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myafterlifeisbetterthenyours · 2 years

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OBSESSIVE STOLAS x Male Imp pt.8

(Check out the other chapters before reading this one.)

You can find the first 7 parts here,

-> My Master-List

It had been over an hour since he'd had his little 'visit' to the I.M.P office when he got the text from you.

(Y/N): I'm done.

Receiving the text, he couldn't help the cringe spreading across his face, his chin reseeding into his neck. The owl unable to discern any emotion from your message.

This likely being intentional.

He gave the driver instructions, the limo quickly pulling away as he considered texting you back.

He decided not to. Believing it'd be best to leave such dialogue until you were face to face.

It was a short drive, Stolas having parked himself not far from the office.

Pulling up before the building, he found you waiting, the owl quickly opening a door for you.

He knew he was in trouble when you climbed in without a word, only to then sit on the furthest part of the seat, clearly putting as much distance between you as possible.

With you now inside, the driver already knew where to go so there wasn't any need for him to give any further instruction.

You didn't look at him, instead just staring ahead, arms crossed and your expression remained cold.

"So... how did it go?" Stolas asked, already knowing the answer. But decided to keep his viewing abilities to himself.

You stared ahead for several moments before turning to him, "Oh?" You began, sarcasm already dripping from your voice with that single word.

"Do you mean that thing where you said youd handle telling Blitzø about our relationship, but instead you dropped the news and abandoned me with him?" You asked, looking out the window, an underlining level of bitterness.

Stolas was cringing hard now, knowing the next thing he said would be maybe the most important thing possible.

Stolas couldn't help himself getting a little shaky, "I... I'm sorry." He began.

He knew it was dirty, using his emotion distress to influence you, especially when you'd already shown such kindness to him, But he couldn't bare the thought of you being angry at him.

"I thought about it over a-and over," he told you, covering his face now, his voice thick with emotion. "And I just couldn't... I couldnt see an outcome of me being involved t-that... that didn't start more issues then it solved."

He was actually teary eyed now, this not being an act as he had genuinely not seen his involvement as only harming your chances of peace.

Stolas sat there, genuine emotions pouring through him. He didn't look at you, tears welling in his eyes. Instead he just sat there, turned away as he desperately held himself together.

This lasted longer then he would have liked, but eventually he felt something.

You turned him towards you, you moved his hands from his face before gently cupping his cheek.

He turned to you finding you wearing a rather serious expression as you gently wiped away his tears.

For a second, he was concerned you'd seen through his act, but then you pulled his face into your chest, gently cupping the back of his head.

You were still dressed in your work clothes, so your scent was strong. Your natural musk almost intoxicating as you held him close, his tears quickly drying as he breathed in your musk.

"I'm sorry for getting mad." You began, gently petting his head, "But that could have ended really badly."

"And im not so much mad that you did what you did. But you could have given me some forewarning. A text or Hell, maybe a call." You told him, your voice was still firm, you clearly still annoyed.

Stolas pulled back, wiping his eyes he told you as genuinely as possible, "I know a-and I'm so sorry."

"It's just... it took so much for me to work up the nerve to even go in a-and staying calm-" you pulled him back into your chest, the owl slowly calming down as he nuzzled back into you.

After a few moments, he pulled back, cupping your cheek, he ran his thumb gently running below your eye. "Im truly sorry (Y/N). But I knew you could handle it... Your so good with words, and your so much stronger then me..." He told you, perhaps playing up the wounded animal act ever so much.

You moved his hand, cupping his face again, "Oh Stolas... your so much stronger then you know." You told him before leaning in and giving him a kiss.

Stolas immediately returned it, eagerly accepting the act of intimacy as he pulled you close.

After a few minutes, you parted. The both of you panting, a little smile now across his lips.

You released a happy snort, falling forwards the owl caught you, you happily nuzzling into your feathery lover.

"I suppose I could forgive you, My Paramour~" you purred, any hostility was seemingly long gone.

Warmth Bloomed in the Prince' chest, a sense of love and accomplishment in you accepting his apology.

"So where are you taking me, Hmm?" You asked playfully, staring up at him.

Stolas just chuckled, telling you nice and coyly, "You shall have to wait and see my darling little Imp~"

You chuckled, giving a little shrug as you just laid back, the Owl running his fingers across your head.

You laid there, staring up a him, the owl staring back down, the owl utterly incased in the bubble of love that seemed to form around you.

It was going to be a long Ride.

They'd be going down a Ring or two so he had all the time in the world to just look down and appreciate your beauty.

He held you on his lap, the owl seemingly high as you told him about your day.

Stolas was so caught up in your mere presence, the Owl just smiling down at you as you told him about your day.

You just stared back at him, grabbing his hand you placed a gentle kiss on his palm. The two of you suddenly wrapped in a moment of such mutual affection, just smiling at each other until he leaned down, planting a deep kiss on your lips.

The kiss would slowly grow stronger, more passionate, the owl cupping the back of your head as he became more agressive, pressing your body against his own.

You don't know when it happened, but you ended up straddling him, your kissing becoming progressively heated, the owls tongue curling and battling against your own.

He was so enwrapped with your kissing, his hands roaming your body, that he didn't even notice when the Limo finally stopped.

After a while, when his hands tried to slip into your pants you finally pulled back, you looking up and telling him, "I think we might... be here."

Snapping out of his rather lusty haze, Stolas looked about, finding the car had indeed stopped.

Stolas gently slid you off of his lap, the owl planting one last kiss on your lips before the two of you climbed out of the Limo.

It took a moment for you to adjust, having the Blood flowing back to your head.

Looking about, you found yourself on... Lust by the looks of it.

At least if all the sex signs and lack of Sinners could be believed. Not to mention the general scent of sec and Booze that you had heard the Ring was famous for.

Looking ahead, you found yourself before a towering building. It was an impressive structure, grand pillars framing a large entrance. It reminded you of some of the Sinner casinos, the ones theyd based on the, uh, the Greeks, your pretty sure.

A simple neon sign proclaimed it to be "The Den of Delight", the humble sign seeming to fit well with its grandiose structure.

"Swanky looking joint," You told him playfully.

Stolas snorted, looking down at you with a playful look, "You have no idea darling~"

Just as you went to step forwards, you were suddenly picked up. And looking about you found yourself suddenly being in the owls grasp.

Looking up at him you raised a brow, a look simply asking 'why?'

Stolas giggled, telling you simply, "The first time visiting the Den can often be... Overwhelming."

"It's best if I have you close, make sure nothing happens." He told you, giving you a warm nuzzle.

You chuckled before asking him, "So I guess the hand on my ass is just a treat?"

Stolas just held back a giggle as he looked ahead, "Well I did put in quite a bit of effort to arrange this darling. It's only natural I get something of a treat."

You laughed, the owl feeling giddy once again at seeing you so happy. "But seriously. It took me quite a while to think of something to rival your night out." He told you semi-seriously, looking up at the building.

"And while I doubt I'll ever be able to rival the romance of that night, I do believe you'll greatly enjoy tonight."

You laughed, looking up at him and telling him, "Stolas, you really didn't need to try so hard. I would have been just as happy to have a simple dinner, or Hell, even just spend some time with you." You told him.

You were so genuine. So eager just to show him true affection.

He could barely contain the love and affection that swelled in his chest, the owl leaning down and giving you a firm nuzzle, followed by a gentle kiss.

"I know darling. But I want to do something special for you." He told you, nuzzling at the base of your horns.

You chuckled, nuzzling right back into him.

The two of you just had a tender moment, Stolas holding you close, planting a gentle kiss on your cheek.

"Shall we go in?" He asked, you giggling before just nodding your head.

Stolas walked in, you just holding onto him.

You entered a grand chambet. Great works of art lining the walls, each one on the backdrop of a massive red sheet, there emmense size giving the entire hall a sense of splendour.

There was a small reception area, a single Incubus waiting there. Wearing something that could barely be considered clothes.

He and Stolas exchanged words, you to busy looking about to listen to there conversation.

And suddenly you were moving again.

Looking up you found your Owl looking particularly handsome, a rather dashing little smile across his lips.

Stolas noticed your staring, looking down he asked you simply, "Something wrong, darling?"

You chuckled, reaching up and grabbing his head. Looking down at you, you gave him a deep kiss, the two of you stopping as you just kissed each other.

The Kiss lasted for a long while, the owl happily holding you close as your kissing got more passionate.

It was as you pressed harder into the kiss that Stolas actually stopped, pulling back.

You were a little surprised, but he quickly told you, "Its alright darling~" He purred, the owl giving a rather selatious lick across his beak, "There will be more then enough of that inside~"

You just sat in his embrace, the owl quickly moving forwards, pushing open a large set of double doors.

As soon as the doors opened, your lungs were suddenly filled with a thick fog, you instantly began to cough. Violently.

You began to squirm, desperate to get away from this mist, desperate to get it out, desperate to breathe.

However, before it could get too bad. Before you could have a full on panic attack, Stolas grabbed you, pressing you into his chest as he told you firmly, "Breathe Darling, Breathe."

He he gripped your face, making you look at him. Looking into his crimson gaze you managed to calm for just a moment.

"Calm down... and Breathe."

Doing your best to follow his instructions, you managed to take control for just long enough to take deep Breathe.

And once youd calmed down, you took several deep breathes. Unknowingly letting the mist seeped into your lungs. The red flowing into your veins.

Before you even realised it, your mind was hazy for just a moment before you started seeing everything so... clearly.

It was like the world had colour for the first time in your life.

Looking around, you found yourself in a sprawling club. There being dozens of what appeared to be little rooms, large arched doorways framing each one.

Some had sheets covering them, others were wide open, various demons in various states of undress occupying each off them.

Looking around you suddenly took in a strong breath of red.

Looking up, you found winged Imps flying about, each one carrying a ornate metal orb. Each ornate metal ball spewing out a deep red fog that hung in the air.

Taking another breath, the air smelled so sweet. Looking back around, you found Stolas staring down at you, and you froze.

Your heart seemed to swell, the little smile gracing his lips seeming to make him a work of art.

Stolas smiled, asking you simply, "Feeling better?"

You couldn't hold the smile back as you looked up at him, "I've never felt better!" You told him, suddenly giddy.

Stolas laughed himself, cupping your chin he told you, in a sultry voice, "Oh, your about to feel a whole lot better~" He purred.

Your own smile quickly turned playful, leaning in you shared another kiss, the whole encounter having a strange sensation to it.

This had turned out even better then he had hoped it would.

Stolas wasn't all to affected by the 'Red', having visited the den many times in his youth.

Although, then, he'd never been bold enough to initiate with anyone, despite the incenses ability to impead one's inabitions.

And that's just what he was hoping for you.

He wanted you to have at it. To acte exactly how you would without inhibitions. He wanted your focus on nothing but him.

Acting exactly as you felt.

Breaking the kiss, he moved quickly, passing many rooms as he went.

Some were occupied, and some not. The Owl moving until he found a room worthy of the both of you.

He brought you in, finding various ornate thuribles hanging around the room, the bathed bathed in a deep 'Red' haze.

Stolas practically tossed you on the bed, you quickly nuzzled into the silk sheets, seemingly fully embracing the high.

Wiggling across the bed your attention snapped to him, a predatory grin crossed your lips before you beckoned him to you with a single digit.

Stolas just smiled back, the Owl licking his lips before he began to strip.

He really made a show of it, acting as sensually as possible, looking back at you he saw how you stared at him.

Your chest began to heave as you stared at him like he were the first morsel you'd seen in eons.

He tossed his finale clothing to the side, the Prince abandoning refinement for a more lecherous approach.

The owl crawled across the bed, a slow sensual act, approaching you as a lion does their prey.

When he finally got you, he pulled you into a kiss like his life depended on it. The two of you quickly wrapped in an intense embrace.

Your kissing became ferocious, depraved. Losing all the finece and control you usually put into it. The owl running his hands across your body as he pressed against you.

And much to his joy, you pressed right back, your own passion quickly rivalling even his own.

Your hands cupping his face as your kissing became both passionate and tender, your tongue curling around his own.

This was going even better then he had planned. And it got even better when he released your swollen Imphood.

You moaned into the kiss when he began stroking you, his warm slender digits sliding up and down your length.

Stolas pulled back just as you released a rather lewd moan, the owl slowly grinding his thumb along the bottom of your lower head.

He took such a perverse glee in seeing you squirm and quiver at his touch, the owl could feel the incense affecting him.

It was minor, feeling buzzed like the first few drinks.

He could feel any hesitation or anxiety he may have had at the beginning of the night was long gone. The Owl was solely focused on you.

He focused on your face.

Hearing the sounds you made.

Focused solely on claiming you~

You were so close, you clinging to his arm as you ground into his hand. Releasing a string of needy moans.

However, before you could finish, you lunged forwards, pushing him onto his back and leaping atop him.

Looking up, he found you in a rather depraved state.

You were practically salivating. Heaving as you hunched over him. A crazed look in your eyes as you growled out.

"You were taking to long~"

You pinned his hands above his head as your tail slithered up to hold his hands above his head. One hand grabbed grabbed back of his head, as the other hand slid down his body, fingers combing through his chest fluff as you bit his shoulder.

Stolas moaned, back arching as your hand slid south, fingers curling as they reached his thighs.

Your fingers slid into his wet cavern, the owl practically screeching as you sunk three digits into him, tugging on the feathers behind his head.

You trailed kisses and nips as you slid down his body, prying apart his legs as you leveled your still hard member with his sopping cavern.

Without hesitation, you slammed forwards, impaling the Prince on your girth.

You kept this up, holding nothing back as you royally fucked him.

Stolas was in utter bliss.

The incense, the Red and your fornication leaving his mind in a sex fuel haze. He was quickly reaching climax.

"Fuck Solas~" you growled out, utterly sluring his name, "I... I fuckin 'love this~"

"I love being here with you~" you cooed, fingers running through his chest floof, the other hand throwing his leg over your shoulder.

Hearing this, Stolas saw stars. The owl throwing his head back as a flood of utter extacy pushed him over the edge.

You followed soon after, bottoming out before exploding inside him, you collapsing atop him.

It took him a long time to recover, your binding of his wrists had laxed enough to allow him to move his hands down and grab you.

He pulled you into his chest, you sluggishly nuzzling into his chest floof. Marking him in your scent.

You both laid there, Stolas gently stroking his fingers down your back.

The owl took a moment to appreciate your reaction.

He'd expected you to let go, be more open and blunt, but he never expected you to go full sex fiend.

But it was nice to know that all the restraint and consideration were a concious decision. You wanted him to feel loved.

He chuckled to himself, staring down at you as he thought about how much better his life had become since your arrival into his life.

"Did you mean what you said?" He asked gently stroking around your horns. "About loving being here, with me?"

You hummed, gently nuzzling into his chest.

After a few moments you looked up before quickly nuzzling back into his chest. You leting out a simple, "Yeah."

Twiddling a finger through his chest fluff, you told him, "I feel... so strange, it's like I'm seeing everything so clearly."

"I've never dreamed In a place like this, with someone as incredible as you~"

Despite the circumstances, Stolas found himself blushing up a storm, your praise seeming to touch a special spot in his black soul.

Stolas slid and arm around you, pulling you towards him as he planted gentle kisses down your neck, stopping at your shoulder.

"I love you (Y/N)."

...

As soon as his words had registered, you froze.

Stolas froze in response, staring down at you as he awaited any kind of response.

It took several moments, but you eventually sat up, looking down at him.

He couldn't quite read your expression, but you were playing his fluff, so you couldn't be that mad.

Reaching up, you cupped his cheek, still looking down at his chest.

"Love... Love isn't something Imps think about often, Stolas."

"Millie and Moxxie were lucky enough to be born on Wrath, but Imps like me..."

Looking him in the eyes, you told him simply, "I've never been in love."

That left him in an almost frustrating level of suspense.

"But I believe I could truly love you Stolas." You looked up at him warmly. "I just ask you don't rush it, let me fall for you at my own pace."

So many emotions swelled in his chest, he feared he may burst.

A gentle smile slipped across his lips as he cupped your chin, bringing you into a passionate kiss.

Pulling back he told you through a rather emotional smile, "Take as long as you need darling. I just ask you don't don't hold it against me for loving you."

You chuckled giving him a little peck on the lips, "I think I'll manage." You told him with a playful smile.

Stolas giggled, asking "Shall we go again darling?" He spoke, a lecherous tone sliding into his voice.

You chuckled, biting you bottom lip as you grabbed the back of his head, the owl releasing a harmonious little coo.

You reached down pulling one of his legs over you'd shoulder. "Oh my foolish little Paramour~" You purred into his ear, "I'm not even close to being finished."

You were so domineering yet gentle, the Prince quivered as you pushed his feet above his head, his rather slender form allowing it with minimal discomfort.

You were hunched over him, growling out, "I'm... going... to wreck you~"

The Prince threw his head back, releasing a rather lecherous moan as you slammed I him, the Prince' head slamming back as he released a squeal.

And while you may have been idled.

Your mind swimming in the thick cloud of 'Red' that seemed to cling to everything in here.

Having you there, dominating him, loving him in your own way. And knowing it was all genuine. Knowing you held such true emotions for him.

He had finally found his one true love.

Not that he had much doubt before this moment.

Hey Hey everyone. Yet another installation of the Obbessive stolas series and I hope you enjoyed it.

I plan on making this an entire series, a virtual "mini-Fanfiction" for Tumblr.

Also, there has been a lot going on for me lately, family and Christmas stuff, so uploads will be a bit sporadic.

Anyway, I hope you enjoyed and I'll see you around. Bye Bye.

#helluva boss #headcanon #helluva boss headcanon #x reader #helluva boss x reader #helluva stolas #helluva boss stolas x reader #helluva boss stolas #stolas x reader #stolas #stolas x male reader #stolas is a big softy #stolas needs some real love

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bookishofalder · 3 years

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Night Changes [Three]

Summary: In which the fragile state between Poe and the reader is shattered, a mission is assigned, and everything goes to hell.

Warnings: Swearing, an actual fuck-ton of angst, light smut mentions, sad fluff, grief. WC: 14,090

To avoid too much free time you had begun working late any days that you could, making excuses to run diagnostics on your ship, tinker around or simply clean it. You left the maintenance to Ana, your lead mechanic, but knew enough to at least make yourself feel busy. The less free time you had, the less time you spent overthinking your life.

Today, you were both avoiding your thoughts as well as a specific person. Though truly there was nowhere on base he wouldn’t be able to seek you out, and your hope that staying in your flight suit in the hangar would be enough of deterrent proved futile.

The healer still showed up.

At the sound of approaching footsteps in the otherwise quiet hangar, you turned your head and instantly felt like an animal trapped in a cage. At this point, just over a week since meeting the man, you’d run out of excuses to try and encourage him, as nicely as possible, to fuck off.

Healer Rush Derrin was...annoying. To put it lightly, that is. If you were being honest, he was easily the most irritating man you’d ever met, and also the most clueless. Your initial attraction to him felt ridiculous now that you had one-failed-date and too many follow-up conversations that showcased just how self-absorbed and uninteresting the man was.

He’d found you a few days after your initial meeting, in the hangar as you had suggested to him, just before you were going to leave for dinner. You had lit up when you saw him walking over, feeling a little excited not only for time with a handsome man but also the opportunity to just talk to someone. Poe was giving you an unusually sombre silent treatment, though he did finish off reprimanding you the day after your mission fuck up. And then he was just...silent.

And you weren’t going to question it, because the less you said to one another, the better. It always felt like such hard work just trying to exist around Poe now, you were honestly grateful not to have to exchange jabs at one another. But it was also lonely; your only friend on base outside of Black team was Ana, your mechanic, who had long hours and limited free time. Temmin was always good for conversation, so you’d usually gravitate his way during the day when the opportunity arose, engage in friendly banter until Poe came along and you’d be forced to slip away. Kare was more content to give you a wide berth, treating you with respect and preferring the relationship was merely professional. You got along really well with her but could sense the lack of connection on a personal level.

So, lonely as you were, handsome as Rush was, you gladly accepted his offer to join him in the caf for dinner and treat it as a first date of sorts. At first, during the walk to the caf and waiting in line to pile your plates with dinner, you spoke casually enough that you felt the date was going fairly well. You weren’t too hung up on whether or not it would lead anywhere; it wasn’t like you were looking for anything serious at this point with anyone. You hoped it would lead to something fun, perhaps a few nights at the cantina drinking and dancing, and if you meshed well a couple of tumbles in between sheets.

