#'oh you can turn your life around whenever' with what resources. with what money

[karmaphone]

it's all 'your life is your choice and you can choose to change it at any point' until y'all get to someone in an actual shitty situation and double down or go 'well sucks to be you'

#like. getting out of impossible situations is (get this) impossible #I'm sick of y'all dismissing ppl in shitty situations as deliberately trying to find a way around ur positivity #'oh you can turn your life around whenever' with what resources. with what money #if you don't have a legal address and/or a job you have nothing :) I can't even get mail :) #'oh you can choose your hobbies' WITH WHAT MONEY #we can't even pay for half of our streaming subscriptions ('oh just pirate it' maybe my disabled as an doesn't want to spend half an hour #finding every episode online for free when I can queue it up easier) #how do I craft? how do I do anything when I don't have a car and there's no bus lines?? #how do I dress how I like when I can't even take a bus to a store to steal? #it's almost like y'all hate poor people :)

[btsqualityy]

Magnolias in Springtime

Namjoon x Reader

Genre: Arranged marriage!AU, ABO (Alpha/Beta/Omega) dynamics, fluff, smut, and just a smidge of angst 

Warnings: Talks of arranged marriages, brief mention of polygamy (nothing comes of it, promise lol), oral sex, fingering, unprotected sex, knotting 

Author’s Note: This fic is based on a prompt from the Spring Fest “Spring Will Come Again” hosted by @bangtanarmynet​! I really hope you guys enjoy it! P.S: There will also be a part two to this fic so stayed tuned for that!

Prompt: While their parents discuss behind closed doors the terms of their arranged marriage to each other, they meet in the blooming garden to go over their own conditions.

Your pack was your entire life.

Growing up as what some of the elders in your pack referred to as the spoiled only child of the Pack Alpha and the Pack Omega, you were doted on by everyone. As a child, you marveled at the Alphas when they brought back the animals that they had haunted for the pack’s dinner and now as an adult, you were having Alphas dedicate those kills to you as a sign of intention to marriage. 

As a child, you tried to take notes on how the Betas seemed to be able to de-escalate any and all types of conflict, always seeming to have a solution that would placate everyone. Now that you were an adult, you found yourself going to those same Betas whenever you had conflicts with your parents or your best friends, because you knew that they would understand you. 

As a child, you thought that it was the coolest thing when you watched the Omegas essentially hold the pack together. They were the ones who gave birth, they were the ones who mostly took on child rearing and cooking (even though the Alphas and Betas in your pack always helped out as well), and they were always there when you happened to skin your knee as a child or just needed comfort. Once you became an adult and presented, you found yourself gravitating more towards the Omegas as you were also one now, and they took you under their wings as you learned just what it really meant to be an Omega. 

So in short, you loved your pack and you were extremely grateful for everything that they had taught you. Oddly enough, that gratefulness is exactly how you ended up in this situation. 

“We really appreciate the fact that you’re doing this for us Y/N,” your Alpha father, Byung-hoon told you as he, you, and your mother Deiji waited on the edge of the Kim Pack’s territory. 

“I told you that it’s fine Daddy,” you muttered, bouncing yourself up and down on the tips of your toes.

“Taking on this huge responsibility for our pack isn’t fine, but we’re grateful that you’re willing to do it,” Deiji said. Instead of answering her though, you decided to change the subject.

“Their territory really is beautiful,” you pointed out as you looked around, seeing multiple bushes of plum blossoms and azaleas. “At least I’ll have something pretty to look forward to once I move here.”

“That you will,” a deep voice added and when you turned around, you saw a large, muscular man walking towards you and following behind him was an almost equally tall woman who was easily one of the most beautiful women you had ever seen in your life. 

“Ah, hello Pack Alpha Ho-jin,” your father bowed and you and your mother followed his lead, holding the bow for a few seconds before straightening up again. 

“Hello Pack Alpha Byung-hoon,” Ho-jin replied as he and the woman bowed as well. “This is my wife, Pack Omega Eun Kyung.”

“Nice to meet you all,” Eun Kyung smiled. 

“This is my wife, Pack Omega Deiji and this is our daughter, Y/N,” Byung-hoon introduced.

“Hello,” Deiji smiled.

“Hello,” you echoed, even though your smile was a bit more forced than your mother’s.

“Oh, you are absolutely gorgeous,” Eun Kyung gushed as she stepped forward, reaching out and grabbing your hands. “Our son is a lucky man.”

“I’m sure that I am lucky as well, Pack Omega,” you replied.

“Please, call me Eun Kyung,” she corrected you. “I am going to be your mother-in-law soon.”

“Speaking of, where is Namjoon?” Your father wondered.

“He went off hunting with some of the other Alphas and Betas in our pack,” Ho-jin explained. “We plan on having a very big feast in order to celebrate their impending nuptials and he decided to go and try to find some extra meat.”

“Yeah, or to avoid meeting the wife that he doesn’t want,” you thought to yourself.

“He sounds like he’ll be an amazing provider and Alpha,” your mother smiled.

“Well, why don’t we all go into my office so that we can go over the terms and conditions of their marriage?” Ho-jin suggested before turning to look at you. “Y/N-ah, feel free to look around our territory and get a feel of the place. This will be your home soon, after all.”

“Of course,” you nodded. “Thank you.” After receiving a kiss on your head from your father and a pat on the hand from your mother, you watched silently as the four of them walk away together. As soon as they were out of sight, you let out a large rush of breath that you didn’t even realize you were holding. Even though you weren’t completely excited about this arrangement, your inner Omega wanted the parents of your future husband to like you and after meeting them, you were happy that you could seemingly not have that to worry about. 

Deciding to take your future father-in-law’s advice, you walked away from the front of their territory and ventured around. You were amazed at how vast their territory seemed to be in comparison to your pack’s, large buildings and houses searching as far as your eyes could see. As you walked, you took notice of what seemed to be a schoolhouse, a building that seemed to be a sort of meeting hall, and even a building that looked like a store front with mannequins in the window.

The thing that caught your attention though, was a large archway that was covered in gorgeous magnolia flowers. When you stepped over to it, you gasped at what laid behind it: A large wall full of nothing but magnolias stood a few feet beyond the arch, a small bench placed in front of it. 

“Gorgeous,” you whispered in awe as you stepped over to the wall, reaching out and gently touching the flowers. 

“Who are you?” A deep voice called out and you jumped up a little, your heart almost beating out of your chest as you turned around to find the source of the voice. Standing right underneath the archway, was a tall, tan skinned man whose presence seemed to command attention. 

“I-I’m Y/N L/N,” you replied, still feeling a little hesitant and the man’s eyes widened. 

“You’re Y/N?” He wondered and you nodded your head. “Well, you’re a lot prettier than I thought you’d be.”

“I’m sorry, who are you?” You questioned. 

“I’m Kim Namjoon,” he said, smiling at the soft gasp that escaped you. “Your future husband.”

“Oh,” was all you could utter in response because holy shit, your future husband was hot.

“Where are your parents?” Namjoon asked as he stepped closer to you. “I assume that you didn’t come here alone.”

“Um, they’re talking to your parents about the ‘terms and conditions’ of our marriage,” you told him and he scoffed out a laugh.

“Of course they are,” he chuckled as he took a seat on the small bench. “Well, I think that while they’re doing that, you and I should probably go over our own terms and conditions.”

“Our own?” You echoed as you sat down on the bench as well.

“Seeing as though we’re both fundamentally being forced into this, I figure that there’s things that you don’t want and that you do want,” he said. 

“That’s..true, I guess,” you nodded. “You go first.”

“Well, seeing as though you weren’t raised in this pack, I’d like for you to learn the ways of the pack and just be a proper wife,” he began.

“I’ve been learning about your pack since the discussions of a possible arrangement started,” you told him. “I have to wonder though, what exactly is your definition of a ‘proper’ wife.”

“Basically, just keeping house, cooking and cleaning,” he elaborated. “As my father plans to step down once we’re married, I’ll be too busy running the pack.”

“Well, sorry to burst your bubble but I wasn’t raised to be a docile Omega and I don’t plan on becoming one once we’re married,” you huffed.

“Why not? I mean, surely you don’t expect to run the pack with me?” He laughed.

“Actually, that’s exactly what I expect,” you smiled. 

“How can you expect to lead this pack when they don’t know you?” He asked.

“Since I’m going to be here for the rest of my life, then they’ll have every opportunity to get to know me,” you shrugged. 

“We’ll talk more about that one later,” Namjoon sighed. “Anything that you wanted specifically?”

“I know that your pack is going to be providing aid to mines once we’re married and as much as I plan on being involved in this pack, I also hope that you don't expect me to never see my pack again,” you said. 

“That’s the custom when you marry into another pack though,” Namjoon pointed out. “Plus, no offense or anything, but your pack is broke in terms of both money and resources and I don’t imagine there to be much to even go back to.”

“I am my parent’s only child and my pack is very close knit so I’d love to still be able to see them and for them to come see me,” you continued. “At least three or four times a year.”

“Alright, I guess that’s reasonable,” he relented. “Especially under these circumstances.”

“Thank you,” you smiled. 

“Oh, another thing,” he said suddenly. “I know that this marriage isn’t exactly something that either of us want but you cannot have any...uh, lovers on the side.”

“I’d never do something like that,” you frowned. “But I hope you know that the same goes for you.”

“That’s fine,” Namjoon nodded. “It’s not my style anyways.”

“In addition to that, I read your pack’s history and the whole taking more than one Omega as a wife thing isn’t going to fly with me,” you stated firmly.

“It’s tradition though,” he shot back. “Every leader of this pack throughout its’ history has had more than one spouse.”

“Your father doesn’t,” you pointed out. 

“Because he didn’t want one.”

“And you do?” You demanded to know and Namjoon just chuckled.

“You really meant that whole not a docile Omega thing, huh?” He wondered and you nodded while smirking. 

“You’re going to be Pack Alpha,” you said. “You have the authority to change tradition.”

“Fine, no additional Omegas,” he agreed. “I hope that means you’re going to be willing to have lots of pups then, since that’s what the whole multiple Omegas rule was for.”

“How many?” 

“At least 5,” he replied and you just laughed.

“5 is a pretty big number coming from a man who’s not going to be pushing them out,” you giggled. “Two, at most.”

“Three?” Namjoon bargained and after thinking for a few seconds, you nodded your head. 

“Deal,” you answered. “Anything else?”

“Just one more,” he added. “No roses at our wedding.”

“What? Why?”

“They’re overrated and cliché,” he shrugged. 

“What about magnolias?” You asked. “Those are my favorites.”

“I like those,” he smiled.

“Well, it’s settled then,” you announced. “No roses.”

“You know, this marriage thing is easier than I thought,” Namjoon said thoughtfully, making you giggle at him. “Do you have anything else you wanted to bring up?”

“Nope,” you shook your head. “I’m good.”

“Shake on it?” He extended his hand out to you and you let him grab onto yours, shaking each other’s hands. 

“Namjoon?” A deep voice called out and Namjoon sighed heavily. 

“That’s my dad,” Namjoon told you. “Should we head out there?”

“Yeah,” you nodded, standing up and waiting for Namjoon to do the same before the two of you walked back towards the front of their territory. As you did so, you couldn’t help but to Namjoon hadn’t let go of your hand the entire time.

“Ah, I see that the two of you met and are getting along!” Ho-jin announced happily.

“I’d say that we are,” Namjoon nodded as he looked down at you, and you nodded as well. 

“Well, why don’t we all move into our house?” Eun Kyung suggested. “We can have dinner and get to each other more.” After receiving nods all around, the group of you began to move towards the large cluster of houses that were a few yards away from where you were currently standing. As you let Namjoon lead you, you thought that maybe all of this actually wouldn’t be so bad. 

..........................................

A few days later, your time visiting Namjoon’s pack was winding down. After the first day, your father had happily told you that the negotiations between him and Namjoon’s father went off without a hitch and that the wedding could move forward immediately so the last few days of your visit had been spent planning your wedding.

“So maybe you and Namjoon can have your ceremony closer to the evening?” Eun Kyung suggested. “So that way we can move right into the reception afterwards.” You, her and your mom were currently in the dining room of Ho-jin and Eun Kyung’s house, going over some wedding details.

“That’s a good idea,” Deiji concurred. 

“Yeah,” you agreed. “Having the ceremony around 5pm sounds good.”

“Great,” Eun Kyung smiled as she wrote some things down onto the notepad that was on the table in front of her. “A later ceremony will hopefully ease some of the anxiety you’ll have that day.”

“Anxiety?” You asked.

“About your wedding night,” Eun Kyung clarified and your eyes widened. “When Ho-jin and I got married, we had our ceremony in the early afternoon and I was so nervous waiting for the reception to come because I knew what was going to happen afterwards and I had never been to bed with anyone before.”

“Oh,” you murmured. Of course, you knew that it was expected that you’d have sex with Namjoon on your wedding night and if it were up to your parents and Namjoon’s parents, get pregnant immediately but you had done your best not to actually think about it.

“Anyways, I think maybe roses for the flowers,” Deiji changed the subject and you gave her a small smile in thanks. 

“Oh, that would be gorgeous,” Eun Kyung gasped. “Namjoon’s grandmother actually has a garden full of red roses and I’m sure that she won’t mind us using some.”

“Actually, no roses,” you spoke up and both older women looked at you.

“I thought you liked roses, Y/N-ah,” Deiji said.

“I do, but Namjoon doesn’t,” you explained. “We agreed on magnolias instead.”

“You both agreed?” Deiji repeated and you nodded your head, making her smile. “That’s great.”

“You know, it’s so nice to see you actually trying to make the best of this whole thing Y/N,” Eun Kyung said. “I know it’s not ideal and you could be fighting this tooth and nail but the fact that you’re not says a lot about your character.”

“Thank you,” you smiled lightly. 

“Alright, magnolias it is,” Eun Kyung muttered as she wrote that down onto her notepad as well. Before the conversation could continue any further though, there was a sudden knock and when you looked up, you saw Namjoon standing in the door way to the dining room. 

“Hey, you all back from hunting so soon?” Eun Kyung wondered, referring to how Ho-jin, Namjoon, and Byung-hoon had decided to go off and hunt right after lunch. 

“Animals weren’t really out,” Namjoon shrugged. “Dad wanted to show Pack Alpha Byung-hoon our warehouse and I decided to come back here to spend time with Y/N.”

“With me?” You echoed in awe and Namjoon nodded.

“I wanted to show you around a little more, if you’re willing,” he offered. Before answering, you looked over at your mother who immediately waved her hands at you.

“Go, go,” she encouraged you. “We’re here for another two days so we can pick this up again later. Right, Eun Kyung?”

“Absolutely,” she agreed, turning to look at Namjoon after. “Show her the river.”

“I got it Mom,” Namjoon chuckled. “Y/N?”

“Sure,” you replied before standing up, walking over to Namjoon and grabbing his outstretched hand. 

“We’ll be back by dinner,” he called out to your mothers before turning around and leading you through the living room and out of the house. 

“Thanks for getting me out of there,” you said as the two of you walked down the front steps and began to walk away from the cluster of houses. “All that wedding planning was starting to get to my head.”

“I figured, which is why I got out of there right after lunch,” Namjoon laughed. “But I also genuinely wanted to spend some time with you too. It feels like I haven’t had a moment alone with you since the first day you got here.”

“I think our families are making sure of that,” you pointed out. “I think they’re afraid that we may realize that we hate each other if they leave us alone together for too long.”

“I think that’s actually a great assumption,” he chuckled. “They don’t have to worry about that though, at least not on my end.”

“Mines either,” you murmured shyly. “So, where are you taking me?”

“Well, even though my mom suggested that I take you to the river, I think that there’ll be plenty of time for you to see that later,” he told you. “I actually want to show you something that I’ve been working on.”

“Cool,” you nodded as the two of you continued to walk and you noticed that he was still holding onto your hand. On their territory, there were a few different clusters of houses and Namjoon was leading you over to a different one, stopping in front of what seemed to be the largest house. 

“What do you think?” Namjoon asked and you took a second to look over the outside, liking how it was painted a light brown color, had a large porch that already had a swing attached to the ceiling of it, and a large set of stairs. 

“I think it’s beautiful,” you smiled. “You built this?”

“Yeah, for us,” he revealed and you looked over at him in shock. “What? I hope you didn’t think we’d be living with my parents once the wedding is over.”

“Namjoon, I don’t even know what to say,” you murmured in awe.

“Want to take a look inside?” Namjoon wondered, reaching down and pulling a set of keys out of his pocket. You nodded your head rapidly and he chuckled before leading you up the stairs and unlocking the front door. Walking inside, you let out another soft gasp as you looked around. 

As soon as you walked into the front door, there was a little open space which could be used to place your shoes and jackets and then a staircase that led upstairs to the second level of the house. On your left hand side, there was an archway that lead into the dining room and kitchen and then on your right hand side, there was another archway that lead into the living room and another room that Namjoon said he planned on converting into a study. Once you went upstairs, you saw that there were a total of five bedrooms and the master bedroom was the largest and complete with an en suite as well. 

“I love it,” you gushed as you turned to look at Namjoon, who was leaning up against one of the walls in what would soon be your shared bedroom. 

“I thought I’d leave the decorating up to you,” he said. “That way you’ll have control over something here.”

“Good, because I already have ideas,” you grinned, deciding to throw caution to the wind and walking over to him, not waiting for him to ask what you were doing before throwing your arms around him. He hesitated for a second before hugging you back as well, and the two of you stood there for a few seconds with your arms around each other. 

“I’m happy that you like it,” he whispered and you craned your neck in order to look up at him. 

“I really appreciate it,” you told him.

“Anything for my future wife,” he smiled and it was when he said that that you realized how close the two of you still were. You dropped your arms from around him and stepped back, forcing him to let go of you as well. Feeling your cheeks warm up from embarrassment, you turned your back towards him and walked over towards the window to look outside.

“You know Y/N, I’ve been meaning to ask you,” Namjoon began. “Why did you agree to all of this?”

“What, marrying you?” You asked for clarification and Namjoon nodded.

“I mean, I know the basic reason why but I feel like there’s more to it than that,” he said. “A lot of packs run out of money and resources at some point but their leaders usually figure something out instead of marrying off their children in return for more resources.”

“True,” you sighed before turning to look at him over your shoulder. “Long story short, I don’t want my pack to die out just because of my father’s mismanagement. I love every member of my pack and they have all been so vital to how I grew up and how I’ve become the person that I am. If me marrying into another pack will guarantee that those people can continue to live comfortably, then I’ll do it.”

“That’s incredibly selfless,” Namjoon replied as he walked over to stand next to you. 

“I guess so,” you shrugged. “But to me, I’m just repaying the people who gave me so much.”

“That’s amazing Y/N,” he muttered. 

“What about you?” You reversed the question. “Why did you agree to this?”

“Well, my reasoning was a lot more selfish than yours,” he chuckled. “It’s always been my dream to lead the pack and when my father came to me a few months ago saying that he was getting ready to want to step down, I was super excited. However, it concerned him that I’m 26 and not mated to anyone yet so he made it a stipulation that I meet someone and get mated before he allows me to take over for him. Since I planned on getting married at some point in my life, that stipulation really didn’t matter to me so I agreed.”

“Ah, I guess that explains why you weren’t too keen on me wanting to run the pack with you,” you said.

“Kind of,” he shrugged. “Although, after hearing why you agreed to all of this, I have to admit that I’m reconsidering that.”

“Really?” You smiled hopefully. 

“Of course, you’ll still have to get to know the pack and our ways,” he pointed out. “But I don’t think it would be the worst thing to have you by my side.”

“Great!” You exclaimed happily and Namjoon couldn’t help but to laugh from how excited you clearly were. 

“Do you want to go look in the other bedrooms?” He suggested. “Maybe see what you might want to do with them?” 

“Mm, we don’t have to. I don’t want to overwhelm myself,” you giggled. “Why did you make so many bedrooms anyways?”

“Well, for our future children,” he confessed and you felt your cheeks immediately become hotter. 

“Oh,” you whispered. 

“Is that ok?” Namjoon wondered. “I know it might’ve been a little presumptuous of me, especially since I did it before we had our conversation about what we both wanted the other day.”

“No, no, no, it’s....it’s fine,” you shrugged. 

“Oh, I get it,” he smirked. “You haven’t been with anyone, have you?”

“Namjoon!” You shouted in surprise.

“You’re nervous,” he surmised. 

“Can you blame me?” You scoffed. “I mean, it’s already embarrassing to have basically everyone know that I’m a virgin but knowing what’s expected of us on our wedding night....it’s nerve wrecking.”

“It’s not that big of a deal Y/N,” he shrugged. 

“Aren’t you nervous?” You asked him, only to see him shake his head. “Why not?”

“Because I’ve thought about filling you with my knot since the first day that I saw you,” Namjoon confessed. “So if you let me have sex with you on our wedding night, I’d consider myself to be a very lucky man.”

“Really?” You whispered.

“Of course, but I’m not going to push you,” he told you. “If you deicide that you don’t want to, then that’s completely fine. If you do though, just know that I’ll be more willing.”

“Good to know, I guess,” you muttered, more so to yourself but Namjoon still laughed at you. 

“Cute,” he smiled widely as he reached down and grabbed your hand, intertwining your fingers with his.

..........................................

A month later, your wedding day had finally come. After spending a week in Namjoon’s territory, you and your parents had traveled back to your pack’s territory where you prepared for the wedding alone. The only other time that you were able to see Namjoon had been when he and his parents decided to visit your territory in order to sign the treaty that would make the connection between your two packs official. 

Fast forward to now, you were standing in the guest bedroom of Namjoon’s parents’ house, getting ready with your mom and your two best friends. 

“I really wish you would’ve let me make you a more form fitting dress Y/N-ah,” Taehyung sighed as he pullzed up the zipper on the back of your dress. Your dress was pure white, with long billowing sleeves, a scooped neckline, and a loose, long skirt with a small train. 

“You know that I hate tight clothing,” you pointed out. “This feels more like me.”

“And you look beautiful,” Jimin spoke up, taking a second to stick his tongue out at Taehyung.

“That you do,” Deiji grinned widely as she placed a crown of magnolias on top of your head. “You look like a dream.”

“Thanks Mommy,” you giggled. Just then, there was a sudden knock on the door. 

“Everyone decent in there?” Your father called out and Jimin walked over to the door and opened it up, making your father gasp when he saw you. 

“Oh Y/N-ah,” he murmured as he paced over to you, setting his hands on your cheeks. “My baby girl.”

“What do you think?” You asked him. 

“I think that Namjoon is a very lucky man to be marrying such a gorgeous woman,” Byung hoon replied, leaning forward and pressing a kiss to your cheek. “You ready? There’s still time to back out and we can always figure something else out.”

“I’m not gonna do that Daddy,” you huffed with a smile, reaching out and taking the bouquet of magnolias that Taehyung was handing to you. “I’m gonna do this.”

“We can’t thank you enough,” your father murmured and you just leaned forward, giving him a kiss on the cheek as well. 

“What’s done is done,” you said. “So don’t stress about it.”

“Well, let’s go get you married,” Taehyung smiled as he reached up and pulled your veil down over your face.

“Let’s,” you whispered as you wrapped your hand around your father’s arm and let him lead you out of the bedroom. 

The ceremony was an unrushed affair once you met Namjoon underneath the little archway that had been placed near the large wall of magnolias where the two of you had first met. You found yourself not even paying much attention to what was happening during the ceremony and before you knew it, you were facing Namjoon as the preacher pronounced you man and wife.

It wasn’t the first time that you’d ever been kissed, but it still felt different all the same. Namjoon was so gentle as he reached out and grabbed the hem of your veil, lifting it up and over your head to reveal your face. He then placed his hands on your cheeks, cradling them as he leaned forward and kissed you softly. You found yourself kissing back on instinct, your hands reaching out and grabbing onto his suit jacket. 

The reception was definitely more fun than you imagined it to be. The food was amazing and so was the music, and you couldn’t help but to smile at how everyone in your new pack danced around happily as they celebrated your marriage. You found yourself having fun as well as you allowed Eun Kyung and Ho-jin to lead you around, introducing you to some members of the pack as well as spending time with your own family and friends as well.

Now that the night was over though, you were quietly walking back to your new house with Namjoon, which had been decorated to your liking. 

“Did you have fun?” Namjoon asked and you looked over at him, nodding your head.

“I did,” you smiled. “Your pack sure knows how to throw a party.”

“It’s your pack now too,” he pointed out and you hummed in reply. Once your new house came into view, Namjoon helped you walk up the front steps before pulling out his keys and unlocking the front door. 

“Wait,” he said when you moved to step into the house and before you could ask what he was doing, he leant down and picked you up bridal style.

“Namjoon!” You shrieked as he carried you into the house and you reached out to shut the front door for him. He then carried you up the stairs and into your bedroom before setting you down on the ground.

“What was that?” You giggled as you looked up at him.

“Well, I couldn’t let you be deprived of a prime wedding experience,” he shrugged, making you smile. A somewhat awkward silence then settled over the two of you then and it wasn’t until then that you felt your nerves kick in. You had been successful in not thinking much about your wedding night for the past few weeks but now that the two of you were alone, it was all that you could think about. 

“You know,” Namjoon spoke up suddenly. “We don’t have to do anything tonight.”

“Namjoon, we talked about this,” you replied.

“We did and I meant what I said then,” he said. “We don’t have to do anything just because people might expect us to.”

“Really?”

“Really. Plus, it’s kind of insulting if you only have sex with me because you’re expected to,” he joked, making you giggle.

“You have a point,” you smiled. “What if I said that I wanted to though, because I want to?”

“Do you remember what else I said to you when we had that conversation?” He wondered and you felt your cheeks warm up immensely as you recalled his words. 

“Yes.”

“What did I say baby?” 

“You said that you, uh, wanted to....uh,” you stammered and Namjoon smiled, deciding to take pity on you.

“I said that I wanted to fill you with my knot,” he finished for you. “And I still mean that.”

“You’ll be gentle?” You checked.

“Absolutely,” he stated firmly. “And I’ll go as slow as you need me to.” You knew that this was a big step, losing your virginity. However, something about Namjoon made you feel so at ease and besides, he was your husband now.

“I want to,” you announced, causing him to grin widely.

“Can I kiss you?” He requested and you nodded your head. He reached up and placed his hands on your cheeks before leaning down and pressing his lips against yours. You immediately moved closer to him, placing your hands near his waist. He then took one of his hands off of your cheek and before you could ask what he was doing, he reached up and took the crown of magnolias off your head before throwing it over his shoulder.

“Someone seems eager,” you teased.

“You have no idea,” Namjoon chuckled deeply. He kissed you again, this time much deeper as he walked you backwards towards the bed. Once you felt the edge of the bed hit the back of your knees, you pulled away from his lips and looked up at him. 

“Help me take this off?” You whispered, taking a second to turn around so that your back was facing him. Without any hesitation, he reached out and pulled down the zipper on the back of your dress. The feeling of his fingertips against your skin made you shiver and when your dress dropped down to the floor in a pool around your feet, the feeling of his eyes on you made you get chills. 

“Did you wear this for me?” Namjoon asked before leaning forward and pressing kisses along the curve of your shoulder, referring to the white, lace bra and panty set that you had been wearing underneath your dress. 

“Maybe,” you breathed out, his lips on your skin making it hard for you to focus. 

“Gorgeous. Lay down for me?” He said and you nodded before bending down and crawling onto the bed. When you flipped over to lie on your back, Namjoon was working on taking off his suit jacket and unbuttoning the white dress shirt that he had underneath.

“You still ok?” He checked in as he climbed onto the bed as well and you smiled as you reached up and wrapped your arms around his neck. 

“I’m ok,” you confirmed, leaning up and kissing him again. The kiss quickly became heated, your mouth falling open as Namjoon slipped his tongue inside. He then pulled away from your mouth, moving down to press kisses to your jaw before moving down to your neck. 

“Been thinking about this, about you,” he whispered against your skin and you just blushed as you looked up at the ceiling.

“About me?” 

“Mmhmm,” he hummed. “Been thinking about your scent too.”

“What do I smell like to you?” You wondered, doing your best to keep your eyes trained on the ceiling as you felt him start to move down again. 

“Like...pineapples and bananas,” he murmured as he grabbed the cups of your bra, pulling them down so that they sat right underneath your breasts. He then leaned down and sucked your right nipple into his mouth, making you arch your back up from the bed.

“Holy, huh,” you moaned and Namjoon chuckled at you, which automatically made you pout. “Don’t laugh at me.”

“I’m sorry,” he apologized after popping your nipple out of his mouth. “You’re just so cute.” You couldn’t find the words to say anything else because Namjoon reached underneath you and you lifted your back up so that he could take your bra off completely, and he didn’t waste any time before taking your left nipple into his mouth. 

Once both of your nipples had stiffened to a peak, he moved downwards again, trailing his lips across your skin until he made it down to the line of your panties. 

“Lift up for me?” Namjoon asked and slowly, you lifted your hips and waited until he had grabbed the waistband of your panties and pulled them down before lowering your body back onto the bed. Once he pulled them off of your legs and threw them off the bed, you watched as he sat his hands on your knees and looked down at you. 

“Still good?” He wondered.

“Seriously, stop asking,” you giggled. “I’m nervous as hell but I want to do this so I’m good.”

“I just, you know you can tell me to stop at anytime and I will, right?” 

“I know, and that’s why I want this,” you smiled. “Want you to give me a bite.”

“Fuck, ok,” he exhaled harshly. “I want to eat you out first though.”

“Ok,” you nodded and you allowed him to push your knees apart, exposing your folds to him. He laid down on the bed so that he was right in between your legs, and you let out a loud gasp when you felt his tongue make contact with your clit. He used the tip of his tongue to make slow circles around your clit and even though he wasn’t placing a lot of pressure behind it, you felt like you were going to lose your mind.

“Holy shit, that feels...good,” you huffed and you felt Namjoon hum against you as he closed his entire mouth around your clit. The feeling was almost euphoric, and you couldn’t believe that you had been missing out on this for the last few years since you presented as an Omega.

“I’m gonna give you a finger ok?” Namjoon spoke up after taking his mouth off of you and you nodded, wincing lightly when he began to push his pointer finger inside of you. He then began to slowly pump the digit in and out of you, which made you moan lightly. 

“Feels good?” He asked. 

“Yeah. Weird but good,” you told him. 

“Good,” he smirked. “You’re getting wet.”

“Don’t say that,” you groaned. 

“Why not? It’s a good thing,” he shrugged. “It’ll make it easier for you to take my knot.”

“You’re insufferable.”

“Good thing you’re stuck with me,” he smiled before leaning down and taking your clit back into his mouth. As he fingered and licked you simultaneously, you found it a little harder to breathe because of the pleasure that was building in the pit of your stomach. 

“Wait, wait, wait, wait,” you hissed when he tried to ease his middle finger inside of you. 

“It’s ok baby, we just gotta get you stretched out a little bit,” he whispered and you just decided to be quiet and let him do it. Admittedly, you admired how much time he was taking making sure that you were properly ready and it made your heart soften because you had never had a man (other than your father) be so gentle with you. 

“Namjoon, I-I think I’m going to come,” you whimpered and Namjoon took his mouth off of your clit for a few seconds. 

“Go ahead baby,” he encouraged you before placing his mouth back on you. Sure enough, it didn’t take much longer before your body seized up, your orgasm washing over you. Namjoon continued to stroke you through it and by the time that it passed, you were reaching down and pushing him away from you. 

“Holy shit, that felt good,” you giggled, making Namjoon laugh as well. 

“That’s good,” He replied as he sat up onto his knees. When your eyes trailed downwards, they widened a little at the sight of the bulge in his pants.

“Should I, um,” you stammered as you motioned towards his pants and he looked down, chuckling before looking back up at you. 

“You don’t have to and besides, seeing you come turned me on and I doubt I’d last,” he admitted.

“Oh, ok,” you smiled shyly. He then pulled off the dress shirt that he had on, letting it fall onto the floor before moving onto his slacks, unbuttoning and unzipping them before pulling them down. He pushed them, along with his underwear, down his legs and your jaw dropped a little from the sight of his cock.

You didn’t know what you expected, but you definitely didn’t expect his cock to be so thick and long. You had to admit, actually seeing it made you even more nervous.

“Hey,” Namjoon called out and you looked up at him. “It’ll be ok. I’m still going to go slow.”

“O-Ok,” you whispered as he climbed between your legs. He reached out with two fingers and gathered some of your slickness from your orgasm before using it to lubricate his cock. 

“Ready?” He questioned as he positioned his cock right in front of your entrance and once you nodded, he slowly began to push into you. The stinging pain hit you immediately and you yelped out loud, reaching up and clutching onto Namjoon’s forearms. “Y/N?”

“Hurts,” you muttered through grit teeth.

“I’m sorry,” he apologized, bending down and pressing a kiss to your forehead. He didn’t try to push any further, he waited until you gave him a small nod before pressing his hips forward again. You were almost ready to tell him to forget the entire thing as the stinging pain seemed to become worse the more he pushed into you. Before you knew it though, he had bottomed out and was looking down at you intensely.

“What?” You asked him.

“You just, you look so beautiful,” he complimented you.

“Are you just saying that because you’re inside of me right now?” You joked.

“I mean it,” he laughed. 

“Well, thank you,” you responded and he leaned down to kiss you again. He then slowly pulled his hips back before pushing back in, which caused you to let out a stuttered moan into his mouth. The pain was still thee but as he began to fuck you, it slowly went away and was replaced by what was probably the greatest pleasure that you had ever felt in your life up to that point. 

“So tight baby,” Namjoon grunted after he pulled away from the kiss. 

“F-feels so full,” you whimpered. 

“Good. I’m gonna fill you even more with my knot,” he said gruffly as he looked down at you. “You want that?”

“Yes.”

“Say it,” he instructed you.

“I-I want your.....k-knot,” you stuttered and he literally groaned at your words. He began to fuck you a little faster, making you grip onto him and wrap your legs around his waist.

“Been thinking about this,” he moaned. “Been thinking about how good you would feel wrapped around my cock.”

“Me t-too,” you confessed. 

“Fuck, you’ve been thinking about me baby?” 

“Yeah,” you nodded. “Since you told me that you wanted to...fill me with your, uh, knot. Thought about you calling me baby too.”

“You like it?” He smiled.

“Love it.”

“Then I’ll call you that as often as I can,” he promised. He continued to fuck you, and you realized that you were feeling the same buildup of pressure that you did when he was fingering you. 

“I-I’m gonna come Namjoon,” you announced breathily and he sighed.

“Thank god,” he huffed as he began to thrust into you both faster and harder, and your grip on him became so tight that you were sure you’d leave marks on his skin. “I wanna knot you so fucking bad.”

“Do it,” you encouraged him. “Want you to bite me too.”

“Come first,” he shot back as he focused all of his energy into making sure that you did so. After a few more thrusts, you were coming right onto his cock, your essence covering more of his cock every time that he pulled it out and then pushed it right back in. 

