#also also realised the phone was not in the last post so pls pretend it was

[ask-the-totally-real-peppino]

Hey, Brick, can Peppy have some Cheese? Please?

Brick: (?)

Pep: "Hehe~. Grazie~."

Pep: "Gniod sdneirf erew tahw? Eseehc eht morf pu ekow I. Gnihtyna raeh t'ndid I. Duol gnieb sdneirf erew?"

(Pep is awake again!)

#pizza tower #fake peppino #brick the rat #translation: “Were friends being loud? I didn't hear anything. I woke up from the cheese. What were friends doing?” #Pep slept for like two posts which is probably like 5 minutes in universe but sometimes all you need is a power nap #Pep technically sorta doesn't need sleep but we can explore that later hehe #but he got cheese! he likes cheese! Brick was very nice in sharing~ #also Pep didn't hear the chesse-plosion bc his ears were not formed #tho it might of also been a very quiet explosion bc Peppino didn't come out and assume the Noise was throwing bombs inside again #also also realised the phone was not in the last post so pls pretend it was #story post

[whumperooni]

pls imagine that after natsuo decided to get revenge and became a fuckboy he also gradually started to get farther away from his cutie of a lil sister! he brings home some bitchy bimbos to fuck and doesn't even notice her anymore so little sister being the adorable thing she is, she becomes very upset and sad that her brother doesn't want her anymore, so who is better to take care of her then papa enji! i want to see natsus face when he realises his plan backfired in the worst way possible!

What else is a little sister supposed to do whenever her nii-chan abandons her? u.u

tw: incest, fuckboy!Natsuo, mentions of drinking and drugs

It starts with one drunk girl that doesn’t make it out on time before Enji can see her. Usually, Natsuo doesn’t bring women home- it feels like something he shouldn’t do; he can’t bring anyone back to that place.

(Not that he hasn’t had any other woman since entwining with you- how could he when he has such an adoring little sister to love and cherish and make squeal with pleasure? Why would he want anyone else?)

But that night? That night he just doesn’t care. Drunken from too many shots and too much cheap beer, he crashes with the girl he had somehow stumbled home with and, in the morning, he fucks her again through their mutual hangovers before sending her off to never come back again.

There’s a twinge of shame and guilt when he passes you in the hallway on the way to show his hookup out. Your wide eyes and disappointment prick at him like tiny needles, the pucker of your brow has him regretful. Whenever he nudges his hookup out of the house and comes back to you, asks you where you slept last night, the mumbled “Shoto-nii’s room” makes him feel even more guilty.

You only sleep in your brother’s long empty room whenever you’re feeling particularly lonely. Natsuo hates when you feel lonely- you should never feel lonely with him around.

He opens his mouth to tell you that he’ll make breakfast for you, that he’ll make up for last night, but he’s cut off whenever a gruff voice comes from behind him and says,

“Don’t bring whores into my house.”

In an instant, Natsuo’s regret gets flipped to rage- just the sound of Enji’s voice makes him want to snap and having him insult his hookup makes it even worse- and he glares at his father- mouth opening to argue only to be ignored as Enji turns around and lumbers off to the kitchen. He barely registers your shocked “daddy” that you gasp out- he’s too focused on his father and the annoyance that had been written all over the man’s face.

Fuck him, Natsuo thinks. Fuck. Him.

His anger is only quelled whenever your hand lightly, nervously touches his and he looks back at you to see your worried expression. It takes a moment for him to calm- lips pressing together and a long, deep breath needed- but he does and he swallows back his anger, his headache to force a small smile your way.

“Have you had breakfast? I’ll make you something.”

A mumbled thank you, nii-san and your fingers lacing through his helps soothe the rest of the lingering irritation. Natsuo tugs you to the kitchen and he tries to forget his father’s face and the satisfaction that had flicked through his anger over it.

──────────────────────────────────────

He brings home another girl a month or two later. It’s not something he sets out to do, no.

But it happens. And the morning after is just about the same as the previous time- only with you more upset when you spot the hickeys all over the girl’s neck and Enji’s glare darker than before, his irritation more pronounced.

The third time is on purpose- something he seeks to do in a tipsy, vindictive rage after a particularly nasty argument with Enji.

He brings home another girl- someone dumb and sweet and just a little trashy- and he fucks her with the intention of making her scream for him, spending the night making her moans fill the estate.

You can’t look him in the eyes in the morning, but he feels no guilt- only satisfaction over the fury on Enji’s face and the way his hands clench and unclench from trying not to slug his son in front of his upset daughter.

Another nasty fight- one that you get caught in.

“-a goddamn disgrace. You think your sister needs to see this? How do you think this looks on me when you’re going around acting like a fool? I don’t know what the hell has gotten into you-”

“Daddy, please! It’s okay! Please don’t-”

“-I’m a disgrace?! That’s rich coming from you. You parade around acting like you’re so superior but all you are is-”

“Natsuo-nii! Please stop! Daddy doesn’t mean-”

“Don’t you turn this around on me, boy.”

In the end, Natsuo stomps off with red cheeks and gritted teeth- turning his back on his glaring father and his teary eyed little sister.

He stomps off and all he can think is I’ll show you a goddamn disgrace.

──────────────────────────────────────

Life for Natsuo quickly becomes a mess of clubs, hookups, hangovers, and arguments. With every girl he brings home, his father only gets more and more angry- fire bursting out in quick jets when he finds a pair of discarded panties on the lawn, some dumb slut eating at the table draped over his son’s lap, vodka bottles and condoms in the trash.

The fights get worse and worse. Natsuo starts staying away from home- only coming back to drag some girl home to rile his father up and to sometimes spend time with you whenever his guilt over your tears and upset becomes too much. He makes new friends with this new direction in life- crude boys he used to stay away from, men who fondle their girl’s tits right in front of everyone while talking about weed and parties and who has access to molly, who can get good coke.

They’re bad influences. He knows it. He knows.

But he doesn’t stay away from them. Soon enough he’s drawn into partying along with clubbing- weed and booze and more and more giggling sluts that want to ride his dick, suck him off.

One night he gets drunk enough to steal his father’s credit card and buy henny for everyone, weed and an obnoxiously expensive dinner, a solid gold chain that his flavor for the night talks him into buying despite Natsuo never wearing something like that before.

He doesn’t go home that night, but he ends up in someone’s penthouse and wakes up at four in the afternoon- classes missed and a whole block of time missing from his memory. It’s only when he checks his phone that he realizes what all has happened- snapchat showing him reeling and laughing, joking about his father’s money being blown.

It also shows him getting some sloppy head in some restroom he can’t remember. It shows him, too, that he had filmed a girl riding his dick- that he had spanked her ass and turned his phone around to show the world a drunken grin and bloodshot eyes, a gold chain around his neck.

Watching it is surreal. He knows that it’s him doing all those things, but he just can’t quite connect it at the same time. He’s never been into that stuff before- he’s never wanted to be into that stuff before. It makes something bitter and uneasy settle on his tongue, something uncomfortable weigh down his stomach.

He tries to ignore it and he checks the rest of his notifications- quickly swiping away Fuyumi’s worried texts and the messages on snapchat. There’s nothing from his father to be seen and that’s a relief that he pretends he doesn’t feel.

There is a little popup that sounds during his scrolling that shows that you’ve posted and Natsuo opens it almost absently, blinks whenever he sees a photo of a nice lunch captioned with Lunch with daddy💕

The daddy makes him scowl, but something in him twinges- guilt, a touch of sadness. He can’t remember the last time he talked to you, the last time he held you close. He used to be with you daily- hands holding yours, kisses pressed to your cheek and lips and forehead often, your cuddly body warming his late at night and holding him snug inside after a sweet ravishing. It’s been so long since he’s been with his little sister- it almost feels like that past affection had been a dream.

Guilt eats away at him and Natsuo runs his hand through his hair, buries his face into his palms after.

What have you been doing while he’s been fucking around? Sleeping in his bed because you miss him? Seeking comfort somewhere else- with someone else? Who has been taking care of you?

Your lunch post flashes through his mind and Natsuo feels sick then- knots twisting in his stomach whenever he thinks about who else you love in your life.

The last time he had been at home, you had clung to Enji- barely trying to break up the fight and sniffling through it, burying your face into your father’s chest.

You had clung to him then- are you clinging to him now?

Natsuo swallows and he stands from the bed, ignores the sleepy mumble that sounds off behind him.

It’s robotic how he dresses and drives home- sunglasses doing nothing to prevent a throbbing headache as he clenches the steering wheel and tries not to throw up last night’s indulgence all over his lap.

Getting home makes his stomach feel even worse, but he pushes it all down and forces himself to walk inside the house- mind racing as he tries to think of where you could be right now.

He finds out whenever he hears a loud gasp and a moan of “daddy.”

He doesn’t want to go. He doesn’t want to see. His body and mind don’t connect, though, and his feet move automatically- one in front of the other until he’s in the doorway of the kitchen.

There’s flour on the floor from where it’s been knocked off the counter. Plates in the sink and magnets on the fridge he doesn’t remember ever seeing. A new mixer tucked away in the corner and daffodils in a vase on the windowsill.

And there’s you too- perched on the counter with your apron and the skirt of your sundress flipped up, mouth open with a cry, cheeks flushed pretty and sweet as Enji curls his thick fingers inside your cunny.

“D-Daddy! Please! More!”

“Shh; I’ve got you, little one.”

Bile rises in Natsuo’s throat as he watches you mewl and arch- hands reaching for your father and lips pressing against his needily whenever he gathers you in his arms and starts to slowly slip inside of you.

“L-love you, daddy,” you sob. “Love you- please- please don’t ever- don’t leave me...”

“I will never leave you, little one,” Enji promises gruffly as he spreads you apart and makes you whimper. “Never.”

Turquoise eyes flit to the side and Natsuo freezes in the doorway whenever they lock onto his - heart breaking and shame flooding through him in thick, hot waves when his sweet, sweet little sister who he loves and has neglected begins to mewl “daddy, daddy, daddy!”

Tears prick at Natsuo and he turns from the kitchen- walks away with a hand covering his mouth and his body bent forward as he struggles not to heave.

He drove you into Enji’s arms. He drove his sweet, beloved little sister into the arms of the man he hates the most. He neglected you for what- bimbos and booze and petty revenge?

God, he’s so fucking stupid.

Natsuo stumbles into the bathroom and he grips the sink tight- eyes wet and bloodshot whenever he looks in the mirror, face pale and neck mottled with hickeys, the stupid chain mocking him as it shines in the light of the bathroom. Far off, he can hear you moaning and Natsuo grits his teeth as he glares at himself in the mirror.

He really is a disgrace.

#enji todoroki x reader #natsuo todoroki x reader #natsuo x reader #tw incest #rooni's shit #fuckboy!natsuo #todoroki degens #this went in an entirely different direction than i meant #oops #i was going to have it from reader-chan's pov but i wanted natsuo's self-hatred evident in the end #maybe i'll rewrite it from reader's pov someday #Anonymous

[ah-ga-seven]

Till’ The End Of Summer - Chapter 3

>> series masterlist <<

Pairing: Choi Yeonjun x Reader

In a Nutshell: College!AU, Rich Kids, Friends to Lovers, Fuckboy athlete Yeonjun, Overprotective Best friend Soobin, contains all of TXT and other Idol cameos, Omnipresent perspective.

Synopsis: You and Yeonjun are caught up in a cat and mouse game because of unspoken feelings and endless pining for each others’ attention. With the summer break approaching and lots of college parties, will you finally get a chance to explore your feelings for each other; even though the world and Yeonjun’s reputation makes things complicated?

Word count: 5K

Genre: Angst, Fluff.

Cameos: NCT Johnny, ITZY Yeji.

Warnings: Mentions of alcohol consumption sexual implications, arguing, and conflict.

A/N: English isn’t my first language, pls don’t come for me ;)

Mia wakes up from the movement of her boyfriend stirring in his sleep. His arm was wrapped around her waist protectively and her head, as well as her arm, rested on his chest.

She winced at the dull pain in her head and soon realised she didn’t remember much of what happened last night.

Mia tried to untangle herself from Soobin without waking him in the process, and as she did so she started to look for her phone, finding it in the charger on Soobin’s desk. She grabbed it, looking for clues on social media as to what happened last night. She looked at the Instagram stories of some people that were at the party, but nothing stood out to her.

She realised you hadn’t posted anything and frowned. That’s unlike you.

Something in her told her to check for Yeonjun’s story, but again. Nothing. Very unlike him too.

She sighed looking back at her boyfriend who was still sound asleep.  

“Something is off,” she whispers to herself.  

You wake up with heavy lids. Usually, the first thing you do is grab your phone. But this time you just stare at the ceiling.  

Last night was the most eventful night you’ve had since you started college and not in a good way.

It started out great, though it ended quite abruptly and well, terribly. 

You close your eyes again as your mind flashes back to what had happened right before you left.

“Y/n,” Soobin says cautiously. “I-” he starts but you don’t let him finish.

You tear your eyes off of Yeonjun and Yeji, who by now had detached themselves from each other as they giggled to themselves.. They hadn’t noticed any eyes on them yet, especially yours.

“I want to go home,” you say saddened, turning back around to Soobin. He still wasn’t able to tear his eyes off of Yeonjun and Yeji as he stared at them, fire emitting from his pupils.  

“Soobin,” you warn him. “Let’s get Mia and let’s go. Now. Please” you plead.

Soobin finally looked at you, his heart breaking into a million pieces seeing the way your face fell. If it wasn’t for your pleading tone to leave the party, Soobin would have probably launched himself at Yeonjun. 

This was exactly what he was afraid of, but not in a million years did he guess it would happen this way.  

“Ok, ok. Let’s go,” Soobin says taking your hand and leading you through the crowded house.

You left without saying a word to anyone else, avoiding as many people as you could.  

Mia was fast asleep in the back seat of the car, and you silently stared out of the window lost in deep thought.

Soobin didn’t bother to start talking to you about what happened, knowing it would be to no avail.

“Are you sure you want me to take you to your place? You live alone…I don’t think-”

“I want to be alone,” you say cutting him off, your voice weak and hoarse.  

Soobin nods at your request. He put his hand on your thigh to comfort you before making a left to drop you off at your place.

The buzzing of your phone snapped you back to reality, and when you see the caller ID you sigh, it’s Mia.

You want to tell her everything, but you don’t really know where to start. Somehow you feel thankful for the fact that she was shitfaced drunk last night, cause if she wasn’t, she would have killed Yeonjun.

You let your phone ring until it goes to voicemail, but much to your dismay, Mia calls again.

You knew she wasn’t going to stop until you picked up. So you accept her call at the third try.

“Hey,” you say, your voice still laced with sleep.

“Hey, are you okay? Where are you? I don’t remember anything from last night and I need you to fill me in. What happened? Did you and Yeonjun kiss? Or better yet? Did you fuck? Is he with you?”  

Mia’s questions are like a whirlwind to your scrambled thoughts and her words basically go in one ear and out the other. You wince at her mentioning Yeonjun, sighing and burying your face in your pillow wanting to scream.

When you stay quiet on the other end of the line she realises that something was up.

“Y/n?”  

You take a deep breath and tell her everything in one go. From the fight you had with Soobin, to the walk you had with Yeonjun, all the way to the MTV Cribs tour you had with Johnny. You explained further on how Beomgyu, Soobin, and Yeonjun barged in and how hostile and angry Yeonjun suddenly got.

Mia didn’t react much other than a few ‘What the fucks’ until you got to the part where Soobin basically made you cry as you reconciled,  now getting to the juiciest part of it all.

“And then I witnessed Yeonjun basically eating Yeji’s face in front of everyone.”  

“N-O,” Mia gasped. She couldn’t believe it. Anger filled her senses as she inhaled sharply.

“Dude. ‘I’m here. I’m at Soobin’s. He didn’t take me to my place, he took me to his place. That means that Yeonjun is next door. FUCK,” Mia whisper-screamed.  

You sit up, your eyes growing big. “Mia, I swear to god. Do. Not. And I mean, DO NOT say or do anything to Yeonjun,” you curse at yourself for not asking where Mia was before. You should have known Soobin would take her with him since he would want to take care of her.  

You nervously bite the inside of your cheek, waiting for her to reply.  

“You want me to pretend like everything’s okay when you just told me all of that?” She scoffs. “I guess you don’t know who you’re talking to,” Mia says walking out of Soobin’s room.

None of the other boys had woken up yet, so the living room was empty. She looked at the door to Yeonjun’s bedroom, biting her lip while angrily glaring at it.

Mia walked further into the living room, sitting down on the couch, deciding against any rash decisions.

“Well, he’s here. I see his car keys on the coffee table,” Mia says staring at the keys as she clears her throat.

“Dude. Don’t do anything. Please, I’m begging you. I’ll look crazy desperate.”  

“I could go key his car,” she says lifting the keychain, playing with it in her hand.

“Mia,” you warn her.  

“Alright, alright. The two of you should resolve this together, like adults. We’re not in high school anymore and this endless pining for each others’ attention needs to stop,” she sighs putting the keys back on the coffee table.  

“Besides he probably just kissed Yeji because he thought that you replaced him with Johnny,” Mia states confidently.

“That sounds so juvenile,” you say kicking your sheets off of yourself and getting out of bed.

“What other reason could he have, y/n?” Mia sighs. “He’s like a little kid who’s never had a serious relationship. All he knows is meaningless sex. And given the fact that the only girl he actually liked in college basically blew him off for another rich and popular senior, probably just made him insecure.”

“The words Yeonjun and insecure don’t belong in one sentence,” you say rolling your eyes.

“It’s true though. He just wants to be loved, but he’s afraid of getting hurt. That why he doesn’t let anyone get close.”

“Maybe you’re right,” you give in.  

“No, I AM right. You should’ve just watched him play beer pong and fed his ego a little. He’s a Virgo, he wants the satisfaction and the attention of the person he likes. Yet you went ahead and ditched him for a house tour with another hot guy,” she chuckled at her own observation.

Mia and her god damn astrology references. You hated how right she was.

You also hated how clearly she judged the situation because lord knows you couldn’t. Suddenly you had so much more to think about.

You rub your temples in an attempt to release the tension building up in your brain.

“Well, I hope so. Cause the other explanation would be that he’s just not that into me as I thought he was,”  you groan.

Mia sighed throwing her head back on the couch but as she did so, she heard a bedroom door creak open. Mia’s ears perked up at the sound, snapping her head in the same direction as the noise.  

It was Yeonjun’s room, but the person exiting the room was not Yeonjun.

Mia’s eyes widen as she sees Yeji close the door behind her.  

“Mia?” you call out for her due to the long silence on the other end of the line. “Earth to Mia?”  

Mia manically tried to lower the volume on her phone so your voice couldn’t be heard by Yeji, but Yeji jumped at the sound of a voice, looking straight into Mia’s widened eyes. They both looked at each other like deer’s caught in headlights.  

Busted.  

“Mia! What…are you doing here. You scared me,” Yeji’s voice was barely audible but you heard it. And you knew exactly who that voice belonged to.

Does this mean what you think it means? You immediately put your volume up. Basically gluing your phone to your ear to hear what was going on a little better.

“My boyfriend lives here,” Mia stoically replies, earning an understanding nod from Yeji.  

She couldn’t believe this and neither did you.

“Ahh, right. Soobin.” Yeji says putting two and two together.  

“You were in Yeonjun’s room?” Is all Mia could ask. And as if she could sense it, she quickly put her phone on the armrest of the couch, hoping you could hear their voices clearer, and you did.  

“I-uh…well yeah, it kind of happened,” Yeji says awkwardly smiling at Mia.  

“Yes. Hate it when that happens.” Mia’s sudden cold tone confused Yeji, but she didn’t think much of it as she collected her coat and bag from the dinner table.  

“I was just about to head out…” she says walking towards the front door.

“Enjoy your walk of shame,” Mia says under her breath.  

To your relief, Yeji didn’t hear the snarky comment your best friend made. You did not want more drama to erupt. None of this is Yeji’s fault, though it would be easy to blame her, you knew that would be even more childish than Yeonjun’s behaviour. 

Yeji turned to look at Yeonjun’s bedroom door one more time before she opened the front door to their apartment. “Tell Yeonjun I had fun,” is all she says, and just like that she’s out the door.  

As the door closed behind Yeji, Mia frantically reaches for her phone again.

“Bitch. Did you hear that!?” She exclaims trying to be as quiet as possible.

“Y-yeah.” 

You’re frozen in place and literally couldn’t compute.

“Tell Yeonjun I had fun? What in the fuck. How about you tell him yourself, bum ass bitch,” Mia scoffs as she continues her rampage. “I take back everything I said about resolving things with Yeonjun as adults, not after this revelation. The fucking nerve this took from him. Why would he take her home? As if no one would find out-”  

“I’m gonna hang up,” you say before Mia could go on any further.

You had to admit, this hurt. Seeing them kiss was also painful but you could come back from a kiss that happened out of childish jealousy. This, however, was a different pang to your heart.  

“Y/n….” Mia’s tone softened as she heard the weak sound of your voice.  She knew you were upset, and she hated that she couldn’t give you a hug right now.  

You hang up. Deciding that a hot shower is the only thing that will make you feel better.  

Mia silently made her way back to Soobin’s room. To her surprise he was already awake, scrolling through his Instagram feed.

“Good morning baby,” he hums with his low raspy morning voice, smiling at her as he sees her messy bed hair and grumpy hang-over face.  

“Hi,” she sighs. “Thank you for taking care of me,” Mia says apologetically as she climbs on top of him, sitting down on his torso.

“You don’t have to thank me for things I’m supposed to do,” he says yawning.  

“Oh, by the way…” Mia smirks seductively, inching closer to Soobin. “What?” Soobin looks at his girlfriend with expecting eyes, pouting his lips for a kiss but instead of a kiss, he gets surprised with a hard slap across his chest.

“AH, What the fuck was that for!?” Soobin whines, rubbing the affected area with his large hand.

“That’s for fighting with y/n and making her cry,” she says crossing her arms.

“So…you talked to her,” Soobin sighs. He untangled himself from Mia, getting up and stretching his body. “I should call her,” he says rubbing the back of his head.