But when you took a seat in a quieter section of the over large room, it was like a switch flipped for Rush and he went into ‘date’ mode and frankly, you’d wished he hadn’t. The man did not shut up about himself. He spoke over you enough times that you considered jabbing him with your fork, and just when you thought he was going to start asking you about yourself-now that you knew his fucking life story-he launched into a rant about what he wanted to do once the war was over, and on and on it went.

By the time dinner had ended and the caf was much less crowded, you were about ready to hurl yourself out the second-story window, figuring you could probably manage to tuck and roll to avoid injury that would require him to treat you, and then maybe you’d just run into the jungle for a few days.

As you pretended to listen to him ramble, your mind had wandered and you realized that you hadn’t ever needed to discourage any potential suitors before. Poe and Charlie had, in so many ways, made you set your standards high, high enough that not many dates ended up going anywhere, and you just never developed the ability to read other men, to be able to sniff out the bad eggs. Rush was a nice man, but he was also entirely not your type. And based on the way he occasionally bragged about mediocre accomplishments, you had a sneaking suspicion he would not be up to scruff in the bedroom.

You finally had to call the date off when he began talking about future second date ideas, politely cutting in to say you had an early call time and needed to call it a night. He hadn’t been fazed, merely clearing your trays before returning to the table, where you had stood up, to give you a gentle hug and a kiss on the cheek. You wished now you’d been more direct, thanked him for the date but admitted you weren’t interested. And you hated to think about it, but the best part of your date with Rush had been when, after turning away to walk to the exit that would take you to your wing of the base, you met a pair of familiar brown eyes from across the room. You saw Poe standing with Temmin, in the middle of a conversation, his eyes narrowed slightly in your direction, flicking between you and the retreating healer.

At least you somehow managed to annoy him, if nothing else.

But thanks to your complete lack of ability to send Rush a clear and direct message, you were awarded his regular appearance in the hangar each day following the date. Usually stopping by on his lunch, he’d chat with you amicably enough but end the conversation by asking you out again-each fucking time. You had tried the excuses of being too tired, too busy, going on a mission, and hoped he’d just give up. But he kept coming back, pulling out the works to charm you with no success.

You knew you were going to need to get it together soon and just tell him it wasn’t going to happen. You wanted to be nice about it because he was a friendly enough guy, he just wasn’t your type in the least. And you had never really needed to discourage a man before, now that you considered it. Before Charlie died, he and Poe had been by your side your whole life-and they took care of you, easily discouraging anyone you had no interest in by tossing an arm over your shoulder on nights out if you asked them to.

You’d mostly had a few casual flings, never anything serious. Even your first time was with a friend, on the eve of your departure from Yavin-4 to head to D’Qar and begin basic. You met up with an old friend, Tahla, and one thing had lead to another. It had been nice, each of you parting on good terms after what had been a pleasurable evening. One that only encouraged your high standards because Tahla had ensured you reached your peak more than once, something that you’d since learned wasn’t always a priority for male partners.

And after Charlie had died, and you’d fled D’Qar, you had tried to fill the emptiness with one-night stands. But you would only wind up feeling more lonely in the morning when they left, regardless of how good the sex had been, and none of the men had been what you had wanted. Or, what you had thought you’d wanted. You spent about a year trying and failing to fill that void with sex, only to give up on it entirely after the last man you’d spent the night with had broken the terms of your understanding and tried to continue the relationship. You hadn’t been ready to start dating, so you closed yourself off, moved to another assignment to be safe, and now it had been...a few years.

A few very lonely years.

Rush wasn’t going to be someone you kept around to date, and you really needed to get your shit together and tell him. Especially considering how he was looking at you right now, with big eyes that held a hopeful gleam.

“Evening, honey, how are you doing?”

You gave him a small smile, setting your datapad down on the step stool you had in your parking spot (you were endlessly teased for being too short to hop up into your x-wing). He was a few steps away, giving you a warm smile as he looked down at you.

“Hi, Rush,” You wiped the sleeve of your flight suit over your face tiredly, “Been a long day, I guess. How are you?”

“Just fine, just fine,” He nodded, then gestured vaguely toward you and your ship, “You’ve had a busy week, which isn’t a surprise for Black team but I hope you have some time off coming your way!”

Damn, he just had to be so nice, didn’t he? Yet, you knew you’d still be brushing him off despite wishing you could just look past his issues and let him in, a little bit, for maybe a little while. “Ha, I wish I had time off!” You lied, knowing full well that, unless a mission came in, you were going to have the following day off. “We don’t get as much vacation as you Healers do!” You teased, internally cringing because flirting wasn't going to help discourage him. Kriff!

And you saw the way his eyes widened at your gentle chide, hope flashing his expression before he smirked, “Oh, you think we get vacation, do you?” He took a step closer and you had to tilt your head back to hold his gaze, warmth pooling in your belly at his proximity. Encouraged, Rush raised a hand and gently brushed it across your cheek, and against your better judgement, your eyes fluttered closed at the small display of affection. He then dropped his hand to cup your neck, and when he spoke next it was a whisper as he had lowered his face to your level. “You know honey, even in this flight suit, you’re the sexiest woman here. Not sure you get told that enough.”

You bit your lip, heat flushing your cheeks, “Rush, I’m not sure I-“

His free hand was suddenly on your hip, distracting you from whatever you’d been about to toss out as an excuse prevent him kissing you; your eyes snapped open to find him giving you a searching look, reading the heat in your cheeks, the way you had moved just a little closer when his hand gripped your hip, and he seemed to approve entirely of your reaction. His lips ghosted over your jaw, chin, and then pressed to yours, and stars did you ever let him do it.

Suddenly, all of the excuses seemed silly because here was a nice, handsome guy telling you he thought you were sexy and giving you a hungry look that had wetness pooling in your panties before he’d even touched you. At first, this kiss was measured, soft, until you pressed your body against his and threw your arms around his neck, pulling him closer. You felt rather than heard his low rumble of pleasure before his tongue swiped across your lips and you parted them to allow him to deepen the kiss.

In those moments, there was nothing else, just a warm and friendly man holding you close and making you feel desired. And as much as you didn’t click with Rush, the idea of his large hands on your bare skin was making you eager to leave the hangar the find comfort in the physical, to let him in just enough so that he could distract you from life with his expert touch, sturdy build, even if just for one night.

Before either of you could pull apart to suggest moving things to a more private location, the abrupt clearing of a throat followed by the drawling voice of Poe Dameron interrupted you.

“As entertaining as this is, Major, I have to interrupt.”

You sprung away from Rush in surprise, twisting to find Poe standing a few feet away, hands on his hips and an annoyed scowl fixed on you. But instead of embarrassment or irritation at being found in a compromising embrace right in the fucking hangar, you felt a surge of relief.

Because, Maker, you had been just about ready to let Rush Derrin take you to bed. What was going on with you? You knew better, and already decided against this very thing and yet the moment he touched you, you went to putty in his hands just because you were lonely? Poe’s scowl relaxed, morphing to confusion at the expression on your face before he glanced over at Rush, who actually was annoyed at the interruption.

“Commander, apologies I was just saying goodnight to the Major here, I’ll uh, leave you to it.” And he shot you a smile before hurrying off, a smile that told you he read about as much as you’d expected from your reaction to his kiss.

You were furious with yourself.

Good thing Poe was right there for you to take it out on.

“Did you need something, or do you just wander around here at night to be annoying?”

Poe huffed a breath out in a mixture of annoyance and amusement. “Didn’t realize I’d be walking in on a Corellian Soap Opera sex scene. Leia wants to see us.” He shrugged, but you froze, torn between wanting to continue being angry at Poe and the desire to laugh because hadn’t you thought Rush looked like he belonged in one of those shows when you first met him?

His words sunk in then, distracting you, “Wait, she wants to see us right now?” When Poe nodded, his expression curious as a result of your weird behaviour, you glanced down at your flight suit, “Should I change?”

“No,” Poe shook his head, turning to begin walking and so you joined him, falling into step alongside him, “She said straight away, she won’t care what you wear.”

You fell into silence after that, walking through the twisting halls of base, and though it was evening time you still passed by a lot of other Resistance fighters. You realized as you hurried along that you hadn’t spent any time with Poe outside of missions, of the hangar, and you hadn’t yet witnessed how he was treated beyond that of other pilots.

Turns out, he was well-liked and admired, everyone you passed greeting him by name with friendly grins or flirty smiles, and even though every person also greeted you by title out of respect, you still found yourself growing increasingly annoyed.

It was certainly due to a combination of emotions and reasons, but you chose to focus on the fact the Poe Dameron was walking around D’Qar as the poster boy for the Resistance, a title that should belong to your brother. You hadn’t realized you’d scoffed aloud until Poe glanced down at you curiously, his expression hardening when he saw your frown.

“What?” It was just the two of you in this new branch of the hallway, steps away from the room where Leia was waiting. You could easily have not replied.

Instead, you sneered at Poe, “Please, I’m surprised we didn’t stop for you to sign some autographs, Commander.”

Poe stopped walking and stepped in front of you, blocking your path, “What the fuck does that mean?”

“I’m just realizing how popular you are, I suppose. Poster boy of the Resistance, I mean, that has to have a lot of perks,” You kept your voice cool despite the heat burning inside you from how angry you’d grown. “It must be a lot of fun, getting to fly all the time, fuck whoever you want, walk around with that stupid smirk...” You trailed off with a shrug, satisfaction coursing through you when his surprised look turned to irritation.

“That what you think?” His voice was low and threatening and you didn’t care in the least.

“I’m not surprised, really. You’re like a celebrity, and without Charlie around to keep you from growing too big for your pants I guess it’s only expected you’d become the biggest player on the base,” His eyes turned to ice as you spoke, “Bet you can just smile at a woman and end up getting a blow-“

Poe moved so quickly you had no time to react, your anger clouding your defensive abilities. With no other noise or people around, you heard the sharp draw of breath he pulled in as he slammed you back against the hallway wall, his grip on your arms preventing you from hitting hard enough to cause pain, but it certainly shut you up. You gaped up at Poe as he gave you his worst look, his breathing hitched in fury.

You had finally gone too far.

And isn’t that what you had wanted?

“(y/n), do you-seriously, you think I just?” He broke off, his anger preventing him from speaking proper basic and his grip on your arms tightened, “You think I just walk around fucking everything that moves and having a blast every day? You think I’m fucking happy?”

You shouldn’t reply, you knew. You would be better to stop, to listen to the twinge of guilt now in the back of your mind, the little voice that was asking you if you’d ever made Poe this angry before and questioning why you were doing it now.

You instead decide to pull on the string a little more and see what you could unravel.

“Aren’t you? I’m not saying you didn’t love Charlie, but you have to admit without him and me around you did pretty fucking good for yourself-“

“Shut up,” He growled, suddenly pressing his body to yours and lowering his head to meet your eyes, preventing you from pulling away or even looking anywhere but into his dark glare. “Maybe you’re a little worked up because I just interrupted your foreplay session, but I need you to shut the fuck up. You don’t know anything about me, about my life now or what I’ve gone through. You want to be mad, hate me for what I did, that’s fine, I deserve it. But that’s it, that’s the line.”

“Oh, you get to decide where the line is all of a sudden?”

Poe scoffed, “You got what you obviously wanted, (y/n), you pissed me off. Can you just leave it? Because you really don’t want to hear about what my life was after you abandoned m-everything here.”

You gave a harsh laugh, “Fine, sorry to have insinuated you’re a heartless manwhore, I mean it’s not like you blamed me for my own brothers' death at the fucking funeral!”

Your words seemed to hit Poe as if you’d slapped him; he flinched and jerked away from you, taking a few steps back before raising a shaky hand to rub his face. When he looked back at you where you stood still against the wall, you faltered a little at the genuine hurt in his expression.

After staring at one another for a minute, Poe finally pointed at you and his voice came out more clearly than you’d expected. “You don’t know anything. Not about me, or what my life was after you left, or what kind of person I am now,” He took a steadying breath, walked to the nearby door and paused with his hand on the handle, “Just like I don’t know anything about you. Which is why when I see my second in command making out shamelessly with a healer in the fucking hangar, I don’t comment. I don’t know you, and you sure as hell don’t know me.”

With those final words, he swept through the door, not bothering to wait for you and you held still until the door shut behind him, letting out a sob as guilt-wracked your body.

You regretted pulling the string.

Before meeting Poe at the cantina that night, Charlie mentioned too casually that Poe hadn’t been going home with women for some time. Not since you had officially joined Gold team, which he was insisting was because of you. That it was always you when it came to Poe Dameron. You brushed your brother off with a roll of your eyes, keen to avoid the direction his words were leading you. And it wasn’t as if you hadn’t noticed Poe’s abrupt change in behaviour, how he had stopped slipping off partway through evenings at the cantina to flirt with someone who had been giving him eyes, maybe dance a little before they would wander off, no doubt in the direction of one of their rooms.

It hadn’t exactly bothered you, he was free to enjoy himself as much as you were, and he never left you alone, never ditched you when you were having a bad day. You wondered what was going on with him, naturally, but didn’t ask and certainly didn’t want to discuss it with Charlie.

Poe was already at your usual table when you walked into the cantina, and his eyes seemed to light up when he spotted you. Trying not to let that go to your head, you weaved through the crowd with Charlie right on your tail, which was a good thing because his bulk and intimidating appearance meant that people hurried out of your way before you had to even ask.

As you moved, Poe’s eyes never left your face and you wondered if he sensed the way he was making your heart flutter, how your stomach was full of butterflies. Your mind also replayed recent memories, now with Charlie’s words in your head and Poe’s eyes melting you from across the room, you could see something...was different.

How he’d been the one to walk you to your room every night you all went out, and even though you’d just spent an hour or two together he’d linger for a while, lounge with you on your bunk and chat until one of you yawned. How often you both would switch to a private channel to talk during training or low-stakes missions. And when...when was the last time you had gotten yourself your morning caf? You hadn’t realized, he had met you outside of your room nearly every morning, two steaming cups in hand, for a while now.

And the subtle touches. You grew up with Poe, and he’d always been an affectionate enough person, but Charlie’s timing had been right-you joined Gold Team and Poe’s behaviour had shifted, not just in the day-to-day, but also with how he seemed to operate around you. A hand on your back, fingers brushing your long hair out of your face, the endless hugs-the kind that made you feel safe and whole, each time.

When you reached the table and broke eye contact to take a seat next to Poe, his arm dropped to the back of your chair casually. Had he been doing that long? You always sat next to him, but you hadn’t realized...

Your brother flashed you a knowing look that Poe missed because his eyes were still on you. You fought the urge to frown over at him.

“You look like you’re still up in the clouds, sweetheart.” Poe tossed you his signature grin, and you smiled back at him while simultaneously noting how the grin didn’t reach his eyes the same way it used to. It was genuine, yes, but there was a depth to his gaze that seemed like he was a little self-conscious, unsure.

You raised the drink he’d had waiting for you in thanks, “One of those days, I suppose.”

If he thought your response was inadequate, he didn’t say. He merely nodded, eyes searching your expression for a moment before he looked away to take a sip of his own drink. Charlie pulled him into a conversation then and you fell silent, your thoughts swirling again.

You watched Poe, for a while, out of the corner of your eye. You picked up on how his eyes didn’t wander around the room like they used to, even though YOU noticed women looking over, trying to catch his eye. His arm remained behind you, though he wasn’t touching you, the thick design of the chair allowing you your own space...but actually, you don’t think you would mind if he did touch you, just casually.

Well, where the fuck had that thought come from?

Your train of thought startled you so much that you were grateful when you glanced at your drinks and found each of you was getting low. You leaned forward and tapped your glass, interrupting what was now Charlie and Poe’s version of a heated disagreement (so basically they insulted each other back and forth while laughing), and said, “I’ll get us refills.”

You were up and out of your seat before either could object, and you determinedly did not look back at your table. You knew Poe would be looking at you. You were scared of how that made you feel.

The bartender was busy making drinks for a group of loud women you recognized as mechanics, all out to let loose-as they so deserved. You knew they had long hours, and you watched them all, already tipsy and giggling too much, while you waited your turn. You were leaning against the bar on both elbows when a voice to your right caught your attention, saying Poe’s name. You didn’t react physically and probably would have tuned back into the drunk mechanic's funny banter had that voice not been so full of vitriol.

“I hate seeing him out having a good time, wrapped around the Horn girl like a fucking lapdog.”

You stiffened, though it was less from offence (because whoever this was wasn’t worth your time of day) but more because she obviously hadn’t realized you were standing behind them.

Another woman laughed, “I think he’s pouting, can’t get into her pants obviously. You should have made him work harder for it, Liv, maybe he’d be your lap dog instead.”

The first woman scoffed, “Look, he was good for a couple of fun nights, don’t get me wrong. The dude is seriously packing, and he knows what he’s doing, too. But even when I did have his attention it wasn’t all there. Pretty sure he’s hung up on her.”

“And probably will be for a while, she’s a stuck-up little thing. Dameron can’t be very bright if he lets her keep him wrapped around her pinky like that.”

“He’s a real idiot, that’s for sure. Good thing he’s handsome, clearly there’s not a lot going on-“

Abandoning your perch at the bar, you swung around and roughly poked the back of the shoulder nearest to you, furious, “Excuse me.”

Both women turned and you recognized the blonde one, she had hung out a few nights at the cantina with Poe in the weeks before you finished basic. She must have been one of the last women to go home with Poe.

At first, they were both frowning, curious, until they looked down at you. You usually didn’t mind how short you were, but when trying to glare at a couple of long-legged, beautiful women, you suddenly hated how it made you feel small. You jerked your chin up, “You’re speaking quite rudely about a superior, you know. I could report you for that alone.”

The blonde, Liv, glared at you, “I’m not saying anything new, sweetie. Most people are saying it, actually.” You remembered then that Liv worked in the comms office, a notoriously gossip-heavy section of the Resistance.

“Doesn’t make it any less pathetic, though, does it?” You jabbed, your anger increasing. Liv scoffed, setting her drink down on the bar and taking a step closer to you, a little too close to be anything other than a veiled threat. You held your ground, unfazed.

“Look, sweetie, you want to play dedicated little teammate instead of admitting you’re just jealous of me, that’s fine. But don’t get in my face about it, I’m not interested.”

“Funny,” You deadpanned, voice low, “And here I thought we both knew it was you who was jealous of me.”

Liv jerked back slightly in surprise, giving you her worst look, “Speaking as the one who has gotten to more than sample his goods-and let me tell you, you’re totally missing out because he does knows how to make a woman mean it when she screams his na-“

SMACK

Liv stumbled back a few steps, a hand reaching up to touch her tender cheek in disbelief, the skin already reddening from the impact of your full palm slap. You were more surprised in yourself, you hadn’t realized just how angry you were until it coiled and snapped at her insinuations. Still, you felt a rush of satisfaction that faded to concern when the much taller women straightened up and stalked forward, eyes dark.

“You little bitch!”

Before you could begin to back away-keen to avoid an actual fist fight-you felt a sudden presence behind you, Liv stopping short in her advance the same moment a familiar, muscled arm dropped over your shoulder. Her brows shot up in surprise before a simpering little smile appeared.

“Liv,” Poe drawled, his voice light and almost friendly, but the grip on your arm gave way to you that he wasn’t as calm as he appeared. When you glanced up at him, his jaw was tight, a muscle twitching there, and his expression was cold. Colder than ice. You wondered how Liv hadn’t frozen just from having that look directed her way. “So sorry to interrupt, but figured I’d step in before you do anything you’ll regret.”

Liv raised her hands as if in surrender, then pointed at you, “Not sure if you saw, Poe, but the little brat just slapped me.” Her fury was funny to you now. You’d clearly injured her delicate pride more than anything.

The arm around your shoulder shifted as Poe pushed the braid that had fallen behind it back in front, where you usually let your hair sit. It was a simple gesture, both casual and intimate, enough to have Liv’s expression fall.

He tightened his arm around you again before replying in a low voice. “Thankfully, I was lucky enough to see that. It’s officially now my favourite memory, ever. Proudest, too, seeing as I taught her how to hit back at bullies” With his free arm, Poe raised his hand and pointed it at Liv, who was looking at him wide-eyed, “Now get the fuck away from us, before you really piss me off.”

You had to bite back a laugh at how quickly Liv and her silent friend scampered away, leaving the cantina completely with their heads low. You turned to look up at Poe and thank him, faltering when you saw him gazing at you intently, concern and worry replacing the cold glare. “Poe?”

