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dancewithdeath11 · 26 days

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The Hangout

Pairing: CollegeYears!Bradley Bradshaw x Reader

Summary: Bradley invited reader over for a kick back

Warnings: CollegeYears!Bradley, Freshmen!Reader, Inexperienced!Reader, attending UVA, kissing, slight angst, drinking (not drunk), baby-age gap(Reader is legal, I’m fully abusing canon and making him older than the rest of them???)

Word Count: 4.8k

Part: 1/?

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Knock knock knock

With a slight huff you stepped back a little. You could hear people inside and yet nobody was answering. Half tempted to call, you pulled out your phone.

Then the door opened quickly, making you flinch. It wasn’t who you expected at all. He was familiar though.. “Hey- sorry for spooking you..” The familiar looking stranger said, an awkward smile on his lips. Cute.. “Come in, uh- everyone is in the kitchen.” He opened the door a little wider. “I’m Bob, by the way.”

You nodded, giving him your name as the two of you walked into a kitchen-living area. There are very few people you recognize. The kitchen is bustling, the counter has a few cases of beers and bottles of wine. You clutched onto your cheap box of cocoa powder as you said a quick, excuse me to Bob and made your way deeper into the kitchen.

You made a b-line straight to the very person you were here for. Bradley.. Clad in a tacky Hawaiian shirt and jeans. “Hey, you made it!” He smiled brightly down at you.

Fuck, he was so hot…

“Yeah..I had to run to the store really quickly before I stopped here.” You nodded and he made his way over to the fridge. You trailed him like a goddamn puppy.

“You want anything? A drink? Alcohol or no? Or do you want food? Nat is cooking but that probably won’t be done for a bit..” He rattled off as he opened his fridge and stuck his head in. At first you hesitated, but you also knew you should probably eat if you were going to drink. And you were hungry as shit anyways.

“I could eat..” You muttered softly to him, carefully reaching out and grabbing a can of Coors from the door. Luckily he heard you over the loudness of the kitchen.

“Sweet or savory?” He questioned, but he didn’t let you answer before he was pulling something out. “Actually, here,” He turned, his brown eyes dropping to your hands before he met your eyes again, offering a wink. “It’s my favorite.” Looking down you see it’s a plastic package of salami.

It had you giggling as he took the cocoa powder from you and set it down on the counter behind him. “Salami?” You asked through your laughter.

“What?” Bradley chuckled, a deep rumble that had you wanting to lay your cheek against his chest to feel it. You shook off the thought. “It’s good.” So you just shrugged as he walked past to his friends. Promptly leaving you alone. Biting down on your bottom lip you walked towards the only other person you knew by name. Taking a seat between yet another stranger and Bob as you ate some salami from the package.

Quickly you were swept up into a conversation with Bob. He was quieter than the rest but he was a great listener and was asking you questions. So you were more than willing to answer and talk to him about the latest things going on at school. Eventually a woman, Nat, joined in and took over on asking the questions.

“So, is there any drama going on in the freshmen class?” She asked after you finished talking about your major for the second time over that night.

“Not really…I’m sure there is but I don’t really get involved with that stuff.” You nodded slightly to her. Sipping on your beer, feeling how light it’s gotten already. The woman muttered something under her breath before snapping her fingers.

“Do you know, uhmmm shoot what's his name- Alex Klarkson?”

You perked up at the name, “Yeah, I know him, but he’s a creep. Why?” You frowned recalling one disturbing interaction with the guy. He says some of the most outrageous dirty things that you’d ever heard. Everything out of his mouth is either sexist or racist.

“Great! I don’t like him either, he was in my orientation group.” She groaned with a roll of her eyes. But then she smiled and leaned against the counter. “So why do you hate him?”

You were quick to run your mouth, it was maybe your one flaw. You like talking. “Well, I was hanging out with some of my freshmen guy friends and I somehow got caught in a conversation with this guy. He seemed fine and funny at first, but then he started to get really creepy. Saying some downright disgusting, demeaning things about this girl he was- well, with, which I honestly doubt because everything he says about women sounds absolute bullshit. Plus if he's this disgusting on the regular, he’s for sure a virgin.” That got a burst of laughter out of Natasha, causing some people to look our way, you couldn’t help but giggle too. “I don’t know, he makes me uncomfortable, I avoid him like the plague.”

She nodded along, “Yeah, I wouldn’t want to hang around a creep like Alex either.” Someone called Nat away, something about the food. As she left, Bradley came around.

“What’s this about someone making you uncomfortable?” He muttered softly to you, he was close, so close you could feel the heat of him. The brush of his Hawaiian shirt against your arm.

Looking up at him, you offered a slight smile to him. “Just some guy..” He hummed and raised a brow for you to continue. “He’s a total creep, but I’m avoiding him. Nothing to worry about..” You reassured him gently, if reassurance was even what he was looking for.

“Good..Good girl.” He hummed, smirking as he patted your upper arm before walking off again.

Oh… arm touch. You smiled and watched him walk away. His jeans are tight..

The other guy you were sitting next to was quick to start up a conversation. Mickey, you think his name was. He was nice and really liked talking. Almost more than you.

Selfishly you loved it. Loved the attention, the interest. You can give and take whatever you want. Twist a story slightly to seem more interesting, nothing harmful or crazy, just something that makes it appear more..fun. Smile and shake your head at a question as you refuse to answer, watching with a cocky smirk as they insist you fess up.

The night dragged on. You had a few beers and passed a few stories around. This was nice. Really nice.. The whole time here, other people would treat you like a kid. Teachers, orientation leaders, other upperclassmen friends. Made you feel like you were in kindergarten again.. But now you’re being asked if you want some beer and what your last escapade was..

“Last? Try never.” You chuckled over the rim of your can.

The blonde's eyes widened, “No way, sweetheart! You gotta be jokin’!” He shook his head as he set his plate of pasta down, the pasta that Natasha so lovingly made for the group. “You’re too pretty to be a virgin.”

“Who’s a virgin?”

Of course, Bradley comes back just in time to hear that part.

“Your little freshman, that’s who.” Jake chuckled as he patted your shoulder. A blush fanning across your cheeks as you scowl at the Texan, only making him laugh harder.

All through high school you’d always wanted more. You’d talk to guys, you went on a few dates but nothing went anywhere. It wasn’t anything you were ashamed of. But you did feel like you were missing out. Frowning to yourself when your roommate would complain about her boyfriend, but you couldn’t relate to everything. But of course, you didn’t want everyone to know about your lack of experience.

“Nice, Jake, thanks for that.” You scoff and shove his hand away.

Bradley chuckles now too, “Nothing wrong with being a little inexperienced. College is about exploration, isn’t that right Jake?” The man smirked knowingly, about what, you didn’t know. But it caused Jake to shut up and take a sip of his beer. Grumbling something before grabbing his plate and taking it to the sink. You shiver as you felt Bradley lean down, his hot breath tickling your ear, “He fucked around with a senior sorority girl last year, she shoved her finger up his ass during their last romp. He called it after that. Hasn’t flirted with a sorority girl since.” Bradley whispered before leaning back and you chuckled as you looked back at him.

“Really?”

“Oh yeah, really.” He nodded, “Hey, and the oven is free now..if you wanna bake those brownies you were talking about.”

“Hey, I gotta take off. You comin’ Bob?” Natasha’s voice broke through the overlay of conversations.

You looked over at her with a frown. “You’re leaving?” She was collecting her bag as Bob also stood up, muttering something to her before nodding.

“Yeah, I have to go to a meeting tomorrow, wanna make sure I can sleep this off.” The woman chuckled before coming up to me and pulling me into a hug. “But we gotta hang out again, alright? I liked talking with you. Here,” She pulled out her phone and handed it to me with the “create new contact” screen open. You smile and quickly enter your information, then hand it back. “Thanks, I’ll text you.” Her and Bob made a quick round, also deciding to give Mickey and Reuben a ride too since they rode with Jake. And he was effectively out of service right now after chugging a six pack on a dare from Javy.

Slowly other people remembered things they had to do this weekend. Study for a test, a hot date, club outings. Soon enough it was just you and Bradley. And a decommissioned Jake.

The glass door slid closed again as Jake came back inside, he’d been going in and out a lot. You can only assume to puke. Right now you were looking up the ingredients you still needed and listing them off to Bradley. “That everything?” You glanced at the countertop, then back at your phone.

“Yup!”

“Okay, what now?”

“Now I bake? What did you think we were going to do now?”

He chuckled at your sarcasm and shook his head slightly, “I meant, what did you want me to do now?” Your brows pinched together in confusion, huh?

“What do you mean want you to do?” You questioned him with a chuckle, turning back to the counter to start. Only then realizing you still did need something, “Hey, where’s the measuring cups?”

Bradley wandered over towards you and gently moved you by your waist. Fingers curling into the plushness, firm but soft. You could feel the heat of his wide hands through your shirt. You went willingly of course. Watching intently as he opened a drawer and pulled out the measuring cups and spoons. “I wanna help you bake.” He nodded with determination.

“Uhh..I usually bake alone.” You purse your lips, timidly reaching out and grabbing the measuring utensils from him. The man scoffed and shook his head.

“Well now you have me as a slave, you can tell me what to do. I am your assistant chef, or whatever?” He huffed a laugh making you chuckle and shake your head at him now. Taking the hair tie from your wrist, you throw your hair into a lazy updo.

“You’re ridiculous.”

It was actually fun. He did things without complaint. If he was being annoying, you’d make him mix things and he’d do it. The two of you joked and messed around, you spilt some flour which made him cause a big fuss about it.

“It isn’t that much!”

“That’s so much! You’re a maniac!”

“Am not, you’re just dramatic- why are you taking your shirt off?”

“This is my best button down! I am not letting you tarnish it!”

“Bradley, it’s literally flour- you really are a drama queen!”

“Am not!”

You got annoyed again and made him mix the flour out of spite. He still put the tacky shirt on the counter, leaving him in his white undershirt that was honestly worse. Not that it’s a bad style, because that’s close to impossible to not look good in a plain white shirt. It’s just that he looks stupidly hot in something so simple.

Your bottom lip trapped between your teeth as you watched him from where you leaned against the counter. Half-lidded eyes taking in the sight of his muscles rippling under that slightly too tight tee-shirt.

Jake got up again and wandered outside.

“You think he’s really okay?” You asked, looking back at the glass door. You couldn’t see Jake outside, it was too dark and the lights inside were too bright. Bradley asked if he was alright after the first time, but he just waved him off.

“I’ve seen Jake drunk enough times to know.” He chuckles simply, “He’s been through worse. This look good?” The man picked up the bowl to show it to you. Oh my god, his arms…his forearms- You watched in silent agony. You narrowed your eyes, lips pouting as if you were looking at the batter and trying to analyze it. But really you were ogling his arms. Perfect cover. Watching intently as the thick bands of muscle tensed under his too tan for Virginia skin as he tilted the bowl. The veins that ran up his arms and down his hands.

“Looks…great. Fine.” You cleared your throat and picked up your beer again, taking a sip to try and mask your nerves. Jake came back in. “Hey..” He looked tired and wore a slight grimace on his face. “You okay?” You bothered to ask as he walked by. He just grumbled and rubbed his eyes. Going to the couch and flopping down on it. Promptly curling up and looking ready for a nap.

“Buddy, y’know I got that spare room-”

“‘M fine…” Jake interrupts. You look over at Bradley, he just shrugs it off.

So you speak up again, “You at least want some water?” He’s silent for a few beats before he mutters out something that sounded like a yes. You smile softly and grab a cup from the cabinet. Pouring some water from the battered brita pitcher and walking over to Jake, “Here..” You keep your voice quiet.

He opens his eyes and takes the cup from you, “Thanks, hun’.” The southerner offered a tired smile. You walked back to Bradley as he was taking a drink, you distantly heard him put the cup back down. Looking back to see him grab a throw pillow and scoot down the couch to try and sleep off the alcohol.

“What were we talking about again?” Bradley looked over as you asked this, he just smiled for a moment before handing the bowl over to you. His smile could give an old woman a heart attack, it was that dazzling.

“About my time traveling.” He reminded you, making you nod in return. “Anyways, I went on a whole ass trip to go see this girl that I was with through senior year. She got into some fancy college in England, and I was taking a gap year.” He crouched down and opened a cabinet. “So I was planning on visiting her for a month. She was planning everything. All of it, down from the hotels. Then, literally a week before my flight, she dumped me.” He found what he was looking for and handed you a square pyrex dish. Then he grabbed some parchment paper, finally standing up.

“No way!” You gasped.

“Yup..”

“Did you still go?”

“Yeah, no way am I not going.” He rolled his eyes before laughing softly, you smiled and nodded. He pulled out a long strip of parchment and measured it to the dish before cutting it. “So I went, right? And it was surprisingly fun. I just went around, no plan. Just going city to city, asking locals what I should do, where I should eat, and where to go when I get bored of the place I was at. Met some cool guys in.. fuck, where was it? Doesn’t matter! We hung out for a week, going bar hopping in small towns. I actually had a lot of fun.”

“That’s good that you still had fun.” You hummed as you started to pour the batter. Precariously holding the large bowl in one hand and pushing the batter out using a spatula with the other. You finished pouring and handed the bowl over to Bradley. Opening the oven you put the pan inside, closing it as you went to grab your phone. Turning on a timer for thirty-five minutes.

Your eyes traveled over to him again. Sneaking a peak of him as he stood at his sink watching dishes. It was like watching the ocean. The movements of the water, the same push and pull that looked that same every time. But it was always slightly different if you were paying enough attention to it. Like how he’s washing the dishes.. Different back muscles tensing when he scrubbed in circles, how his forearm flexes when he turns the dish over to get to the back of the bowl. His head tilted to inspect it occasionally.. Squeezing the soapy sponge in his hand over the dish to get more suds on it. God bless, you wish you were that sponge-

“You like it?” What? You look up to see him still washing the dishes, your mouth falling open slightly as you try to come up with an excuse. Sorry for ogling your massive fucking muscles? “Hello? The get together? Did you like hanging out?” He looked over his shoulder to meet your eyes.

Ohhh! “Oh! Yeah, yeah. Your friends are really nice, thanks for inviting me.” It came out a little stuttered, your cheeks flushed with the previous thoughts you were having. Heart still pounding a little too hard after his question, for a second you thought he caught you.

He glanced over his shoulder and chuckled lightly. “I’m glad, everyone seemed to like you. Mickey maybe liked you a little too much when you started geeking out with him over Star Wars, he’s such a fanboy.” That comment made your brows pinch.

“What do you mean liked me a little too much?” He turned off the water and snatched a dish towel. Scrunching it in his hand before he glanced down. Of course, you watched. His hair flopping down over his forehead, then he looked back up and ran a hand through his hair. Crossing his arms as he smiled at you.

“You know..”

“Wow, thanks for the context- ohhhhh.” It dawned on you, no way Mickey liked you like that. “I don’t think so.” You brushed it off, shifting your weight to one foot as you copied him and crossed your arms. Then switching it up and reaching for your beer, but it was empty.

“I’m his friend, I think I’d be able to tell better than you.” Bradley scoffed slightly. Why is he bringing this up anyways? You toss out the bottle in the trash near the sink.

“And guys have never been interested in me, not like that at least.” You wandered over to the fridge to look for something to drink. Trying to play cool, to make it seem like it wasn’t a big deal.

You heard him walking closer as you reached in and grabbed a can of soda. Closing the fridge you turned, flinching as you brushed against him, “oh- hi?”

“If I kissed you right now, how would you feel?”

“Excuse me?”

“If I kissed you-“

“Please-“

Before you knew it his large hands were cupping your cheeks and his lips were smashed against yours. You could feel the scratch of his mustache on your skin as he kissed you greedily.

Trying your best to keep up with his pace despite not being all too experienced. Hands grabbing at his shirt as he slowly started to shuffle forwards, causing you to stumble back too. His hands quickly found your hips, gently pushing you back. He ended up crowding you against the counter, the edge digging into your lower back.

It was dizzying. Hands gripping, pressing lips, panting and moaning into each other's mouths. Only thing to shock you out of it was when your feet are off the ground. You’re quick to grip his wide shoulders, gasping against his lips. The cool feeling of the counter under you makes you shiver despite the thick material of your jeans. He chuckles and you glance up. His face is flushed and his lips are slightly swollen and sticky looking from your lipgloss, you can imagine you look similar.

Reaching up you brush your thumb over his mustache causing the corners of his lips to quirk up slightly. His hand circles your wrist as he moves your hand, pressing a quick peck to your palm, transferring some lip gloss to your skin. Then the man i’s guiding it to rest over his shoulder. Following his lead and bringing your other arm ip to loosely hug around his shoulders. A hum leaves him before he leans back in. Softer this time, slower. His own hands find their way to your hips, pulling you to the edge of the counter.

Bradleys tongue swiped your bottom lip making you shiver slightly, but you relented. Opening your mouth to him. His tongue brushing your own, teeth knocking together as your fingers find their way into his hair.

Giving a slight tug as he licks into your mouth causes him to groan. His hands gripping the plush of your hips a little tighter in retaliation.

“Don’t be mean..” he muttered before moving down to your neck. The scratch from his mustache was a delicious contrast to his kissing.

“You seem to like it.” You chuckled before interrupting yourself with a stifled moan as he bit down on your bottom lip. He soothed it with his tongue before firmly kissing you once more. Eyes fluttering shut as you try to hug him closer. His calloused fingers finding their way under the hem of your top. Then sliding further up to grasp at your bare waist.

It's a quiet but passionate exchange. Losing track of time in the heat of it. Eventually he pulls away, soft pants leaving your kiss swollen lips. Your breath stutters once more as his lips find your neck. Wet languid kisses pressed to the sensitive skin of your neck. Starting from just below your ear and traveling down to your pulse point. A sigh leaving your lips, fingers weaving their way through Bradleys hair again.

He stood between your spread legs, your knees pinching his hips as if to keep him close. Your heart was beating out of your chest. You were more than sure that he could feel your racing pulse against his lips from where he was kissing you.

“Bradley..”

He only hummed against your neck, dragging his lips down the skin. The feeling of his mustache appreciated as you gave a hum in return.

The sound of the alarm buzzing from your phone made the two of you flinch away from each other.

A subtle jingle and vibrating noise filled the kitchen. Soft pants from the both of you joined the sounds of the alarm as you two just stared at each other. Processing what was just happening. Processing how the time was lost to the two of us. How thirtysomething minutes was a blur of kisses and touches that probably shouldn’t have been happening.

Jake groans from his spot on the couch. Bradley steps away and pulls open a random drawer. Swallowing thickly you chance a glance back at Jake. “What’s the deal?” The Texan groans as he gets up from the couch. The alarm..

“Sorry..” Grabbing your phone you turn off the alarm, watching as the cocky blonde goes outside once more.

Biting your bottom lip again, you watch Bradley grab the brownies from the oven. Tilting it towards you before asking, “These good?” It came out gruff, a little like he was upset. Just then you take in the hard lines of his tensed shoulders. His closed off demeanor, like he wasn’t comfortable in his own skin.

“Yeah..” You whispered softly, he set the pan down on the stove top. He cleared his throat, and you watched as he looked back to the door before coming back over to you.

“Honey,” Shit..”That..That can’t happen again.” He doesn’t fully meet your eyes, only meek glances. It’s not the Bradley you're used to. And it definitely wasn't the Bradley who was sliding his hands up your shirt barely five minutes ago.

