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#tomorrow I just gotta read up on two topics really and then I can write the dumb mock exam which I won’t be able to do at home bc its 4 hour
exopelagic · 3 months
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i will not panic abt my exams
#it will be fine actually#I’m stressed bc they’re in. a month now like a month from today and I’ll be done#but that just means I have a whole month to be making notes I can do a lot in a month#I’m going home on Friday which is stressing me out but it’s just one week I’ll go Friday and leave Saturday/Sunday#and if I can do a handful of lectures while I’m at home that’ll be a useful step no matter what#i can probably focus on like molecular ones which are easier to structure bc I just need to pull out the mechanisms#tomorrow I just gotta read up on two topics really and then I can write the dumb mock exam which I won’t be able to do at home bc its 4 hour#I hate that we have to do that especially bc it’s got shit evil questions but whatever#and I can’t feel bad abt being slow to get back into this bc im an animal with a body and it takes a while to get back into Anything#and I’m worried abt the exam yes bc of how it went last year when I was unprepared but 1) I won’t be THAT degree of unprepared this year#2) it is unlikely that i get as insanely unlucky as I did last year#fucking hell I just. don’t think I’m made for this kinda system I can’t make myself work in it#every single term of my degree so far I’ve been fighting to keep up with everything and had no time to properly prepare for the exams#and then scraped it by working off a baseline level of being good at putting ideas together quickly and strategically working last minute#on whatever will give me the best shot at getting what I need but that’s not possible in these two exams bc I have over 100 lectures to know#I can’t do 100 lectures in a month. it’s just not possible but what I can probably do is summarise some important bits for like half of them#I think I’m bad at the whole sustained effort on a big task over a long period of time#bc this is so huge that there’s no way for me to see progress or move on to anything new bc it’s just. a stack of 100 lectures to deal with#I HOPE I’m better at dealing with project next year bc i think it’ll be more task based#and like I can watch the lectures the first time round bc there’s a set thing to do and an end point#I have genuinely no idea how to approach this in a way that will be useful achievable AND get enough done within the time I have#anyway I can’t stress abt it now bc I have to go to the shop and then home to cook. so#AAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAA#luke.txt
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Divine Inspiration
Someone remind me why I went back to school?
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Mature Content Under the Cut:
***
“Focus.” The self-righteous voice said behind you. You shift, irritated with him. “It’s kind of hard to do when your cock is jammed in me.” You snap wanting to turn and glare. Orm chuckled, rubbing the tops of your thighs soothingly. “It’s motivation,” He tells you, “The sooner you get your paper done, the sooner I can make you feel good.” You grunt, shifting into a slightly better position. It wasn’t the motivation you needed; it was divine intervention.
            Normally, papers weren’t all that hard for you to write. Four pages, double spaced was child’s play as far as you were concerned, especially when it came to history. But you worked full time and went to school full time. It was finals week and a busy season at work. You were burnt the fuck out. What normally took you two hours tops had taken three days. You were crying in frustration and Orm, your boyfriend, had the inspired idea you get you horny in order to finish your paper. You really had no idea how you cock warming him was going to help, you were sure it had more to do with the fact that you hadn’t been intimate with him in a month and he missed you, but you were desperate to try anything at this point.
            You type one word, then another, then another. It was a struggle to put that sentence together. You reread your notes, reread the paper topic, and started for a moment. You wanted more than anything to just give up and call it a night, but the deadline was due soon and you wanted a free weekend to enjoy your boyfriend. Another word appears on the page, then another. It’s a painstaking endeavor, but soon enough you somehow manage to hit your stride.
            An hour later you lean back, surprised that you’ve hit the limit. “Done?” Orm asks, looking over your shoulder at the computer screen. He doesn’t know how to read surface world English yet, outside of his own name, but he was curiously trying to decipher the letters. He was good at catching all the o’s in the words. “Not yet,” You mutter, waving him off, “Gotta edit.” You lean forward and begin to pick apart your paper and format it. Orm rubs your back comfortingly, proud you were so dedicated to your studies.
            Another hour goes by as you nitpick this and that, and finally, you sigh and save the document. You send it off to your professor and shut the laptop. You were done, aside from a final tomorrow, you were done with the semester. You get up from Orm’s lap, entirely forgetting he was inside you. You both groan at the friction. “Are you done now?” He asks hopefully. He was so hard the tip of his cock was purple. Poor thing, he’d been so patient with you. “Yes,” you say smiling at him. Before anything else can be said, Orm scoops you up into his arms, carrying you bridal style to the bedroom. “I am going to fuck you now,” He announces to no one in particular. “Until you can’t remember your own name.” You snort with laughter. “Ok,” You tell him, bringing him into a kiss, “Just make sure I remember everything else. If I fail this final, you’re a dead man.”
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bougiebutchbitch · 8 months
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tiny health whinge
I gotta fucked up spine - secondary scolio due to ligamentous laxity, CSF leaks due to weak dura mater, on my second slipped disc despite being in my twenties, and now a fucking 'weird growth' (quoted from my doctor, verbatim) that is still being investigated but is Making Me A Bit ConcernedTM (I'm sure it's nothing!! But!!! Hhhhh!!!!) Anyway, lots of neurogenic pain and daily muscle spasms that lock up my legs. Yay.
I have meds that really help! They reduce the pain to the point where I can concentrate on my studies!
They just also make me feel like a fucking zombie.
I get about two hours max per day where I can be vaguely productive and not just aimlessly scroll Tumblr. I can't focus enough to write creatively. I can't focus enough to read. I can't focus enough to study. I love my course and I love my topic and I'm just so scared that I'm not gonna be able to keep up. I don't know how I'm going to manage working clinically 5 days a week in THEE most hectic work sector.
My parents have said they'll support me if I have to stop working, but... :c I know it's The Internalised Ableism, but I really really really fucking don't want to have to rely on other people/go on benefits/etc. That's a big source of fear for me. I have an independent career laid out that I will absolutely love, which I feel really passionate about - and I might not be able to do it because I have a stupid genetic condition and my body is falling apart. I keep trying to tell myself it'll be fine, but I also keep injuring myself accidentally because my joints are stupidly weak and damaged, and I know I can't keep doing this in the long run.
It's just really disheartening. I try so hard to be positive and not to give up. I do all my physio and eat healthy and really put in The WorkTM to being a good patient. Doctors love me!! I'm making a really concerted effort to Stay On Top Of This, and that's recognised by my care team! My specialist physio says I'm her best patient! But. All that work doesn't make up for the fact that every month I get hit with a new health set-back.
It's just. Sometimes it's all too much. And I want to lay down and cry for a week and mourn all my hopes for the future.
I'll be back to my usual 'fuck this I will keep fighting out of spite' attitude tomorrow. But today, we weep.
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inkofamethyst · 1 year
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January 28, 2023
K so I’m back from the interview weekend and I’ll write a bit more about it tomorrow, I think (I need to write up things I learned + my own thoughts first tonight (most of the bits in this “entry” are mini blurbs I wrote over the past couple weeks lol)) but FIRST OF ALL on the morning that I was flying out for this past weekend’s event, I literally received an email from a faculty member at my “top” choice saying that they were starting interviews and I was invited to one with him!!!  Don’t know if it’s going to be a panel or an individual one but GAH that’s CRAZY.  I’m literally so happy.  Kinda funny how my first interviews are with two of the top schools in the US but that’s just how the cookie’s crumblin.  It does mean that I’m going to be talking to people from institutions other than my own (three in total) every single day next week.  Five out of seven responses in a month.
Anyway, one thing I’ll say about this weekend’s event is that all of the prospective students were just so lovely and wonderful.  There were few enough of us that we all managed to get to know one another pretty well and I’m really looking forward to seeing where they end up!!!
I put all my assignments into a new Notion Page (I’ve been using the same basic template I made two years ago though and might try to find a cuter one), and it’s crazy how little I have to do (as written on the syllabi) compared to last semester.  Partly because last semester had required/suggested readings for literally every class and I put my bio readings into Notion even though I almost never do STEM readings.  It should be such a lovely little mental rest.
I think I need another mini sugar detox.  Not entirely sure if I’ve become dependent on sweet things to get me through the day, but I think I need to majorly cut back.
I wonder if journaling so consistently for four years has had any impact on my academic writing.  I mean I’m certainly as verbose as I was in high school (perhaps a bit more so, now).  But it’s hard for me to say whether writing almost daily has made me any better at it because I’ve got such a terrible habit of doing things last minute.  I dunno.
I watched the first episode of Accused with my dad when it aired and while I really really loved the episode (no spoilers ahead I promise), I think watching it the day after a similar event occurred once again in the US was... a lot.  Heartbreaking in the most awful of ways.  Reminded me of Black Mirror in more ways than just the fact that it’s an anthology.  Everything from the music, the suspense, the cultural conversation that’s perhaps a bit exaggerated in the way that fiction should be sometimes to get us talking.
Incredibly thankful that the question is no longer “if” I will get into a PhD program but rather “where” I will attend (yes, yes, I know I’m fixating on this one topic to be happy about but I gotta grab the Happy Feelings by the throat and wring them for all they can give sometimes).  For months, I’ve been feeling guilty when thinking about what the future could bring.  I’ve been feeling guilty when I thought about decorating an apartment or buying kitchenware or taking bioanth classes or even exploring a new place because I couldn’t be sure that I would even have the opportunity to do any of that (and I fully recognize that it was an unhealthy mindset but uhhh.. yea).  But now I know with relative certainty that it’s at least within the cards.
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forabeatofadrum · 1 year
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Ljubim te (6/24)
Notes: DAY 15! GIVE IT UP FOR DAY 15!
A little update on the whole *gestures around* writing thing. I got stuck on this fic pretty early on. I had scenes mapped out in my head, but I didn’t put them on paper. It was weird. Then I decided to just focus on the things that I do have, so I am writing this fic out of order now. I had finished chapter 15 and most of chapter 22 (!!!) before I started this one. After all, I gotta write and post 6 to 14 before I can post chapter 15. So yes, fic is coming. Fic is being written. It is just gonna take a while to post.
I do have two chapters for today, though, so enjoy.
AO3 | S&C  
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TYPE
Kurt tries to make the most out of his final free week by doing a lot of fun stuff, but this party isn’t it. He’s standing in a corner with a red cup of Slovenian beer and he’s incredibly bored. He wishes Sunil was here, but Sunil went out with some people from his faculty for an introductory event.
Kurt was bored, so when his other roommate André asked Kurt if he wanted to come along to a party for international students, he said yes. He definitely regrets it now. After the initial basic conversation topics like “What country are you from?” and “Why did you pick Slovenia?” and “What are you studying?” there really isn’t anyone he’s clicking with and everyone knows it. People are having fun, but Kurt’s watching from the outside. There was a Polish girl who was also left aside and they spoke a little bit, but again, after their invigorating conversation about public transport costs had dried up, there wasn’t much to say and she left.
Good for her, honestly. Kurt should dip too.
But he also doesn’t want to go home alone. He usually isn’t the type of guy that goes from party to party, but he wants to have fun, damnit. He left all his friends behind for these six months in order to see more of the world and to meet new people.
There’s always Blaine.
Yes, let’s text Blaine. He likes Blaine.
KH: Are you doing something?
The answer is immediate.
BA: Just got off the phone with Quinn. Why?
KH: I am stuck at this dreadfully boring university party
BA: Ah I see
Wanna get out of there?
KH: Please
Kurt finds André and “regretfully” tells him that another friend had an emergency, so he absolutely has to leave the party to go to the city centre. André nods and turns back to his clique. Kurt wonders why he was invited in the first place.
Ten minutes later, he’s standing at Kongresni trg and he sees Blaine arriving.
“Let’s get a drink,” he suggests. There is a fancy looking place called Kavarna Zvezda and Blaine tells Kurt that he’s read online that they have great cakes there.
“God, yeah, I could go for cake.”
Once they have their cakes and tea, Kurt complains to Blaine about the party and about how he wants to see more of the country and what not before classes start, but apart from Sunil and Blaine he hasn’t really met a lot of people yet.
“There was an introduction when I arrived here and I exchanged numbers with some people, but I don’t know them. And of course there are trips and events and I have signed up to a trip to the Triglav, but basically what I am saying is that I am itching to do stuff.”
Blaine nods.
“Makes sense. What are you doing tomorrow?”
“Nothing.”
“We can rent a car and head to Koper and Piran. I heard it’s great.”
“Koper and Piran? Is that doable?”
Blaine laughs.
“Kurt, we’re in Europe! Everything is close by. Let me check.” Blaine looks something up on his phone. He nods several times. “Yes, Ljubljana to Koper is just over an hour. Koper to Piran is a little over twenty minutes.”
“That is indeed doable.”
“I know it’s a bit last minute-”
“Let’s do it!”
--
Sunil is incredibly jealous of them. Kurt wonders if he should ask if Sunil can come along, but he’s about to leave so it’s very last minute and Kurt wouldn’t mind going somewhere with just Blaine.
“That’s what you get for leaving me behind with André,” Kurt whispers. He doesn’t want André to hear.
“Touché.”
Blaine is waiting outside with the rental car. He’s driving first and then Kurt will drive on their way back.
The Slovenian mountains are a gorgeous sight, so the drive to the places is also enjoyable. Kurt and Blaine talk amicably about their days and about the trip.
“My dad’s a mechanic,” Kurt says when Blaine jokes about car troubles, “I am not as good as him, but I think I know what to do. Does this rental car come with equipment?”
“No, I don’t think so.”
“Shame.”
“But I can’t imagine you as a mechanic?”
Kurt raises an eyebrow.
“How so?”
“Well, you look so gorgeous with your well-put together outfits and your styling,” Blaine says easily and Kurt feels proud.
“Thanks, you dress up nicely as well,” Kurt says appreciatively. It’s definitely better than the initial just-got-out-of-bed look.
“I can’t imagine you all greased up,” Blaine laughs, “Do you also have to wear one of those big overalls?”
“Unfortunately,” Kurt rolls his eyes, “And they get very hot as well, so most of the time I just unbutton the top and tie the sleeves around my waist. If I wear a shitty tank top underneath then I don’t mind if that gets greased.”
“You… in a tank top…,” Blaine trails off.
“Yup.”
“That’s- That’s an image.”
Kurt looks over to Blaine. Does he sound a bit flustered? But Kurt shakes his head. Blaine made it very clear that he is straight. Or at least that he has a girlfriend.
“My dad is also a senator.”
“Wait- senator Hummel?”
Kurt nods proudly.
“That’s so cool! Quinn’s currently hanging out with the daughter of senator Jackson-Smith. And I am hanging out with the son of another senator.”
They continue talking about their families and the landscape changes more. They’re closer towards the beach and towards the Italian border. Italian radio starts playing as well. Even the writing is in two languages, because when they have to get off the road, they follow a road sign that says IZHOD/USCITA.
They park the car and walk to the pier. It’s a lovely sight. Koper is the biggest city at the coast, but it’s not as touristy as Piran. Just like Ljubljana, the city centre isn’t that big, but that makes it fun. Kurt and Blaine explore all the smaller streets and it’s as if they’re in a small fairytale. There is a mix of Venetian and medieval architecture.
Titov trg is the heart of the city and it’s surrounded by gorgeous buildings. Kurt and Blaine visit the Pretorska palača or Palazzo Pretorio in Italian, they admire the Armerija in Foresterija and there is the Stolnica Marijinega vnebovzetja. There are a also lot of little cafés around, but Kurt is actually a bit hungry.
“Shall we find a place for lunch?”
“You have Boni,” Blaine says, “So lead the way.”
–   
End notes: Sarajevo 84 had some of the best Boni. A part of me didn’t want to use a restaurant that can also be found in Ljubljana, but another part of me wanted to lift from my own experiences, so here we are. When I visited Koper (and Piran, I also did it in one day), the first big lockdown had just happened, but the borders were still closed. Since a lot of Koper and Piran depends on Croatian and Italian tourists, many shops and restaurants were still closed even after the lockdown, so there weren’t really any options.
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capriciouswriter207 · 2 years
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gonna be not doing this anonymously because I wanna get the notification bwihidhoqjojfoqhoxh
Uh, heya, it's been quite awhile, hasn't it? I haven't had like any time she says as she started reading a new manga as well lots of fanfics on A03 only a few days ago. Well not enough time to actually go and catch up on this, I've decided to try and do that in my summer holidays, which take over a month to come still too, 5 weeks to be precise. 1 week of that is work experience, one day meeting someone that will tell us about how he was in the DDR prison and then getting bought out by the BRD, then also 1 day going to an art museum with my class and I think that should be all, plus period that will make me unable to attend probably like 6 days again, sighs.
Well anyways, how have you been? And all the fabulous anons? How has writing gone? Are your projects going well?
Personally I've for June done an art challenge thing, 1 drawing per week. Had to postpone the next two drawings each by 3 days though because I need to study.
But hey! I at least improved in history! I got one of the better grades in my class, it feels like everyone is failing history tho tbh. I do not want my latin exam back tho. Write physics last Monday, this will decide if I fail this school year or not I'm pretty sure. Tomorrow I'll have an English exam but that's gonna be easy ngl, just gotta finish the last 3 sides of the book we have to read. math exam is next Tuesday, the topic is kinda easy, I think. And a lot more. We also will have to do presentations now in geography, in hopes that will save my geography grade too.
I have fallen in love with the manga "Mairimashita! Iruma-kun!" in hopes I wrote that correctly lol. It's really nice. Can only recommend. Did you like Lizzie's musical? Are you excited for season 2 this Saturday?
Hope you've a nice day/night/wherever you are! Before I leave here I'll show my drawings up to now for FairyTaleJune, first one was Light second one was Darkness!
-I wish you an awesome summer, Star the anonymous (well not so much rn) witch <3
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Hi! It's been a while indeed, good to see you again!
It's been a bit quiet over here, but that's mostly on me. I should've probably realized that, with the raye I wqs trying to pump out stories, it wouldn’t last. And it didn't, I got a bit of a writing burn-out that I'm still slowly trying to crawl out of. My biggest problem is that I either write 4000 words per day for three months straight or I don't write anything at all, so trying to find a balance in there has been hard. Took a bit of a writing break, during which I binged all of Critical Role campaign three and I'm now fully caught up. Been doing some crocheting as well, nothing too big, taking it easy. No good news on the job hunting front, though - but hey, what can you do when people turn you down because "you'd be perfect for the job if your verbal communicative skills were better" (bad paraphrase)? I’m just gonna keep trying to find something. 
As for the projects, I've decided that announcing what I'm gonna be working on stuff for accountability meant putting maybe a bit too much pressure on myself that resulted in stress as I progressively couldn't keep up, so I'm not doing that anymore. Wither AU is kept mostly alive by asks and I haven't updated Fear the Wither in months, and probably won't be in the near future because of empires season 2. Tabula rasa and the Caesar House are still actively being worked on, though I may not be doing tumblr posts for Caesar House anymore (should probably make that into a separate post...). I've shelved any other story ideas I've mentioned because I know me - I want to write all the stories and I simply don't have the time and I hate not being able to show you these stories, but I can't force myself to work on them. It wouldn't be fair to you to deliver a product my heart's not in anymore.
I have seen Lizzie’s musical, it was amazing, love it! Don't really have a favorite song yet, letting that simmer in the back of my mind a bit. And I'm very excited for empires season 2, I’m sure it’ll make me hyperfixate and resurrect this blog with random snippets. Can't wait to see where people will settle, with what theme they'll go and who the new twelfth member is. It's gonna be so much fun!
It’s been good talking to you, Star. good day/afternoon/night to you, too! Those drawings look great!
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UNIVERSITY WITH MENTAL ILLNESS
Mental health and illness is already hard enough, but adding school pressure on top is hard. High school was easier for me since there is a lot more structure and a lot less choice, which is why I'm targeting this towards college and university students.
Firstly is attending class. Getting to class is a major hurdle, especially with a commute like me (1 hour+) broke people problems lmao. Driving that long to go to a class just to drive back home is already exhausting and unpleasant, especially knowing professors will post slides or something after class anyways. But you have to drag yourself there. One thing I do to help is dress up. I'll do my makeup and put on nicer clothes. Why does this work for me? I hate wasting stuff, especially money and to me, putting on makeup is spending money essentially (same logic as using rare items in a video game idk). I can't just sit around the house and waste the money I just put on my face so I gotta go to class. Small things like this to trick your brain works so well. Before this, there was a restaurant I absolutely loved next to campus so if I went to every class for two weeks I would reward myself by going there. Another thing that helps is making plans with people ahead of time. They'll hold you accountable on days that you can't.
Take rest days. Schedule one whole day a week where you don't do school or go to work. It's a day completely off for anything. I use this day to do chores in the morning and then just lay around and do absolutely nothing all afternoon and night. This helps recharge and reduce stimulation and socialization. It gives your brain that little rest it cries for every day. I used to panic so much about this one day because I could be working and making money or studying or doing anything to be productive until I had a week where I couldn't do anything because I broke down completely, mentally and physically. Now I see it as a preservation day. I use this day to recover from everything.
Make your notes pretty. I hate going back and looking at my messy class notes. Everything is scattered and messy and I get frustrated. What I do instead is make a virtual, concise copy that is pretty to me. I'll add little sketches, color, pictures, etc. This helps draw my attention and allows me to study while doing it! Making the second copy forces you to go through the material after a class is over and review the material to decide what is truly important and then organize it all and then rewrite it all. This has been a huge help.
Use class breaks to snack or grab coffee. One thing I have found in many people with high anxiety is that food and drinks really help calm you down. I've found some research suggesting it's because food is a signal that things are safe and therefore makes you more relaxed, though I don't know much about anthropology and psychology fields. I find this really helps to calm me down after I had a very stressful test so that I can be more present for the next class. Gum helps a lot on high anxiety/panic days as well.
Download the notes or slides, especially if posted ahead of time. This way you have access even if you don't have wifi. You can even pull them up in lectures so you don't have to focus on the board the whole time. For my people with autism, this has helped me so much. There are times where you can't focus on the professor and the slides and the sounds and writing, so doing this cuts out having to watch the teacher and the board. Bonus points if you can record during lecture as well so you can revisit parts that you zoned out in or couldn't focus on.
Keep a journal or diary and list your activities, food, weather, etc in it as well as your mood. This can help you find correlations to hack shit. My favorite way of doing this is through the Daylio app (I wrote a post about it here). Like I notice that days when it's rainy, I study and read more and days where I walk more and eat breakfast, I focus better and am happier overall. This information helps so much. If I know it's going to rain tomorrow, I won't try to force myself to study a bunch today and instead save that energy for later. Instead, I'll take care of myself and go for a walk or something. Knowing how you work and why really makes a HUGE difference.
This might just be my autism brain, but finding cool things related to the topic at hand has helped me keep interest in at least a little of the subject, helping me study more. Like I don't like chimaeras (a fish group) BUT for some reason I love fish teeth and these fishes have a very unique tooth set. This at least let's me know something instead of just ignoring and forgetting everything. 20% is better than nothing.
Find a reason to study what you do, even if it's just that you need this class to graduate. Just taking classes for no reason seems like something neurotypical people are able to do. I can't do it. I need a reason and if I can't find one, I just give up. I used to always say it was useless and pointless and didn't understand why it was required. But I realized the reason to take it is because I want a piece of paper that says I traded lots of money and sanity for it. And that reason has to be good enough.
Make study games. Games are more fun than lifeless paper. Matching games, crosswords, coloring pages, whatever you like!
Feel free to add your tips to this post as well!! I always have room for improvement and experimentation, especially for really hard days. I still find myself skipping even online classes some days. No one had all the answers or has everything figured out. This is just an incomplete list of things that have helped me out a bit and made college life a bit easier.
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heyyyharry · 3 years
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Happier
(inspired by happier by Olivia Rodrigo)
Word count: 2.4k
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I'm selfish, I know, I can't let you go So find someone great, but don't find no one better I hope you're happy, but don't be happier
Part 1: Drivers License
Part 2: Deja Vu
A/N: I edited the original lyrics to match the POV :)
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Harry had come up with a thousand scenarios of how this day would play out. Actually, he’d been thinking of this day since the moment he’d received the news. He didn’t dare to hope that she’d say yes to coming back for a sequel. He’d been sure that they would write her character off, give a lame excuse for how his love interest could not make a return and make his character forget about her completely to move on with a new girl in town. It would have been great if it was that easy in real life. Once someone was written off the script, they were gone for good. Real-life relationships were not that simple. Goodbye didn’t mean ‘never see you again’. You would still share the same friend circle and social bubbles, and it was worse when you two worked in the same industry. Harry didn’t know how he’d lasted a year without running into her, not since the Grammys.
“Didn’t you two date?”
“No.” Harry shook his head, but his eyes stayed glued on Y/N from across the room. She wasn’t looking his way, too busy saying hello to everyone else. “No,” he repeated, more to himself than to his co-star. “We didn’t.”
“But she wrote an entire album about you,” said the other twin. What was her name again? Lulu?
“Luna!” cried her sister, Lex. “You can’t ask him that!”
“No, it’s okay,” Harry said with a tight smile, slightly annoyed by the blonde twins, but he didn’t want to seem like an ass on the first day of filming. “And I don’t know if it was for me. You should ask Y/N.”
“Ask me what?”
Harry flinched when he looked up and saw Y/N padding towards them. She hugged the twins, who seemed way too excited. Harry guessed they were Y/N’s fans. They gave off crazy fangirl vibes, probably just pretending not to know the drama to interrogate him. He couldn’t blame them for assuming he was the villain and definitely could not blame Y/N for portraying him as one. It was more important that he knew who he was and how much he had changed since his last relationship. Maybe they could finally be friends.
“Were they bothering you?” Y/N asked him once the twins had left.
Harry nodded. “They’re your friends?”
“Oh, I met them last year on tour. I’m surprised you don’t know them. They were on Disney.”
“I don’t watch Disney,” Harry admitted with a smile. “Well, not today’s Disney.”
“Understandable.” Y/N nodded and bit her lip. She seemed guarded with her straight back and hands hidden behind her. She eyed him up and down, quite subtle yet noticeable. “How have you been?”
“Pretty good,” he said, nodding slowly. “You?”
“Yeah, but mostly tired because of tour.”
“You’re done?”
“Yup, last night was the last show.”
“Nice.”
Y/N raised an eyebrow. “Nice?”
Harry blinked. “Did I say something wrong?”
“No.” Y/N giggled. “You still sound very...you.”
“Well, shouldn’t I?”
“Yeah, you should. But it’s been a year so…I mean, you haven’t changed much.”
“Right,” he said lowly, his eyes falling to his feet. Harry supposed he should say something else, perhaps bringing up another random topic to discuss, but all he could think about was what had happened between them. Things had been messy, hadn’t they? How could they go back to before that? Before her first song about him. Before he’d chosen someone else over her.
Or he could talk about her new relationship. She’d been in a happy relationship for almost six months, right? No wait, hadn’t they broke up two weeks ago? He wasn’t sure because he hadn’t been catching up. If they’d broken up, he’d sound like an ass to even mention her ex’s name. He should just stay quiet.
“I’ll see you later?” she said, gesturing at her stylist who was waiting by the door.
Harry could ask her right now -- the reason she’d agreed to film the sequel to their first movie together. He’d heard from a very reliable source that she’d specifically asked her agent to decline any project that he was in. So did this mean they were good? That she didn’t hate him anymore? He could have gathered his courage and got the answer right then…
“Yeah, see you.”
...but he didn’t.
And so she gave him a smile and a little wave, then happily returned to her stylist.
.
.
.
“See you tomorrow, Y/N!”
“See you, Annie!” Y/N said as she put the rest of her things into her tote bag. Her new driver had got her schedule mixed up, and so she had to wait here for another half an hour. She was in no rush. It had been a light first day, and she’d had a fun time getting to know the new cast members and catching up with old friends.
She sat on the sofa in the lobby, legs crossed, texting her best friend about her day. She’d purposely left out the short off-screen conversation with Harry, and her best friend didn’t even bother to ask. In their world, he didn’t exist, and his name was censored in every conversation like a curse word that was even worse than ‘cunt’. Nevertheless, she didn’t hate him anymore. She was doing just fine on her own, being busy with her career, and she’d been in a happy relationship after her fall out with him.
She and the guy, a model, had broken up two weeks ago due to long distance and some differences that they could not change. They had ended on good terms and decided to stay friends. They said you could only stay friends with your ex when you still had feelings for each other, or you had never loved each other that much in the first place. For her, it was probably the latter. Her previous relationship had been more platonic than romantic, apparently. So she had nothing but the best to say about him.
As she was going through her camera roll, just reminiscing about the past, she heard footsteps approaching and looked up to find Harry. He offered a smile and gestured to the spot beside her on the sofa. “May I sit here? My ride is late.”
“Yeah, sure.” She hurriedly scooted over.
“Good job today,” he said. “You were great.”
“Thanks, so were you.” She smiled, and they both looked away at the same time. This was so awkward. She hated small talk. She’d never had to have small talk with Harry. Conversations with him used to be so easy and natural and silly. Whatever this was, it wasn’t them.
“Can we just be normal?”
At first, Y/N thought she’d been the one who’d said it, so when she realised it’d been Harry, she was speechless.
