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chaoticpuff17 · 3 years

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When the Chips Are Down

part 1

masterlist

Hello, my darlings. I feel so bad. I haven’t been updating, so I decided to do something that will likely make you all come for my head since this really won’t be updated for a good while. But for now, it’s all I’ve got for ya, but I do have a chapter of SW over half way done, but for now enjoy the first chapter of ADG’s sequel even if the rest won’t be coming for a while.--- chaotic puff

The ride to the airfield was nothing if not awkward. Namjoon sat on his side of the car and Y/N on the other. Namjoon was trying to reign in his temper, and Y/N simply didn’t want to talk. There were so many thoughts bouncing around her head, so many things they needed to talk about. She didn’t want to though. She wanted to pretend that he’d never come at all. She wanted to go back to her little cottage with Mark. She wanted him to hold her and talk to the baby like he always did, but that wasn’t an option anymore, not with Namjoon back in the picture.

“Where are we going?” She asked after a while. The tense silence was killing her.

“The airport at Pisa. I have a private jet waiting there to take us back to Seoul.”

“I can’t fly. I’m in my third trimester.” She murmured wincing as the baby sent a particularly hard kick to her stomach immediately catching Namjoon’s notice.

“Are you alright, jagi?” He asked moving to her side in a flash, hovering over her eyes darting over her worriedly looking for signs of distress.

“I’m fine.” She groaned pressing a hand to her belly. “The baby’s kicking.”

His face immediately lit up with a smile as he pressed his hand to her belly waiting intently for another kick. None came though. He looked back up at her disappointed, and she sighed moving his hand to press against different spot on her belly one where he was more likely to feel something.

“Give him a second. Little pest loves pummeling my insides.” She grumbled sinking back into the seat.

Just then the baby sent another kick landing it just under where Namjoon’s hand was pressed. He jumped at the odd sensation turning his awed gaze on her before looking back down at her belly in wonder. “Does it hurt?” He asked voice barely above a whisper.

“When he kicks like that? Yes.”

“It’s a boy?” He asked excitedly already imagining a little boy with her eyes and his dimples, a little heir for his empire.

“I don’t know actually.” She mused looking down at her bump fondly. “I never found out.”

“Jin can tell us later.” He grinned turning his attention back to her belly rubbing soft circles across its surface. “All that matters is that you and the baby are healthy.”

“I still can’t fly.” She reminded him. “It’s not good for the baby.” There was a hope, however small, that if she could stall him, then she could slip away.

He smiled at her fondly. “I have Jin waiting at the jet. He’ll monitor you throughout the flight.”

“Oh,” She breathed disappointed by the development, but of course he had thought of everything. He was always a step ahead no matter how hard she tried.

The ride was not long. It less than a two hour drive to Pisa, and as promised Jin was waiting on the plane for them. He smiled at her and settled her into one of the cushy seats.

“Can you lift up your dress for me, sweet girl? I can pull out the pajamas too if you’d prefer. They may be more comfortable for the long flight.” He asked.

“The pajamas please.” She nodded tiredly, and Jin happily went to fetch them for her, ushering her up and into a small bedroom at the back of the plane where she was able to change in peace.

Jin helped her back to her seat when she emerged in a pair of silky pajamas and slippers. He had been right. It was going to be much more comfortable for the flight, and if she could avoid Namjoon by sleeping for most of the flight, she would.

“I’m going to attach a fetal monitor to your belly so we can keep an eye on the belly. I have a labor and delivery nurse on the flight as well to help keep an eye on mom and baby.” He grinned gently pressing the little stickers onto her belly as he addressed both her and Namjoon who was hovering nearby. “It’s good to see you, Y/N. How far along are you now?”

“Thirty-four weeks.”

“Not long till the little one arrives then.” He nodded giving her one last smile and moving away to sit elsewhere as Namjoon settled in next to her for the long flight, taking one of her hands in his frowning at the simple gold wedding band that rested there.

Namjoon slipped it off with a frown pocketing the ring before bringing out the one she had left behind all those months ago with all its glitz and glory.

“I’d prefer if you wore your ring, jagi, and not some trinket from that pest.” He sighed slipping it on her finger. “You’ve cut your hair.” He noted equally displeased by the drastic change in length as he was with the ring he had just confiscated.

“It’s easier to hide when you don’t look the same as when you ran.” She huffed brushing a stray lock behind her ear, though it slipped out again shortly after. It was a major disadvantage to the shaggy pixie cut she now sported. She couldn’t tie her hair up, and she couldn’t get it to stay behind her ear either. She didn’t have any headbands on the flight to keep it out of her face either. Those were all back at the cottage.

“I don’t like it.” He grumbled. “I liked your hair before. Oh well. It’ll grow.”

“You have no say over how I wear my hair.” She snapped snatching her hand back.

His grin was sharp and wolf like as he stared her down. “I think you’ll find I have a say over a great many things, jagi. You’ve caused so much trouble. I can’t have you putting yourself or the baby in danger any longer. You’ll behave or you’ll find yourself in much more trouble than you’re already in.” He warned before turning his attention back towards her belly. “Is the baby still kicking?”

“He’s always kicking.”

She flinched as Namjoon laid a hand back over her belly again leaning down to whisper to her bump. “You have to be nice to your eomma. She needs her strength to make sure you’re healthy.”

Namjoon had missed her more than he liked to admit, but seeing her heavy with his child filled him with pride. He only wished that he could have been there for the entirety of the pregnancy. He wanted to be there for it all, the morning sickness, the cravings, the doctor’s appointments. He wanted to be there to watch her belly grow, but that had all been taken away from him. He would be there for the next one though. He was going to fill their home with children.

Yoongi already had a son. Jin was working on getting Hayan healthy enough to support a pregnancy. The younger boys were also beginning to express interest in starting families of their own. Taehyung was even beginning to talk about ending his seemingly never ending game of cat and mouse with his ‘little bird’, and he wouldn’t be surprised if Hoseok was already planning a family with Iyla.

Iyla. That was another variable he would have to deal with. Y/N didn’t yet know that her dear younger sister was in his hands, or more accurately, Hoseok’s hands. That was a surprise he was going to leave for when they arrived home, and Y/N was well rested from the journey. She had been right when she’d warned him that flying was dangerous for her at this point in the pregnancy. It was why he had Jin and two labor and delivery nurses on the flight. He was taking every precaution to make sure that both she and the baby would be safe. He’d never forgive himself if something happened to either of them.

Y/N was extremely uncomfortable with Namjoon’s show of affection and his interest in her belly, but she allowed it, too tired to really fight back for the moment as well as knowing better than to push him too far at the moment.

“He or she will be out soon enough.” She sighed moving his hand off her belly and curling up in her seat. “I can deal with a few kicks to the kidneys until then.”

Namjoon sighed before moving up the seat divider and pulling her into his arms resting both of his hands on top of her belly. “Don’t push me away. I’ve missed so much of our child’s life. Let me have this.”

“We can’t sit like this for takeoff.” She reminded him beginning to pry his arms away again.

“Just let me hold you till then.” He pouted placing a soft kiss on the juncture between her neck and shoulder. “I’ve missed you, jagi.” He murmured placing another kiss further up her neck.

“Please don’t.” She sighed squirming in his arms.

“I haven’t held you in months, jagi.” He released a sigh of his own letting her go so she could settle back in her own seat as the flight attendants readied them for takeoff.

As the plane took off climbing higher into the sky, her heart sunk further and further. She didn’t want to leave Italy behind. She didn’t want to leave Mark behind, but she didn’t have a choice. Even if it wasn’t for the baby, she wouldn’t have had much of a choice. Namjoon was a sneaky bastard, and he always seemed to be a ten steps ahead of her. She had been lucky to have so much time away from him, but all good things come to an end eventually.

She knew there wasn’t much hope for her, not anymore, but maybe there was a chance for Mark. Namjoon was a sadistic bastard, and Mark had had the audacity to take her away from him. It wasn’t something that Namjoon was going to treat lightly. Death would not come swiftly for Mark, but perhaps that would be his saving grace. The longer Namjoon waited to get rid of Mark, the better chance there was of Mark finding a way to escape. The man was a veritable magician. She was constantly amazed at his ability to get in and out of sticky situations. If there was anyone that could slip away from Namjoon, it was Mark.

“What’s going to happen?” She asked softly once the seat belt warning had been lifted and Namjoon had reverted to holding her in his arms absent mindedly rubbing senseless patterns into her belly.

“What do you mean, jagi?” He hummed smiling as he felt the baby kick lightly against one of his hands.

“What’s going to happen when we get back to Korea?”

His arms tightened around her slightly. “We’re going to go home, jagi. You’re going to need lots of rest with your due date so soon.”

“You know that’s not what I meant.” She grumbled pushing back slightly as she struggled to get comfortable. She was finding it harder and harder to be comfortable as her due date approached, and Namjoon’s proximity wasn’t helping.

Her discomfort was clear, and it wasn’t something Namjoon could allow. He needed her calm and rested for the flight, for the next few weeks really. “Jin!” He called bringing the doctor running. “Can we move Y/N to the bedroom? I think she’d be more comfortable lying down.”

Jin nodded with a smile helping Namjoon to move the heavily pregnant woman and the monitors to the back of the plane, getting them all settled before leaving the couple to their privacy.

Namjoon was careful to get her settled with pillows piled up at the headboard for them to lie against. He had her nestled against him despite her grumbling, but he knew despite her grumpy attitude, the new position was far more comfortable for her, and it gave her more room to adjust herself than the chairs in the front did.

“You never answered my question.” She reminded him with a sigh.

“You mean your punishment for leaving me? For taking our child and running off with that pest?” She nodded stiffly, waiting for his answer. “For the sake of the baby, I’m willing to overlook your little moment of insanity, but it all depends on how well you, jagi. I can be very forgiving, or I can make life very hard. I’d prefer to be forgiving though. We should be focusing on our baby after all.”

“What do you want from me?”

“I want you to keep your promise.” He chuckled. “I want you to be a good wife and mother. No more running. No more hiding.”

“And all is forgiven? Just like that?”

She couldn’t believe that. Namjoon was not a forgiving man. He was a shark. He would never forget, and he’d take into account every variable to keep her firmly in her grasp this time. She had one shot, one real shot, and she had used it already. Namjoon wasn’t likely to let her slip away again, especially not with a child in the mix.

“Not just like that, but it’s a start.” He leaned in nudging his nose against the spot just below her ear. “And after all, doesn’t our baby deserve the best start we can give them?”

“And you’re the best thing for this child?” She scoffed squirming in his arms again.

“I know I am. And what other choice do you have?” He chuckled nipping lightly at her ear. “You’re never leaving me again.”

part 2

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blossom-hwa · 3 years

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inspired by 'rush hour’ (gaho).

wc: 2.6k ~ changmin x gender neutral!reader ~ slice of life!au ~ triggers: none ~ the boyz masterlist ~ 4 year anniversary drabble game (requests closed!)

for chair anon :)

[ 6:00 pm : rush hour ] I try going forward to you But I lose you at this dead end

The traffic light is still green. Changmin sighs, tapping the board flipped up by his side. It’s been green for what feels like forever - is it ever going to turn red so that he and the growing group of pedestrians around him can move across this short stretch of the street?

If he wasn’t going to meet someone, he might just take a chance in the lulls of traffic and race the cars, letting them honk angrily as he jaywalks - jay-skates? jay-boards? There probably isn’t proper terminology for that, but jay-boards sounds okay - past, flashing them a quick smile to infuriate them a little more. It’s okay. This street isn’t too crowded. The only cars that pass through are usually old businessmen making their way back home to penthouse apartments, so Changmin feels less than guilty for screwing around with their evening.

But he is meeting someone. A very special someone, in fact. Someone who told him on no account was he going to jaywalk or jay-board (he’ll have to tell you about the new word he invented when he gets to you) if it meant risking his safety. So Changmin sighs, taps his board some more, and waits at this seeming dead end of a street corner where the green light never turns red.

It’s alright alright alright It’s alright alright alright

It’s alright. Changmin smiles as the flow of traffic begins to cease, lights on the streets ahead turning red. He can wait a little longer to cross the street legally.

Anything for you, after all.

I’m talking in circles around you But you always pass right by

Changmin still can’t quite believe his luck, even months later. He doesn’t know how he managed to catch your attention, the small skater he was who stayed quiet around others, really only raising his voice in the presence of his friends.

You were the noticeable one. You were the one with the guitar slung on your back and a friendly smile always on your face. You were the one everyone had a crush on, platonic or romantic. You were the one everyone flocked around at the park on weekends, sitting on a bench, strumming the strings of your instrument with the softest grin on your lips. If it wasn’t for Younghoon accidentally tripping over your guitar and subsequently you, sending you flying into Changmin as he rolled past trying to escape the monitor chasing after him, it might never have happened. Changmin might never have had the chance to do anything more than admire you from afar.

And what would’ve happened then?

It’s alright alright alright Who cares? I’m alright

But who cares? Changmin grins. It’s alright, yeah? Because you noticed him anyway, and even if he got a detention for skating indoors, it was worth it when you offered to buy him a coffee in apology for inadvertently getting him caught by the hall monitor.

It was the coffee that turned him into even more of a stuttering mess than he would’ve been. It was also the coffee that gave him the bit of energy and courage he needed to keep talking anyway.

It was the coffee, ultimately, that got that blinding smile turned in his direction. And it was the coffee that got him your number for future conversations, future meetups at the park, and eventually, a date.

The light turns green. Changmin nimbly leaps on his skateboard and rolls across the street, grinning.

Who cares about how it happened, in the end? As long as it did.

Everyone tries to get your attention One by one, honking at you

Honking sounds follow Changmin down the sidewalk as he weaves around office workers rushing home, people ducking in and out of small restaurants and cafes, either alone or holding someone else’s hand. His grin widens at the sight of a laughing couple that just manages to dodge around his board, giggles undeterred by the sudden interruption.

What will it be like when he gets to you? Will the crowds at the park be as large as the ones cluttering the streets? Will he even be able to see you on your bench, surrounded as you might be with children and parents and teenagers trying to get a peek at your guitar?

But I hope my voice can reach you Turn that music on

Does it matter, though? Changmin pauses at another intersection, watching the cars go honking past. Just the same way he can pick out your voice singing above the sound of the guitar, you can pick out his eyes, smiling at you from within the crowd.

You’ve always noticed him. He’s always noticed you.

There’s no reason that should stop now.

I got stuck on you My heart is in chaos right now

God, it feels like nothing’s changed since the day he realized he had a crush on you. His heart still flutters at the sound of your voice, his lips widening in a smile at the thought of your eyes.

I got stuck on you As if I’m stuck in traffic

The traffic light turns red again. Changmin skates across the street, ignoring the impatient honking of cars that follows him down the sidewalk. It’s kind of like the traffic clogging the streets, his adoration for you - stuck in one place, going with the flow but never really seeming to move.

Though if traffic meant he could stay with you forever, he wouldn’t mind it so much, really.

I want drama between you and me Trying to escape this trauma

It’s kind of like a drama, isn’t it? Unnoticeable boy, very noticeable love interest. Though maybe the roles are flipped - very noticeable main character, unnoticeable boy - because it doesn’t feel like Changmin has ever been the protagonist of this story. You’re the main character, and he’s the love interest who will support you in everything that you do.

Drama with you Feeling like it’s rush hour

Changmin grins, feeling wind rush past his face as a car speeds past.

If this is his part in the drama, it isn’t such a bad role to play.

I try to jump right into you But the conversation keeps cutting off

His phone buzzes. Not bothering to stop - you’d yell at him for that, but it isn’t as life-threatening as jay-boarding across the street and you’re not here to scold him for it - Changmin pulls it out, deftly navigating his way around a group of office workers as he accepts the call. “Y/N?”

“Hey, Changmin.” He can hear your smile through the phone. “You on your way?”

“Of course,” he replies, almost affronted. You agreed to meet at six - why would he be late? “Why aren't you playing? Is your little concert over?” You don’t usually end early.

“No, just a lull in traffic.” Your laugh sounds like music. “I’m taking a pause and thought I’d call. Almost here?”

“Almost,” he promises, rolling to a stop at the next intersection with a sigh. “The actual traffic here is murder.”

“Okay, sounds good.” When you pause, Changmin can hear the babbling of a little kid faintly over the phone - something about guitar and please? “I’ve got to go back in a minute. See you soon?”

“Go please your audience,” he replies, smiling. “I’ll see you soon.”

“Get here safe.” You pause again. “You weren’t talking to me while on your board, right?”

Changmin stays silent. His silence is much more telling than anything he’d say, anyway.

“Changmin.”

“Y/N,” he mimics in your tone of voice. Serotonin floods his brain when you snort a laugh into the phone. “I’ll be safe, I promise.”

“You better be,” you warn. “Bye, Changmin.”

It’s alright alright alright Turn that music on

He grins, already looking forward to hearing the strumming of your guitar in person, not over the phone. “Bye, Y/N.”

Everyone tries to get your attention One by one, honking at you

Two intersections later, Changmin finally finds himself at the entrance of the park. Children and their parents still abound despite evening quickly approaching, so he keeps to the sidewalk, carefully avoiding any paths full of shouting kids. It’s okay. Changmin knows the ways to your bench better than the back of his hand. A few honking cars and yelling toddlers can’t keep him from you.

All roads lead to you in Changmin’s world, after all.

I got stuck on you My heart is in chaos right now

The expected crowd surrounds your bench when Changmin finally steps off of his board. Fridays are always the busiest days, after all - people celebrating the end of the work week with a walk in the park and, by chance, some music as well.

He hears you before he sees you, crowds obscuring your face but not your voice that carries sweetly through the air, accompanied by the strumming of your guitar. Changmin didn’t think the smile on his face could get any wider, but when the first chords reach his ears, it somehow does.

Your voice is music, even more so than the instrument in your hands.

I got stuck on you As if I’m stuck in traffic

Then your face appears in a crack between the crowd as Changmin edges his way through, eyes closed in peace as your fingers pluck easily at the guitar strings. And nothing really has changed, nothing at all, just like the traffic stuck in rush hour -

Because as he watches you sing, Changmin feels himself falling in love with you all over again.

I don’t wanna lose you, never I just wanna hold you all day

Sometimes, when Changmin sees you like this, body framed in the pink and gold and orange of the descending sun, he panics. A part of him seems to think that when the sun finally dips below the horizon to be replaced by the moon overhead, it’ll take you with it, sparkling eyes and musical voice and all. Even your guitar. Because in moments like these, it feels a little like you’re an illusion, something too perfect to be true.

But then -

Your eyes open. They search the crowd like they’ve done it a million times (perhaps they have). They meet his, and immediately the sparkle brightens until it’s even brighter than the sun overhead, and it’s then that the panic fades because Changmin knows you’re real. Knows you’re not an illusion.

What illusion would become even more beautiful, after all, just because he happened to be there?

Even if the numbers on the calendar switch up I’m only thinking about you

Day by day, week by week. The routine is the same - you two get home from school, Changmin goes to work while you go home, and if it’s a Friday or a surprisingly free weekday, he’ll meet you at the park at six, like clockwork. You’ve been doing this for months now, almost a year - if it were anything else, Changmin is sure he would’ve gotten bored at this point.

But when you smile at him again before turning to the crowd and announcing your last song, Changmin knows he could never find it in himself to be bored with this. It’s you, after all, always you.

Day by day, week by week, it’s always been you.

You’re swimming in my ocean The waves keep growing larger

You sing a last song with a lilting voice, something about oceans and sunlight and waves whirling around you like the warmest hug. Changmin’s smile softens as you sing, fingers tapping his board not out of ennui this time, but to keep the beat of the music flowing from your guitar and from your lips. The waves of your voice wrap their arms around him, growing, growing, settling soft on his skin.

You’re swimming in my ocean You’re on my mind

Waves, crashing waves that mix with laughter and warm sunlight beaming down on the water. The beach is a couple of hours away - Changmin wonders if you might like to go when summer comes and you have a little more time to spare - but it doesn’t matter, not when he’s already swimming, laughing in the ocean of your voice.

I got stuck on you My heart is in chaos right now

You finish the song with a last chord and a smile, bowing in reply to the childish shouts and claps from the audience. Changmin lifts up his board to join the applause, eyes fixed on you and you only as you turn around to finally meet his eyes.

“Hey,” he says, and he knows you hear his voice even over the applause still carrying all around you.

Your smile widens as you step forward to give him a kiss. “Hey, yourself.”

I got stuck on you As if I’m stuck in traffic

Changmin helps you pack up your guitar, helps you organize the loose change and bills that some kind people left in the case. You get excited when you realize it’s enough to treat him to a meal that you make him swear not to pay for - he’ll try to, you both know, it’s just a matter of being faster than the other - and then Changmin lifts up his board with one hand and takes yours in the other. His fingers tangle with yours automatically, a promise to never let go. “Should we go?”

You nod, smiling. “Come on.”

I want drama between you and me Trying to escape this trauma Drama with you

It really is like a drama, Changmin thinks as you two walk out of the park, hands still locked together as you enter the busy streets once more. It’s cheesy, definitely, but does it matter? It’s the only way he can describe this perfection of the moment, holding hands with you as you argue over where to eat for dinner.

Changmin leans down to kiss your nose. You laugh at the touch of his lips to your skin, fingers involuntarily squeezing his.

He swears he hears music in his ears.

I want drama between you and me Trying to escape this trauma

Definitely cheesy. Definitely a drama.

You smile at him, and his heart flutters.

But when you make him feel this way, does it really matter?

Drama with you feeling like it’s rush hour

Another light turns green before you can make it across the intersection, so Changmin pulls you to a stop before you can accidentally take the next step into the street. “Now do you know why I’m always so impatient?” he asks, casting a pointed glance at the board under his arm.

“Yeah, kind of.” You roll your eyes. “Maybe we should stop agreeing to meet at rush hour.”

Six o’clock. Peak traffic. Rush hour. Just like Changmin’s mind, forever stuck on you, waiting at a traffic light that never seems to change.

But when he’s stuck on you, it really isn’t so bad.

“I don’t know.” He shrugs. “I like it.”

Your eyes sparkle into his. Changmin squeezes your hand and smiles.

“I think we can keep it as is.”

If you enjoyed, please don’t forget to reblog and leave a comment to tell me what you thought! Thank you for reading and have a lovely day <3

(1 reblog = 1 heart for the couple, they were so wonderful to write :D)

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softcallofdutyimagines · 3 years

Text

More Then a Woman | Frank Woods x Fem!Reader | Chapter 7 - Finale

Summary:

It all comes down to this. Will Frank be able to make things right?

Tags: Slow burn, fluff, age difference, angst

Tag requests: @direwolfspostsrandomshit

Another hour passes. Another beer down.

The television drones on in the background while he stares right through it. Why is he even watching this? He hates TV.

He should be training today, maybe the gym or the firing range, but… He just doesn’t feel like it.

His stomach growls. He looks at the clock. He should get something to eat, but… He doesn’t feel like that either.

At last the cramping moves him to action, and sluggishly he gets up and wanders to the kitchen. He grabs his go-to as of late, a bag of chocolate chips for baking. His diet’s been such shit lately, and he knows it’s not helping. He hates that. And he loves it. Because right now he’ll do anything just to get even a flicker of feeling.

Good. Bad. He doesn’t care.

He just wants to feel.

It’s been a couple weeks since he last saw you, out back behind the CIA gym, and he’s been numb ever since. Mason’s been trying to bring him out of it all this time.

‘You did the right thing’, he says. ‘She’s just a kid, she doesn’t know what she’s doing’, and then, ‘If anything, you did her a favor. She doesn’t really want to get caught up like that with an old guy, right?’, he laughs.

He eats another handful of chocolate and looks down at himself. ‘She doesn’t want to...’ Is he really that repulsive? He runs a hand over his belly. It’s been feeling more rounded than usual.

Fuck.

For a moment, that same old burning, consuming flare of fury he’s so used to getting rises up. He grips the plastic bag so tightly, his knuckles turn white.

His discipline has been getting looser and his belt has been getting tighter, the polar fucking opposite of how things should be. His nostrils flare and lips draw back to reveal tightly clenched teeth, like a dog readying for an attack. Every muscle in his body tenses as he bores holes into nothing in particular. He starts to cock his arm back.

Throwing something will help him feel better.

Right?

He aims for the wall and winds up for an all star pitch, and then…

and then…

He can’t even muster the motivation for that.

As quickly as it came, the anger leaves, and as he lets out the breath he hadn’t realized he’d been holding, his entire body relaxes once more. What the fuck is wrong with him anyway?

What, mommy and daddy didn’t love him enough, so now he throws little tantrums whenever the fuck he feels like it? He mocks himself, feeling almost ashamed suddenly of all his outbursts, but when he thinks about it…

Yeah.

Maybe that...

He sighs, suddenly feeling extremely defeated and very alone. Maybe he shouldn't be surprised you left him. Everyone else who ever loved him did.

Woods drops the bag of chocolate from his limply hanging arm and watches the pieces scatter and roll all over the floor.

Whatever. He’ll eat something else.

This is how it’s been for weeks and this how it’ll be for the foreseeable future. He lazes around, completely numb to the outside world, grazing his pantry and doing anything to distract himself from his thoughts. If only any of it worked. Then at night he’ll lay awake well past midnight, until either regular exhaustion or exertion from shedding tears sends him to sleep.

But it wasn’t always like this.

After the first few days since he chased you off, he tried to make up for it.

He called.

He tried to see you at work.

He even sent you some fucking flowers and a letter.

Not a word back.

Well, aside from the ‘Get the fuck out of here, and don’t you fucking dare come back’ he got when he came to your office. After that one…

He hasn’t cried that hard over a woman in… Well… Ever.

And that’s what really gets to him, isn’t it? Just a woman. You’re just a fucking woman. There’s billions of others out there… And yet, he can’t manage to land even one, can he?

This message plays back in his mind over, and over, and over again.

Even now, as a slow stream of tears leak from his eyes to his pillowcase. He looks over just a few inches away to the empty half of his bed. Frank sniffs and swipes at his nose before gently plopping his hand on the pillow beside his. The fabric is icy cold against his skin.

You know, Alex told him once that he’ll lay in his wife's spot on the bed to warm up the sheets for her at night.

She hates the cold, and Alaskan nights are no joke. Would you like that? He wonders. He heard once that women are always fucking cold. He’d warm up your sheets for you, you know. Or maybe, you’d like a blanket? He’d get you one. A nice one! Fresh and new, not any of the tattered shit he keeps in his linen closet.

Or, maybe, you’d like it more if he just… Held you? He could keep you warm all by himself if you wanted him to. Would you even like him to?

Would that make you happy?

Would he make you happy?

A fresh round of tears breaks over him.

He closes his eyes and curls in on himself as he lets the sobs take over him. Damn it, he promised himself he wouldn’t do this again… He thinks about you far too much. All the time, really. And where does it get him? Somewhere about like he is now, he supposes.

He stews in his own wretchedness like this for quite some time, and it’s not until a few days later that anything changes.

Mason pounds on the door of the dingy little house, “Frank?”, he calls, “Frank, open up you bastard, I know you’re in there!”

Truthfully, he’s only in town on some work related business, but… He can’t just stand by and let his friend suffer like this.