“Why not?” It was a challenge, a frown pulling on your lips as you narrowed your eyes at him. Asking him to try pulling something out of his ass and seeing if you’d actually accept it as an answer.

The mustached man makes a noise deep in his throat, some form of grunting-growl. “I- You’re a freshman and I’m a junior. An older junior, at that, I’m twenty-six.”

“And?” You rolled your eyes, sliding off the counter and shaking your head again. “Listen, I like you. I don’t care that you're a little older than me.” You try to laugh it off as you walk to the stove, picking up a stray knife to start cutting the hot chocolatey treat.

“Honey-” The door slides open again.

“Okay- that didn’t make it on the grass this time.” Jake announces as he closes the door behind himself. He wandered over to the breakfast bar and sat down on one of the stools.

Bradley inwardly sighed before giving Jake a tight lipped smile. “It’s okay, buddy. I’ll hose it tomorrow.”

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Whoops.. sorry not sorry pookie

kinda lazy writing, end is kinda rushed been sitting in my drafts and i wanted to write something else but wanted to post this

#Bradley Bradshaw #rooster x reader #bradley bradshaw imagine #bradley bradshaw x reader #top gun maverick #topgun fanfic #rooster imagine

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lxvvie · 4 months

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On today's episode of Pranks R Us: It's that time of the year when we're inundated with Christmas carols and movies. All. Damn. Day. Hallmark. Here's a scenario for you: How would your faves react to you purposely, horrendously serenading them with Christmas songs that... they don't like? 😊

Capt. John Price - He's nursing his cuppa because he knows for a fact that the boys put you up to this. He feels it in his bone marrow for Christ's sake. Price likes to think he's smiling behind the mug but his cheeks are hurting a bit too much for it to be genuine which really means he's gonna give the rest of 141 hell when he sees them the next time.

Gaz - Went from raising a brow to his cheeks being puffed the hell out because he's trying his best not to laugh in your face. When you're done, you have the biggest shit-eating grin... which devolves into laughter from both you and him. Tears are rolling down your eyes and he's clutching his stomach. God, he loves you, darling.

Soap - Soap is currently the Soapurrito™ with Whiskey (referencing this post) when you decide to randomly serenade them both. Not only do you have Soap looking confused but the dog keeps tilting his head as well, too. Then you hit that one note and they tilted their head at the same damn time and you just fell out laughing.

Ghost - (Referencing this post) Ghost was having a smoke and knit session and then you barged in and began singing. Not only did you sing the absolute worst fucking Christmas song to ever exist to him but you decided to channel your inner Luciano Pavarotti and make it classical for him. You thought you ate that shit but Ghost was staring at you in Say Sike, Mate the entire time while still knitting. You winked and blew him a kiss and if 'Why are we here? Just to suffer?' was a person.

Roach - He, like Price, was smiling a bit too brightly which means that he's crying on the inside. The one who gets up and gives you that reassuring squeeze because you got the spirit. Not everyone is meant to be a singer but he thanks you and revels in the holiday cheer! ❤️

Alex Keller - Was watching TV and not really paying attention to it and then BAM, you popped up! The more you sing, the more you realize his thighs are slowly but surely closing together and LIKE HELL YOU'LL CLOSE SHUT THE JAWS OF SWEET KELLER LOVIN', ALEX.

Alejandro - Alejandro looked up from his work, leaned back in his chair, and just stared at you with a furrowed brow. Rudy and the others are in earshot and are quietly, collectively laughing their asses off. You actually do a couple songs (per the bet) and Alejandro... has a stiff drink in the meantime lmao.

Rudy - Actually does laugh in your face, even though it's Rudolph the Red-Nosed Reindeer. Apologizes while laughing in your face. Because laughter is contagious, however, you, too, start laughing.

König - König gets incredibly excited because Schatz, he didn't know you liked to sing horribly! And when you're done, he, too, chooses to serenade you, and holy shit, König actually can sing!

Horangi - Horangi has the most deadpan expression on his face. He's the one that promises you you can sit on his face all day long if you'll promise him to never sing again stop singing.

Graves - Graves was on a conference call with the boys when you busted in and started singing. The entire time, he's rocking the Zoolander grimace and when you're done, you hear someone give their best Simon Cowell impersonation and then it turns into Shadow Company's Got Talent and you're being judged. 'A' for Ass effort, darlin'.

Valeria - The one who rolls her eyes and massages her temple. May or may not put your ass on the couch tonight for this. Or, better yet, you wanna sing? Put your mouth to good use and sing on her pu—

Keegan - Is the epitome of lost as hell. Keegan is the one grimacing with every high note you, er, try to hit. He can't even bring himself to smile but his eyes are somewhat comically wide, made more so after you kiss his cheek, take the piss out of him, and ask him how you did.

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canirove · 11 months

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Alejandro Garnacho Imagine | one

Author’s note: This is a request from Wattpad. They wanted something with Garnacho where he and the reader are young parents. I know his girlfriend is expecting a boy, but in this case he's a girl's dad 😁 And there are mentions of 💩, you've been warned 😅 I hope you like it, and thank you for reading! 💜

Masterlist

"You do it."

"No, you do it."

"I did the last one."

"No, you didn't."

"Yes, I did."

"No, you didn't, Alejandro. Look" I say, showing him my phone.

"What is that?"

"A list of the times you've taken care of it versus the times I've done it. I did the last one, see?"

"I can't believe you are keeping track of the times we change her diaper when she poos" he laughs.

"It's the only way to make sure you don't cheat and run away" I shrug.

"But I can't do it today, I already got changed into my tracksuit. Imagine that there is an explosion! I can't show up at Old Trafford smelling like poo!"

"Sorry" I shrug again.

"What if I cross paths with Sir Alex and I smell like poo? What will he think about me?"

"He's a dad and he knows that you also are a dad, a very new one. Didn't he ask you the other day how it was going?"

"He did, yeah. He was so nice… He even told me I could ask him for advice if I needed it."

"Then if you show up today smelling like poo, he'll understand. Though you can also tell him it's not you, that it comes from City's changing room."

"Woah, so savage" Alejandro laughs.

"Am I wrong, tho?" I smirk. "Anyway, enough talking. It's diaper time."

"Ok, fine. I'll do it" he sighs.

"Thank you" I say, kissing his cheek.

"Let's see what surprise the little one has for us tod… joder!"

"Oh my God" I say, taking a step back.

"It smells like shit!"

"Because it is shit!" I laugh, covering my nose and mouth with my hand.

"What did you feed her today?"

"She's two months old. You know what she ate today."

"Then what did you eat? Something rotten?"

"Idiot" I say, hitting in the arm. "I ate the same thing you did."

"I don't believe you. Look at the colour too, it is so… disgusting."

"Stop complaining and clean it."

"I can't."

"Alejandro, do it. If you keep staring at it while it is there in the open, you will definitely end up with your clothes smelling like poo."

"Ok, ok… I'll do it. Just stay still, ok?" he says to our daughter. "You don't want people to make fun of your papá, do you? No, you don't. Because you are a very good girl. One who definitely has something wrong with her tummy, but a very good girl."

"See, it wasn't that difficult. And look how happy she looks."

"Of course she is happy. I just got rid of a monster. Make you sure you throw it away, I don't want it growing legs and attacking us at night."

"I will, don't worry" I laugh.

"And now, papá is going to kick some Manchester City asses. Yes, he is" he says with a stupid voice, making our daughter do something like a giggle .

"Kicking asses metaphorically."

"Yes, yes. We don't actually kick asses… though sometimes we have to" he whispers, kissing her cheek. "See you after the game, ok?"

"We'll be there" I smile.

━━━━━━❃━━━━━━

"There they are! The two most beautiful girls in Manchester!" Alejandro says, walking towards us.

"Congratulations on the win and that goal."

"Thank you very much" he says before kissing me. "And how is the little one?"

"She just woke up."

"Just in time" he says, picking her up from the buggy. "Wait, what is that smell?"

"What?"

"That smell. Did she…" he says, lifting her and moving her closer to his face. "No! Again!"

"What?"

"She did it again!"

"No, she didn't!"

"She did!"

"I don't smell anything."

"You are used to the smell. It comes from you after all" he smirks.

"Idiot!" I say, hitting him.

"Hey, careful! I'm holding her!" he says, still smiling.

"She doesn't smell of anything. You are just trolling me."

"Maybe I am" he shrugs. "What are you typing on your phone now?"

"That you are an idiot who just earned himself a whole week of poo duty."

"I what?"

"What you deserve" I grin.

"That's not fair."

"It's already written on the list, there is no coming back now."

"You mother is a rude woman" he says to our daughter.

"And so is your father."

"Maybe that's why we love each other so much" he says, hugging me with his free arm and kissing my head.

"Maybe it is" I smile.

#alejandro garnacho #alejandro garnacho imagine #alejandro garnacho fanfic #alejandro garnacho x reader #football imagine #football fanfic

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three-penguins-in-a-trench-coat · 9 months

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What if one of the Villagers of Stardew Valley ate a Stardrop?

The Stardrop is able to increase the player's maximum energy, but what if one of the villagers were to receive the Stardrop instead? Perhaps it was a gift from the Farmer on the Feast of the Winter Star. Perchance it was found in the crater of a fallen star. Who knows?

Either way, the villagers of Pelican Town may not be as... equipped to handle the powers of the Stardrop as much as the Farmer is. I think that the effects could be quite disastrous. Just imagine, what if Vincent got his hands on one?

Upon scoffing it down, he's immediately charged with more energy than a bull on steroids, his limbs are twitching from the power surging through him and his brain is working overtime to keep up with his body. He's going to go fucking apeshit.

Jodi wakes up early one morning and he's just fucking climbing the walls like a demented Spiderman, hissing and screaming while holding on with his fingertips and toes. After hours of this little gremlin crawling over absolutely everything, he finally remembers how doors work and scurries out into the sunlight. Jodi, wrung out and exhausted, can't do anything about it. Finally, having a moment of silence, goes back to bed. Sam, oblivious to everything that had happened thanks to noise cancelling headphones, is inexplicably confused to find footprints on the ceiling when he walks out for breakfast.

Vincent meanwhile, is just becoming a menace to society. Later, Lewis recorded a total of 9 broken windows, 2 counts of breaking and entering, theft (does eating Evelyn's old photos count as theft?), 14 acts of vandalism and grand theft auto. He's unstoppable. Climbing from rooftop to rooftop like Santa on crack, for an entire day, the people of Pelican Town could do nothing but hide in fear while he destroyed and looted the town. The word 'booger' was scrawled on the outside of the Saloon in a suspicious liquid that looked a lot like blood. Alex's dog was spray painted pink. The toilet from the General Store was sitting in the fountain. But it was nothing compared to Joja Mart.

Joja Mart had become a warzone. Vincent had hit it, and he had hit it hard. Food was scattered everywhere. The shelves had been tipped over and thrown about. Chaos reigned supreme. Morris squatted in his little cubicle, trapped by hundreds of cans of Joja Cola. The poor employees had taken off, thankful for the break.

Eventually, however, something had to be done. Vincent had stolen Lewis's pickup and was tearing off down the potholed highway at a hundred miles an hour. It was only a matter of time before he decided the other cars were in his way and caused an incident so large it made headlines nationally. Jodi and Lewis turned to the only person who might be able to help them: the Farmer.

And so, at 11pm on a cold winter's evening, the Farmer teleported to the Calico Desert, stimmed up from a triple shot expresso and feeling nothing but simmering rage. This was their one day off for the entire freaking year and Vincent had decided that it was the perfect time to become a fallen god. Just their luck. In the distance, they could spot the headlights getting closer and closer at a scarily rapid pace. Vincent was barely awake at this point; whatever made the Stardrop so potent had token over his brain, dissolving his consciousness into a frenzied ball of childish ambition.

The Farmer pulled out a hammer of ungodly size, bristling with so much demonic energy it was literally humming with power, and in one swift motion, launched into the air, twisted their body around for maximum force and fucking pounded that shit into the bonnet of Lewis's pickup. The car went from 140 to 0 in an instant, throwing Vincent through the windshield. He was yeeted down the road like a meat-filled ragdoll, bouncing along, leaving bloody splotches every few metres. The Farmer threw them over one shoulder and hauling him like the wet sack of meat he is, teleported back to the Valley.

And so, that was how the Farmer found themselves in Rasmodius's basement at 1 in the morning, watching as an exorcism was performed on the little boy. There was lots of screaming, ritualistic chanting and levitation, but with some luck, plenty of caffeine and a little bit of divine intervention, Vincent was back to normal.

At the next Feast of the Winter Star, the Farmer got Vincent a sack of coal. Vincent asked the Farmer why, had he been bad that year? The Farmer proceeded to sock him in the head with the bag, sending him flying. It was quite reminiscent of his body flopping along the highway, and the Farmer found it quite therapeutic.

#stardew valley #stardew #sdv #stardew vincent #sdv vincent #writeblr #writers of tumblr #story idea #storytelling #short story #shitpost

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foxymoxynoona · 2 years

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Tell Me What Changed (Pt. 4)

Banner and lines by the talented @awrkive

Summary: Alex and Jungkook have been best friends since childhood –actual best friends. She is NOT in love with him, for real, and wishes people would stop assuming that. Why does no one question if he’s in love with her? Huh? But it might have to do with his successful fuckboy status, while Alex is very much… not that. Which is fine and doesn’t matter! Until Jimin’s impending wedding leaves her eager for a date and willing to put herself out there, and Jungkook can’t believe what happens next.

Fuckboy Best Friend JK x OC

CW and tags: fuckboy behavior, jealousy, pining, heartbreak, angst, bad language, explicit sex, sexy photos, alcohol, f2l, who knows what else

Read on AO3 here or below

Previous Chapter | Masterlist | Next Chapter

“Now she’s been talking about him nonstop since they got back,” Jungkook vented to Nate as they sorted and stored inventory in the back. “It’s annoying as shit. Like all she wants to do is tell me– just every little thing they did–”

“A play by play of their sex?” Nate asked, grimacing.

“Yeah! I mean it’s not like we don’t ever talk about sex but I don’t go into fucking detail–”

“How much detail are we talking?” Nate interrupted. “She’s telling you he shaves his ball and what his stroke-game–”

“No no not that kind of detail but I know how many times they had sex and how many times she came and that she blew him and he went down on her and that she didn’t expect to like it but she did,” Jungkook sighed and rattled off despite that sick clench of his stomach again. It was stupid. “Look, I’m not queasy about a play by play.”

Nate snickered, “Yeah, I know.”

“But she’s not another guy. It’s not actually like talking to– I’m a guy. She’s a girl. Does she think I just tell her this level of– I mean, we live together, it’s not like she doesn’t know I fuck around and we joke about things a lot, but I don’t come home and give her this serious run of show. I just tell her things to make her laugh!”

“Even if you did, it’s not like she knows the girls, right?”

“Right!” Jungkook shouted, appreciating the point. “I have to be around her boyfriend and know he made her cum four times and she was afraid she’d crush his head with her thighs when he ate her out–” He broke off because Nate had slumped against the boxes laughing.

“Why do girls always worry about that?!”

“Yeah I don't know.”

“I mean the girls I fuck are sticks and they’ll be like ‘oh sorry I don’t want to hurt you.’ Bitch you’re squeezing two spaghetti noodles on my ears. You wish you had that thigh power!”

Jungkook gave a non-committal laugh because he didn’t want the subject to veer off just yet. He wasn’t done venting. He needed to empty himself of these things before he had to go grocery shopping with Alex later today. He was maxed out at the way she floated around the apartment, every few minutes remembering some new detail from her trip she needed to impart on Jungkook.

Great, she had a good time at snooty Lakeville with her formerly-corporate older boyfriend who made her cum four times and was apparently good with his tongue. Cool, Jungkook was good with his tongue too, Hoseok was nothing special. But she talked about him like he hung the moon just because she’d finally gotten a good lay and Jungkook wanted to be happy for her, but it was just too much. It wasn’t like they invented fucking!

“It’s like she forgot that just because we’re best friends doesn’t mean I’m another one of the girls,” Jungkook said. “It’s not just about having to see this guy around all the time and think about the depraved things he did to my friend, it’s also about just TMI of her in that context, you know? I don’t need to know what my roommate’s pussy sounds like–”

“She told you?!” Nate gasped.

“No, I’m being metaphorical.”

“Ahh, ok, dude, I was going to say… but yeah this is a platonic roommate, right? So why is she telling you all of this unless she’s trying to lure you in?”

Jungkook froze, stack of phone boxes cradled in his arms, and repeated, “Lure me in?”

“Like you said, why’s she telling you all this shit? She has girl friends, right? Unless she’s telling you to make you curious, yeah?” Nate wiggled his eyebrows.

Jungkook immediately propelled back into motion and assured him, “No no it’s definitely not that.”

“I don’t know, man, what girl tells her guy friend ‘my boyfriend fucked me this good’ unless she’s hinting ‘think you can do better?’”

“It’s definitely not that,” Jungkook assured him, immediately regretting this conversation now. Nate was an idiot. Total fucking moron, that guy, Jungkook should have known better. The slight embellishments Jungkook had given to the things Alex had actually said, to make it a funnier story to Nate, had confused the guy. It wasn’t like she’d told him what Hoseok’s stroke game was, she’d just said he made her cum four times and she was sore now. He definitely didn’t think she had meant think you can do better, baby?

Although obviously, objectively, he could. He had way more practice than Hoseok, he was sure of that, and while every woman was different, he had a wider sampling. It wasn’t like Hoseok came into this knowing anything more about how to fuck Alex good than Jungkook did; in fact Jungkook knew a lot more about Alex than Hoseok did so–

Not that Jungkook wanted to fuck Alex. Just objectively. In a direct competition of skills, he’d do better. Except for the wild card Hoseok would have, the finger on the scales that would tip the balance in his favor: Alex liked Hoseok, she wanted him, in a way she had never considered Jungkook. Jungkook knew that the more you wanted someone, the better the sex with them was, even if sex in general was great. So no matter how much better he was at fucking, Hoseok would win a competition judged by Alex because she wanted Hosoek to win. She chose him that way.

“Dude you look pissed,” Nate laughed, throwing a box at him. Jungkook caught it, but in doing so dropped several phone boxes.

“Oops.”

“What are you thinking? Revenge fuck?”

“What does that mean?” Jungkook asked, face now shifting from whatever ‘pissed’ expression Nate thought he had seen to one of skepticism. “I’m not going to fuck her– she has a boyfriend–”

“Nah, dude, this is your roommate, you didn’t want to fuck her before anyway, right? I mean fuck someone else and give her the details and see how she likes it! Probably she’ll get all ‘ew gross don’t tell me that,’” Nate explained, mimicking a high-pitched girl's voice in a way that seemed to prove he had not been laid anytime recently.

Jungkook’s head tilted, trying to make sense of this. He didn’t have to fuck someone new to have gross sex details to share. He didn’t think that was the problem. And again, it wasn’t like Alex didn’t already know he was a fuckboy. It’s just that his stories were funny, hers were–

Maybe that was the problem. Maybe she thought because he fucked around, he wanted to hear about his best friend getting railed by her lightweight boyfriend on their hoity-toity trip up to Lakeville. Dude apparently couldn’t even hold his alcohol so his stamina couldn’t be that good. He suspected Alex was just an easy cummer since she’d gone unlaid for so long–

Ok no. NO no no no that was the whole point was that he did not want to start thinking about Alex in any sex-related sense. No! He’d drawn a hard line there basically a decade ago and there was no need or reason to muddy those waters now just because in quick succession she had revealed she wasn’t actually asexual, she now had a boyfriend, and for some inexplicable reason Alex had let him see her in lingerie. Ok, sure, for ‘feedback’ to make sure Hoseok wouldn’t laugh at her.

