers, and it was like looking at the grey walls of your lab. I felt nothing, I felt sick just thinking about it, like just the thought would be betraying the memory of our bond. Eventually, I told them they can decide. Grandma can decide whatever she thinks is best, and, as Tsahik, I would listen to her voice and wisdom, and do my duty to the clan. She chose Tiongli. I knew her growing up, and we were friendly, so I tried to make an effort. I would go to her tent, and she would show me her training sometimes, I would let her heal my wounds and imagined it was your hands touching me instead. I visited her family and paid my respects, and had dinner with them whenever they invited me. I hoped in time, I could learn to care for her, to lessen the distaste in my mouth whenever my family or the clan talked about the future, about the ceremony, about the life I was supposed to lead that I hated even the thought of.

And then, one day, my dad sent me to get Lo’ak from the lab. I was so scared of knowing I would have to see you again. It had been so long, and so many feelings gnawed at me on the walk there, terror and anxiety, guilt and longing. But then I saw you, and there was only one feeling: love. Like no time had passed at all. I knew then I was going to love you for the rest of my life, and that will never change. That was my fact of life, my eclipse.”

He slowly took your face in his hands, and his thumb was caressing your cheek trying to wipe the tears and raindrops that were falling mercilessly. You saw his face slowly getting closer to yours, and you knew you should pull away, you should remove yourself from his grasp before the kiss was going to remove the last ounce of happiness from you. You knew what you had to do, knew that no matter what information or answers or justifications he would give you today, they wouldn’t matter. You should pull away, because there is no future, no hope. But you couldn’t. You didn’t know what waited for you in the afterlife, but if there was any chance you would have your memories, you wanted this kiss to haunt you forever, to remind you of the life you left behind.

His lips touched yours so gently, it felt like a whisper. Like a hug, tender and warm, it was so different than your first kiss. Tears were still running down your face as your lips moved, entangled with his and begging for more. Your hands went to his chest, to his neck, to his back, just touching him, trying to memorise his body, this feeling. You wanted so much more, you wanted to be his, you wanted to feel him, you wanted him to own you, like he did your heart, which has been his your entire life and will still be his after your death.

You were a mess of wet tangled limbs and panted breaths by the end, and eventually, he broke the kiss to look at you through teary eyes.

“I love you, I will always love you. I am so sorry.”

“I love you, too.”

“But this doesn’t change anything, Neteyam.”

“Thank you, for finally telling me why you left. For giving me some closure for something that has plagued me for so long, it became a constant part of my nightmares. Thank you for having my best interest at heart; it couldn’t have been easy to leave, if you didn’t want to, it took a strong heart to do something that hurt you for what you thought was the lesser evil. But it doesn’t change anything.”

“You left me. You broke me. And you never gave me a chance to make my own decisions. To figure out for myself what was the path forward. I have NEVER blamed you for my misfortunes. The ikran ride is still a beautiful memory to me. You made it a beautiful memory. If it weren’t for your quick thinking, we probably would have both died at the hands of Toruk. You saved my life, Neteyam. You carried me home and stayed with me while I was having surgery, you stayed with me after, while I recovered. You pulled me out of the worst panic attack I have ever had when I found my dad, and you rode out so many of my flashbacks, I have lost count. You weren’t the cause or the common denominator of these events, I was. I am the one plagued by misfortune and hurt and death. Not you. And if you tell me you had to leave to save your own peace of mind, I would respect that. I don’t know anyone in this world who can take this, take me and all the shit that follows me everywhere I go. I don’t blame you.

But if you tell me that you did this for me, that I can’t accept. I didn’t ask for any of this. You gave me no choice, and no say in this relationship, in our shared life. You just left. I deserved better than that. And I deserved better than to find out about a mate after months of lies and manipulation and deceit. I don’t care. I don’t care if you are going to say that you didn’t want it, or you were going to undo it, or that you’ve always loved me and never her. I don’t care. You lied to me, you manipulated me. You accused me of fucking your brother as you were promised to another woman that you hid from me for months. I do blame you for that, and I will never be able to forgive you.”

“Please, Atan…I will tell her no. I will tell her -.” he was sobbing now, his hands still on your face, pleading.

“No.” you slowly took his hands in yours and removed them from your face.

“I think you should do it, Neteyam. She is a good girl, she will make a good Tsahik, and a good mate. Your mother was right, there is no future here - there never was. I love you, so much. But I think you have broken my heart one too many times. I am done.”

You turned your back and walked away from him and the life that was lost - forever.