“Ready for a bite?” He asked and you nodded your head numbly. Leaning down, he stuck his face in your neck and began to suck on the skin there. As soon as you released a moan at the feeling, you felt his teeth sink in. 

You had heard a lot about mating bites and how it would feel when you finally received one, but you could truthfully say that the feeling was indescribable. You truly felt like you were now connected to Namjoon in a way that you had never been connected with any one before and the feeling was almost so overwhelming that you almost didn’t recognize that Namjoon’s knot was pushing its’ way inside of you.

“God damn,” Namjoon groaned deeply as his knot fully popped into you, and you gasped when you felt his cum pouring into you right after. You leaned up and after finding the perfect spot, you sunk your teeth into his neck as well, giving him a mating bite too. 

Namjoon collapsed on top of you and the two of you stayed like that for a while, at least 15 minutes, basking in the after glow of your new matching mating bites. 

“No offense or anything,” you spoke up. “But you’re heavy and it’s hot in here.”

“Some offense taken,” he laughed as he lifted himself off of you. “My knot has gone down but it’s gonna hurt when I pull out.”

“Go slow, ok?” You requested and he nodded, looking down in between your legs and slowly pulling out of you. It did hurt a little and you even winced a little bit, but it wasn’t that bad all in all. 

“Y/N-ah?” He called as he laid down next to you and you gently turned over onto your side to face him.

“What happened to baby?” You simpered with a teasing smile, making him chuckle. 

“I’m still gonna call you that,” he assured you. “But I wanted to talk to you seriously.”

“Ok, shoot,” you shrugged. 

“I know that you didn’t necessarily choose all of this and neither did I, but I don’t want you to worry,” he began. “I take this marriage and this relationship just as seriously as if we met in the conventional sense and I really mean it when I say that I can see myself falling in love with you.”

“Really?”

“Really,” he smiled. “Even though we haven’t known each other long, I can already tell that you’re kind, selfless, loving, and the most gorgeous woman that I’ve ever met in my life. I’d only be so lucky if you fell in love with me.”

“Well, I think that I can fall in love with you too,” you confessed, making him grin widely. “And I hope that I do.”

#BAspringwillcome #bangtanarmynet #bts #bts namjoon #bts rm #abo bts #namjoon x reader #rm x reader #namjoon smut #namjoon fluff #namjoon angst #rm smut #rm angst #rm fluff #bts x reader #bts smut #bts fluff #bts angst

[luna-the-moth]

Lucifer, Leviathan, and Satan with a Plant-Loving S/O (SFW)

I accidentally deleted the ask, but here’s what was requested: @hey-its-spades : Hello! For Levi, Lucifer, and Satan if you dont mind uwu . Mc has a knack for plants and has taken it upon themselves to put plants everywhere. ( hanging from ceilings,crawling ivy on outside walls,in the kitchen, library, even luci's study.) All the rooms look a liytle greener and None of them say anything but the student body is saying that it makes the old place look alive and home-y. It makes mc really happy.       

Oh I adore this ask! SFW, with a GN! reader. I’m assuming by student body you mean the HoL residents? Since almost nobody outside the household residents visit there. I got really carried away with Levi and the Lucifer angst as well-

My vampire poll for the OM characters

My ask box is open, but please read my rules and guidelines before requesting! Please send them in my ask box, as I can keep track of requests better.  Reblogs, likes, and comments are greatly appreciated!

Lucifer, Leviathan, and Satan with a Plant-Loving Reader (SFW)

Prologue/basics for all of them:

Ever since you came to the HoL, you decided that it was too....lifeless.

Sure, there were bright candles lighting the halls, but the house was devoid of any life, besides the brothers and Henry.

So you took it upon yourself to decorate, of course!

While many human world plants didn’t fare well in the Devildom due to the poor soil quality, Lord Diavolo had agreed to bring you enchanted soil, guaranteed to grow any plant.

Regardless of temperature or sunlight needs, whatever plant grew in that soil would flourish to its upmost potential.

Asmo had a great deal of amusement with you decorating, advising you on what colors would fit specific areas of the household, and what species of flowers would bring beautiful symbolism as well.

In the house’s entryway, you left a pair of Strelitzia nicolai (giant bird of paradise) plants, as they added a subtle flair.

With long, stemmed leaves, it contributed a touch of elegance and flair.

On the a few windowsills, you had placed Begonia rex-coltorum (Rex begonias), their dark, vivid, colors standing out.

You had planted crawling ivy on the outside walls, making the house seem more inviting.

Lucifer:

Lucifer hadn’t minded your redecoration, as it had matched well with the house’s aesthetic, adding to the beauty.

In fact, he had quite enjoyed seeing you pore over catalogues and books, deciding which one would fit the space best.

Over the next few weeks, he watched as the House of Lamentation became brighter, more colorful.

It was a nice change, he thought.

However, he was surprised when he had woken up in his study, rose bushes in the corners of his study.

Deep, red roses greeted him as he surveyed his study with a pleased smile.

It was no secret Lucifer adored roses, and he was appalled when he had first arrived in the Devildom, as the soil quality was so poor, it could hardly grow anything.

Which meant he couldn’t grow roses, one of his favorite flowers.

The fact that you had thought about him, and wanted to gift him such a beautiful display, greatly moved the stoic demon.

Making his way to one of the bushes, he took off his gloves and knelt down on one knee.

The soft, sweet fragrance immersed his senses, filling him with memories of laughter, smiles, serenity, and Lilith.

Roses were her favorite flower.

As the memories flooded his mind, Lucifer suddenly felt an overwhelming sense of longing, and his vision became blurred.

He remembered the way Lilith used to brighten up when helping him with his garden, an eager grin ever-present on her face.

The way she would make him a colorful bouquet of roses whenever Michael had given him more stressful tasks than usual.

He quickly wiped a stray tear that had fallen from one of his eyes, and calmed himself.

Taking one of the velvety flowers in his hand, Lucifer gently brought his lips to the flower head, leaving a soft kiss, almost as if it was Lilith’s forehead.

The next time you went over to his study for some tea, he brought you into his arms, bringing you close to him.

Kissing your cheek, he lets a small smile break through his usually-serious facade.

“Thank you for the roses, my love. They compliment my study’s aesthetic nicely.”

Placing a small kiss on your neck, he smirked.

“Perhaps I can thank you with a date tonight?”

Leviathan:

Levi actively enjoyed watching you redecorate the HoL.

It was like one of his favorite games, The Grims! (Yes that was a terrible pun for The Sims.)

He had listened with interest as you went off on the best plants that would fit his aesthetic, and would match well with water.

What caught his attention, was when you brought up the topic of bio luminescent plants.

Of course, they weren’t naturally grown in the human world, but scientists had recently found a way to genetically modify tobacco plants.

In doing so, they had spliced the genes with four fungus genes related to bio luminescence, then carefully cultivated them.

From a seedling to maturity, the plants presented a small glow, visible to the naked eye.

The gene modification had no harmful effects on the plants, and the only difference between the lab-modified plants and wild plants, were height.

The entire time you had explained the plant’s origins passionately, Levi sat in awe, watching as you had gestured your hands in an excited fashion.

So this is what you meant when you had said you enjoyed him being so passionate about an anime or game.

At first, Levi had thought you were merely exaggerating to cheer him up, but as he looks at you now, eyes shining with delight, he understood.

You decided that since you were decorating the HoL, you would decorate Levi’s room as well.

You didn’t have access to the bio-luminescent plants, but you decorated his rooms to the nines nonetheless.

So, you had pooled together your money and resources, to create a mini lily pond for him!

You had miraculously gotten him out of the house, for a cosplay con, in which you had ‘accidentally’ forgotten to buy yourself a ticket.

Which we all know is a lie, you had just not bought one for yourself in order to stay at home, assembling the pond with Solomon’s help.

It was small, enough to fit around 6-7 lily pads/lotuses.

You had carefully grown the lily pads in your room, watching as they eventually bloomed into light, almost ethereal flowers.

By the time Levi came home, you had just finished cleaning up, getting the mud washed from your hands and arms.

Upon seeing the lily pond, Levi’s eyes were wide with amazement and shock.

You created and did this, for him?

Absolutely sets down his handfuls of merch, (gently, mind you) and silently steps over to you.

He does his best to hug you like in anime, wanting you to know how much he appreciates this.

Yes, it may be awkward, but it warms your heart knowing that he stepped out of his comfort zone, just to thank you.

He’s too embarrassed to say it while looking at you, but you can hear his voice as he rests his head against yours.

As he pulls away, a blush is evident on his face, his head turned to the side as he awkwardly places his hand against the back of his neck.

“T-thank you, Y/n. It’s a b-beautiful lily pond.”

Satan:

He fully supported your botanical excursion

After all, he’s always had an affinity for plants.

Whether it be for potions, poisons, or mere decor, Satan had a green thumb, through and through.

If his room weren’t full of books, scriptures, and all sorts of literature, he’d fill it with various plants.

So when you had announced that you were going to re-decorate the HoL with various flora, he was buzzing with excitement.

He gathered every human botanical book he knew of, and started leaving them for you on your desk.

Within a week, you had stacks upon stacks of books, knowledge ready at your disposal.

And so you began to research.

Satan was considerate to leave footnotes in a few of them, like what type would pair well with what color schemes, etc.

You smiled while reading through them, seeing Satan’s elegant handwritten flow across the pages.

Within a few weeks, you had skimmed through the books, thoroughly reading a handful of them.

After ordering the plants you wanted on Azukon, (courtesy of Lord Diavolo’s credit card-) you were eagerly anticipating their arrival.

Especially because a few ‘special items’ were in the package.

After all, you wanted to thank Satan properly for his help.

When the various flora arrived, you had carefully cultivated each of them, encouraging their growth.

Satan had assisted you, monitoring their progress, and making sure none of his brothers ruined them.

The following weekend, Satan had a student council meeting planned, as did the rest of the brothers.

Which left you with the perfect opportunity to set up Satan’s gifts.

In his room, you had placed Senecio rowleyanus (string of pearls) plants, their bright green globes spilling over the bookshelves.

Along with that, were lavender candles, with dried lavender crushed inside.

After all, Satan had always (usually) been the most level-headed out of his brothers, despite his title.

He’s much more than the avatar of wrath, and has gone through painstaking time and trials to overcome that.

That’s why you had picked lavender, which without a doubt, would be noticed by Satan.

When he had come back from the meeting, he was already in a pissy mood, as things didn’t go as planned, ending in an argument between the brothers.

However, when he stepped into his room, seeing lavender candles lit, and garlands of plants over the bookshelves, he immediately broke out in a smile.

A real, genuine smile.

Seeing you sitting on his bed, lavender candles lit, plant garlands stringing down from the bookshelves, it was almost like one of the romance novels he had read...

Quickly, he scooped you up in his arms, spinning you until you were laughing for him to stop.

Finally setting you down to gently kabeddon you, he playfully kisses the corner of your lips.

“Thank you my love, these are absolutely beautiful. I shall preserve these for all eternity.”

#my writing #obey me #obey me fluff #obey me x reader #obey me x reader fluff #obey me lucifer #obey me leviathan #obey me satan #obey me lucifer x reader #obey me leviathan x reader #obey me satan x reader #obey me scenario #obey me headcanon #obey me angst

[henqtic]

Can you do a draco x reader with us watching a film and reader saying how they’re crushing over a certain character

𝘭𝘦𝘰’𝘴 𝘮𝘰𝘷𝘪𝘦

pairing: draco malfoy x fem!reader

word count: 1.6k (1674)

authors note: just pretend that the battle of hogwarts never happened— that event ruins everything :/ and thanks for requesting !! it made me get a lot more inspiration to finish my other wips <3

masterlist. // taglist form. // request more works.

—————————

the room smelled of freshly buttered popcorn, soft drinks, and unhealthy snacks and for the same reason the night celebration was in place, strong mint gum. tonight was cleared, a time for you and draco to just relax, cuddle up within each other and have a break from everything going around.

the years after graduating a boarding school were life changing, even wizards themselves who could conjure up almost anything they’d ever want or possibly dream of but still, it was the time of realization for who and what you wanted to be.

and yes, there were the newts but they didn’t help much once you really got a look into the real world. many had found a passion in something that seemed wondrous— more fun. traveling and exploring the world, maybe even discovering more mystical creatures that hadn’t been learned in a simple care of magical creatures class and weren't seen in their own time because their parents didn't have the resources.

and some were set on everything but those test scores, a family business awaiting their sole airs take over and draco well, he was a part of that some. and surprisingly enough, even after all that time and all of those expectations set on him to live up to and stay in his family standard, he didn’t, and it was much to your encouragement.

his interest in healing sprung up in his last year of schooling coming to the conclusion that he’d been a prejudiced bully— not that he hadn’t already known that but, of course he did. but once he was left with less than five friends and a girlfriend who was steadily distancing herself further and further away from him, it set in.

so that’s where it started, him identifying nearly all of his mistakes and attempting to heal what had been broken relationships— which most never really did. but it was a change, and a good one at that, it brought him an inner joy, not for the factor of him getting things out of it like you wanting to be in his company more often but that he was mending the seemingly unfixable things.

it made him want to do that and not run a stuffy business that didn't do much but treat their workers poorly and customers even worse so he turned to medicine. observing how so many things lined up with potions, adding the right amount of this, and crushing that up the right way, to make a final product. a product that would soon heal the injured and bring a great smile to both of their faces.

but what he hadn’t realized was that being a healer took time and hard work— almost unusual to someone like him, being constantly handled things and easy ways out but with this, there was no fast tracking or getting anywhere if you didn’t have the right skill set or talents.

so to say he wasn’t ready for it would be a wrong statement. but to say he was exhausted, completely drained of all energy would be completely right. even after all of your cheering on, reminding him that it was only a few more months of studying and one big more test until he’d get to know if he earned his title of healer malfoy.

and usually, that worked, but after tonight after taking that so called big test, his mind was racked with anxiousness. if he didn’t pass, his father would be on his back, telling him how it was a waste of money and how he should've listened to him to that you’d even be disappointed in him— unlikely but as said before, there was nothing but anxious thoughts and anxious scenarios coming through.

so it was painfully clear that your natural remedies wouldn’t work, countless amount of neck kisses and back rubs and muscle soothing not sufficing so you both agreed on the last thing you couldn’t think about, a simple night with the television on, just in each other’s company to try and get his mind off of things—

“you said this was a muggle film, correct?” he called out for confirmation, eyeing the packaging of the movie you called.. the titanic?

“mhm, one of my favorite movies, i just know you’ll love it,” you said from the other side of the living room with a wide smile on your face, near close to beating a cheshire cats. the movie itself was beautiful, you couldn’t lie, the directing and acting brought tears to your eyes almost every time you watched it.

but there was ‘something’ else that could bring tears to your eyes, a gazing stare at the screen whenever his parts would come on.

draco handed you the plastic, allowing you to remove the disk and insert it into the dvd player. you quickly made your way back into the make shift bed made out of blankets and pillows and once the black screen turned green, copyrighted warnings started, you tucked yourself into his awaiting arms.

“why’d you say you loved this again?” he asked for the second time, limbs wrapped around your body as you searched for a response.

“umm, really eye catching.”

and yeah, of course, you were comfortable with him, growing up going to the same school for months at a time and then dating for a good fraction of those years. there was also the memory of a night where you two tirelessly played a game of dare or dare, multitudes of dares coming both your ways to say the most embarrassing, weird, or even azkaban worthy things you’ve done.

but it was something else telling him that you were crushing over a fictional character— who wasn’t even that since the story was true but you were crushing on the actor of that said fictional character that you had no chance with and that, well it was something better left unsaid.

and as it went on, he could see that too, the way your eyes were stuck onto the screen the other blonde was in frame— on the break of amusing how’d the only time your attention would shift is when he’d reach you another piece of popcorn, you offering a grateful smile before focusing back.

your mouth was slightly agape, opening for another piece just how the rhythm had been going, him eating one, him feeding you one, him eating one and so on but now he was beating it further and further away from before your body eventually gave up, falling on his chest.

“hey, why’d you that?” you groaned, annoyed that you were now looking at him from below instead of watching the film.

“why’d you say you picked this again?” his eyes were narrowed down at you, a sly smirk in place. you moved around, trying to remember your excuse and hide the growing smile arising to your face.

“I already told you, it’s eye catching.”

“no,no,no, who’s eye catching?” he asked again, this time correcting himself in order to get a more truthful response. you let out a half embarrassed, half astonished laugh before answering—

“if i tell you, you can’t laugh.” all he did was raise his eyebrows at you, positioning you on his lap, signaling for you to go on with two taps of his finger on your thighs.

“okay well—” you paused, a loss of words and a huff following, “all i’m saying is if jack were to run me over... i’d be the one to apologize.”

your tone of seriousness only made the barks of laughter from the boy underneath you louder, a small pout coming on your face as a response trying to not end up laughing at yourself—

“jack, are you serious? he’s one of the most basic people i’ve seen,” he said through breaths of air, slight tones of jealousy coming out making your head turn in feign sympathy.

“you do know that i’m dating you, right?”

“yea and what’s that supposed to mean?”

“your eyes are blue and hair is blonde and you’re the typical skinny wh—” you started, responding to his defensiveness in the best way possible.

“it sounds like you’re just describing him.” point completely missed. “and so what, what could a fictional character do for you that i couldn’t?” he asked with a smirk, your face saying nothing but unfazed and unamused.

“fine even though if you were listening you'd know that he’s not completely fictional, but everything. would you ever go down with me on an unsinkable ship and then let me survive only the door we could find?” you asked, sighing after like it’d been a dream of yours.

“no. love, take this as me caring for you but i don’t think we’d sink on an unsinkable ship— it’s in the name.”

“were you not listening? and stop, it’s romantic, don’t ruin this for me,” you scolded, lightly hitting his arm.

“they both could’ve gotten on, jack just wasn’t the brightest. and would you really rather date someone that daft over me?” his nose scrunched to further show his disgust, your scoff not failing to sound after.

“know what, if you were a fictional character, no one would like you.”

“sure, i bet i’d have at least two hundred of you treating me like him.” the smugness in his tone was apparent than ever. you loved him, more than anything in the world but, he wasn’t much compared to jack dawson. 

and then came the other obstacle, there not being a valid way to prove to someone like him, with such an inflated ego that no one would like a fictional character version of him. and when you repeated that, he was extremely butt hurt, still allowing his arms to reopen for you to snuggle back in.

single moments passed, another film starting to ease the argument before he spitefully grumbled, “i’d have people all over me.”

“no you wouldn’t!” you whisper shouted back tilting your head up to see his pouting face. 

“yes I would, don’t doubt me—”

general // draco malfoy taglist - @draco-malfoys-significant-other @clownybrit @axgelre @lovecroftreads @oh-my-ronron-mphfpc-fanfic-heart @turn-to-page-394-please @callmesasha  @aguamvnti  @dracosathenaeum @fives-cup-of-coffee @dracomalfoys-wh0re  @sfdlm @marrymetheonott @becgggg @gwlvr @bella-lxhp @trashyvicks @Imtryingbutithurts @potterheadtwilighter @galimalfoyweasley @tomandjaebae @mrsmaifoy @riddleswh0r3crux @drachoesimp @eunoniaa @elevatorsdoor @dlmmdl @hogwarts-boys  @akaaaaashiiii  @90smalfoy  @dracosaccount @ambi-doo12 @mypainistemporary @ang9lic @daltonacademia @inglourious-imagines @willowmores @fjorelaant @slutfordracoluciusmalfoy @axgelre @beforeoursunsets @catching-the-train-to-hogwarts @writeandtranslate @catching-the-train-to-hogwarts

to be added to my taglist fill out this form or send me an ask of who you would like to be tagged for !

#— draco malfoy. #draco malfoy x reader #draco malfoy fluff #draco malfoy fanfic #draco malfoy blurb #draco x slytherin!reader #draco malfoy x hufflepuff!reader #draco malfoy x you #draco malfoy x gryffindor #draco malfoy imagine #draco malfoy #draco x yn #draco #malfoy

[robininthelabyrinth]

The Nie brothers time travel but something goes wrong and they end up in each other bodies. So now they have to defeat WRH, find a way to curb JGY worst tendencies, and hide (and undo) the switch before any cultivator decides they are possesed by evil spirits

“I can’t do this,” Nie Huaisang announced heavily. “I can’t. Nope. Cannot. No way.”

“You apparently found a way to time travel into the past,” his brother pointed out. He was taking this entire thing very calmly – or, rather, like he’d heard a really great joke. It wasn’t that Nie Huaisang had forgotten that his brother had a sense of humor hidden under the rage, especially in the earlier years before Jin Guangyao got at him, but he may have downplayed his memories of how annoying it was to be the target of it. “Your abilities are clearly well beyond what you’ve been leading me to believe.”

“I’m sneaky,” Nie Huaisang explained. “I can scheme and plot and play politics, sometimes, if I have to. But I cannot be a general!”

I cannot be you, he meant. He might currently be inhabiting his long-dead brother’s body – an unfortunate side effect of messing up the time travel array, he suspected, but then again experimental things were often imperfect – while his brother’s spirit had been cast out into his own former self, but he wasn’t his brother.

He could never be.

(But Nie Mingjue was alive, alive and well with bright eyes and that stupid smirk that didn’t fit right on Nie Huaisang’s smaller face except in the ways it sort of did, and that was all Nie Huaisang had ever wanted in his life, other than Jin Guangyao to pay in blood and shame for depriving him of it.)

“Why not?” his brother asked. He leaned back and stretched lazily. Nie Mingjue never did a lazy thing in his whole life, so it was deliberate. He was enjoying this. “We have a battle strategy, already decided; most of the rest of it is on-the-ground tactics, which can be done just as well from behind the lines as at the front of them. There’s a reason that no one ever settled on the best place for a war-leader to be – it comes down to temperament.”

Nie Huaisang threw his hands into the air. “I know that! I was sect leader for nearly two decades, da-ge; I assure you, I’ve heard all the sect’s philosophical musings by now. But I don’t have your temperament – there’s no way someone won’t figure out what’s happened, that we’ve switched, and that’ll be a disaster.”

“Two decades,” Nie Mingjue said thoughtfully, focusing on the entirely wrong part of the conversation.

“A decade and a half to avenge your untimely murder,” that got a flinch out of his brother and his focus back, just as Nie Huaisang had wanted, “and another five to find a way to come back and avert it entirely.”

Nie Huaisang had always been resourceful. Resourceful, and ruthless – sometimes to a degree that scared even him.

When he was younger, it was okay. After all, the only thing he used it for was sneaking treats and spoiling himself, and it didn’t really matter if he was ruthless about stuff like that. And then his brother died – was murdered – and suddenly he knew what it was like to be his brother: a young man suddenly shoved into the role of sect leader, and having to balance everything he now had to be against the overwhelming blistering hatred he bore for and the crippling weight of the vengeance he had sworn against a man who had taken away someone he loved forever for something as pointless and ephemeral as political advantage.

(He had to take a deep breath at the mere thought of it, the family rage spiking under his skin. It was a bit of a surprise, actually, to find that his brother didn’t have more of it - he’d always assumed that his rage was lesser, weaker, the way his golden core was, but no. It turned out their rage was just the same.)

“So what you’re saying,” his brother said, and he was smirking again, oh no, “is that you’re focused, efficient, and unyielding in pursuit of your goals, given the right motivation. That sounds like general material to me.”

“Not if the goal is to make sure no one knows what’s happened,” Nie Huaisang hissed. Had own face always looked so incredibly punchable? “Da-ge, it doesn’t matter what type of general I might be. What matters is that it’s not the same type of general you are – you’re always at the front line, leading the charge. I can’t do that.”

“Sure you can,” his brother said. “By the time you’re in the middle of a charge, you’re not really thinking tactics anymore. It’s all just fighting, and I know you know all the moves, no matter how much you bitch and moan about having to practice them.”

Nie Huaisang glared, crossing his arms over his chest – his brother’s arms, his brother’s chest, and this was still just too weird. He hadn’t even had time to properly weep and cry and hug his brother the way he’d expected to in the event the time travel array worked; they’d had to jump straight into explanations and strategizing because there was a pretty big battle happening in less than twenty-four hours and they needed to fix this first.

His brother rolled his eyes at him, and for the first time Nie Huaisang realized that his brother was going to have no problem at all pretending to be him – the acting problem here went only one way. “Just let Baxia handle the aggression part, okay? The rest is muscle memory, and I, at least, have done enough to build that in.”

“Letting the saber spirit in like that is dangerous, da-ge,” Nie Huaisang reminded him, eyes narrowed. His brother was also assuming that Baxia would agree to be wielded by anyone other than her beloved master, which was a stretch – she barely even agreed to be sharpened by someone else, resisting violently whenever someone tried. 

Jin Guangyao had died still bearing the scars from his attempt. 

“Well, apparently I get murdered before it becomes an issue, so why worry?” his brother cackled, and Nie Huaisang glared harder. It had no impact whatsoever: Nie Mingjue stood up and stretched again. “You know what, Huaisang, if you’re feeling the need to sit around and pity yourself, you’ve got at least a few incense sticks’ worth of time to do it in before actually doing something becomes necessary – I, on the other hand, am going to do something productive with my time.”

“Like what?”

His brother grinned at him with teeth. “Saber training. And there’s nothing you can do to stop me.”

Nie Huaisang picked up a teacup and hurtled it at his beloved big brother’s head. Naturally, Nie Mingjue dodged, effortlessly, and left laughing.

“At least pretend like you’re going to behave!” Nie Huaisang bellowed after him, but his brother just waved at him, and – ugh. This was vengeance for a lifetime of laziness, wasn’t it? Coming to bite him in the ass.

After a few minutes, Nie Huaisang picked up another teacup – they always had dozens of them in the Nie sect, cheaply made in bulk and specifically designed to shatter easily because of the family tendency to throw stuff around and not calm down until something was broken, and better a cheap teacup than an expensive door or table, better something designed not to hurt anyone who happened to get in the way or didn’t know how to duck faster enough – and threw it against the door again.

It shattered beautifully. NIe Huaisang had only rarely been able to get it to do that, and never so effortlessly – the advantage of his brother’s strength.

Strength, and height. Nie Huaisang was tall now.

Okay, self-pity could wait until later. Nie Huaisang was going to go patrol the camp for a little bit and enjoy looking down at all the people.

It was going to be great.

It was, too. Even talking with people wasn’t as difficult as he thought it was going to be. Perhaps he shouldn’t be so surprised at that; he had been sect leader for years, so he was accustomed to answering questions and making on-the-fly rearrangements and responding to things with leading questions that made the other person come up with the solution on their own, not to mention saying encouraging things that made people feel better about things. 

He’d had to do a lot of that, being the Head-shaker, and even more afterwards, when he’d shed his disguise like a cicada shedding its skin.

It was easier now than it had ever been before, of course. The Nie sect was still strong, under his brother’s leadership; his disciples didn’t have that discouraged look lurking in the back of their eyes, the shame of being led by the disgraceful Head-shaker. It was easy to brighten someone’s day with a nod in their direction, disciples blooming like roses at the sight of their stern sect leader looking approving, and the questions he received were far more intellectually stimulating than the usual – less about making sure he knew what he was supposed to do and more actual puzzles, things that had really tripped people up.

Nie Huaisang tried at first to keep his answers short, tried to pretend to be more stoic and stand-offish the way the famous Chifeng-zun ought to be, except when he did everyone just smiled at him the way they always had when he’d been the Head-shaker – a little indulgent, a little pitying, a little “well he’s trying his best” – and after a while Nie Huaisang started remembering things he’d long ago forgotten.

Things like how his brother was actually kind of a mess sometimes, emotionally speaking – he was the sort of person who got weepy over dramatic literature – and how he’d never quite gotten the hang of people, how he valued his friends like gold and held grudges way too long and promoted people just because they seemed decent; how he sometimes spent his entire money pouch and more on buying Nie Huaisang stupid trinkets because it seemed to make him happy, even borrowing money from their escort, which would always be doubled over laughing at how their fearsome sect leader couldn’t bring himself to say no.

Like how Nie Huaisang’s sect was his family, aunts and uncles and brothers and sisters, whether born in or adopted or just part of the sect. The good type of family – not always the closest, not always your friends, not always even people you really liked, but still all predisposed to take your side in a fight if it came down to it.

These were the people who supported him and stood behind him – even when he was the Head-shaker.

He’d almost forgotten.

And so, despite himself, Nie Huaisang softened a bit. He stopped trying to respond to everything with a grunt or a huff, started asking about people’s families, making suggestions, telling them they’d done a good job.

“Glad you’re out of your mood,” Nie Yongbiao, who’d been quietly trailing him, finally commented, and Nie Huaisang blinked owlishly at him. “What kicked it off this time? You usually only get that closed-mouth after having to host guests.”

And that was true, wasn’t it? It had been such a long time, and after so much trauma, that Nie Huaisang had forgotten how his brother used to shut down whenever there was a discussion conference or an important meeting – how it took him longer and longer to get better on the other side as the qi deviation drew nearer, his meridians filling with Jin Guangyao’s spiritual poison. By the end, he had barely ever been open and free, barely seemed to remember how to drop his guard and relax, to act like a regular person with a sense of humor again, be the person Nie Huaisang knew his brother to be. 

But that was then, and this was now - war had been good for Nie Mingjue, in a strange way. Here in the camps there was a lessened expectation of etiquette, a great appreciation of strength, and his brother was more free to be himself, straightforward and blunt as the off side of a saber.

(Nie Mingjue had tried so hard to be a good brother to Jin Guangyao, Nie Huaisang abruptly remembered, but he’d shut down after every visit, worse than ever before. His heart had known the truth, even if he had allowed himself to be convinced by Lan Xichen and Nie Huaisang to keep giving Jin Guangyao second chance after second chance. He should never have listened to them.)

“Argument with Huaisang,” he said, a safe answer, and Nie Yongbiao nodded wisely.

“Can you say what it was about?” he asked, rather unexpectedly – Nie Yongbiao wasn’t exactly talkative, and no one ever pried about their family affairs. Catching Nie Huaisang’s surprised look, he shrugged. “He’s obviously very upset.”

“He is?”

“He’s at the training field,” Nie Yongbiao stressed, and Nie Huaisang had to choke down a hysterical laugh. Of course Nie Yongbiao would think that something must have gone horribly wrong to get “Nie Huaisang” to go willingly to train.

Nor was Nie Yongbiao the only one, for that matter: when Nie Huaisang arrived at the training field they’d set up in the middle of the camp, he saw an entire crowd of Nie sect disciples milling around at the edge of the field, bearing a suspicious resemblance to a flock of over-anxious quail.

He reached up to his face, pretending to want to pinch the bridge of his nose but actually to smother a smile, and luckily he had regained control of his features by the time he reached the edge of the small sea of disciples because they immediately all turned to him with relieved expressions, their cries of “Sect Leader! Sect Leader!” ringing in his ears like the coos of his pet birds.

“What’s the matter?” he asked, and immediately received the full story: Nie Huaisang had come to the field looking upset – one person insisted there had been tears in his eyes – and had set himself up against a practice dummy, and he hadn’t stopped whacking at it ever since.

Clearly, the world was ending.

“We had an argument earlier,” Nie Huaisang admitted, and managed, barely, not to laugh at how they all looked at him with disapproving eyes. “I’ll talk with him.”

Approving nods all around, although they didn’t disperse.

“Sect Leader,” one of the older generation said, very hesitantly. “If it’s about – the clan matter – if there’s anything we can do to help –”

Nie Huaisang shook his head, feeling touched. When it really had been him, his brother had kept the specifics of it secret – the tombs, the inevitability, the deterioration he was so avidly trying to put off – until it was too late, and he’d had to learn about it the hard way; it was nice, though, that they apparently all worried so much on his behalf about it.

“Thank you,” he said, and meant it. “But it’s a different issue.”

Namely, the issue was that the person doing the training wasn’t Nie Huaisang at all, he thought, but when the crowd finally started breaking apart, people going back to their assigned tasks, and he finally managed to make his way to where his brother was, he was surprised to see that his brother really did appear to be upset.

He wasn’t practicing any of his normal training routines, but rather wielding Aituan in the same way a novice woodcutter would wield an axe: repetitive strikes, made wildly and with too much strength, as if hitting the practice dummy was the only thing that could vent his feelings.

“Uh, ‘Huaisang’?” Nie Huaisang asked, worrying his lip as he came closer. “Are you –”

His brother dropped Aituan to the ground – which, hey! Watch it, that was his saber! – and turned, and Nie Huaisang had only a moment to see his glassy eyes before his brother threw himself forward, wrapping his arms around him and holding him tight.

Nie Huaisang automatically responded, wrapping his arms back around and holding Nie Mingjue close – it was nice, he thought, to finally have the reach he’d always felt he should have, big and tall and enveloping in its warm the way his brother had been for him.

“What’s the matter?” he asked, his voice low enough not to carry. “Did something happen…?”

“No,” Nie Mingjue said, but his lips were pressed together to keep them from trembling. Nie Huaisang’s body had always been free with his emotions, much to his annoyance; he’d learned to cultivate it into a disguise, but he hadn’t really liked it. Tears had never been a relief for him the way they’d been for his brother. “No, it’s nothing.”

“It’s obviously not nothing,” Nie Huaisang said firmly, and carted him off back to his tent. Being as worried as he was, he did his best not to be too smug about finally being the one who was strong enough to pick his brother up, rather than the other way around – not that he needed to, what with his brother following docilely along with him – but there was, perhaps, a little bit of smugness. “Okay, we’re back, silencing talismans are back up because we apparently have the nosiest disciples. Tell me what’s wrong.”

“It’s nothing, really…”

“Da-ge.”

“I left you alone,” his brother blurted out, looking up at him with tear-filled eyes. “For twenty years. Whatever I did, however I got murdered – some moment of carelessness – it doesn’t matter. I failed you.”

Oh, no. No, no, no– 

“No,” he said out loud. “No, da-ge, you were tricked – it wasn’t – it wasn’t your fault.”

“I always said I would hold up the sky for you,” Nie Mingjue said bitterly. “And instead I left you with the same inheritance that I received. I never wanted that for you, Huaisang. Never.”

“Da-ge,” Nie Huaisang said helplessly. “Da-ge, you don’t understand. You were trying. You wanted – you were doing everything you could. It wasn’t your fault. You didn’t fail me. I was the one who failed you. I’ve always failed you –”

“Never!”

“I’m lazy, I’m selfish, I’m good-for-nothing, a head-shaker –”

“So what?” his brother said, glaring up at him. His eyes were red, but with tears, not qi deviation. “Even if it’s true, which it isn’t, because no head-shaker could have avenged me, could have found a way to come back, could have become the Nie sect leader and kept it for two decades, even if it’s true – so what? As long as you’re safe, I don’t care. As long as you have a way to defend yourself, and you so obviously must have, then nothing else matters. Nothing has ever mattered but your happiness.”

