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ghost-ghost-baby · 3 years

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I’ll put a spell on you (Yandere!Omega!Izuku x alpha!Reader)

inspo was strange and beautiful (I’ll put a spell on you) by aqualung

a/n: boy oh boy,,,, this one is uh,,, 2k words,,,,

Summary: You were taking too long! What could Izuku do except find a spell to help speed things along?

You and Izuku have been roommates for years, but you’re convinced he doesn’t like you and he’s determined to make you his.

warnings: big yandere themes,,, omegaverse obvi,,,, kinda drugging??? idk,,,, its a love spell but reader is already very in love w izuku just stupid aye,,,, very very mild nsfw themes,,,, cuts out b4 it gets too graphic, swearing, bonding, you get the picture,

“Seriously, Katsuki, you’ve gotten way too confident over the years. Was it because you needed a reminder of what it’s like to lose?” Your eyes scanned the blonde, eyebrow quirked as he struggled, “I can’t believe Shinso was right.” It was easy to block out the screams, your quirk always came in handy, even if it was just to shut him up, Rubbing your hands on your pants you turned around, eyes landing on the only other person.

“Oh, good luck Midoriya!” You grinned, giving a small wave before you ran off.

You saw more of Izuku after that, the omega always seemed to be upgrading his costume, and Hatsume had almost killed you when he’d asked you to help with the designs. It was hard not to get close to the guy, and you’d tried your best! You didn’t have time for… for people! You needed to focus on your inventions. But Izuku was persistent, and you’d soon found yourself sitting with him and his friends at lunch. You weren’t the only alpha of the group, Iida and Todoroki shared your dynamic, a fact that didn’t seem to bother anyone. You were glad, you’d never really cared about dynamics, it was nice to be around people who shared that sentiment. You’d all graduated now, and surprisingly you and Izuku ended up sharing an apartment, you did work in the same area, it made sense at the time.

“Are we still having dinner tonight?” Izuku peered into the bathroom, slight frown on his features as he observed you getting ready.

“Yeah of course man, it’s just a lunch date so I’ll be back early.” You shrugged, using your quirk to bring your jacket over.

“You could just ask me to get you your jacket.” Izuku shook his head, watching as the clothing floated over, bubble popping as your hand made contact.

“I know, it’s just a habit, I’ve always used it for little things.” You smiled as you put your jacket on, ruffling Izuku’s hair as you walked past. He was always fussing over you, or cooking, asking if you needed anything. It was cute, but you’d die before you admitted it.

“I’ll be back before you know it, text me if you need anything.” You absentmindedly pressed a kiss to Izuku’s hair, waving before the door shut behind you.

“And you’re sure this’ll work?” Izuku frowned as he flipped the bottle in his fingers, it seemed too good to be true.

“Just like the label says, omega, it’ll make anyone fall in love with ya! As long as there’s already a spark, of course! And it could trigger… their time of the month. So watch out for that!” The lady smiled at him, dark purple hair framing her face. Her eyes matched, although the purple was much, much brighter, and almost seemed to glow. Izuku nodded, grabbing the cash out of his wallet and quickly passing it over before he said goodbye. He didn’t want to be caught there, what would the press say? What would you say?

You ended up getting home late, much, much later than you planned. You’d run into friends on the way home, you hadn’t seen them in ages and well… you’d never been good at saying no. You’d texted Izuku, but he hadn’t responded, and maybe you’d stayed out later to avoid his wrath.

“God, I’m gonna have to do something to make up for this… something good.” You mumbled as you walked into your apartment, hands running through your hair as you looked around.

“Izuku? Honey I’m home!” You called, trying to lighten the tension you felt in the room. It didn’t work, and your heart was in your throat as you put your bag down. You hated disappointing people, and Izuku was always so good to you.

“There’s leftovers in the fridge if you want anything.”

“”Oh actually I’m uh… not hungry…” You trailed off as you walked into the kitchen, Izuku turning around from making something to look at you.

“Did you eat while you were out?” You must be crazy, there’s no way that was an edge to his voice.

“No actually! I just haven’t had any appetite lately.”

“You know you need to try and eat even when you have no appetite. I made tea.” Just like that his voice was back to it’s usual tone, and he sat down in front of you, pushing a mug towards you.

“Yeah I know. Thank you Izuku, you’re always so good to me. I’m so sorry about missing dinner but I ran into my friends coming home and they dragged me out and I’m sorry.”

“It’s okay Y/n, we can have dinner tomorrow, just finish your tea and we’ll get you into bed, okay?”

You were too drunk to disagree.

You felt weird when you woke up. You weren’t hungover, but something was wrong. Was Izuku okay? Wait, why were you- you should make sure he’s okay. You were only in a shirt, you didn't remember changing last night, did Izuku help you? You barely remembered anything after you’d come home, you’d just talked, drank the tea, and then it was blank. The tea had been really good, it was weirdly sweet though, you had to admit.

“Izuku? Are you awake?” You padded into the kitchen, squinting at how bright it was.

“Of course, it’s already two, I didn’t want to wake you up.” You sighed when Izuku was there, safe and happy as he always was.

“Are you okay?”

“Yeah, I’m just… hungover or something.” You slid into a chair, eyes trained on the omega as he pushed a banana and some water in front of you. “They’re good for hangovers.”

“Thanks ‘Zu”

“You’re going out?” You couldn’t keep the surprise from your voice, Izuku rarely went out unless he was working.

“Yeah just a work thing! I’ll be back in no time!” The omega came over to where you were on the couch, wrapped up in a blanket because you still felt off. “Unless you need me to stay?”

“No of course not! I’ll be fine, it’s probably just a bug.” You did your best to smile, letting your friend hug you. He was about to pull away when you let your cheek brush against his scent gland, the action making you blush while Izuku smiled.

“I’ll see you when I get back!”

This was awful, you’d been tortured, kidnapped, forced to deal with Katsuki, but this was far worse. You couldn’t explain it, but as soon as Izuku was out of your sight your anxiety had skyrocketed, and as much as you tried to fight it, you were pacing in front of the door. He should be back by now, or he should have texted! What if he’d gotten hurt, he didn’t tell you who he was going out with, what if-

“Yeah Todoroki I’m okay, he was worse off than me anyway!” Your heart soared at Izuku’s voice and you were wrenching the door open without a second thought. A snarl ripped out of you when you took in your omega, sporting a few grazes and a bruised jaw that had not been there when he left.

“What the fuck happened?” Your tone didn’t even sound like you, you sounded feral. Your hands quickly reached out, pulling Izuku into a hug and growling when Todoroki tried to say something. “You can leave, I’ve got him now.”

Straight to your room was where you headed, gently sitting Izuku on the bed before you grabbed your first aid kit. Thank god it was only light injuries, you didn’t know what you’d do if something worse had happened.

“Who did this?”

“Just some random alpha tryna get too handsy, he’s in far worse shape than- are you okay?” Izuku’s tone turned concerned as you let out another growl, halfway through bandaging his hand. You couldn’t speak, you just needed to focus on this and- huh? Izuku was running his fingers through your hair, the action almost made you purr, surprisingly calming you down enough to finish patching him up.

“I should have gone with you, I should have-” “Hey, Y/n, you couldn’t have done anything, it’s okay.” Izuku pulled you up to his level and you nodded, unable to stop how your hands shook. Izuku was so close, and he smelled so good, you just wanted to-

“Did you just lick me?” Izuku looked at you with wide eyes, only now taking in how lidded your own eyes were. A low growl bubbled up before you could stop it, and you were pushing the omega down on the bed and straddling him without a second thought. This had happened because of you. If you’d claimed Izuku sooner people would know he was yours, and he wouldn’t have to defend himself. Your teeth were an inch from Izuku’s neck when you pulled back, hand coming up to cover your mouth.

“I-I’m so sorry, I don’t know what-”

“I don’t want you to stop, please Y/n.” Izuku’s cheeks were tinged pink, and god why’d you have to sit right on his hips? You could already feel him getting hard.

“Oh god, did I send you into heat? Fuck I’m sorry, I’ve been on suppressants I didn’t real-” You started, it was taking everything you had not to lose it. Izuku looked so pretty, pupils blown out and cheeks already flushed. Why hadn’t you done this sooner? Fuck. You slowly leant down, willpower decreasing by the second, and then your lips were on his. A whimper left you at how good he tasted, you’d never tasted anything this good before! You wanted more! Izuku was made for you, this only proved it. You loved him so much.

Why did your neck hurt so bad? The last thing you remembered was Izuku being injured and you patching him up. A whine made you open your eyes, disbelief shooting through you when you saw Izuku. He was covered in scratches and bites, only wearing your shirt, and sporting a bright red bite on his scent gland. Oh fuck, panic set in as you sat up. This was bad, even for you. You'd done it now, he'd want nothing to do with you. God what had happened to you last night? You were always in control, and as memories of how Izuku had sounded the night before wormed into your brain you couldn't stop your whole body flushing. The omega let out another whine, snuggling closer to your side as if he could sense how stressed you were. Well, he probably could now, the two of you were bonded. You'd completely ruined his life with your selfishness, bonds were incredibly hard to break and the pair would never be the same again. But you couldn't make him stay with you. Oh he'd want to move out wouldn't he? How could he not? You'd completely betrayed his trust and acted like every asshole alpha you hated so much. You should move too, maybe to America? Somewhere far away where you wouldn't bother anyone. Warmth stung your eyes and you realised you'd been crying, how much more pathetic could you get? Izuku was the one who should be upset! You'd ruined his life! Arms wrapped around you as you let out a sob, immediately trying to push the omega away, maybe you should just kill yourself and sever the bond like that- Then at least he’d be able to find someone he actually wanted to be with.

“Alpha… why’re you upset…?” Izuku yawned as he sat up, and you couldn’t bring yourself to speak, or look at him. The worry you could sense through the bond made your stomach turn, you didn’t deserve his concern! You were horrible, you were-

“Alpha, c’mon, look at me… please?” Izuku’s voice broke and you turned to look at him, eyes zoning in on the mark you’d left on his neck.

“I’m sorry- I triggered your heat and- and betrayed your-”

“Y/n, I love you, I wanted this, you didn’t do anything wrong.” Izuku cooed, pulling your head to his chest and running his hands through your hair like it was the most natural thing in the world. It was like a weight lifted off of your chest, like all the puzzle pieces fit together, he was all you’d ever need.

“I love you too, Izuku.”

#omegaverse #omegaverse x reader #bnha omegaverse #bnha x reader #bnha imagine #omegaverse imagine #omega izuku #alpha reader #yandere izuku #yandere x reader #yandere bnha #omega izuku x reader #yandere izuku x reader

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the-bau-quinjet · 3 years

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Both of You

Tony x Reader based on this request!

Warnings: mention of nightmares

Word Count: 1803

a/n: This one makes me feel warm inside. We're just pretending Pepper does not exist because any mention of killing her off is too sad for me to deal with right now. Tony deserves happiness. Featuring The Best Day by Taylor Swift.

Also, I'm currently working on a Reid request, two Steve fics, and an idea I had for Bucky, but somehow this one was the one that got me motivated.

Masterlist

You were relaxing, aka being forced to recover from a gunshot wound before going on any more missions, on the couch in the living room for the third night in a row. To say you were absolutely bored would be underselling it.

You spent the past few days alone roaming the compound because everyone else was out on missions. Typically this would mean hanging out with Morgan, but Happy's been monopolizing her time.

You were just about to start another movie when your phone started ringing.

"Where are you?" The voice was desperate.

"Nice to hear from you Happy. How are you, today?" You sassed him back.

"Y/N, I'm serious." His tone put you on high alert.

"I'm in the main living room, what happened?" You sat up from the couch, ready to come to him at a moments notice.

"I'm in the elevator, I'll explain in a minute." He hung up before you could ask any follow up questions.

You were up and standing at the elevator in no time, anxiously awaiting Happy's arrival.

After what felt like an eternity, he emerged from the elevator carrying a sleeping Morgan in his arms. He walked past you to set her on the couch before explaining.

"May had a bit of an emergency, I need to go pick her up. She's fine, just a little shaken up. Can you watch Morgan?" You could see the lingering fear in his eyes.

"Of course. Please, let me know if there's anything else I can do!" You spoke in a fast whisper, getting the words out quickly but quietly to account for Happy already boarding the elevator and Morgan still asleep in the living room.

"I'll call you if anything else happens."

And with that he was gone.

You made your way back into the living room while trying to decide if you should bring Morgan back up to her bed. She would sleep better there, but you might wake her up on the way.

You were just about to pick her up when she let out a strangled sob.

"Morgan?" She still appeared to be asleep, but her face showed fear. "Morgan, honey, wake up."

You spoke gently while running a hand soothingly through her hair. Despite your best efforts, she woke with a start. Her little fingers balled into fists, tears pooling in her eyes before you could say anything.

"Morgan, it's okay! You're okay. I'm here." You gathered her in your arms to rock her back and forth. "You're okay. Everything's okay."

You continued rocking her back and forth while whispering words of affirmation until her crying stopped.

"I- I want my- my dad." She hiccuped.

"Oh sweetheart, he's not home right now." It broke your heart to disappoint her. "Do you wanna tell me when you dreamed about?"

She nodded slowly, but clung to your arms.

"I had a bad dream." You could tell she was till scared. "There was a monster and he took Peter away!" She was getting worked up again.

"Peter's fine, baby. Do you want me to call him?" You spoke softly while reaching into your pocket for your phone.

She nodded solemnly. "With video, please."

"Of course, honey."

It didn't take long for you to facetime Peter. You could only hope that he would answer on the first try. While it rung, you angled the phone against a candle on the table to include you and Morgan in the frame.

"Hi Ms. Y/N- oh! Hi Morgan!" Peter's cheerful voice rung through the living room.

"Hi Pete!" Morgan's voice matched Peter's cheerfulness, but you could still tell she was shaken up.

"See, baby. Peter's okay." You gently prodded her mind to accept that the dream was just that, a dream.

"Petey, I'm so glad you're okay! I was so scared." She ignored your comment, but you could tell the call was helping her.

"Oh Morgan, did you have another nightmare? I'm sorry! You can always call me whenever you need to. I promise." He did well to cheer up the young girl.

You sat back against the couch, just listening to Morgan and Peter conversing for the next hour or so.

"Alright, I think we've got to try to go back to bed now. Say goodbye to Peter."

Morgan pouted, but didn't put up much of a fight.

"Bye Petey! I love you!" She called happily, the nightmare all but forgotten.

"Bye Morgan, I love you too. Bye, Ms. Y/N!" Peter called out.

"Bye, Peter." You smiled as you hung up the phone. "Let's get you up to bed."

"Nooo!" She whined. "Can I just lay down here with you?"

You knew you were a goner the minute she started pouting. With a sigh, you easily gave in to her demands. "Yes, but you still have to sleep."

"Yay! Can you sing to me?" She laid down on the couch, putting her head in your lap.

"Sure, sweetheart. What song?" You began running your hand over her hair in an attempt to calm her down.

"The one about being 5 and having a good day!"

You let out a small chuckle at her description, but you knew the song she meant.

"I'm five years old, it's getting cold. I've got my big coat on. I hear your laugh and look up smiling at you, and run and run."

As soon as you started singing, she closed her eyes and stopped moving around. You didn't really believe her, but she's always said your voice makes her feel calm inside.

"Past the pumpkin patch and the tractor rides, look now, the sky is gold. I hug your legs and fall asleep on the way home."

You were so intently focused on Morgan, that you didn't hear the elevator doors opening and closing just down the hall.

*In the elevator*

"Someone's singing?" Steve phrased it as a question, but he knew he could hear it as the elevator moved up a few floors.

"Who?" Tony, although uninterested, asked.

"I hear it too!" Bucky chimed in, feeling weirdly at peace just from hearing the melody.

Everyone else in the elevator strained their ears to hear the voice, but came up empty until the elevator doors opened.

Slowly, Tony, Steve, Bucky, Nat, Sam, and Wanda piled out of the elevator.

"I don't know why all the trees change in the fall, but I know you're not scared of anything at all."

"Y/N..." Tony whispered, so as not to disturb you.

"Why would she be singing?" Wanda questioned. You always refuse to sing karaoke with them, so it doesn't make sense to her that you would be singing to yourself in the middle of the compound.

Suddenly, a much younger voice joined in on the song.

"Don't know if Snow White's house is near or far away, but I know I had the best day with you today."

"Hey, missy. You promised me you'd try to sleep. That means no singing, just listening." Tony felt his smile grow as you playfully scolded his daughter.

"Sorry! Sorry, I'll be quiet." Morgan promised.

The group of Avengers listened as you began singing again. They slowly made their way toward the living room, moving silently so you wouldn't hear them and stop singing.

"There is a video I found from back when I was three. You set up a paint set in the kitchen and you're talking to me."

Tony was just far enough past the doorway to peak over the edge of the couch. The sight of Morgan curled up in your lap made his heart flutter.

"It's the age of princesses and pirate ships and the seven dwarfs. And Daddy's smart and you're the prettiest lady in the whole wide world."

The entire group of Earth's mightiest heroes wore matching expressions of complete and utter adoration watching you sing to Morgan.

Tony silently gestured for the rest of the group to leave, ultimately staring them down until they did so. He watched as you sang the rest of the song, stroking her hair until she fell into a restful sleep.

"I didn't know if you knew, so I'm taking this chance to say: that I had the best day with you today."

You hummed a bit to ensure Morgan was asleep before you stopped singing entirely.

Tony realized you were going to pick her up, so he softly cleared his throat to gain your attention as he walked around the couch.

The soft smile on his face warmed your heart.

"Hi Tony." You greeted him as he picked up his daughter. "She'll be glad you're home." You decided to leave out the heartbreaking detail of her tears and broken cries for her father.

"Where's Happy?" He questioned lightly.

"C'mon, I'll tell you on the way." You grabbed Morgan's stuffed Iron Man from the couch and started toward the elevator.

"Happy had to go pick up May. He said she was fine, but it was some sort of emergency." You spoke quietly so as not to disturb Morgan.

"Thank you for watching her." Tony couldn't hide the smile that grew on his face at the thought of you and Morgan being so close. "Even if you kept her up way past her bedtime." He added playfully.

"She was actually asleep when Happy brought her down. He was probably going to take her with him if he couldn't find me." You felt yourself start to smile just from looking at Morgan in Tony's arms.

"What happened?" Your smile fell at the memory of Morgan's tear stained face.

"She had a nightmare. Something about a monster hurting Peter." You couldn't stop your eyes from welling up at the memory of how scared and upset Morgan was. "She's okay now though. We talked to Peter for a while on facetime. Well, Morgan talked to Peter. I just rocked her back and forth so she'd stop crying."

"My poor baby." He pressed a kiss to Morgan's forehead, lingering close to her. "Thank you for helping her with that."

"Of course, Tony. She's a brilliant little girl. You're doing a great job raising her."

You let out a small chuckle when you suddenly realized neither of you pushed the button for the residential floor.

Tony laughed as well when you leaned forward to push the button.

You walked with him to Morgan's room, helping to tuck her and her stuffed toy into bed. Just as you gently closed the door, Tony cleared his throat again.

"Y/N, I really mean it. Thank you for being there for her. It means a lot to me." Tony's face show a rare vulnerable side as he spoke. "You mean a lot to me."

"Oh, Tony. You mean a lot to me too." You glanced back at Morgan's bedroom. "Both of you."

Permanent taglist:

@averyhotchner

@jesuswasnotawhiteman

@strawberryspence

@sebastnstn

#tony stark x reader #tony stark x you #tony stark x y/n #morgan stark x reader #morgan stark x you #morgan stark x y/n #morgan stark fic #tony stark fic

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charliedawn · 3 years

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Pennywise 1990 X Reader X Pennywise 2017 "The Joke's On You" part 1

Part 2: https://charliedawn.tumblr.com/post/648205835225415680/the-jokes-on-them-part-2

"Ssssooooo..Why clowns ?"

Both of them look at you with a frown of incomprehension on their faces..

" Because of the fear."

They answer at the same time. Funny, its the first time you see them act so..alike. You mean, of course, they are big scary child-eating monsters..But they never seemed to be agreeing on anything, so when you ask the question, their looks and answers are so similar that it makes you think of another question.

" Also..Are you like brothers or something ? Related ? Father and son, or that can't happen with your kind ? You just eat children and do not produce them ?"

Penny, the tall ginger clown only crouches like a frog while the other one only looks at him with disgust.

" Yeah..Right..As if I would ever be related to that one..Nah. We're just hunting together now..Normally, he would not wake up at the same time as me, so we wouldn't really meet. But the idiot messed up his schedule while overstaying in order to kill some dumb kids and he woke up the same time I did !"

He glares at Penny who doesn't seem concerned at all by the way the other one is describing the situation. Even though it's quite offensive..The older one continues and looks at me with a repulsive snare at the idea.

" We don't produce children. Although, we never tried. We are mostly made of pure fear materialized only by the decaying flesh of our victims..We're supposed to be impossible to kill and we don't even know when we were born nor where. But, I remember that the first time I saw a human, many centuries ago, people mostly called us "Wendigos".."

You open your eyes wide in surprise at the news.

"Wendigos ?! So, that means you were humans before ?!"

The young one snickers and his yellow eyes glare at me.

" Humans ?! Ah ! What a joke ! They cry, love, betray, they only crawl on an endless path until they become old, ugly and die. This is why we eat them..They are of no use..They are dancing on a ball of dirt that they squeezed so much that it has no more to give..And you know what is the most ironic ? Is that they prefer to blind themselves more than face the truth..There is no beauty or originality in humans..Doves fly, dogs bark, dears run and even dolphins are more intelligent than you..Now tell me, why would the world need you, when we have the exact same talents in every animal that comes with the letter D ? I didn't even have to go out of my favorite letter to find every good thing you've ever done in animals that are not destroying their own habitat. What makes you so special ? What makes you think that you deserve living when all you do is destroy and hide the truth ?!"

It is the most you have ever heard Penny speak and even Pennywise seems shocked by his sudden outburst. Penny is so close to you that you can see his anger reflecting in his eyes. You try to not let fear show but, it's hard. You gulp and look at the ground in shame. He was right..What did you bring that no other living being ever did ? Humans were parasites and he smirks before returning at his crouching position.

" That's what I thought."

He whispers and Pennywise smiles almost proudly before hitting him in the back a little too hard since Penny growls.

" Wow. Didn't know you had it in you ! In all honesty, I never even thought about why I eat humans..I mean, we both know that human and animal food taste the same..But, for some reason, I always hated humans..Never really knew why and never cared enough to ask !"

He answers with a grin.

You frown then gasp in horror which both of them seem to notice since they turn their heads towards you in frightening synchronization.

" Wait ! Does that mean..You chose to eat humans ?! That you can perfectly live without their meat and just eat like normal people?!"

Pennywise answers with a grin.

" Come on..You should have figured it out by now..We don't really care about what we're eating, as long as it has flesh and fear : which animals and humans both have in common. But, as he said before, why choose them over you ?"

He looks at you up and down before adding with a large grin.

" Now that I think about it, if it wasn't for your rare quality of blood, you would already be a past meal.."

You shiver and he bursts out laughing.

Yeah..You remember..The only thing that kept you alive was you blood type..O- was, from what you had understood, sweeter ? Like some kind of cake or candy..This is why they wanted to keep you alive.."Saving best for last" as they had said.

Ah ! How lucky am I ?! You think.

You sigh and turn the other way to face anything else but the two clowns. At that moment, your foot hits something. You look down at the ground and are surprised to see some pencils. You glance behind you, but the other two don't seem to care about you anymore..for now. You get the pencils and look around for a surface to try them on and when you've finally decided, you walk towards it. You stop and close your eyes to visualise what you want to draw..Then, inspiration hits you and it's like your hands are dancing on the hard surface. You're so concentrated that you don't even notice the two creatures stopping whatever they were doing to look at you with confusion written all over their faces. You continue and seconds, minutes, hours pass. The two clowns, curious of what you are doing, now stand next to you silently, as to not break your concentration. They just look at your drawing from each side of you, their eyes wide, surprised and unable to find words to describe it. You are breathless, exhausted, but don't want to stop. If it was the last thing you would do, then let it be beautiful..Even if the only living things that would ever see it would be two nightmarish clowns that didn't give two shits about art or expression of oneself. When you finish, you are surprised to find two gloved hands on you drawing..You look at each side of yourself and see the two clowns, weirdly still and their eyes glued to your work. For a moment, you almost laugh at their, surprisingly, childish faces. They look like your young Art and Crafts students that you teach, always awed by whatever you would do.