You were completely soaked when you arrived in the lab, and you went straight to the Avatar laying room and cried. Cried until it felt like no more tears could possibly come out of you. You cried yourself to sleep and then cried in the pod, on the way to your bedroom, and in bed until your human body eventually collapsed from exhaustion. You cried in your dreams, in which Neteyam was kissing you and touching you, doing all the things you were silently begging him to in your mind just a few hours ago.

Eventually, nightfall came, and you had to get up to do the rest of your experiments and top up your analgesic. Ironically enough, you were making real progress on your work. You found a combination therapy that was showing incredible potential in slowing the virus down. It wasn’t enough to stop and eradicate it, but it was enough to give people more time and hopefully give the scientists more time to find a cure. It wouldn’t help you, but maybe you could still help others.

At some paint through the night, as you were making up some reagents, Norm bursts through the door holding a bunch of equipment and some pills, you realise. He puts them down on the bench behind you and speaks.

“Right, stop whatever you are doing, right now.”

“I am in the middle of something.”

“I don’t fucking care. Stop, now.”

You were taken aback at his words and attitude. Norm never got mad, or lost his composure. He was so most well balanced person you knew.

You put the pipette gun down and turned around to face him.

“I still need to adjust the pH on this.”

He ignored you while he prepared the myriad of little gadgets he brought with him. He motioned for you to take off your lab coat, and you rolled your eyes in annoyance, but did as you were told regardless. You were too tired to argue anymore.

He raised the sleeves of your top until they couldn’t go any further up your arm and put a blood pressure monitor on you. You felt tension as its sleeve tightened around you painfully, but eventually it gave out with a puff, and you heard beeping as the machine finished its reading. You looked to your right where the monitor lay, and saw red lights flashing, letting Norm know your blood pressure and pulse were dangerously low. His eyes widened slightly at the sight, but he held his composure, removing the gadget from around your arm and putting it away. He then read your oxygen levels, which you saw were constantly dabbling between 89 and 90%. Not good, you thought. No wonder you could barely breathe anymore. Norm cursed silently under his breath, trying to not let you see him, but if there was one thing you were good at, it’s reading people. Well, you thought you were, at least.

“Did you do any tests on your blood? How is your complete blood count looking?”

“No, I haven’t.”

“Why the fuck not, Ace? It’s not like you don’t know how to do it.”

He was angry, really angry. You’ve never seen Norm this angry, you’ve never seen Norm acting this way towards you.

You just shrugged. With a huff of annoyance, he took your arm and prepared a needle and syringe to collect some blood. He gulped and you could see tears forming in his eyes when he looked at the violet bruises and needle holes that were plastered along the length of your brachial vein.

“Just didn’t get around to it.”

“You didn’t - Are you fucking kidding me right now?”

“What medicine have you been taking? Did you take the Relenta, or the combination therapy we have been working on?”

“Neither.”

You swear you saw Norm’s entire body enter a catatonic state and he turned so red you were worried he was going to release steam out of his ears.

“You have been sick for a month and did not take anything, none of the treatments we have been working on?”

You couldn’t look him in the eye anymore, finding comfort in the pattern of the tiles on the floor.

“I can’t believe you. I didn’t peg you for someone who would just throw their life away meaninglessly. Your mum had to die because we didn’t have a way to treat her illness, and here we are, with a solution that YOU came up with for your own illness, and you will just not even try?”

You were quiet, not really having a way to rebut his questions.

“Fine. We will start you on the combination treatment tonight and take it from there. There’s other things we haven’t tried yet and I’m sure -“

“NO.”

“I’m not asking you. I’m not letting you fucking die.”

“Why must you always fucking try to fix everything, Norm? Some things can’t be fixed. I don’t want the fucking pills. I am done. I want this to be done.”

“So you’ll just die? Is that what you’re saying? You want to die, and not even fucking TRY to see if there is more to this life. Goddamn it, Y/N. I thought having the Avatar would help you realise life is worth living, there’s beauty in this world beyond the walls of this lab. You got your first kill, you did the Iknimaya, you’re going to become one of the people. Don’t you want to see what your future holds? Don’t you want to live to see yourself grow up? Fall in love, start a family. There are more guys in this world than just Neteyam.”

You gave Norm a dirty look and got out of the lab.

Neteyam felt his whole body reel after your conversation. It didn’t change anything, he thought bitterly. He thought explaining it to you, allowing to see that he had good reasons for his actions would allow you to forgive him, to at least allow him the opportunity to make it up to you through time. You left, just like he had so long ago, but there was a finality to you that he didn’t feel then. Back then, he always had hope that a miracle would still be possible, one in which you got an Avatar, healed and loved him, forever. He wanted to love you forever, but his apology and explanations were not enough.

