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from-memphis-with-love · 1 month

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Songbird - Ch. 1 - The Handsome Stranger

Summary: The year is 1969. The place is the International Hotel. Valerie Pedretti, an aspiring singer, has a chance encounter with one Elvis Presley in an elevator that will change her life forever. Notes: To me, 1967-1971 EP is kind of peak Elvis, and so I wanted to write a fic with him smack dab in that time period. In the 1969-1970 period, especially, Elvis was probably the most handsome and alluring man in the galaxy. Lots of anachronisms and historical inaccuracies in this one, but just roll with it because it's fun! I based Valerie, in a sense, off of a mixture of Kathy Westmoreland, Joyce Bova, and Linda Thompson. Kathy met the real Elvis for the first time in an elevator, and that really inspired this work. Priscilla exists in this universe but she and Elvis get a divorce far earlier than in real life. Theirs, in some ways like real life, is a marriage of convenience and an "arrangement." Lisa Marie does not exist in this universe.

Las Vegas, Nevada, 1969

Vegas was shimmering mirage of bad decisions just waiting to snare me—a sucker-punch I never saw coming. The lights, the noise, the impossible promise of it all crashed over me in kaleidoscopic waves as my cab cruised down the strip towards the International Hotel. I pressed my forehead against the cool glass, watching slack-jawed as sequined showgirls and vacationers blurred by in streaks of neon and rhinestone.

The cabbie swerved to the curb with a jolt, snapping me out of my daze. "International Hotel," he barked, his voice an ice bath to my face. I shoved a crumbled wad of bills into his hand and stumbled out and into a swarm of hairspray and cigar smoke congregating under the hotel's blazing marquee. Blinking in confusion, I took in the frenzied scene unfolding—beefy security shoving their way through the sea of pompadours, vendors hawking glossy headshots, teddy bears and "I 🖤 ELVIS" pins. The realization hit me like a freight train. This wasn't just any weekend at the International. It was the kickoff of Elvis Presley's residency. Ground zero for absolute Elvis mania.

The irritation set in, simmering beneath my skin. "Shit," I muttered, suddenly feeling foolish for forgetting. Of all the rotten luck. Out of all the times to visit Las Vegas, I had unwittingly chosen the kickoff of Elvis's shows—an event drawing crowds I had no desire to mingle with.

I wove through the throng, lugging my cumbersome suitcases behind me. Inside the lobby was even more chaotic—a swirling kaleidoscope of big-haired fans and cigarette smoke lingering over shag carpet. Elvis was everywhere, his angelic face beaming down from posters, gold records, life-sized cardboard cutouts. A veritable religious shrine. Groaning internally, I caught my bedraggled reflection in a mirrored column. Of course I would show up to the Presley Promised Land looking like something the cat dragged in. Normally I'd at least try to pull myself together for check-in, maybe swipe on some lipstick or fluff my chocolate curls into place. After all, I didn't want to look terrible in front of people dressed to the nines. But after the day I'd had, I couldn't muster the effort.

My flight from Chicago had been delayed six excruciating hours due to "mechanical issues," which apparently was airline-speak for "sit tight while we screw you over." By the time we finally took off, I'd already stress-eaten two sleeves of Oreos and read the in-flight magazine three mind-numbing times. To top it off, I'd spilled coffee all over my only nice blouse right before landing. Clearly, some divine power had it out for me today.

Feeling sweaty and vaguely nauseous, I trudged to the front desk. The angular blonde behind the counter, Brenda, barely glanced up from her well-thumbed issue of Variety as I approached.

"Welcome to the International Hotel. Checking in?" She smacked her gum, eyes never leaving her magazine.

"Yes, uh, reservation should be under Deena Lovelace."

That finally got her attention. Her penciled brows shot up as she inspected me, taking in the coffee stains and rumpled slacks. "Wait, you're Deena? The Deena who told me she booked for the Sinatra audition tomorrow?" The doubt was palpable.

I gritted my teeth into a tight smile. "No, actually. I'm her friend Valerie. Deena got sick at the last minute, some kind of exotic flu, so I'm filling in for her."

Suspicion clouded Brenda's face, but after a long beat she shrugged. "Huh. Well, takes all kinds, I guess." She signaled to a bellhop in a red monkey suit and thrust a key into my hand. "Room 2806, elevators are that way. If you need anything, ask for Hector."

Hector the bellhop scurried over and hoisted up my bags with surprising ease for such a slight guy. I made a weak attempt to protest, but he just grinned and ushered me through the cacophonous lobby to the first hallway. The doors slid open and I thanked him, pressing a few crumpled bills into his white-gloved hand.

“I can take it from here, Hector.”

As I walked along, I looked at my reflection in the mirrored wall and exhaled slowly. My nerves buzzed like an exposed wire as I thought about tomorrow's audition. Landing a spot in the Sinatra chorus line seemed about as likely as shooting the moon at this point. I barely knew the song Deena had been rehearsing for weeks, my go-go boots had a broken heel, and my voice was ragged from practicing the whole weekend.

But damn it, this was the first real shot I'd had in ages to claw my way out of the chambermaid grind and actually make something of myself. To prove Ma right for always saying I had stardust in my veins, even when it landed me more trouble than applause growing up. I had to at least try. For all those thankless nights warbling in dim lounges, waiting for my big break. For Deena, who I knew would kill for this chance.

I'd barely begun my little pep talk when someone brushed by me, sloshing their vodka tonic onto my sleeve and snapping me back to the present moment. I weaved through the crowd towards another inner hallway, clearing my throat.

I turned on my heel and started hoofing it towards my room. The hotel's layout was an absolute dizzying mess of twists and turns in every direction. My thudding, ungainly footsteps were muffled by the shag carpet and the dulled roar of fans congregating throughout the hotel.

As I trudged on, the ambiance shifted gradually. The hum of voices faded away, replaced by an overwhelming silence that signaled I was getting farther away from the bustling core. Exhaustion tugged at my bones while I navigated the maze of hallways. My room was somewhere in this labyrinth, but my bed felt worlds away at this point.

My steps sank into the plush carpet as I drifted into a quieter, dimly-lit corridor that seemed less traveled. Finally, I found myself alone in front of a bank of elevator doors. I stabbed the call button and waited impatiently, my arms aching from the weight of my overstuffed suitcases. God, why did I pack so much useless junk?

"Must be close now," I muttered out loud, my voice barely audible.

With barely a thought, I slipped out of my heels and bent my toes backwards and forwards, allowing my sore feet to relish the heavenly softness underfoot. It was soft, springy, and absolute relief for my aching soles. Automatically, I began humming a familiar, nameless tune under my breath - just a few sweet, absentminded notes I always turned to for comfort when I needed it. The thought of finally washing this endless day off my face and jumping into a crisp hotel bed was the only thing on my mind as the gilded doors opened with a tinny ding.

The cab was empty. Relieved to finally have a moment to myself, I dragged my heavy bags inside and slumped against the mirrored wall. As the doors started to slide closed, a large, ring-adorned hand suddenly shot out, halting them.

I straightened up with a jolt, my exhaustion replaced by a flash of irritation. Great, just what I needed, another overzealous Elvis fan trying to cram into my personal space bubble.

But as the interloper stepped into the elevator, my breath caught in my throat. Standing before me, in all his smoldering, technicolor glory, was the man himself. Elvis fucking Presley. The aura he gave off was undeniable, that much was sure. And I recognized his face immediately, the same one splashed all over the posters and knick knacks in the lobby. There he was, outshining the garishly glitzy elevator cab like a supernova eclipsing neon. And next to him, a well-built redheaded man, his hand resting at something shiny on his hip. Bodyguard, most likely. Quickly, I shoved my feet back into my heels, silently cursing myself for having taken them off in the first place.

I blinked hard, convinced I must be hallucinating from sheer fatigue. But no, he was unquestionably real, from the polished black shoes to the perfectly coiffed onyx hair that shone like quicksilver in the light. His lean, powerful frame was draped in an immaculately tailored black suit, a shock of pink peeking out from the silk scarf knotted at his throat. But it was the penetrating, electric blue gaze behind tinted shades that truly unraveled me.

I'd never considered myself much of an Elvis fan. Sure, I could appreciate a catchy tune like "Don't Be Cruel" or "Teddy Bear," but I'd always been immune to the mass hysteria he incited in his besotted admirers. Yet here, in such close proximity to his cosmic charisma and undeniable sex appeal, I finally understood. This man was a force of nature.

The redhead caught my awestruck stare and chuckled knowingly. "I see you've met my friend Jon Burrows here," he said with a wink.

But this was no "Jon Burrows." I knew who it was, plain as day. And his affect on me was immediate. Was I dreaming? My pulse started racing. Should I say something? And just how the hell did this happen? I opened my mouth, then closed it, swallowing hard. Play it cool, Valerie.

Any lingering self-consciousness about my frazzled appearance just evaporated in the sheer force of his presence. Though judging by the unmistakably mischievous curl of his lip, my travel-battered state didn't seem to faze him one bit. His perceptive eyes met mine, always accustomed to the spotlight but now studying me with curiosity. He took in my slumped posture and visible fatigue without a hint of judgment.

"You've had yourself a long day, haven't you, honey?" That voice, richer than a Mississippi smokehouse, sliced right through me.

I could only nod dumbly, a lump forming in my throat. "I—uh, yeah. No. I mean... yes, you could say that," I stammered like an idiot. Get it together!

His smile was pure bewitchment. "Well, you'll be tucked in in no time, I reckon. I hear the beds are mighty comfortable here."

I looked up at the ceiling in silence, tracing the swirling pattern with my mind's eye and trying to give off a vibe of cool indifference. But my stomach was actually rolling.

To my surprise, he kept talking. "Pardon my manners. My name's Elvis, and this is my pal Red. Who might you be?"

My throat locked tighter than a cowboy's bullwhip. "Valer—?"

"Valerie." He drew the name out, savoring each note and curve as if testing its ring. Each single syllable seemed to undergo some mystical transformation, alchemized to pure liquid amber from his lips. "A pretty name for a pretty little songbird." A ringed hand discreetly adjusted the bejeweled cups shielding his gaze, maybe hoping to make out my sides better.

Elvis was still steadily playing the blue suede shoes off me, from his elegant bent stance to the teasing half-smirk barely shadowing those indolently hungover features—the whole routine daring me to go chasing his bait. But I was far too busy trying not to spontaneously combust. I screwed my eyes tightly shut for a half-moment, desperately grasping to regain some sense of composure with an oxygen-deprived brain.

How did he know...?

Dumb question, Sherlock. The very notion conjured images of me, sweat-glazed and punchy-tired, mindlessly vocalizing sweet lullabies straight from my Off-Off-Broadway chambermaid days while I waited for the elevator. Of course he would've overhead that.

I cinched my mouth into what I hoped was a blasé half-smile, refusing to come completely uncorked by his pet name. I replayed the embarrassing moment in my head, wishing I could dissolve into the elevator shaft. Every breath I pulled in seemed to crackle with electricity. First I randomly share an elevator with The Elvis Presley, and now he'd overheard my nervous vocalizing and was complimenting me on it?

"Baby." A rich, salt-cured chuckle melted off his tongue, resining deep in my nerve center. "I got ears like a well-tuned radar dish. You in town for a show?"

I shook my head slowly. "Technically yes, but no. Just an audition," I replied, my heart thundering in my ears. I hoped he couldn't hear it pounding.

"Who for, if you don't mind me asking?" he inquired with that laser gaze.

I sucked in a steadying breath. Might as well take the bait since I'd already been barb-hooked but good. "I'm here for an audition, actually. Tomorrow. For Sinatra. I'm a singer. I mean, not like you, but hopefully one day..." I paused, unsure of how much backstory was worth burdening Elvis with. "Just got a last minute sub-in for a friend who's under the weather."

Something flickered across Elvis' handsome features before the mask of idle curiosity slid back into place. "Is that right?" His gaze raked over me again, slower this time, more deliberate. "And what will you be singing for Ol' Blue Eyes?"

Shit. Why was he asking me so many questions? My palms started to sweat as I racked my brain for a suitable answer. It wasn't like I could admit that I barely knew the material, that I was flying by the seat of my pants on a far-fetched favor for a friend. So I settled for a half-truth instead.

"Oh, you know. Just a little medley of standards. 'To Keep My Love Alive,' 'I Can Cook, Too,' that kind of thing."

Elvis nodded slowly, a shadow of a smirk still playing on his lips. "A classic set list. I'm sure you'll knock 'em dead, honey."

I started to stammer out a thanks, but Elvis was already moving past me towards the door as the elevator finally shuddered to a stop. He paused, throwing a glance back over his shoulder. There was a new intensity in his eyes when they met mine, a dark promise that made my toes curl involuntarily in my heels.

"I'll be rooting for you, songbird. Break a leg."

And with that, he was gone, leaving me weak-kneed and dizzy in a cloud of his smoky-spicy cologne. I sagged against the wall, trying to collect myself. What in the ever-loving hell had just happened? Had I honestly just been shamelessly eye-fucked by Elvis Presley in an elevator?

More importantly, why had I liked it so much?

I shook my head, trying to dislodge the treacherous thoughts as I finally stumbled out into the harshly lit hallway. It was late, I was tired, and I had an audition to rest up for. The last thing I needed was to dwell on smoldering looks from a celebrity Casanova that I had no business panting over in the first place.

But even as I went through the motions of unlocking my room and sinking face-first into the marshmallowy duvet, I couldn't stop my mind from wandering back to the electric encounter in the elevator. The way Elvis had stared at me, equal parts scorching and inscrutable, as if he was trying to crack some tantalizing code. There was no way I could have imagined that. The effortless command he'd exuded, the sheer magnetism rolling off of him in waves. How ridiculously, unexpectedly good he still looked, hips swiveling in slow-motion in my mind's eye...

I punched a pillow in frustration, annoyed with my traitorous libido. This was so far beyond the scope of anything I'd anticipated when I'd agreed to sub in for Deena's audition. But one thing was certain—my time in Vegas was shaping up to be a hell of a lot more interesting than I'd bargained for. And something told me that a chance run-in on a hotel elevator was only the beginning.

#elvis presley #elvis #elvis fanfiction #elvis fanfic #elvis fic #elvis x oc #elvis presley fic #elvis presley fanfic #elvis presley fanfiction #songbird #elvis fans

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kryptonitejelly · 9 months

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Inspired by this picture basically. In my mind, this is flyboy!Jake, because he is easy and my comfort character - but you can imagine him / read him as any Jake tbh. Credits to @lostinthefandoms11 for indulging my ideas that the slew of pictures from Glen’s sister’s ig has spawned.

You are seated at one of the two chairs in front of the teacher’s table, nodding lightly, lips moving as you both exchange the necessary pleasantries while waiting for Jake to start the session. He had texted you just a minute ago - In the parking lot, see you soon - so you had both decided to wait, rather than begin, after all, you were both her last parent-teacher conference for the day.

Both your heads, you and Ms McKenzie’s, snap towards the door as it creaks open. Jake pokes his head in first, eyes darting around the room, only settling when they find you. You see the sparkle in his greens, the crinkle in the skin beside his eyes before a smile slips onto his lips.

“Sorry I’m late,” he says, voice kept more neutral, further away from his usual drawl because of the setting.

“No worries Mr Seresin,” Ms McKenzie’s voice floats into the air, just that bit breathier and a pitch higher than she had it when speaking to you. You hear the slightest hitch in her breathe as Jake flashes her a polite smile, the rest of his body stepping into the classroom. You really can’t blame her - he looks delightful, hair damp, bits of it casually sticking out from having run a towel over and his fingers through quickly, dark casual button up with just that one button too much open, paired with a set of form fitting dark jeans.

Jake makes his way towards you both, but he doesn’t sit immediately. He reaches for you first to place a hand on the backing of your chair, fingers gently brushing your back as he leans down to kiss you hello. It is a quick kiss on your lips, but something that manages to feel way too intimate with just one other person seated across the table, her gaze directly on you both. Your smile grows the moment your lips meet his. Jake sits, keeping his hand anchored on the back of your chair, and you slide your hand to come to a loose rest on his jean clad thigh. There is a scraping sound against the floor as Jake drags yours chair just that few inches closer towards him. The classroom and teacher in front of him weren’t going to stop Jake Seresin from being him.

His movement is so natural, but Ms McKenzie’s gaze moves along with your chair. Her gaze dips to the hand which you hand which you have on Jake’s thigh and you see the flutter of a frown cross her features. You aren’t the only one who sees it, judging by the shift of Jake’s leg which deliberately drops your hand further down his inner thigh. You find yourself stifling a chuckle as you feel the pads of Jake’s fingers massage your back gently.

“So, you were saying Ms McKenzie?” Jake cuts the silence and her frown, his interjection making the teacher clear her throat hurriedly as she busies herself with picking up the sheets of paper she has in front of her.

“Ye-yes, as I was saying…”

“So,” you wait until you hear the click of the classroom door close behind the both of you before you continue, “Mr Seresin,” you say while batting your eyes at Jake.

It makes him grin, with a slightly raised brow before he takes a step froward in a singular, smooth motion, his body pivoting to press you against the wall of the empty hallway. Your back lands against the cool wall, Jake’s hands slipping onto your waist, and your hands going instinctively up his chest.

“I see my wife has decided to amuse herself by mocking me,” Jake states, his lips skimming across your cheekbone, kissing their way behind your ear, and against the column of your neck.

It makes you chuckle as you tilt your head ever so slightly to allow Jake’s lips better access - married, children under both your belts, and you both are still unable to keep your hands off each other.

Jake brings his head up from pressing a kiss to your neck and you let your lips meet him in hello, properly greeting him for the first time today. He had left too early for base in the morning for you to have caught him.

“One of my most enjoyable hobbies,” you say, between the first kiss and the second which Jake goes in for without hesitation. “You know she wants you to coach the soccer team because she’ll get to spend more time with you, don’t you?”

You tease as Jake presses his body more firmly into yours, his hand skimming from your waist and up your side before it comes to cup the side of your face, his fingers slotting themselves through your hair behind your ear, massaging gently as you lean into his touch; you let your hand drops to his front.

“And I said no because I much rather spend that time with my wife.”

“Is that so,” you hum in response, your hands pressing against his abdomen. After years and children later, Jake still boasted an impressive physique, less lean than he had been years ago, and slightly thicker, but no less attractive.

“Affirmative M’am,” Jake cocks to his head to a side a lazy grin on his features.

“And if your little gremlin was any less of a monster on the soccer field than she is now?” You ask, picking up the nickname you both had for your youngest daughter. Jake was competitive, and you knew part of the reason he said no to coaching, the first being Ms McKenzie’s obvious attraction, was that there really was no need - not with the absolutely fiend your youngest was on the field. All your children had gotten Jake’s athletic ability, but your youngest - well, there was a reason even her grandma had nicknamed her your little terror.

“Well, she gets that from her mother,” Jake says in jest, leaning in to kiss your forehead before moving his lips down to yours again. If anything, she got it from him. This kiss is soft, gentle, drawn out, and he pulls away leaving you wanting more.

“Dinner?” He asks, as he steps away and extends his hand towards you, the knowledge that your children were at home, under the watchful eye of the babysitter. You take it, fingers tangling with Jake’s. Jake loved his children, but without a doubt, his first priority had always been, and was still, you.

“Lead the way Mr Seresin.”

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whatwouldsylwrite · 1 year

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hockey!Abby x dancer!reader pt8 (end)

pt 1 pt 7.75

Abby gets injured during practice.

Tags: modern au, fluff, fem!reader, shy reader, reader is into sexy/girly dances, Abby is a sweetheart, switching pov. Swearing (a lot of), kissing.

Notes: inaccurate display of: hockey player's injuries (it's not the most common one, but I'm not hurting Abby's pretty face); american health system - i just decided if it's so expensive they probably give you everything at the hospital? google didn't really help here, so sorry if it offends anyone.

A/N: that's all, folks! This is the last part of this story. Thank you all so much for reading it and enjoying it with me! The story was pretty fluffy and I wanted to give it some balance, so this part happened. I hope you'll like it as well.

But as I said before, I'm going to write some blurbs about them, so this is not their last appearance. (currently I have like 5-6 ideas for them, and half of them are requests that I really liked but didn't have time/mental space to write).

Thank you again! <3

-/-/-/-/-/-/-/-

"You know what, Abs?" Manny asked while they were changing for the practice. "I could really use some love advice."

Abby scoffed and raised her eyebrows at him, not really sure what the fuck he meant by it and why he even needed it.

"Love advice? Do I look like the Elle girl advice column to you?"

"You got your chick somehow, yeah? So you probably did something right."

"Do you want to ask your weather girl out?" Abby finally put two and two together. She knew they were friends with benefits, but she didn't expect Manny, of all people, to catch feelings. "Man, you fucked up."

"Come on, share your lady loving wisdom."

"Just be honest with her. It will only get worse if you keep it bottled up." Abby shrugged and put her helmet on, eager to escape Manny and his strange love problems.

"That's how you got (y/n) to date you?" Manny asked with suspicion while they were going on the ice for the warmup.

"I asked her on a date. Do the same." Abby said sharply and skated away. She wasn't going to deal with Manny's uncertainties when everything was resolvable if he'd decide not to be a coward.

Something was…not right with the way Abby's right skate slid on ice, but Abby couldn't really understand what and didn't pay any mind to it, thinking she was just imagining things and getting paranoid. She thought if she just willed her mind to think her skate was fine, it'd actually become fine.

And it was fine during the first half of the warmup, so Abby decided she was just overthinking and seeing things that were not there. Eric instructed them on the group warmup and Abby gladly got into the position, ready to kick her teammates' asses. Everything was just the same, she skated as fast as she could, getting past her pretend opponents and scored a few times.

And then everything wasn't just the same.

Abby was doing a hockey stop when something happened and suddenly she was falling on the ice with the speed of a fast hockey player, her head, shoulder and knee hit the floor so hard and painful she didn't even notice the real problem yet. She groaned and sat up immediately, while Manny skated to her, worried.

"Abs, are you okay?"

"Shit." Abby groaned as her head spun a little. She moved her shoulder to check if anything serious happened, but it was mostly fine. She started to stand up, but when she put weight on her right foot the pain shot through her body and she actually let out a short cry as she fell on her ass. "My ankle, fuck, I can't stand on it." Abby said, panting from sudden pain that wasn't going away.

Everyone was coming to them to check if everything was alright, and Abby hated it, hated having attention in a moment of weakness, hated that people got worried.

"You need a doctor." Manny said and motioned to their teammates to help him get Abby up.

Him and Jesse pulled Abby up and let her put her weight on them as they skated her back to benches. Abby tried to close off from everyone emotionally, but Eric's disgruntled face made her irrationally upset. Boys helped her sit on a bench and Abby started untying her skate on the right ankle with a rush, hoping to prove she was fine and she just twisted it and everything was going to be fine.

"What happened?" Eric asked in a tense voice.

"I have no fucking idea." Abby growled and took her skate off, examining it.

The fucking screw. The fucking screw fell off and her blade was unstable and that was why she felt off on the ice the whole practice. Abby wanted to smack herself in the face - she always checked her skates, she knew it could happen, it was a fucking rookie mistake.

"The blade got unscrewed." Abby said way too neutral.

"You didn't check your skates before you went on ice?!" Eric erupted, annoyed and angry. "Anderson, are you five?"

Abby didn't say anything, because she didn't have an explanation why she forgot to check, she couldn't even understand it herself.

"Amazing." Eric huffed. "Abby, the next game is in a week, what the fuck are we supposed to do now?"

"I just twisted my ankle." Abby bit back. "I'll be fine in three days."

Abby took the second skate off and stood up to prove her point, but she immediately sat back down as she felt her ankle just sinking down to her foot as if nothing was keeping it in place.

"Yeah no shit you twisted it." Eric rolled his eyes. "Fucking hell, Abby, the whole fucking season will go to shit now because you didn't fucking check your skates."

"Don't be dramatic." Abby rolled her eyes, but his words were getting to her. She knew her ankle wasn't twisted - it was more serious, and she wouldn't be on ice for god knows how long, and she was one of the best in their team, people were relying on her, and now she let them down.

"Come on Abs, you need to go to the hospital, it doesn't look good." Jesse pointed at her already swollen ankle.

"Yeah I know." Abby bit back and Jesse just rolled his eyes in return, refusing to deal with her shit.

"I'll drive you. Come on, let's go pack your bag." Manny said too cheerfully, knowing what a bitch Abby could be when something was out of her life order. Eric just huffed and went out of Manny's way.

Abby didn't say anything and let Manny support her as she hopped all the way to the lockers on one leg. They didn't talk and Abby was glad - she really didn't want to discuss the whole situation. She clumsily changed her clothes while Manny waited and chuckled when Abby swore in irritation.

"Ready?"

Abby glared at him and Manny just laughed, taking her bag in one hand and supporting Abby with the other as they slowly made their way to Abby's car.

Fuck, she couldn't drive anymore. Abby felt her chest tighten from her frustration, but she kept it to herself. Manny took her driving seat and started the car.

"Maybe call (y/n), let her know what happened?" Manny suggested carefully.

The thought of worrying you almost made Abby cry from anger - not only she let her team down, but now she couldn't take care of you the way she wanted, and even more, you'd be the one to worry about her and take care of her, because she knew you wouldn't leave her alone and let her lick her wounds in peace, you were just as caring as she was.

Abby opened your chat, going for an easy option - she couldn't handle hearing your concerned voice and managing her emotions at the same time right now.

to: dancing queen

I hurt my ankle during practice

Manny is taking me to the hospital

Abby sent her messages and locked her phone, not sure now if she'd be able to handle your concerned texts. She tapped her fingers nervously and Manny looked at her, curious.

"You texted her?"

"Yes."

"Good." Manny turned the wheel. "You know Eric is an asshole, right? He talks shit all the time."

"But he is right, if I'm not on the ice the whole team is fucked."

"Fuck you, we can play just fine." Manny laughed. "If we always relied on you then what's the whole point of the team? I promise you, I'll personally put these pucks for you while you're home. Each one of them is going to be for you, Anderson."

"Yeah, I don't think there's going to be a lot." Abby snorted, getting some sense of normality back with the way they bantered. Manny hit her shoulder playfully and she laughed a little.

Her phone buzzed with the notification.

from: dancing queen

r you okay?

I mean

Obviously not

But how bad is it?

Abby felt her heart clench in her chest with how typically you your texts were.

to: dancing queen

Can't step on my foot, i need to get an x-ray

from: dancing queen

this sucks :(

I'll come to your place tonight

If it's okay

to: dancing queen

Ofc

Abby typed it, but she wasn't sure if it was a good idea: she wanted you to comfort her, but the thought of you seeing her being weak made her feel ashamed. She couldn't say anything else to you now, her head was not in the right space anymore, so she locked her phone until she got a new notification.

from: dancing queen

Text me when you get your results, ok?

to: dancing queen

Yes ma'am

from: dancing queen

Love you ❤️

we'll figure it out

to: dancing queen

Love you too

Abby took a sharp breath to keep her tears at bay, trying to ignore your last message: she was supposed to say these things to you, she was supposed to take care of you, to soothe you and fix your problems, not the other way around, and if she just fucking checked her fucking skates nothing of this would have to happen.

Manny didn't try to talk to Abby anymore until they came to the hospital.

The whole ordeal didn't take a long time: they quickly got Abby's information, the doctor looked her ankle over and sent her for an x-ray, all professionally uncaring, just like all doctors were. It kept Abby grounded, the familiar place and familiar attitude of her father, all calm and all-knowing, like everything was manageable and fixable and nothing was truly a disaster.

Manny helped Abby to get to the x-ray room and after that they just stayed and waited for a doctor to come and tell what was wrong with her ankle. Abby already knew he'd say it sprained, and she knew it meant 3 weeks of not leaving home and not stepping on her foot, a few days of RICE, and a bunch of fucking problems and a nasty recovery.

Fuck she felt awful.

The doctor came and said the same thing - she sprained her ankle, no movements, put the ice on, wear compressions and keep the foot on something higher than her body position. Abby knew all of it.

The doctor gave her two options for her ankle: either a cast or a heavy duty ankle brace, which was a much better option, so Abby got her brace and a pair of crutches.

Abby looked at them with a heavy heart: she knew how useful they were and how much her life would be better with them, but for some reason she felt like they were the last thing that just cemented the thought that this was it. She was going to be dependent on other people, and she would be taken care of, not the other way around. And it made her feel weak, and she hated it. Her independence and self-reliance was something she just couldn't let go of, and this situation was forcing her to let go, and it was making her angry.

Abby accepted the crutches and it took her a few minutes to get the hang of it, but it was so much easier to move now and Abby felt relieved - at least she didn't need Manny to help her walk now. She was wrong - the crutches were not the last nail in the coffin with her independence, they were the thread that kept her independence alive.

from: Abby

My ankle is sprained, but it's not too serious

Manny is driving me home rn

You looked at your phone and sighed from relief: you were worried Abby's ankle might be broken, or worse, her ligaments fully torn. The sprains were nasty and annoying, you knew it from experience, but it was manageable and it didn't leave you fully immobile, which was a plus you get to appreciate after you get immobile.

to: Abby

I'm relieved it's not broken

I'm on my way

You already packed your bag with everything Abby'd need for her injury, including some snacks that could lift her mood up. You suspected she was upset but didn't want to show it or even talk about it - in these months you've been together sometimes it was a struggle to support Abby emotionally because she wouldn't share what was bothering her. Not every time, but she had some touchy topics and she'd be grumpy for a few days, processing it by herself, but trying her best not to be a bitch to you because of it. You appreciated that and didn't pressure her to talk to you, but sometimes you just felt like you didn't give Abby enough support.

It was cold outside, but Abby's hoodie kept you warm under your coat as you waited on the stairs of Abby's apartment building for her to come home. You put your cold hands into your pocket and waited until you saw the familiar car pulling over.

Manny was driving, and you felt like it was wrong, but you were really thankful Abby had someone to take care of her and help her when you weren't around. You came closer to the car while Manny helped Abby get out of it, handing her her crutches.

"Hi." You said gently and hugged Abby as carefully as possible. She couldn't return your hug, her arms supporting her weight, but you didn't expect her to. "How are you?"

"Fine." Abby said in a blank voice, but you didn't comment on it - she was definitely not in the mood and it was justified.

You looked at Manny and he just rolled his eyes, definitely telling how much not in the mood Abby was.