He swallowed and sat a bit straighter, still not looking at her. “I don’t want us to be weird and awkward.”
“Okay,” she said.
He cleared his throat. “Wanna try again?”
“Yeah, sure.”
“Okay, not to sound like an ass but when Joey kept forgetting his lines, I was so pissed off, I could throw a chair at the wall.”
“Right?!” exclaimed Y/N, feeling free to have finally broken out of her shell. “Like, he doesn’t even have many lines. I know he’s new but damn...you can’t get far if you don’t learn your goddamn lines.”
Harry shook with laughter. “Oh God, we sound like dicks, don’t we?”
“Maybe.” Y/N laughed, covering her mouth. “But you know what? We can’t be nice in this industry. It’s impossible.”
“Shhh, if someone heard this, we would be into big trouble.”
“Oh please, I’ve had worse articles written about me than ‘Y/N speaks facts about her lazy co-star’.”
Harry tossed his head back and cackled. “The worst one I’ve got this week was ‘Harry Styles hates therapists.’”
“What?!” Y/N gasped. “No way! That’s so stupid!”
“Right?” Harry rolled his eyes. “I could get all my therapists to speak up for me but I’m kinda immune to bullshit now.”
“Therapists? Like plural?”
“Yeah, one in every city.”
“Damn.”
“Yeah.”
Y/N rubbed her hands onto her legs. “Rough year?”
Harry’s eyes rolled to the back of his head as he leaned back. “You have no idea.” Then he swept his hair out of his eyes, sucked in a breath, and finally looked at her. “I wish I could have talked to you, though.”
She bit her tongue, knowing what she was about to say next would disappoint her best friend so much, but she had to. “So do I.”
Harry looked taken aback before his lips curled into a smile. “It’s silly, isn’t it? I haven’t talked to you in a year, and I feel like I know everything that’s happened to you except that I don’t.”
What he’d just said might make no sense for most people, but Y/N knew exactly what he meant. She nodded and wetted her lip. “You only know as much as everyone else does.”
“Yeah, I got updates on you from the news and our friends.”
“Same.” Y/N smiled back. “I hate how they write articles about your new haircut but not mine.”
“I like your new hair colour.”
“Thanks. I like your new car.”
Then they both burst out laughing. It was fun and also a little bit strange that Y/N didn’t feel the same anxiety talking to him as she used to. It must be because they had grown and were now meeting again as better people.
“Damn, my ride's here,” Y/N said as she read the text from her driver. “I gotta go now.”
“Oh, okay.” Harry stood up and followed Y/N to the entrance. “Hey, just wondering--”
“Yeah?”
“Am I...am I still blocked?” He looked a bit flustered as she tilted her head and squinted her eyes. “On your phone. Because I remember you having my number blocked--”
“I unblocked you on your birthday.”
“Oh, really?”
“Yeah.” Y/N shrugged. “I should’ve sent you a happy birthday text but...I didn’t want your girlfriend to get the wrong ideas.”
“My ex.”
“Yeah, I know.”
They smiled at each other one last time before saying goodbye. Y/N knew it was silly, but she was hoping he would go after her.
Ding.
A notification popped up when she was in the car. She was almost home, and it was from Harry’s number. He’d sent her a link with a message that said, “Hope you like it :)”.
Curious, she tapped on it and was directed to an audio file titled ‘Track 5’. The upload date was last year. About two weeks after their short conversation at the Grammys.
Hurriedly, she fumbled inside her bag for her iPods and put it on before she pressed play.
“Hey, Jeff, I couldn’t sleep so I wrote this song. Listen and let me know if it should go on the album.”
Then came the piano intro. It sounded good, so Y/N wondered how it hadn’t ended up on his last album.
But when he started to sing...
We ended a while ago Your friends are mine, you know, I know You've moved on, found someone new One more guy who brings out the better in you
And I thought my heart was detached From all the sunlight of our past But he’s so nice, he’s so funny Does he mean you forgot about me?
Oh, I hope you're happy But not like how you were with me I'm selfish, I know, I can't let you go So find someone great, but don't find no one better I hope you're happy, but don't be happier
And does he tell you you’re the most beautiful girl he’s ever seen? An eternal love bullshit he might not even mean Remember when you were with me I meant it when you heard it first from me
And now I'm pickin' him apart Like cuttin' him down will make you miss my wretched heart But he’s charming, he looks kind He probably gives you butterflies
I hope you're happy But not like how you were with me I'm selfish, I know, I can't let you go So find someone great, but don't find no one better
I hope you're happy I wish you all the best, really Say you love him, baby Just not like you loved me And think of me fondly when your hands are on him I hope you're happy, but don't be happier
The song was for her. He’d written it when her new relationship had gone public. Y/N sat there, staring blankly ahead until the honking of a car tore open her inner peace, and reality came crashing back in. The driver dropped her off at her house. Instead of going inside, she stood on her front steps and replayed the song one more time. When it ended, she decided to text him: Why didn’t this make it to the album?
She didn’t know where he was now, but it showed ‘typing’ in less than a second, as if he’d been waiting in their chat since he’d sent that link.
You would’ve hated me, Y/N.
True, she replied. Still, I would’ve loved the song lowkey. And added, I love it btw.
He took so long to type that it was driving her crazy. She flopped down on the concrete stair with her phone clutched in her hands, her heart thundering against her ribcage. Anxiety popped like a balloon when his message appeared: Were you happier?
She reread it again and again.
No.
I wasn’t either, he responded. I kept getting deja vu.
Ha, nice reference.
That song is my guilty pleasure. Love listening to you roasting me on loop.
That last message made Y/N bury her face into her palm and giggle like a fool. She thought for a second and wrote: I could come roast you in person now if that’s what you prefer. I think we’ve never had a proper roasting.
Can we meet, Y/N? Or are you busy now?
No, not busy.
Great, I’ll pick you up.
Just tell me where, she responded with a smile on her face. I got my drivers license now :)
441 notes · View notes
satendou · 4 years
Text
⟼  monster
⍣ all time low series | next | 1/4
・‥…━━━━━━━☆☆━━━━━━━…‥・
⇢  pairing: tendo/reader
⇢ au: atl!au, college!au
⇢ summary: you like horror movies, tendou likes horror movies, what could go wrong?
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⇥ masterlist
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⇢ warnings: unprotected sex, creampie, fingering, mentions of bullying, insecurities, piercings, cursing
⇢ word count: 13.2k
・‥…━━━━━━━☆☆━━━━━━━…‥・
⇢ a/n: i think this is the biggest fic i’ve ever written and it’s one of my favorites, if not my absolute favorite i’ve written so far. it was kinda hard to write it in a way that stayed true to my vision for it but also didn’t make it childish, so i hope i succeeded in that regard. as always, thank you to @keijiskitten​ for editing this!
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“Oh, come on, ‘Kaashi,” you said, setting your hand on your hip. You were standing around in the middle of the classroom with him and a few others, waiting for your professor to show up who was no doubt getting a coffee from the overflowing Starbucks down the street. Class would be half over before he finally arrived. “It’s just a few scary movies.”
“Sorry, _____. I have to study and I just know that trying to watch movies with you and study is gonna be a nightmare,” he said, giving you a sympathetic look. “And give me nightmares.”
You rolled your eyes and looked around to Bokuto, who was scrolling through his phone while he chatted with Yaku about the next practice. That was a hard no. Poor Bo would agree without complaint and wind up with nightmares for a week, clinging to you throughout the night. Catching Akaashi’s eye, you exchanged knowing looks and chuckles.
“Hey, _____,” Semi said from your other side. He was busy filling out a music sheet with notes for his next possible song, and the way he said your name indicated he was more focused on that than your quandary.
Still, you turned to look at him over your shoulder, quirking your eyebrow at him. When he didn’t immediately continue, you prompted him. “What’s up?”
“Oh, right,” he said, looking up from the paper. He gave you a small smile and tapped the tip of his pencil on the desk in a smooth rhythm, leaving small marks all over the surface. “You should see if Tendo wants to join you. He’s really into horror movies too.”
“Um, who?”
Semi’s eyes widened in surprise and he pointed over his shoulder. You could hear Akaashi snicker from your other side. The chair on Semi’s other side tipped back on its back legs, and a man with close-cut red hair peeked around his back, waving cheekily at you.
“Hi, name’s Tendo Satori. I’ve only been hanging around you for about two weeks now,” he said and, though he sounded lighthearted and jovial about it, you could see the way his eyes remained narrowed, scrutinizing you. And he didn’t look impressed.
You flushed bright red, realizing you did know him but had never committed his name to memory. Mostly because he hadn’t ever really said anything to you or seemed interested in you at all. 
“I-- well, I’m sorry,” you offered awkwardly. But you meant it, at least. You felt a bit bad now that he was in your face. Trying to lighten the mood, you joked, “I’m _____ _____ and my brain space is committed to horror movies and studying. No space for names I’m afraid.”
Semi rolled his eyes and Akaashi heaved a long-suffering sigh, covering his eyes with his hand, but Tendo laughed at your stupid joke. His eyes eased up, his smile relaxing, and he now looked genuinely interested. 
“A horror movie marathon, huh? I’m interested. Why don’t you tell me more?”
--
Tendo didn’t actually expect it to go his way. As with most other people, he was sure you were just faking your enthusiasm and would flake out once you were free of him. 
And yet when lunch rolled around and your group of friends were standing in the breezeway, shivering as you tried to pick out some place to go and eat off campus, you fell into step beside him.
“I really am sorry for not knowing who you were,” you offered, adjusting your bag on your shoulder and slipping a pair of gloves on. “Could we, maybe--”
He cut you off, grinning. “Forgiven and forgotten, _____.”
Hesitantly, you smiled back. He was strange, to be sure. Even though you hadn’t really had a true conversation with him yet, you got the feeling he was different, eccentric and unpredictable maybe. The way he harassed the shit out of Semi and some of the others was hysterical, though. You couldn’t pinpoint what it was that made you feel that way, but it wasn’t bad. You were even a little curious.
“Okay cool. So if, by chance, we were to do this movie marathon, how would you feel about cannibals?” you asked, tapping your chin thoughtfully. It was a theme you had been thinking about for a while, but none of your friends were into horror movies much, let alone a dozen or so movies centered around such a gory theme.
Tendo clicked his tongue and you heard a strange clink. “Hypothetically, right?”
“Right,” you said, your eyes zeroed in on his mouth, waiting for him to speak again.
He hummed, his lips curling in thought and his eyes narrowing as he stared off in the distance. Second in height only to Bokuto, he towered over everyone even though the two of you walked together at the back of the group. Speaking of Bokuto, you could hear him over the chatter of the other students around you, talking about the diner just a block away from the school and guessed that that was where you were going. 
Then he shrugged. “That sounds rad. What’re you thinking? Hypothetically.”
“Well, obviously gotta go with The Hills Have Eyes. I mean, it’s a classic. And then of course Wrong Turn because there’s so many of those. And, uh…that’s all I have, but that’s literally like 8 movies and if we get past those I don’t know what we’ll do,” you said, weaving through the throngs of people on the sidewalk. You had forgotten you had been trying to see what was in his mouth just a few minutes ago as you avoided toes. You could see the diner sign up ahead, reading “Newly Opened” and a list of menu items, but it was otherwise obscured from your view.
A gasp from Tendo startled you and you whipped around to look at him, only to find him staring at you in disbelief.
He had to fight the laugh in his chest from coming up at the wide-eyed, freaked out look on your face as he said, “I cannot believe you’ve forgotten the most classic of classic cannibal movies, _____. How could you forget The Texas Chainsaw Massacre movies?”
Relief mingled with amusement on your face when you realized what he was getting at, and you covered your mouth as you laughed. Putting on your best ashamed expression, you closed your eyes. “I can’t believe I forgot those. I’m such a fake fan.”
“Kicked out of the club for sure,” he said, holding the door open for you. The bustle of the diner drowned out anything more Tendo said as you followed the others towards a large table in the back corner. After that, you were seated between Semi and Akaashi and the conversation was halted.
For the time being.
--
You didn’t bring up the marathon again, though you snagged Tendo’s number the day after you went to the diner. The conversation started out about movies and morphed into other topics like majors, highschools, how he knew Eita and how you had met Bokuto and Akaashi, amongst others. It left Tendo in a bit of confusion. The two of you kept up a steady stream of communication throughout the day, even sneaking in texts during classes that could net you extra work or pop quizzes. And yet never once was the marathon mentioned.
Part of him was bummed because he had kind of been looking forward to the movies, but the larger part of him was unsurprised. Something like that was way too intimate, and for someone like you to want to do something like that with a-- someone like him was too much to hope for. He was just happy that you weren’t avoiding him like most others did; he wasn’t going to ask for more.
Except he kind of did want more, and he didn’t want to feel that. The disappointment was already tangible on his tongue and he swallowed it down every time he saw you in the hall, chatting or laughing with someone else. It would ease slightly when you would turn to look in his direction, flashing a smile and waving as you passed by. In class, you started sitting beside him, Bokuto and Akaashi often following behind, and he found his small group of friends growing because of you. Bokuto was loud and brash and treated him like they were best friends, and Akaashi’s quiet demeanor reminded him a lot of Ushijima. Except he was maybe a little more expressive. 
You even started walking home with him, parting ways when you had to go in different directions with a soft smile and a shine in your eyes that he tried not to read too much into. He enjoyed those days, when no one else was around and he just talked. You even knew some of the manga he read, and he lost himself rambling about Jump. When he brought it up once, about how he talked too much, you shook your head frantically. 
“No, no, I don’t mind! It reminds me of Bokuto, to be honest. He can talk about anything and keep a conversation going so easily. I’m kinda jealous,” you said, giving him that satisfied smile again.
He tried to clamp down on the feelings, to keep a tight rein on the emotions that kept trying to pull his eyes in your direction anytime he heard your voice or drew his thoughts to you late at night.
Sighing, he rubbed his eyes, frustrated at the fact that he was thinking of you a-fuckin’-gain. Didn’t he have enough to worry about without wondering what you thought of him? He already knew. You weren’t interested. It was fine.
His phone dinged, the screen lighting up to reveal your name and a text.
You: ‘watcha up to?’ Tendo: ‘nm. studying and suffering. you?’ Y: ‘“studying” sksks what’re you doing tomorrow night by chance?’
Tendo’s heart stuttered in his chest and he groaned, barely resisting the urge to fling his phone out the frost covered window in front of him. For the love of god, could the universe stop fucking with him? Clicking his tongue, he considered telling you he was busy. It would be easiest, and save him the disappointment that was sure to accompany whatever you had planned.
But his fingers were traitorous and typed out exactly what he didn’t want to say. Or so he told himself.
T: ‘nothin. what’re you thinkin?’ Y: ‘well...i’m thinkin about cannibals’
Tendou snorted at that and watched the three little dots appear again.
Y: ‘and u’
He choked and slammed his phone down on the desk, wincing and immediately picking it back up to check the damage. No, no way, he wouldn’t look at it like that. It wasn’t like that. You were just inviting him for the movie marathon in a totally platonic way.
Another message came in.
Y: ‘and me’
You were actually trying to kill him.
--
He could think of nothing the next day but how much he was looking forward to that night. Once he had finally gotten his shit together enough to text you back, the kinks had been worked out. It was almost a no brainer that he would be spending the night. A movie marathon with twelve movies meant an all-nighter, if the two of you could pull it off. He would go home after classes, while away the few hours until around six o’clock, and then head to the address you had given him. 
Unfortunately, he didn’t see much of you that day. You shared no classes, and you had a class when he took lunch, so he ate with Semi and Bokuto that day. Instead you snuck texts to him when you could, mostly talking about how excited you were for that night. It didn’t help, somehow both fanning and soothing his inner turmoil.
“Why do you look like you’re gonna throw up?” Semi asked at last. Tendo was staring at his half-eaten chicken sandwich like it had mortally offended him, and he was curious. 
Tendo jumped, having forgotten the other two were even with him, and shook his head. “Uh, nothin’.”
But Bokuto snickered and leaned in to whisper to Semi, who was already suspicious of his short, clipped answer. Whether he actually wanted to whisper or not, Tendo wasn’t sure, but Bo sure as shit didn’t manage it. “Him and _____ are gonna watch movies tonight.”
Of course you had told Bokuto. And probably Akaashi too. He wondered if they had changed their minds and decided to join you when they found out. It put a rather annoying feeling in his chest, like someone was squeezing his heart.
The other two were still talking in a loud whisper, watching Tendo’s expression shift and flicker through a myriad of emotions. Bokuto was lost, but Semi could recognize them after so many years of knowing the moody red-head, and wanted to laugh. He was so good at hiding his negative emotions, but when it came to sadness or happiness, he was like an open book. And he was being pretty obvious right then.
“Wow, that’s pretty big, Tendo,” he said, watching his friend closely. Tendo flinched, shrinking into his hoodie, and Semi nodded to himself. “Don’t let yourself get so worked up. She wouldn’t ask if she didn’t want to.”
He knew where Tendo’s insecurities were coming from. A childhood fraught with bullies and fake friends and people pretending they wanted him around only to treat him like a freak. Even through highschool it was that way, with a particularly nasty incident involving a girl pretending to want to date him that ended with Tendo refusing to come to school for almost a week. After that, he kept to himself and the volleyball club, refusing to even acknowledge that anyone else might actually want to get to know him seriously.
It had gotten a bit easier when he left Shiratorizawa and those memories and most of those people behind. Growing up with them was what had made it hardest, so surrounding himself with fresh people who didn’t have any preconceived notions and rumors about him had allowed him to open up a little. Even Ushijima, across the ocean in California, noticed a marked difference in Tendo’s demeanor.
Semi just hoped you didn’t do anything to send him spiralling back into his insecurities.
“Yeah, I guess.” 
It was easy for Semi to say that, but he had no idea what it was like, constantly worrying if people were being serious or if they were just waiting to pull the rug out from under him. Even now, he was fighting with himself to just get through the day, waiting constantly for you to change your mind and cancel the plans. Every time his phone lit up with your name, he expected it.
And yet, even after his classes ended and he arrived home, you didn’t. Just commenting that you would be MIA for a while while you cleaned the apartment and went to the store. And when you came back a few hours later, while he was binging Buzzfeed Unsolved videos, his heart leapt into his throat, but you were only telling him what you had gotten for him and to pick up anything else he might want on the way over.
The time couldn’t pass by fast enough while he busied himself packing as slowly as he could. He was already wearing sweatpants but brought a pair of basketball shorts just in case. A clean t-shirt and the other essential items he would need for the night went into a backpack, and when that was done he decided it was a good time to leave.
Unable to help himself, he sent you a text before he left, interrupting whatever you were already typing, the three little bubbles disappearing for a moment while you read his text.
T: ‘you sure you’re alright with this? i don’t have to come over’ Y: ‘?’ Y: ‘do u not want to!’ Y: ‘?*’ Y: ‘we can do this another time if you want’
He was typing before he could really think about the possibility that that might be the best option, his heart thumping harder than he liked in his chest, and he willed himself to take a deep breath. It was just two friends hanging out, watching horror movies together. Nothing more.
T: ‘no i do. was just making sure you were still ok w it.’ T: ‘leaving now to get snacks. your choices s u c k’ Y: ofc hurry up and get over here Y: ‘tf rude’
Locking the door behind him, he slung his bag onto his shoulder and sighed, hoping the night didn’t end as badly as his nerves were telling him it would.
--
Your doorbell rang an hour later, while you were in the middle of setting up your room for the binge. You were hoping he wouldn’t mind, but you didn’t want to make him uncomfortable either. It was hard to miss the nervousness and the way he seemed to shy away from you sometimes, especially when you did certain things like reach out to pull something off his hoodie or read something over his shoulder. But you wanted this to be as normal as possible, to prove to him you were genuine.
You liked Tendo. A lot. 
He was funny and sweet and just as eccentric as you had expected. His jokes were off-color but not offensive, just sarcastic and witty and you giggled every time. The way his face lit up when he heard you sent your heart into a frenzy, and the way it fell and he seemed to shrink into himself a moment later hurt. It didn't feel like a rejection of you but instead a rejection of himself and you wondered if there was any way to help him understand that you didn’t want anything from him but for him to be himself.
Upon opening the door, you found it was only the pizza delivery man, and you smiled with disappointment, until you spotted a shaved red-head coming up behind him.
Tendo gulped when he spotted you in your open doorway, wearing woolen leggings and a t-shirt, exchanging a box of pizza for cash and smiling brightly at him over the man’s shoulder. Waving, he waited until the stranger was out of the way before he approached you.
“Hey,” he greeted, peering down at you before scanning the empty living room of your apartment over your head.
You were unsurprised to see the wariness in his eyes, bleeding into the smile he was forcing on his face. It was your first time seeing a look so fake on him and for the first time you wondered if this was really a good idea. But it was only movies. And you liked Tendo. It would be fine.
So you smiled and ushered him in with one hand, the box perched precariously on your other, and watched him shrink into himself like he always did when he came within touching distance of you until he had passed into the living room. Then he just stood there, peering around with that same suspicious look, eyes narrowed and mouth turned down at the corners.
“So, what do you think?” you asked, pretending you hadn’t seen it as you moved into the kitchen. 
“It’s nice,” he answered, letting his bag hit the floor with a thump. The rest of the apartment was silent save for the heater going, and little by little he felt himself relaxing. “You didn’t have to go through all this trouble for little ol’ me, y’know.”
You giggled at the way he pointed at himself, wearing a cheesy grin as he walked into the kitchen. “Maybe not, but it’s been ages since I’ve been able to do anything like this. It’s as much for me as it is for you.” You punctuated your statement by poking him lightly in the chest, and he feigned pain.
“You wound me. And here I thought you were treating me special,” he moaned, leaning back against the counter and placing his hand over his forehead. He grinned a little hearing you giggle again, and then the pizza box hit his arm.
“I am treating you special, you goof,” you said, opening it up and letting the smell of cheese fill the kitchen. “With pizza. But I think we’d better take it into the bedroom, since that’s where we’ll be watching the movies. Just in case we fall asleep, you know,” you tacked on at the end, suddenly realizing how that might sound. Not that it meant anything, but again, you feared making him uncomfortable.
Absorbed in your thoughts, you missed the faint dusting of pink on his cheeks, clashing marvelously with his vibrant hair. You carried the box down to your bedroom with Tendo on your heels, eager to see your room. It was about what he expected from you-- a messy bed, a cluttered desk, clothes half in your laundry basket and half on the floor surrounding it. The TV sitting on your dresser was already set up with The Hills Have Eyes menu playing, volume muted. You set the box on the bed before smoothing the covers and crawling on.
Tendo hovered in the middle of your room, casting his eyes around nervously, looking for a chair or something to sit on. He definitely did not want to assume, but you patted the bed beside you, giving him a quizzical look.
“I’m not gonna bite, Tendo. Promise,” you said, and though you made it sound like a joke he could hear a line of seriousness at the core. Running his tongue over the back of his teeth, he walked slowly towards you, giving you every opportunity to change your mind, but you just looked impatient until he climbed on beside you. “Alright, now let’s get this started!”
--
Two movies in and the two of you had gotten pretty comfortable. Both of you had stretched out on the bed, but you had decided to lean up against the headboard with your pillows to support you while Tendo had opted to lay on his stomach with his head resting on his arms by your feet.
“Would you stop?” he laughed, pushing your foot away where it had been tapping incessantly at his shoulder. You were just doing it to annoy him, and you giggled at the irritated amusement in his voice.
The pizza box sat empty on the floor by the bed, but you found yourself craving something else to eat. When you hummed, Tendo looked away from the screen, rolling onto his side and propping his chin in his hand to watch you nibble at your lip. It was cute, he couldn’t lie, and the anxiety he had repressed by getting distracted by the movie came back slowly.
“What’s up?”
“I’m thinkin’ about...those chips,” you answered, and made to get up. You had to crawl over his long legs and almost fell off the bed as you gracelessly made your move, knee slipping off the small space between his leg and the edge of the mattress. Sticking your tongue out as he laughed at you, you pranced towards the door. 
“Bring my bags too, would you?” he called, pausing the movie since you had forgotten. It had just started, and you were lucky that he was nice enough to do it, especially when he heard your voice carry back down the hallway.
“Kiss my ass, Tendo.”
He laughed at that, loud enough that you could hear it from the kitchen and over the crinkling of the bags as you rifled through them. In the end, you shrugged and carried them all back down to your room, along with a few drinks. Maybe you wouldn’t have to get up again for a little while.
You shivered when you stepped back into the room. It wasn’t much warmer than the rest of the house, and now your arms and toes were cold. The heater was already set as high as it would go and hardly touched the chill, and you cursed the cheap piece of crap. 
“What, you cold?” he asked, pulling out a bag of the chips he had brought with him. The tab on a can of soda popped and he cursed as it fizzed over onto your blanket. “Shit, sorry.”
“No worries. Yeah, kinda. But the heater is already on full blast. Ugh,” you said, sitting beside him on the bed again. He was still wearing his hoodie, and up close he was warm, making you realize just how cold you were. You were just gonna have to crawl under your blankets because you would never survive the cold like that. “Wait…”
There was a tent on the screen where the movie had paused, and Tendo looked back and forth from it to you with curiosity. There was a calculating look on your face and he wasn’t sure he liked it. “Uh, what?”
There was no way he would agree to it. Way too intimate, right? But it really seemed like it’d be right up his alley, and it would be fun to build, and it would get you warm. It was the perfect idea really.
“Tendo, how do you feel about making...a pillow fort?”
The heater continued to buzz in the corner, overlaid by the slight static from the TV, while Tendo processed your question. His mouth had fallen open, brows furrowed while he stared at you in what could only be surprise, and you laughed nervously.
“Wha-- Seriously?”
“Um, you know what, nevermind. I guess it was a stupid idea. It just seemed like it might be fun and--”
He cut your babbling off with an excited wave of his arms, leaning forward into your space and in the light from the TV you could see a childlike happiness glowing in his eyes. “I’ve never made one but it sounds like fun. You know how to do it?”
Stunned by the turn of events, you nodded. “Well, sort of. Mine have always fallen down after a while though,” you admitted, standing up from the bed again. “We need chairs and books and all the blankets and pillows we can find. And the couch cushions. Probably.”
In no time flat you had everything gathered, with Tendou hovering around waiting for you to direct him. It was a pain to get everything set up, and you ended up using the bed since you didn’t have enough chairs. Moving the chairs all over the place until there was enough room inside and you could put the books down to seal the ‘walls’ was tedious, but it was worth it when Tendo crawled in to set up the cushions to seal the space beneath the bed. After padding the floor with several blankets to lay on, you stuffed the pillows from your bed in after Tendo. When you didn’t immediately crawl in after him, he poked his head out to see what you were doing.
“Well, we didn’t think this through at all, so now we gotta watch the movies on my laptop,” you said as you ejected the DVD from your player. The jingle of your computer booting up played and backlit your face in the glow, and you prayed it wasn’t going to go right into an update. It took a few minutes to start up, so you passed it to him while you plugged the power cord in and ran it into the fort. 
You could hear the clicking of the mousepad and by the time you flipped off the light and crawled in beside Tendo, the movie menu was playing. You also realized just how cramped it really was with Tendo’s lanky form inside. There was just enough space for both of you, but you were going to have to either sit up with it in your lap or you were going to have to set it to the side of you and lay on your sides.
He was tense, staring determinedly at the movie playing and trying to avoid moving too much. Or so you guessed, anyway. Anytime you so much as shifted he would jerk away before relaxing, and you were a split second away from nixing the idea. A part of you was starting to wonder if it wasn’t you that was the problem, but if it was, why had he bothered to agree?
“You’re really warm, Tendo,” you said, trying to break the ice. It was an awkward and clumsy attempt, but maybe you could help him settle down if you showed him you weren’t uncomfortable first?
But that just made him pull further away, leaning against the couch cushions. “Oh, sorry.”
It was already warm and comfortable in your little fort, a light blanket thrown over your knees and warming your toes. And with him beside you, you were actually a little more than comfortable. “No,” you said, waving your hands frantically, “no, like, it’s nice. I’m finally warm.”
It was hard to tell in the washed out light of the laptop, but Tendo’s face turned a very bright shade of pink. He tugged the neck of his hoodie up over his nose and fixed his eyes firmly on the flickering violence, annoyed that he was overwhelmed by something so simple. Why did you have to be so damn cute?
But it did the trick, even if he didn’t know that was your intention. He finally relaxed and stopped flinching every time you shifted, trying to find a comfortable position. Sitting cross legged only worked for so long and Tendo noticed you moving around after a while, when your knee knocked his for the third or fourth time.
“You alright? You’re about to bring the whole fort down,” he commented around a mouthful of chips.
“Ah, well, my back is starting to hurt sitting up, I guess. I wanna lay down,” you said, sounding whinier than you meant to, following it up with a short stretch. It alleviated the pain for a moment, until you hunched over again.
He swallowed his chips and returned his eyes to the TV screen, thinking. On one hand, he wasn’t exactly comfortable. On the other, he had no idea what you were thinking. Did you want to abandon the fort?
But you didn’t say anything, fiddling with the blanket for a few moments as you tried to work up your courage. You damn sure didn’t want to tear down your fort-- it had taken you way too long to put the stupid thing up-- and if you said the idea of cuddling up with Tendo wasn’t appealing, you would surely go to hell for lying. The underlying problem was him. What would he say if you brought up the obvious solution?
