hey there! welcome to my fanfic side blog. i wanted to create a space on tumblr dedicated to my writing, where anyone looking for my fics can find them/track them easily. i'm also a fan of writing flash fiction (stories with word counts of around 500 words), and ao3 isn't my favorite space for posting that. as of right now, i won't be posting my backlog here, but i might change my mind later on down the line.
i've been writing fanfic on and off for around 15 years now, and i'm very much a vibes-based writer. i don't have a consistent writing schedule, and i will follow plot bunnies down the rabbit hole until my brain decides it's not interested anymore. that being said, if i post something that you really vibe with, please let me know! interaction helps me stay motivated and focused. ⊹⠀ ﾟ ˖
⎯ writing for the twilight saga and mickey7 / mickey 17.
⎯ characters i write for: bella swan, edward cullen, jacob black, edythe cullen, mickey barnes, nasha barridge
⎯ ships i write for: edward cullen x bella swan, jacob black x bella swan, edythe cullen x bella swan, mickey barnes x nasha barridge
⎯ requests: closed ⊹ request rules ⊹ i love writing for prompts, so if you have any ideas you would like me to write, please let me know. i won't write nsfw requests at this time; any nsfw requests will be ignored.
🔞 ⎯ mdni. i do write nsfw content very selectively. any stories with a mature/explicit rating will be tagged and easy to avoid.
⚠️ ⎯ i will ignore any message/comment that tries to engage in character bashing. this blog isn't the space for that and i won't tolerate it.
Hello I just found your page and I love it so much ! I saw that you take request so I was hoping you could make one about Jacob Black x reader. The prompt would be : another wolf imprint on reader while they were in a relationships with Jacob, Jacob has to broke up with them due to pack law but he still loves her and the reader still loves him too.
PS : English isn't my first language so I apologize if I wrote it wrong.
hello! thank you so much for this request <3 i'm working on it now and i will tag you when i've posted it.
hey everyone ! i'm popping in with an another update on my ficmas schedule. in order to provide the best quality writing/editing possible, i've pushed back the remaining five fics by one day respectively. this means the mickey fic that was meant to be published today will be posted tomorrow 12/16. i have already updated the masterlist to reflect this change.
i apologize if these adjustments are frustrating to any of my readers. though i tried my best to stick to the schedule i set for myself, i would rather give myself more time to do the work than speed through edits in order to meet a deadline. i appreciate everyone's support so far & i'm excited to post the final few fics! <3
hello... clearly i've gone off the rails, schedule wise, but i was chosen by the cat distribution system yesterday morning & minding two cats isn't easy, particularly when one of them isn't particularly social or friendly. please bear with me!
hey everyone ! i'm popping in with an another update on my ficmas schedule. in order to provide the best quality writing/editing possible, i've pushed back the remaining five fics by one day respectively. this means the mickey fic that was meant to be published today will be posted tomorrow 12/16. i have already updated the masterlist to reflect this change.
i apologize if these adjustments are frustrating to any of my readers. though i tried my best to stick to the schedule i set for myself, i would rather give myself more time to do the work than speed through edits in order to meet a deadline. i appreciate everyone's support so far & i'm excited to post the final few fics! <3
jacob black x reader ⟢ on a quiet december evening, you and your mate decorate a tree.
fluffy twilight ficlet | rated ga | ~700 wc
no warnings
You’ve heard it said that the best moments in life are going to be the ones that creep by without you even noticing. Not for any lack of gratitude or self-awareness — just that no one ever knew they were living through the good times until they were gone.
But in your experience, you’ve come to find that you could taste those special moments as they were forming. Every little detail imprinted itself in your mind, and you could feel the memory forming. A little voice would whisper in your ear, telling you, You will remember this for the rest of your life, and somehow you knew that that was the truth.
And this snowy December evening in this little house with the tin roof was one of those flashbulb moments.
The living room was warm, heat borrowed from the kitchen as dinner cooked in the oven. The smell of roasted chicken made your stomach rumble, and you popped a piece of popcorn into your mouth before stringing the next piece.
From your place on the floor between the couch and the coffee table, you watched Jake wrap a string of lights around the Christmas tree, fiddling with the branches as he went. The thing was slightly too wide for the room, tucked away in the corner as it was, but you knew it was going to look beautiful.
“You’re sure popcorn and lights are a safe combination?” you asked as you put another piece in your mouth.
Jake rolled his eyes, a grin tugging at the corner of his mouth. “I’ve only told you yes a million times now. I don’t know why you’re so worried.”
“I’m not worried,” you grumbled, concentrating on pulling the next piece along the thread.
Jake snickered. “Whatever you say, my love.”
And as you looked up from your work to pout at him — an ineffective move, since he was turned slightly away from you to adjust a branch in the front — the feeling was suddenly washing over you.
Through the window over Jake’s shoulder, you saw as rain began to intermingle with the snow, the branches of distant trees white and heavy with ice.
You took in the room's wood paneled walls and the mismatched frames that decorated them, the faces of your loved ones smiling back at you. You took in the TV playing Rudolph at a low volume and the sound of the bulbs clinking together as Jake adjusted the cords in his hands.
You took him in: your Jacob, the man you loved, the man who would be devoted to you for the rest of your lives. The plaid button-up he wore, the sleeves rolled up to his elbows revealing warm skin you wanted to brush your lips against. The dark wash jeans that hugged him well. The profile of his face, handsome and focused, his dark eyes intent on his work.
You thought about getting up and going to him, wrapping your arms around his middle and kissing his face. You imagined the way his eyes would dance with love. The way he would kiss you in return.
But in the end, you didn't move. In fact, you weren't sure you could. You were spellbound, captivated by this candid, intimate image of him you got to see.
You felt the worn material of the couch against your back. You saw the totes of decorations, waiting to be unwrapped and unboxed: hand-me-down ornaments, sparkly gold garland and velvet bows, and a brass star to place at the top. They were things accumulated over time and well-kept, indicating a life spent together, your heirlooms blended with his.
And you could hear his voice now, asking a question that you distantly recognize as a continuation of something you’d been talking about earlier — both of you were trying to recall the word for when rain mixed with snow and came down in pellets — but you were too lost in your head to truly hear him.
You don’t know what you’ve got until it’s gone. It was a refrain you’d heard time and time again, and in a way, you could acknowledge there was some truth to that.
But you knew better. You knew exactly how much you had to be thankful for, and it was all right here.
( even when i make an effort to write a shorter scene, i'm just incapable of keeping it simple >.< please forgive me )
⎯ divider by strangergraphics ⊹⠀ ﾟ ˖
⎯ do not reupload, copy, translate, or feed to artificial intelligence / please let me know if an image i've used was made with ai because i will remove it
shane is floating, blissfully riding the high of two truly mind-boggling orgasms - one in the hotel bed, ripped from him with a cry as ilya thrust into him over and over with a brutal efficiency; the second in the shower, shaking and shuddering and whimpering as ilya cleaned up the mess he'd made between shane's legs - and now, the gentle, tender touches of ilya's fingers on his damp skin, sweeping up, down, back and forth. he feels simultaneously weightless and heavy in the best possible way.
one of ilya's legs is slung over his hip, the top of his foot rubbing against the arch of shane's. his wet curls tickle shane's ear, and the delicate caress of his fingers over shane's chest is distracting and comforting enough that shane doesn't even care - okay, mostly - doesn't care about the mess they must have made of the sheets. he's able to keep his shifting to a minimum, not feeling anything beneath him, but, being the perceptive bastard that he is, ilya kisses him right on the bolt of his jaw and murmurs, "is clean, hollander, i took the sheet off. you can stop thinking now."
god, shane loves him.
the smile refuses to be contained, and though his eyes stay closed as it stretches across his face, he just knows ilya is grinning a very smug, satisfied grin in response. "i wonder, hmm, what it would take to stop that brain of yours. how many orgasms, you think? four? five?"
shane's cock twitches. "you're going to kill me," he groans.
"ah, but you like it."
shane hums an assent, content to bask in ilya's unhurried, focused affection, and finds himself dozing off, only semi-aware of what's happening around him.
sometime later, he feels warm breath ghosting across his lips and an equally feather-light touch of a fingertip on the bridge of his nose. he wrinkles it instinctively, and hears a laugh. "tickles," he complains. "what're you doing?"
"am counting your freckles. shush."
shane tries not to react and fails miserably. he opens his eyes a sliver, sees the furrow of ilya's brows and the concentrated purse of his mouth. "there's a lot of them," he offers.
ilya lets out a dramatic sigh and collapses onto his chest, his chin digging into shane's ribs. "so many. and now i have lost count, since you are being too cute."
"sorry?"
"no, you're not," ilya accuses, dragging his mouth over, over, until he reaches a nipple, and flicks over it with his tongue.
"ah," shane gasps at the unexpected sensation. "n-no, i'm not, i'm- fuck you, rozanov," he breaks off when ilya does it again and sits up to straddle his waist, a solid weight on his thighs. he gazes down at shane, beautiful and strong and all shane's, and as he leans down for a kiss, shane thinks fiercely-
emmett cullen x reader ⟢ when alice brings home bags full of festive sweaters and craft supplies, she issues a challenge that emmett can't refuse.
fluffy twilight ficlet | rated ga | 1.4k wc
no warnings
( the concept of an 'ugly christmas sweater' didn't come about until the 90's and early aughts, even though the clothing that falls into that category had been around for decades. i like the thought of the cullens (immortals of various ages) having to learn what an ugly christmas sweater party is )
FORKS, WASHINGTON — 2004
It was no secret that Alice loved parties. To her, any occasion was worth celebrating, and she took every opportunity she could to plan a fun little soiree, even if she had to make up those opportunities herself.
You had to admit, it did break up the monotony of immortality, at least for a little while.
You didn’t get quite as involved in the preparations as Esme did. Instead, you sat back, minding your business until you had an opinion.
But as Emmett often reminded you, you always had an opinion.
“Do the sweaters have to be ugly?” you asked skeptically, peering into the shopping bag before you. You had seen these gaudy shirts before — in movies and TV shows, on humans trotting down slush-covered sidewalks as they did their holiday shopping. Your mouth twisted into a frown at the thought of donning one yourself.