“And yours,” Nie Huaisang shot back. “You have the right to a life too, da-ge! You – you should have had my support. You should have been able to share your burdens, I should have helped you instead of anchored you down –”

“Huaisang –”

Nie Huaisang pulled him in tight again. “It’ll be different, this time,” he promised, his voice rough. “I’m older than you ever go the chance to be, da-ge. This time, I can help you with the things you’re not good at – I can do the politics, the people. We can bear the weight of the sect together.”

He felt a whisper in the back of his mind that was strange and yet familiar, approving. Baxia, he realized. Baxia, approving of him; Baxia, who would let him wield her,   and he sensed her confidence that no one would get past her iron guard, together protecting his brother in both body and soul.

“All right,” his brother said. “Together. You and me – and the others.”

“Others?”

“After so many years, you must know who’s trustworthy,” Nie Mingjue pointed out. Already back to being practical, even if he was wiping his eyes. “If we tell those people, they can help us keep up the impression that I’m you and you’re me for as long as we need it.”

Nie Huaisang was nodding along, because that made sense, only then his brother said the last part and it was like a sunrise had opened up in his head, the way terrible and wonderful ideas always did.

“Da-ge,” he said, tasting the words in his mouth. “Da-ge, how do you like my body?”

His brother blinked up at him. “It’s fine, I guess? You’re actually in pretty decent shape, better than I thought, and your cultivation is – well, you could do a bit more with that, honestly, but it’s not uncomfortable or anything. Why?”

Nie Huaisang smiled. He’d always been remarkably resistant to their family’s cultivation curse, and not only, as he’d pretended to Wei Wuxian and Lan Wangji all those years ago, because he didn’t practice - it was his temper, or lack thereof, that softened the saber spirit’s effects on him. 

Even if his body’s cultivation increased, he was far enough behind the curve, with his mediocre talent, that it would take decades for him to reach the level that it would be dangerous to him, while his brother’s prodigious talent, coupled with his inheritance of the family temper, made him even more likely to succumb – it was that prediction which had worried him so much that he had sought out treatment even before it had become a serious problem, the same worries that had driven him into Jin Guangyao’s trap.

What do you think? he asked the brand-new whisper in his mind. Aituan would probably bitch and moan about having to actually do things, but he’d secretly enjoy getting a bit more evil-killing in; the question was Baxia. What would she think?

A purr of agreement.

“I was just thinking,” Nie Huaisang said. “Chronologically speaking, I’m older than you are. I ran the sect for years – it might be hard to let go of that habit. How about we just…stay as we are, for now?”

Nie Mingjue frowned. “Baxia –”

“I’ll use her in public, and Aituan in private,” Nie Huaisang interrupted. He’d known that would be his brother’s first concern. “And you’ll do the opposite. And when we’re settled enough, we’ll come up with some excuse to switch.”

His brother hesitated. “But…you don’t like doing things. Responsibility. That sort of thing.”

“I got over it,” Nie Huaisang assured him. “Trust me, I have a whole system – I’ll implement it once the Sunshot Campaign is done; you’ll be amazed at how much easier it makes things, and then all the things that are left over are the stuff I actually enjoy. And this way, you could…I…”

He swallowed, and put his hands on his brother’s shoulders. He didn’t want to manipulate his brother into something like this – he didn’t want to manipulate his brother at all. His brother deserved the truth and honesty he had always freely given the world, and so Nie Huaisang could only offer up the unvarnished truth.

“I want to do this for you, da-ge,” he said. “I want you to have the life you should have had. I want you to have hobbies again, to make friends, real friends that will put you first. I want you to have fun with them without thinking of how people might think about it…please, da-ge. I came back here to keep you alive, but I want more than that. I want to see you live.”

“Okay,” his brother said, and he was choking back tears again. “We’ll – we’ll discuss it later, but I’ll think about it. Okay.”

“Good,” Nie Huaisang said. “Now catch me up on the tactics we’re planning on using in tomorrow’s battle, and I’ll let you know everything I know about what happens in the future…oh, and one more thing.”

“Oh?”

Nie Huaisang’s hand dropped to the table, parallel to Baxia; he could hear her purr in his mind whistling like the rumble of thunder. He smiled.

“Can you tell me where Meng Yao is?”

#mdzs #nie huaisang #nie mingjue #my fic #my fics #Anonymous

[flowerwrites06]

break my mind’s eye V — jjk

Plot: Jungkook thinks marriage is the only way to seal a deal.

Pairing(s): Druglord!Jungkook x Fashion Designer!OC (Name: Belle)

Rating: G | PG | M | R 18+

Type: Drabble | Oneshot | Two Parter | Series

Parts: Part I | Part II | Part III | Part IV | Part V | Part VI | Part VII | Part VIII | Part IX | Part X | Special 

Word Count: 9k+

Genre: Mafia | Angst/Smut/Fluff

Tags & Warnings (for entire series): drug dealing, marriage through trickery, explicit smut, drug use, dubious consent, prostitution, miscarriage, lots of manipulation, impregnation through manipulation 

The new routine of embedding her older brother into their lives again became somewhat casual in a fortnight. Though the presence of their ‘guest’ now created a significant rift between the new couple especially when it came to certain less than elegant activities. Not that they did not try of course.

One week into the modified living condition, Jungkook and Belle had been chatting at the bar which now mysteriously had an abnormally good stock of fruit juice compared to actual alcohol. A few instances where the drug lord would pull out a glass of cloudy apple juice creating some suspicious looks from his clients. Apparently Master Jeon was now going on a cleanse from alcohol for a while to prolong his rule over the empire.

The innocent conversation turned to absentminded touches, fingers intertwining and standing dangerously close together so Jungkook could smell her coconut shampoo. One peck turned to a deeper kiss and completely by mistake, Belle jumped on the counter with her now slightly favourite crime lord between her legs, his rough hand sneaking underneath her skirt and his lips nibbling on her neck.

Of course this was the perfect time for Taehyung to decide for a walk finding a criminal fooling around with his little sister while she giggled.

Belle practically flew off the counter almost twisting Jungkooks’ hand and simply put, the two decided to keep it more on the down low next time.

Another week passed and the cartel had been going through some brewing tension with the authorities after a new mayor was elected. Which meant Jungkook barely showed up in the bedroom to sleep and when he did come to the bedroom, it was to work more at the study table.

Belle on the other hand now sat in the designing level of Madame Saito with her large glasses, a red sweater dress to match the confusing mixture of cool and warm. Long hair tied up in a loose bun that lobbed to the side a little when she lowered her head to focus on the little details of the blue hydrangea pattern across white silk.

She approved Seokjins’ offer of becoming his designer for the Sangria House so they could conjoin the Spring Line with the angels’ attire. As much as it ignited a tiny hint of suspicion on the owners’ intentions, Saito advised that it was a powerful business decision. Being a designer of one of the biggest establishments in the city could boost her reputation as a sole businesswoman. Instead of just being Jeon Jungkooks’ fiancée or Saitos’ protégé.

Most of the Spring Line designs were already displayed on mannequins behind her, few of them approved for the runway while others still needed more detailing.

Her thumb already pricked a few times but she grew a good resistance for it at this point carefully creating gradients on the embroidered flowers. Belle quickly learned the importance of clothes in the Sangria House. Even though it was kind of ironic considering the type of establishment.

Angels wearing white fabric were meant to be the ones still in ‘training’, red meant available for entertainment both casual or carnal, lavender represented angels who were trained in more daring acts for entertainment especially ones that were erotic. Then there were the gold angels; extremely qualified in all kinds of entertainment but were already ‘taken’. They were married to someone but still had to entertain customers for a living income. If a customer wanted to spend more intimate time with this angel, it would take the price of a mansion which only one or two clients have ever really paid.

After hearing all this, Belle felt a little silly just calling it a brothel considering how much detail went into orchestrating the whole system down to their clothes.

“Belle!”

Her hand immediately stilled staring up at the figure in a vibrant yellow pantsuit walking towards the working table.

Saitos’ eyes flickered down to the sewing pattern, a smile creeping on her red lips. “I thought you said you weren’t good at embroidery.”

The younger female chuckled nervously poking the needle into the fabric. “Not as good as how you do it.”

“I was forced to sew since I was seven.” She laughed. “Don’t let my younger self being oppressed by toxic femininity stop you from believing you can’t do it now.” She joked, patting her shoulder lightly with her gaze focused on the pattern. “All you need to do is just cut out little loose threads.” Finger gently pointed towards the little threads poking out of the design. “Always make sure it’s smooth. Sometimes when a few parts are imperfect, you can add little extra pieces over top that match the shade of the embroidery design.”

Belle nodded, eyes following wherever Saitos’ finger moved.

Then the senior designer stopped herself. “Oh! Mrs. Jeon is waiting downstairs, she has some news about your engagement.” She straightened up, fixing her blazer before gesturing over to the stairs.

Her words took a moment to sink into her mind before she pulled the hair band out of her bun and tried to make it look presentable again. Glasses placed carefully on the table while the work in progress now supervised by Saito.

Almost rushing down the stairs, Belle came face to face with the woman who wore a body hugging lavender midi skirt and a matching blazer. A smile quickly stretched across her red lips as Boyoung held onto her hands excitedly.

“I’m sorry to disturb you during work but I got too excited.” She giggled, holding up her left hand to admire the ring wrapped around it as if she had never seen it before. “It’s about the wedding.”

Heart raced against her ribcages but Belle tried to keep her expressions calm. “What—what about the wedding?”

“The date, of course!” Boyoung laughed, swinging their arms again. “See we have been saving for Jungkooks’ wedding since his nineteenth birthday. Twenty one is the traditional age to marry in our family.”

Explained the constant suitors Jungkook had to tolerate. Something Belle could relate to. Her parents had been talking about her marriage since she was thirteen because it was a good way for them to gain money. Or to get rid of her. Either way she found herself having one big thing in common with the man. “That’s very nice of you.” Nice was not the proper word Belle wanted to use but Boyoung had proved to the nicest person she met in this new world. She was not going to ruin that safety.

She nodded in acknowledgement. “Since we have more than enough money saved up for the event. I wanted to tell you that we could have the wedding in a month.”

Blood chilled in her whole body struggling to keep her smile up to such a point where it was just her lips curled up while her eyes widened a little. “A month?” She chuckled nervously.

“I know it seems a little quick…” Boyoung admitted while lowering her head for a split second.

Quick was one way to describe a thousand crates dropping right on top of you while you were just working on a pretty dress.

“But it’s good to keep up with tradition.” She nodded mostly to herself, quickly giving her a bright smile like she forced it out of her after a mental pep talk. “And you two already love for each other so it shouldn’t be too hard to fathom.”

Love.

That fucking word again. Everything just came crashing back to her as the ring felt like it was suffocating her finger until it fell off. This wasn’t real, this wasn’t real… those three words swirled around in her mind as she watched the joyful smile adorn Jungkooks’ aunt. It was a game…a deal to protect her family and her own life.

Strange how the two were thinking about the same thing but one had a grey cloud and the other had sunshine.

“Of course.” Belle smiled again a little weakly but the older females’ excitement seemed to mask any suspicion. Admittedly, sparks of interest did fly between the fresh new pair but truthfully it never moved deeper than a sexual attraction. They stopped being rude to each other and grew quite successful in pretending to be a happy engaged couple. Behind closed doors, there were smiles, maybe a little flutter in her belly whenever she saw him but—love?

No.

Love was sacrificing her entire chance at a proper relationship with a happy marriage and children so she could protect Taehyung. What Belle and Jungkook had was not love itself but a consequence of loving someone far too much to lose them.

With that thought, her pounding heart hardened. This was all for the best. The deal is simple. Marry Jungkook and be the perfect wife while Taehyung is given all the resources to recover back to a better version of himself again. What was the point of worrying so much about marriage anyway? Her career showed so much potential, Belle probably would have ended up a single business woman like Saito.

To put it more accurately, this deal was perfect. No one pressured her about marriage, Taehyung was healing and her career moved smoothly.

“So we’ll do it at my mansion then, yes?”

Boyoungs’ voice breaking into the barrier of her thoughts pulled Belle back into reality and she instinctively gave the older another grin. “Yes…your mansion is beautiful, Mrs. Jeon.” She nodded. “It’s the—perfect place for a wedding.” Perfection seemed to be all she could gain at this point.

“You’ve made a desperate aunt very happy.” She joked, patting her cheek. “Now I’ve kept you away from work long enough, we’ll talk soon.”

Belle led the woman across the boutique to the exit where her car awaited, allowing the cool air to ease some of her slightly heated anxiety.

She stood politely in front of the vehicle watching Boyoung climb inside before the driver closed it gently. Though her attention flickered over to something moving on the other side of the street where the park was. Usually filled with children running around, people jogging but her focus directed more towards the bushes fencing the area.

For a quick moment a more sensible side assumed it may have been an animal of some sort merely rustling between the branches.

Though the side that was fully aware of the new gaze on her after the engagement knew better. Animals did not wear black coats neither did they hold cameras pointing right in her direction while trying to look inconspicuous in nature.

At some point Belle suspected the photographer saw her looking into the camera because she saw the figure rush to keep themselves hidden again.

Sighing, the girl gave one quick smile to Boyoung before the car drove away and she tried to fix her attention on her work again.

-

Coffee stained papers flipped and dropped either on the other side of the crowded table or on the floor. Phone rung at some corner constantly while not a single employee had a minute without running around somewhere leaving Namjoon s’ head spinning. On his right were a pile of cases he should be doing according to the captain who insisted that vandals and petty theft was more his specialty. Granted the man could not blame her considering his biggest undercover case went downhill with no leads whatsoever leaving him to be the runt of his precinct for the past year.

He kept a decent aura of respect however, no one really wanted to piss off someone who had been personally trained to cut off important parts in a body.

Taking a sip of his possible fifth cup of coffee, his pile of useless cases forgotten on the side while he stared at the recent pictures sent to him. A few years had already passed with this growing ambition towards finding out how to expose the mystery that was the Jeon Cartel. Apparently each associate took some kind of tight fucking oath which prevented anyone from uttering a single secret about them.

The infamous Jeon Jungkook was a master of words. The golden elite of their city. Contributed to around half of the buildings in the city and factories overseas. Donated near millions of dollars to medical and disaster care.

Namjoon had to admit he was good at what he did. That is until the first drug scandal. One of the factories that Jungkook owned was caught manufacturing cocaine and distributing it to Osaka and Hong Kong. Though quickly swept under the rug when the man had two hospitals built under the guise that it was Jungkooks’ personal apology to the city. His undercover mission which he worked on for months destroyed in two days.

Now the man was left with looking at any recent changes. Anything that so much as leaned the slightest towards suspicion caused his ears to prick up and his eyes peeled.

“You know Pornhub exists, right?” Yoongi spoke in his usual gruff tone, sipping on his espresso while watching over Namjoon s’ shoulder at the pictures he was looking at.

The younger male rolled his eyes continuing to observe the photos taken three days ago. A woman wearing a striking red dress conversing and smiling with the second most powerful lady in the city. “It’s Kim Belle.” Namjoon remembered the name on the newspaper article in front of him. “Seems Jeon Jungkook is getting engaged.” He sighed, brows furrowing slightly.

“Okay…” He nodded walking over to his desk right in front of Namjoon s’ desk. “And that’s our problem because…”

“Well it doesn’t make sense.”

“It’s marriage, it almost never makes sense.” Yoongi leaned back on his chair.

Namjoon moved in to try and keep his voice down since anyone who so much as heard him talk about Jungkook started writing out complaints to the captain. “But why now? He’s been an eligible bachelor for years and all of a sudden, an engagement?”

The older male tried to suppress rolling his eyes. “Probably an arranged marriage then.” He shrugged.

“To a fashion designer?” He winced. “What the hell is he going to gain by marrying a fashion designer?”

“Free suits for a life time?” Yoongi smirked but immediately sighed seeing the warning look on Namjoon s’ face. The man had clearly dedicated his entire livelihood to exposing Jungkook which was something he could never understand. He spent most of his days going undercover and being damn good at it too, exposing all kinds of rings. The Jeon Cartel, on the other hand was a hard ice wall to crack. “Look…you’ve been at this for a long time. At this point if you so much as mention Jungkook, the captains’ just going to let you go on the grounds of insanity.”

“But something isn’t right.” Namjoon emphasized desperately wanting anyone to see under that perfect young man façade Jungkook harbored. “You don’t just get engaged to some random girl, that’s social suicide.”

“Social suicide? This isn’t fucking high school.”

“You know what I mean.”

The two men stayed silent letting the ambient noise plunge through their personal atmosphere.

Yoongi mulled over his thoughts for a moment, watching Namjoon look down at the pictures with a defeated sigh. He understood the passion behind exposing someone who was doing a harmful thing under the guise of righteousness. So many powerful heads still needed to be exposed, unfortunately Jungkook was only a newer one. “Let me see the file.” He curled his fingers in and took the thick file onto his own desk when Namjoon handed it to him.

His gaze fixated on the picture of the woman, who looked around about Jungkooks’ age except with a softness to her as opposed to the other mans’ mischief. There were a couple of news articles that Namjoon collected with that same face plastered all over. A couple of them were positive while others were out to scandalize one way or another no matter how stupid it sounded. “So you’ve never seen her with him before?”

Namjoon shook his head. “Not until a little too recently. It’s like she just appeared out of thin air.”

Flipping through the photos, Yoongi came across one where she wore a brown-ish bodycon dress walking into an establishment. “This is a rehabilitation clinic.” His brows furrowed, interest now piqued a little too much for his own liking.

“You think she’s an addict?”

“Hard to tell. Could be anything.” He muttered, eyes on the picture as he took a sip of his now cooled down espresso. “Maybe she’s visiting.”

“There has to be something weird about this, right?” Namjoon gestured towards the file.

Crime lords taking in beautiful, young wives for no reason was not an uncommon trait but usually those leaders would have a reputation of that sort. Jungkook had been a bachelor from what they knew and rarely found himself in any kind of sex or romantic scandal. Something was going on but much like everything else with this man, it was hard to tell what exactly. “Okay don’t tell anyone I said this.” Yoongi almost whispered now leaning in. “But we have a possible drug bust…thanks to our new mayor, we’ve been getting orders left and right to fish out dens.” He stopped himself for a moment letting a trainee walk past them before speaking again. “The one we’re looking at tonight—few of us suspect that it could belong to Jeon.”

Namjoon shifted in his seat as his heart leaped right up to his throat. Finally those words were coming out of someone else’s mouth instead him saying the same thing like a broken record. More people were seeing the truth. “Where is it?”

Yoongi gave him a warning look now. “Joon…”

“Come on, I’m not gonna follow you.”

“Yeah but this is still a secret bust, alright? Even some of the seniors don’t know about it.” His eyes flickered over to the sides where the older officers were sipping coffee at their desks looking at their computer. About two of them actually reading cases while others watching porn. “The mayor wants a full clean-up.” Yoongi whispered again. “And I mean—full.”

“Meaning…” He pointed to his desk but referred to the whole precinct and Yoongi nodded.

“All our jobs are on the line.” He muttered. “Even the captain…but—this could help us be on the mayor’s good side since they’re trusting us already.”

A light hint of excitement tingled down his spine knowing there was a lead now. While Namjoon would have wanted to accompany the team, the older male had the right idea. The captain did not trust him in this mission. He needed to be subtle if he was ever going to feel the satisfaction of seeing Jeon Jungkook behind bars.

-

Golden rays peeked through the curtains as Belle walked to the vanity with nothing but a crème silk slip and a white robe over top.

The couple along with Taehyung were invited to the Sangria House to celebrate their new business partnership. Apparently the best angels would be readied for their entertainment in the night. Something Belle was not sure she was going to enjoy.

Either way it was always good to look as presentable as possible. The dress code stated that white, red, lavender or gold were not allowed in the establishment for obvious reasons Belle understood now. So with the thought in mind she opted for a deep green velvet dress, a slit for one of her thighs to peek through and one loose strap sleeve that hung off her shoulder smoothly.

The gorgeous dress lay neatly on the large ottoman in the center of the walk-in wardrobe while the woman curled a few undone pieces of her hair.

Deep peach lips and a simple terracotta shaded eye look, Belle briskly made her way downstairs to see how Taehyung was doing with getting ready.

Her older brother had been extremely reluctant in coming to the event but she suggested it would be good to do something other than sitting around. Maybe getting his mind off of any messiness even for a few hours. Still hesitant he silently agreed but Belle had a nagging feeling he was still napping.

Down the stairs as her curls bounced a little in the process, Nana smiled and rushed over to her.

“He’s fine, mistress.” She quickly reassured as they both stopped near the entrance archway.

Belle let out light sigh before chuckling, head lowered for a moment. “Is the suit okay?”

“Very handsome.” She nodded in acknowledgement. “You should be dressed too.”

The younger female hummed before hearing a few voices back and forth as if in argument. Brows furrowed, Belle walked to the other side of the mansion where the second living room was while Nana continued on with her work.

The area was empty but she still heard angered voices coming from the left room. The second living room led two areas. It had a similar design to the first one except instead of a bar, there was another fireplace. Past the couches in the center led to an open archway towards the kitchen on the right while the left was closed; Jungkooks’ home office.

Curiosity and slight concern seeping through her entire body, Belle walked towards the door which in mere minutes opened harshly. A clear air of smoke flowed out into the second living room touching her nostrils and making her wince.

The once angry looking men immediately stopped in their tracks for a moment before waving off the smoke and bowing. “Excuse us, mistress.” One of the older ones acknowledged as they took turns walking past her to the exit. Jongho and another guard led them properly to the door but the womans’ gaze was more on the figure sitting at the chair, rubbing his face.

Entering the office, she closed the door behind her.

His slightly reddened eyes flickered to meet her gaze before lowering his head. “Belle—” Jungkook sniffled, fingers running through messy hair. White shirt a little crumpled, almost half unbuttoned and sleeves rolled up to his elbows. It became a usual sight for the man ever since this new election. “Sorry…I don’t usually yell.” He sighed attempting to messily fix up the papers.

Staying silent, feet padded closer to the table and gently took the paperwork in her hands, stacking them neatly with a tap on the edge before placing them back on the surface. “I know. You haven’t slept.”

“Park Chul clearly isn’t planning on sleeping.” Jungkook almost seethed just mentioning the mayors’ name.

Belle moved to stand behind him, hands on his shoulders lightly squeezed the knotted muscles. “That doesn’t mean you stop taking care of yourself.”

He let out a drawling hum, throwing his head back. “You can take care of me.” A soft smile tugged at his lips as her vanilla scented perfume graced his nostrils. For hours Jungkook had been forced to tolerate the tobacco, weed and alcohol, it felt nice to have someone pleasant around him again.

“What if I’m not here?” Another million dollar question that silenced them both for a few minutes. Even the woman grew uncomfortable at how heavy those words were. Their deal was perfect. But what about twenty years from now? Fifty years? What if Jungkook being married didn’t matter anymore?

“You’ll always be here…won’t you?” He stared up at her.

Belle stopped massaging him at this point, mind crowding with unwanted thoughts and unanswered questions. Too much to think about in such little time. “I made a promise.” She smiled. “I’m gonna keep it.” Seemed the best reply in the pile of things she truly wanted to say to him except there was no time to worry themselves over delicate details.

Jungkook chuckled a little under his breath as the vanilla scented goddess now moved to sit on the table in front of him. “Shouldn’t you be dressed by now?”

“I could ask you the same question, Mr. Jeon.” Her eyes flickered up and down his body.

Fingers accidentally pushed her robe aside to let those soft thighs peek out in display, the feeling of it under his pads allowed for a sense of relief to wash any stress down. All she had to do was sit here and Jungkook felt instantly revived. Even the scent of alcohol and tobacco faded away with her presence bringing him nothing but light bliss. “I like this outfit.” He smirked, hand tracing down her leg so it sat on the arm rest, slightly caging him in much to his pleasure.

Belle smiled placing her other leg on the left arm rest giving him a small peek of her satin black panties. “Do you want me to wear this outfit?” She purposely softened her voice.

The sweet sound tingled down his spine, head turning to kiss the inside of her thigh.

Eyes closed feeling each kiss lurking closer to the thin barrier hiding the womans’ core. Leaning back a little, she buried her fingers gently in his thick hair. Grip tightened when Jungkooks’ lips finally pressed against her panties. “We don’t have time for that.” She spoke breathlessly.

“We’ll make time.” His voice rasped.

She felt her panties being pushed to the side, exposing her core to his hot breath before his tongue licked a stripe up from her slit to her little nub. Legs jerked a little almost locking her thighs together but one of his hands kept one of them still. Tongue lapped on her throbbing clit making it hard to keep herself steady without knocking over the desktop computer behind her; light moans melted out of her like a long unsung melody. A little hesitant but she had to sing it regardless. “Dai—”

Her voice made his heart flutter immediately concealed with a light groan that vibrated against her core. Lips wrapped around the sweet bundle of sensitivity and suckled, relishing in the feeling her plump thighs pressing against his ears.

Belle almost lost her balance as she pushed the keyboard away to the side. The familiar warmth constricted around her lower belly now welcomed itself, moans fading into desperate whimpers to reach her orgasm.

Feeling her hips jerk against his mouth, Jungkook breathed out through his nose not leaving a single break as he pushed her to her release. Clit throbbing between his lips, he shook his head.

The rough pressure torturing her bud as she drowned in the warm explosion seeping through every vein, body trembled in bliss. When Belle felt his tongue still moving causing her to jump a little from the sensivity as she pushed his face away softly. “No more.” She giggled, still trying to catch her breath.

Jungkook kissed it once more with a cheeky smile before standing up.

She wiped off the glisten on his chin with the fabric of her robe and pressed a light kiss on his lips. “What about you?” Her hands pulling at his belt but he held onto them.

“It’s okay.” He whispered, giving her a reassuring smile. “I just needed a little treat.”

Belle slapped his chest softly not able to get rid of the blissful smile gracing her features. “We should get dressed now.” She muttered even though their hands were still slowly caressing each other.

“We should.” Jungkook pushed away the loose curl over her eye.

Whether it was the ecstasy still flowing through her or a genuine feeling from within, the woman found herself in complete comfort under his touch. Maybe something more than just sexual attraction. Not that it could ever be anyway, there was no real use in true feelings for something false. Despite the thought in mind Belle smiled up at her clever captor turned fiancée and felt tingles run down her spine at a mere kiss on her cheek.

-

Sangria House reeked of luxury from its royal purple and gold tapestries, crystal lamps with warm lighting, scent of wine mixed into vanilla while the inside adorned with colorful angels entertaining their patrons. Since the house colors were not allowed to be worn by visitors, many of them opted for the classic black which made Belles’ deep green velvet dress stand out a lot more than she expected.

Arm hooked onto Jungkooks’ while Taehyung walked with them on her left, the three were welcomed by an angel with white attire. She bowed, smile gracing her features before leading them past the main lobby of entertainment where a few angels in white played instruments on the small stage.

Upon observing, a lot of the members in the lobby only wore white while some red ones sat in a few corners.

Belle assumed the higher ranking ones would have more private sessions or maybe there were certain times where each angel arrived. So many things still left unanswered for the workings of the Sangria House but it did not change the fact, it was a quick profit hungry establishment exploiting vulnerable young people who were desperate for a living.

The young angel slid open a door to an empty private room. Table full of light snacks and three cushions for them to sit on. “Mistress Angel and Master Jimin will see you shortly.” She bowed again until her knees touched the floor waiting for them to enter the room so she could leave respectfully.

Jungkook sat in the middle while Belle and Taehyung took each side waiting patiently in a small period of silence.

“Was bringing me to a brothel really necessary?” He glared more at Jungkook even though Belle was the one who received the invitation and accepted it for the business deal.

“If it were the brothel, I would’ve been groped at least a good three times by now.” The woman replied simply knowing this establishment in particular had extremely strict rules and a different crowd of clients.

The comment silenced her brother almost instantly.

Mere minutes passed and the door slid open again bursting with bright colors. A woman with long brown hair wearing a gold georgette dress with a matching overcoat giving her the look of royalty. In a similar fashion, a grey haired male stood beside her wearing a similar design except silk lavender. Walking closer to the table, they both bowed down to their patrons adorning those award winning smiles.

Taehyung felt like something clipped his tongue when saw the angels. The ones in white were pretty but this house owner had some real gems hidden under his sleeve. Especially the lady in gold who perched herself next to him, smiling like a princess from a fairytale that the man seemed rude smile a little back.

“Welcome to the Sangria House. On behalf of Mr. Kim, we’d like to thank you for accepting this momentous partnership, Madame Belle.” She smiled at her and gave a little bow of acknowledgement. “Jimin and I will be your hosts for this evening.”

Jungkook smiled kindly and the chatting began quite smoothly since the angels were extremely talented in holding an air of entertainment. Especially these ones. Getting a lavender and a gold coated angel were not regular feats and only done if the patron was an important one to impress. The last time he saw two of these angels together in one room was when he was first anointed leader of the Cartel but it was all paid by his father and mother. Belle checked that box without any aid. He would be jealous but a jolt of pride burst through him without knowing.

“Your name is Angel?” Taehyung asked, expression softened so much he could resemble a cloud.

Angel giggled under her breath while serving his tea. “It’s a little strange.” She placed the teapot down glancing over at Jimin who was chatting along with Belle while Jungkook listened to her. “We were called faeries before but—Mr. Kim changed it after I was given the gold coat.” She gestured to her outfit.

Taehyungs’ brows furrowed looking down at her dress hoping the princess would explain why the change in her outfit was so important. Instead the criminal sitting in the middle began speaking.

“When an angel is given the gold coat, it signifies that she’s take—” Jungkook cleared his throat. “Apologies…she’s married.”

The princess nodded with a reassuring smile.

“Married.” Taehyung breathed out, feeling like a grey cloud engulfed him into a cold hug. Of all the things…of all the angels he had to melt in front of the one who was married.

Belles’ smile disappeared hearing Jungkooks’ correction. The smallest tiniest detail managed to snap a nerve that had been long hidden with her own pride and stubborn strength. He was wrong. Angel was taken. No real, true spouse would continue to let their wife be used as a sensual commodity for extra cash and this gold angel definitely brought in a lot from what she learnt. No real, true husband would manipulate someone and threaten her family just to keep up a good appearance as a married elite. This was far from being married. Marriage was something else entirely and these suited pigs would not ever understand the meaning. It was a business transaction. Her body deflated a little feeling that nudge of anxiety once again bubbling up but she quickly gave Jimin a kind smile.

Jimin knew fake smiles from a mile away but it did not take an expert to realize Mr. Jeons’ comment changed something in the gorgeous designer. Though he had to admit, she was good at holding one like she had been giving conveniently fake smiles for a while. He did not know if he should be impressed or terrified. Either way it seemed the perfect to initiate the next stage of the evening that Seokjin planned out for them. He gently touched Angels’ arm to give her the signal before speaking once everything was quiet. “Mr. Kim has private sessions booked for each of you. I will be taking Madame Belle to another room and Mr. Jeon is expected in a meeting with Mr. Kim.”

It might have sounded like Jungkook was forced to work while relaxing but he never really delved into the antics of the Sangria House. When he was a bit younger and curious, he did book a red angel occasionally but now nothing really compared to what he already had. Though something he did not like was Jimin offering his hand to Belle. “You don’t have to do that.” He muttered to the woman.

“It’s okay.” Belle spoke a little coldly, accepting Jimins’ hand as they walked out of the room.

Another angel wearing white walked into the room to escort Jungkook to wherever he needed to go but Taehyung did not really care where. All he could focus on was the fact he could now be alone with the gold princess. “Can I ask who you’re…married to?”

Angel smiled. “No one really asks. They like keeping my truth as far away from the confines of this room to make their evening more enjoyable.”

“What if I don’t want to do that?”

“Then you’d be the first.” She took a polite sip of her tea. “Is there something in particular you wanted me to do?”

“No!” Taehyung cleared his throat, cheeks heating up. “Uh—no, I—Talking is fine. I haven’t…spoken to anyone new in a long time.” He chuckled mostly to himself. Most of the friends he had left him in the dust the more he found his comfort in other things. He talked to Hoseok a lot but only when a transaction was involved, the nurses were anything but just highly paid nannies and Belle had a life of her own to lead. Sitting in this room now with the soft-spoken princess, he quickly felt how lonely he truly was.

“Am I doing a good job?” She giggled seeing the little sags under his eyes that resembled she saw in the mirror this morning.

He nodded without hesitation. Her mere presence seemed to bring a warmth in his belly, reassuring him that he was not lonely. That everything was okay even just for a moment.

-

The room Belle was escorted into had a similar structure to the previous one except instead of plain walls, there were cherry blossom designs giving the area a subtle pinkish hue. She walked inside and sat down on the cushion this time sitting in the middle while Jimin perched himself on the other side so they faced each other. “So…why the private session?”

Jimins’ eyes flickered up to the female while he served the tea before smiling. “Mr. Kim wanted each of you to fully enjoy the services we can provide.”

Her heart bounced a little at his words. “Ser—Services?” She breathed out a small chuckle. “What kind of services?”

The lavender adorned male could not help but giggle at her adorable reaction. “Don’t worry. I won’t do anything unless you ask me to.”

“What if you don’t want to do what I ask?” Belle tilted her head. Not on her life would she ask Jimin or anyone to do anything disgusting for her own benefit but she was curious just how put together this establishment actually was.

He smiled. “It is my job to make you happy, Madame Belle.”

Clearly not that put together. “It would make me happy if you just called me Belle. ‘Madame’ is only used for senior designers.”

Jimin bowed. “Apologies—Belle. I looked at the designs you sent in for the House…you could be a senior designer if you wanted.”

Belle giggled lightly trying not to look too proud of herself since as Jimin said, it was his job to make her happy. “Thank you. Let me know if you want me to change anything.”

“That’s not really my decision but I think it’s perfect just the way it is.” He shrugged. A small moment of comfortable silence passed through them before Jimin spoke again with a careful thought. “Forgive me for asking, Belle…but–I saw you were very upset hearing Mr. Jeons’ comment.” Every word sounded so carefully calculated Belle wished she could speak like that in front of strangers. “Part of the responsibilities in Sangria House is to detect signs of…domestic disturbances. Our patrons tend be loose tongued which helps us find out if there is anyone who needs help getting away from something like that.”

“Oh—” She tried her best to hide how much her heart almost cracked her ribcages when it leaped in both fear and a strange excitement. “You don’t have to worry about all that.” Belle shook her head with a smile. Though a small lump still grew in her throat at how Jimin spoke his concerns despite barely knowing her. “Sangria House tracks domestic disturbances?”

Jimin nodded, smile softly adorning his ethereal features. “Most of our angels are from toxic environments.” He took a breath to say something as he glanced behind him. Then he leaned in with a smaller voice. “Angel…the golden lady used to be the mistress of a powerful club owner. I—I was the one who found the signs after a private session.”

Belle swallowed down the painful lump. “Who did she marry then?”

He sighed. “Since the man was so influential, he wouldn’t just let anyone marry her.” Jimin shook his head. “So—Mr. Kim offered his hand. Well…Angel trained five times as intense compared to the other angels so her status as a gold member would be valid.”