You were taking too long to answer, so Tendo prompted you, pausing the movie. “Do you want to just get back on the bed again?”
“No,” you said, and then flinched. You had answered way too quickly and that somehow made him nervous and reassured at the same time. “This is really nice I just…I-know-that-you’re-kind-of-uncomfortable-and-I-don’t-want-to-make-you-more-uncomfortable.”
Tendou stared at you, unblinking as he tried to decipher your breathlessly rushed words. After a moment he laughed, still confused, but he could see the anxiety on your face. “I-- what? All I heard was uncomfortable, I think. But you don’t make me uncomfortable.”
Your heart thumped painfully in your chest as that weight left your shoulders. He was so intuitive it was almost scary. Even still, you had to make sure. “Oh, really? You always seem like...weird around me, I guess. I was starting to think I was pushing too hard, I guess?”
“Sorry,” he said, scratching the back of his head. His elbow brushed the sheet above you and he quickly dropped it. “I’m used to people being uncomfortable around me. Guess it just turned into a habit to avoid people I don’t know. So that I don’t freak them out.”
Not entirely true, given that he enjoyed messing with people, but it was true in your* case. It took you a moment to answer, and he started to worry that he had said too much. 
“You don’t...make me uncomfortable, Tendo. You never did. You’re a weirdo but not...in a bad way,” you said, and glanced at him to gauge his reaction, worried he would take it in a negative light.
But he was smiling, eyes fixed on the paused movie and you bit your lip. He was way too attractive and you couldn’t fathom anyone who thought otherwise. Clearly they were just cowards.
“Well that’s a relief. It would make things pre-tty awkward right now if I did,” he said and bumped your shoulder. It felt like a whole planet was lifted off his shoulders with this revelation and he heaved a huge sigh. “So, if we don’t want to abandon the fort but our backs are about to crumble, what do we do?”
“Uh.” You blanched, having forgotten about that little hiccup. Your idea was embarrassing to think about let alone explain and if you hadn’t made him uncomfortable yet this was sure to.
“Uh,” he mocked, and twisted around like a snake so his face was in front of you, blocking the light from the screen. “Spit it out before we collapse.”
“Just-- um--” you stuttered, and he quickly realized whatever your idea was, it had you flustered. He was just about to start teasing when you picked up the laptop and set it to the side of you. Rolling over onto your side, you tucked your hand underneath your pillow and relaxed, feeling the pain immediately alleviate. “Now you lay down. If you want.”
Your heart was racing in your chest, waiting for him to do something. It was a long, long minute before he finally said anything, and it wasn’t what you expected. Not that you had any idea of what to expect.
“Uh, are you sure? I mean, we could just--” What was he thinking? This was exactly what he wanted and wasn’t it Semi who had said she wouldn’t ask if she didn’t want it? Did he really have to overthink everything? You were in a literal pillow fort watching scary movies with him, offering to let him cuddle up with you, and he still thought you weren’t sure.
“Well, unless you aren’t,” you said, and was that disappointment in your voice? No way.
“No no, no. I’m gonna take my hoodie off first, though. It’s way too warm in here now,” he said, backtracking quickly. Then again, maybe it was just him that was too hot. It was an actual dream come true, and he pinched himself quickly just to make sure he wasn’t asleep. 
You rolled over onto your back to watch him struggle, his arms brushing the ceiling and walls of your warm little haven as he fought the hoodie. Your eyes widened as it finally came free, seeing the colorful swirls of ink covering his arms. “Holy shit.”
“Wha--?” he said, and turned to find you staring open mouthed at his tattoos. “Oh, right, I guess you haven’t seen these before, huh?”
“Nope,” you said, sitting up and squinting to see the undefined shapes in the faint light. It was almost cute the way he held his arm out to you hesitantly, like a child offering you a drawing to examine and praise. Taking it, you traced the lines covering his smooth, warm skin, trying to figure out what they were. But the shapes were undefinable in the faint light. You could make out splashes of blue and purple, red and pink, separated by black lines or faded together to make something. Part of you wanted to ask, but there was something mysterious about not knowing. “I can’t even tell what they are but god, Tendou, I know they’re gorgeous.”
He shivered at your featherlight touches, the feel of your fingers skimming delicately over his skin, and your words caused fire to erupt in his stomach and chest. His tattoos were something he was extremely proud of, one of the few things he had that made him feel confident, and hearing you compliment them made him feel so fucking good. Chucking his jacket out into the room, he returned to your side and the two of you got comfortable.
Pressing play on the movie for the 3rd time, the two of you fell silent. With your head below his chin, it was the perfect position for him to see the screen over you. You could feel the warmth rolling off of him, only an inch of space between his chest and your back, and both of you were well aware of it.
It was nearly impossible to focus on the movie, trying to reign in the urge to just slide back a little bit and mold yourself to him. Nibbling at your lip, you rolled just a little under the pretense of stretching and bumped into him. Just your arm into his, and he didn’t move away.
“You good? Need more space? I can crawl under the bed if you want,” he said, smirking at you. He thought he knew what you were playing at, but your next words confirmed it. It was the oldest trick in the book and, even though no one had ever used it on him, he had seen it at work with Semi and Shirabu too many times.
“Just stretching. I’m still a bit cold though,” you said, facing the TV again.
Suppressing a snicker, knowing damn well that wasn’t what you were after, he offered, “I can get you another blanket, if you need it.”
The silhouette of your shoulders fell, and you couldn’t hide the sigh that accompanied it. “It’s alright, Tendo. It’s not that bad.”
You really should have seen that coming, you guessed. The swell of hope and the crash of disappointment was painful in your chest, and you tried to focus on the movie again, ignoring the tempting warmth at your back. If he wasn’t interested, he wasn’t interested. It was cool.
Which was why you jumped when a weight settled over your side, a snicker filtering behind you as he molded himself to your back. It was slow, hesitant, and you would guess he was trying to make sure you were alright with it. Warmth seeped through your t-shirt and you sighed happily, shimmying back into him out of instinct, and this time you could feel his quiet laughter in his chest.
His arms were so long that he had to fold it in front of you, hand coming to rest just underneath your chin, and when you relaxed so did he. With his chin resting atop your head now, he asked, “Better? This is what you wanted, right?”
“Shut up,” you whined, hiding your face in your hand. It was embarrassing enough without him having to tease you about it. But you supposed it wouldn’t be Tendo if he didn’t make fun of you for everything. It was so easy after that to focus on the movie, now that you had gotten what you wanted. The snacks lay forgotten near your feet, not wanting to move and mess up the delicate balance that was now between the two of you.
It was tenuous and any small movement from either of you could send it toppling in either direction, and you weren’t even sure what it depended on. You knew for sure which way you would like to see it go, but it was just as comfortable the way it was.
Silence fell again until the movie ended, which was the only reason you moved. You could probably have fallen asleep like that, but you weren’t ready yet, wanting to bask in whatever you had with Tendo for a while longer.
When you sat up to change the next movie, Tendo rolled over onto his back, watching you fiddle around with it. Sweat beaded on the back of his neck and he shifted uncomfortably. Seemed you felt the same because you turned to look at him, an apology written on your face.
“Sorry, do you mind if I go change into shorts. It’s actually too warm for these now,” you said, setting the DVD case back on the pile. You felt like you were suffocating in your thick winter leggings now, but if he wasn’t okay with that then you would suffer a little longer. At least until you melted.
“Oh thank god you said something. I was about to die in these sweatpants, I swear,” he answered, fanning his face with his hand. You were pretty sure he was just exaggerating that though. “I don’t mind if you don’t.”
“Nope,” you said, popping the ‘p’, and crawled towards the escape flap, wincing at the sound of crunching and crinkling under your knees all of a sudden. “Oops.”
“Oh those had better not have been mine,” he whined, flashing the light of his phone towards the bag. He groaned, seeing his bag of doritos crushed. He could hear you snicker outside the sheet as you walked away and growled, “Watch it. Yours are still in here, _____.”
You opened a drawer as he finally came out as well and began rifling through his bag, pulling out the pair of shorts he’d packed. When you turned around with a pair of soft shorts in your hands, you found him standing awkwardly in the middle of your room again and laughed. “I’ll go change in the bathroom. I gotta use it anyway. I’ll be right back.”
Your footsteps receded down the hall and he raced to get changed before you came back. His sweats landed on his backpack and he shrugged at himself. What did it matter, so long as they weren’t on your floor?
The sound of the sink reached his ears just as he was climbing back into the fort, frowning at his crushed chips even as he shoved a handful into his mouth. He was so gonna make you pay for a new bag, especially because you had laughed. The door creaked open and the flap shifted, and he almost choked on his chips as he realized just how short your shorts were. Were your legs always that long? And smooth? And pretty? Shit.
“How are your chip fragments?” you joked as you made yourself comfortable beside him again. Your hair fanned out behind you and you gathered it up off the base of your neck, twisting it around so that it spread out above you instead. How the fuck was the back of your neck sexy*? 
He was so screwed.
“Uh,” he replied. Smooth, Satori. Shaking his head, he tried to gather his thoughts and focus them literally anywhere else. It worked. Sort of. “Pointy. You owe me a new bag.”
You scoffed, smiling at the car full of vacationing teenagers on the laptop. “There’s like four other bags in here. Quit whining.”
But he wasn’t giving it up, throwing his bag into the corner and hopefully out of the way of your carelessness. Settling behind you like he had before, he once again left space between you, afraid now of how his body might react if he didn’t. “No, all of them suck.”
You definitely noticed the gap and wondered if he was just waiting for you to take the initiative, so you did. Before he could blink, you were once again molded to his chest, head tucked under his chin and knees folded around his. He tensed, fingers curling into a fist while he willed himself to chill.
His arm came down around you again, but you could feel how stiff he was. When you made to move forward again, to give him space, his arm locked, even pulling you back again and you grinned. With his arm now lit up properly by the light of the laptop, you realized you could see the tattoos more clearly, and began to trace the stars and fish on his arm.
“Aren’t these the spirit fish from Avatar?” you asked, skimming over the white and black koi. It was a watercolor piece, lacking the heavy lines like the ones on his other arm, and you felt him nod against the top of your head. “They’re gorgeous. Who’s your artist?”
“A friend of mine in Miyagi did those,” he answered, watching you continue to trail up his arms. Goosebumps were raising the fine hairs all over his body, your touches so gentle and intimate, your focus rapt. Higher up near his elbow was what appeared to be two jolly rogers, but they weren’t the normal ones. “Those are from a pirate manga I read in Jump,” he said before you could ask, and you smoothed your hand over them before sliding it back up near his hand.
His heart skipped a beat when your fingers curled into his palm, hesitating before you slipped them between his. He was sure you could feel his heart pounding away in his chest, unaware that you couldn’t because yours was racing fast enough that you were lightheaded. Folding his fingers down over your hand locked them together, but you didn’t try to pull away. If anything, you tried to cuddle up closer to him, dragging your hands so that they were pressed to your chest. It was the most intimate thing he had experienced in recent memory and if his heart didn’t slow down it was going to explode.
The movie wasn’t holding his interest and a new question cropped up in his mind, one he had wondered more than once before tonight and he couldn’t figure out why he thought of it now, but he latched onto it because otherwise he really thought he was going to combust. Besides, it would ease some of his insecurity if he got an answer.
“What took you so long to set this up, anyway? I kind of thought you had changed your mind for a while,” he said, staring at the screen. He was sort of taking it in, an anchor point so he didn’t get lost in his thoughts.
Your chest rumbled against his hand when you hummed, and your answer was so mundane and rational that he almost laughed. “Well a part of it was wanting to get to know you a bit before we did this. Didn’t want to invite a total stranger to spend the night, after all. And then it was just a matter of waiting for my roommates to freakin’ leave.”
“Oh, are your roommates actually gone*?” he asked in surprise. He had thought they were just out for the night and would be home-- probably not soon, given the time, but still. “Like, for the weekend?”
You hummed again in agreement, twirling the ends of your hair absently around your fingers. You were locked onto the movie, absorbed as Leatherface chased one of the characters he didn’t care about through the yard. He fell quiet, thinking you wanted to watch uninterrupted, but then you asked, “That’s alright, right? They would have just wanted to join in otherwise and they can’t stand horror movies either, so they would’ve just talked through it.”
Exactly like he was doing, he realized, and his face grew hot. Hopefully he hadn’t already annoyed you. He nodded, responding in a much quieter voice. “It’s fine. Was just surprised, I guess.”
For a while, neither of you said anything and Tendo managed to focus on the movie, feeling you jump and twitch every once in a while at scares you weren’t expecting. Unfortunately, those movements were brushing against areas that he really didn’t need them too and your shorts did nothing to diminish the curve of your ass against him or the slowly growing hard on he was getting. It didn’t help that every time he shifted even a little you would just follow him, as if he wasn’t pinned by your hand holding his.
But shit, if he didn’t move soon he was going to be screwed. The bathroom-- that would get him out of there before he embarrassed the fuck out of himself.
It was too late, though. You flinched and ground your ass back into him and he groaned before he could help it. You froze, he froze, he just really wanted to die.
“I-- Sorry. I’m really sorry,” he said, tugging at his hand to try and escape. He wasn’t sure what he was going to do, but the best option was probably to leave and transfer to a school in a whole different country. He could already hear your words now, an echo of so many times before, the sting of disappointment a familiar feeling around his heart.
“I’m sorry, Tendo. I just don’t see you that way.”
It was because he was a freak with a weird name and creepy eyes and-- fuck. It was high school all over again, being rejected by someone he genuinely thought liked him only to find out they were using him to get to Ushijima or pretending to as a fucking joke, only this time Ushijima wasn’t around and he had really gotten himself into it by agreeing to any of this.
But you were refusing to let his hand go, holding so tight he thought his fingers might break, saying his name until he came back down from his panicked high.
“Tendo, Tendo, calm down, please,” you were begging. You had rolled onto your back, unable to sit up because you were using both your hands to keep him from jumping up and taking the whole fort down. You could see it on his face when he finally heard you, wide vermillion eyes locking with yours while his heart continued to race.
He remained propped up on his elbow, ready to run at the first opportunity, and you almost felt bad for antagonizing him as much as you had. If you had known your teasing was going to get him this riled up, you would have tried a different tactic-- or not tried it at all. Maybe you had pushed too far too soon, and the skittish look in his pretty eyes worried you that you had ruined it.
“It’s alright, Tendo,” you said, trying to keep your voice quiet and soothing. It felt an awful lot like you were dealing with a wary animal-- like a coyote or a fox. When the insistent tension in his arm faded is when you relaxed your death grip on his fingers. 
The sound of the movie was too loud in the unnatural silence between you, and you rolled over to turn it down. When it was only a background buzz, you turned back to him. He was still staring at you without blinking, his eyes devoid of the panic from earlier but now they were eerily blank.
“I’m so sorry,” he said, deadpan. He flinched when you took his hand again, forehead scrunching in confusion. “I don’t understand. There’s no way you-- What are you doing?”
It was your turn to be confused, pursing your lips at him. He sounded so lost-- and wary again-- like a child. For the first time, you wondered what his childhood had actually been like. He talked an awful lot about Ushiwaka and Semi, and the volleyball club in general, but you heard nothing outside of that. It made you suspicious now.
“What am I doing?” you parroted, finally sitting up. Your joined hands fell into your lap and you stared down at them, petting the back of his hand with your free one. “Do you not want me to?”
His words were stuck in his throat, trapped by the lump there, and he swallowed thickly. His mouth felt like cotton, and he shook his head, croaking out, “It isn’t that. I just don’t understand why.”
“Why what?” you asked, gentle amusement in your voice. There was no teasing, no malicious undertones that he could hear, like you were waiting to spring the final part of the joke on him. And he was listening for it. After years of dealing with it, he had learned to recognize it in people’s words and on their faces. The way their lips would curl and their eyes would narrow just before cruelty would spew from their mouths, he knew the tells and you--
Had none.
There was nothing but open curiosity and nervousness-- and hope. A lot of hope swirled in your eyes and he swallowed again. He was just going to disappoint you. If not tonight then tomorrow, if not tomorrow then next week. It was going to happen--
“Why do you like me? How do you like me? I’m-- weird. And you’re--” He gestured frantically up and down at all of you. You weren’t anything he was-- a freak. With freaky eyes and a freaky name and a freaky personality.
“I-- um,” you said, and you couldn’t help but smile. There was clearly a lot of baggage with him, and his questions made that obvious. It was likely too much to unpack tonight, especially when you were still only just getting to know each other. Reassurance was what he needed, and that was something you could offer on the spot. “You’re funny...and sweet and...very good looking. Your eyes are so pretty. Um, there’s also the fact that you’re the only person who would watch these movies with me, which earns you a lot of points, in my opinion,” you said, tapping your lips as you stared up at the ceiling.
Your face was on fire as you listed things off the top of your head, your throat tight with anxiety as you wondered what he would say in response. They were all surface level things for now, but you knew underneath the armor that there was a lot more to Tendo, and you hoped you had a chance to discover it.
He groaned low in his throat, not from disgust but from a deep seated need to believe you meant those things. His forehead met your shoulder, his fingers squeezing yours. He didn’t fight it when you eased back down, following after you without a word, leaving his face hidden in your neck. He was still trying to gather his thoughts and calm his overworked heart. It would be so easy to reject you and be on his way, to return home and beat himself up for letting himself get too close and too comfortable with you when he knew nothing would come of it.
Except something had come of it and he wasn’t sure what to do now. Semi and Ushijima always told him he was too closed off and that someone was going to come around who actually liked him and his ‘weird ass’ and that he was going to lose that chance because of some stupid high school assholes. Was he though? He wanted to believe you, wanted to trust you, and slowly he relaxed, his stress leaving him in a long, tired exhale.
“You mean it?” he whispered against your neck, and you could feel his lashes tickle your skin when he blinked. His arm was heavy where his hand rested on your stomach, fingers intertwined with yours, and you squeezed his hand as tight as you could.
“I do. I like you and really want a chance to get to know you better,��� you whispered back, and it suddenly felt like no one existed but the two of you, protected from everything in the world outside by a few sheets and each other's warmth. There would be things to discuss and hiccups to overcome, but you could worry about those tomorrow. In that moment, all you wanted was to prove to Tendo you wanted him.
Maybe it was your words, whispered softly into the dark, or your hand gripping his for dear life, or the way you let him cling to you like a lifeline, or maybe it was a combination, but when he pulled back from his hiding place and found you staring at him, he slotted his lips against yours without thinking. Your lips parted almost immediately, free hand sliding out from between your bodies to tangle in the close cropped hair at the nape of his neck and you used it to pull yourself closer. 
When your tongue poked out to glide across the seam of his lips, he let you in on a breath, tilting his head to deepen the kiss. His eyes were squeezed shut tight as your tongue met his, praying that what was happening wasn’t a dream, and he wasn’t expecting it when you gasped and pulled away all of a sudden.
His eyes popped open and he stared down at you with panic. “What? Did I do something wrong?”
“I-- forgot you have a tongue ring,” you said, and the laughed. “Fuck, that’s hot.”
He blinked like an owl, eyes wide as he processed your words. It wasn’t something that he had ever expected to hear in his life, let alone from the girl he was half-making out with in a freakin’ pillow fort. He suddenly wondered if his life had turned into a Shounen Jump manga.
“Well, so are you,” he said, and leaned in for another kiss.
It was kind of hot to see him confident and you felt heat pool in your stomach, starting to bleed further down as his tongue slipped into your mouth again. He tasted like the root beer he had been drinking all night, and you couldn’t resist toying with the piercing, swirling your tongue around it and listening to him moan against your mouth. 
Your shirt had ridden up your stomach as you moved around, trying to get closer to him, and neither of you realized it until Tendo’s hand smoothed over your skin. He froze mid-kiss, waiting for your reaction, and was unsurprised when your hand grabbed his.
What he didn’t expect was for you to guide it upwards, letting go when you hit your ribs to cup his cheek. Pulling back just enough that he could speak against your lips, he asked, “Are you sure?”
“Frankly, Tendo,” you said, and kissed him again before you continued, “I haven’t wanted anyone this bad in forever. Even if we wake up tomorrow and change our minds, I am fucking sure right now.”
He groaned, letting his hand hike your shirt up a little higher until his hand cupped under your breast. He wasn’t sure when you had taken your bra off, or maybe you hadn’t been wearing one the whole time, but there was nothing impeding his skin from caressing yours. Your breast was so soft in his hand, topped by a pretty pink nipple that he couldn’t resist pinching. You mewled underneath him, pulling your shirt up to uncover your other breast and he moved to that one, doing the same and feeling your nipple harden at his touch.
“Fuck, you’re so pretty,” he rasped, gazing down the length of your body. Your thighs were clenched, and his hand migrated lower, fingertips skimming over your skin.
The heat that was pooling earlier erupted when they met the waistband of your shorts, but he paused, looking unsure again.
“Tendo, I’ll show you how much I want this,” you whispered and grabbed his hand. He was still hesitant, looking at your face as you slid his hand into your panties, and his eyes widened.
“You’re so wet,” he groaned, his fingers gliding over your soaked lips, spreading your slick all over them. His fingers quickly found your clit, circling it and you squeezed his hand between your thighs, hips jerking. “All because of me? I’m flattered.”
Teasing at your soaked opening, he waited for you to balk but you only twitched, panting against his lips before he sunk one finger in, your walls parting easily. You moaned and he swallowed it in a kiss, his tongue filling your mouth again. It wasn’t long before he was fitting a second finger, crooking them up and grazing your sweet spot, his thumb taking over massaging your clit as he pumped them inside you. Your arousal was already high enough that you could feel your orgasm coming on, and you pulled away to announce it.
“T-Tendo, gonna--” You gasped when he forced them in deeper, a mischievous smirk on his face as he prodded your cervix. “How-- fuck, your fingers are so long,” you whined, toes curling.
“Think you can take one more?” he asked, already fitting the tip of a third finger in. But it was only when you nodded, tears pricking the corners of your eyes that he slipped it in. Your teeth dug into your lip before they parted in a soundless cry.
The coil snapped on the first thrust and he groaned, drinking in your face as he tipped you over the edge. No one had ever cum so prettily for him before and he wanted to see it again. 
But only if you wanted it. His cock throbbed painfully in his shorts when he pulled his fingers from your twitching hole, feeling you shudder against him. Examining his glistening fingers in the screen light, he slid one experimentally into his mouth and moaned. “You taste so good, princess.”
You gasped at the pet name, a warmth unrelated to the one between your legs blooming in your chest. He said it was such reverence that you flushed, hoping he’d say it again at some point. Never had anyone called you that before, at least in that context.
When he laid back down beside you, his erection brushed against your leg and he stifled a groan. He was wearing boxers but the friction against his cock was still a pleasurable sensation. Not as much as your hand might be--
Speaking of hands, he nearly jumped out of his skin when you cupped him, squeezing and kneading up the length of him confined in his clothes. A shaky breath ripped out of him, the result of him barely containing a moan, and his long fingers wrapped around your wrist to stop you.
“That’s alright, _____. You don’t have to--” But you weren’t listening and the pressure felt too good. His head fell back, eyes fluttering closed, content to let you literally massage his dick until you started tugging at his shorts. He stopped you more insistently then, pulling your hand away. “Wait a second. Let me get ‘em off since you’re so eager, princess.”
He pulled his shirt over his head first, because it was getting way too hot in there anyway, and then kicked his shorts and boxers off into the dark corner. His cock bobbed against his stomach as he rolled onto his side again, leaking precum already. 
Your hand was soft against his stomach, roaming over the hard planes of his abs and down further, until it wrapped lightly around his head.
And froze.
“What the-- Tendo, what are those?” you asked in a high pitched, startled tone. Before he could answer, you let go and rolled onto your back, exposing him to the light and you thought for sure you had died and gone to heaven. 
It wasn’t just his arms that were covered in ink. His shoulders, chest, and sides were all covered in it as well, swirls and splashes of color interrupted by splotches of black or white or skin. You could hardly make out what the images were in the flickering, inconsistent light, but you recognized flowers and circles, and on his pec you were pretty sure there was a scene of a lake bathed in moonlight. And as your eyes followed the path of colors down, you landed on the thing that had startled you in the first place.
“Those are--” you breathed, taking his cock into your hand again. There was a ball at the tip, covered in precum, and you knew if you traced down, you would find another just below the crown. Further down on his shaft were five horizontal barbells in a row, and you recognized it as a Jacob’s Ladder. “Fuck me.”
“Gladly,” Tendo quipped and pounced. He settled between your legs and tugged your shorts down over your hips, and you had to hold your legs up to let him pull them the rest of the way off. He was too tall to sit straight up without brushing his head against the ceiling, but he braced back on his arms when you grabbed his shaft again. He groaned when you fondled the ball below his crown, shuddering at the intense pleasure. It was one of the major reasons he’d gotten it- to enhance the sensations. But the feel of your fingers gliding over his tip, gathering the precum and nudging the ball was something else entirely. “Holy shit, that feels amazing.”
His voice sent shivers through you, deep and raspy and way too needy. But you were unsure of what would hurt him, so you kept your touches light, feeling his thighs tense under yours, his fingers squeezing your calves as he let you explore. Before long though, he was pulling your hand away, pinning it down at your side. “Can’t keep that up, princess. I need more, if you’re alright with it,” he said, letting his cock settle against your cunt. 
The piercings were warm and pronounced against your folds, and you shuddered when the ball under his head grazed your clit. The thought of them inside you, rubbing all along your walls as he fucked you was too much and you could feel yourself growing wetter, your pussy drooling for it.
“Yes, Tendo, please. I want it, I want to feel them inside me,” you begged, rocking your hips. The stimulation was mind blowing and your walls clenched, empty and needy for him to fill you up. And he would, his cock was huge-- he still had room for more piercings below the ones he had. You had no doubt you would be stretching to take him and you keened in the back of your throat.
“I want you to call me Satori, princess. And I need you to let me know if it’s uncomfortable,” he said, pressing the tip of his cock into your sopping hole. “Sometimes they make it hurt, but you’re so fucking wet I don’t think it will. You really like these, huh?”
You were really just answering his question as you said yes, but a stream of them fell out of your mouth as he pushed the rest of his cock inside you, encouraging him to continue. The stretch was so good, your walls splitting easily for him, and you could feel every ball just like you had imagined grazing against your walls. The ball at his slit rested snugly against your cervix, and you didn’t even realize you were screaming as you came, hips jerking in his hands as he let you ride it out.
He was staring at you with what could only be awe, his mouth slack and eyes wide with surprise. “Holy fuck, princess, did you just cum?”
Your breaths were coming in pants as your mind spun, trying to come down from the unexpected high. It came on so suddenly you had no time to prepare, and tears slid down your cheeks. “F-Feels so good,” you whispered, fingers digging into the blanket beneath you. “Satori, oh my god.”
“Are you alright? We can stop--” he said, but you shook your head frantically, locking your ankles around his back, and he laughed under his breath. You sure were something else. He knew for a fact no one had ever come just from him sliding into them and a swell of pride filled his chest. “No? Alright, whatever you want, princess. Can I move?”
This time you nodded and he was slow as he pulled back, making sure you were okay. You were so tight around him from your orgasm, your walls fluttering with overstimulation, but your back arched when he stuffed himself back in, a breathy moan slipping out of you. Hiking your legs higher up on his hips, he bent over you, gathering your hands and pinning them above your head, lacing his fingers with yours. His lips met yours as he thrust into you slowly, grinding deep and stifling a moan. Once again you were playing with his tongue ring, flicking it as you suckled on his tongue. The fort-- and probably the room-- was filled with the wet slap of his hips on yours every time he drove his cock into you, drowning out the low buzz of the forgotten movie still playing. He was being careful, waiting for you to stop being so sensitive, and he knew you were ready when you arched into his chest and pulled away.
“So good, Satori,” you murmured against his lips, hips rising to meet his. Your eyes were glazed and fucked out, tears still flowing and you could already feel the start of another orgasm, but he was moving too slow. The drag and pull of his piercings had almost all of your attention, the ball at his tip constantly tapping your cervix, making your toes curl with every thrust. “You’re so big, and those-- fuck-- piercings feel so good inside me. I can feel them all everywhere.”
He snickered darkly at that and kissed your cheek. “You wanna feel even better, kitten?” he whispered into your ear, nipping the shell. He could feel you nod against his cheek, nails digging into his hands where he kept them pinned above your head, and then he was letting them go and pulling out of you. You whined, staring up at him in dismay, but he already had your thighs in his hands, prodding you to roll over. “Trust me, pretty girl. On your stomach, just like that.”
It was a bit difficult to get comfortable, but he grabbed a pillow and jammed it beneath your hips before settling with his legs outside of yours. And when you shook your ass, begging him to hurry up, he couldn’t deny you, not when he wanted to be back inside your tight heat so badly.
“Holyshitholyshitholyshit,” you whined, high-pitched and breathless as he finally filled you again. His thighs trembled as he forced himself not to just stuff himself into you, you were so tight. And the way you were crying and shuddering beneath him wasn’t helping, especially when you gasped his given name like a prayer. “*Satori, oh my god.”