But, what makes you smile the most, is that the first reaction they had was to touch it with their hands, as if the drawing had called them in. You sometimes had students like that, that could only understand Art by touching it. This is why whenever you would bring one of your works, you told the kids to do the first thing that came to their mind with it (as long as it wasn't tearing it apart or painting on it of course) Everyone had different reactions. Some liked to look from a far, some liked a closer angle and, as you had witnessed, some preferred touching it..But, what surprises you next is your own reaction. You grab one of the pencils and trace the shadow of your own hand on your drawing, as a proof. Then, you gently take Penny's hand that looks almost frightened by your touch, but he lets you hold onto his hand and do the same thing that you just did with your own. He giggles slightly as the pencil lightly "tickles" him and, to your surprise, his claws get out. He wants to retract them, nearly in shame, but you make it clear that it doesn't bother you while tracing the contour of his claws as well. When you are finished with him, you turn towards the older one that had already taken his hand off with a snicker.

" If it is a trick to impress us, it will not work, your hocus-pocus will not stop us from eating you..Anyway, I'm sure you have a knife hidden somewhere and only wait for me to let my guard down to stab me in the back."

You only answer with a sad smile of silent resolve while reaching for his hand.

" No trick. No hocus-pocus. No knife. Only me, your hand and a way to make you remember that, for a minute, I managed to make you feel something else than anger, hate or hurt.."

He frowns, visibly hesitant, before finally giving in with a childish grumble.

You finally trace his fingers on your colorful drawing, mixing the color of the rainbow and the greyish color that composed the colors of their suits. And, at the middle, all those colors forming one gigantic tree, that tree being your own personal touch..A tree that, maybe, will learn Penny that, even though humans destroy, they also create and Pennywise that, even though he lost any hopes concerning humanity, the particularity of the humans, the thing that makes them truly special are their hope. Because, even if animals are better than you in every aspect, they do not hope..And they do not have the imagination to create any other outcomes than eat or be eaten. This is maybe why the two clowns seem much more appreciative of those creatures than the humans ? Because they are much easier to understand ? You smile proudly at your little discovery. Like this tree, humans are made of so many different colors that it is difficult to find a pattern..Both of them said that they hated Humanity, but if it is true then..

" I may have understood why you chose to be clowns.."

They turn towards you : Penny with a side smile and Pennywise with an arked eyebrow.

" Oh ? And why is that ? You're gonna tell us that it's because we liked making people laugh when we were "humans" ?!"

The older one says, putting humans between brackets mockingly while the other one is cackling behind him. You smile again and shake your head while they come down to a sitting position; one on his favorite worn out leather chair and the other one on the dirty floor. They both look up at you expectantly, as if they are expecting you to read them a bedtime story..

" Well..I don't think it is about the form in itself, it is more about the colors and the fact that it symbolizes things that you never had when you were "humans".."

You say between brackets as to imitate Pennywise that is looking at you with another one of his signature mocking smile.

" What are you talking about ?! I am funny ! The funniest in town if you ask me !"

He says proudly, while Penny only rolls his eyes at his comment.

You shake your head again with a smile and even answer with a little laugh.

" No. Not that. You feed only from fear..Correct ?"

They both nod in unison and then, you ask a question that they had never even asked themselves before.

" Why only fear ?"

They want to answer that it is obvious, that it is stupid to even ask. But they have to admit it at the end, they do not know themselves. After a while, you answer for them.

" You do not feed on fear. But on faith."

They frown and Pennywise asks, confused.

" What do you mean ?"

You try to find words to explain your thinking and finally sigh, as it is no easy task.

" You feed on the only thing that you do not have, and that humans are the only ones to possess..Our faith and beliefs. We believe that there are monsters under our beds, then you take their appearance. In fact, I don't even know if you can transform in anything else than scary things, can you ?"

They look at each other before looking back at you and Penny is the first one to answer you.

" We never tried..and what for even ?"

You smile and get up, dusting your knees.

" Humans are afraid, but what they fear the most is losing their most cherished things. Try with me. Try to guess my most cherished thing on Earth.."

The two clowns seem interested by the idea and you can feel them trying to find your most precious memories. They already know your biggest fear..And in all honesty, after having seen it so many times, you aren't that scared of insects anymore. Now, let's see if they are as powerful as they say they are..

Penny transforms into a puppy and you smile tenderly while extending your arms in order to take him in your arms. But then, another head appears, then another, then another..

He returns to his normal appearance, almost as out of breath as you were before.

" I..I can't..stay in this form very long."

You nod understandingly and then, turn towards the oldest that only shrugs at the odd reaction of the young one. Pennywise seems to look at you with a little bit more seriousness, his hand scratching his chin in silent observation. You know that he is trying to figure you out and is taking the dare to heart. And, suddenly, his smile widens and his eyes brighten as he has a sudden epiphany and you frown in worry. What did he see ? Suddenly, he gets up and slowly walks towards you with a weird crooked smile, looking more smug than usual.

" If I have learned something about your kind is that you have one thing that you always bring up.."

You frown in incomprehension, what does he mean ? Suddenly, Penny smiles creepily and you shiver, he must have understood some kind of hidden message because you sure as hell didn't get the memo ! You smile awkwardly, your pulse racing and cold sweat start to form on your skin. Whatever he has in mind..You sure as Hell didn't know what it is, and that scares you more than anything..Pennywise backs you up against the wall of your drawing and smirks.

" I..I think we played enough..I'm tired..We can maybe continue tomorrow..?"

You ask, your heartbeats quickening and both clowns looking at you with bright yellow eyes. However, suddenly, both of them shout at the same time.

" Money !"

" Food !"

You open your eyes wide at Pennywise that gets out some coins from his pocket and you then turn towards Penny that just shouted food like it was some kind of good answer at a test. Tears start building up at the corner of your eyes and you sigh in relief before biting your lips shut, trying to contain your laughter.

Penny frowns at your expression and says in a small, almost childish, voice.

" Wasn't the point of the game to say one of the things you cherish the most ? Don't you cherish food ? Why are you crying ? Did I win ?!"

Suddenly, you start laughing uncontrollably and Pennywise answers him in a really angry voice.

" No! You didn't, big dummy! The game was transform, not yelling the answer at the top of you lungs like an idiot!"

Penny frowns and crosses his arms while pouting. But you answer through each giggle.

" You're wrong! Both of you!"

They look at you with wide eyes before growling.

" Then, what is the answer ?! "

Pennywise yells, frustrated and you answer.

" Love ! We value love ! Family, friends.."

Penny frowns and scoffs.

" Well, you're funny ! How do you transform into something you don't even know ?!"

You gasp, this is why he couldn't stay in the form of a puppy ! He didn't know how they truly acted towards affection ! You could have almost felt sorry for them if it didn't mean alerting their fear senses for food..But, you could try to find a way to get them to learn more about the true meaning of love.

Pennywise lets you go and sighs in defeat while turning towards Penny.

" Boy ! You don't have to transform into love ! You just had to take the appearance of something she wanted to love, dumbass ! Like I don't know, a human she know ?!"

You suddenly open your arms wide and they both look at you with widened eyes.

" What the heck are you doing ?"

Pennywise asks with a scowl and Penny only frowns, his eyes diverting on strange angles. You try not to think about the fact that you're going to try to hug two interdimensional demons and just wrap your arms around them. At first, you really thought one of them was going to shred you to pieces, but they become as still as statues.

" This is what humans call a hug. It's super effective and it is the first thing in affection."

Penny is still as a rock, and you even ask yourself if he is even breathing..Before remembering that he surely doesn't even have a heart. Pennywise is the first one to move and gets you off harshly. His eyes are of a wild red color and he looks in pain. He clutches his heart and growls animalistically at you. He then runs towards the exit and glances at you one last time.

" I am hungry. I'm going hunting..Penny, keep an eye on her ! If she even moves a muscle, eat her."

Penny seems to get back from his shock and only nods quietly.

When Pennywise is gone, your focus comes back on Penny that, you had noticed, had taken more distance between himself and you after your attempt at affection. As if he was..scared ? You try to approach him, talk or even apologize, but he only growls warningly at you and shows you his really sharp teethes..making you reconsider.

You tried to make them look at humanity from a different perspective, like at your drawing, but looks like nothing could be done..You'd die here. Anyway, the joke's on you since you were the one who thought you could change them..Silly you. Monsters will always remain monsters..Hope ? Who are you kidding ?! You lost that the moment you ended up in that damned sewer ! You start crying and, for some reason, your sobs catch the attention of Penny. He looks at you, then at his pile of toys, then back at you. He then begins climbing it and that makes you wonder what he is doing ? Is he leaving you ? Eat a rotten piece of child ? You have no time to wonder more as he quickly gets back on the ground and, with measured steps, approaches you with the same wariness as a wild animal. He then throws you something and gets back into his corner with a piece of a child's leg in his other hand.

He starts chomping on it and you look at what he threw at you..A music box ? You look at him quizzically and, after swallowing, he answers your silent question.

" Don't read anything into it. Your tears make me uncomfortable, so I got you something to keep you from doing that..If I eat you now, Pennywise would be angry at me for not sharing, and I have had enough of his loud voice for one day. Now, make this thing work. I want to listen to it, it has a nice sound and you have nothing else to do.."

You stay still for a moment before smiling softly at him.

" Sure..Thanks.."

You start playing the little music box and are surprised to see that it is the moonlight sonata of Beethoven..A beautiful music that invades the whole sewer with its melody echoing on the walls. You smile widely, at least something to remind you of the outside world.

Outside, Pennywise has his mind set on finding his next meal, but, suddenly stops in the forest and, weirdly enough, hears the song..Then, the pang in his chest that he felt before comes back and he can suddenly hear the words that an idiotic turtle called Maturin once told him before dying..

" Just because you bury something, that doesn’t mean it stops existing, Robert Gray. You can hide your heart, but someone will one day dig far enough to find it.."

Robert Gray..It had been such a long time that he had heard this name. At the time, he had only laughed mockingly at the old senile turtle..But now..Even Bob had felt it. No..Not Bob..Penny. They had chosen to never speak of those disgusting human names again. But then, she had showed up..They could eat her, never talk about it again, continue hunting children and living until the end of the world..She was human..They both knew that, she would grow old..tired..cumbersome and then die. But then, something else that the bothersome turtle had said comes back in his mind. One time, Pennywise had dared ask why the turtle loved humanity so much ? And he had answered something strange that Pennywise had not expected.

" Humanity has only scratched the surface of its real potential. Someday, you will understand why Humanity is so important, Robert.."

" My name is Pennywise ! The destroyer ! The eater of Worlds ! I have no sympathy for humans ! Whoever they are or whatever they do !"

He kept telling himself that, trying to convince himself but then..Why can't he believe his own words ? What was bothering him ?! Why did he feel this way after only talking for a few days to a simple human ?! Or..was it the tree ? The tree she had drawn ? Yes, there should have been some kind of trick behind it ?! She had tricked them as he had firstly assumed ! But then, why did he feel so out of control ? As if he was wrong ? Did the words of the turtle, for once, really made sense ? He closes his eyes and sighs before punching a tree and making it fall..No ! He wouldn't allow it ! He wouldn't allow the old turtle to make a fool out of him even after death ! He was going to kill her ! And that was a promise ! He was not going to let her question everything anymore ! He would shut her up ! No more idiotic questions: no more opportunities to manipulate his feelings ! Yes ! That would be it ! The idea of going hunting out of his head, he walks back to the sewer with a determined smirk. Yeah..We'll see who'll be the fool at the end..Maturin..

#pennywise #pennywise 1990 #pennywise 2017 #pennywise x reader #fandoms #horror movies #it movie

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pepethehobbit · 3 years

Text

It’s Not Living (If It’s Not With You)

3 times people wrongly assume Jens and Lucas are in a relationship and one time they’re right. (ao3)

“You have the present right?”, Lucas asks, probably for the third time in the 15 minute walk it took them from Jens's house to Robbe and Sander's new flat. Jens feels like he should be annoyed with the lack of trust Lucas seems to have in him, but he can't help the fond laugh that escapes his lips.

“Yes, Luc. I have the present. Would you chill? Why are you so nervous?” Jens places what he hopes is a comforting hand on Luc's shoulder and gives it a soft squeeze. It seems to work because the tension is visibly draining from Lucas' shoulders under Jens' touch. It makes Jens weirdly proud.

“It's the first time that I'm meeting all of your friends.” He must notice Jens' confused gaze and continues to explain before Jens can interrupt. “No, I mean like all of your friends. Of course I know the brothers and Sander, but I haven't met Jana yet, or Milan, or Luca or Zoe and Senne and I know that they are like super important to you as well.” Lucas feels like maybe he should say more but he stops there. Jens seems to read him perfectly anyway.

“And so what? You're afraid they won't like you?”

“No, I mean, yes kinda? To be honest? We've spent a lot of time together lately and I don't want them to think I'm holding you back from spending time with them.”

Jens tries to hold back an amused laugh but he is hugely unsuccessful in doing so and before Lucas can get the chance of being offended he tries his best to reassure him: “Leave it to you, Luc, that you actually think about stuff like that. Honestly, they will understand and they are going to love you and you them. You have nothing to worry about. Trust me.”

Lucas sighs but Jens can tell that he was at least a little bit successful in calming his nerves. It surprises him sometimes how easy it is for him to read him. Technically, they've known each other since elementary school. They were best friends, even before Robbe entered their little group but then Lucas moved back to the Netherlands when they were eleven and they lost contact. Once, out of curiosity, Jens looked for a Lucas van der Heijden on Instagram when he was sixteen, just to see if he would find him and maybe see what he was up to these days. When he actually found him a weird but not entirely uncomfortable feeling began to stir in his stomach as he hovered over the follow button. In the end he chickened out of pressing the button that would give them the chance to reconnect. The same feeling came back when he started uni three weeks ago and he felt someone tap on his shoulder when he was standing in front of the cafeteria with Robbe and the rest of the brothers.

Jens turned around, curious, and couldn't hold back his mouth from dropping in a really unflattering way, overcome with shock and surprise. “Lucas?”, Jens had asked, not really trusting his eyes. Lucas let out a small but pleased laugh and nodded his head excitedly in confirmation.

“What are you doing here?” Lucas continued to smile at him, but it turned into a teasing one when he looked around, surrounded by students and university buildings and answered: “Studying?”

Jens had rolled his eyes at that, he wanted to come back with something equally smart but then he remembered the others were still with him when he saw the confused faces of Moyo, Aaron and even Robbe, who didn't seem to recognize him right away. He introduced them to Lucas and from there on they basically spend every single moment together, either with the brothers or alone. They seemed to fall right back into that easy dynamic they had when they were still children but there was something else as well. At least for Jens, that easy dynamic came with an added need for closeness. Somehow, he really can't imagine a day where he wouldn't want to spend time with Lucas. It might have to do with the fact that when Lucas smiles at him with the bluest eyes he has ever seen Jens feels like something that has been missing from his life has been returned to him. Jens isn't ready to question this feeling yet, just like he is ignoring the way his stomach feels all fluttery and excited when Lucas attention seems to be solely on him.

Naturally, Robbe and Sander invited him to their housewarming party and Jens and Lucas have decided to go together. They even found a little present for them when they were out on a little tour of Antwerp, with Jens showing Lucas the city and all his favorite places. “Jens, I have lived here before, you know? I really don't need the tour,” Lucas has said when Jens suggested it. “Bullshit, Luc. That was ages ago. I need to show you all the good spots that we didn't know of back then.” Jens also took him to that little secluded corner by the Scheldt that he sometimes goes to when he wants to be alone. He hadn't even consciously thought about it in the moment, it just felt so utterly natural for him to show Lucas his hiding spot. Jens only really noticed that he did that when he was home again and replayed the events of the day in his head. He wondered only briefly about what that could mean and then he brushed that thought aside and just decided to text Lucas instead, asking when they should meet up at the skate park the next day.

Two weeks later, of which they had almost spend every day together, they're now on the steps of Sander's and Robbe's new flat, about to ring the door bell. Jens still has his hand on Lucas' shoulder, squeezes once again and asks: “Ready?”

Lucas nods and rings the doorbell that reads Driesen/IJzermans. They get buzzed in and on their short climb up to the first floor they could already hear the muffled sound of music and smell the smallest hint of smoke and alcohol. Jens and Lucas follow the sound and are greeted with an excited Milan, who opens the door at the end of the hall for them.

“Ahhh, Robbe! Sander!” Milan cries with a look inside the apartment, searching for the owners. He then turned around again, now face to face with Lucas and Jens who have arrived at the doorstep, standing next to each other with their shoulders and arms touching all the way. If Jens were to reach out with his fingers, they would brush against Lucas'. “Another couple to make me feel sufficiently single tonight, how nice. Robbe told me all about you two. Come in, come in, the lovebirds are probably in the living room somewhere.”

It's not exactly the word “couple” that makes him freeze on the spot and it's also not the thought about what Milan means when he says Robbe has told him about them. It's more the way he can feel Lucas tense immediately next to him and then not at all as he takes a step sideways to create some distance between them. Hurt flashes through him for a second, hurt at the thought that Lucas is ashamed at the thought of them together. But then he thinks about the fact that Lucas hasn't been out that long, a fact he told him when Jens took him to his hiding spot. Maybe, Jens thinks, it's an unconscious reaction Lucas makes whenever people assume the one thing about him he tried to hide and suppress for so long. Maybe he just isn't ready to be openly affectionate yet even if they are just friends.

Lucas and Jens haven't moved from their spot in the doorway and Milan eyes them curiously. “Are you coming or what?”

“We are not a couple. Lucas is just a friend,” Jens clarifies finally. He hopes he is sufficient enough in hiding his disappointment.

“Yeah, what exactly did Robbe tell you?” Lucas asks with a laugh, but it sounds forced.

Milan seems still really confused and skeptical. “He told me about how Jens doesn't have time for him right now, because he met you and now spends all his time with you. He said, and I quote 'They can't get enough of each other.' Are you sure you're not together?”

Jens has to will the blush away that threatened to spread at Milan's words. Although it definitely wasn't in the way Milan implies, they did spend almost every minute of every day together. He woke up with thoughts of Luc, texted him to ask if he has time, they hung out all day and at night in bed he would think about the day and how happy he is that Lucas is back in his life. But now, when he looks over at Lucas, he seems to be uncomfortable with what Robbe had said and Milan interpreted the wrong way.

Probably firmer than he really needs to, but hoping it makes Lucas more comfortable about the situation if he dispels all possibilities of them being together, he says: “Yes. We are pretty sure we are not together. Lucas and I were best friends when we were young. We just had a lot to catch up on these last few weeks.”

With that, Milan lets them off the hook and they finally step into the flat. He still doesn't seem to believe them, Jens knows Milan well enough to see that he is not convinced there is nothing between Luc and him. Jens doesn't try to think about it too much. He also tries to direct his thoughts away from the feeling of disappointment that Lucas is so uncomfortable at the thought of them together. The nagging feeling at the back of his throat tells him he knows why he feels that way but he also doesn't want to investigate it further, because his disappointment will only turn into hurt. He tries his best to stay oblivious to the storm inside his head that Milan's words and Lucas's reaction have caused. He isn't ready to admit it and the party is the best way to distract him.

They find Robbe and Sander, give them their present and Jens introduces Lucas to all his other friends. Jana eyes him curiously when he talks about Luc, but he stores that away with the rest of his thoughts concerning his childhood friend. The party is fun, they dance all night and drink even more and Jens nearly forgets all about the things he should probably start thinking about.

It's been a few weeks since the housewarming party and they have yet to talk about the whole “Milan thought we were together” fiasco, and remembering how uncomfortable Lucas seemed at the idea, Jens is scared to bring it up. So they ignore it. It's not like it's a big deal anyway. Milan thought they were together and they cleared that misunderstanding, setting everything straight. There is no reason for Jens to still think about it as much as he does, failing at ignoring it entirely. He tries his best though, tries to ignore the warm fuzzy feeling when he thinks of Lucas as his boyfriend, how proud he would feel if he could actually get to introduce him as such, how nervous and excited he still gets every time they hang out together, how he can't stop staring at his lips when Lucas doesn't notice, how he daydreams about covering those lips with his own, how he just wants to reach out and touch, how he drowns in the bluest eyes in his dreams nearly every night.

“So what do you think? We could combine it with a trip to Utrecht to see my friends?” Lucas asks, snapping Jens out of his sad attempt at ignoring thoughts about the boy right next to him.

“What?” Jens answers confused but Lucas only huffs a laugh. “Honestly, Jens. Where is your head at recently? Have you been listening to anything I have said in the last five minutes?”

Jens tries to think about what they have been talking about, sitting at the familiar spot at the Scheldt that has already kind of become their spot since Jens has shown him his hideout. He comes up with a blank, confused about himself that he got so lost in his head trying and failing not to think about Lucas that he can't even recall what the real one just said to him. He feels how Lucas scoots a bit closer to him on the blanket they share and from the corner of his eye he sees him raising his hand. Jens is still surprised however when that hand is placed gently on his temple, a smooth thumb easing away the crease between his eyebrows. Lucas' touch is soft and careful and Jens tries to ignore the feeling of wanting Lucas to touch him like this all the time, until he's not careful anymore but sure and secure in his movement, because Lucas has done this a million times before. But with so many things concerning him, Jens is widely unsuccessful.

“Hey, are you okay, Jens?” Lucas' voice is soft and low, flowing over with real concern and it's causing a small flutter in Jens' stomach.

“Sorry, I spaced out. I think I'm just tired,” Jens lies and he can see that Lucas doesn't really believe him. But before he can say anything Jens turns to him with a loud exhale and asks: “What were you talking about?” Lucas eyes him skeptically for a moment but something in his voice must have given Lucas reason to not push further.

“I was saying that Kes and Jayden have two spare tickets to see The 1975 in Amsterdam and I was wondering if you wanted to come with me? We could make a weekend trip out of it. Go to Utrecht on Friday, you could meet my friends and on Saturday we all take the train to Amsterdam and leave for Antwerp again on Sunday. What do you think?”

Lucas sounds so obviously excited about it and Jens is honored that he wants him to meet his friends and go to a concert of his favorite band with him. It's not really Jens' favorite band, but Lucas has shown him some songs that he really loves and listens to all the time now. So he replied with the only possible answer: “I would love to.”

The answering smile he gets from Lucas is tugging at his heartstrings and as he smiles back just as excited he really hopes that this boy is not going to break his heart.

When Jens gets home after it had started to rain, after they scrambled for their skateboards and the rest of their belongings and after they skated through the summer rain to their respective homes, out of breath from laughing, Jens changes into comfy and dry clothes and throws himself on his bed, exhausted from the emotional turmoil of the day.

So ignoring isn't really working out for him, Jens notices. But is there an alternative? He can't just go up to Lucas and tell him that he wants to be more than friends. Especially thinking about the tenseness of Lucas' shoulders when Milan referred to them as a couple. For now, he probably can't do much more than to accept that he has feelings for Lucas and hope that they will fade with time, because it doesn't look like Luc is going to return these feelings anytime soon. It's gonna be hard, but that's better than not having Lucas in his life at all.

It's only been a little over a month ago since they met again and Jens already can't imagine a life without him by his side, is confused for a second when he thinks back to outings with the brothers and realizes that Luc wasn't with them. Lucas just fitted himself so perfectly into Jens' life, made himself comfortable and decided to stay. Jens can only hope that Lucas keeps that decision when his feelings will eventually go and ruin everything.

+++

The queue to the venue where they're about to see The 1975 is pretty long. Next to him Lucas bemoans the fact that they will probably get really shit places to see them on stage. He wants to reach out, pull him in a hug or just comfort him somehow, but with Kes and Jayden there he feels weirdly watched. They, Kes especially, have already given Jens some knowing looks during their visit and Jens isn't sure how to interpret them, because sometimes they are accompanied by what Jens guesses are supposed to be meaningful looks towards Lucas. Who mostly ignores them or he just really doesn't seem to notice.

“Oh come on, stop whining. Whose fault was it that we missed the first train because someone couldn't decide on an outfit to wear?” Kes says with a gentle punch to Lucas's shoulder.

“It's my first time seeing them live, I wanna look good.” Lucas replies in a sulk.