He lost you, again.

He spent the night flying on his Ikran, just flying and letting the rain soak his thoughts and hurt away. He just wanted to disappear. He wanted the rain to melt his bones until there was nothing left of him but the memory of happier times.

In the early hours of the morning, he made it back to the village, trying to hide his cried out eyes and calamitous grief. He was dreading having to talk to his parents, to explain to them what happened, to have to go through with Tiongli and this future he didn’t want and will have to suffer through for the rest of his life. He didn’t have time to worry about it too much though, because, as he managed to get to the tent’s entrance, he heard Norm’s voice and his dad’s, intertwined with his grandma’s voice rising above them.

“It won’t work. Eywa will not allow her to come back.”

“Why not? She has taken her Iknimaya, she has completed her kills, she has spent her entire life in the village’s service, trying to help the best way she knew how. If she doesn’t deserve this, who does?”

“It’s not that she doesn’t deserve it. It’s that she doesn’t want it. She doesn’t want this, Norm. The Great Mother will not transfer the conscience of someone with no future.”

“But maybe if this happened, she will realise that she wants to live. Once she’s rid herself of her weak body, of this disease, maybe she will -“

“The Great Mother’s word is final. She will die, because she wants to die.”

Mo’at’s voice rang in his ears so hard he thought his eardrums would pop.

She doesn’t want it.

She will die.

What were they talking about? Who would die?

No… it couldn’t be. No, the Great Mother wouldn’t be so cruel.

He didn’t wait to hear the rest of the conversation, running as fast as his feet could carry him back to the lab. He reached soon enough, he was faster than most other people in the village, and started knocking on the door of the lab with all his might.

“Y/N, OPEN UP, I KNOW YOU ARE IN THERE!”

Eventually, Max came to the door, through which Neteyam burst without consideration for the tiny human next to him.

“She’s not in, Neteyam. She left before any of us had a chance to say anything.”

“Was she in her Avatar body?”

“No, the body is in the den where they sleep.”

He didn’t bother thanking the man, as he turned on his heel and started running again. She was there, had to be.

It was still raining, the clouds relentless as they released drops that poured gently down his face and body, and Neteyam thought the Great mother was crying, mourning the love being washed away like a pebble in the river of the clearing, just like he was.

You were there, of course you were. A current shocked Neteyam at the sight of you. This was the first time he has seen your human body in months, and he found it hard to reconcile the image of you he has known all his life with this current one. You were incredibly thin, so thin, whereas a few months ago he could trace your muscles, he could now trace your bones. You were pale, almost ashen, and the hair that he once spent so long admiring was now brittle and dull, obvious even as it was, wet and clinging to your back. You looked lifeless. He felt a lump form in his throat and tears pool in his eyes that were still not dry from all the pain this day has brought.

You didn’t notice him yet, your human ears much less sensitive than your Avatar, so you were just sitting on the riverbank with your chin resting on your knees, which were brought to your chest and your arms wrapped tightly around them. You were looking at the water, and it was like you weren’t actually there. You were in your own world, far from here, from this hurt.

“I was going to ask if it was true, what I heard Norm talk about in the tent today, but I think you’ve answered my question.”

Neteyam saw you flinch, and it felt like even that brought your weak frame pain. You were trembling when you looked at him, and your face made his own drop in shock. Your beautiful features, the blush in your cheeks, the glimmer in your eye, the pink of your lips, your animated expressions or raised eyebrows, were all gone. Your eyes looked glossed over and numb, your face looked ghostly and sunken, and Neteyam swore he could trace every blood vessel on your forehead and neck. The sight of you made whatever happiness or hope he had left dissolve and trickle down his bones, until it reached the ground where it was eventually buried, never to be seen again.

“I didn’t think I could make myself any clearer, Neteyam.”

“tell me it isn’t true. Tell me he’s lying; he’s making it up.”

“What part?”

“All of it.” Neteyam was angry now, trying to contain the temper rising in his chest.

“Tell me you’re not dying.”

“Norm has a big fucking mouth.”

“Can you for once in your fucking life just answer a question? This is fucking serious!”

You winced at his words, then struggled to get up, but did eventually and fully face him. The state of you hit him like bullets, piercing and scraping at his every organ, leaving bleeding wounds behind.

“It’s true”.

Crack, crack, crack. 

“When?”

“The night you gave me the guitar. I was so busy being in love with you I forgot to put the proper protection on, and I smashed a bottle of infected blood. It got in my mouth, in my nose.”

“I thought you were working on a cure.”

