…

I like to read and write. Reading fantasy and fiction (Fourth Wing obsessed rn) and only skilled enough to write fanfic

[fullybooked]

Rules and Regulations + Who I Write For

I'm a new writing blog, but a long-time writer and this is only a side blog so don't expect the world of me. I just want to make a contribution to the fandoms that bring me joy.

Just call me V, unless I'm in trouble, then call me Vega.

I WILL WRITE

Fluff

Angst

smut (if requested and I can do it justice)

comfort

She/her reader

he/him reader

platonic relationships as well as romantic

Will be gender-neutral unless specified

I WILL NOT WRITE

Non-con

Real people (actors/youtubers/tiktokers/ect)

all those weird ass kinks (I promise you know what I'm talking about)

WHAT I WRITE FOR

Genshin Impact Stranger Things Harry Potter Percy Jackson FFXV JJK Demon Slayer Marauders Era Mystic Messenger Arcane LOTR The Hobbit BNHA Supernatural Criminal Minds Marvel Skyrim (pls don't judge me I'm sensitive) My Hero Academia Umbrella Academy Voltron Legendary Defender Teen Wolf Life Is Strange House of the Dragon ATLA TLOK The Walking Dead

Honestly just ask and I'll tell you. There's no point in me listing everything.

[fullybooked]

hello, good morning/good night my angel, my pookie, my love. ur fic “what are my other options” was fantastic and u need a kiss on ur lips right now and im first in line to give it to you. u wrote insomniac!peter so well, it was lovely! the entire fic was well written and immersive, and i hope ur year is fantastic. insomniac!peter writers are so few and far between and each of them (esp u) deserve everything 🧎‍♀️

This was so nice to wake up to I may actually cry 🥲🥲🥲 thank you so much I love when people enjoy something I write!!! I noticed there wasn’t much about him on here so I’m hopefully gonna be writing more for insomniac!peter soon I’m just waiting for more inspiration for him!!! 💜💜💜

[fullybooked]

The Domain (pt. 2)

Part One Here

Title: The Domain (part 2) Pairings: Tartaglia x reader Word Count: 6.1k Warnings: none that I'm aware of but let me know if I'm wrong! Summary: Ajax promised to protect you until you find a way out of this hellish domain. You're convinced that it'll never happen, but he seems to think he knows a way out. If you survive this, will things be the same between you two? And if things are different, is it for better or worse?

Notes: I'm cackling because this took me a literal year to get back to. I found it rotting in my drafts when I cracked open this blog again

You watched as Tartaglia circled the broken room for the hundredth time. You sat in the center, hands wrapped around an apple and bundled up in his Szchneznya coat. You wondered what had made him think to bring it when you didn’t bring your own. 

He comes to a stop at the staircase that would lead up, to where you’d come from. But that blue veil was in front of it, not letting anything pass through. You’d thrown a few stones at it before, even slashed at it with blades and shot it with arrows. Not a damn thing could get through. 

“What the hell is going on?!” Tartaglia demands at nothing, voice riddled with rage. You don’t so much as flinch at his reaction, biting into the apple and still watching him, “they sent us into fucking purgatory!”

You hummed, it was a nice term for the place. Purgatory. An in-between. You had no other word for it.

Finally fed up with walking in circles, he turns towards the center of the room, where you were held up. He takes a seat on the stone ground across from you, anger evident as his only emotion. Until his eyes settled on what this place had done to you. You watch the way his expression changes, and he seems to be looking at the coat around you.

You follow his gaze. The white fur, which was no doubt expensive at home, was stained red with the blood it was rubbing off of your skin.

“I’ll get you a new one,” you assure him, placing the apple, which was only a core now, in your lap. You begin to peel the warm coat from your body.

An immediate chill ran down your skin, sucking the warmth from your body once again. But you didn’t want to cause any kind of argument right now. There was no energy in you to fight with him over a coat. It’s halfway pulled down when he stops you.

“Keep it,” he says, or orders, “It’s freezing here.”

Looking up, you notice his eyes have turned from you to the room once again, his cheeks a faded red from the chill around you.

“You’ll get cold, too,” you say, continuing to pull it off, “and I don't want to hear you complaining.”

You hear him groan in annoyance. It was a sound he often made when around you, though it was always followed by a comment about you being spoiled in some way. And that would spiral into an argument, which sometimes spiraled into a physical fight. Of course, right now you would let him yell at a wall before diving into another fight.

There’s a tapping, his gloved hands angrily smacking against each other, and then he’s moving. Shoving himself off of the stone floor, and takes a few long strides. You hardly notice how close he’s gotten until he’s standing directly beside you.

“Keep it,” he says again, “I’m still looking for a way out.”

“Oh god, Childe,” you say in exhaustion as your shoulders slump, “there is no way out other than down! Trust me, I’ve tried it all!”

You hear him snort as he walks behind you, “aren't you the one who said every door has another side? Or something like that? This door has to open again, we just have to find it.”

His determination was admirable, you’d admit. You pull the coat back over your body, enveloped in the warmth and the smell of salt water. An apple core in your lap, you listen to his steps as he walks around the room. He stops, probably examining the stairs that lead down.

“So let’s go to the next floor,” he says as if it was an amazing idea, “if we have to go down, then we go down.”

You wanted your bed that was too big for one person, you wanted a warm drink and your mother's heels clicking on the floor of the manor. A heaping pile of eggs didn’t sound too bad either, but another apple would suffice. All of these things that seemed so simple a week ago were now the things you would probably die thinking about. 

Slouched over and losing hope, you say, “I’m tired of going down, Childe.”

“What do you mean? It's a flight of stairs, you’ve done it a million times.” 

“And at the bottom is another fight and another way up blocked. I’m not going down, anymore,” you look at your sword, chipped and threatening to break with another strong swing. It’s dropped on the ground, discarded like you never wanted to touch it in the first place.

Childe scoffs, “Don’t worry about it, your highness, I’ve got the fights from here on out.”

Oh how that sounded nice. Impossible in a place like this, but nice. With a shake of your head, still with your back to him, so you couldn’t see his face, you were sure he was giving you that smile that made you want to knock his head off. 

“I’m not going down,” you repeat, limbs heavy.

“Then I’ll go. When I find a way out, I’ll come back for you.” Your heart deflates at his words because you know that won’t be the case.

No matter how determined he was to make it out, there was no way back up. He probably truly meant that he was going to come back for you, but it wouldn’t happen that way. And you would be alone again, left to die in a cold world you knew nothing about. 

Your body folds onto its side, curling into the fluffy coat, and you prepare to lie on the ground and listen to him walk away from you. Would you be able to hear the fighting? Would it matter? 

Would your mother miss you? How long would it take for her to notice you’re gone? You wondered if you ever thanked her for being a mother, for doing her best, and for never leaving you behind when she climbed the ranks. Would anyone else miss you? Or would they miss The Ghost? Who cleaned up after them and did their dirty work.

“Okay. Bad idea.” Childe says behind you. 

His footsteps echo when he starts walking, and you feel him get closer to you rather than farther away. 

“Maybe this is a problem for after some sleep,” he offers and you feel him take a seat directly beside you.

His hands reach for your shoulders, hoisting you up too easily. It makes you gasp, and then you’re suddenly even warmer. With your body pulled against his, your ear to his chest, and his arms around you, this isn’t a position you saw yourself ending your day in. But you’d be lying if you said you hadn’t imagined it before.

Childe tucks you between his legs and twists his arms around you. 

Holding your breath, you wonder if this is it. He’s going to strangle you. You always figured you’d be the one to try and strangle him, but here you sat.

His grip doesn’t turn any tighter. Every instinct in you said to pull away, to shove him away and tell him to dive headfirst into the fighting. But he was so warm, and he smelled like the ocean. You found yourself melting into his arms, the only source of comfort you’d had in days finally sinking in. You never dreamed it would be Childe providing it.

“Go to sleep,” he instructs, “I’ll cover you for a while.”

“Why are you suddenly being so nice to me?” you ask as you press your cheek against his chest. His heart thumps against your head and your eyes get heavier at the sound, “you hate me.”

“I don’t hate you,” he’s quick to answer, “I never hated you.”

“You call me a spoiled soldier.”

He chuckles, hands tucking under the coat you’re wrapped in and pressing against your body. His fingers are cold, which is probably why he’s so close to you. The cold here was drier than it was at home. It stung more the longer you spent vulnerable to it.

“And you threw a spear at my head,” he reminds you, “I should be the one asking you that question. Do you hate me?”

You thought about it. And your first answer was yes. You hated him. For all the shit he gave you about your childhood, about your easy into the Fatui. But then you thought about where you sat. He could’ve walked away from you a few moments ago and left you to freeze or starve. He could've hoarded his food to himself and moved on down. It wouldn’t have been a lie if he’d told everyone else you died during the domain fights.

There was a good person under his snarky comments and jabs at you. Buried under a mountain of shitty personality, but he was somewhere in there.

“I don’t take the silence as a good sign,” he mutters.

“I don’t hate you,” you respond, finally before making sure he understood something “you’re a dick, don’t get me wrong-”

Childe laughs.

“You deserved the spear throwing. But I don’t hate you.”

“I did,” he confirms and his head falls on top of yours, dried blood probably smelling bad but he didn’t say so if it did, “I like our arguing, though. It’s fun.”

It had always kept meetings interesting. And kept your mother on her toes, always ready to tell one of you to shut up. And when you were in a better mood, you did find it fun. Making up smart quips on the fly made the otherwise boring business meetings interesting. He kept things interesting.

“Me too,” you admit, “but I didn’t imagine my last days would be spent talking about our arguments with you.”

His hands press against you harder, one on your waist and the other on your shoulders. You feel his shoulders tense under your head, and his heartbeat picks up just the slightest. You wouldn’t have noticed the comment making him uncomfortable if you weren’t in your current position.

“You won’t die here,” he says, voice as tense as it was when he showed up a few hours ago, “I told you, I’m protecting you until we find a way out.”

“There is no way out, Childe.”

“Then I’ll make one,” he grunts, fingers digging into you, “and don’t call me that. You never call me by my code name.”

It was true. He only used yours when he was mocking you, and you never spoke his. It was always Tartaglia, which now felt like too many syllables if you were going to be talking to him this much. Your eyes flutter closed, the warmth becoming a blanket you missed. 

“Tartaglia is too much of a mouthful when you’re dying of dehydration,” you inform him.

“Then use my real name,” 

“I don’t know it.”

There’s a moment of silence that’s probably much shorter than it feels. You almost forgot that you were having a conversation, you were so tired. And you felt like you could actually get a moment of rest now that you weren’t watching your own back. 

“It’s Ajax,” he says, the words so quiet you hardly notice them. 

“Hm,” you mutter, “Ajax,” and then you’re asleep.

★★★★★★

Your dreams were of home. Of your warm bed and pillows while you watched the snow fall from the window. Of the fireplace burning in your room while the maids bring you the tea that your mother instructed them to make you whenever you were sick. 

She always wanted to skip over her Harbinger meetings when you showed signs of sickness as a child. When you got older, you always told her that it was fine. You would be okay while she talked about shipping manifestos with Pierro. She’d leave with promises of returning soon, and put on her mask before walking from the house and into the snow. Sometimes, from your window, you’d see the smallest pyro crystal fly floating around. From her.

The dream ends abruptly. The warmth of your bed is stripped away when your eyes open to see the crumbling room you had stopped fighting in. And Childe…no…he said to call him something else.

“Ajax,” you mutter and crack open your eyes to find his gloved hand shaking you, “wha…”

“Y/N. I think I know where we are,” he mutters the words that bring your eyes open wider.

“What?” You ask, slowly sitting up. You two were still on the ground, huddled together with you wrapped in his coat, “how long was I asleep?”

Ajax’s hand rests on your back over the coat, slowly helping you sit up so you can look around at your surroundings, “a few hours.”

A hand reaches up to wipe at your eyes. Dried blood coats your skin, still. It makes touching any other part of your skin uncomfortable. It’s still on the white coat that he’d brought with him. You would have to get him a new one when you got back. To avoid that being held over your head. 

“And you figured it out in a few hours?”

“I’ve been here before,” he says “A long time ago. So…I think I know how to get out, too.”

You sigh, hands dropping and pushing yourself off of his lap, “There is no way out.”

“There is. For things that are from here,” he explains, his hand slipping from your skin as he pushes himself up into a standing position. You look up at him from the ground, wondering if one of you has gone insane. Either he was speaking nonsense, or you were hearing it. Neither was a desirable option. 

You shake your head, prepared to accept your insanity, “whatever you say,” you admit to him, “send a search party with some Chicken Kiev when you get out.”

Ajax scoffs, “I'm taking you with me,” he assures you, “you think I wanna listen to your mom if I come out without you? I’d rather face an eternity in this hell than that lecture.” 

There was confidence in his voice, and you were beginning to think you had both lost it and were muttering nothing that made sense between you two. Either way, you pull the coat around you and lean against your knees. You were starving, almost anything was starting to sound good to you. Even a sunsettia, the one thing you despised and would never touch. It was too sweet even for you.

“(Y/N),” Ajax says your name, making your eyes come back into focus on him. His eyes were dark, his expression grim. It made you tense like a fight was about to happen, “can you do me one favor before we get out of here?”

“I don’t really have much to offer,” you remind him.

He swallows, reaching for his delusion that was hidden under the gray jacket of his outfit. It was always hidden from eyes, but you were there when he got it, you knew where he put it. It glowed when his hand touched it, but then he lowered his palm back to his side.

“Don’t…” he hesitates in his words, “just don’t…look. Promise me you won’t look.”

Don’t look? At what? At him? For the first time since he’d arrived, you begin to sit up straight, your attention caught. He was serious about his little request, but you had no idea why. But…what did you have to lose? You were sure your life was forfeit already. After holding eye contact with him, and his request not changing, you begin to deflate back down into yourself.

“At you?” you ask for clarification as you rest your head against your knees, “yeah, Ajax. Sure.”

“I’m serious, (Y/N), don’t look. Please,” the last word caught you off guard, but you kept your head down. This was important to him. For whatever useless reason that was.

“I won’t look,” you repeat as you lower your eyelids, “my eyes are closed.”

There’s a moment of silence, and you wonder if he’s doing anything at all. But you stay true to your promise and keep your head down and your eyes closed. A second later, there’s the sound of electricity, the element you know his delusion mimics. Your brow creases in confusion, but still, you keep your eyes closed. Even when there’s a blast of hot air, and what sounds like metal clashing in a fight. You tense at the noise but pull the coat tightly around your body.

“Ajax, you’re starting to scare me,” you admit, voice weak, “what’s going on?”

He doesn’t respond. With your head on your knees, you listen closely. There are footsteps. Ones far too heavy to belong to him, with what sounds like metal soles on the heel of the boot. Normally, you weren’t one to shy away from a fight. Most of the time, you enjoyed them. But your weapon was nearly broken, you hadn’t eaten in days, and your body was breaking itself down just to stay alive. Against everything you had been taught, everything your mother had told you, you pulled yourself further into the white coat. As if it would make everything around you make sense again.

The footsteps approach, you aren’t even sure where your weapon is right now. Where was Ajax? Wasn’t he at least nearby? Did he go down and leave you here? Is this what happened when the door closed behind you every time?

 Your eyes are still closed, for your benefit more than anything else. You couldn’t fight, and you didn’t want to see what you were about to die to.

The thing you can’t see is right beside you, you can feel heat radiating off of its body. And then something touches the hood of the coat you’re under. It’s so heavy that you can feel it past the coat, it’s a hand. Big a very large hand, one too big to belong to any kind of monster you knew. 

“It’s still me,” you hear the voice come from above you. It was distorted like someone was speaking into a broken speaker. But underneath that, you could almost recognize it. It itched the back of your foggy head, but it made no sense that it could be him.

You pull the hood of the coat down.

“I won’t hurt you,” Ajax’s disfigured voice says to you, “I’m getting us out of here, I promise. Trust me.”

His words were kind and reassuring, something you didn’t think the real Ajax was capable of. But your gut told you to trust this unsure voice. That it was him. So you did. You keep the coat tight around you, and your eyes closed. When when hands far too big to be human lift you up under your knees and back, you don’t open them. You keep your promise. 

You were against a metal plate, like armor, that was buzzing with the feeling of electricity. But what hit you hardest was the smell of the ocean. Saltwater, millions of miles away from any kind of ocean on Teyvat. That was the sign you needed to allow yourself to relax into the arms of whatever Ajax had become. The large metal curve of his fingers holds you tight enough to keep you against him but not enough to make you feel trapped.

Even in whatever form he was in right now, he was gentle with you in your state.

“Hang on,” his voice says above you.

You feel his entire body jerk, and the sound of crunching stone beneath his feet, and suddenly you’re aware that you're no longer on solid ground. And you’re going up. There was wind rushing against your face, but you turned into the metal plate of Ajax’s chest to avoid it. 

You were going up so quickly, the air was turning thick. It felt like it would clog your throat, and you find it hard to take any deep breaths. Maybe you could’ve fought it a week ago, but right now you didn’t have it in you to try and conserve air. You’re not sure where you’re going, where he’s taking you, or if you’ll even make it to the top.

Even with your eyes closed, you’re overly aware of the true darkness creeping around you as air becomes your most missed resource. With your palms clenching onto the metal hands holding you, your head goes heavy against Ajax and you’re not conscious to know if you make it back to Teyvat.

★★★★★★

Honestly, you wouldn’t have been surprised if that was the end. The darkness had seemed eternal when you went under, and you had no strength to try and pry yourself out of it. Not that you did much fighting. It was nice to get peace after non-stop fighting for…a lot longer than you had been in that domain. 

There were no tasks to clean up, no one picking a fight, no one asking you to fix a mission gone sideways. You basked in the nothingness that was around you.

And then the light broke through the darkness. Bright fluorescent lights that were a harsh wake-up call back to reality. Followed by the feeling being regained in your limbs, and you were no longer floating in the black cloud.

Your arms were heavy, and it took an annoying amount of effort to pry your eyelids open. The world was blurry for a moment, and then it slowly came into focus. You didn’t recognize a thing for a moment, until you felt the silk under your fingers, and smelled the faint smell of cigarette smoke that followed your mother around constantly. 

When you turned your head, it was more like you let your head fall to the side against your satin pillowcase. That’s when you realized you were in your bedroom. The large bay window with the curtains drawn back, the last book you had been reading still laid out for you to come back to. The constant snowstorm outside that never let up was pelting snow against the glass.

A pyro crystal fly was fluttering by, only a speck of light in the storm. Your mother's sign. She must be nearby.

Your head rolls to the other side of the room. Beside your bed was a metal stand with an IV bag hanging from it. Connected to your hand by a tube. Your mother must have demanded you be taken home, she was never a fan of taking you anywhere else when you were unwell as a child. And on the bedside table that was usually empty sat a ceramic vase, filled with snapdragons that were beginning to wilt in their water.

Your voice was dry, practically glued shut with a lack of water. You would’ve shouted for someone if you could’ve, but you settled for waiting. Surely someone, hopefully your mother, would come in and check on you. While lying on the sheets you never thought you’d see again, you try to recall your last moments of consciousness.

Tartaglia…Childe…Ajax. He went by many names, and you know his real one now. Unless that was a hallucination. Most of it was blurry and filled with memories of blood and monsters. He showed up at some point, and he’d protected you while you gave up on yourself and your hope of getting back out. Then he’d…saved you. Though you still weren’t sure how. You stare at the ceiling while racking your mind for how you ended up back in your bed, alive.

The sound of the old hinges on your door makes you blink yourself back into your room and out of that domain. Your head rolls against the pillow.

You were expecting a servant. Someone your mother hired to keep you alive on an IV. Or even one of the everyday servants who tended to your room when you were gone. Possibly even your mother herself come to check on you. No bone in your body was prepared to see Ajax walking through the big double doors.