Obviously the fucker hadn’t laughed at her. Hope you enjoyed it, asshole! That’s my best friend whose weekend you almost ruined getting too drunk! Alex hadn’t confirmed the lingerie was a hit but Jungokok hadn’t expected it to be anything but. It had looked good on her.

“This is why I won’t live with a girl unless I’m married to her,” Nate continued, speaking mostly to himself because Jungkook was barely listening. “It doesn’t work.”

“It works for us,” Jungkook argued.

“Does it? She’s totally forgotten you’re a dude, dude.”

“Yeah but that’s ok. I mean, I’m not a fuckable dude to her–”

“Do you hear yourself? You’re Jungkook Jeon! You’re a fuckable dude to any lady unless she’s your sister, right?”

“Alex is basically like my sister.”

“Then why is she telling you all this gross shit?” Nate pointed out. “That’s like some weird sexual incest relationship or something. That’s some porn shit.” Nate pitched his voice higher again, “‘Hi, stepbrother, can you help me, my thong got stuck in my asscrack. Oh, your hands are all soapy? Maybe you can use your teeth–’”

“Jesus Christ, man,” Jungkook laughed. “Get laid or something.”

“Yeah but you aren’t pissed if I tell you about it, right? So yeah, something’s not right between you and Alex. You gotta stand up for yourself. Remind her you’re a man and you have zero interest in hearing about another man’s game.”

Jungkook realized what Nate was saying did not actually make much sense. He froze again, trying to untangle it. Fine, maybe he was annoyed listening to Alex talk about Hoseok but it was because it was different than talking about generic hook ups. He didn’t mind her teasing him about fucking around, but it was different to have your best friend give you the details of their sex-fueled weekend away with their boyfriend, who they would probably now be fucking down the hall from you on the weekly. Or she’d go over there. She had no problem with his sexcapades but yeah! Maybe he did a little bit just because he also had to look at the guy! He didn’t want to think about another guy cumming on her tits or whatever trash they’d try next! Whatever, maybe Alex didn’t think of him as anything but her brother, but he didn’t want to think these things about his sister!

Nate was pretty useless as an employee and not much good as a friend but something about talking to him did give Jungkook the boost he needed. If Alex started telling him things he didn’t want to know, he'd just tell her to cut it out. He’d remind her she was like a sister to him. He didn’t want to think about her having sex anymore than she had already forced him to!

“Bananas– not the organic ones though,” Jungkook said, looking up from their hastily scratched shopping list.

“Duh.” She actually rolled her eyes at the suggestion that she wouldn’t know what kind of bananas he wanted.

Jungkook started to walk over to the banana display, leaving Alex to push the cart. Instead she hopped up onto the low bar and gripped the handle, whining after him,

“Koooo, push me.”

“You were horizontal most of the weekend, push your damn self,” he argued, back towards her. He hated making the joke about a thing he didn’t want to talk about, but at least sex jokes came natural. He didn’t feel like doing that stupid thing they did sometimes where she rode on the cart and he pushed it, arms around her. Sometimes she’d lift her arms and quote ‘Titanic.’ One time Jimin had seen them do it and insisted there was something wrong with them, a gas leak in their apartment or something.

But he didn’t feel like doing it right now, he just wanted to get the grocery shopping trip done and get home. He’d been on his feet all day and he was tired and usually they went grocery shopping on Sundays so he’d been living off of stale cereal in yogurt and instant rice and kimchi for three days because she’d been gone all weekend. Horizontal.

“Not just horizontal!” she said brightly, completely missing his tone. She gave the cart a shove and rode it over, bashing into the back of his ankles.

“Yeah, ok.”

“Why are you being sulky?”

“Because I’m hungry!”

“Well it’s not my fault you couldn’t feed yourself while I was away. You could have gone grocery shopping on your own,” she pointed out.

“I was busy.”

“Doing what?” she taunted. “Mom said you went to dinner at home. And that you didn’t give away any of my secrets so thanks.”

“They grilled me. You owe me.”

“Eh, you already owed me. You’ve earned my trust back.”

“That’s why you’re telling me every detail now, huh?”

“Yeah I’m not actually worried you’re going to go tell my mom he made me cum–”

“I know how many times,” he interrupted.

Alex’s response was to laugh, “Damn, you’re hangry! OK ok fine, let’s plow through the list so we can get home and feed you. Hehe, plowed like–”

“Alex,” he gave a deep, annoyed sigh to carry her name through the produce section.

She just giggled, “It’s kind of fun pissing you off, actually. I’m barely even telling you anything but you’re getting all pissy because someone beside you is talking about sex–”

“We’re in a grocery store,” he glared, gesturing at the other people in this public space.

“Yeah yeah I know, ok. I’ll dial it back. How was work?”

The question bored him but he answered it and returned the question. Her work bored him too. Everything bored him!

“Hey we’re going to the arcade tomorrow, right?” He suddenly thought of it. Her being gone Monday had totally thrown his weekly schedule off and he realized now tomorrow was Thursday arcade night and she might be working.

She gave him an incredulous look, “Of course we’re going. I mean, unless you’re bailing on me. I have it blocked out in my work schedule.”

“Oh, yeah. Ok. I’m feeling like we need to work harder to get the Slushie machine and stuff. I don’t think the marketing they’ve been doing is enough,” he said, suddenly much more animated by relief. “It feels like there’s a timer counting down on the place, right? I’m worried.”

“You know we could just buy a Slushie machine–”

“Ok moneybags,” he scoffed.

“Let’s see how much they are–” He shoved her hands with her phone down and reached over her to grab a bunch of bananas.

“I don’t care how much they actually are. It’s the principle of the matter. You don’t care about it anymore? I thought–”

“I care, I care,” she assured him.

He frowned, “Or does a Slushie machine not fit the style you want to impress–”

“What is up with you?” she asked. “You’re being all crabby and taking it out on me. What did I do?”

“I’m not–”

“I care about the Slushie machine,” she said. “I’m sorry you needed me here to grocery shop on Sunday and I wasn’t. I’m sorry I blew off the arcade weeks ago but I won’t do it again. Is there something else going on? Are you fighting with a girl? Did instagram suspend your account or something?”

“I have more going on in my life than instagram and fucking girls,” he grumbled. The bananas he had grabbed weren’t big enough so he grabbed a second bunch. They went through a lot of bananas.

“Ok, so tell me about it. What did I miss– you know what? Let’s go to the Starbucks and get something to snack on. Coffee or something. You want anything?”

“You don’t get a discount here,” he reminded.

“I know but this is an emergency. My treat.”

It was suspicious. It made him very suspicious but not so suspicious he wouldn’t accept a treat. So they bought a cookie to share and each got an iced caramel macchiato and fuck the sugar. Jungkook had to admit it did make things feel a little better as they returned to their shopping, side by side, sipping their little drinks. Just two roommates getting their weekly errands done with a nice pick-me-up.

“Ok,” she said. “Now back to what you were saying. Other stuff going on that’s bothering you right now.”

“Huh?”

“You said you have more going on than girls and instagram. News to me so spill, what’s the new thing,” she said, wiggling her eyebrows at him, as she slurped her fucking straw into her mouth.

“Uh…”

“Hello? Earth to Kookoo brain?” When she pulled her drink away to speak, a drop of milk lingered on her lip and he had the sudden and overwhelming urge to just lean down and– ok, it was weird, but it was just the crazy impulse that flashed through him to lean down and lick it off her lip and– well, her mouth would be cold and sweet and milky right now, because of the drink and– he didn’t have a thing for milk or anything, just that her mouth would taste like creamy caramel right now–

“Oh my god, are you sick or something?”

“Sick,” he repeated, meaning his brain that would do that to him while he was talking to Alex of all people!

Ok brain, he realized now. I went too long without getting my balls drained. I get it. He hadn’t even jacked off in the last week! He was cranky and backed up. Alex was right about her assumption that he hadn’t gotten laid and that was probably why he was so sensitive about her weekend with Hoseok. It wasn’t like he actually resented her getting fu– sex. She could have been having sex all this time! He didn’t mind! He just thought she didn’t want it!

But also his brain needed to quit it with the phrase “Alex getting fucked” because it was just too much in the wrong direction. He thought Alex was probably a love-making type of girl, not a getting railed one. They had sex but he’d doubted they’d fucked. The reality of all the excitement over Hoseok, he decided, was that it had probably been pretty tame, mediocre sex, but she had such a low bar for what she should be asking for. He’d nudge her in the right direction to make sure her needs were actually getting met.

Someday.

Definitely not right now.

Her hands were on his face, invading his bubble to check for a fever.

“I’m fine,” he complained and batted her away, “Leave me alone, you’ll give me zits.”

“My hands are clean.”

“You’ve just been banana-handling!”

“Uh I have definitely washed my hands since– oh, you meant…” She trailed off with a loud laugh and bounced away to the next thing on their list: oranges. Obviously she knew the joke she’d made. Her usual brash humor made him grumble, but he quieted it behind a sip of the iced drink she’d bought for him.

When she turned around, she was holding two naval oranges there, but before Jungkook could think of what joke would sound normal and not weird because now he’d seen her nipples and new what her tits looked like in only a flimsy lavender top, she sighed,

“Remember that time May and her friends stuffed these things in their bathing suits and made fun of me?”

“Uh… no,” he lied.

“I still think about that sometimes,” she admitted. “That sucked. I was so jealous of her little AAs.”

“You shouldn’t be. They’re um, nice. You know. At any size.”

“You think mine are nice?” she asked, arching her eyebrow.

“Uh… I, um, objectively speaking–”

“Oh my god, I have a boyfriend,” she laughed. Then immediately sighed and shook her head, “Sorry, I know I’m being so fucking annoying about it right now.”

YEAH! He wanted to yell it but she kept going.

“I guess I just still can’t believe it and I figure I can talk to you about anything. Rebekah and Minxi are both kind of shy about sex stuff… and I’m not on In’am or Sabina’s hot-girl level so… besides I’ve listened to all your sexcapades for years, so I figure you owe me,” she laughed and cradled the oranges against her chest as she tried to tear off a produce bag with one hand. She’d done the whole thing backwards like an idiot.

But Jungkook couldn’t do and think at the same time, and this conversation had him so flustered because now he was remembering her in that lavender thing, he reached for the oranges instead of ripping off the bag which is what he’d meant to do. He grabbed both oranges but a big squish of her tit as well.

“Jungkook!” she gasped. “Right in front of the salad?!”

“Fuck, sorry, I– you can’t– just get the bag before you grab the–”

“Before I grab the what?” she laughed, clearly amused by the whole thing. Jungkook was mortified. He’d never felt mortified in front of Alex but he did right now –well, not since he was a teenager and realized she noticed the random boners he kept popping as puberty wreaked havoc on his system. Or that time he’d been practicing with condoms in high school and had one stuck to his sock and she’d noticed it when she came over. Or that time her car had turned on and grabbed the bluetooth connection to his phone and she’d seen the name of the porn he was in the middle of jacking off to. She’d texted him a picture and six laughing emojis. Ruined his orgasm.

“Oranges, you sick fuck,” he retorted. It came out harsher than he intended it.

But Alex crumpled against the stack of oranges, she burst into such whole-body laughter.

“Oh my god you’re such an asshole,” she howled. “What is wrong with you? Is this really what you’re like if you go a week without–”

“Ma’am, this is a family establishment,” he interrupted, to cut her off because there were children walking nearby but also because he saw a lifeline through to his normal self and reached for it. Of course! He could make outrageous jokes with her and it was fine! Why was he being so weird and cranky?! And how did she know it had been a week for him?!

“It’s so funny when you say shitty stuff with that baby face,” she giggled, wiping a tear from her watery eyes. She reached forward and held the bag open for him to chuck the oranges into. He couldn’t have explained why, but something about the intimacy of manhandling giant oranges into a crinkly bag she held was too much. They locked eyes over the bag of oranges and both started laughing again.

This felt better. Jungkook made sure to bump her around as he picked the best broccoli heads, and she hip-checked him out of the way to reach the ranch dressing, and then they bickered over whether to get normal Chef Boyardee or the healthy one without high fructose corn syrup in it.

“But the healthy one is gross,” she insisted. “You know what boobs are made of? High fructose corn syrup.”

“Yeah, so we don’t need it,” Jungkook argued.

Alex laughed and waved the can at him, “What’s this ‘we’?”

“We got plenty of boobs in the house.”

“Whose? Yours?”

“Mine are nice too! I mean I’m not parading around in a little gauzy purple thing but–”

“Maybe you should open your mind to it,” she said. “You could get a matching one! I got it at that store I made you go with me, the one at the mall–”

“Wait you bought that with me?”

“Yeah. Super sneaky so you wouldn’t see. Like faster than that black bra you helped me steal when we were–”

“Yeah I already know what you’re talking about, it’s not like we steal from Victoria's Secret every couple of months,” he assured her. “Literally the only time in my life I have stolen lingerie.”

“Now you just buy it, huh, Mr. Moneybags?”

“Who the fuck am I buying lingerie for?” he scoffed.

“I don’t know… anyway. Yeah, obviously I wasn’t going to tell you I was buying lingerie.”

“Yeah, obviously,” he scoffed. “You waited until we were home to show it to me. On your body.”

“All right all right, sorry if that was weird.”

He was at a decision point, he realized. The responses he could give fanned out before him like a dialogue tree in a video game. He could tease. He could deny. He could establish a boundary and make sure it never happened again.

He shrugged, “Nah, it wasn’t weird, it’s just fun to tease you about it. You were so nervous about something stupid!”

“My body is stupid, huh?!”

“No, that was my point. How you look in that kind of thing is stupid to worry about.”

“You sound like my mom. ‘You are beautiful Alex and any boy will know that!’ As if I need reassurance from boys to feel good about myself.”

“Yeah just me.”

“Just you and the boy I’m dating,” she agreed as she set things on the belt for him to ring up at the self check out. He opened a couple bags first so she’d be able to squeeze past him and bag while he paid. They’d split the total later.

Jungkook shrugged, “Eh don’t worry too much about him. Boyfriends are replaceable; I am not. Wait, did you show your mom the lingerie–”

“No, of course not! Oh my god, I have boundaries! Just not with you!”

“Ok, good,” he laughed. “Here shrimpie, put the ramen in that last bag so you can carry it. I thought we’d start putting it in the low cabinet so you can reach it with your little possum hands in the middle of the night.”

“You’re such a turd,” she huffed and punched him in the ass. Hard.

“Damnit, Namjoon!”

“Ahhhhh I just tried to help,” he whined. Alex sighed and grabbed chopsticks and began picking out the vanilla beans he had dumped from a jar he apparently thought was dehydrated garlic. Vanilla beans looked nothing like garlic.

“Even if that was garlic, why would you just blindly dump it into the pan?! Besides, we’re using fresh garlic,” Alex scolded.

Beside her Taehyung shook his head, “Don’t bother, Alex. He went from mom to wife, the dude never learned common cooking sense.”

“You guys, don’t be shit. I’m trying to learn.”

“Step one, always stop and think about what you’re doing,” Jimin said, only to squirm and laugh at Namjoon’s look of rage at being lectured by Jimin –Jimin who tended to be on rice maker duty. It was rich coming from Taehyung honestly too, who used to be helpless. But he’d literally taken crash cooking courses in the last three years to learn how to cook to impress the ladies, and it had worked! He’d caught Sabina with those cooking skills. Gotta respect the hustle!

Jungkook reached right over Alex’s head to pull another bowl out of the cabinet above her. It pressed her into the counter, a drawer knob digging right into her ribs.

“Careful, hot stuff here,” she pointed out to him.

“I know, I’m just getting a bowl.”

“I meant the dish.”

“Uh huh.”

“The food dish, not the me dish.”

He gave her a tight-lipped look, bowl now safely in his hands, and assured her, “Yeah. I got it.”

Jungkook did this a lot lately, just would suddenly get all sulky. She hadn’t been able to tease out whether something was up at work or he was just still in his dry spell or what. She’d checked his snap and insta to make sure no girls were bullying him but if they were, it wasn’t on his page. In the past it had never taken her long to crack him; just the right poke and he’d spill everything, sometimes flopped across her lap like a worn out puppy demanding comfort and attention.

Fortunately Jimin also noticed and teased, “Uh oh, baby’s in a bad mood?”

“I’m not your baby,” Jungkook frowned.

“Yeah, we know, you’re mine and you’re hungry and it’s making you cranky,” Alex joked. “Sorry guys, I forgot to feed the baby his afternoon snack before we came here… I know I’m responsible for him and I failed in my sacred duties… here, muffin, eat this.”

“Muffin…” he grumbled, but when she held a piece of chicken to his mouth, he deigned to eat it. His glare gave her the answer as he nodded, “Yeah, it’s good.”

“There, is that better? You just need food. You’ve barely touched your horny DMs. I didn’t see any thirst traps on snap yet tonight!”

“You’re such a something-something,” he laughed, and pretended like he was going to chop her in the stomach, but instead just chased after the piece of chicken she’d been going to feed herself with his mouth like a fish. It felt sort of like staging for a movie; the playful proximity would have been an easy set up to just dart forward and kiss.

If it was Hoseok! Obviously! She wasn’t kissing anyone else! It was just a funny situation, and the premise distracted her long enough he was able to take the chicken after all and give her a smug grin about it.

“The marinade came out good?” Namjoon asked him. Alex had been the one to make it and she awaited Jungkook’s review.

“Yeah, it’s good. We should serve it with the green beans though so there’s some crunch, the chicken isn’t crispy on its own.”

“Yeah, can you saute those? I think Minxi already trimmed them.”

“Yep, right here! My work is done,” she beamed, and handed over the bowl and simply walked away.

Alex set the next batch of dumplings to steam and left the boys to keep an eye on it and wandered off after Minxi. Hobi wouldn’t be here until later; he was staying longer at work to cover for a barista who’d had a last minute family emergency. Hobi always covered; it was sweet and a reminder how much he loved his career, even if it bummed Alex out sometimes that it often meant moved dates or plans. He wasn’t a brain surgeon or something! But she also respected his work ethic.

On the bright side, they’d been dating long enough now that he felt comfortable casually adjusting their plans. It’s not like he had missed anything important! Not that there had been anything important to miss yet but still.

The kitchen was loud anyway and she wanted to just hang out; it’s why she and Jungkook had come early to this dinner party, which was Namjoon’s attempts to take control of the way everyone kept showing up at his house and turn the affairs into less drinking and something more sophisticated. He’d begged them to cook. He wanted to learn.

“Hey are the rumors true Namjoon already started seeing someone?” she whispered to Sabina and In’am.

“What do you mean already?” Sabina answered. “His divorce is finalized! There’s not some magic time he needs to wait.”

“No, I know! I just meant… because he just started looking,” Alex quickly covered her tracks. She thought there was an amount of time you needed to wait before people would whisper about you behind your back…

Exactly like this.

“I think it’s great,” Alex insisted. “I just meant i thought he’d fuck around more before he wanted to bring someone home to us.”