What’s more is, she’d gone to a craft store and bought little accessories to make the sweaters even more atrocious. Bows, ribbons, tinsel — name it, and it was somewhere on the coffee table in front of you. It went against everything you understood about her fashion sensibilities, and yet…
“Yes! That’s the entire point,” Alice huffed. She was in the process of shoving a bag into Edward’s reluctant hands, shooing him wordlessly up the stairs.
“And the winner is the one who looks the ugliest?” Emmett asked, slumping a bit to rest his cheek against your shoulder. The two of you were seated on the couch in the living room, which you’d secured as your temporary work space.
Alice arched an eyebrow at him, then responded, “That’s one way to put it, yes.”
“Huh,” he grunted, still sounding a little bemused. When Alice had declared this would be a competition, you’d almost groaned aloud. Emmett could never resist the opportunity to win, no matter how ridiculous it was, no matter how little ‘winning’ meant in the grand scheme of things.
It was one of his qualities you found most endearing — except when it involved you looking like an idiot in front of people.
“Babe, we’re totally gonna win this,” he’d said after Alice finished explaining what they were even meant to be doing. He gave your shoulders a psyched little squeeze. “Pick out a bag, you’ve got this.”
Now, here on the couch, he watched as you delicately extracted a thin-knit sweater from the bunch you’d chosen. It was a red-white-and-green plaid monstrosity whose front was covered in tiny jingle bells. You gave the sweater a shake, causing the bright ring of bells to bounce off the high ceiling.
He snickered, smoothing his hand over your thigh and giving it a squeeze.
“Yes, this is so stupid, it’s gonna be perfect.”
Alice grumbled an annoyed little sound, seemingly offended by his word choice. But before she could respond any further, Esme’s voice, full of confusion, drifted in from the dining room, and she scurried away to help her.
You sighed, dropping the sweater into the floor by your feet. “This is going to be a nightmare.”
Feeling him against your side made you long to spend the day with him the way you would prefer to spend it: curled up on the couch, watching Christmas movies until you couldn’t stand the sight of a Santa suit any longer. And considering how much you loved Christmas, that meant the marathon would likely last well into the night.
But no. You had a silly party to attend.
He gave your thigh another squeeze. “Babe, it’s okay. We’ll do what Alice wants for a little while, and then later, we can do whatever we want. We’ve got nothing but time.”
You turned to look at him, a warm little smile curling on your lips. Another quality you loved about him: he had such a way of making the weight of immortality feel so much lighter. His outlook on this existence was so unburdened, so simple, and sometimes, so infectious.
You kissed him, and your smile widened as he returned it.
“Let’s get to work,” he mumbled against your lips.
You groaned, breaking away from his mouth. “We’re going to look ridiculous!”
“Hey, that’s the spirit.”
And that’s the way the afternoon progressed. You moaned and groaned about the task at hand, and Emmett kept up your morale. In the end, you did most of the finicky work, hand-sewing button eyes on snowmen and pinning cotton balls to wool to create snowy scenes. To your surprise, it was Emmett who came up with the ideas, his suggestions growing more and more creative as the vision came to life.
You heard the others in the house coming up with their own designs, laughing and grumbling in equal measure.
And because of all your vampiric advantages, it wasn’t long before everyone had finished their sweaters. Alice had presented her idea at noon, and the sun was only just starting to set when you all reconvened in the living room.
“Edward, where’s your sweater? Why aren’t you wearing it?”
He narrowed his eyes at Alice, and after some span of silence, he sighed impatiently. He crossed his arms over his chest, which was clothed in a white long-sleeved button-up, the very opposite of everyone else’s attire.
“What’s the point?” he snapped. “I’m judging the competition, I’m not taking part in it.”
“Aw, now where’s your Christmas spirit?” Esme chided him gently. Her sweater was bright pink, the front of it dominated by a wide-eyed puppy with googly eyes and a glittery candy cane in its mouth.
He pointed at the stereo, currently playing some holiday record he’d brought down from his room, as if that would be sufficient enough participation.
You snickered. He should know better by now.
“No, c’mon now, Esme’s right, put on the sweater,” Emmett crooned, his own sweater jingling every time he moved. His was a deep red sweater featuring a felt fir tree, decorated with bells, pom-poms, and real peppermint candies, affixed with hot glue.
Despite the overall nonsense, the shirt fit Emmett well, hugging his chest and arms in a very appealing way.
You certainly liked his better than your own. The fit was all wrong on you, and the puffy snowmen that wrapped all the way around the torso were so offensive to your eyes, you couldn’t look down at yourself. The midnight blue color was nice, but that’s about all it had going for it; the original sweater even had a Nordic snowflake pattern along the bust that had you curling up your nose unpleasantly.
When Jasper jumped in on the goading too, Edward eventually stomped off to his room to retrieve his sweater.
“The rest of you might as well crawl off to your rooms, too,” Emmett taunted, wrapping his arm around your shoulders, pulling you close to his side. “You’ve got nothin’ on us.”
“You remember only one person can win, right?” Jasper asked, his lips quirking as he held in a laugh. Looking at him, you wanted to laugh too. The patchwork button-up cardigan he wore contrasted greatly with his intimidating scars.
“So what? It’s gotta be a bummer for you, hoping for third place.”
“Can’t say I know that feeling.”
“Can you just tell us who he picks, Alice?” you asked, curling your arm around Emmett’s, lacing your fingers with his. “I need to throw this thing in a fire, like, ten minutes ago.”
She’d gone quiet, her eyes taking on the vacant quality that meant she was looking forward in time, so you didn’t bother repeating yourself. Instead, you leaned into Emmett’s side, relaxing your eyes as you stared out one of the many floor-to-ceiling windows surrounding you.
You didn’t sleep anymore, didn’t dream but over time, you’ve found ways to let your attention drift when you wanted to. So, you missed it when Edward returned. You only realized he had when, distantly, you heard Esme being declared the winner. And you only picked up on that by the tone of Emmett's voice, demanding a rematch. A smile pulled at your lips; even though his indignation was very real, it was also very cute.
But right now, all you saw was the darkening woods. All you noticed was the snowflakes, drifting down to coat the grass and the tree branches. And all you felt was your love at your side, strong and solid, so full of life that you felt as if at any moment you would feel your heart starting to beat once more.
( esme won bc edward is a mama's boy, pass it on )
⎯ divider by strangergraphics ⊹⠀ ﾟ ˖
⎯ do not reupload, copy, translate, or feed to artificial intelligence / please let me know if an image i've used was made with ai because i will remove it
hey, everyone ! it's been a while since i've posted, but i'm back with some new wintery fics that i hope you'll love <3 these are 12 standalone fics featuring the characters and prompts listed below. there's a mix of fluff & angst, and all of them feature fanfic tropes that i love. all reader characters are written to be gender neutral. there will be no 18+ content in any of the fics — we're staying on the nice list this year, lol — but some of them do feature suggestive content, so i will mention that in the author notes as always.
happy reading and happy holidays, y'all ! 🎁
dec 1st ⟢ mistletoe / mickey barnes
dec 3rd ⟢ kissing in the rain / jacob black
dec 5th ⟢ gift shopping / edward cullen
dec 7th ⟢ blackout / roman kitt
dec 10th ⟢ snow ball / bella swan
dec 12th ⟢ ugly christmas sweater / emmett cullen
dec 13th ⟢ decorating a tree / jacob black
dec 15th ⟢ sick day / mickey barnes
dec 17th ⟢ snowball fight / emmett cullen
dec 19th ⟢ learning to ice skate / bella swan
dec 21st ⟢ christmas movies / edward cullen
dec 23rd ⟢ mulled wine / roman kitt
(this masterlist will be updated with links to each story as they are posted.)
⎯ divider by strangergraphics ⊹⠀ ﾟ ˖
⎯ do not reupload, copy, translate, or feed to artificial intelligence
update: 😬 hello again! my emmett fic is gonna need to be pushed back to tomorrow 12/12. i made the mistake of procrastinating on my secret santa gift, so now i need to spend my evening baking instead of editing >.< sorry, y'all! none of the other posting dates will be changing at this time & i've already updated the date on the masterlist. thanks, everyone!
bella swan x reader ⟢ it's the annual forks high snow ball, and due to some parental trickery, you and bella have been set up to go to the dance with each other. but that's only how the night begins...
wintry new moon au | rated ga | 3.2k wc
warnings: hurt/comfort? bella is a bit of a mess in this one
( it's not that i can't count the number of times i've written the ol' 'bella being asked/going to a dance' scenario — it's that the number is too high and i'm embarrassed so i refuse to tally it <3 this one is a lot weirder than all the other ones though )
The Forks High gymnasium looked just as kitschy as you thought it would. The paper banner over the doors welcoming students to the Annual Snow Ball was already falling when you and Bella arrived, concealing the number of years the school had been hosting this event. White and blue drapery lined the walls, with shiny cardboard snowflakes pinned in haphazard patterns, and crepe streamers loped from rafter to rafter in even arcs. A disco ball bounced cool-toned white light off the glittery curtains surrounding the temporary stage. Everything looked brighter than it needed to be; you could believe it was noon right now instead of seven o’clock at night.
It looked incredibly cheap, but in a way that almost endeared you. You didn’t hate it.
You didn’t love it, either.
To your left, you heard Bella huff an annoyed little sigh, which was quickly followed by a fake cough. You cut her a glance, finding her red-faced, rolling her bottom lip between her teeth.
You leaned in close to her and asked, “Is something wrong?”
She shot you a look, her mouth flattening into a thin, nervous line. “No… Just… You’re walking us right into the middle of the crowd, and…”
She wasn’t wrong, but in your defense, there was nowhere else to go. You two got to the school well after they opened the doors — per Bella’s request — so now the middle of the room was packed with other students, dancing and laughing and standing in tight circles as they gossiped.
You gave her a gentle smile, though you feel the tips of your ears heating up. “Don’t worry, I remember my promise. Absolutely no dancing.”
“I’m sorry that you had to do this,” she said with a grimace. “I told my dad I didn’t want to go, but-”
You nudged her shoulder with yours. “Hey, it’s alright. We were both thrown into this situation. Let’s just find a table, alright?”
She gave you a tight nod, then turned away, looking into the mass of moving bodies as if they were all about to turn and attack.
