May 4 - cozy - 399 words - @platonic-multifandom-microfics - Jean Moreau & Neil Josten
Jeremy wasn't freaking out. Of course he wasn't, he's totally chill.
He just couldn't find Jean anywhere. The Frenchman had disappeared soon after dinner, that was four hours ago. He thought Cat had stayed with Jean. Apparently Cat thought he was with Laila, she thought he was with Cody, and Cody thought he was with Jeremy. Overall, a hot mess.
Okay, so maybe he was freaking out a little bit. But can you blame him? After that encounter with Grayson, Jeremy was just being cautious. He knows Jean can take care of himself but Jeremy would prefer if he didn't have to.
And now he was running out of places where Jean could be. He decided to try the pool, just in case. It was definitely a long shot but Jeremy was desperate. He scanned into the pool room and opened the door.
The muggy air and smell of chlorine hit him first. The sight of Kevin and Andrew arguing in the pool greeted him second. They both paused, looking at him. Andrew was stoic as ever but Kevin smiled slightly, climbing out of the pool to greet him.
"Jeremy!" He smiled in response.
"Kevin, Andrew. Nice to see you guys. Have you seen Jean? I can't find him." He asked a little frantic and tired. Andrew scoffed from to pool, pointing a thumb to the corner of the pool room.
"Neil stole him over there, last time I looked." Jeremy, a bit confused, padded over to where Andrew pointed.
And there he was.
Jean always looked more peaceful when he was asleep. The crease between his eyebrows smoothed and his jaw relaxed. He and Neil were so intertwined, it was hard to tell where one stopped and the other began.
The Fox was awake though, presumably an Exy game pulled up on his phone as he lay on Jean's chest. Neil scowled as Jeremy came into view, pressing a finger to lips in a shushing motion. As if Jeremy would ever have the heart to wake Jean up. He looked so cozy there with Neil, surrounded by towels on a pool chair.
"Send him up to room 235 when he wakes." Jeremy whispered. He only gets a nod back before Neil buries back against Jean.
As he walked out, he waved goodbye to Kevin. He headed to his room, smiling and shaking his head.
I think I like his eyes too much. I was reading my textbook and mitochondria green reminded me of him. Fucking hell I sound whipped.
OR read undercut kudos on ao3 appreciated
I think I like his eyes too much. I was reading my textbook and mitochondria green reminded me of him. Fucking hell I sound whipp ed.
Aaron's text is a surprise—then at the mentioned of him liking someone else, a male too, is another shocker.
Wasn't Aaron still together with Katelyn?When had they broken up? And then when did Aaron have time to develop a crush on somebody new? His fingers hovered over the phone set on correcting Aaron on his mishap—then a chime.
Oh God Kate you should have seen him in the locker rooms earlier. He looked like sin. He got out of the shower and was so wet he's lucky I didn't jump him right there.
Kevin almost dropped the phone. Confusion stuttering in his chest and then a slow realization. They—Aaron and Katelyn— were talking about him. Were they both sharing things that reminded them of him? He had always felt Aaron's eyes on him—had he always been readily to report his findings to Katelyn?
Did they... get off together to the thought of him? Arousal pooled into his stomach, his body twitching.
Lunchbox - Jerejean - @taylorswiftmicrofic - 300 words - AO3
Yawning, Jeremy rolls over in bed, stretching an arm out to wrap around his husband, only to find his side of the bed empty. After a moment, he smiles to himself as he hears giggling in the distance and gets a waft of waffles, bacon and eggs.
“Good morning,” he mumbles as he enters the kitchen.
“Happy birthday,” Jean greets him with a soft kiss before returning to the stove.
“Happy birthday, daddy,” their daughter hugs his legs.
Picking her up, Jeremy is overcome with so much love for these two people, his family. In his youth, he never thought this life would be possible. It was merely a dream. Wishful thinking. He couldn’t fathom that this could ever become a reality. Now, these two happy, beautiful faces are what he sees every day when he first wakes up and before he goes to sleep and everything is right in the world. Everything is perfect.
“Are you okay, mon amour?” Jean asks.
“What?”
