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romanceyourdemons · 1 year

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here’s a second century warlord followup (3.2k words)

By Strategem, Huang Mi Turns Aside an Army of 100,000

Huang Mi cut down the hill to the south of the city and realized four feet down how poor an idea that was. The hill, steep enough that he had to descend in zigzags, had seized into a stone-hard lump with November frost, and the glazing of snow spread across the unyielding dirt denied his shoes any purchase at all. He managed to slide directly down for several feet, his knees bent and his skirts hitched to his knees in an already unsuccessful attempt to keep them free from winter muck, but his right foot caught on a stone, turning his controlled glide into an unplanned splits and then into a reeling, careening half-tumble down the rest of the hill. He was glad the blank south wall of the city was the only thing bearing witness to his humiliation. He was less glad when a man caught him, and less glad still when he recognized the man as the one he least wanted to be embarrassed in front of. “Lord Yue,” he said, bowing before his liege to keep his flushing face angled toward the snow. He would have much preferred breaking an arm against a tree.

“Yuzhi,” said Lord Yue, helping Huang Mi up. “You’re hurt?”

Huang Mi shook his head.

Lord Yue wrapped his scarf around Huang Mi’s shoulders and neck. “You’re cold, then. Where’s your horse?”

“Still up there. I couldn’t figure out how to get it down the hill.”

“You just take that footpath around.”

“Oh.” Huang Mi turned to make the long trek up to where he had left his horse tied to a branch, but Lord Yue took his arm and turned him back.

“I’ll send someone up to get it. Let’s get inside first and discuss.”

Huang Mi barely remembered to give Lord Yue back his scarf before they entered the room where General Chou, General Wu, and Governor Han waited to hear the results of Huang Mi’s expedition to the army camped thirty li to the south of the city. That army should be the only thing on their minds. Huang Mi would have gladly kept Lord Yue’s scarf and maybe slept holding it, but he could not allow anyone in that room suspect that his feelings for his liege were anything other than appropriate loyalty. That he could not let Lord Yue know went without saying: he had great trust in Huang Mi as his advisor, and anything that damaged that trust put their entire army at risk. Neither General Chou nor General Wu particularly appreciated Huang Mi’s quick elevation in the six months since he swore loyalty to Lord Yue. They were brilliant warriors and valuable generals, General Chou highly capable in frontal attack and General Wu with a skill for ambush, and between the two of them Huang Mi did not doubt they could take care of him cleanly enough. And of course he could not let Governor Han know: she was Lord Yue’s wife. He tried to make himself look presentable as he sat to deliver his report.

“The army is a hundred thousand strong. They are trying to reach Lord Liu within the week, and they are demanding two-thirds of our grain.”

Governor Han interrupted incredulously: “They expect us to survive off a third of our stores?” Between the citizens, the army, and the four households of refugees they had accepted earlier that month, it would be difficult to make their grain last the winter as it was.

“They were very specific. They claim they will accept the gift of two-thirds of our grain, or they will sack the city and take all of it.”

“I certainly hope you didn’t take them up on that.”

“I told them they should save their efforts. We’ll burn the grain before letting it fall into their hands.”

Lord Yue nodded proudly, the way he nodded proudly at everything Huang Mi said. He had too much faith in Huang Mi. The generals had just the right amount of faith and muttered bitterly between themselves. In fact, Huang Mi had not intended to make such a bold statement at all. His plan had been to stall and make a break for home as soon as possible, but his “there’s no need” had turned into a fierce statement of opposition before he fully planned the sentence. He wished Lord Yue didn’t trust him so much. He really wasn’t much of an advisor at all.

“I hope you have some kind of brilliant plan, Advisor Huang,” said General Wu. He articulated the title with acid precision, and, even though Huang Mi did not particularly mind having lost the command he once held, he knew a barb when he saw one. He smiled, though, and assured the generals that the situation was under control, and Lord Yue suggested they have some supper first, if Yuzhi’s plan could allow for such a delay. Huang Mi’s plan certainly could: it did not exist yet. He wished Lord Yue wasn’t so good to him. He wished he could tell Lord Yue that he was as good as he claimed.

Governor Han drew Huang Mi aside as the group broke to prepare for supper. “You don’t have a plan, do you?”

Huang Mi went very still, like a cornered deer. Governor Han had been Lady Han until the city’s erstwhile governor became bedridden with a sudden illness in September and asked Lord Yue to manage civil affairs until he recovered. Lord Yue had no training managing civil affairs, but his wife did, and she had filled the post flawlessly. The title “Governor” had originated as one of the generals’ low blows, but Governor Han not only allowed but preferred it. Her skill in governing certainly merited it. She and Lord Yue, Huang Mi had pieced together from confessions and rumors, had been espoused in an effort to prevent the war that broke out between their fathers and killed them both regardless. Proper spousal affection had never developed between the two, not even when she traveled to the front to be with her husband after he suffered a grave injury, and especially not when, more than eight months later, she was still unable to return home. She preferred to speak to him as Governor Han and Lord Yue, rather than as his undesired wife and her undesired husband. Huang Mi did not understand how she could not love Lord Yue—after the many long nights he had spent with Lord Yue playing chess and discussing schools of strategy, he had determined that there was no one in this world better, kinder, braver, more intelligent, or more gorgeous than his sworn liege lord—but that was Huang Mi’s own problem, not Governor Han’s. For now, Governor Han’s problem was Huang Mi. “You don’t have a plan,” she said efficiently. “Tell me what you think your plan should be.”

Like a whirling leaf catching on any tree in its path, Huang Mi’s whirling mind caught on anything that looked like a plan. “General Chou can pin them against the bend in the river, and then General—”

“River’s frozen. Won’t work.”

“General Chou can lead them into Hawthorn Pass, then a contingent led by General Wu can burn—”

“Everything’s wet. Won’t work.”

“General Chou can guar—” Huang Mi noticed Lord Yue approaching and quickly changed his tone. “General Chou will divide his men to guard the north, west, and east gates, making as much a show of force as he can. A hundred archers will hide out of sight on the south wall, and, after dark, we will boil snow on a bonfire inside the walls. The enemy will see this and think that we are burning our grain, and that we are relying on the protection of the hill to defend us on the south side. They are desperate for grain, and will pour down the hill into the pits full of sharpened sticks that we have dug. The archers will also shoot them down, and General Wu will have led his men around behind his camp by way of Hawthorn Pass to rout them from there.”

Lord Yue smiled, apparently completely satisfied with this made-up plan, but Governor Han frowned. “Why will they go directly down the hill when there’s a footpath?”

“We’ll block it with boulders. I got a look around the enemy’s camp—they’re eating every third day. They won’t be too careful.”

“And do you really think we can have your pits dug by nightfall?” Her skepticism seemed softened, but it was certainly far from appeased.

“If Governor Han will let us requisition wagons from the city to transport the earth away, I am sure we can manage it.”

“Excellent,” Lord Yue said. “I’ll inform the generals, and we’ll get to work.”

If the generals received Huang Mi’s plan with their usual sidelong remarks, Huang Mi did not hear them. They began work, and they worked as evening bled scarlet over the cloudy skies, and it was not until twilight grey muddied the sunset that Governor Han pulled Huang Mi away from Lord Yue once again. “It’s not going to work,” she said. “The ground is too hard.”

She was right, of course. Even with pickaxes the work was too slow. Huang Mi sought refuge from the obvious in ill-advised bravado: “If we had my hometown men here, the pit would already be ten spans deep.” He missed his men. He had not been a good commander to them, and he was glad that they were safely in the service of the shrewd and competent lord they had intended to swear loyalty to from the start, but there were times when he felt very, very alone in Lord Yue’s camp, and there were times when he lay awake at night to worry about the inevitable day when he would have to strategize for the man he loved against the men he loved. If he cared for Lord Yue less, he would be able to forget his lord. If he cared for Lord Yue more, he would be able to forget his men. He knew he would never forget his hometown, cradled by soft green mountains where immortals liked to hide and full like a cup with the scent of plum blossoms. He knew that he would likely never see his hometown again. He would likely never see a springtime again. It would have been better for everyone if he had never laid eyes on Lord Yue.

“This stops now.”

“What?”

Governor Han crossed her arms. “Advisor Huang, listen to me. When I was young, I was in love with my tutor. I might still be. I’d have to see him again to know for sure. I wanted him to admire me, so I would say just anything in answer to his questions. And he was just as infatuated with me as I was with him, so he would accept my wrong answers. My father heard me give a completely incorrect recitation, and he said that to me: ‘This stops now. You can marry your tutor and I’ll get you a new one, or you can get yourself out of love with him and continue your studies.’ That’s what I’m telling you now. Get yourself out of love with Lord Yue or get yourself into something real with him, but this—” An eloquent flick of a fingertip summed up Huang Mi’s past six months of agony. “This stops now.”

Huang Mi wanted to say something to stall, but he could not come up with even the most meaningless of platitudes.

“I don’t mind and he won’t mind,” Governor Han continued mercifully. “He doesn’t mind my lover. I think he minds that you’re not already his. I only care that, short of some flash of genius from your famous mind, my city is going to be ruined by morning. Make your decision.”

“I…” This decision was too big to make. This decision was more daunting than the army a hundred thousand strong camped beyond the hill. “I need some time,” he said, leaving Governor Han before she had a chance to call him back and struggling directly up the hill, relishing the sting of cold and bark tearing at his hands as he pulled himself up by roots and stones. He balanced himself on the ridge, windmilling his arms to keep himself from falling backwards as he shuffled to a more sure footing and turned around. Through the gloom and heavy flakes of snow, the archers on the south wall could not be discerned at all. That was good. The line of trees and brush at the bottom of the hill broke up the shape of the pit and made it difficult to identify from this height. That was good. But the pit was hardly a forearm’s length deep, and the twilight was already tightening into dusk. They did not have time. He squatted and contemplated falling onto his side as he watched snow gather on their two dozen wagons of dirt. This snow fell so heavily, so fast. Already some of the wagons looked like they were filled not with frozen soil but with—

Huang Mi bolted to his feet quickly enough to make his cold knees ache and began pelting directly down the hill with violent abandon. He did not care what it cost. He needed to get to his lord as soon as legs would take him. Running calculations on the fingers of one hand as he poured himself over the uneven snowy ground lost him his balance, and he traveled the rest of the hill on his stomach and face, but he had his answer as Lord Yue helped him up a dozen yards from the hill’s base and half-carried him to even ground. “Tarps,” Huang Mi said. “Governor Han, we need tarps! We need to act quickly, my lord. Have the men shovel snow onto the wagons, enough to cover all the dirt. Full to heaping. Then have them cover the wagons with the tarps, but tack them down carelessly—leave snow showing. General Wu will lead the wagons by the high road through Hawthorn Pass. Two torches in front, no other lights. Then he’ll dump the wagons—” A dark look from Governor Han made Huang Mi hastily amend his plan— “the wagons’ contents into the gorge, extinguish his torches, and return as quickly and stealthily to the city as possible, keeping off the main road and hiding the wagons in woods for safekeeping.”

“Is that all your plan?” asked General Wu. He wanted to pick a fight, but Huang Mi did not have time.

“Three more things,” he said shortly. “General Chou will rearrange his men to guard this gate as well, and Lord Yue will prepare a force to attack the camp once General Wu informs us of the completion of his task, and if General Wu loses a single man before sunrise then on sunrise he may personally kill me any way he wishes.”

Lord Yue made a sound of acute concern, and Huang Mi certainly did not enjoy having to put his neck on the line to make his word good, but it was almost dark and there was no time to bandy words. He smiled at Lord Yue and shook his head, and Lord Yue sighed. “Do what Yuzhi says,” he said, “or the consequences will be the same as if you had disobeyed me.” General Wu pressed his lips together to smother his mouthful of words and bowed to accept the instructions; Governor Han raised her eyebrows expectantly at Huang Mi and permitted his reassuring look; and Huang Mi’s new plan ground into action, shovelful by shovelful.

“My lord,” Huang Mi said on their return to the city, once he and Lord Yue were safely alone between four walls. He had an ultimatum to meet. It frightened him more than rebuffing the ultimatum of the enemy, but Governor Han had been right. This had to end now.

“How many times will I have to ask you to call me Ziyi?”

“My lord, this may be the last plan I make for you.”

Lord Yue shook his head emphatically. “I won’t let General Wu hurt you, Yuzhi. I won’t even let him scratch you.”

Huang Mi’s heartbeat pushed and tugged at his fingertips, hidden inside his sleeves. He resisted the urge to chew his knuckle. “It’s not that. It’s…” Any words he might have followed these eluded him, so he tried again: “I wouldn’t mind dying, either, if I—could kiss you first.” The sentence stung the air. He had preferred his cowardice. He finished his confession as lamely as he had begun: “And I am afraid that makes me an unfit advisor.”

“I’m not.”

Lord Yue let silence spool out after these words for so long that Huang Mi began to wonder what they meant.

“I won’t lose you, Yuzhi,” Lord Yue said. In the firelight his eyes looked more green than gold, and his hands already enclosed Huang Mi’s cold hands as he spoke. “Not as an advisor, not as a lover. You’re the only one I really trust.”

“The generals say I’m a rabbit trying to lead a pack of wolves.” Huang Mi wanted to bolt.

Lord Yue smiled, a smile that suggested the generals were going to receive a lecture soon. “A rabbit, perhaps, but a rabbit with the instincts of a tiger and the good fortune of a phoenix—and the looks of a very handsome man. I’ll even kiss you if you call me Ziyi.”

Huang Mi felt light-headed. This was not something that was supposed to happen. This was something he had wanted to happen for—for his whole life, it seemed to him now, but it was not something that was supposed to happen. He made himself nod. He made himself ignore his racing heart and say, “Okay… my lord.” He did not realize his error until Ziyi began to laugh, and then he smiled too and corrected himself—“Ziyi, Ziyi, Ziyi”—until Ziyi’s lips got in the way of his voice.

General Wu returned before long, his men still unharmed, and Ziyi took reluctant leave of Huang Mi to lead his crack troops to the deserted field of melted snow where the enemy had recently been. The enemy, mistaking the ill-lit wagons of snow for all the city’s grain, had followed General Wu to the gorge, where they had seen the destruction, it seemed, of the grain they so desperately needed. Caught between the options of finding a way to the bottom of the gorge to salvage what had not been washed away by the river and crossing the bridge to the next stronghold, already distantly visible, they chose to break camp and move on.

When Ziyi saw Huang Mi again, he picked him up and twirled him around; when the generals saw Huang Mi again, they grudgingly nodded respect. When Governor Han saw Huang Mi again, she congratulated him and told him that she wanted every borrowed wagon returned undamaged by the end of the next day. General Wu had hell to pay when he could not find one of the wagons again. But that was not a problem Huang Mi had to solve. For seven days and seven nights, Ziyi never once let him feel cold.

#i heard yall wanted them to kiss #ryddles #second century warlord

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masonreds · 3 months

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mason mount x reader

theme: angst & smut

word count: 9.5k words

Why you had agreed to this, you had no idea.

Even now, as you say across from an uncomfortably blank chair, every part of your body is screaming at you to run. To run away. To run the few blocks to the nearest train station and get the hell out of here.

To get away from this terrible, horrible, very bad idea.

Your attention was drawn again to the time on your phone. With the glaring 7:28, you knew that there were exactly two minutes left until the agreed time of 7:30 PM, and as soon as that time came, you would set off a timer for a generous fifteen minutes.

If he wasn’t in this chair across from you at 7:45PM, sharp, you would give into your body’s response and bolt.

And then that would be it right? You’d be able to put everything that happened into a box sealed with a pretty little bow, store it away to be forgotten and move the fuck on.

You could deal with that.

At least you’d hope so.

You checked your phone again.

7:29PM.

The waiter comes back to your table, dropping the two glasses of water, some bread and butter, a bottle of wine to share between the two of you and two wine glasses.

You probably shouldn’t have done it.

Would it send him the wrong message?

No. There’s nothing wrong with being polite. Be the bigger person.

Besides if his taste buds has somehow changed in a month and a half, and if he wanted something else to drink he could order it himself once he showed up.

That’s if he showed up.

Immediately after the waiter turned his back on you, you reached for the wine bottle and your glass, pouring yourself a glass of wine and took a huge gulp, trying to mentally prepare yourself. Trying to remind yourself that despite what you were feeling, you did have the upper hand here, and you could leave at any time you wanted.

You checked your phone once again as you put your wine glass down on the table.

7:30PM.

He gets a generous fifteen minutes and that’s it. You remind yourself sternly.

The second that thought formed in your head, the door to the restaurant flew open and your eyes betrayed your attempt to stay calm in all of this, immediately your eyes found Mason entering in a rush.

You continued to watch, keeping your expression blank as he weaved through the tables to get to you, sitting down in his seat with a hushed but rushed ‘I’m so sorry, I didn’t think the traffic would be so bad, and my Uber driver took his pleasant time coming and-’ he got an Uber because he knew he would be drinking. He fancied a drink.

‘Breathe, it’s fine.’ You say gently, interrupting him.

Mason exhales, taking off his jacket and letting it hang of back of his seat. His hand went through his hair to ruffle it up slightly, then he finally looks at you.

Your stomach twists.

Shit.

You were worried about this. You managed to get over him - well, about 78% over him, at least - but you were worried that the minute he gave you his full attention, the minute you looked into his eyes, you’d be pulled back into his orbit and it would be like the last month and a half you’d spent trying to get over him, your relationship, and all the memories tied up in between, would have been for nothing.

His expression, falters, and the instant smile that spreads across his face when you manage to maintain eye contact longer than a second is brilliantly bright.

‘Hi,’ Mason breathes. ‘Sorry I’m late.’

‘You’re technically right on time,’ you counter, then lower your gaze to the glass of wine in front of you, trying to look anywhere but at him.

He was annoyingly perfect, you can’t deny that.

His eyeliner follows yours, and there’s a look on his face which you instantly recognise, you can only describe it as fond as it takes over his face. ‘You ordered for me?’

‘Just the drinks,’ you clarify. ‘The waiter said he’d be back to take our orders once you were here.’

‘Well,’ he says, looking into your eyes, ‘Thank you. I appreciate it.’

You shrug, not really considering it as a big deal and he leans toward clasping his hands on the table when he takes a deep breath and says, ‘Thank you for agreeing to meeting me here. You have no idea how much it means to me.’

You assess him a little, and when you find he’s being sincere, all you can do is nod. There’s still a ball of anxiety in the pit of your stomach. You just never know what he’s going to come out with.

Mason can clearly sense this, can sense that you’ve been keeping yourself at a a distance, he moves his chair forward, ‘I know things didn’t necessarily end well, and I wanted to apologise for that. I wanted to talk this out. Talk about us.’

You nod again, because he said this when he called you out of the blue this morning, but it’s what he comes out with next that nearly gives you a whiplash.

‘I want to give this another shot.’

You blink. Partially stunned.

He wants to what?

This is not what you expected him to say, at all.

When he called, said he wanted to talk about everything, you assumed it was for closure, assumed it was so they could maybe finish the half angry conversation you had the day you broke up, when he called it quits and walked out.

You hadn’t been expecting…this.

‘You…what??’ You manage to stutter out.

He nods, grabbing a bread slice and a butter knife, spreading a thin layer of butter on it. Making sure he does it for you first then himself - a habit of his now, you’d think this is all completely normal now.

‘Yeah,’ Mason says, gaining confidence with each word he speaks. ‘I’ve been thinking a lot about what you said that day. About what you’ve been trying to tell me this whole time, and you’re right. I wasn’t exactly the best boyfriend to you. I didn’t put you first, I took advantage of you, got scared, and when it mattered most to you, I couldn’t give what you needed, but that’s not true anymore.’

He puts a bread slice on your little plate in front of you, then goes about making his own, continuing on like you’re not sat there staring at him with your mouth slightly open in shock. ‘I know I said a lot of things. Horrible things. Things that I didn’t mean. And I know I can never take it back, but I hope I can at least try to make things better?’

Watching you, Mason takes a moment, gauges your reaction. You realise he’s waiting for you to say something, but the only thing you can manage to say is a small ‘huh.’

Mason swollows the lump in his throat, ‘I uh, I know there’s a lot of information to take in right now, and I know I have a lot to explain to you, but I wanted to at least put all my cards on the table as to where I’m coming from.’

It’s all a bit too much, and you feel like your body malfunctions a bit, your hands coming up to stop him from talking any further. ‘I’m sorry, I just need a second to process this.’

He closes his mouth, nodding, watching you closely, eyes getting a little wide as you grab your wine glass again to take another large gulp, nearly downing it, before reaching for your buttered bread slice and taking a bite to calm your nerves. You both sit there, Mason watching you, and when you finish off your bread a couple of minutes later, you manage to gather some courage, you hesitantly meet his gaze.

‘I don’t understand.’ You say. ‘You want to get back together?’

‘Yeah,’ he says a little sheepishly. ‘I would like that.’

When you don’t answer, or return his smile, it drops a little, only reaching the corners of his mouth. ‘Unless you don’t want that?’

You grab your wine glass again, this time downing the last of it and trying to gather all your thoughts.

This was definitely a lot to take in.

You certainly hadn’t been prepared to discuss getting back together with him. Even though there was a space in your still recovering heart that desperately ached for the prospect to be with him again, to go back to that little slice of paradise you two had managed to carve out for yourselves in winter last year.

But that was gone now.

You’d worked hard in the last month and a half to convince yourself that this, you and him, your relationship and any chance of it coming back was gone.

Because it was.

You had fought, explained that you loved him but needed a little more from him, wanted more from him. He had fought back, said things, called it quits and then walked out because that’s what he said he wanted. And if he was willing to go that far, you needed to believe it was what you should want too.

You were right to worry about meeting him for dinner.

I should’ve left at 7:25, you curse yourself.

‘I don’t know, Mase.’ You say, honestly. ‘I don’t think that’s a good idea.’

The smile that had been lingering at the corner of his mouth slightly disappears. ‘What’s not a good idea?’

‘Any of it,’ pushing the words out of your mouth with a tired breath. ‘I just don’t think it’s a good idea.’

Mason’s quiet for a moment. You can’t read the expression on his face, can’t work out what he’s thinking or he’s feeling at this right second. It’s a little daunting, seeing as how you used to be able to read him like a book.

But trying to erase him from your mind when you were broken up meant forgetting, and you'd clearly managed to forget more than you originally thought.

Mason staring at his untouched glass of wine, nodding. ‘Okay.’

You raised an eyebrow in suspicion. ‘Okay?’

He nods, pulling out his wallet before calling the waiter over to ask for the bill. The conversation was over from his end so there was no point in staying any longer if you weren’t going to change your mind. ‘Yeah, okay. I can respect that.’

You can’t help but stare at him, only a little confused.

When he called you out of the blue this morning, he seemed eager. He said he wanted to see you, have dinner, and talk to you about something important. You could practically sense the adrenaline running through his veins, could hear the hard thuds of his heartbeat over the phone. The problem is that you knew Mason was always the type of guy who was mature enough to take no for an answer and who always respected your decisions, but this morning it seemed like he wasn't going to take no for an answer either, so you had every right to be confused.

Deep inside you kind of wanted him to fight for you.

‘Come on,’ he says gently, placing the money that was more than enough to cover the drinks you ordered and bread for starters. You immediately stopped him, wanting to pay your half, it wasn’t fair that he had to pay. But Mason stopped you.‘Mason, at least let me pay half-’

‘I asked you out so I’m paying, end of,’ he insists.

Mason stood up, extending his hand out to you as a kind gesture, ‘I’ll call us taxi,’

With a moments of hesitation you could tell Mason didn’t like by the flex of his jaw, you placed your hand in his, accepting his help as you stood up. Together, you both put on coats/jackets, gathered your things, and exited the restaurant.

You follow Mason outside, a little confused when you only saw one taxi arrive a few minutes later waiting in the cold. Mason instantly recognises that look on your face. ‘Did you think that I’d let you go alone in a taxi at this time of night? Ain’t no way.’

You didn’t have any time to respond because Mason was already walking towards the taxi, opening a door for you before he shut the door and walked around to the other side and got in sitting beside you.

‘Do you want me to stop the driver to get you something to eat?’ He offers, ‘I realised I dragged you out of there, but you didn’t properly have a chance to eat yet.’

‘No, I’m okay,’ you assure him, lying a little. You were starving, but his choice of conversation curbed your appetite quickly.

‘Are you sure?’ He offers. ‘I can get the driver to stop at a pizza place or something?’

You shake your head, ‘No, thank you. I just want to go home.’

The rest of the drive is silent, the radio playing in the background. You keep your eyes locked on the window, refusing to acknowledge Mason or his constant fidgeting. You know it’s a sign that he’s got something to say, probably wants to bring up your decision, or maybe insist on dinner, but thankfully, he keeps his mouth closed.

Once the driver gets to your apartment building, Mason tells the driver to wait for a second so he can drop you off at your door, he’s probably doing the most but he just wants to make sure you get in okay.

He’s escorting you inside the building, and following along with you in the lift like he always used to.

‘Always got to make sure my girl gets in safely,’ he used to say when you used to scold him about this before. ‘I need to see it with my own eyes.

When you finally reach the front door, you find that you just want him to leave, and can’t seem to get him out of your hair quick enough.

You reach for your keys in your bag, fumbling a couple of times trying to get that stupid thing into the lock.

‘Let me get it,’ he offers, reaching for your shaking hands, but you snatch them away before he can touch you, taking a step back.

‘I don’t need your help, Mason!’ You nearly shout, almost regretting it when you take in his expression.

Almost.

‘Hey,’ hurt lacing his voice as he frowns. ‘I was just trying to-’

‘I know!’ You sigh out, frustrated and exhausted. ‘I know what you were trying to do, Mase. I appreciate it.’

‘Then what’s the issue?’ He asks, hands gesturing between the two of you.

‘I thought tonight was about getting closure Mason, not getting back together!!’ You exclaim. You fall back against the wall close to your door, head thumping gently back against it. ‘It took me by surprise and now I feel like everything is upside down.’

‘It doesn’t have to be!’ He counters, just as infuriated as you. ‘It can be simple, it can be easy, if you just let me-’

‘Why would I let you say anything to me?’ You snap.

‘Because I still love you!’ His confession takes you by surprise, and he crowds into your space, the heat coming off of his body in waves. ‘I love you, and I want this. I want us back, and I just want this to work out.’

You can’t find the words to say for a small moment, taken aback by the sincerity in his eyes, and how he’s behaving like nothing happened. ‘After the way you spoke to me when we broke up? After the things you said?’ That seems to shut him up. ‘You really think you deserve another chance?’

At your words, Mason could see the wall you were slowly building up to keep him away, to shut him out and push him away for good. If he wasn’t upset before, he definitely was now. He feels so close to boiling. He is angry, yes, but not at you, never at you. At himself. He presses his hands on either side of head, resting on the wall he had your body pressed up against so many times before.

Before, when he’d bring you home, press you against this wall by the door and make out with you for what felt like hours, before eventually dragging you inside when you could hear people coming up the stairs or when the lift dinged.

But now, he was so livid, so fucking angry with himself that he felt like if he tried hard enough, he could push his hands through the wall.

‘Don’t shut me out.’ He pleads. ‘I know what I said was awful, but-’

‘No buts.’ You respond. Your tone was dry, your eyes empty. You were looking right at him, but all Mason felt was numb.

‘Baby, I want to make you understand but-’

‘No buts.’ You repeat, a little firmer, a little louder. ‘Everytime you say but it negates everything you said in front of it.’

He didn’t realise he was looking into your eyes, until you cleared your throat bringing him back to reality. He wishes he could’ve stayed in that moment. Wishing that he listened to his gut all those months ago and didn’t take this risk.

The risk of losing you.

He was so sure all of this would’ve ended up with him breaking your heart.

But you were breaking his.

‘Baby,’ he chokes out. ‘ I just didn’t think that I could be what you needed back then. I didn’t think I was good enough for what you needed.’

‘But if you loved me, you would’ve at least tried.’ You reason.

Mason shakes his head, ‘I do love you. I’m in love with you. I just didn’t want you to get hurt, can’t you see that? There’s nothing wrong with you. You’re beautiful, you’re perfect, so perfect it makes my chest ache.’

‘Is that why you called me clingy?’ You say, with no expression on your face, recalling his exact words the last time you saw one another. ‘Is that why you said my emotions were too much? Why you said I was asking for too much? Is that why you said it felt like I was suffocating you by asking for more? I’m so perfect that it makes you feel sick just being so close to me? Is that the ‘ache’ you were talking about? There’s nothing wrong with me now, but you weren’t willing to try to do anything more to be with me back then? Is that why you did all of this? Because the whole ‘it’s not you, it’s me’ bullshit you’re spewing right now contradicts that a lot, you know?’