In the days leading up to the dance, you'd had no intention of going. You hadn’t asked anyone, and when anyone approached you to ask if you’d like to be their date, you made up some vague plans you already had going on. School functions like this weren’t fun — at least, they never were for you. You’ve seen too many girls crying in the corner over their stupid boyfriends. You’ve been asked to slow dance too many times, which always ended up just being awkward swaying and desperate attempts to avoid the other person’s eyes, until finally the song ended and the two of you quickly broke apart. You’ve witnessed too many fights and seen too many of your classmates acting like fools.
Your mom had been more worried about your disinterest than you were. Though you’ve embraced and accepted your been-there-done-that mentality, she was very concerned about you getting “the full senior year experience,” as she called it.
When covertly prodding you to attend hadn’t worked, she went behind your back and did the unthinkable: she teamed up with Chief Swan and arranged a blind date.
Wait, no. Not a blind date. Totally not a date at all. Just a figure of speech. Of course.
“I didn’t even know my mom was friends with your dad,” you said as the two of you took your place at a table in the back corner of the room. You shook your head, lightly musing, “I still can’t believe they really made us do this.”
Bella shrugged, but didn’t respond. She just looked down at her lap, where her hands were clasped, her fingers twisting and un-twisting over and over. It was obvious to you she was uncomfortable, and it sent a sad pang through you knowing that you didn’t know how to fix it.
Ever since the Cullens left town, Bella had been a very different girl from the one you remembered. She’d always been a little quiet, a little reserved, but these days she was totally withdrawn from anyone around her. Before, when you saw her in the lunch room, she would sit with her friends, then with her boyfriend Edward Cullen, talking and laughing. She would raise her hand to answer questions in class — always blushing, of course, but she usually had the correct answer — but now when the teacher called on her, it was most often to break her out of her abstraction.
Clearly, she wasn’t handling her break-up with Edward well; anyone with eyes could see that. And while you often found yourself thinking about her and wondering what you could say or do to make her feel better, you hadn’t come up with any brilliant ideas on that front yet.
“You know…” Bella started abruptly, still looking down at her hands. “Charlie, my dad… He literally told me, ‘You need to get out more.’”
You snorted. “Really?”
“Yeah. Like I’m at college, spending all my time in my dorm, or… I don’t know.”
Her voice was hesitant, her speech pattern stilted, like she wasn’t used to talking very much anymore. But from what you knew about her, it kind of sounded like something she would say. Which was a good sign, right?
Better than nothing at all, you thought with some relief. You personally knew some people who could fill any silence, but there’s only so much small talk you could make before it got awkward.
You fished around in your head for something to say back, something that might keep her talking. “How does someone in this town ‘get out more,’ though?”
She finally lifted her head to look at you, her brown eyes bright and pretty. The corner of her mouth pulled into a half-grin as she replied, “Right? I mean, I can only eat at the diner so many times…”
“Totally. Like, what are we supposed to do, hang out in random parking lots? That’s so boring. Any cool place to go is so far away, unless you want to go hiking. And that’s gotta get old pretty fast…”
You trailed off as Bella’s attention drifted, the light that had shone through in her eyes leaving just as quickly as it had come. Anxiously, you replayed your words in your head, wondering where you’d gone wrong.
The Cullens used to miss school when it was sunny, you thought, your stomach dropping. Maybe she did outdoorsy things with them?
You watched her as she looked out toward the dance floor, though her expression suggested she was a million miles away.
You held in a sigh. This was going to be a long night.
Suddenly, a heavy wave of frustration crashed over you.
Before you could think better of it, you reached across the table, lightly brushing your fingers along her arm. She was wearing a white cardigan over an aubergine dress; the sweater’s fabric was soft on your skin.
Her head jerked back toward you, and your heart roared in your ears like the ocean. You were certain your face was flushed with embarrassment, but you powered through it.
“Look, Bella.” You took a quick breath and let your eyes search her face. She’d surfaced again from the depths of her abstraction, curiosity written on her face. It made your pulse pound harder in your head — you didn’t know what you were about to say either.
“I know that you’re not doing… great right now.” She flinched at your words, and you wanted to cut yourself off there, but you forced the words to tumble out. You wouldn’t hurt her feelings, but you couldn’t walk on eggshells all night. She deserved better than that, anyway. “And I’m really sorry our parents put us in this situation. I don’t know if there’s anything I could do to make this night not suck for the both of us, but if you have any ideas, I’d love to hear them.”
She frowned, looking off into the crowd again, and you kind of wished the earth would open up and swallow you. Would your mom be angry if Bella ditched you?
Then, after the silence had nearly stretched for longer than you thought your nerves could take, she replied, “I just… really don’t want to be here. It’s too much.”
“Okay,” you said, and you were so pleased to have an actual actionable objective, you jerkily grabbed Bella’s hand, standing as you did so. And she was so startled, she let you pull her to her feet, too.
“Oh! Wait, what?”
“Let’s go, then.” Even to your ears, you made it sound so simple, but in the back of your mind, you knew how much trouble you both could get into if you left the dance; Chief Swan and your mom made their expectations very clear.
A little dazed, Bella blinked, then said, “Okay, but… Where?”
“Anywhere you wanna go. What’s the first thing that comes to mind?”
She didn’t say anything at first, but you saw her face change, an idea sharpening behind her eyes more and more by the second. You weren’t sure if you liked the manic edge you noticed there, the brightness that was different than the one you’d spotted earlier, but there was one aspect to it that you appreciated: For the first time in the past couple of months, Bella Swan looked alive.
“When you asked me to drive you somewhere, I thought you actually meant, y’know… somewhere,” you told her, trying not to let the panic show through in your voice.
It had been snowing all day, right up until you picked up Bella to head to the school. Since then, the storm had started back up, swelling and dissipating sporadically. It had accumulated quite a bit on the grass, but the highway’s asphalt was only dampened, which was a good thing because Bella was not making it easy to drive carefully.
“We’re going somewhere,” she replied, her wide eyes fixed sharply out the passenger window. “I just can’t see the turn off. Slow down a little more. It’s gotta be here. I’m just missing it.”
You did as she asked, looking over at her out of the corner of your eye. She nearly had her nose pressed to the glass; to your surprise (and great appreciation) she hadn’t rolled down the window to just stick her head out and look for whatever she was trying to find, but it seemed like she might be considering it.
“There’s no way this disappeared, too,” she mumbled, and you were certain she wasn’t saying that to you.
Unnerved, you asked, “Are you sure you don’t want me to turn the radio on?”
“I’m sure.”
You sighed, moving your hand from where it had been hovering over the radio’s power button. The car noises, combined with the falling flakes flying past in your headlights, only heightened your anxiety, and music would be the perfect distraction, if only you could listen to it. You felt like a monster was going to leap out of the windows and in front of your car. Or, if not a monster, then a deer or something.
You were surprised when Bella continued, “It was the music that was bothering me the most in there.”
“Really?” you asked, frowning.
She nodded, her gaze still fixed outside the car. “Yeah. Slow down a bit more? I’ve gotten good at ignoring people when I’m surrounded by them. I just… don’t listen to music anymore.”
You hesitated for a moment, then chose to ask, “Why not?”
In the way you’ve come to expect, she didn’t answer immediately. Only a couple of hours ago, it made you nervous when she didn’t say anything back. Now though, her silence kept you hanging on, your mind sharp with equal parts curiosity and dread, completely clueless as to what she might say or do next.
If this night has taught you anything, it’s that Bella Swan was a very strange girl.
“Can we… Can we just pull over?”
Your heart leapt into your throat. “What? No!”
“I might be able to find it on foot, if we just…” Her fingers hooked lightly into the door handle, and you weren’t entirely sure she wouldn’t throw open the door while you were moving.
“Okay, okay, okay, fine.” Carefully, you brought the car to the shoulder, coasting to a stop. The snow and the trees that lined either side of the road were a gut-wrenching combination. Being out of the town's limits was also raising alarm bells in your brain.
“Are you sure you’re not trying to throw me to the wolves?” you joked, though your voice wobbled a bit more than you would’ve liked it to.
Bella threw open the door, unbuckled her seat belt, and leapt out of the car in one smooth motion.
You blinked at the now vacated passenger seat. Would Chief Swan arrest you for losing his daughter? Oh my god, I’m going to jail tonight.
In her dress and sneakers, Bella was walking away from the highway, ambling toward the treeline in search of whatever she couldn’t find.
You killed the engine, immediately missing the warmth from the heater, and jumped out of the car as well, running to meet her in the snowy grass.
As you approached her, she whipped around, crossing her arms tightly over her chest. She was visibly shivering, her coat still laying in the back seat of your car, and you wanted to kick yourself for forgetting it.
“Hey, you could’ve stayed back there, I’m alright. Your headlights, they were helping…”
“What exactly are you looking for right now?”
Silence. She gnawed on her lip, rubbing her hands up and down her arms.
In that moment, it was easy to see her the way you remembered her when she first arrived in Forks, almost a year ago now. She’d been the talk of the whole school — Forks High didn’t have a lot to talk about most of the time — and it clearly made her uncomfortable. Other classmates flocked to her, taking up her time and attention, and in the end, you weren’t one of the ones who ended up in her circle of friends. But she was always on your radar, a smart, shy, pretty girl that you thought you might talk to one day if only you knew the right thing to say.
You couldn’t even say that that image was shattered for you now as the snow soaked through your shoes and you stood before her in the dark on the side of the road. Snowflakes were gathering in her dark hair, and her chin quivered as a gust of wind blew past.
“Here, take this,” you said as you shed your coat. She shook her head in protest, insisting that you keep it, but you shoved the coat into her hands.
When you refused to take it back, she eventually pulled it on. Though you were the one shivering now, you knew it had been the right choice. She bundled the coat around herself, hugging her arms around her middle.
Then, more silence. By now, you knew to just wait.
“Um… There’s a house nearby, in the woods. It’s kind of secluded, y’know? So the turn off is hard to find, especially in this weather. And in the dark. I know it’s here somewhere, I just can’t…”
Then she turned, as if led by an invisible force, and started to search for the path to the house once more.
It was odd. Too odd.
Faintly, you heard the echo of a snarl, some large and dangerous animal hidden somewhere in the woods, and all you could think of was getting the both of you back in the car. Immediately.
