#it's just so fucking rich because maybe two weeks ago they were on their high horse talking about how being awake at 9 isn't that early

[infodumped]

apparently my roommate was complaining that i didnt hang out with them at all yesterday after they woke me up from my nap very loudly and suddenly plus they took over the entire living room w their painting supplies then took over the entire couch to take a nap while watching drag race on the tv at a super loud volume (and used beck's pillows during said nap) but noooo beck & i are the assholes for being awake at 9:00am and laughing while playing with our cat and chatting . their bedroom door is wide open btw. this is what they texted in the groupchat

all i have to say is if they are wanting to hang out with me today it's not gonna happen i need to clean & do commissions today and i'm not just here to coddle them!! i'm not their fucking mom!!!!!

#it's just so fucking rich because maybe two weeks ago they were on their high horse talking about how being awake at 9 isn't that early #that 'yall just like to sleep in late' ohhh god its making my blood boil thinking about it #beck was so fucking right when he said Younger Sibling Behavior #★

[halfagone]

So here’s a unique twist of a common prompt. Danny is the son of Bruce Wayne, whoever his mother is is up to you. However, Danny wants nothing to do with Bruce or his family for whatever reason, whether it’s because Damian treated him badly as a child or maybe he just doesn’t like how Bruce operates. Either way, they meet and the meeting ends badly. What do you think?

There are actually a lot of reasons why Danny might not want to stay with Bruce or stay away from Bruce. There is, of course, the usual "Danny has billionaire trauma" route that works for some arguments (although not all (but I'll leave that ramble for another time)). You could always go with Danny and Damian didn't get along (if we're doing a Demon Siblings AU). But I think the route that goes best is just that... Danny has a lot of Trauma™ and he's not ready to join another family.

Unfortunately those kinds of AUs would probably be the sadder ones because that can mean that he has problems and/or is cut off from Jazz too. Because as much as I love Jazz, she was never the bastion of perfection and older sisterhood that we sometimes like to paint her as. She tried, just like her parents did, and sometimes she failed. ㄟ( ▔, ▔ )ㄏ

In those AUs Danny is probably trying to live on his own. Maybe he's emancipated, maybe he's turned 18 already (I do have a fic idea where Danny moves out of the house after turning 18 despite not graduating yet, which is a thing you can do. Plenty of kids' birthdays pass before June graduation in the U.S., after all.) He's just started to stand on his own two feet and probably move past the neglect, both physical and emotional, that came with living with the Fentons.

Enter Bruce. Bruce, who has abandonment issues and is one paranoid motherclucker (and yes, that was intentional), who has just found out he has an unknown son from either a past relationship or one-night stand. Of course he's going to want to know more about Danny and catch up on all the time he lost with Danny. And the thing about Bruce is that sometimes he acts like a bad father purely because he doesn't know how to communicate his feelings and does all these things that come off as insensitive and/or overbearing.

Sometimes Danny might be able to make it work. But depending on the downturn his life might have taken... sometimes he can't. And for a Danny that might have just gotten that hard-earned independence... it likely won't be pretty.

---

Danny doesn't know what to make of Bruce Wayne. The man seems nice... enough. He's a bit too excitable, tries a little too hard. It's clear as day that he's trying, much more than Danny's adoptive parents could ever bother to sometimes, but it's... Danny would appreciate it more if Bruce just gave up.

He's happy to see that Bruce didn't willingly give Danny up. No word yet on Danny's bio mom, but at least he's got that going for him. He could do without Bruce's meaningful attempts to introduce him to the rest of the family or find out more about him.

Danny absentmindedly tugs at his collar. He really wishes he'd just turned Sam down when he had the chance. Tucker had balked when she extended the invitation out to him. Usually Danny would be her first choice, since he had some semblance of High Society Table Manners™ which usually Sam wouldn't give a shit about, but well, Tucker had gone once, got embarrassed to hell and back, and pretty much sworn off against it ever since.

He'd only moved out from Fenton Works three weeks ago. Danny could understand why she didn't want to ask him while he got settled in.

But well, she was his friend. And with the risk of her parents trying to openly marry her off to some rich guy (as opposed to subtly trying to marry her off, like they were doing now), Danny had taken one for the team and agreed.

If he knew this was going to happen, he would have just stayed home and figured out how to cook scrambled fucking eggs.

"I'm not very comfortable with this conversation right now, Mr. Wayne," Danny said plainly to the man. They were off in a side room at this point, tucked away from the rest of the crowd that would usually gawk at them otherwise. Already he'd turned heads when people recognized him as familiar.

To be honest though, even if they hadn't gone to a more secluded room, Danny still would have told it to the man straight.

"Oh, is it because your friend isn't here? I told you you're more than welcome to-" Bruce started again but Danny cut him off with a sigh.

"That's not the problem here, Mr. Wayne," Danny deadpanned. "I don't know why you're expecting me to be on board so quickly but I- I just turned eighteen. I have an apartment, I have a job. I know I'm still a kid in your eyes but I haven't been your kid in- ever. No matter what any paternity test ends up saying, which I still haven't agreed to by the way-"

"You're not even willing to try?" Bruce asked in return, like he'd been struck across the face.

It seemed genuine enough, like he was sincerely hurt by Danny's standoffish attitude. And Danny would feel guilty if he weren't so tired right now. He'd been tired for the past four years and he didn't need this on top of it all as some twisted cherry on top of the shitty whipped cream that was his life.

"No, I'm not," Danny told the man, straightforward. People had said no to Bruce before, right? Surely, someone had.

He began to doubt when Bruce just stared at him, dumbfounded. Danny didn't let the silence linger because he didn't linger, just moved on and left the side room. He could feel Bruce's eyes on him as he went, and then some of the other Waynes' eyes on him when he came into view. He ignored all of them and tried to find Sam.

Maybe her parents would even be willing to let him go back to the hotel room, after the huge 'scene' he'd just caused.

#halfagone replies #dpxdc #danny fenton is so done #would you look at that #i can use an ao3 tag for that here

[ficsilike-reblogged]

Snow Over Hawkins

A/N: Another holiday fic? From me, after not posting in months? Who would've thought. I hope you all have a wonderful holiday or simply a peaceful winter! Thank you for reading! This jumps between 1996 and 1986 (the events of S4). Reader does celebrate Christmas in this and there is a lot of Christmas imagery. Also, I make Eddie a rockstar. Because it is what he deserves. :)

Pairing: Eddie Munson/F!Reader

Rating: PG-A soft little, melodramatic thing

Word Count: 10.4k

Summary: Perhaps coming to your ten year high school reunion was a mistake. But, as a blizzard rolls in just in time for the holidays, you may have to confront a specter from your past: Eddie Munson.

**1996**

Oh no.

There were too many people. Maybe if you just…turned right around and left, no one would know you had even come and-

A shout of your name quickly quashed that plan but your shoulders fell a fraction from around your ears as you spotted Robin weaving her way through the crowd to get to you. She was quick to throw her arms around you in a tight hug as if she hadn’t just seen you when she dropped you off at the hotel an hour ago and you two didn’t have a standing agreement to get together every two weeks at the little café down the street from your apartment in New York.

“God. Why did we come here?” She mumbled into your hair before pulling back.

“You were the one who said we should rub it in everyone’s faces that we are rich and successful and they peaked in high school.”

Robin groaned. “Must you remember everything I said?”

“I must.” You sighed and glanced over her shoulder at the milling crowd. The gigantic Christmas trees were bleeding green and red lights all over the large space. The event center for the reunion was an abject holiday wonderland, complete with fake flickering candles and artificial snow. Christmas songs were playing over the speakers, muted beneath the conversation between old classmates. Even the sign that read, “Welcome back, Tigers! Class of ‘86!” was made of red and green paper. “Nancy said she and Jonathan would be here, too. Have you seen them? Their flight left before ours.”

“Not yet. But you know who I have seen?” There was a conspiratorial gleam in her eye that had you frowning.

Before she could answer, someone darted by you with a squealed, “oh my god, I can’t believe it! I thought they were on tour!”

Your heart dropped to your feet. “Robin-”

“Nothing has to happen. He just happens to be in the same room as you for the first time in over ten years and-”

“And it changes nothing. He’s still…” The words trailed off as you dropped your chin to your chest. Robin rubbed a hand on your arm with a hum, she was always tactile with you, knowing when you most needed a friendly touch. “Pathetic, right? Ten years and thousands of miles and he still makes me feel like a little girl with an unreciprocated crush.”

“It has always been more than that.”

You winced. “That doesn’t help, Robs.”

She linked her arm with yours and started tugging you toward the table set up with hot chocolate and all the fixings, dodging a hulking pair of men in ill-fitting suits who you were sure never went to Hawkins High. Someone had been “kind” enough to leave little bottles of alcohol in a messy pile, too, so anyone could spike their own drink if wanted.

A glance back at the crowd nearly had your heart stuttering, already bruised. A headful of dark curls and warm eyes immediately caught your attention and suddenly you were a teenager again. Turning your head away felt like a herculean effort and you reached for one of the small bottles of whiskey and dumped it into your cup.

**1986**

Your head was spinning. There were monsters in Hawkins. …or not in Hawkins, but in a different dimension that you were currently trapped in. Running the school paper with Nancy was supposed to be a safe extracurricular activity—something to bolster your applications to your dream university. But after watching Fred fucking

levitate

and hearing his bones snap under the power of something unseen, you were sure it was one of the worst decisions you’d ever made. And now you were here after jumping out of the boat, your hand in Nancy’s. At least now you know why Robin and Steve had been extra cagey about the mall fire over the summer.

“You’re bleeding a bit,” Eddie said, crouching near you as you huddled beneath Skull Rock.

“What?” Your voice was hoarse from all the screaming you’d just done, arms aching from beating the damn bat creatures with a broken oar.

Eddie said nothing as he tore at his shirt and then pressed it to your temple, wincing alongside you. “Sorry, sorry. Just didn’t think you’d want a bleeding head wound in a place like this.”

You almost snorted. And it was probably the head wound and the adrenaline coursing through your system but your tongue didn’t tangle as it so often did around Eddie. “Oh? You come here often?”

Eddie’s cheeks bloomed with color, visible even under the grime. “Oh, c’mon. Can’t have a pretty girl bleeding.”

**1996**

“Gimme a sip of that,” Nancy said instead of a greeting as she stormed to your side. She took a hearty swig of your spiked hot chocolate and nearly spat it out. “What did you put in that?”

“Whiskey.”

“Jesus!” She wiped at her mouth, eyes watering.

Jonathan was a few paces behind her, wrapping his arms around you in a quick hug before doing the same to Robin. “Seems to be quite the turnout even with the storm rolling in.”

“Imagine if we all get snowed in. Trapped with all these people,” Robin said, dread dripping from every syllable.

“I’ll walk back to my parents’ house in the snow. I don’t care,” Nancy said, only relaxing when Jonathan stepped to her back and wrapped an arm over her shoulders.

“Tough day?”

“My editor called and said he wanted a rewrite by midnight for this article-”

“You got it done,” Jonathan quietly murmured.

“But I shouldn’t’ve had to do it at all! No one else’s articles get that kind of treatment. Goddamn Greg can write a puff piece about when to watch the cherry blossoms in each borough and use the wrong ‘there’ but he doesn’t even get a sternly worded email.”

You and Robin wore matching winces and hid behind your hot chocolate. “Didn’t you say The Economist was trying to poach you after your big editorial about that governor?”

Nancy nodded and sunk a little further into Jonathan’s grip. Her engagement ring sparkled in the twinkling lights. Their long-awaited engagement party just a few blocks from your apartment had been hosted a handful of months ago where you’d readily accepted Nancy’s invitation to be a bridesmaid. It certainly took them long enough. “And I’m considering it. But we’d have to move to London.”

Another twittering laugh drew all of your attentions and you saw Eddie stand and wrap and arm around someone you vaguely recognized as someone from the debate team as another person took a picture, the flash of their disposable camera nearly blinding even across the room.

Nancy’s blue eyes quickly zeroed in on you. “Have you talked to him?”

“No. He’s surrounded. Has been all night. I don’t want to be…that girl, anyway. Probably doesn’t even remember me.”

**1986**

“Look, I’m all for you, like, actually telling Eddie how you feel but maybe you could think of a more romantic setting for all this?” Robin nearly hissed as you continued on through the rotted forest of the Upside Down.

“What are you talking about?”

“You are making googly eyes at him—and he’s reciprocating! That guy hasn’t taken his eyes off you once since you beat that bat to death.”

“Yeah, I’m sure that’s what really gets him going, Robs. Sure. Keep your voice down!” You grumbled in return, trying to ignore the heat in your chest.

You’d had a crush on Eddie since last year when you were paired up in History for your final project. Your sessions in the school library had become the highlight of your week pretty quickly after you realized how kind and funny he was, how brown his eyes were, and how they really sparkled whenever he spoke of something he was passionate about (which was never history, but you would let it slide because you loved his smile). You didn’t even mind that he gently teased you about your favorite song, Flaco’s “Rock Me Amadeus” and promised to “teach you about real music.” After passing the final project with flying colors, Eddie had gifted you a mixtape with a shy smile and pink cheeks “Just to say ‘thanks,’ you know, for helping me pass. I might not graduate this year, but I don’t have to repeat this class again and that was all because of you. But here’s your first lesson on real music, Amadeus.” Before you could say anything, he kissed your cheek and turned away, letting you get swallowed by the moving bodies of the hallway. And Robin, who you’d befriended while working at the mall over the summer (you worked at the lingerie store right next to Scoops Ahoy) had been your first confidante about your feelings. Steve, bless him, had guessed correctly after you came into the ice cream shop moping one Wednesday after you’d watched Eddie flirt with the bartender (again) at The Hideout during a Corroded Coffin gig. And then he was offering his “advice,” too, and telling you that your secret was safe with him, even if he didn’t really understand your feelings for “The Freak.” At all.

The feelings that hadn’t faded for over a year.

Steve and Robin hadn’t judged you, as so many others would, and you had earned Robin’s secret in return, an easy friendship blossoming right before the mall burnt down. As your senior year started and you once again found yourself at Eddie’s side more often than not in the hallways and shared classes and your easy comradery with the three-peat senior developed into inside jokes and more mixtapes disguised as ‘lessons,’ Robin and Steve had always encouraged you to at least try. And you never did. You’d rather have him as a friend than nothing at all. And he was…he was your friend. A good friend who always smiled at you from the stage at The Hideout, who seemed to actually do his homework when you jokingly said you wouldn’t hug him anymore, who always made you smile when you had a shit day. Confiding in each other about your shitty parents (his were felons, yours were drug addicts) and then being raised by others had been another thing that bonded you. You had your aging grandparents and Eddie had Wayne but you both knew that it was different. Always. He’d hold your hand when you cried about feeling like you were missing something and you always told he’d amount to more than his parents when he struggled, too. You were there for each other in ways your other friends couldn’t understand. And that almost made it worse.

“All I’m saying is that he is obviously into you. Like a lot. But maybe wait until we aren’t in the sixth circle of hell to act on it.”

“This isn’t the sixth circle…this would be, like, the tenth. I think.”

Robin smacked the back of her hand into your arm with a pointed look “You’re avoiding the topic.”

“I’m avoiding nothing except these stupid vines!”

Eddie jogged to your side with a tired smile. “Hey, think we’re getting close to the Wheeler house?”

You nodded and glanced ahead where Nancy was leading the way, ignoring how Robin pinched at your side. A quiet shout of Robin’s name had you all turning and Steve was waving her back to his side and she darted away, leaving you alone with Eddie. Heat bloomed in your chest as he smiled at you, as it always did. A comforting warmth like settling in front of a roaring fireplace on a cold winter’s night.

Eddie knocked his shoulder into yours as you all continued on, another smile on his face. Only Eddie would be able to smile in a place like this. “You know, I’m glad you’re here with me in all of this.”

And now you had to smile, too, despite everything. “In the Upside Down?”

He blushed and stuttered something unintelligible before knocking his shoulder into yours again, pulling a quiet laugh from you. “Yeah, next time we have to fight monsters, I’ll make sure we’re at Enzo’s.”

“It’s a date.” As soon as the words left your mouth, you wanted to shove them back down your throat. Dammit. “I mean, you know, not a date, but yeah, we can keep fighting monsters together.” You winced at your messy jumble of words. Great. “I’m…For what it’s worth, I’m glad you’re here with me, too.”

**1996**

“What do you mean you didn’t listen to any of their music?” Robin asked, taking your hot chocolate away from you.

“I tried! But then he started singing about this person’s pretty eyes and wanting them to leave lipstick stains on his throat and I turned it off.” You sounded like a petulant child but you couldn’t help it. Hearing about how Eddie wanted something like that with someone who obviously wasn’t you hurt. It ached like a dull knife twisting between your ribs. The years hadn’t lessened the pain at all.

Robin and Nancy looked at each other, some silent communication that had you gritting your teeth. And then Jonathan patted your shoulder like you were some sort of idiot. “You really should have listened to it.”

“It wouldn’t change anything,” you muttered. “It has been ten years. Look at him.” Waving a hand at the ever growing crowd around Eddie, you tried to ignore the burn of tears at the back of your eyes. “He is a rock star. How many Grammy’s does he have?” (You knew he had two.)

Despite avoiding listening to any of his music, you had watched his meteoric rise to fame with a bittersweet happiness. It was what he deserved after everything. Being accused and then cleared of murder actually seemed to bolster his image as a rock god and helped Corroded Coffin land their first record deal. There was always a quip about it in every magazine or gossip rag that interviewed him or ran an article with his face at the center. It was part of his “mystique” as one journalist called it.

And the town that had always hated him now celebrated his success as their own. There were former football players and cheerleaders waiting their turn to get his autograph or take a picture with him, arm slung over his shoulder as if they were old friends. As if they hadn’t tried to hunt him down after Jason fucking Carver branded him a vessel for Satan. The lights caught on his hair, shining and soft, and a little shorter than it had been in school. Red then green then red again. Still so handsome. Even more so now, with a bit of stubble lining his jaw. He’d always be handsome, wouldn’t he?

Just as Bing Crosby started to croon, a woman with an orange tan stepped onto the small stage and tapped the microphone. “Hi everyone! My name is Tina-”

“We’d never forget you, Tina!” Someone shouted from the middle of the crowd.

She laughed and the microphone protested, screeching with feedback for a moment. “Well, as head of the Hawkins Alumni association, I welcome you all back to Hawkins. Can you believe it’s been ten years?”

As she prattled on, you and your friends grabbed seats at a table toward the back. She started to go through a slideshow of pictures from your senior year, taking an overly dramatic pause “in remembrance” for “Jason’s” victims and everyone else who died or was injured during the earthquake. Nancy’s foot knocked into yours beneath the table and you both rolled your eyes as Tina wiped a tear from her eye. Then, to your horror, she clicked onto the next slide that was a picture of you, holding Eddie’s leather jacket, exiting the hospital covered in bruises and blood and the grime of the Upside Down and patched up like a terrible pantomime of healthcare.

“But we have always been a class of survivors!” She continued on, speaking about the “tragedies” that befell Hawkins as if she knew anything about them. It was all a dull roar in your ears as she clicked through a few more pictures of the town being rebuilt. She’d just glossed over one of the worst days of your life as if it was nothing. Just another picture for her welcome speech.

“I need some air.”

Nancy squeezed your arm as you stood, slipping out of the room without a look back.

**1986**

You handed Dustin his nail-riddled shield and watched him and Eddie pretend to block invisible enemies, laughing with each other. You wanted to join in. Wanted to laugh and revel in being alive a little longer but the sinking feeling in your gut kept you from doing anything other than continuing to batter nails in through a trashcan lid and hope it would be enough.

Would it be enough?

Even if you all lived through this, would the alibi you and Nancy cooked up to cover for Eddie be enough? It was already set in motion when the police had questioned you after Fred’s death and you made no mention of Eddie, but would they believe you?

“Hey.”

You looked up, fingers curled painfully around the hammer, to see Eddie standing in front of you. The dying sunlight framed him, casting an ethereal glow around him and piercing your chest. Beautiful.

He moved to sit on the carton beside you, knee bumping yours as he swiveled toward you. “Gonna tell me what’s going on in that beautiful brain of yours, Amadeus, or should I guess?”

Despite everything, you felt your lips curling up the slightest bit at the sound of the ridiculous nickname. “Guess.”

He hummed, stroking his chin with a dramatic flair. “You’re wondering if I have any weed on me and the answer is yes.” Then he pulled a (decidedly damp) baggie from the pocket of his jacket and dropped it onto your lap. “I wouldn’t smoke that though. I’m not entirely sure what lake water and…those spore things have done to it.”

You tossed the bag back to him and he almost caught it. “Try again.”

And so, he tried again and again, his guesses getting more ridiculous as the time passed until you were giggling, heart a little lighter and the final shield finished.

“Would the fair maiden take pity on her poor jester and tell him what made her so sad?” He asked, his warm hand curling over your knee and squeezing twice.

Tears stung your eyes as you shook your head. “Just worried, ‘s all. Worried about Max. Worried about Robin. Worried about Nancy. Worried about Dustin. Worried about Lucas. Worried about Steve. The only person I’m not worried about is Erica—she’s going to rule the world one day, I know it.”

“Worried about me?”

And that just about broke you. “’Course I’m worried about you, Eddie. I’m always worried about you. Even without Jason and Vecna looming over everything, of course I worry about you.”

He squeezed at your knee again until you looked at him and then he was reaching out to cup your face, thumbs gently swiping against the slope of your cheeks. “Always, huh?” His grip didn’t falter even as you nodded. “Well, it sounds like you have enough to worry about, don’t need to add me to your list.”

“Eddie-”

“Hey.” Gently, he angled your face up so he could look at you properly, dark eyes staring into yours. “I promise you, I’m going to be fine. And you are, too. All of us are getting out of this.”

“Promise?” You whispered, the syllables cracking in your throat as your shaking hand covered his.

Eddie leaned forward to press his forehead to yours, your eyes fluttering shut. “I promise.”

**1996**

One look out the window let you know that this snowstorm was probably one for the history books. Giant white flakes were falling in a rush from the dark sky, already sticking to the sidewalks and hazing the light of the lampposts. The outdoor Christmas trees just a few feet outside the window were nearly covered, too, the snow making their lights glow like candles. It was pretty. Sure, you’d grown accustomed to the holidays in New York, but snow in Hawkins during the holidays? Almost nothing could beat it.

Nat King Cole’s voice echoed down the hall, providing a soft melody to the quiet moment, and nearly had your wounded heart calming. Nearly.

The door opening behind you pulled a sigh from your throat, expecting to hear one of your friends call out to you. Instead you heard a loud giggle and the tapping of heels against the linoleum tiles, steps unsteady and uneven. Nancy knew how to sprint in heels and Robin didn’t own anything other than sneakers and brightly colored flats so it wasn’t them-

“-can’t believe how she just got up and left!”

“I know! So rude!”

While obviously drunk, the women who probably called you names in high school for being a little socially awkward and not having the newest clothes, were not high on your list of potential “catch-ups.”

God. Why did you even come here? All the people you wanted to keep in touch with from high school, you already did. You had a small group of them in New York and you had scheduled phone calls with Steve and the kids, too. You didn’t need to come here. You definitely should not have.

But it didn’t matter now anyway. As the voices grew louder, you skittered further down the hall and wrenched open the nearest door and all but threw yourself inside, leaving the door open just enough to let a bit of light in, waiting to hear the women pass. You nearly stepped onto a tangle garland as you slunk into the shadows. The closet was filled with extra decorations. Stockings, wreaths, and tangled bundles of lights lined the shelves and had you flinching as something snapped beneath your shoe.

“Oh, but did you see Eddie?” One of the women asked. You immediately hated her tone. It sounded like something you’d accidentally come across late at night, when a few of the channels played more risqué films.

“How could I miss him?” There was a strange noise, it almost sounded like groan. Was it supposed to be a moan? “If I had known he’d be a rock star and looked like that, I wouldn’t have called him a freak in high school.”

“Oh, shut up Carol, yes you would’ve! Probably just not to his face!”

Their answering cackles echoed down the hall and you grimaced behind the door—the one small victory was that they seemed to be walking away from you, rather than toward. Still, you didn’t understand how people could still be so needlessly cruel. Eddie had always been handsome. Always. And he’d never been a freak. He just liked his roleplaying game and making his music. Sure, he was outspoken and a little abrasive to some…but he was a good man. He had always been a good man.

And those women obviously learned nothing from how they’d treated him in high school.

Your forehead knocked against the door as you continued to hold it barely open, and you tried to suck in a steadying breath. You never should have come. Even without talking to him, Eddie was still looming like some sort of Ghost of Christmas Past.

You sounded pathetic, didn’t you? It had been ten years since you’d parted ways and lived separate lives. You were one of the curators up at the Met in New York; your dream job in a vibrant city. You were paid well and had an ironclad support system with your friends. But Eddie still ached, a pain with a beautiful face. Wasn’t it time you moved on?

Yes. It had to be. (But how many times had you told yourself that?)

Straightening your shoulders, you moved to open the door only to have the knob ripped out of your hand as the door was thrown open and then you were all but shoved into a stack of wreaths and the door shut with a sharp snap.

“Jesus!” You nearly shouted, scrambling to stay upright in the dark and only mildly succeeding, your palm slapping against a shelf and toppling a neat stack of ribbons.

“Oh shit. Sorry!” A familiar voice answered and your heart leapt.

In the dim light of the closet, you recognized the curls and the soft cut of his jaw. “Eddie?”

**1986**

“Don’t try to be cute.” Steve’s warning only made you roll your eyes, pushing at him to rejoin Nancy and Robin.

“You’re the one who managed to accessorize before going into battle, Harrington. You’re cute enough for the both of us.”

Steve huffed and tugged at your wrist to press a hard kiss to your forehead. “Take care of Dustin, okay? Take care of both of them.”

“I will. Take care of my girls, too.”

“Hey, Steve?” You both turned at the sound of Eddie’s voice to see him take a few steps forward, mouth set in a firm line. “Make him pay.”

Steve nodded, intentions clear. But, just before he turned back toward Nancy and Robin, he reached for you again. “Tell him. Tell him and fight like hell so you can actually do something about it.”

And god…you wanted to scoff, tell him that now as definitely not the time for confessions of any kind. You were trying to stay alive! But you couldn’t scoff. Couldn’t roll your eyes. All you could do was tap at his chest with a grimace you hoped looked like a smile. “Stay safe, Steve. Come back. All of you. We’ll see you on the other side.”

Then, he was jogging back to the others while you turned to see Eddie and Dustin waiting for you. And their hopeful smiles were a knife between your ribs. “Let’s get this started, okay?” You said, clapping your hands together. As you busied yourself with trying to fortify the Upside Down version of the Munson trailer, you tried to tell yourself that this was going to be fine. Everything was going to be fine. In a few hours, you could walk into the police station, clear Eddie’s name and no one would realize how close you all came to apocalypse.

But it didn’t feel right. Didn’t feel…safe.

“Hey…”

You nearly jumped out of your skin when a warm hand closed over yours, halting your attempt to screw in a bit of sheet metal over a window. Your next breath wheezed out of you as you looked into Eddie’s molten brown eyes. “Eddie.”

“You okay?”

“I’m, yeah, I’m fine. As fine as we can be, about to provide an absolutely insane distraction so our friends can kill an interdimensional super villain. Yeah. Fine.”

Eddie stepped a bit closer, gentle hands sliding up your arms to cup around the back of your neck, pulling you closer to rest his forehead against yours again. “I made you a promise, didn’t I? We are going to be fine.”

You could tell him right now. Just open your mouth and say it. But the words turned to molasses at the back of your throat and you could only nod, tugging at the bottom of his vest and zipping it up properly.

“C’mon, sweetheart. We’ve got a concert to play.”

**1996**

“What’re you doing in a closet?”

“What are you doing in a closet?” You quickly retorted, embarrassed heat starting to curl around your throat.

“If I had to take one more picture with someone who called me a freak in high school, I might actually set something on fire.”

You laughed, clapping your hands over your mouth before the noise could truly escape. “Jesus, sorry. I thought you…were doing well.”

“I just needed a break.” You could hear the exhaustion dripping from each letter. “Gimme a crowded stadium any day over that.”

Before you could do anything else, you were nearly knocked onto your ass by Eddie abruptly turning and throwing his arms out, fingers dragging against the wall in search of something. “What’re you doing?”

“I need a light. I want to talk to you in the light—need to see your face.”

Oh, the heat was nearly suffocating now. He could still make you feel like a teenager. When it seemed he wouldn’t be finding the switch, you went to open the door and then felt your heart drop to your toes. “Eddie.”

“What, Amadeus?”

Despite the smile you felt pressing at your lips, muscle memory and Eddie’s ineffable charm slotting between your ribs like a missing piece of a puzzle, dread pricked at the back of your mind. For good reason. “I think we’re locked in.”

Eddie was quiet for a moment before his warm, guitar-string-roughened hand closed over yours as it continued to jiggle the door knob and then he tried, too. “Shit.”

“Shit,” you agreed.

“J-just hang on.” He stepped back and you heard him rummaging blindly in the dark before twinkling white light nearly blinded you. Somehow, he’d found a strand of Christmas lights and an outlet, illuminating the cramped closet in their butter yellow light. “There we go,” Eddie said, sounding more than a little pleased with himself. He stood straight, still holding the bundle of lights like something precious. His dark brown eyes reflected the soft light, almost making them sparkle.

And your poor heart could scarcely handle it.

“God, Amadeus. It’s been too long.” He moved forward like he wanted to do something else, maybe hug you, but stopped short.

Your smile faded as you glanced down to the cluttered floor beneath your shoes. “Yeah, um, ten years or so. B-but you’ve done well for yourself, Mister Rock Star.”

Eddie’s cheeks bloomed with color but he did not look away. “You listened to my music?”

If the world could open up and swallow you whole, you would appreciate it. But apparently Hawkins had had enough of earthquakes and you were forced to tell Eddie the truth, your feet on solid ground, in a small closet filled with Christmas light. “I…I couldn’t.”

His smile wavered. “Oh.”

“I-it isn’t that I think you make bad music. I actually quite like it! It…it is just…” God. Stupid. So stupid.

“You still prefer your pop nonsense, yeah?” Eddie drawled, dropping the bundle of lights onto a shelf.

“I mean, yeah, but tha-that isn’t what I’m trying to say!” You turned away from him, trying not to hate yourself more. You missed the days when you could talk to him easily. You missed the early days after everything blew over and the gates were finally closed and you’d talk for hours on the phone after you settled at NYU, trying to keep each other up-to-date on the happenings in your lives. They’d been a highlight of your week, dashing to the phone in your dorm at exactly six o’clock to make sure you’d never miss the call. But the calls had dwindled after Corroded Coffin’s first single topped the charts. You tried not to feel rejected when he missed more and more calls. But the nail in the metaphorical coffin had been when Wayne, good and sweet Wayne, had picked up the phone and told you, gently, that Eddie was going on tour and wouldn’t be back again. You received a postcard here and there after you graduated from university, from different cities around the globe where Corroded Coffin was touring. The ink would be smudged and faded by the time it got to you, but you kept all of them just the same. Pressing your fingers against the messy handwriting, stilted letters saying he missed you, as if that would be enough. And it never was. And then those stopped, too. He’d left you behind.

“You just have it all, Eddie. And I don’t know how you ever...” The words trailed off and you shook your head. None of this mattered now. He’d moved on. You were a ghost to him, too. Fruitlessly, you tried to open the door again with the same result: you were still locked in. And then the closet was too small, too warm all at once. The handle jiggled uselessly in your grasp. Were the walls inching closer? Had the lights caught fire? “Can you open this lock?”

“Just because I can hotwire a car, doesn’t mean I can pick a lock, Amadeus.” There was almost a hint of a tease in his tone. Almost. “Must’ve missed that lesson.”

You nodded, eyes trained on the unopened door. “Right. Sorry.” You needed to be let out. Needed to run far, far away before you made a complete ass of yourself.

“Good to know what you think of me.”

You turned abruptly, nearly falling—again—as you reached for him with uncoordinated fingers. “That isn’t what I’m saying, Eddie! I…” The words were sticky toffee at the back of your tongue. Unmovable and hard. “I…”

“Why didn’t you listen to my music?”

**1986**

Everything had gone wrong in a matter of moments. You had watched, heart in your throat, as Eddie played his heart out—you recognized the song. It had been on the tape he’d given you just last week.

Lesson 17

was scrawled across the shell’s spine alongside a smudged demon. Eddie had been glorious and every inch a rock star and the plan had worked and it still all went to shit.

The bats were coming too fast. There were too many of them. You and Eddie all but shoved Dustin up the knotted rope and then Eddie made sure you went up next. But then he had the stupid, beautiful, tragic idea that he needed to be a hero. He was already a hero. Had always been a hero. But he still cut the rope as you and Dustin yelled and pleaded for him to stop.

He didn’t.

Then you were dragging the small table near the door under the gate and leaping leaping leaping until you could grab at the edge and haul yourself up and through. The world swam in front of your eyes as your skull bounced on the dirty floor but you still got to your feet and rushed out with a scream of Eddie’s name. Bats swarmed in the distance, too preoccupied with something else in the distance—and you knew exactly what it was…or who.

The first bat nearly took you off your feet with a screech, tail looping around your ankle. But you pushed forward, even as another tore at your neck and another burrowed between your jacket and your shirt and ripped through the fabric like a red-hot knife through butter. But you only saw Eddie. You continued to push through until you could fling yourself over his prone form. The serrated teeth of the demobats continued to try to devour you both as you tucked Eddie’s face into your neck and hope it was enough. Even in your scrambled state, you tried to keep the important parts covered.

And you hoped.

Because that was all you could do aside from scream.

Blood coated the back of your throat, either from the force of your screams or from the blow to the face you’d taken earlier. But it didn’t matter when you heard the bats suddenly go silent before falling to the ground in a terrible downpour. The last one hit the ground with a splat and you were surging to your knees to look Eddie over.

“C-can you stand for me?” You asked as you knelt beside him, already shoving your hands beneath his shoulders.

Eddie struggled for a moment, blood-caked teeth gritting, before falling back to the ground. “Just…give me a minute.”

This was not good. Not good. Even if the bats dying meant that the plan might’ve worked, Eddie was still… You shifted, putting his head in your lap as you pressed down against the larger of the bites on his chest, feeling his blood soak your skin immediately. “Take all the time you need, okay? I’m not…I’m not leaving without you.”

Eddie made a noise. It almost sounded like a laugh. “Was just trying to buy more time.” Each word had his chest heaving.

“You were trying to be a hero, Eddie,” you almost scolded. “You didn’t need to do that. Y-you were already a hero. You already helped.” Tears started to blur your vision but you blinked them back, trying to keep him in your sight even as the strange spores, the bastardized Upside Down version of snow, started to coat you both. You wouldn’t take your eyes away from him. Not now. “Silly boy.” You pulled him a little closer, trying to ignore how slick your hands felt, pressing tighter against whatever you could reach. “You made me a promise, Eddie,” you whispered. “You promised.”

“I know.” The words were garbled. Wet. Teeth stained red. “I’m sorry, sweetheart.”

The tears stung and burned but you didn’t have the energy to will them away this time. He could feel it, too. “Dust-Dustin’s on his way. He can help. And Steve an-and Nancy and Robin. They’ll be here soon, too.”

Eddie nodded and you could feel his next breath stutter and stall beneath your hands. “I’m…I’m glad it’s you with me.”

“Eddie. Don’t. Don’t talk like that,” you pleaded, voice cracking. Your vision blurred even as you pressed tighter, crimson bleeding across white. You just needed him to hold on a little longer. Just a little longer. You could help him get better if you just had a little more time. “You’re going to be fine. You have to flip off Higgins, remember?”

“Y-yeah, Amadeus. I remember.” He sighed and his dark eyes found yours through your tears. “But at the end of the world? I’m glad I get to see it with you.”

“We can see everything together. Okay? Anything you want, we can go see it together.”

He nodded and then a shaking, bloody finger reached up to barely graze against your neck before falling back down to the ground. “You’re hurt.”

The adrenaline was keeping most of it at bay, you were sure. The bats had done a number on you. But right now? Right now it didn’t matter. “I’m fine. Don’t worry about me.” Eddie’s mouth opened, some retort on his tongue but all that came out was a wet wheeze and you felt his heartbeat stutter beneath your palm. “Eddie, no, Eddie, no, no, no. You gotta stay with me, okay? Stay with me!” You pressed harder at his chest and looked out to the grey horizon, hoping to see your friends, hoping to see some sort of salvation. “Help me,” you screamed. “Help!”

But all you saw was the strange snow.

**1996**

It was a simple enough question, wasn’t it? Why didn’t you listen to his music? Maybe now really was the time to move on. Your hand slipped from the doorknob and you crossed your arms over your chest as if that would protect you or offer comfort. Bing Crosby was singing now, muffled behind the door.

“You are a rock star, Eddie. I always knew you’d make it. Always. You were destined to be one of the good ones, one of the greats. Do you remember me bribing the guy at The Hideout just to let me in because I was underage? I just wanted to listen to you play. I wanted to see you the happiest I’ve ever seen you. I sang every song. I studied every mixtape you gave me like my life depended on it. And then you…made it. You made it, Eddie. And you left me behind.”

Eddie’s face fell, all traces of anger draining away in a second. He murmured your name.

But you weren’t done. “And I told myself that it was okay. It was okay because I just wanted you to be happy. And I thought I could, I don’t know, move on or something. I got my dream job. I live in the best city in the world. I have good friends and my grandparents finally got out of this shitty town and are living it up in Albuquerque.” You hadn’t even realized you were crying until Eddie reached out to you, gentle yet roughened fingers pressing at your cheeks to catch your tears. And your poor heart stuttered at the simple touch. How long had it been since he’d touched you like that? “And I heard about your adventures through Jonathan or Steve. Nancy even did an editorial on your band the first time you headlined at Madison Square Garden, remember that? But you never asked for me. Never reached out.”