So, he waits and waits, and pounds and pounds until he's sure the door is about to come off the hinges. Mason cups his hands to the crack of the door, shouting into it as loud as he dare, “I’m not leaving until you come out here asshole!”

At last, a quiet voice comes from the other side, “What do you want?”

For a moment, Mason is rather dumbfounded. Never before has he ever heard his friend sound so soulless. So… broken. He shakes his head, and pulls himself out of it, “Frank will you open up? I’m here to check on you man!”

Woods sighs, “Don’t waste your time”, the voice trails off as though he’s walking away.

“Hey!”, Mason pounds on the door again, “Son of a bitch, get back here!”

The door swings open abruptly, and Mason nearly falls over as the door’s taken out from him. He stumbles a moment, then catches himself as he stands up straight.

Mason locks eyes with his old friend, and Woods says nothing. Alex takes in the sight of him. His stubble is out of control, the bags under his eyes are dark and purple, and the undershirt he’s wearing could’ve used a wash about a week ago.

“Jesus…You look like shit”

“Thanks”, Woods replies flatly, “Now go away”

He makes to close the door, but Mason stops him, “Wait wait wait… Ok, I’m sorry, I just… Wow, um… Can I come in at least? Let’s talk about this”, Alex motions to Woods in his entirety.

“Do I have a choice?”

Mason pushes the door all the way open, letting himself in and taking his friend by the shoulders as he leads him further into the house, “No, we’re having a fucking intervention”

He leads him to the living room and clears a pile of clothes and trash off the cushions so they can sit down. Alex commands his friend to take a seat, then follows suit. Once they’re both settled, Mason grows serious but maintains a cautious, sympathetic veneer.

Mason rubs his hands together and gives it to him straight, “Look, I know you feel like you fucked up. I know you’re feeling lonely and it’s got you in the dumps. But… Come on man, look what’s been going on with you!”, He gestures to the living space around them.

Dirty laundry and neglected trash sit in little piles all around in a room that smells of old must with a faint, queasy scent of booze. “This is no way to live, buddy!”

Frank says nothing. Instead, he sits and listens without even attempting to make eye contact, like a child receiving a tiresome lecture.

Alex grits his teeth and tries to keep his temper in check. “So… What I’m trying to say is…. Maybe you need to get out of here, you know? Go to a game, take a vacation, something!”, he scoots a bit closer, taking on a more personal tone with his old friend, “I don’t want to see you destroy yourself like this Frank…”

Woods recoils at that, snapping to life as though he’d just now entered the conversation, “I’m not! I just… I need some time to get over this, alright!”

Mason casts an exaggeratedly doubtful look at the other man. Frank jumps to defend himself once more, but Alex cuts him off, “Ok ok! How about this, let’s you and me go out for a little bit huh? Have some beers, some guy time! I just want you to get out of this place for a little while, is that so bad?”

Frank grumbles a bit, but somewhere in there is an agreement. Mason cheers, "That's the spirit!", and drags his friend upstairs to clean up. He pushes him off to shave and shower before going downstairs to help himself to the kitchen.

It takes far longer than he anticipated, but Alex doesn’t go up to pressure the old Sargent even once. At last, the staircase creaks softly as Woods descends. He looks like a new man. Clean clothes, shaped up beard, and a gentle wafting of clean, musky shampoo emanating from him.

Woods walks up without much fanfare for himself, but Alex offers him a smile and a firm pat on the back, “There, now isn’t that better? You look great!”

Frank grunts and perhaps even mutters a thank you, but Mason is too busy trying to keep the momentum up. Once more, he drags his friend along and out to the car. The sun is starting to set and options for places to go are beginning to dwindle. Woods wonders where they’re going, and yet as the streets race by, he finds himself caring less and less.

By the time the car comes to a stop, he’s nearly fallen asleep.

Mason turns off the engine and shakes him awake, “Hey don’t fall asleep on me now, we’re just getting started!”

Woods snaps awake, but has to shield his eyes immediately. It seems impossibly bright out considering how late it is. He blinks a few times and rubs his eyes. Once they're fully adjusted, he finds that what he sees does nearly nothing to alleviate his confusion.

Before him stands the front of a pulsating night club. Blue and purple neon blaze in the dusky twilight. He can only imagine how they must look in the dead of night. A pounding beat comes from somewhere within, no doubt the drum track to some popular, modern song. Small clusters of younger people and a handful of adults hang around the doors pregaming for what they must be anticipating to be a long, wild night.

The pair get out of the car, but Woods is bewildered all the while. When Alex finally comes around to him, he can’t keep silent any longer, “What the fuck did you bring me here for?”

Mason seems almost taken aback, “For some fun? Come on, I know this isn’t really your scene but maybe that’s exactly what you need! Something new and fun, right?”, he doesn’t wait for a response, instead he pushes his friend along as they head towards the entrance.

The air seems thick and hazy around him, a fact only highlighted by the glowing miasma created by the neon interior. If Alex wasn’t pulling him along, he’s sure he’d get lost.

Alex takes him over to a table buried back in the corner. They take a seat and despite being right across from each other, Mason nearly has to shout to be heard over all the noise, “Want a drink?”

Woods thinks about it for a moment, still taking in the environment as he does so. He’s trying to find the bar, and when he does he figures it’s impossible to miss. A huge back wall of glass bottles, all lit up by a halo of purple neon and cool fluorescent lights stands bright as a beacon behind a solid bar top and array of stools and customers.

“Sure, I can get my own”

“Great! Hey, grab my usual would ya? I’m gonna take a leak real quick”, he points over his shoulder and excuses himself as he makes for the restrooms.

This… is not at all what he wanted.

Suddenly, Woods feels trapped and alone again, no better than he was back in his own home. Except now he’s surrounded by the heat, noise, and stench of over a hundred other people.

The lights feel heavy and blinding, the pulsating pop music, deafening. He trudges up to the bar slowly yet surely, but with every step he comes closer to committing to his plan of escaping back to Alex’s car.

He never should’ve went along with this… he was just fine at home, damn it.

Lost in his thoughts and half blinded by the smoke and lights, he runs smack into another person. With a dampened thud, they hit the ground hard. Wood swears under his breath and figures he can at least offer a hand. He bends down to help up the fallen individual, only to see…

You.

Suddenly, it’s as if all the haze and fog has cleared from his eyes. He can see you clear as day down here, and the noise and smells of the crowd all fade away. A soft blue glow highlights your features, and an electric magenta bounces off your hair. The sparkling, sequined little dress you wear glitters in the halo of light descending around you, and a thousand flecks of light reflect back onto his worn, tired face.

Woods' hand hangs in mid air, half way through it’s journey to assist you. He whispers your name, quietly and fondly, as though he never thought he’d see you again.

For the first time in what must have been days, a smile breaks free from his stern glower.

But all you see is the asshole who teased you along for weeks, only to give you the highest embarrassment by sending you off like a misbehaving child after you were at your most vulnerable with him.

You were ready to give him your very body, and he only felt up what he wanted and sent you off.

With a sneer, you slap his hand away and hop up on your own. You don’t even bother to spare him a word. Instead, you stare daggers into him and walk off.

For a moment. For a second time… He watches you go.

He should let you walk away.

After what he did, you deserve at least the privacy. And that’s aside from the fact that you’re clearly pissed.

But he can’t. Not again.

“Hey, wait!”, he dashes after you, shoving his way through the crowd. A little too roughly, he grabs your upper arm and spins you around. You yank yourself free from his grip and glare right through him. Even through all the rage…

You look so beautiful in this light.

“I… I- uh. Hey”

“Hey?”, your blood is boiling. Is that all he has to say for himself?

The venom in your voice makes him recoil, shrinking back into himself. But still… “I uh, I just… H-how are you… I didn’t think you’d be in a place like this, heh…”

Out of pure manners, you respond, “Fine. What are you doing here?”, you cross your arms, defensive, but genuinely curious.

Woods looks over his shoulder then all round, searching for any sign of Mason. Nothing. He snaps his attention back to you, trying to come up with any reason at all to explain himself. Frank stutters for an answer, but you end your indulgent lapse before he can say anything coherent and turn to walk away.

“Wait! I… I-I miss you...”

You whip around, seething with anger. Then, very seriously, you ask, “Are you following me?”

“What? No! Fuck no! I just… I miss you, that’s all!”

You scoff, “Well maybe you should’ve fucking thought of that first”

“...You’re right”

That stops you dead. This is nothing like the Woods you know… You can’t recall a single time he’s had the humility, let alone the balls, to admit that he’s wrong.

“Oh, yeah?”

“Yeah…”, he sighs, and even in the darkness of the club you can see a glimpse of just how much pain he’s in, “Look… I shouldn’t have done that, back there behind the gym. You trusted me and I fucked it up. I know. It’s just… I was scared”

A biting edge creeps back into your voice. You don’t buy that. “Scared? Of what, getting caught?”

“What? No! I was scared… that I was taking advantage of you, alright?”

You blink, and suddenly all the rage leaves you, as though the hot air was deflated right out of you. “Wh-what do you mean?”

“Well I mean… You know… Y-you’re just a kid, and I’m… not. I just- It didn’t feel right. Hell, I didn’t even get a chance to ask if you really wanted all that, I just… went for it”

You take a little step closer, your hard gaze softening just a touch, “Well… It’s not like I was saying no”, you chuckle

“Yeah, but that’s not the fucking same, you know?”

You look away, “Yeah…”

“So… Anyway… I’m sorry, alright?”

At last, you turn back and smile at him, “Alright. I forgive you, and… thanks. For saying that”

Woods nods and accepts your thanks. The two of you share a little smile and a short pause of uncertain silence until he breaks the silence, “So… What now?”

You look him up and down. He’s wearing jeans and a tightly fitting flannel, a stark contrast to all the trendy, flashy fashion of the rest of the clubbers, and yet it’s so… him. You trace a finger down his limp, tattooed arm, stopping at his fingers to intertwine them with yours.

“How about a dance?”, you tug his hand gently, then nod towards the dance floor.

A feeling like euphoria washes over him, and time seems slow as he floats along while you tug him through the crowd. Somewhere in the beautiful, prismatic show of lights, he hears himself agree. You lead him to a cramped, but vacant spot on the glowing dance floor and turn an ear to the music, “Hey, I love this song…”

Woods perks up to listen, just in time to catch the start of More Than A Woman, muffled slightly by all the noise and bustle of the crowd.

It’s like it’s playing from within a dream.

You rest your hands on his chest, letting them slide down so that the heels of your palms sit where the curve of his stomach begins to swell out. Frank has his hands on your waist, swaying in time with you slowly to the music. He clears his throat and looks away from your sparkling, gorgeous eyes, a nervous blush creeping up his neck.

He knows you’ve been over this before, but… “Yeah, uh… so, you know, I’ve been thinking I should lose some weight... You know, while you’ve been… gone”, he moves your hands up from his belly to clasp behind his neck.

You quirk up your brow, a confused smile on your lips, “Why?”

“Uh, I don’t know… I think it makes me look old, I guess”

You laugh and come a little closer, your bodies nearly touching, “Well, if it means anything... I don’t think so”, You inch up and kiss his cheek, bringing one hand down to rest on his softened pect. He huffs a nervous laugh and masks the flattered embarrassment with a timid smile as he covers your hand with his, holding it there just a little while more.

He's never forgotten how amazing your touch alone feels.

He clears his throat and re-establishes eye contact. A whole kaleidoscope of color plays inside your eyes. He could get lost in them for the rest of his life. “You uh… wow. You- you look beautiful tonight...”, he steals a quick glance as your little, sparkly dress and the neon rainbow refracting off the thousands of tiny sequins, “Nearly gave this old man a heart attack when I first saw you”, he laughs.

“Oh?”, you smirk and lead him into a turn, “ In that case, you should see me take it off”

His heart pounds underneath your palm, but his face looks frozen with surprise. He doesn’t hear women say that kind of stuff to him often…

“D-do you… Do you mean that?”

“Well, I mean… Maybe after this, I’d love t-”

“No, not that. I mean… Me. D-do you really feel that way about me?”

You stop dancing for a moment.

His words cut deeply with the quiver of hope they carry, as though it had never crossed his mind that someone would want to be with him.

“Of course I do. But… I want you more then just for that you know”, you chuckle.

His cheeks go pink, “Oh. Damn, so you like that kind of st-?”

You place a single finger to his lips, shushing him. “I meant… I love you”

Your words echo back to him in slow motion, as though reality and time itself are breaking all around him to unveil a haven of euphoria. His heart is beating in his ears, and yet it sounds slow and calm, just like the wild crowd and the blaring music all around him.

Everything grows quieter and softer until it all fades away, leaving behind just you and him.

He wracks his brain, trying to remember the last time he heard those words, only to come up empty handed. It’s been so long… He can’t even remember.

Frank looks back at you, a little neon angel clinging to his beat up old shirt. Gorgeous. That’s all he can think of when he sees you. He almost feels like he shouldn't even have the privilege to do so. You bat long lashes up at him and a slow smile draws across your soft, glossy lips.

More than a woman…

Slowly, you come up to meet your lips to his. You’ve kissed before, but this… It feels like the first kiss of his entire life.

He presses back gently, sucking softly as he draws you close. You smell like dark cherry and amber, some combination of perfume and lip gloss. The faint smell of whisky and musk radiating off of him mingles with the divine scent of you.

He can taste it all on his tongue, even as he slides it over to flick across yours.

More than a woman to me…

At long last you part, breathing softly as your eyes drift up to meet one another's. And when he looks down into those deep, glittering pools, he wonders how he never saw all the love and warmth they hold for him. The love they always had.

“I love you too…”, he whispers, tears stinging at his eyes and voice, before he leans in to press a kiss to your forehead.

And now? The love they always will.

#hashtag frank woods respects women send tweet #call of duty #black ops cold war #frank woods x reader

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sanderssidesfanfiction · 3 years

Text

Royal Growing Pains - Chapter Thirty Two

Warnings: Homophobia, transphobia, misgendering, sympathetic Deceit

Royal Growing Pains Tag

Logan was waiting for them back at the castle, and Roman groaned as he got out of the car. “Can I at least change before we start dancing until our feet fall off?” he griped.

“No,” Logan said. “You will need to practice dancing in a binder anyway, unless you want to change in between the wedding and the reception.”

“I can’t jump around in my binder, though,” Roman whined.

“Then we won’t teach you any dances that require you to jump around,” Logan said simply. “You and Damien will follow me. We need to catch up on lost time.”

Roman groaned but Damien just wrapped his arm around Roman’s shoulder. “It’ll be okay, Roman. We can have some fun with dance practice.”

“You’re just glad you don’t have to do any studying this week,” Roman grumbled.

“Damien, that reminds me, I will not be allowing that extension on your paper,” Logan tossed over his shoulder.

“You seriously expect me to turn in a paper on my honeymoon?!” Damien exclaimed, jaw agape.

Logan turned around and shut Damien’s mouth with a click. “You’ll attract flies if you keep your mouth open like that,” he said succinctly. “And you can always turn it in before the day it is due. But I will not be granting you an extension on that paper, seeing as how you’ve had two months to work on its thesis and research.”

“God, I hate you sometimes,” Damien growled.

“Another crack like that and your grade automatically drops ten percent,” Logan simply replied.

“Ten—?!” Damien cut himself off, taking a deep breath. “Right. I’m seriously regretting telling my parents I liked you in terms of private tutoring.”

Logan actually smiled at that and replied, “Thank you. If you wish, I can practice with Roman while you work on your paper for an hour?”

Damien hesitated. Roman nudged him. “Go study. I certainly don’t want you writing an essay on our honeymoon.”

“Fine,” Damien huffed, kissing Roman’s cheek. “But I expect no funny business with Logan while I’m gone. He may be polyamorous, but I have a tendency to be territorial.”

“No kidding?” Roman snarked. “Relax, Damien. I don’t have eyes for him, and if he had eyes for me, he would have helped me escape the first night I was here, and whisked me away from this life, which I am taking a shine to.”

Logan rolled his eyes. “Say goodbye for now already.”

Roman laughed and kissed Damien on the cheek back, before following Logan to the ballroom. “You seem a little tense,” Roman noted.

“You obviously haven’t been watching the news, if you’re as relaxed as you are,” Logan noted.

Roman tensed. “Why? What happened?”

“Well, your country may be falling into Civil War if Remus cannot win the Parliament over in a meeting today,” Logan said casually.

“What?!” Roman squawked.

“Well, he wants the throne, your parents are unwilling to give up the throne, and it’s up to Parliament to kick them out. But from what I gather about your brother, he would gather up an army to storm the castle before he let your parents rule another day,” Logan supplied. “It won’t be easy to win over the more...conservative of the Parliament members, either.”

Roman swore under his breath. “I hate that it comes to this,” he sighed. “Why can’t life be easy?”

“Because, Your Highness, being queer automatically sets your settings to ‘Hard Mode’ when you’re born,” Logan said, shaking his head. “One day, that will not be the case. But that day is not today.”

“Tell me about it,” Roman griped. “So, are we doing the waltz or are we doing something else?”

Logan listed a few different slow dances they could try, none of which Roman could easily conjure images of. Every time he proposed a dance, Logan either vetoed it or went through the first eight steps and Roman immediately took it back. When fifteen minutes later, they could not come up with a single dance that Roman felt confident he could do, Logan sighed. “The waltz it is, then.”

They fell into formation and slowly began to move across the dance floor. It felt weird to waltz with someone who wasn’t Damien, but Roman, to his credit, didn’t have to look at his feet once. “So my brother may be interested in getting to know you,” Roman said.

“I have heard,” Logan said. “I have also heard that Patton and Virgil will be dancing at your wedding.”

“I have also heard Virgil may dance with you, in addition to Patton,” Roman said.

“Your brother better be prepared to acquire a harem,” Logan said, nothing changing in his facial expression or inflection as he said the words.

Roman guffawed and nearly fell over as Logan took their next step but Roman didn’t. “Oh, god! That’s certainly a visual!” Roman laughed. “The tabloids would go crazy over the King’s consort, and his consort’s consort, and his consort’s consort’s consort. Consort no longer sounds like a word.”

Logan smirked just a tiny bit and Roman narrowed his eyes. “You said that to make me laugh on purpose.”

“You need to focus on dancing more,” Logan simply replied. “Focus on the steps, or you’ll trip Damien up while talking. And neither of you want a twisted ankle or a broken wrist on your honeymoon.”

“You. Are. Evil,” Roman said, glaring at Logan.

“I do try to imbue chaos into my life that I can watch every once in a while,” Logan said smugly.

Roman sighed and they continued to dance. “You have any interest in my brother? Genuinely?” Roman asked.

“I believe so,” Logan said. “Even if that attraction is merely aesthetic at the moment, I would at the very least appreciate a friendship. I don’t know where his romantic attraction lies...nor do I want you to tell me. I’d rather hear it from him. But I can’t deny the interest I have at the prospect.”

Roman nodded. “Well, Remus could do worse than someone like you,” he said. “You may not be my top pick, but I don’t really...think about my brother in terms of who he should or shouldn’t date.”

“I find that people who actually do that are fairly miserable as they try to micromanage things out of their control,” Logan said simply.

Roman agreed, and they swept around the ballroom again and again until Logan could make Roman laugh and he could still follow the steps. When they took a break at the hour mark, Damien walked in with a pained smile. “Well, Logan, you have a new paper in your inbox,” Damien said. “I would recommend you not read it until I resend it on the plane ride to our honeymoon destination, however.”

“Cutting it down to the wire, as ever,” Logan sighed. “You disappoint me, Damien.”

“You gave me an hour, and I’m spending as much time as I can with Roman. Whenever we have time, I will go through it on the plane,” Damien defended.

“Sure you wouldn’t rather join the ‘Mile High Club’?” Logan asked.

Damien turned red. “Don’t ask that again,” he sputtered. “I am your prince, I expect a modicum of respect from you.”

“Only a modicum?” Logan asked. “You really need to set your standards higher, Your Highness.”

Roman snorted and Damien just sighed, hanging his head. “I’m done,” he muttered. “I am done with today.”

“Not yet you’re not,” Logan said, clapping his hands. “You still need to practice the waltz.”

Damien rolled his eyes but began to dance with Roman. Roman settled into step closer with Damien than he had with Logan, and felt content to let Damien lead the dance, while with Logan, Roman never relaxed quite this much. “How are you feeling, my love?” Damien asked.

“Better,” Roman said, and he honestly meant it. He felt settled, relaxed, good. And he couldn’t remember the last time he felt quite this way.

Damien smiled. “I am glad to hear it,” he said. “Dinner will be quieter tonight, I expect, and I, for one, am looking forward to being able to finish it without worrying about anyone starting to shout.”

“That makes two of us,” Roman said. “I haven’t really enjoyed sparring with my mother every night.”

“Nor I,” Damien said.

They swept around the ballroom once, twice more, and then Roman had to stop because his feet hurt and he was feeling short of breath. He slid to the floor and groaned. “I’m not looking forward to the whole night just being dance after dance after dance.”

“Even if they’re all with me?” Damien asked, putting a hand to his chest even as he grinned. “You wound me, my love.”

Roman shrugged. “I just need to give my feet some rest,” he said. “And Remus will probably insist on slinging me across the dance floor at least once.”

“You...you mean swing you across?” Damien asked, frowning.

“No, I do mean sling. He’ll get me on my stomach and fling me across the floor, destroying all in my path like a curling stone,” Roman laughed.

“I’ll keep him preoccupied, then,” Logan muttered. “We do not need complete and utter pandemonium, or wine spilled on your suit. Remy would have all our heads.”

“Oh, god, that’s a horrifying thought,” Damien said, swallowing hard.

The two continued to talk, but Roman let the words wash over him as he pulled out his phone, googling the news. Or at least, he tried to, before Logan snatched the phone from his hands. “Hey!” Roman exclaimed.

“No obsessively refreshing the page while your brother is in session with Parliament,” Logan said definitively. “You refreshing the results over and over will not change the outcome of the meeting.”

“Oh, he got them all off their asses this quickly? He means business,” Damien whistled. “I like him.”

Roman glowered at Damien and Damien furrowed his brows. “As a person, my love, and certainly not more than you.”

“I’ll allow it...for now,” Roman said, giving Damien a sideways glance. “Logan, my phone.”

Logan pocketed the phone and crossed his arms.

Roman grunted as he stood, holding his hand out. “My phone,” he said sternly.

Logan did nothing.

Roman leapt towards Logan, sending them both crashing to the floor. Roman tried to subdue Logan and get his phone back, but Logan was squirmier than he let on. “Hey! Gimme my phone!” Roman exclaimed.

“I’d sooner perish by the King’s hand!” Logan exclaimed.

Roman kept wrestling with Logan until someone grabbed him by the scruff of his neck and pulled him away. “Logan, give him the damn phone,” Virgil growled. “Half the castle could hear him yelling, and the King’s in a meeting.”

Logan scowled but handed the phone over. Roman proceeded to obsessively refresh the page five times in a minute, before groaning. “Another hour? Seriously?! I hate Parliament. Why do they take so long?!”

“The timeless question,” Damien said sagely. “No one really knows the answer.”

Logan huffed. “Perhaps the two of you should head to dinner,” he said, checking his phone. “We have been here two hours, after all.”

“Really?” Roman asked. “Time flies.”

“Especially when you’re wrestling with your fiancé’s tutor, apparently,” Damien grumbled. “When does Father’s meeting end, Virgil?”

“Fifteen minutes, Your Highness. He will be coming down for dinner shortly after,” Virgil advised.

“Then we really should get going,” Damien sighed. “Ah, well. I’m sure we can entertain ourselves for fifteen minutes, can’t we, Roman?”

“I suppose we’ll have to,” Roman sighed dramatically, rolling his eyes. “Either that or we’ll have to call on your mother and she’ll have to help us.”

Damien hummed. “I don’t suppose she’d be highly amused. Usually around this time of day she appreciates calling her friends, or settling in with a book for the hour before dinner. To interrupt her is to ensure a slow, but certain, death.”

“Yikes,” Roman said, grimacing. “Yeah, not gonna bother her.”

The two of them walked to the dining room, and took seats at the lone table. “It’s nice and quiet,” Roman breathed, almost afraid to interrupt the comfortable silence with his thoughts.

“Indeed,” Damien said. “It feels like we only rarely get time for peace.”

Roman nodded, idly opening his phone and bolting to his feet. “Holy shit!” he yelped.

“There it goes,” Damien sighed, chuckling. “What?”

“Parliament is voting on Remus becoming King!” Roman exclaimed. “They said it was going to be another hour!”

“Apparently someone got sick of them talking, huh? Should we watch?” Damien asked.

“No need,” Roman said, beaming. “He already got the majority! He’s well on his way to two-thirds in favor!”

“Good,” Damien said. “I would have hated to have to go to war against your parents. I would have done so, of course, but it’s still rather unsavory.”

Roman laughed, sitting down next to Damien again, considerably happier. The Queen walked in, humming. “Good news?” she asked.

“Remus is gonna be King!” Roman said. “Parliament agreed! Well, technically they need to finish voting, but he already got over sixty percent in favor. He’s gonna make it.”

“Worth celebrating,” the Queen said appreciatively. “I imagine the first thing he’ll do when you two are back in the country is schedule his coronation.”

“Can’t wait!” Roman squealed. “This is going to be epic! And hopefully my parents will leave us alone!”

“I’ll make them if they don’t do it on their own,” the Queen laughed. Her smile dropped and she turned deadly serious. “Diana will quickly learn; when you mess with the Rose, you get the thorns.”

Damien groaned. “Mother, that was terrible.”

“But effective at gaining a reaction,” the Queen said with a little smile and a wink at Roman. “I have to teach your fiancé which buttons he can and can’t push, after all.”

Roman laughed while Damien rolled his eyes. “And the first lesson you are going for is puns?” he asked distastefully.

“I like puns,” Roman said.

Damien’s eyes widened and he blew out a breath. “Lord help me, I’m going to suffer so many dad jokes in the years to come,” he muttered.

“Yep!” Roman said, entirely unashamed.

The King walked in and looked around. “I see I didn’t miss dinner, at least,” he said. “How is everyone?”

“Pretty good,” Roman said at the same time Damien said, “I’m suffering immensely.”

The King laughed. “What did you do, dear?” he asked the Queen.

“I made a pun,” the Queen said with a pleased smile. “Someone was less than amused, while someone else took great enjoyment from it.”

“Ah,” the King said knowingly. “That explains everything.”

Dinner passed uneventfully, other than Patton making one pass at Damien’s clumsiness before Damien glared him into backing off. Roman enjoyed the meal (good old fashioned fish and chips—Patton must have known how to cook everything), but soon enough he was yawning at the table. “Dear, you should go upstairs and rest,” the Queen said. “You’ve had quite the eventful day.”

“I’ll be fine,” Roman insisted, even as he yawned again.

“No, my love, go and rest,” Damien insisted. “Besides, I have matters that I’d like to speak to my parents about without you around to hear.”

“What? Why?” Roman said. “Is there something you can say to them that you can’t to me?”

“It’s vows related,” Damien said simply.

“And I’m gone!” Roman exclaimed, standing up quickly. “Good night, everyone, I’ll see you in the morning.”

Everyone bid him goodnight and he walked out as he received a call from Remus. “Hey, what’s up?” he asked as he answered the phone.

“Just wanted to check on you,” Remus sighed. “I’ve been talking with my future advisors all day and could use a break.”

