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starlightkun · 8 months

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➠ word count: 22.0k ➠ warnings: cursing, mentions of drinking (there’s a frat party), everything i know about hockey is from internet research for this fic i’m sorry for any inaccuracies i tried ➠ genre: fluff, gets quite suggestive (a heavy makeout scene/near sex scene) but no actual smut, college au, hockey captain sungchan, chronically ill reader (chronic migraines), halloween-themed at the beginning, sungchan’s not a frat boy but he’s like... a frat boy by association ➠ extra info: the ages/relative ages of the members in here are whatever i want them to be, don’t read into it too much. this is a very usamerican take on a college au btw. also i call kunhang ‘hendery’ in here like it’s his government name for a one-line gag bc i think i’m hilarious the reader in this has chronic migraines, which i have. when the reader’s migraines and thoughts/experiences as a chronically ill person are described, that is me writing directly from my own life. i am not generalizing the lives of all people with chronic migraines and chronic illness, but i am sending all my love to any readers out there living with a chronic illness, and here’s a reminder to go take your meds ➠ author’s note: hi so this has been a wip for like a year lol. this one long predates sungchan’s deneofication (and subsequent re-debut in riize), hockey player sungchan just lives in my brain rent free ok. anyway, i hope you like ➠ series masterlist

��You agreed to go to a frat party?” Chenle’s eyes were bugging out of his head as he sat across a high top in the dining hall from you. “Do you remember what happened last time, Y/N?”

“Hard to forget,” you snorted.

“And yet it seems you did, somehow, lost in dreamboat Jung Sungchan’s eyes.”

FRIDAY, OCTOBER 24

“Now shoo!” Dr. Son waved the small group of you out of his dimly lit office.

It was Phantasmagorical Phriday, a time-honored tradition going back to your freshman year of university. Dr. Son had been intrigued by the four freshmen who were somehow in his third-year class on Gothic Fiction and actually seemed to “get it.” His “Phantasma Phour” as you dubbed yourselves (a nickname that got quickly worn out, persisting only as the title of your groupchat):

Wong Hendery, who ended up in the class accidentally due to an error on his academic advisor’s part (she had gotten him mixed up with a Wong Henry, a junior Literature major who actually needed to take Dr. Son’s class) and he subsequently changed majors at least three times to your knowledge, so you were genuinely surprised he was graduating on time—he finally settled on Communications;

Jung Sungchan, at the time a promising young rookie hockey player who had now blossomed into your school’s reliable team captain—Biology major, being an athlete meant he could pre-register for classes and he picked Dr. Son’s at random to fulfill a gen ed Literature credit;

Zhong Chenle, an honorary member of both Nu Chi Tau, one of the biggest frats on campus, and the hockey team, as somehow 95% of his social circle were Nu Chi brothers and/or hockey players despite Chenle being neither himself, your best friend and also sometimes you swear a demon sent straight from hell to kill you—Literature major, who bullied you into taking the class; and

You, Chenle’s best friend who used to hate anything and everything Gothic fiction that got bullied into taking it anyway and now adored the genre more than any other—Literature major, who took the last spot in the class on registration day.

Dr. Son would invite you all to monthly extracurricular workshops in his office that built up to this: Phantasmagorical Phriday, a writing competition to see which of the four of you could write the best gothic short story. The stories were actually submitted the prior week, but it was the Friday before Halloween that was dubbed the Phriday in question. The four of you were invited to his office that night after classes (and Sungchan’s hockey practice) to review your pieces: how he thought everyone had improved from last year, discuss the writing process, and to finish off the night, Dr. Son would announce his top two stories. Those in the top two had the chance to send him a persuasive letter about why they should win. They had to be sent to him that night because the next morning, your professor would email the top two individually with the results.

Since this was your last Phantasmagorical Phriday, Dr. Son pretended not to see when Hendery brought out four celebratory White Claws for you all. You still had your warm, unopened, orange-flavored seltzer in your hand as the small group of you left the Literature, Writing, and Foreign Languages building together.

“I still can’t believe you couldn’t find anything classier for our last Phantasmagorical Phriday, Hendery.” You shook your head. “Ever heard of champagne? Literally any wine?”

“So you’re not gonna shotgun that, Y/N, is what I’m hearing?” Hendery teased as you all stopped under the light post right outside the building.

“Is that a challenge or what, Wong?” You scoffed, handing it back to him. “But no, I’m good.”

Sungchan thankfully cut in and changed the topic of conversation, “So are you going to start writing your letter of reconsideration, Y/N?”

This year’s top two were you and Sungchan, the member of the Phantasma Phour you spoke to the least. Outside of the monthly “workshops” (which at this point with your differing majors were just get-togethers of questionable academic value), you never saw him. You obviously saw Chenle all the time, and despite the fact that you considered him a bit obnoxious, you were sort of friends with Hendery, joining him for lunch if you happened to see him at the student union or at the coffee shop on campus. Sungchan was perfectly nice and all, you just found that you never really talked to him like the other two.

You looked down at your watch, taking a quick inhale when you saw the time. You’d stayed in Dr. Son’s office a lot later than you’d realized.

“Oh, no,” you casually waved off Sungchan’s question, readjusting your tote bag on your shoulder. “I’ve got something more pressing right now. Anyway, see you guys. It was a good four years, I’m glad we got to do this.”

Lifting your hand in a wave of finality to the three men, you departed.

“She’s really not going to submit a letter?” Sungchan asked, still watching after you as your figure faded away in the distance.

“Nope,” Chenle shook his head, reaching for the spare White Claw in Hendery’s hand. “Y/N never does.”

“You didn’t know that?” Hendery questioned the hockey player, holding the drink away from Chenle.

“Why not?”

“She’s not in it to win really.” Chenle lunged for the can as Hendery jerked it away at the last second. “Just wants to make stuff.”

“So she was lying about doing something?”

Hendery and Chenle were now running circles around Sungchan in their game of keep-away with the seltzer.

“No.”

“What do you—” Sungchan sighed, yanking the drink from Hendery’s grasp and holding it high above his own head, well out of either of their reaches. “Hey!”

Now with their attention, the hockey captain kept his arm straight up as he returned to his question, “What are you talking about, Chenle?”

“Y/N does have something pressing right now. If I tell you where she’s probably going will you give me the White Claw?” Chenle bargained.

“You’d exchange your best friend’s location for an orange White Claw? Not even watermelon?” Hendery asked incredulously.

“It’s Sungchan, someone we’ve known for like four years, not some creep off the street who’s going to wear her skin.”

“No, Chenle, you don’t have to tell me that,” Sungchan shook his head, offering the can out for either one to take.

The Literature major was able to snatch it first, jumping up in celebration, “Suck an egg, Hendery!”

“I wouldn’t—” Sungchan’s words were too late though, as Chenle had already popped the tab, and the overly-shaken seltzer exploded all over all three of them.

“Zhong Chenle, I’m going to strangle you, you little weasel!”

“Ah! Sungchan, save me!”

“I would, except you got fucking orange White Claw in my eyes and I’m fucking blind now! Goddamn!”

SATURDAY, OCTOBER 25

Rolling over in bed the next morning, you let out a big sigh and buried your face in your pillow, fully intent on going back to sleep. Saturday morning. No school, no work. Just you, your bed, and some much-needed sleep.

Then, the obnoxious blaring of your phone came from your nightstand. You groaned, reaching blindly for the object, and barely opening one eye just enough to snooze it. Damn, you really had slept in, to be woken up by your first medication alarm. Well, you weren’t going to die if you took your morning doses fifteen minutes later than normal. You were about to stuff your phone under your pillow when you briefly caught sight of your lockscreen after the alarm disappeared.

Text notification from Jung Sungchan?

Flopping onto your back and bringing your phone with you, you squinted against the harsh light of your screen to make sure you were reading that right. Yep, Sungchan had definitely texted you a few hours ago, separate from the Phantasma Phour chat. At almost 7:00 a.m., too. What the hell?

Curiosity won out over a need to sleep for fourteen more minutes, and you opened the notification.

[jung sungchan: Congrats, Y/N!]

You stared blankly at the text, your groggy mind desperately grasping around for any sort of context as to why Jung Sungchan would be texting you that at 7:00 a.m. on a Saturday. Then it struck you like lightning, and you let out an audible “Oh, duh!” as you remembered where you both were last night. Phantasmagorical Phriday. The writing contest. You and Sungchan were the top two. Dr. Son must have sent the email out already, and apparently you had won.

Normally, you wouldn’t check your school email on the weekend until Sunday night, unless you were waiting to hear back from a specific professor—and the Sunday night check was just to see if any of your Monday classes were cancelled. Lord knows you definitely wouldn’t have checked it at seven in the morning on a Saturday. You let out a snort of disbelief as you reread the timestamp on the text. But still, it was nice of him. A good show of sportsmanship, as one would expect from the hockey captain.

You quickly checked your own student email, and did in fact see an email from Dr. Son at the very top with the subject ‘PHINAL PHANTASMAGORICAL PHRIDAY RESULTS.’

‘Y/N and Sungchan:

Thank you again for your submissions. I enjoyed working with everyone these four years.

The winner this year is Y/N. Good job.

Dr. Son.’

An amused smile crept across your face at your professor’s usual blunt email style. But this was also some of the nicest feedback he’d given your writing, even when you had won Phantasmagorical Phriday in the past, or in classes that you’d taken from him over the years. Something about it truly did feel... final.

And so with an odd bittersweetness, you drafted an equally short and blunt email back to your professor.

‘Dr. Son:

Thank you for taking us on these past four years. I will never forget the experience.

Y/L/N Y/N.’

Then finally, you went back to the original reason that you were even doing this.

[you: thanks, sungchan!]

Then, your alarm went off again, making you jump out of your skin. Well, time for your morning meds.

MONDAY, OCTOBER 27

A tall figure was nearing the corner table you had claimed in one of the campus coffee shops the following Monday afternoon, and you looked up from your laptop screen, a little surprised at who it was. Jung Sungchan was standing at the end of your table, black flannel over a graphic t-shirt and dark wash jeans, one backpack strap slung over his shoulder. He had an iced coffee in one hand.

You paused the movie playing on your laptop, taking out both your headphones as you looked up at him inquisitively, “Uh hi, Sungchan.”

“Hi, Y/N.”

“Are you here to study or something?”

“Mm.” He couldn’t seem to meet your eyes. “Not really. Just grabbing a coffee and saw you. Do you mind if I sit with you for a bit?”

“Oh, sure. I’m waiting out the storm to leave,” you gestured to the near-constant downpour that had started right after you’d arrived over two hours ago. Noticing that some of Sungchan’s hair and shoulders were damp, you added, “The storm you apparently got caught in without an umbrella.”

“Oh, yeah,” he ran a hand through his hair to push some of it away from where it had been falling into his eyes.

“I don’t mind having some company while I wait.”

To your surprise, instead of sitting across from you, Sungchan plopped himself onto the same bench that you were on, one leg slung over either side so he could face you directly.

You picked up the mug in front of you, your second cup of your drink of choice. You’d gotten a refill after it became clear that the rain wasn’t letting up any time soon. Sungchan was already a third of the way done with his iced coffee as you blew over your hot drink before taking a small sip. He glanced up at you, and you felt like you were going to choke on the uncomfortable silence. So you took a gamble. Turning in your seat to face him as well, you hiked a knee up onto the bench, bringing your mug with you.

“Do you want to ask me something, Sungchan?”

The hockey player startled, having to catch himself from nearly choking on his coffee. Seems like you were right. Sungchan finally stopped sucking down his drink, setting it down on the table and wiping his palms on the knees of his jeans. “I heard that you never sent in a letter to Dr. Son. Any year you were a top two.”

“Oh, yeah, nah.”

“Why not?”

“Didn’t seem worth it,” you shrugged.

“What?”

“Every year I participated I wanted my work to stand on its own two legs. After the death of the author, that’s all that’s left, right? The work. It has to speak for itself.”

“Oh,” Sungchan nodded, then squinted his eyes, confusion entirely overtaking his features. “Wait, what?”

“Sorry, I don’t know how much Lit Theory you’ve done. Probably not a lot as a Bio major, huh? Death of the author is both literal and metaphorical. Removing what the author meant to do or say with a text from how you actually interpret the text as the reader. It’s a lot easier when they’re actually dead, but the abstract concept is practiced when they’re alive too. It’s… seeing the text as separate from authorial intent. Mind you, it’s only one tool in a literary critic’s arsenal, but I liked it for our Gothic fiction class. All the authors we read in that class, they’d been gone for a while, we had no way to know what they really meant when they wrote all that stuff. And it didn’t really matter for our purposes. All we did have was what they wrote, and that was enough for me. So the same should be enough for whoever reads the stuff I write. Even if it’s just Dr. Son.”

“Huh.”

“Though I guess I just explained myself a little, oops,” you laughed at yourself, taking another sip from your steaming mug. “I’m getting less and less mysterious by the second, aren't I?”

“Chenle made it sound like you didn’t care about winning,” Sungchan asked, cheek in hand.

You arched an eyebrow at this. “You asked Chenle about me?”

“W-Well you left so fast after we saw Dr. Son, and you two are you know...”

“Oh he’s my best friend,” you clarified for perhaps the ten-thousandth time in your life. “And while others may use any litany of swears for him and Hendery calls him a little weasel, I prefer ‘actual demon sent from Hell to kill me.’”

“What?” Sungchan’s eyes widened.

“He pushes me out of my comfort zone. In a good way, most of the time.”

“Got it. Then what do you do for him? If he’s your yang…”

“I’m entertainment?” You snorted, taking another sip of your drink. After setting it back down, you answered more sincerely, “I’m kidding. Sometimes it feels like that but I did ask him one time a couple years ago, when he was tipsy enough that I believed the words coming out of his mouth but not so drunk that it was unintelligible. ‘A safe place.’ And since then… I can see it in us. That’s my yin to him.”

He smiled softly at you. “That’s... really nice.”

“Sorry, what were you asking me before that?”

“Oh, uh— Chenle said you really didn’t care about winning Dr. Son’s contest, you just wanted to make stuff? That’s why you didn’t submit a letter.”

“Generally, sure. Winning would’ve been great, but I didn’t write what I thought Dr. Son wanted. I took all of his feedback with a grain of salt. Took stuff that I liked from him, took stuff I liked from other profs I had. Mixed and matched to make something that was mine.” You pressed your lips together, then leaned forward like you were about to tell him a secret, “I didn’t live for Phantasmagorical Phriday, Sungchan. You do know that, right?”

“Wow,” he blinked, seeming a bit disoriented. “I’ve never really thought about… you like that.”

“Well to be fair to you, you only ever knew me there and in Dr. Son’s class. Makes it hard not to think of me only through that lens. All you know about me is that I presumably like Gothic fiction and I’m a Lit major, right?”

“Right.”

“So what do you think I was doing here before you showed up?”

“…Reading Edgar Allan Poe.”

You couldn’t help but laugh at that, turning your laptop screen to show the paused movie to him, “I was watching Pacific Rim.”

His jaw literally dropped, and you felt the need to save him at least a little. Grabbing a book from your bag, you held it up, “I did come here initially to finish reading this new mystery novel I just got, but then the storm came and I had nothing else to do after I was done with the book.”

“But still… you’re so…”

“I have interests outside the one class we took together?”

“Smart,” he finished, an absolutely adorable expression of wonder across his face.

You weren’t expecting that, surprised giggles bubbling up out of you as you felt yourself growing warm under his awestruck gaze.

“Anyway, your turn,” you tapped his knee with your book before putting it back in your bag.

“For what?”

“To expand my horizons of you. All I know about you is that you’re the hockey captain, and a Bio major who took a gothic fiction class one time like three years ago. Show me you’re a multifaceted individual, too.”

“Uhm, that’s about it.”

“Oh come on, Sungchan.”

“No really, if I’m not on the ice, I’m in class; if I’m not in class, I’m with my team; and if I’m not with my team, I’m studying.”

“You’re here, right now,” you pointed out. “Last I checked I’m not on your hockey team, and we’re not studying. You have to do one thing that’s not for school or hockey. My thing was just watching Pacific Rim this one time, remember?”

“Alright…” he paused to think, fingers tapping along his thighs. “I used to play the piano.”

“Past tense, but I’ll accept it. When did you stop?”

“High school? Around when piano lessons and hockey practice started conflicting.”

“And you chose hockey?” You asked, hoping it didn’t sound judgmental. You really were just curious, trying to understand him.

“Actually, the choice was made for me.” He held his right hand out in front of you, and it was then that you saw his pinky finger was unnaturally crooked as he pointed to the digit. “I broke it in a game without even realizing it. Bruises and stiffness sometimes are normal so me and my parents didn’t know anything was up until weeks later when I was fucking up all the notes at my piano lessons because it still hurt. By the time I finally saw a doctor and got a splint on it, it set up wrong. All dexterity for piano out the window. Hockey on the other hand… guys have done a lot more with a lot less.”

You couldn’t help but curiously run a gentle fingertip over the crook in his pinky. “Does it hurt at all? Now?”

“Not really.” He went to bend and flex the fingers of his right hand, and you saw how the fifth finger didn’t curl up as much as the others. “It’s just a lot stiffer. Doesn’t bother me all that much.”

He brought his left hand up and wiggled the fingers on that hand. “Besides, I’m a lefty anyway.”

“So—apologies if this sounds like a stupid question to you, I don’t know anything about hockey—are there like, different hockey sticks for left-handed and right-handed players?”

Sungchan immediately broke into snickers, and you set down your mug to cross your arms over your chest indignantly.

“Hey, I didn’t laugh at you for not knowing what death of the author was—”

“I wasn’t making fun of you, I’m sorry,” he covered his mouth. “That was just… too cute. Uhm yes, there are lefty and righty sticks.”

You had to bite down your bottom lip to not smile at him calling you cute, and instead keep up your ruse of being offended. “I feel patronized.”

“I’m sorry, I’m sorry.” There was still a hint of a giggle in his tone, and you felt your self-righteous façade slip away as he continued, “You should come to a game, then, if you really want to broaden your horizons. The season just started. First home game is this Thursday, actually. 7:00 p.m. and students get free admission with your student ID.”

“Thursday?”

“Fridays are for basketball, Saturdays are for football.”

“Oh. Right.”

“You don’t go to those games either, do you?”

“Oh no, did I make it obvious?” You asked sarcastically.

“A bit,” Sungchan jested back.

Outside the window visible past Sungchan, the rain had let up a few minutes ago, and you briefly glanced over at your laptop for the time. Shit, your next alarm was going to be going off soon. If you left now, you should be home at roughly the right time for your next dose.

Clicking your tongue, you started packing up your things, “Well, looks like the rain’s finally let up enough to allow me safe passage. That’s my cue.”

“Oh.” The hockey player with you looked over his shoulder at the newly sunny day outside before turning back to watch you put your things away.

“Are you heading out too?” You nodded to his empty cup.

“I’ve uh, got some homework to do.”

“Guess this is where we part ways then.”

“Um, you didn’t say if you were going. To the game.”

You tucked your chin to your chest to hide your smitten smile as you put your laptop in your bag. Typically just asking for the details would’ve been taken for a yes, but Sungchan wanted extra confirmation. This boy wasn’t good for your heart, truly.

Turning back to him, you gave him a firm and nearly business-like nod. “Yeah, I’ll be there.”

A bright grin lit up his features. “Okay! Great! Uhm, feel free to bring some friends, I know just sitting in the stands by yourself might be lonely.”

“I’ll see if I can drag somebody else out. It’ll be a tall order, though. Literature majors, you know, we prefer our Shakesperean poetry readings.”

“Oh, well—”

“I’m kidding,” you laughed and stood then, slinging your tote onto your shoulder. “Honestly, have you seen Chenle at a rager? Boy can drink twice his body weight I swear. He shouldn’t, but he can.”

Before you could reach for your cup and saucer to buss your place, the hockey captain spoke up, “I’ll take care of your mug, don’t worry.”

“Oh, thanks, Sungchan! I’ll see you Thursday then.”

“Bye…” Sungchan trailed off, watching the door long after it had closed behind you.

He didn’t actually have any homework to do, and scrolled on his phone for a few minutes to make sure you were out of the area before leaving himself. He grabbed his long-empty plastic cup and your mug. His went in the trash, and as he went to put yours up with the other dishes and trays, his eyes were caught by the iridescent glitters left behind on the rim by your lip gloss.

[you: hey what are you doing thursday at 7:00?]

[chenle: depends on what weird poetry reading you’re trying to drag me to]

[you: not this time. Sungchan’s hockey game?]

[chenle: you want to go to a sporting event?? why????]

[you: i told him i’d go please don’t make me go by myself]

[chenle: did you offer to go or did he ask you to come?]

[you: he asked me to? i guess?]

[chenle: haha yeah fuck no i’m not going with you]

[you: why not????????]

[chenle: a guy invited you to one of his games? yeah no way am i coming with you]

[you: what difference does that make? you’re seriously going to make me go to a hockey game by myself?]

[chenle: i don’t know how to tell you this gently so: he wants to fuck you]

[you: bro???]

[chenle: especially hockey? caveman brain is activated, he wants to show off how big and strong he is for you over the other males]

[you: damn can’t believe i just blinked and woke up in 200 BC]

[chenle: i’m warning you, only go if you’re ready for the consequences. i.e., that]

[you: so you’re not coming with me]

[chenle: no <3]

THURSDAY, OCTOBER 30

Your chronically early self had gotten there as soon as the doors opened to spectators in order to scope out the perfect spot for yourself. Somewhere not too close to any speakers, where you could still see what was going on, hopefully somewhere Sungchan could maybe see you, but you could make a quick escape if need be. A lot of parameters, hence the need to be early. That meant that you got to watch the visiting team warm up first, and now your school’s team was warming up before the game. Finally the stands started filling up, and you had to do a double-take at the newest figure entering.

“Zhong Chenle, you lying little bitch!” You cursed out your best friend who was approaching you.

He immediately went to defend himself as he plopped down beside you, “Look, I told you I wasn’t going with you, not that I wasn’t going at all. Come on, Lit major.”

He finished off with a solid knock on your head, which didn’t hurt all that much through the beanie you were wearing, but you still slapped his arm away with a glare.

“Are you sure you want to live until graduation day? I can’t tell sometimes.”

“Half the team are Nu Chi guys,” Chenle explained his being there, then waved at one of the players skating by, 23, who gave a salute back. “Jeno.”

“Oh.” You belatedly waved too, but your friend had already turned back to warming up.

Chenle then gave you the run-down on all your friends and acquaintances’ numbers as he spotted them.

“Goalie. Sicheng, 7.” He just blocked a shot from a familiar number, 23. “Already told you, 23 is Jeno. Right wing.”

“Does he always suck?”

“Here’s Ten, number 10. Right defense. He’s never told me which came first, his nickname or his jersey number.”

Sicheng blocked Ten’s shot.

“2 is Mark, center.” His went in.

“66, Donghyuck, center alternate.” His also went in.

“24, that’s Yangyang, left wing—and a miss!”

“This doesn’t bode well that so many of our players apparently kind of suck.” You muttered to yourself, well aware that Chenle was no longer listening to you.

Finally, the tallest of the team was skating up to take a shot. “And there’s your guy, Y/N. Number 27, Jung Sungchan, left defense, captain, your dreamboat—”

“If you don’t shut up—”

“Oh! All net!”

“Isn’t that a basketball—”

“Hey, you got your earplugs, right?”

“Yep, same ones for concerts,” you confirmed, reaching into your purse for them. You hadn’t been able to take your full tote bag into the school sporting event, so you had to condense the essentials into your smaller purse.

“Good, because uh, it’ll get loud.”

“I figured.”

“Yeah, remember how half the team are Nu Chi guys?”

Your eyes widened in realization, “Oh god.”

“Here they come!”

Whipping around to face the same direction he was looking, you saw a horde of about ten to fifteen guys storming the rink, practically shaking the audience section. They were all donned in blue and orange, your university’s colors, various hockey or Nu Chi merch and paraphernalia, and you would’ve absolutely bet money that at least three of them had Nu, Chi, and Tau symbols painted across each of their chests under their shirts. Chenle leapt up to greet them all, the volume of the area immediately rising tenfold at least.

You recognized most of the Nu Chi frat brothers, they were mutual friends or acquaintances of yours through Chenle over the years, and there were even some familiar graduated faces. Lee Taeyong was the first to pick up on your presence, squeezing past Jisung—a new pledge that had glommed onto Chenle in particular—to plop down behind your seat.