“That’s not fair,” he said, still holding you close. His voice was low but strained, like he wanted to pull away but couldn’t force himself to do so, as if his fingertips had seared themselves to you. “You could’ve asked any of them for my number, my address, anything-”

“You were the one who stopped taking my calls, Eddie.” The simple sentence was ripped from your throat between sobs, over a decade finally cracking open. “And then you were singing about girls leaving lipstick stains on your throat and it would never be me. Never me no matter how much I loved you.”

Eddie’s face twisted and something you didn’t understand flittered across his face, something almost like heartbreak. Something almost like betrayal. Something almost like self-loathing. “You think I don’t-”

And then the door opened.

**1986**

Hawkins had been ripped open. While Vecna had been killed by Nancy and Eleven, he’d made one last ditch effort to bring the Upside Down to your world and had cracked open three gates; earthquakes shattering the small town.

Max’s knee was broken and she’d need physical therapy to walk normally again.

Lucas had a concussion from his showdown with Jason.

Steve needed a skin graft.

You were finally able to pull the three dozen stitches out of your skin after a few weeks but the doctor’s harried voice had echoed cruelly in your mind, “if that cut had been any deeper, you would’ve been dead in seconds.” Comforting. You’d been all but shoved onto a hospital bed and rubbed down with alcohol pads before dozens of stitches were sewn through your skin and you were told to leave to make room for others. The hospital had been a mad house when you’d stepped out into the hall, filled to bursting with people needing attention, battered and bruised and bleeding.

But it had been okay. It had been okay because your little ragtag team of friends had won and Eddie was alive and he gave you a slow, sleepy smile as you slipped into his room. “Hey, Amadeus.” He didn’t seem to care about the handcuff chaining him to the bed.

It didn’t last long, anyway. Your and Nancy’s alibi, Jason’s mysterious disappearance, his goons’ ramblings about seeing Max lift into the air, coupled with the well-timed reappearance of Chief Hopper helped the town begrudgingly accept that Eddie was innocent. There were still whispers, of course. Some thought that Eddie used his “satanic powers” to possess Jason into killing Chrissy, Fred, and Patrick, but you made it no mind after the cuff around his wrist was removed and you sat in his room, waiting for him to wake up between surgeries. You passed the time by doing the take home work your teachers had given you with the promise that if it was completed, it would take the place of any final exams and you’d graduate with no problems. Then, when that was finished, you did Eddie’s stack, too. You met his Uncle Wayne and he gave you a small smile when you introduced yourself, like he knew something you didn’t. He had been the one to give you Eddie’s jacket, saying he knew you’d keep it safe, on the first night at the hospital.

“He’s gonna be mad when he learns you did all that for ‘im.”

You shrugged and took the proffered hot chocolate he got for you at the hospital cafeteria. “He can be mad at me all the way across the graduation stage.”

“He did say you were a stubborn, sweet thing.”

The pencil nearly fell from between your fingers and you gaped up at Wayne before looking at Eddie at the bed, looking healthier by the day and just out of his third surgery. “He said that?”

Wayne only gave you that same, secretive smile. It was the same smile he gave you as Eddie dragged you over to take a picture, your green graduation caps and gowns shining in the summer sunlight. Your grandparents were close behind, each brandishing a camera and telling you to smile. It was redundant as you hadn’t stopped giggling since Eddie flipped off Higgins, as he’d promised. But, just as Wayne raised his camera, Eddie pressed a kiss to your cheek and knocked the breath out of your lungs.

“That’s a framer,” your grandfather said, clapping Wayne on the back and inviting them to a celebratory lunch.

Their acceptance was on the tip of their tongues—you knew it—but a man in a dark suit loomed at your side and drew everyone’s attention. “Edward Munson?”

Questions upon questions ricocheted in your mind. Who was this man? Was Eddie in trouble? What-?

He held out a small card with a smile, looking at Eddie over the rim of his probably-expensive sunglasses. “I’ve heard good things about you and your band.”

**1996**

The two hulking figures you’d spotted earlier were crowding the doorway and all but pushed you aside to reach for Eddie. You stumbled, elbow knocking against one of the shelves and pain rippled up your arm with a hiss. “Jesus.”

Eddie was quick to grab at your other arm, trying to keep you stable and you hated how you liked how warm he felt, even through the thick bulk of your sweater. “Guys, c’mon, be carefu-”

But they paid you no mind. “The party’s over, boss. You can get your dick wet later. We gotta get out of here before…” The rest of the sentence was drowned out in the scuffle as he was yanked out of the closet and into the surprisingly busy hallway. Elvis was warbling about a Blue Christmas but you barely heard it over the bustle of everyone leaving in a rush. You blindly stepped out into the hall, feeling like someone had stuffed rumpled tissue between your ears. The entire world felt off kilter as someone ran by you, knocking into your shoulder. What was Eddie going to say? Why had finally telling him how you felt leave you aching?

A hand wrapping around your arm pulled you from your reverie and you looked up to see Steve Harrington giving you a familiar, soft smile. “Time to go, sweetheart. The others are waiting.” He quickly explained that Robin called him, asking him to pick them all up after all the taxis (not that there were many in Hawkins) had refused to take them anywhere in the storm.

As soon as the others reached your and Steve’s side, a feat considering the mad rush toward the door, he was all but shepherding you out to the startlingly white parking lot, the snow now up to the middle of your calves. Robin claimed the passenger seat, leaving you, Jonathan, and Nancy to squish into the back seat. The others chattered about how ridiculous the reunion was as you all waited your turn in the long line to exit the parking lot, more than a few cars already sliding or getting stuck in the snow. Steve was patient enough. You knew their conversation was mostly just to pass the time, to let you know they wouldn’t pry (yet), giving you an escape. You gave an anecdote or two, making them laugh when you mentioned how drunk everyone seemed to be. Steve nearly beamed as you commented on how nice the car seat digging into your leg was. “I read, like, six different books about what the best car seat was! The little lady loves it,” he said, using the nickname he was fond of for his daughter.

Robin was the first to be dropped off, after chattering about her PhD program, giving you all awkward hugs from her seat so you wouldn’t have to get out into the cold. She suggested that you all go to Paris the next time a reunion comes around, “you know, so I don’t want to contemplate murder again,” before scrambling out of the car and into her parents’ house. The snow had nearly blotted out the simple line of Christmas lights along the roof, but still shined through in twinkling greens and reds. You took her seat with a sigh, crawling over the center console as Steve shouted about seatbelts, sounding like the mom you knew him to be. Nancy leaned forward to press a quick kiss to your cheek as soon as Steve slowed to a careful stop in front of their hotel—they’d told you, repeatedly, that they were not about to stay at either of their family’s houses for the holiday, no matter how much they loved them. Jonathan squeezed your arm and the pair murmured their thanks to Steve and they reaffirmed the plans to get together with all the kids at the Byers-Hopper house tomorrow, weather permitting, for the party you knew had been planned for months.

That left you alone with Steve and it took exactly forty-two seconds for him to ask, “so, you and Eddie in a closet, huh?”

“It-it wasn’t as salacious as you’re thinking, Steve. We both went in there to hide—separately, you know—and then the door somehow got locked and it was just a…fucking mess.” Slowly, an embarrassed heat pooling in your neck, you told him everything about how you’d finally, pathetically, told Eddie what you’d felt for over a decade.

Fat, white flakes continued their downward parade and the windshield wipers provided a steady beat to your disjointed story until you fell back into your seat, drained and tired. You could spot a few Christmas trees lit up behind half-closed curtains, their decorations a festive break against the growing snow. You frowned as Steve clicked off the radio, Wham’s Christmas earbug suddenly halting. He leaned over and grabbed something from the glovebox.

“Steve?”

He popped a tape shell open and pushed it into the tape deck before tossing the shell onto your lap. You turned it over to see a familiar album cover—it was Corroded Coffin’s latest album. Will Byers had been the one to draw the artwork, filled with bats and broken guitars. “Just listen, okay?” Steve asked, hand on the volume dial.

It wasn’t as if you had a choice, was it? But maybe it was time to finally do it, another way to close the chapter. So, you nodded, and Steve cranked the dial as soon as he fast-forwarded enough to the song he wanted.

The music started low and then quickly roared with heavy guitar and bass and an incessant drumbeat. It was all Eddie. It was Eddie. It was all Eddie and your fingers almost hurt as you clutched the little plastic case. The lyrics were good, and you could imagine this song getting your stuck in your head for weeks, painting a story about the a looming apocalypse, something you knew well. Then, Eddie’s voice came through, clear as day with the chorus, “at the end of the world, I’m glad it’s you…”

Oh.

Oh.

Shaking fingers pressed to your mouth as the song continued on, filled with lyrics about blood and darkness and looming death…and the saving touch of someone’s hand.

“I’m glad it’s you…”

“I’m glad it’s you…”

You flipped the case over and cursed the tears that blurred your vision as soon as you spotted the name of the song. The only song it could be.

Amadeus, at the End of the World

It was for you. But then Steve ejected the tape and put another in before you could truly let it sink in, a million and one thoughts coursing through your mind.

“Remember when you held me close with bloodstained hands?” Eddie sang on another song.

“Remember when you kept me breathing?”

When that song finished, Steve switched to a different track.

“Who worries over you, my girl?”

“Let me be the one to feel your heartbeat…”

And then he switched to another tape, never taking his eyes off the road.

Through raucous rifts and a bassline you could feel rattling your bones, Eddie sang, “you’re sunlight sweet and I’m your freak-Just give me your lips!”

Steve clicked off the radio as the song ended and you wiped fruitlessly at your cheeks; the tears had started during the first song and hadn’t stopped. “I’m so dumb.”

“You both are,” Steve agreed with a smile. He even patted your arm in consolation. “He asked about you all the time and then swore us to secrecy about it. He kept saying that if you wanted to reach out, you would have.”

You sniffled, the burn of the bright snow blurring. “I didn’t have his number. I don’t even know where he lives.” There was a small mess of tapes and their shell cases in your lap by the time turned the Christmas music back on and you fiddled with each of them, as if the pieces of plastic would let you turn back time and make different choices.

“Don’t worry about that,” Steve said with a conspiratorial smile.

It was only then that you realized you weren’t anywhere near the hotel where you were staying. “Steve?” You were clear across town, actually, near the newer developments and high end houses that had been built after the earthquake and property prices had plummeted. Now, years later, you were told that these houses were easily worth over half a million dollars. Each were spaced out, with plenty of land, with brick and mortar mailboxes near the street.

“Just trust me.” He pulled down one of the long driveways and parked in front of a tasteful, craftsman-style home. Sparkling white lights were looped around the porch’s banisters and bloomed soft light across the growing snow. The large bay window near the front door had its curtains opens and a large tree was at its center, decorated with ornaments that looked homemade and adorable. But that wasn’t what caught your eye.

It was Eddie, adjusting the sparkling tree-topper as he chatted with someone you couldn’t see.

“He has a house here?” You asked, feeling even more stupid.

He shook his head. “He bought this place for his uncle after their first album won him that Grammy. Apparently, Wayne was almost too proud to accept it. But you know how stubborn Eddie can be.” He turned to you and gently squeezed your arm, comforting. “Go in,” Steve said. “I can come pick you up, if needed.”

You sniffled and nodded, giving him a watery thank you and another promise to see him tomorrow for the party, before climbing out, the tapes still in your hands. The snow crunched beneath your shoes and you nearly stumbled at the top step of the porch but continued on until you knocked at the front door. Your cheeks were cold but at least your tears had stopped. You must look a mess. But there was no turning back now. The door swung open a few moments later and Wayne stood in front of you, eyebrows pinched. As soon as he recognized you, he was quick to grab at your arm and urge you inside with a murmured, “now what’re you doin’ outside in this kinda weather?” Familiar affection dripped from each word. The door shut with a soft snap behind you. The inside of the house was beautiful and warm; a wall filled with hats and mugs almost had you tearing up again. Eddie must have never stopped buying him those for every birthday, Father’s Day, and Christmas. One of Burl Ives’ Christmas albums was playing on the record player in the corner and two mugs of hot chocolate were set on the table near the tree, steam curling above.

“I…” You rubbed at the end of your cold nose, jostling the tapes in your hands. “I’m sorry. I didn’t mean to intrude-”

A smile started to push at Wayne’s face as he noticed what you were carrying and then glanced at something behind you. “Well, you know I’ve always been happy to see you. But I don’t think you’re here for me.” He waved a hand and you turned to see Eddie a few paces away. The light from the Christmas tree was behind him, making his curls and waves nearly glow. His dark eyes darted down to the jumble of tapes in your hands and then he looked back up at you.

“Can we talk?” You asked.

“‘Course we can, Amadeus.” Gently, he took your hand and pulled you into the living room. A handful of presents were under the tree and two stockings were hung over the roaring fireplace. Wayne, bless him, shut the door quietly and made himself scarce.

You sat on the edge of an overstuffed leather couch and Eddie settled beside you. One by one, he took the tapes out of your grip and set them on the cushion beside you before reaching out to curl one of his hands over yours. His thumb brushed over your knuckles softly, the simple touch making you shiver.

“Eddie, I…” You shook your head. “I’m so sorry. I never wanted to hurt you, ever. I-I just-”

His gentle grip tightened a fraction. “I think we both have been a little less than stellar at this.”

You laughed, a low raspy thing. Your other hand folded over his and you tried to keep your heart from lodging itself in your throat. “Did you mean all of it? All that stuff you sang?” Eddie moved a little closer on the couch and his knee knocked into yours. “Every word.”

“It’s been over ten years, Eddie,” you whispered, not moving your gaze away from his face. His dark eyes reflected the lights on the tree and you almost wanted to cry again. He’d always been so handsome.

Eddie raised your joined hands to press a kiss to your fingers and your poor heart hammered behind your ribs. “It’s always been you, Amadeus. It will always be you.”

You sniffled and winced but didn’t pull away. “God, I’ve cried too much today.”

Eddie, gentle as ever, dropped your hands to grasp your face and wipe your tears away. “I’ve never wanted to make you cry.”

You shook your head and sighed. “And I never wanted to hurt you, either. Those songs…god, all those songs, Eddie. They were beautiful.”

“Not your pop nonsense,” he teased, thumbs smoothing against the half-moons of skin beneath your eye. “But you like them?”

“Yeah,” you whispered. “I really did.” You paused, licking your lips. Now or never. And you didn’t want to wait another ten years. “I love you Eddie.”

He chuckled, low and soft and your heart jumped. “I know, Amadeus. You told me in the closet.”

A terrible, familiar heat burned at your throat and you went to pull away but Eddie’s grip tightened just enough to keep you still. “Eddie-”

“And I have loved you since you sat next to me in history class, humming that awful song. And I will write you another six hundred songs if it meant you finally believe me.”

He loved you.

He loved you.

He had always loved you.

“We certainly wasted enough time, didn’t we?”

He smiled and it’s as bright as the lights on the tree, near blinding. Heart stopping. Perfect. Then, slowly, he leaned and brushed his lips against yours. Finally, finally, finally. He tasted like peppermint chocolates and smoke. And it was fucking perfect.

**1997**

It was snowing again. The weatherman said to expect another six inches before dawn and for the roads to be a nightmare for a few hours, too, before the plows were able to clear everything up. But you didn’t mind. You adjusted the star atop your Christmas tree right before a familiar pair of arms looped around your waist. Lips skimmed up the back of your neck until you were giggling and squirming in his grip.

“We’re gonna be snowed in, sweetheart. Just you and me for days. Maybe even a week.”

You swatted at his hand with a laugh, loosening his hold just enough for you to turn around and sponge a kiss to his jaw with a hum. “Nice try, big shot. There’s no getting out of Nancy and Jonathan’s wedding tomorrow. It’s just up the street. We can walk.”

Eddie groaned, melodramatic, and pressed a lingering kiss to your temple. “Remind me why we have to go?”

“I am a bridesmaid and you are a groomsman. There’s also going to be lots of fancy food and all of our favorite people are already in town and will be there, too. You promised Nancy that you’d keep Dustin in check. You know how he gets about weddings.”

He sighed and you bit back a smile, knowing he was teasing. “I’m not convinced.”

So, you leaned closer and pressed another kiss against his jaw, and then another and another until you made your way up to his lips and steal a kiss there, too. Eddie chased your mouth to kiss you again, smiling against your lips. “And, my bridesmaid dress is really fucking sexy. If you’re good-”

“I’m always good,” he whined, halfheartedly pinching at your side just to make you squeak.

“-I’ll let you peel me out of it as soon as Nancy and Jonathan leave the reception. Deal?” You squealed as Eddie suddenly dove for your neck, kissing at the scar over your pulse. You sagged in his grip and moved to kiss the matching scar on his neck, too. It was a strange routine you’d settled into by accident. A gentle reminder of what you’d come through. Together.

“But what about tonight?” He whispered into your cheek, the beginnings of a smile pressing into your skin.

“Well, tonight…” You started to tug him away from the tree with a smile and toward your shared bedroom down the hall.

(Eddie’s plan worked. You hadn’t spotted the small box he’d hidden in the branches of the Christmas tree. He’d waited over ten years to finally call you his. He could wait a few days more.)

A/N: Please let me know what you think! Thanks for reading!

#eddie munson x reader #eddie munson imagine #eddie munson fanfic #stranger things #eddie munson #female reader

[beezusvreeland]

a very good idea - chapter 4

summary: After your boyfriend cheats on you at a party, you break up with him, who tells you nobody else is willing to be with you like him. You decide to prove him wrong, with a little help from a new friend.

ship: miguel o'hara x f!reader

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Chapter 4

You had more homework than the regular person and not just because you were taking some advanced classes. Before your side hustle, you would babysit kids in your neighborhood during the week and work as a waitress on events organized by your brother-in-law’s catering business on the weekends. 

You’ve had summer jobs before, but when high school came around, your mom got really sick and it took doctors a few months to come to the conclusion that she was exhausted. The burnout type of exhaustion. She started seeing a psychiatrist and, stubborn as always, went right back to her two jobs. You and your sister Jenna had to bargain a lot, but at last convinced her to quit at least one of them and let the two of you help her.

All the money from the babysitting and waitressing went to house and health bills, mostly your mom’s. You very quickly realized that, unless you got an all inclusive scholarship, your chances of going to college were zero to none. Attending college had been your dream since you were a kid, when you’d watch reruns of Felicity with Jenna, both of you fascinated with all the classes and drama the protagonist went through. Your mom didn’t have the opportunity to go to college and, when your sister’s time came, she chose to focus on working in restaurants, learning as much as she could so she could open her bakery someday. When she met her husband Mike, they united their toothbrushes and business aspirations. Now he would organize events and she would develop a menu for them. You’ve loved the way they were each other’s biggest fans. They were your idea of what a loving relationship should be. Mikes were really hard to find, though. 

The first time you hung out at Harry’s Manhattan penthouse, some of his friends were there. You thought maybe you and Harry could watch a movie and spend time with each other, but obviously that wouldn’t happen. 

Harry was different when his friends were around: louder, he would drink more and more arrogant, whatever it took for boys like Flash Thompson and Eddie Brock to laugh and agree with him.

Flash was complaining about how he had to turn in an essay about the Wall Street Crash of 1929. 

“It’s so fucking boring, who cares what happened literally a hundred years ago”, Flash said, like doing the paper was the worse thing could ever happen to someone. “The only interesting thing about Wall Street is the Wolf and Margot Robbie.”

It took a lot of effort for you not to roll your eyes. 

“Don’t turn that shit in, then”, Eddie said, making Harry laugh and shake his head.

“My dad said that if I don’t get at least a C, I can kiss the Dubai trip goodbye.”

“A C?”, you gasped, in spite of yourself. 

“I know right, it fucking sucks”, Flash looked at you, all serious.

That was a little too much for you. Forgetting to care how Harry and his friends perceived you for a moment, you said: “Gosh, I could write a C type of essay about anything in an hour”.

“Well, write mine, then.”

You finally gave into the need to roll your eyes, then looked at him. 

“For 200 dollars I just might”, you joked.

However, Flash took his wallet from his back pocket and gave the money to you. Just like that. Like it was nothing. It probably was nothing to him, but to you, that money was really valuable. That’s how you have justified your hustle since then: you would write reports and essays for some of the rich kids from school and earn enough to help out at home and save for college. It was a perfect scheme, unless someone found out, which you (and your clients, really) have been really careful to prevent.

***

After an hour inside the library, you still had to finish a book report of your own, so you took your things and decided to go to the basketball court. Miguel’s practice hadn’t even started yet, he and some other boys, including Miles, paid attention to what their coach was saying.

You climbed a few steps and sat at the bleachers. Before opening your copy of Hamlet , you observed your surroundings. Besides the basketball team, there were a few freshman kids ready to watch the practice, as well as some girls you recognized from the hallways. 

The coach whistled loudly and the boys clapped their hands, scattering through the court to start playing. Miles saw you and waved. Miguel turned to see who his friend was smiling at, his eyes finding yours. You gave him a shy wave, which he responded to with a nod, turning back to his teammates. 

You felt disappointed at that. Your mind was telling you to stop being stupid, that you had no business having any expectations at all. But you also remembered his smile a few hours before, at lunch. He had a really beautiful smile. You wished it wasn’t a rare occurrence. 

You tried to focus on the book, which you had already read, a pencil and a highlighter in hand. During your reading process, you used post-its to mark pages that had scenes and dialogues that could be useful remembering while writing the report. You always felt grateful to your past self. 

Sounds of sneakers gliding on the court’s shiny floor and the ball being thrown and caught filled your ears in an almost relaxing way. 

“Why is she even here?”, you heard a voice saying not so quietly on your right.

You pretended not to hear, struggling to read the same sentence for the third time. 

“Probably trying to find a rebound”, the two girls laughed at the pun. “It’s kind of desperate, if you ask me.”

Dealing with Harry was hard enough, but people you have never spoken to before? Who were they to say anything about you? Why did they even care? And, most of all, why did those stupid comments hurt you? 

“Hey!”

Looking up, your eyes meet Miguel’s again, but this time he climbs the steps, stopping one before where you were. He took his hoodie off, the white shirt underneath going up with it, before coming down all together. It was so quick, but you swore seeing a part of his six pack awakened something in you.

Miguel put his hand through his hair, trying to put it back in place. He proceeded to fold his hoodie and get on his knees, his long arms offering it to you.

“Can you hold this for me?”, Miguel asked, sounding so sweet, yet another thing you weren’t prepared for. He was so close to you, you could see a few of his sweat droplets in great detail. 

“Yeah”, you nodded, feeling his hand palm one of your cheeks, while his lips kissed the other. 

He went back to the court in what felt like too soon. You put your hand where his was just a moment before, you could feel the heat spread through your face. Back at the court, Miguel was smiling at himself and, next to you, the girls stood in absolute silence.

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a very good idea playlist

#a very good idea #oscar isaac fic #miguel o'hara fanfic #miguel o'hara x reader #harry osborn x reader #miguel o'hara #gwen stacy #peter b. parker #hobie brown #miles morales #jessica drew #friends to lovers #unrequited crush #Spotify

[oculiaperticlausi]

— INTRODUCTING DAMIEN BAILEY

welcome to marina, DAMIEN BAILEY ( cis-man, he/him ) ! they are a/n TWENTY-EIGHT year old who has lived on the island for HIS WHOLE LIVE BUT LEFT AT 18 AND CAME BACK A FEW MONTHS AGO. word on the street is they’re currently living in MARINA HEIGHTS and works as a COMPUTER PROGRAMMER & SOFTWARE ENGINEER. everyone also says they look a lot like LUCIEN LAVISCOUNT. what do you think? — ALYSSA, 29, SHE/HER, PST.

The Baileys were a close knit family, a politician, a doctor and their two sons. Expectations were not as high as some would assume. All the parents wanted was for their kids to be happy, healthy and to live out their dreams.

From a young age, Damien thrived for excellence, wanting to be the smartest, the funniest, the best at everything he touched and he never disappointed. In fact, sometimes he was more competitive than he should have been.

The only thing his mother ever tried to control was setting him up with the perfect girl next door. Something he should have been more into but it was hard to feel that way when the expectation was practically shoved down his throat.

Lunara was perfect on paper, the best girl for him. But when he did actually start to date her... He always wondered if it had more to do with what his mother wanted or if he actually had feelings for her.

So, when he got into the best computer programming school in the state, Harvard. He broke off their relationship and said it was for her sake, for her to enjoy the rest of the high school career without him but it was simply an excuse.

He settles into Cambridge and about a year in is when his older brother came crashing into town.

Of course, Damien took him in, allowed him to stay in apartment but he would disappear for weeks and return as if nothing happened.

It's a pattern that went on for years, sometimes his brother would come up bruised up but wouldn't give him an explanation.

A few months ago, he decided to follow his brother one night, not being able to handle another fucking disappearance. It's when he ended up picking up his brother's bloody body off the sidewalk, demanding he tell him what was going on.

His brother confessed he had an gambling problem, owed some bad people money... money he didn't have. Money he knew he couldn't ask their parents for.

At first Damien wasn't sure what to do, at least until they broke into his apartment and trashed it, knowing if these people got a hold of how rich they truly were, it was only a matter of time before they went after everyone they loved.

He built his brother a new identity and faked his death, begging his brother not to get into anymore trouble.

It was the last time he saw him before he came home to Marina and pretended to bury him with their family. He may have actually died but the grief was real.

A grief that brought him closer to Lunara all over again, showing him that maybe... maybe all those years ago it wasn't just his parents throwing them together.

Everything was going great.. at least until the night of the frightfest where someone hit him on the back of his head and because of the rest of the chaos, no one found him for a hours.

When he woke up the next day, the last few months and everything that happened were simply erased from his mind.

#damien bailey — intro. #character — intro. #death tw #gambling addiction tw #physical assault tw #memory loss tw #attack tw

[jaimebluesq]

And now for something a little original...