“Are you okay? What did she say to you?” He spun so that you were now directly in front of him, both his hands falling to gently hold your arms. Your heart was about ready to beat its way right out of your chest over the intensely protective and concerned expression he had.

You reached up and did something that always worked on Poe when he was upset; gently running your thumb along his jaw, just a few times, before you dropped it again. It used to feel like second nature. Now it felt...wonderfully intimate. It worked though, his shoulders relaxing.

“I’m alright, thank you.”

Poe swallowed before throwing you a grin, “I don’t think I’ve seen you that angry since we were teenagers, sweetheart. And that was a nice hit.”

You laughed, shrugging, a little bolt of pleasure warming you when he pulled you a little closer, wrapping an arm around you. “She was being exceptionally rude. Guess I’m not in the mood for it tonight.”

Poe chuckled warmly, and you felt it rumble in his chest because you were pressed against him. Quite suddenly, the urge to reach up and just touch his hair a little, stroke his cheek, maybe run your thumb across his lower lip-

What was going on with you?

As much as you were completely confused at yourself, you didn’t miss how his laughter met his eyes-the warm honey gazing into yours almost adoringly. You finally looked away and turned, glancing at your table for your brother. Charlie, however, was gone. Poe, still with his arm wrapped around your shoulder, noticed where you were looking and laughed again.

“Charlie is otherwise occupied by none other than Vanya, who despite my initial skepticism does, in fact, exist.”

You snorted, “In that case, I think we can leave unless you wanted to stay-?

Poe cut you off, giving you a little smirk, “Nope, I’ll walk you home, sweetheart.”

And his arm didn’t drop as you made your way out of the cantina.

Nor did it drop when you were walking the halls, or entering your door code to your bunk.

It still didn’t drop when you both fell onto your bed, laughing over the look on Liv’s face after you had slapped her and how quickly she and her friend had run out of the cantina.

That arm remained securely around you the whole night, as you and Poe talked for hours, reminiscing about Yavin-4, exchanging banter over who was the better pilot, even imaging what life would be like once the war was over.

And Poe’s hold only tightened when you nodded off, laying the wrong way across your bed and tucked against his chest. Loosening only when he too fell asleep, his final thoughts that he would tell you how he felt after tomorrow’s mission decommissioning a fuelling yard in the Sanbra Sector. Because he wasn’t sure he could pretend otherwise any longer.

General Organa had noticed the thick tension between you and Poe the moment you joined him in front of her, your face flushed but otherwise neutral. Her eyes had flicked between you both before commending you on how well you worked together and then explaining that she had a mission.

Normally, a top-secret, high stakes recon mission would thrill Poe straight to the bone, but upon hearing the finer details he felt his smile tighten and his excitement waning. Of course, mere moments after finally exploding on one another, you and Poe were assigned the task of taking a cruiser to a planet in the outer rim. A three-day trip minimum there, where you would be inspecting a base long since abandoned by the Galactic Empire after it had fallen. An outpost that, once cleared, would be of incredible use to the Resistance.

Upon learning that she needed you to leave first thing in the morning, Poe thanked the General, promised her the best teamwork, and then swept quickly from the room. He went straight to his to pack, glancing at his wrist comm for the time. He decided that after he was finished preparations he would go to the cantina for a drink.

Stars, if he wasn't just assigned such an important mission he would be having several drinks. After what had just transpired with you, he was reeling and in need of a distraction. He was angry, yes, but mostly he was hurting.

You’d been aiming to get a reaction out of him for a while now. Giving him the cold shoulder outside of missions to throw him off balance. It was the combination of finding you pressed against the healer, who had had his hands all over you, and then hearing your accusations...he just snapped, something he wasn’t prone to doing and yet you always seemed to pull the strongest emotions and reactions from Poe, even when you weren’t trying to.

And it wasn’t so much the scorn with which you described his status as a poster boy, but rather the genuine belief you held that Poe’s life had been good without Charlie and you. As much as you were trying to piss him off, you still believed what you were saying, and Poe hadn’t known what to do, how to make you see that everything, everything fell apart after he lost you.

Fuck, he knew it was his fault-he had said what he said and then he’d left you alone in the dark, but it still floored him to hear how little you thought of him now. You didn’t just hate him, he’d realized, you also believed he hated you, that he was living a happy life and didn’t spend every day wishing his life was different. He had fucked things up between you and him so well, that you never realized just how much he loved you.

Loves you.

Because the truth was, as much as he didn’t like you right now, there wasn’t a single thing in the entire galaxy that could stop Poe Dameron from loving you.

And he didn’t know...what that love was anymore, what it meant or what he wanted from it. He was happy to leave it in the background, to let you despise him until you said the things you did tonight. What you said told Poe that you didn’t know anything, despite growing up together. You still refused, to this very day, to look back at your relationship with him and recognize that it was never anything but the start of something millions would die to have. An epic love story, one that generations to follow would have spoken of.

You never saw it, and he’d failed to show you. And now you were both just fragments of those star-crossed idiots, and Poe had never felt more lost or alone.

Aware that he had a good week alone with you ahead of him, Poe hurriedly changed and made his way to the cantina after packing, intent on enjoying one good drink with Temmin to help clear his mind. Socializing in a loud space was the perfect way to prepare for what was sure to be a stony silence-filled week.

The cantina was busy when he arrived, his timing synced with the late-night crowd. It only took him a moment to spot Temmin, though, and he made his way across the room, raising a hand in hello when his friend spotted him approaching. He turned, signalling to a nearby waitress for another drink for Poe, before clapping him on the shoulder.

“Commander! Nice of you to join us!” Temmin called merrily, and Poe already felt his tension fading, his friends genuine kindness always appreciated.

“Thought I’d better keep an eye on you idiots,” Poe replied, thanking the waitress for his drink and winking at his laughing friends as he took a swig. He fell into an easy banter with the others, sipping his drink slowly as he would only indulge in the one on the eve of such an important mission. After a while, his drink half-finished, Poe found himself glancing around the room quite suddenly, his senses on alert.

It was then that he spotted you. And no wonder he’d been wary a moment before, as his eyes must have gone past you twice before they snapped back, realizing that the long-haired woman in khakis and a navy shirt was you. He hadn’t seen your hair down since you had been back, and it was longer now than he thinks you’d ever grown it. The braids you normally weaved into your low buns left the long locks wavy, and you weren’t used to wearing it down as you kept self-consciously brushing it out of your face.

You were standing with your friend, Ana, a few other mechanics Poe knew mostly by their faces. Your friend was laughing at whatever you were saying, hard enough that you joined in and even though he couldn’t hear you from across the room, he knew exactly how genuine your giggles were just from your expression.

Poe looked away, flushing with a mixture of emotions he preferred not to examine.

His hand roamed around the room before landing on a tall figure making his way toward you. Rush had a grin on his face that suggested pleasant surprise at your presence at the cantina. Remembering the weird look of relief that had been on your face when Poe had walked into the hangar earlier, he wondered if maybe you weren’t as into Rush as you had seemed in that particular moment.

Maybe he was already worked up before your argument if he was really honest with himself. Something about having to watch from afar all week as Rush popped in every afternoon to flirt with you, then to walk in on him pressed against you, it had pissed him off. It had also brought forth that same protectiveness he’d felt when the stormtrooper had punched you, which only served to confuse Poe further. He’d swiftly stuffed those thoughts back as he’d told you Leia was waiting to speak to you both, only for them to tumble around in the back of his mind until you’d crushed his patience to bits.

Poe watched as the healer picked his way toward you. Glancing at you, he saw Ana stepping around you to move toward the direction of the fresher, leaving you standing alone as the other mechanics seemed to have already melted away to have a separate conversation. You sighed, your smile faltering a little, before taking a sip of your drink, your eyes raising up and immediately zeroing in on Rush. His suspicions about your level of interest in the healer were confirmed when you blanched, your eyes casting around you and widening in horror when you realized you were entirely alone. And then you fixed the fakest smile he’d ever seen on your face before turning to greet Rush, a stiff set to your shoulders.

When the healer reached you and greeted you by way of running his hand down the bare skin of your arm, Poe stiffened. You greeted him in return but took a half step back, eyes peering up at the much taller man with a modicum of fear. Suddenly, Poe’s mind took him back to years and years ago, on Yavin-4, when boys would hit on you and you’d glance toward Poe or Charlie for help and they would be right there, without question.

Now, you looked so alone that Poe’s instincts took over, Charlie’s voice in his head saying, ‘Flyboy and I will always take care of you, Kid.’ And he abruptly stood, abandoning Temmin and his drink, and marched across the room. His anger for the earlier argument was long forgotten and Poe almost felt seventeen years old again.

“Why don’t we continue our earlier fun somewhere quieter, honey?” He was saying, his voice carrying over the music. You had been focused on Rush until Poe was just a few steps away, your head jerking to meet his gaze in surprise.

And unless Poe was mistaken, he saw a little relief there too.

Without preamble, Poe grabbed you by the shoulder and gently pulled you back a few steps, moving you away from Rush. “Sorry pal, not happening.” His interjection was in vast contrast to how Charlie would have done it. He’d have smiled, sauntered up, made it friendly. Poe pointedly conveyed no warmth, no room for argument.

Still, the Healer didn’t get the hint. His brows furrowing, he tilted his head to look at Poe, who stood a few inches taller. “Didn’t realize you had any say in the matter, Command-“

“Don’t care,” Poe replied easily, “Buzz off, and read the room-she’s clearly not interested in you.”

“Now wait just a-“

“Actually Rush,” You hurriedly cut him off, your hand reaching up to grab the one Poe still had on your shoulder, “He’s right. I-I’m not interested, I’m sorry. And we have an early call tomorrow, so we’re just leaving. Goodnight.” You spun away before Rush could reply, your grip on Poe’s hand slipping to his wrist as you dragged him out of the cantina.

Poe spared a glance over his shoulder to look at Rush, who was standing in the same spot looking a little dumbfounded. He bit back a grin before looking forward and watching you pull him along. Poe could feel your hand burning his skin where you held his wrist. After making it halfway toward base, you stopped walking and let go, your arms crossing as you peered up at Poe.

“I don’t need you to do that, Dameron.” Your voice was low, your gaze sharp. Poe wanted to flinch under the intensity of it but instead found himself standing to his full height and matching your stance, returning your glare right back.

He scoffed, “Charlie would have-“

“Yes,” You cut in, taking a step closer to Poe and lowering your voice further, “Charlie would have. He always would have, that’s what big brothers do. But you’re just my Commander, and you don’t get to step in on my social life.”

The words cut, but Poe had heard you say worse to him. He flooded with exasperation, “Major, are you telling me you would prefer to head back inside and let Rush fucking Derrin flirt with you until he inevitably passes out before you can say ‘do you have a condom?’”

You gave a humourless laugh, “Oh, please don’t think that just because any woman you set your eyes on is keen to lay under you that it means the rest of us love to go home with random idiots, regardless of whether we make out with them or not,” You jabbed a finger into Poe’s chest as you spoke, your words laced with venom, “I hold myself to higher standards, and I definitely don’t need the Resistance playboy inserting himself on my behalf.” With that, you spun and stormed away, toward base.

Poe had no option but to follow you. He lived next to you, he was going in the same direction.

Still, when you glanced over your shoulder as you entered the doors that led to the ranking official's dorms and saw Poe a few steps away, your anger seemed to snap and you let the door shut behind you in his face.

“Sweetheart,” Poe drawled as he stepped inside, still only a few paces behind you, “Be as mean as you like, I don’t care. But save the anger for the real fight, it isn’t going to work on me again.”

When your only reply was a frustrated groan, Poe smirked to himself. He watched as you flipped your middle finger over your shoulder before disappearing into your room, the door slamming closed with finality.

His smirk faded then, as he began to consider exactly why he’d gotten so worked up, and whether it really had anything to do with Charlie.

MISSION DAY SIX

Poe was completely numb.

Numb with shame. Regret. Disgust for his actions. Still, he remained protective at your side, following you through the jungle as you avoided looking his way. Knowing you were just as eager to get back to the ship as he was, and yet keenly aware that it meant three days alone together in the cramped space.

At least it would give you both time to come up with a believable explanation for your delay in return. An entire day lost, yet you’d already agreed with one another that the real reason wasn’t going in the mission report. If you never spoke of what happened again, it still wouldn’t be enough to curb the pain, the fucking guilt he was feeling.

Poe had been wrecked, mentally obliterated beyond repair. How he wished he could have died-if he could have ensured you wouldn’t have been harmed he would have gladly let himself die. You promised him it was alright, that you were alright, and yet Poe knew there was no coming back from this.

No, now everything had changed. In one night, it had all changed.

MISSION DAY ONE

The morning of departure for the top-secret mission had been smooth, but entirely silent, between Poe and you. He was glad you worked well enough together to not need to speak. With merely hand signals and grunts, you successfully managed to depart D’Qar and slip into space.

Once safely in hyperspace, Poe left you alone in the cockpit to engage BB8 for auto-piloting the cruiser, secretly relieved when you didn’t come into the small cabin once you’d completed the task. Content to give you as wide a berth as he could in the tiny ship, Poe spent the first few hours of travel lounging on his bunk, reading.

Poe was used to being alone in his x-wing, even if there was a conversation over comms, it was always just him and BB8. But the planet was far enough away that you needed to take a ship built for longer journeys. This meant brushing against one another more often than either of you would have liked, for a few days more than was ideal. Especially given the current climate of your relationship.

It meant sleeping on bunk beds, Poe one the top bunk because he could easily climb up with his height advantage over you. As second in command, you were tasked with ensuring Poe and yourself were fed, watered, and debriefed on the little known about the planet where you were heading. It had been during the mission the week prior, where you had been hit by the Storm Trooper, that BB8 had stolen the data needed to find this outpost.

Poe’s duties were to keep an eye on the ship status, update the mission report and study whatever materials you sent his way to prepare, until arriving at the destination. And to ensure that his team worked well together, which was why he was going to try and walk around on eggshells.

It was when he was warming his dinner rations the first day that he realized you hadn’t ever come out of the cockpit, not for lunch or even a trip to the fresher. With a sigh, he warmed a ration for you and carried both into the cockpit. You glanced up when he entered, your frown morphing into suspicious surprise when he handed you your plate and drink wordlessly. He managed to sit down in the pilot’s seat and get himself comfortable before you spoke.

“Did you poison it?”

Poe rolled his eyes and glanced toward you, his eyes falling to the datapad you had resting on one knee. You were reading a newspaper from a planet he’d never heard of.

“Yes.” He replied swiftly, before pointing at the tablet, “How’d you get that?” His eyes narrowed when you smirked.

“Seriously?” You replied, taking a bite of dinner and dropping your gaze back to the article you had been reading, attempting to brush him off.

Poe scoffed, “Did you ask MY droid to load that on there for you?”

When you looked back at Poe, your brows were raised in surprise, “Did you really not notice BB8 in my room when you walked by this morning?”

You gave him an exasperated look when he shrugged because truthfully his mind had wandered when he’d opened his door that morning. Yours was open as a service droid was carrying out your supplies to take to the ship. You had glanced up when Poe moved into the hall, shot him a glare and then returned to whatever you had been doing crouched on the ground, which he now supposed must have been taking the newspaper data from BB8.

He hadn’t noticed his droid because his eyes had immediately fallen on the corkboard above your desk, where you had posted several photos, the largest of which was the same one he tapped every morning before leaving his room.

You frowned when he didn’t reply straight away; Poe tore his gaze from yours to look at his food. “Had other things on my mind,” He finally said, taking a large bite of his meal and speaking with his mouth full, he added, “And ask next time you want to have my droid do you a favour.”

In response, you merely gave a small, cold laugh, returning to your article. Silence fell between Poe and you again. Eventually, he finished eating and decided to head to bed and read until you came out of the cockpit. He took your plate from you wordlessly, not lingering to find out if you thanked him.

A few hours later, you slipped quietly out of the cockpit and made your way to the fresher, where he heard you have a quick shower before getting ready for bed. Poe was reclined on the top bunk, comfortably laying on both his and your pillows when you emerged, and he bit back a smile as he waited for you to look at your bunk.

You sighed. “Can I have my pillow back, please?” Your voice was tight and Poe smirked, aware that he was decidedly not walking on eggshells at that moment.

He sat up, grabbing the top pillow, “Well since you’ve asked so polite-“ Poe broke off as he looked down at you, his gaze dropping below yours. He gripped the pillow in one hand as surprise swept through him upon seeing what you were wearing to bed. It was one of Charlie’s old shirts.

He’d recognize it anywhere because Charlie wore that shirt all the time; it was one of his favourites. It had been a gift from you though Poe couldn’t remember the occasion. His heart constricting at the sight of you dwarfed in your dead older brother's shirt, Poe let out a quiet breath, at a loss for words. The shirt had a few holes in it from being worn so many times.

“Kriff, my face is up here, asshole!” You snapped, and Poe was abruptly pulled from his thoughts. Meeting your angry gaze and then registering your words, his eyebrows shot up in surprise.

“Honey,” He drawled, using the nickname he’d heard Rush call you the night before. When your face pinched with fury he knew he’d hit his mark. Poe jumped down from the top bunk, carelessly tossing your pillow behind him before taking a measured step toward you. “I recognize the shirt, that’s all.”

Glaring up at Poe, you flashed your white teeth before replying, “You recognize my shirt, so you stare at my chest for a solid minute?” Crossing your arms, you let out a humourless laugh, shaking your head in disbelief.

Poe bristled, “Damn, you really have me cast as the worst kind of villain, don’t you? Poe Dameron, Rebel fuck boy. Poe Dameron, pervert with no fucking soul or moral code,” He was seething, leaning over you now, getting just as worked up as he’d promised himself he’d avoid. He gestured at your shirt vaguely, “Poe Dameron, sees a woman in a shirt and must be staring at her tits. Couldn’t possibly be that I see you wearing my dead best friend's old shirt and have any human feelings about that, right (y/n)? Because I ruined us,” He pointed first at you, then to himself, “It means that I don’t miss Charlie, don’t ever think about him, don’t have happy memories that make me sad.”

You were frowning up at Poe as he yelled, a mixture of surprise and confusion evident in your expression. For a moment, you both just stared at one another, and Poe thought you might be at a loss of how to respond. Until you did. Of course, you fucking did.

“You are the villain. You said what, the other day, that I abandoned you? How do you-I left after you deserted me!” Your voice was shaky with emotion, “You weren’t there for me for the funeral, and then you completely broke my heart and just walked away. Got into your ship and fucking disappeared,” Your voice cracked, tears slipping from the corners of your eyes; you hastily wiped them away, “Left me, all alone. I didn’t leave right away, Poe. I packed, I asked for a new assignment off-planet, and you still were just fucking gone. So I left, and you think it’s unfair of me to think of you as the villain?”

“Do you think I didn’t regret everything I fucking said the moment I said it? That I don’t know-didn’t know-how badly I fucked up?” Poe shouted back, “I tried to find you! You blocked me from being able to find you and tell you I was sorry. Didn’t even think you would forgive me, but you still deserved to hear me beg for forgiveness and work to make it up to you,” Poe took a step back from you, running a hand tiredly over his face, “What I did was the worst thing I’ve ever done, my biggest regret. I didn’t mean anything I said to you, I lo-I took out my guilt, my grief, on you and I know it was wrong. But you can’t twist everything I do now to fit into that version of me, it’s not fair.”

“Fair? Right, okay, I’m not being fair.”

“No,” Poe’s voice came out in a near whisper as he glared at you, “No, you’re acting like a brat, ever since you came back, and I’m kind of over it.”

Your eyes widened in fury, but before you could answer Poe swiftly stepped around you and shut himself into the fresher. He didn’t want to fight any longer, and he knew you would just be going back and forth at one another all night, neither of you willing to be wrong. So he turned on the water and had a brief rinse off under cold water and hoped tomorrow would be a little less terrible.

MISSION DAY SIX

You could feel Poe’s eyes on the side of your head as you walked. As much as you wanted to turn around and ask him to stop because you could basically hear his horrified, guilty thoughts screaming at you, you couldn’t bring yourself to look at him.

You were struggling with your own mortification, jumping from memories of what had happened to concerns about what would happen next. What could even happen next?

How things had been between Poe and you up to yesterday could no longer be the case, not after this mission. You just didn’t know what that meant now.

As much as you considered, during the two-hour walk back to the ship, leaving D’Qar and Black Squadron once you returned from the mission, you knew you could never do that. That you wouldn’t do it.