“What are you doing here, Y/N?” Taeyong asked you with a tilted head. “Not exactly a good place for you, is it?”

Taeyong was frat president for your first two years of college and his last two. You had an absolute disaster at a Nu Chi party in your freshman year that he was witness to. Ever since then, when you would see him in passing at other lowkey (or as lowkey as frat functions could get) Nu Chi events that Chenle took you to during those two years, you always got the distinct impression that he was keeping an eye on you during them.

“Could be asking you the same thing, Taeyong,” you countered, fully turning around in your seat to chat with the man. “Didn’t you graduate two years ago? You don’t have anything better to do on a Thursday night? Like your taxes or something?”

“Us old-timers who peaked in college like to come back and re-live our glory days vicariously for the first home game,” he entertained your jibe, making you giggle. “And somebody’s got to be these kids’ DD. They always go at it too hard after the first game. Win or lose.”

Johnny, another graduated Nu Chi brother, spoke up then, eyes laser-focused on you, “So Chenle’s finally dragged you out to a game, Y/N?”

You immediately looked at your friend with wide eyes, knowing what the answer was, and exactly what reaction said answer would garner. Chenle, on the other hand, seemed all too thrilled to join in, turning to face you with his hands on his hips and a knowing smirk on his face.

“Oh no, I didn’t bring Y/N. She actually didn’t know I was coming at all. I found her here all on her own,” he announced to all the guys, who were hanging on to every word he said. If literally anything else were happening, you might’ve laughed at how they were all wrapped around his finger.

“No offense, but you don’t really seem like you’re interested in hockey,” Jungwoo, a junior who you’d shared a couple literature classes with, said curiously.

You sighed, giving Chenle a frank look before admitting, “Jung Sungchan invited me.”

They exploded with various hoots, hollers, whoops, and whistles.

With a shake of your head, you turned back around to look back at the players on the ice, knowing full well that there was nothing you could do alleviate—or even really participate in—the absolute chaos that was happening behind you.

Eventually, the game started. Taeyong, who had moved to sit on your other side from Chenle, quietly explained the basics of what was going on to you: positions, plays, scoring, why the referee made certain calls. Chenle was caught between cheering along with the other Nu Chi guys and rattling off hyper-specific stats on individual players to you, so you were truly grateful to have Taeyong giving you your “hockey for dummies” tips and tidbits throughout.

You kept your eyes on number 27, as Chenle had pointed him out to you earlier. The gear made it somewhat difficult for you to really recognize any distinguishing features about Sungchan himself except maybe his height, made even greater by the skates he was wearing. But as much as the intellectual side of you might’ve hated to admit it, there was definitely some part of you that very much enjoyed watching him play; that got some kind of thrill every time somebody tried to check him and he didn’t budge—or when he checked somebody and they most definitely did budge.

Before you knew it, all three periods were over, and you were jumping to your feet along with the others, cheering wildly. Your school won by a landslide.

“Oh, they’re going to get plastered,” Taeyong murmured from beside you fondly.

All of you had been in the cheering section milled around in the ice rink lobby waiting for the team to get out of the locker room.

“That was fun,” you declared to Chenle as the two of you stood off to the side from the larger group of loud Nu Chi brothers.

“Yeah, you didn’t seem like you were listening to a word I said.”

“Because you were telling me sports stats, Chenle, I’m surprised my brain didn’t start bleeding out of my ears.”

“Well I’m surprised your nose wasn’t bleeding watching your dreamboat Jung Sungchan beat up all those other guys,” Chenle teased. “200 BC called, they want their cavewoman back—”

You lunged at him, managing to get an arm around his throat in the beginnings of a questionably friendly chokehold, “I’m going to kill you, you little—”

“No murder in the rink!” Came the chastising voice of Johnny Suh from afar, and you reluctantly let him go.

The players started streaming out of the locker room soon after, and you nervously scanned the crowd for Sungchan. Chenle was easily dragged into the chaos of everyone celebrating, leaving you standing off to the side waiting.

Finally, you spotted him. Sungchan was wearing a simple pair of black sweatpants and black hoodie with your school’s name embroidered across the front, his hair a bit mussed up. He was deep in conversation with Sicheng, brow furrowed. The goalie’s features were similarly serious as they gestured to each other. You stayed put, not wanting to interrupt. Taeyong had mentioned that Sicheng was sort of like a co-captain, you guessed they might be doing something important.

Then you’d suddenly made eye contact with Sicheng, who was facing you. He gave you a casual head nod, and said something to Sungchan you couldn’t quite make out. The captain whipped around, a bright smile coming to his face as soon as his eyes landed on you. You lifted your hand to give him a small wave and smile back.

Sungchan quickly ended his conversation with Sicheng, making his way over to where you were standing by a wall.

“Hey, Y/N,” he was still smiling down at you, his eyes practically glittering even in the harsh fluorescents of the lobby. “So you really made it out.”

“I said I would.” You fidgeted with the straps of your bag.

“And…?”

You tilted your head, “And?”

“What did you think? You know, are your horizons super broad now or something?”

You couldn’t help but laugh. His phrasing was funny, but also remembering how he played and was now giving you his undivided attention admittedly made your chest flutter.

“It was good, yeah. I had fun,” you confirmed. “You uhm, you played really good. I think.”

“Thanks,” Sungchan scratched at the back of his neck, and you swore the tips of his ears were pink, but that could’ve just been the cold. “Did you drive yourself?”

“Walked, my apartment is close.”

“Uh, so, we all go out to a bar after games usually. It’s kind of a sleazy dive bar, and I know it’s a Thursday, but I’d really like for you to come. I’ll buy you a dr—”

“I’m really sorry, Sungchan, but I can’t. I’d love to, but…” You trailed off, wracking your brain for some concise way to explain why he couldn’t buy you a drink.

“Don’t worry, it’s okay,” Sungchan assured you, and you winced at the way the hopeful smile fell from his face.

An awkward silence descended over the two of you. You were chewing on your bottom lip, desperately trying to think of something to say to gloss over your rejecting his offer. You didn’t want to end the conversation on such a sour note, nor did you want to leave him just yet either. Stealing a glance at the clock above you on the wall, however, you knew that you’d need to be going soon anyway.

The hockey player was the one who ended up breaking the silence, “Can I walk you home? It’s late for you to be out by yourself.”

A relieved smile overtook your features, and you hoped he could see the sincerity in it, “Sure, thank you. Let me let Chenle know he’s relieved of his man-shaped friend duties for the night, and we can go.”

You got on your tiptoes to look around for your friend, finally spotting him in a headlock by Jeno, with Yangyang giving him a noogie. They all seemed to be laughing, so it didn’t look too much like bullying that you felt the need to intervene.

“You know, I’ll just text him, actually,” you chuckled, bringing out your phone to do just that.

“Man-shaped friend duties?” Sungchan questioned as the automatic doors parted for the two of you.

“His words, not mine,” you snorted. “But you know, making sure a woman doesn’t walk places by herself at night, that kind of stuff. Having a man just with her makes her safer, as fucked up as that is. Chenle corrected it to be man-shaped since he’s not the manly protective type.”

“I see.”

“But it looks like you’re on man-shaped friend duties for tonight, Sungchan.”

As soon as the words were out of your mouth, you wanted to stuff them back in. Friend. God, that was absolutely not what was happening here and you knew it. Chenle’s previous texts flashed across your mind. You obviously knew why Sungchan would’ve wanted to invite you to his game, and you said yes purposefully. Friend. Foot, meet mouth.

Sungchan blinked down at you, but seemed to take it in stride, “Of course, Y/N. Anytime you need a man-shaped person at your side, just call me up. I’ll bring my hockey stick.”

He patted his gear bag that was slung over his shoulder, making you giggle.

“I’ll keep you on speed dial, then.”

It was a short walk to your apartment, and you and Sungchan mostly talked about the game. You asked him a couple questions that Taeyong hadn’t covered during it— which Chenle might’ve, except you had tuned him out. And as you came to a stop at your front door, you didn’t yet fish your keys from your bag.

“How often do you have away games?” You asked.

“They’re usually about half,” Sungchan shrugged. “It’s a bit annoying missing classes, and the bus is kind of rank on the trip back.”

“Ew…” You wrinkled your nose.

“But they’re always a lot of fun.”

“So, uhm, when’s your next home game?”

His face brightened as he seemed to realize what exactly you were asking, “Next week. Same time.”

“Okay, cool.” You bit your lip.

“Cool,” he echoed.

You looked up at Sungchan, catching his eyes for a heart stopping moment. Both of you were standing on your welcome mat, he was close enough that you could catch a faint whiff of the detergent from his clothes—a college athlete with freshly washed clothes? You might already be in love—and watched his Adam’s apple bob up and down as he swallowed. You had the urge to grab him by the front of his hoodie and yank him—

A garish, blaring ringing going off interrupted your split-second pros and cons weighing that had been going on. Sungchan startled at the noise, reminding you very much of a baby moose in the moment. You groaned as you reached into your bag for your phone.

“Oh my god, stop it,” you hissed under your breath as you snoozed the alarm that was going off on there. Once it was quiet, you looked back up at the man with you sheepishly, “Sorry about that.”

He joked, “Curfew?”

You laughed lightly, “No, just a reminder for something I have to do after I get home. It’s fine.”

“Well, before you go do that, can I ask you something?”

“Yeah, of course.”

“Nu Chi and the team are hosting a joint Halloween party this year, and I’d really like it if I could see you there.”

“When?”

“Tomorrow, people will probably start showing up after like ten, eleven. It’s at the Nu Chi house, theirs is bigger than ours.”

“Fascinating phrasing,” you snickered.

“I know this is last minute, so I get if you have other plans or something.”

“I… can probably swing by for a bit, yeah,” you nodded.

“Great!” Sungchan beamed. “Oh, it is a costume party, by the way.”

“Costume?” You arched a brow. “What’ll you being going as? And please don’t say hockey player.”

He rubbed the back of his neck, “Definitely not… that would be lame…”

“You were planning on going as a hockey player, weren’t you?”

“Me and Mark have been putting all our spare time into planning this thing, I haven’t had any time to think about a costume.”

“Well you’ve given me 24-hour notice for a costume, so this is your 24-hour notice for one too. When I find you at the Nu Chi house tomorrow, I do not want to see a hockey jersey, Jung Sungchan. Any sports player is off-limits, understand?” You poked his chest with finality.

“Yes, ma’am.” He nodded in assent.

Just then, your alarm went off again, and this time you jumped out of your skin. Apparently, another 5 minutes had elapsed. With a sigh, you reached into your bag for your keys.

“I should let you go do that thing,” Sungchan chuckled. “Goodnight, Y/N.”

“Goodnight, Sungchan,” you unlocked your front door. “See you tomorrow.”

Sitting at your kitchen table a couple minutes later, you were looking down at the vitals displayed on the screen of your blood pressure cuff.

“Jung Sungchan…” you muttered to yourself as you added the reading to your digital record, noting how the line graph jumped up with the new data.

FRIDAY, OCTOBER 31

“You agreed to go to a frat party?” Chenle’s eyes were bugging out of his head as he sat across a high top in the dining hall from you. You two were grabbing a quick lunch between classes, and doing an obligatory catch-up on how your short but sweet walk with Sungchan went last night. “Do you remember what happened last time, Y/N?”

“Hard to forget,” you snorted.

“And yet it seems you did, somehow, lost in dreamboat Jung Sungchan’s eyes.”

You threw a fry from his plate at him, “It wasn’t like that!”

He ducked, letting it sail by his head and hit the wall behind him.

“Then what was it like?”

“It was more like a big puppy that I couldn’t say no to and—”

You were cut off by loud gagging noises from your friend, and went to kick him under the table, but missed and hit his chair leg instead. He still got the message, quieting down to let you continue.

“I told him I’d be able to just pop in for a bit. I’ll be in and out before it’ll get too bad.”

“Famous last words...”

“Hold on, LeLe,” you grabbed your friend’s arm to stop him on the sidewalk in front of the Nu Chi Tau frat house.

Taking another look into your tote bag, you made sure once again that you had everything you could possibly need tonight. Medications, snacks, water bottle, ear plugs, the usual. After closing the snaps on the bag, you nervously fidgeted with the hem of your costume. Generic witch, it was the last thing the costume store had in your size that wasn’t garishly scary. You understood well and good how college Halloween parties worked: you had to look hot, not terrifying. Not to mention that those horror show costumes were also much pricier than your “Sexy Witch” one.

“You look cute, Y/N,” Chenle reassured you, readjusting your witch hat for you. “Jung Sungchan won’t know what hit him.”

Chenle, on the other hand, was an almost scarily realistic zombie. If you hadn’t spent an ungodly amount of time hanging out on his bathroom counter this afternoon watching him apply the SFX makeup himself, you would’ve thought he had hired a professional makeup artist to do it. He’d always gone ham on Halloween since you two were kids, ever since he figured out how to make a Transformers costume out of cardboard boxes in primary school. You usually participated in partner costumes with him, but you really didn’t want him to make you a gross-looking zombie tonight.

“Thanks.” You gave him as confident a smile as you could muster.

Resecuring your grip on your go bag, you started up the walkway to the house with your friend.

You had been able to faintly hear the thumping bass of the music from outside, but once inside, you were almost immediately hit by a wall of music. Just inside the front door you were faced with a mass of people in bright costumes, flashing lights, corny Halloween decorations of cobwebs, spiders, ghosts, and pumpkins all over the walls.

Chenle looked over at you expectantly, “Y/N?”

“I couldn’t find my concert earplugs, only my noise canceling. I won’t be able to hear anybody unless they’re shouting at me if I put those in,” you replied, having to raise your voice to make sure he heard you. “I’ll be fine.”

“Okay…” He sighed and grabbed your elbow. “Come on, let’s find a quieter spot in the house then.”

You gave him a thumbs up and bright grin, already feeling your ears acclimate to the loudness. You could totally do this. It was one night, and you were just going to see Sungchan for a bit then go. Pop in then back out, just like you said.

You didn’t have to wait long to spot Sungchan. Chenle had barely tugged you into the next room over from the small foyer when a familiar head was visible over the crowd, his bright smile focused on you.

“Hey, Y/N!” Sungchan grinned down at you. He was dressed in a suit and tie, what you were guessing was probably his only set, and his hair was parted to one side, styled off of his face. The tie had already been loosened, and the tuck of his dress shirt wasn’t so crisp.

“Hi, Sungchan,” you smiled up at him, amazed that you could hear anything over both the music and now your heart beating so loudly in your ears.

“So you did find a costume.”

“Oh, yeah,” you messed with the hem of your skirt. “Last one at the shop.”

“You look great.” He was still beaming down at you, and you could feel your skin growing warmer. “I’m really glad you could make it.”

“Thanks. Uhm, so what are you? Funeral director?”

“What? No, I’m—” His sentence stopped in its tracks as he looked down at the front of his suit jacket. He started patting his empty breast pocket, then other jacket pockets, then pants pockets, then looked around on the floor. “Fuck.”

“What?” You looked around under your feet, but weren’t able to see anything other than the usual party debris. “Did you lose something?”

Sungchan looked back up at you, sheepishly rubbing the back of his neck. “Well, I was about to say that I’m Mulder from the X-Files. But I’ve apparently lost my fake FBI badge. So it looks like I’m a funeral director now.”

You giggled. “Maybe you can be Mulder when he retires and buys a funeral home.”

“Yeah, the perfect costume. Won’t take too long to explain to anybody, they’ll get it immediately,” he laughed.

“Hey, I’m just glad you didn’t wear a jersey.”

“I’m nothing if not a man of my word.”

“Oh, have you seen Chenle’s makeup by the—” But when you turned around to gesture to your friend, you found that he had disappeared, leaving you and the hockey captain all alone.

“Chenle?” Sungchan asked with a tilted head. “I didn’t even realize he was here yet.”

You shook your head fondly at your friend’s antics. Well, you’d have to thank him later.

“He must have gone to get a drink or something. Either way, it seems I’ve been abandoned.”

“Well, you can come hang out with me and some of the guys, if you want?” He offered.

“Yeah, I’d really like that,” you nodded, readjusting your bag to make sure it was pulled in tight to your body.

Sungchan led you through the frat house with a hand on the small of your back, and you snuck a glance up at him when he went to greet someone who had called his name as you passed by. He kept you tucked into his side as he slowed to give the guy a friendly slap on the shoulder. As soon as Sungchan had stopped to say hello, two more people appeared seemingly from nowhere, eagerly greeting him as well. You faintly recognized one, Jisung, a new Nu Chi pledge. He’d been at the hockey game you went to, and always found Chenle at Nu Chi events that you tagged along to. You looked up at Sungchan’s animated, handsome face again as he continued talking.

“This is Y/N.” Sungchan’s voice suddenly pulled you into the conversation. You snapped your focus down from his face to the other three that were in front of you, and realized that they all definitely knew that you’d been staring.

“Oh, hi.” You gave the three boys a nervous smile.

“Y/N, this is Jisung, Shotaro, and Renjun. Jisung and Shotaro are Nu Chi pledges, Renjun’s a sophomore brother, and he’s—you’re a Literature major, right, Renjun?”

“Yes.” One of them nodded.

“Renjun’s a Literature major too, Y/N,” Sungchan finished the introduction.

“Cool, cool,” you nodded. It had been Shotaro that called Sungchan over in the first place, you were pretty sure.

“Anyway, thanks for the offer, guys, but I already promised Hyuck I would, so we’ve got to go.”

Sungchan ushered you away to the tune of a chorus of disappointed groans from the three boys, and you wracked your brain to see if you could recall hearing any sort of proposition from them. But nope, between the loud music and your prior lack of attention to the conversation, you had nothing.

“What did they want?” You gave up and finally asked Sungchan.

“Beer pong. Hope you don’t mind that I declined. I’ve already had a couple and am not looking to get wasted quite yet.”

“Oh, no, not at all,” you shook your head. Thank god you didn’t have to deal with that yet. “Not really my thing anyway. Terrible hand-eye coordination.”

Sungchan seemed about to say something when someone walked by you with an exceptionally pungent cologne. The whiff shot directly to your head like a bullet, the sharp pain making you wince and hiss. It took everything in you not to cover your nose like Edward Cullen and instead shift to breathing through your mouth for a few moments.

“Y/N? You okay?” Sungchan’s voice was clearly concerned.

The sharp pain was gone just a couple moments after it had registered, and you opened your eyes up again, giving him a reassuring smile. “Yeah, I’m fine. Sorry, don’t know what that was.”

“Okay, good.” He squeezed your shoulder before dropping his hand back down to your back and continuing your trek through the Nu Chi house.

You and Sungchan finally made it to a room adjacent to the main living room, where there were a couple of beat-up old couches and lots of Nu Chi Tau paraphernalia. The bass of the music playing in the next room over would occasionally make the picture frames and plaques on the walls rattle, and you could hear every word of the songs crystal clear, even though the room that you were in was packed to the brim with partygoers as well. Sungchan stopped you at a group of people gathered around one of the couches, tapping the shoulders of two of them who had their backs to you. Donghyuck and Hendery turned around, immediately parting to make room for the both of you in the group upon seeing you.

Almost everyone in the group was familiar to you either as friends or acquaintances. Your social circle was big thanks to Chenle, who was friends with practically the entire hockey team and Nu Chi house, despite being a member of neither. But now you didn’t have your best friend at your side, just Sungchan and your tote bag, both of which you were keeping close to you.

“Oh shit, Y/N!” Hendery grinned, pulling you into a one-armed hug of greeting. “Damn, it really is you!”

“Yeah, I’m a witch, not a ghost, Hendery,” you retorted jokingly. He was dressed as Prince Eric, if you weren’t mistaken.

“Well, when Sungchan said you were coming, some of us were a bit... skeptical.”

Someone dressed as Venom cut in from Hendery’s other side sharply, “No, I believe you said ‘never in a million fucking years, loverboy.’”

The rest of the group erupted in tipsy snickers and ‘ooh’s, and you felt Sungchan jostle a little as someone had presumably given him a teasing shove.

“Alright, guys. You can cut it out now,” Sungchan spoke over them authoritatively. He then looked down to you, features softening. “Sorry. Anyway, this is Donghyuck, he’s on the team and in Nu Chi—”

He pointed to the boy right next to him, wearing a very classic vampire costume splattered with a little bit of fake blood or fruit punch (you couldn’t tell in the poor lighting), and you wondered if he had also gone to a Halloween store last-minute like you. You knew him both from the game, and from a couple times you’d seen him with Chenle outside of frat or hockey events.

“Mark, frat president and he’s on the hockey team—” He was next to Donghyuck, dressed as Spiderman. You were already familiar with Mark, both from the game, and a group project in a class last year. You wondered if Mark remembered that.

“Ten, hockey and Nu Chi—” Ten was reclined on the couch, a top hat that had presumably been on his head earlier now resting on his propped up knee. Between that and his eyepatch, he clearly was dressed as some character that you couldn’t identify in the moment. You knew Ten outside of hockey, the frat, or even Chenle. He was a Lit major, so you had shared classes and study groups over the years. He raised a friendly hand in greeting.

“Sicheng, my co-captain and he’s in Nu Chi, too—” He was on the couch with Ten, sequestered to one corner as his teammate was taking up most of the space with his legs. Sicheng was dressed up as an angel, fake wings, little halo, and all. And you knew Sicheng through Ten, they’d been roommates since freshman year and could often be found together around campus. He gave you a nod of familiarity.

“Dejun, Nu Chi—” Sungchan had finally reached the man who was dressed as Venom.

“And you of course, unfortunately, know Hendery, Nu Chi.”

“Oh, boo, Sungchan,” Hendery stuck his tongue out at the captain.

You smiled and nodded a little bit at everyone else, but you were finding it hard to concentrate with the music in the background. Did it really need to be that loud?

“Y/N?” The sound of your name snapped your focus up, and you looked around for the source.

A few of the guys had gone back to their own conversations. Sungchan was looking down at you, head tilted inquisitively. Presumably he had been to the one to say your name.

“Oh, sorry,” you tried to give a nonchalant chuckle, but it was getting harder and harder to even articulate yourself with all the stimulation. “The music...”

“Oh!” Sungchan perked up at this. “Do you want to go dance?”

He was offering a hand out to you, and you stared down at it, mouth opening and closing as your brain felt like it was moving through sludge. You quite literally could not process what that string of words actually meant for a good second, and then it took even longer for you to even tie together the right way for you to respond. Cognitive fatigue. Oh this was not good. You squeezed your eyes shut, then open.

You again gave him an apologetic smile. “I’m sorry. I’m- I’m kind of light-headed right now. Could you get me something to drink?”

His features immediately turned concerned. “Of course. Do you need to sit down or a ride h—”

“Can you just get me a drink?” Your brain was stuck in a perpetual loop now that it had locked onto one task. It took all of your energy just to regulate your tone enough to keep your voice (hopefully) as sweet as possible, despite the fact that you had cut him off.

“Of course. I’ll be right back.” He squeezed your upper arm reassuringly before taking off.

Your eyes were fixated on the spot where he had just been, your vision seeming to continuously zoom in and past your head. Squeezing your eyes shut once more, you took a deep breath through your mouth to try to recenter yourself. But it didn’t help any. Your head felt like a balloon that someone was overinflating, and you knew exactly what was coming next. You swallowed thickly, taking a second to look through the crowd. Nope, you couldn’t wait for Sungchan. Not like you could even verbalize much of anything right now. You had to go take your medication.

So you hurried into the crowd, clutching your tote bag to your chest like your life depended on it—which it really did. Mumbling ‘excuse me’s to everyone you shouldered, bumped into, or stepped on the toes of, you finally made it to a door that you were pretty sure was a bathroom. You tried the handle first, and when it gave in, you still knocked as you opened it, just in case. It was miraculously empty. Maybe there really was a God. Then, the balloon started to deflate, the pressure in your head inverted, becoming a harsh, squeezing pain instead. Nope, nope, definitely not a God. Or at least not a benevolent one.

You locked the door behind you with clumsy fingers and shuffled over to the sink. The countertop was in good enough condition for you to toss your bag up there and start rooting around through it. Bottle after bottle after bottle, then you finally secured the right two. You shook out a pill from one, then a pill from the other. The lights above the mirror were becoming more insufferable by the second. You cracked open the fresh bottle of water you had stored in your bag too, and knocked both pills back in one big gulp.