“You do.” Jens says before he could even think about it, it just slipped out. The urge to compliment and reassure Lucas is like a reflex he can't control. From of the corner of his eye he can see Kes smile knowingly again but he is more focused on the way Luc's eyes snap up to his, as if searching for something, but then he shakes his head slightly and simply says: “Thanks.”

“Guys, come on! We're about to see our favorite band! Stop complaining. It's gonna be awesome, even if we won't actually see what's going on,” Jayden exclaims excitedly, pulls all three of them into a group hug and ruffles every mop of hair he can possibly reach. Lucas pushes him away with a fond smile, tries to set his hair right again and Jens finds himself thinking that his curls look just as good when they're a little bit messy. He wants to run his hand through them himself, just to see if Luc is still as pretty with even messier hair. Jens wonders if his hair is even more disheveled in the mornings, if he ever gets a chance of seeing it, of being the reason for it.

“Look, the queue is moving up,” Kes notices and they all move up a few meters until they have to stop again. This goes on for another half an hour, in which they talk and speculate which song they are going to open with and in which Jens tries really hard to get his thoughts about Lucas under control, because if he doesn't he is sure he will slip up again and say something that he can't take back.

They are finally at the entrance, Kes and Jayden are in front of them, already showing their ticket to one of the ticket inspectors. Lucas has just grabbed his hand to pull him along and when he shows his ticket to the inspector he hasn't let go of Jens yet. Both of them are kind of surprised when the inspector says to Lucas: “And your boyfriend's ticket?”

Lucas drops his hand immediately, as if burned and even flinches a good foot away from Jens. “He is not my boyfriend,” and his voice sounds like he is in panic and Jens tries really hard not to feel the hurt washing over him.

“Well, I still need your ticket,” the inspector says calmly and turns his gaze towards Jens. While handing the ticket over he chances a look at Lucas and it looks like he would rather do anything else than to meet Jens' gaze.

They walk inside in an awkward tension after the security guy cleared them. Jens hates it, things have never been that weird between them. He hates having to second guess his every move, he just wants to get back to the beginning, where everything felt natural with Lucas and he wasn't aware of his feelings. Because being oblivious hurt way less than this. Being aware means he can see the tension in Lucas shoulders and that weird sort of forced smile he now gives Kes and Jayden who wait for them near the entrance. Being aware means that he he sees how glad Lucas seems to be that they are here to distract from the situation so Luc can avoid talking about it. Jayden immediately ropes him into a conversation about a pretty girl he saw. Jens knows that Lucas couldn't care less about his friend's weird attempt at flirting, at least under normal circumstances. Because right now he seems very eager to support Jayden instead of giving him one of his usual sarcastic and teasing comments.

If Jens was feeling less for him he probably would've been able to just brush it off with a joke and a bro like punch to his shoulder as soon as it happened. But he couldn't react fast enough because the first thing he felt was the sting of rejection when he heard Lucas's panicked voice. He tries his best now to be part of the conversation happening around him, to not focus on Lucas as much anymore, but instead to copy some of Kes' relaxed aura and stealing some of Jayden's excitement about the concert.

As soon as Lucas notices that Jens isn't going to approach the subject he seems more relaxed as well, seems to be able to meet Jens' gaze again and not duck his head like he is still embarrassed but seems genuinely happy that he is here with him. And when Luc's favorite band finally gets on stage after a mediocre supporting act he tugs at Jens' hand excitedly, lets out a happy mixture between a laugh and a squeal when they start with Chocolate and Jens thinks that if he wasn't aware of his feelings for him before, this moment would have done it. He is singing along loudly and off key and dancing and smiling so happy and carefree and Jens falls even more in love with him. When they play It's Not Living (If It's Not With You) Lucas turns to look at him and seems momentarily surprised when he finds Jens' eyes already on him. But then he just smiles in a way Jens has not seen directed at him before, turns his head back to the stage and continues singing along with that same smile on his face. Something like hope blossoms in Jens' chest and he wants to reach out and take Luc's hand in his. He doesn't. In the end he is just happy that even though the evening started with awkward tension between them, it still turned out to be one of the best nights he has ever had.

It's been nearly a week since the concert which is also the last time they have seen each other. That glimmer of hope that Jens developed that evening died down pretty quickly when Lucas turned down every offer of hanging out with him this last week. He said it's stuff he has to do for Uni and then there was apparently some drama with Kes and it all sounds like made up excuses to avoid Jens.

Despite his slight annoyance and hurt that Lucas can't just talk to him about what ever is bothering him he tries asking him one last time because he really could use his help tonight. It's Lotte's birthday tomorrow and he promised her a cake. Not one you could easily buy from a store, but one he makes from scratch, with his own hand. In hindsight, he really should've resisted Lotte's puppy dog eyes because Jens knows only one thing about baking which is that it's not just a simple thing of following the recipe to get something resembling a cake. What he does know though, with 100% certainty is that Lucas loves to bake.

To Lucas Hey Luc I know you're probably busy but tomorrow is Lotte's birthday and I promised her a cake. Could you come over? I'm freaking out about this and I don't know shit about baking.

To Jens' surprise he actually gets a reply only a few seconds later.

From Lucas Sure. You already have a cake in mind? We could make a funfetti. Lotte will love it and it's pretty easy. We could meet up at the supermarket at your corner for the ingredients?

To Lucas You are a lifesaver! See you in twenty?

From Lucas I'll be there.

+++

It was kind of nerve wrecking for Jens to spot Lucas skate up to him after a week of not seeing him, which has been the longest time without real contact since Lucas tapped him on the shoulder nearly two months ago. He feels like they had a moment at the concert but then Lucas has ignored him all week and now he doesn't know what to feel. It's a bit awkward at first because neither of them said anything except a quick “Hey” in greeting. Jens just kept looking at him, couldn't not when he hasn't seen him all week and Lucas has kind of just kept looking back. It made Jens' inside feel like jelly and he had to break away from his gaze before he could blurt out something that he couldn't take back.

It was easier once they were inside, both glad about a task to distract them from the tension, as mundane as it may be. Once they start actually shopping for the things they need, they fall back into their comfortable dynamic pretty quick, the tension giving way to easy familiarity. Lucas is teasing him about his inability to bake and Jens acts fake offended until Luc gives him an overly dramatic “You can be glad to have me”. Jens is barely able to hold back the answering, and way more serious sounding “I am”, doesn't want to risk slipping into awkward tension territory again. Lucas leads him through every aisle in the supermarket, making sure they don't forget anything and Jens thinks about a future where this is a regular occurrence: Lucas turning grocery shopping or other simple every day life things into something special by simply being there with him. He tries to stop these thoughts as soon as they enter his brain though, they will only hurt him more, because he knows it's not the same for Lucas anyway.

When they are at the cash register and have put everything on the conveyor belt Lucas suddenly goes wide eyes, turns to him, grabs his hand, squeezes once and says: “Shit, we forgot something for our cake. I'll go grab it real quick. Be back in a second.” With an apologetic smile to the cashier, he lets go of his hand and jogs back into the direction they came from. Kind of surprised from the suddenness of the action he stares after Lucas and then at his hand that still tingles in the places Lucas' fingers have brushed him. Shaking himself out of it he starts to pack away the things the cashier has already scanned and waits for Lucas' return.

The cashier notices him first though. “Oh, you're boyfriend's back,” she says, making Jens' head snap back up in surprise to find Lucas only a few meters away, halting in is fast steps, eyes going wide in shock before turning into something closed off Jens can't decipher. He definitely heard what the middle aged lady has said and when he is at Jens' side again he hears him repeat the words that have caused him the same hurt just a week ago: “He is not my boyfriend.” It's accompanied with an uncomfortable and forced fake laugh and Jens tries his best not to feel the disappointment because he has already expected this reaction, couldn't have expected something different because he really isn't his boyfriend. But the obvious discomfort in Lucas whole body language still hurts.

“Oh,” says the cashier with a confused expression. “I'm sorry, my bad. Looked liked you were.”

Jens should probably say something as well because this is getting awkward as hell and Lucas looks more and more uncomfortable. He decides not to comment on it though and just asks the cashier for the total after Lucas has already added the missing ingredient to the belt.

After paying and walking out of the store Lucas turns to him and says: “Well, that was awkward as fuck, right?” It's the first time he acknowledges one of those incidents and it's with another one of those forced fake laughs.

“Yeah, fucking weird,” Jens tries to mimic the laugh but it sounds off and sad even to himself. Luc punches his arm gently, an attempt at restoring the easiness between them and says with a fake chipper to his voice: “Come on, lets go home and bake that cake.”

Jens turns around and points to his bike that he came with and then looks pointedly at Luc's skateboard. “For old times sake?” Jens asks and hopes it works to further relieve the tension. This time Lucas' spreading grin is honest and he nods excitedly in agreement. So he gets on his bike and Luc on his skateboard, while holding on to Jens' shoulder and they ride off. It's something they've done all the time as kids, depending on who brought their bike. They would just ride around in the neighborhood or to the skate park, trying to go as fast as possible while one of them pulls the other along on the skateboard.

Once Jens reaches more speed he feels how Lucas clings more tightly onto his arm. He turns his head, following the sound of Luc's laughter and lets the happiness of this moment flow through him. When Lucas turns his head to look at Jens the laughter fades out but it's replaced with that damn smile again, the one from the concert and it makes Jens' heart skip a beat. But Jens doesn't have enough time to think about what this means if he wants to avoid an accident.

They arrive at Jens' home about five minutes later and head directly into the kitchen. Luckily, Lotte is at her friends house and his mum is still at work, so they have the house to themselves. The second they enter the kitchen Lucas is in full on The Great British Bake Off mode, tells Jens what to do, which appliances to get and to preheat the oven to 180°C. Jens can't help himself but to find it endearing. He continues to smile at Lucas in a way which is possibly way too soft until Luc turns around, raises his eyebrows expectantly and asks: “What is it?”

Jens' smile turns into mixture between bashful and amused. “Nothing,” he replies and before he can hold it back he adds: “You're cute when you're bossy.” With the way Lucas' cheek turn a pretty shade of pink and the way he can't fight the small smile that is tugging at his annoyed expression Jens can't even bring himself to regret it.

Although that changes when the next thing he sees is flour being thrown directly into his hair. “Oh no you didn't.”

The laugh Lucas lets out is happy and free but his tone is challenging when he replies with “Oh, I absolutely did.” He also raises his eyebrows as if to ask Jens what are you gonna do about it. Not backing down from a challenge and still holding eye contact with Lucas, he blindly reaches for the flour, gets a small handful and dumps it unceremoniously on Luc's hair as well.

Before Lucas can reach for the flour again Jens tries his best at stopping him from making even more of a mess of him. He grabs his wrists but Lucas is faster and Jens ends up with white powder all over his shirt and pants. From then on he doesn't really know what happens, they both reach for each other, grab at their arms and wrists and waists to try and get flour all over each other. The air is filled with their laughter and breathless exclamations of stop and the next thing Jens knows is that in an attempt to stop Lucas from throwing flour all down his back he acts before he thinks and steps right in front of Luc, basically trapping him against the counter.

He is still a little breathless when he meets Lucas' gaze but for an entirely different reason now. They are closer than he anticipated, their noses nearly brushing and Jens can see the little specks of flour that have caught on Luc's eyelashes. He feels how his eyes drop down to Luc's lips, just for a millisecond and he should step back, knows that he should but he can't will his feet to move even just an inch. Lucas doesn't seem to be in rush to get out of the situation either and it makes Jens feel brave. He raises his hand and lets his thumb swipe gently over Luc's eyebrow down to his nose, then his cheekbone and lastly his chin under the pretense to get rid of some flour on his face. He can hear Lucas' breath hitch and it makes his pulse beat even faster than it already does.

But then Lucas is pushing him away, not exactly firm but not exactly soft either. He clears his throat, shakes out his hair and says: “We should start baking. Good thing we bought two packs of flour, right?” He turns his back towards Jens but he can still hear the shakiness in his voice. Jens knows Lucas well enough to know that it probably would be a bad idea to push now but he can't just ignore it. He needs to know what is holding him back.

“Luc? Why do you seem so uncomfortable when people assume we're together?” He sees Lucas' body freeze at the question and he hates that he can't see his expression as his back is still turned towards him.

After a couple of second Lucas seems to try it with denial. “I don't know what you mean.” Jens wants to get annoyed but showing it would probably make Lucas close up even more. But that doesn't mean that Jens is ready to give up. He goes to stand next to Lucas but he resists the urge to reach out and touch.

“Well, the first time with Milan I literally felt you tense up and for the first hour of the party you were really weird and tensed up every time I reached out for you. The second and the third time your voice was literally filled with panic at the idea of people thinking we're together. I don't mean to sound so judging but what is so bad about the thought of being with me that you can't just laugh it off? Is it because I'm a boy? I mean -”

Lucas suddenly turns around and his expression reads a mixture of anger and annoyance. “Oh come on, Jens. I'm gay. Of course it's not because you're a boy.”

Jens can't help himself to keep the annoyance from his own response: “Well, what is it then? If it's not that, then it's me, right?” He can see the anger draining away from Lucas' face and being replaced with a conflicted kind of expression. “Yes,” he finally answers quietly and Jens feels himself take a step back as if he had been physically punched in the gut. That's what it feels like at least. It's his turn to turn his back on Lucas, not ready for him to see how much this actually hurts him. But then he feels a hesitant hand on his arm and a soft voice saying: “But not in the way you think right now.”

It fills him with enough hope to turn around again and he finds Lucas stepping even closer than before. He takes a deep breath and looks intently and earnestly in Jens' eyes. “It's not you that made me uncomfortable or the thought about being your boyfriend. Believe me, that is as far away from the truth as possible. It was more the thought that other people, strangers even, could so clearly see what I was trying to hide since the moment I met you again. I was trying so hard not to fall for you but you make it so goddamn easy, Jens! And I hated the thought that I was so obvious about it. It made me uncomfortable that you would figure out how I feel about you, especially because I thought there would be no way that you could ever feel the same.”

Jens heart is beating out of his chest and he falls even more towards Lucas during his confession, as if pulled in by a magnet. He raises his hand and places it on Luc's neck, beginning to play with the curls that he can reach. “But I do,” is all that he is able to reply.

“I'm beginning to understand that.” Lucas says with a smile and Jens' eyes flutter shut as soon as he feels Luc's nose brush against his own. He tilts his head and holds his breath when he feels the first brush of their lips. Lucas makes this small little contented noise and Jens positively melts against his chest, parting his lips to invite him in. Where Lucas' fingers softly dance up Jens' arm and into his hair a trail of goosebumps is left behind, despite the relative warmth in the kitchen, heated up by the summer sun shining through the window. He feels Luc's other arm wrap around his waist to pull him even closer and Jens can't help the smile that's breaking out on his face, too giddy with the fact that he is actually kissing Lucas.

He decides that feeling Lucas' responding smile against his lips is nearly as overwhelming as actually kissing him. Lucas pulls back a little bit and Jens knows that his smile can be described as dopey but that's no reason for Lucas to break out laughing. “Why are you laughing?” Jens asks amused and with a happy smile that he can't seem to shake.

Lucas stops laughing enough to answer but when he meets Jens' eyes he starts again. The sound makes Jens' heart skip a beat and he thinks that he would give anything to see Luc as happy as he is right now. He is also weirdly proud of being the reason for it.

Instead of explaining what it is that is so funny to him right now, Lucas simply reaches up towards Jens' hair and gives it a good ruffle. A big puff of white powder rains down around Jens and suddenly he is reminded of the situation which got them into this in the first place. He looks down at himself, down at Lucas, looks at the entire mess they made of the kitchen, meets Luc's gaze and they double over laughing at the same time.

Once they calmed down enough Jens reaches for Lucas again and it already feels so right and familiar how he fits against him. He presses his lips against Luc's in what was planned as only a little peck but Lucas immediately tightens his hold on him and begins to softly moves his lips. Jens pours everything he hasn't yet said into the kiss and with the way Lucas keeps kissing him he thinks that he understands what Jens wants to say.

“Ahem,” makes a voice behind them and Lucas starts to pull away from Jens' lips to see who was trying to get their attention. It's Robbe's birthday and they're currently on the balcony leading of the kitchen when they turn around and see Milan standing opposite of them with an amused expression.

“Please tell me that you sorted some shit out, because that's definitely not how friends act.”

Lucas and Jens turn towards each other and can't help the smile that is spreading across both of their faces. They turn back to Milan, whose expression has gone soft and knowing, and Lucas responds with: “Yeah, we got our shit together. I'm pretty sure that he is my boyfriend now.”

“Great, now there really is another couple to make me feel more single,” Milan says, but his face betrays his disappointed tone. He positively beams at them and when he turns around to leave again he makes a waving motion and says: “As you were.”

Jens turns to Lucas with a teasing smile and wiggles his eyebrows suggestively. Lucas rolls his eyes as if annoyed but he still leans in and against Jens' lips he whispers: “You're lucky I love you.”

It hasn't been that long but Jens can't imagine a time in their future where the words won't make his heart beat faster, can't imagine ever getting used to the feeling of experiencing Lucas' love. Jens leans in and before he closes he distance between their lips for good he whispers back: “I love you, too.”

#vds #van der stoffels #jens stoffels #lucas van der heijden #my writing #I found out way too late that the song is about the singers drug addiction but then it was too late to change ot #*it #sooo please ignore that hahah #it was meant to be romantic I guess?#well anyway #I hope you enjoy

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emilycollins00 · 3 years

Text

Watching over you (Sakuya centric)

I’ve been working on this for so long honestly at one point I didn’t know if it would ever see the light, but thankfully here it is! 💕

She believes she would recognize his smile even if she lost her sight. Even if she couldn’t touch him anymore and all she could do was listen. Because when he does it, his sounds are bubbly light and silky, tickling her skin. And when he pouts, on those rare occasions, they’re sharper and a bit of a mess, but she adores it nonetheless.

His son had his husband’s smile, that was unquestionable. She knew the moment she laid her eyes on him on that spring afternoon, cherry and chubby cheeks making way to match his hair. The first time Sakuya laughed-actually pretty soon after being born, like he’d been awaiting impatiently all those months inside her belly- she distinguished that familiar brightness and peace. It was no wonder he was a spring baby. She clutches him tightly against her chest, and wonders if she’ll ever feel sad again.

“Good sleeper as always” a man remarks, entering the living room “He gets that from you, you know”

“Let’s cross fingers he stays like this when he starts growing up too” she chuckles, and he joins, looking at his son with yearning. Sakuya might look almost like him, but from what he had learnt, he definitely takes more after his wife in terms of personality. He is curious and gentle, just like her.

He sits down on the sofa resting with them, and she leans in. Sakuya is still fast asleep, but she has this sudden, selfish wish to wake him up, just to enjoy those big crimson eyes- one of the few physical traits similar to her- again.

“Our little miracle” she hears his husband whispers. The words hit her as shaky, like a soft earthquake. She turns to look at him and finds his cheeks wet. He tries to move away so the tears don’t hit the baby, but a few still fall on her.

“He has your smile, did you notice?” she says.

He wipes his eyes, smiling embarrassed while Sakuya squirms, curling his tiny fingers around the blanket that they picked a few weeks before he was born.

It's not been that long since Sakuya entered in their lives. But both know him already like a part of themselves. Every strand of hair. Every like and dislike. And they’ll learn more and more about him, for the rest of their lifes, and his. Even when they are gone. That much is true.

Sakuya Sakuma had no real clear memory of his parents.

He could recount all he remembered of his mom on one hand, and from his dad on the other. As time passed and he grew up though, those memories became tangled, sinking deeper in his brain, the list getting shorter.

So short that at a certain point, Sakuya noticed he couldn’t remember his mother’s soft laugh or his father’s clear smile anymore. His relatives never really bothered to keep photos of them, so he desperately held onto the memories of his mother’s crimson eyes and his dad’s scratchy face by drawings and sketches he made himself.

It was one of the things he regretted most whenever he went to pray during their anniversary, not really knowing how they looked like.

“…it was really close, but Tsumugi-san and the rest of the winter troupe managed to win! So now we get to keep performing at Mankai. Here, see?” Sakuya turned to his school bag excited, taking out of it a piece of paper and placing it carefully next to the small bouquet of flowers “This is one of the tickets. I asked director for one to keep as a memory. We even made a celebration afterwards which was super fun, though Sakyo-san insisted we should all be more mindful of our still new image” he giggled, reminiscing the not too long-ago event “Ah, but I’m doing my best to balance school work of course! So you really don’t have to worry”

He hadn’t told anyone at the dorm about today. Not because he thought it was troubling, but it was something he had always done alone. It felt strange talking about it, although he was sure no one would have minded it, had he asked for company.

“Director, the spring troupe… everyday is so much fun now thanks to everyone” he lifted his head to the sky and then to the names engraved on the graves “It would have been nice if you met them”

But just as the show had to go on, life did too, Sakuya knew that more than anyone. So dusting away the dirt from his knees, he stood up. And when he arrived at the dorm, he did his best to put on the brightest smile. And if anyone noticed any change in his behaviour, no one mentioned it.

Now it was past midnight, and he couldn’t sleep.

It had been a while since he had a night like this. When it happens, he usually goes to Itaru’s or Azuma’s- sometimes even director’s- but this time the uneasiness was manageable, so he rose softly from the bed, shuffling around and leaving the room.

Sakuya walked carefully across the hallway to the living room and then into the kitchen, where the sound tended to distance itself from the bedrooms.

As usual, there was a plate of scones left by Omi on the cupboard, just in case someone woke up. He decided to warm a cup of milk and set some aside.

He leaned against the sink until milk was warmed up, inhaling the steam from the cup and heading towards the courtyard. After setting everything besides him on the bench, he sat and stared out into the night sky, watching stars twinkle and listening to the crickets sing.

His attention was suddenly caught by a plushie on the floor. A pink one. He grabbed it, staring at it tilting his head. He had never seen it in the dorm before.

“Sakuya?”

The male voice he heard didn’t match anyone’s in the dorm but weirdly enough, it didn’t alert him. On the contrary, it set off a strange nostalgic feeling withing him, somehow. He questioned it, of course, as he left the plushie aside and turned. And then he saw them.

It was as if every memory and repressed thought emerged all at once against his chest with blazing strength.

He stood up slowly, arms laying limply on his sides. The silence before him was deafening and Sakuya was sure his ears were ringing. His eyes definitely wide.

He felt his throat clench painfully with the force it takes to not let tears out. Because it had to be a dream, but their eyes were glistening under the stars and they felt warm.

This time, it was his mother who spoke, so sweet and softly he could have melted on the spot “You’ve grown”

At this point, he was too exhausted to think logically. His feet began moving almost at the same time as theirs did towards him. All the doubts, the regrets, the worries that’d been stealing his sleep, kept gradually letting go of him with each step he gave. He threw himself into their arms, making small, gasping noises at first, and then he was crying, sobbing in earnest, fingernails digging into his parent’s skin so hard he feared he may be hurting them. But they didn’t pull away, didn’t even consider it.

‘I miss you, I miss you so much’ he kept whispering over and over, and every time he did, they would tighten their grip ever so slightly.

Slowly, he managed to calm down and step back, but gripped both of their hands tightly, as if telling them not to let go.

“Sakuya-”

“I’m sorry” he inhaled sharply, trying to calm down. He didn’t want to sound as if he was complaining “I’m doing okay. M-Mankai has become my home, you see. They welcomed me when they didn’t have to and you- I know you would have taken care of me, if you could have so-”

Sakuya looked up, and it startled him, seeing his mother crying too “Mom…?”

She let go of his hands and pulled him against her “Oh, honey” she breathed shakily “We are so sorry for leaving you alone”

“No, please” Sakuya said, his eyes were burning. That was what he didn’t want to happen “I’m sorry, I know it wasn’t- that’s not your-”

“But your feelings are still there” she coaxed, caressing his cheek, taking away the tears from the corner of his eyes “And you’re allowed to feel them”

“We have been watching you all this time” his father placed his hand on his back.

And Sakuya broke down again.

Because just how many times had he fervently wished for that to be true. To hear them. How many times when he was in school and saw children with their families he swallowed and smile, imagining himself in their place.

He was trembling, filled with too many things he wanted to say that he was overwhelmed where to start.

“Did- Did you see me on stage…?”

