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Title: Cold Hands Pairing: Tormund Giantsbane x fem!Reader Rating: M Summary: After the Battle of Castle Black, Jon needs someone to ensure their wildling prisoner makes it through the night. Because Tormund's the type you just want to rage fuck and I've been looking for an excuse to write for him since like 2017. tagging @mrsragnarlodbrok suffer with me

THE STEWARDS’ QUARTERS are dimly light and crowded in the wake of the night’s battle with the wounded members of the Night’s Watch. You rise from looking over little Olly’s scrapes and bruises, passing the boy a cup of watered ale to help him sleep —forget the horrors of the fighting. Castle Black was no place for a woman, and every estranged look cast in your direction from one of the men reminded you of that. Frowning, you wipe your hands on a stained apron and step outside into the frozen air. Below, men are clearing out the dead, a mix of wildlings and their own brothers, and beginning to make repairs to fortify the defenses should there be another attack. Jon Snow approaches you and lowers his head in greeting. “I have someone I need you to tend to,” he utters.

Castle Black’s dungeon is not large, only a single line of iron-barred cells in a short corridor —unoccupied save for the hulking figure at the very back in chains and pocked with broken arrows and crossbow bolts. He wears the thick, mismatched furs of the wildlings, but the fire in his hair is unmistakable. Tormund Giantsbane. Jon unlocks the cell and steps back, letting you pass. “Hurt a hair on her head,” Jon Snow starts, ice in his voice, “and you’ll be joining your kin on the pyre.”

You give Jon Snow a final nod of assurance —you’ve dealt with worse men than Tormund Giantsbane— and the bastard retreats down the corridor as you set down a flagon of icy water and a satchel of herbs and vials. “Tormund,” you greet, unwilling to shy away from his burning bright-blue stare. His notoriety spans north and south of the Wall —the man who suckled a giantess’s teat and fucked she-bears. Someone who you wouldn’t have expected to find stuck like a pincushion and locked away.

“Heard them say you’re a witch,” he grunts, hiding a scowl as you prod the arrow in his shoulder. You lift a curious brow. The crows call you a wood’s witch. In truth, you’re only a skilled herbalist with knowledge acquired from patching up members of the Night’s Watch over the years. Maybe it is a good thing they call you a witch —the men of the Watch didn’t much care for spirits and magic. “Don’t look like a witch,” Tormund notes, his voice rough. “All the witches I’ve known had warts and crooked noses” —he glares when you pull the first arrow from him without warning, knowing they were only bodkin points — “lived in trees.”

You lay a damp cloth over the bleeding wound before sliding around to his back. The arrows needed to be removed before you could strip him of the heavy furs to properly tend him. “If I had a cock,” you start with a dry laugh, “they’d call me a maester and give me a heavy chain to wear ‘round my neck.” Pressing your hand next to a second arrow, you wiggle the broken shaft, ensuring the arrowhead would come free too when you finally pull. You see the muscles in his neck tense.

“No more crows to worry over?” Tormund asks, voice gruff. Weren’t no more than a hundred men defending Castle Black on the ground and from above —a few more warriors in his warband, and they could’ve taken the castle to let Mance Rayder walk through the gates to the south.

“None that require my skillset.” He looks back, lifting a bloody brow in question. “Plucking arrows from men” —you snatch the third and final arrow from his back and toss it aside, all that’s left is the crossbow bolt in his leg— “sewing them back up.” Sitting back in front of him, you reach for the ties and straps of his clothes. Grimacing, he helps you divest himself of the layers until your icy fingertips brush against his broken and heated flesh. The wildling is barrel-chested with broad shoulders and strong arms —a testament to hard living beyond the Wall. Tormund lets you work in silence —defeat still leaves a sour taste on his tongue

HE SHIFTS AT the sound of footfalls on the stone, too light to belong to any of the crows. Between the torchlight and the few burning braziers, Tormund can see it is his sweet healer come to visit or torment him. The shackles on his ankles clink together against the stone floor as he moves around, scooting forward as you grow closer. “Couldn’t stay away,” he muses as you stop in front of his cell, setting down your satchel and water flagon. 

“Daily rounds to see all my wards,” you counter, pulling a wrought iron key from the inside of your sleeve. You’d convinced Jon you could handle the wildling chieftain —maybe it was foolish of you to think that.

“Best for last?” He asks, laughing.

You huff, rolling your eyes as you unlock the cell, stepping inside. “You must be feeling better,” you note, setting out all your supplies.

Tormund drops the last of his layers —a stained wool tunic— next to him as you kneel with a damp cloth and fresh salve. He seizes your hands, startling you, but does nothing more than hold them between his own —his fingertips are rough, palms warm, wholly engulfing yours. “You got cold hands,” Tormund mutters, seeing the question form in your eyes.

“Didn’t think wildlings minded the cold,” you note, holding his gaze. He doesn’t say anything, just grunts in response and keeps your hands held in his for a moment longer before letting you carry about changing his wounds’ dressings.

But curiosity gets the better of him. He’s not known the Night’s Watch to keep a woman on hand. “How does you staying here with all these crows work?” Tormund asks —the muscles in his back tense when a cool, damp cloth touches his skin.

“Didn’t stay with the crows,” you tell him, removing a day-old cataplasm from his shoulder, washing away flecks of ground herbs left behind. “Stayed in Mole’s Town.” It was a small unpleasant village, but it meant you were close to the Wall —the Lord Commander paid for your services as a healer with how few men were currently in the Night’s Watch and with Maester Aemon growing frailer by the day. “Or I did,” you pause, remembering the grey smoke rising from the south a few days ago, “before your lot put it to the torch.” He wears a curious look as though to ask how you escaped his warband. “Was already here tending to those who went out north of the Wall.”

“Fate then,” he decides —the Old Gods must have meant for your paths to cross.

OF ALL THE men currently under your care, Tormund is your favorite, though you won’t give him the satisfaction of knowing that —it’d make him nigh unbearable. He’s no longer kept in the dark cells below ground, despite still being a prisoner, or perhaps hostage, depending on what Stannis Baratheon and Jon Snow have planned. They’ve moved him to an empty room in one of the decaying towers of the castle. You unlock the door, finding him pacing along the perimeter of the small room. “Come to enchant me?” He asks, still finding it amusing that the crows would call a woman like you a witch.

“Thought I already had,” you laugh, watching as he starts tugging at his outer furs without instruction, “and that’s why you’ve been such a good boy.” Tormund Giantsbane wasn’t even half as stubborn as some of the Rangers who’ve come into your care over the years —like Benjen Stark when he came back from north of the Wall with an arrow in his shoulder.

“Boy?” Tormund bristles. “A boy doesn’t have a cock–” his voice fades into a hiss when you press the vinegar-soaked rag to the worst of his wounds. He glares at you, but then his hard stare softens when you smile. Tormund’s mind wanders, unable to stop himself from thinking what’d it be like to lay with a woman from south of the Wall —and if you’d still have that sharp tongue with his cock buried inside your cunt. “Can show you I’m not a boy,” he says, lips twitching upward under his ginger beard. “Doubt you’ve ever had a real man.”

Your gaze flits up to meet his, undeterred by his advances. It’s not the first time you’ve suffered through them, and you doubt it’ll be the last if you continue working with men who’ve sworn to be celibates. “That all you can think about?” You ask —more so teasing than chiding— unwrapping the strip of linen from around his leg. The poultice has kept infection at bay, though this wound is healing slower than the others.

“When I’m looking at a pretty woman,” Tormund replies in all sincerity, leaning forward.

You can feel warmth rushing to your cheeks, but you won’t let yourself look away elsewise he’ll know you’re not immune to his charms. “Well” —you smile, thinking of the conversation you’d overhead between Jon and Stannis— “you’re soon to be looking at a pretty crow named Lord Commander Snow.”

TORMUND GIANTSBANE IS no longer a prisoner under Jon Snow. The Lord Commander means to take him and a score of men to Hardhome and let the wildlings settle in the Gift to escape the encroaching Long Night. Jon knows he’s the only person the others will listen to in the wake of Mance Rayder’s death. The air in the common hall is thick with something you cannot describe —the members of the Night’s Watch have not taken kindly to Stannis’s men or the red-haired wilding sitting below the high table.

Olly sits next to you and Edd with a white-knuckle grip on his spoon, the taste of betrayal sitting bitterly on his tongue. Your gaze flits between the boy, Jon, and finally to Tormund. The wildling’s cold stare is already on you. Edd raises a brow when he sees how quickly you look away, cheeks tinged with warmth.

After some time, you take leave of the common hall, turning to the tower with a small room where Ser Alliser Throne said you could reside, as there was nowhere left for you to go. Tormund trails after you —and before you can shut the door to your chamber for the night, he stops you from doing so. “Didn’t come tend my wounds last night,” he laments, pouting almost.

“You’re going to live,” you assure him, letting him come in anyways. Last you checked, none of his wounds were close to festering, and all were healing cleanly and quickly. Untying your apron and belt, you set them aside and turn back to Tormund, half-smiling. “It’d be a waste of herbs and linen.” Those herbs and flowers would be precious commodities with winter fast approaching. He watches as you empty your satchel on the table and replenish the supplies in quiet awe —his sweet healer with cold hands. “You gonna tell me why you’re really here?” But you’re almost certain you already know, and you’ve no objections, either. 

Tormund doesn’t answer at first. Instead, he steps behind you and cranes his head down to the crook of your neck, breathing in your scent as his arm slides across your middle, pulling you back nigh flush against him. “You know,” he rasps at your ear. The tickle of his beard against your neck is all the warning you have before his lips brush over your skin. Sighing, you tilt your head to the side, melding into his warmth and wandering hands. He tugs impatiently at the laces on the front of your woolen dress, but you swat away his hands and make quick work of the ties and break from his hold to shimmy out of the heavy garment. It leaves you in a thin shift, scarcely protection from the frigid air of the North —though the fire in Tormund’s darkened stare does set your blood aflame.

You step to him, curling your fingers into the soft leather and fur on his chest, and he pounces like a wildman. His kiss is soft at first, a gentle caress of the lips, but it grows deeper when his tongue coaxes you into what becomes a series of leisurely kisses, though each one feels more urgent than the last. Tormund’s hands wander to the small of your back, then along the curve of your bum, bunching up the fabric of your shift until he can grip onto the bare meat of your thighs. He must think you weigh nothing by the way he lifts you, opening your legs until they’re wrapped around his waist, your arms around his shoulders, lips never straying far from his.

He places you on the edge of the bed, then begins with the ties of his clothes and boots —throwing the leathers and furs aside in great haste— until he’s left in only a pair of sealskin shorts with the outline of his hard cock clearly visible. Tormund slips to his knees in front of you, wedging himself between your knees. Surging forward, you kiss him again, intoxicated by the moment. He’s happy to give and reluctant to part. “Thought the Free Folk didn’t kneel,” you challenge, combing your fingers through his beard.

“Only to those we choose,” Tormund tells you, dragging his rough hands along the outsides of your thighs, over your hips, pushing your shift up until you pull the thin fabric overhead, dropping it to the stone floor. You whine when his rough fingers brush over your clavicles, up the column of your neck —there’s a gentleness to the wildling chieftain you would have never thought existed. Tormund’s hand grips your jaw, forcing you to keep his gaze —affirmation he’d chosen to kneel before you.

Without another word, he leans down and presses small kisses around your breast, looking up at you the whole time. The small pecks soon turn into sloppy, open-mouthed kisses as his eyes close in focus. You reach down, carding your hands through his fiery hair —encouragement. He continues to inch closer and closer until he latches onto your nipple and sucks hard, using his hand to play with your other one. He pulls back just for a moment to nip at it. “Tormund,” you breathe, burying your hands into his fiery locks.

Tormund moves his hands to the soft insides of your thighs, squeezes them, then leans down, placing a kiss below your navel. You jump at the tickle of his beard, and his low chuckle rattles through you both, sending a wave of warmth washing over you, pooling low in your belly as he moves farther down. He groans at the sight of your cunt —slick already and begging to be feasted upon, and feast he will. He laps at you, firm but gentle, the corners of his lips turning up in a smile when he reads the pleasure making your gaze go soft and unfocused.

Then you lose conscious thought the second he wraps his lips around your clit, hands holding you firmly in place as he laps and licks through your folds, methodical and slow with a long and low groan. Tormund’s fingers brush through your folds, gathering the slick there, and he eases one finger into your cunt, curling, and stroking, then adds a second. He’s doing something devastating —the gentle pressure with each flick of his tongue— your breath comes in short gasps, chest heaving until it all erupts with white sparks. “All southrons sweet as you?” He asks, scraping his beard along the inside of your thigh, fingers still working you down from the sudden high.

“I am from the North, Tormund,” you remind him, amused.

“South of the Wall, though,” he refutes, giving one final nip to the inside of your thigh before withdrawing his sopping fingers and sucking them clean —eyes never leaving yours. It sends a shiver down your spine. He rises from his knees, and you stand too, hands going to the ties of his underpants. Kicking aside the last of his clothing, he lets you push him back to the bed and climb atop him like you’ve won some great victory.

He’s splayed out beneath you, looking up at you with those clear-blue eyes, clouded with lust, like a challenge. He let you win. You know that — he knows that. But here you are, straddling him with your fingers intertwined in his, pinning his hands above his head. He can easily turn the tables —flip you over and hold you down, and make you beg for him until you can't take it anymore. He can do all of that, but he doesn’t. No, Tormund Giantsbane likes the feeling of your weight above him, pressing him into the mattress, and he wants to see where this will go.

You lean over him and press a kiss to his collarbone, then to the base of his neck and underside of his jaw —his beard brushes against your lips as they move further up until they’re ghosting over the corner of his mouth. He turns his head slightly, stretching up to capture your lips in a hungry kiss. You moan softly into his mouth as his tongue drags over your bottom lip, seeking entrance. He loves the taste of you everywhere —the sweetness of your tongue, the salt of your sweat, the tang of your cunt— Tormund loves it all. Perhaps you had enchanted him. 

His hips press up off the bed when your fingers wrap around his cock, stroking him from base to tip, thumb following along one of the throbbing veins on the underside. You shuffle back, guiding the weeping head of his cock between your slick folds until it catches on the entrance of your aching cunt, and you press back further sinking onto him with a lurid moan —echoed by his own strangled groan and a string of curses.

You start to rock and twist your hips, building a pleasant rhythm, working yourself on top of him. Tormund’s lips are parted, breathing heavily as he watches how your cunt takes him in over and over again, a sight that drives him to oblivion, and paired with how you whimper and moan and the feel of your breasts under his hands, he thinks he could finish then and there.

Tormund digs his heels into the bed, aiding you as you bounce and twist atop him. “Tormund,” you whimper, knowing you need more than this —you need his touch. He’s quick to answer the soft pleading, hands squeezing against your hips, arms flexing to lift and drag you across his cock himself as his hips roll upwards, pressing deeper it feels than ever before. Leaning down, you press your lips to his —panting against his mouth as your chests move against one another, hips rolling and filling the room with the sound of flesh against flesh and a chorus of low moans and breathy praises.

It’s sudden when he twists around, putting you beneath him —his weight hovering over you, cock still buried deep in your cunt. “Fucking greedy,” he groans, continuing his slow pace. Something changes in his eyes, but you cannot decipher it. Instead, you draw his face down and kiss him again. You relax inch by inch, sliding your hands over his muscled back, the ridges of his shoulder blades, and down his arms, taking the time to fully appreciate the small nicks and scars you’ve seen a dozen times over now. Then he moves again and again. Each stroke quicker and deeper than the last.

His cheeks and chest are flushed in the low light, and his hair clings to his neck and forehead as his pace picks up. Long, calloused fingers bury into your hair, angling you to look at him. His other hand slides down to where your bodies are joined, rubbing your clit, knowing by the way your walls flutter, that you're close, as is he. The budding pressure grows, setting you on another precipice ready to fall. Your body begins shuddering against his, limbs limp but jerking, neck tilted back into the furs —shining with sweat. Seeing you like this is enough to push him over too. Tormund’s body tenses, his hip stuttering, cock twitching deep inside you with a spreading warmth. His groan is strangled when he thrusts into you again, lazily —just to feel his seed begin to seep from your ruined cunt.