Tossing the water back into your bag, you could fucking finally flip the switch and turn the lights in the bathroom off. After feeling your way along the wall, you eventually found the bathtub, and sat yourself down. The music was somewhat muffled in here, and you figured this was going to be the darkest room in the whole Nu Chi house. Right now, your plan was to wait in here for your medication to kick in and hopefully stop this migraine before it really got going. Then you could make your great escape, and send Sungchan some bullshit apology text later. After tossing your witch hat to the ground vaguely beside your bag, you gently rested your head against the cool tile of the shower with a sigh. Chenle was right, you shouldn’t have come. Cynically, you thought that you should have timed it. See how long you lasted before you got a migraine. You’d be surprised if that was even 15 minutes.

Stupid, stupid, stupid.

Sungchan returned to the group with your requested drink in hand and another for himself, frowning when he immediately noticed your absence. “Hey, where’d Y/N go?”

“Oh, shit, uh…” Mark looked around with a baffled look on his face. “No clue dude, she was just here a second ago.”

“I’m going to go find her. Here.” He shoved both drinks into Hendery’s hands.

“Sungchan, come on, take a hint, man,” Donghyuck sighed, patting the taller boy’s shoulder sympathetically.

“What?”

“She asked you to get her something to drink and then slipped away when nobody was looking.”

“Y/N’s not like that.”

“And denial’s a river in Egypt.”

“No, she hasn’t been feeling well all night. I think. I’m going to go look for her.”

“So you’re admitting that you make her physically ill.”

“Dude, you’re just asking to get your shit rocked, you know that, right?” Ten warned him.

“Hey, I’m standing up for women—”

Mark cut him off, “Hyuck, you’re on your own if Sungchan decides to fuck your shit up. I don’t care if you’re my little, I’m not—”

“Oh, wahhh, my big strong big won’t protect me.”

“Christ, I swear he’s only had like four shots and a couple…”

His friends’ voices quickly faded into the din of the party as Sungchan pushed through the crowd. He couldn’t spot you, but found maybe the next best thing.

“Hey, Chenle.” He grabbed him by the elbow, turning him away from the arm wrestling competition between Jeno and Yangyang that he was spectating. Or, he at least hoped this was Chenle, it was a bit hard to tell with the zombie makeup.

“Hey, Romeo!” Chenle greeted him jovially, punching him in the shoulder over-zealously. Okay, definitely him.

“Have you seen Y/N? In the past like, five minutes or so?”

“You lost her?” The zombie asked angrily, cheerful mood immediately soured.

“Uh, yes? Sorry?”

“No, I’m not pissed at you,” he shook his head at Sungchan’s apology. “You go check the bathrooms, I’ll look outside. Don’t bother calling her, she’s not going to pick up.”

“What’s—”

But Chenle was already gone.

You weren’t sure how long you had been sitting in there for, but you could feel some of the overstimulation from the party beginning to slide off of you. Which could be either a good or bad thing. Cognitive fatigue was usually a prodrome and postdrome for you. Regaining some clarity could either mean that your medication was working and the migraine was going away, or you were about to enter the proper migraine phase. The fact that the pain hadn’t gone away was worrying. But at least it was dark, and relatively quiet. Oh, quiet... you could put in your earplugs now too.

Just as you had gone to grab for your bag, there was a knock at the bathroom door. You froze. Shit.

“Occupied!” You yelled out hesitantly to them, wincing at the loudness of your own voice. Okay, ow.

The person knocked again, harder.

“Seriously! Busy in here! Puking my brains out!” You yelled even louder, hoping they got the fucking idea this time. There was no way you wanted to have to actually get up and deal with a drunk partygoer that needed to piss and/or puke.

“Y/N? That you?” A familiar voice came through the door. “It’s Sungchan, can I come in?”

“Oh, sure, hold on.” You clambered out of the tub as carefully as you could in the dim lighting coming from under the door.

Against your better judgment, you turned one set of lights on in the bathroom, then cracked the bathroom door open. Sungchan was in fact on the other side, and you stepped back to let him in. He looked around the bathroom, worry on his face.

You shut the door behind him, saying sheepishly, “So, I was lying about the puking my brains out.”

“But you don’t look okay.” He peered down at your face as you were still wincing against the bright lights. “You didn’t drink anything tonight, what’s wrong?”

You went to sit on the side of the tub, feeling a pain in your eyes now. You gestured to the light switch. “Can you turn that light off?”

“Uh, okay…” He obliged, and the room was dim once again.

Your eyes adjusted quickly, and you could still see the general outline of everything in the room. Sitting back in the tub, you pulled your knees to your chest. Well, no chance for your great escape now. Sungchan climbed into the dry tub with you, facing you. He didn’t fit great in the small space, all gangly limbs, and your knees bumped into each other. But he sat there with you quietly.

“I’ve got a migraine coming on, I had to get somewhere quiet and dark and take my meds.” You told him bluntly, opting to just take the plunge. Not like you could even attempt flowery language at the moment anyway. Sure, some of your speech capabilities were coming back now that there was less sensory input, but you weren’t going to be doing any soliloquies tonight.

“Oh, I’m sorry,” Sungchan said quietly. “Do you want me to leave?”

“No, no. I actually- I actually don’t want to be alone right now, if that’s okay?” You surprised yourself with your answer.

“Yeah, of course.” He said reassuringly. “Do you want me to take you home?”

“I might not have drank but you did. I’ll be okay here, for the most part. I’m the one who came knowing that I get sound-induced migraines.”

“Wait, really?”

“Mm, yeah,” you pinched the bridge of your nose to alleviate some of the tension there for a moment. “Remember when I said Chenle pushes me out of my comfort zone in a good way most of the time?”

“Right.”

“One of the times it wasn’t... good was when he got an invite to Nu Chi’s Halloween party our freshman year, dragged me with him. And he always means the best when he does stuff like that. I hadn’t made any new friends at college, meanwhile he had a bunch, including some of the pledges at Nu Chi.”

“How he got the invite.”

“Exactly.” You needed to take a pause, resting your head against the cool tile again. After a few deep breaths, you pushed on in the story. “Anyway, we’d been there for a couple hours when the loudness and the music and everything finally got to me and I got a migraine. I had my go bag on me, and went to what I thought was an empty corner of the house to take my meds. But a couple other people saw me knocking back pills and wanted some. My head was hurting like a bitch, and they were trying to grab them from me and anyway, I spilled a bunch of them all over the floor, drenched myself with my water and their beer, and elbowed a dude and gave him a bloody nose.”

“Holy shit,” Sungchan breathed out.

You opened and closed your jaw a couple times to try to relax the muscles and joints there. “I couldn’t even open my eyes because my head hurt so bad. Chenle told me later I was screaming and Taeyong wanted to call an ambulance until Chenle ran up and explained what was happening. They put me, Chenle, and Jeno—turns out that’s whose nose I broke—in Taeyong’s room in the house for the rest of the night. Neither Chenle nor I were in any shape to drive ourselves home.”

“Wait is that how you met Jeno?”

“Yeah, and it turns out he wasn’t one of the ones trying to take my pills, he was trying to break up me and the people who were. Collateral damage.” You recounted it regrettably.

“When Jeno found out I’d invited you, he told me he’d keep his room clear in case we needed it. I thought he was just being a dick.” Sungchan sounded like he was having an epiphany. “Y/N, do you think you’ll be okay to move up a floor?”

The bass was thudding through the door, and you knew that if you stayed here when you transitioned into the throes of however bad this migraine fully got, you’d regret it. Grabbing your earplugs from your bag and putting them in, you gave him a thumbs-up and attempted a smile, but you knew it came out like more of a wince.

Sungchan kept you between him and the wall as you moved through the Nu Chi house, casting as much of a shadow against the garishly flashing lights as possible. Even through your earplugs, the music was raucous, people were practically screaming at each other, and you gripped one hand around his arm and the other onto his suit jacket to keep yourself balanced and to not lose him. When you got to the stairs, he fully wrapped an arm around your shoulders to jerk you out of the way of a drunk Nu Chi member stumbling his way down, and kept it there the rest of the way up. The noise was squeezing around your head like a vice, and you shut your eyes tight at the top of the stairs for a moment in an attempt to clear your head.

Sungchan’s voice was right beside your ear, muffled through the earplugs, “We’re almost there, Y/N, I’m sorry, come on.”

You were vaguely aware of the man with you feeling around on the top of a doorway before jiggling a doorhandle, and finally you were in a blissfully dark and quiet-ish room. Your head definitely hurt more than before, and you practically collapsed onto the bed.

“He was kind enough to stuff all his dirty clothes in the closet,” Sungchan muttered.

You managed a strangled chuckle at that, dropping your go bag onto the floor beside the bed. A moment of silence passed, and you could hear Sungchan awkwardly shifting his weight between his feet at the doorway.

“Sungchan,” you said his name, then patted the empty half of the bed beside you. “You can sit. I know Jeno doesn’t have any other furniture in here besides the bed and his PlayStation.”

“He probably only has a bedframe because it came with the room.”

You snickered, but were cut off by the squeezing pain turning to a sharp, stabbing pain behind your left eye, “Oh fuck!”

“Y/N?!” Sungchan was right beside you, and you felt the bed dip as he sat down beside you.

“Sorry, sorry, it feels like I’m getting an icepick lobotomy! Jesus!” You hissed, cupping a hand over your left eye as if that were actually going to do anything. “It’s normal, I’m fine. Relatively.”

“Okay…”

Still clutching your eye, you rolled onto your side and brought your knees up towards your chest. You blindly fumbled towards the head of the bed, and felt a pillow being pressed into your hand.

“Thanks,” you muttered, tucking it under your head.

“Do you want to lay under the covers?” Sungchan whispered.

“Do they smell like Jeno’s washed them in the past week?”

He laughed breathily at that, “Miraculously they do. I think he was planning on getting laid.”

“He gave up getting his dick wet for me. Jeno’s a real one,” you mumbled, feeling the covers that you were laying on top of being pulled out from under you.

Sungchan gently brought the sheet up to your shoulder, then a blanket too. The stabbing pain behind your eye was still there, and your stomach filled with dread as you acknowledged that your acute medication wasn’t going to be working this time. This was going to be a full-blown migraine, and who knew how many hours it would last.

“Thank you.”

“Is there anything else you need? Water?”

“No. Just uh, let me know when two hours have passed, I can take another dose of my meds that aren’t fucking working then.”

“Oh. Will do.”

You opened and closed your jaw, letting out a distinct groan. Another few minutes passed. Or, you think it was a few minutes, you couldn’t really check your phone for the time.

“Sungchan.”

“Yes?”

“You don’t have to stay. I’m sure the party is a lot more fun.”

“Do you want me to go?”

“…No.”

“I want to stay. I’m not going to have any fun out there knowing that you’re in all in this pain all alone in here.”

You squinted your right eye open, and had to crane your neck to look up at where Sungchan was sitting against the headboard. He had taken his suit jacket and shoes off at some point, now just in a rumpled dress shirt, loosened tie, slacks, and socks. He held your eye contact steadily, head tilted slightly and a frown across his handsome features.

Reaching your unoccupied hand up towards him, he watched it with confusion.

“What do you need? Your bag?”

“No.” You grabbed his hand, giving it a light squeeze.

“Oh.” An adorably radiant grin was on his face now instead.

SATURDAY, NOVEMBER 1

Sungchan knew you’d finally fallen asleep when you stopped muttering swears and curses under your breath, the pained expression fell from your face, and your hand that was holding his went limp. He could still hear the party going strong outside of Jeno’s bedroom, and a glance at his phone told him it was just after one in the morning. He had no want to rejoin his friends, to leave you.

He took his tie all the way off, thinking to himself that if you were feeling better, you might have joked that he looked like Mulder the off-duty funeral director. And he would’ve laughed and watched the cute way the corners of your mouth quirked up when you said something that you thought was funny. He set the tie down with his shoes on the floor beside the bed.

Careful to stay on top of the covers that you were sleeping under, Sungchan shifted until he was laying down too, pillow tucked under his head, facing you on his side, hand still holding yours.

Like usual, you didn’t remember falling asleep, but you did remember shutting your eyes tight and wishing really hard for your head to stop hurting so bad. Or to die. Whichever the Universe felt like granting. And judging by the fact that you were now waking up without a migraine, it seemed like the former.

The first thing you were aware of before you even opened your eyes was that you felt like shit. Sure, your head didn’t hurt anymore, but jeez the morning after wasn’t much better. Tired, achy, and your brain felt like TV static.

The second thing that you were aware of, after opening your eyes, was Jung Sungchan just a few inches from your face. He was still asleep, soft bursts of air passing from his lips and mussing up strands of hair that were falling into his eyes. You didn’t quite have enough in you to coo over his bedhead, but you could give half of a fond smile as you pushed yourself into a sitting position, running a sleepy hand over one side of your face.

Only one of your earplugs was still in your ears, and you looked around the bedsheets for the other one. After securing it, you scooted over to the edge of the bed to put the plugs back into your carrying case before rolling back over and pulling the blankets over you again. You deserved this, honestly. Sleeping in late, a comfy bed, warm blankets, a cute boy next to you, nothing to—

Your happy thoughts were ripped away by the sound of a loud alarm. You shot up, scrambling towards your tote bag to grab your phone from the depths of it and turn your goddamn alarm off before it woke Sungchan up.

“Mm?”

Too late.

Sheepishly, you looked over at him, “Sorry…”

“‘S okay,” he mumbled, flopping onto his back and rubbing a hand over his face. “How’s your head?”

“Better. A lot better, thanks.”

“Good, good.” He yawned, “Morning, by the way.”

“Good morning.”

His eyes were closed as he laid there, a hand resting on his chest, and you weren’t sure if he had fallen back asleep.

“…Sungchan?”

“Hm?”

Taking his inquisitive tone as a sign that you could keep talking, you said, “Uhm, that was the first time I’ve had anybody around for one my migraines in a while. I’m sorry if it was… well, I don’t know. What was it like for you?”

He opened his eyes, rolling onto his side to face you and tucking a hand under his cheek, “Oh, uh, I mean, I wasn’t quite worried, since you seemed like you knew exactly what was happening, you know? But still, I… I was wishing there was more I could do. It was weird knowing that you were in pain but not being able to see where it hurt.”

“I should’ve figured that might be upsetting. Sorry about all that.”

“No, Y/N, it's okay. I get it, you just wanted someone with you when you were hurting.”

“Yeah, yeah, I did,” you nodded, curling one of your hands into a fist in your lap, digging your nails into your palm in an attempt to not cry at how easily he saw right into you.

“I was more than happy to sit with you.”

“I’ve had these stupid migraines for years now. Tried every treatment in the book, been on every regiment. And my friends and family, they don’t treat me like I’m made of glass or anything, which I’m grateful for. Everyone in my life knows I’m a pro at it all: I’ve got my go bag, all my meds, my alarms, I’ve been going to doctors’ appointments, testing, everything for years. But like... they still hurt. The migraines still fucking hurt.” Your voice cracked over the word, and your nails dug in deeper. “And I just… think they forget that part sometimes? I don’t know, I guess they hear the word ‘migraine’ thousands of times over the years it sort of loses its meaning. They kind of forget what one actually is. But it hurts Sungchan, my head just hurts for hours or even days, sometimes so bad I throw up from the pain. I can’t do anything but lay in bed in the dark and cry. Last night’s wasn’t that bad but still… thank you. I needed for it to all be real to somebody.”

Sungchan pushed up into a sitting position, and through your watery vision you could see that his brows were furrowed. You followed where his gaze was locked, and watched as he gently unfurled your fingers. You used the thumb of your other hand to rub at the divots that your nails had left in your skin.

“The migraines are why I’ve been all weird, by the way.” You added, trying to ignore the strain in your voice.

“What?”

“When you wanted to buy me a drink after the game. One of my migraine medications that I take, I can’t drink alcohol on it. It just felt like a weird and long explanation to have to give in the moment. And when you asked if I wanted to dance with you last night, the music would’ve made the migraine come on quicker than it did, but explaining it to you then, again it felt like it would’ve ruined the moment even more.”

“Oh… don’t worry about it.”

There was still one big thing you hadn’t smoothed over. But it looks like you’re on man-shaped friend duties tonight, Sungchan. Stupid, stupid.

Pushing through the discomfort prickling at your skin, you asked, “Sungchan, do you want to go on a date?”

“A…” He looked you dead in the eyes for a moment, mouth parted, and blinked once, twice before he was absolutely beaming at you. “Yeah, yes, I do.”

“Okay.” You couldn’t help but giggle, nerves buzzing through you as your chest was airy and you were lightheaded for two reasons now, “Okay, good.”

“Is it bad for me to say that I’m relieved? That you have migraines? Well, not that you have them, because obviously they hurt, but like, that this is what it was? I seriously thought I was being stupid, like mixed signals or something. Like, you came to my game but then you didn’t want to go to the bar.” He ticked the instances off on the fingers of one hand.

“Medication,” you nodded.

“Right. Then you let me walk you home after, but you called me your friend.”

“That was just plain stupidity,” you admitted with a groan at having to relive that moment again.

“And you said yes to coming to the party, but then you didn’t want to dance with me,” Sungchan had now run out of fingers and dropped his hand back down to the bed.

“The music...”

“And when you disappeared, I thought you left because you didn’t like me. I just… felt like I was going crazy.”

“It’s not awful of you to be relieved about this. I’m sorry, Sungchan. Migraines aren’t conducive to romance, apparently.”

“Oh, bullshit.” He pushed back immediately. “They’re just not conducive to drinking and loud parties. That’s not romance.”

“Alright, fair. I’m wont to agree with you.”

“And you need to stop apologizing for your migraines. It’s not like you’re doing it on purpose.”

“Well, I did come to a loud ass party knowing I’d probably get a sound-induced migraine.”

“Okay, aside from that— which, I’m very flattered by and will never ever ask you to do anything like this ever again.”

“Okay.”

Suddenly the door handle rattled, then there was a banging on the door. “Hey! Are you two done in there?” Jeno yelled through the wood. “You better not be having post-headache sex on my bed!”

“Seems like he didn’t get laid last night,” Sungchan muttered.

“If he keeps up that pounding I’m going to get a rebound headache and he’s going to wake the entire house, please let him in,” you groaned.

The boy with you quickly moved to do so, unlocking the door and throwing it open to whisper aggressively, “Jeno! Shut the fuck up! People are still sleeping!”

“Oh. You’re dressed.”

You rolled your eyes at your friend, “I don’t know what you think a migraine is like, but getting my back blown out is pretty far down on my to-do list for immediately after.”

“How are you feeling?” Jeno was nice enough to ask as he rooted through his closet.

“Like shit. While you guys nurse actual hangovers today, I get to nurse a migraine hangover. Same awful morning after without the fun night before.”

“That sucks.” He secured a rumpled shirt and inside out pair of sweatpants. “I told Chenle you were crashing here last night, by the way. He didn’t just abandon you for shits and giggles.”

“Oh, thanks. He was sober enough to drive?”

“Mark had a Breathalyzer and everything.”

“Wow…”

“Now I recommend you two get the fuck out before everyone else wakes up and sees you sneaking out together.”

“Right,” Sungchan nodded, sitting on the edge of Jeno’s bed and pulling his shoes on.

You quickly gathered your shoes, phone, witch hat, and go bag before giving Jeno a short goodbye and following Sungchan out. The Nu Chi house was thankfully quiet as everyone was still asleep in their own rooms, save for the partygoers and brothers who had passed out on the couches in the living rooms. Once you were on the front porch, the two of you dared to speak again.

“I’ll drive you home, Y/N,” Sungchan offered.

“Mhm, thanks,” you squinted against the bright sunlight, reaching into your bag for the spare pair of sunglasses you kept in there.

He gestured to your bag. “So what all do you have in there?”

“Everything but the kitchen sink.” You sighed, finally securing your sunglasses and putting them on. They did help, but you knew there was no way you were going to avoid a rebound headache today. Realizing that Sungchan might actually have been genuinely asking and wasn’t just trying to be polite, you decided to give him a sincere answer as well. “Uh, my meds, my blood pressure cuff, earplugs, sunglasses, some snacks, other miscellaneous non-migraine related stuff like an umbrella.”

“Blood pressure cuff?” He stopped in front of a sedan parked on the street, and opened the passenger door for you.

Even through your unpleasant migraine hangover, you couldn’t help the giddy smile that crossed your lips at the gesture.

Once the both of you were in the car, you explained, “One of my medications affects my blood pressure. I have to check it every few hours, or whenever I feel kind of funny. That’s partially what the snacks are for too.”

“Really?” He started the car and pulled out into the street.

“Most of my meds I need to take with food, so keeping snacks on me makes it easy. The sweet ones are in case my blood sugar drops though.”

“Blood sugar too?”

“A different medication affects my appetite, secondary effect is on my blood sugar. Fun fact, it’s the same one that keeps me from drinking alcohol. Anyway, if you’re ever craving something sweet, I keep gummies and stuff on me usually.”

Sungchan let out a deep breath. “Wow…”

“Oh and water.” You perked up as you realized you’d forgotten something, and reached in for said item. “I've got my water bottle. I need water to take my meds, obviously, but I also need to drink water to make sure I don’t get kidney stones from my medication.”

The car had stopped at a stoplight, and he looked over at you in disbelief. “What the fuck.”

“Hey, it’s this or be entirely unable to participate in society.” You explained. “I used to get five or six migraines a week, with really bad or mild headaches constantly in between. I couldn’t do anything, they were disabling. Clearly, they still are now when I do get them, but I only get one or two a month.”

“I can’t imagine— I… yeah…” He trailed off as the light turned green, a deep frown etching itself on his features as he clearly was trying to imagine what a huge shift in his life that would be. And was having a hard time doing so.

“People without chronic illnesses usually can’t, until they get one,” you shrugged. “I know I couldn’t imagine it either. Then I got my first migraine. Then my second, and my third. I think the ‘chronic illness’ part really hit for me when I had to order my first sharps disposal bin for the monthly injections I take.”

“You’re…”

“Do not say that I’m so strong or any live laugh love type shit right now.”

He laughed, shaking his head, “No, no, not what I was going to say. I was just thinking… you’re really cool.”

“I just info-dumped about my migraines, medication, medication side effects, and treatment to you for ten minutes straight and that’s the conclusion you came to?” You asked in disbelief as he pulled into your apartment complex, and it dawned on you just how long you had been talking about yourself for. You couldn’t remember the last time you’d been that detailed with someone other than your neurologist or your mom about your condition and treatment.

Sungchan put his car in park to turn and look you in the eye. “I’m looking at the bigger picture here: You’re a Lit major, you like Gothic fiction, you’re good at writing, you’re smart and know things like death of the author and stuff, you like Pacific Rim, you’ve come to one of my games, you’re funny, and you just info-dumped to me about something personal for ten minutes. So yes, I think you’re cool. Actually, cool might be an understatement.”

“Jung Sungchan, you…” Your cheeks were hurting with how wide you were grinning. Whether it was the migraine hangover or truly from how warm and happy his words made you, you couldn’t formulate a proper response, “Congrats, I’m speechless.”

“I think that's good?” He laughed again. “Anyway, you told Jeno earlier that you felt like shit, so I won’t hold you up anymore. Rest well today, Y/N.”

“Thanks. You too, Sungchan.” You wrapped your hand around the door handle but stopped just short of actually opening it. “Oh, and uhm, I don’t know if this too eager or whatever, but I’m free tomorrow.”

His face lit up with recognition at what you were implying. “Me too. But are you going to be okay? Like, recovered?”

“Yeah, I’ve got all day today to sleep it off.”

“Okay.” He grinned.

“Okay.” You repeated. “Text me?”

“Yes, yes. I will.”

“Bye.”

And with that, you got out of his car, making sure to take your go bag that had been on your lap for the whole drive.

Halfway to your front door, you turned around to give Sungchan a final wave goodbye, and he waved back through the windshield. Once you’d finally disappeared into your apartment, he looked over at his now empty passenger seat. Well, not completely empty, he realized. Your witch hat was on the floor of the passenger side, you’d forgotten to grab it on your way out. He picked it up, gently setting it on the seat beside him. He’d just give it back to you when he saw you again for your date tomorrow.

“A date,” Sungchan sighed happily, feeling his chest swell and nearly burst with joy. “A date, a date, a date.”

Putting his car in reverse, he looked through the rear window as he muttered, “Suck an egg, Donghyuck. Man-shaped friend, my ass.”

SUNDAY, NOVEMBER 2

Sungchan picked you up at 7:00 p.m. on the dot for your first date. You made sure to take your nighttime meds early and silence your alarms so there was nothing to bother you that night. Migraines notwithstanding, of course. You still had to bring your go bag just in case you needed anything acute, but you didn’t think twice about leaving the majority of it in the car, tucking just a couple individually packaged tablets into your pocket before accepting Sungchan’s hand that he offered to you after opening your car door for you.