‘I didn’t meant that.’ He pleads. ‘I didn’t, I swear. I just said all of that-’

‘To make me believe it?’ There’s no emotion in your voice or your eyes, no light, no wonder into what you’re thinking.

It’s all my fault, Mason thinks miserably.

He knows it’s his fault, he just doesn’t know what to say. Mason swallows the lump in his throat and doesn’t know where to look before you start speaking again. ‘Well,’ you begin, placing one palm flat on his chest. ‘Congratulations. I do.’

Even though it seems like he is putting miles between you both, Mason takes a step back. As his hands drop to his sides, he realises that he had the opportunity to touch you and give you one last kiss right then and there, and that he most likely will not get the chance to again.

‘You were right.’ You state plainly. ‘That day, when you said that people show their true colours we should believe them. And I believe you, Mason. I believe all of you. Especially the version of you that you really are. And that version of you? Doesn’t want to be with me.’

Every time you say something to him, he loses a little bit of his fight back and you push yourself off the wall, not even giving him a sidelong glance as you enter your flat and close the door behind you. You have had enough.

Your heart races as you close your flat door to lock it and do everything in your power to avoid collapsing on the floor.

You can not do this right now; you can not cry, weep, or mourn for something that is already happened. But deep down, you still believed that what you had was genuine. You hoped and prayed with all of your remaining optimism that, for one brief moment, this relationship with Mason would allow you to exist outside of yourself and have something real, something tangible. That he would fight for it.

And even that was taken away from you.

And yet, you should’ve known it was all too good to be true. You did know. But you hoped anyways.

You hear your phone ringing from your handbag, and you groan desperately trying to push away the pain of your heartbreak.

You wipe furiously at your face, wiping away tears that threaten to fall while attempting to suppress your emotions. You take off your bag, coat, and scarf and quickly throw your hair into a bun before opening the wardrobe and stripping down, tossing your clothes into the laundry basket, and storming into your bathroom.

Your phone rings again, and you let out a pitiful cry of frustration before storming back to where you left it and pulling it out.

It’s Mason, and his name fills your screen with his messages.

You found your phone towards your bed with and angry scream that just turns into a sob, and you sink to your knees on the plush carpet of your bedroom.

Isn’t this what you wanted, once upon a time? Someone to fight for you, fight to keep you, fight to win you back, to be lusted after, desired.

You weren’t sure you wanted this anymore.

You had dated others, but you never felt heartbreak with them.

You did with Mason though. You felt every crack in your heart. Felt the sadness, the sorrow, the misery.

With Mason, he seemed to make you feel everything and more.

And that’s why this hurt so bad.

Because you felt it all.

You still loved him.

That’s when it clicked.

You still loved him.

Fuck.

It’s hours later, getting close to 11 at night and you’re sipping on your late night glass of wine when your apartment intercom buzzes.

You get up from your spot on the couch to answer it, figuring it’s probably your neighbour two doors down who forgot her keys again which you always seem to have a spare, after a night out.

You press the intercom to speak, saying, ‘you owe me wine for this Eva.’

The voice that comes back is not Eva’s

‘It’s me.’

You nearly drop your glass of wine, with the amount of wine you had tonight it was quick to rush through your veins and to your brain quickly, and you’re pressing the intercom again before you can register what you’re doing.

‘Mason?’

‘Yeah, can I come up? I was hoping we can talk again. I didn’t like how I acted earlier, and i-’

You’re pressing the buzzer to let him some up before he can finish his sentence, not necessarily needing or wanting to hear the rest. The last thing you need is for anyone to spot him outside your apartment building at this time of night.

There was a small part of you that was grateful that you had a shower after you little breakdown you had after getting back from the restaurant. Although now you regretted putting on the silky tank top and shorts set.

Definitely can’t open the door wearing that.

You quickly put down your glass of wine on the coffee table, quickly running to your wardrobe, grabbing any clothes that you see first so you change.

But the doorbell rings.

You could stall and could change anyways but you didn’t need him lingering outside your apartment any longer in case your neighbours spotted him.

So instead you walk over to the door and opening jt to find Mason stood there, in grey joggers and a grey hoodie to match the joggers, his hands in his pockets and his hair a little damp and messy as if he’s been running his hands through it.

You step aside, allowing him to come inside, taking his shoes off and placing it next to yours like he’s done many times before. You shut the door behind him, taking your time to lock it while you’re catching your breath.

He goes to sit on your couch, the pauses halfway there.

This was where it happened. In your living room.

Where you fought, he broke your heart and left like he did nothing wrong.

Deciding you also don’t want to sit on the couch, you walk past him, leading him into your bedroom. It’s probably not the best idea, but it’s the safest alternative.

You sit at the edge of your bed, and Mason leans against your wardrobe, feeling too agitated to sit down.

‘I’m sorry.’ He starts. ‘For how I acted earlier, I didn’t mean to make it seem like I had a right to come back after I acted like a dick.’

You shrug, ‘it’s okay.’

Mason shakes his head. ‘It wasn’t. Also it wasn’t fair of me to ask you to dinner without you knowing the intentions behind it. Dropping that at dinner wasn’t fair either, and I didn’t mean to make you feel uncomfortable.’

You nod and let Mason carry on, ‘I realise I have no right to ask anything, and no right to ask for the space to explain myself, but I’d like to, if you let me.’

It takes you a second, but you already know your answer before speaking the words. ‘I’ll let you.’ You say softly.

This conversation has the beginnings of closure to it, and no matter what direction it goes in, you need to hear what he has to say if there’s any hope to either move past this, or move on from him.

So you just let him talk.

Mason takes a deep breath. ‘I was feeling a lot of things that day. Frustration over the season, how it ended, and then stuff with the surgery as well as contract talks. And you were there every step of the way, and I appreciated it, I really did. I guess I felt a little overwhelmed? There was so much to do and say and I felt like I needed to be alone for a second, just to breathe.’

He takes another breath, his eyes furrowing as he tried to recall how it was for him back then, trying to say the right things the right way. ‘You weren’t clingy. You weren’t suffocating me. You weren’t too much, and your emotions weren’t too much. You were always enough, you were perfectly fine. I know you just wanted to be there for me, to support me and help me through what I was feeling, but I’ve never had anyone do that for me before. Everyone is been with before just sort of left me to deal with it on my own.’

Mason sighs, giving you a look. You’re sitting there listening to him intently, giving him your full attention like you always used to, allowing him the time and space to gather his thoughts and feelings.

When his gaze becomes too much, you find yourself tearing away, staring at the floor of your bedroom instead. It stings, Mason realises, not having you look at him like that, but he accepts it, knows he deserves it.

‘I didn’t know what it felt like to have support like that.’ He explains. ‘I wasn’t used to it, and I was wrong to think even for a second of you wanting to be there for me, or you wanting more from me once things got better, was just you wanting my attention, or you wanting anything other that to remind me that you loved me and that you were there to help me, but that you also had your own needs, and that they weren’t being met.’

He sighs, disappointed in himself. ‘You poured all of yourself into my cup, and I couldn’t return the favour when it mattered most to you. I’m sorry that I didn’t see it sooner, and it shouldn’t have taken a month and a half to come to you and apologize. I thought I was doing the right thing, walking away, but I can see now that it wasn’t. And I’m selfish enough to admit that I don’t want to let you go.’

There’s a quiet sniffle from you, and Mason feels his gut twist uncomfortably. ‘I understand you don’t want this,’ he says. ‘If you don’t want us. I know I was a dickhead to you, I know I took too long to get my shit together and tell you what a piece of shit I was, and i probably still am. I still meant what I said though. I do want us. I want you. And I know I’ll have to work hard to get you back, and I will put in the work, I swear it to you, if you’ll still have me.’

Another sniffle, but no words came out. He can see you wipe your tears away.

His heart breaks at the sight of you.

‘Please, baby,’ Mason says softly. He gazes down at you, from where you sit on the edge of your bed, and wishes in his head that you’d just look at him. Even if it was just for a second, even if it would be the last time.

You shake your head softly, his lips beginning to pout, your bottom lop starting to tremble and Mason feels like a knife just plunged into his heart.

He takes a step forward, until he’s close to you as he can be without touching you. He drops down to his knees, and notices there’s tears starting to well up in your eyes, he decides he has to touch you to comfort you. He doesn’t want to sit there just watching you cry.

Carefully, Mason reaches up with both hands, cupping your cheeks, and wiping gently at your tears with his thumbs. ‘I’m so sorry, baby.’ He murmurs.

You let out a shaky breath. ‘It’s-’

‘It’s not fine.’ He insists. He applies gentle pressure behind his hands as he turns your head to face him. You blink when you meet his gaze, more tears falling onto Mason’s thumbs, and he wipes them away. When they keep coming, he lowers his hands a little and leans forward, gently kissing the tip of your nose, then the spots under your eyes, kissing your tears away.

‘Tell me what I have to do, baby.’ He pleads, moving closer, rising up a little on his knees to rest his forehead against yours. ‘I’ll do anything, I swear. Tell me what to do. Tell me what you need.’

There’s a small shake of your head, and he can feel you beginning to relax into him. ‘I don’t know.’

Before he can reason with himself if he should do it, if he’s lost the privilege to, he presses a soft kiss to your lips. He’s surprised when instead of shoving him away, or refusing his kiss, you kiss him back.

He can feel your hands move to his arms, gently pulling him forward, and he kisses you again, moving between your legs when you open them to press the two of you together. As the kiss deepens, he wraps one arm around your waist, banding the other across your back so he can gently grip the back of your neck, and your legs wrap around him, pulling him closer, your ankles locking at the base of his spine.

A small gasp escapes Mason when he feels you grind yourself against his covered abdomen, and the hand on the back of your neck creeps upward, grabbing a fistful of hair. At the tug of your hair, you moan, and Mason feels his whole body light up with electricity.

He murmurs your name against your lips, presses kisses there, to your chin, your cheek, working his way down to your neck, sucking little bruises into the skin. He releases your hair, trailing his hand down your arms, moves to your collarbone, leaving little nips and bite marks as he goes, all the while you keep trying to tug at his hair to get him back to your lips.

Mason accepts without a protest, your brain going blank when your soft tongue grazes over his lips, and he accepts it, cupping the back of your head and sucking on your tongue lightly. Then, he’s pulling back just a little to kiss your lips, sucking your bottom one into his mouth, and then pulling it between his lips as he pulls away. You loosen your grip, but keep your hands in his hair, running the curls through your fingers.

‘I’ll do anything.’ Mason repeats the words against your skin, his hands running down your front, settling on your hips. Picking up from where he left off on your collarbone, he presses a sweet kiss to the skin before sinking his teeth in gently, enjoying your little moans of surprise before using his tongue to satiate the little pain from the wound. ‘Anything to make you forgive me.’

He starts to work his way down, leaving a trail of kisses on your chest, pulling the strap of your top off of your shoulder before pulling the neckline down, exposing the top of your breast and immediately sucking the skin into his mouth, hard.

You let out a small whine, arching your back and pressing further against his mouth, your hands tightening their grip in his hair and Mason groans.

He tugs at the hem of your top, and you both part for a small, torturous second, for you to all but tear it off, flinging it somewhere to your bedroom floor before his lips are immediately back on your skin, his hands cupping your breasts in both palms, kneading them in his hands before sucking on one nipple, then the other.

‘I’ll do anything to have you again,’ Mason begins, your nipple caught between his teeth. ‘To make you mine again.’

He rises up on his knees, his tongue purposely swiping over your nipple, your chest, your neck, and as he goes, your core throbs as you watch his tongue glide over your skin before he tucks it back into his mouth.

‘I’m so fucking sorry baby,’ he says when his mouth releases your skin. ‘I’m so sorry.’

His eyes lock onto yours and you meet his gaze straight on, watching, waiting, until he tilts his chin just so and you meet his lips, kissing him once, twice, three times before he presses his whole body against yours, hands disappearing from your breasts to cage your body against his once more.

His tongue slips into your mouth, hands roaming over your bare back before sneaking into your hair, grabbing a fistful at the nape of your neck and pulling your head backwards. He chases your mouth, biting your lip as he pulls away slowly, trailing his lips down your chin and then latching onto the particularly sensitive part of your neck, sucking the skin into his mouth hard.

You moan in response, can feel his tongue massaging over the spot as he continues to suck, and a sharp but delighted hiss leaves you when you feel his teeth scrape gently against the spot. His lips release you a moment later, and he eyes the blooming hickey with pride.

‘Never should have let you go,’ he murmurs, and then Mason’s arms move, releasing you from his caged embrace so his hands can coast down your sides, settling on your hips as he continues to leave bruising kisses on your neck, fingers dipping into the waistband of your silk sleep shorts.

‘Can I take these off of you?’ He murmurs against your collarbone, and you nod, lifting your hips just so, and Mason wastes no time in tearing the material down your legs and off of your body, flinging the things to some spot in your room.

Mason eyes your exposed pussy and can feel his heart thump against his chest. ‘God I missed you, missed seeing your pretty pussy every day.’

He moves to place his arms under your thighs, to pin them up next to you so he can devour you, right where you’re glistening and wet for him, but then you’re grabbing at his hoodie. He thinks you want it off, so he complies, tearing it off and throwing it to wherever the rest of your clothes are, but then you’re beckoning him to you, reaching for him with your hands, and he smirks a little.

Mason presses a kiss to your pretty glistening heat, looking up at you from under his eyelashes. ‘I want to taste you baby, it’s been so long.’

You shake your head, a crease forming between your brows as you reach for him. He goes easily, reaching up to smooth that crease away beneath his thumb, and you cup his face, laying back on your bed and pulling him with you.

He climbs onto the bed, moving you both up the mattress until your head is resting on your pillows. He places his hands next to your face, propping himself up so he doesn’t crush you. Your legs wrap around his waist, pressing the two of you together as you kiss him, squirming beneath him like the hottest thing he’s ever seen in his life.

‘It has been too long,’ you say in agreement, lips ghosting over his as you speak. He can feel you trying to use the heels of your feet to push the band of his sweatpants down. ‘I need you now, Mase.’

‘Okay baby, okay,’ repeating the word as he pushes his joggers and boxers down just enough to free his cock, feels it throb once it’s pressed between the two of you, resting against the soft skin of your belly.

An excited noise trills from your mouth as you reach between you both, lining him up with your slick folds and grinding against him. The feeling is overwhelming, blinding Mason as he shuts his eyes and groans, rocking up against you, delirious with the friction. ‘Condom?’ He asks belatedly, trying not to choke on his breath when the head of his cock nearly catches on the entrance to your pussy.

You shake your head emphatically, watching completely dazed as Mason reaches a hand between the two of you.

‘No, I want to feel you raw.’ His head swims at your statement, and he dips a finger inside of you, then two, collecting the wetness before bringing his coated fingers to his mouth and sucking them clean. He groans, cock pulsing again as he grinds against you.

You reach for his face, chasing his mouth for a filthy open mouthed kiss that he’s happy to give to you.

‘Had to taste you,’ he explains. ‘Couldn’t wait another second.’

‘Need you now, Mase.’ You breathe against his lips, and he nods, pulling his hips back ever so slightly until the head of his cock rests against your entrance, and then he’s pushing forward, sliding inside of you slowly. Your breath catches in your throat, and Mason can’t look away, can’t stop watching the way your eyes glaze over before they roll back into your head.

‘That’s it baby, take my cock.’ He praises, eyes casting down to where he’s pushing inside of you.

You take every inch of him perfectly, as you always have, and once he’s fully inside, Mason gets in close. He’s on his knees, positioning his thighs under your own to both keep you propped up and open to him, and to keep himself close to you.

Your body is overcome with the white-hot pleasure of Mason's thick cock squeezing into you, squeezing your eyes shut. Your back is broken in an arch, your mouth is open in a silent cry, and your fingers are entangled in the sheets beneath you. Your body is responding as though you are experiencing it for the first time since you took him so long ago.

You’re so focused on his cock, on how full you feel, that you can barely register that he’s speaking to you, calling for you. His voice comes back to you as pleasure ripples through your body.

You inhale sharply, chest heaving, gathering air in your lungs as you can feel your body begin to adjust, the blinding pleasure of him being buried inside of you starting to replace the stretch and pressure of his welcomed intrusion.

‘That’s it baby, that’s my girl.’ He praises, thumbs caressing your cheeks as he slowly pulls his hips back, then pushes in again. His abdomen drags against your clit, and your eyes squeeze shut.

His hips move like that once, twice, three times before your orgasm shoots through you like a rocket. It’s so sudden, so unexpected that Mason nearly loses his pace. He has to bring his hands to the back of your knees and pin your legs down so he can continue to drive into you, flexing his hips and fighting past the tight squeeze of your pussy on his cock, fucking you through your orgasm just the way you love as you cry out.

Your name falls from his lips, completely dazed as he watches you. Your cry out into a whine, your grip on him loosening a little, and Mason bends his head to kiss you, laughing softly as when your eyes slowly blink open as he pulls away.

‘Good baby?’ He asks, and you can only manage a small nod in response.

Mason loves you like this. Loves when you go soft under him, loves that you trust him to make sure he takes care of you like this.

‘More,’ you beg, and Mason nods, bending once for another open mouthed kiss, his tongue dragging over yours before you part.

‘Love it when you come for me,’ he says against your lips, moving his hips so he can fuck you with slow strokes. ‘Have to fight my way in every time, just to keep fucking you, just to make sure you keep coming all over me.’

‘Mase!’ You cry out, his hips driving into that spot inside of you that makes you see stars.

‘You’re gonna deny me this?’ He asks, a slight taunt to his voice, but you can hear past it, can hear the plea in his voice, the desperation. ‘You’re gonna take this away from me baby?’

You’re shaking your head before he can even finish the question. It’s no use.

While you were alone after dinner, you’d had way too much time to yourself, to think, to overthink, to mull over every single second from the fight, to the break up, to tonight, to slamming the door in Mason face.

You knew, somewhere in your heart, that you’d already forgiven Mason before he came back. That whatever his excuse, whatever his reasoning, you’d forgiven him for what had happened.

And it wasn’t until he came back asking for a second chance that you realized you’d give him that, too. You’d give him anything he asked for.

Because you loved him.

He drove you insane, but you loved him.

And you hadn’t erased him out of your life, not really. No matter how much you tried to pretend like you had.

Maybe it was your greatest flaw, but you were too forgiving of a person.

And you didn’t want to deny him, not anymore.

‘Answer me,’ Mason demands through clenched teeth, pressing down on the backs of your thighs as he begins to drive into you, merciless and desperate. ‘Am I going to have to fuck you like this is the last time?’

He punctuates his question with a particularly hard thrust, pushing a choked sound out of you as your pleasure starts to build and twist.

‘I want to hear you say it,’ he orders, pistoning in and out of you. You can only watch him, stunned.

It was no secret he was gorgeous. But only you got to see this, this moment where he looked like a god among men.

The sweat at his hairline, the pinched look of concentration, the veins along the muscles in his arms straining as he holds you down, holds you open so he can fuck you the way he knows you like, the way he pleases you best. The way his eyes flame as he watches your every move, tracks your face so he can be sure he’s bringing you nothing but pleasure.

‘Tell me,’ he insists, bending his head a little to press a kiss to the inside of your knee, and you don’t miss the way it still sounds like a plea. ‘Tell me you’re mine.’

You nod, brows pinching together as the delicious drag of his cock brings you higher and higher, closer to your next orgasm. Mason can tell, knows exactly what you need, but he won’t give it to you.

Not yet.

‘You don’t get to come again unless you say what I want to hear.’ Mason says, slowing his pace to emphasize his point.

A whine sounds in your throat, and he laughs a little, resting his forehead against yours. ‘I know baby, I know. I know exactly what you need, everything you need. In this bedroom, in this bed, and outside of it. I know everything that you need and I promise I’ll give it to you. But I need to hear you say it. Need to hear you tell me what I want to hear.’

You can only manage a whine, too focused on the slow drag of his cock, the way it feels like you can feel every hard vein and ridge of it slowly fucking into you. Mason shakes his head at your broken noises. ‘I know it feels good, baby, but you can do it. Use your words, pretty girl.’

‘I’m yours.’ It comes out as a whisper at first, too overwhelmed by the feeling of his cock, the friction of his solid abdominal muscles against your clit as he writhes against you slowly.

‘You’re mine?’ He repeats, not even trying to hide the bit of disbelief in his voice, the uncertainty. ‘Yeah? You’re mine? Look at me baby.’ Your eyes lock onto his, and he holds your gaze as his hips grind into you. ‘Are you mine?’ He punctuates his question with a particularly hard thrust. ‘Am I yours?’

You nod again, crying out ‘Yes!’ when he starts to fuck you again. His pace is unrelenting, his hips unforgiving as he moves, driving his cock in and out of you, consistently hitting that spot deep inside you that makes you see the sun, the stars, the moon, the whole galaxy with each thrust.

‘Tell me what I need to do.’ He says to you. You blink lazily at him, lost in the way he fucks you, and he crowds his body in closer, dropping your thighs and cupping your face in his hands, using the muscles in his hips to fuck you deep, grinding his cock into you some more.

‘What do I need to do baby?’ Mason asks again, voice a little softer. His words are loaded, multiple meanings behind the question, and you know what to say to answer them all. He waits as patiently as he can, his mouth locking yours in a deep kiss as you start to squeeze down on him. He can tell you’re getting closer, can tell you’re right on the edge, but he still needs to hear you say it.

‘Need you to make me come.’ You answer finally, lips brushing against his as you speak. He nods, forehead brushing against yours from where it rests. His hand snakes between you both as he circles your clit, applying just the right amount of pressure to the sensitive bud. Your back arches up in response, moving further into his touch.

‘Come for me, pretty girl,’ Mason pleads, keeping his hips in time with the circle he’s drawing against your clit, swallowing your cries with a kiss. ‘I wanna feel you come for me again.’

Mason’s orgasm hits him like a freight train and he groans out loud, doing his best to keep his eyes open so he can watch every second of you coming all over him. His cock pulses, his come spilling inside of you in thick ropes, and he can barely breathe as your pussy squeezes around him, like you’re trying to pull him deeper inside of you.

When your orgasms subside, Mason goes to pull out of you so he can lay beside you, but your legs lock around his waist, and you pull him down to you, taking him by surprise with a sweet and gentle kiss. That gentle kiss morphs into the both of you making out lazily, you winding your hips, grinding against him while his cock rests inside of you.

You both remain like that for what feels like hours, but is probably more like fifteen minutes straight, Mason cock getting hard all over again, and you can feel your arousal slowly returning, ready for a round two, if needed. Eventually, Mason’s lips trail lazily from your mouth to your cheek, chin, neck, shoulders, collarbone, moving across your chest to reach your other shoulder, other side of your neck, and so on then back again, leaving kisses in each place as he goes.

After a little while longer, your post orgasm high subsides a little and your head starts to clear bit by bit. When you manage to come back to yourself, you realize Mason’s been murmuring his apologies into your skin, over and over, only pausing when he gets back to your lips, then resuming his apologies as his lips follow the little trail he’s made.

On what you think is his eighth loop around, you tangle your hands in the curls near the nape of his neck and tug a little, removing his lips from their place against your shoulder, dragging him to your mouth and kissing him again.

You roll the two of you so he’s on his back, his now half hard cock still nestled inside of you and your thighs bracketing his torso. Mason’s hands rest on your hips as he looks up at you, his lips a bright pink from all of the kissing. He looks dazed still, like he isn’t sure if this is all real, then his brow furrows, and regret slashes across his features.

He moves his mouth to form another apology, but you rest a single finger against his mouth, shaking your head softly.

‘I know,’ you tell him. ‘I know you’re sorry, baby.’ Slowly, you start to wind your waist, watching Mason’s eyes roll into the back of his head, his fingers digging into the flesh of your hips and trying his damndest not to thrust up into you. There’s a hiss that leaves his mouth when you squeeze, and a harsh breath is punched out of his lungs.

‘I’m sensitive pretty girl,’ he says, definitely not half hard anymore. Mason can’t tear his eyes away from where the two of you are joined together, where he can see his own come starting to drip down his cock, watching as you fuck it back into yourself as your drop your hips down.

‘Just need one more.’ You promise, can already feel your body chasing after the next orgasm as you move.

Mason nods, pupils blown wide as he watches. ‘Take what you need baby.’

And you do, planting your hands on his chest as you begin to bounce. Your nails dig into his skin a little, dragging them down his pecs and to his lower abdomen, watching in delight as red marks bloom in their wake, Mason groaning out loud, low and deep, his hips bucking up into you.

He always did love it when you scratched him up like this.

‘More,’ he pleads, and you slowly glide your palms back up to his collarbone, digging your nails in once more and dragging them back down in the same path. His body jerks a little when he moans, and then he’s grabbing your hips and sitting up, laying you down and getting onto his knees to fuck you all over again.

Your hands move to his ass, pulling him in deeper, your nails sinking into the hard muscled flesh and dragging up to his waist, and Mason’s thrusts become harder, sharper, and your orgasm rips through you like a lightning strike.

He follows close behind, fucking past the tight grip of your pussy and coming with a hoarse shout, pinning his hips against you as his cock throbs.

You move your hands then, cupping his face and pulling him down to you, allowing him to bury his face into your neck as he tries to recover. You both breathe deeply for a while, heated skin cooling as the time passes. Eventually, Mason presses soft kisses to your neck, then shoulder, before propping himself up above you by his hands.

‘I think we should probably shower, shouldn’t we?’ He suggests to you, and you nod in agreement. He carefully pulls out of you, but when you move to sit up, he gently pushes you back down, eyes glued to your pussy, where his two loads start to slowly leak out. Mason takes two fingers, gathering what’s coming out and pushes it back into you. Your back arches in response, a small hiss pushing through your clenched teeth.

He removes his fingers, bringing them to his mouth and sucking them clean before leaning over you again, capturing your mouth with his, sharing your combined release.

‘Want some more?’ He murmurs against your lips, and you nod, your eyes locked on one another as he reaches down, his fingers pushing back in, stroking you a couple of times before pulling them out. This time, when he brings his fingers back up, you grab his wrist before he can put them in his mouth, bringing them to your lips instead, sucking them clean. Mason’s eyes flutter, glazing over and you can feel his cock start to come back to life where it rests against your thigh.

Once his fingers drop from your mouth, he surges forward, kissing you again and you both fall back onto the bed, all thoughts of doing anything but making out leaving your minds for the next ten minutes.

Eventually, you manage to pull away, resting a hand on his chest as you part. ‘It’s getting late,’ quickly adding, ‘we should probably shower now, so we can head to bed.’ when you see Mason panic a little, thinking you were going to try to kick him out.

He smiles a little, nodding. He gets up first, reaching out a hand for you to take. Once you’re both upright, Mason looks down at you and smiles a little, brushing some hair away from your face then pressing a kiss to your forehead. ‘You go first, I’ll gather up the clothes and get the bed ready.’

You nod with a small smile, heading into your bathroom to pee and start the shower as Mason busies himself with gathering up your clothes, tossing them into the hamper in the corner of your room. He feels his heart thump in his chest at the familiarity of taking your decorative pillows off of your bed, putting them on their designated shelf in your wardrobe, then fluffing the pillows you actually use before bringing your comforter down.

When he finally makes his way into your bathroom, he finds you standing under the spray of the shower, watching through the glass as the water cascades down your body.

A body he almost let go, a body he knows he’s honored to be able to worship again.

He wastes no further time in stepping into the shower with you, wrapping his arms around you to pull you in close, resting his cheek on the top of your head.

‘I’ll do better,’ He promises you.

Your hands rub up and down his back in a soothing pattern. ‘I know, Mase.’ Your name falls off his lips in a soft murmur, and you pull away a little, tipping your head back just so to look up at him. ‘We’ll be okay,’ you promise, nodding to reassure him.

He nods back, cupping the back of your head in his hand, resting it against his chest. ‘I know we will, baby. I’ll make sure of it.’

You knew you were always in love, you just needed your stubbornness to let go.

#mason mount one shot #mason mount imagine #mason mount smut #mason mount angst

200 notes · View notes

mynamesaplant · 2 months

Text

Just a Dragon in its Den

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Just a little short story about @critterbitter's submas hc. Please go take a look at Critter's work, it is beautiful in every sense of the word. This particular story looks more into Drayden, the twins, and the tension that has built between them. This takes place right before they make it to Opelucid. Enjoy another bad phonetically written accent! One other thing to note: Kaita is called "mother" by her sons and Lucielle is "mom".