You feel an old sort of contentment as he lowers his weight to rest on bent forearms at either side of your head —his hazy blue eyes staring down at you, the dark red of his hair and beard wilder than you’d ever seen. Tormund dips his head down, nuzzling against the crook in your neck.

On instinct, your arms wrap around him, fingertips following one of the curving scars on his back, relishing the feeling of warmth and safety. “You’re going to come back to me,” you tell him, mussing the strands of hair at the back of his neck. Jon Snow means to set off to Hardhome at first light, he’d said as such during the evening meal, and in the following days, Stannis and his men will depart to head south, first to Winterfell and then onward to King’s Landing. But you’ve no doubt Tormund Giantsbane will return.

“Aye,” Tormund agrees, rolling to the side. He’s quick to pull you along with him and tuck you into his side. “Then we’ll see if the crows can hear us all the way from atop the Wall,” he says, squeezing a handful of your bum. You laugh, pressing your face into his chest, and he laughs too, the sound coming from deep in his belly. Though it soon turns to a wistful sigh, should the Others take him, he’s certain his last thought will be of you —his sweet healer.

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slip of the tongue part 3 - reckoning

Theseus Scamander x Reader

"Keep your hands to yourself!" You snap, trying to infuse as much venom into your voice as possible. "I can't," he groans.

summary: a second mission with newt and the group reintroduces theseus's former fiancée, leta lestrange, into the mix. old wounds and insecurities flare as you both reckon with your pasts and make decisions that determine your future.

fem!reader. theseus scamander x reader.

category: romance with plot. some smut. slight angst!! non-canon compliant.

warnings: 18+ smut, semi-public inappropriate touching, dirty talk, hand kink

part one / part two / part three

author's note: it's funny how the title of this fic doesn't really fit anymore HAHA, goes to show that i did not plan this story at all. this part is going to be LONGER & more focused on plot & their character development! hope you enjoy, as always let me know if you'd like me to continue :)

The surreal, electric buzz from the gala dissipates as soon as you enter the elevator at the Hotel de Rome with Theseus.

Theseus's jacket is so large you're practically drowning in it, the sleeves hang well past your hands. You feel like a little girl in a nightgown. The elevator pulleys burr mechanically as it slowly rises, the electric bulb light casting your face in a sickly, ghastly light. The backs of your high heels have begun to dig painfully into your skin, that stinging pain the only thing grounding you to reality, that and Theseus's warm body beside you. You're positive your feet are bleeding.

Your weariness is mirrored in everyone else's faces when you walk into the hotel room at last. It's obvious that they're all overextended. There's no semblance of victoriousness, even after your successful heist.

Newt stands, alert, at the sight of his brother.

"Theseus! Finally, I was beginning to worry-"

"I'm fine, brother," Theseus waves him off. His hair is slightly damp from the snowfall, and his dress shirt as well. "We got caught up, but we're fine."

When Newt turns to speak to you, his lips part but no words come out. He's staring at your mouth. He looks pale and horrified.

"What?" You turn to the others and to Theseus in uncertainty. Tina and Jacob are also looking at you with newfound distress, but Theseus seems as clueless as you, frowning warily at Newt.

Newt makes as if to bring a hand to your face but pulls back at the last moment.

"Oh dear," Newt says. "Y-Your lipstick is smeared... I'm so terribly sorry, Y/N. And your hair—I didn’t think Dietrich would actually-"

Theseus half-raises an arm, cutting his brother short, looking admonished. 

“Actually, Newt, that would be my doing...”

Your face warms considerably. Newt chokes on his words.

“Oh…” He turns to the rest of the group, his face nearly flushed as yours. Jacob lets out a strangled noise and Tina does a discreet double-take between you and Theseus.

“Well,” says Newt, mercifully changing the subject. “We all made off fantastically. Good work.”

You want to share in his congratulations, but it feels premature with Grindelwald still at large. It doesn't feel as though you have much to celebrate in this tiny hotel room, the five of you still standing awkwardly in your evening wear.

"What now?" Asks Tina.

Newt sits on one of the two twin-sized beds and hunches over, forearms on his legs. He is your designated leader, but you have to admit he looks so small and frail without his coat. Thin and unsure of himself.

"I have it on good authority that Credence will be at a mausoleum in the French Alps. He could be heading there now, we have no way of knowing, but he is planning on going there soon. Tomorrow, maybe."

"Why?" Tina's face is full of emotion. You don't know who Credence is, or why he is important to the resistance, but you don't feel that now is the time to ask. It stuns you, the subtlety of her expression, how someone can look so crushed and full of love at once.

"He's, erm, searching for his ancestral records I believe," Newt answers. "The Lestrange artifacts and family tree were moved there from the cemetery in Paris, possibly by Grindelwald. This is likely all a trap set for Credence, but this could very well be our last chance to intercept him. To save him."

Tina is speechless, Jacob nods solemnly.

"Y/N," says Newt. It startles you to hear him say your name in all of this deliberation. "I know you probably don't understand half of what we're saying, and we understand if you don't want to come. But we'll likely run into Grindelwald and his followers. They're after Credence. We could use you."

You don't even have to think.

"Of course, Newt. I go where Theseus goes." You wonder if you sound too intense, too devoted, so you add: "And besides, I want to be of any help that I can."

Theseus reaches out and clasps your hand in his. It thrills you, for him to do this in front of his brother, in front of the others. Your heart races, happily so.

Newt smiles at the sight.

"Sleep," he turns to everyone. "We leave first thing in the morning."

----

The next day, by the time you make it to the French Alps in spats of apparition and stretches of traveling by train, it is nearly dusk again.

You and Theseus had slept like the dead in the too-small hotel room bed, with Tina in the other bed and Jacob and Newt, in a turn of events beyond your understanding, in some hidden compartment within Newt's brown leather suitcase. Strange, but you didn't question it. Your bodies ached when you woke, but it felt like heaven to you, being held by him, you wouldn't have traded it for the world.

"I'm too big for this bed," he lamented, stretching his limbs, when the two of you woke in the morning.

"Hmm, yeah. Too big... " When you smiled coyly and narrowed your eyes at him he threw a pillow at your face. You caught it with a laugh.

"Naughty," he chided.

"The resistance," as Theseus had once jokingly called it, turned out to be not so glamorous after all. The resistance was perpetually tired and forever embarking on some haphazard plans only half-understood.

But when you set foot at the base of the mountains in the Alps, you feel bizarrely energized. This is what you imagined the work of an Auror would be like, chasing leads, pursuing justice through crowded cities and rugged terrain. It feels good to be so proactive after a year of being more or less cooped up in an office at the Ministry. And, best of all, Theseus is here with you. And he wants you, if not your heart then your body, at last, at least...

"This can't be it, Newt," you hear Jacob say, his breath pluming in front of him in small huffs. He struggles through the thick snowbed to catch up to Newt, who is a bit ahead of the group. You're in what looks like a forest clearing, the mountains rise in the distance, gargantuan and feeling a bit holy in their emptiness, their silence.

"He's right. There's nothing out here," calls Tina.

It's a winter forest. A killing wood. In truth, you’ve never been so cold in your entire life. The whole world has turned white as death: white blizzard blotting the air, thick blankets of fresh snow carpet the ground, and everywhere outside the clearing are great white pines standing like sentries, their edges blurred and softened by the snow fog.

You can see what’s in front of you, but you can’t see what’s coming.

Newt walks clumsily back through the budding blizzard to rejoin the group.

"The mausoleum should be a bit uphill from here!" He assures. "It's concealed by magic. Credence doesn't know, but we need someone with the blood of a Lestrange to enter."

The blood of a Lestrange.

Before you can even make the connection, Theseus stiffens beside you and drops your hand.

"Newt, you didn't." His voice is grave.

"I'm so sorry."

You wonder in a shrugging, aloof way why Newt looks to you after saying this to Theseus. It still doesn't mean anything to you.

A branch cracks, a high, ear-splitting sound like a broken bone. When you see the figure emerge from the tree line, your hand is already on your wand.

Grindelwald, you think.

But then Theseus's arm snaps out to yours, stilling your hand, almost just as quick.

"Don't." He says.

She approaches you slowly and you make out who it is almost immediately, just by the shape of her silhouette. Theseus and Newt's reactions make sense now, it all clicks into place with resounding dread. You feel the word "oh" in the pit of your stomach like a dropped stone.

Floating from the forest like that, in her wine-colored silk dress and black coat, Leta Lestrange really does look something like a ghost, or an angel...

When she approaches she walks straight to Theseus.

"Newt wrote to me," she says loud enough for everyone to hear, but she is only looking at Theseus. Looking at him like she's searching for some lifeline there. "Credence thinks he's my brother... We both know this cannot be true. I can help you get inside the mausoleum. I want to help you."

You dare to look at Theseus, bracing yourself. He looks genuinely stricken, lips parted, palms open and hanging limp beside him. So little affects him, he's so confident and secure in himself. But there in the clearing, the look on his face...

Before anyone can speak Newt steps forward again.

"I'm so sorry, but we need to get to Credence before Grindelwald. We have to go. Credence is... sensitive. He's afraid. It's best Tina and I go ahead. Leta, Theseus," he turns to the two, who are having some silent conversation with their eyes. It's so private and familiar you have to look away, you want to scream. "You two follow closely behind."

"What about me?" Jacob chimes in with a nervous laugh.

Newt tilts his head and gives Jacob a sympathetic smile.

"Don't worry, my friend. I won't leave you to the wolves. Y/N is a brilliant duelist and a master of all sorts of charms. You two will stay at the very back and wait outside the mausoleum. We can't afford to frighten Credence, and you need to alert us if you see any of Grindelwald's followers coming our way."

You nod numbly. Some roaring white noise fills your ears, anesthetizing the scene in front of you.

"Theseus," you hear Leta say softly. She places a gloved hand on his forearm. "Can I speak with you on the way there?"

"Of course," he responds, graciously, easily. She leads him up ahead.

You keep hoping Theseus will turn to you, even just to look back at you, to reassure, to reconnect now that Leta has been thrust back into the mix between you.

He does not turn back. You stare blankly at the back of his head as it disappears in the blurring snow. He follows Leta into the woods like a man being swept away by magic, following some siren song you can't hear.

'I can't compete with her,' you realize achingly. The truth rings dully in the pit of your stomach, metallically. 'They were engaged. They've been connected since childhood... I'm nothing.'

You try not to wring your hands or shuffle your feet, try not to look like someone left behind, wounded. You blink at the delicate crystals of snow that land on your lashes, hoping that the others don't mistake them for tears.

Newt comes over to you cautiously. He's not one for knowing what to say, but he's perceptive, and kind. Sinking, sinking, you can feel your heart being pulled to your feet and swallowed by the ground.

"Y/N," he begins. "I'm sure... When they were together—but when they separated…" He swallows and starts again. "I’m quite sure my brother’s mind is made up. I know he cares for you too, though I don’t know if he made you any promises-"

“He did not,” your voice sounds acrid, bitter to your ears, petulant, and you hate it. “It’s fine, really.”

“Are you sure?”

“Yes, it’s okay. He doesn’t owe me anything.” 

'And I don't owe him anything,' you finish in your mind. When really you love him like breathing, need him like water. You're just trying not to let it show.

You want to be nonchalant and unaffected, want to give only what he’ll take. You don’t want to ask for too much. 

You don’t know why loving always takes the form of limitation with you. You withheld your feelings for him for nearly a year. You only ever do what he asks. You turned down jobs and tried your best not to burden him with your feelings, with your past.

Why this mode of loving, why starvation and restraint, when love itself, for you, felt like every door in you burst open at the sight of his face? It was a wild and unwieldy joy, a freeing sort of affection that you felt for him. Now and always. 

You swallow thickly, embarrassed at the speed at which he abandoned you for her. Embarrassed by the way Tina and Newt and Jacob, even, are looking at you.

"Let's go," you say, trying to sound encouraging. Newt and Tina run ahead. You and Jacob walk in silence uphill, trudging through the snow.

----

In the end you don't see any action at all. The mausoleum appeared at Leta's beckoning, a wave of her wand and the stunning glass building, hexagonal, glittered into solidity in front of you. You and Jacob waited outside, as instructed, but through the thick, crystalline glass you could make out that the bodies and artifacts were housed in beautiful stone tombs, scattered in the glass room like giant chess pieces, and you could see what unfolded within.

Leta, Newt, and Tina were talking to Credence. They met him down where he was crouched on the floor, explaining something to him in hushed tones. He was sobbing so softly. And then he was gone, and so was Tina, who left with him.

You feel so utterly mute, so adrift, you're glad that Jacob doesn't speak to you.

Newt is the one who jogs out to you and Jacob. Theseus is still inside talking to Leta, who seems sad in a soft, unperturbed way. He's gazing at her so gently as she speaks. It's the way he looks at small animals, and children, and the people he loves.

Looking at them feels like looking at a photograph, or like looking through the windows at Primrose Hill when you were a child, before you'd outgrown the title of "orphan." You would escape the orphanage to peek into the townhouses, the family homes overlooking Regent's Park. Dining tables and grand pianos, all the lights on. Nothing to hide...

"Y/N," Newt says breathlessly. "We better get going. We beat Grindelwald here, but I don't know by how much."

You cross your arms to help with the cold.

"Okay. Where are we going-"

"Oh, it's probably best if you go back to London. Back to the Ministry. Lay low until you hear from me, or Dumbledore."

You don't know why his goodbye is so cutting. You know that he's not abandoning you too, but it's almost too much.

He purses his lips sympathetically.

"Stay safe, Y/N. Grindelwald is planning something big. But if we act any earlier Grindelwald and the Ministry will be onto us and our efforts will have been in vain."

"I know," you say. "I understand."

You apparate away without another word. You try not to think about the two of them, in the forest clearing, in the glass mausoleum, together in all the years before that, but you allow yourself to wonder when Theseus will notice that you're gone.

----

On Monday you call in sick. You've never called in sick once in your entire time at the Ministry, so your request for a sick day is accepted easily and without complaint.

You sleep the whole day and do not answer the door when you hear the knocks. Knowing who they belong to is agonizing enough. He'd never been to your place before, but you can't imagine that it was difficult for him to procure the address.

You wake from your day of fitful, restless sleeping around 2am. Moonlight streams cold and bright through your chiffon curtains, filling your apartment with blue and silver shadows that you find comforting, beautiful maybe.

When you pad out into your living room, barefoot, you see a letter on the hardwood floor. A creamy envelope that had been slipped under the doorframe, waiting there for you like magic.

You bend down to pick it up and open it. There's nothing on the envelope itself, but you'd know him by handwriting alone, by his breathing, his scent.

Dear Y/N,

I know you're not sick. Because you're never sick. You have the most formidable immune system I've ever come across and I think muggle doctors should study you in a lab for it. But, I confess, that's beside the point...

I know you're cross with me. Please, if I have upset you or, worse, if I've broken your heart, I can assure you it was never my intention. Meaning: if I hurt you it is because I am a fool, and not because you are deserving of any hurt.

Forgive me for my behavior yesterday. I needed to resolve some things, and Leta's arrival was a true shock for me. I behaved poorly to you, but even more unforgivably to Leta, who I left mere weeks before our wedding, confessing my love for another woman. The pain I've caused her haunts me, and I was happy to be absolved of it yesterday evening. Happy to answer her questions and to be forgiven. But I should not have left you there alone. I should not have let go of your hand. I damn myself, because as much as I love you, it seems I've never been able to do it well.

I hope this pitiful explanation and guileless apology will suffice. Come, pretty girl. Come to work tomorrow, I beg you. My whole life is on the floor without you, nothing works, my head's a mess.

Yours,

T

You heart clenches painfully. Your lungs constrict and your hand tightens around the letter. You love him. You want to let it go, what happened between him and Leta, and you and him, in the clearing.

But you can't.

----

Apparently, it's going to be a week of first-times. Because, also for the first time in your career at the Ministry, you are running late.

"Fuck," you hiss to yourself. You hate traveling by Floo Flame, are used to the muggle comforts of walking and the London Underground, but you don't have time.

You dust off the fireplace ash from your shoulders as you walk through the British Ministry.

"Y/N!" you hear. The voice slices through the bustle and noise of the suit-clad workers not with its volume but with its familiarity.

It's him.