You were even more shocked to see the bundle of Snapdragons gripped in a gloved hand. When he looked towards your bed to find your eyes barely open and blinking, he probably could have proved to be more shocked than you. His dark blue eyes grew to the size of saucer plates, and he stopped dead in his tracks.

“You’re awake,” he says as if confirming the fact out loud.

You give the weakest for a smile you can manage, “got any water for those flowers?”

He hears your voice and jumps as if he’d been reminded that he had to move. He turns around, his hand nearly crushing the snapdragons in his speed. He sticks his head out the door and shouts.

“Someone get me a glass of water! And get La Signora!”

He turns back to the room, and you watch him approach your bedside like he had done it a million times before. You didn’t care if your face showed your confusion. The two of you had never cared when the other was hurt before, you didn’t see why he would start now. Sure he’d pulled you out of that hell hole, but that didn’t mean he had to make sure you lived after that. You already owed him a life debt.

“Holy shit,” he says as he lays the new flowers beside the vase of old ones, “I was starting to think you were a statue forever.”

He kneels down to be at eye level with you. One of his hands extends out, placing itself on top of one of yours. The weight doesn’t make you flinch or snarl in disgust, in fact, it felt like you knew the touch already. You’d felt it before. The memory of it was fuzzy, but you were sure he had been gentle like this with you back in the domain from hell. You don’t make a fuss of swatting his hand away from yours, even when you see people coming in behind him like the room had been caught on fire.

Multiple people dressed in the white gowns of nurses from the local cathedral. One of them rushes up behind Ajax, tapping his shoulder and handing him a glass of water like he’d requested. The others are coming up to your bed side and checking every vital sign you could.

“Here,” Ajax says, “water.”

You ignore the fact that it was world-shakingly odd that he was the one to lift the glass to your lips and gently tilt it back. Or that he’s the one to help you ease up into a sitting position, putting pillows behind your back to help you up. You don’t mention that he could let go of your hand as lights are flashed in your eyes and your IV is swapped out for a new one. You don’t even find yourself entertaining the idea of telling him to get out when the bandages along your arms and legs are examined and tests are done on your reflexes.

“I said I can feel it,” you tell the nurse sticking the bottom of your feet for the millionth time, “changing where you stick it isn’t gonna change that.”

“I’m just checking for any partial nerve damage,” the nurse gently insists, “your mother is going to be here soon, we’d like to have as much information as we can for when she gets here.”

You roll your eyes as she sticks your other foot with her pin, watching as you jerk it back. 

“I’m pretty sure that’s them saying they’ve had enough,” Ajax tells the nurse when he notices the wince in your eyes, “they just woke up, how about a second before you poke them like a lab rat for Dottore to hear about later.”

Of course, these would be Dottore’s minions. It would make sense. He was always looking for something unknown to explore, and that Domain was anything but ordinary. He’d want to know everything about it and how it affects anything that walks in. The nurse stands up at the end of the bed, looking at Ajax like she might try and argue with him.

But the look in his eye was one you knew well on the receiving end. The stubbornness, the determination to not lose this battle. 

“You should wait for La Signora to get back,” he tells her when she doesn’t say anything, “outside the room, if you wouldn’t mind.”

There was no room to argue with a harbinger, even if you worked for another. You were the only one to ever get away with arguing with Ajax in particular. With his bloodlust and love of fighting, nobody ever wanted to step into his line of sight when he was ready to feud. The nurse could see the readiness to fight in him now, and she knew when to back away.

She lowers her head in a bow, “yes, Lord Harbinger,” she says, “understood.”

You lift your glass of water to your lips as you watch her step away from the end of your bed. She files out of the room, clearly upset that she couldn’t get everything she wanted out of your condition just yet. The door swings closed behind her, leaving you and Taraglia alone in the room.

“Dottore was pretty persistent that his people take over your medical care,” Ajax explains, still bent by your bedside, “but your mom has eyes on him at all times.”

“And by “eyes” you mean you?” You question, now with more tone in your voice than before, “You seem pretty comfortable in here.”

You didn’t mention the flowers, but you knew they were still on the side table. Being renewed in their vase. Tartaglia shamelessly shrugs his shoulders, looking over at you with eyes that had too much innocence in them to belong to the man you knew. He liked to yell and fight and throw weapons across the room at each other. Yet he also liked to keep flowers at your bedside while you weren’t awake to see them and to chase bothersome nurses from the room when you got tired of their testing.

“I happen to have some free time after a mission gone wrong,” he says, reaching out to take the empty water glass from your hands, “and I wanted to see if you were just faking to get out of work.”

There was a new kind of freedom in knowing he was joking, but that he liked when you argued back. You can smile at his comment, and you could laugh if it didn’t ache your chest to move so quickly. He smiled back like the two of you shared a secret that couldn’t be spoken out loud.

“Sorry to disappoint,” you tell him, “I’ll be back to spear-throwing in no time.”

“You better be. Annoying Pierro isn’t nearly as fun as you.”

Things were different between you two now. Or maybe it was the same but you could see under the curtain that had been up the entire time. You still jabbed at each other, but now you knew that none of it was meant to be taken to heart. But before you went back to daily verbal sparing matches, there was one thing you wanted to get off your chest.

“Thanks,” you tell him in the quiet of your room, fresh out of a coma, “for getting me out of there. You could’ve just left me, but you didn’t.”

Ajax places one of his hands back on top of yours when you rest it against your covers. Then he smirks, his dark blue eyes trying to hide behind the loose pieces of orange hair dangling in his face.

“Despite what you think, I’m not a complete monster,” he reminds you, “remember, you even said so yourself.”

“Did I?” You question, and pretend to give it some thought, “I’m not sure, the whole thing is a little fuzzy.”

“Well I can remember for you,” he offers, fingers curling around yours, “and I think your exact words were,” he clears his throat to prepare for a reenactment, “Oh please save me Ajax you’re my hero and I’m entirely in your debt!”

“Okay, one; I do not sound like that,” you can’t help but smile at him, “and two; I know I wouldn’t have said that on my death bed.”

“Oh I’m pretty sure that’s what I heard,” he insists until you finally begin to let yourself laugh. When your laughter begins to fade, he tilts his head beside you, and his grip on your hand begins to tighten.

You turn your palm into his, letting your fingers thread together. After doing nothing but fighting with him for years, it should feel odd for him to touch you so gently. Maybe that domain had messed with your head more than you realized. Still, you didn’t pull away or have the urge to throw a dagger at him. 

“(Y/N),” he says your name and you look at him with heavy eyes from your too-long nap, “how much…do you remember from there?”

Truthfully, bits and pieces. It was one long blur up until he showed up, when something finally changed after days of endless fighting. Then it becomes easier to pick out memories. The feeling of his coat on your shoulders, the feeling of him holding you to his chest to protect, the only feeling of peace you had been given being from him. But you knew wha the was referring to. The last few moments before you fell unconscious. 

You didn’t understand it, but it had been him, you knew that much.

“I didn’t look,” you remind him of your promise, “if that’s what you’re wondering. I always keep my word.”

He seems to relax his shoulders that you hadn’t known had been tensed, “good,” he says, “I didn’t need my trump card being exposed before we got to use it in a real fight.”

“So I can’t ask about you, I assume?” You allow yourself to sink into the pillows behind your back as you await your mother's arrival, which would no doubt be a grand entrance when it happened. But your hand remains tightly wrapped in his like you would disappear if he let go.

Ajax seems to think about it. Not mockingly, but really debate on telling her. You don’t say anything, not willing to interrupt his train of thought. You use his silence to look at him. There was an unusual set of dark rings around his eyes, he hadn’t slept in a while. Or at least not slept well. His uniform was crumpled, his hair touseled like he’d been running his hands through it constantly. But that usual glint in his eye remained. The one that you couldn’t decipher. It usually meant he would piss you off or just mock you from across a room.

But he wasn’t doing either. He was just looking at you. You were looking at each other, no words, no fights, no hatred. You weren’t sure what was between you anymore. The domain had changed things, and you weren’t upset about how the change had ended.

“We can make a deal,” he offers finally. You had forgotten you were having a conversation, “Once this is all behind us, we can fight for it. If you win, I’ll tell you whatever you wanna know about it.”

“And if you win?” You ask him, pretty sure it wouldn’t come to that but curious about his prize.

“I’m glad you asked,” he grins, lifting your hands from the bed to show them still entangled, “if I win, you go on a date with me.”

“Really?” You ask with a raised eyebrow, “You’re sure that’s what you wanna claim as a prize? A date?”

But there was no hesitation in his answer, “I’m entirely sure. Unless you don’t like the odds,” he rolled his eyes in a way that used to make your blood boil, “I wouldn’t either if I was the one on bed rest.”

“I’m gonna kick your ass the second I‘m out of this bed,” you promise him.

I look forward to it,” he accepts your challenge.

Before either of you can continue any conversation, you hear noise downstairs. The sound of the front doors being thrown open at an alarming pace. And then the echo of heels. Your mother had arrived, an she was making her way upstairs. You look towards your door, wondering if Ajax would let go of your hand when he saw her. But he’s also looking at the door, and he doesn’t even twitch your guys’ hands. In fact, he lifts the back of your hand to his lips and plants a light kiss.

“You can always run,” you tell him, “there’s no telling what kind of mood she’ll be in when he gets in here.”

He remains on his knees beside your bed, “I’m good here. Might be a good show.”

You snort, “you’re an asshole.”

“So you’ve told me.”

[fullybooked]

your peter parker fic 🙏🙏 loved it

Omg thank you so much! 💜💜 I’ve been so obsessed with him lately 😭

[fullybooked]

Please someone send me Aemond Targaryen prompts because I wanna write for him so bad but I don't knOW WHAT TO WRITE

[fullybooked]

What Are My Other Options?

Title: What are my other options? Pairing: Insomniac!PeterParker x Reader Word count: 9.6k Warnings: mentions of cheating (but Peter would never) Notes: F/T = favorite topping Summary: The reader has come to the conclusion that Peter is cheating on them. What else are they supposed to think when he’s always running off and constantly canceling their plans? That he’s Spider-Man?

It wasn’t often that you got a chance to dress up anymore. As a grad student, there was very little spare time to spend on your appearance, and when that kind of rare opportunity arose, you jumped at it. So you didn’t feel bad about spending the last hour in front of a mirror, tossing around outfits, and destroying the closet in the process.

The occasion? The New York Times Gala. You’d been working for the biggest news outlet in the state for your graduate program for investigative journalism, a spot you had fought tooth and nail for. Every News Outlet and invited celebrity would be there, the Daily Bugle, The Wallstreet Journal, USA Today, and you’d heard whispers of Tony Stark attending. You hadn’t even learned until last week that you would be allowed the attend as well. As nothing more than an intern, you hadn’t seen there being a reason.

But your boss had given you the news last Friday, and you’d practically skipped home to tell your boyfriend, Peter, about it. And that you had a plus one. He’d been almost as excited as you.

Which is why you were finding it hard to believe that he wasn’t home right now. He wasn’t getting ready with you, he wasn’t even answering your calls or texts. So while you were excited, there was a bubble of worry hiding underneath.

“Where is he?” You’re muttering to no one but yourself. The last touches of your outfit were going on, and the last train you could take would be at the station in 20 minutes. Your window was closing.

Looking down at your phone while adjusting your choice of red accessories, you start to wonder if something bad had happened to him. After all, New York was crawling with supervillains and regular villains alike. And Peter was equipped for any kind of fight he might’ve run into. Ever since you met him in your first year of college, he had been one of the most peaceful people you’d ever met.

Your red shoes rest by the door, and while pacing your living room, you decide to call his Aunt May. She would surely know if anything, bad or good, had stopped Peter from coming home on such an important night. You click on her contact, resisting the urge to bite your nails from nerves.

It’s only two rings before she answers, “(Y/N)!” she answers happily, “I’m a little shocked to be hearing from you so late, is everything alright? Isn’t tonight your Gala for work?”

Aunt May was nothing short of a saint. Kind and caring, traits she’d taught Peter as she raised him. You adored her, the two of you always got along great when you and Peter volunteered at FEAST or went over for dinner. You weren’t sure if the lack of concern in her voice should make you more worried or not.

“It is,” you tell her as you watch the clock tick on, “but I haven’t been able to get ahold of Peter all night. I’m starting to worry. Have you heard from him?”

There’s a hum of confusion on her end, “I’m afraid not, dear,” she says, “but I wouldn't start worrying just you. We both know how bad he is at keeping time.”

It was true. Peter was chronically late. Normally, it was funny, except for the few times he was an hour late to your date nights. But this was different. He knew how important this night was for you and your career as an investigative journalist. 

“I know…” you agree with May, “It’s just…I can’t be late for this, and the last train is leaving in 15 minutes.”

Your phone buzzes in your hand as you speak to her, and you bring it away from your ear to glance at the screen. A photo of you and Peter in front of the Ferris wheel at Coney Island is on screen, his name appearing with heart emojis next to it. Relief floods your system.

“Oh!” you gasp and return to speaking with May, “that’s him! I’m so sorry for bugging you May!”

She chuckles, “don’t be, dear. You two have a good time!”

You hang up, immediately answering Peter’s call, “Pete! Where are you!? I’ve been calling you all night!”

“I know, I know, I’m so sorry,” his voice sounds winded and tired, like he was running, “I just…got wrapped up in something at work, me and Doc were talking about his lab and…I’m really sorry!”

“Well, where are you?” You ask. There was no point in telling him it was okay, because it didn’t feel okay, “the last train is about to leave and we can’t be late–”

“(Y/N), I don’t think I’ll be able to make it,” his voice cuts you off before you can continue your nervous ramble, “Me and Doc are still wrapped up in this lab project and I won’t be able to make it back in time for the gala. I know how important this was to you and I promise I will make up for this tenfold for the next 20 years–”

You could hear the rushing wind of New York behind the phone as he continued on an apology that you didn’t feel in your chest. He sounded sorry, sure, but you could only feel disappointment in his words. Your shoes are on your feet, and you’re looking at the clock hanging next to a vacation photo of the two of you on the beach. Your lack of response is response enough to him, but you’re too busy deciding if you should be angry or not.

“(Y/N),” he says your name, “I can’t say I’m sorry enough, but you’ll do fantastic even if I’m not there.”

“Seriously?! Of all nights, Peter, you have to pick tonight to flake out on me? You know how important this is and you can’t even look at a clock for two hours?!”

You had 10 minutes to get to the train station from your apartment, a task that would surely try and ruin your hour of work on how you looked.

“I know, babe, I’m so–”

You click the end call button before he can finish. Fumbling with your keys, can feel your cheeks warming up in a rush of emotions. First, embarrassment. A couple of people in your office had been excited to meet Peter, and now you would show up alone. Stood up by your boyfriend of 4 years. The gala would go on without him, and you would have to put on a pretty smile to go along with it. 

Which is exactly what you did, barely making it on time to walk with your boss into the decorated hall. Telling your coworkers that your boyfriend had eaten some bad takeout for dinner and was at home nursing himself back to health. Hoping nobody saw how your eye twitched whenever Peter texted you before turning your phone on do not disturb. 

That night, you locked the bedroom door and left a pillow and blanket on the couch.

★★★★★★

Something you and Peter had in common was your love of pizza. Both of you had differing opinions on the best pizza place in New York, but you did agree that any pizza was better than no pizza. So when you two moved in together, it was an unspoken rule that at least one night a week, you scaped whatever money you had together and ordered a large pizza.

“It’s my week to pick,” you remind him as you sit cross-legged on the couch in your studio apartment, holding the phone of power in your hand, “and I say Benny’s.”

Peter is standing in the kitchen, pulling a can of soda from the fridge, “aw man,” he says, “but they don’t have the good pepperoni.”

“But they have the Italian sausage,” you remind him, already pulling up Doordash on your phone, “and it’s my night.”

Peter looks over his shoulder, a smile on his face that always makes you blush and look away like a teenager, “you’re lucky I love you,” he says, “and I’m willing to part with the good pepperoni.”

You giggle back, “Aren’t I the luckiest? So half sausage half (F/T)?”

“It’s your world, babe,” he says as he walks around the couch to sit beside you, “I’m just living in it.”

“That’s the answer I was looking for,” you look over at him with a grin.

These nights were the ones you loved the most. The two of you in pajamas, ordering your favorite food, waiting for the newest episode of Game of Thrones to air, in the quiet of the apartment. Where the noise and air of New York felt like it was miles away, and your little bubble couldn’t be disturbed.

Peter leans down, his eyes soft when he looks at you, and he kisses you slowly. Every kiss with him, deep or small, left you with fire in your veins. Whether it was innocent or lewd, at home or in the park, an apology kiss or a hello kiss, you always felt like you were walking on the hot air of a volcanic eruption. He pulls away, smiling like he was looking at the sun for the first time.

“Hm,” you gaze back at him, “I don’t care how much you kiss me, I won’t be swayed into Lenny’s.”

He gives a dramatically fake sigh, “There went the plan of seducing you into mushroom on half.”

“Well, I didn’t say that…” you roll your eyes, still smiling. You were always smiling with Peter. Or, most of the time you were.

His phone dings on the coffee table in front of you, the screen face down but illuminating the light-colored wood around it. It caught you off guard for a moment, that his screen is face down. And that he picked it up immediately. But you didn’t let it bother you for long, deciding to order the pizza while he checked whatever notification he had. 

Just as you hit delivery, Peter stands up from the couch in too quick of a motion to be reassuring. You jump slightly at his speed, looking back at him in confusion. Tilting your head, you look as he shoves his phone into his back pocket.

“Pete?” you say in an unsure voice, “is everything okay?”

“Yeah, everything’s great,” he says. The slight rise at the end of his sentence makes you narrow your eyes, “It’s just uh…Doc texted me and uh he says he’s had a breakthrough on this project, but he needs my help with it..”

You can’t hide the disappointment in your expression as he makes a reach for his keys hanging by the door, and for his bag by the couch. 

“Oh…” you say, trying to mask the sound of defeat in your voice, “right now? It’s almost nine pm.”

“Yeah, it’s just…a really important project,” he insists as he pulls his shoes on hurriedly. You would think he’d just gotten a call from the police with how quickly he was moving, “and you know Doc, he’s always rushing through the numbers, so I should just make sure he’s got them all right before moving on.”

He was rambling. His voice was rising and falling. Every tell he had that he was lying, but you didn’t want to jump to that conclusion. What was there for him to lie about? What would have him running from the apartment so late? He did care a lot about the projects he and Doc had going at the lab, he was always doing some kind of numbers crunch for his boss.

Peter slows his pace when he takes note of your expression, avoiding his eyes, “I swear I’ll be right back,” he says as he walks back towards the couch where you sat, “30 minutes tops, I’ll be here before the pizza guy, I promise.”

So it wouldn’t be a long late night call by Doc, then. That makes you feel the tiniest bit better, and you give him a small half-hearted smile. What were you supposed to say? No, don’t go to your job that you’re so crazy passionate about? Don’t go help your boss on a project that could potentially change lives? You make no move to stop him.

“I promise,” Peter repeats when he doesn’t see a lift in your spirits. He leans down, pressing his lips to yours again, lighting you on fire from the inside, “don’t start the episode without me!”

You tried to take that as a sign that he meant it. Half an hour and he would be back with the pizza still hot in the box. So you kissed him goodbye and sat on the couch by yourself in the apartment. As soon as the episode started, you hit pause and texted Peter that you had done so, letting him know that every second you were away from Jon Snow would be counted towards your next pizza night.

20 minutes passed, and the pizza showed up with steam rising from the box. His half with sausage and mushroom was untouched as you grabbed a slice from your side. Just because he said to wait on the show didn’t mean you had to wait for dinner.

30 minutes, and you figured he was fighting the night rush on the train. He didn’t answer your text message, but he probably needed all of his attention on his work right now. You don’t make a fuss, keeping the show paused.