What little hope Belle had of the Sangria House being somewhere of help quickly dwindled down back to her original opinion. Angel moved from one controlling person to another. Maybe Seokjin was not an abuser of any sort but it did not change the fact she became a commodity just so she could be free from abuse. A ‘better’ life but did that make it a good life?

Though Jimin looked quite convinced that this was a righteous path for the House.

He could not exactly be miserable about it like she was since he had to actually live through all these routines and schemes.

Same way Belle couldn’t be upset about her deal with Jungkook otherwise it could make her insane with misery. Every time the small hint of reality hit her, she felt like her whole body was drowning in it all. Something so wrong damaged the entire structure of her future. If soulmates existed Belles’ would be left waiting or they would run to someone else they were not truly meant for.

“I’m sorry…I was supposed to entertain you, not make you feel awful.” Jimin chuckled nervously, shifting in his seat.

“No, no—” She shook her head smiling at him more genuinely this time. Her hand unintentionally slid closer to his as a way to comfort the angel. “Please, I—like talking about these things sometimes. It feels—real.” Her genuine smile faded into something a little sad but it still rang with truth. “I need a lot of real in my life right now.”

Jimin hummed in acknowledgement, one of his fingers lightly tapping against her hand. “Well if you ever want to visit again this House will always be open to you.”

Regardless of what she thought about this place, that was the first time anyone ever gave her words of comfort since the ‘engagement’. “Thank you, Jimin.”

-

“We’ve been in casual dealings for a long time now, Mr. Jeon.” Seokjin walked towards his desk after bringing out a wooden box from his shelf and placing it on the dark wooden surface. The lighting in the office had been a lot more dim with rarely any heavy decorations save for a few plants. This place clearly was only meant for business. “But I feel this new project may be able to solidify a stronger partnership between the two of our entities.” He tapped the closed box.

Jungkook sat on the chair in front of the desk, eyes fixated on the box before flickering up to the older male. “We don’t—share the same supplies, I’m afraid, Mr. Kim.” He shook his head a smirk lightly playing on his lips.

Seokjin chuckled settling down on the chair. He flicked the gold latches on the box and pushed the lid open before sliding it towards the young lord. “I believe you do share a similar interest for this kind of product.”

Giving the house owner a look of apprehension, he slowly leaned in and peeked into the box where he saw an indigo shaded stick almost resembling a cinnamon stick. On the left was a small bag of the same colored powder and then a liquid version in a vial. “What is this supposed to be?”

“There isn’t a name for it yet.” He shrugged. “But from I’ve asked a few of my white coats to try this product out and see the effects.”

Jungkook picked up the liquified version to examine it closer, little pink glitters seemed to shine through in the light making it look like some potion from the ancient times. “And? What were the results?”

“At first the usual, loss of inhibition maybe a little sense—then…we have increased sex drive, high performance and concentration ability, pain relief and for some people, a serious case of the giggles.” Seokjin rested his elbows on the table with his fingers intertwined with one another.

“Side effects?” He met the older males’ gaze, placing the vial back in the box.

“Didn’t think you were kind of man to worry about that.” He smirked.

“I didn’t get this kind of success by selling bad drugs, Seokjin.” Jungkook smiled with a slight bitter hint.

Seokjin sighed before nodding. “Of course—unfortunately, this drug is new and not exactly made by creators of your Cartels’ stature. Side effects included heavy addiction, loss of coordination, extreme mood swings, excessive coughing with blood traces, insomnia, sensitivity to light and cold and nightmares.”

“So nothing then?” He joked, raising a brow. “It’s going to take work to ensure at least lessening those side effects by half.”

“I take it that’s a yes on the partnership.” The corner of his lip twitched up a little.

Many club owners usually turned to him and his manufacturers for new and improved drugs that surpassed the traditional ones. Though in Jungkooks’ opinion, the originals always sold the most because they were effective for years. Except brothel or teahouse owners never really dabbled into the interest of his line of work. “Why the interest in this new field?”

Seokjin smiled leaning back on his chair. “I’m a businessman, Jungkook. There’s no field I don’t want to get into. It has been an interest of mine for years since many herbs and substances have yet to be discovered. Don’t you ever wonder if there was something out there in the world that could bring you more profit…more glory than your predecessor?”

Jungkook sat silent as the question lingered in the air for a few moments. Being so young and handed the cartel without his fathers’ death caused a disagreement amongst many associates. Despite the fear harbored by whoever crossed his path, the young man was always on the path to better himself in proving that he was the most capable and most influential. There was no room to be soft or complacent in this business.

“Also the lack of knowledge for this product may prevent any…mishaps from our new beloved mayor.”

Those clever words made his ears prick up quicker than he liked. A substance with similar effects to the originals but the look of none of them. If they succeed in perfecting it then maybe it would make being discreet that much easier. “I’ll talk about it with my manufacturers.” He spoke trying to be as emotionless as possible. But the prospect of his vulnerable mess of a cartel getting some security was soothing.

-

The sessions and a productive meeting flowed through deep into the dark night until the three were escorted back to their car.

Belle kept her eyes out on the window feeling a light emptiness gut after an angel walked into the room and told their session came to an end. Perhaps it was Jimins’ immense talent in luring his patrons. Whatever it was she had no interest in talking to the men in the car. She felt like her whole being was ripped apart, now she needed a few moments of deep silence to stitch herself back up.

Truthfully the girl did not say anything too detailed to the lavender angel but she never needed to. Somehow he had the talent of seeing her story with a few hints. That alone made her even more reluctant to uttering a single word to her brother or her makeshift fiancée.

Jungkook peeked from the rearview mirror at the woman looking out the window wondering what happened in the private session. Even as they met again in the lobby, Belle had a cold sheet over her to a point where he could feel the chill.

-

When they arrived to the mansion, Taehyung shyly suggested that they should visit the house more often which Belle agreed to with a slightly exhausted smile.

“You looked beautiful tonight.” Jungkook commented watching Belle take off her earrings and necklace, placing them in a black box.

“Thank you.” She replied under her breath, unpinning some parts of her hair relieving the light headache that ensued. Stop acting miserable, Belle told herself. It would only make it worse—her chest could not clench all her life. Her gaze still focused on the vanity, she pushed all her curls over her shoulder. “Could you unzip me?” Belle asked coyly. The woman had all capabilities of unzipping her own dress.

Shrugging the soft shirt off his shoulders, Jungkook padded towards the beauty and stood behind her. Eyes flickered to her reflection in the mirror watching her glow in the golden lights of the vanity. Hands carefully held onto the zip and pulled down tantalizing slow, wanting to stand this close to her as long as possible. The scent of her perfume blessed his nostrils, he had to lean down and nudge his nose against her hair.

Belle couldn’t help but close her eyes, chest rising and falling. This isn’t real. This isn’t real. Why did something fake feel so good then? His slightly rough fingers sneaking through the slit of her unzipped dress tracing up her back making her shiver a little. She shrugged off the one sleeve keeping her clothing hanging, nipples now peeking out from the green velvet.

Jungkook kept his gaze on the reflection as his hand reached out to push down the fabric so her gorgeous breasts could be full display. Fingers brushed up her chest before wrapping around her neck and turning her head up, lips devouring hers. Tongue pushed through her teeth not wasting any time exploring every corner of her mouth.

She sneaked through the slit of her dress and rolled her panties down to her thighs. Sneaking her hand behind her, Belle palmed the tightening bulge in his pants feeling him groan into her mouth which only made her moan back. Nothing fake should ever feel this good.

Losing all his sense and patience, he pulled her dress to see her beautiful ass in bare display as she bent over slightly on the table. Jungkook unbuckled his belt and pulled his pants down watching Belle cheekily sway that gorgeous peach. No one should be this irresistible. One little tiny move from the woman had his head floating in the clouds. Nails dug into her skin, fingers wrapping around his cock before teasing her slit.

As much as Belle loved his tongue, feeling his hardened tip had her body tingling for more. Heated arousal leaked out of her awaiting core while she pressed her ass against his member silently asking to hurry.

“Did Jimin see this?” He slapped his cock against one ass cheek making the woman hum.

She shook her head looking at him through the mirror. “Only you.” Voice came in a whisper that leaked of a little desperation.

“Only me.” Jungkook muttered, giving her an almost borderline sinister smirk. Hands grabbed at her hips as he stuffed his cock into her pussy without a single warning.

Belle lightly groaned under her breath, nails scratching against the surface of the table. Her wet core swallowed his entire member with a light ache but it quickly faded into a warm filling that she craved for too long.

“Say it again.” He demanded.

She glanced over her shoulder for a second trying to hide the small smile tugging at her lips. “Only you.” A harsh thrust from behind had Belle’s body trembling in the best way possible.

“Again.” His voice grew breathless, each thrust snapping with rough need.

“Only you.” Belle moaned out feeling the tip of his cock rubbing against the sweet spot. Arms around her body, chest pressing against her back making his shaft hit deeper and slower pushing through his deprived orgasm. “Only—” She gasped when she felt her sensitive spot get tortured, her legs momentarily losing balance from the sensation.

“Fuck, baby—” He cursed in a breathy mumble, face buried in her hair as his orgasm raced closer.

“Master Jeon!” A yell echoed upstairs but Jungkook merely groaned at the horrible timing.

Pushing Belle down further, he rammed into her like an animal. All the makeup and skincare products stumbled and fell over the shaking table.

“Master Jeon!”

Each time the yell echoed, his thrusts grew more vicious. Her skin burned from the friction against the table surface while her limbs lost all ability to have any control of their own. Belle still could not control the small smile on her face. The feeling of her body completely submitting to the beast fucking her from behind brought a new rush of adrenaline.

Jungkook grabbed onto a chunk of her hair relishing in her little moans being drowned out by the impact against the contents of the table.

Loud knocking on their bedroom door interrupted their heated air for a second.

“Baby, don’t stop please…” Belle whimpered feeling her release reach tipping point.

That nickname again made his thrusts sloppy as the warm heaviness in his lower belly reached its uncontrollable, quickly pulling out of her. Juice spluttered all over her ass and back making her look like a sinful piece of art.

Her legs felt like pure jelly as the jolt of overwhelming pleasure clouded every other thought ever constructed in her mind. When she almost stumbled, Jungkook held her gently.

“Master Jeon! It’s an emergency!”

Jungkook groaned under her breath.

“It’s okay, go.” She whispered patting his arm.

Reluctantly letting go of the beauty and zipping himself back up, he stomped towards the door and almost pulled it off its hinges. Much to his increased frustration one of his sweaty associates stood on the other side of the door. “What could possibly be so important that you had to disturb my private time?” He glanced back at the walk-in wardrobe to see Belle completely getting rid of her clothing.

“S-sir the—” He stammered giving Jungkook the urge to strangle him right there and then.

“Speak or I cut your throat.”

“The den, sir.” He shivered. “One of our dens...police did a raid, we lost of our twenty percent supplies…sir.”

Jungkook narrowed his gaze at the older male feeling the deep warm bliss now cut through by his harsh reality. They actually fucking did it. Ever since that scandal, not a single soul in the police force dared to take them down but now suddenly someone decided to play hero in front of this new mayor. “You’re the one who supposed to keep the den under guard.”

The male gulped down hard. “I—I had to get out of there.”

“You should’ve died with it.”

“I’m sorry, sir.”

“Sorry…” God he fucking hated that word. What did it ever solve? Jungkook nodded, rubbing the back of his neck walking over to the study table. Pulling out his gun he pointed it at the mans’ left leg and took a shot. Then another on his right leg.

He limped down screaming in agony while the drug lord merely stared him down in disgust.

“Jungkook!” Belle called out, heart jumping to her throat at the sound of gunshots. Her body now adorned a thick robe which she hugged close to herself. He looked back over his shoulder to meet her gaze, eyes reddened once again with anger and maybe a hint of distress. “Don’t…”

His entire body wanted to melt into hers for the rest of the night. Maybe it would make him forget all his problems for a while but he couldn’t. The mayor worked day and night trying to get one step ahead of him and now they were. Jungkook couldn’t let this happen. He had to send a message. A damn good one. “Go to sleep, okay? Close your ears if you have to.” He whispered.

Belle took a breath to say something but nothing came out so she sucked in her bottom lip, watching him close the door so all she could do was hear it all. The man screamed, sounds something crashing and choking. Feet backed away until her body plopped down sitting on the edge of the bed. This was his job, she knew that. But it all went back to what Jungkook was truly capable of. Why taking his deals were so important. Every sound reminded Belle of how it could be Taehyung going through the same fate. Maybe one day when the drug-lord grew tired of the same face, she would be on her knees allowing him to seal her fate just as he took control of it.

So she took his advice and pressed her hands against her ears tightly hoping to block the reality she was trying so hard to suppress.

<< PREV CHAPTER | NEXT CHAPTER >> 

#jungkook #jungkook imagines #bts imagines #jungkook fanfic #bts fanfic #jungkook fanfiction #bts fanfiction #jungkook mafia au #bts mafia au

[levihantrash]

Shitty Comics and Their Shitty Artists

Levi’s pragmatism pulled the brakes. “I’m not about to dedicate my life to become a broke comic artist.”

Levi Ackerman, a gruff cleaner with an appetite for toilet humour meets the unabashedly friendly creative writing professor, Hange Zoë, who somehow ropes Levi into working on a comic with them. While the comic’s title remains undecided, Hange knows that it’s going to be set in a world where giant, human-like creatures devour other humans. Erwin Smith, the comic’s self-appointed editor, unironically thinks it’s going to be a hit. All Levi knows is that he wants to indulge in drawing this comic while hanging out with a certain writer who just won’t stop talking to him.

Where Hange, Levi, and Erwin are the creators of Attack on Titan.

Chapter 1:

“The sweets are really good here, huh?” A kind, bespectacled face appeared beside him, peering at the bulging of his shirt.

Levi had stolen from the pantry plenty of times. He had never gotten caught, so his gradual boldness could have been the problem. He had seen Mikasa, his younger sister, whenever she passed by the snacks section in the grocery store. Her gaping mouth at the sight of the colourful assortment of sweets was enough to let him know.

“I just like looking!” Mikasa said hastily. He hadn’t said anything either.

To be caught now, when he had overheard a staff member mentioning that most of the professors would be taking their leave during the summer break, was just his bad, bad luck. Objectively, he was risking his month-old job, but stealing from the pantry was much less risky than stealing from the grocery store. He began doing it weekly. Every Monday, right before the professors came streaming in, he would take a quick survey of his surroundings, and snatch two chocolate bars, sometimes a banana—only a handful. He would glance at the security camera hanging in the corner, willing it to catch him. Nobody would be petty enough to arrest a cleaner for swiping staff snacks in the pantry, right?

Levi stared back at the unfamiliar person. He recognised most of the staff by now. Only the English Literature professor, Erwin Smith, would greet him in the mornings.

“Who are you?”

“I’m Hange Zoë, the new creative writing professor. Nice to meet you!” They extended out a hand, which he felt obliged to shake, albeit warily. The hand was sweaty, and the handshake, vigorous.

“I was setting up my table and I wanted to meet everyone. Turns out most of them are on vacation,” Hange said absent-mindedly, scratching their head. The two buttons of their shirt had been mixed up, scrunching up the dress shirt's already lopsided collar. Levi resisted the urge to rebutton it for them. Today was not the day to scare off what seemed to be a genuinely welcoming person. Hange, on the other hand, found the firm handshake hilarious. What made this person so uptight?

Hange, realising that he wasn’t saying anything, breezily went, “what’s your name?”

“Levi,” he said, pushing his hands back into his pockets.

“You don’t prefer Dr. Levi?” Hange asked curiously.

“I’m not a professor. Just the cleaner,” Levi said shortly.

“Oh? Is that why you’re so secretive about the snacks?” Hange teased him, much to his chagrin.

“You rich profs have enough to eat,” Levi spat out.

Hange didn’t even blink, nodding calmly, “you’re right, it’s certainly good to make full use of the school’s resources.” Levi, sensitive to any hint of condescension, found none, though not regretting his overdose of sarcasm.

“Also,” Hange added, “I’m not going to tell anyone, I promise! So could you not look like you want to kill me and leave my dead body in the cleaning closet?”

Levi scoffed, relaxing the fists that had formed naturally by his side.

“Do you like bread?” Hange asked suddenly, scanning him for signs of the affirmative. He shrugged.

“I passed by a bakery this morning and it had the most delicious smell,” they sighed, “I was running late so I couldn’t get anything.”

“It seems like you’re kind of a mess.”

Hange laughed—this person could literally laugh at everything, Levi thought. They lifted their shoulders with their arms in the air, in a manner of “I was born like this, what do you want me to do?”

As the conversation subsided, Hange saw Levi’s eyes dart towards the neglected mop and bucket, finding it oddly endearing.

“Well then! I won’t disturb you any longer!” Hange announced. Levi wanted to tell them that they weren’t disturbing him at all, before stopping himself. His initial plan was to escape from useless small talk. Uttering such absurdity would be counterintuitive.

“Since you’re here,” Hange grabbed the last few packets of chips in the basket and stuffed them into his gigantic apron pockets, “you might as well take the rest!”

“Are you pitying me?”

“Those snacks aren’t for you,” Hange merely said cheerfully, before tentatively asking, “or am I wrong?”

“Don’t expect any favours,” Levi said begrudgingly.

He looked awkwardly at the distracted professor, who had chosen to open a chocolate bar themselves.

“Thanks…” he said, and Hange only grins, bits of chocolate and almond stuck to their teeth.

----------

Routine, that’s how it all began. Levi and Hange were seeing each other every day. In each encounter, Hange would tug out a new bread or pastry from the depths of a green, bottomless leather bag that they carried around everywhere.

Initially, Levi felt offended. “You think I can’t afford bread?” He asked, narrowing his eyes.

Hange’s eyes widened, “of course not! I want to share the joy of this bread, if you remember that bakery I was craving for,” they poked at the loaf, leaving a small dent in the middle.

With their hand still extended out, Hange scoured for words, “and you look like someone who doesn’t often indulge in little joys.”

“I didn’t ask you to psychoanalyze me.” Levi grabbed the bread, tore it into two, and pushed one entire piece into his mouth. A muffled word of thanks came out. The other half was planted back onto Hange’s palm.

“You said you wanted to share, didn’t you?”

Hange glowed in acknowledgement. They stuffed the warm bread into their mouth, cheeks full, incoherently raving about its texture. The sight of Levi chewing the bread contentedly after unexpectedly cramming it into his mouth; Hange wanted to preserve it, to immortalise this tentative pleasure. If fresh bread was what it took to achieve that, it was perfectly doable.

Levi saw it as what it was. An offering. There was really no reason to reject free bread, and if this were Hange’s version of bribery, it was innocent enough.

“Why don’t I get bread?” Erwin asked Hange, pouring himself a cup of coffee. Levi’s nose wrinkled at the overly strong aroma.

“Sorry Erwin!” Hange patted him on the back, not sounding apologetic at all, “I only have money for one friend and since Levi is my first friend here, it’s only fair, don’t you think?”

“Certainly,” Erwin said, sipping on his black coffee, eyeing a certain stony-faced individual’s violent coughing at Hange’s mention of “friend.”

“What?” Levi asked, clearing his throat one more time.

“Good day to you both,” Erwin said, sweeping past Levi to return to his desk.

Following the end of summer break, Hange became relatively friendly with their colleagues in the staffroom, who had never greeted Levi. Unbothered by the lack of formalities, Levi found himself getting along best with living things that discarded general rules of propriety. Like children, animals… and Hange. Still, when Levi trailed back to the staffroom, wet mop in hand, he found himself at a hearing distance behind Hange’s conversation with a group of colleagues.

Hange got to the point, smiling sweetly. “Why do you all pretend Levi doesn’t exist?”

There were awkward, feeble words of justification. Something about Levi being too scary. Something about Levi not greeting them first. Hange listened, eyebrows furrowing.

“You could at least say hi, right? He doesn’t bite,” Hange said coolly. Their colleagues felt the faintest chill up their spine. Levi sloshed the mop onto the floor, making his presence known. Hange barely flinched, as though expectant of his company.

“Are you talking about me behind my back?”

Hange slung an arm around Levi’s shoulders and whispered, “no, I’m telling everyone right now that you don’t get enough sleep and that’s why you’re glaring at everyone.”

Levi elbowed them away. “Who cares what people think?”

Unwrapping the bread Hange gave him, he took one significant, large bite while everyone squirmed in silence. Hange, strangely amused by the scene playing out before them, ushered Levi towards Erwin’s cubicle.

“Levi! What are your plans for today?”

“Cleaning.”

Hange clapped their hands together, “I invite you to have lunch with me and Erwin!”

“Why should I go?” Levi said, not unkindly.

“Why not?” Levi couldn’t give a good reason. Hange, latching on to Levi’s lack of refusal, took the mop away from his hands.

“You can finish cleaning later. Everyone has to eat, right?”

“Not you, apparently,” Levi muttered, remembering how Hange had straight-up not left their desk for a whole ten hours—the sun shining on their sleep deprivation at dawn until the desktop screen illuminated their exhaustion at dusk.

“That was one deadline, Levi.”

“Sure.” Regardless, he wasn’t about to decline Hange. Somehow, Hange had grown attached to Erwin, and had endless discussions with him. Conversations about writing, mostly. He didn’t participate much outside of jabbing at Hange’s ribs when the volume of their voice went over the publicly acceptable range. Otherwise, he would be shooting glares at Erwin whenever he tried to probe into Levi’s personal life. Erwin had an intensity that was difficult, near impossible to ignore.

Incidentally, the topic of comics cropped up.

“Comics?”

Hange picked up on the rare tonal shift of Levi’s voice, studying him. Erwin’s fork elegantly pierced a French fry, the screech of the fork’s contact with the plate prompting Levi to speak over it. He was positive that Erwin was trying to get him to talk. On purpose.

“Yes, I like them,” Levi conceded, draining the tea from his cup.

“I learn something new about you every day!” Hange exclaimed, as Levi gripped the edge of the cup harder.

Seemingly catching on to Levi’s discomfort, Erwin asked Hange for recommendations, telling them how he had never read any comics.

“How predictable of a literature professor,” Hange said, sitting up straighter to mock the poise of a scholar, glasses perched at the tip of their nose for the intended effect.

“You look like a fart with a stick up their ass,” Levi commented, leaving Hange howling. Erwin, the consistent gentleman, remained at ease with these disparaging jokes.

While Hange listed out their favourite comics, Levi noted that none of their top choices was marginally close to any of his preferences: in genre, in plot, and in art style.

“I like horror.”

“I don’t,” Levi countered. Hange grinned wider.

“Well, you’re scary enough as you are,” Hange considered, taking in his aloof disposition and the way he sat stiffly on the chair. Nonchalant, and could possibly decimate you.

“Look,” Hange said, thrusting an open book into Levi’s hands. “This comic is so good. It keeps me up at night.”

Levi leafed through the pages, absorbed by the clean black and white lines. That was, until he flipped a page and winced at the image of empty eye sockets, gouged out, spurting inked blood.

“You don’t like blood,” Hange said this matter-of-factly, promptly closing the book.

“I don’t like unnecessary death.”

“How do you know those deaths were unnecessary?” Erwin asked, pushing back his blonde hair in an effortlessly charismatic manner.

Levi could picture it. Erwin, a fearless leader, bringing people to greater heights.

Hange had less noble thoughts. Erwin was definitely the protagonist in a teen movie who looked older than high school age and was starring as a blonde jock whose embarrassingly lacklustre coming-of-age arc was spurred by a shy, beautiful nerd. For good reason, Hange kept their mouth shut.

“I don’t,” Levi answered, “but is any death really necessary?”

Erwin smiled, “perhaps not.” The seed of doubt grew in Levi.

Hange leaned forward across the table towards Levi, a hand covering one side of their smirking face.

“Erwin’s a lot more calculative than you think.”

Levi swatted away Hange’s strands of hair tickling his cheek, “I know,” he said half-heartedly, not wishing to contemplate the extent of its truthfulness.

Carving the last piece of meat on his plate into two, Erwin shrugged.

“So, you would say that some deaths are necessary?” Levi asked. The question blurted out on its own, slicing through the amicable atmosphere like a stray bullet. For some reason, he wanted a proper answer. Hange was busy flipping through the same horror comic book, their eyes trained on the page.

“Do you like bugs, Levi?” Erwin asked.

Levi visibly scowled. “No.”

Erwin’s fork scraped the plate insistently.  “Do you kill them?”

“Obviously.”

Erwin’s collectedness seemed impenetrable. “Would you say their deaths are necessary?”

“Necessary enough as a cleaner.”

“There, you have your answer,” Erwin said, with finality.

“I’m talking about human lives, not some insects,” Levi said, frustrated.

“Some lives matter more than others, am I right?”

“Yeah…” Levi said, struggling to grasp Erwin’s logic.

“It’s the same for us,” Erwin said cryptically.

Hange stood up, snapping the book shut. “Shit, I have to teach a class in ten!” Levi naturally stood up as well. Erwin gave a friendly wave, undeterred by the abruptness of their departure.

“See you, Erwin!” Hange called out, rushing back to the staffroom.

“Why does Erwin have to be so ambiguous?” Levi griped.

“You’re not very telling, yourself,” Hange said blithely, grabbing their laptop before marching out of the door.

Armed with constant smiles and warm words, Levi would classify Hange as someone just as enigmatic. Their discussions about writing were arguably personal, but they weren’t exactly close to the heart.

The two people Levi was becoming acquainted with in the past few weeks were a slate full of words in a language he understood, but couldn’t decipher. For the rest of the day, he compromised on these doubts by making sure the windows had not a speck of dust on them. Every moving insect was stamped out under his supervision. He thought about Erwin’s words, turning them over and over in his head. He thought about Hange’s nonchalance towards Erwin’s questions.

----------

After locking up his cleaning supplies, Levi peeled the sweaty gloves off his arms, untying the bandana on his head that kept his long fringe away, and removed his apron. Hearing a friendly shout in the otherwise deserted school building, he caught Hange coming to a stop behind him.

“You’re still here,” he said, frowning.

“Had a lot of work,” they said, armed with this reasoning every day.

“Were you listening during lunch?”

“Hmm, kind of,” Hange stated obliquely, “you know how literature people are.”

Levi was bewildered, his passive expression cracking slightly. “I don’t. As you might have realised, I don’t talk to a lot of people.”

“Literature people,” Hange rubbed their chin, eyes looking upwards in deep thought, “enjoy discussing morality in a mostly abstract, hypothetical way.”

“That’s annoying.”

Hange fell in step with Levi, who was headed to the exit, “Erwin’s one of the better ones. He’s pragmatic, and he’s not just all talk.”

“Yeah, so what’s his grand plan…” Levi said, finding the right words, “for humanity?”

“He wants to create a comic.”

Levi blinked.

“Huh? What does that have to do with morality?”

Hange looked unperturbed by Levi’s confusion, as though it were commonplace for them to defend the importance of the comic genre.

“Think of texts as a philosophical question waiting to be answered. And the questions of morality being narrativized makes their conclusions more believable. More influential. Erwin has a vision for comics to be the source of truth.”

“What truth?”

Hange grinned, “if we knew, would we need to write the comic?”

“You talk like it’s more revolutionary than it actually is…” Levi said, pushing open the door to step out of the school building.

“A comic can be life-changing,” Hange mused, admiring how the sunset decorated everything in watercolour splashes of orange and pink; a distinct nostalgic hue.

Levi remembered that Hange was, after all, a creative writing professor. “Yeah, you would say that.”

“It’s not because I’m a creative writing professor!” Hange said, impassioned. He gave them a dry look.

“I didn’t say anything.”

“Besides, Erwin wants to be the editor of the comic that I am writing,” Hange said proudly.

Levi felt that his head might explode. “Since when were you writing a comic?”

“Since last week!” Hange said, remarkably animated.

“Why are you telling me this?”

“Isn’t that what friends are for? To share things with?” Hange asked, hopeful.

That word—Levi figured that that was what they were by now. Friends. He didn’t hate the sound of it.

“You’re not going to ask what it’s about?”

“You’ll tell me if I just waited.”

“You’re right! But you see,” Hange exhaled, shaking their head despondently, “my problem is that I don’t have someone who can draw out my writing.” Levi’s hands twitched. He interlocked them into a prayer, hoping Hange didn’t notice.

“Why not just write a novel?”

Hange was unconvinced, “I’m tired of just the written word, Levi! The versatility and multimodal form of the comic are incomparable to a novel!”

Levi had to agree. “Have you been trying to find artists?”

“Yes, but none of them seemed very keen on drawing the story,” Hange said, recalling the number of people who became increasingly disconcerted upon hearing the gist of the story.

“So, what’s the story?” Levi asked.

Hange was hesitant. Levi waited.

“It’s horror, isn’t it?”

“The premise includes giant naked human beings running around eating people,” Hange said. Levi grimaced. They expected this, but it didn’t make their disappointment at his very reasonable reaction any less jarring.

“It also has a lot of blood,” Hange said. Sensing that they were one sentence away from diving into a world-building sermon, they paused.

“Do you want to hear more?”

“Maybe tomorrow,” Levi said honestly. It had been a long day.

“Of course! I’ll see you tomorrow!” Hange said, giving him a reassuring pat on the back.

“I’ll see you,” Levi said belatedly. Hange was already brisk walking towards the crowded street.

Instinctively, he called out, “Four-eyes!”

Turning back, Hange stood where they were, surprised.

“Tell me the story tomorrow.”

A gradual look of appreciation spread across Hange’s face, as their eyes arched downwards into thin curves.

“Thank you, Levi!”

Levi sidestepped Hange’s thanks with a disgruntled “tch. Whatever.”

I finally did it! I posted the first chap of the fic I've been working on for the past month *_* if you read till here... thank you!!! hearing your thoughts/comments would be nice heheh

#aot #snk #levihan #fanfiction #my writing #levi hange erwin #levi and hange #ao3 #attack on titan #levi x hange #erurihan #levi ackerman #hange zoe #erwin smith #im rly nervous n excited

[bloody-bee-tea]

JC Love Month 2020 Day 5

Best Birthday Present

Here’s already a continuation for Day 1 of JC Love Month, because if one JC doesn’t expect any gifts on his birthday then it’s definitely the one who just got kicked out of his family and was adopted by the Nie’s. Well, the Nie’s thrive to exceed expectations.

With everything that has been going on, Jiang Cheng thinks it can be expected that he doesn’t expect any birthday presents. So he guesses it’s fair that he freezes with his chopsticks halfway to his mouth when Nie Huaisang asks him what he wants for his birthday.

“Excuse me?” Jiang Cheng asks, and Nie Huaisang rolls his eyes at him.

“I said, what do you want for your birthday? It’s soon, right? You have to give us at least two days to get your presents.”

“What presents?” Jiang Cheng asks, because, again, with everything going on, there is no way birthday presents are even on the table.

“The ones you’ll be getting from us,” Mo Xuanyu says, munching on as if nothing is wrong in the world and Jiang Cheng very carefully puts his chopsticks down completely.

“I did not expect that I would get any,” Jiang Cheng calmly tells them. “So you don’t have to worry about that.”

Now it’s Nie Huaisang’s, Mo Xuanyu’s and Nie Mingjue’s time to freeze and they all do it rather comically with their chopsticks halfway raised as well.

“What?” Nie Huaisang asks, but there’s already a dangerous glint in his eyes.

“I mean, I don’t usually get birthday presents, either, so you don’t have to bother,” Jiang Cheng hurriedly says, but it seems to be the entirely wrong thing to say, because Nie Huaisang goes white in the face.

“What do you mean, you don’t normally get birthday presents?” Mo Xuanyu asks, and he seems recovered enough from his shock that he goes back to eating. “Even I got a present from my aunt and her family; granted, it was a suitcase and the strong hint that I should move out but still. It is kind of a useful present too.”

“I—usually get a day off work,” Jiang Cheng hesitantly says, frowning down at the table. “And my mother wouldn’t yell at me for a day.”

There’s a deafening silence following his words and then Mo Xuanyu throws himself halfway across the table to pull Jiang Cheng into a hug.

“Shut up, no one wants to hear about your sob-story of a life,” he cries and then clings to Jiang Cheng for longer than Jiang Cheng is entirely comfortable with.

“It’s okay,” he eventually awkwardly says and pats Mo Xuanyu’s shoulder.

Jiang Cheng is not ashamed to admit that he lets out a relieved breath when Mo Xuanyu finally lets go of him, but it was also kind of touching.

“Jiang Cheng,” Nie Huaisang says, and this time it’s Nie Mingjue who interrupts them.

“No fighting and/or shouting at the table,” Nie Mingjue chastises Nie Huaisang before he can even get started and Jiang Cheng shrinks in on himself.

He knows the Nie’s have a room especially for that; it’s soundproofed and what happens in the room, or rather what is being said, stays in there. Jiang Cheng has seen Nie Huaisang drag Nie Mingjue in there more than once already, but it doesn’t seem to help much.

Because every time they come back out of the room, Nie Mingjue has the smuggest look on his face while Nie Huaisang seems to be already gearing up for another shouting match.

One day, Jiang Cheng will ask what that is all about.

So far Jiang Cheng didn’t have cause to go into the room himself, either as the yeller or as the one who is being yelled at, but he guesses his luck will change this evening.

“The room, after dinner,” Nie Huaisang hisses just then, and Jiang Cheng gives a dejected nod, but he can’t quite keep his mouth shut.

“You guys already gave me a home, and a family,” he whispers, more into his rice than to any of them. “There’s no need to bother to get me anything else.”

“You are not a bother,” Nie Mingjue very firmly says, and he puts his hand on Jiang Cheng’s neck. “And getting you a present wouldn’t be a bother either, because that is what family does for each other.”

He says it very calmly and like nothing at all is wrong in the world, and it only brings new tears to Jiang Cheng’s eyes.

He has been crying an awful lot, ever since he came to live here, but Jiang Cheng doesn’t mind it as much as he would have, if—for example—his parents would see him cry.

They only ever told him to suck it up and to be stronger than this; here, they let him cry. Hell, Mo Xuanyu joins in more often than not and it always ends in a cuddle pile that no one complaints about. It’s kind of nice, if Jiang Cheng is being honest.

“Okay,” Jiang Cheng very belatedly says, and he hopes that it will get him out of a trip to the room, but Nie Huaisang is still glaring at him, so Jiang Cheng guesses that he’s out of luck there.

Nie Huaisang drags him off as soon as it’s clear that everyone is done with dinner and when the door closes behind Jiang Cheng he has a second to admire the set-up of the room, before Nie Huaisang starts to yell.

And yell he does.

Mostly about what utter assholes Jiang Cheng’s parents are—and Jiang Cheng doesn’t chime in on that, because yes—but then he goes on about how stupid Jiang Cheng is to think that things would go the same here.

“I’ve only been here for a little less than a week,” Jiang Cheng dares to chime in eventually. “You are giving me a place to stay, and food, and everything else I need. Is it really so unreasonably of me to think that there will be nothing more?”