If you thought those piercings felt good before, you were in heaven now. Everyone of them dragged slowly over the front wall of your cunt, grinding into your sweet spot and you had to bite the pillow to keep from outright screaming. And he was so, so, so big inside you, but with your legs trapped between his there was nothing you could do but take him. Against your will, your legs kicked, hitting him in the back as you wailed into the pillow, tears streaming down your cheeks in an endless flood. 
He snarled into your ear as he planted his elbows beside your head, plastering himself to your back. “You are so fucking tight, princess. How do those piercings feel now?”
“So good so good so good,” you babbled, circling your hips back on his dick to get any friction you could. The orgasm that had been building came back ten fold just from him hilting inside of you and you knew that if he fucked you like this you would be cumming in seconds. “‘Tori, please move, please please please.”
Your needy begging made his cock twitch and you whimpered as he slowly pulled out of you and pushed back in, intentionally slow to let you feel everything. The pleasure was ebbing and flowing, building and falling because he wasn’t moving fast enough, but you couldn’t bring yourself to ask him to go faster, not when you could feel him so clearly. Every time he bottomed out, he made sure to grind down into you, nudging your cervix with the tip of his cock so he could feel you clench suddenly around him. It never failed to make him moan, your slick walls gripping him so tightly as he dragged himself back out. He wanted to make your pussy his new home and barring that he was going to fuck the shape of his cock into you.
“Tell me what you need to make you cum, princess,” he whispered into your ear. He knew what he needed, but he was still learning what would make you feel good. 
Releasing the pillow from your teeth, the first thing you did was moan out his name again as he buried himself inside you again. You were so close to cumming, your clit throbbing with need and if he even brushed it you were going to be gushing all over him. You gasped as he thrust a little harder than before.
“If you don’t answer me I’ll just keep going like this, kitten. I can go for hours, if you want,” he whispered, warm against your ear. That made you twitch underneath him, and he chuckled. “You like the sound of that? We’ll try it another time. Right now, I need you to tell me where you want me to cum and how I can make you cum, okay?”
His words were dark and sweet and coaxing, and you were sure you had never whined so much in your whole life. “Touch me, please, Satori. I wanna cum all over your cock and pretty piercings while you cum in me, oh fuck.”
Bracing himself on his elbow, he forced his hand beneath your stomach, aided by you lifting your hips, and you whimpered when he finally, finally brushed your clit. It was all it took and you had to bite the pillow again as you creamed all over his cock, whiting out and screaming into it as you shuddered and jerked. He eased you through it, leaving his cock buried inside you while he fondled your clit, listening to you whimper and moan. It was a good thing you had hidden your face because you would surely have woken the whole complex up otherwise. 
He groaned into your ear as you massaged his cock, so tight that you launched him into his own orgasm, cumming inside you as you had asked. He remained still inside of you even after you had relaxed, leaving small kisses all over your hair before he leaned down to rest his head on the pillow. He had fucked you so slowly that he hadn’t broken a sweat, and yet he was still out of breath and panting. His head swam for several more minutes, until you shifted beneath him. But you didn’t move like you wanted him to get off.
Instead, you turned to look at him, a lazy, blissed out grin on your face and said, “Holy shit, that was so amazing. I’ve never cum so many times.”
“So were you. I’ve never made someone cum so many times,” he admitted, and replayed the way you came just because he had filled you. That was something he was unlikely to ever forget. He brushed some hair out of your face before leaning in to kiss you. It was slow and gentle, belying how tired the two of you now were, and he could see you were ready to fall asleep. “Gonna pull out of you now, princess. Need you to stay nice and relaxed, okay?”
You nodded, your eyes closing and winced as he slid from your ruined hole. A stream of cum followed after and he took a moment to appreciate it, allowing a smirk to steal across his face. There was no doubt you were his now, at least for a little while, and he committed it all to memory before gently gripping your shoulders. “We should really get cleaned up, then we can go to sleep.”
You grumbled cutely but let him help you up, the both of you stumbling blindly to the bathroom. Sleepiness was a thick fog, and you got cleaned up as quickly as possible before returning to the room. The two of you stood in the doorway, looking at the mess of nonsense covering the bed, and then you looked at Tendou.
“Let’s just sleep in there,” you suggested, taking him by the hand. He let you lead him over, watching the way your ass swayed as you crawled into the fort for hopefully the final time that night. In the few minutes it had taken him to get in after you, you had already pulled a blanket over your legs and were setting up the next movie to play. Not that you would be watching it, but he understood it was the principle of the thing. This was a movie marathon and it just wouldn’t do to fall asleep without being in the middle of one.
Once he’d gotten comfortable behind you, you rolled over and splayed out across his chest, startling him. He had expected to curl himself around your back while you went to sleep, but now you were tracing what lines you could see on his chest in the thin light. His hand rested on your waist, the other tucked behind his head, and he closed his eyes, comfortable with your warmth and weight in his arms.
“Satori,” you murmured, your hand falling flat right over the picture of the lake. “I really do like you.”
He laughed at that, and you could feel it rumble in your ear, deep in his chest. He was clearly as tired as you were, but you needed to say it. There was something in your half asleep brain that would not stop telling you to say it, and you were in no position to fight it.
“I figured as much, princess. Three orgasms are hard to fake, especially around a dick as big as mine,” he answered, and you blanched for a moment before erupting into laughter. He watched you through narrow eyes, fondness bubbling in his chest, until you settled back down against him. “You’re absolutely gorgeous, you know that?”
“So’re you,” you murmured. The nagging had stopped now that you had said what you needed too, and you were falling asleep quickly. “Don’t be gone when I wake up tomorrow, okay?”
“It already is tomorrow, and I’ll be here. There’s nowhere else I wanna be anyway,” he answered, letting his eyes close as well. With your comfortable weight on his chest and your even breathing mixing with the buzzing of the movie in the background in his ears, he drifted to sleep in no time, for once not worrying about what tomorrow would bring.
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⇥ masterlist 
⇥ taglist: @visaintes​, @kunimwuah​
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homoose · 4 years
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Teach Me Something I Don’t Know: Part I
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Summary: When Will asks him to pick Michael up from school, Spencer may or may not develop a schoolboy crush on the kindergarten teacher.
Pairing: Spencer Reid x fem!reader
Category: fluff
Warnings/Includes: none
Word count: 2.5k
a/n: Here she is! I’m not sure exactly what it is about Spencer Reid x teacher!reader, but it is my most requested fic topic, and I am happy to oblige! This is the first in a multi-part series. Weird is Good also takes place in this verse. Any teacher!reader requests will be folded into this verse as well, so feel free to continue sending me those!
Series Masterlist
Click here for the story mentioned, read by everybody’s fave Michelle Obama.
———
“A strong geographical profile is one of the most important pieces of the overall behavioral profile; it significantly narrows the area the team has to cover, allows for law enforcement teams to prioritize and maximize limited resources, and helps focus the investigation in conjunction with the other elements of the profile. And that wraps our section on building geographical profiles!” Spencer smiled at the faces in front of him, gesturing to the board. “The information we covered today will make up a significant portion of your midterm, so make sure to review it before next week. See you all next Thursday!”
As his students began packing up their things, Spencer’s phone rang from inside his bag. When he retrieved the phone and saw Will’s name on the caller ID, his brow furrowed in concern. “Will— everything ok?”
“Hey, yeah, yeah, everything’s fine,” he assured him. “I’m sorry to ask, but JJ’s on a case, and my partner and I just finished our last call clear on the other side of the city. Henry’s got soccer practice, but Michael’s gotta be picked up in about— well, shit, right about now. Would you mind picking him up and bringing him ‘round to the house?”
Spencer looped the strap of his bag over his shoulder and started up the aisle out of the lecture hall. “Yeah, of course! It’s over by the Naval Observatory, right?”
“Yeah, that’s the one. If you pull ‘round the parking lot, they usually come out the side door. His teacher’s real sweet, Ms. Y/L/N. I’ll let her know you’re picking him up.”
“Okay, sounds good.” Spencer pushed open the door and made his way down the hall.
“You’re the best,” Will drawled. “I’ll only be about half an hour.”
When Spencer pulled the baby blue Volvo into the parking lot of the school, he saw Michael and Ms. Y/L/N sitting on the steps of school. Their heads were so close they were almost touching, looking down at a book laying across their laps. Her legs were stretched out straight and she pointed down to the page, saying something that made Michael throw his little head back in a laugh that floated in through the open window of the car. Spencer grinned at the familiar sound as he pulled around the carpool loop.
When he recovered from the giggles, Michael caught sight of the car and waved his hand excitedly at Spencer. Ms. Y/L/N looked up and gave a wave as well, albeit a little less vigorous. She closed the book and turned her torso slightly to unzip Michael’s backpack and drop the book into it.
Spencer put the car in park, stepped out, and walked around the car to meet the two of them. Michael was already up and running, throwing himself at Spencer’s legs and hugging them tightly. He leaned down to return the hug. “Hey, buddy! How was school?”
“It was amazing,” Michael gushed, pulling out of the hug to gesture wildly. “We learned how to write the zzz sound, and now we know all the sounds! Oh, and then we used blocks in math, and that was so fun, because Ms. Y/L/N let us build with them when we were done counting. Oh, and then we learned about frogs, and they are so cool. Did you know that frogs have night vision? Oh, and Ms. Y/L/N said I could borrow my favorite book from the classroom library! She read it to me already while we were waiting for you, but maybe you could read it to me, too? I can read some of the words but not all of them yet, so I still need some help.”
Spencer smiled widely at him. “Wow, that does sound like an amazing day. I did know that about frogs, actually! And of course, I’d love to read with you.”
“The book’s called Giraffe Problems, and it’s about this giraffe named Edward who doesn’t like his neck.” Michael looked at Ms. Y/L/N. “What’s the turtle’s name again?”
“Cyrus,” Ms. Y/L/N reminded him.
“Right, Cyrus.” He looked at Spencer. “See, that one is tricky because c’s don’t usually make the sss sound, but sometimes they do. Ms. Y/L/N’s teaching me about it, even though she said it’s kinda hard for kindergarten.”
“Because you’ve got a big, powerful brain, right?” she said, tapping her temple and winking at Michael. “I’m Ms. Y/L/N, by the way. You must be the infamous uncle Spencer. I’ve heard a lot about you.” Then she smiled at him and his big, powerful brain melted inside of his skull.
Michael continued talking, and Spencer briefly wondered if this is how people felt when he rambled. Michael lost his attention immediately, because all he could do was stare at Ms. Y/L/N. Her eyes glinted with humor as he chattered on. She followed his expressive motions with well-timed nods and mhmms, a skill she’d no doubt honed through years of indulging kindergarten babbling. She met Spencer’s eyes every so often, only a slight eyebrow raise indicating her amusement. Her hair had been tied back, but soft pieces had come loose throughout the day, falling into her face and around her shoulders. Up close, he could see that the print of her collared a-line dress was hundreds of green frogs. On her feet were a pair of beat up, low top converse, and Spencer thought he could physically feel the crush branding the chambers of his heart. He was jolted out of his thoughts by Michael’s hand tugging on his pant leg, and he looked down to see him looking up expectantly.
“Sorry, what?” Spencer asked him.
“I said,” Michael repeated with a sigh, “can we look up the author and see if he has any other books?”
“Oh, um, yeah. Of course, buddy.”
“Jory John has lots of amazing books,” Ms. Y/L/N confirmed. “You’ll love the series he wrote with Pete Oswald.” She smiled at the pair of them before checking her watch. “I’ve gotta go pack up, but I’ll see you tomorrow, Michael.” She winked at Spencer, and he almost swallowed his tongue. “It was nice meeting you, uncle Spencer.” She waved again and then turned up the stairs to disappear into the building.
Spencer let out a breath he didn’t even realize he’d been holding, and then turned to Michael. “Well. All right, are you ready to go home?”
They were settled into the car and halfway home before Michael finally needed to take a breath. Spencer capitalized on the break in conversation.
“So, Ms. Y/L/N seems pretty cool,” Spencer hedged.
“Yeah, she’s the best,” Michael confirmed with a nod. “On Fridays she lets us put on the smocks and paint. And she has really good story voices. Oh, and she also has these really cool blocks that stick together—magnet blocks. And when I fell off the jungle gym and got a big scrape, she gave me a Paw Patrol bandaid! And she gives great hugs.”
“Good story voices, huh?” Spencer met Michael’s eyes in the rearview mirror. “Better than mine?”
Michael tilted his head in deep thought. “Hmmmm. It’s pretty close. Your wizard voice is good, but she does accents.”
Spencer blew out a dramatic breath. “Guess I’m going to have to up my game.”
“You’re gonna have to practice a lot, because Ms. Y/L/N reads to us every day.” Michael raised his eyebrows in a challenge.
“Hey!” Spencer looked incredulous. “I read every day, too!”
“Yeah, but do you read with story voices every day?” Michael clarified.
Spencer sighed. “Well, I guess not.”
“It’s okay, uncle Spencer,” Michael soothed. “You can’t be the best at everything.”
“So they are better than mine?”
Michael pressed his lips together, and Spencer almost laughed at how much he looked like JJ. “... maybe.”
A trail of shoes and school supplies led to the couch, where Spencer and Michael sat shoulder to shoulder. They were on their second read of Giraffe Problems. Spencer took a long, dramatic breath before launching into Cyrus’ banana speech, and Michael burst into a fit of giggles. With his best theatrical voice, Spencer read down the page. “Yet, day after day, I’ve felt like such a fool as I stretched my neck toward those greedy branches, only to be limited by my own physical shortcomings.” He flipped the page and changed his tone. “You… want a banana from a tree?” He looked at Michael and said, quickly and in a low voice, “That’s what I said, yes.” Michael wheezed out another laugh.
Spencer finished the story, Michael mouthing the words along with him. When they reached the last page, Spencer softly closed the book and propped his feet up on the coffee table. “That’s a pretty great story.”
“Yeah,” Michael agreed. “Ms. Y/L/N said she likes it because it reminds us that we gotta love ourselves and our bodies for how they are.”
Spencer nodded. “Absolutely. We’re all different, and that’s what makes us special.”
“Yeah. I just really like when he’s wearing all the scarves.” Michael burst into another fit of laughter, and Spencer couldn’t help but laugh with him.
The front door opened, and Will was smiling as he stepped over the threshold. “I could hear y’all laughing all the way down the sidewalk.”
“Daddy!” Michael jumped up from the couch, and Will bent to scoop him up, pressing a kiss to his forehead.
“Hey, kiddo. Sorry I couldn’t pick you up. It sure sounds like you and uncle Spencer had fun, though.” He shot Spencer a wide smile.
“We read Giraffe Problems. Can we read it again later?” Michael asked.
“Sure thing. We can read it before bedtime.” Will set him down, furrowing his brow. “Wait, Giraffe Problems? Is that a new one?”
Michael shook his head. “Ms. Y/L/N let me borrow it from the library. I have to give it back in two weeks.”
“Man, Michael, you really lucked out, huh?” Will posited. “Ms. Y/L/N is so good to you.”
“Jeez, everybody’s saying that today,” Michael sighed. “Yes, Ms. Y/L/N is amazing, we all know this.”
“All right, sass monster. I didn’t know uncle Spencer thought she was amazing, too.” Will grinned. “We gotta go pick up Henry in a few minutes. I’ll get you a snack, and you can pick up your things?” He gestured to the mess of shoes and school supplies in the foyer.
Spencer smiled sheepishly. “That’s probably my fault. We were just so excited to read the book.”
“Ah yeah, I know how he gets.” Will crossed to the kitchen. “A one track mind, that one. Thanks again for picking him up today.”
Spencer stood from the couch and followed, hands stuffed in his pockets. “It’s no problem at all! I can do it any time.”
“Well, I don’t want to bother y—”
“It’s not a bother!” Spencer schooled his voice back into a normal register at Will’s raised eyebrow. “It—It’s not a bother at all. I, um— I have a lot of free time when I’m on sabbatical. Especially since I’m only teaching one course this semester. Plus, I love seeing the boys.”
“I’ll remember that.” Will smiled. “So… Ms. Y/L/N’s amazing, huh?”
Spencer just knew that his cheeks were as red as the apple Will was cutting up. He tried to shrug nonchalantly. “Yeah, she was— she was really nice.”
“She’s not bad looking, either,” Will supplied. When Spencer’s mouth fell open, Will continued, “What? JJ thinks so, too. Don’t tell me you didn’t even look, because I know that’s a lie.”
Spencer sputtered, “I— well, I—”
“Daddy, can we get an ice-cream on the way home?” Michael interrupted, completely unfazed.
Will laughed. “Saved by the bell, uncle Spencer. Yeah, buddy, we can get ice-cream.”
“It’s not weird to look her up. I just want to know more about the person who’s educating my godson,” Spencer tried to reassure himself as he pulled up the school’s website. He scrolled to find the teacher pages, a little smile crossing his face when he saw Ms. Y/L/N’s picture— white ruffled shirt, red bow, and black hat. A perfect tribute to Mary Poppins.
He dropped his smile. “She barely said five sentences to you, and you didn’t say anything back.” His eyes wandered over the links on the side, landing on the About Me section. “But she did say she’d heard a lot about you, so it’s only fair that you get to know a little about her.” Against his better judgment, he clicked the page link. A photo of Ms. Y/L/N— grinning and holding a very distraught-looking black cat— popped up on the screen, and Spencer laughed aloud.
I grew up on a farm outside of Fayetteville, NC before moving to Boston to complete my undergraduate degree. I moved to DC to earn my Master’s in Early Childhood Education, and I have been teaching here for 8 years! I love working with young learners, because children grow so much in their foundational years. Watching a child have a lightbulb moment is one of my greatest joys. When I'm not in the classroom, I love to read, travel, play scrabble, and spend time with my cat Roald (pronounced Roo-all)!
Spencer scrolled through the pictures of Ms. Y/L/N and her students. There were pictures in their “smocks,” which Spencer discovered were really just old t-shirts. There was one of her in the middle of some very animated story telling, and another of a field trip to the zoo. In each one, the smiles beamed out through the computer screen in a digital portrait of unbridled joy, contagious even over the waves of the internet. Smiling to himself, he clicked on the tab labeled Teaching Philosophy.
I believe that every child is an extraordinary and essential piece of our classroom puzzle. In order to nurture the unique individuality of each of my students, I work hard to make our classroom a safe, positive, and supportive community where students are given the space to express themselves. Our classroom culture is also one of kindness and creativity, where each individual is valued and celebrated for who they are!
Spencer swallowed the unexpected lump in his throat as he thought back on his own school career. While his teachers had always appreciated his intelligence, he honestly couldn’t recall a moment where he had felt valued for just… being himself. The majority of his time in school had been spent unsuccessfully fending off bullies, completing other students’ homework, or being gawked at like some sort of alien. He was grateful that Michael would hopefully never go through anything like what he’d experienced; at least not while Ms. Y/L/N was around.
His phone buzzed in his pocket, and he leaned back in the desk chair to pull it out. He swiped it open to read the incoming text.
JJ: So......... you like Ms. Y/L/N, huh? 😉😉😉
Spencer: What?! Did Will tell you that? I didn’t say that.
JJ: Some things you don’t have to say out loud, Spence.
———
Tags: @spacedikut
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Coach (1)
Fandom: Dylan O'Brien
Pairing: AU Dylan x Fem!Reader
Mini series summary: Being a newly single mom of two kids wasn't exactly easy. And love wasn't exactly part of your agenda. So, should you avoid lusting over your son's baseball coach? Absolutely. But with a man like Dylan, could you really resist? Probably not.
Warnings: nothing major yet, small sexual innuendo, mentions of cheating and divorce
WC: 1.9k
A/N: a yes, to those who have been following me for a while may recognize this title, it's my old Dylan AU fic. Yes I decided to continue it. Updates will come periodically, because I write spontaneously and I cant guarantee quick updates. But I do promise I wont wait a whole year to update. And since I did some slight updates in the first 2 parts I decided to archive the old ones and repost them again. So yeah, if you've read them before great, give it another read, my writing is much better now I promise and if you're new welcome, I hope you like this mini series.
(You are here, part 2, part 3)
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Dylan stood by the side of the large field, near the home plate, occasionally yelling out suggestions and pointing out mistakes to the young boys. 
"Ezra! You have to watch the ball! C'mon! I know you can do better!" He called out to the blonde boy standing on the home plate with a bat in hand. Dylan then turned his attention to the dark haired boy with the baseball mitt and ball in hand.
"Roman! What's going on, buddy? You gotta focus, alright? You gotta work on that throw!" Dylan called out to the young boy, who half nodded and sighed heavily in response.
Not long after, Dylan signaled the young boys scattered throughout the large field to gather around. He spoke some encouraging words to the boys before allowing them to disperse and gather their equipment which meant practice was over.
Your son, however, stayed behind for a minute. There was an inaudible conversation happening between Dylan and your ten year-old, Roman. You watched from the bleachers as your son made some tired gestures at his coach followed by a small pat on the back from Dylan. You couldn't help but follow them with your eyes as they made their way to the bleachers, your eyes lingering a bit too long on the brown haired coach. An action that wasn't taken lightly by the female sitting beside you.
"You're staring at him again." Your best friend, Ezra's mother, Eliza -or just Liz, commented.
"I'm not." You muttered out quickly, tearing your eyes away from the handsome coach, your mouth hanging open for a couple of seconds. "I wasn't staring." You stated matter of factly and shrugged as you looked down at the small six year-old sitting on your lap, making sure she wasn't paying attention to the conversation.
"Really? The drool coming from your mouth says otherwise." Liz playfully ran her finger across your chin, pretending to wipe away at it. You slightly glared at her, an eye roll going her way.
"I'm not drooling. I wasn't even staring." You tried to defend yourself, making a small sassy gesture to her.
"Hey, I don't blame you. If I wasn't married," she took a pause as she eyed Dylan as he removed his baseball hat to run a hand through his messy chocolate locks, you couldn't help but stare as well. "I'd jump on his bones any day."
"Hey, there's young ears present." You said quietly to Liz as not to disturb the young girl in your arms.
Despite your attempt not to, you couldn't help but allow your eyes to fall once again on the field, following the handsome male that was the topic of your conversation. You had to hide the infatuated sigh that left your lips at the sight of your son's coach running around the field, talking to the kids and picking up equipment.
"Well he is handsome, I'll give him that.." You admitted quietly, "and he's really good with the kids."
Your friend smirked slightly at your words and wiggled her eyebrows at you.
"I bet that's not the only thing he's really good at." She eyed you suggestively and slightly nudged at you with her shoulder, "You should find out what other things he's good at."
Your mouth instantly fell open and your eyes widened at the insinuation.
"Eliza! Oh, my god. Don't say that." You slightly shook your head to brush off the embarrassment and hid your face on your hands to cover the crimson on your skin.
"Mommy you're warm!" Athena, your six year-old giggled as she grabbed your warm, sweaty hands. Even your daughter noticed the nervousness that crept up on you when it came to Dylan, even if it was just the topic of him. Truth was, you had been shamelessly crushing on your son's baseball coach ever since he joined the team a couple of months ago. 
Get it together, you should not be crushing on your son's baseball coach.
"I know baby, it's just hot out here." You tried to brush it off, but the knowing smirk on Liz's face wasn't exactly helping. "Thena, why don't you go get Roman and Ezra? They're over there." You pointed to the field where Roman and Ezra were talking —or more like just Ezra was, to the other kids on the team. She quickly nodded and bolted off the bleachers, somehow not tripping over the steps as she went down. You sighed heavily the moment the young girl was far enough and slightly turned your head in Liz's direction.
"You should totally ask him out." She said out of nowhere with a shrug and a smirk on her face. Your eyes widened for the hundredth time, and you instantly shook your head frantically, the idea alone giving you a headache.
"Ask Dylan out? No way. I.. No.. That's just.. No." Your cheeks slightly heat up at the preposition. But you quickly turned it down with a vigorous shake of your head, not even giving the idea a minute to sink into your brain. "No, he's Roman's coach. It's just wrong."
"Why? I mean, you're single, and as far as I know, he's very single. Soo," she dragged the 'o' as she wiggled her eyebrows and she nudged your shoulder, pushing you over a little in a high school girl manner, "Why not get ready to mingle with the hot coach?"
"First of all, I'm technically not single, not yet." You groaned with an eyeroll. As much as you and your husband —or ex-husband or whatever were no longer living together, the divorce process had been unnecessarily long and dreadful. So as much as you wanted to be legally single, you were still married to that piece of shit. 
"And second of all, if I were to date someone, which is a big if, I can't date Roman's coach out of all people. He already has enough as it is. It'll just confuse him and probably upset him more." You sighed heavily as you looked over to the side of the field, where all the boys were having a conversation about elementary boys' things. And there you saw your son, trying, and ultimately failing at joining said conversations. And with little Athena tugging at his side, all he got from the other kids was laughing and rejection.
Seeing your son's sad and hurt expression when the other boys laughed at him or even told him to go away broke your heart. You wanted him to be happy again. You wanted him to be the energetic and loving kid he was before your waste of a husband left. Ever since Ryan —your waste of a husband left, Roman hasn't been the same. 
For the past six or so months, he has been distant and seemingly unhappy. All he ever did was lock himself up in his room and play video games. He barely ever interacted with you and Athena anymore. He barely interacted with anyone, period. Once Ryan left, it was up to you to support your kids financially. Of course, their father still paid child support, but he sure as hell didn't pay your bills or everything you needed to spend on your children. Which meant you had to take him out of the fancy school he went to in order to still pay the monthly expenses of your home. And he just didn't quite fit in at school, especially now. 
So, you hoped that him joining the baseball team would change that, that it would help him open up again and that it would help him make new friends. But so far, it's worked just the opposite.
"So, I'm making dinner tonight. Do you want to come over with the kids and get drunk? Luke will watch over the kids." Liz spoke, interrupting your train of thought.
"That sounds a-mazing," you spoke in a song-like tune, a sigh of contentment leaving your lips. "But I can't. I told Roman I'd take him to that Italian place he likes."
"Tomorrow then. I'll have that Chardonnay you love so much waiting for you." She winked at you as you both stood up, ready to greet your children.
"Thank God for your alcohol stash." You joked, flinging your arms up in praise. 
You both laughed and smiled in your children's direction, but your smile dropped as your kids and Ezra approached you. Ezra was holding Athena's hand, while Roman walked behind them, with a certain heaviness on his step and an annoyed look on his face. And Athena had a small pout on her face.
"Hey, what's wrong?"
"Rome doesn't want to hold my hand!" Athena whined with a pout of her lower lip. She released Ezra's hand and exchanged it for your own. Ezra going to his own mom. While Roman simply stood there, with a hand stuffed into his pockets and the other messing with the strap of his bag, his gaze stuck on the ground.
"Roman, baby," you sighed softly, not wanting to give the poor kid a hard time. You understood he didn't exactly fit in, no matter how much he wanted to, and that upset him. You didn't want to add up to that. "Your sister just wanted you to hold her hand."
"She was embarrassing me.. I'm already the kid without a dad, I don't need to be the kid with an annoying  baby sister." He muttered, his gaze not once leaving the ground.
 His words were harsh, but lacked emotion. And it broke your heart. But as much as you wanted to tell him that it wasn't true, that he did have a dad, you'd be lying if you did. Ryan was already absent in your children's lives before the split, but at the same time he was there, and Roman felt as if he was. But now, his father really wasn't there, at all. And there was nothing you could do about it.
You sighed softly, gesturing your free hand out for him, "Roman, come here," a heavy sigh left the young boy's lips as he took a few steps closer, standing in front of you with his head hanging low and his eyes stuck to the ground. You used your hand to hold the side of his face, his eyes meeting with your own. "Baby, Thena just wanted to show you that she loves you. She didn't mean to embarrass you, right Thena?" You turned your attention to the small girl that hid behind your arm, her eyes glistening with tears.
The small girl sniffled and shook her head, "No.. I'm sorry Rome.. I won't do it ever again, I-I promise."
You exchanged looks between your children, your eyes finally landing on Roman as you waited for a response. You raised an eyebrow at him, your eyes speaking a silent 'and' to the boy. He eventually signed, almost too heavily, and nodded. 
"It's okay, I guess.. I don't really mind all that much." He half smiled, shrugging slightly.
Athena's expression quickly lightened, the small girl detached herself from your hand and hugged her older brother. And as much as he hated to admit it, he didn't mind the affection. He returned the hug and smiled, for a moment at least.
After a second or two, Roman slightly pushed Athena off him, signaling that that had been enough affection for a day. You breathed out softly, turning to look at Liz, who gave you a sympathetic smile in response. 
"Well my loves, off we go. Say goodbye to Auntie Liz and Ezra." Both your children did as you said. Athena hugging both of them, and Roman simply waving at them. Good enough.
And at last, you gave Liz a quick but tight hug, "I'll call you tomorrow." You said shortly before you grabbed a hold of your daughter's hand and your son's bag, and eventually parted ways.
Today was gonna be a long day.
《Here's an edited version of part 1. As always I hope y'all enjoyed it. I'm trying to get back into writing after a long year, hopefully this will help me get back on track. Let me know your thoughts. And let me know if you'd like to be added to my dylan/coach taglist which I do have》
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A Comedy of Errors. Chapter 3: The Way of the Aces.