After an hour of no response, you get fed up of sitting with just your phone and decide to unpause the show. If he came in and mentioned it, you would tell him to watch it tomorrow night while you were at work. But he doesn’t come back. Even when the episode is over, you haven’t heard the jingle of the keys in the lock. 

Two hours late, as you decide to pack it up for bed, your phone buzzes on the coffee table. From the kitchen, putting the box of pizza in the fridge, you heavily roll your eyes. Your disappointment was riddled with hints of anger, but there was also confusion. Peter had always been flakey, he’d always been late, he’d always been absent-minded and forgetful, but you couldn’t stop thinking about the way he’d put his phone face time when around you lately.

It could mean nothing. In fact, it probably did mean nothing, but there was a sense of dread in your gut. You weren’t sure you wanted to face the idea that was forming in the back of your head. Because you loved Peter, you loved him so much you weren’t sure what life had been like before you started loving him. He made you feel safe and seen and understood, he made you feel like someone important in a city where nobody mattered unless they were on the front page of a magazine.

And if there was one thing you were sure of anymore, it was that Peter Parker loved you too. Nothing had shaken that fact over the last four years, and you weren’t sure anything ever would. 

But you could still be upset with him when he did things like this. Like bailing on your traditional date night, like standing you up on one of the most important nights of your rising career. You picked up your phone, reading the text from Peter that had come in two minutes ago. All the lights in the apartment were off, and you were ready to tuck yourself into bed.

His message read, “Baby I’m so sorry. I’m gonna be a little while still, please don’t be too mad at me.”

The words “I’m so sorry” were starting to grow old to you. You lock your phone and leave it in the living room with the screen facing up, no response, and your chest getting heavier and heavier as you sit in the empty apartment by yourself.

★★★★★★

He’s just late, you tell yourself, like always. He’s always late.

You couldn’t even tell yourself that he’d never been two hours late befor because he had. Sitting in the corner booth of Leo’s pizza, more dressed up than you should be for a place like this, you try to convince yourself that Peter was late for a good reason.

The train broke down, he’d had his phone stolen, sandman was on the loose again and he had to take the long way here.

But the news was mostly quiet, with no attacks, and he hadn’t even texted you. Again. 

You stir the straw in your soda, watching the melting ice bump into the sides of the glass as your mind runs rampant. After Peter had bailed on your pizza and Game of Thrones night, you had been angry and hurt and unable to hide that from him. His apology? Take you out to Leo’s for dinner, your favorite pizza place of all time.

There was no way Peter would stand you up for your apology date. Not even he was the absent-minded, you were sure. You’d been talking about it just this morning over breakfast in the kitchen. He’d given you free rein of the toppings, and he would meet you here after work.

Looking at the clock, two hours had become three, and Leo’s would close in one more. Sitting back in your booth seat, you swallow the lump of emotions that wanted to burst out.

“That boy still not here?” Leo, the man behind the counter, asks you.

The burly Italian man had been witness to your guys’ relationship grow. From your first date to your anniversary dates to your celebration dates. He’d seen it all from behind the counter, and you were sure he would be witness to every other milestone. At least, you had been. 

Sitting in the booth alone, you were beginning to wonder if there was anything beyond these four years with Pete.

“I wish I knew, Leo,” you admit and look down at your phone.

It buzzes as you’re looking at it. But when you see Pete’s name pop up, you don’t feel any sense of relief or anger or even sadness. Maybe you just didn’t want to feel it all at once in front of poor Leo. He didn’t need to witness that part of your relationship. 

Pete had said, “Where are you at? Working late?”

You couldn’t help the scoff, “he forgot about me,” you say more to yourself than anyone else.

“What was that?” Leo asks when he catches a hint of your mumbling.

You look up from the phone, tucking it away into your pocket, and give the man a tight smile, “nothing, Leo. Sorry for wasting your time.”

Pushing yourself out of the booth, you wonder how you would go about this. Peter had been bailing on you more and more these past few months. With date the gala, with date night, and not to mention the countless nights he comes home so late you think he’s an intruder half the time. Had he always been like this and you were only noticing now that you lived together? Or had you just ignored it because of how much you loved him?

“Not a waste of time,” Leo assures you as you walk towards the door, “you and Peter will come back soon, I’m sure.”

He sounded confident. But you couldn’t even bring yourself to politely agree. You thanked him again. You texted Peter back while taking your time walking towards the train station.

“Well, I was at Leo’s,” you reply, “waiting for your amazing apology date.”

Not even a full minute goes by before his caller ID appears on your phone. You answer it out of pure curiosity, too tired to be angry at him anymore or even upset with him. He’s speaking before the phone can even fully reach your ear. Pete’s voice sounds frantic.

“I'm on my way!” He insists, “just give me two minutes and I’ll be there, I swear, (Y/N)!”

“Forget it, Peter,” you hope your voice doesn’t sound as strained as it feels, “I already left. Go back to work.”

“I wasn’t at work, I was…” He doesn’t seem to have a good answer for her, “Just give me two minutes, (Y/N) and I can still make this date happen, I promise!”

“Peter…” You weren’t sure you wanted to go back to the apartment and face the conclusion you were drawing, “all I’ve heard the past month are apologies and promises you don’t keep. It’s exhausting.”

“I know, I know, I’ve been a shit boyfriend but I’ll get it together, I know I will.”

“Even your apologies need apologies,” you sigh, rocks sitting in your chest and making you walk slower, “how many more nights are you going to stand me up this month alone?”

“None!” He insists, “It’s not gonna happen again, ever.”

“Why has it already happened six times then?” You shake your head as you reach the train station, your stomach rumbling as you regret not getting a slice of pizza to go, “and yes, I’ve counted. That’s just this month!”

There’s no immediate response on his end, and the silence makes the rocks in your chest grow to fill your stomach as well. It was like every conversation you had was giving you more reason to believe that suspicion that you wanted to forget about because it made no sense.

In the night air of New York, you can smell pizza and trash trucks littering the street. And somewhere in the distance, the sirens that were always going in this city. You weren’t sure if it was from your end or Peter’s

“(Y/N), when you get home I swear we’ll talk this out,” he finally breaks his stretch of silence, “I’ll be waiting for you, and you can yell at me for however long you need but–”

You close your eyes for a moment and grip the phone, “do not say you need to go.”

“I have to go…dammit,” he mutters the last word to himself, “I’ll meet you at home, (Y/N), I’ll be there and we can work this out.”

You shake your head, watching as a train approaches the boarding area. One that wouldn’t lead you to the apartment but to somewhere else. You step onto the nearly empty car, watching a few people shuffle out and pay you no mind.

“Don’t bother, Peter,” you say, “I’m staying with my parents tonight, okay? So just go back to whatever work is more important than I am.”

★★★★★★

A very common task given to you at work was getting coffee. Usually, it was the first thing you did in the mornings when your boss handed you a company card and a piece of paper with everyone's order on it. Sometimes throughout the day, you would be sent on other various food and drink runs, but only around meal times.

Sitting at your desk, you were looking over the files on your computer that contained a few of the articles being pitched to your boss that afternoon. Your task was the weed out the “boring” ones by trying to decide what he would deem boring in the first place. You weren’t expecting any kind of task before the meeting, so all of your attention was on the article on your screen.

“(Y/N)!” You jump nearly out of your desk chair when your boss yells your name from across the room, “We need a coffee run before this meeting!”

Your boss was not a man of patience, so you had a few seconds before he got annoyed with your lack of movement. Closing the tab on your computer, you grab a piece of loose paper and a pen and start across the room of office cubicles towards him.

“Your usual, sir?” You ask him in the fake professional voice you’d taken to using with him.

He nods his head and holds up the silver credit card for office expenses, “Yes, and an iced chai for Martha when she gets here, and a vanilla latte with soy for Marcus.”

You scribble down the other orders as you nod your head and take the card, “I’m on it, back in a jiff.”

“(Y/N)!” here it came, “can I get a lavender mocha?!”

Everyone would shout orders at you as you left when they heard a coffee run was being called. Normally, you tried to get out of there as quickly as possible before too many orders piled up. Because no one would offer to come with you to help carry them, and you could only carry so many steaming cups before you were destined to spill them on yourself. 

The paper is filled before you’re in the elevator anyway, leaving you with 8 orders of coffee. You liked being at work because you hardly had time to think for yourself. Unless you were doing some kind of food or drink run, and then you had entirely too much time to yourself. And right now, you didn’t want to spend too much time in your head.

For the past three days, you had been staying overnight at your parent's place in Queens. During the day you would be at your apartment, getting ready for work or making your meals, because you knew Peter would be gone at the lab. You hadn’t come face to face with him since the morning he stood you up for his apology date, and it’s because you couldn't bear to look at him. Just the thought of confronting him with the truth made you nauseous. You weren’t sure you wanted him to say it out loud or not.

Your parents hadn’t minded when you showed up, near tears, telling them that you were at least 80% sure that Peter was cheating on you. They’d offered you their guest room and told you to think about things with a clear head. Your mother had been very adamant that you talk to him first.

But you’d been ignoring his calls and texts like the plague. Partly because you wanted him to know what it felt like to be ignored, and partly because you weren’t sure what you wanted to say to him yet. You knew you would talk to him when you were damn well ready, and you weren’t ready. Not this morning when he sent his usual “good morning” message and asked if you wanted to meet for lunch. 

Maybe tonight you would talk to him. You would bite the bullet and get the truth, even if you didn’t like what it was.

As you stand and wait for your two coffee carriers, you look down at your phone and all of Peter’s unanswered texts and voicemails. He was persistent, especially when it came to your relationship. You love that about him. 

Peter Parker didn’t do anything half-assed. Everything he did from school to work was 100%, and relationships had never been different. At least not until now. He’d loved you as much as you loved him, you had been sure of that until now. You just didn’t understand when that had changed. What had made him back away from you to the point of forgetting about you multiple times a month?

“(Y/N)!” You hear it called from up ahead. You look up from your phone, wondering if your order was done already. But you see a familiar face walking towards you in a grey sweater vest and a head of thinning brown hair with small glasses.

You smile and turn your body to face him, “Doctor Octavius!” You greet, “it’s been a while!”

“It has,” he agrees as he reaches out to shake your hand, “it’s so funny running into you here. I’m here every day for lunch but we’ve never run into each other.”

You shake your head politely, “this is an odd time for a coffee run for me,” you assure him, “so how are you? Things at the lab doing okay? Peter is so excited to be working with you.”

“And I’m happy to have him,” Dr. Octavius says, “he’s passionate about helping people, that boy,” he then waves a hand through the air to laugh, “if only he could be on time for once in his life! But I’m sure you know all about that.”

You give a pained smile, hoping it looked more real than it felt, “You have no idea,” you agree and then try to forget about the sore subject in your relationship, “but I’m sure he’s making up for it with all the late nights, he’s always thinking about your guys’ projects.”

Dr. Octavius laughs while pushing up his glasses, “Oh, I wish we could do late nights,” he tells you, and your heart begins to pound, “I’m afraid I don’t have the funding to keep workers past normal hours. But that’s not an issue for now, I’m glad Peter has some spare time to spend with you. You two remind me so much of me and my wife when were young…”

His word became muffled. No late nights. He didn’t have the funding for late nights. But Peter had been telling you that he was at work, with Dr. Octavius. He’d been telling you that for months. If he wasn’t there…where had he been going? Why had he been lying to you? What was the point of lying to you?

You’d never been the kind of person to tell Peter what he could and couldn’t do. It was his life, his choices, his spare time. Why did he feel the need to tell he was somewhere when he wasn’t? The weight in your chest stretched down to your stomach, and you wondered if anxiety-vomiting was a real thing. It felt like you were about to find out.

“Order for (Y/N)!” Your name breaks your trance as well as the conversation with Dr. Octavius, who was still speaking despite you not hearing it. You look up at the barista counter, where your 8 drinks are waiting for you to grab them.

“Oh, I’ll let you get back to work,” the doctor says as he hears your name as well, “I hope we run into each other again, (Y/N).”

“Me too, Doctor,” you tell him, hoping it sounded scincere, “good luck with your research, I can’t wait to hear about it!”

The doctor smiles, and he’s about to turn away when he looks back at you, “Oh, and (Y/N), great work on that Oscorp piece last week!”

Any other day, you would be ecstatic that someone had read you piece in the back of the paper and at the bottom of the website. Especially after all the work you put into gathering information on Oscorp’s underhanded carbon emissions from half of their facilities. But you didn’t feel that excitement, you hardly felt anything about it. But you thanked Dr. Octavius and grabbed your row of drinks off the counter.

Your brain was in another world entirely as you balanced everything on your hands. Peter had been lying to you for months. Maybe even longer than that. He was bailing on your dates, leaving you alone in the apartment at night to “work.” Still, you tied to put half of your focus on getting back to work in time for the meeting without spilling anything. You only took your eyes off the coffee to check your footing.

But the streets of New York were never kind, not even to those having a month full of bad days. With your eyes on the coffee, you fail to notice an incoming biker barreling down the sidewalk. There’s a ding of a bell that makes you look up, but it was to late to get out of his way without spilling anything.

What’s one more bad day, You think when you realize your situation, on top of all the others?

Still, you yelp as he barely swerves around you, your foot caught under his thin tire. When you jump from pain, your hands instinctually let go of the coffee trays. The smell of lavender and espresso douse your nice work clothes, and hot liquid burning the exposed skin it touches. You jump back from the biker, who was already whizzing past you and disappearing into the city. The edge of the sidewalk was right there, and your heel is already too close to the edge.

“Whoa! Watch out!” You hear someone calling down at you, but what were you supposed to do? You were already slipping into the road and watching as cars didn't bother to slow down.

There’s a burst of air at your side, a hand on your hip, and your feet are barely picked up off the ground before being sat back down a few feet further into the walkway. You saw the red and blue before you could process the entirety of what had just happened. Spider-Man, the walking legend of the New York streets. He was the small time hero whs ometimes got into big-time fights. Your boss absolutely loved him.

You’d never had a personal enounter with the hero before, and you didn’t think you would ever need to. But you’d heard plenty of stories from other people while working. He was a good man, someone who cared about the people of New York, even the small people like you who didn’t have their names on billboards. 

“Are you okay?” He aks you.

His voice was a little distorted when you heard it, robitcally. It must be another way for him to protect his identity, you assume. Maybe his suit was more high tech than people realized. You look over at him, wide eyes, coffee all over you, your skin tinted red from the heat, and you say nothing at first. Taking in the situation. Taking in the information Octavius had given you, and the only conclusion you could draw from it.

Spider-Man tilts his head as he lets go of your waist, “Miss…are you okay? Are you hurt?”

Besides the burning coffee your arms an your throbbing foot, you shake your head. But you could feel the emotions you were pushing down starting to bubble over. A month of ignoring signs that the person you loved more than anything was cheating on you, hoping it was all some big misunderstanding. Your job piling more tasks on you because you could take it, with no breaks and hardly time to eat lunch. You just wanted a pizza night with Peter, with your favorite show and your favorite person right next to you. But he was, clearly, with someone else when he was supposed to be with you.

Your eyes start to burn.

“Okay, good,” Spider-Man says with a nod of hs red and blue mask, “that was almost bad. Do you need smeone to uh…walk you back to wherever you’re going?”

Why did he care? You were fine, just getting more upset by the second. Any minute the dams would burst and you didn’t need a superhero seeing you cry over spilled coffee. So you shake your head again, trying to wipe the coffee from your skin.

“That looks like it hurts,” Spider-Man comments when he sees the light burn on your arms, “we should get some ice on that. That coffee shop should have some,” he points to where you had just come from.

You shake your head again, “I’m fine.”

But even to you your voice sounded thick with emotions he woudln’t understand. Hell, you didn’t even fully understand them. What you understand is that Peter wasn’t going to be who you call anymore after a bad day. You wouldn’t go home to him tonight  because he would be gone, tell you it was for work, and then turn his phone upside downwhen he got back.

“Alright miss, if you’re sure,” he says, “but some ice water might make it feel better. I’ve had few coffee burns before too.”

You weren’t sure what the final straw was, but you couldn't stop it anymore. The tears fell, and you drop your head into your hands to block it from anyone who walked by. But nobody in New York cared about people who cried in the street, you knew that. You just didn’t want to be the weirdo on this day who broke down in front of a coffee shop. Keeping you cries as internal as possible, you begin to turn towards the coffee shop once more.

“Whoa,” Spider-Man stops you, “Are you okay? What’s wrong? Why are you crying? It’s just a few cups of coffee, we can order more.”

This stranger sounded so much like Peter in his words that it made you cry a little bit harder. Peter was the go to for any kind of comfort. He spoke so calmly when you were loosing it that if made you feel more in control. You hated it right now because you weren’t in control of anything anymore. 

Spider-Man places a covered hand on your shoulder that you’re too upset to brush away. 

“It’s everything!” You sniffle on the street, people pushing around you without sparing your emotional break a glance, “I’m gonna be late to the meeting because i have to chage clothes, and now I have to get more coffee, and I think my boyfriend is cheating on me!”

Hearing the words out loud, you cries become harder to muffle and tears begin to fall onto your palms. Peter was cheating on you, you were sure of that. There was nothing else that explained his behavior and lies. Normally you wouldn’t wail about your problem to a stranger, but what could it hurt? It’s not like he knew you or Peter, and he would forget about this in an hour when he was pulling a kitten from a tree.

“Wait, why would you…” his voice sounded hurried at first before he stopped and corrected himself, “um why do you think that, Miss? That your boyfriend is cheating on you? I really doubt that’s the case, I mean I don’t know him but I think that’s way out there to assume, not that I know anything about your relationship–”

“What do you care?” You turn from the super hero and back towards the coffee shop, where you try to swallow down your cries and sniffles long enough to order your coffee for a second time.

★★★★★★

Your boss had not been happy to see you appear in coffee covered clothes with a slight limp. He’d been the slightest bit concerned when he also took note of your red eyes and ruined hair, but then told you to go home and change as quick as humanly possible.

But you didn’t move like you were in a rush. Actually, you drug your feet back to your apartment hoping that Peter would really be at work. You didn’t even want to walk into the home you shared with him knowing that he had been running around with someone else while you were there alone. But you had no where else to go and change that was within a one-train-ride distance.

You unlock the door, eyes still stinging at the corners, your clothes sticking to your body. And there was a slight sting in your skin where the coffee had hit. Maybe Spider-Man had been right about icing it. Maybe a cold shower would make you feel better physically and emotionally, but you doubted it. 

You open the front door, dropping your keys in the tray by the door.

“(Y/N)! You’re home!” You nearly jumped out of your skin when Peter’s voice came from the living area, “please, we need to talk!”

You look at him as you shut the door behind you, and you wanted to start crying just seeing him. But you held it in and turned away from him.

“I don’t have time for this, Peter,” you tell him, “I’m late for a meeting and I have to shower before I go back.”

“Please, (Y/N) even just a two minute conversation, I swear,” he pushed, walking after you as you went towards the bedroom where you had a bathroom connected, “you don’t even have to talk, just listen.”

“I don’t have time for this!” You repeat, starting to get irritated in the sadness you felt when he spoke your name. You reach the bedroom and make a beeline for the bathroom, wondering if he would disappear before you got out. He follows you up until you close the bathroom door in his face. Your tears fall again under the cold water, and you hope he can’t hear it.

You showered, changed, and blow dried your hair. Not as quickly as you could’ve, but quick enough for your boss to think you moved as fast as you could. Part of you didn’t even want to go back in, but the other option was staying here and facing the music with your boyfriend.

Who was still there when you opened the bathroom door. Sitting on the bed you two shared. His side was strewn about from sleeping, his pillow crooked, the blanks tossed aside. But your side was untouched, even your half of the blankets pulled up. You were always the one to make the bed. He immediately stands up when he hears the door open, turning towards you.