That post by @ibijau made me think of something I haven't touched in years - so in case anyone's interested, here's a bit from something original I once was working on, an idea about the lives of the people left behind after the 'upper crust' of humankind escape from the dying planet. (Thank you for making me think of it again!)

~~~

I barely pause in my steps as a trembling shakes the ground below me. Tremors are all too common now to be worth noting. I instinctively dodge a falling potted plant and continue on my way as if nothing strange had happened, not even flinching when it shatters upon the cracked sidewalk.

Arguing voices to my left draw my attention and I roll my eyes as I see two of my neighbours up at arms again. It seems Jayden Pratt was stealing from Kelly Ng's shop again. Why she bothers, I don't know. Nobody has much cared for laws or even money since The Great Abandonment, but there are still many like her who cling to some semblance of how society was before we were told the Earth was going to die.

The announcement came ten years ago, and I'll admit that I missed it. A new video game had just come out, Dragon Effect X, and I'd dedicated a whole week to playing it through every possible outcome. Imagine my surprise when I came out of my self-enforced seclusion only to find out that the world was going to end. Something to do with the core and the magnetic shield... I'm no scientist, I think I was lucky to pass high school science (though I was pretty decent at math). Either way, the world is going to be dead soon enough, though we don't know exactly when.

Of course, an announcement like that was quickly followed by a scaling up of the space race, now that money was no longer much of an object (because honestly, who cares about accumulating little scraps of paper when we're all going to die?) and that governments finally had something more important to do than starting wars and fighting over natural resources. Several countries around the world worked to create “Arks” which would take humanity into space to find a new home. They called it “The Great Departure”, and when the time came, they chose “only the best humanity had to offer” to populate the Arks.

They left two years ago. Those of us left behind are still a little bitter about it.

I still shake my head at some of the reasons they gave for denying people a place. There are conspiracies floating around that there was still room left over when the Arks left Earth, that many more of us could have gone, but those running the show didn't want us to be part of the gene pool any longer. Fuck them.

I think there was only one Ark that allowed those in same-sex relationships and those who were transgendered, because all the others either outright wanted to cut them off or claimed they couldn't breed and therefore couldn't advance humanity. Then of course there were the “coincidental” Arks that just happened to carry mostly white people. And how could I forget the disqualification of anyone with any sort of disability, whether physical or psychiatric? Last but not least was the reason I was left behind – I started menopause early, and as a result, I'm a 39 year old woman who can't breed, and therefore has no benefit to humanity. Oh, of course there were those who were left behind because they were criminals or weren't rich enough, or just didn't know the right people. For every one of us left here, there is a reason why we were apparently “not good enough”.

I wonder if there was ever a time the Earth was more united as when those Arks left, and those of us still here looked on them with a mix of awe and anger and shame. There were some who couldn't even bring themselves to watch the live streams online or on TV. That unity only lasted a very short time, maybe an hour or two, before people filled the streets, invaded the buildings and homes of those who had left, and took them for themselves. After all, the original owners weren't going to be needing them.

There was a general feeling of anarchy, ignorance of the rules and laws that had been the way of the world in so many places, as people who had been disenfranchised took back their fair share. Contrary to what so many movies and books had predicted, there actually wasn't much violence of the person-on-person kind. After all, we were all in the same boat, all equal in this respect. The people we hated were gone. Me, I strolled into the nearest Best Buy and stole the most expensive gaming laptop I could find and copies of every PC game I'd ever wanted. It was beautiful.

After a while, though, things settled down. The initial anger had expended itself, and we had to move on. Well, most of us; there were some who decided they didn't want to wait for the Earth to kill them, and chose their own time and place. But for the rest, there were enough of us who knew about how to keep power grids going, for example, that we could keep the infrastructure running, at least for the things that enough people wanted to keep up. The roads may not be the best kept, but we have lights and internet, food and shelter.

For many of us, that's enough. For many, that's more than they had before.

Jayden, for example, had lived on the street, a runaway who'd escaped an abusive household and fallen into a life of poverty. Now, he's taken over a nice condo and steals whatever food he can get his hands on, like he did from Kelly's small grocery. She knows she can't stop him, there isn't anyone willing to enforce the laws, but she harps on him anyway. It must give her some sense of normalcy, which I can't really blame. Though I don't think she knows that he's the one who's been dropping parcels on her doorstep, little trinkets he finds while going through empty homes. It's his own little way of showing appreciation for the food he takes, though he'd never admit it if confronted about it.

How do I know this? I've gotten to know most of the people in my neighbourhood in a way I hadn't before the Great Abandonment. Not that I wasn't friendly – I was a social service worker before all this came to pass – but there had been a divide, a need for privacy that had changed a little with this new camaraderie with my fellow remainders. They come to me often now, seeking me out to just talk or to work through some feelings on their predicament, or hell, on their latest relationship. Life hasn't ended for us, even if we walk on a ticking time bomb.

I walk up to a narrow townhouse and knock on the door, holding back a chuckle as a crotchety old voice sounds annoyed as it invites me in.

“How's the back feeling, Gus?” I call out as I step inside.

“Like crap, what kind of stupid question is that?” Gus Berkowitz comes out of his kitchen in his bathrobe, back hunched over and hands gripping the sides of his walker. “Is that what they taught you in that cheap college? Ask an old man stupid questions and maybe he'll die sooner?”

“How'd you guess?” I joke as I pick up a couple of glasses from the living room's coffee table. “Though I see it isn't working yet.”

“I'm too stubborn to die. Not even the Earth will do me in.”

The conversation is familiar, almost an exact replication of my last visit, but I don't care. It's nice to see him this spry, and he always keeps me on my toes. I gather more dishes before walking back into the kitchen, Gus' eyes following me as I make my self-appointed rounds. Gus lives alone, having been widowed several years back, and both of his children have families of their own on one of the Arks. He was too old and frail for the Ark, they said. They must have never seen him play Parcheesi.

I do the dishes and a little more cleaning, check to see if his supply of food is sufficient until my next visit, then stay for a couple of games of Parcheesi. I never “let” him win – the bastard always kicks my ass fair and square. When it's time to say goodbye, he says “good riddance”, but I can tell he doesn't mean it. It's lonely here for him, without family and with an attitude that tends to push most people away. If he really hated my visits, I wouldn't be here right now as he'd have kicked me out long ago. I promise to return and leave before he can think up some excuse to keep me here.

I like to help, but I can't stay forever.

As I walk away from Gus' place, another tremor begins, but this one much stronger than the last. While not unusual, this one gives me pause because it gets pretty hard to keep on my feet with the strength of the ground's shaking. There's nothing around me that could fall down on my head so I get down to my hands and knees to wait it out. The moment I'm crouched, however, my body is overtaken by a stabbing pain the likes I haven't felt in a very long time. There, below my stomach, it feels just like the kind of damned period cramps that would lay me up sick from work. What the hell is going on? The pain ends almost as suddenly as it began, and only then do I realize that the trembling has stopped. I take a few moments to gather myself together before slowly getting up to my feet, worried that the pain would start again the moment I'm upright. It doesn't, thank goodness.

“You okay, Val?” It's Jayden, a rare look of concern upon his face as he steps toward me. “Did something fall on you?”

“I'm all right.” I put on my best comforting smile to waylay the concern, and I think it allays whatever fears he may have had. “Just a little shaken from the tremor. You doing okay?”

“Oh yeah, I'm great,” he shrugs with bravado. Always the brave kid. “Never better. You take care now, Val.”

He walks off in the direction of his apartment building and I turn to head back toward mine. My hand absently presses against my lower abdomen, as if pressing enough could tell what had just happened to me. I quickly shake off the thoughts and focus on getting myself home.

It's getting dark and I've got cats to feed, after all.

~*~*~*~

Sometimes I wonder why I still get up in the morning. There's no real 'job' for me to go to, and again, the planet is dying, so why even bother? Then again, I have four cats that won't let me not get up. They can wait, though, as I get to the bathroom and take my time with my normal bathroom stuff, taking my tablet so I can play a few hands of solitaire while I do my thing. The cats stare at me, so I occasionally stare back between hands, until I'm finally done and ready to feed the little suckers. I love them, they're great company, but can be annoying as hell when they're waiting to get fed.

I've never been a coffee person so I start the morning off with a cup of peppermint tea and a toasted bagel slathered in peanut butter. Bagels are a bit of a luxury for me – I can bake some basic bread from a recipe, but bagels are beyond me – and I'm lucky that one of the neighbours I go visit knows how to make them. Mrs. Epstein says the recipe is from her grandmother, but I swear I've seen a recipe book in her place with a bookmark where the bagels would be. It doesn't matter, nor does whether they're good or not. They remind me of the old days, and that's what counts.

I start walking toward my laptop, passing by paintings and photographs on the walls, but pausing when I spot one framed certificate. Valerie Fisher, Social Service Worker. Getting my college diploma had been a big deal, at least for me at the time. That woman, the one I used to be, had no idea what was coming in life. At times, I envy her.

I love this apartment. I never 'upgraded' like so many people did, though I can't say the same for my furniture and electronics. Maybe it's the nice view of the river, or the neighbours, or just that I'm so comfortable here that I can't picture myself living anywhere else. Either way, it's home.

I sit down at my desk and check my email. There are only a couple that need a response, so I pop those out before moving on to some of my favourite forums. My friend Jean-Paul started a thread on one of his favourite topics, the need to create a new government to replace those that left, but he isn't getting much support. Most people associate the government with those that left us behind and much prefer our current anarchic state. Besides, it's not like there will be much time left for a government to govern anyway. Jean-Paul's a good guy, though, and means well. He and his husband Robbie have left me a standing invitation to their regular Saturday “Cards Against Humanity” game night, and I attend more often than not.

My internet surfing is interrupted by a knock at the door, and before I've even turned away from my laptop, my door opens. It's my best friend Vivienne, her arms heavy with groceries and a cheerful smile upon her face. “You're going to burn your eyes out on that thing, child,” she says in a Jamaican accent. “Now help me put these away. You know I'm not getting any younger.”

Viv is about twenty years older than me and moved from Kingston, Jamaica to Ottawa, Ontario when she was in her mid-twenties. She likes to tell me stories about her early nursing days and all the areas she worked before settling on being an obstetric nurse. She also occasionally talks about her boyfriend in Boston, a man I'm not entirely sure actually exists outside of her own mind, but so long as she believes in him, I'll listen.

She's also taken it upon herself to make sure that I'm well taken care of. As she puts it, “You spend so much time taking care of everyone else, you'd let yourself starve.” She's probably right.

I get up to take one of the bags from her and lead the way to the kitchen. “Thanks again, Viv. You know you don't have to do this, though I appreciate it.”

“I know I don't, that's why I do it.” As we put away groceries, she tells me all the latest neighbourhood gossip: who's dating whom, who's pregnant and who's trying, and who's been having a difficult time lately. While the latter isn't entertaining, she knows it's what I want to hear most. Those are the people that I'll try to pay a visit to later. “Oh, and I spotted Grace Brunet, of all people, in Britannia Park.” She pauses, her nose scrunching up. “Building something.”

I stop mid-motion. Grace was not the kind of person to do manual labour. She'd been a crown attorney, had nearly landed a spot on an Ark but had only just lost out in the end. To this day, she says it was either because she's half native, or because one of those making the final decisions had been someone she'd helped the police bring to justice years ago on charges of embezzlement. Maybe it was both, but either way, Grace was not a hands-on woman. And now she was building something.

“I'll go check on her later,” I promise and Viv nods.

After the food is put away, we sit for brunch and catch up, Viv telling me the latest news from her boyfriend and I tossing the occasional scrap of food to my cats, who do excellent impressions of animals who never get fed. I have a brief moment of contemplation, remembering that I wouldn't have moments like this if I'd been on an Ark, might never have gotten to know Viv the way I have. There's a pang in my heart, and I don't know if it's because I'd rather be with the saved or happy to not be there. The moment goes away almost as soon as it comes and I respond to Viv as if my mind had never left the conversation.

Despite the tremors, despite the fear and the unpredictability of our own survival... yeah, I'm happy.

~*~*~*~

#original fic

[el-im]

speaking of my boyfriend and spotify. 

here’s the two playlists i combined into this most recent one because i kind of hated them separately but wanted to document the original intents/separations. la de mother fucking da. 

+ track annotations cause i dont want to work on my fucking presentation: 

1. “a little bit tower of pisa” is a reference to “cigarettes and chocolate milk” which is on here. i think. ive been listening to that one incessantly. full line is “i’m just... a little bit tower of pisa / whenever i see ya”.  which ill discuss anecdotally: when i was in my senior year of high school, mr. t had us analyze carol ann duffy’s works for our individual oral presentations (big official, talk-into-a-microphone-and-send-this-audio-to-switzerland presentation). in discussing “valentine” re: the line “Its scent will cling to your fingers, / cling to your knife.” he said “children, if there is ever a knife in a poem--anything which cuts into, and is presented upright--it’s a penis”

re: the rest of this song: +1 pt “shoe” mention - the reason I was so insistent on chocolate milk--had this on the mind. it sounded rich and wonderful and worth dragging you out of bed for. 

2. i think you will begin to notice a theme with this playlist

3. i realize now the great irony of putting “someone new” on this. at the time, i thought of it re: the magnificent surprise your entry into my life was. now i think of walking home with keegan on that last game night. when you said you told me you were leaving that first day in the library. “don’t take this the wrong way / but you knew who i was / in every step that i ran to you”. OUCH! 

4. sorry to include “if you’re too shy let me know” on this because im generally ashamed of the 6-7 1975 songs i listen to--remnant of me being 15. but--because it has been on my mind, i see if everywhere. me sitting across from you, weeks and weeks ago, in those god-awful plastic chairs in your dorm room. I was so nervous i could hardly speak and eventually just stopped--flustered. “im sorry im not trying to look at your crotch, i just don’t want to look at you in the eye”. you moved your hands to cover yourself--and asked if that was better. (”i’m trying not to stare down there / while she talks about her tough time”). “maybe i would like you better if you took off your clothes” and “i want to see you stop thinking” and “i’ve been wearing nothing every time i call you / and i’m starting to feel weird about it” all very Early relationship avec toi. me anxious out of my mind. pining. whatever. 

5. don’t go home with your hard on. self explanatory. silly song. last night, i dreamed i saw you outside my window. you’d written a letter to the bernasconis--about what i couldn’t fathom a guess--and you were trying to leave it for them and go. i chased you down and tugged you upstairs. 

6. laid. obviously the dynamic is different but i dig the musicality. you’re driving me crazy, when are you coming home?

7. miracle aligner. i wrote this in that eulogies book. i refer to you as such, when i steer conversations with anyone who will listen to me talk in your direction. (”what we love, we mention.” Marie-Helene Bertino). “he was born to blow your mind” etc. etc. “tell him what you want and baby he can find you anything you need”

8. when i’m with you - sparks. one of my favorite bands for stupid/funny songs about sex. “i lose a lot of sleep when i’m with you”, “i always need a shower when i’m with you”. all their songs remind me of this really ridiculous character from quantum leap who only shows up in a couple of episodes. he’s called irving gushman but referred to exclusively as “gooshie” in the show. he has chronic halitosis and is played by dennis wolfberg, but he’s also having an affair with the blonde bombshell computer architect on the project. i digress. i relate a lot to his bumbling, and being generally awkward and gross. do you know what i mean? i don’t even know what i mean. what the fuck. 

9. bloc bloc bloc - orchestral manoeuvre in the dark. love this shitty new wave band. this is exclusively on here because of the line “i want to visit the president / and then i want to get laid”

10. the rest of cigarettes and chocolate milk... you know. knowing you should know better. me oscillating wildly on a street corner at one am on april the 2nd between ‘what the fuck are you thinking’ and ‘kiss him kiss him kiss him kiss him’. i said “what do we have--five weeks?” you didn’t respond to that, you just put your arm around me.  and... indulgence. i mean, real, biblical-type gluttony. i live so much of my life restraining myself. this is maybe the first time i’ve really tried to throw caution to the wind and do what i wanted. i’m glad for it--and to have you in any capacity i can get you in. but christ if i’m not surprised about my vehemence. last night, i wrote a note in pink highlighter: “baby--you have no idea how desperate i am. i’ll drink the dregs.” true, but uncharacteristic. i usually manage to keep a better hold on myself.  the fun thing about typing this out is the distance between you and i here. i’d never say this to you. i don’t mean to be sitting in an electronic fucking confession booth. i know better, but can’t imagine you really reading this. i imagine myself secure here. hi shoemaker!! what’s a girl like you doing in a place like this? 

11. i / never get to hold you / as long as i want to.  the rest of the song is flotsam. but... yanno. god. 

12. fucked in love - this is just funny to me. i love “i’m still so fucked in love with you” what a sentiment?? what a statement??! i was having a weird little cobra starship phase (i listened to them when i was ?? 14?? emo phase). i like the idea of being slightly annoyed at feeling as down bad as i am. i’m really not--it’s all lovely--even the sadness--but i’m amused!!! 

13. megatron man is the song that played in that scene from palm springs where they do a dance routine in the bar which ends with them flipping all the patrons off. “could be us--but we aren’t stuck in a time loop together.” “you know how i feel about caves.“ 

14. tender - blur. admittedly emo. “tender is the night / lying by your side / tender is the touch / of someone that you love too much” rest of the song is frivolous. 

1. could be us but our hair’s not quote long enough and you’re much prettier than john lennon. (do you know anything about the bed-ins for peace?* do you have any idea how content i would be to spend a week in bed with you, all white sheets and down comforter, talking on the telephone--corded, rotary--reading books--flipping lazily through bad cable t.v.?) this was one of my favorite lennon eras... i’m going to be weird about the beatles for a second. stay with me. there’s something ineffable in this period for him and yoko. how joyous the pair of them were--how much in their own private world, which only they understood. they met at an art showing. yoko had written all over the ceilings of the gallery she was in. the word “NO” in big block letters, black marker, making a stain like water rot. underneath it was a metal ladder, which she invited him to climb. she had handed him--at the base--a magnifying glass, which he now raised up between his eye (vision terrible--eyeglasses never worn) and the middle of the black cloud of NO’s. in the center--tiny--handwritten--was a “yes” only visible if you strained. he knew then they would be together--he’d been struck.  *while it was a form of protest--yes--generally, the idea driving it forward is this: you can’t make war from bed, ergo: if everyone were just in bed, peace would descend upon the earth.  + “eating chocolate cake in a bag” from bagism. the concept looms large, but the actuality of it thrills me. it’s delightful. like hide and seek when you’re a kid, enclosed in this space where you’re invisible, and you can do what you please. the picture i conjure in my mind of the pair of them huddled together, enclosed in some massive cloth sack, drawstring pulled taut at the top, eating chocolate cake off a single plate with two forks, is a jouissance.  + “fifty acorns tied in a sack” one of their gestures--a many fingered gift thay airmailed to world leaders--intending for them to be planted in their countries as a monument to peace. there’s nothing more grandiose to me, in life, than the oak tree. what a dream--a sack of seeds.  i don’t mean that sexually.  but who am i to shy away from accidental entendre? maybe semen CAN save the world. has it been tried yet? nonviolently?  unrelated: what are you doing right now?

2. all i do is dream of you - take this literally. 

3. the rain, the park, and other things. this is fodder. i love you in a distinctly late 60s direction. all dreamy + the mamas and the papas. yanno? what the fuck. 

4. like dreamers do - i first heard this off the beatles bootleg recordings. i think. or anthology one? i dont fucking know. (it was anthology one). kind of frivolous. anyway--this version is more polished than the beatles demo, hence its appearance here. no significant meaning behind it--just my incessant dreaming about you. i can’t believe you don’t think that’s significant! i relish in the silliness of it all. i take everything seriously. 

5. hurricane - “real or imagined, what does it matter?” “what is life? only visions” (a line i love inexpressibly). nothing significant here either, just dig the energy. the excitement, and kind of... pushing off the hard questions to the side. enjoying yourself. 

6. take it easy - have gotten SO into jackson browne in the last two ish years. he’s lovely. neil young esque, but a little more straight laced. he’s always reminded me of the open road (maybe it’s just “runnin on empty”). when i added this, i was thinking of you leaving--i mean, actually driving out of flagstaff, and home. how you’d feel behind the wheel, early in the morning, the rest of the summer sprawling out before you. how i keep telling you to stop apologizing to me. i love you, you know. i don’t want you to be upset.  frankly--I don’t know how you’re feeling, what you’re feeling. if you’re changing your mind about this whole thing. I feel like I haven’t seen you, and we’ve not been on the same page. but you know! we can do this, if you want! if there’s anyone who can keep this up, it’s us. i’d like nothing more, but it’s all up to you.  (like is too weak a word--but I’m trying not to freak you out). 

7. calling you - i spent a summer listening to this song, maybe a year ago. maybe two. don’t recall. i was house sitting for the father + stepmother of my older brother and sister. they’re the neatest people i know--run a fabrication and design company called nicomia which does furniture, signage, museum installations... anything you can dream up, they can build. someday, you’ll meet them, and recognize what i mean. their house, magnificent, is like a museum. for years now, chris has been collecting huichols: yarn paintings done by the huichol people in mexico while on peyote. they’re grandiose, larger than life, and more intricate. a few recurring motifs appear between them: stylistic choices consistent across the whole medium. he figures he might have the largest collection in north america now, all archived and catalogued, photographed and titled, the titles/descriptions written on the backs in pencil translated to the best of his and my combined abilities. on the tables, stacked on the bookshelves are hand-painted marionettes. driftwood. a collection of woodwind instruments, dented, deeply loved, which they both play passably. in box frames are pinned beetles, their wings delicately splayed out over foam mats (tane is an amateur entomologist, not classically trained, but driven forward by love, and patience, and careful handling). they have bookshelves in every room, unalphabetized. i plucked from their shelves during this period with a hunger (this was the first time i ever read any didion. i read the year of magical thinking, in one sitting, having recognized her name from the memorial articles i’d been glancing over--she’d just died. at one point, sitting on the couch, i turned on the lamp behind me as the room darkened--the sun dipping behind the tin roof and vanishing. i finished it at 2 in the morning).  i was blissfully alone, and in a beautiful place. the sunlight streamed through the window and into my cup of strong coffee, which i always drank out of one of the white diner mugs chris had stolen years ago from some place that no longer existed (thick ceramic, almost hourglass shaped, you know?). i watered the garden, all tomatoes. and the cacti. the citrus trees and the eucalyptus. i went a month wearing a long sleeve, white button up with cream striped running down the front panels--three sizes too big, in mens to boot--and nothing else. in the mornings, when the sky was still grey-blue with the last dregs of the night, i’d run from bed, out the door, and straight into the pool.  i listened to this song as i washed the dishes. i listened to it as i boiled water for tea, having pulled out their kettle from the back of the cabinet, crammed behind all the ceramic bowls chris had thrown ages ago. i listened to it in the shower, and as i drew/painted/wrote my shitty little stories. at the time, it was a sweet song, that i loved. and now it bears some significance!

and i will keep calling you to see if you’re sleeping, are you dreaming?  if you’re dreaming, are you dreaming of me?

8. modern love - i have a lot of feelings about david bowie. i wrote about him and iman re: commitment, and being well matched to someone in the margins of your eulogies book (if you aren’t reading it, or haven’t gotten there yet, here’s the signpost: ahead lies the starman!) most of the lyrics really have nothing to do with anything. it’s presence here is more owed to the energy of the actual music, and how excited i always am to see you. (do you have any idea how silly i feel--squinting at the license plates on every white truck i see, repeating “mother fucking vehicle” to myself in my mind--looking for oregon plates?)  what it comes down to--ultimately--was that i had very much contented myself with the possibility that i’d be alone for a very long time, if not forever, and was beginning to make peace with that. 

(aside: Sally: What's the matter with me? Harry: Nothing. Sally: I'm difficult. Harry: You're challenging. Sally: I'm too structured, I'm completely closed off. Harry: But in a good way. Sally: No, no, no, I drove him away. And I'm going to be forty! Harry: When? Sally: Someday! Harry: In eight years! Sally: But it's there! It's like a big dead end! And it's not the same for men -- Charlie Chaplin had kids in his 70's! Harry: Yeah, but he was too old to pick them up. [she laughs])

Which is to say: I’m too structured, and completely closed off. So! I figured I’d just kind of make it on my own. Get really into cooking. Draw well. Watch a lot of movies. I figured--yanno--I count a lot on love to come around and change my life. And I was beginning to realize what a crock of shit that was. I thought--if I’m never gonna be with anyone, if I’m never gonna let myself fall in love with anyone, cause doing that sucks, I’ve got to figure out what it is I’d do with my life to make it still worthwhile. I was getting really into going to the library.  (”Never gonna fall for modern love”) And then I met you (“Modern love / walks beside me”) And then I met you (”Modern love / walks on by”)

9. the lady don’t mind - this also really has very little to do with anything. i like the talking heads. likely associated by your texting, once: “goodnight lovely lady” which i preferred, slightly, over the previous “dude”, but which made me feel a little old.  mostly--the title. i’m amenable to anything. i’d do anything for you. can’t promise decency, obviously, but yanno. the enthusiasm’s there. 

10. the repetition of “lover lover lover lover lover lover lover”, a word i can really only stand as being spoken by cohen. my (italian) grandmother used to call me that when i was little, and it always repulsed me. there seemed something so vulgar in it to me. now, i’m older, and i appreciate the vulgarity a little more. 

(aside: i have never fucking seen the movie this is from, but think of this all the time: 

re: everything. the sweat, your inclination to recreate lion king scenes with bodily fluids, which is so gross, by the way, but also something i love you for. pardon the heresy, but to me it’s rather like a christening. closest i’ll ever get anyway).  

anyway. what the fuck.  i believe this song was originally written in the sinai. it’s half an entreaty to god, and half pleading with a woman. you could argue they’re the same thing--that the lover being called after is the same as god, and that the god being asked for salvation/restoration is the same as the lover, but i personally like the separation into two separate entities. yanno--turning your head away from one and to the other. it’s earthly either way, and all supplication.

11. i love george harrison. idk. i lean these days a little heavily into the shoulder of “give me hope / help me cope with this / heavy load” but also “please take my hand / that i might understand you”

12. you play this when we’re in the car. i love it. it bums me out.  “i'll stand outside your window and proudly call your name!” i walked by your room on sunday--you know. it was a beautiful day out. your window was closed! 

13. bad to me - added when i was having a hard time. walked home, away from you, and the morning was bright and beautiful. the sun flooded, and beetles crawled over the heads of daffodils, dragging the blossoms down under their weight. the wine cups had opened. there were pansies, and forget me nots planted under the window ledges at the church. i was pissed off. i mean--unreasonably, vehemently angry at how lively it all was, how resplendent. 

- the beatles demo version of this is better, and the first one i heard, but it’s not on spotify--hence this selection - while i’m at it, other songs i associate with you but aren’t on youtube:  1. you turn me on, i’m a radio: all “if you're driving into town with a dark cloud above you / dial in the number who's bound to love you” and “but you know I come when you whistle / when you're loving and kind” and “kick off the sandflies, honey, the love's still flowing / if your head says ‘forget it’, but your heart's still smoking / call me at the station, the lines are open!” 2. harvest moon because i’m still in love with you

14. sweetheart - kept this on the combination playlist i made of these two, cause i love it so much, and i think it’s relevant, even if it doesn’t quite fit the sound of everything else. It’s sweet. It’s happy! 

Long as I've got you there beside me! Long as you're there to stand and guide me! ... Long as I've got this life I'm living! Long as it's you the love I'm willing I'll keep on calling you ‘sweetheart’!

15. i literally heard this song for the first time this week. i don't know any of the lyrics. doubt they have any significance here. it’s on this playlist cause it sounded fun and i am thrilled to see you--whenever i do. 

16. sorry for the supertramp. another one that’s not terribly deep. i’m ending on a low note here. it’s just light and breezy and happy and i am always so insufferably pleased to be around you. all levity, all sweetness. 

17. i love this one. my mom thinks it’s stupid. i mean it all though, every line.  “I'm gonna waste the rest of my days / just watching patiently from the window / just waiting, seasons change, some day... / my dreams will pull you through that garden gate“ +1pt shoe mention +1pt ‘i’ll do anything for you’, illustrated. 

#long form love letter #captain's log #shoemaker

[ch4nb4ng]

Evil Roommate

pairing: leeknow x afab!reader, roommates enemies to lovers

warnings: softdom!lino, cheating (mentioned), making out, grinding, oral (f receiving), fingering penetration, cum play (?), praise

requested : yes!

word count 6.2k

summary: the new roommate was a handful. lazy, disrespectful, arrogant, and a whole bunch of other negative things. but wow, you were sexually frustrated and he, well, attractive, was an understatement.

“Can you actually like, wash your kitchen utensils when you're done using them?”

The amount of huffing and puffing you have heard from your new roommate in the past two weeks was ridiculous. If you had a dollar for every time he had gone against anything you had politely asked for, you would be rich by now, and definitely stable enough to move out and away from him.

“I will,” he mumbled, mouth stuffed with half of the carrot he was chewing on, very loudly, “can I not enjoy my food first?”

“No,” you replied without hesitation, giving the fakest of smiles in return, “you should do it before you eat.”

Another eye roll from Minho was like water off a duck’s back.

“I'd also appreciate it if you didn’t talk to me with your mouth full of food either.”

“What the fuck is your problem?”

You coughed, turning on your hills to face a very unimpressed roommate. His stare was eye shattering. Yes, he was very, no, extremely good looking. However, every single thing that made up his personality could not be more different to you. Sloppy, messy, lazy. Took no responsibility for any of his actions, especially the high pitch noises (that obviously were not his) you would hear from his room in the early hours of the morning. You would pinch your pillow together, praying extremely hard that the noise would stop, and by the time it did, you would get maybe 2, 3 hours of sleep. College was becoming tiring, not only from staying up to complete assessments, but the lewd noises you could hear from at least 2 people in his room. Your blunt attitude towards Minho’s unhygienic and disrespectful habits were definitely justified.

“What are you talking about?”

“Why do you nitpick everything I do?”

Your jaw dropped, completely dumbfounded.

“Me? Nitpicking you? Please,” you scoffed, “you don't clean up after yourself ever, you leave your dirty clothes everywhere, and don't even get me started on the fact that I barely get any sleep because of your wild sex adventures with other people that occur almost every weeknight, when you know I have to wake up early to go to class next day.”

A combination of frustration and exhaustion could be heard through the harshness of each breath. The smirk that appeared on his face was absolutely punch worthy. What on earth was there to be so cocky of?

“My wild sex adventures,” he paused taking a bite of the dreaded carrot, “please, tell me more about my wild sex adventures.”

His tongue was now obviously pressed against his cheek, a devil coated smile still very apparent on his face. The longer he was looking at you like that, the hotter your cheeks became. Pure anger began to course through you; all he had to do was sit there and look pretty. It was definitely enough for you to get the green light to slap him across the face.

“Shut the fuck up,” you hissed, “I don’t need to explain how I can hear them moaning your name every night, or the banging I hear from wall to-”

“Hmm,” he hummed, “you seem to be listening very well.”

Distracted by your anger for a brief moment, you gasped suddenly, feeling Minho’s fingertips at your sides. You turned around, swatting his hands away, giving him that slap that you felt you had earned across the face.

“Who the fuck said you could touch me?

“Did you just fucking slap me?”

“Yes I fucking did,” you spat, “what do you take me for?”

“You know what you’re right, but you walk around here with a stick up your ass. I hear you on the phone to your friends, complaining about how you don't get any action from anyone.”

You stood there in disbelief. “So you’ve been eavesdropping on my convos as well?”

“Well it’s kind of hard not to hear, you know, the walls in this house are kind of thin.”

Your jaw clenched, his eyebrows furrowed, the conversation was at a stand still.

“Can you get to the point please?”

“I sure can sweetheart,” the name sending a shiver down your spine, “if you're that sexually frustrated, go and do something about it instead of taking it out on me?”

A laugh that you didn't even know you were capable of bellowed from your chest. You stumbled back, grabbing onto stool behind the bench for support.

“Me? Sexually frustrated? Please,” you huffed, “I’m not sexually frustrated, and it definitely has nothing to do with you.”

Another scoff escaped your lips as you shuffled back to your room. Closing the door behind you, a heavy sigh came from your chest as you sat on the edge of your bed. How on earth was he able to read you like that? So well and so accurate? It was all you could think about, not to mention the fact that it was also night time simultaneously.

You let your body fall onto your bed sheets. The feeling of restlessness was consuming your body. As you crawled into bed, you looked straight into the ceiling. Why were you thinking about his words so much? Were you really taking it out on him? You shook your head, mentally slapping yourself for even considering the thought.

Minho was a lazy slob who was extremely inconsiderate of others, especially you. But why was the thought of his fingers on your sides becoming the main source of agitation.? The silence of your thoughts was deafening, but they were easily interrupted as soon as you heard the door open, a high pitched voice followed what felt like the most ludicrous creek you had ever heard. ‘I should really put some oil on the door huh?’ You paused for a couple of seconds, this time physically face palming yourself for the dumb excuse you had made to see who he had decided to bring over to accompany him tonight. Legs completely ignoring your brain, you were out of bed, hand twisting the knob and peeking a look at the poor girl that would be subjected to Minho’s torture tonight. Tip toeing out of the doorway, you kept the weight of a feather on your toes, making yourself as invisible as possible.

“Y/n?”

Your pink panther stance of attempted deception looked utterly ridiculous and not sly at all was extremely confusing to the two. You quickly relaxed into a normal stance, the fakest of smiles coming across your face as you see who it is he brought home to have his way with.

“Chaeyeon… heyyy,” you lingered, “I didn’t know you were coming over.”

You would have been happy with literally anyone else. But Chaeyeon? Chaeyeon? It’s like she was your number one arch rival. Minho knew how much you hated her, yet he still let her come over. Everything about her you could not stand, not to mention the fact that she home wrecked your last serious relationship. Even though it was a while ago, you can forgive but not forget, her face being a constant reminder of your hurtful past.

“Oh hey Y/N,” she almost signed, her amount of excitement to see you matching yours, “I didn’t know you lived here.”

The arm he had around her waist made you sick.

“There’s a lot of things you don't know about me,” you mumbled, foot swaying back and forth, eyes focused on said foot.

“Okay, so you guys have had a little reunion,” Minho interrupted. Anything would have been better to break the awkward silence than his sarcastic comments, “we’re gonna go to my room now.”

“NO!” you interjected, covering the hallway with every bit of your being, “I mean, what’s the rush huh? Changbin is coming over as well.”

You paused, Minho’s face clearly cussing you out if yelling was inappropriate at this current moment.

“Uh no thanks Y/N-”

“We should all hang out!”

The excitement coming from your voice was so inauthentic, it was hard to miss.

“Yeah! Let’s all hang out,” you walked behind them, placing a hand on each of their backs and you hurried them to the couch, “I’ll get some beers in the fridge.”

“I actually only drink vodka,” Chaeyeon yawns, obnoxiously twirling her hair, her other hand aggravatingly high on his thigh.

“Oh that’s totally fine,” you gritted through tightly clenched teeth, “we have a bottle in the fridge, I’ll grab that for you as well.”

You scuffled back over to the fridge, mentally cursing yourself as you grabbed the necessary beverages. The confusion you were giving yourself about why you were putting in so much effort to spend time with the two people you literally hated more than anything was mind baffling

“So,” you began again, passing a Corona to Minho, a glass to Chaeyeon, “how have you been finding your course so far?”

You sat the Smirnoff and Orange juice on the table. Yes, you were being nice, but not nice enough to pour the drink for this bitch.

“Oh it was so great,” she smiled, “Jisung and I were living together, it was, well, a dream really.”

The feeling of your nails became prominent in your fists as your fingers caved in. The mention of his name was enough to make you see red, let alone the idea of them being happily together. The itch of your eye begging to roll was becoming too prominent, so much that you had to get up and walk away for a second. You stood up abruptly, confusion etched into Minho’s features. You didn’t want to make this a big deal, but the fact that she continued to gloat about it, long after you stopped listening was enough to reach your breaking point.

“I think I heard my phone ringing from my room, it must be Changbin.”

“I don't think I hear anything,” Minho smirked, plastering his lips on the edge of the bottle. The way his lips wrapped around the tip of the warm glass was something you ‘accidentally’ became fixated on. You puffed your cheeks, storming to your room and somewhat aggressively shutting the door behind you. Scrambling for your phone on the bedside table, you panicked, unclear mind as you scrolled through your phone contacts. You paused, an inducing amount of oxygen filling up your lungs. It did little to calm the irritated tingling sensation in your fingers.

Changbin’s name had finally popped up on your phone after what had felt like a lifetime.

“Hello?”

His voice was husky, guilt panging your chest as you realsied you had probably woken him up from his not very often deep slumber.

“Changbin,” you gasped, “you know how much I love you right?”

“What do you need me to do?”

You snickered at his words. He had been your friend for too long to know that those words would never be said unless you needed something.

“Can you come over,” you pleaded, “Chaeyeon is here with Minho because he invited her over late at night, and I told them you were coming over?”

“Jesus Y/n,” Changbin sighed, a playful chuckle tickling your cheek, “so you want me to come over and make Minho jealous?”

“Wait no wtf,” you jumbled, “make Minho jealous? I just want you to flirt with me and Chaeyeon so she leaves.”

“Mhm yeah,” he chuckled once more, voice laced with sarcasm as he spoke, “I’ll come over, but if you don't sleep with him by the end of the night, I’m gonna be extremely disappointed.”

“Yeah okay whatever just get your ass over here now.”

And with that you abruptly ended the phone call, Changbin giving you no peace of mind. Were you this easy to read by everybody? A frustrated sigh exploded from your chest. The games your head and your heart were playing with were helping you come to no resolution. You sat on your bed, thoughts were running crazy. Now would be a really great time to just put on Netflix and curl into bed, have some snacks and fall asleep, chip trail on ur chest to be found in the morning.

You were interrupted by the very loud knock on the door. Sprinting like your life depended on it, you were relieved. Seeing Changbin’s face had never before given you so much joy.

“Changbin,” you shouted, wrapping your arms around him in a tight embrace.

“Y/n what are you doing-”

“Shut up and go along with it,” you mumbled into his chest, letting up, but still keeping your body tightly wounded against his. Minho’s jaw became clenched, or were you just imagining things?

Regardless of what it was, your brain quickly shifted to the way Chaeyeon was eyeing Changbin up and down, almost like it was the first time she had ever seen an attractive male. ‘She definitely wasn’t looking at Minho like that when he walked in’ you thought, an unconscious smirk coming to mouth. You bit down on your bottom lip, an extremely poor attempt at masking the satisfaction of your goal being achieved so easily. One step closer to kicking her out, for good, because there was no way you weren’t talking to Minho after this about making an explicit declaration of her abandonment from this house.