“Yes!” Nie Huaisang screams right in his face. “Because everyone deserves a goddamn birthday present!”

“Alright,” Jiang Cheng sheepishly says, mostly to get Nie Huaisang to calm down again.

“Don’t alright me, Jiang Wanyin,” Nie Huaisang hisses. “I will get you the best goddamn birthday present and you will like it, for fuck’s sake,” Nie Huaisang tells him and Jiang Cheng takes it for the threat it is.

“Whatever you say,” he tries, hoping to get out of this sooner rather than later, and it’s only then that Nie Huaisang takes a deep breath.

“Okay, I feel better now,” he declares and then simply marches out of the room, leaving a truly bewildered Jiang Cheng behind.

“You alright?” Nie Mingjue asks, poking his head into the room and Jiang Cheng shrugs.

“I don’t know?” he tries, because it’s the truth. “He insists on getting me a present.”

“What is being said in the room, stays in the room,” Nie Mingjue gently reminds him and Jiang Cheng flushes when he realizes that he blundered that rule. “But yes, I figured. He’s right about that, too,” Nie Mingjue says and pats Jiang Cheng’s shoulder.

“Family always gets birthday presents.”

“Fuck,” Jiang Cheng whispers under his breath when that brings tears to his eyes again and he wonders just how long he will start to cry at even the most basic decency being shown to him.

It’s really rather bothersome.

“I have a question,” Jiang Cheng asks, mostly to distract himself, and going by the indulgent smile Nie Mingjue gives him, he knows it damn well, too.

Luckily, he allows the topic change.

“Ask,” he encourages Jiang Cheng.

“Whenever you and Huaisang disappear into this room, he comes out looking as angry as he did before, while you always seem so—”

“Smug?” Nie Mingjue asks when Jiang Cheng is unsure of how to word it.

“Yes.”

“That’s because I am,” Nie Mingjue says and steers Jiang Cheng towards the living room. “I insisted on building this room, but it was mostly for Huaisang. He has a bit of a problem, keeping his emotions inside and he tends to explode.”

Jiang Cheng keeps his mouth closed, because from what he knew about the Nie brother’s before he would have guessed it’s the other way around.

“Surprising, I know,” Nie Mingjue says with a smile, so clearly Jiang Cheng is not the first one to think that. “Huaisang was very adamant that he doesn’t need the room and that it was a waste of money and resources and whatnot and that there is no way a yelling match will make him feel better.”

Jiang Cheng doubts that, because he has seen how unburdened Nie Huaisang had just seemed.

“When we come out of the room, I look smug because Huaisang does feel better after a good yelling and he hates that I was right about it all along.”

“Hence the long face,” Jiang Cheng sums up and Nie Mingjue nods.

When they come into the living-room, Nie Huaisang and Mo Xuanyu are already there, cuddled up on the couch with a bucket of ice cream balanced on their legs.

“This is what happens after the room,” Nie Mingjue tells Jiang Cheng and pushes him down on the couch as well. “Ice cream and cuddles.”

“Oh,” Jiang Cheng breathes when Mo Xuanyu makes space for him without hesitation and Nie Huaisang almost smacks him in the face with a spoon.

“Eat,” Nie Huaisang grumbles, clearly still upset about the whole birthday present thing. “You’re way too thin.”

Jiang Cheng takes the spoon from him, mostly because he’s afraid Nie Huaisang will whack him in the face with it, and then Mo Xuanyu leans over.

“Just take it. He’s a worrywart. He’s going to feed you until you gained at least four pounds and even then he won’t be happy. It’s a love thing.”

“I see,” Jiang Cheng says, mostly to have something to say, because he does in fact not see.

“Did your sister not make her special soup on bad days?” Nie Mingjue asks from Jiang Cheng’s other side, where he settled down with his own bucket of ice. “You can share mine, too,” he offers almost absentmindedly and Jiang Cheng suspects that the feeding thing is not restricted to Nie Huaisang alone.

“She did,” Jiang Cheng admits around a spoonful of ice cream. “But mostly for Wei Wuxian,” he then admits, something he never dared to say before. “I’m not even that much of a fan of lotus pork rib soup,” he whispers and Nie Mingjue just looks at him for a very long time.

“You will tell her that, eventually,” he then decides and Jiang Cheng shrinks in on himself.

“Hey, cut it out, da-ge,” Nie Huaisang suddenly says from across the couch and leans around to smack his spoon on Nie Mingjue’s arm before he turns towards Jiang Cheng. “Don’t listen to him, if you don’t want to tell your sister that, you don’t have to.”

“I tell you, worrywart,” Mo Xuanyu whispers, leaning very close and it’s all ridiculous enough that Jiang Cheng starts to laugh.

“There, that’s better,” Nie Mingjue decides and it’s only then that they resume their movie.

Jiang Cheng didn’t know being almost squished to death on the couch could feel like love.

~*~*~

Despite the yelling he received, Jiang Cheng doesn’t dare to hope for anything on his birthday. He knows it’s better to keep his expectations low, and really. There is nothing they could give him anymore.

They are offering him a family; that’s already more than Jiang Cheng ever dared to wish for.

So when he comes into the kitchen on the morning of his birthday, he’s more than surprised to see a huge cake, but also the smiling faces of Wei Wuxian and Jiang Yanli around the table.

“What are you guys doing here?” Jiang Cheng asks, already close to tears yet again and Wei Wuxian jumps up to hug him.

“We’re here for your birthday,” he tells him and then bodily lifts him off the floor with his crushing hug. “Happy birthday, didi.”

“Hey,” Jiang Cheng complaints but then Jiang Yanli is already there, and she pulls him into a hug as well.

And where Jiang Cheng feared that maybe Wei Wuxian would break his ribs, Jiang Yanli’s is soft and feels like home.

“Happy birthday, A-Cheng,” she repeats and no one mentions it when Jiang Cheng wipes his tears.

“Happy birthday, asshole,” Nie Huaisang says when Jiang Cheng finally takes a seat at the table, and Nie Mingjue immediately cuffs him over the head.

“No bad words at the table,” he says, and Jiang Cheng is reasonably sure that’s a rule he just made up, but Nie Huaisang just glares at him before he turns back to Jiang Cheng.

“That is our present,” he then says and Jiang Cheng frowns.

“I don’t think I understand,” he admits and Nie Huaisang sighs, but his face softens.

“A day with your family,” he then explains. “You get cake and us, and we’re going to gorge ourselves on too much take-out food and unhealthy shit, and there will be some alcohol in the evening and tomorrow we’ll all regret whatever we will do today. That’s our birthday present to you.”

Jiang Cheng has to blink very rapidly to keep from crying, but in the end he simply gives in.

“And I am damn well liking it,” he says under his tears, causing Nie Huaisang to laugh and everything is a blur after that.

Link to my ko-fi on the sidebar!

It’s exactly like Nie Huaisang promised him it would be; too much of everything—especially sugar—but utterly perfect and easily the best birthday present Jiang Cheng has ever gotten.

Next part

#bt writes #jclovemonth2020 #the untamed #mdzs #jiang cheng #nie mingjue #nie huaisang #mo xuanyu #jiang yanli #wei wuxian #modern au #found family #hurt/comfort #fluff #birthday presents

[hualianff]

Thinking about XL who used to be an heir to one of the fastest-growing technology companies in the world, “Xianle Tech.” When his family’s business was still thriving, XL attended a lot of charity events to meet with clients and cultivate important connections he would have to uphold as future CEO.

Everything seemed to be going according to plan, XL developing a respectable name for himself as he began business school. Once he graduated, XL shadowed his father at work, learning the ropes of how to run a successful company that competed with the best in the world.

However, the success was never meant to last.

Only three years down the road, XianLe Tech suffered a major setback when reports spread that their new product line caused harmful explosions after little use. After paying millions in indemnification for the damage customers experienced, another scandal revealed XianLe Tech had been profiting off of unpaid labor.

Within one month, the world XL had grown up to know crumbled all around him. And he could do nothing about it. All the “friends” XL had disappeared within a blink of an eye. No one wanted to be associated with the family who had resorted to dirty practices for their advantage, which is incredibly ironic considering the business industry is all about networking and using others as stepping stones to achieve selfish goals.

Nevertheless, XL understood that it had been wrong, that he and his parents were wrong to disregard the roots of their manufacturing process. XL wasn’t aware of his privilege up until now, but he sure as hell would learn how to combat this systematic inequity, somehow salvaging what he had left along the way.

XL becomes a social worker who is a Youtuber on the side, educating his viewers about class injustices, homelessness, poverty, and the same exploitation of lower-class resources that led to XianLe Tech’s downfall. He also incites them to engage in random acts of kindness whenever they can. He doesn’t have a huge subscriber following, doesn’t make money off of his videos. XL is just glad that some people watch his videos. He hopes he can make a positive impact on their lives, no matter how small.

After all, XL is a firm believer that despite the world being a scary and lonely place, having at least one person let you know you are cared for is enough to make a difference–is enough to save a life.

***

“I am sorry, but we cannot serve you at this moment.”

“But we talked on the phone a few hours ago. I have a reservation,” XL says calmly. He holds up his phone with the confirmation page pulled up. The waiter doesn’t even glance at the screen, sniffing as if XL is nothing but a nuisance.

“Still, we don’t serve people like you,” he says, eyeing XL’s outfit with distaste.

Ah, so it was an appearance issue. XL quickly looks around at the seated guests, catching sight of wrists adorned with miraculous jewels and pricey wristwatches, bodies clothed with expensive fabrics no doubt imported from overseas. The same aura of practiced prestige and sophistication lingers in the air.

XL doesn’t even have to glance down at his ripped jeans, cream-colored sweater, and flimsy white jacket to know he sticks out like a sore thumb. He internally sighs, slightly regretting taking SQX up on their recommendation to try out The Red Thread. If XL knew he would’ve been barred from in-dining eating, he would not have placed a reservation in the first place.

But XL doesn’t want to give up just yet. He still has a lot to learn about class discrimination and prejudices; if XL were to walk away now with his tail between his legs, it would be giving power to those who claimed superiority and unjust treatment in the first place. Instead of allowing this waiter to brush him to the side like a pest, XL stands his ground, adjusting his beige handbag on his shoulder.

“I’m not sure I understand what you mean. Could you please elaborate?” XL asks in a breezy tone. A sense of amusement bubbles in his gut when the waiter looks visibly annoyed.

“Sir, we don’t mean to be unaccommodating. However, there are standards in place that were set by the CEO himself. We are simply abiding by his standards,” the waiter says, presenting the matter like he had no choice but to turn XL away.

“Is it a money problem? Because I assure you I can pay for my meal, if that’s what you’re worried about,” XL tries again. The waiter narrows his eyes, making XL gulp nervously. He unconsciously twists the hair not pulled back in his half-bun.

A few more waiters gather around them, ready to jump in if things get too heated.

“Oh, I’m certain the former heir to XianLe Tech can afford our service,” the main waiter sneers unkindly. XL’s breath catches in his throat upon being recognized. The probing eyes suffocate him, probably taking into account how renowned he was years ago and thinking how far he has fallen to come to a Michelin-starred restaurant dressed like this.

XL feels himself losing steam.

“But we are asking you to leave. It’s up to you whether or not force will be necessary.”

“It’s not right to refuse service when there is no valid reason in doing so,” XL says, more desperate this time.

“You do not pass the dress code,” another waiter pipes up. “You are not fit to be here.”

The main waiter now walks towards XL, a grim expression on his face.

“Wait, I’d like to speak to your manager, if they’re here–”

“I am the manager. Don’t make things harder for yourself,” the manager replies brusquely. He stands tall in front of XL, an intimidation tactic used to make XL back down. XL’s face heats up as he realizes he’s caught the attention of other customers as well. He’s like a trapped animal being told to scram in the presence of merciless predators.

It’s not a nice feeling, not at all.

Humiliation seeps into XL’s bones. It’s been a while since he was last scrutinized by the general public, and while this is only a handful of elite gathered in a medium-sized building, the burden weighing down on XL feels like that of the weight of the world. He needs to escape. He needs to breathe. Because only then can XL continue saving himself.

Right as XL decides it might be time to let the reins go, he hears the whooshing sound of the doors opening. He doesn’t turn to see who has entered, but the surrounding staff who were observing the exchange go deathly silent. Their faces automatically mold into a mask of obedience, posture tightening up.

***

He is one of the oldest orphans in the orphanage. His age alone makes him fit for this task, and if he does it right, he can earn money as well as the good graces of his caretakers. He can do it.

He must. He must survive.

But there are so many people. So many plates and tables and silverware. Everyone is so tall, so big, so important. It’s been three hours, and his feet have developed blisters. The bruises from a couple days ago still throb. When he smells all the rich aromas coming from the kitchen, from the plates he carries upon both hands, his stomach growls.

He feels light-headed. Too many people, he thinks. Too much talking and boisterous laughter. He wants to leave but he can’t. He won’t be paid until the end of the night, after clean-up.

He continues to work.

And then it happens. It’s too fast. He wasn’t looking where he was going, just staring at the floor as he rushed to the kitchen. But he has bumped into another person, and judging by the clothes he wears and his pleasant scent, this person is very important.

He can only stare at the mess he’s made. There are gasps of shock and horror around him. He can’t breathe. He wants to disappear. To die, just freaking die already. He will never make it out if he can’t even complete mundane work like this.

As he’s ushered into the kitchens by the older male, he prepares for the yelling, and possibly the hits. They never come. Instead, he’s cleaned up by the older male, who asks a couple questions.

He answers them willingly.

“What is your name?”

“It’s nice to meet you, Xiao Hong-er. I’m Xie Lian, you can call me gege, okay?”

“Everyone makes mistakes, Xiao Hong-er. But they will never define you. As long as you remain true to yourself, you can achieve anything you set your heart to. Do you understand?”

“I believe in you.”

When gege left through the kitchen doors, back to the adult world, back to being important, another older male walks in. The other male frowns, then says one word.

“Fired.”

***

“What is going on here?” An authoritative voice demands, sending powerful vibrations through the air. The hairs on the back of XL’s neck stand up as the new person comes up from behind him. This must be an important figure.

The manager answers that a customer–who isn’t even dressed according to the standards–has been causing trouble. Already beyond mortified at the turn of events but refusing to let it show, XL slowly meets the newcomer’s eyes as he is acknowledged.

The man is tall, at least a head taller than XL. He’s broader too, dressed to the nines just like the other waiters and customers in the restaurant. His skin is hauntingly pale, slivers of ink peeking out from underneath the dress shirt he wears, top three buttons open. XL does not allow his gaze to waver as he instantly labels this guy one of the most handsome men he’s laid eyes upon, and it makes his heart stutter.

XL shoves down these uncalled for thoughts and refrains from giving any of his emotions away.

The most peculiar thing is the eyepatch settled upon the other man’s right eye. XL makes it a point not to stare too much. The eye left uncovered regards XL with interest. XL feels shivers run down his spine at that, steeling himself for the harsh words that will be directed towards him once more.

So XL finally bows his head and lowers his eyes.

“Never mind. I was just leaving. Sorry to be a disturbance.”

An awkward silence follows. The staff doesn’t say anything, but their faces are victorious at the prospect that XL has finally caved in. On the other hand, the taller man’s eye widens, and he only regards XL for ten more seconds before anger becomes noticeable in his gaze.

XL feels his stomach drop.

He goes to make his exit, except a large hand on his shoulder prevents him from turning around. XL looks at the taller man with confusion. The eye-patched man says only one word, expression solemn.

“Stay.”

As XL processes this with raised eyebrows, the taller man now glares holes into the manager who had spoken in the first place. With a click of his tongue, loud and clear, all the staff rushes back to their places, getting back to work. This includes the manager, who ducks his head to avoid the hostile energy of who XL now assumes is his boss.

“Sir?” XL addresses quietly as all the eyes that were once staring at him go back to their own business. The taller man now fully turns to face XL, hand slipping off XL’s shoulder.

“Sorry about that. I didn’t realize such standards were put into place since my departure. I’ll ensure there are consequences for the staff that has disrespected you tonight,” he says firmly, never breaking eye contact. This makes XL’s skin crawl, makes him feel alive. The other man holds his hand out, seemingly shrinking himself to fit XL’s comfort. “I’m the owner of this establishment, by the way. You can call me San Lang.”

XL is utterly speechless for a second, automatically taking SL’s hand and shaking while simultaneously admiring his undeniable attractiveness.

“M-many thanks, San Lang. I didn’t mean to cause such a commotion...” XL feels himself blush as he takes note that their hands have been intertwined for an absurd amount of time considering they’re strangers.

“I tried telling them I had a reservation, but they wouldn’t seat me—“

“They rejected your reservation?” SL questions sharply, dropping XL’s hand and curling his own into a fist.

XL bites his lip, nodding. He can practically feel the waves of irritation rolling off of the owner. “But I suppose I didn’t realize how high-scale this restaurant is. I mean, I’ve heard many great things about the food...”

When SL doesn’t say anything, the corner of his lips turned downwards, XL quickly backtracks in panic, realizing what he said must’ve been offensive.

“I’m sure your restaurant still holds true to its reputation, haha! I suppose...maybe I should’ve thought to dress more formally so this wouldn’t have happened,” XL says.

However, SL is already shaking his head. When he speaks, his voice is hushed, words tumbling out in a smooth baritone voice that XL could listen to for hours.

“No. None of this is your fault. Please don’t take whatever my staff has said to heart. They are the ones mistaken and they will be held accountable. Forgive me for disappointing you...?” He trails off.

“Xie Lian,” XL offers helpfully, offering a small smile.

“Xie Lian...” SL says slowly, as if testing the name out and decidedly liking the way it sounds. He whispers something else under his breath that XL can’t quite make out. XL chuckles at that, now wondering how old SL is. He doesn’t look any older than XL himself, perhaps even younger. Just the mere fact that SL is this young and so successful, XL is the one in awe.

They stand at the entrance of the restaurant in a brief silence, just staring at each other. XL assumes it’s time for him to take his leave. His reservation doesn’t matter much anymore, not like he wanted to dine and be served by the same people who looked down on him because of his underdressed self.

But before he can, once again, announce his exit, SL steps a little closer, a curious look in his eye.

“Say, Xie Lian, seeing as this was such a disservice for your night, would you be interested in going somewhere else? I know a few places that have just as delicious food,” SL offers, tilting his head innocently. His long hair is tied into a low ponytail, but his side bangs fall gracefully across his face.

“Wouldn’t that be showing me your competition?” XL asks good-naturedly. SL smirks at that.

“Competition doesn’t matter when the food in question is high quality,” he answers, holding his hands up while shrugging. “You came here for a satisfactory meal, and I’m saying I know a place or two that will be just as pleasing. If you’re up to try it, just say the word,” SL continues casually, arms now crossed in a way that makes the fabric of his long-sleeved dress shirt bulge.

XL is flattered by such an offer. He looks one last time at the inside dining room, the fancy tablecloths and expensive-looking candles, and the lavishly dressed customers who sit with their backs rod-straight, fingers pointing here and there.

It’s honestly a no-brainer. XL allows himself to smile graciously, nodding. “I would greatly appreciate it. I’m merely looking for dinner. Anywhere is fine.”

SL returns the smile, one eye crinkling at the corner. He seems relieved at XL’s response, and promptly goes to grab his coat that he had thrown at a waiter upon entering.

XL’s eyes widen at the bold, maple-red long coat SL puts on, accentuating board shoulders and his slim figure. XL puts aside his self-conscious thoughts of his ratty, second-hand clothes. SL gestures for XL to walk out the doors first, typing away at his phone, most likely making a last-minute call for a reservation.

XL thinks that for once in his life, luck seems to be on his side. What could’ve been a night of total humiliation and shame turned into a nice meal with a new friend. XL pushes the doors open with a newfound sense of happiness, completely missing the way HC makes a neck-slicing motion at the staff on his way out.

(HC)

(How To Piss Off Your Boss)

#TGCF #heaven official's blessing #hualian #xielian #huacheng #shiqingxuan #muqing #cerdrabbles #hualianau #hua cheng was beaten then thrown out of the orphanage after coming back from the charity even with no money #he was taken in by an older restaurant owner who taught him a lot of the basics of cooking #hua cheng has many scars from abuse including the loss of his right eye #he covers his scars up with tattoos #you best bet hua cheng is like gordon ramsay #you best bet xie lian and hua cheng go on many dates

[ppangjae]

made to fall in love | nine

SERIES MASTERLIST

prev | nine | next

SUMMARY. Seoul’s finest 30 under 30. The country’s youngest billionaire. 2019′s richest bachelor. But of all the women he could go after, he goes after… her?

GENRE. fluff and angst | ceo!jaehyun | nerd!reader | enemies to lovers!au | long lost friend!au

WORD COUNT. 2k+ words

warnings. tooth-rotting fluff, swearing, and tons of bickering!

author’s note. we just reached 1000 followers today! thank you so much for 1000! i hope you enjoy this update! happy reading!

NINE. lovestruck • i don’t know what to do whenever i look at you

Two months later…

“I’m sure you’re all aware that the year-end party is near, which is why I called you all here for a meeting.”

You feel a light kick to the ankle from underneath the table. You quirk an eyebrow, your eyes darting across the room to meet Johnny’s gaze. He wiggles his eyebrows at you and a scoff threatens to escape your lips. Standing at the front of the meeting room is Jaehyun, who’s holding a quick presentation about the company’s year-end celebration.

“For the new interns and employees, our year-end celebration is just a formal gathering where we celebrate this year’s achievements and to look forward to the new year ahead of us.” Jaehyun explains as he switches to the PowerPoint slide of the venue. “It’s planned to happen in three weeks, specifically on the twenty-eight of December. I’m sure you all have families to celebrate New Year’s with, and thus, we were strict on having the celebration before that.”

You’ve heard of the year-end celebrations. Long time employees say that the celebration screams money and luxury. The sponsors of the celebration are endless, from Dior to Chanel. It’s all because of the CEO himself, Jeong Jaehyun. But other long time employees say that Jaehyun only sticks around at the celebration until his speech. Right after his speech, Jaehyun is nowhere to be found. They always assume that he’s back in the comfort of his office, working his ass off.

It makes you feel bad for him.

But at the same time, you don’t feel bad. Not a single bit.

“The dress code is formal, as usual.” He explains. “But the theme colour is red and black, just to make things more pleasing to the eye.”

“Red?” You mutter underneath your breath.

Jaehyun turns to glance at you. “Did you say something, Y/N?”

You look up, meeting his gaze. You shake your head. “I didn’t say anything, sir.”

He tilts his head in confusion. “I must be hearing things.”

Johnny lets out a cough. “Clearly.”

“Anyways, that’s pretty much it for this meeting.” Jaehyun finishes off. “Thank you all for coming. It’s getting pretty late. Actually, on your way out, please make sure you note that you were asked to stay overtime because of me. I don’t want human resources coming for my ass.”

The employees erupt into giggles and whispers. You’re beginning to pack your things. Johnny is too busy sending a text on his phone. Jaehyun clears his throat. “You may leave now.”

As they’re all scurrying to leave the room, you hear your name being called when you’re slowly getting up from your seat. You glance at Jaehyun, who’s turning off his laptop. “Yes, sir?”

“I’ll bring the car to the front. You can just wait for me there.”

You raise an eyebrow. “But I’m taking the bus—”

“Y/N, I’ve been driving you home for two months now. Driving you home today isn’t any different from driving you home last night.” He cuts you off.

“Actually, there is one difference.” 

He looks at you. “And now what would that be?”

“It’s been two months since we last saw Jia and heard of her. I’m sure she’s already minding her own business. I think it’s safe to say that I’m ready to be on my own now. I don’t think I’m at risk.” You explain, throwing your bag over your shoulder. “Even the press and paparazzi are tired of chasing her down. I think I’ll be okay with taking the bus from now on.”

“How are you so sure that you’ll be safe?” He questions.

“I am a strong, independent woman. I can take care of myself—”

“Have you eaten dinner yet?”

You point at him. “Now that, I haven’t. Besides, I can grab dinner on my way home—”

“Or you can grab dinner with me.” He shrugs his shoulders. “I’ll drive you home too.”

“I don’t want to bother you—”

“You don’t want to join me for dinner? You don’t want another free ride home?” He frowns. “You must hate me or something, don’t you—”

“I don’t hate you—”

“Then grab dinner with me. It won’t hurt. Besides, if you hate me so much, we don’t even have to talk while having dinner together.” He reassures you. “In fact, we can sit at different tables. But I’ll still pay for your meal.”

“Since you’re so persistent on letting me grab dinner with you, then fine.” You let out a defeated sigh. “I’ll wait for you at the front of the building, sir.”

You surely hate him.

He pulls up at a five-star restaurant that claims to have the most expensive menu in the city. It was your suggestion. But as he gets out of the car, he’s slowly starting to regret trying to impress you. You hop out of the car with a smug grin spread across your lips. 

“You must be really hungry, huh?” He mutters underneath his breath.

“I’m starving.” You grin, making your way into the restaurant.

Just as Jaehyun is following you into the restaurant, there’s something that catches his eye. He glances at you to make sure you didn’t notice the sign put up in front of the restaurant. 

“For how many?”

Jaehyun clears his throat. “For two, please.”

As the waitress is bringing the two of you to your seats, you can’t help but break out into a wide smile. You love pushing Jaehyun’s buttons. He was so persistent in taking you out for dinner just to give you a ride home. Since he said so, you decided that going to a five-star restaurant is the best bet. You can’t seem to erase the look of disbelief on Jaehyun’s face the moment you both arrived.

As you’re both looking through the menu, Jaehyun can tell that you’re probably looking for the most expensive dish on the menu. He feels himself start to sweat. 

“What can I get for the lovely couple?”

You almost choke on air. “Sorry, we’re not—”

“I’ll have the lamb steak,” Jaehyun cuts you off. “Could I also get two glasses of red wine for the both of us?”

“One lamb steak and two glasses of red wine,” the waitress says as she jots down the order.

Jaehyun nods his head at you. “What are you getting?”

You snap out of it and close the menu. “I’ll have what he’s having as well.”

The waitress is staring at the both of you with an amused look while grabbing both of your menus. Jaehyun folds his arms, picking up his glass of water to take a quick sip. You clear your throat, looking out the window to distract yourself.

“Is there a reason why you hate me so much?”

You scoff. “I don’t hate you—”

“You sure do.”

“I don’t—”

“You do.” He looks at you seriously. “You’re a bad liar.”

“In my defense, you’re a bad liar too.” You shrug your shoulders. “Or should I say, a bad actor.”

“Look—”

“But it’s fine. We can play pretend for as long as you want.” You cut him off. “Since you’re pretending as if you don’t know me, then I’ll do the same. This shouldn’t be a one-way thing, don’t you think so?”

He avoids your gaze. “I’m not sure what you’re talking about.”

You smile. It doesn’t reach your ears. “Clearly.”

A couple of minutes later, the waitress arrives with your food. Jaehyun can’t help but watch you eat. You weren’t lying when you said you were starving. You’re practically inhaling the food. He finds himself smiling. 

“Stop staring at me.”

“I’m not staring—”

You look at him. “You are. Stop staring. It’s making me uncomfortable. I want to eat in peace.”

He smirks. “And you said that you were going to grab dinner on your way home.”

“And so?” You raise an eyebrow. “It’s a once in a lifetime opportunity to be eating at a five-star restaurant with the CEO of Jung Architects. It’s not an opportunity you should pass up.”

“Do you feel like you achieved something out of this?” He asks.

You nod your head. “Yes.”

“And what would that be?”

“A free dinner.” You shrug your shoulders. “Oh! A free ride home, too.”

“Would you like me to remind you how you were completely against the idea of having dinner with me and allowing me to drive you home?” He tests you.

You grab your glass of wine to take a small sip. You bite your lip. “I’m not sure what you’re talking about, sir. I suddenly don’t remember anything.”

“Well, I hope you’re ready for my revenge.”

You look at him questioningly. “Revenge?”

“Sir, what are you doing?”

At the end of your dinner, Jaehyun gets up from his seat to bend down on one knee. He’s pulling out a fake diamond ring from his pocket and extending it out to you. You’re looking at him bewilderedly, trying to pull him back onto his feet.

“Y/N, I know we’ve been together for six years. Those six years have been the happiest years of my life and I can’t wait to spend the rest of my life with you.” He has a shit-eating grin spread across his lips. “Will you marry me, Y/N?”

The couples and families sitting near you are getting all of it on their phones. You can’t help but feel embarrassed. Is this the revenge he was talking about? 

“Sir, we aren’t dating. What are you doing?”

He lets out a fake cough. “Just say yes.”

“What? Why would I do that? What are you doing?” You hiss.

“I forgot my wallet at the office and I saw a sign outside saying that newly-engaged couples get their dinner for free.” He says in one breath. 

“What? I didn’t catch a single word you just said.” 

“Just say yes.”

You look around to see the waitress walking to your table with the bill in her hands. Your eyes slightly widen and you cover your fake gasp with your hands. The waitress stops in her tracks when she sees Jaehyun proposing to you. 

“Yes!” You exclaim. “I’ll marry you!”

The waitress finally reaches your table when Jaehyun pulls you into a hug. You’re patting his back a bit too aggressively. You lean into his ear to whisper. “I’m going to kill you for this, sir.”

“Congratulations to the newly-engaged couple!” The waitress exclaims and everyone seated around you starts clapping. The waitress turns to Jaehyun when you both pull away from your hug. “Luckily for you, we have a promotion going on where newly-engaged couples have their dinner on us. I don’t think you’ll need the bill, sir. Your dinner is free.”

“Oh!” Jaehyun smiles. “That’s perfect! Thank you so much!”

“Congratulations.”

You’re too embarrassed to utter a word. As you and Jaehyun are leaving the restaurant, he stretches out his arms and lets out a sigh. You look at him with a death glare. He feels intimidated by your stare.

“Why are you looking at me like that?”

“You owe me an explanation.”

He lets out a nervous laugh. “I don’t think I do. Hey, do you want to go grab some ice cream before I drive you home?”

You fold your arms. “I thought you left your wallet in your office—”

You stop mid-sentence when he pulls out his wallet from his pocket. He’s waving it in your face before bursting out into laughter. “My wallet? What kind of CEO would leave his wallet in his office? What do you take me for, Y/N?”

Is he really the CEO of Jung Architects?

BREAKING NEWS: Jeong Jaehyun of Jung Architects recently seen proposing to what sources say, a woman he’s dated for six years, at a five-star restaurant

“When’s their year-end party, again?”

Jia shoves a handful of chips into her mouth. “The twenty-eighth of December.”

“I think that’s enough time for everything to pull through perfectly as planned.” Wooyoung says before letting out a scoff. “And since when did he have the time to date?”

Jia shrugs her shoulders. “I wouldn’t have been surprised if the press suddenly revealed that he was married this entire time.”

“Are you disappointed that the woman’s not you?”

Jia sighs.

“Just a little.”

author’s note. i hope you liked this update! we’re almost reaching the second interlude! jkfhsdkjfhdsf

tag list (if you want to be a part of the list, please send me an ask!):

@riverdale-kpop @cupofjae @jae-canikeepyou @crystxlkpop @befikel @justineasian @frankenstein852 @mymonbebecarat127heart @hoshitaro @ilymarkchan @hyluvjk @fantasircle @yourchasingsunsetslove @jae-bam @starryhyun​ @kriselynne @jaeismytamtation​ @etaerealboy​ @irrelevxntstxr @johnnyseosabs​ @jaeveil​ @doublepeace @jaehyunie77 @nshitae​ @ijustwantsummilk @crtznstuff @linnnnduhhhnctlove @airloe @princessaecha @jimjamjaemin @linansey @eileencacai @loviejaehyun @leesalts

#jaehyun #jaehyun scenarios #jaehyun imagines #jaehyun x reader #jaehyun x oc #jeong jaehyun #jeong jaehyun scenarios #jeong jaehyun imagines #jeong jaehyun x reader #jeong jaehyun x oc #nct #nct scenarios #nct imagines #nct x reader #nct 127 #nct 127 scenarios #nct 127 imagines #nct 127 x reader #jaehyun fluff #jaehyun angst

[theawkwardterrier]

my whole trajectory's toward you, and it's not losing momentum (call it anything we want)

Summary: Anthony had expected a certain amount of trouble when he took over managing the Danbury campaign. He didn’t imagine this amount. He didn’t imagine that it might at some point become something other than trouble.

There was mention of rival political campaign managers Kate and Anthony and even though I couldn’t quite get there - or make a scene happen which directly featured Newton 😔 - I did manage rivals and political campaigning. So here’s something to serve as incentive, congratulation, or brief respite depending on how far @thesokovianaccords​ has gotten in her grad school application process. Sorry if it’s a bit OOC, Livia - maybe it’s just the right degree to make sense in a modern AU? ¯\_(ツ)_/¯

Read on AO3

A week into running Dr. Danbury’s campaign, Anthony realizes that he has made a grave error in allowing himself to give in when his mother requested “a bit of a favor.”

At the time she’d asked, he had just gotten the news that his previous candidate was dropping out of his own race for health reasons, and of course, Dr. Danbury has been a fixture for his entire life so he might well have stepped up merely because she needed help (despite knowing that the reason she needed the help was that she’d fired her entire previous campaign team). Besides that, he has rarely been able to deny his mother anything, and that’s even before she brings up the number of hours she spent in labor with him (twenty-two, as he well knows by now) but still...he damn well should have ignored all that this time.

For his money, the most annoying part of not being listened to by the candidate is that her instincts have mostly served her well. Three days after he started, she ignored the common wisdom of maintaining decorum and not insulting the opposition which he had reminded her of before she went on camera, and had only benefited from it; apparently the majority of the constituency agreed that the particular candidate she had been asked about was indeed a “first class wanker who should pray nightly for the brains God gave a goose.” At least she had heeded Anthony’s advice to refer to the man as “my opponent” rather than using his name and giving him free advertising in the soundbite as it was played on nearly every news broadcast for the next several days.

“Well, we seem to have come out of this one all right,” she says, sipping her coffee and looking just the slightest bit smug - he doesn’t lie to candidates, so he had been obliged to report that the latest polling numbers actually went up after the incident. “Anything else, Bridgerton?”

Swallowing the speech he wants to give about how easily things could shift during a campaign, not to mention the difference between what people told a pollster and how they actually cast their votes, he says, “Perhaps we might look to hire a policy director, ma’am? To help...guide the campaign a bit more?”

“If we did, I should wonder what I had hired you for.” She looks at him over the tops of her glasses as if she can tell he is dreaming of responding that ah, well, it seems he is unnecessary, and perhaps he will just excuse himself from the position now. He makes sure his expression remains neutral and finally she waves a hand. “Well, let me see some names and CVs after the weekend, and I shall decide then.”

“Very good.” He extremely purposefully does not sigh until he is out of her office and striding along the corridor of their campaign headquarters. There are plenty of people who will take a call from him on short notice and who will back him with the candidate. Yes, if he can’t quit altogether (and he can’t if he wants his regular seat at Christmas dinner) then having someone in his corner is just the ticket.

