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#You’ve known each other for like THREE DAYS BUT SURE WHY NOT
101flavoursofweird · 7 months
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Charlie, at the start of the game: Phantom R is my sworn enemy, my nemesis, the bane of my existence…
Charlie, at the end of the game: He’s my dear old friend, he’s my pal. He’s my home-boy, my rotten soldier. He’s my sweet cheese, my good-time boyeh
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luveline · 2 months
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I love your writings about the marauders, and I recently had a thought about the boys first coming in contact with a vibrator or any sex toy really. Not even a like smut thing but just then walking into a muggle sex shop or they made a friend with a muggle girl and they stumble upon in some way lol idk, just a funny thought that’s been making me giggle a bit. If you have any thoughts I guess?? Hope you have a good day :)
this isn’t smut but it is explicit - mdni please! fem, 1k
“What is that?” Sirius asks.
You get yanked back. “God, sorry,” James says, letting go of your hand. You’d been in a weird fugue state of joy with his fingers twined in yours; it’s the first time he’s held your hand. You can’t tell if it’s platonic or romantic, you can never tell with the boys. “Wait, what is that?” 
“What’s what?” you ask, trying to follow their gaze. You’re on a crowded high street divided by a two way road. It’s so loud you can’t hear yourself think, and stopping as you have has diverted foot traffic around you poorly. 
“There’s a cock in the window.” 
Remus yelps a laugh. You smile, befuzzled, as he takes your shoulders into his hand and turns you bodily to the right shop window. “Oh,” you say. “Oh! There really is.” 
There is a vast array of the aforementioned appendage in the window, and in a variety of sizes and colours. A mannequin in dark lingerie holds a fifty percent off sign to the left, while a poster brags a multitude of ‘stimulating pleasures’ to be found inside. 
“What am I looking at?” Sirius asks.
You forget sometimes how sheltered they all are. They’d gone to a rather elite boarding school, and they all lived in rural England and Wales for their summers. This is as city as they’ve ever been, and you’d thought they’d seen everything there is to see by now, but apparently not. 
How are you supposed to explain a sex shop? Better, why is fate making you? They all turn to you for an explanation. 
“Remus, you’re twenty three,” you say hopelessly. 
“We’ve only recently relocated,” Remus argues. 
“You’ve known me for six months. You’ve lived here for eight.” 
“And yet we’ve never seen that,” James says, pointing at the lingerie. “You’re such perverts in the city. Why are there rainbow cocks in the window?” 
“Can we stop saying that?” you ask. 
“Sorry,” James says quickly. “Lovely girl, why are the dicks in the window?” 
“They’re toys,” you say, feeling a little part of yourself shrivel away in shyness, their eyes like heat from your face and neck. 
“For kids?” Sirius asks, disgusted. 
“No! God, no, they’re for grown ups.” You shake your head uselessly. “Are you messing with me? You’ve really never seen them?” 
“We’ve seen some rather tasteful underwear in our time,” Sirius says, to James’ delight and Remus’ derision. 
“Stop,” Remus says. 
“We have to go in. I must understand these toys,” Sirius says, ignoring him with ease. There’s something to his usually nice smile you don’t know, some burning excitement that will likely end in innuendos and teasings galore for you. 
You make your way into the sex shop, shoes dragging, cheeks hot. James and Sirius seem as though they could burst into laughter at any second, but Remus is more understanding. He offers you his hand when he realises you’re behind them. You don’t have the strength to refuse him. 
They’re the weirdest friends you’ve ever had, but also the best ones. They love holding hands and crossing legs and laying half on top of each other when they come around to watch a film. You’re pretty sure you saw James and Remus kissing a few weeks ago, but they’ve yet to say anything about it to you, so what do you know? You’d been jealous, but each boy has continued to love on you just a little too much considering the parameters of your ‘friendship’. 
This lies firmly outside of your parameters, you decide. 
Sure, you’ve thought about them sometimes as more than friends, but they don’t know that. Can you be blamed? They’re all so handsome in awful ways —Remus classic, Sirius Grecian, and James devilish. James. You shake your head in an attempt to dispel thoughts of their good looks while in close proximity to lacy knickers, turning your attention to the ridiculous gasps of awe the two idiots are letting out. 