“I’ve been okay,” Roman said. “I’m exhausted, so I’m hitting the sack early tonight.”

“Good idea. I would, but I’m ordering our parents to move all essential items out of the castle before I return from your wedding, so. I have quite a bit of arguing ahead of me tonight,” Remus sighed.

“But you’ll be here tomorrow for the rehearsal?” Roman asked hopefully.

“Of course. Wouldn’t want to be anywhere else,” Remus assured. “Sleep well, Roman. I won’t keep you any longer.”

“Good night, Remus. I love you,” Roman said.

“I love you too.”

They hung up and Roman made his way to his room, stripping himself of clothes and slipping on a nightgown after coughing when he removed his binder. He was so ready for the whole wedding thing to be over and done with. He was sure he might want to savor tomorrow when Remus was actually here, but for now, all he wanted was to sleep, dream about nothing, and let himself relax before the chaos that would be the wedding rehearsal tomorrow.

#roceit #roman sanders #deceit sanders #sanders sides fanfiction #royal growing pains #our creations

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therainbowwillow · 3 years

Text

https://therainbowwillow.tumblr.com/post/640994942684151808/therainbowwillow

Part 13.

Premise/last time: On Olympus, tensions are high. The pantheon is forced to choose sides: an innocent poet or the man who stabbed him. Hermes only grows increasingly anxious about his approaching trial. If he’s not ready to sing, he’s afraid Orpheus will take the fall.

—————————————

Thanatos stands, exhausted at the gates of Olympus. The walk out of Hadestown had been longer than he’d expected. Hypnos hadn’t woken after the third night. He’d been in and out of consciousness since.

Thanatos calls out to the gods, pleading for aid. Their lack of ambrosia had taken its toll on himself and his brother. Despite his near-constant unconsciousness, Hypnos looks as if he hasn’t slept for weeks. The blinding lights of Olympus do him no favors. The bags under his eyes look even more pronounced here.

Pasithea steps up to the doors and slams her fists against them. “Please!” She cries. Still, they’re met with no reply. She sinks to the ground and buries her head in her hands. Thanatos forces himself not to collapse under his and his brother’s weight.

It feels like an eternity before a man arrives at the door: golden hair, blue eyes. He looks just like his father. “Asclepius.” Thanatos bows his head to his old enemy. A doctor so incredible he’d resurrected the dead. Zeus’s punishment hadn’t held him down long. Now he’d become a god himself.

“It took me a moment to convince Zeus to let me take my leave. Come in. Speak to no one. Keep your heads down,” he directs. He helps Pasithea to her feet. “You must be out of your mind to come here, Thanatos. If Hades learns of your presence-”

“Hades is here?” Thanatos inquires, forcing back his panic.

“Yes,” Asclepius answers. “He arrived, worse off than you, a few days ago. It seems his years of pushing around his workers finally caught up to him.”

He opens the gates and guides them through the city’s oddly silent streets. Quieter than Hadestown, Thanatos observes. Down below, a pickaxe always swings. A foreman’s shouts are always audible. Here, there is nothing but stillness. “I mean you no offense, my lord, but I believe my storage cellar may be the best place for you to take shelter,” Asclepius says.

“None taken. We’ll take what we can get.”

“If I might ask, what happened to your brother? I will treat him, as he clearly has taken a hit to the head. How long has he been unconscious?” Asclepius asks.

“Hades’s doing,” Thanatos replies, curtly. “He’s been in and out of consciousness for six days.”

Asclepius opens the door to his residence and ushers them inside. “I suspected as much. I assume you fled without carrying ambrosia with you?”

Thanatos nods. “We had no time.”

“I don’t blame you.” Asclepius takes a few pillows from his bed and tears off the sheets. He guides them down a short staircase into a dimly lit cellar. It smells of herbs. The sweet scent of nectar reminds Thanatos of his hunger. Asclepius tosses the pillows against a shelf and rests Hypnos against them.

“Make yourselves comfortable. You may have as much ambrosia as you wish. I will not tell the counsel you’ve arrived. If they come looking for you, hold the door shut and stay quiet. I shouldn’t be long,” Asclepius tells them. He turns to leave.

“Asclepius, I’m sorry for the circumstances of our last meetings,” Thanatos apologizes.

He smiles. “I’m lucky I got off so light. You helped the boy escape, didn’t you? That is why you are so afraid.”

“I’m the god of death. I have nothing to fear,” Thanatos attempts to convince himself.

“Angering Hades gives anyone something to fear, mortal or divine. But I believe Hermes and Orpheus are in far danger than yourself. Regardless, take care. I won’t be long.” He shuts the door behind him.

Thanatos immediately turns search the shelves for nectar. He finds a bottle, flicks out the cork and drinks half of it. The rest, he hands to Pasithea.

Hypnos rubs his eyes. “Ugh...” he groans. “Where are we?”

His wife briefs him of their journey. “So... we’re locked in Asclepius’s basement? On Olympus?” He smiles slightly. “These pillows are almost as good as mine. Comfy. I could almost forget that the furies cracked my skull open.”

“Do you ever stop?” Thanatos mutters.

“Like I said! Vacation, Than. Sure, it’s not a beach, but to be fair, there’s no difference. I’d sleep either way. Give me some of that nectar.” He tips the bottle and swallows. “Mm. Not bad. The underworld ages it better.”

“Hades is here,” Thanatos blurts. “So would you shut up and let me think?”

“He is? Didn’t Hermes steal the train... oh my gods! He walked? Ha! I wish I could’ve seen that.”

“Would you listen?” He snaps. “Hades wants us punished. You’ve seen what happens to mortal traitors. We can’t let him find us, Hypnos.”

“And that’s why I’m not going anywhere. Not that I could. Pretty sure I can’t walk. Or at least I wouldn’t want to deal with the headache,” he replies. “Now. What’s the plan, Thanatos?”

“I... don’t know.”

“So we are in trouble then! I... have an idea, but I’m not sure we should rely on it.”

Thanatos exhales. “I’ll hear you out. Maybe a bad plan’s better than no plan.”

“Hades will summon Orpheus and Hermes to trial, right? If that song was as good as it sounded and if I didn’t hallucinate the change in weather, I’d say other gods will side with Orpheus simply because his song has power. Maybe we ought to take their side. Show ourselves and proclaim our support?” Hypnos says.

“Hades will call it a second betrayal.”

“What do we have to lose, Thanatos?”

He sighs. “If they win the trial, it’ll give us a chance. Even that’s better than nothing. I agree.”

—————————————-

“Hermes.” He jumps at the sound, startled awake.

“Apollo.” He crumpled the letters and stuffs them into his pockets.

“You’re anxious. Panicked. What are you afraid of?”

Hermes rolls his eyes. “Didn’t I tell you to stop doing that? I know how I feel without you telling me.”

“Sorry, but you’ve hardly spoken to anyone for days. You’re hiding something. You secret would be safe with me.”

“Oh yeah? I don’t believe that for a second,” Hermes retorts. “You’ll blab to your boyfriend the second you walk out the door.”

Apollo leans slightly more of his weight against the crutch he’s using to walk. “I won’t,” he says, softly. “Hyacinthus is a good man, but this is clearly more than he needs to worry about.”

His tone is honest. Still, Hermes doesn’t back down. “It’s more than you need to worry about. Go write a poem or something, o god of music,” He replies, his voice dripping with sarcasm.

“Hermes, look. I know we’ve had our disagreements, but... I do care about you. I guided you through your childhood; I taught you how to function on Olympus. I tried to protect you. From what I understand, you broke your contract with Hades and you’re afraid of what he’ll do to you. Why won’t you speak to us? We know, Hermes,” Apollo tells him.

“No, you don’t know!” He snaps. “I’m not afraid of what he’ll do to me. You called me Prometheus yourself. I’ll suffer, but I can manage. But it’s not me they want. I know Orpheus will take Hades’s punishment in my place. He’s young. Afraid. He won’t survive,” Hermes draws in a shaky breath. “We have no defense.” He hands Apollo the letters. “Read.”

His eyes pass over the words on the pages. “Hermes, we’ve been summoned immediately.”

“I know. We can’t go. Not yet. Orpheus needs to rest. And...” he exhales. “I haven’t told him.”

“He deserves to know. Why do you keep this from him?”

“Because he needs to recover. If he knows, all he’ll do is sing and sing. He’ll forget all else if he thinks he can protect me and Eurydice. That boy, my son, he feels with the whole of his being. He loves with such kindness, such passion, that his love alone brought flowers to the realm of death. He’d give his life if it meant protecting us and I can’t let him do that.” His voice rises. “If Zeus wants my blood, fine! Let him torture me. He won’t touch Orpheus.”

“Hey, it’s gonna be fine. We’ll win the trial. You have nothing to worry about! We’ve got Athena on our side and even I’ve argued a few cases. With Orpheus’s song, we’ll be undefeatable.” His words are encouraging.

“I have to tell him,” Hermes mutters.

“He needs urgency. I hate this as much as you do, but we do what we must.”

Someone pounds on the door. Hermes bristles at the sound. “Who’s there?” He calls.

“Hermes...” Three voices in harmony.

He strides across the room. “Don’t open the damn door!” Apollo snaps.

“Orpheus is next on their list,” he replies. He turns the handle. “What do you want?”

“You cannot defeat fate. You will see. What is coming.”

Hermes slums against the door frame and sinks to the ground. Orpheus is singing. His voice falters. He cries out, “No! No!”. Eurydice screams. The metallic stench of blood hits him. Hermes tries to stand. His wrists are bound in chains. It’s dark. He can’t tell if his eyes are open.

He gasps and the room returns. Apollo kneels at his side. “Orpheus,” he chokes out.

“He’s fine. Hermes, what did you see?”

He takes a deep breath. “Orpheus screamed. I couldn’t reach him. Apollo, this is fate. It’s unchangeable.”

“Don’t talk like that. I know how prophecies work. They’re misleading by nature.”

“There wasn’t nuance. We’re going to fail. And when we do-”

“No. Hermes, we’re going to win.” He puts his hands on Hermes’s shoulders. “I swear we’re going to win.”

“We have to tell Orpheus.”

“I can do it if-”

Hermes cuts him off. “No. He’s my son. I need to tell him myself.”

Apollo doesn’t argue.

--------------------------------------------------------------

Orpheus strums his lyre. His voice sounds a little better today, he notices. Still, he struggles to reach high notes. His voice breaks or he coughs in between lines. He’s begun to realize that it isn’t going back to the way it was. Eurydice doesn’t mention it. He hates to think about the possibility, but he knows he’ll have to eventually.

He reads over his sheet music. He starts another paper. He tries humming his melody, replacing his higher notes with low ones. Eurydice perks up at the new song. “That was beautiful.”

He cracks a smile. “You think?”

“Sing it again.”

He repeats it, louder this time.

“Orpheus!” A carnation blooms in his hands. “My gods, that’s incredible.”

Again, he sings, this time plucking the lyre to the tune of his old song. The harmony hums in the air. Flowers spring up in his hair.

“How’d you do that?” She’s grinning.

“I don’t know! I thought maybe it’d be easier on my voice.”

“Is it?”

He nods. “I think so. I don’t feel like hacking my lungs out at least.”

“I love you, Orpheus. So, so much.”

He blushes. “I know.”

“I know you know. I just needed to tell you again.” She marches to his bedside and kisses him before he gets in another word. “You’re beautiful, you know that?”

He turns as red as the carnations dotting his hair. “I- mmmph!” She kisses him again.

“Shush.” She places a finger on his lips. “Just kiss me.”

“O-okay!” He awkwardly presses his lips against hers. She wraps her arms around him.

“Gods, I love you,” she whispers in his ear.

He remains in her embrace for a while until she pulls away. “You wanna sing that song again, lover?”

He’s smiling like an idiot. “Yes.”

“Well, sing it then.”

“La, la la la... ha ha!” He laughs. It sounds ridiculous through his ear-to-ear grin.

There’s a knock at the door. “I’ll get it!” Orpheus proclaims habitually. “Oh, wait.” Eurydice stands to open it. “No, I said I’ve got it! Come in!” Orpheus calls. “See?” he says, winking. She laughs.

The door opens. Hermes stands in its frame, looking exhausted. “We need to talk. Both of you.”

Orpheus frowns. “Is everything alright?”

“Yes. No... I don’t know, kid.” He considers just handing Orpheus the letters. Instead, he continues. “I’ve been receiving summons to Olympus since we arrived. I didn’t want to worry you, but I can’t keep you in the dark any longer. Hades has convinced Zeus to put us on trial before the counsel. The charges against you are baseless. But... I did break my contract and I’ll face the consequences.”

“No, Hermes, we’ll win! You said yourself I could convince Hades of anything.”

“Orpheus, broken contracts don’t go unpunished. I just don’t want you to feel the consequences of my actions.”

“Hermes, I don’t want them to hurt you!” Orpheus begs.

“I’ll be fine. I don’t want you to worry over my fate, kiddo. I’ll do what I can. I just didn’t want to leave you in the dark about all this.”

“My song has to work. It will work,” he repeats.

“It will,” Eurydice agrees. “It can do all this.” She gestures around the room. Flowers have pushed through the floor boards. They line the fireplace and decorate Orpheus’s nightstand. “It can save us.”

“How long do we have?” Orpheus asks.

“Maybe two weeks,” Hermes answers, “at best.”

“I’ve almost got it, Hermes. I’ll be ready to sing by then.”

“Thank you.”

“It will work. I promise.”

#hadestown au #hadestown #hadestown fanfic #therainbowwrites #my god this fic is off the rails

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dumplingsspookysweeties · 4 years

Text

Naga bitty information

Here is the information on all the Naga (snake) bitties we have in the shop!

cut below for length

Moonjelly (Undertale Sans): a peaceful garden snake, Moonjellies tend to live near homes and businesses with gardens or window boxes. He likes to pick off vegetables and eat small insects or the occasional mouse that enters his territory. He’ll adjust well to human contact and will eat any unprocessed foods (fruits, vegetables, meat). Keep a sun lamp handy so he can warm himself, though he can survive without it. It’s more of a comfort thing.

Sunjelly (Undertale Papyrus): another garden variety naga, Sunjellies are even more easygoing than their matching brothers. He only eats leaves and vegetation, being too kind to hurt another being for their food. They do enjoy sparing with either each other or other bitties, but only until someone gets tired. He’ll eat fruit, nuts, and vegetables, and enjoy the sunlamp, but he’ll also need more direct attention and love.

Hisser (Underfell Sans): These snakes are more aggressive, but they’re primarily egg eaters. They tend to live in tree hollows, eating the eggs of nesting birds or the young of the squirrels that also nest around those areas. He’ll be perfectly happy with a couple of eggs from your fridge, and a warm spot in the house, but make sure he knows you want to be there for him or he’ll get hostile toward you. He only allows family or those he cares for to be close to him.

Merc (Underfell Papyrus): A mimic in facial structure for a venomous bitty, these snakes have large fangs despite being constrictors and egg eaters. His diet at home would mostly be a large egg and some bits of meat, and he’ll warm slowly to an owner who provides for him. To get him to like you better, keeping a clean home and letting him choose activities will go a long way.

Bushsnake (Underswap Sans): These naga bitties are rarely seen because they tend to hibernate most of the year. They live around berry bushes since berries are their main food source. A Bushsnake in a home will not hibernate since they only do this for the purpose of sleeping through between berry ripening seasons. They will be awake year round and energetic. Feed on berries and fruits, frozen or canned is fine. Very quick to bond with owners.

Mouser (Underswap Papyrus): These are found in barns and other areas frequented by mice. It’s not that they want to hurt the mice, but Mousers are smart enough to know humans see mice as pests and that keeping their population down helps keep humans away from him and from the areas where Bushsnakes tend to live. In a home setting, he’s fine with any unprocessed food, but will be partial to meat just because they’re used to it.

DarkMoon (Horrortale Sans): These are hunters and despite their small size, they’re a force of nature. He takes down things his own size or slightly bigger, including birds, rodents, and the young of bigger animals. He uses his limited magic to corral his prey, and he’ll use it to prank you until he gains respect for you. This is easy to do if you have a good supply of meat and let him feast as he wants for the first few days.

DarkSun (Horrortale Papyrus): A general omnivorous naga, he’ll eat anything he can manage to swallow. DarkSun’s tend to enjoy home life a great deal and become very attached to kindly and generous owners. Feed any unprocessed foods, and treat him with respect, and you’ll have a friend for life in a fortnight.

Diamond (HorrorSwap Sans): Named after the rattlesnake, these are actually constrictors. The name comes from the way they rattle their open ribs if threatened. They eat live prey, but are just as happy with frozen mice or meat chunks. Make sure to let them explore your body when they first get home, as they’ll be very curious about how a human or other monster is different from himself. Set your boundaries though, or he’ll go EVERYWHERE in his thirst for knowledge, and then he’ll be so embarrassed and ashamed when he finds out he invaded your privacy!

Treeboa (HorrorSwap Papyrus): tends to climb things, but is lazy and more likely to be an ambush predator. Enjoys eggs and birds, as well as small reptiles and mammals as prey. Will use you as a climbing post, but won’t hurt you unless you hurt him first. Climbing on you is a sign he’s accepted you as his owner.

Squeakers (HorrorFell Sans): Has the same problem with unintentional laughing and noises as all horrorfell sans types, but his come out as small squeaks. Will make these sounds even in his sleep, but if he is calm and happy it will be more rare than when he’s first getting used to his home. Omnivore, but leans towards meat in preferences.

Leader (HorrorFell Papyrus): One of the few venomous bitties, they tend to show their fangs in warning if they’re angry. He tends to stay in shady areas since he’s the most actively warm natured of the nagas. Eats meat of any kind, prefers whole prey. Will eat more if he has to defend himself and use venom.

Titan (UnderWorld Sans): prefers fish as food, and enjoys water. These are bigger than your average bitty by about an eighth of an inch around, and two inches longer. Their jaws work strangely, but they are generally peaceful and lazy.

Feeler (UnderWorld Papyrus): These naga bitties are fascinating and tend to eat small insects. They make their way around by magic sense alone, and enjoy having a companion to help them. They will also eat small pieces of meat, especially if it’s shredded.

Clicker (UnderWorldSwap Papyrus):

Clickers have the same mouth trouble as their legged counterparts, but it makes swallowing their preferred fruit diet all the easier. They’re usually found around fruit trees, especially when the fruit is falling. They can’t speak, but sign very well and will purr like most bitties when content and happy. They can be a bit of a scavenger, as they like and can easily eat fruit that is past its prime, so they sometimes end up a little drunk off fermented ones in the wild! Loves cuddling hands and fingers, curling all around them. They also tend to press their chests to palms, so you can feel their soul pulse. They want their owners to know they’re happy to be with them. this makes toys with holes they can slide through a definite must!

Goosey (UnderWorldSwap Sans):

They will naturally summons hands to sign like their legged counterpart. In the wild, they live off the mashed fruit their brothers tend to bring. If they don’t bring any, or there wasn’t a lot, sometimes the brothers feed them like birds. (it’s gross, but they mean it in love and don’t do so in a proper home setting. or anywhere else there’s adequate food) They have heat sensing capabilities, so they can get around fairly well on their own! They also enjoy finding (but not eating) small mammals and playing chase with them. This can be simulated by using craft puffs warmed in a microwave or oven

Caesar (FellSwap Red Sans): This is another little venom baby. He likes to hiss and present his fangs, but won’t use it unless he has no other choice. His venom is anticoagulant and corrosive, so you’ll bleed for a while after but it won’t kill you unless you already have a condition in a similar vein. He eats meat and will keep your house rodent free without prompting. Haughty and prideful, he’ll hold himself pretty highly, so it might take a bit to win his favor. Once you do, though, he’ll beg for your attention.

Berma (FellSwap Red Papyrus): A constrictor, he’ll curl up into a ball as a defense. Be gentle and soft with him, and he’ll uncurl and lean into your hand in no time. Loves any food, but will ask for sweets often, especially maple flavored. Amazingly heavy for his size since his magic is thick and powerful.

Milksnake (SwapFell Purple Sans): impusive, these little squeezers are energetic and quick to bite, but won’t put pressure on if they aren’t scared or angry. They tend to squiggle around everywhere, and will make a lot of messes in trying to explore, so just clean up after them and wait till they’re satisfied they know the house. Likes anything food wise.

Rain Viper (SwapFell Purple Papyrus): basically, feed them anything and they’ll be fine. It’s a good idea to be nice to them, since they’re venomous, but their chill nature will make up for any slip ups. He tends to try to trick you out of more food, but it’ll be fine. He may also try to take your jewelry if you have any, or your spare change if you don’t.

Wyrm (UnderTomb Sans):

These guys hide snacks in their ribs like all Undertomb Sans types, and love wiggling around and acting ‘spooky’ by hiding and jumping out at others He’s a heavy boy - they average around three pounds! Will hide in your clothes if it’s cold, especially if you’re still in them! He just wants to be warm, so a big blanket with a few hand warmers inside will be just as good. For food, they like meat of any kind, but can eat anything.

Knucker (UnderTomb Papyrus):

A Knucker likes to hide in burrows; this can be clothes, sand, dirt, cotton balls, anywhere narrow that he can hide in. Warning, this means he might do this inside your clothes if he gets in there! Just tell him about personal space and he’ll not get in there again. Like most Undertomb Papyri, he has a screechy voice, but enjoys attempting to sing. Extremely curious and limber, he’ll try and get into just about anything, no matter how high up! They usually grow to about three feet long! he’s a lot longer than he ever would be tall, but that’s something he enjoys! so many coils to dig himself into! As for their diets, they eat meat by choice, but can safely consume any food.

Reverie and Figment: (dream and nightmare)

With similar powers as their legged counterparts, these little snakes deal more with daydreams. Reverie will help you have productive daydreams that help you get ideas for work, or for any creative endeavors you have. Figment will deal with the intrusive thoughts side of daydreaming, reminding you (when he senses they occur) that those are not your true self or a reality you’re facing, but the odd misfiring of your mind. They both eat anything you’d enjoy, but always want to eat at the same time. carry two servings of any treats you bring with you.

WARNING: DO NOT SEPARATE THIS PAIR. THE FIGMENT WILL GO DARK!

Dark Figment:

this variety will also lose his eye and grow tendrils on his back when he goes Dark. A Dark Figment will become venomous, but with a highly hallucinogenic substance that also corrodes nerve endings painfully. The visions will be all your worst fears coming after you at once, and you will see yourself doing terrible things to the people you love most. If you survive the experience (which is a 75% chance) you will never trust your own mind again without intense therapy. If you choose to try and rehabilitate a Dark Figment, please use extreme caution, have experience with venomous snakes, and wear thick gloves and clothing when handling. Again, it will take years before he is Safe.

Clay (ink sans)-

His tail is long and thin, and his bones are etched with bas reliefs in the aztec style, which he likes to color with henna or other temporary dyes. He likes a balance of meat and vegetables in his diet and will happily cuddle or doodle with you anytime. He likes to use his namesake to make statues that he colors with his dyes.

Moccasin ( error sans) - requires antivenom in the starter kit. Tends to be one of the only Error types that doesn’t mind touch as much since he prefers his warmth to come from mammals than from an outside lamp or heater. Will substitute one of those ‘warm in the microwave’ plushies for their owner, though, if the owner has to leave. Prefers meat and fish for food.

#bitty info #bittybones #naga bitties

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hey-hamlet · 5 years

Text

BNHA AU Ideas: Alleycat

Also on AO3!

TL;DR:

The story of the Erasure villain: Alley Cat and his heroic kittens. Aizawa, a rather nomadic villain, accidentally acquires two teenagers and a four-year-old. It's not the most conventional family, but it'll do.

villain aizawa: hes incredibly brutal and efficient, kind of an antihero type. he shuts down some things the heroes dont see, patrols the sketchy areas, looks out for children

he kinda,,, accidentally adopted some children

shinsou and izuku were runaways from a terrible foster home that tracked down the 'villain' alleycat and basically said

"are we worth anything to anyone?" and aizawa sees these kids hurt by heroics and takes them under his wing

eri is a kid izuku stumbled upon while out with shinsou before they met aizawa, and izuku basically adopted her straight out, came back to shinsou like "hi we have a little sister now" they are like 12, eri is 4

so aizawa accidentally gets 2 teens and a lil kid and he finds out they lowkey wanna be villains like him bc they wanna help and heroes dont help people like them. aizawa's heart breaks bc he doesn't want these kids to have the life he's had, so he promises to train hitoshi and izuku only if they try for the hero course

they agree. a villain begins to train heroes to enter the very thing that hurt them, with hopes of changing it from the inside out

ok also: in this au whatever horrible thing happened to shirakumo,,,, didnt. and he's 1A's homeroom teacher. hes bright, bubbly and cheerful, with the same expulsion rate aizawa has

so, shirakumo's hero name is cloud nine, hizashi's is feedback, not present mic. they both think aizawa is dead, and separately have to deal with the villain 'alleycat' as his territory intersects w ua's zone

aizawa, as alleycat, is a lot gentler to shirakumo and hizashi, more polite when speaking to them, less brutal with his takedowns. hizashi notices, but says nothing

hitoshi and izuku, with their baby sister eri, end up living with aizawa, training to be heroes to improve them fucked up society that taught them they were worthless in the first place

he takes them on parkour routes in the early morning, teaches them how to disarm people with knives, to use an opponents size against them.

izuku hones his ability to analyse, hitoshi learns how to push peoples buttons. there is no such thing as a fair fight for them. they break each others noses, chip a tooth or two, get black eyes. there are no hard feelings, they are together through everything

the 4 of them live pretty rough, only on what aizawa can get as a villain/working day shifts in a dodgy bar. aizawa pretends to be their dad for anything legal, says they had two different mothers. it works, somehow.

Some minor cosmetic changes:

Izuku, Hitoshi and Eri all dye their hair black. It started as them quietly wanting to look like their ‘dad’ for sentimental reasons, but they quickly worked out that it made the lie a lot easier for others to swallow.

They all take the surname Aizawa

Eri’s hair is cut into a messy bob – she loves getting Izuku to give her pigtails with the little sparkly hair ties Shouta stole for her. Izuku’s hair is shorter at the back and longer at the front, obscuring his eyes a bit. Hitoshi’s hair is shoulder length and growing, he ties it back in a low bun.

All three of the kids have scars. Eri’s are like canon but a less extreme because her quirk only just showed up. Izuku and Hitoshi have some from bullies, horrible foster parents and reckless sparing. Izuku has a few more little ones because he developed his not-dad’s love of cats and is unafraid of getting bitten – on top of his lack of self-preservation.

they go to aldera middle school, bakugo is still a little shit. to be honest, izuku hates it the most when bakugo burns his uniform - they cant afford to buy extra. there have been a few weeks hes just had to where shinsou's spare and roll the sleeves up

izuku and shinsou have a bit of a spat the afternoon of the sludge villain. it's nothing either of them remembers in a weeks time, but it means shinsou leaves school first, without izuku

bakugo corners him, notebook, allmight, etc

izuku has to ask

all might says no

izuku crumbles, such a dramatic shift from the calm but nice boy he'd been before. you can see the moment his heart breaks. all might feels terrible, but izuku has jumped down the fire escape before he can say anything.

to be honest, izuku is moments away from a full-fledged breakdown. He shoots shinsou a quick text about the villain, but pauses when he hears explosions. He knows the chances its Katsuki are tiny but he’s never been a lucky guy, so he runs towards them

basically the rest of the episode plays out like canon, izuku goes home and meets with his whole ass family panicking because he sent a vague text about a villain then was totally AWOL for 2 hours

hitoshi hugs him really tight while aizawa mumbles something about a tracking chip.