He arrives for work on Monday even earlier than his traditional first thing in the morning, wondering to himself whether it will be better to simply present his top applicants or if he should throw in a decoy or two to make his choices shine even brighter - although perhaps that’s just the sort of ploy that the candidate would sniff out in a heartbeat after a career of wrangling university students. Still debating, he turns the corner toward his office, only to find Dr. Danbury in the hall outside, speaking with someone. Anthony doesn’t recognize the person from the back, can only see a fall of shiny, dark hair, so he guesses it is one of the volunteers, perhaps someone new who has arrived early for orientation. He hopes that Dr. Danbury isn’t being too intimidating.

“Ah, Bridgerton,” the lady in question calls down the hallway, and something about her tone makes Anthony’s spine go straight. “Good morning.”

Still, he clings to his good mood as he greets her. “Let me put my things down, and then we can go over your schedule for the day. And I have those CVs you had requested as well.”

“Nevermind those,” she says, and the little smile on her lips makes every one of his nerves stand on end. “Did you know that your mother and I went out for a drink on Friday evening? Oh, yes, we had a wonderful time, and your brother Colin came around to escort us home. Such a lovely boy, had some delightful stories about his trip to Greece - and so interested in the campaign. In fact, he had a brilliant thought when I mentioned your idea for bringing on someone new to help shape things alongside the two of us.”

Whatever virtues his brother Colin might possess, interest in the campaign is absolutely not among them. Skin humming all over, Anthony manages a casual, “Oh?”

“Indeed, and luckily I was able to organize it all over the weekend so you wouldn’t have to do a thing.” She gestures toward her companion, and with a sick swoop in his stomach, Anthony knows who he is going to see before she shifts around.

“I believe you two have met before?” Dr. Danbury says, voice fading just a bit beneath the static in Anthony’s ears as Kate Sheffield turns to face him.

They have not actually met before, but that doesn’t mean that they don’t know of each other.

The first time Anthony heard her name, it was her sister saying it - about twenty times in a row, if he’s being honest. He met Edie Sheffield two years back at one of his mother’s galas. Edie ran a different prestigious kids charity than the one Mum was fundraising for, so he’d wondered if inviting her was somehow inviting the enemy or maybe bragging. But Edie was sweet, and passionate about her job, and looked absolutely gorgeous in sapphire satin, and he settled into a night of getting her drinks and chatting her up, despite the fact that she didn’t seem as interested in speaking with him as she did in mentioning that he really must talk with her sister.

He’d stayed the night in the hotel where the gala had been held (alone, in one of the rooms which had been set aside for guests from the event; he’d put Edie in a car at about 11) and was planning on taking his mother to breakfast after she came down from her own room. When he went to check out, however, the desk attendant handed him a message which had been taken down for him on hotel stationary.

Dickheads like you shouldn’t try to get with my sister. Don’t do it again.

KS

“Is there anything else that I can assist you with?” asked the attendant, holding onto her poker face remarkably. Perhaps they taught that in hospitality programs.

He’d crushed the note in his hand before smoothing his own face placidly and handing over his credit card. His mother was all smiles and chatter during breakfast, but his mind was still on the note, which seemed to have burned itself behind his eyelids.

Dickheads like you - oh, so only other types of dickheads need apply? And get with? Were they twelve years old and couldn’t use grownup words? Not to mention the signature, such as it was. Trying to play mafia boss, expecting that he’d know who had sent it. He did, but it took a lot of bloody gall to assume that he would.

Not as much gall as Don’t do it again. He couldn’t even think of that part, the demeaning certainty of it, without a certain vein beginning to throb in his forehead.

In the two years since, he found himself falling back into analysis of the note - it was barely more than a dozen words, so how could there still be so much to parse? - whenever her name came up, which became more and more frequent as she moved from nothing campaigns in the most forgotten corners of the country to deputy deputy whatever on somewhat more consequential ones. She was gaining a reputation among his peers. They said she was smart and canny, that she had a knack for looking at the bigger picture and acting on her instincts.

(Someone who’d once worked with her had also mentioned that it helped that she didn’t have a high opinion of her looks, didn’t flaunt herself the way some women did around the office - she certainly didn’t have a reason to do so, but sometimes that didn’t stop them.

“Oh, be fair,” said the other man. “She does have quite a nice—”

They’d shut up when he’d walked into the room - everyone knew better than to talk that way around him, and it wasn’t just because of “all those sisters” the way some people said. Eloise had been interning with the campaign that summer, and for the rest of the day while he’d talked with human resources, he’d let her make mistakes on all of their lunch and coffee orders and give them the wrong data for their reports when they’d made her look it up instead of doing it themselves. When he’d fired them, he spread the word on why, but left the particulars out of it.)

The note returns to his mind whenever someone new has their one experience of suggesting Kate Sheffield as a potential hire, or when he thinks he’s seen her in the background of some press conference or event for another candidate, or if he runs into Edie at another charity function, where he absolutely does not flirt with her just that extra bit harder while part of his mind thinks Your move directly toward her sister who he has never actually met in person.

Until now.

“We’re acquainted,” he tells Dr. Danbury, managing to remain polite by avoiding Kate’s gaze. He leaves it at that.

They’re the first two in the conference room for the all-staff the next morning, and somehow he’s not surprised.

“Good morning,” he says as he comes in to find her over by the coffee. She’s doctoring it significantly, clearly already familiar with the quality to be found in a campaign office. He always buys his own; he can’t stand the amount of milk and sugar and oddly flavored creamers required to make the other stuff palatable (and don’t even get him started on the alleged tea).

Tone cool, she replies, “Mr. Bridgerton,” and takes a sip from her mug.

It isn’t as if the staff goes around calling him “Tony” or “boss,” and only the most knock-kneed newcomers call him “sir.” He’s Anthony to most. He has no inclination to correct her.

He works to keep his tone casual and courteous as usual when he introduces her to everyone (“And this is Kate Sheffield, who will be doing some consulting for us”) but something about it must catch Dr. Danbury’s attention, because she raises an eyebrow at him from her end of the table and rests both hands atop her stick.

The fact that the candidate is aware that something is going on between the two of them makes it all the more exasperating when two days later she signs off on Kate’s media and advertising plan over his own. He shows up for dinner with Daphne and Simon that evening as planned, knowing that Daphne would be completely willing to pull the pregnancy card if he tried to get out of it, but she sends him home before the waiter has brought the dessert menus because he keeps muttering about how more people travel by tube and railways and for longer distances but are more likely to take more individual rides on buses and what that means for posting print ads.

(The numbers are seared into his mind, considering she’d included a full breakdown with three kinds of graphs and bloody footnotes in her presentation.)

Getting released from the restaurant early gives him extra time to go back to the office for a bit and put together a preliminary get out the vote strategy. He calls in several favors as a part of it, including one from an old friend of his father’s who asks incredulously, “Really? For this?” clearly wondering whether Anthony’s reputation is deserved if he’s pulling out all the stops for something so routine.

It’s well worth it, however, when Dr. Danbury raises an eyebrow as she looks over the document he’d put together, and tells him, “Well done, Bridgerton, very well done indeed. I think this shall do nicely.”

He does not even glance toward Kate; there really isn’t any need to gloat.

Well, one tiny peek won’t hurt.

Her jaw is set and her eyes are flinty, but she gives him just the slightest nod, as if to say that he might have won this round, but she’d like to see him try the next one.

Just before three in the morning, he wakes himself, panting, from a dream that makes him think he might have to report himself for workplace sexual harassment.

“I would have hoped you’d have better self-preservation instincts,” he says aloud to his body. “Or at least better taste.”

Collapsing back against the pillows, he pushes his mind toward images of ex-girlfriends and celebrities, but no, there is Kate, strong and challenging and gorgeous above him, a vivid afterimage that refuses to go away, and he sighs and gives into it, trying to set himself to rights so he can get past this and find at least a bit more sleep.

Anthony has never been the sort of boss who shouts at people in the office - he has always tended toward cold anger and “you know what you’ve done, now fix it” stares, and doesn’t intend to act differently now. But as he stalks over to Kate’s desk, he finds a fiercer anger taking over, just a bit.

“You changed my media statement,” he says, voice silken with it as he leans his palms down on her desktop and rests his weight on them. He is speaking low, the words just for her, although his eyes roam over the others moving busily around the main space of the office.

She turns her chair slightly, so that he feels the brush of her hair on his forearms where his sleeves are rolled up; it shifts his attention fully in her direction. Her hair tie had snapped earlier, and the thick topknot she tried twisting for herself has collapsed, leaving it free around her shoulders. He snaps himself back from examining the shining curls as she says, “Yes, I did.”

Part of him admires her straightforwardness, that she takes responsibility without even trying to deny it. The other part...well, the anger hasn’t exactly disappeared.

In a level tone which would have his siblings looking over in alarm, he says. “I had worked that statement out with the entire communications department.”

“The entire communications department does what you tell them to do. It’s what you pay them for.”

“And what, exactly, do I pay you for?”

They are facing each other now, their bodies a bit too close for it. She is looking directly at him, voice sharp and clear as glass. “I was hired by the candidate, to help run the campaign that she wants. Your statement was just a polite walkback of her words.”

He has the sudden thought that the brown of her eyes could be warm, that her gaze probably is warm when she’s looking at her sister or the dog whose photo she has framed on her desk (a plump, panting little corgi wearing a bright blue bow tie, absurd), but he’s never seen her that way. He’s only ever gotten this, annoyance and disdain and perhaps disappointment.

Still, he responds, “Her words need to be walked back if she wants to someday be more than the candidate. In this constituency, colonial reparations aren’t a popular enough issue to increase turnout for those who weren’t already interested, and it’s exactly the sort of thing which will put off those who were on the fence. We’re trying to flip a seat by reminding people of what their current MP is doing wrong; we have to stay on message, not muddy things with topics too few understand. Sending out a statement moderating the comment is the right move.”

“But that statement isn’t what the candidate believes, and her future constituents should know what her actual position is - they likely aren’t as stupid as you seem to think. And besides that, she has the right stance in the first place.”

In the weeks since she arrived, he’s found that the things people said of her were true: she is smart, perhaps too smart for the good of either of them, and decisive, easily seeing what’s been done and what needs to be and acting on it, the exact sort of person you would want at your side as you plot a course forward. But he hadn’t realized that she was a believer.

There are fewer idealists in politics than one might think, or at least who have risen to her level. He always finds them a bit off-putting, and it startles him even more with her - he had thought he recognized in her a sharpness and pragmatism which reminded him of his own.

“Don’t do anything like this again,” he says, trying to temper his own abruptness even as he is somewhat unsettled by the conviction in her. “Or I’ll fire you, and I don’t care what the candidate says about it.”

“I think she would have quite a lot to say in that circumstance,” Kate tells him, but she turns back to her keyboard and doesn’t argue anymore.

At least until the next day, when they end up nearly nose to nose in his office as Anthony maintains that they can’t get anyone’s hopes up with a promise of immediate action on climate change, especially considering the priorities in the party platform and the likely makeup of the next parliament, and Kate practically shouts that they’re showing people where their convictions lie and that Dr. Danbury will fight for them if she gets the chance.

When Anthony dreams of her again that night, they are not talking about policy at all. But when he wakes up, edgy and aching as he is, he finds himself hoping one day to see her smile at him the way he did in his sleep; he wants to know if her eyes really are as warm as he imagined.

On Saturday, there’s such persistent nagging in the older sibling groupchat that Anthony finally gives in and agrees to leave the office for a night out. Forcing him into some allegedly relaxing activity is a time-honored tradition when they’re coming into the final stretch of a campaign; he’s certain the others have been discussing tactics in one of the numerous other chats that are always going on. (The last he’d glimpsed, the sibling group which didn’t include Gregory, Hyacinth, or himself - but did, irritatingly, include Simon - was named “Anthony’s Scary Forehead Vein.”)

“Please tell me that we aren’t going to paint ceramics again,” Anthony says as he walks, hands in his pockets, beside Benedict. Their group is too large to all move together on the sidewalk, which is a bit of a relief. “I don’t think I could put up with another night of Eloise reminding me that there are stencils if I need them.”

Benedict very narrowly and very obviously avoids laughing at him. Now that Anthony thinks about it, actually, his brother had spent that particular outing using a dozen colors to intricately decorate a mug, spending so long on it that they had nearly closed the place around him. Their mother drinks her tea from it frequently, however. “Thankfully there won’t be any pottery or painting tonight.”

“And it’s not—”

“Not a club,” Benedict assures him, then grins. “Can you imagine Simon trying to make certain no one came within a foot radius of Daph on the dance floor?”

Anthony shakes his head, looking ahead of them to where his sister and brother-in-law are walking together, not holding hands, but so close that they might as well be. He still feels a bit strange about the two of them together, especially after all the drama on the way, but he can see that they’re in love each other, even if he can’t really imagine why anyone would want to be, and they’re extremely obviously happy, so he’s trying to grow accustomed to it. He can also absolutely see Simon working himself into knots playing mosh pit bodyguard.

“So where are we going, then?” he asks, but before Benedict can answer, Eloise, broken away from her friend Penelope, tosses her arms over their shoulders and wriggles her face between them.

“You’ll just have to see,” she says, and Anthony doesn’t have to look at her to know that she is twitching her eyebrows at them. He probably could get it out of her if he tried, but he actually is finding himself feeling a little lighter being out with everyone, so he just waits and ten minutes later, they’re entering an already fairly crowded pub. Colin and Eloise go over to register them as a trivia team - or more likely to bicker over what name their team should have. As if realizing the same, Daphne squeezes Simon’s hand once and pushes over to join them.

(Her stomach is still flat, even for someone looking, but Anthony notices that she places a protective hand over it as she walks through the crush anyway.)

The rest of them go to claim a table and start putting together an order for drinks and appetizers. Anthony is leaning across, shouting a promise that if Penelope doesn’t finish her chili loaded potato wedges, they’ll certainly be taken care of, when someone behind him asks, “Excuse me, can we borrow this chair?”

“Sorry, there are more of us coming,” he says politely, turning to face the woman. She’s thirtyish and tall, but that’s all he takes in before he spots, over her shoulder, the rest of her group. They’re all chatting with each other, wearing matching T-shirts in a variety of bold colors which declare them the Quizzie Bennets, and in the center, her hair up in a ponytail and definite warmth in her eyes, is Kate. Edie stands beside her, picture perfect nose crinkled in a teasing way, but all Anthony can notice is that he’s never seen Kate in jeans like this, that the odd, bright purple of her shirt looks electric instead of ugly against the dark of her hair, and all he can think is that he never imagined her as relaxed as she is, weapons laid down.

She seems to detect his gaze then, and as she meets it he expects the weapons to be picked right back up. There’s certainly surprise, a guardedness to her eyes as they meet his, but then she narrows them in his direction, as if saying game on.

So that’s how she wants to play it, he thinks, then turns to the others and says, “No alcohol.”

Benedict blinks. “What do you mean by that?”

“In solidarity with Daphne,” Anthony offers.

“Daph does know that it’s pub trivia,” Simon says. “And she’s not—”

“Fine,” Anthony interrupts before the compliment train can get rolling. He sets his jaw. “I mean that we need to keep clear heads if we’re going to absolutely trounce everyone here.”

Penelope looks a bit alarmed by the vehemence in his tone and Simon quirks a brow, but the others are game enough - Bridgertons have always had a competitive streak, and apparently the rest of them actually chose this particular trivia night because it’s done aloud, infinite bounce style, instead of on paper.

“We play with live ammo around here,” Eloise declares gleefully once she’s returned and been updated on what she missed.

“Damn right we do,” Anthony mutters to himself, glad that he is seated with his back to Kate so he can resist the temptation to see how irritated she looks just now, or how face might be a little flushed and her ponytail loosened from the heat of everyone packed together inside…

“Who exactly do you keep looking for?” asks Colin, who’d plopped himself into the chair Kate’s teammate had asked about. He cranes obviously around, and Anthony turns firmly back to the table before his brother can follow his line of vision.

For all that they didn’t pick their team in order to be serious contenders, they do cover the bases fairly well. Anthony has politics and current events, obviously, along with history. Penelope plays backup there as well, and covers literature alongside Colin, who handily takes on geography too. (Anthony has always inwardly wondered how reasonable it was to build a career around wanderlust and Instagram and freelancing for travel magazines, but if it brings them victory tonight, he will never question again.) Benedict apparently took in more about nature than any of the rest of them who grew up in the Kentish countryside, and knows quite a bit more about art and art history than Anthony had expected. Daphne, unpredictably, knows a lot about sports - she claims that it’s what happens when you spend your life being rambled at as “another one of the boys” - and, more predictably, music.

Anthony hadn’t expected Simon’s skill with numbers to be particularly helpful, but now he’ll have to buy him a drink at some point, both for doubting and for pulling them out of a sticky situation involving Bernstein's constant. He wishes that Francesca wasn’t too young to have come out with them - there are several instances where they could have used her chiming in with quiet calm about anything related to economics or science, but they instead have to all give questionable contributions in that regard. They all chip in for pop culture, too, although Eloise is clearly the master - she actually yawns as she announces that of course the country where Monica’s boyfriend Pete Becker took her on their first date was Italy, and Anthony has never been more grateful that he lets everyone sponge off his Netflix login (although would it really kill them to not be using all the screens on the rare occasions he actually has the time and inclination to watch something?).

The trouble is that there are plenty of other teams who are clearly regulars, and they were put together in order to be serious contenders. The questions and answers are flying through the air, the quizmaster, a skinny older man with big hair shouting “Correct! For ten points,” more often than not, and most importantly, the Quizzie Bennets are availing themselves nicely. (He should have guessed as soon as he saw the matching T-shirts.)

Questions his team can’t answer correctly bounce to them next, and he can’t help but toss Kate an incredulous look after she not only answers that Angela Merkel was voted chancellor of November rather than October 2005, but also rattles off the margin for and against. Her eyes meet his as if she was expecting his glance, but she just shrugs before wrapping her lips around her straw and taking a dainty sip of her drink. He has to look away then.

Still, Team Quizerton (apparently the name that both Colin and Eloise had hated enough for Daphne to negotiate them to agreement) has done well enough that Anthony feels confident as they move into the final round.

“And what will the twist be tonight?” the excitable quizmaster asks, although he then just presses a button on his phone rather than spinning some kind of enormous wheel. His face lights up as he announces grandly, “Ah, the ladder!”

He quickly outlines the rules: each team will have five questions selected for them in ascending order of difficulty, with point values from ten to fifty. For each correct answer, they will receive the corresponding points and the option of requesting a related bonus question for half the initial question’s value. Wrong answers mean a point deduction, double for bonus questions, and the end of play for that team. You can also pass, choosing another team to answer and forfeiting further questions for yours but freezing your points where they stand.

It’s more like a game show than any trivia night that Anthony is familiar with, but he actually appreciates the strategy element; he can understand why this would be Kate’s preferred contest.

He considers giving a pep talk to the table, but all of them - except for Simon, who’s looking somewhere between vaguely amused and bored - are dialed in, ready to claim victory, so he settles back and readies himself for it too.

It happens in the final round. Anthony is just allowing himself to feel the slightest bit smug at having earned them another 75 points by not only correctly responding that Sri Lanka was the first country to have a female prime minister, but answering the bonus of her name (Sirimavo Bandaranaike) and year of election (1960) as well. The quizmaster nods, turns, and reads off the next question: “This famous playwright’s last words were reportedly ‘I knew it! I knew it! Born in a hotel room and, goddamn it, dying in a hotel room.’”

There’s a strange, deep silence, then a buzz of whispering among the Quizzie Bennets, and Anthony is struck by the realization that they don’t know the answer. He certainly doesn’t either, and a glance around at his group tells him that they would have been screwed had they gotten the question, but it doesn’t matter. Excitement licks up his throat, victory so close he can taste it…

And then Kate’s head comes up from the huddle, and her eyes meet his, and he knows exactly what she is going to do before she does it.

“Ten seconds!” says the quizmaster.

“Trust me,” Kate mouths to her teammates, and then says aloud, “We’d like to pass, and give the Know It Ales a chance to answer.”

Anthony’s mouth goes dry. Stupid team name aside, they’ve been confidently answering questions all night, and this time is no different. Their leader is nearly bored as he immediately says, “Eugene O’Neill.” And Anthony can barely hear the room around him over the blood rushing in his ears as they answer the follow-up too.

When the quizmaster declares the Know It Ales the champions for the evening, Kate slings her arms around her teammates and cheers as if he’s announced her name instead. The other Quizzie Bennets look puzzled, but when she stares defiantly at Anthony, chin raised, beaming, glowing not like she’s in the spotlight but like she’s the light itself, he somewhat suspects that she’s the winner indeed.

“Isn’t that—” Colin starts somewhere close to Anthony’s ear.

“No, it is not,” Anthony tells him firmly, and wrestles him off to pay their tab.

Later that night, after he’s somewhat successfully distracted himself with work and somewhat less successfully distracted himself with looking for something to watch (why isn’t everyone asleep, and even if they are up, could they really not leave him one available screen?) he finds himself sitting on the edge of his bed with his work phone in one hand and his personal one in the other. And even though he knows exactly how bad an idea it is, he very carefully references the campaign contact group and keys one number into a new text message in his personal phone.

Sorry that this didn’t seem to be your night. Best of luck to your team next time.

He shoves out a breath and stands as soon as he’s sent it, forces himself to start getting ready for bed; she’s probably asleep now, or she might read it as rude or sarcastic and choose not to respond, and the text is just going to sit there, awkward and interminable…

There are plenty of ways to be lucky, thanks very much, and I think we found one - although I look forward to reclaiming my rightful title someday soon. See you on Monday, Bridgerton.

Regardless of what he tells himself, he can’t quite get the stupid grin off his face as he shuts off the light. He’s under no illusions about who his dreams will feature tonight.

Monday night before the election, Anthony leaves the office past eleven. He rubs his eyes as he walks past dark cubicles and conference rooms - unsurprisingly, he’s the last one around - and decides that what he needs more than sleep is something to eat, and not whatever cup noodles or single egg he might come up with at home. No, he needs comfort food, something generous and hot and greasy as Benedict’s face the year he was thirteen (not that his at fifteen was much better).

His favorite hole in the wall is open until midnight, so he stumbles over there and buys the biggest order of chips he can, the enormous burger nearly an afterthought. The place is tiny and not the sort of spot that has ever even heard of ambiance, but he’s tired and the idea of waiting to get back to his flat and eating in its emptiness isn’t particularly appealing. He turns with his food in hand and finds Kate looking up at him, startled, from one of the three tables.

He could take one of the others, leave them to eat in awkward peace, or he could pretend he had always intended to have his food to go. Instead he comes over and asks, “Can I join you?”

Her capable hands moving just a note too slowly, as though giving him time to reconsider, she collects the documents from the opposite side of the table, tapping them into order as he waits patiently. She folds her fingers atop the neat stack in front of her once she’s finished, watching as he dives into his meal; he should probably be embarrassed about it, but he doesn’t really have the energy.

They talk about inconsequential things - how the weather forecast might cause trouble with voter turnout, the unfortunate office incident with Johnson and the speakerphone last week, mutual political acquaintances - and Anthony realizes that it’s the first time they’ve ever done this, just made small talk without disagreeing. Kate doesn’t lose her sharp tongue simply because they are in casual conversation, but it’s different when her remarks aren’t directed at him; hearing her pert analyses of other candidates and campaign staffers actually makes him laugh.

She’s left half a piece of cold fish and polished off more than a few of his chips (completely unthinkingly, he’s sure) when they’re informed that closing time’s come and they have to clear the table. It would be completely natural for them to part ways and see each other in the morning for another round of sparring, but he finds himself saying, “I think I might go get a drink,” and finds her answering, “I think I might join you.”

He regrets it just a bit when he’s balanced on the bar stool (he really is exhausted; this is the earliest he’s been out of the office in days) but then Kate raises her wineglass and says, “To the homestretch,” and smiles just a bit as he touches his glass to hers. The light falls cozy and dim around them and he can still see exactly how long and competent her fingers are, wrapped around the stem, the places where strands of hair have escaped their pins, trailing down to rest against her exposed throat.

Right, he thinks inanely to himself. Right, excellent, this was a good choice, and belts back his scotch before signaling for another.

“Those were your siblings?” she asks, taking a sip of her own drink. “At trivia the other night?”

“Some of them were...are…” He shakes his head, trying to straighten out his own meaning. “It was some of my siblings, the oldest four, and my brother-in-law, and my sister’s best friend.” Then, before he can stop himself, he adds, “I saw your sister was there as well.”

“Hmm,” she says, taking another sip of her cabernet, and he can see her spine stiffening, armor reasserting itself.

For the first time, he realizes that she could easily hate Edie, her younger sister - her younger half-sister, even - who is sweet and accomplished and more apparently pretty, the one people’s eyes turn to when the Sheffield girls are around, but what Kate displays is no begrudging love.

It would probably be better for him to change the topic, get them back on safer ground, but though he might be smart, he’s not necessarily wise, so he tosses back his second scotch and asks, “Why did you warn me off her the first time? You didn’t even know me.”

“Yes, but I knew of you,” she says. As always, she faces the comment head on, doesn’t even pretend not to remember exactly what he’s talking about. “I was starting in the industry, I needed to have an ear to the ground and at least a general sense of the players, and I didn’t like the sense I got about you. It didn't make me think you were the kind of person to trust with my sister.”

“I’ve never—I would never—I don’t think I’ve—” he says, stumbling, slightly stricken. He knows that there are whisper networks about the people - the men - in their field, knows exactly who some of the whispers are about and has done his best to be the type of person who helps make those whispers into shouts. It would kill him a bit to find out that he’s done something that would make someone feel the need to speak about him that way.

“Not necessarily on a personal level,” she says, suddenly gentle, then circles her finger around the rim of her glass and amends, “Well, not that way. People actually said you were very smart and a good employer, but when I learned more about your history, the jobs you’d worked on in the past, it didn’t feel like there was any principle to your choices. As if you were just willing to sell yourself to whoever asked, or at least whoever looked good on a resume. Edwina deserves more than that.”

She is looking at him extremely frankly, as if she hasn’t just shrugged away the idea of the career he’s built, but with the way she says her sister’s name, the softness of it, how she somehow makes the full, old-fashioned version more personal than the nickname - he understands that sort of devotion. Hearing it from her steals the irritation beginning to build even as she continues. “I could never even entirely figure out why you went into politics rather than something else. You’re reasonably intelligent, you could have done any number of things if you weren’t particularly invested in the issues.”

Somehow, instead of the protest he was expecting, that he was intending, what comes out is simply, “It’s the family business.”

“I’m sorry?”

“The Bridgerton Group. My father started it.” By her expression, she doesn’t think that two generations exactly makes a family legacy, but for once she holds her tongue, and his, loose with drink and exhaustion, can’t hold back.

“I grew up playing under the table at a dozen campaign offices across London and having poster mock-ups as my placemats. When I was a bit older, I was allowed to volunteer, and I loved seeing him there, in his element, listening to proposals and then telling everyone, ‘Well, here’s what we’re going to do.’” He swallows. “He—My father died, just after my first year at university, and I wasn’t old or experienced enough to take his place. The staff went off to work for other people, and all I could think about was how disappointed he would have been, to see this thing he’d built, this thing he loved, fall apart so easily. The entire time until I graduated, while I was getting experience with other consulting firms and working on other campaigns, I was just waiting until I could do justice to what he left behind for me.

“He nearly called it ABC Consulting, but my mother told him that it sounded too juvenile. My parents had me and my brothers fairly young - he was still a student when Benedict and I were born - and he wanted to name it after us.”

He realizes as soon as he’s said it that he’s only ever admitted that once before, to Simon on a similarly drunken night during their final year at school, forgetting the way that Simon and his father were, or weren’t, with each other; his friend’s face had closed up as soon as the words had left Anthony’s mouth, and they’d never talked about it again. But Kate’s face is open, listening, more than he thinks he’s ever seen from her, in such a way that he thinks he could reveal anything to her.

He could tell her about the trouble he and his brothers got up to as children, or how he likes watching baking shows to relax even though he’s not worth a damn in the kitchen, or that he can’t stop himself from adding another mile to his morning run each time he finds a gray hair. He could start talking about how complicated his feelings have grown regarding the man who was once his best friend, or about the way his entire chest had burned as his mother placed a squalling Hyacinth into his nineteen-year-old hands before closing her eyes and about how he never wants either of them to know that he’d tried to force himself not to tremble and had trembled anyway. But this isn’t the time for any of that, so he continues.

“I wanted to put it back together for him. There were candidates I took on in the early days who were stepping stones, necessary to building a reputation but who I wouldn’t work with again now that I have the reputation and the choices that come with it. And I have my own opinions on the issues - some of which might match yours more closely than you’d expect - but I’m there to make sure that the candidates who hire me succeed in getting where they want to be. I’m good at that, and I’m committed to it, and I’ve never run a campaign I wasn’t proud of. Sometimes, though, being around you, I wonder if you're going to eventually talk me into a different philosophy.”

His glass is full again though he isn’t sure when that happened, and a group of middle-aged men with ties undone and suitcases beneath their eyes fumbles past the bar behind them toward a booth, but the only thing he is paying attention to is Kate’s considering gaze on him as she absently swirls the wine remaining in her glass.

“I have the feeling,” she finally says, “that when you say a different philosophy, you consider it a more naïve one. And I’m not certain that our opinions on the issues would really match up considering that you grew up with family money.” Her voice is not arch or insulting, though, and he would certainly know.

“We were...comfortable,” he admits. She raises a waspish eyebrow in response.

“No one who’s actually middle class would ever put it like that,” she informs him. “You most definitely have a trust fund.” But she actually smiles at him, and for once he knows what it’s like to have Kate Sheffield look at him with warmth in her eyes.

He’d quite like to have that again.

“Do you think—?”

“That we should dignify the remarks with a response? No, I absolutely do not.”

Anthony glares down at the article he has pulled up on his phone, then looks over at Kate, striding down the hall beside him, eating slices of peach out of a reusable container. For a moment he’s distracted from the rumormongering on behalf of one of their opposing campaigns; he thinks of Kate’s hands carefully working the knife around the fruit, of the way her tongue flicks over to catch the juice when she takes a bite…

“I could reach out,” he says, too loudly, before he walks into a wall. “I know the head of the campaign over there, I can remind him about the spirit of fair play and all that, especially this close to the finish line.”

She looks over at him incredulously, snapping the top onto her empty Tupperware. “I don’t care if you were the best man at his wedding, he’ll laugh you off the phone. I’ve had at least three listicles of our candidate’s best insults toward her opponents forwarded to me just this morning.”

“I had the feeling that wouldn’t work.” He pinches the bridge of his nose. Just three days left, for better or worse. “Fine, so we say nothing and hope that it passes out of the media cycle quickly and doesn’t do too much damage to the absentee votes.”

“As I said from the beginning.”

“You are far too determined never to let me have the last word,” he says, just the slightest bit amused, as they circle around the desks of the main office, edging their way over to hers.

She snags the toe of her ballet flat on a computer charger trailing across the floor, stumbles, but he catches her hand just in time and sets her upright again. She continues walking as if it hadn’t even happened, raising her voice enough to be heard over the chatter and buzz of phone calls as she teases, “What would be the fun in that?”

Aghast, he says, “We aren’t here to have fun, Sheffield.”

“Oh, did you actually want to win?” She tosses the empty container onto her desk as she drops into her chair, then looks up at him, swiveling slightly from side to side and shaking her head. “You really are a cliché.”

“Yeah, well, here’s another one: get to work.”

“I’m not sure that’s technically a cliché, but I suppose I could do that,” she says, with a shrug and a grin, turning toward her computer. He watches her for another few seconds, and then takes himself off to his office before he becomes too much of a cliché himself.

Despite the phone call he had earlier with his mother promising her that he wouldn’t, he falls asleep on his desk the night before the election, startling himself awake hours later.

“Too bloody old for this,” he mutters to himself, grimacing as seemingly every joint and muscle in his body quite firmly announces itself when he stands. Scrubbing a hand through his hair, he gathers his things and makes his way through the darkened office.

Except it isn’t as dark as he’d expected. He scans the desks to try to figure out who left their lamp on, and finds Kate with her head resting on her arms, essentially imitating him from ten minutes prior.

Briefly, he stands there, not entirely sure what to do, but then he walks over, hand hovering by her shoulder before he gives her a light shake.

“Kate,” he says softly, crouching so he’s closer to her level. Her loose ponytail drapes over the burgundy of her blouse, quite close to his hand. He had not realized that he would recognize the scent of her, clean and straightforward with a subtly delicate edge; he should have known - he’s been smelling it in his dreams for weeks. He swallows and shakes her once more. “Kate, you should go home.”

“That was meant to be my line,” she says, far more lucidly than he would have expected. He shifts back as she stirs and sits up, massaging her fingers over her eyes. “I had the feeling that you weren’t going to leave at a sensible time, so I was planning on reminding you before I went home, only apparently I can’t leave at a sensible time either.”

“No, I suspect that sensible times to leave the office don’t involve the letters A or M,” he agrees. “Not that I would know anything about that.”

As she readies herself to leave, he tries to remember that the way she stretches out her back or takes down her hair, how she swings her bag over her shoulder, the quick, assessing way her eyes cover the room to make certain everything is in its place: all of that should be unremarkable. But there’s a moment, just the tiniest sliver of time, when she’s flicked off her desk lamp and they begin to walk out together in the glow of the emergency exit signs and the dim light of windows from other office buildings - she glances over at him, his hair rumpled, tie and briefcase dangling from one hand, and he thinks that he sees her swallow in a way that he recognizes all too well.

And then the moment is gone, and they’re out on the sidewalk, about to go their separate ways, the car he’d called for her already waiting.

“Big day tomorrow,” he says over the top of the door, holding it open as she climbs in. “Are you ready for it?”

“I’m always ready.”

He laughs, soft as the night around them. “Yes, I suppose you are. Good night, then.”

She looks at him one last time in the yellow beam of the streetlight, still a bit sleepy-eyed but no less aware for it. “Good night, Bridgerton,” she tells him, and drives away, and he can’t help but wonder about what if she hadn’t, what if he’d said something or she had made a choice, what if she didn’t drive away from him again.

The day of the election is always the worst for him - all the work behind him, nothing really to be done but let the people vote. He’s in the office earlier than usual anyway, early enough that he isn't certain it was worthwhile going home, but this, at least, he can control. He manages to keep himself busy throughout the day, but it’s all just a countdown to that night.

Somehow, despite - or perhaps because of - the sleeplessness and planning and stress, it isn’t one those contests that drag on. Dr. Danbury is brought on stage at about a quarter to one alongside the other candidates; the results, when the returning officer announces them, are decisive.

She’d brushed away his offers to help or choose a staffer or hire someone to work on her speech with her; instead she’s written it herself, and although brief, it’s as firm and irreverent as she is. He suspects that no one will ever pack as much sarcasm into referring to certain colleagues as “the right honorable.”