Walking into the movie theater with him after he bought your tickets, you were about to start off in the direction that the usher had pointed you when your date stopped you.

“You want anything from concessions?” He nodded towards the long line of other couples, families, and groups of friends.

“I’m not big on overpriced popcorn,” you shook your head with a smile. “Thanks though, Sungchan.”

“You sure you don’t want a soda or candy? How’s your, you know, blood sugar?”

It was then that your polite smile morphed into a genuine, touched one, and you squeezed his hand that you were holding. “I’m doing good, promise. I made sure I ate before. But thank you, seriously. You’re really sweet.”

“Okay, but let me know if you need anything.”

“Sungchan, can I tell you something?” You ducked your head in towards him conspiratorially.

“Yeah, of course.”

You gently shook one side of your jacket, and a muffled rattling sound came from within it. “I snuck a bag of Skittles in,” you whispered to him.

He chuckled as you dropped your jacket back down and smoothed over the inside pocket inconspicuously. “Two steps ahead of me.”

“I just didn’t want to ruin our date if I got low.”

“It’s very thoughtful, thanks.”

“So are you!” You tried to reassure him.

The two of you entered where your movie would be showing, and picked your seats. The previews had already started, so you had to drop your voices to whispers.

“But you’re going to be good with the bright light, and the sounds?” Sungchan double-checked with you.

You nodded insistently. “You’re the one who made me compile a list of stuff that I could do, remember?”

“I know, but you also came to that party knowing that it was like 100% guaranteed to give you a migraine. So I think I’ve earned some skepticism.”

“Okay, fine. You got me there,” you sighed. “But I get nothing out of suggesting things that will give me migraines other than cutting our time together short. Which I don’t want to do.”

Sungchan shifted in his seat, and when you looked over at him, you could see a small, bashful smile on his face. “Good. Glad we got that cleared up.”

The previews finally ended, and the entire theater quieted down, including you two. You settled in to watch the movie, scooting closer to your date, looping your arm under his, and resting your head on his shoulder. He hesitantly leaned his head against the top of yours.

As you left the theater hand-in-hand with Sungchan, you two were deep in discussion about the movie, and in the back of your mind, you realized with a panic that you had far too much that you wanted to say that wouldn’t fit into the short ride back to your apartment. Not to mention that you didn’t want your night with him to be over yet.

“Hey.” You called for his attention as he opened up the passenger door for you, stopping before you got in the car.

“Hey.” He offered you a lopsided grin, still holding the door open with one hand and now caging you between him and the open car door.

If the parking lot wasn’t literally swarming with other movie theater patrons, you swore you would’ve grabbed him and kissed him stupid right there and then. But a family of five walked by at that moment, so you swallowed down the itch.

“We should go somewhere,” you suggested, trying to sound equal parts nonchalant and hopeful. Which was a weird combination, you knew, but you didn’t want to come across as too desperate. Again, a ridiculous sentiment, but it was engrained in you with social conditioning or whatever.

“We just went somewhere,” he pointed out knowingly, and you swore that was a smirk that you spotted on his face in the shadowy lighting afforded by the parking lot streetlamps.

“We should go somewhere else.”

“Like where?”

“I don’t know,” you shrugged, despite how desperate you felt on the inside to just be around him right now. “Somewhere. Are you hungry?”

“Are you?”

You pressed your lips together in a thin line. “Well—”

Finally, he smiled, nodded towards the car, and said, “I know somewhere. Get in.”

Sungchan closed the car door after you before walking around to get into the driver’s side. He didn’t offer you any information or clues as to your new destination as he left the movie theater parking lot. The hockey captain drove with one hand casually holding the bottom of the steering wheel, the other tapping out the rhythm of whatever song was playing over his speakers onto his thigh. You dragged your eyes from his fingers to the passing scenery.

Honestly, you couldn’t remember the last time you’d been on a good date. Even the last date you’d been on was a distant memory. Lunch with some CompSci major your freshman year, a blind date set up by a mutual acquaintance. He just talked over you the whole time. You didn’t deign to go on a second date with him. It wasn’t that your migraines made it impossible to date—they hadn’t even come up at the date with the CompSci major (mostly because he didn’t give you the opportunity to say much of anything)—but you knew that it was always going to be something to get out of way. Either up front or at some point down the line. And it was exhausting enough for you to have to completely restructure your life around them, how could you really ask some stranger who barely knew you—or didn’t at all—to consider doing the same? It felt like it just made your dating pool even narrower, an added standard that you didn’t even get to pick.

But with Sungchan, it had happened in the worst way possible, you disappeared on him because you were having a migraine, without even having told him anything about them. And not only was he more than chill about it, he stayed with you through your entire full-blown migraine. Listened to you explain every ailment, medication, and medication complication that you have, and just tucked all that information away to keep track of your wellbeing. Taken it all in stride and made it look easy. And that was before your first date. It almost made you angry. Not at Sungchan, but at the fact that other people had ever made you feel like an inconvenience.

The car slowing to a stop knocked you from your thoughts, and you didn’t even realize that you had been silent for the entire trip. Sungchan didn’t seem to mind, though, as he hadn’t tried to start a conversation either. He put the car in park as you looked around, trying to gauge where exactly you were.

“Are we… on campus?” You turned to him with an eyebrow raised.

He was already out of the car, though, jogging around to get your door. As he opened it for you, he tilted his head innocently, “What was that?”

You stepped out, taking in your surroundings. “Are we at a campus parking garage?”

“Specifically, the top floor of Evergreen Parking Garage,” Sungchan clarified, rolling the passenger window down.

Evergreen Parking Garage was a commuter-only parking facility, meaning that this level was empty this late at night. It was also located at the furthest reaches of the north block of campus, which bordered a nature preserve, meaning that while on one side was your university campus, the other side was entirely evergreen trees. Hence the name.

Sungchan had parked on the side that faced the nature preserve, and as you turned to question your date as to why exactly he’d taken you to campus, you were instead greeted by the sight of him hunched over to lean into the open passenger window, seemingly messing around with the audio controls of the still-running car.

You tilted your head to one side, then the other as you just watched him struggle for a moment before finally speaking up. “What uh… What are you doing, Sungchan?”

He banged his head on the frame of the window as he went to stand back up. “Fuck! Ow…”

Covering your hand to muffle your giggles, you waited patiently for him to turn around and answer you.

Still clutching his head, he said with a sheepish smile, “Just give me a sec, sorry. Technical difficulties.”

And with that, he opened the door to properly sit in the passenger seat, futzing with his phone and the car radio. Finally, there was music playing from the speakers as opposed to the radio station ads, and he turned the volume up before getting back out of the car and shutting the door. With both the driver and passenger windows rolled down, you could hear the song clearly.

“I was originally going to try to take you to this lookout, but there were other cars there, so I had to keep driving by it and oh my god why did I tell you that—” He scratched the back of his head nervously. “Anyway, since we didn’t get to dance at the party…”

Sungchan offered his hand out to you, and you set yours atop it. The upbeat song that had been playing finished just then, switching to a much slower, softer one. You stepped in closer, smiling up at him as you looped your free arm around his neck. His other hand settled on your hip, and he slowly started leading you in an uncertain sway of sorts.

You let out an airy chuckle, “Was this really the kind of dancing you had in mind for a frat party?”

“Would you believe me if I said yes?” He questioned.

“Would you believe me if I said that I believed you?”

“No.”

You snickered. “Smart man.”

“But this is good, too. Better, even.”

“Really?”

“Yeah, there’s not a bunch of other drunk, sweaty, loud people everywhere knocking into us. I don’t have to worry about somebody spilling beer on me, or other guys looking at you, or the DJ picking something bad. Or you getting a migraine.” Sungchan slotted his fingers with yours. “I just get to think about you.”

You rested your head on his chest, eyes zoning out on your linked hands. It was his right hand, so his pinky finger couldn’t quite fold down along with the others. “Yeah. I like this, too,” you agreed softly.

A cool breeze gently blew across your cheek that wasn’t resting on Sungchan’s chest, and you were glad for the warmth of him pressed against your front. Your feet awkwardly bumped into each other, making you chuckle, and he apologized with a nervous laugh.

“It’s okay,” you reassured him. “I haven’t exactly taken any ballroom dancing classes. Have you?”

“Well...”

You jerked your head back to look him in the face. “You have?”

“You know how Greek life has those formals every year?”

“You’re not in a frat...”

“No, I’m not. But freshman year, Nu Chi had pitched in for this dance teacher and— God, I can’t believe I’m telling you this,” Sungchan said regretfully, tilting his head back to look up in embarrassment.

“Sungchan, come on!” You pleaded.

“Hendery swore me to secrecy...”

“Well now you have to tell me!”

“Hendery’s date couldn’t make it to one of the lessons, so he asked me to fill in for her...”

Your jaw dropped with delight, “Was his date an Amazon? How did that work? He couldn’t have possibly dipped you! Or twirled you!”

“She was taller than him, to be fair,” he admitted. “Nothing that couldn’t be adjusted for with some thick soles, but, you know...”

“You’re such a good friend, Sungchan,” you said through a couple of giggles, imagining the two of them attempting the aforementioned twirls and dips.

He dropped his head, shaking it. “Right, thanks.”

“So I guess I should be leading then, hm?” You teased, your feet bumping his again in that moment.

“I feel like you’d lead us over the edge of this parking deck, Y/N,” he joked.

Before you could make a retort, he stepped back from you to gently twirl you around by the hand, and a cross between a surprised yelp and a laugh tumbled from your mouth. As he brought you back into his chest, you could barely think over the joyful buzzing in your head that resonated out to every square inch of your body.

“Okay, okay, I guess you can lead,” you surrendered, looping your arm back around his neck again.

After some time, the songs had picked up tempo again, but you and Sungchan were long past actually dancing to them. You were more so just holding each other, leisurely swaying, and from here you got to listen to the sounds of his breathing. He’d taken to rubbing absentminded circles into your hip with his thumb, and the fingers of your arm that was around his neck had dipped below the material of his collar, resting on his bare skin.

“Sungchan?” You murmured.

“Yes?” He responded, his voice rumbling right under your ear.

“Thank you for not making me do this in front of a bunch of other cars at the other lookout.”

He let out a couple quiet laughs, his chest shaking with each. “You’re welcome. I figured all of the teens making out in their cars also didn’t want to watch us do this either.”

You mock gasped, pretending to sound scandalized, “You were going to take me to a lover’s lookout? On the first date? Jung Sungchan…”

“Who are you, my grandma? Nobody calls it that anymore.” He pinched your side. “And only because it’s actually got a great view over the city and—”

“I’m kidding, Sungchan.” You pinched him back, lightly, on the nape of the neck. “Besides, I wouldn’t have been opposed to a trip to a lover’s lookout with you anyway…”

You heard the breath hitch in his throat, then Sungchan swallowed and inhaled through his nose, before he finally spoke, “Really?”

His grip on your hip tightened, sending a bolt of electricity along your skin out from the contact point. You brought your head out of his chest and used your arm around his neck to draw him in even closer.

“Really,” you echoed, blatantly staring at his lips now that they were centimeters away from yours. “And it looks like we’ve got our own right here.”

Then Sungchan was using his hold on your hip to push you back step by step until your back was against the side of his car. Your own arm around his neck kept him anchored to you as he stood hovering over you, blotting out any light that would’ve come from the light post above you. Your noses were almost touching, your breaths mingling in the negligible space between your mouths. You were looking at Sungchan’s eyes now, usually a warm, deep brown, now all inky blackness in the dark of night, and staring down at your own mouth. Your tongue instinctually darted out to wet your lips, and that seemed to be the final straw.

His mouth on yours was desperate, but not desperate to get laid, like your previous lover’s lookout banter might imply. Like he was just desperate for you. He stole kiss after kiss from your lips, but never forced his tongue into your mouth, nor moved his hands anywhere else. Despite leaning more and more of his weight forward onto you, utterly pinning you to the car, he kept his bruising grip on your hip and never let go of your hand.

You parted your mouth with a bedraggled gasp of his name, and he finally took this as an invite to slip his tongue into the mix. You shifted to rest the hand that was laced with his above your head, on the roof of the sedan, giving his hand a squeeze. He squeezed your hand back.

Turning your head and breaking the kiss, you hoped he’d get the idea as you continued laying there half-spread out under him. He did, thankfully, kissing from the corner of your mouth across your cheek and down your jaw and neck.

“Sung…chan…” You breathed out his name, stroking the back of his head with your free hand as his lips latched onto a spot at the base of your neck.

Trailing your hand down further, you snuck it up under the hem of his shirt, feeling over the expanse of his chest and stomach. Oh fuck yeah, hockey players. You pulled the article of clothing up towards his head insistently, and he detached from your neck for the two of you to jointly strip him of it. Oh fuck yeah, hockey players. You truly didn’t know if he looked or felt better, but you couldn’t ogle him for long, because he was back on top of you as soon as he’d thrown the shirt into the front seat via the open passenger window beside you. His lips were so warm on yours, his skin even hotter under your touch now as you unabashedly felt up every inch of it and the muscles underneath.

But soon that wasn’t enough either, and you were fumbling at his pants button. He groaned into your mouth, the sound vibrating down into your own chest, as his hand snapped around your wrist.

“Ahh…” He hissed regretfully.

“What?” You looked up at him with wide eyes.

“I can’t get my dick out in public.”

You glanced at the car behind you, with its tinted windows, then back at Sungchan. He met your eyes, then shrugged. “That’ll work.”

It was a mad scramble to get the door to the backseat open, so much so that you accidentally smacked Sungchan in the leg with said door. After lots of apologies through giggles, both of you were in the backseat with the doors closed and locked. Sungchan had the task of awkwardly reaching forward over the console to roll the windows back up first, during which you made a couple observations about his backseat, which you hadn’t seen much of before. His practice bag for hockey was back here—which was different than his gear bag, as you’d already been told. The gear bag actually had his equipment that he needed to play with like mouth guards, sticks, and all of that, while his practice bag had more personal stuff like changes of clothes or hygiene products. You figured his gear bag was either in the trunk or at the rink, as he didn’t always need to carry it back and forth with him. But other than the practice bag and a couple of reusable grocery bags on the floor, the backseat was pretty clean. You were genuinely impressed, especially because he made it sound like he tended to chauffeur a lot of his teammates/roommates around frequently.

Sungchan eventually reentered the backseat fully, focusing a content, closed-lip smile on you. You’d taken it upon yourself to lay down on the seat, your knees propped up by your feet. He settled in to kneel on the same cushion as your feet, but just rested an arm on your knees and his chin atop that forearm to gaze down at you, still smiling.

“What? What’s that smile for?” You asked, starting to feel a bit self-conscious.

“Nothing, I just—” He reached both his hands out towards you, fingers spread, and you got the idea, linking yours with them. “I hope you don’t get the wrong idea. I want this to be a real thing, Y/N. Like, I don’t just want to sleep with you. I don’t even do this kind of stuff—car sex on the first date in a campus parking garage?—literally ever. I’m just kinda crazy about you. I know for most people usually it’s the opposite; you know, they save it for later for really important people. They try to make it special, but I know it’ll be special just because it’s you.”

“Sungchan... I’ve never done something like this either,” you admitted, squeezing both of his hands tight. “I think I’m just kinda crazy about you too.”

“Okay. Cool.” He beamed at you, and you felt your insides turn to mush in that moment. You didn’t think they’d ever un-mush again.

“Now can you please take my clothes off before I spontaneously combust?”

“Fuck. Yeah.” He nodded, immediately turning serious as his brow furrowed and he leaned forward to lock his lips with yours again, propping himself up with one hand to hover above you.

You let your knees fall apart to give him room to settle in between your legs. He pulled at your jacket first, and you sat up to help yank it off, dropping it to the floor with his practice bag. With you no longer laying down, he could use two hands to get the next part, your top. His fingertips skimmed along your skin as he grabbed the hem. You broke the kiss so he could start pulling the clothing up your body—

A loud knock against the driver’s side window quite literally made you scream, and Sungchan jerked up and hit his head once again, this time on the roof of the car. You tugged your shirt back down to cover you, ducking to lay flat on the seat as Sungchan looked at you with panic in his eyes.

Another knock came at the window, this time accompanied by a man’s voice, “Campus security! Roll the window down or I’m going to ask you to turn the car off and step out!”

“Just a second!” Sungchan yelled back, a noticeable crack in his voice. He had a difficult time maneuvering his lanky body over the console fully into the driver’s seat again.

“Now!” The man called out again. “Three! Two!”

Sungchan didn’t have time to put on his shirt before ‘one,’ and he rushed to roll the window down. A flashlight was immediately shone into the car, and you didn’t doubt your own visibility to the security officer. You were remaining laying down for your own mental wellbeing at this point. You didn’t think that you could deal with looking this man in the eye right now.

You didn’t know if it was wisdom or embarrassment that kept your date from saying anything, but he thankfully didn’t speak until spoken to, not offering up any incriminating information. After five entire seconds of silence, the officer let out an audible sigh.

“No overnight parking in this garage,” he said, his tone making it very clear that he knew that was not what was going on. “I’ll be back in five minutes and if you’re still here, you’re getting a ticket.”

“Yes, sir,” Sungchan replied.

“I’m sure that the captain of our hockey team wouldn’t want to get put on probation at the beginning of the season.”

“N-No, sir.” His voice cracked again.

The security officer grunted, but said nothing more. You heard Sungchan roll the window back up, then the sound of another car driving away. Slowly, Sungchan turned around to look at you over the console with wide, horrified eyes.

“He knew who I was…” He whispered. “That was the most terrifying 45 seconds of my life.”

“You’re famous, Sungchan,” you teased, sitting up in the backseat now that the coast was clear.

“Yeah, and fame has got so many perks so far.”

“Almost got into your first scandal already.” You clicked your tongue disapprovingly. “Caught with a girl in your backseat. What will the fans say?”

“Considering my fans are all frat bros, probably something along the lines of wolf whistles and incoherent, congratulatory lewd jeering.”

You couldn’t help but laugh, able to picture that perfectly considering you’d already gotten a taste at the first home game you’d gone to. “Sounds about right.”

“Anyway, I should take you home before that guy comes back.”

“Good idea.” You slipped your jacket back on.

“Are you going to come up here or am I your chauffeur?”

“I suppose I’ll sit up there with you,” you sighed, opening the backseat to get out and into the front normally since there was no security man around.

Back in the passenger seat, you handed Sungchan’s shirt back to him, “Here, have some decency. You’re the captain of the hockey team, you know.”

“I’m sorry, who was going to spontaneously combust if we didn’t get naked in the next 0.2 seconds?” He scoffed, pulling his top back on.

“I don’t recall.”

“Sure.”

“And who’s still hard in their jeans right now?”

“Don’t remind me, I have to drive like this,” he groaned, taking the car out of park with a shake of his head.

As Sungchan drove with one hand, the other reached over to take yours, lacing his fingers together with yours.

THURSDAY, NOVEMBER 6

Just a few days later, and you were at the rink again, eagerly watching the hockey game in front of you. Chenle was beside you, continuing his constant sports commentary on every play that happened. You still mostly tuned it out, but you were pretty sure you at least understood most of the basic rules that Taeyong had explained to you before. You kept your eyes on Sungchan, cheering him on along with the other various Nu Chi brothers around you and other fans in the stands. It wasn’t as full of a house as it had been for the first home game, but you were perfectly content to have a slightly quieter environment.

Sungchan happened to skate by your section as everyone was resetting their positions, giving you a wave through the clear barrier. You gave him a slightly bashful but nevertheless bright grin as you waved back.

“So are you two like... dating now?” Hendery asked from your other side, leaned forward with both of his elbows on his knees as he watched the game. He looked back at you over his shoulder with a shit-eating grin, though, one that made you roll your eyes.

“I don’t know. We’ve been on a date. I mean, there was the Halloween party, but I got a migraine so I don’t think that really counts, so— I don’t have to explain myself to you!” You scowled at him, shoving him away by his shoulder.

He laughed as he let himself get jostled around in his seat from the push, holding his hands up in surrender. “Just curious. Unlike your bestie over there, I think you two are adorable.”

“What?” You looked over at Chenle, who Hendery had pointed at.

Chenle had apparently been listening enough to be able to jump in to defend himself. “It’s not what it sounds like. I think you two are great, promise.”

You turned back to your other friend. “Then what the hell are you talking about, Hendery?”

“He just doesn’t want to lose,” the Nu Chi member explained. “I pegged Sungchan’s huge crush on you on day 1 of Dr. Son’s class. Once the Phanta Phour stuff started, I knew that boy had no chance. Chenle just didn’t think you’d ever... hold on, how’d he put it... be into uh, ‘Neanderthal frat-bro-in-law types.’”

“I was maybe a bit tipsy...” Chenle added in.

“So you made a bet on if Sungchan and I would get together? In four whole years?” You looked from left to right between them.

“Loser has to buy winner a 12-pack,” Hendery confirmed with that same grin. “When Phantasmagorical Phriday ended this year, I really thought I’d lost. But then you turned up at the game last week and I figured Sungchan just might score himself a buzzer beater.”

“You two need to get better hobbies,” you declared with a snort.

“This so counts as sudden-death OT, but whatever,” Chenle scoffed under his breath.

You smacked him across the chest. “And don’t call my dating life ‘sudden death’ either.”

“Hey.” He said softly, grabbing your arm, and you turned your head to meet his gaze. “I really was worried about you going to the Halloween party with your head. I swear.”

“I know, LeLe,” you nodded, giving him a reassuring smile. “You did some great wingmanning once we got there.”

The brief flash of sincerity you got from your best friend was over as quick as it had come, as you heard the crash of helmets on the ice, and both your focuses were drawn back to the game. Two players had collided into each other and the clear barrier right in front of your faces. You grimaced sympathetically as you tried to identify the player from your team. 23— Jeno, ah, he’d be alright. And you were right, he took off almost immediately as the other guy was left behind still dazed.

At the end of the game, with the buzz of another win in your veins and the anticipation of seeing Sungchan thrumming along your skin, you bounced on your heels as you waited in the lobby. You weren't paying attention to the ecstatic, dramatic recollections that Chenle and the Nu Chi brothers were giving of specific plays around you, your gaze entirely focused on the locker room exit.

The very first player to leave was Sungchan, his eyes already scanning the crowd. Without a second thought, you darted over to him, ignoring the couple of whoops and whistles you two got from your friends.

Sungchan beamed down at you as he went to pull you into a hug, and you were immediately enveloped in the smell of the freshly washed clothes that you’d caught last time. This time, though, there was the distinct, crisp smell of ice rink ice under it as well, reminding you of when you’d go ice skating with friends.

“Hey,” you smiled up at him as he let you go, but didn’t step back very far. “You played really good again. I’m pretty sure. A bit more sure than I was last time.”

He was still grinning, looking down at the floor then back up at you before he responded, “Thank you. And I don’t really expect you to become a hockey pro or anything if all that doesn’t interest you. As long as you don’t expect me to remember what death of the author is.”

“This was only my second game, have some faith in me!” You cried out indignantly. “And no, I don’t expect you to become a full-blown literary critic either.”

“I’m sorry, I’m sorry,” he apologized through a couple of poorly suppressed giggles. “I do believe in you. I just didn’t want you to feel like you had to learn boring sports stuff for me.”

“I do want to be able to follow the basics of a game without Chenle or Taeyong annotating it for me, at least.”

“Oh, yeah, you can definitely do that. Might need to come to a few more games, though...”

You nodded giddily. “Just let me know when the home games are and I’m there.”

“Yo!” A voice had called from the gaggle of guys heading towards the exit. You didn’t even realize that the rest of the team had left the locker room in the time that you’d been talking to Sungchan.

While you couldn’t tell who had gotten your attention, it was Donghyuck that asked, “Are you two coming or are you just going to keep making moony eyes at each other all night?”

“Yeah, Sungchan, you’re our ride!” Yangyang yelled out from somewhere.

“DD!” Jeno cheered.

“I’ll drive you two,” Mark offered with a shake of his head.

“Shotgun!” The two of them immediately dibs-ed in unison.

“Sorry, bitches, I’m his little,” Donghyuck declared. “That means eternal dibs on shotgun in Mark’s car.”

The frat president scoffed, “You only give a shit about that when it directly benefits you.”

“You guys go ahead,” Sungchan cut into their bickering. “We’re right behind you.”

After they had all filed out, he looked back down at you, a nervous smile worming across his face. “Sorry about that...”