'Oh, god. Already?' You'd been hoping to avoid Theseus today. An impossible task, considering he was your boss, but you'd taken on more impossible tasks before. Bigger monsters.

"Y/N, hold on!" Theseus shouts again.

You have to speed up your walking to a near-comical pace to escape his long-legged strides. Hard to do in heels.

You turn your body sideways and push forward through a thicket of office workers with an "Excuse me! So sorry!" to shoulder your way into an empty elevator.

You slump against the back wall, exhaling deeply in relief. No Theseus-encounter after all. You really managed to-

"Aha!" Theseus exclaims, interjecting his overstretched hand just as the elevator doors begin to close. "Perfect. I was just looking for you, Y/N."

You don't respond, but huff in indignation and move aside, making room for him in the small elevator. He presses your floor number, level two, looking far too self-satisfied for someone who just ran across the marble floors of the Ministry of Magic, unrepentantly.

Your heart pounds as the elevator begins to move, you don't know why you can't look at him. Maybe it's because you know, if you did, all would be forgiven. You jolt when he leans forward and pulls the emergency break. The elevator comes to a jerking, screeching halt.

When he looks at you, sidelong, your stomach flips.

"C'mere," he mumbles, and moves to trap your body against the wall.

Your body responds differently than your mouth, arching against the wall, pushing closer to him.

"Ugh, no," you say, mournfully. You want it bad, want him. But you're still angry. It's oddly possessing, the notion that just a kiss from him could save you.

Your words do give him pause, however. He's standing so close to you he basically has you up against the wall, there's no escaping him. His chest heaves, you can feel his breath against your face. You want to press his open mouth to yours, to taste it, open yours to his tongue.

"No?" He echoes dubiously. "Did... did you not get my letter?"

"I got your letter," you retort, feeling flustered. "I found it... insufficient."

He starts forward again, a hand cups your ass. You slap it away.

"Keep your hands to yourself!" You snap, trying to infuse as much venom into your voice as possible.

"I can't," he groans.

"Try harder."

"I am rational and measured about all things in life, except for this, for you."

"Try harder," you say again, more forcefully, ignoring him.

"Hmm," he hums, considering. You don't move this time when his hand traces your thigh through the material of your skirt, you just stare, mesmerized. Your skin breaks out in chills. His fingertips move in lazy, dancing circles.

His hands, his fucking hands. They're so big. Long, elegant fingers with large knuckles. The veins there, the fact that you know what his fingers feel like inside of you...

Theseus follows your gaze with his eyes and scoffs, but not unkindly.

"You want my fingers inside of you, baby?"

He doesn't wait, and when you don't protest he doesn't stop. His hands slide under your skirt, one of his thumbs is pressing firmly against your clit through the lacy material of your underwear. He applies such a steady, unmoving pressure, staring into your eyes relentlessly and leaning his thumb harder and harder into that one spot until you squirm back against the wall with a ragged moan, breaking his burning gaze, not sure if you're more desperate to escape the sensation or to keep feeling it, over and over again.

"Theseus," his name sounds filthy out of your mouth, heady as a moan, though you're actually trying to tell him something. "Really, I just-"

The elevator lurches forward again, shuddering in place for a few moments before resuming its path with a piercing screech. You tumble into Theseus, losing your balance, and he catches you with both his arms.

"What did-"

"I don't know," he says, helping you right yourself, looking over his shoulder at the doors.

The elevator stops at level six, the Department of Magical Transportation. Your face is still flushed red and tingling with heat when the ornamental brass doors slide open and the two of you are greeted by a curious, gawking group of wizards that includes the department head, Mr. Silas Elodius.

"Oh, heavens! Mr. Scamander, it's you," Silas Elodius is a unfailingly happy, plump man. "We were wondering what must've happened! It seemed the two of you got stuck. Well, all sorted now!" He laughs heartily. "Trust our department to get you moving again."

Theseus returns the laugh, a little less enthusiastically. The both of you move against the back wall of the elevator to allow the large group to shuffle in.

"Excuse us, we're headed to level three," Silas smiles wildly, toothily. He tends to talk through his smiling, which makes his next admission all the more horrific. "Terrible accident involving a misplaced potion bottle on the Knight Bus! Boom! Limbs lost. Really nasty business."

"Erm," Theseus seems shaken, at a loss of how to respond, which is uncommon for him. "We'll be level two."

"Right, of course!" Mr. Elodius motions impatiently for one of his several colleagues to press the button. With the combined weight of everyone there, the elevator moves slowly, dragging sluggishly upwards through space. Thankfully, the group does not turn back to you or Theseus, preoccupied with their own small conversations.

Your heart is still thumping pitifully, your pussy still throbbing and aching around nothing, craving his fingers, stuffed inside. You're wet, and there is no relief in sight. But you still want, need, to be mad at him.

"Y/N," Theseus is leaning in, speaking so low that only you can hear him. The sound of your name in his mouth, it's a purr, a plea.

You shudder. "Theseus, please don't."

"If this were my office," he whispers. His hand returns to the front of your skirt, slips beneath the hemline and nudges your underwear aside, slides up, embarrassingly easily, between your slick folds. You lean back against the wall in silent prayer, for him. You're frozen, incapable of moving, incapable of telling him to stop.

"If this were my office," he continues, voice thick and ragged. His finger moves leisurely, pumping in and out, driving you crazy. "I'd have you on my desk with your legs up. And I'd lick you until you cried. I bet you're such a pretty crier. I wanna make you come on my mouth, my tongue."

It takes everything in you to remain quiet, to remain still. Just as you begin to lose yourself in the feeling, your head going pleasantly fuzzy, the elevator dings and he retracts his hand, smoothly, unfussily.

He looks so unaffected, leaning back against the wall. It's you who has to bow your head to avoid Mr. Elodius's eyeline. Your knees tremble.

"Well, this is us! Best of luck, Scamander." Mr. Elodius waits for his people to file out of the elevator before departing.

Theseus salutes him with two fingers, in a charmingly youthful way.

When the doors close again you've recovered more of yourself, your wits.

"Where were we?" He corners you again, kissing the side of your neck.

"I'm mad at you, Theseus." You don't stop him from kissing your neck, but you grip his wrist, haltingly hard, when it starts to reach under your skirt again.

"Mm," he hums against your throat, noting the way you expose more of it, craning it for his access. "No, you're not."

With a nip of his teeth, he extracts a whine and a tremor down your legs. You imagine his hands, his beautiful big hands, coming around your throat, squeezing, applying pressure there until you go light-headed. You want to be choked by him. You want to get down on your knees in this elevator and unbuckle his belt and take him into your mouth until he's the one who is needy and whining, wanting it bad, moaning and praising you, calling you a good girl.

The elevator dings for the final time and you have to physically push him off of you. He falls back without a fight.

"Our floor," you say, trying to make your expression into something like a glare. You're not very good at resenting him.

For a moment you're not sure what he's going to do to you. It's scandalizing and rousing, the idea that he might grab you, touch you anyway. The look in his eyes is black and beyond hungry, sapped of all restraint. He gulps and clenches his jaw. Blinks at last.

Ever the gentleman.

"Of course, after you," Theseus says. He motions for you to walk ahead of him.

You stomp off to your shared office, trying pathetically to fix your skirt and your hair and any other part of you that looks disheveled.

When he comes into his office behind you and closes the door, latching the lock, he looks equally undone. Vulnerable almost. It's not only that he needs you, which he does, but that he wants to make it okay and doesn't know how.

"Y/N," he makes a vague, defenseless gesture, throwing up his arms weakly, and sighs. "I don't.... How can I make it right? How can I make it up to you?"

It's a cheerless, pitiful noise, your responding laugh.

"Don't worry, Theseus. I got your letter. And besides, I manage my hopes quite well on my own."

"I wish you wouldn't. Don't."

You scoff.

"No, it's my fault for hoping for more from you. You're asking me to, what, put my faith in the world?" You know your tone is sharper than intended, and your expression is that of a burned woman, hardened and jaded.

But he doesn't hold it against you. You try not to flinch away when he steps forward and brings a hand up to your face, to your cheek.

"No, I'm asking you to put your faith in me."

You could cry at this tenderness he's affording you.

"I just," you gently place your hand over his and lower it from your face. "I just can't believe that you don't feel anything for her. I can't shake the way I felt watching you leave me, without a second glance."

Your voice breaks on the last word. You're admitting more than you bargained for. Admitting that this is the way you've felt your entire life. The orphanage, your parents, every adult who promised to help you, to save you, and didn't. It was too familiar of a pain for it to hurt as badly as it did, being left behind.

"Leta, she... I don't know what you mean," he says, shaking his head.

“Theseus, I'm not stupid! I saw the way you went after her! The way you left me behind, it was like I ceased to exist. You obviously still have feelings for her—"

“I have feelings for you!" He raises his voice in frustration, and it startles you. "She’s the one I left behind, for you.” 

You feel so worked up, so overheated. You don't want to be fighting with him, not now, not ever.

"I-I don't believe you-"

"Y/N, you are essentially calling me a liar right now. I don't know what else I can say to make you believe it, you act as if I took off with her and kissed her-"

"You didn't have to! You already have been for the last two years, Theseus!" Your hands are wavering, your bottom lip too. "I don't believe you because, if it's true what you told me, about you leaving her for me, why didn't you act in the months after?! You proposed to Leta mere months after dating, but for the months you were single you didn't try to-"

"I was your boss, Y/N! I was trying to be a good man, a good friend!" He rakes a hand through his hair roughly.

"So I'm just supposed to believe that you left your fiancée to live a life as my friend? To continue working with me like-"

“I apologize if that’s too difficult for you to believe, but that doesn’t change the fact that it’s true.” His tone is brusque, almost business-like.

It's like a shot to the heart. His lack of understanding, lack of seeing.

“Too difficult for me to believe? Me?!” You’ve never raised your voice at him like this, every word is straining out of you, painfully. Any semblance of control you had is unspooling, rapidly. “Theseus, my second month here I was offered a position as an Auror, my dream job, what I’d worked so hard for at school, and I turned it down to keep being your assistant! I turned it down to keep living a life in your shadow. I thought that if I could make myself smaller for you I could-"

You can’t continue, the tears rise up in a saltwater tide in your lungs. You turn your head away, quick, so he doesn’t see your face break.

"Y/N," he says, gentle, broken. "Y/N, I'm sorry. I had no idea."

"Maybe you didn't want to know. I... I know you desire me, Theseus. I'm sorry, at one point I thought I could just sleep with you, and I wouldn't need anything more, but.... Oh, god, I'm sorry."

You rub at your eyes aggressively, even as the tears continue to fall, in a self-conscious and fruitless display.

He looks so lost, looks like he very badly wants to comfort you, to hug you, but no longer knows if he's allowed to.

"Y/N, I can recommend you for promotion, I can-"

"It's fine, Theseus. I made my decision and I've lived with it. There are no open positions right now anyway, the post was filled."

It's silent for long enough that the quiet no longer hangs there like an awful, third body between you. You regain your composure, the tears pass and give way to a hollow feeling.

"Y/N," Theseus speaks at last. He's standing across his office still, but the look in his eyes is so full of longing and yearning, he could've been across a train platform, a crowded room, a continent. "I have not been doing this right. I should've asked you to be my girlfriend a long time ago, I know. For that I am ashamed. But..."

He licks his lips and inhales sharply, trying to find the words.

"Y/N, please don't accuse me of lusting after you. What I feel for you is nothing so shallow as lust. Yes, I want to be inside you all the time, but that's because being close to you, this," he steps forward and places a cold hand against your chest demonstratively, below your neck, skin to skin, "This isn't close enough."

You look up into his seaglass eyes, your heart in tatters. Him, it's always been him.

"I miss you when I'm with you," he says. "I love you, I've told you before and I'll tell you again and again, but it's up to you to believe it, sweetheart."

When you still don't say anything, can't find the words, he looks crestfallen, closes his eyes.

"What do you want?" he asks you, opening them.

And you can't answer. To love him freely? To feel held and chosen by him? To live your dreams and relinquish your past without shame or grief or hesitation? Before you begin to say anything at all, the words building and budding at the back of your throat like a flower about to bloom, a knock sounds at the door.

Theseus closes his eyes and sighs, pained.

"Theseus-"

"I have to go," he says tersely. "I've been gone with my brother for too long. The department heads have called me in for questioning. I don't know when I'll be out."

You nod, swallowing.

He looks at your face, a look of determination settling on his.

"I promise to make it right."

----

It's past closing time and Theseus still has not returned from the depths of whatever secret, dim-lit corner of the Ministry they took him to for questioning. All day you've spent heartlessly filling out paperwork, finishing up your research assignments, stewing in anxiety.

Please, keep him safe. You think to no one in particular. Please.

You reluctantly leave the office, hoping to find him in the Atrium. You sit there glumly at the edge of the fountain, shooting periodic glances towards the elevators and the staircases, hoping to see him emerging from the Department of Mysteries, maybe, or the Courtrooms. Even the paper missives, usually magicked into airplane and bird shapes, have stopped flying overhead in the Atrium. The Ministry is emptying out, there's hardly any foot traffic at all.

You feel as though you handled everything, your insecurities and emotions, so artlessly, so recklessly in your last conversation. You are aching to make it better.

Eventually, you walk back to level two in a daze, pushing through the heavy oak door to the Aurors Offices with all the attention of a sleepwalker, your mind elsewhere.

You nearly trip on the house elf in front of the door when you stumble into Theseus's office. The elf grumbles in discontent.

House elves? Your shared office is hardly recognizable. Half-cleaned out, three Ministry house elves are busy at work, boxing and taping and scrubbing the furniture and shelves clean. Your stomach lurches.

Theseus. Where are all his things? Was he found out? Arrested?

Your voice sounds like a stranger's to your ears, so transformed by sheer panic.

"Hello, excuse me!" You say to one of the house elves. He looks over in open disdain, though you can't blame him, seeing as you almost crushed him just now. "Hi, yes, what is going on? What are you doing with Mr. Scamander's things? I'm his assistant."

"Mr. Scamander," the elf drawls, setting aside his mop bucket with a melodramatic thunk and splash. "No longer works here."

The elf tries to turn back to his work when you lunge forward and grasp him by the shoulder. He looks at your hand on him in abject shock.

"Please!" You beg, falling to your knees to better convince the house elf. "I need to know what's happened to him, it's important."

"Nothing has happened to him, miss. He turned in his letter of resignation an hour or so ago!" The elf shakes you off of him, none too gently.

He gestures rudely to the two, untouched pieces of paper laid out on the desk. Everything else has been cleared.

You snatch up the nearest page with a shaking hand, eyes racing over the words.

It's from the heads of your department, the Department of Magical Law Enforcement, and it confirms what the elf told you. Theseus gave up his position and designated you as the one he desired to fill the post. The Aurorship is yours.

The letter requested that you complete a trial period of one month, as it was unheard of for a witch with no Auror experience to take up the Head Auror post. But they were amenable if the trial period went well. These were dark days, recruits were scarce and few other Aurors were jumping to fill the position. Your confirmation meeting with the department heads was to be after work, at 7pm.

It's nearly that time now.

You blink at the words on the page, astounded and a bit shell-shocked.

You're hardly thinking at all when you pick up the second letter, hands moving with an automaton, detached fluidity.

Dearest Y/N,

The questioning did not go well. I had to act quickly, darling. I was thinking only of you.

Take the Head Auror position and be safe and happy forever. Blamelessly, and knowing you are loved.

Or, meet me at King's Cross Station tonight, at 7:15pm. If you'll have me, if you love me. I'm joining the fight against Grindelwald, for good. I'm meeting my brother and the others at Hogsmeade.

I am horrified that you ever put me over your dreams, and that I gave you so little in return for it. If I could turn back time, I would've done it all differently. I would've made you mine.

My love, you couldn't answer me when I asked you what you wanted today, so I wanted to give you this choice now.

It did not make much sense for me to stay at the Ministry. They were suspicious of me from the start, war hero or not, because of my relation to Newt. You could do wonderful things, have so much more influence than I could. There were no other open Auror positions for you to take but mine, but I can give you this one part of my life, easily. God knows I'd give you the rest if you asked.

I cannot promise your safety, or your happiness, but I can promise to love you, as I do now, as I always have, no matter what you decide. My heart is yours alone. All you have to do is reach out and take it.

