Thinking about spnAU!Dean Winchester being reader's bf who wants her literally all the time, no matter where!
Warnings: unprotected sex (wrap it up), car sex, quickie, semi-public, penetrative sex, creampies<3 BOTTOM DEAN!
(wc: ≈ 1.4k) (genre: smut)
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| It could be everywhere; after a long day in a motel room, during a hunt in an abandoned house, or at a gas station in some disgusting bathroom.
Today was one of those days again. Dean found himself worked up after a—way too long—drive across the country. Not only haven’t they reached the motel where they were supposed to stay at, but the weather was absolutely unbearable too. Mid July, the hottest of all the months.
Sam was complaining. You were complaining. Dean was already in a grumpy mood to begin with! He refused wearing shorts since he insisted they weren’t manly enough and the Impala he loved so much didn’t really have any sort of AC.
With the windows down and his dad-rock playing from the cassettes he kept in the glovebox, you three eventually did reach some lonely-looking diner. It wasn’t exactly luxury, but hunting didn’t come with a paycheck. In other words; you were too broke for any fancy restaurants.
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"Sam, you go and check what’s on the menu— Get me extra fries while you’re at it." Dean called over his shoulder to his brother.
Sam glanced between the two of you from the front seat, catching the shift in Dean's mood.
"I’m just gonna… go order food before I see something I don't wanna see.." He mumbled, as he slammed the car door shut.
"Take your time, Sammy! No need to hurry—" Dean shouted after him, looking way too smug.
As soon as Sam was gone, Dean turned to his girlfriend; you.
Currently, you were sitting in the backseat, trying to get your shoes back on, in order to get out of the car and stretch your limbs. Maybe get some ice cream yourself.
"What're you doin', babe?" Dean's voice was raspy, a twinge of that boyish tone still shining through, despite his best efforts to sound composed.
"What does it look like, De? I'm starving—" You'd complain. He expected nothing less.
"You really wanna go in there with Sammy? C'mon, can’t the food wait? For a moment? Don’t you wanna spend time with your boyfriend?"
"Dean, what—" You'd look up from your shoe laces, only to meet his green eyes, his sickly long lashes, looking at you like he’s starving too. Just.. not for food.
"Baby, please— Sammy’s gone. He’ll be gone for at least twenty minutes. I've been.. I couldn’t stop thinking about you today. Don’t be cruel.." He pleaded. Actually. His voice turned much whinier than before, still slightly cocky nonetheless.
"Seriously?! We fucked last night—" You were cut off by his frame already climbing into the backseat, already pressed against you.
"C'mon, please.. Whatever you want. Let me taste you— Or.. use your mouth on me. Your hands. Ride me, I don’t care—" The way he said it made you feel pretty sure he was about to cry if you didn’t give in.
"You’re such a loser, Dean, like.. you’re worse than a teenager!" You’d laugh, while simultaneously climbing on top of his lap, your arms lazily wrapped around his neck, before you press your lips against his plush ones.
The kiss quickly turned into a makeout session, his tongue swiping along your bottom lip, claiming it’s way into your month, just to intertwine with yours. It was a moment full of tongue and teeth, his hands roaming all over your body, already pulling your tank top over your head, leaving your in your bra.
When he unclasped it single-handedly, his lips were still glued to yours. You could feel the sliver ring he wore, cold metal against your searing skin, leaving goosebumps in it's wake.
You were forced to be the one breaking away from the kiss, since Dean was ready to asphyxiate on your lips and die a happy man. You could tell by his panting, his parted, wet lips, as you looked over his flushed, freckled face.
At this point, neither of you really cared about the people that may walk by and catch a glimpse of the heated moment anymore. The diner's parking lot was pretty much empty anyway.
"Please, baby.. don’t make me wait. I can’t—" He begged. His eyes looking up at you, as you smile to yourself and trail your hands down his chest.
"Patience, De.." You'd scold, although his hands were already palming at your tits, squishing the soft flesh, and trying to drink in the sight. His cock was already hard and leaking in his pants, pleading to be noticed.
His shirt was lost soon enough too. Leaving his amulet to dangle across his freckled muscles. It was a delicious sight, made you almost forget that Sam would be back in ten minutes. That said, you quickly lost your shorts as well.
With this new determination to finish before you got caught, you undid his belt, unzipped his jeans, pulling the fabric down to his meaty thighs, revealing his ratty, grey boxers.
"Can’t wait— wanna taste.. wanna look at you all day.. every day—" Dean had to stop himself from drooling over you, when you finally pulled his precum-stained boxers down and freed his aching cock.
The tip was already flushed in a deep shade of pink, clear pre running down the veins along his shaft, soaking his dark blonde pubes.
Usually, you’d give him a blowjob first, but honestly? You weren’t sure if he could handle that right now, given that he almost came untouched.
You moved your lace panties aside, revealing your already glistening cunt, as your grabbed a hold of his cock, sliding him along your slit to gather the mixed lube of both of your arousal.
Once you finally slid down his length, his eyes fluttered shut and his head tipped back, sweat already beading at his short dirty blonde spikes of hair. His mouth fell slightly open, breathy moans leaving his throat immediately.
"Oh— fuck, Dean.. It’s big—" You should be used to it by now.. but every now and then, you still need a moment to get used to his size.
"You got it, baby— It’s okay. It’s fine— Just move. C'mon.." He urged you on, his hands squeezing and pulling at the flesh of your hips.
Dean was entirely blinded by the pleasure of your warm walls around him, dismissing the fact that you might have needed some time to adjust, because he was just that desperate.
When you did begin riding his cock with a steady rhythm, his face buried against your shoulder, his forehead tipping onto your collarbones, as his arms hugged tightly around your body.
The lewd sounds of skin on skin and the slick between your bodies now started to combine with Dean's whines. He was no longer moaning, no, his sounds bordered on whimpers.
"Baby— I'm not gonna last— I can’t.. feels too good—" He forced those words out, while his body was unconsciously trying to merge with you, his face now smooshed against your chest. His mouth was left slightly agape, his eyes squeezed shut, and his eyebrows furrowed.
He clumsily tried to slide one of his hands down towards your clit, giving it uncoordinated circles. Though, he missed the spot with his thumb about five times, before he gave up and just wrapped both his arms around you.
"Come, De— Fuck, just— come inside." You'd moan, as your hands were clawing at his chiseled shoulders and the back of his head. Fingers tugging at hair that was too short to really pull at.
The scratching of your fingertips against his scalp and the warm, wet pleasure of your walls tightening and pulsing around his swollen cock eventually overwhelmed him, pushing him to a mind-blowing orgasm, that had him moaning and whining high pitched gasps against your damp skin.
His cock pulsed thick hot ropes of cum inside you, leaving your cunt so full, it caused the sticky mess to drip down against his own lap, soaking his thighs.
"Oh— shit, that was—" He breathed out, trying to regain his consciousness, even though he was still seeing stars from the orgasm.
Then it washed over him like cold sweat; Sammy was about to come back! His eyes shot wide, as he looked at you.
"Fuck, baby. You gotta clean up. You’re dripping—"
"Yeah, and whose fault is that, smartass?" You laughed, before quickly pulling both your panties and your shorts back up, not minding the literal cum that was leaking out of you.
"Can’t blame a man for wanting his girl, baby.." There was that cocky attitude seeping back into his tone, as if he hadn’t just whimpered and pleaded for you.
With surprising efficiency, he was dressed again, climbing back behind the wheel, as he made sure to open the doors to his beloved car, wanting to get rid of the smell of sex before his brother suspected anything.
As for the dubious stains on the leather seats; he just threw his jacket over them, hoping he wouldn’t forget to clean the car tomorrow.
You were in the bathroom of the diner, trying to freshen up, as Sammy finally came back with the food. Greasy fries and burgers.
Weirdly enough, Dean was flushed, trying to look unbothered, as his brother got back into the car.
"Dean, you okay? Where’s reader?" Sam asked innocently, frowning in confusion.
"Yeah— sure. Just fine. She’s— she said she had to freshen up. Heat must be getting to her."
Dean was such a liar. His dick was still twitching in his boxers from his earlier high.
ᥫ᭡ writers note: I'm literally so sorry for disappearing for like a month omg ! There was so much shit going on in my life. But anyway, here’s this! If you guys have any other requests or ideas, lmk! xoxo —ℳ ᥫ᭡
Summary: Loving Soldier Boy was never easy—but tonight, he’s just Ben. Stripped of bravado, weighed down by the world, he lets you see the cracks. In quiet touches and unspoken confessions, he leans into you, searching for something he’s not sure he deserves. And for once, he lets himself rest—just with you.
Pairing: Soldier Boy x Reader
Warnings: FLUFF
Word Count: 3245
A/N: English isn’t my first language, please be lenient. 💙
You didn’t think tonight would turn out like this. Not that dating Soldier Boy ever came with a sense of predictability, but this… this was something you hadn’t expected.
When he walked into your apartment, it was the same as usual—kicking the door shut with his boot, leaving streaks of dirt on the rug you’d told him a dozen times not to ruin. His shield, that ever-present symbol of his ego, clattered against the wall where he left it leaning. He looked exhausted, his hair matted to his forehead with sweat, his movements slower, heavier than you were used to.
“Rough day?”, you asked, already heading to grab him a beer from the fridge. It was part of the routine now. He’d come in, drop some snarky comment about how the world sucked, down half the beer in one go, and grumble until he either passed out or decided he wanted you in bed.
But today, he didn’t answer. When you turned around, beer in hand, he was just standing there, watching you.
There was something in his eyes—something you hadn’t seen before. He looked… unsure. And Soldier Boy wasn’t someone who did “unsure”. He was all swagger and bravado, always walking into a room like he owned it. But now? He looked smaller somehow, like the weight of the day—or maybe the weight of being him—was too much to carry.
“You good?”, you asked, your voice softer this time. Setting the beer on the counter, you stepped closer, unsure of what to say. He didn’t reach for it. Instead, he let out a long, heavy sigh and dropped onto the couch, his head falling back against the cushion.
“Yeah”, he muttered, though it didn’t sound convincing. “Just… tired”.
That was new. He never admitted to being tired. Not the Soldier Boy you knew. He was supposed to be bulletproof, invincible—at least, that’s how he saw himself. But tonight, it felt like all that armor he wore—literal and figurative—was starting to crack.
You sat down beside him cautiously, unsure if he’d push you away. He didn’t even glance at you, just stared at the ceiling like it might offer him some kind of answer. When his hand brushed against yours, it wasn’t the cocky, teasing touch you were used to. It was hesitant. Tentative.
“Ben?”, you asked quietly. “What’s going on?”.
His jaw tightened, and he closed his eyes, like he was fighting something inside himself. “I just—”. He stopped, exhaling sharply through his nose. “Forget it”.
You didn’t let him off the hook that easily. “Talk to me”, you urged, resting your hand gently on his arm. “What do you need?”.
His eyes opened, and when they met yours, they weren’t the arrogant, confident eyes you were used to. There was something raw there, something that made your chest tighten. For a second, you thought he’d get up and leave, maybe throw out some asshole comment to deflect like he always did when things got too real. But he didn’t.
Instead, he leaned forward, his elbows resting on his knees. His voice was so quiet you almost didn’t catch it when he said, “I just need… you. Okay?”.
It wasn’t a demand, like you’d come to expect from him. It wasn’t gruff or commanding. It was soft. Almost pleading.
You blinked, caught off guard. This wasn’t the Soldier Boy you knew—the man who had to be in control of everything, who couldn’t let anyone else take charge. But tonight, something was different. He was different. And even if he’d never say the words out loud, you could see it in the way his hand reached for yours again, the way he clung to it like it was the only thing keeping him from falling apart.
He didn’t want to be the unbreakable superhero right now. He didn’t want to fight, argue, or take the lead. Tonight, he just wanted to let go.
He wanted you.
For a moment, you didn’t move. You weren’t sure how to react—this wasn’t the man you’d grown used to, the one who always walked through life with an unshakable ego. But as you looked at him now, slumped forward, waiting for your response like he didn’t know what to expect, you realized how fragile he seemed beneath it all.
“Okay”, you murmured, your voice steady despite the odd knot forming in your chest.
His shoulders eased, just slightly, like that single word was enough to let him breathe again. You reached out, resting your hand gently against his back. He didn’t flinch or shrug you off, and you could feel the tension knotted there, his muscles taut beneath your fingers.
For a moment, the two of you stayed like that—his head bowed, your hand resting on his back, a quiet stillness settling over the room. You could feel the weight of the day on him, not sadness exactly, but something heavier. He wasn’t broken, but he was worn, like he was just… done. Done with all of it.
“Wanna take a shower?”, you murmured, your lips brushing against his bicep. It was a small gesture, but one you knew he wouldn’t resist. The tension in his shoulders shifted at your words, and though he didn’t respond right away, you could tell he was considering it.
Finally, he let out a low hum, more a grunt than an answer. “Yeah”, he said, his voice rough but softer than you expected.
You stood first, tugging lightly at his arm until he followed. He didn’t protest, letting you lead him through the familiar path to the bathroom. It wasn’t like him to give up control so easily—normally, he’d be making some quip about how lucky you were to get him out of his clothes, or joking about how he didn’t need to wash off because “dirt doesn’t stick to perfection”. But tonight, there was none of that. Just quiet compliance, a rare and fragile thing.
The bathroom light was soft, warm, and it reflected in his tired eyes as you turned the shower on. Steam began to rise, curling in the air, and you glanced over at him as he leaned against the sink, his arms crossed, watching you. He wasn’t rushing, wasn’t putting on a show. He was just… waiting.
“You need help, big guy?”, you teased gently, trying to lighten the mood.
He huffed, the faintest flicker of his usual smirk appearing for just a second. “I’m not that far gone”, he muttered, but there was no edge to his voice.
Still, you stepped closer, your fingers reaching for the heavy buckle of his supe suit. It was scratched and battered, the once-pristine metal dulled by years of wear and tear. As you started to undo it, you could feel his eyes on you—not in the usual cocky, flirtatious way, but softer, more curious, like he was trying to understand why you were doing this for him.
The belt clicked open, and you carefully slid it free, letting it drop to the floor with a dull thud. Your hands moved to the fastening of his suit, your fingers deft as you worked it loose. The fabric was thick, stiff with grime and the scent of smoke and sweat lingering in the material. It was a stark reminder of what his life was—a never-ending cycle of fights, missions, and expectations.
“You’re quiet”, you murmured as you worked, glancing up at him.
“Just… tired”, he admitted, his voice low, barely above a whisper. His gaze softened, and for a moment, he almost looked like he might say something more. But then he fell silent again, letting you continue without interruption.
As the top of his suit came loose, you slid it down his arms, revealing his broad chest and the scars that marked his skin. They told the story of a man who had been through hell and back—a story he rarely let anyone see. Your eyes lingered on a particularly deep scar over his ribs, one you’d traced with your fingers before in quieter moments.
You didn’t say anything about it now. You knew better.
“You’re a mess”, you teased gently, trying to bring some levity to the moment. Your hand brushed over his chest briefly, more out of instinct than anything else, and you felt the way he leaned into the touch—subtle, but there.
“Yeah, well”, he muttered, his lips twitching into the faintest smirk. “You knew what you were signing up for”.
That was more like him, and the familiar quip made you smile. “Sure did”, you said, pulling the rest of his suit down until it pooled at his feet. He stepped out of it without a word, standing before you naked now, the steam from the shower curling around his frame.
For a moment, you just looked at him. Right now, he was just Ben, tired and worn, standing in your bathroom like he didn’t know what to do next.
“Come on”, you said softly, taking his hand and guiding him toward the shower.
The water hit him first, soaking his hair and trailing down his body, washing away the grime and tension he’d carried in with him. He tilted his head back under the spray, his eyes closing as he let out a low, contented sigh.
You stepped in with him, the warmth of the water cascading over both of you. His hands found your waist instinctively, steadying himself more than anything else, and you stayed close, your fingers running gently along his arms, his chest, wherever you felt he needed the comfort.
The water poured over both of you, the steady rhythm of the droplets filling the silence. He wasn’t saying much—wasn’t saying anything, really—but his hands lingered at your waist, not gripping, just holding. Like he needed to know you were there, solid and steady.
Eventually, as the steam enveloped you both, you felt him shift slightly. His shoulders sagged, and then, slowly, his head dipped forward until it came to rest against your collarbone. The unexpected weight of it was grounding, and you instinctively raised your hand, threading your fingers through his damp hair.
You let him stay there.
You didn’t say anything—didn’t tease him about the rare vulnerability or push him to talk. You just let him be, standing in the warmth of the shower, your hand gently stroking through his hair, the other tracing soft patterns along his back.
His breathing slowed against you, the rise and fall of his chest evening out. The tension he carried, the tight coil of pressure always wound so deeply inside him, seemed to ease just a little. He wasn’t completely relaxed—he never could be—but this was close enough.
After a while, he murmured, his voice muffled against your skin, “You’re… too good at this”.
You smiled faintly, letting out a soft chuckle. “At what?”.
“Letting me… I don’t know”. He paused, shifting slightly but not pulling away. “Letting me stop. Even just for a second”.
Your hand stilled in his hair for a moment before continuing. “You don’t always have to keep moving, Ben”, you said softly. “You don’t always have to be… that guy. You can just be you with me”.
He didn’t respond right away, but you felt the way his arms tightened slightly around your waist. It wasn’t a thank you, not in words. Soldier Boy didn’t do thank yous. But it was enough.
“I don’t know who the hell ‘me’ even is anymore”, he said after a long pause, his voice quieter than you’d ever heard it.
You pressed a soft kiss to his temple, your lips lingering there. “Then let’s figure it out together”.
For the first time that night, you felt him exhale fully, the kind of breath that carried the weight of everything he wasn’t saying. His head stayed resting against you, the water continuing to wash over both of you as the world outside faded further and further away.
And for now, that was enough.
After the shower, the two of you moved quietly through the motions of getting ready for bed. Ben didn’t say much, but he didn’t have to. The air between you was calm, steady, the kind of quiet that spoke more than words could.
When he finally slid into bed beside you, you expected him to turn back into the Soldier Boy you knew, trying to get you tangled up beneath him. But tonight was different.
He simply lay back, his body sinking into the mattress like he was letting himself rest for the first time in years. He turned onto his side, his back to you, and for a moment, you just stared at him, unsure of what to do. It wasn’t like him to pull away, and yet here he was, retreating in a way that didn’t feel like rejection, but something else entirely.
You scooted closer, the mattress shifting under your weight as you moved toward him. Your hand reached out tentatively at first, brushing over his back lightly, testing the waters. His body was warm under your touch, his muscles taut but not as tense as they’d been earlier.
When he didn’t pull away, you let your hand settle more firmly, wrapping your arm around his torso. He let out a soft, almost inaudible sigh at the contact, his shoulders relaxing just a little more.
You leaned in, pressing a gentle kiss to the curve of his back, just between his shoulder blades. The faint salt of his skin mingled with the lingering scent of soap from the shower, grounding you in the quiet intimacy of the moment.
His hand moved, covering yours where it rested against his chest. The warmth of his palm settled over your fingers, holding them in place like he needed the reassurance of your touch. Neither of you spoke. The silence wasn’t uncomfortable; it felt heavy with meaning, with emotions too raw to voice.
After a while, though, you felt him shift. Slowly, he turned in your arms, rolling onto his back and then to his side, facing you. His movements were deliberate, unhurried, like he was gathering the courage for something.
Your breath hitched slightly as his gaze locked onto yours. Those green eyes, usually sharp and full of mischief or arrogance, were softer now, vulnerable in a way that made your chest tighten. You bit your lip instinctively, unsure of what he was searching for as his eyes traced your face.
Your hand, still resting on his chest, moved on its own accord, brushing upward to the scruff of his beard. Your fingertips traced the coarse texture, lingering along his jawline, and you couldn’t help but let a small, almost shy smile tug at your lips.
“What?”, you asked quietly, your voice barely above a whisper.
He didn’t answer right away. His gaze shifted, moving from your eyes to your lips and back again, like he was debating something in his head. His hand lifted, resting lightly against your side, his thumb brushing over the fabric of your shirt.
“You”, he finally murmured, the word low and rough. “You’re just… different”.
“Different how?”, you asked, your fingers still absently stroking along his beard.
His lips twitched faintly, like he was fighting a smile. “Not like anyone else”, he said. “You don’t… expect anything from me. You don’t need me to be anything I’m not”.
You tilted your head slightly, your smile softening. “Maybe because I like who you are. Not who the world thinks you have to be”.
For a moment, he just stared at you like he didn’t know how to respond. Then, unexpectedly, his hand moved, brushing over yours where it still rested against his beard. He caught your fingers lightly, holding them for a moment before pressing them to his lips in a gesture so tender it made your heart ache.
“You make it sound so fucking simple”, he said, his voice quieter now, almost vulnerable.
“Maybe it is”, you whispered back.
He didn’t say anything else, but the way his hand lingered against yours, the way his gaze stayed locked on yours as if he was afraid to look away, spoke volumes.
For a man who had always carried the world on his shoulders, tonight he let himself lean on you.
His gaze softened even more as you whispered the words, “I love you, Ben”, against his lips, the confession slipping out like it had been waiting there all along. For a moment, he didn’t move, didn’t even breathe.
Then you kissed him, gentle and unhurried, your lips brushing against his like you were sealing the words between you. He didn’t respond at first, almost frozen, but then his hand tightened against your waist, pulling you just a fraction closer. The kiss wasn’t demanding or hungry; it was tender, the kind of intimacy that came with trust.
When you pulled back, you kept your eyes on his, watching for his reaction. For once, he wasn’t guarded. He wasn’t hiding behind his usual cocky smirk or sarcastic quip. Instead, he just stared at you, something unreadable flickering in his green eyes.
“You don’t have to say it back”, you whispered, sensing the hesitation in him. “I just wanted you to know”.
He let out a exhale, his free hand coming up to rest on your cheek. His thumb brushed along your skin, and you could feel the tension in him, the struggle between the man he was and the man he wanted to be with you.
“I don’t deserve you”, he muttered, his voice barely audible.
“Maybe not”, you teased softly, a faint smile tugging at your lips. “But I love you anyway”.
That drew a quiet laugh from him, and you felt his chest shake slightly beneath your hand. He didn’t say anything else, but the way he held you, his arms tightening around you as you shifted to rest your head against his chest, told you everything you needed to know.
The steady rhythm of his heartbeat under your ear was calming, the rise and fall of his chest lulling you into a quiet peace. His hand stayed at your waist, his thumb brushing slow, lazy circles against your skin, grounding you both in the moment.
As sleep began to tug at the edges of your mind, you heard him murmur something, so low you almost missed it.
“Love you too, doll”.
Your lips curved into a sleepy smile, but you didn’t respond, letting his words settle in the quiet between you. The world outside didn’t matter right now. All that mattered was the man holding you, the man who, for the first time, was letting himself be held.
And in his arms, you drifted off, the soft sound of his breathing the last thing you heard before sleep claimed you.
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A/N: Well, this was something else. Please let me know what you think.🥰
lowdown ☆ after homelander names you the seventh member of the seven, soldier boy learns exactly what your pretty little party trick can do.
ride or die ☆ soldier boy x supe!reader ( f )
miles ☆ 9335 ride style ☆ smut !!!
danger on the trail ☆ explicit sexual content, rough sex, dirty talk, soldier boy being soldier boy, power dynamics, canon-typical toxicity, vought/the seven toxicity, homelander being unsettling, emotional manipulation/power use, public humiliation, manhandling, thigh grabbing, light choking, mirror sex, semi-public risk/vought surveillance implications, praise/degradation, possessive behavior, no actual romance.
liv's log ☆ a little self indulgent because i couldn't get this scenario out of my head after doing my compound v manifestation report .ᐟ 𐚁
the elevator climbs so smoothly, you almost don’t feel it move.
it’s intentional. vought doesn’t let important people feel machinery. it hides all the ugly effort behind glass, gold trim, soft lighting, clean mirrors, polished metals that do not dare show a fingerprint unless someone very rich has approved it. even the elevator is expensive—sterile and floral, some corporate interpretation fo calm sprayed into the vents so no one has a panic attack on the way to meet america’s most unstable collection of national assets.
sage stands behind you with her hands folded in front of her, perfectly still, perfectly bored.
she hasn’t looked at you once since the doors shut. you watch her reflection instead.