Little piece of my own hc: The particular Haxorus that helped raise Emmet and Ingo is informally known as Darling by everyone bc they heard Drayden referring to 'darling' after battles and thought it was her name.

Thank you to @ingo-ingoing-ingone for being my beta reader. I appreciate you immensely, my friend.

You can find my series of Critter inspired works on AO3.

Don't like to read on Tumblr? Find the stand alone piece here on AO3.

Enjoy!~

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Sunlight still managed to get into his eyes even with the canvas canopy over their heads…

Ingo pried open a bleary eye, scanning from his left to his right. A moment ticked by before he flopped his head back down.

It was just him, and his waxy partner half-way fused to his sleep shirt.

He could hear his best friends talking just outside the tent flaps, the sizzling of oil in a pan which made him jerk upright. Litwick was launched as he was quick to change and get outside before they burned a hole in the tent… again.

Ingo loved Emmet and Elesa, but they couldn’t cook without supervision. They could barely cook with supervision.

“Make way!”

Emmet and Elesa jumped out of the way as Ingo barreled out from the dark interior of the tent. Quick to relinquish stove duty to his twin, Emmet shot Elesa a smug grin that she merely harrumphed at.

“Told you that would get him up.”

“You two are cruel,” Ingo tried to say through a yawn, but it only came out as a garbled noise. However, the intention seemed to come across just fine.

“We’re not cruel! You sleep like a log!”

He ignored Elesa, groggily shifting the bacon that was just starting to spatter and hiss in distress.

You jerk! I was sleeping!

A displeased crackle and spark came from the tent flap, Litwick's wax running with the intensity of her lavender inferno.

“Apologies, Litwick. I was terrified our tent would turn to cinders if these two were manning the camp stove any longer.”

The flame atop Litwick’s head, at the moment burning high and hot, slowly began to whittle down into a manageable flicker. Ingo stooped, scooping his Pokémon up carefully, and setting her near the small propane tank that fueled the stove, the Ghost Pokémon grumbling the whole time as her eyes fluttered shut. This was a new gift. Their mother heard from Uncle Drayden that they were on their journey through Unova and she had purchased this from a camp store in Galar; in her letter she suggested that it might be useful. Camping was very big there apparently; she had seen many people using this model of stove, and she saw no issues with twelve-year-olds using flammable materials like propane.

Their mother, Kaita, rarely sent them anything and, when she did, it was usually impractical or downright dangerous. The boys had stared at the box waiting for them at the Poké Mart in Lacunosa Town, perplexed when they saw their mother’s name with the return address for a hostel in Galar. How she had even known that they were going to be in Lacunosa before heading to Opelucid was anyone’s guess, but they took the package and attempted to call the number on the postcard, stuffed in hastily judging by the torn edges and messy scrawl, but the man with a thick Galarian accent told them she had left just the other day.

Somehow that was unsurprising to Emmet and Ingo.

“So, what’s on tap for today?”

“We should reach Opelucid by noon,” Emmet said, pulling his knees to his chest as he watched Tynamo flitter around the Dwebble that had been following them since they had departed from Route 18.

The little crustacean had been tottering after them at a distance, disappearing into its shell when anyone was close, but joined in on the fun with the other Pokémon on occasion.

“That’s where Drayden works, right?”

“Correct, we will be visiting him.”

That seemed to give Elesa pause, looking from one twin to the other.

“Are you sure?” Emmet shifted, throwing a glance toward Ingo who minutely shook his head. Though the motion was subtle, Elesa didn’t fail to catch it – she was used to their rhythms and motions. For whatever reason, they were uncomfortable. “We don’t have to stop by the gym if-”

“That is very much appreciated, Elesa.”

“Yup, verrrry nice of you.”

“But everyone knows us in Opelucid. Even if we don’t go to the gym, he’ll know we’re there.”

Against her side, Elesa felt Emmet shudder and mutter something about old ladies. She wasn’t sure what that meant either, but she assumed it wasn’t good.

“What about old ladies?”

“All of the octogenarians like to sit in the plaza by the gym to read their papers, feed the Pidoves, gossip, and play chess. You must pass by them if you want to get to the Pokémon Center. They like to joke that they are Opelucid’s stalwart sentinels and they… tattle on us to uncle when we got into mischief. It is why we asked to stay in Anville Town most days.”

Ingo did not add that by that point, Drayden had stopped asking and would be gone for most of the day. It had only been when they were very young, usually following hand-in-hand in their uncle’s wake and scurrying behind his Haxorus when strangers got too close to them.

“They pinched our cheeks… Fingers like Kingler claws.”

Emmet was the one to actually answer their friend’s question, subconsciously rubbing his cheek as if it had just been pinched. After the first few times that had happened, Darling realized that the twins did not like being touched without permission, and the Dragon Pokémon would insert herself between Emmet and Ingo and the elder men and women. She would rumble out a warning when people got too close, flashing her glinting tusks despite the fact that they were covered with thick Bouffalant leather to prevent any accidents.

Only until Drayden commanded her to stop, she was aggressive with any strangers or anyone that the twins seemed uncomfortable with. At the very least, Emmet and Ingo were convinced that Darling would be happy to see them.

Breakfast was a drawn-out affair. Each bite seemed to be smaller and smaller as if to prolong the inevitable meetup. Packing up and hiking to the city was also glacially slow, Emmet and Ingo dragging their feet as they neared the dragon’s den. Elesa stopped them just as they passed the first few residences, looking them over with steely eyes that the twins shrank away from.

“We can turn back now.”

“No… We mustn’t delay any further.”

Ingo insisted, forging ahead, and chewing his bottom lip to shreds with the all-consuming anxiety that he and Emmet collectively felt.

Opelucid was an overwhelming place. It radiated an unexplainable energy that seemed to loom over all those who entered her walls. They remembered the streets well. Ingo’s eyes fixed on the place where Emmet had tripped and scraped his knee, crying and oozing blood on the whole walk back to the gym. Emmet nervously flicked his eyes to the place where a mother yelled at him and Ingo when her teenage son had been bullying them – he’d called them oblivious, creepy, unsettling… Emmet swallowed hard, reaching for Ingo’s shirt tail, and gripping it tight, rubbing his thumb over the fabric methodically.

Ingo’s hand reached back and offered his brother’s wrist a light squeeze, trying to reassure him even if he didn’t feel so sure himself.

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Despite doing everything in their power, the trio could not avoid the parties of the elderly that seemed to stalk the streets of the city. There was no escape from the simpering words and the ruddy cheeks from pinching fingers, the kids barely escaped with their cheeks and dignity intact.

The doors to the gym hissed open, sounding more like an angry Zweilous bickering over a meal than the squeak from the friction of the moving belt. They moved into the atrium tentatively, the twins bunched together while Elesa stood off to one side, eyeing them worriedly as a young woman leaned over the counter. Thankfully, Emmet and Ingo didn’t recognize her, which must have meant she was new. Her accent confirmed it.

“Welcome ta the Opelucid Gym, are ya here ta challenge the gym leadah?”

“Ah, no. We, uh, we are here to see him.”

Ingo tried hard not to stammer and failed miserably, somewhat baffled by the heaviness of the Castelian accent rolling off her tongue. The young woman pursed her maroon-stained lips before turning her gaze to the computer before her. There was some clicking, some squinting between the monitor and the two boys, and she finally picked up a walkie-talkie that Emmet and Ingo knew was there.

“Mista Drayden, there are some… youts here ta see ya.”

There was a pause.

“Send them in, Audrey.”

They tried not to think about how irritated their uncle already sounded, instead choosing to focus on the awe on Elesa’s face as she looked around the gym. Her blue eyes quite nearly bulged out of her skull when they walked under winding bridges, gasped at the beautiful carvings of dragons that adorned the whole facility, and she oohed and aahed at the way the placed made the perfect mechanical maze to make every challenger prove their mettle before squaring up to the dragon master himself.

They traveled up the ramps without hesitation, Emmet and Ingo giving appropriate responses to the gym trainers who recognized them. A few of the older trainers stopped the trio, cooing over the twins who tried not to cringe at the unwanted touches and comments that only served to make them more anxious about their inevitable encounter.

The last ramp up to the arena was just ahead and Ingo took a deep breath, Emmet being the one to release – a frankly inadequate coping mechanism when faced with something like this. Before either could begin the ascent, Elesa leapt before them, and gave them an appraising look, the fierce blue tinged with a soft concern.

Her best friends did not act this way.

“Spill. What’s the matter?”

She didn’t give them a chance to look at each other as she inserted herself between them, there would be no silent agreement on how they would deflect her questions. Emmet flinched back, finding the seam of his bandana, and running over it with the flat of his thumb; Tynamo buzzed softly below his chin which was just as comforting for the young man. Ingo, the one directly under Elesa’s scrutiny, was standing firm – although, if one looked closely, they could see his knees shaking beneath the cuff of his shorts. He could feel it in his back and shoulders, so heavy from the anxiety that it was dragging him face first towards the ground like it was the planet’s gravitational pull.

There was no lying to her. She would wheedle it out of them before they took another step.

“The situation is… precarious. It has been more than a fortnight since we have spoken to Uncle.”

Elesa, nose scrunched in confusion, looked to Emmet for a translation.

“More than a month.”

Now he was fiddling with his hair, tugging and twisting his gray locks that framed his face rapidly between his spindly fingers. Tynamo offered another buzz, the tingle felt familiar and comforting.

“So? I haven’t spoken to my father in even longer.”

Behind her, Ingo pinched the bridge of his nose and exhaled slowly. The situation is not the same. Elesa wanted nothing more than to go on her journey to be away from her father. Emmet and Ingo…

“Lesa…” There was more to their story in the city of Opelucid, but neither twin had the heart to delve into it. “We should not dillydally, uncle is waiting.”

Without another word, Ingo brushed past her, and Emmet was on his heels, both practically running up the ramp, which just felt like such an odd juxtaposition to earlier this morning where they seemed intent on moving slower than Slugmas.

Elesa tried to keep a close eye on her friends as they greeted their uncle, the three of them shifting uncomfortably like the idea of a hug seemed impossible. Drayden’s face was usually hard to read thanks to the copious amount of facial hair, but there was a pinched quality to his expression.

That detail was quickly replaced with exasperation as a large, leathery Pokémon tore across the arena at a breakneck pace. Skidding to a stop just before them, the beast lunged forward and -

“Haxorus!”

Ingo spluttered, his front coated head to toe in slobber that he was wiping from his eyes. The other two kids weren’t spared from the assault, not even Blitzle, who shook out his striped coat of the sticky saliva with an indignant snort. The bubble of tension seemed to ease a little with this interruption, but it was still palpable.

Tynamo remained close to Emmet, nestled in his bandana, and offering soft nips to his jaw and chin. Litwick was doing the same, unable to conjure up witty dialogue when Ingo’s soul looked so withered and violently flickering with each interaction with his uncle. Even Blitzle, who was first and foremost Elesa’s Pokémon, was sticking close to the twins. His training as an aid Pokémon was kicking in to shove his snout into the boys’ floundering hands so they could have an outlet for their pent-up anxiety.

Elesa attempted to catalog each word, each expression, each vocal fluctuation – but they seemed so… normal? What were her friends so worried about?

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Drayden was across the arena with Elesa and Blitzle, introducing her to his large, and very fluffy, Altaria. Emmet watched over the top of his magazine; this issue was dedicated to Dragon Pokémon found in the Alola region, and he elbowed his twin when he saw Drayden cast his gaze in their direction. Although Darling was curled around them, her tusks bound to prevent injury, Emmet and a groggy Ingo sank into her flank to make themselves as small as possible.

Darling woke up with a rumble, nudging her snout against them before lightly nibbling on their hair to put them at ease. Drayden seemed to take a deep breath as he approached, taking a seat on the bench beside them, and looking at his nephews out of the corner of his eye.

“Your friend likes Altaria.”

“Altaria is nice.”

Emmet’s reply was more like a squeak than anything. Ingo had taken interest in the skin on Darling’s neck. There it was again, the pressure on that bubble of tension becoming unbearable once again. Without Elesa there to deflect, it was like back all those years before.

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All of them were thinking the same thing: Kaita not so quietly arguing with Drayden, the twins covering their ears because they didn’t like the shrill tone their mother’s voice had taken. The four-year-olds didn’t really understand what was happening, but they were used to the yelling.

Mom and mother had been doing it for weeks.

“I can’t handle them on my own!”

Kaita had snapped, her eyes bright and her mouth curled into an awful snarl. Drayden offered her an equally ferocious growl, too much like their draconic partners than either of them cared to admit. He and his fraternal twin never saw eye to eye, but this?

He wanted to tell Kaita that that was too fucking bad. She and Lucielle should have thought this through a little longer. Kids were not marriage savers. Now she was trying to dump them on him? No fucking way.

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Drayden blinked hard, allowing the blessed dark to cool the bubbling anger he felt toward his sister. This was not Emmet and Ingo’s fault… He had never addressed this incident with them before, had he? Of course, they had been old enough to remember. The Dragon Master picked on their discomfort quickly and he was just as happy to leave them home than he was to take them on his hour-long commute to Opelucid.

In that moment, it occurred to Drayden just how awful that sounded. He had never really thought of his nephews as being lonely, not when they had each other. He left them at home with Darling when they were still young, but that had only been a few years. They had been abandoned by their mothers and then again by him.

This knowledge felt like bile stinging the back of his throat.

“I love you boys.”

Whatever his nephews had expected him to say, it hadn’t been that. Drayden propped his elbows on his knees, not unlike Emmet did when he was chatting with his brother and looked at them with something akin to a pleading look.

“We love you too.”

Ingo’s response was so… Mechanical. A reflex. Drayden seemed pained and they both cringed, waiting for their uncle to adopt that tone of voice they were so well acquainted with by this point – that horrible concoction of disappointment and frustration that was all too familiar to their ears.

“No, Emmet… Ingo…” He got up, stepping toward them and crouching down, Darling temporarily swinging her head around to butt her snout under his chin affectionately before resuming her doting on the twins. He hated how they shrank away, cowering like they expected him to yell – had he ever yelled at them? No, not as far as he could remember, but perhaps his silence spoke volumes about his bitterness. “Boys,” he croaked, schooling his expression into something softer (which he only just realized was something he and Ingo had in common), “I am very proud of you. I’m proud of all you’ve accomplished.

Two sets of gray eyes blinked, a staccato of confusion at this admission, as if unsure how to process that compliment.

“… Thank you.”

Ingo said, a gravelly quality to his voice that made it quieter than its typical boom. Emmet’s hand was shaking, but Drayden recognized that a precursor to a form of stimming. It was something that evolved from learning sign for Elesa for both twins; Emmet used to snap his fingers and his brother hummed (usually quite out-of-tune and loudly).

“May I join you? You look quite cozy there.”

Emmet and Ingo scooted over, leaving room between them so their uncle could sit. They were still a little confused by the unexpected behavior from him, but Drayden asked for permission to put his arms around them, and they didn’t reject him. The aversion to touch made unprompted touch nearly unbearable for all except themselves and more recently Elesa, but Drayden seeking their acceptance felt… different – it felt nice.

“Your Pokémon’ve gotten a lot stronger. I can tell these things, you know.”

Gradually, Drayden felt Emmet and Ingo relaxing into him while they told him all about their adventures. They showed off Tynamo and Litwick, the latter looking a tad smug when Drayden said she had a menacing aura.

“We also have this Dwebble… Well, perhaps that is not quite accurate. He shares the same carriage as us and travels the same tracks, however, he insists on remaining unaccompanied.”

The Pokémon in question was observing from under the bench Drayden had vacated – oh my, nearly an hour ago, those boys really knew how to fill in the time. Dwebble’s eyestalks twitched, its body cautiously retracting into its shell now that it was the center of attention.

“He is shy, yup!”

Drayden offered a nod, crooking his finger at the small, shelled Pokémon. Dwebble, body still half hidden, obeyed the unspoken command and skittered forward.

“See, he has a magnificent specimen on his back. I have not looked into the logistics of whether sediments found in or on Crustle and Dwebble affect their battling, but he has a King’s rock. It is spectacular!”

Their uncle nodded with agreement, Darling grumbling encouragingly at the smaller Pokémon with his approach.

“I must agree. He’s spectacular… Have you asked him if he’d like to join you?”

Drayden listened carefully as Ingo explained the fiasco that was Route 18 – Frillish and all - and, although he was tempted into chastising Ingo, he held his tongue about his nephew’s so-called inside voice. In fact, Ingo parroted some of the lessons that Drayden had attempted to instill in him. He was trying to work on his “volume output”. The Dwebble seemed to be quite used to them now, scraping a claw against the sole of the Gym Leader’s shoes, which inexplicably reminded him of his nephews yet again.

“Such a shame. Ingo really likes rocks, too,” Emmet said with a sympathetic shake of his head when his brother sighed much too heavily for someone of his age. Drayden’s brow was furrowed, watching as the Bug Pokémon’s eyes darted to Ingo, and he said,

“Ask him again.”

“I beg your pardon?”

“Ask Dwebble to join your team. Pokémon, just like humans, can have a hard time saying what they mean. Sometimes they need help or a little nudge. He’s come this far with you, hasn’t he?”

Ingo seemed to contemplate this for a moment, they certainly had gone the distance with Dwebble at their side…

Ingo leaned forward, trying to tamp down his excitement – just in case his uncle’s instincts were off.

“Dwebble… Are you interested in... Would you join me on this journey?”

The Pokémon blinked up at the boy, eyestalks tilting to one side and then the other. In that moment, it felt as though all the air was sucked out of the room, the anxiety unwittingly rocketing up with each second that ticked by where the Pokémon before them didn’t answer.

Dwebble raised his pincers tacked against the ground, his eyestalks swaying to a music that only he seemed to hear, only for the Pokémon to instantly shoot back into his shell when a sonic boom shattered the silence.

You better get used to the human Exploud if you wanna be a part of this team.

Litwick groused, her annoyance was mostly for show at the pure joy in her trainer’s eyes when he picked up Dwebble. Spinning around in tight circles, Ingo wasn’t even able to say anything, only a mix of laughter that verged on happy sobs, as he held his new Pokémon close to his chest.

Emmet watched on with a bright smile, happy for his brother’s first genuine catch, allowing the bright glow of the moment to not be stymied by the fact that they had no money for Pokéballs and were fresh out because they lent all theirs to Elesa to catch some Plusle and Minun on Route 6 (with no resulting captures).

“King! You shall be called King.”

How does this walking pile of rocks have a name before me!?

Litwick shrieked, batting at Ingo’s ear in aggravation to no avail. Drayden watched on, beard obscuring the placid smile on his face.

Good. It was time to make better memories here in Opelucid.

#pokemon #submas #nimbasa trio #pkmn #subway boss emmet #subway boss ingo #subway bosses #subway master emmet #subway master ingo #gym leader elesa #gym leader drayden #fan fic #fan fiction #fanfic #fanfiction #i thought King would be a cute name for Ingo's Dwebble :)

77 notes · View notes

satorisoup · 3 months

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★ THE AFTER PARTY

⋆ 3 - PROPOSITION

to say you were nervous would be a complete understatement. the time now reads around 2:30, and in just an hour and a half, you would be meeting with the manager of the nekodani, without any knowing of what it could be about.

you probably should be getting ready now, as it was about a 20 minute drive to the location alisa had sent you.

your teeth are brushed, your normal makeup looks as is usually does, and your hair is styled presentably so. opting for something atleast a little more than casual wear, you throw on what you think is your best bet. soon enough, you’re ready and out the door to begin your drive.

you only send your friends a quick text letting them know you’re on your way there and you’ll let them know how it goes, and you’re feeling almost overwhelmed the entire drive. “don’t fuck this up” is a sentence that’s practically on replay as it skips through your mind like a beat, all the way until you’re arriving in a parking way. “you’ve arrived” sings through your car radio as your gps declares it.

exiting your car, you make your way to the office buildings door. nerves prickle at your fingertips as your hands curl into a fist, three knocks placed on the wooden frame in front of you. a latch is clicked out of place before the door is sliding open.

a woman with long, gray hair stands before you. long legs that adorn a pencil skirt and a blouse that shouldn’t look that good on anyone, her face still youthful with plump lips and rosy cheeks. she looks like a model, and you’re soon realizing, she is. you’ve seen her face in multiple stores, plastered on their posters.

“are you y/n?” she asks you, a questioning smile on her face.

“yes, that’s me.”

her smile only grows brighter before she motions you inside. “great! please, come in and take a seat!” she says.

you’re soon seated in a chair to the opposite side of her desk as she takes her seat herself. your mind still races with questions that have yet to be answered, and when she speaks, it’s almost as if she can hear your thoughts.

“i’m sure you’re wondering why i’ve called you here, so let me start with introductions. i’m alisa haiba, and i’m the manager for the band N3KODANI. i’ve heard through a grapevine that you’re a songwriter, correct?” she questions.

“yes, singer and songwriter. my artist name is vocaliz3.”

“perfect! to cut to the chase, i do have a proposition for you. if you will hear me out, as you are the only artist i’ve found so far to be fitting.” and you’re quick to answer with an “of course.”

“As a band, we take our fans into high consideration, as they are our greatest asset to being at the top of the music industry. as of recently, we’ve noticed quite a few have started to complain about the lack of new music on our part. i had a discussion with our band members, and we came to a quick realization that with the amount of work we already have to put in, and our skills in the field of writing music, we simply can’t do it ourselves. that’s where you come in.”

“how so?” you inquire.

“your artist name had circulated around and came back to us. i’ve overviewed some of your pieces, and you do have a natural talent. seeing as how i really can’t hire anybody for this position, i took you into account considering you already have a role in the music industry. what i’m trying to get at is,” she pauses before she looks at you, “i’d like to hire you as our songwriter for N3KODANI.”

there’s a silence that envelopes the room at her statement as your eyes slightly widen and your composure is almost broken, and you fight with every ounce of professionalism you have left in your bones to ask your next question.

“i understand. what would this entail for me?”

she smiles before she’s pulling out a folder from her drawer, placing it on the desk between you two.

“i’m glad you asked, as i’m sure you know it won’t be easy. for starters, i’d need you to write songs to create a new album. i would also need you to be present for recordings in the studio to help our members in practicing your pieces. within all of this, we are planning to go on tour to perform these songs in 2 months time. osaka, kyoto, nagasaki, and lastly, shibuya here in tokyo. i would need you to attend our tour. all expenses paid, of course. along with payment for your hard work. i know this is a lot to be asking, but it is rather urgent. i would need to know within the next few days if you’re willing to take up this offer.” she finishes.

“i definitely will need some time to consider this. if i may know, what is the salary? and how often would i be needing to be present?” you ask, trying to ignore the itch in your brain to automatically agree with her.

“everything is in this folder that i’ve compiled. salary, schedules, locations, you name it. please, take it with you while you consider. i’ve also left my phone number in there, for when you have your answer.” you hum in acknowledgment as you thank her, and suddenly she gasps before she continues, “oh damn! how unprofessional of me. im extremely sorry to cut this so short, but unfortunately i do have to get going, i truly appreciate you taking your time to meet with me.” she says, standing from her office chair.

“don’t worry, no problem at all. i should be the one thanking you for the opportunity. i will make sure to get back to you as soon as i can!” you say, now walking back out of the door you came in through at the start.

“it’s really no worries. i hope to hear from you soon. have a nice day!” she responds.

you now sit in your car, bubbles of excitement and bewilderment swarm through your body as you stare at the folder that sits in the passenger seat. before you know it, you’re grabbing your phone with enthralled shaking hands to make a text.

<- PREV ⋆ MASTERLIST ⋆ NEXT ->

★ FUN FACTS

⋆ alisa is still a model, following the canon timeskip.

⋆ osamu is the least humorous of the group, but he still has his moments.

⋆ TAGLIST

if your name is in bold, i can not tag you.

@bontensbabygirl @aichiomei @toomanygoldfish @withlovekiki @strwbrryeyes @lifesucksweswallow @snail-squasher @le000xxgrd

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kaciidubs · 1 year

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Hoodie Season | Maknae Line

❣ Summary: What it would be like stealing and wearing their hoodie ❣ ❣ Warnings: None - just fluff and implied relationships. ❣ ❣ Gender Neutral! Reader [No use of Y/N]❣ ❣ Additional Tags: Reader is referred to as babe, angel, love, and pretty, Han is referred to as Jisung, I.N is referred to as Jeongin, mention of food for Jisung, Felix, and Jeongin ❣ Hyung Line ❣ Stray Kids Masterlist ❣ General Masterlist ❣ AO3

Jisung

To be fair, this sweet quokka wouldn’t even know he’s missing a hoodie unless you told him out right. That’s not to say he doesn’t care for the sentimental act - it’s quite the opposite actually! What’s his is yours, and you can raid his hoodies whenever you’d like, he’s just so all over the place that he can’t even be bothered with keeping track of where his clothes go.

“Babe, let’s go! We’re gonna miss out on all the good snacks!”

You laughed at his adamant bounces as he stood near the front door, cheeks puffed out into a pout while he patiently waited for you to get a move on.

“You act like the convenience store is going out of business, Sung, relax!” Unfolding the hoodie currently slung around your arm, you quickly slipped it over your arms and head, pulling it down your torso for its final fit. “I thought you said we had enough snacks for tonight anyways?”

“Yeah, but then I remembered this hack I wanted to try, and what better time than to do it with my baby?” His antsy shifting paused for a moment as he took you in, round eyes studying you with intrigue. “Did you always have that hoodie from our tour?”

Raising an eyebrow, you looked down at the black hoodie - ‘Stray Kids Maniac Tour 2023’ plastered across the right side while a flame design and smiley face decorated the left half - before glancing up at him with an incredulous grin. “This?”

He nodded, walking closer to tug at the fabric, “Yeah! Did you manage to get one from the staff or something? I’ve never seen you wear this before, it looks good on you!” Adjusting the strings of the hood, he gazed at you with bright eyes, “You could definitely model our merch, you know.”

Your heart swelled at his genuine compliment, though you couldn’t help the laughter bubbling past your lips as you squeezed his cheek, “My sweet, this is your hoodie! I told you I was borrowing it last week, remember?”

It was almost as if you could see the gears turning in his head before his entire face lit up, “Oh! I knew I was missing something - you still look amazing though! But, seriously, let’s go now so I can show you the best snack to ever exist!”

You complied as he dragged you toward your shoes, graciously giving you the opportunity to slide them on before ushering you out the door with excited chants of ‘Snack date’ and ‘Let’s go’.

In Jisung’s eyes, you looked good in anything, and seeing you in one of his hoodies just further proved to him how perfect you were.

Felix

Stealing hoodies is a two way street for dear Yongbok - in fact, he’d be the first to take from you before you could even decide which of his hoodies would be your first victim; waking up one morning with a hastily written note on your on your nightstand: “Running late for practice, borrowed your hoodie! <;3”

And of course, in true Felix fashion, he somehow made it seem like the hoodie was his to begin with from the way it seemed to naturally fit against his body - almost to the point of you considering giving him the article. Though, he’d never accept it fully since he only liked wearing it because it smelled of you, and if he took it from you permanently it would “ruin the purpose” - it was a part of you, after all.

Sure, you’d have your fill of taking a hoodie or two of his whenever you could, but in this instance he was the bigger offender when it came to hoodie thievery - not that you were complaining, of course, there was something utterly endearing seeing his slim frame dressed in your clothes.

“I’m gonna miss you so much.”

You cooed at his adorable pout over the phone, balancing the device against a paper towel rack, “You’ll only be gone for four days, Lix, we’ve been separated way longer than that before!”

“Yeah, but that doesn’t make it easier!” His whines echoed through the speaker, only making you smile harder at his antics. “Are you trying to say you won’t miss me, angel? Is that it, huh?!”

“Sheesh, someone’s been hanging around Hyunjin a bit too long, haven’t they?” Looking at his image on the small screen, your grin softened, “But if it makes you feel any better, I’ll miss you too, sunshine - you know I will.”

Felix groaned, freckles on full display as he held the phone closer to his face, “It doesn’t because I’m gonna miss you more now!” He couldn’t help the smile that grew from your giggles, pulling his phone away so his face could fill the screen properly, “It’s even worse that your hoodie doesn’t smell like you anymore - I had to wash it after accidentally getting sauce on it.”