But she was still wandering away from you, her footsteps crinkling in the snow. There’s no way she can feel her toes right now.
So, you did the only thing you could think to do.
You gathered a large clump of snow from in front of you, packing it tightly in your hands. Then, you reared your arm back, and launched the snowball at her.
When it made contact with the back of her head, she yelped, whirling back around, her jaw dropped, eyes wide with disbelief.
She cupped the back of her head and shouted, “Did you just throw that at me?”
You threw your arms out wide, looking around you. “You see anyone else around, Swan?”
She gasped an offended little noise, then began gathering a handful of snow to hurl back at you.
In the end, you were quicker. You hit her with another snowball, straight to the chest, before she could counter your attack.
It was strange — you hadn’t staged a snowball fight since you were a kid — but her laughter melted with yours, breaking up the quiet of the December night. The two of you ran around, dodging each other, finding new patches of untouched snow to gather, until your hands were numb. You landed more hits than she did, clumps of snow gathered on her clothes and in her hair. Your clothes were growing damp and uncomfortable, so when she landed a shot to your shoulder, you raised your hands in surrender.
“Please!” you shouted, a little breathless. “You win! Can we please get back in the car?”
Her face was shining with a smile, and you were certain her cheeks and nose were cherry-red from the cold, if only there was more light to see her by. You were certain it would be the prettiest sight.
Silence as she panted. You almost thought she would argue with you, that her reason for wandering out into the snow would rush back to her now that your diversion had come to an end.
But she only nodded and began to walk back to your car, stuffing her hands in the pockets of your coat.
You hustled back over to the car, opening the door for her as she approached.
“You really didn’t have to do that,” she mumbled, sounding embarrassed. You smiled at her and closed her door once she was safely inside.
As soon as you climbed into the driver seat, you set about getting the heater on and blasting, your windshield wipers swiftly shoving away the snow that had accumulated in the brief moment of stillness. You didn’t dare look at the time, certain that you were in for a world of trouble once you two got back into town.
You put your foot on the brake, and once you regained some feeling in your hands, you put the car into reverse, your other hand gripping the steering wheel tight.
But before you pulled off of the shoulder, you looked over at Bella, only to find her already looking at you.
“I had a nice time tonight,” she said quietly, hesitantly.
You almost laughed. What a normal thing to say about an evening that was so utterly not normal.
“Yeah,” you replied, letting some sarcasm seep into your voice. “ We should do it again sometime.”
Silence as you pulled carefully onto the highway.
Then, her voice, a little more hopeful than you’d expected to hear it, “Do you mean that?”
And because there was more slush on the road than there had been before, you didn’t dare look back at her. In your periphery, you thought she still might be looking at you. So you smiled and said, “Of course. Just say the word.”
“Cool.” She sounded pleased when she said it, and it was such a departure from her usual state lately, it made you smile wider, even if you felt some nervousness creeping in.
Because in the back of your mind, you wondered what danger she might go looking for next.
⎯ divider by strangergraphics & saradika-graphics ⊹⠀ ﾟ ˖
⎯ do not reupload, copy, translate, or feed to artificial intelligence / please let me know if an image i've used was made with ai because i will remove it
hey, everyone ! it's been a while since i've posted, but i'm back with some new wintery fics that i hope you'll love <3 these are 12 standalone fics featuring the characters and prompts listed below. there's a mix of fluff & angst, and all of them feature fanfic tropes that i love. all reader characters are written to be gender neutral. there will be no 18+ content in any of the fics — we're staying on the nice list this year, lol — but some of them do feature suggestive content, so i will mention that in the author notes as always.
happy reading and happy holidays, y'all ! 🎁
dec 1st ⟢ mistletoe / mickey barnes
dec 3rd ⟢ kissing in the rain / jacob black
dec 5th ⟢ gift shopping / edward cullen
dec 7th ⟢ blackout / roman kitt
dec 10th ⟢ snow ball / bella swan
dec 11th ⟢ ugly christmas sweater / emmett cullen
dec 13th ⟢ decorating a tree / jacob black
dec 15th ⟢ sick day / mickey barnes
dec 17th ⟢ snowball fight / emmett cullen
dec 19th ⟢ learning to ice skate / bella swan
dec 21st ⟢ christmas movies / edward cullen
dec 23rd ⟢ mulled wine / roman kitt
(this masterlist will be updated with links to each story as they are posted.)
⎯ divider by strangergraphics ⊹⠀ ﾟ ˖
⎯ do not reupload, copy, translate, or feed to artificial intelligence
update: hey everyone! today is the day for the first bella fic in this event to go live, but i've had a couple important life things come up unexpectedly, so i'm going to be pushing the publishing date for 'snow ball' to tomorrow, 12/10. i was hoping i would still have time this evening to work on it, but it's simply not in the cards. none of the other dates will change. i've already updated the masterlist to reflect the new date. thanks <3
roman kitt x reader ⟢ when you and your rival roman kitt get trapped in the lift at work, what else is there to do but talk?
wintry divine rivals one-shot | rated teen | 3.6k wc
warnings: forced proximity, kissing
( the trapped-in-an-elevator trope, my beloved. )
Rushing through the streets of Oath was never much fun even on a normal day, but in winter, it was downright merciless. The bitter wind could change direction without any warning, and the precipitation was just as sporadic as it was in any other season. On top of that, the freezing temperatures made pedestrians slower, meaner, and more selfish — this time of year, you were more likely to get someone jabbing their elbow into your side if it meant they would beat you to the last spot on the trolley. Then you’d be stuck with soggy shoes, semi-frozen hair, and a bone-deep chill that took most of the day to shake off.
And yet, none of that inspired you to leave for work earlier than you usually did. In fact, as the season wore on, you started arriving later and later. How Zeb had yet to bring up firing you from your intern position at the Gazette was anyone’s guess. It drove your rival Roman Kitt up the wall, much to your delight; no matter how embarrassing your tardiness was, you relished any opportunity to pester him.
Today was no different than any other day that came before it. You blinked your eyes open to find you had five minutes to rise, shower, get dressed, and head out the door. Breathlessly, you tore through your flat in a path learned by rote, pulled yourself together without sparing any singular action much thought, then rushed out the door, too short on time to stop and brace yourself for the weather.
The city was blanketed in white, with large tufts of snow pouring from the fluffy gray sky. By the time you reached the end of your block, your fingers and toes had turned into ice. You’d hoped to catch a ride, but the undriven roads were a clear sign that public transport was out of the question today.
Against the frigid wind, the unpredictable squalls and all the odds, you found yourself in front of the building that was home of the Gazette. The golden lamplight bled from the windows, filling you with sympathetic warmth.
You hustled across the street, anticipating the warm cup of tea you would prepare once you shed your damp coat at your desk — maybe even before that if your eagerness thwarted your sense of propriety, which was usually the case.
You yanked open the door and rushed inside. The heat from the foyer’s fireplace enveloped you, and you sighed happily, your whole body unfurling from its defensive hunch against the elements.
In the early days of your delinquency, you used to rush through the lobby and up the stairs, maintaining the same frantic speed that propelled you through your morning routine and over the cobblestone streets. Now, though, you valued your composure over your record — everyone already knew you were late, and walking through the Gazette door in a panting, sweaty mess projected a sloppy image of yourself you didn’t like to imagine.
This reorganization of priorities had another benefit: Because you walked casually toward the (ancient, noisy, slow-as-a-tortoise) lift instead of breaking for the staircase, you could take in your surroundings more easily. Which is how you noticed the all-too-familiar figure of your rival standing before the doors of the lift, impatiently tapping his foot.
You skittered to a halt, nearly gasping aloud.
Prim, punctual, perfect Roman C. Kitt was never late.
How novel. How irresistible.
“Good morning, Kitt,” you murmured as you sidled up next to him, causing him to startle. He quickly buttoned away his shock, schooling his face into its usual look of indifference, though you could still see the restless tension in his brow. You smirked. “Running a bit late, aren’t we?”
He cast you an irritated sidelong glance, but did not greet you in return. In fact, his jaw tightened in resolute silence.
Your devious grin only widened. “You know, when a colleague says ‘good morning’ to you, it’s customary to say it back.”
More silence.
You looked at your watch, letting out an exaggerated wince as you read the time — and your stomach flipped with the usual guilt that struck you around this point in the day. “Thirty minutes past… Zeb must be fuming over this. Not just one, but both of his interns–”
“Would you give it a rest?” Kitt snapped just as the lift chimed and the doors slid open.
Your mouth snapped shut, and you replayed your words in your head. Where did I cross the line? It wasn’t uncommon for the two of you to taunt each other. Kitt had dealt his fair share of low blows, some of which cutting deeper than you’d ever admit. But for the first time, he’d chosen not to play the game, and you didn’t know what that meant. Is something wrong?
Wide-eyed, face overheating with embarrassment, you watched as he boarded the lift. It shocked you further when, instead of mashing the buttons to ascend faster, he held the door and waited, finally meeting your gaze full-on.
His dark hair, normally slicked back to perfection, was messier today, more loosely styled. Must’ve not had much time before he left the house, you thought. A curl had fallen over his forehead, and it was making itself quite a distraction.
You didn’t move.
“Are you coming?” he asked, lifting a brow. “Or should I tell Zeb you’ve resigned?”
Well, there was only one answer to that, wasn’t there?
The thing about this lift: It took ages to get anywhere. The contraption rattled and groaned, lurched and hesitated, and it never moved with any sense of urgency. It was a purely mechanical beast, entirely blameless for the inconveniences it caused.
Of all the places in Oath — of the modern structures and the ones built in bygone times that still held magic in their bones — this is the one you thought would benefit the most from some enchantment. If not to make it move faster or smoother, then to at least keep the passengers from feeling woozy.
You closed your eyes and breathed deeply, letting your body roll with the slow, jerky ascent rather than fighting against it.
Irritation rolled off of Kitt in waves. You didn’t break the stony silence, but gods, you wanted to. There had never been a sincere word shared between you, and in this moment, you regretted that. It made it impossible to ask him if he was okay.
You peeked one eye open to look him over, truly taking him in. Beyond his not-perfect hair, there were dark circles under his eyes, and his skin looked paler than normal, as if he hadn’t gotten a lot of sleep.