“Some people aren’t fuck-arounds,” Rebeka shrugged. “Some of us are lifers.”

“Yeah totally.” Alex paused, thoughtful, then frowned, “I guess I’m a lifer? Are those my only options?”

“What other options do you want?” Minxi prodded.

“I don’t know,” Alex said quickly, because she didn’t understand how they had gotten here or what was even being talked about. She guessed she was a lifer –she didn’t date around, and certainly didn’t fuck around. But at the same time, it wasn’t like she was already thinking of marrying Hoseok. Well, maybe she’d daydreamed about that earlier, before they started dating. Shit, that didn’t sound right! All her internal thoughts meant was that once Hoseok became a very real guy she was dating, those kinds of fantasies felt a little embarrassing because it felt like she was getting ahead of herself. They’d had a great time in Lakeville and had a couple of dates out or hung out at his place many times since then, they’d had more great sex, things were going great! If they wound up married… well, that would be great! But she wasn’t already really thinking of marriage! She’d basically be a child bride!

“Are you… hyperventilating?” In’am asked, leaning in closer and pressing her hand familiarly to Alex’s jaw.

“I’m just not quite ready to get married yet. I don’t know how you’re doing it. I mean I know you’re older than me but…”

In’am shared a laugh with Sabina, which Minxi and Rebekah awkwardly parroted as well, before assuring her, “That might be a little fast. Do you feel like your relationship is going too fast?”

“No! No, I just am sweating from these questions. Why are we talking about this again? I thought we were going to gossip about Namjoon’s romantic life?”

“Unfortunately I don’t think any of us know anything,” Rebekah sighed and let her chin fall onto her hand. “Where do people keep meeting people? I feel like I have zero prospects unless I want to– no, don’t you say it,” she warned Minxi, holding a finger up.

“Now she has to say.”

“You showed me that dating app you were on…”

Alex was relieved when attention turned that way. She felt like she’d made some mistake without even understanding it. Looking around the circle, she wondered if it meant she was spending too much time with dudes lately. Most of her freetime was with Hoseok and whatever remained was kind of just at home with Jungkook. Maybe she needed to carve out time for more than just texting and the occasional dinner with these girls…

Her phone chirped in her pocket and she yanked it out to see a message from Hoseok saying he was swinging by his place to shower before he came over –understandable since the mocha and espresso tended to seep into your hair and skin while you worked. Her friends were used to her smelling like coffee and chocolate but Hoseok was very particular about how he smelled and looked. No shiny face, no powder behind the ears, and definitely no smelling like work.

There were also notifications for etsy, Tumblr, ebay, Twitter, and Snapchat. She dismissed most of them but opened Snap because the notif mentioned Jungkook was someone who’d shared something. What could he possibly be snapping while he cooked just in the other room?

The selfie had Jungkook looking dramatically to the side, showing Jimin, Taehyung, and Namjoon in the background with the caption: me and bros cooking dinner for some lucky bitches

A next photo showed Jungkook twisting his shirt into his fist to more clearly show the outline of his shoulder and chest muscles and a little bit of skin above his shorts, a few hairs of the treasure trail he’d once admitted to her he wished was more manly and thicker. Taehyung had noticed the photo being taken; he was looking over his shoulder at Jungkook, grinning, devilishly handsome, a casual upstage to Jungkook’s try-hard fuckboy antics. And yet Alex’s attention lingered on her dumb friend. Why was he posting suddenly? Because she’d teased him about horny DMs?

Alex leaned in close to Rebekah and pouted her lips and threw up a peace sign for a photo as Rebekah quickly played along without knowing what for. What a good sport. Alex didn’t often post anything to Snapchat but added it now with the caption: it’s us. We bitches.

“Hey,” Rebekah complained, seeing it.

“You don’t want to be JK’s bitch?”

“Obviously not,” Rebekah scoffed but it didn’t quite reach her eyes. Alex obviously didn’t comment. She had hoped Rebekah’s little crush on Jungkook would fade in time as she saw more of his fuckboy antics, but either Rebekah was intrigued by his behavior –so very different than any guy she’d ever dated– or she’d been able to see the charming, likable greasy Shrek behind the fuckboy antics.

Shrek. Yeah. He was definitely a Shrek.

At the same time her photo posted, Jungkook posted another, holding a spoon of sauce towards the phone camera, eyebrow cocked, tongue pressed to form a bulge in the side of his mouth: want to taste?

Now she laughed and leaned close to show Rebekah, who was whining wanting to know what was going on.

“It’s just a mouthful of sauce,” Alex snickered.

“Um… I think he means cum.”

Alex didn’t know what was funnier, hearing Rebekah say ‘cum’ or Rebekah thinking Alex didn’t get the joke.

“Yeah but just eating a mouthful of that sauce would be gross, so he’s making it seem like a mouthful of his cum would also be gross–”

“Wouldn’t it be?” Minxi asked. “Isn’t a mouthful of anyone’s pretty gross? I realize I’m outing myself here but–”

In’am shrugged, “You get used to it. If you swallow quickly you don’t have to deal with the mouthful part.”

“Or just let it dribble down your chin if you don’t like the taste or texture in your mouth,” Sabina suggested, dragging a finger down her chin. “They like that.”

“All of them?” Rebekah clarified.

“All of them,” Sabina nodded.

Alex made a mental note. She had not given Hoseok a blowjob yet, worried about messing up their enjoyable sex by showing too much of her inexperience too quickly. Hoseok hadn’t seemed bothered at all when she’d admitted she didn’t have vast experience. While he didn’t exactly disclose his own –maybe for the best– he was patient and vocal when she did something he liked. Obviously it was time to step it up soon though, right? He’d gone down on her. She didn’t want him to start thinking she was never going to return the favor, and it would probably take her some time to get good at it!

Obviously she had lied to Jungkook about it when he’d started to tease that she let Hoseok do all the work. And now she was paranoid about it! Damnit, she needed to blow her boyfriend and soon so he wouldn’t be thinking the same thing.

“What are you guys talking about?” Jungkook asked, suddenly leaning down on his forearms on the couch between Alex and Rebekah.

“Your gross cum,” Alex smiled at him.

“It’s definitely not gross.”

“It is though.”

“I don’t think you know anything about it,” he retorted.

“I know what cum is like,” she cried defensively, hitting his arm to try and knock him off the couch.

“Not mine.”

“It’s not special,” she returned.

“This is a lot,” Minxi murmured. “They’re weird, aren’t they?”

“Yes, they’re weird,” In’am assured her. “Nothing new here.”

“The results of the science experiment when a boy and a girl live together platonically for too long…”

“Hey,” Jungkook said, turning his glare to Minxi. “We’re golden.”

“Yeah? You’ve adapted to your new dad?”

“Hobi and I get along fine,” Jungkook said and Alex wondered if it sounded like a lie to anyone else. They still had not spent any real time together since that failed arcade date except for a couple awkward evenings watching tv at the apartment that Jungkook had mostly left during the middle of anyway. Booty calls or whatever.

It wasn’t that they didn’t get along, but she got the distinct feeling from things he said and did that Jungkook still expected Hoseok to be uppity or patronizing or something, just because he was older and had a corporate job, even though he’d given up that corporate job! She thought he was kind of threatened by Hoseok. She understood Jungkook masked shyness and insecurity behind the fuckboy antics but she didn’t see what that had to do with Hoseok! Hobi was definitely not doing anything to try to make Jungkook feel bad about himself.

Hoseok happened to walk through the door right that second and Jungkook shouted, “Speak of the devil! Hey man, glad you could make it!” He turned and went right up to Hobi and threw his arms around her bemused, slightly stunned boyfriend. Of course Hoseok returned the hug, even wrapped his arms tighter around Jungkook and squeezed, as if this was a perfectly normal greeting.

“J-kaaay,” he cheered. “How’s it going, man? Hey, did you find out about that commission competition yet?”

Jungkook’s face lit up, “Oh, Alex told you about that? Yeah, dude, I fucking won!”

“Hey hey, winner J-kaaay,” Hoseok grinned and they high-fived.

Alex sighed and covered her face and slumped down on the couch as all four girls laughed at what they were seeing. It wasn’t that it was fake; obviously Jungkook and Hoseok were both good people and knew they needed to get along for her sake. It just felt like a performance though.

“Yeah, JK is getting along great with his new dad,” she grumbled.

“It takes time,” wise In’am assured her. “At least they’re trying.”

Trying here meant that Jungkook was talking Hoseok’s ear off and he hadn’t even gotten to say hello to Alex yet. It was cute he was so excited about winning after being second each time for like two years now, but couldn’t he wait five minutes?

“Hey, he’s my boyfriend, let me say hi,” she pouted in their direction. Hoseok was still smiling and nodding at what Jungkook said, but came closer to bend down over the back of the couch and kiss her on the cheek. Just the right level of PDA she felt comfortable with in front of her friends.

“--anyway, it’s a nice little payout,” Jungkook said, unbothered. “Maybe I’ll take someone special up to Lakeville now, huh? You can give me some pointers.”

“I think we like different things,” Hoseok told him. Which was kind of a weird response, Alex thought. Jungkook must have thought so too because he immediately stopped talking and tilted his head, eyebrows pinched.

“Do we?”

“He means he gets seasick on the water,” Alex suggested, not sure if that was actually what Hoseok had meant. But it must have been! “But you love the water.”

“Oh, yeah, I do.”

“Hey JK,” Namjoon called. “Something’s not looking right… can you come look?”

“Oh, yeah– hey, why don’t you come too, Hobi? We could use another guy in there who knows what he’s doing.”

“Oh I don’t actually know anything about cooking,” Hoseok admitted, cheeks appling up like when he was bashful about something.

“Oh, I thought Alex was always saying the food at your place–”

“My roommate is great.”

“Yeah, Seokjin is amazing, we should bring him over next time, actually!” Alex agreed.

Jungkook nodded, “Yeah yeah. Ok well, we could use your help in the kitchen.” He shrugged and walked off, but the request was clear.

Hoseok gave Alex a warm smile, an obvious I’m doing this for you message embedded, and waved, “Ladies, nice to see you. I will talk more after I have assisted the men.”

“Good luck.”

“Watch out for Namjoon or Taehyung with knives, for different reasons!”

“Wait, what?”

But he went anyway, and Alex realized she’d been tense for no reason. Hoseok was going to have no problem fitting in here; he already did! He would just be the new guy for a little longer but if Namjoon had some new friend he was going to bring by, Hoseok would then be just another one of the group. That made her really happy to think of. She thought Hoseok’s friends were great, but they did spend more time with them than with her own, and she’d like to be able to go back and forth, or even mingle them!

Mingling was nice. Alex liked not having to choose. She loved that when they all sat down at tables or on the couch to finally eat the food, Hoseok was right there in the middle of conversations. She liked that he had a good memory and would ask people about things they’d mentioned before. He was just so social compared to her. She wasn’t as good at that kind of thing, she just kind of hung back until she found her place, but Hoseok knew how to mold a group. He had such an easy time finding things to talk about with everyone. He was just really so great! He didn’t even fuss when Taehyung and Jungkook teased him during cleanup for suggesting they boil the forks to get the tines really clean.

“It can be hard to wash in between,” he explained.

Namjoon waved his hand, “Nah, it’s good, I have a dishwasher.”

“Ah, ok, but handwashed is cleaner… ok, if you say so!” Hoseok laughed and stepped aside as In’am, Sabina, and Rebekah loaded things up.

“Hobi and Jin keep their place very clean,” Alex explained. “He’s the pro at knowing how to clean anything.”

“So how exactly does that work with you?” Jimin teased.

“I’m not dirty!”

“No comment,” Hoseok grinned, then seemed to realize he had made a different joke than he meant to as Jungkook choked on his saliva and leaned heavily against the counter like he’d been shot and didn’t know whether to cry or puke. “No no I was just trying to make a joke about– nevermind. Nevermind!”

“Adorable,” Sabina snickered. “You two are so cute.”

“He’s rubbing off on you. I thought your room looked a lot cleaner than it used to–”

“No one better be rubbing off on anyone in my house,” Namjoon said to a chorus of boo’s and shoves. Alex grimaced but held back the need to apologize to Hoseok for her crude friends. That’s how they were. She thought they were funny! He’d never seemed too bothered by it anyway.

Suddenly Jungkook reached forward and wrapped his arms around Hoseok, agreeing, “Yeah, man, you gotta be good with Alex, none of that kind of stuff.”

“Hey, you don’t know what I’m into!” Alex jokingly defended. But it was lost, because now Hoseok and Jungkook were both laughing about… Jungkook being her brother and he needed to defend her? They were sort of play-wrestling? Just right in the middle of the kitchen. It was so… weird. She felt like she’d missed something important.

Alex shared a grimace with Minxi and Taehyung. Gross. Had she really understood that right?

“Ok, whatever you weirdos, let’s go do… something else,” she said, trying to wedge her way between them. It was hard to break them up at first and then they were both laughing from the hug-tussle. “You’re both really fucking weird right now.”

“No no,” Hoseok insisted. “Am I flushed? I only had one glass of wine –I’m a lightweight,” he confessed to her friends.

“I’m not,” Jungkook announced proudly.

“Yeah but you’re on your fourth beer or something,” Taehyung pointed out, handing him the bottle.

“Third. I’ve gotta be up early for the gym before work…” Jungkook patted his belly, whether to check the beer volume or fondle his own abs.

“Why are you having three beers at a dinner party?” she scolded.

“Uh, to celebrate my commission win? The guys get it,” he told her, waving his hand to dismiss her and turning to clink his beer bottle with Jimin’s. Alex did not like that dismissal.

“Yeah, right, not like I made you some brownies to celebrate or anything,” she huffed, because she had. Pot brownies. They didn’t do that kind of thing often but it was celebration and they were supposed to enjoy those together soon but if he was going to be weird suddenly–

“Hey baby, I know, don’t pout at me about it. We said tomorrow!”

Hoseok suddenly choked on his water beside her. She turned and pounded on his back until he’d stopped coughing.

“You ok?” she asked.

“Yeah. Yeah, I’m great,” Hoseok nodded. “I’ll get some more water I think– were we going to watch a comedy show or something–”

“I’ll get the water,” Alex told him, Jungkook forgotten as she took his glass. “Go get us seats before the other couples take all the good ones.”

“Don’t worry, I’ll clear off the love seat for the three of us,” Jungkook said, backhanding Hoseok in the stomach and taking off.

Within seconds they were alone in the kitchen, and Hoseok leaned close and asked, “Hey uh… does he always call you ‘baby’?”

“Huh?” The retort came out obnoxious sounding even to her own ears.

“He just called you baby and used this… voice…”

“Oh.” Alex rolled her eyes hard. “Yeah, he does that to mock me, goes into his little fuckboy lines. Don’t worry about that, it’s just him being stupid.”

“Ah, ok.”

“You ok snuggling with me while we watch this? Sometimes I laugh too loud… that really witchy one…”

“Remember who you’re dating, baby,” he assured her, his smile taking up his face again as he leaned down to kiss her. “I like that laugh!”

“Oh I remember who I’m dating. I have a midday shift tomorrow…”

“Oh? How convenient… I don’t work until late too…”

“Guys!’

“Guys you’re going to miss it!”

“They’re kissing, leave them alone.”

Jungkook’s voice was clear, “Hey assholes, get your booties in here or I’m farting on all your seats!”

“Does he really get laid all the time?” Hoseok asked.

“Bitches be dumb,” Alex snickered, then quickly clarified, “I don’t mean that seriously, obviously their poor taste is not necessarily a reflection on their intelligence or their worth as people.”

Hoseok laughed all the way to the couch with her, arm around her waist. Jungkook had indeed saved them the two spaces to wedge in with him on the loveseat, though Alex had to shove his legs out of the way. It was a cozy fit for three people, to say the least.

“This only works because you’re the size of a peanut,” he told her.

“Curves of one too,” Hoseok added.

“I will murder you both–”

“Hey-o!” Jungkook laughed and held his hand up for Hoseok to high-five. After a brief hesitation, he did. Jimin started to laugh into In’am’s shoulder and she curled him against her and patted his back,

“There there, babe, the comedy special hasn’t even started yet.”

The comedy special was funny. Alex laughed. Not always sincerely, because she was literally wedged in between two boisterous loud laughing guys who kept jostling each other around her. But she enjoyed it! She was just also glad when it was over and she could squeeze out like toothpaste as anyone who’d stayed for the whole thing gathered their stuff to head out. Namjoon was barely awake in the chair, which was kind of endearing. Sleepy grandpa.

“I’ll follow you home?” Alex asked, nudging Hoseok playfully in the chest. “You ok to drive?”

“Ah, I was optimistic, a friend actually dropped me here, I don’t have my car…” Hoseok admitted, not looking sorry about it.

“Wait, I need a ride home,” Jungkook said, grabbing her arm. “I came with you.”

“Ok you can take my– no, you can’t drive,” she sighed. He nodded, then shook his head. Not trashed or anything, but definitely not going to be driving himself home. Also why should she pay for a cab just so he could borrow her car? That was a dumb suggestion.

“Ok… guess we’re dropping JK at my place first.”

“Would you rather stay at your place?” Hoseok asked.

“Oh. no, we don’t have to– I know you aren’t as comfortable at my place…” They said their goodbyes and headed out, Jungkook trailing silently behind.

“I don’t mind.”

“You’ve never spent the night at my place. Jungkook snores.”

“Close enough to hear?!”

“It was a joke…”

“Ah…”

“Slumber party?” Jungkook asked, suddenly slinging his arms around their shoulders. Or trying to. The height difference left him lop-sided and they all stumbled down the concrete steps to Alex’s car on the curb.

“Yes, but not one you’re invited to, babe,” she teased, poking him hard in the ribs.

“Really? Lame. I’ve got a full poker chip set and a sweet deck of cards, we could play for jellybeans– me and Alex have matching kigurumi.”

She’d wanted to make a joke about how she and Hoseok would be fucking soon but she chickened out and just scolded, “Close your mouth and get into the backseat.”

“Fuck yeah.”

“No not fuck yeah,” she laughed. “God, you are sick! You’re back there alone.”

“Uh huh, ok–”

“Don’t you have a girl to call if you’re lonely?”

“Nah, I think your snap about being the bitch I was cooking for scared them all off tonight,” he lamented as he flopped down into it, shoving her jackets and a beachball and an overflowing bag out of the way. She didn’t have backseat passengers often.

“Didn’t I just send that to you?!”

“Nah, and I added it to mine.”

“Why?!”

“Dunno, man,” Jungkook said and stretched and yawned. “Take me home!”

Alex shook her head but Hoseok was smiling and had his phone out, already sorting through for some music to listen to. That seemed like a great idea. If Jungkook kept rambling, they’d just turn the volume up.

He didn’t, and she actually thought he fell asleep back there, but when she’d glance through the rearview mirror, he was just staring out the window, mouthing along to the lyrics, streetlights flickering across his face.

Jungkook thought it would be less annoying to have Hoseok spend the night at their place rather than have Alex off doing who knew what at his. But it wasn’t less annoying to know they were in her bedroom fucking. He hated that he knew that, even though he couldn’t hear anything from his bedroom.

It was the alcohol, he knew that. He’d had four beers in a couple hours and while he had a high tolerance, he didn’t know why he’d done that. It just made sense at the time.