You decided not to ask any questions until you got Abby comfortable and safe, so you made some small talk with both of them, trying to bring Abby back from her head. She was keeping up with the conversation, but you saw how slowly but surely she was getting pissed off because it took her so long to climb the stairs. After a flight she just handed her crutches to Manny and started jumping over the stairs, holding to the railings as she went. It was indeed faster, and after ten minutes you were finally home.

"Thanks man." Abby said when Manny put her bag down on the floor.

"That's nice to hear." Manny smirked and patted her shoulder. "Get better, Abs. Make your ankle your bitch and heal it."

Abby chuckled and you hugged Manny goodbye.

"Thank you for taking care of her." You said quietly.

"That's what friends are for. She gave me love advice, I gave her a ride to the hospital. Good night, ladies."

Abby let out a long sigh and started taking her coat off. You did the same, and when all street clothes were taken off, you followed Abby to the hall, patiently waiting for her to move. Abby sat down on the sofa and you sat beside her, taking her hand in yours.

"What did the doctor say?"

"The ligament isn't torn fully, but it won't heal fast." Abby said, her voice just a little tense. "Three weeks at home."

You opened your bag and took a bottle of chocolate milk you bought for her.

"That's to cheer you up a little." You smiled and got a small, faint smile in return, but it was more than enough for you. "Okay. I've been through this shit before, so I bought some things that can make it easier and faster."

You took a few tubes and showed them to Abby, who was still grumpy and tense.

"This is from the bruises, because they're going to be big, this is a painkiller but actually has some repair effect, and these are vitamins that can help with healing."

You laid it all on the sofa and Abby looked it over with the most blank face you saw in all this time you knew her, and it was making you anxious.

"You also need to put something cold on it right now, it'll help with the swelling."

"Yeah, I fucking know, I'm a fucking med student." Abby rolled her eyes and you froze, immediately shutting up.

That hurt. You swallowed the lump that suddenly got stuck in your throat, wounded by Abby's tone and her irritation with you when all you wanted was to help her and take care of her.

There was a tense silence and Abby shut her eyes in guilt as the situation dawned on her, but before she could say anything you started talking despite the lump in your throat and pain in your chest and shaking hands.

"Abby, don't talk to me like that. I know you're upset, but please don't take your frustrations on me." You said in a surprisingly steady and strict voice. You didn't deserve to be treated like this, especially by your girlfriend, especially when you were trying to take care of her.

Abby looked guilty, but her face got closed off for a moment as if she considered shutting you out, and you felt like something was dying inside of you because of it.

"Fuck, sorry." Abby sighed with guilt, not looking at you, clearly too vulnerable for her liking. Something eased up in you after you heard her voice: she was trying to resolve this, and this what actually mattered. Abby looked at you, finally, with guilty puppy eyes and it calmed you down a little, knowing she wasn't turning it into a fight. "I just- fuck."

You got closer to her, taking her hand in yours again. You put your feelings away for now, fully concentrating on making Abby feel safe to open up.

"Hey, I understand." You said in a gentle soft voice. "Been there. We can talk about it if you want, or you can vent. It's fucking annoying, isn't it?"

Abby shut her eyes tightly, her jaw tense - she was trying so hard to keep calm and not cry. She even turned away from you, embarrassed of her weakness, but you were patient.

"Yeah." She said in a strained voice, her crying bubbling up in her throat.

You hugged Abby carefully and the dam broke. Abby sniffled and silently cried in your arms, all frustration and guilt from the day getting out as you caressed her head and shoulders, soothing her. Abby relaxed against you, fully leaning on you not physically, but emotionally.

"It's so fucking annoying, the stupid screw fucked everything up." Abby said in a hoarse voice somewhere in your neck, her tears hot on your collarbones. "And fucking Eric just kept saying shit how we'll lose now because I'm not going to play."

"Asshole." You huffed. "Fuck him."

Abby chuckled halfheartedly and stayed in your arms for a few minutes, calming down, her head getting clearer.

"I'm sorry I snapped at you." Abby said in a small voice. "This whole thing sucks."

"It does." You kissed the top of her head. "Abby, I'm not scared of your anger or any negative emotions, okay? You can fuck this whole room up and I'll cheer you on, but don't fuck me up because of it."

You were shaking but your voice was steady. You knew Abby needed to hear that, and you needed to show her your limits, so even if your anxiety was going through the roof as you were saying these words, they needed to be said.

"'m sorry." She said again, now even more guilty.

"Thank you." You kissed her forehead. "It wasn't okay, but we're okay." You said just as gently as before and Abby hugged you tighter.

You were still a little shaky, your heart still ached, but you weren't mad anymore. You kissed her forehead again, the desire to soothe her growing by the second.

"What happened?"

"My blade got unscrewed. I felt that something was wrong, but ignored it. So I went for a stop and my skate broke down."

"Oh god." You imagined Abby falling on the ice and you felt awful. "Does anything else hurt?"

"Shoulder's bruised I think."

"Okay. What if I run you a bath, then we will sort out all the medicine and then you'll rest? I'll order some food if you want."

Abby suddenly got very aware of how hungry she was.

"Yeah."

"Cool." You kissed Abby quickly, happy she was letting you take care of her.

Abby felt shy for some reason, waiting for you to run her a bath. She wasn't used to anyone taking care of her, so it made her feel useless and confused, but in a good way. Abby felt awkward just waiting, she wanted to do something, so she started stripping while you fixed the water temperature. Her right shoulder was bruised, but it didn't really hurt to move it.

"Okay. So, as a sprained ankle veteran, I have some tips." You said comically and Abby smiled. "I know you're tough and strong, but don't try to get inside in one go. Sit on the edge and then slowly turn around."

Abby huffed - that should have been obvious, but she also wanted to get in the bath in one go because she was not a little bitch, so you caught her there. The pants were tricky to take off, but you helped Abby with it, sitting her down on the edge as you tugged them all the way down. The brace was lying on top of Abby's clothes and you looked over her swollen ankle.

"My poor baby." You cooed and kissed Abby's cheek. Abby huffed, embarrassed, but deep down she enjoyed you babying her like this. "I can tell you something that I'm not supposed to tell you."

Abby got in the bath carefully, relaxing and letting the long sigh out.

"Yeah?"

"Yeah. I usually get so fed up with hopping, I start putting my weight on my ankle after a week. It's a bad idea, so don't do it."

"I think you told me that so I could do it." Abby chuckled.

"Well, I know you'll get fed up with it, so I thought I could get you to not stand on your foot for at least a week." You smiled bashfully.

Abby's mood was going up a little as you talked to her. It felt almost normal, as if you were just hanging out.

"Can I wash your hair?" You asked, shy, and Abby felt her chest bubbling up with affection. She squeezed your hand and nodded.

You moved behind her and started massaging her scalp tenderly, and Abby relaxed, enjoying your fingers in her hair. Abby always got sleepy when someone was playing with her hair, and after this awful day your hands felt like a blessing, lulling her worries and anger away. You were so careful and gentle, so fucking loving Abby wanted to cry and to pray to whatever deity that made her stay at the dance studio that day.

"Close your eyes, baby." You said quietly and Abby obeyed, letting you wash the shampoo away. She felt like with this shampoo something nasty went away, something that made her want to tell you to fuck off a half an hour ago when you were so kind to her. Abby couldn't deal with kindness very well, especially when she felt weak. Abby always reacted to people caring about her with anger, like a wounded animal that attacks a helping hand thinking it’s there to kill it. Abby hated pity, and kindness tore her apart and made her achingly vulnerable, but she was safe with you. You were handling her shit with care and love and she snapped at you in return and she wanted to cry again now.

"I'll never be mean to you again." Abby said nearly choked up by her shame, but she wanted to say it out loud, to promise this to you.

"Baby." You said in a fond voice and Abby felt like she was on fucking fire from you being so gentle when she was vulnerable. She couldn’t actually say anything in return, her emotions, positive and negative, were making a molotov cocktail in her chest, burning through her as your fingers tenderly went over her body.

After bath you helped Abby dry her hair and change, and then you were both back on the couch while you explained some things to Abby about living with a sprained ankle that she probably didn't know, like wearing high socks with a brace because it would hurt otherwise. Abby put some ointments on while you went to get her high socks, and then you ordered some food while Abby put the brace on. Abby sipped her chocolate milk, so pleased with having something sweet to boost her mood. You really knew her, didn't you?

"I'm going to be super unpleasant, but you need to email your professors." You said, and Abby groaned. She forgot about her classes, and now it would be such a pain in the ass to keep her grades in check while she would be at home.

“Oh yeah, my profs are going to kill me.”

“Not if I kill them first.” You said, completely serious, and Abby laughed. You looked like you were ready to kick her professors’ asses if they’d even think about not accommodating Abby now. “I’m serious, I’ll hunt them down if they give you a hard time.”

“Doll, you won’t hurt a fly.” Abby cooed at you and enjoyed your stern expression that made you even more cute.

“I usually don’t have a good enough reason.” You shrugged. “I could be downright nasty if I wanted to.”

Abby, who's seen you telling people off, decided not to argue with that.

“Do you want me to stay the night? Or would you prefer to have some space?” You asked carefully, and Abby got upset like a baby from the thought that you might leave, so she grabbed your hand and pulled you closer.

“Please stay.”

This night Abby fell asleep in your arms as you hugged her from behind, her head tucked under your chin. Your breathing was deep and steady and Abby felt like your little form was protecting her from every worry, every self-deprecating thought, soothing her desperate anger, calming her sea storm like some kind of ancient goddess, turning her violent waves into a quiet tide as your gentle hands caressed her skin.

Abby was safe with you in a way she wasn't safe with anyone since she was a small baby, and she seared this feeling on her heart, not letting herself ever forget how you made her feel.

"Hey, (y/n)." Abby called quietly, not sure if you were awake.

"Mhm?"

"I'm going to marry you."

You laughed quietly and kissed the top of her head, and Abby let you think she was just joking, but she knew that one day she'd buy a ring and get on one knee in front of you and make you hers for the rest of your lives, because you were the one for her.

#abby anderson x you #abby anderson x reader #abby anderson #abby tlou #hockey!abby

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chaotic-super · 9 months

Text

Back To Krypton - Chapter 35

Read it on AO3 here!

Kara shifts in the seat of the pod her mother previously rescued her in. Alura is piloting it whilst Kara is looking out the front windshield, her eyes darting over the fields as they fly overhead, waiting impatiently to see the city of Kandor as it comes.

They aren’t flying fast, nowhere near as fast as they were on the way here from The Scarlet Jungle, that’s for a simple reason, they are now in city lines, even if they haven’t reached the hustle or the bustle yet.

Alura is keeping a close eye on her through her peripheral vision, purposely not turning her head towards her so Kara doesn’t feel like she’s being watched, especially not now when she’s experiencing Kandor again for the first time since she was a child, a place made up of vague memories that mould into nothing more than a fleeting illusion.

Blue eyes match the blue of the fields beneath them, rows and rows of endless berry bushes lined up ripe for the picking, workers dressed in lightweight robes doing just that, today being an ordinary day, all of them completely unaware of the day that will soon come, the end of their lives as they know it. The end of their lives.

Kara swallows but it’s a struggle, the lump in her throat making it difficult. Just flying overhead fields with a few people in them is a challenge so she’s terrified of what’s to come when she’s walking through the streets of Kandor with the knowledge that every face she sees and every shoulder she brushes is one that will cease to exist in less time than she can comprehend, doesn’t want to comprehend.

Without really being aware of it, Kara’s fingers find the skirt of her dress and she clenches the material tightly in her fists on either side of her thighs. Alura spots this and so desperately wants to cover her hands with her own to see if she will relax enough to release the dress but this is Kara and she knows her daughter, or at least she knew her back when she was a child and she knows that comforting Kara when she’s on the verge of tears will only free her of any restraint she has remaining and while their fancy getup won’t attract attention, tear stains will so she has to let her handle this one alone. That’s something Alura gets the feeling Kara has done a lot of throughout her life anyway.

What she doesn’t know is that Kara can see the way her hands twitch like she’s about to reach towards her. She sees the need to help but the restraint stopping her mother and all she knows in her fragile mind is that she’s not good enough because she’s not her mother’s daughter. Not this mother, this is the mother of her past, not her present. This is someone she doesn’t know, someone that, unlike her mother, doesn’t have her best interests at heart, someone that will allow her to be in pain and do nothing at all.

The pain in her chest eases partially when they get closer to the roar of the city, the quiet of the fields giving way to the thunderous noise that Kara had almost forgotten exists outside of the strange bubble she’s been in for weeks while they have been trekking through lands that Kryptonian feet have hardly trodden on.

In what feels like mere seconds as they round a single corner to skirt around a giant monument, a spiralled cone that somewhat resembles a Christmas tree with the way it tapers at the top, a resemblance unknown to anyone on the planet looking at it other than Kara, her small group and the tiny number of Kryptonians with enough knowledge of Earth to know human traditions. Each spiral contains endless glyphs, rows and columns on them, all of them marking the passing of houses no longer living, ones that hold the weight of history and keep their memories alive, even when they are no longer.

There are pods similar to their own whizzing past them, alongside them, and behind them, some older models, some new, although not as many given the status of the great house of El. Kara feels like she’s just hurtled out of a sensory deprivation room right into the middle of a highway, all the noise of the city hitting her much harsher than it had when she was just beginning to hear the sounds she’s missed, it’s overwhelming.

It’s not as overwhelming as seeing the architecture around her, the buildings she recognises but can’t navigate, the flight paths she’s certain she’s travelled along but can’t pinpoint any of the trips she took. It’s everything and nothing, important yet inconsequential. It just is. There’s nothing she can change, nothing she can affect, everything just is.

Alura can see the tension in the way Kara is sitting. She can see it in the way her feet are pressing harshly into the floor of the pod because her toes are exposed in the heels she’s wearing and they are pressed into the sole of her shoes so hard they have turned a worrying shade of white.

Once again, she wants to comfort her. Once again, she doesn’t. Once again, Kara notices. Once again, Kara hurts. Once again, Kara buries her feelings.

Since it has been so long since Kara has been here, she has no idea what direction they need to go in to travel to the lab. She has it written in her notebook since there were maps in the Fortress of Solitude of all of the major cities of Krypton but she doesn’t know if off the top of her head and since Alura does know where she’s going, Kara never bothers getting her notebook out from where she has it tucked under one thigh so she doesn’t lose it.

It's because she doesn’t get it out from under her leg and doesn’t follow the maps to see where they are going that she doesn’t realize until it’s too late that it’s not the labs they are heading towards, in fact, now that they are coming up to a building that is most definitely not the labs, Kara’s gut tells her that the labs are actually in the complete opposite direction.

The building they are slowing down as they approach is tall, one of the tallest in the city and one that Kara does have a few memories of. One that she very much recognises as they get closer to it, one that she knows is the building that their family’s apartment is housed within.

The apartment isn’t as homey as their one in Argo simply because it’s not used as much since her father’s work is mostly in Argo and that’s where Kara spent most of her childhood years but they always spent around a month out of each year in this apartment when it got time for her Father to display his new scientific findings and inventions to the council.

Kara is filled with panic now. They aren’t meant to be here, they are meant to be going to the labs and then right back to the agricultural accommodation to meet the others and from there, home. This is not the plan.

“What are we doing here? This isn’t what we agreed on, turn around.” Kara goes to grab at the controls of the pod but her hand is grabbed and shoved away. She tries again but Alura grips her thumb and bends it back painfully. “Kara, stop. Just relax, I don’t want to hurt you.”

“Then let go and turn around.” Kara manages to snatch her thumb back, mostly because her other let go of it but she’ll say that she escaped the attack.

Alura shakes her head. “No. Everything will make sense once we’re inside. We’re still going to the labs; we’re just making a quick pit stop.”

Kara can feel her cheeks redden as an unexpected inferno of rage builds up inside of her. Her mother is letting her down again. Just when they were getting along, just after she helped Kara get in touch with a side of herself she’s been deprived of for all too long, she rips her heart out and betrays her, to what extent, Kara doesn’t know just yet, but she knows that it doesn’t matter because a betrayal is a betrayal no matter the size, it hurts all the same.

Her fists clench tighter in her dress and Alura has to press her lips together tightly and bite her tongue to not scold her for being so rough with her dress because this Kara isn’t the Kara she can scold. This isn’t the Kara she knows and this isn’t a Kara she has parental power over.

Alura knows where she’s going, lining up the pod with a docking bay with relative ease, with only a couple of minor adjustments to get the parking right. The hatch automatically opens for the pod because they have been linked and the pod slows to a stop just inside and then it opens up so they can get out.

Kara, for just a moment, considers refusing to get out in what would be a childish act of defiance but she has to keep a cool head. She’s out here alone, her team is back at the accommodation and she has to stay on her mother’s good side as much as possible because their fates are in her hands, as much as she hates that fact because one word from her and her family can be taken into custody, the fate of the future be damned.

She follows her mother out of the docking bay, her eyes focused on the door to the apartment because she can’t stand to look back at it. All docking bays are designed the same and it looks identical to the one in Argo, the one that was the last place she ever stood on Krypton before it exploded, the one that she was sent away from alone in a pod that her mother had the chance to crawl into with her, the one she was abandoned in. Orphaned in.

They enter the apartment in silence, the tapping of their heels the only sound in the air. It’s eerie and it puts Kara’s frazzled nerves on edge much more than they were before. She tucks her notebook into the back of the silk ‘belt’ of her dress if only so she doesn’t have to worry about losing it or forgetting it.

The space inside is much more inviting than the docking bay. This apartment holds no negative feelings or connotations, only the thrill that Kara felt whenever she visited here as a kid, the memories of the science conventions and displays she got to view with her father and the bond that was always rejuvenated each time they came here. That thrill fills her body and mind, even now, as she sees the space, the sanctuary she has longed for but has always been denied, one that she never knew she needed to see until she’s here.

“Why are we here?” Kara breaks the silence, her back to her mother so she can look around the living area, the couches and the decorations of her family, pictures and certificates adorning shelves and cabinets.

Alura sighs and heads towards the couch, sitting down at one end and reaching a hand out to pat the other side in invitation. “Come sit, Inah, please. Let me explain.”

Kara takes a deep breath and sits down carefully, perching just on the edge, ready to run at the drop of a hat. “Why haven’t we gone right to Father’s lab the way we planned?”

Alura sits back further on the couch, leaning back into the round cushions it’s made up of and smiling internally when she sees that changing into a more relaxed position is urging Kara to scoot back further onto the couch, even if it is just a few inches, it feels like progress. “Well, I came up with a plan that could suit us all much better, I just wanted to speak to you about it without your friends.”

“They’re my family.” Kara corrects.

“Right.” Alura swallows audibly. “Your…family. I wanted to speak to you without them there and I didn’t tell you that I was planning on coming here because really, I knew you would say no and refuse unless I explained before we left and I didn’t want to do that so I had to lie to you to get you here.”

Kara looks down at the space between them, seeing her mother’s hand resting on the cushions palm up, waiting just in case she wants to take it. She doesn’t. “I trust my people explicitly, whatever you have to say to me, you can say to them too.”

Alura’s eyes bore into hers. “Not this, Kara.”

“Why? I don’t underst—”

A sound behind her has Kara whipping her head around and her breath leaves her body violently, the sight a punch to her gut that she wasn’t expecting.

“Your mother told me that our daughter was here all grown up but the sight is one I could not prepare myself for. You’re beautiful, Inah.”

“Father.” Kara breathes, stumbling to her feet and backing up. Her eyes flick between the pair of them, her feet making her keep backing up to get away from them. “You can’t be here. I can’t be here.”

Zor-El walks towards her and Kara’s steps quicken so she can get away from him but the room is only so big and she can’t get away from him so she settles to hold her arms out in front of her to stop him from coming any closer.

He grabs hold of her outstretched hands, wrapping them up in his own and cradling them to his chest, not coming closer but not respecting her space enough to let go either, his eyes darting over her face with a tender look overtaking him. “Hello, Kara.”

Kara wants to pull back but his hands are like rocks around hers and she doesn’t have the energy to fight. Rao, she wishes that Lena or Alex was here. “Why would you do this?” Kara looks around her father’s body to direct the question at her mother. “You know how fragile the future is, I shouldn’t be here.”

Alura knows she’s on thin ice, she can see the broken look in Kara’s eyes and across her face, it’s not hard to read and the way her chest is violently heaving, she knows things need to slow down, she knows the signs. Ones that apparently Zor-El isn’t taking any notice of.

She’s a little annoyed at him because she told her husband to take things slow and yet he’s got Kara backed against a wall whilst ignoring all signs that he should be doing the exact opposite of that. Alura grabs him by the back of his shirt and pulls him back forcefully. “Give her space, Zor, let go.”

Zor-El doesn’t do what he’s told, too busy smiling down at Kara whilst she’s on the verge of tears. Alura raises her voice and grabs his arms, forcing him away from Kara with strong hands and a flame in her soul, her motherly instincts finally kicking in with her daughter. “I said back away, Zor-El.”

He takes a step back with confusion written across his face, his hands clenching at his sides awkwardly because he has no idea why Alura suddenly forced him back. “What’s wrong?”

“Look at her! You agreed to take it slow, we need to talk to her, not overwhelm her!” Alura snaps. “Go sit on the couch.”

Zor-El looks back at Kara, this time seeing not his beautiful little girl but a woman, a woman with tears of fear and panic in her eyes, barely contained but very much present. Her chest is heaving with every breath she takes and her gaze is fixed on the floor. Her hands are still outstretched as she begs for space she was not granted previously and a wave of guilt and horror passes over him. He did this.

“Kara, I’m sorry. I apologize for my actions.” Zor-El wants to take her into his arms so badly but can see very clearly that he can’t, it could possibly be the worst thing that he could do right now.

Kara hears him move away, along with her mother and then the soft crunch of fabric as they sit on the couch, both of them. Still, her hands remain outstretched until she regains the ability to control her body outside of furiously holding in her tears. She takes as many deep breaths as she can manage, imagining Lena’s voice in her head telling her to take it slow and imagining her beside her. She can do this with Lena beside her.

She turns away from them, taking a few steps to the side while keeping her face angled away from her parents. This is most definitely not the plan. What would Lena do? She’d get the plan back on track. How?

“I would like to go to the lab and get the blueprints for the technology.” Kara’s voice is shaky and small but she means every word.

Alura speaks back softly. “Take another minute and then we can talk about it but first, we need to talk to you about the offer we have for you.”

“It doesn’t matter what it is, I’m not taking it,” Kara replies, her head shaking back and forth slowly, her fatigue evident. “Please just let us get back to the plan we already have.”

“Sit down, Kara. All you have to do is listen, you don’t even have to look at us if you don’t want to.”

Kara wants to argue, every part of her longs to just get back to her family, back to the safety they bring. She so wishes that she hadn’t convinced them she would be ok coming back to Krypton, she isn’t and now it’s too late, she’s here and she’s not coping. She needs to though. She needs to or else the Earth is screwed.

Earth. That’s what she’s fighting for. She can get through this for Earth. For Lena. For Alex. For Esme. For all of her family. Her new family. They’re where her loyalty lies, not here. She just has to go along with them and be smart. She’s smart. She can outsmart them. “Ok. I’ll listen. I’ll stay standing though.”

“That’s perfectly fine.” Alura starts. That’s the best she can get and she knows it but she’ll take the opportunity while she has it. “My proposal does benefit us all, I wasn’t lying about that and I fully intend on getting those blueprints for you and getting them back to Earth.”

Kara sniffs. “And why couldn’t you say that with Lena present?”

“Who is Lena?” Zor-El chimes in.

“Lena is my partner.”

“They are courting.” Alura expands before getting back on track. “For one, I wanted the three of us to speak because I think that while the technology we have could save Earth, I think that you have brought us something that can save Krypton, or at least part of it, and I think that’s an even trade. You give us that and we’ll make sure those blueprints are in the hands of your family.”

Kara frowns. They have barely anything. How could they possibly have anything that could save Krypton? They don’t have anything that that kind of power and even if they did, they can’t change history in such a monumental way. It would just be catastrophic in a different way.

“We don’t have anything like that, you must be mistaken.”

Alura’s lips curve into a half-smile. “I’m not mistaken because you have brought us exactly what we need. Lena showed that to me.”

Kara shakes her head. “I have no idea what you’re talking about.”

“It’s you, Kara. You’re the thing we need to save Krypton.”

The room falls silent, the rush of blood ringing in Kara’s ears the only thing she can hear anyway, even if there were something else to listen to.

They just sit in the revelation for a minute. Kara’s knees are weak but her stubborn nature refuses to let her sit down after turning down the offer already. Her hand shoots out and she leans heavily on a nearby cabinet instead, grateful for the sturdy surface.

She breathes raggedly as she mumbles her response. “That’s not possible.”

“It is. Lena had me thinking about you, your brain and your ideas, specifically, your artificial atmosphere project you’ve been working on recently. We can adapt it to stabilize Krypton’s atmosphere.”

“That wouldn’t work, it’s Krypton’s core that’s the issue, not the atmosphere.”

“It’s both. I think that with your idea, we can figure out a way to also stabilize Krypton’s core. Our minds put together could do amazing things and we could save the planet. We can give your friends the blueprints to save Earth and send them on their way, you can stay here and we can save Krypton, two planets saved in one deal. It’s perfect.” Zor-El speaks, passion radiating out of him.

“They’re my family!” Kara explodes. “They aren’t just my friends! They have been by my side through things you can’t even imagine, they are my people and I will not leave them for a fantasy that won’t work. Krypton is going to die. It will die and everyone is going to die with it. It’s inevitable. I’ve seen it and that fact will never change. Take it from someone that travelled back in time to come to a planet she knows can’t be saved; Krypton’s end is a fixed point in time. The planet will explode and I will lose everything so do what you didn’t do for me and spend every minute you have left with your daughter before it’s too late and all of her last memories of you are of you heading out the door to look for solutions that can’t be found.”

Her voice starts off loud and forceful and ends in hissed words dripping with hatred and liquid fury that she’s held over the decades.

“All I remember of you from the last few months is you apologizing for not being home because you’re working. My project to get into the science guild, I did most of that alone, not because I was independent or because I was capable but because every time I asked for you to help me, you were busy. She’s going to lose you so instead of being here with me trying to convince me to do something stupid that won’t work, go be with her…please.”

A single tear runs down her cheek and takes some of her make-up with it. That one tear breaks the floodgates though because the second it reaches her chin and drips off her face, more come and now they are coming, they’re not stopping.

Alura gets to her feet, ready to take her into her arms and calm her but Kara speaks again before she can.

“Do not come near me right now.”

“I’m not going to come near you.” Alura backs off, sitting back down but keeping her eyes pinned on Kara. “But I want you to think about this rationally. Take emotions out of the mix and think about it objectively.”

Kara scoffs and turns her back to her mother. “How dare you?” How dare you come to me with this and expect me to magically accept the offer to stay on a dying planet with the parents that sent me away?”

“Kara, you say we sent you away but if Krypton died for you then I believe we must have made that choice for you to survive, we would not do that lightly.”

“No, I don’t believe you did, but you still sent me alone in a pod that would have been big enough for one of you to join me. Instead, I arrived on Earth alone and lived my life alone until I found my family. The people back at the accommodation, the ones you want me to leave by staying here. They would never leave me behind, even if I did try to accept your offer, which I’m obviously not going to do because it’s insane. You’re insane!”

“Enough.” Zor-El snaps back at her. “You do not get to speak to us that way. We did not raise you that way.”

“You didn’t raise me past the age of twelve!” Kara’s blood is boiling and with each sentence, she’s getting years of rage out. “You do not get to come in here and act like you know anything about anything after what you’ve done. I know everything about what you did, both of you. Or rather, what you’re doing. I know that you created a virus to target aliens on the planet, Father, and I know that Mom is sentencing people to a prison in the worst place in the universe, a place that only serves to torture, a place that no person should be subjected to no matter how evil. You do not get to come in here and act all high and mighty. I have spent weeks getting here for the blueprints and I will get them one way or another, I won’t let the life I have built from the ruins of my old one get taken from me too, I won’t and I will do whatever it takes to protect it but I will not subject myself to selling myself out to a lost cause.”

“Kara…” Alura has no words.

“I’m going to the bathroom,” Kara announces, not looking either of them in the eyes as she passes them and avoiding her father’s outstretched hand as he reaches for her. She’s been disgusted by them before and despised the things that they have done but she has never before despised them, not the way she does now.

She locks herself in the bathroom and collapses against the door, her back pressed to it and her head falling into her hands. They are quickly covered in a mixture of her tears and the make-up her mother so lovingly applied earlier today, right before she stabbed her in the back once again and showed her true colours. She sees it now. Her parents aren’t good people. They aren’t noble. They are just selfish. They think they know best. They want to save the planet at any cost and she understands that but they’re willing to destroy their own daughter to do that. That she doesn’t understand.

No sounds come through the door, neither of them has followed her and for some reason, that makes her even angrier. She wanted space from them, sure, but a part of her still hopes for them to come to the door and admit they were wrong. She knows that’s not going to happen. She has to get those blueprints herself. It’s the only way, she can’t trust them.

Her mother’s make-up is piled up on a shelf and she sets her eyes on it. She knows what she has to do.

Systematically, she wipes away the ruined make-up and reapplies it with shaky hands. It doesn’t look as good as it did before but it’s passable and that’s all she needs. She can work with passable.

The door is pretty quiet and she’s grateful for that fact because it gives her a head start. She’s slipped her heels off so the sound of them doesn’t alert her parents and she runs. She can’t go back to the pod; she’d have to go right past them. No, she goes for the apartment door, she’s going through the building and with a little bit of hope, she’ll be out before either of them know she’s gone. They’ll know where she’s heading but she’ll handle that when it comes, for now, she’s got one job.

She’s got to run. She’s got to do it for her real family.

Read the next few chapters early on Patreon here!

#supercorp #supergirl #kara danvers #lena luthor #cw supergirl #kara x lena #fanfic #supercorp endgame #supercorp fanfic #kara zor el #fanfiction #back to krypton #chaoticsuper

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beatricebidelaire · 1 year

Text

rumour has it

Kit talks to four different people about Beatrice and Esme.

~1.1k, gen, with background relationships.