“It’s okay,” you said. “So... you ready to go?”

The two of you had already discussed going to the after-game celebrations with the team before this. Sungchan texted you last night to check in and make sure you’d be okay with going from the loud game to a noisy bar/pool hall with a bunch of frat guys after. You’d assured him that you’d be okay as long as you sat away from any music speakers at the bar, and he’d in turn made you promise to tell him if you needed to leave early.

However, he now halted you as you were slowly turning towards the exit. “Wait, I want to try this again.”

With a sneaking suspicion of what he was about to do, you assured him, “Sungchan, you don’t have to—”

“Let me do this. Please.” He gave you those same eyes that had convinced you to go to a frat party in the first place, and you were squaring your shoulders back to face him, giving him a firm nod.

“Okay. Go for it.”

He asked casually, “So, did you drive yourself?”

You had to hold back a laugh, covering your mouth to straighten your face before replying coyly, “Oh, me? I walked. My apartment is close.”

“So, the team all goes out to this bar after home games. It’s a pretty sleazy dive bar, and I know it’s a Thursday night, but I’d really like for you to come with me. I’ll buy you a... soda.”

“I would love to come, Sungchan,” you giggled, adjusting your purse strap.

“Awesome,” he grinned, wrapping an arm around your shoulders.

As you walked up to the passenger side of his car with him, you suddenly realized something. “Wait, did you have your car last time, too?”

“Maybe?” He rubbed the back of his neck, reaching for the door handle to open it for you.

“Then why did you walk me home?”

“To spend more time with you?”

You stole a quick kiss before ducking into the passenger seat.

Squished into one side of a booth with Sungchan’s arm around you, you chatted happily with Chenle, Ten, and Sicheng, who were sitting opposite from you. The team and cheer section were spread out between a couple booths and tables near each other, a few of them up playing pool too. You sipped on your soda between discussions about tonight’s game, upcoming games, classes, or whatever else struck you all. Currently, you were locked in a conversation with Ten about the most recent assigned reading in a class that you two shared together this semester.

“I thought that scene had a lot of great allusions back to the earlier one with her mother and the pie baking,” you gushed.

“Really?” Ten tilted his head curiously. “I was seeing it more as a continuation of the cannibalism-sex-love metaphor, since they were eating figs, you know.”

You nodded knowingly. “That’s true. Everything’s about sex—”

“Except sex.” You two finished quoting your professor in unison.

“And then with figs, there’s the Bible interpretation, of course,” you continued.

“Always the Bible.”

“We can never escape what John Milton did for Christian fanfiction, truly.”

“But I do like the pie scene connection the more that I think about it, actually.” Ten knocked back the rest of his cocktail. “And, tying her mother into the cannibalism metaphor could be a fascinating angle, too.”

Your eyes widened as you were practically vibrating your seat with excitement now. “Yeah, her earliest memory being of food, parental love, and harm...”

“Anyway, I need a refill.” Your friend shook his glass of ice with a smile. “Be back. Good chat as always, Y/N.”

Chenle and Sicheng scooted out of the booth to let Ten out, the former heading off towards the restrooms while the co-captain followed his roommate to the bar, leaving just you and Sungchan. You continued musing over the new connections you’d just made in the text as you turned your gaze back over to Sungchan beside you. He was already looking at you, a fond half-smile on his face.

“Hi.” He said quietly.

“Hi,” you replied, just as quiet.

Sungchan took a swig of his drink, then eyed yours. “You haven’t drunk any water since we get here.”

He’d been sure to not only order your promised soda of choice, but also water, and as you now looked over at your two cups, you could tell that the water had not been touched at all while the soda was practically empty.

“Oh uh, I guess I haven’t.”

“Drink some.” He pushed it towards you insistently. “Can’t have you getting kidney stones on my watch.”

“Okay, okay.” You acquiesced easily, switching your straw over to that glass and chugging a quarter of it in one go. “Better?”

“Much.” He nodded in satisfaction. “So what were you and Ten saying about pies and sex or whatever? Sex isn’t about sex?”

“Oh, it’s just something one of our professors says a lot. ‘Everything is about sex except sex.’ For lit analysis. In literature, pretty much everything is about sex. Or can be. You can turn like, anything in a piece of text into an innuendo or euphemism if you wanted to. Except for sex. Like, if a sex scene is included in a piece of literature, it’s not actually about the sex that’s being depicted. The sex is meant to represent something else. Like politics, or social structures, or whatever other themes are present in the work. Unless you’re just reading porn. But even then, there’s artistic merit to erotica, and plenty to be learned about the social structures at the time it was written, too.”

Sungchan hadn’t blinked the entire time you’d been rambling on, and upon you finally stopping, blinked in rapid succession as he seemed to come to from a daze. “Wow. Uh, interesting. Filing that away with death of the author.”

“Sungchan...” You leaned in to whisper, placing a hand on the inside of his thigh, just above his knee. His leg jumped, knocking his knee into the tabletop. Your hand had narrowly avoided being smashed too, saved only by its position curled around his leg instead of directly on top. You didn’t move it up or down now though, simply tapping your index finger against the loose material of his sweatpants as you giggled. “What are you thinking about?”

He cleared his throat a couple of times. “How you still have three-quarters of that glass of water left to drink.”

You laughed, slumping to relax into his side and pulling your hand back up to a more casual position on top of his leg. With your other hand, you grabbed your water. “Alright, fine.”

Not too long after your water had been drained, Sungchan was driving you home. Some of your other friends had taken off as well, and you didn't put up too much of a protest when he offered. As your familiar building came into view, you suddenly remembered something.

“Oh, visitor’s parking is over there. Sorry, forgot to mention before.” You pointed to a few parking spots painted with yellow lines instead of white, further away from the apartment entrances than the resident parking. “They’re a bit picky. Chenle got towed after like, five minutes one time.”

“Got it. Thanks.” Sungchan smoothly turned the wheel to pull into one of the open visitor’s spots.

Your reason for showing it to him was two-fold. One, to let him know you hoped he’d be coming over more often, so he’d need that information for future reference. And two, for perhaps less innocent ulterior motives tonight. Truly, your apartment complex only towed people after dark. Overnight visitors. Chenle’s five-minute tow had been a fluke.

“I’ll walk you to your door,” he said with no prompting, and you had to hold in a sigh of relief.

Instead, you gave him a genuine smile. “Thanks, Sungchan.”

“I don’t think I thanked you for coming tonight. To the game.” He slowly meandered up the sidewalk with you, hand holding yours.

“Thanks for inviting me again. I had a lot of fun.” You squeezed his hand.

Your front door loomed in the not-so-distant distance.

“Uh, are you busy this weekend?” He rushed to ask. “I have Saturday morning practice, at 7:30, but it’s over at 9:00, and after that I’m free.”

So that’s why he had texted you at seven in the morning to congratulate you on winning Phantasmagorical Phriday.

“No, I’m not busy. I’d love to do something, just pick from the list I sent you. Surprise me, hm?”

“Will do.”

You were finally on your front welcome mat, and watched his face fall as he seemed to be drawing a blank about how else to prolong your night. But you had an idea.

You didn’t let an alarm or anything else possibly have the chance to interrupt you, grabbing the back of his neck and pulling his mouth down to yours. He stumbled forward at you suddenly yanking him off-balance, catching himself with one hand on your front door and the other on your doorframe. Then, he dropped a hand to the small of your back, drawing you in even closer as he tilted his head to deepen the kiss.

Disconnected just enough to murmur against his lips, you asked, “Do you want to come in?”

“Please?” He replied with a nearly sheepish chuckle.

“So polite,” you quipped.

You gave him one more peck before turning around to unlock your door and drag him in by the arm.

➠ sequel | series masterlist | blog masterlist

726 notes · View notes

jaeyunverse · 1 year

Text

the 24-hour dating challenge (teaser)

PAIRING(S) | park sunghoon x fem!reader

GENRE(S) | fluff, crack, mutual pining, best friends to lovers, influencer au (?)

EST. WORD COUNT | around 5k

WARNING(S) | profanity, hoon is a loser and down bad, mc is painfully dense + all warnings to be added in the full fic!

SUMMARY | being a famous youtuber isn’t easy, especially when you have to constantly come up with new ideas to keep your audience entertained. and this time, your viewers want you to date park sunghoon, your best friend of nearly a decade, for the entirety of 24 hours.

TAGLIST | @blank-velvet @soobisms @justalildumpling @xharisrealm @skzenhalove @alicesolengg @yenqa @geombyu @tika-writes-lol @jlheon @haknom @useraerin @hooniessslvrss @flwrshee @rikisly @tobiosbbyghorl @wonkivrse @heeflrs @bambithia @iea-tsand @chaechae-23 @en-dazed @jayfrvr @h-hazwie @moonlighthoon @justanotherkpopstanlol @sseastar-main @seongclb @shoyotime @gerianne @iadorethemskz @sieuneo @hoon0logy @luvistqrzzz @sucrosxi @lzux1 @t4kalcvr @nes-caf @odxrilove @trippy-dejun @arizejkt19 @xuimhao @vizstars @enhacatalog send an ask/comment if u wish!

AUTHOR’S NOTE | I AM COMING BACK!!!!!! (kinda. maybe. idk i get ahead of myself a lot LOL) finals are finallyyyy over and i have some time to write this week so i’ve started this old wip of mine! it’s going to be pretty short and sweet so i’ll hopefully be able to follow through on this teaser but no promises haha :)) i hope u look forward to this fic! inspired by h.j evelyn (♡)

click here for the full fic!

“Your followers want me to do what?”

Sunghoon was positive he’d misheard you. However, part of him hoped you’d confirm the life-altering information you’d casually uttered without even bothering to look away from the TV screen.

“Hoon!” you exclaimed, your fingers aggressively moving about the gaming console. “Oh, my God, they’re coming after me! Fuck, fuck, fuck, fuck, FUCK—” you screeched— “Nonononono I can’t take them by myself! You testicle-guzzling cocksucker, why did you die when I needed you the most?!”

Sunghoon watched you struggle warily. Your leg was bouncing with anxiety and your eyes bulging out of their sockets. He wasn’t entirely sure you were breathing. Beads of sweat were clinging to your forehead and your face was scrunched up in a weird, constipated expression.

There was a good chance you’d utter fouler insults if he disturbed you while playing, but he couldn’t stop himself from broaching the subject. “Are we just going to pretend you didn’t say the thing you just said?”

“The thing about you being a testicle-guzzling cocksucker?” you gritted. “No.”

Sunghoon rolled his eyes. “The thing about your followers wanting us to date for a video.”

For a few moments, you didn’t deign to acknowledge him. Then, as if a switch inside you had flipped, you pulled the TV’s plug and turned to face him. “Would it be weird?”

Wow. Okay, Sunghoon mused. I think it would be a fantastic idea and a dream come true, but I don’t trust myself around you. Even as a mere friend.

However, instead of voicing his thoughts, the boy simply shrugged. “I don’t know. We’ve been friends for several years now. I’m a regular on your YouTube channel and I think your fans are aware of the dynamics of our relationship. What do they mean when they say they want us to date? Physical intimacy aside, we already do everything couples do.”

“I think they want us to be romantic,” you admitted. “Go on a date, hold hands, cross some lines.”

“Cross some lines?” Sunghoon raised an eyebrow, the corner of his lip curling in a smirk. “Is this you speaking or your subscribers?”

Groaning in exasperation, you shoved his shoulder. He fell back on the couch, laughing. “Shut up, dickface! You know I’ve been swamped this semester. My influencer gig has been seriously lacking. I need to step up—do what they want me to do. Besides, we only have to be girlfriend and boyfriend for 24 hours. It’s really not that big a deal. Are you in or not?”

Sunghoon took a few seconds to mull over your words. Sure, he would love to be your boyfriend for 24 hours. As long as his fantasies were brought to reality, he didn’t care if the whole relationship was fake and short-lived.

For far too long, he’d pined after you. He thought he was doing an excellent job at hiding his feelings, but then you decided to make vlogs for fun. That’s when shit truly went downhill.

Within a few years, you’d amassed a following of over 5 million on YouTube and 3 million on Instagram. It wouldn’t be an exaggeration to say you’d become somewhat of a local celebrity.

Being one of your closest friends, Sunghoon was often featured in your videos. Initially, he’d baulked at the idea of being filmed, but you’d worked your magic on him. The boy soon found himself being comfortable around cameras.

Even though Sunghoon never started his own YouTube channel, his popularity grew along with yours. His Instagram had garnered over two million followers, and courtesy of his good looks and attractive physique, he’d been offered a bunch of brand deals too.

You’d scowled at how far Sunghoon’s pretty privilege had gotten him. While you busted your ass coming up with unique ideas and editing your videos to perfection, all he needed to do was show up.

What you didn’t know, though, was that part of the reason he’d become a heartthrob among the youth was you.

You might have been dumb and blind, but your followers certainly were not. They’d realised how Sunghoon looked at you—his eyes always twinkled and a fond smile automatically adorned his lips whenever he caught sight of you.

To add to that, your fans had pointed out habits he didn’t even know he possessed. For example: idly braiding your strands; bringing you snacks whenever he swung by your apartment; saying hey, sunshine and giving you a side hug by way of greeting; disguising his compliments as insults.

The list was very long.

They’d noticed the elastic he kept around his wrist at all times too—it was one of the two you’d used to tie his hair into little ponytails because you were convinced you could transform him into Boo from Monsters, Inc.

Sunghoon himself had forgotten the reason he wore the elastic around his wrist. All he knew was that it was yours and it felt right. But when he read the comments obsessing about it, he rushed to watch the video your fans were referring to.

And damn, they were right.

Sunghoon didn’t know if you’d seen the comments your fans regularly left on your various social media pages. You’d never mentioned anything about the community calling you “couple goals,” and he was too much of a coward to inquire if you were aware.

It was infuriating to know how transparent he was. Sunghoon wished he’d never gotten used to the camera and let slip his true self.

Perhaps this was the cost of gaining the boyfriend material label—his unrequited feelings exposed for the entire world to see.

Sunghoon would never admit it, but he’d spent the better part of a day reporting everyone who’d shipped him with you. The entire incident had truly made him go off the rails.

However, today’s revelation was unexpected. It was an opportunity. A chance to experience something he’d desired for many years. Suddenly, he found himself thanking those busybodies online instead of cussing them out for being ridiculously invested in his love life.

Sunghoon knew saying yes to your proposition would bite him in the ass later on. He knew he’d crave more of you once he got a taste of being your boyfriend, and giving this fake relationship a shot would definitely make it harder for him to get over you in the future. He knew he was a massive idiot for willingly indulging in impending heartbreak, but he could always cross that bridge when he came to it.

“Okay,” he said, meeting your gaze. “I’m in.”

979 notes · View notes

tangledupinyellow · 2 months

Text

Tonight | Joel Miller X Wedding Planner F!Reader

authors note: finally got this one out! with a new job and new house, life has been pretty chaotic recently but I finally got back into my usual writing schedule!! lots of wips at the moment so prepare for those!

part three of love is in the air part one here: love is in the air part two here: tensions rise

summary: Joel thought that he would be having the time of his life the night before his wedding. But he’s conflicted, for all he can think about is you.

warnings/tags: 18+, no use of y/n, no outbreak AU, infidelity, age gap (24 and 46), nicknames (baby girl, doll, baby) fingering, unprotected piv, creampie, angst

word count: 4.6k

“We really can’t be doing this anymore, it isn’t right…”

The words repeated in Joel’s head over and over and over again. He gripped his drink of whiskey, swirling it around before taking a swig. Looking around, he saw all his buddies laughing and dancing, having the time of their lives and partying. Partying just like how he should be doing. But instead, he stood in the corner with a drink in hand, lost in his thoughts.

It was the night before his wedding, the last night he would be considered a single man. Much of his freedom will be washed away from him when he finally ties the knot. He was supposed to be getting wasted with his friends and having a blast, having one last ‘hoo-rah.’

But he felt like shit, to put it lightly.

He watched as all of his friends were having a good time without him at a party that was supposed to be for him letting loose.

He would say that he would much rather be home than here, but that would also be a lie. Jenna would most likely be home. He wanted to be with you.

Taking a deep breath, Joel finished his glass of whiskey in one go before setting it down. With a groan, he rubbed his temples and another sigh left his lips.

“Pre-wedding nerves?” Tommy joined him in his corner with a laugh. He could smell the alcohol on his breath.

Joel chuckled and nodded, “S’pose you could say that.”

Yes, he was nervous and anxious, but they didn’t feel like the pre-wedding jitters he’d heard so much about from his married friends.

His nerves felt more like a sense of guilt, of regret. Possibly regret of sleeping with someone that wasn’t his fiancee, but he knew damn well that wasn’t it either.

His thoughts were messy and unorganized, all because of you.

All he could think about was you.

“Don’t be all mopey for the rest of the night. Come dance with us.” Tommy’s words were slurred, but Joel was barely paying attention anyway. With another laugh, his brother walked back to the rest of the group, leaving Joel on his own once again.

Instead of going with him and having a good time, he ordered another whiskey, drinking in silence.

┉┉┉

It’s late, nearing one in the morning. Sitting at your kitchen table, you dunked your tea bag into the warm water several times. Your eyes were tired and droopy as you watched the lemon tea bag go up and down, feeling as though you could fall asleep right then and there.

However, sleep seemed to be a big struggle for you. You were laying in bed for hours, restless. Every time you closed your eyes, all you could see was Joel and Jenna standing at the altar, sharing a loving kiss as they became one. Mr. and Mrs. Miller. Your heart would initially sink, and your stomach would be sick. And immediately after, you would feel guilty and stupid for feeling that way in the first place.

They were your clients—Joel was only a client. You were the one who helped them plan their wedding. You should be ecstatic to see them finally marry. But no matter how much you tried, you couldn’t.

What’s worse, you’ll have to attend their wedding tomorrow to make that a reality. You wished you could bail somehow and devise an excuse, but this was a part of your job. You needed to make sure that everything ran smoothly at their ceremony.

The thought made you uneasy. However, you tried your absolute best to push your feelings aside. You couldn’t let yourself be selfish. Not when you need to remain professional.

Sipping your tea, you hoped it would help you relax and ease your mind and racing thoughts. Maybe then you could sleep without having to envision Joel and Jenna kissing at the altar over and over again.

You almost felt like you were losing your mind. You had never felt so reluctant about attending a wedding that you assisted in planning before. But it was different with the Millers. So, so different.

You thought your time with Joel was just going to be a one-time thing, one mistake. But that one mistake turned into two. And now, you couldn’t take your mind off of him.

You had to keep reminding yourself that you needed to keep things professional between the two of you. Even though you had failed this before, you needed to put it in stone now before it was too late. He was getting married tomorrow, and you needed to accept that fact. He is in a happy and loving relationship; that’s something you need to swallow.

Taking a sip of your tea, you closed your eyes and felt the relaxation hit you instantly with the warm lemon flavor. It never fails to calm your nerves. While they weren’t gone completely, they did decrease significantly.

With a few more sips, you were sure that you’d be able to fall asleep in no time. After all, you needed to be wide awake and perky tomorrow morning for the wedding. But no matter how many times you tasted the calming lemon tea, Joel never left your mind.

You kept thinking about the way he felt, the way he touched you, the way he held you as he would thrust into you over and over again. Just thinking about it made your cheeks hot and your pussy throb. But the way he made you feel was what stuck in your head the most.

Clearing your throat, you sighed before sipping your tea, already close to finishing it off. You were just hoping that this would work and you would be able to drift to sleep without another thought of Joel.

After a few minutes, you started feeling more relaxed and drowsy. You felt as if you were going to lie down in bed and attempt to fall asleep, and you may have been successful.

That was until you heard a knock on the door.

Your eyes quickly widened as your heart rate picked up. A knock on your door was the very last thing you were expecting. It scared the shit out of you, to say the least.

Your heart was still pounding as you slowly turned to face the door. You were cautious, for it was the middle of the night, and you had no clue who was at your door or why. You felt your heart in your throat as you slowly stood up, still overly wary.

Surely, if it was a murderer, they would have already attempted to break into your house, right?

A second knock followed shortly after the first as you approached the door.

With a deep breath, you slowly creaked the door open, cracking it open an inch to see who could be at your house at this hour before opening it up completely.

It was Joel.

You furrowed your eyebrows and opened the door, knowing that it was safe and that it was somebody you actually knew. But that didn’t calm all of your thoughts. You were still beyond confused. Why would Joel be at your doorstep? On the night before his wedding, of all nights? Shouldn’t he be cuddled up in bed with his bride-to-be all fast asleep?

While you were lost in your thoughts, Joel was staring at you, lost in his own. His eyes bore into your own, a swirl of thoughts in his mind.

“Joel?” Was all you could say before he took a step forward, not even saying a word before putting his hands on either side of your face and pulling you into him.

His soft lips crashed into yours, squeezing his eyes shut as he did so. He kept you close, as if he were to let go, he would lose you completely, and that wasn’t a risk he was willing to take.

You didn’t hesitate for a second before kissing him back passionately. You felt as though you wished upon a star, and now your dream came true. You had been thinking all night about Joel, and now here he was, standing on your front porch kissing you as if you two were the last people on Earth.

Your arms draped around his neck, bringing him in even closer to you if possible. His tongue slipped into your mouth, tasting all of you that he possibly could. It pained him to know that this could potentially be your last kiss. Although, there shouldn’t have even been one in the first place. He was supposed to be a married man soon, for fuck’s sake. But you were like a drug to him. He kept on coming back for more. Neither of you could get enough of each other. Each promise that you made to yourselves never lasted. There was always a part of you that knew you two would find each other again one way or another.

“Joel.” You tried to mumble against his lips, but your words were muffled as he kept kissing you, never wanting to stop.

He shook his head to shush you and brought your lips back to his into a passionate kiss.

He moved his hands down to your ass, giving them a cheeky squeeze before grabbing your waist, picking you up, and placing you on his hips. You wrapped your legs around his waist, the kiss never breaking in the process.

His strong arms kept a grip on you while he moved you over to the counter to place you down, his hands squeezing and caressing your hips. Pulling his lips away slightly, he moved them down to your jaw, placing kisses down to your neck.

“Joel..” You took the opportunity to speak but interrupted yourself with a moan when Joel found the weak spot on your neck. He already knew you and your body much too well, “Your wedding’s tomorrow. We really shouldn’t-”

You trailed off from your sentence when Joel pulled away to look you straight in the eyes, “You want me to stop?” He whispered, his hand still firm on your hip.

You didn’t want him to stop. And he knew that you didn’t from the way you looked at him, the way all your emotions swirled in your eyes.

“We shouldn’t.” You repeated, but Joel quickly stopped you before you could say anything else.

“I asked if you wanted me to stop.” He shook his head slowly, never looking away from your eyes. He could feel you tense slightly under his touch, debating with your mind on how to answer.

“I…” You whispered, licking your lips as you looked him up and down. Your heart skipped a beat when you saw the bulge in his pants, and your mouth went dry. You wanted this man in front of you so damn bad. You knew it was beyond messed up and wrong, but you knew that this was your last chance with him, that after this, he would be married for good, “No. I don’t want you to..” You whispered breathily and pulled him in for another kiss, your fingers getting tangled up in his hair.

He smirked against your lips as he kissed you back instantly, proud of your words. They were exactly what he wanted to hear. He wasn’t ready to let go of you yet and wanted to show you that.

He moved his hands from your waist up to your chest, cupping your breasts in both of his hands. Your moan vibrated against his lips as he slipped his hands underneath your tank top, his strong hands now caressing your skin. The coldness of his hands sent shivers down your spine and goosebumps up your arms.

His thumbs moved over your nipples as he massaged your breasts with both of his hands, knowing just how to touch you to please you.

It was a familiar feeling, the feeling of guilt and pleasure all in one. Your mind has already told you, screamed at you, countless times before that you shouldn’t be doing this, that you shouldn’t allow yourself to be in this position. But no matter how much you reminded yourself that this wasn’t right, you couldn’t stop. Especially now, when this may be your last chance to be with him again.

The thought that you may lose him after tonight made you pull him in closer to you, wanting to be as physically close as you possibly could. You wanted to touch and feel all of him, memorizing every nook and cranny in his body to keep stored in your memory when he would inevitably disappear from your life.

You didn’t want to lose him, but you couldn’t express those feelings, especially not now. You didn’t want to ruin this moment between you. You just wanted to enjoy it while you still could.

“God, I need you so bad, baby girl.” Joel mumbled quietly in your ear, gently nibbling your earlobe. This caused you to lean your head back slightly and sent a warm vibration over your lower body.