His normally put together hair was frazzed. He ran his hands through it when he was upset. It was one of his tells when he was nervous and tried to hide it. 

“Peter…” you sigh as he gets up to follow you from the bedroom, “please, not now. I have a lot to do at work, and I don’t need to be thinking about this while I’m there.”

“You won’t come home at night,” Peter says behind you as you reach for your shoes by the door. They still had coffee marks on them, “you only come back when you know I’m at work, I don’t know when we’ll be able to talk aside from showing up at your work. Which I have thought about, believe me.”

“Then just wait until I’m ready to talk,” you tell him, “what’s wrong with that option?”

“Because I really want us to go back to normal, (Y/N). I want you to come home, and I want to see you next to me in the mornings, and I want to hear about your day–”

“We can’t go back to normal, Peter,” it looks like you were doing this now. There was no way around it anymore. Part of you was relieved, “not after this. I don’t even think there can be an us to go back to.”

“Please don’t do this, (Y/N),” he pleas, approaching you but keeping enough distance between you that you didn’t feel trapped here, “I know…that…I know you think that I’ve been doing something, I know what you think and you have to know–”

“How would you know what I think, Peter?” You ask him, your throat threatening to close, “you’re not around to hear what I think anymore! You’re never here, you’re running out in the middle of the night, you’re lying about where you are!”

“I know that I’ve made some stupid mistakes this past month,” he insists, “but I can fix it all, I swear, and you’ll never have to deal with those problems again.”

Fix it all. He couldn’t fix this. He couldn’t fix the fact that you didn’t believe a single word he said now. Or that you would always wonder if he was looking at someone else when you went out on dates. But you still looked at him and you loved him because you knew what it felt like to be loved by him at one point. When had that changed? When had he stopped loving you? Was it so quick you only noticed now, or had it been so slowly you hadn’t noticed at all?

“Just…” you inhale deeply and try to keep your breathing steady, “tell me the truth…please. Are you cheating–” 

“No,” he shakes his head before the question is even out.

“--on me? Are you seeing someone else?”

“No,” he repeats, “I am not, have never, and will never cheat on you, (Y/N), I promise.”

“I don’t believe your promises anymore, Peter.”

“I love you,” he takes a few steps to close to distance between you two so he’s standing directly in front of you. He reaches down for your shaking hands, like he wanted to steady to flurry of emotions you were feeling, “I love you so much, and that is a promise I have never broken. Why do you think that? Why would you ever think I would chose someone over you?”

You pull your hands away from his, sick at how at ease he could still make you feel when he spoke with such a calm voice. You didn’t want to be calm or sad. You wanted to be angry. But his brown eyes only left you feeling small and defeated.

“What else am I supposed to think?” you shake your head and take a step away from him, “what are my other options? Of course there’s someone else–”

“There’s no one,” he presses, “You’re the only person I’ve ever loved like this.”

“So you leave me at a table by myself at Leos?” You ask with a disbelieving headshake, “and tell me you’re at work when Dr. Octavius says he can’t keep you after hours? If you’re not cheating, Peter, then why all the lies? Give me the truth, or I don’t think I can handle being loved like this anymore.”

He doesn’t say anything. Your shoe are on, youre reaching for the doorhandle, and you don’t think he’s going to stop you. That hurts more than anything. Or mayb all of the hurt was piling up and you didn’t know what was the most painful anymore. You couldn’t look back at him for fear you would crack and beg for an answer. 

Your hands on the door handle, you want him to stop you, but you refuse to beg him to choose you.

There’s a thwipp sound behind you, and then something cold has your hand pinned to the doorknob. Unable to turn it. You look down at it, and a pile of white spiderwebs is covered your hand entirely. Looking back at Peter, his hand is out and pointed in your direction. His eyes are wide, like he can’t believe what he’s seeing either.

“I-I’m sorry,” he says and takes his hands through his hair in distress, “I didn’t want you to find out like this, but I couldn’t let you walk away thinking that I had cheated on you.”

Your head was going a mile a minute, probably not even on Earth anymore, and you were staring down at the webs covering your hand. Your first coherent thought was that it was Peter you had cried in front of an hour ago, crying about your cheating boyfriend. The second thought was that this also made sense for all the lies and the leaving. 

“I’m not gonna stop you from leaving me,” He’s rambling behind you, “even though I’m ready to get down on my hands and knees and grovel for one more chance, but if you need to walk away from me then please just know the truth when you do it. I love you, (Y/N), and that is the only thing I’m sure is true anymore.”

You sniffle, your tears having run dry, “Peter,” you say in a dull and emotionless voice, “can you come get this shit off my hand so I can go back to work?”

★★★★★★

Needless to say, you didn’t get anything productive done after that encounter with Peter. It wasn’t hard to come to terms with the fact that he wasn’t cheating on you. You’d been looking for a reason to do that for a month now. But the fact that he was Spider-Man?

Your Peter, who hated violence, who was as peaceful as a butterfly, who didn’t even like watching MMA fights, was a crime fighting superhero? With powers? And you’d been living under the same room as him for a year and had never noticed?

Your brain was connecting the pieces of every time thing that had happened. Like when the sink handle had broken off one morning in Peter’s hand when you’d first moved into the apartment. You’d laughed about it, thinking about what a funny stroke of bad luck he’d had. Or when he’d come home bruises along his back and say he’d fallen while trying to get work on time. It had sounded true at the time, but Peter wasn’t the clumsy type. Now you knew why. He was coordinated enough to fight super villains.

None of what you needed to get done happened at work. You could hardly process any words you read, and any conversations went in one ear and out the other. Your boyfriend was Spider-Man, you were still grappling with that revelation by the time you got off. 

You decided to go home. Now that you knew Peter wasn’t cheating on you, it felt like you could at least see the place again. However, on your walk to the train station, you were hyper aware of every se of sirens that went off somewhere in the distance. Which was every three seconds in New York, and the worry you felt knowing he could be at any crime scene was arguably as bad as the anxiety you’d felt all day.

Of course you could text him. But after ignoring him for three days, it felt only right to talk in person. You hoped you would be home when you arrived, but if not, you would have to wait. It would give you time to think of what you were going to say. Of how you wanted to go about things now that you knew the truth.

You unlocked the front door with anxiety running through your veins. On the other side, the remains of his webs from earlier were still hanging from the doorknob. He’d cut you free with his house keys, and you’d left before you could see the webs closely. When he wasn’t inside, you looked at them a little closer. They were as thin as real spider webs, but you’d felt how strong they were when holding your hand down. Peter was genius enough to make these himself, that’s for sure.

The apartment was empty. You didn’t hear any sign of Peter. So you place your keys in the tray by the door and take a seat on the couch, letting things slowly settle in your head. 

You sent Peter a text, “I’m at home. We should talk.”

You honestly weren’t expecting a reply, so you set your phone down and decide to find something to eat. As you silently open the fridge, your options are slim. There’s one can of Dr. Pepper, left over pasta, and a container of uncooked mushrooms in the drawer. Peter clearly hadn’t been shopping while you were gone. You reach for the left over pasta, figuring it was your only option that required minimal cooking tonight.

“(Y/N),” your name makes you jump a mile in the air, a yelp leaving you. Spinning around, you see Peter.

He’s sitting on the edge of a newly opened window that led to your fire escape. In a familiar red and blue suit with a web design on it. The mask is crumpled in his hand, like he didn’t want you to panic when you saw him. His hair is a frizzed mess, and his eyes are staring at you like he was shocked to find you standing in the kitchen.

“You’re here,” he says as you place a hand on your chest to feel how hard your heart is hammering.

He steps into the living area, and you can see the suit in clear lighting. He came in so easily and with skill. Like he’d done it a million times before.

“That’s how you get in without setting off the alarm?!” You ask him in disbelief.

He looks back at the window for a second, and then back at you, “Yeah,” he confirms, “It doesn’t wake you up, and it’s less stairs.”

“Less stairs,” you repeat and nod your head, setting your cold pasta on the counter, “yeah, makes sense, sure.”

Peter puts the mask on the coffee table beside your phone, “you want to talk?” he asks, as if confirming it was you who sent the text message, “I wasn’t sure you were ever coming back, if I’m honest.”

“Well I did ask for the truth,” you tell him, leaning back against the, “I can’t be mad that I got it.”

There’s silence on his end. Like he wasn’t sure what to say next. But you weren’t either. A few things came to mind, but you didn’t know where to start. So you decided on the first thing that came up when you opened your mouth.

“I’m sorry,” you land on, “for thinking you were cheating.”

Peter looks up, eyes wide, clearly not having expected that, “what? Don’t apologize, I’m supposed to be apologzing.”

“Yeah, well, I figured I owe you one too.”

The space between you two felt like miles, but it was only feet. And the apartment felt cold, like you were both avoiding making the first move. You wanted him back at your side, as close to you as he could be. You wanted to sit on the couch with Peter as your peasonal heated blanket, listening to his heartbeat as you fell asleep. 

“I owe you about a million more,” Peter shakes his head and finally breaks the distance separating you two, “I never should’ve even let you begin to think that I would pick someone else over you. I should’ve told you the truth years ago, I should’ve told you the moment I realized I loved you, I’m sorry.”

He’s maybe a foot away. He’d closed the distance up until now, and you decide to close the rest. Your hands reach out, the feeling of the suit alien under your fingers, but his warmth reminds you that its him. Pulling him forward, he practically melts into you as you wrap your arms around him. Burying your face into his neck, feeling his hair between your fingers. It was Peter, your loyal and loving Peter.

Peter holds you back. Now you know that the strength he’s holding back is because he doesn’t want to hurt you. How could Peter ever hurt you? He loved you, and you loved him. After too long thinking that that was a lie, it was a relief to know it was still true. Keeping this kind of secret couldn’t have been easy for him, just as it hadn’t been easy for you to think he was being unfaithful. 

“Why didn’t you tell me?” You ask him as he leans his body against yours, his face buried in your hair in relief, “it’s been years, Pete, you could’ve trusted me with this…”

He lifts his head, only enough so he could press his forehead to yours, “I do trust you,” he says, “but I also love you more than life itself, so I have to protect you above anything else. There’s a lot of people out there who wanna hurt me, and I will not let them use you to do it. I can’t do that to you.”

“Pete trusting me with something like this isn’t damning me to being a damsel in distress,” you inform him carefully, using your hands to gently swipe his messy hair from his eyes.

The apartment was dimly lit, something you’d always complained about, but you could see his face clear as day as he clung to you in the kitchen light. His brown eyes glossy with tears, the freckles dotting his cheeks that you counted when you couldn’t sleep. You though your knew everything about him, every part of him, but he had been hiding an entirely differen life from you. A life that couldn’t have been easy to shoulder all on his own. You couldn’t bring yourself to be mad at him for hiding from you only to protect you.

“I couldn’t risk it,” he admits, his voice as soft as the light above you, “but I also couldn’t stand the thought of you thinking that I didn’t love you with every cell in my body. I needed you to know the truth even if you still left.”

You shake your head against his, “this isn’t going to drive me away, Pete,” you assure him, palms coming to a rest on his cheeks, “what’ll drive me away is the lies. Promise me no more lies, Pete, please.”

He’s nodding his head before you can even finish the sentence, “No more,” he says, “no more lies or secrets, I’m so sorry, I’m so sorry.”

You believed him. Not just because you wanted to, but because you could feel that me meant it. Every doubt that you’d had in your head is flooded away as you make the first move to kiss him. His lips were as soft as they always were, his movements just as gentle. He was still your Peter, the same guy you fell in love with over Leo’s pizza. He leans forward, pinning you against the counter so he get a solid grip on your waist. 

He hoists you up with one hand, and you can’t help but gasp as he lands your butt on the counter without blinking. He chuckles at your reaction, settling himself between your knees in your shock.

“You’ve been hiding this the whole time?” you ask, now more interested than anything else. You lock your legs around his hips, “Pete, we could’ve been having some real fun with this.”

Peter grins, “Trust me, I know, I’ve had a few dreams about it.”

[fullybooked]

For You

Title: For You Pairing: Dabi x Reader Word Count: 2.4k Warnings: A little suggestive at the end? Bad writing (I hate this) Summary: Dabi leaves for long periods of time, and you're growing tired of it. He sees that.

Sat at the edge of the bed, curled in on yourself, and he stops walking. His first thought was that you were hurt, that someone had found out about you and needed to get back at him. 

But there was no blood. You weren’t crying, and you were looking up at him with no pain in your eyes. 

“Doll,” He says, “you hiding from me back here?”

You don’t respond for a moment, just looking at him. Sometimes, he would come back bloodied and bruised. He was okay, this time. Another wave of relief washed over you. And you hated that you wanted to run into his arms and tell him you missed him. He didn’t deserve that from you and you knew it.

“You're back,” you acknowledge out loud and immediately look away from him, “for how long this time?”

“What’s that mean?” He asks, approaching the bed and setting himself on the soft mattress behind you. You expected him to lay back and fall asleep and wait for you to join him in bed. But you didn’t hear him laying back.

“You’re leaving soon,” you remind him, “tomorrow morning? Tomorrow night? You’re never here for long.”

A stretch of silence. Did he hear you? Did you want him to? 

“We have a job tomorrow morning,” he answers.

You nod and your emotions go unseen by him as he sits behind you. At least, you think. But he sees your shoulders slouch and your head almost fall forward in defeat. 

Dabi didn’t like to think about the effect he had on the people around him. Even if the only person he was around outside of his job was you. He knew that there would be a toll taken on your relationship because of who he was and what he did. Most of the time, when that thought crept into his mind, he didn’t humor it. He told himself that it would happen, and he would move on when it did. He told himself that he had no emotional attachment to you.

So why was his chest constricting when he saw the toll being taken? This isn’t how he told himself he would handle it when it happened.

“Dabi,” You speak the name he gave to himself, and he hums to show his attention has been caught, “do you care about me?”

His throat closed immediately. And he didn’t respond. He didn’t know what he would say if he opened his mouth. He was a villain, a horrible person, wanted throughout the country. He didn't deserve to care about you, or about anyone. He bites his lip and makes himself scoff.

“What the hell brings that on?” He asks coldly. 

He expected you to flinch, or at least visibly react to his harsh words. You usually did. But this time you looked back over your shoulder, exhaustion covering your face, and sighed at his response.

“I’m not asking if you love me,” you explain, “I’m asking if you care about me at all. Not a hard question, I don’t think.”

“And I’m asking why you’re asking it,” he rolls his eyes and finally lays back on the bed that smelled of your shampoo. He hated that his stomach twisted when the scent hit him, as if answering the question for him.

“Because I’m getting tired, Dabi,” you say and look back ahead of you, “you’re here one day and gone the next. If you’re just using me, admit it. I think I deserve that after this long.”

This long. He wonders exactly how long you’ve been putting up with this. Months? No, it was at least a year. He met you when there was snow on the ground. It had melted and new snow was outside of your window today. For at least a year he had been sneaking into your apartment and sliding into your bed. Was he using you? For food and a place to sleep? 

No. He had a room at the hideout. It wasn’t nice, but he’d slept in worse. And he could get food anywhere. So that wasn’t the reason he kept coming back. He rolled his head against the bed and looks towards you again. You had yet to move, and he expected you to do so quickly. To start yelling at him, demanding that he give you more than he has to offer. You deserved that.

But you only shake your head at his silence, “I picked up a night shift,” you say as you finally begin to uncurl from the end of the bed and onto your feet, “in case you came back. I expect you’ll be gone when I get home.”

Dabi opens his mouth to ask why you didn’t want to be around him. There had been a few times when you switched shifts with someone because he came back. To spend the night with him. Now you were switching to get away from him. He closed his mouth, telling himself he didn’t care why. It was only a matter of time before you grew tired of him and the life he led.

He watches as you walk from the bedroom, closing the door behind you and moving away from him. The warmth that filled the apartment went with you, and he was left in silence that was louder than usual. 

★★★★★★

Dabi found it annoyingly hard to fall asleep. Even after eating and taking a much-needed shower, he was still wide awake. In a bed that felt cold despite his high body temperature. He knew the reason, as angry as he was about it, but he also couldn’t change it.

Maybe he should’ve stopped coming around after a few months. Maybe he should’ve stopped thinking about you after a few weeks, maybe he never should’ve spoken to you in the first place. But he couldn’t dwell on what he should have done. He did it anyway. He kissed you first, he watched you make breakfast in the mornings, and he still crawled into bed to be near you. 

He regretted every decision that led him to this moment. Wondering if he had finally pushed you away and wishing he hadn’t.

The front door opened and he didn’t react. He didn’t jump up and run to you like you did to him. 

Your keys loudly jingle as you set them by the door, and he hears you sliding off your shoes. He wondered if you would sleep on the couch since he was already in bed. A pang of hope went through his chest that you wouldn’t. He hadn’t slept beside you in days…

He cursed himself for caring about that fact.

Your footsteps get closer to the bedroom, and you open the door quietly. Dabi’s staring at the ceiling and turns his head to watch you come through the door. You were pulling off your jacket, he could tell in the darkness. But he couldn’t see your face. He wanted to see you. 

“Doll,” he says and begins to sit up in the bed, “come here.”

“You’re awake,” you say in a whisper, and make no move to follow his instructions. 

“Doll…” he watches your figure turn towards the dresser in the dark, illuminated by the street lights in your bedroom window. Still no response to his nickname for you. Desperation was starting to sting his fingers. Would you leave? Would you change the locks? Would you block his number and forget about him? All things he deserved, and yet he hoped there was still a chance for him somewhere in you.

“Y/N,” he uses your name again. A rare occurrence that seemed to make your movements a pace slower, “come. Here.”

He watches as you begin to change in the dark. Your work uniform is discarded on the floor, to be washed over the weekend that was approaching. He liked to watch you walk around the place in his clothes when it was laundry day. Were there anymore days like that left for him with you?

You put on your pajamas before approaching the bed, probably going to ignore him further. But Dabi reached out, his stinging fingers soothed only by the feeling of your skin underneath them. He pulled you away from your side of the bed, and on top of him.

Stradling his waist, hands setting on his shoulders to stop from colliding with him entirely. His fingers are digging into your hips and you can tell that he’s got something on his mind. Usually, you would ask. You would want to know what was bothering him. But tonight you didn’t question it, no energy left to deal with the long road it would take to get an answer.

“Dabi,” you sigh, “not tonight.”

He leans back against the headboard of the bed, fingers tapping against your skin. He doesn’t respond and you can hear the wheels turning in his head.

“Not what I was aiming for,” he admits, and then ads, “this time.”

“Then what do you want?” You ask, hands going limp on his shoulders and prepared to pull away from him, “it’s not to talk, I know that.”

You hated the way his hands felt like warm wax on your skin, and the way you wanted to melt into his touch and never let go of him. He would be gone in a matter of hours, and you would be left alone. Again. For the millionth time, it seems, you hadn’t learned your lesson. You should be pushing him out the door and telling him to get lost. To find another sorry soul to keep him company. 

Dabi’s hands clench down on your hips, rooting you in place, and his head moves up just the slightest. His lips are against yours, rough and salty. With as much fervor as he was capable of, he dragged his teeth against your bottom lip and tried to pull you as close to his body as he could. You hummed against his lips, allowing the rare affection to be soaked up into your bones. 

His kisses are always intense and fleeting, like dreams you can’t remember when you wake up. But this one was different. He kept going, even after he would usually pull back. His tongue was trying to memorize your own, and he kept pulling at your body. He was making up for lost time with you, it seemed. Or maybe that was your own wishful thinking.

You hated how you melted into it.

“I’m not going,” he says against your lips, the words almost lost in the darkness around you, “I’m not leaving.”

You try to pull away a little further to hear him better, “what?”

You can only get so far away with the way his hands are clinging to you, “Not this time.” 