And now Hoseok was fucking her and tomorrow Jungkook would go to ask Alex something and she’d be sitting on the edge of the bed she’d been recently fucked in and that just bothered him right now. She better change her sheets immediately. He kept his sheets clean for the times she came in and threw herself down on his bed and started snacking or talking or both. Maybe he wasn’t the cleanest guy about everything but he kept his bed clean. He wasn’t going to make Alex roll around in the sweat and sex of another woman.

He couldn’t hear anything. Were the walls really that sound-proof or was she quiet? Was sex the only time of her life Alex was quiet? That was a joke. Or maybe Hoseok just wasn’t as good at this as Alex thought. She had a low bar. There must be a way to make her scream–

Jesus. This dry spell had to end. Jungkook got out of bed and paced his bedroom just to move. It was not normal to be this bothered knowing your friend was getting railed in her bed just a few yards away. Good for her! He’d said that before! He’d say it again! Alex deserved that– a happy relationship, good sex. She was his best friend! He wanted all those things for her!

He just didn’t want to lose her, that was all. He knew what people were like once they got partners. If this continued on, at some point she and Hobi would move in together. They’d get married. Jungkook would get left behind and even if he and Alex stayed friends, he knew it would be different. Hobi would be the first one she called to tell things. Hobi would be the one she bickered with about Chef Boyardee. She wouldn’t want the same intimacy she’d had with Jungkook before because she’d have someone new, and he’d have to put up some wider boundaries so as not to cause problems for her, because not everyone could apparently respect their friendship. Some might be threatened by it. Like Hoseok’s reaction when Jungkook had called her baby earlier. It had made Jungkook want to call her baby a thousand more times, right there, and wrap his arms around his gremlin peanut roommate from hell like he always had been able to without issue, and ask if Hoseok had liked that little purple thing because Jungkook had seen it first and knew exactly how banging–

Goddamnit, what was happening to his brain right now? He should have known Alex getting a boyfriend was going to mess with his head. She was his best friend and he liked their life together and in all honesty he wanted to cry at the thought she was taking a step further from him every day she dated Hoseok. That was the truth. Right now he was pacing his room because there were parts of her life he’d never get to be the closest to her in –namely the one that was happening with her boyfriend right now, but other ones too, romantic ones, marriage ones, this whole life she would have with Hoseok– while she didn’t think of him twice because she was busy getting happily split open by Hoseok’s dick– god, he hoped Hoseok didn’t have a big dick the injustice of it would be too much–

Jungkook left his room under the guise of needing to use the bathroom. It was between their rooms. In the dark, he accidentally wandered too far and had to double back. There were no lights under her door and he couldn’t hear anything, and he realized he was stupid, they’d probably already finished, or maybe not even done anything. But obviously they did do things, even if not right here. But there was something comforting about knowing they weren’t doing things right now–

“Oh.” It was the smallest, softest moan by the time it reached his ears. In all honesty, Jungkook wasn’t even sure he’d heard it. Maybe his brain had made it up.

It didn’t matter. Vague images tried to flash through his mind. He replaced them with women he’d fucked, and turned heel and ran back to his room, and grabbed his phone to see who was awake, or who he could meet up with this weekend. He was not going to be weird and lonely while Alex got her brains fucked out every day by her perfect boyfriend. His unintentional off-week had him frustrated and it was making him crazy, he knew that. His brain was mixing up frustrations right now and that was bad bad bad. He should have known this would happen, but he had a hard rule about Alex, and that was that he did not let his brain just pull her into filthy fantasies or use her like that. If he needed a release, there were plenty of women to find who were game for that, and Alex was protected because she was special and had a special place in his life. So if his cock wanted to try and fuck with him right now, reaching for that moan in the dark, he’d just have to stuff it somewhere eles and quickly.

Like the fleshlight Alex had bought him as a birthday gag gift years ago that only saw occasional use. Only in an emergency. Because no one was fucking answering his messages tonight, like none of them went out on a Wednesday night ever! 11:30 was not too late for a booty call!

So maybe Hoseok got a moan out of Alex. So what? Good for her. The fleshlight she’d got him might be a poor replacement for a real woman but it got way more than one moan out of him.

Jungkook groaned as his dick slotted neatly into Geneva’s pussy. He could hear her sigh of relief through his own because for a hot second there it had looked like things were not going to be successful. He’d done a decent job masking the betrayal of his dick with enough foreplay to make her cum once already, but his wrist was cramped up and his lips were getting chapped from making out and the whole point of this was supposed to be draining the dam. He never had to make out with a girl for that long these days!

“There, there, that’s good,” he murmured, grasping her hips and rolling her on top of him. Geneva was particularly good on top, her rhythms always worked him good and her thighs lasted just long enough before they’d start trembling. He loved the look of that, trembling thighs. Her tits jiggled as she rocked, keeping his attention from her grinning face or the way her mouth hung open to make these little ‘oh oh oh’ sighs. Good, this was good!

This was not good. Even as he leaned into the feeling of pleasure, he could feel himself sliding out of her, too limp to stay upright. She noticed it pretty quickly too and slid off him and leaned down to spit and suck, but he could feel her frustration in the sharp suck around his head.

“K, baby, all good,” he said, nudging her head away as it started to hurt.

She pulled off with a pop and sighed, “You’re too drunk.”

“Maybe…”

Yeah, that was true. He was too drunk. Whiskey dick and all that. He’d lost track of how many he had at the bar with Nate and Geneva and a few other coworkers. They never went out, but when he’d sent out a text to some of the colleagues he could tolerate saying he’d buy the first round, all seven had shown up.

That had felt good, to look around the table as people upended their shots. He had friends! Friend who weren’t just Taehyung and Jimin in their happy relationships and Namjoon with his fresh new romance already and Alex with her–

She was out with Hoseok again tonight, he was pretty sure. Two nights bookending the one evening he’d gotten with her this week. This would be a trend now. He’d get one evening a week for a while, and then one a month, and then no evenings. At least if it had been a perfect evening, that would have been something! It was so damn close!

Geneva pushed away and went to pee. Jungkook just lay there for a moment, giving his cock one last chance to rally. It did not, no surprise when he couldn’t think of anything sexy at the moment, just his lazy evening with Alex. They’d eaten the last of the brownies she’d made to celebrate his commission win, lamenting how stale they were until it became funny. They’d splurged on a cab ride to the arcade to keep Thursday tradition up and laughed at their own disrupted game performances, the distraction of twinkling lights, the funnier-than-usual antics of their air hockey matches. They’d caught another cab home, arm wrestling, or really just flat out wrestling in the back seat over which snacks they’d DoorDash, another splurge Jungkook was willing to fund with his commission bonus. He’d bought them all anyway, anything Alex had asked for, but she’d gotten kind of annoyed with him when he’d said something about it he couldn’t really remember now. He didn’t remember what it was. But it hadn’t lasted long because Alex had always been infinitely patient with him and then they were wrestling on the couch to figure out what movie to watch and Jungkook did remember that he had thought if I was Alex’s boyfriend I would not want her wrestling like this with me knowing how much I like it. That had made him laugh but the buzz was wearing off enough not to say that to her and instead they’d watched a movie.

But then, when he’d told her to come sleep in his bed if she wanted… she had said no. She didn’t think that was ok to do anymore now that she had a boyfriend.

It was awkward to get rejected by Alex for something he hadn’t thought was anything wrong. And painful. It sucked.

Probably she was right. He could see how she was right. He had just thought the same thing, hadn’t he?

But it also wasn’t right. He was Jungkook. She was Alex. Shouldn’t a boyfriend just have to accept that?

And he’d seen so clearly suddenly the crumbling of everything he had with her as one thing after another was wrong because she had a boyfriend now and someday there would be nothing left, as soon as she and Hobi realized how much it all meant to him.

That’s what he’d been thinking last night. And those same thoughts came to him tonight as the whiskey poured. And now he lay in the bed of the only sexy female coworker he had, and he’d failed to fuck her good, and that was definitely going to be whispered about at work. His reputation, gone. Alex, gone. She’d even admitted Hoseok didn’t like that Jungkook called her ‘baby.’ Like how fucking threatened was this guy?! He got Alex! Wasn’t that enough? Did he have more demands to make? He needed to just take everything away from Jungkook?

He pushed up and grabbed his pants, at which point Geneva returned and asked without any sadness in her voice, “Oh are you going?”

“Yeah sorry I don’t want to be here anymore,” he answered, then, “Shit. I mean… uh… sorry I got too drunk, maybe another time…”

“It’s ok, you were good with your hand tonight so that’s… something…”

He had a hard time concentrating on her face right now. Everything was kind of blurry and tilting. He stumbled out of her apartment before realizing he still needed to call a cab to take him home because he’d left his car at the bar. Maybe Alex could take him to get it tomorrow. If she was still allowed to now that she’d been dating a guy for three months or four months or whatever it was.

Actually Jungkook knew exactly how long it had been and he hated that his brain remembered things like that but couldn’t remember why he’d unlocked his phone. To get a cab. Right. But he got distracted by Instagram and looked at that and started walking. No posts from Alex about whatever she and Hoseok had done tonight which meant it either wasn’t special or wasn’t the kind of thing you should post on social media about.

He stumbled upon a little park down the road from Geneva’s apartment and even though it was late and he might get mugged, he just walked. It’d suck for the person who tried to mug him anyway; he felt outside of his own body, invincible, he’d love the excuse to beat the shit out of something or someone! And then he’d go home and sulk about it and Alex would freak the fuck out and coddle him and he’d have to pretend to hate it, all of her attention focused on him, the way she’d push his hair back and talk to him like he was a baby because she thought he thought that was funny, and he did think it was funny! Wait, when had he stopped thinking it was a funny joke? The way her tits would dangle in his face and she’d probably press her knee into his spleen as she’d try to adjust the pillows around him. Because in this scenario he was like a Union soldier in the civil war or something apparently. Just as quickly his brain decided they were in an anime instead and her nursing outfit was not leaving much to the–

What was with him lately? Jungkook was glad he was too drunk to feel things right now or he’d be really freaked out by his own inability to get her out of his head lately. He’d had to tuck all of his thoughts about her relationship and his jokes and snide comments and whatever away, because by now he’d had multiple friends tell him he was seeming possessive of her. He wasn’t! He understood she could go meet Prince Charming! He wasn’t surprised Hoseok was falling head over heels in love with Alex! He wasn’t even that surprised Alex was falling in love with Hoseok too because to make it all even more disgusting, Hoseok seemed like a genuinely good guy! And here was Jungkook walking out on a girl he worked with and would have to see again because he couldn’t even keep his dick hard. He was losing, and losing his best friend, and he just didn’t like to lose, and extra didn’t want to lose his best friend.

He pulled his phone out and called her, knowing she wouldn’t answer. He was going to leave her a drunk rambling text message because she’d think it was funny. Maybe tomorrow when she woke up in the arms of Hoseok Jung and decided to finally check her phone to see if her best friend had suffered any debilitating embarrassment or emergencies.

Instead she answered on the second ring, her voice as clear and solid as Jungkook didn’t feel right now, “Koo? Why are you calling me, what’s wrong?”

“I can just call you.”

“Uh….”

“I’m just walking. You know?”

“No, I don’t know,” she said. He adored the suspicion in her voice. “Why are you calling me? Is something wrong? Oh!” She gasped, interrupting as he started to answer. “Is this one of those situations where you need me to make an emergency so you can leave?”

“I already left.”

“Oh.”

“I’m just walking. I’m in a park…”

“Are you ok? Are you high?”

“No. Wait but yes. Uh, ok yes, high no? But drunk yes. Hey Alex can I have a ride or are you fucking?”

“What?”

“Yeah?”

“Jungkook,” she sighed, but in an amused way, like she thought he was funny. “Yeah, I’ll come get you, where are you? Send me your location.”

“Ok. Thanks ba— baloo? Baby beluga.”

“Shut up, I’ll be there in like ten minutes. Don’t get mugged.”

Trying not to call her baby made him want to do it more. Unironically calling her baby. Calling her baby not just because she was the size of one but also because she acted like one– no but also because it made her mad sometimes, if she was trying to do something and frustrated and he called her baby, or because she laughed when he tried to use fuckboy lines on her, which never worked anyway. Worked in the sense of getting her to fuck him. Not that he was trying to get her to fuck him. Alex wasn’t the kind of girl he could just fuck and forget about and she wasn’t the kind of girl who found someone like him actually charming and that was fine, he wasn’t trying to fuck her, he had blocked that whole possibility from his brain years ago.

Look, once upon a time, Jungkook had been a teenage boy, with a teenage girl best friend who was the coolest, funniest person he’d ever met. They liked all the same things. He felt understood by her. She’d had a lot to say at the time about how much she hated her flat hair or her brown eyes or her weight or her big boobs or whatever but Jungkook was just a simple teenage boy who thought she was cute and funny and special. And also obviously big tits were a positive thing. And there had been a moment in time when he’d thought about how he probably should just date and marry Alex because she seemed like the perfect girl to him –they’d made a joke about it actually and then their moms took it way too seriously.

Because there was a really important thing missing in that Alex wasn’t interested in dating him. At first he’d thought maybe Alex just didn’t want to date anyone, but she’d dated a few guys, she’d had a few crushes, she’d even had sex with Yoongi. That all seemed to prove it wasn’t dating, it was him, especially now that she was with Hoseok and fucking all the time and not asexual like he’d convinced himself. He knew she could be shy about guys but she wasn’t shy with him so that wasn’t some secret issue. She loved him, he felt loved by her, in the the most platonic friend way possible. That was precious to him. He knew, even as a teenager, that it was not worth risking that for a what if with an obvious result.

Anyway, being desired was important to him! He needed that! No matter how much he wanted to protect his life with Alex, he knew it could never be complete, not because of sex but becaues of desire. Shallow desire meets deep desire. That was what the goal was for those long term relationships, right? He got all the shallow desire he needed from the women he hooked up with, but it never had that deeper level, and that’s why he was called a fuckboy. Meanwhile Namjoon and his ex married young and in love and stopped having sex long before they gave up on the relationship, maybe that was the opposite.

He and Alex had the deeper desire in spades, he thought, but he could count on his fingers the number of times she’d ever said something sincerely nice about his appearance. She usually made it sound like she couldn’t really understand why other women thought he was hot and ok, maybe it hurt his feelings sometimes but he was shielded by having realized that as a teenager and he was fine with it. Alex was his best friend and honestly that was even rarer and more precious to him than any girlfriend.

He kept thinking the word precious. He thought it was a funny word to use but his brain seemed to be hiccuping with it now, so that when Alex ran up to him, he slung his arm around her shoulder and announced,

“My precious is here!”

“Is that a Gollum reference? You fucking nerd.”

“Don’t go into the park alone, it’s dark,” he said, grinning down at her. “Damn you’re short.”

“Hey! You’re just weird and tall.”

“I wish I was tall,” he sighed. “Maybe in my next life.”

“Nah you’ll probably be shorter because of all your bad deeds.”

“I do the deed good. You don’t know.”

“Is that what you were doing tonight?” she prodded. “Good deeds? Bad deeds?”

“I failed the deed,” he sighed. Then, “You don’t need to know.”

“Yeah I don’t need to know, “ she laughed.

“Did you do the deed? Wait no don’t tell me, I don’t need to know.”

“Yeah, you don’t need to know,” she parroted again. “But what are you so drunk for?”

“Did you leave your boyfriend when I called?”

“Nah. Well, yeah, but I was already heading home anyway, I’ve got an early shift tomorrow.”

“Oh.”

She turned him around, clearly guiding him back to her car, but she held his wrist so his arm stayed around her.

“Were you just out partying? What happened?” Suddenly her voice got very serious as she asked, “Are you… ok? Did something happen?”

“Are you asking if someone took advantage of me?”

“Yeah. Don’t laugh! That can happen to guys too! And I will kill, I’m low to the ground, they’ll never see it coming in their high heels–”

“I like short girls too,” he argued.

“Then it’ll be hand to hand combat, we’ll grapple to the death– ok don’t look so happy about it, we won’t be in jell-o.”

“At least in mud?”

“You don’t want to see that.”

“You don’t know what I want to see.”

“You’ve got a big mouth, Koo. You have kept nothing secret,” she laughed. “Come on, over there–”

“Can we just sit for a little bit?”

“Where, there aren’t any benches and it’s the middle of the night. Technically the park isn’t even open–”

“Remember that time we got kicked out of the park in high school–”

“You don’t have to clarify high school,” she pointed out. “It’s only happened once!”

“I think someone in one of the houses must have called the cops because they saw our flashlights.” They reached her car and she went to unlock the door but Jungkook just sat on the hood and leaned back. It was not comfortable, and the hood was still warm from the engine, but he flopped out and after a moment she came and scrambled up beside him.

“If your ass dents my hood…”

“You’ll never know with all the other dents.”

“Those aren’t my fault! Most of those are those stupid golf balls from Taehyung–”

But Jungkook was back on the park they’d been kicked out of and recalled, “The cops totally thought we were trying to find a place for like a group orgy or something but we were just… just chasing Pokemon…”

“I can’t believe they looked at us and thought we were lying about Pokemon. I wonder if when the game really took off they thought back and were like oh, those kids were telling the truth…”

“But I’ve always thought the funniest part was that they saw the four of us nerdy, awkward teens and were like ‘these kids are definitely going to fuck in a field,’’ Jungkook said. “God my acne was so bad.”

“I know, it was cute,” Alex giggled.

“Shut up, I didn’t want to be cute, I wanted to be hot!”

“Well plenty of girls think you’re hot now!”

“But not you.”

“Who cares what I think?” she demanded. “You said my opinions of who’s hot stopped counting when I liked Daniel Radcliffe.”

“Yeah, what’s wrong with you?”

“What can I say, I love a tragic face scar…”

“I have a tragic face scar,” he pointed out, rolling so she could see it, as if she had never noticed it before.

“The only thing tragic about it was your hand-eye coordination. I know that was from a Hotwheel car to the face.”

“No. It was from a knife fight–”

“You have the eyes of a baby doe, literally no one will believe that.”

“Isn’t a doe already a baby?”

“You’re the expert! I don’t know!”

“You’re like a fluffy little bird I think,” he mused, curled up on his side now. “Always stealing my food and cheeping too early in the morning.”

“Yeah, I’ll accept that. Mess with me and I’ll peck your eyes out–”

“No no, low on the food chain.”

“Hey!”

He laughed. Her outrage was always so funny.

“Hey, you’re really important to me.” He heard the words after he’d said them, but his mouth was already adding, “I don’t know if I ever told you that.”

She just froze and for a moment he feared he had said something way worse.

“Oh god, you’re really trashed, huh? We’re to the philosophical part of your drunk stage…”

“I mean it.”

“Ok ok. Thanks. You’re really important to me too.” She said it so easily though that he worried it wasn’t true. She was just saying that to placate him. Every day he got less important to her and she grew closer with her new perfect boyfriend. Soon all the things she put up with him –the stolen food, the unwashed dishes, the hair in the shower– would be too much. She’d be done living with him in the apartment she didn’t think was nice enough. He knew she deserved better and she was realizing it too.

“Is Hoseok’s apartment really nice?”

“Yeah, I’ve told you it is!”

“Tell me about it.”

“No,” she scoffed. “Let’s go home, you need to sleep it off.”

“Not yet. Let’s just sit here for a few minutes. Please?” He rolled onto his back and looked up, as though to prove he wasn’t going to budge yet.

