#somewhere in there my mother cornered me in the kitchen and gave me this lecture long story short i am going to see a therapist lolz ha ..

[mldrgrl]

The New Addition

by: mldrgrl rating: PG-13 Summary: Hanella welcomes a guest for the weekend

Even more rare than a call from Becca was a FaceTime.  Texting was more her style.  So, when Hank picked up his phone and saw the incoming video call, he answered immediately.

“What’s wrong?” he asked.

“That’s how you answer your phone?” Becca said.  “Why does something have to be wrong?”

“Many apologies, Daughter, but the infrequency with which you grace us with your face from a remote location are rare as natural breasts on a porn star.”

“Do you think that’s an appropriate thing to say to a daughter, Father?”

“Fuck no, but surprise calls make me nervous.  What’s up, Kitten?”

“Don’t ever call me that again.  Is Stella there?”

“Yeah, I think she was grading some exams or something, hang on.”  Hank turned away from the phone and leaned over the sofa to try to see down the hall to the back room she was using as a study.  “Stella!  Stelllllllaaaaaaaaaaaaa!”

“Oh my god, why are you screaming at her?” Becca said.

“I like to take the opportunity to rehearse my Stanley Kowalski impression when I can.  Here she comes.”

Stella came down the hall with her hands on her hips and her brows raised.  Hank held his phone up so she could see Becca on the screen and she immediately dropped her hands from her hips and softened her brows, but she quickened her step.

“Becca, darling,” Stella said.  “What’s the matter?”

“This is why I only text,” Becca said.

“Well, if you called more, we wouldn’t think shit had hit the fan somewhere.”

Hank opened up his arm as Stella came around to the sofa and sat down.  She leaned against him and he adjusted his grip on the phone so they were both in the frame and so that she could also see Becca.

“I have someone I want you to meet,” Becca said.

“How the hell did you meet someone during a pandemic?” Hanks asked.  “Oh my god, are you online dating?  You know those people usually turn out to be serial killers.”

“Dad!”

“Darling, don’t worry, it’s still statistically a very low probability even if related crimes have been on the rise.  Give me his name and social security number and I’ll run a background check.”

“Or her,” Hank interjected.  “We’re still holding out hope she’s a lesbian.”

“This is the last time I am ever calling you,” Becca said.

“Does your mother know about this guy?”

“Or girl,” Stella added.

Becca sighed and rolled her eyes.  She leaned down and tilted her phone at the same time so the view was of her ceiling and then she came back into frame with a small, brown poodle.  “This is Ziggy,” she said.  “A friend of a friend of mine was giving away her dog’s puppies and I picked him up this morning.”

“Lovely,” Stella said.  “He’s very handsome.”

“I haven’t even met him, but I guarantee this is my favorite guy you’ve ever introduced me to,” Hank added.  “Now you’ll be far too busy for online dating.”

“I’m not online dating, but I’m wondering if you can do me a favor?”

“What’s the favor?”

“Next month I have the writer’s retreat scheduled upstate.  It’s just for a long weekend, Friday to Monday, can you watch Ziggy for me?  He’ll probably be housetrained by then.  Maybe.  Hopefully.”

“Of course,” Stella answered, as Hank also said “Not a chance.”

Becca grimaced slightly.  “It’s just that I’d really rather not have to put him in a kennel.  I guess I can call Mom and see if she can pick him up, but it’s so far.”

Stella squeezed Hank’s knee.  “You don’t need to call Karen,” she said.  “We would love to watch him.”

“Fine,” Hank said.

“Thank you.”  Becca smiled and held the dog closer to the phone.  “Ziggy says thank you as well.”

Hank ended the call and then turned to look at Stella.  She tipped her head back to look at him as well.  He tried to scowl and she smiled.

“Why did you say no?” Stella asked.

“Why did you say yes?” he countered.

“I asked you first.”

“I asked you second.”

“Because I don’t see a reason to say no.”

“Because I got her a dog once and where do you think that dog is now?”

“I wouldn’t know, where is it?”

“I have no fucking idea, that’s the point.  I went through all the trouble to steal the little fucker from the boyfriend of this woman I was...uh, actually it’s irrelevant how I acquired the dog, let’s just say I got a dog for Becca and fuck if I know what happened to the late, great Cat Stevens.”

“What in the world does Cat Stevens have to do with it?”

“That was the dog.”

Stella patted Hank on the knee and then tried to get up from the couch, but Hank pulled her back down.  “I have to grade papers,” she said.

“I just wanted to make sure you knew about the naked shower party I’m having tonight.”

“Wouldn’t any shower party be naked by virtue of being a shower party?”

“That’s a very good point, Sherlock.  I’d revise the invitation, but I’d rather just be redundant.”

“Mmhm.”  She pushed on his knee and this time he let her up.  “Text me the details, I need to get back to grading.”

“What, like a dick pic?” he called after her.

She glanced over her shoulder at him with one eyebrow raised.  He waited until she was back in the study to unbutton his jeans.

*****

Becca dropped the dog off on a Friday morning, bright and early.  Stella was awake to prepare for one of her classes, but Hank was still asleep.  He didn’t hear the drop-off, but when he woke up and wandered into the kitchen to make coffee, he tripped over the dog, stubbed his toe, and shouted a ‘motherfucker’ so loud he was pretty sure he was going to get scolded for it later.  The dog ran away.

“Yeah, you better run,” Hank mumbled, limping to the coffeemaker.  “Fuck.”

Stella startled him not a minute later when she smacked him on the ass.  He jumped and rubbed at his stinging backside, turning to her with a pout.  She was holding the dog in her arms and it was whimpering and holding on to her neck with its head turned away from him.

“What was that for?” he grumbled.

“First, for shouting expletives whilst I was on a lecture.”

“I’m sorry, Sherlock, I didn’t mean to.  Did they hear me?”

“No, fortunately, I was on mute.  There are student presentations today.  Which I must return to.”

“The damn dog tripped me and I stubbed my toe.  It might be broken.”  He leaned against the counter and lifted his foot up to show her his foot.  “See.”

Stella reached out and took a light hold on his toe.  He made a face at her and she gave it a rough tug to which he yelped and pulled his foot back.

“You’re fine,” she said.

“You’re mean.”

“Please don’t make enemies with Becca’s dog for the weekend.”

“He started it.”

Stella handed the dog over to Hank and gave it a scratch on the head before she walked away.  “I put the instructions on the refrigerator,” she said.  “Give them a read and then make yourself useful and take him for a walk.”

Hank pulled a sheet of instructions out from the magnet on the refrigerator and read through them.  They were very detailed.  Too detailed.  He wanted to crumble them up into a little ball and burn them.

“Ridiculous,” he said to the dog.  “When we left Becca with the babysitter the only unwritten rule was just not to kill her.  You’re a dog, you should be pretty self-sufficient.  Just don’t piss on the rug and don’t shit in any of my shoes and we’ll get along fine.  Deal?”

The dog twisted and wriggled in Hank’s arms to be put down and so Hank put him on the floor.  The dog sat down and then lifted a paw to scratch at Hank’s knee.

“Make up your mind, Zig.  Up or down, what do you want?”

The dog barked once and then sneezed.

“I don’t speak canine.”  

Ziggy whined softly and pawed at Hank’s knee again.  The coffeemaker beeped behind Hank and he turned around to shut it off.  He poured the coffee into a travel mug and left the cap off so it could cool a bit.

“Okay, Stella says you need a walk,” he said.  “I need to put some pants on.  Don’t lay anywhere where you blend into the floor.  I need my toes.”

The dog followed Hank into the bedroom and immediately jumped on the bed.  Hank shooed him off and undaunted, he explored from corner to corner, sniffing the walls and the furniture and the clothes on the floor.  Hank snatched up the jeans Ziggy was nosing and put them on.  He grabbed a fresh t-shirt from the closet and then went to dig through a duffel bag that Becca left for the dog’s leash.

It took Hank several attempts at getting the harness onto the dog.  Number one, because he kept stepping out of it as soon as Hank got it on one foot.  Number two, because he initially put it on backwards and didn’t know how the clip could possibly work when it was under the dog’s chest.  He finally figured it out though and it seemed secure.  He grabbed his keys, his wallet, a mask, and the coffee and headed to the elevator.

The half an hour walk with Ziggy made Hank understand the meaning of the term ‘boundless energy.’  If it wasn’t for the coffee, he couldn’t be sure he’d have made it.  When they got back, he unclipped the dog from his harness and even though it felt like they’d just run a marathon, Ziggy dashed across the room and hurdled himself onto the sofa where Stella was now sitting.  To Hank’s surprise, Stella laughed as she dodged excited kisses from the dog and didn’t scold him at all or tell him to get down.

“I am exhausted,” Hank said, collapsing onto the sofa beside Stella.  He grimaced and let out a pained ‘oof’ as the dog stepped on his crotch and up onto his chest.  “Fuck me, this dog is trying to kill me.”

“Have a nice walk?” Stella asked.

“That thing had to piss every five feet and terrorize all the squirrels and pigeons in the neighborhood.”  Hank pushed Ziggy away when he tried to lick his chin and the dog laid down on his chest, panting hot and heavy in his face.

“How’s your toe?”

“What toe?  Oh.  Not broken, I guess.”

“Lovely.”

“He is a total chick magnet though,” Hank said, waggling his eyebrows at Stella.  “Ladies were flocking to me like flies to honey.  Almost got a few numbers.”

“Oh?”

“Don’t worry I told them my wife would kick my ass before she let me take a hot girl’s phone number.”

“I think I might join you for this afternoon’s walk.”

Hank chuckled and nudged Stella’s leg with his knee.  “Kidding, Sherlock.  Some kid did ask me if Ziggy had an Insta and then had to explain to me that any dog who’s anydog has an Instagram account and we should get on it the sooner the better if we want him to be a doggie influencer.”

“A what?”

“That’s what I said.”

“Looks like you have a new nap partner.”  Stella inclined her chin towards the dog, who had dropped his head down to Hank’s shoulder and let out a deep sigh as his eyes closed.  She smiled a little and stroked the dog’s back a few times.

“I didn’t know you liked dogs so much,” Hank said.

“More of a cat person, really.  I don’t mind them though.”

“Did you read that list Becca left?  It’s more complicated than the Treaty of Versailles.”

Stella chuckled.  “It is a rather overly complicated schedule.  For a dog.”

“I say fuck the list.  I kept her ass alive for the requisite 18 years without a list, I can probably handle a dog for a weekend.”

“Tell that to Cat Stevens.”

“Oh yeah.  Wherever the fuck he is.  Okay, maybe we better stick to the list.  Though I would like to point out, Cat was Becca’s dog.”

“Maybe that’s why she made a list this time.”

*****

Ziggy was sound asleep when Hank turned off the lights in the main room.  The dog was passed out on his back, in his bed beside the couch, tongue lolling out of his mouth.  Hank tiptoed past him into the bedroom and quietly shut the door.  Stella was in the bathroom brushing her teeth.  He came up behind her and pressed her into the counter with his hips, sneaking his hands up her shirt to massage her breasts.

Stella grunted slightly through her nose and pushed her hips back into Hank’s.  She put her hand up to hold her hair back and Hank pulled his hands out from her shirt to do it for her.  She leaned over to spit into the sink and he held her hair with one hand and stroked her neck with the other.

“Thank you,” she said.

Hank finger-combed Stella’s hair up into his fist at the top of her head while she wiped her mouth and then he let it go and rubbed her shoulders.  She turned around and he held her by the hips.

“Where’s the dog?” she asked.

“Outside smoking a cigarette.”

“Do you think he should go outside once more?”

“He’s dead asleep.  He was like…”  Hank imitated the dog, rolling his eyes back and sticking his tongue out of the side of his mouth.

“You’re the one that was worried about him urinating on the rug.”

Hank pouted his lips and then nodded.  “Fine, I’ll take him upstairs.  But, you better be naked when I come back, or else I’m sleeping on the couch with the dog.”

“I don’t think that’s the threat you believe it to be.”

Hank narrowed his eyes and pinched Stella’s hip before putting his mouth to her neck and nipping lightly at the back of her jaw.  She laughed and pushed at his chest until he let her go.  He playfully slapped at her backside on the way out of the bathroom and she swatted his hands away.

The dog was still sleeping when he opened the door, but he whistled softly and Ziggy startled to his feet and then shook himself.  “Come on, hairball, we’re going outside.”  He snapped his fingers a few times and the dog followed him to the door to the roof.

Ziggy was hesitant on the stairs, taking them slowly and pausing every few steps to get his footing as he hopped up.  He ran around the newly landscaped deck, sniffing just about every nook and cranny and lifting his leg on half of them.  It had gotten chilly since the sun went down and Hank, in bare feet and a t-shirt, hopped up and down a few times and rubbed his arms as he called the dog back.

Hank was forced to carry the dog down the stairs when he wouldn’t budge from the top.  He made a few false starts, but ultimately sat down and wouldn’t move.  When he put him down, Ziggy stared up at him and then stayed closed to his legs as he went back to the bedroom.

“You, stay,” Hank said, pointing to the dog bed.

Ziggy sat down next to the bed.  Hank closed the door.  Stella was sitting up in bed, reading a magazine or journal, which she set down on her lap and took her reading glasses off.

“Did you really think that’s going to work?” she asked.

“He’s fine.”

Before Hank even finished, Ziggy was yelping and scratching at the door.  Stella raised her brows and Hank sighed.  He opened the door and the dog came flying through, jumped on the bed and leapt onto Stella with his paws on her chest, wagging his tail and kissing her cheek and chin.

“Settle, darling,” Stella said, turning her face away and pushing the dog back.  He gave a whining bark as he dropped down.

“Do they make ritalin for dogs?”

“He’s just a baby.”

Hank kicked the dog bed into the bedroom and then pushed it against the wall with his foot.  “Go get in your bed,” he said.

Ziggy laid down where he was, next to Stella.  He put his head on his paws and lifted his eyes up at Hank.

“Now he’s giving me puppy dog eyes,” Hank said.

“Shockingly, I believe that’s where that term came from.”

“Well, I don’t like it.  It’s too effective.”

“Resign yourself to the fact that we have a little guest for the weekend.”

Hank grumbled under his breath as he went to the bathroom to get ready for bed.  He stripped to his jockey shorts and snapped off the overhead lights on his way back.  Ziggy looked up from beside Stella like Hank was the intruder.  He even had the audacity to give a little growl when Hank leaned over to give his wife a kiss.  Annoyed, Hank flopped onto his back and the dog scooted closer and rested his head on his arm.

“Oh, now you want to be nice,” Hank said, reaching over to scratch the dog on the head.  “I’m surprised Becca hasn’t called.”

“What do you mean?”

“To check up on the dog or let us know she made it to the retreat.”

“She’s been texting me all day.”

“What?  What did she want?”

“Checking up on the dog.”

“She doesn’t trust us?”

“You didn’t question her motivations five seconds ago when you were surprised she hadn’t called.”

“I like to be fickle to keep you on your toes.”

Ziggy sighed and squirmed until he was on his back, all four paws limp in the air.  Stella chuckled and rubbed his chest before she closed her magazine and tossed it onto the nightstand.

“We’re letting this thing stay up here, then?” Hank asked.

“Yes.”

“I think I’m more of a cat person too.”

*****

Hank was surprised that the dog was no trouble during the night.  He woke briefly when Stella, always an early riser, got up and said she was going to take Ziggy for his morning walk and when she got back, would be entering in project results into her electronic gradebook for a bit.  He grunted in response and mumbled a reminder to leave him some coffee.

When he finally woke fully, left the bedroom far more cautiously than he had the previous morning.  Ziggy was nowhere to be found, but as soon as he started puttering in the kitchen, the dog appeared.  Hank crouched down and gave him a few scratches.

“What were you up to, hm?” he asked.  “Getting into trouble?”

Ziggy followed Hank as he went to the bedroom, most likely interested in the piece of toast in his hand.  Hank held the toast between his teeth, wiped his hands on his jeans, and picked up his phone from the nightstand to text Becca.

Morning sweetheart.  The furball is good.  Not to worry.  Haven’t shipped him off to a kennel yet and probably won’t.  Have a good time at the retreat.

Hank took a bite of his toast and then tore a piece off and tossed it to the dog.  Ziggy caught it mid-air.  About thirty seconds later, he heard Stella calling his name and he snapped his fingers at the dog to get him to follow him out of the bedroom.

“What’s up?” Hank asked, and shoved the rest of the toast into his mouth.

“What did you say to Becca?”

“Hm?” he mumbled, mouth full.

“She just texted me and said you’ve implied the dog has been sent to a kennel and wants proof of life.”

“No I didn’t,” he said.  “I said I haven’t sent the dog to a kennel so she doesn’t need to worry.”

“Why would you say that to her?”

“So she wouldn’t worry.”

“Well, she’s worried.”

“That’s not my fault.”

“I’ll send her a photo.  Ziggy, come here, darling.”  

Stella kissed the air a few times, but Ziggy thought trying to be caught was a game.  He bounded away from Stella and then stopped and bowed down, his hind end in the air and tail wagging.  She patted her knee for him to come, but he just jumped a few feet to the left and went back into the same pose.

“I’ll get him.”  Hank started towards the dog and Ziggy barked and then ran to the kitchen.  Hank ended up chasing him around the butcher’s block several times before he was able to catch him, but keeping hold of him was difficult.  “Stay still, Zig.”

Stella knelt down and quickly opened the camera on her phone.

“What’re you doing?” Hank asked.

“Taking a photo.”

“A selfie?”

“Do you have another suggestion?”

“I don’t know, I don’t do selfies.  Unless they’re dick pics.”

“Yes, I am aware, but we won’t be sending your daughter a photo of your penis.”

“Well hurry up, this guy is a bitch to hold onto.”

“Smile, darling.”  Both Stella and Hank smiled as she held down the photo button, but Ziggy wriggled and squirmed.  

“Anything usable?” Hank asked, setting the dog free.

“A little blurry, but they should suffice.”  Stella got up and texted the photos to Becca.  “She says thank you, and for you to never fucking text her again.”

“Brat.”

“You started it.”

*****

The day passed.  They took the dog to the park.  He napped when they got back.  Hank worked on his book.  Stella worked on a report for her class.  In the evening, they lit a fire in the new firepit on the roof and cuddled up on the daybed with the dog between them.

“Should we get a cat?” Hank asked.

“Do you want a cat?”  Stella countered.

“Not really.”

“Me neither.”

“It is kind of nice having this little hairball around though.  Not that I want him to stay.  He’s also annoying as fuck.  But, nice to have around.  For an hour or two.  When he’s asleep.”

“Kind of like you.”

“Hey!”

Stella laughed and Hank pushed her down onto the bed, rising to his knees to lean over and nuzzle her neck.  It was a ticklish spot for her, especially when caressed lightly, and it made her laugh harder.  Ziggy barked from where he was wedged beside Stella and under Hank.  He wiggled out from under them and then jumped on Hank’s back with his front paws, barking and growling.

“Relax, man,” Hank said, rolling to one hip off of Stella.  

“He’s being a good protector,” Stella said, laughing when Ziggy nipped at the blanket over their legs and tried to pull it away.

“He’s being a cockblocker.”  Hank wrestled the blanket back from the dog and then grabbed him under the chin, giving him a few firm scratches.  “You know what, Zig?  You be a cockblocker.  You be the best cockblocker you can be, at Becca’s place.  Cockblock the shit out of Becca, okay?”

Ziggy barked and wagged his tail.

“Good boy,” Hank said.  “Good little cockblocker.”

“Don’t say that to him,” Stella said.

“Why not?”

“One day you will need to face the fact that your daughter is a grown woman who deserves a healthy sex life.”

“Oh my god, I’m going to throw up.”  Hank groaned and flopped down onto the bed with his arm over his eyes.  “Consider me officially cockblocked.”

Stella moved up onto her hip this time and put her arm over Hank’s chest.  She kissed his chin and then pulled his bottom lip between her teeth.  He grabbed her around the waist and grunted softly into her mouth.  Ziggy trampled the both of them and stuck his cold nose into Hank’s cheek.

“Gah!” Hank groaned.  

The licked furiously at the both of them and Stella released Hank’s lip with a laugh and a scrunched face.  She buried her head down into Hank’s neck while curling into his side and Ziggy tried to wedge his snout down to keep licking her face.

“We are officially never, ever, ever, ever getting a dog,” Hank said.

“No argument from me,” Stella answered, sliding away from the dog and Hank and stepping off the bed.  “Meet me downstairs and I guarantee you won’t be cockblocked.”

“Oh?”

“Naked shower party for two in ten minutes.”

“The naked is redundant!” he called after her as she walked away.  He waited until she had started down the stairs to take Ziggy’s face in his hands.  “Listen.  This is a cockblock free zone, you got that?  Keep it up and you just may end up like Cat Stevens.  We good?”

Ziggy gave a short, gruff bark and then lifted his paw.  Hank nodded and they shook on it.  He got up and let Ziggy explore the roof for a few minutes while he folded the blanket up and put out the fire.  Not for long though.  He had a naked party to get to and he didn’t want to be late.

The End

#i wrote this #hanella #humor #DOGS #hank moody #stella gibson

[vintagedolan]

mixtape | track fourteen

| masterlist | faceclaims | playlist |

“Today’s lecture is on end of life. Death. Passing. However you want to refer to it, it’s about the process of a human being who was here, not being here anymore. And it’s particularly about your role in helping them go peacefully.”

Indy swallowed hard. 

The wound was still fresh. It didn’t matter that it was May. Bekah’s funeral could have been just yesterday. She could see the wood grain of the podium she’d delivered the eulogy at in front of her if she closed her eyes for a few seconds too long. 

Instead, she looked forward, found her professor in the front of the lecture hall. Dr. Ginn. A quirky woman, who seemed determined to live up to Indy’s first impression as she climbed onto her desk and sat with her clicker in her hand, legs criss-cross. 

“Now. Doctors and death, they don’t mix. If I had to guess, a doctor’s worst fear is death. They spend their whole lives fighting it. But nurses? We’re different.”

Indy liked the sound of we.

“For us, the priorities shift. As nurses, your job is just as much to push epi as it is to hold someone’s hand. And you are the one that makes that call. You are the last comfort that a lot of people have in their lives. You are the backbone for the family, for the friends who are there to say goodbye. And you are there to make sure your patient goes as peacefully as they can. That is the most important part of your job, hands down. And if that’s not something you can see yourself doing, then you need to rethink and probably change your career.”

The hall was silent apart from the clicking of laptop keys.

“Now. On that lovely note, let’s get started. A code blue, or as I call it, an ‘oh shit’...” 

A message notification appeared on the right corner of Indy’s screen as she opened her notes.

Coffee after class?

Indy smiled, and in lieu of listening for a moment, she let her mind wander back to February...

Grayson was really trying. But it was hard to break habits that he’d been so comfortable with since the first day that he met Indiana. It took so much mental effort to not hold her hand, to not brush her hair behind her ear - so much that Indy nudged him in the side as they walked.

“Where’d you go?”

“Sorry, just thinking.”

She had a good guess of what he was thinking about, or more specifically what he was waiting for.

An answer.

Indy could hear Nicole in her mind, telling her to be careful, to be careful with her heart. She thought of what her mother would say if she met Grayson as she walked beside him on the sidewalk. It kept her mind busy until they got to the familiar door that Grayson pulled open for her. If nothing else made sense, at least there was always Jet’s, with it’s comforting constant vanilla smell and that favorite blue chair that Indy beelined for while Gray went to the counter. 

Patrick looked ready to commit murder when he realized who was ordering, but Indy shot him a smile from across the store that softened him up just enough for Grayson to make it out with their coffees unscathed. 

“So he definitely hates my guts,” Gray mumbled as he sat down, making sure his back was to the bar. 

“He’s a protective one, you know this,” Indy teased as she sipped her coffee. 

“How soon did you start working here again after… after I left.”

“I gave myself a couple days. I definitely wasn’t at my peak on my first day if that’s what you’re asking.” She let out a dry chuckle. 

“Did you start here or the hospital first?”

“Same time. The tech job kinda fell in my lap, and I needed the money for rent. I only really came back here so I could afford therapy. They have a benefits package for all their employees.”

Grayson froze, but his cup quivered in his hand as he shook.

“I… because of…”

“No, no no, not because of you. I mean, I did talk about the stuff going on with her cause we’ve been having sessions but I was planning on going since graduation. I wanted to get a handle on the whole flying thing.”

The reason went unspoken, and Grayson’s hands didn’t stop shaking, though his breathing came a bit easier. 

“Is it going okay?”

“Yeah, I think so. I mean, haven’t really been on a plane to test anything out. But I did better than I thought I would when you were flying out, considering. So that’s a good sign. And my therapist is really nice, we’re a pretty good match.” 

“Good. That’s good.” It wasn’t lost on him what it meant that she still cared that he was on a plane. Hope riled in his belly and he beat it back down as best he could. 

There was a lull that was filled with the sounds of coffee beans grinding until Indy spoke up again.

“What have you been up to out in LA?”

Grayson swallowed. He looked at her quickly, her soft smile that made him feel like he could tell her anything, no matter how embarrassing it was.

“Honestly? I did fuck all. I mean, I did the basics I guess, with the companies and stuff. But I kinda let the misery have me. You did a hell of a lot better than me, that’s for damn sure.”

“I wasn’t doing great, believe me.”

“But at least you were trying,” he sighed, running a hand over his face. “And I caused all this, I didn’t really have an excuse.”

“It’s in the past now. Nothing we can do to change it.”

“For the record, I wish I could. More than anything.”

“I know.”

“I really am sorry Dee. I know it’s not enough, but I am.”

“I know that too.”

The next beat of silence was painful, and it took a moment for Grayson to realize that it was now or never. 

“Remember how bad our first date went? How I had that whole plan that just totally didn’t work?”

“The thunderstorm. I remember.” It made her smile, and she could picture every frame of it, from the ocean hallway to the remnants of apple juice on his lips.

“And I told you I was gonna save the real date for later.”

Indy nodded.

“Could we… can I do it now? Can I take you on a date?”

The thought brought butterflies to Indy’s stomach, but she blamed it on the coffee.

“Yeah. Yeah, that would be nice. What did you have in mind?”

“I’ll show you. Technically Jet’s was first on the list anyways, but the next part is a surprise.”

With that, she stood up and followed him out into the street.

They started their walk separate, but it only took a moment for Indy to grab onto Grayson’s hand. He told himself it was out of necessity so they didn’t get split up in a feeble attempt to keep his hopes from getting away from him. Still, his stomach fluttered high above the pavement as they enjoyed the setting sun and willfully ignored the chill of the wind whipping around the buildings of the city. Eventually, his plan unfolded when they reached the entrance of the Highline. It was one of Indy’s favorite places in the city, but she knew she’d never told Grayson that. He just knew her well enough it seemed. 

They walked in peaceful silence for a while, hands squeezed tight against one another’s despite the lull in the foot traffic.

Indy smiled at their luck when they finally found an empty bench with a nice view of the skyline. She tugged Grayson over to it and kept her eyes forward for a moment before she looked over at him. His eyes were on the sky, skin flushed pink from the pigment on the clouds or the chill of the wind, she couldn’t tell. It didn’t matter. He was beautiful, and he was hers if she wanted him.

Across the walkway, a young girl walked with her mom, who had a baby carrier strapped to her chest with a head of fuzzy hair just visible within it. The mom was rushing it seemed, and Indy realized the baby was crying loudly, sharp wails that became more audible as they passed by. The girl was dragging a small lion stuffed animal behind her, and Grayson watched as it slipped out of her hands and onto the concrete. 

“Joey! Momma, momma I dropped Joey! Joey!” The girl cried out, but her mom continued to tug her along as she reached back for her lion. 

Grayson was on his feet before Indy could say a word, jogging by and scooping up the small stuffed animal. He politely tapped the mother on the shoulder to get her to stop, then squatted down to the girl.

“Is this Joey?”

She nodded, her eyes brimming with tears as she held her hand out for her toy. He passed it over slowly with a smile.

“Hold on tight to him okay?”

“Okay mister,” she said, voice high and quiet.

And right then, Indy saw everything she ever wanted. She saw her kids, with Grayson’s hair and Grayson’s eyes and Grayson’s laugh, she could see him carrying them up to bed, see him dancing with a little girl standing on his toes in their kitchen somewhere, see him passing her a little stuffed animal. She could see him in every facet of the future she hadn’t let herself imagine since he’d left, but her fantasies came rushing back so fast it felt like she was floating.

As if she could ever want anyone else.

She reached over for his hand as he walked back over, intertwining their fingers and letting him sit down before she finally spoke.

“I love this city. I love this city so much. It’s always been all I really needed.” 

Grayson felt lightheaded as he prepared himself for what she was going to say. 

“I know,” was all he could say.

Indy took a deep breath and turned towards Grayson with a soft smile. She could see the apprehension in his eyes as he waited for her to say something else.

“Did I tell you that Devin came to see me while you were gone?”

He shook his head. 

“He came to check on me, since I wasn’t answering anyone.”

Grayson’s throat was tight as he pictured it in his head, the guilt overwhelming him. He reached over and squeezed her knee - a silent apology. 

“He helped me figure out that I want to go into nursing, helped me get my head on straight.”

“He’s a smart guy,” Grayson said quietly. 

“He told me I need to go for what I want. ‘Ask yourself what you really want the rest of your life to look like, and then do whatever you have to to get there’. That’s what he said. And I thought that’s what I was doing. I was going after a PhD, and my life in New York, and all these things I always wanted. Things I thought were really important. But they aren’t.”

He frowned. “Dee, your dreams are important.” 

“I know, I know, and I’m not saying I’m giving up on that. I just mean my priorities I guess. I had them twisted, and I was missing the most important thing.” 

She smiled his favorite smile as he tried to swallow.

He couldn’t make himself ask, just in case he was wrong, but she put him out of his misery after a moment.

“You. You’re the most important thing.” 

She was suddenly blurry as his eyes filled with tears.

“I’ve never been good at change, but you’re worth it to me. If being with you means spending less time in New York, then it’s worth it. And I’m sorry if I ever made it seem like you weren’t.” She was crying too, and Grayson lifted his free hand to her cheek, wiping each tear with his thumb.