You hummed, leaning against the counter and resting your chin on your hands, “If you want, I can bring you another one before you guys leave? Like a little send off gift?”

“Would you really?”

It was hard to miss the sparkle in his eyes as he stared at you through the lens, lips pulled into an open mouthed smile.

“I’m starting to think you’re only dating me for my clothes, Felix.” Playfully rolling your eyes, you pushed yourself away from the counter, “But yes, I’ll do it - but I expect one back in return!”

“Which one do you want?”

“You know the one.”

He laughed and there was a second of delay before the camera switched to the back lens, the screen now showing his closet door and a familiar pink hoodie hanging on the outside - the same one he wore from their Kingdom appearance. “You could come over now to get it early.”

“Does that mean I could also get Lix cuddles and possibly takeout?”

“If I throw in a round of Mario Kart would that make you come faster?”

You stifled a laugh, snatching your phone up and heading toward your bedroom, “You’ve got a deal, sunshine - make sure my controller’s charged!”

Wearing each other’s clothing was more than a relationship trope with Felix, it was about having a part of each other even when you were apart - no matter how long, or how worn they’ve been.

Seungmin

If there had to be a tier list for who had the most hoodies in Stray Kids, then Seungmin took the silver by a very close call with their leader - yet, despite this, he was the hardest to steal from amongst the members.

It’s almost like he had a sixth sense whenever you came even close to walking out the door with one of his hoodies on, and an even worse sense when you managed to sneak your way into his closet to simply look at your options.

“Min, come on, you have like, a thousand of them! Let me just borrow one!”

In all honesty, his collection was a sight to behold - a hoodie of almost every color, each one oversized with varying logos and designs that would be more than enough for a different outfit every day of the month.

“And never see it again? Yeah, no thanks, I’ll just buy you your own.”

You huffed, looking over your shoulder at his lax form reclined on his bed, expression unreadable while his thumb scrolled across his phone’s screen. “It’s not like you’d even notice it’s missing with how often you guys wear styles the staff picked out.”

“I would, because I can see you trying to take it right now,” side eyeing you, a smug smirk tugged at the corner of his lips, “I don’t have the memory of a goldfish like Changbin - I know where all my stuff is.”

A lightbulb went off in your head and you crossed your arms, cocking your head to the side with your tongue in your cheek. “Oh, yeah? Then where’s your face cream, Mr. Know-It-All?”

His eyebrows furrowed, brown eyes narrowing in your direction, “In the bathroom behind the mirror, right next to my moisturizer?”

“What about the Pompompurin headband I got you for your birthday?”

This time he sat up, dropping his phone on his lap and crossing his arms to mirror you, “In the drawer of my nightstand because Felix always begs to see me in it whenever he sees it laying out!”

Scoffing, you nodded your head with an air of condescension, “Alright, then what about your gray hoodie?”

He echoed your scoff, “Which gray hoodie? You can’t try to trick me in a game where I actually need to know what you’re specifically talking about.”

“The one with the wifi heart, puppy.”

“Right side of my closet, behind my red Mahagrid hoodie, love.” Realization washed over his face as he finally recognized your game, eyes going wide when you spun on your heel and b-lined it toward his unopened closet. “Hey! You little-”

Throwing the door open, you quickly pushed hangers and unidentified clothing aside - the sound of his sheets rustling only making your pulse skyrocket as you searched for your prize.

Your name fell from his lips in a shout as he somehow managed to get off of his bed without slipping on the hardwood floor in his rush, though his efforts were futile when you laughed in foul-played victory.

“You obviously don’t know where everything is because it was actually behind your Dodgers hoodie!” Your hands tugged the clothing from its hanger, but not before a pair of arms wrapped around you and pulled you back - hoodie still in hand.

“You are not taking it from me! This game proves nothing!”

“That sounds like something a sore loser would say!”

Laughter filled his room, broken up with demands and empty threats that only meant for more taunting. Sure, you couldn’t steal a hoodie without him knowing, but who says taking one right in front of his eyes wasn’t part of the memo?

Jeongin

You never had to steal anything when it came to Jeongin - even if you had the chance to swipe one without him realizing, why would you when he’d turn bashful and blush whenever you simply asked to wear one of his hoodies?

From the first, to the fifth, to even the tenth time you asked, his reaction would always warm your heart; fox-like eyes turning to crescents, bread cheeks rising with dimples, and that oh-so-lovable laugh rising with the red that turned his ears.

“Pretty, you ready to go to the gaming cafe?”

You jumped up from your spot on the couch, abandoning the random drama you both decided to watch without a second thought, “Ready? I thought you’d never ask - this episode was getting way too predictable.”

“Hey! I thought it was gonna get better - it’s not my fault you wanted to stick around ever since the last episode ended!” Jeongin turned off the tv, tossing the remote to the side before pushing himself off of the cushions.

“Yeah, well…” You drifted off, easily losing any idea for a comeback at his - sadly - true statement. “Whatever! Maybe the next episode is better, but for now it’s time to kick some ass and take some names - oh, and try that new mango drink!”

He hummed in agreement, heading toward the front door to slide his shoes on, “Their fries were really good last time, maybe we should get two orders of them this time, then get something light before dinner.”

“Hey, lover boy, do you mind if I wear one of your hoodies? My jacket is a little thin and it’s supposed to be cold later.”

Pausing mid-foot-in-shoe, he looked up to see you holding your hoodie of choice - a green one he’d worn in a live while teaching thousands of people how to tie a bow in three easy steps It was simple, soft and warm without any pompous branding or design, and the thought of seeing you in it made his heart race.

“I- um, yeah! You can wear it if you want, I don’t mind!”

He hated how easily he was flustered with this, and the worst part was that he knew you knew the effect you had on him, but it never stopped you from asking the same thing and smiling at him when he gave the same response every time.

In the same breath, it never stopped him from not answering the question, either - as much as you loved his reactions, he loved the sight of you wearing his clothes, even if it was just for a night out.

You could ask him that same question for the rest of his life and he would feel like it was the first time; looking at you with dimpled cheeks and red ears while you tugged on whatever hoodie you decided to model for the world that day.

❣ This one was definitely a long time coming - Seungmin's was the hardest for me to put into words and yet he's the longest because of it! As always, feedback is appreciated! Whether it be a simple like, reblog, or keyboard smash and the most essay-like comment, feel free to share your thoughts. ❣

#stray kids x reader #kacii's masterlist #skz fanfic #han jisung x reader #lee felix x reader #seungmin x reader #jeongin x reader #skz imagines #stray kids scenarios #gender neutral reader #han jisung x y/n #lee know x y/n #seungmin x y/n #jeongin x y/n #stray kids x gender neutral reader

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defleppardfan1 · 18 days

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'I'm In Love With You' - Jon Bon Jovi x Reader

A/N: Thank you once again to @elliotts-personal-property for helping me overcome the writer's block I had for this fic. To the anon that requested it, I hope you like it. I haven't written for JBJ for ages as my other fic was written months before I posted it, so I hope this is alright 💖💖

Masterlist

The day I met Jon for the first time in the record store started out like any other. I hadn’t anticipated that I would meet the rockstar at all, in fact I was hoping for as little human interaction as possible. Purely because I just wanted to be left in peace whilst I searched through the records.

However, that was not to be. As soon as I walked in the store, I saw that there was only one other person in there. I recognised him straight away. Everyone around here knew who Bon Jovi were. Not that I cared much for them. I didn’t mind their music and had their debut record at home, I just didn’t fall at their feet like most of the people here.

At first I tried to ignore him, moving my way through the store and looking over the stock of records. However, it became more difficult to ignore the singer as when I next looked up he was standing only a few feet away from me. Trying not to catch his attention, I slowly moved away again.

However it was too late. Before I knew it Jon was standing right next to me and I could feel his eyes staring at me.

“Can I help you?” I asked him, barely looking up.

“Not really, just wanted to talk to a pretty lady s’all.” He responded with a wink and a cheeky grin.

“Well unfortunately for you, I’m not in the mood to be spoken to today, sorry.” I lamely excused myself. Part of me felt bad for being rude, but the other part couldn’t find it in me to care. Jon just carried on standing there with a grin on his face, not deterred by my bluntness in any way.

“Do you really listen to this?” He questioned me as he looked at the records I was flicking through. Admittedly synth-pop wasn’t everyone’s cup of tea but that was part of the reason I listened to it. I liked the way that the music I listened to was created for people who didn’t quite fit into society. It was for the misfits who didn’t fit in with the misfits. Listening to artists create music to stand out made me feel more confident in myself.

“Yes I do.” I answered his question. Jon didn’t respond to that and instead just carried on looking at the records I was searching through.

“I’m Jon by the way.” He smiled at me, ignoring the obvious tension between the two of us.

“I’m Y/N.” I half heartedly responded, earning another cheeky grin in return.

Over the next few weeks, this became a regular occurrence. How one manages to bump into a rising rockstar nearly every week I’ll never know but for some reason it kept happening. Our encounters consisted of heated arguments over music, each time we met the disagreements got more intense. At one point I was sure that we would get kicked out of the store but when the owner recognised Jon, he thought against it and just told us to keep it down instead.

I had resigned to the fact that no matter how much I tried to avoid him, every power in the universe was ensuring that I would run into him again. Despite our differences of opinions when it came to music, I found myself almost looking forward to seeing Jon. That should have been my first clue that I was falling in love with him; however, the stubbornness inside of me refused to believe it.

It wasn’t until he went on tour that I realised how badly in love with him I was. I found that our senseless squabbles and the ridiculous comments that were made purely for the sake of it, was actually just me covering for the apparent love I held for him.

When I came to that dreadful realisation, I decided that the best thing to do was to try and stay away from him as much as possible. I didn’t know the specific date in which Jon got back off of tour but it was soon.

Eventually I saw him walking towards the record store one day. Rather than go in like I had planned, I promptly turned away and made my way to another store. If I saw him on the street then I went the other way. Maybe I was being ridiculous but that sounded more appealing than admitting my obviously unrequited feelings.

It was only two weeks after I first saw Jon when he got back off of tour, my luck of avoiding him ran out.

“Y/N.”

Upon hearing my name I turned around, only to see exactly who had called my name. I quickly spun away again and continued walking. The rain was pouring down and all I wanted to do was get home and curl up in my pyjamas. I did not want to face any altercation that may be coming my way.

“Y/N, wait.” Jon called again. Just as I went to speed up, I felt his hand clasp down on my shoulder. “What are you doing? Why are you ignoring me?” Jon asked, inquisitive as always.

“Look Jon, I have to go.” I tried to pull away from him but he was having none of it.

“Why? I haven’t seen you since I got home, where have you been?”

“I’ve been busy Jon.” I tried not to snap at him. Afterall it wasn’t his fault that I had fallen in love with him.

Jon just looked at me. I couldn’t help but stare at him, the way his usually fluffy hair stuck to his face in the rain. How his brow was furrowed in confusion. Even in the rain he looked like the most ethereal man to walk the earth. His lips pouted slightly as he tried to work out why I had been avoiding him.

When I realised that I was staring, I started to pull away, only for Jon to grab me gently by the wrist and tug me back towards him. Being in close proximity to him made my heart race and I could only hope that he couldn’t hear over the noise of the rain.

“Y/N what’s going on?” Jon asked softly as he stared into my eyes.

“Why do you care?” I asked him, though there was no malice in my tone. “We only talk when we are arguing about music, so why do you care if there is something wrong?”

“Because…” Jon stopped for a moment.

Whilst Jon looked for the words to say, I wriggled out of his grip and started to walk away again. I wanted so badly to be wrapped up in his arms and pulled into his chest whilst he kissed me senseless, but in the back of my mind, all I could think about was the consequences of being rejected by him.

I didn’t think my heart could take it if he didn’t feel the same way, which was almost inevitable.

I didn’t get far again before Jon ran in front of me. Putting his hands on my shoulders, he looked into my eyes.

“Something is obviously going on. Please tell me. I can’t help if you won’t let me.”

“You can’t fix this Jon. Just leave me be.” The look in his eyes was nearly killing me.

“Y/N please.” Jon's voice broke into a whisper, it was at that point that I felt tears running down my face, mixed with raindrops. No wonder the man was concerned about me when I stood in front of him crying. “Just talk to me darlin’.”

As soon as he said that the waterworks became unstoppable. The realisation that I was about to be rejected by the one man that I have ever felt like this for, tore my heart into tiny pieces. The emotional pain transformed into a pain in my chest as if my heart was about to break.

“I’m in love with you.” The words spilled out before I could stop them and the shock on Jon’s face replaced the concern immediately. When Jon didn’t say anything I found myself nervously continuing.

“I know that you probably don’t feel the same way and that's why I didn’t want to say anything but now I have and I am making an-” I was cut off from my rambling by a pair of lips on mine.

Jon moved away before I had a chance to reciprocate. “Sorry you were just talking and talking, it's the only way I could think of to get you to calm down.”

I stared up at him, probably resembling a deer in headlights. Before I could even think about what I was doing I stood on my toes to reach him and pressed another kiss to his lips. He immediately reacted and kissed me back with so much passion that I thought I might pass out.

I couldn’t even feel the cold from the rain as I stood in his embrace. My arms wrapped around his neck whilst his hands rested on my hips, pulling me closer to him. When the two of us pulled away again, Jon rested his forehead on mine, not allowing me to move backwards.

“In case you couldn’t tell, I’m in love with you too. I don’t tend to argue with just anyone over and over again.” Jon laughed before pecking me on the nose. Smiling up at him I connected our lips yet again before pulling away and tugging at his hand.

“Where are we going?” He questioned with a small grin on his gorgeous face.

“My place.” I winked, “Gotta get out of these wet clothes.”

#jon bon jovi x reader #jon bon jovi fic #jon bon jovi #bon jovi #ellen’s fic

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vernalseason · 2 years

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Here's why I'm so goddamn feral about The Bear.

I ran an ice cream store for about five years. No, it wasn’t fine dining, it wasn’t even a restaurant, but it was still food service. We were in a vacation town, and our place was the only ice cream store in the area, and the ice cream was GOOD. Customers used to ask me all the time if I got sick of eating it and I’d say no, and I meant it. It was reasonably fancy as ice cream goes, with some pretty out-there flavors, but mostly it was just GOOD. Super flavorful, dense but not chewy the way that some ice creams get where it feels like it’s stretching unnaturally when you pull your spoon away…

Point is, it was an ice cream shop in a tourist town, and in the summer we got killed during service every single night. Nonstop lines from 7 til 12 or 1 in the morning, no breaks. We got after-dinner crowds, after-show crowds, hordes of camp kids a busload at a time, and it might not have been fine dining but we worked HARD. We had 8, 9, 10 people on peak days all scooping, cleaning, making milkshakes (which is The Worst, in case you were curious), restocking by running down rickety definitely-not-to-code stairs to our tiny walk-in and hauling ice cream up 4 boxes at a time—because goddamn it, time was valuable and running up and down the stairs sucked and no one was going to go down multiple times when you could just grab 4 at a time and grit your teeth and shove them onto the counter upstairs feeling like you’d just benched your own body weight.

At the start of the summer, Memorial Day weekend, we were at our absolute peak. Following a truly herculean hiring effort aided by the promise of unlimited free ice cream, we had a crew of 20-odd overcaffeinated teenagers and twentysomethings who were working a truly awe-inspiring pace to kill the line. My favorite moments were, variously:

Being so busy I had to run two registers simultaneously, waiting for Square to process a transaction on one (chip card readers were murderously slow in the early days) while taking cash on the other;

Absolutely shattering every store record on a Saturday night with a skeleton crew and getting approval to order 12AM pizza on the company card, and taking a long, long hour to eat before we finally had to get around to scrubbing the calcified ice cream off the floors;

Gearing up to call for a restock on spoons, napkins, and other such necessities only to find that my assistant manager was behind me with a milk crate of those very things;

And so on.

There was about a month and a half of beautiful, well-staffed, smooth-running time before things frayed at the edges. Suddenly the factory couldn't get enough ingredients, since the company was chronically broke (turns out wholesale ice cream is a bad idea, folks; retail is where it's at), or the store walk-in broke down and we had to resort to chest freezers for storage for a month, or, most commonly, we started losing staff. I was always after the owner of the company to hire more year-round full-time staff, but there was always something more urgent for him to spend money on, like rent. So inevitably our staff would start leaving for college, and we'd be left with about half to a third of the staff we really needed to run. Which is when things started getting bad.

There are only so many doubles you can work before you start losing your grip on reality. I recall one day in August when I was somehow, improbably, the only person available to fill an entire day of shifts, and worked from 9AM pre-open to 11PM at night. The only thing that I remember is that the tips were phenomenal. But by Labor Day weekend we were down to our last seasonal staff and the entire core crew had worked at least two doubles that week and we limped into the off season with about two remaining brain cells between us.

Anyway. This post was supposed to be about The Bear.

I've never seen a show—or at least, never seen a FICTIONAL show—that so deeply understands what it means to be in food service. I watched the first episode in absolute awe of how they captured the intensity—just GOING until you get a moment to yourself in the bathroom, in the walk-in, in the office. And when you slow down, you think about how tired you are. How burnt out. How much all you really want is just to sit, maybe eat a slice of pizza, and stare into space for an hour. But then you go back out, and you get back to work.

I've also never seen a show that so accurately captures what it looks like and feels like to be a manager. Carmy losing his temper, giving in to that righteous anger in 'Review'—how DARE you not cover your station, how DARE you leave me with this mess that you created—I've been there. I'm not proud of it. I didn't punch a ticket printer, or scream in anyone's face, but I lost my cool, and that sticks with me. You don't get to take it back. You apologize (even if you were right), you patch things up, but no one ever really forgets.

But the show also does justice to one of the great joys of the service industry: getting to see people improve. One of my favorite subplots is Tina going from sabotaging Sydney to respecting her, trusting her, defending her. But mostly, it's my favorite because we see her get BETTER. She goes from just holding down her station to being a pro, from throwing things together to being careful, and thoughtful, and focused. And that moment when Tina says 'thank you, chef', and means it, really MEANS it, that's the kind of thing that gets me all teary. Because it's so much more than just 'thank you', but you'd have spend a hell of a lot longer to get it all out.

I guess if I was going to trace my rabid and, so far undiminished love of the show to a single thing, it would be the fact that it makes me feel seen. I haven't done that much reading on the people who made the show, but enough of them clearly lived this life or got close enough to it that they understand what it does to people, and what it requires of them. I loved working in food service, and sometimes I even miss it. I loved getting to make people's days, to give kids their first-ever ice cream, to feel like people were leaving in a better mood than they came in. And I met my partners through this life, all three of them, which is as exactly as wild and improbable as it sounds. But every time I look back on it fondly, I make myself remember that it was miserable too. The late nights, the early mornings, the days off cut short by delivering emergency stock or jumping in to cover a shift or just ending back up at the shop out of habit. The crushed toes and ragged wrist tendons and hoarse throats, the constant phone calls or checking sales to try and anticipate if we needed more staff. The sensation that after service, the rest of the world was dim in comparison.

I sank so much time and energy into that life, and I think the last thing I love about The Bear, the other thing that makes me tear up a little bit, is that for them it turns out alright in the end. They work through the problems, they make things run smooth, and they get the chance to build the place they dreamed about. That was always what I wanted, what I was working toward—the chance to make things better. And even in fiction, it makes me happy to see that come true.

#the bear #the bear fx #the bear hulu #carmen berzatto #sydney adamu #jeremy allen white #ayo edebiri #retail #service #service industry #in service #my work #writing #I should talk more about this part of my life actually #and if you want to know more #just ask

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raspberryfingers · 1 year

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A Lion in the Garden -Tywin Lannister x Reader- (Part 3)

A/N: for masterlist formatting reasons I'm just going to post this at the same time as rewritten chapter two, so enjoy having two to read at once :)

WARNINGS: Blood, gore, and mentions of rape

Word Count: 6k

—————

After marching for nearly half of the day, there was less than an hour left until we finally reached King’s Landing. Loras and I had talked for a good bit of the trip, but I could tell that there was quite a lot on his mind. I supposed that similarly, there was also much on my mind, for this was one of the first major battles I would lead this many men into.

I was glad that Loras and I were leading the vanguard, because that was where the fighting was thickest. I’d always been inclined towards danger, even if my brother and I were too skilled to end up actually getting ourselves killed. There was truly no rush like being surrounded by men and needing to fight your way out. For me, at least.

At the present moment, the thing giving me the most excitement was knowing that my father would be riding alongside Tywin Lannister. Gods, my father would be making him absolutely miserable. It made me smile brighter than a thousand suns.

“Are you… are you nervous at all?”

The sound of Loras’ voice broke me out of these happy thoughts, and I raised an eyebrow at him from underneath my helmet. Was something giving him the impression that I was nervous?

“Of course not, why?”

“Well… what if Stannis manages to take King’s Landing? What if we’ve come too late? Or what if our numbers still aren’t enough?” Loras asked, voicing his concerns on the subject. I instantly realized that he was nervous. It had perhaps not helped that the capital was now in sight.

“He’s not going to take King’s Landing, Loras. I promise you that much. Not only would he have to get past our entire army and fleet, he’d have to climb the walls and break down the mud gate too. I assure you that there is nothing to worry about-”

My sentence was suddenly cut off by the earth below us shaking, and many of the horses became somewhat startled. I furrowed my eyebrows with confusion, looking toward the Red Keep for any sign of explosion. Anything that had made the ground tremble like this must’ve been massive, and I certainly did not like the thought of that.

Just beyond the castle, I spotted a mass of bright green fire. Wildfire, no doubt. My heart dropped, because while it appeared to be coming from the bay, it was impossible to tell. Had Stannis used it, or had we?

“Loras… Loras keep marching with the men, I’ll be back in just a moment,” I said mindlessly, gripping the reins of my horse and turning around to try and find Lord Tywin. It was entirely possible that he might know something about this if it had come from our side.

I had been riding toward the back when I saw another rider approaching me, a red sash fashioned around his armor. I slowed my horse, feeling somewhat breathless despite the fact that I had done absolutely nothing. I lifted the eye covering of my helm, watching Lord Tywin do the same as he pulled his door styled covering open. We instantly made eye contact, and there was quite a serious look on his face.

“What happened? Did you see?” he questioned, pulling his horse closer to mine so we were directly facing each other. If I’d moved over anymore, our opposite legs would’ve been touching.

“It was wildfire. It did not look as though it was touching the actual Keep, but it was hard to tell. If I had to make a guess, I would assume it was in the bay. I wanted to ask if you knew anything of it, but- well…” I trailed off, having my question answered by the fact that he had to ask what had happened. Naturally, he hadn’t seen it from the back.

“Well, to shake the ground the way it did, it must’ve been quite a lot. King Aerys was rather fond of wildfire, as I’m certain you’re well aware. Perhaps… well, perhaps it was stored away,” Lord Tywin said, though it almost felt like he was thinking out loud. I nodded in response, hoping that he was correct in his guess.

“But if… if that did come from Stannis, what do we- would you… would you still want to lead the men into battle?” I questioned, swallowing so that I would refrain from asking him ‘what do we do’. That was one of the last things I would ever permit myself to say to Tywin Lannister.

The Old Lion looked at me for a moment, contemplating and then appearing to settle on something. The challenge in his eyes returned as he sat a bit straighter and looked down at me.

“You tell me, Lady Tyrell, in your infinite wisdom.”

I nearly scowled at him, infuriated over the fact that somehow, even in this dire situation, he still managed to be an utter cunt. I held myself back, however. I couldn’t be angry now, I had to be logical and smart. What would I do? To let Stannis take King’s Landing would be unforgivable, but would it be even worse to lead tens of thousands into a pointless slaughter?

“It- It depends. If you think it’s most likely that it came from your son, then we should expect to see Stannis’ ships burning in the bay. But… if that did come from Stannis, we ought to be careful. If we see that his ships are untouched, then I will lead the vanguard on my own. That explosion was so big it must’ve… well, it must’ve taken quite a lot of wildfire. I would doubt that he has more, but just to be certain I think it would be best… best to only take the vanguard at first,” I strategized, having to raise my voice over the sound of men marching around us. The entire situation was rather stress inducing, and I could see a distinct fear on the faces of soldiers around us.

“You ought to lead the vanguard from the back then, Lady (Y/N). If Stannis still does have wildfire-”

“I will be burned alive. I know, Lord Tywin. Nevertheless, I will lead from the front. The vanguard must always be led that way,” I replied firmly, swallowing whatever nerves I had in face of my principles. Being killed by wildfire did not sound pleasant, but it was still entirely possible that it had not even come from Stannis to begin with.

Lord Tywin blinked a few times, looking at me with a sort of curious observation. I assumed that he was trying to figure out whether or not I was utterly insane. It was highly likely, I supposed.

“I see. Very well, Lady (Y/N). It is not a call you need to make yet, but you will know before I do. I am entrusting the vanguard, and my men, to your judgment,” he said, taking a deep breath. Under a different situation, I might have thought him sarcastic, but there was something genuine in his voice. Even despite all our hatred for one another, he at the very least knew I could be trusted to make a smart decision.

Somehow, the biggest compliment I’d ever received had just come from the man I hated more than anything.

Lord Tywin and I looked at each other one last time before parting ways, and as I began riding to the front, our drummers began to play something. It was not until the singing started that I realized it was the Rains of Castamere.

Hundreds—if not thousands—of Lannister soldiers had joined in on the recognizable tune, and it somehow seemed to be replacing their fear with pride. It was a good thing, I thought. In a few minutes, they might all be dead.

I found my brother leading at the front, and he was instantly relieved by the sight of me. I rode up beside him, putting my eye covering back down in case I looked frightened. In all honesty, I could not discern my own emotions. I was never afraid of fighting men, but wildfire would mean death, and not even the best armor would be able to keep me from that.

“(Y/N), what did Lord Tywin say? What are we- what are we supposed to do?” Loras questioned, a slight tremble in his voice. Neither of us had prepared for something like this.

“It is my call to make… when we- when we get there, I have to assess the situation and make a decision,” I said, nearly choking on my own saliva. Gods, I hated this feeling. I turned to my brother then, my voice entirely serious as I spoke. “And Loras, I need you to promise me something right now. Promise that no matter what I say, you will listen. I need to make sure that you obey whatever command I give. As your commander, not as your sister.”

Something in Loras shifted then, and I could tell he was processing the fact that this situation might be utterly horrible. He nodded at me, but that was not enough.

“Say it, Loras. I need to hear you say that you’ll obey.”

“I will. I will… I will obey any command you give.”

I sighed out then, pressing my lips together and nodding. It was the only thing I needed to hear from him, even if it probably wasn’t entirely truthful.

With each step forward that my horse took, I felt myself getting closer and closer to vomiting. I had never prayed so fervently as I begged the gods to let it have been Tyrion Lannister’s wildfire and not Stannis’. The only thing I could think about was how the men would scream as they burned, and it made me want to hyperventilate. To have men die in battle was normal, but to have them be slaughtered was devastating.

However, as the Blackwater Bay finally came into view, a giant wave of relief hit me. Stannis’ ships were flaming in the water, and his men were desperately trying to get to the landmass south of the river. Loras turned to me, waiting for me to say something.

“We need to move faster. We can’t let them cross the rush,” I thought aloud, settling into my saddle and licking my lips. I turned to the men behind us, all mounted and waiting for my instruction. Though, I could similarly see them preparing to draw swords and spur their horses.

“Men! Stannis and his army mean to cross the Blackwater Rush and take King’s Landing. They mean to take the throne and all seven kingdoms with it. Do you want fucking Stannis Baratheon for your king?” I shouted at them, putting as much volume into my voice as I possibly could. What sounded like the voice of nearly every man there shouted back a distinct ‘no!’

I smiled, for it was the most invigorating thing I’d ever heard.

“No! Of course not. Nobody wants Stannis, the boring, cold, and stale cunt sitting on the throne! And that’s why we are about to go kill every last one of his pathetic soldiers and make sure that he doesn’t! And just to be sure, I want to see Stannis’ head detached from his fucking body by the time the sun rises over Blackwater Bay!” I yelled out, grinning as the men cheered and whistled at my sentiments. I could feel my blood pumping through every single vein in my body, and at that moment, I don’t believe that even wildfire itself could’ve stricken the pride and confidence from my body.

“Now, let’s go fucking slaughter them!”

I unsheathed my sword, raising it into the air and smiling as the shouts of thousands came back at me. I had spurred my horse then, and so did Loras. For the second time that night, the earth shook as men on horseback and on foot followed eagerly behind and alongside us. I was right next to Loras, and as we approached their men, I couldn’t help but smile. Somehow this was all I had dreamed of since I was a young girl.