Izuku tells hitoshi about all might, but just tells aizawa vaguely that hes getting a quirk, no he isn’t in any danger, yes he’ll be safe, no he can’t tell you how.

Izuku and Hitoshi both pass the entrance exam with a mix of hero and villain points.

Izuku still doesn’t his whole bone breaky routine but he also manages to take out a few robots by himself before that. He ends up with the highest score.

Hitoshi takes out a few more robots but spends a fair bit of time pushing people out of the way of robots, yelling at people to be more careful about the others around them, and controlling people to get them out of the way of debris. He gets into the top 10.

Nezu is very very interested in the two ‘brothers’ with very different quirks that both did so well. He resolves to keep and eye on them.

Shirakumo is a riot as a teacher but boy is he stressful to be in a class with. The first insult out of Bakugo’s mouth and hes kicked him out of his class, telling him to try class B or get out of the school. (Blood King takes him. Bakugo is a little less horrible to izuku, at least where others can see)

Izukus having a quiet panic attack because Bakugo is going to kill him, and Hitoshi is caught between respecting the balls on their teacher and being pissed at the guy for putting izuku in a terrible position.

No quirk test, they do actually go see the opening ceremony. Hizashi and Shirakumo chat in sign while the principal’s speech drags on. Hitoshi and Izuku watch on, trying not to laugh when they start signing that they want to go to sleep.

Then they do the quirk test bc shirakumo’s a bastard. They end the day with Bakugo kicked out and Hagekure hanging onto her place by a thread. Izuku and Hitoshi come 4th and 5th respectively, despite not being able to use their quirks in the test. Shirakumo is interested.

Skipping to the interesting bits:

The USJ is just as terrible as canon, with the added fact that some of the thugs totally recognise izuku and hitoshi. Izuku works out how to use one for all at 1% during the attack. Hitoshi ends up with a scar on his eyebrow from a person with a claw quirk, Izuku gets a broken arm. Hitoshi sees all might in his skinny form for the first time and is suitably surprized

The sports festival goes a lot like canon in the first round, the second round features a team-up of just Hitoshi as the horse and Izuku as the rider bc they are so used to working with each other they felt it’d be more trouble to have extra team members. They arent exactly wrong and that round ends with them still in control of the 1’000’000 points band – along with a fair few teams just sitting on the sidelines with no idea how they got there.

Tournament round has izuku fighting Todoroki in the second round like canon, but in this universe, he wins (after helping him because whats izuku without a saviour complex). Hitoshi beats Tokoyami and Sero, but loses to Bakugo. The final round is Izuku vs Bakugo, they tie.

The stain arc is a riot. Izuku is interning w Gran, Hitoshi is with Nighteye who happens to be looking for ‘Alley Cat’. Hitoshi is so done with this.

Izuku finds Iida about to be attacked by stain and swoops in. Stain recognises him instantly

“Oh, you’re one of the cat’s kids, aren’t you? Let me deal with this fake hero and you can show me what your dad's taught you.”

Iida is confused – resolves to ask about it later

“You step away from him.”

“What?”

“I said. Step away from Iida. He’s – We’re going to be heroes. We’re both going to be heroes and I won’t let you hurt him!”

Stain pauses, then smiles.

“Lets see if the apple falls far from the tree, hm?” And he launches himself at Izuku

Izuku can dodge with the best of them, but he can’t get close enough to hit stain while protecting Iida. He manages to escape paralysis, but by the time Todoroki arrives stain has barely taken damage.

Todoroki isn’t the only person that responded to that warning. 1 city over, Hitoshi is franticly begging Nighteye to do something, because his brother is in danger. Nighteye is shocked at the fear in the previously apathetic child’s voice. He alerts heroes in the area, and makes his way over with a nervous Hitoshi in tow. On the other end of the city, where he’d been trying to keep an ear out for his kids, Aizawa gets the text and his heart drops. He begins running over.

Stain is taken out before any more help arrives. Without ropes, Todoroki freezes him solid in a block of ice. Endeavour arrives, as does Nighteye with a panicked Hitoshi. Aizawa arrives soon after, perched on a nearby rooftop, ready to whisk his kids away to safety should they need it.

The nomu swoops down, grabbing Izuku. Stain can’t help – trapped in his block of ice. Aizawa runs after Izuku. The nomu drops Izuku off at Shirgiraki’s feet, who is rather delighted to have the annoying boy from the USJ delivered to him out of the blue. He’s not, however, so happy with the knives he finds flying towards him. Kurogiri redirects them and the portal fades just in time for them to come face to face with the villain ‘Alley Cat”

“Well that was a cheap shot Alley Cat, what crawled up your ass and died?”

Aizawa places himself in front of Izuku, teeth bared. Izuku is clutching the leg of his costume. “Don’t hurt him and you won't lose a hand.” Kurogiri goes to attack, but Shigiraki waves him off, letting Aizawa take back Izuku.

“Sir?”

“Don’t you see? There are villains in the hero course. I smell a side quest, don’t you? We might even get some new party members out of it.

#bnha #bnha au #alleycat au #dadzawa #aizawa shouta #eraserhead #midoriya izuku #shinsou hitoshi #eri #bnha eri #Midoriya #shinsou #izuku #shirakumo oboro #shirakumo #present mic #yamada hizashi

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scaryscarecrows · 4 years

Text

Before You Put My Body in the Cold Ground (Take Some Time to Warm It With Your Hands)

AN: ‘Roots and Leaves’ related. Title from Brand New’s ‘Sowing Season’.

* * *

Bruce does not allow himself to speculate on the nature of the Light. Gordon turns it on for anything from ‘take this piece of evidence’ to ‘we have a new serial killer’ to ‘there’s been an Arkham breakout. Again’.

It isn’t, at least, an automatic warning sign of mayhem.

Gordon, as per usual, is standing near it, soaking up the warmth, when Bruce lands silently on the rooftop behind him. Contrary to popular opinion, he doesn’t come in from the back to be dramatic. He comes in from the back to avoid taking blinding, agonizing light to the eyes.

“Commissioner.”

Gordon jumps and swears.

“Every time…Dove Marquis wants to see you. Says she’s got temporary custody of one of your-and I’m quoting, here-‘fifty thousand children’, and would like you to come and get him.”

Well. This is unexpected.

Dick and Tim are accounted for on the way, Dick covering the night shift for a friend and Tim…interviewing…some of Harley Quinn’s on-again-off-again henchmen. Which leaves Jason.

Jim had not implied it was anything imminently fatal. And Jason, the last anybody knew, hadn’t actively picked a fight with anybody overly dangerous. It’s likely that he’s got some sort of mild, but unpleasant, injury that’s preventing him from getting home.

That sounds weak to Bruce’s own ears. With Marquis calling Gordon about this, it’s because it’s serious or because Jason asked, and if it’s the latter…

Marquis is on her balcony with a cigarette when he arrives. There’s no sign of Jason, but surely that’s not a bad thing. Surely. It’s pouring rain, it’s late…

She looks rattled, and she keeps twisting around to glance through her doors. The feeling of unease grows, and he scans the building. The only figure in the apartment is curled up on the couch, asleep. He deems it safe to land on the balcony railing.

“Jesus-!” Her cigarette lands in a puddle with a hiss! “Good God, that’s creepy…are you socially awkward, or just an asshole?”

“Why did you tell Gordon to contact me.”

Marquis rolls her eyes.

“Asshole it is...because he asked for you. So you have to take him.” As though he wouldn’t. “I don’t know what happened. I don’t wanna know. I found him wandering around a few blocks away. He was throwing up dirt a-and fucking worms, and I spent a good forty minutes pulling shards of wood out of his hands.”

Sounds like someone thought it would be a good idea to bury him alive. Bruce will disabuse them of that notion as soon as he gets Jason home and under Alfred’s care.

“Hn.”

They go in. Jason’s scrunched up on the couch with an electric blanket over him, face smushed into a pillow. His hands are wrapped from fingertip to wrist, and he’s shivering, just a little. Bruce is more concerned about the fact that he’s not waking. He’s a light sleeper, always has been, and for him to be uncaring, unknowing, that he’s not alone…

What happened to you tonight?

He whimpers and scrunches up under the blanket, hands jerking, and Marquis says softly, “Want me to try and wake him up, or do you want to risk it?”

Neither, preferably.

The whimpers stop and he goes still, sniffling softly. Bruce sighs, calls for the car-it’ll be here by the time he gets downstairs-and pulls Jason into a fireman’s carry.

“Thank you,” he manages to say. “For. For watching him.”

“Take it up with Harley,” she says shortly, fishing out her cigarettes and heading for her porch. “Tell him I hope he feels better soon, huh?”

Jason stirs, a little, when he settles him into the Batmobile, but when Bruce tries to talk to him, his face scrunches up and he closes his eyes again. He’s tempted, he really is, to go after Harley now; Jason’s clearly all right, not even a hint of a low-grade fever, but…

But. He could have inhaled something, he could have been drugged. Bruce needs to take him home and have Alfred look at him. Harley can wait.

And this way, he’ll be more likely to keep his temper when he tracks her down.

He tousles Jason’s hair, covers him with the cape-he’s shivering now that he’s away from the electric blanket-and makes sure he’s secure before hopping into the driver’s seat and calling Alfred.

“I need you to prep the med bay,” he says. Alfred does that thing where he doesn’t really sigh, but he may as well.

“What happened this time, Master Bruce.”

It isn’t always his fault. Arguing will get him nowhere, but it really isn’t always his fault.

“I’ve got Jason,” he says, narrowly avoiding a fire hydrant that really is located too close to the curb. “He’s. It appears that somebody attempted a live burial.”

Alfred is silent.

“I will be ready and waiting for you, Master Bruce,” he says at last. “Drive safely.”

He does. Mostly. He takes care, anyway, not to come screaming into the cave in a cloud of dust and burnt rubber. Jason’s still unconscious in the back, but he wakes, a little, when he’s picked up.

“B…?”

“Hn.”

“You came.” The surprise in his voice hurts. “You really came for me.”

“Yes.” He sets him on a gurney. The clothes aren’t his, and they don’t fit him well. There’s small cuts on his face and neck, and his hands are all but mummified. “Jay—”

“My fault, I should’a—”

What?

“Jason—”

“She said it was safe,” he whispers. “She said. She said.”

And then Alfred is there, shooing Bruce out of the way and humming, “Let’s see what’s happened, Master Jason…”

Jason blinks at them for a minute before his eyes roll back. Bruce has no idea what happened. He doubts Jason would have trusted Harley Quinn. Pitied, almost certainly, but trusted? No. Somebody else was involved, somebody he doesn’t know about.

Bruce doesn’t like not knowing about things.

There’s a bump on the side of the boy’s head, and when Alfred unwraps his hands...they’re not a pretty sight. There’s a few nails missing and the remaining ones are badly broken. They’re riddled with cuts and punctures and oh. Coffin. There must have been a coffin, or at least a large wooden crate.

How did this happen?

“--ce. Master Bruce.”

“Sorry, Alfred.”

“Move aside, please...thank you. It’s a miracle his fingers are still intact.”

Bruce often thinks it’s a miracle Jason’s alive at all, after...after everything. And now, under the stark light of the medical bay, that idea comes back in force. He can’t place most of these scars, even though he knows what caused them. That one’s from a crowbar; he’s got a few of those himself. They’re a cheap, easy weapon. Or that one, there, that’s from a knife. There’s more than a few gunshot wounds, far more than he ever had from his time as Robin, and…

“There we are, Master Jason,” Alfred says, forcefully cheery, even though Jason’s not awake to care anyway. “I’m sure your father will take you upstairs.”

Some father he is. This is his fault, none of this should have happened.

He wants Harley Quinn. And once Jason’s settled in bed, he’s going to find her.

* * *

Bruce decides, when he’s back in the car (he isn’t hiding from Alfred’s disapproval, he’s just…), that he’ll start his hunt for Harley after getting what he can out of Marquis. He’s hoping she’ll be more cooperative about this than she’s been about past cases, given the circumstances. Besides, Penguin’s not involved (theoretically), so she doesn’t have any reason to withhold information, not really.

She’s still outside, but no longer smoking, when he lands on the balcony.

“Why are you here.”

“What happened.”

“Get lost.”

“I need to find Harley, but I need to know what happened.”

For a minute, he thinks she’ll just go inside. But she sighs, mutters something about too many goddamn vigilantes and never thought I’d miss the weirdo with mommy issues, and gets up off the bench.

“I don’t know,” she says. “I found him wandering around a few blocks away, and he said Harley did it, and he was really, really upset about some woman named Sheila, but I don’t know who that is and at this point, I don’t care.”

Sheila, Sheila...Bruce knows of a Sheila, but...no, that’s too much of a coincidence...there’s no such thing as coincidence...and Jay’s always had near-comically bad luck. Rather like the Baudelaire Orphans.

“Where exactly did you find him.”

“Ah...over in Sunshine Plaza.”

Bruce has always wondered who, exactly, named that plaza. And why.

“Thank you.”

“Now are you gonna go?”

He can take a hint. And also there’s nothing else he needs here.

He brings up his file on Sheila Haywood on the glide over. She’s still living exactly where she was the last time she was on his radar, when he’d been desperate. He’d thought that maybe...either Jason had found out, somehow, and gone after her, or that her connections to the Joker would…

He’d been desperate.

Sheila’s apartment isn’t far from here, and Bruce’s unease only grows. The odds of there being another Sheila are...low...and Jason…

He lets himself in through the bedroom window. There’s a body lying in the front hall, but no other signs of life.

The body is Sheila Haywood. Bruce sighs-he doesn’t know why he expected otherwise, really-and sets up a virtual crime scene.

Sheila died from a bullet to the head, maybe...five hours ago, give or take. The shooter was waiting for her; she’s still wearing her raincoat, and her purse is sitting on the ground where it fell when she died.

There’s a gun near her hand. It hasn’t been fired-it’s not even loaded-but hers are the only prints on it.

Hm.

There was a struggle, at some point. The end table by the couch is tipped over and there’s blood on the carpet. The blood is both Jason’s and an unknown-likely a hired hench-and there’s a hint of Quinn’s perfume still lingering in the air.

So. Harley-or her goons-probably shot Sheila when she pulled the gun. That doesn’t entirely explain her involvement, but Bruce wonders if Harley wasn’t trying to get her to come back. She didn’t take Joker’s death well, and he knows she’s been grasping for any last connection to him. Sometimes he feels sorry for her.

But not today. Today, her insanity killed a woman and could have cost Jason his life, and Bruce is not happy about it.

He calls Gordon about Sheila before following the perfume outside. There’s not enough to track over a long distance, but it does lead him to the parking garage...and a set of tire tracks.

The first place the tracks go is a park, maybe two blocks away. Reasonable; Jason was either unconscious or restrained, but keeping him in a small car would have been risky. The car was parked, and…

Oh.

Oh, dear God.

He doesn’t need to track anything to see the tear in the earth, the thick wooden shards and the torn roots. The scanner says the disruption goes down six feet, to a cheap coffin.

Oh, Jay-lad, I’m sorry. I’m so sorry.

His ear crackles and Alfred’s voice hits him, colder than Freeze’s gun.

“Master Bruce.” Oh no. “What do you think you are doing.”

“I need to find Quinn.”

“You need to be with your son, who has asked for you twice tonight.” The uncomfortable feeling in his stomach is a response to the grave in front of him, and that’s all. “Now.”

Alfred uses-really uses-the No Argument tone very rarely. That’s probably why it’s so effective.

That said, Harley’s likely gone to ground for the time being. Big to-dos aren’t her style, not anymore. Besides, he can put feelers out from home. And maybe Tim will find something.

* * *

Jason’s asleep when Bruce nudges his door open, face buried in the pillow. Looking at him now, Bruce can almost convince himself that none of the last few years has happened, that he’s just...home from college for the weekend. But then he rolls over, bringing the brand into the low light, and the illusion’s shattered.

“Has he woken up at all?”

“Once,” Alfred says, apparently happier now that Bruce is here. “He wasn’t terribly happy with the room being so dark, hence the pineapple lamp.” Bruce can only imagine. “He wondered where you were, but then decided to go back to sleep.”

“I’ll watch him, Alfred.”

He’s sure he’s imagining the it’s about bloody time aura Alfred is radiating. It’s been a long night, that’s all.

“Very good, sir. Call me if you need me.”

Jason doesn’t stir when Bruce sits down on the edge of the bed. Good. It’s...it’s better that he get some sleep.

(Bruce doesn’t want a fight tonight.)

How did this happen, Jay? What am I missing?

He’ll find out. He’ll find Harley, he’ll make this...well, there’s no making this right, but...he’ll find her.

God, he’s tired of clowns trying to take his son.

THE END

#Jason Todd #Bruce Wayne #Alfred Pennyworth #Dove Marquis #Sheila Haywood (mentioned and also dead)#roots and leaves #Batdad #Bruce is trying to figure out what happened #Alfred is not having Bruce's avoidance tactics

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captcas · 4 years

Text

Worth Fighting For (10/?)

WORTH FIGHTING FOR by capthammKillian

“Hook” Jones is a dominate up and comer in the UFC while Emma “The Savior” Swan’s career was cut short. When Hook’s manager moves up and the office brings in UFC’s youngest legend to keep him in check, will either of them be able to handle it?

read on ao3 // tumblr: ch 1/ ch 2 / ch 3 / ch 4 / ch 5 / ch 6 / ch 7 / ch 8 / ch 9 [Chapter 10/?]

She and Killian spend most of the day before early prelims just lounging in the hotel room and Emma honestly couldn’t have asked for anything better. Before she knew it, Killian was opening the door of the car Regina arranged for them and she was sliding into the backseat. She pulls out her phone as Killian walks around the back of the car and gets in next to her. Looking at him would cause a world of problems, so she keeps her eyes trained on her phone. When he walked out the bathroom fully dressed for the night, Emma had to physically stop herself from staring. He was in dark jeans and a deep blue button up– she calls it that generously. Honestly, does the man know how buttons work? The tuft of chest hair sticking out the top left more than enough for her imagination, and Emma was left trying desperately to think of another man who had this effect on her.

The answer is none.

It didn’t happen instantly, like she knows it did for Ruby who talked about “jumping his bones” two minutes after meeting him, but the more time Emma spent with Killian the more she found herself thinking about him in ways a manager should definitely not be thinking about her client. Sure, she knew he was attractive– anyone with eyes can see that– but the want to be with another person has always happened later for her. Emma supposes her lack of one night stands and overall abhorrence to being hit on are shining examples of how she moves about life.

With Killian it’s different.

She kissed him.

Emma had almost forgotten that detail. Not the kiss– because how could she. Emma had all but ignored the fact that she initiated it. It’s so unlike her– that want– but with Killian it comes naturally. She hazards a glance to her left and sees him looking at her quizzically. When he catches her gaze he speaks up, “Something the matter, Swan?”

She shakes her head and turns to look out the window. Maine is largely boring, mostly just trees and the occasional billboard, but the landscape is safer than Killian’s worried look. He eventually speaks up, breaking the forced silence, “Look, Swan, I know you’re nervous about the press, but really it’ll be alright, I’ll see to it–”

“I don’t need you to protect me.” It comes out sharper than she wants it to, a mix of nerves about the press and about the man next to her bubbling to the surface. Emma refuses to look in his direction.

“Aye, love. I’m well aware.” He gives her one last glance before unlocking his phone and spending the rest of the car ride in silence.

They arrive at the arena, the car pulling up to the backdoor so they can enter without too much drama. Emma recognizes a few of the security guards, giving them tight smiles as she passes. Killian remains close, but slightly behind her. She doesn’t blame him for avoiding her, she’d do the same if roles were reversed, but that doesn’t make it hurt less. She turns around to find him walking with what can only be described as a swagger.

That’s when it hits her. Killian isn’t avoiding her at all– the Killian she knows isn’t here– this is Hook.

She snaps out of her shock thanks to a high-pitched voice, “Hook!” Emma’s head snaps to look at whoever is calling for Killian and is unable to stop her eyeroll.

She hears Hook speak from behind her, “Ahhh, lady Bell. Fancy seeing you here, Tink.” He walks past her as he approaches Tina “Tinker” Bell– in Emma’s opinion the worst ringname in the league. Tina practically throws herself at Killian as he kisses her knuckles in greeting, but it’s the blush that grows across Tina’s face that sends Emma over the edge.

“Were you– are you– did you two?” The words are out of her mouth before she can stop them, but as Tina’s stare levels with Emma’s, she stands her ground all the same.

Then Killian opens his big mouth, “Perhaps.” He’s grabbing his belt buckle and doing something absolutely stupid with his tongue. Emma shoots him a look before turning back to Tina.

“I’m Emma, Emma Swan. Killian’s new manager.” She sees the sparkle return to Tina’s eyes at the mention of their professional relationship and Emma can’t help the bubbling of jealousy in her stomach.

“I know who you are, Savior. Shame we couldn’t get more acquainted in the ring before you quit.” It takes everything in Emma not to introduce Tink to her fist. “I should be going anyway. I’ll see you later, Hook. I’m at the Hampton.” She winks and Killian smirks as she walks away.

Disgusting.

. . .

Emma mumbles for Killian to follow her as they find their seats and his stomach is in knots. He knew being anything other than Hook with Tina would be poor for his public image, but he didn’t expect it to have such an effect on his “Emma” image. It doesn’t sit right with him for the entire round of early prelims and when she leaves for the bathroom during intermission he’s at a loss. He decides to ease up on the persona a bit while she’s away, even ordering two beers and a bag of popcorn, but as Emma returns, he never gets the chance. Before he can so much as apologize for his behavior, Tina is sliding into the seat next to him chatting his ear off about her upcoming fight. He doesn’t even turn to look at her, opting to stare lasers into the side of Emma’s head hoping she gets all the telepathic messages he’s sending her way.

She doesn’t look up from her phone once. Not as the lights dim and Tina heads back to her seat, not as the entrance music starts, and even as the fight begins, her eyes are trained on her phone.

Fuck.

The first fight is a knock-out in practically record time leaving a longer break before the second fight begins. Taking this as a sign, Killian starts to turn towards Emma when she rounds on him first. “Honestly, Jones, what the fuck was that?”

He deserves this– that doesn’t mean he wants to do it here.

“Can we head into the concourse, love?” She looks like she’s about to say no, but shocks him when she nods slowly and starts to get up from her seat. He walks behind her with all the outward swagger of Killian “Hook” Jones but all the inward confidence of a kid caught smuggling candy bars in the grocery store. As soon as she hits the concourse hallway she veers left into a small alcove and whips towards him. She doesn’t speak.

Here goes nothing, Jones.

. . .

He scratches behind his ear and as infuriated with him as she is, she has to force herself not to smile– she makes him nervous. “Lo– Swan, I have a reputation…”

Of course he does. She’s not sure why she cares, but jealousy flairs up inside her again. Suddenly she’s finding it very difficult to look him in the eye. Emma goes to turn away, but he grabs her elbow forcing her to look at him again. “...and I assure you that’s all it is. I am well aware what a mess actually sleeping around can cause– especially for my manager– and, to be quite frank, Swan, I’m not all that interested in ladies who throw themselves at me.” He wiggles his eyebrows, fully aware of the double meaning that holds.

Emma is actively willing her face to remain neutral as she responds, “Tina didn’t seem to think it was that fake of a reputation.” She knows that accusation will sting, but he sort of deserves it… right?

Killian scrubs his hand over his face, clearly warring with what to say next. He sighs before he speaks again, “Swan, I promise you nothing has happened between Tink and I despite her ever present attempts to do so. Nothing has ever happened between me and another fighter– female or otherwise.” He says it with such sincerity that Emma feels a lump in her throat. She can’t let him know that his admittance means more to her than simply warding off a PR nightmare.

“As long as you’re sure… I need to know your skeletons, Jones. I can’t have something unearthing right before your fight that I wasn’t aware of.” She’s being vague on purpose, not sure Killian is the type of man to really have skeletons– he seems like more of a “wear it on your sleeve” sort of guy. That’s precisely why Emma does not expect the immediate change in the atmosphere surrounding them. He nods tightly, before giving her a forced smile.

“Noted, love.” When she smiles at him promptly ending their “fight”, his smile turns genuine and she realizes once more just how handsome he is. Killian looks like he’s about to speak when the entrance music for the next fighter starts and they both jump, breaking whatever moment they were having. He scratches behind his ear again– it’s honestly unfair how adorable that is– and speaks up, “Shall we venture back to our seats?”

She nods and takes his hand– when did that start being a thing she just does – leading them back to their seats.

. . .

The rest of the night is largely uneventful, the crowd is subpar and the fights are pretty standard. Killian can’t find it in himself to care. Emma has been chatting up a storm about anything and everything and he’s entranced by her passion for all things UFC and just for life in general. Despite the card being largely disappointing, he’ll be the first to say it was one of the most entertaining nights he’s had in awhile. As soon as the tension between them left– the reputation talk finally out of the way– Emma didn’t seem to mind when he would have to flip between Killian and Hook, even cracking a few jokes about Jekyll and Hyde.

Maybe they could do this.

By the time the main event is over, neither of them are the wiser, far too engrossed in a conversation about which stadium has the best popcorn– if he had only known… popcorn . She chuckles when he makes her aware of the rest of reality despite his intense desire to stay in this comfortable bubble they’ve created over the last four hours.

As they stand to leave, Killian spots a hoard of paparazzi out of the corner of his eye. He feels Emma tense besides him, the same overwhelmed feeling clearly passing over her.

“Hook!” “Killian Jones!” “Emma! A word quickly please!”

Killian stands and notices a physical shift in Emma. The bright smile turns into a professional grin as she turns to command the room, “Mr. Jones will take three questions and three questions only so make them good. I know you all have time to fill but Hook is here to enjoy his evening, not chat with you.”

Emma taking control of the situation is no surprise to him, but that doesn’t mean it isn’t absolutely stunning to watch in real time. The reports immediately simmer down, holding out their mics towards him waiting for him to speak– not him… not the real him anyway. As he shakes out his shoulders and slips into the very persona he had hoped to finally table for the night, he sees a flash of panic behind Emma’s eyes and he’s never hated the UFC more. He gives her a soft reassuring smiling before turning to the crowd.

“Hello, mates. What’d you like to know?” Smirk.

Emma points to a shorter woman in the back, calling her by name, “Jasmine.”

“Yes, thank you Sav- Miss Swan. Mr. Jones, how do you feel about the breaking announcement that your upcoming fight will be against ‘The Fire’ Neal Cassidy?”

Killian’s first thought is “Who is Neal Cassidy?”, but when he turns to look at Emma and the color drains from her face, all he can think is, “Who is Neal Cassidy... to Emma?”

#captain swan ff #Captain Swan #emma swan #killian jones #CS modern AU #worth fighting for #capthamm

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mexicancat-girl · 4 years

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A fic for #MLPrideFest2020 and Pride month.

AO3: Link, 3400+ words, chapter 1 of 3.