Please read the previous chapters before proceeding!!
Click here to read Chapter 1: Negotiations.
Click here to read Chapter 2: Suga the Setter.
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Background: Y/N is a transfer student who joined Karasuno High in her second year because her family shifted to Miyagi. She is a volleyball player and plays as a wing spiker (ace) in the Girl’s Volleyball team.
Pairing: Karasuno x fem reader || Romantic Pairing: Asahi x fem reader
NOTE: Y/N plays volleyball in this. I am not familiar with all the rules of the game so pls 2 forgive if I get any of the technicalities wrong.
Genre: Fluff and comfort with sprinkles of comedy this time! || SFW
A/N: At last, the final chapter. Hope you enjoy reading it as much as I did writing it. I really poured my entire soul into this. --------------------------------------------------------------------------
“Say, since you guys are already here. Why don’t you stay and watch us practice?" Asahi's lifespan is being shortened with every word as Suga invites Y/N and Michimiya to watch them practice. Asahi waits with bated breath. Even though he is extremely nervous, a part of him does want you to stay. So, when you do say yes, he doesn't know whether to feel happy or run out of the gym screaming. As they walk off to warm up, Suga whispers to him, "I know you're probably thinking about how you're going to fuck up your play and embarrass yourself in front of her. But while you're at it, maybe you should also think about what will happen if you actually play well." Asahi nods. "Suga." "Hmm?" "Thank you. For everything you just did. I really do appreciate it." "Of course! I'm just glad it worked out well." "And you are right, I do like her. I don't know her much but I would like to." "Aha, finally some truth around here! Well, then we just gotta make sure you give her a show worth remembering!" Suga says, winking.
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Michimiya had been watching the game intently, as was evident by her gasps and comments on everything. But you? You hadn't been able to keep your eyes off of Asahi the entire game. So much so, that you had barely given a second thought to the first years' amazing quick attack or Nishinoya's outstanding libero skills.
Asahi's spikes, his serves, his receives, his posture, his spirit, and his determination had you just...rapt with attention.
"In case you are wondering, yes, he is single." Michimiya's whisper startles you.
"W-what?" you start to blush. "I'm just taking notes!"
"But I didn't even specify who I was talking about."
You turn redder.
"He's really nice too, you know. A very genuine and kind person. I think you two would make a cute couple."
Your face is so hot now that you're sure you'll hear a sizzle any moment. You turn your head back towards the game to avoid Michimiya's gaze.
"I- I don't know who you are talking about."
Michimiya chuckles. "Of course you don't."
Even though you can feel Michimiya's gaze on you, you can't help but smile as you watch Asahi land another beautiful spike in the opponent's court.
You didn't know, of course, that you being around and watching him had been a huge boost of motivation for him to perform at his peak. You didn't know how he had been wondering what you were thinking about him the entire game. You didn't know how hard it had been for him to not glance at you after every move he made, just to see your reaction.
But he didn't know how you had felt either. He didn't know how your heart rate sped up every time he came on to serve. He didn't know you had also felt frustrated whenever his spike got shut down, feeling as though you had been shut down. He didn't know how you had wanted to shout and cheer him on but you hadn't because you didn't want to come off as a weirdo.
Truly, you would make a good couple.
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Practice is now over. Asahi's team won both the practice matches (of course they did, Suga would not have had it any other way). You and Michimiya walk over to the third years. As Michimiya starts gushing to Daichi about their game, you turn to Asahi.
"You were really - glorious, brilliant, like a God, I wish you were spiking me instead - amazing out there," you say, your eyes full of admiration.
Asahi instantly turns a deep shade of red.
"Th-thank you." He says with a smile.
"See, I told you he is great!" Suga says with a proud smile on his face.
"You were right. Karasuno really has a very talented ace."
"No, it has two of them," Asahi says, looking at you with a smile.
Now it is your turn to blush.
"Aah, I wish. I'm not quite there yet. I'm definitely nowhere close to your level," you say.
"I would love to help you any way I can."
"I would be honoured to learn from you," you say with a bow.
Suga piped up, "It's Saturday tomorrow! The boys' gym will be free till 10AM. If you want, we can practice here early morning. Say, around 7? Asahi can teach you the techniques and I can set for you both. We'll ask Daichi and Michimiya too if they want to join." and before you can answer, Suga is off to ask Daichi and Michimiya.
Wow, he really doesn't wait for an answer, huh.
Asahi looks at you and he can see you're a little unsure. "Everything okay?"
"Yeah, it's just... I really don't want to bother you guys so early in the morning like that."
"It's no problem at all, we usually practice early on the weekends anyway." Asahi says with a reassuring smile. That seems to melt your doubts away.
Suga walks back to you. "I've spoken to the two of them, they will join us but a little later."
"It's sorted, then." you say, smiling.
Of course, Asahi was the one who ended up walking you home that night.
Of course, Suga was "late" for the morning practice the next day, giving you and Asahi a lot of time to get comfortable around each other get nervous and DIE.
Of course, situations like these happened more than a few times.
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Before you know it, two months have passed. With Asahi and Michimiya's help, you improved tremendously and the Karasuno Girls Volleyball team cleared the first set of qualifying rounds for the Spring Interhigh. And so did the boys.
During this time, you and Asahi have become really good friends. Since you two live in the same area, you often end up going to school and walking home together, giving you a lot of time to talk about every topic under the sun. It took a while but you are now very comfortable around each other. In fact, Asahi himself wonders how he is able to tell you things so easily.
Both of your friend groups (and your entire school, also the neighbouring schools, random passersby, street dogs, birds flying past - you know, basically anyone with eyes) can see that you two are absolutely head-over-heels for each other. The only two people who don't know it are you two.
The way Asahi had gone out of his way to teach you everything he knew; how patiently he had walked you through every technique, every mistake; how he had sweetly asked you for permission every time before correcting your posture and showing you the right finger placement (mind outta the gutter fellas, we talking about volleyball here); how every time he did that, you felt a jolt of electricity whenever his fingers touched you (I promise it is still about volleyball); how he cares about even the littlest things regarding you; how every time he smiles reassuringly at you, the world feels all right again; how supportive and encouraging he has been through it all: You have fallen for him harder than you have ever fallen in your entire life.
And you just keep falling harder and harder every moment you spend with him. He has become your comfort now. No matter how stressed or nervous you are, just having Asahi around makes you feel much calmer and confident.
Asahi, on the other hand, has smiled more in these last two months than he has ever smiled. He can't help it, being around you just makes him feel like he is floating. He was blown away by how talented and hard working you are and is so proud of the progress you have made.
The way you are so kind to him. The way you always speak up whenever someone makes fun of him. The way you always hype him up and believe in him. The way the world seems to stop every time you smile at him. The way your laugh has become his favourite sound in the world. Asahi could not be more enamoured by you even if he tried. You too, are his comfort now. He knows he can talk to you about every "sentimental" topic on earth without being made fun of.
The only problem is: You both are afraid that this comfort you find in each other will be ruined if either of you confesses and the other does not reciprocate your feelings. It is now a waiting game to see who spikes their ball into the other's court first, if at all.
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You are shaking. Partly with excitement, partly with nerves. After defeating Tohoku High, only one school remains between you and the nationals: Niiyama Joshi, one of the most powerful schools that always makes it to nationals when it comes to the Miyagi prefecture.
The boys' game had ended earlier than yours and they had already left the stadium. You were absolutely delighted to hear that they beat Seijoh. Now, they have to face Shiratorizawa, another powerhouse school that always makes it to the nationals.
You and Asahi both have your own mountains to climb tomorrow.
As you are walking out of the stadium with your teammates, you spot something.
"Hey, you guys go ahead, I will be right there." you say and turn back.
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It's been a very long day but you cannot sit still at all. You cannot stop thinking about the match tomorrow. Your hands are sweaty knees weak, arms are heavy because you keep clenching your fists open and shut as you pace around your bedroom. You had hoped to be able to meet Asahi and maybe feel a little better but by the time you had reached school, the boys had already left. You know how big a day it is for him tomorrow too so you don't want to bother him by asking him to meet. However, you should at least text him and congratulate him on his victory. You open your phone and see you already have a message from him:
Asahi: Hey, I heard you guys beat Tohoku! Congratulations! I knew you could do it.
You smile.
You: Thanks, I still can't believe we did that!!! Congratulations on beating Seijoh!! I heard it was a close match.
Asahi: Thanks! Yeah, it was anyone's game by the end. It was really intense. But we managed to win. Also, I had full faith that you would make it!
You: Damn, wish I could have seen it. Sooo, Shiratorizawa next. How are you feeling?
Asahi: Really, really nervous. They're really strong and I don't think anyone believes we can beat them.
You: Well, you just gotta prove them wrong, then! I truly believe that you guys can do it.
Asahi: I really hope so. Anyway, what about you? How are you feeling about going up against Niiyama tomorrow?
You: Honestly, I cannot stop shaking and thinking about tomorrow. We are so close and I just don't want to screw up and let my team down.
Asahi: Can you get out of your house?
You stare at your phone for a moment before replying.
You: Yeah, I can sneak out the backdoor. Why?
Asahi: Sneak out after 5 minutes. I'll be there.
You: You sure about this? It's late and you need to rest for tomorrow too.
Asahi: I'm sure and I'm already on my way.
You grab your schoolbag and quietly make your way out the backdoor. You see Asahi standing outside your house. He's wearing a purple t-shirt and is carrying a bag in his hand. He smiles and waves at you as you make your way towards him. The knots in your stomach are already starting to loosen.
"Hey, Asahi!"
"Hey, Y/N, I'm sorry for making you sneak out like this but... I couldn't help myself when I read your messages."
"No, it's completely alright. Actually, to be honest, I was kind of hoping to meet you too. I-I always feel calmer after talking to you."
Asahi blushes.
"R-really?"
"Yeah."
"I always feel better after talking to you too."
You can feel the heat starting to build in your face as you smile at him in response.
Asahi continues, "I-I know I am not good with words. But I want to tell you that I know exactly how you feel. You won't let anyone down. I have seen you play and really, you have nothing to worry about. You have made it this far and you are strong enough to take it further."
His words make you want to cry. He has always shown so much faith in you. You look at the ground and don't say anything as you try to hold back your tears.
"-And I - uh - got you something that I thought might make you feel better."
You look up in surprise and you see him reaching his hand into the bag he brought with him. As you watch, he pulls out a light blue cloth. It's a t-shirt.
You gasp as you recognize what it is.
He holds the t-shirt open by the sleeves so that you can read what's written.
It's a "The Way of the Ace" T-shirt.
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"Oh my God!!" you say loudly.
He is completely thrown off by your reaction as you throw your head back and laugh.
Oh no. Does she think this is lame? Asahi starts to panic.
You reach into your own bag and pull out a similar looking light blue cloth. Asahi's eyes widen.
"I bought this today at the stadium for you. I know how important tomorrow's match is for you and I knew you'd be nervous so I wanted to give you this as a motivational sort of good luck thing." you say as you hold out a larger sized "The Way of the Ace" T-shirt.
All of your tension and nerves melt away as you both stand there laughing and holding the T-shirts.
"I hope I got the right size," Asahi says as you exchange the t-shirts.
"Same."
"It's perfect!" You both say at the same time and erupt into a hearty laugh again.
"Thank you, Asahi. I feel a lot better now. Really, thank you for everything. We wouldn't have made it this far if not for your help."
"It was all you, Y/N. All I did was show you the way. You walked it on your own."
"Yeah, you showed me the way of the Ace." you say, smiling.
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The score is 30-31 and it is match point for Karasuno Girls' High School against Niiyama Joshi for what seems to be like the 100th time. It has just been ties after ties after ties and every set has stretched well into the 30s. Somewhere at the beginning of the fifth set, you looked up to see the Karasuno boys piling into the stands to cheer your team on. From the looks of it, they won their match against Shiratorizawa.
Playing such intense 5 sets back to back has taken a massive toll and the players on both sides of the court are at their limit. However, it is now your turn to serve and if you manage to get this point, you will be through to the nationals.
"Y/N, GIVE US A NICE SERVE!!" the boys cheer for you from the audience.
Your knees are quaking and you feel like you can barely stand, much less run or jump. You are so out of breath that you feel like you are going to pass out any minute. As you somehow force yourself to walk into position, you can feel your knees buckling under you.
As you stand there, waiting for the referee to blow the whistle, your eyes instinctively search for Asahi. Even though he is far, you can easily spot him due to his height and the familiar light blue t-shirt he has changed into after his match.
As your eyes meet, Asahi cups his hands around his mouth and BELLOWS.
"JUST ONE MORE. YOU GOT THIS!"
The whistle blows.
BAM.
You barely have time to realize what happened as you are tackled to the ground by your teammates. There's a lot of hugging and crying and shouting.
As you recover from your shock, it finally registers. It was a service ace. Niiyama's libero had tried to dig the ball but it had bounced out of bounds.
You've won.
Tears of exhaustion and exhilaration start to flow from your eyes as you hug your teammates.
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Your feet are killing you as you walk out of the locker room towards the bus, wearing your own WotA t-shirt. It's late and the corridor is silent and empty as you're one of the very last few people to leave.
"I told you you could do it."
You look up and see Asahi standing a little further ahead, smiling at you.
You don't say anything, you just walk up to him and hug him. He seems taken aback but only for a bit as, barely a second later, you feel his large arms wrap around you tightly.
You both stand there for a while, both too exhausted to speak but finding comfort in each other's arms. It just feels so...right. Like this is exactly where and how you are meant to be.
When you finally break apart, you can see that Asahi is looking a little nervous.
"S-say, Y/N. I was wondering... i-if you would maybe want to go on a- on a date with me?"
Your eyes widen in surprise.
"It is completely okay if you don't! I'm sorry I shouldn't have said anythi-"
"Yes, yes, YES! I will go on a date with you."
"Really? You really want to go out with me?"
"Yes. Honestly, Asahi, I fell for you a long time ago. I was just afraid of freaking you out and ruining our friendship. So, I didn't say anything."
Asahi let out a little laugh. "It's freaky how we think so similarly because same." He takes your hand in his. "I fell for you the day I met you. And I just kept falling harder and harder the more I got to know you. I just never imagined you would feel the same way for me too."
"I do, I do, I so do! I always have!"
Both of you have the biggest smiles on your faces as you stand there holding hands and looking into each other's eyes.
You suddenly start to blush furiously.
"So...um...since we usually seem to be thinking the same thing. Um, would you like to kiss me?"
Asahi's eyes open so wide that you're worried they'll pop out of their sockets any minute. He is blushing furiously as he simply nods and leans in.
Your heart is thundering as your lips meet. But, it's Asahi. He kisses you with such tenderness and affection that you just melt into him.
The two aces of Karasuno walk out of the stadium hand-in-hand, wearing their matching WotA T-shirts. You're going to nationals, you've found some really great friends and you have found each other. Life is good.
FIN.
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Finally, I am so happy with how this turned out. I was stuck for a while trying to decide where to go with this story and I was panicking a little about not updating sooner. But I am glad I did not hurry this up because I really LOVE the turn this took in my head which it wouldn't have if I hadn't let the ideas stew in my mind for a while.
I know this was a long read but I really hope you guys enjoyed it and it was worth the read and the wait.
Likes, comments, reblogs and follows are always appreciated. Please DO NOT repost
Buy me a Kofi! <3
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lovely-ateez · 3 years
Text
Vampire Shift~
ꕥPosted: 5/23/21
ꕥGenre: Fluff, Smut, Angst, College!au, Horror!au
ꕥPairing: Fem!Reader x Vampire!Jongho (feat Wooyoung and Minho from skz)
ꕥWord Count: ~5.9k (whoops)
ꕥWarnings: Horror themes, Language, Thigh riding, Unprotected sex, Mentions of blood and blood sucking (please lmk if I missed anything)
ꕥTag List: @cappujinho @bobateastay
ꕥA/N: I hope you all don’t a more spooky concept! Halloween is my favorite holiday and even though its May, it’s always spooky season to me lolol. Also! Feel free to listen to Vampire Shift by All Time Low while reading this (it’s only on YouTube I cry) since this is inspired by the song :)
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It was a terrible idea, really, to work the night shift at a gas station alone. Even more so when you’re a young woman whose only defense is the pepper spray on her key chain and 911 on speed dial. Alas, college bills don’t pay themselves and every spare opportunity to get cash was one I had to take.
The digital clock sitting on the counter next to me briefly flashed, indicating another hour had gone by. It was currently four a.m. and it was safe to say I was losing my mind. I’d worked for five hours now, and not a customer had come in. That was the only advantage, really. So long as no one was around my boss let me finish any assignments I had, which came in handy on more than one occasion.
I was only six paragraphs into a five page report and had been staring at my laptop screen for over an hour, feeling beyond brain dead. I was assigned the topic of financial statements and country trade deficits, and wanted to cry every minute I thought about it. I was half convinced to pay someone to write the report for me.
The ringing of a bell indicated a customer opening the door and I closed my laptop to peer around the counter, ready to greet whoever entered. The first man to catch my attention was wearing sunglasses which fazed me, but I tried not to stare. The man that followed had black hair with blond underneath, a combination that I strangely liked. Both men were donned in all back, their faces stoic. They were attractive, I had to admit, but neither were my type.
And then, the last man entered. He looked over to me as he walked through the door, giving me a nod and a slight smile. His slicked back black hair matched his black ripped jeans and highlighted his red leather jacket. He was so handsome he looked like he jumped out of a magazine and I had to suppress a ‘wow’. A string of butterflies fluttered in my stomach and I did my best to ignore them, not even knowing his name.
The three of them wandered through the aisles until I could no longer see them, and I scolded myself for being so thrown off that I forgot say any form of a greeting. I sighed and turned my attention back to my laptop, opening it and blankly staring at the screen. My ears perked when I heard the men’s hushed voices.
“Y’oughta get that girl’s number. I saw the way you looked at her.”
“Yeah, Jongho. She’s pretty cute. If you don’t get her number you know I will.”
“Shut up.” One of the men, Jongho apparently, responded with a laugh, “Let’s just get some snacks, okay? It’s gonna be a long night. Also I’m buying tonight so get whatever.”
A smile crept on my face and I looked down, fiddling with my thumbs.
They think I’m cute. Maybe Jongho’s the one in red?
I heard the bell ring once more and a girl entered who I vaguely remembered from high school. She was popular but for good reason, probably being one of the nicest people I’d ever met. Our circle of friends overlapped slightly so I’d spent a fair amount of time with her. She was smart as a whip and gorgeous all the same, which seemed to stay with her. She looked bright, long red hair falling around her face, freckles still prominent as ever.
We met eyes and she smiled, “Hey y/n!”
I smiled and waved, “Hey Annabelle. How’ve you been? I haven’t seen you in awhile.”
“Good! I got into my dream college and it’s been great, although I’ve had to take some pretty hard classes.” She giggled, walking towards me. It’s honestly not too far from here. You go to Westgate University, right?”
I nodded and I put my laptop aside. She spoke again, genuinely excited for me, “That’s awesome! Congrats!”
“Thanks,” I smiled, “I’m taking it you got into Orholt?”
“I did! I was really-”
One of the men that entered earlier—the one still wearing sunglasses—shouted the redhead’s name and caught her attention, “Hey Anna do you want a Redbull or a Five Hour Energy?”
“Redbull! I’m not a monster.” She laughed.
The man nodded and walked toward us with several drinks and snacks in his hands.
“Oh! I want to introduce you to my boyfriend!” Annabelle turned to the man still wearing sunglasses and reached for his arm, “This is Minho. I met him at Orholt.”
Minho gave me a slight nod as I introduced myself and he placed the food and drinks on the counter. I began to scan the items, the mindless routine that I was used to by now. The loud sound of laughter made me look up, seeing the two other men approach us and place their snacks down as well. I watched them long enough to notice the way two-tone—my new affectionate name for the man with blond and black hair, I decided—shamelessly checked me out, a cocky smile on his face when I caught him. I just let out a small laugh before resuming my task, watching his confused reaction in my peripheral vision.
“Oh my god I totally forgot to introduce you to my friends.” Annabelle giggled and pointed to two-tone, “This is Wooyoung.”
“Hiya, Wooyoung.” I said with a confident smile, enjoying the way he still had a slightly confused look on his face.
“And this,” Annabelle nodded towards the man in red, “This is Jongho. Both him and Wooyoung go to Orholt, too.”
“It’s nice to meet you, Jongho. I’m y/n.”
“Very nice to meet you.” The man smiled before he sent me a wink.
I had never been a particularly shy person, but as he did so my eyes darted down as I felt my face flush. I didn’t notice the gears turning in Annabelle’s head as she put the pieces together.
I placed the final items in the bag, raising my head as Annabelle addressed me,  “You know I’m having a bonfire tomorrow night at my place and you should totally come!”
I stopped to think, first trying to remember if I worked the next day, then wondering if I was willing to go the bonfire when I realized I didn’t have to.
She sensed my hesitancy and her face fell, “Aw do you work tomorrow night? It’s a Saturday!”
“Oh no, I don’t. I...” I stopped to think for a minute. Although I likely didn’t know anyone else who would be there, I was familiar with Annabelle’s house, which brought me a bit of comfort, “Are all of you going?”
Annabelle gave a knowing smile, “Yes. All of us will be here.”
I nodded, accepting the credit card Jongho gave me, quickly after handing them the bags, and returning his card, “I’ll go.”
“Yay! We’ve gotta head out but I’ll send you the details. You’ve still got the same number, right?”
“Yeah I do.”
“Alrighty! I’ll see you tomorrow then!”
Annabelle left with a wave, her boyfriend on her arm and Wooyoung behind her. To my surprise, Jongho didn’t leave with them, the cocky look on his face all but telling me why he stayed.
I looked at him with wide eyes, playing innocent. “Can I help you?”
He placed an arm on the counter, his dark eyes seeming to put me under a spell. The confidence he was radiating was almost palpable and I felt myself being pulled to him. It was intimidating, to be honest.
“You’re really cute and I want your number.”
I let out a surprised laugh, “You really don’t beat around the bush, do you?”
“No, not really,” He propped his other arm on the counter, leaning towards me and raising an eyebrow, “So what do you say, doll?”
A smile crept on my face as I mirrored his actions and leaned towards him, “You gonna memorize my number? Or do you have a phone I can put my number into?”
Jongho’s smile got brighter as he reached to grab his phone, handing it to me. “You’re a firecracker, aren’t you?”
I shrugged, “I’d like to think so.”
When I handed his phone back, our fingers brushed and I could’ve sworn I felt sparks shoot through me at the simple interaction.
“Well I need to head out before the rest of them get too annoyed,” He nodded towards the exit where Annabelle, Minho, and Wooyoung left, “But it was enchanting to meet you, y/n.” He bowed, drawing a laugh from me.
“Ah yes. You as well, absolutely delightful.”
He gave me a smile, “I’ll text you later.”
"Sounds good. I’ll hold you to your word.”
“I’d expect nothing less.” And with that, he was out the door, leaving my heart a fluttering mess.
-
Me [8:37pm] So is there a dress code for tonight?
Annabelle [8:42pm] Nope! Wear whatever you’re comfortable with. I’m wearing this if it helps at all!
Annabelle [8:43pm] 1 Image Attached*
Me [8:45pm] So leather jackets and crop tops?
Annabelle [8:48pm] Haha sure! We can match!
Me [8:51pm] Lol bet. See you at eleven :)
Annabelle [8:51pm] See you then!
I started the process of slipping on a white cropped top followed by my light washed ripped jeans. I knew I was getting ready far earlier than I could have, but something about new events made me anxious and I had to make sure I looked nice. I giggled at the black leather jacket I was throwing over my shoulders, not having worn it since high school. In the middle of debating whether or not I should add another layer of mascara to my lashes, my phone dinged.
New Number [8:59pm] Y/n this better be you. This is Jongho and I’m texting you for a really important reason and I need you to reply quick
Me [9:00pm] Yeah it’s me. What’s going on are you okay??
New Number [9:02pm] I’m gonna go grab some food before I head to Anna’s. You wanna come with?
Me [9:02pm] Oh my god don’t do that to me, you buffoon. You scared me so bad rip
[New Number name changed to A Cute Buffoon]
Me [9:03pm] But sure I’m down lol. Here’s my address btw
Me [9:03pm] 1 Location Shared*
It occurred to me perhaps a bit too late that I was sharing my address with someone that I’d met only once and in a gas station.
I mean, he’s friends with Annabelle so he’s gotta be good right? God I hope so. I thought to myself.
A Cute Buffoon [9:04] Then it’s a date :) I live pretty close so I’ll be over in 10. That work for you?
Me [9:06pm] Fine with me!
A Cute Buffoon [9:06pm] Sounds good. I’ll see you soon ;)
I set down my phone and thanked myself for already doing my makeup. I checked myself out in the mirror, satisfied with my appearance and proud of how well my makeup turned out. I grabbed my bottle of perfume and spritzed the liquid in the air, letting it gradually fall on me so it wouldn’t be too overpowering.
You look beautiful, babe.
The waiting game was harder than I thought, not knowing what to do except awkwardly sit around and play an assortment of phone games. When exactly ten minutes had passed I heard my doorbell ring and I lifted myself from my couch, grinning at his punctuality.
I opened the door to see Jongho holding a bouquet of flowers, a smug look on his face. “Lovely to meet you here, stranger.”
I wanted to make a joke back but I couldn’t seem to think of anything, too surprised by the flowers in his hands. It wasn’t anything extravagant, the small bouquet of violets, but I felt my heart swell.
It’s perfect. He’s perfect.
My voice was small when I spoke, “No one’s ever given me flowers before.”
His eyebrows furrowed as a confused look painted his face, “Really?”
I nodded, taking the flowers from his outreached hands and smelling their sweet fragrance, “They’re beautiful.”
My eyes flickered to his, the tender look on his face making me feel as if I was melting on the spot, “You’re beautiful.”
I squealed, my face undoubtedly turning pink while my mind short circuited. I’d never become so shy around someone before and the only thing I could think of to say in response was another ‘thank you’ followed by ‘I’ll go get a vase for these.’
I opened my door further, rummaging through my cabinets for a vase when I noticed Jongho was still standing by the door, “You can come in, you know? That’s why I opened the door.”
He laughed nervously, “Sorry about that. Force of habit, I guess.”
I raised my eyebrows in a teasing manner, “What? Are you a vampire? Can you only come in if someone invites you?”
I thought I saw a flicker of shock on his face for a moment, but it was gone before I could register it and I shrugged it off, my eyes finding the perfect vase for the flowers.
“It’s just how I was raised.”
“I get that.” I placed the flowers in the vase, giving them a bit of water before walking up to Jongho and gently patting his cheek, “Your good manners are appreciated.”
He laughed in surprise, full gummy smile on display as he playfully swatted my hand away from his face, “Alright, alright. Let’s head out already.”
I made a sound of agreement before noticing a slight pink on his ears. I was temped to tease him, but ultimately decided to save it for later. If I could fluster him once I knew I could do it again.
-
The diner we went to was one I’d never heard of before, let alone been to, and I was beyond frustrated that I didn’t even know about it’s existence. It was an adorable fifties style diner and even the attire the waiters were wearing fit the theme.
“This is the cutest place to ever exist, I’m convinced.” I said as we sat down on the same side of a bright red booth.
“I really hoped you would like it. This is my favorite restaurant ever and they have fantastic milkshakes. If you’d like to share one for desert, I’m all for it.” A wink.
I bit my lip and hid my face in the menu that was placed in front of us, thankful for any method of escape.
“You’re so cute.”
“Ahh no don’t say things like that.” I giggled from behind the menu.
His hand grabbed the top of the menu, pulling it down so he could see me, “Why’s that?”
“Because you make me nervous. Like a good nervous!” I tried to explain, which only resulted in becoming even more embarrassed, “I-I mean I’m excited to be around you but I’m also nervous. I hope that doesn’t sound weird.” I cringed at myself. Never in my life did I think I’d be blushing and stuttering over some man, but my god did he prove me wrong.
“Not at all,” he reached over to take my hand in his, “because I feel it, too.”
Before I could properly react our waitress came over, taking our order and effectively saving me from becoming a human tomato.
We handed our menus back to her after ordering and she looked at us with a soft smile, “You two make a cute couple.”
While I was a bit too stunned to say anything, Jongho didn’t seem to have the same problem and went along with it, “Thank you, ma’am. That’s kind of you to say.”
When she left, Jongho leaned closer to me, “I hope I didn’t make you uncomfortable by saying that we we’re a couple. I thought that-”
“No, I didn’t mind it!” I bit my tongue after likely saying that way too fast with far too much enthusiasm, but I meant it, “I didn’t mind it,” I said again, softer this time.
The tips of his ears once again turned a faint shade of pink, “Good to know.”
The food was as wonderful as it possibly could’ve been, their fries alone being one of the best things I’d ever consumed. Just as Jongho suggested, we shared a milkshake, which led to shy eye contact and laughter and my crush becoming stronger by the minute.
Just as Jongho paid and we were about to leave, a certain song began to play and he looked at me with an air of mischief, holding out his hand to me, “Dance with me.”