“homelander likes symbols,” she says. her voice is flat enough that it could mean nothing. but she is the smartest woman on the planet, so it doesn’t.
you tilt your head slightly, watching the numbers climb. “does he?”
“he likes completion. loyalty. visible gratitude. people who understand their place before he has to explain it to them.”
you smile a little, because the cameras in the elevator don’t even pretend to be hidden. “good thing i’m very grateful.”
sage’s reflection looks at you then. her posture doesn’t move entirely, just her eyes. “are you?”
“i’m here, aren’t i?”
that’s not the same thing. you know it. she knows it. somewhere above you, homelander probably knows that too. he chose you. that matters. not in the sweet way vought will sell it tomorrow morning, with your face lit gold on every screen in the lobby and some expensive headline about a new dawn for the seven. it matters because homelander is not making choices as a leader right now—he’s making them as a man trying to build a room where no one can leave him.
that makes you useful. that makes you dangerous. that makes you careful.
“he wants the seven to have seven members,” sage continues. “the joke got old.”
“must’ve been a very painful time for branding.”
“branding survives pain better than people do.”
you almost laugh, but you don’t. the elevator keeps climbing, and for a second, in the reflection of the doors, you catch yourself the way the world is going to catch you: clean hair, warm skin, mouth soft enough to trust, eyes bright enough to make people nervous if they look too long.
the suit helps. vought has never met a woman it didn’t want to turn into a product first and a person never. yours is golden and cream and fitted close to the body without tipping into firecracker’s cheap little flag-bikini theater. elegant, they called it. aspirational. high-necked but not modest, with a sculpted bodice that catches the light when you breathe and a deep, curved line across the chest that makes a point without begging for one. the fabric hugs the waist, your hips, the tops of your thighs, tailored and expensive and just armored enough to pretend it’s practical.
sage notices you looking at yourself. “don’t overplay it.”
you drag your gaze back to the doors. “my face?”
“your devotion.”
that one lands. the bitch is smart. her words aren’t a warning, but they don’t land cruel, either. they’re just enough to remind you she didn’t get her place here by missing things.
you turn your smile into something smaller, sweeter, easier to swallow. “i would never.”
“everyoen says that before they do.”
the elevator dings and sage steps forward first. you follow.
the hallway outside is colder, brighter—the kind of white that makes everyone look a little guilty. the seven’s meeting room waits at the end of it behind massive doors.
homelander stands when you enter. that’s the first thing everyone notices. not you. not the suit. not sage’s hand gesturing lazily in your direction as if she’s presenting a weather update instead of the newest member of the most powerful team on earth.
homelander stands, and the room changes around him. firecracker’s smile sharpens in a way that shows she’s trying to decide whether she hates you or wants to be photographed next to you. black noir says nothing, which makes ridiculous contrast with whatever the deep is thinking while his eyes briefly dip below your face. you let him look. then you meet his eyes. he looks away immediately, straightening up in his seat.
soldier boy, seated with one boot braced against the base of the table, doesn’t move at all. he just looks you over with the bored entitlement of a man who has survived too many decades of being told he’s the prize.
he’s bigger in person. uglier too—but not in the face. the face is unfortunately good. it’s the rest of him that’s ugly: the easy arrogance, the bored set of his mouth, the old-world confidence sitting on his shoulders like a coat he has never had to take off.
homelander smiles warmly at you.
“there she is,” he says, and the room listens because he says it like a benediction. “halo fever.”
you dip your chin just enough. not a bow. not submission. appreciation wrapped humbly. “sir.”
his smile deepens. “no, no, none of that.” he gestures you closer, palm open, inviting. “we’re family here.”
you walk further into the room, heels quiet against the floor, and stop near the empty chair at the end of the table. the seventh seat. the one vought has probably been polishing for a press release before they knew what name would be attached to it.
“everyone knows who you are,” homelander continues, still watching with that bright, hungry pride. “but i wanted to do this properly. after all the betrayal… after all the instability… after people treating this team like some kind of revolving door…” his jaw tightens for half a second—there and gone. “we are moving forward. together.”
firecracker nods vigorously. “amen.”
the deep nods a beat too late.
sage continues watching the entire room.
and soldier boy snorts. not loud, exactly. it doesn’t need to be; in a room trained around homelander’s breathing, even disrespect has a spotlight.
everyone looks. homelander’s smile doesn’t drop, but something behind it tightens. so many daddy issues.
soldier boy is either too stupid or too committed to being himself to care. his eyes remain on you, amused, unimpressed, dragging over the gold of your suit before landing on your face with a little curl of his mouth.
“sorry,” he says, not sounding sorry at all. “just thought the seven was supposed to be superheroes, not a beauty pageant.”
the room goes quiet. it honestly wasn’t the worst thing he could’ve said. and no one in the room is innocent enough for shock. but there is that pause people take around a loaded gun when someone taps the barrel for fun.
you feel homelander’s attention shift to soldier boy first. then to you. waiting. measuring. the situation just turned into a fucking test.
you could be offended. maybe you are, somewhere under the polished surface. maybe some part of you recoils at how casually he spits in your face—how easily men from his century and yours dress contempt up as charm and expect you to laugh because they smiled while cutting. but offense is not useful unless you know where to put it.
so you smile. soft. lovely. almost forgiving. “that’s okay. i know it’s hard when new things happen.”
the deep makes a noise that dies instantly when soldier boy’s eyes flick toward him.
the cheaper version of captain america’s grin widens, meaner now. “new? sweetheart, i’ve seen plenty of girls with pretty lights.”
“oh, i’m sure.”
“most of ‘em didn’t need a cape to get attention.”
firecracker’s mouth twitches. sage’s face doesn’t move.
homelander is simply enjoying the spectacle. “halo fever,” he calls you.
it’s not a warning, yet you turn immediately. you don’t ignore him. you don’t make him repeat himself. you look at him the second he calls; almost like his voice has weight in your body. here, it does. it has to.
“yes, sir?”
his eyes search your face, pleased by your attention, curious about your restraint. “you alright?”
“of course.” you let the warmth enter your expression before the room can mistake your calm for weakness. “i just think soldier boy might benefit from a demonstration. if you think that’s appropriate.”
you ask. not because you need permission from a man to defend yourself, but because this room doesn’t belong to you. not yet. and because homelander chose you, and that means every public move you make in front of him has to confirm his choice—not compete with it.
homelander’s gaze flicks between you and soldier boy. for one thin second, he looks almost boyish. a little kid, pocking with a wooden stick at the weird gooey thing he found on the floor.
“a demonstration,” he repeats, tasting the idea.
soldier boy scoffs and leans back in his chair. “oh, please.”
homelander turns his smile on him now. “scared?”
the word barely changes soldier boy’s face. it would be easy to miss if you weren’t already looking for the seam. you are always looking for the seam.
“of her pretty party trick?” soldier boy laughs once.
homelander looks back at you, lifting a hand in invitation. “go ahead.”
your pulse answers before you do. the power awakes under your skin, golden and warm, sliding up through your chest, your throat, the backs of your hands. you keep it low.
the room brightens by half a shade, as if the sun has shifted closer to the windows, and the deep blinks too many times. noir tilts his head. firecracker’s fingers curl around the armrest of her chair. and soldier boy doesn’t move.
his mistake.
you take one step toward him.
“that’s close enough,” he says.
“is it?”
his mouth opens, probably to say something filthy and outdated and deeply impressed with itself. you touch the air between you instead. not him. not his body. not even the edge of his chair. just the feeling sitting behind his ribs.
it’s almost embarrassingly easy to find.
soldier boy has been exposed in public too many times now. america knows his face, his legacy, his son, his failures. vought can polish the story all they want, but the wounds are not buried—they are barely even covered. a father returned to a world that no longer bends for him. a legend introduced as someone else’s bloodline. a weapon thawed out and placed beside the thing that replaced him. he has so much pride packed over the damage that all you have to do is press where it shines.
the gold under your skin flares.
soldier boy’s breath catches. it’s small… but oh, it’s everything. his boot drops from the table with a dull thud, one hand clamps around the armrest; the other curls into a fist so tight the leather of his glove creaks. for half a second, his face stays locked in that arrogant mask, jaw set, eyes hard, mouth ready to sneer.
then his chest starts to glow. not the violent red everyone has seen on shaky footage and classified clips. not the nuclear burn. this is different. gold, faint at first, spreading beneath the dark green of his suit from the center of his sternum, warm and pulsing, like something inside him has been caught answering you before he could stop it. this is the party trick—the glow. the real show is about to present itself.
his pupils widen. you feel it spill up in him: anger first; humiliation right after it, sour and hot; then the thing underneath, the old bruised need to matter so badly it almost feels young. it hits the air between you in a rush he cannot hide from anyone in the room—not with your power wrapped gently around the truth and pulling.
his chair scrapes back an inch. “cut it out!” his voice is lower now, strained.
you tilt your head, still smiling, still sweet enough for every camera in the room. “i thought it was a party trick.”
his lips part. nothing comes out. that is it. not the glow. not the heat. not the way the deep stares with his mouth slightly open or the way firecracker’s expression flattens into something sharper, threatened despite herself. it’s soldier boy, america’s first great brute, suddenly silent because his body has betrayed him before his mouth can save him.
you could push harder. that’s the ugly truth. you could make him choke on the rest of it. make him feel every scrap of envy, want, loneliness, resentment, make him burn gold from the inside out until the whole room understands exactly how much of his swagger is just exposed scar tissue. you could make him look at homelander and feel it—the son, the mirror, the replacement.
your fingers twitch once. then you stop. the warmth snaps back into you so cleanly it almost hurts.
soldier boy inhales hard through his nose. the glow in his chest fades under the suit, leaving nothing but the brutal rise and fall of his breathing and the furious look he pins to your face.
You give him your prettiest smile. “cute party trick, huh?”
no one laughs except for homelander. just a pleased little breath, this private sound of satisfaction, and somehow it’s worse than the whole room mocking soldier boy.
homelander looks around the table as if waiting for everyone else to understand what he already has: you’re not starlight. you’re not a trembling moral lesson in a white cape. you’re not here to cry under fluorescent lights and beg the machine to become kind. you are the machine’s newest favorite blade.
“see?” homelander says, spreading his arms slightly. “that. that is what i’m talking about.”
soldier boy says nothing. his stare promises several forms of retaliation. you look away first because you can afford it.
homelander moves to the head of the table, energized now, shining with the glow of a man who has mistaken control for love and found a room willing to play along. “this is the team,” he says. “this is what we were missing. strength. loyalty. purpose.”
sages watches him with the faintest turn of her mouth. firecracker nods again, but this time her eyes cut toward you with something new in them. wariness.
soldier boy leans back slowly, recovering inch by inch, but you can still see it in the tightness around his mouth. he felt it. he knows you felt him feeling it. that is worse than pain for a man like him.
homelander places a hand on the back of your chair. “sit.” he commands, gently enough for the word to sound like a gift.
and you do. the seventh seat is cold beneath you.
homelander keeps his hand there a second longer than necessary before pulling away, and you keep your face open, grateful and bright. you play the part because the part keeps you alive. because this whole building runs on performance and fear and the kind of devotion people offer when they’re smart enough to know worship is safer than honesty.
“now,” homelander continues, smiling wide enough to make the room obey. “no more empty seats. no more betrayal. no more jokes.”
his eyes land on you again. chosen. that is what he wants ypu to feel. so you let the gold warm under your skin, just enough to make the room soften around him, just enough to make his smile stay beautiful and terrible.
“the seven,” homelander murmurs. “is complete.”
the room empties in pieces.
firecracker is the first to stand, heels clicking against the floor as she collects herself with that too-bright smile still stuck to her face, all gloss and teeth and badly disguised insecurity. she gives you one last look before she leaves—not hatred, not yet. this is thinner. something that says she understands attention as a limited resource, and you have just made a show of stealing some of hers.
“welcome to the family,” she says, syrupy sweet.
you smile back. “thank you.”
her eyes flick toward homelander, then away again. “you’ll fit right in.” that one is not sweet.
noir passes behind her without a word. the deep almost trips over his own chair because he’s still trying not to look at you and somehow making the effort more obvious than just looking would have been. homelander notices—he notices everything here. his mouth twitches with something between amusement and disdain before his attention returns to you.
that’s the thing about homelander—when he looks at you, it feels less like being seen andn more like being selected from a shelf. “big day,” he says.
you stand beside the seventh seat because staying seated after he rises feels stupid. “yes, sir.”
his expression warms again at the title. he pretends to dislike it. you’re beginning to understand he likes pretending almost as much as he likes obedience.
“you did well.” not good. not great. well. a measured thing. a reward, not a compliment.
you lower your eyes just enough to make the gratitude visible without making it pathetic. “i’m glad you think so.”
“i do.” he steps closer, and the whole room seems to tighten around the movement. “what you did with him—” his eyes cut toward soldier boy, who hasn’t moved from his chair. “that was impressive.”
soldier boy gives a humorless little breath through his nose.
homelander hearts it and lets it live. “controlled,” homelander looks back at you. “tasteful. strong.”
“i didn’t want to overstep.”
“no.” his smile brightens. “you didn’t.”
and he shows it again—the pleasure. not because you were kind or harmless. because you understood the order of the room and acted inside it. because the show happened under his hand, with his blessing. because you asked.
homelander likes loyalty, sage had said. you disagree. homelander likes proof.
“your suite is already prepared,” he says. “sage will show you. anything you need, you can ask. we take care of our own here.”
our own. you know better than to buy into the fantasy.
“thank you. that means a lot.”
“it should.”
and then he smiles like he has given you something sacred—a place in the seven, a family, a new beginning. like you are supposed to feel reborn because he decided you are useful enough to keep close.
you let yourself glow. only a touch beneath the skin, a warmth that softens the air around him, gentle enough that it can pass for admiration if anyone in the room is foolish enough to believe in clean things. homelander’s shoulders ease by a fraction and his smile steadies. some deep, hungry part of him accepts the warmth and calls it devotion because that is what he needs it to be.
sage watches from the doorway as homelander leaves, cape sweeping behind him in a ridiculous bright flash that would look stupid on anyone less terrifying. the room keeps his shape for a moment after he’s gone. then, sage speaks:
“this way.”
you turn from soldier boy without looking like you’re turning from soldier boy. he has been watching you since the glow faded from his chest. not speaking during the rest of the meeting. not moving. just sitting there with his jaw tight and his eyes ugly, furious in a way that feels almost clean compared to everyone else’s careful performance. anger is easy to read. anger tells you what door to open.
you follow sage into the hallway. she doesn’t ask if you enjoyed yourself and you almost respect her for it.
the walk to your suite takes longer than it needs to. vought tower has always been designed to make distance feel ceremonial. halls that shine too much, walls lined with screens, employees who glance up, recognize the suit, recognize sage, and immediately learn the floor again.
your face is already on one of the monitors near the elevator bank, a still from an interview you gave, gold light washing across your cheekbones under the headline: halo fever joins the seven: a new dawn for america’s heroes.
you nearly laugh. they work fast.
sage notices without looking at the screen. “they had drafts prepared.”
“for me?”
“for everyone.” she presses her thumb against a private access panel beside a set of double doors. “you were just the first one homelander wanted this week.” honest. cruel. useful.
the lock clicks open.
your suite is beautiful. so much so that it becomes a problem—so beautiful that, for one second, your body wants to trust it completely. cream walls, gold accent, floor-to-ceiling windows overlooking the city in glittering indifferent pieces. a pale sofa curved around a glass coffee table. fresh flowers on the sideboard. a vanity lit soft and warm, covered with unopened products in your colors, your shades, your approved scent profile. a garment rack waits near the bedroom door with press outfits steamed and arranged by occasion—daytime interviews, evening events, crisis appearances, charity softness, televised grief.
they have made you a home out of costumes.
your boxes sit near the far wall, ordinary and brown and almost embarrassing against all that glass.
sage stops beside you. “security is internal. external press access is controlled. household staff comes through twice a day unless you request otherwise. anything private should not be assumed private.”
your lips press together as you absorb the information. “sweet.”
“nothing about this is sweet.”
“i didn’t mean it literally.”
“i know.”
you look at her then. sage’s eyes move over the suite with the same bored precision she gives everything else, but there is something almost human in the corner of her mouth. not kindness. that would be pushing it. maybe recognition. maybe the dull amusement of watching another woman learn the shape of her cage.
“he’ll test you,” she says.
“homelander?”
sage’s gaze shifts toward the hall behind you. “both of them.”
you don’t answer, because nothing is private and she doesn’t look like someone you can trust fully.
she turns to leave, then pauses at the threshold. “soldier boy doesn’t like being made small.”
you glance toward her. “does anyone?”
“no. but most people don’t have decades of national mythology rotting under the skin.” her eyes settle on your face. “don’t confuse humiliation with victory. it’s noisy. victory is quieter.”
“is that advice?”
“it’s information.” then she leaves.
the doors shut behind her with a soft, expensive click.
for the first time since the elevator, you’re alone.
you exhale and let your shoulders drop. not all the way. never all the way. but enough to feel the ache under the suit, the pinch fo the bodice, the place where the fabric presses too perfectly at your ribs. your reflection catches in the dark window, all gold and cream and vought-approved radiance, and for a second you stare at yourself the way you stared in the elevator.
the world is going to love this version of you.
you start with the boxes. the first one has books, framed pictures wrapped in sweaters, a small ceramic dish you bought because it was pretty and useless and nobody at vought would have picked it for you. the second has clothes. actual clothes—soft ones; the kind no stylist has touched; folded shirts, worn jeans, a cardigan you have no business owning now that you are supposed to be a golden national asset; and three little perfume bottles stuffed inside socks so they wouldn’t break. you set one on the vanity and watch it look immediately out of place.
the door opens behind you. you don’t even need to turn around.
“didn’t hear a knock.”
soldier boy steps inside anyway. his reflection appears in the window first: broad shoulders, dark suit, mouth set in that tired cruel line, eyes moving across the room with open judgment. he doesn’t look ashamed to be there—men like him rarely do—shame would require manners.
“door was open.”
“no, it wasn’t.”
“it wasn’t locked.”
you glance back over your shoulder. “that’s not the same thing.”
he closes the door behind him. slowly. the soft click sounds louder with him in the room.
you go back to unpacking because reacting too fast would make him happy, and soldier boy looks like he has already had a difficult enough day without you handing him a present.
“nice place.”
he walks farther in, boots heavy against the polished floor. vought’s pretty little suite looks different with him inside it. he picks up the ceramic dish from the vanity, turns it over once in his hand, then puts it down in the wrong place. you correct it immediately.
his mouth twitches. “you always this particular?”
“you always this invasive?”
“usually worse.”
he moves to the garment rack next, flicking through the outfits with two fingers. cream dress. gold blazer. while silk blouse. fitted trousers. a gown with a slit cut high enough for vought to call it empowering in a press memo.
he gives that one a second look. “they dress you up nice.”
“that supposed to be a compliment?”
“depends on how sensitive you are.”
you fold a shirt and place it into a drawer. “you came all the way here to find out?”
he looks at you then. not the way deep had done—not at the suit, or boobs, or your mouth. at you. it’s the first quiet thing he’s done. for half a second, the air changes, and you understand sage’s warning differently.
he’s not here because he thinks you’re pretty—though, he does. he’s here because, in that meeting room, you reached into him and found something he didn’t give you permission to touch. for soldier boy that wasn’t intimacy—it was trespassing.
“what the hell did you do to me back there?” he asks.
you keep folding. “a demonstration.”
“don’t give me that shit,” he spits out.
“then don’t ask questions you already know the answer to.”
he steps closer. “you think because homelander let you play with your little light show that means you can do it again?”
you smile down at the drawer. “let me?” you repeat.
“you heard me.”
“i asked because he enjoys being asked. not because i need him to hold my hand.”
his jaw shifts.
you slide the drawer shut and turn to face him fully. “and i didn’t play with anything. if i had, you would’ve known.”
soldier boy’s eyes narrow. he’s too close now. not touching yet—but close enough that you can smell him beneath the tower’s clean air: leather, smoke, whiskey buried under mint, something warm and metallic that might be his suit or his skin or the violence he carries without thinking. his anger has settled since the meeting, but not disappeared. it sits in him low and restless, circling the same bruised place you pressed.
you could touch it again. but you don’t.
that restraint seems to irritate him more than the threat would. “you like doing that? digging around in people’s heads?”
“it’s not mind control.” you scoff. “i’m not in anyone’s heads.”
“whatever.”
“and no.” you pause. “not always.”
“bullshit.”
you lean back against the dresser, crossing your arms. “you’re very committed to having a bad time in my room.”
“your room.” he looks around, unimpressed. “you been here five minutes.”
“still mine.”
he lets out a low laugh. “everything in this building belongs to vought.”
you smile. “careful. that includes you.”
his expression goes flat and it’s beautiful and dangerous. then, he looks away. he’s choosing not to reach, which is different and somehow more telling.
he walks past you, deeper into the bedroom area, where the boxes are messier, where the suite begins to lose its showroom shine. he looks at the framed pictures waiting on the bed, the small pile of personal jewelry, the open suitcase with soft cotton and lace peeking through.
“don’t touch my thing,” you warn. still, he picks up a framed photo. you sigh. “selective hearing. great.”
he studies the picture longer than you expect. not because he cares who’s in it, maybe. more because he’s looking for something he can use. something normal. something soft. proof that the woman who made his chest glow in a room full of monsters still has people in frames and old sweaters in boxes.
“this your boyfriend?” he asks.
you cross the room and take the frame from his hand. “no.”
he picks another one. “girlfriend?”
“no.”
“fan?”
“are you always this desperate for personal information?”
“are you always this defensive?” he argues back.
“only when strange men walk into my bedroom and start touching my things.”
his eyes drop briefly to your hand on the frame. then to your face. “strange?”
“would you prefer elderly?”
his mouth curls. there he is again. meaner when amused. easier to deal with when he’s trying to insult you than when he’s trying to understand you.
“you’ve got a mouth on you.”
“and yet you keep inviting it.”
the words land before you can decide whether you meant to say them exactly that way. soldier boy’s eyes darken a fraction. not much. but definitely enough.
you turn away first this time. heat is useful until it starts making decisions for you. then it’s just stupid. “i have things to unpack. you can go brood somewhere else.”
“brood?”
“sulk, then.”
“i don’t sulk.”
“you followed me across the tower because i embarrassed you in front of your son.”
the silence after that is immediate and ugly. you definitely reached too far. maybe not far enough. you feel the room tighten around his body with a violence that doesn’t require performance because everyone’s seen what he’s capable of.
when he speaks again, his voice is lower. “watch it.”
you look back slowly. this is the line—where a joke stopes being a joke and becomes a hand near a trigger.
you don’t apologize. you also don’t press. smart is knowing the difference between fear and timing.
“then stop acting like i chased you here,” you say, and there’s a drop in your tone—softer now, almost bored. “you came into my room, soldier boy. not the other way around.”
his stare holds yours. then, because he’s either incapable of leaving well enough alone or allergic to losing the last word, he turns and opens the nearest drawer.
you move instantly. “hey!” too late.
his hand disappears into lace. soldier boy looks down and then he smiles—slowly. “well.”
“put it back.”
he lifts a pair of panties from the drawer like he has discovered classified intelligence. they are pretty—pale gold with delicate lace at the edges, soft enough to look innocent if he wasn’t holding them in his big, careless hand. the sight of it does something irritating to your stomach—not embarrassment, exactly.
you refuse to name it.
“these vought-issued too?” he asks. fucker.
“put. them. back.”
he rubs the lace between his thumb and forefinger, inspecting it with the kind of obscene focus that makes your jaw tighten. “nah. i’m gonna keep ‘em.”
you step toward him. “i’m not joking.”
“neither am i.”
“soldier boy—”
he looks up at your voice. “ben.” the correction is sudden enough to catch.
you stop half a step away.
he watches you register it, and his smile changes. smug again, but not only that—there’s something underneath it, too, now. a hook thrown into the water just to see what bites.
“if you’re gonna threaten me in your underwear drawer,” he taunts, “you might as well use my name.”
you hate that your pulse reacts. you hate it more that it’s so visible he sees it.
“ben,” you say, clipped and sweet. “put them back.”
his gaze drops to your mouth for one heavy second. then, he lifts the panties higher. you reach for them, which only causes him to raise his arm above his head—easy, lazy, infuriating—using every inch of height and strength. you step closer without thinking, hand catching at his wrist, and suddenly there’s no polite distance left between you. just him—solid and warm and too close.
his chest is right there. no longer glowing now, but you remember how it looked. gold blooming under the green. his breath catching. his silence. the place beneath his ribs where pride turned soft and furious when you touched it.
he remembers, too. you can tell by the way his smile thins when your eyes flick down. “don’t you think about it.”