Is he sick? He would be the type to crawl out of his death bed to come to work, just to prove a point. Who he would be proving that point to, though… You had to assume it was your boss.
Is it me? You almost laughed at your own ridiculousness. He didn’t think of you as anything more than an obstacle on his path to the columnist position, you were sure of it.
Because isn’t that exactly what he was to you? Maybe his face flashed across your mind when you wrote a particularly good passage in an article. Maybe you felt giddy at the thought of his scowl when he had to read your name on the front page article’s byline. Maybe, on the days when the words flowed like water and your fingers flew along your typewriter keys, you hoped he would look over at your desk and feel– what? Daunted? Envious? Spellbound?
But all of that was just a product of your own overactive imagination, and you knew it. Once you had the position secured, you’d never think of him again — and you were confident he felt the same way about you.
So, really, it was silly to even study him the way you were. Silly to worry over his pallid complexion or the severe set of his sharp, stubbly jaw or the wrinkles in his normally-well-pressed shirt or—
The lift shook. Stuttered. Heaved a rattly, mechanical sigh.
You saw Roman’s eyes become alert, alive, as he whipped his head around to look at you.
Then, you saw nothing at all.
“Just don’t do a lot of moving. I’ll have you out of there in no time,” the technician told them from somewhere above, his voice even and pleasant. You couldn’t see his face or read his body language — couldn’t see anything in the darkness — so you didn’t know how much you could trust him.
You huffed a sigh, wishing to all the gods you could look at your watch, just so you could time him.
When the lights went out, you screamed and fell to the floor. It was dramatic, and embarrassing, but the sudden change had caused your stomach to flip and your head to spin, and you felt as if the floor had dropped out from under you and you were falling down the shaft to your death.
It registered to you several moments later, after help had come and began the work of getting you two out of the lift, that part of the reason you’d fallen to the floor was due to Kitt lunging toward you and wrapping you up in his arms. As if he’d thought you were both falling, too. As if his first instinct in a situation like that was to protect you.
Now, you were both on opposite ends of the lift, sitting as the technician had instructed you to do.
You shivered, crossing your arms tightly over your chest. The man had warned you that, due to the weather, the temperature would drop and stay that way until the power came back on.
“But however cold you are, just remember I’ll be colder,” he’d joked, not eliciting a laugh from his ill-humored, captive audience, though that didn’t seem to bother him.
Though you could hear the echoes of the tinkering taking place somewhere in the shaft, silence reigned inside of the car once more. This time, though, you felt braver. Under the cover of darkness, you felt like you could ask the questions you were too cowardly to give a voice to in the light.
“Are you feeling okay, Kitt?”
Silence.
You gnawed on your bottom lip. Like this, you couldn’t read his expression, but really, when had that ever helped you? He had mastered the art of cool detachment, only dawning masks of mild amusement or light aggravation. He never raised his voice, even when you knew you were being particularly annoying. He rarely wore a smile that reached his eyes.
In the past, you’d chalked that up to him simply being an arrogant man, and that infuriated you. You knew he was passionate. You knew things mattered to him. All one had to do to figure that out was read one of his articles. He laid his soul bare in every assignment, bringing life to even the most shallow of fluff pieces. So, why would he pretend like all of this barely meant anything to him? Why pretend like the work of writing, the beauty of words, didn’t light his spirit on fire? Like it was just a fact of life — the sky is blue, water is wet, and Roman C. Kitt is a talented writer.
Your only guess was that he wanted people to be impressed by him. By only him. So, determinedly, you were not.
For the first time, you were considering that maybe you’d gotten him all wrong. Today, it seemed, he’d left his carefully crafted mask at home, and the young man behind it was much more weary than you ever anticipated.
Some part of you thought you should be elated. A crack in the armor! Finally, a tender spot you could poke, just to see what caused your rival to squirm.
A different person might do that.
“Roman?” you said, more softly this time.
The darkness swallowed your words.
Then, moments later, he sighed.
“You are the last person I can talk to about this,” he murmured.
You held your breath, your mind reeling. Should you leave it be? Did he want you to? There was a wistful quality to his quiet voice. Maybe he wanted to talk?
But he wasn’t wrong. When have you given him a reason to trust you? Were you worthy of his trust?
Would you be twisting the knife? Or repairing the wound?
You traced your lips with your fingers as you dithered.
Then, before you could think too hard about it, you said, “I know we’re competing for the same position. But. I’m not cruel.”
Silence, and you cursed your dumb words and your stilted execution.
“I just mean, I will listen if you need to talk. What else do we have going on right now, you know?”
He chuckled at that, and a shiver ran through you. You’d never heard him laugh — sincerely laugh — before, even if it was just a quiet little sound. Later, you might even be able to convince yourself you’d made it up.
“I don’t know if I should give you this kind of ammunition.”
You laughed. “Hey, I just told you how nice I am.”
“You didn’t say you were nice. You said you weren’t cruel.”
“I guess you are pedantic in that way,” you mused, earning another laugh from him.
“Now, that sounded more like the person I know.”
You scoffed, overperforming the sound because he couldn’t see you roll your eyes or shoo him away with a wave of your hand. It wasn’t until this moment that you realized how much you relied on your body language when you talked to Kitt. Were you like this with everyone? You weren’t reserved by any means, but no one has ever accused you of talking with your hands.
But with Roman Kitt… what did it mean, that you required his eyes on you when you spoke?
“It’s…” he began, and you stopped breathing, waiting to see if he would go on. “It’s hard. Going on this way.”
Your brows furrowed, and your heart started to race. Oh, I don’t like the sound of that.
“What do you mean by that?” you asked quickly.
You heard a soft thump — his head bumping the wall as he tipped it back?
He took a deep, slow breath, then said, “We don’t know each other well. We aren’t friends. But none of this is what I ever wanted. Just so you know.”
Silence.
Your heart roared in your ears. You didn’t know what to think. All your hard work. All your restless nights. Your aching hands and your pounding head. All of it, competing with someone who didn’t even want it?
“I’m sure it makes you angry, hearing that,” he continued, and he at least had the decency to sound remorseful. “And please, don’t think that this means I’m not serious about my work or the position. This is clearly important to you-”
“So what’s important to you?” you snapped at him. You were shaking, though you couldn’t feel the cold air anymore.
“Writing. Words. I love it when I can make readers feel something. When I can make them feel even half of what I’m feeling. Writing means everything to me.” He sighed, and there was some shuffling on his end of the lift. The next words were muffled, as if he had dropped his head into his hands. “I want to be an author. I want to write fiction. I want to study literature. I don’t want to be a journalist.”
You blinked, staring hard into the darkness to try and make out the shape of him. None of this made sense.
“Why are you here then?” you asked, bluntly, rudely.
He laughed again, and it was a cold, humorless sound.
“My father. I can’t disappoint my father. Again.” He exhaled heavily, and his next words were clearer as he adjusted in place again. “The columnist position was a compromise, but… I never anticipated you.”
“So… Zeb was just going to give it to you?” Of course. The boy with the rich father, getting everything handed to him on a silver platter–
“No.” The word burst out of him, echoed a bit in the lift. “I earned it. I wanted to earn it. Competing for it…”
Silence.
“Yes?”
“Competing with you, actually proving myself… It will bring some additional satisfaction when I finally get columnist, even if I find all of this unfortunate.”
“Unfortunate?” you seethed through your teeth. You smug son of a–
“Yes. Unfortunate.”
There was more shuffling, and from the sound of it, Kitt seemed to be moving closer to you, which was the last thing you wanted when you couldn’t leave or properly connect your fist to his perfect jaw.
“You’re angry,” he said from around the center of the lift.
“Of course I’m angry! How couldn’t I be?”
He clicked his tongue. “If you want to be a journalist, you should learn to set your emotions aside and ask the important questions.”
“The only thing I want to know is why I haven’t throttled you yet,” you bit out.
“It will be satisfying because I will have proved myself against the only other truly great writer at this paper. Maybe even the best writer in all of Oath, or farther. The whole damn country,” he said, a little fierce, as if he was throwing his words at you. “No one else would be worth the headache.”
Silence, but only so you could let the butterflies in your stomach dissipate.
“The best writer in Oath?”
“Aside from myself,” he added, sounding more like his old conceited self.
You scoffed, shaking your head, though you felt a little dizzy, a little breathless. What a whirlwind of emotions you’ve been through.
How long have you two been stuck here, anyway? Damn that lying, foolish, overly-chipper technician.
“And it’s unfortunate,” Kitt continued, “because I often imagine what it would’ve been like to-”
Your stomach dropped, and you found yourself leaning toward him, drawn in by his words.
“Go on.”
“To meet you under more favorable circumstances.”
You smiled, pulling yourself up onto your knees. “Such as?”
He exhaled a sad little sound. “It doesn’t matter.”
“Why not?” you retorted, shuffling closer until you felt the air shift. You could have easily touched him now, if you only reached out.
Silence. But you wouldn’t stand for that this time.
Carefully, your hands lifted from the floor, ghosting forward until they brushed Roman’s rolled shirt sleeves, the heated skin of his forearms. You’d removed your coat because it was too long and stiff for sitting on the floor, but to your surprise, he had removed his with a sigh of relief. Now, you understood why; apparently, Roman Kitt’s body ran rather warm.
“Why not?” you asked again, grazing your fingertips up his arms until you found his shoulders.
His next breath shuddered out of him. “You shouldn’t do that.”
“You’re the one who said I need to set my emotions aside when I’m asking important questions,” you murmured. You moved closer until your knees nudged his. “Maybe you should do the same when you’re answering them.”
“I can’t be with you,” he whispered, and his words pierced you like bullets. “That… It kept me up all night.”
“What?” you gasped.
“I had a fight with my father. He wants me to marry the daughter of… That doesn’t matter. He’s already arranged it. I told him I wouldn’t, but… I’ve already let him down enough, haven’t I?”
His sad, sardonic lilt at the end, the unsteadiness of his breath — it moved you in ways you’d never felt before. It was an uneven confession, one that told of a life much deeper and darker than you’d ever expected when you read the name ‘Roman C. Kitt’ in a byline.
There were many differences between you and Roman. He was punctual, put-together; you were looser, freer. He was a housecat with a pedigree, judging the world with an incisive, unflinching stare but viewing it through the windows of a mansion; you were a wild fox, capable of reflecting the world back to itself because you were within it, part of it, but unable to be wholly tamed.