I took his hand, trying to hide my smile but failing. He led me away from the table and next to the jukebox. The area surrounding it was more open, probably with the intention for people to dance near it. He grabbed my waist, holding the hand of mine that wasn’t placed on his chest and looking at me in a way that could make any woman fall in love on the spot. We swayed to the music and I couldn’t help but feel full. Like I’d found all that I’d ever need.
Put your head on my shoulder~
“Do you know this song?” He asked with a smile.
I scoffed, “Of course I do! It’s one of my favorites.”
“It’s one of mine, too.”
Hold me in your arms, baby~
I mouthed along to the words as I felt the need to prove it to him. As if to one up me, Jongho began to sing along, his gorgeous voice amazing me.
Squeeze me oh so tight, show me~
That you love me, too~
I blushed as he looked at me while singing along, becoming a bit flustered himself when the lyrics clicked with him.
Put your lips next to mine dear~
Won’t you kiss me once, baby~
As if we were in sync our eyes darted to the other’s lips at the same time. I could feel Jongho’s breathing becoming heavier before he said in a hushed tone, “Can I kiss you?”
“Please.” Was all I could respond before I pressed my lips to his, fireworks igniting inside me when he kissed me back. His lips were so soft and warm and as crazy as it sounded, he felt like home. I felt him smile against my lips as the music continued to play.
Maybe you and I will fall in love~
-
The fire was loud, crackling and lighting up the faces of all those crowded those around it. It was essentially the only source of light in the dark of the night, except for the distant lights still on in Annabelle’s house. My hands were interlocked with Jongho’s as we sat around it’s warmth, both of us finding it hard to separate from one another.
Conversation was flowing all around us, and I was relieved to find that everyone I had talked to was kind and welcoming. I was more nervous than I realized, but having Jongho next to my side alone calmed me. Someone around the fire mentioned an old story involving Annabelle and I began to wonder where she was, having not seen her since Jongho and I first arrived. I mentioned I was going to look for her and he nodded, at first wanting to join me but then getting pulled into conversation with one of his former classmates. I told him I’d head off on my own and he nodded again.
I looked around what seemed to be the entire property and still there was no sight of her. At that moment I heard yelling coming from her house, startling me. I felt my blood run cold when I recognized one of the voices as Annabelle’s. The yelling didn’t sound like it was out of fear, but instead more aggressive, out of pure anger. Without thinking I ran inside, hoping to calm the situation but instead found what seemed to be out of a work of fiction.
An unfamiliar man was on the ground, obviously trying to get away from a hidden figure before him that seemed to be cloaked in darkness. He let out a sound that I’d never heard a human make, one that I couldn’t even compare to something I’d heard before, and a shiver ran down my back. As the figure took a step forward I recognized it as Annabelle, or what seemed to be some version of her. Her normally grey eyes were now bright red, sharp fangs on display as she snarled at the man. A group of people were surrounding them, alarmed looks on their faces but hardly trying to intervene.
“What the hell?” I whispered, my eyes wide as I tried to back away without anyone noticing. But of course, I just had to step on an empty soda can, all eyes pointing my way. As I looked at the people around me, their expressions seemed to mirror mine and I swallowed, suddenly feeling immensely claustrophobic.
I met eyes with Annabelle and she seemed to change in a flash, her eyes returning to their former color and fangs disappearing. She looked more panicked than I had ever seen her which only scared me more. She was always able to keep her stressors under control, but as she stared back at me, I saw a version of her I never had before.
I was barely able to form a sentence, adrenaline coursing through me at a rampant rate, “Um...” 
Annabelle slowly walked towards me, “Oh—hey! Sorry I disappeared for a while but how’s the party going? Are you having fun?” Panic was still evident in her voice but I knew she was trying to keep a hold of the situation.
“I...I don’t-”
A stern voice came from left, and I nervously turned to meet Jongho, an unreadable expression crossing his face, “Y/n.”
“Yeah?” My voice squeaked as I began to regret agreeing to come along in the first place, still hyper aware of all the eyes on me.
“Come with me.”
His eyes softened at my panicked state and he held out a hand, “Please?”
I was hesitant, but being anywhere away from the crowd and whatever Annabelle turned into seemed to be a good idea. I took his hand and watched as he exchanged a look with Annabelle that seemed to calm her. Turning on his heels he led me back to the bonfire, sitting in a chair and motioning for me to do the same. Seeing no one around us gave me a feeling of both anxiety and comfort, and I wasn’t quite sure which feeling was winning at the moment.
“Well I’m sure you have plenty of questions.” He started, “I won’t lie to you and try to convince you what you saw wasn’t real, because it was, but I need you to know that no one is going to harm you. That guy is Anna’s roommate and they get into an argument at least once a week. Sometimes it can be nasty, but they never get physical and neither would ever hurt anyone unprovoked. No one here would.”
I was silent for a few minutes, trying to process what I saw on top of the time bomb of information he dropped on me. “Is she...is everyone....are you a vampire?” I whispered the last words, almost too stunned and afraid to say out loud.
He smiled slightly, his kind eyes making me feel safe. “Yes. We’re what you’d call vampires.”
I took a breath, almost afraid to hear the answer to my question, “Am I in any danger by being here?”
“No, everyone here is good. They don’t pose any threat. There are plenty of dangerous vampires but we stay away from them. Besides,” He placed an arm around my waist, playfulness in his eyes, “If there were, I’d protect you from them.”
“Oh? And how don’t I know you’re not dangerous?”
He leaned closer to me, clearly enjoying this, “You don’t, I suppose. Doesn’t that make it fun?”
“That’s very much debatable,” I smiled for a moment before a frown took over, “Everyone just seemed really...I don’t know, startled I guess?”
Jongho let out a loud sigh, looking down at the ground for a few seconds before looking back up at me, “Humans aren’t normally invited to these parties. It’s assumed that everyone here is a vampire. The perfume that you’re wearing, whatever the hell it is, is masking your scent. If I didn’t meet you before today I wouldn’t have known you were human. I guess Anna didn’t tell everyone, either.” He placed a hand on my knee and looked at me with kind eyes, “How are you feeling?”
“Surprisingly calm considering that I just learned vampires exist.”
Jongho laughed, “Yeah I’d say you’re taking it pretty well. Like I said earlier though, I’m sure you’ve got plenty of questions, so fire away.”
“Yeah I have a few.” I hesitated, hoping he wouldn’t be offended by my question, “Exactly how old are you?”
“Oh are you gonna age shame me?”
“No but it’s probably an important thing to know...since we kissed and all.”
He laughed again and leaned back in his chair, placing his arms behind his head,  “How old do you think I am?”
I used his question as an excuse for my eyes to wander over his body. He was beyond attractive, very clearly fit and he knew it, which equal parts pissed me off and turned me on. As hard as I tried, I kept finding myself being pulled to his thighs. Even through his jeans I could tell he had strong thighs and I had to press my fingernails into my palm to keep from drooling. “From your appearance? Early twenties. From what age fiction usually tells us vampires are? I’d guess you’re a hundred and three.”
Jongho nodded with a smile, “I’m not quite that old but that’s a fair guess. You had it right the first time. I’m a pure born and we actually age, but we don’t age as quickly as humans. I’m twenty.”
“Pure born?”
“It means both of my parents are vampires.”
I nodded as another question came to mind, a smile on my lips. “Do you sparkle in the daylight?”
“Oh my god,” He covered his face with his hands, a mixture of a groan and a laugh escaping his mouth, “No, we do not sparkle in daylight, “His hands came to rest on his knees, “But it sucks that we really shouldn’t be in direct sunlight for over two hours a day. That’s normally the rule to go by. It’ll burn us if we’re in it for much longer than that.”
“So do werewolves and witches and everything like that exist, too?”
“Yeah pretty much. We don’t all get along, but we have to coexist. It’s something we’ve struggled with for a while, unfortunately. Basically everything you’d believe to be supernatural exists.”
I was silent for a while, not really knowing what else to say.
“Y/n? Are you doing okay? If you’re not comfortable being here I can drive you home right now or if you’d rather be alone I can call an Uber or—”
My heart skipped a beat at his kindness. “No, I’m okay. I guess I’m just surprised I’m learning about this just now.”
“We do a good job of hiding it. Also it was probably a given, but keep this as a secret if you can. Having a lot of people know about our existence can be risky.”
I gave him a silent nod, unintentionally leaning closer to him. The sound of approaching footsteps made me jump into Jongho’s arms. I didn’t know why I found comfort in him, knowing that he could be dangerous as well, but he’d been nothing but sweet to me. I had no reason to fear him.
Annabelle approached us but stopped, taking a few steps back when she saw how I was buried in Jongho’s arms.
“Hey y/n.” She rubbed her arm, looking down as if she’d done something wrong.
“I guess Jongho probably told you everything at this point. I’m really sorry if I scared you and I understand if you don’t want to be friends anymore.” Even in the dark I could see tears beginning to stream down her cheeks and I felt a pain in my chest.
I got up from Jongho’s hold and wrapped my arms around her, feeling her stiffen, “I trust you, Annabelle.”
Those four words seemed to relax her and she returned my hug, still sniffling, “I’m sorry I didn’t tell you. We aren’t supposed to tell anyone and I thought you might hate me—”
I pulled back, “Why the hell would I hate you? You’re still you.”
She laughed through tears, gripping me tighter, thanking me over and over for not pushing her away.
We’re gonna be okay. It’s all gonna be okay.
-
Not too long after, Jongho drove me home. The ride was more silent than when we were headed to Annabelle’s house, but the air wasn’t heavy or uncomfortable. Feeling tired, I laid my head on Jongho’s shoulder, faintly hearing ‘sleep well, baby’ before drifting asleep.
When I woke, I was in my bed. I reached for my phone on the bedside table and found a little note placed next to it that read:
I hope you don’t mind that I carried you inside. I tried to wake you for like five minutes but you were out cold. Anyways, I had a really good time with you yesterday and I hope you had fun too :) Text me when you wake so I know you’re okay. -J
I looked at my clock and saw that it was still early, but I texted Jongho anyway.
Me [3:00am] Not sure if you’re still up, but I really enjoyed yesterday, too. I’m exhausted so I’m gonna go back to sleep but I just wanted to say I’m okay and everything is good :))
A Cute Buffoon [3:00am] Sleep well, darling. We can talk in the morning
-
It had been roughly a month since Jongho and I started dating, and while I felt like I knew him pretty well, we had only known each other a little over a month, on top of the fact that he was a vampire which was essentially an entire separate culture. I’d asked him most questions I had early throughout our relationship, but one in particular kept replaying in my mind.
We were currently sitting on the couch in my apartment, cuddling each other. The TV was on but neither of us were really watching it. I was far more interested in the warm body in front of me, and based off of how Jongho was looking at me, the feeling was mutual.
I bit my lip, anxiously mulling over the question I’d wanted to ask him for weeks. I didn’t know how he would take it, let alone how I would bring it up, but I needed to ask at some point. Knowing he could probably sense my nerves, I gave in. “Jongho, can a human turn into a vampire?”
He hummed, turning to face me. “Why do you ask?”
“I just...I didn’t know if it could happen or not.”
Jongho chuckled, “Yeah it’s possible. It’s a long ass process to go through though, and there’s a lot that can go wrong, so it rarely happens.”
I shifted in my seat, trying not to appear overly interested. “Why is that? What can go wrong?
He smiled and raised a brow, his cocky persona resurfacing, “You sound so eager to know, dear. Do you want to become a vampire?” His eyes briefly flickered towards my lips before he tilted his head, dragging his soft lips across my neck. I let out a gasp when I felt the tips of his teeth lightly scraping the skin, “Or maybe you’re just looking for an excuse for me to put my mouth on you?”
Like with anything that exuded him, I felt myself becoming quickly overwhelmed, my mind now hazy and distant. I shut my eyes in an attempt to gain some semblance of control over myself.
“Your thoughts are swirling, doll.” Jongho began leaving gentle kisses along the side of my jaw, “Don’t think too much. Just let me take care of you. Okay?”
“Okay.” I said through a short breath, knowing we’d just have to have the conversation another time.
We’d had sex before, so it wasn’t like this was new territory for us, but every time felt like the first, leaving me just as out of breath each time.
He lifted me and placed me on his thigh, dragging me across his flexed muscles. I felt my eyes roll back at the simple motion, my need growing at an embarrassing rate. I grabbed his shoulders as I began to drag myself against him, whines and whimpers spilling from my lips.
“God you’re hot,” Jongho said through hot breaths, beginning to kiss my neck, no doubt leaving marks.
“Thanks I try.” I managed to say, pleased when Jongho laughed.
“You don’t even have to, and it’s completely unfair.” His hands moved under my shirt and danced along my skin, “It’s like you’re an angel come to life.”
I let out a loud moan, feeling tears well in my eyes from his praise, “You always make me feel so beautiful when I’m with you.”
Jongho responded with a smile, carrying me to my bedroom and laying me down on the bed while hurriedly discarding both of our clothes.
“You’re always so eager, babe.”
He nuzzled my neck as he climbed on top of me, his hands finding my own and holding them, “As if you’re not.”
“I never said I wasn’t.”
He then moved in between my thighs, teasing me with his fingers as he ran them along my wet slit, occasionally rubbing my clit, drawing small whines from me.
“Jongho please just fuck me already.”
“Sweetheart, do you even think you’re wet enough for me?” He cooed.
Feeling frustrated, I pushed my fingers inside myself with ease, pulling them out and spreading them so he could see my essence dripping down my fingers, “I don’t know you tell me.” I said with far more sass than I intended.
Jongho’s eyes widened at the sight and wasted no time positioning his cock at my entrance, pushing in and letting out the most beautiful groans.
Neither of us ever bothered to use protection because, to put it simply, vampires couldn’t get humans pregnant. It was only possible when both partners were vampires, and we took full advantage of that.
“Fuck—baby you feel amazing. You’re so warm and tight ohmygod.” Jongho moaned as he began to move, thrusting in and out of me at a steady pace.
I clenched around him, loving when he was vocal. His sounds helped get me off just as much as his actions, at times it seemed.
“You feel...really good...too.” I said through heavy breaths. And as much as I wanted to last longer in bed, with Jongho, I never could.
“I don’t know if it’s because you’re a vampire and you’ve got like magic powers or something or maybe you’re just a sex god—but holy shit...I’m close.”
He threw back his head and had the audacity to laugh, something I really couldn’t stay mad at with how good he was making me feel. “Babe it’s been like six minutes.”
“Don’t be an asshole.” I joked, my laugh turning into a moan. It only spurred Jongho on, making him angle one of my legs up higher, hitting deeper inside of me.
“I know you’re close, baby. I can feel it. Cum for me, baby girl. Let go for me.”
He reached down to tease my sensitive nub, drawing quick circles until I was seeing stars, chanting his name like a prayer.
After Jongho came down from his high, he disappeared into the bathroom as he always did, coming back with a warm towel. As he pressed the towel to my thighs I tried to ask again.
“So...about the human to vampire thing?”
“Well,” Jongho sighed, “I didn’t think I’d be able to distract you forever.” He smiled, “It’s mostly done because couples want to stay together. The thing is though, the vampire obviously gets a taste of the human’s blood and it can be hard to stop once you’ve marked them, especially since smell is such a big allure for us.”
He took a long breath, “Then the human will almost always pass out, and needs to be taken care of for the next couple days because they’ll be so weak. Another problem is that the scent of their blood will be amplified during those days and it’ll be harder for the vampire to not, you know...” He looked away, not able to say the words. I knew what he meant, we both did. In some cases, vampires would kill their human partners for of their blood. Sometimes it was beyond their control. Just a primal need that would betray them. “Then their scent is more easily detected by other vampires and the whole thing is just kinda a mess. I think I’ve only heard of five attempts and only one of them was successful.”
I nodded, not really knowing what to say.
“And then on top of it all, it can be harder for the human to adjust and it can put a lot of pressure on the relationship. Human and vampire relationships are dangerous.”
His face was serious as he ran a hand through my hair. I looked up at him and leaned into his touch.
He cleared his throat and averted his eyes, a shy behavior I hadn’t seen from him before, “I guess it’s important for you to decide then.” His eyes met mine again, “Is this still something you want to continue?”
“Our relationship?”
“Yeah.”
“Of course, are you crazy? You mean the world to me.” I swallowed, realizing he hadn’t voiced his own thoughts, “What about you? Do you want this?”
“I think you have a pretty good idea of what I want.” He smiled and pressed a quick kiss to my forehead, his eyes sparkling.
“Hey Jongho?”
He hummed, looking at me.
“I want to spend forever with you.”
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[SUMMARY: PRE APOCALYPSE. Negan is your Sex Ed professor.]
Smut
Negan and Brielle.
 Health class was your absolute favorite and only you and your bestfriend Jane knew why. You had the biggest crush on your professor. He was tall, handsome,charming and although he was a teacher he had a rebel look to him that you liked. Being over 18 and attracted to your professor you liked to have innocent fun with it. Everyday you would come in with flirty outfits, either show some legs or cleavage. Jane told you one day while you were up in front of the class giving a speech that she caught him leaning back on his chair looking at your ass. Never had you actually caught him yourself but it did excite you.
Today you came into class in a lavender v neck and tight jeans. He waited by the door as each of you entered, giving you a quick wink as you passed him with Jane.
"Morning Brielle."
"Good Morning, Professor Negan." You smiled as your friend nudged you before you got to your seats. With your pen between your lips you couldnt take your eyes off Negan as he spoke. He wore dark jeans and a black button shirt unbuttoned at the top showing a light patch of his chest hair. Distracted with your day dreams of your professor you werent paying attention to anything he said and got caught off guard when he called on you.
"Brielle, what is the scientific explanation of what causes men to wake up with an erection?" You blanked out, not having any answer to what he asked as well as being stunned by the question.
"Um...I-" you froze, the whole class staring at you as if you were stupid.
"I'll see you after class, Brielle." You sunk in your seat in embarrassment as you heard a few laughs come from students around you. Waiting for him to dismiss the class you sighed knowing you made yourself look like a fool today. Jane gave you a pity look as everyone left the class and you walked up to your professor's desk.
"You asked me to stay Professor Negan?"
"Brielle," he grinned as he leaned back on his chair.
"You look like you were having some trouble with today's lesson, theres an exam next week on all we've talked about this week. I want to be sure you're ok."
"Oh um-yes...I don't know what happened today. I was caught off guard I guess." He chuckled as he scratched his beard.
"I figured that, I would think you know what makes a man wake up with morning wood." His words caught you off guard making you raise a brow to him. Having a conversation with a man so attractive of this topic was intimidating.
"I'm sure your boyfriend has told you about it."
"Um..I don't have a boyfriend." You laughed nervously as he leaned forward in his chair putting his hands together with an intrigued look.
"Well that's hard to believe."
"Why would that be hard to believe?" You asked confused not exactly catching his point. He laughed thinking your naive response was cute.
"Well excuse my french Brielle but shit, you're a damn attractive fucking woman. I dont know how one of these men in my class havent made you theirs yet." You let out a shocking nervous giggle quickly covering your lips. The sound made him chuckle, he knew he made you nervous. You couldnt believe what he was actually saying, you couldnt wait to tell Jane.
"Well-" he cleared his throat as he stood up, the man so much taller than you, you looked up at him.
"Sit down, let's go over today's lesson." He motioned to his chair as you quietly moved past him and sat down. He leaned over you turning the pages in his book, you couldnt stop staring at his beard, his lips, his neck...the smell of his cologne so close to you. He began to speak and once again you blanked out just staring at him, how could a man be this good looking?
"Do you understand what I'm saying, Brielle?" He asked looking over at you making you quickly nod.
"See, when a man gets excited-" he leaned in closer to you, the sound of his voice very close to your ear.
"It sends messages that causes a blood flow which causes an erection to occur."
"So when a man is sleeping and gets aroused it's cause hes dreaming of something that made him excited?" You asked innocently.
"Sometimes." Negan responded.
"It can be a natural thing that occurs because the man is so relaxed or sometimes it can be a dream. It happens very often to every man. Especially when a man has an attractive woman on his mind.” The tone in his voice made your skin hot. Obviously you knew everything he was explaining and he was sure you did too, you could tell. Without looking at him you could feel his face close to yours. Leaning over your shoulder Negan could see a perfect view of your cleavage. He could tell you were nervous, your chest rising up with each deep breath. Suddenly you turned to him and caught him looking down your shirt. Negan quickly looked up, a smirk as if he knew he had been caught appeared on his face. “That necklace...is nice.” Negan used it as an excuse to look back down at your breasts. Your heart began to beat faster, you knew what he was doing. Without expecting it he gently picked up your silver necklace, his fingers gently brushing over your cleavage. “Oh yeah....that’s very nice.” He whispered seductively as he slid his thumb over the charm. He looked up and locked eyes with yours, you could see the attraction in his eyes. Your nerves making you lick you lips before being interrupted by a knock on the door. Negan quickly let go of your necklace, the two of you jumped to see another professor standing by the door.
“Sorry to bother, I had some paper work to give you. Until what time will you be here?” The man asked Negan as he quickly stood up straight. Nervously you picked up your books and grabbed your bag.
“I gotta get going-I’ll see you tomorrow, Professor Negan. Thanks for the....extra tutoring.” You sounded confused not being sure what to call it. Before he could respond you quickly left walking past the other professor at the door. Your nerves getting the best of you, you ran...you felt like an idiot. You knew you weren’t just imagining things, your professor was actually checking you out and throwing indirect comments. Quickly you called Jane and told her everything that happened.
“Why the hell did you leave? Maybe he was going to make a move.” She laughed making you sigh.
“I don’t know...I just got nervous. He’s so attractive and he was so close. I don’t know, maybe it was just me anyways.”
“Yeah, I doubt that. I guess we’ll see tomorrow.”
The next day you decided to where a more appealing outfit. Perfect for the weather with the sun coming out you put a soft blue spring dress. As soon as you walked in you noticed Negans eyes quickly look you up and down before greeting you with a smile. Jane once again nudged you as he was making it more obvious that he checked you out. The two of you sat down as Negan announced he would be returning everyone’s exams from the week before. As you received your paper you gasped at the big red F circled on the paper with a side note that read to meet him after class.
“There you go, another excuse to see him....alone.” Jane teased you as you shook your head.
“Seriously I need this credit. I’m screwed if I fail this class.” You responded as you were genuinely concerned with your grades, you couldn’t afford to fail this class.
As the class went on Negan had you all take a quick quiz. He stood in front of class watching everyone quietly working on their paper when he realized you quickly finished. Not taking his eyes off you, he watched as you stood up and walked over to him.
“I finished, I think it’s all good?” You whispered standing beside him as you handed him the paper. He looked down at the paper as you innocently leaned over beside him looking on at your work. Negan felt you press your chest against his arm, not being able to help himself he took a peek with the corner of his eye before clearing his throat.
“Well is it good?” You looked up at him making him turn to you, but all he could see was the curve of your breast’s spilling out of your dress.
“Very good.” He whispered making you smile before you walked back to your seat. You had no idea how aroused you had just made him, he sat behind the desk to hide any evidence of it.
Waiting for the class to be over and for everyone to leave you quickly marched up to the desk with your graded exam in hand.
“Professor, I need to find a way to fix this. I really can’t fail this class. Is there a way I can make this up?” Negan sat writing something on a paper before he slowly stood up and walked towards the door and closed it shut.
He walked back to you looking down at you mysteriously before he finally spoke.
“You’re a smart girl, Brielle. Were you paying attention in class today?”
“Yes. Of course.”
“Alright then tell me, what was today’s topic?”
You felt your cheeks turn red at the thought of mentioning it alone with him.
“The female orgasm.” You responded making him smile.
“Exactly.”
“Well...I know about all of that already.”
“Do you?” He raised a brow as he moved closer to you.
“Brielle, you ever had a boyfriend?”
“Yes. One.” You responded with a puzzled expression.
“Did he know how to....get you going?” As attractive as you found Negan you got nervous at the direction of the conversation.
“Maybe this shouldn’t be spoken about, Professor.” You responded hesitantly, you were honestly afraid of someone over hearing the conversation.
“Who’s gonna tell?” He winked at you making your heart jump, you couldn’t deny it the rush of speaking about certain things with him did make you excited.
“Now, did this boyfriend of yours get the job done?”
Your slow response made him smirk, he could tell you weren’t too experienced. Truth was you only had sex with that one boyfriend you had but, you didn’t remember much of the experience. You hadn’t reached orgasm with him.
“This is why a woman should test the waters out on herself first so she knows what makes her body reach climax.” You looked away making Negan tilt his head as if he had just realized something with your response.
“Oh. Say it ain’t so.” He responded with raised brows making you look up at him confused.
“What?” Negan chuckled before he took another step closer to you.
“You’ve never felt an orgasm at all before, have you?” Your lips parted at his upfront shocking question.
“I mean-“
“Well that’s interesting.” Negan stared down at you for a moment, his tongue slowly gliding over his bottom lip.
“Do you wanna know what it feels like?”
“Um, Professor I..um I don’t know how to answer that.” You laughed nervously. You could feel the tingly sensation between your legs at the excitement of what he asked you. The look in his eyes as he looked down at your soft pink plump lips.
“You’re gorgeous, Brielle....you know that?”Your eyes lit up, his voice deep and rough. Negan had always thought you were beautiful from the first moment you walked into his class. Never had he been so attracted to a student of his, he knew it wasn’t right but he couldn’t help himself. Negan could see through your innocence, he could tell you were attracted to him too, your innocence only aroused him more.
“A gorgeous woman like you should know what it feels like to cry out in pleasure.” His words left you speechless, how you could you respond to this?
“You should know what that feeling is, Brielle.”
“How..?” You whispered as you suddenly felt his fingers lightly brush over your thigh as he looked into your eyes. He could see the shock look in your eyes from his soft touch.
“I can show you better than I can tell you.” His finger very slowly brushed over the side of your thigh before reaching the sensitive inner side.
You could see it in his face, how badly he wanted to take you in that moment. Negan looked behind him to the door before he turned to you with a smirk, you already knew what was on his mind.
“You...you want to show me?” You whispered in a shaky breath.
“I’m just giving you a private lesson, sweetheart. No one has to know.” He suddenly picked you up and sat you on his desk making you gasp.
“Professor-“
“Shh..” You felt his fingers press against your panties softy before he began to move them slowly teasing your clit. He pushed your dress up higher as you leaned back on your hands on the desk. Your pink lace panties in full view as he pushed them to the side. You remained still watching as he touched you.
“Oh that’s a pretty pussy.” He slid down your slit with his thumb, before spreading you open and teasing you some more.
“See I’m gonna start off slow with you, doll.” He whispered as you looked at him still in shock with what he started doing. He noticed you softly biting down on your bottom lip, he knew he was staring to make you feel good. You closed your eyes and began to grind your hips slowly as the feeling got better and better.
“That’s it...” Negan unexpectedly stuck his finger inside you making your hips jump before he moved slowly in and out. You moaned softly as he fingered you, pulling his finger out wetter each time.
“Well look at that, looks like you’re ready for me, but I’m not done yet.” Negan this time went back in with two fingers while playing with your clit with his other hand. Your eyes rolled back at the sensation he was making you feel. Never had a man taken his time with you like this making sure you were feeling pleasure. Both of his hands began to move faster as you moaned, doing your best not to do so loudly. He knew you were on the verge of having your first orgasm.
“Oh my god...” you began to pant as he watched you intensely before changing the positioning of his fingers inside you making him hit your g spot. You screamed feeling something you had never felt before wanting to explode within you.
“Professor...professor-“ you gasped helplessly as the pleasure was so intense it almost frightened you.
“Cum for me, Brielle. Relax and let it go.” He whispered hoarsely when your legs tensed up and suddenly began to shake. Negan smiled as you threw your head back and moaned loudly completely forgetting you were in a classroom.
“Atta girl..keep cumming..” he whispered as you panted, whimpering as he slowed down.
Negan pulled his fingers out and sucked the juices off as you sat there with trembling legs.
“Oh look at you.” He chuckled with a smirk, he could tell you had never felt the feeling before. It turned him on knowing he was the first man to make you feel that. Your legs open facing him, you looked down at his crotch area and noticed the very obvious bulge.
“Now look what you did.” Negan chuckled as he quickly unbuckled his pants and revealed his thick cock. You couldn’t believe what was happening but you didn’t want to stop it. He sat back on the chair and looked at you with an excited smile.
“Come get on your professors lap, let’s get you that A.” You bit down on your bottom lip and smiled before doing as he asked. Your back facing him Negan pushed your dress up as you adjusted yourself leaning back on him, you slowly lowered yourself letting his cock enter you. You gasped leaning your hand on his arm not expecting him to have felt so big inside you. You jumped back up before he took hold of your hips and easily guided you down.
“Easy...like that, sweetheart.” Negan grunted at the first feel of him fully inside you. You began to slowly move up and down on him as he held your dress up, he was bigger than your ex and you hesitated with moving fast. Negan squeezed your hips trying to bring you down harder, he wanted more but he could tell you were afraid. He wanted to take over.
“Don’t be afraid, doll.” You began to move harder on him making him moan. He sounded sexier than you ever imagined he would.
“Turn around.” Negan spoke roughly. You did as he asked and straddled him and felt him slide in easily, face to face with him you couldn’t believe you were having sex in a classroom with your professor.
“Someone can come in..” you whispered as he adjusted himself beneath you.