“what?”
“using that little power of yours.”
you look back up at him. “i’m not using it.”
“sure about that?” the question is quieter than the rest.
for all his arrogance, all his filthy little games, there is a piece of him that genuinely doesn’t know. not fully. he doesn’t know where your powers ends and his reaction begins. he doesn’t know whether the pull in the room belongs to you, to him, or to the ugly private thing you made visible in front of everyone.
good. let him wonder.
“i don’t need it for this.”
his eyes hold yours and you see something shift across his face, almost imperceptible, like he likes the answer and resents you for giving it to him.
your fingers tighten around his wrist. “last chance.”
“or what?”
you lift your chin. the move brings you closer—close enough that the front of his suit brushes the sculpted gold of yours; close enough that you feel his breath warm against your cheek when he laughs under his breath. not much of a laugh. more of a dare learning how to stand on its own two feet.
you keep your voice calm. “don’t make me ask again.”
soldier boy looks at your hand on his wrist; then at the lace dangling above your head. his smile comes slow as his eyes finally meet yours—mean, curious, hungry in a way he probably thinks he’s hiding.
“or what?” he asks again. “you gonna make glow, doll?”
you look at him for a second too long. his arm is still raised above your head, your panties caught in his fist, his body too close for this to be funny anymore. it stops being a game between his breath touching your cheek and your hand closing tighter around his wrist. the room is quiet around you, all cream walls and gold light and vought-approved luxury, but he has made the space feel less decorated.
“no,” you breathe out, gaze flickering down to his mouth then back up. “i want you to know this is you.”
his smile fades by a fraction.
you reach higher, fingers tightening on his wrist, not really trying to win anymore. you both know you can’t overpower him that way. that’s not the point—it’s the way his pulse kicks under your fingers. it’s the way his eyes don’t leave your face. it’s that his body has already started answering, and there is no glow in the room expect the faint warmth under your skin.
“put them down,” you tell him.
for once, he does. the lace drops to the floor between your feet, soft and forgotten immediately, because his freed hand comes to your jaw before you can breathe. his palm is rough against your cheek, thumb pressing under your chin to tilt your face up, and the touch is not gentle. it’s too sure of itself. too familiar for someone who has no right.
“tell me to leave,” his voice is lower now. still arrogant; still him—but stripped of the perfomance sitting around it before. no audience. no homelander smiling from the head of the table. no firecracker watching for weakness. no sage quietly filing away every reaction. just him. just you. just the bad idea already breathing between you.
you hold his stare. “if i wanted you gone, you’d be.”
his jaw flexes once. then he kisses you. his mouth hits yours hard enough to make your back brush the dresser, his hand still on your jaw while the other catches your waist and pulls you into him.
you make a sound against his mouth, sharp and surprised, and he swallows it before it can become anything useful and sane.
soldier boy kisses like he fights—direct, hungry, impatient with anything that isn’t surrender.
you don’t surrender. not in the way he’d want. you kiss him back with your fingers fisted in the front of his suit, dragging him closer even as every smart part of you starts listing reasons to why this is a terrible thing to let happen. he’s soldier boy. he’s homelander’s father. he’s angry because you exposed him, and you’re turned on because he came back anyway. there’s no soft moral angle to polish this with. no clean explanation. just his tongue in your mouth and your body going hot under his hands.
his hand slides from your waist to your hip, gripping hard, testing the give of you through the fitted gold fabric. the suit is too tight. it looks made for cameras, not for the way his thigh presses between yours, breaking your breath when he forces your stance open. the edge of the dresser bites lightly into the backs of your legs.
“all that control,” he murmurs against your mouth. “and this is all it takes?”
you bite his lower lip and he groans. you feel it in his chest where it presses against yours, and the sound goes straight through you, low and ugly and satisfying.
“don’t talk.”
his mouth drags to your jaw. “make me stop.”
you tug at his hair hard enough to pull his head back. his eyes flash—dark and bright—furious that he likes it. you can feel the heat coming off him now, the hard press of him against your stomach. no power needed. no trick. no excuse left for him to hide behind.
“you came to my room,” you remind him. “touched my things.”
“mhm.”
“you wanted this before i did.”
his grip tightens on your hip and the gold under your skin flickers. his eyes drop to it. “there she is…”
“i’m not using it.”
“you’re glowing.”
“because you’re pissing me off.”
he leans close enough that his mouth brushes your ear. “then you’re gonna light up the whole damn tower.”
your breath catches before you can stop it, and that gives him the opening he wants. his mouth finds your throat, teeth scraping over the sensitive place under your jaw, then lower—rough kisses pressed down the side of your neck while his hands start working at the back of your suit.
he finds the zipper too fast. his knuckles graze your spine as he pulls it down, and the sound is obscene in the quiet room, the slow parting of fabric, the private little surrender of something designed to make you untouchable.
cool air touches your back. then his mouth. you close your eyes.
“look at that,” he murmurs, voice rougher now.
you open them because there is a mirror above the dresser and he has turned you toward it, one hand spread against your stomach, the other peeling the suit down your shoulders. you see yourself flushed and bright-eyed, the gold fabric loosing over your body, your mouth swollen from him. you see him behind you—bigger, his face close to your neck, his eyes lifted to the reflection—watching you watch.
the suit slips lower, catching at your waist, and your breasts spill free into his hands.
his breath changes. that tiny break in him is better than a compliment.
his palms cover you, heavy and warm, thumbs brushing over your nipples until your body arches despite every ounce of pride you still have left.
“sensitive.”
“you like it.”
his hand closes more firmly around your breast—enough to make your head tip back against his shoulder. “i like this.”
his other hand slides down your stomach in a slow treacherous pace. you grip the edge of the dresser as his fingers move under the loosened suit, beneath the lace at your hips, and when he touches you, when the rough pad of his finger drags through the wet heat of you, both of you go still.
his forehead lowers briefly to your temple. “fuck.”
you part your thighs without meaning to, and his fingers follow the invitation immediately, stroking you with a confidence that makes your knees loosen. your glow pulses brighter in the mirror, gold threading over your collarbones, down your arms, blooming where his hands touch you.
“all this from a kiss?” he asks, but the arrogance is fraying at the edges.
“don’t flatter yourself.”
he pushes on finger into you. your answer breaks into a moan.
his hand tightens on your breast. “say that again.”
you can’t. not cleany.
his finger works into you slow, then curls, and the pleasure lands low and sharp enough that your hips press back into him on instinct. he makes a rough sound against your neck, then adds a second finger, stretching you open while his thumb circles your clit with dirty, unhurried pressure.
his name comes out before you can stop it, “ben—”
his mouth opens against your shoulder, teeth pressing there as if he needs somewhere to put the reaction. “again.”
you shake your head once, stubborn even with his fingers buried inside you. he trusts them deeper.
your fingers slip against the dresser. “ben.”
“there you go,” his voice drops, thick and pleased. “knew you could ask nice.”
“i’m not asking.”
“you will.”
you should hate him. you should shove him back, pull the suit over your chest, kick him out, and let him spend the rest of the night wondering if he imagined how close he came to losing himself in your room.
instead, you reach behind you an grab the back of his neck, pulling his mouth to yours. the kiss turns filthy, all tongue and teeth and broken breath. his fingers are still moving between your legs, your hips rocking into his hand now. he groans into your mouth when you grind back against him, when your ass presses against the hard length of him throuhg his suit.
he pulls his fingers out suddenly and you actually whine.
“pretty,” his eyes sharpen.
then he turns you around. your back hits the dresser again, and he’s on you before you can catch your balance, one hand gripping your thigh and hauling it up around his waist. his mouth drags down your chest—hot and rough—and when he takes one nipple into his mouth, you nearly unfold. his tongue works over you, teeth grazing just enough to make you gasp, while his hands keep your thigh high against his hip.
the suit hangs around your waist now, half-off, ruined. your vought-approved armor turned into a mess of gold fabric bunched between your body and his.
“this thing cost them a fortune,” you manage.
he lifts his head, mouth wet, eyes dark. “then they can buy you another.”
his hand moves between you, fingers finding you again, slickinmg through the wetness he already pulled from you. you bite your lip hard, but not fast enough. the sound slips out anyway, and soldier boy looks at you with a satisfaction that makes heat twist through your stomach.
“don’t hold back now,” he says. “room’s probably soundproof.”
“probably?”
his smile is brief and wicked. “guess we’ll find out.”
you pull at the front of his suit. “off.”
that’s all you say. it works better than any long, clever line would have.
something in him snaps into focus. he strips down only as much as he needs to—impatient and rough with the fastenings—his mouth finding yours between movements because apparently even underessing is too much distance. when his cock is finally in his hand, thick and hard and flushed at the head, your mouth goes dry.
he tears open a condom with his teeth, rolls it on, and steps back between your thighs. one hand settles at your waist; the other grips your thigh higher, opening you for him.
he pushes in slow enough that you feel every inch. the stretch is immediat and deep and almost too much—your body forced to open around him while your fingers dig into his shoulders. he curses under his breath, head dropping forward, mouth near yours but not kissing. not yet. he watches your face instead—watches the way your lips part, the way your brows pull together, the way your glow flares hot under your skin.
“fuck,” he groans. “you’re tight.”
you let out a shaky breath that turns into his name halfway through.
he stills when he’s fully inside you.
your leg tightens around his waist, pulling him closer even though there’s nowhere closer to go. the dresser presses into your back. his hand presses into your hip. the room narrows to the heavy fullness of him inside you and the sound of both of you breathing.
“look at me,” he says.
you do. which is a mistake. his face is wrecked in the most brutal way—jaw clenched, eyes blown dark, sweat starting at his temple, control held together by spite and not much else. you can feel him trying not to move; the restraint in the tremor of his hand on you.
“ben,” you whisper.
his hips snap forward and your head falls back with a cry.
there's no gentle build after that. he fucks you hard agaisnt the dresser, one hand under your thigh, the other braced beside you, each thrust driving the air out of your lungs. bottles rattle behind you. the mirror shakes. your suit slides lower on your hips and he watches every inch of you come apart under him with a hunger that makes your skin burn.
“take it,” he manages.
you mean and his rhythm falters for half a second. enough for your power to answer. gold light spreads across your chest, down your stomach, over the hand he has on your thigh. his own chest flickers against yours, faint at first, hidden under the loosened suit, but you feel the heat of it.
so does he.
his mouth crashes back to yours before you can say anything.
you kiss him through it, messy and desperate—fingers in his hair, nails scraping the back of his neck. he groans into your mouth when you clench around him, and the sound does something vicious to you. makes you tighten again just to hear it.
“shit,” he breathes. “you feel that? squeezing me every time i make a noise.”
“i’m the one making you—”
he thrust deeper. you cry out. “me too, sweetheart.”
his mouth moves over your throat, your collarbone, the top of your breast, leaving heat wherever he touches. one of his hands slides between your bodies, thumb finding your clit, and the pleasure spikes so sharply your nails bite into his shoulder.
“oh, god.”
he lifts his head, eyes on your face. “wrong guy.”
you almost laugh, but his thumb presses harder and the laugh breaks into a moan. he watches it solemnly; watches you lose the shape of the response; watches your mouth open and your eyes go unfocused, and something about that seems to hit him harder than the glow ever did.
“that’s it,” he murmurs. “that’s what you need.”
“don’t get smug.”
“too late.”
“ben—”
“i know,” his voice drops. “i can feel you.”
he can. there’s no hiding it now, your body is tightening around him, pleasure building fast and hot, your glow bright enough to wash the room in soft gold. his chest answers more strongly this time, pulsing against yours with every deep thrust, and you feel a vicious little thrill at the evidence of it. he’s not untouched. he’s not above this. he’s not standing outside the fire making jokes about it. he’s burning too.
“you’re glowing again,” you whisper.
his hand moves to your throat, applying just the right amount of pressure to hold your attention in place. “so are you.”
your lashes flutter. he feels that too.
“you like that?” he asks, voice darkening. “like my hand there?”
you don’t answer, holding onto the faintest shred of pride you’ve got left.
his thumb strokes once along the side of your throat, almost tender if not for the way his hips keep driving into yours. “tell me.”
“yes.”
his exhale is rough. “good girl.”
the words land low in your stomach.
he kisses you again, and this time there’s less fight in it. his mouth stays on yours while his thumb works you faster, while his cock drags deep and thick inside you, while your leg starts to tremble around his waist. you’re close. too close. embarrassingly fast, maybe, but there’s nothing neat about this. he has a hand at your throat, his body between your thighs, his chest glowing because of you, and the entire rooms feels fever-warm from the power spilling off your skin.
“come on,” he mutters against your mouth. “let me feel it.”
you shake your head, breathless. it’s not because you don’t want to—but because the edge comes too fast and too bright.
“yes,” he squeezes once. “don’t pull away from me now.”
your body obeys before your mouth agrees. pleasure snaps through you, sudden and blinding, your glow flaring so hard the mirror catches nothing but gold for one broken second. you come around him with a cry you can’t swallow, hips jerking, fingers locked in his hair, body clenching down until he curses and buries his face against your neck.
“fuck,” he groans. “that’s it. that’s it.”
he keeps moving through it, slower but deep, dragging the orgasm out until your legs shake and your breath turns thin.
his control is worse now. you can feel it slipping in the roughness of his thrusts, the way his hand tightens on your hip, the way his mouth presses hot and open to your shoulder because he has stopped pretending he doesn’t need somewhere to put the sound.
when your body softens, he pulls out just enough to turn you. you’re still half catching your breath when he spins you around with that same blunt strength that makes your pulse kick. your hands hit the dresser. the mirror steadies in front of you, reflecting your flushed face, your half-undone suit, the gold light still shimmering under your skin.
one hand spreads between your shoulder blades, easing you down until your elbows press to the dresser. the other grips your hip. you see him in the mirror, big and tense and behind you, jaw tight, chest glowing faintly beneath the open front of his suit.
“watch,” he commands before he pushes back inside.
the angle steals whatever breath you had left.
you moan, louder this time, fingers curling agains tthe polished surface as he fills you again from behind. he pauses when he bottoms out, just long enough for you to feel the full weight of him, the heat of his body curved over yours, his breath at your ear.
“look at you,” he growls. “taking me so good.”
your eyes close from please.
his hand catches your jaw immediately, turning your face toward the mirror. “no. watch.”
you do. you watch him start to move. you watch his hips snap into yours, your own body jolt forward with every thrust, breasts brushing the cool dresser, mouth falling open as the pleasure builds again too soon. it’s filthy seeing it this way—him behidn you, his hands on you, your gold suit shoved around your waist, his cock disappearing int you over and over while the room glows warmer with every broken sound you make.
“ben,” you gasp.
his eyes lift to yours in the mirror. that does something to him.
his rhythm roughens. “louder, doll.”
“ben.”
“again.”
you say it again, and he fucks you harder, one hand gripping your hip while the other slides around your waist and down between your thighs. your body jerks when his finger find your clit again, still sensitive.
“i can’t—”
“yes, you can.”
“fuck, no—”
“you can.” his voice is low at your ear. “give me another one.”
you push back against him, helplessly chasing and resisting at once—your body split between too much and not enough. he feels it. he feels everything. every clench. every tremble. every time your breath catches instead of becoming a moan. his hand works you through it, his thrusts deep and relentless, his mouth pressing against the side of your neck.
“that’s it. c’mon, baby. one more.”
the words hit before you can brace for them. your body clamps down around him. his hips stutter and you see it in the mirror—the way his mouth opens, the way his brows draw tight, the way the gold in his chest flares bright enough to paint the edges of your reflection.
he sees you seeing it and he doesn’t have the breath to deny it. “fuck.”
“there you are,” you taunt.
he grips your jaw tighter while he drives into you hard enough to make the dresser knock against the wall. “don’t start.”
he’s falling apart now. you feel it in the shape of his body over yours. in the rough drag of his breath. in the way his dirty mouth is actually loosing it’s stamina.
“so damn tight,” he mutters. “fuck. you feel so good. knew you would. knew you’d take it.”
your second orgasm builds meaner than the first—dragged out of an already-sensitive body. the gold under your skin pulses wildly. your reflection blurs with it. you’re glowing everywhere—chest, cheeks, throat, the backs of your hands braced on the dresser. he looks ruined behind you.
“come for me.”
it takes a couple more seconds before your body locks around him. the orgasm tears through you hot and hard, your cry spilling into the room with no attempt to soften it. soldier boy groans behind you, hips driving deep as you clench around him.
he comes with your name half-buried in a curse.
his body shudders over yours, one hand braced beside yours on the dresser. the other still grips your waist hard enough to leave memory if not bruises. you feel every pulse through the condom as he stays buried deep, breathing hot against your shoulder.
his forehead lowers to your shoulder for one heavy second after the worst of it passes. neither of you moves. the suite hums quietly around you.
your skin is damp. your thighs tremble. your suit is ruined around your hips, your hair mussed, your mouth swollen, your body still clenching faintly around him as the last waves roll through.
his glow fades before yours does.
he pulls out carefully. you straighten slowly, palms still on the dresser, trying to gather yourself into something that looks less thoroughly taken apart.
behind you, he deals with the condom, tucks himself away, closes his suit enough to look almost respectable if someone ignores the mouth and the hair.
you turn around.
your panties are still on the floor and you watch as he bends and picks them up.
for one stupid second, you think he’s going to hand them to you. then, he puts them in his pocket instead.
you stare at him, an incredulous laugh escaping you. “seriously?”
his eyes move over you, slower now, less performative. “yeah.”
“give them back.”
“no.”
your body is too tired for the argument, but your mouth is not. “you’re unbelievable.”
“you were saying my name a minute ago.”
you step closer, still half-dressed, still glowing softly where his hands had been. “next time you walk into my room without knocking, i’ll make you cry.”
his gaze drops to your mouth. then back to your eyes. “next time?”
you hate that your pulse reacts. so you smile, pretty and warm and mean enough to be useful. “get out, ben.”
he watches you for one more second, hand still in his pocket around stolen lace. then he turns toward the door.
at the threshold, he pauses. “i’m keeping these.”
you’re glad he didn’t turn around to face you. the smile is on your face, stupid and a little naive. as he keeps walking, the door shutting behind him with a heavy click. only then do you let the last of the gold fade from your skin.
summary. homelander is coming to talk to his father when he stumbles upon the two of you in bed.
contents. MDNI!!!!! f!reader, s5 spoilers, sub reader, pet names, dark content, ben/reader with homelander pov, voyeurism, dacryphilia, overstimulation, cunnilingus, typical homelander behavior & gross soldier boy behavior, weird family dynamics, homelander god talk, also ben is kinda softish and in love, reader isn't a supe — 2.5k words
notes. i started this like two weeks ago, so it's not exactly compliant with the plot anymore but i'm posting anyway. forgive me if i write homelander poorly </33 i am experimenting
It’s rare that Homelander considers his timing poor—even rarer that he believes his choices are anything but divine intervention, a cosmic hand nudging their worldly God in the right direction.
He’s getting off the elevator when he first questions that belief, wonders what message could possibly be received from the intimate act he’s stumbled upon. A sharp inhale is the first sound he hears; faint enough to be considered normal, but with an undertone of passion that he can’t write off.
He’d only been coming to talk to Soldier Boy—his father—about the V1, about everything that happened at Fort Harmony and the tensions that are spreading like a sickness between them, poisoning the path to Homelander’s destiny. His father is creating too much friction when he’s supposed to be helping, suppressing his hatred instead of being honest.
An apology is going to taste like bile on Homelander’s tongue, but he’s willing to extend something of an olive branch if it will placate Soldier Boy enough to help him find the key to immortality.
That had been his plan, anyway—try and smooth things over with Ben. He just hadn’t anticipated stumbling upon the two of you caught in the throes of passion.
Homelander hears your voice through the walls, high-pitched and loud, his father’s name spewed out like a prayer before ending on a sharp moan.
He knows, immediately, that it’s you on the other side of the door—his father’s sweet little pet, the human that worships Soldier Boy like a god, who has no regard for the heavenly power that Homelander has been gifted with.
You are also the only human in the world that’s getting away with such misplaced devotion.
Homelander licks his lips, tensing his jaw as his eyes itch to burn through the drywall, red flares that will your pretty little head off once his father spills his seed into you. It would be gratifying to knock Soldier Boy down a few pegs, to make him realize that Homelander is the god that humans are supposed to worship, not him. Ben does not have the upper-hand just because his poor, powerless lover has been allowed to live this long.
He considers it; that timeline of events plays out before Homelander’s eyes like a film reel. It would be gratifying, yes, but stupid—the life of one human isn’t worth risking his chance at eternity.
Homelander knows that his father would hate him if he killed you, would see him as something worse than a disappointment, and he’d track down any remaining V1 to destroy it himself.
Not that Homelander thinks he can’t succeed without his father. He can find the V1 on his own, but there’s no reason to create unnecessary obstacles.
Your death can wait a little longer.
“Please, Ben,” Homelander hears you say through the wall, your voice soft, far too gentle for someone like Soldier Boy to love. “Fuck.”
“Yeah? You like that, hm?” There’s a pause, a mocking laugh as his father’s voice deepens. “’Course you do, pretty cunt’s still squeezing my fingers so tightly. Can’t even count the number of times you’ve come, and she still wants more. Dirty girl.”
Homelander considers leaving, but the thought is brief, overshadowed by his growing desire to, somehow, get back at his father. Soldier Boy will be more sorry about what happened back at Fort Harmony if the real force of Homelander’s powers are used against him, if he can find a way to prove he’s misjudged his son yet again.
The desire to kill you erupts once more, but Homelander stays still, silent, assessing the scene from a shadowy advantage like a natural predator.
When another cry leaves your lips, curiosity wins out and Homelander peers through the wall, peeling back the layers with his super-powered vision.
The room is a mess, clothes strewn everywhere, and he grimaces at the bodily fluids he can detect on nearly every surface. His scan of the bedroom is quick, much more dismissive than studious, before he focuses his attention on you and Soldier Boy.
Your cheek is pressed into the bed, head tilted in Homelander’s direction, the view enough to see the pleasure, laced with a hint of pain, that is sketched into the lines of your expression. Exhaustion wears at you, spilled cum is drying on your stomach, but your body still radiates with heat, still beats with need as tears gather at your lashes.
His father’s face is deep in your cunt, fingers stretching your folds as he sucks your clit, hard enough to have your back arching up off the bed. With a gasp, your hands fly to Ben’s hair, lacing through the strands as you tug reactively.
To Homelander’s surprise, Ben doesn’t seem to mind your attempts at control, and he makes a sound in the back of his throat, every word raspy and salacious. “You taste so fucking good. Sweet as candy, aren’t you, doll?” Ben mutters against your skin, throwing one of your legs over his shoulder before diving deeper into your cunt.
He pins your other leg onto the mattress, spreading your thighs far enough that every inch of you is exposed to the man before it. It also gives Homelander the perfect view of his father’s tongue deep in your core, slurping up the juices with more passion than he’s ever seen him devote to anything.
Homelander feels himself growing hard, an erection forming steadily in his pants, straining against the tight material of his uniform. He grits his teeth, trying to ignore it, hoping that his hatred for you will cool the conflicting lust he feels.
A few of your nails have cracked, the tips bloody from the way you’d dug them into Ben’s back. Had he been a weaker man, a man without V1 and years of experimentation done on him, there would be long, red lines scratched into his taut muscles.
Instead, the skin is flawless, the dried blood there belonging to you alone. You’re not strong enough to harm him, but Ben doesn’t care, perhaps, even, derives pleasure from how easily he can handle you.
Homelander thinks it’s demeaning that his father is so devoted to you when you’re so weak, when you’re nothing compared to his otherworldly strength. It makes Homelander sick to look at you, to see the hazy affection that clouds Ben’s irises, because that’s his father, and it’s wrong that any love he’s able to muster up should go to such a pathetic creature.
Tears gather at your lashes, and you dig your nails deeper into Ben’s scalp, crying out painfully. “Too much, Ben,” you say, writhing on the bed beneath him, voice wracked with desperation.
No sympathy is spared from Soldier Boy. He doesn’t let up, doesn’t let you free even as the tears fall onto your cheeks, heavy from the overstimulation. Your lips are swollen and parted, saliva coating the corners of them as you take whatever Ben will give you.