“I asked if you wanted ketchup with your eggs and you, uh…zoned out.”
“I was just thinking of how lucky I am to have you both in my life,” he replies earnestly. “I love you both. But of course, I want ketchup. What a silly question.”
“I made you this.”
Jeremy takes the card from the five-year-old as he sits at the table with his breakfast, tears springing to his eyes as he looks at the admittedly bad drawing of the three of them holding hands. “You are so talented, this is amazing. I love it and love you, thank you so much.”
Jean joins them at the table, placing their daughter’s lunchbox down and saying, “Eat up, you don’t want to be late for school.”
Yes, this is the perfect way to start his 41st birthday.
Aftg Misplaced Forever Partners Soulmate AU Microfic Collection 1/? - Pain for Pain’s sake
(You cannot feel pain until you meet/touch your soulmate. // You will receive the same injuries as your soulmate (unless deadly))
Nathaniel didn’t mind living at the Nest. He didn’t.
Sure, Riko always made it clear he was the lowest rung on the ladder. That his job, for the rest of his life, was to be behind him and Kevin but it could be worse.
He could be his father.
He could be his mother…
So yeah, he didn’t mind the nest. That was, until he met him
‘This will be Nathaniel’s partner, and your number four.’
He still remembered the Master’s voice. Still remembered how the other boy's eyes never left the ground.
‘Do you have a name?’ He’d asked, but got no response. He remembered the annoyed look he’d given 1 and 2.
‘Come on, the USC’s game is starting.’ Kevin rolled his eyes, but the other boy made no effort to move. ‘Ugh, drag him if you have to.’ And so Nathaniel moved to do just that.
All it took was a hand to a wrist and then a spark.
A flame.
Two twin cries.
Nathaniel knew what it was in an instant. A little over a dozen years of pain coursed through his body at once, causing him to crumble to the floor. From the iron hitting his chest to all of Lola’s “lessons.” His brain spun violently as every slap, punch, and check from fully grown Ravens came at him in full force. He started to vomit.
He is standing in the corner of his childhood basement, watching his father work. It was one of the handful of days his father had tried to teach his son.
‘If you ever have the choice, always choose someone who’s already met their soulmate. Otherwise, there’s no point in doing anything. Well, I guess it’s interesting to watch the life drain from their eyes slowly once or twice. But junior, you have to understand that it gets boring fast. They just don’t react that much. Soulmated people, ha, now they’re fun. I’ll have to bring you down again when I have a couple, you’ll love it.’
He hadn’t “loved it” but he would be lying if he said he wasn’t at least a little interested in how stabbing one person made the other scream.
He is sitting on his childhood bed getting stitched up by his mother, shrugging off the wound as “being fine” and “not actively bleeding out”
‘You might not feel it now, Abram, but one day, you will meet your other half, it will hit you at once. You don’t understand pain yet, so you don’t know why you should avoid it, but when that day comes, you will regret being careless.’
Like most things Mary had taught him, she’d really buried the lead on this one.
Once he’d fully emptied his stomach and finally stopped gagging, he looked up to see Riko waving a water bottle in front of his face. The older boy’s eyes were wide with the same interest he had seen in his father.
Nathaniel's throat burned, but his eyes felt off, too, even though he hadn’t even cried. He looked over to the French boy, who was sobbing. One touch, and forever they would be experiencing every sensation together. Riko would have fun with this.
He grabbed the water bottle and sculled it. Sure, before meeting Jean Moreau, he could say he even enjoyed living at the Nest.
hellooooo i am requesting kevriko + “No one’s going to hurt you” pretty please <3
hello <3 excited for this one as well!! (for this drabble game)
“No one’s going to hurt you” + kevriko | 1175 words | ao3 longer version
Kevin has nightmares. They start after his mom dies.
The first time it happens, he wakes up crying, and heaving against his pillow, body curled protectively in the shape of a coma, with an emptiness in the middle he can’t seem to fill. A warmth seeps inside it, though. It dries his tears, cups his swollen, painful heart, and kisses it.
“No one’s going to hurt you,” Riko whispers in his hair, holding him tighter against his chest. “You’re safe here. I’m here.”