“Never. You never made me feel like that. I was the one that ran, because I never wanted you to feel like you ever had to give up anything for me.” 

“Because you don’t realize that you’re worth giving things up for. You don’t realize how worth loving you are.”

He was fully crying now, a broken laugh making it’s way past his lips.

“Does that mean you still love me?”

She smiled.

“Never stopped.”

And she kissed him, and all was right in the world again for a moment. It didn’t matter that there were people walking by, and that their cheeks were wet from their tears. They were kissing and that meant that everything would be okay.

Any stranger that walked by surely had to feel the relief in the air when they pulled back and realized they could lean right back in without a single care in the world. He let go of her hand only to move it to her other cheek, to hold her steady there cradled in his palms as she kissed him between smiles - his whole world in his hands.

In that moment, he wanted more than anything to love her loud. 

He pulled back just enough to bring her up to her feet and then his arms were wrapped around her waist, spinning her around until she was breathless and the city was a blur behind both their eyes. And for the first time that he could remember in too many years to count, he didn’t care who could hear him, and he didn’t care who was watching. 

“I love you,” he said. “I love you so much.”

“I love you too. I missed you.”

Being back in each other’s arms was as easy as breathing. She didn’t stray an inch from his side, soaking in the warmth of his body next to hers as they made their way down from the highline as the city started to light up. By the time they made it home her toes were numb from the cold but her cheeks were still warm, seeing that every time they had to wait for a crosswalk Grayson ducked down to kiss her again.

When they got to the lobby, Grayson squeezed her hand.

“I gotta get something out of the truck, I’ll be right back.”

“You want me to wait here or head on up?”

He pondered it for a minute.

“Wait for me.”

She nodded. She always waited for him, after all. 

He disappeared out of the glass doors at a jog and Indy heard a chuckle from the side of the lobby. She looked over to see the receptionist smiling down at her computer. Indy prided herself on being a very low maintenance tenant, but she still smiled and waved to the woman behind the counter whenever she passed by. Her name tag read Cara in neat white letters. 

“Sorry if we were loud,” Indy said sheepishly. Cara laughed. 

“Just happy to see you smiling that’s all. I’m glad he’s back.”

Indy blushed bright red before she answered. “Yeah. Me too.”

Grayson was slightly winded when he came back, and he was grateful for the long elevator ride as he held the small gift bag in his hand. Indy pretended she didn’t see it like her mom had always taught her to when she received a gift. Still, her eyes flickered to it each time she knew she could get away with it, her curiosity getting the better of her. 

When they finally got inside the apartment he led her over to the living room by the hand and passed her the bag.

“I didn’t know how today was going to go, but I wanted you to have this either way. Figured you could put it on your shelf. When you’re ready.”

Indy pulled the tissue paper out and saw the rose gold edge of a picture frame. She pulled it out and her breath caught in her throat.

“Oh.”

Bekah was smiling. 

It warmed the whole image in a way that had Indy’s eyes burning as she tried to place the day. She was curled up on the bed next to Beks, but she wasn’t looking at the camera. Instead, she was looking at the girl beside her. Her little sister in a way, who was tucked away under her halloween blanket. 

“That’s the night we had the word search tournament, and you both schooled me,” Grayson explained quietly, wrapping an arm around her waist and squeezing at her hip under her sweatshirt. She remembered then, noticed the activity book in the corner of the picture. 

“I didn’t even know you took this.”

“I know you like pictures, I meant to take more of you guys. But I like her smile in this one. Yours too.”

Indy sniffled and leaned her head back onto Grayson’s shoulder. “You’ve made me cry twice now you know.”

He kissed her temple and moved a hand to her forearm.

S-O-R-R-Y

He drew a heart afterwards, and even invisible on her skin she could tell it was lopsided. It made her smile, and she soaked in the feeling of him next to her for a moment before she spun around to kiss him. 

“Thank you,” she whispered against his lips before pulling him in for a tight hug that had her up on her tiptoes when he wrapped her up. They held each other for a moment before Indy got an idea.

“I have something for you too. Wait here.”

Grayson kept his hands on her waist, thumbs rubbing over her skin underneath her sweatshirt. 

“Stay,” he pouted.

“It’ll just take a second, I promise. Just wait here.”

She kissed him quickly just because she could and disappeared into the bedroom, pulling the door closed behind her. 

He lasted about 45 seconds before he was picking at his fingernails. Then he was taking a few steps towards the door, fighting the urge to stick his ear up to it to see if he could get a hint at what she was doing. 

Another minute passed, and he felt like he was going to lose it.

“Indyyyy,” he whined. “You’re killin’ me babe.”

“You’re so dramatic oh my god it’s been like a minute tops.”

“One minute too long,” he teased just in hopes of making her laugh. It warmed his heart to hear it, even muffled through the door. It still felt like an eternity before she finally reappeared with her hands behind her back. 

“You know, you didn’t need to get me anything. Having you back is more than I deserve already.”

Indy’s laugh was louder this time since she was right in front of him.

“Who knew a Jersey boy could be so damn sappy,” she teased. “I don’t have a frame or anything, but here.”

She pulled out a piece of paper and passed it to him quickly, rocking back and forth on the balls of her feet while she waited for him to read it. It felt like an eternity while she watched his eyes scan over the letters, seemingly missing the UCLA logo in the top corner.

“Did you… are you reading? Did you see it?”

Grayson looked up with a smile and drew a circle in the air around his face.

“Dyslexic,” he reminded her gently.

She bit her lip and tried her hardest to be patient, waiting until his brows furrowed in confusion.

“Wait… wait. What is this? UCLA? Nursing?” He looked up at her cautiously, trying to keep his excitement in check in case he’d misread. “What is this?”

“Well. There’s a lot of good nursing programs out there. And LA has some top notch hospitals too. Especially pediatric ones. Figured it couldn’t hurt to apply, and they’ve got a pretty good tuition coverage package, it’s close to your house, and-”

Grayson’s lips were on hers, his excitement palpable.

She kissed him back with a smile, relieved to finally tell someone about the grand plan she’d made in her head now that all the pieces had come together. 

“You’re sure?”

Indiana smiled. “You’re worth it. You’re what I want, forever.”

He kissed her again, making up for lost time and telling her everything he couldn’t find the words for. They walked backwards until the back of his legs hit the couch and she ended up crawling onto his lap, beaming down at him when they finally broke apart.

“You’re actually coming to LA. We’re gonna live there.”

“Guess I gotta start apartment shopping,” she mused.

Grayson rolled his eyes. “Shut up and c’mere.” 

He bailed them to the side until Indy was fully on top of him.

“I’ll build you a shelf for our bedroom. Fuck, I’ll build you 50 shelves as soon as we get there. Wait when do classes start, when do you have to move?”

“You’re cute when you’re excited,” she hummed, leaning down to kiss him again. It was slow and purposeful, warm in that familiar way as they remembered each other fully. “We’ll figure it all out,” Indy said eventually, scooting down his torso until her head could rest comfortably on his chest. She listened to his heart beat, a bit fast from either her presence or the coffee, she couldn’t tell. Either way, it was still her favorite sound, and as his hand moved through her hair gently, she knew she’d made the right choice, no matter where it took her. 

3 months later, the place it took her was the passenger seat of Grayson’s brand new tesla, which was delightfully cool despite the warmth of the incoming summer making the LA air dry and warm. Grayson held out a hand for her to pass her backpack, tossing it into the backseat as if it wasn’t weighed down with three textbooks. She pulled the door closed behind her and let her head rest back against the seat for a moment before she turned to him.

“Hi.”

He beamed, leaning over the console to give her a quick kiss. “Hey. Good day?”

“Long day, but yeah, it was fine. Got a shit ton of assignments per usual.”

“Hey, three day weekend next week though, and we’re going to New York. What’d you learn?”

“Oh you know, the usual. Meds, codes, diseases, death. Truly uplifting stuff.”

He reached his hand over to her thigh, rubbing circles with his thumb as his other hand moved the wheel effortlessly, pulling back out onto the road.

“Still want coffee? You didn’t answer.”

“Do I ever say no to coffee?”

“Fair points. Text E squared and see if they want anything.”

“They weren’t home?”

“No, they ran to the store, but they should be back by the time we get there.”

“If Eden went to Target without me I’m gonna be pissed,” Indy mumbled halfheartedly, typing out the text in their group chat quickly. “You know she’s gonna say she wants Jet’s.”

“Believe me I know, just ask Ethan. You’ve created a monster. We’ve gotta start asking Patrick to send beans in bulk or something, we go through them so fast now that she drinks it too.”

Indy just laughed and turned up the radio, unsurprised to hear Cudi from Grayson’s playlist he’d made for their car rides. It was routine now for him to pick her up from class, save her from the hassle of trying to find parking on campus. And it gave them some more alone time considering they lived with Ethan and Eden at the house. So, it wasn’t abnormal for Grayson to happily add 20 minutes to the drive to pick up coffee on the way home. Purdy’s was right down the street after all, and though their lattes weren’t quite as perfect as Jet’s, they held their own. 

“We should buy Patrick some fancy beans somewhere and take them with us next weekend,” Grayson mused. 

“You’re such a suck up, it’s not like he’s giving us free coffee,” Indy laughed. “You’re just still scared of him.”

“Fuck yeah I am! Every time we’ve gone home he looks like he wants to straight up murder me.”

She reached over to hold his cheek for a moment as she bit back her laugh.

“Baby. Patrick can barely lift a 50 pound box of syrup. Believe it or not, I think you could take him.”

He rolled his eyes but the comment wasn’t lost on his ego, especially when his girl leaned over to wrap her arm around his bicep and rest her cheek on it, enjoying the feeling of his bare skin left behind by his tank top. They ordered through the drive thru, surprised when neither Eden or Ethan responded to them. The car was peaceful, even more so when Grayson put it on autopilot and gave Indy more of his attention, trying to ease the stress he could feel coming off of her like it always did when she got out of class. 

“Tell me about your lecture,” he said, hoping talking it through would help her.

She sipped on her coffee as she spoke, starting without many details but eventually going more in depth as she got more excited. It was one of Grayson’s favorite parts of listening to her talk about the things she cared about, and even though half of the information went right over his head he listened intently anyways, tried to take it all in as the car drove them home.

By the time they pulled into the driveway, Indy’s coffee was gone along with her stress, and Grayson knew all the steps to running a code blue. He hopped out first, grabbing her bag from the backseat and slinging it over his shoulder as they headed to the front door.

The first sign that something was different was the quiet of the house. Any other time that E squared was left alone, Grayson and Indy would come back to the speakers blaring, a scary movie on the living room TV, or the distant sound of a headboard knocking against the wall. 

But it was dead silent, and the pair looked at each other before they scanned the room. 

“They’re up to something,” Indy muttered, peaking around the wall to make sure Ethan wasn’t going to scare them. 

“For sure. Something is off with Ethan, just don’t know what it is.”

“Oh, you got a feeling huh?” Indy teased, bumping him with her elbow. He took her waist in his hands and pulled her back against him, making her laugh as he tickled her and buried his face in her neck. He never got tired of having her so close - it was just as intoxicating as the first time. 

“Sorry you don’t understand the twin connection.” 

“Well, use your psychic powers to figure out where the fuck they are then.”

He closed his eyes for dramatic effect, smiling when it got the laugh he wanted out of her. Just as he lifted his fingers to his temple, a bang sounded from the backdoor, making Indy squeal and cling onto Grayson. He went to move her behind him until he saw the culprit - a tennis ball bouncing away across the yard.

“You’re okay, it’s just E,” Grayson breathed, relaxing and moving towards the door to find where his brother was hiding. They walked into the backyard hand in hand, following the sound of music coming from the pool, which was finally finished in the back corner of the property. 

Ethan was at the entrance, his biggest smile on his face as he waited for them to get closer. Impatient as ever, he started walking towards them, meeting them halfway across the grass. 

“Took you guys long enough to get home. We bought new stuff for the pool, come look at it.”

“E, bro, I told you not to buy random shit on your own,” Grayson grumbled, obviously weary of his brother’s interior design skills.

“Eden was with him,” Indy reminded him at a whisper.

“Just come on,” Ethan said, grabbing onto his brother’s hand and starting to drag him towards the pool.

“Jesus bro, calm down.”

Ethan ignored him, looking to make sure Grayson was bringing Indy along too until they made it around the corner where the small pool was in view.

“Surprise!” Ethan beamed, holding his hand out towards the water. Beside it on the concrete were some new additions.

Four loungers, a beautiful teal color with rounded contour that looked perfect for tanning. In fact, Eden was on one of them sprawled out in her bathing suit, and she looked so comfortable that Indy barely noticed the miniature fifth chair next to her at the end of the line up. 

Brain fried from class, it took Indy a moment to piece it together.

5 chairs. 4 people. One smaller than the rest.

“No way,” she gasped, hand coming up to cover her mouth. “Eden no way!”

Indy was already moving towards her best friend before she could get to her feet, ignoring Grayson’s confused calls of “what? huh?” from behind her.

“Yes way,” Eden sniffled, a nervous laugh coming through as she put a hand over her stomach.

“How far along? When did you find out?”

“A couple days ago, we went to the doctor to find out for sure this morning. She said we’re about 7 weeks.”

Indy pulled her in for a hug. 

“Wait. Wait.” Grayson was yelling now, catching on with no doubt a few hints from Ethan. “Holy fuck. Holy fuck, you’re pregnant?! She’s PREGNANT?!” He grabbed his brother’s face with both hands and shook him just barely. 

“I’m gonna be a fucking dad,” Ethan said, and Indy melted when she realized he was about to cry.

“You’re gonna be a fucking dad,” Grayson repeated, shaking him twice more before he pulled him in for the tightest hug Indy had ever seen them share. The girls watched them for a moment before Indy turned her attention back to Eden.

“How are you feeling with all this?”

“Well I’ve just started having morning sickness, my appetite has been super weird, vegan cheese makes me want to straight up die…”

“Right right, but I mean like… mentally. You okay? This is a big change.”

Even just standing there, the boy's excitement was slightly overwhelming, especially with Grayson literally running around yelling about being an uncle. She was sure that Ethan had been excited from the moment of a positive test.

“A very big change that we weren’t really expecting,” Eden said quietly, looking down at her manicured toes. 

“How are you feeling about it?” Indy asked again, reaching out to hold her hand. Eden squeezed tightly.

“Honestly? I’m fucking terrified,” she admitted. “And Ethan’s been great, it’s not that, it’s just… there’s a human in me. Right now. Just chillin’ in there.”

“Yep, there do be a human in there,” Indy laughed at her bluntness. “What are you scared about?”

“Everything. I’m afraid I’m gonna do something that’s gonna hurt them. I don’t know shit about pregnancy, like real pregnancy, and don’t even get me started on trying to push this thing out of me.”

“We’ve got a while to figure all that out. And you aren’t going to do anything that’s going to hurt them. You’re a good mom.”

“Jesus, a mom. Ethan keeps saying that but it sounds different coming from a woman. A fucking mom. You’re gonna have to teach me all the medical stuff… wait actually no I don’t think I even want to know what’s going on in there. I’ll just focus on figuring out how the fuck I’m gonna be a mom.”

“You’ll be great. And you’ll have Ethan too. Those two were pretty much born to be dads,” Indy said. They turned and looked to see Grayson hauling Ethan up to sit on his shoulders before running what she assumed was a victory lap around the backyard.

“Yeah… remind me of that for the next nine months. Regularly.” 

They both started laughing and pulled in for another hug.

“I’m so happy for you,” Indy sighed with the warmest smile, images of baby showers and Eden’s bump and the office as a nursery already spinning through her mind. 

“Love you aunt… Indiana? Indy?”

Indy scrunched her nose. “We’ll have to work on that one,” she teased, taking her hand and leading her over to their boys, who were still somehow yelling.

They both came running, but Grayson was faster, scooping Eden up and spinning her around so fast that Ethan was immediately scolding him, urging him to be careful.

“She’s not that delicate bub, it’s okay,” Indy reassured him, getting up on her tiptoes to give Ethan a hug. He squeezed her tight and whispered in her ear.

“She okay? You guys are the first ones we’ve told.”

“Just a little scared, like all pregnant people are. Totally normal.”

“Good. I’m glad you know, she’s been dying to tell a girl. Only so much I can do.”

She leaned back with a smile. “You’re doing great already.” 

Those words meant more to Ethan than she would ever know, but all he could do was smile and head back over to Eden, a hand across her tummy when she leaned up against his side. 

“We’re gonna tell Li when we’re all home next weekend, but Eden’s parents are coming over for dinner in a little while and we’re gonna tell them now so we can do it in person,” Ethan explained, pressing a kiss to Eden’s hair. 

“We’ll make ourselves scarce for the evening,” Indy offered, sensing the nerves already rising for Eden. She’d have enough of an audience. 

“Okay but first we gotta get a picture of everybody, we’re gonna make an album of telling everybody.” Ethan was already moving as he spoke, setting his phone up on the patio table with the timer on. They all posed with Ethan pointing excitedly to Eden’s non-existent bump before they all headed back inside, still buzzing with excitement. 

Grayson stayed particularly close as they gathered around the island, his hand resting on Indy’s hip as they all settled after a few moments. They all helped to straighten up the house in preparation for Eden’s family’s arrival, and Grayson appeared behind Indiana with a smile as she placed a blanket over the back of the couch.

“Date night?”

Indy had lost count of how many dates they’d been on, but those words never failed to make her stomach swirl.

“What’d you have in mind?”

“Well, I know you said you have homework so… Monty’s, secret beach… with flashcards?”

“You truly know the way to my heart.” She kissed him softly and followed him to their room to change into beach clothes. As she sifted through the drawers, she couldn’t help but look at the shelf. It was bigger than the one she’d had in New York, more sturdy with thicker wood and longer, able to hold more frames. 

That was a good thing, because there had been some new additions. The picture of Nicole, the baby picture of her and Charlie, and the engagement picture with them and Devin all stood tall beside each other. Down the line came the picture of Indy and Grayson at her graduation, the one where he was dipping her back slightly and wearing her cap. Then was Bekah in her hospital bed - it still made Indy’s chest tight when she looked at it. There were two new ones since then - one of the four of them taken by Lisa in front of their tiny homes, and another of all of them at thanksgiving that they’d finally gotten printed.

“We need to get that picture we just took from Ethan, I wanna put it on the shelf.”

“I’m gonna have to build you another shelf,” he teased as he pulled his swim trunks up.

“Think you’ll probably be building stuff for the nursery first.”

“Shut up, do you really think they’ll let me?” His eyes lit up and Indy laughed as she pulled her New York sweatshirt down over her bikini top.

“I don’t see why not.”

“Fuck yeah, that’s gonna be so much fun! What all do you need in a nursery though? I mean a crib, obviously. A dresser? Do you need a dresser for baby clothes or can you just stack them up cause they’re so tiny?”

“We can talk about it while we drive,” Indy redirected him, taking his hand and leading him out of their room, down the hall and out to the car before he could bombard the other couple of the house with questions. 

The excitement was palpable for the whole drive, buzzing within the cab as they made their way to Monty’s, ordered their vegan burgers and raspberry lemonades and snuck away to their secret place on the beach. 

Considering it was a Wednesday evening, they didn’t expect it to be busy, but they were particularly excited to see that it was completely empty apart from a few stray crabs that went scurrying away at the sound of their footsteps. 

Grayson set out the blanket that was always in the back of the tesla for trips like this and Indy set down their bags and drinks, getting everything settled so they could simply sit down and enjoy their meal.

It was peaceful, calm as the ocean lapped up against the sand gently and they filled their tummies. Grayson was done before Indy, per usual, and he basked in the last remnants of the sun while she finished her fries.

“Wanna swim?” Indy asked.

“Thought we were supposed to wait 30 minutes.”

“That’s a myth,” she teased, standing up to her feet and helping him to his. They walked down to the water quickly, gasping a bit at the cold of the water. Still, there was nothing that compared to the feeling of being in the waves, and Indy braved it. Grayson had every muscle tensed against the cold, but he’d follow her anywhere. Soon enough they were up to shoulder height water, kicking gently to get over the waves when they needed to, arms wrapped around each other to keep warm.

“I can’t believe they’re gonna have a kid. Were gonna be Aunt Dee and Uncle Grayson. What the fuck,” Grayson murmured, half distracted by the way the orange of the sky was starting to reflect off of Indy’s eyes. 

“It’s gonna be so much fun to have a little one around. They’re gonna be such good parents.”

“You know who would be even better parents? Us,” he beamed. He looked so beautiful when he smiled, and Indy ran her thumb along his jaw.

“Let me finish school and find a job before you go putting a baby in me,” Indy laughed, but her heart warmed at the thought. She remembered the little girl on the highline, and she wanted it for the two of them.

“You’re done in like a year and a half.”

“Correct,” Indy confirmed it. 

“I always thought I’d be married before I had a kid,” Grayson said, trying to bite back his excitement. 

She wasn’t sure if it was the bliss of the water around them, or the steadiness of his arms, or the fact that she always felt like she was home when she was with him, but in that moment, she knew.

“Okay. Then let’s get married.”

“Are you serious? You aren’t fucking with me? You really wanna get married?”

“Did I ever give you the impression that I didn’t want to marry you someday?” She teased.

Grayson could only laugh, and look up towards the skies and thank whatever angels were listening and watching for all that he’d been given.

He was pretty sure he knew at least three that were there with him. 

“I love you. I love you so fucking much. Don’t know what I ever did to deserve you.”

Indy kissed him. The feeling was mutual in the most effortless way, and there was a sense of peace that she wasn’t used to in that moment, knowing that everything would somehow work itself out and she would have him with her for the rest of her life. 

And for once, the timeline of her life wasn’t her priority anymore. She didn’t care what date she’d finish school, or when she’d get her job. And she didn’t care when he would propose, or when they’d find out they were having a child of their own. Because in all those moments, whenever they happened, he would be there, and that was all that really mattered at the end of the day. 

They kissed slow, quiet for a while, and as the sun dipped below the horizon Grayson carried her back out onto the sand. They wrapped themselves up in the same towel and found each other’s lips again, warm and familiar and safe as they lost themselves within one another over and over again. 

Her lips were chapped by the time they pulled away, both giddy at the realizations that they’d always know finally being said out loud. 

“How much homework do you have?” 

“Just studying, I can do it in the morning. What’s the plan?” She knew he wouldn’t have asked if there wasn’t something he wanted to do.

“I’ll show you. Just trust me.”

“Okay,” she answered without a second thought. 

Twenty minutes later, with salty hair and big smiles, they pulled up to a tattoo parlor. 

“I thought you got all yours from Alexis now?” 

“Gotta get this one tonight. Special day.” 

Indy looked at the neon signs, and the artwork on the walls through the window. She pondered it for a minute, and something in her told her to go for it.

“I think I’m gonna get one too.”

Grayson perked up at that. “Really?” He knew every inch of her body, knew it would be her first one.

“Something small. Something for Beks.”

He smiled and kissed her temple before he got out to open her door.

Indy went first. A small lightning bolt, like the one on Bekah’s headscarf. And, the thunderstorm of their first date in the city. She got it tucked away behind her ear, in the same place of Grayson’s triple threes. His angel number, and her reminder of both of hers. It didn’t hurt as badly as she thought it would, but Grayson sat beside her anyways, rubbed soothing circles on the back of her hand while he held it.

D-O-I-N-G G-O-O-D he wrote. 

“Thanks,” she smiled softly. “Bet you won’t even flinch during yours.”

“That's the idea. You can study while I get mine, I want it to be a surprise.”

Hers only took a few minutes, and her lecture material was at the back of her mind once the artist cleaned her up and moved over the Grayson. He grabbed his wallet from her backpack where he’d stowed it and Indy took a seat in one of the chairs in the lobby, occasionally turning her head towards the mirror so she could see her new ink. 

Across the shop, Grayson took his shirt off. 

“You can pull the letters from these, and I want it right here.” He passed over the stack of flashcards he’d snagged, sure that they’d be able to find what they needed. 

“Bitch of a spot,” the artist said quietly as he prepped over his ribs, but he just laughed. From the view of Grayson’s covered legs, he wasn’t sure there was any spot too painful for him. 

“She’s worth it,” Grayson said, closing his eyes and waiting. The sting of the needle was familiar, and it did hurt as he moved over each bone. But when he looked in the mirror, it was all worth it. He didn’t even bother putting his shirt on as he paid the artist in cash, including a big tip, and headed out to the lobby. 

Indy was sifting through her bag. 

“Looking for these?” Grayson held up a small stack of flashcards with a devious grin. “Sorry, had to borrow them for my tat.”

Indy’s brows furrowed, and she stood up, moving closer as he lifted his arm and showed her his ribcage.

In small handwriting, her handwriting, was the word ‘forever’.

“Right where you always trace it.”

To her surprise, her eyes started to burn.

“Gray…” She knew how important his tattoos were to him, what each and every one of them meant. 

“Consider it a promise. I’m with you. Forever.”

He ducked down to kiss her, and she smiled against him, hand resting on his torso right below his promise.

She liked the sound of forever.

#SHES DONE #SHES FINISHED HOLY FUCK #mixtape #IM GONNA CRY FR IM TEARING UP OVER HERE

[velvetthunder1999]

All the time on Earth

Part 37 - When Happier Times Come

Summary: Who knew a breakthrough in your relationship would finally come? And what will happen after you and George found each other again?

Warning: None, Fluff

Word count: 2K

George Weasley x Reader

Masterlist

You just finished reading an article in the Daily Prophet when the door opened in the hall and George stepped inside, his heavy boots thumping on the wooden floor. You turned to him with a smile, watching as he threw his coat to the hanger and brushed the snowflakes out of his hair.

“It’s freezing outside,” he said and waved his wand so that a cup of hot tea appeared on the table.

“You should’ve taken the scarf your mum made,” you said, smirking. He rolled his eyes.

“Always with the lectures, Y/N,” he said, but you saw him hiding a smile. You threw the Prophet onto the table.

“So — how was it?” you asked eagerly. George took a sip.

“Well… it was quite all right,” he said with a shrug. “They seemed to like the idea to do some business with us. Maybe Tom’s hand is in it as well. He offered a bottle of gin. On the house.”

“He likes you, Tom,” you said. “And his help can always come in handy. Lot of folks come through the Leaky Cauldron from all around the country. If he can just talk to them about how amazing the shop is, that’s already a step forward to us.”

“You thought about this a lot, haven’t you?” George asked. You nodded.

“Why, of course. I want the best for this place. For you. For us.”

He didn’t answer but looked at you in a strange, almost surprised way. He seemed like he was thinking about something he had long forgotten, or as if he was searching for words that did not even exist.

“What is it?” you asked, because his gaze made you feel uncertain. He moved his head from side to side, speaking very slowly.

“Nothing. Everything’s all right.”

He stood up, taking his empty cup into the kitchen, his face still fixed in that expression. You didn’t know what to make out of it, and it started worrying you. When he reappered in the living room, you were determined to say something. He sat down next to you onto the couch.

“George, is —”

You couldn’t finish for he cupped your cheeks and pressed his lips onto yours, gently, but firmly at the same time, and you were staring in surprise, not sure what to make of the situation, for he had not kissed you for over a year now.

His lips parted slowly, allowing his tongue to have a taste of yours. You were on fire, you felt as though you were going to melt into his touch, and you closed your eyes and kissed him back, grabbing onto his shirt and pulling him closer until there wasn’t an inch between you left.

After at least a minute you couldn’t bare it anymore and broke apart, desperate for air. Your heart was beating twice as fast, and you were panting, while looking into those beautiful brown eyes.

“Hi,” he whispered. He seemed just as shocked as you were.

“Hi,” you said, your voice breaking. You felt tears in your eyes and you started blinking. One year. More than that. He had been somewhere else for more than a year. But now as you looked at him, you felt something else, something changing. You felt as if happier times would come.

“Come here,” he pulled you close, kissing your cheek. You were shivering. You couldn’t help it. You buried your face into his neck. You pressed soft kisses all over his skin. He took a sharp breath, then lowered his head to meet your lips again.

His hand found its way to your lower back and you felt like you were dreaming. You leaned closer to him, breathing in his smell which you loved and missed so much. He then slowly stood up, not letting go of your lips but pulling you with him. You stood on your toes, wrapping your arms around his neck. He pulled away, only for a second, to look into your eyes.

“Do you —”

“Yes, shut up,” you said, pressing your lips on his again, backing away towards the bedroom.

——

Christmas was just around the corner, and you felt as a completely new person. To be exact, you felt like yourself again. Yes, occasional sadness still hit you, it hit George as well. But somehow you felt as though the two of you were fighting against it together, and not separately.

Last Christmas you had not visited the Burrow, it was just way too much for the two of you. But this year Mrs Weasley invited you again, and even though her eyes were often watery and she blew her nose constantly, all of you felt like a family again. On Christmas Eve, when you were sitting on the couch in George’s lap, staring at the tree and listening to the radio, the world seemed a less horrible place, even if it lasted only for a few hours.

Everyone was there; Ginny and Hermione were talking while sitting on the floor, Harry and Ron were playing chess while Bill watched. Charlie was supposed to arrive the day after tomorrow. Mrs Weasley and Fleur were playing with Teddy, who was now mumbling words and constantly changing his hair color after every sentence. Mr Weasley and Percy were talking, being watched by George.

“Is everything okay?” you asked kindly, stroking his hair. “You’ve been quiet.”

“Yeah,” he tried to smile but you could see some kind of nervousness in his eyes.

“Are you sure?”

“Yes, love,” he pressed a soft kiss on your hair. “Everything’s okay.”

Soon Andromeda came to take Teddy home, and people started to go to sleep one by one. Your heart ached painfully after entering George’s room — there were still two beds in there, figuring they’d come in handy once there’s way too many guests in the house. Still, it took you an enormous amount of effort to stay calm, take George’s hand and climb into bed next to him. He held you close all night, but you could tell that he was barely sleeping. You woke up several times during the night, too.

Then morning came and you opened your eyes with a tired groan. George was already sitting up, looking anxious. He was checking his watch, then when he saw that you were awake, he smiled weakly.

“Finally,” he said. “Come, I’m sure mum’s ready with breakfast.”