You couldn’t run again, but how the hell were you going to stay?

Everything had changed last night. And you could remember every single detail of how.

MISSION DAY THREE

You woke first on the morning of the third day in hyperspace, blearily looking at your wrist comm to see it was fairly early morning back in D’Qar. With a small sigh, you stretched your body before climbing out of the lower bunk and stepping across the small cabin into the fresher. When you emerged, Poe was still fast asleep and you set about making caf as quietly as possible, knowing the longer he slept meant that much more time for you to enjoy peaceful silence.

As much as you’d both been on eggshells around each other since your latest fight, the tension and silence were thick and heavy and draining. As angry as you’d gotten as he shouted at you, guilt had wormed its way into your mind the more he had let slip how much he’d been hurting. The truth was, you hadn’t wanted to believe he could be hurting, preferring to close him into a box where he was simply a terrible person, through and through, when you knew that wasn’t Poe Dameron at all.

He had done a terrible thing, yes. But he wasn’t evil, he didn’t deserve the vitriol, the cold shoulder, as much as you dished it out these past few days, did he? On the other hand, you felt if you let up on that treatment entirely, it would be akin to forgiving him, letting him off the hook for his fuck up.

You thought that you were treating him how he deserved to be. You had convinced yourself he was the villain. When he’d called you a brat, it hit you a moment later that you were being a huge fucking brat. He didn’t deserve your friendship, forgiveness, but he also didn’t deserve how you’d treated him the past several days.

You sat in the cockpit leisurely reading another newspaper BB8 had loaded onto your datapad before the mission. Poe had grumbled about it, but you had always enjoyed reading highlights from around the galaxies, it was like a little guilty pleasure for you. You lounged for half an hour, sipping your caf and enjoying an article that discussed the art of moisture farming before you heard movement in the cabin.

You strained your ears, listening for Poe to enter the fresher. Once you heard that door swoosh closed, you abandoned your article to head into the cabin and begin packing your bags for arrival. Based on your best calculations, you’d be arriving early the next morning and wanted everything to be ready to hit the ground running. You set the two bags onto the foot of your bunk and then dumped all of the supplies in several armfuls over the rest of your bed.

You were mindlessly sorting, doing inventory and packing everything when Poe eventually emerged from the fresher. He said nothing, quietly getting his caf before heating a ration.

You hadn’t eaten yet yourself, so you decided you would get your ration once he’d gone into the cockpit to avoid you. You were caught by surprise when you turned from his pack, where you’d just stuffed in his protective outerwear, to see your ration warmed up on a plate, set onto your bunk next to you.

You stared at the food for a moment before glancing up just in time to see the stiff set of Poe’s shoulders disappear as the cockpit door closed. You blinked a few times before moving to sit down and eat your breakfast, the sudden tightness in your chest ensuring the food tasted of nothing.

You cleared your throat awkwardly when you entered the cockpit later that afternoon. Poe hadn’t emerged and as much as you were glad for space, you knew he needed to eat. And you kept thinking of how he’d ensured you had your breakfast when you were heating your lunch.

He didn’t look around when you came in, his eyes remaining on the book open in his lap until you held out his plate of rations into his line of sight. He gave you a weary look before taking the plate, “Thank you.”

You shrugged, then took your seat. He watched you in surprise but didn’t comment. “I think, um. We’ll be arriving early tomorrow and I think we should just go over a few things now if that’s alright?” You glanced up at Poe when he didn’t reply straight away, only to find him curiously searching your face, confused by your near timid behaviour. You swallowed uncomfortably.

He turned to his food after a moment, spooning a large amount into his mouth before nodding at you. With that, you began to go over a summary of your notes and data on the planet, the outpost and surrounding jungle conditions. Poe listened as he ate, occasionally nodding his understanding.

“If we have to hike in, I should warn you the time zone we are landing in is at its peak of summer. So it’ll be extremely muggy during the day.” You finished speaking abruptly and Poe glanced up from his food and met your eyes.

“Well as much as I like a good hike, let’s try to get as close to the outpost as possible.”

You hummed in response, looking away as a heavy silence fell between you. Entirely at a loss, you simply sat together for a while before eventually, you decided to do weapons check in preparation for the next day.

When you stood, you had to brush by Poe. Instead of continuing to avoid looking at you, he peered up as you moved, his eyes tired, and you felt something tighten within you. Heat crawled up your neck and you hurriedly ducked out of the cockpit.

MISSION DAY FOUR

Excitement had overtaken Poe, as it usually did when a mission was well underfoot. This was compounded further by the knowledge that, very shortly, he’d be set free from the stifling tension of the ship. It had drained his mental energy enough that even if you’d told him that he had to wade through molten lava to get to the outpost, he’d happily take the lead. Naked. Blindfolded. He just needed out.

You had everything prepared the night before, so all that needed to happen in the early hours of the morning of arrival was pulling out of hyperspace, approaching the outpost and scanning for a landing zone. The base wasn’t constructed to have an outdoor hangar, as it would defeat the purpose of being hidden, but Poe had hoped there would be a spot somewhere around the facility. Given the abandoned state of the planet, however, he didn’t let his hopes climb too high.

He’d heard your frustration as you ran the ground scans and came up short, your breath huffing out in disappointment. He let you work through it, knowing you were more than capable of finding the next best option, though he couldn’t agree more that it was a letdown there would be the need for a hike. The longer the mission took, the longer you were stuck alone together.

You sat up straight once you’d found an area to land, throwing Poe a triumphant look as you pointed on the radar. “This will do, Commander. Two-hour hike, along a river that will provide a decent nav-point, look it leads straight through the outpost.” Your finger traced along a line excitedly.

Poe leaned over to look closely, examining the map and seeing no flaw in your plan, not that he thought he would. It was his job to double-check, to make the final call, but with you, as his second in command, it was hard to justify the need to do it-you were simply that good. He drew in a breath to reply only for his brain to stutter as your freshly showered, peachy scent filled his head.

With a slight frown, Poe leaned away before speaking, keeping his eyes fixed on the map. “Set the course, Major.”

“Commander.” You agreed, setting to it. Poe left the cockpit then, heading to gear up and check his blaster over while you took the ship in to land. By the time he’d finished pulling on his pack, holstering his blaster and ensuring his wrist comm was good to go, you had successfully landed the ship and given control over to BB8.

“Alright, buddy, take care of things while we’re gone and no parties!” Poe called to his droid, who replied in the affirmative before telling Poe to be careful. He chuckled warmly, punching the button for the ramp to lower as you finished gearing up and came to stand next to him.

Poe made to start down the ramp, stopping when you suddenly grabbed his arm, turning to look down at you in surprise. You released your grip and gestured outside. “I know it was in my reports, but I have to say it again-don’t touch anything, especially if it’s colourful. I overpacked on med supplies in case we come into contact with something poisonous, but we don’t know a lot of the species of plants and animals here.” You reached up and brushed some hair out of your eyes, “If we have to move quickly for any reason, try to pick the most open path, okay?”

Poe cocked a brow, “You think some plant will be worse than whatever’s making us run?”

You shrugged, following Poe as he began to descend the ramp. Immediately the cool hull of the ship disappeared, replaced by the humid air of the jungle planet. It smelled similar to Yavin-4, and as Poe took a deep breath, feeling almost nostalgic, he heard you do the same before replying.

“Honestly, I’m hoping we don’t find out.”

Within twenty minutes of a steady pace through the jungle, first in the direction of the nearby river and then shifting North to follow along its banks, Poe was soaked in sweat. You hadn’t understated the humidity, and though you had broth grown up on a planet with similar weather, it did feel a little heavier here. And the jungle surrounding you both was thick, densely packed with trees so tall and substantial that not a ton of light from the single sun made its way to the jungle floor. Though, if the shade was offering any reprieve from the heat Poe couldn’t fucking tell.

The air had sweetened somewhat once he’d followed you from the small field into the jungle and Poe, though on high alert for any threats as you lead the way, couldn’t help but admire all of the colour interspersed through the greenery. It was no wonder you had reminded him to avoid anything colourful, for the jungle floor was full of every colour imaginable, as beautiful as it was dangerous.

Thankfully, as you had predicted, moving along the bank of the river was the safest option, a long winding path of densely packed mud and rocks leading you to the outpost without having to brush against every bush you passed. The river wasn’t flowing too quickly, but it did give a subtle backdrop of sound that made the quiet between Poe and you less noticeable.

After just over an hour of walking, Poe was feeling grateful that the combat gear you each wore was as moisture-wicking as it was, though he had to keep wiping sweat from his forehead before it could fall into his eyes. It was one of the times he turned his head at an awkward angle to wipe his brow that his eyes caught movement in the distance, and though he kept walking behind you he fixed his gaze to the general area as he filled with alarm.

After a few minutes, he relaxed, fractionally, when nothing further moved. Still, he kept his eyes surveying the area, worrying at his bottom lip as he did. He was considering that the research and information about this planet didn’t pull a lot of data on living creatures, and as much as he was coiled for an attack he could just as easily have seen some sort of bird or rodent moving up a tree. His concentration on your surroundings was pulled when you suddenly let out a little gasp as you tripped on a root.

Without thought, Poe reached out and grabbed the back of your shirt before you could fall over completely, lifting you and setting you back on your feet. Embarrassed, you mumbled your thanks and looked away from Poe, who had been eyeing you to make sure you were alright. When your eyes landed somewhere just behind him and widened in horror, Poe was moving before you could open your mouth to warn him, instincts taking over.

Grabbing your upper arm, Poe urged you both forward quickly while pulling his blaster free with his other hand. You copied him, making no attempt to shake his grip and following his lead in shooting over his shoulder.

“You okay?” He asked, sparing you a glance and letting you go once you nodded and he was sure you were steady on your feet again, “Run.” And you did, neither of you wasting any time in shifting into sprints along the riverbed.

Poe looked over his shoulder and saw the creature he’d sensed earlier, cursing because it wasn’t just a rodent, and it looked like it most definitely ate humans.

It almost looked like a wolf, but it was about twice the size of any Poe had ever seen and its jaws were tightly packed with long, pointed teeth that would surely be able to pull limbs off without much effort. It was pursuing at Poe’s four o’clock, running carelessly through the many bushes and plants as it gained on you both, the only thing stopping it from lunging were the many thick trunked trees.

Firing a few more shots and cursing when they made no impact-clearly the beasts' sides were too thick for the blaster to cause harm-Poe shouted at you. “How far away are we?”

“At this pace ten minutes or so!”

“Fuck, okay, any idea what this thing is?”

You grunted, jumping over a fallen branch and glancing back at the monster, “Looks hungry, we should probably avoid letting it catch up to us.”

Poe swore again, picking up his pace and then aiming a few more shots over his shoulder carefully. The first few missed, but the third shot made contact with one of the beasts' eyes and it let out a roar of pain before barreling through the tree line and coming up right behind you both.

“Fucking shit, looks like we’re testing the theory of which is worse, sweetheart!” He barked, grabbing your arm and pulling you off the river path and into the jungle. Neither of you stopped, though Poe took the lead in running through the dense brush in hopes of keeping leaves and branches from hitting your face. His height advantage kept him just above most of the potentially dangerous plants.

He heard you continue shooting, then give a small whoop at the same moment another roar filled the air-you had hit it again. The heavy steps of the creature faded. Poe glanced over his shoulder to see if it had stopped. He didn’t see the beast anywhere, just you running slightly behind him until-

With a cry of his name, you suddenly sprinted to close the distance between you both and then tackled Poe to the ground, the impact, angle and speed making you both roll through the plants and bushes he’d been trying to avoid. Poe roared with indignation as he slammed right into the trunk of a large tree, coughing as dust filled his lungs. Seeing you on the ground next to him, he grabbed you and pulled you close, listening for any sounds of pursuit as you coughed along with him.

The tree you had tackled him into had a large bush at the base, which served as a decent enough hiding spot. You each waited for any sounds, but when nothing came Poe carefully led the way out, his eyes searching all over, almost overwhelmed at the abundance of colour surrounding you within the jungle. You both stumbled back toward the riverbank, reorienting yourselves until Poe looked around at you.

Closing the gap between you in two steps, Poe gripped the front of your shirt with both hands before shoving you into the nearest tree, “What the fuck was that?” He shouted, surprised to see you panting heavily and appearing unaffected by his violent outburst.

Shocked at his behaviour, Poe released you.

He was panting too, he realized.

“You almost ran over that edge up there, forty-foot drop.” You explained heavily, looking down at your clothing. “We’re covered in, what is this?” He watched as you patted your shoulder and dust hit the air, shimmering slightly in the light.

Since when did dust shimmer?

Poe glanced down at himself and found he was covered as well, copying you to try and get it off. “That bush had red flowers, did you notice?”

You nodded, frowning, “Yeah, not one of the few BB8 was able to identify. This could be its pollen.” You began to walk and Poe stepped in stride next to you, both of you walking along out of standard formation. Somewhere in the back of his mind, he recognized this. He just didn’t care, all of the sudden.

The base came in to view after a few minutes and Poe released a breath of relief. He hadn’t looked at you for a while, and something in his gut was telling him not to, though he had no idea why. He focused on searching for an entry point, trying to ignore how much hotter he felt, how the once comfortable clothing he had on now felt almost scratchy and he wished he could peel it off.

His skin felt...sensitive. Weirdly and increasingly sensitive. And still, he resisted the urge to look at you and see if you were experiencing anything similar. Looking at you didn’t feel safe.

Locating a doorway, you followed Poe and dropped to your knees to pry open the circuit board and play with the wires to get the door to release its lock so it could be manually opened. As he waited for you to work, his eyes dropped to stare at the back of your neck, where he could see the sweat dripping, the hair at the nape of your neck, below your bun, curling in the moisture. Just as he noticed how much you were sweating, he realized he was as well. Like, completely soaked.

Stars, he needed out of these clothes.

He didn’t even feel happy when you managed to break the door security and pry it open, nor any relief when he followed you inside and found the air in the abandoned, stone corridor outpost significantly cooler than outside. He simply followed you as you took a few steps down the corridor, stopping at the entrance to a room that’s door was open, peering in before taking a few steps inside.

It appeared to be some sort of old meeting room, a large marble table running the length, though most of the seats were gone and otherwise the space was unfurnished. This wasn’t a room of interest, and you seemed to decide this a moment before Poe, turning on your heel and looking up to meet his eyes as you did.

You opened your mouth to speak, but no sound came out.

Poe looked back into your eyes as that gut feeling shouted again not to look at you, but it was too late.

A low growl tore from his chest, and Poe was stalking forward.

Poe was moving toward you and every muscle in your body was coiled, ready to run, your mind all but screaming at you to get the fuck away from him. But you didn’t, you couldn’t, you stood rooted to the spot as he made to close the distance between you both, growling as he did.

You knew something had been wrong since leaving the jungle. You had been sweaty and much too hot, and you almost started crying when you’d been trying to get the door to open to the outpost because your skin was aflame and you needed to get the layers off of it for relief.

And you’d felt...you couldn’t exactly describe it, but you just knew you shouldn’t look up at Poe as he breathed heavily behind you, something deep within you telling you that things were off. Very, very off. Whatever was happening, it was overtaking Poe more aggressively than you at this point.

It had to be the pollen, you realized with growing horror. If the pooling of heat in your belly was any clue, that red flower had to be an unidentified fertility plant. But you’d studied fertility plants, and none that you knew of were this intense. You’d only been exposed, what, ten minutes? And yet you were both sweaty and overcome already.

And Poe didn’t look like himself anymore, something in him snapped the moment he met your eyes. He looked like a predator. Scarier than the beast outside that had chased you.

He was a breath away when you heard yourself let out a whimper, a mixture of fear and longing that seemed to stop him in his tracks, his eyes widening. He stood rooted to the spot but visibly struggled to lean away from you, horror replacing the dark look he’d had moments before.

“What, what the f-fuck is happening?” He gasped, closing his eyes as if in pain.

“Fuck, I’m so fucking hot, I need to get out of these clothes!” You cried out, yanking your shirt from where it was tucked into your khakis desperately. “I think it was a fertility plant, Poe, we have to g-get out of our clothes. Cov-covered in pollen.” It was starting to hurt just to breathe, to speak, to not be touching Poe.

He gave a moan indicating he was equally as uncomfortable, opening his eyes again.

When he looked down at you, the dawning horror overflowed. His eyes, normally soft and honey-coloured, were completely black. His gaze locked onto yours and a smirk replaced his fearful look, and as much as it scared you, you couldn’t look away, heat and wetness now pooling between your legs in anticipation.

“Little girl,” He growled, his body locked tight still but his eyes devouring you, “Look at what you’re doing to me.” He demanded, his hand moving to palm over his crotch where-

Stars, even with his pants still on you could see the outline of his erection, and you whimpered again. This was going to happen, there was no stopping it, you could feel that despite everything inside of you fighting to step away, to run, that when you did move it would be straight for him.

The pollen from this plant would kill you both if you didn’t follow your urges, that much you knew. You’d studied the tales of this strength of a fertility plant, and you knew the dangers that it could pose. You might both die anyway, now that you’d been exposed. It could be strong enough that you’d both just fuck until you died, and you knew that should scare you but...you felt yourself fading into the back of your mind, the heat enveloping you everywhere. Taking over.

You moaned again, still fighting the need to close the distance between Poe and you because you needed him to understand what was happening. “We can’t stop,” You gasped out, and then you watched as the darkness in Poe’s eyes faded slightly and his horrified expression returned-he was trying to fight the pollen.

“Run, (y/n), g-get away before, f-fuck I need y-you so bad,” He was trying to step back from you but unable to fight the burning need, the desire. You saw tears slip from his eyes, “Can’t control my-myself, sweetheart, r-run p-please.”

Tears leaked out of your eyes as you only stepped toward Poe, feeling yourself disappearing further in further into the back of your mind, “We have to, Poe,” He was again only a few inches away now, and what a sight it must be as you each stood so close, fighting against the pollen’s wishes and trying to pull back from one another with no success, “W-we might d-die, can’t f-fight this, oh fuck PLEASE!” You suddenly felt the heat reach a boiling point and absolutely needed Poe to touch you.

“Sweetheart,” He groaned, “F-fight me, don’t, don’t let me hurt y-you, we ha-have to fight it!”

“POE,” You screamed, the last of your true self speaking, “I promise i-it’s o-kay, ple-please, I don’t wa-want t-t-to die!” And the band within you snapped, and you were moving into Poe at the same moment his eyes turned black again and then, quite suddenly, he was on you.

If only everything could have gone black at that point.

Taglist

@mermaidxatxheart @foxilayde @eleinemk @paintballkid711 @mylifeisactuallyamess @20th-centu-fairy-girl @deitysnips @cannedsoupsucks @ubri812 @poedameronloverx

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msmarvelouswinchester · 3 years

Text

Irresistibly Yours

Chapter 2 - Noise Complaint

Summary - Y/N Y/L/N moves to NYC in hopes for a fresh start after a nasty breakup. There she meets her neighbor, the cynical lawyer, Dean Winchester. A love-hate relationship starts evolving between them ever since they met in the elevator one morning but a desperate situation and a string of lies forces the two friendly rivals to go on a date or rather a fake date. Will sparks fly between them when Dean gets to know Y/N real and up close? Will Y/N finally find her Prince Charming in the grumpy, workaholic, divorce lawyer?

Pairing - Lawyer!Dean Winchester x Y/N

Warning - None expect meanie Dean (Suspicious, isn’t it?)

WC - 2154

Square Filled - Don't put me in this position ( @anyfandomgoesbingo )

A/N - I promise the next chapter will have more of Dean and more conflict! This is just the beginning of a very long ride. Enjoy!

Beta’d by @miss-nerd95

Dividers by @firefly-graphics

Series Masterlist Masterlist

The silence in the cab on her way back to her apartment gave her the quality time she needed to think. In a few weeks, Meg was getting married and now, since they knew, Y/N had to show up with her 'boyfriend’. She racked her brain, scrambling to come up with a good excuse because it was all a big lie.

Every time, however, she reached two conclusions - either make a fool of herself and admit that she lied or tell everyone that she broke up and be the one person at the wedding that everyone looks down on with pitiful eyes.

There was a third option, which was risque as hell too, cause Y/N barely knew the man and their first meeting did not go so well, but there was definitely something about him that made her blush every time she thought of him.The way he carried himself and the dominating vibes he gave off, sent shivers down her spine. Maybe he wasn't a morning person and she did start blabbering in the elevator the minute she stepped in. She swallowed hard when she remembered the way her name rolled off his tongue. ‘How did he know?’ She wondered.