“I already did and she told me everything. But here’s the thing. As I was on the phone with her in the living room, Yeji suddenly emerged out of Yeonjun’s room.” Mia explains in a hushed tone, afraid that the walls suddenly became thinner and Yeonjun could hear them speak.

Soobin’s mouth fell agape. “What!?” He exclaims in a whisper.

Mia just nodded at her boyfriends’ shocked expression. Soobin clenched his fist as his face contorts from shock to anger in a matter of milliseconds.  

“I dare him to breathe near y/n again, I swear to god,” Soobin says through his teeth.

You had gotten out of your way too long shower, hair wet, dressed in nothing but your underwear and an oversized t-shirt which ended just below your butt.

You mindlessly do your whole skincare routine but you jump when your phone starts to buzz. You reach for it, eyes widening as you see who just texted you.

[Yeonjun 12:43 PM]: Hey.

[Yeonjun 12:43 PM]: Do you still have my jacket?  

You stare at your phone, but it’s like your brain doesn’t want to comprehend that this is what he starts the conversation with. Maybe he needed an excuse to come and see you? Or maybe... you were just getting ahead of yourself and the dude just wanted his expensive Versace jacket back.  

Which you understand.  

[Y/N 12:45 PM]: Hi, yes I have it, sorry.

[Yeonjun 12:45 PM]: Can I come pick it up? You left without saying goodbye.

You scoff at his unbelievable reply and you hate acting impulsively, but you can’t seem to stop yourself from typing.

[Y/N 12:46 PM]: You seemed a little occupied, so :)  

[Yeonjun 12:46 PM]: Huh?

[Y/N 12:46 PM]: I’ll be home for another hour if you want to pick it up before I leave, be my guest.

[Yeonjun 12:47 PM]: Ok…

[Yeonjun 12:47 PM]: Are you mad at me or something?  

You roll your eyes at his observation. This motherfucker is either dense as fuck or he’s just pretending to be dumb. It’s like he couldn’t put two and two together.

You didn’t reply back to him and didn’t really expect him to show up either. Half an hour later you were seated on your couch, watching an anime while eating some instant noodles when you heard a knock on your door.

Shit. For real?  

You get up in a hurry, quickly chewing down the noodles that were still in your mouth and retrieved Yeonjun’s jacket from your dresser.  

You take a deep breath before you open the door, and there he is. Choi Yeonjun, as handsome as ever.

He looked like he never even partied the night before as if he got a full 8 hours worth of beauty sleep. He was dressed in an oversized black shirt with his Adidas joggers, accompanied by his usual chains, rings, and earrings that he never seemed to take off.

His eyes widened when he saw you, dressed in nothing but a large t-shirt while your hair was still damp from the shower you took. Right, you forgot to put pants on but you honestly didn’t mind taunting him a little.  

“Here you go,” you say try not to stare at him for too long as you hand him his jacket.

Yeonjun retrieved it from you without a word, still looking at you with wide eyes. His feet were frozen to the hard wooden floor beneath him.

“Was that all?” you ask crossing your arms as you lean on your doorpost.

You tried your hardest to sound unbothered and it was working. You got Yeonjun flustered and confused. His least favourite emotions.

“I-eh…I guess?” Yeonjun says rubbing the back of his neck.

“Ok, have a great day,” you say closing the door, at least that was your plan but Yeonjun put his foot between the door; stopping it from closing on him. You’re shocked at his reflexes and so was he judging by the look on his face.

“Wait,” he says opening the door again. “That’s it?” He asked, looking at you with his confused puppy eyes.

You give him the same look of confusion. “What do you mean, you came to get your coat. Did you need anything else?”

“So you are angry at me?”  

You can’t help but roll your eyes, breaking character and he notices. 

“Why?” He asks biting the inside of his cheek.

 It’s one of his habits. He does that when he’s trying to understand something, or when he’s nervous. You couldn’t tell which one it could be this time and honestly, you didn’t give a shit. 

“Listen, if you truly can’t figure that out yourself then that says enough.”  

And just like that, it’s like an epiphany happened inside of his brain. His calm and collected demeanor disappeared as he scratches the back of his head.

“You saw me with Yeji.”  

You stay silent, ready to close the door again but he forces it open, walking inside of your apartment.

“I didn’t realise I invited you in?” you say looking at him in disbelief as you close the door behind you.

He nervously paced back and forth. “Is that why you left? Cause you saw me with her?”  

You still don’t answer him, which annoyed him. “Talk to me,” he says putting his jacket down on your nearest piece of furniture while taking a step closer to you. 

“You should’ve talked to me first, but you ran. Like a coward.” 

Your voice was laced with venom as you took a step back, away from him.

He didn’t know why, but you calling him a coward hurt more than he would like to admit. He scoffed, taking another step towards you.

“Cut the bullshit y/n. You’re the one who played me. I thought we were getting along just fine but I turn around for two whole seconds and you leave with some other dude.”  

“Johnny is nothing more than a friend.”

“Does he know that?”

“YES!” you yell at him. You’re frustrated at your sudden outburst but you couldn’t take it anymore.  

Your anger startled Yeonjun and he took a step back giving you some space. 

His eyes were still looking for more answers in yours. He opened his mouth to speak but you beat him to it.

“You don’t get to put this on me when you wouldn’t even listen to what I had to say. Instead, you run off and have sex with Yeji out of spite? Cause you were jealous of Johnny? Real mature, Choi.”

“Wait, how do you know th-”

“I want you to leave,” you interrupt him, opening the door for him once again.

“Y/n...”

“No,” you sigh closing your eyes. “Leave.”  

Yeonjun sighs in defeat. Picking up his jacket once again, walking to your front door, stopping just inches away from you. “For what it’s worth…I’m sorry,” he said giving you one last look.

“Don’t let the door hit you on the way out,” you say, your tone bitchier than you expected. 

He didn’t reply, and you didn’t dare to look him in his eyes either, knowing that those dark orbs would pull you back under his spell again. 

You close the door behind him and lean your forehead against it, emotionally exhausted from the whole situation. But you had a feeling it was nowhere near over yet.

A few days went by like nothing had ever happened. You distracted yourself by organising your entire closet and cleaning out your cabinets.  

You cleaned your whole apartment hoping it would clear out your mind as well but Yeonjun was still a prominent figure that captivated your thoughts. You swore you wouldn’t open his Instagram stories or Snapchat’s, but you used Mia’s account to do so anyway.  

He was his usual self, he had fun and showed it off. You only see the good parts of Choi Yeonjun on social media, so you weren’t surprised. He wasn’t the type to post sad-girl quotes in his stories or subtweet to get attention, making it even harder to figure out what was really going on in his head. He just shows us what he wants us to see anyway. 

You couldn’t believe the fact that you fell under his spell even though everyone around you seemed to warn you about him. You just had to get yourself hurt, once again.  

You were more mad at yourself than you were mad at him, to be honest, but for some reason, his pleading tone accompanied with the desperate look in his eyes from that day kept swirling around in your thoughts.  

For the next couple of days, you focused on yourself and your mental health.

You decided to be anti-social even though your friends invited you to go do stuff. You just wanted to binge on your favourite shows and unwind from the hectic deadline filled semester that you had.

Apart from Soobin and Hueningkai visiting you to check if you were still alive, you hadn’t seen anyone else yet since that night. However, tonight there was a campus festival/bonfire for the new freshman who were coming in after summer as an introduction and orientation day and you and Mia volunteered a few months back for extra credit.

Everyone and you mean EVERYONE at the school that had somewhat of a social status was going to be there since it’s the last official event before the summer break officially started. Meaning that you would certainly see Yeonjun again.

“I can’t believe you got me to do this,” Mia sighed as she clips her name tag on to her hoodie a little too crooked to your liking.

You chuckle and fix it for her. “Also, you ghosted on us after the party. Did something else happen?” You bite your lip and shake your head. “Nothing worth mentioning.”

You didn’t want to hide stuff from her, but if Mia knows, Soobin knows. And you weren’t ready for that. Especially when you were still organising your thoughts on the situation.

The rest of the day went by pretty fast. You ran around with your checklists and made sure everything was ready and set for the festival to start with some other student board members. Mia, on the other hand, was in charge of giving groups of students full tours of the campus, which meant that you were separated for most of the day.

When the clock strikes 8 PM, the festival starts, and more and more people start to come in aside from the future freshman that were already there.

You stand at the sideline, checking off the last task on your to-do list and sigh in relief.  

Technically you are a supervisor for the night. So you couldn’t enjoy the party. 

Also, some of your teachers were there as well. Which meant that you couldn’t misbehave even if you wanted to.  

Your phone buzzes and you check your messages.

[Soobin 8.04 PM]: Hiiii, I’m here. Where are you?

[Y/N 8:04 PM]: Near the entrance, to the left. I’m wearing our obnoxious purple campus hoodie, shouldn’t be hard to find me.

[Soobin 8.04 PM]: I see youuuu, don’t move.

You chuckle and search for your friend. It didn’t take long before you spot him since he was built like a skyscraper. You watch him bulldoze his way through the crowd to greet you and laugh as he almost trips over his own legs as he approaches.  

“Hey girl, heyyy,” Soobin says enveloping you in a hug. He was followed by Taehyun and Beomgyu. Who also hugged you and said their hello’s.

“Are you already drunk?” You ask Soobin as you make him look at you by tugging at his chin.

“We tried to stop him but it was of no use,” Beomgyu chuckled.  

“Let him live a little,” Taehyun interferes. “Our captain has worked so hard all year.”  

“Just…look after him since Mia and I won’t be able to. We have to work tonight,” you pout.

“That sucks. We missed you at game night yesterday and now you’re telling me that you don’t get to party with us at all tonight?” Taehyun pouts back at you. And you simply nod at him with a sad facial expression to match his.  

You were wondering if Soobin told them about what happened that night at the party. Soobin is a horrible liar and you knew he wouldn’t lie as to why you didn’t make it to game night. But you didn’t want to ask.

“Where’s Hueningkai?” you ask looking around for him. “Or did you kill him at game night for cheating in that fruit card game you guys play?” You joke, earning chuckles from the boys.

“He’s with Yeonjun hyung and a few others from the team. They had dinner somewhere before they came here. We came straight from the dorm” Beomgyu explains, as he was texting someone on his phone.  

They definitely knew something was up. Taehyun is smart and quick-witted, so you were sure he knew too. Especially since his eyes grew in size a little after he heard Yeonjun’s name.  

Beomgyu however, was too busy with his phone to care. You decide to pry and look over his shoulder. “You’re talking to Ryujin again?” you say smirking as you read her name and Beomgyu immediately hides his phone from you. “Maybe,” he pretended to be annoyed but he couldn’t help but crack a smile at the sound of her name.

Soobin sighed, clearly unamused. “Where’s Mia?” He asked sitting down at the bleachers behind him.  

“She should be on her way back from her last campus tour,” you say looking around you, hoping you would see her and that’s when you spot him.

Yeonjun.

He walked in with his confident stride, surrounded by other attractive guys from the team, including Hueningkai.  

You could see the future freshman girls freak out a little as they entered. And you couldn’t help but roll your eyes.  

He ate it up, lost in his own bubble. No one could touch him, that’s how unreachable he made himself seem.

But you knew better. Your mind flashing back to his desperate eyes, trying to find answers in yours when he stepped foot in your apartment, and his desperate eyes when you kicked him out.  

You averted your gaze from them quickly, but not before Yeonjun’s eyes found yours.  

Shit.  

You sigh and pick up your schedule. “Guys, I’m sad to say this, but I have to leave. I have bar duty.”  

Soobin’s ears perked up at the word ‘bar’ and he looked at you, his eyes disappearing into crescent moons as he gave you a coy smile. “Does that mean you’ll give us free drinks?”  

“The opposite,” you say sticking out your tongue at him. He just glares at you in return and you laugh at his childlike antics.

“Gotta go, when I’m free, I’ll join you guys, and please keep an eye on him,” you tell Tae and Beomgyu as you run off.

“Will do sis,” Taehyun yells after you.

You arrive at the bar stand and see Mia already overwhelmed and panicked. Trying to keep up with the number of people in line. She spots you and sighs in relief.

“Thank god! Where were you? I can’t handle this alone,” she says throwing an apron your way.  You swiftly caught it and tie it around your waist.

“Sorry, I ran into Soobin, Tae, and Gyu. Soobin is already drunk by the way,” you say as you start pouring drinks in cups, organising them so they could be handed out immediately.

Mia rolled her eyes. “Of course he is,” she chuckles shaking her head.

“Did you see Yeonjun yet?” Mia asks carefully as she leans against the bar, staring at you intently.

“Yes, he was with Hyuka and some other guys from the team.”

“He didn’t try to talk to you at all since the party?” Mia asks confused.

And just as you opened your mouth to answer her question, you were interrupted.

“I’ll take two beers, and your phone number.”  

A familiar voice made your ears perk up, and you turn around. You spot the tall brunette and give him a wholehearted smile.

“Johnny!” You exclaim enthusiastically, giving him a clumsy hug over the counter.

“You and your endless flirting,” you joke as you hand over the beers to him.  

He gave you a beaming smile, taking a sip of his drink as he hands you the money in return. “I mean, you pretty much left without saying goodbye. And since I didn’t have your number I couldn’t contact you,” he points his finger at you accusingly, and you giggle.

Mia was behind you, busting her ass trying to serve the alcohol deprived students but that didn’t stop her from keeping an eye on you and Johnny.  

She noticed how your face lit up, and she also noticed how Johnny leaned closer to you over the counter. And then…her eyes landed on an equally tall figure, standing behind Johnny.

“Are you gonna take much longer bro? I’m trying to get drunk tonight.”  

You freeze in place, feeling like you were caught doing something you weren’t supposed to do.  

It was Yeonjun. He looked at you with his intense gaze. And all you could do was stare back at him in shock. 

A different type of tension filled the air. Your eyes darting from one to the other in panic. 

He glared at Johnny through half-lidded eyes, impatiently tapping his feet. “I’m in desperate need of some vodka,” Yeonjun states, giving Johnny a sarcastic smile, who by now had turned around to meet his eyes.

“So am I,” you say to yourself, preparing for the worst.

Chapter 4.

#yeonjun scenarios #yeonjun imagine #yeonjun imagines #yeonjun angst #yeonjun smut #yeonjun fluff #choi yeonjun scenarios #soobin scenarios #soobin fluff #soobin angst #txt scenarios #beomgyu scenarios #beomgyu fluff #beomgyu angst #taehyun scenarios #taehyun fluff #taehyun angst #hueningkai scenarios #hueningkai fluff #tomorrow by together scenarios #johnny scenarios #nct scenarios #soobin imagine #soobin imagines #beomgyu imagines #taehyun imagines #kpop scenarios #kpop imagines #txt fluff #txt angst

[artificialqueens]

These People in This Room (Don't Shine Like You) (Diamond Chaney) - Ortega

summary: Lawrence has just been crowned the winner of RuPaul’s Drag Race UK, and Ellie is right beside her. Just like she’s always been.

a/n: omg HIIIIII! here’s my entry to the fic challenge (will it be my only one? who can say). in a shocking turn of events this is not a drabble asdfghjk but would we have expected anything concise from me? this fic was inspired by Shine and Starstruck, both by Years and Years. they are very diamond chaney songs so pls do give them a little listen for full effect! standard procedure, she/her pronouns bc they’re in drag, u know the drill. this has taken me entirely too long to write but pls enjoy some diamond chaney from the night of the crowning! (pls also collectively pretend they had an actual dancefloor to celebrate on and not just a hotel room bc i had already started writing at the point Ellie posted her BTS. fic is just one big serving of pretend anyway xo)

***

It’s somewhere around midnight, the sun has set on Thursday and Friday has crept in, and Lawrence is sitting in a booth with the dancefloor flashing bright colours in front of her, only just daring to believe that this is her actual life.

There is not a single moment that seems real. Even being one of the top four took her essentially since filming stopped to come to terms with. But hearing her name being read out, hearing the other girls cheer for her and being able to do nothing but stare at the screen in disbelief with her hands over her mouth and sob like a baby…that’s not sunk in yet. Maybe it never will. She’s still feeling the after-effects from the way the shock and euphoria had kicked seven shades of shit out of her pulse, the way the serotonin had crashed over her like a wave and the absolute unbridled lack of control she’d had over any of her emotions.

When the cameras had been cut off and they’d been given the all-clear from the producers that they could hug each other, Lawrence had only managed to stand up from the chair, still in floods of tears as Bimini bundled their arms around her, Tayce had jostled them all with the way she’d jumped up and down and yelled in delight, and Ellie had looped her arms around her neck and murmured into her shoulder, words Lawrence couldn’t hear but felt the love from regardless.

It had to be Ellie, really, that crowned her. It was a full-circle moment. She still remembers the night they met for the first time; Dundee in 2016, some time in the early hours of the morning (she’d probably called it ‘bastard o’clock’ or something similar), coming out of the bar and being stopped by a boy in half-drag similar ages with her who spoke rapidly and excitedly and told her that he’d messaged her about starting drag and she’d replied to him. The way realisation had dawned on her and the way she’d been her usual loud and boisterous self to cover up the fact she’d actually been quite bashful about the fact they were meeting for the first time.

There was no alternative, not least because of everything they’ve been through together; the years leading up to this moment and the rollercoaster it’s all been. She’s glad that they’re on a high because they’ve seen each other at their lows (been the cause of each others’ too, sometimes) and pulled through only slightly scathed, but always stronger. The producer had asked Lawrence who she’d wanted and when she, still speechless, had pointed in Ellie’s direction, seeing the tears start to stream down her face had only made Lawrence’s start all over again. They’d hugged- just the two of them this time- and the way Ellie had immediately felt like a safe place in the crazy chaos of reality reminded Lawrence so much of when they had filmed. The way even just hearing Ellie’s voice would stop her feeling homesick, the way she was a living comfort blanket.

She’d never tell that to Ellie, of course, because she’d never hear the end of it if she did.

It’s been a couple of hours and Lawrence is expecting everything to suddenly sink in any minute now. Something will click like the last piece of a puzzle and she’ll finally accept that she’s won, that the whole thing isn’t a giant and premature April fools’ prank. She turns her phone over in her hand, wondering what all this nervous energy is doing to her body chemistry. She’s got messages from her family, her friends, Kiko, the girls she works with back home. Well…some of them. But apart from reading them and frantically replying, Lawrence hasn’t checked anything else; hasn’t opened Twitter or Instagram, where the notifications are piling up like pizza leaflets through a letterbox and are equally as unwanted. If she thinks about them she can feel her stomach twist, wrung out like a wet towel.

Forty thousand likes. The Team Bimini tweet had forty thousand likes. What did her own get? Eight thousand? Lawrence thinks about the sheer scale of forty thousand people, compares it to the population of towns in Scotland. Almost Airdrie. Just under Coatbridge. She imagines a whole town of people, angry and furious and disappointed, and all of them tweeting her to let her know exactly that. She remembers in high school when she thought the whole of Hermitage was against her. She wants to tell baby Lawrence that that was fucking small fry. A thousand kids? Try the sheer scale of Bimini’s fanbase. Her breath is shaky when she tries to breathe in, like her lungs have reduced in size. It reminds her of that time in school camp when they all had to jump from a pier for some unknown-fucking-reason, how freezing the water had been and how her chest felt tight as she gasped for air. Lawrence supposes it was character building in the sense that it prepared her exactly for how anxiety would make her feel later in life.

In for four. Hold for five. Out for six.

“There she is!”

An ever so slightly slurred and wobbly voice breaks Lawrence’s reverie, and when she looks up she sees Ellie approaching her, a little unsteady even in the flats she’s changed into with a glass of prosecco in each hand. It says a lot that even at the top of a helter-skelter of an anxiety spiral, Lawrence’s heart still gives a little swell when she sees her friend. Ellie has always been able to make her feel better. She feels an almost silly sense of relief that she’s here.

Lawrence takes one last little breath in before plastering a small smile to her face. “Awrite? Where’s Mumma Diamond?”

“In her room conked out. Just got back from putting her to bed, she couldn’t hack it. Letting down the family name, that one,” Ellie huffs, sliding into the booth and squashing up right beside Lawrence, even though there’s enough space for two metres distance even if they had still been under strict instructions from the BBC.

“Tayce?” Lawrence asks, gratefully accepting the prosecco glass and hurriedly downing a too-big gulp in an attempt to calm herself down.

“Facetiming A’whora. Of course.”

“Of course. Maybe a bottle and a half of prosecco is gonny be the love potion she never knew she needed.”

“Fuck, we can only hope,” Ellie grins, already laughing through her words. “If we’re gonna be touring with them I don’t wanna have to karate chop through five layers of sexual tension every time I have to walk past them.”

Lawrence chuckles, tired but humoured and unable to not make the so-obvious joke. “You couldny fight sleep.”

“Shut the fuck up, I’ll fight you in a minute!” Ellie nudges her with her shoulder and spills both of their prosecco from the glasses in their hands. The gesture is affectionate and out of place with the impending threat. “Where’s Bims? Thought they were with you.”

Lawrence shrugs. “Went out for a smoke with one of the runners about twenty minutes ago and never returned.”

“Good for them. Always thought there’s something inherently sexy about a winch in a back alley.”

“Well, you would know.”

“Eh, so would you!” Ellie cries, nothing short of incredulously offended. Her expression makes her look even more like a cartoon character than usual, and it’s entirely too endearing.

“Yeah, forgot that popular phrase. It takes two to winch in a back alley,” Lawrence jokes, but her heart isn’t in it. It’s too heavy and her ribcage feels like someone laced her into a corset and pulled it too tight. She’s hoping Ellie is too drunk to notice.

Ellie sips her prosecco with her eyes on her, then scrutinises her as she swallows it. She frowns, her nose wrinkling up as she prods Lawrence with an acrylic-nail finger. “What’s up?”

Fuck.