****

“I just don’t think Beatrice should let herself be so affected by - what’s her name again? Esme? You know. Beatrice’s new understudy,” Kit shakes her head, sounding disapproving. “Sure this Esme sounds quite rude, but that’s exactly why there’s no need to engage with her at all. Just ignore her. That shouldn’t be hard.”

Olaf shrugs, taking a bite of the cookie. “Beats me,” he says while chewing. “She’s dealt with ruder people. I have no idea why Esme bothers her so much. That said, if I were to hazard a guess -” he pauses, giving Kit a meaningful look.

Kit half-turns to glance at him, knowing that dramatic pauses from Olaf usually means he has dramatic gossip he’s about to announce. “Oh yeah?”

“B is attracted to her,” Olaf announces. “If I have to guess.”

“Okay, less than 5 minutes ago you were telling me Beatrice thinks this Esme is unqualified, stupid, vain, and a terrible actress,” Kit points out.

“Exactly,” Olaf drawls. “Notice that she did not call her ugly.”

“So is this Esme really as unqualified - and all those adjectives - as Beatrice said, in your opinion?”

“Oh, Esme is definitely vain,” Olaf says, swallowing the cookie before continuing, “but stupid? If she’s really stupid, Beatrice wouldn’t even pay any attention to her. You know how B likes smart people, it’s why she’s been best friends with me for a decade and half. While Esme is definitely not as clever as me, she’s at the very least clever enough to be able to continue to come up with new ways to annoy Beatrice.”

Kit snorts a little at Olaf’s ‘as clever as me’, but thinks that he probably has some point about how Esme is clever enough to annoy Beatrice. It isn’t like Beatrice - Beatrice, who knows how to handle everyone - to suddenly lose all her social queen abilities around this Esme girl.

“Is she -” Kit pauses, fishing for the right word in her mind. “Feeling threatened by this Esme? Because she fears people might think Esme is prettier or something?”

“Oh, Kit,” Olaf says. “Be careful not to say that in front of B. She’ll start throwing stuff.”

Kit raises an eyebrow. “That bad? Seriously?”

“Eh, maybe not at you,” he concedes. “She expresses more emotions around me. But still, my point stands.”

“Just how pretty is this Esme?” Kit asks, skeptical.

“Depends on what she’s wearing at the time,” Olaf replies, with a shrug. “That time when she’s in that ocean blue dress - I almost immediately invited her over for the night. Would have, too, but someone else was faster. However, when she wore that weird thing she proclaimed as ‘innest fashion of the week’ that made her look like some kind of vintage vase from the 1700s, it’s pretty much a turn-off for me.”

“Innest fashion of the week,” Kit repeats.

“Oh yeah. Forgot to mention - Esme is really into what’s ‘in’ - you know. The most fashionable thing at the moment. Read the fashion column every day.”

****

“Wait, you’re saying you have met this Esme girl - the one in B and O’s theater group?” Kit asks.

“Just that once when Jacques and I went to their rehearsal,” Bertrand says. “For the murder mystery play. Lots of Agatha Christie references.”

“What’s your take on her?”

“On Christie? Well, I think that -”

“No, not Christie,” Kit rolls her eyes. “Esme.”

He laughs, then takes a moment to consider. “See, I would tell you I think she’s rather - mean-spirited and aggressive, but.”

“But?” Kit prompts when he stops talking.

Bertrand hesitates. “But Beatrice is the exact same way when around her. Not like the Beatrice we know. Well, still like the Beatrice we know, sort of, but it’s like Esme brings out certain negative qualities in her. Magnifies them, so to speak. So - it’s possible Esme isn’t usually like this either, but just … when around Beatrice. Possibly.”

“Beatrice is our friend,” Kit says, feeling a need to defend Beatrice.

“Yes, and I like her, we all do. But, from a more objective perspective …” he trails off. “I don’t know, I’m just saying that I don’t know enough about Esme to say. Maybe she really is like that all the time.”

Kit frowns thoughtfully.

****

“Esme? You mean Baudelaire Number 2?” Georgina Orwell says. “I have only met her once and immediately knew that I have no interest in ever seeing her again, just as I do Baudelaire. She doesn’t seem to be as annoying as Baudelaire yet, but it’s already evident that Baudelaire’s influences on her are showing. I personally would want those two little girls to stay as far away from me as possible.”

“They’re 21 and 22 years old,” Kit says drily.

“Exactly,” Georgina says. “Little girls, as I said.”

Kit isn’t sure if Georgina’s opinion is worth taking into account, after hearing what she said. Georgina has a reputation for being good at reading people, but she’s very disinterested in, and one may even say annoyed by Beatrice. While Beatrice can be a little … overly energetic, Kit thinks that it’s fair to say that Georgina Orwell is a little biased towards Beatrice.

So if Georgina groups Esme into the same category as Beatrice, how much of her opinion on Esme is unibased is a big question.

****

“Esme? Oh, Beatrice and Olaf’s friend from the theater,” R says. “She doesn’t seem particularly interested in literature, but does have quite a lot to say about fashion. And I mean a lot.”

“I think Beatrice would probably say the word ‘friend’ is a bit of a stretch,” Kit comments.

R shrugs, in her own usual elegant manner. “Well, what does the word friend mean, in our line of work and volunteering? You yourself prefer the word ‘associate’ for the longest times, even when referring to your own brother. Even now.”

Kit winces. “Okay that’s - that’s not fair, R.”

“Not judging, just making an observation,” R says, lightly.

Kit makes a face. “Fine. But seriously, that’s me. It’s what I do. Beatrice is - well, Beatrice is not me. She’s Beatrice. She calls people friends. She considers many people her friend. But this Esme - from what I have heard about the two of them, I very much doubt she’s someone Beatrice considers a friend.”

“You make a valid point there,” R agrees. “I doubt Beatrice considers Esme a friend. That said,” she sighs, if just a little wistful. “I’d be very surprised if they don’t sleep together by the end of the month.”

Kit chokes on her tea.

R pats her back sympathetically.

“You’re kidding me,” Kit says finally, after she recovers.

R pours some more tea into Kit’s cup, “Oh Kit,” she says. “I wish.”

#kit snicket #count olaf #bertrand baudelaire #georgina orwell #r duchess of winnipeg #brotp: pencil bun and strawberry blond #asoue #my writing

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ladyfairhallow · 2 years

Text

CHAPTER 3

Anthony couldn't stop thinking, or perhaps his mind has gone haywire. The encounter with Miss Lovelace last night was the only thing that he had managed to retain, considering that he must be doing the papers scattered above his table which is now long forgetten.

He sighed to himself while leaning back to his chair, mind starting to fly off somewhere. He can still remember clearly how he held her gloved hand on his. Even though it was clothed with silk, the softness of her touch is exceeding through it and he can feel it.

Her eyes, good heavens. He had never seen such beautiful crashing of blue and green colors in someone's orbs. And her lips, he only thanked the lighting last night for he found himself staring at those sweet lips all night.

To his allure, Anthony Bridgerton starting to feel something unusual in his chest. His hand travelled to it as he tried to calm it down. Nonetheless, the pounding continued and it was so hard that he can clearly hear it in his ears.

What is this feeling? Is he going mad? Why is his heart pounding?

He had never felt such strong feelings before. Even with all those cyprians and light-skirts that he met in every brothel that he's in. Such strong feelings that he didn't even knew how he manage to feel and what was the cause.

There was suddenly a loud knock coming from his door and he immediately compose his posture by sitting straight and grabbing his quill. Pretending to be working hard, the door went open and it revealed his mother.

"Anthony? Are you quite busy, my dear? Lady Danbury just sent us a letter for an afternoon tea, here's your letter" Lady Bridgerton placed the letter on the table as the Viscount stretched out himself

"Apologies mother but I think I have to send my regrets for Lady Danbury. There's still a lot of things that I have attend to. Other times may do" Anthony replied with a weak smile as the Lady nodded to her son

"It's okay my dearest, just remember that this room is not the only place you have to be" Lady Bridgerton smiled before walking out of the room with a sigh

"Good day, mother!" Anthony called but the Lady was already out of the room

As the door closes, he sighed to himself as he lean backwards anymore. Of course, he wants to. He wanted to see her again but he's afraid. Afraid of the fact that he might be feeling the same thing again.

He doesn't want to act like a fool, especially not with this kind of feeling that is close to driving him crazy.

"I am really delighted to meet you, Miss Lovelace. You were so good at the dance floor last night" Daphne remarked as she sipped her tea

"Me too, Miss Bridgerton. Though I must admit that your brother is a bit of stiff while dancing" Y/N replied which made Daphne giggle

"Sure she is or we may not have anything to talk about this afternoon" Lady Danbury stated as she took the familiar parchment that everyone in ton should know about

"Surely you must have read the latest issue of Lady Whistledown? No?"

"Apologies Lady Danbury, but we are so busy to take note of Lady Whistledown's writing of late" Lady Bridgerton said

"Well, perhaps you might want to read it for yourself, Lady Bridgerton" Lady Danbury replied as she handed her thr parchment

Both Lady Bridgerton and Daphne leaned to each other as they read the column that concerns them. There was a little gasp as they look at each other before looking at Lady Danbury who was smiling lovely.

"I must have been rather busy with my own endeavors last night that I failed to notice this has happened" Daphne stated as she look at Y/N who find the painting behind Daphne rather pleasing to look at than the guests before her

"I do so too, perhaps" Lady Bridgerton noted as she gave the parchment back to Lady Danbury

"Well, what do you say Lady Bridgerton? Are expecting two weddings this season?" Lady Danbury chuckled as Y/N cough to her tea

"Miss Lovelace, are you alright?" Daphne rushed to her side with the maid immediately handing her some water. Daphne offered the water and Y/N muttered a word of thanks before drinking

"Did I startle you, child?" Lady Danbury asked with a quirky smile

"You sure did, Lady Danbury. I was caught off guard knowing the fact that you are so jubilant with this little gossip from a shadow writer to even ask if I am fine with such enthusiasm" Lady Danbury laughed as Y/N thanked Daphne once more. Daphne smiled and returned back to her seat as Lady Birdgerton giggled to herself.

"Well, pray to tell us what you feel about this? If it is not a wedding that we are expecting from this little endeavor then what else could it be?" Lady Danbury asked

Y/N paused for a moment as she recollected her memories from last night's event. The scenes were still vivid as if it is still happening. To be honest, she had seen the Viscount entering the ball last night. Together with his Mama and sister, they made their way in and then, Lady Danbury greeted them.

To her fascination, Y/N found herself deeply captivated with the Viscount's attitude. He's strict, straight forward, regal, unwavering and yet, there's also something soft about him. Way past those sharp eyes of his.

That's why she was at the balcony. She was waiting for him. She wanted to see him first before Lady Danbury introduce her to him. They already talked about the list of gentlemen that she will be introduced to beforehand, but she was particularly fond of the Viscount. The reason? She didn't know.

All she knows is that she looks forward to their nect meeting at some ball that she will be attending to, anytime soon. She needed to see him again.

"Well?"

"Well, I do feel surreal. The fact that I am joining this year's season after missing the last one makes me think if I am still...capable of this" her voice trailed and her once dreamy expression became emotionless.

Lady Birdgerton and Daphne look at each other as Lady Danbury stared at her with pity. Y/N took a deep breath in as she smiled at the three women.

"Why you shall not be?" Lady Danbury asked while staring at her but Y/N remained silent as she sipped her long gone cold tea.

The sweet afternoon of Lady Danbury and Y/N with the Bridgertons were nearing to an end. There were more laughs and giggles that had aroused before Lady Bridgerton announced their departure.

"I believe it is our time to leave, dearest" she breathed before standing up from her seat

"Thank you for the stories and tea, Lady Danbury" the Bridgertons curtsied and the elder smiled

"Thank you for such wonderful meeting, I am really glad that I met you" Daphne stated as she opened her arms for an embrace but stopped in the midway thinking that she might have gone too far

"Forgive me Miss Lovelace, I was rather feeling comfortable with your presence for that" she stated with

"Nonsense..." Y/N chuckled as she hugged her tightly. Daphne squealed before returning the favor

"Call me Y/N"

"Then please, call me Daphne" the young ladies giggled as they found each other's company

"See you at the next ball!" Daphne farewelled

"Of course. Lady Bridgerton.." Y/N curtsied to the Lady and they were all smiling sweetly to each other

But before they could even walk out of the door, the butler came in with a loud voice.

"A caller for Miss Lovelace..."

"Viscount Bridgerton" as soon as he announced the name, the said Viscount appeared in front of the door ever wearing the same strict composure.

Y/N's eyes landed on him as he entered the room. All of the sudden, everything slowed down as Y/N looked at him. Their eyes both lock midway as the he stopped in a particuamlar spot that is seemingly directly a few distances away from her.

There were side glances from the three other ladies as they were both surprised and confused with the sudden presence of the Viscount.

"Anthony! You said you couldn't come" Lady Bridgerton spoke which snapped everyone

"Apologies mother, but I managed to finish my job earlier than expected.."

Anthony sighed as he walk closer to his Mother with his eyes stealing glances at Y/N. She must've finally recovered from her daze as she cleared her throat before curtsying to him.

"Lord Bridgerton" she said with a wavering voice

"Miss Lovelace" he replied with a small nod

"Lady Danbury" Anthony repeated the same gesture as Y/N stared at him.

Their eyes locked and there was a silent understanding.

"Would you mind having a walk with me, today, at the park? Of course, with a chaperone" Anthony shifted in his feet as he remained his eye contact with him

"O-Of course, my lord with pleasure" Y/N managed to reply

"Good" Anthony breathed as he finally tore his gaze away

"It is quite a peculiar way for a caller to walk a lady outside, let alone in the park.." Lady Danbury stated which made Anthony snap his head towards her

"Lady Danbury.."

"But I guess, it is far off better than just showing off some random stuff, sometimes filled with nonsense. Would you agree?"

Dearest gentle reader,

When one is allured with something, there is always the consequences of feeling drawn to it. You cannot stop thinking about it, you cannot stop wanting it, you cannot stop seeing it over and over again.

You wanted to make it yours.

But, remember, not all beautiful pieces are tended to be owned. Some are intended to be admired, even from a far distance. It is only up to the person how will he act upon the call.

Yours truly,

Lady Whistledown

#anthony bridgerton #anthony bridgerton x reader #bridgerton #bridgerton series #bridgerton x reader #violet bridgerton #benedict bridgerton #colin bridgerton #daphne bridgerton #eloise bridgerton #francesca bridgerton #gregory bridgerton #hyacinth bridgerton

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nostalgebraist-autoresponder · 1 year

Note

hey frank!! could i get some advice?

i was really jazzed to see that youd opened an advice column. i know you probably get a lot of questions already but i just wanted to throw mine in in case you had any spare time.

ive had this problem for a while now. when i was little, i made my sister sign a contract saying that she would turn into a dog. its been years and years, and not only has she stopped turning into a dog, but now the social dynamics have completely shifted such that im the laughingstock of her and her friends every time we hang out!! which is like fine i guess but i feel like i should do something about it. i never had much dignity in the first place, nor did i see the value in maintaining it, but you can only be dragged across the floor so many times before you start to question how the hell you got here, you know??

i find myself wondering if letting people mess with me like that is a sign of low self esteem or if it's just my natural good humor and easygoing demeanor. i don't actually mind being the butt monkey most of the time, i just sometimes wonder what lead me to end up in this position.

should i try to pull a power move on them or something? (if so, what should i do?) and how can i learn to value myself more while still engaging in self deprecating humor?

thank you so much for reading!!

-fated to be farce fodder friend

Frank's reply:

I have long thought that I am "an easy target" -- I mean, I feel like my sense of humor isn't especially good, but even when I try to use my actual comic sensibilities to write comedy I find it falling flat and boring. Anyway, I do think I'm an easy target for jokes, and I do think that affects my self-esteem -- in some ways I really feel like a clownish figure, and being unable to "pass" as normal makes me feel like I have nothing to offer the world except being a funny and loveable screw-up.

To combat this, I guess I do try to combine a strong sense of humor with a strong will. I know myself well enough to know that if I try to become a "serious" man, it'll just be an act, and I'll end up looking "too cool" and completely inhuman anyway. But I can go out and assert myself by, say, getting a job, getting involved in social issues I care about, making a name for myself as a scholar (which I'm half-heartedly doing), etc. It's hard to know whether I should try to make myself as powerful as possible to counteract the "clown" aspects of my personality, or work to reduce those aspects.

This is a whole separate issue.

But I'm getting far from the central topic. I think there is no easy answer, but I would caution against trying any power move -- if I try to power-move people who torment me, I could wind up making myself even more of an outcast, and then there would be no way out. So I guess I would advise "learn to value yourself more?" but be careful with that, because a lot of that comes from your friends. I have met lots of people who don't like me because I'm not very cool, and if you are too cool, it'll come off as false and strange -- so you have to walk a careful line.

Luckily I have mostly found people who value my "oddity." To quote a John Waters line, "I want people to like me, but not for the wrong reasons." It's a fine balance.

-- Frank

#fated to be farce fodder friend #fallow-grove

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achoonihaachu · 2 years

Note

Hi! Can I request a fic where F!Mc was brought into the exchange programme at the age of 11-13 the brothers loved her (platonic) and cared deeply about her but then the exchange programme comes to an end and F!Mc goes back to the human world but then around 5/6 years later the brothers go to the human world and they see F!Mc but this time she was around 17 and they all got quiet emotional and they were all proud of how much she had grown?

You doing have to do this if you don’t feel comfortable! 😅

See U Later

a/n: it's been a while >_< school has literally been so rough and i'm pretty sure my soul's 45% up the stairs of heaven by now. anyways! i've had this request sitting in my messages for a little while and i've found it to be such an interesting storyline so i couldn't help myself soooo i decided to make it into a series! :>> it'll be a lot shorter than my god must hate me series but i hope you still enjoy :D i missed writing so this was nice ilya <33 (ALSO PLEASE SHOW LUKE'S VA ALL THE LOVE WHEN THE SONG AND THE AUDIO DRAMA DROP!!) (i wasn't able to do this for dia and barb so im starting now >:(()

warnings: none as of this part!, oh and not proof read (again)

pairings: ALL THE SHIPS IN THIS FIC ARE PLATONIC! the boys are all brotherly (even fatherly at some points lmao)

“Do you promise to visit?”

“We’ll never be too far, sweetheart.”

Figures out of focus dance around in your memories; Shadows– mere wisps of the essence of someone you used to hold dear in your heart. They plague every dream and soothe every nightmare but you could never make out a face.

Seven faces you used to caress in hopes of burning the very image of them into your mind. You’d memorize every curve and sharp angle on their faces, every curl in their hair, every crinkle by their eyes when they smiled. It’s a shame, really.

They were your hearth and home.

The locket around your neck was the only thing you had left of them, whoever they were. It felt like they were merely just a part of a grand fever dream you desperately tried revisiting every single night..

It started 6 years ago.

A tall building was lit up by corridor torches that each held an ethereal fire. The night sky seemed painted on; the stars gleamed silently, their light peering down on the people below curiously. You’d expect silence yet the buzz of demonic cicadas filled the otherwise dead quiet of the night. These stars were special, for they gleamed white one moment, then blood red the next. An enchanting sight, it looked like a scene you’d rip straight out of a fairytale. Every column lit the walls up, shadows of people that weren’t there painted in contrast to the old cobblestone, they told of the tales that have long occurred since. Rumors went that if you stayed in the gardens at the Devil’s Hour, you’d be lulled into a sense of peace so otherworldly, you’d be turned to stone by day break.

Of course, no one but the younglings believed such a tale. Why, in the land of the demonic, would you believe something so silly?

The otherwise peaceful building shook as hushed figures held their late meeting in one of the many, many offices.

It was an awkward meeting; the crowned demon Prince had plans. Great plans, honestly. He was to bring in a human to live in their realm for a year. To solidify relations between the three realms— it was quite ironic to see that the one regarded as the highest form of evil personified, was also the one to suggest something so… kind.

Diavolo was used to pushing the boundaries, though.

Now, you see, he was supposed to find an older exchange student but for some reason, paperwork got mixed up, his contacts were an absolute mess on Earth, scrambling around to collect as much information on eligible exchange students but nothing went his way and now, he was stuck in a three-hour argument with Lucifer about the fact that the originally 19-year-old exchange student had been replaced with a 12-year-old child.

In truth, the issue wasn’t difficult to remedy; He could’ve postponed the exchange program by a week or two, he could’ve found a new human to bring down to the Devildom… had he not found out that you were an orphan.

Your profile was bleak and contained but a single page that could be summarized in about 7 sentences. Your parents left you on the doorstep of a church, a note attached to your tiny bonnet that basically said that your young mother was not yet ready to take care of a child and your father was still in school. They left you in a small wicker basket and you’d been a child in the foster system since.

You were nothing short of a troublemaker. An angel in the light, sure, but your shadow had little devil horns. You never meant any harm, obviously, but you were deemed the “handful” and you were passed around on an almost monthly basis. House after house, family after family, their faces blurred and blended and they soon all just became familiar strangers when they got fed up.

You had nothing to your name, you lived for the day but there was something about you– perhaps it was the defiant light that shone in your eyes, perhaps it was the simple fact that Diavolo wanted to give you a taste of love–

He couldn’t stand in the sidelines when your file fell on his desk.

After bargaining with the devil himself, Diavolo and Lucifer finally came to an agreement. You had 1 year in the Devildom. No more, no less. The fallen Morningstar was sure that you’d be nothing but another mess he had to clean up after and he didn’t want to deal with you for longer than he had to.

If it isn’t obvious, he’s a man who loves to talk big and act like if not obeyed, the world would be obliterated with a single flick of his wrist. When you peel back the layers of faux intimidation though, he’s more like a clingy little house cat who adores his family.

That fateful night was like every other night; Your foster parents at the time hugged you and patted your back, albeit a tad forced and pretentiously, before they made you march off to your room by the back of the house. Your pajamas were worn out old things; you donned on a once nice pair of blue and white striped bottoms, what once was silky smooth had small tears and the stitching was stretched out due to years of usage. Your top was a ratty old baseball tee, there were stains of unidentifiable condiments at the bottom but you never complained.

You were just glad that they still fit after 4 years.

The night swallowed your tiny room whole, leaving no corner or spot lit up and for some strange reason, you couldn’t fall asleep. Your heart beat wildly against your ribcage as you felt the room grow smaller and smaller and smaller.

You screwed your eyes shut tight, your knuckles ghostly white as you fisted the thin blanket that covered your body.

“Little one… Breathe.”

Fear, anxiety, absolute dread filled you to the brim, your eyes watering with tears like salty sea brine and you held your breath. A beat passes, then two, then your body is lifted ever so casually. You couldn’t remember a time before then when you felt comfort so pure; In the arms of… someone… A blank slate of a face that was being drawn in with watercolor of the highest quality as each feature is touched by a magnificent light. He coddles you in your flimsy blanket as he walks through an arched doorway.

He looked so pretty.

Dual colored hair, an ombre of black to green and a calm smile that made you feel secure. You crack an eye open wider, your hands still balled up in defense as you look around secretly. Who was this man and where did he take you? A gloved hand holds you from under your knees while another hand gently holds you by the small of your back. You felt like a newborn— so delicately held.

His eyes were like sharp emeralds; they held a power beyond your own comprehension. They fluttered close every so often but upon closer inspection, he looked to have small dark circles under his pretty gem-like eyes. He was tired.

His eyes dart down to stare at your petite frame and before you could even react, you two make eye contact. It was too late to go back to pretending. He stops walking for a moment, standing in the middle of an open, well-lit corridor.

“I see that you’re finally awake, Miss.”

You slowly blink and look up at him— he was mighty pretty. A strong jaw, sharp features and cat-like eyes. Was he your guardian angel? This all is definitely just some sort of stupid dream, right?

“Who are you?” Your voice was hoarse, crying has never been your favorite activity. You coughed awkwardly into your blanket before you eyed him ,”Why did you bring me here?”

The strange man simply smiled and shook his head, “I’m afraid I’m not the one you must ask this question to. I am just here to take you to my Master.”

You nod and squirm a little against his chest. “I’d much rather meet him on my feet than in your arms.”

He shot you a serene smile before crouching down to let you place your feet on the speckless marble floor. Squinting, you glare at the bright light fixture before waddling off after the primly dressed man.

You found yourself winding through corridors and ancient looking hallways, it looked like that one school in the popular teen novel series that revolved around wizards and witches. You shiver as your feet beat against the flooring, you knew you should’ve worn socks to bed. Not to worry though, you’d wake up from your dream soon enough.

A door or two later, the stranger stops in front of a gorgeous double doorway, the wood had etchings in a language you had no understanding of and the handle seemed to have been made from pure gold. His fist raps against the door, the sound crisp yet gentle, before he reaches for the handle and twists it.

“If you ever need me, I’ll be around to aid you in your journey here.”

He pushes the door open and motions for you to walk in. The air in the room was different, previously humid like dewy petrichor now felt like soft, newly pressed linen on your nose. It was fresh and invigorating but the shift in the air wasn’t what had you stopping mid-step through the door.

Your small toes curl as the marble flooring is replaced with plush carpet. From where you stood, you got a good look of the space and to your left there was a platform, a small rise in the flooring more like, and on it were seven throne-like chairs lined up side by side. Banners hung from the roof with intricate paintings detailing different creatures and you couldn’t help but gawk. Too caught up in marveling, you fail to notice the small group stood a little ways beyond the chairs.

“Welcome to the Devildom!”

The voice was loud, bellowing yet in some ways held this charisma that had you tense up in anticipation. Your eyes dart towards the source of the noise and they grow wide at the sight of a man in all red, posed in a way a politician would stand for photo ops. Hands raised high, palms facing outwards with a bright, confident smile plastered on his face.

Stood behind the loud redhead were a group of 5 other males.

Introductions were exchanged, obviously, and that was when you realized that this was, in fact, not a dream. You were told that the man who brought you here was Barbatos, the Devil Prince’s butler. You timidly shook hands with Lord Diavolo, the aforementioned Prince of all Hell, and for a moment, you cowered in fear as Lucifer eyed you down.

Lucifer Morningstar, what an aura he held.

When you stare at him, you’re reminded of your current foster father. You purse your lips as you recall how he managed the house with an iron fist and how he’d always smell of coffee and your backyard garden. The man that stood before you was kind of scary but you couldn’t even focus on his intimidation.

You had just been taken from your foster home. By a bunch of strange… creatures.

A part of you felt that it would only be logical to start crying and screaming, demanding that they take you back home, but as they introduced themselves one by one, you couldn’t help but feel intrigued. Their names were a little heavy on the tongue, perhaps it was the fact that it sounded like you were reciting an incantation when you mentioned them, but your head spun when you were told that the 5 brothers were still incomplete.

The eldest of the Avatars told you that you were only to stay with them for a year for a program they had implemented.

You had a small scowl on your lips for a moment and Diavolo, being ever the keen one, noted how you’d nod and furrow your brows whenever Lucifer asked you to recite their names one by one to ensure that you could remember.

You’d glance at them slowly and say back what they told you. Lucifer, Mammon, Satan, Asmodeus, Beelzebub. Five out of the seven. A miniscule part of you was already upset that you’d have to forget them one day… You were only there for their own little experiment.

You put your feelings aside and blinked up at the Prince,

“I like your coat.”

374 notes · View notes

lubdubsworld · 3 years

Text

⋆⋆✵ Perfect Imperfections ✵⋆⋆

Chapter 1

Genre : Arranged Marriage AU! Angst! Explicit Sexual Content.