You need him just as much. But you didn’t need to say any words to get that message across. He could tell the second he moved his hand under your panties, slipping a finger rather easily into your wet folds.

Joel groaned as he looked at you, his eyes darkened with lust and want. Knowing and feeling how much you wanted him turned him on even more. His bulge was prominent in his pants; it was almost unbearable. He could feel it throb with eagerness, being trapped by his boxers.

“Tonight, you’re all mine.” He growled, attacking your lips with his.

That one word stuck with the both of you. Tonight. He was yours, and you were his, but only for tonight. After that, he would belong to Jenna. And tonight, you would make sure that you would make it one hell of a night, for it may as well be your final night.

Agreeing with his words, you kissed him back passionately, your teeth nearly clashing with his. You put your hands on his cheek, his scruff prickling against your skin. You nearly held onto him as you kissed him, letting out all the emotions you’ve kept down since now.

“Bedroom.” Joel demanded, out of breath, panting against your lips for a quick moment before pulling away. He held onto your hips and helped you down off the counter. You could only smile in excitement as you made your way to the bedroom, Joel right on your heels.

Joel’s shirt was already half off when he stepped into the bedroom. He really wasn’t wasting any time.

You lay on your bed, resting your head on the pillows, your eyes watching Joel’s every move. Within the blink of an eye, Joel was on top of you as he threw his shirt over his head and tossed it into a corner of the room.

Your hands instantly moved up to his chest, running your hands up and down as he started to take off your pants effortlessly. You were sure that by the end of the night, you would have touched every single inch of his body.

“Look at ya, look how damn gorgeous you are.” Joel shook his head, his tongue going over his lower lip. He gazed upon your body, putting his entire focus on you as if it was the first time he had ever seen your body underneath him.

You blushed and failed to hold in your smile as you stared up at him, “Oh, just fuck me already, Mr. Miller.”

Joel chuckled lowly and shook his head as he moved his hands down to his hips, his fingers grazing your skin gently, “Little impatient are we?” He whispered, lowering down to press kisses on your jaw down to your chest.

“Very.” You admitted with an involuntary whine, needing him more than ever. You didn’t know how much longer you would be able to wait without him inside of you.

Joel smirked at your confession and shook his head teasingly. Oh, how he loved to tease you and see you squirm under his touch, just desperate to feel all of him.

“I love seeing you needin’ me so bad..” Joel cooed and caressed your hips firmly with his thumbs, “I won’t make ya wait any longer.” He didn’t admit it, but he was just as desperate as you. He didn’t want to spend another second without him inside of you. He wanted to fuck you until you were unable to walk, wanted to make this a night that you wouldn’t be able to stop thinking about for the rest of the week.

Without any more warning, he slipped inside you with ease.

“Fuck, I love this pussy.” Joel groaned and held onto your hips tighter as he pushed himself inside of you. It wasn’t his first time fucking you, but each time felt like the first. He could never get sick of you. Whereas with Jenna, he couldn’t even remember the last time they spent a night together.

You fit him like a glove as if your pussy was made just for him, and he had found the missing puzzle piece. Joel took a deep breath as he tried to calm himself down just a little. He didn’t want to get himself too excited, for he wanted this moment to last. And seeing you like this and just being inside of you was more than enough to get him going. He didn’t want it to end. He didn’t want this to be the last.

You and him both knew that you didn’t want him to go through with this marriage. Jenna never did anything wrong necessarily, but there was just something about you that she was lacking. He wanted to be with you and to stay with you. And even though you couldn’t admit it to him, you wanted the same exact thing. You had an ounce of hope that after tonight, he would tell you that the wedding was off and he was going to stay with you. But that was just wishful thinking.

“Nice and wet just for me.” Joel breathed, his hot breath hitting against the sensitive skin of your neck. Your skin tingled, yearning for the feeling of his lips on your neck.

His thrusts were slow and steady at first, getting you nice and eased in. But it wasn’t long until he pulled out before going back in one thrust, getting as deep as he possibly could, “God, I just wanna be deep inside of ya, doll.” he mumbled before doing it once more, the feeling of being empty to completely full causing you to moan.

You tried not to think about the possibility of it being your last time with him, and it was easy to do so at the moment, considering that your mind felt foggy from him thrusting into you over and over again.

You leaned your head back and grabbed onto his hair for something to hold onto as he thrusted mercilessly into you. The tugging of his hair only made him more motivated as he quickened up the pace. He could feel himself getting close, but he tried his best to distract himself from finishing for he didn’t want this to end any time soon.

He held himself up with one hand over your head, the other grasping onto your breast, squeezing and teasing the nipple while he kept the pace of his thrusts. With each thrust, you let out a moan or a breath of pleasure.

This was something that you had enjoyed about sleeping with Joel so much. The fact that he knew exactly what you liked and that he knew what he was doing was incredible for you. He was the first to make you finish, and he’s always ensured you did.

You loved it. And for your own selfish reasons, you weren’t ready to let it go. To let him go.

Joel moved his hand from your breast to caress and squeeze your hip, the gentle squeezing making you even wetter. You loved the effect he had on you.

“Fuck, Joel! You’re incredible, fuck” You moaned out, feeling like your words were choked up in your throat. Moans followed your words, making you feel almost pathetic for how he easily made you feel like this.

Your head leaned back against the pillow, and you bit your bottom lip. So hard that you wouldn’t be surprised if you were able to taste blood sometime soon.

Joel groaned and smirked at your praise. It was just that little bit of motivation that kept him going.

There was a deep sinking feeling in his heart. Not because he knew he would be married to someone else soon, but because he was sleeping with somebody else. But knowing that this might be the last time he would be so intimate with you. It pained him to think about it.

However, he wouldn’t allow himself to get distracted and doleful, for his current goal was to make both of you feel good. And damn, he was going to do a good job of it.

“God, so fucking sexy,” Joel groaned and leaned down slightly to kiss your neck, a place that you were badly aching for him to touch, “Can’t get enough of you.” He bit your neck gently, pulling the skin slightly before placing a kiss over and over again on that same spot.

“I’m close, fuck I’m close.” You moaned and squeezed your eyes shut, putting all of your focus on getting to your climax.

Joel took these words and continued to do precisely what he was doing, gripping and squeezing your waist while keeping the same pace with his thrusts, knowing just what you wanted, just what you needed. He knew you like the back of his hand.

Your hands moved down from his hair onto his shoulders as you felt the finish line getting closer and closer.

“Come for me, baby.”

With your nails dug into his back, you kept your eyes shut and moaned and screamed out his name, your climax taking you by storm. You felt elated as he continued his thrusts, fucking you through your orgasm.

Your breaths became quicker as you came down from your climax, your heart racing at a million miles an hour. You felt as though you were on cloud nine. The idea that this was possibly the last time wasn’t even in your mind anymore. All you could think about was how incredible this man was able to make you feel, each time without fail.

With you finishing, Joel didn’t feel the need to hold himself back anymore, knowing that he had gotten you where he wanted you to be. He squeezed your waist gently and leaned his head back, the veins in his neck nearly popping as he came inside of you. Wet and hot rope after rope shooting inside of you, he felt as though it was one of the longest and most intense orgasms he’d ever experienced.

While he was with Jenna, you were the one who made him feel good about himself. You made him feel like the man he was. His legs nearly shook as he slowly pulled himself out of you, both of you instantly missing the feeling of being connected so intimately.

Joel kissed the top of your head before slowly laying down next to you, wrapping his arm around you. You had already come down from your climax while Joel’s heart was still racing, and his breathing was unsteady.

“God, you never fail to amaze me.” You break the silence and laugh.

Joel chuckled along with you and rubbed your arm as he pulled you in closer to his naked body, “Same goes for you, doll.”

While the two of you were feeling incredible, you knew that there was an elephant in the room that neither of you wanted to begin to discuss. But you know you had to.

“So, you’re getting married tomorrow.” The words felt forced from your lips as you glanced over at him.

You could feel him tense up once you brought it up.

“Mhm.” He hummed out and looked down, refusing to look at you.

You almost felt bad for asking, but you knew that it had to be done, “Must be pretty exciting, huh?”

You were hoping that he would say what you were hoping, that the wedding wouldn’t be happening in the first place. But again, that was nothing but hopeful thinking.

Joel opened his mouth to say something but sighed, his body still tense, “You would think so,” he spoke quietly, holding onto your shoulder a bit tighter to reassure himself. He couldn’t hide the truth from you. He didn’t want to, “But I’m not feeling the least bit excited. It’s dread, is what I’ve been feelin’. And I can’t lie, baby, you’re all I can think about.”

This is what you wanted to hear. But it didn’t feel right. Your heart was still sunken in your chest.

“But the wedding?” You whispered while staring up at him, wanting him to continue.

“The weddin’s tomorrow. I can’t just not marry her, she loves me.” The corner of Joel’s lips turned into a frown, “I can’t do that to her.”

The words hurt you more than you ever thought they would, especially now that you were cuddled up against him, close in his arms. You weren’t ready to let him go.

With your head resting on his chest, he felt at home. You felt safe in Joel’s arms. You couldn’t deny that feelings for him were beginning to develop, which made this all that much harder. And saying goodbye wasn’t necessarily ever easy.

You swallowed the big lump in your throat and nodded slowly. Now was quite possibly the only time you could ever tell him the truth. If you stayed silent, you knew that you would regret it in the near or far future.

“I understand,” Your voice was soft, your throat was tight, “I really do like you, Joel… I’ve loved spending these nights with you. I ended up looking forward, wondering if I may see you again,”

His eyes bore into you as you spoke. His eyebrows were slightly furrowed along with a frown on his lips. He had a gut feeling that he knew where this was heading, and he dreaded the words coming from your lips.

“And I want you to be happy. I know that if you cancel this wedding, you’re going to regret it for the rest of your life. I don’t want to get in the way of that, not more than I already have. You and Jenna deserve to be happy.” You fought back the tears, refusing to choke up in front of him.

Joel stayed silent and frowned as he looked at you, squeezing his hand gently. He didn’t say a single word as he stood up from your bed. He leaned down and placed a gentle kiss on your forehead. You squeezed your eyes shut to prevent the tears from falling down.

It was a silent goodbye. He was hesitant, but he didn’t want to make this goodbye harder than it already was.

He left the room without turning back.

Once you opened your eyes, the tears fell down.

You tossed and turned, trying to fall asleep that night. They are getting married tomorrow. And there wasn’t anything you could do about it.

#joel miller #joel miller x reader #joel miller x you #joel tlou #the last of us #tlou #the last of us hbo #pedro pascal #pedro pascal characters #18+#female reader #writing #fiction #joel miller smut #tlou smut #the last of us smut #joel miller angst #tlou angst #the last of us angst

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guessimjoiningthespidermanfandom · 10 months

Note

You should do earth 42!miles x cheerleader! Reader that would be so fun!

Be Aggressive! B-E Aggressive

Earth 42!Miles Morales x fem!reader

Earth 42!Miles Morales x black!reader

Word Count: 3k

Warnings: Language, kissing, brief mentions of drugging, and mentions of steroids.

Requested: yes

A/N: ITS BEEN SO LONG, I’m so sorry school started two days ago to requests may slow down but they’re still coming slowly but surely, this is my first time doing headcanons and I feel like the blurbs or drabbles or wtv their called end so abruptly but this has been a WIP for a month now so I’m putting it out there, I hope you enjoy while I move on to the next request.

300 Follower Special <3

Masterlist

-Carries ibuprofen on him 24/7 because he knows you’re gonna ask for it.

“Here,” Miles held his hand out in front of you revealing two small red pills.

You turned to him grabbing your cheer bag out of your locker, the picture of confusion.

“For your headache,” He explained.

“I don’t have a headache, you tryna drug me?”

“With ibuprofen, really?” He deadpanned “Take it so I don’t have to hear about your headache later,”

“Awww, you’re so sweet,” You pulled him into a hug gushing over how considerate he was to not want you in pain.

“Shut up,” He turned his face away without pulling away from you.

Although he would never say it to your face he’d gone entirely soft for you.

-Goes to football games despite not fully understanding it to see you

“Miles!” You squeaked when he came up behind you on the bleachers and wrapped an arm around your waist pulling you down onto the bench.

You turned around, facing him to find a tray of nachos in his hand.

He placed it down next to you for you to grab before sitting down on the step behind you.

You let out a groan and glanced back at your coach who was still standing by the benches on the football field.

There were only 12 minutes left of halftime and now that you were standing still you realized truly just how cold you were.

“Baby, you’re shivering,” Miles ran his hand up and down your arm.

“I know,” You whined. “Reina forget her warm-ups so coach won’t let us put them on,”

He hummed gesturing for you to stand up, you did and he pulled off his jacket helping you slip your arms into it, and zipping it all the way up.

He pulled your hair out of the back.

Still unconvinced that you’d gotten any warmer he pulled you into his lap surrounding your waist with his arms.

You raised your eyebrow at him but you felt so comfortable that you relaxed into him and let it slide.

That was until he started running his hands up and down your exposed thighs.

“Miles.” You warned your voice tight.

He continued what he was doing, acting oblivious.

“What ma, I’m just warming you up,” He leaned forward picking at your skirt. “It’s so short I know you’re cold,”

You pushed one of his hands away and he immediately put it back returning to his affections.

“You’re gonna get me in trouble,” You complained. PDA was very clearly outlined in the forbidden behaviors in your cheer contract.

“C’mon,” He rolled his eyes glancing down at your coach “She’s not even looking, relax”

“Alright,” You cautioned, moving to stand up.

He rushed to pull you back down into his lap.

“Okay, okay, I’m sorry,” He stilled his hands. “One kiss and I’ll leave you alone,”

-carries you on his back after practice

Cheer practice ran 2 hours late and you already hadn’t gotten much sleep last night trying to finish your homework. You were aching and exhausted.

Trudging up to your boyfriend at the edge of the track you gave him a meek nod of acknowledgment. Knowing you were drained he just slid your cheer bag off your shoulder before pulling it onto his.

After your third stumble into Miles’ side, he stopped walking, giving you the opportunity to fully lean on him.

Your eyes were drooping and appeared to be as if you were one strong breeze from falling over.

“Get on my back,” He suggested.

You nodded through a yawn, shuffling to get behind him.

He quickly knelt down making it easier for you to simultaneously wrap your arms and legs around him.

Hoisting you up with him to his full height he readjusted your bag on his shoulder.

He held both of your thighs securely while your arms dangled around his neck. Your head dropped into his neck and you let out a content hum.

He continued his pace to get to the front of the school.

With your calf’s swinging back and forth your grip on Miles’ neck loosened.

He asked a small “You comfy?”

When he was met with silence he chuckled to himself knowing you were asleep.

Once he’d finally made the trek to the front of the school he located your brother's truck.

He was sitting in the front seat on his phone with his head down before Miles knocked on the window.

Pulling the passenger door open with a click, he slid you off his back before lifting you up into the passenger seat.

You huffed making a sound of discomfort, shifting in your seat when your brother finally verbally acknowledged Miles.

They both froze before your breathing evened out and you stilled with your neck below the headrest.

Satisfied with the knowledge that you weren’t going to wake up, Miles responded to your brother.

“Alright, I’ll see you later,” He closed the door before stepping back and watching your brother drive off with your sleeping figure in tow.

-stares at and distracts you when you do comp. makeup

As you were struggling to get your larger-than-life lashes to fit to your lash line you felt a pair of eyes on you.

Glancing in the side of your vanity mirror you saw your boyfriend lying on your bed watching you.

“Can I help you?” You asked turning back around and grabbing your eyelash curler.

Seconds later you felt a presence at your back, looking up you made eye contact with Miles through the mirror.

Not leaving your question unanswered he asked what that was.

“What’s what?”

“The thing in your hand,” He replied as if it were obvious.

“Ohhh, my eyelash curler,”

He seemed satisfied enough with your answer to continue his silent staring. That was until you held the tool up to your eye.

“You’re gonna poke your eye out,” He startled you.

“It doesn’t even touch my eye,” You pulled it away from yourself.

“Is it hot?” He asked, reaching for it.

You pulled your hand away before standing, lifting the item to his eye. “Let me show you,”

“Hell no,” He pushed your arm away, wrestling you back down into your chair.

“C’mon please,” You whined.

He simply shook his head and took a step back from your chair. At first, you were just trying to be irritating, but now you were really interested in curling your boyfriend’s beautiful and freakishly long eyelashes.

You kept begging and although you kept receiving denials, you knew you could break his resolve.

“If you keep fucking around, you’re gonna be late,” He reminded you.

“We would’ve been gone by now if you weren’t being a baby,”

“Y/N! Let’s go, I’m leaving!” Your brother and ride yelled from the front door.

“Okay, I’m coming!” You answered before turning towards Miles again. “Just one eye really fast, please,”

Before he could open his mouth to say no you leaned up wrapping your arms around his neck and pressing your lips to his.

He sighed, grabbing your lower waist with both hands.

He rested against your vanity and pulled you to stand between his legs. He kissed you harder than appropriate for the time constraint and you pulled away before he could take it further.

He was panting against your face so when you said “I’m just gonna do one eye,” and because you knew you could break his resolve, he didn’t protest.

-his only media on his Instagram is a highlight of videos of you cheering and photos of you he doesn’t even have a pfp

Today, 7:37 PM

miles 😋❤️: Send me that picture

you: what picture?

Miles 😋❤️: The one I took of you on your phone from the last game

you: i’ll havr to look for it

have**

miles 😋❤️: Okay so look fast

you: nigga don’t tell me what to do

just wait

miles 😋❤️: Yes ma’am 🫡

Today, 7:46 PM

you: Sent 3 attachments

Putting your phone back down on your desk you started on your math study guide.

That you knew would take all night. Your math teacher never believed in giving students with extracurriculars extensions.

He wasn’t even supposed to give tests on game days, but he never followed any of the rules.

After graphing another equation your phone screen lit up with a notification.

m.morales added a photo to their story

Picking up your phone and unlocking it you opened Instagram to find a collage made of the pics you’d just sent him.

You couldn’t help but smile looking at the story of you in your cheer uniform smiling widely at the camera. The last verse of Dark Red by Steve Lacy playing over the story post.

Shifting your thumb to the heart icon on the bottom right you liked Miles’ story before moving to reply.

y/u/n: thank you this is the cutest most sweetest thing in the world 🫶🏽 💋

m.morales: Yw, my mom said you looked very pretty

y/u/n: tell her I said thank you

m.morales: I will

y/u/n: you should've tagged me

m.morales: No I don’t want nobody tryna dm you

-doesn’t let you kiss him on the lips w lipgloss/lipstick on (secretly does like seeing the marks left on his face tho)

You gasped, placing your hand over your heart in faux pain.

“How dare you?” You asked.

Sitting with your knees bracketing Miles' waist on the edge of his bed you questioned him on dodging your kiss. With how clingy he is he would never turn down affection.

“Wipe that stuff off your lips and I’ll kiss you,”

“Toxic masculinity is not a good look on you,” You tsked.

“Nothing toxic about not wanting sticky shit all over your mouth,”

You rolled your eyes at his response before speaking up. “My bad, forgot you were autistic,”

“I’m not autistic,” He fired back immediately.

“M’kay Mr. Sensory Issues,”

Instead of defending himself again or trying to change the subject he just leaned back into his wall, crossed his arms over his chest, and pouted.

You tried not to laugh at how childish he was being and instead cooed at him pressing a kiss to his cheek, then the other.

Pulling back you viewed the two lip marks left behind and the small involuntary smile on his face.

Leaning back in, you returned to your ministrations amongst his skin.

When all of your lipgloss and stick was transferred off you sat back on your heels admiring your work.

Extending your body you reached for your phone resting near his pillow. Returning to your previous position you grabbed his face taking pictures of him with closed eyes and the goofy smile on his face.

Clicking on the small photo icon to enlarge it you flipped your phone around to show your no longer pouting boyfriend.

Squinting to see the picture Miles looked at the kiss marks littered across his cheeks, forehead, and jaw, he pretended to not care, while he forced himself to conceal the giddy smile that wanted to break out across his face.

-his mom loves you more than he does “calls you her mini daughter-in-law” but disproves of the “short” skirt

When Miles first introduced you to his mother she was skeptical. You were her baby’s first girlfriend, he was all she had left. How did she know if you were trying to take him from her?

But now you were all she could ever talk about. She treated you like a daughter.

“When’s Y/N getting here, I want to see her before I leave,” Rio asked in her blue scrubs grabbing a banana off the counter.

“She texted and said she’s 2 minutes out,” Miles answered sitting on the couch in his Visions uniform, his backpack on the floor next to him.

Down on the street, you closed the door to your brother's truck before throwing your backpack strap over your shoulder.

Saying goodbye to your brother you ran up to the Morales’ door.

Immediately after opening the door, Mrs. Morales pulled you into a tight hug.

She asked how her “little daughter-in-law” had been but before you could finish responding she was releasing you from her arms.

Once you were at arm's length she spun you to the side. Furrowing her brows she plucked at the fabric of your cheer skirt.

With a sigh and a shake of her, she muttered to herself “What is the school thinking, making these outfits so short,”

Sliding past her as she moved to finish off her morning routine, you greeted your boyfriend near the couch.

You pressed a quick kiss to Miles's cheek and he immediately perked up from his fatigued before-school mood.

He stood up a little taller, his display of confidence was however broken by a loud laugh from across the apartment.

With your boyfriend’s and your attention on her, Rio explained the cause of her amusement.

“Look at how much happier he is, 5 minutes ago he was like an angry old man,”

She moved closer to the both of you to coo at her son.

“How cute, he missed you. Every time you leave he goes into his room and-“

Before she could embarrass him even more Miles interrupted.

“Mami, you’re gonna be late for work.” He attempted to usher her out the door.

“Miles don’t be rude, let her speak,” You chimed in wanting to hear whatever embarrassing thing she had to say now.

“No, no,” Rio dismissed you with a wave of her hand. “He’s right, I’ll just tell you later,”

She gave each of you and Miles a kiss on the cheek before grabbing her messenger bag on her way out the door.

As the door clicked shut you smiled up at your boyfriend.

“So…” You dragged out, “You gonna tell me what she was talking about?”

-reluctantly goes to fundraisers you have to cheer/be present at

You sat on your couch pouting up at Miles as he stood in front of you.

“Don’t you have friends you can go with?”

“Yeah, but I wanna go with my boyfriend, or do you not love me anymore?”

He groaned, rubbing his face with his hands.

“Don’t start,” He warned.

“I don’t understand, why won’t you love me?”

“Baby it’s hot outside,”

“I have to go though, so just come with me,”

It’d been a whole 5 minutes of you trying to convince Miles to accompany you to the school-sanctioned car wash. It was mandatory for the cheerleaders to attend. Your coach had a habit of enthusiastically signing you all up for fundraisers that she would only have to work the snack booth while you did all the work.

“I literally never see you anymore come on,” You whined trying a different approach.

“I’m literally standing in front of you now,” He mocked you.

“Miles,” You whined.

“Y/N,” He copied you with the same inflection.

Giving up, you told him you didn’t even care if he went anymore.

Pouting again you closed in on yourself. Miles sat back down next to you and you scooted to the other end.

Scrolling through your phone you obnoxiously laughed out loud every few minutes and when Miles asked you what was so funny you pretended not to hear him.

He knew you were going to continue your childish antics until he gave in and went to this carwash in the high 90° weather.

“Alright, I’ll go with you,” He conceded.

With a satisfied smile on your face, you hopped up off the couch. You leaned over and pressed a peck to his lips muttering a small thank you.

“Let me go change,” You ran to your room. “Don’t leave, I’ll be quick!”

“Where would I go?” He yelled back.

-Gets phantom pains from your tight ponytails

“Does that not hurt?”

“It does but you get used to it,”

You’d grown accustomed to the pain that came with having your hair pulled up into a tight high ponytail for the majority of AAU and comp season.

Miles however was appalled by this revelation. Every time your face so much slightly twitches in pain he was obnoxiously groaning claiming that you two were connected and he could feel it.

“I don’t wanna look at it anymore,” Instead of turning away as any sane person would’ve done, he reached over and slid the hair tie out of your hair.

The release of the tension pulling on your head lets you relax a bit more, your headache slowly fading away.

“Ridiculous,” You heard your boyfriend mutter.

“What?” You asked unsure if that was meant for your ears or not.

“Look at your hair,”

Narrowing your eyes at him you pulled up the camera on your phone to find a sizable dent in your hair where the rubber band had once been.