“What is that?” Sirius asks delightedly, knuckling at a row of plastic sex toys, all with different functions. 
“That’s a…” You blow a breath up your face in an attempt to cool down. “Read the label, Siri.” 
“Most of this stuff is for girls?” James asks you. 
“I guess so.” You poke at the pink packaging of a glass massage wand. “I mean, not always. I think anybody can use all this stuff too. Or most of it.”
“What about that?” 
James points at a vibrator in clear blister packaging. “A vibrator? What’s that do?” He turns to you with a surprisingly innocent curiosity. 
“It vibrates.” You don’t want to say anything else, but they’re your friends. They’re nice to you, and they respect you, so it’s not like you think telling them these things will put you in an uncomfortable position. “You know how girls have a harder time finishing sometimes?” 
If they’re surprised to hear you say it aloud, they don’t show it. “Not in my experience,” Sirius jokes. 
“So the vibration helps?” 
“It’s very intense. It makes the… climax come much quicker,” you say. 
Remus seems very grateful for the energy your explanation takes, giving you a caring smile. He’s about to say something when Sirius interrupts, and asks, “Do you have one?”
“You don’t have to answer that,” Remus says, hitting Sirius in the arm. “She doesn’t have to answer that, don’t ask her stuff like that, it’s private.” 
Sirius’ eyes go wide. “I’m sorry,” he says to you, all joking gone from his face. “I didn’t mean it in a bad way. Just forget sometimes that you have boundaries we don’t have.” 
You’re not expecting such a genuine and sudden apology, because maybe Sirius shouldn’t ask, but you totally understand what he means. You feel like you’ve known them all your life. “It’s okay, don’t worry. I know what you’re like.” 
“So it’s a good time, hypothetically,” James says. 
“What do you reckon that feels like?” Sirius asks, already moving on. 
“Sirius,” Remus pleads. 
“Sweetheart, can I ask you, hypothetically,” —Sirius taps his converse to yours, grinning— “what do you mean, it’s quicker? How does that even work?” 
You frown, “You don’t know how it works?” 
Remus and James laugh like bellows beside you. They laugh so much the woman behind the counter glares at you all, undoubtedly tired of people coming in here for a laugh. 
“Awful girl,” Sirius says, frowning. 
You smile back. “It just stimulates the nerves, Sirius. I don’t know how to explain it. I guess it’s kinda like magic or something.” 
“Magic can’t do that,” James says. Remus elbows him hard, and you’ve no idea why. 
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c0kitty · 3 months
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NOW PLAYING ... NOBODY KNOWS ft. spider-women!ellie x reader
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“…BUT NOBODY KNOWS MY LITTLE SECRET.”
(⭑) summary: r/reddit, when’s the best time to tell your girlfriend of three months, (who you are so desperately in love with) you are that "crazy" vigilante on the news, fighting crime in a spider-suit, and that you now shoot fucking webs out of your wrist. (⭑) content: wc 1.2k+ nerd!ellie. confessions. making out. comfort. spider-man!ellie. established relationship. suggestive. insecure!ellie. HEAVILY inspired from the roof-top scene in tasm bcs im obsessed. cursing.
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you guys find yourself on the roof-top of dina’s-friend’s apartment, for a random party, celebrating god-knows what. it's slightly chilly, you stand next to ellie with her oversized jacket on you; despite ellie telling you numerous times it was going to be cold, she was not one to refuse you.
ellie wished she had her camera right now; outside’s a pretty scene with the many buildings scattered, the sky, gradually transitioning into yellow and pink hues, night unfolding, and you, looked so pretty by her side. 
the city below though remains bustling with constant movement, and ellie's mind is no different. because today was going to be the day —
ellie’s hazel-green eyes shift towards you, observing your soft expression, her heart ached with uncertainty as she wondered if you would hate her — hate her for lying, hate her for not being normal, hate her for having so much baggage. hate her for being spider-women. 