For whatever reason, his father is infatuated with you. You aren't special; there’s nothing marginally interesting about you, except for, perhaps, the fact that you aren’t scared of anyone on the Seven, not even Homelander.
You’re still human, though, still sickeningly fragile, and Homelander is beginning to wonder if that’s why Ben is so determined to find the V1, if he has ulterior motives that don’t include giving his son the gift of immortality.
That lights him up with indignation that, for some reason, only goes between his legs. He can’t look away from the scene before him, can’t tear his eyes from the sickeningly sweet affection that has become tangible between the two of you. His father is many things, things that even Homelander can’t figure out, but he is just as starved for adoration and you give it to him tenfold.
He doesn’t understand—can’t understand why your love is so undying. Soldier Boy is no better than Homelander, he is no God, and yet, he has still earned the pure, innocent love of a human, the love that Vought had always promised was Homelander’s birthright.
Frustration rises in him and Homelander palms himself over the suit, suppressing a groan, the pressure relieving only a bit of his lust. He needs to be more careful, needs to find a way to get to the V1 before his father. There’s more room in his heart than Homelander initially believed, and while there’s a slim chance you’d even survive an injection of V1, his father might be foolish enough to try.
Homelander could kill you—he should kill you before it comes to that. He wants his father to see that you’re not worth anything, certainly not worth the world that could be built with their two forces combined. If he can just get you out of the picture, maybe things will be smoother.
Maybe you’re the reason his father keeps turning against him.
The thought flares his eyes red again, threatening and bright, but the color flickers, dies back down into their normal blue as he feels the repulsive want take control. Homelander is too intrigued by the way his father is fucking you, the way his tongue flicks into you, rendering you a mess. He’s never seen Soldier Boy so vulnerable, and though his walls are still high, there’s a softness about him that remains behind these doors.
“Come on, sweetheart, I know you’ve got one more in you.” Ben says, scoffing at the tears running down your cheeks. He is mocking, but gentle at the edges, careful to search for your breaking point. The stamina and strength of a supe is ten times that of a human, and ten times that for someone like Soldier Boy. If he doesn’t want his toy to break, he has to know its limits.
You whimper, closer to pain now than you were before. A choked sob escapes your lips, but your orgasm creeps up on you, your body shaking miserably as it tries to force another one through the painful stimulation.
That’s more gratifying to Homelander than anything—the pain on your face—and he presses his palm to his bulge harder, faster, resting one hand against the wall as he thrusts his hips into the other. He’s careful not to make a sound, though he’s certain Ben’s hearing is not as good as his, and he’s probably high enough to write it off as delusion.
“I-I can’t—” you say, and it would seem miserable if you weren’t breathless, if you didn’t want to come again so badly.
Soldier Boy groans into your cunt, his eyes commanding as he gazes up at you over your hips. The tears falling down your cheeks, onto the bed, are making him harder, his cock swollen between his legs, even though he’d come just minutes before. He drags a hand down the length of it, enough to give him some relief, but not enough to come quite yet.
“You can. You’re close I can feel it.” He traces a soothing, possessive circle on your thigh with his thumb, keeping you steady on the bed. “Touch those pretty tits for me. My girls aren’t getting enough attention.”
You obey without question, lazily dragging your hands up your stomach and onto your chest. The moment your fingertips graze your nipples, you come to the edge of a climax, your voice louder, body more pliant under Ben’s touch.
His father grins, face shiny with your slick as you grope yourself.
Homelander pulses with need, shaking with a silent moan as he watches you play with your breasts. He swallows back the sounds, suppresses the lasers that flick in his irises. You have a nice pair of tits, ones that would look even better swollen, leaking with milk, and briefly, he wonders if his father would share you. You’re just a human, after all, and you could serve a much greater purpose if you devoted yourself to two gods instead of one.
Or, maybe, his father will find a way to fix the mistake he’s made in his lab rat son, to create the child that Homelander apparently isn’t. A better version of him will never exist, and Soldier Boy would be stupid for ever thinking so, even though Homelander knows the thought has crossed his mind, knows that he is too much of a disappointment for Ben to ever try to build the kind of relationship with Homelander that he craves.
The hypotheticals don’t matter because Homelander knows you wouldn’t be a good mother, not to someone of their bloodline. You’d infect any super-abled child with your pathetic human morals, twist their minds until they suppress their powers and try to fit into a world that doesn’t want them.
That is, of course, if the child didn’t tear you apart from the inside-out first.
Homelander grits his teeth, a metallic taste flowing into his mouth as he thinks of it, of watching you grow a baby inside of you that will ultimately be your demise. His breath stutters; he’s pathetically close, but his orgasm doesn’t come until a moment later, when he realizes that his father isn’t half the man he thinks he is, and he’ll never be the God that Homelander is.
Soldier Boy a slave to your pleasure—a weak, measly being—even when he pretends everything he does is for himself. You’re crying, and though Soldier Boy is tugging at himself, he’s not focused on making sure he comes—he wants to break you down, build you back up with his mouth and his hands. Ben wants you to worship him, wants you to see him as a holy figure, wants you to praise him even as he degrades you.
He is controlled by his emotions, too swayed by a pretty face and a sultry tongue.
Unlike his father, Homelander is no longer focused on winning over people’s love, and certainly not the love of one person.
You release one more sob before you come, soaking his father’s face with whatever your body has left to give. His father works you through the orgasm, even though you can hardly move, your eyes shut, chest heaving as you try to catch your breath.
“That’s my girl,” Soldier Boy says, and he’s so proud, so caring, that it has Homelander spilling into his pants right after you. It lasts for a few seconds, and then relief comes, then the disgusting sensation that settles as the cum dries in his suit.
The realization of what he’s done is not staggering, but it hits him just as his father presses a kiss to your forehead. You’re half passed-out already, eyes closed as your breathing evens out, thighs still sticky with bodily fluids, but you mutter something unintelligible under your breath anyway.
Even with his hearing, Homelander can’t catch the words, but Ben doesn’t seem to understand either. Still, his father gives you something of a smile before leaning over to pluck the joint off of his nightstand, keeping one hand possessively on your thigh. He’s still hard, but for a few minutes he sits there in the quiet of the evening, smoking, before he places the blunt back in the ash tray and moves to take care of the erection himself.
Homelander decides that’s his cue to leave. He can justify watching his father fuck you, but watching only him masturbate over your sleeping body feels like a line he shouldn’t cross.
Sparing one last exhale, Homelander slinks off the floor, hoping that neither of you hear the elevator ding.
thanks for reading, a kiss for all of you. reblog & comments are always appreciated <33 divider by cursed-carmine
summary: in the two years you’ve been with morpheus, you’ve learned that when he’s upset the dreaming tends to follow his lead. after a particularly cruel argument, you decide to visit the dreaming to apologize, only to find your boyfriend sulking on a balcony in a see-through shirt while the realm drowns in sympathy. what follows is a rescue mission for both him and his realm… and a conversation about an old mistake he’d rather keep buried, if only the raven would stop talking.
word count: 6.1k
heavily inspired by @7-wonders (give me everything you've got)
˒ᯓ PLEASE EXCUSE ANY MISTAKES, ENGLISH ISN’T MY FIRST LANGUAGE. ˒ 𝄞
The last thing you say to him before vanishing from his throne room is not your finest moment. It’s petty, it’s barbed, and it’s the sort of line that would be immortalized in a breakup playlist… if Endless had Spotify. “You don’t have a monopoly on misery, Morpheus.”
The words hang in the air like a curse, dark and heavy, even after you step through the obsidian archway and leave him behind. You feel them sticking to your ribs, not because you regret them, but because you know they’re going to ferment in his mind until they are pure, distilled self-pity.
Two years together, on and off… a goddess and an Endless, which in hindsight, is basically the same as dating a very powerful cat: beautiful, aloof, dramatic, and deeply offended when things don’t go their way. You’ve had arguments before, of course, and each time you go into your “off” period, you usually avoid the Dreaming entirely. It’s your secret little power move, you simply don’t sleep. Goddesses can do that, sleep is optional for you and you enjoy the way it probably frustrates him that he can’t get to you in dreams when you’ve decided he’s out of favor.
But this time… this time is different, because you can’t stop thinking about the way his face had flickered, just for a fraction of a second, like your words had hit somewhere you hadn’t intended. And because you know yourself too well, you start to wonder if maybe you went too far.
Which is why, hours later, you curl yourself onto your bed, close your eyes, and will yourself to sleep. You’re not going to apologize in person, or in the Waking. Oh no, you’ll do it in the Dreaming, you’ll show up looking incredible, deliver your peace offering, and maybe even make him grovel a little: it’s a solid plan.
Except when you open your eyes in the Dreaming… you’re standing ankle-deep in water. It’s raining, not a soft, melancholy drizzle, not even a moody little aesthetic rain for the background of a sad poem, this is the kind of rain that makes you want to check if someone has built an ark.
The sky is an endless sheet of black cloud, tearing open with lightning that forks down into the hills in the distance. Water pours from every possible surface: down the walls of buildings, cascading off the towers of the library, spilling from rooftops like a thousand waterfalls. The Dreaming itself seems to be sinking under it, and then you notice that the rain is… warm, almost feverish, like the Dreaming is crying, which is unsettling.
You stand there for a moment, completely still, thinking of your hair and your dress and how a goddess should not be arriving to apologize looking like a flustered shipwreck when a sodden black shape barrels toward you with frantic wingbeats and a voice already halfway to relief.
“Hey, hey, hey, do not move, do not panic, it is just a little biblical, you’re fine, you’re so fine, you are the exact person I wanted to see, oh my god your timing, I could cry, can ravens cry, do we cry, I think I am crying.” Matthew does not stop until he almost collides with your stomach, then makes a sound like a squeaky wiper blade and flaps backward.
“You have no idea how bad it’s been. Lucienne’s about to lose it, the library’s basically a water park, and don’t even get me started on the fields. The tulips are gone. Just… gone.” He glitters with rain and sadness in equal measure. You blink at him, startled. “Matthew? What in the,” You gesture at everything. “…is going on? Why is the Dreaming… leaking?”
The raven tilts his head at you like you’ve just asked him if the sun rises in the east. “Because you and the boss are fighting?” You stare at him, rain dripping from your lashes. “Excuse me?”
He starts to stammer. “Oh. Uh. I mean, uh, you know… sometimes he, uh, gets a little emotionally expressive?” You squint. “Matthew,” you say, because you have always liked him and because it is hard to be aloof with a bird that just confessed to crying, “why are you a soaked like a sponge?”
“It is a long story, okay, and the short version is that the boss is a weather system now,” he says, as if that explains everything. “Also, great to see you, really great, like wow, I could kiss your shoes, if that would not drown me. Do not move, Lucienne told me to run into you and then not to run into you, and I am doing both, which is impressive.”
You open your mouth to ask for more details, but the library doors open and Lucienne steps out with the dignity of a person who has decided she will be dignified or die trying. Her bun is pinned on by sheer force of will, her glasses are dotted with water and she is absolutely on the brink, and you can feel her relief the way one feels a sudden patch of warmth when the sun cuts through clouds. She says your name with such gentleness that you decide not to correct your bad entrance.
“Thank the realms,” she says. “Please, welcome, and forgive the mess. We have sustained a few structural inconveniences.” A shelf behind her chooses that moment to slip gently into the water like a tired cat lying down, taking thirty biographies with it. Lucienne looks at it, inhales through her nose, and then looks back to you. “A few,” she repeats.
You blink at the veils of rain drawing lines across the world. “Structural inconveniences,” you say. “Lucienne, the Dreaming is attempting to become an ocean.”
“Temporarily,” she says with a small tremor that might be a laugh and might be the beginning of a scream. “It is responsive to his state of mind. You know it is, you have always known it is.”
You glance around at the apocalyptic water-world situation. “You’re telling me the realm is like… mood lighting for his emotional state?” Lucienne blinks at you and adjusts her glasses. “I would… not put it that way. He is just not managing constructively,” she says gently, and you hear the ache in it, the affection, the bone deep familiarity that comes with keeping a world running while its king practices repression like an art. “He has been doing his best, but it turns out his best includes a tendency toward, ah, apocalyptic ambiance.”
Matthew edges closer to your knee. “On the bright side, the fish are very literary.” You look down and notice a school of tiny silver commas darting through the flood. One pauses by your ankle and becomes a semicolon as if gathering strength, then darts on. You pinch the bridge of your nose. “Why is everything in this realm dramatic.”
“Because he is,” Lucienne says without malice. “The Dreaming and Dream are one. When he is unsettled, the realm is unsettled. This is not a failing. It is a link by design. The king is the land, and the land reflects the king.”
You roll your eyes, but it is not cruel. You are already aware of the way your heart is trying to get out of its own sulk and into something softer. “So, let me get this straight. We have biblical flooding because my boyfriend is sulking.” The corner of Lucienne’s mouth twitches, which you decide to take as confirmation. “It sounds ridiculous.”
“It is,” Matthew says cheerfully. “It is also happening. You are very lucky you are not in hell right now. I have heard stories. Turn up the thermostat a little and the whole place, whoosh, straight to glass. There was this woman and he loved her and then bam, basement level, not fun, very crispy vibes, really dire, I am not saying he would do that to you, because he would never, but like, historically, it is not impossible, there is precedent and everything.”
You freeze, you do not do dramatic freezes usually, your pauses are the poised kind that suggest a statue choosing not to move. This is the kind of freeze that comes with a slow tilt of the head and a temperature drop in a five meter radius. You pinch the bridge of your nose. “What do you mean hell?!”
Lucienne puts a very quick hand out toward Matthew as if she can physically stop words. She gives him a look so raw with please that even a raven understands it. “Matthew. Not. Another. Word.”
Matthew immediately looks like he wants to stuff his own beak full of feathers and fly into a window. “What?” he says, backpedaling on his own tongue. “I am just… providing context like a good coworker. She is a goddess, she likes to be informed.”
“Matthew.” Lucienne’s voice is small with warning. There is grief in it, and a lot of history, and a firm librarianly urge to not have to mop up more than one disaster per hour. Matthew collapses inward like a wet tent. “Okay. I will stop. I have stopped. This is me, stopping.”
It is almost funny, the way the whole realm seems to notice the way your spine straightens, it is almost funny, the way the rain changes tone like a song sliding into a minor key, it is almost funny until you hear it… a sound drifting through the air. It’s faint at first, like something you’re imagining, but it grows louder, echoing through the storm until you can recognize it… music.
Sad, mournful, rainy-day breakup music: the kind of playlist that only someone deeply committed to their own melodrama would choose. You’re pretty sure you hear a very slow, very depressing cover of a song that did not need a slow depressing cover.
“Of course,” you whisper, because you recognize it. Not the song itself but the gesture. He is doing this on purpose, he is trying to soundtrack his feelings. You pinch the bridge of your nose again, then remember you already did that. You consider pinching something else. “Is he playing sad music in his own realm?” Lucienne closes her eyes for a brief second as if to accept that yes, she is alive in this reality. “Yes, he has been playing it through the library for some time..”
“It is not just sad,” Matthew says with real scholarly interest. “It is niche. It is the kind of playlist that makes you ask if he discovered this band in a dream and then brought them to the waking world purely to suffer. It is the kind of thing where the album art is just fog.”
“Enough,” Lucienne says with an apologetic wince for you. “Please forgive him… forgive all of us, this has been a very trying few hours.”
“I am not offended,” you say, although you are in fact offended by the melodrama of the soundtrack, not by the gossip. You take a slow breath and try to pull your anger back into something articulate. Your departing words hit you again, the way you had thrown them like a stone at his ribs, the way you had watched him catch the stone and say nothing.
You had wanted him to flinch, you had wanted him to understand he is not the only god of control in the room. You are entirely too good at hurting what you value, which is a habit you thought you had shed. So you look at Lucienne and see the plea in her posture and you nod. “Where is he?”
Lucienne exhales like a very dignified kettle that has been finally removed from heat. “On the balcony. He has not moved much, save to change the weather to match each new thought.”
“Like a one man forecast,” Matthew says. “We had fog, lightning, a brief interlude of dramatic hail, everything was very symbolic.” Lucienne tips her head. “Would you go to him? I would go myself but I am only a librarian, and I am, as you can see, occupied with the continued existence of the archive.”
The library behind her coughs up a small geyser under a table and Matthew goes to stand on it, because he is a helper. You nod once, you do not promise to be kind because you do not believe in empty promises, but you are already moving.
You wade through a Dreaming that is doing its best impression of an ocean floor, you are not sure there is a dry path left anywhere in the Dreaming, but you try anyway. Your sandals vanish into water that is ankle deep, then calf deep, and by the time you reach the first marble stair that leads toward the palace, you are soaking from the neck down, and for a second you wonder if he has invented new kinds of precipitation just to spite you.
Rain falls sideways when you step under an arch and down your collar when you step out. It flings itself at your eyelashes with the devotion of a thousand tragic sonnets. Your hair clings in a way that would be funny if it were not also unflattering. Two sentry dreams kneel as you pass, which is sweet, and then slide off their knees because the marble is treacherous, which is realistic. You smile at them anyway, you can be many things and you decide you will be kind to everyone except him for at least five minutes.
Overhead the music shifts: the library playlist has either learned to follow you or Lucienne has leaned into the bit because you can hear slow piano threaded with low strings. A voice that sounds like a century outside in the rain sighs about lost chances and the cruelty of fate. You pause, roll your eyes up at the sky, and speak clearly to the storm: you do not shout, you pitch your tone perfectly, the way you would for a cat that is pretending not to understand. “Okay, sweetheart we get it. You feel things.”
The storm increases by ten percent out of principle, a wave makes a sincere attempt to knock you over. You plant your feet and let it break around your calves. Water drags at your skirt, the fabric clinging to your thighs. You have always known he has a flair for the theatrical but today he has no ceiling on it.
You breathe out slowly, you had thought coming here would let you apologize on your terms. You had not considered how the realm would make you wear his temper like weather.
You find him exactly where Lucienne said you would, because of course he is not subtle: he has chosen the most cinematic corner of the balcony and he stands with his hands on the railing, head bowed. The storm clings to him like worship, his hair is blacker than the clouds, a storm of its own, flattened to his cheeks and neck.
His shirt is black and so soaked that it has become transparent in a way that feels less like a shirt and more like a suggestion of one. When he turns at the sound of your step he does not smile, and he does not move, and he does not attempt a line about how he was just thinking of you, which is a small mercy.
You stop a few paces away and look at him because you have earned the right, he is beautiful and he knows it in the way a storm knows it. He is also ridiculous, and you love him, and you are furious. “So,” you say, with the controlled neutrality of a diplomat who just swam to a meeting. “You flooded your realm.”
He looks past you for a full second, as if deciding whether the world deserves an answer, then says, with profound gravity, “It rained.”
“It rained because you are sulking,” you say. He is too proud to say yes but he is also too proud to lie directly, the corner of his mouth shifts a fraction of a millimeter toward something sheepish. “The weather reflects the mood of the king.”
“Yes, Lucienne gave me the brochure,” you say. “It is very wet.” The music shifts again, like a sigh you can hear, something piano heavy: a slow ache of notes that rise and fall like breath under a blanket. It is a little on the nose and it is very him.
He looks at your hair and a small shot of guilt goes through his posture. “You should not have come into this. It is not your burden.” You fold your arms. “It is literally my fault.”
“It is not,” he says carefully, which is almost nice. “I contain my storms.” You lift a hand and point behind you without looking: a thunder wave unrolls over the library roof like a grand curtain. He glances past you and his jaw sets in the way that means he knows he is being theatrical and resents being told so. He looks back at you, something raw under the immortal calm.
“You think I do not try,” he says, quiet and slowly intense. “You think I do not notice the first drop and press my thumb to the sky.”
“I think you stand in it and decide to match,” you say. “Because it is easier to stand here and brood than to speak.” His eyes do a traitor thing where they show you a flash of real hurt. You feel it in your own throat. Somewhere, in the library, a cello section sighs under an imaginary conductor. The rain doubles down and you have the foolish thought that the weather pities you both.
“Those words,” he says, very low. “What you said.” You cannot pretend you forgot, you cannot pretend you were clever instead of cruel. You take a step closer, the balcony tile almost becomes smaller between you, his shirt is so wet it is almost not a shirt. You try not to notice the line of his collarbone because you did not come to enjoy him, you came to put him back together, sometimes both are the same job.
“I am sorry,” you say, and it is not ornate and not legendary, it is a simple offering in the rain. “I was trying to hurt you because I was afraid you would hurt me first, it was childish.” He blinks as if you have performed a magic trick, he is an Endless who can dream up geographies by thinking, and still he looks stunned by a direct apology.
The music in the realm hiccups between tracks, as if a hidden hand just hit shuffle in a panic. A low female voice starts singing in French about the soft collapse of yearning, which is not helping. You take another step and he looks at you like he’s afraid you are a figment of his imagination.
“You do not need to apologize,” he says stiffly, which is half chivalry and half fear. “You have your realm and your rules, I have my realm and mine. We collide, it is not always graceful.”
“We collide because you clench,” you say, softer. “And because I do not like begging for tenderness, even when I want it.” He swallows and the rain takes a breath with him. You see it then, the exhausted tension in his shoulders, the fragility hidden in the set of his jaw. He has not slept, obviously. He cannot sleep like mortals sleep and yet he can be exhausted. He is tired of being the precise shape of himself, you understand that too well.
“Lucienne asked me to come,” you add, because truth loves company. “She loves you, but she is very close to telling you to stop being so dramatic.” One corner of his mouth moves slightly. “I do not think she would phrase it so.”
“She would, actually,” you say. “She is two ruined books away from mutiny.” That is what wins you a very small smile, and it is the kind that makes your throat ache. He tilts his head and water falls from his lashes in a perfect measured line. “You are wet.”
“I am aware,” you say. “The whole realm is a giant bath. You, however, are wearing a shirt that forgot what fabric is. Did you do that on purpose?” He looks down as if surprised to find himself clothed, then back at you with a seriousness that would be unendurable in any other person. “No.”
“You are impossible,” you say, but it is affectionate, and he hears it, and the rain loses a fraction of its intensity as if the cloud heart is listening in.
You move again before you can talk yourself out of it, this is your apology. You step close enough that the heat of him cuts through the chill of the storm. He looks at you the way he looks at the moment before a dream becomes lucid, wary and hungry and braced. You lift your hands to his face, and they fit there like you have a right. He stills and the Dreaming holds its breath, you kiss him.
It is not a dramatic kiss, it is gentle and slow and exact and it is more difficult than any battle you have fought because you hold back nothing and demand nothing. For a heartbeat he does not respond, then he makes a sound like a page turning in a quiet room and his mouth is soft under yours, and his hands are on your hips with the caution of a man who is very strong and very afraid of doing harm.
The rain hesitates, the music swells like a triumphant idea trying to pretend it is not happy to be here. Somewhere, very far away, an orchestra of wingbeats changes direction and you kiss him until the storm realizes it has an exit.
The rain ends so suddenly the silence thumps, you feel the drop of it like a coat taken off your shoulders. The clouds open, and the sun does not rise so much as slide into the room, light arriving in sheets that melt the slick shine off stone and set his wet shirt to steaming in a way that is frankly illegal.
The realm exhales, the moat around the library becomes puddle, then mirror, then memory. Pages uncrumple themselves with little sighs, the umbrellas fall asleep in a neat stack and stop arguing.
You stand with your hands on his face and his on your hips and look at each other like people who have made it across a rope bridge that was on fire only to discover the view on the other side is embarrassing in its beauty.
He looks so soft in the new light that you have to laugh, because if you do not laugh you might fall apart. He blinks at the sound as if laughter is a creature he has to remember how to name, and then he smiles properly, which is an eclipse turned inside out. “It appears,” he says with immense gravity, “that the weather has improved.”
“It appears,” you say, and then kiss him again because gravity is for other people. You do not pull away quickly, you sink into a hug that feels like the first deep breath after a long dive. He rests his chin on your hair and you feel the precise way his body unknots against yours, the slow surrender of his posture to something like rest.
“I meant what I said a minute ago,” you murmur into his shoulder. “I am sorry.” He does not answer for a long moment, and when he does it is not with a line about forgiveness or a speech about fault. His arms just tighten, a slow quieting circle. “I know.”
You stay like that, the sun rubs light into you both as if trying to dry you with its gentle hands. The sea of the Dreaming becomes a chain of lagoons. A dragonfly lands on your shoulder, then looks up at him, decides this is too intimate, and leaves.