Yours,

Theseus

Reading the words on the page, feeling your own breath suck in and whoosh out of your lungs, hearing it, it's all so surreal.

Your heart flutters meekly, wounded at either prospect. But you want to choose yourself. Who has ever chosen you? You need to be on your own side this time.

You glance at the clock and curse. You shouldn't have spent so much time waiting in the Atrium, floating about the Ministry.

"I can't go, I won't go," you decide. "It's too late anyway."

Who knew if you'd even be able to have a real relationship with him? Even if you believed his love for you, and that he was over Leta, and somehow overcame the horrors and traumas of your life that you hadn't begun to confront... who knew if it would work? That would be its own, new, excruciating pain, having loved and it still not being enough...

"I'm staying," you think to yourself. "I am. He doesn't know what he's asking of me, he doesn't really know me at all. I'm staying. I'm taking the position."

At first you thought the words to convince yourself, reaffirm and reinforce. But they don't sound as improbable as you thought. This happiness doesn't sound too good to be true, it sounds as if it could belong to you after all.

You sigh, trembling, and begin to go through the empty drawers of Theseus's old desk, imagining your life, or trying to.

You reach for the bottommost drawer, pulling it open.

The sight of the worn little clothbound book snags your vision like a thorn. You pull it out in a trancelike state and read the title: Garden Parting by P. M. Kipling. The memory rises without you even having to reach for it, like a face in water.

-----

One Year Ago

It was only your fourth week at the office. This bloody idiot named Henry Ludgate somehow came to the insane conclusion that if he talked to you enough, or talked at you, more fittingly, you would like him back. So every one of your lunch breaks, without fail, he'd come searching for you in the Atrium to talk your ear off about nothing at all.

At the present moment, he was trying to strike up a conversation about women's shoewear, a hard topic for even far better conversationalists.

"I actually do like flat shoes, or 'flats,' are they? But I only like the ones with a bit of heel, all the other types of flats are terribly unattractive I think."

You were dimly aware of your boss, Theseus Scamander, watching this all unfold with a lackadaisical amusement. He was leaning against a newsstand of The Daily Prophet pretending to read it, but really you knew his sly smile at the front page was for you.

"So, not flats?"

"Sorry?" Henry always jumped at the excuse of poor hearing to lean uncomfortably close to you.

You rolled your eyes, not caring if Henry saw or not.

"If the flats you say you like have heels, doesn't that make them not 'flat shoes'?" You asked curtly.

Henry stared at you dumbly. "Oh, right. So it's 'heels' I like then."

You flicked your gaze up to his, irritably.

"So how many pairs do you own, then?"

You thought you saw a rustle of paper in the corner of your vision--undoubtedly Theseus was choking back some fit of laughter.

Henry attempted to clear his throat but only seemed to choke, rubbing a half-fist on his chest touchily.

"What?! Pardon me, not for myself!" He was veritably red in the face, not pink or any subtle, healthy flush, but bright red. "I-I meant I like heels on women, on you."

You could barely tamp down your frustration. This was supposed to be a restful lunch break, a good hour of no-work, and yet you seemed to enjoy your actual work more than this (for many reasons, the first reason beginning with the letter T and the last reason being the way the first reason smiled at you whenever you said something bright, or funny, or kind. He had a smile like light cracking open the sky at dawn, it so completely transformed the rest of his face, always reaching his eyes).

"Henry," you sighed, indulgently, maybe a bit patronizingly. "As much as I am grateful for your... fashion tips, and your riveting conversation, I really do prefer to read on my lunch breaks. I'll have to excuse myself."

You turned on your heel before he could protest, finding another secluded corner of the Atrium by the fountain. You pulled out the book, Garden Parting, as more of a prop, or a shield, or a comfort object, like a teddy bear. You had no intention of reading it right now. Not when...

Just as you suspected. You saw the shadow come over your shoulder, the shape of his figure, his hands in his pockets. Even that, his outline or shadow, stirred up some feeling you couldn't name in your chest, in the cavity there, next to your heart.

"Mr. Scamander," you sighed. "I really don't understand what sort of sadistic pleasure you gain from watching Ludgate torture me with mind-numbingly boring conversation."

You said this without turning, already smiling. Theseus sat down beside you, gingerly, beaming.

"It's entertaining," he said. The deep rumble of his voice was pleasant. "The way you eviscerate him. It's my favorite part."

There was something so attractive about the tilt of his eyes, hooded, and the curl of his hair, a strand falling loose over his forehead. He brought his bottom lip under his teeth, bit down and squinted at you.

"Do you really prefer to read on your breaks, Y/N?"

You scoffed, mock-offended.

"Yes! Do you really read The Daily Prophet on yours?"

"No, not at all," he admitted, shamelessly and with a boyish smile. "What are you reading?"

You suddenly felt self-conscious. You almost didn't want to show him. Your book was soft and worn, the cloth corners frayed, the text on the front half chipped off.

Against your instinct and your nature, you found yourself reluctantly handing him the book. Your mortification increased tenfold when he didn't take it from your extended hand, he only stared at it unreadably.

"What-" you began.

"Wait," Theseus turned to his suitcase, set it down on the tiled floor beside the fountain and clicked open the latches. "Garden Parting by P.M. Kipling, right?"

He was speaking so excitedly, shuffling around in his suitcase.

'No way,' you thought, and then, because you couldn't help it:

"Oh, you're kidding," you gasped. "No, Theseus! You're kidding. I swore I was the only person in London with a copy."

Theseus pulled it out at last, victorious. A sleek hardcover, newer than yours, but creased from frequent reading.

"Oh, Theseus!" You brought your hands up to your mouth. You were always worried your emotions, especially excitement, would make it harder to be taken seriously at work. You endeavored to dampen and mute them, but you could not hide your girlish elation at this inexplicable commonality between the two of you.

He smiled at your reaction, a slow, warm smile.

"Who knew you had a secret affinity for muggle literature?" You tried to make your tone teasing and demeaning but couldn't commit to it, you were too surprised by the force of your own joy.

"My roommate at Hogwarts was muggleborn. He gave it to me."

"You carry it with you too?" You asked, still in disbelief.

"Everywhere!" It was a breathy admission, half a laugh, earnest. "I like to reread certain parts. It doesn't get old." He was smiling so big it was almost heart-wrenching, you did not think he had ever looked at you like that, eyes blazing with naked enthusiasm. Looking at you like you were holding some key, to what you didn't know.

"No one seems to know about it," he continued with a shrug. "I've been waiting for someone to talk with about this book since I was sixteen."

"Oh," you kept saying. You wondered if he thought you sounded stupid for it, or if he thought it was endearing. "There's this one part I think about almost every day. In the purple glass house, with the broken arm used to-"

"-To praise God and 'be done with it'?" He finished for you.

Then miraculously, he flipped his copy open, paper fluttering, to a sole, underlined paragraph. The very same.

"It's like we're speaking the same language," He whispered with an incredulous laugh, but his eyes were reverent.

You flashed him a smile, one that was glowing and real. You were holding his copy of the book between you now, like children with a shared toy, or like lovers reading a roadmap.

"What language? English?" You asked sarcastically, making a funny face.

But you had known what Theseus meant. What wavelength of sense that you two, alone, could access. How the world spoke to you both in the same ways, through the same channels of meaning.

Garden Parting was the only object you had from your deceased parents, the only thing that survived your childhood. It was a children's chapter book that your father used to read to you, quite a grim piece of magical realism about a lot of things, but mostly about a girl condemned to go back to her burning house and stay there, inside, until the flames went out. There's no question that it will be swallowed whole, that she will burn to death in the place she was born.

When Theseus spoke again his eyes were shining, perceptively.

"Is that you then?" His voice was subdued, made gentle, intentionally. His eyes looked strangely dark inside the black stone interior of the Ministry, blue like river slate, dim like rain. "The main character, that's you?"

It was the most you'd ever revealed. It was a single, quiet word.

"Yes," you said.

Theseus placed a hand on your forearm. You didn't dare move, react, for fear he would stop touching you. A bird on your windowsill.

"I'll be the great owl then," he said. "The one that takes her away at the end.... Or Reggie, the one that's her friend. Whatever you want."

You laughed, bleakly. You felt pressured to speak, nonsense, anything to cover up how much his words meant to you.

"Really," you said. "It's my favorite book, but sometimes I can hardly get through it, there's so much pain in her life. I get so anxious..."

"Here," Theseus plucked a ribbon from his suitcase and flipped open your copy of the book. He placed the ribbon strategically towards the back, surgically almost, his long fingers lining it up with the interior spine, right in the scene where the owl takes the girl away and there's happiness set aside for her in life, after all.

"I'll mark it with this," he said. Neither of you were looking at each other anymore, the moment was too intimate to bear. But you were both thinking of each other, talking to each other. "So you can remember how it ends."

-----

The memory of that day by the fountain is so unexpected that it is the first time you're remembering it at all.

'Maybe he does know me after all, does see me.'

The thought is a shattering one.

'Oh, god.'

You check the time. It's 6:50pm. You pull on your coat and snatch your purse off the desk. If you leave now, right now, you can intercept him.

Theseus has to know you're coming. Even if you don't make it onto the train, he has to see your face on the platform, through the window, even. He has to know that you're choosing him.

You apparate as far as you're able and begin to run towards the station the rest of the way.

You're coming for him, each pounding step you're coming, heart soaring, this is that freeing love that grows and grows and stretches out into space like air. And you're going to tell him everything, every wish and every nightmare, you're going to--

A hand shoots out and pulls you backward by the neck. The grip is so hard that you taste blood, everywhere, in your mouth.

You yelp but the sound is lost as you are torn through the air, choking through space. Being forcibly apparated always feels like choking, like being pushed down a flight of stairs repeatedly. You can't catch your breath or your footing, you don't know where you're being taken.

Dark material whooshes and cuts around you. You hardly feel a thing.

Could someone at the Ministry have seen the letters left on your desk? Read them? Were you and Theseus positively identified at the gala in Berlin, or maybe outside the mausoleum? Before you've even arrived at your captor's destination, your mind whirls helplessly, to Grindelwald, to the situation at hand, and then, finally, to Theseus, who is waiting at Platform 9 3/4 for a girl who will never arrive, for a girl he will assume is telling him "no."

It happened so fast you didn't even have the time to turn around, to touch your wand. You were apparated away, stolen into thin air, before you could even set foot inside the station.

---

authors note: yeah i did watch the last letter from you lover on netflix and YEAH it did inspire this fic and rewire my brain at the same time. SORRY this fic ended on a cliffhanger and was so long!! we just had a LOT of ground to cover, but the subsequent parts should be back to the normal length!!

i like writing a mix of smut and romance plot but let me know if you prefer one to the other (also garden parting isn't a real book if that wasn't obvious) OK BYYEEE love you thanks so much for all the replies and feedback :))

also i have yet to read through this for typos so maybe! come back in a day or so for the final version?

taglist: @karashaw99 @gracieroxzy @mystic-mara

Old Man

Pairing: Dean Winchester x Fem!Reader Summary: Dean never had a problem with the age gap between you two; not until now any way Word Count: 3.4k Warnings: Age Gap, Cursing (13x), Sexual Innuendos, Dean talking bad about himself, Frat guys giving Y/N the disrespect she doesn’t deserve Authors Note: Me and Jensen have a 17-year age gap – what’s your age gap? | This came out A LOT longer than I expected | I don’t know how to write frat guys xD | If you liked this, don’t forget to like & reblog. I really appreciate it! Feedback is always welcome ♡

Keep reading

I need to stop joining new fandoms and falling in love with new people.

can i request some slutty luffy? just fuck me up fam ☠️

AHH i think this is so beautiful and one of my fav smuts i’ve written!!! :’)

hunger - luffy x f!reader

smut

summary: luffy gets incredibly horny, and he’s confusing lust with hunger

contains: mating press, praise, marking (reader receiving)

words: 2.4k

_______________________________

Luffy’s alone. He thinks, right now, of touch. And his body is sweaty from the day and from his yearning mind, he’s shirtless because an hour ago he lit on fire beneath his skin, he’s been simmering ever since, and it’s healed, somehow, by touch. So his fingers dig into the grooves of his abs, he likes to feel them flex and shift as he traces every corner, mouth open, drooling onto the glass of the porthole. He left his bed an hour ago when he lit on fire beneath his skin. His blanket became too hot, his mind too full to fall asleep. He’s thinking about food now, juicy fruits that drip down his throat, melted cheese, the greasy, fatty pieces of steak that slide so slowly along his tongue.

He rubs his stomach because he’s hungry, that’s it. There’s a burning within him, starvation but if it was beautiful. He needs food right now but he knows, somehow, that food won’t do anything for him, not really. And if he rubs his stomach because he’s hungry then why does his hand go lower, down beneath his waistline, tugging at the hair down there because, why? Why does this feel good? Why is he moaning, little whimpers that fog the glass, what does he need? He thinks of touch. Skin on skin. That’s it, skin on skin.

You’re probably alone. Moonbeams sail one by one from the east with the wind and blackening sky as the sunset turns lilac, fading, gold waves turning silver, copper. Translucent silk the color of the sunset hangs from your shoulders, a slip so loose it barely covers your chest. It isn’t cold tonight and you’re not tired. You saw dolphins this evening and you wonder if you can see them again before the water disappears in the night. Everyone else is already asleep. You hope that when you’re tired you can find Luffy, who’s probably asleep, and curl up with him as everything drifts away.

But as the ocean laps at the ship and you’re calmed by the gentle rocking you feel, suddenly, arms from behind. Arms that run over yours, hands massaging your wrists up to your shoulders. A distinct smell, the feeling of hot rubber, this is Luffy and he’s so, so warm. And his breathing is so heavy in your ear. He places his chin on your shoulder and it’s covered in drool, he begins to slowly lick your neck as he pulls you closer. You haven’t even said hi before he has you in his lap, squeezing your waist from behind. His licks turn to kisses, and then to bites, all over your upper back and then a wet, raw trail up to your jaw. He’s groaning with want, no words yet, he has too many things he wants to say.

“Hi Luffy,” you murmur with a little smile, reaching back to pet his face which is burning up and flushed. His tongue laps your cheek, he’s an excited puppy, you feel his teeth now so you ask gently, “what’s up?”

“Gonna eat you,” he says in a quiet, gravely voice, right into your ear. He whines after this in desire, in hunger, he’s lustful and desperate.

“Yeah?” You lean back against him. His arms are so tight, he’s trying to wrap you up and crush you like a python. And you can feel his heartbeat race in every muscle.

“Mh, ‘cause you’re real pretty. And I’m hungry so I’m gonna eat you.” He’s almost trying to take a bite out of your neck now, his teeth are sharp but his tongue is soothing, he moans because he likes the flavor. “Real pretty…” he hisses again beneath his breath.

You turn so you’re facing him. He needs a kiss right now and he doesn’t hesitate to grab your face and dive in, writhing tongue slipping greedily between your lips. And there’s a gentleness here too, his hand moves to the back of your head, stroking your hair adoringly. He isn’t going to hurt you he just needs you so, so bad and he doesn’t really know how or why or what he should say.

“God, Luffy.” You’re quiet, muffled by his mouth. And just hearing your voice again clouds his mind.

“Love ya, love ya so much,” he says in between moans and kisses. His nails scrape at your chest, delighted by softness, something to grab onto, more to squeeze. “I wanna play, please can we play?”

Trying to get on top of you he’s leaning over you and pulled by instinct, he wants you straddling him but he wants to be on top at the same time. He’s just a tangle of limbs right now, saliva dripping messily onto your neck.

“Of course I’ll play with you.” You’re blushing, eyes closing but he’s squeezing your cheeks and forcing you to look at him, huge sparkling eyes as deep as the Mariana look down on you.

Luffy begins to laugh. Just a breathy giggle at first, blowing air between his teeth in a little joyful hiss. And then his mouth opens, he laughs more, louder, that’s what he does when he’s excited and when he knows he’s about to get something that he wants so, so bad. And then it fades to giggles again, and he stills for a moment, no movement except his chest. Rise and fall, rise and fall. He’s just looking at you.

And then he licks his lips. He dives in.