“The sky,” Lawrence says without conviction, and the raised eyebrow Ellie gives her in return is enough to unlock her. She deflates like a balloon and brings her phone up so Ellie can see it, turning it over in her hands. “Just…as happy as I am, and as much as this is all a dream come true…I keep psyching myself up to open any social media, and I can’t, because this one fucking brain cell of anxiety keeps telling me that everyone out there hates me and hates the fact I’ve won.”

Ellie’s face falls into a frown. She gently pries the phone out of her hands and places it on the table, takes one of Lawrence’s free hands in hers and rubs her thumb over her knuckles. “But all your other brain cells know that’s wrong.”

Lawrence sighs. “So why’s that one louder than all the rest?”

Ellie presses her lips together in a badly-suppressed smile. She’s giggling as she speaks. “Because you’ve only got two brain cells.”

Lawrence splutters a laugh, shoving Ellie with her free hand. The other is still laced together with hers. As the laughter dies down and the momentary serotonin wears off, Lawrence can feel her brow furrowing involuntarily. “Forty thousand people wanted Bimini to win, Ellie. Forty thousand. You know that’s like a whole town? That’s like the population of Coatbridge?”

“ Fuck Coatbridge!” Ellie exclaims, affronted, and her shock and insistence makes Lawrence snort all over again. “Okay, forty thousand people is a town but really, what’s that to the rest of the world? Think how tiny that is in the grand scheme of things, Lawrence! Honestly, give a fuck about what any bastard who wants to send you anything vile thinks of you! You’re so amazing! You won! Fuck everyone else!”

Lawrence wants to feel cheered up. The prosecco Ellie’s drunk is making her all the more animated and lively, giving her words a determination and a passion that her speech so rarely possesses most of the time. Ellie is calm, and she doesn’t get wound up easily. There’s something about the fact she’s growing this animated over getting Lawrence to believe in herself that warms her heart a little.

Then again…

“It’s not just that, though. There’s girls from home that haven’t even said well done. Girls I’ve always supported and couldn’t do enough for, and it’s like…really? You can’t be happy for me when I’ve actually managed to do the one thing I’ve wanted to do for years?”

“Well maybe they have said well done, and you’ve just not seen it because you’ve been hiding,” Ellie gestures matter-of-factly at her phone. It doesn’t convince her.

“They won’t have. You’ll know who I’m talking about, Ellie.”

Ellie sighs a little, clearly conceding that Lawrence is right. Her grip on her hand tightens a little, and when Lawrence looks up at her in response her blue eyes hold a glint of assurance.

“Well, even if they haven’t…fuck ‘em. Onwards and upwards, chick. You’ve got ten new sisters out of this who’re always going to know what it’s like, they’re gonna be here for you no matter what,” Ellie says comfortingly. Lawrence knows why she’s said ten and not eleven, but Ellie affirms this with another squeeze and a slightly shy smile. “And you’ve always got me. You’ve always had me.”

This is true. She’s always had Ellie. Before the show, doing gigs with her and hanging out with her and going to DragCon with her. On the show, always there to reassure her or pull her out of a negative spiral or just lean against her shoulder and squeeze her hand. And after the show. Whatever that might look like. Whatever that might be.

She supposes that neither of them know yet.

“C’mon,” Ellie says decisively, holding out a hand for her as the song changes. It’s some sort of Paolo Nutini dirge, and Lawrence has to laugh at how obviously whoever is in charge of the music has rushed to attempt to find something Scottish. Lawrence can only blink at Ellie’s outstretched hand.

“Oh, fuck off.”

“Come on! ” Ellie laughs. Lawrence doesn’t know if she’s blushing or if it’s just the lights.

But she does know that she can’t leave Ellie hanging when she’s looking at her like that.

So Lawrence lets herself be dragged out to the dancefloor and pulled into a hug as Ellie sways them left to right ever-so-slightly out of time with the song, tipsy and full of affection given the way her arms are locked around Lawrence’s waist. It should feel stranger than it does. In reality, being held by Ellie feels as simple as just existing.

Or perhaps simpler than that, given the fact that Lawrence’s existence feels entirely surreal right now.

“You have to be in drag for half past se-ven,” Ellie sing-songs, bringing one of her arms out from around Lawrence’s waist and tapping her on the nose. Lawrence immediately misses it, so it’s a relief that it’s not gone for long.

“Because I wo-on,” Lawrence imitates back to her, and the way Ellie squeezes her waist in response and affirmation causes a smile and a blush to bloom on her face without her even being to control it. She rests her head against Ellie’s chest so she can’t have the satisfaction (ammunition) of seeing how she makes her feel.

It’s little moments like that that she needs right now. Anchors to keep her down on earth, to let her know that this isn’t just some really prolonged lucid dream and it’s all actually happening because currently reality is so absurdly ridiculous; she’s just won Drag Race and she’s slow-dancing with Ellie to the song that’s blasting through the speakers in the background, a parody of some American high school prom where she’s just been crowned the queen.

Moments like these- where Ellie’s holding her close as if she’s literally trying to protect her from the world- remind her that not everybody is against her. Not everybody hates her. Not everybody is wishing her a slow and painful death because Bimini didn’t win, least of all them. She knows that Ellie was never able to share what team she was on even though she hadn’t had a chance at the crown, but she didn’t have to. Not really. They’ve always been on each others’ team.

Ellie jolts Lawrence out of her daydream with the way her chest is shuddering, and Lawrence momentarily thinks she’s crying again before her soft giggle becomes audible over the music.

“What?” Lawrence tilts her head up, meeting Ellie’s scheming, smirking face.

“Can’t believe RuPaul Charles asked if you wanted to move to London, city of dreams, city of a thousand opportunities…” Ellie begins, Lawrence already laughing as she knows what the conclusion to her sentence will be. “…and you said, ‘yer awrite pal, am fine in Glesga wi the jakes an’ the Blue Lagoon chippy an’ the guy that stands on Buchanan Street and yells at everyone that they’re going to hell!’ ”

Lawrence would normally roll her eyes at Ellie’s impersonation of her accent, but she’s laughing too much at the joke that’s forming in her head to commit to it. “RuPaul asked if I wanted to move to London, and I said…”

The pair of them are almost giggling too much to get the punchline out, Ellie clocking on to how it’s going to end. In sync, the pair of them splutter out a “… NNNNAAW! ”

Giddy and happy, Lawrence rests her cheek against Ellie’s chest again. “London’s got junkies too, anyway.”

“This is gonna sound really selfish, but…don’t actually move to London,” Ellie’s voice murmurs from above her, and there’s something plaintive to it that makes Lawrence refrain from replying with a joke or a barb like she normally would. The way Ellie follows it up cements that fact. “It would probably be so good for you, but like…Glasgow would be lost without you, genuinely. And so would I.”

Lawrence can’t cry again tonight, even if it’s only because she thinks it’s physically impossible, so she just squeezes Ellie tight until she worries about her ability to breathe. “I’m not going anywhere, hen.”

Lawrence doesn’t even really know what they are, her and Ellie. They both still have Grindr and they talk about their hookups and raised hopes and broken hearts with each other like friends. But they’re not really just that. They’re affectionate, and they open up to each other with the same shared unspoken understanding of something Lawrence doesn’t understand. They hug for too long and cuddle up to each other when they’re together, and Lawrence can’t count the amount of times during filming that she’d find strength in the way Ellie would squeeze her hand without a word. They’ve woken up together too many times (why she’d felt the need to remind Ellie of that while the cameras were rolling, she’ll never know) and kissed each other more than that. Every time they say I love you they mean it, but they also mean a little bit more. There’s no butterflies or fast pulses or fluttering hearts- they’re past that stage. Everything is just natural and normal and easy.

She wonders if they’ll ever put a label on what they have. There’s a part of her that doesn’t ever want to.

“If we’re both still single by the time we’re forty,” Lawrence begins, leaning back to look at Ellie through her glazed, half-drunk half-tired eyes. “…we should just say ‘fuck it’ and get married.”

(She doesn’t even know if it’s a joke or not.)

Ellie laughs as if it is and nods as if it isn’t. “Drag wedding. We’d need to upstage Tayce and A’whora, though.”

Lawrence realises something. “I’ll turn forty two years before you.”

There’s a pause as the song starts to fade out, and it makes Ellie’s murmur seem louder than it is. “That’s okay. We don’t need to wait for me.”

The jolt her words give Lawrence’s heart and the way Ellie’s talking as if it’s an actual plan makes her think maybe it wasn’t really ever a joke after all. It’s ridiculous though, and it’s all theoretical, and it’s a totally hypothetical scenario, and they’re both drunk , for Christ’s sake. So Lawrence pulls out of Ellie’s arms and takes her hands in her own, the song that’s started playing more upbeat and the opening chords inciting some sort of hope and optimism in her heart for the future that’s unfolding for the pair of them.

“One more song then bed?” she suggests. Ellie raises her eyebrows as she looks down at her.

“Whose bed?”

“Shut the fuck up, Dirty Diamond,” Lawrence shoots back without missing a beat, and as the first lines of the song fill the room she leans back and begins to spin the pair of them in a circle, both of them laughing as if everything is as simple as just that room, and the music blaring out from the speakers, and the lights flashing above them drenching them in purple and pink.

#rpdr fanfiction #rpdr uk #ellie diamond #lawrence chaney #ellie x lawrence #fic challenge #rare pair #uk2 #canon compliant #fluff #ortega #these people in this room (don’t shine like you)

[elaboratedbee]

Bigby x Reader

Pairing: Bigby Wolf x Reader (i changed this to be gender neutral!)

Summary: bigby deals with his rapidly growing feelings for the new Fable that moved into the apartment above his, a nymph. (alternatively, you give bigby flowers)

Rating: E (hella fluff)

Word Count: 4208 (idk how it got long it just did i’m so sorry)

Note: hey guys, this is my second imagine! :) I just love this wolfman rn and I literally cannot wait until s2! i’m a new blog so pls feel free to interact, or request something, bc corona has given me hella free time ;)

You Belong Among The Flowers

You

As you set down the last box in your new apartment, you let a sense of accomplishment wash over you. It hadn’t been easy to save enough money to afford an apartment in the Woodlands, but you worked hard managing your business, growing flowers and owning a florist as well as growing fruit and vegetables which you sold to the grocery stores in Fabletown. When Snow had informed you of the two new apartments that had become available, you couldn’t help but fall in love with the idea. The place you were living before was a little sketchy (read: it was a total shithole, and you were definitely close to getting stabbed on several occasions). 

This way, you would be closer to the allotments you had managed to buy right at the edge of Fabletown, closer to Snow who you had thoroughly enjoyed getting to know during the first couple of months of her deputy mayorship, and it was a hell of a lot safer. The Woodlands had the extra insurance of being the home of the big, bad wolf. Fabletown harboured some pretty stupid criminals, but there weren’t many people stupid enough to target the apartments across the hall from the Sheriff. 

The place needed some life in it, as soon as was possible, however. The stark and empty room made you uncomfortable, and as soon as you set your first fern down on one of the shelves, you immediately felt better. The best part about the place, which really convinced you to part with most of your savings, was the balcony. You couldn’t wait to have it bright with life, a practical jungle on your doorstep. A flower nymph with no flowers was not a happy being, so that was the first thing you got to work on, planting your seeds and setting out your pots. 

It was already falling dark by the time you were done, but you were more than content to spend the night on a mattress in the middle of the floor now that you were surrounded by, at least the beginnings of, a flower garden. 

Bigby

By the time Bigby reached his cramped, little apartment in the evening, it was usually long after darkness had fallen over Fabletown. As he turned the key in the stiff lock, a sigh escaped his lips. He’d been tracking a car thief all day and had not been successful. The detective hated going home with a case hanging over him; there was no way he would be able to get any real sleep while all of his thoughts and theories were racing through his head. 

Bigby opened the door, dim yellow light from the hallway seeping into the room. The lingering smell of smoke from his Huff and Puffs and the scent of whiskey hit his nose even harder once the door was opened, and even he grimaced slightly at the smell. He flicked on the light and took his phone off of the ringer, a habit that he’d developed long ago. It was nice to be enveloped in peace and quiet in the evening. It was the way he liked it, he told himself. Somewhere in the very back of his mind, he knew that he really made himself unavailable because that way he could pretend that being alone was a conscious decision that he made.

Making his way to the small window in his living space, he opened it in an attempt to allow some fresh (well, as fresh as it got for New York city) air into his apartment. Bigby froze as an unexpected scent was the first to hit him, and he inhaled deeply. It was a floral scent, different kinds of mingling together. Some overpowered the less aromatic ones, but Bigby’s sense of smell was heightened enough that he could pick out each individual smell and he traced it to somewhere above him. The pitch-black darkness outside made it a futile goal to find out where it was coming from, so he simply stood and basked in it, sure that it would be gone in the morning. He assumed that someone in a nearby apartment had received a bouquet of flowers and had left it on their windowsill. It was concerning that they had left their window open, he noted, even the Woodland building wasn’t particularly safe. 

A bittersweet pang of homesickness ran through his body like a shiver, pooling in his chest and making his heartache. Mostly, he avoided thinking about the Homelands, as it always resulted in the sad longing that he was feeling now. But with the scent in his nose so reminiscent of the beautiful woodlands and sprawling idyllic spaces that they had once called home, there was no way he could avoid it now. Once the initial sadness passed, he allowed himself to relax into the sense of security and joy that were stronger than any negative feelings when he thought back to their home and all of its splendour. Although the person, or monster, that Bigby had been back then was a source of regret, he could not deny that he’d do almost anything to trade the dirty, concrete cityscape outside of his window for hills and mountains, forests and rivers. 

For the first time that he could remember, he didn’t reach for a cigarette or a tumbler of whiskey when he sat down in his chair to rest at last. Instead, he inhaled deeply, and let the smell of flowers lull him to a restful sleep. 

When he awoke, he was pleased to find that the pleasant smell persisted, which made him considerably more optimistic about the day ahead. There was one lead that he thought to chase up, but he figured that he ought to fill in Snow on the recent happenings before making his way out. She was much busier now, since the Crooked Man. Things weren’t perfect, he didn’t think they would ever be, but they were certainly better. Snow was making changes, just like she had promised to herself and everyone that she would. When Fables came through the door of the business office, their wishes weren’t always granted, but they were always heard.

Bigby thought that was a step in the right direction. 

After showering and getting dressed, he stepped into the elevator and pressed the button for the correct floor. The line for the business office was already fairly long, despite the early hour of the morning and he resolved not to take up too much of Snow’s time. Ignoring the eye rolls and general disgruntlement from the Fables in the hallway as he bypassed the line, he made his way into the office. Snow was busying herself with a stack of papers, looking rather stressed at it all. He didn’t like to see her that way, but he did prefer it to the look of frustration and helplessness that he caught glimpses of when she was working as an assistant. 

Opening his mouth to announce his presence, he promptly closed it as something took him by surprise. On Snow’s desk was a vase of flowers, a big and beautiful bouquet. Proud white roses were peppered with baby's breath, all sitting on a luscious green bed of eucalyptus and hydrangeas. It was perfect, it was if it were an incarnation of Snow herself. He looked at it and realised, at that moment, exactly why people gave each other flowers, he had never had a reason to consider it. 

He must have been staring for a lot longer than it felt like because what finally broke him from his reverie was the sound of Snow’s laughter, soft and musical. Frowning at the sight of her mocking him, he flipped her off, which only made her laugh more. “Who’s the secret admirer?” He inquired, “I’ll need their address too, you know, just in case.” 

Snow glared at him.

“I’m kidding.” Bigby placated her, raising his hands in mock surrender. The smell of this bouquet was different from the one coming through his window, telling him that it was a different set of flowers, but surely the giver of these was also the source of the others. It seemed like far too much of a coincidence, otherwise. 

With a pointed look, Snow said, “you already know it. I told you last week that someone new was moving into the Woodlands! Since Crane is gone, we renovated his hideous penthouse into two new apartments.” Even the mention of his name raised Bigby’s hackles and got his blood boiling, so he could only imagine the disgust that his friend must feel whenever he’s brought up. 

“Right,” Bigby agreed, hazily recalling the conversation that he had definitely not paid his full attention to. It was no wonder that Bigby had missed them moving in, considering that he usually leaves the Woodlands in the early hours of the morning and returns in . . . the early hours of the morning. Yikes.

“I told them about the apartment, so they sent me these as a way to say thanks,” Snow explained, gesturing toward the flowers.

He wondered what their connection was to the flowers, whether they just liked them or whether they were a part of their history, their story. Once again, Bigby opened his mouth only to be interrupted by an inpatient sounding knock on the door. Snow jerked her head towards it before throwing an apologetic smile towards the Sheriff. “I’m sorry, Bigby. I have a lot to do. I should probably get going with these meetings.” 

That was his cue to leave, so the wolf nodded at her and made an exit from the office. He was busy, too, and things were never really peaceful in Fabletown, so it was probably for the best that he got going, but he couldn’t help but wish he had asked for a name.  

He was soon to find out, however, only a couple of days later. Taking a long drag from his cigarette, Bigby used his free hand to open his mailbox. It was more of a tradition at this point, considering he couldn’t actually recall the last time he received a letter in the post that wasn’t a bill. 

An out of tune ding announced the arrival of the elevator but Bigby didn’t turn around, not wanting to invite conversation. He had just placed the car thief into custody, and Snow was going to arrange a trial for tomorrow. The system was much fairer now, more democratic and he liked it that way. Being the final authority on the Crooked Man last time was some heavy stuff, and there was no way to make everyone happy. Now, there was a jury, a real trial, fair sentencing. Fabletown was slowly but surely dragging itself off the ground and trying to become a more just place, a more safe place. If Bigby could do anything to make sure of it, he would. 

Finally looking up, he turned his head to see which of his neighbours had joined him at the letterbox. It was you.

He almost choked on the cigarette in his mouth as he regarded you, and when he took it out and crushed it underfoot, he could smell you, too. Without the overpowering scent of smoke under his nose, the floral scent that he had been succumbing to every night since the first overtook him and he felt a strange constriction in his chest.

You were beautiful, ethereal, but in a much different way than he could usually describe. It was the quirk of your mouth as you offered him a grin and the glint behind your eyes that suggested you were laughing at your own joke internally. “Sheriff.” You addressed him by his formal title and Bigby was torn. He wanted to hear you say it again, over and over. Sherriff. You said it with respect, with admiration even. It wasn’t an insult, a sarcasm, unlike when most of the Fables addressed him with his title. But he also wanted to hear you say his name. It was this desire that returned his ability to speak.

“Call me, Bigby.” 

You closed your mailbox, holding your letters in your hand and smiled wider, introducing yourseld in return.

“I’ll see you around, Bigby.” 

You were walking away, and Bigby, for the first time, was struck with the desire to stop you, make you stay, talk just a little longer. 

“I, uh, I like the flowers.” He managed to growl out. You looked a little taken aback at his tone and he cursed himself, but you recovered and offered him yet another smile. He noted how you gave them out like it cost nothing. 

“Oh, Snow’s?” You prompted him for more information. 

“Yeah, and I can,” he made a vague gesture towards his face, “smell the ones you have in the windowsill. From my apartment.” 

Your eyebrows raised a fraction in surprise, and he felt a weird sense of pride. What the fuck is wrong with you? He thought to himself. 

“Really? I’ll keep them there,” you were so sincere, you made such a simple comment sound like a promise. He nodded, unable to think of yet another reason to delay you and altogether confused about why he was freaking out the way that he was. You stepped into the elevator and was gone. 

You

You stepped off of the elevator and into your apartment, placing the letters down onto a table. The place wasn’t huge but you had made the best of it. The walls had a fresh coat of white paint, making the place seem more open and bright, the furniture was simple, mainly second hand, but it fits. Best of all, your beloved balcony. You guessed that’s what the Sheriff had confused for the flowers on your window-sill.

Great, leafy ferns and potted plants adorned your apartment all over, but the balcony was the centre of it all, and it was only just beginning. You had planted all manner of things, and you were only getting started. Due to your being a  flower nymph, they grew faster, strong and healthy, and the seeds that you planted mere days ago were beginning to form buds, and even open up. The scent was sweeter. The plants were happier, but you couldn’t really explain that sort of thing to another Fable. They would laugh at the notion, but you could feel it.

Moving to the city had been hard for you, really hard. The nymphs were the caretakers of the homelands, the trees, rivers, lakes and plants. The animals, too, even if they didn’t always know it. To have it ripped away was more painful than anything else you could have experienced. It wasn’t just a home that had been taken from you, it was a part of yourself that had been left behind. 

Your mind drifted to your recent interaction as you watered them with care, and you felt your heart rate pick up when you thought of the Sheriff. He was tired, you could tell, but he seemed kind enough. It was a common mistake that nymphs only took care of the plants in the forest, when really they guarded the animals, too. It gave you more of a read on the beastially inclined residents, and you could almost feel the weight on Bigby’s shoulders as you stood next to him. 

I like the flowers. 

The compliment played over in your mind. It had taken you by surprise, considering what all of the other residents had told you about the big, bad wolf. You trusted Snow’s word above the others when she told you about him, that he was a man that wanted to change, had changed. He wanted to make this place better, she had told you, just like her. But even Snow had grumbled to you a few times about how stubborn, how hot-headed and how harsh he could be. 

Over the next couple of days, he was stuck on your mind. You paid far more attention to the coming and going of the wolf than before, realising for the first time that he was rarely home at all. Could this really be the same man that everyone complained about downtown? The one that Fables still questioned as to whether or not he really cared at all? Every time you passed him, you sensed his exhaustion, his frustration. His loneliness. But there was something else when you passed him, too. This little spark of joy and excitement. You knew it must be the scent of the flowers, what else could it be? He had already remarked on it.

Deciding enough was enough, you went about making him the perfect bouquet. 

Throughout the week, you worked on your gift. You arranged it untraditionally in a long, thin wooden box which was overflowing with greenery. Succulents and hydrangeas were scattered amongst them like stars in the night sky. Wild berries shone like jewels, clinging to their stems. Most importantly, bright white lily of the valleys hung like bells. You picked them because of their sweet scent, hoping that the wolf would enjoy them. They were common in the homelands, and you wondered if it would remind him of the place. 