There were things Roman wanted that he couldn’t have, things he was responsible for that he never wanted. But neither of those concepts existed in your world. If you wanted something, you took it. If you didn’t want it, you would fight the gods before having it thrust upon you.
So, to you, it only made sense to drag your fingers along his neck, to curl them into his dark, lush hair. You pulled his mouth onto yours, and nothing had felt more right to you in all of your life.
At first, the kiss was messy, lopsided — neither of you knew where the other’s face was until this moment, not to mention you’d only kissed two other people in your life — but Roman only needed to tilt his head, and you only needed to slide your lips against his. His bottom lip found its place between yours, and then it was perfection.
Your mouths moved gently in tandem, creating beautiful friction, and ridiculously, you thought, This is the only time we’ve ever cooperated with each other, and you couldn’t help the giggle that bubbled up as a result.
Roman hummed happily, laughing a bit as well as he wrapped his arms around you. Joy flooded through you like brilliant, golden light, illuminating you from within, bursting behind your eyes.
Distantly, you could hear someone speaking, but you paid no mind to what they had to say.
“Kids? Hey, kids, it’s me, I’ve almost got the lift running again- Oh! Oh boy.”
( this one and the roman fic coming up later this month are truly for myself, since i don't think people are writing fic for this duology on tumblr — at least, not that i can find. i expect to get zero notes on this, and that's okay. but if you get to the end of this and you enjoyed it, just know that i am so incredibly grateful. thank you. )
⎯ divider by strangergraphics & saradika-graphics ⊹⠀ ﾟ ˖
⎯ do not reupload, copy, translate, or feed to artificial intelligence / please let me know if an image i've used was made with ai because i will remove it
edward cullen x reader ⟢ you should've known it was a bad idea to bring edward on this shopping trip, especially considering you won't tell him what you want for christmas.
christmassy twilight ficlet | rated ga | 1.5k wc
no warnings
( never heard of a white elephant gift swap? that's okay. )
In hindsight, it should’ve been obvious to you things would turn out this way. All the elements were there for a perfect disaster: a bustling outdoor shopping center in the snowy depths of December, your family’s white elephant party creeping closer and closer, and your stalwart refusal to tell your rich, doting boyfriend what you wanted for Christmas. You should’ve never agreed to let him come along on this little trip, and yet…
You heard Edward’s voice in your ear, murmuring, “This store looks nice,” and you were too wind-whipped and freezing to even check where he was leading you.
Obviously, he was up to no good — he has already pulled this trick four times this evening — but what did it matter? His attempts were adorable, if futile. Besides, even if you didn’t find a gift here, it would be nice to feel your face again.
Edward held the door and you shuffled inside, all the tension in your muscles happily draining away as you left the winter air behind.
But it only took another moment for your watery eyes to dry and for you to notice where you were — then your face became so hot, you thought you would burst into flames.
“Hello, welcome to Tiffany’s,” greeted a sales associate, stationed in the center of the bright, circular entryway. She was a tall, lithe woman, seemingly in her thirties or forties. Her angular face was almost as unnervingly perfect as Rosalie’s or Edward’s, even for a human; in the brilliant, cool-toned light, her features were too severe and you had a hard time looking at her. She wore a bored expression, and paired with her monotone, elongated manner of speaking, you got the feeling your presence was inconveniencing her.
She looked you over briefly, then directed her next words to Edward, “What are we shopping for tonight?”
Your face burned hotter. Great.
“Just browsing, thank you,” Edward replied. He grabbed your hand and led you past the woman. You glanced at the name tag on her pristine black sweater; apparently, her name was Marina.
Beyond the entryway was a wood-paneled, high-ceilinged room full of jewelry counters and display cases. Everywhere you looked, you saw glass and silver, gemstones and crystal. Other salespeople stood along the walls, hands elegantly tucked behind their backs, waiting on a serious customer. Besides the two of you, there was a middle-aged couple huddled over a counter at the back of the room, chatting quietly with a young salesman over an opulent necklace.
You peeked over your shoulder to see Marina lingering in the arch connecting the entry and the salesroom, watching the two of you with an unreadable look on her face.
Does she think we’re going to steal something? you thought, huffing under your breath as you turned away from her.
Edward drifted to a stop in front of one of the unmanned counters, eyeing whatever laid inside — you only stared at his profile, unwilling to even blink until he looked at you.
“I am not bringing diamonds to a white elephant party,” you hissed through your teeth.
He didn’t reply, but the corner of his mouth twitched, revealing the hint of a smirk before he could train his face into an angelic picture of innocence once more. You shoved his stone arm with your elbow, the layers of your coat and his cushioning the impact; of course, despite your effort, he didn’t move an inch.
“Hey, let’s go, this is a waste of time.”
“Diamonds aren’t the only thing they sell here,” he replied, pulling you onward, his hand giving yours a slight squeeze.
The two of you glided across the sales floor and into the next room, which was full of clothing racks and shelves. Rather than the jam-packed displays you were used to in normal people stores, each stack of fabric was elegantly folded and arranged with composition in mind rather than abundance.
As he led you to the other side of the room, you brushed your fingers along a stack of smooth, fuschia-colored fabric on a nearby shelf. You caught a dainty paper price tag hanging from one of the pieces and quickly read it before it slipped out of reach.
Your jaw dropped. “That scarf was four hundred dollars.”
“It’s real silk.”
“You didn’t even look at it,” you fired back at him. “Did you confuse me with Alice when you brought us in here?”
Edward laughed. “Of course not, you’re much taller. Now… what do you think of this?”
He’d led you to a simple display — a white waist-high pillar with a gold metal book stand in the center, holding one Tiffany Blue hardcover journal.
You scoffed, shaking your head. “No one in my family journals, Edward, this won’t work.”
“Do you like it?”
You picked it up and leafed through its pages. You didn’t want to tell him you were impressed by the quality of the paper, unwilling as you were to let him think for a second that he had finally won.
“They also sell pens,” he added.
You didn’t notice him leave your side, but in his hand, he now held a rectangular box containing a shiny sterling silver pen, much fancier than the ballpoint pens you usually wrote with.
You frowned as if you weren’t impressed, analyzing the journal’s silver foiled edges instead. “Thanks, but I prefer Bic. I don’t have to keep them when they run dry.”
“You refill it, silly.”
“I know that, but I’d lose it. You’ve seen my room.”
He grimaced. “I suppose you’re right.”
When he stepped away to put the pen back, you flipped the journal over to look at the back cover. Your eyes nearly popped out of your skull when you spotted the tag.
“A hundred and fifty dollars? Thanks, but absolutely not,” you mumbled. Carefully, you placed the overpriced book of blank paper delicately back on its stand like it was a nuclear bomb — had the oil from your fingertips depreciated its value? Would you have to buy it now?
“It’s not that ex-” he began to say, back at your side once more. You whirled around to him.
“Do not finish that sentence,” you ordered, pushing your finger into the center of his chest. “Why do you have to buy me anything at all?”
A gentle look came over his face, softening his features. “It’s our first Christmas together. What kind of boyfriend would I be if I didn’t get you a present?”
Your chest squeezed and you swayed closer to him, warmth and a hint of guilt flooding through you.
Well, when he puts it like that… you thought. Maybe you were being a little too difficult?
But no. No, no. An extravagant gift is not the answer. At least, not in your book.
“What if…” you began slowly, feeling a blush come on as you tried to get the next words to come out.
How does he make romance look so easy? you fumed. Doesn’t he get embarrassed?
“Go on.”
“What if… you were my present?”
His golden eyes searched your face, the intensity of his stare causing your heart to stutter. For a moment, you thought you’d finally found the exact thing to say that would charm him into dropping the subject once and for all.
But when the silence stretched on, you rolled your eyes, clicking your tongue.
“Fine,” you sighed. “I want an ornament.”
“An… ornament,” he replied, his voice flat, brow furrowed.
“Yes. You can get me a little ornament with our names on it. For our first Christmas of many.” You kissed his cheek. “But you can never tell me how much it cost you because I’m sure the number will make me throw up.”
He chuckled, “Deal.”
You caught some movement out of the corner of your eye, only to turn and see Marina, once again lurking on the threshold between this room and the previous one.
You put your face close to Edward’s as if you planned to kiss his cheek again, your lips brushing the cold skin next to his ear.
“Why is she following us?” you whispered.
“She thinks I’m here to buy you a ring,” he murmured. “She wants the commission.”
“If you get me a ring from this place, your death will be painful and imminent.”
He hummed, pulling back to look at your face as if he was contemplating the severity of your threat. “I know a little something about that.”
You blinked, surprised by his response; he didn’t normally make jokes about himself, especially morbid ones like that. A grin pulled faintly at his lips, and his eyes weren’t taking on that sad look he got when the difference between the two of you were brought to the fore.
“Then you should be very afraid,” you replied, lowering your voice more softly than you normally do when you're joking around, too nervous to push him too far.
His eyes sparkled with mirth as he said, “I’m shaking.”
( you'll have to forgive me for a most-likely-inaccurate portrayal of the tiffany's shopping experience — i'm poor, & also it's called fan-fiction, not fan-fact <3 love you, hope you enjoyed! )
⎯ divider by strangergraphics / edward icon from sourcetwilight ⊹⠀ ﾟ ˖
⎯ do not reupload, copy, translate, or feed to artificial intelligence / please let me know if an image i've used was made with ai because i will remove it
jacob black x reader ⟢ after several days of silence from jake, you've decided you're going to get some answers — whether he wants to give them to you or not.
angsty new moon au | rated ga | 1.3k wc
no warnings
( in the book, this would be set in like... january? february? idk, still wintertime. i also ran short on time to edit — and this is being posted sooo much later than i wanted today — so i hope it's at least somewhat enjoyable, lol! )
Your heart pounded an anxious rhythm against your ribs as you pulled into the familiar dirt driveway. You didn’t know what to expect, showing up at Jake’s house unannounced, but after days of ignored phone calls and radio silence, you were determined to get some answers.