“It’s late and I’m tired. I have to be up for work at five!”

“Just five minutes,” he begged and took her hand. His stomach dropped as he got this sudden feeling that this was the last moment they’d ever have like this. As if tomorrow she was going to announce her engagement. Maybe she would. Everything was going well. He didn’t know how quickly Alex would move in a relationship but she wasn’t a fuckboy like him so maybe she’d commit quickly. Maybe she was one of those falling fast and hard people. He thought that could be true about her, since he knew she was so soft and gooey on the inside of that punchy, spiky exterior.

“Fine, five minutes,” she mumbled. “The stars look nice tonight.”

They lay there in silence. The silence was a part of them that the others didn’t seem to recognize. They liked to joke that Alex and Jungkook were always teasing, always talking, two noisy old hens together, but the silence was nice too. Jungkook felt his body melt into non-existence, lying on the warm hood of the engine, looking at the stars, Alex’s little clammy hand wrapped up in his. He must have dozed off but he wasn’t aware of it, alcohol tugging his mind here and there like a balloon on a string. He was one content cat for the time being; it was no surprise he dozed off.

Alex woke him, nudging his arm, “All right, Koo, time to go home. I’m going to get in so much trouble if you fall asleep here and I have to drive home without letting you roll off the hood.” She jostled his hand in hers to rouse him.

He rolled onto his elbow, and leaned over, and kissed her.

It just happened.

It just felt like what he needed to do in the moment and his mind on the balloon string felt a tug but not quick enough to redirect.

He kissed Alex, the first kiss they’d ever shared. His sloppy, lazy lips pressed against hers, his free hand bracing himself on the car hood so he wouldn’t crush her. He’d gone in without a breath, without a thought, still half-asleep but with a mission, and had to surface for air shortly.

She hadn’t moved, hadn’t responded in any way, and when he pulled away to see her face, her shock was what made him realize what he’d just done. Her hand pressed against his chest, gently at first, and then more firmly.

“What are you doing?” she asked in the quietest voice. Then, louder, sitting up, shouldering him away from her, “How fucking drunk are you? What– why did you–”

Fuck. Fuck fuck fuck, half his brain panicked. The other half suggested you’re halfway in, you gotta commit now. He leaned to try and kiss her again so she’d understand. He landed his mouth on hers again, somehow, and he wanted to believe it was because she let him, but just as quickly she firmly pushed against his chest.

“Stop! I’m not one of your fuck girls– Are you really so drunk you just confused me with–”

“No, Alex, I–”

“We have to go,” she said, scrambling off the hood much more quickly than she’d crawled on. “It’s time to go home. Get in the car, Jungkook.”

“Wait, Alex–”

“Just get in the car,” she said. He slid off the hood and stumbled after her as she fled to the driver’s seat. He didn’t want to scare her but he could tell she was panicking and upset and he hadn’t meant to upset her. He reached for her hand again but dropped it instantly when she shook him off like a fly.

“Wait, Alex, I–”

“Let’s just go home and forget–”

“I think I’m in love with you,” he tried to explain, the words once again leaping past his brain and just launching themselves out there in an attempt to calm her down. Wait. Did he? He didn’t. Well obviously he loved her, but not like that… but did he?!

She froze. He would never be able to say how long they were frozen there like that. Too much alcohol and the surprise of what he’d just doen rendered time eternal. He thought it might have been five minutes but probably it was not.

Finally Alex was re-animated. And she was suddenly madder than he would have expected.

“You think? You suddenly think you’re in love with me? You’ve known me for like twelve years and suddenly you– No. Bullshit! Why the fuck would you say something like that all of a sudden?”

“I…” He couldn’t keep up with what she was saying. She was yelling and his circuit board was shooting off fireworks in its sudden confusion.

“No, you’re not in love with me,” she snapped. “You’re possessive and clingy now because for the first time I have someone else in my life.”

“No, that’s not–”

“You’re just pissy that I’m not sitting around for you to find time to spend with me in between all the girls you fuck, at your beck and call whenever you need a ride or someone to feed you or someone to–”

“That’s not true!”

“Do you think I’m going to fuck you now? Or dump my boyfriend because you kissed me?”

“No. No, I…” He didn’t know what to say. He’d just done it and his brain was all wobbly and dizzy and she was mad at him and he had the sinking realization that he had just fucked up in a way he couldn’t fully comprehend yet because he was definitely very drunk. Damn, he wished he had just blacked out already.

“You don’t have feelings for me, you’re just drunk and horny, but it’s bullshit for you to do… that,” she said, spitting the word out. “That’s not fair. I thought you respected me more than that.”

“I…I do respect– Alex–”

She took a deep breath, like when she was really mad and didn’t want to eviscerate the person in front of her but only because she knew she was too cute for prison.

“Get in the car. It’s time to go home. Keep your mouth shut and to yourself.”

He just stared at her, but she threw her door open and pulled it shut behind her and started the car.

He’d kissed Alex.

But now she was pissed.

And he shouldn’t have done that.

But he wanted to kiss her again.

But with her responding this time. He felt the need for her to kiss him back so badly that it kept him rooted to the spot, the need for it made his stomach hurt.

But she didn’t want to kiss him or be kissed by him.

And he had told her he loved her in a way that felt different than any of the times they had jokingly, casually, friendly said it before, but she didn’t want to hear that either and he wasn’t even sure if it was true. He hadn’t thought that before. Where had that come from?! Sober words made drunk thoughts or– no it was the other way round…

What if she was right that it was only because he was jealous of her having someone, and pulling away, and leaving him, and willing to say and do anything to keep her from going?

And what if that was exactly what was going to happen now anyway?

But what if he really did love her and just had never realized it before because… because why? Why wouldn’t he have noticed it before? That was something you knew. What if he really was just drunk and a selfish, spoiled brat, and he had just kissed his best friend because he couldn’t stand that he wasn’t number one in her life anymore?

That sounded like him. That sounded way more like him. Alex was probably right. She knew him better than anyone in the world. If she said he only kissed her because he was drunk and being a jealous brat about her having a new perfect boyfriend, that was probably true.

She honked the horn and shouted, “Let’s go!”

He hurried around to his side of the car and tumbled into his seat.

t was a quiet ride home. He wished he could doze off again but he was awake for every excruciating minute of silence as he sobered up and regretted everything. Regretted calling her. Regretted kissing her. Regretted that stupid thing he’d said about being in love with her.

Regretted that the longer he lay awake thinking about it that night, knowing she was fuming in her own bed and would definitely never be in his again, the more he thought it might actually be true.

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#jungkook x oc #jeon jungkook x oc #jungkook smut #jungkook f2l #jungkook x reader #jeon jungkook x reader #bangtan smut #bts smut #jungkook fanfiction #fuckboy au #jungkook angst #jungkook fluff #jungkook series #jungkook/reader #jungkook/oc #jungkook #tellmewhatchanged #tell me what changed #tmwc

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cxhleel108 · 4 months

Text

S7 Thots for this week: Literally a plate of hot ass like what…

(Now mind you, I already went into this with my expectations lower than bedrock…and they still couldn’t even reach that.)

• Did this bitch just try to shade me? Estelle just cuz I think you finer than a mf don’t exempt you from getting cussed out. Watch who you come for!

• Bonnie getting mad at Joyo wanting to be with someone else as if she hadn’t legit spent the entire season tryna have a scissor session with me. Cuz that makes sense.

• Another measly attempt at getting me to fight with Bryson. YAWN!

• Of course here’s Ozzy and Grace 2.0, aka Finn and Kat 3.0, aka Noah and Hope 6000000.0 going at it again.

• Um Summer back off my man tf??? But also, real.

• Shocker!

• Ohhh brother I DON’T FUCKING CAAAAAREEE!!!!!

• Eddie really left Season 5 and said you know what, Imma be a man whore.

• My nigga…you telling me the last piece of jewelry we get isn’t a pretty ring but a fucking flower bracelet that somebody bad ass lil kid made for an arts and crafts project???!!!?!!?! IT DOESN’T EVEN MATCH THE OTHER PIECES??? Omg can they be serious for like 5 minutes? Just once.

• Alex and Estelle were making out omg once again how shocking!

• Bruh why are we choosing what the romantic gesture is? That literally defeats the purpose of…😕😕😕

• Well that was certified ass. And why are y’all spreading glitter in my girl hair like that??? She ain’t never gon get that shit out now!

• Mind you, it’s already the year 2080, robots have conquered Earth, and humans relocated to Mars. But yay we made it!

• Not she just came here to serve cunt, start shit then leave. Honestly, ate that.

• A feather collar…and this is the so-called fashionista of the season. Love him tho❤️

• And then you woke up.

Well, this was…something. You know what lemme be positive! The outfits were cute…mostly. MC was a baddie…minus the botox face. And the boys were sexy…well Bryson and Evan were but that’s also just my personal taste so ignore that. Can’t wait to start this mess all over again in February. And I do literally mean all over again cuz let’s face it they bout to copy and paste every single episode from this season and- ok I’m done. (Me shitting on this season like I’m not already replaying to get with Evan. I’m coming for you boo!)

#litg #love island the game #litg s7 #litg season 7 #litg stick or twist #litg mc #litg bryson #litg uma #litg estelle #litg alex #litg evan #litg summer #litg bonnie #litg joyo

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wjehfshs · 11 months

Text

Piercings I think suit COD characters

Slight NSFW warning

Price

Tongue

Jacobs ladder

Definitely got the tongue in high school for a dare

Got the Jacobs ladder when piss drunk

Ghost

Snake bites

Bridge

Rook

Used to have a nose piercing but got rid of it because he just got bored of it

Rook was his first

Bridge was an impulse

Snake bites was one he’s always wanted

Soap

Lobes

Medusa

Lobes was done when he first graduated high school

Medusa was a dare by Ghost (Ghost said it as a joke but Soap took it seriously and Ghost nearly shat himself when he saw it because he didn’t expect him to actually do it)

Gaz

Nipples

Nose ring

Side Labret (his left our right)

Nose was his first

Nearly took his side labret out before it fully healed because he was sick of it hurting when he ate but he stuck it through and he’s glad he did

Cried during nipples

Both Soap and Price had to hold his hands as support

Ghost laughed at his pain

Still doesn’t know why he got them to this day

Alex

Also a jacobs ladder

Nose ring as well

Jacobs ladder was his first, Farah had to hold his had through it (she refused at first but he begged her too)

Has so many different nose rings it’s ridiculous

Keegan

Eyebrow

Septum

Nose ring

Snake bites

Lorum

Prince Albert

Piercing lover fr

Snake bites will forever be his favourite

Septum was his first at 17

Eyebrow was only a couple months after his septum

Wanted to get the lorum and Prince Albert back to back but decided against it and decided to get the lorum first then wait a couple months (he ended waiting a year out of procrastination)

Nose ring isn’t all too special just decided one day he wanted one and got it

Logan

Just an industrial

Saw it online and wanted it

Hesh

Eyebrow

Probably gave it himself while high as shit

Got the needle through but started crying and Logan had to do the rest for him

Farah

Vertical hood ring

Belly button

Was completely straight faced when she got her vertical hood ring done

Did cry a little to Alex during the healing process

But other than that she was stone faced

Belly button was her first

Got it after she finally got her own home

Fidgets with her belly button piercing when she’s at home and bored

Valeria

Nipples

Septum

Also completely stone faced during her nipple piercings

Septum she did herself at 19 with a random kit she bought online

#cod x reader #cod #cod mw2 x reader #cod mw2 #cod mw x reader #cod ghosts x reader #cod ghosts

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themetaphorgirl · 11 months

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Prompt time since it popped into my head while coloring in an adult coloring book - the big kids are trying to find a stress reliever for Spencer and Penelope suggests coloring books. At first he adamantly refuses (I'm not a baby)! He later sees her coloring in an adult one and tries so hard to fight his curiosity but eventually gives in and enjoys it.

Sorry it's so specific. It just popped into my head.

This is a continuation of this drabble. Poor little guy is going to get his shit rocked by finals, he's too little to deal with it.

----------

“We have to get him to calm down,” Alex said, shifting Spencer’s weight on her lap. “He’s too stressed.”

Aaron sighed heavily as he stretched out his legs. “At least he ate dinner for once,” he said.

“He would only eat if he could sit on your lap and eat off your plate,” Alex said.

“That’s still more than he’s eaten in the past few days,” Aaron said quietly.

Alex bit her lip as she looked down at Spencer’s pinched little face. He had had another sobbing meltdown when they tried to put him to bed, clinging to her shoulders and wailing that he had too much homework to do and he shouldn’t go to sleep yet. Aaron had managed to wrestle him out of his uniform and into one of his own well-washed tee shirts before setting him forcibly in Alex’s lap. She had rocked him and sung to him and kissed him until he passed out in exhaustion, too worn out to stay awake any longer.

“We have to do something,” she said softly, wiping his tears off his cheeks with her fingertips. Aaron’s tee shirt hung on his tiny body like a bedsheet draped over a scarecrow. “Poor little baby. He’s too young to handle this.”

“We can’t worry about it right now,” Aaron said. He dragged his hand over his face. “It’s enough that he’s finally sleeping.”

Alex sighed. Aaron don’t look well at all either; his eyes were ringed in dark bruises and he was so pale he was starting to look gray. “I’m going to stay here tonight,” she said softly.

“No, no, you don’t have to,” he sighed. “There’s not enough room in my bed, and you’ll get in trouble.”

She got her way in the end, like they both knew she would, and while it was a tight fit, they got more sleep tangled up together than they would have alone. Aaron was still quiet and haggard in the morning, and Spencer still clung to them more than he should, but at least they slept.

She sat Spencer down on the edge of Aaron’s bed so she could untangle his hair. “I know you’re stressed about finals,” she said as she spritzed detangler over his wild curls. “And I know you have a lot of things to get done. But we need to find some things that help you relax.”

“I’m okay,” Spencer said. “I have to focus on my tests.”

“It’s okay if you take breaks from studying,” Alex said. “You can watch a movie, you can play with your legos, you can color-“

He twisted around to glare at her. “I’m not a baby!” he said. “I don’t need to take breaks to play. And I definitely don’t need to color. I’m in high school.”

You’re ten years old, she wanted to say, but she bit her tongue. “All right, all right,” she said. “But if you change your mind, you’re allowed.”

She and Aaron talked to the rest of the group in secret, and agreed that during the afternoon they would all take a break from studying. They’d learned that Spencer would almost never initiate things on his own, but he would mimic or copy their behavior. Secretly Alex hoped he would feel better if he could see the rest of friends taking breaks.

True to their word, they all gathered in the common room and no one opened a textbook. Dave and James pulled out novels to read, Derek and JJ started a video game, Penelope pulled out a coloring book, Aaron put in his headphones, Emily played on her phone. Spencer looked around at them in confusion as he clutched one of his study packets to his chest.

“I think everyone wants to take a break right now,” Alex said. “I think I’m going to watch a movie, do you want to watch it with me?”

“No, I have to keep studying,” he said, bewildered. Alex didn’t push, but she sat next to him at the table with her phone propped so she could see the screen.

At the other end of the table, Penelope had a massive box of brand new crayons and a stack of coloring books- not little kid ones, the kind meant for grownups who needed to destress. Alex caught Spencer watching her multiple times. If Penelope noticed, she didn’t let on, but she smiled at him every time she caught him looking.

“Do you want to see?” she asked at last. He nodded, and she held up the book. “It’s a lot of fun. Do you want to try?”

“It’s…it’s not a little kid thing, is it?” he asked.

“Oh, definitely not,” she reassured him. “It’s an adult coloring book, it even says so in the title. Do you want to try this one or this one?”

He pointed shyly and she immediately slid the book over and rearranged her crayons to sit between them. “What are the rules?” he asked.

“No rules, you can color however you’d like!” Penelope said cheerfully. “You could make the grass purple and the sky yellow if you wanted.”

He frowned and picked up a green crayon instead, and then started to slowly color in the page. The strokes of color were uneven and choppy; he held his crayon in a strange grip that seemed uncomfortable.

His fine motor skills weren’t developed enough, Alex realized. She had always wondered why he held his pens oddly and why his handwriting was so terrible- it was just beginning to dawn on her that the neglect in his childhood could have affected his development. But the tension in his expression was beginning to relax, and he scooted around in his chair to sit on his knees so he could reach the table better.

We need to get him more coloring books, she texted to the group chat. She watched her friends check their phones and type back.

Already on it

well get him crayons, whats the biggest size they make?

just make sure they’re crayola because everything else sucks

get him one with dinosaurs, I think he needs one with dinosaurs

#au: patron saint of lost causes #caitlin writes things #patron saint: spencer #patron saint: hotch #criminal minds fanfiction #patron saint: alex #patron saint: aaron #patron saint: penelope #i firmly believe that diana's neglect affected his development

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ferrocyan · 3 months

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top 5 memories!!

these are mostly abt my friends from my fc bc they make playing this game so much more fun and awesome (long post warning)

#1 so there's this guy in western coerthas whom you can challenge to a fight named alaimbert of the spiked butt. funny guy with a lot of butt jokes. one day i was leveling samurai and thought eh why not fight mr spiky butt? then i ate shit and died. and like. the moment i died i got a dm from a stranger. this player named "yuyu nekomata" was... asking me to join her fc?

fellas i have no idea how fc recruitments work. i don't know how this girl found me. so i thought. that this person. saw me get buttspiked to death. for no fucking reason, just being a shit gamer. and thought "yeah i want THAT guy to be in my fc, i gotta ask him to join right now"

i fucking lost it dude i laughed so hard i was fully crying. and then i said yes, ofc. best decision i ever made fr. also since i mentioned going to level my gatherers yuyu gave me like 10 sideritis cookies and i still have 6 in my inventory www

#2 i started playing in na actually, in coeurl, crystal bc dreamer was there and i wanted to meet him ingame haha. but the ping was horrendous and i could never avoid aoes. i started to suspect if orange aoes weren't actually unavoidable. i could only get through the hall of the novice "avoid aoes" training by using sprint (it has a 60 second cooldown!) and praying. and i thought man, i want to try raiding in the future, there's no way i can raid if i have to sprint out of every aoe. so i packed my bags and moved out to jp. basically just picked a dc and world at random? the english speaking jp server is elemental (literally every other indonesian ffxiv player is in elemental fml) but i went to mana instead. it's good out here though since mana has an active raiding scene and the queues are super fast :]

anyway the actual memory was when i remade my character and restarted arr and i went out into the world and aggro'd a monster AND I COULD STEP OUT OF THEIR AOE WOOOOOOOOHOOOOOOO avoiding damage has never felt so fucking good

#3 at a time when i couldn't play ffxiv, around after i finished base hvw but not the patches, i watched jocat's ffxiv stream vods on youtube. i kept watching until the last available video, when he'd finished the rak'tika section then detoured to do all the role quests. that was around endwalker's release so the guy was too busy streaming to upload the old vods. since twitch vods were only available for 2 weeks i skipped ahead and watched edw instead of waiting for more shb. i followed his streams to the very end, then went ahead and purchased ffxiv to finish shadowbringers on my own

i hadn't planned to play endwalker, for reasons. i finished 5.0, then i did the only thing left i wanted to do: the twinning. i wanted to jam out to a long fall, haha. and i did! it was a very fun run. i hadn't done alexander and omega yet so alex to me is a twinning boss first and foremost. the unlock quest's cutscene where we hear the message from the doomed timeline was so touching that i teared up. i felt satisfied. i was done with ffxiv! yay!

the story of why i decided to continue playing... is for someday in the future :)

#4 and so i did continue to play, and even finish endwalker. really though, the twinning wasn't the only thing i wanted to do. i wanted to try raiding, remember? and so i got to level 90, my first time at level cap, excitedly went to labyrinthos to try the pandaemonium raids, and

my item level is too low. noooooo!

i had no idea how to get gear. what the hell is a tomestone? why do i need so many of them?? i asked around to the raiders in our fc for tips. they told me some stuff about how to farm tomestones but i thought mannn that's gonna take so long though. so i went to the marketboard and bought the then-bis rinascita gear.

one of the guys i asked, koi, saw me at the sharlayan marketboard and went OH NO. i'd just bought the sabatons when he stopped me. koi told me, "this was supposed to be a surprise, but i'll say it so you don't waste your gil. actually yuyu has bought all the gear for you! please come to the fc house to receive it."

i was.. floored. i'd joined the fc while in the middle of playing shadowbringers, so it wasn't too long ago. i hadn't talked with anyone much, only saying hi when i see them pop in or out of the game. since i was too busy doing endwalker msq i couldn't play with the other members either (though we did go into the aitiascope and the mothercrystal together, it was such a blast). but they still gave me a ton of gear and raid food and gil for materia. man even now thinking about it i get choked up. these people are the nicest and i love them so much.

the time when i would have to stop playing ffxiv again was approaching, but i swore i would first clear at least the first savage trial of abyssos when it came out, to show my friends how much i appreciated their help. i'm still holding onto this promise now.