Finally satisfied, you picked up the arrangement late one evening and stepped into the elevator. Am I being crazy? You thought to yourself as your grip on the box tightened. You just thought that all of the things the Sheriff did for Fabletown deserved a little recognition. It was the least you could do say thanks, right? 

Arriving at the correct floor, you took a deep breath before knocking on Bigby’s door. It was a little late for a house call, you realised, but he wasn’t home at any other hour. The wolf opened the door, scowling until he saw you. Confusion replaced the general displeasure on his face until he noted what was in your hands. “Oh,” his voice was full of realisation, “I can hand those to Snow if you want, but if you just wait until tomorrow, she’ll be back in her office,” he explained to you. 

What? You realised quickly that he thought the flowers were meant for Snow and you shook your head, a little saddened that he didn’t even think that they could be for him. 

“Actually, Sheriff, they’re for you. For your windowsill.” 

The man’s face went completely blank while he processed the information, which was kind of scary. The guy really didn’t give anything away. 

“For me?” He repeated, sounding almost suspicious as he raised his hand to his mouth and removed his cigarette, seemingly wanting to inhale the flowers instead.

“Yep.” You assured him firmly, “you said you liked the scent of them so I thought you might like some of your own.” With your words, the energy of the wolf changed. The exhaustion and anger faded substantially and he finally seemed warm, almost as happy as your flowers. You seized the opportunity. “You mind if I come in? I can tell you about watering them and stuff.”

Bigby failed to hide his face a little more this time, a hand coming up to rub the back of his neck in embarrassment. “I don’t have anything to offer you, and the place is a real shithole.” He warned you. 

“I didn’t come for anything, I just want to bring you these,” you answer and he relents, stepping backwards and opening the door to allow you in. You expected the smell of cigarettes to be worse, but he had an open window that seemed to be helping with that. You set the flowers down on the windowsill and turned to face him. He was closer than you had expected, and a blush broke out onto your cheeks at the proximity of the wolf to you. You are overwhelmed with the desire to step even closer, but you stay put. The man was already freaked out, he didn’t need your crush to make it any worse.

“Why?” He seemed reluctant to ask like he had been trying to answer the question himself but just couldn’t figure out the answer.

“To say thank you. You do a lot for us, especially those of us who live in The Woodlands. I think of how much safer this place is just because you live here. And you said you liked them.”

“I don’t exactly do anything other than be the Big, Bad Wolf.” He points out, and you catch a cutting undertone to his argument.

“Bullshit.” He seems surprised at your choice of words and raises an amused eyebrow at you. “You get up at the crack of dawn and you get home little before then, sometimes not at all. You single-handedly protect all of the Fables in this town. You deserve a hundred flowers.” You pointed this all out casually, shrugging your shoulders but Bigby looks deeply uncomfortable. You wondered why he was so tense as you pointed out all he does. 

You wondered if anybody does.

Bigby

He thought that if you come any closer to him then he won’t be able to stop himself from kissing you. He also thought that he can’t move away. 

The scent of the flowers, your scent, was making him feel almost dizzy. It was hard to believe that you were in his apartment, that you brought him flowers. You brought him flowers, you brought him flowers, you brought him flowers. Ever since they spoke, such a small, meaningless conversation, he hadn’t been able to get you off his mind. Sure that you had forgotten it by the next day, he felt like such an idiot replaying it in his mind before he could fall asleep at night. 

But you hadn’t. You had remembered what he said and brought him flowers. 

“Thank you.” He realised he hadn’t even said that yet, and he turned away to admire them, and so that he didn’t have to look at you anymore. Clenching his jaw, he implored himself not to ruin this already, to just control himself, like he had with Snow once upon a time. But this time, it seemed impossible.

Then, you touched his arm. 

He was so acutely aware of your hand on his skin the whole time that it was there that he could barely hear what you were saying. All of the nice things you were saying about him, falling on deaf ears. God, he felt pathetic. Was that really all it took to turn him stupid? One compliment, one touch.

He hadn’t been touched in a while, though. Not like this. By someone who wasn’t trying to hurt him, or calm him down. Not by someone who just wanted to be close to him. 

Fuck it, he thought, and stepped closer, leaning into your touch. There were inches between you now. 

You

All of a sudden, he was in front of you. His skin was warm to your touch, and his eyes were simmering with something. You think back over the last couple of days. The way you had watched him, the way you’d thought of him. How you had spent hours finding the perfect flowers, arranging them just so. That wasn’t gratitude or friendly admiration and you knew it. You wondered if he knew it.

You looked up and met his eyes, they were almost gold now that you were close, more than brown. That’s the last thing you remember thinking before you weren’t thinking anything, but feeling the wolf’s mouth on yours. His hand comes up to cup your face, holding you close and the other hand moves to your waist. It’s needy, and almost desperate as the both of you simply give in to whatever desire you were pushing back. 

His face was rough, and you delighted in the coarseness of his hands, a shiver running through your body. He invaded all of your senses, occupies all of you for the minutes, or hours that the two of you are interlocked. The sharpness of his teeth on your bottom lip, gone as quickly as it came prompted you to gasp ever so slightly, allowing his tongue passage into your mouth. When you finally pulled away, air a terrible, evil necessity to you now, you dared to open your eyes and reassure yourself that you weren’t dreaming. Bigby was still pressed up against you, his eyes a brighter gold than they had been before and his breathing urgent.

“I like the flowers,” he chokes out, “I really, really like the - “

You cut him off by grabbing him by the tie and pulling him down towards you once again, rolling your eyes slightly at how awkward he was. You’d figure it out. Kissing him breathless, you finally released him and met his eyes. “I like you too, Bigby.” 

The wolf shared a genuine smile with you, one that reached all the way up to his eyes and flashed his sharp incisors. You wanted to see it again, a million times.

You were going to need more flowers. 

#the wolf among us #bigby wolf #bigby wolf x reader #bigby x reader #twau #imagine #bigby wolf imagine #my underappreciated baby #someone give him a hug #the wolf among us fanfic #bigby wolf fanfiction #the wolf among us imagine

[seriestrash]

Chapter One

- Banner by the amazing @punzellies -

Summary: TJ Kippen walks through life looking out for number one because nobody else seemed to. When an unlikely friendship sparks new feelings, TJ’s outlook on everything begins to change.

Note: This is an AU. Most of this will be explained in the story but a here’s a quick summary of the main changes: TJ and Cyrus met during the muffin scene but never reconnected after that. The kids are now all in high school. GHC and co. are sophomores whilst Amber and Iris are juniors. 

(read on ao3)

Chapter One 

Word Count: 1662

✗ ✗ ✗

It’s the last day of summer vacation before TJ officially becomes a student at Grant High School. To round off the break in a way that poetically reflects how the summer has gone for TJ, the rain pours down outside. 

TJ sits alone at a table situated at the back of The Spoon in a position where he can see everyone in the diner without anyone really noticing him. TJ has his headphones plugged in but with the music low enough that he could still clearly hear everything going on around him. TJ often did this, he liked to be aware but he also wore them because it tended to make people leave him alone. 

Even though TJ could hear everything clearly, he still pretends like he didn’t notice his cousin approach the table. It’s not until she forcefully yanks the cord - pulling the headphones from TJ’s ears completely - that he looks up from his phone.

“What do you want, Amber?” TJ grumbles. 

“Nice to see you too, cousin.” Amber exaggerates her smile. “I was on my break and I didn’t see you come in.” Amber explains. 

“I didn’t think you were working, if I’d known you were, I wouldn't have come in.” TJ exaggerates his smile too, mimicking his cousin. 

“Did you come from work?” Amber asks, choosing to ignore TJ’s jerky behaviour. 

“No, I wear this for fun.” TJ quips sarcastically as he motions to his Jackson Street Gym t-shirt. “I was walking home but it started raining.” 

“Wasn’t your mom picking you up today?” Amber questions, continuing to ignore his snarkiness. 

“I guess she forgot me.” TJ shrugs, “That’s been happening a lot lately.” 

"Maybe Aunt Tess was just busy,” Amber smiles sympathetically, “I finish work in an hour, want me to drive you home? I could try slip you some free fries while you wait.” 

“I don’t want your sympathy fries or your ride home.” TJ rejects grumpily.

“I’m just trying to be nice. No need to be such a jerk about it.” Amber huffs. “Walk home in the rain. See if I care.” 

TJ did just that, staunching out of the diner with a huff of his own. Luckily for the teen though, the rain had started to clear up so the walk wasn’t actually too bad. Eventually it stopped completely and the sun even poked through the gray clouds.  

With the weather change, TJ decides to walk through the park even though it adds an extra five minutes onto his trip. As TJ is passing the swing set he spots a somewhat familiar face singing a mopey song as he swings.

TJ usually ignored this kind of thing and kept to himself or he’d be the kind of guy to poke fun at it and he kind of does just that when he approaches and comments, “Nice song, what do you sing when you’re on the slide?” 

The boy stops swinging and answers with another rhyme, to which TJ can’t help but let out a faint laugh as he hadn’t actually expected him to have a song.

“I know you,” TJ says a little uncertain, “Chocolate, chocolate chip muffin right?”

“And you’re scary basketball guy.” He says with a hint of a smile on his confused face. 

TJ’s expression drops, although the boy had said it with a smile it felt like an insult nonetheless. “Actually, TJ.” 

“I know. Cyrus.” He points to himself. “I can’t believe you remember the muffin thing, that was like two years ago.”

TJ shrugs it off casually. “Didn’t you move to London or something?” 

“It was more in the country.” Cyrus explains, “But basically yeah. I’m back now though. For good.”

“When did you get back?” TJ asks. 

“Today.” Cyrus beams. 

“And your first stop was the park?” TJ raises a brow. 

“Swinging makes me feel better about things.” Cyrus admits. 

“You’re not happy to be back?” TJ questions. 

“More anxious.” Cyrus explains. “I’m kind of battling with a big decision.” 

“Like what shirt you’re going to wear for the first day?” TJ playfully teases. 

“Please,” Cyrus coaxes his head with a smirk, “I decided that two weeks ago.” 

TJ chuckles but eventually the laughter fades, he looks at Cyrus with a subtly curious expression, “So does it help?” TJ asks. “The swinging?”

“It helps me.” Cyrus nods, “Why don't you try?” He suggests, “It could just be the rain dampened look but you kinda seem like you need it.” 

TJ considered just walking away, he had already stayed longer than he planed - which was not at all - but before he even realised what he was doing, TJ took to the swing beside Cyrus. 

TJ begins kicking his legs back and forth, the momentum builds and he’s quickly swinging high, a smile building on his face, “Wow, this does kinda make me feel better.” 

“I told you,” Cyrus smiles as he swings at a slower pace. “There’s something about feeling like a kid that makes your problems feel not so important. What do you need to feel better about anyway?” 

“You don't know me. I got stuff.” TJ swings. 

“Betcha I got more stuff.” Cyrus almost jokes. 

“Betcha I can swing higher.” TJ challenges.

“I’m afraid to swing high, that’s part of my stuff.” Cyrus admits. 

TJ continues to try and bait Cyrus into swinging higher but when the boy continues to reject the idea, TJ jumps off his swing and a childhood game ensues. 

“That was exhilarating!” Cyrus exclaims and TJ watches Cyrus’ swing slow with a smile. 

“Feel better about your upcoming decision yet?” TJ questions. 

“I think so.” Cyrus laughs, “How about you, do you feel better?” 

“Yeah. I really do.” TJ smiles, swinging really had made him feel better but acknowledging that out loud again changed TJ’s mood, like a subconscious reminder went off about how he shouldn't feel that way. His expression drops, “I should probably get going.”

“You don’t have to.” Cyrus stops his swinging completely. 

“I still have to decide what shirt to wear.” TJ jokes. 

“Avoid red.” Cyrus continues the bit, “I find it too angry for a first day.” 

TJ lets his laugh taper off, “Thanks for reminding me about swinging.”

“You’re welcome.” Cyrus nods. “See you at school tomorrow, not so scary basketball guy?” 

“Sure thing, underdog.” TJ says almost sarcastically and it wasn’t meant in a malicious way, TJ just couldn’t imagine they’d have much reason to be in each others lives after this. 

After the swings, TJ makes his way home and on the way it began to lightly rain, getting him all damp again. TJ enters his apartment quietly, gently placing his keys on the hook by the door. 

“Teej, is that you?” His mothers voice trails down the hall.

“Yeah, it’s me.” TJ calls back. Silently he wonders what his mom would do if it wasn’t him. The chances of the person at the door -letting themselves in- being someone else were slim, after all it was just the two of them that lived there.

“I’m in the kitchen.” Tess announces. 

TJ zips up his still slightly damp jacket and finds his mom as promised, in the kitchen, stacks of boxes scattered about. 

“Sweets, you’re all damp.” Tess points out with a confused expression. “Has it been raining today?” 

“A bit.” TJ nods casually. 

“Where have you been all day?” Tess questions, “You shouldn’t be out in the rain, you can’t afford to get sick with high school just beginning.” 

“It’s fine, I was inside.” TJ states. 

Realisation crosses over his mothers face and her expression falls to guilt, “I was supposed to pick you up from work.” Tess slaps her palm to her forehead. “Why didn't you call me?” 

“I figured you forgot.” TJ shrugs. “It’s okay, I don’t mind walking.”

“Teej, I’m so sorry.” Tess apologises, “I didn’t mean to forget. I got distracted-” 

“Packing up our life, I know.” TJ cuts in bitterly. 

“Teej,” Tess frowns, “I know you don’t want to move but it’s not like it’s across the country. You’ll still be right here in Shadyside. The house will be bigger and there’s yard space. I’ll make sure you can set up a hoop right in the backyard.” 

“I don’t care about a big house or a stupid hoop.” TJ snaps, “This is our home, mom. Our memories are here.”

“Sweets, those memories will always be with you.” Tess soothes, “You don’t need this tiny apartment to keep them alive.” 

“You’re right, so why bother keeping half this junk anyway?” TJ angrily pushes a  box off the counter and dishes smash in the aftermath. 

“TJ!” Tess gasps. 

“I’m going to my room.” TJ states. 

“Dinner will be here soon, I ordered pizza.” Tess tries to defuse her sons anger. 

“I’m not hungry.” TJ grumbles as he leaves his upset looking mother behind him. 

TJ retreats into his room tossing his wet jacket and shirt to the side before putting on something dry. Just as he pulls the new sweatshirt over his head he catches a glimpse of something on his desk. It’s a new set of pencils with a post it note attached that reads, ‘love mom’ with a simple stick figure drawing of the two of them. TJ smiles at the gift and basic drawing, he had been needing new pencils for a while now. The thoughtful gift made him feel guilty for being such a jerk to his mother but TJ was stubborn and still angry that he was being forced to move so he stands firm about hiding away in his room for the evening.

TJ flops down at this desk, his unfinished summer reading staring him right in the face but instead of picking up the syllabus, he reaches for his new pencils and his old sketchpad. 

The time ticks by and as the sun sets on the final day of summer break, TJ fills the page with a drawing of two boys on a swing. 

✗ ✗ ✗

End Notes (pls read): Okay just a short little chapter to get us started. The next one is longer, I promise :) 

I noted a few changes at the top but here are a couple more changes explained further that were mentioned in the chapter;

- Kippen cousins (kinda): 

I am not really a Kippen sibling fan. I like the HC, it’s fun but too far from cannon for me personally. But!! I like the idea of their grumpy dynamic so I’m using it but putting my own spin on it - therefore cousins rather than siblings. (Also not having Amber be his sister works a lot better for this story). 

TJ’s mom and Amber’s dad are brother and sister. Amber’s last name is Brown (as some people tag her as such I can’t remember where this last name came from tbh.. I think it was Josh?). TJ’s mom’s maiden name is Brown but TJ is Kippen because of his father. Hope that’s easy enough to follow :) 

- Cyrus moved to England 

Soon after the muffin escapes and before their on screen swing set scene, Cyrus moved to England. Cyrus attended a fancy boarding school but more on that in future chapters. 

Since Cyrus moved away, TJ and him never really bonded fully after the muffin scene. This change will have impacted both their lives (as I’m a firm believer that people impact who we become) so you will see changes - or changes that never happened - with both of them.

OKAY. There will be a few tweaks to canon here and there but you should all be able to follow along each chapter easily enough!! 

Now to address, swing set new.0; I wasn’t even going to have TJ and Cyrus re-meet this chapter - I had a sort of different prologue planned but scrapped it - and their re-meet was never planned to be on the swings again but I do believe in fate and the swings really sparked their bond so I wanted to revisit that in my story whilst expanding on it to fit their new character dynamics. 

I would like to mention that whilst some parts of my story might include canon tyrus moments reimagined, I won't just be rewriting canon. I plan to incorporate the canon tyrus essence into this story but this story is something new and different. It will not be the tyrus we know but in high school. 

SOOOO, that’s a lot more wordy than usual for my end notes! Yikes! 

I hope you enjoyed this first instalment! More to come! :) I don’t have a planned posting schedule but I hope to release one chapter a week at least!! So ask about the tag list to keep updated! :)

Please let me know your thoughts, likes, reblogs, replies - they are all welcomed and very much appreciated! 

Tag List

- If you would like to be added or removed at any time please feel free to message me -  

@green-lemonboys @thorffour @marvelous-me-always @jonahsbeck @tyrusmagocious @deductionbattles @muffin-duo-xviii @perpetualtyrus @livelovelaugh456 @istillwearyourdenimjacket @thedampjofangirl @protectpetersimmonds @paytonotinthemood @i-am-beyoutiful @cereal-fan @differentandstupidhuman @luzawithoutu  @thefaeriemagic3 @arvinarvox32 @justyouraveragefangiri @someone-get-a-medic @ilovemyredgayson @thebisexualweirdo @amazingpartytattoos @justsay-love @andi-man @spacejellyyfish @ciniluv @amfcndom @bambiandambi @rilaya-tyrus @awkwardlonerkid @moonlightrush @tyruscrack @i-dont-do--sadness @jarolddaiii @tjgoodkippen

#tj vs the world #tyrus #andi mack #tj kippen #cyrus goodman #slow burn

[eltanin-malfoy]

Hard To Swallow (Kill Or Be Killed III)

pairing : draco/fem-collegestudent!y/n 

word count : 2.7k

warnings : swearing, mentions of murder/poison/drugging, angst

Chapter 1 2

a/n : super sorry this took sooooo goddamn long. This is my first work that wasn’t betaed, so any errors or as such are all thanks to me :P any and all feedback is highly appreciated. requests are still open! also if you’re a med student or a doctor or work as an emt or just have a lot of knowledge on drugging, pls pop into my dms! am going to need a lil help for the next chapter. 

Chapter 3 : Hard To Swallow

It had been a.. surprise, to say the least. Really. To say the absolute least. What the fuck is happening? I haven’t told.. a single.. person around here my last name. I could never have. He threw the letter down to the floor, still holding his bleeding finger tightly. The only ones who know are my boss and the landlord. But I think he remembers it wrong.. after all, it isn’t.. He almost retched. Mafcoy. 

But there was absolutely no reason for the elderly missus to try to freak him out, was there? No reason at all. Right? She definitely wasn’t one of the people who his father had stolen from, right? She wasn’t some criminal mastermind who was secretly looking for revenge? No! Of course not! That’s.. ridiculous. Totally! That’s comical! It’s.. 

Insanely perfect! 

What better way to poke at someone than to appear absolutely vulnerable? He would try and do that with.. Y/N but he didn’t have the figure for it. Tall. Lanky. Sharp-featured. Not to mention, ridiculously handsome.. Okay, he was getting ahead of himself here. Someone was watching him. Who? Who?

Had one of his dad’s old colleagues figured out where he’d moved? Were they just trying to shock him into being nicer? Or to leave the country altogether? Or was someone planning to kill him?

Why would anyone want to kill him? He was clearly just in over his head! Goddammit, Draco. Shut up! It’s.. just some stupid prank! Of course! Some stupid git has found out your name and just wants to freak you out! He sighed and walked to his bathroom, pulling off the cap and sunglasses. He opened up his cabinet and took out a bandaid. He opened the packaging and began wrapping his finger in it, then began to stare at himself in the mirror. 

He’d been focusing on the wrong detail this entire time.. Someone had said that they were watching you! Jesus Christ, Draco! He could feel goosebumps forming at the back of his neck and he shuddered. Had they planted hidden cameras in his home? Was there someone stalking him? Had someone actually managed to hack into his devices and watch him from the cameras? He felt jittery and decided to calm his nerves with another fag, reaching into his pocket for the pack.

***

 Unfortunately, even after Draco decided to take every precaution possible (put duct tape over the webcam of his computer, do in all the blinds of all his windows, check cabinets he normally didn’t open for bugs), he wasn’t any closer to figuring out who it was that was watching him.. He could only hope it was the same for Y/N, but of course, she wouldn’t even know he was following her in the first place, he didn’t send her an ominous note saying that he was.

Some people are just too.. over the top. He decided. Better to work hard in private than try to scare your target.

And so, he decided to put in the hours. He had several until his shift, anyways. Further research (or.. checking Y/N’s Instagram account for updates, rather) managed to work out for him a bit. He managed to lay out the locations where she’d most recently posted from in hopes of figuring out her usual hangout spots. It had been fairly easy and ridiculously predictable. Every location she visited was in close proximity to her university campus. Of course. It definitely wasn’t creepy for a random guy to walk around a campus, even if it was in the middle of a bustling city, not attending classes and just searching for a certain someone. Goddammit. Why did there have to be so many people everywhere all the time? Makes everything that much harder.

He groaned, instead getting up to grab some lunch.

*** 

He managed to make no real progress until suddenly, as he was sitting in the Employees Only room, it was as if an angel heard his prayers.. Okay, no angel, it was just Y/N. 

It was too cold to head out for just a smoke that evening. The regular breeze had worked itself up to a strong, blasting wind which threw icy air at anyone in its path, and no matter how badly he wanted a puff, he wasn’t ready to risk getting winded for it. So, for his good old break, he just had to gussy up and hang around in the room where his, now suspicious, boss hung around. He kept himself as far as he could from her, sitting down in a corner and pretending to look busy on his phone.