“Don’t worry about that.” Negan slouched in the chair and began to pump upward into you making you gasp. He moved how he wanted to knowing it would make you feel good. You moaned holding onto him as he quickly pulled the top part of your dress down, revealing your breasts.
“Holy shit-“ he whispered looking straight at them, they were much bigger than he expected them to be and he loved it. He wrapped his arms around your waist pulling you closer to him, your breasts close to his face as he began to thrust upward vigorously. He panted roughly as you moaned.
“Oh my god- wait!” You screamed as you held onto him.
“No, take it” he bit down on his lip as he began to feel you pulsate around him. Negan stood up carrying you with him and sat you down on his desk. Moving full force he knocked down his cup of pens on the table as he watched your expression while you orgasmed with him in you.
“Yeah...good girl.” He whispered as you moaned. He looked down and noticed his cock drenched in your cum. The look in your eyes he hadn’t seen in a woman in long time, then again he hadn’t been with a woman so inexperienced since he was younger. The thought of him showing you how good this felt pleased him. Negan pulled out and came right on top of your pussy. You watched as intensity filled his eyes as cum shot out of him onto you. He jerked himself off letting out every drop. The sight of you innocently laying back on his desk, legs spread and his cum all over you was one he never thought he would actually see.
“Jesus fucking Christ..” he whispered looking down at you before quickly turning away. He couldn’t believe temptation took over him, never had he slept with one of his students. Still out of breath, you both cleaned yourselves up as Negan turned back to you.
“Professor?”
“This...” he pointed towards you and him slightly getting distracted as you fixed your breasts in your dress.
“This stays between us, sweetheart.”
“Yes, Professor.” You agreed before he got closer to you, still out of breath.
“Think of me tonight when you touch yourself.” Your eyes widened at his assumption, but he knew with how good he made you feel today that you would want to discover how to make yourself feel that way.
“Oh I know exactly what you’re going to do.” He chuckled at your shocked expression looking down at you.
“Now think of me. There’s so many more things I could do to you. I know I’m suppose to keep my hands to myself, darling but I don’t think I can.” His voice deepened more than it already was as he spoke.
“I won’t tell if you don’t.” You responded softly when suddenly your phone rang. Negan looked over at your phone and saw Janes name on it before raising a brow to you.
“No one.” He warned and truth be told you didn’t want to tell Jane, you didn’t want to tell anyone of your dirty little secret.
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Stars on your Sleeve (Part 2) [A Jay Halstead Imagine]
A/N: The name of the girl is Y/N (I mostly write my imagines in second person POV...except for the one you guys might see in a few weeks) and cariña is just a nickname/term of endearment in Spanish that means sweetheart. Sorry if anyone got confused about that in part one!
"Dad," you started as you walked into Jay's office after school that day.
It was a Thursday and you had taken the bus from school to the district. It wasn't often that you did this, but you had gotten texts from both your mom and dad telling you that the current case was going to drag on and on tonight, so they wanted you at the district so that you wouldn't be home alone until two or three o'clock in the morning.
"Hi, cariña. How was your day? Learn anything interesting in school?"
"Dad," you groaned. "It's high school, half the stuff they teach me I won't ever use again."
"Well, excuse me for wanting to know about my daughter's day."
"Just can't wait for this week to be over to sleep in."
"You and me both, kid."
"Half the time you work weekends though, Dad," you pointed out.
"Comes with the sergeant title."
"And your sleeping in is like 7:00."
"Point taken. Now, did Mom pack you a few extra snacks or do you need some money for the vending machines?"
"She didn't--"
"Don't even finish that sentence, young lady," Hailey said as she burst into Jay's office. "I packed you a few extra things and you know it. You just want--"
"--Oreos," Jay and Hailey said at the same time.
"Hey, don't blame me! They taste good," you protested. "Anyway, Dad, can I use your laptop to do my homework?"
"Don't you have that school-issued one?"
"That one blocks Netflix."
Jay crossed his arms across his chest. "Homework, huh?"
"I'm just writing a paper. It's not like I'm doing math or reading something."
"What type of paper?" Hailey asked. "Because, I'm pretty sure that if it's a research paper, you need to focus."
"It's a narrative, so I don't need to be constantly focused, Mom."
"Makayla does the same thing," Adam said as he entered the office as well. "Let the kid have the laptop, Jay."
"Thanks, Adam."
"Uh," Jay groaned, "I guess."
"We also have a lead, so you wanna roll out after I give you the info?" Adam asked.
"Yeah. Sorry, Y/N, you need to go into the breakroom now."
"But why can't I stay in here?" you whined. "I want your spinny chair."
"Y/N, this is a case," your mom told you. "You know the rules: no being around the case talk. It's for your own good, we don't want to scar or scare you."
Mom, you know what I've seen, you wanted to tell her, but you knew it would be no use as your parents would never budge on this rule.
"I know, Mom."
Jay pulled his laptop from his desk along with the charger. "Rules?" he probed, holding onto the laptop and charger.
"Dad, I know the rules. Mom, c'mon, tell him."
"It's your dad's laptop, Y/N. I'm not arguing with you or him on this one."
Jay cocked his head to the side. "I'll give you the laptop after you tell me the rules...even though I know you know them."
You sighed. You went through this every time you used his laptop when he was going to be gone. "Only use my account, don't try to login to your account, and do not delete my search history."
"Here you go." He handed you his laptop and charger. "Good luck on your paper. Don't work too hard."
You went into the breakroom and opened the laptop. First, you pulled up Netflix, and then you pulled up your paper. It was your paper for your senior portfolio, which most people were putting off, seeing as you were only a freshman, you didn't need to work on it yet. But, you knew it had to be long, so starting it now would probably be helpful.
The paper was basically a narrative telling a story about each year of school. The stories had to be from two to five pages long, which meant that the paper in its entirety would be between 26 and 65 pages long. But, you didn't mind. It's not like you had to write a boring research paper. You also had to write about your career goals and one wish for your future as well, which would make the paper even longer still.
Seeing as your schooling didn't exactly match up with the American school system until you were around nine and in third grade, you had gotten permission from your teacher to just write about the sections of kindergarten, first, and second grade, as just memories from when you were six, seven, and eight years old.
You'd save the memories of six and seven for later, since you'd have to dig into the part of your brain where you were in the orphanage with your older sister, Illiana.
For now, you just scribbled down a few lines for ideas of when you were eight years old...which was pretty simple since a lot happened in your life that year.
***
"Y/N, we brought you some food if you--"
"Shut up!" Mouse hissed as the rest of the unit clambered up the stairs and into the bullpen. "She's sleeping."
Yes, when Mouse came home he returned to his job as the tech analyst of the Intelligence Unit. And, when Jay became sergeant, he pulled a few strings and got him a huge salary increase.
"I'll pull the car around front," Hailey offered.
"No," Jay whined. "That means I gotta be the bad guy and wake her up."
"Sorry, babe. I call dibs."
"Ew, guys, please keep the lovey-dovey nicknames to home. I don't need to see that," Adam joked.
"Shut up, Ruz."
Hailey swiped the keys from Jay's office and Jay went to wake you up. But, before he did, he saw the laptop, still open to both Netflix and your paper.
There wasn't much in the paper yet, as Jay had expected, only a few bullet points. His name caught his eye below the age 8 section...whatever that meant. He didn't mean to pry (well, really he did), but he closed the laptop without logging you out so that he and Hailey could take a look at it later.
"Y/N, Y/N, wake up."
You were woken up by someone gently shaking your shoulder.
"Quiero dormir, vaya," you whined. That was one thing you always did: reverted back to Spanish when you were tired. At least both Jay and Hailey understood it now because they had learned Spanish...which helped them with parenting because when they were mad at you, they'd talk in Spanish and that's how you know you were in deep shit.
"I know you want to sleep, and I'm not leaving," Jay answered. "But, we're going home so you can sleep in your bed instead of here."
"Mmmm, okay," you mumbled. You rubbed your eyes, but then decided it was too much work to get up, so you just sat up and closed your eyes once again.
"C'mon, cariña. Mom's got the car out front and then all you gotta do is stay awake until we get home, okay?"
"Mmmm," you mumbled and then stood up. He already had your backpack slung over his shoulder and was holding his laptop in the other hand. "Can I skip school tomorrow? I'm tired."
"Not a chance," Jay chuckled. "But, I can drive you to school and we can get you a frappucino on the way there."
"Mom won't be mad?"
"We don't have to tell Mom everything now do we?"
"No, we don't."
***
"What are you doing?" Hailey asked Jay as she slid into bed next to him that night. "Are you seriously checking our daughter's search history this late at night? C'mon Jay, she's a good kid. You won't find anything."
"That's not what I'm looking at. But, now that you mention it, I should probably check that, too."
"Then, what are you reading? Because I know for a fact that your case notes are definitely not as organized as that."
"Wow, Hails, you're so sweet," Jay said sarcastically. "It's Y/N's paper. The rubric was pasted at the top and it looks like she has to write about a memory from each year of her life and her career goals and a wish for the future."
"And you were snooping because...?"
"Because I saw my name. I wanna see what she says about us, Hailey."
"Jay, she loves us, baby. We're her parents. We both know that. You don't need to read her schoolwork to know that."
"Either way, I'm still reading it. Join me if you want, or go to sleep."
"Uh, fine. But if she asks, this was your idea and I will not hesitate to throw you under the bus."
Age 8, they both read to themselves, leaving/running away from orphanage
"God, no matter how many years it's been since she told us what happened, it never fails to break my heart," Hailey said.
Jay wrapped one arm around his wife. "I know, babe. I feel the exact same way."
"Hey, Y/N," the therapist started and you looked up at her. "Do you want to in that room over there and watch some tv while I talk to jay and Hailey? I can even turn on the Spanish movies for you."
"Okay!"
After getting you all set up, she left you in the room with a Spanish children's movie playing while she went to get Jay and Hailey.
"Jay and Hailey?" she asked as she entered the waiting room.
"Dr. Smith," Jay greeted.
"I have something to tell both of you, and Y/N told me it was okay that I tell you. When I asked if she wanted to be the one to tell you this, she said no because she didn't want to make you sad."
They entered the room where you had previously been and Dr. Smith sat in a chair and Jay and Hailey sat on the couch.
"What's this about?" Hailey asked.
"Well, she told me why she ran away from the orphanage."
Jay and Hailey were shocked. You'd been with them for three months and hadn't once mentioned why you ran away and what happened before Jay found you. It wasn't for lack of trying on Hailey and Jay's part, though. They tried. After all, they knew how to talk to child victims. But, they didn't want to push you too hard, and eventually, they just dropped the topic all together because they knew you'd talk about it when you were ready. Apparently, today was the day that you were ready to tell that story.
"And?" Jay pushed. "Why'd she run away?"
"She said that they came for her, the people who you were fighting," Dr. Smith said.
"Los Rebeldes," Jay said, more to Hailey than to anyone else.
"They came for her specifically?" Hailey asked.
"No, they just came to the orphanage. She said that she heard voices--male voices--telling them to get down on the ground and then some shots rang out. Her sister, Illiana, told her to hide and slipped the necklace around her neck. So, she did. She said she closed her eyes really tight and she just laid there, hiding and barely breathing. She said she heard a gunshot and then she heard Illiana scream and she heard squishing noises."
"Oh my God," Hailey gasped.
"You're saying they shot and killed her?" Jay asked, his voice cracking.
"That's what it sounded like, yes."
"How did she get out?"
"She said that she snuck out through a small door in the back of the room. She said it wasn't a real door, but it was a small door that led to the outside, by her description, it sounded about three feet tall and two feet wide."
"The waste doors," Jay muttered.
"The what?" Hailey asked.
"The waste doors...well, that's what we called them on Base anyway. They were these little doors where you could place stuff outside. Sometimes we'd put the packaging of our MRE's there or other crap we didn't need anymore. Not good for the planet, but yeah, that's what we did."
"So, Jay, you're telling me that Y/N essentially snuck out of the orphanage through a trash chute?"
"Well, we used them for waste, which is why we called them waste doors. But, I heard rumors of them being used at orphanages for parents to put their baby in a crib. They'd just open the door and place the baby in the little crib on the other side of the door."
"She moved the crib and snuck out through there?"
"If there was a crib, then she moved it and got out. If not, she just crawled out through there."
"Did she tell you anything about when she left?" Hailey asked Dr. Smith.
"She said that she didn't have much with her, just her teddy bear and that locket. But, she said that she walked for the rest of the day. And, according to her timeline, the soldiers came right after breakfast. She said she was really scared that they were going to find her and so she just kept walking. But then, she found a bit of a forest it sounded like and since it was starting to get dark and cold, she laid down."
"I found her in the middle of the night and she must've been there since sunset. No wonder she was hypothermic."
"We got her her first banana split after that therapy session," Hailey said. "I honestly don't know whether the food was to get her to try something new or to comfort us."
"Yeah, that was a rough night. I didn't even want her to leave my arms," Jay said. "Jay found me and I went home to Chicago," he read aloud. "Man, that night was rough, too. Probably worse than the night where we found out why she left."
"Now, it's crowded here, cariña so stay cerca to us or go mano a mano with me or Hailey, okay?" Jay asked you as the three of you found a parking spot at Navy Pier.
Adam, Kim, Kevin, and Will were all there as well. They had planned to go out and party and go to a bar when Jay returned home, but that changed now that he and Hailey had a kid to take care of, so they had decided to take a trip to Navy Pier.
In the airport, Jay had gotten a huge coffee from Starbucks, seeing as he had barely slept on the way home. Before coming to Navy Pier, you had gone to a place called iHOP where you had gotten some really yummy pancakes, and Adam, Kevin, and Will had made you laugh a lot and Kim spoke Spanish with you.
"What does that word mean?" you asked.
"What word?" Jay asked, looking down at you as he took your hand.
"Cr-crowded," you sounded out slowly.
"Uh, it means there's lots and lots of people."
"Oh, okay. I stay by you."
"So Y/N, what do you like to do?" Will asked you.
"I like reading and play fútbol," you told him.
"Really? Jay loves playing soccer!"
"We played back at the big house in España," you told Will excitedly. "We won and I got lots and lots of goals."
"Looks like you have a pro soccer player on your hands, little brother," Will said to Jay.
"Don't I know it."
"We go on the big thingy you showed me in the little book in the plane?" you asked Jay.
"The Ferris wheel?" You nodded excitedly. "We can do that, but let's walk around first. We might be able to play some games and win you a friend for Osito."
"Really? Osito have a friend?"
"Really," Jay promised.
As you walked down Navy Pier, you were excitedly pointing out every little thing you saw from the ducks and the seagulls to the big yachts floating down the Chicago River.
"Let's go into Garrett's, babe," Hailey suggested when they were inside the big atrium. "Give her a taste of Chicago's world-famous popcorn."
"I think that's a great idea," Jay agreed. "What do you think, cariña? Want to try some popcorn and then we'll get your favorite?"
You tilted your head to the side. "Popcorn? What is that?"
"Palomitas," Kim clarified for you in Spanish. "Hay muchos tipos diferentes de palomitas allí para probar y comprar."
"Oh, okay. Yes, please."
"What did you say to her?" Hailey whispered to Kim.
"Just gave her the Spanish translation of popcorn and then told her that there's a bunch of different types of popcorn that she can try and buy in there. But, you and Jay most definitely have your work cut out for you when it comes to learning Spanish. You're lucky that she's pretty good with English already and that I'm here to help you learn Spanish."
***
"Sleepy, cariña?" Jay asked as he heard you yawn from the backseat.
Hailey was driving and he was holding a big bag of caramel and cheddar popcorn...which Hailey was telling him not to eat all of it because she knew he would. You were in the backseat with your big stuffed bear, whom you had named Osita since she was a girl bear because she had really soft white fur and a pink ribbon tied around her. Jay had won that for you when he played a shooting game. You also had a stuffed duck that Will had won for you when he played a guess the weight game. You named him Pato...which meant duck in Spanish. You had gone on the Ferris wheel and had pointed out all the pretty things in the sky when you were up there. Hailey had never seen Jay so happy as when he was smiling wide at every little thing you pointed out and he tried to explain to you what they were.
"No," you answered as you laid your head against Osita. It was currently 3 pm Chicago time, which made it about 9 pm Spain time.
"Tell you what," Hailey started, "When we get home, we can show you your room, and then we can watch a movie and eat this popcorn. Because, if we don't start eating it soon, Jay will eat it all."
"Jay eat it all if we no eat it too?"
"Jay eats a lot," Hailey joked.
You reached your hand in front of you and towards Jay. "Palomitas please." Jay chuckled and Hailey smiled as he put some popcorn into your little outstretched hand. "Gracias."
"De nada," Jay told you.
"When we watch movie, how I get it?" you asked.
"We get it on the tv," Jay told you.
"No, how I know what they saying?"
Hailey hadn't thought that far ahead when she had suggested watching a movie. "Um," Hailey faltered. "We can make it so it's in Spanish."
"But then you no know what they say," you pointed out.
"We can put words on the bottom of the screen in English for us," Jay suggested. "Then all three of us will know what they're saying. Is that okay?"
"Okay!"
"Hailey," Jay whispered. "What are we gonna watch?"
"She's too old for princesses probably and way too young for action movies...how about Disney Channel movies? We could try High School Musical? That one's pretty good."
"You're kidding Hails. You watched that? Didn't it come out when we were like 20 or 25?"
Hailey held back a laugh. "Yes, it did. But, I babysat a lot of kids in my neighborhood who were around Y/N's age, and we'd always end up watching those Disney Channel originals."
"Okay, whatever you say, babe."
***
"I think I'm gonna bring her to bed," Jay said.
You had fallen asleep halfway through the movie. Before starting it, you had seen your room. It was purple! And, in black letters behind your bed, it said Salon de Y/N, which meant Y/N's room. Jay assumed that Kim had helped Hailey with the spelling and the boys had helped move the furniture into your room. There was also a little basket with a few things they thought you would like, such as a few different colored soccer balls and a bookshelf.
On the bookshelf, Hailey had picked out some books in Spanish that she had found at Barnes and Noble and some short chapter books in English that she used to read as a kid, such as the Nancy Drew series and Little House on the Prairie. She knew that you might need help reading them and might not be able to completely understand them all by yourself yet, but she knew that she and Jay would be there to help you.
"It's 6:00," Hailey protested. "Shouldn't we wake her up and have her stay awake for a few more hours so that her body can adjust?"
"If you're asking an adult like me that, yes, I'd stay awake. But, she's a kid. She needs her sleep. And, I'll probably be up before you anyway, so I can deal with her if she wakes us up at five in the morning."
"Okay super dad," Hailey joked. "Bring her to bed. I'll make us a quick dinner and cover this popcorn so it doesn't get stale. Can't wait for us to go to bed tonight." She winked.
"Hails, as much as I would love to take you up on that, I don't think it's a good idea when it's Y/N's first night. But, I will give you all the cuddles in the world tonight, don't you worry about that."
"As long as you didn't pick up the habit of snoring overseas then I'm all for that, babe."
***
Jay woke up to the sound of soft whimpering. It sounded like it was coming from the hallway but he couldn't be sure. He reached over Hailey and was about to grab her gun from her drawer where he knew that she kept it, but stopped when he remembered that it was probably just you. It wasn't just Jay and Hailey in the house anymore; you were there as well and that's probably where the noise was coming from. And, he didn't want to scare you by holding a gun.
He glanced over at the clock. 3 am. Yeah, sounds about right that you'd be waking up right about now since you'd slept for about nine hours and it was 9 am in Spain right now.
Jay slowly tiptoed out into the hallway, cursing himself that he hadn't left a light on or kept his and Hailey's bedroom door open so you could find them easily.
Jay reached out for the hall light switch and flicked on the lights, causing you to jump. "Hey, hey, it's just me. It's just Jay," he said calmly once he laid eyes on you. You were holding Osito and there were fresh tears running down your cheeks.
Jay never knew the force of an eight-year-old running into him could be so strong as to almost knock him over. You dropped Osito and wrapped your arms around him as if your life depended on it.
"It's okay, it's okay," Jay soothed. "What's wrong, cariña? Can you tell me what's wrong?"
"I-I no know where I was," you mumbled into his shirt. "Was dark. Think you and Hailey left, so I came to find you."
"Oh, sweetie," Jay started. "I'm sorry. I forgot to turn the light on for you in your room so that you'd know where you are. And, me and Hailey would never leave you."
"You promise?"
"I promise." Your stomach grumbled. "Hungry?" you nodded. "Alright, let's get you a sandwich and then get you back to bed."
"You eat too?" you asked.
"You know, I could go for a sandwich."
***
The next morning, Hailey rolled over to see that Jay wasn't in bed next to her and his side of the bed was cold. Then, she remembered you and walked over to your room and slowly opened the door. You looked up from the Spanish book you were reading and put a finger to your lips.
"Jay sleeping," you told Hailey.
Jay was sitting upright in your bed against the headboard, his thumb holding a place in what looked to be a Nancy Drew book.
"Did Jay read to you last night, huh?" Hailey asked as she walked closer to you and Jay.
"Yeah, he told me that Nancy does what you and Jay do with policia. Then, I sleep again and then I wake up and he sleep again, so I started reading in Spanish."
"I think we should let him sleep a little more while we go finish High School Musical and eat palomitas before Jay eats it all. Does that sound good?"
You nodded eagerly and closed your book. Then, you got out of bed and followed Hailey out of your room. And, after hearing that Jay had read to you and seeing him sleeping upright in your bed so that you'd be able to sleep, she had one more reason why she was truly head over heels for the man she married and got to call her husband.
"Look, Jay. She wrote her birthday in here for age 9," Hailey said as she pointed to the laptop screen.
"God, I don't think I'll forget that day for the rest of my life. It was such a good day."
"You are such a sap when it comes to Y/N."
"Hey! let me be sappy about our daughter, Hailey Anne. She's in high school now, high school. That means she'll be going off to college soon."
"Don't get too far ahead of yourself, sergeant," she joked. "Just keep reading this. It was your idea to snoop through her stuff after all."
"Jay, you got the stuff?" Hailey asked as she was sitting cross-legged on their bedroom floor with wrapping paper, tape, and scissors in front of her.
"Jesus, Hails," Jay laughed, "You make it sound like we're doing a drug deal."
"Well sorry if I want her birthday to go really well. Now, did you get them or not?"
"They're in here." He set a plastic bag down on the bed. He took out three framed pictures and laid them out on the bed. Of course, he made sure that the frames were different shades of purple. "Good?"
Hailey stood up and looked at the pictures. "I never know the CPD's sketch software could work miracles like this, so yeah, I'd say we did good."
Over the past month, everyone in Intelligence had told you that they were testing out a new sketch software to use to try to track down criminals. They let you play with it because they said they wanted to see what it would do...even though they knew what it did, how good it was, and it wasn't new. It was just a ploy to make sure they got your birthday gift right. They had told you to try and input someone's face from memory, someone like your older sister, Illiana.
So, when you had to go to the district for the day with Jay and Hailey, you'd ask to play with that software to work on your sketch. Little did you know, they were printing it out on fancy photo paper and putting it in a frame for your birthday. Jay had also swiped your necklace one day when you had taken it off to go swimming and had taken pictures of what your mom and dad looked like. Then, he and Hailey each took one parent and worked on making their faces through the CPD's sketch software.
"Now what the hell is this?" Jay asked as he held up a big board that Hailey had laying out in front of her as well.
"That, Jay, is so we can stick the back of the frames to it so that we don't have to give the three of them to her separately. Then, she can just take them off from it and place them wherever she wants in her room."
"You're smart. Maybe you should've gone to law school."
"Haha, very funny, Halstead. But then I wouldn't have met you."
"Eh, I beg to differ. You'd probably end up being some prosecution or defense attorney and then I'd have to testify, and after getting yelled at by you on the stand, I'd end up making an ass of myself and ask you out for a drink."
"Is that so?"
"That is very much so."
He walked up to her and grabbed her by the waist and she gave him a peck on the lips. "Hails," Jay whined. "Why'd you phone it in?"
"Because we have presents to wrap. Now, sit your ass down on the carpet and help me."
"Yes ma'am. But, damn, you're really going to be the death of me."
"I'll take that as a compliment."
***
"Before we do cake everyone, me and Hailey have one more gift for Y/N," Jay announced by tapping a fork gently against his champagne glass. Yes, the adults were drinking champagne because they were celebrating your first birthday with them as their kid. No, they wouldn't even give you one sip...but you didn't care and you didn't ask.
You had gotten spoiled all day. Will had taken you out for breakfast where you had gotten chocolate chip pancakes with all the toppings. Then, he took you to the sporting goods store where you bought an FC Madrid jersey and to Barnes Noble where you bought a few new books.
Then, when you got home, you were surprised to find everyone from Intelligence there along with some people from Med, and firehouse 51. Emilia, Mouse, and Makayla were there, and your friend, Rosa, whom Emilia had introduced you to earlier in the year at her welcome home party since Rosa was one of Emilia's little cousins.
You had gone outside and played a huge soccer game. And, when you got sick of playing soccer, Emilia busted out a makeup kit she had bought for you. And you, Makayla, Emilia, and Rosa did each other's makeup. While the four of you were doing makeup, a soccer tournament had broken out where Intelligence played Med, and then the winner of that game played Firehouse 51. Intelligence won against Med...mostly due to Jay. But, then they played 51 and they got creamed.
"Here you go, nena," Hailey said as she passed you the gift. Hailey had started calling you nena since Jay had a nickname for you, cariña, which you learned now meant sweetheart in English. So, she decided to call you nena, which meant honey. And, you and Hailey had thought it only fair if you came up with a nickname for Jay. So, the one you decided on was quite fitting in your mind: pecas...which translated to freckles. And, Will, well Will calls you Osa because your favorite animal is a bear. It's probably one of only three words he knows in Spanish next to hola and adios.
The gift was long and hard...like a piece of wood. You slowly opened the gift, wondering what else you could have possibly gotten.
You bit your lip as you finished tearing the paper off and flipped it over. "Mamí, Papí, Illiana," you whispered as you held back tears. "¿Cómo lo hicisteis?" you asked. Seeing as Jay and Hailey had been working very hard on their Spanish for the past nine months, they could understand you and could sometimes explain an English word to you in Spanish if needed.
"We didn't really need to test out the drawing thing," Jay answered. "We just needed a picture of Illiana. And, I got the pictures of your parents from the locket."
At this, you started to cry harder, remembering that day when Jay had to cut your necklace off of you in the back of the Med truck in Spain.
You stood up and hugged both Jay and Hailey at the same time. Now, you had both of your families watching over you: your biological family from in heaven and your parents in the here and now. And, your biological family now had no doubt in their mind up there that you would never, ever forget them.
"You remember what she called us that night?" Hailey asked.
"How could I forget? It was the first night she called us mom and dad. I still remember her exact words when I told her we weren't trying to replace her biological family: Son mi familia en el cielo y en mi corazon, pero vosotros sois mi familia aquí."
"They're my family in heaven and in my heart, but you are my family here."
"Exactly."
"Oh my God!" Hailey laughed. "She wrote sixth-grade: I cheated on a literature test and Mom had to come to pick me up and I got in trouble. And then, Dad went full-on dad-mode."
"No fucking way," Jay laughed as he brought the laptop closer to him and looked for the sixth-grade section. "I can't believe this is what she's going to write about!"
"Well, in her defense, it was the first time we had to ground her and the first time you went full-on, overprotective, my daughter can do no wrong dad-mode."
"Pretty sure the next time I'll do that is when she gets asked to the homecoming dance later this year."
"Jay! You will not! You will not scare the boys away from our daughter!"
"Well, they should be scared!" Jay argued. "We're both cops, babe. We can make their death look like an accident."
"Jay, what you're talking about is murder and I shouldn't have to remind you that that is illegal. If so, I am going to the Ivory Tower tomorrow to get you stripped of your sergeant title."
"Fine, fine. The next time I'll do that is when she gets her driver's license."
"Hey, on the bright side, we wouldn't have to pick her up from the principal's office then," Hailey pointed out. "She could just drive herself home."
"We wouldn't have to figure out which of us should go pick her up like last time?"
"Exactly. And I'm pretty sure she was thankful that it was you and not me who picked her up in sixth grade."
"Miss Halstead," your literature teacher said as she stalked over to you from the other side of the classroom. "Care to tell me what you have under your sleeve?"
"My arm?"
"I don't like being disrespected in my classroom. We both know you have your phone in there. And, lying to me will just make this worse."
"I-I needed it," you stammered, not wanting to have the whole class hear how stupid you were.
"For a test? You know the rules: no cheating. Principal's office, now. Grab your stuff. And, I'll be calling your parents as you walk down there."
You grabbed your backpack and started your walk to the principal's office. It's not like you had a choice...well, you did have a choice. You could've just not used your phone on the test. But, after that last grade you got on that essay and how weirdly worded the questions were, you basically had no choice but to use your phone. It's not like you were using it to look up the answers per se, but you were using it to try and understand the questions because there was no way you were going to ask that teacher.