“Minho,” he smiled, earning a nod, “Chaeyeon,” he smirked, an almost gag spilling out of your mouth.

“Changbin,” she followed, repeating his smirk, “long time no see.”

She gulped, engulfing a large sip of alcohol into her wicked mouth.

“Let’s play a game!”

“A game,” you questioned, raising an eyebrow, “why would we play-”

“I think that’s a great idea!”

You turned to look at him, a puzzled expression still very apparent on your facial features.

“Get the vodka out from the fridge, and let’s get started.”

***

Two bottles of vodka down, and what looked like 8 bottles of Corona sitting empty on the table, the games that were being played were becoming more difficult to comprehend. Sound of giggle and laughter constantly filled the room as everyone slowly began to lose their minds to the intoxication.

“O-okay, never have I e-ever, done a sexual act in public.”

Filters of chuckles and laughter filled the room as everyone, but you took a sip.

“What?” she asked, offering you her fake sympathy, “you’ve never done anything like that before?”

“I-I mean,” you stuttered, the look of confusion was evident, “I don’t think I have-”

“Yes you have.”

All eyes were snapped open and pressing into Minho’s skull as he began to converse.

“Pfft, no I have not,” you scoffed, taking another swig. An eye roll left came from Minho, followed by a sound of what seemed to be disgust as he shot gunned his current bottle.

“Yes you have,” he nagged, playfully hitting your shoulder, “I saw you.”

Complete silence fell over the room as he words lingered in the air. You genuinely had no idea what he was talking about.The feeling of the room had suddenly changed. His eyes became soft, fixated on nothing but the way your body slumped against the rough material of the couch.

Your mind began to drift. Thoughts floating into earlier scenes of the night. The closeness of his breath fanning your neck ever so softly, palms spread across your hips. The idea of marks on you swimming into your head. God that would feel so good. Letting him grab you and throw you onto his bed. Climbing up your frame, starting from the bottom of your legs, keeping a tight grip on your inner thighs. The feeling of faint lips stealing every inch of your being, tantalisingly hitting every, single, spot, finally reaching your-

“Y/N? Y/N!”

The feeling of Changbin's shaking your shoulders definitely brought you back to reality. His hands did feel nice, but they weren’t the ones you were longing for. Your head was thrown back, disbelief filling you as your mind continued to fill the gutter.

“When?”

As you moved closer, you giggled, placing your finger tip across his knee. You let them dance, index fingers tapping away at the skin you so desperately wanted to see in this moment.

“Mr. Lee Minho, when did you see me?”

“I’m not saying it here in front of-”

“Who? Chaeyeon?”

Your prowling continued, bodies even closer as you slowly began to climb him like an inanimate object. This would have been completely awkward sober. Nothing about this was romantic in the slightest. To an outsider, or Changbin and Chaeyeon, you were right there, situated across Minho’s lap. It wasn’t quite a straddle, it was just something. They both stayed quiet, paying little attention to your animalistic act, already focused on feeling each other up. Or so you assumed, seeing as they didn’t say anything. All that was heard was the sound of the front door. You snapped your head for a quick moment, eyes scanning the emptiness the room suddenly felt.

“It was in the car.”

Minho’s words felt heavy, like he had more to say.

“The car?”

You were taken aback, face moving away from the closeness of his. Part of your brain clicked, remembering exactly what he was talking about. With Jisung. The memory of hurt was quickly forgotten as the feeling of Minho’s palms spread across your body was bringing you to life. The adrenaline came all at once. Your mind was telling you to move away, but your body was saying something else, affirming it’s position.

Minho was leaning in, barely any spaces between the two as his fingertips began to spread lower and lower, firmly gripping either side of your ass as he moved you closer. A helpless whimper escaped your lips as you felt your legs tighten, heat running down to your core, quickly. What the fuck was happening right now?

“You were on top of him,” he whispered, pulling your hips against him once more, “just like this.”

“F-fuck,” was all that managed to slip out of your lips. This was becoming difficult. So difficult to say no and move away. You knew it was the right thing to do. Things would just be awkward and you could go back to hating him. No matter how much you tried, how much you wanted to, you were powerless. Every fiber of your being was being given up to him. You leaned in closer, foreheads now touching as you looked at him. His gaze was anything but lacklustre as his jaw became tense. His body began to ache simultaneously with yours. The pressure was becoming too much.

“Do you want this?”

“What?”

A small whine escaped you at the loss of his tips gripping your body. They quickly made their way to either side of your face. Your body began to rock back and forth on it’s own. You had become desperate for any sort of friction that you could create.

“I said, do you want this?”

“Do you?”

His expression made you nervous. It was hard to read. All you could see was the black substance of his pupils enlarge, increasing in diameter by the second. Almost like a supernatural being was possessing him.

“Fuck,” you grunted, wrapping your hands around his neck to steady yourself on top of him, “you’re making it hard to say no.”

Things were already becoming hazy the longer you stayed. A huff of frustration came from him as he was giving all his effort not to give into the way you were rubbing your dampening heat against him. It was like a drug he could not refuse.

“Kiss me if you want me.”

He huffed, the edge of his lips just barely brushing against the tip of your nose.

“Kiss me, and give me the green light.”

You waited a moment, any part of your brain that wasn't concentrated solely on his palms digging into your sides trying to reason. You looked at him once more. His eyes, nose, lips. His lips.

“Fuck it.”

He was quick to work, pushing you down to lie flat against the couch. A small kiss to your lips was felt as he pulled away, lifting his arms up and throwing his shirt to the floor at Usain Bolt pace. The smirk on your face was too easy for him not to see.

“You like what you fucking see don’t you?”

“Just shut the fuck up and kiss me.”

Of course. Of course he was still that arrogant cocky motherfucker that you could not stand. The one who never cleaned up after himself. Or took too long in the shower for the hot water to run out. All of these evil perceptions you had of your roommate were disappearing as his lips were gently placed onto yours. It was a little too slow for your liking, but it was deep. Boy, was it deep. Each movement of his tongue was made with so much precision as he lowered himself onto you. His thighs were clenched, a soft groan could be heard against his lips as his groin pressed into you. Holy fuck, were you really doing this? It was so wrong. Everything in the world was saying to stop, stop this.

“Mm- wait,” you paused your hands on his chest to push him away, “wait.”

A flash of panic waved over his eyes as he quickly jumped off of you, face palming the floor.

“What’s wrong? Did I do something wrong? Did I hurt you? Are you-”

“I’m fine,” you interjected, giggling at the never been seen care and caution he had for you, “I just don’t think we should do this.”

“Oh,” was all he could say. You kept your gaze lowered; looking at him would have made you feel so guilty. The feeling of regret started to seep into your bones, but you couldn't tell: was it regret of this ever happening, or was it regret from stopping? Your head was too muddled to even attempt to comprehend what had just appended. The only sound that could be heard was your scuffed footsteps, quickly pacing back to your room and shutting the door, hard. The loudest sigh known to earth could be heard on the opposite side of the room as you let your body collapse. The ache between your legs was growing by the second; and as much as you tried to suppress the feeling of Minho’s lips on yours, fingertips dragging along your sides. No. It was much easier this way. Setting boundaries as roommates seemed to be a better idea for the long run.

But the long run was boring. You would both have to pretend that this never happened. Having other people over for sexual purposes would just be awkward now; the more you thought about it, the realisation, and the jealousy hit that you had already crossed said boundary. And maybe that’s why your feet had dragged you to the front of his bedroom door. How the fuck did you get here? You brought your knuckles to the wooden frame, door becoming slightly ajar as you gently knocked. Minho’s snapped his head around, covering himself quickly as you walked in. You cocked your eyebrow, a face of confusion apparent on your face.

“What are you doing?”

“Nothing,” he huffed, turning back to his previous position, “what do you want?”

You wanted to just walk out. Mind your business and just leave. But it was hard, quite literally. The imprint of what you assumed to be Minho’s naked lower half painfully pressing into the sheer sheets that was covering him. He paid you no more attention, giving you all the power to initiate whatever it is you wanted to initiate. You slowly crept in beside him, nuzzling your head into the back of his neck as he groaned in annoyance.

“Y/n, what the fuck are you doing in my bed?”

“Hmm, I think I changed my mind,” you whispered, reaching around to grab him. A blunt hiss escaped Minho’s lips as your action made him turn around. He was so close to you now. So close that you could feel his breath spreading across your left cheek.

“Are you being serious right now?”

The look on his face was unimpressed to say the least.

“Yeah, I mean,” your voice was calm as your hand began to take flight, sliding down to the base of his shaft, “we’ve already crossed the line, let’s go a little further.”

“Oh yeah?” His voice was dripping with sarcasm. He grabbed you by the wrist that was currently on him, pulling it away and climbing on top of you. Both hands now leaving his side, securely attached onto both wrists as he pinned them down above your head. Nose clumsily tickling yours as he reattached his lips to yours. The feeling of his lips was much softer and calmer than before, almost like he was protecting you. Wanting to keep the moment so delicate, though the way his bare hips involuntarily grinding against your clothed core was far from it. A soft whimper came from your lips, vibrating against his. A soft chuckle was heard from Minho as he pulled away; it made you nervous. To be more specific, the way that arrogant, mischievous smirk that you knew all too well was spread across his face.

“You’re so responsive to me,” he growled, quickly planting another one on your lips before sliding down to your jaw, then your neck, stopping at your chest. Nothing needed to be said as you quickly discarded your shirt, silently thanking your past self for not wearing any underneath. Minho situated himself in front of your now bare chest, waist sitting against your heart as he took one nipple into his mouth, fingers enclosing around the other. A loud whine left your lips, back arching in reaction to him. He looked up, satisfied filling his body as you weren’t able to return his gaze, head already rolled all the way back as he continued his playful assault.

“It’s so cute,” he mumbled between kisses, “so responsive and I’ve barely done anything.”

His lips travelled down the center of your stomach, dipping dangerously closer to where you wanted him most. His continuous rhythm between kisses was immaculate. Any of the incoherent sounds you made, or the crude remarks he made were left unsaid.

“Fuck,” you hissed, painfully throbbing at the way Minho played with the waistband of your panties.

“Not fun to be teased y/n,’ he paused, making sure you were looking at him, “is it.”

A pang of guilt hit your chest for a moment. I mean, it’s not like you did it on purpose, right?

“Minho I’m-”

“Save it,” he scoffs, “whether you did it on purpose, or not, I’m not gonna let you have it so easily.”

His fingers stopped their performance across your hips, continuing a little lower than before. The smirk came to his lips once more, index finger running down your slit. The friction was fierce, but not fierce enough. You wanted, no, you needed more. All he could do was smile at your mercy.

“So fun to tease darling, but you’re gonna have to be more vocal if you want these panties off.”

“Minho please,” you whined, “for fucks sake.”

You bucked your hips forward, desperate for any more contact from the bare minimum he was giving you.

“That doesn’t sound very nice to me.”

“Minho please, please, please,” you whispered, voice becoming super weak, “fuck me, or finger me, anything please, I need to feel you.”

“Now that’s more like it,” he smiled, finally pulling your panties down. You have never lifted your hips faster in your life. The vulnerability of your naked body was somewhat confronting, but your brain was so fogged out from the immense teasing, you cared little.

“Fuck,” he gasped, spreading you effortlessly with two fingers, “you’re so wet for me, aren't you?”

The heat in your cheeks rose as you became embarrassed at his words. Minho didn’t know this, but feeling humiliated was something that could make you cum on the spot. Words intended for insult went through your ears and straight down to the core, the heat becoming like an intense fire igniting in your body as one of his hands moved along your inner thigh, the other gently beginning to circle around where you needed him most.

“Oh my god,” you gasped, “oh my god Minho please, more.” Your voice was becoming needier by the second, but the longer it went on, the less you seemed to care. His tongue was now a factor coming into play, small kitty licks lapping your clit at a suddenly fast pace. Your legs are already trembling, but Minho does more to appease, hooking his arms under and around your thighs to stop the flustered look on your face. It was confronting how quickly he was getting you to your high.

“Please,” you sighed, eyes hazed as you attempted to look down at the way his tongue was on you. The combination of him sucking on your clit, then pushing it through your entrance almost made you scream. However, the noises that came from your mouth were small, heavy pants, progressively getting louder and louder the tighter the knot in your stomach became.

“Do you wanna cum princess?” His voice was whiny, mocking the tone you had used earlier. You nodded ferociously, knowing any attempt to speak would come out horse or just broken.

“Such a good girl,” he purred, replacing his tongue with two fingers, “but if you want to cum, you’re gonna have to beg for it once more.”

“You’re such a fucking dick,” you groaned, an attempt of grinding your center onto Minho’s fingers failing miserably, “you’re being so unfair.”

“I’m unfair?” he scoffed, beginning his digits back to a bare minimum pace, “you’re the one

who was teasing me all night. I know Changbin is like, your best friend so there was no chance you were bringing him back to fuck him. Then you start to kiss me, hard and fast may I add, AND THEN ! you aren’t sure and you leave me to pretend like nothing happened.”

There was no witty comeback you could say in response because he was right. You were the one who has done the teasing for most of the night.

“You looked so fucked out right now baby,” his tone coming back to a calming medium, “begging for me to make you cum, which I can do right now,” he paused, climbing back to your side, lifting your left leg to continue his easy access to ur clit, “or you can beg even more to have my cock inside of you. The choice is yours.” You swallowed, hard. How could he say something so filthy? Out of all the times you had heard him bring other girls over, he would never talk like this. It was always so nice and calm, full of praise and compassion. Maybe they didn’t act like cock teases and let him just have what he wanted.

“C-cock,” you mumbled, pushing your backside against his now pulsating cock, “please give your cock sir.”

“Ooo sir, I like that one, but you’re gonna have to do more if you want me to fill you up princess.”

Words were becoming extremely hard to not only facilitate in your mind, but put them on your tongue and get out to him. He knew this. He knew your were on the brink of collapsing in cum, but the torture was too entertaining for him nonetheless. Although you're frustrated with him was increasing, you couldn’t lie to yourself that the way he was using you like a sex toy was turning you on. After being up his ass so long with rules around the house and how you wanted things done, it was nice to finally let go. Submit to his rules instead of yours.

“P-please Minho, sir’ you panted, head turning to look at the sadistic face of enjoyment he was having from this, “I’ll do anything, a-anything to have your cock inside of me right now.”

“Anything?”

“Anything.”

“Okay then tomorrow morning, you have to make me breakfast, AND wash my dishes.”

“Seriously,” you panted, “that’s what you're thinking about right now?”

“You said anything.” He shrugged, suddenly taking his fingers away from your dripping core. A gasp of disappointment came to your lips at the loss of delicious contact. Minho sat up, ducking under your leg, and positioning himself right back to where he was previously. However, this time, he was on his knees. Although you were touching it before, you really hadn't had a chance to look at how big it was: way more than what you expected. He stroked himself a couple of times, making sure not to get carried away with himself before he pushed it between your folds, letting his pre-cum mix with your juices. He slowly descended into you. Jaws dropping simultaneously, you gasped. The way he was stretching you out did burn a little bit, but once he was fully inside, your eyes rolled to the back of your head. Minho waited until the look of slight discomfort faded from your features.

“Are you okay?”

You nodded, biting down on your bottom lip and he slowly pulled himself back out. He kept a consistent, yet slow pace as leaned in closer to you. He was now hovering over, letting his face become buried into the middle of your breasts. The feeling was so immaculate, you were desperate to cling onto something for support.

“Dig them into me,” he groaned, strangling his vocal cords, “dig your nails into my back and scratch me like your life fucking depends on it.”

Perfect. You did as he pleased, a loud moan of his name wrestling from your lips as you felt the red marks appear on his backside. The pressure from before was already building in your stomach again, and he could tell. The way you were super tight for him was one, but the way you were now clenching around him was another. He knew he wouldn’t last much longer if you kept doing that.

“Fuck,” was all you could manage to say, a deep grin plastered on his face.

“You’re close aren't you,” he cooed, attaching his lips to your neck, “talk to me baby, tell me what you're feeling.

“Mhm, yeah, fuck I’m so close baby. H-Harder.”

The pitch of your tone was becoming whinier by the second. To add to that, the way you became confused, as if Minho was a vampire, because the way he was sucking on your neck was kind of painful. Nevertheless, you relished in it, knowing too well that a very, very dark mark would replace his mouth. The idea of him showing his possession of you, knowing that he finally won you over did not make you happy, nonetheless, you were too fucked out to care.

Your legs were now pushed all the way back, pace fastening by the minute, allowing Minho to push even deeper into you. And that was it. Right there, the spot you had never even known was even there.

“Ah fuck!” Your moan was loud this time, completely unable to control anything. The smirk, in combination with the satisfied growl that left his lips was a face of pure ecstasy as he realised that he had finally hit your G-spot.

“Fuck that feels so fucking good,” Minho grumbled, “are you close? Because I think I’m gonna cum.”

It was like your stomach was an orchestra. Minho’s words were the conductor, completely controlling how close you were to your release.

“Y-yes,” you cried, “I’m gonna cum so hard right now.”

“You wanna cum baby?”

“Yeah.”

“You wanna cum right now?”

“Yes baby,” you pouted, a perplexity of sounds escaping your lips, completely out of your control.

“Cum on my cock princess,” Minho whispered through what sounded to be like pained groans, “be a good girl and cum with me inside of you.”

And there it was, like it was on queue as your body completely flopped, legs shaking and a string of lewd curse words fell from your lips. The way your pussy clenched around him was enough to make him pull out, spilling into the dip of your stomach. A loud breath of what seemed to be exhaustion fell from his lips. Your eyes were previously screwed so shut, it hurt when you opened them again, sensitive to the light.

“Fuck,” you both cursed simultaneously, making one another giggle. Minho fell to your left side, flat on his back as he invited you to scooch over next to him. Face pressed against his chest, fingers playfully dragging up and down his torso. For some reason, he felt so safe and secure at this moment. Almost forgetting how he literally just fucked you into oblivion, your eyelids become heavy. It wasn’t until Minho spoke that you were revived from your alternate state of consciousness once more.

“I didn’t know you had it in you.” His voice sounded genuinely surprised, unsure if you should be offended or not. You looked up at him, quickly pressing a kiss to his cheek. He wasn’t sure how to react, but the dark shade tinting his face right now said enough.

“Please,” you scoffed, “You did me good, but was that the best you can do?”

He ran his tongue across his bottom lip, but down on it after, “Is that a challenge?”

You said nothing, instead sitting up and pushing your legs on either side of his hips. A soft moan escaped his lips as he felt your still dripping heat sitting on the base of him.

“Why don’t you find out and see?”

#lee minho #minho #leeknow #stray kids #lino #lee minho smut #skz smut #leeknow scenario #stray kids smut #stray kids scenario #dom leeknow #dom lee minho #dom lino #lino smut #ch4nb4ng

[piratesfromspace]

Finance Management (Deckard Shaw/Reader)

Deckard Shaw (Fast & Furious) x Reader

Word count: 1.9k CW: mention of food & alcohol, smut

Female reader

Note: This short fic has been inspired by a friend of mine who created the character of the financial advisor of mister Shaw.  Also there is not enough fics with Deckard Shaw so here we are. 

Read on Ao3

MASTERLIST

“Mister Shaw, it’s me again, I’m so sorry but I really need you to call me back please. It’s important. Thank you.”

You let out a deep sigh as you hang up. Handling the finances of rich people is a lucrative and thrilling job, but damn it sometimes those clients of yours are annoying. Especially Mister Shaw.

First, he’s annoyingly busy and unreachable. Most powerful people are, but he can disappear for weeks on end without so much as sending an email.

Second, he’s also infuriatingly handsome and smart and funny. And he has an impeccable sense of style. He has nothing in common with the other clients of your firm, mainly old and boring men, whose only conversation subject is their money and how they hate their wives.

And finally, the worst thing about him is how good of a lover he is. You found out half a year ago, when you ended up in his bed after what should have been a regular business dinner. It was a mistake of course. One that could have cost you your career because it was a very serious breach of contract to sleep with a client.

You never told a soul, and you promised yourself to never do it again. But it was still hard to forget the feeling of him pressed against you, of his hands holding your waist, of his mouth between your thighs...

You try to focus again on your task and stretch your legs, kicking out your high heels. Feet bare on the soft carpet, you walk to the floor-to-ceiling window of your posh office, taking a second to admire the view, as the final rays of the sun disappear over the lake, and Geneva lights up under you. It’s breath-taking, really. But it also means you’re once again staying way too late at the office. Your assistant has gone home a couple hours ago, and your colleagues are either on vacation or on business trips, making you the only person on the building’s 7th floor. You still have a few things to finish so you plop on your leather chair and get back to work, hoping to make it home before 11pm.

That’s when you hear it: the familiar *ding* of the elevator’s door, at the end of the corridor. You tense immediately. You’re not waiting for anyone, and the security guards always use the stairs when completing their patrol.

Steps are coming down your way, and you grab your phone, ready to dial for the security team. And then you recognize his silhouette through the polished glass wall. There is a knock on your door before it opens to reveal Deckard Shaw himself. He’s wearing an expensive suit and an even more expensive watch, a very light stubble is highlighting his perfect jawbone and his deep grey eyes bear a mischievous glint. Handsome, as always.

“Mister Shaw…” you stammer.

“You know you can call me Deckard.” His stupidly sexy British accent and cocky smile will be the death of you.

He’s been in your office for two seconds and you already want to slap him in the face - or climb him like a tree, you can’t really decide.

“It’s quite late, Mister Shaw, you scared me. Anything I can do for you?” you insist on saying his family name, in a feeble attempt to maintain a professional façade.

“You needed to see me.” it’s more a comment than a question, and you’re suddenly reminded of the dozen of unanswered phone calls you made trying to reach him.

“Yes… yes, that’s right, but honestly you could have called tomorrow morning.”

“I’d rather see you in person.” he answers, looking you straight in the eyes. You can feel yourself blushing under his gaze. “Wanted to make sure you’re alright. You’re working too much you know.” he says with a soft smile, as his eyes drift down to your sore bare feet and then to the discarded heels under your desk.

What a condescending prick, you think. But at the same time, he’s right and his care seems somewhat genuine. It will not make you forget you almost lost your job because of him though.

“How did you know I was still here tonight?” you purposely redirect the attention on him, rather than you.

“Well, let’s say I would not leave the woman in charge of my assets without any... supervision.”

“Is that a polite way to say you’ve been spying on me?” you retort dryly.

“Oh I love when you’re getting all angry and snobbish, your French accent is even cuter.”

You’re gonna murder him. You really really want to tell him to go fuck himself, but he’s the one responsible for a very generous part of your paycheck, so you have to keep quiet.

“I would be more comfortable if we keep our conversation strictly professional, Mister Shaw.”

“Everything you want, dear.”

-----

“Mmph, fu-ck... Deckard, don’t stop”

The professional attitude has been long forgotten, since Deckard has pulled you onto his lap on the velvet couch of his presidential suite at the Four Seasons hotel, where you were supposed to only review the important documents he needed to see. But when the room service had brought a very nice bottle of Scotch, you knew you were screwed. You could not refuse a drink, and the warmth of alcohol combined with the warmth of his hand slightly brushing against your thigh had overcome all your resolve.

You are now sprawled on the king-size bed, moaning his name as Deckard Shaw is destroying your sanity very methodically. One foot on the floor, one leg bent on the edge of the bed, he’s pounding into you, holding your hip with one hand, and circling your clit with the other. His pace is calculated, not too fast so you can feel every inch of him, but not too slow so your nerves don’t have any respite, and it’s driving you crazy. Hands tangled in the dark silk sheets beneath you, you try to catch your breath to no avail.

“I won’t stop darling. Not until I can feel you coming again all over me.” His voice is like heavy honey, dripping all over your senses, drowning you in sweet and sinful promises.

You want to close your eyes to focus on the overwhelming feelings, but the view in front of you is too good to be missed. He looks like some demi-god, bathed in the subdued light of the room, broad and muscular chest, abs perfectly drawn. What is his job again? You vaguely remember him talking about serving a few years in the military when he was younger, but he is still definitely hitting the gym on a regular basis.

His muscles flex when he brings you down on his thick cock a little more sharply than before, and you keen as he hits that perfect spot inside of you. You can feel your orgasm build again, and so can he.

“You’re close, princess, aren’t you?”

You mewl in response and he chuckles darkly, keeping up with his ruthless assault on your most sensitive parts. He angles his fingers just a bit differently on your clit, and keeps thrusting into you, stretching you so perfectly you can’t remember the last time someone fucked you this good - wait , actually you can, it was a few months ago and it was by mister Deckard “annoyingly perfect” Shaw.

“Come on, I know you want to, I’ll keep going until you give me one more anyway princess…”

And that's it. You’re gone. Back arching off the bed, you come hard, harder than the first time, clenching around him. You barely hear him hiss in pleasure as you spasm helplessly on the soft sheets, the silk feeling almost cool against your burning skin.

----

“Good morning darling."

You open an eye, natural light is flooding the room, as is the delicious smell of fresh coffee and tea. At the foot of the bed, you spot a room service trolley loaded with breakfast treats and through the open door of the bathroom, you can see Deckard is looking at you in the mirror reflection while buttoning a crisp white shirt.

"Your tea is ready. Black, no milk, right?”

He's right and it's annoying because is there anything this man messes up?

"What time is it?" You ask, suddenly remembering you have a busy schedule today.

"You have 27 minutes to eat and get ready, so I can drop you off at your office in time for your first call of the day."

He knows about your tea preferences and your professional agenda, of course he does , he was not joking when mentioning the whole "spying-on-you" situation, or "supervision" as he liked to call it. He needs to stop it, but you decide to keep this discussion for another day.

You stretch, and rise to put on the hotel bathrobe, sighing at the thought of having to wear the same clothes as yesterday. Last you saw them, they were scattered on the floor all over the room and your underwear were positively ruined.

"The concierge was very helpful this morning, thanks to him I got you a few clothes delivered for today." Deckard adds as he pours himself a cup of coffee from the cart and gestures to the leather armchair where a couple of bags doning logos of luxury brands are perched.

You make your way to the packages, and open the first one to reveal a sophisticated dress, fitted and sexy, but not too much that it would be inappropriate as office wear. The second bag is a thoughtful selection of high end make-up products. And the last one contains a gorgeous set of lacy lingerie, nothing too raunchy but sexy nonetheless. Of course everything is in the right size.

"Thank you..." you whisper, a little stunned. The assortment must have cost him a couple grands at the very least - not that he can't afford it because you're well placed to be sure he can, but still, he did not have to do this.

You have to suppress a smile, because damn he's being annoyingly perfect once more, but you don't want to give him the satisfaction to reveal he was right when promising you could stay the night instead of going home and still look fresh for your day at work.

"I was thinking, I'm free tonight, so maybe we can finally review those documents, you know the ones you were supposed to show me before you jumped on me on the couch last night?" Deckard states as he bites in an apple in front of the window, casually looking at lake Geneva glinting in the bright morning sun.

You blush unwillingly, struggling to find a reply that would save you from admitting you had failed at enforcing your usual work ethic.

"I'm kidding dear!" He barks in a laugh. "I know enough to trust you on this venture, you have my approval to go on with the investment." He continues more seriously.

You open your mouth to answer but he's quicker.

"I'm not kidding about being free though, so what about dinner and then we can see where this takes us…"

When you don't answer immediately, he turns to look at you. Maybe he's realizing the situation can be awkward and precarious for you since you're technically working for him.

"You can say no, I won't take any offense." He adds without irony.

"Yes..." You finally answer, tip toeing toward him until you can snatch the apple he was eating from him. He protests but you shush him.

"...Yes, I would like this very much..."

As he starts to protest again, you take a big bite from the fruit with a knowing smile.

"...but only for dinner. Nothing more."

"You'll be the death of me." Deckard says, falsely irritated, his voice dropping lower.

"At least the feeling is mutual, mister Shaw ..."

#deckard shaw #deckard shaw x reader #female reader #fast and furious #hobbs and shaw #deckard shaw fanfiction #hobbs and shaw fanfiction #deckard shaw / reader #jason statham #jason statham imagine #smut #hobbs and shaw smut #deckard shaw reader insert #fast and furious fanfiction

[erodasfishtacos]

Curious Gazes

prompt: [CEO!Harry] four times harry has been spotted by employees being very unlike his demeanor at work.

word count: 4.3 k

warnings: harry is an asshole to everyone but is wife and baby.

**** <-- click for visuals throughout the story. ( because i love showing off how dumb rich harry is - i mean he’s a billionaire ffs)

notes: thanks so much for the love on the first part. I will be writing quite a bit for this trope. the next addition will be all smut. love you, enjoy.

PART ONE

----

RESERVATION RUN-IN

Harry has over a hundred-thousand full-time employees. He has nearly ten-thousand at his London office at all times. The skyscraper was beautiful with clear glass, a reflective grey tone, and the structure screamed modern. It has eighty-three floors.

So with that being said, Harry does not know even one third of the people who work in the building nor does he want to. He couldn’t pick them out of a line-up if he tried. 

However, having so many employees in the city means his staff members are bound to catch sight of their boss pretty often outside of the office.

Sarah, Lucielle, Jack, and Anya - all from the customer service department of Styles Media and Marketing Inc. - are all out to dinner. They decided to go all out and dish out a hefty amount to eat at Il Nascondiglio Segreto. It was a reservation they had made nearly a month ago.

As they’re enjoying their appetizer, Lucielle nearly chokes on her oyster, “Holy shit. It’s Harry,” She whispers, nodding her head in the direction she was staring with bulging eyes.

They all can’t help but turn subtly, a perfect vantage point from where they’re sat right across the way from the group of employees. Their boss was dressed in a bit more casual - not by much - attire than he’d worn to the office earlier that Friday afternoon.

He had an open blazer with a white, nearly see-through button up. Their eyes nearly jumping out of their skulls when they spot his butterfly tattoo sitting on right below his sternum. Jack’s hawk eyes catch that he has a name in cursive on his left pec. 

Plus his normal tailored suit trousers were replaced with tight skinny jeans that hugged his crotched - making it unmistakable that he was well….endowed. Hair was no longer as styled and curled. Laying more carelessly on his shoulders. ****

But what was the most absurd thing they saw him wearing was a smile. His lips were curled up in a large, white grin that was big enough to cause little wrinkles around his eyes. 

His hand intertwined with his wife’s until they arrived at their table, pulling out her chair for her, landing a soft kiss on her cheek before sitting down in his across from her.

He automatically puts an open palm halfway across the table and his date places her’s right on top of it. Her large engagement ring and wedding band sparkling in the low lighting in the restaurant. They were holding hands over the table.

The group had never actually seen the women they deemed Cruella Deville. They had envisioned his wife with bleach blonde hair, fake tits, and fish lips complimented with botox that made it so her forehead didn’t move.

But they were met with a beautiful, natural one instead. She had gorgeous curled locks trailing down her back, light neutral makeup with normal sized lips, small creases where they should be. 

Her body was natural as well, breasts pushed up in a bra but obviously not manufactured by the way they sat, a bit of a pouch around her midsection - a telltale sign from her recent pregnancy, and a radiant smile to match her husband’s. 

They looked so happy and in love.

She was dressed short, polka-dotted black dress with a pair of simple black shoes. She complimented with with a bright red lip which stood out against the dark fabric. ***

It’s not that they didn’t look like a match - she was absolutely stunning. It just wasn’t who they imagined for the boss they despised ninety percent of the time.

The group can’t keep their eyes off the couple - subtly, of course - for their whole time at the restaurant.

Harry was laughing loudly - different sound than when he laughed without a humor at bumbling, nervous employees.

It was light and higher pitched - but still gravely low; smooth like honey as his wife matches his laughs.

At one point, after their meal arrives - Harry offers her a spoonful of his food, playfully complaining that she took too big of a bite - but then immediately offering her more right after.

When she excused herself to the bathroom, Lucille catches Harry’s sneaky hand reaching out to give her backside a quick grope which earns him a warning glance that has him snickering.

Anya who was in the restroom nearly runs into her, Y/N apologizes instantly, “I’m sorry! Wasn’t watching where I was going! Are you alright?”

Anya nods, a bit at a loss of words, talking to Harry Styles' wife, “I’m okay, thank you.”

“I swear I have two left feet,” Y/N jokes, complimenting her dress before disappearing into a stalls. A completely lovely girl.

It’s pathetic but the group lingers around to watch their boss’s full dinner date. It was creepy but they were just so stunned at the man that was sitting by them.

The couples behavior had turned more flirty by this point, Y/N’s eyelashes fluttering at little bit more at her husband, her giggles flowing more often with licks to her lips. 

By the clenched fist on the table, Harry seems to be falling prey to the teasing. 

But when his wife whispers something - that must have been filthy - and leans forward so her cleavage is displayed more, Harry’s pulling out his wallet, pulling an absurd amount of bills out and throwing them carelessly on the table.

Y/N’s eyes are twinkling in victory as her husband stands and helps her out of her chair - ever the gentlemen.

It doesn’t seem very gentlemen like though when his hand comes to the very lowest point on the small of her back -  pushing her into him. He leans down to murmur something into her ear before landing a damp, way too intimate for public kiss to her jaw and then throat.

In turn, she looks up at him with a mischievous tilt of her lip and a challenging raised brow. You could cut their sexual tension with a knife.

Y/N lifts up on her toes to kiss him before grabbing his hand and guiding him out of the establishment quickly - his eyes glued to her bum the whole time.

Jack breaks the bated silence, with a bewildered chortle, “What the fuck was that?”

Sarah sips her wine, “Maybe he has a twin? Like a good twin? And he’s the evil one.”

They all laugh and finish up their desserts. 

---

MOTHER’S DAY SHOPPING

Kasey and Tom - from Human Resources - are out for the day. It was a week before Mother’s Day and they were both scrambling for a gift at the shops.

Harrod’s was nearly empty as they had came in a few minutes after the store opened. Kasey had gotten distracted from her mission and was trying on shoes. 

There was a 40% off sale and she wasn’t passing that up.

Tom had wondered off to the electronics department very soon after the first five shoeboxes arrived next to her chair.

“Pink!” Kasey hears a high-pitched baby voice squeal with utter delight. She looks up to see a curly haired toddler pointing at a pair of pink baby shoes.

The little girl had the cutest denim dress on with white stripes ***, white tights on, and white Mary Janes. When Kasey looked closer she realized the Gucci emblem was on the dress - holy shit, she didn’t even know Gucci made baby clothes.

“Daddy, please?” The toddler asks in a sweet, small voice looking to the approaching man who scoops her up in the crook of his elbow.

“Ivy, y’can’t run away from daddy. Do you understand me?” 

Kasey’s eyes widen as she recognizes that deep, raspy voice. It was her boss, Harry Styles, and with his little mini who looked like a cherub angel.

“No run, daddy,” Ivy grins up at him, looking for approval.

The slightly stern look dissipates from his face into a softer, relaxed smile at his daughter’s words. He kept her close against his chest.

“Daddy, please?” She piques up again, pointing at the small shoes on the wall.

“Y’want those shoes?” Harry asks, nodding towards the pink sneakers.

Ivy nods before pointing at the other shoes next to it, “All, please?”

Despite her father not having any manners in the slightest, his daughter seemed to have excellent etiquette.

Harry chuckles, smoothing a stray curl down from her forehead, “Y’want a pair of all these shoes?”

Ivy nods with wide doe eyes and one of her dimples popping in her left cheek. 

“Y’mother’s going to kill me,” Kasey hears Harry mutter before waving a sales associate over.

“Good to see you, Mr. Styles - I’m Tracey. What can I help you with?”

Of course they knew him by name. He was by the looks of it one of their most appreciated customers, figuring he rarely wears the same thing twice.

“Can I please get a pair of all these shoes in a toddler’s size three? And can you please ring them up for me? Thank you,” Harry asks, his voice taking on the executive and firm tone with the associate who nods and turns on her heel.

“Daddy? Kissy?” The girl asks her father, her little palm patting his cheek and she’s puckering her pink lips.

“Yes baby,” Harry obliges, giving her a peck before blowing a raspberry on her cheek. He tugs down her dress that’s ridden up in true parent fashion.

As they’re waiting, Harry continues to talk to his daughter, “Y’know pet, we came here to shop for mumma for mother’s day. Y’always manage to get something out of it, hmm?”

“Mummy?” Ivy squawks, repeating her father’s word. 

“Yes, mummy. I think she’s really going to like the necklace we picked out,” Harry taps at her nose, his eyes just read love and amazement for his little girl.

Kasey was dumbfounded. 

This man had literally stormed into their offices yesterday, frustration seeping into his loud tone as he asked the room of employees if it was a lady's brunch club or a place of employment when he hadn’t gotten a report on his desk at a certain time.

They’d all stuttered and apologized but Harry had already slammed the door of his way out - the doorframe shaking. A nasty email being sent to their inboxes mere minutes later.

“Mr. Styles? We are out of two of the pairs,” The saleswoman appears and tells him, tablet now in hand.

Harry’s voice is calm but he looks her dead in the eye, “Do you not know how to ship them to a house? I don’t have time for this nonsense.”

She begins to apologize, pulling up a page of her tablet, “Your total comes to £6,309.45 for the shoes.”

Kasey’s eyes nearly pop from her head at the total but Harry merely blinks and states, “Charge it to my Amex on file.”

“Would you like me to add on the items you picked up downstairs? That would bring your total to £ 213,088.79. The necklace *** will be shipped within the next two weeks and will need to be signed for at your doorstep by an authorized person of your choosing, they’ll need to provide identification to certify their identity.”

“I need the necklace by next Sunday- it’s my daughter’s Mother’s Day gift to her mum - hence the pink diamonds,” Harry states to the woman like she’s stupid.

Did that woman just say that amount? And did Harry not even bat an eyelash at it. 

Kasey’s brain couldn’t really comprehend it.

“Expedited shipping on this item would be…” Tracey looks down at her tablet and taps a few buttons, “It will be an extra £3,219 for expedited shipping as it’s coming from Swittzerland.” 

Harry is distracted for a moment as Ivy is wriggling until Harry puts her down. Kasey didn’t see that he had a plush doll tucked in between his jeans and belt on his back.

“Baby doll,” Ivy pokes at her father’s thigh, too short to reach her toy. 

Harry tugs it out and hands it to her, “Stay right here, Vee.”

Ivy unceremoniously plops on the ground next to her father’s leather boot while he confirms the purchases and signs off on them.

It was cute - the plush baby doll she was playing with was ratty, worn, and very visibly loved. It seems as if it’s been her favorite toy for a while.

After finishing up with Tracey, Kasey sees him slip her a few bills for her trouble and lugs Ivy back up onto his hip.

“Shake, daddy?” Ivy lisps hopefully, green eyes sparkling up at her father’s. 

Harry lets out a chuckle, “No, baby. It’s only ten in the morning, y’can’t have a milkshake. Let go home, maybe mumma will make us some blueberry pancakes if we give her lots of kisses?”

“Mummy,” Ivy agrees happily, her plush held tightly against her chest.

“She’s going to love your gift, darlin’, even though y’the best gift we’ve ever got,” Harry murmurs lovingly, pressed a warm kiss to his daughter’s cheek.

Tom has wandered back to the shoe department, eyes unfortunately meeting his boss’ right away - widen with surprise.

Harry’s eyes narrow when he finds Tom staring, “Can I help y’mate?”

“Uh-no! Sorry, just, erm, I work for you?” Tom stutters stupidly at his annoyed employer who currently has his toddler trying to pulls his sunglasses off the top of his head.

“Then I’d recommend, if you’d like it to stay that way, you mind your own damn business,” Harry bites out with a warning tone, unnecessarily rude.