The rain had picked up on your drive from Forks to La Push, and from the sharp sound of it hitting your windshield, you could tell it had partly turned to ice. Not ready to face the cold, you cranked up the heat as you parked in the spot you’d come to consider yours in the past few weeks, a worn patch of grass right between the main house and Jake’s garage. Both buildings appeared dark and still, except for a lamp glowing golden and soft through one of the house’s front windows. Through the increasingly foggy windshield, you tried to spot his car, to no avail.
Is he even home? What if I drove here for nothing?
“Okay…” you whispered, coaching yourself, concentrating on keeping your next breath steady. “You’re just gonna start by knocking on the door.”
After that? Who knew what would happen. You wanted to yell at him for abandoning you — don’t think of that word- You wanted to cry and pound your fists against his chest because he knew what doing this would mean to you, he knew-
But more than anything, you wanted to understand. You wanted to grab his face and make him look into your eyes and tell you what was going on. You knew he was worried recently, scared of the looks he was getting from Sam, Paul, all the boys who used to be his friends before they changed. Did they get to him when you weren’t around? Did they force him to change, too?
Would the Jake inside that house right now be the Jake you remembered? The one who held you together when he caused you to fall apart?
Would he still be the Jake you needed?
The thought conjured a tempest in your mind. It’s not fair! It’s not fair! The words spun around your head at hurricane-speed and tore your heart to pieces, the fury stronger than any emotion you’d felt in months.
Face flushed, hands shaking, you killed the engine and propelled yourself into the cold, loudly slamming the door behind you, temporarily breaking the peaceful patter of rainfall on the soft earth. The icy drops felt like pinpricks on your overheated skin as you marched up to the front door.
Your knuckles rapped sharply on the old wood. Rudely, you peered through the glass at the top of the door, searching for any sign of movement in the low-lit front room.
It took a minute, but soon you saw Billy approaching the door. He cracked it an inch, just enough for you to see him.
He greeted you by name, then said, “He’s not here right now. I’ll tell him you stopped by.”
“Interesting,” you replied. Your barely-concealed pain caused your voice to shake. “I don’t think I believe you.”
Billy’s mouth pulled into a thin, sad line. “I’m sorry. I’ll let him know you came to see him. Okay?”
You hesitated for one second, two, then you pushed the door open wide and stomped deeper into the house.
“Jacob!” you shouted as you made a line toward his bedroom door. You shoved it open, your eyes darting to his bed to find-
It was empty. Mused, blankets and pillows hanging off the edges of the mattress, but empty.
You turned and marched back down the hall to find Billy making his way toward you, saying something, his voice full of apology. You felt your face crumple into a terrible, heartbroken expression, his words washing over you without really sinking in.
If you couldn’t lay your eyes on Jake soon… you didn’t know if your bruised and battered heart could take it.
“I’m sorry, Billy, I have to find him,” you choked, brushing past him again to break through the front room and trip back out into the cold Washington air.
Your shoes squelched in the mud as you rounded the house, half-running to the garage. You were considering whether you should peek through the windows or just unceremoniously rip open the door when suddenly the choice no longer mattered.
The garage door flew up, revealing the boy you’d been searching for, the boy who held your fragile heart in his hands, whether he wanted it or not. And he looked…
You stopped midway to him, letting your widened eyes understand what they were seeing.
Beyond the fact that he wasn’t wearing a shirt or shoes in the dead of winter, he was noticeably broader and taller since the last time you saw him. Like he’d gained several years on you in that time. Slowly, he walked toward you, his face pulled into a scowl, his dark eyes unreadable.
“You- you cut your hair. You got a tattoo. And you’re so… Have you been hitting the gym instead of calling me back?” Your voice was too thin and wobbly to let the joke land the right way. You blinked at him, your eyelashes heavy with water, unable to make sense of him.
It was as you feared it would be: the Jake in front of you was intimidating, unfamiliar. Changed.
“Talk to me! I know you heard me pull up, you were just gonna ignore me?”
“What are you doing here?” His voice was sharp and cold like the winter rain on your skin. “You should’ve never come.”
You flinched, body aching. “Why are you avoiding me?”
Rather than answering your question, he stopped only inches away from you. You could feel the heat pouring off of his body, and you swayed closer to him as if pulled by gravity. His gaze roved over you before he reached up and held your face in his hands. You shuddered, shocked by the difference in temperature between the two of you.
“Your lips are turning blue,” he murmured. “You need to go home. You can’t be here anymore. It’s not safe.”
“I don’t know what you mean by that, but I know I’m safe with you.”
He shook his head. “You have to leave. I’m not good for you anymore.”
No no no no no no no no no no
Your brain parried his words, and your vision flashed white, erasing his face and all the pity you saw there. All the resignation.
But you wouldn’t let this happen to you again.
Your hands moved of their own accord to find his face and pull him to you. Your mouth sealed over his, your teeth clanking with the force of your kiss. You drank in his surprised gasp; when his arms wrapped around you, the ice encasing your heart melted away. You didn’t notice your wet clothes sticking to your skin anymore, and the sound of the downpour striking the earth might as well have been the pounding of your heart, an all-encompassing roar.
His lips moved against yours with fervor, his warmth soothing your shivers, even though your body ached. You met each of his kisses with a smile, which grew and grew as time slipped away from you.
It had been too long since you felt this good.
His mouth broke from yours, only to laugh against your lips, “I need to get you inside. You’ll catch your death out here.”
Shuddering, you replied, “I’ll be alright,” but when he leaned away from your next kiss, you huffed, “Fine, but you have to explain to me what’s going on.”
His brow wrinkled, worry clouding over his features.
“I’ll do my best,” he promised, and he took your hand and led you toward the garage.
Your stomach clenched at the thought of what might come next, but you knew you had the strength to face it, as long as he was close enough to touch — as long as you could squeeze his hand, and you could feel him squeeze back.
⎯ divider by strangergraphics ⊹⠀ ﾟ ˖
⎯ do not reupload, copy, translate, or feed to artificial intelligence / please let me know if an image i've used was made with ai because i will remove it
mickey barnes x reader ⟢ christmas eve, year 1 in space. after a long shift, you find something special waiting for you in your room.
christmassy mickey 17 ficlet | rated teen | 1.3k wc
warnings: sexually suggestive
( i understand light-years make time wrong in space. forget about all that and join me, won't you? take my hand. )
From the moment you signed on for this expedition, you knew there would be plenty of things you would miss about Earth, especially in the first year. You expected your chest to ache when you thought about your family and friends. You knew you’d get nostalgic about the little things, like watching the leaves change in autumn or meeting a friendly cat on your evening walks. Hell, you’ve already shed a few tears just thinking about the way the sun used to feel on your skin because the sunlight simulation lamps did not replace the real thing.
So, naturally, when the time came for the first holiday season off-planet, you knew you’d get all in your feelings about it.
What you didn’t anticipate was meeting a really sweet guy who quickly made it his mission to take care of you in every possible way he could manage.
Mickey Barnes. What would this journey be like without him? Fortunately, you would never know.
Your mind was set on him as you plodded back to your bunk, exhausted after another long day of training. (As a security officer, you’ve seen far less action than you thought you would up to this point, so it felt like overkill to run and spar all day, on Christmas Eve no less. You didn’t even train this much back in your boot camp days on Earth.) All you could think about was crashing onto your bed and curling up with him until dinnertime — safe, warm, unburdened. Your chest flooded with warmth, so swept up in your daydreams you could almost feel his body against yours.
But the feeling faded just as quickly as it came on, and your heart turned to cold, hard ice as reality crashed over you. Mickey’s ‘line of work’ didn’t offer consistent hours, and depending on what his duties for the day entailed, you may not even see him until tomorrow.
You thought back to the mess hall that morning, remembering how he didn’t eat all that much, no matter how much you insisted.
“Not hungry, I guess,” he’d mumbled as he finished the last of his meager breakfast. You’d tried handing some of your food to him, a little worried what his lack of appetite could mean. He didn’t talk about his (terrible, cruel, infuriating) job very much, but you noticed the days when he had to drag himself away from you to head toward the medical bay.
Surely they wouldn’t kill him today, right? you thought, feeling a little panicky.
Then you thought of that oaf, Arkady… He probably wouldn’t even give a shit.
Would you be spending the holiday alone, waiting for your man to be spat out of a printer?
You clenched your fists, so lost in your stormy thoughts you barely noticed you were stomping through the halls, your gait so ferocious people leapt out of your path.
Beneath the clanging of your boots against the metal floor, you started to hear faint music: strings and horns, jazzy, gentle. Christmassy. The volume swelled as you walked, and the sound of it slowed you down, made you smile. Made you wonder which room it was drifting from.
You grabbed the handle to your door, and to your surprise, you found it unlocked. As you slid it open, you saw that your bunk looked nothing like it had when you left that morning.
No, it was transformed — or as transformed as a room could become with limited resources. Multicolored string lights bordered the room in even arcs; paper snowflakes and stars speckled the walls; a small, silver tinsel tree sat on the center of the dining table, adorned with tiny red and green baubles; the wall-mounted TV displayed a roaring fireplace, though the crackling sound was overtaken by the orchestra pouring out the speakers.
Mickey stood before the TV, fiddling with the volume button on the remote, the blaring of the horns blunted more and more as the number on the screen went down.
“Is that too loud?” he winced by way of greeting. “I think it’s too loud, what d’you think? It gets quiet so I turn it up, but then the trumpets go crazy and I turn it down, and I can’t- Oh, here, baby, this is yours-”
“Oh, thank you,” you replied, a little dazed as you took what he offered you.
It was a red paper to-go cup, which you recognized from the coffee stand by the mess hall. You took a sip, finding a rich, warm, spicy drink you couldn’t identify. It wasn’t bad, but the cream made it unpleasantly thick. With a scrunch of your nose, you sat the cup down on the table next to the tree.
All the while, Mickey rambled on, smacking the remote at intervals, “I think that’s supposed to be eggnog, I dunno. It don’t taste like eggnog. They might’ve put coffee in it. I was skimmin’ my meals, savin’ up calories for these, feelin’ all excited, but mine just tasted weird, does yours taste weird? I drank mine really fast, though. Anyway, the music’s just too-”
“The music’s perfect, but Mickey… What is all this?”
“It’s Christmas, what d’you mean?” he replied, his eyes still fixed on the remote. You grabbed it from him as he smashed the volume back up again.