“Just give me five more minutes,” you said, closing your eyes again.

“C’mon, it’s Christmas!” he grabbed your hand and pulled you out of bed. “Aren’t you excited to give me your present?”

“Why do you think you’ll get a present in the first place?” you teased while opening the door.

“Witty,” George rolled his eyes and took your hand again, leading you down the stairs.

Not a single person were in the kitchen, they all gathered in the living room around the tree. It was quite crowded but you didn’t mind. Ron was already wearing his maroon jumper; you saw Hermione smirking and him shaking his head before kissing her on the cheek. Percy was just opening his package which seemed to contain a new scarf and a hat. Mrs Weasley’s sudden voice made George jump.

“Kids, finally! Merry Christmas, Merry Christmas… Let’s see… George, here you go dear. Just the usual.”

“Thanks, mum,” he said, hugging his mother for at least a minute. Mrs Weasley’s eyes were watering again, but she collected herself and smiled when looking at you.

“Y/N, dear… Arthur, where are you — come here! Now, dear, we’d like to —”

“No, mum, it’s me first!” said Ron through his teeth. You raised and eyebrow. George groaned.

“Then just do it, you prat.”

Ron shot an angry look at his brother, then he turned to Hermione uncertainly.

“Er — Hermione?”

“Merlin, Ron,” she said, rolling her eyes while searching in her pocket. “Yes, I have it, don’t worry. Do you want to read it?”

She gave Ron a piece of paper which he held up, looking a bit puzzled, then started to read.

“Dear Y/N! We were thinking about the perfect present for you, something that would make you feel the happiest person on this fine Christmas morning. Unfortunately, our ideas stopped at a certain point, therefore we decided that our present will be nothing more, than our appreciation and friendship that we feel whenever you’re in the room.”

He folded the paper, looking quite proud of himself. Hermione nodged him in the ribs.

“Oh, and Merry Christmas,” finished Ron. Hermione nodded. “Merry Christmas.”

“Oh…” you said, not sure what just happened. Anyway, their words felt really nice. You smiled. “Thank you. Merry Christmas to you, too.”

“Well, this is embarassing,” spoke Bill, while holding a piece of paper. “Looks like we were thinking about the same present as Ron.”

“Oh,” you said, feeling quite dull.

“I’ll still read it,” said Bill, and Fleur was looking at you, smiling. “Dear, Y/N. Please allow us to express, how much we adore you. You’re brave, you’re strong and you would do anything for the people you love. This perfectly showed during those long months you spent with us. It was hard, though you never gave up. And for this, Fleur and myself — we adore you.”

“Thank… Thank you,” you said, choking up. You felt their words to be too nice. They were too nice to you.

“Thanks Bill, for ruining my speech,” Ginny stepped forward, her face in mock annoyance. “I wanted to do the same thing, but seems like my idea was stolen.”

“Just read the letter sis,” said Bill, fighting a snicker. Ginny nodded and pointed at herself and Harry, a letter in her hand.

“Y/N, I want to thank you for being the first person who sat down next to me in my second year, even if I endangered a lot of lives the year before that. You never judged me, and you became one of the best friends I had. I don’t know what I’d do without you. You were always there for me, in happiness and sadness, and I hope I was always there for you when you needed me.”

“Of course you were,” you whispered.

“Good. And I promise to be there for you after this, for the rest of our lives. Merry Christmas.”

“Merry Christmas,” you said.

“Now, dear, Arthur and I have something to say as well,” said Mrs Weasley, paper in hand. “You have always been like a daughter to us, and we could not have been more proud of you. It’s always a pleasure to have you with us, and we thank you for making our son so happy. I know that without you he — he’d be lost and — all I want to say is… all we want to say is that we welcome you in our family.”

She smiled with tears in her eyes and George spoke.

“Y/N?”

You turned around and you saw him already on one knee, holding up a box with a beautiful ring in it. Your mouth dropped.

“Y/N…” he spoke. “You are the love of my life. You are my everything. You are witty, you are smart and you are the kindest person I’ve ever met…Without you I wouldn’t have been able to survive this past year… You were there for me since I’ve known you, and I can never repay you for all the love that you have given me. But if I try, maybe a lifetime will be enough… So will you marry me?”

You dropped onto your knees, crying. You ignored the ring and hugged George instead. It wasn’t even up for debate. Your answer was obvious.

“Yes!” you sobbed. “Of course I’ll marry you!”

You kissed him and the room erupted in cheers. George hugged you tight, his lips against yours and he stood up, pulling you with him while Mr Weasley summoned some glasses and champagne.

“I love you!” you said to him finally, after pulling away a bit, looking into his eyes. His were watery, but he was grinning.

“I love you, too!” he said, kissing you again. He then took your hand and placed the ring on your finger. You gasped.

“Oh, George — I love it!”

You hugged him again, and continued crying. The difference was, that these were not miserable tears. These were happy tears. And for the first time in a very long time, you felt that your happiness could not be demolished by anything.

#harry potter #george weasley fanfiction #fanfiction #fanfic #imagination #imagine george weasley #george weasley imagination #george weasley x reader #george weasley x you #georgeweasley #george weasley #fredweasley #fred weasley #fred and george #fred and george weasley #fred weasley x reader #fred weasley x you #fred weasley imagination #gred and forge #weasley twins #hermione #ginny #ron #ron weasley #weasley #weasley family #hogwarts #hogsmeade #hp #hp fanfic

[monstersandmaw]

Male shadow/room monster (Lamorak) x female reader (nsfw)

Edit which I’m including in all my works after plagiarism and theft has taken place: I do not give my consent for my works to be used, copied, published, or posted anywhere. They are copyrighted and belong to me.

The first-prize winner of my giveaway from a little while back, @honeysugacube, requested a tentacled shadow/room monster for the 3k story, so here it is!

Content: Reader is both touch- and affection-starved, feeling distant and detached from her family who provide her with things and objects instead of the warmth of affection, equating them with love... In a version of her own fairytale, the reader gets the friend and affection she longs for. Wordcount: 3825

___

Leaving the campus and the stresses of your course behind you, you stepped onto the bus and drew out your phone to text your mother. ‘Just leaving - I’ll be home in half an hour or so.’ With that done, you slipped your earphones into your ears and turned up your music. Moments of your day replayed in a random shuffle through your mind, but always you felt always on the outside of things.  

Your classmates had arrived at the lecture that morning and immediately hugged their friends, slapped each other on the back, and blurted questions and anecdotes from their weekends, while you doodled quietly on the edge of your notebook, waiting for the professor to show up. It wasn’t that you had no one, but they had different classes, and when you did share lunch together, there was nothing between you like the depth of friendship you saw with that group in particular. You didn’t really see them outside of a university context, and you’d never been all that good at making friends.  

The bus jolted and you blinked, realising that you’d drifted off into your reverie, and now the bus was pulling away from your stop. It wasn’t that far to the next one, so you pushed the stop button and slouched to the front of the bus, bag slung over one shoulder.  

Closing the front door behind you twenty minutes later than you’d intended, with sore shoulders from lugging your book bag all that extra way, you sighed. The hall light was off, casting odd shadows across the walls and floor, and as you kicked your shoes off and one bounced off the skirting board, you thought the shadows shifted just a little bit, drawing back, almost as if they’d tried to shrink away from the blow of your shoe. 

You frowned, but paid it no more attention than that, and headed for the kitchen. Your father stood at the kitchen counter, chopping vegetables while your older brother lounged nearby, nose buried in his phone. It had been a little quieter around here since your older sister had got a job about three hours’ drive from the city, and you were still getting used to that absence, like an instrument missing in a group while the others play on regardless. You were the only one who really seemed to notice the difference.  

“How was class today?” your father asked without looking up.  

“It was fine,” you said as you poured yourself a drink. He didn't comment that you were later than usual, and perhaps he hadn’t noticed. You’d learned not to bother trying to elaborate on the intricate details of your day to your family. It wasn’t that they didn’t care about you, so much as they just… didn’t engage. You’d spent a good five minutes with your mother telling her about the first day’s lectures last year, and once you’d finished, she’d said, “I’m glad it went ok. Would you like rice or pasta with supper?” That pretty much summed up your relationship with your family; they were good providers, but there was no warmth.  

As your father finished with the vegetables, he asked, “Are you planning on going out with any friends for your birthday next week?”

You shrugged. “Maybe.” If you’d been honest, you’d half forgotten that it was your birthday anyway. You hadn’t made any plans, worried that anyone you asked would either accept only to be polite or would find somewhere better to be and leave you feeling worse than before about not doing anything.  

“You’re still up for going to that Italian place round the corner though, right?” your brother butted in from the other side of the room.  

“Sure?” you shrugged. He and your parents loved Italian, so that would probably make for an easy evening all around.  

“Great,” he grinned and turned back to his phone.  

A week later, you woke in the pre-dawn of your birthday and felt absolutely certain that there was someone in the room with you. With a gasp, you sat bolt upright and stared at the door, but nothing was out of place, and there was clearly no one else there. With your heart pounding, you sighed, feeling the ghost of a touch on your face from some lingering dream that you only half remembered. Fingers had been stroking gently down your cheek, and combing through your hair, a soft voice whispering that they were proud of you.  

Sighing deeply, you flopped back into the pillows with a groan. The more you thought about it though, the sharper the details became. The fingers had not been fingers, but soft, smooth tentacles of dark grey smoke, and there had been milk-white eyes blinking in the darkness; four of them.  

“What a way to start my birthday, huh?” you mused aloud. With another sigh, you rolled over and pulled the covers up around your ears.  

Hours later at breakfast, your parents gave you your presents - a modest list of things that would have been useful to almost anyone your age at college, and, with a small degree of fanfare, they offered you the latest iPhone, telling you how much you deserved it for working so hard and making them proud. No one gave you a hug though. It was hard not to feel ungrateful as you cradled your new phone in your hands, and the guilt that accompanied the sentiment troubled you. They loved you, of course they did, and they showed it by providing you with everything you could want. Except what you actually needed in the truest sense of the word…

Conversation at dinner that night was mostly centred on your father’s work, but there was a bit of discussion about the progress that your brother’s favourite team had made through the league tables, and your mother even asked you about the assignment you’d been struggling with a little bit the last week. “I got an A,” you smiled and her face lightened instantly.  

“Well done. I knew you’d do us proud.”

Your hand twitched on the fork, as if you’d been expecting her to reach over and squeeze it, but she didn’t. She topped up your glass and chinked hers jauntily against the rim instead, the cold glass chiming oddly in the busy restaurant.

Back at home your brother nudged you in the ribs and tilted his head curiously. “You ok? You were kind of quiet tonight…”

“I’m fine,” you said. “Just a bit tired.”

“Ok, look, I was going to give this to you earlier, but I thought I’d wait til tonight. I know you used to read all those creepy fairytales under the covers as a kid and play with all the dolls mum and dad gave you…” and with that, he handed you a badly-wrapped parcel, the selotape lifting off at one end where it had refused to stick to the brown paper. “Sorry,” he said. “I’m kind of shitty at wrapping.”

“It’s alright,” you smiled. “Thank you.”

Awkwardly, he flashed a smile at you and walked away, leaving you standing in the hallway with the present he’d pulled out of his jacket pocket where it'd been hanging on a peg on the wall. From the weight of it and the shape of the package, you were certain it was a hardback book. As you swept your fingers over the cover, the light above you flickered off suddenly and you glared up at it. In the absence of light, the shadows seemed denser somehow, and you shivered, the hairs on the back of your neck prickling slightly. A heartbeat later, and it came back on. With another shiver, you left the hall and headed upstairs.  

Alone in your room, you unwrapped your brother’s present.  

Old, slightly cracked leather bound the book, and it had metallic corner pieces to protect the edges. It was only about as long as your hand from palm to fingertip, and there was nothing on the cover at all. Opening it carefully, your nose picked up hints of a scent like distant woodsmoke, herbs, and something akin to petrichor. Inside was written a phrase in Latin and, with the help of your new phone, you discovered that it meant, ‘In the heart there lives a shadow’.  “Odd title,” you murmured aloud.  

The story itself, thank goodness, was written in English, in an archaic typeface that might have looked at home with a first edition of Dickens or something.  

‘In a house on the hill above town lived a young girl,’ it began in typical fairytale style, and despite the cliche, you found yourself falling further and further into the story. It spoke of the daughter of a witch who had grown up feeling isolated, her mother always working. The parallel hit you hard almost immediately and you wondered if your brother had finally noticed how your family behaved towards each other. Dismissing it as a fluke, you turned your attention back to the book.  

To make up for the lack of time the spent together, the witch bought her daughter gifts, and among one of those gifts was a small chest, meant for jewellery or trinkets. When the girl opened the chest, however, she found a pool of inky liquid that stirred and rippled when she dipped her finger into it, the fluid never leaving any trace on her skin. She left the jewellery case open on a table in her bedroom, and that night when the sun went down, when there was only candlelight in her room, a small black cat crept up to her.  

You smiled as you read the next bit, having spent the whole of your childhood longing for a pet that you could share some kind of connection with; a cat to curl up in the creases of your duvet, a dog to play with… frankly anything would have done, even a goldfish to swim around in circles in a tank, but your parents had said no. The dream of one just appearing one day had been a near-constant one for you. The little girl in the story discovered that her cat was not a normal cat and was in fact a creature formed from the strange darkness in the chest.  

As she grew, the creature changed shape, eventually taking on the form of a young man. “You’re happy tonight,” he said as the two of them lay on a grassy hillside, gazing up at the stars.  

She reached her hand across and touched his strange, smoky skin. Beneath the twisting mist that surrounded him like an aura, his body was smooth and hard, cool like leather, and as he linked his fingers with hers, she said, “I have you - I have a friend. I’m no longer alone.”

Tears rolled down your face as you finished the story, leaving the little book open in your lap. Never had you felt more alone than in the wake of finishing that strange fairytale. “I wish…” you sniffed, smearing the back of your wrist under your nose. “I wish I wasn’t so alone all the time…” you hissed bitterly, before you began to laugh softly to yourself. Your whole body ached, right down to your bones, and your chest twisted, leaving you feeling wrung-out and empty.  

Heck, you’d probably even have taken a shadow monster yourself for a friend in that moment, and no sooner had you thought it than something moved across the room, startling you out of your tears. Blinking to clear your vision, you watched a shadow growing slowly in the middle of the empty floor, like a spreading puddle. A moment later, you thought your ears must be deceiving you as you heard a soft, rasping voice whisper, “Please don’t cry… I can’t bear to hear you cry.”  

“What?” you breathed, sitting up and staring wide-eyed at the rippling darkness in the centre of the room. Fear clenched your heart so tightly you wanted to scream, but you weren’t sure you had enough voice.  

“Please… don’t be afraid… I swear I will never hurt you,” the entity murmured, and the surface of the small pool surged and rippled before quietening down.  

“What are you?” you hissed, heart thudding. “How is this happening?”  

“Don’t you remember me?” came the response.  

You stared blankly at the shadow. “Remember you?”  

A gentle smile crept into the voice of the creature you couldn’t quite see, and you heard the voice say, “When we were both very small, we used to play together. I’ve grown up here alongside you.”

“Oh my god,” you whispered as a flood of memories you didn’t know you still had rushed across your mind. “My imaginary friend… I… called you Lamorak…”

“Indeed you did. After one of the knights of Arthur, I believe,” he said, sounding amused at that.  

You paused and then swallowed nervously. “So… if you’re real, then what are you?”

“I… I’m honestly not sure. I believe that I am formed of the shadows in this place, and that I was partly conjured by you when you were young to fulfil the needs of a young child who was often overlooked.”

“But… how is that possible?”

The darkness rippled again and the voice answered, “Magic, most likely. The force of a wish can be pretty powerful, especially in someone very young.”

“Tell me you’re the only one like you that lives here,” you demanded, a twang of anxiety shooting through you at the thought of innumerable shadow beings hiding in every crevice of the house.

“To my knowledge, yes,” he replied.  

“I… I think I remember you in a different shape…” you said after staring for another few seconds at the mass of ebbing shadows on the floor, breathing like an ocean on a sandy shore. It was true, though you hadn’t thought about Lamorak for years. Your mother had dismissed your talk of the shadow boy for childish fantasy, and you’d started to see and think of him less and less after that. Forgotten, he had apparently banished himself back to the shadows of the house but had never left. Something about that made your heart hurt all over again.  

He chuckled and said, “I take many shapes now.”

“Do you have a favourite?” you asked shyly, realising that you were no longer afraid.  

After a little pause, he asked, “Would you like me to show you?”

“Yes,” you said, breathless with excitement for the first time in a long time.  

The shape began to shift and move, rising up and filling the space in the centre of the room to a height of six and half feet or so; it was difficult to be sure because the shadows that surrounded him like an aura were constantly moving. There was a part of his ill-defined silhouette that was clearly his head, and from it, four milky, silvery eyes blinked at you, all slightly out of sync. From his broad shoulders down, he got stranger and even less humanoid; his arms looked more like tentacles, writhing slightly, and as you continued to stare at him from your bed, you realised that there were more of them behind him, and the two which were most prominent were just the largest of them. His legs too were not humanoid, but were a seething mass of tentacles, some thick, others almost wispy, ending in tiny coils of mist like candle smoke.  

“Wow…”

“You’re not the only one who’s changed a bit,” he chuckled and you warmed to his dry sense of humour instantly.  

“Yeah, but you were supposed to be my imaginary friend… Emphasis on ‘imaginary’…! Come here,” you smiled and he obliged, if somewhat tentatively.  

“Not so imaginary after all,” Lamorak breathed as he neared you, shadows frothing and roiling around his lower tentacles like waves around sea-kelp. “I’ve missed you,” he admitted as he drew to a halt in front of you.

You got slowly to your feet and stood beside your bed, dwarfed by his presence, but instead of being intimidated by him, your stomach twisted and you began to cry again.  

“Hey,” he murmured, leaning down and bringing a soft-looking tentacle to your face. He drew the very tip of it across your cheek, and you watched the shape of his eyes change from almost completely round, like giant pearls, to pinched tight at the outer corners, as if worried. “Hey, what’s wrong?”

“I… I feel awful that I forgot you… I… I didn’t know how much I missed you too…” you sobbed, and in a heartbeat you felt his arms wrap around your body. Darkness enveloped you and you let it consume you utterly.  

The peaceful thum-thum of his heartbeat was all you could hear for a moment, before a different noise rose around you. Gentle whispers, like spring leaves tickled by a soft breeze, filled your ears and mind, and when you lurched back, suddenly recalling having heard them before in moments alone in your room, he cocked his head to one side and shrank back. “Did I hug you too tightly?” he asked, half joking, half worried.  

You shook your head. “You’ve always been here, haven’t you?”

He shrugged slightly, all the tentacles on his right side heaving and shifting. “I’ve mostly been dormant in the basement,” he admitted. “But I have come to see you sometimes. When you’re lonely, you call to me. I don’t think you know you’re doing it though.”

“The whispers…?” you asked.  

“I think it’s these,” he said, first looking at one tentacle and then bringing more up to touch your cheek again, and you shuddered violently as sparks of inexpressible joy flashed across your whole body. “You like that?”

“Mmm,” you said, another tear escaping your eye. “I… I don’t understand…”

“Understand what?”

“Why that feels so good…?” you admitted. “It’s… I… Is there something wrong with me?”

In an instant, he had picked you up in his arms and sat you down on your bed. “No,” he reassured you, even as he drew back slightly to give you a little room to breathe. “No, there’s nothing wrong with you. You’re just… alone.”

“Why did you show yourself to me tonight?” you asked, hoping to distract yourself from the way your hands were trembling and your skin felt suddenly too tight all over.  

Lamorak gestured at the bed beside you and said, “May I sit?”

“Sure.”

He leaned in close and nudged his side against your shoulder; it was the gesture a familiar friend might make and it brought a lightness to your chest. He was still tall and you also liked the way you had to look up at him. “You’re hurting but you’ve stopped noticing. You felt it all over again tonight when you read that story, and… well… I felt it too.”

The aching in your chest redoubled and you leaned into his welcoming darkness. “It’s like my wish came true,” you breathed.  

“May I hold you?” he asked in a voice as gentle as velvet.  

When you nodded and whimpered, “Please,” he drew you easily into his lap, as if you were still a child, and allowed his dark tentacles to hold you while you curled up against him.  

“Lamorak,” you smiled as exhaustion washed over you and you let him stroke your cheek and your hair until you drifted off to sleep.  

He came to you night after night following that first reunion on your birthday. Six months later and your grades had gone up, you’d become marginally more confident and sociable at university, and you’d been invited to three people’s birthday events.  

Returning after the latest one, you shot down the corridor and into your bedroom. Going still as you reached the middle of the room, you looked around. “Lamorak?” you whispered and the darkness beside the wardrobe coalesced into his familiar, tentacled form as he stepped out to greet you. “I had so much fun tonight!” you grinned, elated and buzzing. “Thank you for encouraging me to go!”

“I can feel it,” he chuckled, approaching and lifting your chin. “You look happy.”

Easily you stepped into his arms, but something felt different that night. The bond between you and this shadow creature suddenly drew taut as a bowstring and your heart began to pound as you sensed the slight change. “Lamorak,” you gasped as his tentacles touched your neck and throat with searing affection, yet more winding around your waist and thighs. “Oh my god… that’s… that…”

“You want me to stop?” he purred in your ear.  

“No!” you gasped, and a tentacle slithered up your spine, beneath your clothes.  

Shaking, you tipped back into his hold and let him carry you to the bed. “I want you,” he said. “I want to show you how much I love you…”

“Please…” you hissed, throwing your head back as his shadows skimmed under your bra and brushed over your nipple. “Please…!”

Slowly, with the reverence of a pilgrim at a shrine, he undressed you, taking care to keep caressing you all the while with his many other tentacles. His four, pearlescent eyes blinked rapidly, though none of them at the same time, and as he worked you closer and closer, delving inside you and circling your clit enough to make you gasp and moan and cry out against his dark body, you caught a glimpse of his mouth for the very first time. A long, horizontal slit in the blackness of his face opened up, revealing a maw of pointed teeth, and a black tongue, long and languid.  

He dragged it over your thighs and stomach, over your hips, and finally down to enjoy the taste of you. Again and again his tongue savoured you and sent waves of pleasure throughout your whole body until you almost forgot how to breathe and your skin felt aflame.  

“Perfect,” he moaned against your body and you felt the echo of it in your mind. The constant whispering of the shadows around his tentacles rose to a cacophony as you bucked and heaved, heat coiling inside you.  

“I’m…” you cried out just before you came.  

Lamorak held you while you clenched and heaved, stroking you tenderly all the while, caressing you and kissing you until you finally fell back into the sheets beneath you. Your body was wrung out and tingling all over, and every time he moved even a little bit, you twitched again. He gave you kisses and told you in hoarse whispers how beautiful you were.  

“Don’t leave me,” you whimpered as he adjusted his tentacled embrace around you, and he washed slowly back over your body in a tide of darkness.  

“Shh,” he crooned. “I’m here. I’m always here for you. As long as you need me, I’m here. And I’m always yours.”

With those words echoing in your mind, you drifted quietly to sleep, naked in the safety of his arms.

—

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#shadow monster #room monster #shadow room monster #monster x reader #exophilia #shadow monster x reader #female reader #shadow monster x female reader #monster x female reader

[witch-and-a-half]

playing house

okay so i loved this concept for my first charlie fic but i kind of had to chase the story around? if that makes sense. so it’s a bit longer than i intended and i’m not sure i love it but it was a good first attempt. its also kinda hard to write the weasley’s and i want to get better at it but its such a difficult mix of main and side characters and they all had to be young here too... hopefully i didn’t botch ginny to badly !!!

( i also used this site to figure out how old everybody would be, but its basically just a year before ron starts at hogwarts )

notes: charlie weasley x reader, fluff, no specific house, summer before 7th year

words: 3.1k

- - -

“You’re sure you’ll be fine?” Molly stood in front of the Burrow fireplace, carefully studying you and Charlie. Arthur came down the stairs with a trunk in hand and his favorite cap on. “They can handle it Mollykins. By this time next year, they’ll be finished with school and out on their own, it won’t kill them to get a bit of practice.” He chortled as he came to stand beside his wife.

Molly’s voice raised an octave, “With five young children?”

Arthur just nodded his head in defeat as Charlie spoke, “We’ll be alright, mum, really. It’s barely a weekend, and if there’s an emergency we’ll send for you.” He tightened his arm around you as he spoke. Molly exhaled deeply and her shoulders relaxed.

“Oh alright… but if there is any trouble you let us know!” She waggled her fingers at the two of you and Arthur made eye contact with you before giving a subtle eye roll.

“Of course, Molly. We just want you to have a good trip.” You smiled.

Charlie chuckled, “Yeah Mum, geez. Promise you’ll at least try to relax.”

Molly scoffed before pulling your boyfriend and yourself into a tight hug. Then, she and Arthur took floo powder into their hands and disappeared to a beach house where Charlie had arranged for them to spend the next two days. You’d be lying if you said you weren’t nervous about watching the Weasley clan, but you also knew how proud Charlie was to be giving his mother a much-needed break, and there was something kind of fun about the challenge of wrangling the red-heads.

The green fire in the fireplace had barely dissipated when you heard a scream from upstairs. “Oh, Merlin…” Charlie groaned before heading up the staircase, and you followed close behind. Before you could figure out where the wailing was coming from, one of the twins came racing out of Ron’s bedroom. Charlie swiftly blocked him with his arm and, leaning down, whispered, “You’d better be sat on the couch waiting for us when we come down, or else I’ll have [y/n] give you the leg-lock curse and you won’t be able to move until Mum gets back.” The twelve-year-old looked up at you suspiciously before sprinting down the stairs.

“You won’t really make me curse your little brother, will you?” You raised your brows at Charlie. He shrugged playfully in response, “Depends on if he’s on the couch or not.”

When you opened the door to Ron’s room, half his bed was up in flames and he was cowered in the corner. You were about to start panicking when Charlie groaned and murmured, “Not again…”

“Again?” You cried as Charlie took out his wand to put the fire out. As he did so, you turned your attention to Ron, who was beginning to seem more irritated than scared. “What happened?” You asked gently.

“They’re pyros!” He said spitefully. Ron recovered quite quickly and ran off when Charlie told him the Ginny had been looking for him—which you knew was a lie.

Charlie took your hand and started to head back downstairs. Pausing at the top of the staircase, he turned back and called out, “George! You’d better be in the living room in 30 seconds or else.”

When you got downstairs, you found Fred sitting on the couch. He was eating a box of Bertie Bott’s that he was definitely not supposed to have at 10am, but at least he was on the couch. Percy was standing next to the couch with his arms folded, glowering at his little brother. Charlie pulled you to sit beside him on the loveseat opposite Fred, and you heard George’s feet scurrying down the stairs.

“Oi, so Perce is just here to watch us get in trouble?” Fred said through a mouthful of beans.

“As always,” George mumbled as he sat beside his brother.

Charlie inhaled deeply and you braced yourself for the stern lecture he had prepared, but his voice came out gentler than you’d expected, “For the love of Merlin, will you two please just cool it for a day?” Fred and George’s faces scrunched with suspicion, and Percy looked a bit disappointed that his brothers weren’t being punished satisfactorily. Charlie continued, “If you don’t give us too much trouble, I promise we’ll give you a reward before Mum and Dad get back.”

The twins’ faces lit up at the mention of a reward before they turned to look at each other. They silently deliberated together, and Charlie squeezed your hand. You knew he didn’t have any such thing planned, but his quick thinking was impressive enough.

“Okay.” Fred said slowly, “We won’t deliberately cause any high-impact trouble.”

Charlie chuckled, “That’s all I ask,”

George stood, “But we will be expecting a good prize.”

Giving them a nod, Charlie squeezed your hand again. That’s when you had an idea, “How about you three go practice Quidditch? That way you’ll be prepared for tryouts when school starts.”

Percy didn’t look excited about this, but he dutifully followed the twins out of the house anyway.

“Good one.” Charlie pecked you on the cheek and you rested your head on his shoulder.

After a few moments, you looked up at Charlie, whose hand had found your thigh and was rubbing mindless circles with his thumb. “What prize are you planning for them?” You asked.

Charlie scoffed, “Dunno. We’ll think of something.” You rolled your eyes as he gave you a cheeky grin.

~ ~ ~

Fred, George, and Percy were still in the yard on their broomsticks as the sun began to set. Ron and Ginny were playing Wizarding Chess at the dining table while you and Charlie were making dinner. He was chopping vegetables to roast while you were cooking some chicken on the stovetop.

The silence was a bit eerie, so you asked Charlie one of your favorite questions: “Tell me about your dreams for the future again Charles.”

He chuckled, mostly to himself, before telling you again, “I want to run off and work with dragons. Maybe somewhere far away. Just go and see where Dragonology leads me… or I guess any other work with magical animals… but I’d like dragons.”

You beamed and prepared to ask him to tell you more about dragons—just to hear him drone on about the thing he was most passionate about. But you glanced up at him before you spoke. He was already looking at you when your eyes met his. Charlie wore a bold grin and there was a brightness in his eyes that you adored. For a moment, you just looked at each other contentedly from across the kitchen.

Charlie broke eye contact first. His eyes flicked downwards for a split second as he opened his mouth, but he was staring back into your eyes before he spoke. “And you’re there. With me… if you’d like.”

At first, you thought you were going to cry. Charlie had never said anything like that to you. Sure, you’d been together for a little over a year now and had been friends for years before, but you weren’t quite sure what the plan was for when the two of you graduated. You had a few different ideas of what you wanted to do after Hogwarts—you’d always envied the way Charlie had known what he wanted since before he even started school—and any of your possible plans were flexible enough that you could move or travel with Charlie. The prospect of adventuring with the love of your life was exhilarating. You pictured a little cottage on an animal reserve where you and Charlie could spend every evening making dinner together and chatting about your days. Maybe you could start a garden out front and spend your days off taking little trips to faraway places.

Charlie’s expectant face brought you quickly back down to earth. “Oh,” you exhaled dreamily, “Yes. Of course, I want to be there.”