You make a small sound, surprised and unable to react in time, as Luffy plants his feet firmly on the deck, your thighs slamming his stomach as your legs are thrown over his shoulders. And you’re bent, folding tighter and tighter as Luffy crouches over you. His arms encircle your legs and your back and your waist and constrict again, his legs are spread and ready, twitching, hips pressing yours. He’s forgetting, probably, that you aren’t as flexible as he is.

“This is good, Lu, this right here,” you manage to choke out because you often have to remind him what your body can and can’t take.

He mumbles a little apology and does a once over with his eyes, he wants to make sure that you aren’t hurt but, at the same time, he’s letting his gaze linger on your body, on the silk slip that’s fallen as your waist curls upwards and your breasts are bare now, so delicious, he’s drooling again. You’re tasty, you’re his.

This must take so much strength, the way he’s perched on his toes over your body, his thigh muscles clench and ripple against yours. Shared sweat, shared warmth. His balance is perfect even as he reaches for your chest, rubbing, holding, kissing, now he’s kissing your lips, now your neck. He doesn’t want this ever to be over.

And he says, “I love ya so much.” That’s the third time he’s said it.

“I love you too,” you say with such joy even as you’re breathless still, but before you can finish he’s pressing his mouth to yours hungrily. You said you loved him and he wants to taste it — the flavor of those words — it’s all-consuming.

“Tastes so good, mmh,” Luffy gasps as he takes you into this hot, wet kiss, “can’t wait, wanna play now.”

You’re not sure how he did it from this position, but his pants are off, kicked to the side. His cock is aching and leaking already and smoldering against your stomach, you can see it from here, throbbing and waiting, skin so smooth and thin and perfect like auburn moth wings over red-hot iron.

His chest crashes against yours in a tidal wave now because this new vulnerability makes him want to be closer. Now you can’t see it anymore but god, it’s so hard it feels like he’s denting you, so long and thick like a python, he’s still holding you, and squeezing more and more. Like a python.

With so much pressure he wraps his hands around lower, lower, snapping your panties, thrusting against your stomach in a way that shakes your body but he’s got you. You’re in his arms.

Begging eyes so close to yours, mouth on your lips and cheek, breathing so fast and so warm and he whispers, “can I?” And it’s so scratchy and kind and needy so deep in his throat.

So you pull his hair, you kiss him, yes.

Rolling back on his heels he finds his way, sloppy thrusts that don’t quite make it but god when they do, he isn’t going all the way even though his every nerve craves you but you’re his baby and he can’t hurt you.

Thick tip so soft and gentle, butterfly wings and flowers, impossibly hard and aching in heartbeat rhythms against your clit, moving you with every pulse, searching and desperate like a moth to a flame he finds you.

Shivers that make you clench your legs against his shoulders as he rubs and rubs back and forth and hugs your body and bites your cheek and murmurs, “that feel good? Ya like that?” with such curiosity like he really wants to know, he wants an answer.

“Perfect, so perfect. Please, I need you.” Words in his ear like shooting stars lighting up his body like the darkening sky. He’s made of ochre sunbeams.

He smiles and laughs and with another quick kiss he’s finding you more. Muscles flex and as he leans forward onto you he’s there, right there. He starts to moan loudly and whisper about how happy he is but it’s Luffy so it’s not a whisper, really. He’s not even inside you yet. He’s just so, so excited.

“Feels so good, so good. C’mere,” he giggles against you happily and makes sure he holds you as he’s pushing into your body, you’re filled in an instant and more and more every second.

Amid the panting and moaning you can almost hear that heartbeat and those pulsing veins buried in you. You’re dented again but from the inside now. With a little mh, Luffy finds his home so, so deep. You’re in a cocoon of warmth, wrapped in the sun, filled by the sun, melting.

“My girl’s so pretty, gotta bite, gonna bite.” Those teeth again and their practiced, hungry chewing. He swallows on instinct, abs vibrating and tightening against your skin as his stomach purs. And he’s rocking into you, back and forth on his toes, enjoying that deep, tight massage. He’s inside you, he’s trying to eat you, trying to get you inside him, too.

You’re going to be covered in marks but that’s ok. You like hearing him groan and laugh against you, and something about that swallowing, his throat flexing against your shoulder, that’s so beautiful to feel.

“Mine, ‘kay? Mine.” Luffy’s talking the whole time through his laughter and you’re swept away by him as he continues to crush your body from the inside over and over, tidal waves on a cliff’s edge, he makes whirlpools in you.

“This is so fun, you’re so fun, so pretty,” he keeps huffing and you hear this over and over as he squirms and wriggles on your body, thrusts shallower because he can’t bear to pull out of you any more than he needs to. Luffy wants to be close and never leave.

He tries to have conversations with you that just spill into unending praise. You’re too dizzy and lost in this world of feeling to respond most of the time but you kiss him whenever he wants, you tell him he’s beautiful and that he feels so good whenever your voice is there.

He’s swelling in you, veins bulging and rubbing so far up inside you that you feel him throbbing in your stomach, his twitching cock encouraged by your clenching, leaking, every muscle wracked with craving and overstimulation.

“Gonna fill you up ‘cause you’re real pretty,” he laughs against your lips, twisting into you deeper still, “gotta make ya all mine.” He still sounds so sweet and so soft, just a playful little puppy.

Even as he groans and begins to pump you full.

Love feels like this, love is raw and endless like this, love makes you float away. You close your eyes and now he lets you, you just hold him, you let the rhythm carry you and it feels like so long until he’s done. He doesn’t want to pull away but his legs give out. His knees finally hit the deck, he squeals in delight as he’s pulled from you with a wet little sound. But he’s still hugging you, of course.

“Heh, felt so good.” Luffy’s smiling with all his teeth, his chin sparkles with saliva, and your neck is dripping too, “thanks, darlin’. Love ya so much”

“Love you too. I love you, Luffy.” You don’t want to ever leave from his arms and you feel so empty now. But you’re soaked in him, neck and thighs both shining.

His hand rests gently on your back, helping you sit up, your slip falls back down over your body and it’s all wrinkled now. Luffy smooths your hair, he pets you, now is when he just wants to stare at you and not say a word. But when he sees the blooming red and purple trailing from your ear to your collarbone he starts to shake a little bit.

“Aw, this ain’t hurtin’ right?” he murmurs, tracing the bruises and teeth marks with his fingers so softly, carefully. There’s no blood, it’s just glossy with layers of drool, he’s proud but he needs to check on you first.

“No, it’s not bad. Don’t worry, I like it.” You kiss him right next to his mouth but he turns, quickly, because he wants your lips. “Whole crew’s gonna know I’m yours, that’s all.”

This makes him smile. He sees no reason for embarrassment or shame, you’re his so he can bite you when he wants. You feel his muscles twitch against you again as he laughs. And he’s flushed all red, hibiscus on his warm honey skin. Those eyes, dark brown eyes melting with that lavender of the sunset which is almost gone now, fading silently. So orchid blue then, on loving, deep Bulgarian rose.

“Good! I want ‘em to.” he rubs his head against your cheek, still biting just a little. And now he’s moving like he wants to pick you up and carry you, even though you’re both tired. But it’s because he’s hungry, and in that throaty little voice he asks, “wanna go get snacks?”

Nyctophobia

Noun: An extreme fear of the dark. Children or adults may have Nyctophobia if they are afraid to be left alone in darkness

Ch.1

Pairing: Logan Howlett x F!Mutant!Reader

Warnings: None as of yet, but we'll get there ;)

Word count: 9.2k

A/N: RIGHT FUCKERS ITS TIME. i don't think i've written a fic this long in goddamn years but here we are. DEFO ooc Logan and also timeline what timeline? Kitty is older than the rest of the students cuz i love her and i said so. reader's mutation is currently shadow-walking but that'll develop as we go on so slay boots. also I have no concept of word limits sooooo 9k chapter let's fucking go

How long had it been? Six months? A year? Two years? Honestly, you couldn’t recall. It felt like it had been forever since ol’ Charlie had sent you travelling the continent. Sure, it had been your idea to try and find mutants before they experience the most traumatic event of their lives, but you didn’t think he’d send you, and certainly not immediately. Though you were glad he did, you didn’t think Scott would make as good an impression as you could.

But, now you were back. Thank fuck. You could finally rest your weary legs and put down your heavy-as-shit bag. And at least now you could work on developing your mutation. Shadow walking. Or at least, it is now. You thought that was the extent of what you could do, just disappear and reappear whenever and wherever there happened to be a shadow cast on the ground. Or on a wall. Or anywhere really. But, Xavier had gently suggested that, perhaps, those shadows could be manipulated one way or another. You wished to fuck you knew how because your bag was all but cutting right through your shoulder.

Your boots crunched against the gravel as you took a deep breath, making your way inside. It was nice to notice nothing had changed. The lawn was still neatly mowed, brickwork hadn’t aged a day. It smelt like comfort. It smelt like home. But before you could even knock on the door, at least being courteous enough not to slip through the shadows, the oak burst open and two unidentified arms had wrapped themselves around your neck in one of the most warming hugs you’d ever received, accompanied by a high pitch squeal.

You knew instantly who that would be. Brown hair spilled across her shoulders, smelling faintly of lavender. “Hey Kitty,” you grinned, dropping your bag to return her tight embrace. It truly did feel like forever.

“I’m so happy to see you it’s been years! We thought you were never coming back! Scott thought you’d died and Charles wasn’t telling us, Logan didn’t think you even existed and that we were all lying, Jean thought you’d just got sick of this place and dipped, it was carnage!” She rambled, her deep brown eyes sparkling slightly. You had to take a minute to actually comprehend what the fuck she was saying before your lips split into a broad smile.

“Well, I can tell you that I’m not dead, at least not yet, and I do very much exist and I am not sick of this place despite what Jean may think. And– wait who’s Logan?” Your brain had only just caught up with the fact that Kit had mentioned a name completely unfamiliar to you. Just how long had you been gone?

“Oh, right yeah. A new teacher,” Kitty kept one arm around your shoulder as she guided you back inside, stopping only when you realised your bag was still left discarded by the front door. “He uh, sorta took your position as PE and combat professor… sorry.” She looked genuinely apologetic, whilst internally, you couldn’t be more grateful. You always thought you weren’t ever cut out to teach, and whilst you sometimes enjoyed it, you were always too worried about the kids being hurt. 

“I’m hurt, a girl’s gone for a year or two and you replace her? What kind of school is this?” you cracked a smile, Kitty’s face morphing from remorse to relief. She really thought you’d be upset? You were touched. “Anyway, what time is it? Where is everyone? I thought classes stopped at–” You were cut off abruptly upon entering the lounge.

“Welcome back!” you covered your face at the chorus of voices, laughing behind your hands before clutching your heart dramatically. 

“Christ! You’ve all just knocked five years off my life!” you grinned, faces both familiar and unfamiliar laughing and smiling just to see you.

“They’ve been looking forward to this for days. Ever since rumour of your return started circulating, they’ve been pestering us nonstop for a date. Eventually, someone caved,” You didn’t need to see Scott’s eyes in order to know he was giving Kitty a pointed look behind his glasses. You looked back to see her looking sheepish.

“Yeah well… they can be really persuasive.” She shrugged, taking your bag off your shoulder and placing it out of the way. You sighed at the loss of weight, rolling your joint slightly. 

“It’s good to see you,” Scott pulled you in for a brief hug, clapping your back once before pulling back, letting the rest of your friends and pupils make their way over. You were consumed by various arms of embraces, questions about your travels, introductions to new students, reminiscing with old students. It was quite possibly the best moment you’d had since you left. But a face caught your eye at the back of the crowd. A young girl, with the same dark brown hair you remember, only now a streak of brilliant white framed her face.

You made your way over, shuffling through the crowd, clasping hands and shoulders with people you knew before finally getting to her.

“Hey you,” you smiled gently, remembering how timid and easy to scare she used to be. You were caught off guard completely by her sudden bright smile. 

“Hey.”

“How long’ve you been here? I didn’t actually think you’d listen to me to be brutally honest with you, thought you’d just shrug it off and continue your own path,” you were relieved to see she had listened to what you’d said two years ago. You’d urged her down this path, to find the school. You’d already known Charles would take her, it was just a matter of her taking herself here.

“Uh… about that…” you’d only seen a smile that sheepish on Kitty. You cocked a brow, head tilting to the side slightly before a hand on your shoulder caused you to whirl. But it was just Ororo. Clearly, your travels had affected you more than you originally thought. 

But Storm wasn’t looking at you, you could only see the back of her white hair as she frantically waved at someone through the crowd, beckoning them over.

“Logan!”

Ah, you guess that made sense now.

Whoever you’d expected to walk through the crowd, you threw that image out your mental window the moment you saw him. 

Now you understood why he taught combat and PE… he was fucking ripped. White t-shirt leaving nothing to the imagination. The facial hair was an interesting choice, but you couldn’t say it didn’t suit him. He was very… rugged lumberjack looking.

You placed a hand on your hip, brows raised in intrigue as he made his way over. You don’t think you’d ever seen a grumpier-looking man. 

“Logan, this is Phantom,” your eyes slid to Ororo as she used your mutant name. 

“Ah, so you do exist,” his voice seemed a perfect match for the rest of him, just as rough and rugged as the worn jeans he was wearing. You nodded, mouth quirking into a small smirk.

“Heard there was some debate over that, glad I could put it to rest,” you outstretched your hand for him to shake, something you were surprised he actually did, calloused palm encasing your own.

“Can ya blame me?” He asked with a raised brow, dropping your hand after a beat too long. Clearly unaccustomed to civility, judging from his appearance. 

“Guess not. You’re also the son-of-a-bitch that stole my position, right?” You asked, wanting to be a lot more serious than you actually were being, but for some reason, you couldn’t help grinning slightly. 

“Language!” Storm elbowed you slightly. Guess you’d forgotten how to behave around the kids too.

Logan held his hands up in surrender. “In my defense, I didn’t think you existed,” though he also seemed serious, you thought you could detect something that could be perceived as humour in his hazel eyes. You couldn’t keep up your poorly constructed façade anymore, waving your hand as if to physically clear the air between the two of you.

“I’m kidding, you can keep it. In all honesty, I was never really cut out for it.” You shrugged. “Besides, I’m–”

“She’s being super modest by the way, she rocked as that professor!” Kitty called from the other side of the room, somehow managing to listen to your conversation. You didn’t know how, since the entire welcome party was still chatting way, but you cast her a withering look nonetheless. 

“So I’ve heard,” Logan’s eyes slid from Kitty back to you as you scoffed.

“Though, of course, it was purely hypothetical, since I didn’t exist and all.” You teased, gesturing to your very much existing self. You silently triumphed over the fact you managed to drag a small smile out of him, realising that making this man pull any other expression other than irritation was something to be proud of. 

You hadn’t realised how completely caught up in the introduction you’d been before you noticed the girl still standing next to you, eyes flicking between you and Logan with a small smile pulling at the corners of her lips. 

“Anyway,” you continued pointedly, “you were saying? So you didn’t come to find this place?” your head tilted again slightly in confusion. “How did you end up here?”

Rogue looked from you to Logan, who’s eyes were still trained on you. You looked between them. “Nope, still confused. How did…?” 

“Well, after you found me, I did carry on my own path, which led me to some shady bar where Logan found me,” she explained quietly.

“More you found me but sure.” He shrugged. You could tell there was some kind of bond between them, one you could recognise was only built through trauma. You’d heard a little of what happened with Eric through Charles’ telepathic link, but he always reassured you to continue what you were doing. But you often wondered what could have happened if you’d returned. 

“So, you brought her here?” You asked, trying to prompt the story forward. Honestly, you wanted to know how he’d succeeded where you’d failed. You could be incredibly persuasive when you wanted to be, but Rogue was stubborn on another level. 

“Me? Nah, didn’t know this place existed at that point.”

“Seems to be a common theme with you,” you couldn’t help the subtle teasing grin spreading across your face, nor your laugh as he rolled his eyes skyward.

“Never gonna live that down, am I?”

“Not whilst I’m still breathing,” you winked, before turning your attention back to Rogue and completely missing the way his features shuddered slightly. “So how’d you get here if tall, dark, and broody over here didn’t know about this?” 

“Tall, dark, and– what?” He asked, bewildered.