“Haven’t found it yet.”

“But you said you have something that kind of works, something to give people more time.”

“I’m human, it doesn’t work that way for us.”

“So, you’ve tried.”

You weren’t looking at him anymore, just staring at the ground in front of you, somewhere next to Neteyam’s feet.

“Tell me you have fucking tried.”

It thundered aggressively as Neteyam said that, and he saw you once again tremble at the loud sound. You have never been a jumpy person. You were the bravest person he knew. You were the strongest person he knew. It was unspeakable having to watch you now, sitting meekly in front of him, when just a few days ago you took the Iknimaya, taking the climb to the toughest tests known to the Omatikaya, doing it like it was nothing, just another day for you. To know that this is what was hiding underneath, this is what you hid from all of them, made him both impossibly miserable and strikingly enraged at the same time.

“TELL ME YOU HAVE TRIED.”

“NO, OKAY?? NO, I HAVEN’T FUCKING TRIED.” You were sobbing now, your tears washed away by the rain and wind as soon as they fell down your cheeks.

“Why?”

“Because I am tired. I want this to end.”

“I thought you were happy. I thought you were better. You seemed better in the Avatar.”

“I was better… in the Avatar. Because that wasn’t my life. That was just a beautiful dream, while my life was the never-ending nightmare. It was easy to pretend in that body. It was easy to be the version of myself everybody wanted me to be. But I have to live with the real me every night. And I don’t want to do it anymore.” The more you cried, the more Neteyam’s blood boiled in his veins.

“That’s such fucking bullshit.”

“You know what I think?”

“I think dying is fucking easy. It’s your easy way out.”

You looked up at his much larger frame incredulously, and he saw how your mood was starting to mirror his own.

“What did you just say? You think this is fucking easy for me?”

“Yes, I think it is. I think all you’ve done since your mum has died is take the easy way out. Put everything and everyone in your little bottom desk drawer, keeping everyone at a distance. Do you know how much mother and father suffered every time you refused to come out, to come to the village? My mother cried herself to sleep at the thought of you alone in that lab, at the thought that you preferred that soulless, empty place to her, to us. Did you know that?

You have not once opened that drawer, not once dealt with anything. All you do is numb yourself down, pretend you are fine and the issues you have suffered through do not exist. Well guess fucking what, Atan? They exist. And until you deal with that pain and let it pass over you and through you, you will always take the easy way out.

You have made me feel like the worst person in the world, for leaving, for lying to you. But what the fuck have you done, huh? You lied to me about dying, for weeks! About dying! What, was I supposed to find you dead one day and that was it? That was what I deserved from you, after all the blood, sweat and tears I gave you? You said I took your choice away. You wouldn’t have even given me a choice to say goodbye to the love of my life before you fucking died!

I left you for a year because I wanted to protect you, you are leaving permanently because you refuse to fucking deal with the pain and hurt I know you feel deep down inside. You had a choice. You could have come to the many people who love you, love you unconditionally, and told us, and let us in, and let us help you. You could have gotten help, taken the pills, fight your damn hardest to make this work, to find a cure, for the life your mum gave you, the life she would have to watch you throw away. You have a choice now. To want to live, to want to fight through this and come out the other side a new, better person. To let me love you, let people love you. To do the consciousness transfer and be with me, and be happy, forever. And you’re choosing this.

You are a coward.”

Neteyam turned on his heel and walked away, before he got a chance to see you collapse on the ground, giving your last few breaths in the place he used to imagine both of your children laying in his arms peacefully while you sang them to sleep.

Tag list (I hope I didn't miss anyone, thank you so much for asking to be tagged &lt;3): @nuhteyam @eywas-heir @fanboyluvr @mashiromochi @puffb4ll @sassy-persona @simp4ff @mommyneytiri @inomoikawa @jackiehollanderr @jaysarchiv3 @meivap @dakotali @hlhl99 @eskamybeloved @erenjaegerwifee @winchestertitties

#neteyam #neteyam x human!reader #neteyam x reader #neteyam fanfic #neteyam reader #neteyam sully #avatar #avatar twow #avatar fanfic #neteyam x avatar!reader #neteyam sully fanfiction #neteyam angst #awow #awow neteyam #loak reader #avatar loak

[starlightshadowsworld]

I love Percy and Annabeth but they should not have been in Heroes of Olympus.

Because they overshadow everyone else.

People even say they skipped other characters povs just to read there's.

I love them but I think they shouldn't have been as prominently apart of the story.

Because yeah I love them but I've had 5 books of these guys, I'd really like to know the rest of the seven.