You listen to his words, playing over in your head. It wasn’t much to other people. He was missing one job out of millions, giving you an extra day with him. But it was a step, it was progress. He was staying with you. For you. He was saying for you.

That thought alone was enough to bring a smile back to your face. He was staying for you.

Dabi isn’t good at admitting to anyone how he feels. And even if he’d come to realize that he does care about you, he couldn’t bring the words to his lips. So he could only try and show you. The way he felt your joy return to the kiss, returning his passion, he knew he was in deep with you. 

There was no changing what he wanted to change. He wanted to stay away from you, to give you a chance with someone better. But he couldn’t. So he could only try and be a little better for you.

[fullybooked]

I hope you guys know that The Domain had a whole fleshed out mini-story that I had to break down

[fullybooked]

Angel

Title: Angel Pairing: Kaeya Alberich x Reader Word Count: 5.4k Warnings: Fight scene, Kaeya being a flirty little shit, vision bearer!reader Summary: You’re a new bartender with a questionable past, but Kaeya seems to find that interesting and offers you a tour of the city. There’s a lot he doesn’t know about you, though

Mondstadt was known for its drinking habits. Everyone outside of the nation knew it, and the people in the city itself were aware of it. Even those who didn’t live in its walls, just in its borders, were all too fond of the wine that was sold in every corner.

So you were shocked when you arrived in the city and found only two taverns. You pictured at least four.

However, they were both filled every night in the exact way you pictured. And you could notice exactly how full from behind the bar, where Charles was training you to make every drink under the sun. 

Your employment was recent and sudden. You’d arrived in the city, with a fresh resentment towards your home nation, looking to settle somewhere else. With no work, and lucky enough to run into Charles when he needed some help carrying a few loose crates, he’d offered you a job as a junior bartender.

“I see Diluc hasn’t fired you, yet,” Rosaria walks in and notices you behind the bar, making the simpler drinks with ease.

She was a regular both at the tavern and in the church, given she worked there. She’d been in the past three days you had been working and seemed to hang around the bar without talking to many other people. She didn’t drink too much, maybe one bottle over the course of the night, and had gotten more talkative with every drink.

You smile, “I still haven’t met him. I doubt he knows I work here.”

Charles grunts from beside you as he mixes a Moonlit Alley, “if he hired more staff I wouldn’t have to do it myself.”

It was a little odd to not know your boss, but you also weren’t eager to. He sounded a little terrifying from what everyone said about it. Plus, you weren’t sure he’d like the idea of an ex-treasure hoarder working at his bar.

Charles, once you’d explained your situation, had been okay with it. You’d told him about taking the job without the details, being left behind by the group to take the fall for it, and then spending a month in jail. At least now it was a story to tell to people who asked about you. You wouldn’t have even had to resort to such sketchy jobs if it wasn’t for the fact that Liyue people weren’t eager to help someone without money.

Mora was the moral compass of your home nation.

“He’ll show up someday and figure it out,” Rosaria takes one of the empty bar seats, “until then, I’d like a bottle of dandelion wine.”

You had already been reaching onto the shelf behind you for her favorite, “you know, Rosaria,” you chuckle, “when someone who’s worked here for three days knows your usual, you may have a problem.”

“It’s not a problem until I can’t do my job,” she hums, uncorking it with one of her long finger guards, “if you think I have a problem, wait until you meet some of the people I work with.”

Charles hums, “is it the weekend already?” he asks.

“Sadly, it’s true,” Rosaria says glumly and takes a drink from her bottle, “I saw them on their way when I walked in.”

You look up from your mixing cup as you drop in a leaf of mint, “who?” you ask, “you guys sound like death is on his way.”

Charles shakes his head and pours the liquid from his own cup into a tall glass, “It’s just the knights,” he explains, “it’s their regular day. They can get a little…chaotic, at times. But it makes for good business.”

The Knights of Favonius. You hadn’t had much of a run-in with them since coming to the city, and you hoped to keep it that way. Every interaction you’d had with authority in the past had never been good, and you didn’t want to continue that streak. At least behind the counter, you would have less of a chance of smashing heads with them.

“At least we’re good for one thing.”

The door to the tavern opens loudly, creaking with the need for oil on its hinges. That voice is the first one that you hear of many as a group comes pouring into the doors. Sliding the drink you’d just made to its customer, you look up to see exactly how many people you were about to deal with.

Charles laughs, “I’m sure the owner would agree with you.”

The man approaching the counter gives a devious grin. He had deep blue hair, a long strip from the base of his neck draping over his shoulder, and one crystal eye exposed to the world. The other was covered with a black patch. He was dressed in expensive-looking clothing and accessories.

You knew he hadn’t been here in the last three days. You would remember the way he walked, like the world would bow to him if he asked.

“You’re here early,” he approaches Rosaria from behind, who doesn’t react to his appearance.

It seems she was the only one who didn’t care. You could see a group of female merchants in the back corner, whispering and giggling as they all looked toward him. He must be the talk of women in the city, the one everyone wants to grab the attention of.

Immediately, you turn to the next man who was waiting to have his order taken. 

A drunk bard who went by Six-Fingered Jose. For whatever reason. You could tell he only had five fingers on each hand, and you didn’t dare ask about it. 

“How can I help you?” You ask politely, ignoring the conversation the man and Rosaria were about the indulge in.

Jose hiccups, “one Love Poem,” he demands and then grins, “I’m very good at those, by the way.”

You give a smile, “as a bard, I’m sure you are.” 

After getting put behind the bar with Charles, you learned quickly that you would be given a generous amount of tips if you pretended to be interested in whatever everyone had to say. Most of the time, that meant indulging in their flirting games and pretending they were wooing you. You weren’t the best at pretending to be invested in the conversation, but the drunker they were the easier it was.

“I have written a million love poems,” he assures you, “but Donna doesn’t want anything to do with them.”

You put a cup down on the bar, shaking the mixer in your hands, “I’m sure she will,” you say, not knowing who this girl was, “you just have to catch her ear enough to listen to them.”

He a solemn nod, as if you were giving him a piece of unforgettable advice, “maybe you’re right.”

Pouring the drink into his cup, you slide it in front of him to encourage him to take it and drop the conversation. And he does, practically shugging it as he walks away. The people of Mondstadt were known for their drinking, and you were starting to see why the longer you spent in the bar.

“Hello, there.” 

You jump when you turn back the counter of customers and someone is leaning a little too close to the bar. The man with the eyepatch and the confidence of a king is looking at you, a smirk on his face. Charles is turned to the other side of the bar, making this side now yours to tend to.

“Hello,” you say, placing your mixer into the bowl of dirty dishes. You give a polite smile, “can I get you a drink?”

The man hums, “you’re a new addition to this place,” he comments and rests his chin on his hand, “I would’ve noticed you, I’m sure.”

Another flirt, you think bitterly. Of course, he was. He was pretty, and he knew it from the way he held himself. From the way Rosaria rolled her eyes, you wondered if this was a common occurrence with him. To flirt with any new face he sees. 

“Three days new,” you agree, “still learning, so anything above my level I’ll get Charles.”

“I’d prefer something from you,” the man, name still unknown, says with a hum, “so surprise me.”

You shrug and turn around. If he wanted something you could make, then you knew exactly what to give him. You take one of the many bottles of dandelion wine off of the display shelf and turn around to place it on the bar in front of him.

You smile, “hope you like it, sir. Have a nice night.”

Rosaria gives a sound somewhere between a laugh and a scoff from the chair beside him, and his single visible eye seems to glint in the bar light. You wondered if anyone had ever turned down his advancements before, or if everyone fell to his feet when he used a voice as smooth as butter. 

“Where have you been all my life?” He asks, grabbing the bottle from the counter.

Your smile is almost a mimic of his, “jail, mostly.”

The laugh from Rosaria this time is a little louder, a hint that the wine was starting to get into her system. He also laughs, though it's softer and almost like a song to your ears. He was good. Very good. What was he doing in a tiny tavern like this? Liyue would be overjoyed to have a man like him among them.

“Captain Kaeya,” Charles speaks from the other side of the bar, “I hope you’re not trying to scare off my help. Diluc is going to try soon enough, I’m sure.”

Captain Kaeya? You tried not to look too shocked by the title. He came in with the Knights, so it was obvious that he was with them. But the title Captain was a little higher than you were assuming he was at. Maybe your jail joke was a little too far.

Kaeya hums and turns his head to face your manager, “run away a pretty face like theirs? I’d never dream of it, Charles. I’m sure my brother is more than capable of that himself.”

And the brother of your boss? Archons, maybe you should just keep your mouth shut more often. You tried to play it off by not showing your embarrassment.

“Captain Kaeya?” You mention, reaching for the rag that was waiting to be used under the bar so you could clean out the dishes.

He turns back to you all too quickly, uncorking the bottle you had handed him. He takes a step away from the bar, giving a dramatic bow, still holding his drink.

“Cavalry Captain Kaeya, at your service.” He says and then brings himself back up to a standing position, “it seems we’ve spent time on opposite sides of the law, stranger.”

You frown and turn your back to him while grabbing the bucket of dirty dishes, “please ignore my last comment, then.”

“Why? It’s refreshing.” 

“Oh Archons,” Rosaria says, “I can’t take this flirt-fest anymore, I’ll be anywhere else when you’re done.”

When you turn back around, she’s already walking away in the direction of the stairs. Probably up to the second floor, where not many patrons would go. But your eyes went back to Kaeya, who was taking a seat where she once was.

“I haven’t seen you here,” he repeats his comment from earlier, “when did Charles convince you to step behind the bar?”

There didn’t seem to be an out of this conversation. But if he wasn’t looking at you in disdain already, then you didn’t see what you could say that would turn him away. Plus, his complete attention seemed to be on you.

“Three days ago,” you admit and begin wiping out the mixing cups you guys had used.

Kaeya leans an elbow on the bar, and his cheek rests on his fist, “I hope the city’s been kind since you arrived.”

“It’s a lot better than where I’m from.” You admit with a polite smile. If this is who you ended up talking to, then you wouldn’t be complaining. 

“And where would that be?”

“Is this an interrogation Captain?” You tease, blowing away the question with a smile, “I’ve never seen you here before, and you come in with nothing but questions.”

He hums, eye glinting and lifting his head from his hand, “is that not how you get to know someone? I’ll be here an awful lot from now on, so I think we should know each other.”

You figured he’d been going to the Cat’s Tail, the only other tavern in town, and had ventured in here for a change of pace. Maybe he would go back soon enough when he got tired of talking to you.

“Liyue,” you sigh an answer, “can’t say I enjoyed it though, or the people there.”

“Tragic,” he says, “how anyone could make an angel like you unwelcomed is beyond me.”

“Angel?” You laugh, “I just told you I’ve been to jail and you call me an angel?”

Kaeya gives a shrug and takes a drink from the wine bottle, “I like to think I’m a good judge of character,” the bottle swirls as he brings it away from his lips, “and everything about you screams gift from the archons to me.”

The heat that rises to your cheeks is almost instant, but you try to push it back down. This man definitely knew how to flirt, you’d give him that.

“So, Angel,” he keeps going with his nickname. Probably because you haven’t given him your actual name yet, “have you seen much of our city? If not, I’d be more than happy to spend my day off tomorrow showing you around.”

“You’re really going to extra mile,” you laugh and realize you’re getting to the bottom of the bucket of dishes, “do you offer everyone a personal tour?”

“Only pretty bartenders,” he says, “and Charles isn’t exactly my type.”

The laugh that escapes you is sudden and a little too loud for your comfort. It had been a while since you had actually laughed for any reason. You forgot how free it felt, and you tried not to let the blush on your cheeks get worse. 

Picking up the last dish, you find yourself nodding, “you know what? Sure. I’d love for you to show me around.”

★★★★★★

Since you’d arrived, you’d been crashing at the Cat’s Tail Inn. If Angel’s Share had an Inn wing, you’d rather stay there. But you needed somewhere to stay until you had the mora to find a place in the city. Hopefully Margaret wouldn’t find out you worked for the competition.

The night had been spent talking to Captain Kaeya when you weren’t serving drinks with Charles. You ended up making him a Death After Noon when he finished his wine bottle, and the conversation continued until Charles called for last call.

Now you were preparing to spend a tour of the city with him. And, somehow, that was more nerve-wracking than a first day working at a tavern. You fussed over your clothes, something you didn’t have many of, and tucked away your vision under your top. Unlike many people here, you didn’t wear it out in the open. For no other reason than it didn’t match any outfit.

Kaeya was picking you up outside of the Inn this afternoon, in a few moments probably. You leave your room at the Inn, tapping your finger against your vision under your top for comfort.

“Bye, Rodger,” You pet the cat who sits at the top of the steps, “see you tonight!”

You shout a goodbye to Diona as you exit, the bartender hardly batting an eye at you. And then you’re out the front door, wondering if you would be a little early to the meet-up with Kaeya. 

But he was already standing at the bottom of the front steps, leaning against the building as if he had been waiting for you. It catches you off guard.

“Oh,” you say, stopping on the steps, “I hope I’m not late.”

Kaeya looks up when you speak, and smiles when he sees your concerned expression, “I’m early, actually,” he assures you, “I was looking forward to spending time with you outside of the tavern.”

You descend the rest of the stairs, unsure of how to reply to his greeting for a moment. But he pushes off of the wall, and a hand comes from around his back. Between his thumb and forefinger is the stem of a Mistflower, its icy exterior melted and its blue center open and exposed.

“For you, Angel,” he says. How fitting, given his vision type.

Another blush that he brings to your cheeks. You take it with a smile and a bundle of nerves forming in your stomach. His nickname for you had stuck throughout the night. 

“It’s Y/N,” you inform him, “you should probably know my name if you’re going to spend the afternoon with me.”

He seems to give your name a moment of thought, “beautiful, but I think I’ll stick with Angel.”

“Whatever works for you,” you shrug, though you can’t ignore the fact that the nickname makes you want to swing your legs like a teenager now that you’re hearing it outside of the musty tavern walls, “I have to admit, I didn’t think you were serious about giving me a tour.”

“I never joke about hospitality,” he says with a smile and holds out his arm for you to loop your own through, “it’s my top priority as Cavalry captain to make sure you feel welcomed.”

“You’re off to a good start,” you say as you latch onto his arm, still holding the flower he had given you. 

With his free hand, Kaeya swoops in and snatches it from between your fingers. Before you can blink, its stem is slid between your ear and temple, decorating your hair with blue petals. Your stomach angrily flips and turns and threatens to make your knees go weak.

“Just wait until you see the time I have planned, then,” he assures you, “an angel deserves only the best.”

★★★★★★

Kaeya pulled out all the stops for your introduction to Mondstadt. From leading you around the city you haven’t had time to explore, showing you the cathedral and the statue of Barbados, to lunch at Good Hunter’s where he gave you the recommendation of the Sticky Honey Roast.

To now, when he’s leading you beyond the gates of the city to show you Windrise.

You had admitted to seeing the landmark, but didn’t have it in you to go and visit. Kaeya had told you this simply wouldn’t do.

“I’ll take you myself,” he says, “it’s a nice way to end the afternoon, wouldn’t you agree?”

So you two were walking past the guards, your arm looped through his and your flower still in your hair. When you pictured starting over, your immediate thought hadn’t been spending your afternoon with a handsome man, a Cavalry Captain. You figured it would be a while before you would feel comfortable enough with anyone.

“Captain Kaeya,” A knight at the door says as you two pass by, “there’s been an increase in hilichurl sightings close to the walls–”

“We’ll be fine, Swan, thank you.” He says, a stern tone in his voice when talking to his men.

“Yes, Captain,” he says and salutes as you two walk away from the safety of the walls. 

You hum and watch the water of the lake as you walk above it. Ducks were floating along the water, and birds scattered as you walked over the bridge. It was still sunny, and there was a swift breeze around the two of you. The city of wind, you remind yourself. And freedom, the reason you had come so far in the first place.

“We’ll be fine,” Kaeya repeats to you, in a much gentler tone than he had said before. He seemed to have taken your silence as worry.

You shake your head, “I don’t doubt it,” you admit, “I’m just..admiring. It’s a beautiful city.”

“I suppose it is,” he says and takes you on a dirt road that you had passed on your way in a few days ago, “I guess I’ve just gotten bored of it. I’ve lived here my whole life.”

“A nice place to grow up,” you say, watching a squirrel scamper across the grassy fields that filled your line of sight, “Liyue is all mountains and vishaps around every corner.”

“An exciting life,” Kaeya chuckles, “I’m guessing a Vishap is what landed you behind bars, then?”

You laugh at the image. While you had multiple run-ins with the creatures, you tried to avoid them more than Treasure Hoarders. At least people can, sometimes, be reasoned with. Wild beasts were less likely to listen. When you were in that cell, though, you wished you would’ve taken on the vishaps instead of talking to that group.

“I’m afraid that’s my own fault.” You say, “when a man offers you a job with no details, don’t take it.”

“A hard lesson learned,” he ends his pushing of information there, and you’re grateful. He seemed like a kind man, Kaeya, but you were wary that giving more information would lead to him running and treating you like a criminal, “can you see the statue from here?”

He stopped you two on the top of a small hill, where you could see the Windrise tree like a beacon of hope. At its base was the statue of the Seven, of Barbados. It was glowing a faint blue, with a stone platform underneath it. At a distance, it was nothing short of beautiful. Your eyes shone as you watched its branches rustle and its crystal flies surround it.

“Wow,” you say, fingers twisting into Kaeya’s sleeve, “and you get used to this?”

He looks down at you, watching the way amazement takes over your features. The way your fingers clench onto his arm. And then he looks back at Windrise.

“Maybe not,” he says.

In the midst of both of you being distracted by the sight, no one noticed the being approaching on your side. Its red fur had seemed to be the top of a dendro slime for a moment, just a bundle that would leave you alone if you didn’t bother it first. And then it made a noise.

“Woooo!” There’s a burst of bright orange, and it’s suddenly directly beside the two of you.

An Abyss mage.

Kaeya’s arm twists away from your grip, and he’s grabbing you before you can even register what had suddenly appeared. He throws you back, behind him, and lifts his sword as a ball of fire is being thrown toward the two of you.

The ice coating his sword extinguishes the flames before they can touch him or you and the ice melts from the blade. You hadn’t even seen him reach for the weapon.

With an arm around your waist, and the other lifting his weapon, he looks back at you. His visible eye is darker than usual, his star-like pupil blown out in adrenaline. You can feel his entire body tense from where you are pressed against his side. 

“Are you okay?”

“Um…yeah,” you say, looking over his shoulder at the mage.

It’s laughing up a storm, bouncing from foot to foot as it watches the two of you. It’s waiting for him to strike back, you realize. These things, while known, weren't very common in Liyue. Maybe the nation was just too big for them to be seen by travelers, or maybe they just liked the windy city better. You’d never seen one in person before.

Kaeya looks back at it as well before saying to you, “stay here, Angel.”

You opened your mouth to protest. To say you didn’t need to be protected. But his arm untwists from your waist, and he’s facing the opponent like a Captain. While Cryo wouldn’t be the best match against Pyro, you know you would be better. He didn’t know about your vision, though.

The mage whirls as Kaeya shoves the point of his sword in its direction. A stream of ice flies from it, coating the grass around them and almost piercing the mage itself. But it jumps, and a sheer bubble surrounds it. The ice bounces off and coats more grass instead.

The mage clearly had its sights set on Keaya, who was the only visible threat. You try not to think about the fact that you would think he looks very attractive if it weren’t for the fact that he was protecting you. The way his eyes are steeled over and focused, or the way his sleeves seem to strain to hold on around his biceps. 

Okay, you could admit that he was attractive. But it's not the time to dwell on that.

Kaeya dodges its blasts of flames in an instant, an ice train following him as he chips away at the mage’s shield. And you wait until the mage has it’s back to you until it’s unaware of your existence completely. 