You breathe, he breathes, and for a king of dreams he has a very mortal breath, you can feel the human of it in your chest. You let yourself imagine, just for the indulgent length of a heartbeat, a future where he learns to say what he feels before he drowns the architecture.
You imagine teaching him the trick of saying ‘I am sad’ in a room with the windows shut, not through thirty thousand gallons of symbolism: it is a warm thought, so you keep it.
After a time he draws back enough to look at you and his hands stay on your waist because he is not a fool. “Will you come inside,” he asks, at once courtly and hopeful. “We have towels, and tea.”
“I will,” you say. “But first, there is something I need to ask.” His expression changes in the way a sea changes when a wind shifts. You see the exact instant he hears the hinge of your tone.
Somewhere behind you the library hums as the playlists reconfigure themselves nervously, you watch his gaze flicker to your mouth and then to the horizon and then back again, as if he is choosing among escape routes he refuses to take. You have him, and it almost feels unfair, but also feels necessary.
“Matthew said I am lucky I am not in hell,” you say lightly, and the word hell has the taste of iron when you speak it. “He said there was a woman, he mentioned there was precedent.”
The breeze stops pretending to be casual, a single bead of water falls from the tip of a gargoyle and hits the stone with the ring of a bell. His hands go still on you, completely still, as if the world has dared him to blink. You feel the Dreaming do that subtle thing it does when it senses that a king is about to be cornered by the truth.
Far away, down in the heart of the realm, there is a sound, it is small and muffled and unmistakable: a crash, like pottery that had no fault line until someone’s power twitched. You do not know what breaks and you do not need to, the way his jaw tightens tells you it is real.
You lift an eyebrow. “That sounded healthy.” He does not move, he looks like a man who has been asked to identify his own reflection in a lineup and is worried it will confess to something.
The pause is long enough for a tiny breeze to examine both of you and decide to return later. His mouth opens, closes, opens, and when he finally speaks he chooses a tone so perfectly neutral that it wraps around the word like gauze.
“What did Matthew say?” he asks, which is not an answer, and absolutely an answer, and you love him enough to let him try to dodge while you patiently take away every possible place to hide. “Enough,” you say. “Not everything.”
“I would prefer,” he says with great care, “that you do not discuss ancient history with a raven who has no context.”
“Ancient history,” you repeat, more to feel the shape of his defense than to mock it. “Is that what we are calling it?” He meets your eyes, and there is so much in his that you could build a house with it: guilt and stubbornness and a weary honesty that aches to be allowed into the room.
He tries for a small crooked smile, it is not his best work. “Perhaps we might discuss it later, after tea… after you are warm. After I am… less soaking wet.”
You look pointedly down at the place in the distance where the sound came from and for a moment you simply let the silence grow a little thorny around you both, not to wound, but to mark the boundary.
He has the grace to wince, just at the corner of his mouth, as if he can feel the Dreaming tensing again in small places and is trying to relax every muscle in his magic by brute force.
“Might have been the pottery,” he says with airy innocence that fools absolutely no one. “A shelf, a minor tremor, Cain and Abel have very sturdy crockery, however, so it is likely fine.”
From far away you hear Abel call out that he is fine in the exact voice of a person who just witnessed an attempted flood. Cain replies with something that sounds like a lecture about shelf brackets, you do not smile.
“Might have been,” you echo. “Or it might have been the king flinching when he heard the word hell.” He inhales and you feel the realm go absolutely attentive, like a theater crowd leaning forward. He is deciding whether to be brave or to be himself.
You wait, you have learned that waiting is sometimes the fiercest way to love a difficult man. “Inside,” he says finally, with a carefully measured humility that tries to be charming and almost succeeds. “Please… let me attempt to explain without drowning every dream and nightmare in my realm.”
You consider him, just long enough that his shoulders go from rigid to resigned, then you nod, because the conversation you are about to have deserves chairs and a fireplace and a door he cannot run through without looking silly.
“Fine,” you say, falling into step with him. “But we are circling back to the part where you used your realm like a weather diary.” He gives you a look that is half apology, half helpless artistry, and all him. “I will endeavor to adopt a less theatrical barometer.”
“We will see,” you say, and let him lead you into the dry. The palace has decided to dry itself in a hurry, as if embarrassed you have to wade through its mood swings. Hallways that were waterfalls are now corridors lined with damp silk banners, which cling a little too close to your arms as you walk. The marble under your feet is warm in patches where the sun has reached it, cool in others, like stepping across a memory that can’t make up its mind. The air smells faintly of lavander and whatever cologne he uses that seems to exist only in this realm, all deep shadow and just enough sweetness to make you suspicious.
He is walking slightly ahead of you, which is deliberate. He knows you cannot interrogate a man as easily if you are forced to admire the line of his shoulders while he speaks. Unfortunately for him, you are entirely capable of interrogating while distracted, and also capable of noting that the black shirt is now drying into a kind of second skin situation that would fluster a lesser goddess.
He makes the mistake of speaking first. “There are matters from my past,” he says in the careful tone of a man picking his way through a minefield while also reciting a poem, “that are… fraught. I would prefer not to have them intrude upon our…”
“Relationship,” you supply when he hesitates, because you are not going to let him off with a vague noun. He clears his throat, which is adorable given he does not need to. “…our present, nor upon your peace of mind.”
“That,” you say lightly, “sounds like a very poetic way of saying you don’t want to tell me what Matthew meant.”
“It is a way of saying,” he counters, “that the details are both complex and irrelevant to…” You stop in the middle of the hallway. “Irrelevant?”
He turns to you, which is a mistake, because you have stopped and he hasn’t yet learned that you can hold still with the same intensity he uses to loom. “I mean,” he says, his hands opening slightly in a rare gesture of uncertainty, “that they are events far removed from…”
“From what?” you ask. “From the part where you maybe threw an ex into hell?” His mouth flattens and that tells you more than anything else could.
There’s a little pulse in the air, subtle but unmistakable: the Dreaming likes drama almost as much as its king does, and you can feel the corridors listening, all their corners leaning in. He takes a slow breath. “It was… different.”
“Different,” you repeat, and start walking again, past him. “Go on, then, explain to me how exactly it was different.” He falls into step beside you, long strides measured. “The circumstances were… complicated. She and I… there was a betrayal.”
“There usually is,” you say. “Go on.” His jaw works once, twice. “I acted in anger.” You glance sideways at him. “And sent her to hell.” He hesitates, which is an answer.
You stop again, which makes him stop, and there’s that subtle tension in the air again, like the entire realm is balancing on one foot. “So Matthew was right,” you say. “There is precedent.”
He looks at you then with something raw and sharp in his eyes, something that makes the light in the corridor flicker as if even the architecture is wary. “I would not do that to you,” he says quietly, and there’s enough weight in it that you almost believe him… almost. “That,” you say, “is not the same thing as saying you regret it.”
He exhales through his nose. “Regret is… not simple for me.” You give him a look. “Oh, I know, that’s the problem.” The realm reacts the way a cat does when voices rise, not fleeing, but twitching in a way that says it might bolt if this gets any louder. Somewhere in the distance, a pane of glass hums like it’s considering shattering just to break the tension.
He moves, closing the space between you with the sort of controlled calm that’s only ever a thin disguise for emotion. “You are asking me to revisit a wound I have sealed for millennia.”
“I’m asking you,” you correct, “to tell me whether the next time we fight I should pack sunscreen or a parka.” The corner of his mouth twitches, he almost hides it, but not quite. You see the way the very air between you softens, just slightly.
And that’s when Lucienne appears at the far end of the hallway, the click of her boots brisk and perfectly measured even though her expression says she’s already calculating how many years of vacation she’s owed.
She stops just shy of the line where propriety would have her eavesdropping, folds her hands, and offers you both the kind of perfectly neutral smile that could be printed on official stationery. “Forgive the intrusion,” she says, though her eyes flick toward the nearest tapestry like she’s reminding the Dreaming itself to mind its own business.
“Lucienne,” he says with an incline of his head, the exact same way a mortal king would acknowledge a general bringing bad news.
“I’m afraid,” she says with that apologetic grace of hers, “that the library has… expressed itself again.” You blink. “Expressed itself?”
Lucienne’s mouth does the smallest, most dignified little twitch. “Yes, in the form of a small but insistent earthquake, which began precisely thirty-seven seconds ago. I’m told Cain and Abel’s residence survived intact, though the gardens are another matter.”
You don’t even try to hide the look you give him, he doesn’t meet your eyes. Lucienne clears her throat softly. “I thought, given the… delicate nature of your conversation, I might request your presence before the library takes further liberties.”
“That,” you say under your breath, “is the politest way I’ve ever heard someone say ‘stop making the furniture nervous.’” Lucienne absolutely hears you but pretends she doesn’t, because she is a saint.
He exhales, that tiny muscle in his jaw jumping. “We will attend to it,” he says to her, and it’s the royal we, which makes you smirk despite yourself. Lucienne bows her head slightly. “Thank you. And again, my apologies for interrupting.”
You wave it off. “You might have saved us from redecorating the hallway via an Endless temper tantrum.” There’s a pause where Lucienne very clearly wants to agree but chooses the high road instead. “I’ll leave you to it, then.”
When she’s gone, the silence between you isn’t as sharp as it was, but it’s not exactly comfortable either. You look at him, and he looks back, and you both know the conversation isn’t over. “Tea,” you say finally. “Then the truth.”
He inclines his head, and if you didn’t know him so well you’d think it was compliance instead of tactical retreat. “Tea,” he agrees.
"C'mere sweetheart!" Frank calls from the front hall.
"Yeah?" you ask, already padding over to him. He'd been tidying up the front hall closet for the past hour and you assumed he wanted to show you his work.
"What is it Frankie? Done?" you ask when you find.
"Yeah, almost doll," he says a little distracted. "Do me a favor, stand here and reach your hand up sweetheart," he adds, positioning you by the hips squarely in front of the closet.
"Huh?" you ask, looking back at him like he'd lost his mind.
"Just reach up baby. Stretch your arm, wanna see somethin'" he vaguely explains. You do as you're asked, reaching your arm into the air and extending it, instinctively going to your tip toes.
"No toes," he murmurs, pushing you gently down by the shoulders. You comply and go flat-footed. Once you do, he takes the pencil from behind his ear and makes a quick mark on the wall just below the height of your fingertips. "Good job sweetheart, back to the couch alright?" he says, patting your ass to send you on your way.
"Wait wait, what the hell was that for?!" you ask, your face scrunched in confusion.
"Huh?" he asks distractedly, "oh uh, the shelf. Ain't gonna put your purses up there if you can't reach it doll."
"You're lowering the whole shelf?" you ask, slightly astonished.
"Yeah, how we gonna organize your pretty purses in there if you can't reach 'em baby?" he scoffs, shaking his head like you're the crazy one.
As Brave As You Are (Newt x Reader) - A Maze Runner Story
As Brave As You Are (Newt x Reader)
Reader Insert: she/her pronouns
Word Count: 12,051
Warnings: death, bloody wounds, fighting, mental and physical torture, guns, suicidal thoughts and actions
Spoilers: no spoilers because the books and films came out ages ago
After helping Newt recover from his ankle injury, Y/N and Newt formed an unbreakable bond that always had them looking out for each other. When they escaped the Maze, then navigated the Scorch, they always had each other’s back. It isn’t until Y/N is captured alongside Minho by WCKD and Newt contracts the Flare that he realises how he truly feels about Y/N.
Problem is, will he rescue her in time to tell her?
Note: I'm back in my dystopian future era thanks to the new Hunger Games film so of course I had to write for my original YA crush. This piece is based on the movie series mainly. Don't get mad at me, I love the books more, but I can appreciate the storylines that came out of the path they took with the films. And if there is one thing the TMR fandom can agree on, it is that the film cast was the best cast ever for the series. So enjoy - not sorry that it's horrendously long, Newt deserves it xx
‘Medjack! Medjack, now!’
Y/N recognised it was Minho was calling for help. Clint and Jeff ran out of the med hut to see what all the commotion was. It wasn’t long before they were hurrying back inside, carrying Newt of all people between them, Minho and Alby in tow.
‘Clear the table,’ Clint ordered, and Y/N quickly followed through, practically throwing off containers, bowls and medical instruments to get Newt on there as quick as possible. Once Newt was up, Y/N finally noticed the unnatural twist in his ankle and it almost sent Frypan’s sloppy sweet potato soup right back up.
She was still pretty new to her job as a Medjack, being the greenie and all. She was the only girl in the Glade of the current twelve residents, so she was intimidated at first as to what role she could play in the place. Medjack seemed the most suitable, and she seemed to have a knack for it, having stitched up some eyebrows and cleaned up knee scrapes with ease and precision.
But even though she’d seen blood, dealt with displaced bones and joints, she still got queasy doing her job. It didn’t help that Newt was hissing through clenched teeth from the intense pain, an occasional sob passing through.
‘What happened?’ Y/N asked.
‘I don’t know,’ Minho said. ‘We split up for only five minutes. I thought we could cover more ground that way. And we’ve run that part of the Maze like a hundred times already. I thought we’d be fine…’
Clint held Newt down as Jeff and Y/N took a look at Newt’s ankle. Jeff only pressed gently with his fingers around the bone, but Newt’s responding howls confirmed the severity of the injury.
‘The bone is completely shattered,’ Jeff said grimly. ‘We’re going to need to reset his foot first though. Y/N?’
‘On it.’ She rushed to a shelf that held bandages, then to a cupboard with flat boards about shin length. She grabbed two of those before heading back to the table.
‘You’re going to have to hold him down,’ Y/N directed at Alby and Minho, gesturing to follow Clint’s efforts. Then she turned to Newt, whose face was slicked with tears and sweat as he continued to writhe in pain. ‘Newt. Newt, can you open your eyes for me? I need you to focus on me.’
To his credit, Newt opened his eyes and he didn’t look away from her.
‘Good. Good, Newt,’ she said. ‘Now, we have to realign your foot. It’s going to hurt a lot. We’ll go on three, okay?’
In the short time Y/N had known Newt – which arguably was no time at all, as he ran every day and she was in the Medjack hut all day. They didn’t interact unless he or another runner got hurt, or at dinner if only to say hello. Even so, she had come to know he liked it plain and straight, no bullshit. So, despite his pain, he took two deep, calming breaths and gave her a nod to say he was ready for what they had to do.
Y/N nodded back, then looked to the others, who had their hands braced on all Newt’s limbs. ‘Ready?’ she asked, to which they nodded in reply. Y/N gently held Newt’s ankle, eliciting a quiet whimper from the boy. ‘Okay, on three. One, two…’ She cut herself off as she slammed her hands either side the ankle bone, causing a loud cracking sound as the ankle snapped back into place.
Newt’s wail of pain must’ve been heard from across the whole Glade it was so loud. He writhed and pulled to sit up, but the boys held him down as Y/N and Jeff bandaged the two splints either side of Newt’s ankle. Jeff then dabbed a small dose of chloroform in a cloth and pressed it to Newt’s nose. Soon enough, the boy was unconscious, finally pain-free.
‘You guys go have dinner,’ Y/N said to Clint and Jeff a little while later as they were cleaning up the hut. Alby and Minho had left soon after Newt fell asleep, but it was almost dinner time now. ‘I’ll stay with Newt tonight.’
‘You sure?’ Clint asked. ‘We can do shifts if you’d prefer.’
Y/N shook her head. ‘I insist. You guys rest up. I can do this. Consider this my final test to becoming a fully-fledged Medjack.’
Jeff chuckled. ‘You have much more to learn, Greenie, but suit yourself.’
‘We’ll bring you back some food, Y/N,’ Clint said as he and Jeff left the hut, leaving Y/N to idly clean up.
Newt woke up from a dull throbbing in his ankle, which turned into a harsh pain, causing him to sit up in alarm.
‘Hey, it’s okay, it’s okay,’ a voice gently said as equally gentle hands pushed him back down.
‘My ankle,’ he said, voice hoarse and dry. ‘It hurts…’
The face of the voice finally came into view: it was the Greenie. Y/N offered him a small smile as he finally recognised her. In one hand, she held a needle with clear serum. Her other she offered to his leg. ‘May I? It’ll help, I promise.’
He hesitated for a moment, but the intense pain in his ankle broke his composure as he eagerly nodded. The painkiller worked immediately, and Newt sighed with relief as the throbbing eased significantly.
’There,’ Y/N said, wiping the needle. ’That should help for a bit. Sadly, we don’t have much left for me to give you more than once a day, but I’m hoping you won’t need it beyond the end of the month.’
Confusion clouded Newt’s mind as he tried to process her words. ‘What… What happened?’ But he answered his own question as images of the Maze flashed through his mind, and he remembered it all. How he bid farewell to Minho. How he climbed as high as he could along the Maze walls. How easy it was to let go.
Then the pain fully encompassed him, and then it was just a blur. How Minho found him. How Clint and Jeff laid him on the table he realised he was still on. How angry and embarrassed he felt having his friends see him broken and miserable.
Newt managed to pull himself into a sitting position, propping a pillow behind him to cushion the hut wall. ‘How bad is it?’ he asked glumly, eyes unable to lift from his injury.
He couldn’t be bothered with pleasantries. He was too tired, and, frankly, saw no point in keeping up appearances anymore.
To her credit, Y/N seemed to pick up on his mood, saying, ‘It will heal to a point you’ll be able to walk again. But it won’t ever heal properly.’
‘You mean I’ll have a limp?’
‘Potentially.’
’So I can’t be a Runner anymore?’ Y/N didn’t reply, finally drawing Newt’s attention away from the source of his pain and to her.
Newt had only interacted with Y/N on a few occasions. Mainly at mealtimes or the odd occasion he passed her by on the way back from a run, only talking as much as greeting and farewelling one another. As the only girl so far, of course he found her intriguing, but he never had time nor a reason to get to know her.
And while he’d come to think of her as the quiet and gentle Medjack in comparison to Clint and Jeff, he didn’t see an ounce of pity on her face as she looked at him. Only quiet contemplation, as if there could be any other answer but no to his question.
‘I guess that’s up to you and Alby,’ she finally said. ‘I mean, I know what I should say is no. I’m sure Clint and Jeff will say no. But it’ll more so come down to if you want to go back in or not.’ Her eyes flickered to his ankle, sadness glazing her eyes briefly before returning to him. ‘But I think I can take a guess as to what your answer will be.’
Newt’s gut twisted with guilt and shame that she’d figured it out, and his face flushed with embarrassment and anger. ‘So, you going to tell everyone?’ he asked, words thick with hopelessness. ‘I mean, that’s your job, right? Diagnose me, then tell Alby, then the whole glade how pathetic I am?’
Y/N shook her head. ‘I think you give me too much credit. I’m not an actual doctor, you know,’ she said, coming to stand beside him. She inspected his ankle for a moment, then turned her gaze to him, and it shocked him to see such intensity in her eyes. It was as if suddenly he was the most interesting person in the world.
‘I can say it was a running accident,’ she finally concluded. ‘You can tell your truth when you’re ready. It’s not my place to take away hope when the others are so full of it right now. That includes me.’
He stared, stunned, as she packed up the last of her things by a spare medical cot at the other end of the hut. It wasn’t until she let out a loud yawn that Newt noticed it was dark outside. The silence of the Glade told him everyone else had gone to bed so it was late. Or early, he couldn’t really tell.
Y/N fluffed a sad excuse of a pillow and put it on the cot. ‘Now that I know you’re alive, are you going to be okay if I get a few minutes shut eye? I can stay up if you’d like.’
Now that the initial shock and embarrassment of the day’s events had subsided, Newt realised how exhausted he was still. ‘No, that’s okay,’ he said. ‘I think I should rest a bit more anyway.’
Y/N nodded and swung her legs up to lie down fully. Newt went to slide himself and his pillow back down to do the same when Y/N spoke again.
‘And Newt?’ she said, her voice soft and almost hesitant.
‘Yeah?’ he called back.
She was silent for so long Newt thought she’d gone to sleep. But then she spoke. ‘For the record, I don’t think you’re pathetic. For wanting it all to end, that is. I actually think what you did was really brave. You might be scared and maybe out of hope, but at least you did something about it. The rest of us can only hope to be as brave as you.’
Newt’s breath caught in his chest as it swelled with a mix of emotions. Brave? What he did was the act of a coward. Tears streamed silently down his face, both from a deep shame, but also a warmth he hadn’t felt in a long time.
The rest of us can only hope to be as brave as you…
Newt had lost all hope after a year of searching for a way out and finding nothing. But she didn’t know that, and neither will the next Greenie, or the Greenie after that. Even some of the boys already in the Glade didn’t know that. That’s why they waited every day for the runners – for him – to come back with news, with a shred of hope that they’d get out of there soon.
Newt twisted himself so he could see Y/N, who was rolled away from him, her body rising and falling with the rhythm of sleep. Even if he thought it would all be hopeless in the end, some truly believed they would get out of here.
And maybe that was something worth fighting for.
~
Two years on and Newt and Y/N had managed to forge something akin to a friendship.
Y/N had kept her word and said Newt had had a running accident, and he’d agreed with her for the sake of his worried friends. Y/N had also been right about his ankle; it healed to point where he could walk and do a decent jog with a limp. But he would never run again.
He was transferred to work as a Track-Hoe in the gardens with Zart. But it wasn’t all bad. As more boys arrived – never any girls much to their confusion – Newt developed a knack for leading others, for diffusing hard situations, and for wrangling the boys into line. Because of that, he was promoted to Alby’s second-in-command, which gave him more meaningful work to do than just the gardens – stuff that might actually get him and the other Gladers out of the bloody Maze.
It also meant he had more time to talk to Y/N. He would make sure to drop by once a day (and not just at mealtimes) to check in on her. For a time, he convinced himself he did that because it was his job as second-in-command to keep up group morale, and he would visit everyone in the Glade. Eventually, however, he realised it was because he genuinely enjoyed her company.
Since that night, Y/N had come out of her shell more. Still a little shy and apprehensive at times, but she would openly joke and play along with the boys’ antics. She was more confident in her work as a Medjack too, not afraid to boss Clint and Jeff around if she needed something from them.
Newt’s visits became longer, as they talked about any and all things. Aside from Alby and Minho, Newt considered Y/N one of his closest friends. And she must’ve felt the same – or at least in a similar fashion – as she entertained his thoughts about life beyond the Maze, and the rants he would go on thanks to whichever stupid shank put the fertiliser in the wrong place.
It was a friendship built on mutual respect and genuine care for one another, something that helped Newt convince Y/N to come with him and the others when they finally decided to leave the Maze. But he couldn’t help but feel a deep dread and guilt as he waited behind Thomas, knowing that Grievers were right around the corner.
While the others caught up, Newt turned to Y/N – who’d been helping him through the Maze with his limp – and offered her a spare spear he’d been carrying.
Her eyes widened at his offering. ‘I can’t take that. I can’t fight.’
‘Well, you can’t just go in there without something to protect yourself,’ he said, this time forcibly handing the spear over. Y/N clutched the spear awkwardly, and Newt saw the uncertainty in her eyes, in her trembling hands.
Newt felt bad for making her hold such a violent weapon. All her hands had ever done were help people, save them at times. Now he was asking her to kill. It was for the greater good they both knew, but to kill, nonetheless.
Newt placed a comforting hand on her shoulder and locked eyes with her. ‘Hey,’ he said softly, ‘you stay with me the whole time, do you understand? I promise you won’t have to use that unless absolute necessary.’
Y/N bit her lip to stop it trembling too, but she nodded, steeling herself in preparation for the fight ahead. Newt reciprocated the action and gave her shoulder a final squeeze before turning to face Thomas as he explained the plan.
They fought the Grievers, taking down a few while some of them took down Gladers. The Gladers were backed against the door that Teresa and Chuck were trying to open with a code. Minho shouted numbers at them as he, Newt, and the others fended off one last Griever.
Before he could finish, Minho was caught by a Griever, and Clint ran out to save him. But the Griever’s tail caught him, sending him over the edge of the walkway they fought on with one flick.
‘Clint!’
Before Newt could stop her, Y/N rushed out from behind him, spear drawn back and flying at the Griever in seconds. Not being a fighter to begin with, let alone a good one, the spear bounced off its metal leg without much effect. It did, however, alert the Griever to her presence, turning all its attention to her. Minho leapt to his feet, finally free, and ran back to the group. ‘Y/N!’ he cried as he ran. ‘Run!’