His mother cupped his face between her hands and nodded, smiling. She looked beautiful under the moonlight, Sakuya couldn’t help thinking. He wanted to stay there, enjoying her crimson eyes, just to make sure they still matched his own “You are the light and joy of our lives, honey. And that smile of yours will be the light that will guide and help others in the future, I’m sure”

“We love you, Sakuya” his father nodded, kissing the top of his head and wrapping his arms around them tightly once more. He was trembling “From the bottom of our hearts. Never forget that”

He doesn’t know how long they stood there hugging, taking in each other’s warmth, but it lasted until all of his tears had stopped and dried. And when they broke apart, this time, he managed to give them a real smile.

“I’ll do my best to make you both proud”

They showered him with a bigger one “Being who you are is enough, Sakuya. We are already proud. We always will”

“I love you, Mom. I love you, Dad... so much”

Next time he blinked, the wall welcomed Sakuya into his room. He was lying on the side, the clock next to his bed reading five in the morning.

He turned so that his body faced the ceiling, giving a short glance around still disoriented. He didn’t remember what he was dreaming about, memories were fazing, but his chest was about to burst with a relief he hadn’t felt in a while flooding over him.

It was so overwhelmingly cozy it made him shiver.

He looked outside the window, noticing one of the stars blinked a bit brighter than the rest. Sakuya decided to embrace himself against the pillows, placing a hand over his chest.

It was a feeling he couldn’t name, but it felt warm, and he smiled.

____________________________________________________________

I stan Sakuya x Happiness

Have a wonderful day, loves 💕

#A3! Actor Training Game #a3! act! addict! actors!#a3 act #a3!#a3 #sakuya sakuma #a3 sakuya #a3! sakuya #sakuya

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destiniesfic · 3 years

Photo

132 Hours, Chapter 7:

That’s what I think I fear most. Not the symptoms, but being out of control. My brain taking a backseat and letting my body drive.

Read chapter 7 on AO3, or read below:

“Seriously?” Cardan asks, holding up the local newspaper the Roach handed him. “We’re too cheap for the New York Times?”

“They were out,” the Roach grunts.

“This house is a nightmare,” Cardan says under his breath.

We’ve been brought out of our cell again to pose for a proof of life photo. Seated, because I can’t stand for long. Cardan is given the newspaper to prove the photo is current, although the Bomb is holding an old-fashioned Polaroid camera and I am not sure anyone will be able to make out the details. I have been asked to do nothing but sit still.

“Do you want us to smile?” Cardan asks, once the Bomb has the camera ready.

“If you want,” says the Bomb. “Go ahead.”

Cardan does. I glare daggers.

“Well, he’ll know it’s her,” the Bomb remarks. With a gloved, almost dainty hand, she pulls the Polaroid out and sets it on top of the minifridge to develop.

“Why did you smile?” I hiss.

Cardan shrugs. “Just because we’re hostages doesn’t mean we have to look like we’re having a bad time.”

“That’s exactly what it means.”

“Couple more,” says the Bomb, raising her camera again. “Bear with me.”

We do, as she snaps a couple more photos, presumably ones where I don’t look so much like I’m about to strangle Cardan. She takes the best ones and slides them into an envelope, which she seals shut with a little water on her gloved finger. No fingerprints, no saliva, no DNA. Just proof of life.

Cardan notices, too. “You’re pretty good at this crime thing,” he tells her. “Ever think about doing it for a living?”

“It’s really just a hobby for now,” she says dryly, handing the envelope to the Ghost, who heads up the stairs and out to deliver it who-knows-where.

“Looks like a full-blown side-gig to me,” Cardan returns.

The Bomb shrugs. “Well, this economy.”

I wonder if I should be alarmed or encouraged that our captors are beginning to genuinely like him.

It’s already late, after a long, mostly-silent stretch of afternoon in the cell, so we are fed and watered and allowed to relieve ourselves once more before we’re put away again. The Roach offers to help me walk, but I manage to make my way around the basement and eventually hobble to the mattress without assistance. It’s not dignified, but at least I maintain a scrap of my dignity.

Before the Roach is able to lock us in for the night, though, Cardan catches the door in his hand and leans forward. He’s whispering, but the room is small enough that I can hear him anyway. “Hey, um, so, can I have my drugs back?”

Around Cardan’s shoulders, I see the Roach’s face split into a terrible grin. “Nah,” he says. “But nice try.”

And then he closes the door and leaves us alone.

Cardan rubs a hand over his face and goes to sit in his corner. I am staring at him. “You wanted to get high? Now?”

“I had some O on me when they took us,” he says. “Good quality stuff. Pure. Synthetic, obviously.” He glances at me.

“Sure,” I say. It’s never really sat right with me that people have figured out how to distill some of the compounds in pheromones—O for omega, A for alpha—and that other, richer people now use them as party drugs, but, hey, at least it’s hard to overdose. And synthetic means the chemicals weren’t harvested from anybody, so, ethically sourced high. In theory.

I’ve never tried A, but it wouldn’t surprise me if Taryn has by now. Locke is not a good influence.

“Actually, I was thinking of trying to dull my receptors, in light of…” He waves a hand. “Well, tomorrow being what it is, you…”

“Oh,” I say quietly.

“Nic always said I’d ruin them if I indulged too much.” It’s dark, so I can’t see his facial expression very well, but I make out his silhouette slumping against the wall. “Thought I’d finally take that bet.”

It takes me a second to realize he means Nicasia, his ex-girlfriend. Still his friend, though. I think. It’s weirdly humanizing, the idea that he has a nickname for somebody he likes. It makes him more of a person. “You call her Nic?” I ask. “I’ve never heard anyone call her that before.”

“Well, no. You’re not allowed. It’s a special privilege.”

I snicker but don’t reply, looking down at my hands instead. Tomorrow morning will be three days since I took my last suppressant. Two days since I woke up in this cell, locked in with Cardan. I’m about guaranteed to go into heat, and I don’t know what will happen after that. Whether I’ll have enough presence of mind to care about what will happen. If I will even be myself.

That’s what I think I fear most. Not the symptoms. Not even that I might end up mating with Cardan, of all people. But being out of control. My brain taking a backseat and letting my body drive.

“Jude?” Cardan asks quietly.

I don’t want to talk about it. Not with him. Not now. So I shift to a more comfortable seat against my wall and say nothing.

But he surprises me by asking, “Did you mean what you said before? Do you really blame me for what happened with Valerian?”

“Yes.” But there’s a twinge in my chest as I remember the shock on his face, the way he avoided my eyes the rest of the day. I had struck my mark, but at what cost? As he said, it’s not like he was actually there. I press the heel of my palm into my eye. “No. Maybe. I don’t know, Cardan. You didn’t help.”

“Yeah, but like…” I hear him flick at some dust on the floor. “I didn’t know, you know? I didn’t know what he was going to do. If I had known, I would have stopped him.”

I blink in his direction. “I thought you did know,” I say abruptly, and I don’t quite realize how true that is until I say it aloud. That Cardan, who has historically masterminded so much misery, must be behind this, too.

“What?”

“After Locke…” I pick at one of the scratchy blankets. “I mean, Valerian was first, but then when it turned out Locke was trying to get with me and Taryn, I thought it was some awful competition between the three of you. Who could get in my pants first, or make me most miserable, or…”

“No, no.” Cardan actually has the audacity to look shocked. “Jude, I know that I can be a miserable son of a bitch sometimes, but there are lines.”

“Are there? You never acted like it. You insulted me every chance you got. You pushed me into a fountain.”

He chuckles weakly. “That again?”

“It was cold,” I grumble, crossing my arms. “I was cold all day. And I had to lie to my dad.”

And I don’t add the part that hurt most—that he said he was sick of smelling me and I needed to wash off. I can’t control how I smell to him. In fact, I always resented him for smelling so good to me when we clearly weren’t a match. It’s a little easier to get over since he’s so terrible, but it sucks to know that my body picked someone out who could not be clearer about his lack of reciprocation. A defect in me. Something else I can’t control.

“Well, yeah, but there’s a huge difference between that and rape.” He falls quiet for a second, then says, “I’m glad you defended yourself. I am. And I do admire you for that. That’s all.”

“Then you’re crazy. I don’t think anyone else does, aside from Madoc.” I look down. “It’s not what omegas are supposed to do. Fight back. Fight at all.”

I hear Cardan flick another dustbunny. “You know what Balekin said about it?”

My shoulders tense. I know that word of the whole thing had spread through the school like wildfire, even though the disciplinary meeting we had with the principal was supposed to have been confidential, but there’s a difference between knowing and hearing that Cardan’s older brother, of all people, had an opinion. “What did he say?” I ask slowly, dreading the answer.

“He said, ‘I don’t know what Madoc was thinking, sending those girls to your school.’ Like it was just something that was bound to happen.” I feel a little nauseated, but Cardan continues, “That didn’t sit right with me. I mean, you’d been going to school with alphas for ten years. You had alpha teachers. I mean, we had classes together for six years, and I never thought to—”

“Yeah,” I say quietly. “You’ve been very clear about that.”

“No, but—ugh.” Cardan runs a hand through his hair, frustrated. “I think Valerian was wrong. And Balekin was wrong. And you were right. I’d just never thought about it like that before.”

I sigh. “What do you want, a cookie? For thinking I deserve basic human rights?”

In the darkness, I see him wince. “You don’t pull punches, do you?”

“Not anymore.” I lean forward and run my hands over my bandages. The Ghost had done a good job with them. “I did mean what I said about you making it worse. Maybe you didn’t know what Valerian was going to do. Maybe you didn’t egg him on. But you upheld that hierarchy, you know. Strongest alphas on top, omegas on the bottom. You benefited from it.”

“Well, it’s just the—”

“The way things are. I know.” I exhale. “It’s not how they have to be.”

Cardan is quiet for a while. “Valerian liked to hurt people,” he says at last. “Anyone. Animals, even. It was his main alpha trait, that aggression. ‘Couldn’t be helped,’ according to his, I think, third psychiatrist. I think we all thought if we could direct that, use it for our benefit, point him in a direction like—I don’t know, an arrow…”

“Sounds like you need better friends,” I say. Managing Valerian sounds like trying to leash a rabid dog, and I truly do not envy him that. Hoping the dog will only bite other people is selfish and awful, but also bound to fail.

“I haven’t spoken to him since what he did to you.” His voice is unexpectedly firm. Again, he surprises me. “Tried to do, I mean. I told Nic and Locke to cut him off, too. He’s basically dead to us.”

“Oh.” I squint at him, feeling—I don’t know what I’m feeling. “Really?”

“Yeah.”

“But he was your friend.”

“Well…” Cardan taps his finger on the floor. “Maybe I don’t want a friend like that.”

I sit with that admission for a moment, trying to make it square with what I know of Cardan outside these walls. It’s almost like there are two of him: the awful one wreaking havoc outside, and the one in here, with me, who sounds almost on the verge of apologizing. Who uses his alpha charm for good on our kidnappers. Who reads books. Who almost seems to care.

“Your other friends are also kind of shitty,” I point out. “Didn’t Nicasia cheat on you? With Locke?”

Cardan shrugs. “Nic’s not so bad. Locke cheated on her with you and your sister, so I consider us pretty much even for that. Locke, though…” He sighs. “I wish he’d just admit he has a crush on me and get over it.”

I let out a shocked, choked laugh. “What?”

“What other explanation is there for him making out with pretty much anyone I’ve ever really liked?”

I had known about Nicasia, but it sounds like there are others I don’t know about. Still, must be nice, being Cardan, having that kind of confidence in someone being mean because they like you. “He’s a douchebag?” I suggest.

“Maybe,” Cardan says. “Too easy, though. I want complex, psychological drama, Duarte. I want homoerotic CW drama.”

“It sounds like you want Locke to put his tongue in your mouth.”

“I mean, for the experience, sure. Frankly, I’m a little offended he hasn’t tried.”

My cheeks hurt, and I realize I am smiling. How is he getting inside my guard so easily? Saying a few nice things about admiring my tenacity isn’t enough to negate years of schoolyard warfare. It feels good, though. Maybe even better because the person delivering the compliment is totally unexpected.

“Fine,” I sigh.

“Fine what?”

“You’re clearly angling to get your spot on the mattress back. It’s working.” I lean over as far as I can and pat the empty half. “Come on. Probably the last night you can sleep here.”

“You sure?”

It’s funny how I can now tell he’s raising his eyebrow just from the way he asks the question. It’s not a soft, gentle ask—like he’s worried about spooking me—but a sardonic one. Almost a challenge. So even if he is worried about spooking me, he’s spared my pride. I appreciate that.

This is the most I have actually ever spoken to Cardan Greenbriar. It turns out he’s kind of fun.

I shrug. “Sure. Either we’re going to be keeping our distance and you’ll have to take the floor tomorrow, or we’ll be too busy humping to sleep. Like bunnies. Might as well make the most of it while you can.”

Cardan kicks his shoes off, then sits down next to me on the mattress with a grunt. “I think it’s more like wolves,” he says, grinning. “Or dogs. On account of the—”

“Knot.” I visibly shudder. “I know. Gross.”

His grin widens. “Absolutely disgusting.”

I have to take a breath. This is a very specific heat/rut thing, the knot of it all, and most non-heat sex doesn’t trigger it. It is also one of the things I have looked forward to least about eventual sex-having, eventual partner-having. I had kind of hoped I’d get to practice without it. “But all kinds of sex acts sound gross when you break them down on a technical level,” I say, trying to reassure myself. “So maybe it’s not so bad.”

“Maybe.” Cardan props one of the pillows against the wall and settles down on his back, his arms crossed behind head. A model of comfort, of ease. I wonder how much he is faking. No one could be that cool in our situation.

I am quiet for a moment, looking up at the ceiling as though I can still count the criss-crossing pipes that run along it like country roads. “Does it bother you that you won’t ever have a mate? Not that you won’t mate, just that you probably can’t have a… like a mate mate?”

Out of the corner of my eye, I see Cardan tilt his chin up toward me. “Does it bother you?”

“It’s different for me. You know that.” I don’t lie down next to him just yet, but I do look at him. His shirt’s hitched up a little above his jeans, exposing a line of his flat stomach, the ridge of a hip bone. “Everyone I know is an alpha. I’ll probably end up married to one. I could be…” I trail off. “I don’t even know if I like the idea. Being tied to someone like that.”

“Being knotted to them, you mean?” I give him a little shove, and he laughs, then says, “Marriage is tying yourself to somebody too, you know.”

“I know. But not on a biochemical level.”

They used to call the connection between mates a “soul bond” for how deep it goes, how sensitive it makes you to the other person, their moods, their wants. We know more now about how the actual chemicals at play work, which has demystified a lot of it. There’s still a kind of romance to it anyway, I guess. But mating bonds are really difficult to undo, so how are you supposed to know that the person you bite is the right one? What if you choose wrong? At least with marriage there’s divorce. Like many things, a mating bond is something I’d resigned myself to going without, although it would give me a measure of basic protection I don’t currently have.

“I’ve thought about it,” Cardan admits. “I think everyone expects me to eventually end up with Nic still, even though… y’know, and in that case I could have someone else on the side, maybe. It’s pretty common. Or I could be like your dad and marry an omega anyway.”

I snort. “Yeah, that worked out really well for everyone.”

“You know, with what we learned today, Vivi’s theory—”

“I know,” I say quickly. “I don’t want to think about it.” Because that’s how I deal with these things. I don’t think of them until I have the time and space to handle them, which may be never, and definitely isn’t now. The last thing I need is to lie awake thinking about how Madoc might be involved in all sorts of unsavory things, up to and including arranging my parents’ murder.

Cardan does not seem to be giving this the same consideration. “Do you think Madoc and your mother were mates?”

I shudder. “I don’t want to think about it.”

“Vivi had to happen somehow.”

I slide down the wall to my pillow and make a small keening noise into my hands. “That doesn’t mean they were mates. I think Madoc would have found us a lot sooner if they were.”

“You mean he would have sniffed her out.”

“Yeah.” I frown, slipping briefly into memory. “My parents really loved each other, though. I remember that. They’d smile at each other, they’d kiss before my mom left for work, they—” My throat seems to close, and I swallow.

“Must be nice,” Cardan says under his breath. I’m not sure I’m supposed to hear it.

I look down at my hands. I rarely allow myself the remembrances of my mom’s smile, my dad’s arm looped casually behind her when we watched movies on the couch. They were both omegas. They were happy. “I guess I talked myself out of my point. Mates aren’t the end-all be-all of…”

Either Cardan is oblivious to my musings or he’s trying to spare me from them, because he continues, “I mean, regular sex is pretty fun. The not-heat kind. The not-mate kind.”

“It is?” I ask, trying not to let the question strangle itself in my throat. “So… are you saying you’re good at it? I should know, before—if this is all going to happen.”

His face screws up in thought. “I’d like to think so,” he muses. “T-B-H, it’s hard to get honest feedback when you have this much money. Girls, boys, alphas, omegas, they all tell you what they think you want to hear. Although Nic wouldn’t let me slack off in bed, so yeah, I think I know my way around.”

“Oh, well, good. That’s great.” I sink further down and pull my blanket to my chest, looking up at the ceiling. “If my hormones don’t render me totally incoherent, I’ll give you a rating.”

Cardan cracks another smile. “Out of five stars? Like an Uber?”

“Sure. You know. ‘Smooth ride, good driver.’” I cover my face with my hands. “God.”

“Maybe you won’t have to,” he says. “Maybe it’ll be okay. I mean, sure, we are living out the exact set-up of half the alpha/omega porn I’ve ever watched, but that doesn’t guarantee anything. Remember that movie everyone was buzzing about a couple of years ago, where they got stuck in the elevator but he held off?”

“That was a movie, with actors. Not a documentary.”

“Still, we’re dealing with, what? An elevator-and-a-half, two elevators of space? Could work out in our favor.”

I pull my hands down and look over at him. “Unlikely,” I say. “But sure.”

Cardan studies me, then turns onto his side and reaches out to tuck a stray lock of hair behind my ear. “I’m sorry,” he says, and I am struck dumb, thinking he’s apologizing for everything he’s done to me. But he adds, “Just in case something does happen. I know… I know this isn’t what you want.”

Well, that isn’t nothing. I shrug. With him so close, smelling like he does, looking like he does, I almost think I could do worse. “I mean, it’s not like I’m your first choice.”

Out of the corner of my eye, I see him purse his full lips. “Still, I wanted you to know.”

I turn onto my side to face him directly. “When’s the last time you apologized to anybody?”

“When I wasn’t forced to by an authority figure, you mean?” A little crease forms between his brows. “I honestly don’t remember.”

Definitely not nothing. I don’t feel better, but I could feel worse. “Can you do one thing for me?” I ask, and it comes out a whisper, like I’m a frightened child.

“Yeah,” he says, his voice equally soft, which just makes the whole thing even more horrible. That he’s not being what I thought. That he’s not being cruel.

I swallow, but make myself say it. “Don’t hurt me on purpose.”

Cardan’s lips part. “Oh,” he says. “Oh, Jude.”

I turn over, giving him my back. I don’t want to look at his face anymore. As much as I want to hear him say he is sorry, I don’t want to see him feel sorry for me.

#jurdan #judecardan #jude x cardan #jurdan fanfic #jude duarte #cardan greenbriar #the cruel prince #the wicked king #the queen of nothing #the folk of the air #tfota #mine: fic #fic: 132 hours

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bybibucky · 3 years

Text

We Do It All – Everything – on Our Own

All That I Ever Was – Chapter I

Bucky Barnes x reader Series – post Captain America: The Winter Soldier (WIP)

You are a damsel in distress, not matter how much you don’t want to be. Bucky Barnes is your knight in rusty armor, lost in his own head, trying to figure himself out. After having found each other, you go from there, accidentally fixing what shouldn’t be broken in the first place.

– song fic based on “Chasing Cars” by Snow Patrol

warnings overall: language, slow burn, angst, violence, mentions of death, injury, mentions of rape, prostitution, physical abuse

word count: 4.3k

author’s note: and so the journey begins. I’m hella excited, are you?

In a way, he should have seen this coming. Wandering around New York City, trying to relearn the ins and outs of the place, he was bound to run across something he wasn’t supposed to see. Usually, he was good at ignoring things that didn’t concern him, and he was by no means a vigilante of any sort, but that helpless, muffled scream that perked up his ears wasn’t anything to walk away from.

“Please.” The way just that simple word held so much fear was enough to make him grind his teeth together. Someone was in danger, helpless in the hands of a bad person, that much he knew and he also knew that, somewhere deep down, even though he didn’t want to allow himself to admit it, there was a part of him that was better. Maybe, this would take him a step further to rediscovering that person he had once been.

So, he briefly checked whether his gloves were still in place, and then walked towards the noise all the way down the alley. Every step made your whimpering that much easier to discern, his heightened senses always on high alert, and he could make out the unmistakable sound of fruitless struggling. When he saw you, he knew for sure.

“Stop fucking trying to escape.” The man, large but not muscular, had one hand tightly fisted in the fabric of your flimsy dress, one on the back of your head, pushing it against the rugged brick wall. Bucky knew from experience that it would leave a burning mark on your skin and he already wanted your attacker to feel the tenfold of that sharp pain.

Your voice was muffled against the stone when you tried to beg again. It wouldn’t go anywhere, and Bucky decided to make himself known. Taking both you and the attacker by surprise, he grabbed the latter by his collar, yanking him backward. He hadn’t even used his metal arm, but the man still lost his footing and tumbled to the ground. Weak. Bucky followed suit and you could do nothing but watch. He straddled the guy’s legs to keep him still and, this time, used both hands punch to him black and blue, using some of his hidden fury that always seemed to be there to really make it hurt. But contrary to what everyone he knew thought, he was able to stop himself before he’d commit another murder. Watching his victim for a second, making sure that he’d stay down, he looked up to see you cowered against the wall, hands cradled to your chest, wide eyes leaking tears that had to sting in the fresh cuts on your cheek. You were favoring your right foot.

He stood up, hands raised to show he wouldn’t hurt you, and waited for you to react. He’d anticipated for you to scream or run away, to tell him he’d made a mistake, but what he hadn’t seen coming was for you to just, well, collapse. Bucky was just barely fast enough to catch you from where he had stood. You were limp in his arms, helpless, and he was looking around as if the dark alley had answers, running his mind to figure out what to do with you now.

:::::

You woke up on a mattress. Not a bed, but a mattress. And that alone made you sit up way too quickly, the blood rush forcing out a hiss between your teeth. But you pushed it aside, fingers rubbing your temples, and took in your surroundings. None of the things you saw belonged to either you or your roommates. Not any of the books scattered around the tiny apartment, not the piles of clothes on the floor, some neat, some carelessly dumped there, and not the small kitchen counter with the dirty dishes in the sink. The windows were covered by thick black fabric, basking the place in darkness which was only broken by the one window that didn’t have a makeshift curtain, and this told you it was already morning. Where the fuck were you?

“You’re awake,” came a deep voice from a corner of the room and you almost jumped out of your skin. Moving your hands to cover yourself on instinct, you noticed that someone had put a sweater on you.

“You were shivering,” was all the explanation you got and you chose to be okay with that. You were still wearing your dress and there wasn’t that unmistakable feeling between your legs that you weren’t wearing any panties. So he probably hadn’t raped you.

And then the memory came back. The way Dylan had pushed you against the wall, how he had threatened to kill you, once again, how his fingers had dug into your skin. You shook your head to clear it. “Where am I?” This guy had apparently saved you from Dylan but that didn’t mean that he wasn’t dangerous himself.

“My apartment.” He slowly moved out of his corner and when you finally saw him, your first thought was that he was absolutely gorgeous. The kind of guy you used to joke about with your friends that you would let him do anything to you. Besides the fact that he could use a shave and maybe a different outfit, he was beautiful.

“I brought you here when you passed out,” he said, “I don’t know where you live.”

The more he spoke the more it became clear that he didn’t converse with strangers very often. The pauses in between his sentences he used to figure out what to say next, and his voice was deep but not loud like you were used to. He might have beaten Dylan to a pulp but, from what you knew, he hadn’t laid a harming finger on you. You nodded.

“Thank you.”

The man flinched. You didn’t know what to do with that.

He changed the subject. “Are you hungry?” he asked, “I think I have something in the fridge.” And he pointed towards the old, crammed kitchen space.

You shook your head. “No, thank you.”

“Water?” He looked weirdly hopeful for a yes and you realized he probably didn’t get a lot of guests.

You nodded and the man hurried to the small kitchen. He emerged with a bottle of water that he handed you with a gloved hand. You chose not to ask. Thanking him again, you took it and screwed off the cap. The seal was still in place so you were sure he wasn’t trying to poison you. He watched intently as you brought the bottle to your lips and, finally realizing how parched you were, gulped down half of the liquid in seconds.