And it became even better as we started to plough into their army.

I was gripping onto my reins with one hand and swinging at the soldiers below me with the other. Several attempted to fight back, but many of them failed. In fact, I became particularly giddy as I managed to slice a few men’s heads clean off.

Our line of horses had broken apart, and I no longer knew where Loras was. It had given me initial panic, but I knew I couldn’t focus on it or else I would be putting myself in danger. Especially because, while it was a great advantage to be on a horse, the risk of it being cut down beneath you was a very serious one.

As I struck another man down, I found myself scanning the battlefield. I could hear shouts of ‘Renly!’ in the midst of screaming and armor, which certainly made me smile. My plan had worked after all, and it was especially clear as Stannis’ men began to join our side.

Feeling content in that, I turned to face the shore. The vanguard was trying its hardest to keep Stannis’ soldiers from crossing the river, but there were still so many of them that it was inevitable. Thankfully, that was our only concern. Our fleets had already arrived and were absolutely destroying the small portion that was left of Stannis’.

I did not ponder this long, however, because I was still directing my horse through hoards of Baratheon soldiers. Man after man was plucked down by my sword, and even those who weren’t killed immediately would be dead within hours. The poison on my blade would see to that.

Though, my time on horseback had unfortunately come to an end. After realizing how destructive I was, a few of Stannis’ men had purposefully sought out my horse and slashed at its ankles. It went down instantly, and so did I with it.

Everything moved in a blur as I flew from atop my horse and hit the ground. I landed on my back, which caused the air to escape from my lungs. I forced myself to roll away, however, avoiding the weight of my horse landing on top of my legs.

I had also hit my head rather badly, even despite my helm. I felt like my entire world was spinning, and that combined with being breathless was utterly awful. Gasping for air, I reached for the head covering and pulled it off entirely. Perhaps it was utterly stupid, but it helped me see more clearly and fight off how dizzy I was.

I forced myself to stand up, which thankfully helped clear my airways at least a little bit. I was still wheezing, however, and it made me panic as I looked around for the men who had disabled my horse. One of them had been conveniently crushed under the animal, and the other two had gotten on their knees to try and pull him out.

Coughing a little bit, I grabbed my sword from the dirt and rocks beneath my feet and approached them. They were so desperate to save their friend that they hadn’t even noticed me.

“Hey! You fucking cunts!” I shouted, getting their attention as I crept up behind them. Before they could fully turn and rise, I grabbed one of the men's heads, reaching around and slitting his throat as if I were ripping a sheet of parchment. The other one tried to get up, but was so shocked that he stumbled backward.

I coughed again, inhaling deeply and scowling as I took the handle of my blade in both hands and moved toward him. He attempted to get up again, but was so paralyzed with fear that he couldn’t. It was utterly pathetic.

He began feeling around himself, realizing that he had dropped his sword when trying to help the stuck man earlier. He found a small knife, however, and held it out toward me. I genuinely began to smile, so amused by the thought that this man believed he had a chance. He was better off saying a prayer.

In a few quick seconds, I swung my leg out, knocking the blade from his hand and pinning his arm to the ground beside his head. I then plunged my sword straight through his rather poorly-made breastplate and listened to him scream. And he had thought that taking me off of my horse would make me less dangerous. He should have known that the exact opposite was the truth.

When I removed my sword from his chest and looked around, I realized that the fighting was already beginning to thin out. I nearly laughed, for so much importance had been placed on this battle, and yet our vanguard alone was ripping through Stannis’ men. The rest of the Tyrell and Lannister men had also joined us, but they were hardly even needed.

I, of course, was not about to miss out on the slaughter. This was only the second major battle I had ever fought in, and—with the same naivety that I’d had at 14 and 15—I found it quite exciting. I was instantly throwing myself into the thick of the fighting, gutting man after man. To me, there was a sort of rhythm in fighting. I couldn’t lie to myself, I did enjoy the feeling of thrusting my sword into another person, perhaps in the same way that many enjoyed the feeling of pushing their needles into needlework. But, to be truly good at something does make it enjoyable, and the same went for my swordsmanship.

As I killed Stannis’ men, I got the rush of adrenaline that comes from such intense situations, but I felt little fear because of my training and skill. They were no real competition for me, merely targets. They would always scream and yell at me when they swung, as if somehow that would give them a better chance at killing me. When I blocked their advances and swiftly cut through them, they would go silent for just a moment. Then their eyes would go wide, as if realizing that they were going to die, and—just as they called out for their mothers—the blood would spurt from their throats. Thus continued the cycle of stupid men who believed a woman would be an easy target, or the even stupider men who knew who I was and believed they could take me down anyway.

As I once again thrust my sword into another man and felt his blood splattering against my face, there was a general cheer coming from all around me. I instantly looked up, realizing that many of Stannis’ men had begun to retreat toward the shoreline in a desperate attempt to get away.

Foolishly, I permitted myself to relax a bit and began to smile at the sight. The battle was clearly won, even if some men refused to leave and wanted to die ‘valiantly’. I supposed I could not judge, for I would be inclined to do the same in their situation.

However, my feeling of victory disappeared when I turned around and noticed one of the largest men I’d ever seen in my life staring directly at me. He was obviously a Baratheon soldier, and the way he was looking at me sent a small shiver up my spine. I could not tell if he wanted to kill or rape me—or both.

However, as he raised his sword and began to approach me, I decided that the first of those options was the more immediate problem. I instantly raised my own blade, and mentally began to curse my fancy armor, because there was no doubt in my mind that it had made me a rather obvious target. And while I usually did not mind that, I disliked any feeling of insecurity when I was facing an opponent, and this man's height and sheer muscle certainly made me feel more than just a bit insecure.

Nevertheless, I forced myself to swallow this fear. If I played this smart, his physical characteristics would be of no importance whatsoever. And I felt utterly confident that I could play this smart; I would simply have to be careful.

I prepared to block him as he began to pick up speed, sword raised into the air as he ran. His blow seemed to come down in one swift movement, and I groaned out with exertion as I held my own sword up and felt the two blades clashing against each other. He was so insanely strong that my arms began to quiver after a few seconds, and I had to scrape my sword along his as I quickly moved aside. He had been pressing down on me with so much pressure that it made his weapon slice into the dirt.

And after a moment, I realized that his sword had not only sliced the dirt, but the rocks too. I furrowed my eyebrows, and examined his sword. It was then, after finding a clean spot at the base of the metal, that I realized it was valyrian steel. Another shiver went up my spine as I realized it was entirely possible that he could probably cut straight through my armor, even despite its good quality. How had this man acquired valyrian steel?

I didn’t have much time to ponder the question, though, because I had to act fast. While he unstuck his sword from the earth, I was moving forward, swinging at and slicing his ankle. The man groaned out, and like some sort of monster from the tales my septa had told me as a child, he rose with even more anger. Again, he was swinging fiercely at me. I managed to block each one, for that was a matter of skill, but I could not hold my sword up for very long. That was the other difficulty: he was so tall that all his blows came down at me rather than from the sides.

When he continued to swing at me, I forced myself to give up on blocking and instead prioritize dodging. It was a frightening thing to do, for I could hear the distinct ‘whoosh’ of his giant weapon. If I had not been so swift, I feared he might’ve cut an ear off.

While dodging his advances, I had to force myself to formulate a plan. Because yes, I could try and tire him out, but I was growing just as exhausted as he was. When he finally did falter, I would need to have an actual move ready to go. I needed to find a way to put myself on the offense, because once I was, I could be quick enough that he wouldn’t be able to block. The problem, however, was actually getting to that point.

I continued dodging him, and as I wracked my brain, I suddenly realized that he had begun swinging with a pattern. Naturally, it was quite a bit of work to lift and then bring a sword straight down every time, and so he’d begun to do so with an angle. He’d make two right-slanted swings and then a single left-slanted one.

Having processed this, I prepared for what he was going to do and then moved to the opposite side and brought my sword down on top of his, making him fumble just a bit. Finally, I managed to swing my sword before he did, and he was desperately lifting his sword to try and block me.

This continued for a bit, and I was simply so fast that he did not have an opportunity to counter my speed with his strength. He was also growing tired, and it was extremely obvious. Unfortunately, so was I, and it did not serve me well when a stray horse ran right by us and made me falter as I began to swing.

Of course, the man took this opportunity to dodge my advance and ram the handle of his sword into my back when I kept moving forward. I cursed out, feeling the intensity of his blow in my chest as I hit the ground. My sword had also flown from my hands, and my eyes went wide at this realization.

Nothing felt broken, thankfully, and so I turned onto my back in the hopes of getting off the ground or at the very least being able to roll away from the man's sword. However, when I did turn around it was not his sword that I was met with. Instead, his hand reached out toward me and gripped the neck of my armor.

He pulled me up, and I frantically felt around my armor for my dagger. I managed to grab the handle of it, but he was so insanely strong that he lifted me into the air and let me dangle in front of him. He began to chuckle at the sight.

“There you are, finally still. My, you’re a pretty one. Now that you aren’t swinging your fucking sword at me, anyways… perhaps I ought to make you pay for that, hm? What do you think? I’ll pin you down in the dirt right now, and then once I’m done with you I’ll gut you for being such an annoying bitch. How does that sound?” he threatened, flashing his teeth at me and continuing to laugh. His insinuations made a cold fear rush through my body, and the shaking in my hands was genuine. My only consolation, or rather my only form of hope, was the dagger underneath my armor. It was still concealed, but I was more than ready to pull it out. All I needed was for him to do something stupid and give me an opportunity to strike.

“I think it sounds fucking pathetic, you disgusting cunt. It’s also not going to happen- you’d have better luck raping my fucking corpse,” I choked out, spitting directly into his face and watching the anger spark in his eyes once more.

“Then maybe I will!”

He began lifting his sword with his free hand, and I wasted no time pulling out my dagger and shoving it directly into the unarmored space around his crotch. My dagger was thankfully long and sharp enough that it made it through the rest of his clothes, and I heard him scream in a way that I’d never heard before, nor ever would hear again.

Unfortunately, I also experienced quite a lot of agony as his sword cut clean through my armor and sliced down the left side of my torso. His sword had already been at my side when I’d mutilated him, and so when the pain had triggered his survival instincts this had been the result.

I screamed out as I fell to the ground, clutching at my side. I could already feel blood seeping out of the wound, which was rather deep and ran, at a slant, from just below my armpit to the backside of my hip. The pain was unlike anything I’d ever felt before, but at the very least it wasn’t nearly as bad as what the man in front of me was feeling.

He had fallen to his knees, and was bent over as though he were worshiping a god—perhaps the lord of light. Either way, he was sobbing with pain, and when he mustered enough strength to lift his upper half up a bit, I watched with a sick satisfaction. He certainly wouldn’t be capable of raping me now.

Of course, the pain that I was experiencing made this a much more bitter moment than I had hoped it would be, especially when the man set his eyes on me with a distinct fury and began reaching for his dropped sword. Oh fuck.

I clasped at my side in an attempt to suppress either the pain or the bleeding, for I knew both was too much to ask for, and tried my very hardest to scoot backwards. I was unable to stand in this condition—or not on my own, anyways.

As my legs desperately kicked at the dirt and tried to propel me backward, I observed with fear as the giant before me yelled out in pain and slowly stood up. It took him a while to properly get his footing, and his jaw was clenched so tight it was a wonder his teeth did not fall out. Tears were streaming down his face, but sheer anger made him determined to kill me.

When he began to stagger toward me, I found myself wondering what kind of sick joke the gods were playing on me. I hoped they were laughing, at the very least, because I certainly was not. All I could do was sob out as I dug my heels and elbow into the earth in a desperate attempt to escape death.

It was of little use, however. His painful staggering was just a bit quicker than my pathetic crawling, and as he came closer and tightened his grip on his sword, I prayed that my death would be quick and clean. I found Loras and Margaery on my mind, and I suddenly felt horrible for leaving them, especially so soon after Renly’s passing. I thought of my parents for a moment, and as the man before me started to lift his sword, my grandmother was the only one on my mind. I wished I had said a proper goodbye before we’d left Highgarden.

The giant man’s blade was high in the air, though it took him quite a lot of strength to get it there. I expected—and was prepared for—it to come down with a sloppy, painful ‘thwack’, but instead only heard the slicing of metal into skin and felt the warmth of blood splattering on my face.

My eyes shut instinctively, and they only opened once I heard the thumping of a fallen body. When I did look around, I found the Baratheon soldier laying face down in the dirt beside me, blood spewing from a giant hole in his head. My eyes widened with some shock, and I instantly lifted my eyes to see who was responsible for saving me.

There, atop his pretty white horse, I found Tywin Lannister.

For just a moment, my shock had made my pain go away, but it did not take long to return. Lord Tywin had of course understood that I was injured, and instantly threw his leg over his horse to dismount. As he did, I realized that the man’s valyrian steel sword had dropped beside me with him, and I mustered all the strength in my body as I grabbed at it and pushed it into my sword belt.

It had timed out perfectly, for once I had finished doing that, I felt the Old Lion’s armored hands at my shoulders. My head began to spin as I looked up at him, for he was kneeling beside me and checking to see where my injury was. He quickly spotted the blood seeping from the wound, and for just a moment there was an odd look in his eyes. He was perhaps wondering whether or not I would make it.

“Lady (Y/N), look at me. Look at me… I need to get you to a healer, do you understand? I don’t wish to take you on horseback, because if my horse falls from under us and we are both injured, you will die. Do you think- are you still well enough to hold onto me? I need one hand for my sword,” he questioned, simultaneously explaining our situation. If not for my serious blood loss, I probably would’ve formulated some snarky response, but alas all I could do was nod. Because even in this state, he was right. To go on horseback was certainly quite the risk. Although, debatably so was him, dressed in his quite obvious Lannister armor, deciding to carry me across the field. All I could do was pray that enough of Stannis’ men had retreated or were being dealt with by the rest of the vanguard.

In a haze, I felt Lord Tywin placing his hand under my back and helping me to sit up. I cried out rather loudly as he did, for it sent an unbearable pain through my side, and for a moment I thought I might pass out.

I did not, however, and instead realized that Lord Tywin was wrapping his arm around my upper torso and trying his very hardest not to add to my pain. After a few moments, he whispered a subtle ‘shhh,’ in my ear in an uncomfortable attempt to soothe my pain. None of this fully registered in my brain, however. All I could think about was wanting the pain to stop.

It did not do so, however. In fact, it only got worse as Lord Tywin began to stand up and lifted me with him. I yelled out, and I may have cursed him, but it couldn’t have been any worse than things I’d said in full consciousness.

“Lady (Y/N), I need you to wrap your arms around my neck,” he instructed, huffing out with exertion. I could see the sweat on his forehead, and noticed that there was surprisingly also blood there, though it appeared to be someone else's. It seemed the Lord of Casterly Rock himself had genuinely joined in on the fighting for once. It’s funny, the things you notice when rapidly losing blood.

As we began to move across the field, Lord Tywin’s grip on me was firm. He was holding me against his chest, and my cheek was pressed against the top of his red sash. I was trying my very hardest to hold onto him, but had he not been holding onto me so fiercely I most assuredly would’ve fallen straight into the dirt. There was an utter determination in him, as though getting me to a healer was the single most important thing he would ever do.

I started to wonder if it would make a difference, however, because I was still bleeding immensely and forming coherent thoughts was becoming harder and harder. When Lord Tywin was forced to plunge his sword into a charging man, pain rippled through me once again and made me even more certain of the fact that I could not continue.

“Lord Tywin… Lord Ty-Tywin… let me die…” I rasped out, tears falling from my eyes and onto his sash. I could see the dark spot they left behind, for the moonlight was especially bright. My throat began to feel dry. Surely I would not last much longer.

“No, I will not. You will grow strong, Lady (Y/N). Think of your house words,” he replied, voice harsh and demanding as he pushed his sword into yet another man. It was an order, not a request, and yet I did not feel that I could follow it.

“I’m so tired, my lord… I can’t… I can’t…” I cried softly, burying my face into his neck now. There was a warmth there, and for a moment I felt like a small child clinging to my mother. It was comforting, and I considered that perhaps death was supposed to feel this way. Like becoming a child again, like returning to the safety of your parents arms. Perhaps that was why so many called out for their mothers in their final moments.

“You can, my lady. You can and you must. You… are not allowed to die,” he encouraged, interrupting himself for a moment as he adjusted his grip and lifted me up ever so slightly. We moved faster through the men around us now, and I felt as though my arms were going entirely limp. I took his advice for once, trying to repeat my house words to myself so I would not give up entirely.

Grow strong.

Grow…

Strong…

I passed out, and would come back in small bits to discover I was still alive, and to discover that Lord Tywin was continuing to carry me. I would cry out every time I did wake, for the pain would return full force, but the man carrying me would not react to even this. He went on with his task as though I was still unconscious, for it did not matter to him. He had no time to focus on such things, I assumed.

Eventually, I felt myself being placed down. I had finally been handed over to a healer, and very hazily I heard Lord Tywin—rather harshly, in my opinion—mentioning something along the lines of ‘attend to her first’. After that, the waking up in small spurts stopped happening entirely. The next time I fully woke up, it would be somewhere inside the Red Keep, alive only because of the man I hated more than anybody else in all seven kingdoms.

—————

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#tywin lannister x reader #tywin lannister #game of thrones #game of thrones x reader #asoiaf #house lannister #lannisters #a lion in the garden

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sheep-from-rad · 1 year

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Genshin x Reader but in the Nekopara Catboys Paradise world Note: I blame Mika Melatika’s stream for this. Those two streams with Alban, Ike, Mysta, and Sonny are now my comfort streams. My exams are finished (I have a project due on 15th ugh) and right now the only thing inside my brain is my self-reward, that is Luca Kaneshiro’s Halloween stream. Warnings: None. Masterlist: [Masterlist 1] , [Masterlist 2]

Much like your friend Xiangling, after college you immediately took over the family business that was left to you by your parents. It was a place full of memories both good and bad and leaving it to die is like having a part of you dying as well. Knowing that you can’t manage it alone, few interesting people answered your call and now work with you!

Kaeya, the lazy Russian blue!

This catboy one day walked into the cafe doors to become a server and a bunch of customers followed him

He is notorious for breaking the uniform code and unbuttoning his shirt. Well, it works well because from time to time the cafe is swarmed with girls asking for his number.

He’s also notorious for getting in a verbal catfight with his adoptive brother, Diluc, a ginger Ragdoll cat boy.

He disappears from time to time and if he does his work it is always the cash register. He doesn’t care about mora, it's just that the cash register duty has less work to do than cooking or serving.

People thought he was a big flirt until an old caretaker from home, Adeline, came to the cafe and his bravado fell. Turns out, he is just a little awkward sweetheart.

He’s the one who makes dinner most of the time and though lazy, he is the one who first gets up in the morning and helps clean the cafe before opening time.

He’s not very touchy but he’s fond of occasional headpats.

One time he went missing and missed basically all his work. Later on it was revealed that our lazy cat is an undercover agent who went to get himself a job in a cafe to investigate the hybrid trafficking that is happening around the area.

“Truths out but can I still be your lowly server?”

Scaramouche, the tsundere Japanese Bobtail!

You thought he was a bunny when he first entered the cafe but he proved that he’s not after baring his fangs for everyone to see.

He is a menace. This catboy will claim to hate your attention but the moment you look away and focus on something else he will start his meows that wakes up the whole neighbourhood.

He’s not loud but he is very chatty and by chatty I mean very vocal with his meows.

While a menace, he is surprisingly good with kids. One time a lost child wound up in the store crying and it only took a minute for them to calm the said child.

Aside from being a verbal kitty, he is also not afraid to rip someone’s face off when he knows that they are disrupting the peace in the cafe.

Being a smaller cat hybrid, he always fits in the small places to sleep. One time when the boys were new, he went missing and the whole crew had to find him around because they were afraid he lost his way home. Kazuha found him curled up and sleeping soundly between the couch and the cabinet.

He’ll annoy you on purpose but at the end of the day, he warms you up by curling his body around you and sleeping

“Sit down and let me sleep before I scratch you!”

Xiao, the mysterious Burmese cat who is also your neighbour?!

Xiao is the adopted son of your neighbour and former college professor Mr Zhongli (who is a princely Maine Coon hybrid!)

He was adopted as a child from a run down orphanage and from then on he was raised and became your childhood friend

Unlike the other catboys, he doesn’t live with you but he doesn’t fail to come and join you and the rest of the gang to have lunch and sometimes dinner if both his half siblings Ganyu and Hu Tao and his father are busy with their work.

He mostly do the cooking to avoid the people but when he does the serving he ends up pulling tons of customers that makes the cafe open overtime

He does more protective than serving and being one of the smaller ones in the cafe, he can be easily picked up by either Kaeya or anyone around to stop him from killing the person

He has a tough exterior but when he softens, he won’t hesitate to let you pet him behind the ears

“Why did I make you food? Do I need a reason?”

Taglist: @uchihaeirin |@eccedentesiast-sapphic |@chihawari @tinandabin |@zuri-feather |@jaxielous

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benevolentlibraryghost · 26 days

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I wish this were a movie

Dear reader, welcome to my TED Talk on why this book is in many ways better than the movie. And also that I can understand why it wasn't turned into a movie. Warning: I will be discussing spoilers. You have been warned.

The story begins a few years after the events of Aliens, the second movie in the spectacular Alien™ franchise. Ripley, Newt, Corporal Hicks and a badly damaged Bisschop have escaped LV-426 on the ship the Sulaco. They are all in cryo-sleep, well, except for Bisschop of course. Because he is an android.

Something goes wrong with the ship's navigation system, and the ship enters UPP borders: Union of Progressive Peoples. Well, so much for being progressive; they are socialists/communists who refuse to upgrade their technology because of their strong hatred towards capitalism. When the Sulaco floats by, they enter the ship, looking for something to steal from the capitalists. They find a sleeping pod with half an android and an alien egg growing from its abdomen.

Yes. You read that right. In this book, Xenomorph DNA can mix with android DNA. Mind = blown.

Anyways; where there is an egg, there is an idiot human who is going to hang directly above it to inspect it. A facehugger attacks and clings to one of the communists. Who is called Boris. Irony. He is shot by his crewmates, who flee with the android. They take it back to their space station "Rodina", where they start extracting information from the androids database in order to grow their own Ovomorph.

Meanwhile, the Sulaco floats further into space, until it reaches Anchorpoint, a huge space station. A few marines and a scientist board the ship. They are attacked by drones (the young adult form of Aliens). Which left me wondering where the chestbursting took place, because the people in the cryotubes are still okay. Apparantly, the aliens are evolving. A fight takes place. Luckily, our characters in the cryotubes survive, though Ripley is in a coma.

Newt is sent back to earth, to try and live a normal life with her family. And get some therapy, maybe. Ripley is also sent somewhere safe. Hicks is left alone. He picks up a job and tries to process what happened back on LV-426. Bisschop is fixed with some cheap materials and sent to Anchorpoint. All is well.

Or so we thought...

Both Rodina and Anchorpoint manage to create Ovomorphs, though they are different from the ones we know from the first two movies. A bunch of capitalist pricks try to make sure that the process goes smoothly, while Hicks and Bisschop try to sabotage the mission. Though they don't succeed, the pricks regret their decision quickly when everything goes wrong. During a meeting, a capitalist Barbie starts convulsing. A hybrid Xenomorph emerges from beneath her skin. No chestbursting. She rips away her skin, and BOOM: alien. She was not impregnated by a facehugger, but infected in a different way.

Hicks is forced to go on another bug-hunt (yay.) with some other marines, who quickly die since they don't have as much experience with the aliens as our precious husba- HICKS does. Eventually, they decide to nuke the space station. They evacuate as much people as possible, but most die on the way to the lifeboats because a large group of aliens is following them.

In the end, Hicks survives with Bisschop and a very cute female scientist. I was under the impression that Hicks was in some sort of a relationship with Ripley, but I must have been mistaken since he forms a very close bond with the scientist. Anyway, the three are saved by the only surviving communist (everything went to shit at Rodina space station, too). Hicks wonders if he is ever going to get some peace. And Bisschop tells him that he is not. Happy end :)

I love the movies and the video game, Alien: Isolation. So when I saw this book in the book store, there was simply no choice for me but to buy it. And the other alien books that were underneath it...

The first few chapters had a heavy focus on the socialists and Anchorpoint racing each other to see who can use the Xenomorph as a weapon, first. In the end, neither succeeds, but this mirrored the Cold War in many ways. I thought that was a pretty cool aspect.

After a while, this focus shifts to Anchorpoint and we don't hear much from Rodina anymore. At first I thought this to be strange, but I didn't mind anymore when shit went down and there was so much action I couldn't put the book down. At some point we went back to Rodina and everyone was dead. It felt weird to not read about them for so long and then have their story end, but I think having updates on them would've made the book too boring.

I loved how the author took the time to let the characters reflect on what was happening. For example, in the final scene, where they fly away from the nuked station; normally, you hear some orchestra playing and you see tired characters wrapped in blankets, battered with bruises, half-sleeping and ready to go home. And as viewers, you would have to imagine what they were thinking, what this scene meant. I didn't have to do any of that with this book, because this final scene was an entire chapter of the characters reflecting on what had happened to them and what their future would look like. This reflection was a perfect ending to the book and left room for future books or movies.

Now, I will quickly reflect on my problem with the third movie. It is the fact they spent the entire movie Aliens saving Newt, even going so far as to enter the nest for her, but they kill her off-screen during the opening credits. WTjklfjdlfjd. Newt might not have a big role in this book, but her story was ended properly, with a little girl going home to her family, finally save from all the horror. Don't get me wrong, I do like the third movie. It's just that her death doesn't sit right with me and makes me annoyed every time I watch the movie.

Despite all the great points of this book, I have one major issue. The authors have tried to introduce so many new types of aliens: hybrid aliens, aliens bursting from your leg instead of your chest, multiple aliens bursting and aliens from lemurs (who would actually look very cute imo). There is nothing wrong with these types of aliens, it's just that so many are introduced in one story that it's hard to keep up. Especially when it is turned into a two-hour movie.

Well, to answer that one question; is the book better than the movie? Signs point to yes. It is hard to compare such different stories, but I am happy that both exist. I would have liked to see this book turned into a movie. It would treat us to a lot of action and badassery.

Rating: 4/5 Lemur Xenos

#books #reading #review #alien #aliens #xenomorph #facehugger #alien franchise #alien 3 #sigourney weaver #william gibson #pat cadigan

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talesofesther · 1 year

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play our record, just one more time | ch 2

Eddie Munson x Reader

Series Summary: Your dreams know the sound of his voice, even if you haven’t heard it closely in years. His fingertips still tingle when they remember the feeling of your skin, like a poorly healed scar. Or, the story of how you and Eddie fell apart, and found each other again.

A/N: Slowly, the story is starting to take off, hope you like this part, let me know. <3

Masterlist | Read Part 1 here

Monday mornings had to be on the bottom of most people's list of favorite times of the week, you weren't any different, but today had to take the cake for the worst Monday morning.

First of all, you slept in; either your alarm didn't work or you turned it off and didn't realize it. It left you with just about half an hour to shower, eat breakfast, get ready, and go to work. You managed to take a poor excuse of a shower and put on the first clothes you saw in your wardrobe. All so you could eat your cereal — even if it was not what you wanted — while fixing up your hair.

You absolutely hated to start the week off like this, sometimes it felt like a bad omen. You were holding out hope for stopping by your favorite coffee shop to quickly pick up something to drink, but even that didn't happen, they were closed for renovations.

So with a scowl the size of the world on your face, you pushed open the door to Family Video, a small backpack hanging off one of your shoulders. There was sunshine right in your eyes, it reflected against the glass doors and made you squint. The bell above the door dinged when you walked in, but your eyes only adjusted to the different lighting once you were a few steps further between the rows of movies.

You could hear Steve talking to someone, his voice way too excited for this time in the morning. You looked up, one hand tucking rogue strands of hair behind your ear. Oh yeah — you froze, sneakers scratching the floor when you suddenly halted on your steps — today's the day. Because of your morning rush, you had momentarily forgotten.

Eddie was leaning on the counter, just beside the little display of snacks. His hair was pulled back in a ponytail and he was wearing the green vest of the store over his leather jacket, and he managed to look good doing it. His lips parted when his gaze landed on you, he went all tense and stiff. Steve didn't see it, too focused on happily introducing you two. But you knew Eddie, and you knew that look in his eyes and that twitch on his hands; he wanted to run.