Kevin drifts off again, soothed by the rhythm of fingers drumming along his ribs, and thumbing at his back dimples.
Safe, he thinks, absorbing the heat that thaws the ice in his chest.
Safe, as he burrows into the crook of that neck and inhales the familiar scent of smoked pine, mint, and fresh leather.
It’s an unspoken pact that slowly turns into a ritual.
Kevin wakes up, feverish and disoriented, and Riko always rushes to his side, muttering words like I’ve got you, and you’re mine so no one will ever hurt you, while Kevin allows himself to be held. To be weak.
It’s intoxicating. He doesn’t think anyone’s ever made him feel as cherished as Riko does in those moments. Like the world could crumble and Riko would be all around him, an unbreakable force protecting him from the ruins, a shield.
But just like his nightmares, those moments never last. And in the light of day, with the growing distance between them widened by the competitive edge seeping inside Riko’s blood like poison, it’s hard to believe this man, so cruel, so easy with violence, can be capable of tenderness.
Yet, every night in which it happens again, Kevin forgets about it all. The darkness. The abuse. He starts craving those moments like an addict chasing a high that won’t ever feel as good as the first hit, that will come with a steeper crashdown each time.
The tragedy is precisely this. How good it feels to receive such gentleness from hands that only know how to be violent anymore. The contrast is a headrush, the way it makes him feel special is bliss unlike any other.
Kevin doesn’t learn to bite the hand that feeds him, instead, he learns to love the hand that hits him.
A ritual turns into an excuse, and as Kevin finds himself clinging to this ghost of a brother he loves, he seizes the opportunity one night to chase him.
His Riko.
The one who would laugh with him, big and bright, who’d listen to him ramble about history with wide starry eyes, smile at him like no one else mattered, the one who would giggle like a kid every time Kevin drew the numbers over their cheeks with a marker, and who would eat Kevin’s peas off his plate because he knew Kevin hated them. The one with whom he shared dreams, glory, and a secret handshake they’d invented as kids.
So one night, when Kevin wakes to find Riko already coiled around him like a snake, limbs entangled, ready to soothe him back to sleep if need be, he acts.
Derails the moment, first. He stares at him, at this man he loves and hates, looking so peaceful and gentle in slumber, so pure and innocent, this man he’s being robbed of as the days go on, and he wants the moment to last forever. This instant in which the moon paints him softly, so warm and human.
He traces the inked number one over that cutting cheekbone until dark eyelashes flutter open, and piercing eyes meet his.
Time halts.
They remain there, breathing softly, looking into each other’s abysses. Kevin leans in, pulse racing in his throat, so utterly lost, and so eager to kill himself in his bad habit—the one he’s too weak to kick. And Riko meets him halfways, drawn to him like a magnet, his lips slotting in so nicely against Kevin’s, so tenderly Kevin thinks he’s imagining it.
“You tell someone about this, and you’ll regret it all your life,” Riko whispers against his humid skin, his voice cut harshly by the blade of a real threat.
Kevin’s heart does a painful twinge, but he doesn’t answer, nods imperceptibly, and chases that kiss again with a whine. And this, this what undoes him. The way Riko melts into it, the way he lets Kevin takes the reins for once, opens up, and allows him to push him on his back so Kevin can lick at the inside of his mouth, can taste the desire on his tongue, and the way he hums and moans into it, letting his hands roam over Kevin’s body like it’s a precious thing.
His own personal victory.
Nights and years blend together, and this ritual strengthens the more the gap between them widens.
“No one’s going to hurt you,” Riko always says as he kisses those dreams away, eyes half crazed as they rake over Kevin’s body. It doesn’t feel so much like worship anymore, but like ownership. “No one.”
Except you, Kevin thinks as Riko traces the outline of a bruise he inflicted a few hours earlier.
But he knows by then, that Riko can’t love him without feeling like he owns him, and that he can’t own Kevin if other people can too, if other people can take, and hurt, and maim Kevin, so he has to take control. Has to be on top. Has to be the only one to do it, mark his territory over Kevin like a dog.
But the more he does so, the more Kevin suffocates, like grass stepped over repeatedly that hasn’t been given the space to grow and turn green.