“Okay?” he asked and you nodded.

Something about his careful, almost shy demeanor made you feel like he was nothing like any other man you had met. While clearly being strong – you had watched his strength in person and even all the layers he wore couldn’t hide his muscular build – it hadn’t made him cocky. It was a nice change.

“Are you in pain?” he piped up again, softly and in the same deep rumble you had sort of gotten used to already.

You wanted to shake your head once more, but now that your adrenaline had subsided, you were starting to feel the events of the night. “A little.” There was no saying what he would do with that response and you wouldn’t have thought that you’d get to watch him ball his hands to tight fists by his sides before he walked out to a room you deduced must have been the bathroom. When he came back, the small first aid kid was comically tiny in his gloved hands that held it out to you. You had no idea what to do with it.

He gestured toward the bed, silently asking for permission to sit. You scooched over a little to give him more space on the small mattress. Silently, he got to work. Opening up the plastic box, he rummaged through its contents for some disinfectant spray that he applied on a cotton swab.

“This’ll probably sting,” he warned, before he carefully began to dab the area around the cuts on your face. You winced because you couldn’t help it, it really did sting.

“Sorry,” he mumbled but you shook your head.

“It’s not your fault.”

He was silent again, after you had spoken, and neither of you could deny the tension in your words. You suddenly felt the need to talk about it.

“Thank you for stepping in,” you said. He was avoiding your eyes, but you couldn’t keep yours off of him. Up close, he was even more beautiful, although his face was unreadable. The useless, almost frowning expression told you nothing except that he was probably concentrating. You didn’t know him well enough to place his behavior. But for some reason, and you found yourself scared of the answer, you weren’t scared of him. “He always threatens me,” you continued, “but this time I really thought he was going to kill me.” It was the truth. Last night had not been the first time Dylan had cornered you like this, and it hadn’t been the only time you had needed to be saved. Only the first time someone had actually intervened.

“This is going to bruise,” the man in front of you informed you, and you scoffed bitterly.

“Wouldn’t be the first time.”

His frown deepened. “Why would anyone hurt you?”

That made you laugh. “Isn’t it obvious?” you asked, “that was my pimp. I’m a prostitute.”

He was taken aback, putting down the cotton swab. He knew about prostitutes. It wasn’t some new twenty-first century invention, but he had never met one. Not that he knew of. “Oh,” he said.

“You seriously didn’t realize?”

He shook his head, and suddenly, he looked so innocent. When he had first seen you, you had been wearing nothing but a thin negligée, panties, and heels, and that in mid-November air. Now, the only difference was the lack of heels that he had probably taken off for you and the additional sweater. This man was a puzzle to you.

“Do you like what you do?” he asked then, and instantly realized what he had said. “No, sorry. You don’t have to answer that.”

You smiled. “It’s no big deal,” you assured him, “I did at first. It felt so empowering. But the years went by and this guy – the one in the alley – took me under his wing and he turned out to be real asshole.”

The man nodded, clearly deeply in thought at your words, but you didn’t want the pity.

“What’s your name?” you asked to change the subject but it didn’t seem to be the right one.

His eyes widened just barely, mouth open like a fish. “I’m not sure,” he confessed, and you were about to ask what the hell that meant, when he added, somewhat unsurely, “Bucky.”

That certainly had been weird but you weren’t perfect either. “I’m Y/N,” you replied, and it felt odd to have your real name on your tongue for once. These days, you only ever introduced yourself by your stage name.

“Nice to meet you, Y/N.” It was a simple line to portray politeness and it felt a little forced but with good intentions nonetheless. “Does anything else hurt?”

It did. Your whole body ached, in fact, but his little first aid kit wouldn’t be able to help with that. So you shook your head.

Bucky narrowed his eyes, briefly scanning your body. “Your foot,” he said, “and I’m guessing you might have a bruised rib or two.”

You gasped just barely, suddenly found out. No one had ever been this observant.

He shrugged. “I saw the foot thing in the alley and you’re taking really shallow breaths.”

You hadn’t even noticed.

“I can take a look to make sure nothing is broken, if you want.” He said it carefully, making sure he didn’t seem like a pervert. “Your foot.”

It hadn’t been the first time you’d had to lick your own wounds but you had no medical experience, he probably knew more than you. “Sure.” You pushed the thin blanket off your legs and held out your right foot. Brows knitted in concentration, he gently ran his hands across your calf down to your toes, stopping to apply pressure at certain points, waiting for you to wince or whimper. He placed his hand on the back of your heel, the other against the ball of your foot, rotating your ankle slightly. On instinct, because that really fucking hurt, your tried to pull your leg from his grasp and he let you.

“Sprain,” he deduced, before carding through the first aid kit again. He dug out a bandage of some sort and looked at you questioningly, silently asking for permission to touch you again.

You extended your leg toward him once more, and felt something weird swell in your chest that wasn’t the pain coming from your ribs. This man respected you. You observed as he began to bind your foot starting at your toes, the stretchy fabric putting a relieving pressure against the pain.

“Too tight?” he asked and you shook your head. Bucky snapped off the band with his teeth before tugging the end under the wraps.

“Thank you.”

He gave you a curt nod, standing up. From your low vantage point, you watched as he moved around the room, gathering some books and a few shirts from the neat pile. Wordlessly, he arranged them in a tower beside the mattress, and you were confused until he carefully lifted your leg and placed it on top.

You couldn’t help but feel bad for him. This man was so… kind. Each movement deliberately thought through, each word chosen with care, you found yourself wondering why he was alone. It was obvious that he didn’t spend much time with other people, even though you thought he deserved to. What had happened to him?

“Would you like to take a shower?”

The question surprised you. A shower hadn’t really crossed your mind, but now that he had mentioned it, you started yearning for one.

“Only if it’s not too much,” you said and Bucky’s eye twitched.

But he walked over and stretched out his arms, offering you help. You took them gladly, your small hands almost getting lost in the large leather gloves as he pulled you to your feet. Instantly, you shifted your weight onto your good foot.

“Can you walk?”

You didn’t like the thought of him carrying you again, so you proceeded an awkward wobbling dance towards the bathroom, leaning on Bucky’s forearm for support. It must have looked ridiculous but luckily, his apartment was tiny, so it didn’t take you too long to get there. Bucky leaned you against the wall like a broomstick, briefly gesturing for you stay put, before he disappeared into the living room and reemerged with a plastic stool.

You were ready to cry at the thoughtfulness, the small gesture bigger to you than anything that had happened in your life before last night. Unbelievable, how people like this actually still existed. To you, it seemed like that generation had lived a hundred years ago.

“Clever,” you admitted, “thanks.”

Giving you a quick run-down of the shower settings, offering you everything in his supply of cleaning products, which literally only was a bar of soap, but you’d make do, he handed you a rather rugged towel that you gratefully accepted. Why he was being so nice to you, you couldn’t wrap your head around.

He left you to your own devices, then, softly closing the bathroom door behind himself. You, in turn, fumbled around with the settings on the shower until you liked the temperature enough. Eager to get under the stream, your clothes were shed in a hurry, though only as quickly as possible with your injuries. You were glad that Bucky didn’t appear to have a mirror anywhere in the apartment, meaning you didn’t have to look at yourself. The extend of the bruises, you imagined, wasn’t something you wanted on your mind. You hoped Bucky wouldn’t see.

The hot water loosened your tense muscles instantly. A blissful sigh left your lips like it had been aching to for ages, and you relaxed against the back of the chair. You had needed this desperately. You couldn’t remember the last time you had taken a hot shower. This was a luxury you didn’t feel like you deserved.

Forcing yourself to keep the whole ordeal as short possible – you didn’t want to strain your gifted resourced by any means – you went through a quick cleaning routine. The truth was, you were dreading the moment you’d have to leave this place. Yes, it was cluttered, undecorated, and frankly a little dusty, but the company was nice and you didn’t expect any respect relative to the one you were receiving now to be there once you said goodbye to Bucky. You lathered yourself up with the soap quickly, mindful of the bruises and keeping your injured foot away from the water. It was a difficult task but you didn’t want Bucky to have to patch you up again. Once was definitely too much already. The soap didn’t do a lot for your hair, but clean was clean.

After you had dried yourself off with the towel, you realized that you would have to put your old clothes back on. Or maybe you didn’t.

With a soft knock, Bucky squeezed a set of folded somethings through a tiny crack in the door. You took it, thanking him. Unfolding the garments, you discovered he had brought an arrangement of sweatpants, shirts, and boxer briefs. Grateful for not needing to wear your panties again, you chose the pair of underwear that looked the smallest, otherwise opting for a set of plain sweatpants and a sweatshirt. All of it was comically large on you, but so very comfortable. You couldn’t remember the last time you had felt this at ease. It was a stark difference to your work uniform.

Bare-footed, you tiptoed – ignoring the pain in your ankle – back to the rest of the apartment, finding Bucky by the sink.

Without facing you, he asked, “okay?”

You nodded, before realizing that he couldn’t see you. “I really needed that, thank you.”

He didn’t respond further, busy cleaning the dishes. Oddly enough, he still wore the gloves and that was weird enough for you to ask.

“What’s with the gloves?”

Bucky tensed barely, but you noticed. He shrugged.

“I’m guessing you don’t want to talk about it?” you asked. “That’s okay. You don’t have to.”

And Bucky relaxed. So it was a touchy subject. That was fine. He hadn’t pushed the topic of your profession once he’d realized you were uncomfortable with it. It was only respectful to treat him the same. Besides, it really was none of your business.

“Hungry?” he asked, this time, turning around. He had put the last plate on a folded dish towel next to the sink, letting it dry.

You were about to decline once more, but your growling stomach stole the show. Both of you breathed out a shy laugh. Most of the tension caused by the foreign nature of your relationship dissipated then, and something else, something slight and easy settled in its place.

“I’ll take that as a yes,” Bucky teased, though somewhat still careful that any word of his was in danger of being the wrong one. You wondered whether he had always been this way, or if someone had hurt him. He opened the fridge. “I have bread and, uh, eggs. Those should still be good.” The inside of this fridge resembled the décor in his apartment. Scarce and only the bare necessities.

“Wait,” he said, taking in your appearance, and suddenly gasped, “why are you standing?” He took one large step and was directly in front of you. “May I?” he asked, and even though you didn’t know what he was talking about, you nodded.

Bucky, then, wiped his hands on his worn jeans and sneaked them under your armpit, lifting you gently but efficiently so you were sat on the counter top. He nodded, apparently satisfied, and brought his attention to the stove to make scrambled eggs.

You watched every move. The way he broke the eggshells with a single tap against the side of the small pan, how he placed the spatula so it was exactly parallel with the edge of the stove, and how he stared down at the cooking meal, as if that would make it go faster.

He stuffed two untoasted slices of bread with the scrambled eggs before handing you the plate. Bucky didn’t have a dining table, so he stood opposite you as you both ate right there in the middle of the kitchen area, your legs dangling off the counter top. It felt strangely intimate, like you had been doing this for years, eating in a comfortable silence. To your surprise, the sandwich was quite delicious, too, given his limited resources. When you told him so, Bucky beamed a shy smile that warmed your heart.

“It’s not much, I know,” he said but you had to disagree. The gesture alone was worth more than any fancy meal you had ever eaten.

Once you were finished and Bucky had taken the empty plate from you, he spoke again. “Your phone rang while you were in the shower.” He was avoiding your eyes.

“Oh, thanks. I should probably check that.” But you were kind of stuck on the counter. “Could you, um…” You trailed off, hoping he would get what you meant.

Your idea had been for him to get your phone from the bed, but you let out a surprised shriek when Bucky sneaked his arm under your legs, the other around your back and carried you over there. Scared he would drop you, you clutched his shoulders, but he walked as if you weighed nothing.

He went down on one knee, setting you onto the mattress carefully, before he stood up. “I’ll, uh, I’ll give you some privacy,” he said, awkwardly looking around the apartment for a place where he’d be out of earshot. When you saw him glance toward the bathroom, you put an end to it.

“Wanna sit with me?” you asked, patting the space on your right.

Not hesitating, and you decided to jot that down as some sort of progress between the two of you, he pushed the scrunched-up blanket away, plopping down. You bounced slightly from the force of it, and found yourself giggling.

“Okay,” you said, “give me a sec.” One look at your phone, however, dampened your improved mood drastically. The cracked screen was littered with dozens of missed calls, hundreds of furious text messages. You were in big trouble. Sighing deeply, you gathered enough courage to call Dylan back.

“Were the fuck are you?” came his voice screaming through the speaker right after the first ring, “you have clients waiting for you! If you’re brave enough to come back, you better have your affairs in order because I am going to fucking kill you! You little bitch! I should have kicked your head in yesterday when I had the chance!” After that, you toned out his words. You’d heard them before countless of times. But still, because you really were weak like he always told you, there were tears in the corners of your eyes, threatening to fall any second. What if this time, he’d be true to his word?

You’d completely forgotten about Bucky, who still sat next to you, able to hear everything Dylan yelled at the other end of the line. But he reminded you when he reached out to pull your phone from your grasp. Your breath hitched, suddenly looking at him, and from the force of the movement, a tear quickly rolled down your cheek.

“You can’t go back there,” he said, and his voice held something foreign that you couldn’t name.

You shook your head. He was right, but if there was any other way, you didn’t know it.

“He’ll hurt you again.”

You bit your lip, nodding. But if this was to be your fate, then so be it.

“Stay.”

There was a tiny gasp and it took you a second before you realized it had come from your own throat. “I couldn’t–“

“Please, don’t say no right away. Hear me out,” Bucky insisted, “I know this shitty apartment isn’t what you deserve, but I can make it better. I could get another chair or something. And I’m out most of the time anyway.” He paused. “But he hurt you. He’ll do it again and I–I can’t let that happen.”

“If I don’t go back, I won’t have any money.” This was ridiculous. You didn’t know each other and he was asking you to move in?

“Let’s make a deal,” Bucky said and he was the most energetic you’d ever seen him. Granted, he still was quiet and reserved, but he seemed genuinely determined. “You cook and maybe help me make this place livable and I let you stay and get us food and everything.”

“I can’t.” But Bucky, in a moment of bravery and probably desperation, grasped your hands.

“Y/N.” The word held everything from a plea to a promise, and something in his eyes told you he was trustworthy. So you yielded.

“Only until I can get something on my own,” you said pointedly, and Bucky nodded. Satisfied, he was back to his shy self and you wondered whether you’d get him to come out of his shell one day, whether you’d tear his walls down at some point.

#bucky barnes x reader #bucky barnes au #bucky barnes fanfic #bucky barnes fan fiction #bucky barnes #Avengers #avengers fanfic #avengers imagine #avengers x reader #marvel #marvel fanfic #marvel imagine

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faewhump · 4 years

Text

Unseelie Pet: 12. Chapter

Malachi takes Alex out on a ball for the first time, where he’s forced to compete in a cruel game against other pets.

Previous Masterlist Next

Content warnings: dehumanisation, humiliation, non-consensual touching (not sexual), drugging (faerie food), non-consensual body modification, mentions of whipping

Tagging: @castielamigos-whump-side-blog @whumpsideblog @frnkieroismydaddy @slaintetowhump @thewhiteraven73 @galaxywhump

In the end Alex had to wear the muzzle for over three days. After the first twenty-four hours of no speaking had passed, Malachi removed the muzzle and allowed Alex to eat and drink at his leisure, but then insisted on muzzling him again. Alex had tried to fight to the best of his abilities, protesting and screaming as loud as he could. However, with how lethargic he was from the faerie food and the Fae’s superhuman strength, he’d quickly lost the fight. Malachi had left him alone while he raged on, struggling against the muzzle and thereby prolonging the time he’d have to wear it, until he finally broke down.

The second time Malachi removed the muzzle Alex’s demeanour had been completely different. He’d been dried out, hungry and exhausted, and didn’t even resist when Malachi muzzled him again. After the next twenty-four hours had passed without any upsets, Malachi finally declared the punishment to be over. He seemed almost disgustingly pleased with the results this lesson had brought, but Alex was too wearied to be angry about it.

He’d had a lot of time to think and eventually circled back to his tactic of pretending to be broken until he was ready to escape. Aside from hopefully lulling Malachi into a false sense of security, this plan also had the advantage of letting Alex believe that it was all just acting. He didn’t want to even entertain the possibility that the Fae’s conditioning was actually starting to work.

When Malachi burst into Alex’s room the next time he was followed by a group of servants that carried all sorts of things.

“What is this about?” Alex asked carefully and put his book down. As a reward for finally accepting his punishment Malachi had allowed him to pick one from his private collection.

“Consider yourself lucky, my little bird, you will accompany me to the ball tonight,” Malachi said, clearly in a good mood. “Come now, it is time to get prepared.”

“Already?” Alex’s surprise overshadowed his reluctance for a moment. “But it isn’t even dusk yet.”

Malachi chuckled. “Of course, we still have a lot to do until you are fit for the occasion. Or did you expect to go like that?” He shook his head in amusement. “Up you go, let’s get you cleaned first.”

Still a little confused Alex followed Malachi to the bathroom and allowed himself to be washed as usual without any resistance. Next Malachi trimmed and filed his nails, carefully shaved off the stubbles Alex’s meagre beard growth had produced and rubbed silky lotion into his skin. Alex didn’t understand why Malachi fulfilled all those servant tasks for him, but when he asked he only got the standard “Because I like taking care of my pet” reply.

The clothes Malachi had picked out for him were even richer than the one’s he’d given him before. The black trousers were comfortable and fitted him snuggly, while the dark blue shirt was a little wider with a laced-up front, that Malachi left purposefully undone at the top to show off the collar better. Instead of proper shoes he was given soft slippers again. Against Alex’s expectations, however, they were far from done yet.

Malachi had Alex sit in front of the dressing table and combed his hair, then switched to the unpleasant affair of plucking his eyebrows. Set on sticking to his plan, Alex passively suffered under the Fae’s attentions without complaint and was generously rewarded with delicious morsels for his compliance. The calming effects of the faerie food also made it easier for him to keep still as Malachi applied make-up to his face, darkening his eyelashes with kohl and lightly rouging his cheeks and lips.

Lastly, Malachi began to adorn him with precious jewellery, each individual piece probably worth more than the entire inn Alex had worked at before. There were rings with gems pushed onto his fingers, and the numerous golden bracelets around his arms perfectly matched his collar. Only when Malachi took a pair of beautiful dangle earrings out of their box did he run into a problem: Alex didn’t have any earlobe piercings.

Suddenly a sharp pain pieced Alex’s right earlobe, causing him to cry out in surprise. He looked at Malachi in disbelief, had he really just rammed the earring through? Malachi’s face didn’t show any sign of regret.

“Turn your head, please, so that I can do the other side,” Malachi instructed calmly.

Alex swallowed, his right ear stung, and the weight of the earring only aggravated the pain. He looked at Malachi pleadingly. He really didn’t want to be hurt again, and besides, he didn’t want earlobe piercings in the first place… but he knew that refusing a gift would only hurt more.

“Turn your head, pet,” Malachi repeated, untouched by Alex’s pleading gaze.

Feeling almost numb Alex obediently turned his head and quietly began to cry. The second one somehow hurt even more than the first, probably because he’d been expecting and fearing it.

“Shh, sweetheart, don’t cry,” Malachi soothed and gently wiped Alex’s tears away. “You’ll smudge the make-up.”

Alex didn’t resist when Malachi carefully pulled him into his arms.

“Hush, darling, you did so well,” he praised. “You were so good and very brave, and you’re just stunningly beautiful now, look.”

He gently pushed Alex back and turned his face towards the vanity mirror. Alex regarded his reflection, feeling strangely removed from it. His brown hair was lush and shining, the make-up made his eyes appear bigger and his complexion brighter, and the fine shirt perfectly complimented both his pale skin and the golden collar around his throat. There were small trails of blood on his earlobes where the hooks had pierced his skin. The only thought he had was that the earrings were indeed beautiful.

After re-applying parts of the make-up that Alex’s tears had smudged and wiping away the blood on his ears, Malachi sternly instructed him to stay where he was and to not change a thing until he came back. Then he left to get ready for the ball himself. Still feeling placid from the faerie food and weirdly detached from himself in general, Alex obediently stayed seated on the chair and kept his hands in his lap. Time passed in a blur, and Alex almost felt like he just woke up when Malachi eventually returned.

Alex’s heart thudded in his chest when he saw him, and he was momentarily blown away by the Fae’s incredible beauty all over again. Malachi had changed into fancier clothes as well, and although his embroidered overcoat was dark red instead of blue like Alex’s shirt, they undeniably matched. Malachi had clearly put a lot of thought into their outfits for the ball.

“Come on, pet, it is time,” Malachi said and hooked the detested leash into the front of Alex’s collar. “Aren’t you excited for your first ball?”

“Is this really necessary?” Alex asked, gesturing towards the golden chain tugging him along. “Do you really think I could escape unnoticed from a ball?”

Malachi laughed. “Of course not, silly. Tonight this is merely because of how cute you look with it.”

Alex clenched his teeth, fighting against the urge to dig his heels in and refuse to walk even another step. He didn’t want to go to the ball in general and even less so on the end of a leash connected to a collar around his throat. But he’d learned well enough by now that there was no sense in fighting Malachi, if he had set his mind on something, he’d achieve that sooner or later anyways. The only thing Alex could influence was how much he’d be hurt in the process.

The ball took place in the same great hall he had met Malachi in the first time. The number of faeries around set Alex on edge, and he was almost glad for the humiliating markers clearly showing him as belonging to the powerful High Fae next to him. He was by far not the only human pet that accompanied their owner to this occasion, and looking at how scantily dressed some of them were, he was intensely grateful for the modest clothes Malachi had given him.

As usual he did his best to ignore the happenings around him and just followed Malachi around, who seemed to be both feared and yet quite popular with the other faeries. At least there always were people that wanted to talk to him about one thing or another, most of which went entirely over Alex’s head. He hadn’t been involved in Court politics for over ten years now, and despite the faeries’ long life spans their positions and alliances could change fast. Alex took it as a small mercy that, aside from receiving compliments on his new pet’s outfit and looks, Malachi barely took note of him.

He’d just started to hope that he’d be left alone for the rest of the night as well, when a group of faeries invited Malachi into their midst.

“Lord Malachi!” a smiling High Fae called. “Will you let your lovely new pet join in our game?”

“Sure, why not,” Malachi decided and tugged Alex over.

Alex’s stomach churned. He didn’t know what would be in store for him yet, but he’d seen enough of the kinds of games faeries liked to play with their pets in the past, and none of them ever looked particularly enjoyable.

“The rules are simple, whichever pet crawls from here to the column the fastest, without spilling all the water from the bowl on their back, wins,” one of the Fae explained. “The winner will receive these delicious candied fruits as reward, while the looser will receive thirty lashes as punishment.”

Alex threw Malachi a pleading look, he really didn’t want to participate in this awful race.

“Don’t worry, darling, it’ll be fun,” Malachi encouraged. “You’ll do your best for me, won’t you?”

“I don’t have a choice on that, do I?” Alex asked bitterly. “If not, I’ll get punished.”

Malachi chuckled. “Well of course, that’s why it’s such a good motivator.”

“How can you claim to care about me when you'd punish me for something so trivial as a stupid game?”

“Sweetheart, it’s just the game rules,” Malachi sighed. “And besides, I’m sure you won’t lose. Now come on, get into position.”

Alex reluctantly followed as Malachi led him to the line that had been drawn on the parquet floor and forced him onto his hands and knees alongside seven other pets. He unhooked the leash, placed a bowl of water on his back and gave him one last head pat in encouragement. Then he joined the crowds of faeries that had formed on both sides of the racetrack.

Alex breathed deeply, trying to keep his temper under control. Everything in screamed to jump up and refuse participating in this, but he knew well enough that he’d quickly come to regret such a rash action. He looked around at the other humans next to him and was appalled. Some of them just looked so beaten down and broken, their eyes dull and their postures defeated, while others seemed… genuinely excited and eager?

But there was no time to dwell on this observation, the Fae that had set the rules called for the race to start, and the pets began to move. Almost automatically Alex moved along, he didn’t want to do this, but he also didn’t want to be the loser. He felt bad for crawling past others, well aware that if he didn’t lose, someone else would suffer in his place. Water spilled onto his back, and he willed himself to move more carefully, trying to copy the smooth and almost elegant way the human in front of him crawled.