Soon enough, he decided to check his soon-to-be victim’s account and saw an update on her story. There was some kind of a poster for a club he recognised seeing on maps. 

Carts & Horses.

Singles Night! 

Free pints up for grabs for the winners of our Karaoke Competition!

Happy Hours are from 7 to 9!

She’d added a short caption underneath it, “Does anyone wanna join me?” Jesus Christ. She moves on quick, doesn’t she? He stared at it for a few seconds before shutting his phone and thinking about it. It was for this coming Friday.. A good four days for him to ready everything. He just had to find a way to prick her with the needle without anyone noticing him do it. That was all it had to be. And what was good was, her little question made it clear she wasn’t going to go with anyone she was close to. 

Now, he could actually get to setting out a concrete plan for that fateful Friday night.

***

Everything was ready. Mostly. 

He’d sorted out everything to do with the injections, i.e. managed to sneak into the pharmacist’s section of the store and take out what he needed while modifying the online inventory. He’d then combined them in his own kitchen! Of course, it was a bit difficult getting everything into those syringes and then capping them without creating too much of a mess.. but it seemed to have worked. Obviously, he didn’t have a test subject. Although.. he supposed Y/N was technically one. 

He’d need enough time and a secretive place in which to conduct his plan out without being noticed.. and this was hard. The whole procedure, if it was to be conducted, would take at least take ten minutes. What to do.. What to do.. 

He couldn’t attempt to seduce her and bring her to his house (which, admittedly, might not have worked because of their spat from earlier) because.. people might notice and remember. He’d have to try his best to stay undercover and go unnoticed.. but how could he do it while still trapping her while she was fishing for someone to hook up with? This was going to be hard..  

***

The day finally approached. Draco managed to get out of going into work for the day by feigning a strong head-cold. Easily done, what with Draco’s brilliant acting skills and.. his boss being the slightest bit hard of hearing. He spent the day planning what to do. 

He realised that lurking around or in the corners of the pub likely would not sit well with any of the actual patrons, so he’d have to enter it and hang around a bit. Obviously, he’d keep his distance and try not to attract attention to himself. (Although, he couldn’t help it if people did swoon over him..)

Draco tried his best to pick out something that would make him.. fit in with his surroundings. What did blokes wear to pubs again? It had been a while since he’d socialised, especially in a setting like this. He decided on a black button-up shirt and a pair of tight fitting dark trousers. I mean, I can’t exactly go in looking badly dressed, can I? He remarked as he looked himself over in the mirror, a slight grin on his face. Okay! You aren’t trying to get laid, you idiot. He took a deep breath.

He shook his head as he packed everything carefully into his thick coat. Okay. Run it over again. He shut his eyes tightly. When she’s by herself, make sure she doesn’t see you and grab her from the back. Give her the midazolam and then gag her and blindfold her. Tie her hands up as soon as she loses control. Then, after five minutes, give her the vecuronium bromide. Then, as she stops breathing, give her the good old potassium chloride, then get out of there as soon as you can. Jesus Christ, it did sound ambitious. But, with a bit of luck, it would work out just fine.

***

Draco managed to make it to the pub a few minutes past 7, which was when he thought the bitch would decide to show up. Even spoilt kids search for discounts sometimes, don’t they? He didn’t enter the pub at first and just gazed in, looking around for her. 

And there she was. Sitting by herself at the bar. He felt that same slight annoyance at her presence, but she looked.. good tonight. She wasn’t that bad to look at if she didn’t open her mouth, really. She was wearing a red shirt and some jeans, which all looked.. fairly tight, even in the distance. She was looking towards the entrance now and then, seemingly waiting for someone while she sipped slowly at a drink. So.. maybe she is here with someone? Or maybe waiting for someone? It was unclear. Either way, I should be able to grab her when she’s getting in or out of the ladies’ room.

He stepped into the pub, staring down at the floor as he found a seat by the bar. It wasn’t too far from where she was sat, but enough that she wouldn’t see him unless she tried, and if he tried hard enough, he could ignore whoever it was singing like an absolute tosser. “Grey Goose on the rocks, please.” He muttered, looking to the bartender so he didn’t look like a total creep. And of course, a little liquid courage certainly wouldn’t hurt.

“Ten pounds. Lemon?”

“No need, thanks.”

Draco slid over a note as the bartender passed him his drink, then looked over at Y/N.. who was now.. looking at him. Shit! His eyes widened but he quickly glanced to the side, hoping to play it off as just a.. casual.. scan of the room. But no! She’d seen him staring right at her.. Fucking hell.

He grit his teeth and turned to the side, covering the side of his face with his hand. Hopefully she didn’t realise it was him...

Who was he kidding! Of course she did! He should have gone ahead and dyed his hair darker to blend in, as much as he would have hated it. He should’ve actually bought some makeup and done something to his face to look different. God-fucking-dammit! He almost slammed his fist onto the table as he felt himself grow all the more frustrated. 

He felt his ears turn red and shook his head. It’s not that big of a deal. Of course not. He just had to avoid getting into any conflict with her. If he just sat here and avoided her, she definitely wouldn’t approach him, right? She was looking for someone nice, right? Although.. her last affair did seem questionable. He quickly glanced over at her again and thankfully, she’d looked away. He wondered what had prompted her to take such quick action.. or not really, seeing that she was just sitting by herself, drinking whatever it was she was drinking. She seemed to shrug off people coming over to talk to her as well, instead just staring down at the counter in front of her. Suddenly, she turned to look at him again with an eyebrow raised.

He felt color flush his own face and he looked to his glass, internally whacking himself in the face with it. Why would he make the same mistake twice? What was he doing? He soon heard the light tapping of heels near him and shut his eyes tightly. Draco, it’s over now. You’re going to have to plan for some other day. Or.. pick another victim. If enough people see this, they’ll know she hated you.

“What were you just.. doing?” She was almost uncharacteristically soft, like she was trying to hide something. 

“Nothing.” Draco murmured instinctively.

“Come on.” Y/N sighed. “I caught you staring at me. Twice.” Could it be.. ickle Y/N was ashamed to be spotted here? On ‘Singles’ Night’? He clenched his jaw to force the corners of his mouth not to curl up into a smirk.

“Just.. curious.” He uttered, still staring at his glass. Y/N put a hand on the counter next to his glass and he almost shuddered. 

“Are you here.. for.. Singles’ Night?” He turned to look up at her and froze, staring into her eyes. “What? What is it?” She drawled out, squinting slightly at him.

He stared at her for a few seconds and it suddenly hit him. This.. this girl. How was he supposed to kill her? She was a person, just like him. A person with memories, with loved ones, with goals. No, stop it. He shuddered and looked to the side, face growing hotter. She’s abused her lifestyle enough, she has to pay, doesn’t she? He almost jolted upwards as he heard a slight clunk on the counter beside him. 

“Um.. are you alright?” She was still looking at him, her hand falling back on the counter.

“I’m fine.. and.. yes. I am.” He managed out, gulping nervously. 

“Oh. Um.” Whatever retort she had planned seemed to suddenly fizzle out of her mind. “Okay.”

“Are you.. as well?”

“Yes.” She seemed to turn pink herself. She suddenly turned towards the counter herself. “Excuse me.. Could I have an iced water please?” The bartender nodded and walked to the side, grabbing a glass.

She swallowed softly herself, pressing her red-painted lips together in a way which made Draco want to touch them for himself. He felt that same pang of guilt all throughout him. He could feel those syringes in his coat weighing him down, pulling him towards the floor, almost. 

The bartender slid a glass over on the counter, right next to Draco’s. He turned to look.. and surprisingly, they were hard to tell apart. Both were clear.. and iced. He guessed which one was hers and handed it to her, after which she took a few sips from it, absolutely silent. It certainly was growing a bit awkward between them.. Draco didn’t really have anything unpleasant to say to her and frankly, he wasn’t exactly sure what to do in front of her like this. 

Her.. almost murderer, am I? He looked over at the counter again. His drink.. was a little fuller. Had the bartender refilled it for him? Gee, he hoped he wouldn’t be charged for that. 

Suddenly, Y/N pressed both her hands against the counter and let out a deep, deep breath. His eyebrows furrowed and he looked up at her face, which was steadily turning a deep shade of red. She brought a palm to her face and felt her cheek. “What..? Oh-” She mumbled out, then started walking away from Draco. She continued to speak but began to slur her words, and her steps grew more and more sluggish. Funny. Very funny. Is this her idea of a joke? This seemed.. unlikely, considering her usual.. turbulent nature. Or, is she just bad at handling her liquor?

SLAM!

He heard the loud thud across the floor from him almost before he realised Y/N had fallen to the floor. Her arms were on either side of her torso as her face lay on its side, her lips slightly parted. Her legs shook slightly but then lay flat on the floor, spread out on the floor. What? What was going on? He quickly got off his bar stool and rushed over to her, while the crowd nearby her hushed up. Whoever it was singing karaoke shut up as well. Someone yelled something over at him but it just.. faded away. 

Was this because of something he’d done? Or.. was someone else trying to attack her.. as well?

Chapter 4

#draco x reader #draco malfoy #draco malfoy x reader #draco #hp #draco imagine #draco malfoy imagine #hp imagine #angst #murder

[can-youmoveyourseatup]

“I think I just kissed you?”

A/n - omg hey hi hello !! im so so sorry I haven't posted in the longest of times but this is me trying to find my groove again! so ta da! some tooth rotting fluff coming right up!! also sorry to @unyielding-as-the-sea who has been waiting a very long time for this imagine (I'm sorry I'm the worst) but better late then never pls send me requests, feedback all that stuff and enjoy!!

((sorry in advance about how cliche but sjsjsjjs I was feeling the fluff))

request: Hey I saw you're taking Marvel requests? If it's not too much trouble, could you please write something Bucky/Reader where the reader really isn't a morning person? Thank you :)

((I’m so sorry I deviated a lil’ from the prompt but hopefully its okay!))

warnings: a lil bit of swearing? but other than that just some tooth rotting fluff!!

word count: 6.7k (yeET)

masterlist

You shrieked when your sheets were ripped from your tight grasp, the cold air enticing a shiver to travel down your spine. You blinked sleepily, blindly patting the bed only to groan loudly when your fingers met the mattress. Another grumble slipped past your lips when the curtains were torn apart, the morning sun streaming into your once dark oasis. Your mood was already turning sour and the day had yet to begin.

Leaning up on your elbows, you glared at Steve standing by the foot of your bed, his hands on his hips disapproval etched into his expression. It was a look you had grown accustomed to, having been on the receiving end more times than you would care to admit. You glowered at each other for a few moments, Steve shifting to cross his arms against his chest, his eyebrows raised expectedly. You took this as your cue to drag yourself out of bed and prepare yourself for whatever torture he had in mind. Steve’s frown grew deeper and when you shook your head defiantly.

You sighed, breaking the eye contact, coming to terms with the inevitable. “I hate you so much right now.” Your voice croaked uncomfortably, several octaves lower than your normal tone. Steve didn’t so much as flinch, at the insult, a ghost of a smile threatening to take over his features.

“That sounds more like a ‘you’ problem, not a ‘me’ problem.” Steve deadpanned, his lips curling into a smirk when you pouted in his direction. “Now get out bed. We have a meeting.” You let out another whine, before burying your face in the pillow beside you.

You detested mornings. There were very few things that could pull you out of your slumber willingly and team meetings were definitely not one of them. Listening to one of Steve’s very obviously pre-rehearsed speeches was not something that enthralled you to begin with, but add a Monday morning into the equation and it became your worst nightmare.

“Nah, I’m good Cap but thanks for the offer.” You couldn’t suppress the smirk you were sporting when your heard Steve groan, his exasperation evident. Even though you couldn’t see him, you knew he was throwing his hands up like the dramatic Star-Spangled-Captain he is.

“Y/N! Get up! Meeting room in five minutes!” You watched with your face pressed into your pillow as Steve stalked out of your bedroom, all hope for sleep evaporating instantaneously. Huffing, a miserable pout settled on your lips as you glowered at the ceiling and cursed Steve for his stupid antics. Your eyes wandered to the door, weighing up the pros and cons of curling up back under your sheets.

“Five minutes, Y/N!” You sighed delicately as Steve’s order rang down the corridor, no doubt aware of the plan you were devising. The team knew you all too well.

You didn’t even try to hide the scowl that had settled on your lips as you entered the meeting room, ignoring the looks of amusement your team shot in your direction. They didn’t expect anything less of you - still in your pyjamas, you hair a tangled mess with two different socks on either foot.

“Nice jammies Y/N.” You swatted the back of Sam’s head, rolling your eyes when he continued to laugh. You scanned the room for an available seat, not oblivious to the fact that you were the last team member to enter the room.

“Y/N! Here, hun, I saved you a seat!” You turned to smile gratefully in Natasha’s direction only to freeze in your spot when you realised who else you would be seated next to. Quickly you recovered, glaring at her harshly to which she only smirked. You tried to stay calm when you made eye contact with Bucky, but your heart wouldn’t stop thudding uncomfortably in your chest when he smiled warmly at you. He was wearing the blue t-shirt that brought out his eyes, the one that you loved.

“You’re welcome.” Natasha whispered in your ear, giving you a wink when you glared at her in response.  A few weeks ago when you splurged on one too many cocktails at Tony’s birthday party, your tongue became a little too loose, and you babbled on to Nat about how big of a crush you had Bucky Barnes. She sat beside you at the bar listening to you ramble on and on about how attractive you thought Bucky was and how his jawline could slice your finger just by looking at it. You moaned about how his eyes made you weak and how that blue t-shirt that was a little more or the snug side drove you mad. Since then, Natasha had not hesitated in trying to admit your feelings every chance she got. She knew how smitten you were, always shooting you not-so-subtle glances every time he would walk in the room or flash you a smile that made you feel all tingly inside.

You internally groaned when you clumsily plonked yourself in your chair. You didn’t fail to notice the very little space that sat between you and Bucky. His broad form not helping the situation as his elbows and legs unintentionally took up most of your space. You turned to Natasha again.

“Do you think you could m-”

“Nope.” You mouth dropped open in disbelief, blinking in her direction. You were about to retort and preferably wipe that stupid little smug smirk off her face but Steve clearing his throat cut you off. You resorted to the iciest glare you had ever given another individual - she knew what she was doing and she was loving every second of it, unfazed by how utterly flustered you were.

It wasn't as though you didn't talk to Bucky, because you did. The two of you shared inside jokes and you lived for the banter between Bucky, Sam and yourself. But too often, you found yourself getting a little to caught up in the way he smiled widely, and when he would catch you staring, you would shift from one foot to the other awkwardly before blubbering nonsense about an errand you had to run.

“Right.” You broke eye contact with Natasha and turned to face Steve who was looking at everyone expectantly, before delving into a long speech about the mission in two days. You tried to pay attention, you really did, but the moment he started to talk “strategy” he lost you. You feigned interest, nodding enthusiastically whenever you accidentally made eye contact, making sure he didn't catch you staring distractedly out the window behind him. 

It didn't help that Bucky kept fidgeting beside you. It was like your senses were on hyper alert. You couldn't help but notice every time he would sigh delicately and bring his bottom lip between his teeth, turn to fiddle with the loose strand on his shirt humming quietly under his breath or shift his chair slightly trying to get comfortable. You tried not to jump every time his thigh would bump against your knee from its persistent swaying, but every time it did your could feel yourself growing hot. You tried to pretend it didn't affect you when his hand brushed against your bare thigh when he checked the time on his phone.

“Sorry, doll.” Bucky whispered, smiling lightly before pocketing the device. You shook your head dismissively, despite the way your felt inside, cursing yourself  for still being in your pyjama shorts. 

“s fine, Buck.” You smiled in return, pretending to refocus your attention on Steve, fighting the blush that threatened to crawl up your cheeks. You were trying to remain nonchalant but how could you? He was making it real damn hard.

So when his thigh hit your knee again moments later, you didn’t freeze but when he kept it there, his foot dangerously close to your own, your heart pounded furiously in your chest. It didn’t help at all when he leant forward, elbow on the arm rest, so close to you that you could smell his cologne. You were delirious? Or did you just hear him chuckle lowly, not loud enough for anyone but you to hear.

Oh my gosh, Y/N pull it together woman!!

Trying to calm yourself and maintain your nonchalant facade, you rested your head and your arms on the table, breathing out a shaky breath. To your utmost surprise, you felt Bucky follow your lead behind you, leaning on the table. He was close before but now, he was all you could think about as his breath tickled your neck, his intoxicating scent invading your sense. You watched Steve in a daze as he turned to gesture to something behind him.

“Have you ever noticed how small Steve’s ass is? Like, the serum made everything double in size except for his ass.”

When Bucky whispered in your ear, you all but choked on your own saliva, a mixture of a cough and a burst of laughter escaping you. You flailed your hands in front of your face helplessly, coughing repeatedly as Bucky patted you on the back, rolling his lips in his mouth to stop himself from laughing at your expense. With watery eyes you snuck a glance at Bucky, your cheeks glowing when you found him grinning sheepishly at you, the corner of his eyes crinkled and his lower lip caught between his teeth. 

“Carry on,” you spluttered out, when Steve paused, eyeing you incredulously as though you had grown two heads. You couldn’t blame him; you couldn’t very well have a coughing attack from literally nothing. “I’m all good. I’m breathing, see?” You huffed out an exaggerated breath, rambling slightly, Bucky’s grin throwing you off guard.

“As I was saying,” you ignored the obvious annoyance that laced Steve’s words at the interruption and stared at the board.

“I hate you.” You bitterly mumbled, refusing to acknowledge Bucky chuckling behind you.

“No, you don't.” He whispered back and you could practically hear the grin in his voice. You tried your best not to melt right then and there when you felt his leg still pressed against your own, his foot now nudging yours softly. But he was right; you really couldn't hate him.

It had been two days since the meeting room incident and Bucky has been driving you fucking crazy. When the meeting ended you did not hesitate to dart up from your seat and stumble to the kitchen, stammering nonsense about cravings. You didn’t miss the way Natasha laughed loudly and the way Bucky’s eyes curiously followed your retreating figure.

‘Maybe he was in a good mood?’ you thought to yourself, trying to brush off his actions. But his touchy-feely behaviour did not cease and it was driving you mad. It seemed every time he walked into a room now you would blush furiously refusing to make eye contact, already anticipating the little touches and caresses that made you tingle all over. 

A hand on the small of your back whenever he walked past you, mumbling a “’scuse me, doll” every damn time. You weren't sure if you had just noticed, but he never called you by your first name opting for a pet name - doll, sweetheart, darling. The casual drawl of his voice would cause the blood to rush to your face at the very thought. A hand squeezing your hip when you were facing the countertop, back to the door way as he reached up to grab a bowel despite the clean stack beside you from the dishwasher. You could feel his lingering glances at training, making you stumble one too many times and almost embarrassingly drop a weight on your foot. Offering to dry the dishes when it as your turn to wash, standing closer than need be, his hip bumping against yours whenever he cracked a joke. 

He was driving you to the brink of insanity, your head spinning at the very thought. So here you were, lounging on the couch not at all focusing on the re-runs of Friends playing on TV. Natasha and Tony had insisted that Steve and Wanda catch up on the series but your mind was elsewhere. You couldn't stop overthinking the way Bucky had squeezed your hip jokingly during training in response to your sharp tongue. 

“Scoot over.” The voice in your ear made you jolt in your seat, not fully registering what Bucky said as he walked around the sofa, looking at your legs expectantly. You shifted slightly, tucking your feet underneath you, shocked at seeing Bucky look so casual. I mean sure, you both lived together and he had seen you at worst morning state, but this was different. He just looked so much more comfortable than you had ever seen him. The black t-shirt plastered against his chest exposed his arm completely, the pair of red flannelette pyjamas hanging loosely of his legs as his sock clad feet padded against the floor, his hair tied back into bun at the nape of his neck.

You felt yourself grow warmer at your not-so-subtle staring and the way he pressed himself up against your side completely, despite there being plenty of room on the other side of him. He shot you a smile, the one where his eyes crinkled, small and gentle as though this was something the two of you had down thousands of times. You returned it, albeit slightly shaky before turning your attention to the television, pointedly ignoring the matching smirks Natasha and Wanda (who she no doubly had blabbed to) were shooting in your direction. 

Your thoughts became incomprehensible when Bucky let out a groan, settling himself further into the couch, his arm winding around your shoulders and his feet stretching out to rest on the coffee table. You tried to not let your breathing become erratic as the weight of his arm inevitably brought you closer together,  tucking you into his chest with your head against his shoulder.

“Are you cold?” He didn't even wait for you to reply before throwing the blanket that sat on the end of the couch over the two of you. He sighed lightly again, bringing you even closer to his chest, his hand soothingly rubbing your arm mistaking your goosebumps for the weather.

“Thanks, Buck.” You smiled gratefully despite your overactive heart pounding in your chest. You tucked your head onto Bucky’s shoulder before you had time to think about what you were doing.

“You okay, doll?” He whispered lowly after a little while, his fingers caressing your shoulder to get your attention. You nodded quickly, glancing up at him through your eyelashes to see his lips turned up into a lazy smile. “Good.” He said simply re-focused his attention to the screen.

But you couldn't pay attention, how could you when he was this close? You stared forward distracted, tucking your bottom lip between your teeth every time he let out a laugh or sniggered. Soon he began to thread his fingers softly through the ends of your hair and despite the way your heart thudded, you found yourself relaxing, subconsciously leaning further into his side. You suppressed a shudder every time his fingers gently scratched against your scalp, as he thread them through the length of your hair. 

Soon enough, you could feel his fingers slowing down and his arm getting heavier around you. His head kept lolling back and then jotting forward as he tried to keep himself from falling asleep. He wasn't the only one; Tony and Steve had left about half an hour ago, bidding everyone goodnight and you could see Wanda struggling to keep her eyes open. It was when his head rested gently on top of yours that you gently tugged on his arm. 

He jolted upright, blinking sleepily. “You’re falling asleep, Bucky.” You whispered, blushing when he raised his head and almost knocked into yours in the process. You smiled at his tired expression, subconsciously brushing the hair that had fallen from his hair tie away from his forehead. 