Summary: Luka and Juleka come out of the closet.(An apparently very thin, very transparent closet, but a closet nonetheless.)

Mentions of Juleka/Rose and Luka/Adrien/Marinette/Kagami.

...

Luka sits on his bed idly strumming on his guitar, humming a few bars. His guitar was balanced on his crossed legs, notebook open and spread out on the duvet next to him.

It is, no doubt, a familiar sight to all that know him. Luka does practice with his guitar often, and also tends to take to his bed to practice.

This time, he was working on a new piece—already had the lyrics written up and everything—but he needed to find a proper melody first. He knew the general vibe he wanted, but wasn’t exactly sure how to get the specifics down just yet.

He thought he’d start simple. Acoustic guitar always made good base tracks to work with, especially with fledgling song ideas. And if he still couldn’t get it, he could move onto his keyboard and fiddle around with a few arrangements, or even move straight onto electric guitar.

Music was a long and meandering process, sometimes. Other times, it was like a lightning strike, sudden and electric.

Ironically, Luka was somewhere in the middle with this one song. He’d written the lyrics in a fit of inspiration, just plopped himself down and wrote it in one session. A song about longing and blooming feelings and bright eyes. But the actual musical accompaniment was taking longer, hard to grasp, sand sifting through his fingers.

He wasn’t going to let it bother him much, though. If he works enough on it, he’ll figure it out.

Patience was a virtue, after all.

Not to mention, he had the weekend ahead to make progress on it. It’ll be the most free time he’ll have.

A long sigh cuts through the air, and Luka pauses in his strumming to peer over at his sister at the other side of their shared room.

Juleka was sprawled out spread-eagle on her bed, staring up at the ceiling. Though maybe it was more like she was glaring, as if the very architecture of The Liberty had done her a great wrong.

He could all but hear the frustration and longing through her sigh. Could hear the discord there that’s emerged in her heart song. It makes him frown, just a bit.

Luka went back to strumming, a bit quieter and more listless, more habit than anything to keep his hands moving. Thoughts of his newest song were promptly shoved to the back of his mind, alongside the blooming and festering lovesickness he’s had as of late, replaced instead by growing concern for his little sister.

It was a familiar feeling, this protective worry, sliding comfortably over his shoulders like a well-worn coat.

As the older sibling, Luka’s always looked after Juleka. Hell, he pretty much half-raised her himself, what with Anarka busy working for…well, as long as he can remember. For most of their lives, probably.

Luka’s fingers stop suddenly, the last note coming out reedy and out of tune, as Juleka lets out a loud groan and buries her face in her hands.

Hm. This seems like it’ll be a…delicate situation to handle.

Luka carefully sets his guitar on the floor, propped up against his bed. “Jules…?” he calls out, calm and careful and open-ended.

It was never good to crowd Juleka or push an issue too brashly. His sister was a shy and sensitive soul. She didn’t do well with conflict or speaking at the best of times.

Juleka gives him a reply, but it’s muffled and grumbled through her fingers. He can hear her heart song tremble alongside seeing her shoulders do the same.

“Do you want me to go over to you, or the other way around?” he asks her patiently, waiting on his bed, foot bouncing to burn off his restless energy.

He’s sure other teenagers would find sharing a room with their sibling as inconvenient and annoying, especially if a guy had to share with their little sister. While the lack of privacy wasn’t exactly something either of them enjoyed, as well as the lack of space for all their shit accumulated over the years, it wasn’t all bad.

They’d pretty much gotten used to it, considering they’ve roomed for so long. Their bedroom was the biggest, nearly the size of the living room, so they each clearly had their own space without much crossover. If either one needed to borrow something from the other, they could just ask and borrow it then and there, without much fuss.

They both co-existed well together, really. Since they went to Dupont together—at least, for another semester yet, as it was his last year before moving on to secondary school—they had their morning routines down to a science.

Luka always set the alarm for seven fifteen and woke up a half-hour earlier to make a fresh pot of coffee and get started on breakfast. If he happened to accidentally sleep in, either the alarm or Juleka herself will shake him awake to get ready for school. He’d always get to the bathroom first to shower at the speed of light, change, and brush his hair, before letting Juleka hog the space, as her morning routine was a bit more extensive.

Sharing a room also cut down on his response time, for sure. Pretty much the instant Juleka had a problem, he was there, ready to help her.

No matter the time of day, either. It could be the dead of night, even. And the second Jules would lightly touch his shoulder, tentative and nervous to wake him, he’d jolt up fully awake and ask her what’s wrong. Sometimes, he would even wake up on instinct alone, whenever Juleka had a nightmare, before she could even rouse herself to flee to his arms for comfort.

He was attuned to her emotions to a degree that most siblings probably couldn’t replicate, or even understand. But it was his duty to do so, to know how to be there for her.

This is all a very long-winded and complicated way to say this: Luka knows his sister well. Very well. He knows when and how to comfort her, knows how to walk the delicate tightrope of giving her the space she needs while being there for her to rely on. If the need ever arose, he could literally teach a class on the hows and whys of Juleka Couffaine, to the letter.

So he knows that when she starts to bury her face in her hands, she’s overwhelmed by something and needs to vent to someone.

- - - - -

The seconds stretch out, long and quiet and with a slight underlying tension, before Juleka lets out another gusty sigh.

Luka watches her carefully, already dropping one of his feet on the floor, half-ready to jump up and go to her side if she requests it of him. But instead, she slowly drawls out, “Your bed…?”

“Sure thing, Jules! It’s open and ready whenever you are!” he tells her, bright and encouraging. He quickly reaches out, fumbling for his notebook next to him, closing it and setting it alongside his guitar. He pats the duvet next to him invitingly, grinning toothily as Juleka all but throws herself on his bed with an appreciative grunt.

He waits while she makes herself comfortable, offering his wrist to her in case she needed a rubber band to tie up her hair or wanted to grab his hand to anchor herself. She does the latter, but not before spitting out a section of her hair that landed in her mouth and forcing her long bangs behind her ear.

“So…? What’s up, Jules?” Luka asks, rubbing his thumb across her hand soothingly. Instead of it relaxing her, the grip on his hand tightens.

Without much more preamble, Juleka’s leaning in and burying her face in the crook of his neck and shoulder. He has just enough foresight to tilt his head up, so he won’t get a mouthful of her hair on accident, frowning a bit at how quickly Juleka jumped into needing one of his hugs.

Not that he was complaining that she needed him for a hug, but the issue must be bothering her quite a bit if she’s jumping straight into seeking physical comfort.

“Jules…?” he asks her quietly, carefully threading the fingers of his unoccupied hand through her hair when he feels her shake against him, tension tight against her shoulders.

She mumbles something against his neck, low and indecipherable. He breathes evenly and considers the odds of him upsetting her more by asking her to speak up, knowing it’s something she hated.

But…He thinks finding out what has her upset might take precedence, just a bit. Just so he can figure out what’s wrong to start with, and quickly go from there.

So he squeezes her hand back, and pats her head, and asks evenly and sympathetically, “Could you speak up, sis? I can’t help you if I can’t hear you.”

There’s a slight pause. Juleka somehow manages to tense up even further, and Luka nearly hisses through his teeth at causing her more distress, instantly wanting to backpedal. But she ends up relaxing all on her own, bit by bit.

She’s nearly deadweight in his arms, by the time she answers.

“I…I think. No,” she starts, shaking her head against his neck. “I know. I know I…like Rose.”

Luka takes in a sharp breath, surprised by her boldness, though he really shouldn’t. His little sister was pretty blunt about certain things, like saying if she disliked something. She also never hid the fact that she liked and appreciated her friends.

But the way she’s spoken, she doesn’t mean she likes Rose in merely a platonic way.

“Just Rose?” he asks her, feeling her tense up against him in the silence it’s taken him to find a decent answer. “And for how long have you known?”

Juleka hums, noncommittal. But she shifts, pulling away from his embrace. He lets her, watching her carefully as she leans back enough to look him in the eyes, still clutching tightly at his hand.

“I…I’ve liked girls before,” she confesses quietly, but her eye contact doesn’t waver and she doesn’t try to hide behind her hair. “But…Never one like Rose.”

“You don’t have to tell me anything else, if you don’t want to,” Luka starts, firm in giving her the choice for further privacy. “But if you’d like to tell me anything else, I’d be happy to listen. You can tell me anything, Jules, you know that.”

His sister nods. “I know.” She tilts her head, looking back at him, considering. Like a little songbird. “I’m a lesbian. And a very useless lesbian, apparently.”

“You’re not useless,” he refutes her on instinct alone, as he tends to be the one to shoo her doubts away and act as her hype man. He goes on, quite diplomatically and encouraging, “Crushing on your best friend is a hard situation in general.”

No hesitation, and no need to think about it.

So, his baby sister was a lesbian…? That’s cool.

It was nice to know they had another thing in common; both apparently being as gay as they are.

Juleka snorts, and the edges of her lips are titled in a small grin. “Only you’d protect my honor against myself, Lu.”

“One of the benefits of having me as your older brother, Jules,” he smiles back at her, deciding to use a bit of humor to bring some much-needed levity to the heavy discussion. “Alongside nice hugs, sweet lullabies, making your favorite foods for dinner, and being just as gay as you.”

Juleka blinks back at him slowly, copper eyes wide and suspiciously shiny.

“You…really?” she asks, voice a near whisper. Hopeful.

“Really really,” he says with a nod. “Cross my heart.” He makes the familiar motion, watching as she chuckles warmly at their old routine since early childhood.

“So I wasn’t hallucinating…?” she starts, voice now teasing and eyes gleaming mischievously. “You really do get crushes on just about everyone?”

“Hey,” he starts jokingly, “don’t call me out like this, sis.” This spurs a delighted giggle from Juleka. His heart feels like it expands in his chest, overwhelmingly fond. “I don’t get a crush on everyone…”

“You literally gave Marinette, Adrien, and Kagami heart eyes the first time you met each of them,” she deadpans, raising a brow at him pointedly. “And you haven’t stopped since.”

Luka sputters and nearly chokes on his spit, flustered and feeling like the rug’s been pulled straight up from under his feet. He pounds on his chest to calm his coughing fit down, while Juleka just smirks at him like the cat that’s got the cream, leaning back and crossing her legs like she owned the universe.

The only drawback of hyping up Juleka and helping her with her confidence issues? She gets very cheeky with him and isn’t afraid to give him shit.

“I…I haven’t…” he manages to stutter out, face feeling like it was on fire, and trying very hard not to avert his eyes. In the Couffaine house, averting your gaze was a sign of submission or guilt, as their mother prized firm eye contact.

Also, one of Luka’s tics was wildly darting his eyes away when he felt guilty. Anyone who knew him at least semi-well knows this fact about him. And considering she was his sister, Juleka knew him the best of all. He was like an open book to her.

“I d-don’t give heart eyes, that’s…” he trails off, laughing nervously, his voice instantly jumping up an octave. Damn it. “That’s not a thing.”

“Mhmmm,” Juleka hums, still leaning back to survey him, smirking. And most definitely enjoying watching him flounder. “Right. Sure.”

“I don’t,” he presses in a hiss, hands clenched on his knees.

His sister simply shoots him another pointed Look. “You’ve written five love songs in the past three weeks alone,” she tells him flatly.

Luka opens his mouth to retort, before stalling as he counts the songs in his head and…realizes…she’s actually right.

“I, uh…May have…actually wrote a new one, too,” he hedges, voice a squeak.

“That absolutely proves my point,” she states, pointing a condemning finger at his guitar. “Six whole love songs, Lu. In three weeks. You’re averaging two per week here, buddy.”

She then pats his shoulder in patronizing consolation when he lets out an embarrassed groan.

It’s Luka’s turn to bury his face in his hands, apparently, the roles somehow firmly reversed. “Am I…really that obvious?”

“You’re so obvious, even blind people could see it,” she deadpans, snorting out a laugh as he blindly tries to swat at her. “Shit, Lu—”

“Language,” he mutters through his fingers, an automatic chiding.

“—soon enough you’ll have written enough love songs to make a whole album. Apiece, for each of them.”

“Please stop roasting me.”

“I’ll stop roasting you when you stop being a disaster about it,” she states flatly with absolutely no mercy.

“Weren’t you the one with girl problems? Why don’t we talk about that?” he asks, just a bit desperately, popping his head up from the previously safe confines of his hands. “I think we should talk about that.”

“Oh, no you don’t,” she refutes, instantly levelling a finger at his face. “I’m only crushing on one person. You’re juggling three, you loon.”

“I also haven’t created a series of mixtapes for my crushes,” he shoots back, feeling a little thrill of smugness at his sister instantly flushing pink.

“Fuck off,” she hisses, shoving at his shoulder. “You’re literally writing songs about them! That’s even worse!”

“Is it really?”

“Yes,” she stresses, glaring. “And don’t pull that ‘not making mixtapes’ bullshit on me—”

“Language, Jules—”

“—when you’ve literally made them personal ones already,” she says with a dramatic eyeroll. “So pot, meet kettle. Or in this case, disaster bisexual, meeting useless lesbian.”

“I’m pansexual, actually,” he interjects, with forced levity, “but Go Off, I guess.”

Juleka blinks back at him, obviously taken aback, but she recovers quickly. “Fine. Disaster pansexual.”

“Y’know, that doesn’t exactly sound right. It just doesn’t flow as well…”

“Maybe we can workshop it?”

“Yeah, sure, we’ll workshop it later,” he says lightly with a shrug, almost baffled at how completely blasé him coming out to his sister had ended up being, in the end.

He…hadn’t exactly thought the conversation would go like this, in this direction. He’d envisioned the scenario countless times, from the quick and light ‘Hey, I’m pan, that cool? Cool’ to dramatic revulsion fit for a daytime drama soap opera.

What ended up happening… wasn’t exactly something he’d ever considered.

Apparently, Juleka was thinking the same thing, because she went into a similar state of quiet and off-kilter pensiveness.

“Y’know…You being pan makes a lot of sense, actually,” his sister ends up saying, surveying him.

“Same with you being a lesbian,” he admits, also surveying her in kind.

“…Well, damn, we really are gay as hell, huh?” she asks. Luka doesn’t even have it in him to tell her to watch her language, because…yeah. Yeah, that was accurate.

“Thank fuck,” he nods solemnly, smiling wide at Juleka’s answering laughter.

- - - - -

Juleka talks with Luka for the rest of the evening, and into the night, too.

It’s like a floodgate’s opened, officially coming out to each other. They pretty much knew everything about each other before, but with this new revelation, a piece they hadn’t realized had been missing just seemed to click into place.

It all made sense, suddenly. The little things, that had no explanation before, that she’d just written off as her brother’s slight quirks.

Luka’s bold declarations of marrying Gerard Way when he was still in elementary school. His starry-eyed devotion to Jagged Stone, wherein for a solid six months he’d stare dreamily at his posters for minutes on end with a puppy-dog look on his face. His perfectionist tendencies when it came to making mixtapes for his friends-slash-secret-crushes that rivaled Juleka’s with how she meticulously created mixtapes for Rose.

Luka getting riled up about Valentine’s Day every year, insisting that he give all his classmates and friends cards, and coming back home either elated or dejected depending on if people accepted his gifts. The slew of names he doodled across his notebooks’ pages in hearts, like a merry-go-round or a lottery, a constant-changing thing that had no pattern between boys or girls. The evolving ‘lucky charm’ crises, where depending on what so-and-so classmate said looked good on him, was suddenly Luka’s go-to outfit or accessory he always had on him.

Hell, Luka had no qualms with watching any and all movies with her and Mom, barely absorbing any of them because he would just daydream over whichever actors he found the cutest.

“Have you never actually paid attention to any movie we’ve watched, ever…?” she demands, after his last confession to her.

Luka flushes, looking offended. “O-Of course I have! I know the Harry Potter films by heart!”

“Alright, sure. But can you name any characters from the Twilight series?”

“Uh, duh. There’s Bella and Edward and Jacob.”

“Past the three literal main characters, Lu.”

“And the Cullens. And the werewolves. And the Volturi…?”

Juleka has to bite on her tongue in order to not go on a twenty-minute rant-slash-spiel about the vast cast of Twilight characters. She had to focus. She was roasting her brother, first and foremost, and that was always most important.

“…Do you actually know specific names, or do you just think of them as ‘the hot vampires’ and ‘the hot werewolves’?” she asks dryly after a few incredulous seconds, just to watch him sweat.

After a pause—one longer than it really should be— he answers weakly, “Yes?”

“Oh my God, Luka.”

“Listen! Listen,” he says, bringing his hands up. “In my defense? There’s a lot of characters.”

She glares at him narrowly. “There’s a lot of characters in the Harry Potter series too, you hypocrite.”

“…You know what? Fair.”

- - - - -

Juleka and Luka talk so much and so far into the night, they’re exhausted afterwards. With great reluctance and heavy yawns, they get ready for bed and turn in.

Thankfully, the next day is Saturday, so they don’t even have to wake up early.

Even their mother sleeps in on the weekends, especially as of late. And that woman literally rises with the sun, because she’s insane like that.

Something, something, pirates always have to wake up at the crack o’ dawn to start the day.

It was stupidly corny and cheesy, but, well. That was Anarka Couffaine for you.

When Juleka drifts off to sleep, all she feels is warmth, a smile dancing on her lips.

#MLPrideFest2020 #coming out #Luka Couffaine #Juleka Couffaine #julerose #Anarka Couffaine #Miraculous Ladybug #fanfic #mexicat writes

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warriorlid14 · 4 years

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For the fic summary ask game, when you have time - Ron/Neville, "everybody wants to pass as cats" (song reference is Mr Jones and Me, the previous line is "we all want to be lions," and every song which makes any mention of a lion of any kind needs go be referenced in an hp fic title)

Oh man, that quotes gives me “I am going to pretend to be strong” and “I am definitely Okay, Just Fine” vibes, SO: set after the war, Ron and Hermione have decided they’re better off as friends

Two months after the Battle of Hogwarts, Ron shows up at Neville’s door. He’s sheepish, and a bit ashamed that he hasn’t sent him an owl to see how he’s doing. Or Luna or Dean or Seamus. Hermione has, and he’s told her to say hi on his behalf, and he’s seen them in the dozens of funerals or ministry events but he never really talked to them, instead exchanging “this sucks” glances. So he feels a little bad. But he’s also pants at herbology and needs a favor.

“George needs this ingredient for a few of his products. It’s the toxins of the leaf, see? But neither of us knows how to grow it or gather it without bollixing it up. Fred was better at herbology.” He’s mastered the skill of saying his brother’s name now without a flicker of pain on his face. “So I was thinking. Maybe you could teach me?”

Neville agrees, of course, and informs him that it’ll take three weeks, and that he can just get him the ingredient himself if he wants. Ron shakes his head, and says that he wants to learn, so Neville tells him he’ll have to come every other day because this particular plant is high-maintenance.

The first couple of times Ron comes over are a little awkward. They don’t talk much. Nobody has been doing much besides dealing with the aftermath of this war, and it sucks and it’s depressing and so they don’t talk. Until the third time he comes over and Neville is carrying around this bucket of muck to throw out. But then he trips and pours it all over Ron. And Neville is red in the face and apologizing profusely. And in that minute he reminds Ron so much of his awkward, clumsy, but sweet friend. And Neville is still beet-red and it’s crazy to think that this is the same kid who slayed Voldemort’s last horcrux right in front of him. And it’s not that funny. But Neville’s face is, and Ron’s sure his face is too, and suddenly he’s laughing, uncontrollably so, and then Neville is laughing, too. They must look ridiculous, laughing so loud and for so long and covered in mud and leaves, and it’s really not that funny. But this might be the most he’s laughed since the funerals, and the Battle, and Harry’s resurrection, and Fred’s death, and Malfoy Manor, and that fucking locket. And that’s such a depressing thought that he laughs even harder.

And just like that, the tension breaks. There is still some silence. But it’s comfortable, and peaceful, and there’s something cathartic about mindlessly helping Neville pull weeds that have gathered around his garden. And sometimes they talk. Not about the war, but they don’t exactly avoid it either. They talk about friends and what they’re up to, and about old times, and about that mythology book that Luna won’t stop talking about and about that series that Hermione is watching with her parents as a bonding exercise. And Ron finds that when he makes a joke, he actually means it around Neville and isn’t just forcing one out. It’s surprisingly easy to talk to Neville the way it isn’t anymore around Harry and Hermione and especially his family. At least he doesn’t have to force a conversation around Neville. And it’s horrible to think about, and he hates that it’s true. But when Neville brings out a small vial of the toxin he extracted three weeks later, Ron feels something in his stomach churn.

So this is it, then. It’s a bit ridiculous, how attached he’s become to their herbology lessons over such a short time. But the thing is, he can breathe here. He can just be. And it’s ridiculous because he’s fine. He’s fine. It’s Harry who literally died and Hermione who was tortured and Fred who was killed and his parents who lost a son and George who lost a twin. And it’s selfish, so horribly selfish of him to enjoy being away from them like he has. To be laughing and joking around with his friend like everyone’s life hadn’t been ruined. But he doesn’t have to worry about Neville blowing up on him and he doesn’t have to force him to eat or force himself to smile or make a joke when all he wants to do is scream in order to make Neville feel better.

He’s a shit friend and son and brother, he knows.

So he mutters a thank you and grabs the vial, and he’s about to say his goodbyes, when Neville says, “I’ve been wanting to try some muggle gardening for a while. Do you want to help?”

And there’s something about the way Neville smiles at him, all bright eyes and dimples that makes Ron’s heart skip a beat. He smiles back and says, “Sure.”

And so for the next three weeks, Ron stops by during his lunch break to help. And damn, if it isn’t almost therapeutic. The whole heart-skipping-a-beat thing happens twice more, but Ron Doesn’t Think About It. Nor does he think about how stops himself from smiling like an idiot whenever Neville laughs at his jokes. Nor about how he almost dropped the shovel he was holding when Neville grabbed his arm once.

One day, Ron makes a very-offhand and totally not a big deal comment about this muggle restaurant Hermione was talking about and how they have specials every Thursday and how maybe they should go check it in a couple of days. And Ron doesn’t understand why his heart almost wants to jump out of his chest or why he’s terrified that Neville will say no. It’s just a friendly lunch.

Right.

But then Neville says, in a hesitant voice. “Actually, I was going to tell you... On Thursday we’re starting to fix up the east wing of school, so I’ll probably be staying longer because we need to assess the damage. I was going to ask, if maybe you wanted to...” His voice trails off and Ron’s mouth suddenly feels dry.

“I can help.” But his voice sounds strange to his own ears, and his heart is beating wildly in his chest, and not in the good way he had started to associate with Neville.

Neville looks startled at this, and says, “I was going to say that maybe we skip Thursday and you can continue helping me on Friday.”

“Why? You don’t think I’ll be useful? I can help.” He didn’t know why he was still talking or why he sounded so defensive, and he absolutely shut down the part of his mind that wanted to agree with Neville.

“That’s not what I meant. Ron, you don’t have to-”

“I’ll be there.”

And that was that. The rest of the day and the next were awkward, but on Thursday, Ron took the day off from WWW and apparated to Hogsmede in the morning. Neville looked surprised to see him, and Ron was annoyed because he was fine. Just Fine. He could handle being at Hogwarts again like everyone else rebuilding it. Nevermind that none of the Weasleys had stepped foot in the castle since the battle.

And he was fine. Within the first few hours. But then he and Neville and two hufflepuffs turned on a corner and Ron stopped breathing. All he could see was a fallen wall and his brother on the floor. And he could hear Percy wailing and the battle still raging. And he heard someone calling his name, but he wasn’t breathing. And he smelled the stench of blood and his was breathing in dirt and debris again and Fred’s eyes were open, but he wasn’t seeing and he never would again and-

He felt himself being pulled from the arm and dragged away, but he kept his eyes trained on the floor and fought desperately to stop the tears from coming.

When he finally looks up, he sees he’s in an old classroom and Neville has a concerned look on his face. He still hasn’t let go of his arm, and Ron is glad for this.

“That’s where Fred died.” There’s no emotion in his voice, and Neville gives him a sad smile.

Then he sits right next to him, so close that their arms are brushing, takes his hand, and says, “Stop me if you want to talk.” Then he launches off into a story about the time he fell into a river when he was six, and then about the time he saw a unicorn when he was eight, and about all the times he and Luna would stay up after hours on Hogwarts grounds and talk about the different shapes they saw in the starry sky.

Ron let his head fall on Neville’s shoulder, closed his eyes, and let the tears fall freely down his face. He wasn’t listening to his words, but his voice was comforting, and he let it and the hand holding his tightly anchor him to the present.

Eventually, Neville stopped talking, and they sat there in silence. Ron didn’t know how much time passed before he lifted his head and said, “I’m okay now. I’m okay.”

Neville smiled that same sad smile and said, “I know. But you don’t have to be all the time, you know that?”

Ron nodded, and smiled back.

“So... do you want to talk about it?”

“Not now, but... Another day.” And Ron was surprised that he actually meant it. Neville squeezed his hand in return.

A few days before Neville went back to Hogwarts and Ron started auror training, they went to that restaurant. Not as a date. But when Ron leaned in to kiss the side of his mouth where there was a bit of chocolate on the corner, he couldn’t stop smiling when Neville kissed him back.

...

Was that supposed to be a summary?? OOPS. I had to cut it short because I have to run.

#lytefoot #ask game #warriorlid writes #nevron #ronnev #ron weasley #harry potter

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chocochar · 4 years

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ᴛʜᴇ ʟᴀᴅʏ x ᴛʜᴇ ᴛʀᴀᴍᴘ | Dabi x Reader [Part 1]

(AN: First read this before jumping into the fic, it’s info for it!!

So I got a request for a Lady and the Tramp Dabi x Reader (Which is almost done although it’ll be in two parts, since it’s so long... TuT;) and I got hit with a flood of ideas. So, uh, this was born yay! Dunno if anyone will like it but I’m still gonna keep up on it either way lol Get ready for a lot of introduction, Dabi shows up towards the end of this chapter XD)

Part 2: TBA

The kingdom of Musutafu is known far and wide as the largest and most prosperous of all the land; it houses both nobles and royals alike, the common areas popular for their trade and shopping, and the king, Toshinori, is well known for his kind nature. While still standing tall and proud many look up to the man, referring to him as the greatest king that's ruled over there land.

Nestled in the main city is the (L/n) manor where the nobles (Fa/n) (L/n) and his wife (M/n) (L/n) reside with their 3 daughters (F/n), (first sister), and (second sister). The family is well known for both their business involved in creating top of the line armor, specifically made of rare materials that take weeks to find, and their beautiful daughters, both of which are key reasons so many other families have flocked to them throwing their sons into the pile of suitors wanting at least one daughter's hand in marriage. While her sisters have found fitting men (F/n) is less fortunate. Nearly every single one has either been turned down by her father, clearly only interested in her money, or just not her type. It's frustrating, and sometimes she wonders what it would be like to not be connected to money and power. She's even considered leaving home, maybe becoming a trader in the commoners district, but living a sheltered life and not knowing anything beyond royal parties and courting and fancy meals, she isn't sure how well she'd make it.

Waking up like she does everyday in her plush, queen sized bed the young woman stares up at her ceiling debating on getting up or not. She's supposed to meet a suitor today, one that her father set up without her knowing until yesterday. She tries to be nice and courteous at the very least every time, they did come to visit so even under those pretenses it's the least she could do (unless they're like the young lord she met last me, ugh... then she drops the niceties and nearly kicks them out with her actual foot.)