Honestly, you weren't too far off. Seeing Eddie again after so long was similar to the feeling of waking up from a good dream and not quite remembering the ending, and as the seconds tick by, you forget more of it — it's that feeling of loss and frustration and longing — but what happened sits there in your stomach, you know it's there. That's how it felt to, after all these years, have Eddie finally looking you in the eye again.

Steve, bless him, just kept talking, big smile on his pretty face; "and she'll be the one to teach you the ropes, she's the best of us here so I promise you're in good hands. I'm sure you guys will get along perfectly." He finished, gaze moving between you and Eddie.

Robin was sitting behind them, her curious blue eyes watching you as the computer in front of her was forgotten.

Before the silence could stretch too much and prompt Steve to ask questions, you took in a steadying breath, stepping forward so you were closer. "Hey Eddie, it's… been a while." You grimaced at your own tone, wanting to dig a hole to disappear in.

Eddie's Adam’s apple went up and down as he swallowed. "Hi," he responded, the motion of his lips stretching the reddish marks on his cheek and neck. Not yet fully healed scars. You wondered where they came from, if they were the same ones you saw that day, the thought of Eddie being hurt still made you nauseous.

"Wait," Steve chuckled, pushing aside a few stacked tapes so he can lean on the counter, "you two know each other?"

"Yes."

"No."

You and Eddie said at the same time.

You let out an indignant huff and met his gaze with a raised brow; so that's how it's gonna be, huh?

Eddie had a frown on his lips. His sweet brown eyes, though colder than you remembered, twitched on the sides as if he regretted it.

"We uh- we used to share a few classes," you told Steve, who was looking more puzzled by the minute, "that's all." You finished, then excused yourself to the back room with something between a grimace and a smile so you could let go of your backpack and put on your work vest — but in truth, you just desperately needed to breathe.

You roughly pushed open the door making the old hinges creak. Your bag was thrown somewhere on the left corner before you leaned back on the shelves, knocking over a few newly released tapes that still needed to be put on display. The back of your head bumped the shelf when you looked up, sighing audibly, "fuck."

"I'm definitely sensing some tension here."

Robin's voice made you jump, you didn't even hear her following you or coming in. She sat down on a wooden box, raising an inquisitive eyebrow at you.

You groaned; "no tension to be sensed, Robs."

"Oh yeah, totally," she hummed, leaning her elbows on her knees, "what's the story?"

"There is no story, Robin, like I said, we just shared some classes," you shrugged, avoiding her eyes because you knew she would see right through the lie.

"Eddie is as pale as a vampire out there and you're hiding in the back cursing the wind, that doesn't look like 'just a few classes' to me." Robin made air quotes as she spoke and stood up, reaching out to take both of your hands on hers.

You dropped your head on her shoulder once she was close enough, "we used to be friends, it's just… just weird seeing each other again," you chewed on your lip, considering saying more but deciding against it, "that's all." You didn't know anymore if you were trying to convince them or yourself.

Robin didn't press again, even if she had an inkling this was just the tip of the iceberg. "You know I'm here if you need me, yeah?" Was all she said.

"I know."

Meanwhile, behind the front counter of Family Video;

"Don't pass out on me, man, what the hell," Steve said, urgency in his tone as he frantically fanned Eddie with a VHS tape.

Eddie swatted him away with both hands, snatching the tape from him, "stop it, stop it, you'll scare away the customers."

"The store is empty and you look like you've just seen a damn ghost, excuse me for being worried," Steve countered, in the same voice he used with Dustin when the boy tried to put himself in danger.

A ghost. Eddie could feel his chest weighing down on him, because in parts it was true; today was the first time in years that he spoke with you, and in all honesty, he didn't know what to feel — or he was feeling too much, and couldn't choose just one emotion to focus on. He wanted it to mean nothing, was trying to convince himself of it. He couldn't, because once you truly, genuinely love someone, it never really goes away; the sentiment might twist and turn, shape itself into something more bitter and sharp, but it's always there, never lessened.

"Care to share with the class?" Steve tried.

Eddie clenched his jaw and rubbed his sweaty palms on his jeans, wishing he could grab the knots in his chest and rip them away. "Not really."

Running a hand through his hair, Steve patted Eddie's shoulder to try and make him look at him. "Listen, if there's one thing I've learned, is that it's worse if you keep all that shit bottled up alright?"

Eddie gave Steve a small smile, one that held more sorrow than it did happiness; "there's nothing left for me to bottle up."

When the first customer of the day walked through the front doors, it was like a switch was turned for you and Eddie.

The professional in you kicked in and you showed him a little bit of everything, getting him acquainted with all of the movie sections and the main ones people usually came looking for.

You showed him around the arcade and how to reset most of the games in there, given that he'd probably be giving you a hand with them as well.

Eddie even got to test his skills with a young girl who came in looking for her favorite movie. He could feel Steve's and Robin's stares on his back most of the time, they were anything but subtle.

Eddie didn't see you though, smiling all sweet and proud watching him work and walk around Family Video as if he'd been there just as long as you. For a moment, your reality bubble didn't go as far as the store walls. And it felt nice. But it was a fragile thing, bound to burst sooner or later.

"So, here is where we catalog the movies that each person rents," you explained, opening the customers' page on the computer, "we put on the date that it was rented and the date that it's supposed to come back, so if it doesn't, we can charge the fee."

You were drowning in a sea of golden hues, the store's glass facade allowed the last bright streaks of sunlight to shine through and into the computer screen, making it just a tad harder for you to navigate.

You hardly noticed the time passing by. It sent a shiver down your back, because days with Eddie used to be like this; endless in the utopia of his bedroom or the empty lots of the trailer park until your mom called when you went past your curfew.

Right now, he stood beside you, looking at the screen from over your shoulder. Well, Eddie was supposed to be looking at the screen, but in reality, his gaze was fixed on the lone strand of hair that escaped from behind your ear. It was a little thing, bouncing each time you moved, grazing the apple of your cheek.

His mind wanders to the days you'd sit behind him in class, careful fingers working little braids in his hair. He'd feign some annoyance, but deep down, he'd go to bed those nights thinking about it. Today, the memory made him wonder why exactly you lost each other.

Eddie remembers something you told him a year after his dad left for the second time; you said that memories exist outside of time, and that they don't really have a beginning or end. He doesn't know you're thinking the same thing, trying to find comfort in the saying just as much as he is.

"Once the movie comes back, we check it here and take it off of the person's file and put the new movie in," you turned your head to look at Eddie, sucking in a shallow breath when you noticed him closer than you expected, "if- if they rented a new movie, that is."

You gulped, looking down at your hands. He wasn't touching you, he actually made sure to avoid touching you the entire day, but the warmth of his presence was still there. You missed him, that much was evident from the moment you saw him this morning. "It's easy, I'm sure you'll get the hang of it in no time." You said, if anything to fill the awkward silence.

"Yeah, don't worry," Eddie turned his back to you, finally putting some distance between you, "I won't mess it up for you."

You were taken aback by the sudden venom in his words, blinking as if he'd slapped you, "I didn't say you would."

"Don't have to," Eddie's not sure what prompts him to say it, what scorched and poorly healed part of his wound had reopened. Maybe it's just the old routine of arguing with you, the one that was settled by the end of your friendship and kept him safe. It was the easiest option then, it hurt just a little bit less than accepting how much it had broken him when he lost you.

Everyone leaves, you're the only one he hasn't recovered from yet.

"I know you're thinking it."

"Except I'm not," you crossed your arms, realizing you said it just a tad louder than you should when the eyes of Robin and the old lady beside her in the novels section glanced at you. Cursing under your breath, you stepped up to Eddie, "you're just doing it all over again, putting words in my mouth that I didn't fucking say."

Eddie recoiled as if you'd burned him, sitting up on the counter and lifting the corners of his lips in the way he knew got under your skin; "just saving you the trouble, I can see how much you hate having me here," he tilted his head, a few curls that'd gotten loose from his ponytail going over his eyes, "staining your image and all that… again."

You were hot with anger, because how dare he. You raised a finger to his face and walked into his personal space, "you know what? I do hate having you here, but not-"

"Y/N!" The bell above the main doors dinged as Keith walked in, calling your name at the same time. "We gotta talk." He waved you over.

Eddie quickly hopped down from the counter, nearly bumping into you. He gulped and stumbled backward as much as he could, trapped between you and the wooden edge.

Eddie's looking down at you as if he's seeing you for the first time all over again, literally, the first time. Where he's just a lonely kid and you're offering him a seat beside you. Where it's just you and him. And it hurts, because this you just said she hates him.

Your face does something complicated, like you don't know how to feel about this. You watch Eddie drop his gaze and curse quietly, probably thinking you'll tell Keith he's not employee material.

It gets you angrily biting back a sob as you walk away from him without another word, circling around the counter and disappearing into the back room with Keith.

You tell Keith that Eddie is a quick learner, that he's good with people and already memorized where all the movie sections are; you tell him Eddie will do good here, that you're happy to have him.

The last hour before closing time goes by with you on one end of the store, and Eddie on the other. He's stacking up movies in the horror section, you're putting up a new poster.

"I think we messed up," Steve mumbled, scratching his cheek.

"No, come on," Robin swatted at his arm and leaned closer to his ear, her eyes fixed on Eddie while Steve's are fixed on you, "I mean, Eddie needed the job, and how were we supposed to know they knew each other?"

"Yeah but, I don't know if it'll be much fun to work every day with this dark cloud of bad vibes in here." Steve subtly motioned at you and then Eddie before he crossed his arms.

Robin chuckled beside him, as if she was in on a special secret; "oh I'd give it a week, tops, for them to be making out in the back room."

"Ew Robin, now I don't know what's worse."

"Have you seen the way they look at each other, dingus?"

For a Monday — which was supposed to be the slowest day here — you were pretty damn tired as you put on your hoodie and picked up your backpack to go home. You figured most of it had to do with a certain long-haired boy.

Steve had just driven away with Robin, he offered you a ride, like he always does, but it was a nice evening and the walk to your home was considerably short. You were on the sidewalk, with one hand on the doorknob as you waited for Eddie so you could lock up. Your eyes were on the sky, on the fading of the orange as it was replaced by purple and dark blue.

Eddie came out running, almost toppling over you. You didn't meet his eyes as you turned the key on the doors, it was a lazy motion, you even feigned a snag on the lock to give Eddie the opportunity to just leave, but he never took it.

Instead, he waited until you were forced to turn around and face him when there was no more stalling to do.

Honestly, Eddie looked like a kid who was caught stealing from the cookie jar, all big brown eyes shining under the streetlights, hands buried deep in his jacket pockets.

"I don't wanna fight with you," he averted his gaze as he spoke, only looking back up at you after a beat of silence.

You made a sound that landed somewhere between a chuckle and a hum, "could've fooled me," you answered, tone free of any teasing; there was no fight left in you anyway.

Somewhere not so far, a cat knocked over a trash can. The noise was loud, both you and Eddie simultaneously looking toward it. You could almost feel him tensing up beside you, his shoulders squaring as he took half a step closer to you while he surveyed the deserted parking lot. His right hand was on its way to your forearm, an easy grab to pull you behind him. You didn't comment on it, or on how he looked genuinely terrified for half a second. It was gone as fast as it came anyway.

Eddie sighed, shaking his head as if to clear the fog from his mind, his curls — now free from his ponytail — bounced around. "I mean it, okay? We're gonna work together." He pursed his lips in an attempted smile, "and I want it to work."

"For old time's sake," the words tasted funny on Eddie's tongue, like they never should've existed at all. "Just uh-" he extends a hand to you, and it's all kinds of weird and painful, "keep it profesh?"

It feels a lot like a goodbye, you think. A lot like tearing apart a fragile flower you were trying to save. It feels like a loss. You take Eddie's hand anyway, his skin is smooth and warm against yours, you kinda wanna cry and you think he does too.

"Deal." Is all you tell him before he's briskly turning around to get into his van, and you're walking the other way hugging yourself through your hoodie, because the night is suddenly a lot colder.

⋆*☾ ⋆*･ﾟ:⋆*･ﾟ

Curious for the next part? ;)

Feedback and reblogs are very much appreciated. <3

Eddie’s taglist: @milkiane @bookfrog242 @alicefallsintotherabbithole @science--hoes @tssf-imagines @astream-ofconsciousness @fentyreligion @fantasylovestoryme @justabeautiful-letdown @crazyrapunzel @jakebasement @zervopoulouu @forverdaydreamer-blog @fromthedt @oeuryale @mcueveryday @witchbinchstories @call-me-magpie @loveshineslikethesky @tvserie-s-world @agirlsguidetolove

@hallothankmas @sweetpeapod @forsaken-letters @hazydespair @fangirling-4-ever @ollyoxenfrees @twinkofmydreams @paola-carter @masterlistmanic @xceafh @andraimeide @eddielives1986 @totallynotkaibiased @just-love-reading @murnsondock @tayhar811 @luceneraium @bimbobaggins69 @iunaelumen777 @violetsandroses8 @myrrh-dock @lifeandfanfic

#eddie munson x reader #eddie munson imagine #eddie munson x fem!reader #eddie munson #eddie munson x you #strangerthingsedit #stranger things #imagine #fanfic #fluff #angst #eddie munson fanfic #eddiemunsonedit #joseph quinn #stranger things x reader #st #my story

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strangerstilinski · 1 year

Text

SELENOPHILES OF BEACON HILLS | Teen Wolf Rewrite

Stiles Stilinksi/Original Female Character

chapter six

fic summary; after an already traumatic evening involving the unfortunate discovery of a gruesome scene, amber is convinced to hike through the woods with her two best friends in search of the other half of a dead body. but it's not as if she could ever say no.. not when stiles looked at her like that.

chapter word count; 15,008

chapter notes; the alpha throws a dangerous wrench in amber's plans for a girl's movie night, and lydia is left mildly traumatized by the events. scott goes awol. amber gets her first glimpse of kate argent. parent teacher conferences get a little crazy thanks to a *ahem* mountain lion.

masterlist

c h a p t e r s i x

the tell

In the backseat of Mrs. Martin's Volkswagen, Amber was sitting with her arms crossed over her chest, staring at the vacant passenger seat that she'd thought she would be sitting in. Lydia had borrowed her mother's vehicle for the evening and Amber let her eyes travel over to where the strawberry blonde sat behind the wheel of the car.

"Hey, what did you do with all those balloons, anyway?" Amber questioned suddenly, leaning forward in her seat and tucking a lock of her ashy brown hair behind her ear. She'd nearly forgotten about the favor she'd done for Lydia that afternoon.

"I hid them in Allison's locker for her birthday." Lydia smiled, turning onto the next street. "Thank you for picking them up, I couldn't get the car until my mom got home."

"Oh!" Amber said in surprise at the new information, "Yeah, it was no problem." She smiled as she recalled how Stiles had slapped at the balloons in annoyance as they floated around the inside of the Jeep. He'd agreed to drive her back to the school that afternoon so she could hand them off to Lydia, and he had been very vocal about his regrets.

Amber's smile was wiped away and replaced with a frown when they turned to park in Jackson's driveway. The girls waited for him to come out to the car so that he could join in on what Amber had thought was supposed to be a girl's movie night.

"I still cannot believe you invited Jackson to our movie night," Amber hissed as Jackson opened the front door and stepped out onto the stoop.

"Oh, come on, babe-" Lydia sang, glancing at her friend in the rearview mirror, "It's one movie night. And besides, Jackson's been acting really strange since last week.. I couldn't say no."

Amber thought back to the look of sickening fear on Jackson's face after Derek had shoved him against the lockers a week before. She sighed, settling back into her seat as Jackson pulled the passenger door open.

"Hey," Jackson said to his girlfriend, dropping into the seat and leaning across the center console to peck Lydia on the lips. "Amber." He greeted her with a grimace before turning to buckle his seatbelt.

"Hi, Jackson." Amber said as politely as she could manage as Lydia pulled out of the driveway and headed in the direction of the video rental store. She absently picked at a loose thread on her jeans for a few minutes before breaching the silence, "So, what movie are we gonna get?"

"Here me out," Jackson started, turning to face Lydia with his hands up in a placating gesture, "I have a movie that I think all three of us will enjoy-"

"What kind of movie?" Amber asked, leaning forward in her seat in interest.

Jackson sighed at the question, "Okay, so it's a Drama.." He hedged slowly.

"And?" Lydia prompted, raising an eyebrow.

"And also a sports movie-"

"No."

"Lydia, c'mon!" Jackson pleaded, "It's really good!"

"No." Lydia repeated as she slowly turned into the parking lot, "We are not watching some stupid movie about football or whatever."

"No," Jackson argued, "Hoosiers is not only the best basketball movie ever- It is the best sports movie ever made."

"No." Lydia blinked, unimpressed as she put the car in park.

"It's got Gene Hackman and Dennis Hopper." Jackson defended.

"Who?" Amber asked from the backseat. Jackson quickly turned to shoot daggers at her with his eyes and she frowned in apology, leaning back in her seat.

"No." The redhead said again, continuing to stare out the windshield.

"Lydia, I swear to god you guys are gonna like it-"

"No."

"I am not watching The Notebook again!" Jackson said angrily. Lydia turned her head toward her boyfriend slowly and said nothing but she gave him a sinister smile.

Jackson took a deep frustrated breath and huffed loudly through his nose, getting out of the car and slamming the door closed behind him. He made his way into the video store and Amber unbuckled her seatbelt, moving to go in with him.

"I'll just.. Go and make sure he grabs something decent."

Amber trailed in a few seconds behind Jackson, and looked around the large room at all of the shelves holding different genres of movies. A phone was trilling loudly at the empty front desk and Amber sighed in annoyance as it just kept ringing, never going through to any sort of machine.

"Can somebody help me find The Notebook?" Jackson called out loudly and Amber snorted in amusement.

"I'm sure we can find something else." She laughed at him, squatting down to peer at the movie cases on the bottom shelf in the aisle labeled 'Romantic Comedies'.

"Hello?" Jackson called out again, walking past the aisle that had caught Amber's attention and moving further into the store, "Is anybody working here?" He sighed and the lights in the store flickered, drawing Amber's attention toward the ceiling. "You gotta be kidding me." Jackson mumbled.

Amber rose to stand and her eyes caught on the ladder that stood a few rows away. It was propped up beneath the flickering fluorescent light. She moved around Jackson and walked to stand underneath the hole in the ceiling, frowning in confusion. Someone had left the long light tube dangling down to rest on top of the ladder as if they'd stopped what they were doing mid-installation.

"Amber.." Jackson's voice was quiet as he took slow, measured steps toward her.

"What?"

The girl spun to face him and found his eyes were glued to the floor at the end of the aisle across from her. She turned her head to follow his eyeline and a scream slipped past her lips when she saw the full picture of what had caught Jackson's eye.

Jackson could see the feet that stuck out past the end of the shelf, but what was hidden inside the aisle was so much worse. There was a young man leaning against the shelf with his throat ripped out, the skin of his throat slashed from four long mangled cuts, blood dripped down to seep into his video store uniform shirt and leaving it stained a dark red. Worst of all, his eyes were open wide in unseeing fear behind his glasses.

Stumbling back in fright, Amber bumped into Jackson's chest just as he was coming to stand behind her. He reached up in an attempt to steady her with his hands on her arms but it was too late and the two of them fell backwards, tumbling into the ladder behind them. It crashed to the ground loudly, ripping the dangling light from the ceiling in the process and plunging the store into darkness.

"This can't be happening." Amber whined as Jackson pulled her up and steadied her on her feet again. Heavy, fear-filled breaths came from the boy beside her and the sound was only amplified by the way the lights flickered weakly in an attempt to come back on, the store remaining eerily dark.

There was a low growl from the darkest end of the store and Amber's head snapped up to look over Jackson's shoulder, a pair of glowing red eyes meeting her own from the darkest corner of the room.

"Jackson. Run." Amber whispered hurriedly, giving him a hard shove in the direction of the front door.

As soon as he had regained his footing, Jackson was turning back to grab her wrist, dragging her to squat down with him as he hid behind one of the shelves. They were both breathing too loudly, shaky exhales leaving their lips in quick bursts. Amber held a hand against her own mouth to muffle the sound as she peered out around the corner of the shelf slowly.

She looked back in the direction she'd seen the creature that she knew had to be the Alpha, something dark darting between the rows in a blur and rushing to the other side of the store with another low growl. A gasp escaped her at the sight of it and she retreated quickly back into the aisle, taking a few deep breaths.

The shelf the two were hiding behind shook against their backs and a handful of DVD cases rained down onto the ground around them. Suddenly, there was a loud bang, and then another, and then another, and Amber belatedly realized it was the sound of the shelves knocking against one another as they toppled over like dominos down the row toward them.

"Shit-" Amber exclaimed, moving out of the aisle and pulling Jackson behind her. She slipped out of the way just as the shelf collapsed but the boy beside her was pinned underneath it from the waist down. "Oh my god! Jackson."

Amber tried in vain to lift the shelf off of the boy's legs but he was pinned not only by the weight of one, but the weight of all four of the shelves layered on top of one another. She groaned and lifted with all of her strength once again but the shelf only moved a couple of inches before she was forced to drop it back down again.

"Amber, just go-" Jackson pleaded.

Her stomach dropped at his words, "But-"

"Go." He hissed at her while attempting to pull himself free.

Amber whined miserably but rose to her feet. She looked up from the floor and her eyes widened at the sight of the beast now looming over Jackson's back. Its red eyes still glowed bright in the dark store as it reached down with a clawed, paw-like hand to pull at the collar of Jackson's jacket, leaning down to sniff at a newly exposed scab on the back of Jackson's neck.

She wasn't sure what it was smelling, but after a few seconds of huffing breaths over the boy's back, the Alpha rose to its full height again, towering over Amber by more than a foot. It was inhumanly tall, and black. Covered in thin, mangy fur. It had a horrifying, wolf-like face, its mouth pulled back to display dangerously sharp teeth as it snarled at her.

The Alpha took a menacing step forward and Amber countered it with one step back, her wide eyes glued to the creature in fear. Her hands shook as she slowly matched its steps in an attempt to keep the beast at a distance.

On her fifth step toward the back of the store, Amber stumbled over the ladder yet again where it had fallen to the ground and she tripped as her foot caught on the metal. She fell to the ground, catching herself on her elbows and gasping when the thin shards of glass from the broken light cut through the skin of her bare arms.

The Alpha leapt forward several feet until it loomed over her, leaning down to sniff at her in the same way it had done to Jackson just a few moments before. It sniffed at her hair first, huffing a hot, sneeze-like breath over the top of her head before it moved to sniff lower, breathing in and out at the collar of her tshirt. Amber whimpered quietly when its nose brushed against the skin of her throat but It moved to sniff lower again, stopping at a spot on the fabric that covered the center of her chest. It huffed another hot breath accompanied by a quiet growl before taking one step away from her.

Suddenly, the Alpha turned and took off in the direction of the front of the store, jumping straight through the large glass window with a loud crash and running into the dark of the night.

Amber remained on the floor for a moment and took a few slow, trembling breaths before her mind cleared and she frantically moved to untangle her legs from the ladder, more small shards of glass driven into the skin of her forearms as she struggled to get up.

"Jackson!" She called out as she got to her feet. She rushed back to the front of the store on shaky legs, "Oh my god, are you okay?"

"Would you just call someone strong enough to get me out from under here!" The boy snapped at her.

"I- Jeez, okay," Amber relented quietly, pulling out her cell phone to call 911, "I thought near-death experiences were supposed to bring people closer together, not turn them into bigger assholes." She muttered under her breath as she dialed the phone and exited the store.

As soon as she stepped foot outside, she caught sight of Lydia staring out the windshield with wide, fear-filled eyes and Amber hesitated as the operator picked up on the other end of the phone, aching to comfort her friend. She shook her head with a trembling breath, moving to the other end of the parking lot as she spoke to the woman on the phone and reported the dead worker. If she were far enough away, Amber hoped her friend wouldn't be able to overhear anything, so she paced at the edge of the pavement as she spoke, not wanting to scare Lydia any further.

When Amber hung up the phone with shaking fingers a few minutes later, she rushed back toward Lydia, finding her still in the same position that Amber had left her in, with fear-filled eyes glued to the empty space in front of her. Amber wrenched the car door open and knelt down onto the pavement to take Lydia's hands in hers.

"Lyds, babe-" Amber said softly, her voice only slightly shaky, "Are you okay?"

The redhead didn't speak, continuing to stare ahead of her still with wide, unblinking eyes and Amber sighed, taking a shallow breath and rubbing Lydia's cold hands softly between her own. She gently toyed with her friend's fingers while whispering quiet soothing words, hoping to pull her friend out of her state. Amber continued for several long minutes, time dragging in a haze before she spotted an ambulance pulling into the parking lot with flashing lights.

"I'll be right back, okay?" Amber told Lydia softly, still not getting a response.

Leaving the car door ajar, Amber made her way over to the ambulance just as three EMTs were exiting the vehicle, all rushing toward her with rapidfire questions until Amber pointed them all in the direction of the store.

"There's a worker dead inside," She told them past a lump in her throat, "And-And my friend Jackson, he's stuck under some shelves but- I wasn't strong enough to lift them."

They nodded and rushed inside, one of them heading to the back of the store where Amber knew the dead worker was still lying while the other two moved to free Jackson as quickly as possible.

Amber made her way back to the Volkswagen and enveloped one of Lydia's hands in her own again, standing just outside the driver's side door.

When two police cruisers pulled into the lot a few minutes later, the group of officers split off and spread out to cover the scene. One of the officers cautiously approached where the girls were waiting at the car and patiently began to ask Amber a long list of questions, collecting as much information from the frightened girl as he could.

"The animal, did you get a good look at it?" The officer questioned eventually.

"I, yeah, uh.. It got pretty close." Amber told him nervously.

"Do you think it could've been a mountain lion?" He asked her.

"A mountain lion." Lydia repeated quietly from inside the car.

"Uh, yeah, a mountain lion sounds right." Amber corroborated, squeezing Lydia's hand.

As soon as the shelves were lifted enough for him to slip out, Jackson rushed outside, shoving past the two paramedics in the store when they tried to check him for injuries. He made a beeline for Amber and Lydia just as a police officer a few yards away was lifting a hand in signal, the officer who had questioned them darting over to assist with something. Jackson shoved Amber out of the way when he got to the vehicle, his focus on where Lydia was still sitting inside the car. He leaned in to pull her from the vehicle, speaking to her softly.

Amber took a reluctant step back from the couple, turning to watch through the broken window as two of the EMTs and a coroner moved over toward the dead body while the third paramedic made his way back outside to check on the teens. The paramedic led Lydia and Jackson over to the back of the ambulance and waved for Amber to follow when he caught her gaze.

She joined them just as Lydia was being guided to sit at the end of the ambulance between the open doors and Amber rushed to her friend's side, squeezing in to stand beside Jackson.

The paramedic glanced back at Lydia for a moment before he spoke to Jackson and Amber quietly, "She's not responding due to shock.. That should wear off soon. But she's got some blood on her hands and clothes-"

"She's not bleeding." Amber assured him. Her eyes fell to the blood on the backs of Lydia's hands and shirt and Amber frowned in confusion.

"Miss.. Are you alright?" He asked her, finally taking a moment to look the brunette up and down in scrutiny.

"I'm fine." She told him impatiently, "Could you please just get her a blanket or someth-"

"You're bleeding." Jackson muttered into her ear.

"What?" Amber looked down at herself and her eyes caught on the large smudges of blood that trailed down the skin on the backs of her arms. Now that she was looking at the red stains, the glass embedded in her flesh suddenly stung painfully, "I-I forgot." She admitted quietly.

"It's because of the adrenaline. That happens a lot." The EMT assured her. He gently guided her to sit down beside Lydia, climbing into the back of the ambulance and moving around behind them in the space. He re-emerged a few moments later with tweezers, a small metal bowl, gauze, cotton balls, and rubbing alcohol.

Amber pressed her knee into Lydia's thigh and sat silently as the paramedic raised Amber's trembling right hand above her shoulder and began to pull tiny shards of glass from the back of her forearm. She winced with each piece that was tugged gently from her skin before being dropped into the metal dish beside her.

Jackson moved off to the side after a moment, mumbling something under his breath about calling both Lydia's parents and his own.

Amber watched through the colorful lights flashing in the parking lot while the police officers worked quickly to block off the building with yellow tape. They moved around methodically, speaking with one another and frequently speaking into the radios that were clipped onto their shoulders.