“M sorry, did you say something darlin’?” Your heart hammered again, the term of endearment doing crazy things to you. You laughed lightly, rolling your eyes at his sheepish expression.

“I said: you’re falling asleep. Go to bed before you actually collapse on top of me.” He let out a small laugh, his arm slipping down to rest on your waist, sniffling a yawn.

“S’pose I should. But I’m so comfortable.” You didn't think it would be possible for him to get any cuter but it was as he nuzzled his head in the crook of your neck, oblivious to the surprised squeak you let out. You tried to pry him off you, partly because he was heavy and partly because you thought you might possibly implode from having him this close.

That proved to be unsuccessful because all he did was fall down to your lap, reaching for the other blanket behind you to drape over himself. 

“By all means, make yourself at home.” You raised your hands in surprise, taken aback but just how touchy Bucky could be when he was sleepy.

“Thanks darlin’, I will.” 

You rolled your eyes, leaning back on the couch, not realising it yourself when you fell asleep. When you woke in the morning from Sam’s shouting, you were tucked into your bed, not remembering the small forehead kiss Bucky gave you before he left to collapse in his own bed. 

The morning of the mission came and your scowl was deeper than ever. “Why couldn't we do the mission in the afternoon? Why do we have to wake up so stupidly early.” You grumbled to yourself, flitting around the room to make sure your gear was intact and your small emergency backpack was filled with the essentials. 

With a heavy sigh, you close your bedroom door behind you, making your way to the quinjet. You smiled tightly at everyone, nodding at Steve who bid you ‘good morning’. You rarely spoke before missions, especially missions that were this early in the morning. You were either a) trying to wake themselves up or b) too nervous to even attempt a conversation. 

You sat in the furthest seat - once again the last team member to arrive, returning the smile Wanda shot you over her shoulder, seated in front of you. 

“Good morning, sunshine.” You watched in surprise as Bucky slid into the sit beside you, smiling broadly despite the early morning hours. You rose an eyebrow at his all-too-chirpy behaviour, a confused smile settling on your lips. You couldn't remember a time when he wasn't sat up the front with Steve, flicking Sam’s ear when he wasn't paying attention.

“Is it a good morning though? Is it really? I wanna be in bed.” You grunted in response, your breath catching in your throat when Bucky grinned in your direction, bumping his shoulder against yours.

“I’m right there with ya, hun.” You laughed lightly, turning your attention to star absentmindedly out the window. You sat together comfortably, passing the time with small talk - you both needed the distraction.

“Is that Y/N? Is that actually Y/N having a conversation with someone before noon? I though I would never see the day. What did you say to her Barnes?” Sam quipped, laughing to himself from the front, a teasing grin settled upon his lips.

“Shut it bird brain.” You snapped back, keeping your eyes downcast feeling everyone looking at you. Your spirits were lifted when you heard Bucky suppressing a laugh beside you, his chest shaking slightly as a chuckle escaped him. 

“Rude.” Sam deadpanned simply, rolling his eyes before turning back around. You took your chances and shot a fleeting glance in Bucky’s direction to find him grinning boyishly down at you. Without even realising you grinned back, growing warm at the look he was giving you. It was looks like these that you replayed in your mind all the time. He looked at you like you were the light of his life, his eyes clearer than ever with a genuine beam plastered upon his face. But you always inwardly scolded yourself, not wanting to build up your hopes for them to be knocked down. You turned your focus to the front aimlessly staring out the window as you fiddled with the buckle on your seat; un-doing it and re-doing it. 

Something gently nudged your thigh, and you glanced down to find Bucky’s human hand palm facing up resting beside your leg. You bit your bottom lip and had to contain the squeal you so desperately wanted to let out. You had seen enough rom-coms and read enough romance book to know what that meant: he wanted you to hold his hand. 

And so you did, placing your palm gently against Bucky’s warm one for him to intertwine your fingers together. 

‘You were probably annoying him with the seatbelt.’ you thought to yourself, trying to make sense of it all.

You didn't dare look at him, trying to gauge his reaction from the corner of your eye. You heart thudded when you noticed the pink shade that dusted his cheeks, he too pointedly not making eye contact. You jumped slightly whens his thumb gently caressed the inside of your palm, a shudder unexpectedly running down your spine. 

A comfortable silence lingered, neither of you feeling the need to fill it with conversation. Your mind was reeling, barely noticing when the quinjet began to land. Bucky’s hand gently squeezing your own brought you out of your daydream. 

“C’mon darlin’, lets go kick some bad guy’s ass.” You snickered as he squeezed your hand one more time before letting it go, your palm hitting your thigh limply, already missing the warmth.

How did I end up here?

You thought to yourself, your mind reeling as you stared at the very small room and the very small single bed pressed against the wall of the makeshift bedroom. You blinked slowly, your grip on your bag tightening slightly as you refused to focus on anything else. You began to connect the dots, recalling Natasha’s voice in your ear over the intercom.

“Its too dangerous to come back to the quinjet right now. If you travel a little further down the path there’s a small hotel, I’ve booked you two a room. Stay there for the night and Steve and I will come and get you in the morning.” Before you could even let out a protestant squawk she had left the line, refusing to respond no matter how many times you screeched her name down the intercom.

“Do you want to shower first?” You were reminded of Bucky’s presence when he gently touched your bicep, nodding in the direction of what you assumed was the bathroom. 

“Huh?” You blanched, blinking up at Bucky who was too close, close enough that you could see the small cut that was already healing over his eyebrow. Bucky smiled patiently, evidently not startled at all by the very small single bed you were both going to have to squeeze into. 

“The shower; d’you want to use the shower first.” You could hear how tired he was, no doubt just as eager as you to go to sleep. He had been at the forefront of the fight with Steve, whilst you came in later, his bones no doubt aching from the mission. But here he was, being so damn thoughtful making you think the unthinkable again.

“No, Buck its fine, you go first. You need it.”

“Are you trying to tell me I smell, sweetheart?” You scoffed rolling your eyes.

“Yes,” You deadpanned, laughing at his look of mock offence. “now go have a shower, before you collapse on the floor.”

“Are you sure?”

“Yes! Just don't use up all the hot water, please.”

“Yes ma’am.” Grabbing his bag off the floor where he had dropped it, he turned to the bathroom. “Thanks, love.” He smiled at you over his shoulder before closing the door behind him. 

Despite the jokes and your calm demeanour you were still most definitely freaking out on the inside. You waited until you could hear the shower running before you reached into the bad and with shaky fingers, you made a call.

“Natasha Romanoff I am going to murder you when I get back.” You hissed down the line as soon as she answered, trying keep your voice as low as you could, mildly aware of Bucky humming lowly as he showered. 

“A ‘thank-you’ will suffice Y/N.” 

“A ‘thank-you’?” You almost yelled incredulously, all but collapsing on the bed. “Nat, theres one bed and I can barely sit next to him on movie nights without hyperventilating about how fucking good it feels when he has his arm around me! How in the hell am I gonna be able to sleep in the sam- holy shit. Nat my heart won’t stop fucking pounding! What the shit, oh my gosh. This is it; I’m gonna die.”

“You’re not going to die you lunatic, it’s called feelings.” She laughed teasingly causing you to narrow your eyes.

“Don’t sass me right now Romanoff, I’m about to hyperventilate! There’s only one bed. Holy shit!” You repeated angrily, swearing profusely at nothing in particular. A small part of you was jumping for joy to have an excuse to cuddle up again to your long-time crush but the other part of you was screaming.

“Y/N? Doll, are you okay?” Bucky’s voice came through the door, gentle, soft and welcoming. You didn't even register how loud your voice had gotten, he was obviously alarmed by your exclamation. 

“Y-yes! I’m fine! Just uhh, can't get the television to work!” You cringed at your own words, cursing yourself inwardly. Who were you? Steve? 

“What the hell Y/N?” Natasha giggled down the line uncontrollably, no doubt having the time of her life. You froze when the water stopped.

“Listen, you better tell Stark to get me another room or so help me-”

“Sorry, no can do! Gotta go! Love you, stay safe!” You gaped in surprise when you heard the dial tone. Before you had time to redial and yell at her some more, the bathroom door opened. 

“All yours.” Bucky smiled, his hair still slightly damped pulled back into his regular bun, clad in a regular pair of training wear: sweatpants and a t-shirt.

“All my what?” You blurted, feeling yourself flush all over. 

“The bathroom, darlin’,” Bucky laughed, not at all bothered by your complete lack of people skills right now. “I’m going to jump in bed, what side do you want?”

You froze again at how casual he sounded, evidently not at all bothered by the prospect of sharing a bed with you. 

“The wall, please.” You squeaked, your grip around your phone tightening as you felt yourself flushing ever more. 

“Sure thing.” He smiled again, tossing his bag by the foot of the bed. You nodded, standing in the middle of the room in a daze before abruptly turning and entering the bathroom. 

You huffed out a breath as you stared at your reflection, wincing at your matted hair that stuck to your forehead, drenched in sweat. How did Bucky smile at you the way he did when you looked like that? You paused for a few moments more, trying to collet and make sense of your thoughts. 

You were almost positive he didn't like you like that. You were absolutely sure you crush was completely one sided. But a small part of you was screaming that he reciprocated your feelings, the way he kept touching you so casually and looking at you like you were his and he was yours ignited a part within you that just wanted him closer. Groaning lowly you ran your hand over your face positive you weren't going to make it through the night without having a mental breakdown. 

You showered slowly, even when the water went cold, you took your time attempting to delay the inevitable. You had no idea how the hell you were going to face him when you thoughts wouldn't stop. Begrudgingly, you turned off the water when you fingers began to wrinkle, drying yourself off. You froze when you opened your bag to find it empty. Gone were the clothes you had packed earlier.

You were so going to murder Natasha when you got home. 

“Bucky?” You called out softly, gripping the towel around you as tightly as you could. 

It didn't take him long to respond at all, “What’s the matter?” His voice was laced with sleep and you immediately felt guilty for more than likely waking him. 

“I don't know how, I swear I packed clothes, but they're, erm, not in my bag,” Thanks to a certain red headed nuisance. “But my uniform is real gross right now. Do you mind going downstairs and asking where the-”

“Don't be silly darlin’, here, I've got a hoodie, it'll be long enough on you anyway,” He cut off your ramblings and before you could even protest, you heard him rummaging around the room then knocking softly on the door. 

“My eyes are closed, sweetheart I promise.” You took in a breath trying to calm yourself. Slowly you opened the door, to find Bucky his hand outstretch gripping the jumper, his metal fingers over his eyes. You paused for a moment, rolling your lips into your mouth to suppress the giggle that was threatening to leave your lips. 

“Are you laughing at me?” Bucky grinned, his bottom lip captured between his teeth. 

“No! No -I. . . Thanks Buck.” You rambled, snatching the hoodie from his grip and closing the door hastily behind you. You could hear him chuckle to himself before returning to bed, the springs groaning loudly under his weight. 

Quickly, you pulled the hoodie over your body, adoring the way it engulfed you entirely, the sleeves coming past your hands, the scent that has been driving you crazy surrounding you completely. With much hesitation, you pulled open the door avoiding Bucky’s lingering eyes which you could feel watching your every move. 

“I got the TV to work!” Bucky smirked, wiggling the remote in your direction proudly. You flushed and looked down at your feet, remembering your outburst. 

“Right. That’s uhh. . . that’s good Buck.” You pretended to yawn, wanting an excuse to fall asleep quickly and avoid causing any potential awkwardness. 

“Tired?” Bucky questioned, watching as you threw your bag next to his. You nodded, smiling lopsidedly in his direction before awkwardly clambering to your side of the bed. You quickly crawled under the sheets, apologising when you accidentally kicked his leg.

“Goodnight, Buck.” You whispered, trying to settle into the uncomfortable bed without invading too much of Bucky’s space. But it was impossible, Bucky was so close to you and eerily calm about the whole thing, absentmindedly flicking through the channels on the television.

“G’night, love. Sweet dreams.” You closed your eyes thankful that the sleep your were praying for came quickly.

It was hot. It was way too hot to even think right now. You could literally feel the sweat dripping off your skin as you kept your eyes closed, your clothes sticking to you in the most uncomfortable way. What a lovely way to wake up, you thought to yourself, letting out a small groan as you felt yourself twitch, the deep sleep you were once in slipping away from you due to your current uncomfortable predicament. But nevertheless, you refused to move - there was no way you were going to get up early if you didn't have too especially given the way your bones were aching.

Taking a deep breath, you buried your head further into the pillow, the stiffness prompting your eyebrows to crinkle. You couldn’t help but notice the silence that seemed to engulf the air; something that you were never fortunate enough to experience in the compound. You panicked for a moment before everything came rushing back: the mission, Natasha and Bucky. You would never get that look he gave you out of your head. For a moment, you let yourself think again of the possibility that maybe he was just as nervous around you as you were around him, recalling the blush that was on his cheeks when you clambered awkwardly into bed, his hoodie resting above your knees. 

Your thoughts quickly became muddled together when you became aware of the body that was curled up behind you. You felt your heart literally skip a beat, your eyes snapping open and your head spinning when you realised just how close they were, but when you caught sight of the metal fingers that rested above your pillow you could feel yourself flushing for a whole new reason. This time you were positive it wasn’t because of the heat. You stilled completely as you stared up at the metal panes, your mind racing; you couldn’t remember falling asleep last night, too drained emotionally and physically, but you were sure you had left as much room as possible between the two of you, but now there was none, a blush crawling up your neck as you become aware of the arm that was round around your waist. 

Bucky’s human fingers had slipped beneath his hoodie, lightly brushing against the skin on your hip, dangling on your stomach. Your legs were tangled together messily your foot resting against his calf, your toes no longer cold. You could feel the way his nose was buried in your unruly bed-hair, his breath trickling down your shoulder as he slept on completely unaware of what he was doing to you.

Now you really regretted picking the side against the wall. You desperately wanted to get out of bed to avoid the awkwardness that would for sure ensue if Bucky found himself wound tightly around you. 

As stealthily as you could, you turned over carefully, Bucky’s grip only tightening around you as you did so, mumbling lowly in his sleep. His hand curled over to your back, calloused fingers grazing the soft skin on the small of your back. You were sure you were going to implode, as he unconsciously dragged you even closer to his body, his chin resting against your forehead and his thick thigh wrapped around your calf. 

A few shaky breaths slipped past your lips as you collected yourself. You gently placed your hands against his chest, intending to pull yourself out his grip, but only found yourself blushing against the feeling of his very obviously toned chest beneath your fingertips. You gazed up at him, holding your breath when he mumbled again, nuzzling his face into the pillow. You had the perfect opportunity to slip away, his grip loose enough, but you didn't. You found yourself entranced by how peaceful he looked, so at ease unlike you had ever seen him. The sunlight streaming through the crack between the curtains you don't remember closing, illuminating the room enough for you to make out the curve of his nose and the sharpness of his jawline. Your heart ached for him, the poor man who had been through so much and seen so much more than he ever should have. Subconsciously, your thumb caressed his chest feeling the steady beat of his heart against your skin. 

You almost jumped out of your skin, when he began to twitch next to you, letting out a long breath as his head dropped down to your neck. He groaned  tightening his grip around you that had loosened slightly. You couldn't see him, your nose pressed into his collarbone and you were glad, grateful that he couldn't see the way your cheeks were redder than ever before.

He hummed lightly, the action tickling your skin. You almost jumped when he murmured your name, checking whether you were awake. 

“Mhmm?” You hummed back, not trusting yourself with words right now.

“Is it morning already?” You had only heard his morning voice on odd occasions, when you weren't glaring down at your toast and payed enough attention to listen. But the gruffness in his voice made you weak at the knees, unprepared for how good it sounded. 

“Barely.” You squeaked, your voice unnaturally high pitched. 

If he noticed, he didn’t say anything, pulling his head back to look down at you, a lazy smile working its way onto his lips. His arm was still wrapped around your body as his metal fingers gently brushed the hair away from your eyes, the gentlest expression you had ever seen him wear etched into his face.

Without warning, he lazily brought his head down and pressed his lips to yours in an action that felt all too natural. His lips were soft, their gentle caress leaving you craving more. His nose nudging against yours lightly as though he had done it thousands of times, as he delicately sighed into the kiss. You froze on the spot, the hand on his chest subconsciously curling to clutch the fabric in your hand.

He seemed to register what he had done a moment later, breaking your lips apart, his fingers still weaved through your hair. Panic began to seep into his expression as he opened his mouth to no doubt apologise, but it didn't look like he could speak, stammering profusely, “I. . . I didn't. . . I didn't mean to- no, not like that. . . I didn't-”

 “What did you just do?” You mumbled in disbelief, cutting off his ramblings, his lips so close to your own that they brushed against each other when you spoke. You were in a daze, your lips were tingling from being pressed against Bucky’s and all you could think about was how close he was. You didn't really need him to answer that question, you just really wanted to hear him say it.

“I think I just kissed you.” He finally whispered back, his blue eyes bright as he shifted his gaze between your lips and you eyes. He was hesitant, that was clear, not daring to move in the slightest. 

“I think I want you to do it again.” You finally muttered lowly. You could feel the way his heart was thudding so similarly to your own beneath the palm of your hand. You could feel the slight shake in his fingers as they curled around your waist, not wanting to mess anything up or scare you away. 

“Yeah?” Bucky nudged his nose against yours again, the ghost of a smile playing upon his lips as he looked at you. 

“Yeah.” You breathed out lamely, barely able to get the word out before you gave yourself time to starting overthinking, gripping his shirt and pressing your lips harder against his.

He groaned softly into the kiss, kissing you back with the same amount of fervour. His fingers splaying out against your back to pull you even closer, your hand cupping his jaw as his moved his lips in sync with yours in a way that left your dizzy and craving more. 

You wanted him closer, and its seemed as though Bucky had the same idea as he pulled you over his body. Your legs straddled his chest, his hands running up and down your sides before sneaking under to hoodie to grip your hips, a shiver travelling down your spine. Bucky noticed, his lips curling into a grin as he pulled your closer, your chest against his. 

You were euphoric. You had only ever imagined what it would be like to kiss Bucky, but this was a thousand times better. You felt weak every time his tongue traced your lip, your bodies moulding together easily, his body so warm and inviting. You groaned when Bucky’s lips left yours as you gasped for air, peppering kisses across your jawline, one of his hands cupping your neck while the other kept you pressed against him. His kisses became more lingering, and your breathe started to come back to you, a genuine smile setting upon your lips when Bucky looked up to face you, his cheeks flushed and his hair a complete mess.

“I think you ought to know, I mean, I’d be a bit concerned if you haven't figured it out already, but, I really, really, really like you, y/n.” He whispered, brushing your hair out of your face as you giggled down at him, pecking his lips once more. 

“And I, really, really, really like you, James.” You giggled again, smiling when he pulled you down again to connect your lips once more. You leaned back to stare at him, blushing profusely at the look of utter adoration in his expression.

“What a way to wake up.” Bucky whispered, tugging you toward him to kiss you again, and again, and again. 

You hummed in agreement, unable to wipe the grin off your face. “I could get used to this.”

“Oh darlin’, I absolutely adore you.”

You screeched excitedly when Bucky rolled you over, planting himself between your legs, kissing you softly once more.

Maybe you would have to thank Natasha after all.

taglist (message me if you wanna be added :)):

@kapolisradomthoughts

#bucky barnes x reader #bucky barnes fanfiction #bucky barnes fanfic #bucky barnes one shot #bucky barnes imagine #bucky barnes #marvel imagines #marvel one shot #winter soldier #Steve rogers #Steve rogers x reader #Peter parker #Peter Parker x reader #marvel masterlist #marvel fanfiction #Natasha romanoff #black widow #wanda maximoff #Tony stark #avengers #captain maerica #marvel cinematic universe #bucky one shot #bucky imagine #bucky fanficiton

[itbeatsbookmarks]

(Via: Hacker News)

Act 1: Sunday afternoon

So you know when you’re flopping about at home, minding your own business, drinking from your water bottle in a way that does not possess any intent to subvert the Commonwealth of Australia?

It’s a feeling I know all too well, and in which I was vigorously partaking when I got this message in “the group chat”.

A nice message from my friend, with a photo of a boarding pass 🙂 A good thing about messages from your friends is that they do not have any rippling consequences 🙂🙂🙂

The man in question is Tony Abbott, one of Australia’s many former Prime Ministers.

That’s him, officer

For security reasons, we try to change our Prime Minister every six months, and to never use the same Prime Minister on multiple websites.

The boarding pass photo

This particular former PM had just posted a picture of his boarding pass on Instagram (Instagram, in case you don’t know it, is an app you can open up on your phone any time to look at ads).

The since-deleted Instagram post showing the boarding pass and baggage receipt. The caption reads “coming back home from japan 😍😍 looking forward to seeing everyone! climate change isn’t real 😌 ok byeee”

“Can you hack this man?”

My friend (who we will refer to by their group chat name, 𝖍𝖔𝖌𝖌𝖊 𝖒𝖔𝖆𝖉𝖊) is asking whether I can “hack this man” not because I am the kind of person who regularly commits 𝒄𝒚𝒃𝒆𝒓 𝒕𝒓𝒆𝒂𝒔𝒐𝒏 on a whim, but because we’d recently been talking about boarding passes.

I’d said that people post pictures of their boarding passes all the time, not knowing that it can sometimes be used to get their passport number and stuff. They just post it being like “omg going on holidayyyy 😍😍😍”, unaware that they’re posting cringe.

People post their boarding passes all the time, because it’s not clear that they’re meant to be secret

Meanwhile, some hacker is rubbing their hands together, being all “yumyum identity fraud 👀” in their dark web Discord, because this happens a lot.

So there I was, making intense and meaningful eye contact with this chat bubble, asking me if I could “hack this man”.

Surely you wouldn’t

Of course, my friend wasn’t actually asking me to hack the former Prime Minister.

However.

You gotta.

I mean… what are you gonna do, not click it? Are you gonna let a link that’s like 50% advertising tracking ID tell you what to do? Wouldn’t you be curious?