Ororo snorted in amusement, before stepping in. “That would be us. We’d been tracking another mutant, Sabretooth, and he just so happened to be tracking Logan, or so we thought at the time. We found Sabretooth, and these two at the same time. Brought them both back.” 

You nodded in understanding, now finally having got through the whole story. Well, maybe not the whole story, you knew there were details you definitely were missing, but at least you got the jist.

“I see. Glad it wasn’t my lack of persuasive skills then. Though I guess a life or death situation isn’t much better. How’s your mutation coming along?” you asked, only now noticing the black, elbow-length gloves she was wearing. Ah.

“Still hard to control, but I’m getting better at it!” She looked genuinely enthusiastic about her mutation, so much so that it almost brought a tear to your eye. When you’d met her two years ago, you didn’t know if she even wanted help. She’d been so lost in her despair and self-loathing that you didn’t think she had long left with the way her mental health was going. So to see her so happy, your throat closed up slightly.

“I’m glad, I really am. You deserve this, Rogue. All of this,” you gestured to the room around, to the friends she’d made, to the haven she’d found.

“Oh, my name’s Marie. Guess I didn’t tell you before.” She shrugged, and you had to laugh to stop yourself from crying. 

“Marie it is.” Her story touched your heart, and to see she managed to get her happy ending… fuck you were so close to crying. You had to change the subject before you broke down in front of these people. “Oh hey, is my room still the same? Wouldn’t mind freshening up a little, been a long journey.” Two birds with one stone. You could leave the situation and cry in your bathroom whilst taking a shower so you didn’t smell like the wrong end of a skunk. Perfect!

“Uh…” Storm started.

“About that…” Kitty continued, coming over to stand alongside Storm. You looked between them, before shooting a glance to Logan who seemed to be showing absolutely no remorse.

“Your bed’s real comfy, bub” he smirked, and you gaped.

“You’re fucking kidding me?”

“Language!” both Ororo and Kitty said at the same time, and you winced.

“Fuck, sorry. Shit! Argh!” you gave up, throwing your hands in the air. “I’m not letting any of you off the hook. This is betrayal at its finest! Giving him my position I can handle, but my damn room? That’s shocking behaviour from the both of you!” You pointed at them accusingly, shooting a glare to the man next to you who was doing nothing but lowly chuckling. You breathe out a sigh. You had the best room in the whole mansion. Or at least you did, before Muscles McGee stole it from you.

“Don’t blame those two” Jean placed a calming hand on your shoulder. “we didn’t have another room made up when these two arrived. It was supposed to be temporary, but–”

“The view was too nice to pass up on,” Logan interjected. You realised he probably thought it was his turn to tease you. You knew that view was nice, it was overlooking the entire grounds behind the school. And whilst you were going to sorely miss it, you weren’t so heartless that you’d take it back from him. Besides, in a weird way, you felt like you owed him. He found Marie, and whatever transpired between them, she seemed happier now. You guessed you maybe had him to thank for that.

“Yeah yeah, alright fine. I concede. Where am I then?” you asked Jean, who broke into a broad smile.

“You’re in the one above, still got the same view, don’t worry,” she elbowed you slightly. That wasn’t so bad actually. Same view, same side of the mansion, just one story up? You breathed a sigh of relief. Yeah, you could do that.

“Good enough, I’m still mad about it though.” Your eyes narrowed at four of them, Logan included, before cracking your neck in preparation to take your bag all the way up the stairs.

Kitty clapped her hands excitedly, and you raised a brow in suspicion. “What’s got you so giddy?” you asked as she once again slid her arm across your shoulders, guiding you back towards the door. 

“Oh nothing, just glad you're home. It’s been kinda boring without you.” You laughed at that. With everything that’s been going on, you didn’t think any of them had time to be bored. But you appreciated the thought nonetheless. 

Eyeing your bag on the ground, there were times when you really wished your mutation involved some kind of super strength, because as happy as you were to be home and have a room just above your old one, you really didn’t want to lug that thing all the way up. And all the damn lights were on, so slipping up through the shadows was a no-go. You blew out a breath in preparation, rolling your shoulder once again, before you were stopped by a broad hand landing on your arm.

“I got it,” Logan’s voice weaved butterflies through your stomach. You hadn’t realised he was behind you before he was leaning down next to you and effortlessly slinging the bag over his own shoulder.

For the second time that afternoon, you gaped up at him, left almost speechless. 

“Super strength?” Was all you could say, hoping to Jesus he knew what you were asking. You watched his features morph from confusion to amusement as he shook his head slightly. 

“Nah, not quite.”

“Then how the fu–” you were reminded of the children present by a sharp elbow to the ribs from Kitty. “–uuun. How fun.” you gave up on your question, much to his mirth. The sight had your brain short-circuiting. You wouldn’t deny he was good-looking. You’d be fucking crazy to deny that. But there was something else hidden under all those knowing smirks and sharp glances. Something that you wouldn’t mind uncovering. 

Deciding that was a quest for another day, you turned abruptly on your heel, making your way to the staircase before once again stopping in your tracks. This was starting to get on your nerves a little. However, any irritation soon died as you finally saw Professor Xavier.

“Ah, I wondered whether the commotion was your return.”

You snorted a laugh. “No, you didn’t. You absolutely knew it was my return.” You quipped back, earning yourself a laugh from the man.

“As quick as ever. And I see you’ve met our Wolverine.” Charles nodded to Logan next to you, and you turned to him in bemusement. 

“Wolverine? Seriously?” you asked, laughing at his shrug. “Can’t think why…” your sarcastic jab paired with your pointed looks from his hair to his body brought another amused smirk from the man. 

“I thought you two would get along. Get yourself settled back in and meet me in my office and your earliest convenience.” You nodded back to Xavier, unable to take a moment to process what he meant when he said he thought you and Logan would get along before Kitty began dragging you towards the stairs.

“C’mon! You’re gonna love it!”You were slightly worried about what it was but followed her nonetheless.

Logan had to admit, he didn’t mind carrying your bag up four flights of stairs. It wasn’t the worst way to spend his afternoon. And as much as he wasn’t the kind of guy to stare at a woman’s ass, he wasn’t mad that he was behind you. 

Everything he’d been told about you had been proven correct. At least, everything he’d seen so far. Whether or not you could hold yourself in a fight was up for debate, but everything else, your wit, your charm, heartbreaking kindness, humour… it was all right there in front of him. 

Literally.

He’d lost count of how many times he’d had to bite back a smile or a laugh, stunned by the fact that you actually managed to break through and pull both from him. Even now, as you paused before the landing that lead to your old room and sighed wistfully, had had to stop himself grinning. And he was glad you turned back around quickly after throwing him a pointed glare over your shoulder because that was another smile he was struggling to rein in. Fuck, how did you do it? He’d only known you for half an hour and he’d displayed more expression than he had in his whole two years of being here. 

He was in huge trouble. 

The stairs finally flattened out to the top floor landing, Kitty still leading the way down the corridor until the final room. It was isolated, like his one floor below, and he guessed you must like it that way. Which he thought strange. The way you were with others, he hadn’t exactly pegged you for being someone who liked her space. But then again, he’d only known you for thirty minutes.

He had to remind himself of that. 

“Here we are!” Kitty grinned excitedly, stepping to the side to let you open the door yourself. Logan knew what you’d find behind the wood. He’d helped set it up after all. Some twisted guilt forced him into helping. At least, that’s what he told himself. 

You eyed Kitty suspiciously, before twisting the handle on the door, pushing slightly to reveal what she was so excited about. 

If Logan was being honest, your expression was worth all the consuming guilt he’d felt by taking your room. A smile of pure, unadulterated awe wiped all thought from his mind, your eyes were practically glowing.

“You… Kitty, you didn’t need to do this,” You looked back to the giddy girl and pulled her into a tight hug. Everything you remembered was here. Your posters, fairy lights, and every single plant you’d nourished and grown made your room look like a rainforest. The light in the ceiling had been covered by patterns to ensure there was always shadows cast somewhere, whether it be floor, wall, or ceiling. 

“It wasn’t just me! I employed help,” Kitty smiled, taking the liberties she knew she had to sit cross-legged on your bed. “And others offered to help.”

Logan held his breath as he felt your attention shift from Kitty to him, meeting your gaze of sheer wonder. 

“You helped?” you asked, taking your bag from his shoulder, though he was almost too caught up in your gaze to notice.

“Here an’ there…” he muttered, trying to calm himself by leaning against the doorframe, folding his arms across his chest, attempting to escape your eyes by looking around your room. 

“Here and there? That’s such a lie! He’d heard about your mutation, the shadow-casting thing was his idea!” Kitty grinned excitedly, and you all but choked on the realisation. He did this for you. He didn’t even know you, and he did this for you. 

“Kitty, that’s en–oof!” Logan barely had time to react before your arms were around his neck, your chin resting on his shoulder. Your scent hit him like a truck, and it was nothing like how he’d imagine it. Not that he had imagined it…

“Thank you,” you whispered earnestly, and any guard he’d put up previously melted away. He didn’t exactly return your embrace, but his hands somehow found your waist as you pulled back, keeping your arms across his shoulders. “Maybe I can forgive you for stealing my old room now. Oh! And my job. And not believing I exist,” your grin held more mischief than he ever thought possible, but now you were back to teasing, he felt his thoughts return. 

“Anythin’ else?” He asked, mirroring your expression.

“Not yet, but I’m sure I’ll think of something,” was it Logan’s sudden and overactive imagination, or did your eyes just flicker to his lips?

Was it the sudden physical contact that made your body hum this way, or was it just the fact that he could bench-press three of you? You didn’t care, and somehow, you didn’t think he did either. 

Until very suddenly and very abruptly, you did care. You stepped out of his hands far too quickly for his liking, your arms falling back by your sides. Though you didn’t look like you regretted anything. 

“I really appreciate this, from both of you. And whoever else helped. This is… well it’s better than what I was imagining,” you gestured to the room around you. It truly was perfect for you. They’d really outdone themselves. He’d really outdone himself. And you couldn’t help the warmth that spread from the centre of your chest to your limbs. You wanted to know more about him. “What’s your mutation, by the way? You never said,” you asked before you could stop yourself, and Logan blinked in surprise.

Holding his fist up, he flexed the tendons holding his claws. He no longer winced when his knuckles split. No longer grimaced as he sliced through his own flesh, though watching your face did cause him to worry just a little. 

You held your silence for a moment, not really knowing what to say. That looked painful as fuck, but you felt that asking might make it worse. “I see…” was all you said, before it hit you. “Wolverine! I get it now. It made sense before but now it actually fits!” You exclaimed, chuckling at his confusion. 

“Whaddya mean it made sense before?” 

“Don’t think too much into it,” you winked again, and Logan swore his heart stopped. 

“Yeah, alright Phantom.” He cocked a brow at the playful narrow of your eyes before you melted into the shadows right in front of him. He’d been made aware of your mutation, having overheard Jean using both you and Kitty as examples of phasing mutants, but to actually see it for himself? He couldn’t say he wasn’t impressed. He glanced around the room, retracting his claws as he looked for where you could have gone. 

“Get it now?”

Logan whipped around to see you standing behind him, arms folded across your chest, a mischievous grin plastered across your features. 

You always felt a sense of freedom when you released yourself into the shadows, like holding yourself in this corporeal state was somewhat of an effort. But letting yourself be free, to move like liquid amongst the darkness, it was like refueling a beaten truck. 

Logan’s lips quirked into a smile as he nodded once. “Got it,” the silence lingered once again, some kind of charge energy crackled in the space between the two of you before he cleared his throat. “Kitty, we should– the fuck?” 

You popped your head to the side, peering around Logan to see the space on your bed Kitty used to be sitting in was now completely empty. “Guess she left,” you shrugged. “Or she never existed.” That earned you a flick to the forehead from Logan, and you laughed, batting away his hand. How long had it been since you’d felt this comfortable with someone this quickly? Either it had been years, or never. 

“I’ll leave you to it,” he smiled, this time completely unrestrained. And fuck was he gorgeous. But you had to remember this was a man you’d just met. 

He had to remember this was a woman he’d just met.

“Yeah, thanks. I’ll uh, see you later?” You didn’t mean for your voice to sound so hopeful at the end, but honestly? It was worth seeing him turn back to you with that same smirk you’d seen countless times already.

“Sure.” He said, before closing the door. 

You sat heavily on your bed, your head in your hands. “What the fuck?” 

Little did you know, Logan was having a similar reaction right outside your door, his back against the wood as he pinched the bridge of his nose between his thumb and forefinger. “What. The. Fuck?”

Having almost drowned yourself in the shower, using that shampoo you’d missed so dearly on your travels, you’d changed clothes into something a lot more comfortable, a loose pair of sweats and a spaghetti strap tank top, before heading down to Xavier’s office where he’d just spent the last ten minutes explaining his plans to further your mutation. And to be completely honest with yourself, you hadn’t listened to half of it. 

“So, in short, your ability, whilst appearing similar to Kitty’s, is actually entirely different. Where Kitty phases through objects, you become those shadows. Your molecules break down completely, unlike Miss Pryde.” He finished his explanation slowly, and you didn’t have the heart to tell him you had no idea what he’d just said. Luckily, when conversing with a telepath, you didn’t have to.

Charles sighed, rubbing his forehead slightly. “You’ve always said you felt a strain on yourself whilst corporeal, yes?” He asked, and you breathed in relief. Finally, a question you could answer.

“Yeah, it’s like I’m holding water with my bare hands. Or something like that,” you nodded, looking at yourself slightly curiously. “So, I’m not like Kitty?” you clarified, looking back up the the professor, who shook his head. 

“I’m afraid not. We were mistaken before, simply assuming you were just another phasing mutant. But Jean ran some tests on your blood, and it was quite remarkable.” You’d almost forgotten the woman was in the room until she cleared her throat, her red hair pulled up in a tight ponytail. 

“I think you describe it perfectly. Your molecules are being held together, more or less, by string, or so to speak. Not real string, but I think you understand.” You nodded. You actually did understand, because that’s how you constantly felt. It was, however, incredibly unnerving. What would happen if that string frayed? Or worse, fucking snapped altogether? Sensing your distress, Charles covered your hand with his own.

“My dear, that’s why we brought you back. We’ve been incredibly lucky so far, and clearly, you have an innate ability to control the string. It’s led us to believe that your abilities don’t stop at shadow walking.” He looked at you with understanding as you took this all in. He’d mentioned to you previously that he thinks you could do more. 

“Shadow manipulation, right?” You asked though the question was rhetorical. You knew that’s where they were going with this. Charles glanced at Jean who nodded in confirmation. 

“Essentially, yes. We think you could pull shadows from an already existing cast and wield them to your heart’s content. In… theory.” She hesitated, and you blew out a breath.

“But in practice?”

“In practice… honestly we don’t know. It will be a learning curve for all of us, to be blunt.” You nodded a little numbly. You’d only just returned and already you were being bombarded with hard truths. 

Once again sensing your distress, Charles cleared his throat. “Well, I think we should continue this discussion tomorrow. You’ve had a long day and perhaps right now isn’t the best time to be entertaining new ideas.” He threw another look to Jean and she nodded again, standing from her seat.

You couldn’t agree more. This was a lot to take in. Especially since you’d become so comfortable with your mutation, believing that you were just another phaser like Kitty. But now, you were something else completely, something unknown. Even to yourself. It… scared you. And you didn’t scare easily. Worry? Sure. Impending sense of dread? Absolutely. Fear? Never.

“Right. Thanks, Professor. I’ll uh, see you tomorrow then.” You dipped your head goodbye, before leaving his office and closing the door behind you. Tea. You needed tea. Fuck you needed something stronger than tea, but since this was a goddamn school, alcohol was strictly prohibited. 

Fuck’s sake. 

Dragging a hand down the side of your face, you absently made your way to the kitchen and flicked on the kettle. Muscle memory guided you to the drinks cupboard, moving aside the jar of decaff coffee to reveal your personal stash of teabags. Whilst primarily you were a coffee drinker, when it was this late in the evening, you tended to steer clear of the caffeine. You weren’t the best at sleeping to begin with, let alone when your mind and body were buzzing. 