Ivy doesn’t seem bothered, delighted when she tugs the shades off his head and attempts to put them on. She begins huffing as she struggles and Harry gently takes them and slides them on for her.

Tom nods, still baffled, and scurries over to Kasey. 

They both glance back when their boss isn’t looking. He hears him murmur softly, “Let’s go see mummy.”

“Pancakes?” Ivy chirps, looking at her dad for confirmation.

“Anythin’ for you, my little love,” Harry agrees, starting to walks to the elevator to the entrance of the store. 

Tom and Kasey look at each other with unexplainable expressions as they watch their asshole of a boss clearly wrapped around a toddler’s finger. 

—-

THE PARK

“Hi! Is anyone sitting here?” Savannah hears from beside her on the park bench. 

She looks up to see a beautiful, young woman looking to be around her age looking at her expectantly. She has a backpack on her shoulders and a curly-haired toddler on her hip.

“Nope! You’re good!” Savannah replies kindly, moving over to make room on the bench for her to sit.

“Awesome, thank you. I’m Y/N and this is Ivy. Say ‘hi’,” Y/N prompts her daughter with a nudge.

Ivy puts on a beaming smile, white little blocky teeth on display, “Hi.”

“I’m Savannah and the little brunette boy in the green shirt is mine - his name’s Flynn.”

“Tell her how old you are, baby,” Y/N smiles, always trying to get her daughter to socialize as much as possible.

“Two!” Ivy giggles before impatiently squirming, “Mummy, play.”

Y/N laughs, “Just as impatient as your father. Go on, stay where mumma can see you, please.”

Ivy nods before speeding off towards the little jungle-gym to automatically start playing with the little group of kids.

“I wish I had their energy,” Y/N sighs, tugging a water bottle out of her backpack. 

Savannah was obsessed with everything gucci - even though she couldn’t afford anything - so when she spots the flashy bag, she can’t help but ask, “Is that a custom Gucci monogram multipack?”***

Y/N takes a sip before answering, “Yeah, my husband gave it to me as a gift on ‘national stay at home mum day’ - which I don’t even think is a real thing. He just knows I’ll chew him out if he buys me things like this without reason.”

They both laugh, Savannah can’t help but glance over the woman a little bit closer. She had a ratty, vintage tee on, plain black leggings, and a pair of black Nikes on - nothing that screamed over the top.

But then she spots the engagement ring *** on her finger. Savannah thought it looked so extravagant it almost looked fake. But the way the faucets reflect so magnificently in the sunshine makes her sure it’s real.

“What was that?” Savannah snaps back, realizing she hadn’t heard what Y/N was saying - too busy deciding how much money she had which wasn’t right when the girl was being so friendly.

“Oh, just - do you know any mum groups around here? I was in a group but all they liked to do was gossip and bitch. And I think Ivy heard the word ‘cunt’ one too many times from them.”

Savannah barks out a laugh, Y/N turns out to be extremely funny and friendly. She has a bit of a foul mouth and a quick wit but is a good listener.

“And so I said to the dude -“ Y/N cuts off when her phone rings, digging it out and answering, “Hi H, yeah. The one with the big purple slide, okay.”

When she hangs up, she tells her new friend, “My husband is stopping by really quick. He has a business dinner later and won’t see Ivy before her bedtime. Or me before my bedtime,” Y/N laughs.

“That’s so nice of him!” Savannah says, knowing her husband enjoyed when everyone was asleep by the time he came home. Would never go out of his way like Y/N’s husband would.

Y/N says with a smile in her eyes, “Yeah, he’s really good to us.”

They continue to chat until they hear a loud engine revving into the car park, Y/N rolls her eyes and mutters, “Of course, he brings the loudest car today.”

A vintage car swings into a spot and Savannah nearly gasps at who exits the car and begins to stride towards them. No one other than her boss. 

The man who had her doing her job by the book and when one hair fell out of place he knew right away. 

The man who she avoided at all cost possibly - taking the stairs so she doesn’t have to be in the elevator with his intimidating presence.

It took her a minute to connect the dots. Y/N was married to Harry? Harry was Ivy’s dad? It through her through a loop - Y/N was just - so nice. 

But it does explain all the gucci and the massive diamond ring. She did happen to work for a fucking billionare. Y/N didn’t come off as a billionaire or a billionaire’s wife.

‘Holy shit, this is wild,’ Savannah thought.

Harry makes his way over to the bench, Y/N standing up to hug him. Harry kisses her softly with a large palm coming to slip under the back of her shirt to rub at her bare back.

Uh - this man was being loving and affectionate? Proving all Savannah's preconceived notions about him wrong. Mostly that he was a robot.

“Hi darlin’, have a good day?” Harry asks his wife, still holding onto her and tugging her into his side - looking to Ivy who was obliviously - playing on the swing.

“Mmm, don’t want you to go tonight,” Yn/Ngroans dramatically, squeaking when Harry playfully pinches her side.

“Tell me and I won’t go,” He murmurs with surprising sincerity against his wife’s cheek, smiling when Ivy lets out a loud, carefree giggle with her new friends.

“Oh! I’m being rude. This is Savannah, Savannah this is my husband Harry,” Y/N introduces the two, unknowing of their connection.

Savannah swallows harshly and gives him a timid wave, “Hello.”

Harry shows no recognition that he knows her but gives her a curt nod and rasps out a “hello.” 

Y/N rolls his eyes at her husband, patting his toned stomach, “He’s always a little crabby after work,” She jokes as he smirks at her - he’s rarely ever crabby with his wife and they both know it.

After work? How about from the time he stepped foot through the lobby doors everyday? He only had one mode at work - crabby.

“It’s ok-“

“Daddy!” A squeal interrupts them, a blur of brunette curls crashing into her father’s legs - full force with excitement.

Harry is bending down and tucking her into his arms for a hug, “Hi baby, y’bein’ so good for mumma?”

His tone had shifted into a low, relaxed drawl that Savannah had never heard. His words are kind and caring towards his daughter.

“Good for mumma,” Ivy parrots her father, dimples popping as she pushes at Harry’s face when he attacks her with kisses.

“You taste so good I could eat yah!” Harry growls playfully, Ivy giggling delightedly at her fathers antics until her cheeks are flushed pink with laughter.

“Swings, daddy,” Ivy motions with green doe eyes. Grass and mud stains the outfit her mother had dressed her in - cute striped overalls with a white tee underneath  *** and little sneakers ****.

“Oh dove, I wish I could. I have to go back to work,” Harry frowns, his thumb coming to caress her sweaty cheekbone.

Her brows furrowed and her full pink lips turned down - Savannah has to contain a laugh by how much she looks like her father with the displeased grimace on her face.

“No, no, Daddy,” Ivy argues adamantly, her eyes brimming with sad tears.

“Vee, c’mon, my love. I’ll be home later,” Harry soothes, starting to rock her from side to side to calm her.

But Ivy is in her terrible twos and doesn’t like the word ‘no.’

Y/N comes up to her husband’s side, tucking a hand into his back pocket to rest. 

“Ivy Elizabeth, we need to let your father go. Come to mummy now, please,” Her mother asks in a soft but firm tone.

“No!” Ivy absolutely shrieks with a awfully high pitch, “No mummy, daddy swings!”

The couple shares a look before Y/N is gathering her backpack on her shoulder, looking back to Savannah, “Hey! Text me, it’s about nap time for this one.”

Savannah agrees and gives them both a wave off as Harry totes his tantruming toddler to a sleek, teal SUV. It takes her a moment to scoff internally - off course it’s a Bentley ***.

And because Savannah can’t help but be nosey she googles the price of the car and quickly locks her screen when she sees the base price is £ 210,000.

Harry is planting little pecks on his daughter’s face and murmuring to her until her tears have dried up and she’s laughing at her dad once again.

After Harry straps her into the car seat and shuts the door, he gently pushes his wife back against it. His body is crowding hers, arm over her shoulder against the car.

The talk for a moment before Harry’s ducking down to pull a few kisses from her lips before she’s giggling and pushing him off.

Savannah couldn’t wait to tell the old women at in her customer relations department tomorrow.

— 

THE GAME

Cassie didn’t mind Harry actually. She made his coffee nearly every morning and she secretly knew he was the one who left those hefty tips.

She’d fumbled over his orders a few times when she’d started and apologized profusely but Harry had just looked up from his phone and said, “S’fine.”

Yeah, that’s not much but compared to some of the horror stories she hears, but she was grateful for another reason.

—-

One day he had found her crying in a empty corridor that he used to walk to his car at the end of his day.

“Y’alright?” Her boss asks gruffly, pausing to look down at her - no clear emotion on his face.

Cassie nods sheepishly, “M’sorry, I’m just really stressed out.”

Harry’s eyes flash a tad darker, “Is Carole giving you trouble?” 

Carole was her manager.

“N-no. I got declined for my school financial aid. If I don’t come up with the money I’ll have to drop out. I-I have a son and I do-don’t have the money to go without help.”

Harry doesn’t say anything, rustling into the inner pocket of his suit and fishing out something - a checkbook.

He clicks the pen and moves his hand quickly across the pad before ripping it out and handing it to her, “Good luck and use the extra on your family. Don’t go spreading it around that I did this.”

Cassie goes to thank him or refuse it but when she looks back up from the check he’s already striding away down the hallway away from her.

She lets out a loud sob as she sees a check written for £150,000 right in front of her.

—

Cassie still works at the Starbucks part-time while attending college with the help of her secretly kind boss.

The extra money she’s stowed away in an education fund for her son after he graduates. 

Anyways, she was at Man U football game that she got invited to with her boyfriend - Jacob. His dad won tickets for box seats from his work in a raffle.

Cassie soon realized that their box was right by the Styles Media and Marketing one. The way they were placed, she could see right into their area.

It was just Harry and a woman in there. 

They were obviously a couple and this was the Cruella Deville. Cassie didn’t refer to her as that as she had a bit of a different perspective of the man.

His wife was sipping on a water bottle and cheering loudly with the rest of the fans. Harry watched her with amusement at her excited behavior, at one point pulling his photo out and snapping a picture of her.

When the exciting bit is over, she seats herself on his lap and wriggles until her back is against his chest - comfortable and cozy.

His large palm comes to cup at her stomach, Cassie now seeing that she is clearly pregnant as he cradles the noticeable bump protectively.

For most of the game, his hand never leaves her belly - rubbing circles with his thumb. His head came to rest on her shoulder to watch the game.

They seem so happy together - giggling and talking animatedly throughout. His wife constantly tilting her head back with her lips puckered requesting kisses that Harry happily supplies each time.

At one point, Cassie witnesses Y/N eat two huge corndogs in a row while her husband watches her with humor in his eye. Then goes on to order her a massive spool of candy floss that he feeds her throughout the game.

It was a late game and it was now in overtime. The clock reads nearly eleven at night. Harry’s wife has dozed off against his shoulder and when he notices he gently rouses her.

As she blinks her eyes open, Harry shucks his jacket of his shoulder and helped her slip it on. They must decide to call it a night because he’s helping her up, wrapping an arm around her shoulder, and guiding her out of the box.

Cassie never tells anyone that she saw him that night or what he did to help her family.

The End.

Hope you bubbbies enjoyed. Send me requests for this verse. Smut is up next for this trope.

#Harry Styles #harrystylesfanfic #harry styles smut #harry styles x y/n #harry styles x you #harry styles x reader #fan fic #harry styles fanfiction #harry styles fluff #harry styles dad #dad!harry #husband!harry #husband harry styles #ceo!harry #ceo Harry #harry styles fic rec #harry styles request #harry styles writing #harry styles writing request #harry styles masterlist #harry styles drabble #harry styles blurb #dark harry styles #one direction

[whatifyoulivelikethat]

weird, m | ksj

pairing(s): seokjin x reader

summary: Your roommate and best friend, Kim Seokjin, forgot to double-check the autofill information and shipped his package from the online sex shop with your name on it. Naturally, this ends with you tying him up and sucking his dick, and him tying you up with you riding him like a wild animal. Wait, what?

warnings: rated M (18+) for language; friends with benefits; crack (sorry, I can't be serious for more than two seconds when writing Seokjin); yes, reader usually fucks younger dudes XD; smut (fem reader, D/s dynamics (both switches), bondage, m-receiving oral, thigh riding, cowgirl, spanking); non-idol!BTS - just two best friends fucking for sexual exploration, don't mind them

technically a prequel to love roulette, m | myg yes, this is the explanation to that mysterious package, but is it really an explanation or rather an excuse to fuck WWH, you decide

--

“Seokjin, can I ask you something?”

“Hm?”

When Kim Seokjin looked at you, it was a bit like looking into the eyes someone much younger than you even though he wasn’t. He had that youth about him, the ‘here’s-to-never-growing-up’ sparkle in his large brown eyes, complete with parted lips in a small ‘o’ and, alright, yes, his Nintendo Switch in his hands.

“A long time ago, I asked you which way you think you lean, more dominant or more submissive, no?”

His handsome face flushed pink, slowly scooting away from you.

“Er… yeah, I remember…”

“What?”

“Huh?”

You poked him and he squeaked, slapping a hand over his side even though he was wearing a brown sweatshirt. Seokjin was always cold, even during the summer.

Your best friend was an odd character.

You chuckled. “Why are you being so awkward? I thought we were over this phase.”

Well, he should be. You had known Seokjin since elementary school and seen him, er, date was a strong word for what you both were doing in middle and high school, more like being bumbling messes and walking in on each other bonking classmates, but, hey, what mattered is that you both got better at it over the years.

It being sex.

Not romance.

You both still had only sketchy ideas about what romance was supposed to be.

“We are,” your best friend coughed, clearing his throat for absolutely no reason. “We are, I just…”

“Used my name for purchasing goods from an online sex shop?”

He choked and nearly flung his Switch. You caught it, swiftly placing it on the coffee table as you procured the cardboard box from behind your back, already open, address and name circled in thick black permanent marker on the rather inconspicuous package.

“W-What, that’s absurd, why would I ever–?”

You hummed pleasantly, sweeping the box away from his lanky limbs and his flailing hands. For someone who didn’t purchase goods from an online sex shop, he sure was interested in getting the box. He tumbled into your lap, and quickly scrambled back, black hair suddenly fluffed and wild from the movement.

“Something tells me you didn’t check the autocomplete form before clicking submit.”

You saw Seokjin choke on air.

He jerked away from you and fumbled with his phone beside him. You peeked over his broad shoulder and saw that he was scrolling through his emails like a madman, except Seokjin had a bad habit of never deleting any. He had maybe fifteen thousand unread emails to sort though.

“You don’t have to check. I am sure I didn’t order red cotton bondage rope and a leather flogger.”

Seokjin whipped his head around, face redder than a tomato, looking halfway between fainting and screaming.

You raised an eyebrow. “Is it for you or a mysterious imaginary girl that you’re dating?”

Now your best friend seemed to be contemplating holding his own breath until he passed out to avoid your questioning.

“I-It’s not for me!”

“Oooh, then who? You’re not an internet hookup kind of guy though… unless she was dumb enough to put her full name as her username, then she’s too airheaded to be a catfish–”

Seokjin flapped his hands, smacking you in your pajama-covered chest, sputtering. “No one! There’s no one! I just…!”

You caught one of his wrists, raising an eyebrow.

“Just?”

He froze.

Silence.

“… Seokjin?”

You left go of his hand. It stayed there, frozen in the air.

Ah, it seemed as if his soul left his body.

Rest in peace Kim Seokjin. You were the handsomest best friend one could ask for.

You prodded him in the side again and Seokjin doubled over, trying to cover his face with the large sleeves of his sweatshirt, long legs in black sweatpants curling up as if he could cocoon himself away from the conversation.

“Seokjin, you can be interested in whatever you want,” you snickered, placing the package next to his fetal positioned body. “I simply thought it was funny that you accidentally used my name. Although I wouldn’t use that flogger on a real person, only for posing in pictures. In any case, have fun being freaky by yourself and not for some mysterious woman you refuse to tell me about.”

You stood up, about to leave and give your best friend some space. You shouldn’t go too far teasing him after all.

“What do you mean?”

You stopped, looking back. Seokjin’s large brown eyes were peeking out of his splayed fingers, shifting awkwardly when you made eye contact. He cleared his throat. He was doing that a lot for someone who seemed perfectly healthy ten minutes ago, shrieking at himself for missing the ledge in his game and dying.

It had seemed like a good time to interrupt and embarrass him so you could save your eardrums.

He coughed and pointed to the box. “About the… um… whip… thingmabob…”

You cocked an eyebrow. “Isn’t it obvious?”

You marched over and opened the box, making Seokjin jolt and cover his red ears instinctively, but you ignored him, pulling out the black pleather flogger you had already unwrapped from the plastic – purely from thinking it was your own package, by the way, no other reason, surely not because you were mildly curious about what your best friend was into, nope – and you slapped the short three tails into your hand, wincing.

“This kind of cheap material is too plastic-like. If you use this on bare skin and hit too hard, you’re going to cut someone and I know you’re squeamish around blood, unless you secretly have a blood fetish too and have been a really good actor all this time–”

“How do you know that?”

You blinked at his question.

“What?”

Seokjin sat up, giving you a confused pout. “Why do you know something like that?”

Now it was your turn to shift your eyes around.

“Uh…”

Er… how to tell your best friend that the younger guy you were casually fucking for the past couple of weeks was, ah, rather knowledgeable about certain things, was, um, interested in teaching, uh, yeah, teaching…

Seokjin squinted at you suspiciously. “Is it that idol trainee that was here two nights ago when I was out drinking with Hose–”

You waved your hands very quickly, tossing the flog aside carelessly and slapping your thigh to silence Seokjin and his far too invasive questions. “Look. I just don’t want you to hurt anybody on accident, okay? Your rope choice was good though. You should always use an organic material for shibari, cotton, hemp, linen if you’re rich, but you’re a cheapskate, so–”

Your best friend narrowed his eyes into slits. “How much younger is that guy compared to you again? Hm? And what was his name? Ye–”

You slapped a hand over Seokjin’s mouth, smiling sweetly and dangerously, reaching into the box and pulling out the red cotton rope.

“I know a lot of knots now and I can tie a noose just for you, Seokjinnie.”

Your best friend, rightfully so, looked terrified.

“Now. Let’s talk about you, okay? Okay.”

You removed your hand and held onto the rope.

Seokjin gulped, but then shook his head vigorously, frowning. “What did you call it?” He was already moving past your death threat. Smart man.

“Call what?”

“Shi-something?”

“Shibari? Japanese rope tying?” You lifted the cotton cord in your hand. “Is that not what this is for?”

Seokjin blinked very rapidly.

You blinked back at him. Then it dawned onto you. “The diamond-y rope patterns where they’re all tied up and stuff.”

“Ah! Yeah! That!”

“You want that done to you?”

Seokjin jerked to one side. “What? No! To someone else. Maybe. No. What?”

You slowly placed the rope on his lap and scooted away.

“Uh… huh. Okay. Enjoy.”

“Wait,” he blurted.

“What?”

“CanIpracticeonyou?”

“Can you WHAT?” you echoed shrilly.

“Right, yeah, okay, never mind–”

-

“Seokjin.”

Your best friend choked on his own toothbrush and threw himself into the bathroom wall, colliding into the towel bar and howling in pain while simultaneously hacking up a lung.

“I’ve decided I am going to teach you some simple knots to prevent me from having to pick your naked ass up from the police station or hospital,” you said calmly as Seokjin half-died on the floor tangled in your mint green and his navy-blue bath towels. “And because I don’t want to have to cut some poor girl off your bedframe because you’ve blacked out running onto your door trying to find me.”

“I’ve never–” he wheezed.

“But you will if I don’t take precautions,” you cut in, grabbing your purple toothbrush and putting toothpaste on it as Seokjin attempted to collect himself off the ground. “Like that one time you ran into the window when that wasp was in the apartment.”

“That was a fucking wasp, you freaked out too!”

You started brushing your teeth. “Yeah, but I didn’t knock myself out and wake up with a fat bump on my forehead. That was you,” you gargled.

“Ack…”

“Anyway, I know a few things and I figured I would do a good deed and enlighten you.”

“Who taught you? Was it Ye–”

You jabbed Seokjin forcefully in the ribs and he immediately shut up because he choked on his toothbrush again.

-

“Why do you have scissors?”

“For cutting the rope.”

“Yeah, but why are they so big?”

“That’s what she said.”

Seokjin narrowed his eyes. “I hate you.”

“Cool, now I’m gonna tie you up. Give me your hands.”

You unwound the end from the bolt and frowned, nudging his knee with yours. You were both sitting on his bed, him cross legged and you on your knees because he was wearing black sweatpants and you were wearing no pants, just your usual large lavender pajama shirt with a pattern of yellow stars.

“Take off your sweatshirt. It’ll get in the way.”

“But I’m cold.”

“You won’t be because apparently this shit turns you on,” you snickered.

“Shut up, it does not. It’s the other way around,” Seokjin grumbled, yanking his chocolate brown sweatshirt over his head.

You paused.

“I thought you were more sub.”

Seokjin froze, head half-out of his sweatshirt. You waited. He didn’t move. You waited some more. He coughed and chucked the article of clothing aside, yanking his white t-shirt down and smoothing his hair, not looking at you.

You waited.

He smoothed his hair for a full two minutes.

“Um, anyway–”

You planted a hand on his knee and Seokjin tried to chop your hand away, only for you to snatch his wrist, so his other hand came up to stop you, but you wound the end of the rope around his wrist and bounced off his mattress, pinning your knees on top of his knees and making him squeak as he tumbled back into his pillows, bringing you with him. You had to jerk your head out of the way to avoid collision.

“My nuts!”

“I didn’t hit your precious nuts, you numbsku–”

Hang on.

You locked eyes with Seokjin under you, who gawked back at you, absolutely terrified.

“… You are still a sub.”

Seokjin winced. “Ugh, it’s just… I’m getting older, alright? I can change my mind…”

You could get off him. You could let it be. You totally could.

But were you going to?

No.

You straddled his abdomen and brought his hands to his chest with a big grin. Seokjin’s eyes turned into giant brown saucers. He looked ready to pass out and not from your weight because you weren’t putting much weight on him.

“W-W-What are y-you d-doing?!” he shrieked.

You rapped him in the forehead. “Teaching. Pay attention. Hands up.”

“You aren’t taking your rings off?”

He was referring to the three silver rings you wore on a daily basis – an onyx stone on your left middle finger, a goat-head shaped ring on your right thumb, and a skull with a jester hat on your right ring finger.

You raised an eyebrow. “Why do I need to take them off?”

He lifted his hands and gave you an exaggerated shrug in between your thighs. Come to think of it, Seokjin had a rather broad chest so you had to spread your legs pretty wide to accommodate and hover over him.

Precarious.

“Ah, perfect.”

Your best friend yelped as you wrapped the rope around his wrists, leaving the end sticking out between them, first focusing on loosely binding. He tried to break away, but you harshly squeezed his sides with your thighs, narrowing your eyes.

“Stop squirming.”

He froze at your cold tone, shifting his eyes awkwardly.

“Watch. Now.”

His eyes immediately snapped to your hands.

“Wrists together.” You nudged them so the inner parts of the wrists were touching. “A little space in the center,” you added, looping out the end of the rope. “I’m just teaching you how I learned it, there are a few ways, but the details are important so you don’t prevent loss of circulation,” you added seriously, waiting for him to nod before continuing. “So, wind it around a couple times, but don’t overlap. Four or five?”

“But I can still get out.”

You glared at him. Seokjin shut up and jammed his plush pink lips together, shaking his head rapidly as if to say, who me? I wasn’t talking!

“Turn it ninety degrees like this,” you demonstrated. “And start going perpendicular to and in between the wrists to create the binding. Line up each coil side by side. Mind the starting end here. Then…” You reached for the scissors and snipped the excess away, dropping the rope and scissors beside you on the bed. “You tie it off on the outside. I use a square knot, so this end over this end, and then retie it the opposite way. Try to break free.”

Seokjin frowned at the red rope around his wrists, twisting it this way and that, squirming underneath your legs. You put your hands on your waist triumphantly, nodding to yourself in pride. You did a good job! It looked neat and it was inescapable without tightening on any blood vessels to cause any dangerous loss of circulation.

Hang on.

Seokjin froze.

You froze.

You both looked down.

You smacked him in the cheek.

“Ow!”

“What are you looking there for?!”

“Why did you hit me? Why do you always resort to violence?!” Seokjin accused, jabbing you underneath your breasts with his bound hands. “What is going on down there?”

“Nothing! Stop moving!”

“No!”

“You–”

You closed your thighs around Seokjin’s waist and sat down on him, causing him to gasp, wind knocked out of him as his diaphragm was pushed up into his lungs, struggling with the rope between his wrists and resorting to slamming them down on the bed above his head. You growled as you towered over him. He started yelling, as he always did.

“Yah!”

You slapped your free hand over his mouth.

“Silence.”

He glared at you behind your palm, breathing hard. You sat on top of him, breathing just as hard. He was bigger, strong, yes, but not in the position of power and – being honest, after all – your best friend was never really out to fight you and win. He was more of a ‘I’m-going-to-be-stupidly-annoying-until-you-do-what-I-want’ type, which made him rather childish in some ways. You were more of the ‘I’m-gonna-beat-your-ass’ type.

In conclusion, it was a healthy friendship.

Seokjin started licking your palm and making crazy eyes at you.

Your eye twitched.

“Stop it.”

Unsurprisingly, he did not, in fact, stop it.

“I said, stop it.”

And you slid down, past the wet spot now on his t-shirt, planting your soaked panties on top of his crotch, grinding down, and, yup, Seokjin bucked and yelped, immediately stopping and seizing up as if he could hide the massive erection that you had been willing to ignore but he was being a little – nah, actually, an extra-large, supersized – shit and it was getting on your last nerve, so what better way to resolve a wordless argument (on his part, heh) then humping his hard-on?

You removed your hand and Seokjin had a brief moment to gasp your name before you slid the pads of your fingers onto his tongue, rubbing it roughly and making his eyes nearly bulge out of his head.

“I told you to stop, but you aren’t listening,” you snarled.

Seokjin whimpered, brown orbs glassy, pupils blown out.

You stilled.

Hold on a second.

You had a brief epiphany where you realized you were grinding on your best friend’s dick with him tied up and you were wetter than the Yellow Sea. This wasn’t some guy you picked up at the night market that won you that sleeping Pikachu at the claw machines, only to chat him up and end up with bed with a guy who was – ack, never mind his age – anyway, this was your best friend.

Kim Seokjin.

Oh shit, I’ve gone too far.

You let go, backing up. “S… Sorry, I–”

But then Seokjin’s plush lips closed around your fingers, sucking hard and you choked slightly, feeling his hips roll and the tip of his clothed erection hit your covered clit. He was glaring at you. You gasped as his teeth gently but firmly caught your two fingers. It did hurt, but only a little. Mostly it sent a rush of rather uncomfortable and mind-boggling arousal racing from your knuckles to your core, drenching your panties further.

“Don’t stop,” he mumbled around your fingers.

Don’t stop?

DON’T STOP?

His teeth let go, panting, staring into your eyes.

“Don’t make this weird,” Seokjin muttered, shifting his gaze. “Don’t make this weird, okay?”

His brown eyes flickered back to you. His bound hands were still over his head, black hair flaring out of his pillows, white t-shirt messed up, still trapped between your thighs. You paused, fingers slipping out of his lips, the pads trailing on his lower lip, turning it glossy with his saliva.

Your heart was racing fast.

He furrowed his dark brows and, for the first time, his serious expression made you think that perhaps, maybe, there was a side of him down there, the other side to the coin.

“I just…” Seokjin exhaled slowly, not looking away from you. “I trust you to do this. You’re capable and knowledgeable. I know you are. Word gets around with your, er, habits with younger guys…”

You felt your cheeks heat and you scratched your head awkwardly.

“Anyway, it’s fine if you wanna… er… get off. With me. Because I’m so handsome and all.”

You were thiiiiiiis close to leaving out of sheer embarrassment that instantly dissipated at Seokjin’s sudden unexpected self-compliment. Instead, your eye twitched and you squinted in annoyance.

Seokjin coughed, ears singeing bright red. “Unless you can’t, of course. Because it’s easy to fall in love with me, and that would be very bad considering I don’t want to marry you–”

“I don’t want to marry you either,” you snapped. “You’re ugly.”

Seokjin gasped dramatically, highly offended. “How dare you–!”

He abruptly sat up and you twisted back, only for his arms to swing over your head and sandwich you between his tied wrists and his chest, ramming you back onto his lap and his hard dick. You hissed and bit down your moan, not willing to admit it was mildly turning you on, because of course neither you or Seokjin hated each other – only in that classic way best friends hate and love each other at the same time – and, yeah, sure, you could admit Seokjin was handsome and cute and fun to be around, but he wasn’t the one, not that you knew what the one was supposed to feel like or knew if you would ever feel such an intense, romantic love, but you had this strange idea that the one for you would be someone who could understand you on a different level, and you didn’t have that with Seokjin even if you did talk all the time. You were quite sure the feeling was mutual and now, looking into his brown eyes with a scowl, you saw that the feeling was indeed mutual.

Also, Seokjin was an immature shithead.

A loveable, worldwide handsome, immature shithead. Redeemable.

Still.

You were horny.

And Seokjin was horny.

You weren’t going to date Seokjin ever, but your best friend was hot as hell and you could definitely bang him without any regrets.

“Let’s fuck,” he breathed into your face.

You raised an eyebrow.

“Don’t make it weird.”

Don’t make it weird, yeah, okaaay dude–

Your thoughts were suddenly cut off when Seokjin kissed you.

His forearms closed in behind your back and he pressed his bound wrists into your shoulder blades, pushing you into his solid chest and his embrace, taking your breath away. He always had good hugs, even if they were just to comfort you when your favorite flavor of ice lollys stopped being stocked at your local grocery store – still tragic to this day – and even when he was clinging onto you like a howling monkey because a cockroach was in the bathroom and he was screaming at you to kill it and nearly blowing out your eardrums, even then…

Now.

You closed your legs in around his hips and rolled your crotch into him, suddenly kissing him back.

He gasped into your mouth, your eyes half-opening, him gazing back at you, long lashes and dark eyebrows and glowing tan skin, holy shit, your best friend was handsome as fuck, why did other men even try when Kim Seokjin existed?

“Are you falling in love with me because I’m so handsome?” Seokjin teased, nipping at your lower lip.

Your eye twitched. Oh, yes, that’s right, because you’re annoying.

You shoved him and he yelped, clutching your back as you both fell onto the bed with a flump! You slid out from under his arms, skin prickling at Seokjin’s involuntary whine at your departure. Don’t make this weird, yeah, okay, don’t turn me on this much, dumbass, you are reminding me of… You pushed the thought away.

You didn’t want to think about other people when the person you were touching was right in front of you.

“What are you – yah!”

You gripped the waistband of his sweatpants and yanked down, exposing his underwear – bright blue, nice, nice – and his clothed erection, leaning in, hot breath ghosting over it, Seokjin jerking his arms about because he seemed undecided on either if he wanted to see or not see, but you let him deal with that in his own time, lowering your mouth, tongue extended, fingers splayed over his hips, silver rings glinting in his bedroom lights.

“You look like a demon,” you heard from above you.

You planted your tongue on the spot where the head of his cock would be and soaked it with saliva.

“F-Fuck!”

That shut him up real quick.

Your eyes drifted up, lapping slowly, barely stimulating the sensitive head through his underwear, closing your lips around it so the fabric clung wetly to the taut skin underneath. His cock swelled and twitched under your mouth; the action was mirrored by Seokjin’s jaw. He was clenching it along with his hands balled into fists, gasping for breath.

“O-Oh, f-fuck…!”

You were beginning to get the hint with each passing second of working your tongue around his rapidly hardening cock. Seokjin had put himself in the sub category when you asked back then because he liked to things being done for him. It was less about the mental aspect and more of the physical acts of service in his case. However, he wasn’t very good at articulating what he wanted and thus the natural pattern of someone just doing it led to, ah, exhibit A.

You currently parting your lips and letting your tongue snake out, coating the length with saliva.

But.

You could see it in his eyes, that burning intensity.

Maybe part of it was because it was you. He probably didn’t have those butterfly jitters of trying to woo a stranger or the nervousness of looking bad in the honeymoon phase of a relationship. There was already a level of comfort – and the ability to readily shit-talk each other at any moment – and so Seokjin was free to relax, even if it was a bizarre situation of sexual discovery.

“Take it off,” he growled.

Your fingers creeped up his sides, hooking over his boxer briefs. Slow, deliberate, kissing up his length, on the tightrope, dominant in your control, submissive in the action, raising your head so Seokjin could lift his hips, feathering kisses on the exposed skin and making him hiss and shudder, eyelids fluttering, slipping into subservience a little.

At the end of the day, who killed the unwanted bugs in your shared apartment?

Yeah, you.

“Oh, f… fucking shit…”

You tilted your head and ran your tongue up and down the length, licking up the sides and circling around the thick head, bordering on frustratingly soft, switching to wet, sloppy kisses when his hands raised, making him pause, gazing down at you curiously and attentively, entranced by the action. You ducked down, tongue slurping around his balls, lifting his cock, kissing, sucking, eyes closing, tip of your wet muscle drawing zig-zag patterns that soft skin.

Seokjin moaned your name.

A shiver of electricity went up your spine.

Alright, fine, you were getting turned on.

You wrapped your lips around his balls and enveloped them both with your mouth.

“Whoa!”

You opened your eyes to see Seokjin staring wide-eyed at you, hands straight up to stare at you between his upper arms. You almost laughed at the hilarious triangular-looking pose, but your mouth was currently full, so you restrained yourself.

“That’s possible?! You can put both nuts in your mouth at the same time?!”

Uh.

Where you supposed to respond with your cheeks stuffed with his nutties?

You hummed casually in response.

“A-Ah…!”

Seokjin gasped at the vibrations and the movement of your tongue slapping all over them, short, rapid licks all over his skin, watching him with a cocked eyebrow, but he didn’t even notice, hands dropping and moaning to the ceiling, his eyes closing and savoring the hot wet warmth and the power of your mouth, shivering as your hand slowly stroked his length in time with your tongue.

You let him bask in it before detaching and swallowing his cock.

“Gah!”

Seokjiinie, you thought wryly, we gotta work on your repertoire of sex sounds.

You spied him looking down at you, so you paused around the swollen head and slid your tongue out, circling and wrapping around his length while sucking on the tip and rubbing the back of your tongue along the underside.

Seokjin made a bunch of weird croaking noises that were, strangely, rather attractive. Okay, you could admit it. You were kind of a sucker for your best friend in the most platonic way possible… while in the middle of sucking his dick.

What?

He was handsome!

You began to bob your head up and down, tongue and lips descending, taking him deep so you kissed the base of his cock, head buried in your throat, waiting for him to glance down at you, hazy brown orbs under lush lashes, and you would peek your tongue out and lap at his balls, interrupting the tightness, causing him to swear and jerk his hips up, urging you to keep consistent speed and pace, all the while watching every single movement of your tongue. You kept this irregular pace, slow, then fast, then slow again when he looked at you, then fast when the ecstasy was too much and he closed his eyes, over and over. You could see that a battle was being waged Seokjin’s pretty head, between wanting to observe the lewdness of you licking his balls with his hard cock buried in your throat while also desperately needing to get to the fuck off.

“You… bitch… suck me off properly, fuck…”

You raised all the way so only the head was in your mouth and sucked, rubbing up and around it, swirling all over, teasing the slit and soaking the sensitive skin, rutting it against the roof of your mouth and Seokjin groaned, pressing his head back into the pillows, black hair covering his eyes, fists pressed to his chest.

“Fuck, fuck, fuck, please, let me cum!”

His hips rammed up and you dug your nails into them, wincing as the head hit the top of your throat and slid down, cutting off your air, and then he began to thrust erratically, the position, inability to use his hands as leverage, and your resistance not letting him set up a good rhythm. You had to force him back down, popping your mouth off, snarling.

“I’m gonna gag if you do that! You want me to vomit on your dick or what?”

But all of a sudden Seokjin sat up again, grabbing your pajama shirt and yanking you to him, saliva dripping down your chin and then it was on his chin, a messy, savage kiss, ravenous need in his actions, pulling you to him, close, closer, you twisting and then gasping as he pushed one of your thighs down, planting your soaked panties on the exposed part of his thigh.

“Ah, Seok–”

He attacked your lips again with a light growl, sparks shooting across your skin, his thigh rising and bouncing you both on the bed, his legs still tangled in his pants and underwear but the effect was undeniable.

Seokjin was making you ride his thigh.

Whoa.

He bit your lower lip and sucked hard, your eyes fluttering closed, hips rocking, heat turning hotter, wet turning wetter, your sticky, sweet juices clinging to his upper thigh, your own pressed against his saliva-covered cock, wrapping your arms around him, close, closer, you thrusting your tongue in his mouth and him moaning before he did the same to you, starting a tug of war, rubbing harder against his skin, his muscle tensing against your covered clit, friction and wetness everywhere, too many clothes and no eye contact, one of your hands slipping into his black locks and tilting his head, deepening the kiss and inhaling his exhale, shuddering at the erotic nature of the moment.

He mumbled your name against your lips, still clutching your pajamas, stars bunched in his hands, fingertips pressed into the curve of your breasts.

“Can I try the rope tying now?” Seokjin whispered, voice gravelly and low.

-

“Excuse me?”

There was a ripped-open condom wrapper sitting on the bed.

“What?”

Your pajama shirt, bra, and panties were on the floor, along with Seokjin’s shirt, sweatpants, and underwear.

“Why are you – gah!”

You sucked in a breath as you sank down on his cock. Fuck, it was tight, tight as you lowered yourself onto his hips, Seokjin gasping and clutching the long length of red cotton rope that you had carefully untied from his wrists. You had even taken the extra step to massage them afterward, not that he needed it because of your careful work – good job, past you – but he appreciated it all the same, because deep down Kim Seokjin was a prince.

“Oh my God, you’re so tight, shit, shit, shit…”

You neglected to tell your best friend that you were both low-key proud of and turned on by your own ability to take dick without much foreplay. That little edge of tightness added just the right amount of spice of pain that amplified to the pleasure.

Okay.

And yes, you felt a special kind of glee as you witnessed Seokjin’s stunned shock and near passed-out expression from being inside you.

You held out your wrists and grinned. “Go ahead. Tie me up.”

Seokjin gawked at you like you had three heads.

You squeezed your breasts together with your upper arms, tilting your head with a devilish grin.

“God, you’re so hot, but you look crazy,” he wheezed.

Your grin dropped and your eye twitched. “Is that supposed to be a compliment or…?”

Seokjin shrugged, and moved your hands so they were in the better position for him. Much to your annoyance, he didn’t elaborate.

“Um, let’s see, you left a bit out to use as a tie and…”

You began to rock your hips.

“H-Hey!”

The side of your lips curved upward. “What? We’re multitasking.”

“We–?” Seokjin choked, gritting his teeth as you pulsed around his hard length, rolling your hips gently, adjusting until you found a comfortable spot so the head hit you in just the right spot, ah, yes, right there, spreading your fingers out over his chest, leaning your forehead against his, not quite going full force but a slow, deliberate rhythm that wasn’t going to make either of you cum, but, damn, did it feel good.

Seokjin shuddered, gasping your name.

“Tie me up, Seokjin,” you murmured back, caressing his skin.

His eyes darted up, saturated with lust, searching your eyes, and you gazed back.

You could be a real jerk right now.

His hot exhale washed over your lips, a shudder of nervousness.

But this was your best friend, and he was trusting you.

You tilted your head and kissed him softly, flush against his plush lips.

“Come on,” you nudged his nose lightly. “Do it.”

You viewed him from under your lashes. He shivered. Almost.

He needed only one more little push.

“Want you, Seokjinnie,” you breathed against his skin, hints of need and desperation in your voice.

A small smile danced on his lips, staring into your eyes.

You might have fallen for him a little bit in that moment.

“Okay.”

He kissed the side of your mouth, a teasing little peck, and you smirked, turning your head so you wouldn’t break the image you had created for him, but he was already looking down, busily occupied with your wrists, so you drew back, focusing instead on riding him, closing your eyes. You built a leisurely, pleasurable pace, leaning forward a bit to rub your clit against the base of his cock, sighing contentedly at the way he filled you, a wonderful, thick, satisfying girth that you could get used to, other than the fact that most of the time Seokjin drove you up the wall, but, hey, maybe if both of you reached a certain age and you were still single, maybe you could marry your best friend solely for having accessible dick…

“Ah! Perfect.”

You cracked open one eye.

And tried not to burst out laughing.

“Erm… well…” you coughed, tugging at the rope a little. It looked messy and rather hideous, parts overlapping and twisting awkwardly, but he had the… basic idea? It wasn’t like you were going to do anything dumb anyway, so it was pretty good for a first time.

Seokjin frowned. “I don’t know how you did it so neatly…”

“You line up the coils next to each other – ah!”

He seemed to think that was good enough and grabbed handfuls of your ass, causing you to tip forward and brace your hands against his chest, gasping as his hips thrust up into you, abrupt pleasure blooming up your core, sudden squelch of wetness between your joined hips.

“Come on,” he grunted, clenching his jaw, tone getting deeper and more dangerous with each word. “I have to get off, and now.”

He smacked his hands down on your ass and you almost whimpered.

Almost.

Seokjin drew back a little, giving you a strange look.

“W… What?” you managed to get out.