And that’s when you decide to strike. Purple electricity tickles your palms, and the vision under your top is burning with a comfortable warmth. It felt like using another limb as if you were born with it and not gifted it in a moment of terror. With your hands extended, and your fingertips dancing with electricity, you focus your aim on its shield.

Sadly, your catalyst was left in your room at the Inn. Using your own body to channel the power of a vision would be more painful than using an object, hence why no one ever did it. But if you could land a good hit, you would only need to do it once. All it would leave you with was stinging hands.

The mage whirls and you see Kaeya glance behind the mage, where you were supposed to stay put. And before he can register that you’re glowing purple, a shot of lightning emits from your hands.

Directly in the center of the shield. And it disappears, the mage tumbling to the ground in confusion. It grumbles in an unknown language.

While Kaeya would undoubtedly be confused, he’s a trained knight. He keeps his focus on the fight, and easily finishes off the vulnerable mage. While you shake out your hands to the side, you remind yourself to never leave unarmed no matter how safe you felt. 

“Y/N,” Kaeya speaks your real name for the frist time since he’d met you the previous knight.

You look back at him, and the finished Mage that was dissolving into embers as he spoke approached. You patted yourself on the back mentally for your good aim. It was a quick fight. And one that didn’t end in any injuries.

Kaeya’s hands reach for your own, which you were still shaking as if that would make the sting go away, “you’re hurt.”

“Hardly,” you say with a reassuring smile. Your palms, which his eyes are glued to in examination, are an irritating red as if you were sunburned. Lesson learned when it comes to being armed, “are you okay?”

His blue eye turns up to your face for a second, going back to look at the vision that’s still glowing brightly under your shirt from its use. And then he looks back at your face and gives the smallest of laughs.

“I’m fine,” he says, “do your hands hurt?”

“It’ll be okay by my shift tonight.” You say and go to take your hands away from his. But he doesn’t allow your hands to go free, instead holding tighter and running his thumbs over the red skin.

A thin sheet of ice covers your hands, like a cooling pack. Your tense shoulders seemed to relax when the slight pain subsided. Kaeya is shaking his head with that smirk on his face, though it seemed to be less teasing and more impressed now.

“You’re a vision bearer,” he states the obvious and lowers your hands, still holding onto them between your bodies, “Angel, you are one surprise after another.”

You try not to stare at his hands holding his, and instead look up at his face, which had relief painting its features.

“You’ll get bored of it,” you tease, referring to his comment about the monument you were supposed to be seeing right now. 

“I could never,” he says and then drops your hands. But his touch doesn’t end there. 

Instead, he reaches out to put his around your waist like it had been when he’d pulled you out of danger. The thin sheet of ice on your hands melts, dripping from your skin onto the grass below you. Your cheeks were heating up again, something he was very good at making happen.

“I should get you to a healer. It’s dangerous to use a vision without a weapon.” He tries to turn the both of you around to the city.

You reach up, adjusting the flower back to a comfortable place in your hair, and plant your feet firmly on the ground, “I was promised a tour of Windrise, Captain,” you remind him, “you’re not backing out because of a little scrap, are you?”

He looks down at his side, where you’re stubbornly refusing to move. His grip on your waist is tightening, as if he’s not sure if you’re truly okay. And his clouded gaze, looking from your face to your burned hands in contemplation.

“I’m okay,” you laugh and assure him of this small fact. One of your hands reaches up, gently resting the warm skin against his cheek, “I swear. Come on, Kaeya, let’s finish the tour, and then you can lead me wherever you want.”

Here comes the mischievous glint that seemed to live within him at all times, “a dangerous promise to make, Angel.”

“Head out of the clouds,” you warn and take your hand away from his face, “at least take me to dinner first.”

“Lunch wasn’t enough?” He laughs and begins leading you back in the direction of Windrise.

“Not for what you’re wanting, I’m sure.”

[fullybooked]

The Domain

Part Two Here

Title: The Domain Pairing: Tartaglia x Reader Word Count: 4.5k Warning: Swearing, blood, fighting, injury Summary: It was just a domain, one nobody ever went to anymore.

Your codename among The Fatui was “The Ghost” and anyone who knew of you knew that it was earned. You appeared only when sent, cleaned up missions that were quickly spiraling out of control, and were gone before anyone could question your appearance.

It was never even sure who sent you or how they decided where you needed to go. You would hand a letter to the mission leader, tie up loose ends the others neglected, and disappear. Mission leaders were never allowed to disclose any information.

So now you were only ever called “Ghost” by fatui members, and “Y/N” by the harbingers.

Unless it was your mother, who called you “dearest.”

La Signoria to everyone else, mom to you. The one who told you where to go and what to clean up. Who trained you to use just about every weapon you could get your hands on, and how to win without one, and who could smile at you like you were the sun itself. 

“Dearest,” she spoke that morning after finally spending a night in your own bed. Days of travel resulted in sleeping in, and she walked into your room to find you still asleep.

You woke up with a, “huh?”

Your mother hums, “I assume you got a good night's rest,” she says.

Groggy eyes look her over. She was dressed in her fatui garb, her mask in her hand so she could put it on when she left, and you were in your pajamas and not sure if you were actually awake yet. With a rub of your eye, you hum to agree with her.

“Good. You’ll need it for your next mission,” she says and you deflate a little bit at the mention, wanting to curl back up into bed to avoid leaving again, “meet me at the church before noon, ad please be awake when you get there.”

You nod, “yeah yeah, ma. I know. Awake,” you give a thumbs up, “you got it.”

Your mother hums but takes your word, “breakfast is going to get cold,” she shuts the door.

La Signora, your mom, liked to be the fearsome “crimson witch” that everyone called her. Oh, how that persona would crumble when it involved you, and you were aware of it. Even if you weren’t biologically hers, just a picked-up orphan from a burned-down village years ago, you knew how lucky you were to have her.

You could’ve been eaten by wolves that night. Instead, you slept in a bed much too big for one person and ate meals made by professional chefs. Not to mention you were feared among travelers and fatui alike with the skills she taught you to survive. You were a spoiled soldier.

The term came from the only harbinger that was very open about his opinion of you. None of them were your biggest fans, most thinking it was wrong for a harbinger to have a family, but none spoke what they thought about it. You could only tell from their looks and dislike of you being involved with their work.

Tartaglia, however, was never shy about hating you.

He called you “spoiled soldier,” “mommy’s little assassin,” “the fatui golden child,” among other things. He didn’t like that you lived a lavish life without having worked for it. Most of the time you tried not to humor him with a response, but sometimes he pushed your buttons a little too far.

Since the time you threw a spear at his head, barely missing when he dodged, your mother hadn’t allowed you to be in the same room as him. So you didn’t think he'd be anywhere near the church when you went later that day.

After picturing his orange hair and cocky grin, annoyance crept into your mood. You climbed out of bed, a frown on your face, and moved along with your day.

Weapons lined your room, every single one of them you were capable of using. Some you were better at than others, but you could use anything in a fight if necessary. While you were just going to a briefing about a mission, you didn’t dare travel unarmed. After getting dressed and examining your weapon, you grabbed (your favorite weapon) and left for breakfast.

★★★★★★

The church of Snezhnaya was lined with snow, as always. Even with your thick coat on, you shivered just the slightest. Cursing at yourself for getting used to the warmth of other nations, you didn’t hear the sounds of crunching snow behind you.

“Don’t worry,” you jumped when someone spoke behind you, “I’m sure mommy will burn the church down to keep you warm.”

You knew the voice before you saw the face, and you tried not to let yours contort in annoyance. Tartaglia. He was grinning, orange hair unimaginably bright against the snowing background. Like fire. His blue eyes were wide and mocking, unfazed by the cold around him like you were. You hated that he looked so attractive while being so annoying.

Mouth clamped shut, you turned to continue towards the doors of the church.

“Come to ask for an allowance?” He pushes, following you up “or were you cut off after throwing a spear at a harbinger?”

“You can hardly be called a harbinger,” you spit despite trying to be quiet, “more like an annoying little boy.”

“Ooh,” he says with a chuckle behind you as he follows, “I got to you quick today. Not sleep well? Was there a pea under your mattress?”

Would your mother really care if you punched him? Not stab or shoot, just punch. Maybe just loosen a few teeth. He got under your skin so easily because he knew how. Nobody else could manage to make you seethe like him.

You push open the doors of the church, and you immediately see that only two other people were already inside. Your mother, of course, and Pierro. Number one of the harbingers, who you didn’t do much dealing with. Any missions he had for you were directly passed to your mother to be relayed.

He intimidated you, honestly. And you tensed when he saw him.

“What? Need a warm drink? You don’t have a maid following you around 24/7 to tend to your every need?” Tartaglia continues to jab as he walks in behind you.

He falls silent when he also sees who’s inside. At least something is capable of shutting him up. 

When the doors fall shut behind you two, the two other harbingers turn away from their quiet conversation. Your mother, mask now on, can’t hide the slight softness of her face when she sees you. 

“Childe,” Pierro says, voice carrying across the empty chapel, “Y/N, come forward. We have  much to discuss and not much time in my day to discuss it.”

He was a busy man, but this had been his idea. He couldn’t spend a few extra minutes?

You were brave, but not brave enough to up against Pierro himself. You kept your mouth shut and walked forward silently. Your footsteps were hardly heard, unlike Tartaglia’s clunking ones beside you. You were as quiet as a ghost.

The two of you approached, backing off the bickering while in front of your leader. It took everything in you not to reach a foot out and trip him as payback for his comments. He put enough space between the two of you as if he knew that, or maybe he wanted to do the same thing ad was stopping himself that way.

“You two are going to Mondstadt,” Pierro says simply, “to be more specific, you’re going to an island just easy of Mondstadt.”

“What’s the occasion?” asks Tartaglia beside you, crossing his arms under his big coat.

“On the island, there’s a portal gate,” number one explains, “nobody knows what’s on the other side, or rather nobody wants to know. But we do. It could be resources or materials that we could use and gather before any of the other nations get to it.”

A gate? You’d never been through a portal gate before. There were remnants of old ones scattered around Tayvet, but nothing that actually worked anymore. No one knows where those ones had gone once, and it seemed no one knew where the working one went either. 

“You’re sending….both of us?” Asks Tartaglia, and you look out of the corner of your eye to see him raising an eyebrow at Pierro, “together? Why?”

“Are you complaining, Childe?” Pierro asks, annoyance evident in his voice.

“No…I don't think so,” his eyes flit over to you, “but why both of us?”

“You may not like to admit it,” your mother speaks for the first time since the meeting had begun without being announced, “but my child is just as good on the battlefield as you, Childe. You two may not like each other,” she gives you a pointed look, “but you’re both capable of handling whatever is on the other side of that gate, and twice as capable with both sets of skills.”

There’s a scoff from his side, “you want us to fight? Together? They tried to spear me in the head.”

It was your turn to talk. You couldn’t speak ou against Pierro or your mother but him you had no trouble arguing with her, “if I wanted to spear you,  would’ve speared you. I was trying to get you to stop talking.”

“You missed,” he snaps, “admit it.”

“I don’t miss, but I know you do with that bow.”

“Enough.” Pierro’s voice shuts both of you up, and you only glare at each other from the corners of your eyes, “this is an order, to both of you. It's a week mission. Get into the gate, take notes of what's inside, and don’t kill each other in the process. Is that clear?”

You bite your lip and say, “yes, sir.”

Tartaglia only turns on his heel and is halfway down the center aisle before saying, “sure, whatever.”

Turning your head, you watch him walk away. Arrogant and mocking, you wondered if you could put an arrow through his head and pass it off as a hilichurl that got him on the way to the island. And then you turn back to the other harbingers.

He could leave when he wanted. You had to be dismissed.

Pierro waves a hand as if he doesn't want to bother talking to you anymore.

“Come on, spoiled soldier.” Tartaglia calls from behind you, “let’s get this over with and fast. Can’t have you missing your next nail appointment.”

With an exasperated look at your mother, you turn to follow him toward your next mission.

★★★★★★

There was the gate. It looked ancient but new at the same time, with a black hole in its center. It seemed to be swallowing all sound on the little island it was located on. You couldn’t even hear the wind this car out, something Mondstadt was known for.

“I was expecting guards,” Tartaglia says beside you, “or any kind of security.”

He was right. You had been expecting that too. 

“Probably on the other side.” You offer, glancing around, “are there any other gates like this in Tayvet?”

“Not anywhere I’ve been,” Tartaglia reaches his arms up above his head, stretching out his arms to the air, “why does that matter?”

You scowl, “because every door has another side, dumbass.”

His arms drop and he walks towards the gate, “I’m guessing it’s some domain everyone forgot about. There’s too many to keep track of anymore.”

It was odd to see him outside of his winter coat and gloves. But, come to think of it, you’d never seen him outside of Snezhnaya. He was in nice clothes, probably custom tailored to fit him the way that it does. When he reached up too far, you could barely make out the skin of his abdomen. And even though you tried not to stare, your eyes always found it. Found him.

He turns to face you, arms motioning to the gate for you to go first.

You smirk but walk forward anyway, up the stone stairs, “Pussy.”

You were walking through the veil before you could hear any kind of response he would give. 

It felt like walking into a pool of fog. It was thick to breathe in and smelled like saltwater. Your limbs moved a little slower as you walked like the air was trying to drag you back out for your own protection. But you pushed through it, anyway.

If this was a domain like he thought, then you did these regularly. This would surely be no different.

Your next few steps were on stone, and you emerged in a much darker place than you came from. There was no sunlight, no warmth. It was cold but not cold enough to freeze you in a place like Snezhnaya. It felt like all the warmth in the air had been siphoned out. 

You were at the top of a staircase, and when you looked in front of you, in the distance, there was a room. It was…a domain.

Curse him for being right. You scowl, walking forward without thinking about where he might be behind you. As you walk, though, you look around the domain further. It looked like you were floating on a platform in the sky, majestic pillars surrounding you and floating no seemingly nothing as well. When you glanced down, you realized why.

You were on top of a tower. And it went on and on and on for as far as you could see, even disappearing into what you thought were clouds. A tower with no markings or noticeable marks that would tell you where in Tayvet you were. Surely everyone would know of a tower this high.

“Tartaglia!” You shout as you stop in the center of the staircase, “you should really come see this!”

You didn’t know if he could hear you through the gate behind you, but you were confident he would be through in a moment. You made a note to make fun of him for being so hesitant. But until you could, you went further down the stairs. A domain would mean new resources. And probably powerful ones if it was something extravagant.

Making it to the landing, where the room was done in a style you didn’t recognize from any of the nations you had been to, you started shouting up the stairs.

“Come on! I’m not gonna wait around for you to get the balls to come down here!”

With an eyeroll when you see nothing, you turn back to the room. There didn’t seem to be an activation switch like most other domains. You wondered what was taking him so long as you stood on the center stone. There was a door on the other side of the room, maybe it let to something more interesting to report.

When your feet came off of the stone, blue veils descended over both exits.

★★★★★★

Archons, how long had it been? Since you last slept? Ate? Saw another living thing that wasn’t trying to kill you?

This damn domain had taken the sense of time from you as well as the exit to the world you knew. And you know, for sure, that it was a domain. An ancient one. The first fight started off easy, with slimes and a few hilichurls, things you didn’t question finding their way into here. They’d surely stumbled off the path and slipped through the gate.

But after that first fight, the door back up the stairs wouldn’t open like other domains. There was no way back up, only the other door that led to a staircase that only went down. And there was no sign of Tartaglia at the entrance.

By now the entirety of your area had changed. The farther down you went, the more shattered the place looked. Rooms were falling apart, enemies almost knocking you through holes in the walls and down to your death. Enemies that were getting harder and harder to justify their appearance here.

Like now,  vishap materializing out of seemingly nothing was staring you down from across the latest room you had ventured into. With no way back, you had been walking down for what felt like days. Going through all your rations told you had been at least a week. At leat.

Was nobody coming from you? You wondered as you held you weapon as tightly as your tired hands could manage. Had nobody thought about your disappearance? You mom? Tartaglia?

That traitor! The only thing keeping you hopeful of an escape was the thought of what you would do to him when you got out. The weapons you’d chuck at his head, the things you’d scream. The coward had left you and gone home. The things you’d say to him, and to Pierro for sending you on this mission, to your mother for not sending after you.

“Come on, then!” You shout at the creature that was this floor's first challenge, “I don’t have time to stand here!”

You were covered in cuts and burns and bruises, and starving. Freezing. The further down you went, the colder it got. 

The vishap screeches its big mouth and takes off on all fours towards you. This was the second enemy to appear on this floor, which meant it was the second wave. You’d realized halfway through the fourth floor that there was a pattern. Three waves of enemies you had no idea where they came from or how they got here.

You were almost done with this floor, whichever it was. When it was dead, or you were, you could rest for a moment. 

You raised your sword, one of the only weapons that remained intact on your person, and knew you wouldn’t be able to break through its skin. It was covered in rock, and its underbelly was your best bet. 

With your arms heavy and starting to wonder if this would be your last fight, your mind sent out a last curse to Tartaglia for abandoning you here.

“What? Can’t handle this guy?” The voice was enough to catch you off guard for long enough for the vishap to get too close for comfort, “I thought we were at the same skill level?”

You didn’t have time to regain your attention on the fight. There was a blur of gray and red, the sound of rushing water. And the vishap was no longer in your direct line of sight. When you followed the motion, red hair went in and out of focus in your eyes. A hydro vision glowing.

You’d given up hope of ever seeing him again. And while you were disappointed for a moment, you were angrier than anything. Now he showed up?

“Don’t worry,” He laughs as he uses his sword, forced under the vishap’s throat when he was focused on you, to throw it onto its back. 

Your brain is too tired and on high alert at the same time to register that he was talking to you.

“I won’t hold this particular time against you.” He’s saying.

The sound of another voice is starting to make you think you were finally snapping. Nobody had come so far, not him or anyone else, why would not be any different? Did the vishap get you? Were you dead?

You watch him kill the vishap and wonder why the hell Tartaglia would be the angel to escort you to Celestia.

He pulls his sword from the vishap’s body, where’s stabbed its underbelly, and he turns to look at you. He looked as bright and cocky as the day you walked through that gate. And when he grinned at you, you knew you weren’t dead. Nothing, angel or not, could recreate his smile that exact.

“I leave you alone for five seconds,” he says, “and you get into this mess? How did you even find this thing?”

You don’t respond. Only stare, eyes blank and exhausted and arms shaking from the constant force they’d been using to keep you alive the past week and a half. His smile falters and he looks you over. 

“What happened?” He asks curiously.

You swallow, “wave three,” you answer and watch the center stone in the cracked and crumbling room light up.

“Huh?”

“Wave three is starting. Every floor. Three waves.”

“Floors?” He questions, and behind him you see it materializing out of nothing.

A ruin hunter. Garbling in its gibberish that no one alive could understand, its center eye glaring an angry orange down at you as it finished forming from nothing. You almost wanted to give up right there. Your bow had broken the last time you fought one of these, maybe three floors ago, and you had no other distance weapon. Only your sword, which is on its last leg.

Tartaglia turns, eyes wide as the thing whirrs and spins its propellers to come right at him, who’s directly in its vision path, “whoa,” he says, reaching behind him to grab the bow on his back, “where did you come from?”

If you were dead, then this fight meant nothing. And if you weren't? Then this one is his. You were tired, and you didn’t want to fight if you didn’t have to. You lower your weapon and stand there, watching.

His bow was useful, puncturing the center eye every time it was open. And the water infused in his arrows leaked into its circuits. You saw the thing spasming after a few direct hits, before falling to the ground.

You didn’t care who won. Stumbling over to the wall, you press your body against the crumbling stone. If it broke, and you fell, at least this hell would be over. But it didn’t, and you slid to sit on the ground with your weapon at your side. Heart hammering and head spinning, you don’t know how many more floors were left in you. So what if Tartaglia was here? You didn’t want to keep fighting an endless fight. He could.