He had never felt this utterly humiliated and wished for nothing more than for the ground to open up and swallow him whole. His face must have been beet red, and he constantly had to blink away the tears of embarrassment that threatened to fall. Probably the worst part were the way the faeries around were treating this horrible game like a sport, loudly commenting on the pets and cheering them on. The bracelets on his arms slowed him down and the swinging earrings increased the throb in his ears, but he willed himself to ignore it.

Even though the racetrack wasn’t that long it still felt like an eternity, and Alex’s limbs almost gave out from relief when he finally crossed the finish line. Malachi seemed a tad disappointed that Alex hadn’t won, but he still ruffled his hair in praise for coming in third. Alex still trembled as he picked himself up and for once didn’t have the energy to be embarrassed about the leash being attached to his collar. Standing subdued at Malachi’s side he didn’t know which sight was worse, the loosing pet receiving their punishment, or the eager and happy way the winner accepted their reward.

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keelywolfe · 5 years

Text

FIC: Terms of Engagement ch.3

Summary: Rus is still a kid himself and with his life turned upside-down, he has no idea how he’s going to take care of his baby brother. Having other kid skeletons appear in his world wasn’t exactly the help he was looking for.

Tags: Pre-Spicyhoney, Underfell Papyrus, Underfell Sans, Underswap Papyrus, Underswap Sans, Undertale Sans, Undertale Papyrus, Babybones, Scientist W. D. Gaster, Possible Past Child Abuse, Skellie Daycare, Growing Up Together, Big Brothers Caring For Their Little Bros, Fluff, Hurt/Comfort, Angst

Notes: I sort of desperately needed a little more of the Adventures In Skellie Daycare. Enjoy!

Chapter One | Chapter Two

Read Chapter Three on AO3

Read It Here!

~~*~~

Before he’d ever met the others, before he’d inherited a pack of baby bones to watch on every third day, Rus was already pretty used to waking up with a small, warm, bony body sleeping on him.

When Blue was only a little boney maroney, they’d shared a room and whenever he’d woken up crying, Rus was the one who went to him, soothed him, fed him from the bottles the scientist left even if they couldn’t be trusted because there was nothing else to eat. He’d tuck his little brother into bed with him, holding him close and taking his own guilty comfort from no longer being alone.

He’d promised to keep the kid safe all the way back then, one of the first promises he’d ever made. First one he’d ever broken, too; his memories of how or why were fuzzy on the details, but he knew it was true. Rus had made the some promise again After, this time to three little ones who all looked up at him with worshipful eye lights, believing every stupid word that came out of his mouth.

He’d kept his promise a lot better this time.

Blue usually slept pretty well on his own these days, but sometimes he’d wake up from a bad dream, or maybe those fuzzy memories trying to find a way back in. He’d wander in and burrow into Rus’s blanket-and-cushion pile with him, all snuggly-warm, and Rus would wake up with a little brother squirming against him, ready for whatever breakfast there was.

So, it wasn’t too weird to wake up with a heavy weight on top of him, even if it did feel heavier than normal; maybe Blue brought one of his toys in with him? Rus blinked heavily, but the room was completely dark. None of the artificial daylight nor the glow of the lava made it all the way down here. He fumbled for the lamp, wincing at the sudden flood of light. It was only when his vision cleared and he saw it was Edge sleeping on him that Rus remember.

“shit,” Rus mumbled, scrubbing at his face roughly with one hand. They needed to get moving and over to visit in Red’s world before Sans got here with Papyrus if he was going to have time to talk to Red. He did hate to wake the kid; Edge was sprawled out on him like a starfish, drooling enthusiastically on Rus’s pajamas and his rabbit hanging loosely from one hand. But time was a-wasting and Rus wasn’t even sure how much they had. They needed to get going.

He gave Edge a gentle nudge, “hey, kiddo, time to get up.”

Yeah, and that was the reason he hated having to wake Edge up. The kid woke instantly, already scrambling to his feet and away, his eye lights skittering around wildly. Rus didn’t know what Edge was looking for, but he only relaxed when he didn’t find it.

Edge didn’t seem to think there was anything strange about waking up like he was expecting to find something (someone?) gnawing on his femur. He only yawned and gave Rus a sleepy smile. “Morning, Russy.”

“good morning, sugar skull,” Rus gave the skull in question a gentle knuckling, “we need to go talk to your bro real quick before blue wakes up and sans gets here with papyrus. lemme get dressed and we can go.”

“’kay,” Edge scrambled to sit on a cushion while Rus scrounged through his clothes for something reasonably clean. The kid started automatically putting his thumb into his mouth and paused with it halfway there, forcibly settling his hand back into his lap. Rus pretended not to notice, Edge’d been trying to break the thumbsucking thing for ages and usually had it beat. Must be really worried about his bro if that habit was putting in an appearance.

When Rus finally found a sweatshirt without too much in the way of stains or stink, he shrugged into it and a pair of shorts, groaning and stretching with every step. It was too damned early to be up, Red better appreciate this. He wouldn’t, but Rus could hope. Once he’d shoved his feet into his sneakers, he paused by Edge, who was looking up at him hopefully.

Rus raised a brow bone at him and those sockets went wider, his jaw quivering tremulously. It made him chuckle and shake his head, giving in, “okay, c’mere, kiddo. you’re starting to get big for piggy backs, ya know.”

“Not too big!” Edge said sulkily, but it turned to a gleeful crow when Rus swung him up on his shoulders.

“no? thought you weren’t a baby bones,” Rus said slyly. He winced as Edge flicked him between the sockets, his bony finger making a hollow thock against his skull.

“Don’t be mean, Russy!” Edge whined.

“me?” Rus rubbed his skull ruefully. “okay, quiet down, kiddo. we’re gonna check on blue and then head over to your place, yeah? don’t wake him up or he’ll hafta come along and this’ll take too long.”

“okay,” Edge whispered. He hunkered over Rus’s skull like he was using all the energy in his little bones to keep quiet.

Good enough.

Rus knew all the places on the floor that creaked by heart and avoided them, easily balancing Edge on his shoulders as he made his way to Blue’s room. It was Red who’d pointed out that all the squeaks and creaks were good as an early warning system in case anyone ever came wandering down here, so Rus left them as they were. So far, the only use they’d been was to warn him about an escaping baby bones, but hey, that right there was worth the price of admission.

A quick peek showed Blue was still sound asleep, curled up in his little bed with his own lovey. He’d sleep for a while yet if Rus didn’t wake him, so if they hurried, they’d be back before his bro even noticed he was gone.

True to his word, Edge kept quiet as Rus crept back out and down the hallway to the machine room. It was only once they were inside that he shifted uncomfortably, his sharp little fingers pinching a little against Rus’s skull.

Not that Rus blamed him. Using the machine always made him uncomfortable, too.

There was something about it, something that felt wrong, prickling uncomfortably over his bones. It was stupid, but sometimes Rus had this weird idea that machine wanted him to use it. Didn’t make any sense, it was a machine, machines didn’t want things, and he never mentioned it to Sans or Red. They’d think he was dumb. Dumber.

Dumb or not, it didn’t stop him from feeling it, but there wasn’t much choice about using it, it was the only way to get to the other worlds. Rus reached back and gave Edge a gentle pat as he tapped in the coordinates he’d long ago memorizing, waiting for the rush of painful cold from the opening portal.

The shimmer of black that appeared was eerily silent as always. Rus never did figure out how Sans worked up the nerve to walk through it the first time, because he sure wouldn’t have done it.

Well, maybe.

The portal wasn’t that tall, Rus usually had to duck to go through it, and this time he swung Edge off his shoulders to balance him on his hip bone before walking in. There was a certain guilty comfort to holding him close, even as Edge shivered a little in his arms. This kid didn’t much like it, either, although he’d never heard a complaint from Blue or Paps.

Stepping through it took less than a second, but it was like falling through ice on a lake, chilling him to his soul.

The machine room in this world was weirdly similar to his own, down to the same feeling of prickling discomfort that didn’t ease until Rus went through the door. The second it closed behind him, that feeling was gone like it was shut off with a switch and Rus gave himself a little shake and went looking for Red.

The building itself was laid out different than his own, a weird mirror image and Sans’s was the same way. Sans joked that it wasn’t just him and Blue, it was all of their world that was swapped around from theirs and so far, Rus hadn’t seen any proof that he was wrong.

Didn’t matter much, all it meant was that he turned left instead of right to get to Red’s room and that he had to follow the path of creaks and squeaks in reverse.

Edge’s fingers were gripping his sweatshirt so tightly it was pulling it off his shoulder, and Rus rubbed his back soothingly. He kept quiet though, biting back any soothing words. Something felt…off, ominous, he couldn’t explain it. The door to Red’s room creaked loudly enough to make him wince, but there was a light on and he didn’t need to let his gaze adjust to the dark. Red was sprawled on the bed, snoring away, a blanket draped haphazardly over his legs.

No wonder Edge was worried; even asleep, Red looked like shit. He’d taken to wearing sunglasses lately like an asshole, and Rus hadn’t thought it worth anything past an eyeroll. Looking at him now, he was obvious he’d been hiding the dark circles under his sockets. How long had he been hiding this shit and he’d been watching the little bros like this? What if he got them sick, too?

Rus sent a Check at him to see how bad it was and what came back to him chilled him worse than any walk through the void.

Sans: LV 3 1 ATK 1 DEF *he’s only pretending to sleep

“oh, fuck,” Rus whispered. He stumbled back a step, sockets so wide they ached as Red rolled over and looked at him, and never had those crimson eye lights, that permanent sneer with those razor teeth seemed so threatening.

He barely noticed Edge squirming in his arms. “Russy, you’re holding too tight…Russy? It’s too tight, you’re hurting me…!”

His feet were moving on their own, shuffling backwards and nearly tripping over his laces so he didn’t have to look away from Red. Who was climbing to his feet, reaching out to them with his sharp-clawed fingers and he had EXP, he had LV, killer, he was a killer—

“wait!” Red cried out and Rus was so stupid that he actually did, paused at the pain in that voice and the tears that were suddenly tracking down Red’s face, because when had Red ever cried? Never, that was when, Red played the badass, always, even though he was a full head shorter than Rus, he didn’t cry, never cried. Until now, sinking down to the floor amidst socks and sweatshirts, curling into a ball and burying his wet face into his upraised knees as he rocked and wept, “i didn’t have a choice! i didn’t…i couldn’t…”

Rus glanced at the door out of the corner of his socket. He could make it, one quick dash and he could maybe slam it closed, trap Red in here while he and Edge made for the machine.

Instead, he hesitated, watched the quiver of Red’s shoulders even as he clutched Edge closer to him despite his complaints, “what happened?”

Red lifted his skull, his blotchy face awash with tears that he tried to wipe away roughly on his sleeve. He snuffled hard, “not in front of the kid.”

Yeah, he wasn’t that stupid. “either tell me, or i’ll take him back with me.”

Red’s eye lights flicked to his brother, who was starting to sniffle himself, still trying to worm free of Rus’s grip. He nodded reluctantly. “i was at the dump, digging for somethin’ to sell. usually, i can get in and out without nobody seein’, but this time, they caught me. i thought i lost ‘em but they followed me back here and—” The tears started again, trailing down his cheek bones to meet at his chin, falling in droplets. “they attacked me, tried to kill me. called me free xp. i couldn’t…they knew where we lived, they coulda found the machine. coulda gotten to all of you, i didn’t know what else to do!”

Some part of Rus’s soul cried out that there was always something, that killing was never the answer…but it was weak, easily squashed. He’d always known this world was more dangerous, he and Sans both knew it, talked a few times about maybe quitting with the even steven in babysitting and only watch the kids in their worlds.

Just thinking of what kind of Monsters would call Red free XP, little Red a full head shorter than Rus in his striped shirt and stupid boots, thinking of those Monsters getting to the machine, getting to his world, getting to Blue—

“fuck,” Rus mumbled, because what were they supposed to do?

“couldn’t let ‘em hurt you guys,” Red said, dully. He’d given up on stopping the tears, letting them fall, staining his face. “couldn’t. not my bro, not blue and paps, i couldn’t.”

“i know,” Rus said, struggling with numb fear of his own. This could happen again easy and what was Red supposed to do? Keep killing anyone who found him out, piling on the EXP until it drowned him in LV? He knew about LV, knew what it could do to a Monster, and Red was an asshole, but they couldn’t let that happened to him. Worse, he might not earn EXP, he might get dusted, and then Edge would be here alone and—he didn’t realize how hard he was squeezing Edge until the kid smacked him, squalling again that he was holding too tight. He loosened his grip absently, his thoughts a’whirl, what could they do—

The solution was so simple he couldn’t believe he’d never thought of it before, clicked in his head like one of the puzzles that the three trouble triplets loved to do.

“listen,” Rus said, slowly, “why don’t you and edge come live with blue and me?”

That got him a fresh emotion from Red. His eye lights flashed and he snarled out, “we don't need your pity!”

“good, because you’re not getting any!” Rus shot back. "how are you gonna protect our bros here, huh? how can you keep edge safe? you know things aren’t the same in my world, so come stay with us! no one is gonna call you free xp there!”

Red flinched, the truth of that hitting him hard. He was wavering, so Rus finally set Edge down and let him run to his brother, flinging himself into his arms. Usually, Red would tolerate hugs from the kiddos with a lot of grumbling and shove them away after a minute. This time he gathered Edge close, holding him in tightly as his little brother bawled and clung to him.

Over his little bro’s head, Red’s eye lights twitched to the wall where a few pictures of all the kids were tacked up, taken with an old camera Sans found at his lab. One of them was of Blue, swallowed up into one of Red's old jackets, the sleeves hanging over his hands as he beamed up at the camera with starry eye lights. There were plenty of others; Edge and Paps and Blue as baby bones, working their way up from toddlers till now, the three of them laughing and playing. Safe.

Red tried to swipe away his tears again, uselessly, and snuffled out, “you mean it?”

“course i do!” Rus said stoutly, with more confidence than he felt. Okay, it was gonna be a pain in the ass, he knew that, but it was a helluva lot better than the alternative. “red, you guys don’t need to stay in this shithole

He still didn’t look convinced. Edge squirmed free of his arms, for once having to fight loose from his brother’s grip. He stood there in his too-small footie pajamas, looking up at Red, and his voice was pure hope as he asked, “We’re gonna live with Russy?”

“yeah, kiddo,” Red sounded like he was still trying to persuade himself. “you like that idea?”

To say Edge lit up gave lightbulbs too much credit. The kid all but glowed, shining with delight, and he stood on his toes to whisper to his brother too softly for Rus to hear.

Red only snorted and shook his head. “you still on that idea? he ain’t marrying you, that ain’t how it works. is that why blue keeps askin’ me, you put that idea in his head?”

“am so,” Edge repeated stubbornly and for all that none of this was very funny, Rus had to cough to hide his own smile. Kid had a long memory, that was for sure.

Red looked around at the room, at the scattered clothes, the pictures and let out a slow breath as he nodded. “okay, give me some time to get everything packed up and we’ll head over to your place, yeah?”

“I can help!” Edge said eagerly. He started to run out, paused and gave Rus’s leg a hard hug.

His skull was only as high as Rus’s hipbone and he gave it a gentle pat, crouching to press a soft kiss to the curve of it and murmured, “go get your stuff, sugar skull. bet you and blue can share a room for a little while, yeah?”

“Yeah!” His delighted grin was the last thing Rus saw as he ran out, heading to pack what was probably too many toys and not enough clothes. Ah, well, he was sure Red would double-check.

Red was already stuffing clothes into a bag, frowning as he tossed a few things aside. Rus jerked his thumb at the door, “i’m gonna go back and give my brother a heads up. this’ll work out, red.”

He nodded jerkily, adding a striped hoodie to his bag. “yeah. least i know my bro will be safe in your world.

You both will, Rus didn’t say. He left them to pack and headed back to the machine, shivering his way through the void and back to his own world. It was no surprise that Blue was thrilled with the idea of having Red live with them, even if he had to share his room with Edge, and he spent the morning neatly splitting his room in half. Rus was less amicable about sharing; there were plenty of empty rooms in the lab, Red could pick a new one. They might even be able to find Red a mattress, short as he was, it’d be easier than finding one for Rus.

They were still waiting for their new roomies when Sans showed up to drop off Papyrus, who was so disappointed that no one was moving in with them that he started to cry. Rus gave Sans an abbreviated version of what was really going on while he soothed his little bro, and he decided to wait around instead of heading off to his own world, get a bead on how things were gonna be changing.

They were still waiting at lunchtime. At dinner. Still waiting that night when Rus tried to use the machine and found that it wouldn’t open a portal to their coordinates. Sans and Papyrus could head home, but their machine didn’t open to Red and Edge’s world either, only flashed a brief pattern of warning lights and stopped.

They waited the next day and the next, while Blue and Papyrus cried over their friends, and Rus and Sans sat in silent worry, trying the coordinates again. And again. Until eventually the kiddos stopped asking when Red and Edge were coming back, until Blue only looked at the pictures of his friends sadly, placing them in a scrapbook, and he wore that old jacket of Red’s until it was rags. Until Sans came up with his Idea and the four of them had to make a choice. But the machine never opened a portal to those coordinates again.

Rus kept that worry in his soul, waiting for a portal that never came, for the next fifteen years.

~~*~~

tbc

#spicyhoney #papcest #keelywolfe #underfell #underswap #underfell papyrus #underswap papyrus #underswap sans #underfell sans #undertale papyrus #undertale sans #baby bones #terms of engagement

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amehanaaa · 5 years

Text

How to Lose A Guy in 10 Days

Another round of Nalu! We love that.

I hope everyone has been having a good week so far! Although the summer has been slow, I’ve been trying to make the most out of it.

Thank you everyone who has been reading so far! I hope you enjoy this chapter! (Also can be read here.)

Chapter 4 – Chapter 1 / Chapter 2 / Chapter 3 Words: 3790 Summary: Lucy and Natsu are determined to take the necessary steps to fulfill their lifetime dreams. Little do they know, they have both given themselves 10 days to achieve it.

——————–

Arriving at the fire station, Lucy can physically feel relief scatter across her body as Natsu waves at her on the front lawn. After tipping the driver, she nearly runs to him.

“Hey,” they both say while giving each other a hug.

As they hug, Lucy scans their surroundings behind him. From what she can tell, Natsu is the only one outside. So far, so good.

“What are you looking for?” he asks, catching her gaze while they pull away.

“Nothing!” she exclaims, a little too quickly. She tries to calm her voice down. “I was just looking at the station. And now, I’m looking at you.”

She sends him a sweet smile to distract him. However, she also has to distract herself, so she doesn’t pay too much attention to how his shirt suggestively clings onto his torso. Although the plain shirt clearly has stains on it, there’s something about it that gives him an extra layer of attractiveness.

“Your hair looks pretty in the sun,” he says as he reaches over and twirls a lock in his fingers.

“Thanks,” she responds. She instinctively leans closer to his touch, but after remembering why she came, she stops herself from leaning too close.

“What have you done today?” she asks.

Natsu pulls away, beckoning her to follow him up the driveway. “Not much. I swept the front porch, but that’s all the action I had. I mentioned this to you before, but there’s not a lot for me to do here in central Magnolia.”

“What’s stopping you from going somewhere with more activity?” She remarks, reminding him of the question he asked her when they first met.

He pauses for a second too long. “I just have some plans before I start looking, that’s all. Anyway, want to meet my colleagues?”

Lucy slightly gasps, nodding eagerly. “I want to meet them!”

Natsu chuckles as he leads her into the station. “Hey, guys! I have someone I want you to meet!”

Lucy watches with amusement as men randomly appear in different areas throughout the station. Some appear from the back, others through various doors, and one even rolls out from under the firetruck. Suddenly, she’s surrounded by a handful of firefighters.

“Guys, this is Lucy,” Natsu introduces her. “She has a thing for people with stories.”

Lucy gapes at him. “Hey, that’s not—”

“Oh, I have a good story,” one of the men begin to say. “Natsu’s first time on the truck, he experienced motion—”

“Not stories about me,” Natsu hastily interrupts him. “I mean, stories about yourself. Childhood or coming of age stories. Those are the kind she likes.”

Lucy feels like she has been exposed like an open book. Although none of these men doesn’t seem to look at her strangely, she feels self-conscious. She has the urge to excuse herself, but someone steps up and speaks.

“I got plenty,” he says. “We can sit down and talk for a bit.”

Lucy glances at Natsu as though for approval. When she finds him nodding, she can’t hold back her smile while she follows the man to one of the outdoor tables.

“You’re not allowed to tell her any stories about me, Laxus!” Natsu shouts from behind them.

Although she has never been this close to such a built man, Lucy doesn’t allow for any awkward space between them. Once they sit, she instantly goes into reporter mode.

“What is your biggest motivation for being a firefighter?” she asks.

Laxus cracks his knuckles beneath the table. “My dad was a firefighter, so I basically grew up here. This station used to be my second home. But it was actually my grandpa who raised me when I wasn’t at the station. My dad wasn’t interested into the whole child-raising thing.”

Lucy hums and nods occasionally, making sure that he knows she’s listening to his every word.

“Gramps taught me a lot growing up, but I threw it all in the trash when I was old enough to make my own decisions. Greed is an addiction once you’re convinced that the world revolves around you. I learned the hard way that it doesn’t.

“Since it was in my blood to become a firefighter, I stayed loyal to the station. As I continued to be greedy, I planned to become the chief and lay off anyone who didn’t fit the criteria I created. I thought that as firefighters, we needed to be the strongest men who could take down anything.

“I was this close to being promoted.” Laxus raises his hand, leaving a pinch of air in between his index finger and thumb. “But something happened with Gramps that I never saw coming. He opened up a school. I knew that man loved people, but I never knew he had a soft spot for kids.”

Laxus appears to be reminiscing as he speaks. Lucy can’t help but be mesmerized, but she also has too many questions that can’t go unanswered.

“Is your grandpa Makarov?”

“Yeah. Did Natsu take you to Fairy Tail?”

Lucy nods. “Why did Fairy Tail change your heart?”

“It made me see people for how much they’re worth,” Laxus admits. “I used to see my colleagues as objects that were weakening the station. My perspective completely changed after finding out Gramps’ vision for Fairy Tail.”

“You saw his vision for that side of Magnolia to be redeemed,” Lucy says.

“Gramps’ vision also gave me hope for my redemption,” Laxus responds. “I realized that there was no way this station could stand without some people to stay here and maintain it. Fairy Tail changed me altogether, which is hard for me to say aloud.

“After that, my biggest motivation for being a firefighter was for the inactive members to know that they’re valuable. Even if it’s just sweeping the porch, they’re still needed here. Someone has to make sure everything is under control while we’re gone.”

Lucy glances behind Laxus’s shoulder to watch Natsu juggling three oranges. “How valuable do you think Natsu is?”

“Natsu is another reason why my eyes opened, too,” he mentions. “He said not to tell stories about him, so I won’t. But I think he’s more valuable than the chief wants to recognize. More valuable than sweeping, at least.

“The chief is pretty stubborn, so it won’t matter what I say. I have hope that Natsu will get to a place where he’s the firefighter he wants to be, though.”

Laxus’s voice is steady, causing an unexpected flare of hope to light up in Lucy’s chest. Weirdly enough, Laxus’s words are enough for her to believe that everything will be okay with Natsu. He will get to live his dream job—someday.

“Thank you for sharing me your story,” Lucy tells him, knowing that her words aren’t enough to express her gratitude.

“Take care of Natsu.” Laxus stands up from the table. “He seems to care a whole lot about you.”

Lucy tries to receive the advice as much as she can before it starts to hurt her chest. Once Laxus is inside the station, Natsu approaches her.

“How was it?” he asks while sitting across from her.

“Really good,” she replies. Her lips have permanently formed into a smile. “His story is really special.”

“You think all stories are special,” he remarks. “Hey, why does it look like you’re more into him than me?”

Lucy lets out a laugh, which causes Natsu to frown. She leans over and places an assuring hand on his shoulder. “Don’t worry. I only have eyes for you.”

“You better,” he mutters. “Anyway, are you ready for dinner tonight? I already have the menu.”

“I can’t wait.” She rises from her spot, brushing the dirt off her pants. “I’m going to run some errands before I come. I’ll see you at your place.”

“Alright,” Natsu says as he reaches for her hand to pull her in. He’s about to go in for a kiss, but Lucy moves her cheek just at the right time.