As Y/N boarded the elevator, she thought about how, she wanted nothing more than to see a certain green-eyed man again. She had been residing in this complex for almost three months but she had never seen the man before. Maybe he was new here, in this apartment building, who knew? Mind plagued by millions of thoughts, Y/N trudged down the empty hallway to her cosy little home.

“Who invented these fucking heels?” She grumbled as she freed her feet out of the painful, yet pretty high heels when she reached the comfort of her own home. Shrugging her coat off, she relaxed as her ass hit the soft mattress of the couch.

“I need a date in seven weeks.” She said, making a mental note of the wedding date. This was the only wedding she ever looked forward to attending where she knew she wouldn't have to face the constant stream of questions involving her dating life and a particular man. All she ever wanted was to be with her close friend on the best day of her life.

“First dress fitting - tomorrow at 10.” Her phone lit up with an incoming text and groaning, she dropped her head backwards. Y/N couldn't even skip the wedding if she wanted to. She was one of the bridesmaids and it wouldn't be fair to both Meg and Cas, if she didn't attend it. A smile graced her frowning face when she remembered the time Cas proposed to her friend on Valentine's Day. Cliche- Y/N would say, but deep down, she knew she just wanted what Cas and Meg had.

A sigh left her lips as she got up, still in her work clothes. She put on some light music as she went into the bathroom to freshen up. After the long, tiring day she had, a warm bath and a Ryan Gosling movie were very much needed. Quickly stripping off, she stepped into the tub. She leaned her head backwards, closing her eyes, as the warm water soothed her aching body and her troubled mind.

“Romeo, take me somewhere we can be alone,” Y/N sang along the song, slightly off tune but she didn't care, as she stepped out of the bathroom after some time. She let go of the towel wrapped around her body and stepped into a pair of comfortable pjs. Getting a box cold pizza out from her refrigerator, she turned up the volume of the music playing in her apartment.

“He knelt to the ground and pulled out a ring, and said,” Y/N yelled out the chorus when she started to heat up the pizza. Her private singing session, however, was cut short by a sudden knock on the door. She grudgingly pressed pause as she walked up to the door to find out the unwanted visitor.

“Excuse me- Ms L/N?” As soon as she opened the door, she was met by a very familiar, deep baritone that had been haunting her.

“Dean Winchester. And please, call me Y/N,” she breathed out. The formality in Dean’s voice made her cringe. Her eyes fell as she took in the man in front.

Dean had gotten rid of the dapper grey suit and slipped into a much laid back look. A black polo t-shirt fitted over his body and plain blue jeans hugging his bowlegs perfectly. The look on his face mirrored the one from the morning and Y/N wondered if he would look better with a smile on. Her train of thoughts were again rudely interrupted by the man speaking.

“I assume you're having somewhat of a casual evening,” Dean said, his hands waving to point at her pjs, making her suddenly self-conscious of her clothing state.

“Y-yeah. How may I help you?” She asked, genuinely curious.

“See, I moved in the apartment right beside you a few days ago, and I think you might have noticed sometime or the other that there are other people living in this building as well,” Dean said, his face not imparting any sort of emotions, “You might be having a casual evening but I can assure you that there's at least one person who is certainly not. Turn the music level down.”

Y/N’s mouth fell open at Dean’s words but she wasn't going to turn down the volume just because a man turned up at her door, asking her to do so. His words were sharp, but his tone was downright rude, and it was definitely not because he wasn't a morning person. The least he could have done was ask her nicely.

“Well, listen here pal, no one's having a problem, other than you. So you can go back to your room, put on some earplugs and do whatever the heck you were doing before you decided to make my day more awful,” Y/N said, taking a threatening stance with hands on her hips, a deep frown on her face.

“I'll file a noise complaint report against you.” Dean warned with his pointer finger right in front of her eyes.

“It's just music. Learn to appreciate the little things in life.” She said while rolling her eyes.

“I'm a very busy man and I got work to do, alright? And speaking about music, play something actually good like Zeppelin and people will personally come up to thank you. This song is not even a classic.” Dean spat back.

“Believe me or not, everyone is a Swiftie at heart.” She smirked with a sarcastic shrug. Dean’s lips twitched in anger as his face grew more rigid before he said, “If you don't lower the volume, expect a noise complaint report delivered with your newspaper tomorrow.” He walked away before Y/N had a chance to even think of a comeback.

Glancing over his shoulder, Dean went inside his own apartment room right beside Y/N’s. She glared at the empty hallway before swinging her door shut and walked back to her room towards her amazon echo, turning the music down anyway. She couldn't risk getting a report filed against her, and the man appeared to be dead serious about what he threatened to do.

“Stupid Dean Winchester.” She grumbled.

Squinting at the clock, Y/N woke up the next morning to loud bangs on her door. 7:30 am, it read. Removing the covers, she immediately shivered when the cool air hit her bare legs.

Hair still a mess, she grabbed her robe from the nearby chair, putting it on along with her slippers before she warily made her way to the door. “Dean will be complaining now for sure.” She grumbled as she unlocked her door to reveal her friend standing on the other side in a dishevelled state, eyes red like a mad woman.

“Meg?” Her face scrunched up in confusion as the said woman shoved past her into her apartment. “You’re wearing your shirt inside out.” Y/N closed the door behind her as Meg took a seat on the couch.

“Can I have some water?” Y/N dumbfoundedly nodded at her friend’s request and went to her kitchen to retrieve a glassful. Handing the glass over to her, she sat down next to the brunette who gulped down the entire glass of water in one go. Setting the utensil down on the wooden coffee table in front, she turned towards Y/N with slightly glossy eyes as she spoke, “I don’t want to go and finalise the dresses.”

Her words elicited a laugh from Y/N before she said, “Okay, bridezilla, we can reschedule it. Cas should better watch out!” She chuckled out the last words.

“No, y-you don’t understand!” Meg grabbed her friend’s hands, surprising the latter, “I don’t want to try the dress on at all.” Y/N was utterly surprised over her friend's outburst.

“Honey, you have a wedding in less than two months.” Y/N cooed as a few drops of tears rolled down the bride-to-be’s cheeks. “Meg, talk to me. Did something happen between you two?”

The woman shook her head, letting the other lady in the room know that she didn't have to kick Cas’ ass to her relief, but it confused her even further. Since their engagement five months ago, Meg had been over the moon and had started planning every minute detail with high precision and finesse for her big day.

“What if I'm making a huge mistake?”

“Don’t put me in this position. You know how I am when it comes to-”

“But I need to know, and I trust you.”

Y/N pressed her lips into a thin line before she said, “Cas is the best thing that has ever happened to you-”

“You barely even knew me when I started to go out with him. We have only been together for fifteen months - five of which I have spent being engaged to him. What if I regret this later?” Meg's words were correct. Y/N used to barely talk to her when she had started dating Cas, but all through those eighteen months, as she slowly got to know the pair well enough, she knew that they were clearly meant to be in it for the long haul.

“But I have never seen you regret your decision to be with Cas even once… so why start now?.” Y/N politely answered, her hands letting go of her distraught friend's iron-clad grasp and reaching out to soothe her.

“Sometimes even if you have been with your man for what feels like forever, marrying him might seem to be the worst decision you can ever make, but it doesn't matter how long you have been with him. When you know, you know. Follow your heart.” Meg looked up at her as she mulled her words over before speaking.

“I love him.” She said.

“Then go, be with him.” Y/N smiled. Crisis averted.

A smile started to appear on Meg’s tear stained face as her eyes twinkled with a suggestive glimmer in them. Fiddling with her sparkling ring, she said, “Dean’s good for you. Don't let him go.”

Y/N was taken aback by her friend's supposition. She sat up straight in her seat as heat crept up her neck. Her mind was stuck in a turmoil as she tried to come up with an appropriate response.

“He’s not-Dean is not-” She stuttered, the words got stuck in her throat when she tried to think of a decent excuse. Maybe, this was the universe giving her a chance to take back everything she had said before, but the disheartened look on her friend’s face made her rethink her decision. After all, a little white lie never hurt anybody. “Yeah, he is a good man.” Meg smiled as Y/N played her into the deception game once again.

“Will he be at the wedding?”

“I don’t know yet.”

“What are you waiting for? Unless he is a figment of your imagination, ask him! I want to meet this certain Dean Winchester.” Meg giggled.

“I don’t have such vivid imaginations, Meg.” Y/N let out a nervous chuckle. She was now being given an ample amount of opportunities to tell the truth, then why was it so hard for her to deny everything she had said? Maybe she liked living in this utopian world where for once, no one deemed her as the broken, pathetic girl who failed to make a man stay. Maybe deep down, she wanted this damn lie to be true.

“I’ll ask him but you do know how men are about weddings.” She replied, having no knowledge of how to keep her end of the promise.

Chapter 3

Feedback is highly appreciated

If you want to be tagged in the series, lemme know!

#dean winchester #dean x reader #dean winchester x reader #dean x you #dean winchester x you #dean winchester x y/n #dean x y/n #au dean x reader #au dean winchester x reader #dean fanfics #dean fanfiction #spn fanfic #irresistibly yours

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hotchley · 3 years

Note

i saw your reblog of the Spencer giving Aaron a father's day card thing and i can't stop thinking about how Aaron is the father figure to the entire team now.

(yes I'm also especially thinking about that one scene of Spencer and Derek stuck in the malfunctioning lift shrieking for Aaron just because. 🥴 dad!Hotch ftw!!!!!)

i know this concept has probably been done hundreds of times already but imagine: (SORRY THIS IS GOING TO BE A REALLY LONG ASK, I deeply apologise in advance)

[tw food/eating habits, some references to murder cases because you know this is Criminal Minds, some slight spoilers for people who haven't really watched the show and also reference & mention of autism & a character on the autism spectrum -> just a heads up, a disclaimer, I'm in no way diagnosed with autism, so if i have misrepresented autism, or made any mistakes, i apologise, it wasn't my intention, and i welcome all feedback & criticism — i genuinely want to learn]

a year after Spencer joins the BAU, Aaron notices & becomes very concerned over Spencer's (super bad) eating habits aka him only drinking coffee and forgetting to eat actual proper food when he gets absorbed in cases or research or reading etc -> which results in Aaron absolutely being like "hey Spencer let's grab lunch together" almost everyday just so Spencer eats (healthy, full meals)

(also Spencer picking up on this after Aaron "casually" gets him lunch/treats him to dinner/invites him over for meals for almost every day of the week and he was initially almost irritated/offended until he realised he could use Aaron's habit to make Aaron himself eat properly too because this hypocritical bastard doesn't eat properly himself either so every alternate day you can see Spencer purposely not going for lunch breaks while sneaking glances at Aaron's office just waiting for him to notice and drag them both to lunch together 😌)

also I really think Spencer is on the autistic spectrum (high functioning, imo, but I'm not really sure how this works, and I'd have to do more research) so I'd like to imagine Aaron knows that too because he's noticed Spencer's behaviors + Spencer got an official diagnosis and told him about it maybe 6-7 months into joining the BAU so I really think Aaron lets Spencer stim (physically, his hand gestures) on their lunch break because he knows that Spencer can't really do that in front of the others, so even when they're on cases, he would take Spencer out either for a private lunch or dinner or something, just the two of them, and he'd let Spencer stim & talk about any subject of his fancy as much as he wants to (I'm pretty sure someone wrote a fic like this and I absolutely can't remember the name or the author but I really LOVED the idea too)

initially Spencer was really taken aback too, because you know, this isn't something you do with your boss, of all people, but Hotch had always meant what he says and his facial expression and body language suggested that he was being absolutely sincere and serious about this, so Spencer tentatively started talking, and as their meal progressed, he eventually got comfortable enough to just go on, and not once did Aaron cut him off rudely, until the end of their meal, when Aaron couldn't continue to pretend to drink his soup because he'd finished it somehow with those incredibly small spoonfuls, and he'd had to gently tell Spencer that they had to go back, but Spencer wasn't upset, because he'd just got over an hour to talk about this recent seminar about the connection of ancient Greek mythology to the developments of the society in ancient Greece which no one had ever done for him before and he's full, satisfied and beyond elated because Hotch really didn't have to do this, but he did anyways

at first it was just something between them but eventually Derek noticed & like in the end I think it's a kind of open secret between Aaron, Spencer & Derek and now when Derek notices Aaron doing it he gives Aaron a small nod and he wards off & deals with the questions that the others have when they inevitably notices the private meals Aaron & Spencer has

speaking of Derek, Aaron definitely has 1 on 1 time with Derek too, but doing different things. Derek's thing is sports & home renovations, and he repairs/maintains cars & bikes when he can, and I like to imagine Aaron knowing about his hobbies and casually asking Derek about the home renovation he's working on one time (before or early S1) Derek came into his office to submit a case file, and Derek being kind of shocked/caught by surprised initially (because he knows Hotch has a soft spot for the kid because he's much younger and much, much more inexperienced but Derek's older and should know better, so Hotch won't do the whole private lunch thing with him, right?) but then he grins and starts telling Aaron about how "I got that place absolutely shining right now, man" and then he invites Aaron over to take a look at the place out of courtesy/habit (his mama raised him as a good, polite young man, and no way Hotch would even say yes right?) and to his surprise once again, Aaron does accept his invitation

after that one time, Aaron begins casually asking him about his projects and even starts offering to help him do some of the painting and decorating (to be fair, it calms Aaron too, to have a getaway from Haley and initially from the crying baby, because while he absolutely loved Haley and Jack with all his heart, some days, some days he just couldn't take it, all the stress from Strauss and from trying to be a good father unlike his own, and he had to take some time off to himself, and painting walls is calming and therapeutic to him in some sense) & Derek and Aaron start bonding over hotdogs while sitting out on the front porch of some halfway remodelled house, talking about the latest sports news (they support different baseball teams but that's okay, because Derek gets to grin at Hotch and ask him to pay up when Hotch's team loses to his, and Aaron gets to raise his eyebrows with that small knowing smirk of his and ask Derek to "complete this by the next weekend, will you" when Derek's team loses to his)

when Aaron recruits Penelope, he's read her file, or what little the FBI's cyberteam got on her anyways. he knows the Black Queen's reputation, and he knows that the cyberteam really don't trust her and recommended high levels of surveillance, but the moment he saw her through the glass of the interrogation room and her resume & application on pink paper, he knew that she's not just what the file said she is. initially, she sticks to the "bureau regulated office attire" because you know, Penelope knows she's lucky, she should've been jailed for what she did, she was jailed, until this Aaron Hotchner guy decided, somehow, that she was deserving to be on his team, even after looking at her resume, which she had written on pink paper out of pure spite (because nothing in the FBI rulebooks said anything about submitting your application on specialized coloured paper anyways) but she was moody and unhappy because she's stuck in this tiny office having to answer the phone whenever agents called to ask for details on icky, gruesome murders and disgusting, vile murderers so she decides that hey, since no one ever comes in here anyways, she might as well do some re-decorating right? so she starts bringing in her own soft toys and figurines and starts amassing a whole collection of soft, plushy, and colourful toys in because it's her office and if she has to deal with all these yucky stuff on a daily basis she's going to make it at least bearable to be in here

one day, some tall, stern looking guy just comes into her office with this Tupperware in his hands saying "hey, Garcia right? my wife made some extra cupcakes for the team, you want some?" and she asks "do i know you?" and he blinks, stands there for one, two seconds before- "sorry, i forgot we haven't actually met. Special Supervisory Agent Aaron Hotchner, assistant unit chief of BAU Team 1, nice to meet you," [i like to headcannon that before Boston & all, Hotch was Gideon's assistant, some kind of assistant unit chief probably, but while he wasn't yet the unit chief he was definitely taking care of most, if not all of the administration matters i.e. hiring new agents etc already because let's be real Gideon is caring & capable but really hands off sometimes (also in S1E1 Derek referred to Gideon as their Unit Chief so I assumed Hotch took over the position full time, officially somewhere between S1E1 and S1E2 or 3)]

and then Garcia's brain kind of short-circuits because holy shit this is her BOSS, aka the guy who somehow, crazily looked at her resume and decided to HIRE her and she just asked him if she knew him OH GOD ALL THOSE FIGURINES- and she tries to explain because she really didn't mean to break any rules with them and they aren't, are they? and she can remove them but just, please, she can't go back to prison.

but then Agent Hotchner just goes "hey, hey, Penelope. it's fine. I understand. this is your office, and you have the right to decorate it. I'm not going to fire you over.... My Little Ponies? and uh, some unicorns?" and Penelope can't help but laugh because he genuinely looks baffled by her collection on her desk, and did he just call her Penelope?

and after that, once, after a bad case that Aaron knew affected Penelope (it involved murdered parents & their only child left orphaned and it just hit too close to home for Penelope), he stopped by a local toy shop and bought the brightest, most sparkly, most colourful thing he could find in there (it ended up being a small figurine of a princess on a small, detachable throne that could light up and play some really funky pop music. Aaron cringed internally as he brought it over to the counter, and awkwardly nodded as the cashier asked, "buying this for your daughter, sir? she's going to love it, it's the latest in a collectable series" and he pretended to not see the questioning eyebrow that Derek gave him after seeing the package) and when he presented it to Penelope when they got back, he got the biggest and most bone crushing hug ever from Penelope because "aw that's so sweet, thank you! and you got me the latest in the collection! it's limited edition!" and it just ended up becoming a tradition — Penelope always looks forward to the end of a case now, not only because that means her people are coming home, safe, in one piece (sometimes debatable but still, they're coming home, to her) but it also means that Hotch has brought her yet another tiny figurine or souvenir to add to her collection and she can't wait to see what it is, and Hotch always, always, finds the time after they've wrapped up the case, before the jet leaves, to pop by a local toy shop to get both Penelope and later, when he's older, Jack some toys or souvenir from wherever state he's in, because he wants both of them to know, that despite all the bad out there, there is still good in the world, and they should never forget that

OKAY this ask is SUPER LONG already i apologise skfjsk i have ideas for JJ & Emily but idk if you'd even wanna continue reading them... (maybe.... give me a sign and I'll send another ask and write it? 🥴)

anyways this was just something that came up and i had to write it out 🥺 sorry for spamming you, i hope you're having a great day/night ahead.

- 🌙

Hi so I'm putting everything below the cut for scrolling purposes x

He is!!

Oh my god, I love that scene. It came up in a TikTok about ships, because Person A and Person B are both very smart when they're alone, but put them together and it cancels out, and it made me laugh.

I also love Dad Hotch. Like I love him as much as I love "fighting to keep his emotions in check because he needs to be a leader, but you can tell from the slight change in tone, or the slight glaze of his eyes that he's seconds away from crying" Hotch. Which is saying something.

DON'T APOLOGISE FOR LONG ASKS!! That's what the keep reading on posts is for :))

Oh I love how much Hotch cares about Reid, and of course Reid uses it to his advantage to get Hotch to do the same, because they're similar in that way. Also, he would definitely start grinning when Hotch looks down at his empty plate like: oh. Platonic Hotchreid is everything to me, because it's these two people that have been caretakers their entire life trying to look after another person that wouldn't let anyone do that and it's just... the HOTCH ANGST POTENTIAL THAT IS SO UNTAPPED!!!

Also, not a criticism of you, but from what I've heard from people is that functioning labels are harmful and shouldn't be used because it misrepresents the situation!

I love that idea though!! And Derek being protective over them so he's just like: no, you won't interrupt them, and I will take control of the situation for a few hours AAH!!

OH I LOVE EVERYTHING ABOUT MORGAN AND HOTCH BONDING!! It's so perfect!! I love the idea of Morgan teaching Hotch to do things, and Hotch realising how relaxing he finds it to do these things.

And because we can't have nice things: he refuses to go after Foyet breaks into his apartment because he doesn't deserve peace, but then Morgan just uses his key, drags him out, takes him to a house and presses a brush into his hand because he's not going to let his friend self destruct like this.

EVERYTHING ABOUT GARCIA!! OH MY GOD!! I need to get some work done, so I'm going to finish up there, but seriously!! Amazing!! I love the idea of Hotch getting her little figurines and stuff <33

(shameless self promo, she does the same for him in "and he will come back home" hehe)

I would love to hear the Emily and JJ ones!! I hope that's the sign you need :)

Don't apologise for spamming I was having a dull day, and I hope you have a good day too!