“That’s why you have a headache all the time,” He lectured, moving over you, to massage your scalp.

“Probably,” You answered, sighing and leaning back into his arms. He complained again about how your hairstyle was too tight claiming “all your hair is gonna fall out”

“‘Kay, I won’t do it so tight next time,” You lied.

-believes you should 100% be captain doesn’t matter if there’s someone “better” than you

“Catherine is like objectively better than me at cheer and she’s a senior there’s no reason she shouldn’t be captain,” You had to explain to your boyfriend after the cheer positions had come out that you were only a sophomore and having a position on varsity was actually really good.

He however didn’t agree. “She’s probably on steroids,”

You laughed at the absurdity of his claim. “No one is taking high school serious enough to do steroids,”

“I think she should get tested anyways,”

“Not everyone that’s better than me is on steroids,”

“‘Nobody’s better than you,” He argued. “And if they were it’s only ‘cause of steroids.”

1K notes · View notes

morallyinept · 1 month

Note

Hey Jett!!

This may be seen as an ask that’s not for many people aesthetic wise, but how do you think the Pedro boys would react to a Traditional Goth?

(Yknow, gorgeous girls like these two 🫶)

I totally get it if it isn’t your thing, but I adore your perspective on different scenarios! My curiosity always gets the best of me!

Love you! 🩶

Hey Lovely Leah! 🖤

Oooh, they are indeed stunning, wow! 😍

I love this Ask, because first and foremost, I myself am strange and unusual, hosting an inner Goth of my own! 🖤 (There's a reason why I use the black heart emoji all the time, bub...)

And I love thinking about the Pedro Boys and their reactions to a stunning Traditional Goth like these beauts. Kinda makes me wanna write a story about it too... 🤔 *wip list cries*

So, without further ado, here's my ramblings on it.

Enjoy & love you too! 🖤

Pedro Boys Rambles Masterlist

Rated slightly NSFW.

These are just my own head canons and are in no way verbatim. Your thoughts might differ and that's totally cool. 🙌🏻

Joel Miller - Joel would be captivated at first and he certainly won’t be turning a blind eye to the PVC ensemble. No, darlin'. He’s a red-blooded male after all and has a penchant for hosiery of the fishnet variety. Tears easy in his big hands... 🫠 But after a while, he’ll assume it’s a phase, and when he realises Goth is a 24/7 lifestyle and look here to stay, he’ll probably mumble and brood over whether he can continue a relationship with a stunning woman who is obsessed with coffins and decorating his home in crow taxidermy and skulls, and who also secretly kinda scares the crap outta him. Give Joel an apocalypse and he’ll flourish, but a gorgeous Traditional Goth? Just watch that hulk of a man lose it and turn to mush.

Frankie Morales - Frankie would be drawn to the mystique, I think. He’d be curious, ask gentle questions and try to sound like he knows what he's talking about. He doesn't. He lives in Florida, a mostly Hispanic scene without many pale Goths hanging around, at least not in his local neighbourhood anyhow. He’d be fascinated with the look, the way you do your make-up that strangely reminds him of Gene Simmons. But I don’t think Frankie would act on it or have the guts to approach you first. Not that he doesn’t find Goth attractive - he totally had a thing for Morticia Addams for a while in his youth and whacked off to her more times that he can count - but more so he worries that you won’t find him appealing because, you know, he’s not Goth himself. Que pink-tipped ears and soft baby cow eyes covered under the brim his cap whilst he dares not make eye contact with you as he shuffles past you in the bar.

Ezra - There isn’t a sex in the interplanetary that Ezra wouldn't find attractive and this gnarly space dude ain’t fussy. Opportunistic, as he’s been described, and I think Ezra would be all up in your Goth grill like digging frantically for Aurelac with his dirty fingers. He’d wanna hear that snap of the PVC against his huge palm as he slaps your ass whilst ploughing you. But not before he’s regaled you with the origins of where Goth began, "... The genesis of Gothic aesthetics traces back to the early 12th century in northern France, unfurling swiftly from its architectural cradle to permeate sculpture, textiles, and painting. From the intricate frescoes to the mesmerizing stained glass and the opulent glow of illuminated manuscripts, its tendrils extended far beyond. Although the contemporary scene burgeoned in the 1980s, fostered by fervent admirers of bands such as Siouxsie and the Banshees, Joy Division, and Bauhaus, Gothic rock’s dark allure finds its roots in the haunting elegance of Gothic art and architecture spanning the mid-12th to 16th centuries. Such is the enigmatic journey of Gothic sensibility, Birdie…”

Marcus Pike - Let’s not forget the genteel Agent Pike was in a band. Yes! Dark horse, right? Okay, so it wasn’t exactly metalcore and nor was he doing that death metal growl into a microphone, but he does love a good nod to a heavy rock anthem now and again. Marcus Pike would be hella intimidated by a Goth though. He’d stutter and stumble around his words whilst blushing and apologising profusely, and trying not to look at how tight your corset is… I imagine back in high school, there was a sweet Goth girl whom he secretly had a crush on, and I can imagine him spiking up his hair with tons of Dax Wax, and putting on a studded collar to try and win her round. And failing miserably… poor, baby has never been the same around Goths since.

Marcus Moreno - Despite his heroic strength, Marcus would crumble in front of a gorgeous Goth. Especially a really tall one. There’s something so alluring and mysterious about that dark aura that calls to him. Of course, he’s another who would be hella intimidated, but Marcus Moreno would still compliment your style and want to get to know more about you. Missy would think you’re super cool if he brought you home, and she’d be babbling excitedly as you paint her nails black with little silver moon decals, to which she’d excitedly show her dad. And if you can win Missy over, then mission accomplished. Her superhero dad will be absolute putty in your dark talons.

Oberyn Martell - Oberyn’s having a big, greedy serving of Goth. Now, there’s no Goths in the Seven Kingdoms, but that wouldn’t stop Oberyn being drawn explicitly to the dark enthral of your Victorian-style lace and silks. Sultry and sexy and he’d want to delight in all that a stunning creature has to offer him. Your look would stand out to him because it’s so different to anything he’s ever seen before. It would delight the Red Viper immensely, and he would thank the Gods in rapture as you let him slither himself all over you in his bed chambers. There's something so beautiful about the black and gold colours merging together...

Max Phillips - Our resident bloodsucker, the king of the dark himself, Max loves to chow down on a Goth. Or two. The more the merrier. Despite his fuckboi facade, Max is a creature of the dark. Nosferatu. Vampyr. Leech. Whatever, he dwells in the dark and a Goth would appeal to that side of him massively. And a Goth would easily be able to force Max into submission, for he’d do anything for a taste of that beautiful pale skin underneath. He’ll even share his coffin with you, baby.

Dieter Bravo - Dieter quite likes the thought of a Goth dominating the hell out of him. Yeah, he’s thought about it. A lot. He’d love a role in a Goth Vampire flick or something. It's all that creaky PVC and leather that does it for him. He’d love nothing more than to be your humble bitch for the night, letting you do whatever the Hell you want to him and leaving black lipstick smears all over his abused cock. And Dieter would be the one Pedro Boy out of them all who you could convince to dress fully Goth too. And I think that dude would totally rock it. Slicked back curls, long dark trench, studded boots… think the 2023 Met Gala look, but replace the Valentino reds with black, add some guyliner and black lipstick, and voila! There you have a Goth Dieter. You're welcome.

Dave York - Dave doesn’t understand the appeal, despite donning the all black get up himself on the regular when he’s out murderously stalking in the deep shadows of the night... But that doesn’t stop him peeking in on his hot Goth neighbour now and again through his periscope when he tells Carol he’s retreating to the study for a bit to work on a “case.” The case being his rock hard cock. Dave would have persued you already, but he's allergic to your black cats, Betelgeuse and Hannibal. Shame, as he's pretty sure he'd have a penchant for your other pussy...

Din Djarin - Din’s come across a lot of different looking species during his space travels, but never a beautiful Goth. I imagine this Tin Can Man would be absolutely rattling inside his Beskar armor at the discovery of a stunning, ethereal beauty boarding his Razor Crest and cooing at The Kid… there isn’t much that would topple this brute of a Mandalorian, but your thighs smooth and oil-like in that shiny PVC would pop that helmet off in an instant. (And we’re not talking about the one covering his face…)

Agent Whiskey - A traditional cowboy at heart, Whiskey very much has his roots and spurs buried deep in, well, tradition. And that don’t involve Goths, sugar. But, we all know Whiskey has that suave charm about him that would attract you like a magpie in want of something shiny. And Whiskey would absolutely reciprocate despite himself, complimenting your look, and would want to hear that whip of his snap back against the PVC that hugs your ass fantastically tight. Hoo, mama. You’re in for the ride of your life. "Are ya a witch, sugar? 'Cause I am sure under your spell..." Bless him, he's trying to woo you.

Lucien Flores - As a dramatic arts connoisseur, Lucien would have had his fair share of colourful and extravagant experiences, I reckon. And I envision him getting really close to his scene partner, who happens to be Goth outside of their costume, and he eagerly wants to explore what’s underneath that. He’s drawn to the dark, velvety shadow across your lids and wonders if he can get it all smeared down your cheeks as you gag and choke on him. And you’re absolutely gagging for his gold chains to whack you in the face. Eventually, the two worlds collide.

Maxwell Lord - Max is attracted to fierce women, and looking at you in your dark ensemble, your raven-esque hair and looking like you could make all his dreams come true with one simple wish, it’s not hard to revel in Max falling to his knees in subjugation of you and licking your spiked, platform boot.

Javier Peña - You’d get the famous Peña arched brow side-eye. Goths don’t really do it for Javi and his more conservative, yet somewhat out of date, taste. That being said, if he arrived at the brothel and you were offering your dark services, swathed in tight black lace and leather buckles, do you think he’d turn you down? The answer is no, cariño.

Javi Gutierrez - Javi would be super fascinated and want to know all about your interests and look. He’d be the kind to sit and stare at you longingly as you apply your eyeliner, which is an art in itself, and get really excited by your choice of outfit. He’d want to do the whole cliché thing of casting spells and doing a seance too. He’d totally get into it all before you educate him entirely on all things Goth. And sure, there would be a lot of candles, but it won't be to summon the dead. Although, Javi will sure feel like Lazurus rising the next morning, smiling and giggly because you rocked his fucking world, and he's totally bewitched by you.

Tim Rockford - The closest Tim has come to anything Goth is when he busted one once. And he’d much prefer to see your pretty face underneath all that dark make-up. I imagine Tim being a less-is-more kind of man, and while he’d gently clean your face free of the eyeliner and white powder, and peel you out of your dark clothes, he’d take his sweet time in doing it.

Dio Morrissey - Our resident Pedro Boy Goth is already in the house! But if Dio ever met a Traditional Goth, he’d shit his damn pants. Whilst he paints himself to be above the drones and seeking a higher ascension with his arrogant God complex, this lil’ sucker would fall to his knees in complete submission whilst you laugh at the whimpering mess he makes beneath you.

🖤

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daisystwistedgarden · 20 days

Text

𝒇𝒊𝒄𝒔 𝒇𝒐𝒓 𝒈𝒂𝒛𝒂 - 𝒕𝒘𝒊𝒔𝒕𝒆𝒅 𝒘𝒐𝒏𝒅𝒆𝒓𝒍𝒂𝒏𝒅 𝒆𝒅𝒊𝒕𝒊𝒐𝒏

✿✿ 𝐢𝐧𝐭𝐫𝐨𝐝𝐮𝐜𝐭𝐢𝐨𝐧 & 𝐫𝐮𝐥𝐞𝐬 ✿✿

hello! i'm joining other lovely fanfic writers with @ficsforgaza to help raise money for the folks in need in palestine! i wanted to show my support in the best way i can, and this to me is a wonderful effort to bring the community together to do some good.

to participate, make a donation to a vetted fundraiser found on @ficsforgaza's page (aka, don't send me any money!) and send me a screenshot (with your personal information removed, please!) along with what you'd like to request to my ask box. please do not "double dip" aka use the same donation for several writers-- this is a fundraiser, after all! here is what a request looks like:

hello! can i sponsor your mermay fic? i donated $5 to gaza, here is the screenshot! thank you! [insert screenshot]

my pricing will be as follows:

❀ sponsor-a-WIP: $1/100 words ❀ drabbles: $2-3/100 words (elaborated below) ❀ no money to contribute, but you want to support the cause? that's okay. sign a vetted petition from the @ficsforgaza page and send proof, and i'll add a sentence to a WIP of your choosing.

if you have any questions, feel free to take a look here on @ficsforgaza's page or reach out to me. be patient, i will work on these fics at a good pace for me. thank you so much for helping me raise money for a good cause :D

✿✿ 𝐖𝐈𝐏𝐬 𝐭𝐨 𝐬𝐩𝐨𝐧𝐬𝐨𝐫 ✿✿

❀ the high school years

before night raven college, each student had their own lives and experiences in high school. what did those years look like? how did they affect each student at the arcane academy now?

headcanon paragraphs for each student. college!au. estimated length = unknown. characters completed: none. wc: 0. current sponsors: none.

❀ mermay: azul, jade, & floyd

you're a researcher and rehabilitation expert at an injured merfolk sanctuary near the coast in a small city. one day upon arriving to work, you're greeted with news of a new arrival. he's a bit... odd, it seems, but you're determined to coax him from the depths of his tank and help him recover from the injuries that landed him here in the first place.

small fics for each character. x reader. nonhuman!au (aka no school, no transformation potions). estimated length = unknown. characters completed: none. wc: 0. current sponsors: two! sponsored word count: 0/1000.

❀ summer camp collab

a super secret collab with two other amazing writers! support this fic if you want to sponsor a fun project i'm keeping under wraps for now...

fics for each character (limited cast). college!au. estimated length = unknown. characters completed: none. wc: 0. current sponsors: none.

❀ escape room hcs

in a convoluted set of circumstances, the members of night raven college are paired up together in completely random groups for an escape room bonding exercise. how does this go? who thrives, and who flounders? which groups make it out alive?

character groups made up of main cast of 24 (22 main students + yuu and grim). six groups of four chosen at complete random by a spinner wheel. college!au. estimated length = unknown. groups completed: none. wc: 0. current sponsors: none.

❀ tattoo/piercer!au

you're looking to start your apprenticeship in tattooing and piercing at a small shop on sage island. there, you study under an employee at the shop meant to take you under his wing. who is he? does your apprenticeship land you your dream job (and relationship), or is it a disaster from the moment you lock eyes?

fic, x reader. limited characters. post-college!au, tattoo/piercer!au. estimated length = unknown. characters completed: none. wc: 0. current sponsors: none.

❀ yandere!fem!vil x reader

vil never expected you'd ever break up. the split was blinding, leaving her in a stupor as she stumbled through coveted on-screen roles and modeling gigs for the most prestigious publications in twisted wonderland. in her mind, you're still hers. it's only when she finds out that you've found another lover that her world-- and mind-- officially crumbles. it's time she takes matters into her own hands.

fic, x reader. trigger warnings: murder, stalking, general yandere behavior. post-nrc!au. estimated length = unknown. characters completed: none. wc: 0. current sponsors: none.

✿✿ 𝐫𝐞𝐪𝐮𝐞𝐬𝐭𝐬 ✿✿

i'll be accepting drabble requests for the main cast. i write in a collge!au unless otherwise stated, elaborated further on my page here. drabbles are estimated to be ~500 words. they can be sfw/nsfw, tropes, fluff, etc. please specify what you'd like to see in this drabble, whether you only have a character in mind or a very specific scenario! (note: anon MUST be off for you to request nsfw, and you must be 18+).

since requests require a bit more work, i'll be pricing them at $2 per 100 words for sfw drabbles and $3 per 100 words for nsfw drabbles.

do you want to support gaza and request fics for obey me! or obey me! nightbringer? check out my other blog here

#fics for gaza #sponsor a wip #disney twisted wonderland #disney twst #twst #twisted wonderland #twst college au #twst x reader #twst imagines #twst headcanons

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flightlessangelwings · 8 months

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Ktober 2023 Day 24- Lingerie

Joel Miller x fem!reader

Word count- 1.4k

Warnings- s.mut (18+ ONLY!), oral (f receiving), reader wears lingerie but it's not described, soft Joel, established relationship, set in Jackson, can be read as either game or show Joel, no use of y/n

Notes- This was another one I've had in my wips for a long time and finally got around to writing lol! I just love a softer Joel with his person, and this is another favorite of the month! Prompt list made by me! Enjoy!

@flightlessangelwings-updates is myupdate blog so please follow that too and turn on post notifs to stay up to date on my new fics!

“Hey Joel?” you called down from your shared bedroom upstairs, “Can you come up here please?”

Joel quickly rose to his feet, “Be right there, baby,” he replied back as he made his way up the stairs. You had excused yourself some time earlier, and truthfully, Joel started to worry about what you were doing. When he asked, you didn’t tell him what was going on, and Joel’s mind always went to the worst. He just cared about you so fucking much.

His heart pounded in his chest as he climbed the stairs and opened the door to your bedroom, “Everything alrig…” Stopping dead in his tracks, all his fears and worries instantly vanished when he laid eyes on you.

You were spread out on the bed, posed seductively as the lingerie that adorned your body highlighted your figure perfectly. The little number you wore looked like it was made for you, and it even boosted your confidence. Not to mention the way Joel’s mouth dropped open as he gawked at you.

“Like what you see, handsome?” you purred as you subtly shimmied your shoulders.

“Shit baby,” he murmured as he closed the door behind him and crossed the room to crouch on the bed, “Fuck…”

A giggle escaped your lips as he caressed your body with his calloused hands, “I’ll take that as a yes?”

“Fuck yes,” Joel’s eyes snapped up to meet yours, “Where’d ya get this?”

“That group that passed through the other day,” you replied before your tone dropped, “See, I told you that bag of coffee wasn’t the only thing I got you.”

“This is better than the coffee,” Joel groaned before he launched himself forward and took your lips with his in a deep and heated kiss. He swallowed the moan you let out as he caressed and cradled your body, feeling the fabric in between your bodies, “Fuck you’re so beautiful,” he murmured against your lips.

“Joel,” you breathed as his beard ticked your skin, sending goosebumps down your arms.

“Let me see you, sweetheart,” his tone dropped so low that it sent a pulse right to your core, “Fuckin’ beautiful…”

“Surprise,” you laughed as he ran his fingers up and down your sides, feeling the lingerie against your body.

“What a good fuckin’ surprise too,” Joel exhaled sharpy as he took your lips once more.

You surrendered yourself to him as he yanked you closer. The position became a little awkward for a moment as you adjusted, but you loved when Joel got like this. A moan escaped your lips as he pushed you down onto your back and kissed his way along your neck, cupping your breasts through the fabric as he did so.

“Fuck… Joel…” you whimpered as you arched your back.

He gently pinched your nipples through the lingerie, “I got you, baby.”

Your hands landed on his shoulders, holding on for dear life as Joel kneaded your breasts harder and ran his fingers across your nipples. You parted your legs as he settled between them, pushing himself down your body and kissing every spot he could see in between the straps and bits of fabric. The lingerie didn’t cover much, but it was still tantalizing nonetheless.

You gasped when he hunched down between your parted legs, taking in the view of you from this new angle. Joel groaned your name as his cock twitched in his pants, but there was something he wanted to do before he fucked you. Hooking his fingers on the panty, he pushed it aside to reveal your pussy, already dripping wet for him.

“Shit, baby,” he breathed as he eyed you hungrily, as if he hadn’t eaten in weeks and the most scrumptious feast was just presented to him.

“Joel.. Ahhh….” you cried out as he dove in right away, licking and sucking at your pussy with need.

Joel slurped as he ran his tongue along your folds, letting himself get messy as he devoured you. The edge of the lingerie rubbed against his face, but he didn’t care, the taste of you was intoxicating. He groaned into you as he grabbed your hips and pinned you down onto the bed.

“Fuck!” you screamed as his tongue hit your clit over and over again, “Joel… I’m gonna cum…”

His low rumble reverberated into you and only added to the sensations. Your hands landed in his hair and you tugged hard as you felt your climax quickly approach. It only took a few more precise licks from Joel’s tongue for you to fall apart and you came hard with a loud scream. Your legs trembled on either side of him as your world spun.

“Joel,” you whimpered when you had enough.

He broke away with a loud pop and looked up at you with glazed over eyes. His beard was soaked from your release, but he didn’t care. He just looked at you with pure adoration as your chest rose and fell with your heavy breaths. It was like Joel was seeing you for the first time, and he was still in awe every single time he saw you like this. And the little lingerie you surprised him with only added to the sensations.

“Baby,” he murmured as he reeled forward and kissed you deeply once more.

You moaned into his mouth as you wrapped your arms and legs around him, holding him close. Joel reached between your bodies and fumbled with his zipper and worked on freeing his cock. He was too desperate for you to even think of taking anything off; every moment he wasn’t inside you was a moment of agony.

“Shit baby,” he growled as he freed his cock and lined himself up with your entrance without breaking away from you.

Both of you gasped when he started to push into you, and you both clung to each other in desperation as he rocked into you slowly. You offered little resistance, still wet from your first orgasm, but the way your warmth engulfed Joel still sent a shiver up his spine. He moved slowly despite how needy he was; Joel wasn’t to savor every moment of how beautiful you looked like this.

“Joel… Fuck…”

“I know, baby.”

Words weren’t necessary, and the connection the two of you shared was all you each needed. You both held the other close as Joel started to rock in and out of you in a slow and steady pace. Every time his cock was fully inside you, you let out a loud cry. He grunted and growled your name as he thrust his hips over and over again, fighting to keep his eyes open to watch you.

Your eyes fluttered shut the moment he entered you, feeling the familiar stretch of him again. As much as you would have liked to watch him too, the emotions were overwhelming, and you had to close your eyes and drop your head down. Moans and groans from both of you filled the room as Joel picked up his pace, thrusting into you harder and faster.

“Shit baby,” he grunted, “You’re so… fuckin’ beautiful…”

His words sent you over the edge once more without warning, and with another loud scream you came hard on his cock. A string of curses flowed from your lips as his cock hit your sweet spot over and over again and tears filled your eyes as the sensations overwhelmed you in the best way.

And it was a sight for Joel that he would never forget. He murmured soft praises as he pounded into you, riding out your orgasm until he couldn’t hold himself back anymore. With a low groan of your name, Joel came too, spilling himself into you and feeling his own skin tingle from the sensations.

When he was spent, Joel collapsed down on top of you, and he sighed contently when you wrapped your legs around him. “You’re incredible, baby,” he mumbled as he kissed whenever he could reach.

You smiled, your eyes still closed, “So are you, Joel.”

He hummed in response, gently stroking your body.

“I take it you like it, then?” you asked with a short laugh.

Joel pushed himself up onto his elbows and kissed you once more. This kiss was slower, softer, yet still held all the emotions, “How’s that for an answer?” he replied cheekily.

“I think you might have to tell me again,” you quipped back with a smirk.

“Oh,” Joel grinned, “You’re gonna be like that now?” he joined your laughter.

“You like it,” you smacked his shoulder playfully.

“I do, baby,” he purred, “I do.”

Neither of you left your bed until late into the next day.

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saturdaynightfrightclub · 2 months

Text

Fanfic Master Post:

Life, Death, and In Between

DC X DP: Demon Twins AU (Danny Fenton/Damian Wayne Twin AU)

Teen Titans/ Young Justice/ Danny Phantom inspired

Alternating POV

Lots of Angst

Experimentation/Dissection

BatFam

Ghost King!Danny

Ghost Biology/ Ghost instincts

Identity shenanigans

Large Overarching mystery plot

Current Word Count: 84,919

Current Chapter Count: 24

Updates Bi-Monthly

~2k-5k Word Updates

Last Updated: 05/15/2024

Next Expected Update: 06/10/2024

r/AITA for not wanting to clean the BASEMENT?

DP X DC

Inspired by a Tumblr Prompt

Crack treated seriously

Alternating POV

Danny posts on Reddit about being forced to clean the basement.