He tilted his head. “Do you like that?”

You almost said, no, of course not, but you stopped yourself, looking down at the red rope tied around your wrists, heat flaring in your cheeks, ass stinging slightly from his slap.

His cock twitched inside you.

Your eyes flickered up to him. A sly smirk danced on your lips.

“Yeah. I like the things you do to me.”

You saw Seokjin pause, brown eyes widening a little, black hair over his forehead.

You pushed him down on the bed. He gasped, but he was used to it now, gripping your ass and tipping his head back as you began to really ride him, waving your hips to ram his cock into your pussy, not even noticing the moan seeping from your lips, fuck, it was good, fulfilling and deep, your bound hands on his chest, fingers spread out and nails digging into his skin a little, but Seokjin seemed to be into it, his own nails sinking into your ass, pushing you down with every descent, hitting you harder, rougher, intensifying the pleasure, building onto it. Hot breath, warm skin, joined hips, loud slaps, rocking bedframe, your breasts bouncing with each thrust, gazing at each other through half-lidded eyes, not quite seeing each other but drowning in the gratification, the roughness, gasping sharply as his open palm smacked down on your ass again, making it bounce and jiggle in his hands, your core and thighs squeezing tighter, witnessing his tight hiss of desire, mesmerized by your sound so he did it again, spanking the other cheek, and you did it again, whimper creeping out, arousal consuming his handsome features, intoxicated by your reaction to his action so he did it again and again, hard, stinging slaps as you rode his stiff, quivering cock harder and faster, fuck, Seokjin must be incredibly turned on because he was so fucking hard, just so incredibly sexy how hard he was right now, even the pain was nothing but an injection of added carnal pleasure, throwing your head back and sinking your nails into his skin, fucking him recklessly, forgetting about hiding your moans, who the fuck cared, not you and not him because Seokjin too was crying out, the sinful sound of sex echoing off his bedroom walls, except instead of you in your bedroom putting headphones on to drown him out, you were in his bedroom, doing it, fucking the daylights out of him.

Alright.

You could see why girls wanted to date your best friend now.

Seokjin was a loud dork, but he had a great dick.

“F-Fuck, Seokjin, fuck!”

He had a similar response, although it was more a choked garble of your name mixed with, “Oh fuck, I’m gonna cum, fuck!”

You must really be drunk on his dick because even that turned you on and tipped you over the edge.

Your thighs tensed and you moaned deeply, tucking your chin down and spreading your palms onto his pecs, wrists straining against the cotton rope, a rapid torrent of adrenaline soaring through you and then you smacked your ass down onto Seokjin’s crotch, whining as you came in vicious pulses of pleasure, clenching around his jerking length and you realized Seokjin was clutching your ass, pinning it down so you couldn’t move, shooting his release into the condom, so much that you felt his cock shudder and throb inside you, head buried in your deepest, most pleasurable spot, you feeling all of him and him feeling all of you.

Holy shit.

You almost saw stars.

“Hah… wow… I guess I can’t blame younger dudes for wanting this pussy…”

Your eyes weren’t open but your eyebrow twitched in annoyance.

“Shut up, Seokjin.”

-

“Come on, man! Look what you did!” Seokjin barked accusingly, pointing to his chest with red indents of your rings.

“Excuse me? I’m the one who has scratches and a bruised ass!”

“You’ve marred my beautiful skin! I should fine you!”

“Where’s that fuckin’ whip – get your naked ass back here, Kim Seokjin!”

-

Hm, well, maybe you would find your true love some other time. Maybe try gambling?

--

masterpost

#seokjin x reader #seokjin x you #seokjin smut #bts smut #kim seokjin smut #kim seokjin x reader #kim seokjin x you

[light-yaers]

Fools in the Darkness: Chapter One

Darkling x Reader

Warnings: Death, violence, drugs (Parem), NSFW and sexual content. This content is explicit and 18+ at some points.

A/N: I caved. I am a wildly stupid individual who has no control over her actions. I know I might come to regret posting this so fast and thus forcing myself into my third ongoing x reader fic, but I also just generally don’t care. I’m still working on No Saints and Sweet Esacpe, just as a slower pace due to my mental health, but this baby here floated out of me like melted butter. I’ll be alternating between uploading this fic and my currently ongoing others! I just had to get this shit out of my system about Shadow and Bone, fr. 

Fic Masterpost

Word Count - 3.4k

Chapter One

Ketterdam covered up your secrets perfectly. It’d only been a matter of weeks since you’d fled there, after travelling the exhausting journey across East Ravka until the Fold had stood before you; brooding, dangerous, a death-wish just to look at, let alone enter it.

Maybe you had to thank him for one thing, General Kirigan, because without him—

You never would have crossed the Fold on your own.

Maybe Ketterdam was made for a person such as yourself. Dark, danger around every corner, full to the brim with power-hungry men and women trapped behind silks. You’d never warmed to anyone yet, but that wasn’t a surprise—it was easy to hate people in the Barrel, but even easier to take their kruge and send them sailing upon the True Sea without another glance.

Kerch was a merchant port, stuffed with expensive clubs and those with no money troubles, armed and ready to open their pockets if they so wished. There were two sides of the docks—Fifth Harbour; the lavishly bright sector for the rich and wealthy—and the Barrel; a breeding ground for crime, killings and losing all of your kruge in one night.

You’d made acquaintances with the Barrel rats from the very beginning, hearing stories about the destruction they caused. You’d much rather not be on the side of the wealth, but the side of fear.

“I found her wandering the harbour, Kaz,” A petite lady in dark clothes spoke to her boss. She’d dragged you from the bustling harbour, flying you through the dark streets of Ketterdam. You tried to hear her footsteps across the cobblestones, but she left no footprints, like a Wraith in the night.

Kaz approached his desk then, stepping into the small lamp light of his office in the Slat. Kaz Brekker was a man that no one wanted to cross. With his clenched jaw and unforgiving stares, the Bastard of the Barrel was cut-throat in every sense of the description.

“She’s a rat, Inej. Not our responsibility—,”

“Do you see the clothes she’s wearing?” Inej cut over Kaz, stepping towards him abruptly. He stayed in place, looking at his Wraith in the eyes, unwaveringly. He regarded her for a moment, taking all of her in, before turning back to you.

His eyes skimmed you up and down, traversing the darkened and muddied fabrics on your body.

“A Kefta,” He whispered it, his eyes widening. “It doesn’t look like the usual Second Army attire,” He added. You perked up, trying to keep your expression as blunt as possible. After your journey, it wasn’t hard not to show anything—you’d been forced to endure a quiet and agonising journey for a month, while trying to stay in the shadows at the same time.

“Because it’s not,” You spoke up, for the first time since entering Brekker’s office. Kaz turned his attention to your face, stepping forward menacingly. His crow-headed cane slammed the wooden floorboards threateningly, but you weren’t scared—

You’d crossed the fucking Fold on your own. Nothing scared you anymore.

“Who are you?” He questioned, trying to keep his voice steady. Men like Kaz tried not to show off what they felt either, but the curiosity in his tone was undeniable. You cleared your throat.

“How much time have you got?”

Fjerda, 1 Year Ago

It was a risk to take, that was for sure. But choosing whether to go through the Fold or around it was a no brainer. Evidently, it had paid off so far, as you and your sister travelled through the barren coldness of Fjerda, headed for the Ravkan border.

“How much farther?” Your sister chided. She was older than you by a year, but on this mission, you’d taken charge. You shuffled into your pack, pulling out a tattered map and a compass. You set the point to North, calculating the miles you had left to trudge to safety.

Your sister wasn’t Grisha, no—you were. A Squaller; untrained, unenthusiastic about your power and utterly afraid of the Druskelle. But you’d had no choice in getting you and your sister safely around the Fold. There was no other way to go from where you’d first found asylum in Novyi Zem; going through Fjerda was the safest route to the Ravkan army.

You smiled at the map. “Five miles. Then we’ll be in Ravka,” An exhausted but relief filled scoff fell from your lips. You locked eyes with your sister, before the two of you embraced tightly. “We’ll be safe soon,” You whispered in her ear, enjoying the small warmth you got from her bare cheek pressing against your jaw.

“You’ll be safe soon,” She replied, bringing a hand to rest on the back of your neck. She pulled away then, as the tears began to well in her crystalline eyes. “You put yourself in this danger to keep me safe. I’m the older sister—I should be keeping you safe,”

“It was this, or through the Fold,” You spoke, furrowing your brows at her. “I’d rather take on twenty druskelle than step foot in that heaping mound of darkness,” Laughter trickled from both sisters, floating over the snow-covered trees and giving you hope.

You both continued forward tirelessly, mercilessly, trudging through inches of untouched snow and praying to whichever god out there who was listening. You prayed for your sister’s safety, for a safe life for her in the First Army. You prayed that you could stay with her—

A Squaller you were, yes, but over your dead body would you be taken to the Little Palace. You knew that’s where Grisha were trained for the King, you knew it was different. Your abilities didn’t define you; Saints, you barely even used them.

They were unpredictable. And you were scared of hurting those around you without meaning to. Ever since an incident when you were younger, you’d almost been afraid of your own power. You kept it hidden from those who you didn’t know closely.

Those who knew you were Grisha in Novyi Zem called you zowa—blessed, in Zemeni. It also meant Grisha, so you didn’t know if they were simply calling you what you were, or if they were commenting upon how strong your Squaller abilities were.

You’d never even met another Sqauller. You had nothing to compare yourself off of.

With a mile until you hit the Ravkan border, you stopped abruptly. Plumes of smoke rose high above the skies, coming from somewhere further on before you. You stuck your hand out, halting your sister from walking any further.

You were silent, listening for any signs of breakings twigs, compacted snow, or other indications of druskelle being near.

“Saints, you look like a fentomen,” Your sister scoffed beside you.

“Quiet,” You hit back with.

“What is it?” She spoke again, quieter this time, but not by much.

“Quiet,” You hissed.

You both waited another few minutes, silently standing like statues in the garden of the Grand Palace. You let out shaky breaths as you eventually straightened yourself once more, clutching onto your sister’s forearm for dear life.

“It’s okay. We just need to be wary,” You whispered. She nodded in response.

You both set off once more through countless trees and untouched snow. But you didn’t get far—until two druskelle spotted you. Neither of you could speak Fjerdan, and you were a fucking Grisha. This couldn’t have been any worse, when you were so close to being free.

“Hje marden,” One of them spoke. They were both tall, with broad shoulders and the white hair and blue eyes of Fjerda. Neither had beards—they were in training to being full druskelle. The trainees were always worse than their commanders, you thought. They would do anything to prove themselves to their superiors.

You tried not to shake as they circled you and your sister.

“I’m sorry, we don’t speak Fjerdan,” You said honestly. The druskelle immediately changed. Their hands rested upon their guns, ready to fire if need be. You raised your hands to the sky as your expression dropped. “Please! Please, we are just travellers—uh—we are perjenger—,”

“Perjenger? Travellers? To where?” The second druskelle spat.

You glanced at your sister quickly, knowing that if you answered Ravka, you’d both be shot immediately. Ravka was at war with Fjerda—Grisha were at war with Druskelle.

“Kerch,” You said strongly. “We have to go through Ravka and Shu Han. We can’t cross the Fold,”

For a moment, you thought it had worked. The druskelle looked at each other gruffly, muttering some words in Fjerdan. You clutched onto your sister’s arm tightly, not planning on letting her go now until you’d both crossed the border.

“Wait here,” One of the men said, as he began trudging back through the snow. He disappeared in the white landscape, leaving you with one druskelle.

You stayed quiet, feeling the warmth of your sister next to you. You glanced at her then, traversing your gaze over her side profile. Her nose, which was the same as yours; her eyes, brighter and more beautiful than your own, mimicking your mother; her hair, lighter and softer than yours. She was shorter than you, smaller than you, getting a lot of genetics from your mother, while you took from your father greatly. His height, his broad shoulders, his darker hair.

But she was your only family left, your only love and focus and everything.

And you were less than a mile from getting her to safety. You were less than a mile from being free of this Saint forsaken country, full of killers and fascists and men who only cared about power.

It was one druskelle against a Squaller. One against one. You could do that. You could beat him.

That’s what made you push your sister back, falling into the snow slowly as you brought your hands together. The druskelle yelled as he saw your movements, trying to aim his gun at you between your eyes, but it was too late—

In a flash, you summoned a storm that whipped him off of his feet. It circled him, gliding him backwards through the trees as you kept pushing and pushing, ignoring the raging winds as they whipped your hair from your face and agitated the snow on the trees.

“Come on!” You yelled behind you, as your sister scrambled up from the floor to stand beside you. She held your arm sturdily, watching fearfully as the druskelle struggled against the rapid winds that you wielded.

You thought that was it—you could both run with the time you’d bought—but that’s when the entire druskelle camp rocketed through the tree line. They yelled and boomed as they came to aid their brother, pushing back against the furious winds you were trying desperately to wield.

“Drüsje!” The commander yelled, storming through the group as he set up the largest of their guns—a machine gun, aimed and ready fire. You gasped, and for a second the winds wavered—they wavered long enough for the machine gun round to penetrate the small snow snuffed tornado that you’d created—

Until those bullets trickled over the blanketed ground, moving steadily closer and closer—

Until one landed straight through the heart of your sister.

All you remembered was that time slowed, then, as you saw the bullet exit her shoulder blade. She fell to the floor, unclasping her hands from your forearm and collapsing into a shocked heap on the floor. You remembered the way her blood dyed the snow. You remembered the way her eyes stayed open—

And then you remembered screaming.

It was a blur, as you tensed all of your limbs to the point where they yelled beneath your skin. You mustered all of your strength into this one storm; one that was merciless and unforgiving, circling all the druskelle in the clearing around you. You knew that soon all of the air would fade from within the eye of the storm that whipped devilishly around them.

You knew that soon they’d all begin to run out of oxygen and pass out, or better yet—maybe their hearts would stop. Cease to beat, drained of any energy to fire more rounds of bullets or kill Grisha for no fucking reason.

The storm was the largest you’d ever summoned, engulfing the entire druskelle camp and uprooting trees from their homes in the cold, hard Fjerdan ground. You saw them get sucked into your whirlwind, flying high, high, high until they eventually slipped out of the storms’ gusts; then they fell back down to earth, landing aggressively and dangerously on the ground below and being spat out at any random location.

You didn’t stop the storm, not even when you saw a tree fall atop a druskelle, crushing him where he’d stood moments before. The commander was the last one standing, rising above his suffocating men to look at you, face on, menacingly.

“Drüsje like you deserve to lose that which you love,” He boomed, using his remaining energy to cast you to Hell.

You wasted no time when you adjusted your stance, focusing the brunt force of the storm onto him—you decreased the eye of the storm until it flowed over him, and only him, grunting all of your strength into the circling winds that now surrounded him utterly and completely.

You collapsed at the same time that the commander did, falling into inches of snow and crawling exhaustedly to your sister. She was motionless, cold, her lips turning blue by the second as her blood continued to flow on Fjerdan soil. Dead. Gone.

Tears cascaded down your cheeks without any indication of stopping, but you couldn’t sob. It was impossible when you were already holding your breath, too afraid that if you were to breathe, only screams would pour from your coarse lungs.

The clearing was deserted, now, as druskelle bodies laid motionless on the snow-covered ground, their camp up ahead completely destroyed. Broken branches, twigs, tree trunks were dotted around, acting as just another indication of the destruction that you were truly capable of. Saints, you wanted to know if you were a normal Grisha, a normal Squaller, since those old women on Novyi Zem had looked at you like a weapon from the first day you could summon and control hurricanes and tornados at will.

Your fingers found your sister’s forehead then, swiping the hair off of her face. You cupped her cheek, laying your other hand upon her stomach. “Vaarwell,” You whispered shakily. “I’m sorry—I’m so sorry—,”

“Who’s there?” A voice spoke up from just beyond the clearing. You got up from the floor immediately, feeling a strange sense of power surrounding you. You waited silently, until First Army soldiers made their way to the clearing. A few stopped and checked the pulses of the druskelle upon the floor, before continuing forward until you were finally spotted.

A young man approached you slowly, holding his gun tightly, draped against his shoulder. “Was this... you?” He asked, looking you in the eye. His gaze dropped to the ground by your feet, seeing the blood-stained snow where your sister lay dead, before he looked back up to you.

He was joined by the rest of his crew. They slowly approached you, almost as if they were trapping you within a circle of their bodies. You stepped back once then, keeping your chin high and proud. The young man at the front was trying everything to keep you calm, you could see it in his eyes, but what he didn’t know was that you were seething—

And nothing would stop that.

Without your sister, you’d be taken to the Little Palace. Without knowing she was safe in the First Army, nothing would get you through the rest of your life—

You were dead. Inside and out. Nothing would change that.

Without a word, you brought your hands together, far too quickly for any of the soldiers to raise their weapons in defence. You ignored their begs and pleads as you circled them within in your storm, slowly suffocating the air out of their lungs and seeing the way their eyes bulged uncomfortably in their skulls.

“General!” The young man shouted, clutching at his throat as he tried desperately to suck air into his lungs. His voice echoed throughout the clearing, travelling through the trees slowly, until an eery type of silence settled into the air around you.

That’s when he arrived—his horse just as black at the Kefta on his frame, the stubble on his chin and the irises of his eyes. He dismounted, ignoring the cries from the soldiers within your raging storm as he began to approach you, step by step by step, crunching through the snow broodingly.

You knew who this man was; General Kirigan of the Second Army.

The Darkling.

He got ever closer, walking around the circular storm. The gap was beginning to bridge, and the more it did, the more you faltered. He took one more step, and you lost it.

“Stop!” You yelled. “Don’t come any closer, Darkling,” He stopped on command, keeping his arms by his sides, but the corners of his mouth upturned into a smile. “You find me amusing?” You spat.

“By the looks of this,” He gestured to the druskelle. “You were trying to get to Ravka. We’re here to help, yet you’re trying to suffocate my men,” You ignored his words, but you found your energy waning slightly—or maybe your heart was finally giving in. It didn’t really want to hurt anyone else, didn’t want to cause more damage than was already on your hands. “You’re a Squaller?” Kirigan asked, and that surprised you.

“Isn’t this how all Squaller’s are?” You asked in reply. Kirigin raised a brow at you.

“Not usually,” He said honestly. “You’ve never met another Grisha before?”

“I know what you’re doing,” You furrowed your brows at him. “You’re trying to distract me, to make me let my guard down and go with you willingly. I’d rather die than work for the King at the Little Palace,” Your breaths were getting more laborious the longer you held on to the storm. You were losing energy rapidly.

“Interesting,” The Darkling muttered.

There were a few moments then, where he was simply staring at you. Regarding you, analysing you, or perhaps— waiting for you to lose all of your energy. You were in a somewhat sticky situation, losing a grasp on your power with every passing second and feeling the intense gaze of Kirigan to your left.

“Let go,” He spoke softly. “I can see you’re tired, you don’t truly want to kill these men,”

“You don’t know anything about me,” You forced your eyelids to stay open as a wave of exhaustion flowed through you.

“And you know me?” He chided. You moved your gaze to him then, as your limbs finally lost momentum. Your hands dropped to your sides, your storm dissipating into the cold air at the Fjerdan border. Soldiers sucked in breaths noisily, gaining back their vision.

You stumbled back once, forcing yourself to stay standing despite the immense urge to pass the fuck out. Kirigan stayed still the entire time, a softness on his jaw that you hadn’t been expecting.

“Everyone knows you,” You mumbled. “I never wanted to meet you, though,”

Your heart jolted then, when the General let out a scoff. You forced yourself to move. Step by step through disturbed snow, until you were back where your sister lay on the floor. You collapsed to your knees unwillingly, as your body threatened to blackout at any moment.

You laid a shaky hand on her collarbone, curling your fingers up to her jaw. Kirigan moved slowly in your peripheral, turning towards you but staying at the distance he’d always been.

“Don’t take me to Os Alta,” You muttered. “Please, don’t take me,” You looked up at the General with pleading eyes.

“Why?” Kirigan whispered with furrowed brows, as if he was trying to work out why on earth you didn’t want a life within the royal Ravkan walls, living in luxury, fighting with other Grisha and honing your power.

Your vision began to blur then, as black spots dotted the white snow that surrounded you.

You never answered the General, your body gave up before you could—

And all you saw was black.

Tag list of those who were interested from my earlier post (tell me if you want off/on the list): @notawritergettingtherethough @rbg1993 @mayallyourbaconburn @luminous-99 

#darkling x reader #darkling x you #aleksander morozova #ben barnes #six of crows #grishaverse #the grisha trilogy #shadow and bone #x reader #reader insert #fanfiction #smut and fluff #hurt and comfort #ao3 #wattpad #lightyears #kaz brekker #inej ghafa #general kirigan #alina starkov

[roniscloud]

lhs - runnin’

lee heeseung [a. + f. 4700 words] runnin’

to you

you came up on some new

i know i shouldn’t feel blue

‘cause i was runnin’ out of time for you

synopsis: you met heeseung in your freshman year of college and immediately hit it off. you’ve made it to your third year and when everyone including yourselves thought that you were each other’s endgame, the devastation when you two split was immeasurable. you both know there’s still love between you. this break allows you both to realize new things. can you two find your ways back to each other? will this be the final goodbye?

genre + tropes: angst. fluff. comedy. college!au. establishedrelationship!au. exes!au.

warnings: fem reader. swearing. arguing. nosy friends. cold heeseung and cold reader. drifting relationship. interventions. slight suggestive themes but it’s only mentioned like once. they both pine over each other. mentions of alcohol and binge drinking. maybe not a happy ending. if you choose to see it that way. whoops. appearances of the rest of enha plus txt yeonjun and soobin.

i.  the break

“so this is how it’s gonna end? i thought we were doing fine.”

heeseung erupts into an even angrier fit, “are you kidding me? we are not fucking fine. in what world is this fine? tell me!”

you scoff from where you stand cross-armed on the other side of the bedroom. “well, can you really blame me? it’s hard to see if there’s something wrong if we never see each other.”

“exactly my point! we don’t see each other.”

the two of you have been at each other’s throats since heeseung showed up at your apartment. you have no idea how long ago that was or when the argument started. all you remember is coming up to him when he arrived, wanting to actually spend some time with him. instead he shrugged you off and ignored you, blaming the fatigue. the rest has been a blur. one of you made an offhand comment and now here you are: frustrated and in another fight.

a quick recap: you two met at a mutual friend’s party. you thought that each other was attractive and he ended up asking you out. from there you kept going out, fell in love, dated, and everyone thought you were perfect together. three years later and it’s getting tiring. life has been draining trying to balance it all.

“and who’s fault is that?”

annoyed, he snaps back, “oh please, you can not put the blame solely on me.”

“bullshit. i sure can when i’m the only one making an effort here. i’ve actually been trying to save us. you, on the other hand…” you pause again, rolling your eyes, “well, we both know just how much you care.”

his jaw drops, defensively he spits back, “are you genuinely implying that i don’t care about you? about us? that’s rich.”

you move to sit on the edge of the bed, staring at a single spot on the floor. you can see the shadow of heeseing pacing back and forth. you sit there, not looking at each other. the only sounds to be heard are his footsteps and the heavy sighs from you. you think back to the last several weeks. you recall each of the times you have been able to see each other. there’s no substance, nothing memorable. the only thing that comes to mind is that you always end up not talking at all or arguing.

just like right now.

“be real, heesung. when was the last time we went on a date? when was the last time you stayed the night without it ending up with you just knocking out? when was the last time we actually sat down and had a conversation? be honest because i will. i can’t remember.”

“and yet you thought we were fine?”

“well it’s better to believe a good lie than face the hurtful truth. i’m trying to save this relationship. i’m trying all the fucking time and you don’t do shit.”

he spits back frustrated, “well maybe that’s because there’s nothing to be saved.”

“are you kidding me right now? am i supposed to be scared? you tell me that there’s nothing to be saved and expect me to just give up?”

“sorry but i’m not running from this anymore.”

“you’re not sorry and we both know it.” you push yourself back up to stand, resting your hands on your hips, “you can’t say you’re sorry and expect me to forgive you. that’s not how this works.”

“this isn’t what i wanted to happen. this isn’t how it was supposed to go.”

“then make it work.”

“i- i can’t,” he holds his hands over his face, running one through his hair, “it’s too much.”

“so what? what do you mean?”

he finally stops. he takes a deep breath and lets it all out, “i just can’t see this working anymore, at least not like this.”

ii. week one

you thought this would be more difficult. that this would be the hardest pill to swallow. the first week apart may actually be the easiest. nothing has really changed. that’s probably because you haven’t told anyone that you two are no longer together. perhaps the time that you didn’t spend with each other before the break up had trained you for this.

life goes on, with or without heeseung. that’s what you keep telling yourself. you choose to get caught up with your life. you have other priorities. it’s not a crime to focus on yourself for the first time in three years.

heeseung feels the same. he doesn’t see any point on dwelling on the breakup. sure, he was the one who made the decision. he’s the one who put it out there. he’s the one who ended it and the one who is taking responsibility.

lucky for both of you, you don’t have any courses together and your schedules don’t really coincide. there’s no chance at any awkward run-ins. there is this weird, tiny feeling though. there’s this small inkling of something missing. you both suppress it. i mean, hell, the breakup just happened.

iii. scheming

meanwhile, your friends have all seemed to notice that the two of you are off. they aren’t sure what it is. they get that you two have had some time apart, but you’re both adults with lives. you have your own classes, jobs, other friends, and such. no one mentions it because they don’t think it’s their business.

but come on… there’s no way they won’t get to the bottom of it. our resident gossips, sunoo and sunghoon, team up and make it their mission to snoop around. of course, they take precautions to not get caught. the scheming duo find out nothing, to no avail.

now the gang of the scheming duo plus jay, jake, and niki have convened in the common room of jungwon’s dorm building. the 02z are all playing billiards in one corner. sunoo battles jungwon in a game of ping pong. the youngest of the group sits by himself on one of the couches, contemplating if he should speak up. they’ve been in a heated discussion as they try to figure out what exactly has been irking them.

riki, against his own conscience, speaks up to the five. he has this gut feeling and innocently wants to voice his opinion. “what if,” the young boy start out while gauging the faces of the others, “now don’t get mad and just hear me out.” he stops again, taking his time to make eye contact with each of the older boys, waiting until they all nod, “what if… they broke up?”

the group of friends all exchange glances with each other before breaking out into laughter. jay composes himself a bit, still chuckling when he says, “seriously? you think they broke up? heeseung and y/n? yeah, no way.”

sunoo leans onto the ping pong table and eggs him on, “they are literally soulmates.”

jungwon sets his racket down and goes to plop himself next to riki on the couch, “there is no way in hell the two of them split.”

iv. breaking news

“yeah, we split.” plain and simple. three words that crushed the poor hearts of jake and jungwon. he broke the news over brunch. he sensed their curiosity when they deliberately never brought you up. 

“good joke there, dude. almost had me for a second.” jake says, awkwardly with a forced laugh.

the youngest of the three chiming in and agreeing, “yeah, that’s really funny.” a silence hits the booth. “you are joking… right?”

the oldest then looks back and forth between the two, tilting his head to one side like a confused pup. he doesn’t see why they think he would joke and simply replies, “nope. you guys haven’t asked so i’m guessing you tried to snoop around and pick up on my cues. i’m also guessing sunoo’s behind this whole operation.”

“ok wait,” jake interjects, “what do you mean you broke up? you can’t just break up.”

jungwon agrees, “he’s right. you two are just playing a prank on us.”

“guys, i’m serious. y/n and i are no longer together.” the two just freeze, jaws dropped, eyes wide. “besides, it’s better this way.”

v. bad timing

meanwhile the remaining four members of their friend group have met up in the campus library in an attempted study session. so far, they’ve just gone back to gossiping and slacking off. the boys all find themselves teetering on the verge of sleep. that is until sunghoon catches you walking in. immediately going to softly pat the others back awake, they all look up confused. trying to stay subtle, hoon jerks his head to the side in your direction.

you make your way to one of the shelves, searching high and low for a book you need for your literature class. sneaking up behind you comes choi yeonjun, the library aid and a friend of yours. 

“need any help?”

“no thanks, i’m good jun.” you give him a polite smile.

unbeknownst to both of you, the failure of a study group has creeped to a closer table. they knew that you two were friends but they still can’t help but eavesdrop. “will you two please shut up so we can hear them?” the annoyed face evident on sunghoon’s face at the bickering of sunoo and niki. he turns to see jay, snacking and not paying attention. he rolls his eyes at the group, his gaze then catching yeonjun leading you out of the shelves. quickly shushing the three and nodding his head in your direction again, they finally get the hint.

yeonjun steps in front of you, “so you know my friend soobin, right?”

“soobin… as in choi soobin?”

yeonjun flashes his bright smile, “that’s the one.”

“yeah i know him. we had a stats class together a while back. he definitely taught me a few tricks around a calculator.” you laugh with him, “he’s super sweet, and needless to say cute too.”

“well, am i glad to hear that! long story short, he’s kinda been crushing on you lately and wants to know if you’re free. he mentioned your shared class before but he said he never got your number.”

“since you have mine already, go ahead and give it to him. tell him i’m free whenever he is.”

yeonjun raises his eyebrows at your boldness, “will do. i just wanted to ask you first before i gave it to him because… y’know…”

“no worries, i completely understand.”

he gives a quick goodbye before going back to his desk. storming quickly, four faces appear in front of you, all a combination of confusion, shock, and anger. 

sunoo starts, “um… y/n. why are you telling yeonjun to give your number to another guy?”

“yeah, are you cheating on heeseung?” his partner in crime, sunghoon, joins in.

you pause and scan their faces. your face dawns an equally as confused expression. “how can i cheat on someone who isn’t my boyfriend?”

four jaws simultaneously drop. riki’s being the first to close and answer a bit hushed, “i knew it.”

jay turns to him in disbelief, “not the time, niki!”

“did heeseung not tell you guys?” you ask them slowly. “i assumed he would be the one to let you all know.”

“that you two broke up?!” sunoo asks angrily, being shushed by yeonjun from the counter. giving an apologetic smile then tuning back into your conversation, “what do you mean you two broke up?”

“we just… broke up. that’s it. end of story. now if you’ll excuse me, i have to actually study.”

they watch you check out the book you came in for originally and walk out the doors, unsure of what to do next.

vi. the intervention

arranging your monthly movie night was not exactly the easiest task given the tensions surrounding two people in your group. so the only logical solution that they all could think of was to simply not to tell one of you that the other was coming over. a fool-proof plan.

in the dorm of the 02z, you did not expect to see heeseung when you walked in.

he gets up from his spot on the couch, “what the hell is going on here?”

“yeah, an explanation would be nice.” you cross your arms as you glare at the younger boys.

niki, trying to act as mediator gestures for both of you two sit on the loveseat—the same loveseat that was always reserved for the two of you before. “this is an intervention.”

after the confession of their intentions, everyone goes quiet. not a single word is spoken for several minutes, no one knowing how to start. after much internal contemplation, jungwon finally attempts to start. “we brought you two here today because- you know what, i can’t do this.” he stops and cuts himself off, burying his face in his hands.

sunoo sits next to him with his arms crossed. “how dare you two? our parents gets divorced and we don’t even get a notice.” it was common for them to refer to you and heeseung as the parents of the group, being the oldest. although something about sunoo still calling you by that nickname stings, him shaking his head to display his disappointment making you feel guilty. 

you see heeseung out of the corner of your eye avoiding looking up to your friends. “look, i don’t see the big deal. we broke up. that happens when relationships don’t work out.”

sunghoon quickly intervenes, “how can you say it isn’t a big deal? you’re letting three years go to waste and that’s all you can say? that’s what happens.” he scoffs at how shameless you come off.

“well, would you rather us stay together even when we were unhappy?” their reactions were a mix of shouts, the words yes, of course not, and duh all blending into each other.

that’s what brought your ex boyfriend out of his daze. “y/n has a point. we broke up and it’s over. we were no longer happy and i don’t see the point in bringing it up again either. it’s in the past. let it go.” he says rather coldly and sternly. him actually saying it and acknowledging it caused that weird feeling to come back. his body language is off, too. your years together has taught you enough about heeseung to know when he’s upset, especially with himself.

jake takes his turn, looking down at his fidgeting hands and muttering sadly, “but you promised each other forever.”

that prompts you and heeseung to glance at each other quickly, making eye contact and it lingering for a couple of seconds. you look away first, not noticing that his stare doesn’t leave you.”some promises just can’t be kept.” your response then making him turn away.

“bullshit.” it’s the first word uttered by jay this entire time. “neither of you are the type to break promises.”

“some things can’t be helped,” heeseung defends.

jay, getting angrier, asks his friend, “did you know that she’s already going on a date? yeah, that guy, soobin. i’m pretty sure you know who he is. your ex,” he makes sure to stress the last word with a certain degree of annoyance, “thinks he’s cute.”

emotionless, heeseung answers back, “good for her, then.”

you were sure that you were over him, that’s why you said yes to the date. but something about him not caring leaves you feeling odd.

jungwon stops your train of thought, “no, you’re supposed to be upset. you’re supposed to get jealous and confess you still want to be with her. you’re supposed to fight for her and be together.”

another quick glance between the two of you, lasting longer than the previous one. no words are said on his end, but you know exactly what he’s trying to say. “he doesn’t have to fight when i’m the one who ended it.” you knew him. you knew he couldn’t admit to the others his decision. after all, he wants to be a good role model even in his darkest times. he couldn’t crush their idea of love and you did what you had to do. you lied for his sake—and maybe even yours.

vii. him

two months have passed since the breakup. there’s tension amongst the friend group, the six not wanting to pick sides between you and heeseung. they’re constantly going back and forth, like they’re walking on eggshells as to not bring up something that only happened with the other.

to get your mind off everything, you’ve found comfort in soobin. well, more accurately you’ve found comfort in between his sheets, or wherever you two decide for it to go down. that’s not to say the dates aren’t great. you’re not official and you both know that. your latest date, however, couldn’t help but feel weird.

the date was going pretty well. don’t get me wrong—soobin is a great guy. he’s sweet, caring, funny, and handsome. you have a lot in common like your taste in drinks and movies. maybe if you had met him first, you would’ve dated him… but you didn’t meet him first. you met heeseung first, and soobin isn’t heeseung.

you found yourself drifting from the conversation now and then, thinking about how heeseung would’ve been at that moment. you think back to his habits, particularly the way he raises his eyebrows whenever he’s excited or talking about something he’s passionate about. you always found it endearing. over the course of dinner, you are able to notice that soobin has some cute habits too, like him covering his face when he gets shy or puffing out his cheeks. but it still isn’t the same.

“you two deserve each other.”

soobin catches your attention again with that comment. “what?”

“you and heeseung. i know that look. don’t try to lie to me.”

“look, heeseung is my past, and i want it to stay that way.”

“do you really want it to stay that way, or are you just afraid of what could happen if you let him back into your present?”

you give him a teasing glare, “don’t get all philosophical with me. i just don’t think he and i can go back to how we were before.”

“what’s so bad about you two changing? obviously if it didn’t work out, you shouldn’t try to be what you were before.”

“can’t i just try with you?”

“as much as i would love for you to give me that chance, i can’t do that to you or to myself. it’s not fair.”

you hesitantly ask him, “but is it worth it?”

“that’s not my decision to make.”

viii. her

now that you’re virtually not in his life, he seems to be looking for you everywhere. actually… rather than going out of his way to look for you, everything just reminds him of you. the jingles of the commercials you always sang along to, your favorite songs on the radio, the reruns of 90’s shows you always binged. hell, even when he was making ramen, he was reminded of how you would make his favorite for him every time he was stressed over an exam. he was sitting in the back of the lecture hall, trying so hard to stay awake for his 3 hour long class with the most boring professor on campus. he fought the urge to text you since it felt like second nature to rely on you to help cheer him up.

there was a particular night when it really hit him. reality smacked him in the face late one evening. heeseung was bored out of his mind, laying alone in bed, aimlessly browsing netflix to find something to watch. he thinks to himself y/n would’ve slammed this laptop closed and talked all night about random and obscure topics. he laughs to himself, reliving the memories. right then, it’s obvious. he misses her.

ix. promises

the rain hitting your bedroom window had no help on your already gloomy mood. what did help was the bottle of soju- well more realistically, four bottles of soju. it was all the liquid courage you needed to call heeseung at three in the morning. 

you sat drowsily on the rug of your living room, your phone on speaker and placed in front of you as you stared out the dewy glass. you heard the phone ring seven times, ready to hang up until you heard his groggy voice come out from the other end. “hello? y/n, why are you up?”

you laugh softly and ask him, sounding loopy, “why are you up?”

“because you’re calling me. would you like to give me a reason why, and are you drunk?”

“maybe. anyways, you know… i was thinking. we broke a lot of promises and it hurts. i have to know that we’re not bad people. i have to keep at least one, right?”

heeseung groans but lets you ramble, knowing that you won’t stop until you’ve said it all, “go on…”

“we made a promise that if something was going on, if we were in a dark place, that we would talk to someone. well, if you couldn’t tell by now, i’m not in the best place. the first person i thought to talk to was you.”

“why me?”

“shhh… don’t ask questions. i know you’re tired so just stay on the phone and let me talk. ok?”

he goes quiet for a bit, sighing, “ok.”

“i miss you. i do. i don’t expect you to miss me but i just want to say it,” pausing to hiccup, “soobin helped me realize some things, saying some crap like we deserve each other.” you chuckle as you recall his words, “maybe he said it because bad people deserve bad people. maybe he said it because in our own fucked up lives, we’re the only ones who can understand each other. i did a lot of thinking and i’ve come to the conclusion that we don’t. because if we stay together, we can’t move on. we can’t grow. we can’t become good people, no matter how much we want it. that’s life. sometimes, no matter how much we want something, no matter how much we wish on stars or pray, some things just aren’t meant to be.”

“y/n, get some rest…”

“wait, i’m not done. you already can tell i’ve been drinking and to be honest i have been, for a while. i do it,” starting to choke up and sniffle, “because it helps me forget. even if it’s just for a minute that i can forget what happened, i’ll drink as much as it takes. i’ll grow out of it, eventually. i know i will, but for now… i have to do what i have to do. i’m sure you can relate.” you laugh again, getting more drowsy. you bring your legs up, hugging your knees. faintly, the sounds of heeseung’s snores play from your phone. you smile to yourself, “i wish you were here, singing me a lullaby. i don’t know when you fell asleep but goodnight. take care of yourself.”

cuddled up in his bed, heeseung hears you hang up. he lets you believe he didn’t hear what you said. he knows the reality of it all and the weight that you both are carrying. knowing that you won’t check your phone for the rest of the night, he sends you a quick text: bookstore, saturday, noon. goodnight.

as he turns off his phone to try to fall back asleep, he sees his reflection in the black screen. he sees his puffy, red eyes and his tear-stained cheeks. the end of it all is coming and finally, you two are ready for it.

x. love song

seeing him in person is a good idea. clearing the air, letting it all out, getting closure. all good ideas, you hope. walking into the bookstore was a weird feeling. when you spot him sitting by the window, you quietly make your way over. he looks up at your new presence, his feet shuffling out of nervousness. you notice the glass of pear juice on the small coffee table in front of him, already half empty.

“hi,” he says like a whisper.