You didn’t turn when you heard footsteps behind you, and the scrape of one of the chairs against the wooden floor, too focussed on rifling through the cupboard adjacent to the drinks one for our favourite mug. A gift from Kitty, she’d had custom-made for the print on the side to say ‘Phasers Forever!’. It made you a little sad to think about now. But, thankfully you found it, nestled right at the back next to the mug you’d gifted her. Also custom-made, but this just had the image of two hands with their little fingers linked. You’d made sure the gloves matched the ones you both wore in your suits. 

Dropping the teabag into the mug, you instantly savoured the scented steam as you poured the hot water, even the aroma calming your slightly frayed nerves. Wow, that meeting had seriously rattled you. Looping the string and tag over the lip of the mug, you turned back to the room, only to almost drop your freshly made drink in surprise.

Logan. Hair slightly damp, in a white v-neck tank, sat at the far end of the table, leaning back in the chair with a bottle of what you could have sworn was larger in his bear paw of a hand. That same fucking smirk pulled at his lips. 

“Phantom.” He raised his bottle in greeting. You wished you could match his energy, but honestly, you were drained from the day and the meeting. But you tried nonetheless.

“Wolvie.” You smiled back, though you could feel it didn’t reach your eyes. And clearly, he noticed too, expression shifting from self-assured confidence to slight concern.

“You alright?” Logan had only known you for less than a day, and he already knew he really didn’t like seeing you despondent. 

“Yeah, fine.” It almost pained him physically seeing your eyes remain dull with your liar’s smile. That was something else he realised in that split second. 

He really didn’t like you lying to him.

“Uh huh?” Fuck, he definitely knew you were hiding everything. How the fuck could he possibly tell that? He didn’t even know you! You sighed heavily, hoping it would help your next half-truth.

“I’m just tired. Long day, lots of emotions. Are you hungry? I’m starved and was gonna make pasta if you wanted some,” You tried your best to steer the conversation away from how you were feeling. Once again it wasn’t exactly a lie. You were starving, having not eaten since this morning, and it was now ten in the evening. 

Logan knew you turned away quickly so you didn’t have to see his suspicion. If you weren’t ready to talk about whatever was bothering you, he knew he shouldn’t push. But, to his surprise, he found himself wanting to know. He wanted to know what was up, and maybe, just maybe, he could make you feel better. It seemed doubtful, but it was worth a shot. “How was your meeting with Charles?”

Your shoulders tensed, spine straightening. Gotcha.

“Yeah, fine. Just easing me back into life here basically. Nothing earthshattering.” Now that was a flat out lie, and once again you refused to turn around as you brought the kettle over to the tap, filling it to the max line before placing it back on the stand and flicking the switch. You found it easier to lie when you were busy doing something else and making pasta seemed perfect. Crouching to one of the lower cupboards, you pulled out the pack of wholewheat, refusing to eat any of the sugary white bullshit. Unfortunately, the one downside of busying yourself so remarkably well was that you weren’t always paying attention to what was going on around you.

For example, Logan walking up behind you to take the packet from your hand and place it on the counter. You turned, realising he’d given you minimal space to move. He was so close you could smell the gel he used in the shower. Woodsy and smoky, like a forest cabin. He smelt fucking great, but to be honest, you were too busy trying to avoid eye contact to care.

“S’that why you look like your pet just died?” You knew he was trying to be teasing, trying to lighten the mood, trying to create a comfortable environment for you to open up in, but you didn’t know him, and he didn’t know you. With a deep breath, you stepped to the side and out of his reach, opening the fridge to look for something to make a nice creamy sauce with.

“Look, Logan. I appreciate it, and what you’re trying to do, but at the same time, I don’t know you. And you don’t know me. So, and I mean this with the utmost respect, fucking drop it. I’m tired and I have genuinely had a long day, what more do you want me to say?”

Logan blinked. And blinked again for good measure. He wasn’t expecting you to be so sharp. He didn’t know why he wasn’t expecting it, but you really took him by surprise. That seemed to be all you were doing since the moment he met you. Though this one stung a little more than he cared to admit. “That might’ve been the nicest fuck off I’ve ever heard. But it was still a fuck off.” He shrugged. He knew deep down you were right. You didn’t know each other, and maybe was was expecting a little too much from a three-hour friendship. If he could even call it that. 

“I didn’t mean–” You turned back from the fridge just in time to watch his disappearing form leave through the door, hearing his footsteps recede back up the stairs. You cursed inwardly, hating yourself for how you handled the situation. Though, looking at the pasta on the counter, you had an idea as to how to fix some of this. 

It had been roughly half an hour since he’d left you in the kitchen, recognising you needed space, and in all honesty? Retreating to lick his own wounds. He didn’t know why he wanted you to open up so badly. It wasn’t like he had a long-lasting friendship with you. He met you today, for fuck’s sake. Only hours ago. Shit, this morning he still didn’t think you existed! Logan groaned at the memory of you shutting him down, wishing he’d handled the situation differently, and stopped prodding when he knew he should have. Fuck!

He’d just managed to resolve to come and talk to you, before there was a thump at his bedroom door, followed by another. That wasn’t any kind of fist knocking… 

With deliberate caution, Logan stood from his bed, shining claws sliding through his knuckles as he approached the door, only for his nerves to be calmed when a familiar scent wafted through the cracks in the door. He didn’t dare get his hopes up until he turned the handle, pulling the door open to reveal you, stood before him, two steaming plates of pasta held impressively in one hand, and two bottles of larger in the other, your foot raised to kick the door a third time. 

“Before you slam the door, I brought peace pesto pasta, homemade so you know it’s good.” You were honestly surprised he opened the door, though you eyed his claws cautiously. Who did he think it was?

Logan noticed your line of sight, retracting his claws to cross his arms, a brow raised. “Peace pesto pasta?”

You nodded. “Homemade, don’t forget.” Logan smiled slightly at the hope in your eyes. “And also beer so you physically can’t turn me down.” You raised the two bottles in your hand, and he sighed as if you were a nuisance. Unfortunately for him, that couldn’t be further from the truth. 

“Homemade peace pesto, beer, and…?” 

You stuck your tongue in your cheek. “An apology.” You reluctantly admitted, looking anywhere but his face. “Can I come in or are you gonna stare at me all evening? These aren’t the most balanced plates, been a while since I was a waitress so…” you mumbled in explanation, earning yourself a quizzical look.

“You were a waitress?”

“Yes and it was a long time ago but we can talk all about it if I can set these down somewhere they won’t fall on your feet,” you said hurriedly, borderline pleading with your eyes for him to let you in. It wasn’t as if he was about to say no, there was just something comical about the way you were managing to hold everything in your hands. 

With a click of his tongue, he gestured for you to enter with his head, closing the door behind you as you set one of the plates down on the window seat, rubbing the red skin of your arm where the hot plate had ever so slightly burned you. He instantly felt bad, crossing the room with the intention to take your arm to look at it before you stuck it into the shadow on the wall, removing it again to reveal your skin pristine again.

“It wasn’t that bad, just uncomfortable,” you shrugged, handing a plate and bottle to him. Logan shook his head at what he’d just seen, giving you a look of ‘fair enough’ before taking the plate and beer gratefully. How long had it been since someone cooked for him? Though you’d done it as a peace offering, it still warmed his heart slightly. That and the fact it smelt fucking divine. 

“I’m sorry…” you started, mindlessly poking your pasta around your plate with your fork after making yourself comfortable on his window seat. He guessed it used to be your window seat, but it still made him happy how comfortable you looked. “The Professor told me something in the meeting and… rattled me, that’s all,” you shrugged, popping a few pieces of green pasta into your mouth and chewing thoughtfully. 

Logan decided to wait for you to continue, cracking open the bottle top of his beer with his teeth. Raising a brow as you looked over at him in slightly disturbed awe. 

“How did you not just break your jaw?” you asked, flabbergasted at his seemingly endless pool of abilities. 

“Not much can break it, considering my skeleton’s adamantium.” Logan was starting to like when you gaped at him in shock, admiring the way you jaw went completely slack, eyes wide. 

“Wait, how don't you– ohhhhh…” It had taken you a while to notice just how much the bed dipped when he sat down. No wonder he was so ripped, he had to be that strong in order to fucking walk around. “Any other secrets you're hiding?” You asked, before instantly regretting the question when his eyes met yours.

“You wanna talk about keeping secrets now?” He asked curtly.

“Walked into that one…”

“Yeah, you kinda did.” 

You sighed, fiddling with the bottle cap of your beer. Not to remove it, just to feel the sensation of the almost serrated edges helped to ground yourself. 

“You know about my mutation, the whole shadow-walking thing?” You asked, to which Logan responded with a nod, finally taking a bite of the pasta you’d made. Your heart swelled with pride as he paused, looking from the food to you with an impressed smile. “So, turns out, it’s nothing like Kitty’s. It’s not phasing like we originally thought, but something totally different.” You started to explain to an intensely listening Logan. “Kitty phases through things. I actually become the shadows I enter. Like, it’s not still my body but just in the shadow, my molecules break down to literally be the shadow,” you could tell he was trying to understand, his head tilting slightly to the side in a way you genuinely found cute. “It’s like, I’m holding water in my bare hands,” you started to demonstrate, placing your plate and bottle down beside you to cup your hands in front of you. “And this, this is my body. My corporeal body. But, when I dive into shadows, that body breaks down,” your cupped hands splayed apart, fingers spread to simulate a liquid splash. Logan nodded thoughtfully through mouthfuls of pasta. “How Jean explained it was that my molecules are held together with some kind of thread, and I control that thread, but it’s a constant strain… Like, I can feel my body being held together. And it just… I don’t know. It scared me I guess.”

The room fell into silence as you finished your explanation, Logan setting his somehow clean plate to the side, leaning his elbows against his spread knees, beer bottle clasped in both hands. “I uh, don’t really understand what’s scary bubs, sounds like this is an opportunity to develop it, right?” he asked, eyes searching your face for any sign you were reassured.

You sighed, the back of your head softly hitting the wall behind you. “Well apparently we’ve been lucky so far, and my control over this string or thread or whatever the fuck is stronger than they thought but… I don’t know, I guess what first went through my mind was what would happen if the thread snapped. Would I just stop being able to shadow walk or–”

“Would you stop altogether, and be able to do nothing but shadow walk,” Logan finished, realisation dawning on his gruff features. You nodded slightly, not wanting to speak anything into existence. 

“Exactly.” You whispered, staring into your borderline untouched pasta. You honestly didn’t know what to do, and you didn’t know what could be done. Surely, at this point, it was just a matter of time, right? The thought hit you like a lightning bolt. If it was just a matter of time, you just burdened this poor man, who you’d only met hours ago, with the knowledge that, eventually, you were likely just simply dissolve into nothing, cursed to live forever in the shadows of others. “Anyway, yeah, that’s why I had a face like, how did you put it? Like my pet just died,” You did your best to imitate his voice, hoping to shit it would lighten the mood of the room, but it only earned you a look of sympathy.

Fucking sympathy. You hated sympathy.

You’d come in here in the hopes to make things right with him and apologise for how you were earlier, but the one thing you really didn’t want, and never fucking wanted, was sympathy. You sighed heavily, preparing yourself for whatever ‘I’m so sorry this is happening speech’ he was clearly getting ready to spill. 

But for the umpteenth time in the short while you’d known him, Logan surprised you. Taking your bottle of beer from your side, he cracked the lid off with his teeth, the same as before, before handing it back to you. You, as stunned as you were, managed to take it from his hand, the soft skin of your fingertips brushing the backs of his own. You smiled in resignation, raising your bottle in some tragic excuse of a toast. ‘To the inevitable’ you wanted to say, but you physically bit your tongue before taking a long sip of the slightly bitter liquid.

“It won’t come to that,” you’d forgotten, in the period of silence, that you were waiting for him to say something. You tilted your head in confusion, and it honestly took all of Logan’s willpower not to launch into you and wrap you up in his arms. He really needed to pull himself together. “Look, I was pretty fuckin’ helpless when I came here. And I know you remember the state Marie was in. Neither of us thought we were worth savin’, but look at us now,” in complete honesty, Logan still didn’t think he was worth saving, but that was neither here nor there. “He’ll help ya. You’ll get this under control. And it ain’t all bad. He already said you had more control than he thought,” You could feel his eyes search your face as you closed yours. Maybe he was right. Charles had said you had more control over these strings than he thought. 

Logan was right. That was a good thing.

“Well, we’ll see tomorrow. That’s when we really start everything. We have another meeting before we’re straight into training, seeing if we can really develop this mutation before I cease to exist. No pressure right?” You half-joked, your lips quirking up into what you hoped was a smile. Or, at least, a lopsided one. 

Fuck he wanted to kiss you. Kiss you. When the hell was the last time he’d felt like this toward anyone? He hadn’t wanted to kiss anyone in goddamn years, and here you were, a woman he didn’t even believe existed a few hours ago, waltzing into his life and making him feel things like wanting to fucking kiss you. 

“I uh… ya know I wanted to apologise too.”

Well, that caught you off guard. “Wh– wait what? Why? What for?” you couldn’t help firing off questions at speeds you didn’t know you were capable of, utter bafflement contorting your features. 

“You were right. I don’t know you. And you don’t know me.” Logan watched as your face transformed from confusion, to hurt, to acceptance. 

“Yeah…. I did say that didn’t I? I–”

“But,” he interrupted, stopping you mid-sentence. “That doesn’t mean I don’t wanna know ya…” Logan almost laughed aloud at how your eyes went comically wide. Did you know how cute you were? When you weren’t telling him to fuck off, that is.

“I– Uh, okay, sure… what d’ya wanna know?” you asked, hoping to fuck you didn’t sound ridiculous. If you didn’t, Logan didn’t seem to mind or care. 

“You can start of by tellin’ me how or where you learned to cook so well,” you scoffed loudly, rolling you eyes. “Nah I’m serious kid, that was fuckin’ great,” Logan leaned against the headboard, an arm positioned behind his head as you too made yourself comfortable again on the window seat, resting your elbow on your raised knee.

“Kid? Do you know how old I am?” you asked, smirking slightly. Though you were a little embarrassed, there was no way you’d show it. Kid? Did he seriously think you were that young? 

“Do you know how old I am?” he retorted, that same self-assured glint dancing in his eye. You peered at him in scrutiny, emphasising how hard you were looking at him by squinting intensely.

“I’d put you at around like, early thirties? Maybe mid? Am I hot or cold?” you asked, kinda hoping he was in the same sort of age bracket as you were. Not for any specific reason of course… just for… science.

Yeah. For science.

Though your heart deflated slightly at his bark of a laugh. “Not quite. Try mid to late hundred and thirties. Give or take a few years.” Once again you gaped at him, mouth wide open, jaw completely slack. He could get used to that sight. Dangerously used to it. “Take a picture bubs, it’ll last longer.”

“B-but… how–? Y–? Hundred and– what the fuck?” You couldn’t get over it. Though your mind was still reeling, you managed to recover quickly. “Why you don’t look a day over ninety. You’re in good shape for a fossil, though I was wondering why I was getting a lot of calls from museums recently… probably looking for their exhibit back,” you smirked wildly whilst Logan just stared at you, trying his fucking damnest not to let his disobedient lips quirk anywhere other than down. 

“Ya done?”

“I’ll probably think of some more. But, in all seriousness, how?” You asked, and Logan couldn’t detect anything other than genuine curiosity.

“Regenerative. I heal real quick, but that also keeps my body in good condition. Dunno exactly how old I am, but it’s around hundred and thirty,” he shrugged, and you whistled lowly. “So?” he prompted, and you looked up.

“So what?”

“How’dya make the pasta?” 

You snorted in amusement, before launching into an explanation about your brother and how he always had an interest in cooking and had taught you to cook simple things, like how to make a béchamel sauce, or how to make pesto from scratch. And if you weren’t so caught up in your storytelling, you would have noticed Logan drinking in every damn word like he was parched for conversation. Listening to you talk, the cadence of your voice, the way you pronounce every letter and the way you occasionally drop a letter, it was hypnotic. You didn’t have an abundance of energy, and whether that was simply because you were exhausted after the day you’d had, or if that was just who you were, he didn’t know. But honestly? He didn’t really care. 

As long as you kept talking, that was all that mattered. If he could take your mind off tomorrow, or your situation by letting you ramble about the smallest of things, he would. And he would pretend the whole time like he was doing this for you. And not because, at the end of everything, he liked listening to you. 