After at least 10 minutes of lying there in a daze she gets up and yawns, stretching and shifting to get out of her bed. It takes about an hour to get ready simply because her mother orders the maids to do up her hair and makeup while also dressing her in a gown that's way too fancy for this occasion (in (F/n)'s opinion).

Coming down into the dining hall once she's ready (F/n) greets,"Good morning..." with a yawn, her mother shaking her head when she sits down.

"How many times have I told you ladies cover their mouth when they yawn, and also try to quiet them?"

(F/n) gives her a tired look before digging into her breakfast. She tries to be ladylike, since her mother will chastise her more if she isn't, and takes small bites, holding her silverware correctly, etcetera. She can feel the overbearing glances from her mother and father while they eat, her sisters keeping up the conversation while (F/n) stays quiet and focuses on her food. She's too lost in thought about the meeting today; This is a bigger and more well known man than before, being apart of the council, the royals who come together in the castle and have meetings to make decisions the king either can't decide on or doesn't have time for.

The man is Lord Enji Todoroki; his bloodline has been known for generations due to not only their heroic tales of glory or war victories but also their dragon blood allowing them to become the beasts. He's bringing his prodigy son, Shouto, whom she's met before, he's nice although not the most talkative unlike his older siblings. But his father she doesn't trust nearly as much. His wife supposedly went mad and splashed her son with boiling water, his eye scarred from the ordeal years ago, but word has also spread (you have to be careful who you say it around) that his eldest disappeared too after an 'incident'.

(F/n) doesn't know the details, no one seems to know what happened to him but everyone knows better than to talk about it.

"Are you ready, (F/n)?" Her father asks breaking her out of her thoughts. She looks at him and nods, forcing a smile and setting her silverware down. He returns the grin and adds,"Todoroki, will be here shortly so-"

A servant entering the room quiets him and they look, the man saying,"Lord Todoroki has arrived, sir, and he and master Shouto are waiting in the study."

"Ah, perfect, thank you Hans," (Fa/n) replies, the servant bowing before leaving. (F/n) takes in a deep breath, standing and patting her gown. Her father stands too, saying,"This could be it, (F/n), give it your all dear."

While she agrees her eyes have trouble meeting her dad's as she turns and leaves, going to the study to greet her guests.

[X][X][X]

The meeting starts out well, at least, (F/n) sitting across from the two royal men and trying to sit up straight and keep eye contact while they talk. Shouto is much easier to talk to than his father, (F/n) less stiff when he asks a question or replies. But she can clearly see who's leading this meeting.

"Your family hasn't offered much on the table, (L/n), if it weren't for the business we wouldn't be having this meeting today," Enji remarks, (F/n) biting her lip and taking a breath before replying.

"Well, your lordship, I truthfully do not know what my father has spoken to you about but if your son and I were to marry I can promise you we'd come to some sort of agreement."

"Hmmm... I see," is all he says back, and she fidgets with her dress. He's very difficult to talk to, the way his intense gaze seems to be sizing her up. She can feel his disapproval, but for their families he seems to know a marriage would be very beneficial. (F/n) glances at Shouto; he looks like he's having about as much fun as her. She always can tell he doesn't want to be around his father, she can't blame him.

"A-Anyways, Shouto, I heard your magic was getting much better too," she speaks up, the younger man nodding and softly smiling. He likes talking about his magic, she's noticed, unless his father is boasting about how powerful he is and how he'll be the next king for sure.

"Yes, thanks to Ochako I've learned to master more spells, especially some of the more difficult out there-"

"Not that he needed the help of some witch," Enji scoffs, arms crossed. "I have told you before, Shouto, the court mage has been looking to train you and I believe it would be better for you to take that over a girl."

Shouto narrows his eyes but doesn't bite back, instead taking a deep breath. "I have also practiced more in my dragon form, I can control my elements better than I could last time we met."

"If you'd like I'd very much like to see it today if we have time." (F/n) smiles warmly, ignoring the tense atmosphere.

Things seem fine for another few minutes before Enji once more speaks up, cutting (F/n) off as she's talking to Shouto.

"I have something to ask, (L/n)," she looks at him confused, stiffening at the expression he has. His intense cerulean orbs leave her feeling small, but they look suspicious, the (hair color) haired woman hoping she didn't say anything wrong. "I had heard your father telling one of the other nobles that the business would be going to your cousin, Izuku, is that correct?"

For once she can't think of a response, eyes wide and the noble clearly confused. 'I-I never heard about this...' She thinks, swallowing. "I... I didn't know about this... Did my father say it directly?"

"I had overheard them talking about it, I do not know the details but this will unfortunately put an end to this courting if that is the case," He admits without any hesitation. Shouto actually looks at his dad in shock while (F/n) is more taken back by hearing that her father said this. She's the oldest and has been getting taught about how to run everything since she was 14, so why...?

"Father, you can't just stop it over something like this...!" Shouto tries to argue it but Enji is not one to back down once he's made a decision.

"She is of no worth to us otherwise, she does not know magic, she's just a noble woman. The Todoroki's produce powerful offspring, we need wives who can give us that and more," He cuts the young man off, this striking a chord with the already upset noble herself. Standing abruptly she breaks the niceties.

"Who are you to judge, sir? I'm sorry if I am unworthy of your bloodline, but to be honest I wouldn't want to continue it if you are going to be my father-in-law! I am sorry, Shouto, I suppose you'll have to show me your magic some other time where we aren't being roped together against our wills," she snaps, giving the white and red haired heir a sad look before glaring at his father and storming off out of the room. The two nobles sit there, Shouto feeling a strange tightness in his chest but also impressed someone stood up to his father, while Enji is more taken back although anger is quickly growing in his bones.

When the servant comes looking for them he jumps back when the noble pushes past him storming out of the manor, his son not too far behind although admittedly not wanting to go home just yet.

(F/n), meanwhile, is off hunting down her father.

[X][X][X]

"You're giving it all to Izuku?" (F/n) asks the moment she finds (Fa/n), the man looking at her puzzled before it disappears and he's rubbing his neck, turning away from her.

"Enji told you?" He asks, also having a feeling this suitor won't work out either. But with Izuku taking on the armory giving his daughter away to a man of power is more, in his mind, for her own happiness, no longer in hopes to continue the family business.

"Yes, he did, and he was not very happy himself when he imagined giving his son to someone so unworthy," she replies bitterly, crossing her arms. He pinches the bridge of his nose annoyed but the hurt in his daughter's voice next catches him off guard. "You... Are really giving everything to Izuku? E-Even though I've been working towards being the next to take it over?" She's always known her father has favored the green haired boy, even if he tries to hide it. Most of the time she tries not to think about it but this time is different.

"(F/n), you have to understand... Izuku has been training under king Toshinori, he's worked with armor and weapons in the past, and, well-"

"You will always favorite him," She cuts him off, her father looking taken back but also not defending himself. The hurt on her face is no longer masked and she meets his eyes. "He's special, I understand, so are my sisters, I love them too but... But... I'm you're child too!" He doesn't argue, he has no place to, and she shakes her head; turning the woman rushes out of the room, heading for her own.

After a few hours of cooling down everyone gathers for dinner, although she eats quickly before hiding away back in her room.

"I'll never be the child he wants... Maybe I'll go stay at Tsu's, get my mind off of everything..."

Thus when night falls and everyone is in bed she grabs the bag she packed, currently dressed in a gown with a cloak over it, the hood of said item over her head hiding her face. She wears her flats and hides the necklace around her neck with her family's symbol on it under her clothing. Leaving her room she checks the hall before taking a less occupied, quieter route to reach the servants quarters. Leaving out the servants entrance she luckily slips away with little to no problems and holding her bag tightly she hurries away.

Unfortunately her friend lives near the lower areas of the Common Area, and with all the guards she has to take back streets and hide so she isn't seen. Being so sheltered is not in her favor, as she has no idea she's being closely followed and watched until she goes to leave an alley but is pulled back in suddenly.

"Wh-Wha-" she's muffled by a dirty, large hand. Her (e/c) eyes are wide, the woman freezing up seeing 3 men; the one holding her is on the scruffier side, looking quite a bit older than her and smelling of booze; the one to the right is lanky but has eyes that make her shake, and the left is muscled and missing an eye. The way they eye her up has her terrified and she hopes she brought enough money to maybe appease them.

"Look at this, guys, we got a pretty thing here, don't we?~" the one holding her grins, his rank breath brushing her face leaving her coughing into his palm and trying to turn her head away.

"Looks like one of them rich brats, too, check 'er bag!" the scrawny one adds trying to pry her bag from her hold. He succeeds and backs up, (F/n) still struggling to get free. She freezes up when she's groped by the one missing an eye and she shakes her head.

"Don't worry your pretty lil' head, we ain't lookin' to hurt ya," her holder says but the grin on his face says otherwise as they pull at her gown ready to undress her and do who knows what. She is able to open her mouth just enough to bite his hand, which luckily gets him to pull it back with a,"You lil' bitch-"

"HELP!" She cries out, hoping someone, anyone will come to her aid before they do anything else.

The dirty man she bit doesn't hesitate to slap her, causing (F/n) to fall over from the impact, but as he goes to kneel down the scrawny one whispers,"Ah shit, the Tramp!" All 3 stiffen and look at the alley entrance, (F/n) shaking on the ground hand covering her cheek and tears brimming in her eyes. Shakily she opens them when a new voice speaks up,"At it again, boys? Thought I told you 3 this was my area but I guess trash doesn't stay where it belongs."

She takes in his odd appearance while also wondering if he came to help her or not; his black hair looks wild yet soft to the touch, his bright blue eyes seem to glow in the dim lighting, and she can make out purple scars decorating his body kept together with his normal, pale skin by staples. His clothes have seen better days with tears in different areas and all dark shades, 3 silver piercings sit on the bridge of his nose, and in his ears sit silver loops along the shell and turquoise colored crescent shaped loops in the lobes. He has an expression that's hard to read, although she can make out some irritation. She stares at him hoping he did come to save her, and when he looks down at her she freezes at how intense his cerulean gaze is. It reminds her of a certain noble she told off earlier today...

His eyes shoot back up to her assailants when the scruffy leader shakily says,"D-Dabi, look, we was just tryin' to do some quick robbin' she wandered this way before we could-"

"I don't really care what your reasons are, Haggar, just get out of here before all your wives have of you 3 are ashes," he says fluidly, this being no idle threat since the moment they hear it the 3 men are already running back down the alley as fast as they can. The man, 'Dabi', sighs pushing some of his black locks back before he turns back to the trembling woman; (F/n) has gotten up by this point, carefully meeting his eyes and feeling more intimidated by it then even Enji's. But he doesn't seem like he'll hurt her as he walks up to her bag, grabs it, and hands it back to her, (F/n) taking it and biting her lip.

"Th-Thank you," she says, wondering if she can maybe give him gold as a way of repaying him.

He looks her over before giving a small grin and saying,"No problem, dollface, I couldn't just stand by, could I?" She turns pink at the name and his tone, but he seems friendly, at least towards her. He starts to leave the alley and she follows almost immediately, having been shaken up by that experience and finding this need to stay close to him. He knows she's following him so he asks,"What's a noble girl doing down here this late at night? Out for a little walk but got lost?"

"Um, well not exactly, I was going to a friend's home, in the shopping district... And I did get a bit lost, but when I actually figured out the way those men grabbed me," she replies, trying to keep up with him and peering up at him. "If it weren't for you..."

He glances at her and can see how shaken up she still is, deciding to give a lazy grin and keep up this friendly facade by saying,"Like I said, I couldn't just let those rats hurt a doll like you, good thing I was passing by when you screamed." He hums, getting an idea and stopping to look down at the young woman. "The shopping district is a bit far for you to walk to this late, plus you look pretty exhausted. If you'd like you can stay at my home until morning, it's about 5 minutes from here."

Despite a little voice telling her not to take the offer (F/n) is too tired to argue or deny him, so nodding she smiles and says,"I-I don't see why not, that's very thoughtful, thank you... Dabi, correct?"

He nods, starting to walk again. She drags a little behind him, adding,"My name is (F/n), it's nice to meet you." She leaves out her last name, after all she doesn't know Dabi so mentioning her family line could be a bit troublesome. He looks over his shoulder at her and smirks before looking ahead.

He'll keep up the friendly facade, for now, she seems naive to this side of town. 'As long as I keep up the act she'll be easy puddy in my hands.' He thinks, already knowing who she is, how much her family is worth, and planning on an easy chance to gain quite a bit out of this and finally get out of this city.

All he has to do is reel her in.

(AN: Okay so almost 3 days working on this one chapter, it's finally done. Sorry it's super long, had to get it goin' y'know? Honestly I dunno how much attention this will get, or if anyone will like it, but it sounded like a fun idea so I'm still gonna write it lol

Sorry if Dabi or anyone is OOC! I'm already working on the next chapter so let me know what you guys think, I love hearing peoples thoughts, any critiques I'm open to, and enjoy! (ง ´͈౪`͈)ว )

#mha dabi #dabi x reader #lady and the tramp #bnha x reader #bnha fanfiction #dabi is a thief #dragon dabi #bnha medieval au #mha medieval au

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thedistantdusk · 5 years

Note

Heyyyyyy idk if you do asks but could you write about Harry figuring out he wants kids? 😍

I’ve never actually taken a Tumblr ask before… but this was an amazing prompt! Thanks! :D

(On AO3)

Harry hadn’t really thought about babies before. He’d abstractly thought they were cute in their own way — little potato blobs that pooped and cried and gradually became more humanlike.Although Harry doesn’t properly meet Teddy until the war is over (and doesn’t even hold him until mid-May), he automatically knows his godson differs from the nameless, faceless babies he’s seen before. In retrospect, this should have been Harry’s first clue that perhaps part of him — a part that had been asleep for years, or perhaps one that had never truly woken at all — was finally stretching and rising. But even after all that, Harry reckons he’s a bit thick, because it still takes him until July to make the biggest discovery of all.Weekend trips to the Tonks house quickly become customary following the war. Andromeda’s a middle-aged woman raising an infant entirely alone; like everyone else in her position, she needs a break from time to time. She’d conveyed early on that weekends are the hardest, as she’s been with the baby for five straight days — and Harry and Ginny are happy to help. They’ve gladly traveled to her home every Saturday afternoon for months, and thus far, every trip has been simple and endearing. They’ve each enjoyed the little slices of domesticity, little glimpses into normal life, little breaks between the mourning (and shagging), and grieving (and more shagging) and rebuilding (so much shagging).Right away, though, Harry knows this particular trip will be different. Even from the exterior of the house, Harry can tell that Andromeda is struggling. Weeds have overgrown normally immaculately maintained garden, her rose bushes are unpruned, and her lawn is longer than Harry’s ever seen it. Harry vows to help her with yard work as he and Ginny approach the door — and although he feels like nothing malicious is to blame for any of these deviations from the norm, he instinctively knows that a relaxing afternoon is not what the universe has in store. The moment they step over the threshold, this prediction proves correct.Instead of rushing to greet them with tea and biscuits, an exhausted Andromeda is pacing the foyer, bouncing a pink-haired, fussing Teddy on her shoulder. She gives them a weak smile and offers a half-hearted apology for the mess and her attire and the garden, because Teddy’s teething, and it’s been —But Harry never finds out how it’s been, because Ginny won’t let her get that far.

Her red hair trails behind her as she swoops in with soothing words and a gentle pat on the arm and a soft reassurance to the older woman that it’ll be fine. Although she’s nearly thirty years her junior, Ginny’s presence has a calming effect; Harry’s not surprised when Andromeda visibly sags in relief. Harry is surprised, though, when Andromeda walks up to him and nonchalantly plops Teddy into his arms without a single forewarning.Harry accepts his godson, of course — though he can’t help but look startled while he does it. Maybe one day he’ll get used to this custom of people so cavalierly handing over something so precious. Now, though, he’s mostly worried about the plans Ginny’s committing them to while he’s busy holding the baby; Andromeda swiftly explains that she hasn’t been to the shops in ages — and that she positively needs to get out of the house. Ginny instantaneously volunteers to watch Teddy, but all Harry can do is give her a wide-eyed, horrified look: How the hell are they meant to function without an actual adultIt’s no matter, though, because they clearly don’t have a choice. The older woman is ready to leave in a flash — and Harry now realizes (because, again, he’s quite thick) that she’d merely been waiting for them to arrive. Andromeda wraps Ginny in a warm embrace, and Harry shoots his girlfriend a weary look from over her shoulder (Are you sure about this?). Ginny arches an eyebrow at him (No, but we’re doing it anyway) before pulling away from the hug with another calming pat.Then Andromeda offers them a parting wave, turns on the spot, and disappears into thin air.>br/>And with that, Harry and Ginny are off on their first babysitting adventure.>br/>Just the three of them.>br/>Right.

Teddy cuts through the blanketed silence with a little gurgle. Harry glances down just as the baby’s face wrinkles and strains. Harry cautiously leans back, preparing for the explosion that usually accompanies that expression… but instead of expelling something from either end, Teddy lets out a little grunt — and then he shifts, right before Harry’s eyes.Oh. Harry swallows. He’s never seen him do it, not like this… but now the baby’s hair is shifting from pink to black, his eyes from brown to bright greenMerlin…Ginny giggles and sidles up next to them, oblivious to the war waging in Harry’s chest. “Andromeda said he was getting better at this,” she notes, tracing a finger down Teddy’s cherubic little face. “Transforming.” Then she pauses, biting her lip. “Can I—?”Harry clears his throat and passes Teddy into her open hands. He moves mechanically, as if he’s coming out of a trance — but even seeing a baby who looks exactly like him probably wouldn’t have amounted to much…If only Ginny hadn’t taken things one step further.But fortunately (or unfortunately, Harry really can’t decide), she does.The second Teddy’s in Ginny’s arms, the baby’s whimpers turn to gentle sighs. She makes shhing sounds and brings him to her chest as she cradles his head on her shoulder. A soft smile graces her lips before she sinks onto the sofa, and Harry numbly takes the cue to join them.After that, it all happens very quickly.As soon as Ginny props Teddy up in her lap, Harry feels something bubbling in his stomach, something changing him from the inside out, something akin to Polyjuice Potion… except it’s changing his heart, not his hide.Holy mother of God.Harry’s breath freezes in his throat as black-haired Teddy raises a chubby fist. Ginny swoops in to kiss it, tucking a piece of long red hair out of his reach and adjusting him in her lap. She gives Harry a soft smile from over her shoulder; he summons a weak one in return, even though it feels like he’s been socked in the gut.At nearly 18, Harry Potter’s just realized something that would get him into a great deal of trouble if he were to voice it aloud. It’s something he’s confident most teenagers don’t think about much. It’s something that life has never allowed him to consider — or to plan for. Even once.Because Harry’s now certain — beyond any doubt — that he eventually wants a baby.With her.Fuck.He swallows and runs a shaking hand through his hair as Ginny positions Teddy so he’s seated upright. The baby’s green eyes dance with mirth as Ginny coos some vaguely pleasant nonsense, the tips of her red hair brushing her shoulders as she does.Oh, Harry thinks numbly, his heartbeat pounding in his ears. Now they’re playing a game.

Ginny holds Teddy under his arms, leaning in closer and closer to his gummy grin until — at the last second — she makes a chomping sound and kisses him on the nose. Because Teddy’s a baby, he’s surprised every single time; he emits more peals of mirth with every single pass… but after the fifth consecutive time, it’s too much.It’s too, too much.Everything that Harry’s spent seven years denying comes crawling up his throat at the same time. He’s lightheaded and claustrophobic and sick and warm and terrified and thrilled… and he jumps up from the couch and darts to the corridor, muttering something about the toilet as he goes.

Ginny’s confused, “Wha-?” is cut off as he enters the loo and slams the door behind him, all semblance of manners forgotten.Once inside, Harry lurches to the sink, hoping his unsteady legs won’t buckle beneath him on the way. He grips the cool porcelain, slamming his eyes shut, and after several pained seconds, Harry dares to look up at himself in the mirror. He draws deep breaths and wills them to give him some modicum of comfort… and all the while, he tries very hard to pretend that Ginny hadn’t been a vision of femininity and motherhood and perfection and love. That she hadn’t represented every single thing he’s ever wanted.While holding a baby. Who looks exactly like him.Before he can help it, Harry’s imagination explodes — absolutely explodes. Harry’s already known he wants to marry her; that’s a foregone conclusion, albeit one that’s also abstract and terrifying. For some reason, he’s never factored kids into the mix, too… but suddenly, that’s all he can see.Harry sees Ginny, all glowing and beautiful and pregnant, her bright red hair illuminated by a sunset. He sees himself smiling and caressing her growing bump, kissing her laughing mouth, massaging her back, telling her how much he loves her. Then the scene changes; Ginny’s snuggling a black-haired baby (one who can’t shift the color of his hair) as their little family rests atop a worn blanket. Now Harry sees the baby toddling on unsteady legs, his tongue sticking out in determination as Ginny kneels and cheers him into her arms. Oh, and now there’s a green-eyed, red-haired little girl offering him a flower she’s plucked from the garden. Or maybe multiple little girls. Or boys. Harry’s not fussy, not about any of it. He sees hectic trips to Diagon Alley and enormous family dinners and absolute, unadulterated chaos.And he loves every second of it.Harry swallows, looking away, and a shiver races up his spine.Fucking hell… what has he done? _______

Ginny demands answers the second they reach the path to the Burrow. He’d figured she would; he’s just not sure how to explain this, though, without scaring the shit out of her.Right.Harry draws a deep breath and turns on the spot, preparing to give a reasonable explanation — but Ginny greets him with the same warm, curious look he’d seen in one of his bizarre domestic daydreams. Any thought of handling this well evaporates as quickly as it had arrived.Harry blinks at her a few times, opens his mouth — and then blurts everything out with all the elegance of an oiled gazelle stumbling up a set of stairs. His words run together as a single, unpunctuated entity, and by the time he’s done, he’s impressed Ginny hasn’t run for the hills.“You were holding Teddy and he looked like me and I didn’t know what to do with that because I’ve never thought I had a future before but now I think — no, I know — that I want kids one day. In future. Butonlywithyou. Specifically.”Harry groans and turns away, running a hand down his face.Well, that couldn’t have gone worse.For several pained seconds, he stares at his trainers and tries to negotiate the fact that he’s likely left her completely terrified… but just as it seems all hope is lost, Ginny’s words rip him from his mortified reverie.“Okay,” she starts. To Harry’s surprise, he gets the distinct impression she’s caught between amusement and sympathy. “So, to clarify, you saw me with Teddy. And realized that you might want kids. Eventually. One day. And this is… a huge problem?”He glances up to see a smirk twitching the corners of her lips; he slumps over in relief, but she’s made her point. It does seem a bit stupid, when she puts it like that.Harry spreads his palms and attempts to explain. “I just… I never let myself think beyond Tom, yeah? And now that I have thought beyond him, it kind of just… hit me all at once.” He trails off and looks away, huffing out a sigh that sounds as pathetic as he feels. As usual, though, Ginny knows exactly what he needs. Her little palms slips into his; her touch is soothing and perfect, just as it had been with Andromeda.“Well,” she says slowly, staring at their joined hands. Is he just imagining it, or are her cheeks turning pink? “You happen to be in luck, Harry Potter. Because I might eventually — one day, not now — want kids. With you.”Oh.Harry grins and wonders if she can hear the weight lifting off his shoulders. “Yeah?”Ginny swallows through a curt nod — but that’s her last attempt at sincerity before she starts bantering again. Harry doesn’t care, though; how could he care when he’s this happy?“But I want to emphasize,” Ginny begins again, her tone mock-serious, “that these are to be very specific children. Because I’ll be honest, the concept of kids in general?” She shrugs, making a face. “Never really done it for me. So I reckon I’ll either raise them with you or get loads of cats.”Harry laughs and leans in for a kiss; he has to touch her. Ginny relaxes into him, drawing him against her body — and when she pulls away a few moments later, a sparkle of mischief glints in her eye. “Well,” she sighs, draping her arms around his neck. “I reckon a funeral is in order.”He arches an eyebrow as his palms come to rest on her waist. “A funeral?” he ventures, torn between confusion and delight. It wasn’t too long ago that funerals were something dreadful and never-ending and painful, just another piece of the puzzle in dismantling Tom once and for all.But the smirk twitching the corner of Ginny’s lip tells Harry she’s not thinking about anything dreadful or painful or never-ending. She’s happy… just like he is.Instead, Ginny fixes him with a flat stare. “Here lie Harry’s swimmers,” she says stoically, “stuck in the shallow end for the foreseeable future.” Harry snorts before he catches himself. Usually he’s better at this, at expecting her next line and preparing something in return. This time, though, she’s caught him off guard.It’s not until Ginny clears her throat that he realizes she’s actually expecting an answer.“Erm. How long will they be in purgatory, do you reckon?” she asks, her brown eyes wide and seeking — and Harry recognizes the tone of voice she uses to sound more nonchalant than she feels.He shrugs and turns to walk up the path. Truthfully, he’d be ready whenever… but they’ve got plans. They’ve both got plans. Ginny slips her hand in his again, and when he responds, he tries very hard to pretend that they aren’t hedging around a topic with more gravity than anything they’ve discussed before.“Well,” he says fairly. “We’re each really interested in getting into the other’s trousers. Oh, and as a totally unrelated aside, you’re much better at brewing potions.”Ginny gives a dark chuckle, but he can tell she caught his drift; one look at Teddy solidifies that babies don’t always happen on purpose. “Yeah,” she agrees, “but you’re much better at charms. Let’s just hope our redundancy is idiot-proof.”Harry chortles in understanding as they finally approach the gate to the Burrow, holding it open for her as he does. He’s glad they’re on the same page with that one. The very thought of that conversation with Molly (while Ginny’s still in school) is something that makes his stomach turn… He turns back to face her and gestures for her to head inside — but Ginny’s paused in her tracks, a weird expression on her face.“I guess,” she half-laughs, as if the thought is only just occurring to her, “we… actually have time to talk about this now. Don’t we?”Ginny gives him a hopeful smile as her cheeks turn pink again, and when she bites her lip, Harry feels a near magnetic compulsion to kiss her.

So he does.She responds eagerly, melting against him as her hands clasp around his neck. And in truth, they probably would have been content to deepen the snog with wandering hands and lilting whispers — but then Harry remembers the door not ten meters away. And the fact that it’s broad daylight. He finally sighs and pulls back, although he keeps her body pressed to his. Harry needs to feel her, now more than ever, even if they can’t be nearly as close as they’d like. Matching grins stretch across their faces as his eyes penetrate hers, as his hand comes up to tuck a stray piece of hair behind her ear. Yeah, he thinks, cupping her jaw. We have time.