“hi,” you awkwardly respond. it’s unlike the two of you to not know how to start a conversation. you make your way onto the cushioned seat, letting yourself get comfortable to help ease the tension. you each avoid the other’s gaze, not knowing how to begin. you sigh and finally ask, “how have you been?”

“busy,” he says as he nods, “finally took up actual music lessons. thought it would be better to have someone who’s played piano and guitar professionally instead of trying to teach myself.”

you softly giggle, “that’s good. you’ve always loved music.”

“yeah… how about you?”

“same, busy. i got the t.a position i applied for like forever ago.”

“congrats! you still looking to become a teacher?”

“well, generally yeah. i was having my doubts before but i just fell back into it. finally being able to be there, present, and guiding others… that’s what i want.” you sit there across from him, watching him and taking it all in. the man in front of you is heeseung, but not the heeseung you knew. no, this is the better version of him. the version of him where he can focus on himself. the version of heeseung that’s glowing and happy and ready to take on the world. “so, look. there’s no easy or delicate way to put it but i think there are things we both need to get off our chests.”

“agreed. since it all happened—the fights, the breakups, the ambush interventions—we haven’t actually talked.”

“those interventions… they were silly but the guys did help me realize some things. we’re growing up. sure, i thought we had this plan of us graduating, getting married, having a family, settling down, growing old. we both wanted that type of life. sadly, it’s not what happened and we have to live with it.”

he lets out a chuckle, “heeseung and y/n: meant for each other and meant to be.”

“but not meant to last. what a bittersweet and poetic ending."

“it’s like people always say: right person, wrong time.”

“you know… you used to tell me that our love song was the soundtrack to the best life you could live.” you reach out and take his hand in yours, “i just,” pausing to take a deep breath and compose yourself, “i just want you to know… that if anything happens-”

he cuts you off with a quiet gasp, whispering your name with a shaky voice, “don’t.”

you shake your head and gently squeeze his hand, “if anything happens… if in the end, we don’t find our way back and it isn’t us, don’t think we ended on a bad note.” you drop your head as you chuckle lightly before continuing, “cause you were always on key.” you give him a small grin, trying your hardest to not make things worse by crying. “we were just playing different tunes.”

he pulls you in closer to him, placing his hands softly on your cheeks. “i always hated seeing you cry,” he says as he wipes away the tears on your face, not bothering about his own. he wraps his arms around you, holding you close for the last time. 

you stay there in his warmth, hearing him sniffle as he tries to hold back the falling tears. when you pull away, you tell him “i will always love you. maybe not in the way i thought i would but it’s still there.”

“maybe in our next life, it’ll be the right time.” with that, he leaves a kiss on your forehead, leaves the bookstore, and leaves your life. your duet that worked in perfect harmony now playing a beautiful cadence—two wandering artists, free to fill your own wretched worlds with new melodies, the bliss and tranquility of it all. the hope that maybe one day, you’ll be in each other��s lives again is enough.

#heeseung #lee heeseung #heeseung angst #lee heeseung angst #heeseung fluff #lee heeseung fluff #heeseung imagine #heeseung imagines #heeseung fic #heeseung fics #enhypen #enhypen heeseung #enhypen imagine #enhypen imagines #enhypen fic #enhypen fics #enhypen angst #enhypen fluff #enhypen heeseung imagines #enhypen heeseung fics

[spinningintheshadows]

Building a Life with JJ

You weren’t exactly dating but y’know drinking can lead to all sorts of things.

Even though you’re scared shitless, you’re kind of glad it’s JJ that knocked you up in the end. 

Telling him though? You’d be shitting yourself.

“We’re 16 and 17! What do you mean you’re pregnant. Are you even sure it’s mine!” 

“Don’t be a fucking dumbass, JJ! You’re the only one I’ve not used a fucking condom with in the last 6 weeks! You’re the only one period!” 

JJ promptly has a panic attack as it sinks in.

“What if I’m like my dad” 

“You’re already a better dad than him” 

Agreeing to raise your child as friends.

Telling the other Pogues, watching John B and Pope get pale and Kie and Sarah dragging you away. 

Everything going smoothly during your pregnancy, despite the fact you just want a joint.

It’s a girl!! 

You have an emergency c section so JJ names your daughter: Isla Jo Maybank

Asking John B and Sarah to be her godparents

They say yes immediately.

JJ Maybank: Baby wearing champion.

The first year is rough(™) 

You’re going to school full time on top of being a full time parent. 

Even JJ decides to take school more seriously.

The one good thing is that JJ gets out of his abusive household and comes to live with you and your mom. 

Your mom babysits while you’re in school

She absolutely adores your daughter.

Isla’s first word is “Dada” much to your dismay and JJ’s delight. 

“Ha she likes me better!”

“No she doesn’t she just knows you’ll give in” 

Him taking her to the chateau to show off her babbling. 

Of course all of the Pogues are heart-eye-emoji over her. 

Isla is 11 months old when JJ comes into your room and tells you he wants to take you on a proper date. 

He makes you dress up and its super cute. 

For your 18th birthday, you walk in to him making pancakes with your daughter in her high chair squealing.

You and JJ graduating high school and your Mom is in the front row with your daughter and you get emotional. 

The next day your father shows up after dipping 15 years ago. 

Apparently he’s filthy stinkin’ rich?? And has been paying thousands in child support per month.

Your mom explaining she put it in an account for you so you could do bigger things than she did. 

Your dad being really angry about you having a kid with JJ.

“I don’t see why you’re mad, sir. At least I’ve never missed a day of my kids life. Thats more than you can say. Who held your daughters hand when her grandfather died? Or who would go to the corner store and get her whatever she was craving at 3:40 in the morning? Who has sat up every night your granddaughter has been sick and held her, or rocked her, or whatever needed to be done to comfort her. With all due respect sir, I’ve been in love with your daughter since I met her on our first day of 4th grade. Yeah maybe we skipped a couple steps but I wouldn’t trade my daughter for anything”

Your dad getting mad and storming off, telling you you were trash like your mother. 

You staring at JJ with tears in your eyes.

“You’re in love with me?”

“Of course I am, stupid.”

“Nerd.”

“But I’m your nerd.”

Isla never having to worry about if she was gonna have a roof over her head or food because JJ stayed home with her while you went to college and got a degree in business. 

You and Sarah opened a very successful boutique once you graduated. 

Being able to afford a nice house for the three of you by the time she started kindergarten. 

JJ crying like a baby when she starts school. 

“Where did our six pound baldy go.” 

“Kids grow up JJ.” 

“I don’t want her to grow up, I want her to go back to being our tiny baby.”

“Well why don’t we revisit this day in five years with number two.”

“What?!?”

You’d just smile and kiss him.

You telling him you’d found out a couple days before.

“You know, I love Isla, but I think I’m more relaxed about this one.”

“Well you know, that happens when you’re 21 and 22” 

“Let’s get married. Before the baby comes.” 

“Okay”

You get married on a pretty September Saturday afternoon. 

Kie and Sarah are your bridesmaids. Pope and John B are groomsmen

Isla is the cutest flower girl.

You both cry. 

“I’ve been waiting for this day since the first day of fourth grade.”

“That’s cheesy as hell.” 

“Well, Mrs. Maybank, get used to cheese.”

In ten years, you look back on your life while sitting with the girls while the guys are playing with the kids, four of them belonging to you. 

Sarah tells you you got lucky with such a beautiful family.

Kie agrees.

Between the three of you, there’s now nine children, ranging from 2 years to 15. 

“Hey guys how fast do you think JJ would pass out if I told him I was pregnant again?”

“Probably immediately.”

“I have to tell you something, this is just sparkling water.”

“You guys really like to not use protection huh.”

“I’m glad Pope got snipped after the second one.”

“Eh, I think we want one more.” 

“Oh I’m definitely done after five.” 

But you don’t stop with five but not by choice exactly

You see, JJ got snipped after number 5. 

You send a text to Sarah early one Sunday morning about 6 am.

“Tell me your husbands vasectomy didn’t work without telling me your husbands vasectomy didn’t work” 

It’s twins. 

JJ promptly has a panic attack, again.

“We were supposed to be done with the last one. And now you’re telling me we’re having two of them!?!?”

“Hey! We can handle five with three of them under 4, it’s fine. We did it before!”

“We’re old, babe! We did it when we were young spry children.”

“JJ, you’re 35”

“Exactly! Old!”

But you do make it, although you get weird looks at your daughter's high school graduation when you have toddlers with a high school graduate. 

Your old history teacher is the principal now, and he just shakes his head when he sees you. 

With seven kids, you look crazy but you’re still stupidly in love with the blonde boy you fell in love with 18 years ago. 

#jj maybank #jj maybank x reader

[no-droids]

Mercy, Sabotage, and Dead Space

(gif credit to @redwyyne-archive)

Part One of The Bet series

Pairing: Poe Dameron/Reader

Rating: Explicit

Word Count: 12.7K

Summary:

1. No sex.

2. No touching yourself.

3. No orgasms.

Warnings/Tags: DUBCON/NONCON elements, fuckboy Poe (OOC), Enemies to Lovers, degradation/humiliation, mentions of oral sex, SMUUUTTTTTTTT also I’m not sorry for what I did but you’re not allowed to read if you’re gonna get mad at me okay byeeee

***

This.

This shit, right here.

If the question was ever, “What’s the stupidest fucking thing you’ve ever let Poe Dameron somehow talk you into doing?” then the answer is this stupid shit, right the fuck here.  This is like.  You remember that one game, Mercy?  The one where you’d dig your nails in and twist arms and just needlessly inflict pain on each other as children until one of you cried uncle because someone somewhere once decided to turn torture into a matter of pride?

You always thought those games were fucking ridiculous.  Who can hold their breath the longest, who can handle a lit deathstick against their flesh the longest, who can take the hardest punch—who cares?  It’s child’s play.  It’s self-inflicted agony for the sake of bragging rights and even as a youngling, you refused to fall for it.

But then you met… fucking Dameron.

You know those people that… they don’t just rub you the wrong way, but literally every single aspect about their personality is sandpaper against wet skin and your whole entire being feels chafed raw just by existing in their general vicinity for an extended period of time?

You’re… you’re not usually a competitive—much less aggressive person.  You never have been.  It’s just not part of your nature.  If you ever excel at anything in life, it isn’t because of some secret, deep-seated desire to win or be better than anyone else.  You just… do you.  You do whatever you do, and if it’s good, it’s good.  And if it’s bad, it’s good.  Because at the end of the day at least it’s still you, and you’re okay with that.

But this?

This shit?  Right here?

“This is fucking dumb,” you say, because you know it’s what you both must be thinking so you may as well just get it out in the open.  “This is the dumbest fucking thing, Dameron.  What are we doing?  Why are we doing this?”

The grumpy, orange-jumpsuited figure sitting behind you just sighs heavily and slumps even further down in his bucket seat, as if it isn’t the first time you’ve tried asking this incredibly valid question (it totally is), bringing a palm down to thunk the top of the guidance controls between his legs in a quiet irritation you’re almost certain has everything to do with the very topic you’re trying to bring up. 

“Because,” comes that infuriating drawl.  You can only see his face from this angle by looking at his reflection in the transparisteel barrier directly in front of you, but even just imagining the way his mouth moves while he rounds out the words makes your jaw clench.  “The coordinates we picked up were scrambled and this rendezvous could be going down at any one of thirty-six locat—?”

“No,” you interrupt him with a scowl, “not why I’ve been floating in dead space in this Maker-forsaken ship with you for eight fucking hours a day since… fuck, what’s today?  Thursday?  Friday?  Nope, can’t be Friday, Friday’s our off-day.  Thursday, then. …Thursday?”  You shake your head.  “Ugh, see?  Time doesn’t exist when I’m not allowed to cum, life is like one never-ending nightmare.”

“Oh.”  He takes a second to think about it in silence, the calloused tips of his fingers scratching the side of his face while he considers.  It wouldn’t usually be as loud as it is right now.  Maybe it’s the haunting quiet of space surrounding the ancient powered down hunk of metal you’re both stuck in, inadvertently isolating and amplifying the sound—or maybe it’s because your copilot’s jaw is currently covered in a thick, dark beard that you swear barely took his testosterone-overloaded ass a fucking week or two to grow, if that.  Regardless, the dark bristles crunch loudly under his short fingernails and it takes you about a grand total of five whole uninterrupted seconds of the scraping sound to realize you’re grinding your teeth along with it.  “Well,” he finally says, “that was your stupid idea.”

“Hmmmmmmmno,” you contest firmly, wiggling your elbow back to poke at his shin with your index finger once, twice, thrice, until he finally slaps your hand away in quiet irritation.  To the misfortune of you both—and likely the other hundred or so pilots concurrently taking rotating shifts in these tandem x-wings in a glorified mass stakeout, the cockpit of this ship is just way too fucking small.  Your arm is squeezed uncomfortably against machinery and electronics to get to him from this angle and a light slap isn’t going to stop you now that you’re here.  “You—” (poke) “—have a superiority complex and decided to turn it into a competition, not—” (poke) “—me.”

“Oh, I have a superiority complex, okay,” he scowls and nods in vehement, fake agreement, finally giving up and letting you poke at will, but the appeal is lost as soon as you realize he’s over it and your arm eases back into your lap.  You watch his reflection look out of the viewport and scan the empty void of space for the twentieth time in the past five minutes, clearly just as desperate to get back to base as you are.  “So what is it you call saying—wait, no no, not even saying, loudly declaring—‘Of course I can go longer without sex than “wham bam thank you ma’am” Dameron, you brainless fucks, it’s a simple fact!’”

“Alright—I don’t sound like that, fuck you very much,” you return, in reference to his shrieking, high-pitched impression of you surrounded by your fellow pilots in the rec room when you’ve had a bit too much to drink.   “Also, you don’t have to finger-quote literally every single syllable of my fucking sentence, Dameron.  First and last word, that’s all it takes.  And if it’s so superiority complex-ey of me to state simple facts, then what is it you call saying ‘betcha two weeks worth of pay you can’t, pretty baby’?”

“Uh, easy credits?”  He immediately asks, side-eyeing your reflection through the transparisteel.  “ Easy credits.  Just begging for it.  Two weeks of your slutty, sexy, easy fucking credits just begging to be taken and used— ”

“You need to get laid,” you cut in to tell him bluntly, scrunching your nose in what you hope looks like disgust.  As per protocol, the power to the x-wing was cut at the beginning of your shift—what feels like a fucking eternity ago—as a preventative maneuver in case the target falls out of hyperspace unexpectedly.  Avoiding the scanners of a fleet that may never actually show means it’s cold and dimly lit in here—just starlight in front of either you, but you’re hoping he can gauge the severity of your revulsion with your back to him.  “You just turned my money into a sex object.  It was vile.  I feel violated on its behalf.”

“Sounds like you’re the one who needs to get laid,” he tosses carelessly back at you, and you roll your eyes with as much sass as you can physically muster, so tired of all the dodging.  You know this hasn’t been easy for him either, he just has too much pride to admit it.  “Besides, you’ve gotta be past the withdrawal stage by now.  Is it really all that bad?”

“The fuck you mean, ‘Is it really all that bad’?”  You snap at him, shuffling around grumpily in your seat, hating the way the bulky weapons controls sit right between your thighs and prevent you from closing them.  Withdrawal stage, ha.   “Of course it’s all that bad.  It’s horrible.  It’s the fucking worst.  And more importantly, how are you not having any trouble with this?  Oh, wait—that’s right,” you answer yourself before he has a chance to.  “Because you cheated.”

“I did not cheat,” Dameron’s reflection immediately challenges with an accusatory finger pointed at you.  “I did not.  When the fuck did I cheat?  I swapped housing assignments with your shitty roommate and slept in the bunk below yours for a month and a half—all because you don’t believe in the honor system—just so you could tell me I fucking cheated?”

You scoff, feeling your annoyance spark even more.  He’s always been able to get under your skin, but the neglect you’ve been forcing your body to endure is just throwing gasoline on an already roaring fire.  “Okay, first of all?  Rude.  I am a fucking joy to have as a roomie, alright?  I put up with your snoring, your 2:00 AM dinners, you blasting your radio while I’m trying to sleep, I barely complain about your body odor—”

“My snoring is adorable, I get snacky at night, only sad people with fucked up lives hate music, I smell amazing,” Dameron casually lists off on his fingers, the self-confidence so easy and unshakeable that you swear he’s almost preening at the compliments he just gave himself by the time he’s finished rebutting everything you can think to throw at him.  And, while you’d never admit it, he does smell good.  He smells… unbelievably fucking good.  Always.  Something dark and woodsy, you can never quite put your finger on.  It pisses you off, so much that you’ve made a habit of pulling a face of disgust whenever the warm, rich scent noticeably reaches you, hoping it deflates his ego just a little bit.  No such luck so far.  

“Whatever.  The point is I’m a good fucking neighbor, alright, I’m neighborly as fuck,” you grumble, crossing your arms over your chest defensively.  “And don’t make it sound like I’m putting a chastity lock on your balls every night, because you can fuck anyone you want.  In fact, I strongly fucking encourage it—I just want to know about it when it happens.”

Dameron smirks and you groan, already knowing what’s coming.  “You wanna hear it?”

Yep, there it is.  “Second of all—”

“Feel the whole bunk rock with it?”  He goes on, completely ignoring you.  “Use the excuse that you’re trapped up top so you can just stay there the whole time and listen?  You know you can do a lot more than just—”

“Second of all,” you project over him, “you’re seriously telling me you haven’t had any wet dreams then, hm?  No snorgasms?  Hmmm?  No happy naps?  No captain midnights?  No mattress fracking?  Hmmmmmm???”

His voice very quickly sounds… shocked.  “How many fucking euphemisms—?”

“Wait wait, one more—” you quickly interrupt, too much momentum to stop now, “—sleepskeet.”

You watch in immense satisfaction as his expression seems to progress through all five stages of grief, before he exhales a long, unamused sigh and scratches his beard again.  You want to pluck each strand of it out of his face one by one.  “Anyways.  Wet dreams are totally different and don’t count.”

“It’s not different!”  You burst out, unable to help yourself, “it’s an orgasm, and rule number three is no orgas—”

“I know what the rules were, Gold-Ten,” he returns calmly, and it infuriates you, how he’s always able to make it seem like you’re the instigator who’s overreacting.  And he knows exactly what he’s doing by calling you by your flight designation, and it pisses you off even more because calling him Black-Leader in any other situation besides active warfare just feels like an unnecessary reminder of his skills.  Why he’s currently behind you manning the guidance controls and why you’re currently stuck in the front seat with the bulkier weapons systems.  “The question is if you’re seriously that bad enough of a sport to automatically disqualify me because of something that happens to any human with a dick indiscriminately when we blueball ourselves.”

“But that’s the entire fucking point, Dameron!”  You shrill, throwing your hands in the air in pure exasperation.  “There it is!  You need it more than I do, you just said it yourself!  Not to mention I said I can go longer without sex than you can— sex , not orgasms, but as it turns out I win at both.  Now can we please call this shit off so I can finally cum?  This isn’t fun anymore.”

“Nope,” he says immediately, popping the P with a bit too much hard emphasis to be genuinely amused.  He’s frustrated, too—his voice is too pleased, too fake to not be masking irritation underneath.  “Sorry.  But this was also your stupid idea, so.”

“You’re insufferable,” you grumble, anger flaring equal to his, just way more… verbal.  And descriptive.  “Wet dreams don’t count, fucking right.  Tell that to the oceans of Kamino I got going on down there, huh?  I move on this seat wrong and I’ll slide off it—”

A loud slam of a palm against the controls suddenly echoes throughout the small cockpit, causing you to jump slightly.  

“Don’t,” Dameron snarls, “... say shit like that to me.  Not right now.  Not right now, fuck .”

You go quiet for a moment, not expecting that much of an outburst at something you considered to be a throwaway remark, but then… oh.  Something occurs to you, something… sinister.  Oh, well, now there’s an idea.

Everything inside you immediately surges up and burns at the thought—the mere whisper of a way out of all of this, quickly, without giving in and letting him hold your surrender over you for Maker knows how long.  It’s so fucking simple, you don’t know why you didn’t think of it before.  You don’t have to wait him out at all; instead, you just need to… entice him into giving in first.

Neither of you say anything for a while, and you don’t know what he’s thinking (nothing, probably—a dry tumbleweed bouncing across an empty desert landscape, you imagine) but you take the dip in conversation to consider a plan.  You can’t go at it too outright, it’ll be too big of a turnaround and he’ll see it coming lightyears away.  A halfhearted joke about your pussy tossed out without thinking is what catalyzed the most substantial reaction from him you’ve seen, so… maybe you can keep steering the conversation towards the idea.

“How many wet dreams have you had?”  You suddenly ask, your heart beginning to pick up in your chest as soon as the words are out of your mouth.

“Excuse me?”  Dameron grunts from behind you, and you catch his reflection raising a thick eyebrow at you.

You take a deep breath and disguise it by stretching your back out just a little bit, lifting your shoulder blades and arching the sore muscles there, before settling back down in your normal crappy posture once more.  “Now many times did you cum in your sleep?  Had to at least been once for you to claim they don’t count.”

“Why does it matter?”  He asks, completely sidestepping the question for the second time.  “It was involuntary.”

You shrug.  “Just so I know how many freebies I can get tonight.”

“No,” Dameron instantly counters, his voice dead serious.  “Not fucking allowed.”

“Why not?”  You ask, and this time, there’s significantly less challenge than you’d typically deliver it with.  Instead, your voice is soft, questioning.  Not argumentative, but curious, and there’s just enough of your point left unsaid that it’ll seem like he conjured the rest of the image himself.

There’s silence while he considers his response to the perfectly executed bait.  You assume you’re both picturing the same thing, because it’s what you’ve pictured almost every single night spent in this celibate hellscape.  The cool darkness of your shared quarters, the standard-issue sheets that still feel crispy and rough on your skin no matter how many nights you’ve slept in them, with one of your hands pressed tight over your mouth and two of your fingers circle your clit.

“You only get to do it if I’m in the room,”  he poses instead, and you swallow thickly, feeling your body tighten with an unintentional drop of pure heat through your tummy at the thought.  Maker, it must be really bad if Poe fucking Dameron is getting to you like this.  The bane of your existence shouldn’t make your insides twist in on themselves—at least, not in a good way.

“Not like I’d have much choice,” you eventually respond, keeping it purposefully ambiguous.  “It’s your room, too.  Unfortunately.”

Stars, it’s been so long since you’ve done this, since you’ve walked the fine line between flirtation and seduction, wanting to turn on the charm slowly—gradually ease it up like a hyperdrive lever under your fingertips so that you’re at maximum by the time he realizes you’re even there.  You take a moment to glance at his reflection, watching Dameron look back at you curiously, a flash of interest in his eyes.

“By the way, how does that one girl feel about us doing this?”  You ask out of nowhere, suddenly remembering the existence of his pretty little number.  You’ve seen her under his arm around base at least a few times, which is more than you can say for the rest of them.  “Red-Six.  Tall brunette with the tattoos—I don’t bother learning names, they all come and go.”

“Nihla,” Dameron nods with a wistful sigh, tilting his head to rest against his shoulder.  “Or, wait… Neah.  No—it was… Nalal.  Yeah, Nalal, I think that’s right…”

“Unbelievable,” you mutter.  “One of the greatest mysteries of the universe is how many people get in line for you, I’ll never fucking understand it.”

“They just want me for my cock,” he tells you without missing a single beat, sounding like he’s not joking in the slightest.  “It was starting to get obnoxious.  Glad I finally have an excuse to turn them down.”

“Unbelievable,” you repeat, stunned by how truly, mind-blowingly full of himself he is.  “You’re… fucking…”

You end up just staring at him and making a sound somewhere between a laugh and a scoff, at a complete loss for words, and Dameron eventually shrugs and continues on after you fail to form a coherent thought in the allotted time frame he provides.

“Now I can just tell them I’m in a long-running bet with Gold-Ten over who can sexually deprive themselves the longest and weirdly enough, they don’t seem all that interested anymore,” he remarks, tilting his chin up and rubbing at his beard again, and for some reason… the sound of it bothers you somewhat less now, the way he phrased that resonating deeper inside you than it should.  Lower than it should.  You blink a few times, almost shocked by your body’s unprecedented response to his admission—Poe Dameron uses you as an excuse to turn down sex with pretty girls?  Happily?—and your mind goes blank for a second while he watches you through the transparisteel.  “It’s alright,” he eventually goes on, tilting his head.  “Sometimes a sabbatical is good.  I do really miss pussy, though.”

“Well,” you finally tell him, oddly not having much else to offer at the moment.  “I’m sorry?  And… you’re welcome.  I guess.”

Dameron shrugs once more and makes an apathetic sound without opening his mouth, and you drop your stare down to the machinery between your spread thighs after feeling like you were looking at each other for too long.  The position started uncomfortable and seven hours later, it’s still fucking uncomfortable.  At first the discomfort twinged at your hips and lower back, but now the sensation seems to be… centering itself a bit more, finding a spot right between your legs, especially when his words echo through your subconscious and make you naturally want to push your thighs together.  I do really miss pussy, though.

You try to snap out of it a bit, try to stop hyperfixating on the way your underwear has felt sticky and wet for fucking hours now, but it’s so fucking difficult to chill yourself out when your body already went into this whole situation with a month and a half long stumbling block.  He’s not really doing anything at all—he’s leant back in his chair and staring out the window into the black emptiness of space when you steal a look once more, but something about how his casual responses are affecting you makes it seem like he’s the one currently seducing you.

Maker, you have to focus.   You have to control yourself.  You’re starting to feel a little warm in your thick jumpsuit—a particular shade of orange that does not compliment your complexion but you normally rejoice in wearing regardless.  It’s baggy and uniform and hides most of your curves and most importantly, it keeps you toasty on missions like this.  Space is cold —especially this far out in the Cauper Void, and there’s no fucking reason this powered down hunk of floating metal should feel as muggy and stifling as it does in here.

“We shouldn’t be doing this,” you suddenly hear yourself say, spontaneously, no thought put into it whatsoever.  One last try, one last attempt to avoid it, a last-ditch go at flight before he gives you no choice and you’re left with this one remaining option.  “This isn’t a good idea.  It’s… not healthy.  I don’t want to do this anymore.”

This gets a small chuckle out of him.  “I know you don’t, pretty baby.”

“Then let’s just call the whole thing off,” you propose once again, trying to lighten your tone, make it a… a friendly thing.  It sounds so fake, even to your own ears—since when would you be desperate enough to let the dreaded petname slide?—but granted, you know what they say about time and measures and all that shit.  “We can call it a tie, just go back to the way things were befo—”

He cuts you off and pins you with his gaze through the reflection.  “You realize that you begging me to put an end to your suffering is—ridiculously hot, mostly—but also only an incentive to make me keep pushing until you finally give in?”

You groan and comb some of your hair off your forehead, not liking the way it’s getting just the slightest bit damp.  “Fine, we won’t call it off, but can we at least just stop—”  You immediately catch yourself, not wanting to unintentionally push this too far too quickly, but your hesitation is clear and compelling enough for him to prompt you.

“At least just stop what?”  Dameron asks, and though you don’t think it’s intentional or even noticeable from his perspective, something about the way his voice sounds… husky.  Low to the ground.

“Stop dragging it out,” you breathe, your heart pounding.  Why is your heart pounding so fucking fast?  This is a fucking sting op, a facade, so why are you getting so caught up in the lie you’ve spun for yourself?  “Finish it.  Sooner, rather than later.  Quit being masochists about it, just fucking put it to—”

Maker, your eyes instinctively snap to his at your poor choice of wording, having almost said bed on complete accident.  Genuinely, you didn’t mean to phrase it that way, but at the same time, the thought of it almost burns you alive.  Fuck.  Dameron, and you, in bed.  It could be mean.  It could be rough.  A fight for dominance more than anything.  He’s bigger than you and he could make it fucking hurt, especially after going without it for as long as you have, but something about how double-edged that type of relief would be isn’t really sinking in for you right now.  Like a person slowly dying of thirst that’s fantasizing about drowning.  Regardless, the idea of a night with him and the sudden assortment of vivid imagery it provides is enough to get you to shut up and take a deep breath, just wait with your mouth shut for whatever his response is.

Unfortunately, you don’t have to wait long at all.

“This is cute,” he suddenly tells you, and you jerk back and sputter a bunch of consonants stupidly like he smacked you.

“Fuck you?”  Are the first recognizable words that can be heard.  “I’m not—this isn’t fucking— cute?”

“It’s cute,” Dameron repeats, hiding a soft smile from you with a few of his fingers pressed to his lips.  “You,” he says as he points at your reflection, twirling his finger around in circles, “trying to be all sneaky about it, go about your little performance.  It’s like… watching a little kid just blatantly fuck up a magic trick but they’re naive enough to think it’s working.  Keep going, I’m enthralled.”

You hold still for just a second as ice suddenly sinks through your tummy and clears away any trace of warmth you may have once felt from before.  Of course.  Stupid.  Stupid, you shouldn’t have even tried something like that, you don’t know why you thought…

Horrifyingly, you go dead silent and the lack of an immediate response from you hangs awkwardly in the still air.  You’re usually so quick with him, so fiery, letting the things he throws at you just glide right off you, but for some insane reason, you’re actually fucking… embarrassed?  A little bit?

You should say something, but your whole body is just frustratingly blank, almost buzzing in mortification, and it gets worse and worse the longer you stay quiet.  You don’t usually put yourself in a position to be compromised, and you certainly didn’t think the place he decided to jab this time had particularly thin skin.

You… you’d forgotten what it’s like to have someone laugh at you when you’re genuinely trying your best to flirt.

Well, it’s too late to say anything now, you think.  Now it’s just uncomfortable in here—true discomfort, not the typical angry silences.  You’re used to that, you’re used to huffing and crossing your arms and ticking your jaw through the breaks in conversation, refusing to say a word because you’re beyond pissed off.  This is different.  This quiet sits different in the air, this emotion hits different in your chest, somewhere vulnerable.  A crack in your armor he found without even necessarily intending to, but at this point, the stupid way you can’t seem to hide the wound from him is just as much to blame.

“So, uh…”  Dameron clears his throat as you shut your eyes tight against the awkwardness, but you can still feel a strange little shift in the air from behind you.  There’s something about the enclosed space, the quiet darkness surrounding you both, you feel… too close to him.  Sharing his air, feeling the energy when it’s cramped and you’re not able to just get up and storm away from him like normal.  You don’t like it.  You don’t like that you can immediately tell something has changed without being able to see him, that type of intimacy between you is pushing a boundary you can’t quite pinpoint but know exists.

You snap your eyes open and look over at Dameron’s reflection when he’s quiet for too long, and though you try to glare as fiercely as possible at him while you do it, the look on his face almost stops you dead.  The pure intensity raging in his expression, the way he’s got his eyes narrowed, flicking back and forth between yours, carefully studying you, wondering if perhaps he may have gotten it all wrong.  “I mean, y’know.  Theoretically speaking, and all.  If I broke, you’d let me fuck you?”

You… aren’t expecting that.

You don’t know why but your heart suddenly starts to race again, but it’s not the same as before.  Before it was speeding up and at an angle, like a rocket trying to escape a body’s gravitational pull, to go somewhere, search for something.  This time it just feels like it’s ricketing downhill, unsteady and out of control, about to break apart with every single pothole that rattles and slams through you.  Shit.  You didn’t expect the ultimatum would be presented to you so up front like that—you thought there’d be… some resistance, at least.  

Fuck, you take way too fucking long thinking about it, and your face feels warmer and warmer the more you mentally pick apart his specific phrasing, wondering where you should even begin.  You still haven’t said anything, but the damage is already done.  What should've been a firm, instantaneous go fuck yourself is left suspended, unanswered, open for interpretation.  You miss your window of opportunity to shut him down, you overshoot it by a longshot, and then you feel that spark of a what-if flare deep down once more.

No, fucking stop it.  Stop it.  Maker, your eyes do everything they can to not look at him while you concentrate and work to tap into your anger, stoking the flames of your fire to avoid feeling… temptation.  How dare he?  How fucking dare he do this to you, especially when there’s no chance to get out of here, to abort mission and cut your losses?  You clench your jaw and isolate that fury, magnify it until it’s the only thing you can feel anymore.

“My turn now,” Dameron eventually breaks the silence to clarify, blinking at you, and by this point you’re so fucking pissed off that you don’t recognize that isn’t actually a question.

“No,” you immediately snap, strung far too thin to deal with this new, treacherous territory with him.  Defaulting to normal is best, it’s easier.  “No, it’s not your turn, and fuck no, you can’t fuck me, not even if it means I win this stupid bet.  No to everything that has anything to fucking do with you, alright?  Don’t talk to me.  You’re lucky if I agree to sleep in the same fucking room as you tonight.  And—and?—I think your beard looks dumb.”

Okay, so maybe the last part was just a little bit childish, but you’re in such a bad fucking mood and you want to insult something he’s clearly just trying out for right now, hasn’t yet solidified as part of his usual appearance and unshakeable confidence in it.  It’s a downright lie—you think he might look more attractive with it than he ever has.  Effortlessly rugged and masculine, framing his face and making his eyes all the more piercing.

You don’t think it works, but regardless, he heeds your sharp words and says nothing for a good few minutes at least.  You had hoped the break in interaction would allow you the ability to reset a little bit, give yourself time to work through it, but it’s like the pressure in the air steadily increases regardless of how silent it is in here—or perhaps, because of it.

You can’t help it.  You flick your eyes to the transparisteel in front of you once more and catch his reflection staring directly at you, unmoving.  It jars you as much as it sparks your anger, and you glare down at your hands and give him a few seconds.  A few seconds of grace, of mercy, before you try again.

Sure enough, he’s still got his dark eyes pinned to you when you go to check once more, like he’s actually fucking thinking about something right now, which is just… astounding, for obvious reasons.  Mainly, the nerve of him.  The fucking nerve of him to be able to look at you like that, like he’s just entitled to study your every feature, searching your eyes for things you’ve never looked deep enough to find within yourself, making incredibly loud assumptions with his mind that he has absolutely no right to be making.

“Shut up,”  You snap at him defensively, feeling like you’re sweating buckets even in the freezing emptiness of dead space.  You can’t figure out if it’s a cold sweat or if your body is legitimately just malfunctioning under his stare.  “Shut up.”

You watch as his reflection suddenly drops his head back against the seat and rolls out the stiffness of his neck, blinking his eyes shut and raising his eyebrows like you’re completely overreacting, like he has absolutely no idea.  “I didn’t say anything.”

“You’re not that dumb,” you challenge.  “You’re… plotting.  Evil plotting.”

A thick eyebrow drops so that only one is quirked up, and a grin pulls at his lips.

“You’re right,” Dameron admits casually after a moment with his eyes still closed, his voice pitched low in the cramped ship.  “I was thinking about what it’s gonna take to get you to lose.”

You swallow against the dryness in your throat, starting to unintentionally bounce one of your legs up and down without even realizing it.  Fuck, this ship is small, it’s too fucking small in here—you gaze wistfully out at the vast endlessness of space, wanting to grit your teeth at the irony of being surrounded by the one thing you so desperately wish you had.

“I just have to find a weakness,” he shifts forward in his seat and reveals to you, bewilderingly shameless in his honesty.  Like all of a sudden you’re an accomplice to this endeavor instead of its target, as if he isn’t spoiling the secret by letting you in on it.  “Something that you like, that gets you going.  Something that riles you up, gets you all hot and bothered down there—”

“So you can exploit it,” you huff, slouching over a bit and trying not to sound like you’re pouting.

“—so I can exploit it,” he finishes happily, collapsing back into his seat like he’s glad you caught on so quick and he doesn’t have to explain further.  “Now we can do the whole routine—the bickering, the tension, the undeniable sexual chemistry we have—or we can skip all that and you can just tell me flat out what it’s gonna take to rev that pretty little engine up, because I want it purring.”

And, it’s so fucking weird, because the specific verbiage that would normally make you cringe just hearing it spoken aloud doesn’t inspire the typical response, even though it feels like it should.  It feels like you should be grossed out, it feels like a moment you should screw up your facial expression and act offended, but you’re… not.  This is actually fucking working, it’s unbelievable.  The undeniable fact infuriates you just as much as it stumps you.

“You do realize that everything you say is a game that two can play at, right?”  You point out, not really sure where you’re going with this but feeling heated about it all the same.  “What’s stopping me from exploiting something you like?”

“See now that’s a great idea,” Dameron announces, clapping his hands together happily and sending you jumping a few inches in your seat at the sudden sound, your hand automatically shooting up to rest on your thumping heart.  “I can tell you what I like, and you can just listen.”

Alright, no, wait—backtrack—

“How about I tell you what I don’t like,��� you snip breathlessly, tucking your hair behind your ear and feeling all the blood rush to your cheeks.  Default to normal, default to normal.  “Your fucking attitude.  Your demeanor.  The way you talk down to me.  You don’t listen.  You walk around like you’re such hot shit just because you’re a good pilot but none of that means anything when you don’t ever fucking listen.  You’re terrible at it, doesn’t matter who’s talking—you don’t listen to me, you don’t listen to people who actually like you, you don’t listen to orders, you don’t listen to reason—”

“You think I’m a good pilot?”  He suddenly asks, and you have to take a second.  This cockpit isn’t designed for anything other than sitting, much less turning all the way around, but you’re sure you can find some way to throttle him from here.  He chuckles as you let out the loudest sigh you’ve ever heard yourself make—which, is an incredible feat you think both of you should be congratulated for—before Dameron eventually carries on.  “You could tell me that,” he admits with a shrug, a hidden smile on his face that he’s trying to bite back.  “Or you could tell me the truth.”

You shouldn’t encourage him, but you just can’t fucking help it.  There’s something inside you, something you can only compare to a morbid sort of curiosity.  Maybe you’re just a glutton for punishment, even more so than agreeing to this bet has already confirmed.  “And that would be—?”

“That you use anger as a defense mechanism because I touch a nerve you didn’t realize you had,” Dameron replies breezily.  “Have since the moment we met.  And that you maybe want me to touch something else, but you’re too stubborn and proud and committed to hating me to ever admit it.  You can admit it, it’s okay, I can touch whatever you need me to tou—”

“How about the emergency eject button?”  You hiss, finally feeling your frustration peak.  “Pop the top on this bitch.  Put me out of my fucking misery, right now.  You’ve got such a big head that the blood flow will probably keep your tiny little brain warm enough as long as you strap yourself down beforehand, I’ll wait.  And then you can go back to base, alone , and find another poor girl to emotionally torture since you probably don’t get enough of it from the ones you work your way through but can never remember the most basic things about.”

Remarkably, that actually shuts him up.  You’re doubtful the jab really hurts him, but you’re not going to feel bad about it either way.  He deserved that.  You cross your arms over your chest and don’t even bother looking at him, huffing and flushed with the climax of your ferocity, now left feeling strangely exhausted in its wake.  Eventually your breathing evens out and disappears into the silence, until nothing at all can be heard.

It’s like that for a moment—only a moment, before the loud tearing of velcro suddenly shreds through the quiet in the cockpit, completely rattling you.  Automatically your eyes shoot over to his reflection, watching large hands pull the orange jumpsuit apart at his chest and then shrug it over broad shoulders.  It’s not sexual.  It can’t be sexual, because there’s just no fucking room to allow it—it takes him forever to pull the long sleeves down his arms, but the way he drags it out somehow just increases your anticipation for an event you should have absolutely no interest in spectating.  He’s wearing a white sleeveless undershirt underneath and the jumpsuit bunches at his waist, making him look all the longer and more defined as he finally collapses back into his seat and reclines in it, the distant constellations bathing his lean torso in dim speckles of starlight.

Your gaze catches on every good part of him—it falls down the muscular lines of his neck and follows the thin gold chain wrapped around it, disappearing into the white of his scooping neckline.  His toned body finds a place to rest and stretch out without looking awkward or uncomfortable, coarse hair darkening his jaw and dusting the strong lines of his forearms—but it’s his eyes that make your heart stutter.  They’re endlessly deep and dark and knowing , and you can’t seem to look away from him, not even when he opens his mouth to address you.  

“You’re always so fucking mean to me,” Dameron remarks, and for just a split second—just a split second, you feel a stab of regret.  “I should eat you out tonight.”