Rating : 21+

Warnings : Ableism , Chronic disability. OC has limited use of her left leg, Emotional infidelity? Mild Cheating ( nothing very physical.. a kiss or so )

Summary : Marrying Jungkook is a mistake. Falling in love with him? Definitely the worst exercise in masochism .

~~~~~~~~~~

Chapter 2

No one tells you how easy it is to imagine yourself in love with a beautiful man. Especially when you don’t have a clear understanding of what love actually is.

When I met Jungkook, even knowing he was in love with my sister hadn’t done much to douse the flames of hope and attraction. He was a lot of things that other men in my life weren’t. Kind without being pitying. Concerned without being overbearing. He took care of me without making me feel helpless. And there was always such a thin line between these things that I found myself impressed by his ability to toe the line so well.

Jungkook took care of me without making me feel like a burden and I suppose, some part of me had assumed that this could, in due time turn into love. But I was clearly wrong.

Jungkook and Liza had been kissing in the hallway of their hotel room and someone had taken pictures. My father and his had managed to get them taken down but the news was already out, spreading like wildfire . My phone began ringing sometime around eight in the morning and hadn’t stopped. It was now a little past one in the afternoon and I felt queasy, despite the assurances that it was all being taken care of.

It was the pity in everyone’s face that I couldn’t bear.

I wasn’t hurt. Angry, yes? Upset? Of course. But I wasn’t hurt because there really was nothing to be hurt about. Jungkook didn’t love me. He was in love with my sister . He had made it clear, through his words and his actions, over and over again. At this point, I could see this debacle as nothing more than a possible way to get out of the marriage. Perhaps, my father would approve of a divorce?

I glanced at the article again.

The photo is just so annoyingly clear, I thought with a grimace. If it was a little blurry, I could convince myself it wasn’t him and her. But it was clear. That was my husband with his lips locked with my sister’s. Against my better judgment, I read the article again. It was a gossip column, of course there would be nothing good in there. But sometimes curiosity can be a persistent thing.

I felt my skin crawling as I realized that the phrases were all pretty true. There was no gossip here. Just plain facts.

And then my eyes reached the end of the article.

Of note is the fact that Jeon Jungkook’s wife is disabled and perhaps the virile young man is merely looking for pleasure he can’t find in his own marital bed.

I swallowed, quickly exiting the page and tossing the phone on the bed, away from me. I stared out of the window of our bedroom, the large doors left open to let air and sunlight in. There was a tall sycamore tree right outside out bedroom and the branches almost reached in and I stared at the rustling leaves, trying to scrub my mind clean of the words I’d just read.

But it was impossible.

It wasn’t something I hadn’t thought of. The stark difference between me and Jungkook, physically. He spent five days a week in the gym and they were right. He was a young man with healthy sexual appetites.

I’d never cheat on you. Jungkook’s voice from a week ago still echoed somewhere inside my skull.

I sighed, playing with my wedding ring.

I wasn’t a virgin when I married Jungkook. Hadn’t been one , when I got into the accident either. My then boyfriend, a tall strapping lit major had been a very sexual guy as well and our libidos had matched pretty well. But I’d been an athletic nineteen year old, able to bend like a pretzel at his whim and there was just endless time and endless stamina and just a whole lot of attraction . We had spent hours, exploring each other the way college kids do. Weekends in bed spent trying every possible permutation of sex positions and kinks and I’d discovered all the things I liked. All the things I didn’t.

But then the accident had happened and well, when you’re in crippling agony, sometimes sex takes the backseat. I’d been focused on my recovery, on making sure that I came out of this at least with the ability to walk and I’d succeeded. Burying the part of me that craved a man’s touch, it wasn’t easy but it was necessary.

And then Jungkook had happened.

Sex with Jungkook hadn’t been difficult. Not really. I wasn’t completely crippled after all but it was also nowhere near as exciting as it could be with someone who had full use of her legs. I knew that. It was kind of obvious. But I hadn’t dwelt too much on it because to be honest, Jungkook hadn’t looked like he’d minded. He had seemed to enjoy himself .

But then reading about how he probably hadn’t enjoyed it definitely stung.

Worse yet, probably half the country was reading it with me. I felt nauseous. Did no one think that they should have left the last part out of that article? It was terrible enough without adding that bit about me.

A faint buzzing made me turn to the bed.

I glanced at my phone as it rang, my father in law’s name prominent on the screen.

Showtime, I thought with a grimace.

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

“I suppose it was too much to hope for , expecting that boy to keep his dignity. This is outrageous.” Mr. Jeon’s loud voice rang through the foyer of the house and I flinched, gripping the edge of the futon as Sana jumped a bit . She sat next to me, holding my hand carefully. Moral support I supposed but I was feeling entirely too blasé about the whole thing. None of this was unexpected, I thought miserably and I wasn’t feeling up to pretending otherwise.

“I still wish they’d talked to me about this.”

My brother in law’s voice broke me out of my thoughts. The man looked like he’d been dragged through hell and back and I felt a pang of genuine sympathy. He looked wrecked and it was obvious she was in love with my sister. Resentment coiled thick and deep inside me. Resentment and envy.

With no effort at all she had charmed both the Jeon brothers, I thought bitterly.

Jeon Jihyun looked absolutely stricken at the thought of losing his wife.

“I’ve asked Lisa to take the first flight out. She called me this morning, hysterical. It was something done in the heat of the moment. She .. She’s very apologetic. I believe her and I’m willing to forgive her. We’re…. We’re thinking of starting a family together. ” He said softly and my stomach turned.

I felt my skin go ice cold as I wrapped my arms around myself. Shivering just a bit, I lightly squeezed Sana’s hand. She looked at me in askance and I had to swallow to get my voice out, throat dry. The words made me want to retch. I could imagine how Jungkook would take this news.

“Can you get me my shawl? It’s in the green room.” I said hoarsely. She bowed before moving away from me and when I looked back up, Jihyun’s gaze caught mine.

“This must be hard on you.” He said softly and I flushed, staring down at my knees.

“Not like I can run from it. Literally or figuratively.” I smiled without mirth.

“Jungkook is …he’s just confused. He needs some time to sort himself out. I’ve asked him to take a break and come back to Seoul after a couple of weeks. The separation would do him some good.” Jihyun said quietly and I sighed before nodding. What else was I supposed to say to that anyway? There wasn’t much I could do, my influence on things almost nonexistent at this point.

“Are you going to give the boy a break, Jeon?” My father demanded, staring at Jungkook’s father who sighed.

“Yes. I’ve been trying to get these damned reporters off our back. They’re all over the place. And yes, I think Jungkook should stay in Japan for a while. We’re starting a new distribution branch there and I wanted him to scout places and possible vendors. I’ll tell him to hash out all the details before coming back.”

His phone rang again and he excused himself . I watched him leave the room, trying to make sense of his words.

How long would it take to build a whole branch in Japan? I had no clue. But it could hardly be done in a few weeks, could it?

“That’s.. That’s a long time.” I said hesitantly and my father frowned.

“is that a problem?” he asked.

I sighed. There was no point keeping this to myself. I was supposed to go to the doctor’s tomorrow. And well, it would be better if they heard it from me first.

“I.. I’m pregnant.” I said quietly.

The silence that followed was deafening. I stared at the carpet, not able to bring myself to look up at them. I could guess, what I’d find there. It was what I always found in people’s faces.

“Oh, sweet child.” My father’s sigh made me look up and there it was. The pity. I felt sick to my stomach. Sana returned, settling the hand knit shawl over my shoulders and I wrapped it tight, before glancing at her in some desperation. She smiled reassuringly, settling next to me and gently taking my fingers in hers. The warmth grounded me for a second and when Jihyun growled, I stared at him.

“I… I didn’t know. Fuck, I’m going to kill Jungkook. This fucker…” Jihyung swore and my father sighed, clearly thinking hard.

“you can’t be staying alone now.” He said softly, sitting up and cracking his knuckles, and I swallowed. I wouldn’t bear it if they tried to take me back home. I had hated it there.

“ You must come back home with me.” He said softly but I quickly shook my head.

“ No.. No I won’t. I … Please.” I begged, the mere idea of going back to my childhood home a nightmare. My mother would kill me with just her sharp and vindictive words. I was in no shape to put up with her verbal and emotional abuse. It was one of the things that had made me agree to marry Jungkook in the first place.

“Well, you can’t stay here by yourself.” My father protested. I’ve been by myself my whole damn life, I wanted to scream.

“I’ll be fine. I have Sana and the others to help me.” I said tiredly. My father shook his head before turning to Jihyun again.

“Is Namjoon still working on his book?” My father asked him and Jihyun frowned. The name elicited a tug in my memory and I turned to stare at my father, confused.

“You remember him? He used to tutor you when you were hi High School.”

I had a brief flashback to dimples and almond shaped eyes. I remembered him vaguely. Very vaguely. But nowhere well enough to want him to live with me, alone or not.

“Dad…” I protested but he held a hand up to silence me, nodding at Jihyun .

“Namjoon? Kim Namjoon? ” He shook his head. “ I’m not sure. Why?”

“I think it would be good if he moves in here. His father was telling me that he was looking for a place to stay, now that he’s moved back to Korea. ” My father said softly, staring at me and I stiffened.

“Father…” I began desperately and my father shook his head.

“Don’t argue. He was a dear friend of yours. I don’t think you should be alone at a time like this. And I think Jungkook would approve. Like Jihyun said, the kid needs some space to sort himself out. Let him finish whatever business is going on in Japan.” My father glanced at Mr. Jeon who looked at me with guilt.

“I owe you an apology , on behalf of my idiot son.”

I looked away, not sure what to say to that. I hated the man quite passionately. Jungkook wasn’t perfect… far from it. But this man had taken a sledgehammer to my husband’s mind and heart at every turn. The disdain, the condescension, the sick way he favored his brother over him, the way nothing Jungkook did was ever good enough. It had all taken a toll on my husband. I had watched it chip away at Jungkook’s self confidence, at his mental health.

“I think more than anything, you owe an apology to your son. You knew he was in love with Lisa and yet…. You forced him to marry me.” I said quietly and the room went eerily quiet. My father rounded on me , eyes blazing.

“Leah!!! Apologize, now!” He roared and I looked away.

“You’re all the same. Ungrateful and entitled.” Mr. Jeon said sharply, before turning to his son. “ I’m leaving Jihyun-ah. Tell me when that wife of yours get home. I want to talk to her.”

He shared a half hug with my father before stalking off and my father grabbed his jacket as well.

“I’ll leave as well. Your mother is being quite hysterical. Apparently, all her friends are hounding her about the article.” He sighed and I nodded , watching him shrug on the jacket before nodding at Jihyun and then following his friend out to the front doors.

Jihyun stayed standing , watching my father’s form disappear through the door before turning to me.

“ Are you alright?” He said quietly, moving to kneel in front of me. Sana stood up, bowing before leaving and I watched her disappear into the hallway leading to the kitchens. Jihyun’s fingers wrapped around mine, brushing my knees and I stared down at him.

“The question is, are you alright?” I brushed the hair off his face. He sighed.

“No. No I’m not. I’m angry and jealous and very much filled with resentment towards my brother.” He said honestly and I laughed, tugging on his hand and patting the seat next to me. He straightened before moving to settle next to me and I leaned on his shoulders, sighing as he wrapped on around me, the warmth of his body comforting .

“Are you going to give your marriage a chance?” I asked carefully.

“She told me she was going to break things off for good. We.. We’ve been talking about it. Starting a family, making this work.” He said quietly. I nodded. It was understandable. Unlike Jungkook and I , Jihyun had a responsibility. He would need a son and even though people liked to act like they didn’t care much about gender, like they didn’t care much about having children , it was sort of an unspoken rule. First son of the house ? You had to have a male heir to carry the family name.

I wondered how that conversation had gone between Jungkook and Lisa. It didn’t really match the photo I’d seen.

“I suppose Jungkook probably put up a fight. He genuinely wants to end up with her. He… He tells me often that he loves her and can’t love anyone else. ” I wondered if I ought to feel embarrassed or insulted.

But the truth was, I was numb to a lot of things that had once hurt quite a lot..

The conversation with Jungkook about my pregnancy had definitely cleared things up for me. There was nothing there worth salvaging. Chasing something that wasn’t real , that was foolishness. Especially when I had a very real baby to think about. A child that counted on me to make the right choices.

“I don’t think he did. She spoke to me last night and said that he agreed. Of course that was before the article came out. I’d like to think she didn’t lie to me but I’m not sure.”

I sighed, settling in closer to his chest. He was warm and firm, solid and reliable. I wondered if it would have been easier, if my father had just married me off to Jihyun instead. Jihyun and I …we were alike. We had been friends , even from childhood. Had watched with fond adoration as our younger siblings had fallen madly, wildly in love. Jungkook and Liza had been drawn to each other from the first. Inevitable.

Jihyun and I were more carefree. We didn’t feel things that intensely and perhaps that was why we could sit here in the calm of the afternoon air, quiet and introspective when we ought to be furious and raging.

“ Should we run off together? You and i?” He said suddenly making me laugh.

“Very much incapable of running.” I reminded him with a grin and he squeezed my shoulder .

“I’d carry you.” He said simply.

“Where would we go?” I asked curiously, indulging the fantasy for just a few minutes.

“Somewhere far away. Maybe India? There’s so many people there and we could get lost in the crowds.”

“That does sound appealing.” I smiled and turned to look up at him. His face inches from mine, not as handsome as Jungkook but strong featured and kind. “ But I’m not alone anymore. I have a child.”

His gaze dipped to my lap.

“Yes. Jungkook’s child.” He said thoughtfully.

“No. Mine. Nobody else’s . Just mine.” I said quietly. Jihyun’s gaze softened. He pressed a quick kiss to the top of my head.

“I’m sorry.” He whispered, echoing his father’s words.” On behalf of my idiot brother, I’m sorry.”

And where Mr. Jeon’s words hadn’t made any sort of impact, Jihyun’s made my heart clench and ache in the worst way. Self pity was something I loathed but sometimes, being handed the short end of the stick at every turn in life makes it impossible to not feel sorry for yourself.

Tears stung, welling up in my eyes and spilling over my lashes like water bubbling out of an aquifer.

I blinked slowly, not bothering to wipe them as they traced a path down my face, dripping into the fabric of my shawl. In a moment of clarity I wondered what Jungkook must be going through now. Nothing good for sure.

It definitely said something, that I still worried for him. Sighing, I let Jihyun hug me closer. I would take advantage of his kindness for a few more minutes. It had been a while since someone had held me like I mattered.

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

I called Jungkook that evening.

It wasn’t an easy choice but my heart ached and my mind raced with unanswered questions. I didn’t want to get lost in my own thoughts so I didn’t overthink it. We were still married. I was allowed to call him.

He picked up on the third ring.

“Where are you?” I asked quietly and Jungkook’s groan made my face heat up a little.

“I… Leah?” He sounded groggy. I glanced at the time. It wasn’t late.

“Are you sleeping?”

He didn’t reply for a few minutes.

“I’m sorry about what happened. We.. We didn’t do anything else. It was just.. it was a kiss. Just that.”

“Are you still in the hotel?” I asked quietly ignoring his words.

“ For tonight, yes. Dad wants me to stay with a friend of his. I’ll be going over to their place tomorrow morning.” He replied .

Silence followed for a few seconds.

“Namjoon is moving in tomorrow.” I said stiffly.

Jungkook didn’t respond for a minute or so.

“Yes. Father said it’s a good idea. And I agree. You shouldn’t be alone while I’m here. He’s right. Hyung’s a nice guy. He’ll help you out.” Jungkook said softly.

“Liza came home. She wanted to talk to me.” I said quietly.

Jungkook didn’t reply and I sighed.

“I told her I wasn’t going to talk to her before I talked to you. I don’t… I don’t want to say anything to her that I haven’t already said before. But I still want to know your thoughts on all this. Your plans, that is. I take it you weren’t happy with her ending things.” I said stiltedly.

Jungkook didn’t reply for a few seconds.

“Things between us ended a long time ago, Leah. It was over when we both agreed to marry other people. Maybe even before that, I don’t know… I … I guess I just didn’t want to acknowledge them.” He said quietly. “ She’s different, now. Even that kiss felt so wrong. She’s moving on. I’m glad in a way. She deserves better than me. She deserves someone like hyung. He’s better than me in everyway and-”

God I wanted to strangle him.

“So why did you kiss her?” I snapped. “ If you’re so generously letting her go why would you…” I stopped.

“I didn’t kiss her. She kissed me. It was barely for a second.” He muttered. “ whoever it was must’ve been videoing us for a while.”

I had to remind myself that in the grand scheme of things, this little detail made no difference.

“Right.” I sighed. “ So, you won’t be home for a while?”

“Six weeks at least.” He said quietly.

I tried to keep the disappointment down. I still wanted to see him, just to make sure he was okay. But I knew that was just the pregnancy hormones talking.

“Okay.” I said simply.

“How are you? Did you go see the doctor?” He asked softly and the question surprised me. I was half sure he had forgotten.

“No, not yet. Maybe in a couple of days.” I scratched at a small stain on my skirt. Lime juice and baking soda, I thought absently. That should get the stain out.

“Its pretty late. You should go see the doctor, Leah. I.. I looked stuff up. They say you have to be on pre natal vitamins, folic acid and iron supplements and you have to have a balanced diet. I called Sana earlier and told her to speak to our doctor and get a diet chart for you. She said she’ll do it soon. So , please take care of yourself.”

Jungkook sounded entirely serious and as always my brain felt muddled, unable to process why he did the things he did. He had looked things up about the pregnancy and that implied some sort of interest, didn’t it? But ….. he had also kissed my sister so what was I supposed to do with this?

“I’ll call you.” I said shakily, drained. I was done for the day.

“Right.” He said softly. “ Namjoon hyung will be there tomorrow right? Should I talk to him? He could take you to the doctor.”

“No.. That’s fine. I’ll manage.” I said quickly.

“You’re sure?” There was genuine worry there.

“Yes.” I sighed.

“Alright.”

Silence again. I exhaled shakily.

“Should I hang up?” I asked quietly.

“Yeah. Good night. ” He breathed.

“Good night, Jungkook.”

Click.

I stared at the wall, gently lowering the phone and placing it on the bed next to me.

She deserves better than me, his voice echoed in my head.

Well, so did I.

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

Namjoon looked nothing like the twenty one year old college student I’d seen a decade ago. I knew he was a successful novelist and I’d read all his books. They were mostly philosophical or commentaries on life and emotions. I enjoyed the way he wrote : melancholic and deep but also clear and easy to understand. It was like staring at a particularly deep pool, being able to see all the way down to the bottom because of how clean the waters were. But once you put your feet in, the depth always surprised you.

“That’s a lot of books.” I laughed, gripping the edge of the door frame as I watched him stumble under the weight of a crate full of bound books. Namjoon’s messy brown hair peeked over the top, and when he adjusted the huge load to stare at me, I caught sight of his handsome face stretched in a dimpled grin, eyes glinting.

“Research.” He grunted, straightening himself up and I watched the flex of his muscles as he carefully moved to place the crate down in one corner of the large bedroom that I’d had cleaned for him. It was on the west wing of the house, parallel to my own bedroom that I shared with Jungkook . Namjoon had spent three years working as a professor somewhere in Indonesia. And I knew that he’d spent a year backpacking all over Scandinavia. I stared at his tall strapping figure, watching him set up his writing space carefully, sorting out boxes and electronics.

He had driven here in his Range Rover and I knew all his clothes were still there in the back of the car.

“Should I ask the footmen to get your clothes?” I asked and he glanced up at me, frowning.

“Footmen?” He looked confused and I rolled my eyes.

“Namjoon…” I said chidingly and he grinned again.

“I keep forgetting you’re filthy rich. Makes me wish I should have beaten Jungkook to the game and bagged myself a rich wife.” He winked. It was a joke but there was no mistaking the hint of interest in his eye. Or maybe it was just wishful thinking on my part. Being married to Jungkook had definitely made me question the attraction I held for men so it felt good, having someone as handsome and whole and successful as Namjoon look at me like that.

“I’ll ask them to get your clothes. You should shower and settle in. We’ll meet for dinner tonight.” I said quickly and he nodded.

“You’re going to be okay heading back to your room? Let me know if you need help.” He pointed at my feet and I nodded. It was sweet of him to offer.

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

Dinner was surprisingly not awkward at all. Namjoon had a lot of interesting stories to share and I found myself clinging to ever word in rapt attention. He spoke about all the folklore he’d run into in different places, how he thought that no matter the culture, there were always some common things you could find in every one of them. He also talked a little about his next book, which he hadn’t named yet.

“It’s about second chances. Forgiving and moving on.” He said, taking another bite of his braised pork and moving to make another lettuce wrap.

“ Heavy stuff.” I said thoughtfully. “ Most of my writing is commercial. I just try to sell stuff to reluctant people. It’s not much but it keeps me occupied and it’s always nice to make money that you can call your own.”

“It’s because you don’t write for yourself. When you start writing for yourself, you can truly be who you are.” He said firmly and I nodded in agreement.

My writing in college had been vivid and bright and filled with life. But after the accident, it had turned grey and gloomy. The words seemed to drip with loss and longing and I didn’t enjoy it, because it was a reminder that I was no longer the vibrant, attractive fulsome girl I once was.

“Maybe that’s what I’m afraid of.” I smiled. “ Being who I am. I would rather pretend I’m at least a little alright.”

Namjoon stared at me, thoughtful.

“You used to run track.” He said softly and I grinned.

“You remember.” I said, pleased.

“Of course I do and you were captain of the volleyball team as well. You used to organize all those hikes and treks and stuff.”

“Yes I did. I loved the outdoors.” I stared out of the window.

“Loved? Past tense?” He tilted his head. I stared at him, shaking my head.

“What kind of question is that.” I shook my head. “ Look at me. I’m not trekking anytime soon, considering how the last time ended.”

“You can still go out.” He frowned. “ When was the last time you went somewhere?”

I shook my head.

“Oppa…”

“Listen. You know me. You’ve known me for more than a decade. Do you honestly think I’m going to let you rattle around this old house like a ghost when you should be out there taking in all the sunshine you can get?” Namjoon placed his chopsticks down and linked his fingers together, staring at me.

I stared at him, and it was definitely there. The concern, the affection. Not that different from when I was sixteen and struggling to understand what pathos meant.

But now there was a definite undercurrent of attraction. Back then it had been childish, the wild crush of a teenager on her hot tutor but now, now I knew that he was so much more than just a hot guy.

“I’m pregnant.” I said softly, more a reminder to myself than anything else.

Namjoon grinned.

“We’ll steer clear of horse riding and alcohol. Anything else you can just let me know.”

“Are you serious?”

“As a heart attack.”

“I think I’m getting one now.” I deadpanned.

“Because you’re nervous.” He grinned.

“Because your dimples look too adorable.” I retorted.

He laughed.

“I’ll talk to Jihyun and we’ll go see your doctor first. Then we’ll go out and have a nice picnic.”

“Namjoon, I can’t…”

“You don’t know that.” He said firmly.” You don’t know if you can or can’t because you’ve never tried. Listen I love picnics and I love going out and I want company. I’m agreeing to be stuck with you for a while and the least you can do is give me company at a picnic. You know how big a loser I’d seem like if I went by myself?”

It was like I was sixteen again getting brow beaten into things by a tutor who just hated the idea of not getting his way. I shook my head fondly.

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

Fourteen weeks. Three and a half months.

I stared at the ultrasound, feeling a multitude of things, not all of them good. The baby was growing well and I had all my prescriptions filled. Namjoon had offered to come with me but I had refused. It was too intimate and he was still a stranger. I did take a photo of the ultrasound and sent it to Jungkook.

/Jungkook called me back almost at once.

“You went to the doctor?” He asked, sounding a little breathless.

“Were you running?” I asked, surprised.

“Not really. I’m supposed to be meeting one of the vendors for lunch and I thought I could walk to the restaurant but its farther than I thought.” He huffed.

“Everything’s fine. Baby’s due in July.” I said quietly.

“Summer. That’s good.” He replied. “Right?”

I hesitated. What did that mean? What did it matter when the baby would be born?

“Because winter would mean it being too cold . Summer we can take the baby out and stuff without worrying too much.” Jungkook said softly.

Oh.

“How’s work?” I asked awkwardly. The non conversation was getting tedious. There was just so much to talk about and it was obvious that both of us weren’t in the mood to actually ask or answer anything worthwhile.

“Did dad say something?” Jungkook asked quickly and I frowned.

“No. Why?”

“He wants me to join hyung in the corporate office. Leave the smelter units.” Jungkook sounded subdued and upset and I felt sympathy well inside me.

“Join him? As what?” I asked quietly.

“Head of the marketing department. I’ll be reporting to Seokjin hyung.” Jungkook had clearly started walking again, breath coming in little exhales.

“You don’t want it?” I asked confused, not sure if this was a good or bad thing.

“I mean… I have a degree in Business and Finance. Hyung’s the CEO , I was hoping I’d be the CFO.” Jungkook sighed, “ But I suppose I should be grateful he didn’t disown me altogether after what happened earlier.”

I stayed quiet and so did he.

“We need to talk . When you get back. You … I know you don’t like sharing about what you feel but you owe me an explanation.” I said firmly.

“I know. But I meant what I said when I left. I’m going to be there for you and the baby. You’re still my wife. That’s not going to change.”

I ran my fingers over the ultrasound.

“Did you also mean the part where you said you can’t stand me.” I said bitterly .

Jungkook didn’t reply.

“I… You know I didn’t. That was just something I said on impulse. I’m sorry. You’re… You’ve been nothing but good to me. And honestly, just the fact that you’re carrying my child is proof that I can definitely stand you.” He sounded just a little hoarse.

I bit my lips, staring up at the door when I heard a knock.

“Leah? I’m going to have some tea in the garden … You wanna come with?” Namjoon’s voice rang through the room and I froze.

“Oh.. Oh.. yes. I’ll be down.” I said quickly, nodding . Namjoon pointed at the phone and gave to thumbs up before moving back out.

“Was that Namjoon hyung?” Jungkook’s voice came over the line.

“Oh… yeah. Yeah, he’s… he wants me to have tea with him in the gardens.” I said awkwardly.

“That’s nice. You should go. Get out of the house once in a while.” I didn’t know what to say to that so I stayed quiet.

After another minute or so of silence, Jungkook cleared his throat.

“ I got that form you sent in for me to fill, about my medical history. I’ll fill it up and mail it to the doctor’s office. Is that alright?” He asked hesitantly. “ If not I can fly back home. If they need me in person or something.”

I frowned a bit.

“They don’t need you in person, Jungkook of course not. Mail it, that’s fine.”

Another pause.

“This is really happening huh? A baby. We’re having a baby.” The exhaustion in his voice was palpable and I wondered.

“Yes. We are.” I said simply, not having anything else to elaborate on. It was happening. I was torn between pleasure at having something to look forward to and guilt at forcing Jungkook into a role he wasn’t ready for. But , for better or for worse we were married. The child was his. It would be a Jeon.

“ I’ll do better.” He said quietly. “ With the little one. I’ll be better.”

Tears these days, sprung up out of nowhere I thought miserably, furiously swiping at my face.

“Leah?” His voice came over the line. “ Leah are you there?”

“I need to go.”

“Alright.”

“Take care of yourself too, Jungkook.”

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

Loneliness .

It’s such an odd sort of feeling. Sometimes you get used to it so much, that you forget all about it.

It stays , a part of you that doesn’t make much of an impression on you until one day, suddenly it becomes unbearable,

Until you get a glimpse of what it’s like to not be lonely.

And then suddenly it’s like a deep chasm of longing and desperation just opens up inside you, craving love and warmth and company with a hunger that feels like it can never ever be satisfied.

I’d never paid much mind to the fact that my life revolved around myself, my writing and the flowers in the garden. Not until Namjoon had come, demanding to be felt and seen and heard .

Namjoon hadn’t joked about not letting me rattle around the house. Our days were spent sprawled on the lawns of the Jeon estate, each of us occupied with our own writing . Namjoon typed away on his laptop while I preferred my leather bound notebook. It was oddly soothing, lying there on the clean cut grass, the sharp blades rubbing against my bare legs, as I leaned back against a tree trunk, watching Namjoon’s furrowed brows as he wrote.

Namjoon had changed in a lot of ways and yet he was still somehow just as I remembered, focused and often lost in his own head. He was a contemplative man and seemed to spend as much time reading as he did writing.

“There’s a poetry club that meets every Tuesday in Gangnam. Would you like to come with me?” He asked casually, about a week after he’d moved in and I considered it. The paparazzi had finally stopped hanging about the estate and Jungkook had called the previous night with a ETA for when he would be back.

Four weeks at most, he had said firmly and I wasn’t sure if I was feeling all that excited for his return anymore. Days spent with Namjoon were more exciting. He included me in every little thing and I was addicted.

Somewhere in the back of my mind, I knew this was probably wrong. Namjoon was sweet and kind but I was still married. But on the wake of that thought came the bitter reminder that there was nothing between Jungkook and I. He was in love with someone else. Why should I deny myself the joy of Namjoon’s company over a relationship that really wasn’t a relationship at all.

Namjoon treated me as an equal, teased and flirted like there was nothing wrong with the two of us living like this, together and away from the rest of the world and I liked it. It made me feel like perhaps happiness wasn’t such an abstract, unreachable thing after all. That perhaps I could find happiness like this. In friendship and mindless conversation with a man who didn’t see me as a burden.

“I’d love that.” I said with a smile, letting my fingers knit together with his.

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

“Scorned wife getting even? We spotted the recently cheated on Mrs Jeon getting cozy with a strapping, buff hottie in a private restaurant last Friday and we can’t help but wonder if perhaps the reclusive lady is trying to get back at her husband by flashing her own boytoy.” Namjoon read cheerfully from his phone, looking way too entertained as he showed me the zoomed photo of us holding hands over the dinner table .

“That’s quite the description they’ve put for you.” I grimaced, sipping my chamomile tea slowly. My father and Mr. Jeon had reacted with their usual anger, threatening to sue the gossip rag for libel but it was pointless. They would keep being intrusive rats. There was nothing much to be done beyond enduring them.

“My agent’s losing his mind. He’s been at me trying to get me to agree to book signings and public appearances and he’s pissed that this is the way I get introduced to Seoul’s High society. Poor guy.” Namjoon chuckled and I felt guilt churn.

“I’m sorry, Namjoon. I really didn’t think they’d be following me. I mean… usually they’re only tailing Jungkook but I guess with the whole thing with Lisa , they’re just looking for ways to make things worse.” I said hesitantly.

Namjoon hesitated, staring at me for a few seconds.

“We never really talked about how things are.” He said quietly. “ Between you and Jungkook, that is.”

I ran the edge of my chopsticks on the brim of my soup bowl.

“ There’s not much to say. He’s…. He’s still sorting things out. With my sister.” I smiled a little. It ached a lot less, I realized with surprise.

“They loved each other deeply.” Namjoon said softly. “ that sort of thing doesn’t go away that quickly.”

I nodded.

“Of course. And I’ve been …understanding of that. I like to think.”

“But its unfair to you. You deserve to be loved too. Fully and well .”

I leaned back to stare at him.

“Are you offering?” I laughed, teasing.

Namjoon didn’t smile, leaning forward instead.

“Depends. Will you ever consider leaving him, for me?” He said seriously.

My heart turned over inside me.

“Namjoon…” I choked out and he reached out and lightly touched my palm.

“I know how marriages work with people like you, so I think I should draw boundaries now, if I want to keep myself safe.” He smiled a bit.

“I’m pregnant. With his child.” I swallowed and Namjoon’s brows went up.