“you think dina and jesse are shagging?” you ask, randomly, breaking the comfortable silence. your hands moves to the railing, casually pushing yourself backwards on it.
“saw dina sneakin’ out at 1 am, like she was a teenager. so, yeah, definitely.” 
also due to ellie’s super-senses, she had heard so many “private,” conversations with him and dina she wished to unhear.
you nod your head, turning your attention towards ellie. “so, why do you seem so te—”
“i need to say something,” 
you guys both interrupt each other, it elicits a small giggle from you. “okay... is this about before? is that the reason you’ve been so pissy tonight?” 
you were hinting about earlier. when someone had hit on you, even with you being on ellie's lap, her arms even wrapped at your waist. it irritated the hell out of ellie, leaving her to characteristically run her mouth at em'. 
you almost had to drag her away to stop the growing commotion.
ellie sports a slight pout at her pink-lips. “it’s not my fault men can’t get fucking context clues, it’s a wonder they survive. and i haven’t been “pissy” i—” you raise your eyebrows in response, conveying a silent ‘you sure?’ ellie stops talking, only rolling her eyes.
“okay, whatever, maybe i was but, it's not about that,” ellie wasn’t sure how to start this conversation without sounding crazy or scaring you.
“...i was bitten,” ellie says, bushy brows slightly furrowing.
your head tilts, “that’s a little ominous.” ellie rethinks; maybe that wasn’t a good way to start.
“nevermind. you know, when i was sick. that whole two weeks, couple months back.” you nod your head, “yeah, you said you were sick. projectile vomit and shit. couldn’t lift a finger because it was so bad.” damn, ellie forgot she said all that.
“yeah, um sorry. i lied about that.” before you could say anything, lips pulled into a frown, ellie blurts: “i’m spider-man,” finally with a breath. you’re staring at her, but she can’t decipher your expression. unconsciously, ellie bites at her bottom lip.
silence fills the moment, and ellie finds it unbearable; suddenly, in just a second, your face relaxes. “oh, wait. you’re fucking with me. els thought you were serious for a second.”
ellie was regretting playing pranks on you so much, “i’m not fucking with you,” ellie’s arm cross, unconsciously flexing in the process, but you only a grow smile on your lips, like this was some ongoing joke. “jesus, stop smiling — it’s not a joke y/n,”
“i’ve known you all my life ellie — i think i would know if you were fighting crimes with iron-man,” you ignore her, releasing the bar. “wait just w—”
“lets go els, please. it’s getting cold and i’m tired,” you say, making your move toward the door; but in a quick reaction, ellie’s translucent webs shoots out her wrist, spinning you around til’ you're close, her hands, now holding at your waist.
you’re staring at her, eyes widened comically, and your mouth parted, seemingly trying to process what just happened. ellie's attention was drawn to something else though; light in the distance, drunken footsteps heading their way. 
“you just fucking — shot webs out your hands, ellie! you’re sp—” 
ellie didn’t have much time to think it through, because as soon as the drunkards stumble in, ellie's lips, soft and sweet, press into yours.  “..shh,” ellie whispers, faint to your lips — trying to calm you down.
a small gasp leaves your mouth. but after a second, hearing the commotion behind you; you get the message, relaxing yourself into the kiss.
ellie's kisses are usually greedy, but tender, her hands would rummage your body confidently, possessively pulling you in. but this kiss, its … different. it’s tentative, hesitant, like she was afraid to push.
at that, you try to make her feel comfortable with a subtle touch beneath her loose black-shirt. your lips, coated in strawberry gloss, glides seamlessly over hers, giving her a little push; and it works.
ellie tongue pushes in hastily, its smooth tracing from your lips to your tongue. her moppy-brown hair tickling your chin as she eases in the kiss, embracing the subtle buzzing in her chest. 
you hear the people leave, and it’s silent now, besides the busy cars. “ellie… t–” 
“one more second,” she grumbles, you wanted to keep going, but you still had a lot to say — questions cycling. so you pull away, with a gentle smack of the lips.
she lets out a small groan in response; her cheeks dusted in pink and round eyes flutter open, looking at you in a wistful gaze.