Fuck, he hits the nail right on the head on his very first try, and just hearing the words come out of his mouth so effortlessly makes your pussy clench in on itself in need.  Nothing about his inflection changed from one sentence to the next, nothing in his voice made it seem like he just flipped the fucking galaxy upside down with just a few words.  To an onlooker who doesn’t speak Basic, they’d have absolutely no hint as to why your face is suddenly radiating heat at an industrial capacity, blazing hot enough to warm the whole cockpit.  You feel like you’re literally burning up with it.  You have to put a palm to your cheek to make sure it’s not actually on fucking fire.  “What— what did you just say to me?”

“That’s what you need,” he drawls, unbothered by the sharpness of your tone.  “What you’ve needed, ever since I can remember.  Should’ve done it a long fucking time ago, now that I’m thinking about it.  How long’s it been?  Tell me the truth, I know it’s been awhile.”

You feel like you’re being roasted alive like one of those hairy little Kowakian monkey-lizards that you’re pretty sure have sentient designation but are the first to be skewered and cooked over the firepit regardless.  Your heart is slamming against your sternum and you scramble to come up with an even slightly clever response after such an ambush.

“This is your plan?”  You raise an eyebrow at him, feeling a bead of sweat drop down your temple and onto the corner of your lashes.  Oh fuck, be cool, be cool.  “You think this is gonna work?  Ask me if I want a weak orgasm and rugburn on my thighs?”

“I can shave,” Dameron proposes quietly, lifting his chin and gently scrubbing the side of his cheek.  The sound of the thick bristles against his fingers makes you swallow thickly and push back very vivid thoughts of how his face would feel between your legs.  How soft and wet his mouth would feel at the center of that thick, coarse beard.  “Tonight, I’ll shave it off.  Make it nice and smooth for you.”

Something inside you surges up to assure him he absolutely should not shave, and you actually have to bite your tongue to keep it buried at the last second.  Stars, that was a close one, what the fuck prompted that?

“I don’t give a shit what you do,” you quickly return, resisting the urge to wipe your brow.  “Beard or no beard, makes no difference.  Foreplay is overrated, I’m not big on wasting time.”

“Oh, you poor thing,” he immediately laments—so quick , and the worst part is that the sympathy in his voice actually sounds sincere.  You’re having trouble looking him in the eyes right now, hearing the genuine pity come through in his tone.  “Who… who did this to you?”

“You said you want to figure out what I like, what turns me on,” you return, tucking your hair behind your ear once more and trying not to sound self-conscious.  Maker, how long until your shift is over?  You need to get out of here, this shit is… way out of your league.  “I’m not into it, so try again.”

“Really?”  Dameron takes a moment to look at you, furrow his thick eyebrows at you in barely concealed curiosity, before his head tilts sideways and drops to his shoulder.  “Normally I’d respect that, but I meant it when I said you need it.”

“We fucking hate each other, Dameron,” you hiss, a reminder to him as much as it is to yourself.  Fuck, you really don’t like where this is going.  “You don’t know anything about me, you don’t know what the I n—”

“I bet you think we’d fuck hard,” he murmurs, low enough that you have to take an unsteady breath and physically brace yourself for whatever is going to come from that dirty mouth next.  “You think that maybe I’d throw you around a little, give it to you from behind, teach you a fucking lesson for always talking back to me.  But that’s primitive shit, Gold-Ten, that’s not for you.”

Resist.  Resist .  You’re part of the fucking Resistance, for Maker’s sake, you’re taught to hold out until death in torture scenarios.  Since when did this tin can suddenly become a new POW camp simulation you have to train for?

“I want to take you apart so slow that you can’t talk at all,” Dameron continues quietly, and you close your eyes, biting your bottom lip hard enough to sting.  “We don’t even have to fuck—I mean, I want to, but mostly I just want to taste you.  Go nice and slow.  I want you on your back, so I can look in your eyes and see all that anger just… fade away.  I want to watch you try to fight how fucking good I’ll make it.  How hot it’s gonna be when you can’t glare at me anymore, when your pretty doll eyes go all soft and sweet and you finally realize that I’ve never hated you at all.”

Maker.  This is a trick.  It’s not a question, it shouldn’t be presented like one—this is a dirty rotten trick , and you’re not gonna fall for it.  You can’t fucking fall for it.  It’s a low blow, and you refuse to even acknowledge he said anything at all.  He’s lying to get your guard down.  He laughed at your flirting.  He’s a shit person, he’s using you, this isn’t real.

Real or not, you still gulp loud enough for him to hear it.

“We could go back to our room after our shift is over,” he offers out of the blue, and you have no clue why, but when he pauses and lets it hang in the air for a second, you don’t interrupt him.  You stay completely silent while he waits for you, waits for your typical snarky comeback.  You have it in your head instantly, you know what you’d normally say.  Your room.  It’s not ‘our’ room, it’s fucking your room that you’re generous enough to let him bunk in, a privilege he’s this fucking close to losing—but you can’t find it in yourself to say it right now.  Your anger is gradually losing the war to your arousal and you’re forced to watch every single small defeat inside you happen from the sidelines.

His reflection blinks at you through the transparisteel, his eyebrows raising just slightly at your prolonged silence, before he suddenly sits up a little and leans forward.

“And I could lock the door,” Dameron continues, lowering his voice, both in volume and register.  “The lights in there are way too fucking bright but I don’t want to be in complete darkness, so maybe we can turn them off and open the port shade, let just enough light come through to see.  I could turn on the radio, find something quiet, easy to listen to.  Something you like, I’ll let you pick it out.  And then… Wait, hang on, which bed?”

You clench your jaw and purposefully say nothing even as your pussy squeezes, glaring right through his reflection into the black void of space.

“Mmm.   Your bed,” he eventually decides.  “I want you comfortable.  You shower at night.  Your hair will be wet and you’ll be in those baggy pajamas that you think I can’t see your nipples through, the ones that I know you take off under your covers and then put on in the morning when you think I’m still asleep.  That’s good, I want you relaxed, so that maybe… maybe you’d let me take your panties off at some point.  And you could lay back and open your legs, and I could go down on you for a little while.  However long you need.”

Fuck.

No, this isn’t fucking happening.  Your lower muscles aren’t twisting in so hard that it actually fucking hurts, your pussy isn’t leaking through two layers of fabric under your jumpsuit, your body isn’t outright revolting against the sheer neglect you’ve put it through.  Maker, it’s fucking painful.  You have to clench your hands into fists and dig your fingernails into your palms before you can open your mouth.

“You want to know what I need?”  You nearly wheeze, a drop of sweat sliding down the back of your neck this time.  Your body feels like it’s three sizes too big for this cockpit and your skin feels like it’s three sizes too small for your body.  “I need you to shut the fuck u—”

“What you need,” Dameron purrs, sliding up closer behind your seat and sighing soft against the worn material of your headrest, “is a warm mouth to cum in.  Don’t be shy, pretty baby, you can tell me.”

You growl out his last name as threateningly as you possibly can before he purrs yours right back in your ear, and fuck, you’ve never heard it sound so sexual before.  Last names allow pilots to maintain a respectful distance from each other.  Flight designations are Resistance-wide, but last names are just… allies.  Not friends, not companions, but a vast network of people brought together by a common enemy.  It hurts to lose a first name.  But the way yours sounds rolling off of Dameron’s tongue is just too sinful, too intimate when calling you that is meant to sever intimacy by design.  He says it slow and makes it dirty, muddies it in the back of his throat as he slides up even closer to you, until his face is right next to yours as you stare at each other through the transparisteel.

“I’m really…” he pauses, before exhaling through his nose and swallowing thick enough to make his Adam’s apple drop and bounce up again, his tongue coming out to wet his plush lips as he blinks slowly at you with a heavy gaze, “… really good at it.  Call me Poe and I’ll do it for you all night.”

Shit, your pussy is just a fucking mess right now.  It feels like it’s melting sweet and syrupy all over your thighs, throbbing and pounding and clamping up and screaming at you to do something, at least press your hand down there to alleviate some of the aching tensi—

No— stars, no touching yourself is rule number two.  You drop your hands to your thighs and squeeze them, trying to reign yourself back in.

“I think you’re—just projecting,” you try, but turns out responding in general is just an all-around bad idea.  Nothing about it comes out right.  The ‘just’ sounds like your tongue is stuck to the roof of your mouth and your voice cracks on the word ‘projecting,’ but you don’t even have time to be self-conscious or embarrassed at how much you’re giving yourself away—all your energy has to go towards fighting the tightness between your open legs, how you’re so fucking turned on that you’re worried you’ll cum without even touching yourself.  Oh Maker, can you imagine?  How fucking proud of himself he’d be?  You can’t let that happen, but fuck, holding back something so appealing is so much harder than it sounds.

Tap into that anger, tap into that anger—only, you can’t suddenly find it.  Where’d it go?  Fuck, doesn’t matter, conjure it.  Quick, before it’s too late, get mad —don’t let him lure you into a… a false… 

Dameron tilts his chin down towards the line of your shoulder and then slowly turns his head towards your neck, breathing you in gently.

A false sense of…

His soft exhale makes goosebumps break out all the way down your arms.

… What?

“Maybe you’re right,” Dameron acknowledges, talking just under your ear.  You watch his eyelids dip and the dark beard brushes against your skin and you catch just a hint of that woodsy, spicy scent engulfing you.  Like… teakwood, maybe?  Stars, you don’t know, you think you’re starting to lose your mind.  What the fuck does teakwood even smell like?  “Maybe it’s just what I need.  You should exploit it, chances are I’ll still cum first.”

That rockets another painful spasm down low.  It hurts so fucking bad—fuck, maybe you could… rub yourself up against these weapons controls?  Just a little bit?  That joystick, right there, just ease yourself up against it just to nurse this wound a little bit…?

No, fucking— bad.  That’s bad, you have to stop—

“This isn’t real, this isn’t—y-you just…”  You flutter your eyelashes shut, digging your fingernails into your thighs like it’ll help break through the fog of his lulling voice, how fucking amazing he smells right now.  “You just want to win th-the b—”

“ Fuck the bet,” he tells you quietly, his head dipped low enough now that his lips brush against your neck, and you shudder so hard at the sensation that your shoulder almost knocks into his chin with it.  “You really think I’m doing all this for a fucking bet?”

Don’t trust him, don’t trust him, don’t—

Your deep breath is so stuttery and uneven that it’s technically just a series of shallow inhales all anxiously strung together, too desperate for oxygen to go about it legato.  It’s painfully obvious to him by now, it has to be, but you very quickly miss the shaky breathing as soon as he takes away your ability to do it all together.

“Let me taste you,” he whispers, his voice almost breaking with how gentle it is, how it sounds like it flips in and out of his register when he speaks this low.  “Right now, let’s make it real, let m—I know you have to be soaking fucking wet, baby, just let me try a little bit of it, please—I’m… holy shit, I’m so hard just thinking about it.”

“You c-can’t,” you stammer, reaching up to pinch the bridge of your nose in frustration.  At him, at the situation, at the painful throb of emptiness between your legs.  “Fuck, it’s not allowed, it’s against the rules—”

“It won’t be,” he assures you, and you hiccup when you suddenly feel his hand brush against your side, strong fingers branching out to curve against your ribcage.  “You don’t have to do anything, you can stay just like this.  Just a few seconds and then I’ll stop, I promise.”

Oh, Maker, it’s on the very top of your tongue, so unbelievably close to telling him something—but you don’t know what it should be.  You’re right at the tipping point, on a tightrope right between what you want and what you should want.  And, knowing you’re this close to giving in, Dameron slowly eases his hand down your side and starts to trail it inwards, and just the lightest brush of his warm tongue against your neck shatters any composure you have left.

You whimper and instinctively try to close your legs, but you fucking can’t— your knees are forced wide apart by controls and your whole body freezes when his hand slides down and folds gently along the curve of your pussy through the thick fabric of your jumpsuit.

The feeling of being held like this by him is just too good , cradled so perfectly in his palm as he opens his mouth and flutters his tongue out to taste your skin again, giving you a little more of it this time and letting you feel the roughness of his beard with the way his lips move.  Your breath catches, then he hooks his fingertips up just the slightest bit and pulls back, and you suddenly have to smack your whole hand over your face in a terrible attempt to stifle your loud gasp.

“Oh, Maker, I c-can’t,” you stammer against your fingers, not being able to trust him or your own body.  You continue to protest even after he moves back up, resting his palm low on your abdomen, letting the heat bleed through the fabric and transfer directly to your floor muscles as he lifts his head up from your shoulder.  “I can’t, we can’t, I…”

You can’t see him, but you know he’s looking at you.  He’s staring right at you through the reflection, studying the way you’re hiding your face from him, how you’re still melting, still losing your composure just from the warm palm pressed tight your tummy.

His touch leaves you for a second. But then the deafening sound of velcro ripping at the crotch of your jumpsuit has you dragging your hand down your mouth and your eyelids dipping.

“Dameron,” you breathe into your fingers, just as his carefully slip into the small opening and begin to work at the button to your pants. “Dameron, this isn’t—you don’t want—”

“You don’t get to tell me what I don’t want,” he grunts at you, and you try not to bite yourself at the sound of him unzipping things and yanking fabric to the side.  “What I really fucking want is the real thing, but I guess this’ll have to do for now.”

“I—”  Your mind whirs desperately, trying to process when his fingers wedge under your panties and down.   But he doesn’t give you a single fucking second.  As soon as the tip of his middle finger reaches your slit, he’s dropping it and sliding it through your slick, hot, unbearably neglected cunt.

“Fuck,” he spits, and you feel like you might be about to break your own fucking jaw with how hard you’re clutching it, trying so desperately not to make a noise.  The pad of his finger is rough and calloused as it drags against your clit in slow, tight circles, and you clamp your eyes shut and try to breathe normally, but it’s no use.  Fuck , it’s been so long .  You’ve been aching for it for a full fucking month and a half now and you know that even if he couldn’t feel it, he can hear how drenched you are right now.  It’s making an obscene sound as he steadily masturbates you with one heavenly finger, giving your body what it’s desperately craved for so many weeks.  “Fuck, baby’s pussy got fucking wet hearing me talk about how good I’d lick it, huh?”

That sends a bright flare launching through you and you gasp raggedly, both hands whipping out to snatch at his forearm where it disappears between your legs.  “No, shit, wait, stopstopstopstop stop , I—”

His hand slips out immediately and yet you continue to tremble like his finger is still right there, like your clit is just imagining it so vividly that it’s successfully convincing itself of the illusion.  The aching bit of flesh is burning, that good burn, the one that’s searing and bright that makes your muscles continue to chase the sensation long after the stimulation is gone.  Fuck, he almost made you cum.  He barely touched you for a few seconds and yet your fingers have to tighten into claws to slow your body down the fuck down, flexing against your thighs and trying your best to halt the impending climax.

By the time you’re able to wrangle yourself back from the edge and look at his reflection, his middle finger is already in his mouth and he’s blinking slowly at you, his pupils blown wide.  You’re breathing hard at him, staring open-mouthed at the way his lips are closed below his second knuckle, how he takes forever dragging it back out again.  You have to close your eyes.  You have to clamp them shut and keep them that way, knowing you won’t be able to look at him through whatever he’s going to say next.

Except, oddly, he doesn’t say much.

“Shit,” he breathes, dropping his mouth to your neck once more.  “Shhhit.  I…”

Your eyes snap open in sudden, blind panic when he doesn’t continue, horrified at the possibility that he doesn’t like it.  Dameron always has something to say, he doesn’t go speechless.  “Oh—Maker, is it not—?”

“Mmmfuck, just—” he grits, panting hot air against your skin, “—fuck.  Give me a second.”

You can only see the crown of his head with the way he’s angled, but you can see his shoulders a little further back.  They start… moving slightly.  Just the littlest bit, a smooth motion, like his whole body is slowly easing back and forth—

The nav controls are between his legs, you immediately realize.  He’s grinding up against them with how close he is to you and your seat.

And suddenly, it’s like there’s a light at the end of the tunnel.  A ray of sunshine that breaks through the raging storm.  Dameron might cum in his pants like this.  Which means you’ll win, and arguably more importantly, you’ll finally be able to cum.  You don’t even take a moment to consider the potential consequences—how you’re going to have to withstand the stimulation until he succumbs to it, how you’ll have to outlast—but you’re not thinking straight.  You’re not really thinking at all.

“You can…” you suddenly hear yourself whisper, and your heart pounds in your throat when he instantly stops moving.  “One… one more.  If you want.  You can put your finger inside this time, it’s where I’m the… w-wettest.”

“Fuck,” Dameron croaks into the crook of your neck, his voice scraping low and rough and sending a tremor through you.  “Fuck, okay, yeah—”

His hand slides across your hip and down, but you catch him just in time.

“But don’t touch my clit.”  You try to sound as firm as possible through the breathlessness, still trying to put your foot down even when you’re giving in, and Dameron’s teeth come out as he stifles a soft groan into your neck in response.

“Yes, baby,” he murmurs obediently as his hand sinks down once more, and so diligently, he avoids it altogether.  His fingers slide under your panties and fall straight down to your entrance, down to where you know you’re the hottest, where your pussy is flexing and pushing wetness out with a steady, wicked throb.  The pad of his middle finger presses gently against the tight muscles there, rubs just the slightest bit to feel that resistance, and then the length of it eases inside you so slowly that your knees rattle against bulky metal.

“Fucking Maker , ” he hisses as he slides it in, his body making a sudden jerk against the controls.

Your eyes roll back at the feeling of something inside you after so long, after such a torturous buildup, and you grasp at his forearm again when it curls naturally up against searing pleasure.  Oh, it’s so good, it’s so good, your hands shake while he very carefully moves it in and out, the raw sparks of heat threatening to incinerate you as your muscles cling to every ridge of his finger.  He gets it sopping wet, bathes it so completely in your slick that you’re almost certain it’ll come out pruny and drenched.

“Shit, okay,” you pant, squeezing desperately around his finger, “o-okay, fuck, that’s enough.”

His hand pulls out… slower this time.  He slips his finger out of you quick enough, but he drags the tip of it through your folds as he retreats, just barely grazing your clit and making you jolt in your seat.  Shit, you don’t know if it felt intentional enough to fault him for it—mostly it just excites you, thrills you to have him edge you like this without really needing to put any effort at all into it.

Dameron lifts his head to sink his finger deep into his mouth once more, and you tremble as you watch him enjoy it, staring at the way his shoulders seem to relax as soon as your taste is on his tongue, how his face goes soft with it and he almost slumps.

Relief.  Genuine, not embellished.  He still doesn’t say anything after he slowly slides it out and blinks at you, no sugar sweet drawl telling you how amazing you taste, no candied words to make you give in and let him have another go.  You’re both breathing hard at each other, staring, waiting to see who will break first.

Stars, you… fucking like this.  You want him to keep going, but you can’t offer it again.  It’s just too exposing, too revealing to let him you’re actually really fucking enjoying this, you can’t—

“Do you w—?”  Your voice automatically comes out through the silence without your permission, sounding just absolutely fucking wrecked by this point, but his palm is already slithering back down as soon as you speak, and you make the softest little submissive noise in your throat at him taking immediate initiative like that.  He’s not as careful about it this time—his hand finds its target with less frill, his finger slides in quicker, sinking deep into your heat with little hesitation, lighting you on fire from the inside out, and you bite the meat of your thumb to stay quiet.

“Fuck, this is so hot,” he suddenly breathes next to your ear while your legs spasm and you gasp brokenly.  “This is so—fuck, pretty baby letting me do this to her, I can’t fucking believe—”

Dameron eases a second finger inside you this time, letting you feel that delicious stretch from this angle, unable to lift your legs or shuffle around to help and subsequently resigned to simply experience it the way he gives it to you.  Your teeth have probably permanently indented your bottom lip from how hard you’re clamped down, a testament to how much you’re trying to hold back the loud moan you miraculously haven’t released yet.  Somehow it makes it sexier, not letting him hear you, not having your own noises to drown out the spark of urgency in his voice beginning to peek through.

Shit, it’s too much.  You can only let him touch you a few seconds at a time before you feel that familiar tug towards mind-numbing bliss, and the more he does it, the more appealing that feeling then becomes.  It’s teasing you, floating right in front of you and calling into question what could possibly be so bad about just reaching out to meet it?  You could.  You could cum right now.  What’s two weeks of pay?  You could cum all night long if you want, that is a thing you can do—

Quickly snapping out of your hypnotic downfall, your trembling hands snatch at his forearm once more, and Dameron, the fucker, drags his fingers slowly over your clit on the way out— so not accidental, not even close to it this time, but the sensation makes your hips stutter upwards and chase it nonetheless.

“Fuck you,” you groan at his audacity, your chest arching as you drop your head back, “I said don’t touch my—” but two wet fingers slipping past your lips and onto your tongue muffle the rest of your sentence.  Your heart does half a somersault before slamming down early, the taste of your pussy filling your mouth as you automatically start sucking on them.

“None of that,” Dameron tells you softly, massaging his fingers along your tongue before pressing a sweet kiss under your ear.  “Be nice.  I’m being nice.”

You should bite him.  Instead, you just close your eyes and mphh weakly around his fingers, your body sagging as you give into it and let him explore your mouth with them, your lower muscles cramping up in painful desperation even when he’s not anywhere near that part of your body right now.  Your tongue even comes up to lick between them, swirl around them so soft compared to how hard you’re puffing through your nose.

Dameron slowly inches his fingers out, letting the tips of them rest against your bottom lip for just a brief moment, before his hand is moving again.  Not down, but back and around, so he can open his mouth and taste you another way this time.

Shit, you feel like you’re dying.  You need air.  Your hands clench into fists and you use the back of one to wipe the sweat from the bridge of your nose while he takes his time sampling you like this.  If anything, he looks just as blissed out as before, continuing to rub his crotch up against the solid metal between his legs and teasing you with it as much as he’s teasing himself.

“Maker, let me do this for real tonight, okay,” Dameron pants after dropping his fingers from his mouth, sounding like he’s fighting for his breath while you can’t find yours at all.  Your eyes flick down to watch the way his hand disappears behind the chair to grab the controls and push his cock up against them even harder, how he drops his forehead to your neck like he just can’t fucking handle it anymore.  “Fuck, I’ll shave, I’ll do anything you want, just let me—”

“Cum,” you gasp out before you can stop yourself, and there’s a moment after it where his hips suddenly stutter against the controls, and you both freeze.

Shit.  Shitshitshit, did that actually work?

No, you very quickly realize, his body isn’t spasming like it would if he finally emptied his load after a month and a half.  He’s just… holding there, his head buried in your neck, completely still.

You didn’t mean it like that.  Well… fuck, you did, but you didn’t realize you’d be that reckless about it, that upfront about reissuing the challenge.

Dameron pulls back to look at you from the side this time, but it’s too cramped—he keeps his head turned facing you even as his eyes flick up to the transparisteel to take in the finer details of your features, the thin sheen of sweat on your forehead, and the slightly alarmed way you’re blinking back at him, worried you just shot your blaster at him in the midst of a mutual ceasefire and you fucking missed.

You see the understanding in his eyes instantly fall into place, and it’s not fucking good.  Ohhhhhh no, it’s not good.  Your chest starts rising and falling rapidly, suddenly registering the position you just put yourself in.  Fuck, you didn’t think—you saw your opening, so clearly, you didn’t have time to think about the consequences.

“D-Dameron…” you try your best to placate.

“Don’t touch your clit?”  He asks quietly, the raspiness of his voice ripping a hole through you while his hand suddenly shoves its way back down your body once more.

“Dameron,” you whimper, your heart stuttering in panic as you grasp weakly at his arm reaching between your spread thighs, “Dameron, this is—this is against the r-rules—”

“You keep saying that,” he comments, his fingers easily finding the opening in your jumpsuit no matter how hard you flex your thighs against bulky mechanics to try and close them.  “How clearly do you remember the rules?  What were the rules again?

You open your mouth to respond but his hand sliding under your panties and down just obliterates any chance you were going to attempt.  No words, nothing comes out but a shaky whine as his finger sinks into your soaking heat, going right for the kill.

“Come on, baby, the rules,” Dameron reminds you when you never give him an answer.  “Tell me.  No fucking, no jerking off, and…?”

You suddenly struggle forwards in a last-ditch attempt at preventing the inevitable, hoping you can scoot up enough in your seat to escape his reach from behind.  But fuck, your thighs have been shoved wide open for nearly eight hours—none of the muscles are working the way they should be anymore.  There’s just enough room in front of you to get there and you probably would’ve been able to do it at the beginning of the shift, even with his hand between your legs like this, but you’re sluggish and your thighs pull sharp and urgent with the movement.  The frantic maneuver enough to veer his fingers off course just slightly, moving one of your lips to the side at an angle, and you keep pushing against the pain no matter how useless it is.

“—No cumming,” he finishes for you, and his other hand is slithering up under your arm and groping one of your breasts through the jumpsuit before shoving you back tight up against your seat once more, totally helpless against it.  “Probably have another fifteen minutes or so before our shift ends.  Better hold it in, pretty baby, because this one is all you.”

“This—this isn’t fair, this is—”  The second the slippery pad of his finger presses hard against your clit, you’re biting your lip to cut off a breathless whimper that slips out.  “This is… is sab— sabotage— ”

“Oh, I know,” he moans next to your ear, mocking your high plea of distress with a fake, overly sympathetic whine.  “Feels so fucking good though, doesn’t it?”

Fuck, it does.  The build feels like an orgasm in itself, just working your way to it.  You’re already so unbelievably close after just a few seconds of direct stimulation, an obvious consequence of originally agreeing to such a hardcore edging workout.  You’re pouring sweat, so swollen and tight between your legs as you do everything you can to revolt against your body’s needs.

“Oh fuck, stop touching my clit—” you gasp raggedly, heart thundering in panic while your lower muscles start to immediately seize up, “oh—fuckfuckfuck— Poe, take your finger off m—”

Instead of doing it, his hand just slows down until the tip of his finger comes to a halt, maybe less than an inch over top of it.  You still can’t catch your breath though, not when you feel yourself throbbing against absolutely nothing, the calloused pad holding perfectly still over the bundle of nerves.  The swollen bud still arcs and flares at a steady frequency, building and building, and you choke out a wordless garble, absolutely fucking furious that this is what’s gonna make you cum.

“Don’t make me cum,” you switch up your sentence but not the terrified plead in your voice, the way it’s pitching up and out of control in the dead quiet of space.  He doesn’t even acknowledge it.  “Don’t make me cum, don—”

“Say it again,” he prompts instead, and lightning arcs up your spine.

“Poe,” you wheeze, the words coming from you without thought, your fingernails digging into his forearm even as your hips jerk up into his touch, “fuck, don’t make me cum, Poe—please don’t make me c—”

“But it’ll be so good,” he counters lowly, and your clit throbs in desperation at the richness of his voice when he speaks like this, saying things from deep in his chest.  “It’ll be so fucking good when it happens.  Stars, you’ll feel so much better, won’t you?  Cum right now and I’ll give you as many as I can until we have to go home.”

“N-No,” you whine, feeling his teeth scrape at the crook of your neck.  “No, I can’t—”

“Cum for me,” Dameron raises his voice, sharpening it into a direct order.  “Right now.  Come on— fucking make yourself lose.”

“But I—I—” you sob, starting to feel your body curl inwards, nearly about to succumb to the burning, the tightening, right on its last breath, “I-I don’t want to cum—”

“And I don’t fucking care,“ he hisses while your hands start flexing unintentionally, grasping helplessly at his immovable forearm where it disappears between your legs, the dark hair sliding under your fingertips as you claw desperately at it.  “You’ll fucking cum when I tell you to cum and you’ll like it, you disrespectful, cock-deprived, bratty little—”

And then everything goes dark.

No, literally.  The stars disappear.

The cockpit is suddenly shrouded in pitch blackness, and you’re almost certain it’s because you pass out, except then Dameron is all but ripping his hand out of your jumpsuit and cursing repeatedly in alarm.  You crumple in on yourself, eyes clamped shut and not hearing anything, right at the peak of your ecstasy and ready to soar into the light completely unassisted, your muscles doing all the work on their own—

“—shit, they’re way too close—” you hear his voice shout, “—we have to turn the engines on—Gold-Ten, baby, turn the fucking eng—”

You’re almost there, you’re almost there, you’re gonna cum, you’re gonna fucking—

Your first name, roared out in startling, blinding panic.

You don’t often hear it.  Just during roll calls mostly, but only if you’re flying with a different squadron and need a new temporary flight designation for the day.  First names hurt.  You can’t remember a time you’ve ever willingly told anybody yours.

Your head jerks up to look at his reflection but something else beyond the transparisteel takes immediate precedence.  Your brain takes about two seconds to catch up before thundering terror slams through you and halts your previously inevitable orgasm in its fucking tracks.  A runaway train about to launch off its tracks suddenly slamming directly into a megaton force-field of cold, hard fight or flight instincts.

A staggering fleet of First Order ships silently plunging out of hyperspace on all sides—your powered-down x-wing stationed right in the middle of the drop location.

***

Stay tuned for part two coming soon!!

#poe x reader #poe dameron #poe dameron x reader #SMUTTTT #reader insert #star wars #fanfic #the formatting on this one is downright horrendous but im so mad that i cant even fix it right now so thatll have to come later im sorry

[mythiccheroacademia]

—lunch box

A/N: just another cute idea i had because i’m obsessed with barbarian/dragon king!bakugo and fantasy shit in general. some context: you and bakugo are betrothed—although, sometimes you wish you weren’t bc he can be a real asshole. luckily for you, he’s willing to work on it bc he likes loves you just that much. a litte angst (it wouldn’t be a mtha story without it) but it ends in fluff <3

Warnings: cursing

Your friends looked at their food with heart eyes and dug into the neatly wrapped box with fever.

“Ahh! Thank you for making this, Y/N!” one of them exclaimed. The other could only nod in agreement, too into your cooking to speak.

You smiled and waved them off. “It was nothing. Consider it a thank you for letting me copy the homework last night,” you chuckled.

“Did you cook one for Prince Bakugo? I’d imagine he’d love it! If there’s anyone’s cooking he loves more than his own, it’s yours!”

At the mention of his name, your expression fell. You looked down at the case of food you had prepared for him as an apology.

Four days ago, you two were hanging around his residence. You managed to get him to dance around with you. Well, it more like you were dancing and he was doing his best not to combust in embarrassment. Katsuki warned you that you shouldn’t be too reckless otherwise you’d break something.

Of course, you paid him no mind, too enthralled with your fun to notice your proximity to a nearby statue—one of the Bakugo family’s treasures.

One thing led to another, and you knocked it over, shattering it before either of you could even react. Your rich skin lost its glow and your boyfriend cursed something nasty.

Least to say, his parents were not happy. But instead of being rightfully scolded, Bakugo had taken the blame for it.

They found him attempting to clean it up and assumed it was his fault. You wanted to correct them, but he threw you a nasty glare, sealing your mouth shut. He was now under punishment until they deemed fit and from then on, he hadn't spoken a friendly word to you.

A little sigh escaped your lips. Your two friends looked at each other before offering you encouraging smiles.

“Hey,” one spoke, placing a hand on your knee. You met her gaze. “You should go give it to him. He’d love it.”

There was a moment of silence before you decided to act. Taking the spur of confidence, you stood up and briskly made your way to the other classroom. Just before you entered, you heard his voice and felt your heart waver with anxiousness.

However, now wasn’t the time to let doubt consume you. Things wouldn’t get better until something was done.

You took a deep breath, calming your nerves, before opening the door and walking in. Your eyes scanned the room and found the young dragon prince amongst his group of friends.

Jaw set, you walked over to them, hands firmly around the packaged food.

Kirishima saw you first and gave you a friendly wave.

“Hey Princess L/N!”

“Hi boys! How’re ya doing?” you politely asked, putting on your best smile.

They gave you an upbeat answer that lifted your spirits.

Despite that, you hadn't heard a response from Bakugo. In fact, he hadn't even looked at you—but you wouldn’t be disheartened. You fueled herself with faux confidence and held out the dish to your betrothed.

“I-I made you something small yesterday, as an apology,” you stuttered.

Katsuki finally looked up, indifference in his stare. Ruby eyes flickered down to the box filled with rice, chicken, vegetables, and a small pastry on the side. His favorite kind. For a moment, he seemed like considered your offer, but you suffered the low blow of humiliation when he turned away to look through the window.

“Thanks, but I’ve already eaten. Should’ve given it to me earlier.”

Something in your stomach fell. Crushing rejection blossomed up your throat with each passing second. His words were cold, harsh, and unforgiving. It might’ve been stupid, overdramatic even, but it hurt.

Heartbroken wasn’t even the word.

Your nose burned, eyes blurring before you could stop it. Your chest tightened with embarrassment. Luckily, you mustered enough strength to hold in whatever was threatening to crumble you.

“Oh,” you dumbly responded.

“I’ll take it!” Kaminari excitedly said.

“No, I will! I’m still starving!” Kirishima chided.

You placed the box down, struggling to keep up your act.

“Split it between the both of you. I hope it’s good!” You internally winced over how high your voice had become. “I’m gonna to get going now. I’ll see you guys after school, yeah?”

And before anything else was said, you bolted straight out of the room. You hadn’t bothered to look at Katsuki. Knowing him, he probably hadn't noticed the strain in your voice.

As soon as you were out of sight, the tears flooded. You held your hands against your mouth, desperate to muffle your cries. You quickly took you into the nearest bathroom and you prayed no one had seen you lest there be questions. If you went to your friends, it’d cause a commotion. Your parents would eventually find out and you didn’t want any more problems.

So, you cried your eyes raw and eventually willed yourself to stop when it was time to return to class.

…

The week had gone by without another interaction. The weekend brought you some relief since you wouldn’t be forced to see Katsuki’s face for the time being. Or so you thought.

All you wanted to do was run some errands for your parents and then go back home and continue sulking. Yet the universe would not let you rest.

The moment you caught Bakugo’s eyes, you pivoted on your heel and booked it the other way. You assumed his anger with you would force him to keep his distance.

But you were thoroughly surprised to find he was following after you.

“Y/N,” he called.

Irritation and hurt filled your chest. You only walked faster, clutching the purse against her chest.

“Y/N, stop,” he demanded to which you promptly ignored.

This went on for a good thirty seconds until Bakugo decided he had enough. Without much noise, he ran up to you, grabbing you by the shoulder.

You weren’t having it.

You harshly shrugged off his hand. “Don’t touch me,” you snapped, keeping your eyes forward.

“I need to talk to you,” Katsuki grumbled.

“Well I don’t want to talk to you. So maybe some other time.”

Truthfully, the crowned prince found himself shocked at your coldness. Despite your innate boldness, he wasn’t used to such an icy tone. Especially directed at him.

His father warned him to never attack in these situations, but Bakugo let his temper get the best of him. His first reaction was to frown and deal back harsher words.

“What’s your fucking problem, dumbass? When I say stop, stop!”

A spike of anger flooded your veins. You whirled around on your heel and glared at him with frosty eyes. You felt compelled to drop your papers and slap him, but instead, you settled for a finger in his face.

“First of all, I’m not some dog you can just order around, you jerk! And just because we’re betrothed doesn’t mean I’m some girl you can treat like dirt whenever you feel like it! Until you apologize, leave me alone because my only problem right now is you. Bye.”

And just as quickly as you came, you turned to leave.

Now Bakugo was actually stunned. Forget, cold, this was a side of you he hadn't ever experienced. Admittedly, he hadn’t been spoken to like that from anyone besides his mother—and she only got away with it because she was not only the queen…but he was his mom.

Katsuki honestly didn’t know how to handle it. It was only then that he concentrated back on his father’s advice. Whenever his mother was upset with his dad, his father would fight back, but never with emotional anger. Always with humbleness and an understanding tongue.

It usually did the trick considering his mother could never stay upset with him for more than a night. It always struck the teen with hidden awe. Sometimes, Katsuki thought his dad was an angel.

Bakugo was no angel, but he hoped it’d have the same affect on you.

The blonde teen softened his face and walked up behind you. He stopped you, wrapping his arms around your waist to lie his forehead against the decorated braids the fell down your back.

“Damn it. I’m sorry okay?” he lowly said, face burning from such a public display of affection. “Just hear me out.”

You didn’t speak and he clenched his jaw.

“Please.”

You inwardly cursed your rapidly beating heart. If it weren’t for how stupidly nice being in his arms was (he was definitely working out more), and the fact that you found him kinda cute begging for your permission, maybe you wouldn’t have caved in so easily.

For now, you’d blame it on the fact that you two were destined to wed. It was better to start dealing with fights now so, hopefully, the future held less of them.

You heaved a sigh, unwillingly ignoring your body’s urge to curl in his arms. Instead, you pulled away and turned to face him. You peered into unsure crimson eyes with as much harshness you could conjure.

“Fine. Speak,” you permitted.

There was a small pause as he gathered his thoughts. When he opened his mouth, you instantly regretted it.

“I’m still mad at you for being dumb and breaking one of family’s treasures. And I’m still fucking pissed that my old hag is on my ass about it,” he started and noticed how your eyes narrowed in contempt.

You were about to turn away, thinking this was a waste of time. However, Bakugo took a hold of your wrist before you could leave.

“Leave me alone! If you didn’t want to get in trouble, you should’ve just let me take the blame. I can't believe I thought you’d apologize—“

“Let me finish, princess.”

It was your title, yet you felt your stomach flip when it came from his lips. You refused to let it influence you…but you’d give him another chance.

Bakugo stepped closer to you. “I’m upset, but I took the punishment because I wanted to. You didn’t mean to break it. Accidents happen, I understand that.”

There was a pregnant pause. Then, you softened your gaze a bit, eyes still lit with inquiry. “Why? Why would you do that if it meant getting in trouble? I could’ve taken the blame just fine.”

“Y/N, you freak the fuck out whenever you don’t get a perfect score on an exam. You try not to mess up and when you do, it’s like the world is ending,” he explained with a teasing smirk. You ungracefully snorted. He had a point. “When you broke the vase, I could hear your heart drop. You were two seconds away from crying. And when I saw how scared you looked I just—I don’t know.”

The look on your face was something between shock, surprise, and wonder. You blinked, thick lips parting slightly in awe.

“Katsuki…” you breathed to which the boy heavily blushed. Realizing how sappy he sounded, his mind screamed at him to cut it out.

Bakugo looked down and noticed he was still holding your wrist. He quickly let go and instinctively rubbed the nape of his neck.

“D-don’t be dramatic. I just didn’t wanna see you moping around or some shit. My father said that it wasn’t that important anyway…the vase I mean,” he mumbled.

Sure it wasn’t, you thought. What were you gonna do with this boy?

You supposed an apology was a good start.

“That was very nice and admirable of you Katsuki. Thank you,” you eventually said. “I’m still really sorry about the vase, and for being mean to you just now.”

He shook his head. “I know, but I’m the one that should be apologizing. I ain’t hafta treat you the way I did. I was being an ass for not accepting the food you made for me earlier.”

“Yeah you were, ya bastard.”

He chuckled at that. “The two idiots wouldn’t stop raving over how good it was.”

“Well, I had the best teacher in the kingdom,” you grinned.

“And I had an even better student,” he winked.

Your smile widened. Maybe marrying him wouldn’t be so bad.

You couldn’t help yourself when you heartily embraced him, enjoying how his arms slowly slithered around the small of your back. Your eyes met and you kissed him on the lips, leaving him with a little gasp. You pulled away and giggled under your breath.

“You know, you're a sweet guy underneath all that false bravado.”

“False brav—what the hell are you going on about!?”

Ignoring his explosive behavior, you readjusted the straps on your shoulder before turning on your heel.

“Don’t bring anything for lunch on Monday, okay? I’ll see you later, blondie.”

Despite his little tantrum, Bakugo still watched you disappear into the store with a gentle expression. You gave him more headaches than he cared for, but you were worth it. Besides, he was sure you could say the same for him.

Bakugo turned to leave and passed his fingertips over where your lips touched his own.

He’d never admit to the giddiness in his chest. He’d take that shit to the grave.

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