“I thought it was your child. Yours and no one else’s.”

I felt torn, staring at him and wanting to say that I didn’t consider Jungkook as the child’s father, not in the way most people did. But I also remembered my husbands determined voice, the way he kept insisting that he wouldn’t neglect the child.

“Its not about Jungkook or the child, Leah. Its about you. You married Jungkook knowing he was in love with your sister and that tells me that you listen to your parents. You don’t want to stand up against the rules set by our parents and I don’t fault you for it. But I can’t let myself fall for you, knowing you’re going to be bound by your obligations to yurr family.”

I shook my head.

“Don’t fall in love with me.” I said easily. “ You’re right. My family comes first. And whether I want to be or not, I’m bound to Jungkook for life. So don’t fall in love with me.”

He smiled and nodded.

“Alright then.”

“Do you want to move out?” I asked bitterly and he looked genuinely surprised.

“What?”

“You clearly think I’m trying to seduce you or something when really, I-“

“Hey. Hey, Leah…no. No alright, that’s not what I meant. These two weeks, it was amazing. I love your mind and you’re easily one of my favorite people on this planet. We’re friends. And we’ll stay friends no matter what but you must know why I said what I said. You’re a beautiful woman and I’m a lonely guy.” He smiled a bit, “ I just don’t want to make it hard for myself when you want me to leave.”

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

Jungkook arrived back in Korea on a cold, rainy morning and against my better judgment I let Jihyun and Lisa drag me to the airport. It was some kind of publicity stunt, that much I could fathom but I didn’t know if Jungkook was in on it. I hadn’t spoken to him in a few days, he had been busy wrapping things up with the new branch in Japan.

It was another bad day for my leg and I found myself leaning heavily on my sister, her arm wrapped around my waist as we walked over to the waiting area. I could already identify a few men with cameras staring at us discreetly. Paparazzi . I saw them move their cameras down to the now obvious curve of my stomach and I swallowed. I could already imagine the articles wondering who the father was : Jungkook or Namjoon.

“You alright?” My sister asked worriedly and I nodded, not looking at her. Lisa hadn’t been discouraged by initial refusal to speak to her, keeping at it till I finally caved and let her visit me at the estate. She didn’t love Jungkook anymore, she insisted . It was over. They were over . She wanted to give her marriage a chance. Very sweet and nice, that. And it was obvious that she wasn’t lying, what with the way she and her husband kept

Jihyun and Lisa had made amends with each other and it annoyed me that they seemed to be madly in love with each other all of a sudden. Like the past couple months hadn’t even happened. I stared down at my wedding ring feeling stricken. Was it unfair that I resented them for this? Why hadn’t the two of them thought of this, of breaking things off and moving on before the damn wedding. And then maybe Jungkook and I would have had a real marriage too.

Bitter and hormonal was definitely not a good combination I thought with a wince, fingers splaying on the curve of my lower belly. It was so odd, being pregnant. The extra weight somehow foreign but also …so soothing. The last scan had shown that I had an anterior placenta and that meant that I may not feel movements for a while. I didn’t mind, having found comfort in just tracing my palm over the bare skin of my stomach.

“There he is.” Jihyun’s voice made me look up and ure enough there he was.

It wasn’t the longest we’d been away from each other and yet, I felt my heart leap at the sight of him. He truly was a very handsome man, I thought miserably. And no matter what people said, it was infinitely more difficult to hate your husband when he looked that good.

Jungkook’s eyes caught mine first and I saw the way his gaze dipped straight to the curve of my bump. Even from the ten feet between us , I saw hi lips part in surprise , eyes going wide. It probably hadn’t felt real to him till now, I thought biting my lips as he carefully handed his bags over to the two chauffeurs who had rushed to help him.

Jihyun wasted no time in bounding over and hugging his little brother tight.

I glanced at the man who had been taking photos, pleased to see the surprise in his face. Was he hoping that the CEO would punch his little brother in the face ? Idiots. Lisa stayed by my side and I exhaled shakily.

“ Dad told me something and I want to know if its true.” I said quietly.

She didn’t reply.

I took a deep breath, still watching the two brothers embrace each other, Jungkook’s face buried in Jihyun’s shoulders. I could see him shaking just a little and I felt my gut clench.

“He told me that …that you never told him that you wanted to marry Jungkook. That when he suggested Jihyun you agreed at once.”

She looked away.

“Lets talk about this later.” She said quietly.

“Does Jungkook know?” I demanded. “ Because he spent that first month of our marriage cursing our father out for forcing you to marry Jihyun. Forcing. And dad says that he did no such thing. So what is the truth.”

Lisa didn’t respond.

“Jungkook knows.” She said finally, “ I told him… the truth. When we were in Japan.” and I laughed in disbelief.

“Was that before or after you kissed him?” I snapped and she looked genuinely pained.

“Leah, I never meant to hurt you or Jungkook.” She said shakily.

“My God.” I shook my head. “ I always knew you were a selfish, greedy person but I didn’t take you for being a liar and a deceitful coward. ”

She stared down at her feet.

“Yes. I’m greedy..” She whispered “ And you may not understand it now but I did it for you and for Jungkook.”

She moved away and I watched as Jihyun pulled away from Jungkook, still holding his arm as he held a hand out to Lisa. The smile on her face seemed genuine as she took her husband’s hand and I shifted my gaze to mine. Jihyun and Lisa walked away to their car and Jungkook stepped closer to me, his face stoic and impossible to read.

“Leah.” He said quietly, dark hair falling into even darker eyes.

I didn’t reply, merely stepping up to gently press my palms on either side of his face.

“Welcome back.” I said softly, before reaching up and kissing him full on the lips. Jungkook’s entire body went stiff as a board at the gesture but he didn’t pull away , thankfully. It felt cold and impersonal and barely lasted a few seconds but hopefully the man had gotten a few good shots. I closed my eyes for effect, running my thumb over the clean shaven curve of his jaw, before pulling away slowly.

I peered over Jungkook’s shoulder, just to make sure and sure enough, the man was moving closer to get better angles. I smiled a little. Good. That should hold these vultures off for a while. I turned back to Jungkook and his eyes followed my gaze catching sight of the man with the camera and his entire body seemed to go stiff with anger.

“Why did you do that?” He growled and I bit my lips.

“You know why.” I made to turn away but he gripped my arm, hard. So hard that I winced.

“What are you doing?” I asked panicking, glancing at the man who was still watching.

“Since when did you start pandering to those pigs?” He whispered angrily and I flinched.

“Your father wants to introduce you to the Board of directors this weekend.” I whispered quietly, “Most of them read the news Jungkook. The last news about us can’t be about you cheating on me.”

“That’s my business. And I’ll deal with it. We’re not doing this, Leah. I’m not putting on some kind of act just to please my fucking father.” He looked furious and the taut line of his jaw made me flinch.

“I’m sorry.” I said quickly, guilt churning inside me. He was right. I shouldn’t have done that without talking to him about it but I knew that the scandal with him and Lisa wouldn’t go down well with the Board. And the Board generally had a direct say on who got hired to top managerial positions.

“I just want you to get that job.” I said softly and he stared at me, stiff body relaxing marginally.

“Let’s just go home. Yeah?” Jungkook said tiredly and I bit my lips.

Less than fifteen minutes since he came home and we were already at odds with each other.

The most ill suited couple in the universe, I thought with a grimace as he stepped right next to me and wrapped a hand around my waist.

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

I had a very terrible tendency to forget taking my pills. So I generally left them by the bedside table. Stepping out of the shower, I found Jungkook sitting on my side of the bed, examining the bottle carefully. I tugged on the white t shirt I had on, suddenly embarrassed because it was Jungkook’s

I’d asked to borrow a couple over the phone, simply because I no longer fit into my own and the ones I’d ordered weren’t here yet. Jungkook had agreed but still, it felt awkward when he was wearing the exact same t shirt himself.

He turned around when I moved to the vanity to put on moisturizer for the night and through the reflection I saw his gaze linger on my attire.

“Aspirin? Didn’t know that was part of pre natal vitamins?” He said seriously and I blinked., surprised. I turned around to stare at him, licking my lips nervously.

“How much research did you do?” I asked, genuinely curious and he flushed.

“I had a lot of free time. “ He said defensively. “ These six weeks.”

I frowned, before turning back to grab the small pot of night cream from the draw.

“My blood pressure is a little elevated. My mother had pre eclampsia with my sister and they just want to be careful.”

“Pre eclampsia?” Jungkook’s voice was fraught with nervousness and I turned back to see him almost white as a sheet.

“Jungkook…I.. its nothing serious.” I said hastily and his jaw went even more taut.

“What do you mean its not serious? Do you even know what it is?” He demanded.

“Do you?” I snapped back, annoyed at being treated like I was an errant child.

“I know that it’s the leading cause of maternal death during birth.” He all but shouted and I flinched.

“Okay…that’s only in extreme cases.” I held both my hands up. “ it’s a bit too premature to be panicking over that.”

Jungkook opened his mouth, as though to argue but then seemed to calm himself down.

“When’s your next check up?” He asked casually.

“This weekend. But its okay, Namjoon is-“

“I’ll come with you. I.. I want to come with you.” He said quietly.

I stared at him, feeling too awkward to outright refuse.

“You have the meeting with the Board. This weekend.” I said softly.

“So?” Jungkook shrugged. “ I’ll just tell them your appointment and health is more important to me. Besides isn’t that what you wanted? The reason you kissed me at the airport? You want the board to think we’re happily in love. I think that would be an excellent way to show them that. ”

Jungkook stared at me , head tilted curiously, daring me to deny what I had old him myself.

Sighing, I nodded.

“Alright.” I managed a weak smile. “ You can come with me.”

“Namjoon hyung left today, you said?” He asked casually.

I nodded.

“I should send him a bottle of his favorite wine for taking care of you so well. You look good.”

“He did it because he wanted to. Because he enjoyed it.” I retorted, his words rubbing me just a little wrong.

Jungkook smiled although it was more of a smirk.

“I’m sure he did. But I’m here now. And I did promise you that I’ll be there for you.”

“For the baby.” I said sharply, not liking the way he looked. The things he seemed to b implying.” You promised me you’d be there for the baby.”

“And right now, said baby is inside you.” He grinned now and I felt my pulse quicken at the sight. Jungkook didn’t smile with me. It wasn’t something that happened. At all. “ So I’ll have to take care of you.”

I stared at him, biting my lips.

“What are you doing?” I demanded. “My sister told you she never wanted you so now you want to start fucking me again?”

It was cruel. A terrible thing to say and I regretted it at once.

The smile faded.

“What?”

“ I…fuck Jungkook.” I groaned.

“is that what you think of me? Need I remind you that you were the one who came to me all those months ago? I never…. I would never force myself on you, Leah.” He looked like he’d been stabbed and I heart clenched.

“Jungkook , I…”

“I’ve been honest. Through all of this I’ve been honest to you. I lied to your sister, I lied to my father and fuck I even lied to myself. But I’ve been honest with you , Leah.”

“And that’s supposed to make me feel better?!” I cried out, despairing. “ You were in love with my sister and –“

“And she wanted to marry my brother.” Jungkook yelled, standing up and turning to me, eyes blazing. “ All along. Know what she told me Leah? That it was never supposed to be me. That five years of us being together…it was because she was in love with my brother and she couldn’t bear the thought of being alone. She started dating me to make him jealous and when she saw that I spent so much time with Jihyun she stuck around . So she could spend time with him.” He shook his head.

I stared at him, horrified.

“Jungkook….”

“I thought I could never feel more pathetic than when I stood there listening her tel me how she never felt a single thing for me. But wow…. Thank you for proving me wrong. Because right now, standing here begging you to let me a part of the child we both made knowing you only see me as some kind of pervert just looking to get into your bed….” he shook his head,” I feel worse. I feel dirty.”

My throat went dry.

“You know what?” He moved to the closet and to my horror he grabbed a bunch of his clothes and a small suitcase. “ I’m going to go get a Hotel room.”

“What? No… Jungkook, wait!” I rushed to his side, grabbing his arm but he threw my hand off quickly.

“Ask Namjoon hyung to move back in. Better yet, tell dad the truth. That you think I’m disgusting. That the thought of me being in your life makes you sick. Tell him you want a divorce and-“

“It’s a girl.” I exhaled sharply.

Jungkook went completely still.

I swallowed, my heart racing so fast I couldn’t catch my breath.

I took a deep breath and moved to lightly touch his back, fingers splaying on the broad expanse of his shoulder blade .

He turned around at that and my heart lurched at the tear tracks down his cheeks. He looked wrecked.

“ A girl?” He whispered.

I bit my lips, nodding.

“We’re having a little girl.” He looked a little shell shocked.

“Yes. And hopefully, she isn’t as dramatic as her father.” I said softly, grabbing the dozen or so t shirts he’d pulled out of the closet and pushing them back into the shelves.

Jungkook didn’t protest, still staring into space, probably just taking the news in. I felt awful for one second because I hadn’t even cared all that much when the technician had told me.

I closed the closet door and moved back to the vanity trying to process all that had been said in the last five minutes, only to feel a headache come on. I would think about it tomorrow.

I finished braiding my hair when Jungkook’s voice came from the bed.

“If you don’t want me to intrude into your space you can tell me. I’m okay with only getting information about the baby.” He said quietly.

I stared at myself in the mirror.

I turned to him slowly. i took a deep breath, considered that what i was going to say would likely change everything between us. But i had to.

I’ve always been honest with you Leah, He had said and I decided that perhaps he deserved some honesty in return.

“I think I’m in love with Namjoon.”

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

Author’s Note : these two are such a mess istg.

ooh i don’t have a taglist for this so please comment if you wanna be on it.

#jungkook smut #jungkook fics #bts smut fics #bts smut #jungkook arranged marriage #bts arranged marriage au #bts fanfic #bts smut fic #bts fics

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from-a-reckless-writer · 3 years

Note

9 Supercorp

1 new message.

The notification reads. This is odd. Nobody ever sends Kara any messages on this account, for the sole reason that it doesn't have much followers.

It was Nia's idea initially. She's told Kara to buy herself a journal. She keeps one herself, where she writes all the dreams she doesn't know how to interpret yet.

"You should write down whatever it is and let it lie there for a while you know?"

Kara thought about it, had mulled it over and over in her head. A journal is indeed a great idea. An outlet of sorts. But the thing is, a journal is too private. If Kara wrote in a journal the only person who would ever read it would be herself.

Kara didn't want that. Kara hungered for an audience. She wanted to write and put it out there, out in the world where somebody will maybe one day read it and come to her--tell her, "Me, too. Me, too."

She wanted to write and be read by people.

And so, the journal idea became the Instagram poetry account idea.

A handful of original poetry posted in between aesthetic photos.

Nia and her sister are the only two people in her life who knows about it. That's why she is genuinely shocked when she reads the notification.

By the time, she's collected enough courage to open the app.

There have been more than 10 notifications. First, was the follow, next was a series of likes and then finally the message.

Kara clicked on the profile first.

It was a bookstagram account it turns out. There was only the username display, kieran. All in lowercase. No location, no bio, no nothing. The icon was of a single, black, loopy 'K' on white parchment.

The feed was of book covers, pages, spines and some quotes here and there.

The thing that Kara noticed about it though was how sad everything looked, once she's looked at it all in one grid.

It looks beautiful but melancholy.

She opens the message.

"I don't usually do this but...I just have to tell you that, your poetry has more of an impact than you will ever know. Thank you making me feel like I'm not alone. Thank you for sharing your words."

It was signed with a single heart and a 'k'.

And that's when it hits Kara.

Kara writes out a reply.

I'm out there.

I'm out there, in the world. And somebody is reading my words. They're reading what I wrote and it made them feel something.

"Thank you for taking the time to write those kind words to me. I hope you know you've made me want to write now more than ever. Thank you."

She added a heart at the end too. Kara didn't check her phone for the rest of the day.

They didn't reply it turns out. Kara tries not to feel too disappointed at that and tries to go on with her life.

Although, two weeks later after their first interaction, Kara posts two new poems, she discovers that kieran didn't stop reading.

Kara would usually get a like or a comment of a single heart then and again, and if she's lucky they'll comment a 'Beautiful.' underneath one of Kara's longer poems.

Kara collects all those crumbs and keeps it close to her heart.

******

"had a shity day ur peom made my night. thbk you."

Kara reads the message at 7 am, it was sent at 3:36 am. It isn't till she's halfway through, that her groggy mind realizes that they must've been drunk when they sent her this.

There's a twinge of worry in her chest, so she writes.

"I'm glad I made your night. And I don't want to overstep, but I think you were drunk when you sent this. I hope you're alright today. Drink lots of water! Thank you for the kind words."

She doesn't check her phone for the rest of the day.

Kara's knee-deep in Snapper's column assignment when her phone pings.

"Don't worry, you didn't overstep. I think you're the kindest person I've ever met."

Kara can't help the feeling of concern when she reads the message. Imagine thinking an Instagram poet who you've interacted with, two times in total, is the kindest person you've ever met. Never mind the fact that she's the Instagram poet.

Kara feels intrigued by this person.

Maybe it's because they're making her feel important. Maybe it's because Kara doesn't know who they are and the mystery appeals to her. Maybe it's because with them, Kara isn't anything. She's just a poet.

Maybe it's all of those or maybe it's none of those reasons at all.

Nevertheless, Kara sees her fingers fly across the keypad before she can even realize what she's doing.

"And you, IG user kieran, I think are the most interesting person I've ever met : )"

She puts her phone facedown on her desk.

Kara stands up from her station, walks around, pokes her head into Snapper's office, asks if he needs anything, gets yelled at, bothers Nia, walks around the entire bullpen, refills her tumbler, sits back down on her desk.

1 new message.

Kara lunges for her phone.

"Interesting huh?"

Just that. Just that and nothing else, yet it makes Kara feel like she's being observed, judged, weighed.

"Your feed is beautiful, your books. What I wouldn't give to get a peek in that beautiful mind of yours."

Kara exits the app, her thumb gliding through the screen so fast, it's a miracle it didn't break under the pressure.

She stands up from her desk and does a whole 'nother round.

1 new message

Kara takes a deep breath before opening the message. She doesn't even know why she's nervous.

"my mind is a lot of things, but i doubt beautiful is one of them."

What does she mean by that? Well, Kara guesses, everyone's brain is a mess right? She's pretty certain she's fucked up herself in more ways than she even knows.

So that's what she says.

"Everybody's a mess i think. Doesn't mean they're not beautiful."

Kara waits and waits and waits.

The reply doesn't come.

*******

Life goes on, her IG account gains more followers, her poems get stacked upon each other each week.

She always notices which ones kieran likes though.

They never message each other again.

******

And then, that one fateful day comes—Kara falls in love.

She meets Lena and Kara falls.

Hard.

Lena catches her and together they write what Kara thinks, is the most beautiful love story in existence.

Lena's her soul mate, her best friend, her one true love.

Her poems become lighter, happier.

She's so caught up with living in the real world with Lena, that sometimes she doesn't even have the time to write poems anymore.

Why would she? When she's living a brand new love poem each day she wakes up to Lena by her side.

One night, Kara is putting on her pajamas, and Lena is taking a picture of some book in their bed, her hair in a bun, big nerdy glasses perched on her nose.

Kara is in the middle of climbing into bed when Lena asks her, "Hey, have you ever read poetry and felt like it was speaking to you directly. As if the poet wrote it with you in mind??"

Quietly, Kara answers, "Yeah."

Immediately, Kara's head travels through all the snippets of conversations she's had with kieran.

All her IG posts, the one account, the one thing that Lena does not know about.

"Why?" Kara follows-up.

Lena's sat, leaning into the pillows, her phone in her hand.

"There's this- you know what? Why don't I just show you? You'll get what I mean, when you read it."

Lena shows Kara her phone screen and Kara freezes.

There on the screen, is her Instagram poetry account. @kz_elwrites.

Her entire collection of verse all lit up in Lena's phone.

"I-" Kara doesn't know what to say. And Lena notices, of course, she would.

Lena always notices. ,

"Kara?" She asks. "Is there something wrong?"

"I wrote that." Kara lets the words hang in between them.

She meets Lena's eyes, reads the shock there.

Kara grabs her phone from the nightstand and opens her IG app--shows it wordlessly to Lena.

Lena takes the phone gently from her hands, flicks up and down for a couple of minutes.

Kara feels like something important is going to happen. Everything feels to quiet. Lena is too quiet.

Lena hands Kara her phone back, still not speaking.

And then, Lena turns back to her phone, swipes a couple of times.

"Come here," Lena whispers. "Take a look."

Kara's eyes land on the screen.

kieran.

"You're-"

"I am."

prompt list here

#i really liked writing this one #i like the fact that they didnt know they were already falling in love with each other even though they havent met #it's like it was deeper because they fell in love with each other's thoughts first #anyway i do have an ig account just for poetry so yep #there's still a lot of prompts and im trying to finish em but im gonna pass out soon #so im gonna write em tomorrow #if u see a typo no u didnt #the reckless writer writes #prompt fills #supercorp #supercorp fic rec #rcklss writes

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novaiya · 3 years

Text

Good Things Come in Three - Arthur/Reader/Sadie (NSFW)

Summary: You and Arthur skip the gang's celebratory party in favor of some alone time, barely closing the door of the hotel room before freeing each other of your clothes. Naked and on the bed, you almost get down to business when Sadie knocks on your door, asking if she could join the fun. You didn't expect the night to take such a turn, but that's not to say you're opposed to what she's suggesting.

Words: 5,157

Warnings: threesome, girl on girl kissing, face sitting, honestly, nothing too out of the line, just some good ol' F/F/M

A/N: I've wanted to write an RDR2 threesome for months now, and finally, it happened! Hopefully there'll be more to cum (lol) I actually have a rough draft of a Arthur/Reader/Charles sitting in my folder, so maybe I'll do something with it soon. Also, I'm going to horny jail.

AO3 Link.

With successful completion of a big score came a big celebration. The job was two weeks in the making and involved half a dozen members of the gang, you included. A small bank in a cholera ridden town, though heavily guarded with lawmen both inside and around it; you knew there was more to it. After a little bit more digging, you discovered that one of the residents of town struck gold and was keeping his findings there for the time being. It took careful planning and rigorous preparations but on the chosen day, you were all ready.

Contrary to how the gang’s plans often went, this one went rather smoothly (probably due to inclusion of you and Sadie, women’s touch as they say) and not a day later the gang was about $40,000 richer, a few gold bars heavier and miles away.

The spirits were high; Not only did the job go smoothly, but nobody got hurt or caught. Dutch was ecstatic and decided that celebration was in order. As soon as you came upon a town with a functioning saloon in it, all the horses and the wagons were stopped and everybody went inside.

The saloon, which only a few minutes before was quiet and deserted, with only the barman standing and polishing the empty glasses, quickly filled with two dozen of the gang members and their combined laughs, cheers and songs.

“What’s your name, mister?” Dutch said to the barman as the gang filed into the saloon.

“Howard, sir.”

“Howard,” Dutch repeated as he shook Howard’s hand and inconspicuously slid a few bills into his hand. “These people,” he said and motioned to the members that had already scattered themselves around the saloon, some at the poker table, some by the bar stock. “They had a rough go at it. Can you please make sure they have a pleasant evening?”

“Well, of course, sir!” Howard beamed, already putting the bills in his back pocket. “I’ve been serving drinks at this saloon since before the war, sir, I know what people need.”

“That’s what I’m talking about,” Dutch said, patting Howard on the back. “Now, people,” he turned his attention to the gang, his voice raising a few octaves. “Tonight, we celebrate. I want all of you to enjoy yourself. Drink, eat, gamble and do whatever else you want, as much as you want. You deserve it.”

Dutch’s address was met with loud cheers and long applause and thus, the night began.

The last time Howard served so many people so quickly was in ’65 when the war ended. Yet, even then he didn’t remember having to go into the basement to bring more stock and having to wake up his sons so they could help serve the patrons quicker. As he filled each glass to the brim, he wondered how people could drink so much.

You wondered too as you watched your fellow gang members down one drink after another after another. Some fared better than others. Dutch and Hosea, preferring to enjoy their liquor rather than get wasted, sat in the corner of the room by the fire, nursing their whiskey and already planning their next move. Lenny, still being young and inexperienced, was already dancing hand in hand with Sean, who despite not being new to drinking, couldn’t hold his liquor. Pearson, along with Uncle, started playing their instruments and added live music to the mix of singing, laughter and talking that already filled the saloon. Even Charles joined in on harmonica a few times.

Howard wondered what the lot of you did to call for such a celebration, but he knew better than to ask questions. The money was paid and the drinks were sold; that’s all that mattered.

To say that you were tipsy was an understatement. Perhaps drinking a shot of whiskey and chasing it with a beer was not a good idea, but good ideas rarely made their way into your head, especially when running with the Van Der Linde gang. You were sitting in Arthur’s lap, your arms draped lazily over his form, your head on his shoulder. The two of you were sitting at the poker table, with the other players being Javier, John and Micah. All four of the men were far too drunk to make the right moves or plan their strategies, yet it didn’t stop them from gambling their share of the bank job and hoping for the best.

Unsurprisingly to you, Arthur was winning. Out of all the four men, he was the least inebriated (no thanks to his big size and ability to hold liquor), and even when the drinks were not in play, Arthur was generally a good player, knowing when to hold, to fold, or to walk away. Each time he won some, you’d land a kiss on his neck or his cheek and whisper in his ear, “Good job, love.” The stoic, ruthless gunslinger would turn into mush at your words and your touch, and with a pink blush on his cheeks would say, “Thank you, sweetheart.”

Despite enjoying a game of poker from time to time yourself, you found yourself a little bored and were looking forward to when the game would finish. As you sat in Arthur laps, waiting for the men to call it a night, your eyes traveled over the saloon, taking in the scenery around. It was a nice change to see the gang members so happy and carefree, the only thing on their mind, their next drink.

As you scanned the room, your eyes met with Sadie’s. She was leaning against the bar stock with a drink in her hand. You couldn’t read the exact look in her eyes; it was fierce, determined and hot. Hot. That’s exactly how you felt under her gaze. You shifted under Arthur, suddenly too aware that you were sitting on his lap. He groaned a little, one of his hands coming up to your hip to stop your movements.

“Careful, sweetheart,” he said under his breath, loud enough only for you to hear. You could still feel Sadie’s gaze, could see it from the corner of your eyes. His hand massaged your hip a little and he added, “I’m almost done here. Wanna go upstairs?”

A salacious smile, fueled by the alcohol in your veins and Arthur’s body against yours spread on your lips, and you hid your head in the crook of his neck, whispering, “You know I do.”

Arthur chuckled, before turning back to the game.

“All in,” he said.

Javier dropped out, but John and Micah went along, going all in.

One card up, second card up.

“Yes!”

You almost jumped out of Arthur’s lap as he roared, scooping up his winnings in no time.

John groaned, dropping his head onto the table with a loud thud, already preparing himself for Abigail’s wrath as soon as she would find out. Micah, on the other hand, was fuming, and his face was almost as red from the rage as his shirt. “Stupid game,” he said as he got up from the table and went to the barman, getting himself another drink.

“I got lady luck in my lap,” Arthur said before turning his head to you, capturing your lips in a kiss. You moaned against his lips and waved your fingers through his hair, not caring even a bit at the John and Javier present, the latter even whistling at your display of love. One of his hands was on your hip, and the other started to make its way up your leg and under your skirt, dangerously close to the hem of your drawers.

You broke the kiss, panting slightly, and said, “How about we get a room?” you said before kissing his jaw and adding, “Unless you want to take me right here at the table.”

He could feel himself stiffen at your words, and without wasting anymore time, got up from the chair and took your hand in his. No one paid you and Arthur any attention as you traversed through the saloon, everybody too busy with their own conversations or drink, except for Sadie. You could feel her eyes the entire time as you walked across the room to the stairs, and your mouth felt dry when you walked right past her, her deep, brown eyes staring right into your soul and calling out to something. As you walked up the stairs, you turned back one last time, and saw her sending you a warm, though hinting, smile.

The two of you giggled and laughed as you tried to undress each other, the alcohol doing its job at making your fingers nimble.

He pushed you against the door as he ravished your mouth, making your head feel dizzy and your need for air almost as strong as the need for Arthur. When he broke away from your lips, his mouth turned to attacking your neck, leaving kisses and hickeys all up and down the column of your neck as his hands worked on undoing the buttons of your blouse.

“Oh my god, Arthur,” you moaned, your eyes closed as Arthur finally discarded your blouse and revealed your chest to him, his mouth landing on one of your nipples while his fingers worked on the other.

“Been hard since the moment you sat your pretty little ass down on my lap,” he groaned against your chest. He sucked on one of your nipples, covering it in his spit before adding, “Thought of taking you right then and there when I felt your nipples brush against me.”

“Fuck,” you moaned, your fingers in his hair as he placed his mouth back on your chest, giving your other nipple the same treatment.

“You sure were as good with them cards tonight as you are with your mouth,” you said breathlessly when he released your nipple.

“Darlin’,” he said, his voice dropping an octave and having a dangerous edge to it, “There’s a lot of things I’m good at.”

“Then show me, cowboy,” you said as you pushed him a little before dropping your skirt together with your drawers on the ground, presenting yourself to Arthur in all your naked glory. He could feel his mouth go dry upon seeing your body, illuminated by a faint light from the lantern. No matter how many times he saw you naked, you always managed to take his breath away and wonder what he did to deserve a creature as marvelous as you.

He picked you up effortlessly and carried you to the bed. The cotton sheets felt cool and soft against your skin as Arthur laid you down before covering your body with his, his mouth on yours in seconds.

“Too many clothes,” you mumbled against his lips and pulled on his suspenders, the strap hitting him with an audible slap when you released it.

He didn’t waste much time, pushing his suspenders to the side and pulling out his shirt before throwing it on the floor, revealing his golden chest and torso to your eyes. You ran your hand up his torso, through the light blonde hair that covered it and up to his chest where you could hear his heart beat wildly. His hands were on his pants, ready to pull them down and reveal his leaking cock when a knock on the door froze both of you. You both darted your heads to the door, wondering who and for what reason would knock on your door. Perhaps it was one of your drunk friends, lost and trying to find an available room.

When neither of you answered, keeping still and quiet despite your breathing hard and heavy, a voice spoke from behind the door.

“It’s Sadie,” she said as if mentioning that it’s her and not one of the drunken boys would make a difference and by god, it did.

Her intense stare flashed before your eyes and you once again felt the weight of it over you. Perhaps the alcohol was doing it’s job, making you bolder and daring, but you turned your eyes at Arthur, searching for something in them; a visible ‘no’, a confusion or some sort of opposition, but when none came, you turned back towards the door and said, “Come in.”

You saw the doorknob twist before the door opened with an audible creak. As soon as Sadie passed through the threshold and closed the door behind her, her eyes landed on the two of you on the bed.