“so… you’re spider-man. well, spider-woman,” you finally say, exhaling. ellie’s eyes shift to the floor. her hands drop from you, and instead, runs through her hair anxiously. “yeah. i know it’s fucked up, and weird. i should’ve told you, warned you, but i—”
you interrupt her depressive rambles, “no, ellie i mean it’s cool, you’re cool. it’s just, fuck.” you take a breath, throwing your hands up. “i was just surprised because you’re, like, nerdy and cute, and then … spiderman, you know?”
ellie’s eyes lifted to meet yours, “relieved” couldn’t fully capture how she felt, but all she could managed to say was: “oh, okay. that’s great, yeah.”
a silence falls between you two in response to ellie’s awkwardness, exchanging glances; both of you burst into a fit of giggles.
“i feel like i should feel offended though, ‘nerdy?’” you playfully nudge at her feet, “you know what i mean. passionate about space, introverted, so obsessed with your grades. it’s like a text-book definition,” ellie couldn’t really deny that, so she just playful rolls her eyes instead.
“...but you know what’s crazy, i had a small tiny crush on spider–man, well you, before we officially dated.” 
ellie’s lips curve into a smile, “so now you get the best of both worlds, huh.” ellie comes closer to you, hands finding their place to your body. "i bet you dreamed of both of us fighting over you, hm?”  
in the quietness that follows, your eyes drift away from ellie, intentionally avoiding her gaze. ellie could tell there was more story to your silence, “wait — did you have a wet dream about spider-man and m—” she begins, but you swiftly cover her mouth.
“...shut it,” you say beyond flustered, which only intensifies ellie's curiosity.
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strawberrystepmom · 8 months
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nsfw - mdni. cw pregnancy mention but only as a joke (calls reader a MILF), marriage discussion. f!reader (has breasts, is refers to with feminine terms), gojo and reader are in a “semi established” relationship aka idiots in love. self ship coded. wc 1.1k
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“Do you really think right now is the time for this discussion, Satoru?”
Your knees are pulled to your chest to make room for your almost comically oversized boyfriend in your apartments’ barely big enough for one bathtub. He’s all limbs and broad shoulders and big arms and the sight, while delectable, makes you feel annoyed as you try to soak away what remains of your own post-mission injuries.
There’s a laceration on your right elbow, a blooming bruise on the opposite bicep, a slash on your thigh. The worst of it was handled back at the school thanks to Shoko but you refused further treatment, knowing a nice soak and rest would fix you up. Gojo showed up unexpectedly as soon as he heard you’d been roughed up today, holding your hand reassuringly the entire time.
You should have known better that his offer to take you home and immediately leave was not as listed on the label. He entered your apartment, kicked off his shoes, and followed you straight to the bathroom without a single word. It’s how you ended up here.
“No time like the present if you ask me. Every other time I’ve asked you’ve said "let's talk about it later” and now it’s later.”
Sighing, you listen to the gentle slosh of the warm water over the lip of the tub as he slides in behind you. Two long legs frame your body and you lean back against him, back pressed to his chest while he reaches around and cups each of your goosebump prickled breasts and squeezes them playfully.
“You’re asking me to marry you while squeezing my tits and making honking noises? Am I getting that right?”
“That’s exactly what I’m doing, yes.”
He chuckles and kisses your jaw, right beneath your ear. It’s his favorite spot, so unassuming yet so intimate. He knows you dab a little perfume there to give him something to look forward to and despite the stress and soil of the day, he sniffs hard and presses an additional kiss.
You reward him with a giggle and he leans over the top of your head, wrapping himself around you and gently running his fingers along the little reminders of how rough today was on you.
It motivates him to press his question even further.
“We don’t have to get married tomorrow, you know. We’ve been at this for long enough that we can wait but it’s time, babe.”
You want to understand his thinking but continually come up short, wondering why he wants something so permanent all of a sudden. Maybe it’s getting older, maybe it’s wanting to have someone to come home to that is more than his semi live-in girlfriend. So without thinking too deeply about it, you ask.