#5 savage is hard. oh my god is it hard. i have to admit to giving up because my internet connection is very unstable, i get a lot of lags and disconnects, and devour is an extremely unforgiving mechanic with lag. i only went back to high-end content with golbez. his trial is extremely attractive for me to prog because the mechanics are mostly forgiving and easy to learn. the only one that has me by the throat is void comet rain (void stardust? idk i learned this from jp resources so) since that one is unforgiving with lag lol. and it took me a good while to prog this trial. i gave up again when 6.5 released with a new extreme, zeromus, and went for that one instead. actually getting to see enrage for the first time ever was very motivating, but i just... i like golbez a lot. i want to clear the voidcast dais extreme first, as it was the new goal i'd set after p5s broke me. so i tried again! and

i did it baybeeee hahahaha! we were a "learn from the beginning" party that was supposed to go on for only 1 meal. but at the 30 minute mark we got to like 7% and i was the only one left alive and i was like no, no we can't stop here LET ME SOLO HIM! LET ME SOLO GOLBEZ I'M A WARRIOR I CAN DO THIS IN NORMAL MODE SURELY EXTREME IS NO DIFF(explodes to void meteor)

we put it to a vote if we want to continue progging, and everyone unanimously agreed. so one final pull! in which i fucking died to void comet rain like a chump! but we ended up clearing well before enrage!! yaaaayyy!!! i got my first ever endwalker extreme clear, and also somehow the weapon coffer despite being the only one (probably) who messed up. sorry everyone ;p all the luck goes to the most undeserving in the party! now i just need to farm the mount and the golbez minion from the lunar subterrane and i will have my full golbez regalia. this is my current goal www

anyway since we're already here have a bonus sweet memory, last christmas one of the fc members, kou, gave us all drawings of our wols! look at the gang all here /;w;)/

answer correctly or else i will have to write more smut to set things right

talking about the other fc members under the cut www

from the left that's koi, one of our serious raiders. the guy is such a troll, he taught me by force to play better bc when someone else dares take the tanking role from him he will run off alone and aggro everything in sight, cuz fuck you. he did also accompany me progging both p5s and golbez and taught me a lot about tanking and communicating in pf :]

second is yuyu, our most wonderful guild leader! she's sweet and kind and loves to shower the rest of us with gil from her billionaire coffers. she's the best. beside her is hoshi, who is a pretty cool person but she's been taking breaks a lot. she's our healer for treasure map runs and it's always hilarious w her there

the bunnyboy is skyler, our most chill and cool guy B) he's a vtuber on tiktok i think? he maintains our main discord server and is usually the one organizing fc events with yuyu. also the sage main who always takes the job to heal the rest of us tank-dps mains www

lastly beside tart that's kou! i hadn't met her a lot at the start and that was because she has a very serious raiding static. she did the omega protocol ultimate, THE hardest fight in ffxiv, on patch. it was nuts. she was in that dimensional rift 24/7 lmao. she's also an artist and always has the best glams and has gotten into gposing too, a real ffxiv renaissance man. kou does old extreme/savage content for fun and often gifts the rest of us special crafted weapons that glow. like the tsukuyomi sword, my beloved

there are other members but that's all for now! thanks if you're reading this far hahah

#tart the wol #long post #i would usually put something this long under a cut but i need you all to vote

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mouse-fantoms · 2 years

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Thinking about that universe that existence where we got a Jatp Halloween special. For us, there were many routes that could have been traveled down for the Halloween special,

There’s the, nothing too extravagant just like the Disney Channel Halloween special (Monstober was my shit, I ate that shit up as child) episode type thing where the main character’s school is decorated, there’s the a and b plot to the episode that links up at the end.

We just see Julie’s school halls so festive for Halloween, Luke’s admiring the festiveness there is a dawning the halls, he’s pointing at the ghost cutout decorations and being like “That’s stereotyping 😭” Plot A follows like Julie, Luke, Reggie and Alex brainstorming costume ideas for the band for their gig later that night bc Halloween baby, prime time for the Julie and the Phantoms band to play. Plot B is like Carlos trying to keep Julie’s secret of the boys being ghosts from Ray even though throughout the episode the man is finding more and more reasons to suspect something.

There’s the like lore route that could have been done, like in Jatp’s universe, are like ghosts affected bc it’s Halloween? Are there more ghosts that are our now bc of Halloween? Can Julie see those ghosts? Could the boys get like a special ghost ability for one night bc of Halloween? Within the lore route, there’s the possibility that more could have been learned about the boy’s lives. Like Julie visiting the Patterson’s on Halloween and Emily taking the opportunity to flip through a photo album where it’s just years and years worth of childhood photos of Luke, Alex, Reggie and Bobby together, and the group costumes they all had to go Trick-or-Treating with. (Julie finds it kind of funny in one picture bc there’s one where the group went as Ghostbusters but Bobby was the Ghostbuster and then Luke, Alex and Reggie where the classic ghosts in the white sheets)

Side note, knowing how the Hollywood Ghost Club is normally, Caleb must run that shit to a tee during Halloween. Imagine how popping that club is then

#technically speaking there’s that parallel universe that exists out there where Jatp got like 6+ seasons or something #I hope those parallel universe goers are fucking eating that shit up and having the time of their life #I hope parallel universe me is enjoying that and eatting up that Halloween special #if I think too much about it there is also that parallel universe that’s out there where I never found Jatp and that just makes me sad SOOO-#…current universe me found Jatp and that’s a great thing and now current me is just thinkin about the Halloween potential there was #…it is a weird thought tho to like think that there’s a you out there in a parallel universe that never discovered the thing that makes you #have so much joy with… I could be here ages talking about parrallel universes and stuff they just are like a mind fuck to thing about #but they’re cool #jatp #julie and the phantoms #jatp netflix #jatp julie #julie jatp #julie molina #jatp luke #luke jatp #luke patterson #jatp reggie #reggie jatp #reggie peters #jatp alex #alex jatp #alex mercer

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payslipgig · 10 months

Note

Ask game:

13, 17, 25, 27, 31, 44

Ask game!

I feel like this is an attempt at reminding me I have a body and need to like. maintain the thing. and maybe to get myself those glasses

13 when was the last time you ate?

I had a healthy 9pm bowl of sliced jalapenos and taco sauce. w a sugar free popsicle. the food pyramid is smiling upon me

17 are you farsighted or nearsighted?

I see what you’re doing…… bc my screen is only a few inches away bc I’m nearsighted and YES I need glasses. someday. I swear

25 perfume/body spray or lotion?

I think I’m a perfume person - most lotion feels like it never really sinks in? I had a subscription to olfactif for a while, specialty perfumes/colognes in little sample sizes. tho I’m a sucker for sample anything tbh

27 about how many hours of sleep did you get?

OK LISTEN…….. idk work days probably 4ish. days off I might get like 6-8? I never manage to like get shit done til after dark (partially biology, partially so I have the space I want to myself, A LOT bc idk where time goes and I can spend a lot of time doing god knows what but it sure isn’t what I want to be doing???)

31 what type of music keeps you grounded?

I’m gonna take this as ‘music that keeps you from having a full-on Episode’ so here’s a few songs to get like. A Vibe!

‘makes you feel like it’s chill that you maybe want to sob but it’ll be ok’ music:

Untitled (not the demo!) - interpol

Kurt Vonnegut (the demo!) - born ruffians

Slow Country - gorrilaz

Photocorners - the lovely feathers

Heartbreak - celebration

Cut and Run - electrelane

Van Helsing Boombox - man man

Our Mouths Were Wet - oh no oh my

(I can put my ‘music to pick you up and KEEP you level’ in another ask if anyone’s interested bc this got. Long.)

44 you get a free pass to kill anyone, who is it?

hooooooooooo that’s a question. choosing this is v definitely a ‘they’re currently living’ question bc otherwise like ppl like Reagan and William Luther Pierce are a gimme. let’s go w some current monsters like Alex Jones or Rupert Murdoch. Jordan Peterson could make the cut but he seems to be doing his best to take himself out all on his own

Ty @bookwisp 💚💚💚

Tagging: literally anyone who sees this bc there are so many cool ppl I’d want to hear from and this post is already SO LONG

#long post #ask meme #bookwisp #one of my favorite traits is the occasional (common. constant.) need to say So Much bc What If I Mislead Someone By Leaving Out Context?!?#it’s great it’s so much fun #but also I get excited and indecisive as all hell

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saucysquared · 1 year

Text

A Step Towards Forgiveness

A Marble Hornets everyone lives AU, but everyone still goes through the same shit.

Inspired by a conversation with @sh1tl0rrd and they drew art of it too!!

Word count: 432

"What do you want?"

He was almost surprised by the airy croak his voice had become. It felt like years since he last actually spoke aloud. With nobody around, why speak at all? Amy went to go live with her sister and of course the others wanted nothing to do with him, not that he blamed them at all. He wouldn't have stuck around either.

What did surprise him, though, was Jay Merrick. Never could he tell what Jay would do next, such as standing at his door with a box and a somewhat hopeful expression on his tired face.

Jay could tell Alex didn't mean his question to be bitter, but instead tired. Everything about the way Alex stood before him screamed overwhelming guilt. The way he held himself and leaned against the doorframe, the clothes he wore that looked like they hadn't been changed in at least a week, the angry red scarring around his throat that should have healed by now if the scratch lines were anything to go by.