He makes some calls and receives congratulations from his mother and siblings, who have long since ceased to find these sorts of things interesting enough to attend but who make certain to keep up from home. As Dr. Danbury frees from handshaking and small talking, he makes his way over to her.

“Congratulations, ma’am.” He holds out his hand, which she eyes with a lifted brow.

“Anthony Bridgerton, I’ve known you since you were charming people from your mother’s arms, and considering that - not to mention all we’ve been through together over these last months - I think you can stand to give me more than just a handshake.”

He hugs her, which feels odd and tells him more than anything that the campaign is over. When he pulls away from her, she pats his cheek. “Now, go celebrate. You’ve earned it. I’m certainly going to.” And she winks.

The campaign staff is making plans for drinks and dancing and even just going home to raise a glass with loved ones. He wades into the group, patting backs and shaking hands, speaking briefly to some of them, smiling all the while.

And then he sees Kate, toward the edge of the crowd, chatting with one of the young guys from finance. Edwina is beside them, likely not as inured to the excitement of the night as the Bridgertons.

Kate, the taller of the two, spots him, leaning over to say something to her sister before weaving her way over. He tips his head toward a quieter little hallway, and they go over together, leaning against parallel walls.

“Congratulations,” they say to each other at the same time, and then immediately after, “I only wanted to say—”

He nods at her to go first. It’s only polite. But there’s an unusual sort of trepidation about her face, a pause that he doesn’t expect, that makes him wonder if she wishes that he’d taken the initiative. Still, she’s Kate, so she takes a breath and comes out with, “Edwina is here tonight, and if you still wanted—Clearly I misjudged you, and so if you were still interested in her, I wouldn’t say anything.”

“Oh,” he says, and that is all he can manage for the moment, standing frozen and watching Kate force her shoulders back and her gaze to his.

He does not know precisely how to communicate the depths to which he has realized that he does not want to date Edie Sheffield, that he never wanted to date her, that his interest lies entirely elsewhere. What he says instead is, “I had wanted to ask you to stay on with the Group. Permanently. You’re very, very good at what you do, and I think that...You know, your perspective and your clarity during the campaign was extremely helpful, extremely valuable, to me.”

He can picture it plainly, has been picturing it already: Kate taking him to task about every little issue, forcing him to remember the things outside of the campaign itself, the bigger things. Kate, with her hair swept up and her eyes bright and furious, challenging him to be the best version of himself, or at least to want to try.

But then she looks up at him and says, “I’ve actually had another job offer recently. The candidate—I’m sorry, the MP-elect wants me to be her new chief of staff, and I was already inclined to accept.”

“You’re going to be incredible at that,” he says immediately, blank shock quickly giving way to sincerity then laughter. “I can’t believe I didn’t think of it sooner. Maybe I just didn’t think that Parliament was ready for it.”

“That’s probably for the best, though. Element of surprise and all.”

Her voice doesn’t trail away but as his laughter does, so does her smile, her animation; the air seems to fall thin and still. He doesn’t know that there’s ever been a beat of awkwardness between them like this, not even when they have been at their most prickly with each other, but it’s there now, in her eyes as she looks across at him, in his gut as he wonders what to say next.

“I’m glad you got another job offer,” is what comes out, and there is her unamused, interrogative eyebrow, hovering upward.

“So you weren’t serious with yours?”

“No, of course I was, it’s only that...Well, I’ve been your boss up until now, regardless of how much you might believe it should be the other way around.” That even gets him a slight returning smile, enough for him to ignore the dryness in his mouth and the franticness of his chest to say, “And if you had taken the job with me, I would have continued to be your boss. Which would have made it rather unacceptable for me to ask you out.”

In the space of that breath, with the silence heavy between them even as they stand right beside a crowded room, even as Dr. Danbury’s voice crows easily above the others, still practiced from projecting through the university lecture hall, he wonders if she is going to leave him like this, cards on the table, only the fall below him.

“Well,” she finally says, slow as anything. She is looking up at him, considering and careful, but he knows that her mind must be working at triple its already remarkable speed. “If I’m going to be around the city, and there’s no conflict of interest…”

He doesn’t entirely like the way it is turning into something neat and logical in front of him when he’s never felt anything close to that around her. He doesn’t like the way she looks tentative, pushing back against the edge of something more than caution - fear, perhaps, as if this might be a trick, as if the idea of allowing herself to crack open is unbearably terrifying, and it looks wrong on her face, so bold and familiar, he never wants to see that expression there again. He reaches out across the space, and when she reaches back, he takes her hand.

“Kate,” he says. “You are the most infuriating person I’ve ever known and possibly the smartest, you are wildly, overly principled and somehow make me want to be the same, you never let me have a moment’s peace, I can’t stop thinking about you, and I’d like to go on a date with you.”

“Well, that does sum things up nicely, Anthony,” she tells him, and despite herself, he can see a little snatch of a smile just there, the warmth growing in her eyes as they look right into him, the fear working its way from her. Still, she tries for nonchalance as she says, “My contract with the campaign doesn’t end until Friday. We can do Saturday night, if you’re up for it.”

He’s up for it. He takes her out Saturday night for dinner, hides a smile as she pokes fun at his shoes, gets into an argument with her about education funding, and goes to bed more distracted by a half hour of pressing her against her front door (and then onto her sofa for another twenty minutes) than he has any right to be considering he isn’t fourteen. He spends Sunday night with her too, and on Monday they go to see a movie they both hate but can’t stop talking about, and he is fairly certain he is going to spend essentially every night with her for the rest of his life.

It isn’t peaceful - and only likely to get busier once they both really get back to work - and her dog is a nuisance and Colin tries to take credit for the whole thing, and they’re so happy that neither of them cares.

#Bridgerton #Bridgerton fic #Anthony Bridgerton #Kate Sheffield #kathony #(is that what we're calling them?) #Kate/Anthony

[writing-frenzy]

Airplane Crossing Over Plots~

Like it says on the tin, these were ideas I had for crossovers involving our fav writer~ (EDIT: Thank you @guiltycorp for inspiring this a bit XD)

Now, I’ve mentioned before, with Airplane choosing the go home option, he ends up still with a golden core in all this mess but he needs to cultivate his body really carefully because of it. (come on, he put in all the time and effort to be an immortal master, he should be able to still have his bad ass skills; not to mention with it being a soul thing, because a golden core is just as spiritual as it is physical, so he will definitely still have it.)

So, sealing his core and having his Nascent Soul outside his body to relieve some of the pressure on it, (having it look like a little chibi SQH that usually hangs out in hoodie pockets or hiding in Airplane’s hair with an aura of disguise around it), Airplane has to go and actually work out, which isn’t too much of a hardship for him at least, seeing as he’s had years to get into a routine and survival instincts kicking in to help him out there.

And, he may have actually started taking school seriously again, actually applying himself, maybe even getting an online accounting job to help supply his income. When he’s steady with that, he finishes PIDW the way he had been leading up to, the ending that makes the most sense and satisfices the writer the most (and if it gives him some closure, he isn’t saying anything about that.) Now that he is finally free from PIDW, and has college and work to worry about, he writes whenever he damn well pleases, and whatever he wants to fuck what anyone says.

(He might or might not write some absolutely filthy porn whenever the mood hits him, and cackles how his fans both greedily read it and cry because his newer works are so tragic, even if they have happy endings at times. Yes, Airplane Shooting Towards the Sky is a porn writer, but first and foremost is he an angst writer more~ His fan’s tears and cries just make him stronger kind of writer~)

(I just honestly want Airplane to write what he wants to now, that is one of the biggest motives behind all this honestly)

So, we have the set up :D let’s get to what we can cross over here~

First Up: ~Cutivation Group Chat~

Come on, how can one resist this? Plopping good old Airplane into this wild ride is one of the few things that makes me so happy in life. The thought of it makes me grin, especially since it can go two ways in my opinion~

First way: Airplane replaces Song Shuhang; like, just seeing Airplane, who was an Immortal Master and Teacher in those situations would be so funny, yet intriguing as well to see how he handles it, because you know he’ll be able to, just in ways no one ever expects. (Besides, that werid luck of Shuhang’s would be perfect for him, tho he won’t seek death like the other would~ :D Airplane still has a lovely sense of self-preservation~)

Second way: Airplane is one of Song Shuhang’s roommates. (for this, I’m going to say their Dorm was big enough for five peeps, because I want Airplane to have more friends damn-it.) Just... the imagery of the two neutral disasters getting into so much mayhem and hijinxs together, giving Song Shuhang not only a friend/brother in arms he can always depend and rely on, but also a steady source for learning and cultivation as well :D

(Also, Airplane and Gou Moumou being writer friends, the two of them able to bounce ideas on to each other (oh god, now you have inspired me, how dare you make me write this./hahahaha, you know you want too/ bitch turnabout is fair play/ ah fuck.) also: just the image of Airplane meeting Senior White and being completely unaffected because not only is his survival instincts going in overdrive, but also:

Airplane: ? He’s not my type.

Everyone: *jaws dropped*

:D Anyways~

Second Idea: Card Room (Rebirth)

Now First, for those who don’t know Card Room (Rebirth), this is an action/survival/mystery thriller BL Unlimited Flow type of novel; it follows one Xiao Lou, a medical professor who specializes with examining the dead, and his journeys through multiple rooms after having died in reality, the difficulty of each of these rooms measured with Playing Cards from 2 to K and with different types of rooms being sorted by their suits of Hearts (Mystery), Diamonds (Puzzle), Spade (Survival), Club (Luck/Money). The Goal of the story is to beat all the rooms and return back to the world of the living once more. To aid in this, people can get special cards to help them fight/ take care of their health/ or even just daily life essentials to be able to actually get through places. 

So... this means after getting all used to living once more and getting into his grove in the modern world... Airplane unfortunately kicks the bucket, yet again! Thing is, this time it happened after he played a card game with some of his roommates, I’m going to say poker, and they were betting who would do what chores. Aiplane managed to make out pretty well, and was pleased with it, so was very much bummed when he ended up dying yet again.  He goes through the room, some by the skin of his teeth, but with his cultivation abilities still usable (can’t stop something on a soul level here) he gets by okay. Though, all his cards either deal with writing, supplies, and the rare cultivation one at times.

He gets by at least.

Now, because this series gives me some emotions, here is one thing I will say: Airplane and Liu Ying end up partnering up and break through together, because damn it, Liu Qiao and her sis deserve some damn happiness ;-; Maybe Airplane and Liu Ying meet by chance, Airplane impressed by the young woman’s intelligence and Liu Ying can in turn be grateful for Airplane’s resourcefulness. Maybe even include the original girl that Liu Ying teamed up with, So we have three people already in your team to survive! (because surviving the rooms 2-4 is already damn amazing considering how hellish they get :D ) 

This is a fun crossover for me to imagine honestly, because it would be perfect to showcase Airplane’s skills in logic, reasoning, and pure survival our boy is known for; let that resourceful and logistic riddled mind out to play as he fights to get the fuck out of this world, even if The City of the Moon is beautiful and all.

:D So, those were the ideas I would like to really see, but here is some more for anyone curious:

Honorable Mentions: These are ones I would love to see Airplane accidently going into, and just going yikes, or nope! or even ‘Really?’

Lord of End of World:

... This story, it concerns me greatly; I like the worldbuilding, even has a few really cool girls in it, and I find the protagonist rather curious (to an extent, blackened Gary Stu that he is...) but does it make me cringe at times with the underage theme to it; it’s part of their cultivation and all, but god damn does the way this story push some of it really sqink me out, I had to drop it because it made me so uncomfortable, so just a heads up there. this is one of those stories that makes me want to write spite fiction, but also make me cringe at the thought of remembering it at times.

Anyways, so, how it boils down to it is that this poor guy, known as the Young Master of the Unground Palace, was abused in all the ways one can practically be abused, just so their Master can get stronger themselves by forming the perfect cauldron to absorb, but who manages to kill their master only to die as well. He ends up transmigrating into Gong Lixin, a 16 year old wealthy young master about a year (I believe) before the apocalypse happens... (Like I said, I have so many damn issues with this damn story, I cry.)

Just, on one hand, imagining Airplane in this world also makes me laugh (and maybe hope), because maybe here Gong Lixin could actually learn a cultivation style thats not only suited to him, but also doesn’t need him to dual cultivate all the time and rely on cauldrons (maybe get some needed therapy as well, Airplane knows some peeps; I can dream~), he can have a stable, reliable teacher here who will have no lust or attraction to him, Airplane helping the kid out at first because they look like they’re recovered from a really bad Qi-Devitation and the teacher in him can’t leave that alone. Airplane can also relate with the youth about transmigrating, maybe even telling him about his own time with that. (And Airplane can use his own cultivation to smack around any bitch looking sideways at his student, because fuck that shit, he is only seventeen and traumatized.) Just, turning this story into a cute mentor and discipleship and emotional healing would make me so happy.

Monster Inn Rectification Report

So, this is another Transmigration story~ MC transmigrates as a poor canon fodder son, who would have ended up in a vegetable state after being neglected in favor of the super amazing awesome adopted son. He then goes on to accidently inheriting a supernatural end for Monsters~

Like, this idea makes me grin evilly; though things will change up a bit, since both of Airplane’s parents have already split up and have their own families? Just, the Former An Ding Peak Lord running an Inn? :D Building it from ground up from bascially nothing? :D Oh, man, this man has run worse things, and even a Demon Kingdom, he got you~

Supernatural Movie Actor App

Its a BL about a guy with a split personality who does realistic (as in for real) horror movies through an app, to get his wish to come true.

This actually goes really good with my idea of Airplane wanting to be an actor and all, only to have his dreams crushed :D He doesn’t at first realize what he is getting into when he gets the app, thinking it might be a chance for him to still be able to do his dream, only, surprise, surprise, he ends up entering a real life Horror movie environment~ I’m really curious about what he would dream about~

I Have Medicine

:D Airplane and Gu Zuo interactions make me smile~ these two would be so fun, seeing them bounce off each other would be a treat.

So What if You’re Reborn

.... hahahahahaha, oh, the chaos that could be unleashed in this timeline would be glorious~

Running Away From the Hero

:)

#SVSSS #Scum Villain Self Saving System #Scum Villain Self-Saving System #Airplane Shooting Toward the Sky #Shang Qinghua #Cultivation Group Chat #Card Room (Rebirth)

[heliads]

Away With Me Chapter 4: The Village

Princess Y/N is dreading her looming arranged marriage to a wicked nobleman when she makes an unlikely friend in castle craftsman Peter Parker. Will they be able to become close despite their differences in status?

previous / series masterlist / next

When the morning sun is finally too bright to ignore, you blink open your eyes, still tired.

You look up at the arched wooden ceiling, letting a slow smile cross your face. Here you are, lying calmly next to the boy your love. For the first time, you don’t have to worry about any marriage contract or palace decorum- you are finally free of all responsibilities except to live happily with Peter.

Speaking of Peter, the brown-haired boy is waking up, too. He presses a light kiss to your forehead and stands up, stretching. The two of you eat a quick breakfast before he heads out to the town center- he needs to check in on his job as village craftsman to make sure everything looks alright. You, on the other hand, have absolutely nothing planned. Well, what else can you do except go explore?

You pull on a faded green dress from the bag you brought with you, fixing your hair quickly before heading out the door. You bask for just a moment in the warm sun, then start on your journey.

You make sure to walk every inch of the village, not wanting to miss seeing a single street or cobbled square. Most houses have small flowering boxes or neatly trimmed gardens encircling them like a gate of greenery, and you make a note to yourself to look into making a garden of your own. Wouldn’t it be fun to have your own wandering lines of flowers and ferns in the back of your house? You stroll past bakeries and blacksmiths, milliners and marketplaces. At last, you are thrilled to discover a small bookshop, and eagerly slip inside.

The bookseller runs a quiet little shop, closed away from the hustle and bustle of an early morning. The cool air is scented slightly by the old books, and the rustle of fading pages is music to your ears. You feel like you could spend hours in that darkened store, but you tear yourself away after a while. You do allow yourself to buy one book though, a small book of fables that caught your eye with its intricate leather bindings and detailed illustrations.

As you stride out of the bookseller’s, blinking in the sudden sunlight, you catch sight of a young girl struggling to carry two buckets full of water. She barely looks older than five, and the buckets are so full that the water inside threatens to slosh over onto the street, ruining all of the girl’s hard work. Instantly, you run over, taking one of the buckets. The girl looks at you gratefully, and you follow her to a bakery, where she hands the buckets over to a thin-faced woman in a flour-covered apron.

The girl considers you for a moment, then sticks out her hand solemnly. “My name is Charlotte.” You take the girl’s hand with equal formality. “I am Y/N.” Charlotte peers at the book you’ve just purchased. “Thank you for helping me with the water. Is that a book from the bookseller’s down the road?” You nod, smiling. “I just bought it a few minutes ago. Have you read this one?” The girl shakes her head sadly. “I’m needed to help my mother with the bakery, so I don’t have time to go to school and learn to read. I’d like to though, a whole lot.” You smile at the girl, forming an idea. “What if I taught you how to read?” Charlotte’s face lights up. “Really? You mean it?” You nod, taking the book out from your bag and guiding the little girl over to a bench. “Absolutely. Let’s begin.”

Charlotte turns out to be a quick learner, and the two of you go through some letters before her mother calls her once more. Just before she goes, Charlotte begs you to come back the next day and teach her even more, and you readily agree. Smiling over the girl’s excitement, you wander your way back home.

Peter is waiting for you, and he kisses you in greeting once you open the front door. “How was your first day being a commoner like the rest of us?” You laugh, and swat him on the shoulder. “It was just wonderful.” And it was- the feeling of being free to do whatever you want instead of adhering to the guidelines of royalty is one of the best feelings in the world.

Most of your days pass like this- Peter heading off to work, you helping Charlotte learn to read or work on your (admittedly struggling) garden or finding some other way to help out around the village. You and Peter are easily welcomed into the village, and it brings you no small amount of joy that you can live with the boy you love and have such a wonderful time doing so. 

Peter is glad that you fit in so well, too, and whenever he’s out in town he always does his best to come see you at least once during the day. One time, he came to visit during your daily lessons with Charlotte, and the beaming smile on his face when he saw the two of you bent over a book could have outshone even the sun.

Blessed hours turn into days, and glorious days turn into weeks. Before you know it, you have lived in the village for three months. To celebrate, you brought home a cookbook from the bookseller’s, and Peter comes home to find you studying a recipe for cherry pie with all the solemnity of one of the kingdom’s highest scholars.

“What’s all this about?” Peter walks up behind you, taking in all of the pots and pans you’ve used as well as the cookbook. You turn to him, grinning. “I am celebrating our three-month anniversary of living in the village. I made a pie, which should be ready right about-” You’re cut off by your clock striking the hour, and hurry over to your oven. “Right about now!”

Luckily for you, the pie looks perfect, and you and Peter hurry to set the table before it cools off completely. Just before you can cut into it, though, there’s a loud knock at the door. Peter looks at you confusedly. “Were you expecting anyone?” You shake your head, but Peter’s eyes clear. “It must have been old Mr. Bennett from down the road. He always does this whenever I start on a new project for him- I’ve barely been working for longer than a minute before he’s coming back to the shop and listing some other new idea. I’ll answer him- it’ll just be another moment.

Peter stands up and walks over to the door, unlocking it and pulling it open. At the look of fear flashing across his face you stand up, too, and realize with growing horror that it is not simply old Mr. Bennett at the door, but instead, the King’s Guard stands before you.

“Mr. Parker? You are under arrest for the kidnapping of Princess Y/N. You will be coming with us.” The guards step forward, and you realize that everything the two of you have worked so hard for, the life that you have enjoyed so much, is crumbling around you.

You race forward and stand close to Peter, wrapping your arms around him. “No! You can’t take him!” The captain of the guards moves towards you, and pulls you away from him. You fight as hard as you can, but before you know it Peter is being dragged out of the room and you are left alone. You crumple to the ground, sobbing.

When you finally are forced back to the castle, you immediately go to your room and lock the door. No matter how many times your father or your guards or even your ladies-in-waiting try to convince you to let them in, that door remains locked. You cry and cry for what feels like forever, mourning the loss of your life with Peter. It had all happened so fast- one minute the two of you were sitting down to dinner, no worries in sight, and then the guards had swooped in and taken him away from you. The cherry pie was probably still on the table, uneaten. Would little Charlotte know what had happened to you? Would the people of the village know?

Later that night, you’re finally able to slip away from the newly posted guards at your door long enough to see Peter. You wind your way through the dank passages of the dungeons until you reach Peter’s cell, and, without alerting the dungeonmaster (nicknamed ‘The Vulture’ by the castle staff because of his harsh treatment of the prisoners) or the guards patrolling the cells, you unlock the cell door and fling your arms around the boy you love. He holds onto you tightly, and you cry quietly into his shoulder.

“Oh, Peter, I’m so sorry! I never meant for any of this to happen- this is all my fault- I never should have-” Peter cuts you off softly. “Never should have what? I don’t regret meeting you or falling in love with you for a second. It was my idea to run away together, and I probably should have made sure that we went further away from the castle.” You pull back from Peter for just a second, taking in the sight of him. You lace your fingers in between his, and guide him out of the cell. 

“Where are we going?” Peter asks you in a hushed whisper, desperate to not attract any unwelcome attention. “I’m getting you out of here. Come on!” You guide your love through the passageways and out of the dungeons until the two of you are standing near a castle entrance, lit only by the light of the rising moon. You thrust a bag of food into Peter’s hands. “There’s a horse not too far from here, I saw it from my window. If you hurry now, you should be able to get out of here before anyone realizes.”

Peter looks at you, confused, but you continue on. “The von Struckers are angry that I ran away from the wedding, so my father is going off of some lie that you kidnapped me. By pretending that it was all your fault, he can keep the marriage intact and still get the money and resources that our kingdom so desperately needs. The problem is, kidnapping a princess is a terrible crime and they’d probably kill you.”

Peter laughs at that. “I’m not against leaving. Come on, let’s go.” He takes a few steps towards the door, but looks back at you when he realizes that you haven’t followed him. “Come on, Y/N. You said it yourself- we need to get out of here before the guards realize we’re gone.” You shake your head softly, trying to hold back tears. “The guards won’t realize I’m gone because I’ll be back in my room. You know I can’t go with you, Peter.”

Peter rushes back to you, holding you close in his arms. “Why not, Y/N? We could make it out- no one would notice-” You laugh mournfully. “I would love nothing more than to run away with you. Those few months we had in the village were the best of my life, but the guards found us because they were looking for me. If I stay here, they won’t come and find you, and you being safe is worth a hundred terrible marriages.” You gently disentangle yourself from Peter’s arms. “You need to go. There’s only so much time we have.”

Peter looks at you, and you swear you can feel his heart breaking right along with yours. “I can’t let you go, Y/N, you know that. Please, come with me.” You take one step back, hating yourself all the while. “I need you to be safe. I need you to live! Take the horse, and go as far away from here as you can and never come back. I will miss you every second of every day, but it will be worth it if I know you will be alive.” Peter rushes to you once more, and kisses you one last time. “I will never forget you, Y/N. I will love you for as long as I live.”

With that, Peter holds you tight one last time, and then quickly races off into the night. He turns back once, just before he’s out of view, and you watch him go for as long as you can. Once he fully disappears from sight, you let out the tears you’ve been holding back. Peter is gone, and you will never love again.

#peter parker #peter parker imagine #peter parker x reader #peter parker imagines #spiderman #spiderman imagine #spiderman x reader #spiderman imagines #spiderman homecoming #spiderman far from home #royalty au #peter parker royalty au

[emybain]

Quarantine: Renegades Edition

so please don’t take this seriously. i honestly don’t remember writing half of it, but it be like that. this is simply a glimpse into the lives of Nova and Adrian during a global pandemic, aka snippets of the few months they’re in quarantine together. also, happy birthday to my girl nova. there’s a bonus/crack scene at the end that was inspired by tiktok, as well. i regret nothing (other than this poorly written fic)

ao3

“They’re saying this thing could spread into June, July, maybe even August,” Adrian said, relaxing back into the leather couch, pulling the laptop with him. Nova adjusted against him, pulling the blanket over her legs just a little higher as the AC powered on. 

“That’s if people keep being dumbasses,” Danna replied from behind the screen, leaning forward to rest her head in her palm. “It’s our job as citizens to prevent the spread of this disease. Why can’t people get that through their thick heads?”

Nova and Adrian were on a video call with the rest of their friends, who were all also quarantined in their homes. Nova had her own apartment, but at the very start of this outbreak—a new disease that was rapidly spreading around the world—she decided that quarantining by herself for an unknown amount of time wouldn’t be good for her mental health, so she packed up clothing and other essentials and headed over to the Everhart-Westwood residence. Not to mention that a mansion was vastly better than a one room apartment. Oh yeah, and she supposed being stuck with her boyfriend every day wasn’t so bad. 

“They’re being ignorant,” Nova chipped in. “People think that they’re immune, or that this virus is being blown out of proportion.”

“When they get sick, I’ll laugh.” Ruby popped a cracker in her mouth before the camera became blurry as she moved. She appeared to have shifted from lying on her back to her stomach from a spot on her bed. There was minimal background noise from her end, which was suspicious since she shared a room with two teenage boys. They must’ve been off playing video games, probably who Max was laughing with from his room upstairs. 

Narcissa poked her head out from behind a lengthy book from her place on Danna’s bed in the background of Danna’s screen.. Like Nova, she lived by herself, and would rather be with her significant other than be alone. “This isn’t the first time a pandemic has spread throughout the world. There was the European Virus fifty years ago, coronavirus back in the 21st century, the Spanish Flu in the 20th century, and so on and so forth.” She waved a hand in the air. “Hopefully, people will come to their senses. History always repeats itself, no matter how hard we may try to prevent it.”

“Thanks for the optimistic input, babe.” Danna rolled her eyes and cast a glance back at her girlfriend.

“It’s what I do,” Narcissa replied, returning her attention back to her book, but there was a smile on her face. 

“Well, maybe when things start to calm down a bit, we can all hang out. A picnic or in cars or something.” Oscar shrugged. “Six feet apart, of course. I’m not about to catch something from you nasty people.

“Did you just suggest a picnic?” Ruby snorted. “You might want to check your temperature. I think you’re getting sick.”

“You seem to forget all about the many picnics we’ve had.”

Ruby stuck her tongue out in response, then straightened a little and turned her head to the side. “What?” she yelled. After a moment, she turned back to the screen and groaned. “Ugh, I have to go. Mom’s making me bake with her again. Maybe this time we’ll try something besides bread or cookies.” She waved at them before she vanished from the meeting. 

At that moment, the front door clicked and opened, revealing Hugh and Simon, both carrying multiple grocery bags. 

“My dads just got home from the store. We should probably go help.” Adrian sat up, leaving Nova to fall a little in his direction as she had been leaning on him. 

“Hi Adrian’s Dads!” Oscar yelled, though they were already out of the room when he did so. Nonetheless, they both shouted back their greetings from the kitchen. 

“I should probably go, too. There’s this show I started bingeing and I finished the fifth season last night. I’m dying to know what happens after that cliffhanger.” Danna leaned back in her chair. 

“Oh, is it that one you were telling me about?” Nova raised her eyebrows. “Based off of that movie series?”

“Yes! And watch it so I can rant to you about it! I’m so pissed off at the main characters. They’re just...so stupid.”

With that, the remaining five waved and said their goodbyes. Adrian set the laptop down on the coffee table in front of them, and they both stood up. Nova stretched, her muscles tired from sitting for nearly an hour. 

In the kitchen, Hugh was unloading the bags while Simon busied himself with spraying the items with cleaner and wiping them down with a paper towel. A couple of weeks into quarantine and Nova and Adrian knew what to do. They got to work putting stuff away, with Nova on pantry duty and Adrian at the fridge. 

Although Nova hadn’t been out in public since the world went into quarantine, she could tell that the grocery stores and other places were beginning to recover from the initial shock of the pandemic. With each trip to the store, Adrian’s parents came back with more and more food and supplies. Hugh had even decided to buy a fridge to store out in the garage for extra food that didn’t fit inside. She found that to be a bit ridiculous, but it seemed to make him happy. What was it with men and having fridges out in their garages?

“Is Max upstairs?” Simon asked, pushing a milk jug toward Adrian. 

“Yeah. I think he’s playing video games.” Adrian shot Nova a look, and she repressed a smile; they both knew what was about to come. 

“Has he done any schoolwork since we left two hours ago? Or at least left his room?” 

“I think he left to use the bathroom about forty five minutes ago,” Nova said. She glanced at the knock-off brand of her favorite crackers in her hand and sighed, placing it on a shelf. The off-brand wasn’t bad, but it certainly wasn’t the same. It was the type of product that you had to buy name brand, as the imitations were just a waste of money. Alas, with the pandemic, she knew it was a fight to get the good products before anyone else. 

“He’ll get it done, Pops,” Adrian reassured. “He’s been doing fine the last couple of weeks. Just going at his own pace, is all.”

“I know.” A sigh escaped Simon’s mouth. “And I’m glad that he’s able to be a kid now, but being a kid includes doing your homework.”

Nova thought of the classes she was taking at a local university. She was doing her best to keep up with her online work, but as the weeks dragged on, she was losing motivation. “This quarantine is probably nothing for Max, remember? I’m sure he does his work whenever he wants to because he actually enjoys doing it.” She shrugged. “Better than sitting around surrounded by glass walls.” 

“You’re probably right,” Hugh added, washing his hands once the last of the groceries were out of the bags. “I’m not too worried about him, just as long as I get to see his face once a day.” He chuckled at his own words. Simon offered a smile in support. 

Once all the groceries were stored away, Nova and Adrian headed downstairs, taking the laptop with them. 

__________

Adrian stood from his seat, where he had previously already been on edge. 

“Nova, where are you going?” The glare he received was enough to scare off anyone else. He had seen this side of her before, though, and was unfazed. “It’s almost midnight,” he added, only increasing the glare.

“Anywhere but here.” Her eyes turned to Hugh, who crossed his arms in response. The two were arguing. Again. It was something that was new to their quarantine, having only surfaced about a week ago. They liked to argue over literally anything, from who got to have control over the remote to whether or not Nova should be a part of their daily “family walks” to the current state of the government and the involvement of the Renegades, who were no longer in charge but were still heavily tied into politics. Hell, even the weather wasn’t safe from their growing agitation with one another. Today, everything had been going fine, for once, until Hugh just had to bring up a curfew, as Nova liked to leave the house at odd hours. 

“This house is a fucking nightmare.” She gripped the keys to her motorcycle in her hand and turned to the door. From beside him, Adrian heard Max mutter something about irony under his breath. He too, despite entering the years of being a disagreeable teenager, was sick of the fighting. 

“Language, young lady,” Hugh said, warning laced in his tone. 

“Once again, you’re not my dad,” Nova gritted out. She opened the front door, revealing the darkness outside. “And you never will be.”

“Nova, what he’s asking isn’t completely unreasonable.” Simon ran a hand through his hair and leaned forward, resting his elbows on his knees. “You’re in our home for who knows how long, so as parents, you’re now our responsibility. Even when you’re not under our roof, you’re our responsibility. We just want you to be safe.”

“If you don’t want to follow our simple rules, then why are you even here? We’re paying for an apartment not two miles north from here, and you’re not even there. Instead you’re here, wasting our time and resources.” Even though the words weren’t directed at him, Adrian felt a chill go down his spine. 

Nova’s mouth opened, and she stared at Hugh blankly. Adrian could’ve sworn he saw her eyes welling up. “I’m here because I didn’t want to be alone. I’ve been alone my entire goddamn life, and I didn’t know if I could handle doing it again.” She swallowed, hand turning on the screen door. “But it’s not like I expect you to understand.” And then she was out the door. 

Adrian rushed forward, eyeing his dad coldly. “Seriously?”

“She’s out of line!” Hugh defended, although Adrian could see the regret in his features. 

Choosing not to answer him, Adrian shook his head and went outside. Nova was at the end of the driveway, sitting on her motorcycle and looking down at the ground. Adrian approached her slowly, making sure his steps were loud so that she knew he was there. 

“I don’t walk to talk about it.” She hid her face even more from him when he bent down. “You’re welcome to come with me, but I don’t want you to get in trouble for breaking curfew.” Her voice soured at the word. 

“I understand why you’re mad, but don’t avoid me because of it.” He lightly nudged her chin with his knuckles. 

“He’s just so...so…” she lifted her head up, running a hand through her hair in frustration as she tried to find the right words

“Stubborn? Controlling? Self righteous?”

“Yes.” She let out a laugh, though it was void of humor. “It’s just...who does he think he is? I’m an adult. Even if he was my father, he can’t control what I can and cannot do.”

“You seem to forget that I’ve had to live with him for years,” Adrian said dryly. He reached for her hand and laced their fingers together. “I’m an  adult, too, but that doesn’t matter because he pays the bills.”

Nova gave him a long look. “You really need your own place.”

“Don’t remind me.”

“But you get what I mean.” She looked down at their hands, turning them around to examine the back of his. “I’m not his kid. It’s different with you because you’re his son.”

“That doesn’t mean he doesn’t want to keep you safe.” Her grip on him tightened, just slightly. Even though it had been a few years since the events surrounding the supernova, Nova still had trouble believing that her former enemies actually cared about her. It was hard to trust them when it had been ingrained in her from a young age that they were the bad guys. 

“I can take care of myself fine. I’ve been out in the middle of the night so many times I’ve lost count. I’ve been doing it since I was a kid.” 

Adrian sighed and rubbed his thumb over the back of her hand. There wouldn’t be any reasoning with her, at least not tonight. He had to let her cool down and return to the subject when she had a clearer mind. “At least come back inside? We can go play video games downstairs, or watch a movie, or do anything you want. I’m sure once you and Hugh are both calmed down, you can reach a compromise.” 

“But I don’t want a fucking com-”

“Or he’ll see things your way,” he tacked on quickly. Right. When she got like this, it had to be her way. It was funny, how she resented Hugh at times for his stubbornness, when she was equally as stubborn if not more so. This quarantine was really getting to all of them. Adrian couldn’t wait for the day life could go back to normal. 

“Adrian? Nova?” Adrian turned his head around to see Max, who was squinting at them through the dark, despite the outside lights being on. 

“What’s up, Max?” Nova shifted her body on the bike to face the teen. 

“Pops wants to know if you’re coming inside soon. He needs to set the alarm so he and Dad can go to bed.” Max paused, eyeing the bike. “Unless you’re going for a ride, then he’ll leave it off.”

Adrian waited for Nova to answer, as it was up to her. Nova ran her free hand over the bike, then sighed. 

“We’ll be in right behind you. I was just...checking some things on her.” All three knew she was lying, but Nova was still learning how to express her emotions in front of others. Even in front of Max, someone she got along with as well as she did with Adrian. 