You swiftly turned off the stovetop before hurrying into Charlie’s outstretched arms. He wrapped them around you tightly, and your head was pressed firmly to his chest. His woodsy cologne enveloped you. Charlie rested his chin on the top of your head and quietly exhaled, “I can’t wait.”

~ ~ ~

Dinner and bedtime was a bit hectic but relatively uneventful. You couldn’t tell if Ron and Ginny were just on their best behavior for you and Charlie or if the twins had told them about the secret reward. When you asked Charlie about it, he just shrugged and said, “I try not to look a gift horse in the mouth. Especially when it comes to this lot.”

Once all the kids were in bed and you had cleaned up from dinner, Charlie sunk into one of the living room chairs, grabbing your hips along the way so you were sat across his lap. “You really want to come run away with me after school ends?” His voice was low and dreamy but tinged slightly with worry.

His one arm was wrapped around your middle, but the other rested in your lap. You wrapped both of your hands around his before responding, “Of course. I’d love nothing more.” Then you pressed a kiss to his cheek and felt him smile under your lips.

“Let’s go to bed,” He whispered and you stood, following him up the stairs to his room.

~ ~ ~

You woke the next morning wrapped in Charlie’s arms. The sun was up and light flooded the window of his room, but Charlie was still snoring lightly. For a minute, you let your mind wander: imagining waking up like this every day. The thought alone made your heart soar. After a while, you whispered, “Psst, Charlie, we should get up.”

He groaned in response and the arm around your back pulled you closer. “Mmm… not yet.” He murmured sleepily. It was so tempting, but then you imagined Fred and George setting the kitchen ablaze making breakfast, so you wriggled out of Charlie’s strong arms. “Suit yourself…” You said, standing.

Charlie’s eyes were still closed but his arms were playfully outstretched, hoping you were still within reach.

“Hm… maybe I’ll just wear one of your shirts to make breakfast…” Charlie’s eyes shot open quick enough to see you grab his shirt off the dresser and dart out his bedroom door.

Charlie groaned again before pulling himself out of bed and following you to the kitchen. You were standing at the sink in his shirt and pajama shorts, filling up the kettle to make tea. He pecked you on the cheek just before reaching into the cupboard above your head. As Charlie made toast, you asked, “Have you thought of a prize for everybody’s good behavior?”

His voice was still heavy with sleep when he responded, “Not sure yet. Maybe we could all go into town for ice cream cones?”

Before you could agree to the idea, Fred, George, and Ron marched into the room chanting, “Ice cream, ice cream, ice cream!” They were still in their pajamas and had messier hair than normal.

“Only if you can keep it together for another couple hours,” Charlie warned as Ron grabbed the toast that Charlie had just finished putting jam on. You giggled at Charlie’s exasperation, which dissipated when he saw your smile.

A few minutes later, Percy and Ginny had joined you all at the table. “We need to de-gnome the garden before Mum and Dad get back and I also think we should probably clean a bit…”

Ron groaned into his glass of milk and Ginny giggled beside him. You caught her eye and gave her a smile that she shyly reciprocated.

“We can split up the work?” You suggested to Charlie, “I can take whoever wants to tidy up inside and you can take the rest outside?”

He nodded. Charlie ended up taking Ron and the twins into the garden to de-gnome, and Percy and Ginny stayed behind to help you make sure everything got put away correctly. After cleaning up the downstairs, Percy agreed to clean the boys’ rooms—including replacing Ron’s charred pillows from the day before—while you helped Ginny with her room and the bathrooms.

You chatted a bit with the youngest Weasley, asking her about the posters on her wall and what sort of things she liked to do. She was still a bit shy around you—maybe she was a little unsure about having another girl in the house—but was warming up quickly. The two of you finished cleaning as Percy changed Ron’s bed sheets, so you turned to Ginny and whispered, “How about we go make lemonade for the boys since we’ve finished first?”

She nodded enthusiastically, “Okay!”

Ron, Charlie, Fred, and George came in—flushed from the warm weather—only a few minutes after Percy finished upstairs. Charlie noticed the lemonade right as he came in, giving you a grateful peck on the cheek. Ginny proudly gave her brothers their glasses of lemonade, and George gave her an appreciative pat on the head. It was a very domestic moment, and, with Charlie’s arm wrapped around your waist and the gaggle of redheads in front of you, there was a sudden pang in your chest. It was as if Charlie could read your mind. He suddenly pulled you slightly toward him and caught your lips with his, which were sweet with lemonade.

“Ach-” One of the twins cried.

“I think we all should get sprinkles for having to witness that,” The other said, with raised brows.

Charlie just rolled his eyes.

Then Ron piped up from the table, “When are we getting ice cream…?”

Ginny’s eyes brightened. Maybe nobody had told her about the ice cream trip.

~ ~ ~

You held Charlie’s hand as you trailed behind the younger kids. The afternoon was warm but not too humid, and the sun shone through the tree branches onto the path ahead. When you reached the town, Charlie led the way to the ice cream parlor. Everyone got to pick out a flavor and a cone before sitting at one of the plastic tables outside to eat. Listening to the Weasley family chat and joke as though you were part of the family made your heart soar. Percy told you about the classes he was taking this year and Ron showed you a Chocolate Frog card he had stuffed in his pocket.

As everyone finished their cones, Fred noticed a store across the street with colorful toys in the window. “Charlie we have to go in there,” He pointed, transfixed on the storefront. Charlie glanced around the table, “Fred, not everybody is done with their ice cream.”

“I don’t mind. I can wait with [y/n].” Ginny took another lick of her ice cream, which was beginning to melt. Charlie caught your eye, noticing the excitement on your face, “Okay, meet us in there when you’re done, Gin.” He stood and walked the boys across the street.

Ginny looked over to you, still licking her cone, “Can I ask you something?”

“Of course,” You smiled.

“Do you love Charlie?” Ginny asked. She was suddenly much bolder now that she’d warmed up to you. The tone of her voice was just casual enough to counterbalance the determination in her eyes. You were almost more taken aback by her tact than by the question itself.

After a moment, you decided to be honest, “Yes, I do love Charlie. Is that okay?”

Ginny seemed satisfied with your answer and gave a sturdy nod, “Okay,” She took a bite of her cone and looked at you intently. You weren’t sure what to say, or if you should say anything at all, but Ginny didn’t seem to mind the silence. She spoke again after a minute, “I like your fingernail polish.”

~ ~ ~

The trek back from town tired everyone out, just in time for Mrs. and Mr. Weasley to return. When they appeared in the fireplace, Ron and Percy were playing some sort of Wizarding card game, Charlie was going over Gryffindor Quidditch plays with the twins, and you were painting Ginny’s nails the same shade of blue you wore. Everyone sprung to their feet to greet Molly and Arthur, and Charlie motioned for you to stand beside him.

“See! They’re all alive,” Arthur exclaimed to his wife, who playfully slapped his chest. She looked at you reassuringly, “I didn’t doubt it!” and starting doling out hugs.

“How was your trip?” Charlie said as his mother wrapped her arms tightly around his middle.

She beamed, “Oh lovely. We sat by the beach, had a nice dinner, and explored the little town…”

Her voice softened as she hugged you, “Thank you so much, dear. Hopefully, they weren’t too much trouble.”

“No trouble at all…” You said earnestly. Charlie finished the sentence for you though, “After the fire everything went swimmingly.”

Molly spun to Fred and George, who were giving Charlie a death glare. “A fire?” She cried, “Oh you two…” But she just shook her head at them.

After Molly and Arthur put their trunks upstairs, they found you and Charlie in the kitchen making dinner. “Oh, you two… have a rest!” Arthur chortled, shooing you away from the stovetop. Molly pulled you aside, but Charlie quickly joined beside you.

“I simply must pay you two for watching everyone,” Molly pulled out a coin purse but Charlie reached out a hand to stop her. “Mum…” His voice was warm, but still held a hint of warning.

“Molly, it was no trouble, really. We wanted to do it.” You cut in. Charlie’s hand wordlessly found yours as you spoke. His warm broad fingers wrapping around yours lovingly.

Mrs. Weasley bit her lip, thinking for a moment. Charlie’s stern gaze made her exhale in resignation. “Alright then… if you’re sure. But I plan on returning the favor for you one day.”

It seemed as though she didn’t realize the weight of her words as she left the kitchen to unpack. Your face flushed and Charlie’s hand tightened around yours. He looked at you with a vague, soft smile and a look that you couldn’t quite read. Before you could say anything, Arthur’s chuckle cut into the silence, “She doesn’t mean anytime soon though.”

Now Charlie’s cheeks were red. He didn't meet your eyes but pulled you outside to sit on the back stoop. Neither of you spoke as you watched the sunset. Charlie’s arm was wrapped firmly around your waist and your head rested on his shoulder. It was fun to think about the future, but, in that moment, you were just grateful for the present.

#charlie weasley #charlie weasley fanfic #charlie weasley fluff #charlie weasley one shot #charlie weasley fanfiction #weasley #the burrow #fred weasley #george weasley #fred and george #ron weasley #percy weasley #ginny weasley #harry potter #harry potter fanfic #harry potter oneshot #harry potter fanfiction #harry potter imagine #charlie weasley imagine #i wrote this #i love charlie weasley with my whole fucking heart

[samingtonwilson]

Apartment 8C - Chapter 2

Finding Your Independence

SERIES MASTERLIST // PREVIOUS PART

Summary: college au. you and bucky are the closest of friends, the most functional of roommates, and… exes. but just because it didn’t work out romantically doesn’t mean he has to move out! it’s not like he’s so deeply in love that he can barely breathe. totally not in love. at all. not even a little. maybe.

Pairing: bucky x reader

Warnings: language

A/N: the chapter title is ironic because this chapter is about how dependent these two are on each other. 

A scream startles you from accidental sleep. Deep, broken, and utterly terrified. 

It’s half-past six. Your room is bathed in gold. Fading sunlight and emerging city lights leak through the thin drapes over your windows. You set your chin onto an open textbook. 

Your eyes open narrowly. You need to listen carefully. You could have dreamt the scream.

A slow second passes, your eyes nearly shut, and then— 

Another scream. This time of your name. Your eyes snap back open.

You flip the pen you fell asleep holding, gripping it as a weapon while groggily— but with great haste, of course— climbing out of bed. 

Heartbeat in your ears, you sigh and kick away the thick purple blanket your feet are tangled in, throwing your door open to an empty living room. 

The front door is shut, your television hasn’t been ripped from the wall, everything is in its place. Even Bucky’s laptop sits undisturbed on the coffee table next to an almost totally flat bag of Doritos. 

You tilt your head. 

From behind the bathroom door, your name is screamed again. And a whimper punctuates it. 

In all your time of knowing Bucky, you’ve never once heard him so terrified. 

You swallow over the tension tightening your throat and pick up the first semi-threatening object you see: the penis-shaped vase Bucky had “unintentionally” made in ceramics during the semester he’d devoted to discovering his artistic side. 

You toss the pink peonies it houses aside and grip the vase tightly, pen poised in your other hand. You use your elbow to open the door, eyes narrowed and teeth gritted in an attempt to look tough. Objects held above your head, you’re about to strike when— 

When you see Bucky standing on top of the toilet. Towel wrapped haphazardly around his waist, chestnut hair dripping, his blue eyes wild. He’s also pale as a ghost, but his fearful expression takes only seconds to shift into one of confusion. 

One which matches yours. “You’re not being murdered?” 

“No!” he shouts back to meet your volume. He points at the glass wall enclosing the shower, finger shaking. “There’s a fucking spider in there!” 

Your teeth grit again. But this time in anger. “You shrieked like someone was beheading you over a spider?” 

Seconds later, you gasp dramatically as you ask, “You woke me up from a nap over a spider?” 

He at least has the decency to be sheepish. “S’a big spider.”

“You’re six-feet tall and have, like, 185 pounds on that spider.” 

“Size doesn’t matter. I raise you the poisonous spiders of Australia.” 

Nodding, you hold out your forearm to help Bucky off the toilet seat. You grunt at the weight of him. 

Maybe 185 is a stingy estimation. 

“Okay, I see your poisonous spiders of Australia and raise you ‘we’re in New fucking York, Bucky.’” 

Standing on the floor now, he winces when you use the back of your hand to slap his bicep. “There are poisonous spiders in New York, too, okay? We’re all afraid of something.” 

Silence as you regard him, a sigh as you concede. “Okay.” You ignore his victorious smile. “I’ll take care of it. Can you just turn the water off, please?” 

“And get close to that thing again?” he demands, outrage clear in his voice. He tries to keep his towel in place with one hand as he gesticulates with the other. “No! You do it.” 

“My clothes will get wet and I’m not in the mood to strip for you right now.” 

He smiles at that. “S’not like I haven’t seen it all before.”

“Yeah? You wanna make ‘we’ve fucked before’ jokes right now? When the fate of you ever using this bathroom again is in my hands?” 

An almost pathetic whimper and he relents with hands held up in surrender. He approaches the shower slowly and, with a scowl, reaches for the knob once, twice, three times before finally gripping it and turning it to the left. 

Once the steady stream of water is reduced to mere drops, Bucky stands back and sends you a glare. “Happy?” 

“Elated.” You set your weapons on the counter and rip off two sheets of paper towel. 

“Kill it quickly.” 

“I’m not gonna kill it.” 

He snorts as he stands leant against the doorframe. “What, are you gonna adopt it as the apartment pet?” 

“No, funny guy. I’m gonna let it go on the balcony.” 

“What if it comes back in?” 

“Then we’ll get the Five Families together and let the Mafia handle it.” 

When you finally spot the thick, quarter-sized spider, you inhale through your nose and step into the shower stall slowly. You brace yourself with one hand wrapped around the edge of the glass wall. Your features are pinched.

Bucky grins at the sight. “You scared, baby?” 

A sarcastic bark of laughter, and you crack one eye open. You almost convince him. “Please.” 

It takes little coaxing for the brown spider to crawl onto the paper towel and you immediately fold each side of it closed. There’s a soft scratch of the spider’s legs against the paper walls, more felt than heard, and you forcefully choke back vomit. 

You bump into Bucky as you race out of the bathroom, his towel very nearly slipping from his fingers, and don’t slow your steps until you’re across the living room and have pushed the balcony doors open. 

Carefully, you unfold one side of the makeshift cocoon and squeal quietly to yourself as the spider stumbles into a flower box attached to the metal rail. It quickly scurries behind a wilting tulip and you make a mental note to water the plants more.

“You were coming to protect me with this?” 

Bucky, now dressed in a t-shirt and a pair of navy blue sweatpants, is holding the penis vase when you turn. He stands at a safe distance, shielded by the door, and has the nerve to wear a shit-eating grin. “You know there’s a baseball bat behind the couch, right?” 

“Now I do.”

“I also gave you pepper spray when you enrolled in that nine PM lecture,” he adds as you walk through the door and right past him. He places the vase back on its shelf and nods his head toward the kitchen. “There are knives right there, too.” 

You pick up the bag of Doritos, confirm that it is indeed empty, and frown. “Disgusting. I’d never stab someone.” 

“Even if they were murdering me like you thought?” He takes the bag from you and balls it up to throw in the trash. He wants to open the refrigerator but knows the groceries he forgot to buy won’t magically appear on the shelves. 

“Knives are such a cliché, everyone uses knives. He’d see it coming.” You grin at Bucky through the explanation from your favorite corner of the couch and he stills behind the kitchen counter. “The key is throwing him off his rhythm. Penis vase serves that purpose.” 

He laughs, albeit a bit oddly, rolling his eyes as he opens the Notes app on his phone. And he draws a blank. “What, uh— What foods do you like?” 

“Excuse me?” 

“Do you have any favorite foods?”

He’s met with silence. 

He decides to explain. Sort of. “Like, what do you want to eat most of the time? What is it that you crave? Food-wise,” he adds with a cocked eyebrow. “What is it you know how to make that you enjoy eating? Are you acting out of lunacy again and dieting for no fuckin’ reason?” 

Seconds go by and you have yet to answer. He looks up from his phone and answers the question over your features with, “Just out of curiosity.” 

“Not because you have zero idea what to buy from the store?”

“Can’t a guy wonder what his friend, ex-girlfriend, and roommate is eating these days? Just for fun? To bond?” 

Your eyes narrow into a glare. “Not when that guy is you and it’s your turn to go grocery shopping. I thought I gave you a list a few days ago.” 

“You yell random items at me on your way out the door for class and I’m expected to remember it all?” 

“You yelled your feelings at me constantly and I was expected to remember it all,” you return as you rise from the couch and draw closer to him only to sit in one of the barstools at the counter. You watch as he opens his Notes application again and stare as he struggles to come up with anything. “Green apples, white peaches, red bell peppers, yellow onions. Don’t look at me like that. The colors are important.”

“Yeah, yeah. What are you doing for dinner? Might take me some time to decipher colors at the store.” 

Chin propped up on your palm, you slide his phone over and ignore his expression of protest to add eggs, sourdough bread, avocados, pre-cut mushrooms, celery, hummus, whatever pasta is shaped like a spiral, tortilla chips, oat milk, any flavor of microwave popcorn Wanda won’t finish, and for God’s sake, you fucking wreck, buy your own gum for once to the grocery list.

“S’okay. I’m not really hungry anyway.”

“You’re always hungry.”

You gasp in offense with a small, contradictory smile. “How dare you? That’s not something you say to a lady.”

He smiles sarcastically before rolling his eyes. “If you need me to rush so you can make something, I will.” 

“Too tired to make anything. Also just too untalented to.” 

“Come with me, then. We can stop somewhere on the way back.” He sees you begin to refuse and cuts you off with a quick, “I’ll pay.” 

“If you think you paying for my food is incentive enough for me to put on human pants and walk out that door,” you begin, pointing at the door, “then you’re absolutely correct. Give me a second to put jeans on.” 

You hear Bucky’s chuckle as you walk into your room, tossing away that pair of fleece pants your mother had begged you to burn to ash the last time you’d seen her and replacing them with a pair of jeans your mother had also begged you to burn to ash. “How do you feel about Sam and Nat?” 

“About Sam, negatively. About Tasha, positively.” He’s patting the pockets of his sweats and tossing couch cushions every which way to look under them, hair in disarray, when you hop into the room with only your right boot on. In a mumbled, barely present voice, he adds, “So I guess that balances out to feeling neutral about them together.”

Slipping on and zipping up your left boot, you cock an eyebrow at the elephant throw pillow which is sent smacking against your ankles. “Have you lost something?” 

He doesn’t look up from the sofa as he replies, “Keys. Where the shit are my fucking keys?” 

“D’you check the cabinet closest to the fridge?” 

“Why the fuck—” 

You sigh and begin to set the cushions back where they belong, placing the elephant gingerly at the center of the couch. “Just check.” 

Bucky’s grumbles as he passes by, his scoffs of disbelief, and sighs of annoyance are ignored until you hear his every noise abruptly end as he stares at the cabinet he is now standing before. 

“Find ‘em?” 

There are equal parts shock, fear, and exasperation over his features. He slams the cabinet shut. “You’re a witch, aren’t you? Some kind of freaky, all knowing witch?” 

“Yes. Do you have your wallet?” 

A pat on each of his pockets, then one against his ass— despite not having a pocket there. He bares his teeth for a moment. “You wanna tell me where that is, too?” 

“Can I get three guesses this time?” 

“Two,” he states, leaning against the counter. “Impress me.” 

“First of all, I couldn’t give half a shit about impressing you.” Bucky snorts at that. “It’s either in the freezer—” 

He opens the freezer and the next thing you hear is a loud, “Ha! Whoo! You’re wrong!” 

“I have another guess.” 

He visibly deflates, smug smile wiped clean. “Yeah, yeah. Go on.” 

“Counter of your bathroom, in the pocket of whatever jeans you wore to class.” 

You run a few steps behind his long strides to the bathroom and stand in the doorway as he fishes through the pile of dirty clothes beside the sink. 

He thinks he might hate the smile you’re wearing when he pulls his wallet from the depths of denim, but he can’t bring himself to hate it— he feels quite the opposite about it, actually. It’s worth the inevitable gloating and the crazy accurate interpretation of a celebratory dance you saw a football player you can’t remember the name of do after a touchdown. 

You’re laughing when he brushes past you to walk to the door and grin as you pass him so he can lock it behind you. “What would you do without me, Buck?” 

He honestly doesn’t know. 

— 

Your laughter captures Bucky’s attention. Delighted, excited, and entirely too loud. 

He’s been nursing a red Solo cup of lukewarm supermarket-brand cola for about two hours now. 

It’s disgusting. Watered-down now that the ice has melted, but still too sweet and a little flat. He would’ve liked to cut it with the bitterness of anything alcoholic, but he can’t. 

He’s designated driver tonight, after all. The miserable result of a miserable coin toss. 

He’d suggested thumb wrestling— but you weren’t having it. Something about his thumb being far larger than yours, giving him an unfair advantage. Almost as if you’d known he’d chosen thumb wrestling for that precise reason. 

So he’s spent the night pouting. 

Complaining. 

Glowering at anyone that dares to make conversation with him. 

Because he hates the cheap soda Steve buys. He hates the sticky counters Sam waits hours to wipe down. And he hates hearing underclassmen talk about how hot you are when your ping pong ball skates over the rim of one of Natasha’s cups. 

But he smiles at the sound of your laughter. At the way you grin, all smug and victorious. It lights up otherwise glossy eyes, drunken giggles growing clumsy as Natasha frowns down at a cup matching his. 

“You gotta drink it down, babe!” You lean your hip against the plastic table set up in the kitchen and purse your lips when Natasha fishes the beer-soaked ball from her cup to toss at your shoulder. “Poor sportsmanship is unbecoming on you.” 

Natasha rolls green eyes over the top of the cup, chugging its contents easily. “Just like cockiness is on you.” 

“Let’s not lie to ourselves, Nat.” Natasha is already struggling against a smile. “We all know cockiness is dead sexy on me.” 

Beside Bucky, Sam laughs. He raises his hands in innocence and surrender when Natasha shoots him a glare. “Not pickin’ sides, that was just funny.” 

“You’re not picking your girlfriend’s side automatically?” is Bucky’s question asked in a voice exaggeratedly naïve. He grins lopsidedly as he takes a sip of soda only to retch as it goes down. “That’s brave.”

You watch as Natasha pitches her next shot over the rim of one of four remaining cups. You send Bucky a smile as you retrieve it. “Bucky was always on my side when we were together.”

His devious smile is like a secret between the two of you. He hums in agreement. “Blindly.” 

“Loyally.” You hold the cup at your lips, stomach and cheeks warm from three hours of generous beer and mixed drink helpings. Your next swallow goes down with a shudder.

“I’d root against myself for her.” 

“S’more pathetic than loyal,” Sam snorts only to earn a squeak of indignation and an empty cup to the chest in response. Despite purported offense, he chuckles at your delighted laughter and quickly sobers to point a stern finger. “Makin’ a mess of my kitchen like this. Rogers’ll kill you.”

In challenge, you cock an eyebrow. “He’ll kill you first when he sees all the candy missing from his secret stash.” 

“Barnes ate all that.” 

Bucky’s stomach flips at the way you tilt your head and narrow your eyes, at the soft flutter of your eyelashes, the promise in your voice when you say, “Blind loyalty, Sammy. That isn’t the story I’ll tell Steve.” 

“You aren’t even dating anymore.” 

You wave a dismissive hand. “I’ll always be on Bucky’s side. Plus if I go down, I’m taking you with me.”

Pointedly at a glowering Sam, Bucky tears the wrapper of a fun-size Twix bar and takes as big a bite as the small bar will allow. 

There’s caramel in his teeth and smug satisfaction in his eyes as he stuffs the gold foil into the pocket of Sam’s bomber jacket, laughing when the latter slaps his hand away. 

What feels like a lifetime passes and Bucky waits until you’ve completed a second game— this time defeated by a furious and candy-less Steve— to Irish goodbye. 

It’s his signature. 

He hasn’t said a proper goodbye to anyone in years.

Your drunkenness, however, foils his plan. You insist on pressing kisses to the forehead of each of your friends— lingering a bit longer for Sam just to earn a snort from Natasha— and you tap the fishbowl housing a temperamental turquoise Betta fish named Marcel twice as you couldn’t just exclude Marcel and hurt his feelings. You even leave them with an ominous, “I hope we will all meet again.”  

He lets you climb onto his back when you stumble out of his car to your building, tripping over the four-inch block heel of your boots, and soon the elevator stall is filled with your humming. Unintelligible, entirely out of tune. And you swing your legs. Dysrhythmic, offbeat. 

He smiles when you set your chin upon the crown of his head, his hold on you tightening as the metallic doors slide open on the eighth floor. He feels the deep breath you take against his back, his attention drawn away from the short walk down the hall when your feather-like fingertips trace his jaw. 

Nails skimming over the bristly hairs of his stubbly beard to the hidden divot in his chin, you— already flush against him— attempt to push yourself even closer. And huff in disappointment when you’re unable to. 

You feel him come to a stop. “Sweetheart?” 

A short hum, this time in question. 

“I gotta unlock the door.” 

You open your eyes slowly, blink away some of the drowsiness. You think offhandedly that the pale yellow door could use a fresh coat of paint. “I’ll do it.” You hold out a hand and wiggle your fingers. “Keys?” 

“In my left pocket.” He chuckles when your right hand slides down the incorrect side. “Other left.” 

You heave a deep sigh, your other hand slipping into his left pocket to feel around. The jingle of keys is muted by your triumphant shout, fingers sorting through the bundle of steel to find the one semi-coated in bright pink nail polish. You decide that should be repainted first lest the two of you mix up your keys again.

Bucky watches as you attempt to stretch enough to reach the doorknob, jolting each time you urge yourself forward. He grins when you whimper pathetically. “You can ask me to move closer.” 

The arm still wrapped around his neck tightens a bit and you press your cheek to the roughness of his. You strain toward the door once more in stubborn perseverance, then knock your heels against the side of his thighs. He laughs at the growl in his ear.

“Ask me verbally. I’m not a horse.” 

“Got the name of one,” you mumble, crossing your ankles at his waist as he grips you harder. “Longer you stand there refusing to move, the longer you have-ta hold me up.” 

“Been lifting with Steve. I’m content to stand here all night.”

“What, trying to get that post-breakup revenge body?” 

“Gotta do something to fill all my new free time.” 

A hiccup punctuates your giggles and Bucky feels you straighten before leaning back ever so slightly. 

Suddenly, you jerk forward with all of your might, sending Bucky lurching to the door. He has to remove a hand from your legs to steady himself against the wall, breath shallow and heart in his ears when he notices he’s only centimeters from smashing into the wood. “Hey!” 

You, still holding on, shush him as you slip the key into the brass latch, whispering, “Our neighbors are sleeping.”

Once you’re able to throw the door open and Bucky walks inside, you detangle your ankles and leap to the floor as the lights flicker on. You laugh when your knees very nearly buckle, fingers gripping the edge of the kitchen counter under a wave of lightheadedness. Your stomach flips and every trace of humor fades. “Yikes.” 

Bucky, halfway through removing the leather jacket he’d worn over a black hoodie, watches as you lay your torso across the counter. He smiles when you press your cheek to the cool marble, his laughter mingling with the groans that leave your lips. 

Your muffled grumble sounds vaguely like, “Oh, shut up.”

His steps are slow and quiet. He offers you an apologetic smile when you startle at his touch, brushing stray strands of hair from your shut eyes. He wrinkles his nose at your answering scowl, watching as glassy eyes still filled with such potent brightness narrow in an attempt at intimidation. “Need a lift to your bathroom?” 

You shake your head. Propping yourself up onto your forearms, you nod toward your room. “It’ll be too shaky. Maybe just guide me there?” 

His fingers lace through yours and he tugs you upright. He doesn’t mind supporting the weight of you, doesn’t care that he has to dodge the books and shoes you’ve left littered over your bedroom floor. 

Your bathroom light is switched on and you pull away from Bucky to take quick, stuttering steps to the toilet. He winces to himself when you fall to your knees, your trembling hands clamoring to push the seat cover up. 

As you feel that maybe your stomach has turned itself inside out, Bucky gathers your hair in one hand and holds you close to his chest with the other— just in case you need the support. Until then, though, he rubs comforting circles which warm you even through the satin fabric of your shirt. 

“Twix and beer are a horrible combination coming up,” you remark, voice rough, minutes later. You’re seated against him once you’ve thoroughly emptied your system, head falling back onto his shoulder. “That last game of beer pong was a mistake.”

He feels your breath wash over his skin and, despite how perfectly okay he would be with sitting there for hours, turns his head away. “Sweetheart, I want to be here for you but— but I can’t when your breath smells like that.” 

Stunned pause, and you burst into laughter. Tired hands are used as leverage and you stand, boots long ago removed and thrown aside. You send him a smile over your shoulder and roll your eyes but face the sink as he grins dopily back. “You’re weak, Barnes.” 

He meets your playful gaze in the mirror and, at the sight of pooled dried mascara underlining your eyes and the thin layer of sweat spread over the bridge of your nose, he forces himself to take a steadying breath. “You have no idea. Hungry?” 

Loading your toothbrush with translucent paste, you shrug. “Maybe.” 

“Grilled cheese or pancakes?” 

“If I say both, will you judge me?” 

“I just held your hair back while you threw up a keg’s worth of beer and you’re afraid I’ll start to judge you now?” 

You smile as you scrub your teeth in rapid strokes. “There was some vodka in there, too.”

Shoulder leant against the doorframe, his eyes are alight. “My mistake. Anything else you’d like while I’m at it?” 

“Some ibuprofen?” you ask after spitting the foam from your mouth. “I’m all out here.” 

A frown of consideration, and he nods. “Will that be all?” 

“Yes, I believe it will be.” Before he can walk out, you call his name. “What would I do without you?” 

He honestly hopes you’ll never have to find out.

--

CHAPTER 3: GETTING BACK IN THE GAME 

#bucky #bucky barnes #bucky x reader #bucky barnes x reader #bucky x you #bucky barnes x you #bucky barnes fic #bucky barnes college au #a8c

[ill-skillsgard]

I can't tell you how legitimately excited I am for more Faust x Faith. I am dying for him to meet her parents. I swear this is like my new crack!