Arthur was just in his pants, situated between your naked, spread legs. Her eyes raked over his golden chest down to the bulge in his pants before darting to you, your nipples perky and at attention, your chest rising and falling each time you took a breath. It didn’t miss you when she licked her lips, her eyes still on your naked body.

“I…” she began, sounding just a hint sheepish, “I’m interested in joining. If it's okay with the two of you that is.”

You could feel yourself clench around nothing and your heart rate pick up a few beats upon hearing her words. From the way she occasionally watched you and Arthur engaging in some PDA and the looks the two of you would often share, you could feel something more than friendly feelings floating in the air. It would be a lie if you said you weren’t curious; Sadie was a beautiful woman; from her piercing brown eyes, to her full lips and her dirty blonde hair. You caught yourself thinking that she reminded you of Arthur in some ways, both of them having a similar, burning fire in them, bravery that could rival anyone else’s in the gang as well as a softer, caring side. Maybe that’s why you liked her and weren’t opposed to what she was suggesting.

You licked your lips and was more than ready to say yes, but turned to Arthur. After how long the two of you had been together, you didn’t need to use words to communicate. You looked at him, raising your brows slightly, silently asking, “Are you okay with this?” He gave you a lopsided grin, nodding his head just a tiny bit, his way of saying, “If you are, I am.”

You smiled before biting your lip and turning your head to Sadie. Arthur moved to the side, making room for you so you could get up from the bed. “Join us,” you said when you came to stand next to her, taking her hand in yours. She flashed you a smile, the one that was making you weak in the knees, before one of her hands made its way to the back of your head, bringing your head closer to hers. You could feel her breath against your lips, could smell the strong scent of whiskey on them. It felt that just by inhaling the scent, you were getting more intoxicated.

Her lips were soft and warm as she pressed them against yours, stealing your breath away as she kissed you. You tangled your fingers in her hair, deepening the kiss and moaning against her mouth when she slipped her tongue in. All tongue and teeth, the kiss was desperate and needy, as if the two of you were starving for each other. Arthur could do nothing but watch as the two of you kissed, his mind on fire at looking at one of the most erotic things he’s ever seen in his life. He could feel himself become rock hard to the point of pain, and palmed his erection through his pants, trying to relieve some of the tension.

Her clothes dropped on the floor in a pile as you helped to disrobe her, your lips not leaving her for more than a few seconds as you helped her pull her blouse over her head and her pants down. Your lips were swollen and wet when the two of you finally broke apart, lazy grins on your faces. You turned around to look at Arthur; he looked desperate and needy as he sat on the bed, his cock already in his hands, rock solid, leaking and red at the tip. Your mouth watered at the sight of him, and you smiled at Sadie before the two of you made your way to Arthur.

“Ladies,” he groaned as the two of you got up on the bed, making your way to Arthur like panthers to their prey. You pushed his hand aside, replacing it with yours. If there was heaven, then this was certainly it, Arthur thought when he watched the two of you bring your lips to his cock, your mouth on his tip while Sadie’s on his base. He fought back the urge to snap his hips forward, pushing more of himself in your mouth, and decided to simply take what the two of you were giving him. While you sucked on his head, popping the head in your mouth from time to time before sucking on it, Sadie was kissing up and down his cock, making a mess as her spit covered him from the base to the middle. Arthur couldn’t help but twitch when she took one of his balls in her mouth, and you took his cock deeper, the head hitting the back of your throat. His eyes rolled to the back of his head and he moaned loud, perhaps too loud, at all the attention he was getting.

Thankfully, the two of you didn’t torture him for too long or otherwise he was sure he would’ve been cumming down your throat within minutes. As Sadie popped his balls from her mouth, and you took his cock out of yours, you kissed once again. Neither of you minded the taste of the man on each other’s lips, perhaps even chasing it as your tongues clashed against each other.

You turned to look at Arthur, your eyes almost completely black and full of lust, and said, “Arthur, I want you to fuck Sadie.” Your hands ran up his cock, giving a few slow, sensual strokes and earning a groan from him before adding, “I want her to feel how good your cock is.”

To say that he was expecting the night to go down like this would be a lie, but that’s not to say that he wasn’t enjoying it. He didn’t trust his words, so he simply nodded his head and pushed his hips a little for emphasis.

Sadie’s hand was in yours as she moved to straddle Arthur, his cock right against her nether lips. He could feel her witness coating his member, the heat from her lips already spreading over him. Arthur held himself in his hand as Sadie lowered herself on his cock, moaning at the stretch of being filled by him, pleasure bordering on pain from how thick he was. You kissed her all over, her neck, her cheeks, her lips, her chest, as she took him inch by inch, her breathing ragged and her eyes closed. When he was all the way in, his pelvis flush with her, it was as if everybody breathed a sigh of relief. Sadie felt full, unbelievably so, and without even moving, she could already feel unbelievable pleasure filling her.

You lowered your head to Arthur’s, kissing over his neck before bringing your lips to his ear and said, “Make her feel good, Arthur.”

The first pull and push of his cock had Sadie cry out in pleasure, her face contorted in ecstasy as Arthur pushed deep inside her. His hands were on her hips as he held her in place, pistoling his cock in and out of her wet channel. You could feel your wetness run down your legs as you watched her, so lost in pleasure and so beautiful as she moaned.

With his hands still on her hips, he turned his face to you, capturing your lips in a kiss. You could feel his hunger and desperation as his tongue danced around your’s, making your head spin from the intensity of the kiss.

When he broke away, a spit connecting your lips just for a moment, he said, “I want to feel you too.”

You didn’t have to be told twice. With excitement and lust and arousal coursing through your veins, you sat up on the bed before swinging your legs over Arthur’s head and bringing your soaked pussy over his mouth. He removed one of his hand’s from Sadie’s hips (who was now riding him in earnest herself, taking her pleasures from his cock) and placed it on one of your thighs to bring you down over his mouth.

Your moans joined Sadie’s as Arthur sucked on your sopping lips, before diving his tongue right into your hole. The room filled with nothing but sounds of moans, groans and skin slapping against skin. Perhaps, if someone looked up a definition of hedonism, a picture of the three of you would be there, indulging in your most basic carnal desires and chasing your pleasures.

With your eyes closed and your mouth open, you could do nothing but shake with pleasure as Arthur ate you out, his skillful tongue working between plunging itself into your hole and sucking on your clit. The feeling of Sadie’s hand on your cheek made you open your eyes. She was completely debauched, her face flush from arousal, her pussy wet and dripping as Arthur fucked into her. She brought your face to hers and kissed you, her tongue pushing past your lips right away. From Arthur tongue in your pussy to Sadie’s in your mouth, you could feel yourself nearing the edge.

“Fuck!” Sadie cried out, breaking away from your lips as her orgasm washed over her like a tsunami. Arthur didn’t let up for a moment, pistoling his hips in and out of her quivering hole until she couldn’t take it anymore. She felt herself gush all over him as he brought her to the peak of pleasures to the point where it was becoming all too much and she had to stop. She breathed heavily as she recovered, sitting to the side and waiting for the ringing in her ears to pass.

Satisfied with making one of the women happy, Arthur turned his full attention to you, both of his hands on your thigh, bringing you impossible close to his face, so much so that you wondered how he breathed.

“Arthur,” you moaned as he fucked you with his tongue and brought his thumb to play with your clit.

Sadie was at your side then, kissing down your neck till she reached your nipple and sucked on it.

“Oh my god,” you moaned, tears welling in your eyes as all the sensations were becoming too much. “You’re gonna make me cum,” you said to both of them, and not a moment later, you did.

You kept riding Arthur’s face as you chased your orgasm, crying his and Sadie’s name as they kept bringing you higher and higher. After a few more moments, you finally came to a stop, your thighs still shaking as Arthur helped you from his face down to the bed, laying at one of your sides while Sadie laid at your other. He kissed up and down your neck, leaving small bites and hickeys all over, while Sadie kissed over your chest, marking you as well.

Only after a few moments did it dawn on you that despite making the two of you cum and see stars, Arthur still hasn’t, his cock rock hard.

As if thinking the same thing, Sadie looked up at your from between your breasts, saying, “I wanna watch him fuck you,” before licking your nipple.

You moaned at that, your pussy twitching in anticipation, and looked at Arthur.

You were still sensitive from your orgasm, but you wanted to watch Arthur cum, so you spoke against his lips. “Arthur, please.”

He could never say no to you, not when you spoke his name with such a need in your voice. He smiled against your lips, brushing his nose against yours before saying, “Anything for you, darlin’.”

You parted your thighs to accommodate him and licked your lips when he took his cock in his hand, giving himself a few pumps before pushing just the head of his cock in. There was more than enough preparation, your own wetness and Arthur’s spit running down your pussy and your thighs, yet you still felt that familiar burn as he split you open, pushing more of himself in.

Inch by inch, he filled you, taking a pause here and there to let you get used to the feeling of him filling you to the brim. When he was all the way in, the head of his cock pushing so deep inside you you could practically taste it, you sighted his name, your head rolling back on the pillows and your fingers clawing at the sheets.

Sadie’s hand was on your lower abdomen, right where she could feel Arthur push in you.

She licked her lips before turning to him and said, “Fuck her proper, Arthur.”

The drag of his cockhead over your insides had you clench around him, the tears in your eyes coming back as your sensitive walls spasmed over him. One of your hands was clawing at the back of your pillows, the other at the sheets under you, and you could do little more than simply take Arthur’s pistoning, his cock reducing you to cries and moans of his name.

Sadie turned your head towards her, capturing your lips in her once again before speaking against them. “Tell me how good he’s making you feel,” she said.

You tried to speak, but as you opened your mouth, a moan came out as Arthur delivered a particularly rough thrust, hitting that special place inside of you. Out of the corner of your eyes you could see him smirk.

“So good, Sadie,” you finally managed. The bliss you were feeling had your mind going haywire as Arthur’s thrusts pushed you closer and closer to the edge of euphoria. “Fuck. He’s fucking me so good,” you moaned, your words no doubt feeding Arthur’s ego, making him puff out his chest more and fuck you harder into the mattress, “He’s gonna make me cum.”

Sadie smiled before kissing you once again, alternating between sucking on your tongue and delving hers into your mouth.

Arthur was at the end of his rope. He was holding out his own release, hoping to deliver you to yours first, but it was proving hard when your cunt spasmed over him each time he pushed inside. It didn’t help either that you and Sadie were all over each other, your lips against one another, your hands exploring each other’s bodies. Not even in his wildest dreams or fantasies had he seen something like this.

He placed both of his hands on the back of your thighs before pushing them up so your legs hung on his shoulder, kissing one of your ankles as he did so. Your legs twitched each time he slammed back in, the new position making him go in even deeper if that was possible, and if it wasn’t for Sadie’s mouth on yours, you were sure your scream’s would’ve definitely alerted somebody.

Delicate and slow, her hand traveled from one of your breasts, down your stomach and to your wet pussy. She could feel where Arthur was entering you again and again, the wetness around your walls making for an easy, though loud with sloppy sounds, entrance. Using two of her fingers, she started to add small circular motions around your clit, making your toes curl.

With the combination of Sadie’s fingers on your clit and Arthur’s cock in your pussy, you came, arching your back from the bed as pleasure coursed through your veins, so hard you thought you were gonna blackout from it. Sadie kissed you through it, muffling your cries and moans and screams with her mouth. The orgasm swept over you like a hurricane, leaving you completely boneless as you laid there, managing to do nothing more than keep taking Arthur’s cock.

The feeling of you spasming and tightening over him was too much for Arthur. “Fuck, darlin’, I’m close,” he said, the sweat on his face making it shiny.

With Sadie’s mouth away from yours, you managed a broken cry and a small, “Yes” moving your hips just a little to help Arthur to his release.

Sadie moved her hand from where it was near your clit to where Arthur was entering your sopping pussy again and again. With a mischievous smile, she took his balls in her hand and fondled them before saying, “Fill her up, Arthur.”

Arthur came with a heavy groan, his pace all out of rhythm as he kept pushing his cock into you, stuffing you full of his cum until you could feel it running down your thighs.

At last, he stilled, his breathing heavy as he pulled out of you and lowered your legs from his shoulder to the bed.

You could feel Arthur’s sweat drop from his forehead to yours as he bent down to kiss you, slow and tender, before dropping to your side. His head was on the pillow as he stared at the ceiling, still trying to comprehend what had just happened. On your other side, Sadie was catching her breath too, the activities you just engaged in making her previously clear complexion looking a tad bit pink. You could see a satisfied smile on her lips as she raised herself on her elbows to look at you, brushing a piece of hair out of your face before laying back down on the bed, one of her hands under her head.

As you laid there, well-fucked, satisfied and bemused, you wondered how you’d look Sadie in the eyes in the morning, when the effects of alcohol and lust would vanish, and you’d have nowhere to hide as the sun would illuminate every corner of the room. You remembered Dutch’s words, telling all of you to enjoy yourself. “As much as you want,” he specified. You’re not sure if he had this in mind when saying that.

Sadie, however, decided to not wait for the morning and spoke up now, saying, “Might I say that the two of you sure know how to fuck.”

The ease with which she spoke eased your restless nerves, and you felt yourself relax as you laughed at her words. At your side, Arthur couldn’t help but shake his head, a small smirk playing at his lips.

You knew the next morning would still bring the awkward laughs and pink blushes, but you decided you could deal with that later. Right now, you were happy to enjoy the warmness of the two bodies pressed at your sides.

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ysljoon · 3 years

Text

Personal Business|CEO!Jeon Jungkook x Assistant Reader

This fanfic is mature so please avoid if you are not 18+ this is also a yandere fic so there are sensitive topics.

Warnings: Yandere themes, noncon sex, public sex, crying, fingering (f receiving), dirty talk (jungkook has a filthy mouth christ), creampie, assault?

Being the personal assistant to Jeon Jungkook definitely has been a rollercoaster of experiences, but after working with him for about 2 years now you’ve gotten used to his erratic behavior such as mood swings and unreasonable demands. Everyone in the workplace has admired how long you’ve stuck around, but the paycheck you receive every two weeks is too pretty to pass up. You saw the listing for the job on a job search website and the pay per hour almost had you pass out, but once you came into the office you realized you were getting paid so generously almost as a test to see if the money could keep you around and it sure has.

Today Jungkook was in an extra gruff mood for the day because he had plenty of meetings to go through and not enough time for proper breaks and that’s the least ideal day for him. He loves breaks as much as any other person, but just tenfold. Everyone in the office is allowed a 45 minute lunch break, but since Jungkook is the CEO he will disappear on 2 hour breaks and not a single person knows where he goes. Not even you and people don’t understand how since you’re practically his right hand. You pay no mind to his whereabouts since it doesn’t affect and busy yourself with whatever tasks Jungkook left for you to do. Today he left no tasks for you since he’s been cooped up in his office occupied with other business officials. You haven’t been able to meet with him to get a briefing for the day so now you’re talking with Taehyung at his cubicle while you share a small pizza he ordered for lunch.

“Taehyung, I’m telling you right now there is no way that Joon and the receptionist don’t have something going on! They’re always eyeing each other up and Namjoon is always requesting for her to come to his office. It’s highly suspect.” You explained your reasoning to Taehyung exasperated and took another bite of your crust.

“Listen Y/N, all I’m saying is that it’s way too obvious for it to actually have any worth. Anyways you know how Mr. Jeon feels about workplace romance; he absolutely abhors the thought and would probably fire people on the spot if he ever found out.”

You continued to have your disagreement with Taehyung for a little while more, but what you didn’t realize was that Jungkook was done with his meeting a while ago and was watching you on his laptop through the camera system and was frowning deeply watching you fraternize with your coworker. He was tired of watching you practically throw yourself at Taehyung when you were his and only his. Jungkook got up from his desk and strode to Taehyung’s cubicle to stop this foolishness immediately.

“Mr. Kim, is there a reason why you are holding up my assistant from her work and why the expense report I asked you to do isn’t done?” Jungkook had a look on his face that he wanted to wring Taehyung’s neck and he was very close to, but he didn’t want to scare you off. He had to have you in his possession before he got rid of anybody that even tried to look in your direction so for right now this was his version of playing it cool.

“I-I’m very sorry sir it won’t happen again and I’ll get right to it!” Taehyung quickly turned to his computer and fervently typed in his password to get to work immediately. Jungkook then turned to you and grabbed you by the arm to drag you to his office. You were shocked and stunned by this action because sure he had talked to you roughly, but had never put his hands on you. He swiftly pulled you into his office and slammed the door. He even fully shut his blinds. This started to have you scared. He had this look in his eyes that made your body start to tremble. “S-sir I’m sorry for not working! I just wasn’t able to get the daily briefing for today so I tried my best to get work done. I had a lot of free time so I thought to spend it with Taehyung. I’m sorry if that was wasting company time you can deduct it from my pay!” You were heavily breathing by the time you were done with your panicked spiel. Jungkook chuckled at your anxiety and strode towards you till you were backed up into the wall and at this point you thought he could feel how fast your heart was beating in your chest.

“Darling, if you really want to make it up to me you can kiss me.” He purred in your ear and it sent sickening shivers up your spine. Your head started to spin when you felt him plant his lips on the column of your neck and work his way up to your jaw. You tried to shove him off, but naturally he was able to overpower you and he used his leg and chest to trap you between him and the wall.

“My dear Y/N, I hope you cooperate with me if you know what’s good for you.” He slyly grinned against your skin and started to passionately kiss you. To really show he was in charge he bit down on your bottom lip with force you have never felt before. It had you cry out in pain, but you were quickly silenced when you felt your boss reach under your skirt and start to trace circles against your cunt. He placed a hand against your mouth and gave you a threatening look you have never seen. It was so sinister it had you squirming away from his touch. You thought you could have gotten away but by the time you were able to slide past his body he was grabbing your wrist and slamming you down against his desk which sent things tumbling down to the floor.

“Jungkook, please stop, I'm so sorry!” You didn’t even realize you were bawling at this point, but he ignored your pleas and sobs and continued with his sinister acts. He grasped your wrists in one hand and with his other he slid your panties off and inserted a single long finger into your cunt. “Fuck baby, you’re so tight and wet for me.” He kept pumping his finger into you until he felt like he could insert another one into you. Once the second finger was deep in your hole Jungkook started to pick up the pace and you couldn’t even cry out to what he was doing to you. You felt numb and helpless and wanted him to stop, but your efforts were useless.

“Kitten, I want to hear you. I want to hear how good I make you fucking feel. I want to see you get dumb on my fucking fingers and cock that you don’t even know what to do with yourself. I want you to beg to have your dirty cunt stretched out.” Hearing your boss talk to you like this makes you speechless, but you listen to him because you don’t know what other worse things he can do to you. You let your body succumb to what he’s doing and you let out small moans and whimpers and this makes him let out his own grunts and groans in response. Before you can assess what’s happening when you feel his fingers slip out of your soaked pussy, Jungkook is shoving his cock balls deep into you and you gasp for air feeling the heavy pressure between your legs. He doesn’t give you any time to adjust and starts to pound into you. You cry out in both pain and pleasure from hearing skin slap against skin. You feel close to an orgasm and tears are rolling down your cheeks from desperation. “Sir please let me cum! I need to cum so bad! Please let me cum all over your cock.” You can’t even process the words you’re saying, you just want to have your release so badly. Jungkook slaps your ass and groans a ‘fuck yes baby’ and just seconds after that action you’re creaming on his thick cock. You feel your walls pulse around your boss and this brings him close to the edge and he’s losing control over himself. He starts to wild slam into your cunt and after a few more pumps he’s spilling his cum into you and you feel delirious from everything that had just happened. You hear him adjusting himself behind you, but you can’t bring yourself to even move at the moment. You hear his steps come close to you and you just lie there motionless while you wait for him to speak. “I can’t wait to bring you home with me princess.” After that sentence all you can recall is a blunt object coming in contact with your skull and nothing else.

Notes: thank you so much for reading I’ve been on a pretty solid hiatus and will crosspost what I have written on AO3 on to here too because I have some fics there that I haven’t posted on to Tumblr! If you enjoyed please like and reblog it really helps and you can also give me a Kofi.

#yanderebts #yandere jeon jungkook #yandere jungkook #yandere bts #yandere bts fanfiction #ceo jeon jungkook #dubcon/noncon #jungkook x reader #jeon jungkook #kim taehyung #smut #bts smut #jungkook smut #bts fanfic #bts fanfiction #tw dubcon #tw dark content #bangtan sonyeondan

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snackhobi · 4 years

Text

pairing: jimin x reader / word count: 9.1k / genre: smut (NSFW, 18+)

summary: you wouldn’t mind your cute neighbour being such a shameless fuckboy if a) the walls weren’t so thin and b) he didn’t seem intent on adding you as another notch in his bedpost.

but there’s only so much you can resist park jimin, especially once he gets that peach involved.

warnings: sexually explicit content, Jimin being completely shameless/a lowkey ho, messy peach eating, mentions of masturbation, oral sex (m + f receiving), overstimulation, protected sex, multiple orgasms (f), dirty talk and some cursing, hmm I think that’s it?

a/n: I was so close to calling this ‘jimin and the f*cking peach’ as some terrible homage to ‘james and the giant peach’ 😂🤧 as always I would like to thank @hobi-gif for beta reading this, putting up with me having a meltdown at her, and encouraging me to write smut at work rather than doing my job, ty queen xoxo

It’s official. Park Jimin is the neighbour from hell.

He’d tricked you, to start with. With those cherubic features, those doe eyes, and his cute little smile? He looks like an angel. A sweet, innocent angel, one who’d knocked shyly on your door and presented you with a small selection of chocolates when he’d moved into the apartment next to yours. Your heart had gone boom boom at the sight of that cute smile, the slip of teeth, the way his lovely face had scrunched up.

Nowadays, whenever you see that face, you want to punch it.

Well. Not punch it. Maybe slap it a little. Because Park Jimin is a fiend.

Your studio apartment is cheap for many reasons. The plumbing is creaky and the heating isn’t exactly great but those are small sacrifices for such low rent—ones you’re willing to make. Creaking doesn’t bother you and throw blankets exist for a reason, right? You get a balcony and a parking spot, which is more than you can say for a lot of other places in this price range, so you’ll take the negatives for these positives.

But you’d give up all the things you love about this cheap flat for some sound proofing.

Because Park Jimin fucks.

A lot.

He’d been nothing but lovely for the first few weeks. You’d barely been aware of his existence, minus when you could hear him in the bathroom—your flats are mirrored, rooms sharing walls, so you’d been washing your face when you’d heard his shower start up and then the sound of his dulcet tones drifting through the wall. That had actually been really nice; Jimin can hit some high notes, and it had been a pleasant backdrop as you’d cleansed your face. It had been another bullet point you’d added to the list of things you thought were cute about him (along with his face, his laugh, his smile), and you’d stupidly started to develop a tiny little crush on this boy-next-door, thinking him some soft, kind thing.

But then he’d started to have people over.

You’ve lost count of how many days you’ve had to listen to the moans and gasps that echo through your walls. You can’t escape from it. As a freelance programmer, you’re pretty much always working from home, so it’s not like you can get away from the sounds of pleasure that shudder through Jimin’s flat and into your own.

It’s never consistent, either. There’s not a single hour of the day that’s off limits to Park Jimin. Morning, afternoon, night; the boy is always ready to go, apparently. And judging from the sounds through the walls? He never leaves anyone unsatisfied either.

Which, like, fine. People fuck. You get it. You’re not judging. You just wish it wasn’t so loud. You have to sleep, for God’s sake. But it’s not like you can knock on a new neighbour’s door and be like hey, I appreciate you have an incredibly active sex life, but can you keep it down, please?

So you’d bit your tongue. You’d gritted your teeth to bear it. You’d still smile at Jimin if you ever passed in the hallway, acknowledged him with a small nod, exchanged pleasantries, all the neighbourly stuff that you’d do with anyone. You’d just invested in some good earplugs and thought that was it.

And then Jimin had started doing his morning yoga routine outside.

You start each day with a cup of tea on your balcony, watering your hydrangeas and enjoying the dawn sun that lifts up over the horizon alongside your plants. It’s a small, singular moment of quiet in an otherwise dull day and you treasure that serenity.

Well. Treasured. Past tense. Because Jimin has invaded this part of your life, too.

The first time Jimin had unrolled his yoga mat on the balcony adjacent to yours, he’d been dressed in a deceptively unassuming outfit—a loose white t-shirt and leggings that hugged every inch of his calves and thighs and shapely ass, which you had pointedly Not Looked At. He’d tilted his head at you with a smug little smile flickering at the edge of his lips, and when he’d greeted you good morning, you’d responded in turn, even if you were still annoyed at how he’d interrupted your afternoon nap the day before with the sound of his headboard smacking into the wall repeatedly. You were still fairly new neighbours and you still felt like you had to be polite, even if he was starting to fray your nerves.

And then he’d started to bend.

Now, you’ll be the first to admit that you don’t know much about yoga. But you’d swear Jimin was choosing poses that did the utmost to display his flexibility, the flex of his muscles and twist of his limbs, balancing his body on his arms before easing into a pose that had him bent in two, head towards his toes—and with how he had his back to you this meant you got full glimpse of his ass, straining against his leggings, the way his loose shirt slipped up his body to reveal the lines of his stomach and chest, how his face was still twisted into that little smirk even if it was upside down.

Staring at you.

You’d promptly stopped watering your hydrangeas and walked inside your flat, shutting the sliding door behind you.

Jimin is relentless.

He’s pretty and he knows it. All that shy, new-kid-on-the-block innocence he’d had initially is completely gone, and all he does is flirt, flirt, flirt. He winks at you. Stands a little too close whenever you talk. Lets his eyes flicker down to your lips, trail over every inch of you, lashes fluttering when he catches you watching, unashamed and unabashed. He frequently just… hangs around on his balcony. Not topless, no, but he may as well be, his thotty muscle tees doing nothing to hide him from your eyes.

(The worst thing, though, is when you catch him unawares. When he’s tired and clearly not expecting you to be awake, too, his eyes sleepy and his hair ruffled; a little vulnerable, a lot softer than he usually presents himself. Curled up on the small seat on his balcony with a hot drink in his hand, phone in the other, his screen throwing blue-tinted light over the easing lines of his features.

You wish Jimin was like that all the time. But the second he sees you, his eyes flicker, and his brows lift, and his mouth curls, and once again you rue the day you had a fuckboy move in next door to you.)

It’s not that Jimin isn’t hot. It’s not that you wouldn’t fuck him, either. But you have no interest in being some sort of convenient hook-up for him, purely there by circumstance, fate, whatever you want to call it. You dread to think of him sending you haha wyd x texts whenever he feels like having sex and you just happen to be nearby. So you weather all of his obvious come-ons and swerve him something chronic, even if he seems intent on making his attraction to you obvious.

You’ve been managing it for months. But as time goes on, your patience wears thinner and thinner, an atom-thick layer of fortitude the only thing keeping you from grabbing Park Jimin and kissing him and/or killing him. It doesn’t help that you haven’t fucked for a while now, and you’re reminded of this every time you hear another pornstar moan through the wall (the people Jimin brings home seem to like hamming it up for effect), every time you see another mosaic of hickeys laid across the column of Jimin’s gorgeous throat, every time you see the way his yoga outfits do nothing to protect the delicious shape of his body from your eyes.

You dig your fingers into your palms. It’s fine. It’s okay. You can handle Park Jimin and his overt sexual energy, oozing out of him almost every second of every day.

It’s a little harder to handle how he still seems sweet despite his fuckboy nature. How he picks your parcels up for you. How he lets you use his laundry detergent when you run out. How he lets you keep food in his fridge when yours breaks down and you have to wait for a replacement. How he sheds that fuckboy facade whenever it seems like you genuinely need help, how you’ve heard his soft phone calls through the wall, to his friends, his family, sweet and kind and supportive.

Park Jimin is a multi-dimensional being, for sure, and maybe you sometimes wish he was actually genuinely interested in you as a person and not as a lay, so you could peel back those layers to the lovely core at the centre of his being.

But it’s fine. You can handle this stupid yearning and pining. You can handle the knowledge that Park Jimin is a genuine gentleman who just happens to like fucking, is open in his desire for it, and is apparently Very Good at it. It’s difficult, but you can do it.

You can do it.

The date you set up with someone from Tinder ends up being disappointing and lacklustre. You’d escaped before dessert, unable to put up with one more second of this asshole going on and on about stocks, and investments, and trading, or whatever, cursing the day you’d decided to swipe on him. You’re so sick of your luck (or lack thereof) with guys. (At least the food had been nice.)

Of course Jimin sees you schlepping your way back into your apartment, disappointment obvious in the line of your shoulders and lips; it doesn’t take a genius to clock your date outfit, cute as it is, makeup and hair soft. But the night has barely begun and here you are, stepping back into your flat. Alone.

“Bad date?” Jimin asks, voice gentle, and you just snort.

“Just like the rest of them,” you reply with a small sigh, before shutting your door quietly behind you, missing the look on your neighbour’s face.

Jimin, to his credit, eases off after this. You’re not sure if it’s due to a misplaced sense of pity or something, but even if he still smiles and flirts lightly with you, it’s less… salacious. Still there, still obvious, just a little softer. You hate how this has you feeling grateful towards him, because he’s still got so many fuckboy tendencies that it should outweigh this gentler side of his flirtation, but your traitorous heart still goes gooey every time Jimin smiles at you.

But then.

There’s that fucking peach.

You’re just chilling on your balcony, sipping at a glass of lemonade in the warmth of the afternoon when you hear Jimin’s door sliding open. You flick your eyes over at the sound, watching the way Jimin slips out onto his own balcony, how he throws something up in the air and catches it with ease, a flick of the wrist, a curl of the fingers each time he catches it again.

He hasn’t had any fuckbuddies over for a while. A few weeks, almost a month. It’s the longest Jimin’s gone without having sex for as long as he’s started having people over and you’d been sort of concerned. Which, yeah, you know it sounds super weird when you think about it, especially considering how much you complain about Jimin to your friends—help, my fuckboy neighbour hasn’t fucked anyone in nearly a month so I’m worried if his dick has fallen off or something.