“See you.” She sends him a sly smile.

Feeling Natsu’s eyes focused on her back as she walks away, Lucy waits until she’s in the taxi to let out a sigh of relief. The more time that passes, the more she is convinced that his friend isn’t going to ruin the experiment anytime soon.

With that mindset, Lucy can focus on her plans. As she swings by her apartment, her biggest concern is how troublesome she will be tonight.

——————–

Natsu happily hums to himself later that night as he observes his apartment. The veggies are washed, the glazed ham has been in the oven for an hour, the dessert is in the fridge, candles are lit, music is playing—who wouldn’t fall in love with him after all this effort?

He doesn’t hold back his proud smile as Lucy takes in the view once she arrives.

“Natsu, you shouldn’t have done all this!” she gasps. “You even set the table.”

“I’ve been setting up since I left the station,” he reveals, not bothering to attempt being humble. “I even woke up early to prep everything. I made my famous recipe; it’s the most beautiful creation you’ll ever see.”

He brings Lucy to the table, offering her to take a seat.

“I can’t wait to eat it!” she claps her hands excitedly. She watches him go to the kitchen and open the oven. He returns with a ham on a large plate.

“It’s beautiful, isn’t it?” Natsu says, hypnotized by his own food. After setting the ham on the table, he delicately slices her a piece. “Let me know how good it is.”

Lucy begins to bite her lip, exchanging a few glances from him to the plate. She makes it obvious that she is hesitating. To make the moment last longer, she takes a long gulp of her water. After setting the cup back down, she slowly opens her mouth.

“Oh, Natsu… I forgot to tell you. I decided I’m not going to eat meat anymore.”

Natsu freezes in his spot. “When did you decide that?”

“I started yesterday,” she replies.

“You can’t just restart tomorrow?” he asks, almost desperately.

“Absolutely not!” Lucy proclaims in disbelief. “It’ll throw off my whole digestion track.”

Natsu has to use every muscle in his body not to sigh in frustration. Instead, he tries to nod in understanding. “Alright. I don’t think the vegetables will fill us up, so it’d be better to go somewhere else then.”

“Let’s go!” Lucy cheers, pushing herself up from the table. “I know the perfect place!”

Natsu thought he would have enough time to at least take a bite of the ham, but he doesn’t get the chance due to Lucy taking him by the hand and out of his place.

Just a short walk from his apartment complex, they enter an Italian restaurant with the words vegetarian only printed on the front door. Never in a million years did Natsu think he would be eating at a place like this.

“I’ve heard good reviews about this place,” Lucy says after they order.

“I’ve never been to a vegetarian place before,” Natsu responds, trying to hide the bias in his voice. “Can it really be that good?”

“You’d be surprised at how great vegetarian plates are,” she points out.

He hums while taking a sip of his water. “So, what made you decide to go vegetarian?”

“I watched a documentary,” she answers, visibly shuddering. “Do you know how awful the meat industry is?”

“I don’t want to know.” He shakes his head. “How long do you plan to be vegetarian?”

“I’m also doing it for health reasons,” she adds. “My dad used to deal with some health issues. Do you know if your parents had any health issues?”

“No idea,” Natsu shrugs half-heartedly. “They didn’t tell me anything about it if they did.”

Lucy notices how vague his tone sounds, but before she gets the chance to press further, their food arrives.

Natsu thought ordering pasta was a safe option, but even the noodles look healthy and unfulfilling. He looks over to see a pile of spinach on Lucy’s plate. Neither of these plates look satisfying.

Taking his first bite of the pasta, he views Lucy pick at her food. They connect gazes as she glances up from her plate.

“Do you think I’m fat?” she asks bluntly.

Natsu frowns at her sudden shift in tone. “What are you—”

“You’re looking at me like I’m fat,” she interrupts him. Her voice raises with each word. “I actually love eating spinach!”

Natsu can’t stop himself from gaping. He scans the area to see if anyone is staring at them.

“I’m not looking at you that way,” he insists with a low voice. “You’re one of the most beautiful women I’ve ever seen, Lucy.”

She stops picking at her food, a smile appearing on her lips. “Really? Even if I was twenty pounds heavier?”

“Even if you were thirty pounds heavier,” he confirms with a nod.

“Okay, I’ll remember that in the future,” she replies. With that, she takes a bite of her spinach.

The tension between them feels to be sizzling out by each minute, but Natsu decides to escape it altogether by making sure there is always food in his mouth. He is positive their dinner night couldn’t get any worse.

What makes it slightly better is the surprise dessert that the waiters gift them with at the end of their meal. Natsu is sure they must have noticed the tension at their table.

“Ice cream is the best,” Lucy sighs out happily, flipping the spoon upside down in her mouth.

“I could eat it every day,” he replies.

Allowing Lucy to take the final spoonfuls, Natsu is grateful when they leave the restaurant without another round of her outbursts.

“I’m sorry I ruined dinner for us tonight,” Lucy says while they step on the sidewalk.

They pause to stand at a corner and lean against the wall. Since it’s dark, they can only see what the hovering streetlights provide them. One light is above them, causing their skin to appear a tinted yellow.

“You can make it up for me next time,” Natsu assures.

Not giving her any time to react, he leans into her lips. He rests one arm to the left of Lucy to trap her in. Natsu can feel pent up frustration inside of him as she returns the kiss. He drags his lips across her cheek and gently pecks down to her neck.

“Ah,” Lucy nearly yelps. “Yeah, that sounds great.”

Natsu mumbles against her skin. “You feel great.”

Lucy doesn’t have a problem with entertaining him for a while, but she decides to fight against it—she knows this will frustrate him further.

Since she is backed against a wall, she has no choice but to escape his kisses by swiftly squatting down and stepping away. Natsu looks at her dumbfounded, but she makes up for it by giving him a chaste kiss.

“I’ll see you tomorrow, okay?” She sends him a hopeful smile.

She turns around in search for a taxi. Only have taken three steps away from him, she stops when he speaks behind her.

“How do you always make me feel like that?” Natsu asks.

She looks at him over her shoulder. “Like what?”

“You always smile after we kiss,” he points out. “It gives me this warm feeling in my chest.”

A giggle leaves Lucy’s lips. She brings her hand up in the air and begins to wave. “That sounds like a you problem!”

Not bothering to look at his facial expression in response, she gets into the nearest taxi. As she rides away, she finally feels something new inside her chest.

After ending every night with Natsu, she similarly has a type of warmth in her chest like he described. It’s a familiar feeling as though they’re actually in a relationship. Although she doesn’t receive it when they kiss, she definitely feels it after they’ve said goodbye each night.

But after tonight, there’s an unfamiliar heaviness. She wonders if these are the side effects to being the person she never wanted to become. She knows that the way she treated Natsu tonight was someone’s worst nightmare.

She recognizes that this heaviness settling in her chest represents that their relationship isn’t going in the right direction—which is exactly what needs to happen after the ten days.

Perhaps everything is going according to plan, after all. That is, if Natsu’s friend doesn’t come and wreck their relationship before then.

Meanwhile, Natsu returns to his apartment and finishes the entire ham by himself.

#fairy tail #fairy tail fanfiction #nalu #nalu fanfiction #my writing #wow chapter 4 already?!#what's going on #thanks for reading

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pandatowrites · 5 years

Note

Ereri in 13 or 100 please? :D

100. “You love me?” - “Of course I do, you dork.” - EreRi

Eren felt himself being lifted up by strong arms and held against a warm chest. Everything was a blur, although he did not need glasses.

The baseball field and the crowd were nothing more than an abstract painting with a lot of colors; colors that did not linger long enough to create an actual moment.

Additionally, everything was in slow-motion. Was it really, tho? Or was he the only one who experienced it this way?

The arms holding him did not budge, even when Eren squirmed. They only pushed him closer to his chest.

It felt so familiar, yet so strange. As if it happened a long time in the present.

“Hey, don’t faint in my arms, Eren, you hear me?”, the harsh words broke through the haze. It was soothing to the brunet boy. Who was that person? His heart was racing, the depth and the smoothness of that voice felt like home.

Yes, that’s what it was. The person, whose lips told those words, was his home.

Eren tried to get a better look at the person, but he could only make out shades and shapeless forms.

Black, white and a stormy grey. Where did all the colors go? Why did something so cold look so warm?

Suddenly, everything was white. Suddenly, everything was black.

No… Flashes hit Eren’s eyes.

There was red on him, on the shoulder which his head rested against, on the face above him. Little dapples of crimson.

“Eren… stay with me!” The voice from before, but distorted. And more distant. Distant in time and place. It felt like he listened to a voicemail that was played in another room, no- in another house, but loud and with all the windows open.

It did sound like the team’s Captain, but more mature, older and also rougher.

His vision cleared up, making him able to see a sharp jawline and a strong neck. And then, the scent. After-shave, weirdly strong and attracting, as well as the sweet scent of lemon and soap tickled his nostrils, while the stench of sweat stung his nerves.

Eren was sure now, it were… Levi’s arms that carried him.

Why didn’t he wear the cloak over his baseball uniform? Where was the bat? He needed to kill those giant… those giant… ‘Who is Levi?’

The more he thought about it, the more his head hurt. “Captain…”, he mumbled again when the vision blurred.

“God damn it, you will never learn it. Even when you’re half unconscious… I told you to call me by my first name.”

“Levi, I’m…”

And then, everything went black.

He woke up sitting upright, panting heavily and getting his hand squeezed.

Eren’s eyes followed the pale fingers’ way to the delicate wrist where naked skin met the white and blue baseball uniform.

“You’re up”, the voice from before said, a surprised, yet relieved undertone tainting the comforting sound. “Took you a while. Are you alright?”

His nose was itching and an annoying, white stripe covered the vision around his nose.

“What’s this?”, Eren asked instead of answering.

“The ball broke your nose. Bullseye. You fell over. Told you that guy had the strength of a titan.”

“Titan”, he repeated, it sounded like a question, but to him it was a lost memory. From another house. From another home.

Team Cap’s eyes softened all of the sudden, forming a familiar gaze. As if Eren understood his riddle. But before he could say anything, the school nurse entered the room again.

“I called your parents and informed them about your injury. Your mother should be here in a few. I’d recommend you to go to the doctor soon, we can’t say for sure that you suffered a concussion.” The nurse smiled at him and looked over to the boy holding his hand. “Are you a friend of his?”

“Oh, uh… something like that. I’m the baseball team’s captain, Alec.”

Alec? No, no, no…

Those eyes belonged to someone else.

Who was that someone?

“Oh, alright. I will be leaving you two then.”

Reality crashed upon him, when the door shut loudly.

“Alec….”, Eren said, testing out his voice, but no response. The guy who hold his hand stood still in time, still staring at the door to make sure they were alone in this tiny room.

With newfound strength, he tried again to get the Captain’s attention, “Levi.”

“Yes?”

Suddenly, the face he wanted to see so bad turned to his direction and those ice blue and grey eyes pierced Eren. He was shocked by his own reaction. “You recognize me?”, he asked breathlessly.

“Yes, Levi. Lance Corporal Levi Ackerman. Captain. Leader of the Special Operations Squad. Humanity’s Strongest. Levi.” There was no way to prevent the massive hug Eren gave the other boy, strong and secure.

This was it. This is home. These arms, this scent. This is it. This is home.

Obviously taken aback, the reincarnated man returned the hug. “You remember? … Eren- I’m sorry.”

“It’s okay. I can handle it”, he reassured the boy he was still embracing.

“That’s not what I meant”, Levi interrupted and took hold of his then-lover’s face. “I’m sorry for my words. We had parted in such a mess after-”

“It’s okay”, Eren repeated. “I love you. Even in this lifetime.”

After a loud gulp, the team captain answered, “You love me?”

“Of course I do, you dork. I have and will always love you.”

“I love you, too”, Levi responded with a slight smile, revealing his true emotions.

For a while, they just captured each other’s faces with their eyes, burning the image into their brains. They could start over with a new life as they were given a second chance. A new opportunity.

“But, uh… How am I gonna call you now? Alec? Levi?”

“I’d prefer Levi, although ‘Darling’ has a nice to ring to it, too… How about you call me your boyfriend for now and we’ll figure out the rest later?”

That smooth bastard has not changed at all.

#I hope you like it!!#it took me some time bc of work #sorry #ereri #drabble #prompt #snk #my writing #prompt request #request

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bookmawkish · 6 years

Text

Just a patient, part 6

All my fanfictions (includes more Loki)

Tag list for Loki fics: Tag list for Loki fics: @only-kneel-before-loki @ohhhmyloki @1800-fight-me@tarynkauai @rainhowling @hanasonly @dean-the-trickster@nikora3010@skip-the-static @sailor-moons-butt @clockworkherondale@oatballsoffury @artbysteph87 @smginger1131 @lokislilslut @pokemaniac1 @squishyxghost @roguedovesblog @jungwencantdie

Hope I didn’t miss anyone!

For a long moment you feel expectant, as if there’s something about to happen, and then the sick realisation hits you that you’re waiting to wake up.

Because this is where you always woke up before. You woke up and the dream faded. But the seconds are ticking past, relentless, and Loki is still lying there shuddering at your back. Unavoidably present and completely real. He sounds utterly dreadful, as if nothing has changed for him physically since he was scraped off the floor of Tony Stark’s penthouse.

You are pressed up against the body of possibly the most dangerous thing that exists on Earth right now, and all your idiot brain seems to be able to do is tell you that this is cool, all is okay, nothing is wrong.

What is happening? How can everything simultaneously be so twisted out of shape and so fittingly right? Loki gives a whole-body shiver, drawing in an impossibly long breath, as if he’s been unable to properly fill his lungs for years.

You want to go to sleep, actually. The way it’s been lately, the quality of your sleep has suffered, and in the postdrome of adrenaline you’re suddenly bone-tired. That damnable social instinct that you can usually ignore - to have physical contact with others - is suddenly all that matters, concentrated into the feeling of Loki’s body pressed against yours. There’s nothing lustful or sexual about it. It’s simple contact. Every inch of the skin of your back where it touches him, even through your clothes, feels hyper-sensitive, drawing in every sensation and turning that sensation into soporific warmth. It’s hypnotic and addictive and feels so good that you have no defences against it.

It has, after all, been a very long time since anyone has held you or even touched you in simple kindness.

It is also the first time since your father died that you have realised that this very simple feeling, or rather the lack of it, has been an open wound in your soul.

You have no idea how long you stay in that state, hovering on the edge of sleep, hanging half in and half out of dreams. But eventually, your training kicks back in and helps you take back control of your body. Like hypothermia, exhaustion can be insidious, and it speaks to you in gentle, soothing tones. But as an agent, you are able to recognise this for the dangerous slow death that it is, and you fight back by starting to move. Slowly at first. Drumming your fingers. Focusing on that movement, the feeling of the floor beneath the pads of your fingertips, the hard impact as each finger comes down. The little flickers of physical energy used and the concentration on the drumming are bringing your mind out of its trance. Next comes flexing your arms. Finally you push up off the floor, and as your dizzy head adjusts to the change in altitude, you realise the room is silent.

Loki has stopped wheezing.

He now isn’t making any sounds at all.

You examine him immediately, hands all over him, airway, chest, pulse points. He is lying in his bonds, trussed up like a turkey, and he is utterly limp, his eyes closed. You are not panicking. It is the work of moments to confirm that he is alive, and moments more to be sure that he is (just as you almost were) deeply asleep. You lean in very close to his face. He is breathing, but deep and slow and almost soundless, miles away from his pained gasping of earlier.

You check a few more times to be certain, but hold off on your more aggressive methods of checking for fakery as you genuinely don’t want to wake him. A sternum rub is pretty much always effective, but it hurts like hell and is hardly warranted when the dangerous patient is apparently doing nothing more suspicious than taking a nap.

A deep nap. A very deep nap.

You sit up, settle into a cross-legged position with your knees still brushing Loki‘s huddled form, and raise your eyes in a what-now shrug to the tinted glass wall. You know that although you can’t see out, Bruce Banner and his small army of agents can see in, and you wonder what they’re thinking. You decide the best option is to sit patiently and wait for orders like a good little drone.

Maybe you look like a superhero to them right now. Your one weirdly specific power: dropping a crazy Asgardian like he was a chicken in a trance. Tonic immobility tailored to one individual only, the least useful super-power in the world. This is probably going to be your life now. Spending every minute of every day at Loki’s side, ready to wiggle your fingers like a TV psychic and hum nasally hypnotic noises to make him fall over should he become violent. Maybe you’ll even get some kind of fluorescent harness like a service animal. “Do Not Distract Me, I’m Working!” it’ll say on it, in big cheerful letters. People could sponsor you.

God, what an awful concept.

Time passes. Loki remains unconscious. Nobody comes in. The outer door remains steadfastly locked. Being as you’re relatively sure that nothing short of an earthquake is going to rouse the patient from his unnatural slumber, you decide to risk it, and raise your voice.

“Hello?”

There’s no clock in here. You left your watch and everything else that could potentially be used as a weapon outside. There is nothing in here of note other than you, the fallen god in his restraints, and the control button for said restraints. Literally nothing. Not a shelf, not a book, not a bed. Just you and that rank smell of despair and madness. You find yourself not even wanting to know how they’ve been handling the sanitary arrangements in this minimalist environment. Do gods piss in buckets? Do gods piss at all? Is this even a question that you want to know the answer to?

You check on Loki once more, just for luck. He’s still sleeping. His skin is cool, not that furious animal heat from earlier. He’s not even twitching.

“God damnit.”

Without even giving it a thought, you stand up, intending to go and hammer on the door until someone has to come and stop the noise. And as soon as you are no longer touching him, Loki gasps, his eyes snapping open, and begins to twist once more in his bonds.

And greatly to your surprise, he speaks.

“You’re not asleep!” he says, his voice a pained, angry hiss. “Why aren’t you sleeping? I need you to sleep!”

Things seem to happen quite quickly after that. Funnily enough, as soon as Loki shows this tiny sign of coming back to sanity, the room is full of people again. What a surprise. Maybe this makes you a crushing cynic, but you can’t help but feel that should Loki have remained a drooling, mindless vegetable, you could have been stuck in there with him for the rest of your life. With them just waiting for that small chance that you would work your magic. One day. There would always have been another day. And another. Until you died of boredom or old age.

However, the sudden flurry of activity has precisely the opposite effect that they would want. As soon as you’re no longer alone with him, Loki makes a completely inhuman noise that rumbles and rattles up through his chest like a swarm of huge wasps inhabiting the echoing carcass of an impossible dragon, and starts once again to thrash. Somebody dives for the controller, ready to push that button again, immobilise Loki, drag him away from you. Evidently it isn’t soon enough, as something warm spatters your face, and you wipe away blood with your fingertips, hearing distantly the sharp swearing of a fellow agent who’s just had his nose broken.

Perhaps it’s this which distracts you - as fresh blood in your eyes tends to do - or perhaps it’s the concerned voice of Bruce Banner, calling you by name as you turn -

Either way, you turn just too late to avoid the glancing blow from Loki’s tethered legs, hefted high as the agents try to wrestle his serpentine body away. You take his feet to your temple, right in the thinnest spot, and the numbness feels as if it’s spreading from the point of impact down into your neck, your torso, your whole body, as if it’s slowing your heart. Your eyes stop working properly, watering profusely, your vision blurring and filled with tiny flares of light.

You fall, aware only vaguely of breaking that fall with outstretched hands, and you pass out. As a doctor, it should seem odd to you that you hadn’t previously appreciated just how close being forcibly knocked out actually is to sleep.

To gods, it seems, the difference is less than nothing.

Your body falls, and somewhere less physical, your mind falls with it.

And Loki is there. He catches you.

#loki #loki fanfic #loki fanfiction #loki x reader #loki x you #reader insert #loki/reader #medic!reader #shield agent reader #bruce banner #feral loki #Loki dreams #just a patient #MCU

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cazziamo · 6 years

Text

Runaway [2]

Requested: No.

Group/Member: EXO/Byun Baekhyun (mafia!au)

word count: 3,198 words

Summary: All it takes is being at the wrong place, at the wrong time for you to be dragged back into the world you had tried so hard to leave behind.

The only reason you woke up when you did was because you were suffocating. Choking and spluttering, gasping desperately for air, you threw yourself onto your side and rolled over onto your back. Your throat was dry with the dust you had inhaled while your face was pressed against the floor. Pebbles were sticking to the corners of your mouth and on your cheeks, flying off and bouncing away as your hacks racked your body. Your hands were bound behind your back tightly, yanking your shoulders back and your elbows in an uncomfortable angle. Groaning again, you managed to roll yourself into a position where you could get on your knees, and then stand. Once you stood up, you realized that you ankles were tied together as well, but with a space of limp rope in between you ankles that allowed you to walk, albeit a bit weirdly, but running would be out of the question. They had gotten you good, and secured you just as well.

If you really thought about it, then the only option you had was to sit tight and wait. You knew already that the door was locked, just by looking at it. The room had no windows, and you could have been underground anyway, for all you knew. Even if you did manage to get out, you had no idea of where you were and were you would even go just yet. You couldn’t go home, you couldn’t go to your parents, but you couldn’t stay here either. The whole point of being a runaway was to not go back. You don’t even think you could survive after so long.

Yet again, as you sat here locked in this room, you thought back to the alley way. Your body and your mind had both responded to the threat with what seemed like muscle memory. Except it couldn’t have been just muscle memory. You wanted to get at him. You wanted to hurt him, and make sure he wouldn’t find you again. The gun in his hand was so, so tempting, and even now, you could feel your finger tensing and twitching around the feeling of the phantom trigger. If you were being completely honest with yourself, it terrified you. It disgusted you. It made you think that it would be better to be dead than live that life.

Huffing slightly to get the stray strands of hair out of your face, you slid down the wall farthest from the door, drawing your knees up to your chest and wiggling your arms under your legs so they sat in front of you to make yourself a bit more comfortable. You were tempted to untie yourself, and after realizing that you could manage to do it, you did. Starting with your wrists, you twisted your hands to reach the knot and began to pick and twist it until it popped loose and the rope fell in a long coil to the ground. The ties around your ankles were even easier, and you quickly undid those and stretched gratefully. With nothing else to do and nowhere to go, you simply sat back down against the wall and waited. When you looked at the small, barred window at the top corner of the room, you could see it was still dark outside, so you knew that not much time had passed since that guy had knocked you out.

‘Remember the name Byun Baekhyun.‘ he had said.

The way he had said it was definitely meant to come across as mean, threatening, like he was trying to scare you into having a negative impression of him. If you were being honest, however, it made you want to laugh. He was so over dramatic with it, trying to add as much villain to his words as he could, except his villain was something out of a cheesy B-rated horror movie. There was no way you could have taken him seriously. Besides, he obviously wasn’t as smart as he thought he was. Who gave out their full names so easily, especially to a hostage who clearly had some sort of training? If you were able to get out, he would be shit out of luck. With a full name, and the fact that you had seen his face, and the knowledge of his base, you could easily, easily have him and the rest of his gang killed. You had been out of the game for a while, sure, but you still had emergency connections and people who were more loyal to you then to their own gangs, people who would kill for you if you asked.

Even so, you couldn’t do it. Word spreads fast in the underground, and having been kidnapped by such a large and famous gang was already putting you hugely at risk. If you were to call anybody in, your name would start to spread again, and you would be found in no time. Either way, you needed a way out fast, and you needed to do it before they figured out who you were.

A while had passed before you heard the footsteps near the door. How long that while was, you weren’t sure, but the sky was finally beginning to lighten, and the soft sounds of the autumn wind were whisking through the few and far between trees outside. Car horns were honking faintly in the background, which led you to guess that the city was close by, and the base you were in was probably out on the edges of the town. The knob jiggled softly and turned, before a dark head peeked in. The man’s face was rather round, with sudden definition to the jawline and chin, wide eyes and short light orange (or maybe a strawberry blonde?). He noticed you, still sitting against the wall, and opened the door enough for himself to come in. You noted that he didn’t close it all the way, and kept it open the smallest of amounts, meaning that the door probably locked automatically and only opened from the outside.

“Hello,” He began. His voice most certainly didn’t sound like a gang members, which most likely was good for business. You would guess that because of his smooth, tenor voice he was one of the more successful members, and was probably used as an interrogation leader of sorts, or probably secured deals or trades. “You can call me Xiumin, I’m sure you understand that you will come no where near our real names.” You snorted, but otherwise said nothing. It was too bad that you already had one full name. The way he said it was soft and gentle, but the meaning was clear, and not as nice as his voice implied. “However, you are going to tell me yours.”