Oh, boy, it’s been a long time coming! This is pretty long, but I hope all you fans of the frosty boy enjoy it!

Previous imagines here (x)

Warning: 18+ smut, first-times, teasing, possessive, slight anal-play, anti-religious themes etc.

Faith gave it until the end of August to tell her parents she was seeing someone. She wanted to be free and clear of living under their roof before she broke the news, for her father already had his suspicions, and was sure to grill her about the boy she'd been concealing all Summer long.

The first strike against Faust occurred before he had set foot in the family home. Faith told her father that her new boyfriend was older than her by a few years, the admission followed by a long lecture about how older men couldn't be trusted off the bat. What kind of fellow had eyes for his young daughter, he asked. Faith came prepared to argue and told her fretting mother and disgruntled father that Faust was a gentleman and kept his hands to himself. It was a partial truth, but not so much a lie that Faith lost sleep. She hated lying to her parents — they were good people, and she loved them, despite their restrictions. She knew they only had her best interest at heart. If it hadn't been for their need to stay as a tightknit family, they wouldn't have moved to the city where her university was, and she wouldn't have met Faust.

She begged her parents not to get angry for keeping him a secret, then had to convince Faust to dress nicely for dinner at their house when they finally agreed she was old enough to live on her own, therefore old enough to have a romantic interest. It was an intricate plan with sensitive strings she had to pull in just the right order.

Faith had no idea Faust had already prepared for the occasion. He had a pair of fitted black dress pants tucked away somewhere, and a plain black shirt in place of the endless supply of band t-shirts he owned. He'd be the perfect boyfriend, or try his very best this once to make peace with her parents. Faust dreamt of the day he stood face-to-face with the man responsible for siring his pretty little Faith. Courting her had been such prolonged, sweet torture, and he was finally ready to give her what she wanted. He just had to set a few plans in motion.

His first goal was to show up on the preacher's doorstep, holding his daughter's hand, to see the look on his face when he realized his precious girl had fallen in love with a metalhead, and to assure there was nothing he could do to change her mind. The box checked off when they greeted her mom and dad in the foyer of their cheerful two-storey house on the ordinary suburban street.

The preacher recognized everything wrong with Faust upon first glance, their eyes clashing, already at war.  Faust had seen the look before: tight lips, a heavy brow, stony, disapproving eyes, stiffened back. He smirked, and so did the preacher.

Faith's dad challenged him with a fatherly handshake to which he accepted. He shook the man's hand, pale green eyes boring into the preacher with promises and warnings of the adulterous things he would have his daughter doing by the end of the night. 

"Name's Stan. This is my wife, Reneta. Boy, Faith didn't say you'd be this tall."

Faust smirked again, revealing the boyish looks Faith had fallen prey to. "No?"

"Not at all. Faith hasn't told us much about you at all, young man. How old are you?"

"Twenty-four," Faust replied.

"And how did you meet our Faith?"

"We have a mutual friend."

Faith detected the pressure in the room rising and beckoned a hug from her father to distract him from the six-foot-something degenerate standing in the hallway amongst the ceramic cherubs and framed family portraits.

Faust's second goal was to get Faith's mother on his side. He did that with calculated smiles, and exercising his manners whenever the woman of the house addressed him. By dinnertime, she'd asked how he kept his hair so shiny and if he needed any of Stan's old shirts to spruce up his monochromatic wardrobe. Faust could tell that one bothered Stan. He politely declined her offer, turning to his girlfriend with the most charming smile Faith had ever seen on his lips. It pleased her to see him trying, and she leaned her head on his shoulder, sighing as they awaited their meal.

"Faith, why don't you help your mother bring in dinner? She spent all afternoon cooking, I'm sure she could use a hand," said Stan once he grew tired of watching his daughter making love-struck eyes at the stranger in his home.

"Sure, Daddy."

Faust watched her leave for the kitchen, his stare on her backside. Once she turned the corner, Stan tensed his jaw, ready to pummel the boy with a few personal questions framed as a benevolent curiosity. He waited until the girls joined, and dinner arrived on the table. They said grace, Stan noting Faust refused to close his eyes or add to the chorus of "amens" and struck.

"So, Faust. What do you do for a living?"

"I play in a band," Faust answered without tripping.

"Is that right? Anything I've heard?"

Faust chewed a wad of roast beef, simpering while Faith's eyes implored him not to cross the line. "I doubt it."

"What do you play? Guitar?"

"Drums."

"Ah, I see. How exactly do you make money that way? I can't imagine drummers making a whole lot. Unless you're Neil Peart."

The dark-haired man did not flinch. He stabbed another piece of meat with the prongs of his fork, poked it into his mouth, and continued.

"I'm a classically-trained percussionist. I don't struggle to find work. If the band isn't doing well, I get in the studio as a session musician. But the band always does well, so..."

"Classical training? My, that is impressive!" Reneta beamed. 

Stan assaulted his cut of meat, the serrated knife screeching against the faultless dinner plate. Faust revealed his top row of teeth.

"He's terrific, Daddy. He even taught me how to play a beat," Faith remarked.

"I'd like to know where you found all this time between work and Jessica to find yourself a boyfriend and learn how to play drums."

Faith's grin disappeared while Faust's quivered. The lie hung about their heads, and Faust inhaled every bit of it with feral delight.

A dappling of red crawled up Stan's neck. The two men held each other in a suspended glare. Faust told the man everything he didn't want to know with a raise of his eyebrows.

The third goal was to get Faith alone in her old bedroom after dinner. When her mother mentioned she left some clothes and a few odds and ends behind, Faust offered to take them down for her. He needed only her guidance upstairs to find the room. This was a farce. Faust knew damn well where her room was, as he'd waited down the street for her to sneak out the window many times over the months. Now that Summer was winding down, and Faith had a dorm far away from her dad's watchful eye, the bedroom seemed even more forbidden.

"Here, this must be what my mom was talking about," Faith went to the foot of her twin bed where a taped box waited.

When she turned around, Faust was inches away from her, and a breathy gasp leapt from her mouth. "Oh my goodness, Faust, you spooked me! You really have to make more noise when you... When you..."

He grabbed her hand and pressed it to the front of his dress pants just as he leaned in to force his way into her mouth. Her eyes bulged, the firmness she felt between his legs and his probing tongue halting her pulse for a double-beat.

"Faust!" She hissed. "What are you doing?"

"I want you. Right now," he said.

"Now? We can't! My dad's just in the other room."

"I thought you wanted my cock?"

Faith hushed him by pressing her fingers to his lips; terrified someone might hear his deep, resonant voice through the walls. "Why do you choose now to want this suddenly?"

"It's not sudden. I told you I'd fuck you after I met your parents."

"Yeah, but not here!"

"Why not?"

Faith attempted to pull away from him but loathed missing the chance to feel his manhood growing in her palm for the first time. She spent many nights trying her best to brush up against his groin to get a feel for what lay beneath his boxer shorts. Even going so far as to wake up before him, hoping she'd catch a glimpse of morning wood, but always coming up with nothing. Faust's self-control was unshakeable. But now...

With her palm pressed hard against his groin, Faust let out a dull growl, the guttural sound awakening the heavy longing Faith had tried so hard to resist.

"Faith!" Stan called from the bottom of the stairs.

She tried to snatch her hand away, but Faust's hold was iron. He kept her anchored to him, biting his lip as the sound of footsteps on the staircase warned them of her dad's approach.

"Let go," she hissed, unable to stifle the intrigue dimpling her cheeks. "Faust!"

"This is what you wanted," Faust told her.

Stan reached the landing, a mere seven-feet from the open bedroom door. Faust leaned in, let his bottom lip pop out from under the assault of his teeth and made sure she felt him twitch in her hand. Faith tugged again, but Faust held tight.

"Would you?— Faust, let me go!"

At the last second, before Stan entered the room, Faust released her arm and turned toward the box. He lifted it from the bed and held it in front of his hips to conceal the half-mast erection in his pants. Stan analyzed the scene with a critical eye and lingered on Faust while Faith failed to look innocent. She wrang her wrist and fiddled with her daughter's pride ring, bounding away from her boyfriend and into her father's arms.

"Thanks for everything tonight, daddy. I'm so glad we could have dinner and tell mom—"

"You all right, sweetheart?" Stan asked, throwing Faust a warning shot with his eyes.

"What? Of course, I'm all right, daddy."

"Just checking. You need any help?"

Faust's mouth twisted. "All good, boss. I'll take care of her."

His assurance did nothing to placate the preacher. He looked at his daughter as if to implore her to reconsider her choice of male company. Faust knew the moment he was out of ear-shot, and Stan had a minute to speak with his daughter, he'd beg her to think of the future he'd never be able to provide. But he knew Faith — knew she adored him with every mote of her being, and her father trying to shoo him off the porch would only intensify her lust.

Faust loaded his girlfriend's belongings into the trunk of his roommate's car he borrowed for the night while she said her goodbyes to her mother on the front porch. Stan took the opportunity to approach the younger man before Faith had a chance to intervene.

"I don't know what your intentions are with my little girl, son, but let me make myself clear: if I catch wind of any mucking around, or if she comes to me with tears in her eyes because of something you did, our conversation will not be a pleasant one."

Faust slammed the trunk shut. "I love her, and I don't plan on hurting her."

Stan sneered. "I've seen you and your group around town. Do you think a pair of dress pants and a fake smile will fool me? News travels in this place. I've heard all about what your circle is known for, and frankly, it'd please me if you left her to concentrate on her schooling. That's why we moved here. She doesn't need any distractions."

"Which is why I'm taking her straight back to her dorm."

Before the conversation went further South, Faith skipped down the walkway and wedged herself between the two men. She hugged her father and bid him farewell before joining Faust at his side. The drummer smirked as he wrapped his arm around Faith's shoulders and led her to the passenger side of the car, opening the door for her while maintaining eye contact with Stan.

Her parents waited on the porch for them to drive away, but Faust stalled under the pretense of answering some text messages. Before starting the car, he turned to his girlfriend, grabbed her jaw and pulled her in for a long, heated kiss. Faith giggled, attempted to pull back, but met resistance. Faust wasn't finished kissing her. Not until he was certain Stan and Reneta saw. Faust traced her gold necklace, thumbing the tiny crucifix as he pulled back, lips glistening from their passionate touching.

"Faust, come on, my parents are watching. Let's go."

"Your dad hates me."

"What? No, he doesn't. He just needs a chance to get to know you."

Faust shook his head. "No. I like this. I want him to lie awake all night thinking about the shit I'm gonna make you do when we get home."

Faith blushed. He started the car and pulled out of the driveway, an evil grin plastered to his face. There was one last thing left on his to-do list, and it sat next to him, toying with the fringe of her dress, crossing and uncrossing her legs to stave off the pulsing heat of anticipation.

When they entered the elevator, Faust lifted Faith's dress and pulled her panties down to her knees. He swiped two fingers over her lips, moaning when they came away slick. The tall man backed her into the corner as her underwear fell around her ankles. Lifting her leg, he crushed her against the cold metal wall and sucked at her neck like he meant to draw blood.

"You sure you still want to fuck?" He whispered.

"Yes. God, yes, I want to so bad."

"But your pussy's so small, and my cock is so fucking big. You can hardly stand it when I finger you."

"I don't care," she panted. "I want it, Faust. Please. Don't tease me anymore."

The lift came to a shuddering halt. Faust lifted her, and she wrapped her legs around his waist, panties hanging off one ankle. It was a fair walk to the end of the hall, and Faith worried somebody might open their door and see Faust palming her ass as he carried her to his apartment. The sound of blast-beats and squealing guitars filtered out from the apartment, greeting them like a wall when Faust opened the door. 

His roommate blinked, alarmed but not entirely shocked to see Faust toting Faith to his bedroom. Her lacy underwear fell to the floor, but neither of them noticed as they devoured each other's mouths on their way.

Once he deposited Faith on the bed and shut the door, she wrestled her dress off and waited. All night, Faust wanted to get out of his clothes, but his foresight convinced him otherwise. He wanted to watch her squirm and beg until she was so wet he could taste it in the air. He approached the bed, and Faith climbed to her knees, set on pulling him on top of her, but he resisted.

"Well, aren't you going to fuck me?"

Faust scoffed. "You think I'm gonna just stuff you that easily? Fuck no."

"Please, Faust. I've waited so long for you."

"Yes, you have. So waiting a little longer should be easy, right?"

Faith whimpered.

"Come here," he beckoned. Faith crawled until she was an inch away from his groin. "Closer."

She stared up at him, bright eyes wide with confusion. He repeated himself. Faith pressed her cheek to his groin, gasping when she felt his cock hardening. He raked his fingers through her hair, grinding her face into his pelvis until she fussed.

"All you fucking think about is cock. All day, every day, you sit there in your cute outfits, dreaming about having that tiny little pussy filled up with my dick. You look so innocent, but I know that not so deep down, under all that lace and gold, you're just as filthy as any other slut, aren't you?"

"Only for you, Faust," she replied, nuzzling into his groin.

"When you're at church with your parents, you're not praying. You're imagining what it'll feel like having my cock inside you."

She giggled and nipped at the erection trapped beneath his trousers. He scratched her scalp until she purred, the perfect kitten pawing for milk. 

"Your dad wants me to leave you alone. But how can I ignore such a pretty girl when I know every time she looks at me, all she thinks about is getting her cunt pounded?"

"That's not all I think about," said Faith. "I think about sucking your dick, too."

"Yeah, you're not so innocent. You just want your daddy to think you are. But he doesn't know you're in my bed, getting wet from the thought of taking my cock."

Faust pushed her away from his groin, stripping his clothes off and climbing onto the bed. He sat with his back against the postered wall, spreading his legs so Faith could crawl between them. She couldn't take her eyes off his hard-on, especially not when he began stroking it in front of her. She still wasn't used to seeing him naked. Her pulse quickened, eyes travelling his hand's trajectory up and down the engorged shaft, thick with blood and veins.

He made her turn around, facing away from him with her ass up and her knees spread as he jerked his cock. Faith sweltered under the heat of his stare, mewling when he finally reached out to goad her entrance with a careful swipe of his thumb. She dropped her hips, hoping to achieve some level of penetration, but he smacked her ass with disapproval.

"Don't you dare try to fuck yourself on my fingers while I'm admiring the view. That is not how this is going down. You just stay right there and do as I say."

"Faust," she whined. "Please. I want you so bad."

"Turn around. On your back. Spread those legs."

She obeyed, and flipped over, splaying her knees. Faust pulled her closer until she rested her thighs over his in a relaxed leg-lock. He continued stroking himself, though her pussy ached and glistened a mere foot away from the tip of his cock. Pushing down on his member, he angled it toward her and laughed when she whimpered.

"It's so close."

"Please, fuck me."

"No. Play with yourself. Rub that clit for me."

Her hand shot down, finding a frantic rhythm of stimulation for his amusement. The motion of her fingers toying with herself made him shudder. He had never been so hard in his life. When he showed her the pre-cum emerging from the tip, she screwed her eyes shut and pressed her spine into the bed, frustrated. 

"Come a little closer. I want to tease that fucking pussyhole."

Tease her, he did. The smooth head glided up and down, parting her lips but only just enough to reveal the pink inside her. Faust let out a long, steady breath, preparing himself for the pressure he was about to encounter.

"It's right there, baby, it's so close. You're so close to having your pussy full. You sure you wanna keep going?"

"Yes!" she cried. "I want it bad, Faust."

"Come and get it then, if you want it that bad. Just scoot down a little more and... Oh, fuck."

His swollen head disappeared beyond the confines of her sex, swallowed and held so close his eyes widened. She was tighter than he feared. It pained him to hear her gasping. Faust retracted, sights far-flung with concern.

"You okay, baby?" He asked.

She nodded, but her words scrabbled to the back of her throat. 

"I'm sorry. I told you, I'm huge, and it's not gonna be easy. Maybe just keep playing with your clit for a little while."

"No, I want you."

"I don't wanna hurt you, Faith."

She clamped her legs around his waist, but before she took him again, he pressed down on her hips, stilling her on the mattress. Maneuvering out from under her thighs, he crawled between them and retraced her opening with his cock, mixing his pre-cum with her wetness. He drew back for a second and deposited a warm wad of spit on the head of his cock before driving it inside with a shallow dip.

"Fuck," he groaned. "I might need to get us some lube. It doesn't matter how wet you are. I don't think you're built to take a cock this big."

"I can do it. I practiced. Please, don't stop, Faust. I'm so wet. I want it so bad."

Faust leaned over her, taking her breasts in his hands, eclipsing them and squeezing until they moaned in unison. He flicked her nipples and dove in to take one in his mouth as a distraction from the lack of promised penetration.

"Fuck, I love these perfect tits. I wanna fuck these too," Faust's voice bordered on a desperate note. "Might just make you wait, though."

"Don't say that! Please! Please, please, please—"

He clamped her mouth beneath his palm. She smelled her own wetness on his fingers and bucked her hips up to grind into his. Rolling his cock between their bodies, it was a fight to see who would overpower the other. Faust wrestled her into full-body submission, pinning her frame under his torso, his legs locking her in place while he held her mouth.

Long weeks of sexual backlog was a sobriety Faust never thought possible to attain. It imbued him with a sense of burning concentration. In the studio, his takes were flawless, his head completely in tune with his body for the first time. The purge left his gut empty, so when the time came, and he couldn't deny Faith any longer, the indulgence was ever the purer. Faith had come along at a time when he viewed any girl hanging around his circle as a pest. He'd had them all, in the very bed he laid her down in, but he never liked the taste of those girls. Faith was a dish far too immaculate for his palette, and yet she was his, and it baffled him.

"Wait, what do you mean you practiced?" He asked, sniffing the hair behind her ear as he kissed her neck.

She stopped struggling, and he let up on her so she could speak. 

"I made myself ready... Because I knew you'd be afraid of hurting me."

"Oh, yeah?" He snickered. "And how'd you do that?"

Faith bit the side of her lip, adjusting beneath him to assert her chest forward, spine curving to press against his warm abdomen and chest. "I went back to the sex shop... Without you."

"Did you?" He murmured, drawing up to look her in the eyes. Thousands of invisible needles pierced his skin all at once, his heart tripping on an undetectable wire. Faust shivered, cracked his jaw, and rose to his knees. Faith remained on her back, staring up at him, trembling. "What did you buy?"

She deliberated between a fib and a fact, choosing the latter. Faust hadn't lied to her about anything, and she wouldn't twist the truth either.  "I... I bought a toy that I thought might be as big as you."

Faust swallowed the dryness in his throat, but it came back the second he took another breath. "You didn't know how big I was until yesterday."

"I guessed," she admitted.

He wrapped his fingers around the hilt of his cock and gave it a few tugs to restore lost blood. In a moment, he stood rock-solid again, and Faith drooled over the thickness of his manhood. 

"Did you guess right?"

"Um... No."

"Didn't fucking think so," he growled. "I don't like the thought of anything but me inside you."

"I'm sorry."

"No, you're not."

"I just wanted to be ready, baby. I've wanted you for so long. Please, you promised after you met my dad, you'd have sex with me. Don't you want to?"

"Don't ever fuck yourself without my permission. Your pussy is mine. I'll take care of it when I want to, and when I don't want to, it's off-limits. If you wanna touch yourself, you ask. Understand me?"

"Yes," she whispered.

"What's that?"

"Yes! I'm sorry. I promise I won't ever do it again. I was just going crazy thinking about you. You turn me on so much; I can't help myself."

"That was the fucking point. I wanted to make you wait so that when I finally do fuck you, you'll never forget the feeling."

Faith scoffed, then lifted her legs and made sure Faust saw the parting between them, glistening and aching to be filled. "I don't think I could ever forget the boy who made me wait three months before he'd fuck me."

"That's right," Faust nodded.

He eased his way inside of her, little by little, inch by thick inch until his balls pressed against the swells of her ass. They both let out long streams of air, adjusting to the feverish incursion before Faust kissed her to absorb her already panting breath.

"Feels so fucking good, baby," Faust said, finishing with a deep moan that sent shivers through her body. His voice tingled against her neck, the low crunch of his vocal cords a sound she only ever heard muffled between her legs. Faith had listened to him moaning from pleasing her, but never the other way around. His audible bliss stroked her just as well as his fingers did when they found her clit, working in slow circles around it while he began to rock against her gently. 

The first time he slipped out, she gasped, and every peak of her body swelled with blood. Her nipples hardened, and skin crawled with delight while he eased back in, refilling the persistent little slit that had to stretch to accommodate him. Faith jolted back but settled once he picked her up, suspending her using his hands to lace under her ass like a swing. In that position, she could fret against him while he stayed buried inside, bathing in soft, liquid arousal. She wrapped her arms around his neck and kissed him like she needed to draw the breath from his lungs. 

"Fuck, I want to be inside this pussy forever. God, baby, it feels even better than I thought. You're so fucking tight around me. I don't know how much longer I can hold back. I need to fucking destroy you."

"Do it, you bad, bad boy. Use me. Fuck me hard like I know you want to."

He cut off her demanding mouth, answering her lip by touching the hole neighbouring the one his cock was inside. Faith squealed from the odd sensation, but Faust was determined to make her melt by toying with her hole the same way he had just stimulated her clit.

"Yeah, every hole in your body belongs to me. Even this precious little asshole."

He dared to press his fingertip between her cheeks to drive home his point, and she hopped against him like an animal trying to escape his arms. It only made him tighten his hold on her. 

"I bet your dad would fucking lynch me if he knew I had his sweet girl here with all her holes stuffed. He thinks you're back at your dorm doing homework and making something of yourself when really you're here, begging for my cock... Mm, just aching for this cum."

"Faust," she whined. It was all she could muster as he let her slide down his body. 

He scooped her off the mattress and placed her on the lowboy dresser next to the bed. Splitting her thighs, he didn't take the time to ease into her as he had the first couple of times. If Faith wanted the challenge and claimed she could take him, he would let her rise to the occasion. But she gasped, nails digging into his shoulders when his cock met a tight ring of resistance. He'd found her cervix, and the sensation shot through her pelvis like a blinding cramp.

"Oh! Faust! Oh my god, that h— that's..."

"Were you going to say it hurts?"

"No! I want it. Please don't stop."

"I won't stop, baby. Not until your cunt is dripping with my cum. Or maybe I'll pull out and shoot it all over your face. Or between your ass cheeks. Who knows?"

The dresser knocked against the wall, rolling a pair of his drumsticks to the floor with a clatter. Faith was happy Faust's roommate played music loud enough to drown out the sounds of her moaning and mewling for him to take her harder.

After a while, they ended up back on the bed; Faith mounted on his pelvis so he could take a break and enjoy the view of her riding him. He couldn't take the look on her face, the pained, lip-biting expression. It was almost enough to make him feel guilty. But this was what she wanted, and what he wanted, despite his insistence it was all for her.

He succumbed to the sensations holding his dick hostage. It happened after he worked Faith up to an orgasm, using his thumb to tease her clit until she shuddered and came, squeezing around him so hard Faust thought he might pass out before having the pleasure of emptying a load inside her.

"Oh my god, Faust, I'm coming," she squeaked. "Don't stop, don't stop."

"I won't, baby. Keep going. Keep coming all over me. That's what I like to see. Fuck, I'm gonna come, too if you keep clenching like that."

The contractions swallowing his cock were too violent for him to resist. The trembling of her thighs, the way she bit her bottom lip and squeezed her arms around her breasts, needing something to hold onto while she orgasmed sent him over the edge. At the last second, Faust slipped out and spilled months of mental-edging and self-inflicted teasing onto her hot skin. A few ropes slung over her tummy, and one even reached her chest. The rest dribbled into a pool around her navel. Using his swollen, wet head, he stroked her clit a few times, luxuriating in her snivelling shivers and the wetter sounds of her pussy lips.

Faust hopped off the bed and took a towel off the hook on his bedroom door. He returned with it, dabbing the mess he'd made on her. He draped the towel over the bedpost and looked down at his cock hanging spent between his legs. 

Faith recovered from her climax and giggled. "Next time, I want to start by going down on you."

"Oh, is that right?" He asked, shimmying back into bed next to her and pulling her close. "Now that you've had a taste, you can't get enough?"

"If that's what I've been missing... Well, I hope you're ready for my non-stop horniness."

"Pretty sure I'm used to it by now," he chuckled.

She snuggled into him, blotting his collarbone and chest with gentle kisses. "That was worth the wait."

"Yeah. I'm glad we did. Made it so much better to tease you."

"You're so evil sometimes," Faith murmured. "But, you're the best."

Faust tilted her chin up, kissed her, then ran his thumb over her cheek a few times before taking in a deep, preparatory breath. "Yeah... Well... I love you."

Heat pierced her tear ducts, but she screwed her eyes shut before any liquid escaped. She shoved her face into his neck, clinging to him with all her might. Faust couldn't see her cry, not after she fought so hard to prove herself to him. 

"I love you too," she finally whispered. "Like so much, I think I'm gonna—"

She hiccoughed as the tears flowed. Faust melted and pulled her even closer. "You're such a baby. I love it. Sweet girl."

#faust x faith #faust stuff #valter skarsgard fanfiction

[naitiaclo960writings]

Day 13 - Ladies

A frustrated complaint escaped her lips as she opened the door to get out of the car. Her hip had been sore since that ghost had thrown her through a window display and her forearm had been nicked for ten centimeters because of the glass. Her few scratches made her look a bit rebellious which she certainly did not mind, but she really had to think about checking that her shoulder’s Band-Aid did not slip. She would have hated having to deal with an infection now and add to the scars already present on her body. She wasn’t particularly obsessed with her appearance, but Kaia, she would have noticed, and she would have had to deal with another lecture about her health.

Claire had gone on at least four consecutive hunts in the states surrounding Sioux Falls before returning home behind the wheel of her car. To be honest, she could very well have continued with this other case in Montana —a vampire nest if she wasn’t wrong— but Jody had reminded her that they had planned to celebrate Donna’s birthday as a family and the girl could not refuse. Donna was not only a good friend of her adoptive mother, she was an important member of her family. Being present on her birthday was the least she could do. As for the gift, she had managed to find a basket filled with French wines and a snowglobe from Mount Rushmore  in a motel shop to complete Donna’s collection. 

So, yes, she had quickly finished her last hunt and had driven a good part of the night home. A little aspirin and she’d be back in the game, she knew it. Claire couldn’t afford the luxury of taking a vacation or even a break so she’d swallow some pain medication and get a good night’s sleep and that’s it. But she could not deny that putting her feet back on the porch of Jody’s house was already relieving her bruised body.

She had taken the time to unload her two duffle bags from her trunk before going to the white door that she knew so well. Claire had noticed the other cars in the driveway leading to the garage, including Donna's and Alex’s parked there. Her own jeep was almost on the sidewalk because the driveway was so crowded. Almost. Her attention was brought back to the door when she heard the commotion inside.

In no time, the door swiveled open to let Jody and her big maternal smile appear. Her increasingly gray hair reminded Claire of the passing years, but nothing seemed to alter the warmth that this woman radiated around her. However, Claire barely had time to give her a smile back as Jody’s was already collapsing at the sight of her swollen face. Predictable.

Jody seemed stopped in her tracks. She detailed her daughter’s face, sought her words, rebuffed herself. Then, finally, she decided to sigh and gently shake her head, a fine reprobating smile on her lips.

"I hope at least that the muck that has crossed your path is in a worse state, young lady." She said, approaching and finally embracing her.

Claire clicked her tongue with amusement while giving Jody a hug with one hand, the other being occupied with a bag.

"A muck? What muck?" She teased while she rolled her eyes during the embrace.

Jody smiled more, this little proud though worried smile that mothers knew so well, before moving away. Claire finally had one foot in the house when a tornado of black hair came out of the kitchen to hit her shoulder.

"Ouch!" Claire exclaimed, dropping her bag on the floor to protect her now sore muscle.

Alex raised an eyebrow in return and crossed her arms on her chest with an accusatory look.

"Are you out of your mind?" Claire groaned while massaging her shoulder. "Did you forget to take your pills today or what?"

"Claire Novak." Alex replied as if she hadn’t heard anything. "Always there, giving me work on my days off." She pointed at the scrapes on Claire’s face before taking her hand to examine her arm.

Claire protested again while taking her arm back. She had to go through it automatically, every time it was the same drill. She had to go through Jody’s anxiety and Alex’s or even Patience’s sermons before she could really land somewhere in the house. Of course, she protested every time, but Claire could not long hide the feeling of gratitude that such a concern for her health provoked in her. Teasing, she bit her lip before answering.

"Don’t act like you don’t love practicing your lessons on my beautiful self Jones." She gave her a sarcastic wink, which Alex rolled her eyes at, not without the hint of a smile.

"I’m going to get some clean bandages. Put your flat butt on the couch, I’ll be right back." Ordered Alex before going up the stairs without another look.

Claire replied with her middle finger that Alex did not see and Jody reprimanded her immediately while she was already taking her bags to the vestibule. As Alex went upstairs to disappear into the bathroom, she crossed paths with Patience, who came down with a few books in her arms and Claire was going to end up believing that she was born with those damn books transplanted onto her palms. Claire gave her a v-sign with her fingers to greet her.

"Oh." Patience simply smiled as she arrived at the bottom of the stairs. "I deduce that your last hunt was not easy." She said with compassion.

She remained at a certain distance, but Claire had learned that it was not out of apathy. Patience wasn’t a big fan of contact and Claire could totally handle it. She wasn’t really into affection either, she was just making exceptions with some people like Jody or Donna—it was impossible to not get in contact with Donna anyway—.

"The last four of them you mean." Claire sighed while taking off her shoes. Here, everyone was in slippers, orders for the main lady of the house not to mess up her meticulous work. "And don’t get me started about the quality of the last motel I slept in. Being a hunter is like being a super badass rock star, but minus the money and fame. It sucks."

At these words Patience raised an amused eyebrow and looked around her. When she had made sure that Jody had gone back to the kitchen, where there was some excitement now that Claire was paying attention to it, she lowered her voice and whispered in her ear as she passed by:

"I’ll see what I can do to unlock another credit card. At least try choosing a motel that puts chocolates under the pillow next time."