"Mrs. Halstead, right this way," you heard the office secretary say as they led Hailey to the principal's office. Your phone was sitting on the principal's desk, the tab you had been using to cheat open and you were fiddling with the strings of your hoodie. You had thought about deleting your search history, but knew it wouldn't be of any use because Jay and Hailey would just be able to look it up with whatever police software crap that Intelligence had access to. You knew you'd be in more trouble if you deleted it and they found out that you were lying, so you decided you wouldn't delete it...even though you were regretting that decision as your phone screen stared back at you.
"May I ask why my daughter is in the principal's office when I thought she should be taking a test?" Jay and Hailey knew all about your literature test that day as you had read the book twice to be ready for it.
"That's exactly why she's in here, Mrs. Halstead," the principal told Hailey. "She was trying to cheat on her literature test."
"She wouldn't do that!" Hailey defended you. "She studied so hard!" She looked between both you and the principal, but your gaze stayed trained on the floor.
"Just take a look."
He passed Hailey your phone and she looked at the search history and the timestamps of said history. "Y/N, is this true?"
You nodded. Hailey sighed. "I'm assuming she's suspended?"
"Since this is her first academic infraction, I'm not going to suspend her. She does need to go home for the rest of the school day, though."
"Thank you. C'mon Y/N, let's go."
You hung your head as you left the middle school, Hailey holding your phone and still trying to figure out why you did this. But she knew that one thing was for sure: the minute Jay got home, he would not be happy.
***
"You're kidding me, right?" you heard Jay ask Hailey in the kitchen.
You were currently in your room, but the kitchen was right down the hall, so if you were quiet and focused enough, you could hear their conversation.
"I wish I was, Jay," Hailey said. "Just...here, take a look."
You assumed that Hailey was handing Jay the phone and he was looking at your search history.
Jay took a deep breath and restrained himself from shoving the chair into the kitchen table.
You heard his heavy footsteps coming down the hall and quickly locked your door and then sat back down on your bed.
You heard the doorknob jiggle as Jay tried to open your door.
"Y/N! ¡Abras la puerta inmediatamente!" (Open the door immediately!)
You were in deep shit if he was yelling at you in Spanish.
You didn't move from your bed.
"¡Ábrelo ahora!" (Open it now!)
"¡Estoy viniendo! ¡Calmáse!" (I'm coming! Calm yourself!) You got up from the bed and opened the door.
"Do not ever, ever tell me to calm down ever again! Do you understand me?" Jay asked angrily as he flung open your door after he had unlocked it. You nodded. "Now, I understand that you were caught cheating on a test. Care to explain that to me?"
"Not really," you sighed as you sat on your bed.
"I'm giving you one more chance to explain to me why you chose to cheat. And I suggest you tell me the truth, kid."
You looked up to be met with Hailey standing in the doorway. She nodded to you as if to say you better listen to your dad.
"Well?" he asked as he crossed his arms across his chest.
"I needed to cheat!"
"Nobody needs to cheat!"
"Well, I did!" You dug through your backpack and found the paper you had to write for the class that your teacher failed you on. "Because of this!" You threw the paper on your bed. "And because my teacher is a puta!"
"You do not call your teacher a bitch, young lady!" Jay yelled.
"Jay!" Hailey yelled. "Take the paper, go to our room and read it and calm down!"
"So Mom can tell you to calm down but I can't?"
Jay turned back to you, but Hailey grabbed his arm. "Bedroom Jay. Now." He left the room and Hailey turned to you. "As for you. You're grounded from your phone for the foreseeable future. Sorry, nena. Now, we'll be back to talk to you after we've read whatever it is you threw on your bed."
***
"We read the paper," Jay said as he and Hailey entered your room again fifteen minutes later. "And, I'm sorry for yelling. I know me and your mom are both detectives, but it'd look better if you told us why you cheated instead of leaving us to put the pieces together."
"I'm sorry, I really am. It's just, I failed that paper. And, I worked really hard on it. And, she said it wasn't a real tradition."
The paper topic was to write about a family tradition and you wrote about the Spanish tradition of eating grapes on New Year's Eve. With twelve seconds left of the year, you'd put a grape in your mouth for every second that passed. You'd try to get all twelve grapes in your mouth, but that was really hard. You wrote about the last time you did it with your family and your papí almost got all of them in your mouth while you only got three in your mouth since you were only three years old at the time.
One of the grading criteria for the paper was that it had to be a real tradition.
"She said that it wasn't a real tradition, Dad. She said that because she had never heard of it and that it sounded weird to her, that it wasn't real. So, she failed me. I also put some Spanish words in there, but I put the translations next to it. I thought it would make it more...what's the word? It's kind of like real? Like it'd make it more real to read? You know that word for it?"
"Authentic?" Hailey asked.
"Yeah, that. I thought it'd make it more authentic to read. And, I knew the material of the book. But, the questions were so confusing and I didn't want to ask her to clarify because she's mean."
"So you googled the questions to try to figure out what they were asking?" Hailey asked.
"Yes. I'm sorry. I really am. I just didn't want you to be disappointed in me and think that I've been here for four years and not know English."
"Oh, cariña." Jay crouched in front of you. "We'd never think that. I promise. And I know Mom would never think that either, right?"
"That's right," Hailey agreed.
"Now, I have to go make a phone call."
"You went off on that teacher, Jay! I don't think I've ever heard you that angry when you weren't in interrogation!" Hailey laughed.
"Well yeah! That teacher's logic and grading criteria were seriously flawed. And, you read that paper. It was really good. As Y/N put it that day, she really was a puta."
Hailey rolled her eyes.
"Wish for the future," Jay read aloud. "I wish that I could figure out why Los Rebeldes came to the orphanage and killed Illiana."
"I think that's enough snooping through her stuff for the day, babe," Hailey said, beginning to feel uncomfortable reading this. "Let's just go to bed."
"Yeah, I'm just gonna take a quick shower and I'll be back, okay? I love you." He gave Hailey a quick peck on the lips and made his way to the bathroom to take a shower.
"I love you, too."
But, Jay barely heard her. He was so lost in thought about how to get answers for you, for his daughter. Hell, he wanted those answers just as bad as you. What kind of sick bastard would come into an orphanage heavily armed and just kill innocent civilians and innocent children?
***
"Mouse," Jay said as he entered the bullpen the next morning, "I need your help with something."
"Jeez, Jay, you're late," Ruzek commented. "Where's Hailey?"
"It's her RDO. And, I promised Y/N a frappuccino because she had to wake up early for school and had to go to bed late last night because we were working a case."
"Does Hailey--"
"No, Adam. Hailey does not know that I gave our fourteen-year-old daughter sugar-laced coffee this morning. And, if you so much as say the words frappuccino, Jay, and Y/N in the same sentence, I will bump you back down to patrol so fast you won't know what hit you."
Jay started to walk towards the tech area where he assumed Mouse would be. His voice carried, so he hoped he'd heard him when he'd said he needed his help.
"Whose idea was it to give Jay all this power?" Adam asked rhetorically. "I think it's going to his head."
"I heard that Ruz!"
"You needed something, Jay?" Mouse asked as he turned around from his laptop and took a sip of his coffee.
"Yeah, can you do something off the books for me?"
"You don't even have to ask anymore, man."
"Just need to make sure you don't assign a case number to it."
"I can do that. Now, what do you need?"
Jay pulled out his phone and pulled up a Spanish newspaper article from two weeks ago. He laid the phone in front of Mouse. "This. This is why I need you."
Mouse looked at the phone and back up at Jay with raised eyebrows. "I'm gonna need you to translate that. I don't speak Spanish."
"Says that the guy who killed everyone in the orphanage that Y/N was in is meeting with his lawyer about an appeal. That son of a bitch. And, it's happening on Monday."
"He's meeting with his lawyer on Monday or you'll know if he won the appeal or not on Monday?" Mouse asked.
"He's meeting with his lawyer on Monday."
"And you need me because...?"
"Think you can hack into Spain's maximum-security federal prison system?"
"You cannot be serious."
"I am dead serious, Mouse."
"Why don't you just wait to hear the news?"
Jay sighed and took a seat next to Mouse. "Y/N has to write a paper and was using my laptop. It was this narrative thing for her senior project, so it's due in a few years. But, I'll spare you the details. Y/N had to write what one of her wishes for the future was and she wrote that she wants to know why the guy killed everyone in the orphanage. Not who, because we already know that it was Raúl Rodríguez. She wants to know why."
"That guy's the one who told them to attack the orphanage? The one that killed her sister, right?"
"That's the prick."
"Okay, I'll see what I can do. I'd know that if it was my sister or my kid that I'd want to know."
"Thanks, man."
"Video and audio?"
"Yeah. I'm probably gonna get Emilia in on this too to translate."
"Why? Don't you and Hailey speak Spanish?"
"We do, but they're gonna talk really fast and I probably don't know law lingo except for the word lawyer."
"Fair enough. I'll get to work."
***
"Hails, Hails," Jay shook Hailey awake.
"Jay? Why are you home so late?" she asked as she rolled over and opened her eyes. It was almost 11:30 and she had gone to bed half an hour ago...she thought Jay would've been home by 11:00.
"Paperwork," Jay answered honestly. He instantly regretted his decision of waking Hailey up knowing her history of insomnia. "But, I shouldn't have woke you up. I'm sorry, babe."
"No, I'm awake now. What's up?" She sat up in bed and turned on the lamp to see Jay changing out of his clothes and into his pajama pants and an old t-shirt. "You don't have to sleep with a shirt on you know."
Jay smirked. "You'd like that, wouldn't you? But, don't want our daughter to walk in on me shirtless."
"She's spending the night at Rosa's," Hailey informed him.
"In that case..." Jay trailed off and took off his t-shirt along with his pajama pants so that he was just in his boxers. "Better?"
"Much better."
Jay pulled back the covers on his side of the bed and slid in next to his wife. She cuddled into his side and he wrapped an arm around her.
"What'd you want to tell me?" she asked.
"How do you know I wanted to tell you something?"
"You had that look in your eye, Jay Halstead. Now, tell me."
"So persuasive." He rolled his eyes playfully.
"Shut up."
"You love it, though." He gave her a quick kiss on the lips. "You know how Y/N's biggest wish was to know why Raúl Rodríguez attacked the orphanage?"
"Mhmm," she mumbled.
"Well, I'm gonna find out why."
She pulled away from him. "What? How? You're going to Spain? To interrogate him? You know the CPD doesn't have jurisdiction there even though you were a ranger there, right?"
"Hails, I'm not going overseas to find him. I promise you that."
"Okay." She settled back into his embrace. "Then what are you doing?"
"Having Mouse see if he can hack into the prison system so that I can watch the lawyer talk to him."
"And you're going to be able to understand everything they're saying?"
"No, but Emilia will."
"You called her and told her your plan before you told me?"
"No! The only person who knows is Mouse. I figured I'd call Emilia tomorrow. Like I said, I was just at the district late doing paperwork."
"Okay, I believe you. And, we're not going to have her in the room with us, Y/N that is? We're going to tell her why he did this so she doesn't have to hear it from him?"
"Precisely. Now, am I right in assuming that since Y/N's gone for the night that we can be as loud as we want?"
"You are very much correct in that." Then, he gave her a kiss...and this time, he didn't phone it in at a peck.
***
You were sitting in the breakroom Monday afternoon trying to do some American history homework. There was so much reading involved, but it was okay because you liked history. And, there were pictures in the textbook...it wasn't like you were reading Romeo and Juliet like you had to do in English class.
You knew Emilia was here because she had brought you some fries, much to your mom and dad's dismay since your mom had packed you a few extra snacks. But, Emilia said she had to hold up her reputation as your cool aunt...even if she wasn't related to you whatsoever. And so far, she was holding it up.
You didn't know why she was here, but you assumed it was because Kim was in the field and they needed someone to translate audio. Sometimes Jay would call in Emilia if he knew that she wasn't working to do some translating so he didn't have to deal with calling up a patrolman. You also knew from hearing some of his conversations with Will that Will wanted to ask her out.
And, you hoped she say yes. You wanted Emilia to be your actual aunt. Apparently, she had a thing for doctors according to Jay's side of the phone conversations you'd heard, so you hoped it'd work out if your uncle Will ever got the balls to ask her out.
All of a sudden, Emilia came into Jay's office and he took off running. Hailey saw this and she started following them.
"What?" you asked yourself.
They always would tell you if they had to leave and they'd always be sure to tell you they loved you before they left.
You quietly walked out of the breakroom and towards where you had seen them running to. You assumed they were in the tech area because of the direction they ran in and the fact that whenever Emilia was here, she was most likely in the tech room.
As you got closer, you started hearing Spanish.
Someone talking about an attack...an attack on an orphanage.
A man said it was in the Tabernas Desert.
You peeked your head around the corner to see that on the screen there was a man in a nice suit and someone sitting at a table with handcuffs on.
"Anything we don't already know?" Hailey asked.
"Not that it sounds like right now," Emilia answered. "They're just talking about the orphanage Y/N and Illiana were in and where it was."
So this is the guy who did it. This was the guy--no, the monster--who led the attack that killed your sister.
"The lawyer just asked Rodríguez why he did it," Emilia said.
"And?" Jay asked
"Jay, I need to be able to hear them talk, so shut up."
Jay held his hands up in a sign of surrender.
"The lawyer just asked if it was something personal, something like Rodríguez being an orphan and he didn't have a good experience there so he attacked it, something that would tug at the board of appeals heartstrings essentially." There was a pause as Emilia continued listening. "He said no." She paused again. "Oh my God."
"What?" Jay asked frantically. "Why did that prick kill innocent children?"
"He said he ordered the attack because the orphanage was receiving aid from the US, for things such as food, clothing, and basic necessities."
"Un-fucking-believable." Jay wanted to punch something, but he restrained himself. "So, because our country was helping those who couldn't help themselves, this prick went after them?"
"That's what it sounds like. I'm sorry, Jay."
"Hails, how are we going to tell Y/N?"
"You guys don't have to tell me," you said as you made your presence known. "I heard the whole thing."
Jay sighed. "I'm sorry cariña, really I am. I'm sorry that this happened to you. That you had to find out this way. That this was the reason for what that monster did. I'm sorry."
"Dad read my outline?" you asked, turning to Hailey.
"Yeah, nena, he did. It was just open and you know him, he couldn't stop himself."
"Because he's a detective before he's a sergeant, just like Nancy Drew," you said, bringing it back to the books you'd used to read with your dad every night when you had just come over to the states from Spain and were working on your English.
"This should never have happened," Jay said softly as he walked over to you and brought you into a tight hug. "People that do these kinds of horrific acts shouldn't have the right to be born, much less to live."
"But if that wouldn't have happened you wouldn't have found me. And I wouldn't have found my forever Mom and Dad."
A/N: I wrote over 6.5k words to get this posted today! That's a new personal record for me! Also, my neuroscience class is kicking my butt right now, so if I don't update as frequently, that's why. Hopefully, I'll get one out every week or every two weeks at the latest. Please like/reblog and comment because I love getting feedback and it keeps me motivated to write. If you want to be added to the taglist, just tell me and I’ll add you! 
taglist: @theambracer88 @virtualreader @kelelas-life @celyndavies @brookerz122493 @musicismyescape27 @anotherfan07 @thexplosivegirl @dreamingwithlens @xoxmariaxox @onechicago18 @iamasimpingh0e 
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remsmoonlight · 3 years
Text
— title : point of view
— word count : 3k words
— pairing : daryl dixon x reader
— summary : tomorrow is something that is never promised, less so when the dead walk the Earth. being trapped for the night when a storm pours down upon you and daryl while trapped in a decrepit house by a few walkers are you sick and tired of hiding what you feel.
— warnings : some swearing, talk of potential death ( of the reader ) , a wee bit of angst that turned into more at the end :)
note: omg another daryl oneshot i gotta chill ajksajksk, but i had like seven main bullet points i made to follow when writing this and i followed like...... two, three at the most, anyways.... enjoy? this is brought to u by ariana’s discography lmao oops it does be cute at some point tho ... also felt a bit hsm with that one line at the end ahaha but fr lemme stop talking now
      ✧・゚: *✧・゚:*   requests are open !   *:・゚✧*:・゚✧
Dark and gloomy clouds swirl over your head, blending into an extremely large and angry looking ready to descend from above. You wonder to yourself just how long you have left before the loud cracks that crumble through the air to accompany the forceful winds and pouring drops of rain are finally released. Halfway through the trip back from the town that lays after miles from the prison the car used decided it preferred to lay quietly in the middle of the road, shortly after the sickly sputters from the engine you heard Daryl mutter a few curse words. You were unable to hold in your amusement, despite the fact that a lack of transport obviously leaves you in a vulnerable position, it felt like it was your luck for that to happen to you.
It’s why you stay behind following the hunter in silence.
Studying him with focused eyes you can’t help but wonder how he never realises when you’re unable to tear your gaze away from him. In the beginning when you began to develop a certain affection for him you had been glad, for it to be too embarrassing for the thoughts you had about him in your head. In spite of this, when you realised that it was much more than a crush did you wish for him to mind read, because you have no idea just how to approach him about such a sensitive topic and while he can be tender about feelings, it’s also his downfall.
“ it’ll be gettin’ dark soon, there should be some houses down there to spend the night in. “
You stop in your tracks with a curious look that bled so suddenly into your features you had no time to stop it.
“ you don’t want to carry on? I mean, we’re not far from home? “ you question him with a hint of fear coddling your words.
“ we’d be trippin’ over our feet. Let’s back it back in one piece, yeh? “
Nodding, you regain your pace. It’s been a few months since you’d been hopping from one house to the other during that harsh winter, the bare thought of having to stay in yet another frail structure sent a chilly hand drawing its claws deeply up your spine. If you never had your group, you don’t think you would have made a winter like that, barely protected from the elements and the walkers that wished to plunge their teeth cavernously into your flesh.
“ as long as we leave as soon as the sun comes up. Please. “ you plead, your words filter off into a gentle volume from your position.
Leaves crumble and buckle underneath the weight, the sound of crickets dominate your surroundings as the two of you walk in silence. You itch to start a conversation, but the fear of distracting the man and annoying withhold the words that wish to fall from your lips, even then you don’t know how to begin. What would you say? There’s not much to talk about in a world where the dead have risen, where they wish to drag the world into decomposition.
Your wandering mind is pulled from its very own depths from a noise coming from Daryl, he’d turned to catch your attention. You both set to work attempting to enter any of the abandoned houses, hoping one had been left unlocked at some point.
Of course, luck is scarce. Despite there not being a soul who occupies them, they’re still somehow locked. Mournfully, you wonder if the owners of these homes had thought the governments and armies would eventually lock everything under their control, to the point that there would be a house for them to come back to? Your heart thuds painfully in your chest to think about what happened to them, and if they’re even still surviving.
A large thud draws you back to the present, the wooden door splinters at the force Daryl puts into a large kick to its frame.
“ well, there goes the lock. “ you mutter humourously, lifting the heavy bag higher up onto your shoulders as you walk in the open door.
“ we’ll put the couch there, stop any unfriendly types that come our way. “
“ I don’t know if there’s anyone left anymore. “ you reply, dropping the bag to the floor and moving towards the couch.
Situated on the other side of it, you grip the plush handle and lift with a struggle. It’s a strain to get it through the doorway to  turn it around the corner, but eventually it happens. Daryl is joined by your presence by his side, you both push ⏤ this time it’s an easier feat with two of you on one side to dedicate your strength and weight to advance it.
As soon as you finish, a heavy crackle cuts through the air.
“ we got here just in time, huh? “
“ just about. “ he answers you, sparing a glance before moving through the lower floor ⏤ searching for anything that can be taken back to the prison.
Thunderstorms had never been your favourite thing growing up. Of course, rain was something that calmed you from the anxieties life brought, but the thunder and lightning is what you loathed. Never knowing when you were about to receive a fright from the loud rumbles and flashing lights ruined the whole experience for you.
The rustling Daryl makes is the only thing that brings you comfort in this moment, keeping you grounded and away from your thoughts. It doesn’t escape your notice that these houses feel no more than graveyards with the memories that have no use to live, instead haunting the structures with what could have been had chaos and death not taken over. You climb the stairs, hugging your sides as you refuse to touch the handrail leading up stairs.
There is a middle room with access granted without having to push open the door to gain entry. Your eyes scan the room’s interior, even with the dust and grime that bespeckle its surfaces, you can still see its beauty. Now, who does that remind you of? Your mind cheekly thinks before you banish it into the shadows of your brain, where you know it will force itself out with an immense stubbornness.
Despite the thunder booming in the distance frequently, you can’t help but admire the beauty of rain drops falling to the ground with a dainty grace only it holds. The sky continues to grow dimmer, only seeing the rain on your level and lower, no street lights flood the street to aid you in being able to see torrent from above. Jumping at another roar of sound from the storm, your heart begins to pick up its pace, so much you don’t realise Daryl joining you in the room.
“ scared? “
Turning around with such speed that leaves you surprised whiplash did not greet you, Daryl is left smirking at your reaction.
“ yeah, I hate these things. “ you respond, a bitterness coating each word heavily as you speak.
“ more than walkers? “ he questions you, as he shifts his weight from one foot to the other.
“ well, I suppose not that much .. “ another clap of thunder interrupts you, the rain beating harder and harder on the windows of the bedroom. “ can we talk about anything? This shit really grates on my nerves. “
“ what y’wanna talk about? “
Your mind stalls, with the previous thoughts that had been swirling in a state of disorder your draw a blank. A continuous thump downstairs interrupts your shrug, speeding down the stairs you realise a few walkers are trying to enter the property, of course their lack of intelligence fails to realise they’re throwing themselves into the walls and not the blocked doors.
“ shall we take them out? “ moving closer to the lengthy curtained window next to the door to get a better look, you can see three walkers hauling themselves mindlessly against the structure.
“ nah, the storm’ll get ‘em soon enough. “ he shakes his head softly, your mind taking note of the lack of proximity between your bodies as he repeats your action. “ no need to risk ourselves. “
“ wouldn’t be the first time you’ve risked your life. “
“ s’nothin. “ he contradicts gruffly, wiping a finger across his nose at your words. He truly doesn’t view it as that, refusing to think of it as risking his life. To Daryl, it doesn’t feel like risking everything to help the people around him, it’s not something he can find the words to explain but all he knows if there’s a chance, he would do it again and again.
“ Daryl Dixon, so humble. “ you speak warmly with a gentle smile threading itself into your features. “ you need to give yourself more credit. “
“ stop. “
“ you’re as brave as anyone in the group. I’d say braver than Rick. “ you joke, setting yourself from the entryway to the sitting room. “ although, if I had to choose you and Carol .. I’m sorry, but Carol every time! “
“ damn woman frightens me. “
Laughter light in weight dances airily between you with an elegance in its movement. For even a fraction of a second you forget that there are walkers that are itching to break through into the property, that there’s an angry storm that threatens to demolish whatever stands in its path, because right now it’s only you both here and now in this one room.
“ she’s come a long way. “ you agree, pulling a lone chocolate bar from your bag. Your favourite and you’re thanking the universe that it hasn’t spoiled yet. Turns out all these preservatives and chemicals have some use after all you note to yourself as half is offered to the man standing across from you.
“ so have ‘yuh. “ he acknowledges, taking the broken half of the candy from you.
“ I think we all have to be honest. I don’t think any one of us are the people we used to be. “
“ now who’s humble? “ Daryl asks, his tone light in relaxed merriment. He’d long since taken note of the transformation you’d gone through, he’s never seen you so strong as a person before.
“ don’t you turn this round on me, Dixon. “
The two of you fall silent, you direct your gaze to the window and the raindrops that litter the window pane’s surface. The harsh noises thundered no more, leaving a calm pitter of precipitation to fall with no interruption. From your position on the second couch, you wrap around a thin decorational blanket around your arms, leaning your cheek against the palm of your hand.
Pretending the world hasn’t gone to hell, that it’s just a normal evening where you’re admiring the scene before you. Skies that weep heavily is what the Georgian greenery has been calling out for, especially since the warmer temperatures have returned in full force. Switching your line of sight to Daryl, you feel a mellowness in the pit of your stomach as you watch him fondly. You can’t be sure if it’s the lack of distractions or eyes from your group, but you feel a miniscule spark of confidence within your confines.
“ come sit down, you can relax for a bit. “ you call, trying to convince him lightly. Your hand moves to pat the seat next to you.
“ can’t relax in this world. “ despite the disagreement in his words he does move towards your position on the plush seat.
“ it doesn’t mean we can’t make it. Otherwise we’d be burnt out, I’d hate to see that happen to you. “ You divulge as you reply to him, little inklings of hope in your tone.
“ y’don’t gotta worry ‘bout me. “
“ but I do, Daryl. “ you groan as a dull glumness contorts your features into something new. “ I mean, the lengths you go to .. you scare me to death. “
“ don’t be dumb. “ Daryl warns lowly as he shakes his head, few have shared their vulnerability with him. Perhaps only Carol, his mind can’t wrap itself around the fact that people genuinely care for him. Growing up, he’d been taught of it as a weakness. Something that should not exist, no one cared when he went missing for a short while as a child, and now having people who show him the opposite? It leaves a strange feeling to settle within his heart.
“ please, I need to tell you. I mean, I might not even be here tomorrow. “
“ nah, don’t say that. Y’will. “ he argues, he doesn’t even want to entertain the notion of not seeing you even for a day ⏤ let alone forever.
Truthfully, you’d not been particularly close. He understands it now, he pushed everyone away wherever he had the chance to. But after the downfall of the farm? You wouldn’t let up in trying to forge bonds that could rival even the strongest of metals. You had no idea, but he’d overheard you talking to Beth one day. When you said you didn’t want to be afraid of living, to have something worth dying for. That struck him deep.
“ neither you or I can guarantee that. Now, call me selfish but I can’t die with what ifs in my brain. “ you explain, you know it’s probably selfish to announce any kind of fondness for a person nowadays, because you can be ripped from their existence without any kind of announcement. But if you were to depart from the realm of the living, you’d want to have affectionate memories to experience and for them to look back on.
“ what y’sayin? “
Your eyes well up in frustration, whether it’s over the way you find the words are hiding beneath your tongue like cowards under the cloak of night or over the fact that you have begun this topic of conversation, backing yourself into a corner. There’s so much you want to say but how you should is not coming easy. Eloquence in your words is something you find yourself yearning for with all of your being should it bring you a happy ending to this discussion.
This isn’t a fairytale, there’s no happy or bad endings in real life you sorely think. There’s just reality, and the conclusions for that are neither black or white.
Fingertips grip the roots of your hair for a fleeting moment before letting go as if you’d never clutched them in exasperation at all.
Shutting your eyes so hard they hurt, you muster up the courage to speak the truth you’ve locked away in your heart, allowing it the light it has been deprived of for so long.
“ Daryl, I ⏤ “ your voice shuts off with a painful sound, sighing as if to psych yourself up. “ I feel more for you than I probably should. “
When Daryl says nothing, you open your eyes. Your entire being preparing yourself for the worse answer, this moment may hurt now but the pain will lessen. At least your soul feels lighter with the hidden information no longer chained to it as a burden, no longer will it have to be weighed down by its mass.  
“ I know it’s probably not what you want to hear, but I couldn’t keep it in any longer. “
“ who said I didn’t wanna hear? “
“ ⏤ what ? “ you question, your brows falling lower as you squint in disbelief. You wonder if your brain is forming a false memory to protect itself later on.
“ y’don’t nothin’ to do with me though. “ he hesitates, the automatic response to push away anything good that comes his way to the furthest reaches. “ nothin’ but trouble. “
A sorrowful smile full of grief clouds your features, your unshed tears threaten to fall. If only he could see himself from your point of view, he doesn’t see just how admirable of a human being he is. Yes, he has his flaws but who doesn’t? In all of humanity, you don’t think there has ever been a perfect person, but it’s how they approach their downsides that shows the peak of their humanity, that they don’t let the darkness fester in their heart, to poison their soul into becoming a shell of a kind hearted person. That shows the strength of their character.
Daryl? You feel honoured to have been a first hand witness to see him turn from a hot ball of anger to a softer, kinder soul.
“ Daryl, you really don’t see what I do.” you forsake everything, leaning forwards and laying your hands across his. Taking in the immense warmth from them. “ That? It hurts me, because you’re rather amazing. “
Saying nothing, Daryl looks down at your intertwined hands. He wants the chance that’s being offered, though the fear of being the one who poisons everything he lays his touch upon settles heavily on his shoulder. No one has come out unscarred when dealing with a member of the Dixon family, his family tree being nothing more than toxic, with weeds that wrap around the limbs of the poor fool who got involved with them, as they drag them to their lowly depths. He doesn’t know how to let go of the past and for this he continues to pay, with the high price being his happiness in the present world. No response leaves his lips, for the first time in a long time he doesn’t know what to say, while knowing what he wants to say. It’s not until he feels arms wrapped around the top of his shoulders is he brought back down to Earth, a shudder of a breath is released from him as he realises what is going on. The action is reciprocated in earnest, you’re full of gratitude that he’s accepting your comfort ⏤ knowing it could have been a gamble of a decision, a fifty fifty chance of him reacting negatively or positively. You, too, draw comfort from the position you both find yourself, clutching the other. Hope dawns on your heart, knowing Daryl is not a particularly affectionate man. This means a lot, for it’s a leap for you both.
“ thank you. “ he whispers in the night. You know that this is the start of something new.
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