The former Prime Minister had just posted his boarding pass. Was that bad? Was someone in danger? I didn’t know.

What I did know was: the least I could do for my country would be to have a casual browse 👀

Investigating the boarding pass photo

Step 1: Hubris

So I had a bit of a casual browse, and got the picture of the boarding pass, and then…. I didn’t know what was supposed to happen after that.

Well, I’d heard that it’s bad to post your boarding pass online, because if you do, a bored 17 year-old Russian boy called “Katie-senpai” might somehow use it to commit identity fraud. But I don’t know anyone like that, so I just clumsily googled some stuff.

Googling how 2 hakc boarding pass

Eventually I found a blog post explaining that yes, pictures of boarding passes can indeed be used for Crimes. The part you wanna be looking at for all your criming needs is the barcode, because it’s got the “Booking Reference” (e.g. H8JA2A) in it.

Why do you want the booking reference? It’s one of the two things you need to log in to the airline website to manage your flight.

The second one is your… last name. I was really hoping the second one would be like a password or something. But, no, it’s the booking reference the airline emails you and prints on your boarding pass. And it also lets you log in to the airline website?

That sounds suspiciously like a password to me, but like I’m still fine to pretend it’s not if you are.

Step 2: Scan the barcode

I’ve been practicing every morning at sunrise, but still can’t scan barcodes with my eyes. I had to settle for a barcode scanner app on my phone, but when I tried to scan the picture in the Instagram post, it didn’t work :((

Maybe I shouldn’t have blurred out the barcode first

Step 2: Scan the barcode, but more

Well, maybe it wasn’t scanning because the picture was too blurry.

I spent around 15 minutes in an “enhance, ENHANCE” montage, fiddling around with the image, increasing the contrast, and so on. Despite the montage taking up way too much of the 22 minute episode, I couldn’t even get the barcode to scan.

Step 2: Notice that the Booking Reference is printed right there on the paper

After staring at this image for 15 minutes, I noticed the Booking Reference is just… printed on the baggage receipt.

I graduated university.

But it did not prepare me for this.

askdjhaflajkshdflkh

Step 3: Visit the airline’s website

After recovering from that emotional rollercoaster, I went to qantas.com.au, and clicked “Manage Booking”. In case you don’t know it because you live in a country with fast internet, Qantas is the main airline here in Australia.

(I also very conveniently started recording my screen, which is gonna pay off big time in just a moment.)

Step 4: Type in the Booking Reference

Well, the login form was just… there, and it was asking for a Booking Reference and a last name. I had just flawlessly read the Booking Reference from the boarding pass picture, and, well… I knew the last name.

I did hesitate for a split-second, but… no, I had to know.

Step 5: Crimes(?)

youngman.mp4

The “Manage Booking” page, logged in as some guy called Anthony Abbott

Can I get a YIKES in the chat

Leave a comment if you really felt that.

I guess I was now logged the heck in as Tony Abbott? And for all I know, everyone else who saw his Instagram post was right there with me. It’s kinda wholesome, to imagine us all there together. But also probably suboptimal in a governmental sense.

Was there anything secret in here?

I then just incredibly browsed the page, browsed it so hard.

I saw Tony Abbott’s name, flight times, and Frequent Flyer number, but not really anything super secret-looking. Not gonna be committing any cyber treason with a Frequent Flyer number. The flight was in the past, so I couldn’t change anything, either.

The page said the flight had been booked by a travel agent, so I guessed some information would be missing because of that.

I clicked around and scrolled a considerable length, but still didn’t find any government secrets.

Some people might give up here. But I, the Icarus of computers, was simply too dumb to know when to stop.

We’re not done just because a web page says we’re done

I wanted to see if there were juicy things hidden inside the page. To do it, I had to use the only hacker tool I know.

Right click > Inspect Element, all you need to subvert the Commonwealth of Australia

Listen. This is the only part of the story that might be confused for highly elite computer skill. It’s not, though. Maybe later someone will show you this same thing to try and flex, acting like only they know how to do it. You will not go gently into that good night. You will refuse to acknowledge their flex, killing them instantly.

How does “Inspect Element” work?

“Inspect Element”, as it’s called, is a feature of Google Chrome that lets you see the computer’s internal representation (HTML) of the page you’re looking at. Kinda like opening up a clock and looking at the cool cog party inside.

Yeahhh go little cogs, look at ‘em absolutely going off. Now imagine this but with like, JavaScript

Everything you see when you use “Inspect Element” was already downloaded to your computer, you just hadn’t asked Chrome to show it to you yet. Just like how the cogs were already in the watch, you just hadn’t opened it up to look.

But let us dispense with frivolous cog talk. Cheap tricks such as “Inspect Element” are used by programmers to try and understand how the website works. This is ultimately futile: Nobody can understand how websites work. Unfortunately, it kinda looks like hacking the first time you see it.

If you’d like to know more about it, I’ve prepared a short video.

Browsing the “Manage Booking” page’s HTML

I scrolled around the page’s HTML, not really knowing what it meant, furiously trying to find anything that looked out of place or secret.

I eventually realised that manually reading HTML with my eyes was not an efficient way of defending my country, and Ctrl + F’d the HTML for “passport”.

oh no

Oh yes

It’s just there.

At this point I was fairly sure I was looking at the extremely secret government-issued ID of the 28th Prime Minister of the Commonwealth of Australia, servant to her Majesty Queen Elizabeth II and I was kinda worried that I was somehow doing something wrong, but like, not enough to stop.

….anything else in this page?

Well damn, if Tony Abbott’s passport number is in this treasure trove of computer spaghetti, maybe there’s wayyyyy more. Perhaps this HTML contains the lost launch codes to the Sydney Opera House, or Harold Holt.

Maybe there’s a phone number?

Searching for phone and number didn’t get anywhere, so I searched for 614, the first 3 digits of an Australian phone number, using my colossal and highly celestial galaxy brain.

Weird uppercase letters

A weird pile of what I could only describe as extremely uppercase letters came up. It looked like this:

RQST QF HK1 HNDSYD/03EN|FQTV QF HK1|CTCM QF HK1 614[phone number]|CKIN QF HN1 DO NOT SEAT ROW [row number] PLS SEAT LAST ROW OF [row letter] WINDOW

So, there’s a lot going on here. There is indeed a phone number in here. But what the heck is all this other stuff?

I realised this was like… Qantas staff talking to eachother about Tony Abbott, but not to him?

In what is surely the subtweeting of the century, it has a section saying HITOMI CALLED RQSTING FASTTRACK FOR MR. ABBOTT. Hitomi must be requesting a “fasttrack” (I thought that was only a thing in movies???) from another Qantas employee.

This is messed up for many reasons

What is even going on here? Why do Qantas flight staff talk to eachother via this passenger information field? Why do they send these messages, and your passport number to you when you log in to their website? I’ll never know because I suddenly got distracted with

Forbidden airline code

I realised the allcaps museli I saw must be some airline code for something. Furious and intense googling led me to several ancient forbidden PDFs that explained some of the codes.

Apparently, they’re called “SSR codes” (Special Service Request). There are codes for things like “Vegetarian lacto-ovo meal” (VLML), “Vegetarian oriental meal” (VOML), and even “Vegetarian vegan meal” (VGML). Because I was curious about these codes, here’s some for you to be curious about too (tag urself, I’m UMNR):

RFTV Reason for Travel UMNR Unaccompanied minor PDCO Carbon Offset (chargeable) WEAP Weapon DEPA Deportee—accompanied by an escort ESAN Passenger with Emotional Support Animal in Cabin

The phone number I found looked like this: CTCM QF HK1 [phone number]. Googling “SSR CTCM” led me to the developer guide for some kind of airline association, which I assume I am basically a member of now.

CTCM QF HK1 translates as “Contact phone number of passenger 1”

Is the phone number actually his?

I thought maybe the phone number belonged to the travel agency, but I checked and it has to be the passenger’s real phone number. That would be, if my calculations are correct,,,, *steeples fingers* Tony Abbott’s phone number.

what have i done

I’d now found Tony Abbott’s:

Passport details

Phone number

Weird Qantas staff comments.

My friend who messaged me had no idea.

Tony Abbott’s passport is probably a Diplomatic passport, which is used to “represent the Australian Government overseas in an official capacity”.

what have i done

By this point I’d had enough defending my country, and had recently noticed some new thoughts in my brain, which were:

oh jeez oh boy oh jeez

i gotta get someone, somehow, to reset tony abbott’s passport number

can you even reset passport numbers

is it possible that i’ve done a crime

Intermission

Act 2: Do not get arrested challenge 2020

In this act, I, your well-meaning but ultimately incompetent protagonist, attempt to do the following things:

⬜ figure out whether i have done a crime

⬜ notify someone (tony abbott?) that this happened

⬜ get permission to publish this here blog post

⬜ tell qantas about the security issue so they can fix it

Spoilers: This takes almost six months.

Let’s skip the boring bits

I contacted a lot of people about this. If my calculations are correct, I called at least 30 phone numbers, to say nothing of The Emails. If you laid all the people I contacted end to end along the equator, they would die, and you would be arrested. Eventually I started keeping track of who I talked to in a note I now refer to as “the hashtag struggle”.

I’m gonna skip a considerable volume of tedious and ultimately unsatisfying telephony, because it’s been a long day of scrolling already, and you need to save your strength.

Alright strap yourself in and enjoy as I am drop-kicked through the goal posts of life.

Part 1: is it possible that i’ve done a crime

I didn’t think anything I did sounded like a crime, but I knew that sometimes when the other person is rich or famous, things can suddenly become crimes. Like, was there going to be some Monarch Law or something? Was Queen Elizabeth II gonna be mad about this?

My usual defence against being arrested for hacking is making sure the person being hacked is okay with it. You heard me, it’s the power of ✨consent✨. But this time I could uh only get it in retrospect, which is a bit yikes.

So I was wondering like… was logging in with someone else’s booking reference a crime? Was having someone else’s passport number a crime? What if they were, say, the former Prime Minister? Would I get in trouble for publishing a blog post about it? I mean you’re reading the blog post right now so obviousl

Update: I have been arrested.

Just straight up Reading The Law

It turned out I could just google these things, and before I knew it I was reading “the legislation”. It’s the rules of the law, just written down.

Look, reading pages of HTML? No worries. Especially if it’s to defend my country. But whoever wrote the legislation was just making up words.

Eventually, I was able to divine the following wisdoms from the Times New Roman tea leaves:

Defamation is where you get in trouble for publishing something that makes someone look bad.

But, it’s fine for me to blog about it, since it’s not defamation if you can prove it’s true

Having Tony Abbott’s passport number isn’t a crime

But using it to commit identity fraud would be

There are laws about what it’s okay to do on a computer

The things it’s okay to do are: If u EVER even LOOK at a computer the wrong way, the FBI will instantly slam dunk you in a legal fashion dependent on the legislation in your area

I am possibly the furthest thing you can be from a lawyer. So, I’m sure I don’t need to tell you not to take this as legal advice. But, if you are the kind of person who takes legal advice from mango blog posts, who am I to stand in your way? Not a lawyer, that’s who. Don’t do it.

You know what, maybe I needed help. From an adult. Someone whose 3-year old kid has been buying iPad apps for months because their parents can’t figure out how to turn it off.

“Yeah, maybe I should get some of that free government legal advice”, I thought to myself, legally. That seemed like a pretty common thing, so I thought it should be easy to do. I took a big sip of water and googled “free legal advice”.

trying to ask a lawyer if i gone and done a crime

Before I went and told everyone about my HTML frolicking, I spent a week calling legal aid numbers, lawyers, and otherwise trying to figure out if I’d done a crime.

During this time, I didn’t tell anyone what I’d done. I asked if any laws would be broken if “someone” had “logged into a website with someone’s publicly-posted password and found the personal information of a former politician”. Do you see how that’s not even a lie? I’m starting to see how lawyers do it.

Calling Legal Aid places

First I call the state government’s Legal Aid number. They tell me they don’t do that here, and I should call another Legal Aid place named something slightly different.

The second place tells me they don’t do that either, and I should call the First Place and “hopefully you get someone more senior”.

I call the First Place again, and they say “oh you’ve been given the run around!”. You see where this is going.

Let’s skip a lot of phone calls. Take my hand as I whisk you towards the slightly-more-recent past. Based on advice I got from two independent lawyers that was definitely not legal advice: I haven’t done a crime.

Helllllll yeah. But I mean it’s a little late because I forgot to mention that by this point I had already emailed explicit details of my activities to the Australian Government.

☑️ figure out whether i have done a crime

⬜ notify someone (tony abbott?) that this happened

⬜ get permission to publish this here blog post

⬜ tell qantas about the security issue so they can fix it

Part 2: trying to report the problem to someone, anyone, please

I had Tony Abbott’s passport number, phone number, and weird Qantas messages about him. I was the only one who knew I had these.

Anyone who saw that Instagram post could also have them. I felt like I had to like, tell someone about this. Someone with like, responsibilities. Someone with an email signature.

wait but do u see the irony in this, u have his phone number right there so u could just-

Yes I see it thank u for pointing this out, wise, astute, and ultimately self-imposed heading. I knew I could just call the number any time and hear a “G’day” I’d never be able to forget. I knew I had a rare opportunity to call someone and have them ask “how did you get this number!?”.

But you can’t just do that.

You can’t just call someone’s phone number that you got by rummaging around in the HTML ball pit. Tony Abbott didn’t want me to have his phone number, because he didn’t give it to me. Maybe if it was urgent, or I had no other option, sure. But I was pretty sure I should do this the Nice way, and show that I come in peace.

I wanted to show that I come in peace because there’s also this pretty yikes thing that happens where you email someone being all like “henlo ur website let me log in with username admin and password admin, maybe u wanna change that??? could just be me but let me kno what u think xoxo alex” and then they reply being like “oh so you’re a HACKER and a CRIMINAL and you’ve HACKED ME AND MY FAMILY TOO and this is a RANSOM and ur from the DARK WEB i know what that is i’ve seen several episodes of mr robot WELL watch out kiddO bc me and my lawyers are bulk-installing tens of thousands of copies of McAfee® Gamer Security as we speak, so i’d like 2 see u try”

I googled “tony abbott contact”, but there’s only his official website. There’s no phone number on it, only a “contact me” form.

I imagine there have been some passionate opinions typed into this form at 9pm on a Tuesday

Yeah right, have you seen the incredible volume of #content people want to say at politicians? No way anyone’s reading that form.

I later decided to try anyway, using the same Inspect Element ritual from earlier. Looking at the network requests the page makes, I divined that the “Contact me” form just straight up does not work. When you click “submit”, you get an error, and nothing gets sent.

This is an excellent way of using computers to solve the problem of “random people keep sending me angry letters”

Well rip I guess. I eventually realised the people to talk to were probably the government.

The government

It’s a big place.

In the beginning, humans developed the concept of language by banging rocks together and saying “oof, oog, and so on”. Then something went horribly wrong, and now people unironically begin every sentence with “in regards to”. Our story begins here.

The government has like fifty thousand million different departments, and they all know which acronyms to call each other, but you don’t. If you EVER call it DMP&C instead of DPM&C you are gonna be express email forwarded into a nightmare realm the likes of which cannot be expressed in any number of spreadsheet cells, in spite of all the good people they’ve lost trying.

I didn’t even know where to begin with this. Desperately, I called Tony Abbott’s former political party, who were all like

Skip skip skip a few more calls like this.

Maybe I knew someone who knew someone

That’s right, the true government channels were the friends we made along the way.

I asked hacker friends who seemed like they might know government security people. “Where do I report a security issue with like…. a person, not a website?”

They told me to call… 1300 CYBER1?

1300 CYBER1

I don’t really have a good explanation for this so I’m just gonna post the screenshots.

My friend showing me where to report a security issue with the government. I’m gonna need you to not ask any questions about the profile pictures.

Uhhh no wait I don’t wanna click any of these

The planet may be dying, but we live in a truly unparalleled age of content.

You know I smashed that call button on 1300 CYBER1. Did they just make it 1300 CYBER then realise you need one more digit for a phone number? Incredible.

Calling 1300 c y b e r o n e

“Yes yes hello, ring ring, is this 1300 cyber one”? They have to say yes if you ask that. They’re legally obligated.

The person who picked up gave me an email address for ASD (the Australian flavour of America’s NSA), and told me to email them the details.

Emailing the government my crimes

Feeling like the digital equivalent of three kids in a trenchcoat, I broke out my best Government Email dialect and emailed ASD, asking for them to call me if they were the right place to tell about this.

Sorry for the clickbait subject but well that’s what happened???

Fooled by my flawless disguise, they replied instantly (in a relative sense) asking for more details.

“Potential” exposure, yeah okay. At least the subject line had “[SEC=Sensitive]” in it so I _knew_ I’d made it big

I absolutely could provide them with more information, so I did, because I love to cooperate with the Australian government.

I also asked whether they could give me permission to publish this blog post, and they were all like “Seen 2:35pm”. Eventually, after another big day of getting left on read by the government, they replied, being all like “thanks kiddO, we’re doing like, an investigation and stuff, so we’ll take it from here”.

Overall, ASD were really nice to me about it and happy that I’d helped. They encouraged me to report this kind of thing to them if it happened again, but I’m not really in the business of uhhhhhhhh whatever the heck this is.

By the way, at this point in the story (chronologically) I had no idea if what I was emailing the government was actually the confession to a crime, since I hadn’t talked to a lawyer yet. This is widely regarded as a bad move. I do not recommend anyone else use “but I’m being so helpful and earnest!!!” as a legal defence. But also I’m not a lawyer, so idk, maybe it works?

Wholesomely emailing the government

At one point in what was surely an unforgettable email chain, the person I was emailing added a P.S. containing…. the answer to the puzzle hidden on this website. The one you’re reading this blog on right now. Hello. I guess they must have found this website (hi asd) by stalking the email address I was sending from. This is unprecedented and everything, but:

The puzzle says to tweet the answer at me, not email me

The prize for doing the puzzle is me tweeting this gif of a shakas to you

yeahhhhhhhhhh, nice

So I guess I emailed the shakas gif to the government??? Yeah, I guess I did.

Please find attached

Can I write about this?

I asked them if they could give me permission to write this blog post, or who to ask, and they were like “uhhhhhhhhhhh” and gave me two government media email addresses to try. Listen I don’t wanna be an “ummm they didn’t reply to my emAiLs” kinda person buT they simply left me no choice.

Still, defending the Commonwealth was in ASD’s hands now, and that’s a win for me at this point.

☑️ figure out whether i have done a crime

☑️ notify someone (The Government) that this happened

⬜ get permission to publish this here blog post

⬜ tell qantas about the security issue so they can fix it

Part 3: Telling Qantas the bad news

The security issue

Hey remember like fifteen minutes ago when this post was about webpages?

I’m guessing Qantas didn’t want to send the customer their passport number, phone number, and staff comments about them, so I wanted to let them know their website was doing that. Maybe the website was well meaning, but ultimately caused more harm than good, like how that time the bike path railings on the Golden Gate Bridge accidentally turned it into the world’s largest harmonica.

Unblending the smoothie

But why does the website even send you all that stuff in the first place? I don’t know, but to speculate wildly: Maybe the website just sends you all the data it knows about you, and then only shows you your name, flight times, etc, while leaving the passport number etc. still in the page.

If that were true, then Qantas would want to unblend the digital smoothie they’ve sent you, if you will. They’d want to change it so that they only send you your name and flight times and stuff (which are a key ingredient of the smoothie to be sure), not the whole identity fraud smoothie.

Smoothie evangelism

I wanted to tell them the smoothie thing, but how do I contact them?

The first place to check is usually company.com/security, maybe that’ll w-

Okay nevermind

Okay fine maybe I should just email [email protected] surely that’s it? I could only find a phone number to report security problems to, and I wasn’t sure if it was like…. airport security?

So I just… called the number and was like “heyyyy uhhhh I’d like to report a cyber security issue?”, and the person was like “yyyyya just email [email protected]” and i was like “ok sorrY”.

Time to email Qantas I guess

I emailed Qantas, being like “beep boop here is how the computer problem works”.

(Have you been wondering about the little dots in this post? Click this one for the rest of the email .)

A few days later, I got this reply.

And then I never heard from this person again

Airlines were going through kinda a struggle at the time, so I guess that’s what happened?

if ur still out there Shr Security i miss u

Struggles

After filling up my “get left on read” combo meter, I desperately resorted to calling Qantas’ secret media hotline number.

They said the issue was being fixed by Amadeus, the company who makes their booking software, rather than with Qantas itself. I’m not sure if that means other Amadeus customers were also affected, or if it was just the way Qantas was using their software, or what.

It’s common to give companies 90 days to fix the bug, before you publicly disclose it. It’s a tradeoff between giving them enough time to fix it, and people being hacked because of the bug as long as it’s out there.

But, well, this was kinda a special case. Qantas was going through some #struggles, so it was taking longer. Lots of their staff were stood down, and the world was just generally more cooked. At the same time, hardly anybody was flying at the time, due to see above re: #struggles. So, I gave Qantas as much time as they needed.

Five months later

The world is a completely different place, and Qantas replies to me, saying they fixed the bug. It did take five months, which is why it took so long for you and I to be having this weird textual interaction right now.

I don’t have a valid Booking Reference, so I can’t actually check what’s changed. I asked a friend to check (with an expired Booking Reference), and they said they didn’t see a mention of “documentNumber” anymore, which sounds like the passport number is no longer there. But That’s Not Science, so I don’t know for sure.

I originally found the bug in March, which was about 60 years ago. BUT we got there baybee, Qantas emailed me saying the bug had been fixed on August 21. They later told me they actually fixed the bug in July, but the person I was talking too didn’t know about it until August.

Qantas also said this when I asked them to review this post:

Thanks again for letting us have the opportunity to review and again for refraining from posting until the fix was in place for vulnerability.

Our standard advice to customers is not to post pictures of the boarding pass, or to at least obscure the key personal information if they do, because of the detail it contains.

We appreciate you bringing it to our attention in such a responsible way, so we could fix the issue, which we did a few months ago now.