Claire smiled and watched Patience walk away towards the living room. There, she remembered it now. That’s why she liked to come home from time to time, because she liked to feel this sweet warmth tickling her ribs from the inside. Whether she had been there for two minutes or two weeks, and whether she disappeared on the road for months, she always felt integrated and useful when she came back.

Realizing that Alex had still not returned, Claire decided to go into the kitchen where Donna’s dismayed voice now distinctly came from. When she turned around the corner of the corridor leading into the room, Claire was greeted with a rather unusual spectacle. Donna opened all the windows in the kitchen while Jody put on gloves to pull out what looked like carbonized cookies from the oven. Smoke was escaping in large gulfs from said oven and gradually covering the kitchen in smoke and it was at this moment that Claire noticed Kaia standing on a chair, coughing while trying to deactivate the smoke detector before it came to life.

"I admit it!" Donna exclaimed while opening the last window before making wind with a rag. She wore an apron so neon green that it would make any binman jealous and Claire almost hurt her eyes by looking at it. "Maybe I misread the cooking time, but, goodie grief, Jody-o, can you even read what’s written in your cookbook? That’s a microscope I’ll need to decipher that!"

"Or glasses!" Jody said, throwing the rest of the cookies directly into the sink before turning on the faucet."Just admit that you’re getting old, Don." She joked.

"But still not old enough to kick your- Oh, howdy sweetie!" Donna exclaimed, finally noticing Claire walking cautiously in the kitchen and waving her hand in front of her face.

"Hi Donna." She replied, swallowing back a cough although the smoke was finally starting to dissipate thanks to the open windows.

Claire, however, barely had time to catch her breath as Donna had already crossed the distance between them to draw her into a narrow embrace. The sheriff was like that, enthusiastic and demonstrative with everything and everyone, the exact opposite of what Claire was most of the time. But all agreed to say that Donna was their most indispensable spark of joy in a mostly cruel daily life, including Claire. 

Finally, Donna released her embrace and Claire offered her a small reassuring smile to which she had the secret by noticing the worried look of her friend.

"Shut the front door." Donna pouted, cupping Claire’s face with her hands, inspecting her wounds. "That’s why we need more cookies in this house. Jodes, lend me your glasses."

At these words, Claire distinctly heard Jody grunting near the sink.

"Yes, ma'am." Jody said, passing by Donna before slapping her ass for the joke. "Only if you promise not to set it on fire, either."

Donna adopted an incredulous and mocking expression that was probably saying, "are you kidding me?" before kissing Claire on the cheek one last time and following Jody into the hallway. Only then could Claire focus on the last person in this kitchen and not the least.

Kaia had just come down from her chair with the smoke detector in her hands, a happy smile on the edge of her lips. Claire gave her one back and a silence settled between the two girls, not one daring to approach the other. Despite everything, it was not an uncomfortable moment, it was simply a matter of enjoying the reunion with this unusual modesty that made their hearts beat timidly.

Claire could have told the exact moment when Kaia noticed her wounds when the girl frowned and gently bit her lip, worried. She swung from foot to foot, strangely uncomfortable to cause so much trouble to Kaia at once.

"See, you need me during hunts." Kaia joked gently, nodding at Claire’s wounded arm. "Maybe I should go with you next time."

Claire shook her head, amused.

"I’m doing fine, it’s not much." She said in a tone that was meant to be detached.

Then Kaia raised a bored eyebrow and took the time to put the smoke detector on the table before coming to stand in front of Claire.

"Go ahead and say you don’t want me while you’re at it. I’m listening." Kaia whispered.

This time, it was up to Claire to bite the inside of her cheek to repress a laugh before rolling her eyes. To prevent her girlfriend from saying more nonsense, she kissed her gently on the corner of her lips before taking her hand. As she withdrew, Kaia had this spark of pure joy in her eyes that fed the fire growing in Claire’s chest.

They both returned to the living room hand in hand with total ease and helped the others to set the table, not without Alex having applied first aid to Claire first. The house breathed of a family agitation that was not uncommon at Jody’s and it was a special feeling to feel completely integrated into this machinery. The discussions were natural, caring and although Claire enjoyed saving the world, she couldn’t help but keep coming back here. It was her place, her refuge.

The bellies began to grumble slowly when Alex finally asked the question that slowly insinuated itself into each of them.

"When can we start serving?"

Jody came from the kitchen with a bottle of champagne and started trying to open it.

"Sam and Dean should be here soon, they’re picking up Rowena on the road. As for Castiel and Jack, they called me to say that they had finished their case in Omaha, they will be there by 1:00 pm." She said, pulling harder on the cork. "That doesn’t stop us from starting the aperitif, if that... damn cork will open." She cursed.

Claire laughs softly from the couch, Kaia beside her and scolding her for having already eaten several petits fours.

"Oh, men. Never there when you need them, huh?" Claire teased.

Immediately, Jody raised an eyebrow and pulled a pocket knife out of her kitchen apron. She turned the bottle towards the wall so as not to risk hurting anyone, and, just like that, she sabered the champagne. The cork flew away in a resounding pop as Jody grabbed the first glass of champagne to fill it.

"Luckily, that’s not the case." She replied with a firm look to her daughters.

No one dared to contradict her, not that anyone in this house wanted to anyway. Claire moved back to the bottom of the couch, with Kaia’s hand still in hers as she watched her family engage in a new conversation. Alex and Patience were debating the university system while Donna added small comments here and there while helping Jody serve champagne. She had found her family in atypical circumstances, strange ones even. But as she contemplated this surrounding happiness, she knew that she wouldn’t change it for anything in the world.

* * * @winchester-reload

I just love those girls so much, it had a good time writing about them! I’m also really proud of the OS I made for day 13 for Suptober 2019 (you can check my others writings about last year here). See you tomorrow!

You can find the whole series on Ao3

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[insomniac-arrest]

my mother did not tell us stories.

I was tucked up in bed nice and neat with my blankets pressed all the way up to my chin and my breathing coming out in an even flow. A smooth inhale, exhale, inhale again, it had all the trappings of real sleep. I’m the oldest so I have to tuck myself in neatly and wait for the others to follow suit. Though, I would guess most of them didn’t have to pretend.

Time must have slipped by, minutes, hours, the silver slash of the moon crossing the sky with a gradual ease of movement. I was somewhere between bruised-eyed wakefulness and a frantic dream trying to suck me down with the force of sticky tar.

Something banged from down below.

A crash like pots and pans, silverware tossed down stone steps, breaking flower vases on concrete. My eyes were fully open and my feet swinging out of bed before I knew what I was doing.

I can’t let the Pastor see this, that’s the type of thoughts I was having at the time. I was the oldest after all. 

I pushed my way out of the blankets just as two little heads poked up from the covers on the beds next to mine, “what’s going on?” Tom slurred his words and asked groggily.

“Sh,” I hushed him, “I’ll take care of it.” I was already out the door and down the stairs that groaned under my steps.

The lights were off in the house and a draft pushed through my thin pajamas. I shivered and rounded the living room to find the kitchen quiet and empty.

“What was that?” More voices came from upstairs, but none of them were the Pastor.

I looked left and right, but all of the kitchen cabinets were firmly shut. I took a step forward and wetness hit my toes.

My eyebrows rose and looked down to see puddles of water across the floor. They were neat silver pools that dribbled from the door to the middle of the kitchen. And then simply stopped. I took a deep inhale and it smelled of damp soil.

I gawked at it for a long second before I heard a wizened voice. “What’s that, Cathleen?”

I turned quickly, “Nothing, Pastor Kirk. A stray cat!” I frowned at the wet spots on the floor. “Let me tell stories to the children and get them back to bed.”

My own mother never told stories even when I knew her, but I had a few left. I told one about a ghost that night.—————-It was a week later and I had a toothache that dully worked its way through my jaw and took up my whole head space. That was probably why I forgot to bow my head at mother Mary when I walked in the door that day. We were always supposed to show our respects.

“Do you show disrespect?”

“No disrespect, sir.” I squeaked.

“Do you want the devil to possess your carelessness? Huh?” I shook my head vigorously and looked for an escape route as little Lilly glanced over at me and mouthed some words.

“I’ll go get dinner started.” I said quickly before the flood gates really opened, “I’ll go collect more eggs. We’ll have cake.”

He just watched me carefully as I fled out of the back door and into the thick grasses. I was breathing hard by the time I was free of his hateful gaze. I slowed when I approached the hen house and paused as I saw Margaret standing besides the little door and not going in.

She was a stoic girl with a handsome chin and small watchful eyes.

I gave her a wary look and examined the brown coop: it seemed the same wooden structure with a steep roof and little ramp up to the door. “Um,” I glanced to Margaret who had not spoken since she arrived at the home. “Is something wrong?”

Margaret pointed carefully toward the door and I shuffled over to look at the small tin handle. It was wet.

I slowly reached out to touch the moisture clinging to it, but jumped when the chickens burst out with a series of loud clucks and noisy bocking. I wrenched the wet door open and the chickens came flooding out. “Girls, girls!” I tried to calm them but all six of the ladies came charging out of the house and into the yard.

Except for one. I stuck my head into the dim little space that smelled of sawdust and animal warmth. And wet soil.

There was one chicken left in the house. She was standing over a very large egg and when I went over to her the egg broke open as if made of a chalk. Easy and strange.

One green scaly leg stepped out, and then another. I cocked my head to the side as a lizard seemed to be looked back at me. A chicken seemed to have laid a lizard.

“Shoo,” I waved the chicken off and looked at the strangest green creature I’d ever seen.

“Cathleen!” Someone called for me. “Cathleen, what are you doing?”

I grabbed the lizard with both hands and stuck it in my pocket. “Nothing!” There were more drops of water near the coop as I exited it.

The Pastor gave a small lecture that night about young woman who stray from the path of the righteous: ones who were did not listen well or have good in their hearts. He finished with his usual speech about the end of the world and judgement coming to us all.

I wasn’t sure about the rest of it, but I remembered what the chicken had just birthed and for once I almost agreed.—————“I can’t hear you!” It was late. The night sky had long since been glittering above and my eyes drooped.

“My God, I am sorry for my sins with all my heart. In choosing to do wrong and failing to do good, I have sinned against you.” Our voices joined together as we repeated the phrases and knelt and then stood and then knelt again.

“Louder!” He said with a look in his eyes you might see in race horses on their last lap. Lilly softly wept beside me.

It was long past our bedtimes and Tom’s knees were bleeding and leaving marks upon the floor.

“My God, I am sorry for my sins with all my heart. In choosing to do wrong and failing to do good, I have sinned against you.”

I was shaking slightly. I was the oldest. But I had already tried to reason with him to release the younger ones, but he just spat “do you want to see your siblings go to hell?” I knelt and then stood again.

My throat was raw and hoarse and I had forgotten in what way we had angered him this time.

My head was bent down and hair loose around my face when color bled across the floors. A rose-red slant of light that spilled and spilled out onto the kitchen tiles.

I looked up just as the full moon was colored a hazy, distinctive crimson. It bathed the entire fields outside like a battlefield. And the grass was wet.

“What is that?” The Pastor’s eyes went wide and he took a step back. My cheek still stung from when I had tried to talk to him earlier. I turned to him now, knees trickling blood and a defiance I didn’t know I had shining through my face.

Bang

The other kids jumped as the loud noise crashed from outside.

“Cathleen?” One of the younger kids reached for my hand and the Pastor backed away toward the corner.

“It’s fine.” I said and looked toward the door expectantly. The smell of damp earth and overturned soil permeated the air.

Bang

It was coming closer. All the signs were there. It had been coming for awhile now.

“What devils have you brought to my door, child?” He looked directly at me and I couldn’t help but be filled with it. Remade in the terror on his face.

BANG

Something banged on the door and shook its very hinges. “Margaret,” I turned to my foster sibling, “let her in.” I glanced back over to the Pastor with my head raised, “mom’s back.”

My mom never told us stories. But she was one.

#asks #flash fiction #stories #creepy #ghost story #cw: child abuse #extra-plus-ordinary

[rune-writes]

Poppies

Fandom: Final Fantasy VII

Word Count: 4402

Rating: G

Summary: Mother’s Day is tomorrow and Tifa invites Cloud to gather some flowers from the mountain.

Note: Part 2 of an ongoing Mother’s Day series centering on Zack, Cloud, Tifa, and Aerith. Part 2 is Cloud’s story. Read Part 1 here. 

Read on AO3.

~*~*~*~*~

The neighborhood kids were hanging around the bottom of the water tower when Cloud walked home from his grocery errand, a paper bag in hand. They sat on the ground, their conversation fueled with energy and fervor. Cloud had half a mind to go around the other side, avoiding any unnecessary clash that would probably happen, but Tifa was there, sitting among the blocks of wood in her white dress and brown slippers. Her ebony hair hung loose down her back, swaying in the soft spring breeze coming down from the mountain. Before he knew it, his feet were already leading him there.

Snippets of conversation reached him as he neared. Cloud strained his ears, but all he could hear was something about a flower or a dinner, then an exploded oven and a ruined kitchen, followed by laughter. Hearty laughter from the stomach that shook their shoulders. Tifa was laughing too, though not as loud. She always laughed with them—laughing and smiling, as though she had all the time in the world. She never laughed with him.

Just walk by them, he told himself. Don’t make eye contact. Don’t—

He glanced up right as Tifa’s dark crimson eyes fell on him. Then it all seemed to happen in a slow motion—her eyes widening around the edges, her feet jumping up as a hand shot to the sky, her small mouth spreading wide into a bright grin, forming the word:

“Cloud!”

Her voice rang loud and clear across the village center. The boys looked up. It only took a split second for his heart to race and his stomach to twist. 

Cloud averted his gaze and quickened his pace. Tifa kept calling him. “Leave him alone,” the boys in the distance said. He hoped she would. But Cloud could only make it halfway to his house when someone yanked his arm and pulled him to a stop. Tifa was glaring at him, her lips set into a pout.

“Are you ignoring me?”

“No, I—” His voice failed him, he’d forgotten what he was doing and where he was going. The place where her hand touched his elbow felt warm. Tifa huffed and let go of his arm. 

“Me and the others are going to look for gifts,” she said. “For Mother’s Day. It’s tomorrow?” Cloud only stared, prompting her scowl at his lack of response. “Did you forget?”

Of course not, was what he wanted to say, but how could he, when he had never celebrated Mother’s Day before.

“Anyway, wanna come? There’s this flower field a little up the mountain.”

He would. Cloud would go anywhere if Tifa asked him. But before he could form an answer, the boys behind them jeered, reminding him why he had never liked them in the first place.

“Come on, Tifa,” they said. “He doesn’t want to come.”

Three pairs of eyes glared at him from behind her shoulders, challenging him to say yes. And maybe he would, just to spite them, because it was Tifa who had asked him, and they had no business to say no. Tifa ignored the jeers and waited with a small smile on her face. Cloud was about to nod and say, “All right,” but then, a door opened somewhere behind him, and the unmistakable voice of his mother called his name. 

“Cloud! Honey, lunch is ready!”

He heard the snickers almost instantly. Cloud gritted his teeth as his face burned.

“I got to go,” he said, quiet. 

He turned around without looking at Tifa and hurried home. His mother stood by the door, smiling at something behind him—or someone, judging from the wave she was giving. Cloud muttered an inaudible I’m home, ducking under her arm.

“Come over sometimes, Tifa!” he heard her say.

Cloud snapped his head up but his mother was still beaming and waving at the girl beyond the door.

“I will, Mrs. Strife!”

Tifa’s reply didn’t help. A bundle of energy packed into that one short sentence that buckled his knees and made the sky fall. That’s an idea. Have the cutest girl in the village come over to his house to—what? Play? He had nothing that would remotely interest a girl. Not that he could imagine playing with her without having jitters either. Or did his mother mean dinner? But that would mean inviting her entire family. They were neighbors and their mothers had exchanged pleasantries, but Cloud didn’t like the look Tifa’s father often gave him. Like dealing with a time bomb that could explode at any moment. Cloud brought the groceries to the kitchen table and pulled out bread and milk and cheese.

“What were you talking about?” his mother asked as she closed the door.

“Nothing,” Cloud said with a shrug. His mother moved beside him, sorting through the groceries and placing them in their respective places. Her eyes lingered on him for a few heartbeats. Cloud stifled a sigh. “They’re going someplace. She asked me to come with.”

“And?” his mother prompted when he didn’t continue. She reached over to place a sack of sugar in the cupboard.

“And what?”

“And what did you say?”

Cloud gave another noncommittal shrug. “You called.” He felt her stare and heard her intake of breath. Cloud didn't quite know what had warranted him a lecture, but he braced himself. He could already hear what his mother was going to say. That he should be nicer to Tifa, nicer to the other kids, to open up more and try to make friends. But the kettle whistled, breaking the silence.

His mother moved to turn off the stove. Cloud used the opportunity to fold the paper bag and quietly leave the room. But he had only taken a few steps when his mother spoke again.

“Lunch is ready. Could you bring some over to the Lockharts after you finish eating?”

“Why do I have to—” he began, half turning, but his mother’s stern gaze locked him in place.

“And make sure you make up with Tifa, all right?” she added with a hint of a grin.

***

Lunch was stew—his mother’s special stew. He loved the stew she made. Cloud had never had stew as delicious as his mother’s. And now he was walking over to the Lockhart’s, the two-story house beside his, carrying a tray with a lidded bowl in his hands.

The door opened as he reached their porch. Tifa’s mother stood there, her long dark hair tied in the village-custom ponytail. They said she was sick. In the rare chance Cloud spotted her in a village event, she would only sit and watch the merriment from the sides. But then she would cough, and her husband would usher her back inside. Tifa always looked sad whenever it happened. Now, Mrs. Lockhart’s usually dark, wearied eyes were bright, and they widened at the sight of him. The surprise only lasted for several seconds before her face broke into a small smile.

“What brings you here, Cloud?” she asked, her voice gentle and lilting.

Cloud held the tray out to her. “From my mom. She made a stew.”

Her smile softened, she accepted the tray with a thank you. Cloud mumbled an incoherent reply, straining his neck to see past her into the hall beyond. He had been inside a few times before whenever his mother brought them a dish or offered Tifa’s mother some help. She followed his line of sight, before chuckling under her breath.

“Tifa’s still out with her friends I think.”

Right. He knew that. Cloud ignored the rising heat creeping up his neck as he thanked Mrs. Lockhart with a small bow of his head before heading back to his home. But his mother was out, and he had finished his lunch. There was nothing to do, and as his footsteps faltered, Cloud found his gaze drawn to the path at the back of the village. It would lead him to the old abandoned manor and the mountain path beyond. He didn’t know where the flower field was, but if he just followed the path, he would eventually find it, right?

***

Wrong.

His soles stepped over gravel and dirt, one in front of the other, as Cloud climbed his way up the mountain path. The heat of the late spring sun beat him on his back. The path had been straightforward thus far but Cloud didn’t see any sign of a flower field at all. Had he even come to the right place? Had he missed a turn or a hidden path somewhere? But all he could see behind him was the downward trail of nothing but dirt and stone. The same thing up ahead. Maybe Tifa hadn’t even gone up the mountain.

In all his eight years of living in Nibelheim, Cloud rarely ever climbed the mountain. The adults said they shouldn’t. It was dangerous with rockfalls, ravines, and monsters. But even if he didn’t go far enough to encounter any of those, Cloud still preferred to stay away. Those boys often hung around at the base of the mountain.

People would have a better chance of finding him at the riverbank. He would play with his wooden stick, imagining himself a soldier at the front lines of the Wutai War. When the days were slow, the village men would occasionally come to fish. When they spotted him, they would call him over and ask him questions: why he was alone and what he was doing, so on and so forth. Sometimes they would teach him fishing tricks despite him never asking. Other times they would tell him stories—of cities made of metal in a continent across the sea, or ghosts from the abandoned manor roaming the night, or a pretty little flower field in an otherwise barren mountain.

Cloud stopped in his tracks. Voices reached him from ahead, and a moment later, three boys appeared around the corner. One, two, three—the group was missing one! He stepped into their path, cutting off whatever conversation they were having. The middle one, a tall and burly boy with a brown t-shirt and a cap, narrowed his eyes at him.

“What?”

Cloud set his teeth. “Where’s Tifa?”

They stared at him for several moments, before the middle boy nodded up the path. “Up there.”

The cliff face hugged them closely on both sides with tufts of grass here and there on the ground. The path curved to the left, hiding all the danger and monstrosity the mountain had to offer. Up there didn’t explain where Tifa was. Cloud bristled.

“You left her?”

“Flowers are for sissies,” the left one said. The other two snickered in response.

“Then you shouldn’t have agreed in the first place.”

It wasn’t rare to see Cloud fighting with one of the boys. He always tried not to get into fistfights, but more often than not, Cloud would go home with a bruise or a split lip. Then his mother would see, and she would sigh as she took out the first-aid kit from the cabinet and dabbed a gauze dipped in alcohol to his wounds. “It’s their fault,” he would say, because it always—or more often—was. Just because they were bigger and older and stronger. Now the three of them surrounded him, puffing out their chests and making themselves taller, as though that was supposed to scare Cloud. 

“Where is it?” he asked.

“Where is what?”

“The flower field!”

They exchanged glances, then looked at Cloud with wolfish grins. “What, you wanna go after her?”

This was why Cloud hated them. Gritting his teeth and clenching his fists, Cloud pushed past them and ignored the hoots and taunts. Careful of the monsters, they said.

Let them come.

***

Cloud remembered what the man at the river had said. At the first fork on the mountain path, hug the right side. A little way up, a little way down, the path would grow smaller and smaller until you reach a dead end. But it’s not a dead end. There was a path before rocks and boulders blocked it. Climb over and across it and you’ll find yourself in a pretty little clearing, with a spring bubbling up on one side and flowers blooming all around.

That was what Cloud found at the end of a long trek: a wall of rock reaching up to the sky with boulders stacked high on the narrow path across the rock face. 

Aren’t you a smith? Cloud had asked. Why would a smith have known a secret flower field? It had earned him a soft smack on the head.

Smiths seek ores and stuff, kid. The mountain’s basically my home.

So much for home. Either he didn’t know, or he didn’t tell, because Cloud highly doubted Tifa passed through here. There might even be more than one flower field up this mountain. Who was to know? He certainly didn’t, and there was no one else he could ask. There wasn’t even any guarantee that he’d find a flower field on the other side of this rock face. But his feet hurt and his chest heaved, so he put his hands and feet on the boulders and climbed.

Over and across, Cloud landed on the ground beyond with a thud. His practice with his wooden sword proved useful as the calluses had hardened his hands and made the climb easier. He swayed on his feet when he stood, his hand shooting out to the wall to steady himself. Undergrowth rustled at a shuffling of feet. A moment later, Tifa appeared at the end of the tunnel, still in her cream-white dress and brown slippers. Her hair swayed in a breeze he didn’t feel, her eyes widening at the sight of him.

“Cloud?”

Cloud’s sigh of relief was short-lived. He felt stupid now, for coming all this way and climbing a rock wall, when the girl in front of him didn’t even look like she had fought through dirt and stone.

“I thought you weren’t coming,” Tifa said.

“I never said I wouldn’t,” he mumbled after he had exited the narrow path into what appeared to be a clearing on the mountainside, with the rock wall on one side and close-knitted trees on the others. Water trickled down into a small bubbling spring, and a vast canopy of leaves shielded them from the harsh glare of the sun. After the long trek with the hot golden disc beating down on his back, the shade was a pleasant find. They swayed in the afternoon breeze, cool against the sweat on his brow.

Tifa stared at him, tilting her head to one side. Cloud didn’t care to elaborate and instead asked, “Did you come from there?” He nodded toward the path he had taken.

Tifa shook her head. “No. I came from there.” She pointed to one side, where a gap between the trees revealed a path through the forest. The foliage was as thick there as it was in the clearing, breaking the sunlight into a crisscrossing pattern across the forest floor. “It leads down the mountain,” she went on. “But there’s a path leading back to the path behind the village. You take the left road at the fork.”

Cloud wished the smith had told him that.

“So, you’ll give your mom flowers?”

“What?”

“Flowers.” She drew his attention to the small white flowers between her arms. “That’s why you came, right? The flower field.”

Tifa stepped back to give him a full view of the flowers blooming all around. They dotted the clearing in clusters of reds and whites and purples. Cloud recognized the scent, something he had associated with his mother and his house once upon a time.

“Poppies,” Tifa explained. Her smile turned wistful as she looked at the flowers in her hands. “The healer said they could help Mom.”

If Tifa had wanted to get any flowers, she could have gone to easier places. His secret spot by the riverbank had a cluster of flowers growing here and there at this time of year. A little off to the side right outside the village was also a field with blue flowers. If they knew where to go and what to look for, they could avoid any monsters attacking them. At least, that was what the smith-master had told him.

“Well, feel free to pick some.”

He watched her walk to the spring where she left her basket already half-filled with flowers. She crouched down, placed the white flowers inside, then picked up the red ones blossoming nearby. Cloud stared for several more moments before moving over to another patch of purple and pink and plucked them by the stems.

Poppies. Cloud never knew the name, but he remembered seeing them in a vase at home. Every time he sat on the dining table, the flowers would enter his line of sight, positioned in front of a window overlooking the mountain. It received a lot of sunlight in the afternoon.

He brought his forage to Tifa’s basket and dropped them all inside. Tifa looked at him, confused.

“I thought you’re bringing them for your mom,” she said.

“I am,” he said, and left it at that. 

Time passed and before they knew it, the lights had gotten dim. Tifa had filled her basket to the brim while Cloud had gathered an assortment of reds and purples and pinks. Not a lot, but he hoped his mother would love it.

“Here.” Tifa offered her basket. “I’ll give you yours when we’re back at the village.”

The forest had gotten dark. The sky was still a blazing deep orange, but the thick foliage blocked what little sunlight the sky offered. The air had gotten several degrees colder and Cloud noticed Tifa shivering. Her one-piece dress didn’t cover her arms.

“Ah!” Tifa stumbled on her feet, her leg tripping over an upturned root. Cloud’s hand shot out and grabbed her arm. Tifa murmured a thank you as she gingerly stepped over the root. Cloud only gave a wordless grunt, but he kept his hand firmly locked around her arm as they made their way through the dark forest.

“You remember the way, right?” he asked.

“I do, but it’s a bit hard to see.”

A wolf howled in the distance, making the two of them jump. Tifa clutched onto his arm, nails digging into his skin, as Cloud’s back stiffened, his eyes flitting in search for the source or something to ward it off. Stay away from the mountains, the village’s warning blared in his mind, especially at night. Monsters and beasts roamed the grounds. What would he give to have his wooden stick with him now?

“Come on, Tifa.” Cloud’s voice was almost a whisper in the eerie silence. Not even the sound of a bird or a cricket, as though all critters knew what dangers the night brought. He kept a firm hold on Tifa’s hand. “I’ll protect you.”

***

Dusk had fallen by the time they reached the fork. The waning moon hung low in a purple-indigo sky, the first of the stars blinking into view. Cloud still had his hand over Tifa’s, a firm hold she reciprocated, as the two of them fumbled in the dark. Tifa had slowly regained her courage after they found a familiar well-trodden path and a low-hanging branch. The dark had felt friendlier there, according to Tifa, and they had groped for tree trunks and branches, keeping their legs off any treacherous roots on the ground, until finally, they found a break in the trees.

Torches lit the path once they neared the village, more fires bobbing in a cluster up ahead. Cloud and Tifa shared a glance, their faces smudged with dirt and covered in sweat. Their clothes were dirty, and Cloud could see a few shallow cuts on Tifa’s arms from when the branches had caught her. Despite that, the two of them grinned.

“Cloud!”

It was more like a scream than a call, ear-splitting and raw. It jerked him to a stop. He looked up just as his mother broke away from the group of adults huddling together with torches held above their heads. She had a stricken look on her face as she ran towards him. Every head, every pair of eyes behind her turned. At the center was Tifa’s father, his stern lines giving way to relief at the sight of Tifa.

Cloud had only let Tifa’s hand go before his mother enveloped him in a bone-crunching hug. A moment later, Brian Lockhart fell to his knees beside them, pulling his daughter into his arms.

“Where were you!?” he said after he let her go. Tifa opened her mouth to speak, but before she could, her father had looked up and directed his ire at Cloud. “You brought her there, didn’t you!?”

Cloud froze. Whatever excuse or explanation he had had in his mind vanished. He couldn’t think. He couldn’t speak. His mouth had gone numb as his fingers went cold, trying and failing to stammer any sort of response that would appease Brian Lockhart.

His mother shuddered a breath before unwinding her arms from around him. She got to her feet. “Now, Brian—” she began but couldn’t get far, because Tifa had shaken herself off her father and now stood in front of Cloud, arms stretched on either side. 

“Dad! Don’t get mad at Cloud!” she yelled, crimson eyes blazing under the torches. Her father, and all the other adults, fell silent. “He came after me, okay? I wanted to pick flowers on the mountain. For Mother’s Day. The others left me. Cloud came after me. Here!”

She held up her basket, not filled to the brim anymore. Some of the flowers had fallen off. A murmur swept through the adults and Cloud spotted several nodding heads, but Brian Lockhart still had a frown on his face.

“What’s important is that our kids are safe, Brian,” his mother said, her voice unusually quiet. She had her hand in front of Cloud.

It took another moment for Brian to sigh and nod. “All right.” He looked at Tifa and Cloud saw a rare hint of a smile on his face. “I’m just glad you’re safe.” He stood up and held his hand out to his daughter. “Let’s go. Your mother’s worried sick.” Tifa nodded and grabbed her father’s hand. Then Brian shifted his gaze back at Cloud.

“And you.” It wasn’t loud, and he didn’t sound angry. Brian’s voice was deep and rumbling, like the rumbles Cloud would sometimes hear every time he pressed his ear to the ground. Cloud jerked to attention. “Don’t make your mother worry so much.” 

Cloud watched them leave, and the crowd slowly dispersed. They stayed there, his mother’s hand on his shoulder. Worry? Was his mother worried? It would make more for sense to say his mother was angry. Because his mother was rarely ever quiet. Yet now, there was only silence, and the silence was deafening.

“Mom?”

“Hm?”

At least his mother was talking to him. He mustered his courage and asked, “Are you angry?”