You remained silent and expressionless, not even cocking up an eyebrow like your face so desperately wanted to. You would say nothing and give them nothing, unless it came to the point they tried to use physical means to get information out of you. Even then, the only thing they would get would be your flying limbs and sailors mouth.

Xiumin’s lips quirked up a bit at the corners, amused by your lack of reaction. “Okay, so name is a no go. Guess I’ll just have to call you penguin until you fess up.” He shrugged, smirking to himself still at his small little dig at you. You remained expressionless, but you couldn’t deny feeling a bit miffed at him teasing you for your socks. You still didn’t have any shoes on, and your thin little ankle socks were a shade of off white similar to ice, decorated with half of a penguin on each foot so that when you put your feet together, it made a whole penguin. You had thought they were cute, and you needed a pair of socks anyway. Your toes wiggled slightly, but you otherwise didn’t react.

“So how about you tell me why you’re here?” Xiumin continued, sitting down about a foot away from you. “Or who- wait a second, how the hell did you get untied?” He asked incredulously.

This time, it was you who smirked, resisting the urge to laugh. “Whoever ties the knots around here doesn’t quite know how to do their jobs, I suppose.” You quipped, shrugging and sitting up straighter. “And for the record, these socks are cute.”

He laughed loudly, slapping his hands against his legs. “Alright, no more dragging your socks, got it. Although,” He pouted slightly. “I’m a bit offended. I tied those knots, and I am very good at what I do.” Somehow, it seemed like there was another meaning behind it, and aside from another shrug, you didn’t respond.

His questioning continued on for a while, and after about forty five minutes or so, he seemed to finally figure out that you weren’t going to give him anything, not even your name. No doubt he already knew exactly what had happened, both from Baekhyun himself and whenever else was with them that night, because let’s be real, any smart gang sticks to the buddy system. Even if they weren’t out in the open, they were out there somewhere, watching, guns cocked and loaded. No matter how strong someone thought they were, it’s always too dangerous to go alone. Gangs don’t play fair- they play the dirtiest, the meanest, and the deadliest. They could shoot you while you’re in the shower, be waiting outside your door, or they could just jump you and kill you right then and there. It was never worth the risk.

“Alright, fine. Screw this.” Xiumin finally sighed in frustration, standing up and dusting off his pants. “Get up and turn around, hands behind your back. I’m taking you to Suho.” He huffed out, yanking the rope from the floor and shoving you against the wall. Pressing his legs against yours, he effectively kept you pinned and tied the knots around your wrists again, like handcuffs this time, except much, much tighter. You winced in pain as the rope dug into your wrists harshly, yanking your arms out of Xiumin’s reach in the smallest act of defiance you could manage at that moment. Setting your head high and straight forward, you followed along side Xiumin with as much dignity you could muster.

The hallways were tall, narrow and twisting, and it took all the concentration you could spare to try and memorize your way around. You also noticed the lack of any unnecessary windows or doors, which was bad for you. Assuming that they had many, many rival gangs that wanted them gone, it was most likely to limit any possible entrance points to try and avoid any break-ins or the like. As a result. however, that meant they were limiting the amount of exit points for you, so getting out of here would be much, much more difficult.

The walk from wherever you were to wherever you were going wasn’t a very long one, and after about six turns or so Xiumin stopped in front of a door that looked just like every other one. Their headquarters wasn’t dim, dark and dank like most gangs’ places were. In fact. it seemed more like a regular home than anything. From what you could tell, it was a large two story, except the entire bottom floor was underground, judging by the narrow flight of stairs behind you to the right. They most likely led to the top floor, the one above ground, although the staircase was probably hidden. The walls were painted taupe, or maybe it was a light sage color, that contrasted well with the mahogany furniture you’ve seen. The hallways were dotted with picture frames and little end tables (also mahogany- you were beginning to think every piece of furniture in this house was mahogany) with all sorts of little drawers. There were a few shelves as well, and a bookcase nestled in the corner at the end of the corridor. The doors were painted a lighter shade of sapphire, with light brass knobs. The people who lived here must have been very appearance oriented, because every shade of pant of finish on the furniture contrasted and went together extremely well. It was high class, you supposed, and definitely not what you had expected from a gang with their sort of reputation.

Xiumin knocked on the door and you could faintly hear someone respond, “Come in.” before Xiumin opened the door much in the same way he had opened it before- peeking his head in first and then opening it enough for him to step all the way in. He grabbed the length of rope in between your wrists and yanked roughly, jolting you forward and into the room. You swore and stumbled in, barely catching yourself from falling by shoving your shoulder into his back. His back was definitely way sturdier than you would like to admit.

“And who is this?” The other man in the room asked. You turned you attention to him, and immediately had to keep yourself from laughing. He was sitting behind yet another mahogany desk, with his legs propped up on the edge of the desk and his body reclining back in his chair. With the way his arms were folded across his chest, and a gun resting in the center, he looked like nothing more than a cheesy movie mafia boss. And not even the better one, that actually wins, but the shitty one they put in for five minutes to try and add some extra plot.

“I have no clue.” Xiumin shrugged, sitting in the other arm chair across the room after closing the door. “I can’t get anything out of her. Not a name, an address, or why she’s here. I know the story from Baek already, but still, she’s shut up tight. So, I figured that maybe you could get something out of her.”

The man hummed to himself for a moment, before sitting up straight in his chair. “Okay, sure. I’m Suho, Ms. Whatever Your Name is. I’m the leader of this gang. And since you’ve seen at east three of the members’ faces, including mine, as well as our base, we can’t let you go. From the fight that Baek said you’d put up, I’m sure you understand why.” He flashed a large smile, looking as if he had just come closer to winning his favorite game. “So, there are two options here, and I’m nice enough to let you choose.”

“What, join you or die?” You snorted, unable to help yourself any longer. “Next time you have any type of hostage, maybe pick a better movie to steal your lines from? Because honestly, Mr. I don’t Give A Fuck What Your Name Is, you’re lines suck.”

Suho laughed loudly, his eyes scrunching up as he bounced a bit in his chair, capping his hands in his over exaggerated joy. “Oh, I like you. You’re funny. And also right, because those are in fact you’re two choices. So hurry up and choose, okay?”

You bristled from the spot you were standing, gritting your teeth together. “Then go ahead and shoot me.” You said firmly.

You didn’t want to die. But death was better than going back to the gang life. You didn’t want to hurt anyone anymore. You didn’t want to kill. You didn’t want to be a part of the drug deals and the raids and the kidnapping and torturing. You didn’t want to jump anyone else, you didn’t want t threaten them. You’d rather be dead than have to do anything of the sorts again. You didn’t have anyone to return to anyway- your parents had completely shunned you, and there were many nights where you were left with nothing but an empty dial tone and regret from your attempted calls with them. eventually, your parents had changed their numbers and moved away, and your younger brother was moved to another hospital for better care. You haven’t seen him in years, and you were more than sure that he wouldn’t want to see you anyway. You had nothing and no one, so there was nothing for you to miss, ad no one to miss you. Death was the better option.

Seeing that you had no hesitance on the matter, Suho smirked. “Okay, sure thing.” He said. “Xiumin, go tell all of the other members to gather around; we have a new member joining us.“

Your head snapped up and around, and you nearly lunged at him. “What the hell? I said kill me, so fucking kill me! I’m not joining your shitty gang!"

Suho stood up slowly and fixed his clothes for a moment, straightening out his shirt and adjusting his pants, before walking over to you just as slowly as he had stood. He came to a stop about a foot away from you and grabbed your chin roughly. "C'mon, now. Did you really think you had a choice in the matter? You’re in my hands now, sweetheart. And what I say goes. This is the end of the line, so get ready to jump right in. Welcome to the gang.”

You stared at him and stared some more, in complete shock. Before you could even register what was going on, you had screamed and thrown yourself right on top of Suho, who wasn’t expecting it at all. You both toppled to the floor, and even though your hands were still tied together, you hit him in every way you could. The face, the chest, the arms, the neck- you knew you were doing next to no damage at this point, especially with the way Suho had his arms blocking himself. Even so, he didn’t try and get you off of him, and after a while you realized it wasn’t that you were shaking, but Suho was laughing underneath you. You hated it. He was underestimating you, like you were some toddler throwing a temper tantrum. Eventually, your hits began to slow and weaken, and you brought yourself to a complete stop on top of Suho.

“Please,” you whispered, all of the fight ripped from you. “Please, just kill me instead.”

Suho smirked, and you knew you had lost completely. This was what he had wanted the whole time. He wanted you to beg, to be reduced to nothing, to completely submit to him. At first Suho had seemed like absolutely nothing to you, just some prick behind a desk, but this was the real him. He was sadistic and manipulative, and he was in it completely for the thrill of knowing that he had completely dominated you. He had won, and that was all there was to it.

You both sat there for a few moment, making eye contact, before Xiumin suddenly hauled you off of Suho. You didn’t fight back or even struggle, instead letting him drag you around and out of the room. He pulled out a pocket knife and cut the rope around your wrists.

“I’m guessing you won’t be struggling anymore.” He asked cheekily.

“I guess not,” You told him tiredly. “I guess not.”

#kpopwonderlandtag #baekhyun fic #baekhyun angst #baekhyun smut #baekhyun au #baekhyun mafia au #baekhyun gang au #exo au #exo gang au #exo mafia au #exo smut #exo angst #exo fic #exo fanfic #kpop fic #kpop angst #kpop au #runaway #queue: moving

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intertwincd · 7 years

Text

i just need someone to break this wall of bricks i’ve built (coliver angst)

part 1/3 of the handle with care trilogy

hello, chelsea here. this is a lil something i wrote in attempts to give myself closure and to help myself reminisce of the times everyone in htgawm wasn’t pulling bullshit stunts (aka season 1) and i hope you enjoy it! huge, enormous thank you to @colormayfade for editing and beta-ing too

oh also i forgot to mention that the title of this part is borrowed from Yuna’s Places to Go

▪ ▪ ▪

i just need someone to break this wall of bricks i’ve built

It wasn’t as if he was scared, right?

Wrong. Of course he was scared, petrified even. Connor never knew what it was like to be brought back into a memory again and again every night; but that was before he and the other 4 of the k-5 killed Annalise Keating’s husband with their very own hands. He woke up drenched in cold sweat some nights; knuckles always bleach white and clutching at his sheets, trying to find some comfort, some security. This, ladies and gentlemen, was one of those nights.

He took lengthy breaths, in and out, trying to wash out the discomfort, fear and most of all—guilt.

In his head, Connor had long stopped trying to forgive himself for what he had done, because it was wrong in every sick disgusting way. Can you imagine killing your lecturer’s husband, cutting him up into sizable chunks and then pouring gasoline over it before proceeding to burn it? They might as well had tied a pink ribbon around the body and left a thank-you card with it at her doorstep.

As Connor raked his fingers through his wet hair, he laughed bitterly at what a mess he was. Even he couldn’t give himself the consolation he needed.

What he did the other night seemed to have created a black hole in him, a vacuum that sucked at whatever dignity or feelings he once had.

“Connor, I know this is hard on you, but you have to try— ” W es had tried to make him feel better, offering empty words of comfort that echoed around the house of Annalise Keating.

“And then what? Forget? We killed a man, Wes. ” Connor had stormed out of the house, unable to sustain another minute being suffocated by the air in the Keating house. God knew how many times he had to put himself through those memories until they’d stop resurfacing.

He sat in his car, letting his head rest against the steering wheel while the steady hum of the engine calmed him. The night in retrospect started its loop again, a broken VCR, a reminder that he had a debt to pay.

He wanted to be punished for what he had done wrong, he wanted to face the consequences of his crimes; but he just couldn’t find the bravery in him to own up.

Although Connor feels the things he does and claims to already accept that he himself had actually done something so unthinkable, he knows there is some part of him that is still in disbelief, too scared to come out of his forged armor and be true to himself for once.

The drive home was painful. Being alone was always an open invitation to the voices and the flashbacks, the silence a game of fill-in-the-blanks for the screaming and wailing.

He turned his music all the way up, and yet all he could hear was a mixture of his own screaming and the voices in his head going on and on and on. Thank God his subconscious self could still drive him home safely.

A whole week after, and Connor still hadn’t made any progress , unless the increasing number of beers he could finish within an hour passed as‘progress’.

He always liked living in the city. He found comfort in the fact that it was never completely asleep, and that he could fall into sweet slumber to the whirring of the city coming alive. Like it was a life form on its own, made up of a million others. Despite how people always call him vain and conceited, it was ironic how afraid he was of the idea of solitude.

Every night he turned on the TV, and weirdly enough, the static buzzing and monotone voices between the constant flickering of channels provided c onnor all the company he needed.

And, of course, there would be alcohol. Beer, usually, but occasionally, a fancy bottle of Jack as a congratulatory award for putting up with himself for yet another day. But surely we all know that wasn’t the only reason Connor had such a knack for drinking.

He was pathetic, lonely, and empty–just like the barren apartment he owned.

Connor would fall asleep with the windows open, television still on, surrounded by a pity party of beer cans scattered everywhere: the coffee table, the floor and even one still half full in his hand.

The other hand would hold a cell phone more often than not, and if you were lucky, his thumb would still hover over that number even his drunk self couldn’t bring to call. On other nights he would lie in the dead center of his bed, arms hugging his knees together, boxing himself in feeble attempts of covering up that gaping hole in his chest called Oliver.

Who would’ve known Connor Walsh had feelings after all?

When the dreams came, every single detail—especially the ones he tried hardest to blur out or dilute with the uncanny amounts of beers he consumed—would remain untouched; sometimes even clearer and sharper. It was as if the alcohol he doused himself in was never enough to erase the memories, like the blood on his hands that would always make him feel dirty, inside and out no matter how many times he washed them.

The reason Connor took so much alcohol was to knock himself out to the extent that the hangover he’d wake up to could distract him for everything he feared: the truth.

He hated it when he was sober and awake, because even though he’d be one step further from the voices in his head, he would see his life laid out in front of him (like a PowerPoint presentation of his life—“Look, this is how much of a failure you are!”) and, as the people in the streets partied their lives away, he would feel every second passing, every tick of the clock a reminder that this was his life.

Staring at the ceiling, he learns this really is it. The hope and courage and kindness he had accumulated his whole life seemed to lessen every time he replayed that night in his head. He had his one shot in making his life one to be proud of, loving someone and letting them love him back and he blew it. He fucking blew it.

And then as the sky would turn another shade brighter outside the window of Connor Walsh’s apartment, he’d wonder about Oliver.

He’d piece everything together, every fray memory, every single second shared between them—trying so hard to find that one stray thread; the one thing he did or didn’t do—the single moment where he went wrong, the first symptoms of a splintering relationship.

He would go on for hours, just looking at the peeling cream-colored plaster until his vision doubled over. Sometimes, he’d even take out the old shirt Ollie left at his place ages ago and will himself not to call him, even if it meant just being sent to voicemail—at least he could hear his voice.

That’s when he would realize he no longer had the luxury of calling Ollie. He hurt him, and that was reason enough to cut all ties between them.

Do you ever do it? Sift through all the times you’ve had with someone you once held so closely, replaying them in your head again and again, looking for that one happy memory you can hold onto without all the pain that came with it, and then realize there aren’t any and everything is just one meaningless mess? You are down to your hands and knees, trying to clean up the stain of your mistakes that would just never quite disappear. The more you try to mend yourself, the bigger of a mess you make.

And yet, Connor did it repeatedly despite knowing there was nothing left to savor from that fractured relationship between him and Oliver. It hurt him to reminisce, but there was little he wouldn’t do to just hang on to some reminder of the latter.

In summation, it was beyond-words-woeful. But there was something about that one night that was different, because Connor figured it out.

He had found the missing puzzle piece, the answer to his one aching question; he knew where he went wrong. It was all his fault, all him.

He was scared of hurting others, so he never committed and instead gave away parts of himself to people who called him names and moan that ”God, they loved him,” and yet… it was only sex, nothing more.

The thought of commitment and exclusivity scared him enough to never settle down with anyone, enough for him to disappear before they could get his last name, enough for him to only leave empty white sheets in their wake.

He pushed people away when they got emotionally involved—he pushed Ollie away.

For years he had lived in the mindset that he was trying to protect others from getting hurt by him, but all this damned time the only person he was protecting was himself. The more distance he put between himself and all the people who cared for him (or who cared, in general), the safer he felt.

He was a liar. He lied to his parents when he said he was doing fine, he lied to Ollie when he said his charm wasn’t a weapon he used oh so often, but most of all he had been lying to himself: convincing himself that he was only lessening the casualties by doing what he did. He lied and he lied, telling himself he was over it, telling himself he was an independent, capable young man as he would pull out another beer. One sip for taste, two for company and three to forget everything completely.

So much for capability.

▪

There is only one thing worse than waking up smelling like a bar itself on a Tuesday morning with your apartment looking like an aftermath of World War II—having a witness.

In this case, it was Oliver Hampton; IT wizard, hacker, and the newly discovered love of Connor’s life. While you go on to wonder why on earth he was here, Connor’s attention was snatched by that feeling in his stomach whenever he…

“Fuck, I called you, didn’t I?”

Oliver looked up from his tablet, feet propped onto the coffee table that still had empty cans of beer that reeked of misery, despondency and the night before. He looked nothing short of as tired as Connor, and he definitely had been up till late.

For starters, Ollie was always a light sleeper; but his phone had been ringing off the hook; the caller ID flashing like a warning as he pondered on whether he should pick up or block the number. Naturally and eventually, Oliver picked up (he could never delete c onnor’s number anyway, he memorized it by heart); with his sweaty hands while he paced the floor in his slippers.

“Ollie? I know you really don’t want to talk to me right now, and it’s four in the morning…but I just, I figured it all out. I’m so broken and messed up and so fucking stupid, but I figured it all out. I hurt you a lot, and I lied even when the truth was out in the open.”

Oliver stared at the carpet some more, hearing his heart beat in his ear. “And I just need you to know that I’m sorry, and I miss you, I miss you so much. I didn’t mean to hurt you, Ollie, I really didn’t.”

The line went dead and the man on the receiving end heard his heart shake and shatter just a little.

That is how he ended up in the depressing apartment of Connor Walsh. With a soft heart like his, Oliver couldn’t have kept away for long even if his life depended on it; he just wasn’t the type to walk away and stay away. He’d known both of them would cross paths sooner or later, but he didn’t expect it to be this soon.

When Oliver had let himself into the apartment (Connor never changed his lock, and he had a spare key—“For emergencies,” Connor had said) the whole place emitted the foul smell of alcohol, and his eyes carried out a panoramic sweep of the area, landing on the subject—a man presumably wearing clothes from the day before, a shirt with its sleeves folded and its collar unbuttoned and a cell phone lying next to his ear.

He did what he had to; changed Connor into one of his old tees and carried him to his bed. He found a trash bag and started to clean up, but stopped halfway. He had to stop picking up after Connor and let him learn his own lessons, or nothing was ever going to work for both of them.

Now, Connor lay in his bed, sitting against the headboard in the fresh set of clothes courtesy of Ollie. “I…What did I say to you?” He looked down, studying the creases on the sheets.

Oliver had so much he’d wanted tell him, so much anger and frustration he hadn’t been able to voice all this time. There were days where he felt he could punch Connor square in the face, but then and there he couldn’t seem to summon that anger because his heart ached in longing for this man that was staring at him, bloodshot eyes and unkempt hair.

“Something along the lines of I really miss you…or some really needy drunk talk?” Connor tried to probe some memory of him calling Ollie, but nothing would come. He chuckled nervously, still struggling to hold a steady gaze.

The bespectacled boy sighed. “You really don’t remember? Not even a little?” A crease formed between his eyebrows, suggesting that the phone call meant so much more than just some “really needy drunk talk” as Connor had put it.

Connor bit his lip, equally frustrated. “I…really don’t remember.”

The other man reached for his briefcase, putting his tablet inside and getting ready to leave. “Well, then I guess it’s about time I get going.”

He didn’t sound like Oliver at all. There was something cold in his voice that made Connor feel even more helpless than before.

“Wait, no. Don’t go. Stay.”

Oliver took one look at Connor who held onto the fabric of his shirt, trying to find some part of himself that didn’t feel forlorn.

“Fuck, why do you keep doing this to me?”

“You always do this. You bat your eyes, and everything goes your way; you tell me to stay and I always do.” Oliver wasn’t thinking anymore. Every word he had vested in himself for so long… they were all pouring out.

“You made me watch you tear my heart to shreds, you cheat on me; and when you turn up again I just fall helpless to your charm, always crawling back to you.” Months and months of words gushed out—a broken dam.

“It’s not fair that I have to go through all of this. Sometimes, I just feel so damn vulnerable, you know? When you use that charm of yours and you get anything you want, I can’t help but feel like I’m just one of those ‘things’ to you. I feel so worthless. You do it repeatedly and you keep hurting me. And when I finally find the courage in me to actually leave you, this is what I get?” Sleepless nights, a thousand and one texts begging to be answered, and tears leaked from his shattered heart.

Connor sat cross-legged on his duvet, startled. Oliver was still …Oliver. The first and last person he had ever truly loved, and everything he said made sense: Connor pushed people away when the only thing he had wanted was to get closer.

“Look around you. You have a drinking problem, and you can’t take care of yourself. I told myself I had to stop cleaning up after your mistakes, because you will never learn if all everyone ever did was cover up your dirty work.”

Oliver held up an empty can. “Can after can, you are drinking your whole life away, and you don’t seem to care about how you are hurting yourself, but can’t you have a little compassion and see how much this hurts the people around you? How much this hurts me?” Raised voice, pounding head.

“You broke me, Con. You broke me and now that I’ve left you, can’t you at least give me some comfort in knowing we are both better off apart? Not to have you call me four in the morning and see you destroying everything you are? Don’t you think I deserve at least that much?”

Connor kept silent, lost in his own turbulence.

“I’m so stupid. I shouldn’t have come looking for some kind of…explanation.” Oliver wiped at his face which was now tear stained. “Look at you.” he laughed bitterly. “You’re not even trying. And those words you said to me, I really thought you figured it out.”

The law student stared at his palms, trying to grasp at any memory of the night before—anything at all.

“You’re right,” Connor started. “I’m a tragedy and I hate it just as much as you do…but I can fix this, I can fix us.”

Oliver scoffed. “God! Get over yourself, Connor. You fucked up, big time and you aren’t going to be able to fix us if you don’t start working on yourself.”

Even in crucial moments like this, Oliver’s heart still ached for what they once shared, but he knew it in his conscience that this was the right thing to do. He handed Connor some freshly laundered clothing and the black garbage bag he found earlier, not making eye contact the entire time.

“Here,” his voice softened, “Clean up this mess. Wash yourself of this self-pity and try to get yourself together.”

At this point, Connor had long surrendered, so he took the towel and went into the shower.

In the small cubicle the water rained down Connor’s lean physique, washing off the feeling of exhaustion, clearing his mind of the haze it had been caught in layer by layer as he lathered his body with soap and rinsed himself clean.

His skin grew red at the heat of the water, and he remembered. He remembered everything—from the beer to calling Ollie—he remembered it all.

Most importantly, he remembered that he did, in fact, figure it out.

He put two and two together and realized that the only reason Oliver would’ve turned up with that light in his eyes only barely lit was because Ollie had chosen to believe him when he said he had an explanation.

With his heart finally revving up again after what seemed like weeks of stagnancy, Connor hastily wrapped his towel around his waist. There was still time. He could still explain himself and convince Ollie he could find a way to mend himself and their relationship—light up that fire in Oliver’s eyes again.

“Ollie?” Connor called out as he stood before his apartment, only to be greeted by the quiet Ollie-less air of the living hall.

What lay before him was a whole new arrangement, a few novels stacked neatly on the coffee table replacing the beer cans that had been there for weeks on end, a laundry bag of clean clothing and the shades opened to let the light in.

Connor looked around for any sign that Ollie might return afterwards only to find a spare key—laid next to a bag of Chinese takeout.

The steam from the food was wafting out in slow spirals—warm, just like the spot on Connor’s temple that tingled; remnants of the kiss Oliver had left when Connor was tucked in bed, his calloused fingers clutching Oliver’s hand.

Connor probably didn’t realize, but that was the first time his nightmares kept quiet through the night.

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