#🌙anon #people talk to me #tw food #tw eating habits

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peachybowen · 4 years

Text

stupid • r.b

series masterlist

pt.1 pt.2

pairing: ricky bowen x reader

warnings: none

songs: Falling For U by Peachy! and mxmtoon, Wondering by Julia Lester and Olivia Rodrigo

words: 3.6k

AND ALSO I’M HAPPY TO ANNOUNCE THAT I HAVE A MASTERLIST 🤪 YOU CAN SEE WHAT I’M WORKING ON AND YEAHHH

A/N: feedback is always appreciated 🥺 I’m sorry if you find any grammar mistakes. Enjoy xx

I have dreamed of playing the lead since 5th grade. Of course I didn't tell anyone besides my brother and Cousin. When I got home last night, my brother and I talked. He was happy for me. Ej also said that he was really proud of me but he also added that he thinks that Nini deserved better.

,,Yo, what's up? I'm trading in my East High Leopards gear to be a Wildcat, starting today, because it's the day of the read-through! Blessed to be playing Chad. Swipe up for a link to tickets.'' EJ said holding his phone up, smiling the whole time.

,,Hi!'' Ash and I exclaimed simultaneously, walking up to EJ.

,,Say hi to my cousin and my little sister and bye to my cousin and sister.'' he turned his phone off and put it in his jeans pocket.

,,You're in a good mood.'' I mentioned and continued walking beside him, with Ash on his other side.

,,That's just for the fans, Y/N. Inside I'm a bucket of sad.'' he stated and I looked at Ash and then at him.

,,You still not over the not-getting Troy thing?'' Ash asked.

,,I put 3 years into this drama department and now I have to understudy my girlfriend's ex?'' he turned to me.

,,No offense Y/N.” he added and I just laughed and waved it off.

,,I know it sucks. But, I mean; Y/N is Gabriella and I don't think we would want an incest couple in our play, you know.'' Ash explained and I cringed at the thought.

,,Ash is 100% right.'' I agreed and started walking faster, Ash right behind me.

When we arrived at the rehearsal room, I saw Ej putting the Chad Danford card next to the Gabriella one. Ricky and I didn't talk much since the auditions and maybe, just maybe, that was my fault. I have been avoiding him, which was actually pretty hard considering I had almost all my classes with him. He tried to talk to me here and there but I just hummed in response most of the time. Honestly I was just trying to get over my crush on him. He still wasn't over Nini and he actually wanted to take part in the musical for her and I kinda ruined his chances because she did not get the lead. I also didn't want to ruin our friendship. We were friends since kindergarten and I wanted to keep him as a friend. After the auditions, Ash came over. She actually told me not to avoid Ricky but I just thought it was a good idea. Of course Ej agreed with me.

,,Could everyone take their assigned seats?'' Ms.Jenn asked loud enough for everone to hear. I walked to my seat and noticed that Ej put the cards back to how they were. I sat down with a sigh. Soon after Miss Jenn actually asked Big Red to read the stage directions because Natalie, the stage director, wasn't there. And like 5 seconds after that Ricky took the seat next to me. I looked at Ash, who was sitting across from me. She smiled and turned her attention to the blonde drama teacher.

,,I realize that you all walked in here as strangers.'' she started looking at us.

,,Actually, I'm Y/N and EJ’s, cousin!'' Ashlyn corrected. I could see Ricky looking at me out of the corner of my eye but I just ignored him.

,,But after today, you're a family. Please take your neighbors' hand.'' she finished and everyone did what the teacher said. I took Gina's hand and turned my head to Ricky, who was holding his hand out for me. I took his hand but avoided eye contact.

,,Hand.'' Ms.Jenn said as soon as she saw that Ej and Ricky weren't holding hands. Their heads shot in my direction when they heard me giggle. I stopped immediately.

,,Feel each other's energy. Let the silence speak volumes. In a world full of no, this is a space full of yes.'' the drama teacher preached.

,,Nice. Did you just come up with that?'' Carlos whispered to the middle-aged woman.

,,I did.'' she replied, smiling at him. It was silent. Nobody said anything and I could feel Ricky staring again and I just turned my head to Gina and smiled at her. Seconds later Ms.Jenn started singing ''We're all in this together.''. I let go of Ricky and Gina's hand and looked at the script on my table, highlighting my lines. Ash started to clap after Ms.Jenn finished singing. Nobody clapped beside her so she stopped and everyone looked at her.

,,"Sharpay heads for class, hears singing," "opens the door to the biology lab." "She finds Gabriella and Taylor washing their hands." "They turn to find there are no paper towels in the dispenser. They-'''' Big Red was disrupted by Miss Jenn before he could continue reading.

,,Try to read the punctuation.'' she instructed and smiled at the redhead.

,,"Sharpay comma heads for class period.'''' he said and I grinned. He was so oblivious sometimes it was cute.

We took a break after reading act one. I was talking to Ash but I also kinda watched my brother and Nini talking. And, yes, Ricky looked at them too. Nini got a text, she laughed, and Ricky was on his phone so it was kinda obvious that he sent her a meme or something like that. Ej glared at him and sat down again.

,,Cool glasses.'' I turned my head to see Seb taking a seat next to Ashlyn. She smiled.

,,Thanks. They're my grandmas.'' she acknowledged.

,,I have the same ones at home.'' he laughed.

,,Really? Why?'' I asked, trying to join the conversation again.

,,So, I can see when I'm milking.'' he replied and I was confused.

Milking?

Before I had the chance to ask what he meant by that, Miss Jenn said that we were gonna continue.

I was on stage waiting for Ricky. Ms.Jenn wanted us to start rehearsing early and I wasn't really thrilled. When he came running in, he said that he was sorry for being late.

,,We're diving into page 97.'' Ms.Jenn directed and handed us the script.

,,You mean the last scene?'' Ricky asked just as confused as I was. The teacher just hummed in response.

,,You wanna rehearse this? It's just one line.'' I also asked.

,,Yeah, I've got one, too.'' Ricky stated turning to me.

,,And then there's the kiss.'' Ms.Jenn exclaimed. I looked at her and started to panic.

,,There was no-. I don't remember a kiss in what we read yesterday.'' I stuttered trying to reason with her.

,,It was very much in the original movie.''

,,I only remember a hug.'' I augmented further. I wasn't really in the mood to kiss my best friend. It would just make things more awkward between us.

,,The kiss ended up being cut. Little racy for its time.'' she explained looking at me with a smile.

Later that day I sat in Miss Jenn's office, explaining to her that I just couldn't kiss Ricky.

°Ej's POV°

I was standing outside Ms.Jenn's office, waiting for Y/N when Ashlyn walked up to me.

,,Hi!'' she greeted cheerfully.

,,Go away.'' I simply said.

,,No, you go away. You're standing in front of my locker.''

I stepped away and she opened the locker.

,,I can't believe this. She's around Ricky's finger.''

,,Who?'' Ash asked and looked at me.

,,Miss Jenn! She added a kiss.'' I explained and Ashlyn rolled her eyes.

,,Ej, stop. He's not bribing our director.'' she interrupted.

,,Y/N doesn't want to kiss him, Ash. And I don't want that either.''

,,Being her big brother doesn't mean you own her.'' she commented. I rolled my eyes and changed the subject.

,,I need you to do me a favor.''

,,What kind of favor?'' she asked with a raised brow.

,,I need you to borrow Nini's phone.'' I explained and she looked at me like I was crazy.

,,Borrow? As in steal?''

I just nodded. I needed to be 100% sure that Ricky wasn't in the way of my relationship. Nini was different. She wasn't like other girls. The girl helped me be a better person.

,,Okay, you've just gone up 3 levels of scary!'' the girl stressed, shocked by my words. She tried to reason with me for a bit but then she left, leaving me standing alone in front of the office, waiting for my sister.

°Y/N’s pov°

,,I'm kinda lost. If the play is over, why would we still be dancing?'' Ricky asked beside me. We were back in the rehearsing room. Just as I was about to answer, Carlos came up from behind us.

,,It's a certain call. You're the last two to come out. We want to bring the audience to their feet!'' he explained snickering.

,,Teach them the dance.'' Ricky joked.

,,Carlos? Can we wait for Miss Jenn?'' I pleaded kinda just wanting the director there.

,,Miss Jenn is busy tracking down a prop. She's asked me to create a crescendo, people, so let's stop swirling and let's start twirling.'' Carlos directed calmly.

,,But why are we practicing the bows when we haven't even practiced the play?'' Ricky asked still confused.

,,Because you start with the hardest dance that takes the longest to learn. It's in the Big Book of Broadway.'' Carlos started. Gina came up behind him.

,,Page 374.'' they both finished at the same time. Gina walked away after they both high-fived each other.

Shortly after we started practicing the dance. Ricky was terrible. I mean he tried but he did not succeed. Kinda embarrassing.

,,What is he doing?'' Nini asked from the side as soon as the music stopped. I turned to look at her. She stepped forward and looked at Carlos.

,,Why you're talking to him? I'm right here.''

And that was when I took a step back. I wasn't in the mood to be in the middle of Nini and Ricky drama. I had enough of that over the summer.

,,'Cause you're not here. Not for the right reasons.'' Nini snapped.

,,What's that supposed to mean?'' Ricky asked standing right in front of her. Everyone was silent. Nobody wanted to interrupt that conversation.

,,What I said, Ricky. You hate musicals. You're doing this so we're in each other's grills.''

Carlos took a step forward to break the two apart but they kept on going.

,,Now you're rubbing some weird cologne on your neck.''

,,Hey, you love Throb!''

,,And wasting everybody's time by making fun of something that the rest of us take seriously.'' the brown-haired girl ranted. After the words left her mouth, Carlos told everyone to take a five-minute break and to get out. I stayed just being moral support for Carlos and Ricky. He and Nini argued for a few more seconds, my brother's name was mentioned and Ricky left. Just as Miss Jenn came back, Ricky walked through the door.

,,We're you going Troy?'' she asked, confused as to why he was leaving in the middle of rehearsals.

,,It's Ricky.'' he mumbled before exiting the room. I sighed, looked at Nini, who looked at her hands, grabbed my things and went after him.

,,Why are my leads leaving?'' Miss Jenn asked again.

Ricky was way faster than me.

I mean have you seen him? He's way taller than me!

However, when I saw Big Red outside talking to him, I decided to let them talk. My mind just told me to leave him alone to cool off, you know? So I decided to talk to Nini instead. On the way back, Carlos asked me where Ricky went and I told him that he went outside. Not so sure if that was a good idea because it would just put more pressure on Ricky. When I arrived at the rehearsal room again, Miss Jenn was talking to Nini and she still stood by the piano, looking at her hands.

,,Nini can I talk to you for a second?'' I asked and walked in her direction. Miss Jenn turned to look at me and left the room without another word. I think she knew that it was better to let teenagers sort their problems out alone sometimes.

,,I really don't want to talk to you right now. Ricky probably send you and I'm really not in the mood to-''

,,Ricky did not 'send' me. I'm here because I chose to talk to you. I know that you probably don't even want that because I basically stole the role you wanted to play but listen. Miss Jenn is working really hard on this musical and so is everyone else and I know it's hard being in a musical with your ex- and current boyfriend but please, for the sake of this musical, get along with Ricky.''

,,Y/N you don't even understand the situation. You never had an ex before!''

,,That may be true but I'm not on good terms with Ricky either! Do you see me causing a scene? No! So please Nini, at least consider, not ripping Ricky's face off.'' and with that, I left.

The first thing I did when I arrived at home was eat. I always ate when I was frustrated. Not my best habit. While waiting for my pizza to be done, I decided to post something on Instagram

y/ncaswell

Salt Lake City, Utah

liked by ejcaswell, dancingcarlos and 67 more

y/ncaswell you're looking at your Gabriella Montez baby 🤪

view all 23 comments

dancingcarlos and that's on actually auditioning for Taylor

yourgirlash u rocked that audition tho! So proud of u :))

I smiled at all the supporting comments and began eating my pizza, which I got out of the oven without burning my hands.

what? I'm proud of me. I always burn my hands while getting the pizza out of the oven. That's why Ej is normally doing it when... I want pizza.

After eating half of the pizza, leaving the other half for Ej, I went upstairs. I threw my bag into a corner and threw myself on bed. I sighed and grabbed my ukulele. The next thing I knew was that I started playing some chords that popped into my head.

I was hangin' with you and then I realized

I didn't think it was true, I was surprised

When I found out I've fallen for you

I didn't wanna believe my feelings for you

I didn't wanna believe that I could lose you

If I told you just how I felt

But I can't help it

I'm falling for you

And I can't quit it

'Cause I'm stuck on you

And it might be pathetic and you might be skeptical

But I just want to be with you

Please tell me, boy

Can you get a clue?

Or come through 'cause I just want to be with you

,,The song is for him right?''

I gasped in surprise and turned my head to the door to see EJ leaning against my door frame, eating the pizza I left for him.

,,When did you come home?'' I asked while placing the ukulele on the floor. He walked towards me and sat on the edge of my mattress.

,,5 minutes ago but stop trying to change the subject. The song is for Ricky right?''

I just nodded, looking at my hands.

,,It's cute.''

,,What?'' I asked and looked up.

,,The song. It's cute. I mean I don't really support the idea of you and him together, you know that but I like the song.''

,,Thank you and don't worry EJ, him and me? That won't happen. He's still in love with Nini.'' I responded with a sad smile.

,,I know this may sound really awful but maybe it's just not meant to be.''

Maybe he was right. Maybe the universe wanted to show me that it just wasn't meant to be. That I was chasing a dream. Ricky was so in love with Nini and to be honest I wasn't surprised. Nini was such a sweet and gorgeous girl, always have been. It's so easy to fall in love with her. No wonder my brother did.

I nodded and the only word that left my mouth was:,,Maybe.''

EJ flashed me a smile, patted my shoulder and left the bedroom. I sighed and my head hit the pillow.

The next day was pretty much uneventful.

Ok maybe that's a lie. I did catch Nini spying on Carlos and Ricky in the library. That's a good thing right?

When I opened the door to the auditorium, everything was silent. But as soon as the door closed and I leaned my back on the wall, someone started playing the piano. The curiosity got the best of me and I walked up the stage to see who was playing the wonderful melody. I was quite surprised to discover Ashlyn sitting in front of the piano, pressing the keys softly.

,,Oh hi.'' was the first thing she said when she noticed my presence.

,,Hi. I didn't know anyone was in here.'' I answered looking at my cousin, who took her hands off the piano keys.

,,I can be gone in like 7 seconds. Six if I don't zip my bag.'' She replied as she started to throw her things into her bag.

,,No, Ash. Don't go. What was that?''

,,What was what?'' she asked and stopped packing her things.

,,The song you were just playing.''

,,Oh that. Miss Jenn asked me to compose a song for my character. It's probably way too much.'' she explained and grabbed the notes out of her bag again. I just nodded and listen to her ramble. I didn't really know why she was so nervous.

,,Why don't you play me some more of your song?'' I asked and sat down beside her. Ashlyn nodded and started playing the same melody I heard when the door closed.

,,Seems like a part of me will always have to lose.'' She began, her eyes watching her fingers which were pressing down the piano keys.

,,Every single time I have to choose

Swore that it felt right, but was I wrong?

Is this where I'm supposed to be at all?

I don't have the answers, not today

It's like nothing makes the questions go away

What I'd give to see If the grass was greener

On the other side

Of all I've had and lost

Would it be enough

Or would I still be wondering?'' she sang, her eyes still trained on the piano.

,,If I could go back and change the past

Be a little braver than I had

And bet against the odds

Would I still be lost?

Even if I woke up in my dreams

Would there still be something I'm missing?

If I had everything Would it mean anything?''

I looked at her in awe. I never really heard Ashlyn sing like that before and she had so much talent. She turned her gaze to me for a second, implying to sing with her. I smiled and turned my attention to the little sheet of paper in front of me.

,,Maybe I should turn around and take the other road

Or maybe I'm just looking for what I already know.'' we sang together, smiling after realizing that we hit every note in perfect harmony.

,,I'm just wondering...

It feels like I might have broke the best thing that I had.'' I sang alone and at that exact moment, Ricky slowly walked in. We didn't notice though. We were to caught up in our own little moment.

,,I said too much to ever take it back

I'm scared I'll never find something as good

And would I even know it if I could?'' I vocalized the verse Ashlyn wrote so flawlessly.

,,If I could go back and change the past

Be a little braver than I had

And bet against the odds

Would I still be lost?

Even if I woke up in my dreams

Would there still be something I'm missing

If I had everything

Would it mean anything.'' we both sang again.

,,To me?'' I finished and smiled. My smile fell as soon as I saw Ricky standing in the room.

,,Uh...We're back.'' he stuttered and looked at us with semi-wide eyes.

,,What?'' I asked quietly.

,,Downstairs.'' the curly-haired boy answered and shook his head slightly which made his curls bounce a little.

,,Miss Jenn wants to see everyone in the bomb shelter.'' he finished and left without saying another word. I looked at Ashlyn and she just shrugged before she got up and packed her things. Me being the incredible cousin I am, I waited for her.

When we arrived downstairs the whole theater group was building a small circle around the blonde drama teacher who had a huge carton in front of her.

,,Here it is, people.'' Miss Jenn breathed out, holding a small device in her hands.

,,Is that a garage-door opener?'' Seb asked as he looked at the small object in front of him.

,,No, Seb. This is Gabriella's Phone. From the film.''

A few students gasped.

,,I plan on creating a time-capsule display in our lobby. If they can have 40 sports-ball trophies, we deserve a little movie museum.'' the teacher explained, holding up the phone so everyone could see.

,,Okay, people, enough dazzle. Fetch your scripts please. Places for the top of the ski lodge!''

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weekendwarriorblog · 3 years

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The Weekend Warrior 8/20/21 - REMINISCENCE, PAW PATROL: THE MOVIE, THE PROTÉGÉ, THE NIGHT HOUSE, FLAG DAY, DEMONIC and More

Ugh.

Apparently, we have four or five new wide releases this weekend, just as we get into what I always lovingly referred to as “The Dog Days of Summer.” Thanks to COVID, that could be referring to almost every weekend this summer, but it definitely becomes more true as we get to the end of summer as many kids are returning to school, some of them wearing masks, others social-distancing, some just getting us closer to the herd immunity we were always heading towards… ha ha… that’s one way to see if anyone is even reading this column. Get Political!!

Presumably, the widest release this weekend will be the sci-fi noir, REMINISCENCE (Warner Bros.), starring Hugh Jackman, Thandiwe Newton, and Rebecca Ferguson, which is the feature directorial debut by Lisa Joy, the co-creator of HBO’s popular series, Westworld. Like The Suicide Squad, In the Heights, and every other Warner Bros. movie this year, Reminiscence will be released concurrently on HBO Max this Friday. Unlike any of those other movies, I honestly don’t think anyone will give a shit about getting off their asses to risk COVID in order to see this. And I say that a.) without having seen it; b.) knowing almost nothing about it; c.) not believing the poppycock that movie theaters are the death traps some claim; and d.) I already have a ticket to see it on Friday.

In fact, I almost feel like I shouldn’t do a lot of research into what this movie is about, because despite having seen the trailer a few times, I still have no idea. All I know is that it stars Hugh Jackman, and it’s science-fiction, and that’s enough for me! (I haven’t even watched that much of Westworld beyond the first season for no other reason except that I haven’t.) The plot according to IMDB is, “A scientist discovers a way to relive your past and uses the technology to search for his long lost love.” Good enough for me.

Okay, then, so basically it sounds like a Christopher Nolan movie like Tenet or Inception from a lesser-known director -- who also happens to be Nolan’s sister-in-law, because she’s married to the other Westworld co-creator Jonathan Nolan. See how Hollywood works?

Because of all the Nolan connections, maybe we need to look at something like Transcendence, the 2014 sci-fi thriller directed by Nolan DP Wally Pfister, which starred Johnny Depp, Rebecca Hall (coincidentally), and Paul Bettany. The movie opened in mid-April (a known dumping ground) to about $10.9 million in 3,455 theaters, and then tanked, making just $23 million domestically. (It made about $80 million overseas.) The fact that the title Reminiscence bears more similarity to Pfister’s movie brings another level of foreboding.