A pause, then his mother looked down; and no, it wasn’t anger that he saw. It was a mixture of emotions that Cloud couldn’t even begin to identify, only that it made his heart clench tight. She crouched in front of him, hands squeezing his arms.

“No, I’m not angry,” she said. Her voice was soft, somewhat deflated. The tension he had felt in her bone-crunching hug was gone. She brushed her hand against his hair, then at the smudge of dirt on his cheek. “I’m just worried.”

“Worried?” 

His mother laughed. “Am I not allowed to worry?” she asked. “You went off somewhere without telling me and no one knew where you’d gone. A parent would worry about their child.”

“I’m sorry.” Cloud cast his eyes down. “You told me to make up with Tifa so—”

“I know.” His mother smiled the softest smile. “Just… tell me whenever you’re going somewhere, all right?” Cloud nodded. She cupped his cheeks and gave a quick peck to his forehead. Then she stood up and held out a hand. “Come on. Let’s go home. You need a bath.”

They had almost reached their door when the house beside theirs burst open. Tifa emerged, rushing out the door with her feet still half outside her slippers, the flower basket swinging in her hand. She stopped a little past her yard, eyes searching the village center and the path to the mountain.

When his mother called her name, Tifa whipped her head around. Her lips broke into a huge grin at the sight of them. Cloud involuntarily stepped back, bracing himself for that rush of energy to hit him. When she did, panting, he stared as she held out her basket.

“Here,” she said, scooping a handful of red and purple flowers and holding them out to him. “Yours, right?” She gave him an armful of the small flowers, her toothy smile reaching her eyes. “Thanks for coming after me, Cloud,” she added, and with a final bow to his mother, Tifa rushed back to her own house. She looked back, once, and gave him a final energetic wave before disappearing behind the door. Cloud only then realized that the flowers in his arms were more than his share.

“Poppies,” his mother mused. He looked up to find his mother looking back, a small wistful smile grazing her lips. “I guess you found that clearing with the spring?”

Cloud stared, perplexed. “You know it?”

“Of course,” his mother said with a quiet laugh. “Your father used to take me there all the time. Remember the flowers we used to have? Those were poppies. Your father found them there.”

Cloud blinked, then stared at the small red and purple flowers in his hands. What were the odds? He looked up at his mother again and smiled, hugging the rest of them close as he held up one stem of red poppy to his mother.

“Happy Mother’s Day, Mom.”

Cloud’s mother stared at him for a silent moment before a laugh broke out of her, the kind that came from her stomach and shook her shoulders. She took the flower from his hand and pulled him into a hug, giving his cheek a quick kiss.

“Thanks, dear.”

~ END ~

#cloti #cloud strife #tifa lockhart #final fantasy vii #final fantasy #fanfiction #ff7 fanfic #ff fanfic

[star-linedsoul]

Happy Birthday, Erica Winchester!

Born June 17, 2016, my Supernatural OC Erica would be four years old today!

So, I thought I’d share a moodboard featuring the father-daughter relationship between Dean & Erica and was inspired to write a passage centered around the special day, which can be found beneath the Read More due to length.

It includes Daddy!Dean, fluff, & a cameo from the Colonel (because Sam & Dean should have kept him and you CANNOT change my mind!)!!!

This was written all in one sitting and given only a moderate proofread, so any mistakes are mine to be ashamed of later. 😅

I hope y’all enjoy!

As always, my ask box is open for questions or requests to be added to a taglist for Legacy!

Taglist: @wordspin-shares​

This is perfection.

An open highway stretched between rolling pastures, the asphalt shimmering in the heat of the mid-June sun. A black Impala cruised over the blacktop, its rumbling engine accentuating the guitars wailing from the radio speakers as Dean Winchester drummed on the steering wheel in sync with the bass line. Sam Winchester was not reclined in the passenger seat, however. The car wasn’t cruising along a highway somewhere on the far side of the country, making its way toward a town in the midst of being terrorized by one of the many creatures that went bump in the night. So what gave Dean the idea that this casual drive through the farmlands of northern Kansas was the epitome of idealism?

He looked up at the rearview mirror with a grin. A baby-faced girl with curly blonde pigtails sat in the backseat, secure in a purple, high-backed booster. She kicked her feet in time with the rhythm of the music, weaving her head side to side as she babbled her own made-up lyrics from a mouth stained snow-cone blue while her hands were busy gently stroking the ears of the aged German Shepherd with its head in her lap.

“Erica Jo!” Bright green eyes immediately met their match in the rearview mirror as Dean called the girl’s attention. “What is today?”

She grinned, her teeth as stained as her lips. “My birthday!”

“And how old are you today?”

“Four!” she squealed, raising one hand as she turned her thumb in to display the appropriate number of fingers.

“That’s right!” Dean confirmed, hitting his brakes and his blinker simultaneously as the pastures on either side of the road were replaced with lines of business-fronts. “And do you know what that means?”

“We’re having a party!” Her attitude was infectious as she clapped her hands in delight.

Dean felt his own grin grow into a full smile as he turned onto a street lined with modest houses, seeking out a familiar blue two-story with a wide front porch that already had several cars parked in front. As he wheeled into the driveway, he spotted his brother standing in front of the garage, already lifting the door so that the Impala could be parked inside. Erica was unbuckling the car seat before Dean could shift into park.

“Uncle Sam!” The birthday girl threw herself from the car as he opened the door, giggling as she was swooped into long arms and lifted high in the air.

“There’s my favorite niece! Happy birthday, kiddo!” Sam brought Erica down and rested her on one hip, stepping away from the car to give Dean room to get out. “Perfect timing, man. We’ve got all of the decorations up and I’ve got the grill ready for you.”

“Hey, I’m just glad I got the easy job!” the elder Winchester returned. “Keeping the birthday girl occupied for the afternoon was cake. We had fun, didn’t we, Slugger?”

Erica grinned and nodded. “Are we gonna have cake now?”

“Soon,” Dean promised. He then looked around at the cars lining the driveway and the street. “It looks like just about everyone made it.”

“Almost,” Sam agreed. “We’re waiting on…never mind.”

The brothers watched as a yellow Gremlin turned the corner and slowed to a stop at the curb in front of the house. Sam suddenly found himself in possession of a particularly wiggly four-year-old who took off for the car as soon as he returned her to the ground.

“An’ Carlee!” Erica cried as she raced across the front yard as fast as her legs would carry her.

The redhead who had climbed from the driver’s seat of the car quickly crouched down to catch the little girl in a hug. “Hey! How’s my favorite Winchester?”

“What’s up, bi—best friends?” Charlie greeted the brothers as she walked across the lawn hand-in-hand with Erica, quickly correcting herself as she side-eyed the birthday girl.

Dean was grateful. Erica was in that stage where she was a sponge for new words or phrases, and he & her mother had already had the trouble of explaining why she couldn’t call her little brother a “son of a bitch” when he took her toys. It had not been an enjoyable experience, nor had the lecture he had received afterward about watching his mouth around the kids.

“Hi, Charlie,” Sam said, pulling the redhead in for a warm hug.

Dean crossed his arms over his chest with a mock pout. “I thought I was your favorite Winchester.”

“That was the past,” Charlie returned with a melodramatic sigh. “I’m ‘An Carlee’ now. The times have changed.” She dropped the act for a wide grin, joining Dean in a tight embrace before holding up a Star Wars-themed gift bag. “So where does this need to go?”

Dean quickly ushered everyone into the house, sending Charlie and his brother on to join the rest of their guests while he steered Erica into the kitchen. There, they found the most beautiful woman in the world arranging food trays.

“Mommy!” Erica cried, surging forward to wrap her arms around Cameron at the legs.

The blonde smiled as she stopped her work and wiped her hands on a towel before returning Erica’s embrace. “Hey! I thought that was you guys I heard…did you and Daddy have fun today?”

Dean could feel himself smiling like an idiot as he watched the exchange between two of the people most dear to him as Erica gushed about their afternoon of fishing, snow-cones, and the park while Cameron listened with rapt attention on their daughter. He still didn’t know how he had gotten so lucky.

He had thought the evening plans might be derailed when Erica protested changing into the dress Cameron had picked out for the princess-themed party, but Cameron had quickly cut off the threatened tantrum before it could begin, waiting for the strong-willed little girl to disappear up the stairs before looking at Dean and releasing a long-suffering sigh.

“Don’t look at me!” Dean said, holding his hands up in surrender as he leaned against the counter. “She gets her stubbornness from you.”

“In your dreams,” Cameron returned with a scoff as she approached him, cupping his face in her hands and looking him dead in the eye. “That is one hundred percent pure Winchester, my love. God help us when she’s sixteen.”

Dean smiled down at the woman who had so readily built the home he had always wanted but never felt he deserved. “Aren’t we lucky?”

“Every day we’re breathing,” Cameron returned easily, offering a wide smile of her own before pressing her lips against his.

Before Dean could consider taking her captive and sneaking away from their own daughter’s birthday party, Cameron had pulled away and was disappearing upstairs with the order to start the grill before their hungry guests began to mutiny.

The evening passed in a blur of laughs and smiles shared between the gathered crowd of family and friends-that-had-become-family. Erica had been quick to grab the spotlight once she joined the guest in her princess dress and crown—though Dean was quick to notice she was in sneakers rather than the glittery sandals Cameron had painstakingly picked out. They had learned there were some battles that simply weren’t worth fighting. The guest of honor danced between the throng, accepting their birthday wishes with the charismatic enthusiasm reserved for happy children. Dean was happy to fade into the background and let her shine. He retreated to a corner of the yard, sharing a beer with Sam and relishing in this moment he had rarely dared to imagine in the days when his life had been focused around the darkest corners of the world.

“Did you ever think we’d be here?” He ventured aloud, trusting his brother to know what he meant.

“I’d hoped we would,” Sam returned. “Even when we were at our worst, I hoped we’d find a way back.”

“And we did. We made it, Sammy. We’re home.”

Sam clinked the neck of his beer bottle against Dean’s. “Yeah. We are home.”

The soft rushing of little feet through the grass alerted the brothers to the fact that they were no longer alone. In the same motion, they shifted and crouched, catching the two girls recklessly charging forward and swinging them up in the air.

“Just what do you two think you’re doing?” Sam demanded, lightly shaking the girl in his grip. His daughter dissolved into a fit of giggles, so he looked to his brother. “Uh-oh. Mine seems to be broken. Can you get any information out of yours?”

“Mama says it’s time for cake!” Erica reported immediately, unafraid where she hung slack in her father’s grip just over his head.

“Cake? We don’t have any cake over here, do we Sammy?”

“Nope. Just raspberries!” Sam blew against little Mary’s cheek, making her shriek and laugh.

Erica groaned, kicking her legs as Dean still held her in the air. “No! You gotta light the candles!”

“Oh! Well, why didn’t you say so?” Dean swung her back down to the ground as Sam did the same with his daughter. Taking the pair by the hands, their moment clearly over, the brothers returned to the party.

Dean lit the four candles of the birthday cake as everyone gathered their phones and cameras. Stepping back beside Cameron as the singing began, he watched the shadows dancing across Erica’s excited face in the candlelight. She screwed her eyes shut as she made her wish. Dean relished in the knowledge that he’d been able to give her a life where she was able to make the normal wish a four-year-old made over their birthday candles: a pony, a house made of candy, or a trip to the moon.

This was perfect.

#ocappreciation #occentral #allaboutocs #toalltheocsivelovedbefore #supernatural #spn oc #spn fanfiction #my edits #character aesthetics #character moodboard #my ocs #supernatural oc #my writing #supernatural fanfiction #spn fanfic #oc: erica winchester #legacy ff #daddy!dean #spn au #ocapp #supernatural fluff #spn family

[jmeelee]

The Nice and Accurate Prophecies of Stiles and Derek’s Cat

Sterek Week 2019 • Mystery

Rating: T (for swearing and lite innuendo)

Word Count: 2.1 K

***********

Derek flips on his blinker, and the taxi driver riding his ass swerves around the Camaro, rolling down a window and shouting something indecipherable while Derek pulls into the fire lane in front of the airport. His sister walks through the automatic doors as he climbs out and pops the trunk, a parting blast of air conditioning blowing her dark shoulder-length hair around her head like a demonic halo. She’s dressed in an old band t-shirt with a black blazer layered over top, and ripped skinny jeans, one hand gripping the handle of her rolling luggage, the other pressing a ratty book to her chest.

“It seems stupid for a werewolf to be superstitious,” Cora greets, handing Derek the leather-bound album, “but I didn’t want to take the chance of it getting lost in the mail.”

He pulls her close in a one-armed hug; Cora was never the overly affectionate type, but distance and pseudo-death make the heart grow fonder. “I appreciate you lugging it all this way. Stiles has been asking me a lot of family questions since he started emissary training, and I wanted to put some faces to the names he’s been hearing.” Pictures that aren't attached to obituaries, he silently adds.

She tosses her suitcase into the trunk, dusty wheels leaving a streak of dirt across the upholstery, and slams it closed, climbing in through the passenger door Derek holds open. “Alpha Varela had a decent amount, and Alpha Ogden gave me a half-dozen,” she supplies as he slides behind the wheel and pulls out into traffic, “but they only fill up a quarter of the pages. It’s pretty pathetic.”

She reaches out a hand, lovingly runs fingers over the brown cover embossed with a triskelion.

“It is,” Derek concedes, “but it’s better than nothing.” His fingers itch to flip through the meager pages immediately, pour over the pictures like Cora’s been able to do, and bring his long-dead family back to life, but it will have to wait through rush hour traffic and a trip to the pet store. They’re out of cat food, and Agnes Nutter—the stray orange tabby Stiles fell in love with when he started spending so much time with Deaton at the vet clinic, and proceeded to drag home—has been known to take claws to the curtains, leather couches and freshly painted walls when dinner isn’t served on time.

“We’re back!” Derek calls through the front door an hour later, pulling his key out of the lock.

Cora drops two five-pound bags of dry food to the entry-way floor. “How much does this damn cat eat?” She laughs. Derek shrugs, wet food cans clanking in the bags hanging from his hands. The album is tucked securely under his armpit.

“I’m in the family room!” Comes Stiles’ disembodied voice. Derek detours to the kitchen to stock the cat food in the walk-in pantry and Cora heads to the back of the house to greet her brother-in-law. He’s only moments behind her, but when he finally rounds the corner into the family room, his little sister’s face is shifted, snarls twisting out of her throat through elongated teeth, and Stiles is sitting on the couch, eyes wide, laptop in one hand and the other raised, palm out, sparks sizzling along his fingertips. Acrid ozone spikes the air.

“What. The. Hell.”

“I don’t know, dude!” Stiles’ voice trills and Derek doesn’t have the time to admonish his husband for calling him dude. “She rolled in here and didn’t even say hello! Just went all grrrr-” his nose does the scrunchy little thing Derek secretly loves, top teeth bared like an adorably angry hamster- “and scared the shit out of me.”

“It’s that...thing,” Cora rasps, pointing a claw-tipped finger at Agnes Nutter, calmly lording over the room from Stiles’ blanketed lap, like a ginger queen on a throne.

Stiles drops his laptop to the couch cushion, wrapping his now free arm around Agnes, who’s yellow eyes squint in annoyance at the vigorous display of affectionate protection. “What’s your problem with my cat? Does the lupine-feline rivalry actually run that deep?”

“Really, Stiles? Dog jokes? Now?” Derek rubs at a tension headache brewing over his left eyebrow.

“Stiles,” Cora commands through sharp white teeth, “get away from it. It’s a demon.”

Agnes answers the accusation with a charming little “meow,” and rubs a paw over her docked left ear.

“Put your teeth away. She’s my pet!” Stiles shrieks.

“Derek. Get the photo album,” Cora orders.

Derek glances back toward the kitchen. He can see the book sitting on the granite countertop, but is loathe to leave the room. “Is this really the best time for a Hale family history lesson?”

“You bet your hairy ass it is. Go get those pictures. Now.”

Derek’s never been more grateful for supernatural speed. “Here.” He hands the album to his sister, who flips open to the second page, turns the book around and hands it back to him.

At first, Derek’s baffled. What do his unearthed family photos have to do with a c—

An orange and white striped cat that’s sitting on his grandmother’s lap, when she was roughly thirty years old. A cat that twists around his mother’s ankles as she stands on tip-toe to kiss his father on the cheek, while toddler Laura plays in the background. A cat that lingers behind his great-grandfather as he cuts the ribbon at the dedication ceremony for the Beacon Hills preserve. The last photo is in black and white, but this cat, like the others, has a docked left ear.

“Stiles…” Derek looks up at his husband. Agnes stares at him with slanted eyes. He does the math in his head. At least fifty years…

Stiles groans, head lolling on the back of the couch. “Don’t tell me she’s a Flerkin. I knew I should have named her Goose.”

“Not a Flerkin,” Cora says. “But definitely something.”

Agnes jumps off Stiles’ lap and calmly pads over to her empty food dish, flops down next to it, and lets out a loud, piercing howl.

“Get the cat carrier,” Derek says. “We’re going to Deaton’s.”

———-

“Why did you let me adopt a time-traveling cat?!”

Deaton, as usual, says nothing in face of Stiles’ hysterics. Agnes dangles from Stiles’ outstretched arms, held at a forty-five-degree angle like a domesticated lion king. She blinks, whiskers twitching. Derek feels her pain; the overlapping scents of animal, iodine and industrial-grade disinfectant makes him want to hurl.

“I was surprised you even got a cat,” Scott chimes in from the waiting room chair. Having a pet who turns out to be old enough to collect social security merits calling your alpha right away. “I didn’t think you liked them. Remember my old Maine Coon, Louis? You used to pelt him in the ass with spitballs.”

Everyone’s mouths drop collectively, and Stiles reels Agnes back to his chest, hiding part of his blushing cheek in her soft orange fur. “I was seven, Scott! And in my defense, Louis used to bite my toes through my sleeping bag.”

“Well, thank goodness it was in retaliation,” Derek deadpans. “I wouldn’t want to be married to an animal abuser.”

A war plays out on Stiles’ flushed face; narrowed eyes shooting daggers at Derek, while the corner of his generous mouth cocks up. “I didn’t hear any complaints from you the other night.”

“Gross,” Cora bemoans. “Get a room.”

“Already did.” Tucking Agnes under his arm like a football, Stiles holds up his free hand and wiggles his fingers, white-gold wedding band flashing under the fluorescent lights. “Made it legal and everything.”

“Did you bring the photos?” Deaton inquires, enigmatic face as placid as the surface of the little pond in the preserve. Cora hands them over, and everyone watches Deaton slowly flip through the pages, eyes skimming over each picture. “Hum,” he says, laying the album on top of the reception desk, open to the picture of Derek’s parents with Agnes at their feet.

“Hum? That’s all you have to say?” Stiles scoffs.

“I’m surprised at you, Stiles,” Deaton says softly, crossing arms over his lab coat. “I thought you knew what Agnes was when you took her home.”

“Obviously not,” Stiles grumbles. “I’m supposed to be learning from you, aren’t I? One would assume the teacher would tell the student if the class pet was an immortal demon waiting to eat their face off when they fell asleep.”

Derek feels a hysterical giggle crawl up his throat and clamps his lips closed.

Deaton spins the album around to face the waiting room, and Scott extricates his butt from the chair to creep closer. Deaton taps the top right corner of the Hale’s photograph. “I took this picture in nineteen-eighty-eight. Derek,” he says, glancing up into his face, “your parents had just gotten the news they were pregnant with you.”

The giggle threatens to turn into a sob.

“Talia and Sebation celebrated their good fortune with a pack dinner. As you well know-” Deaton turns toward Scott- “emissaries are invited to important pack events.” He turns back to the room at large. “I came that evening, and Agnes, as you are fond of calling her, came with me.” He flips to the picture of Derek’s great-grandfather. “Emissaries protect their alpha’s, so I assume the former Hale pack emissary was somewhere in the crowd during this ceremony.” Deaton blinks, letting the pregnant pause come to full gestation. “Familiars tend to follow witches wherever they go.”

“So…” Cora trails off, tilting her head to the side and pursing her lips while she studies Agnes. “She’s a familiar? Familiars are demons, right?”

“Fantastic,” Stiles sighs, shoulders slumping. “We all know my track record with demons.” His face is carefully blank, except for the bottom lip caught between his teeth.

“No concrete evidence exists to say familiars are demons,” Deaton lectures. “In fact, that tends to be an antiquated belief held over from the witch trials. Some believe they are fae, or goblins, sent to assist fledgling witches in the practice of magic. Others believe they’re guardian angels.”

“Ha!” Stiles crows, sticking his tongue out at Cora. “She’s not a demon after all. She’s an angel. Take that!”

“Hey!” Scott helpfully adds. “You could change her name to Aziraphale!” Stiles looks like he’s considering it.

“I’m not trying to rain on the parade,” Derek cuts in, ignoring Stiles’ mumbled Sourwolf, “but you’re saying Agnes is here to help Stiles? She mostly just eats, craps, coughs up hairballs in my shoes and knocks shit off the counters. Like that time she broke the vial of ground-up Mucuna pruriens, and we all broke out in that horrible rash.” Derek’s butt itches just thinking about it.

Scott snaps his fingers, goofy smile stretching across his face. “Yeah! And then Stiles used it to make those smoke bombs we attacked the hunter’s compound with the following month. It’s like she knew exactly what he needed to use.”

Everyone stares at Agnes, baffled and impressed.

“Legends say familiars most often take small animal forms,” Deaton continues, “but some are human-like, or can shape-shift. One was a horse.”

“No,” Derek says to both his husband and Agnes, on the off chance any ideas are forming in their heads. “No horses in the house. We don’t have the room.”

“So, you’ve told us what legends say, and what other people think about familiars.” Stiles bounces on his toes, jostling Agnes. She yowls, and he plops her onto the reception desk next to her portraits. “You’ve been an emissary for years. What do you believe?”

Deaton inhales deeply through his nose, exhales through his mouth. “I believe they’re an extension of our souls.”

Stiles smiles, scritching Agnes behind her mangled ear. “You’re the Pantalaimon to my Lyra. The Salem to my Sabrina. The—” Agnes hoists one leg straight into the air and starts licking her butt.

“Yup.” Cora smirks. “That makes total sense.”

“In conclusion, Stiles, your pet is not a demon who’s waiting to eat your face off. Now, can I please go home for the evening?”

It takes half a bag of treats to coax Agnes back into the cat carrier, and Deaton locks the doors to the clinic on their way out.

“I thought she was a stray,” Stiles says as they all head out into the moonlit night, voice a little wobbly. “I didn’t realize she was... Do you want her back?”

Deaton’s smile is as mystifying as ever. “She’s yours now, Stiles.”

Derek notes that, unsurprisingly, Deaton didn’t actually answer the question.

“One more thing,” Derek says, loading Agnes into the backseat of the Camaro. He’s strangely curious, even though he’s heard what curiosity did to the proverbial cat. “If she was yours for years, you must have given her a name. What was it?” Even arcane Dr. Deaton must be human enough to name his cat. Right?

“Some things,” Deaton answers before he slams his car door, “will have to remain a mystery.”

#sterekweek2019 #sterekmystery #eternalsterek #sterek #haleinski #my fic #sterek fic

[sabineelectricheart]

Guest-House [Pt. 1]

Summary: It is all quiet at the Blue Lion Pension, as Byleth prepares for a night in.

Rating: T - Suitable for teens, 13 years and older, with some violence, minor coarse language, and minor suggestive adult themes.

Words: 1308

Notes: So, it’s not my first multichapter fic ever, but it is the first time I have finished writing it before posting, so it might be the first one I take no hiatus or feel discouraged. I hope you like it.

Tonight, Byleth Eisner will spend alone. The people she usually spent time with were out in the town, leaving her behind to man the fort.

A night out with the lads. Nothing special, it is a recurrent event. Every Moon, her tenants would go out for the night, just the eight of them. That leaves her with the house to herself. She usually takes a bath, do a face-mask and watch some streamed movies on the big screen downstairs. Most of the time some bloody Almyran horror, one that the boys never want to watch, despite assuring her on many occasions that they do not get scared from stupid movies.

There is nothing different this night, and the green-haired young woman cannot help but feel glad about it. Taking care of her cubs was a full-time job, and she had another one of those on top of it.

Byleth had been helping on their guest-house ever since she was born, but this is the first time she takes care of their tenants all by herself. When her parents wed, many a year ago, they bought this old house just around the corner from the University of Garreg Mach gates.

To complement their income from their jobs at the Church of Seiros, the main sponsor of the university, they offered rooms for rental to her father’s friends, acquaintances and relatives from the Province of Faerghus, a place to stay during college. The place was convenient, being so close to the main schools and lecture halls, but also very clean, beautiful and coddled with the warm care of Sitri’s and the tough, disciplined love of Jeralt’s.

As the years passed them by, as the alums from their little guest-house grew in number and sent forward their own college-aged children with glowing recommendations, her mother was always proud to say that the Blue Lion Pension was the best in the Upper City. Certainly not apropos of nothing, they were always woe to accommodate every student that wished to reside there, as Faerghusians of all walks of life reached out to them for a room.

This semester, however, her mother got an opportunity to work in Enbarr for the Southern Church. It would be temporary, but absolutely invaluable for her studies on theology. Of course, moving tens of hundreds of kilometres south was not conductive with keeping a students’ guest-house. The choice weighed heavily on Sitri’s heart, as she felt neither seemed really the right answer.

As she witnessed her mother’s unwillingness to let her tenants go without a place to stay, of closing down, even if temporarily, a business she worked so hard to build from the ground up, Byleth offered to take care of it, at least so the Year Four students could finish their education and do not worry about moving out. It was merciful of her, as looking for a lease would be harsh to conciliate on top of exams, the bar and their term papers.

It seemed only natural to her, however. She was just finished with her master’s dissertation and was on a lull at the coffeeshop she worked down the street, so it would not be too much of a trouble. Life gave an opportunity to do something nice for her mother and the tenants, and so she jumped on it.

Besides, with or without her parents, she took care of her cubs for four years, now. It seemed cold-hearted to throw them out on the streets for the next great thing that came around their home.

There were eight tenants this year at the Blue Lions Pension. Ashe Ubert and Dedue Molinaro shared Room 1, next to the kitchen. Annette Dominic and Mercedes von Martritz shared Room 3 and Ingrid Galatea occupied Room 4 on the first floor. On the third floor, Room 7, by the stairs, was occupied by Felix Fraldarius, Room 8 belonged to Sylvain Gautier and Room 10 housed Dimitri Blaiddyd. Byleth had a suite on the attic and her parents’ room was on the basement.

They were a lively bunch, and after four years together, she came to care deeply for this batch of cubs, as the students that stayed on the guest-house were known across campus. As much as she appreciated her tenants, however, Byleth would not begrudge herself some time with her own thoughts every now and again, and so was more than glad to stay behind as they held their private party away from the house.

She said goodbye to the excited troupe, took a bath and now she is sitting in the living room about to start her gory slash film when their landline starts to ring. They kept it so the students could contact their parents in case of an emergency and vice-versa, but it has been a while since it last rung.

The phone was kept at the head office, and it was a bit of an ordeal to find the keys and unlock the door to the room while the damn thing rang obnoxiously.

“I’m coming, I’m coming…” She mutters. “Hello?”

“BYLETH? IS THAT YOU?!” Sylvain screams through the phone.

He is drunk. It was quick even for the ginger skirt-chaser, as it is not even past nine. Though, honestly, it does not quite surprise her. She has gone out with her tenants once in her life, too. Sylvain and the girls are usually the first ones to get inebriated, followed by Ashe, then Felix, Dedue and, on a rare occasion, Dimitri after that. Rare indeed, that man almost never loses sight of himself. A Blaiddyd thing, she is assured.

She can only hope they are taking care of Mercedes. She gets grabby whenever she is intoxicated and Byleth does not want to bail her out from jail due to public indecency again.

“Yes, Sylvain, it is me. You called the guest-house, who else did you expect to take it?” The landlady asks sarcastically. In the background, she can hear loud, electronic music playing. “Where are you?”

“INGRID FOUND A CLUB SOMEWHERE NEAR OUR USUAL BAR!” The redhead shouts once more, and the green-haired woman distances the phone from her ear.

“HEY BYLETH!” Ingrid yells.

The older woman laughs to herself. She cannot imagine them in a club, dancing the night away with the e-boys that populated the more modern dancefloors in Garreg Mach’s scene. Usually, their itinerary when out was comprised of just some drinks at a pub, quiz night if they are feeling frisky.

“Hey, Ingrid.” Byleth greets. “Are you having a good time? Is everything alright with you or should I take the Transporter out?”

Jeralt left the family car, a royal blue Transporter, behind for her to use in case of emergencies. Since they lived in an older part of the city, the streets were narrow and mostly pedestrianized, so driving was an absolute nightmare. The car was meant to be used for driving people to the hospital and the train station, and that is about it.

“THERE’S NO TROUBLE, SILLY YOU!” The inebriated blonde chuckled. “IT IS AMAZING HERE! EVEN DIMITRI IS DRUNK!”

“Dimitri?” She is rather shocked, as it is not like him to get drunk. Especially when there is not really something special to celebrate.

That would also mean there is no designated driver, no-one to stay sober and take care of the others, and so she should wait up for them, lest something bad happens. It was no use to be concerned about it now, though.

“Well, have fun.” Byleth finished cheerfully. “Don’t stay out too late!”

“Can’t promise anything, bitches!” Annette shouts aggressively from behind and the landlady roll her eyes.

“Alright, take care.” She says and hangs up the phone.

She stops by the kitchen to brew herself some coffee and returns to the movie. It will be a long night for her.

*_*_*_*_*

Guest-House Masterlist

Fire Emblem Masterlist

Three Houses Masterlist

#fire emblem #Dimitri Blaiddyd

[pulpwriterx]

WOODS

Just a little Reylo smut for Valentine's Day. But with a sense of humour.

Rebel Base: Six Months After the Events on Crait

Rey closed the door of the large, semi-permanent tent that was her only home in the world and followed the moon out into the woods.

She had a place she went to, a little clearing where there was soft, sweet grass under a big, beautiful, sheltering tree.

Even when it rained, the grass just under the tree was dry.