#harry and ginny #fanfiction #harry potter fanfiction #tumblr asks #hinny fanfic

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angstymarshmallow · 5 years

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The Wolf’s Heart; part eight - “marked as yours” N*FW (cal lowell x mc)

[a little note: I decided on a name...eight parts in. It’s cliche but honestly, this is all I have lol. AND NOW i HAVE TO UPDATE THEM ALL.Ahhhh This part was a joy and a pain to work on because it’s been awhile since I’ve written anything like this. If you aren’t comfortable with smut, then pass on this because there’s kind of a lot of that going on with how close they’ve grown to each other - even more so than before and I didn’t know if it was rough or enough or. Plus I’m touching on non-canon material that’s kinda influence in the book I’m writing on the side, you’ll see once you start reading. I’m going to stop babbling, I’m just anxiously going to leave this here. I always appreciate feedback and would love to know what people think!]

[words counted: 8210]

[summary: after rescuing Cal, they’ve finally had a moment to themselves for the talk. The Big One to decide whether or not they’ve got a future in NOLA together]

[part one, part two, part three, part four, part five, part six, part seven]

The rest of New York City feels very far away in comparison to the weight of Cal’s thoughts as he peers at the city’s skyline down below the nearly twenty story building. Technically, he knows it isn’t - he can jump and leap that in a simple bound and then some, but that wouldn’t change anything.

After he’d met and thank the people that helped Wren to rescue him, he’s been trying to come to terms with the past several hours - days. It’s been that long since he’s seen the outside world and although they’ve only been in the hotel for an hour; he’s itching for a run.

He presses his forehead against the cool surface for a moment. He needs to touch something, to convince himself he’s really here – really alive and not dreaming up this place. He’s still not a hundred percent sure. He rubs his fingers along the glass, making a slight indent into it.

The bloodsuckers reassured him he could spend the night with Wren here; at least giving them some time to re-group, but all Cal can think about is what looms ahead. It’s not over, not in the slightest. Shaw over-played his hand by contacting Kavinsky, but Cal isn’t out of the woods yet. In his heart, he knows it.

It won’t be over as long as Shaw continues to threaten the livelihood of his pack. And he’ll be coming back home with zero solutions to deal with that colossal problem.

Shit.

The scent of her suddenly fills the room and the wolf in Cal snaps at attention at the diversion. Something in his chest twists, as he whirls around to spot Wren by the door, a hand on her hip and a small smile toying at the corner of her lips.

“A penny for your thoughts?”

He shakes his head, a small smile of his own lifting his cheeks as she crosses the room to stand in front of him. “For you? It’s always free.” Taking both her hands into his, he leans forward until he’s able to bump her forehead. “Have I mentioned how happy I am to see you? I almost can’t believe you’re here and not some kind of fever dream.” He squeezes her hands for emphasis and watches as a faint blush splays across her cheeks in response.

“Are you admitting that you actually dream about me?” Her smile transforms into a teasing smirk.

“Guilty as charged.” He pauses for a moment, swallowing past a sudden lump in his throat. “God, I missed you.” He never thought he’d see her again, and now here she is – standing right in front of him. Does he dare hope? Does he dare believe this really reality?

Her teasing smirk vanishes. Wren presses into him, and those dark eyes of hers’ turn uncharacteristically grows swiftly somber. “I missed you too.”

While remaining eye contact, she drops one of his hands. “You’re never allowed to do that to me again.” As if to drive her point home, she punches him on the shoulder. “I was worried shitless about you.”

“Woah!” He’s more surprised than he is hurt at the gesture and a huge part of him wants to kiss her, but the smarter part of him recognizes the telltale signs of Wren’s temper. His eyes search her face.

“You don’t get to do that to me, not anymore – we’re a team, Cal.” Her mouth snaps shut and then open again as she huffs a breath.

Cal thinks she’s fighting to say more without knowing how to say it. He waits a beat, resting a hand on her arm in support.

“Shit.” She swears again and runs her fingers through her hair. “I need to say this. I need to get this out before I start losing my mind.” She looks completely flustered.

That’s how he knows it’s something important – and the sudden intense look in her eyes definitely confirms that.

Relationship important. And it takes every bit of him not to coddle her to his chest. Every bit of his control not to tell her it’s okay – they don’t have to discuss it now, if she doesn’t want to.

“I love you Cal.” She says the words softly, staring up at him with a look of tenderness strong enough to make it hard for him to swallow. “And when Donny told me you were gone…it was probably one the scariest moments of my life.” She shakes her head, “no I definitely was, because no one at Wolf’s Den knew where you were.” Taking a deep breath, she makes a point of reaching for him as if she still can’t believe it herself that he’s really here either.

“I told myself I’d do anything to have you back, anything to look at you right now and tell you…” she trails off for a moment, her voice trembling with a sudden look of vulnerability in her eyes that makes Cal rest a protective arm around her waist. “And tell you –,” her voice shakes, “how much I love you. And that scares me. It scares the shit out of me, but it scares me more that I almost never got the chance to say it. And I’m not going to keep one foot in the door anymore Cal.”

“What are you saying Wren?” He has to hear her say it. He has to know that there is no going back for her anymore. For either of them. If they’re going to be together again, if she’s going to be apart of his life –

“I want to be your mate. The whole nine yards.” Her voice cracks but she says the words loudly and her eyes never waver from his. “I want to be your only partner – in the pack, in life – in everything. I want it all, but only with you.”

At first, Cal doesn’t speak. He doesn’t think he can. His entire body remains frozen on the spot as he stares down at her completely – loss for words. Slowly, the enormity of her words start to sink in.

“Uh…Cal?” She wets her lips. “You’re staring at me…and not saying anything.”

He’s never really seen her babble before, Wren isn’t the type. But it’s completely cute how she’s shifting on her feet and tugging on her arm as she suddenly starts rambling, Her eyes drift to the side, “– and it’s kinda freaking me out when I’ve just left my heart out here and I –”

Cal lets out a howl of joy, cutting off the rest of her sentence. He scoops her high inside his arms, grinning from ear-to-ear.

“Ooof. Down boy!” She fastens her legs around waist and her arms by his neck seconds later. “So, I take it – you’re happy…?”

“Happy?” Happy doesn’t even begin to cover how he feels. He chuckles in disbelief before swooping in to capture her slightly parted lips. And kissing her is like icing on the cake - he pours every ounce of his happiness into his kisses. Every ounce of love he can as their mouths meet, over and over again. “I’m beyond happy.” He murmurs against her lips, his ears perking at the sound of her moan. His tongue dart swiftly out to have a taste of her – sliding between half-parted lips.

When he manages to give them some breathing room, she’s smiling at him and there’s so much love in her eyes – that he doesn’t want to wait a second longer. Why should they after everything they’ve been through?

“I want to, tonight. Make you mine, I mean.” He speaks the words in a heated rush without thinking, gauging her reaction. “In every way possible – I want you to be my mate.”

Her eyes widen a little and for a moment Cal fears the worst. Maybe they need a little more time – he’s already gotten his answer.

But then she nods eagerly; her wavy hair shaking at the vigorous motion. “God Cal, yes. Please.”

“Are you sure?” He wants her to be sure, because once it’s done there’s no going back. At least not for him. When wolves mate – they mated for life.

“Yes, I’m sure. I know this is what I want, what I need.” Wren takes a breath and cups his cheek. “There’s no one else but you Cal, not for me. Not anymore.”

The conviction in her voice makes his heart swell with love and pride, because for him there isn’t anyone else either. Without uttering a response, Cal ambles confidently towards the foot of the bed. With a soft growl, he tosses her playfully onto the silken white sheets.

She lands lightly across it, gazing up at him with a look of unadultered hunger and affection in her eyes that makes his throat go dry.

“Well? What do I have to do?” Her brows wrinkle in that adorable way of hers’ when she’s momentarily confused by something. “Is this going to be….some kind of weird- cult shit?”

Cal barks out a laugh. Shaking his head in amusement, he responds. “No, it isn’t. I mean, it’s still magical but.” He stops for a moment, thinking of how little he knows about it. “I don’t even know if it’ll really work because you’re human.”

“Only half-human.” She reminds him, sitting up.

“Half-human.” He agrees, lifting his lips into a smile at the reminder. “But we’ll take it slow and figure it out together?”

“Mmm,” Wren tilts her head to the side, biting her lips in a way that causes a rush of heat towards his groin.

Fuck, she knows what it does to him when she does that.

“What if I don’t want to take it slow?” She slowly starts unbuttoning her shirt, button after button without taking her eyes off of him. “What if I want it rough and fast?” She shrugs the garment off. “What if I want you to make me beg for it?”

“Are you trying to test me?” Because he’s almost at his limit. Already, he’s able to sense the wolf’s patience waning – shivering in anticipation of claiming her completely. She doesn’t realize yet, but she’s playing a dangerous game.

“Maybe.” She smiles coyly at him. “Is it working?”

He watches her strip-tease with half-hooded eyes.

He’s hooked on where her hands travel; between the valley of her supple breasts, down the length of her abs until disappearing between her shapely thighs - wishing it were his fingers instead that draws a low hum of pleasure from her throat.

Damn, it’s definitely working.

Grinning wolfishly at her, Cal captures one of her ankles and with deliberate slowness, hauls her towards the foot of the bed. “I think you already know the answer to that.”

“But I want to hear you say it.” Her eyes challenge him and lips that slightly part invitingly as the bed suddenly dips from the shift of weight.

She doesn’t know what she’s really asking – for him to lose control over the wolf. Even as much as he trusts her, he doesn’t know if he can trust that part of himself not to hurt her, and the last thing he’s ever wanted to do is hurt her.

The room’s been quiet for almost too long.

“I trust you.” She says softly as if reading his thoughts.

Her touch across his cheek settles some of his unease. He nuzzles his face into her palm, inhaling her familiar scent. His pulse skyrockets as she jerks his chin towards her.

“I trust you completely Cal.”

Cal exhales harshly, letting most of his worries drift away from her insistent touch. She trusts him completely. He’s never had anyone trust him like this – not with this part of himself, the part he’s accustomed to having to hide in past relationships. Although she’s come close, more than once this – this is different.

This is giving the wolf complete control. This is letting nature run its course and magic taking the reins of their fate, of their future.

The bed creaks again as Cal presses one knee and then the other on either side of her hips. His left-hand trails across her chest, pausing to run soft circles across nipples.

She sucks in a breath.

Smiling to himself, he drifts his hand a little lower while slowly pushing her back – taking his time to guide her movements, until her naked back lands softly against the silken sheets. His massive frame looms atop her; still hovering and bracing without allowing much of his weight to entrap her completely.

“What are you staring at?” She says after a moment of silence. Her eyes shoot up in question and Cal shakes his head.

“Just admiring how beautiful you are,” his hands frame her face as she breaks out into a smile. God, she’s breathtaking.

“You’re the one to talk.”

When she lifts a hand to tangle in his hair, he stops her. “Mmm.” A low rumble escapes his throat as he grabs her wrist and holds it high within the air. His nails are almost too long to be completely human anymore and they bite into her flesh. “Not tonight, not for this.”

Her eyes light up unexpectedly.

Neither speaks as the bed emits another soft squeak at the shift of weight. Inch by inch disappears between them as Cal lowers himself until his lips skim the base of her neck. “I’m in complete control tonight.”

Wren releases another rush of air as she feels Cal’s mouth hovering by one of her most sensitive spots. It takes all her willpower to resist the urge to reach for him, to drag her fingers in his hair and yank him closer. But she has a feeling he won’t let her. Not tonight.

Instead, she fights the temptation with a barely concealed moan and shuts her eyes. She listens to the sound of his breathing, the gentle pressure of his lips as they press a kiss where her pulse flutters in excitement.

Another low rumble fills the air.

His lips travel down the length of her collarbone, its languid pace threatens her heart into palpations as they dip between her breasts and nip her tender flesh.

She shivers.

His sharp teeth graze her nipple – one and then the other, biting gently while her own breathing turns ragged.

“Look at me.”

His voice has always had its edges, raw – honest. Even in its softest moments, there have been parts of it that’s never lost some of what she suspects as the wolf. But hearing him now; there’s almost no hint of that softness left.

When her eyes flutter back open, Wren barely manages to stifle a gasp.

His aren’t their normal colour anymore. They’re a soul-scorching amber glow, the telltale signs of his other half fighting for control. But he’s not fighting it. He’s letting it happen. And a silent thrill runs through her at the knowledge.

His tongue darts out as he nuzzles the side of his face into her skin. “Mine,” he says the word emphatically, expelling a breath before continuing to lick a path down her body; past her lower abdomen.

And her stomach seizes in anticipation for more.

When his lips find her center, Wren’s back nearly arches off the bed.

“Every part of you is mine.” His hands drop to pull her thighs wider apart from each other. Shooting her a grin, he buries his head in between them and blows a cool breath of air across her clit that causes another shiver to travel along the base of her spine.

“Cal –”

The moment his tongue touches her heat, the rest of her sentence turns into a cry of pleasure.

He isn’t gentle. No. Not this time.

His tongue expertly latches onto her, pushing through tender her folds with a sudden feverous intent that has her fighting to keep still. All she can do is toss her head back and moan as he drives his tongue in and out of her pussy, without pause – without giving her a chance to breathe.

His tongue knows exactly how to drive her wild, how to push her limits of what she can and cannot handle. From its long strokes against her swollen clit, to nipping when she least expects it - it’s almost too intense – too much, to the point where she’s clenching the sheets to keep herself from reaching for him. And when she feels the sharp edge of his teeth placing more pressure on her clit, her mind almost threatens to see stars.

Oh my god.

He’s never been like this before.

Wren sucks in a breath. Her hips shift a little off the bed as he continues his relentless pursuit of her orgasm, sucking her clit – nipping every so often at her most sensitive spot, until finally slipping a finger inside to stretch her.

Oh god.

Wren has to bite down her lip hard as another two digits slip joins in, pushing deeply despite her sudden flinch at their intrusive entrance. With three digits roughly thrusting inside her heat, they spike her heartbeat even higher as the sound of her wet excitement fills the air. Her hands loosen around the sheets. She tries to grip the back of his head, but a moment after touching him – his free hand firmly twists hers’ away and pins it back into place.

He’s going faster now, as if to match the pattern of her own erratic heartbeat still racing inside her chest. His fingers move at a speed so fluid that her legs have started to shake.

“Cal,” she cries out his name as her orgasm hits, like a wave that’s been brewing a storm – it crashes into her with such ferocity that her hips completely leave the bed. She tries to twist away – her sensitivity suddenly too much to keep him between her legs.

But Cal slips his fingers out at the same second and she struggles to move as he laps every bit of her excitement on his tongue. He braces her against the canopy bed to prevent her escape. When he finally pulls back to give her a little breathing room, his amber-coloured eyes watches her in the dim light. “You’re so beautiful.”

Without taking his eyes off her, he sniffs his fingers. “I love your smell.” He takes one finger into his mouth at a time, licking them clean. “Fuck, I love your taste.”

A whimper escapes her throat at the gesture. God, if she didn’t think he could get any hotter before, well – she’s pretty sure she’d combust on the spot any minute now if he stops.

Wren sits up, wrapping her arms around his neck and pulling him close enough to taste herself on his lips. She catches his lower lip between her teeth and bites hard enough to draw blood. He moans low in his throat and the sound makes her stomach flip.

Breaking their kiss, Cal rakes his fingers across her naked back.

It stings. His nails are sharp but there’s a lingering pleasure behind the pain.

“Swear it to me.” A single sharpened nail – long enough to prick her chin lifts her chin up. “Swear that you’re mine and no one else’s underneath the stars tonight.”

There’s no hesitation. He has her – soul, mind and body. “I swear I am yours and yours alone.” She gazes up at him, watching the flecks of gold glow brighter than ever before as he dips his head low and emit another growl.

The words feel right, everything feels right.

Except the moment Wren says them, a stinging sensation from where he’s marked her is suddenly all she can feel, all she can think about despite the living and breathing perfect specimen of a man right in front of her. Whatever endearments of love she’s thought of, quickly evaporates from her mind and she reels her head back in surprise. The pain isn’t just a light stab anymore – it’s more of a pulsing feeling that starts from her back where he’s undoubtedly staked her as his claim, until it ebbs deeply within her core.

She struggles to keep her focus on Cal.

What’s going on –

It’s as though he’s burned her, and any minute now she’ll smell the scent of her own flesh igniting itself as she finches back. Her hands move to quickly find the spot – but he’s faster.

Cal captures her hands and pulls them to rest against his hard chest as he lets out a hiss of pain. The mark goes both ways. He doesn’t just feel his pain; he feels hers too – down to the very core of his fucking soul.

Shit, does it always hurt this much for everyone?

Still, he can’t show weakness. It’s not what she needs right now. He can’t show a slither of how much it’s destroying him. She needs him, needs reassurance that she’ll be okay, that mating the right way will work. So, Cal doesn’t allow his gaze to waver. He doesn’t scream every curse word he can think of into existence. He merely bites his tongue against the hot flashes of pain still wracking his entire body.

This is what it means to be mated.

He endures the scorching fire within his blood. It’ll be gone soon enough. He only has to wait for it to pass. The wolf yelps but doesn’t falter either.

Minutes passes until he hisses at its impatience.

He wants to claim what’s rightfully his now that they’ve started. And he’ll let the wolf – only after allowing her proper time to adjust to all this. This is after all, new for them both even if his instincts are making it hard to keep his focus.

When his mate finally stops shaking, Cal draws his attention back to her lips; back to the curves of her well-toned body. When she starts trembling again – it isn’t because of pain. No, it’s with a new kind of feeling. Need. Painful need. He can almost taste it; her desire to mate - her sex quivering with the undeniable urge to join him.

It practically has him salivating.

He swallows it back.

“Cal, Cal I need you.” The words seem to tumble out, even surprising her. And her eyes flicker from their usual dark brown to nearly an identical colour.

And holy fuck does he need her. He needs to be inside her so fucking much that there aren’t any words to describe it. He can scarcely even breathe at how irresistible she suddenly seems in front of him – more than she’s ever been before; with her half-bruised lips from their kisses, tousled dark hair around her shoulders and dilated pupils of faint-amber. He’s completely aware of her pheromones warping the atmosphere around them. This is deeper than just lust, and love. It’s like a primal urge just to bend her over and fuck her senseless.

Claim her. Claim her.

Resting his palms on either side of her waist, he yanks her forward until the tip of his cock lightly teases the entrance of her mound.

When she moans, his cock twitches at the sound. “Beg for it.”

“Ah – what?” She pants, eyes clouded.

“Beg.”

He’d have to thank the universe later for the little self-control he’s had left to speak, but for right now – all he can concentrate on is the heat radiating off of her, off of him. And the heady look of lust on his mate’s face. But he’ll wait, he’ll wait as long he has to.

“You’re serious?”

“Beg.” The word comes out as a growl.

“I want you to fuck me Cal.” She drawls out the words, tilting her chin up – meeting his gaze head-on. “I need you to fuck me, so…so fucking bad. Please Cal. Make me yours.”

And it’s all the begging he needs.

Uttering a growl, Cal guides his length inside her - one inch at a time.

At first, Wren can’t speak. She bites down on her lower lip.

A familiar rush of pleasure fills him as her fingernails dig into his broad shoulders. What’s left of his self of control finally snaps as he hikes her legs around his lean waist and increasingly buries more of himself inside her sloppiningly wet heat.

He doesn’t spare more than few seconds for her to adjust once he’s down to the hilt, before he drives his hips forward. The bed creaks loudly at the motion and her own cry of pleasure encourages his burning need to fuck her – to really fuck her.

He recedes out of her slick entrance and then slams into her.

She digs her nails harder into his skin and fingers that have begun to feel more like claws press intimately into his flesh.

It’s enough to draw blood.

He slams into her again. And again. And again. Each time he does, her breath hitches until he can barely hear her over the loud smacking of their bodies - crashing into one another with frenzied urgency.

Mine. Mine. Mine.

The word echoes inside his head like an infinite loop that only seems to grow stronger each time he thrusts his entire cock deep within her. It isn’t just about how much he loves her, it’s about the constant need to stretch her as much as he can, to fill her completely with his seed and hear her scream his name to the universe.

His hips jerk with such ferocity that she topples back and he goes with her, pounding with enough roughness for the board to splinter as the headboard clatters heavily against the wall. It doesn’t deter him. His goal is single-minded; solely on making her shatter beneath him and when she thinks she’s had enough – he’d do all over again.

Her own momentum can’t keep up and quite quickly, Cal’s thrust become wild and erratic enough to send Wren over the edge. He feels her inner walls tighten around his shaft and he expels a harsh breath as her entire body convulses all at once.

“Fuck, fuck, fuck.” She continues to let out a string of curses as she throws her head back, eyes stinging with something close to tears as she shudders again.

God, even watching her come apart does something crazy to him. It makes his heart race, makes the wolf inside him puff in satisfaction that he’s able to satisfy his mate so completely. But he’s far from finished, in fact he’s famished for more. And it isn’t until the tremors stop that he flips her over, guiding her closer to the center of the bed as the wolf snaps his impatience.

She doesn’t need to ask; his desire for her must work both ways too. Something in her body seems to respond automatically to his urges, and she shoots him a mischievous grin over her shoulder, before offering her smooth back to him.

She’s so sexy.

There’s his mark there too. Spirals that twirl together to make an insignia matching the one undoubtedly on his shoulder where’s marked him as her own. He stifles a groan at the sight and nudges her forward with a jerk of his hips, until she’s balanced on all fours. Her palms dig into the sheets, tearing the fabric as he sinks into her again.

Fuck. She’s exquisite. She’s perfect. She’s his.

His thrusts are jerky, uncontrolled. There’s no stopping him, not when he’s so close. He can’t help but be rough, nails raking angry marks across her thighs and hips as he keeps thrusting maddeningly fast into her. Here inside the safety of this room - he’s not just Cal anymore and she’s not just Wren either. This is bigger than the both of them and he surrenders himself to the passion, surrenders himself to the pain.

He presses his chest into her back, inhaling their sweaty mix. More. More. He’s desperate to find his release – desperate to fill her completely with his come. He nicks the nape of her neck again with his sharpened teeth, biting down hard as she cries out his name.

Her hands grip the headboard as his pacing grows more erratic, more fevered until the bed shakes from the sheer intensity of their fucking.

Without thinking, one of his hands finds the supple arch of her throat. He can almost hear it. Her pulse flutter in excitement when his grip tightens. He feels the exact moment when she let’s go. Her body convulses into intense shudders that fuels his orgasm. Uttering a string of curses as burrows his face into the crook of her neck as his body starts to shake, emptying himself inside her until he’s completely spent.

When he’s finally able to move again, Cal rolls over and takes her with him. She tucks herself at his side as he stares happily at the ceiling.

God, that was…..there’s really no way he can describe it

He listens to the sound of their heartbeats. They’re both still keyed to speak.

Woah. Is it like this for everyone?

“Wow.” Wren breaks the silence first, grinning up at him. There are flashes of exhaustion within her eyes when he peers at her. He’s worried he’s broken her for a moment until she threads her fingers through his chest hair and lets out a contented sigh.

“I know.” He blows stray strands of his now matted and wet hair away from his face, before staring back down at her. She’s never looked quite so messy and tired before. He likes the look on her.

“You were really holding out on me, huh?” She has the galls to arch her eyebrows at him and he laughs at the gesture.

“Maybe.” He tries to play it off, but his cheeks give him away. They always do. “I just…I never wanted to risk hurting you.” He runs his fingers through his hair, glancing bashfully at anywhere except directly at her.

“Uh huh. I’m not so breakable Cal.” He feels her fingers, still coated with sweat turn his chin. “But if you weren’t convinced before, maybe this will convince you now.” She presses a soft kiss to his jaw.

There’s still a faint amber-light to her eyes when she pulls back, and seeing it makes him so damn happy. He breaks out into a wide grin. “No, I can be as rough as I want now.” His words drop an octave, husky enough for her eyes to slide meaningfully down his hip.

Wren whistles. “God, I really thought you had stamina before but now.” She traces hand across his naked hip and the touch makes the tip of his shaft twitch. “Now, I definitely know what stamina is, I still feel like I could maybe go for another round or two.”

A low rumble escapes his throat. “I can’t help it. It’s what you do to me, and it’s the wolf that’s never truly sated.” He captures her hand and kisses her wrist before giving it a gentle squeeze. “But that can wait. When’s the last time you slept?”

Wren avoids his eyes. “Maybe a day or two.” She winces. “To be fair though, I was trying to find you.”

“I’m not going to argue with that. I just want you to take care of yourself, and I’m honestly beat.” He exhales sharply, closing his eyes for a moment and then stares back up at the ceiling. In all his wildest dreams – he didn’t think today would have ended the way it did and he flinches at the memory of being trapped.

If it wasn’t for her – he didn’t think he would have survived.

Wren scoots closer. Her warmth is a welcoming presence that breaks the prison of memories still flooding the gates of his mind. “I’m really glad you’re all in one piece, I can only imagine what that asshole put you through.”

Cal is hyperaware of her uncertainty. Even if she doesn’t ask – he can still feel it. Are you okay? Do you want to talk about it? And maybe one day, he will. However, for now – he’s perfectly fine with shoving the memories as far back as he can keep them. He won’t let them ruin everything tonight.

“It doesn’t matter.” Dropping a kiss by her brow, he sighs. “I’m here – you’re here, that’s what matters.”

“Mm.”

“Is that you letting this go without me having to ask?” He almost has to do a double-take.

“Hey! I let things go sometimes!”

He snorts.

“Okay – well,” she huffs out a breath. “Stubbornness runs in my blood but I’m not stupid enough not to see you’ve been through a lot.” She hesitates. “I can feel it radiating off of you in waves, and we don’t have to talk about it until you’re ready.”

“Good.” He sighs in relief. God, he loves her for it. “I love you,” he whispers, shutting his eyes close.

“I love you too.” He feels her sharp teeth graze his side, “now shut up and let us get some sleep.”

Everything hurts.

Her arms, her legs – every part of her body seems to be completely worn out as the events of last night comes rushing back to her- as vivid as if she’s still there herself. The fight with Kavinsky. Finding Cal. Mating. Her cheeks colour at the latest memory. Last night had been intense, however it doesn’t take long for her mind to switch gears.

There’s too much going on at one time for it not to.

Even worse, Wren’s entire body aches as if she’s been hit by a truck and suffering the worst parts of a hungover because of it. The slightest flicker of movements she takes to sit up in bed causes an after-effect and she flinches at the stabs of pain. There’s no getting rid of it.

It isn’t the room. The room is blissfully quiet. It’s everything outside the room. Her hearing is better than it’s ever been before; picking up things she didn’t think possible. The whispers out in the hall from the people she’s only just met, suddenly sounds more like shouting.

“Do you think they’re going to get up anytime soon?” Harlow’s voice sounds filled of concern.

A snort sounding as if it belongs to Lily. “After hearing them last night – not likely.”

“Man. They were so loud.”

“You’re the one to talk Jax. You and Harlow have been waay louder in the past –”

Hissing, Wren clutches her temples as she tries to drone them out – desperate for silence. It’s no use. She can’t drone them out. They’re all she can focus on.

Shit.

Her eyes prick with tears as she takes a deep breath; her nose abruptly picking up the musky scents of sweat and sex mingled all into one. She realizes with a jolt – her senses haven’t just gotten better – they’re damned-well oversensitive to her current environment. And she hates it.

Crying out in pain, Wren rocks back and forth until strong arms suddenly encircle her. She’s cocooned into his hard chest and more aware than ever of his body heat, pressing intimately into her as she feels his breath by her ear.

“Sssh, it’s okay. Just focus on me. Focus on my voice.” His voice which by the way – sounded incredibly smooth. “Tune everything else out.”