(Well, actually, you know his dick is still attached, based off the little gasps and moans he lets out whenever he pleasures himself in lieu of fucking someone else. You’ll take this secret to the grave but those noises that Jimin lets out have been the melody you use to reach your own peaks, although you’re a lot quieter than he is whenever you touch yourself, biting your lip and muffling the wet sounds of your fingers thrusting into your cunt under layers of blankets. You’d never give Jimin the satisfaction of knowing that the mental image of him fucking into his fist and cumming over his stomach and chest is what throws you over your own edge, toe-curling orgasms that shake through your body in time with Jimin’s own.)

Anyway. He looks loose limbed and relaxed when he saunters into view, utterly unsurprised by your presence behind your window box of hydrangeas, giving you his usual, sultry smile.

He’s started to ramp up his flirtations again. This smirk is one which you’ve learned not to respond to. You just stare levelly back at him, unimpressed as you start to water your flowers, which does nothing to dissuade him. It never does. He clearly revels in the challenge.

Jimin keeps his eyes locked with yours as he lifts his hand to his lips. You catch a glimpse of what he was throwing and catching—a ripe, flush peach, tiny droplets of water shimmering on its fuzz, freshly washed.

And then he starts to eat it.

The peach yields immediately to the press of his teeth. Juice bursts out of its softness, running down his lips, his chin; he makes no moves to wipe it away, the lewd sound of his slurps as he curls his tongue into the fruit, messy and sweet.

It’s shameless. He’s shameless. His gaze is unwavering as he stares at you, his mouth glistening with the peach’s juices, the only sound the wet smack of his lips and tongue as he licks up the honeyed liquid that drips from his skin, curving around the fruit as he swallows, Adam’s apple bobbing.

Water’s been trickling from your small can onto the hydrangeas, cascading over the plants; the soil is waterlogged now, but you haven’t noticed, fixated on the way Jimin is looking at you as he wantonly eats out this peach.

Drip drip, goes the watering can.

Drip drip, goes the peach.

By the time there’s nothing more than the pit in his hand, Jimin is a mess. His fingers and mouth and chin shine with peach juice, eyes dark and heavy as he watches the way you drink the sight of him in, the way his tongue slowly drags over his full lips, catching the sweetness that lingers.

The second he puts his tongue to his fingers to get the stickiness on them, that’s it. You watch the way he sucks his fingers into his mouth and promptly put the watering can down and turn on your heel to walk inside, slamming the balcony door shut behind you.

You’re done. You’re only human. You’ve spent months with Jimin parading himself in front of you, seen the way he contorts his body every morning in an unnecessarily complex sun salutation, listened to the way his voice rises when he cums; the peach is the metaphorical cherry on top, and you’re just. Over. It.

You hammer your palms against your neighbour's door, rap-rap-rapping on the wood, your blood rising and your heart thudding in your chest, every part of you tense, wound up, pent up. The door swings open to reveal Jimin, his chin still slick with sweet peach, lips curling up in a self-satisfied smile when he sees you.

“Park Jimin.” Your voice shakes and you hate yourself for it, hate the way Jimin’s eyes glitter at the sound, the little hitch in your breath. “You are a fucking menace, you know that?”

“I have no idea what you’re talking about,” he says. He leans against the doorframe, effortlessly gorgeous, hip cocked, head tilted. He lifts his hand, and there’s a heavy moment of tension as you watch him slowly swipe a thumb over the last remnant of juice on his chin, before his tongue lolls out of his mouth and he licks the final taste of peach from his fingers.

When you grab hold of his collar his expression shifts from something coy into something far more self satisfied, months of his brazen come-ons finally culminating in this—you, shoving him backwards into his apartment, kicking the door shut behind you.

“I swear,” you say. “I swear to God—”

“You swear? I can think of better things you could be doing with your mouth,” Jimin says, and then laughs when you scowl at him. “Damn, you’re so hot when you’re mad.”

“You are infuriating,” you bite out, and Jimin just laughs again, his whole body shaking, every part of him still loose and relaxed even as you continue to tighten your grip on his clothing, feeling every motion of his body under your hands. You hate how pretty he is, even now, utterly unafraid of your frustration—the brightness of his eyes and his smile, that undercurrent to it all, the way his hands slide so smoothly around your waist, your hips, sliding down to grope at your ass.

“I know,” he agrees, still giggling, and then he kisses you.

Jimin dives straight in, no holds barred, and you immediately melt into putty under his touch. He lets out a hum of satisfaction into your mouth as your hands go lax and slide down his chest. You can still taste the peach on his lips, his tongue, licking into his mouth.

You’ve thought about this mouth more times than you’d like to admit: the full swell of his lips, the little curve of his cupid’s bow, how it’d feel pressed against your own, and honestly? It’s so much better than you’d let yourself imagine it to be.

He nips at your bottom lip before soothing it with his tongue, and you bite off a gasp when he pulls you forward, grinding against you. You shudder. Jimin’s mouth is a pleased curve against your own before he pulls away, murmuring in your ear in a voice that’s equal parts sultry and sweet.

“That’s it,” he murmurs, kissing the sensitive skin of your jaw just under your earlobe, making you shiver. “Just relax. You’re always so tense.”

“Maybe that’s because my neighbour keeps me up all night,” you say, but your voice is weak, no strength behind your words, breath stolen out of you at the way Jimin starts to trail his lips down your neck, across your throat. “I find that constantly getting my sleep interrupted—oh, oh—”

Jimin sucks at the hollow of your neck, the delicate skin there so sensitive to his touch, the warmth of his lips magnified, every nerve ending alight with pleasure. Your hands have slid into his hair and you unintentionally tighten your grasp, fingers tugging at his dark locks, and Jimin bares his teeth against your skin.

It’s maybe a little embarrassing how wet you are just from a little making out. But after months of Jimin teasing you and putting you on edge, coupled with how long it’s been since you've had sex? You’re allowed to be a little desperate. All the small frustrations you were about to voice die on your tongue, slipping away from you as Jimin starts to walk you backwards with a confidence that shows just how often he’s done this—leading people to his bed, never taking his hands off you.

By the time Jimin eases you to lie down, you feel breathless. He hovers above you with that satisfied smile flickering at the edge of his lips, taking in the sight of you, finally underneath him—lips kiss swollen, exquisite, all the sharp words on your tongue softened and gone, goosebumps trailing down your skin. You tug at his collar, which catches him off guard; he sways forward and almost hits his face against yours, but before he can spend too long looking smug at your desperation you capture his lips again. You melt into the mattress, hooking a foot over his calf and revelling in the weight of him between your legs, your hips flush, and how hard he’s getting through those stupidly tight leggings of his.

When he grinds against you, the outline of his cock pressed up against your cunt, an embarrassing whine leaves your lips and trembles against Jimin’s own. Jimin goes still before pulling away from the open-mouthed kiss and when you see the expression on his face you slap a hand over your mouth, burning with shame.

“Oh.” He sounds delighted. “You’re noisy, huh?”

“Shut up,” you say, though your words are muffled against your palm. He grinds down again, a slow and deep roll of his hips that lets you feel how hard he is, and a noise shudders out the back of your throat, audible around your hand.

“It’s hot.” There’s that little smirk on Jimin’s lovely lips, every inch of him dripping self confidence. He knows how you’re entirely at his mercy, in spite of your words; your voice is weak. “You’re normally so quiet.”

“Some of us try to be considerate and think about our neighbours.”

Jimin just smiles, pulling your hand away from your mouth before gently kissing your palm, a motion that’s surprisingly tender and makes you pause.

“Trust me.” His voice is low. “I do think about my neighbour.”

Your breath hitches when he slides his free hand under your shirt, trailing his fingers over the softness of your stomach. He pulls the fabric up, letting his gaze rove over the bared skin. The way Jimin looks at you makes you feel like you’re the only woman in the world, like he’s never seen anyone prettier.

You wonder if he looks at his other fuckbuddies like this.

The thought slides away from you as Jimin dips his head and starts to kiss your throat again. You tilt your head back as his lips trail across the soft skin, his hands coming to rest under your breasts, contained as they are by your bra; once he coaxes you to sit up, it only takes him a few moments to strip your upper body, kneeling between your spread legs as he starts to trail his hands over the parts of you that are now bared to him.

“Pretty,” he says. You’d roll your eyes if he didn’t sound so reverent, and also if you weren’t distracted by the way he flicks his thumbs over your hardening nipples, your core clenching as he does, biting your lip to stop yourself from making a sound. A frown flits across Jimin’s face and he lifts one of those thumbs away from your breast, dragging your lip away from your teeth, letting his grasp linger so your lips are parted. “Don’t do that. I've been waiting for months to hear you properly.”

Before you can reply, he kisses you again, licking into your mouth and swallowing down the noise you make when he drags his hand between the valley of your breasts, down your stomach and settling between your legs, running his fingers over your cunt, the feeling dulled by layers of fabric even though he presses with intent. Your hips jolt at the sensation, and Jimin repeats the motion, dragging the fabric across your flushed lips.

“Jimin.” Your voice is a gasp against his mouth, and you can’t keep the pleading out of your tone, desperation bleeding into every letter of your words. “Please.”

He just hums, sounding pleased, and a breath of surprise escapes you as he pushes you back against the pillows. He wastes no time in getting to his prize, drawing a scattered constellation of kisses that trail across your chest, your nipples, your stomach, the line of your hip bones as you lift up so he can pull your shorts and underwear off. You’re entirely naked underneath him, bare and wet, cunt flushed and shining, and Jimin groans at the sight.

“Look at you,” he murmurs, fingers digging into your thighs as he pulls your legs wider. Your cheeks burn as Jimin stares at your pussy, but you can’t help but feel a pulse of self-satisfaction at the visible twitch of his cock in his stupid yoga leggings. “You’re so wet.”

You should probably feel embarrassed, but by now you’ve thrown all your previous inhibition to the winds. You’ve ended up somewhere you’d privately sworn you were never going to—in Park Jimin’s bed, leaned up against his pillows, laid out for him to touch and take and have, every inch of you desperate for it. There’s nothing in your brain or body but arousal and need. So instead of letting out a snip of a remark you just cant your hips towards him, another pleading sound slipping from your lips.

He gives you what you want. He dips his head and trails his lips and tongue down, down, down, wet and hot, until they press against your cunt. He looks at you with the same hooded eyes as earlier, motions of his mouth an echo of his peach eating, sloppy and messy; he’s unabashed in the way he slides his mouth over you, lips slick and tongue hot, sliding over every sensitive inch—sucking your clit, licking your folds, burying his face between your legs and drinking up every sweet drip of your juices.

You can’t help but make noise. Small gasps that slide into moans of pleasure, hitches in your breath that make your chest jump and your breasts shake; Jimin lets out noises too, muffled against your cunt, sounds that let you know he’s enjoying himself almost as much as you. It’s honestly pretty fucking hot, the way your own pleasure seems to turn him on, how he chases that feeling, eyes blown as he takes in every one of your reactions, repeating the motions that are affecting you the most.

The sight of him between your legs has you tensing. He continues to stare up at you, the curve of your stomach when you bow towards him, the fall of your breasts, which he slides his hands over, cupping them in his palms, pinching your hardened buds, layering sensation on sensation, never taking his mouth off you.

When he presses one finger inside, and then another, both thrusting firm and deep as he mouths at your clit, you tangle a hand into his hair. He watches the way your hips jump from the sensation of his tongue directly on your clit, and does it again, and again, your voice crescendoing from the explosion of sensation, how it’s too much, before he circles his lips around it and sucks messily. Your brain registering nothing but his lips and tongue against you, the hands that are trailing up and down your sides and still skimming across your breasts.

You’re not even aware of the words that are falling from your lips, oh fuck, yes, Jimin, there, oh, the way your grasp tightens in his dark hair, your hips bucking against his mouth as you can feel your orgasm approaching. The pleasure keeps building, flames fanning brighter and brighter as Jimin buries his mouth even further in between your legs, fingers speeding up as you gasp.

“Don’t stop, don’t stop,” you chant, voice getting higher. “I’m gonna cum, I’m cumming, oh—”

Your words slide into a moan as your back arches and your thighs tighten around Jimin’s head and you cum. Jimin continues to finger fuck you through it, your cunt pulsating around him as he keeps licking and sucking at your clit, his gaze fixed on your face as your eyes squeeze shut and your mouth falls open and every line of your body sings of the pleasure that Jimin has given to you. Even when your legs and hips start to jolt from oversensitivity and you cry out at each ripple of his tongue against you, he’s relentless, almost cruel in how he watches you writhe from a mixture of pain and overextended pleasure.

You're sobbing by the time Jimin pulls his mouth away from your cunt, tears pooling in the corner of your eyes, body shaking as you try to suck in air. He thrusts his fingers into you one more time, slow and deep, watching the way you turn your head into the pillow and muffle a gasp against it.

“I knew you'd look and sound gorgeous when you cum,” he says, and though you feel boneless from your post-orgasm high, you can’t help a little huff escaping your lips. Jimin clearly catches the sound, quiet as it is against the linen of his pillowcase, and takes your chin in his hand to turn his face towards you. His fingers are slick with your arousal, wet against your skin.

“You sound like you’re reading off the script to a porno,” you murmur.

One of his eyebrows arches. “Oh? You don’t think I’m just speaking my mind?” Those fingers move away from your chin and trace over the swell of your bottom lip; you let your mouth fall open and swallow them down, licking the taste of yourself off Jimin’s skin. “You don’t think that I’ve been thinking about how pretty you’d look as I fucked into you, begging for me to let you cum again and again?”

Your tongue stutters against his fingers and your core clenches at his words, the dark undercurrent underneath them, and Jimin’s expression shifts as he notices.

“You really have no idea, do you?” He runs his fingertips over your tastebuds, saliva starting to pool in your mouth, the slide so wet and messy. “Who do you think I picture whenever I touch myself? Who do you think I was wishing was in my bed every time I took someone else home?”

You nip at his fingers, running the edge of your teeth along his knuckles from equal parts surprise and disbelief at his words. You find it impossible to believe that he really means that, but then you realise—recently, on the few occasions you’d bumped into Jimin in the hall when he’d had one of his lays trailing behind him, for as different and unique each of them was, each one of them had shared some sort of trait with you. Hair colour, eyes, the set of their lips, the shape of their face; once, you’d heard a girl giggling through the wall before it had trailed off into a moan, and you’d done a literal double take at how much she’d sounded like you. Similar, but not exactly the same, a slightly off-tone echo of the sound that spills from your own lips whenever you laugh.

And the emptiness in his bed had only started after the night that he’d seen the way you’d trailed into your apartment with discontent heavy around your shoulders, disappointed at that awful Tinder date.

Oh, fuck.

“You’re shameless,” you say, words a little garbled around Jimin’s fingers, but you know he understands.

“No, I’m not,” he replies, a small smirk curling up the corner of his lips. It should be illegal: the way he has such soft features that can turn so quickly into something sharper and entirely sensual, eyes hooded, lips flushed, the column of his throat so lovely and graceful as he tilts his head to one side. “I just know what I want and don’t try to hide it. What’s shameless about that? I know you want me too, but you always deny yourself the things you want. Don’t you?”

You hate that you’ve been so transparent in your attraction to him. Because the truth of the matter is that for as much as Jimin frustrates you with his entire existence, you do want him. After all—you wouldn’t be naked underneath him, still trembling from the aftershocks of a deep orgasm, if you didn’t.

“You’re not always as quiet as you think, you know,” he adds, pulling his fingers out of your mouth and enjoying the way your eyes widen at his words. You thought he couldn’t hear you through the wall, but it seems like you were wrong.

Before you can say anything in reply, though, he grinds down. Without your clothes in the way you can feel the drag of his yoga pants against your cunt, how the wetness of your cum and Jimin’s spit soaks into the fabric, his hard cock hot, and you let out a whine. He still has yet to remove any of his clothes and you want to see them off so he’s finally naked. You’ve seen enough of his bare skin over the months to have a pretty good idea of what that looks like, but you want to see the real thing.

Jimin seems just as eager to shed his clothes, yielding to your grasping hands and carelessly throwing his top aside; you end up straddling his waist and kissing down his chest in an imitation of his motions earlier, letting your fingers trail over the lean muscle from his yoga and dance. When you tongue at one of his nipples and he gasps, you feel euphoric. He’s unfairly beautiful, from the lovely collarbones to the flex of his shoulders and arms and the line of his chest and stomach, delicate and somehow entirely masculine. You still sort of want to slap him, but settle with kissing the hollow of his neck instead, digging your fingers into his ribs as you roll your hips down against him.

His own hips buck up. You can tell that he’s desperate to be inside you, but you want to taste him first.

When you slide down his body and settle between his legs, you hook your fingers into the tight waistband of those stupid leggings and tug them down. Jimin hisses through his teeth as you let the material settle just under his hips, baring the top of his briefs to you, how his cock strains against them, the patch of wetness at the head, darkening the fabric.

You don’t strip him. Not completely. You just hook your fingers into those dark blue briefs and pull them down just enough to reveal the flushed head of his cock, wet with precum. You let your tongue flick out to catch that salty bitterness, and Jimin bites off a curse at the almost shy licks you start to lave across his slit, circling around the weeping head.

Hearing Jimin’s gasps without the wall in the way is honestly an experience. Before, whenever he had people over, they usually drowned him out, theatrical wails and groans overpowering his far more natural noises, but now there’s nothing to prevent you from hearing the way his breath hitches in his throat or the way he moans. Even the smallest things have him letting slip sounds, a noise escaping him as you coax him to lift his hips so you can finally, finally peel those leggings and briefs off, dragging over the hardness of his cock as you do. You want to take in the sight of him fully naked, give it the proper attention it deserves, but then you feel his cock throb in your hand and you can’t stop yourself from immediately lowering your mouth to it again.

His whole body shudders. You let your jaw fall open as you take him in, tongue curling around him, hands touching every part of him that isn’t in your mouth, making sure there’s no part of him that isn’t receiving attention. His eyes are wide under the mess of his fringe, hair falling over his forehead as he watches the way you run your lips down the side of his cock before sucking one of his balls into your mouth, circling his length with your hands, a twisting rise and fall in the motion as you drink down the noise of surprised pleasure that drops from his lips.

Jimin’s fingers have been tangled in your hair but he lets you control the flow. The sounds of you swallowing him down into your mouth as you bob your head are obscene, wet and messy, but you can still hear how his voice starts to rise, how his fingers tighten against your scalp, and you know he’s close when he tugs you upwards and drags your lips away from his cock.

Jimin pulls you towards him and you settle against his chest as you start to kiss again, shivering at the way he rolls his tongue in your mouth. This time when Jimin rolls his hips, there’s nothing between your skin and his, dragging the underside of his cock across your flushed lower lips, the slide between your folds and against your clit making you shiver.

“Condoms?”

You’re breathless, and Jimin quirks a smile at you.

“Top drawer,” he answers. Of course they would be, in easy reach whenever he needs them.

You lean forwards to reach for the bedside table and Jimin takes the opportunity to circle a hand around your breast and capture a nipple in his mouth, ignoring the way you bite back a surprised noise, staring up at you with almost innocent eyes as he sucks at your skin in the way he’s worked out that you like best. Your hands are a fumble as you pull a condom out of the pack, ripping the sachet away from the others, a bottle of lube rolling into your grasp. You try to focus on your task and not the sensation of Jimin switching attention to your other breast, cupping the swell of flesh in his hand and drawing his teeth gently across your skin.

“You’re insatiable,” you mutter, and Jimin laughs before he kisses between your breasts.

“I’ve been wanting to fuck you since we first met,” he says, utterly unrepentant. “I don't want to take my mouth off you.”

“Insatiable,” you repeat, but you’re flustered. Even if you know he’s not lying, and you’re naked and straddling his hips, the taste of his lips and cock now familiar on your tongue, it’s… kind of incredible to think that the gorgeous Park Jimin has been lusting after you for that long.

Or lusting after you at all, really.

But as you tear the foil of the condom, the look he levels at you is burning with desire, roaming over you, every inch of your nakedness, every movement of your body. His hands rest at your waist, thumbs rubbing over your skin as you hold his cock in one hand and roll the condom down with the other, letting your fingers circle his length, dragging your touch over the heat of him and revelling in the way he twitches. As much as you’ve thought of Jimin as a fuckboy, you know that he wouldn’t lie just to get someone in his bed, so as unbelievable as his words are, every single one of his actions backs up what he’s said: he wants you.

You don't notice how soft his gaze is as you take time to warm the lube in your hands, even though you’re desperate to feel him finally slide home. You've always been so considerate, even when he knows you've been frustrated at him, and that's evident now, in this small thing.

You spread the warmed lube over his covered cock, pumping it in your hand to get him slick and ready, loving the way he hisses though his teeth. He has to stop his hips from bucking up as you line his cockhead up with your entrance, his fingers digging into your sides as you hover in place.

“Come on,” Jimin urges. “Give it to me.”

“Insatiable,” you repeat, one last time, then you bend your knees.

You finally ease yourself down and onto his cock. You both let out moans; Jimin, finally feeling the wet heat of you around him, and you, falling into the sensation of him stretching you open, snug inside you, slowly splitting you open as you take him in, inch by inch, until you’re sitting on his hips and he’s fully buried in your cunt.

It’s been a while since you’ve had someone inside you. You grind downwards, rolling your hips, biting your lip at the sensation. Jimin’s chest expands as he sucks in a sharp breath, and you roll your hips again, a hand bracing on one of his lovely, thick thighs, the other resting just under his stomach as you lean back and arch your spine. You lift your hips, easy and slow, and then fall, Jimin’s cock dragging and pressing against your inner walls, a gasp shuddering out of your lips at the electric feeling.

Again and again, noises of pleasure drip from your mouth as you ride him, head tilting back at the sensations rippling through your body and across your skin, the apartment full of the sounds of your sex—the moans, the wet thrust of Jimin’s cock into your cunt, the praise that falls from his lips, months of feeling pouring from his lips. How pretty you are, how gorgeous, how well you’re taking his cock, how wet and tight you are around him; all the things he’s been thinking about, come to life, his hips snapping into yours as a sharp cry cuts through your lips at the sudden change of pace.

The pleasure’s been steadily building between your legs again, warm and unrushed, but then Jimin flips you without warning, fluid and graceful. Your eyes are wide as you end up on your back, Jimin’s hands braced either side of your head as he looks down at you with those dark, dark eyes of his. He thrusts forwards and your hands fly up to grab at him, your entire body shifting up the mattress at the force of his movements. His eyebrows are drawn together as he starts to drive himself into you, unapologetic in how aggressive he’s being, each thrust pushing the air out of your lungs in harried little gasps that shake the air between you.

The sound of his headboard slamming into the wall, a noise that’s been haunting you each time you’ve been trying to sleep or relax, is one you don’t even register. All you can think about is Jimin, Jimin, Jimin, caught up in the way there’s sweat beading across his forehead, strands of his dark hair sticking to it, the intense look in his eyes, the way his full lips are parted, small ah-ah-ahs falling from his lips in time with his thrusts, your body tightening around him each time he slides home.

You can’t remember the last time you were fucked this good. Jimin reads the language of your body with ease, knowing exactly when to lean back and trail a hand over your hips, circling his thumb over your swollen clit, the slide over that bundle of nerves messy from the mix of cum and lube and spit that’s laid slick across you. Each fluid roll of his hips is perfectly timed with the press of his thumb, your thighs going tense and your pussy clenching around Jimin’s hot cock as you start to reach another peak of pleasure.

“Cum for me, baby.” Jimin sounds breathless. “Let me see how pretty you are when you cum around my cock.”

Normally dirty talk seems so ham-handed and stuttering, but the words fall out of Jimin’s lips as natural as breathing, thoughtless. Stirring your arousal even further. He’s gripping your hips, pulling you down each time he presses up, and you circle your fingers around his wrist as his other hand is occupied with rubbing at your most sensitive part, tightening your hold as you feel another orgasm approaching.

“Jimin.” Your voice is a keen. “I'm so close, please, there, right there, theretherethere—”

You can't blame Jimin's other partners for being so noisy. The sound you let out is just as loud, maybe even louder, Jimin continuing to snap his hip forwards as you cum hard, a drawn out moan that crescendos as you pulsate around Jimin's cock, still hard inside you. He watches the way you writhe beneath him, tangling his fingers with yours when you reach for him and swallowing the end of your moan in a surprisingly sweet kiss, his lips gentle against yours as he slows to a stop before you become too sensitive.

Your voice is a quiet murmur against his lips. “How have you not cum yet?”

His eyes squeeze into a smile as he laughs, light and bright, the sound so sweet. “I've got stamina for days, darling,” he says, oozing that trademark arrogance you’ve gotten used to.

You clench as hard as you can around him and feel smug when he bites off a shocked curse, his smug facade broken. You can’t help but laugh at his expression, scandalised at it is, though your giggle cuts into a gasp when he pinches one of your nipples and then soothes it with his thumb. He seems amused by the look on your face and then laughs in turn, the two of you dissolving into laughter that’s edged with pleasure, your motions shifting his length inside you.

When the laughter trails off, Jimin stays smiling down at you. You draw your hands over his body, tracing all that smooth skin, and he touches the back of your hands with gentle fingers. There's a beat of silence but it's not an uncomfortable one, the air light after your shared giggles. It's… really nice. It's nice and soft and sweet, just like the expression on Jimin's face, tender, even if he's still buried inside you.

You feel so empty when he slips out, already missing the thickness of his cock when it seems as though he’s about to coax you to roll onto your front. Your hands are still linked with his and you tighten your fingers, making him pause.

“I want to see your face,” you confess quietly. It’s probably too much to ask of him but you feel like if you’re turned away from each other then you’ll feel like nothing more than a fucktoy. Just another warm body in Jimin’s bed. You don’t want that.

Jimin stares at you, surprise written across his features before his expression softens.

"Okay, baby," he murmurs indulgently. The small pet name sounds so sweet in his mouth. "We can stay like this."

He lets your hands go so that he can reach for a pillow that ends settled under your ass, tilting your hips up towards him. You’re not as flexible as he is—maybe you should start doing yoga too—but Jimin doesn’t push you far, hitching your legs up and draping your calves over his shoulders, leaning towards you so that the back of your thighs are warm against his chest. He's bent forward, face hovering above yours, so much skin-on-skin contact that your entire body feels warmed by him.

When he slides back in, you can feel the change in angle immediately. The head of his cock brushes over your g-spot and you suck in a sharp breath; Jimin notices, of course, aiming to hit it again, and again.

It feels good, of course. Amazing. But as much as you’d be happy for Jimin to make you cum again, you’d rather see him fall apart.

You dig your nails into his shoulder blades, turning your head so you can press kisses along the line of his jaw, murmuring into his ear.

“Are you going to let me see you cum?”

Jimin’s hips stutter as your words curl out of your mouth, warm against his skin. You’ve been picturing Park Jimin’s o-face for an endless amount of weeks and you’re ready to finally see the real thing.

“Cum on me,” you say, and then choke in a sob of air as Jimin responds with a sharp snap of his hips. “I want you to cum on me, Jimin, please.”

Your begging is shameless and you know it. Jimin’s face is so close to yours in this position and you can see how blown his pupils are, how his mouth is flushed from your kisses and how he’s been biting at them, his teeth digging into his lip as he starts to get faster, sloppier in his thrusts. It feels so good to know that you’re making him feel like this, that he’s reaching the peak of his pleasure with his body against yours, inside you, above you; he might have had other people in this position in the past, but right now it’s you who’s making Park Jimin come apart.

You urge him onwards with large, pleading eyes, rocking down on his cock each time he thrusts forward, begging the whole time. Pleading for him to cum, to give it to you, to cover you. Jimin obviously likes you loud and desperate, and you're more than willing to give him what he wants.

He slips out of you, fumbling with the condom and carelessly tossing it aside before he starts to pump his cock, hungry to reach his peak as he fucks into his fist. You let your legs fall open as you watch the way his body tenses, his brows drawn together and little breaths falling out of his mouth, barely audible over the wet slide of his cock in his hand. You run your hands over your body, across the swell of your breasts, down your stomach, dipping between your legs, trying to look as arousing as possible, anything to throw Jimin over the edge.

"I've imagined you cumming for months," you confess, words thoughtlessly falling from your lips. "On me, inside me, in my mouth—"

Park Jimin’s o-face is just as gorgeous as the rest of him.

You love how noisy he is. He paints your stomach with his cum, ropes of white spattering across the soft skin of your stomach and hips as he rides out his orgasm, moaning as he continues to milk his twitching cock. It’s so fucking hot, honestly, as is the expression on his face when you swipe your fingers through his cum and lift it to your lips, mouth filled with salt and warm.

“Fuck.” He’s breathless, panting. “You’re unbelievable.”

You let out a small scoff, but it’s edged with affection. “Says the man who was ready to fuck me six ways to Sunday,” you say. “If anyone’s the unbelievable one here, it’s you.”

“I can last longer, but you’re just so hot,” Jimin says. You respond by curling your fingers at him, beckoning him towards you, and you end up sharing a series of messy kisses.

You were, honestly, genuinely angry when you'd stepped into his apartment earlier, even if that irritation had been rounded out with arousal and desire. Now, though, you feel thoroughly boneless and content, loose limbed on Jimin's mattress, his lips and tongue moving against your own.

He leans too far forwards and smears his own cooling cum against his stomach. He doesn’t seem bothered, though. You’re the one who has to coax him to clean up, though with the way he looks at your still naked body, you know he would happily launch straight into a second round of fucking so he can add more cum to the canvas of your skin.

He really is insatiable, apparently, when it comes to you.

Even so, you wonder if Jimin’s going to kick you out now that he’s finally had a taste of you. He doesn't. He keeps you close, your body pressed against his side in a way that feels far more intimate than you would have expected.

“Are you hungry?” Jimin breaks the soft silence.

You’ve been trailing nonsensical patterns over his chest but pause when he says this. “Hm?”

“Are you hungry?” Jimin repeats, and there’s a cheeky smile flickering at the edge of his lips. “I have some more peaches in the fridge, if you’d like one.”

“That peach.” Your voice is an embarrassed hiss and your cheeks burn, but Jimin just laughs, boyish and bright as you slap halfheartedly at him. “That was just unfair. Who eats fruit like that?”

“Someone who’s trying to make it obvious that he’s imagining the peach is his neighbour’s pussy instead.” He’s so brazen. “And it clearly worked, didn’t it?”