There’s a thud, a brush of cold air making you shiver, and you hear the sound of his water weapons dissolving.

“Hey! Nice assist, Ghost!” He shouts in a mocking tone, his footsteps coming closer.

You didn’t look up at him as you chuckled. It was him. Whether or not that was good news or bad, you weren't sure yet. It just…was…for now.

“Hello? Talking to you, ya know.” He’s right next to you, and you can only stare at the veil that leads up that won’t lift. You always hoped it would.

“What are you doing here?” You ask, voice rough from lack of water, “feel bad about leaving me to die?”

“Leaving you?” He scoffs, “it was three seconds, don’t be dramatic. I thought you could’ve handled yourself for that long.”

Slowly, you turn your head to face him. Dried blood caked a lot of your skin, maybe he hadn’t noticed it until now. You hadn’t exactly had a second to sit and talk. His eyes went to the size of dinner plates and his cocky smile finally fell. The only expression you could manage was a sneer in return.

“Get the hell away from me, Childe.” 

You never used his code name. Only Tartaglia. Never even his real name, Ajax. So maybe he could sense how angry and exhausted you actually were. Slowly. He walks forward and closes the remaining space between you.

“What happened?” He asks, his hands reaching to grab your shoulders and turn you to face him, “all this blood? Is it yours?”

You try to jerk away, too weak to do much to fight him off. He’s turning your head from side to side, looking at your eyes to see if you were concussed. And you probably were by now. 

“Why the hell didn’t you just wait for me?!” He asks, blue eyes getting a little darker and a little more frantic, “you didn’t have to keep going down!”

You scowl and use a little more mustered strength to push at his chest. He hardly stumbles back, but his hands slip from your face.

“Because I would’ve been waiting for over a week!” you snap and lean back against the wall, your glares meeting each other, “I wasn’t gonna sit around and die waiting for you!”

“I wouldn’t have left you!” He snaps, reaching around his back, “I didn’t leave you!”

There was a possibility that this place wasn’t like the rest of Tayvet. Time could move differently. You knew it was a real possibility, but your mind was too fogged to try and deal with that. You open your mouth to tell him to leave you alone and go down the next staircase by himself when he shoves something into your hands. 

A flask of water.

“You look like shit,” he snaps and yanks the red scarf off of his neck, “all you had to do was wait for me and you would’ve been fine!”

“Well, I didn’t–” 

“And look what happened!” He snaps, “drink the damn water, Y/N!”

“Calm down! It’s not like it would affect you if I died beyond some paperwork!”

His eyes flared and he leaned forward just a little bit. Enough for your eyes to get dizzy watching him move too fast. You clutched the flask, wanting to down the entire thing right this second but too invested in the way his eyes seemed to darken.

“No, I won’t calm down because it would affect me!” He shouts.

Why? Because your mother would hate him? Because he would be forced to attend the funeral? He wouldn’t even notice your absence.

“You almost died, and I can’t lose you!” he shouts further, making your hands clench the flask a little bit harder. Any kind of retort or reply you had gets lost in your throat, or maybe it's the lack of water, “not you!”

The words echo around the dying chamber that seemed to swallow all life within it. You wondered, for a moment, if this was actually Tartaglia talking to you. If this was some trick from this place to make you fall into a false sense of security. And then you saw his head fall, eyes cast towards the ground.

“Please, Y/N, not you.” He ads so quietly that you wonder if he’s talking to himself or still to you. 

You aren’t sure how to reply, or if you even could. Tartaglia lifts his eyes again, this time focused on the flask. He motions to it.

“Just…drink,” he says, “I’ll try to find us a way out.”

“There’s isn’t one,” you whisper, defeated by this place, “I’ve been looking for days.”

He scowls and snatches the flask from your unmoving hand. You watch his movements and are shocked when he leans forward and forces the uncapped top to your lips. A stream of ice-cold water falls down your parched throat.

“Then I’ll protect you until we find one.”

[fullybooked]

No Call No Show

Title: No Call No Show Pairing: Eddie Munson x Reader Word Count: 4.6k Warnings: verbal fighting (from readers parents), mentions of murder, Summary: you were supposed to run away together, but now he's a wanted man.

You and Eddie had always been meant for each other.

Even before the two of you started dating, you had been a team. A duo against the fires of the world around you, holding hands to lead each other through the bursts of smoke thrown into your faces. When neither of you had anyone else, you had each other.

Eddie, with absent parents and an uncle who struggled to raise him on his own. And you, with parents too focused on arguing with each other to focus on their only child. 

A pair of broken souls who didn’t judge the cracks when they saw them, but admired them. Appreciated them.

And there was a lot to appreciate. The way his excitement overtook him when he talked about what he loved, the sparkle in his eye when he spotted a guitar in a shop window, the rings that he used as fidgets on his fingers because he couldn’t keep still for more than a few seconds. But something you would never fail to appreciate was the way he would drop everything for you.

One phone call was all it would ever take for him to drop a club meeting or leave in the middle of band practice. Reasons you would hesitate to call but he would tell you not to worry about it.

His exact wording was along the lines of, “my girl comes first, and that’s that. Doesn’t get more metal than prioritizing the right way.”

You stare at the phone that sat beside your bed, on the nightstand. Even when silent it seemed to be shouting at you. Shouting louder than the two adults beyond your bedroom door, who seemed to be in a competition of who could say the most hurtful things to each other.

Sometimes you hated them. And not a teenager angsty kind of hate that therapists tell you to work through. But the kind of hate that made you unable to look them in the eyes during breakfast. They hated each other, so much that they couldn’t even be civilized around each other. And neither of them seemed to care that what they said to each other could even affect you.

“I never should’ve married you!” Your mother screeches like a banshee.

The phone whispered at you to make a call. 

“I never should’ve bought the ring!” Your father bellows.

Just one call and you would be taken away from this. All of it would disappear behind you. He would make it better. But he could be busy. Hellfire Club meetings usually ran long. You didn’t ned to call him yet.

You pushed your head into your pillow, wondering if you could muffle the shouting by just trying to suffocate yourself with feathers.

“Thank god Y/N got nothing but their hair color from you!”

It had only been a matter of time before you were dragged into the topic of argument. You couldn’t even remember what this had started as, or why you pertained to it. You’d always stayed out of trouble, made no remarks, and tried to be a good kid. Maybe if you didn’t add to their problems then they would fight less.

All it had ever seemed to do was fan the flames.

“Well, they sure a hell aren’t like you!”

You break, shuffling yourself over to the edge of your bed. With only a reach of your hand, you grabbed the landline that was assigned to your bedroom. You only called one person, and his number was committed to memory. Hopefully he was home, otherwise, you were out of options and would have to suffer this alone.

Raising the receiver to your ear, you listen to the ring. Once. Twice. Three times.

Maybe he wouldn’t answer. He wasn’t obligated to bend his entire life around you, it was silly to think he would drop everything to answer your call.

You were about to hang up before he could fully ignore you when the ringing suddenly stopped. 

“Hello?” It’s him. His voice, a warm drink on a cold day, filled your head and drowned out the shouting almost immediately. 

“Hey, Eds,” you say, head falling onto the pillow, “I didn’t think you’d answer.”

He chuckles, and you can almost see him twisting his rings around his fingers as he stands in font of the phone.

“You’re the only one who calls this line,” he reminds her, “I’ll always answer you.”

The shouting, for just a moment, gets louder. And closer. They’re following each other down the hall and probably towards the bedroom. One of them would pack, whoever was in the wrong, and they would pretend to leave. Just to scare the other. But they would never make it through the front door and would be unpacking later that night. 

You wished one of them would just walk out and never come back. Everyone's life would be easier.

“What’s that?” Eddie asks.

There's no immediate response on your end, and that tells him enough.

“Doll…are they fighting again?”

You smile into the air at his concerned tone and roll so you’re laying on your back. The popcorn ceiling stares back, “just wanted to hear your voice,” you tell him, “they’ll stop in an hour, give or take.”

That didn’t make him feel better. It never did and he’d told you as much. You didn’t want to ask him to come over, it was selfish. And you didn’t want to ask him to come to get you for the same reasons.

But he knew that it was one of the only ways to comfort you. Holding you in his arms would ut both you and himself at ease. You didn’t know it, but his day hadn’t been among the best either. His club was losing a member in the middle of a campaign, and his band had just been denied another gig. Once he had gotten home, he wanted nothing more than to curl into a bed with you. You’d called an instant later, wanting the same.

“I’ll come get you,” he answers as if there was no other option and he didn’t want there to be.

“No, Eddie,” you cut him off instantly, “you don’t have to come to rescue me, I promise. Hearing you is enough to make me feel better.”

You can hear the keys jingling on the other end of the line. He ignored your statement entirely, “I’ll be there in like 10, okay? Usual spot. I love you.”

The line goes dead so you couldn’t argue. Maybe you should be upset at his defiance and disregard. Or maybe that would be overdramatic. Whatever your reaction should be, you could only begin to smile. A goofy and in–love grin that had your eyes squinting and a laugh slipping from your lips to echo through the bedroom.

The shouting beyond the door continued, your mind tuning it out to remind you that Eddie was coming to recuse you even though you didn’t want it. Your knight in a jean jacket.

★★★★★★★★

The usual spot was half a block over, just barely visible from your bedroom window. His van was easy to spot a mile away, with flickering headlights and the smell of gas always coming from its engine. He’d chosen to buy a van so his band could easily haul around its equipment when they got gigs, which hadn’t been for a while. Luckily, it was still useful in bringing you to him.

You grinned when you saw the flickering headlights, thankful that he hadn’t listened to you.

You slid open the window after turning off your bedroom lights, hoping your parent would think that you went to sleep early. If they even thought to check on you when they were done fighting.

Your hands were skilled in pulling you out in silence. Neither of you could count how many times you had snuck out your window for him at this point. Thankfully your house didn’t have a second story, otherwise, this would ten times harder. Not that it would stop you, nothing would come between you and your savior.

When your feet hit the grass of your yard, you gently slid the window shut behind you and took off as quickly as your feet could manage to carry you. You didn’t even have an overnight bag at this point in the relationship. Enough of your things were in the trailer, an extra toothbrush, even your own coffee mug. All you needed to bring was yourself.

Eddie’s favorite part about the arrangement.

You flung open the passenger's door and climbed into the awaiting seat. Eddie was already smiling at you when you looked up at him. The smile that could make anyone believe in true love.

You tried not to blush. After two years together, you’d think you’d be used to the flutters he gives your stomach. If anything, it only got worse.

“Hello, beautiful.” He leans over the center console, meeting your lips in a kiss that could melt your inside. Sometimes you wondered if he felt all of the same things you did when you were together.

Oh, he did. He felt them even when you weren’t together. When you were just a constant thought in the back of his mind.

You smiled against his lips, “you’re a saint, Eddie Munson.”

Eddie leans back into his own seat, the truck still rumbling with the engine on, and grips the gear shifter, “trust me, sweetheart. Not a saint to anyone but you.”

You wouldn’t argue with that. Everyone in town and at school had labeled Eddie as a “freak” as soon as he’d gotten to high school and they realized he wasn’t growing out of the things he liked. His shaggy hair, his patched jacket, his ripped jeans, his band. They were things that made him happy but other people thought were weird. 

But never you. You’d known him for too long, knew too much about him, to ever think he was a freak. He was just…Eddie. Your Eddie. 

“I’m thinking,” He says as he pushes the car forward with the gas pedal. His hand leaves the handle to reach over and rest on your thigh, gripping tightly and possessively, “pizza and a movie tonight? I’ll even settle for (pizza topping) just for you.”

He sends a teasing wink your way. He always said he hated that on pizzas but you loved it, and yet it was always on the pizzas he ordered. 

You smile, watching the house you always wanted to leave getting farther away in the distance. You knew you’d have to go back tomorrow, but you were free for the night. With Eddie, probably arguing over movies at the video store. The perfect way to spend your freedom.

“That’s the hottest thing you’ve ever said to me,” you tease back. A sudden laugh escapes him, one that crinkles his eyes.

“I’ve gotta step up my game if pizza toppings are the hottest thing I’ve said to you.”

You wrinkle your nose and lean your head back on the headrest, “trust me, you can’t top that if you tried.”

“I’m not one to shy away from a challenge, sweetheart.” 

★★★★★★★★

“The Breakfast club?” You ask with a smirk as you look at the movie cover that Eddie had pulled out for the night, “again? We watched that last week.”

Eddie grinned, “it’s good,” he argues and he’s already pulling the tape out of the case, “it’s gonna be considered a classic some day, I know it.”

“Eds, you think every movie is going to be a classic,” you joke, falling down to sit on his bed with a paper plate of pizza and a red cup of soda. You made yourself comfortable on your respective side of the bed, not actually going to argue with him about the movie.

You probably wouldn’t be paying attention anyway, your mind wasn’t fully in the trailer with the two of you. It was still wandering around your bedroom at home, hoping the fighting had died down and maybe one of them would finally say “we need a divorce.”

Maybe it was wishful thinking.

Would you and Eddie end up like them? Your heart nearly stopped at the thought. No. You wouldn’t let that happen. You two actually loved each other, unlike your parents. 

But they had at one point too. They were high school sweethearts, their prom pictures hung on the walls of your house. They even looked happy back then. They’d got married and had you and now…they were hardly even civil with each other when you were around. 

You looked at Eddie, who was putting on the movie while tapping his hands on his knees to some beat you couldn’t hear. Maybe a new song. 

“Eds…” you say. 

This had to be different between you and your parents. You two would talk to each other about what was bothering you. 

“Yeah, babe?” He didn’t look up from the screen, not hearing the slight shake of your voice.

“We won’t be like them, right?” You ask, looking down at the cup of fizzing liquid, “my parents.”

There wasn’t an immediate response, but you didn’t expect one. It was a sudden and loaded question that he probably wasn’t expecting. But you looked up at him, wondering if he was about to stutter out a response just to make you feel better. But he’s staring at you with wide eyes, almost like you’d asked him a horrible question he’d never thought of. 

He’d heard you cry about them before. Many times. Their constant fighting, dragging your name in like a missile they could launch at each other, not caring that you could hear them in your room. He hated the way they made you feel. Not them, per se. They were your parents, the ones who created a being as perfect as you. But he hated the fact that they were the cause of so many tears he had to wipe away.

Sometimes, he wondered if there was a way he could take the pain away from you for good. A way to make sure you were never sad again. It was all he really wanted for you to be happy. And while he made you as happy as he could when you were together, you would always have to go back to that house. To those two.

The two who were, currently, making you question your own relationship. 

“What?” is the first thing he says and then answers himself, “no, no. Of course, we won’t.”

He didn’t want the idea in your head for a second longer. But there was still an uneasy expression on your otherwise perfect face. He put down the remote to the TV that was still struggling to play the picture of the movie. But that was far from both his mind and your own.

You nodded your head, looking away from him as if ashamed to have asked, “I know. It’s just…they were in love too at one point.”

He could hear the thickness in your voice, and he rushed forward to try and stop the tears before they could fully form. His chest ached just seeing you like this. Again.

“Sweetheart, no. Don’t cry.” He wraps his arms around you, falling into the bed so he could pull you as close as possible, “it’s not gonna happen. Not with us, I won’t let it.”

His hands reached up for your face, cupping your cheeks and looking into your glassy eyes. You could see that his were upset too, though probably not for the same reason. He was always upset just seeing you cry, no matter the reason. His soft hands on your cheeks were already soothing the sting in your eyes, the way his thumbs brushed your skin.

He leans forward, forehead resting against yours.

“There is nothing that could make me stop loving you,” he reassures you, “not a damn thing, sweetheart. I promise you that.”

You nod your head, feeling the tears start to drawback, and your hands reach up to hold Eddie’s wrists.

The two of you sit there for a moment longer, just basking in each other's presence and touch. The movie was flickering in the background, the main menu going in and out of fuzzy focus. Neither of you noticed, though. You probably wouldn’t even get around to watching it anymore.

Eddie opens his mouth, “Y/N…,” he speaks your name.

You knew it was serious then. When he didn’t use one of his many nicknames for you. Y/N was reserved for serious topics. You tilted your head up slightly to look at him directly.

“Yeah, Eds?” You ask, voice still stuffy and uneven.

He pulls his head away, only slightly. So that way you could see each other head on. His hands still remain on your cheeks, thumbs brushing your skin.

You gave him a moment as he seemed to be working up the courage to say whatever it is he needed to say. It was only a few seconds before he opened his mouth again, finally choosing to say it out loud. The thought he’d had in the back of his head since you started dating.

“We should leave,” he says, and upon seeing your confusion, quickly ads on, “I mean town. We should get out of town. Together.”

Was he suggesting…running away together? Your eyes widen for a moment, registering the suggestion. 

“You can shoot me down,” he hurries out, “it’s just…I don’t really have any other reason to hang around Hawkins besides you, Wayne probably wouldn't even notice for a month. And I hate seeing you go back to that house and then leaving so upset–”

He was rambling. He did that when he was nervous. An adorable way to fill the awkward silence while you thought.

Leaving Hawkins. With Eddie.

Where would you go? Did he even know? Did you even care? Sure, your parents might be worried if they didn’t see you come home for a few days. But would they put in the effort to find you?

You and Eddie against the world in his van. The way it had been for years, but in different places. The idea was appealing. 

He’s still rambling, “and you should really say something before I start to think I scared you off. It was just a suggestion, I’ll stay where you are.”

You smiled, nodding your head between his hands, “Okay.”

Silence on his end. “O…kay?”

“Okay. Let’s run away together.”

The worry and doubt leave his mind at your suggestion. You were accepting his stupid idea? A grin was breaking out across his face as he leans forward to press a kiss onto your lips. It was fast and exciting and messy, but it was with Eddie. That made it perfect.

“Don’t call it that,” he mutters in between kisses, “it sounded cliche and romantic.”

“It is a cliche. And romantic. I think it’s the hottest thing you’ve ever said to me.”

He laughs, hands moving from your face so he could twist his arms around your waist. You laugh as he squeezes and pulls you up off the bed so he can swing you around. The laughter you let out was loud and probably woke up the whole trailer park, but neither of you cared. Eddie certainly didn’t, he kept swinging you and kissing your face.

“Told you I could step up my game,” he teases and then slowly allows your feet to set on the old carpet of the bedroom, “I’ll pick you up tomorrow night, deal? Got a deal to make, then we have the cash to get us wherever the hell you wanna go.”

Your heart was hammering at the idea. Tomorrow night, at this time, you’d be in the front seat of the van and hopefully across the Indiana border to wherever the hell you wanted. With Eddie.

Your hands tangle into his wavy hair, pulling him into the hardest kiss you could manage. A new life was just 24 hours away

★★★★★★★★

You had never been through a longer day of school than the next day. You were practically vibrating in every classroom seat you had to sit in, foot tapping the ground and doodling pictures along your notebooks of sunsets and cities you would visit with Eddie.

Your friends would ask what had you so excited at lunch, to which Eddie would smile at you from the chair beside you, and put a hand on your thigh because he was just as excited.

“You haven’t stopped smiling since you sat down,” Dustin says, “did Eddie finally propose?”

The freshmen were your guys’ biggest fans. Dustin, Mike, and Lucas. Your older friends were over it, having been around you since you started flirting. But the younger kids treated you like their older siblings. Maybe you would write them letters from your travels. They would probably love the idea of you guys running away together.

“Just having a good day,” you say, Eddie’s thumbs rubbing your thigh over your jeans, “you guys should try it, sometime.”

Eddie and you treated it like any other day. He waited for you after school in the parking lot, music blaring from the speakers, and kissed you like he couldn’t breathe when you got in. He drove you home, like every other day, and didn’t walk you to the door because your mother was ever happy with his presence. As if he was happy with hers.