Rey went to her special place and looked up at the stars.

She tried to reopen her bond with Kylo Ren.

Where are you, Ben?

Are you still furious with me?

I hope you have some peace of mind, now that Snoke is dead.

Both the day that she gave Ben his scar, and the day they altered the Balance of Power in the Galaxy were Thursdays.

So, every Thursday, she would come to her special place, and ask those three questions to the stars.

“I am on my command ship, in my bedroom. We are near Coruscant. I was furious with you, but now I’m only angry with myself. I didn’t explain any of my plan to you; I was too general. Because I wanted you to join me, and I figured we would iron out the details, later. I have been able to see and to think much more clearly, now that Snoke is dead. Some of the changes I have made on the planets in my dominion have been for the better. I have personally executed despots. I have brought order and civilization to the places they ruled. Not to mention access to food, clean water, and decent housing. I am an autocrat, but I have no desire to punish, terrorise and dominate the people I rule over.”

Rey felt Ben’s fingers entwine with hers until her hard little hand was engulfed in his.

She turned.

He was also looking at the stars, and he had put something on.

A black bathrobe.

“I thought if I showed up stark naked, you would think I was trying to seduce you.”

A smile tugged the corners of his mouth.

“I don’t want to talk about religion or politics, right now. I’m too tired.” Rey told him.

She wanted him to hold her, but it was nice, holding his hand.

“That’s because my mother is training you. You know what I learned from my mother? Endurance. Being tough and hard isn’t enough. You have to have endurance. The strength to go on, and do what you must. Never falter. Never retreat. Never surrender.”

Rey nodded.

“She doesn’t talk about a lot of religion and politics, does she?”

“My mother doesn’t like labels. Or rules. She likes to get things done. My Uncle trains monks. My mother trains soldiers. Teachers. Diplomats. People who have to get things done in the real world. Where there’s no Dark Side and no Light Side. Just what you have to do and the skills you need to do it. I wish she could see that we’re doing the same thing, in different ways.”

They both looked up at the stars.

“You know, before my Uncle blew up the building we were sitting in, I was going to kiss you. When we were in that elevator and you were giving me the standard Luke Skywalker lecture? I kept looking at your lips because I wanted to kiss you. If you would have taken my hand in Snoke’s throne room, I would have kissed you. I still want to kiss you.”

Kylo Ren put his arm around Rey, and she put her head on his shoulder.

“There are orange hairs on your black bathrobe. Short ones. Do you have a cat?”

“Yes. Hux and I share a common room, and a cat. Her name is Milicent. We also have a small private kitchen. He eats my food and I drink his Arkanian mead. Armi never cleans the cat box so the cat always shits where I keep my mask.”

Rey laughed.

“Why are you telling me this?”

“I understand that the Resistance is made up of people. You need to understand that in the First Order, we are also just people.”

“That you’re just a man, even though you’re Supreme Leader Kylo Ren?”

“A man who aches to kiss you.”

Rey thought about it.

He probably had never kissed a girl, before.

He went right from the Jedi Temple to the rigorous, torturous Sith training.

Rey was a woman of the world; she’d had some boyfriends on Jakku.

It wouldn’t hurt to let him kiss her.

To show him how to kiss.

“Well, sometimes when you talk to me about the Galaxy? I wish you’d just shut up and kiss me.”

Rey was going to say something else, but Ben had taken her into his arms and kissed her.

Things changed.

She was in the arms of a man who knew exactly how to kiss a woman, especially how to kiss a woman like her.

Their lips parted.

Ben’s eyes were still closed.

“Ben?”

“Don’t talk.”

He kissed her again, and this time, he laid her on the sweet soft grass like an empty dress.

Rey put her hands inside his bathrobe, touching his strong, broad chest.

One of his arms was around her waist, the other curled around her body and as they kissed he stroked her breast, letting the pad of his thumb roll around her nipple, touching her through her clothes.

Her nipple hardened under his fingers, jumping to a peak for him.

The jolt between Rey's legs rolled her thighs apart, just a little, and she felt Ben getting hard against the inside of her thigh.

Their lips parted, again.

“Why did I think you were some kind of inexperienced Jedi Monk?”

“I don’t know. Before I was a lusty, rampant satyr of a Sith Lord, I was a lusty, rampant satyr of a ruthless pirate and hotshot flyboy. But you’ve got me half-right. I was a virgin until I was 20. Now I have to make up for lost time.”

“I think you should get off of me, Ben.”

“I should. But is that what you really want?”

She had never seen him smile, before.

He had a beautiful smile.

His unconventional male beauty had never been so apparent to her.

It distracted her.

So did his fingers gently rubbing just the right spot on her panties.

“No, no, don’t touch me there. Please.”

“Why is it that when you say that, your tone of voice says don’t stop touching me, I need you to keep touching me, I haven’t had a man’s hands on me for so long that I forgot what it feels like? All those flyboys in the Resistance, why are you starving to death at the buffet?”

“My vows.”

“More of that Uncle Luke bullshit. You’re getting pretty moist for a woman who cares about her vows. Did my mother ever mention those vows to you?”

“No.”

“Well, she’s your Master now, and all my parents ever did was fight in the kitchen and fuck in the bedroom. Leia Organa would never expect anybody fighting a war to do something so stupid as to be chaste.”

He had a point.

But Ben had stopped touching her.

“Why did you stop?”

“You told me to stop. So I stopped.”

“Now I do want you to get off me.”

“Alright. I will. But can I kiss you, one more time?”

“Fine.”

He grabbed her ankles, pulled her forward, pulled her leggings down, and entirely off one bare foot, settled her legs around his shoulders, and kissed Rey, in an eloquently intimate manner in her most intimate of places.

Of course, never in the history of any Galaxy has any woman ever said to any man, especially a man she was involved in a midnight makeout session with, now listen, mister, you had better stop licking my pussy, or I will contact the authorities.

Rey didn’t, either.

Indeed, she tangled her fingers in his thick dark hair and encouraged him.

“That was a dirty trick.” She told him.

After.

“You said I could kiss you again. I never said where.”

Rey suddenly came out of her afterglow, and sat up on her elbows.

“What are you doing?”

“What does it look like I’m doing?”

“Ben, I do not want to watch you play with yourself!”

That was a lie.

His black bathrobe was open, and the sight of his long white body and of his big sinewy hand stroking his cock was perversely exhilarating.

“Would you like to help? Seeing as how you’re drooling, just a little.”

She laughed.

“I might as well. Don’t pull my hair. I didn’t pull your hair. If you start yanking on my hair, I’ll stop.”

He did not pull her hair.

Ben was a very big boy, and Rey enjoyed herself, quite a bit, more than she liked to admit, sucking the enemy off.

The dense manly scent of him filling her nose, the heaviness of his balls in her hand, the hard heaviness in her mouth of his big, meaty cock, salty and stiff and her fist hardly able to fit around him, so long since she tasted a man’s heat.

So long that she wanted it to be Ben's.

They lay together, on the grass, again.

Now he held her in his arms.

“Are you asleep?”

“No. You give great head. I can’t stand girls who spit.”

They looked at each other, and the stars.

“Rey, did you say, 'Oh gods, meat!', right before you sucked me off?”

“Yes, I did.”

“Oh you sweet, hungry Little Rebel Girl! You can eat my meat any time you want.”

Rey laughed, a little.

She had undone the mighty Kylo Ren with a kiss.

Of sorts.

Kylo took her hand again.

“Rey?” he asked.

“Yes?”

He brought her hand to his lips, and kissed it.

“Can I fuck you, now?”

She started to laugh.

She had expected him to make some corny pass at her, and say something stupid, and ruin the whole thing.

But he had said what he said, instead, and it made her laugh.

“What was that, again?”

“I mean it. I really need to fuck you. I’m hornier than I was before. I’m fucking hard again. You have to let me fuck your sweet, pretty little pussy. Please? Pretty please?”

Rey laughed, again.

“You’re a real goofy bastard, you know that, Kylo? And you’ve got a filthy mouth.”

“Yeah. Ben is too. We’re a couple of horny goofballs.”

“Are you any good?”

Now Kylo laughed.

“I’m not telling you.”

“Kylo?”

“Yes, Rey?”

“How come you’re not fucking me, now?”

They both laughed.

“How do you want it?”

“How do I want what? Your gigantic monster cock? Well don’t put it in my ass. I won’t be able to sit down for a year!”

They could barely speak, they were laughing so hard.

Finally, they stopped.

“First, I’m going to take off the rest of my clothes. And then? I think I’d like you to be on top of me. Like you were, when we were kissing. That was nice. It felt good.” Rey told him.

Kylo Ren took off his bathrobe, and Rey took off her clothes.

She lay down on the grass, and opened her arms to him, and he kissed her, again.

Somewhere during that kiss, he started fucking her.

Slowly

It was nice.

It felt good.

She put her arms around him, and raised her knees up, and his eyes were shut but Rey’s were open, and she studied his face, and moved her hands over his body.

Then his eyes were open, and he was smiling at her again.

“Rey?”

“Yes, Kylo?”

“How do you like this long, slow, deliberate fucking?”

“It’s nice. It feels good. But it’s kind of boring. What do you think?”

“Well, some girls like getting fucked like this. I get bored doing it.”

Rey laughed again.

“Will you stop being such a goofball and fuck me like you mean it?”

“Yes ma’am!”

All the sudden goofy Ben turned into a raging inferno of violent hot lust, and he was fucking her like he was the Devil, himself, and she was his favorite witch.

“Oh gods, Ben! Don’t stop! Keep fucking me just like that!”

“Okay.”

She would have laughed if he wasn’t stroking the hot spot inside her with every thrust.

“No! Oh no, Ben, you have to stop!”

“Why? No implant?”

“No! I have one. But you’re going to make me squirt!”

“Squirt, killer. Come for Kylo. Squirt all over my balls.”

She did.

Somewhere in the throes of her orgasm, Kylo Ren had his.

They lay together in the grass, star-crossed lovers, their bodies entwined together.

“Rey?”

“Yes, Ben?”

“Why don’t we meet in person on Thursdays? I’ll find a place. You have an X-Wing. I have a TIE fighter. No one has to know.”

“No religion or politics?”

“None.”

“OK. We will."

“You know what? Now that I know how to make you squirt? The next time I go down on you, I’m going to finger you, so you squirt on my face.”

“That was really dirty. If I go and wash up in the stream, can that be right now?”

“Don’t go wash. I want to eat your cunt when it’s dirty. Then, can we fuck again?”

“You are so bad! Yes. We can fuck again. But this time I want to be on top.”

“Your wish is my command.’

#ben solo #ben solo lives #reylo #star wars fanfiction #kylo ren #rey

[thejamaicanweeb]

Mitosis - Soul Division Prologue: The Average Candidate

A/N: Hey there! This is just an OM fanfic I’m writing with two MCs based on my two best friends in the entire world. Based on the main stories, Devilgram stories, texts and events. I hope you enjoy it! -Jisa

EDIT!!!: I cannot believe I forgot this! TRIGGER WARNING FOR IMPLIED ABUSE! (Honestly, being beaten as discipline is such a common thing here; it never even occurred to me that what was every day and normal here could trigger someone else I am so so sorry Q_Q)

Name: Sinai

Age: 23

DOB: 08/09/1996, Sunday 11:58 pm

Highest Level of Education: Associates Degree BB Med Sci. Undertaking an MBBS degree.

Race: Human

Region: South America and the Caribbean

Shadows obscured the rest of the information. A black-gloved hand picked up the profile that had slipped from the short stack of papers on the desk. Intelligent scarlet eyes scanned the rest of the page quickly, then glanced at the small picture fastened to the upper right-hand corner. 

The young woman in the picture beamed up at him. A wide smile crinkled her russet brown eyes shut. Large red glasses sat on top of a short nose. While her round face made her appear a few years younger at first glance, dark under-eye circles added the years back. The raven-haired demon placed the paper on the desk and ground the heels of his palms against his eyelids, trying in vain to rub the gritty feeling of fatigue away. He stifled a yawn as his DDD rang. 

“Hm?” 

“Lucifer?” 

As always, Diavolo sounded animated, even in the early hours of the morning 

“You’re still awake, I see. Decided yet?” 

Lucifer sank back into his chair. The weight of his exhaustion sat on his chest, pushing the air out in a sigh. 

“Not yet,” he responded, brushing his hand over his forehead.

“Hey, don’t agonize over this for too long, all right? You can just pick one at random, really. Besides, it’s pretty late and you’ve been running on fumes as is.”

“I’m fine.”

“You fell asleep mid-sentence at lunchtime.” Diavolo pointed out

Lucifer made a non-committal sound as he glanced down at the profile in front of him. The time on his wristwatch made him regret checking (as it usually did). He had long since stopped trying to keep track of the scores of profiles that had made the shortlist of humans. They blurred together after the first hundred or so. He glanced at the paper in front of him and closed his eyes, pinching the bridge of his nose. 

“You know what? Yes, I have decided. At least this one seems less... mischievous than Solomon.” he muttered as an afterthought

“Oh? Great! Send a picture?”

“Sure.”

Diavolo pulled the DDD away from his ear as the message came in. He switched the call to speakerphone.

“I see what you mean,” he commented with a laugh, “Well, she seems nice enough,”

“I suppose so. What should I do with the rest?”

“Ah, don’t worry about it now. Get to sleep! It’s not like they’ll run away,”

Lucifer rolled his eyes. He could practically see Diavolo waving off his question. He glanced at his watch again and groaned internally. 

“Fine,” he conceded, turning off the desk lamp and ending the call. As he stood and stretched, a draft entered, making the flames in the fireplace dance and disturbing the pile of papers.

“Oh, no you don’t!” he growled, slamming his DDD on top before striding across the room to latch the window shut.

Unbeknownst to him, a single candidate had escaped, whisked out into the chilly night air. It danced erratically across the starry sky, fluttered through the wrought iron bars of the gate before coming to rest on the sidewalk for a moment. The wind whisked it upwards and then:

Rip!

A small dark clawed hand snatched it out of midair, perforating the margins. 

“Hey.” said the small horned creature, nudging its companion. Its voice lay somewhere in the territory between a hiss and a high-pitched rasp. It brought to mind the image of nails scraping a chalkboard; it made your hair stand on end. “Look at this.”

The small group glanced around before swiftly melting into the shadows, their dark essence silently oozing around the corner into a hidden alleyway. One by one they re-materialized, their razor-sharp teeth on full display as their ever-present malevolent grins further widened, distorting their faces.

“Interesting, very interesting” one finally broke the silence, squinting at the paper.

“If this is one candidate for the exchange programme…”

“...it would be a shame if a human was killed during such a delicate attempt at diplomacy,” another continued, its tongue flickering out briefly.

“If Diavolo finds out about this, he’ll have our tails for sure,” one of them quipped, its tail nervously twitching back and forth.

“Please, there are millions of us. There’s no way they’d be able to pin it on us,” scoffed the Little Devil holding the profile. “Besides, when has anyone really cared about us lesser demons?” 

“Humans are the weakest creatures across the three realms and if this stupid programme works out who knows what will come next? What if they expect us to stop eating them? What if they expect us to start viewing them as… as equals?” it hissed, the distaste in its voice palpable. It looked up, its glowing eyes meeting those of each of its companions’.

“We’re already at the bottom of the food chain here. I’m not about to answer to humans. It’s- it’s just unnatural. Anyway, are you with me or not?”

“We’re with you,” someone piped up. The others nodded in agreement. 

“Good.”

The dark talons scraped across the photograph of the human, leaving three parallel gouge marks. They all leaned in as their ringleader lowered its voice to a harsh whisper.

“Here’s what we’re gonna do…”

                            (づ￣ 3￣)づSTAGE CHANGE(づ￣ 3￣)づ

The human’s picture and summary were pinned to the notice board hours before the occupants of the House of Lamentation stirred. At least those who had bothered to go to bed at all. Lucifer paused briefly on his way out the door. Nothing about the human felt familiar. Pride wasn’t a vice that she struggled with. Based on what he could discern, being self-effacing was second nature to her. A smirk with equal parts contempt and sadism came to his face as he left, as he contemplated how to break her in the face of his sin. I hope your resolve is firm, human. I could do with a challenge.

                                                          (⌐■_■)

“Has Lucifer lost it? She looks like a kid! Did the chihuahua need a playmate or something?”

“I know this might be hard, but don’t be stupid. Her cheeks are just a bit chubby. What kid has acne scars like that? Hasn’t she heard of retinols?”

The taller of the two snorted and snapped a picture of the notice board to send in the group. Intense ultramarine eyes flickered up to the picture for a split second before he walked off, his key-chain swaying with every step. In a fluid motion, he pushed his hair off of his forehead and affixed his trademark sunglasses to his face.

“Do you know her?” his brother called after Mammon’s retreating figure

“Ain’t seen her in my life.”

With that Mammon left, his mind already on the business opportunities he’d laid out for the day.

                                                     (✿◠‿◠)

Asmodeus continued to survey the young woman, absentmindedly tapping a manicured finger to the corner of his mouth. He had met her only for a moment. That was strange considering her age. After a few more seconds of scrutiny, he shrugged and went back to his room to continue his weekly detox. No doubt existed in his mind that she would fail any test he presented her with. Who wouldn’t, especially since it was so much fun? Who wouldn’t want to fall to the world’s most popular sin?

                                                         (ง •_•)ง

Towers and towers of books, all rather precariously stacked, surrounded the Avatar of Wrath as he worked. He tossed his DDD carelessly on his bed about two hours earlier, freeing himself from distractions while he finished his Latin assignment. In all fairness, he finished what the lecturer required him to do but the number of languages from the human realm that originated from the official language of the Devildom. Despite being engrossed in a particularly large tome, he navigated his way around shorter piles without losing his balance. He picked up his phone and checked the notifications.

“Sinai, huh? Interesting name.”

He shut his eyes, pensive. She was familiar, but he didn’t know her personally.

When he opened his eyes he was glaring down at the human, towering over her tiny three-year-old form. She was crying, her large russet eyes pleading along with her choked childish voice that she didn’t want to read. He raised his palm. The crying redoubled and the picture book fell to the floor.

She was older now, maybe about nine or ten, but she was still crying. Black and blue marks were just barely visible against her chestnut-brown skin. He was yelling at her for lying about wearing her retainer.

Satan was then watching a scene unfold before him. Two men were standing in a kitchen yelling at one another. A middle-aged woman was trying to deescalate the situation with little success.

“Hm, a father-son spat? What does that have to do with her?” Satan wondered aloud.

The older man whirled around with a knife in his hand. His wife ordered her son to run. He did. Hours later, at minutes to midnight, the human finally emerged, waking up after falling asleep on her textbooks. She blinked owlishly, disoriented. When the doorknob rattled and her mother walked in. In response to her confusion, her mother hugged her and explained what happened and reassured her that her brother was safe and sound at their grandma’s house. The young woman exhaled, smiled and held her mom and comforted her. For the first time, Satan could hear what she was saying.

“It’s ok Mummy. I’m ok, Mattie is safe. We will be ok,”

Her mother nodded, gave her a watery smile and turned off the kitchen lights. The human watched her mother walk upstairs before crouching down and finally letting her face crumple and hot tears race down her face, her mouth ajar in a silent scream.

Satan shook himself out of his reverie and pondered how he would go about tempting an individual to fall to a sin they feared.

                                                     ( ´･･)ﾉ(._.`)

The sizable shadow stopped moving as he heard the notification chime from his pocket. The duffel bag dangled from his fingertips as he squinted at the screen. His eyes widened slightly as he laid his eyes on the picture.

“Huh”

He tapped the microphone icon and continued on his way as he recorded the voice note. 

“I guess you could say I know her. We were closer, at least until the last year or two. But even with her appetite, she was always sharing. I guess you could say that she was half in, half out.”

That being said, it was all too easy to fall back into old habits. Compared to the rest of his brothers, his role in testing the exchange student’s soul could be easier. The crisp breeze tousled his hair as his thoughts turned to Belphegor, a now-familiar ache constricting his heart. He wondered if his twin knew the human. He missed him.

                                                        ¯\_(ツ)_/¯

The purple-haired demon carefully placed his gaming headset on his desk before he pushed against the ground with the balls of his feet, sending his chair rolling backwards. 

“Jeez, why do these guys always blow up the stupid group chat whenever I have a campaign?” he griped, his fingers scrolling rapidly; orange eyes darting back and forth

“Really? All this over a human?” He rolled his eyes and turned back to his setup, not bothering to read the profile under the picture. Odds were he knew the human. He knew nearly every human, even if it was just in passing. After all, which of them could say that envy hadn’t crept upon them? If they did, they were lying. Testing the human’s soul would just be another game, and Leviathan was pretty damn good at games. 

                          (づ￣ 3￣)づSTAGE CHANGE(づ￣ 3￣)づ

“So the only two who recognized her really were Beelzebub and Leviathan?”

Lucifer nodded as he set his teacup back down. He offered his DDD to Diavolo before absentmindedly picking up a cookie. He looked around his study, somewhat aggravated about the state of his study. Every time he set time aside to get it back in order, something always seemed to come up. The height of the piles of reports and bills was alarming, and the bout of sneezing that resulted from searching the shelves was a glaring reminder that it had been a while since he had last dusted. Lucifer shut his eyes and let himself slump into the armchair. The glow of the fireplace made patterns that danced across his eyelids.

A loud guffaw from his companion caused him to open one eye.

Diavolo’s shoulders were still shaking as he showed Lucifer the screen. The Avatar of Pride stared for a few moments before sitting bolt upright and snatching the phone away, eyes wide and slack-jawed.

Two stickers were trending. One was of Diavolo in his true form, donning a beautiful -if - extravagant red ball gown. The other was of himself astride a pastel pink and purple unicorn with a rainbow horn.

His grip threatened to crack the screen as Diavolo managed to compose himself enough to speak

“That’s the best thing I’ve seen all day,” he gasped as he wiped a tear from his eye. 

“Who is responsible for this?” The words barely made it through Lucifer’s clenched jaw.

“I’m not sure, I think it may have come from the student newspaper. Our students are very creative,”

 The Prince was either oblivious or unphased by Lucifer’s displeasure.

“Is that so? Remind me to have a talk with Mephistopheles.” 

Choosing to overlook this, Diavolo planted his feet on the ground and rested his elbows on his knees.

“She didn’t have any pacts with them either? Just her own sin?” he peered at Lucifer over his steepled fingers.

The dark-haired man nodded, business-like once more. Diavolo sat back, looking quite pleased with himself.

“Well then, Overall I’d certainly say she seems to be... hm,” He crossed his arms and gazed at the rafters before looking back at Lucifer “I don’t think ‘safe’ is the word I’m looking for, necessarily, but she seems like a great candidate and a counterbalance to Solomon.”

Lucifer raised his eyebrows. “A Counterbalance?”

“I mean, Solomon isn’t exactly your typical human,”

“That’s an understatement,” Lucifer muttered. Diavolo snickered, shaking his head. 

“You know what I mean! A monarch, a sorcerer, a scholar and dozens of pacts to boot. He isn’t exactly average, is he?”

Lucifer’s lip curled as he shook his head

“I still don’t see we kept him as a candidate,” he commented. He didn’t expect a meaningful response, especially considering Diavolo was perched at the edge of his seat; his eyes alight the way they always were whenever he latched onto a new brainwave.

“I guess you could consider it an experiment within an experiment; one human with exceptional abilities and one who’s… well, with no offence meant to her… is perfectly average.” 

A thud and muffled yelling somewhere beyond the walls cut off the Devildom Prince. Lucifer groaned and pinched the bridge of his nose.

“What have they done now?” he exhaled, exasperated.

Diavolo patted his shoulder, trying his best not to laugh at his friend’s distress.

“It’s never a dull moment here, is there?”

“Don’t remind me. Go ahead, you were explaining…”

“Oh yes. I figured it would be an excellent case study. How would the average human when compared to an angel or a demon? What help would they need and how much? If change is to happen, then we need to be on an equal footing across the realms.”

A/N Thank you for reading all the way to the end of this! This is the first writing project I have taken on since like 2012, and I’m nervous as all hecc. I would really appreciate any feedback you have to give or any questions and stuff, I won’t bite, and I’m always eager to improve. I hope this was a good read for you and I will try me best to update on a regular basis! - Jisa

Here’s the next entry!

https://tinyurl.com/mitosis-fic1-1 

And If you’d rather read it on Ao3

https://archiveofourown.org/works/26415919/chapters/64353631

#swd obey me #obeyme #obeymefanfic #obey me fandom #obeymeheadcannon #obey me lucifer #obey me mammon #obey me leviathan #obey me satan #obey me asmodeus #obey me beelzebub #obey me belphie #obey me dia #obey me diavolo #obey me beel #obey me lucy #belphie #obey me asmo #obey me levi #obey me original character #obey me oc #otome game #otome game fic #otome fandom #swd diavolo #swd oc #swd lucifer #swd mammon #swd leviathan #swd satan

[chriswhitewolf]

Yet another installment of Dumb Shit my Parents Have Done That Leaves me Questioning if it's Abuse.

This popped into my mind a few days ago and I really just need to vent about it but there is one person outside of my family who consistently and regularly responds to me.

I want to preface this with I don't hate or even dislike this brother of mine. I disagree with his views a lot of the time, but that's just what it is to be human. He was absolutely an antagonist to me for many years and I don't condone what he did, but I don't hate him for it either.

He is much better about his way of treating myself and my other two siblings now.

When I was young, my oldest brother was violent and often threatened us physically. My other two brothers and I were often left in situations where we were legitimately scared he would hurt or seriously injure us.

He owned several non lethal weapons, as he is the oldest of us and would receive such privileges before any of the rest of us kids. He owned a whip, a pellet gun, and would often use household items or his fists to threaten us. He would throw things at us often, or grab his whip and crack it and threaten to hit us, or even threaten to shoot us with the metal pellets in his gun.

I can remember one specific time when I was 10, my younger brother being 6 and this oldest brother being 12, where he got in a physical fight with my other older brother, then 11, because we told him that Mom and Dad had told us all to fold the laundry and he needed to come help. He began screaming at us and making verbal threats, and it escalated to him throwing objects from the room at my other older brother.

We had a very Open-Layout house at the time, and the only actual doors inside were to bathrooms or bedrooms. The kitchen, dining room, living room, and kids living room (play room) were all openly connected through wide archways. As my oldest brother started the throw things, I took hold of my younger brother and pulled him into a corner of the dining room: I was too panicked to think about bringing him to a bedroom or lock us in the bathroom. I pressed his back into the corner and turned my back to where our brother was, fully aware that I was using my body as a shield in the event he tried to harm us.

As a ten year old I was aware that that was what I was doing. I was frightened to tears and sobbing, pressing my small body against my little brothers in an attempt to shield him not only from the threat of injury but from being witness to the fight in the next room. I mumbled aloud, as much to myself as to him, that we were fine and no one would be hurt, though the sobs shaking my shoulders and struggle for breath dampened the effectiveness.

I managed to call my parents on our shared cell phone, which was for use only in contacting them when we were all four home alone, and sobbed out that our oldest brother had become physically violent with the other sibling, and that my younger brother and I were sheltering in a corner to avoid being caught in the altercation.

The response from them was to leave our brother alone and just do the chores we were trying to get him to help with, and they'd talk to him when they came home.

This was the common response. When he threw my only pair of tennis shoes in the trash with all the old food that had been cleaned from the fridge, my mom said it wasn't like I couldn't still wear them and brushed the incident off.

When I broke down and wept, admitting to them how absolutely terrified I was being at home with him when they weren't there, they suggested I stay in my room and avoid him, or find some way to stay somewhere else until they could pick me up on the way home from work.

Those were actually the better of their reactions. If it wasn't brushing the incident off or briefly mentioning to him that he couldn't threaten to hurt us, it was physical between them and him.

I often witnessed my mom or dad tackle him when he started walking away from their lectures or yelling at them with disrespectful words. They would literally tackle and pin him to the floor, and from the position above him start angrily saying how he WILL NOT say such things to them, or show them such disrespect.

They never left physical injury - bruises or scrapes - when this happened, but it was absolutely something that caused enough psychological damage that I spent years of my life with reoccurring nightmares of them becoming violent with myself or my brothers, even killing us. The fact my father had made a verbal threat of murdering all four of us just a year or two prior to the incidents mentioned above was anything but helpful.

And here is where things get a deal more fucked up.

A year or two ago I was having a conversation with my mother, and we somehow ended up bringing up some of these things he would do. My mom, in this conversation, told me that it was us three kids who were in the wrong by wanting him to be punished for his behavior. She said, and I'm paraphrasing because the exact words escape me, that we wanted him to be punished when what he needed was love, and said something about us wanting them to tell him off when he was "banging his head against a wall" needing help and care.

And it didn't really sink in until this last week, but that's absolutely terrible.

She defended her inaction in the face of myself and my younger brother being scared of him and often fearing being harmed, for good reason, by saying us other kids just weren't realizing that he needed to be shown love because it was only because he was on the spectrum.

I fully understand that his actions were a result of the struggles he faced (and faces) and the emotions he struggles to deal with.

But to claim that it is any excuse for him brandishing a weapon and threatening us on the regular and them not giving any real punishment for any of it is horrendous.

I deal with a great number of mental health issues and illnesses. But my depressed, anxious exhaustion and adhd caused inability to focus and stay awake long enough to complete homework for a class I despised never stopped her from grounding me, taking my phone, saying I wasn't allowed to read for enjoyment, and purposely humiliating me in front of the family for "choosing not to do [my] homework."

My being mentally ill never once gave you pause when you punished me or outright humiliated me for the outcomes of my struggle (which outcomes, by the way, never involved threatening to physically injure another person), but my oldest brother being on the spectrum is your excuse for not having actually done anything about his threats to us and the terror it instilled in us from such a young age.

If you have no qualms about humiliating me and making me feel worthless and useless and terrible because of my mental illness, and giving punishments for it, you should have had no qualms using punishment to correct my brothers constant and consistent violent behavior during our childhood.

But you brushed the rest of us off and ignored actually dealing with the violent behavior in his situation, and then strictly enforced punishment for me when my mental health had me struggling to complete schoolwork and maintain A and B grades for all my classes. C's were not allowed for me.