He looked broken.

~~~~

It sat on the table, small and definitely a cheaper cake. Chocolate, by the look of it and it was obvious that Jay had hit a speed bump on the way over. "Thanks for not hitting any vital organs : )" shakily scribbled across the top in thick green icing.

It hadn't taken long at all before Alex stepped aside to let Jay inside. He'd be a liar if he said he hadn't missed Jay's company. They had been friends, partners. Jay had cared so much for Alex's project and was almost as passionate as he was as script advisor. They weren't necessarily the closest, but Jay never gave up on how difficult the shooting became. He was resilient, that was for sure... Resilient through everything...

The laughter that emerged from his chest was breathy and almost disbelieving. It caught Jay off guard to hear it come from Alex. He really went out of his way to do this, to write on a cake something so ridiculous. It was undeniably something Jay would do. His laughter became louder and if Jay wasn't paying attention, he would have missed the sobs that Alex struggled to swallow through his laughter.

It was more than he deserved. It wasn't something that should have been done, ant yet it was. It was the olive branch. The offer to start repairing what had been shattered.

The cake was awful, but they both ate and spoke with remorse and guilt and hope. It was shitty cake, but it the offer it brought was sweet.

#saucewrites #drabble #marble hornets #MH #alex kralie #jay merrick #everyone lives au #same trauma #for funsies #i feel like i haven't written in years #holy crap

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cynthiaandsamus · 1 year

Text

Excerpt From “My Best Friends’ Child Will Kill Me!”: The Fleeting Looper

This is a short story chapter from a story whose premise is Demon King Malfino Malthus takes on the human persona of ‘Mel’ to stop two humans he accidentally befriended, Adventurer Samantha and Baker Alex, from having a child since it’s been prophecized that their child will be the Chosen One who will slay the Demon King, the story focuses on his misadventures trying to halt their seemingly fated romantic progress, though this particular chapter takes an unexpected turn when he meets a girl that says she’s been reliving the same day over and over...

“Did you hear?” Sam asked, handing Mel one of the trays of freshly sculpted dough to be loaded onto the wagon for baking at Alex’s bakery. “Someone killed some sort of warlock out by the farms. They found the body but no one’s sure who that plot of land belongs to, so they don’t know who did it.”

“Killing a warlock is bad luck, superstition aside they have literal magic that goes beyond their deaths.” Mel sighed, the incognito Demon King loading the trays onto the wagon as they were handed off.

“Maahybe dat’s huhy dey kn’t fyind da ownah. Maybe they’re already spirited away or something.” Sam had inconspicuously slipped part of the uncooked dough from some of the unfinished cinnamon buns in her mouth, swallowing it mid-sentence and handing Mel the very conspicuously half-eaten tray.

The man looked down at the tray with a scowl. “Did you just agree to help Alex make these so you can munch on them? At least wait till they’re done, he always gives you the extras anyway.” Mel sighed, putting the tray off to the side so as not to send off a bun with a bite in it for baking. While he was turned Sam had already thrust the next tray towards him so when he came back to face the way he was going it rammed into his chest and clattered out of Sam’s hand.

“Shit! Sorry!!” The huntress’s quick reflexes scrambled to try and not waste another tray of buns, though oddly enough even before she had tried to catch it, a shiver of something went up Mel’s back, sending him to his knees in a flash, eye level with the falling tray as he reached out to catch it, gripping it tight and moving it gently to balance every uncooked bun as they fell in a disheveled but safe pile back onto the tray in his hands. “Wow, good catch.” Sam blinked.

Mel was equally dumbfounded, it was often that he had to hide his demonic nature from his two friends but he wasn’t used to being able to react before even Sam had a chance to, but he was glad Alex’s buns were safe at least. “Think that’s the last of them, you go tell Alex why this one’s not going to the oven.” He handed her the tray with a teasing glance. “I’ve got to meet up with Harold.”

“You’re gonna put my buns to the fire like that!?” Sam gasped, feigning despair as she took back the partial tray. “Fine, fine. You boys take care. Tell him I said hi.”

--------------------------------------

“Are you sure it’s wise to give Sam and Alex more alone time My Lord?” The squat demon masquerading as a squat human looked up at Mel with some concern.

“I can’t be there to interfere with every interaction they ever have, I doubt they’re going to just hook up in the middle of the bakery after she ate an eighth of his cinnamon bun stock.” Mel sighed and shook his head. “Besides, if I get too pushy with them, they’ll start getting concerned and try to set me up with a human woman again, I’d rather not have the speed dating incident repeat itself.” The disguised Demon King took on a tone of more confidence in front of his disguised underling as he and ‘Harold’ walked down the street.

“By the way sir, you’re being followed.” Harold offered without looking back, earning a nod from Mel.

“Yeah I noticed, it’s why I wanted to get away from Alex’s bakery.” Mel shrugged his shoulders, also not acknowledging their guest with any sort of glance or physical recognition. The two disguised demons reached a more empty part of town, filled with older houses in disrepair, most everyone that lived there moved towards the center of town during the day or worked nights and was sleeping, the perfect spot to not draw any attention from confronting the person tailing them.

“Do you need any assistance with them My Lord?” Harold asked, stopping on the spot, drawing Mel to do the same.

“Doubt it, seems like a normal human.” Mel cracked his knuckles. If this mystery person knew they were demons, they’d have to be eliminated, but if it was something that could be smoothed out, he’d rather smooth it out. “If you’re worried about Sam and Alex getting chummy, go check on them, I’ll deal with this myself.”

“Yes sir!” Harold nodded, rushing back the way they came, letting Mel finally organically look behind him to spot their little stalker.

The human woman jumped a bit, obviously trying not to look suspicious as Mel turned her way. The hidden Demon King’s eyes narrowed as he looked her up and down. She was fit but not as toned as an Adventurer like Sam, dressed in a simple dress with some extra padding to keep her warm, short brown hair not styled in any particular away and large, tired eyes that vacantly focused on him. She seemed to debate hiding behind something to keep her cover for a moment but realized how suspicious she already looked and decided to stay put.

“Why are you following me?” Mel clenched his fist, readying his magical energy to focus towards his palm in case this was actually some sort of trap.

“You’re different.” The girl said quietly, a tone without fear or pride, weary but confident all the same. “It’s been a long time since someone’s been different.”

“What do you mean?” The only reason she hadn’t already been engulfed in the purple hellfire of his signature spell was because there was still a chance this was a misunderstanding and cleaning up a body based on a mixup was more effort than he was willing to expend at the moment.

The girl bit her lip, seemingly struggling to think of a way to sensibly elaborate. She didn’t seem to find one and took a deep breath ready to just come out with it.

“My name is Rachel Eisen, today is the twenty-first of the month of Stormwade and this is my forty one thousand two hundred and eighth time experiencing this day.”

--------------------------------------

“You really expect me to believe that?” After a bit of time walking together in silence, Mel looked over at Rachel. Now that defending himself from an ambush seemed off the table, they were walking back towards the active districts of town at a leisurely pace, both seemingly stunned into quiet for a while after her bold declaration.

“Time Loop Magic is rare but it exists, most people know that. And since you’re different you must have some kind of great affinity for magic, so you definitely know it’s possible.” Rachel huffed indignantly; she seemed to know it was a hard sell but still feigned offense to save some face.

“You keep saying I’m different, how do I know this isn’t just a ploy to get a confession out of me?” He was playing it close to the vest, if this girl didn’t know he was the Demon King there was no reason to tell her, but if she did or was working for someone that was trying to confirm it, life in this peaceful town could get very messy for a lot of people, including his closest friends.

“Confession? Are you a criminal or something?” She quirked a brow.

“Just tell me what makes you think I’m different.” He gave an exasperated sigh.

“You caught the tray.”

“…what?”

“Every day I go by that bakery and every day for the past forty thousand days, your Adventurer friend there has dropped that tray and those buns fell into the dirt. It’s how I get my breakfast to be honest, I don’t exactly have money and nobody seems to mind someone scooping up some dirt buns.” Rachel gave a disinterested shrug. “But today you caught them. Things aren’t usually different unless I directly interact with them, but you changed something.”

Mel grit his teeth a bit in thought, nodding softly. “Time Loop Magic doesn’t really Loop Time, even for a great Wizard bending all of Time into a circle for the sake of one person is far too great a task. Instead it de-syncs the target’s perception of time with everyone else’s. Usually beings perceive time in more or less the same way, but Loopers perceive time on a much smaller, repeating scale, cut off from the grand perception of time shared by everyone else but contained within a very specific part of it.” He rubbed his wrists and shook his head. “It’s a notoriously rare and obtuse form of magic. If you’re hoping I can break you out of the loop I wouldn’t get too excited. Loops essentially run on an energy ring that feeds off itself, the energy expelled by the events in the loop are fed back into it to keep it contained.”

“I know, I’ve had over a hundred years to think about it, it’s extremely rare I come across anyone different, and you’re the first one I’ve been able to pin down in any substantial way.” She rubbed the back of her head, acknowledging how aggressive her stalking had been.

“So does this mean I’m caught in your time loop now? Now that my perception of time and yours are synced?”

“No, I doubt it anyway. It’s like water. If you pour it into a bucket all the drops become one body, but when you pour it out, they’re droplets again. Things like this connect and disband so easily, at least that’s how it’s been before.”

It was growing more plausible in Mel’s mind that she was telling the truth based on what she knew, but he still couldn’t rule out this all being a show to get him to reveal himself. “Prove it then, show me something that only a looper would know.”

“Fine, come here.” Rachel grabbed his hand, seemingly getting a little frustrated with the task of convincing him but excitement in her voice at the idea he might soon believe her. She led him to one of the main courtyards of town, scanning the bustling crowds of people running errands and making a note of each. “There, in a moment the wind’s going to blow this way and blow exactly four bill notes out of Old Lady Gretel’s hands and this guy here will catch them but only return three and quietly pocket the last one.” Her eyes shrewdly watched the people Mel could scarcely make out in the crowd.

Though to his surprise, he did feel the wind blow past him and heard a shout as the woman’s money slipped out of her hand. The young man with shady eyes that Rachel had pointed to seemed to have them blow right into him to his own surprise. And just as was foretold, three of the bill made it back to the woman as the boy faked a polite face and discretely slipped the last into his pocket while making a show of returning the bulk of the old woman’s money to her and getting a fresh cookie from the woman’s bag for his heroic endeavor.

“I’ll admit that’s far too specific to be a coincidence…” Mel mused, even if she could stage such a thing with some sort of remote Wind Magic and had the young man as a plant, knowing the exact number of bills was a step too far even for his own cautious skepticism. Though when he looked to accept Rachel’s proposition, he noticed she was already next to the shady young man, deftly plucking his wallet out of his back pocket while he was engaged with reveling over stealing the pocket change from the elderly woman and getting rewarded for it. He supposed her stealing from a supposed plant was another strike against them being in cahoots after all.

“See? What I tell ya?” Rachel grinned from ear to ear, the pride of offering indisputable proof and her own thievery overriding the tired apathy she’d be displaying until then.

“I guess you think stealing from a thief is alright then?” He crossed his arms and looked at her with a mild expression of judgment.

“He’ll have his wallet back tomorrow, time loop, remember?” She pouted.

“If I’m not in the time loop I’d prefer if you didn’t start a crime wave through my perception of time.” Mel sighed, pulling the wallet out of her hands with two fingers and pulling two bills out of it, sliding them into Gretel’s bag before giving the young boy his wallet back. “Here, think you dropped this, everyone should keep a good hold on their money, right?” He gave a slightly ominous smirk to the boy that made him scamper off no questions asked after taking back his wallet. Mel shoved his hands in his pockets, turning back to Rachel. “Come on, I’ll buy you a snack myself, something better than dirt buns.”

----------------------------------------------------

After grabbing a pair of hot cheese danishes from Alex’s Bakery, Mel came back to where Rachel asked him to meet her, a small arched stone bridge not far from the bakery just a bit downstream from the mill. “You wanted to show me something here?” He asked, handing her one of the danishes.

“Yeah!” Rachel nodded enthusiastically, engulfing half of the Danish in one bite with the gusto of a demonic gravel centipede. She led him under the bridge, a surprisingly serene-looking sight, the arch made into a makeshift dwelling with a straw mat made from a nearby hay bale and a simple pillow and blanket. Along the underside of the bridge the water shimmered and reflected against the stones in small uneven oval patterns, the liquid sloshing quietly echoing inside the arch.

It took a moment for Mel’s eyes to adjust but once they did he saw the underside of the bridge was covered in scratches, small lines marked along the arch that despite their minute size still took up over half the length of the bridge itself. “What are all these…?”

“This is how long I’ve been looping. They disappear every day so I take some time in the morning to re-etch them when I feel like it, I use the cobblestones as guidelines and keep track of how many I made last time.” Rachel sat down, taking another chunk out of her Danish. “I can’t get back to my house from here and I always wake up in the street nearby so I made this my home base since I can get the hay and stuff pretty quickly.”

“How did you end up looping? Or I mean why can’t you get back home?” Mel pressed his back to the arch of the bridge and slid down to sit beside her, shivering softly from the cool moisture coming from the river, though Rachel didn’t seem to mind it.

“Over a hundred years ago… or for you, yesterday: I killed a warlock that was threatening my farm. He was stronger than me but I got the jump on him to protect my land. Still, I was hurt from the fight and stumbled into town to get some medical attention. When I woke up, I was passed out in an alley and couldn’t leave the town border. Every time I try I just end up on the other side of town like I just walked around in a circle. And what’s worse no matter who I tell, they all forget and everything returns to how it was by sunrise the next day… or the same day, you know.”

“So that’s the Warlock Sam was talking about… you may have been better off just letting him have your farm, the spells Warlocks cast on their deathbed are far more powerful than any living mage.” Mel took a bite out of his own Danish, breaking it in half and handing it to Rachel who snatched it up without a word.

“You sure know a lot about this stuff, I gave you my story so it’s time for you to dish.” Rachel huffed, mouth half full of cheesy pastry. “What makes you so special to suddenly be synced to my perception of time?”

Mel thought for a long moment, Rachel had come out with everything even though it was unlikely he’d believe her and even though it wouldn’t change anything, she’d just come out and said it. He supposed it was his turn to do the same.

“I’m the Demon King.”

Rachel choked on her Danish, beating her chest as she looked over at him with a newly wary glance. “You’re the Demon King!? As in Malfino Malthus, THAT Demon King!?”

“That’s me…”

“And the best you could come up with for a human name was ‘Mel’…?”

“It wasn’t exactly something I chose for myself…” he snarled.

Her eyes lowered to the water as something dawned on her, a sad grumble crawling its way out of her lips. “I guess the only reason you’re telling me that is because you’re sure I’ll never be able to tell anyone, huh? You really can’t break me out of the loop…”

“I already told you that.” He said matter-of-factly, but as gently as he could. “It’s only fair I be honest with you, though if you go trying to tell anyone before you loop again we’re going to have a problem.”

“So what’s the Demon King doing around here? You spying on us to get ready and blow this place up? Maybe being looped isn’t so bad if that’s the case…” She finished off the last bites of the half of Mel’s Danish she took.

“No, that’s not it. The Adventurer I was with and the owner of that Bakery, they’re my best friends. I was injured and they mistook me for a human and took me in, I’ve been living a double life since then, I honestly do care about them and treasure my time with them.” He leaned his head back against the cool stone and closed his eyes. “But my Seer also prophesized their child will be the Chosen One who will kill me and end the Malthus bloodline forever. I can’t bear to kill them but I also don’t want to die, so me and my henchdemon Harold have been trying to keep their relationship from becoming romantic so they never have a child.”

“Those lovebirds? Good luck with that, I’m just a street urchin that mooches dirtbuns off the guy and I can see they’re already halfway to being an item. Besides, the bakery guy’s huge AND makes awesome sweets like this? Can’t really keep women away from that.”

“I’ve noticed… it’s a… difficult process.” Mel let some of his frustration show as he shook his head. “If you know this day so well can’t you find something better than dirtbuns to eat?”

“Well I can, but this is the easiest I’ve found.” The looping girl shrugged. “I didn’t exactly take my wallet into town while I was bleeding out so if I need to buy something I’ve got to hold someone up, which sometimes works, sometimes doesn’t, even if it goes badly though I still wake up right back in the alley where I passed out before.” She sighed. “Scooping up free slightly used buns is better than flipping a coin about whether someone I try to rob will be able to see I don’t have a real weapon or not.”

“I suppose mugging is a rather stressful activity to start off your day with.” Mel conceded.

“It’s hard, some days I don’t bother eating at all, it’s not like I’ll die of hunger from one day without food, but it does get uncomfortable. Some days I just decide to end early so I don’t have to bother with anything.”

“How do you end a day ear-oh…” Mel stopped himself, letting the implication hang in the air like lead.

Rachel nodded softly after a stretch of silence that felt much longer than it probably was. “Yeah, not that it helps much, whether I do that or let the day play out, I still end up back where I started so it’s not like I get to sleep it off. I was actually thinking about ending today early too, but decided not to.”

He gave her an inquisitive glance. “Why not?”

“I met you.” She gave a serene smile back at him, making him feel more than a little awkward but letting the moment stay nice despite his cynicism. “It’s been a long time since anything different has happened, and even longer since I had any hope of someone remembering me past today. Anything I tell anyone else just gets reset.”

“And what happens once sunrise comes?” An earnest look of concern crossed Mel’s face despite himself.

“Same thing that always happens, life goes on. Except you’ll have tomorrow, and I won’t.”

“Yeah, I guess so…” He cast his eyes downwards a bit in her direction.

She took a more guarded sitting position, moving to cover part of her body with the blanket from her bedding as if to protect from his glance. “Don’t look at me like that.”

“Like what?”

“Like I’m dying.”

The words hit him like a punch in the stomach, he hadn’t been conscious of it but that’s what it had felt like talking to her, knowing he was speaking to someone that wasn’t going to see the next day with him. “Sorry…” He quietly managed, turning back to the water.

They sat in silence for a bit longer, Rachel idly throwing loose bits of gravel into the river so they could both listen to the sounds of the sploosh and watch the ripples cross the surface.

“I wish there was something I could do for you.” He finally said.

“Whatever it is, you’re doing it now.” She let a small grin tug at the corners of her mouth. “Somehow I feel better knowing you’ll still remember me in the morning, and who would’ve thought a farmgirl from nowhere would be eating danishes with the Demon King?”

He let a small chuckle escape his lips and shook his head. “So what do you plan to do with eternity?”

“I dunno, there’s some things I’ve gotten pretty good at, skipping rocks, helping Old Lady Gretel bake cookies, reading whatever books I can find in the library, there’s a lot I can do now that I couldn’t before.” She smiled to herself. “If that punk that robbed Gretel carried more in his wallet I’d be able to eat better without gambling so much on the muggings, it’s hard trying to hold someone up in the exact same way each time, if you’re tone’s off the whole thing goes sideways.” She shrugged. “Maybe I’ll learn more about the people here, it’s painful knowing no one will remember what I say, so I stopped talking to people so I wouldn’t contradict what I knew about them from past loops and freak them out. But maybe it’s worth the effort, find out about more of them, like I had no idea you were the Demon King after all, who knows what everyone else is hiding?” She chuckled, trying to find great joy in the simple acts of human interaction.

Mel quietly gathered some of the nearby sticks and hay and ignited his palm with purple demonic fire, passing the flames to the sticks where they turned a natural orange, keeping the two of them warm and bright as the sky got darker outside. “As long as you’re keeping busy.” He smiled faintly.

“That and…” She paused for a moment before nodding to herself. “I don’t think I’ll be cutting my days short anymore.”

“Oh really?” He mused, poking the fledgling fire with a stick.

“Yeah, I thought there was nothing new left for me under the sun, but if I’d cut today short I’d have missed a day like this.” She smiled. “Even if I’ve seen it thousands of times, there’s no such thing as complete certainty, is there?”

“Heh, guess not…” He shook his head softly. “I’ll be right back, don’t fall asleep on me, okay?” He stood up, walking out from under the bridge and running a small errand. When he got back the fire was a far sight better than the fledgling embers he’d left her with, apparently Rachel was much better at tending to it than he was.

He held two mugs of steaming hot chocolate in his hands as well as two slices of Alex’s famous cheesecake, both topped with a generous helping of whipped cream. “I was going to say this’ll help keep you warm but I guess you’re pretty good with the fire, huh?” The incognito demon king looked over at the girl curled up in her blanket poking the roaring yet firmly manageable blaze.

“I’ve gotten used to the cold under here but it helps to know how to take care of one of these.” She said without facing him, turning and spotting the mugs. “Oh no way, gimme!” She cackled as she grabbed the hot mug and started chugging it, giving a small scream as the tip of her tongue turned red. “ACK!!!”

“Told you it’s hot…” Mel stared at her blankly. “Dip your tongue in the whipped cream it’ll feel better.” He calmly set the cheesecake beside her and took gentle sips from his own mug. Despite her talk of getting to know people better, he had a feeling it would be better if she eased into that on her own rather than spending the one day she had with someone that would remember her awkwardly making smalltalk with the admittedly chatty patrons of Alex’s bakery.

Rachel eagerly cooled off her tongue with the whipped cream and started digging into the cheesecake for a similar effect, alternating between the drink and the cake to keep it at a mellow yet warm temperature. “Man she’s gotta marry that guy, he makes some amazing sweets.”

“You know if she does I’m as good as dead, right?” Mel grumbled through a mouthful of his own crumbly cheesecake crust.

“Oh yeah, so that’s a disguise right? I didn’t know demons could look like humans.” She glanced over at him curiously.

“It wouldn’t be much of an infiltration tactic if everyone knew about it.” He could count the number of humans actually aware of the transformation potion on one hand, and most of them were either business partners of the demonic forces or otherwise not in positions where spilling the secret would be in any way wise.

“So… can I see what you really look like? It’s not like anyone’s going to come down here this late.” She gave a teasing chuckle, nudging him softly. “Come on, one request for the looping girl you’re never gonna see again.”

“You got a danish and a half, hot chocolate and cheesecake out of me, don’t act like I owe you.” He said, sounding more pouty than he intended as he finished off his hot chocolate. The light of the fire didn’t extend far beyond the edge of the bridge, anyone looking in probably wouldn’t be able to see even from a ways off. He gave a deep sigh and relented. “Fine…”

Rachel gave a half-genuine squeal of delight as she turned to face Mel. “Alright, lemme see!”

Mel took a deep breath, actively using his native magic senses to purge the active ingredients from the disguise potion out of his pores. Slowly his dark hair took on more of a gray hue, his pale skin turned to a grayish blue color and horns and fangs grew from his head and teeth. His fingernails grew slightly, features noticeably but subtly elongating to make a similar pastiche to his human self but one that was befitting of the young lord that was the King of Demons.

“Huh…”

“What do you mean ‘huh’!? I’m the Demon King here and that’s all you have to say!?” Malthus nearly fell on his face out of shock.

“No, no it’s just… you don’t look as different from your human self as I thought you would. Aside from the skin color and fangs you look pretty similar, just kind of more… stressed out.” She teased softly.

He grumbled and leaned back against the back of the bridge. He hadn’t really thought about it before, when he projected himself as a demon, he had subconsciously thought to carry himself with the air of demonic strength befitting his bloodline that had been beaten into him from a young age. He knew he’d enjoyed the escape from such responsibility that hanging out with Sam and Alex provided, but he’d never thought of himself as more ‘relaxed’ as a human, was he really becoming more comfortable as a human than as a demon?

“Here, you’re already blue, can’t have you freezing.” Rachel interrupted his thoughts by draping the other half of her blanket over him.

“Thanks…” He pulled the blanket more over himself, slightly skittish about how close that pulled him to her, like a squirming housecat he wasn’t quite sure what to do about the physical contact but didn’t reject the added warmth of feeling her beside him.

“Everyone talks about demons like they’re so different from us, and yet here you are right under everyone’s nose and no one can tell the difference. Guess that demons really are just like humans huh?”

“Or humans are just like demons…” He huffed.

She gave a short laugh and nodded. “I’ve seen enough bad things from both to think that might be true.” She too leaned against the back of the bridge, sliding over and leaning against his shoulder softly. “Still there are lots of good things too, cheesecake, danishes, a warm fire, a good talk with someone who understands you… I thought my life didn’t have any point if it was the same thing over and over again, but there’s still so much to enjoy…” Her words trailed off and her eyes fluttered. “All this time… it’s not wasted as long as it’s fun, right? Even if a lot of it isn’t?”

“Hey, don’t go to sleep, we’re supposed to make it to sunrise, right?” Malthus huffed, feeling his own eyelids start to droop, digging his fingernails into his palm to draw blood and give himself a jolt to stay awake despite being so cozy.

“Yeah, I’m not going to sleep I’m just…” She was interrupted by a loud yawn. “I’m glad I kept going into town… throwing myself against that wall one more time… I’m glad I kept trying…”

“Don’t stop trying… okay?” Malthus squeezed his palm tighter, trying to keep the pain coming to will himself awake but feeling the warmth of the bedding and being cuddled up to Rachel force his fatigue to set in.

“Yeah… I’ll keep going…”

----------------------------------------------------

The next morning Mel shot awake, the fire from the night before merely dead coals at this point, the air still dim with the quiet orange stillness of a newly risen sun. He felt the blanket wrapped tightly around himself, but no longer felt any tug from Rachel on the other end. He frantically looked around the area. “Rachel! Rachel I swear to god if you’re here this isn’t funny!” He called out, hearing his voice echoing under the bridge into the still nothingness of morning before any humans were out and about.

“No…”

“DAMNIT!!” He slammed his hand into the underside of the bridge, the dried blood caked in his palm and under his fingernails from trying to stay awake. The blanket hung off his shoulder limply as he let his tears fall into the river and become ripples before being swept away by the flow.

Had there been any better use of their time? Maybe he should have done more to actively try and break her out of her cycle or introduced her to more people in the vain hope they’d remember her after yesterday. There had to have been something he could’ve done for her besides talk and eat sweets, he was sure of it. But that is what had happened, and now the version of him in her perception of time would no longer remember her. He hadn’t even thought of that, from her perspective now she had someone she knew would remember her but she wouldn’t be able to see that progression herself and would instead be taunted by a reset shell of what he had been yesterday.

“It’s not fair…” He sobbed quietly to himself, left only with the gentle sounds of morning and the quiet flow of the river that never stopped.

----------------------------------------------------

“Girl? I don’t remember seeing you with a girl…” Harold said after Mel met back up with his disguised henchdemon, both in their human forms again. It seemed anything different from the flow of time shared by the majority of people wasn’t remembered by them, as if she hadn’t existed at all. He was now back in the Grand Flow, the time of being a separate droplet of water as fleeting as a teardrop.

Mel gave a sigh of exasperation and shook his head as the two of them crossed overtop Rachel’s bridge, looking under and seeing all the tally marks she’d made still under there. At least that much had still occurred, he’d hoped to see another mark appear so he could know Rachel was still doing alright with her loops, but it wasn’t as if the bridge itself was magic, it just still bore the scars of the brief foray into another perception of time it was now separated from just as he was.

“Wow, someone sure graffiti’d up this place, huh?” Harold looked around the bridge’s underside with a low whistle. “Darn kids…” He shook his head. “Anyway, yesterday’s plan to push Sam and Alex apart was a bust, he just shrugged off her eating his buns, that guy’s just way too good natured to piss off like that. We need to think of something better if we’re going to stop them from having a kid, we don’t have much time.”

“No, we don’t have much time.” Mel picked up a stone from the ground, dragging it across the cobblestone of the bridge next to where Rachel had made her marks to make one more of his own. “Not much time at all. But we have today.”

#ooc #writing #My Best Friends' Child Will Kill Me!#Working Title

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