I couldn’t find any advice on their website about not posting pictures of customer boarding passes, only news articles about how Qantas stopped printing the Frequent Flyer number on the boarding pass last year, because… well, you can see why.

I also asked Qantas what they did to fix the bug, and they said:

Unfortunately we’re not able to provide the details of fix as it is part of the protection of personal information.

:((

☑️ figure out whether i have done a crime

☑️ notify someone (The Government) that this happened

⬜ get permission to publish this here blog post

☑️ tell qantas about the security issue so they can fix it

Part 4: Finding Tony Abbott

Like 2003’s Finding Nemo, this section was an emotional rollercoaster.

The government was presumably helping Tony Abbott reset his passport number, and making sure his current one wasn’t being used for any of that yucky identity fraud.

But, much like Shannon Noll’s 2004 What About Me?, what about me? I really wanted to write a blog post about it, you know? So I could warn people about the non-obvious risk of sharing their boarding passes, and also make dumb and inaccessible references to the early 2000s.

The government people I talked to couldn’t give me permission to write this post, so rather than willingly wandering deeper into the procedurally generated labyrinth of government department email addresses (it’s dark in there), I tried to find Tony Abbott or his staff directly.

Calling everybody in Australia one by one

I called Tony Abbott’s former political party again, and asked them how to contact him, or his office, or something I’m really having a moment rn. They said they weren’t associated with him anymore, and suggested I call Parliament House, like I was the Queen or something.

In case you don’t know it, Parliament House is sorta like the White House, I think? The Prime Minister lives there and has a nice little garden out the back with a macadamia tree that never runs out, and everyone works in different colourful sections like “Making it so Everyone Gets a Fair Shake of the Sauce Bottle R&D” and “Mateship” and they all wear matching uniforms with lil kangaroo and emu hats, and they all do a little dance every hour on the hour to celebrate another accident-free day in the Prime Minister’s chocolate factory.

calling parliament house i guess

Not really sure what to expect, I called up and was all like “yeah bloody g’day, day for it ay, hot enough for ya?”. Once the formalities were out of the way, I skipped my usual explanation of why I was calling and just asked point-blank if they had Tony Abbott’s contact details.

The person on the phone was casually like “Oh, no, but I can put you through to the Serjeant-at-arms, who can give you the contact details of former members”. I was like “…..okay?????”. Was I supposed to know who that was? Isn’t a Serjeant like an army thing?

But no, the Serjeant-at-arms was just a nice lady who told me “he’s in a temporary office right now, and so doesn’t have a phone number. I can give you an email address or a P.O. box?”. I was like “ok th-thank you your majesty”.

It felt a bit weird just…. emailing the former PM being like “boy do i have bad news for you”, but I figured he probably wouldn’t read it anyway. If it was that easy to get this email address, everyone had it, and so nobody was likely to be reading the inbox.

Spoilers: It didn’t work.

Finding Tony Abbott’s staff

I roll out of bed and stare bleary-eyed into the morning sun, my ultimate nemesis, as Day 40 of not having found Tony Abbott’s staff begins.

This time for sure.

Retinas burning, in a moment of determination/desperation/hubris, I went and asked even more people that might know how to contact Tony Abbott’s staff.

I asked a journalist friend, who had the kind of ruthlessly efficient ideas that come from, like, being a professional journalist. They suggested I find Tony Abbott’s former staff from when he was PM, and contact their offices and see if they have his contact details.

It was a strange sounding plan to me, which I thought meant it would definitely work.

Wikipedia stalking

Apparently Prime Ministers themselves have “ministers” (not prime), and those are their staff. That’s who I was looking for.

Big “me and the boys” energy

Okay but, the problem was that most of these people are retired now, and the glory days of 2013 are over. Each time I hover over one of their names, I see “so-and-so is a former politician and….” and discard their Wikipedia page like a LeSnak wrapper into the wind.

Eventually though, I saw this minister.

Oh he definitely has an office.

That’s the current Prime Minister of Australia (at the time of writing, that is, for all I know we’re three Prime-Ministers deep into 2020 by the time you read this), you know he’s definitely gonna be easier to find.

Let’s call the Prime Minister’s office I guess?

Easy google of the number, absolutely no emotional journey resulting in my growth as a person this time.

When I call, I hear what sounds like two women laughing in the background? One of them answers the phone, slightly out of breath, and says “Hello, Prime Minister’s office?”. I’m like “….hello? Am I interrupting something???”.

I clumsily explain that I know this is Scott Morrison’s office, but I actually was wondering if they had Tony Abbott’s contact details, because it’s for “a time-sensitive media enquiry”, and I j- She interrupts to explain “so Tony Abbott isn’t Prime Minister anymore, this is Scott Morrison’s office” and I’m like “yA I know please I am desperate for these contact details”.

She says “We wouldn’t have that information but I’ll just check for you” and then pauses for like, a long time? Like 15 seconds? I can only wonder what was happening on the other end. Then she says “Oh actually I can give you Tony Abbott’s personal assistant’s number? Is that good?”.

Ummmm YES thanks that’s what I’ve been looking for this whole time? Anyway brb i gotta go be uh a journalist or something.

Calling Tony Abbott’s personal assistant’s personal assistant

I fumble with my phone, furiously trying to dial the number.

I ask if I’m speaking to Tony Abbott’s personal assistant. The person on the other end says no, but he is one of Tony Abbott’s staff. It has been a long several months of calling people. The cold ice is starting to thaw. One day, with enough therapy, I may be able to gather the emotional resources necessary to call another government phone number.

I explain the security issue I want to report, and midway through he interrupts with “sorry…. who are you and what’s the organisation you’re calling from?” and I’m like “uhhhh I mean my name is Alex and uhh I’m not calling from any organisation I’m just like a person?? I just found this thing and…”.

The person is mercifully forgiving, and says that he’ll have to call me back. I stress once again that I’m calling to help them, happy to wait to publish until they feel comfortable, and definitely do not warrant the bulk-installation of antivirus products.

Calling Tony Abbott’s personal assistant

An hour later, I get a call from a number I don’t recognise.

He explains that the guy I talked to earlier was his assistant, and he’s Tony Abbott’s PA. Folks, we made it. It’s as easy as that.

He says he knows what I’m talking about. He’s got the emails. He’s already in the process of getting Tony Abbott a new passport number. This is the stuff. It’s all coming together.

I ask if I can publish a blog post about it, and we agree I’ll send a draft for him to review.

And then he says

“These things do interest him - he’s quite keen to talk to you”

I was like exCUSE me? Tony Abbott, Leader of the 69th Ministry of Australia, wants to call me on the phone? I suppose I owe this service to my country?

This story was already completely cooked so sure, whatever. I’d already declared emotional bankruptcy, so nothing was coming as a surprise at this point.

I asked what he wanted to talk about. “Just to pick your brain on these things”. We scheduled a call for 3:30 on Monday.

And then Tony Abbott just… calls me on the phone?

Mostly, he wanted to check whether his understanding of how I’d found his passport number was correct (it was). He also wanted to ask me how to learn about “the IT”.

He asked some intelligent questions, like “how much information is in a boarding pass, and what do people like me need to know to be safe?”, and “why can you get a passport number from a boarding pass, but not from a bus ticket?”.

The answer is that boarding passes have your password printed on them, and bus tickets don’t. You can use that password to log in to a website (widely regarded as a bad move), and at that point all bets are off, websites can just do whatever they want.

He was vulnerable, too, about how computers are harder for him to understand.

“It’s a funny old world, today I tried to log in to a [Microsoft] Teams meeting (Teams is one of those apps), and the fire brigade uses a Teams meeting. Anyway I got fairly bamboozled, and I can now log in to a Teams meeting in a way I couldn’t before.

It’s, I suppose, a terrible confession of how people my age feel about this stuff.”

Then the Earth stopped spinning on its axis.

For an instant, time stood still.

Then he said it:

“You could drop me in the bush and I’d feel perfectly confident navigating my way out, looking at the sun and direction of rivers and figuring out where to go, but this! Hah!”

This was possibly the most pure and powerful Australian energy a human can possess, and explains how we elected our strongest as our leader. The raw energy did in fact travel through the phone speaker and directly into my brain, killing me instantly.

When I’d collected myself from various corners of the room, he asked if there was a book about the basics of IT, since he wanted to learn about it. That was kinda humanising, since it made me realise that even famous people are just people too.

Anyway I hadn’t heard of a book that was any good, so I told a story about my mum instead.

A story about my mum instead

I said there probably was a book out there about “the basics of IT”, but it wouldn’t help much. I didn’t learn from a book. 13 year old TikTok influencers don’t learn from a book. They just vibe.

My mum always said when I was growing up that:

There were “too many buttons”

She was afraid to press the buttons, because she didn’t know what they did

I can understand that, since grown ups don’t have the sheer dumb hubris of a child, and that’s what makes them afraid of the buttons.

Like, when a toddler uses a spoon for the first time, they don’t know what a spoon is, where they are, or who the current Prime Minister is. But they see the spoon, and they see the cereal, and their dumb baby brain is just like “yeA” and they have a red hot go. And like, they get it wrong the first few times, but it doesn’t matter, because they don’t know to be afraid of getting it wrong. So eventually, they get it right.

leaked footage of me learning how to hack

Okay so I didn’t tell the spoon thing to Tony Abbott, but I did tell him what I always told my mum, which was: “Mum you just gotta press all the buttons, to find out what they do”.

He was like “Oh, you just learn by trial and error”. Exactly! Now that I think about it, it’s a bit scary. We are dumb babies learning to use a spoon for the first time, except if you do it wrong some clown writes a blog post about you. Anyway good luck out there to all you big babies.

Asking to publish this blog post

When I asked Tony Abbott for permission to publish the post you are reading right now while neglecting your responsibilities, he said “well look Alex, I don’t have a problem with it, you’ve alerted me to something I probably should have known about, so if you wanna do that, go for it”.

At the end of the call, he said “If there’s ever anything you think I need to know, give us a shout”.

Look you gotta hand it to him. That’s exactly the right way to respond when someone tells you about a security problem. Back at the beginning, I was kinda worried that he might misunderstand, and think I was trying to hack him or something, and that I’d be instantly slam dunked into jail. But nope, he was fine with it. And now you, a sweet and honourable blog post browser, get to learn the dangers of posting your boarding pass by the realest of real-world examples.

During the call, I was completely in shock from the lost in the bush thing killing me instantly, and so on. But afterwards, when I looked at the quotes, I realised he just wanted to understand what had happened to him, and more about how technology works. That’s the same kind of curiosity I had, that started this whole surrealist three-act drama. That… wasn’t really what I was expecting from Tony Abbott, but it’s what I found.

The point of this story isn’t to say “wow Tony Abbott got hacked, what a dummy”. The point is that if someone famous can unknowingly post their boarding pass, anyone can.

Anyway that’s why I vote right wing now baybeeeee.

☑️ figure out whether i have done a crime

☑️ notify someone (The Government) that this happened

☑️ get permission to publish this here blog post

☑️ tell qantas about the security issue so they can fix it

Act 3: Closing credits

Wait no what the heck did I just read

Yeah look, reasonable.

tl; dr

Your boarding pass for a flight can sometimes be used to get your passport number. Don’t post your boarding pass or baggage receipt online, keep it as secret as your passport.

How it works

The Booking Reference on the boarding pass can be used to log in to the airline’s “Manage Booking” page, which sometimes contains the passport number, depending on the airline. I saw that Tony Abbott had posted a photo of his boarding pass on Instagram, and used it to get his passport details, phone number, and internal messages between Qantas flight staff about his flight booking.

Why did you do this?

One day, my friend who was also in “the group chat” said “I was thinking…. why didn’t I hack Tony Abbott? And I realised I guess it’s because you have more hubris”.

I was deeply complimented by this, but that’s not the point. The point is that you, too, can have hubris.

You know how they say to commit a crime (which once again I insist did not happen in my case) you need means, motive, and opportunity? Means is the ability to use right click > Inspect Element, motive is hubris, and opportunity is the dumb luck of having my friend message me the Instagram post.

I know, I’ve been saying “hubris” a lot. I mean “the willingness to risk breaking the rules”. Now hold up, don’t go outside and do crimes (unless it’s really funny). I’m not talking about breaking the law, I’m talking about rules we just follow without realising, like social rules and conventions.

Here’s a simple example. You’re at a sufficiently fancy restaurant, like I dunno, with white tablecloths or something? The waiter asks if you’d like “still or sparkling water?”

If you say “still”, it costs Eleven Dollars. If you say “sparkling”, it costs Eleven Dollars and tastes all gross and fizzy. But if you say “tap water, please”, you just get tap water, what you wanted in the first place?

When I first saw someone do this I was like “you can do that? I just thought you had to pay Eleven Dollars extra at fancy restaurants!”.

It’s not written down anywhere that you can ask for tap water. But when I found out you could do that, and like, nothing bad happens, I could suddenly do it too. Miss me with that Eleven Dollars fizzy water.

Basically, until you’ve broken the rules, the idea that the rules can be broken might just not occur to you. That’s how it felt for me, at least.

In conclusion, to be a hacker u ask for tap water.

FAQ

Why is it bad for someone else to have your passport number?

Hey crime gang, welcome back to Identity Fraud tips and tricks with Alex.

A passport is government-issued ID. It’s how you prove you’re you. The fact that you have your passport and I don’t is how you prevent me from convincing the government that I’m you and doing crimes in your name.

Just having the information on the passport is not quite as powerful as a photo of the full physical passport, with your photo and everything.

With your passport number, someone could:

Book an international flight as you.

Apply for anything that requires proof of identity documentation with the government, e.g. Working with children check

Activate a SIM card (and so get an internet connection that’s traceable to you, not them, hiding them from the government)

Create a fake physical passport from a template, with the correct passport number (which they then use to cross a border, open a bank account, or anything)

who knows what else, not me, bc i have never done a crime

Am I a big bozo, a big honking goose, if I post my boarding pass on Instagram?

Nah, it’s an easy mistake to make. How are you supposed to know not to? It’s not obvious that your boarding pass is secret, like a password. I think it’s on the airline to inform you on the risks you’re taking when you use their stuff.

But now that you’ve read this blog post, I regret to inform you that you will in fact be an entire sack of geese if you go and post your boarding pass now.

When did all of this happen?

March 22 - @hontonyabbott posts a picture of a boarding pass and baggage receipt. I log in to the website and get the passport number, phone number, and internal Qantas comments.

March 24 - I contact the Australian Signals Directorate (ASD) and let them know what happened.

March 27 - ASD tells me their investigation is complete, I send them a shakas gif, and they thank me for being a good citizen.

March 29 - I learn from lawyers that I have not done a crime 💯

March 30 - I contact Qantas and tell them about the vulnerability.

May 1 - Tony Abbott calls me, we chat about being dropped in the middle of the bush.

July 17 - Paper Mario: The Origami King is released for Nintendo Switch.

August 21 - Qantas emails me saying the security problem has been fixed.

September 13 - Various friends finish reviewing this post <3

September 15 - Tony Abbott and Qantas review this post.

Today - You read this post instead of letting it read you, nice job you.

I’m bored and tired

Let me answer that question,,, with a question.

Maybe try drinking some water you big goose. Honk honk, I’m so dehydrated lol. That’s you.

honk honk honk honl

Yeah, exactly.

I wrote this because I can’t go back to the Catholic church ever since they excommunicated me in 1633 for insisting the Earth revolves around the sun.

You can talk to me about it by sliding into my DMs in the tweet zone or, if you must, email.

#IFTTT #Feedly

[imaginegladions]

I LOVE LOVE LOVE your new theme!:D It's better than the last one tbh XD ummm anyways, may i request for hcs of an ice skating au?? :3

Ok so the first thing that came to mind was my favourite short program ever *cough* Agape. XD

ICE SKATING AU HEADCANONS:

Gladion is like… that grungy kid in class who was forced to attend by his mother.

Lusamine probably a famous figure skater who even in her 40s can still skate well enough to make it to Grand Prix Finals (like, she’s fem!Victor I realise).

And he attends classes with Lillie who absolutely can’t get the hang of doing anything on the ice without slipping.

He ends up being her support most of the time which gives Lusamine the great idea to make them skate in pair competitions.

In this AU, the beasts are probably like, these insanely talented ice skaters who take over the ice skating scene when she leaves and she loves their performances so much she forces Lillie and Gladion to copy their routines.

Of course, these beast skaters probably take steroids or something because even the girls can land every kind of quad perfectly (girls can’t do quads or even if a girl managed a quad it would be really insanely difficult). 

But, then here’s this beast who can do a quad axel.

Which is of course not even possible. No one has ever done it before.

So, Lusamine tries to make Lillie do a quadruple axel but Lillie can’t even land a salchow so when she tries to do a double axel she breaks her ankle.

This is the point where Gladion decides he’s going to do solo skating and he’s not going to let Lusamine coach him anymore. Instead, he gets a super lenient Guzma to coach him. He doesn’t go to any of his competitions but at least Gladion can compete.

Plumeria is probably his gymnastics teacher and helps him choose music that isn’t like the Mozart and Vivaldi Lusamine forced him to skate.

His Short Program would be something really sad and to the point and he’d have a face like… :[

Hahahaha, the judges grade him really high for technical but low for performance because this boy has only two emotions; anger and annoyance.

When he starts skating in the Seniors division, you and Hau enter the Juniors division.

Which means you skate for women’s singles of course so Gladion doesn’t really hear about you until Guzma decides to hand Gladion’s coaching over to his old friend Kukui while he goes galavanting to another country (for reasons unknown since well Guzma is eccentric like that).

So now Kukui coaches for Hau and Gladion and Hau is so!!! energetic!!! 

It makes Gladion want to barf.

I’m not saying he skates Shall We Skate but he totally skates Shall We Skate. He’s actually a reincarnation of Phichit Chulanont.

Then, Hau offhandedly mentions how familiar he looks and that he has a friend named Lillie that Kukui’s wife coaches in the women’s singles division like she’s named Lillie!! She’s so talented!!! Do you know her???

And Gladion is like !!!!

When did Lillie stop being coached by Lusamine???

Kukui overhears and is so proud of his wife he takes them to one of Lillie’s competitions complete with like flags and signs he and Hau can wave.

She so skates Through the Eyes of Love though.

And Gladion is like low key so proud of her he almost sheds a tear omg.

Lillie spots him probably halfway through her set and almost doesn’t properly land her Lutz because of the shock but she makes up for it with an amazing double Axle and toe loop combo.

She just gets motivated seeing her big-shot skating brother there cheering.

SHE HUGS HIM AT THE KISS AND CRY OK I DON’T MAKE THE RULES HE ACTS DISPLEASED AND EVERYONE IS LIKE “THAT’S GLADION FROM THE SENIOR DIVISION!!!” BUT INSIDE HE’S V PROUD TO BE THERE WITH LILLIE AND A BIT VINDICATED.

And just when he thinks that moment of emotional weakness is over!!! Here is you!!! Skating to You Don’t Give Up On Love!!!

He’s so impressed with your performance he doesn’t even pretend he’s leaning over the barrier with wide eyes.

He’s muttering the moves you’re making under his breath and Lillie and Hau are like giving each other Knowing Looks.

“Triple Lutz, triple toe- OH MY GOD A TRIPLE FLIP WTF”

“Gladion, you still okay?”

“Who is that?”

“Oh, [Y/N], remember? I did mention her.”

“That’s [Y/N]?!?!”

His face is just like… wow :O

HE’S EVEN MORE DETERMINED TO TAKE GOLD AS MUCH AS HE CAN IN PREPARATION FOR YOUR DEBUT IN SENIORS!!!

When you reach the kiss and cry and Kukui starts berating you for doing quads in your junior year Gladion cuts in and he looks so awkward and you freeze up because omg that’s skating legend Gladion Virdis talking to you. YOU. PLS DON’T BE A NERD. SAY SOMETHING COOL.

both of you are screaming on the inside, arceus help you both

You idolise him a bit, mehehehehe.

“That was… amazing, actually.” He says like he’s shocked and it’s unprecedented.

It’s totally unprecedented, he is rarely shocked.

You better believe he now goes to all your and Lillie’s competitions.

He tells Guzma he’s not going to take him back as a coach and Guzma just cackles because that was his plan all along.

Guzma and Kukui watch you and Gladion pair skate like five years later and high-five each other.

THE FIRST TIME YOU AND HE PAIR SKATE IN SENIORS YOU SKATE TO “STAY CLOSE TO ME”. HNGGGG.

All four of you take trips together and practice together and have mini competitions to see who pair skates better. Lillie and Gladion or you and Hau. 

Which triggers Gladion into confessing.

Hahahahaha, Hau get your filthy malasada stained hands off my girl no offence.

So really you guys only have Hau and Gladion’s competitiveness to thank for starting yours and Gladion’s pair skating career. 

The public finds out about your relationship because Gladion kisses you at the Kiss and Cry when you find out that you’ve won the Gold.

THE PUBLIC WANT YOU TO PAIR SKATE IMMEDIATELY IF NOT SOONER.

Which is good because you both had been planning to but you wanted to skate solo first until you get a gold before skating with Gladion.

From edgy cool songs, Gladion’s skating becomes sweeter and softer when you’re with him.

everyone loves you two toGETHER ON THE ICE OK

Couple Skating Goals.

You better believe someone writes a song for the both of you and it becomes your Free Skate song.

(You also dance it at your wedding.)

Those beasts are freaking forgotten after you and Gladion win gold in singles and then make your pair debut. Everyone follows your Insta for updates on your cute relationship.

Bonus:

Gladion jokingly skates to Theme of King JJ and doesn’t realise you’re filming him.

The video goes viral.

Honestly, it doesn’t even matter how much Gladion glares at you, you have the video saved on your phone and you watch it whenever you are separated because of competitions.

Gladion videos you skating to Still Alive while doing like a silly rap thing but it’s not even embarrassing it’s just cute and silly everyone loves it, especially the video Hau posts immediately after of Gladion’s reaction.

#Type: Headcanons #Gladion #Pokémon SuMo on Ice #Type: Asks #Gladion x Reader #Gladion x player #Gladion x Protagonist