Hell Jason's birthday is the day they fall into Tartarus soo...tell me they aren't overshadowed..

Jason's our main character and he constantly gets pushed aside and is not written well and constantly compared to as being Percy's lesser version.

Which isn't fair.

And he's not given a chance to change that.

He's not allowed to exist outside of Percy because of course he isn't.

Percy's right there.

Also give them a break.

They just fought a war.

Personally would love if the lost hero started with a snap shot of the battle of Manhatten and zoomed out to the Roman part of the fight.

Jason leading the charge and just "Yeah.. That's me, your probably wondering how I got here."

And takes us all the way back to a mysterious woman giving Jason up and the wolves coming for him.

With us learning from kid Thalia demanding to know where Jason is that this Jason is her Jason.

Jason Grace.

We see the wolf house we watch Jason try to survive and absolutely break our hearts hearing someone so young think he's so alone and no one loves him.

Lupa becoming more motherly to him but that fear Jason has always remains that she will turn on him one day.

Jason wandering the streets to Camp Jupiter.

Jason's situation bring the reverse of Percy's.

Being out casted immediately and than put on a pedestal once he's claimed.

Jason immediately hating it.

Jason being pushed into this good soilder narrative but he doesn't fit it at all.

His upbringing has left him wild, less bothered with proper fighting techniques and more on survival.

He fights to kill.

He fights to live.

And no one else gets that.

Except one camper, Octavian, who's older than Jason abd the Augur.

Everyone after reading the Pjo series seeing Octavian...I got my eye on you Mr.

Who insults the elders and is the first to get Jason to laugh.

And encourages Jason to stand up for what he believes in.

Giving Jason the courage to deny his place in the 1st cohort and join the 5th.

This

Pisses everyone off.

Mostly the 1st.

Who are downright offended because you don't turn down the first cohort.

And Jason's like, but I just did.

The 5th have no idea what to make of Jason but in time they become friendly.

Dakota becoming a friend to him.

Jason knows this because he shares his kool aid with him sometimes.

He does get in trouble for squaring off with and scaring off some bullies of the upper cohorts.

Because Jason hates bullies and he recognises the kid, Frank being picked on.

Apparently they stole his stick and while Jason has no idea it's importance, it made Frank sad soo he goes after them.

Ends up on probatio and friends with Frank.

Who admires Jason's bravery and wishes he could be too.

So the rest of the leigion kinda miffed some 5th upstart is embarrassing them.

And so when the next quest is given its to him.

Quests are different here to Camp Half-blood.

Since they don't have a true oracle, specifics are never mentioned.

Leaving the leigion to give the prophecy to whoever they want.

And they want to knock Jason down a few pegs and so they send him.

Jason picking Frank and Dakota.

Neither of the two are hopeful because the day a 5th is sent on a quest is the day their funeral is held.

Not the case though and they do in fact succeed and do it well.

Frank even opening up about his stick and showing that he is as brave and courageous as he wants to be.

It's through that act of bravery Frank is claimed as a son of Mars.

And though he's not exactly sure he should be one, Jason and Dakota both tell him it suites him well.

They both even do the "all hail Frank Zhang, Son of Mars" speech.

Which makes him smile.

On the way back though they do find Reyna.

Jason gets the short straw and has to do the oh the Roman God's are real but she knows and that she's a daughter of Bellona.

And they all head back to camp together.

And while Reyna has her guard up she does genuinely seem to enjoy her company with the others.

She's also the only other person to truly understand how Jason fights and his instinct to survive.

Though she doesn't share why.

Octavian greets them, proud and Reyna is on probatio until they can see what cohort she fits into.

Though she remarks after seeing the egos of the 1st that the 5th might be better afterall.

Celebrations are held and Jason wonders if the quest is really over.

Also all or us wondering if Octavian was genuine about what he said to Jason to follow his dreams.

Or if he did it to take Jason's place in the 1st.

Can't tell me after Luke anyone of you guys wouldn't be mad suss of an older blonde boy befriending Jason.

Fool me once.

Shame on you.

Fool me twice...

Damn...

Also reading the series prior and than this means everyone agrees with Jason.

Like we saw Percy fight for his life over and over and are just like... Oh you bitches gonna have a rude awakening when you face real monsters 💅🏽.

I have no idea what the quest would be but I'd want them to all line up to the next big prophecy.

Instead of it coming out of nowhere.

Hazel does come around but later on because of the doors and with her so does Nico.

#jason grace #heroes of olympus #This was supposed to be short smh #Dakota pjo #reyna avila ramirez arellano #octavian pjo #frank zhang #The lost hero #percy jackson #annabeth chase