At the time, Depp hadn’t completely destroyed his career, and he still had a few bit hits under his belt, including Into the Woods and his final Pirates of the Caribbean movie in 2017, as well as Murder on the Orient Express. Jackman, on the other hand, is still in a better place career-wise, although he still owes much of his career to playing Wolverine in the X-Men movies for nearly two decades. He’s had one significant hit since Logan’s swan song, fittingly enough in 2017’s Logan, which grossed $226.3 million domestically. That was the PT Barnum musical, The Greatest Showman, which made $174.3 million over the holidays that same year, and that really centered around Jackman as a leading man. His next movie, the Gary Hart movie, The Front Runner, didn’t fare very well (less than $2 million gross), nor did the animated Missing Link, although the latter did get an Oscar nomination. The question is whether Jackman can do much to get moviegoers into an original science fiction movie with his mere presence.

Even the rest of the cast that includes Ferguson from Tom Cruise’s Mission: Impossible movies, Newton from… well, another one of Tom Cruise’s Mission: Impossible movies, and Daniel Wu from the series Into the Badlands and the most recent Tomb Raider movie. Again, take these three out of a franchise and who knows if there’s really much left?

I’m not even sure how many theaters Warner Bros. is releasing… sorry, I hate spelling out the title of this movie… into, but I have a feeling it won’t be that much more than 3,000, especially with the movie being readily available on HBO Max and all the week’s other movies being theatrical only.

Because of that, I’m very dubious about this movie making $10 million this weekend. In fact, I’m not even sure it can make $8 million this weekend. No, I’m probably going to go closer to $6 to 7 million on this, and even that might be overly optimistic.

Unfortunately, I wasn't able to see Reminiscence in advance, so we'll just have to see what other critics who see it think about it. I’m not really expecting it to get too many good reviews, since it seems like the kind of movie that critics go to see begrudgingly, because they were assigned to see it, more than having any interest in it. And I was right.

On the other hand, I’ve already been seeing rave reviews about the animated PAW PATROL: THE MOVIE (Paramount), which I also haven’t seen, and in fact, I can guarantee that I will never see it. Why? Because I don’t have kids. Nor will I ever have kids. Nor do I know anything about this other than it’s about police dogs?

In fact, opening in 2,700 theaters, I wouldn’t be surprised if this rare G-rated movie ends up winning the weekend, or at least comes in second to Free Guy, despite many kids being back in school, kids being unvaccinated and more likely to get COVID by going to movie theaters, etc. etc.

If you can’t tell, I’m writing this while on a mini-vacation and I’m kind of in a “I just don’t give a shit” kind of mood right now, but as I said, I don’t have kids, and the only reason I know what “Paw Patrol” is because the people I know who have kids seem to know of the movie’s existence. Maybe even some of them will take their kids to see it or at least wait until it’s on Paramount+, which you know is coming.

I’m going with this making somewhere around $8 million this weekend, taking second place behind Free Guy, which should continue to do well with little other direct competition.

On the other, other hand (I have three arms, you know), I have had a chance to see the action flick, THE PROTÉGÉ (Lionsgate), directed by Martin Campbell of Casino Royale acclaim and Green Lantern… what’s the opposite of acclaim? That.

The movie stars Samuel L. Jackson and Michael Keaton, but more importantly, it stars… the awesome Maggie Q from Mission: Impossible III! (See a pattern in this week’s Weekend Warrior?) Most will probably know Ms. Q from her run as Nikita on the show of the same name, and she’s definitely back in that mode for this action-thriller in which she plays an assassin looking for the killer of her mentor (Jackson) which puts her at odds with another assassin, played by Keaton. I loved the fact that Maggie appeared in three very different movies last year from Sony/Blumhouse’s Fantasy Island and two other movies that ended up going to VOD, but the former of these shamefully opened with just $12.3 million over Valentine’s weekend and then it quickly got destroyed, first by the release of Blumhouse’s The Invisible Man in its third weekend and then by COVID, because theaters shut down in its fourth weekend. It made less than $50 million worldwide, which is a shame, because I actually liked it.

This is another case where I don’t know how many theaters it’s getting, although I do know reviews are embargoed until sometime Thursday evening, which is never a good sign, and actually, I can’t even tell you if I liked it or hated it until then, so… I guess we’ll have to go blind on this one, assuming Lionsgate will dump it into around 2,300 theaters with very little promotion. Even though action has been faring well this year, I have a feeling this will struggle to make $3 million this weekend.

Mini-Review: As I’ve probably mentioned, I love Maggie Q whenever she’s in any movie, but she’s particularly good in this sort of action role that requires a little more of a dramatic touch than we’d normally get from a man in this type of role. Sure, we can be slightly worried when there’s a movie with a female lead both written and directed by men, and some of those worries are founded, but Ms. Q always finds a way to bring more to her roles, and that’s the case here as well.

The general plot is that her Anna is an assassin and when her mentor Moody (Jackson) is murdered, she sets out to find his killer or killers, which brings her back to Vietnam where she runs headlong into another known as Rembrandt, played by Michael Keaton. At the same time, Moody has set Anna on a mission to find a boy whose father was assassinated 30 years earlier, as she learns that the two things are connected.

Written by Richard Wenk, who has quite a bit of experience with this sort of action movie, having written Denzel’s The Equalizer movies, as well as a few of The Expendables movies, he gives the movie enough story and characterization to separate it from the normal trashy action movie where that stuff isn’t important. For instance, giving Maggie’s Anna a full backstory with Samuel L. Jackson’s Moody, her blues guitar-playing mentor, or having her be interested in books and running a bookstore.

Unfortunately, the movie is kind of erratic, comical sometimes but deadly serious for the most part and the flirtatious relationship between Anna and Keaton’s character leads to some super cringe-worthy moments. While the action and fight choreography is pretty solid, the fact that 69-year-old Keaton doesn’t seem to be doing much of the actual fighting is a little too obvious. (Is he trying to be Liam Neeson now?) The way the violent fighting leads the two of them into bed also feels problematic. I generally abhor any sort of violence against women, but at least Maggie Q makes her character look super-tough and able to handle anything.

I wasn’t as keen on the film’s multiple twists in the ending or the flashback to Anna’s past, which seems to come far too late in the movie. In general, women are going to HATE this movie and I know exactly why, but men will probably enjoy it for just as many obvious reasons. All-in-all, it’s not a terrible throwback action movie that only sometimes goes off the rails. Rating: 6.5/10

Next, we have another highly-acclaimed horror film that played back at the Sundance Film Festival back in 2020 (like the recent Nine Days) with David (The Ritual) Bruckner’s THE NIGHT HOUSE (Searchlight Pictures), starring Rebecca Hall as Beth, a teacher whose husband Owen shot himself but not after designing and building their house on the lake. Shortly afterwards, weird things start happening and Beth thinks the house is haunting, but then she discovers a mysterious mirror image on the other side of the lake, and things start getting even weirder.

Definitely don’t want to say too much about this, because whether you like it or not might rely on whether you like the twist(s) in the movie, and I’m not sure that average moviegoers will like them as much as the type of person that goes to the Sundance Film Festival.

Hall is one of my favorite actors, because I feel she can do anything but she’s also very underrated. I mean, she can play a role in Iron Man 3 (one of the best things about that movie) or a movie like Transcendence (mentioned above) or Godzilla vs. King Kong or do comedy like ...um… Holmes and Watson, if anyone would consider that “comedy.” What she hasn’t been able to do is really get people out to theaters with her presence, although one of her more successful non-Marvel movies was Joel Edgerton’s The Gift, and she’s done a couple other good thrillers.

On top of that, the movie is still sitting pretty with 90% on Rotten Tomatoes, which makes one wonder if Sundance buzz is able to transcend the 20-month gap since a movie’s premiere, and Nine Days seems to say otherwise. Another thing going in The Night House’s favor is that there’s been quite a bit of horror movies in recent months, which means this trailer has played in front of a lot of them.

I’m not really sure why Searchlight didn’t put this concurrently on their streaming partner Hulu, but maybe they’re giving theatrical another chance even with COVID still being a concern to many, but maybe not the fan of horror who might want a little escapism. This is only opening in about 2,000 theaters, and I think that might make it tough for it to make more than $3 or 4 million.

Mini-Review: Like with Maggie Q above, Rebecca Hall is an actress who I honestly think can do no wrong. Therefore, David Bruckner’s thriller might already have a bit of an advantage, because I assumed (correctly) that this movie will feature a lot of the filmmaker’s camera trained on her at all times capturing her every emotion, every fear and facial twitch.

As mentioned above, I don’t want to say too much about the plot beyond what you can easily watch in the trailer, but this is only partially the movie you might be expecting. Sure, there’s a good amount of eerie creepiness as Hall’s character tries to find whatever is haunting her house after her husband’s suicide, as well as discovering the identical house that may or may not be in a dream. (It's that kind of movie.)

Much of the film is kind of slow and mopey, and even funny in a weird way, since Hall’s character seems to be going crazy and her behavior (and performance) is quite erratic because of it. Think of it a bit as if you can imagine Hall going into crazy Nicholas Cage moments over the course of the movie or acting that way towards her friends, including Sarah Goldberg’s Claire, who always seems to be saying the wrong thing around her BFF.

One of the things that tends to work about Bruckner’s film is that you’re never quite sure what exactly is happening, but it keeps you interested enough to want to know where it might be going. The other great thing that works even moreso is the film’s amazing score and sound design that helps to keep the viewer on edge through all of the film’s ups and downs.

As the film went along, I presumed correctly that there would probably be some sort of semi-inane M. Night Shyamalan twist, and in some ways, I was right. I certainly didn’t hate the twist when it showed up (or the second or third twist), but I know plenty of fans of more straight-ahead (translation: bad) horror that might be thrown off and even perturbed by so many twists.

The Night House may ultimately be too smart or clever for its own good, since it’s being sold as a straight-ahead ghost story with the twist of this mirror house, but that’s really something that’s very much only on the surface. Any problems with the movie are countered by the fact that Hall is just so good at selling its strange concept.

Rating: 7/10

Lastly, there’s Sean Penn’s film FLAG DAY (MGM), which may or may not get a wide release -- I'm going to guess not, but just in case it does, I might try to figure out how it might do. It tells the story of lifelong criminal and con-man Jon Vogel (Penn) as seen through the eyes of his journalist daughter Jessica (Penn's daughter, Dylan Penn). Based on Jessica Vogel's book "Flim-Flam Man: The True Story of My Father’s Counterfeit Life,” the movie covers Jessica's entire life from when her father left her and her brother Nick (played later by Hopper Penn) and mother Patty (Kathryn Winnick) through her own troubled life to when she takes back her life to succeed as a journalist. Also starring Josh Brolin, Dale Dickey, Regina King (blink and you'll miss her), Eddie Marsan and more, it's opening on Friday.

Without knowing whether Flag Day actually is getting any sort of wide release or will just be put into a few hundred theaters, but as you'll read in my review below, it's a very strange movie for MGM (or rather, United Artists Releasing) to have picked up before it premiered at Cannes, because it's just not that great, and it certainly isn't something that might do well in a wide release. Even if somehow MGM gets this movie into 1,000 theaters this weekend, I’m not convinced it can make a million dollars, because I just don’t think many if any people really know about it. Maybe it didn’t turn out to be the awards contender MGM hoped to release it later in the year, but it’s also strange for it to be opening a week after Respect, which I expect to do quite well in its second weekend. I’m just going to assume this will be in a few hundred theaters, and that’s about it.

Mini-Review: I really didn't know much about this movie going into it, other than the fact that it was directed by Penn, co-starred his daughter Dylan, as well as his son, Hopper. (Okay, maybe I didn’t know that last part.) What I didn’t know was that it was about a notorious counterfeiter named Jon Vogel, as seen through the eyes of his journalist daughter Jessica, and as with most of these type of memoir adaptations, it’s only going to be as interesting as how the story is told.

Penn has proven himself to be a decent filmmaker and storyteller, but here, he’s going for something arty that’s almost Terrence Malick-like at times, but needlessly so, because it just feels like he’s trying to make up for the flaws in the story by throwing in things like shaky camera work, overusing voice-over narrative and frequently leans on its soundtrack to try to make up for the weak storytelling.

On the other hand, if Penn was trying to create a great showcase for his daughter Dylan, Flag Day does a great job doing just that, and when you first see her on screen, you might be thrown off by how much she looks like her mother Robin Wright when she was much younger. It’s somewhat interesting to note that Sean Penn has never appeared in a movie he directed, which is only odd because you would think that being in scenes with other actors would make it easier to direct them. (I learned that from Jason Bateman, oddly.) In fact, the very best moments in Flag Day are those between Penn and his daughter, although there's still a lot of overacting and melodrama.

Honestly, I’ve met people like Jon Vogel, who are just constantly trying to make money however they can without worrying about who they hurt with their dishonesty. Because of this, I couldn’t fully get behind the father-daughter aspect of the story vs. just being interested in Jessica’s own personal growth.

In other words, maybe Flag Day should have been prefaced by "Based on a Dull Story,” because it just never really connected with me even though there were a scattered few moments that worked.

Rating: 5/10

Presuming that Flag Day isn’t going nationwide into over 500 theaters (and even if it does, it won’t be in the Top 10), here’s what the Top 10 should look like.

1. Free Guy (20th Century/Disney) - $15 million -47%

2. Paw Patrol: The Movie (Paramount) - $8.4 million N/A

3. Reminiscence (Warner Bros.) - $6.2 million N/A

4. Jungle Cruise (Walt Disney Pictures) - $5 million -45%

4. Respect (MGM) - $4.8 million -45%

5. Don’t Breathe 2 (Sony/Screen Gems) - $4.6 million -57%

7. The Night House (Searchlight) - $3.3 million N/A

8. The Suicide Squad (Warner Bros.) - $3.2 million -57%

9. The Protege (Lionsgate) - $2.6 million N/A

10. Old (Universal) - $1.4 million -41%

District 9 director Neil Blomkamp returns with the horror film, DEMONIC (IFC Midnight), in which Carly Pope plays Carly Spenser, who learns her estranged mother Angela (Nathalie Boltt) who disappeared years earlier is now in a coma, although new technology has been created as therapy that will allow Carly to enter her mother's brain and communicate with her. What could possibly go wrong? I mean, read the title and take one effin’ guess.

I went into this one fairly hopeful that maybe Blomkamp had figured out a way of getting out of director’s jail after the last few duds by essentially going the M. Night Shyamalan route i.e. making a super low-budget horror movie without stars that can let him show people that District 9 wasn’t a fluke. But unfortunately, kids, Demonic does the exact opposite, because it’s one of those horrible high concept tech-driven horror movies (not unlike the Blumhouse model) that gets so bogged down in a premise that should thrive on its simplicity that it just fails to keep the viewer entertained, let alone scared.

As soon as Carly enters the mindscape that is her mother’s brain, you know you’re in trouble, because it looks like a scratched DVD or an old video game that’s gotten dirty and is now skipping or crashing just as you’re almost past the hardest level. Yeah, it’s that kind of movie, and after Carly’s first horrific experience in her mother’s brain -- I mean, just writing that and knowing my own mother makes this a scary idea -- you wonder why she’d go back and do it again.

On top of that, there’s just so much exposition with Carly talking about her mother’s disappearance, but before you can get bored, something weird happens like her best friend turns into some weird creature and gets pulled into the mix of whatever is possessing Carly’s mother. I won’t say too much more, because like with The Night House above, you shouldn’t know too much. Unlike that movie, as you learn more, you become more annoyed with the whole idea.

Then on top of that, Pope just isn’t a particularly dynamic actress, so she does little to elevate the weak material, and when her dumb-ass BFF shows up at 3 in the morning, the banter between them is so cringeworthy, you might wonder who wrote this crap. (Surprise: Blomkamp did, so he can’t even blame how bad this movie is on the script.) There’s also what looks like a scary chicken, which just makes the whole thing more laughable than scary.

Demonic is a truly awful movie, taking Blomkamp further down the spiral of a filmmaker that was obviously a one-trick pony and doesn’t seem to be able to prove otherwise.

Rating: 4/10

Now available on digital is Gracie Otto’s documentary, UNDER THE VOLCANO (Universal Pictures Content Group), which premiered at the SXSW Film Festival in March, and I absolutely loved it, though that shouldn’t be too much of a surprise to anyone who knows about my background working in recording studios. The doc is in fact about the Air Studios Montserrat that the late Sir George Martin built in the Caribbean in the ‘70s where some amazing artists like The Police, Duran Duran, Mark Knopfler and others recorded some of the classic rock records of the ‘80s. Of course, like the movie Rockfield: The Studio on the Farm about Rockfield Studios in Wales, I’m a complete suck for these movies about legendary recording studios where great music was recorded, because it feeds one of my primary interests in life: music and specifically the history of rock music. I’m actually going to have an interview with the filmmakers over at Below the Line sometime soon, so you can read a lot more about the movie then.

Because I was away this weekend, I wasn't able to get to any of these. Sorry, publicists!

ON BROADWAY (Kino Lorber) MA BELLE, MY BEAUTY (Good Deed Entertainment) BARBARA LEE: SPEAKING TRUTH TO POWER (Greenwich) CONFETTI (Dada Filims) CRYPTOZOO (Magnolia) COLLUSIONS (Vertical) Next week, we're back to just a single new wide release -- thank you, God! -- and it's the Universal/Blumhouse remake of the cult horror classic, CANDYMAN.

Incidentally, I couldn’t write this column weekly without the fantastic data found at The-Numbers.com. The site continues to maintain one of the best box office databases on the internet, and I appreciate that being available to us.

#The Weekend Warrior #Reminiscence #Paw Patrol #Flag Day #The Night House #Demonic #The Protege #Movies #Reviews #box office

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dasirunrunrun · 7 years

Text

Good Grief - Chapter 3

Jungkook makes a habit of showing up drunk to a nearby flower shop. Bad puns and fluffy pining ensue.

Or, a college!au in which BTS are all frat boys, Namjoon is a science club president,Jimin just wants a good party, and Jungkook is hopelessly fascinated by the girl who takes care of flowers in her free time.

author's note: aaaand we’re back folks, with chapter three! it get’s a little dramatic this time around, so just a fair warning!! i hope you enjoy it, and once again comments, tips, and critiques are all appreciated!!

disclaimer: all mentions of the university in this fic are purely pulled from my ass— I don't claim to know anything on a deep, spiritual level about university clubs, classes or frat parties. Side characters, that aren't specifically Bangtan Members™, are all made up and therefor fictional .

words: 5k

If you’d prefer reading on AO3 the link is here

I glanced up at the seemingly endless stacks of write-ins, wishing for them to somehow disappear before my eyes. It was chaos in the offices of the News Club. Almost straight after the Fraternity article had been released, there had been letters upon letters of indignant students. Most of them claiming that the article was unjust: an uncalled for attack on Fraternities. Others had deeper questions— wanting to know which House specifically could be held responsible. In other words: it was a fucking mess. Mary, though, having been the main editor and writer of it: was taking most of the heat. And it was quite obvious, with her wearisome behavior as of late.

Mary skidded into the room - weary eyes jumping to every object seen. “El, I’m so sorry.” She sounded panicky, a signal to the rest of the club that she was close to self destruction.

“Mary-” I tried to cut in, using my softest voice, but she wasn't’ having any of it. Instead, she only started bustling around the room more, doing nothing productive, but still working around.

“We’ve definitely lost her, boss.” Jona’s solemn voice cut in, and when I turned to look at him: he was hosting the biggest shit eating grin. “Call her Leo Dicaprio because this girl's sinkin-”

“That’s enough, Jona.” I interrupted, watching as he tried, unsuccessfully, to wipe to pestering grin off his face. He leaned his hand back for Finn to give it an appreciative smack. And once again in my editing career, I wondered if those two possessed any sympathy at all.

Mary continued to bustle around- picking up a letter, cringing, and then repeating with another as she tried to open every single one.

“I should've never suggested this stupid article. I've put the news club in lots of trouble, oh have I ever.” Mary was babbling, hands shaking as she opened letter after letter. I watched hopelessly, letting out little sounds of interruption here and there. Any time she got a little too self degrading. Mary blamed herself for the backlash of the article, though in truth, every member played a part in publishing it. Not that Mary would ever recognize that. The thing was, when Mary went into panic mode, there was no stopping her. She put everything on herself, and tended to cut everyone out. That is, except for Seokjin. He was, seemingly, the only one who could calm her down.

I threw my rubber band ball at the side of Seokjin’s head, causing him to glance at me — looking a little betrayed. I raised an eyebrow back at Seokjin, and mouthed the words ‘go help, dickwit’ at his passive face.

Seokjin gave a secretive smile, and raised his hands in defeat as he moved towards the other girl. I took in the scene, watching as he rested a calming hand on Mary’s shoulder, before mumbling something softly to her. Probably - ‘follow me’ since the two of them left the room, shortly after.