It all comes to a stop one day, though.
Because one day, Kevin stops having nightmares.
He stops waking up abruptly in the middle of the night, he stops needing Riko. He stops longing for those stolen moments between them, because fragile as they were, they haven’t been able to withstand the wretched storm that is Riko. And now they’ve got cracks made of kisses with blood, love with teeth, and sex turned into a power play—another way for Riko to own him.
Kevin doesn’t have nightmares anymore, but his worst one has come to life, and this time, he knows there’s no waking up from it.
On that day, Kevin packs his things, leaves, and never looks back.
As he drives away, numbly holding the broken bones of his left hand, all he can hear above the loud thunder of his heartbeat, is Riko’s voice. So soft in the beginning, and then so cold, so manic towards the end.
No one’s going to hurt you.
It rings like a threat with each mile away from him.
Jean would never get used to the California sun, not after years of living in the Nest, deep down underground. It was always harsh, the ultraviolet rays almost too intense to bear, as if the sun was just overhead, hanging only eight feet above the ground.
“Here,” Jeremy said, suddenly standing in front of Jean, a hat in his outstretched hand. “You’re scowling at the sun like it’s offending you.”
“This sun is offensive,” Jean replied with a scowl, “and I am not wearing that.”
The hat was wide-brimmed and floppy, soaking wet, with rivulets of water sliding off and sluicing down Jeremy’s arm. It was atrocious, and definitely Laila’s.
Jean would rather let his head burn.
Jeremy hummed and threw the hat atop Jean’s head in one swift motion, ignoring his protests. The sides of the hat’s brim fell heavy over Jean’s ears, water dripping down the sides of his neck and pooling into his collar bones. It felt cool against his burning skin though, the thick fabric blocking the sun and keeping his dark hair from absorbing the rays.
He let out a reluctant sigh of relief.
“Better?” Jeremy asked knowingly, grinning up at him. His expression was so earnest, when anyone else would have been smug, and Jean knew that Jeremy only wanted to make Jean feel good.
He always wanted to make Jean feel good.
“Almost,” Jean said, leaning forward and pressing a kiss to Jeremy’s lips, deepening it instantly.
With the heat off his face and Jeremy in his arms, now he was better.
“I don’t know why I keep calling when I know you’re not going to pick up.”
“You were supposed to make it out. You were supposed to survive this place.”
“You spoke of the future so easily. Graduation, playing pro, going to the Olympics. You said it as if I would be there with you. I had almost started to believe you.”
“I thought he was done after he broke your hand. I’m sorry I could not stop him. I never considered that you would need saving, too.”
“When he trapped me in that box, every time it crumpled further under the weight of whatever he had put on top of it, I thought 'this is the moment it will crush me.' I knew calling for help was pointless, that it would just make everything worse. I was afraid he would never let me out. I had hoped that you would never know what that felt like.”
“I hate you. I hate you for leaving me here. I hate you for not coming back.”
“They mourned for you. The media. Your fans. You would have loved all the memorials. You were an arrogant fool born for the spotlight, and you died in it too. But they didn’t know you like I did.”
“Every time I’m on the court, I keep expecting to see you there in front of me. That’s the version of you that everyone remembers. I remember your brilliant smile when you got a phrase correct in French, the way your eyes lit up when you spoke of wars fought centuries ago, and your reckless hope that the Nest never quite managed to kill. I never told you that I kept all of your postcards.”
After 32 seconds of silence: “I have no one left to speak French with.”
“I sometimes wondered if you were intentionally oblivious to my feelings. If it was easier to ignore them, because we both knew you could never feel the same. You never saw anything but the court. It wasn't Jeremy that he caught me looking at. Maybe if you ever turned around, you would have caught me, too. Maybe that would have been worse.”
“I wanted you to die. I wished for every time you stood there and witnessed his cruelty. I have always gotten exactly what I deserve, but still some part of me just wanted the pain to end. If you died, the promise I made would die with you, and finally I could be free of this. There is no one to hold me to it now.”
The mailbox is full and cannot accept any messages at this time. Goodbye.