“Alright.” Max turned to leave, then glanced back at her. “You know, things are rough right now, and I know it isn’t easy for everyone to be in isolation for so long, but,” he shrugged, “at least we’re together. I was able to make it in a quarantine for ten years with no one but myself and the doctors for company, so this is easy for me, but I know I’m probably the only person on this planet who thinks that way.” He let out a soft laugh. “I guess I’m just trying to say that I’m glad you’re here, and that I’m glad our family is quarantining together.” The smile he shot her was genuine. He turned back around and walked back to the house, where Adrian could see the outlines of his dads watching at the door. 

“Huh.” Adrian watched his brother go inside. “Just when you think he’s starting to learn how to be a proper kid-”

“-he goes and spouts shit like that?” Nova finished, shaking her head. Adrian could see the small smile on her face through the curls hiding her features. 

“Yeah.” Adrian squeezed her hand. “C’mon, let’s go back inside.”

“Okay.” 

__________

Nova placed the mixing bowl in the sink and turned on the faucet. She reached into a drawer and grabbed a towel, placing it under the running water. The kitchen was a mess, although she had seen it in worse states. At least the ingredients were all stored away so that she could get started on wiping down the counters. Hugh and Simon were at headquarters for the day, as their presence was required for something Nova didn’t care enough to know about, and they figured it would be best to work from there instead of coming home. And, according to Simon, them being out in public and at headquarters would be good for publicity. It had been a while since they stepped into work, seeing as even the Renegades had to obey social distancing orders. 

Point being, they were out of the house, so Nova could do whatever she wanted without questions being asked. And she had grown to appreciate baking during quarantine, among her long list of new and revisited hobbies. The Everhart-Westwoods always, to Nova’s surprise, had sweet tooths, so they never minded that Nova made a mess of their kitchen; it was just when Hugh or Simon entered the kitchen and started asking a bunch of questions that got on Nova’s nerves. Today, she could bake in peace. 

Or so she thought.

“Mm. Smells good in here.” She looked up at her boyfriend, who just entered the room. He peeked at the oven. “Cupcakes?”

“Muffins,” Nova corrected, setting the used towel next to the sink. There was dried paint on his forehead, as well as on his hands. She had to shake her head. How was it possible to get so dirty? Well, she should speak for herself and her flour-covered apron. 

“Oh, well, same thing.” He shrugged and grabbed a water glass from a cabinet. 

Nova blinked and reached for the remote, which was sitting beside her, and paused the show she was watching on the kitchen’s small TV. “No. No not really.”

Adrian chuckled and nudged her lightly as he passed her to the fridge. “Yeah, kind of. The only difference is cupcakes have frosting.”

Nova scoffed. “The only difference? They’re two completely different things. That’s like saying ice cream and gelato are the same.”

Adrian turned to face her, leaning against the fridge. He took a sip of his water. “Ice cream and gelato are the same. One’s just claimed by the Italians.” 

She couldn’t believe what she was hearing. “Those aren’t the same, either, dumbass. Ice cream, clearly from its name, has more cream than gelato. And gelato’s more dense than ice cream. Those are just two differences.” She crossed her arms. “There are more.” 

“And? What does that have to do with muffins and cupcakes?” 

“Because they’re not the same.” Nova had to laugh at the absurdity of it all. And Adrian claimed he was a smart person. Yeah, maybe smart compared to sloths. “Muffins are considered a bread. Cupcakes are...well...cake. Two completely different recipes. You can’t just slap some frosting on a blueberry muffin and say it’s a cupcake. Maybe it looks like one, but the flavor and textures are way off.”

“They both are made the exact same way, babe. No difference.” With the way he was smirking, Nova had the thought that he could just be messing with her.

“Don’t ‘babe’ me.” She glared at him. “Fine. If you won’t believe me, the baker, then you don’t have to eat any of my muffins. Not cupcakes.” 

He groaned and reached for her, but she dove out of his reach. “Nova, don’t be like this. I’m sorry. They’re not the same, okay? Happy?”

“Not until you’re honest.” She checked the timer above the oven. “I’m going downstairs for a minute.” Pointing a finger at him, she added, “Don’t mess with them. I’ll know.”

“Admitting defeat?” he called at her back. 

“Hell no,” she tossed over her shoulder. “This conversation is far from over, buddy.”

She definitely heard him mutter rudely how he knew, but chose to ignore it. After all, she was the bigger person in the relationship. 

__________

Adrian turned into a parking spot and turned off the car. He glanced over at Nova, who was giving him a very pointed look.

“The park? What did you plan? A picnic?” That was, in fact, the plan, but only part of it. 

Leaning over, he planted a gentle kiss on her lips. It only softened the look a little. “You’ll see, nosey.” He unbuckled himself and opened the driver door. “Now, come on.”

She rolled her eyes, but got out as well. Seeing her in a pair of cutoff shorts and a simple t-shirt was refreshing, as she had been wearing sweats for the past two months, ever since the world was sent into quarantine. She and Adrian both had been dawning the same three pairs of pants and shirts for weeks now. But, this was the first time they both actually got out of the house, save for their daily walks or motorcycle/car rides, so it was only fitting to get dressed up for the occasion. And by dressed up he meant ditching the sweatpants. 

Also, it was Nova’s birthday. Adrian hated that she was being forced to spend it unceremoniously, when so many of her birthdays had gone practically unnoticed growing up with the Anarchists, so he took it upon himself as her boyfriend to do what he could for her. And that meant having a socially distanced picnic in the park with their friends, who they hadn’t seen in person in months. 

They walked down the sidewalk hand in hand, going into the grass whenever a biker or runner passed by them to maintain distance. Adrian almost wanted to pull his mask out from his pocket, but knew he was probably fine. Besides, if he put his mask on, Nova would follow, and he knew how much she hated wearing them, for obvious reasons. They were outside, and there were hardly any people in the park.

“You’re an idiot, Adrian Everhart,” Nova said once they could see their friends, but there was a smile on her face. They were all spread out on blankets, making a circle, and in the center sat an unoccupied blanket piled with food and gifts. 

“Hey, I can’t take all the credit.” He squeezed her hand, grinning down at her. 

“It’s about time you two showed up,” Oscar said, checking his watch. “We’ve been here for hours. We’re starving.” He stood and went to the middle to start making a plate. Adrian made a face at his back. He had specifically asked that they wait for Nova until they started eating in the group chat, so he guessed Oscar was holding his word. He waited, after all. 

“Twenty minutes,” Danna corrected from her spot beside Narcissa. She looked at them and rolled her eyes. “Happy Birthday, Nova.”

Everyone chorused in their ‘Happy Birthdays’ and Nova thanked them as she and Adrian sat down on the one remaining blanket. “You guys didn’t have to go and do this for me.” She turned her gaze specifically toward Adrian. He raised his hands in defense.

“Blame Oscar for putting the idea in my head. All he ever talks about when we video call is how bored he is.”

“That’s true.” Nova shook her head in amusement. “This is very sweet, but don’t expect me to cry or anything.”

“You cried on your seventeenth birthday, and that’s enough for us,” Ruby teased. 

“That was literally two years ago.” Nova ran a hand over her face. “It meant nothing.” 

“Mhm,” was Ruby’s response, but Adrian could tell she wasn’t convinced. None of them were, obviously.

Nova peered at the food pile. “Is that Mediterranean pizza I see?”

“Yeah, and it’s all yours,” Oscar clarified, passing a plate he made for Ruby to her before sitting down himself. “I still don’t understand how you like that. There’s not even meat on it!”

“There’s also cannoli’s.” Adrian stood to go make them both plates. He knew that cannoli’s were one of the few desserts she liked, probably because they weren’t that heavy. “Do you want one or two?” 

She pondered the question for a moment, then smiled at him. “Two.”

When he returned with their food, she leaned over and pressed a kiss to his cheek.

“What was that for?” He handed her plate over.

“For being you, and for giving me the best birthdays ever.” She shifted her body to lean against him. “How’d you know I wanted to see everyone for my birthday, anyway?” 

“Because I know you.” He kissed her forehead. “Happy Birthday, Nova.”

__________

Bonus crack scene:

“I would like to thank everyone for joining me today,” Nova said, swirling the water in the wine glass she snatched from the cabinet. Since Hugh wouldn’t let her drink actual wine, this was the next best thing. She cleared her throat. “I took it upon myself to observe the members of this household over the course of a week and rate everyone on their performances.” She pointed to the pyramid of papers set up on the wall, held there by type. There were pictures of everyone in the household behind a white sheet of paper. Starting at the bottom on the left side was the worst member, and the one at the top was the best. Why she decided to do this, she had little clue, but she figured it would be an entertaining activity to spice up everyone’s day.

“Is that what this is? I thought it was something actually serious.” Hugh leaned back, crossing his arms over his chest. There was a smile on his lips. 

“It is serious.” She pointed her glass at him. The fast movement caused a bit of water to slosh over the side. “It has come to my attention that there are people in this household who have some improvement to work on if they want to move up next week.”

“If I’m not at the top, I’m breaking up with you,” Adrian joked, adjusting the glasses on his face. She narrowed her eyes at the camera he was pointing at her.

“I do not accept bribes.” Tearing off the first piece of paper, she began. There was a snicker, probably Max. “Hugh.” He immediately started protesting, but Nova silenced him. “No, no, no. You’re mean to me. Always looking to post up or some shit.”

“Language,” he warned, though his tone was light.

“Not to mention you don’t let me express my true self by cussing,” she added sharply. “Also, you tried to kill me three years ago and I’m sorry, but I just can’t forgive my haters like that. Try better next week, okay?”

“Hold on, wait a second.” Hugh held up a hand. “First of all, young lady, if you want to bring up the past, it goes both ways, but we’ve both changed for the be-”

“No comments at this time,” Nova interrupted. She ripped off the next sheet of paper. “Next up is Nova.” Laughter broke out in the room. Even she couldn’t help from smiling. “Not gonna lie, I held out hope for this one, but she’s got a lot of issues, if you know what I mean. Always picking an argument, refuses to participate in family activities, and is kind of just there. Doesn’t really do much of anything. The only reasons she’s above Hugh is because, for one, she’s far more attractive, and she bakes stuff for everyone.

“Adrian-”

“Oh, come on!”

“-you refused to cuddle with me yesterday and watch guilty pleasure movies because you said you were busy. You argued with me the other day on the validity of the Star Wars prequels and sequels.” She raised an eyebrow at him. “And you’re filming me without my consent. Other than those things, though,” she shrugged, “pretty cool boyfriend. You didn’t say anything when I stole one of your sweatshirts the other day, so that gets you some points.”

“Wait, the gray-”

“Max is next.” She tossed the white paper to the ground. “You never say anything mean to me, unlike some members in this household, but that could also be because you spend all day on video games. Because of that, I’m afraid you can’t be higher.”

“Hey, I’ll settle for third.” Max shrugged, grinning. 

“And that’s why I like you!” She nodded firmly. “In second place, we have Simon. Who doesn’t like Simon? You always have something nice to say, and on occasion, you’ll back me up in an argument because you’re an intellectual. I always enjoy our deep conversations, too. Truly a wonderful person.”

“Thank you, Nova. I enjoy our talks, as well.” Simon chuckled. He looked pretty pleased to be on top. 

“And that leaves us with,” she ripped off the last paper at the top, causing the room to erupt in laughter and clapping, “Obi Wan Kenobi. Truly an iconic and handsome man. Every time I watch Star Wars, he brings up my serotonin levels. Not just because he’s cute, but because he can land some sick burns.”

It was easy to say that, thanks to Adrian’s video, Nova started a trend all over the world.

#nova artino #adrian everhart #danna bell #oscar silva #ruby tucker #narcissa cronin #max everhart #hugh everhart #simon westwood #renegades #archenemies #supernova #supernova spoilers #my writing

[robininthelabyrinth]

What would happen if Jiang Cheng found A-Yuan hiding in the tree stump at the Siege of the Burial Mounds and decided he's going to take in this toddler Wei Wuxian's was raising and raise him, in the memory of what WWX promised to be for JC?

sequel to this aka Delight in Misery (ao3)

--

“Sizhui?!” Jiang Cheng roared as he stormed into Lan Wangji’s room. “You named him Sizhui?”

Lan Wangji had already long ago become inured to Jiang Cheng’s huffing and puffing. Anyway, Jiang Cheng had medicine in his hands when he stormed in, which meant that he wasn’t bothered enough by it to come yell at him outside the usual time - and that meant that whatever it was, it was no big deal.

Accordingly, Lan Wangji didn’t give the yelling any more thought than it required, opting instead to turn onto his stomach in silent invitation.

Sure enough, Jiang Cheng came over to sit on the bed, grumbling the entire time he undid the bandages on Lan Wangji’s back and starting to spread the soothing balm onto the slowly healing wounds.

“I can’t believe you picked ‘Sizhui’ as a courtesy name for A-Yuan,” Jiang Cheng said, sounding thoroughly disgusted and more than a little disgruntled as well. His hands, however, were as gentle as his voice was harsh. “Sizhui. Was carving ‘Lan Wangji loves Wei Wuxian’ into the woodwork too subtle for you?”

Being face down made it easier for Lan Wangji to hide the way his lips twitched.

At first, he had been disturbed at the notion that his grief for Wei Wuxian’s loss – an endless well of despair, an injury that would never heal – might in some ways be balanced with instances of joy, and yet, in time, he had slowly come to accept it. After all, Wei Wuxian himself had never remembered pain for more than a moment; he would not have wanted Lan Wangji to deny himself the pleasures of A-Yuan’s cheerful presence, the peace of being surrounded by Wei Wuxian’s belongings, the amusement of Jiang Cheng’s sarcastic commentary that was so thoroughly ungracious it could only be laughed at.  

The adjustment had not been easy. Lan Wangji was broken in both body and heart, lingering too longer in regrets of the past, while Jiang Cheng had walked a fine line on the verge of true madness, periods of calm interrupted suddenly by grief so intense it manifested as hysterical anger and furious lashing out, his own servants trembling to see it - it was only when Jin Ling had ended up with them, a safe haven for him in his younger years while Lanling Jin sorted out its own internal issues, that Jiang Cheng had started to calm down. His nights were still full of nightmares, brutal soul-shattering screaming ones that Lan Wangji suspected matched his own, but there were now entire days in which the man who kept him company (because apparently “seclusion” wasn’t considered a real word in Yunmeng Jiang, and “alone” was translated to mean “with me”) was a serious, earnest sect leader with a penchant for snide quips rather than the  devastated wreckage of a human being he had met upon the Burial Mounds.

They had not been particularly close, before, and their personalities weren’t exactly compatible. And yet, to his surprise, Lan Wangji found that he didn’t miss the serenity of the Cloud Recesses as much as he thought he would, but rather appreciated the noise and clamor that Jiang Cheng brought into his life.

“ – like two drops of water, both of you,” Jiang Cheng was saying. “Sizhui and Rulan! These are people’s names! They’ll have to bear them their entire lives! Do you think when they’re adults they’re going to enjoy telling people, ‘oh, yes, well, you see, the people who named us had absolutely no sense of dignity or proportion, so –’”

“How is A-Ling?” Lan Wangji asked, feeling his ears go red. He had known about Jin Ling’s courtesy name since long ago, but he hadn’t known until Jiang Cheng had told him that the name had been bestowed by Wei Wuxian, or that Wei Wuxian had praised his sect and maybe even him in the naming – it sometimes made him wonder if his feelings, which he’d long believed to be unrequited, might not have been so hopeless after all.

That didn’t mean he wanted to talk about said feelings with Jiang Cheng, though.

Luckily, Jiang Cheng’s attention was very easy to divert when it came to his precious nephew. “Good! His teeth are finally coming out properly, so we won’t have to deal with all that wailing and gnawing anymore – I thought we’d have to lose A-Yuan’s fingers to all that biting before it ever happened –”

“I thought you told him to stop.”

“Of course I did. Did he listen? No. He just looked sad and obedient whenever I looked at him, and snuck his fingers into the crib whenever I didn’t – I should’ve gotten you to give him the order. He actually listens to you.”

Lan Wangji hummed in response, listening as Jiang Cheng continued in his usual manner to update him about the development of the children they were raising – teething for Jin Ling, Lan Yuan’s rapidly swelling waistline (he was almost recognizable as a child again instead of the pile of bones he’d been after he’d recovered from his fever) and the need to start him on physical conditioning soon, the investment of time and effort that all three of them were putting into trying to convince Jin Ling that his first word should be ‘jiujiu’ – and then, from there, about developments at the Lotus Pier more generally.

At first, Lan Wangji had thought there was a purpose to these updates, that he was meant to give some sort of advice as payment for taking up food and resources, but after a while he realized that Jiang Cheng just wanted someone to listen to him.

He didn’t seem to have anyone else that would.

“– finally finished the full set of docks, so maybe the fishermen will stop beating my ears in about it,” Jiang Cheng was saying. “And yes, damn you, your idea about opening up hotels was both very popular and very profitable – just goes to show that your Lan sect’s reputation for being above it all isn’t in any way justified, you lot make money better than the Jin sect…your brother came by again.”

Lan Wangji tensed.  

“Stop that! Your back’s bad enough without adding knots to it.” Jiang Cheng pressed down on one of them purposefully: it hurt for a moment, and then released, and Lan Wangji involuntarily relaxed as the relief spread through him. Jiang Cheng either had a very good teacher in massage or a natural-born talent for it; Lan Wangji hadn’t yet figured out how to ask which it was. “He’s still looking for you, that’s all, and it’s starting to take a bit of a toll on him; he looks like he hasn’t slept in a while. I’m starting to almost feel bad about it.”

It was very classic Jiang Cheng, Lan Wangji had found, to orchestrate a punishment for someone and feel bad about it almost immediately thereafter. It was no wonder A-Yuan had him so thoroughly wrapped around his little finger.

“You can tell him, if you want,” Lan Wangji said reluctantly. Telling would mean seeing, and while he missed his brother very much, he was still very angry over everything that had happened. “I do not want the Lotus Pier to suffer for having harbored me.”

“Stop being so damned self-sacrificing,” Jiang Cheng said, and Lan Wangji wasn’t looking but he could hear him rolling his eyes. “I don’t care how much you enjoy it; I for one can’t stand it. Anyway, if my Jiang Sect can’t hold our heads up against another sect’s anger, we don’t deserve to be called a Great Sect. It’s like I told you: the moment he actually admits that you’re missing, rather than being all ambiguous and vague about it, I’ll tell him.”

Lan Wangji was secretly glad, even though he knew it was petty of him.

The thought of how frantic Lan Xichen must be after all these months, the idea of him not sleeping, of him travelling to all the sects to ask again and again if they’d seen him…the thought of it hurt, he didn’t deny it. But it didn’t hurt as much as finding out that Wei Wuxian had died with no one by his side – as finding out that his brother, who knew what Wei Wuxian meant to him, had known and deliberately omitted to tell him.

Just as Jiang Cheng was deliberately omitting to tell Lan Xichen the truth now.

“The sect would lose face,” he finally said, offering up an explanation for his brother’s actions, both then and now.

“Yeah, well, fuck your sect,” Jiang Cheng said. “I picked my sect over my family, too, and where did that leave me? Now it’s all I have left.”

His hands stilled for a moment.

“…except you and kids, I guess,” he said, sounding especially bitter about it in the sort of way that Lan Wangji had learned indicated that Jiang Cheng was having an attack of feelings and not particularly enjoying the experience. “You’re not that annoying.”

That was practically stating that Jiang Cheng would die without them.

“Mn,” Lan Wangji said, and after a moment Jiang Cheng continued rubbing in the salve. There was even a brief moment of silence, probably Jiang Cheng being thankful that Lan Wangji didn’t call him out on those feelings. Normally, Lan Wangji would just enjoy it, but… “You could have children of your own.”

Jiang Cheng choked, his hand slipping as he nearly fell over. “What?”

“Children,” Lan Wangji said. “You could marry.”

Not that marriage was a requirement for children, as Jin Guangshan continuously seemed to demonstrate – according to some of the gossip Jiang Cheng had recently reported, he’d recently brought another bastard son home.

“I’m trying, aren’t I?” Jiang Cheng asked, indignant. “I’ve gone on three matchmaking dates –”

Lan Wangji was well aware. He had been the one to whom Jiang Cheng had exaggeratedly complained after each one of those disastrous dates.

“Deliberate sabotage,” he said, because even without having left the four walls around him in months he could figure that much out. “Why?”

Jiang Cheng hesitated, then snorted. “Well, let’s hope not everyone’s as perceptive as you. It’s the agreement I made with the Jin sect to allow me to raise Jin Ling – no other children.”

Somehow, Lan Wangji hadn’t expected that. 

He swallowed, his throat suddenly tight. He knew, of course, that there was nothing Jiang Cheng wouldn’t do for his last living blood relative, even risk having his Jiang sect turned into nothing more than an inheritance to be gobbled up by the Jin sect, but he hadn’t realized – that the Jin sect would take advantage of the grief and trauma that Jiang Cheng suffered, the same grief and trauma that he himself suffered from every day…

It made him taste bile.

“Though you’ve nearly screwed that up, you know,” Jiang Cheng said, sounding suddenly amused. “Back’s done, by the way.”

Lan Wangji sat up and turned his head to look at Jiang Cheng. “How?”

Jiang Cheng rolled his eyes. “Well, given your injuries, I’m the one out there teaching Lan Yuan all the basics, aren’t I? The Jiang sect hasn’t started accepting disciples that young yet, so he stands out. Everyone’s starting to say that he’s mine.”

“His surname is Lan.”

“And Wei Wuxian’s was Wei; that never stopped people from talking, did it?” Jiang Cheng scowled a little at the reminder he’d just given himself; as Lan Wangji had found out these past few months, Jiang Cheng was a master of the self-inflicted injury. “The latest I’ve heard is that I fell in love with some lady from the Lan sect who left her child with me when she died – honestly, it’s a bit sad that they can’t think of anything more interesting. Why would I be stupid enough to make the same mistakes as my father?”

Lan Wangji frowned. Jiang Cheng’s voice was shading near to actual pain, rather than his usual bark without a bite – he had let slip enough about his childhood for Lan Wangji to have figured out that the old jokes about the Jiang sect leader’s favoritism for Wei Wuxian were not jokes at all.

More like an old wound ripped open so many times that it would never heal.

It was no surprise, then, that it hurt him to be cast in the same role.

“You could always tell them that the lady still lives,” he said mildly, pretending his words weren’t hurting himself this time. Maybe Jiang Cheng had a point when he said that Lan Wangji enjoyed self-sacrifice. “Only that she’s ill, or in confinement, and cannot be seen.”

“Not a chance! Like I’d ever do something like that,” Jiang Cheng said, and Lan Wangji very briefly loved him for his immediate rejection of the idea. “Besides, if I say that, what do I do when you do come out of here and claim him? Everyone will think we’ve been sleeping together.”

Lan Wangji politely didn’t mention the occasional night that Jiang Cheng spent huddling by his side, wild-eyed, until the nightmares went away, or the way Jiang Cheng would occasionally lend a hand with certain physiological reactions that Lan Wangji could not bear to deal with himself, turning what might have been a trigger for self-hatred and near suicidal despair into a process as mundane as the baths he still needed help taking; neither of those were what was meant.

“No one would fear that you would have children if they thought you cut your sleeve,” he pointed out, not sure why he was pushing the issue. Even if people did say that, it was only rumors, after all, and temporary ones: when Lan Wangji could walk again, even the most pointed would swiftly fade in favor of ones that slandered Lan Wangji’s reputation instead.

“I’m still hoping to get married eventually,” Jiang Cheng said. “Just – after Jin Ling is an adult. Once he’s sect leader, he can release me from the promise I made. No harm done, assuming I don’t die first.”

Lan Wangji nodded. It made sense, though for some reason he felt some dissatisfaction.

“Though,” Jiang Cheng continued, looking thoughtful, “it might not be that bad an idea to spread some rumors. If I never commented on it, people would never know for sure if it was true or just slander by some dissatisfied female cultivator after one of my horrible matchmaking meetings.”

“It would still affect your reputation.”

“Like I care,” Jiang Cheng scoffed. “Let them talk! If anyone is stupid enough to think that the contents of my bed have any impact on my abilities, I still have Zidian to show them the error of their ways. And I will, too; don’t think I won’t!”

Lan Wangji abruptly felt lighter inside. Of course Jiang Cheng wouldn’t care; he hardly ever cared about anything other than his sect and the children – and anyway, just because Lan Wangji had never told Jiang Cheng directly how he felt about Wei Wuxian didn’t mean that he hadn’t guessed. He had given Lan Wangji Wei Wuxian’s bedroom, after all. “I would never be so foolish.”

Jiang Cheng huffed and tossed his head, then turned to say something that he promptly forgot in favor of gaping at him. “Hanguang-jun, what are you doing with your mouth?”

Lan Wangji allowed his smile to widen. “I don’t know what you mean.”

“Stop it! It’s creepy! Go back to being humorless and dull this instant!”

“No.”

“This is my sect and you’re my guest; you have to do what I say.”

“No.”

“You’re worse than A-Yuan,” Jiang Cheng complained. “At least he pretends to listen. I’ll have to raise Jin Ling to be properly obedient.”

For some reason, Lan Wangji didn’t think he would have much luck with that.

#mdzs #jiang cheng #lan wangji #lan sizhui #jin ling #my fic #my fics #delight in misery #accidental life partner acquisition #lacommunarde

[marvels-writings]

Escape (2)

| Part 1 | 

Request: Hi! I always love your writing. Everything is closed in New Zealand for at least another 3 weeks so your writing helps keeps me sane. Could you please do a Maria Hill x reader. Maybe the reader is an assassin that Maria has been trying to bring in for months but reader always manages to escape. The reader catches feelings for Maria during their many encounters and one day helps her save one of the avengers. Maria asks reader “if i asked you to stay, would you?”. Angst but Happy ending please ☺

A/N: I’m trying to procrastinate less but at the same time I downloaded software that makes a cat follow the mouse on my computer so now I have an army of cats following my mouse whenever it moves, it’s kinda funny honestly, anyway back to the story

Hideouts were always tough to find but easy to decorate. You’d recently gotten a new hideout in a cheap motel on the edge of New York, they were in debt so they let you buy the room, you could have it as long as you needed it for, you paid them whatever they needed as long as they didn’t tell anyone you were here. A lot of police had come to their doorstep to ask about you, they lied for you. 

You felt a little bad for them as you lay down on the bed, watching some random TV show while deciding where to go next. You had enough money to last a few years, enough resources and contacts to live the rest of your life peacefully and undisturbed, maybe you’d go to Tahiti, alone it would be a bit boring though.

The phone ringing quickly broke you out of your thoughts, you picked up hesitantly to find the daughter of the family who owned the motel telling you there were agents who said they were from a place called SHIELD to search the place, you told her to calm down and bid your goodbyes, quickly packing up everything you could and changing into your black and fav/color battle suit, putting a hoodie and jeans on top of it after tucking knives and guns into it. 

The agents were coming closer, you could hear it, if you got caught the entire family would be in danger, so you quickly snuck out the window after making sure there was no trace that you were ever there, you quickly walked on the roof of the entrance, realizing there were guards everywhere. You discreetly slid down the side of the roof, dusting your jeans off after. 

Maria Hill had made an appearance with about 5 more agents wearing uniforms, you raised an eyebrow and walked away as subtly as you could. One of the agents made her way to you, she seemed new so you let it pass. She had a tanned complexion to complement her light brown hair, a fairly athletic b

“Excuse me, miss?” She asked, you turned around and gave her a small smile, she seemed not to recognize you.

“How can I help you?” You asked politely, she showed you a picture of what you’d looked like when you had different hair and you’d changed your makeup, there was a little resemblance of what you used to look like. 

“Have you seen this woman?” She asked, you nodded no and she quickly thanked you before walking off, Maria hill turned around and thought she recognized you, but maintained her distance, deciding you weren’t here.

 After realizing you didn’t have a ride, you quickly called the agent back over, claiming you needed to speak to her in private. After taking her into one of the spare rooms, you apologized and knocked her out with your taser, quickly stripping her of her uniform and covering her up with your hoodie and jeans, leaving an apology note before putting on a spare mask you carried around, it let you take up her appearance. You walked out confidently, one of your knives still with you as you threw your bag in the back of the car.

“Did you find anything Ella?” Maria came up to you and asked, your eyes widened a bit but you answered smoothly, realizing the agent’s name was Ella Newman.

“Nothing, the family doesn’t seem to know anything about Y/l/n.” You answered, getting into the passenger seat of the car. Maria frowned a little but got into the driver seat, starting up the SHIELD car.

“Hungry?” She asked you shrugged, you could eat, and it wasn’t every day you got to eat lunch with SHIELD’s deputy director.

“I can eat.” You shrugged, Maria smiled a little while driving towards the city center, you remembered you still had a secret hideout with clothes you could wear.

“I’ll drop you off at your place and pick you up at 6:45?” Maria offered, you shrugged and gave her the address of the hideout, noticing her frown when she remembered that was where Y/l/n was sighted a few times, the place had been checked out, there was nothing there.

The rest of the drive was pleasant, both of you chatted about SHIELD but you didn’t reveal too much about yourself, or who you were pretending to be. Maria noticed but decided not to push, most SHIELD agents had a dark past, you were probably one of them. 

“I’ll see you then.” You winked at Maria and then walked out and into the apartment building, it was a decent place, you’d made sure it had decent clothes and food.

After she drove off, you went into your room and took off the mask, putting on a fancy outfit and putting on makeup so you looked more like the person you were pretending to be. You fixed your hair up the best you could, made sure you looked like the agent you were faking. You had a maximum of 4 hours before they discovered you were faking, you were going to take full advantage of it. 

-~-~-~-~-~-~-~-~-~-~-~-~-~-~-~-~-~-~-~-~-~-

After settling on a fav/color top with roses embroidered on it, black jeggings, and black sneakers you decided to slip a few knives and a small pistol in your outfit when you heard a knock at your door. You checked your appearance in the mirror, you looked like a SHIELD agent. You opened the door with a smile on your face,  Maria wore an azure blue v-neck blouse with navy blue trousers and some simple silver jewelry, a small silver necklace with a sapphire pendant, she held a bouquet of roses in her hand. 

“Thank you.” You thanked her with a dazzling smile, taking the bouquet from her and putting it on the table next to you, making a mental note to put them in the water later. 

“Of course, I know this great Italian place about 20 minutes from here if you want.” Maria offered as you quickly shut the door and followed her out of the apartment building. 

“That sounds amazing, I’m starving.” You smiled, walking to her dark blue Audi car, climbing into the passenger seat, it still smelt like a new car. 

The drive there was decent, it was mostly talking about music once Maria had made the mistake of switching on the radio to a song you absolutely hated. On the walk to the restaurant, you bantered Billie Eilish’s success. 

“I still think she just got lucky,” Maria remarked, opening the door for you as you rolled your eyes, the atmosphere of the restaurant was friendly but still fancy, you were a bit underdressed but neither of you minded. 

“You can’t get that lucky,” You argued back as the waiter led you to a reserved table that already had a bottle of wine waiting. “I mean she did win 10 grammies.”

“She won 5 awards Ella,” Maria stated, you rolled your eyes. 

“Semantics.” You shot back, Maria laughed a little, enjoying your company than most SHIELD agents.

The rest of the dinner was better than either of you had expected. Once Maria dropped her tough SHIELD demeanor, she was funnier and softer, which surprised you a little. You were more carefree and relaxed than most people Maria had met, which was a nice change of pace. You made Maria silence her phone after it pinged twice, to give you a little extra time with her. Dinner was over a little too soon, Maria offered to drive you back when you proposed a walk through the streets.

Maria found herself unable to say no, after about 5 minutes through the walk, you shivered and moved closer to her. Maria smirked and brushed her hand against yours before confidently taking it and walking, flustering you through the facade you had. 

“Let’s go,” Maria said once you started shivering, even more, you nodded and let her drive you back, talking about how underrated the restaurant was.

-~-~-~-~-~-~-~-~-~-~-~-~-~-~-~-~-~-~-~-~-~-

“Thank you for dinner today.” You thanked Maria once she had dropped you at the apartment, she had even gotten out and walked you to your door through the apartment building.

“Anytime, I’m hoping we could do this again?” Maria asked, a little hesitant to ask you, she noticed your reluctance to answer. 

“I hope so too.” You covered it up quickly with a smile, using Maria’s blush to steal a glance at her phone, the notification read that you were a fake, you needed another distraction, you still wanted more time. 

You quickly surged forwards and met your lips to hers, Maria almost flinched back in surprise, but she couldn’t help but melt at the sudden action. Her hands came to rest on your waist, gently tugging you closer by the belt loops. The kiss distracted you from your resolve to steal her phone, you pulled away when you were out of breath, still keeping your bodies close.

“Wow,” You muttered, realizing this was the one thing you said which wasn’t a lie.

“Yeah, wow,” Maria gasped, reluctantly pulling away from you before frowning. “I don’t have your number.”

“Oh, right.” You said Maria gave you her phone without glancing at the notifications, you quickly cleared it and typed your name in with the phone number of the phone you had in this hideout. 

“I’ll see you later.” Maria smiled, you smiled back and leaned forwards to quickly peck her lips before heading into your apartment, mentally tallying everything you need to pack up before she realized, you had maybe 20 minutes, 30 if she drove off. 

You started packing up your things into a suitcase, smirking before putting the roses into a large vase with water in it after chopping off the stems in one smooth motion with your knife. You left a small note for Maria and threw all of your things in your bag, facepalming when you realized you left your other bag in the SHIELD car, you knew they would send the same car here, you needed the bag. 

-~-~-~-~-~-~-~-~-~-~-~-~-~-~-~-~-~-~-~-~-~-

Maria left your apartment building with a soft smile on her face, thinking of the dinner as she started up her car, giving a glance to your contact before the notifications filling up her phone. She quickly swiped to view one. 

‘Y/n Y/l/n was last seen faking the identity of Agent Newman.’ There was a picture of you next to the agent who you were impersonating. 

“Shit,” Maria muttered before opening her door, gun in hand as she headed into your apartment building to find you.

| Part 3 |

Tag List: @capcarolsdanver​, @versdan​, @lesbian-girls-wayhaught​, @lovebotlarson​, @dhengkt​, @5aftermidnight​, @hstoria​, @natasha-danvers​, @veryfunnyal​, @xxxtwilightaxelxxx​ , @ophelias-heart​  , @never-didbefore​ , @justarandomhumanhere​, @the-most-unicorn-of-them-all , @thatssocamryn​ , @lesbian-x-blackwidow​ , @marvelbbyx​ , @wlw-imaginesss​ , let me know if you’d like to be in any of my tag lists!

A/N: Thoughts?

#marvel #marvel x reader #marvel x fem reader #marvel x female reader #marvel x female!reader #marvel x you #marvel x y/n #marvel imagine #marvel one shot #maria hill #maria hill x reader #maria hill x fem reader #maria hill x female reader #maria hill x female!reader #maria hill x you #maria hill himagine #maria hill one shot #cobie smulders #my writing #my fic #MYC's writing