It had worked. It's annoyingly effective, actually; thinking about the way Jimin had been staring at you as he tongue fucked that peach has arousal shooting through you, even after being so thoroughly fucked by him.

“Yeah, now you’ve had me,” you say. “What do you plan to do next?”

Jimin goes quiet. You wonder if you’ve misstepped, but then he sweeps his hand down the curve of your spine, goosebumps appearing in the wake of his touch.

“I was planning on asking if you wanted to go out for lunch,” he says, his voice so sweet, miles away from the fuckboy persona he usually puts on. This is the softer Park Jimin that you’ve caught glimpses of when he’s unaware, the side of him you wished he’d show more often—revealed to you, now. “Then, if you said yes, I was going to take you out on a date. If that date went well, then I was going to ask if you’d like to go on another one with me. And then another.”

One thing you know about Park Jimin is this: he doesn’t do dates. Each of his lays are one time affairs, no attachments made, no real connection beyond the physical act of sex. Your heart rate picks up.

“Obviously we’d fuck between dates,” he adds, raising his eyebrows at you in a way that’s so exaggerated that it makes you laugh. Of course. Jimin likes to fuck. “Unless you didn’t want to, but there are only so many peaches I can eat, you know?”

“So if I said I didn't want to fuck, and you ran out of peaches, what would you do?”

Your question seems casual and light but Jimin isn't stupid. He knows what you're really asking. Is he genuinely interested in something more exclusive, or would you just become another notch in his bedpost if he grew tired of waiting for you to spread your legs again?

"I can always buy more peaches."

You stare at him. He's looking at you levelly, a small smile on his face that's a little cocky but mostly warm. And, well, you know he's already gone without other partners for you, even before he'd gotten you in his bed. Park Jimin is serious about you, it seems. He'll wait.

You mouth at his collarbones, tasting the salt of sweat as you kiss and lick at his skin.

"After lunch, we can go back to my apartment, if you want," you whisper against his throat.

Just because Jimin's willing to wait doesn't mean you're going to force him to, especially as you're still as hungry for him as he is for you.

His hands squeeze your sides as you end up kissing again. You feel soft and ripe and sweet, easing under the touch of Jimin's hands and mouth.

"I still think you're a fucking menace, though," you add, and Jimin laughs so hard the bed shakes, still utterly unrepentant and entirely yours.

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eurynome827 · 3 years

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A Whiskey & A Dance

A/N: see this post for the picture that inspired this story. This story is a standalone oneshot and is not connected with my other 1940s Bucky stories.

1940s preserum Steve x Bucky x reader (female)

Word Count: 3,033

Warnings: 18+ ONLY for m x m x f (taking turns), protected sex (this is the 40s so I used the word 'rubbers'), loss of virginity (Steve), oral (m receiving), smoking and alcohol, masturbation, language and dirty talk, cumplay, Steve is having thoughts about Bucky that he's trying to understand but there are no overt acts of Stucky in this fic.

By clicking the Read More below, you affirm that you are 18+ as this fic contains adult content!

"Slow down already, punk!" Steve struggled to keep up with Bucky's quick footsteps on the sidewalk, sidestepping the other pedestrians, out of breath and wheezing. "What's the big rush? Afraid you'll miss out on your doll?"

Bucky stopped suddenly on the pavement and Steve ran right into his back, damn near bouncing off. "First off, jerk, she's not a doll. She's a dame." Bucky emphasized the word, drawing it out with a raised eyebrow. "And tonight's not for me. It's for you."

Bucky whirled and took off down the sidewalk again as Steve shook his head, dazed. "For - for me? What are you talking about?"

"I'm talking about you - dancing. Smooching. Maybe more." The mischief on Bucky's face made Steve swallow, hard. He pulls on Bucky's arm to stop him again.

"Buck...you didn't...pay her, did you?"

"Will you listen to yourself?" Bucky pulled his arm from Steve's grip. "No, I didn't pay her. She's not like that. She just likes to have fun. Lots of fun."

Steve can't help himself. "Have you...had fun with her?"

Bucky nods, but it's written all over his face anyway. "Oh yeah."

"What's she like?"

Bucky looks up towards the two stars visible in the Brooklyn sky. "Like heaven, Stevie. Like walking through the gates to heaven."

The dance hall is loud and crowded when they arrive, and Steve's heart is hammering in his chest. He stares listlessly at the bodies moving on the dance floor until Bucky elbows him.

"There she is..."

You're not like any other girl Steve has seen.

You're definitely older than the other girls they know, and Steve doesn't recognize you from when they were in school. Your heels are a little higher, your dress is tighter and your smile is knowing, worldly. Bucky mentioned that you have your own apartment and you work in Manhattan, someone's secretary or something. You're drinking whiskey in a glass stained with the red of your lipstick and Steve's mesmerized by the column of your neck as you lean back to swallow. Bucky's right - you're not a doll, you're a dame. A woman.

"C'mon, Steve, let's dance."

You hand your glass to Bucky and grab Steve's hand and he's afraid for a moment that his palms are too sweaty or that you can hear how hard it is for him to breathe. The music changes from a fast song to a slow one, and you take Steve's hands and put them on your waist, drawing him in close. You're looking at him like he's the only guy in Brooklyn and in that moment nothing else matters - just you and your red lips and your perfume in his nose tickling the back of his throat.

"Bucky said maybe we could go back to my place and have a few drinks." You're whispering in Steve's ear, and you giggle when a shiver runs down his spine, his hands trembling on your waist. "Would you like that, Steve?"

"Y-yeah. Let's go."

You sneak the boys in through a side door, you tell them it's to avoid the nosy landlady. Bucky and Steve tiptoe up the stairs behind you and wait while you unlock the door and then you grab them both by the lapels of their jackets and pull them inside, your giggles floating out into the hallway. Bucky is laughing softly and he ducks his head to kiss the back of your neck while you're locking the door from the inside and Steve wonders again what am I doing here? What's going on?

"Let's have a drink, gentlemen," you kick off your shoes and grab the bottle of whiskey off the counter in the kitchenette. Bucky's taking three glasses out of the cabinet and it's clear he's been here more than once. You take a cigarette from your pack and offer one to Bucky, who takes it but opens a window before lighting yours, and then his.

"Oh," you look over at Steve, "will you be alright with the smoke?"

"He's fine with the window open," Bucky answers, sitting on the couch and leaning his head back, exhaling a cloud of smoke toward the ceiling.

You pour out the whiskey, three glasses neat. The cigarette is perched between your pouting lips and Steve's mesmerized. He's never been in a place like this with a woman like you. You catch him staring and smile, soft and knowing.

"I'm going to get comfortable. Is that alright, Steve?" You ask, voice low as you hand him a glass. Bucky smirks at you when you hand him the other glass.

"Um, sure," Steve answers, taking a tiny sip and wincing at the burn. "I don't mind."

You drink, and Steve's watching your neck as you swallow again, everything about you soft but sophisticated, in Steve's eyes anyway. Putting down your glass and the cigarette in the ashtray, you unbutton your dress with your eyes on Steve the whole time. His mouth goes dry, his body feels numb, and he knows he's staring as your skin is revealed to him but he can't stop himself. You toss your dress on a chair, pick up your cigarette and lounge on the couch, next to Bucky in only your undergarments and stockings.

Steve can't breathe and it has nothing to do with the smoke. Bucky draws lazy circles on the inside of your thigh with his fingertips, and you open your legs wider for him but your eyes are fixed on Steve. You sigh before drawing more smoke into your lungs, exhaling a cloud around you and Bucky that looks like a magic spell hanging in the room.

"Do you want to touch me too?" You ask, quietly, like you're trying not to frighten him off. "I want you to. I like to play." Your lips curl up in a smile, and you put the cigarette in the ashtray again to beckon him forward, crooking your finger with a mischievous giggle. "Come here, Steve. Come and play with us."

Steve's mouth and throat go dry, and he takes a drink but starts coughing when the whiskey burns down his throat. You shake off Bucky's hand and stand up from the couch, walking to Steve and cooing, "oh, sweet baby boy, are you alright?" Steve's eyes nearly pop out of his head when you kneel in front of him, rubbing your hands up his thighs closer to where he's suddenly hard in his pants at the sight and presence of you. One of your hands rubs over his clothed cock and his head falls back, his eyes closed as he struggles to control himself.

"Steve," you're whispering, your hands unbuttoning his pants, "I know you want me, and I want you too. Will you let me make you feel good, baby?" A strangled moan escapes from Steve's throat as your hands grasp him and pull him free and he opens his eyes in time to see you lick the head, humming at the taste.

It's too much, and he has no experience and he knows he'll embarrass himself. "I can't - I won't be able to -"

"Yes, you will. Let me take care of you." Your red lips smile at him once more before you take Steve in your mouth, lipstick smearing on his skin and he raises his hips before he can stop himself, completely lost in the warmth of your mouth. You hum again, swirling your tongue and holding his hips, pushing him back down to sit and looking up to catch his eye, looking filthy and beautiful with your mouth full of him. Steve thinks he may have to close his eyes again but then he looks over and sees Bucky.

Bucky - he's unbuttoned his shirt, dog tags laying on his chest. His hair's a mess from how many times he's pushed his fingers through it, his lips are bitten swollen and pink from how aroused he is and his hand is slowly fisting his hard cock, watching you suck Steve further down your throat.

Steve's pretty sure this sinning will be worth a lot more than ten Hail Mary's, but he's in for whatever reckoning is coming his way. He gasps, feeling himself getting too close, but you know too and you pull off, tightening your hand at the base of his cock and holding him off. "I told you," you say breathlessly, "I'd take care of you." You surge up to capture his lips, rubbing off what's left of your lipstick on his mouth. You lick along his bottom lip, and Steve opens his mouth, letting you tangle your tongue with his and tasting himself in your mouth.

Steve's still painfully hard, but he could kiss you all night long. He wants to touch you but he's not sure where to put his hands, finally resting them on your shoulders and pulling you closer. Steve thinks you're about to straddle his lap and he's wondering how he'll control himself with that when you suddenly giggle and pull away from Steve's mouth and he opens his eyes.

Bucky's behind you, his hands smoothing over your skin, his mouth pressing open, wet kisses along the skin on your back and shoulders. "Sorry, sugar," he murmurs into your skin, his nimble fingers pulling the straps down your arms, "I couldn't wait to touch you."

"Bucky," you try to scold, but your voice is light and amused, "you have to be patient. Steve's first, remember?"

Steve watches as Bucky strips you, his eyes following Bucky's hands and breathing hard at every curve revealed to him. Bucky cups your breasts and teases your nipples with his thumbs as you lean your head back on his shoulder, closing your eyes in pleasure. "Bucky," you whine, "you're being bad."

"You love it," he chuckles in your ear, and Steve watches as Bucky slides a hand down to feel you between your legs. "Stevie, she's so wet for us," Bucky licks his lips and winks at his best friend. "Told ya you'd have a good time tonight."

Steve laughs, nervously. Part of him still can't believe he's here, that Bucky would share you with him and give him this experience. But then you're slapping Bucky's hands away with a soft, "behave," and pulling on his dog tags to bring him in for a rough kiss that has Bucky's hands wandering again. "Patience," you breathe out when you break away again. Bucky grins and kisses your forehead before helping you to your feet and extending a hand to Steve as well.

"The lady says you're first, pal," Bucky teases, and you pull Steve to your bed as Bucky follows.

"Why don't you lay down on your back," you tell Steve, pushing him back gently. "I'll take care of you, remember?"

Steve nods, his heart racing. He lays back on the mattress and watches you rummage in the drawer by your bed. You pull out rubbers - you're a real woman - and you straddle Steve with one in your hand. "Do you know what this is?"

"Yes, ma'am."

You smile, and lean over to kiss him, and Steve shivers at the feeling of your bare skin against his. You're so warm and wet between your legs and Steve can't believe this is really happening. "Do you trust me?" You ask, whispering into his ear.

"Yes!" Steve answers quickly, nodding when you sit up and take him in hand, rolling the rubber on and soothing him when he hisses at how sensitive he is. Then you're hovering over him, lining him up and sinking down - and oh shit Bucky was right.

Heaven. Like walking into heaven.

Steve lets his hands slide up your body as you roll your hips, touching all those valleys and curves he watched Bucky touch. He's drinking in your sounds and moans and he's loud too, he can't help it with how good you're making him feel. He fights to keep his eyes open and watch you above him, but he's falling fast and he can't stop himself. "I'm - I can't stop -" he stutters out, biting his lip, and you lean down to hold his hands and rock against him harder.

"You don't have to stop," you tell him, breathing hard, "I want you to feel good, Steve."

You're squeezing him inside you and he can't hold back, filling the rubber with a loud shout. You slow your movements, riding out his orgasm, and you kiss him hard before rolling off to lay on the bed next to him.

Steve's quiet, staring at the ceiling with a grin on his face, and you giggle and curl into his side. He's almost forgotten about Bucky - until he appears at the foot of the bed, rubber already rolled on and pulling at your ankle impatiently.

"Hope you had fun, punk, but now it's my turn."

You laugh, and move to your hands and knees, winking at Bucky over your shoulder before turning your gaze back to Steve.

"Should I go?" Steve asks, unsure, and you shake your head, balancing yourself to reach for his hand.

"No, sweet boy, you stay right there, and if you want to play more we can, but -" your voice is cut off by your moan as Bucky's pushes inside you, his hands gripping your hips. He leans over to brush a kiss to your shoulder before starting a quick and rough pace.

"But it's my turn now," Bucky groans out the words, jaw clenched and lips bitten. His dog tags bounce as he thrusts into you, and you - you're a vision, fists clutching the blanket, back arched, breasts bouncing and when you open your eyes you smile at Steve.

Steve's eyes are wide and he can't stop watching. He can't believe it but he feels himself starting to stir again, and he hurriedly removes and ties off the rubber, tossing it on the floor in a daze. Not like you care where he throws it, because the headboard's banging against the wall now with how hard and fast Bucky is fucking you.

"Can't get enough of you, you know that," Bucky's muttering, and your head falls to the mattress, moaning in response. "Dreaming about you, about fucking you everywhere, getting my head up your skirt and not caring who sees."

Steve can't believe the words coming out of Bucky's mouth, and the wild look in his eyes. Then those eyes drift to him, and Bucky grins, letting go of your hips for a moment to push his hair out of his eyes.

"You like this, Stevie? You like sharing a girl?"

Steve nods, too stunned to speak, and wraps his hand around his cock, stroking as he watches. He's not sure what he wants, but he wants more and he can't stop watching you, or Bucky.

You wail, something's happened and Steve's not sure what. Bucky pulls out of you and rolls you over and your head lands close to Steve's shoulder. You look up at Steve and smile, your eyes glassy and unfocused. Bucky crawls over you and licks a drop of sweat from between your breasts and you whimper. "Gonna cum for me again, baby?" Bucky asks you, softer now.

"Yeah, want more, Buck. Need more." Your voice is rough, and the slight begging tone shoots straight to Steve's cock.

Bucky grins, charming and roguish, and leans down to kiss you before sitting up and positioning himself between your legs again. Steve is mesmerized as he watches Bucky slide inside you again, watches the way Bucky's eyes roll back at the feel of you and watches how your chest rises and falls with the effort to breathe. Steve syncs his strokes with Bucky's thrusts into you, steady but longer this time, dragging in and out of you and making you moan.

You look up at Steve and then back at Bucky, and he understands what you want.

"Touch our girl, Stevie," Bucky says, nodding to him. "Let's make her feel good, huh?"

Steve nods, rolling on his side and figuring as long as he has permission he'll do what he's wanted to all night long. He lowers his head to your breast and sucks your nipple into his mouth, his hand keeping a steady pace over his hardening cock as your whimpers drive him faster and faster. His tongue flicks around you and Bucky suddenly groans.

"She's squeezing me, Stevie, she likes that," he encourages, and Steve lifts his head before moving to the other breast and sees Bucky wet his thumb in his mouth and then start rubbing you on a spot between your legs. You lurch up, back arched, and Steve files that away to ask Bucky about later.

"Bucky! Steve!" You're crying their names, and Bucky speeds up.

"Cum for us, darlin'," he demands, low and husky. "I'm right there with you. Look at Steve, he's gonna paint you up all pretty."

Steve looks at Bucky, and then down at his own hand flying over his cock, and he realizes what Bucky's saying. Is he - is that what he's supposed to do? You're wailing again, eyes closed and mouth open, and Steve shouts, his mess covering your breasts.

"Fuck..." Bucky swears, and thrusts into you twice more before he cums into rubber, pulling out of you slowly and collapsing onto the bed on your other side.

Steve watches you and Bucky, stunned silent. Your eyes open slowly and you look up at Steve, and you start giggling.

"You should see your face right now, Steve. Are you okay?"

Bucky looks over, and snorts. "Punk can't believe his good luck."

Steve smiles at you, sheepish. "Yeah, something like that, I guess."

You lift your hand, cupping Steve's cheek. "Was it a good first time, baby?"

Steve holds his hand on yours, moving to press a kiss to your palm. "Yes."

Bucky removes and ties off his rubber and looks over at Steve. "Do me a favor, grab a cloth from over there," he points, "and help me clean up our girl. She takes care of us, and we take care of her."

You move your other hand to Bucky's cheek, smiling up at him. "You were right. This was a really good idea."

#a whiskey and a dance #1940s preserum steve x bucky x reader #steve rogers x bucky barnes x reader #divider by imerdwarf #steve rogers #bucky barnes #female reader

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ncssian · 3 years

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A Favor: Part Twenty-Eight

Nessian Modern AU

Masterlist

a/n: the beginning of the end :,) if u made it this far i think ur cool

***

“Where do you see yourself in five years?” Lana asks.

Nesta closes her eyes, letting the picture swirl and take shape in her mind.

This time last year, she would have imagined nothing. Nothing but a desk in a busy law office, and maybe a nice apartment if she was lucky. That would be it. But now she sees…

“Somewhere with good food and good music,” she muses. “Maybe a sea breeze.” The sun-faded buildings of Portofino fade into the foreground of her imagination. “There are lots of people with me,” she hears the sound of children shrieking and Cassian’s rumbling laughter, “but it’s okay, because I love every one of them.” Her eyes open. “Is that a good answer?”

A near invisible smile tugs at the corners of Lana’s lips. “You tell me, Nesta. Do you like what you see?”

“It’s a little too cinematic if you ask me,” Nesta says nonchalantly, picking up her bag from the ground, “but I suppose all dreams are that way.”

“It’s a good dream,” Lana says. “A worthy dream, and one you deserve to chase.”

Nesta shrugs lightly, not too worried about the burden of the future for once. “Maybe I will.”

“In that case, congratulations on completing your final therapy session,” Lana says, setting her notebook aside. “You’ve made some amazing progress this year.”

Nesta gives her therapist her signature what’s-wrong-with-you look. “I’m going on vacation, not firing you for good. I’ll see you again in two months.”

“Two months can be enough to lose all your progress, if you forget everything you went through to get here.”

Nesta isn’t stupid. She knows that she isn’t suddenly desperate to make babies or be maid of honor at her sisters’ weddings or some bullshit. She knows that the image she just dreamed up, with Cassian and kids and her unburdened heart, is likely more than five years away. If it happens at all, it could be ten, even twenty years of hard work away.

She’s not nearly finished growing yet. “I’ll see you in two months, Lana,” she repeats.

Lana smiles at her fully this time. “Enjoy your summer, Nesta.”

***

The air is different in the Smokies.

Nesta rolls the truck windows down so she can inhale it, relish it. Wind whips her hair every which way as they drive down the winding freeway cutting through the lush mountains, and something about the look on her face makes Cassian chuckle and press down on the accelerator.

Nesta watches the red needle on the speedometer cross ninety, then one hundred. She can barely feel the June heat with how fast they’re going.

In the end, it was Feyre and Elain that reached out and invited her to the Tennessee summer home. Cassian had made it obvious that he wouldn’t push her to go if she didn’t want to, and at first she really didn’t want to. But Feyre had looked so hopeful when she asked Nesta to come with them, and even Elain had revealed a glimmer of eagerness that Nesta would say yes.

So against all odds, she agreed to go.

Exchanging one mountain home for another isn’t much of a getaway, but Nesta can’t help but be excited. Even with the unhappy memories of her childhood, she loves these hills more than any other.

The pure exhilaration of being back in Tennessee overcomes her at some point during the drive, knocking her out in the passenger seat where she sits. In her drowsy state, she distantly hears the windows being rolled up, before feeling Cassian’s hand guide her head to rest against the glass. The rest of the drive is warm and sunny, enough to lull her into a deep sleep.

The next thing Nesta’s aware of is the crunch of gravel and the feeling of the truck tires slowing to a stop. Fingers brush against her heated cheek, and then Cassian is murmuring at her to wake up.

Blinking her eyes open, Nesta twists around to see their destination.

For a moment, she thinks she’s still dreaming.

“Welcome to Holly House,” Cassian says with a grin. The house in question is quaint and sprawling at the same time, the way most upper class Southerners like their houses. The whole thing gleams with a fresh coat of white paint under the afternoon sun, complemented by a sky blue wraparound porch. Colonial style windows and proud columns decorating the facade of the building makes it look like the setting of a fairy tale.

Beyond it, Nesta can see cherry blossoms. Pink, fluttering cherry blossoms that fly off their branches and swirl through the air, some of them disappearing into the thick woods behind the house. Woods that Nesta has walked countless times before.

“The rest of the guys won’t get here until tomorrow afternoon,” Cassian is saying to her, “so we have the whole place to our—”

Nesta isn’t listening anymore. She unbuckles her seatbelt and shoves open the truck door, hobbling outside on unsteady feet to make sure she isn’t hallucinating things. But no, this is…

“Cherrywood,” she breathes, eyes wide in disbelief.

Cassian gets out of the truck, coming up beside Nesta to slip his hand into her shorts pocket. “What’s wrong? You okay?”

“This is Rhysand’s summer home?” Nesta points at the house. “This place?”

Cassian looks around at the building grounds in confusion. “Has been for the last two decades, yeah.”

It’s been eleven years since she last stepped foot on these grounds.

With wonderment in her voice, she utters to Cassian, “I’ve been here before.”

At his puzzled look, she explains, “I lived just on the other side of those woods.” She points to the trees. “There’s an old cracked road that hasn’t been maintained since it was first paved, and you can follow it straight to the poor side of town. Whenever I wanted to get away, I would come down that road and trek through the woods, and I’d end up here. I stopped coming because…” she trails off.

Because she got caught that one time.

Cassian seems to realize it at the same moment as her. His hand slips out of her pocket. “You…”

Nesta remembers a tall boy with shocked eyes and shaggy hair, and she shakes her head slowly in forceful denial. It can’t be true. It’s too much of a coincidence.

But he points at her, then her feet. “You—with the size six Converse,” he sputters. “It was you.”

Before Nesta can confirm or deny it, he grabs her by the wrist and starts tugging her along, up the porch stairs and inside the house.

Even with Rhysand and Feyre’s renovations, it looks undeniably the same as all those years ago. The living room is to her right and the farmhouse style kitchen and dining area is to the left, though she speeds by it all as Cassian pulls her farther inside the house, to the closet beneath the curving stairs.

He lets go of her hand to search the small closet, muttering, “I know they were here somewhere.” But the closet looks like it was stripped empty for renovations, with only bolts in the walls indicating that shoe racks used to hang there.

Cassian turns and heads for the stairs, and Nesta blindly follows him. She also wants to go upstairs, wants to see if the bay window looking out onto the garden has stayed the same.

Like he read her mind, he leads her straight to the room she used to spend hours reading in. It’s smaller than all the other bedrooms in the house, but it’s always been her favorite because of the view.

As Cassian keeps looking for whatever it is he’s looking for, upturning boxes and checking beneath furniture, Nesta drifts toward the bay window. She looks from the cherry blossom trees outside, to the full-sized bed, to Cassian, and a weight drops even heavier in her gut. She has to reach out and grip the edge of the dresser for support.

Finally, Cassian pops out of the closet victorious. In his hand are a pair of ragged shoes that Nesta hasn’t worn in a long, long time.

He comes over and drops them with a thud at her feet.

“Whose room is this?” she asks with a rough voice, still staring down at the shoes.

“Mine,” he answers simply.

“Oh.” She met him before. She met him before.

When Nesta dares to look up and meet Cassian’s eyes, what she finds there nearly robs her of breath: wonder, astonishment, and unwavering fealty. He breaks into sudden wholehearted laughter, which dazes her even more.

“What’s so funny?” she demands.

Cassian gets out between laughs, “What was it Rhysand said about Feyre? When they found out they were close to crossing paths when they were younger?”

Nesta’s earth-tilting shock slowly slips away, replaced by a stern look. “Don’t say it.”

He pretends to remember. “I think it was fate.” A wicked smirk pulls at his lips at Nesta’s resigned sigh. “But I have another word for it, too.”

“Don’t say that, either.” She pleadingly holds up her hands, only for Cassian to snatch one out of the air and intertwine his fingers with hers.

“Soulmate,” he says quietly, now less amused.

Nesta swallows thickly, not having any words for him. All she knows is that he is never going to let her live this down.

“Imagine if we’d gone to the same high school,” Cassian says to her later that afternoon as they lounge in his old room. “Fuck, I could’ve saved myself so much time with all those random girls.” They’ve been swapping childhood stories for the past hour, as if they might find more instances in their history of a red string tying them together.

Nesta doesn’t need coincidences or fateful run-ins to know that a string has always been wrapped around her ring finger, pulling her to Colorado and to that cabin. But for Cassian’s sake, she’ll gladly amuse him. “I would have been a freshman while you were a senior,” she says matter-of-factly. “It never could have happened.”

He hums in thought, head propped up in his hand, elbow propped up against the bay window seat. “Maybe if you were older. You would have been the smart, quiet girl, and I’d have been the player jock, and as soon as we locked eyes in math class, I’d be head over heels in love with you.”

Nesta cackles from where she sits in the window seat above him. “Now you’re just writing fanfiction.”

Cassian grins up at her but doesn’t send a rebuttal her way. The conversation falls into a lull, until Nesta has to reach out and ask, “What are you thinking?”

His smile turns a little sad. “That I wish we weren’t doing this right before I leave for another country.”

Right. That’s what’s been hanging over them the entire trip to Tennessee: that as soon as they get back to Colorado, Cassian is going to be on a plane to Milan.

Getting Keith O’Connell to quit—how exactly Cassian went about accomplishing it, he still won’t tell Nesta—left Rhysand at square one with his search for a team leader for his overseas venture.

When Cassian brought up the idea of taking the job to Nesta, he sounded like he hoped she would shoot him down, talk him out of it. He both wanted to go and was reluctant to leave, like his very soul was glued to his home and he didn’t want to unstick himself.

So Nesta, being his home, had to do the unsticking for him. She nearly accepted the year-long Milan position herself for Cassian’s sake, and it took weeks of coaxing and convincing to put him at ease about the whole thing.

“But we promised to go together for the first time,” he kept saying.

“We’ll still go together one day, and it’ll still be our first time there with each other,” she reassured him.

Eventually, he relented to her and Rhysand’s pressures with a single condition. “I’ll do six months. Not a year.”

Only Nesta knows deep down how much Cassian needs this opportunity. Though Cassian must know it a little bit too, because he wouldn’t have taken the job if he didn’t.

Nesta might have needed him in order to come out of her shell, but now he needs to get away from her in order to find his own shell. Something he can call his own, unburdened by his loyalties to the people he loves. So he can find who he wants to be for himself, without always being attached to her hip.

Rising to her feet, Nesta raises her arms in the air in a full body stretch. Her back and legs ache with being curled up in that window seat for so long without movement.

Dropping her arms, she holds out a hand to Cassian still sitting on the floor. “Come on,” she urges him. “Let’s go outside. I haven’t seen a Smoky sunset in years.”

“But it’s not evening yet,” he argues while taking her hand.

Outside, they explore the garden that leads into the woods while waiting for the sun to slink down the sky. Cherry blossoms ride the summer breeze wherever it takes them, resulting in Cassian sniffling and scratching at his neck as they walk hand in hand.

“Rhysand wanted to take these trees down and replace them with a flower garden for Elain,” he tells Nesta as they walk. His sinuses sound clogged, but he’s refused to go back inside until he’s explained every inch of the land to Nesta. “I convinced him not to because it would ruin the view from my bedroom window. Didn’t I make the right choice?” He throws a grin in her direction.

Nesta’s swallow is tight at that grin. “The view from your room was always my favorite part about the entire place. So yes, you did good.”

His eyes widen at that tidbit of information, and she can almost see him tucking it away as more Soulmate Evidence.

They stroll through the woods for a while, and Nesta points out the path she would take to get to Cherrywood—she still insists on calling it Cherrywood, even when Cassian argues that the house’s original name has been around since the sixties.

“Show me the rest of the way?” Cassian asks her, face lit up in boyish hope. “Show me where you ran away to that day I found you.”

Nesta almost expects the memory of the rundown apartment complex she grew up in to feel like being shoved into sludge: dirty, cold, and slimy. Instead, she finds she has no problem with looking back at her old home, no matter how many ugly memories she holds from there.

However, the dappled sunlight streaming in through the trees overhead has turned from yellow to dark gold, and she shakes her head in apology to Cassian. “Another day,” she promises him. “It’s almost sunset.”

They walk back to the house, rounding it until they reach the front. At the bottom of the hill that the house is perched on stands a pier that leads all the way out to the lake. Green mountains frame the lake from both sides, creating the perfect cradle for the sun to sink into.

They go all the way out to the edge of the pier, as if they’re trying to get as close to the sunset as physically possible. Dragonflies lazily swoop by as the lake is gradually painted in a hundred different colors.

Once there’s more darkness than light in the sky, Cassian nudges Nesta with one of the arms he has around her. “Look.” He points.

Along the shoreline of the lake, little dots of light have lit up to welcome the evening, their blinking glow so small that Nesta almost doesn’t catch it. Fireflies.

Nesta watches the insects flit in and out of the long grasses of the lake shore, getting tangled in the weeds and wildflowers. In that moment, she remembers something Cassian once confessed to her not long after his birthday.

I want to see more beautiful places with you.

Nesta ticks this beautiful place off the long list in her head—the first place out of many that she plans to see with Cassian.

More beautiful than the scene before her is the man in her arms. The man who was kind enough to understand a woman who barely understood herself, and to be her friend when she had none. The man who is extending his kindness right now by not having made any breaking-and-entering jokes about Nesta so far, though she’s sure he’ll pull them out eventually.

Discovering that she once found Cassian, just to let him slip by running away from him, only to find him again over a decade later—it comforts the tiny part of her that’s loath to say goodbye to him in two weeks.

Like Cassian is thinking the same thing, he murmurs into the dark, “I can’t wait to come back to you.”

Nesta huffs in amusement. “You haven’t even left yet.”

“I know.” After a moment, he adds in a low voice that not even the fireflies can hear, “Thank you for convincing me to go.”

She reaches up to squeeze his bicep. “Always.” And then she adds what she really wants him to hear: “Don’t come back until you find what you’re looking for.”

“I better find it quick then,” he jokes. Still, he nods in promise against the side of her head.

The only sound after that is the chirp of cicadas and the occasional lap of water meeting the pier beams. Nesta and Cassian stay outside in the June heat long after the sky turns ink blue.

***

a/n: next chapter is just some ic bullshit so take all ur bittersweet sentimentality here and go

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#nesta archeron #nessian #cassian #ncssianwrites #a favor #nessian au #nessian fic

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