By the time Jackson returned, the paramedic had finished removing the glass in Amber's right arm and had moved on to clean the cuts with alcohol while she bit down her lip painfully at the sting it caused, trying not to pull away.

"I'm going to head out." Jackson announced, standing several feet away.

The EMT didn't look up from where he was tending to Amber's arm, "I'd still like someone to take a look at your head before you go-" He insisted for what must not have been the first time.

"No, I'm fine," Jackson snapped, "I'm not one of the people here who are dead or bleeding."

Amber looked up to give the boy a look of astonishment, "Jesus, Jackson. Way to be sensitive-"

A Sheriff's Department cruiser pulled into the parking lot just as Jackson was turning to face Amber with a dark look, "Oh, shut up, Callisto. You're the one who left me trapped in there-"

"I- You told me to!" Amber defended herself, wincing when the paramedic began to pull tiny shards of glass from her left arm.

"This is ridiculous! I'm not even injured," Jackson's voice rose as he argued with the paramedic who was still focussed pulling glass from Amber's skin, "Why the hell can't I just go home? I'm fine." His voice trailed off into something quieter as he finished speaking.

"I hear ya, but the EMT says you hit your head pretty hard," Sheriff Stilinski's voice cut in as he approached the group. His gaze caught on the brunette sitting at the back of the ambulance and he paused, frowning at her with worry for a moment before he re-focussed his attention on Jackson, "They just wanna make sure don't have a concussion."

"My god. Jackson, just let them look at your head. It'll take five minutes." Amber finally said, yelping when a particularly long piece of glass was pulled from the underside of her arm above her elbow.

"What part of 'I'm fine' are you people having a problem grasping?" Jackson asked, raising his voice again, "Okay? I wanna go home."

"And I understand that-" The Sheriff started gently.

"No, you don't understand! Which kind of blows my mind, since it should be a basic concept to grasp for a minimum wage rent-a-cop like you! Okay, Now I wanna go home!" Jackson yelled in the Sheriff's face.

Amber had heard enough. She pulled her arm out of the paramedics grasp with an angry snarl and closed the small distance between herself and Jackson with purpose, her fists clenched in rage, nails digging into the palms of her hands. She was only a second away from hitting the boy when Sheriff Stilinski stepped between them and gently pushed her back with his hands on her shoulders.

"Oh, woah! Is that a dead body!?" She heard Stiles' voice cut through the tension.

Her fury dissolved immediately and her head snapped around to see the boy standing at the passenger side of his dad's cruiser, his arms draped over the open door with an arm pointing in the direction of the store behind them.

The Sheriff gave his son a disappointed look and Stiles began to shrink back before his eyes landed on where his dad was releasing Amber's shoulders from his grip.

"Amber?" Stiles called out worriedly, slamming the car door shut as he stumbled over his own feet and jogged toward the back of the ambulance.

"Stiles," She sighed in relief at seeing her best friend, flinching in surprise when she felt the paramedic place a hand on her shoulder and guide her to sit still again, this time off to the side so that the other EMTs could wheel the dead body into the back. "Sorry," She apologized to the man quietly as he wordlessly lifted her arm and resumed with the tweezers.

"What happened?" Stiles asked in concern, looking her over and narrowing his eyes when another tiny piece of glass was plucked from her arm.

"I tripped?" She settled on in explanation for now. Her eyes flicked nervously over the large crowd of people that had filled the parking lot.

The paramedic began to wipe her cuts clean with alcohol again without warning and she winced, reaching out automatically to grip Stiles' hand in her free one.

Stiles looked at her worriedly while the paramedic wrapped gauze around her forearms before the man left the two teens alone. Stiles pulled gently on Amber's hand in his and tugged her away from the crowd to stand behind his father's car, leaning close to speak to her quietly, "Okay. So, what actually happened?"

She swallowed, tightening her grip on his hand, "The Alpha killed the video store clerk," She explained in a choked voice, "He chased me and Jackson but didn't hurt us at all. I-I don't know why-"

"Your arms?" He interrupted, eyes flicking down to her bandage injuries before meeting her own again.

"I tripped and fell in a little bit of glass from a broken light, it's fine," She assured him before continuing, "But the Alpha, it just- Smelled us both and then ran away."

He took a deep breath and she watched as he licked his lips in thought before his gaze dropped and paused on her chest, "Where did you get that shirt?" He asked.

She glanced down at the dark gray tshirt she was wearing. She'd tied the oversized shirt in a knot at the bottom, cropping it above the waistband of her jeans to reveal a strip of skin on her stomach.

"I don't know-?" She said honestly, "I was running late when Lydia picked me up and I just threw it on. It was in my room. I figure it's either yours or Scott's."

Stiles reached out to tug at the neckline, pulling it out to look at the tag sewed into the collar, "It's not mine," He confirmed, leaning back to look at the front of the shirt again, "Scott?"

"I don't- You don't think the reason the Alpha didn't kill me is because I smelled like Scott?" She asked nervously, heart rate picking up.

"Maybe," He replied, "But then, why didn't it kill Jackson?"

"I'm not sure." She furrowed her eyebrows and looked up at the boy in front of her.

The flickering red and blue lights from the emergency vehicles filtered over his face in a haunting way, the blinking glow bringing the ever-present queasy feeling from the knots in her stomach into a sudden focus.

Her eyes drifted back to the video store. The broken glass on the pavement in front of the large front window reflected the shining colors of the lights. The yellow crime scene tape flapped back and forth in places where officers were ducking underneath it to move in and out of the building. The tshirt she was wearing suddenly felt too heavy against her skin as she remembered the way the Alpha had sniffed it deeply before growling and exhaling a hot menacing breath over her.

"Amber?" Stiles called out quietly, his voice sounding oddly distant to her ears.

She belatedly realized that she wasn't entirely sure when she'd last taken a breath and she attempted to inhale deeply but her lungs barely managed to pull anything in before she was forced to exhale again with a sharp gasp. She tried again and found herself choking on the air as she sucked it in, looking up at Stiles with wide panicked eyes as she felt her chest tighten with anxiety at the lack of oxygen.

"Hey, you need to breathe." Stiles said gently, reaching up to rest his hands on her shoulders and rubbing his thumbs softly back and forth.

"I-" She started before gasping around another too-small inhale, "Stiles- I can't."

He pulled her into his chest and wrapped his arms around her tightly, cradling the back of her head and guiding her face into the crook of his neck in a practiced motion.

"Hey, listen to me," He said softly into her ear, "You're okay. I know you're scared, but I'm not gonna let anything happen to you ever again, y'hear me? You're okay-"

She gasped in a lungful of air and her whole body trembled when she exhaled against the warm skin of his neck.

He carded his fingers through her hair as he continued to murmur in her ear, "You're safe now. And I'm gonna keep it that way because- Because I'm the Batman of the group, yeah? You said so yourself. So, I'm gonna keep you safe." He promised quietly.

As he spoke, she finally managed to lift her hands from where they'd been hanging limply at her sides and she thrust them into the warmth beneath the fabric of Stiles' jacket and gripped desperately at his waist over the thin cotton of his shirt.

Every inhale filled her nose with the scent of him. The strongest thing she could smell was the lingering traces of his body wash, beneath that there was the laundry detergent from the collar of his shirt, and then a barely-there hint of sweat. She pushed her face further into his skin and breathed in the calming, familiar scents gratefully.

It took a few minutes, but her head slowly cleared, breathing evening out as more oxygen was pulled into her body. She continued to puff out warm breaths from her mouth, parted lips pressed into the soft skin of Stiles' neck. She focused on the sound of his voice, the gentle rhythm of his long fingers combing through her hair, his chest against hers.

"Yeah, y're okay," Stiles said softly, his mouth pressed close to her ear. He waited for her to take in a couple more deep, even breaths before his grip loosened around her shoulders, "Y'okay?"

"Yeah, I-" She let out an embarrassed laugh, speaking quietly, "I'm sorry."

"No, hey. Don't apologize, alright?" He combed his hand gently through her hair, pushing it back from her face.

"I don't know what happened, I just- I was thinking about the way it looked. The way it moved. The way it was so close that it could've ripped my throat out-"

"But it didn't, right? For whatever reason, it didn't. You're safe now." He assured her.

She took a deep breath and nodded just before Stiles' dad came to stand beside the pair. He squinted at her in scrutiny, "You doin' alright, Amber?"

"Yeah, yeah, I'm okay now." She stepped out of Stiles' embrace but grabbed his hand in the process and interlaced their fingers.

"Alright. Well, I talked to the paramedic and he says you're all set to go home." The Sheriff told her.

"Good, cool." She nodded distractedly. Her mind raced with what she was going to say to her brother when she saw him, "Can we hold off on telling Jason about this until he's off shift?" Amber pleaded.

"No can do. I already called him-" The Sheriff told her. At her outraged squeak, he continued, "I'm sorry, kiddo, but it was out of my hands. You're a minor and you were injured at the scene of what we still have to consider a possible homicide."

"Oh, god." She whined, looking around the parking lot frantically as if Jason were about to appear out of thin air to yell at her.

"Not to mention this is the third time you've stumbled across a dead body in the last month-" The Sheriff frowned at her with a disappointed look that she was sure would rival the one she'd be getting from her brother at any minute. "I don't know what is going on with you kids, but this has gotta stop happening when you all are around. Y'hear me?"

Amber and Stiles both nodded.

"You're coming back to my place, right?" Stiles asked quietly into her ear when his dad was distracted by something happening behind them.

She nodded, whispering back, "Yeah, we need to talk to Scott ASAP and figure out what the hell-" She started before a faded red pickup truck caught her eye coming down the dark street.

When Jason's truck turned into the parking lot, it did so in a rush, coming to a stop just behind the Sheriff's cruiser without bothering to pull into a parking space. He flew out of the vehicle, rushing toward them, and his hands went to cup Amber's shoulder and the side of her head as soon as he was close enough to grab her.

She watched her brother huff out a relieved breath as he verified that she was mostly unharmed and she released her grip on Stiles' hand to stepped forward and pull Jason into a hug.

"I'm fine, I'm okay." She attempted to reassure him.

When she stepped back from the embrace, Sheriff Stilinski had pulled Stiles away, leaving the siblings to talk in privacy.

"What happened?" Jason asked her firmly.

"Um, they think a mountain lion might've gotten inside the store somehow before we got here.. It attacked the worker. Then it knocked some shelves over on top of Jackson, and I tripped trying to get away but- It, um, it just ran off."

"You're damn lucky it did," He told her, smoothing the hair at the side of her head down flat. His own hazel eyes went to the scene around them and he took a deep breath before letting it out slowly, "How are you feeling though? Really. Must be shaken up?"

"I- Yeah. I-I am. Shaken." She admitted quietly.

"I'd be worried if you weren't," He said with a small smile, squeezing her shoulder firmly in reassurance, "You ready to get out of here?"

"Can I- Would it be okay if I slept at Stiles' house tonight?" She asked nervously.

"Do I need to remind you what happened the last time I let you go to a friend's house right after something like this?" Her brother questioned. The cool and calm attitude he'd displayed since he arrived at the scene seemed to fade into something more panicked and Amber shrunk back under his gaze but she didn't speak, so he carried on, "You went out in the woods to look for the other half of a dead body. And I didn't find out until Noah Stilinski called to tell me about it almost two weeks later," He paused to take a breath, "And that was before we knew it was just an animal attack! For Christ's sake, Amber. You're killing me here."

She figured it would be in her best interest to let him get it all out at once, so still, the girl deigned not to speak. She chewed her lower lip and glued her eyes to a small stain on the collar of her brother's tshirt until he filled the silence again.

"You keep finding dead bodies, and you're trespassing on private property to get my old classmates arrested for suspected murder, and I don't know what I'm supposed to do to keep you out of trouble," Jason sighed, "Would things be different- If I didn't work so much? I'll leave the station if you want me to- I will. I can find a regular nine to five and-"

"No!" She interrupted quickly, "Jay, c'mon you love being a fireman." The girl reached up to rest her fingers over the hand on her shoulder, "I'm sorry about digging up the Hale property and getting Derek arrested — I really am." She promised him.

He sighed after a moment and held a hand out, gesturing toward his parked truck, "Home tonight. Okay?"

"Okay." She agreed, following him toward the vehicle. She cast a final look back toward where Stiles was standing a couple yards away, waving to him sadly as she went.

The boy gave her a small reassuring smile in understanding and waved back just as she was climbing up into the truck. As soon as she closed the door behind her, she dropped her head back against the headrest with a sigh.

The next morning, after a fitful night's sleep, Amber was dropped off at school unreasonably early before Jason had to be back at the station. Her brother had insisted on giving her a ride, and after seeing the pleading look on his face, Amber couldn't help but agree.

The first bell wouldn't ring for another hour, so Amber wandered into the library to work on an English paper that wasn't due for another week. She managed to nail down her outline and wrote a few hundred words before she noticed a handful of students milling around the library, returning and checking out books, and she suddenly realized that there were only ten minutes left until the first bell.

Collecting her things in a rush, Amber made her way through the halls, pausing when she saw Allison just a few steps away from her locker. Amber smiled in giddy excitement and plastered herself to a locker beside the girl, leaning against it casually.

Allison gave her a sweet smile, "Hey, Amber." The girl seemed to pause in thought before her face set in determination, "Can I ask you about something that's been bothering me?"

"Yeah, of course." Amber agreed immediately.

"Why was Derek at the school last week?" Allison asked, her eyes downcast.

"Um," Amber started, struck dumb by the question, "He was- Looking for me."

"Mm, how come?" Allison questioned, fingering at the edge of her leather jacket.

"He- He wasn't feeling well, so-" Amber struggled to come up with a believable lie on the spot, "Stiles and I ended up giving him a ride to the doctor's office."

"Okay-" Allison responded slowly after a few seconds passed, "And you and Derek aren't still- Y'know?"

"No, no, we're not." Amber said quickly, "Just- Friends? Sort of."

Allison nodded, pursing her lips. She looked like she was about to ask another question so Amber deflected quickly.

"So.. Birthday girl," Amber started, grinning when Allison's eyes went wide and glanced around them to see if anyone had overheard, "How does it feel to be sixteen?"

"I- Uh, I'm actually turning-" Allison looked around them worriedly again before whispering, "Seventeen." Amber went to speak but Allison held up a finger to the girl's lips before speaking again, "Please don't tell anyone. It's always a huge thing when people find out-"

Amber laughed, pulling Allison's finger away from her lips, "Why is being seventeen such a big deal?" She asked, "Stiles turns seventeen in two months."

Allison seemed surprised at this, "Really?"

"Yeah," Amber said, "I mean, he was held back in elementary sc-"

Allison sighed loudly, "That's exactly what I'm worried about people thinking."

"Who cares?" Amber asked her, "People get held back. It happens. Being held back doesn't mean you're stupid or something." Amber said defensively.

"No, no, you're right." Allison said with a shake of her head, "I'm sorry."

Amber relaxed slightly, "It's okay."

Allison turned back toward her locker and moved to begin working the combination on the little purple padlock. When she got it undone, she pulled the door open and a cluster of colorful balloons tried to break free from the confined space. The girl frantically fought to push the balloons back inside and looked around with wide eyes while Amber laughed at her.

Pulling a small card from where it was magnetized to the inside of the door, Allison flipped it open and read the note inside.

"You and Lydia-" Allison began to whisper quietly before Scott approached them from the other side.

"Is it your birthday?" Scott asked innocently, pointing to where a balloon was about to drift free from Allison's locker yet again.

"No, no!" Allison said immediately, fighting with the balloons, "Uh, no. I mean, yes. Please don't tell anybody. I don't even know how Lydia and Amber found out."

Scott looked up at Amber with a wide eyed look of betrayal and she raised her hands in surrender, "I didn't know. Lydia asked me to bring her balloons after school yesterday and I did. She didn't tell me what they were for until last night."

"Why didn't you tell me?" Scott asked softly, his attention focussed on Allison.

"Because I don't want people to know." Allison said quickly before pausing, "Because- I'm seventeen."

"You're seventeen?" Scott asked in surprise, blind to the way Amber was waving her hands frantically for him to shut up.

"That's the reaction I'm trying to avoid." Allison said with an annoyed look.

"Why?" Scott tried to recover, grimacing when he caught Amber's eye, "I mean, I-I totally get it. Uh, you had to repeat a year because of all the moving around, right?"

Allison looked at him in surprise before closing her locker door. She turned her back to Amber and leaned into Scott's space to give him a slow kiss.

"What was that for?" Scott asked with a smile.

"For literally being the first person ever to make the correct assumption. Everybody always assumes I got knocked up or held back." Allison told him, taking a step back to lean against her locker and glance at Amber again.

"-Which, y'know, if either of those were true that would be okay too." Amber reminded her futilely.

"But, that's what you hear on your birthday?" Scott asked, ignoring his best friend.

"Oh, yeah." Allison told them, "All day long."

"Then- What if you and I get out of here?" Scott asked her with a tender look.

Allison looked at him closely, "Skip class?" She asked.

"Yeah, the whole day." Scott smiled, reaching up to pull gently at one of Allison's curls.

"Scott, are you sure that's a good idea-" Amber started, cutting herself off at the sharp look he gave her. She pursed her lips, rolling up onto the balls of her feet before dropping back down, "And, I am going to leave you two lovebirds to make your own questionable choices." She announced, stepping back from the pair slowly. 'Happy Birthday' she mouthed at Allison with a grin before turning and heading in the direction of her own locker with a shake of her head.

In third period Chemistry class, Amber took the open seat across from Stiles with a smile, rubbing her hand back and forth along the softness of his short hair as she passed him and fell into her seat.

They were having a quiet class period wherein they were all supposed to work on the problems from the current chapter in their textbook — so that they could ask questions if they had trouble with anything. Hardly anyone ever did ask for help, given that Mr. Harris was a condescending nightmare on a good day, but if they talked quietly enough, it was easy to work with the people at your table.

Amber pulled out her things as class started and she began copying down the questions into her notebook. Twenty minutes passed and she was only just beginning to work on question number three, the pencil in her hand having spent more time hovering over the page in her notebook than it had pressed against the paper. Her concentration was hard to keep focused when her eyes kept drifting up to the boy in front of her.

Stiles had shifted his stool to the corner of the table to be closer to her and he was rapidly highlighting important information in his textbook for when the two of them would make flashcards later on. He had the cap of the marker held between his teeth and she watched Stiles gnaw on it, his jaw working distractedly as he traced over the words.

Her attention was suddenly torn from the way that Stiles' lips wrapped around the tiny piece of plastic as Mr. Harris began to speak from the back of the room.

"Just a friendly reminder.. Parent/Teacher Conferences are tonight," He said as he began walking down the aisle between tables slowly, "Students below a 'C' average are required to attend. I won't name you.. Because the shame and self-disgust should be more than enough punishment." As if the statement had triggered something in his brain, Mr. Harris paused at the end of Stiles and Amber's workbench, his eyes narrowing at the empty stool at their table. "Has anybody seen Scott McCall?"

Stiles looked up at where Mr. Harris was standing beside him but Amber bit her lip and looked down at her notebook in avoidance. She was saved from having to come up with a lie about her friend's whereabouts when Jackson walked into the room late, drawing their teacher's attention.

"Hey, Jackson," Mr. Harris spoke quietly, approaching the boy as he found his seat, "If you need to leave early for any reason, you let me know."

Jackson nodded and Amber scoffed at their teacher's kind comment. She'd been told nothing of the sort when she had entered the room at the start of class, despite her also having been attacked by a psychotic werewolf the night before.

Mr. Harris stepped back and moved to the chalkboard at the far end of the room, "Everyone, start reading the next chapter." He announced, pausing mid-step before speaking again, "Mr. Stilinski-"

Stiles' attention snapped up from his textbook again and he looked to the front of the room with wide eyes, surprised at having been called out.

"Try putting the highlighter down between paragraphs," Mr. Harris told him loudly in front of the class, "It's Chemistry. Not a coloring book." He finished patronizingly.

Amber's eyes narrowed at their teacher's back before her eyes were drawn to the boy in front of her again. She watched as Stiles threw his head back, exposing his long neck and sharp jawline, her eyes following his eyes movement. He blew the marker cap from his mouth and up into the air over his head, snatching it effortlessly in his outstretched hand as it fell back through the air.

Amber leaned forward across the table on her elbows and nodded her head to beckon Stiles closer. His eyes seemed to trail down to the low cut of her shirt for a second before he leaned in on the edge of his stool, closing the distance until only a small gap separated them.

"Don't listen to him," Amber told her friend quietly, reaching out with the hand not holding her own writing utensil and grabbing the capped highlighter from him. She innocently fingered the cap, chewing her lower lip for a second as she thought about the place it had been between his teeth a only few moments before. She shook her head and blinked rapidly in an attempt to clear her thoughts, "It's a studying method that works for you-" She tapped the highlighter lightly on the tabletop, "..And he's a dickhead." She whispered as an afterthought.

She unthinkingly raised the highlighter cap to her own teeth to pull it off single-handed before holding the bright yellow marker back out to Stiles. He took it from her outstretched hand with a dazed look, eyes never leaving her face.

She grinned at him and the action reminded her that she still had the cap held between her lips. When she reached up to grab it, the piece of plastic slipped from between her fingers and dropped beneath the neckline of her shirt, stopping to settle at her belly button where her shirt had been tucked into the waistband of her jeans. She cursed quietly, leaning back on her stool and peering down her shirt to look for it. She reached past the lace of her bra to fish it out, the material of her shirt stretched slightly around her arm, and just as her fingers closed around the cap, there was a loud crash.

Amber flinched, looking up to see Stiles' stool toppled over at the end of the table and the boy on the floor with it.

"Stiles!" She said in quiet alarm, "Are you okay?"

Stiles' cheeks were flushed pink as he climbed to his feet again and righted his stool, nodding and wordlessly taking the marker cap from her fingers before sitting back down in his seat. He didn't look up at her as he slowly began highlighting the page of his textbook again and Amber blinked in confusion.

She glanced around the room and caught the eye of Danny Mahealani, who was sitting directly behind Stiles. He was already watching her and Stiles with an amused grin and when she gave him a questioning look, he shook his head and turned back around to face his own table again.

Weird.

At the end of the school day, Stiles rushed up to Amber and slammed his body into the open door of her locker. He gripped the metal before it could smash into the girl and moved to stand beside it.

"Scott is being painfully unhelpful and we need to figure out what exactly Lydia saw." He said quickly as she shuffled her books around, "Where is she, anyway?"

Amber shrugged, "She was really shaken up last night. I think she stayed home for the day, but she hasn't been responding to any of my texts." She explained, zipping up her backpack and pulling it over her shoulders.

"Well, we should go to her house and talk to her, then." Stiles said simply.

"I- Yeah, I mean- I was going to-" She paused when she caught his eye, deciding against telling Stiles her plans for the afternoon.

Stiles raised his eyebrows at her sudden silence and she sighed quietly, closing her locker, "No, we should definitely go see Lydia." She agreed.

When the two arrived at the Martin house, Lydia's mom answered the door with a smile, "Amber, sweetheart." The woman pulled her into a hug, "It'll be so good for Lydia to see you. She's been holed up in her room all day."

"Yeah," Amber agreed, pulling back from the embrace, "We just wanted to check on her."

As if she hadn't noticed him until that moment, the woman's eyes caught on the boy standing beside Amber, "Oh!" She said, "And who's this?"

"Uh, I'm Stiles." He said with an awkward wave.

"Well," Mrs. Martin said simply after a moment, "Let's get you two inside then."

The three climbed the stairs to Lydia's bedroom and Mrs. Martin knocked softly on the closed door, pushing it open and poking her head in as she spoke, "Honey, Amber and Stiles are here to see you."

Lydia was laying across the bed on her stomach in a beautiful but revealing blue nightgown, examining her fingernails distractedly. Her strawberry blonde hair was long and loose, falling messily around her, and when she looked up, her eyes looked drunkenly distant.

Amber pulled Stiles through the doorway by his hand as Lydia blinked, "What the hell is a styles?" She asked in sleepy confusion.

Mrs. Martin laughed awkwardly behind them, clasping her hands together, "She, uh, took a little something for her nerves," She told them as she began to pull the door closed behind her, "I'll just, I'll leave you three-"

"Thanks." Stiles told her as Amber pulled him over to the bed.

"What are you doing here?" Lydia asked, turning onto her side and exposing her chest as she focussed her attention on Amber.

"We wanted to make sure you were okay." Amber told her softly, moving to sit beside the girl and combing her friend's red hair back from her face with her fingers.

"Really?" Lydia asked, glancing at where Stiles was still standing beside the bed, "Both of you?"

"Yes, both of us," Amber told her, tugging Stiles down to sit beside her harshly and causing him to land very nearly in her lap, "We were both worried about you today."

"How're you feeling?" Stiles asked, looking at the redhead on the other side of Amber.

Lydia propped herself up on her elbow, leaning into Amber's hand in her hair for a moment like a cat who was enjoying being petted. The redhead then came closer until her forehead rested in the center of Amber's chest, Lydia's face pressed against the place where the fabric of Amber's low cut shirt revealed her cleavage.

Lydia spoke softly into Amber's skin, "I feel.. Fantastic." She slurred as Stiles watched them with wide eyes and huffed an awkward laugh.

Amber looked down at the girl in surprise and Lydia leaned back from her place between the brunette's breasts to settle a hand on her thigh instead. Amber looked over at Stiles with wide eyes of her own and saw the matching look of shock on his face.

Stiles suddenly reached around both girls to grab a little orange prescription bottle from the bedside table before examining the label. Amber leaned close, peering down at the plastic in Stiles' hands and reading the dosage of Lorazepam the doctor had prescribed.

"Lydia, your dose is only half a tablet to start, how much did you take?" Amber asked, pulling the bottle out of Stiles' fingers.

"Mm, I took two." Lydia said dreamily.

Amber shook her head in concern for her friend. Lydia was so hopped up on her medication, she was almost completely out of it.

Stiles looked at the redhead for a moment before a small smile pulled at his lips, "I bet you can't say 'I saw Suzy sitting in a shoeshine shop' ten times fast."

Amber laughed quietly, placing the bottle back on the table, "Stiles, I couldn't say that ten times fast."

Lydia leaned forward with a determined look on her face, "I saw Shuzy-" She started.

"Ah-" Stiles interrupted quietly with a grin.

Lydia sighed, eyes moving to Amber as she started again, "I shaw-" She said, her smile slowly fading until she flopped back down onto the bed heavily, "I saw."

"What?" Stiles asked.

Amber leaned closer, resting her hand on Lydia's arm, "Lydia, babe. What did you see?" She asked gently.

"Something." Lydia said distractedly.

"Something like-" Stiles prompted, resting a hand on Amber's thigh as he leaned closer, "A mountain lion?" He asked.

"A mountain lion." Lydia agreed with a small nod.

"Are you sure you saw a mountain lion?" Stiles asked.

"-Or are you just saying that because that's what the police and I said." Amber finished.

Lydia continued to stare at the wall at the side of the bed, "A mountain lion." She repeated.

Stiles reached around the two girls to grab a small stuffed giraffe from the bedside table, holding it out in front of his chest, "What's this?" He asked her.

Lydia turned to face the both of them again and looked at the stuffed toy in Stiles' hands, blowing a clump of hair out of her face before answering, "A mountain lion."

"..Okay," Stiles said slowly, putting the animal back where he found it and flopping down to sit beside Amber again, "She is so drunk."

Just as quickly as the words left his mouth, Lydia dropped her head into Amber's lap and nuzzled her face into the girl's stomach.

"Um.." Amber laughed quietly at their current position as the redhead reached an arm past Amber to place a hand at the top of Stiles' thigh.

Stiles gasped out a surprised breath and when Amber looked over to see what was wrong, her eyes caught on the spot where Lydia's fingers were resting on Stiles' upper thigh, just along the inner seam of his jeans.

Amber took pity on him and reached out to move the offending hand, but when her fingers settled over the top of Lydia's, Stiles made another choked noise, his mouth dropped open and he leaned back, clenching his eyes shut tight. At his shaky breath, Amber quickly removed their hands from where they'd both been clearly violating him.

"Sorry." She told him quietly, "..Are you ready to leav-"

"I gotta pee." Stiles said urgently, standing from the bed and turning his back to the two girls. He stumbled and tripped over his own feet as he headed in the direction of the door.