The van pulled up in front of the house noisily, sputtering and spitting exhaust fumes into the air. 

“I’ll pick you up at nine,” he says, a grin on his face as he kissed you what seemed like goodbye. It was all teeth and smiles, “got a place in mind yet? We have the world.”

You hadn’t stopped thinking about it since last night. Did you want to see the city? The country? Should you go to all the stereotypical road trip locations like the grand canyon? Maybe Niagra falls or the Redwood Forrest.

“I have a few ideas,” you say and then open up the passenger's door, “I’ll see you tonight. I love you.”

The van screeches off as he shouts from the windows, “I LOVE YOU!”

Like every day. So the whole neighborhood would know it and spread that word that he, Eddie Munson, loved you, Y/N Y/L/N. 

There wasn’t a pit in your stomach when you approached the door to the house. This was the last time you would have to hear them fighting, or see them trying to pretend that they loved each other when you were around. 

“Welcome back, dear,” your mother says when you walk in. Normally, you would mutter back a hello and hurry to your room.

But today, you figured you would humor her conversation, “Hi, mom! Have a good day?”

She looked up from the sink, where she stood cleaning the dishes that survived their last fight. A few plates had been lost before, and you were always prepared to lose a few more if it got worse. Not for much longer, though. Your savior, Eddie, was going to take you away.

“I did,” she says, confused by your sudden interest in talking, “and you? How did your English test go?”

“Won’t know until next week,” you say and then walk around the counter, “I’m going to take a shower before dinner!”

“Okay…” she says, watching you walk towards your room to grab the clothes you would wear to leave. So what if she was suspicious? Chances are she didn’t even know you had gone to Eddie’s the night before, she probably hadn’t even noticed half of your belongings migrating over there. Your father surely hadn’t.

Your shampoo and conditioner remained in your house, though. Most shower things did because there wasn’t room for them at Eddie’s. On the occasion that you did use their shower, you just used Eddie’s things and he never seemed to mind. Plus, you liked to smell his shampoo on you. 

You wonder what the deal was that Eddie had to make tonight. You were aware of his little job. And while you didn’t approve, it had never come with many consequences. He hadn’t been caught, or sold to anyone that you personally knew. He mostly dealt with people in bars and at their gigs, and he never let you be around when it happened.

So you didn’t worry about it. They had never gone wrong before that you knew of, why would this one be any different?

You showed quick so you could give yourself time to pack, and got out leaving enough hot water for when your dad got back from work. He would bitch about having to take a cold shower if he had nothing else to complain about.

You walked out, steam following you. It came off your skin when the cold air hit the hot water droplets that were still on you. 

Halfway to your room, you hear “Y/N!” 

Your mother never called you before dinner. She knew it was useless to try and get you out of your room unless food was involved. You stopped walking and looked over your shoulder, wondering if you had actually heard her. Water was collecting from your dripping hair in a puddle underneath you.

“Y/N!” She calls again, this time louder.

“What?!” your eyebrows furrow.

“Get in here! Right now!” You jump at her volume. It was unusually urgent.

“One second!” You turn back towards your door, “I have to get dressed!”

“NOW!”

With a groan, you turn round. Wrapped only in a towel and unbrushed hair, you march towards the living room. You had a lot to pack and think about before dinner and pretending like it was a normal day. And you didn’t want to parade around the house in only a towel unless Eddie was around.

Your mother is standing in the living room, dead center of the room, staring at the blaring TV. Hawkins news was on, the camera blurry and moving too much for you to see it properly.

“What?” You ask in annoyance.

She only points at the TV, “isn’t that where your friend Eddie lives?”

“He’s my boyfriend, mom.” With a roll of your eyes and tightening of your grip on the towel, you look at the TV that had her so enamored. She never seemed to want to admit that you and Eddie were together. 

The camera was steadying on an image. A sight you were very familiar with when the van always pulled into the trailer park.

Eddie’s trailer was surrounded by cop cars, the door busted open, and caution tape around the small piece of property. Your heart stopped as the woman on the TV started jabbering news that didn’t make any sense to you.

She speaks with an expressionless face, “we’ve been informed of the owner of the trailer where the body was found, and the name of the victim.”

Silence and sirens blaring as you walked closer to the TV, eyes getting wider as you tried to understand what was going on.

“The victim’s name,” oh god. Eddie. Don’t say, Eddie, “Christina Cunningham, a student at Hawkins High.”

Millions of questions were flying through your mind. Cheer Team captain Crissy was at Eddie’s trailer? Where was Eddie? And Wayne?

“The police say their number one suspect in her gruesome murder fled the scene of the crime and into the woods from eyewitness reports. Edward Munson is to be considered armed and dangerous by all of Hawkins until the police can apprehend him.”

Your breath hitched in your throat as your mom put her hand on your bare shoulder. 

Eddie didn’t show up that night to run away with you.

[fullybooked]

A Promise

Title: A Promise Pairing: Diluc Rangvindir x Reader Word Count: 3.4k Warnings: injury, blood mention, brief fighting scene Summary: "Who did this to you?" trope

You were not, by any standards, defenseless. Quite the opposite, actually, and all of Mondstadt knew it. You hadn’t climbed the ranks of the guild so easily for no reason. Your skills with your (weapon of choice) were to be feared, not admired. 

And yet here was Diluc, watching you from across the room as you read a book peacefully while twisting your dagger in your palm, wondering if his line of work would ever come to haunt him. A morbid thought that he always tried to avoid. He was careful in the night, making sure he was never followed home for fear of an enemy spotting you through the windows. His one weakness.

“You’re staring,” you say in a sing-song voice, looking up from the book you were invested in. You close it in your lap, “you only stare when something is bothering you.”

Diluc snaps out of his nerve-wracking trance, “maybe I’m just admiring.”

The mindless flirt made you smirk, “you can admire up close, then.”

You push yourself up from the chair and take the few long strides required to get yourself in front of him. His eyes follow the entire time, a hand outstretching when he notices your path, welcoming you against his warm chest with a palm on your lower back. 

His red eyes. The way they stared at you, looked at you so softly. He seemed to always think you were delicate like a dandelion, waiting to break apart at a harsh wind. And no matter how many times you proved it wasn’t true, he still continued to look at you so softly. If anyone else looked at you like that, you’d threaten to make them into a skewer.

“What’s on your mind?” You ask, hands placed on his chest. He was always so unnaturally warm with his vision. But on cold mornings, like this one, you appreciated it. You tucked your fingers under the opening of his jacket.

Diluc sighs, defeated and admitting to you exactly what he was talking about, “be careful when you travel alone.”

The topic came up at least a million times in the span of a week, “this again? You know I’m careful.”

“Yes, but it puts me at ease to hear you say it.”

“Every day?”

“Twice if I could speak to you alone that often. I’d honestly prefer if you didn’t leave alone at all.” His usual argument fell on deaf ears and he knew it.

He’d been tryin to talk you into at least letting someone go with you on your commissions. Preferably someone he knew and trusted with your safety, but he would settle for anyone just to watch your back whe he couldn’t. He’d even entertained the idea of going with you himself but his hectic schedule never allowed it. 

You raise an eyebrow, “and would you consider letting someone go with you on your night patrols?”

The smirk that graced his features was answer enough for both of you. Both of you had no problem working alone, preferred it even, unless it was working with each other. Maybe that’s what made you so perfect for one another; being alone together was sometimes the best way to spend days off. 

“Point taken,” he sighs, his other hand sliding onto your waist so he could hold you asclose as he could, “be careful, that’s all I can ask.”

Your smile is he reason he fell in love with you in the first place, the one you given him right now, “you worry to much. Besides, I’m around the city all day today, easy stuff.”

You lean up on your toes, he was always just the slightest bit taller than you with his shoes on, and place your lips gently his. A kiss that was a promise to each other without saying it out loud for others to hear; come back to each other, at all costs. And even when he deepened it, begging you silentnly to keep that promise even closer than usual, you couldn’t stop yourself from bringing your hands up to sneak them around his shoulders.

You could’ve kissed him forever, archons knew you wanted to. And the way he ignored he sun peaking through the windows, his alarm to get started with his day, he didn’t want to be the one to pull away.

“You’re going to be late,” you inform him, barley parting your lips to get the words out, “Adeline is going to get up her any second to get you.”

The footsteps heard beyond the door, the squeak steps the maids couldn’t seem to fix, is exactly who you said it would be. With anther chaste kiss from him, ther’s a knock on the door.

“Master Diluc, are you awake?” Adeline asks from the other side of the door. You chuckle, yet another thing you were right about. But your boyfriend groans and finally does the honor of pulling away from you.

★★★★★★★★

You hadn’t bee lying when you’d told Diluc that it would be “easy stuff.” It was supposed to be, even Cyrus had said it was going to be an unusually light week. With that traveler going around and clearing up all of the bigger messes, it was going to be a while before anyone got anything too complicated anymore.

So why was this Abyss Made standing in the center of the hilichurl camp?

You stood a safe distance away, eyeing the small area in confusion and out of their sight. It was hopping around he fire in the center of camp, speaking in a language that nobody alive could understand. It looked right at home, like it belonged there. But it didn’t.

The Abyss didn’t work with hilichurls, or they didn’t normally. But the hilichurls walked around it like it was a guest.

You’d dealt with the mages before, usually with Diluc when they krept too close to the city during the day. But even as a team they were a more dangerous enemy than you were used to. And your Anemo vision wasn’t the best option for going agains a Pyro mage.

For just a second, you feel yourself hesitate on this commission. Maybe you were better off giving this to someone more capable? Someone with a hydro vision, probably. Or there was always the option to ask Diluc for an assist… What were you thinking?! You were Y/N! You didn’t need help! And Diluc would drop everything to come and help you, even the more important things. So what if this was a difficult fight, it would just make you stronger in the end when you got it over with.

“I’ve got this,” you whisper to yourself as an assurance, despite the bubble of doubt in the back of your mind, “last commission, then I can go home.”

You gripped your (Weaponn) tightly, reminding yourself to grip it properly before a difficult battle, and you trudgd towards the camp and towards the mage.

“Hey Fuzzball!” You shout, getting the attention of every hilichurl in the camp ahead of you. Even the mage, who looked away from the fire and towards you with empty eyes and a sickening laugh.

The hilichurls yelped, lifting ther weapons and running with no sense in their heads. They would be easy to take out, and you were right, but the mage was around. If lifted itself off the ground, a fire bubble forming around it as a shield.

“I forgot about that trick,” you mutter and start in a run towards the small group of hilichurls you would deal with first. 

You raised your weapon, ready to hack down th first wooden club that tried to hit you. The hilichurl was a foot away, perfect striking distance. The mage was still hanging to the back, and you wonder if maybe this would be easier han you had thought.

Something appears between you an the hilichurl, cutting off your path and catching you off guard. It was a…fireball?! 

Coming too fast for you to dodge it immediately. By the time you can register what it is, and that you need to get out of its way, your arm is already burning every nerve ending it has. You dive to the side, hoping that only your arm would be what’s hit.

And there you sit, on the grass, weapon clutched in an injured hand. This was definitely going to be a fight you would be lucky to get out of.

★★★★★★★★

Diluc walked into the winery, pulling his gloves off as soon as he shut the door behind him. A sigh left his lips, exhausted from the endless meetings and contract drawings that he had been attending. Merchants were slippery people, always trying to give him the short end of the deal.

“Master Diluc!” It’s Adeline, standing in the middle of the hall as proper as she had always been, “I’m happy to see you’ve arrived in one piece. I’m afraid I don’t have any good news to give you.”

He lifted his eyes, brow furrowed. Adeline never had news in general to give him when he arrived home. Maybe a question about his dinner preferences, to which he always said to ask you instead, but never good or bad news. 

“News?” He asks, arms sliding off his black jacket to hang it on the rack by the door, “what news, then?”

“It’s Y/N,” the headmaid said carefully, probably knowing what his initial reaction would be.

His head shock up, eyes widening. The way she said it didn’t scream anything happy or good. And his stomach was already dropping when he pushed for further information.

“What about them?” He asks immediately, taking a few fearful steps forward in case he had to run to your rescue.

The Abyss, did they know he was the Dark Knight? Did they know they only had to get you to get to him? Or did you take some ungodly commission that landed you injured or even dead? Adeline’s unchanging exression didn’t give him any clues, and it felt like forever before she finished her news.

“They’re in the master bath,” she says and uses a hand to motion to the stairs that would lead to both your shared bedroom and shared bathroom, “I advise you go to them immediately, I was given strict instructions not to tell you.”

Okay, you were alive. That was the best thing he’d heard all day. You were alive, but what had happened? What had she been ordered not to tell, and who ordered it? Were you hurt? Archons if you were hurt….his blood boiled in his veins as he thought of that possibility. 

His feet couldn’t move fast enough up the stairs as he shouted, “Y/N!”

He flung the door open to the masterbathroom, no knocking for privacy. He just needed to see you.

And there you were, standing in front of the sink, a bandage gripped between your teeth as you struggled to wrap it around your own arm. You jumped when he burst through the door, eyes wide and dropping the bandage.

You were covered in dirt and grime and…blood. It was the first thing he noticed. He couldn’t tell bruise from dirt on a glance, he just knew that the blood was definately your own.

“Diluc?!” You say in shock, “what are you doing home so early?”

You had, indeed, come out of the battle with the mage alive. Burned and scared and cut by crude spears, but you’d done it. Just as you knew you could. You’d come back alive, as you always promised each other. But it seems that wasn’t enough for your distressed partner.

He stood, frozen in the doorway of the bathroom, hands holding the door open. His red eyes were scanning all over your body, stoping on every visible mark. Every injury that was, without a doubt, causing you pain. He could tell in the way your jaw was clenched, and the way your hands trembled every so slightly as they held the antiseptic alcohol and bandages. 

When he didn’t respond to you, you wondered if he was somehow malfunctioning. Normally he would be livid, accusing everyone involved in the matter of not protecting you. Was he perhaps…calmer than usual?

His eyes began to darken, his jaw setting, and his hands clenched on the golden doorknob he was still holding. No. He wasn’t calm. He was angry, pissed even.

“Who did this to you?” He asks next.

You sigh, knowing this was coming, “it’s nothing, Diluc, I’m fine.”

“You’re not fine,” he lets go of the door, and you expect his grip on you to be a little more rough than normal given his emotional state.

But his fingers were soft, hesitating to touch your burned skin directly for fear of his unnaturally warm body temperature making it worse. The other hand reaches for your chin, holding it so sofly you wonder if he would stop you from resisting his turn to face him. And even though his expression was one that could stop a mage in its tracks, you didn’t turn away. You knew it was a look of anger on your behalf, not against you.

“Who. Did. This?”

There was no point in arguing against telling him who it was. That was an argument you would lose every time.

With heavy shoulders and a look of defeat, you frown, “there was an Abyss Mage at the hilichurl camp I cleared out. Pyro, if you couldn’t tell.”

It was meant to lighten the mood, to make him more at ease because you were fine. But his grip tightened ever so slightly on your chin at the confession. He hated those things enough already, always griping about how they were nothing but a nuisance to his life and city. He had it out for them enough without this adding on top of his pile of resentment. Now he would never stop hunting them down every chance he got.

“Is it dead?” He asks.

No. It wasn’t. You finished off everything in the camp except for it.

“Yes.” You lie, not wanting him to go running off into the night to hunt it down. 

But he knows you too well. He knows the way your eyes flit away from his to say it, the way you lean into his touch just the slightest bit more. Those were the tells.

Diluc raises an eyebrow, that you don’t see. “Y/N.”

The way he spoke your name. You knew now wasn’t the time to dance around the topic because of it.

So you huff, “no.”

He lets you go, finger tips lingering on your skin, and turns around. For a moment you wonder if you’ve upset him by lying. Surely he wouldn’t leave you in this state, even if that was what you had originally wanted. He’d seen you now, would he still leave?

“Adeline,” he speaks to the maid who had been aptiently waiting in the open doorway, “take care of them until I return.”

“Diluc.” You call out as he starts to walk out of the bathroom, “please don’t. It’s probably long gone by now, this isn’t worth it.”

He doesn’t look over his shoulder, “it hurt you. I’ll hunt it to the ends of the Teyvat.”

You wondered why he wouldn’t look at you as you follow him out onto the hall. You watched him march down the stairs, fists clenched and grabbing his jacket and claymore from where he had put them moments ago. He could never walk away from a fight, even if someone begged him. And you tried so many times to beg him. Just like you would try now.

“Please…Diluc.” You say, voice quiet and almost a whisper to him.

He stopped at the top of the stairs, the sound of your voice rough from smoke inhalation making his steps falter.

“Later, you can get it later. Please don’t leave me like this.” You begged, hoping your voice got across how desperate you were for him. For his presence and affection. Even if he left you in the capable hands of Adeline, you wanted him. His touch and scent and voice. You always wanted him to be the one to take care of you when you were hurt.

You opened your mouth to tell him that you didn’t want him to, that he could let it go just this once. But he had his hands on his claymore by the door and was storming out on a rampage to find who did this to you.

★★★★★★★★

Sleep wasn’t going to come easy and you knew it. Diluc had gone out on Dark Knight patrol almost every night, but this was different. He didn’t have his sense right this time, and that was a recipe for disaster. He could lose his head in a fight and get seriously hurt.

So you were curled up at the table that sat in the center of the winery, draped in his jacket that he’d foolishly left behind in his hurry to get out of there. Your eyes were on the table, tracing designs on the wood as you waited.

Adeline had patched you up like a pro and had given you a pain potion, but it did little ease your anxiety about Diluc’s wellbeing. The maid had gone to bed, leaving you to wait for his return.

The moon was high when the door opened, and your foggy brain seemed to clear almost instantly when you perked up.

His claymore was gripped in his hand, though loosely this time. His anger had subsided, so that must mean he had gotten it. The mage. Or at least a mage. 

Of course he did. You didn’t doubt that he would find it and kill it, you were just concered over his well being. And he was fine.

You stood up, legs arcing as the bandages rub against the burned skin. You ignored it, rushing towards the door. His head lifts when he hearts the approach, probabl assuming everyone was asleep by now.

With your arms thrown around his shoulders, you collapse against him. He drops the heavy sword and catches your waist, hands as gentle as ever in their touch. Even with rough fingertips from years of training, he always touched you like glass.

“You should be resting,” he mutters, pressing his face into your hair and wrapping his arms around you now, “you’re hurt.”

You press your face into his shoulder, “you think I could sleep? You ran off.”

There’s silence. You were right. He had run off, leaving you in the care of someone else when you begged him to stay. Guilt filled the gap in his chest where anger had once settled, outshined only by his love for you. His arms tightened, holding you closer and almost lifting your feet off of the ground.

“You’re okay,” he says, as if it was just dawning on him, “you’re okay. I’m sorry.”

“I’ll forgive you…” you say and slowly pull away from him so you can look into his eyes, which werelined red from the holding back of tears he was doing, “if you promise me you’ll always come back.”

The first time their promise had been spoken out loud by either. After years of silently kissing and hoping that the point was gotten across, you needed to hear it out loud. You needed to know that he would always come back to you just as much as he needed to hear it from you.

“I promise,” he says just as quietly as you had, afraid someone would hear and steal that promise from you two, “can you promise the same?”

You nod, “yes, I promise.”

You kiss him, quickly passioantely to seal the deal. Only then do you both relax, the events fom the long day settling into your bones. Both of you were exhausted and wanted to curl into each other and bask in the fact that you were both alive.

“Diluc,” you mutter against his lips, “you’re gonna have to carry me upstairs.”

He laughs, the sound echoing around the empty bottom floor of the winery. A sound that was alien to anyone outside of this building, and one forgotten by many others. But it was a sound only you had committed to memory anymore.

He leans down to scoop up your legs, and carry you off to bed with him.