You adjusted the music to a suitable background-noise level before tossing the remote onto the bedside table, and as you did, something caught your attention. A little detail that had you biting your lip to keep in your laughter.
Above the bed, hanging from a length of fishing wire, was a sprig of plastic mistletoe, adorned with a thin red bow.
“I mean…” You drifted over to the bed, batting the dangling mistletoe, sending it swinging side-to-side in a wide, lazy arc. “Where did you get all this? There’s a weight limit on this ship. Everything had to be accounted for when we took off, and all this seems a little…”
You didn’t want to say the words that came to mind — impractical, wasteful, silly — when he’d gone to the trouble to do all this….
“A little what? Illegal?” An impish grin spread over his mouth, his bright, over-caffeinated eyes flashing. In two quick steps, he sidled up to you, his hands clutching your waist. “Is all this stuff contraband? You gonna arrest me, officer?”
Snaking your arms around his shoulders, your lips a breath away from his, you murmured, “Not many people sound so excited to spend the night before Christmas in jail.”
“Well…,” he began, one of his hands drifting down to your work belt, which you’d been too distracted to take off at the door. “I thought the handcuffs were the exciting part.”
You swat him away, your jaw dropped in a playfully scandalized expression. “I’ve told you, no. Those aren’t the fun kind.”
“I’m not listening,” he sing-songed, pulling you closer, pressing his face to your neck. You sighed, and your mouth was forming around a suggestion to skip dinner, just so you could keep him to yourself all evening, when he spoke again with that same agitated confusion, “I don’t know why the music keeps going stupid on that damn TV, don’t you hear that? Do you think we should get maintenance on it or mmph-”
With a quick turn of your head, you sealed your mouth to his. Your hands smoothed over his shoulders to the front of his shirt, and you pulled him with you as you tumbled onto the mattress. When you felt him smile into the kiss, you thought your heart would burn through your chest, on fire with love.
Back on Earth, you’d rehearsed and rehashed reassurances to your family, your coworkers, your friends, insisting this wouldn’t always be so hard. You promised them you wouldn’t let yourself become lonely. And you missed them as much as you knew they missed you right now.
But in all your estimations, you’d forgotten one crucial thing about what it meant to be human: the heart’s ability to expand and pull in new people to adore on sacred, beautiful days like these.
⎯ divider by strangergraphics ⊹⠀ ﾟ ˖
⎯ do not reupload, copy, translate, or feed to artificial intelligence / please let me know if an image i've used was made with ai because i will remove it
hey, everyone ! it's been a while since i've posted, but i'm back with some new wintery fics that i hope you'll love <3 these are 12 standalone fics featuring the characters and prompts listed below. there's a mix of fluff & angst, and all of them feature fanfic tropes that i love. all reader characters are written to be gender neutral. there will be no 18+ content in any of the fics — we're staying on the nice list this year, lol — but some of them do feature suggestive content, so i will mention that in the author notes as always.
happy reading and happy holidays, y'all ! 🎁
dec 1st ⟢ mistletoe / mickey barnes
dec 3rd ⟢ kissing in the rain / jacob black
dec 5th ⟢ gift shopping / edward cullen
dec 7th ⟢ blackout / roman kitt
dec 10th ⟢ snow ball / bella swan
dec 12th ⟢ ugly christmas sweater / emmett cullen
dec 13th ⟢ decorating a tree / jacob black
dec 16th ⟢ sick day / mickey barnes
dec 18th ⟢ snowball fight / emmett cullen
dec 20th ⟢ learning to ice skate / bella swan
dec 22nd ⟢ christmas movies / edward cullen
dec 24th ⟢ mulled wine / roman kitt
(this masterlist will be updated with links to each story as they are posted.)
⎯ divider by strangergraphics ⊹⠀ ﾟ ˖
⎯ do not reupload, copy, translate, or feed to artificial intelligence
hi, everyone! it's been a while since i've posted here. i apologize to anyone that has been anticipating updates or new fics from me. to make a long story short: almost immediately after i posted the most recent fic to this blog, several aspects of my life started to fall apart, including my health, the health of some of my family members, & my finances. not only did it leave me with very little time to write, but i experienced so much exhaustion (& tbh hopelessness) that writing felt impossible. if i'm being honest, it still feels very hard.
that being said, i'm hoping to return soon with new work & new chapters for things i've already posted, both here & on ao3. i'm not committing to any deadlines right now because i've been thrown a new curveball every week since april >.< but writing has always been the passion i turn to when the world feels too heavy to bear, & i want to get back to it — even if no one reads the new stories i post, it will at least help me feel a little lighter, a little less scared.
& to everyone still reading/liking/reblogging my fics on here, thank you so much!! it means a lot to see people enjoying my work <3
You watch Mickey die for the first time, he shows you he's still here. fluff/comfort (?)
There was always a certain clinginess to Mickey, it varied from version to version of him but it was always undeniably there. Perhaps clinginess wasn't the right word, longing might fit better; every Mickey longed for you. Unsurprisingly dying and being reprinted was a tireless process, one second he's plunged into the unmistakable darkness of the end and the next he's waking up in a cold room filled with the harshest fluorescents; good as new but not really, the memory of what dying felt like still engrained fresh in his mind. His attitude after reprinting would differ depending on how he had died, all deaths suck of course but after the first few some are easier to move on from than others.
This one though was tough, you had been there.
Mickey could get over dying, been there done that, but seeing your face as he died? That was something that haunted him. You both knew he'd be back of course, but it's difficult to see past that when you watch someone die before your eyes. As much as he could put on a brave face over dying, he knew you'd be struggling to put one on over watching him die. Needless to say, Mickey was longing to see you after this reprint more than he ever had before.
He knew you needed to see him too and knew exactly where he could find you. You had wandered your way to his bunk not long after the death, mind numb and running on autopilot. You knew you didn't need to mourn, he would be back in a few hours just like always, but actually watching him die rather than hearing about it made everything feel too real, it awakened a new fear within you... What if one day they didn't reprint him? The thought was distressing, one you wished you could shake but it clung to you like a thick smog blocking anything else from your mind. He enters his room quietly, eyes landing on you laying on his bed back flat against the mattress and eyes glue to the ceiling, you don't react to him coming in, only looking away once his voice fills the air.
It's soft, hesitant as if he doesn't know if he should say anything, and all he simply says is, "Y/N..." But it's enough, enough for you to know he's there, enough to make you look up.
You prop yourself up on your elbows, staying in his bed, cold expression softening and Mickey doesn't miss the way your face is puffy and eyes red, heart straining at the thought of you crying for him. And with your voice hoarse, a slight quiver to it like you don't really believe he's there, you murmur out,
".. Mickey?"
That's all it takes to get him by your side, almost stumbling with how eager he is to reach you on the bed. He crawls over you, resting his head on your chest and his long legs awkwardly tangling in yours. Instinctively your hands fall to his body, one in his hair and the other around his torso pulling him close like you'll never let go.
For a while neither of you speak the only sound in the room your overlapping breathing. It isn't awkward though, it says everything and nothing the two of you want to say. Mickey can feel your stress slowly melting off of you as you lay entwined together, your fingers curling to brush through his hair, resulting in a satisfied sigh from him that lets his walls fall down, words tumbling from his mouth.
"you shouldn't have seen that," he mutters, face buried in your chest muffling his words, "i don't want you to think of me... Dying.."
There's a pause before he says it, he doesn't want to mention the elephant in the room, and he practically spits the word out. For a second he thinks he's said the wrong thing, a flash of panic crossing him as your fingers movements pause in his hair.
"I did though." You say plainly, trying to keep your voice steady. You had accepted long ago that Mickey's job was to die, you knew that, but knowing and seeing were two entirely different things.
He finds himself at a loss for what to say, an ache forming in his chest as he longs to comfort you, everything about being an expendable was strange. It was unprecedented territory, not something he could simply pick up a life advice book on and use to fix all his worries and yours. Luckily, it's you who breaks the silence and rips Mickey from his thoughts that were starting to become existential.
"I don't regret it," you inhale deeply, the exhale shaky, "I was going to see it happen at some point, we both knew that.."
Mickey shuffles in your hold, resting his chin on your sternum to glance up at you.
"I knew you'd be back, you always are... It just.. shook me."
Your words are followed by silence, wide eyes staring up at you as they compute your words a fear flashing in them like he doesn't know what to say. Maybe, he doesn't need to say anything.
The look of his face says everything he wants to, he knows it was bound to happen but that doesn't mean he wanted it to. You both know what you're thinking too, about the uncertainty, about how one day the ship could decide there's no need for expendables anymore and just like that Mickey's gone. It's nothing holding each other can change, it's like a cut that never stops bleeding, a worry that won't go away. Your hand gives his hair one final ruffle before falling to your side and that's Mickey's sign to make a move, shuffling up to now burrow his head in the crook of your neck and let his chapped lips skim over the tender skin.
"I can hold you still." He murmurs after a while, and you can feel the smirk that pulls at his lips, his tone is cheeky despite the solemn atmosphere, and although he doesn't need to say it he still does, "to stop you shaking."
It's so stupid, and you both know you didn't mean you were shook like that... It's what makes it all the more ridiculous, but it has the effect he intended as you crack a smile, pushing his head from your neck. He's pliable, he always is to an extent but especially when freshly printed, head following your movement willingly and leaning into your hand as he doesn't even try to hide his dopey expression.
Despite the cheesy response you can't help but indulge him, pulling your hand from his face and waving it with a slight shake in front of him as if to test his promise. He lets out a boyish laugh at the action, quickly lacing his fingers with yours, driving to kiss at your knuckles. The way he glances up at you, like he's looking for approval, the look is intoxicating and it's difficult to keep a straight mind when his dark eyes watch you through those thick lashes. It's enough to make you forget your worries, at least for now.
He seems to notice some of your tension easing, beginning to trail his kisses down your arm with those stupid exaggerated wet 'muah' sounds he knows make you laugh, and when you let out a groaned 'hey!' embarrassed by his teasing he responds by giving you a peck on the lips.
It's tender then, quiet, and he rests his forehead on yours as your eyes lock together and shallow breaths fan against each other's faces. You'd never stop worrying about Mickey, it would always be like a persistent scab you can't stop picking at, and maybe he would die again tomorrow but right now he was here and most importantly he was alive.