"I- The bathroom is across the hall-" Amber told him as he rushed from the room, "Well. You, he finds attractive," She told her unconscious friend quietly with a frown, "But then, don't we all?" Amber combed her fingers through Lydia's hair for another moment before sighing, "Alright, Lyds. We should really get going." She lifted Lydia's head from her lap and the girl pouted sleepily.

"Stay." She told her, sitting up straighter and reaching out to touch Amber's cheek, "Stay-" Lydia leaned closer and her green eyes traced slowly over her friend's face before cupping Amber's other cheek and holding her face softly between her hands. Lydia's thumb trailed down to brush over Amber's lip and she pulled it from where the brunette had it nervously pinched between her teeth, "Please?"

"Lyds, I-" Amber started nervously.

Lydia tilted her head forward and brought their mouths closer until their lips brushed together softly. Amber froze found her heart beating loudly in her ears at the barely there touch of lips.

"Oh for the love of-" Stiles' voice cut in loudly in distress.

Amber flinched and jumped back from the bed like she'd been burned. She watched as Lydia flopped down onto the mattress as if nothing had happened and snuggled into the pillows sleepily.

A moment of silence passed.

"Not. A word." Amber said quietly, lifting an accusing finger at the boy whose mouth had already been opening to say something.

Stiles raised his arms in surrender and Amber shook her head, her eyes caught on where Lydia's cell phone was sitting on the bedside table. She remembered how the redhead hadn't returned any of Amber's messages and wondered if it needed to be charged.

She took a step closer and picked up the phone, surprised when it immediately unlocked to display Lydia's camera roll. A video began to play automatically and Amber squinted at the dark grainy footage, her stomach dropping when she realized it was the moment that the Alpha had jumped through the front window of the video store. She paused it just as the creature broke through on the screen and gulped as she looked at the close-up of the Alpha's wolf-like mouth open in a snarl.

"I- Stiles?" She said in a quiet voice, waving him over.

He moved to stand beside her immediately, "What? What is it?" He asked.

She tilted the phone toward him and showed the frozen image of red eyes that glowed on the dark screen.

"What-? She got a picture of it?" Stiles asked frantically, pulling the phone from her hands.

"A video." Amber corrected quietly.

She took the phone back and texted the video to both Stiles and herself before deleting the file and the evidence of the outgoing messages, gently putting the phone back on the tabletop.

She turned, grabbing Stiles' hand and pulling him along behind her, "Let's go."

Despite the situation with the Alpha and her need to go speak with Derek growing more dire with every passing second — More than anything else, it was the guilt churning away in her gut that affected her the most.

Amber couldn't believe that she'd practically let a drug-delirious Lydia kiss her.

An hour later, Amber stepped off of her bike at the top of the gravel driveway in the preserve and made her way toward what was left of the large covered porch surrounding the Hale house. After a moment's hesitation, she wheeled her bicycle over to the side of the charred house instead of simply abandoning it out front. Once she had stowed her bike in the overgrown weeds and bushes, she climbed the porch and knocked on the chipped, soot-covered red paint of the front door.

The door was pulled open a few seconds later to reveal Derek standing in the entryway, shirtless and covered in a light sheen of sweat. In juxtaposition from the last time Amber had seen his muscled body shining with sweat, the sickly paleness from the week before had been replaced with a healthy looking glow.

"Why are you here?" He asked simply, raising his eyebrows with an unimpressed look.

"Why are you all sweaty?" Amber countered, stepping past him to enter the house. She looked around with barely concealed curiosity, eyes flicking over the room around them.

Unlike the caved-in shell that she knew stood at the back of the house, the front rooms seemed slightly less damaged. Standing in the entryway, she could almost imagine what the house might've looked like before it burned but regardless, Amber didn't much like the idea of Derek holed up in the ruins of the home where his whole family had burned alive.

Derek didn't respond to her evasive question, but he closed the front door and came to stand by the staircase in front of her, leaning back against the banister and crossing his arms over his chest as he waited for an answer to his own initial question.

"I wanted to check and make sure you were doing okay after last week-" She started. When Derek only proceeded in raising his eyebrows as if he didn't quite believe her, she carried on with a small sigh, "..And also I wanted to know if you figured anything else out about the Alpha. Scott's information distribution skills are crap at best and that thing could've killed me last night, but it didn't.. I want to know why, and also how we're planning to get rid of it for good."

Derek sighed, "First off, you are not going to be doing anything, even if I do come up with a plan. You are going to try to stay out of all this, like I told you before. Just because it left you and your friends alive last night, doesn't mean you'll be so lucky next time."

Amber took a step forward and opened her mouth to speak but he continued on.

"You can't keep coming around, alright? The hunters don't know about Scott yet, but they do know about me. If someone sees you hanging around, you're going to have more than just the Alpha to watch out for. I don't need you to be worrying about me."

Amber tore her eyes away from him to focus on the dust that covered the dark hardwood floors, "Someone should." She muttered under her breath.

"I don't need anybody to worry about me. I can take care of myself."

"But that's just it, Derek. I don't think you should have to go through all of this on your own. I want to help-"

"I don't need your help," He said simply, "I need you to not get yourself killed."

Amber's face scrunched in frustration and she sighed loudly, "Well, I don't want you to-"

Derek suddenly stepped forward and pressed the palm of his hand to her lips, his other hand coming up to cup the back of her head to ensure she didn't move away. His eyes were squinted in concentration as he looked toward the front door and Amber recalled the way he'd done something similar when he'd been listening to Argent's vehicles approaching at the gas station.

Amber made a small, questioning noise and his eyes snapped back down to her. His green eyes met her hazel ones and before she could take a breath, he had wrapped an arm around her waist and had begun to drag her down the hallway, her feet barely touching the floor as they moved. When they reached a small closet beneath the staircase, he pulled open the door and shoved her to crouch inside.

"Listen. I mean it- Do not say a word, d'you understand? I don't care what you hear or see, you stay put and you stay quiet."

"Der-" She squeaked nervously.

"Not a sound." He told her, quickly shutting the slatted closet door and moving back a few steps further into the house.

The small storage closet wasn't much of a hiding space. There was a ten inch hole in the wall to her left that gave her a decent view through to the living room and the door was shutters instead of solid wood.

Amber leaned as far away from the hole as she could in an attempt to hide herself from view, peering through the slats to see what Derek was doing only to find that he seemed to have disappeared.

Amber had only just placed one of her hands on the wall to maintain balance in her crouched position when the front door to the house burst open with a crash. She flinched hard at the loud sound of the shattering wood but managed to hold back any noise of her own as two men and a woman entered the house. One of the men held a large black gun in both hands, turning with it slowly as if ready to open fire at any moment.

"No one home?" The man with the gun asked, shuffling around as he looked around the house.

"Oh, he's here," The woman grinned playfully, "He's just not feeling particularly hospitable."

"Maybe he's out," The second man started. Amber thought he looked more like a nineties boyband reject when compared to the dangerous aura the other two held, "Burying a bone in the backyard."

"Really?" The woman asked him in disappointment, "A dog joke? We're going there and that's the best you've got?" The three moved a bit deeper inside the house as she continued, "If you wanna provoke him, say something like, 'Too bad your sister bit it before she had her first litter,'" She smiled and raised her voice, "'Too bad she howled like a bitch when we cut her in half!'"

Amber raised a hand to covered her mouth and muffle a gasp. She heard Derek growl loudly from the other side of the house, followed by a scream that had to have come from the boybander who'd been outside of her field of vision. Derek must've thrown the man to the front of the house because his body landed in the front hall with a loud thump.

She watched as Derek jumped up and swung from the doorway, hitting the man with the gun in the chest with a hard kick that sent him flying to the back of the living room. Derek rose to his feet and snarled at the woman standing in the center of the room. He charged at her and the woman pulled a baton from her back pocket, whipping it out and extending its length with an electrified zapping noise. She thrust it into Derek's naked side as soon as he was close enough and Amber watched in horror as he dropped to the floor in pain.

Derek writhed on the ground, rolling onto his side and releasing small noises of discomfort. Amber bit her lip to the point of pain, her jaw trembling as she was forced to watch Derek's body tense and twitch from the shock of electricity.

"Wow," The woman stated, stepping closer and circling Derek on the floor as she examined him, "This one grew up in all the right places." The woman watched with a smile as Derek recouperated slightly and got his hands underneath him, "I don't know whether to kill it, or lick it."

Amber's heart clenched in both fury at the women's words, and pity as Derek weakly dragged himself along the dusty floor in an attempt to put distance between himself and the woman standing above him. The electric baton zapped threateningly at his back a couple of times as the woman followed behind him with a smile.

Derek tried to pull himself up with the help of the sofa in the corner of the room and the woman shocked him again with a jab to the stomach. Derek flew back several feet from the jolt and his body twitched, muscles tightening with the after effects.

Amber pressed her hand tighter to her mouth to stifle a sound and her eyes welled up with tears as the woman laughed joyfully at Derek.

"Ah, nine hundred thousand volts," The woman grinned, examining the baton in her hand, "You never were good with electricity, were you? Or fire." She laughed again.

Amber took a quiet trembling breath and she watched through the blur of her tears as Derek slowly pulled himself away again, his legs dragging behind him limply.

"-Which is why I'm gonna let you in on a little secret. And, well, maybe we can help each other out." The woman sat on the end of the sofa and looked down at Derek as he took a shaky breath and continued to crawl across the floor, "Yes, your sister was severed into pieces and used as bait to try and catch you.. Unpleasant." She tutted, "And, frankly, a little too Texas Chainsaw Massacre for my taste, but quite true." She laughed again, "Now, here's the part that might really kick you in your balls — We didn't kill her."

Derek finally pulled himself up into a seated position at the end of the room and leaned against the wall. He glared up at the woman as the muscles in his body continued to tremble.

"You think I'm lying?" The woman asked, her eyes wide in faux surprise.

"Wouldn't be the first time." Derek choked out as his body shook.

"Sweetie," The woman said the word mockingly, coming to stand at the end of the room and crouching down in front of him, "Well, why don't you just listen to my heart and tell me if I am, okay?" She leaned into his space until she could speak directly into his ear, "We. Didn't. Kill. Your. Sister.. D'you hear that? No little blips or upticks. Just the steady beat of the cold hard truth."

Amber took another large shaky breath in through her nose, the exhale puffing out over the backs of her fingers where they covered her mouth. Her calves and thighs were beginning to ache from crouching in the cramped broom closet for so long and the resigned look on Derek's face made her chest feel tight.

The woman's lips spread into an eerie grin as she rose to stand above Derek, "They found bite marks on your sister's body, Derek. What d'you think did that? A mountain lion?" She laughed, "Why aren't we helping each other out? You might as well admit what you've been guessing all along which is; The Alpha killed your sister." She stated unsympathetically with a tilt of her head, "All you have to do is tell me who he is and we'll take care of it for you. Problem solved. Everybody goes home happy."

The woman paused with a smile, as if waiting for a response. Derek took slow even breaths but didn't respond to her, his eyes cast down to the dusty floor.

"Unless.." The woman said with a look of surprise, "You don't know who he is either." She chuckled in astonishment, shaking her head, "Wow. Guess who just became totally useless?"

As quickly as the question left her mouth, the woman pulled out a large gun that Amber hadn't even realized she'd been holding. Derek rolled to the side and dashed out of the way just as the woman pulled the trigger, releasing a rapid-fire stream of bullets.

Amber muffled a frightened noise with the hand over her mouth and Derek ran through the front door and out of the house, avoiding the area near the hall closet to protect the girl from getting caught in the line of fire.

The moment that Derek was gone, the woman sighed woefully and dropped the gun to her side. She made her way over to the men she'd brought with her, giving each of them a swift kick and ordered them to get up. Both men groaned in pain but did as she instructed, pulling themselves to their feet slowly.

"Well, that was a bust." The woman said in disappointment.

"What if Chris finds out we disobeyed him and came here?" One of the men asked, brushing himself off as the group slowly made their way to the front door.

"He won't." The woman told them, "And besides, we didn't kill him. Just.. Played with him a little."

Amber leaned toward the hole in the wall to watch them leave and waited, taking slow shaky breaths. She counted to three hundred before easing open the closet door and cautiously stepping out. Her hands trembled as she took careful steps toward the front door and when she reached the open doorway, she looked around the property warily, checking to be sure they were truly gone.

Both hearing and seeing nothing, she let out an anxious breath she'd been holding.

It was entirely possible that Derek had been on to something when he told her it was dangerous for her to keep coming around.

It didn't mean that she planned to listen to him — Just, it was possible that he wasn't totally incorrect.

"Hey, it's me again-" Amber said into her phone after going straight to Stiles' voicemail for the third time, "Look, I don't know if you're ignoring me because you're mad that I ditched you earlier or if you're on another call or what. Just-" Amber sighed, flopping down onto her bed, "I don't know if Scott's talked to you but I still can't get a hold of him. So, anyway, I'm going to go to the parent-teacher thing with Jason. Gonna see if I can talk to him there." She told Stiles through the tiny speaker, "Right. Just, call me or text me when you get this. Bye."

There was a sudden loud knocking and Amber flinched in surprise as her bedroom door was pushed open, sitting up in bed to find her brother standing in the doorway.

"Hey, you about ready to head out?" He asked her.

"Yeah, let me just grab a sweatshirt." She told him, walking over to the closet and pulling out a large gray hoodie that had almost definitely belonged to Stiles at some point.

"You know you don't even have to go to this thing, right? Your grades are really good." Jason pointed out with a raised eyebrow.

Amber pulled the zip-up sweatshirt on over her tank top and brushed past him to head downstairs, "I know. But Scott has to go. I wanna talk to him about something and he's not answering his phone."

"Alright," Jason conceded as they reached the front door, "But I guess if you're coming with, I might as well show you now-"

"Show me what?" Amber asked in confusion, following him outside.

Instead of heading toward the old pickup truck that was parked on the side of the driveway, he led her to the closed garage door. Amber's heart thumped nervously in anticipation as she watched her brother pull open the large rolling door. When the garage door went up and out of the way, it revealed an absolutely hideous AMC Pacer — nearly identical to the one their dad had purchased in the seventies and had still owned when the two of them were kids. It was a ridiculous sunshine yellow and the metal was lightly rusted at the bottom and it looked so much like the one that their dad had driven them around in for the first several years of her life.

"Oh, my god." Amber finally choked out.

Her eyes welled with tears at the memories that cropped up of their dad picking them up from school. The memories of their mom complaining loudly about how much she hated the ugly car and the way things were always falling out of the backseat because, for some reason, the passenger door was built different from the one on the driver's side. The memories of Jason sitting in the back beside her and reading a comic book, flipping it around as he finished each page to show his sister his favorite parts.

Amber took a shaky breath, "It looks just like dad's."

"It is dad's," Jason revealed, stepping up behind her and putting a hand on the back of her head, "Or, it was. He sold it to that older couple over on Beacon Lake, remember?" When she nodded weakly he continued, "Well, turns out they're both eighty now and the husband finally lost his license. He sold it back to me for almost nothing."

"You bought dad's car back?" Amber finally pulled her eyes away from the vehicle and turned to face her brother.

"Yeah, bud. It's yours, if you want it."

"I want it," She said quickly, her head snapped back and forth between Jason and the car, "I want it. Oh my god."

Her brother laughed, pulling a small keychain out of his pocket and handing it to her, "It's yours."

She took the keys with wide eyes, her hands shaking as she gripped them tight.

"It's manual, though. So, you're gonna need to practice driving stick shift." He warned her.

"Stiles tried to teach me in the Jeep once," She told him, "I did okay, I think."

"Alright, well, why don't you drive us to the school and we'll see how good of a teacher your friend Stiles is." Jason grinned, walking to the driver's side door and holding it open for her.

Amber bit down on her lip and made a small excited noise, ducking into the car and onto the stained tan seat, sliding behind the wheel. Her fingertips traced over everything she could see; the ancient radio knobs, the cigarette lighter, the gear shift behind the steering wheel, the speedometer that only reached ninety miles an hour.

She was going to drive her car to the parent-teacher conferences, track down Scott, and figure everything out.

When Amber finally located Ms. McCall outside of the school, the woman was standing by herself, watching the parking lot like a hawk, and Amber deflated slightly as she approached.

"No Scott yet?" Amber asked.

"Have you talked to him?" Ms. McCall asked immediately, checking the phone in her hand as if it might've gone off without her noticing, "I should be in there already but I can't get a hold of him."

Amber attempted a reassuring smile, "I'm sure he'll be here any minute. I'll wait for him out here and I'll send him in the second I see him." She promised.

Scott's mom looked like she wanted to argue, but then she watched the last of the other parents trickle into the school and sighed, "Okay. But, send him straight in. I mean it, Amber."

"I'll send him straight in," Amber promised, "I'll even give him a kick in the ass for being late."

Ms. McCall cracked a smile before agreeing and heading inside as the doors were closing behind the final group of adults.

Amber sat down on the stairs outside the building, bouncing her knee impatiently as she waited for Scott to show up. She sat restlessly, fiddling with the strings on her hoodie and shaking her leg in anticipation. She waited for over an hour, eventually turning sideways to lean back against the cement that held the guard rail.

As more time passed, she began to lose hope. Her stomach dropped sadly when she heard the school doors creak open again after nearly two hours. Parents filed back out of the building and at the front of the pack, she spotted Mr. Argent and a woman she figured had to be Allison's mom.

"Allison. Answering your cell phone will make discussing the terms of your grounding much easier." Amber heard Allison's dad say angrily into his phone, "Well, call me back before your punishment reaches Biblical proportions."

"Kate hasn't heard from her either," Mrs. Argent told him worriedly as they descended the stairs.

Amber scrambled to her feet as the couple reached where she was and winced at the chill in her backside from sitting on the cold ground for so long, sighing at the realization that Scott was still with Allison.

Ms. McCall put a hand on Amber's shoulder as she passed and the woman went to stand in front of the Argents at the bottom of the staircase, "Excuse me, you're not Allison's parents, are you?" She asked, "I'm Scott's mom, and I hate to say it, but he's not answering his phone either."

"You're his mother?" Chris Argent said judgmentally.

Amber took a defensive step forward to stand beside Ms. McCall but the woman responded before she could cut in, "Funny, how you say that like it's an accusation."

"Well, I wouldn't claim it as a source of pride since he basically kidnapped my daughter today." He said gruffly.

"Hey-" Amber said in anger, quieting when Mrs. McCall put a hand on her shoulder.

"How do we know skipping school wasn't your daughter's idea?" She asked defensively.

Mr. Argent glared, "My daughter-" He started loudly, cutting off as he caught sight of something behind them and sighing, "-Is right there."

Ms. McCall immediately turned and rushed toward the parking lot. Amber caught sight of her brother exiting the school and she held up a hand in signal for him to give her a minute, when he nodded and pulled out his phone, she turned to follow behind Scott's mom with wide eyes.

"Where exactly have you been?" Amber heard Ms. McCall yell as the girl approached the group.

"Nowhere, mom." Scott responded quietly.

"Nowhere meaning, 'not at school,'" His mom clarified angrily.

"I- Kinda." He told her.

"It's not his fault," Allison defended, "It's my birthday and we were-"

The girl was cut off when her dad reached them and pointed sternly to the back of the parking lot, "Allison. In the car."

Suddenly, there was a shrill scream from the other side of the parking lot and Amber's stomach dropped, immediately looking at Scott with wide eyes. He met her gaze with a matching expression of uneasiness.

People quickly began yelling and rushing around the parking lot, proceeding to get more frantic as the seconds passed. No one was sure what was happening, but fear spurred them on and people rushed to their cars, some tearing out of the parking lot quickly to get away from an unseen threat.

Scott began to wander away from the group and Amber followed behind him with a hand gripping his jacket, "Is the Alpha here?" She asked quietly.

"I don't know." He told her, tilting his head as he listened through the chaos around them.

Another scream sounded out loudly above the murmuring shouts and Amber flinched, releasing Scott from her hold. When she heard her name being called, she spotted Jason standing at their yellow car on the other side of the lot and he waved to her urgently but she held up her hand again, pleading with him to give her another minute.

There was a growl in the distance and Amber flinched again at the sound, though it didn't resemble the one she remembered from the night before. In the mayhem, she realized that she'd lost Scott, her friend no longer beside her, and she wandered forward, eyes alert as she searched for him.

"Allison!" Amber heard him yell from several yards away.

Amber rose onto her toes to watch as Scott pulled Allison out of the way of a car that was barreling through the parking lot, managing to save her only a second before she would have been hit.

Amber's heart thumped painfully beneath her ribs with adrenaline and the yelling around her only seemed to get louder with each second that passed.

There was another animalistic growl, louder this time, closer, and Amber gasped and spun around as she heard whatever it was dash past where she was standing between two parked cars. When she looked up, she spotted Sheriff Stilinski standing just to the other side of the vehicle beside her.

"Move!" He yelled at the group that was forming around the parked cars as he went to head in the direction the animal had gone.

Amber ran forward in time with her friend's father. As they reached the back of the car, she noticed the tail lights come on and her eyes went wide, reaching out toward Stiles' dad and giving him a small shove just as the car tore out of the spot in reverse and backed into her. She was slammed back several feet and down onto the pavement but the car managed to come to a stop before it could run her over entirely.

"Amber!" Mr. Stilinski yelled worriedly, "What were you thinking, kid? You okay?"

There was another loud growl in the distance and Amber's heart beat loudly in her ears while Stiles' dad grabbed her with one hand in hers and another on her waist as he pulled her to her feet.

Her elbow hurt from the fall and her left hip throbbed painfully where the car had rammed into her, but she didn't feel any serious injuries, "I-I'm fine." She told him breathlessly.

The man's eyes flicked back and forth between her hazel ones before he nodded and stepped back, looking around them at the ever growing chaos. Amber watched him reach down toward his shoe and pull a small gun from a holster he had hidden beneath his jeans at his ankle.

Just as quickly as he'd pulled out his weapon, there were two loud echoing gunshots from the other side of the parking lot. Mr. Stilinski covered Amber's head with his hand and pushed her down for cover as the girl let out a quiet yelp in fear.

A few moments later, Jason sprinted up to them and pulled Amber toward him. When his hand pushed on her hip she cried out at the tender spot and his eyes widened further, "What happened? Are you okay?"

"Yeah, I-"

"She got hit by a car." Mr. Stilinski told him over her head.

"What!" Jason asked frantically, "We should go to the hospital-"

"We don't need to go to the hospital. They just bumped me, I'm fine." She assured both men, looking between them, "I'm probably getting a bruise already, but I'm fine." She focussed on Jason, "But the gunshots- What-"

"The mountain lion," Jason told her, "It was wandering around the parking lot and someone shot it."

"I- A mountain lion?" She asked in surprise.

"Yeah," He said, "Probably the same one that killed that guy and scared you last night."

Amber looked between the men, seeing the relief on her brother but a look of confused disbelief on Mr. Stilinski that she was sure matched her own. Before she could say anything else, Jason thanked Stiles' dad for his help and pulled her under the safety of his arm, guiding her back toward the car.

"I feel like this should go without saying, but I don't think you should drive the car for a couple days," Her brother told her as they reached the yellow vehicle, directing her toward the passenger side with a gentle push.

Amber sighed but nodded, wincing when she bumped her sore elbow as she climbed into the car.

As her brother drove them home, she couldn't help but think how unlikely a coincidence it was for a mountain lion to wander into town and get killed while the Alpha remained conveniently out of sight.

Amber clicked Stiles' contact to call him the second she closed her bedroom door. She propped the phone in the crook between her shoulder and her ear as she attempted to peel off her tight jeans painfully. She was pulling on a tiny pair of shorts that had a loose waistband as he picked up.

"Amber, hey!" Stiles said casually, "Sorry I didn't get your calls earlier, I was trying to get a hold of Scott."

He sounded normal, which meant his father most likely hadn't gotten home to talk to him yet. Amber sighed as she sat at her desk and pulled out the Algebra II homework she'd yet to start.

"Don't worry about it." She paused, gnawing on her lower lip.

"So, did you talk to Scott at the parent-teacher thingy?" Stiles asked her after a moment.

"Uh, yeah, kind of," She said, "We, uh, didn't really get much of a chance to talk before all hell broke loose though."

"Hell? What hell?" Stiles asked, "What happened?"

"Mountain lion." She told him, "An actual mountain lion this time. It just showed up in the parking lot and everyone was screaming and panicking and it was... Insane."

Stiles seemed to have too much he wanted to say, releasing a series of small aborted noises on the other line before he spoke, "Wh- Well, what happened?"

"Well, everyone was running around terrified. It was just stalking between cars and growling and then your dad almost got hit by a car-" Stiles released a horrified noise and she continued quickly, "He didn't get hit." She reassured him before adding in a quiet voice, "I did."

"What! Amber I sw-"

"I'm fine!" She said for what felt like the hundredth time in the past twenty-four hours, "Apparently Chris Argent shot the mountain lion, and after that everyone kind of calmed down and we all went home."

"Okay, we can circle back to the mountain lion- You got run over by a car?" Stiles asked her frantically.

"I was not 'run over' by a car," She said with an eye roll, "I was clipped. Tapped. Grazed, if you will."

"You were grazed by a car?" Stiles repeated disbelievingly.

"Yes. I was." Amber confirmed.

"And where the hell was Scott when you were being grazed by said car?" Stiles asked in annoyance.

"He was on the other side of the parking lot. He barely pulled Allison out of the path of another car- I told you, everyone was panicking." Amber explained before sighing, "Anyway, I have a doctor's appointment first thing in the morning so I might miss the beginning of English- I'm not sure yet. I'm hoping it won't take long."

Stiles groaned, "A doctor's appointment? I thought you were only tapped?"

"I was tapped!" She defended, "I couldn't talk Jason out of it though. It was like, his one stipulation for allowing me to go to school tomorrow at all."

She heard Stiles sigh as she mindlessly solved a problem to find the vertical asymptotes of the function in her textbook. When she finished solving the equation and Stiles still hadn't responded, she set down her pencil.

"Look, as much as I appreciate your concern for my well-being, I have like twelve more problems to finish before my Algebra Two homework is done." She told him, "I'm gonna shut my phone off for the night, but I'll see you tomorrow, okay?"

"I- Yeah, alright." He agreed reluctantly, "Talk to you tomorrow."

"G'night." She smiled down the phone.

"Night."

The call ended and she powered her phone down with a sigh, leaning back in her chair and closing her eyes for a moment. There was a quiet noise behind her and she spun in her chair and jerked, nearly falling out of her seat.

"Jesus- Derek!" She exclaimed as she caught herself on the edge of her desk, "What are you doing here?"

Derek was in her bedroom, casually resting against her windowsill like it was a bench. He had put on clothes since she'd seen him that afternoon and he now wore a dark tshirt beneath his leather jacket.

"Well, I came to make sure you were alright after this afternoon. But from what I just heard, Kate wasn't the only one I needed to worry about almost killing you today." He said, raising his eyebrows at the red splotchy skin that poked out from the places where her tank top had ridden up and beneath her tiny shorts.

"It was an accident." She told him defensively, pulling her shirt down over her hip.

"I heard you tell Stiles you were hit by a car at the school." Derek reminded her.

"Grazed," Amber repeated, "I was grazed by a car. And I'm fine."

Derek shook his head at her and seemed to reluctantly drop the subject. He stood from the windowsill and stepped over to her desk, studying the bulletin board hanging above it and eyeing the many photographs of Scott, Stiles, and herself. He looked at them in silence for a minute before he pursed his lips.

"I also wanted to let you know I'm going to try to train Scott." Derek said before turning to face her.

"Really?" She asked excitedly, "Finally! That's great-"

"Try." Derek repeated, "I'm going to try. I don't know if I even can train a bitten werewolf."

Amber nodded, "As long as you both give each other a chance."

Derek nodded, turning toward the window and making to leave again.

"Wait-" Amber called quietly. Derek had one leg out the window and he turned to face her, "Are you okay?" She asked him, "After earlier. That woman-"

"Kate." Derek told her, "Kate Argent. She's Allison's aunt."

"Kate," Amber repeated, "She- She electrocuted you or tased you or something. And the things she said-"

"I'm fine, Amber." Derek said, "I already told you- I don't need you to worry about me."

"That's not going to stop me from doing it." She murmured softly, "I'm pretty sure I'm going to worry about you, regardless."

Derek seemed slightly stunned, still hovering half inside the window. It took him a moment, but he seemed to recover with a small shake of his head, "Just.. Be safe." He told her.

He ducked his head around the open window to leave and jumped to the ground, landing silently in the grass beneath Amber's window.

"You too." She mumbled to the empty windowsill after a few seconds.

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