“Anyway, that’s how you tell the difference between a Thoroughbred and a Quarter Horse. And I will not make that mistake again.” You’d somehow weaved from topic to topic, the conversation ebbing and flowing for hours, you both taking turns in sharing random stories from your pasts, little anecdotes that gave context to who you both were as people now. And it was only thanks to the brief silence and the conveniently timed chime of the clock did you realise how late it was. Or rather, how early.

It was one in the fucking morning. How the hell did that happen? Your eyes slid back to Logan, who at some point had made himself comfortable on the opposite side of the window seat, and you watched as he had the same realisation. Holy shit.

“I should probably–”

“Look, you should–”

You both started to speak at the same time, before pausing to let the other talk first. It was gross and awkward and cringey but, for the life of you, you couldn’t find it in you to care. 

You stood, gathering your long abandoned, though now empty plate, and crossed the room to grab his from the bedside table. You heard Logan sigh heavily behind you in what you assumed was exhaustion. You couldn’t blame the man. You’d been talking for hours. 

Logan followed you to the door, holding it open for you as you stepped out into the hallway. You placed the crockery onto the floor, freeing your hands to wrap your arms around his neck in a similar embrace to the one before. Only this time, you felt his strong arms return your hug, wrapping you up tightly against his chest.

“Thank you. For letting me talk for hours. You don’t need to pretend you enjoyed it, by the way. But thank you all the same.” You stepped back, and Logan leaned against the door frame, crossing his arms over his chest.

“Yeah well, you brought peace pesto and beer. How could I say no?” He quipped, and you chuckled lightly. He wasn’t about to admit he enjoyed your company far more than he should have done, and he sure as shit wasn’t about to admit he wasn’t pretending to like it. His eyes softened at your laugh in a way he’d stopped them from doing all evening. “I’ll see you tomorrow, yeah?”

You peered up at him, a knowing spark dancing in your iris. You noticed. Of course, you’d noticed. That was almost exactly what you’d said to him earlier. The same hopeful lilt and all. 

“Sure.” Was all you said in return, before picking up the empty plates and bottles off the floor, and turning away to head back down the hallway. You refused to look back, worried that if you did, you’d run straight back to his room and never fucking leave.

But if you had. If you had just turned to look over your shoulder, you would have seen him leaning against the doorway still, eyes following you down the stairs, and lingering still, long after you’d disappeared.

Yeah… he was definitely in trouble.

Underneath (König x Reader)

Summary: You'd been looking for some time alone when you'd gone to the shooting range at nearly midnight. König clearly had the same idea.

Requested by Anon: #47 I forget how to speak whenever you're around and it's embarrassing.

A/N: Honestly, this felt sooo trash. My apologies anon, König was difficult to write here.

Categories: Hurt/Comfort || Fluff || Mutual Pining

Warnings: Mild Swearing

The night air was crisp, your breath leaving small clouds of white to trail behind you. You adjusted the strap of the weapon slung across your shoulder and shivered. Next time you’d have to dress warmer if you wanted to take a late night stroll, but you knew full well you’d make the same mistake.

As KorTac’s resident marksman, the firing range was almost like your second home. Your sniper rifle was an extension of your limbs and this place gave you the opportunity to exercise it. It would be worth the walk and worth the cold.

You glanced at your watch as you entered the facility. It was 2300 hours, no one in their right mind would be at the range this late on a Friday night. You’d have the floor to yourself, blowing off steam with unlimited ammunition into the early hours of the morning: the perfect way to start off the weekend.

As you entered the doors and rounded the corner, your breath left you in a gasp and you stumbled backward.

“König!”

The giant came to a screeching halt in an attempt to not bowl you over, his eyes wide as he appraised you. He held a sniper rifle in his right hand, the weapon looking like a Nerf gun in comparison to the sheer size of him. Your heart thrashed wildly in your chest at the scare of unexpected company.

“Jesus,” you rasped, a small laugh slipping from you lips. “What’re you doing here so late?”

There was a short pause as the man gathered his bearings, the both of you thrown off by each other’s presence. “Probably the same as you.”

You nodded your head with a small shrug. You should have guessed that König wouldn’t be at the club with the rest of the team. He was the resident introvert, maniacal on the battlefield but withdrawn in the barracks.

König was an enigma.

It’s what drew you to him like a moth to a flame. Although, the man avoided you where he could. You guessed he wasn’t as curious about you as you were about him.

“Is this why you’re better than most with a sniper?” You nodded towards his rifle but his eyes remained glued on you. “You shoot at midnight?”

It was mean to be a joke but there was some truth to your question. König was one of the better snipers in KorTac, as though he were born with a natural talent for the role. You wondered if he’d ever consider pushing for a change in positions.

“Better than most,” he agreed quietly with a shrug, but then his eyes sparkled with amusement. “However, I shoot at midnight to be better than you.”

Your heart stuttered at the words. You knew he was joking, or at least attempting to break the ice, but it always felt good to hear words of affirmation. Snipers were very much out of sight and out of mind until you needed them and you’d rarely received compliments on your work outside of training.

“Well,” you breathed, shifting the weight of the rifle on your back. It was cold but suddenly there was warmth blooming along your neck as König watched you intently. “Now I wanna see if you’re going to put me out of a job.”

König’s eyes widened and you saw him hesitate.

“You,” he cleared his throat, “you want to watch me shoot?”

You offered him a small smile in response, it was cheeky but not enough to alarm him. The last thing you wanted was to make a 6’10 mountain of a man think that you were here to laugh at him

You knew that König was a good shot, though you also knew he was not on the same playing field as you. Something told you he needed a win, though. If watching him shoot and complimenting his ability would give him something warm on such a frigid day, then it would be the least you could do.

After all, you don’t go to the range at midnight on a Friday night unless you’re lonely.

“Actually,” König began, suddenly shifting on his feet uneasily. “I’ve been wanting to ask you something.”

You nodded your head, indicating for the man to continue. Silence swept into the conversation as König’s gaze flickered from your rifle to the floor, his hands moving to rest behind his back. You could tell his fingers were fidgeting even though he’d hid them from your view.

Finally, he spoke. “I wanted to ask for your help, I’m having trouble adjusting this rifle.”

Your mouth fell open and you blinked at him dumbly.

The giant blinked back.

“Yes!” You said with a start, realizing he was waiting for your response. “Of course- yeah. Lay down and set her up as best you can while I go offload my shit.”

König let loose a breath, his shoulders relaxing from where they’d been bunched. The sniper’s hood that he wore should have made him difficult to read, but his body language was beyond expressive.

When you returned from laying your shit down in the next aisle, König was on his stomach and those long legs were stretched out to full length. Again, you marvelled at the size of him.

He was peering down the sight of his rifle, a frustrated sigh deflating his chest as you looked down on him. You could see what was wrong with his positioning, then the actual rifle would be an entirely different beast to tackle.

“König,” you brought his attention back to you as your eyes skimmed over his body, watching for any flaws you may have missed. When you looked back at him, the man was watching you from above his shoulder. Your heart skipped a beat at the intensity of that emerald gaze, the determination to find out how to better himself.

You let loose a breath.

“Can I fix your position for you?” The question was soft but König’s hand flexed against his weapon anyway.

“Of course.”

You started with his legs, grabbing the inside of his right knee to push it upward. He helped you tucking it up so that it sat parallel to his body.

“It absorbs the recoil without shifting your line of fire,” you explained, and you saw his head nod from above the contour of his back. You stood over him, your feet planted on either side of his waist in an attempt to see the angle his body lay on.

Finally, you made your way to his arms, lowering yourself beside him. That green gaze flickered towards you, taking in your bent over form and settling on where you rested on both your knees.

He looked away as his breath hitched.

“Pick your elbows up,” you murmured, leaning over him as he lifted his arms. You tucked them a bit closer to where he had them initially, your chest brushing against the back of his head as you moved. His biceps were hard beneath your fingers and you swallowed thickly. “Now lean into them outward so the skin of your elbows is stretched.”

Again, the man obeyed.

“See how everything feels so much tighter?” You asked, leaning back onto your knees with your hands on the floor behind you.

König groaned at the sight.

You frowned.

“Is…” you cleared your throat, sitting straight. “Is it not good? I can adjust it if –“

“It’s fine,” König said quickly, his voice strained.

Your heart sunk at the urgency in his words, as though he were impatient. You thought that this was what he wanted, he had asked for your help.

“Well,” you rubbed the back of your neck with a sigh. “Give it a shot then, big guy.”

Big guy.

König missed the target.

You gawked at the small screen bolted to the floor between your bodies. When your eyes flicked over to the man lying next to you, he closed his eyes with a sigh.

“Try again,” you tried to keep your voice neutral but to miss the target entirely was a pretty big feat. Especially for someone like König who, usually, was an excellent shot.

This time, the bullet had barely caught the edge of the cardboard. The screen emitted a small beep, informing you both that he’d missed the centre aiming mark by 2,876 millimetres.

If that was a person, he’d have taken some fabric off of his shirt sleeve.

König sat up suddenly, a low growl reverberating in his chest. “Sheiße!”

“Is it the rifle?” You questioned as he rested his back against the isle wall, dropping his hands against his knees. His head fell rearward, gaze moving to the ceiling and for a second there he looked truly hopeless.

You didn’t receive a response.

“If it’s the positioning then-“

König’s head snapped upright, his eyes settling on you with an expression you’d never seen on him. You felt like you were burning.

“It’s you,” he said simply.

Your mouth dried.

“Oh.”

You stood to your feet without another word. Your chest felt heavy, and your skin stung as though the words had been a whip bearing down on your body. Embarrassment flooded your cheeks as a cold chill trickled down your spine.

You hadn’t realized how cold it was in that room.

Before you could walk from the aisle, König was on his feet. He stood before you, hands raised as though attempting to placate your or surrender. He was careful not to touch you, but the way he leaned in made you think that he wanted to.

“Not,” he stumbled over the words, they were desperate and choked. “Not like that. Never like that.”

You stared at him incredulously.

“Don’t leave,” König murmured, stepping into your space. Your head was craned so that you could see him, though eventually you gave up and tossed your gaze to the side. “I didn’t mean it like that.”

“What did you mean, then?”  Your voice was hard, and you heard him suck in a breath. “You ask me to help you then don’t talk to me when I do.”

After a pregnant pause, a hand came to rest against your upper arm and you forced yourself to stay still. When a finger tucked itself beneath your chin, forcing your eyes upward, your knees trembled dangerously beneath you.

“I’m not ignoring you, I swear it.” König’s words fell from his lips in a tumble, that emerald gaze intent, “I just forget how to speak whenever you’re around and it’s embarrassing.”

Your jaw would have fallen open had it not been for his fingers holding it.

The silence was heavy as his words settled and you couldn’t think of a single thing to respond to him with. How were you meant to tell him that you felt the same way? How were you meant to express the effect that he had on you without sounding like a child?

Eventually, his fingers slipped from your skin and a chill fell over your body at his absence.

König took a step back, his body rigid.

“I’m sorry,” he rasped, his shoulders squared, and his eyes cast downward. “That was inappropriate, I shouldn’t have- “

“Don’t apologize,” your voice was barely a whisper, but the words echoed like a gunshot in the space between you. “Don’t you dare take that back.”

König watched you carefully from beneath the hood.

You decided, as his fingers slowly returned to your skin, that tonight you’d be under that hood with him.

[x] IMAGINE STEALING KAZ'S CLOTHES AND HE PRETENDS NOT TO NOTICE.

requested by anon

---

It had begun when you had been alone at Kaz's office and felt cold. You had been feeling lazy, so you had thought to borrow Kaz's shirt this one time. But you had ended up stealing that shirt. And a few more pieces of clothing after that.

You couldn't help it, you just found so much comfort from his clothes. And especially if they had a faint scent of him. You didn't put his shirt on every day, but when you missed him when he was away, it was a cold day or when you just wanted to have physical comfort from him, you put his shirt on and it kind of felt like he was holding you, even though you couldn't know how it would really feel like.

Today, it was a particulary chilly day and your regular attire didn't feel like enough. You glanced at the drawer where you had hidden some of Kaz's shirts - you knew they wouldn't warm you up any more than your own clothes would, and Kaz was present, so there was a greater risk that he'd catch you. But it was still tempting. You knew he wouldn't lash out on you about that, you still feared that it would feel embarassing for him.

But if you'd hide it well enough, he'd never know. So you slipped Kaz's shirt on, buttoning it up before putting your jacket on and ensuring that the shirt won't show up too much under it. Then you left your room, ready for the new day.

The day went on normally, Kaz was his brooding himself who snapped at Jesper and Nina whenever they made teasing remarks on how his tone of voice changed slightly with you or how his face softened just a bit when he looked at you. Kaz had tried to keep your relationship as a secret from the Crows too at first, but it didn't take long from them to figure it out.

And today, it was the first time you were wearing Kaz's shirt when he wasn't away. You thought you had succeeded in being subtle, that he didn't know, but he knew. Oh, he knew. He had known it since he first saw it when he returned earlier than expected from one of his heists, and suspected it already when three of his shirts were missing. And secretly, he loved it, seeing his shirt under your jacket. For him, it meant that you were fully comfortable around him. And until he would hopefully be better with touch, he was happy that you found physical comfort from his clothes when he couldn't provide it to you yet.

One day, he hoped he'd be able to hold you, but until then... his clothes would do it for him.

A/N: To the requester, thank you for your compliments ❤ And I know you requested a "fic" and probably waited for a longer piece but as much as I love Kaz, I can't keep breaking my own rules to make all my Kaz pieces long when the request is gif imagine-sized because otherwise I could burn myself out with Kaz because people would always assume long pieces even from the vaguest of requests and that would eventually also mirror itself on other characters I don't crush on. I'm sorry if I've disappointed you by not providing a oneshot.

Tags: @musicallisto @take-me-to-ny @mindofasupernova @lxncelot @xxxtwilightaxelxxx @vintagebitc @fandomstuffff @montsepliego @number-0-iz @just-a-new-start @kaqua @readingslumpfanfic @dancingwith-sunflowers @shadowhuntyi @rika90 @imma-too-many-fandoms @the-abyss-gazed-back @thereagles @kiwijulia @beatitlikeabongodrum @louweasleymalfoy @aliiiyyaaah @malfoys-demigod @aleksanderwh0r3 @gallysonegoodlung @maybe-potato @dustyjjumpwings @whatiswrongwithpeople @thegirlwiththeimpala @periwinklemax @lazyotakujen @bookfrog242 @mrs-brekker15 @notplutos @brekkersbane @subjecta13-thefangirl @hinagiku0 @brekker-zenik @brekkers-desigirl @statsvitenskap @janesofia7 @heyitsaloy @rqmanoff @mentallynotstableghost @katherinepetrovawife @scandalous-chaos @nyx2021 @lala2sstuff

Well-Designed

Connor (RK800) x gn!Reader | 2.3K | 18+

Connor’s learning how to use a mobile phone while the Cyberlife servers are down for maintenance. It’s easy enough for an android to figure out, but he’s getting caught up on using the camera function to send you photos of the parts of him he knows you like.

You were a sarcastic person. It was something Connor initially struggled to grasp as an android who took everything literally. But, as you spent more time together at work, he was beginning to learn.

That all went out the window when he got a phone.

You’d received the first text on an average Tuesday night. You were enjoying takeout on the couch, binging a new show your friend had convinced you to watch.

Hello (Y/n). This is Connor. You can contact me through this number if you need me.

You smiled at the perfectly punctuated, formal message. You replied back in a much more relaxed manner.

Hey Connor good to know

You saved his number and thought nothing more of it as you put your phone back down, returning your attention to your lonely dinner. That was until a minute later your screen lit up with a notification from him. There were no words in the preview, the message simply telling you he had sent 1 attachment.

Curious, you paused your show, almost choking on your food as you unlocked your phone. It was a mirror selfie, most of his face cut out apart from his lips and chin. The focus of the image were his hands, one holding his phone with the flash going off, the other flexed, fingers curled into his tie. Each tendon was emphasised by the shadows of the photo, the promise of power in the roadmap of those raised veins.

A trio of bubbles indicated that he was writing an accompanying message.

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