Taking a ragged breath, Wren tries to concentrate on Cal and Cal alone.

Minutes pass as they remained locked like this; with Cal humming into her ear and Wren trying desperately to keep her attention solely on him. It’s difficult. She’s never had to fight quite like this to remain focus before, but eventually the voices in the hall become a dull ache that’s moved to the back of her brain.

Oh, thank god.

Twisting inside Cal’s arms, she gives him a smile short of nothing but her relief. “You have no idea how much I needed that.”

“I think I do,” his frown creases his brow as he lifts his fingers to rub her temples. “I was a pup once.”

The gesture helps to soothe her and she releases another sigh, leaning into his hands. “Please tell me this gets better, or at least easier.” Letting out a string of curses, she closes his eyes and forces her attention on his breathing.

He laughs.

She winces.

“Sorry.” At least he sounds apologetic about it. “It doesn’t; you’ll just be able to handle it better. You’ll adjust your attention on the things you want to focus on.” He smiles a little to himself, “but this is kinda cute in a way.”

She shoots him a glare that would make lesser men flinch and scramble to get away. But to Cal, it only serves to make his smile grow wider. “How the hell is any of this cute?”

“You just –” he shakes his head, “kinda remind me of Donny when he was a pup. He was pretty much oversensitive to almost everything for a while when he hit fourteen.”

“That doesn’t make me feel any better.” She grumbles. Besides, Donny was a child when he’d reach peak werewolf physiology – she’s a grown ass woman, and all she wants to do is curl into a ball and disappear underneath all these sheets.

He drops his fingers and plants a kiss by her temple. “It wasn’t supposed to.”

“You’re the worst.”

“I thought Donny was the worst.” He quips back.

“No, he comes a close second now…” She hesitates, expelling a short sigh as her eyes flutter back open to stare at him. “He misses you too.”

Cal’s jaw tightens. “I can’t believe I left him alone like that.”

“It wasn’t your fault.” She interjects before he’s able to place anymore blame on himself. She knows how easy it is for him to spiral when it comes to Donny. Mumbling softly, she bumps his forehead in comfort. “You didn’t know any of this was going to happen.”

“Still, I was careless.” He ran his fingers through his hair. “If I hadn’t come to New York alone – .”

“But you did. You were cocky and dumb enough to think Kavinsky hadn’t told Shaw.” She isn’t going to sugarcoat the mess they’re in to make him feel better. They always tell each other the hard-truths, and the hard-truth is – Cal fucked up and things could have gone a lot worse if they hadn’t found him. But, she doesn’t want to focus on that. They’re here, they’re together - that’s what matters.

“And whatever comes next, I’m with you.” She tries to make a joke, “for a better or worse right?”

When Cal suddenly pulls away, Wren eyes narrow into almost slits.

He looks…guilty. She can almost feel it, it’s starting to practically envelop the room. “Hey,” she turns completely, ignoring the twinges of pain from the sudden motion of her legs shifting to rest on either sides of his waist. “I wanted this, and you have nothing to feel guilty about.” She bumps his forehead affectionately; the way he does to get her attention. “I love you, and I’m sure…it’ll get better.” She gives him a smile, “it’s like you said – it takes time.”

Cal watches her a moment longer before expelling a deep sigh.

“C’mon, you’re pulling down the mood.”

“Oh?” The corner of his lips twitch as Wren rakes him with a once over – lingering on the lower half of his body, before slowly trailing up again. “And what exactly is the mood?”

“The mood is - I’m very aware of what’s going on down here. Right now.” She nudges her hips forward by an inch as she says it. It’s enough to brush the tip of his cock and almost reflexively, he lets out a loud hiss.

Grinning, Wren does it again – only this time, his hands come up to splay across her back. She can almost taste his desire on her tongue the moment she leans forward and captures his lips. It’s so potent that it fills the room. She isn’t having any troubling focusing on him anymore – he’s all she can think about.

Wren bites down hard and she’s rewarded with a growl as his fingers rake a path down her back “And I for one, want to take full advantage of this.” Her stomach is already curling in anticipation for him as he kisses her roughly on the lips.

His chocolate brown eyes flash with sudden heat just as the palm of her hand pushes him back. She shifts her position to straddle him as he lands comfortably atop of their sheets.

“You know we’ll have to leave this room eventually.” His hands drift towards her hips, staring momentarily down at the marks he’s left from last night.

She sneaks a glance at them as well, and then back up at him as she slowly lowers herself onto his throbbing member. “Maybe, but for now - I’m suddenly feeling ravenous.”

He shifts hips hip with enough subtle force for her to moan at the sudden friction.

God, how is it that he feels so good? So right. Everything always does with him and it’s a wonder it’s taken her this long to realize he’s the only person that belongs in her heart. The only person that has her completely.

She entwines their fingers together as she begins to move her hips forward back and in earnest, dictating their space to a much slower rhythm than last night. All her senses are very aware of all of him, the way his muscles tense and bunch together, the way his eyes can’t seem to take themselves off of her – down to the slight intakes of breath he takes as his eyes transition into that scorching hot amber.

When he tries to move his hips faster, her fingers dig into his palms. “Let me.” Her words are husky, but Cal wordlessly arches a brow before he slows down and Wren hides her grin. He’s giving her complete control of their pleasure.

She rolls her hips – remaining steady eye contact with Cal as his gaze turns smoldering.

“Fuck, you’re killing me here Wren.” He drops her hands to grip her waist.

“Good.” She can feel his impatience budding again, the wolf in her is basking in every minute of it. But he hasn’t tried anything again yet. Smirking, she rolls her hip again – biting down on her lip to stop herself from moaning at how good he feels.

Cal swears, his nails turning sharp as they dig into her sides. His breath is almost ragged, and his cheeks are heavily flushed when she finally starts to pick up speed. “Oh god, you feel so fucking good.” The rest of his words turns into a cry of pleasure when she squeezes herself around his length.

“Mm, you like that?’

His response is in the way he thrusts his hips to meet hers’ – with wild abandon, and suddenly her little game of keeping control is forgotten.

Her hips match him pace for pace and it doesn’t take much longer for the bed to start creaking again.

His hands grip her tighter as she brings her hips up and then down on him again, keeping a loose hand clenched around the bed sheets for gripping as their pleasure comes altogether. And the passion that builds between them is bigger than just her - it’s hers and his blissfully jumbled into one.

She can’t think, she can’t breathe. There’s only just the primal urge to keep up with his thrusts, to reach the peak of how much she ca handle and a natural surrender of all her inhibitions as their gazes stay completely on each other.

When they scale to the very top, they ride it out going down to the bottom together. Collapsing into each other’s arms, endearments of I-love-yous as they tumble into the sheets, yanking them around each other like a cocoon as their bodies still slicked with heat and love bask in the aftermath of their love.

By the time they’ve left their room, it’s shy past five in the afternoon.

Maybe if Wren hadn’t just the best morning in her life, she’d care a lot more. But right now, the only concern Wren has is how much she wants to stuff her face with any food they can find as she leads Cal towards the kitchen of the hotel room.

They both freeze just in time to notice their other companions clearing out. There’s a bunch of small suitcases by the door and they’re all dressed in fresh clothes of slacks and shirts - smelling distinctively of vanilla bodywash.

Six pairs of eyes remain rooted to their spot.

At first – no one says anything. It’s quiet enough for a pin to comically drop.

Wren jerks her chin up, daring anyone to say anything.

Lily is the first to break the awkward silence, furrowing her brows before letting out an expletive. “Shit, it’s about damn time. We were starting to think you two were never going to leave.” She places a hand on her hip. “Check out time was like three hours ago.”

Cal clears his throat; his cheeks abruptly turning more than a shade darker thank his skin as Wren mutters a stiff apology. Okay, so she definitely gets where they’re coming from. Not only did they miss out on karaoke – they’ve been pretty MIA in general and this morning - that’s mostly been her fault. “Sorry guys, we’ll uh – pay the difference.”

“It’s fine, Adrian has already taken care of it.” Harlow responds quickly, elbowing Lily sharply in the side. “What I think my friend meant to say is, we thought we wouldn’t get the chance to say goodbye.” She smiles, “it was a pleasure meeting you both despite the circumstances.”

Wren takes a few hesitant footsteps further into the common area, almost dragging Cal behind her. “I think that’s supposed to be my line. Seriously – thank you for all your help, and for putting up with us last night.” She adds before thinking better of it, “I would have probably still been searching the rest of New York for him.”

“Thank you for rescuing me.” Cal squeezes Wren’s hand as he regards the vampires with a slight nod.

Adrian inclines his head. “You’re quite welcome.” He reaches for the door and then pauses to peer back at them. “Would you mind passing down a message to Nik –” he gestures to them both with a flick of wrist, “tell him we’re even.”

“You bet.”

“Good. Well, I believe we’ve all gotten what we came here for.” Kamilah wastes no time to say goodbye; already stepping past the threshold of the door to find the elevator.

“Hey bloodsuckers,” Cal speaks up before they can all leave. Wren arches one critical eyebrow and he bites his bottom lip before adding. “Uh - if you’re ever in NOLA – look us up. You think it’s crazy over here? This has got nothin’ on us.”

Wren snorts in agreement. They’ve got no idea just how crazy it is up there.

Harlow and Jax share a look. “We’ll keep that in mind. Don’t forget to lock up before heading to the lobby.” With a parting smile, Harlow follows the rest of them out.

As the door slams shut again, Wren waits a few beats for their footsteps to fade before turning to Cal. “I like them.”

“I guess they’re alright, for bloodsuckers at least.”

She smacks his shoulder.

“Ah!” Chuckling, he snatches her hand before she’s able to punch him a second time and kisses the inside of her wrist. “I’m kidding, they’re alright – for anyone.”

“Good.” A crooked smile flits across her face, then falters into a frown as her stomach growls. “Okay, seriously – I’m really starving. What is up with that?”

He shoots her a bemused smile. “We did burn a lot of calories in that room.”

Another playful smack on his shoulder.

“But it’s also a wolf thing.”

“Ugh, figures.” Rolling her eyes, she snorts. “We should check-out and grab something on the way to the airport then. Ooh,” her eyes abruptly lit-up at a sudden idea. “Maybe this room came with a complimentary breakfast. Adrian seems like the type.”

The ride back to the airport is short but Cal feels tense about it the entire drive. Now that he’s going back without a plan, the enormity of what’s awaiting him in NOLA rests uneasily on his shoulders.

After Wren fills him in on how much he’s missed – he’s honestly just a bunch of knots and for the first time since becoming alpha; he doesn’t know where he stands with his pack. It was reckless for him to leave and foolish too. Wren’s been right to mock his choice.

Sighing, he closes his eyes for a moment and rakes his fingers through his hair. What the hell is he supposed to do now?

“Hey,” he hears the reassurance in her voice before he opens them back to shift his attention to her.

“I won’t lie to you and say it’ll be okay, because when I left – it wasn’t okay.” Wren takes a deep breath, reaching for his hand to give it a comforting squeeze. “But I’m here for you – and,” she visibly swallows, “for the pack. Whatever comes next, we’ll face it together.”

Cal nods once, forcing a smile as he squeezes her hand back. “I hope you’re right.” He has a feeling if he doesn’t find a solution, soon there won’t be any pack left to protect.

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allthings-fantasy · 5 years

Text

See You Again - Part 11

Pairing: Dean X Reader

Word Count: 3500 (yikes im sorry)

Warnings: there is some plot in this but mostly smut, dirty talk (Dean has a vulgar mouth), thigh riding, oral sex (female receiving), fingering, language, praise kink (a tiny bit)

AuthorsNote: Sorry this part took me a little longer to get out!! ALSO sorry it��s kind of long. But thank you for sticking with this story! Happy Reading.

Part 10 ALL OTHER PARTS

“Personally, I just don’t think it’s a good idea.” Jason’s voice urged from the other end. You simply rolled your eyes and set the glass of water down in front of Sam. “I mean, you haven’t seen them in years and now they’re staying at your place? Why don’t you stay here and they can stay there?” Obviously, Jason wasn’t too thrilled about allowing the Winchester brother’s into your home.

“Jas, they’re not the scariest thing out there. Plus it’s extra protection.” You winked at the younger brother and leaned against the counter to hug yourself. For the most part, your body felt much better. But your ribs were still sore and needed babied.

It was the day after you got attacked that you suggested Sam and Dean stay at your place. You had a spare room and it allowed them to be close in case anything happened again. “Will you at least call me before you go to bed? And uh… in the morning too?” He rushed out the last part as if you would ever say no to him.

“Okay, daddy.” Your sarcastic tone caused Sam to snort but your word choice left Jason audiably cringing.

“Please don’t call me that, that phase of my life was over 5 years ago… especially now that I am an actual daddy…” Him gagging over the word had your laughing into the phone, picturing him visibly recoiling in your head.

A smirk formed over your lips before glancing down the hallway to make sure that Dean was in the bathroom. “Ugh fine… hey, maybe Dean wouldn’t mind being called that?” Your eyebrow quirked at the strangled noise your best friend released.

“Wait a damn minute, I di-”

“Gotta go, Jas! Love you!” You quickly pressed the red button before he could get another word out. With a huff, your eyes found Sam’s and you gave him an apologetic smile. “Sorry bout that.”

He shrugged and took another drink of water. “Trust me, it’s not the worse thing I’ve heard.”

Your smile grew wider and a small nod of your head, “So uh, how’ve you been Sam? I haven’t really seen you since… that day in the hospital.” You winced at the memory of running out of the room flashing to the front of your mind.

One of Sam’s shoulders lifted and he let out a small sigh. “Been good… a crazy past couple of years. Sitting here kinda reminds you how much jumping around from motel to motel sucks.”

“I imagine you guys have a lot of back aches.” Your nose scrunched up slightly.

Sam laughed and nodded his head, pushing some of his hair from his eyes. “Uh yeah, the shitty mattresses and digging up graves really puts a kink in the spine.” He paused for a moment, turning the glass slowly in his hand, inspecting it as if it’s the most fascinating thing he’s ever seen. You watched as he looked down the hall again before looking into your eyes. “He wants to quit, yanno.”

The simple sentence made your brows furrow and you stood up a little straighter. “What?”

He blinked and leaned back in his chair. “Dean… he’s been saying it for a while now. How he wants to get out of hunting, maybe not permanently. But he wants a place to settle down.”

You felt a weird fluttering in your chest at his words. Ever since you met Dean all those years ago, all you wanted to do was live out your days with the older Winchester. “I uh…”

“He never stopped loving you. He won’t admit it to me when he’s sober but he still does. He’ll say your name in the middle of the night if the nightmares get too bad, or he’ll start tearing up over you after one too many glasses of whiskey.” Sam huffed and you didn’t know if you wanted him to keep talking or just utterly shut his mouth.

“I know he fucked up but you can’t totally blame him. You knew Dad, he had Dean turned into a soldier… he was scared something was going to happen to you if he didn’t get you out of the life. I’m not telling you to take him back right now, but please just talk to him. I just want my brother happy again.”

You opened your mouth to respond, but the sound of the bathroom door opening cut you off. A cloud of steam filled the hallway and Dean emerged wiping his face and hair off with one of your towels. He padded down the hall until he stood in the doorway of the kitchen. “That is some of the best water pressure I’ve ever felt in my life.” His eyes widened and ran a few fingers through his hair, making the strands stick up in the cutest way. God, you just wanted to tug on it.

“Glad you enjoyed it.” You smiled at him and took in the rest of his appearance. He was in grey sweatpants and a simple white t-shirt. Dean definitely didn’t look like he was 19 anymore. The tanned skin of his arms look utterly delicious and you were convinced the size of his biceps has doubled. Dean Winchester was a gorgeous man. “Would you like some coffee?”

He flashed you a bright smile and walked over to sit beside Sam. “That’d be perfect, sweetheart.”

You nodded and went to the cupboard to grab him a mug and pour him a cup. “You still take it black?” You raised an eyebrow and slowly slid the mug across the island.

The corner of his mouth twitched as he picked up the mug to take a gulp. “You remember.”

Sam cleared his throat a little and stood, placing his empty glass in the sink. “I’m actually going to head back to the motel.. I made sure to tell Margaret to keep a room open for me.”

His admission made your attention shift from Dean and focus on the younger of the two. “Wait what? Why would you stay there?” Your lips turned into a small frown. You hoped Sam didn’t feel awkward here, he deserved to be here as much as his brother.

He let out a small laugh and shrugged a shoulder. “There’s only spare bed here, Y/N. And I don’t see either me or him fitting comfortably on that couch. It’s fine, it’ll be nice to have some place to myself for the night.”

Running his words over in your head, you eventually sighed and gave him a small nod. He was right about not being able to fit on your couch, but you can’t help the fact that they’re both huge. “We’ll call you in the morning, Sammy.” Dean gave his brother a smile before Sam bid his goodnight and headed out your door.

With a heavy sigh, Dean turned his attention back to you and gave you a small smirk, “And then there were two…”

You snorted and nodded your head, moving to open your fridge. “I don’t really have much to eat. I’m usually at Jason’s house so this place is kind of barren.” Your weight shifted between your feet and pointed to the stack of menus on the table. “We can get take out if you want.”

“Sounds good, sweetheart.” His famous nickname still made your cheeks tint pink. Dean wasn’t an idiot, he knew the effect he was having on you, but that didn’t seem to stop him.

Walking over to the kitchen table, you grabbed the stack of menus and started flipping through them. “So um, what are you in the mood for?”

The sound of the stool scraping across your floor let you know Dean was walking towards you, What you weren’t expecting was to feel the heat of his chest press flush against your back. Your spine instantly straightened and you flinched at the sudden contact.

“Easy, tiger. Just trying to look at the options.” Dean’s voice was right beside your ear. His warm breath fanning across the side of your neck, almost distracting you from the feeling of his fingertips brushing against your hips.

It was such a simple touch but it already had your skin feeling flushed. It had been a long time since someone has held you like this. “Dean.” His name came out with a heavy breath and you could feel yourself start to lean back against him.

“You still like that Chinese place down the road?” How he was acting so casual should be pissing you off. He was slowly twisting you tighter and tighter around his finger again, only this time you weren’t sure you wanted to stop it.

Dean’s fingers found the hem of your shirt and slowly crept underneath, letting the rough pads tease the exposed skin. You gulped and squeezed your eyes shut, trying to ignore the fluttering growing in your stomach. “What are you doing?”

His right hand tightened around your hip while his left arm wrapped around your torso, keeping you pressed against his chest. “Trying to figure out what to eat, baby.” He let out a small laugh. “What do you want me to be doing?”

“You’re touching me.” It wasn’t intended, but it came out sounding as a question rather than a statement. The thumb of his right hand was slowly massaging circles into your flesh with his thumb.

You didn’t have to look at him to know he was smiling, you could practically feel it. Dean’s head dipped a little further down until his lips found the junction of your neck and shoulder. A feather light kiss had all the tension melting from your body. “Should I stop?”

A small whimper escaped your lips and you shook your head. Just feeling his hands on you was enough to zap any questions from your mind. “Turn around, sweetheart. Look at me.” He gave your hip a small tap with his pointer finger to encourage your movement.

Dropping the menus from your hand, you slowly turned in his arms, happy that he kept them secured on you. Dean’s eyes were looking back at you so intently it made you shudder. No one looked at you like that in years. “If you want me to stop, I will. You just need to say the word.”

You knew he could see the wheels turning in your head, trying to figure out what you wanted to do. It only took a moment for you to make up your mind. You shimmied your arms out of his grip and brought them up to rest against his chest. There was a flash of disappointment that flashed through his eyes, thinking you were going to push him away.

Your hands didn’t stay still for long. They ran over the curves of his chest and up over his shoulders until they linked behind the back of his neck. It was hard not to smile when you watched the doubt melt from his eyes and turn into hope. “Kiss me.”

There was only a second that passed before he reacted. Dean’s lips crashed to yours, the two of your in a tangle of lips and tongue. There was so much pent up emotion between the two of you, all of it pouring out in this kiss. His hands moved from your waist down to the back of your thighs, prompting you to jump up.

Dean lifted you with ease as your ankles linked at his lower back. A small whine left your mouth at the feeling of him pressed tight against your core. His hands groped at the globes of your ass, fingers digging into the soft flesh. Feeling a stroke of courage, you let your tongue run across his bottom lip, seeking entrance. Dean groaned and opened for you, letting you taste the familiar taste that is Dean Winchester.

He walked backwards from the table and turned, walking down the hallway in a few quick strides. “Second door… on the left.” You gasped at the feeling of his teeth scraping across your neck, causing goosebumps to rise from your skin. One of his hands left your body to push your bedroom door open.

Three large steps into your room and Dean carefully dropped you onto your mattress with a bounce and a giggle. “God, I missed that sound.” Then he pounced, your knees falling apart for him to settle between your legs. You didn’t know how bad you missed the feeling of him on top of you until now.

Dean’s lips and hands were everywhere, frantically trying to engrave you into his memory as if all of this is just a dream. His hips rocked once, letting the bulge from his erection press against where you needed him most. Your hips jerked up in response, trying to chase that feeling again.

He let out a small chuckle and shook his head, lips tracing across your collarbone. “Still eager as ever.” His hand found your shirt again and began pushing it upwards, not stopping until he cupped your breast. The warmth radiating from his palm had you whimpering. “What, sweetheart? Tell me what you need.”

You groaned and leaned your head to the side as he started sucking on the soft skin of your neck. “I need you… I need you inside me, please, Dean.” Your bottom lip jutted out in a pout. He was winding you up so tight all you wanted was for him to push you right over that sweet edge.

“Soon, baby.” He winked at you, causing you to huff. Leaning back on his thighs, Dean gripped the fabric of your shirt and pulled it from your head. “We got all night… and I want to taste you.” He flashed you a devilish smirk and shifted until one of his thighs was pressed against your core.

The feeling of his warm, wet mouth covering your left nipple distracted you from the pressure pressing against your aching pussy. Dean’s tongue traced around the sensitive nub before running his teeth across it.

He had you a moaning mess in a matter of minutes. Your hips started rocking up against his hard thigh, shamelessly getting yourself off on his leg. You could feel yourself dripping and you knew there would be a wet mark on Dean’s sweatpants. The coil in your belly was winding tighter and tighter with every flick of his tongue, every rock of your hips. It was all beginning to be too much. “You gonna cum, baby? Gonna cum all over my thigh?”

Your head frantically nodded, fingers digging into his shoulders. “Yes, Dean, please.” Just a few more thrusts and you’d be good, just a few more and you’d be seeing stars.

Right before you sent yourself over the edge, Dean removed himself from between your legs and moved to stand at the end of your bed. A disgruntled whine filled the room as you shifted up onto your elbows to look at him, wanting to smack the smug look right off his face. “Excuse you?!”

Dean shook his head and snickered, leaning down to hook his fingers into the waistband of your sleep shorts. “I told you… I wanted to taste you.” His shoulders shrugged as if it was common sense and yanked the thin fabric from your body.

You blushed as Dean looked down at the mess between your legs like a starving man. His eyes shifted to meet yours for a moment and leaned up to press a lingering kiss to your lips. The sweet action had your heart skipping a beat. “You are so beautiful.”

He didn’t give you time to respond before his mouth kissed a line down the center of your chest and past your navel until he landed right above your clit. Dean let out a satisfied hum and used his hands to spread you wider for him. Your chest was heaving when he licked a thick stripe across your folds. “Fuck, still taste fucking sweet..”

A moan left Dean’s mouth before he devoured. His tongue traced around your clit, before latching his lips over top and giving it a gentle suck. You were moaning his name like a prayer and racking your fingers through his hair, keeping his mouth secured against your cunt. You groaned when he inserted a finger into your hot channel. After a couple of thrusts, a second finger was added and you could feel the coiling tightening again.

“C’mon baby. Cum all over mouth, let me taste you.” All it took was his words to throw you over the edge. The combination of his mouth and fingers was too much for you to handle. Your thighs shook from the aftershock of your orgasm and you could feel the sweat coating your skin.

Your body went slack underneath Dean’s touch. His fingers left you but his thumb continued to trace lazy circles around your clit. Looking up at him, you blushed at the sight of your arousal coating his lips and chin. “I think you’re wearing too many clothes, Winchester.”

One of his eyebrows quirked before he shifted off the bed again. “That so?” You smirked at him and eagerly nodded. Dean laughed and pulled his shirt from his body quickly followed by his sweatpants. The sight of Dean Winchester standing in front of you, naked, had your pussy clenching around nothing. He looked deliciously long and thick and you couldn’t wait to taste him later. “See something you like, sweetheart?”

His signature arrogance was back but now you simply found it charming. It was no secret that Dean was bad at sex, by any means. He was allowed to be smug after what he just did to you. Dean took his time in crawling back over you, placing random kisses across your skin as if he had all the time in the world. Finally, he settled back between your legs and a satisfied sigh left your lips.

“You ready?” He murmured against your lips and shifted a hand down to grip himself, teasing his head across your folds to lube himself.

“Fuck me, Dean.”

The corner of his mouth twitched as he slowly began pushing himself inside of you, “Gonna make you feel so good, baby.” His words were muffled against your lips, continuing to push further in until he was fully seated inside of you. You felt full, so incredibly full of Dean you couldn’t help but clench around him and wiggle your hips.

Dean growled and gripped your hip with one hand, seizing your movements. “I’m not going to last if you keep doing that.” He pulled out enough to only leave the tip inside of you before plunging back in. Both of you moaning at the sensation. “Such a hot little pussy.” Thrust. “Fits me like a fucking glove.” Thrust.

The filthy words coming from his lips had you whimpering, unable to meet his thrusts due to the heavy hand on your hip. You were completely at his mercy. “Shit, Dean. Please… faster. I need you to move.” Your words were all the encouragement he needed.

Dean’s hips began snapping into yours, sounds of skin smacking filled the room, followed by your chanting of his name. It shouldn’t feel this damn good, like finally finding that missing puzzle piece. “Fuck, I’m close.” He grunted and his hand left your hip to let his fingers find your clit. The added sensation of his fingers had you seeing stars. “That’s right, honey. Cum on this fucking cock.”

Your head tossed back and a scream of his name filled the room as he pushed you over the edge. “Good girl… always such a good girl for me.” Dean fucked you through your high, which was quickly followed by his own. He buried his face in the side of your neck and locked himself inside of you.

Both of you were covered in sweat, bodies radiating heat. Dean collapsed on top of you with a huff. The added weight irritated your ribs but you were too blissed out to care. You placed a comforting kiss on his shoulder, which he mimicked on yours.

After taking a moment to catch his breath, Dean leaned back to look at your euphoric expression. He smiled sweetly at you and moved his hand to cup your cheek, running his thumb over your skin. “You okay, sweetheart?” All you could manage was a nod and a smile.

Before he cold respond, the familiar Metallica ringtone began blaring from Dean’s phone on the floor. With an annoyed eye roll, he pushed himself up and off of you. The sudden empty feeling had you whimpering. He gave you a quick sorry and pulled the phone from his pants. “Kind of a bad time, Sammy.”

“Dean! I’ve been calling for thirty minutes, what are you doing?! You know what? Never mind, don’t answer that.”

The older Winchester pinched the bridge of his nose. “What do you need, Sam?”

“I found the vampire’s nest.”

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