Y/N seemed to finally realise her situation, looking up at the Griever frozen with fear. The horrible creature raised its claw to end her, but Newt moved faster.
He ran as fast as he could, limp be damned, past Y/N and threw his spear at the Griever’s head. It landed true, puncturing one of the creature’s bulbous eyes, drawing a painful screech from it. Newt didn’t wait to see what it would do next, as he grabbed one of Y/N’s arms and Minho grabbed the other and ran back to the group, practically throwing her behind the front line and against the door.
Teresa finally got the door open and the Gladers tumbled in, Thomas throwing one last spear down the Griever’s throat as the doors closed.
Lights flickered on to show they were in some empty room with a door on the wall behind them leading to a corridor.
Thomas looked at the group, taking heavy breaths. ‘Everyone okay?’
‘What’s left of us, that is,’ Winston said, his tone sad and regretful.
As Newt eyed the group, he noted how many they’d lost, how little their group seemed all of a sudden.
Minho stepped ahead with Thomas, pointing towards the door. ‘Well? It’s not going to open itself.’
As Minho and Thomas led the group to the exit, Newt turned to Y/N, whose eyes had a distant look glazed over them. ‘What were you thinking?’ he asked, bringing her attention to him. ‘I told you to stay behind me. You could’ve been killed.’
‘I-I know. I’m sorry,’ she stuttered out, tears teetering in her E/C eyes. ‘I just… Clint… It all happened so fast, and I was just kind of moving before I knew what I was doing.’ She looked down at her hands then, and Newt noticed a slight tremble to them. ‘I thought I could help, but I was too slow. And I put you guys in danger too. I’m just… I’m sorry.’
Newt’s guilt came back full force then. He placed a gentle hand over her trembling one, grasping her fingers to stop their shaking. When she looked up at him confused, he just said, ‘I’m sorry. I shouldn’t have pressured you into thinking you had to fight. You won’t ever hold a weapon like that again. I promise.’
Y/N opened her mouth to object no doubt, but Newt cut her off. ‘But you have to promise me something back. Promise me that you’ll let us protect you. You can help by keeping us alive, just like you always have. But you’ve got to listen to me, you got it?’
He used his authoritative voice this time, and it seemed to work as Y/N calmed down, her unshed tears now gone.
‘Okay,’ she said, quiet but strong. ‘I promise.’
Newt nodded. ‘Good that.’ He turned to see the others leaving through the door then turned back to Y/N. ’Do you think we’d be lucky enough not to face anything else beyond those doors.’
‘I think we should consider ourselves lucky for getting this far.’ To her credit, Y/N managed a small smile as she looked up at him. ‘But why should our luck run out now?’
There it was again; the glimmer of hope Newt had felt from her since the night he injured his ankle. Newt couldn’t deny that they’d made it this far – by design or by luck, they’d made it.
And who was he to deny that things might be on the look up for them now?
Together, Y/N and Newt followed the rest of the Gladers to meet their makers.
~
‘I never thought I’d say this… but I miss the Glade.’
The group around the fire grew silent at the implication Frypan’s words had, the memories they conjured up. Y/N couldn’t help but agree as she looked into the dark sky above her, peaking from behind the crumbling pillars they took refuge under.
The sky was always so clear back in the Glade, she recalled silently. But, just like their current situation, the sky was now obscured.
The people who rescued them from the Maze were actually WCKD – the people who’d put them in the Maze in the first place. The past twelve hours had seen herself, Newt, Thomas, Minho, Frypan, Winston, and a boy named Aris find Teresa, break out of the facility, and enter the deadly Scorch. In their search for supplies, they’d been attacked by crazed, infected people, driving the group to hide where they were.
The Maze was dangerous, but it was familiar and the only home Y/N recalled ever having. Out in the Scorch, safety wasn’t guaranteed.
She looked to Winston, who laid back, his shirt pulled up to expose the bloody bandage she’d wrapped his torso in. Y/N tried not to think about the infected scratch marks underneath, and more specifically what gave them to him. The Grievers were one thing, but the things that attacked them? They used to be people.
Not wanting to sit in her thoughts anymore, Y/N stood up, brushed off her pants, and grabbed knife from their pile of weapons they’d found in the abandoned mall. ‘I’ll take first watch.’
She didn’t wait to hear if anyone objected, already walking around the stone that covered them so she was on top. To her relief, the others let her go without argument, putting out the fire and quickly settling down to sleep.
After half an hour, Y/N decided to get up and patrol around the area, knife tightly gripped in her hand and her footsteps quiet despite the sand.
There was so much of it, the sand. The lady in white – Doctor Ava Paige – had said in her video that the whole world was just desert now. The thought made Y/N yearn for the Glade even more. For the grass, and the woods, and the bonfires they used to have, and the games they played. The boys – Clint, Jeff, Alby, Gally, Chuck.
Y/N wasn’t a hateful person, but she clutched the knife tighter at the thought of all the loss they’d all suffered at the hands of WCKD.
It’s why she didn’t hesitate to follow Newt when he’d found her in her room – for some reason, she hadn’t been allowed to stay with the other girls from the other mazes just yet. It’s why they were now braving the Scorch searching for people that Thomas didn’t know even existed. They wanted a better life out from under WCKD’s thumb.
The crunch of sand had her whirling around, awkwardly poising the knife as if to attack, but she relaxed at the familiar person standing there.
Newt raised his hands in mock surrender. ‘Whoa there,’ he said, the quirk of a smile on his lips telling her he was just joking. ‘You could do some real damage if you’re not careful.’
Y/N blew out in relief, the knife dropping to her side again. ‘Thanks, but we both know that’s not the case, Newt.’
Newt shoved his hands in his jacket pocket, shrugging his shoulders as he did. ‘I don’t know, I’ve seen you with a scalpel. Absolutely terrifyingly precise with that thing.’
Y/N chuckled softly, appreciative of the distraction. But her smile dropped as she looked out into the dark cityscape. The moon hid behind clouds so Y/N couldn’t make out anything. ‘Is it pathetic that I’m scared to see what the world has become?’ she asked, not daring to raise her voice above a soft mumble.
Newt stepped up beside her, his body radiating the last remnants of heat from the fire and it warmed her slightly. ’Someone once told me that I was brave for facing my fear,’ he said after some quiet contemplation.
Y/N looked up at him confused, but he looked down at her with a knowing, smug smile. Much to her chagrin, she couldn’t help but chuckle and shake her head at him. ‘I don’t recall saying that specifically. But if that’s how you saw it, who am I to tell you that wasn’t what I meant?’
Newt hummed in agreement looking back out at the dark expanse, contemplation scrunching his brows together. ‘I’ll be honest with you, I’m scared too.’
That surprised Y/N. Newt, second-in-command, casual, leader Newt was scared? ‘You are?’
Newt nodded. ‘I’m scared that we’ve made a mistake. That Thomas is wrong and there aren’t any mountain people.’ He turned back to Y/N, the most serious she’d ever seen him. ‘I’m scared we’re going to lose more of us, and then what was our escape for? But… it’s not my place to take away hope when the others are so full of it. Including myself.’ Finally, Newt’s smile returned, and it warmed that cold pit of despair Y/N had been falling into ever since they left the WCKD facility. ‘Or, at least, I think that’s what someone very wise once told me.’
Y/N stared at him, awestruck. Hopeful. Newt was hopeful again. And she didn’t want to read into it, but she thought the knowing smile he was giving her told her that she had something to do with it. The thought alone strengthened her resolve, and she looked down at the knife in her hands, less afraid of it all of a sudden.
Y/N held it out to Newt. ’Teach me.’
He raised an eyebrow in a silent question. ‘What?’
’Teach me. How to fight,’ Y/N explained, eyes unwavering from his.
Concern flashed across Newt’s face for a brief moment. ‘Y/N, I told you, you don’t have to fight if you don’t want to.’
‘If there is one thing I’ve come to know about WCKD is that it doesn’t actually matter what I want anymore. What any of us want,’ Y/N said, feeling the most certain she’s felt in a long time. ‘The one thing we have on WCKD is that we are defiant. We escaped, and are taking away the one thing they want most of all: a chance to find a cure. So, if we’re going to have any hopes of making it to the mountains alive, I’m going to have to know how to fight. So please – teach me.’
Newt contemplated her for a moment, and Y/N just prayed he wouldn’t say no. Or even worse, laugh. Instead of doing either, he took the knife from Y/N’s hand, his fingers brushing across her palm as he did.
‘All right,’ he said, moving his feet apart to get into a fighting stance. ‘First of all, you’ve got to have a wide-ish stance, and stay light on your toes so you can control when you back away from your opponent.’
He demonstrated the movement by quickly shuffling away, always keeping his feet a certain distance apart and the knife gripped tight by his hip. ‘…and when you go into attack.’ He moved so fast Y/N didn’t see his footwork, her eyes locked on his as they bored into hers, knife poised at her neck as if he’d strike.
He stepped away and gave her the knife back. ‘You think you can do that?’
Y/N nodded and took the knife, and for the next hour Newt taught Y/N basic blocks and manoeuvres that he’d picked up from Thomas and Minho and just from basic instinct. Just like she’d been with her Medjack skills, Y/N was a quick study, performing move after move when Newt asked her to.
She impressed herself. For a natural pacifist, she wielded the knife quite fluently.
They decided to finish the session on a quick sparring match. Newt took a swipe at Y/N, and she stepped back just like Newt had taught her. She then rushed in for an attack, to which Newt threw up his own knife in time to block. Y/N anticipated the pushback and twisted out of Newt’s way as he stumbled slightly forward. While he was disorientated, Y/N gripped his wrist that controlled his knife and pointed her own into his back.
‘Looks like I win,’ she said, breathless but proud.
Y/N didn’t like the carefree scoff he gave her, followed by, ‘Are you sure?’
She doubted herself for a moment, loosening her grip enough for him to twist out of her reach, knock her knife away and bend to sweep her legs out from underneath her. Y/N landed hard, groaning at the pain in her butt as Newt looked down at her and laughed.
‘I’m glad you find my pain amusing, Newt,’ she grumbled, rubbing her sore behind.
Newt laughed for a moment longer then calmed down. But his radiant smile remained on his face, brightening the darkness surrounding them. ‘I’m sorry, love,’ he said between remaining chuckles. To his credit, he held out his hand in an offer to help her up. ’But the surprise on your face was priceless.’
Y/N contemplated his hand for a moment, whether she should just push it away or take it. Instead, an idea came to mind, and she gripped his hand tightly then pulled him to the ground with her. He landed on his stomach beside her, getting a face full of sand.
Y/N let out a loud laugh before quickly covering her mouth to stifle the relentless laughter that wished to burst from her.
Newt spat and coughed out sand as he made to sit up. ‘Well,’ he started, spitting out more sand as he looked up at Y/N, ‘I should’ve seen that coming.’
That just made Y/N laugh even harder, using now both hands to quieten the giggles. Goodness, when was the last time she’d laughed this freely? When was the last time she’d felt such joy? After everything they’d been through, Y/N was worried she’d forgotten what was like to laugh.
When she’d calmed down, she looked down to see Newt propped up on his arms looking up at her with an odd expression on his face. Like he was in awe, maybe. Whatever it was, it made Y/N acknowledge how handsome Newt had become. His baby features had faded since she’d first met him, being replaced by a lean figure and a toned jawline from working in the gardens every day for two years. And with his big brown eyes, tousled blond hair and funny accent, Y/N wondered how he had changed so much without her realising it. How she hadn’t realised he’d grown up.
The intensity with which he looked at her brought a heated blush to her face, and so she turned away into the cool night breeze, willing the blush to cool down. Newt shuffled to sit up next to her. They didn’t speak for a minute, until Newt suddenly stood up.
‘Well, um,’ he started, and for the first time since Y/N had known him, he sounded uncertain about what to say. ‘I better let you continue with your shift. At least you know how to defend yourself now.’
Y/N hastily stood up as well, making sure there was at least a step between them. ‘Yes!’ she said. ‘Thank you for that. I’ll be sure to practice.’
‘Good that.’
They looked at each other for a moment, and even though Newt said he was leaving, he made no move to leave. Maybe he doesn’t want to, she thought, and the mere possibility of that being true warmed her heart.
But he took a step away, gave her a shy smile and a small wave farewell. ‘Goodnight, Y/N.’
‘Goodnight Newt,’ she said, those two words hanging in the air long after he’d left.
As she finally woke Frypan up for his shift, she clung to the knife and went through all the manoeuvres Newt had taught her until she fell asleep.
Newt was unable to sleep until Y/N woke Frypan up to take the next watch shift, and laid down to sleep herself. Newt opened his eyes to see Y/N laying across the pit they’d dug out for the fire. She faced him on her side, and Newt noticed with curiosity that she held the knife she’d practiced with close to her chest. Her chest rose and fell rhythmically, and paired with her heavy breathing, Newt figured she was completely asleep.
An odd sensation fluttered in his chest and stomach as Newt considered Y/N’s sleeping face. It was the same feeling that had fizzled in his chest when he’d looked up at her as she laughed. He couldn’t remember the last time any of them had laughed as freely as she had.
And he couldn’t help but admire how beautiful she looked doing so – hiding her bright smile behind trembling hands, eyes narrowed but sparkling with joy.
All because of him.
He rolled onto his back then, not wanting to give the thought anymore weight. There’s no point getting your hopes up, he reminded himself. But like a moth drawn to flame, Newt couldn’t help but tilt his head to gaze upon her peacefully sleeping. An ache carved itself deep in his heart. How had he not realised her growing up, changing? Being the only girl for a long time, of course he and the others found her pretty. But now that he looked at her – really looked at her, and wasn’t concerned with his life for just a split second – he realised just how beautiful she was.
It was in her features, but also in her determination to be better for the group. It both hurt and impressed him when she asked for his help. He promised her she would never have to fight again, but things have changed drastically since the Maze.
It was in her ability to still find the joy in things, to still be able to laugh despite their situation.
It was how she believed in Thomas, in Aris, in the mountain people, even if she was scared.
‘The rest of us can only wish to be as brave as you,’ he whispered into the night, a silent promise that he’d tell her that sometime.
And with the fluttering in his chest finally easing into a calm warmth, he finally fell asleep.
~
Everything exploded with chaos as Y/N, Newt, Thomas, and Minho navigated their way through the Right Arm camp as guns fired and explosions went off.
Teresa had betrayed them. Y/N couldn’t believe it when it was revealed in front of everyone, and she still couldn’t believe it as Minho pushed her head down, sheltering her from another explosion. Teresa truly believed WCKD could find a cure, but still at the expanse of Y/N and her friends’ pain. And just when Thomas was going to blow them all sky high, Jorge and Brenda had come in like a saving grace, and that’s when all hell broke loose.
‘This way!’ Thomas yelled over the din, beckoning them behind a weapons container.
However, Minho stopped suddenly and picked up a launcher. Keep going!’ Minho called over his shoulder as he shot at WCKD soldiers around him. ‘I’m right behind you!’
Thomas and Newt reached the container, but Y/N stopped and turned at the sound of a painful cry. ‘Minho!’ she cried as her friend fell, his body convulsing from a launcher shot.
‘Y/N, no!’ Newt called after her, but she was already running back to Minho, grabbing at his jacket to drag him to safety.
But Y/N was not strong like the boys, and certainly not strong enough to move Minho in any hurry. She looked up just in time to see a launcher fire at her, then her body felt like it was on fire.
She was sure she was screaming, but she couldn’t hear anything as the electricity struck every nerve with a vicious bite. After what felt like an eternity of pain, she was granted a moment of peace as her vision went white, then in a flash was swamped by darkness.
Newt’s heart stopped when he saw Y/N shot. She convulsed as Minho had, then collapsed beside their friend unconscious. The second Y/N hit the ground, Newt found his voice again, feelings of anger and desperation clawing their way through every vein in him.
‘Y/N, no!’ His cry came out broken as he made to run to her, but a strong hand gripped the back of his jacket and pulled him back.
‘No, boys,’ Vince shouted over the din, holding both Newt and Thomas back.
‘Let me go!’ Newt protested, struggling against Vince, eyes darting between him and Y/N. ‘I need to help her! Y/N!’
But WCKD soldiers were already picking up Y/N and Minho’s unconscious bodies, dragging their feet through the red dirt and into a berg.
‘I’m sorry, son,’ Vince said, and Newt thought he sounded genuine. But that didn’t stop icy terror gripping tight on his heart as the doors began to close on Y/N, Minho, and other immunes from the Right Arm.
Thomas called for Minho, and Newt called for Y/N, but neither could do anything to help their friends as they were flown away. Back in WCKD’s clutches once again.
When the sun rose, the remaining survivors came out of hiding and began scrounging up supplies. They were moving on, Vince claiming there was nothing they could do but keep going with who and what they had left.
Newt couldn’t accept that, and neither could Thomas apparently, as he claimed he was going after Minho, Y/N and the others. Without hesitation or any further explanation, Newt was the first to sign up and join him.
And so, they went on a quest to rescuing Minho, Y/N, and as many immunes as possible. The train hijack was a huge success with immune numbers, but no Minho and no Y/N. Even so, Newt refused to accept that he’d never see either of them again. Even when they almost got killed by cranks. Even when he, Thomas, Brenda, Frypan, and Jorge were almost blown up by turret guns.
Even when he found out he was infected with the Flare.
He could feel it, his mind slowly slipping away as the Flare ate away at his sanity. He was usually level-headed and rational – it’s part of the reason he became second-in-command in the first place. Guilt and shame ate away at him as he sat on the rooftop of their hideout in the outskirts of the Last City, explaining to Thomas why he just bit his head off about being in love with Teresa.
Not that I’m one to talk, he thought as he rolled down as his sleeve, silence wrapping around him and Thomas comfortably. Newt could feel Thomas didn’t know what to say, and Newt didn’t like long silences so he broke it.
‘The crazy thing, though is…’ Newt started, a soft but sad scoff escaping him, ‘I’m not scared of dying. I used to be, back in the Maze. Because it felt like my friends were dying for no reason, without purpose. But…’ Newt looked over his shoulder, past Thomas, and to the peaking spires of the Last City. To where Y/N was being held somewhere.
‘I have something to die for now,’ Newt said, eyes never wavering from the spires.
Thomas came to sit beside Newt, a sad realisation drawing his brows and lips down. ‘You’re not just talking about Minho, are you?’ he asked.
It was how gentle and matter-of-fact Thomas spoke that had Newt’s chest tightening with fear and an immense pressure he’d been scared, until now, to acknowledge. His throat threatened to close on him as he spoke, rendering his words tight and uncontrolled. ‘I failed to protect her, Tommy,’ he managed to get out. ‘I promised I’d always protect her, and I didn’t.’
It surprised Newt how simultaneously hard and easy it was to speak about his feelings, and now that he had started, the words just flowed.
’She’s just always been there, so I never saw it coming,’ Newt continued, a melancholic smile adorning his lips as he recalls the day he met you, how you helped him with his ankle. How, since then, you’ve always been by his side, growing with him, changing with him, supporting him and everyone else around you.
’Saw what?’ Thomas asked.
‘I never saw that I could have a future after the Maze, after all of this,’ Newt explained. ‘That I would want a future… with Y/N.’ And with that, his tears finally spilled over, the pressure in his chest bursting into sobs that wracked his whole body. Newt was vaguely aware that Thomas was now holding him, and so he wrapped his arms tight around his friend, around his brother.
‘I love her, Tommy,’ Newt whispered over Thomas’ shoulder, his words obscured somewhat by his tears and holding back sobs. ‘And I’m scared I’ll never be able to tell her before I go.’
‘Hey,’ Thomas said, pushing Newt to arm’s length. He kept one hand on Newt’s shoulder and used his other to grip Newt’s neck, forcing their eyes to lock. ‘We’re going to find her – and Minho, and the other immunes. We’re going to get you that serum that helps with the Flare – as much of it as possible – and you’re going to tell her. You’re not dying. No one is dying. You hear me?’
No one could replace Alby, but the way Thomas was taking control of the situation reminded Newt of his old friend. How kind yet stern he could be. How hopeful yet pragmatic he was. It was something familiar that Newt was thankful for. He quickly calmed down, wiped away his tears and nodded at Thomas.
‘Good that,’ Thomas said, a small proud smile gracing his lips at his use of Newt’s common phrase.
Newt couldn’t help a chuckle as well. ‘Good that, indeed,’ he agreed, and followed Thomas back inside the hideout to finalise their plan to get into the WCKD facility.
…and you’re going to tell her. You’re not dying.
There was a nagging voice in the back of Newt’s head that was telling him not to believe Thomas. That Newt was going to die, or worse, turn into a crank and hurt his loved ones. That voice had followed him from the Maze, to the Scorch, and now the Last City. It was the voice that had driven him over the edge of the Maze walls all those years ago. But not anymore.
Newt had to keep hope, just as Y/N had taught him. He just had to be brave.
~
Y/N sat in the corner of her white-walled cell, hugging her knees to her chest as she rested her head on top. She’d sat there for hours, perhaps days. Y/N lost track of time after her first month in WCKD’s facility.
There were no windows, and the lights never dimmed. She pressed her eyes into her knees in the hopes of downing out the incessant white light. Her eyes ached with sleep deprivation, but she refused to sleep. The nightmares were much worse to deal with, and they always came whenever she closed her eyes.
Images of her friends dying in the Maze and the Scorch, of Grievers chasing her, of her friends turning into cranks and attacking her. Images fed to her by WCKD.
She knew they weren’t real, but she could never wake herself up in time to escape them. So, she stayed awake, knowing that she’ll have no choice but to face her nightmares when the doctors and scientists come to test on her again.
Y/N shivered at the thought of seeing another needle, of seeing her blood drained from her while WCKD turned her mind against her. When will it be enough? She might’ve lost track of time, but Y/N knew she’d been in the facility for a while now. If they hadn’t found anything by now, something told Y/N that nothing she gave would ever be enough. That included her life.
She knew Thomas and Newt would be dumb enough to come after her and Minho – that’s just the kind of people they were. Her heart ached at the thought that their efforts would be in vain.
Y/N hadn’t seen Minho since they arrived, having been separated from each other and the other immunes. Something about how they were the most promising subjects, she overheard from a scientist one time. Y/N didn’t know if Minho was alive, and if he was, what condition he was in.
But Minho was strong, the strongest of all the Gladers in Y/N’s opinion. If he was being tortured like her, he would be able to hold on. Y/N highly doubted she would last much longer.
The rest of us can only hope to be as brave as you…
Y/N wasn’t sure if Newt knew she was actually awake that first night in the Scorch, but she’d heard him, his words so soft she thought she’d dreamt it at first. But it had been real; Newt thought she was brave.
She was too dehydrated to produce tears, but an ugly sob desperately tried to escape her aching chest. She bit her lips instead, hard enough to draw a little blood, and the sob died out, leaving her body quiet except for her mind.
I’m sorry Newt, but I am not brave.
Even so, Y/N refused to crumble to WCKD anymore. They’d taken everything from her. Her life, her memories, her loved ones, her friends. Even her hope – something she so naively believed no one could take from her. They would not take her dignity.
She raised her head at the sound of her cell door unlocking, blinking a few times as bright light flooded her vision once more. Two WCKD soldiers and two scientists stood by the door, and Y/N spied a gurney just behind them.
One of the scientists – young male, maybe in his early twenties – stepped forward. ‘Time for more testing, Y/N,’ he said in a cold tone. But he had the sense to look sympathetic as his eyes roamed over Y/N as she stood up, showing how pale her S/C skin had become, how dark the circles beneath her eyes were, how the cargo pants and grey t-shirt hung off her in areas where she used to fill.
Y/N knew it was useless, but still she ran for the door, pushing past the scientists with ease despite her weakened state. However, she hit the soldiers like a brick wall, unable to fight against them as they restrained her arms and pressed her against the wall. The male scientist recovered quickly and injected her with a serum that made her drowsy enough that she wasn’t in control of her body. She was conscious as the soldiers strapped her to the gurney and the four of them wheeled her down corridor after corridor, and all she could do was watch fluorescent lights pass her by as she stared at the ceiling.
Soon enough, she was in a familiar room: the test lab.
‘It hasn’t been that long since we last tested her,’ the other scientist – a female, about the same age as her co-worker – said, her words laced with worry. ‘We put her under again, we risk losing her for good this time.’
‘I didn’t make the call,’ the male said as he continued to set up equipment around Y/N. ‘When Janson says he wants a cure, I don’t question him. Do you?’