Finn gave out a low whistle— and I turned my attention towards the noise, already ready to bully him back into place. “I don’t want to say it but —” He glanced over at Jona, who returned a shrug, to which Finn also shrugged back. The two of them sat shrugging back and forth at each other for a good minute, Jona’s face passive, while Finn looked scandalized.

“Boys, please.” It was no time for me to be cracking up at their strange antics, even though they looked so funny. “Start helping with some of these letters.”

Finn broke off in a light, breathy chuckle, while Jona remained a passive face- clearly acting still for the jokes. “C’mon, Cobra Commander, it is her fault.” He sounded set in his opinion. “It was her idea in the first place- we all told her it was a bad one.” He cleared his throat. “Which is why she should be the one to deal with these letters.”

Jona gave an agreeing nod, his face finally normal, if not a little serious.

I raised an eyebrow at the two boys, more disappointed than anything else. “You’re going to blame her?” Even I could hear the beginnings of venomous anger seeping into my voice, which explained why both of the boys held such defensive poses now. “When you two were the ones urging her to turn it into the drama piece it became?!”

“No one told her to go around attacking random people,” Jona’s own irritated voice shot back at me. “Honestly, it’s no wonder she’s made some enemies, she basically defamed the most popular boy at our university - with no hard truth. Or have you forgotten about this?” He tossed the latest print my way, a paragraph dedicated to one singular person highlighted in bright yellow.

Though one boy stands out from the rest, Jeon Jungkook, member of the Sigma Chi fraternity. Who has made a rather wondrous show of partying ,not only on weekends, but throughout the week as well. Going as far to even skip classes. And seeing as though he is, somewhat, of a celebrity at our school- its no wonder that he’d be the one to start this binge drinking trend...

I closed my eyes, pinching the bridge of my nose with one hand. This part Mary had done solely on her own, without even consulting anyone on the team before publishing. A real shocker to us when we found out. She had been rather upset with how Jungkook had acted at the interview, and even more put off by how easily affected she was by his looks. Basically it was an unwarranted vendetta.

When Finn spoke again, it was in a much more diluted tone, his voice only holding confusion. “So tell me why we should be responsible for her mess.”

I glanced up and swallowed the insults that wanted to fly out of my mouth. Collecting my things in my arms, I stood up and moved towards the door, trying to think clearly with all the emotions running rampant in my head.

“Boss-”

I couldn’t make out who had called after me, didn’t have the energy to find out either. “When you can tell me why you should defend a friend,” I shook my head, unable to comprehend it, “then I’ll come back.” I glanced back at the two of them - expressions open. “I mean, really, you two act like you’ve never made a mistake before.” Without waiting for a response, I opened the door and left for the library.

track: there’s nothing holdin’ me back - shawn mendes

Walking to the library was, in normal circumstances, an enjoyable route where I could spend the time in my thoughts, but now- with the absolute lack of anything to take my mind off the situation: it made me cringe to arrive at the library with absolutely no plan in mind.

Normally, this was my time to be studying with Namjoon. Or, moreover, getting tutored. Kim Namjoon was a Senior, and head of the Science Club, but he was also my savior. He had tutored me in almost every science course that I struggled in (which was most of them), and for a cheap price too. A true angel sent from god.

I had canceled our usual session in favor of the “Newspaper Club emergency meeting”, but standing here now, I wished desperately that I could call Namjoon back and beg him to give me the original tutor session. I sighed deeply, moving through the rows of empty desks - lined by bookshelves. The school library was massive; extending three floors, each with study sections. In my first year of university I used to pretend the library belonged to Hogwarts - and that I was in some sort of wizarding school.

The memories pulled a light smile onto my lips, making me wish to be back in the beginning again. I quickly pulled open my books, not wanting to get distracted by the nostalgia that clung onto my thoughts.

Studying Chemistry even with a tutor was difficult. Studying Chemistry by myself made me want to fling myself into the endless abyss of space. Nothing made sense. Nothing. I stared at the equations, uselessly, cursing the College planners for making this a “core” subject. When was I ever going to need to balance an equation while filming movies? My head hurt, and the endless sets of letters and numbers that stood before me didn’t help.

“Ugh,” I dropped my head uselessly onto the desk in front of me, feeling like death would be a more welcome addition to this day. There were four beats, four beats, of holy silence. Right until the chair beside mine squeaked against the floor; indicating that someone had occupied the place next to me. Right next to me. Out of all the empty chairs in the room, this one. How tragic.

I probably could've lifted my head, probably should've, but no part of me wanted to show my face to anyone. So I hoped, that whoever was next to me, wasn't offended by my lack of acknowledgement.

“Having a rough go of it?” A familiar drawl came from the ‘intruder of personal space.’

I almost wanted to groan at how obvious my life seemed to playing out. I lifted my head slightly, resting my chin on my arm, to look at Jungkook. He seemed to be mirroring my position - head resting against his bent arm, his hair fluffy, looking masterfully disheveled. Somehow, he always managed to look like the personified version of a god. I wanted to smack him for it.

“So is that what you do? Trash someone in an article and then nap off the bad feelings?” He held a smile, looking like the concept was hilarious— but his words made me cringe, and Jungkook took definite noticed of my distaste.

“Jungkook—” I tried to start but when I returned my sight back to him, he was fixing me with such a concentrated look that I immediately felt uncomfortable. I sat up abruptly, and somehow he took this as an invitation to invade my personal space. Because, moments later, he leaned in- ridiculously close to me.

Basically stretched across my lap, with elbows resting on the desk, Jungkook was peering down at my chemistry book with a look of intense interest. Or at least, I assumed, considering all I had a glimpse of was the back of his head.

“All your equations are unbalanced.” He commented, voice sounding much more like a professor than the frat boy. “Did you even try to correctly place co-efficients?” I flushed, the feeling of being in a ‘classroom setting’ hitting me like a brick. I couldn't see his face, but I could only imagine what type of incredulity it held. I wanted to burrow further into my sweater. I wanted to retort back, sneer that he probably knew less than I did. But I was far too concerned with the proximity between us to do anything of that sort.

He pulled back— far enough to finally be out of my lap, but still close enough where I could see the light golden flecks that swam in his dark eyes. “Are you studying? Or making John Dalton roll in his grave?” His voice was low even though it held only amusement, for some reason it sent shivers up my arms. It was a mystery to the world how he made bullying attractive.

His eyes still held that full intensity, and it was oddly both intimidating and flattering to have his full attention directed at me. “Eh..” I gave a light shrug, watching Jungkook’s eyes follow the movements like a sniper trained on it’s target. “Why aren't you mad?” The words that chose to came out my mouth were definitely tension breakers, which is what I needed right now. And they definitely threw the boy off.

I took in the switch of emotions on Jungkook’s face— his eyes changing like the seasons in front of me. A look of indignation snapped on his face at last, making me wonder how he could always remain combative. “Trust me, I am thoroughly enraged by the travesty of your Cobalt and Carbon Monoxide-”

I scoffed, slamming my hand lightly on the desk, “The article, Jungkook.”

He tilted his head at me, his face finally dropping the act of “rage” and landing on something along the lines of soft. “Why would I be mad?” he rested his chin on his hand, brown eyes searching mine. “You didn’t write that.”

“Yes but I aided in that.”

His lips quirked into a smile, and my stomach flopped. “Your reaction right now is telling me you wish you hadn’t.”

I swallowed, feeling completely outspoken, stuck wondering why I had even tried.

He started at me for a while, and I back. There was absolutely no way to tell what was going on inside of his head. My thoughts were running wild, yelling at me to say something, say anything. But I felt like any words I could spout out were inadequate. How do you apologize to someone for basically trashing their reputation? “Tell me what do to make up for it.”

Maybe it was my imagination, but I thought I saw a flicker of surprise flash across his face, for only a split second. Although, I couldn’t be sure, because right after he was fixing me with an amused grin. “One question?”

I spluttered, thrown off. “What?”

“Let me ask one question?” He was watching me intently, like I was some endangered animal that needed cautious wording.

I nodded, preparing myself for the worst - what kind of monster are you? Was this your plan all along? Who else have you potentially def-

“What’s in your bag?” His real question caught me off guard, and I followed his line of vision to where he was staring right at my film bag.

I shuffled a bit, uncomfortable and suddenly embarrassed. “My camera, equipment, and stuff.”

“What do you need that for?”

The genuine curiosity in his voice is what made my shoulders loosen, he didn't seem mocking or berating. Or any sort of teasing. His face held genuine interest, and it made me warm up instantly. “I'm a film major— well, film production major.”

Jungkook’s eyes rounded comically, and he glanced back at me with a sort of amazed wonder. “So you're going to make movies and stuff—”

I let out a little gasp of a laugh, trying not to associate him with my brothers when he seemed to mirroring them exactly. Young, naive. “I want to tell stories. Make people feel something.” I shrugged, looking around the library and realizing that we really seemed to be the only two on this level. “So, yeah.”

Jungkook nodded, seemingly understanding exactly what I was talking about. I had no idea what this was, I hadn’t ever said more than ten words in one setting with the boy, and now here I was sharing my life goals and aspirations as if we were childhood best friends.

I moved my attention back to my books, also realizing that this was the first time Jungkook had ever appeared somewhat serious around me. It was unnerving, and as much as I disliked his ever present amusement: I was suddenly wishing for it back. I started packing my books, and I could practically feel Jungkook’s curious gaze boring into the side of my face.

“I actually have a shoot today- filming,” I had no idea why I started giving the explanation, it was just- something about leaving Jungkook staring and confused that made me feel unsettled. “For my spring project.” I glanced outside the window, taking in the grey clouds- heavy indicators that it was going to rain not too long from now.

Jungkook seemed to be on the same page, because when I looked back at him he held a comical smile on his face. “In the mood for ruining your equipment?” The sarcasm was back, and I couldn’t stop my eyebrow from raising at him disinterestedly. My response seemed to tempt him more, because the smile on his lips tilted higher. “Gonna get some good shots of those rain puddles?”

I shoved my books into my book bag, quickly zipping it up and picking up my things in one swift motion. Deciding quickly that it would be better to keep my mouth shut and temper in check. When I glanced back at Jungkook he raised an eyebrow back at me. I opened my mouth to say something, anything. Another apology, or just yell at him for always being a shit head, but the only thing that came out was: “I'll see you around.”

“I'm just messing with you— you know that?” Jungkook's response made me whip around, and the humor that was on his face had dimmed a little bit. It made my stomach drop. I didn't want him to think he couldn't joke around, normally I would've chastised him for it, but at the moment I felt wrong about doing anything that could potentially be considered unpleasant to him.

I threw back my heartiest smile— hoping it seemed real rather than forced. “Have you gone soft on me, Jungkook?”

I didn't wait for the response, just quickly turned away towards the stairs and the exit.

track: believe - mumford and sons

The second I stepped outside a crack of thunder rang in the sky. I gave a small shiver of fright, hoping desperately that I wouldn’t get caught in the storm. I had given Jungkook the quick excuse of a “filming shoot”, when in reality I just wanted to be home when the storm hit. I had a crippling fear of storms- something I’d brought with me from my childhood.

The walk to the bus stop wasn’t long, only 20 minutes, but it felt like years under the dark, intimidating clouds. I walked quicker, wishing now more than ever to be able to apparate like a wizard from Harry Potter. The second whip of thunder had me frozen in place, and it was just then that the rain started.

My whole body gave a full shudder under the coldness of the rain, and I willed my legs to pick up the pace again.

At the third indication of thunder I couldn’t will myself any further. There was a strange sensation in my body: utter and hopeless fear. It was almost as if some invisible rope had tied itself around my legs.

A sleek, black buick pulled up to the side of the road,and I turned my attention quickly away from the driver, hoping that they would just continue to drive rather than look my way. In the background I could faintly hear the window being rolled down, maybe even a voice calling out to me. But thunder rung dangerously in the air, and my whole body cringed in a way where I was left squatting on the ground- bookbag forgotten, and arms wrapped around myself in a form of protection. The rain pounded down harder.

I wanted to squeeze my eyes shut- convince myself this was a bad dream, but before I could - a hand reached down into my line of sight, offering to help me up. I lifted my head, before me stood Jungkook, soaking wet, with my bags slung over his shoulder and his hand extended towards me. “C’mon,” He said lightly, but there was no rush to his voice, no indication of anything even remotely close to amusement. He seemed patient- dark eyes watching me with more understanding than I’ve ever seen - or maybe I was just imagining it.

I grabbed his hand, letting him pull me up easily, basically against his body. He placed a hand gently on my waist, probably balancing me, or maybe for the physical support. I wasn’t sure. All I knew was the physical contact gave a much needed sense of relief. Desperately, I fought the urge to lean heavily against him. “...but the door’s unlocked, you can get in.”

Whatever he had begun with was lost due to the pelting rain and obnoxious booming in the sky, but I got enough of it to move hesitantly towards the car. I was unsteady, and every time another boom of thunder sounded: I cringed. As I moved towards the car, I thought humorlessly about how at another time I’d be running over just what kind of life Jeon Jungkook lived to be driving a black buick. But at the moment, the relief from the rain, and little sound barrier from the thunder was enough to leave me thanking whatever gods for him to have crossed my path.

The second Jungkook was settled in he turned the radio on- loud. Any evidence of the storm was interrupted by the music playing through the speakers. I looked over at him, a wave of gratitude surging through my body. He stepped on the gas, hair dripping, clothes stuck to his body. I didn’t ask where he was going, didn’t care. I could only stare.

We drove for a while, going nowhere in particular, I assumed.I watched out the window, not recognizing the scenery of wherever we were. And once again, I was surprised to find how little I cared. Neither of us spoke, but the silence was filled with the music that continued to play through the radio.

So open up my eyes, tell me I'm alive.

The car slowed to a halt, stuck behind a red light, and I looked back over at Jungkook to find his attention directed at me as well.

This is never gonna go our way, If I'm gonna have to guess what's on your mind. I turned down the music a bit, keeping my sight on the radio pad, rather than looking back at Jungkook. “Thank you,” it sounded inadequate to my own ears. There was not enough to say to express my gratitude. I opened my mouth, wanting to say something more, when Jungkook cut in.

“My sister also.”

His words were simple, but the tone and the shortness of them had me glancing quickly back at him. He wasn’t looking at me anymore, rather at the red light, probably waiting for it to change. I wanted to ask him, touch more on his comment. But even I was bright enough to pick up on what he wasn’t saying. My sister is also afraid of storms. And something about his tone told me he didn’t want to discuss it.

The light remained red, and when Jungkook glanced back at me I internally cringed at how I must’ve looked - still staring at him. “Where do you want to be right now?” I knew he was asking if he should drive me home, but I had no desire to be there. I glanced at the clock- 20:13.I thought of my mom, thinking of how worried she probably was. But Jungkook sat in front of me, hair now only beginning to dry, clothes still soaked.

The storm was long over with. There was no reason for me to still be here. Jungkook was still watching me, I shrugged in response. For a moment I was worried that he wouldn’t catch the movement, but his gaze was held against me like he couldn’t look away. I nodded to the light which was now blaring green at us, and Jungkook’s lips tilted up slightly, just a bit.

track: favorite record - fall out boy

“Are you going to drive?” I asked, finding the strength in my voice coming back.

He shook his head a little, and I could practically see the muscles in his cheeks working to hold the smile back. The car kicked into motion, and I couldn’t help my own smile that worked on my own lips.

It was spring, so it was not yet completely dark at this time, but the sun setting in the horizon made for a beautiful viewpoint. We talking about everything, and nothing all at once. The conversation ranging from favorite hamburger condiments to song genres.

“I’m sorry I just can’t see how you can enjoy modern Fall Out Boy when their older stuff is so much better.” Jungkook argued, raising his hands defensively, before quickly returning them to the wheel.

I angled my body towards him- back resting against the car door. “I’m not saying it’s better now, I’m just saying it’s still amazing.” My smile grew at the look on his face.

After a while the conversation got too intense for driving, and he ended up pulling into a Mcdonald's parking lot so he could angle his body towards me, as well, and continue.

I learned more about Jungkook than I ever thought was possible. Not necessarily important things, just little facts about him that made him seem so much personable.

I learned how funny he was, how he could make any topic interesting enough if you just let him babble about it for long enough. I liked listening to him talk about the things he was interested in - like his friends at the frat.

“Do you really think we’re that bad?” He asked after a while of silence between us.

I looked at him, shaking my head once, and then again for good measure. “No, I don’t.” I admitted, watching as a smile crept it’s way back to his face. “But, I’ll have you know I’ve been best friends with Kim Seokjin for as long as I can remember.”

The surprise lit his face up like a christmas tree. “Kim Seokjin?”

I nodded, smiling at the thought of my best friend. He was, no doubt, going to laugh at me for hours after after the news of this night reached him. Jungkook opened his mouth to speak, eyes wide with new information. But before he could my phone exploded with a loud ringing from my bag in the back seat. He raised his eyes expectantly, and I sighed, muttering a quick, “Let’s take bets on who that is,” before pushing myself over the seat- trying to grab it. This, of course, was a hilarious idea to Jungkook and he burst out laughing. Instead of yelling at me for dirtying his expensive-ass car. I rolled my eyes and dug around blindly in my bag as the ringer continued to go and Jungkook continued to laugh.

I cringed once I picked it up and was met with the Caller ID of my mom. Nearly 11:00 now, and I hadn't let her know anything of my whereabouts. I quickly hit the green receive option, starting off with a “Hi mom…” Just to let Jungkook know not to pull anything funny. I turned my head to glare at him, another warning for him to stop laughing, and he raised his hands in defense.

“Honey? Oh I’m so relieved to hear your voice, you haven’t been picking up any of my calls. Are you okay, where are you?” My mom spoke quickly through the phone, and I was beyond relieved to hear no anger in her tone.

“Yeah, ma, I’m good. I’m- er,” I glanced at Jungkook to see him watching me expectantly back; “Studying,” His eyebrows shot up, and he mouthed the words ‘oh are we?’ back at me. I shooed him with my hand.

“With who?” My mom’s suspicious voice replied back into my ear and I shifted uncomfortably, really glad that she couldn’t see me. I was a horrible liar, and that was increased by 10,000 when it came to my mom.

“With Mary.” I lied quickly, glancing back at Jungkook to see him typing away on his own phone. I let out a content sigh.

My mom continued speaking for a while, telling me to get home before 12:30, and I agreed lightheartedly. I ended the call with a quick ‘love you too’ before shoving the phone back into my bag. “I was, genuinely, expecting a roasting of a lifetime-” I cut off, looking over at Jungkook who seemed to be paying me no attention.

He continued tapping away on his phone, eyebrows drawn together in concentration.

“Jungkook?”

He looked up suddenly, eyes widened in faux innocence. “Jungkook? Who’s that?” He paused, lips tilting up in his tell-tale sign of mischief. “I thought I was Mary?” I leaned over to whack on the side of the head, which just lead to an eruption of breathy laughs to arise from him.

“Jungkook.”

He continued to laugh, but waved at me in understanding. “Yeah, yeah. I got it. Type in your address.” He nodded to the GPS in the center console, and I followed his orders, if not a little slowly. He must’ve heard my mom's orders of when I should be back. Honestly, I didn’t want to go home. Spending time with Jungkook had taken all of my thoughts from the mess that was currently my life.

The drive back seemed way shorter than the way there, and when we got onto my street we both agreed that it would probably be better if he didn’t pull into my driveway. Of course after Jungkook, looking scandalized, exclaimed - ‘am I just a dirty little secret?!’

He parked a few houses down, but I wasn’t quick to get out. Jungkook didn’t seem to be in a rush either.

“I know where you live now,” Jungkook broke the silence with a shit eating grin painted on his lips.

“Creepy.” Was my immediate response, which sent him into a surprised laugh. There was a moment of silence, where I was staring out at the streetlights and Jungkook as well. “Thank you, for everything tonight.” I looked over at him with a soft smile.

Jungkook opened his mouth, but quickly closed it after- just giving a nod in response.

I glanced away, feeling the events of the night actually hit me. “Well, I should probably-”

He coughed out what sounded like a “yeah.” And it dawned on me that he was probably feeling mountains upon mountains of awkward.

I nodded quickly, and opened the door - stepping out of the car with my bags in hand. Jungkook started the car as I did so, and I waved to the set of headlights behind me. Whether he waved back or not, I couldn’t tell.

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