Superman to the rescue

Hero Shenanigans

Bad Parents Jack and Maddie Fenton

Found Family

Current Word Count: 16,198

Current Chapter Count: 12

Updates Weekly

~1k-3k Word Updates

Last Updated: 06/10/2024

Next Expected Update: 06/15/2024

Ghost Owl

DC X DP

Alternating POV

Danny adopted by Lincoln March AU

Lab accident happens earlier AU

Talon!Lincoln March

Trained as a Talon!Danny

Child Danny Fenton

BatFam Centric

Bruce Wayne and Lincoln March are brothers

Uncle!Bruce Wayne

Angst

Found Family

Current Word Count: 3,443

Current Chapter Count: 1

Updates Monthly

~3k-5k Word Updates

Last Updated: 05/11/2024

Next Expected Update: 06/15/2024

Upcoming WIPS and Fic Prompts/Ideas:

Jason Todd escapes the league with Damian, Mara Al-Ghul, and Respawn. Featuring: Big Brother of the Year/ Parental Jason Todd, Good Mom Talia Al-Ghul, terror twins Mara and Damian

Harry Potter Time-Travel fic I am contractually obligated to write as an AO3 author.

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halfusek · 11 months

Text

Something inky this way comes! The Ink Demonth emerges once again!

The Ink Demonth is a 31-day event dedicated to the game Bendy and the Ink Machine (and other games associated with the Bendy universe). It’s based on daily themes. As long as your creation involves elements from the game along with any interpretation of the respective day’s theme – it counts!

You don’t have to create something for each day, make as many creations as you’d like. However, if you manage to do all 31 of them, you can submit a form to receive a little gift (drawing request)! In the form, you will have to provide a link to each of your posted event submissions (it doesn’t have to be Tumblr, just a site that’s publically accessible!).

Here is the link to the form (it will be opened from September 1st to September 30th):

Tag your creations with #The Ink Demonth and #Bendy and the Ink Machine. It’s important if you want to have your entry reblogged by me, which I’m going to do to everything I’ll see in this tag. (So don’t @ me, just tag it with the event’s tag and the game’s name. It’s possible that your post may not show up in the tags, if you notice that I’m not reblogging your entries for a longer while, feel free to DM them directly to me on Tumblr. My focus will be mainly on Tumblr, I may interact with posts on other sites but it is going to be with whatever I run into, as this event is Tumblr-focused. Feel free to post on other sites too, though!)

(Due to special circumstances in my life I might be especially slow this August with reblogging stuff, so if you notice that I'm not reblogging anything at all, I might just be having a busy day and will get on it when I'm free! <3)

(And, though I think it goes without saying, if I notice a post containing something I consider harmful content, I will not reblog it and will warn the creator of such content that, depending on the case, they cannot continue to take part in the event with content like this or perhaps even not at all.)

Remember to tag only the finished entries, so the tag isn’t clogged with WIPs!

You can create whatever you’d like! Draw a picture! Write a fic! Do a video edit! Take a cosplay photo! Anything you can come up with that is a creative interpretation of that day’s theme!

(Don’t try to „cheat the system”, though – don’t submit a, let’s say, straight line for each day, I will notice this kind of spam and remember: spamming is a terrible sin. You can make an entry that covers a few themes but as long as you don’t create 31 things, the gift will not be granted to you.)

The event starts on the 1st of August and ends on the 31st. Although, don’t worry if you’re too busy in August, late entries are always welcome! (…for reblogging, as for drawing gifts I’m going to give all of you an extra month, so if you’re aiming for that, the end of September is your deadline.) (I usually also give an extra month before for preparing during July but this year I’ve been too busy to make it for July so apologies!)

Why in August? I figured that since August is the month on Joey’s calendar in his apartment and August is the month during which BatIM takes place, it should be the one!

Please, make sure to tag appropriate trigger/content warnings!

Thank you for taking your time to read this. Reblogs are appreciated in order to get the word out.

Have fun everyone! 💛🖤

You can view the text version of the full month under the cut~

1. Pencil

2. Friendship

3. Creator

4. Choice

5. Benevolent

6. Machine

7. Flow

8. Pen

9. Failure

10. Creation

11. Reason

12. Angel

13. Children

14. Puddles

15. Color

16. Legacy

17. Eye

18. Purpose

19. Ghost

20. Factory

21. City

22. Radio

23. Contraband

24. Keep

25. Cycle

26. Demon

27. Pit

28. Devour

29. Meat

30. Duck

31. Revival

#bendy and the ink machine #bendy and the dark revival #boris and the dark survival #the ink demonth #batim #batdr #batds #bendy fandom #halfpost #halfart

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couldawouldashoulda50 · 7 months

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The Homecoming - Round 1

Overview - William arrives home after the longest road-trip of the 2023/24 season; you both can hardly wait to reconnect.

Pairing: William Nylander x f!reader. (Note- the reader is a globally famous musician/singer/songwriter)

Word Count: 4k+

Warnings: 18+ only; pregnancy; smut (oral m & f receiving, intercourse; slight masturbation references); fluff; swearing. Be kind, this is my very first time writing/posting...I may not know what the hell I'm doing...just hope it all makes sense.

A/N - this is part of a William Nylander x reader series that I am working on currently. The following story is based on the present, whereas the WIP series spans the timeframe from when William and the reader meet up to the present day. I’m sorry; I know this might be like reading the ending first, but it’s literally my very first fic post…there was something with this storyline that just flowed so easily. I’ve been anxious to just get it out in the universe so I can get it out of my head...I need to be able concentrate on my actual day job again.

*********************************************************************

You lay in bed, sound asleep; two dogs flank your body, both resting peacefully.

Pablo’s head raises suddenly, followed by Banksy. Each of the dogs leap off of the plush king bed and bolt out of the bedroom as fast as their legs will take them.

You awaken with the sound of William’s voice as he comes through the door at the front entrance of your home, greeting both dogs with loads of love and affection.

“How are my boys? How are you? Were you good for Mama while I was away? Eh? Ooooooh…I missed you guys. I missed your Mama too” William said, half whispering.

Normally you would get up with the dogs and watch the two wriggle and jump up to greet him at the door, smothering him in dog kisses. You would patiently wait your turn and essentially do the same as Pablo and Banksy; you kiss him gently, wrap yourself around him, whispering to him how much you missed him, and how happy you are that he's home. He in turn, would murmur a few things against the sensitive skin behind your ear, mostly naughty things that he’s been wanting to do to you.

But now, being 6 months pregnant, and between the aches in your back and hips and your ever growing tummy, William knew how much harder it’s been for you to get comfortable, especially in bed. He lovingly told you the night before when you spoke that you were to stay put when he arrives home - and no staying awake waiting for him either, he said.

William walks into the overly spacious bedroom with Pablo and Banksy trotting behind him and drops his bags on the couch by the fireplace. As he unbuttons his white dress shirt, he looks over at you and smiles. It always catches you…William has smiled at you a million times over and still, each and every time, your heart expands with absolute adoration for him. “Hi, my love” you say, longingly.

He walks towards the bed, tilting his head to the side to look at your face in the dim light.

“How are you feeling? I forgot to ask you - did this thing help you sleep at all?” William nods his head toward the large body pillow that he brought home for you before he left on his trip.

You break out into a grin. Lately, your hormones have kicked into high gear, with vivid sex images with William being the only thing on your mind. So while the pillow gave you the comfort and support you needed, the firm plush piece that was nestled between your thighs only exasperated your unruly libido. “Hmmm, well…it helped once I actually fell asleep” you said, gliding your hand over the fabric, “but….it’s this thick piece between my legs…all it made me think of is the thick thing between your legs. I feel like a dog in heat…so that part’s been fucking torture.”

William laughs as he continues to undress. He throws his shirt and the rest of his clothing on the upholstered bench at the foot of the bed, leaving his shorts on. You immediately stare at his package and bite your lip, unintentionally releasing a tiny moan.

“I mean it…I’m not kidding. It’s all I can think about…and William, I’m telling you….the thoughts I have about you are just fucking filthy”.

You pressed your thighs together against said pillow to try to get some relief from the pressure that’s heightening around your core. You really weren’t exaggerating; your hormones are raging and you swear you could fuck him into next week and it still wouldn’t be enough.

“Seriously, you have to help me…it’s required as part of your husband/pre-DILF duties”.

“Didn’t you…you know…take care of ‘business’ yourself at all while I was gone?” a wry smirk appeared on his lips. “You could have mentioned what was going on with you when we Facetimed…I could have…y’know - walked you through what I would have done if I was here…” William said coyly.

“Mmmmm…I thought about it - I thought maybe showing you how badly I needed you while you watched me...taking care of business.. that I would get some relief that way” you said, your voice soft with a hint of seduction.

“But I knew the minute I got going, no matter what I used - fingers, toys…whatever - the only thing that would completely satisfy me is a nice hard dick. And not like my Willy’s cock clone that I have to break out when you’re away - I literally only want your dick inside me. God damn, it’s so fucking good…” you smile up at him, gripping the pillow a little harder now. Even just talking about his cock is turning you on.

“So, yeah…”, your eyes trail back down to his shorts, as you nod to his unwrapped gift “there’s that.” You pause; there’s not many things you feel uncomfortable telling William but you’re not quite certain how he’ll react with your next confession. “There’s something else too. Your joy juice - that’s the other thing I’m craving…fuck, I can’t stop thinking about it. On my face, in my mouth….fed to me….”, you blush and giggle a little with your admissions, but you have no filter now as your desire for him was reaching a fever pitch. “This pregnancy has turned me from a respected musician to William Nylander’s personal cum slut”, you said dryly,

William’s mouth drops open a little but a wry smile begins to form on his lips. “Oh really, eh? You’re my personal cum slut?” he laughs. “Well then…what wifey wants, wifey shall get”.

You watch each movement of his muscular body as he crawls up onto the bed, slides under the sheets and duvet, and shifts his body towards you. He lay on his side, his gorgeous face close enough to yours that you can feel his breath.

“Seriously….I missed you so much, William. It felt like you were gone forever. You looked amazing during the games though…as usual”, you said, bringing your hand up to trace his jawline. You think to yourself, ‘God - you are so gone for this man’.

“I missed you too - it was a long fucking trip....all I wanted was you like this, all... day... long,” William smiles and leans in, kissing you gently; his arms circle around you, supporting your body as he pushes the giant pillow out of the way and engulfs you in his embrace. He slides his hand down onto your baby bump, hoping to feel a kick from your unborn son. You scan his face as he does the same to yours; you gently graze his lips, wanting to breathe him in more. It’s not long before there’s a flurry of activity from your tummy, as though the baby wants to show off some tricks for his Dad.

With you in his arms and feeling his baby kick, William’s turquoise eyes are fixed on yours; he smiles widely at the fluttery feeling from the baby’s movements…he finds himself completely mesmerized by you.

He leans in for a deeper kiss. Your hand snakes along his jawline into his thick mane of blonde hair, pulling his mouth to yours. That initial taste of his tongue against yours evokes a long, breathy moan from your mouth. Your hunger for him now borders on animalistic. You’re afraid that your need for him is wound so tightly that once he touches your engorged pussy, he might actually send you into orbit.

Every touch on each other’s body elicits extended drawn out moans that are untamed, as your mouths feast on each other’s taste.

William’s hand slowly slides along the underside of your round stomach, and in no time, his hand dips under the band of your cotton panties. You’ve told him of your desperation already, but when his middle finger reaches the top of your slit, he moans as slides his thick digit into your wet folds. He watches you as you close your eyes and grip his shoulders at the mere grazing of your clit. Your breathing has already become erratic and he has barely even begun working you over.

“Fuck - please…William…..I need you inside of me…please…” you whisper close to his ear.

“I know - soon, min Ӓlskling…here, come up here, I want to see all of you…I’ve missed touching your body”. William gently removes his fingers from underneath your panties.

William kicks back the sheets and props himself up on his one forearm. You sit up on your knees and William helps you slide your panties off. His eyes darken as he glimpses at your exposed pussy; the sheen of wetness that he spread with his finger apparent.

The road trip was long and despite his focus on the ice - which led to a number of stellar performances from him - when he could allow his thoughts to wander, he only thought about you. Although he knows you desperately need a release, he wants to savour every moment of this homecoming too. He planned to take his time with you, he just didn’t expect you to be wound so tightly with your pent up yearning for him.

His hands reached out to caress your pregnant belly again; William is completely infatuated with the way you look. Prior to getting pregnant, your breasts were already one of his favourite features on you but in the past month, they have become even more full and voluptuous. His hands move up from your stomach and they cup each breast. You look down at his shorts which are fully tented now and you can hardly wait to wrap your hand, your mouth, your core, in whatever order, around his thick member.

William raises himself up and begins to kiss your neck, slowly and sensually. His mouth feels so agonizingly good; you whisper how in love you are with him as you run your fingers through his hair. William begins kissing your soft, round breast and with his tongue pointed, he slowly begins to lick your tightened nipple in a circular motion. The intense sensation of his wet tongue and hot breath connecting with your nipple immediately rocks you; your body is so highly sensitive to his touch, everything he does sends a shockwave down to your core. You can’t help but to grab the back of his head with your one hand, fisting his hair in order to keep his mouth latched to your nipple. Seeing your reaction as he continues to lick and suck on one of your tits, he begins to manipulate your other nipple with the fingers of his left hand.

His other hand begins to travel down from your stomach to your pussy, now drenched in your juices. His middle finger toys with your clitoris, and he feels your grip tightening in his hair. He inserts his middle finger deep into your core, and as he gyrates his hand, you cry out to him, grabbing his wrist as your hips begin to writhe around on his hand. He begins to alternate between finger-fucking you and spreading your wetness around your highly sensitive bud.

William withdraws both his mouth from your nipple and his finger from your folds. You whimper at their departure but the sound is muffled by his mouth as he kisses you slowly. You lessen your grip on his hair as your mouths and tongues lightly graze each other. Exhaling deeply and biting your lip yet again, you lean your forehead against his, trying to stabilize your breathing.

With your fingers splayed wide, you run both your hands down his chest. You don’t know how you’ve gotten to be so fortunate to be able to touch this man so intimately.

“Climb on top of me, Y/N…on top of my face” William said in a voice low and gravelly, as he lay on his back. “I wanna make you cum so hard for me”

William knows in once sense that he might be tormenting you a little with not just fucking you into the mattress like he knows you want. It might seem selfish, but he’s been needing you as much as you’ve needed him lately, and he’s looking to draw this out for a little longer to savour every bit of you.

William helps you straddle him. Having your legs opened up, allowing your pussy to connect with William’s muscular torso gives way to the urge to rub and grind your dripping cunt against him. William’s eyes are transfixed on your movements; he’s completely engrossed watching you rock back and forth, while you cradle the underside of your belly for support. You look ethereal, angelic even as your long hair sweeps across his forearms. Your eyes are fluttering shut; waves of desire pulsate through your core. You lean your head back and your long curls fall between his legs and start grazing his member.

William’s hands move around your body, his desire for you on full display.

“Come here…come up here - I need to taste you now, Y/N”.

You lace your fingers with William’s as he helps you move on your knees until your swollen entrance is hovering above his mouth. The initial contact when his pointed tongue licks the entire length of your wetness has you clutching the headboard. ‘You’re in trouble now’ you think to yourself.

William expertly swirls his tongue around your aching nub as he steadies your hip movements with his strong grip to the rhythm he has dictated. He continues to alternate between sucking on your sweet spot and tongue-fucking you, driving you to the edge of insanity with the stimulation. The vibration of each moan from William adds to the intense pleasure that courses through your body. You match his moans with shrieks of delight, quivering whimpers, and his name falling from your lips on a continuous loop.

Suddenly, your head snaps back as your cunt is flushed with heat, and instinctively you clench your inner walls. You can feel your orgasm building like a tidal wave and you slam both hands against the headboard and grip the fabric for dear life.

“Will! Will - Willi-um - I’m…fuck!! Oh my GOD…please! William!” letting out a sharp cry as your voice strains.

William keeps working his magic between your thighs, his hands still in control of your hip movements.

You might end up tearing your upholstered headboard at this rate, your knuckles have turned white from your vice-grip like hold. Your mouth is open but there is no sound, only heavy pants as your hips try to buck wildly against William’s restraint.

Then your orgasm hits, crashing into you like a tidal wave making you cry out for William. You grab a hold of the pillow that William’s head is resting on; your breath is shaking as your body slows its writhing, twitching with your final release.

You lift yourself up so you could scooch down a little further back onto his torso; up until now, your pregnant belly obstructed your view of William’s face while he worked you into delirium.

“Oh my God….William….” you said as you looked down at him. You smooth his tousled hair from his face and using the side of your thumb, you start to gently swipe your lady juice from around his mouth and his dense five o’clock shadow.

His eyes are locked on yours and as he sits up, he pulls you in for a sloppy kiss. “See how fucking good you taste?” he said, smirking.

“You are fucking incredible…absolutely amazing, my husband…” you said breathlessly, lips still connected with his.

You remain straddling William and you reach behind to gently touch his fully erect cock. You feign surprise as though you had opened up the best present of your life, letting out a gasp followed by a moan. Your gaze returns to William’s face and in a voice thick with desire, you simply say “Mmmm…my turn…”

You are desperate to quench the insatiable urge to taste his cum. You slide off William’s lap and he lets himself fall back onto the mattress. You start by kissing and running your tongue down his flesh towards his cock. When you reach his treasure trail, you take your time stroking his path with your tongue. You work your way down until his flawless member is directly in front of you; his above average length and supreme girth makes your mouth salivate and pussy throb simultaneously. The head of his dick is coated with pearlized liquid and you waste no time by running your tongue along his tip, dipping your tongue into the hollow spot at the top repeatedly which encourages more precum to leak from the smooth head.

Grunts and groans, followed by your name fall from William’s mouth as you accept the full length of his firm cock toward the back of your throat. Your senses are going wild; the feel of his dick in your mouth, the faint smell of his body wash and cologne, the salty-sweet taste of his seeping arousal. You try to shift your body to find a more comfortable angle as you continue to suck and deep-throat his member. You love giving him head, but the discomfort from leaning over with a baby growing inside of you is creating a lot of pressure around your abdomen and back.

“William - I’m so sorry…I don’t think I can lean over like this…the baby…”

William sits up, a slight look of concern on his face. “Are you ok?? Do you want to stop?”

“NO!! God - no…I just need to find a better position” you said, rubbing your belly.

William leans over the side of the bed reaching for the large pregnancy pillow he bought you. You watch this dream of a man shift the other pillows that have been strewn around on the bed to make room. He’s kneeling as he guides you towards the pillow, his leg muscles showing every contour and his magnificent cock juts out, still rigid from what you were doing to him with your mouth moments ago.

“Let me hear how much you missed my cock fucking you,” William growled as he kissed your mouth.

You crawl over to the pillow, your round ass up in the air, on display for William. You look back at him, flip your hair to the side and smile sweetly as he stares at you, his mouth slightly agape.

You manipulate the pillow so it supports your entire midriff comfortably. Conveniently, it also allows you to arch your back a little more; it’s a clear invitation to William that you want whatever he’s offering from behind. His dick starts to twitch - William knows exactly what you want from him in this position.

Your pussy is already wet, but William’s cock is substantial and needs extra lubrication before he enters you. His fingers deftly caress your clitoris and as you moan his name, and it’s not long before he knows you’re primed and ready for him. He gives you a kiss on one of your ass cheeks and then gives you a little spank. He lines the tip of his dick up to your swollen folds, running it through the wetness that has pooled at your centre. He begins to push his dick into your entrance slowly; his strong grip on your hips helping him slide in.

You moan loudly as his cock stretches your walls; the initial pain quickly gives way to pleasure as your eyes roll into the back of your head. William buries his cock deep into your core and when he’s fully inside of you, he holds you in position for a moment. You clench around his cock and you give into the urge to rotate your hips just to feel his dick move inside of you.

You glance at William over your shoulder as your pent up desire gives way to full desperation for him to fuck you hard. William’s gaze meets yours; a crooked smile starts to form on his face.

William begins with slow movements - he is torturing you in the best possible way right now. He knows the build-up will be more satisfying for you in the long run rather than just pounding your pussy mercilessly straight out of the gate.

“William…oh my god” you whisper breathlessly. “Please….you feel so fucking good…please, I need you to fuck me…” you beg.

You try to satiate your need for him to rail you by rotating and bucking your hips as he presses his cock deeper each time he enters you.

You hear a faint chuckle from William followed by a low moan as he increases his speed.

Your face falls and is now buried in the pillow and your words are muffled as he begins his firm and rhythmic thrusts.

“Oh my God William….oh my god…fucking….please….fuck me…” you wail. As he moves in and out of your cunt, he can feel the hard grip of your walls around his shaft

“Fuuuuck me…you are so fucking tight Y/N…” William grits his teeth as he continues to bury his cock inside of you, thrusts becoming more rapid; the erotic sounds of grunts and moans from both of you collide with the sound of skin slapping against skin.

You clutch the sheets as he continues to ride you hard. He grabs the meatier flesh at the top of your ass and continues to pound you, your moans sound more like a siren now…continuous cries reverberate off the walls.

He gathers your hair into his one hand as his other hand moves up and grips your shoulder, allowing him to penetrate you deeper. You feel like you’re descending into insanity, your mind is overwhelmed by pure ecstasy and all you can do is succumb to your body’s state of bliss.

William looks down at you as his fast and powerful thrusts are making your legs start to quiver. He watches as your toned muscles in your arms and back constrict, covered in a light sheen of sweat as he fulfils all of your desires. William growls as he reaches the height of his arousal; his hips move erratically and his fingertips indent your flesh ever further. He looks down and sees your own arousal decorating his cock with opaque streaks as it pools around his base. He grunts at the sight of your slickness and is so close to relief but he wants to make sure you cum first.

“I’m so close, baby - fuck….fuck….you feel so fucking good” William groans.

Your cheeks are blazing hot as your orgasm takes hold of your body. It’s a feeling so intense that your body feels like it’s short-circuiting. “I’m right there - right there….oh my God William!” you shriek, grappling with the mattress from the sheer force of your release. Your thighs try to close together and you buck wildly as your pussy clenches William’s cock so hard that you push him right out of you. William quickly grabs his dick and with a few firm pumps, he unleashes his load onto your ass.

“Holy shit Y/N….” William said after a few seconds, trying to catch his breath.

You lie there, body still trembling as the aftershock of such a forceful orgasm travels through your body. You remain in the same position with William still behind you. You shift your head so your forehead is resting on the pillow as your breathing begins to slow.

“Y/N?” William’s voice is soft and low.

“Mmmm-hmm” is all you can muster. He senses you smiling into the pillow.

“You still have that craving? You know…my - what’d you call it….joy juice?

Drawing out the same sound, you respond “Mmmmmmmm-hmmmmmmmm” while giving your ass a little wiggle.

You hear William chuckle slightly as he runs two fingers through the streams of his cum on your skin. You manage to find the strength to push yourself back up onto your hands, flipping your matted curls to the side as seductively as possible. He stares at your mouth as you accept his coated middle and ring fingers, your tongue swirling around his digits, making sure you’ve licked every single drop of his cum from his fingers. You hold onto his hand, placing open-mouthed kisses on his palm and then place it on your still hot cheek. He responds by placing gentle kisses along your shoulder-blade and murmurs how much he loves you.

Gingerly, you both begin to move; he comes along to your side and helps guide your body back in between the arms of the pregnancy pillow. He peppers you with kisses and you lazily run your fingers through his hair, unable to stop smiling. He manages to squeeze in right next to you and as he pulls you into his chest, you exhale deeply. This is your favourite spot in the whole world; wrapped in William’s arms, your face against his broad and beautiful chest.

“You feel better now - you got what you wanted?” William quietly asks, chuckling into your hair.

“I think I’m still cumming, if that’s even possible…so fucking good”, you mumble into his chest.

After a few minutes, William kisses the top of your head and starts to get up out of bed.

“I’ll be back in a second…do you need anything?”

You moan and exaggerate a pout followed by a smile….never wanting to leave the warmth and comfort of his embrace. You smile and shake your head ‘no’ while sliding towards the edge of the bed, holding your belly and trying to look somewhat graceful. William offers both of his hands to help stand you up. You grab William’s white dress shirt from the end of the bed and put it on; his natural smell mixed with his cologne almost makes you weak in the knees.

William pulls you back into him, his hands roaming under his dress shirt as he presses his lips against yours. “You have to let me take a picture of you in this…you have no idea how fucking gorgeous you look right now”.

You smile against his lips. “You can do whatever you want with me when you come back to bed”. Your hands slowly descend to his ass; you gently rub yourself against his member, now cloaked under his shorts.

William groans against your lips and apprehensively breaks from your embrace. He summons for the dogs to come.

“I’m taking the dogs out so we can sleep in a bit tomorrow. Get ready for Round 2” he purrs.

You watch him walk away with the dogs in tow; the view of his muscular stature and his tight round ass as he exits your bedroom has you clenching your thighs, needing him all over again.

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