The female didn’t answer, switching her focus to helping her co-worker. Y/N could slowly feel the serum wearing off – it was obviously only a light dose, the scientists knowing they’d put her under when they began testing.
But just as they unstrapped her to move her to the nightmare simulator, the room shook, sending Y/N rolling to the ground as glass and steel broke around her.
Sounds were muffled briefly and her vision blurred in and out of focus. She couldn’t hear what exactly the soldiers were shouting, but she saw them run out of the room alongside other soldiers. That just left her and the scientists.
Y/N flexed her fingers, the serum completely wearing off. Before she could stand though, two hands roughly grabbed her arms and hauled her to her feet. ‘Come on, Y/N,’ the male scientist said, pushing her towards the machine. ‘Just one more trip under…’
Fear electrified Y/N’s every nerve. No, not again. With a desperate cry, she shoved the male into the utensils table, sending him and the tools scattering across the ground. Before he could get up, Y/N straddled his upper body and slammed his arms into the ground.
‘Get off me!’ he yelled, struggling violently beneath Y/N. He managed to twist them both around until she was the one pinned to the ground. Y/N struggled but to no avail. She was significantly weaker than she was when she was first captured and he knew that.
‘You little brat,’ he spat in her face. ‘Ungrateful, selfish immunes. Your duty is to save us all! You–’
He was cut off when he suddenly went slack, falling unconscious on top of Y/N. She scrambled out from underneath him, then looked up from the floor to find the female scientist with a syringe in her hand. She looked between her unconscious co-worker then Y/N, a scared and disbelieving expression morphing her delicate features.
‘Go,’ the scientist finally said, her voice shaky, but the resolve in her eyes told Y/N that she wouldn’t chase after her. The room – no, the whole building – shook again, and when Y/N looked out the window, she realised why.
The city outside was on fire. Buildings crumbled, and Y/n could hear the screams and cries of civilians through the broken windows. The scientist wouldn’t chase her because there was no point.
This was the end.
‘Go!’ The scientist insisted, and Y/N didn’t think twice. She picked herself up, ignoring the cuts and scraps of glass it caused her, and ran out of the room.
She ran into the corridor, ignoring the cries of soldiers and other scientists who recognised her as a subject. She didn’t know where she was going, but this was the most freedom she’d had in forever.
Then a thought came to her – Minho. She had to find him, he surely had to be alive. She would run through every floor if she had to to find him. So she ran, looking into every test lab, every storage closest, every break room on the floor.
‘Minho!’ she cried, uncaring at this point if someone heard her. She just wanted to find him. She didn’t want to die without a familiar face with her. ‘Minho, where are you?’
She rounded a corner, right into the chest of a WCKD soldier. He was caught by surprise, giving Y/N an opportunity to slam him into the wall. It was like her fear was giving her a boost of strength, as she kneed him in the groin, sending him to the ground. He dropped the pistol he was holding, and she quickly picked it up and smacked the butt over the back of his head. He fell to the floor in one last scuffle and laid unmoving as Y/N sucked in deep breaths.
‘Y/N?’
She whirled around at the familiar call of her name, only to find three other people had entered the corridor. Thomas, Minho, and Newt. Her eyes scanned over them all, heart aching with an intense relief it threatened to crush her chest. ‘Guys?’ Her voice was hoarse with disuse and exhaustion. She was surprised she even had a voice after all her screaming.
Newt stepped forward, a relieved smile gracing his lips. ‘Yeah, love,’ he said, sounding on the verge of tears. ‘It’s us.’
Y/N’s first instinct was to run into his arms, the only place she’d felt since leaving the Maze. But she took a closer look at him. He was paler than when she last saw him, almost sickly with how dark the circles under his eyes were. Crank.
She pointed the pistol at her friends, causing them to raise their hands in shock. ‘Whoa, Y/N, it’s us!’ Thomas exclaimed.
‘No,’ she said, her voice cracking ever so slightly. ‘How do I know I’m not in that simulator again? How do I know this isn’t just another test, another trial?’
‘What are you talking about, Y/N?’ Newt asked, worry crinkling his brow.
’She doesn’t trust her mind,’ Minho said, as if in explanation. ‘Boy, they really did a number on her…’
‘Shut up!’ Y/N unlocked the safety and pointed the gun at Minho. ‘You’re just trying to trick me. Make me think everything is all right. But it’s just a lie. You’re not here. You’re not here…’
Newt stepped into the firing line. ‘We are here, love. I promise, we’re really here.’
‘Newt…’ Thomas warned, but Newt remained, eyes locked on Y/N’s.
Y/N couldn’t look away from Newt. He sounded so genuine, so much more real than previous simulations. But WCKD couldn’t be trusted, and they were wearing soldier uniforms…
Her hands shook but her voice was strong. ‘Prove it,’ she said. ’Tell me something only the real Newt would know.’
Newt swallowed thickly. ‘Okay, um… You cut yourself when you tried out being a Slicer and had to have Clint and Jeff fix you up. That’s when you thought being a Medjack would be a good idea.’
‘WCKD was watching us the whole time. They would’ve seen that,’ she countered, using both hands to grip the gun.
‘Okay, okay,’ Newt said, looking away a moment to think of something else. When he finally looked back at her, he was calm once more, eyes genuine and sincere. ‘How about how I jumped off the walls of the Maze in an attempt to kill myself?’
The world around the four of them seemed to freeze, as if the world wasn’t collapsing outside. To Y/N’s knowledge, Newt had never told anyone the truth of what happened that day. It was the shocked and tragic expressions on both Minho and Thomas’ faces respectively that had Y/N loosening her grip on the gun slightly.
Newt took a small step closer, eyes never straying from her. ‘I had lost all hope of getting out of that bloody maze. So I did the one thing I could do to control the situation. But I failed.’ He stepped closer again. ‘I was embarrassed, ashamed. I was just a coward. But you healed me and told me something I will never forget. I have held onto it like a lifeline through the Maze, through the Scorch, and all the time I was looking for you.’
He took one final step towards her, unfazed at how the gun pressed hard against his chest. Now that he was so close, Y/N saw just how sick he was. He looked like the early stage victims of the Flare they’d seen in the decrepit city they’d lost Brenda and Thomas in temporarily. And while Y/N refused to believe Newt – her beloved, sweet Newt – was infected, his eyes were the same as always. Open, honest, and truthful.
‘The rest of us can only hope to be as brave as you.’
It wasn’t the fact that he knew the exact words – again, WCKD had cameras everywhere in that Maze, they would’ve heard it. It was instead the emotion tied to the words. She felt them, felt the lifeline they’d created for him in his darkest moment. He wasn’t lying, and that meant he was real.
Finally, she allowed the sob to break free as she dropped the gun and threw her arms around Newt’s neck. He breathed out in relief, bringing her closer to his chest, face pressed into her H/C hair.
‘It’s really you,’ she whimpered, grasping tighter to the person she’s always been able to rely on. The person who has always protected her and brought out the best in her. Her closest friend, her safety net, her home.
‘It is, love,’ he said into her hair, breathing her in deeply. ‘I’m sorry I couldn’t protect you before.’
‘It’s okay,’ she said, pulling away to look up at him then to the other two. ‘I can’t believe you came after us.’
‘You can berate us later,’ Thomas said, rubbing his arm. ‘Right now, we’ve got to get out of here before Lawrence brings down the whole city.’
Y/N went to ask what he meant but gripped onto Newt instead as the building shook again.
‘Come on, let’s go,’ Newt said, grabbing Y/N’s hand with one hand, and holding a launcher in the other. Together, the four of them ran to escape WCKD once and for all.
~
‘Brenda!’
Y/N didn’t care about the rain of bullets and walls of fire around her as she ran for the berg. After hearing Teresa’s broadcast, she needed to get the cure back to Newt fast. Leaving him was one of the hardest things she has had to do. He wasn’t in great condition, but Thomas insisted that he’d take care of Newt. But the medicine Thomas had given Brenda all those months ago didn’t just buy her time, it had cured her completely. It could do the same for Newt.
If she could make it in time.
‘Brenda!’ Y/N cried as she spotted her friend. ‘The cure! I need the cure!’
Brenda understood, immediately retrieving one of the extra capsules Mary had made from Thomas’ blood before WCKD raided the camp. ‘Here,’ she said, passing over the injector.
‘Thanks!’ Y/N said, already sprinting back into the war zone before anyone could stop her.
She could feel it, the exhaustion, the strain she was putting her body under. Underfed and under trained, she was struggling. But she refused to stop. Newt had come all this way to find her, risked his life to get her out of WCKD’s clutches when he could’ve been administered the temporary cure and been safe on the berg already. No, Y/N refused to let him die without trying.
Minho, Brenda, Frypan, and Gally – Y/N was still shocked about that revelation, but that was for another time to discuss - followed around her, covering her with guns and other weapons as they ran through the war zone.
After an eternity of running, the group rounded a corner to find a sight that made Y/N feel like she was back in the nightmare simulator. Newt was leaning over Thomas with a knife aimed at his chest.
‘Newt, no!’ Y/N cried, running towards the two boys without thought.
Newt faced her at the call of his name, and she froze as she saw his black eyes. Dark veins branched over his skin and black blood dribbled from his chin. He was a full-blown crank now.
He raced at her, snarling as he swung the knife at her throat. She ducked just in time and rolled away as he slammed the knife down where her neck was. She quickly jumped to her feet, and despite her fatigue, muscle memory took over her legs, then her hands. That first night in the Scorch came to mind, how her and Newt sparred. The injector was her knife, and Newt her proper opponent.
‘Newt, it’s me,’ she said, slipping into her Medjack demeanour – calm and steady. ‘It’s Y/N. Please, snap out of it for a moment so I can help you.’
She thought he would run at her again, but his brows crinkled with concern and he looked at the knife in his shaky hands. He looked back at her, and the voice he spoke with broke her heart. It was a mixture of his sweet accent and a gargled croak where blood clogged his throat.
‘Y/N…’ he started. ‘Run away… Before… Before I kill you.’
The scene reminded her of the time he came in with his injured ankle. How desperate he was to fade into nothing because he was scared and ashamed of what he’d done. But just like then, she refused to be scared of him.
Y/N shook her head. ‘I’m not leaving you, Newt,’ she said. ‘None of us will.’
Newt seemed to realise there were more people than just her and Thomas, turning around to see the others. The sight of them seemed to distress him, though, as he snarled angrily and charged at her. She shuffled back as he swung at her again and again, but as she stepped back again, she tripped on something. She fell onto her back, knocking the air out of her lungs. Before she could gather herself up, Newt was on her, straddling her similar to how he had Thomas pinned before. Newt raised the knife to bring down on her but was tackled by Thomas.
They rolled for a little, then scrambled to their feet as they fought once more. This was Y/N’s only chance. She pushed herself up and ran for the boys, injector at the ready. Newt was bringing the knife forward in a wide arc that would gut Thomas when Y/N threw herself in between them, slamming the injector into Newt’s arm.
Right as his drove the knife into her stomach.
‘Y/N!’
She wasn’t sure who called her name, because all she could focus on was Newt as some of the blackness in his eyes cleared and she saw some of his gorgeous brown eyes. She also felt her body finally giving up. As if it knew that this was the end. After all the torture and pain, she had stayed alive so long for one reason. To save Newt – the boy who had been there from the start. So much so she hadn’t realised until he wasn’t there how much he meant to her. How he’d wormed his way into her heart and consumed it without her even knowing.
She gripped his hand that held the knife in her stomach, unfurled his fingers from the handle, and brought them to her chest where her heart was slowly slowing down. Her weak legs gave out, and she brought Newt down to his knees with her. She could’ve been imagining things, but she swore she saw recognition in his half-black eyes which made her smile as tears finally fell from her eyes.
‘It’s okay, Newt,’ she whispered. ‘It’s okay because… I love you.’
Her vision blurred and she finally let go of Newt as the both of them collapsed to the ground. Her breaths were short and sharp as the pain made itself known. A rush of feet thumped around her, and she had the slightest awareness that someone was moving her, but she didn’t care. She was finally at peace as darkness, at last, consumed her.
~
Y/N woke to the sound of waves rolling over on sand. The first thing she saw was grey canvas, then rolled her head around to see she was lying on a cot in a small tent with tables and medical supplies similar to how her Medjack hut looked. But she wasn’t alone.
‘Oh my God.’ Brenda’s face came into focus as the girl crouched by Y/N’s cot, disbelief and relief morphing her gentle features. ‘You’re awake! You’re finally awake!’
‘Ow,’ Y/N clasped at her head at the sudden loudness. ‘Could you lower your voice please?’
‘Yes, right, sorry,’ Brenda said, but her lips split in a bright smile as she helped Y/N sit up. ‘I’m just so happy you’re okay.’
‘What happened?’ Y/N asked, all she remembered was being stabbed then falling unconscious. She pulled up her fresh linen shirt to see her wound bandaged. ‘I thought I was done for.’
‘So did all of us,’ Brenda admitted, her tone sombre as she pulled up a seat beside the cot. ‘We got you to the berg as quickly as possible and Vince got you stable, but you just weren’t waking up. It’s been a week.’
‘A week?’ Y/N made to get up but sat back down as her wound pulled in an unpleasant way.
‘Whoa, where do you think you’re going?’ Brenda asked stabilising Y/N back in her bed. ‘You’ve just come out of a coma induced by physical and mental torture. Not to mention you were stabbed.’
‘I’m fine. Trust me, I’m trained… somewhat,’ Y/N said, this time able to swing her legs over the side of her cot. Brenda didn’t try and stop her, but she did have to help Y/N when she stood. ‘Now, where is Newt?’ Brenda didn’t answer right away, and tears threatened to pool in Y/N’s eyes at what her silence could mean. ‘Brenda… Is he… Is he alive?’
Brenda, again, didn’t answer, and her face didn’t give anything away either. Instead, she just held back the flap of the tent and motioned for Y/N to exit. Y/N took cautious steps forward as she followed Brenda into a completely new place that had her staring in awe.
It was a bustling camp where sleeping quarters and other spaces were mapped out by canvas strung up on carved wood pillars and posts. Y/N spied a kitchen area where she swore she heard Frypan laughing with some others.
There was a gathering area where a giant stone stood in front of the seats. There were names carved into it, like what they used to do in the Glade. Y/N tried to make out if a certain blonde’s name was on it. She caught familiar names like Alby and Chuck, Clint and Jeff.
‘Y/N?’
She swung around to find Brenda smiling as she was joined by Thomas, Minho, and Jorge. The three of them ran at her, arms wide open to capture her in a hug.
‘You crazy shank, Minho said, laughter on his lips. ‘Look who finally decided to join the living again.’
‘And here I thought I was the lazy slinthead for sleeping for so long,’ Thomas said jokingly, pulling Y/N in for another hug. ’I’m so relieved.’
‘Welcome back, hermana,’ Jorge said, a warm smile gracing his lips as he gave her a comforting pat on the shoulder.
‘Good to be back,’ Y/N replied, smiling at the three males. ‘What happened after I thought I’d died?’
Thomas went to reply, but Minho cut in. ‘We’ll explain later. Right now, I think you should go say hi to someone else.’
Confused, Y/N followed Minho’s gaze to Brenda, who stood atop a hill and was staring over the other side of it. Y/N quickly reached Brenda’s position and followed her gaze to a large garden that people were working on. But her breath caught at the sight of a familiar blond at the edge of the gardens talking and pointing in all directions to people.
‘Hey, Newt!’ Brenda called out, causing the blond to turn around and look up. At first, he saw Brenda, but his gaze soon fell on Y/N and his whole face changed into disbelief.
With the other gardeners forgotten, he started climbing up the hill, and Y/N couldn’t wait another moment so she started walking down the hill.
They met in the middle, with Y/N standing at Newt’s height on the uphill. Neither said anything to begin with, both in disbelief and awe at who stood in front of them. Y/N looked over Newt, noting he still looked pale and somewhat sickly. But the dark veins were gone, as was the black blood and his black eyes. And the sun shone so brightly that his hair looked golden. It was as if he was never infected to begin with.
With a shaky hand, she reached out to rest her hand over his beating heart. ‘You’re alive,’ she whispered, too scared to voice it too loudly in case this was also another nightmare.
But he proved her doubts wrong as he rested his own hand on top of hers. ‘I am,’ he said, and the usual warmth of his voice truly convinced her he was real.
His face pinched suddenly with concern and guilt. ‘I’m so sorry, Y/N,’ he said, his hand tightening slightly over hers. ‘I hurt you. I almost…’
‘It’s okay,’ she interrupted, using her free hand to cradle is cheek and keep his eyes on her. ‘You didn’t. I am here, too. Looks like we both saved each other.’
To her relief Newt smiled. It was a genuine, happy smile, something she hadn’t seen on him in a long time. He nuzzled into her hand briefly, before bringing it down with his free hand so he held her hands between them.
‘Before I passed out,’ he started, ‘I remember you saying something.’
‘Oh.’ A blush heated upon her cheeks, but she refused to look away from him. ‘Right. I did say something.’
She was trying to play it cool, but as soon as his deep brown eyes fixed on her, she knew he could see right through her. But he didn’t smile smugly, he didn’t tease. He actually looked scared as his jaw clenched, fighting to find the next words to speak.
‘You said you love me,’ he finally said, words tight but hopeful. ‘Is that true?’
Y/N’s mouth dried up suddenly, constricted by all the things she wished to say but couldn’t say all at once. It’s not like she was scared, she just never thought she would live long enough to have a future, let alone one with love. One with Newt.
But she had – she had survived WCKD’s cruelty, she had survived the terrors of the old world, she had survived when so many of her friends hadn’t. And it was her duty to live her gift of a life to the fullest.
‘Yes,’ she finally said, and it was like breathing in fresh air after being underground for so long. ‘I love you, Newt. I don’t know when or how it happened, but I do. I love you.’
There was a second of hesitation, but then Newt broke out into a wide smile, and Y/N swore she saw tears brim in his eyes. He suddenly reached one hand up to cradle her neck as he pulled Y/N in for a sweet kiss that simultaneously knocked the air out of her and breathed new life into her. He held her neck and hip, and she pressed her hands against his chest, satisfied to feel his heart thundering beneath her hands. The heart that almost never beat again, the heart that had saved her over and over again.
The kiss was short but was no less breath-taking, and when they pulled apart neither could stop the smiles on their faces.
‘I love you, too,’ Newt said. ‘If that wasn’t already obvious.’
Y/N threw her head back in a hearty laugh. She slung her arms around Newt’s neck, a cheeky grin dancing across her lips. ‘I’m not so sure. Maybe we could try that again to make sure?’
‘Cheeky bugger,’ he murmured as he pressed his lips to hers again. Y/N sighed into the kiss, grasping the baby hairs at the base of his head.
They pulled apart at the sound of their friends whooping and clapping atop the hill. Y/N felt her face erupt with embarrassed heat, to which Newt laughed as she ducked her head into his chest.
‘All right, come on lovebirds!’ Minho called out. ‘Dinner’s almost ready.’
As they walked down out of sight, Y/N went to follow but was stopped by a loose grip on her wrist.
‘What is it?’ she asked as she turned back to Newt.
‘I just…’ Newt turned to the gardens below, then to the water, then to the sunset that bathed the whole camp in beautiful hues of orange, pink and purple. When he finally turned back to Y/N, she thought he couldn’t look any more handsome with that pure sunshine smile and sparkle in his eyes. ‘Thanks.’
‘For what?’ she asked.
‘For teaching me how to be brave,’ he answered.
Y/N gave his hand a squeeze. ‘You were always brave, Newt,’ she said. ‘It’s how I learned how to be brave in the first place.’
Newt squeezed her hand in return, then they walked hand in hand back up the hill and down to dinner to where their friend awaited them.
Where the lives they never imagined they’d get a chance to live awaited them.
nanami x reader — arranged marriage, enemies to lovers au
you didn't choose to marry nanami kento. the marriage was arranged, the love absent, and your heart still clung onto another man who was everything your husband wasn’t - wild, untethered, and free. you thought it would be the end of you. instead, it’s where everything begins.
─ love doesn’t happen all at once, but nanami is nothing if not patient.
content: arranged marriage, reader is a sorcerer, enemies to lovers but it's entirely one sided, nanami is the epitome of quiet devotion that never asks for anything in return, truly a good man, tw: archaic marriage practices, period-typical sexism, lots of sexual tension, references to reader's past lover, past heartbreak and healing, explicit content, non-explicit mentions of violence and suicidal ideation, past domestic abuse, loss of virginity, hurt/comfort, angst with a happy ending, inexperienced reader, link to ao3
word count: 5.8k
a/n: oh dear god this took so long. i had to entirely scrap the scenes i originally planned for this chapter and rewrite the majority of it, so it was truly killing me. i literally wrote this ALL weekend like an overdue college assignment lmao. also please note that i am currently too busy and exhausted to upload this chapter on ao3 yet, and it might take a few days before it’s up
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Nothing happens after that almost-kiss.
Not in the way you’d expected it, at least. Your breath had caught, and the space between your bodies had narrowed to the mere width of a pulse – and then the both of you simply stopped. No kiss. Just the tremor of new questions rising to your chest and a look you could feel like heat scorching the full length of your bones.
In the morning, your re-enrolment into Tokyo Jujutsu Technical College is approved.
“Special arrangements have been made,” Nanami tells you over breakfast, when he sets down a plate of eggs made just the way you like it on the table. “You can start school next week, if you’d like.”
“Really?” You perk up instantly. You can hardly keep the smile off your face, but his expression hardly looks pleased.
Nanami nods once, exhaling wearily as he sits down from across you. “It isn’t without conditions, unfortunately. You’ll have to take your classes alone, and as promised–” He pauses, and his lips purse with a silent apology. “I’ll have to be directly responsible for you. I know it’s not the most ideal arrangement, but it’s the best we might be able to get for now.”
“If it’s too much trouble for you, you really don’t have to–”
He’s quick to cut you off. “No,” he shakes his head, voice firm. “Of course not. I only wish there was more I could do for you. They’ve been stalling and stalling, looking for reasons to refuse you outright. If I hadn’t agreed to their terms, they would have pushed your return back indefinitely.”
“You’ve done enough,” you tell him with equal firmness. “This… this is already more than I ever expected.” You stare down at the yolk, breaking upon your fork and spreading like a bleeding sun across the plate. “You don’t have to keep carrying my burdens for me.”
His lips press into a thin line, a grimace of sorts pulling at the edges of his mouth. “I know,” he says gently. “But I want to, if you’ll keep allowing me to do so.”
You nudge the plate a little closer and finally take a bite. It’s warm, the yolk still runny in the centre, and salted perfectly. He told you not to thank him, and that he was only doing what he was supposed to – whatever that means – but gratitude rises once more. You swallow the words, and offer him a small, lopsided smile instead.
“You’re a very stubborn man, Nanami,” you say at last.
“So I’ve been told,” he says, the faintest hint of amusement playing at the edges of his eyes. “Very unfortunate for the administration. Convenient for you, though.”
You roll your eyes, although the corners of your mouth tug upward. You’re grinning before you even realise it – and he’s mirroring you too, his arms loosely folded across his chest, settled back in his chair, simply just… smiling back.
“You really don’t have to look so guilty about it,” you murmur, dipping your head. There’s an unexplainable warmth rushing to your cheeks that cannot be attributed to the onset of summer heat. “I’m… happy, you know.”
The words seem to catch Nanami off guard. His smile doesn’t slip, but it turns into something more careful. “You are?” he asks, eyebrows lifting.
“Yes,” you say, and this time you manage – just barely – to meet his eyes. “I get to go back. I get to study again. And I… get to feel like I have something to move towards. Like my life isn’t just… sitting around and waiting for things to happen to me.”
His expression softens, and then he blinks a couple of times like he’s looking for the right words. “You don’t know how glad I am to hear that,” he murmurs after a moment. “I thought the conditions attached might have put you off.”
You shrug. “It’s a good start, right? It’s better than nothing.”
Nanami nods in agreement. “So. Next week, then. We can go together.”
“Next week,” you echo. The words settle strangely bright on your tongue.
“But maybe try to finish breakfast first,” he adds, and you catch a hint of that dry humour slipping in at last. “You’ll need all the energy you can get.”
You stab at the egg, just a little lighter this time. “Yes sir.”
The corner of his mouth quirks up. “That’s for the students,” he says. “You can just call me Kento.”
“Okay.” You look away from him immediately. Definitely not the summer heat. “Thank you… Kento. I mean it.”
When next week arrives, you realise Nanami hadn’t been exaggerating when he’d said it wasn’t the most ideal arrangement.
Everything you do must be done quietly – and alone – so as to not draw attention to the fact that you are there at all.
So they pencil you in at odd hours. Sit you in empty classrooms. Your timetable is a schedule stitched together around the gaps in other people’s lives, and although you had not expected anything to be warm or welcoming – you hadn’t expected to feel so out of place when handed back the semblance of freedom you had longed for.
A man by the name of Yaga Masamichi – tall, olive-tan skin and ridiculously broad shoulders – meets you in the faculty office on your first day. Lips pursed, sunglasses hooked in the collar of his shirt. He appears half-apologetic and half-inconvenienced by the sight of you.
“Your father has not made things easy,” Yaga tells you, rubbing the bridge of his nose, “but Nanami pushed hard for this. I don’t know what kind of man blacklists his own daughter from getting an education, but–”
He seems to think better of finishing that sentence – possibly because he recalls just how much influence your father holds – and promptly snaps his mouth shut again.
“Ah, whatever.” He waves a hand around with a short sigh. “We’re happy to have you. Just make good on this opportunity. Don’t make Nanami regret all that paperwork.”
You can’t figure out what to do with your hands, and so you clasp them together in front of you. “…Thank you. For agreeing at all,” you say. “I figured it wasn’t simple.”
“Your husband did all the work,” he says with a grunt. “He can be surprisingly insistent. I considered blocking his number because he wouldn’t stop pestering me until the school agreed.”
You bite down on a small laugh. “I think I know that relatively well.”
“I hope that insistence has only been to your benefit, then,” Yaga snorts. He slides your timetable across the desk toward you, tapping on the paper. “Here. Most things will be independent. The fewer people involved, the less trouble this causes.”
You nod. “I understand.”
“Alright then.” His gaze lingers on you for a brief moment, pursing his lips together like he’s holding back something else he wants to say. Then, he grunts, seemingly satisfied enough.“Nanami’s waiting right outside. I won’t keep you any longer – lest I get another call from him.”
And then more quietly, as you thank him and stand from your chair, he gruffly mutters something like, “For someone who never wanted to marry, I never expected him to be so overprotective.”
You choose not to linger too much on that last statement, and quickly step out into the hall, where Nanami is – exactly as promised – waiting, pretending he hasn’t been listening for the sound of the door.
He straightens instantly once he spots you. “Did everything go smoothly?”
You nod. “He said you wouldn’t stop calling him, or something like that. And that I can officially start tomorrow.”
“I was persistent,” Nanami admits, a flash of guilt flickering across his face. “But it was necessary.”
“…He also said that he almost blocked your number.”
“Oh, I am very aware,” Nanami says flatly. “He has… already threatened me with that once or twice.” He winces, glance sliding away for a moment. “I suggested he could do that after we sign the papers.”
You huff a tiny laugh. “That sounds like you.”
“I hope that isn’t a complaint,” He says dryly. “In fact,” he adds, “I was prepared to be a lot more annoying about it.”
“It’s not,” you tell him seriously. “It’s… a good trait to have.”
“What,” he breathes a laugh, “being annoying?”
His eyes do that thing again – something fond gathering softly at the corners when he laughs, and heat crawls up your neck for no good reason at all.
“No,” you say. “Being…” you struggle for words. “…Being caring.”
And then very quietly, in a voice so hushed you almost don’t know if you really intend for him to hear, you whisper, “Thank you. For caring about me.”
His gaze flickers over to yours, and his reply comes equally quietly;
Always.
(It’s a vow, but he doesn’t tell you that.)
You walk past the foyer, and down the steps to where his car is parked. It is rather odd to see Nanami here – or to be walking beside him at all – with school buildings rising around you, instead of estate houses and tall, lacquered gates. The air smells like wet concrete and grass, not of tea and laundry powder.
Outside of the boundaries of the house, you find him to be straighter, sharper. He carries himself differently, jaw whet to an edge, his back held stiff, eyes hardened and unflinching. It’s a version of him you hardly recognise at all – except for the day you had met him for the very first time, and your gaze had flickered back and forth his visage in an attempt to pin him into something comprehensible.
On campus, he is Nanami-san to everyone else. When students walk past, they bow and look at him with the kind of awe you reserve for the very best of the best in the field – a first-grade sorcerer that stands above most others. Here, he is straight-backed and exact – folded into neat professionalism and sharp corners – an origami of composure and discipline.
You realise that there must be two versions of him.
One that belongs to the world – hardened, wrought into function, stone carefully carved into straight lines and measured answers. And the other – the other version must belong to you – or at the very least, it must belong within the threshold of the house you share.
The first one is ironed, made from crisp dress shirts and a subtle weariness that drapes itself over him like a well-made suit. The second one is rumpled at midnight, framed by the warmth of the kitchen light, his collar undone, shirt untucked and hair mussed, silently waiting for you to join him with a second cup of tea.
There might be a third version of him, too – the one who stood very still when his nose brushed your cheek. The one who did not close that last inch lest you mistake his steadiness for taking.
(You don’t have a word for that one yet.)
Really, you wonder how you ever thought of Nanami as a cold man. He is stoic. He is unyielding. But he is nothing but cold.
Does he soften just for you? Does he really spare tenderness just to touch you with gentle hands and watch you with soft eyes? Is patience a virtue that comes easily, or does he reserve the weight of that devotion for you?
Could this version of him really belong to you, and you alone?
You’re still in the middle of pondering about the answer to that question when you hear a rush of steps and a familiar lilt calling from behind you.
Ah.
“Nanami–,” the voice calls, then more loudly again when Nanami immediately lengthens his stride towards the car. “Who is th– Why the hell are you walking so fast– hey!”
You don’t need to turn around to know he’s waving. You can practically hear it in the sound of the steps behind you, careless, then skipping, and entirely incompatible with the hush of the campus.
Nanami stops walking, exhales through his nose, and turns around slowly.
“Gojo,” he greets, almost a tad reluctantly.
The white-haired sorcerer stops in his tracks almost instantly.
“Hello,” you say from beside him. “It’s good to see you again… Satoru. You’ve grown a lot taller.”
“Oh.” Gojo says blankly, blinking a couple of times. His eyebrows furrow, then twitch, and his eyes dart between the both of you, before eventually landing on Nanami’s ring.
“Oh.” He says again, louder now. “You married him? When I heard you got married I– You married Nanami? Kento? What the h–”
“Gojo.” Nanami is quick to cut him off. “Tell no one about this.” A pause, then a reluctant “please.”
Satoru clearly isn’t done gawking, jaw hanging slightly ajar, cerulean eyes wide as saucers, fixated on the ring. The last you’d seen of him had been nearly half a decade ago, back when you were still attending biannual clan gatherings in stiff, expensive clothes, hiding behind your mother’s back with a fist curled around the fabric of her skirts.
You’d never been close enough to be friends, but Gojo always stood out then – a loud streak of white that was always too bright amongst the rest. He stands out just the way same now, with a scandalised look colouring his face, his features twisted in an attempt at comprehension.
“I just–” he blinks again, “–never expected this. Seriously, Nanami?”
“Is there another Nanami I should be worried about?” Nanami asks, tone dry.
“I mean,” Gojo steps back and finally tears his gaze away from the ring. “I guess I always expected you to end up with some old fossil. Not…” he gestures vaguely between the two of you. “This.”
Nanami taps on the door of his car impatiently. “You’re holding us up.”
“Man, you’re touchy these days.” Gojo mutters, tossing his hands up. “I’m happy for you. Both. Truly.” He presses a hand over his chest in a dramatic gesture, before tilting his head, studying you with a bit more focus now. “And you’re… okay? Not being held against your will, or anything?”
The hidden sincerity of his question catches you off guard, but you nod anyway. “I’m going back to school,” you supply. “Starting tomorrow.”
“Congratulations,” he snorts loudly. “Your old man must have been coughing up blood.”
You’ve heard nothing from your father ever since he’d eagerly married you off, but you can easily imagine the look on his face if he were to ever receive word of it – the incredulous scoffing would come first, then the poorly concealed rage blanketing his face, before he would be off to find a meeker servant – or perhaps one of his many mistresses – to direct his disdain towards.
“Probably,” you say lightly. “I wouldn’t really know.”
Nanami clears his throat loudly before Gojo can say another word. “The traffic gets bad at this hour,” he deadpans.
“Yeah, yeah.” Gojo steps back from the car with an exaggerated sort of reluctance. “Go forth and domesticate yourselves, then.”
“Keep this a secret,” Nanami says again, voice low with a warning. He pointedly opens the passenger door for you, and signals for you to get in. “I’m serious, Gojo,” he says flatly. “Only Yaga knows.”
You wave goodbye to Gojo, who grins back, but you otherwise follow Nanami’s direction without protest, if only because he somehow looks a thousand times wearier than before he’d stepped foot on the campus.
You can’t tell if he means the marriage or the arrangement that allowed you back in school, but Gojo nods anyway, flashing a cheery smile. “Relax. I won’t say a word. ‘S not my story to tell, anyway.”
Nanami eyes narrow fractionally, before he exhales. “I appreciate that,” he says finally. “Goodbye, Gojo.”
“See you tomorrow,” Gojo sing-songs, wiggling his fingers at you before turning to walk away. Then, possibly to annoy Nanami just a little more, he adds over his shoulder, “your wife will be in good hands, I promise.”
Nanami simply ignores him, promptly rounding the hood and shutting the car door with a decisive thud. You fixate on the dashboard as he buckles in and starts the engine, trying to ignore how the word wife no longer sounds like a curse to your ears.
The title rests more softly than it should – more kindly than it ever has, and for once – your chest feels oddly fuller for it, instead of achingly hollow.
Safer, too, like the assurance of falling and knowing there’s somewhere soft to land upon. Not without a certain sense of panic, but still, something safe enough to be chosen, not resisted.
You think about the words friends, wife, marriage the entire drive back. You think about how Nanami has rewritten every definition of those words, how they somehow no longer settle heavy in your gut; how you no longer mind the ring on his fourth finger, nor the tea, nor the home you share.
You remember the warmth of his body pressed against yours, the tip of his nose against your cheek, how it made all the resistance abandon you at once when your eyes met.
Nanami asks you questions on the way home – all of them too light for the way the afternoon has shifted the world under your feet – mundane things like how did you become unfortunate enough to know Gojo? Are you okay? Are you cold? Should I turn the air conditioning down? What do you want to eat for dinner?
You only want to ask him one thing.
If there could be some scrap of a universe – of a different timeline, maybe – where you would have been allowed to want him first, free of the circumstances that bound you to him in this one.
Nanami has asked for nothing – he gives and gives, and if he has requested anything from you it is only that you allow him to continue doing so. He demands nothing, dictates nothing, and simply presses forward with the same quiet insistence that spring does.
Both are inevitable things – be it the rhythm of endings and beginnings in nature or the bitter circumstances that cemented this union. But the seasons are neutral forces, you’ve realised, however gentle or cruel they can be. They stop for nothing and no one – blind in their turning, impartial in their pace – and perhaps that is the one difference between your husband and the spring.
Spring comes regardless of whether you are ready, but Nanami seems to wait. There is no tide crashing at your door, only the gentle lapping of waves at your ankles when you walk along the shore.
By the time he turns into your street, there’s a scarier thought that has begun bubbling up at the back of your mind.
What if you’ve begun to want him, anyway?
In this universe, the one with the stolen freedoms and the marriage you never asked for, but also the eggs salted just right and the man with rivers of endless patience, who has never once sought anything from you?
What if you’ve slowly begun to want him, no matter which universe?
It happens one Wednesday.
An utterly ordinary Wednesday, banal, and entirely cruel in its simplicity. It must be the universe’s way of taunting a heart that has only just remembered to beat without a crutch.
You’re getting out of the car when it happens, with Nanami attending to the mailbox and sorting through letters as you close the car door behind you. He pulls out bills and circulars and shuffles through the letters the same way he always does every Wednesday – his routine of sorts – before he stops on a single, kraft-brown envelope, pulling it out from the stack.
You think nothing of it when he stills initially, his eyes scanning the words written across the letter as you wait by the gate. But then the small smile slips off his face entirely, and it goes cold as he straightens, before handing it over to you quietly.
A single envelope, the edges crumpled from travel, your name written on the front with a handwriting you would know as intimately as your own heartbeat.
Hayate.
This is the oldest trick in the world: the door you were shut behind offers to open, just when you find you have learned to breathe the air inside.
You reach for it with trembling hands – fingers going cold, nausea rising to your stomach – and when your eyes meet you know, that somehow, Nanami must already understand.
Maybe it’s the fact that you never receive any letters, and especially not ones with your name written out in careful ink, the way someone who used to know your face, hold your hand, press his lips against the curve of your neck would write it.
Or maybe it’s the way all colour drains from your face the moment he hands it to you, the one single envelope that is all too heavy with the weight of everything you’ve once longed to hear – explanations, apologies, excuses – I was young. I was scared. I was wrong. I love you. Give me another chance–
You don’t have to read the letter to know it’s a combination of all the above. Confessions and regrets, pleas and prayers all at once, arriving all too late to change anything now.
He’s always been that way, you think. Some things never change.
“…Is it from someone you know?” Nanami asks quietly.
You swallow around the tightness in your throat. “Yes.”
You bring it inside with careful hands, one foot in front of another, as if you might forget even the most basic of movements. You walk to the kitchen. Wash a cup that didn’t need washing. Pick at the skin of your fingernails in a futile attempt to tame a wildly beating heart.
You set the envelope on the table. Move it to the counter. Then back to the table with hands that haven’t stopped trembling. Pretend you don’t see Nanami watching you from the corner of his eye, unsure of whether this is a threshold better crossed or left standing.
He doesn’t ask – and you don’t ask how he looks like he just knows – if he sees it in the same ache written on your face all over again like on the night of your marriage or if he has somehow glimpsed into your heart and saw a boy’s name crossed out in red ink.
You wouldn’t be surprised, either way, since that appears to be in his nature.
You sit in the kitchen with trembling hands and cold feet until the sun drags down the horizon and bleeds itself across the floorboards. Time passes, minutes or hours, but you stay suspended in that moment when you took the crinkled envelope into your hands and felt the wounds in your chest ripping themselves open all over again.
You didn’t want this life – but still, the kettle hisses, the fridge hums, and the kitchen tiles you once hated have come to be the same ones you rest your back towards when Nanami is cooking and you’re peering over his shoulder to watch.
You didn’t want this life, but you’ve finally stumbled upon a choice that seems to be yours to make. Fully yours, no matter the ache.
When you finally speak, your throat is hoarse and the words come out jagged. The hot sting of tears gather, then start overflowing even before you can speak your decision into the open air.
“I– I don’t want to read it. I want to burn it,” you manage. “Help me do it, please.”
Nanami watches you very carefully. The chair barely makes a sound as he stands and walks over to you.
“Okay,” he says, without hesitation. No questions asked. “Come on. We can do it outside.”
He opens a kitchen drawer and rummages for a lighter – then takes it in his palm and lets you follow him towards the engawa. Your legs feel like paper, but you make yourself move, one hand clutching the envelope so tightly the edges dig into your skin.
(You think of him.
Boy with river-water hands and a grin as bright as the morning sun. You think of some promises that came true, and some that were left in shards on the gravel of a night that decided your fate.)
Nanami slides the door open, and you follow him down the steps, feel the air over your skin and the gentle wind slipping past your ankles.
The next sequence of events is one you can barely hold in a straight line.
There’s the soft click of the lighter. He’s handed it to you, handle-first, told you to be careful not to burn yourself like it’s the only danger in the room.
Then, you are speaking – or trying to – before you know your mouth is even moving; shuddering breaths and quiet gasps for air that leave you hoarse, voice increasingly stripped thin and hollow with every word.
“Th-ere… There was… There was someone,” you sob. The base of your throat aches and you jaw feels locked tight, and every word after that crumbles in your mouth. “Before… Before we got married. S-someone I thought that I–”
Nanami stops you when your voice collapses in on itself, with a shake of his head. “You don’t have to tell me,” he says. Something in his tone is pained, urgent, as he speaks. “You don’t owe me any explanations. It’s okay. It’s okay.”
“I know all of that,” you choke out, sobbing harder at his gentle words and gentler eyes. “But I– I just want to tell you.”
He watches you with eyes that are prepared to witness something raw. There is nothing cold, nothing stiff or stoic about the expression on his face. He is only ever soft, even when it feels unbearable.
“Okay,” he murmurs. “Then I’m here.”
You tell him there was a boy. You say I loved him. I loved him dearly before I could even name what love was, and even that was not enough. You tell him the entire story, from the start to the bitter end, in between sobs that eventually quiet down into sniffles.
Nanami simply listens without judgement; looks at you like he somehow already knows. When your breath shudders in your chest and your shoulders shake like you are about to crumple, he pulls you close like your sorrow is an affliction he’s willing to share the equal weight of.
You stare down at the envelope in your hand. The ink of your name wavers through the blur of tears.
And then you’re holding the lighter to it, not once looking away.
You watch the card burn, blackening and curling, slowly caving in on itself and being reduced to ash on the ground. For a moment, your fingers twitch with the urge to stop the fire, to salvage whatever could remain untouched and run your hands through the ash of whatever is too late to save. Silent tears run in burning trails down your cheeks, like acid into skin.
You think of the freedom to choose that you once prayed to have the liberty to make, and how life seems determined to deal you the most painful version of that wish. Here it is, you think bitterly. A choice wholly yours, and yet hurts so much that can you barely breathe around it.
You think of Tuesdays. Of little girls with pencils and holes in their homework pages, of mothers with lipstick like petals crushed under boots. You think of men who are animals, and you think of this man, who is simply a man; who refuses to be more, refuses to be less.
And you realise – quite sharply and vividly – that the ache in your chest is not one born from reluctance nor doubt. It’s born from grief, from the sharp and brutal awareness that you are the one ending this.
Most of all, as you stare down at the ground, ink and apologies now turned to ash and ember, you realised you have finally, finally chosen something for yourself.
Because for the first time, you are not the thing being let go of; but the one doing the letting go.
And in this universe – the one with the perfectly made eggs and chipped kitchen titles – you would rather let Hayate go.
You would rather choose the man beside you.
You sniffle, wipe your tears away on the sleeves of your shirt. “It’s done,” you say, voice thin. It feels oddly like tension being knocked loose, like relief settling into your bones after a storm.
The smile Nanami gives you is something sad. Not pitiful, just fragile at the edges.
It is not a mercy you reject.
He opens his mouth to speak, but you already find yourself moving towards him. For a heartbeat he goes still – and you’re transported to that night all over again. Same place, same time, same arms.
His eyes search your face, careful and questioning, but you loop your arms around him anyway. It’s awkward – clumsy – at first, you struggle to figure out where to put your hand, and you bump his shoulder with your chin, wincing. But then his breath leaves him softly, a shaken exhale, and his arms slowly raise to wrap around you, pulling you in.
“Do you feel okay?” he murmurs. His breath is warm over the shell of your ear, and you shudder involuntarily. “Do you want some water? Anything at all?”
The universe, it seems, has presented you with another choice to make.
“I–” your breath catches and stalls in your throat. “I want–”
Nanami pulls away from you just enough to meet your eyes again, and a warm hand comes up to wipe the tears still drying on your face.
“I–” you try and fail, all over again. The words struggle to come out, thick and clinging to your throat.
I want to make a new choice.
In the end, you lean your forehead to his, bringing a shaky hand to cup his jaw. When your thumb brushes against his skin, you hear his breath hitch.
“What is it?” he asks. His blinks come fast, and his eyebrows draw together, worried, almost. “You don’t have to be afraid to ask me for the things you want.”
“Even… Even this?” you whisper.
Nanami swallows thickly. Something in his eyes grow warmer; soft and deep, all at the same time.
“Especially this,” he murmurs. “But only if it’s what you want.”
You can’t be sure who leans in first; whose lips touch whose first. What you know is this: the moment his mouth finds yours, you unfurl like something starved for sunlight, moving towards him like everything in you has been waiting for this single, quiet collision.
If Hayate was blazing like an eternal summer, and if you were frozen like last season’s coldest winter, then Nanami must be the spring and autumn all at once.
The entire beauty of autumn, from beginning to ending, from the first sign of crisp in the air to the shedding of leaves, his eyes speak of roasted chestnuts and honey dripping slowly from a spoon. And spring – the gentle way it presses forth, the way flora bloom anew and fauna regain life – spring must be in the way he kisses you.
The world narrows down to just the press of his lips against yours and the sure, steady weight of his hands on your waist.
There’s no more heartache; you’ve left it as ash on the ground. No more grief, either; because you can mourn but also choose to move forward now.
With him.
You can’t help but wonder what kind of taste he must find past your lips. Is it the dullness of heartache? The sharpness of grief? Can he still taste the bitterness that has lingered on your tongue for so long?
Or does he see beyond it, to discover that the honey in his eyes has coated you a little sweeter, the warm tea he makes you every night has melted all your ice, the way his hands on your skin now stroke a burning flame?
When Nanami kisses you like this, unhurried and steady, you think he must surely taste a little bit of all of it. The darkness and the sweetness, he brushes every single part of your soul with just one kiss.
You’re not sure exactly when it changes, when soft and careful turns into something breathless and needy, but you simply find yourself unable to stop. Your fingers twist in the linen of his shirt, and his arms tighten against your waist like he’s afraid you’ll slip away if he loosened his hold.
Your mouth parts when his tongue seeks entry, whimpering when it deepens and his hands slide up your back to pull you closer.
“K-kento,” you gasp, and when you say his name like that for the first time, you hear his breath audibly shudder against your lips.
“W-wait,” Nanami pants, dragging his mouth from yours just enough to speak. His eyes squeeze shut, and he exhales like he already regrets the word. “We shouldn’t– we shouldn’t go any further than what you’re ready for. I’m s–”
You cut him off by a grab to his collar, pressing one more kiss to his lips that steals whatever apology he was about to choke out. Surprise tastes sweet on him, you feel it in the way he stills momentarily, then answers with a soft sound, fingers flexing against your back.
“Don’t be sorry,” you whisper, still a little breathless. “No more apologies.”
Nanami swallows, throat working as he pulls back to study your face. “Okay,” he says at last, voice rough. “I’m… not stopping because I don’t want you,” he adds, like he needs you to understand this part exactly. “You’ve had a difficult day, and I just… don’t want to be careless with you.”
“You might be the less careless person I have ever met,” you say, huffing a little. It draws the hint of a helpless laugh from him.
Your cheeks burn, and you hesitate again before speaking, but then decide you’ve already set too many things aflame to stop being brave now. “Will you… sleep with me?”
The flicker in his eyes is instantaneous, and you hurriedly stammer out, “I mean– in the same… bed. Or room. I didn’t mean– I don’t know.” Heat crawls up the entire length of your spine, and you quicky look away, flushed. “…I just don’t want to be alone tonight.”
The tension that seemed to render his entire body stiff seems to leave him almost immediately upon your clarification. “Ah,” he breathes, blinking a few times. “…Of course.”
“Are you sure?” you ask, shifting on your feet. “It’s not… an obligation, you know.”
Nanami huffs a very soft, amused breath. “It is not an obligation to me.” He taps your nose lightly with a finger, and you look down on at your hands, suddenly shy. “Come on,” he adds, gentler, “it’s getting cold.”
Later, you’re already tucked under the covers when Nanami cautiously slips in beside you. Chamomile tea is warming your belly, and the sheets are newly washed with the scent of lavender and something clean that you’ve come to quietly associate with home.
He lies on his back, careful to leave plenty of space between you. You can barely feel the dip in the mattress from his weight, with him lying close to the edge. But just when you think that’s all there is to it, his hand suddenly reaches out.
His pinky finger brushes against yours – light, tentative, testing the threshold. Your eyes don’t meet, and you stay flat on your back, staring at the ceiling – but your heart rate spikes at the small, barest hint of contact.
I’m here, he seems to say silently. Always.
For once, you believe him.
You really, really do.
a/n: the long awaited kiss... has finally happened. the kiss scene is actually something i wrote out at the very beginning, back when i was still drafting up the series, and tbh it's one of my favourite few lines out of everything so far.
i missed writing for them, but i've also missed you guys so much T_T as always, please let me know your thoughts <3 i appreciate all your comments and anything you might have to say, it really keeps me going 🙂↕️