“This isn’t a no or anything so don’t immediately jump there,” you rush to clarify before speaking what’s on your mind lest he get the wrong idea. “But why? Why now?”
The answers are so clear to Satoru that he doesn’t have to think about them for a moment more, instead rubbing his thumb gently around the blue outline of the bruise on your arm.
“I could ask you the same. Why not? Why are you so convinced marrying me would be bad?”
Marriage used to be something he considered would be a burden. Love seemed like the least likely reason he’d marry, perhaps instead marrying reluctantly one day for the sake of his clan or to have kids or something. It never had romantic connotations until the day he realized he wanted to marry you.
Three years ago, a night not that dissimilar to the one the two of you are currently sharing, the realization hit him like a speeding train he couldn’t avoid. It was a culmination of nearly ten years worth of feelings, sure, but he knew as sure as he knew his own heart that you were it. The One, as they say.
Your injuries that night were worse than these ones and Shoko privately shared her concerns with him that your left arm would never fully recover from where it was snapped clean above the elbow. She did everything she could to heal it and you were confined to a sling for several weeks.
He was all too eager to come and take care of you, a little taste of what waking up and falling asleep next to you every day was enough to easily confirm you were it. You are it, still, years later and many long nights and early mornings since. Your grumpy mornings, your lazy afternoons, your evenings spent counting the stars twinkling lazily above your heads on the little adjoining balcony you spent most of your time on.
He was already in love with you, hanging on your every word and vying for every piece of attention you’d give him, but he knew that the rest of his life would be senseless if he couldn’t spend it by your side. Seeing you be so fallible, so painfully human and fragile, terrified him but it motivated him just as much.
Here he sits, still motivated to make you his forever, and he says he isn’t a romantic.
Scoffing, you turn your head to look up at him and gauge how he’s feeling. His face is impassive, brow raised, and suddenly you feel guilty for making him think the reason you’re apprehensive about marriage is him. It isn’t him, it never has been. It’s you.
“Marrying you would be the best thing to ever happen to me, Satoru but I don’t think it would be the best thing to ever happen to you.”
Now it’s his turn to scoff incredulously, pulling your head against his chest so he can rest his chin on top of it. The water sloshes even more and you shift, trying to avoid the friction from your half damp skin against his but there’s no use. He’ll take a little pain if it means he gets to have you this close.
“I know it would be the best thing to happen to me. Ever. In all my life.”
You laugh, shaking your head and wincing as you bend your elbow and the soreness catches up with you. He moves to cradle your arm gently in one of his palms, using the other to keep your cheek pressed to his chest.
“I’m afraid you’ve finally convinced me,” you whisper and he laughs. You wince again as he shifts and drags you with him, water splashing over the edge of the tub while he situates you in his lap facing him the best that he can. Your chest presses against his and you’re face to face, his eyes searching you for any trace of second thoughts.
“You mean it?”
You cup his cheeks in your palms and nod, a coy smile breaking into a grin to mirror his own as he pulls your left hand away from his face and pulls it to his mouth to kiss the back of your ring finger.
“Yes, I’ll marry you. I’d be honored to be your wife even if I think you’re setting yourself up for a lifetime of disappointment.”
Dropping your hand, he slides his arms around your torso and picks you up squealing and thrashing while water drips off of your bodies and back into the tub below. It’s a distraction tactic, of course, to keep you from delving any further into your own fears and doubts, but a man will do what a man must to make his fiancé smile.
“I think I’m setting myself up for a lifetime of laughing and great food and watching you turn into a MILF.”
Snorting, you swat his chest playfully with one hand and reach for the towels on the rack next to you with the other. You dry his hair first, giggling with each funny face he makes until you finish and wrap the towel around his shoulders.
“Are you threatening to turn me into a MILF, sir?”
The blood rushes from his head further downward as he pictures the insinuation you’re making and he smiles devilishly.
“If that’s what you want, consider it a promise.”
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jgracie · 27 days
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⚡️ DATING JASON GRACE
masterlist | rules
percy’s version | leo’s version | frank’s version | travis’ version | luke’s version
in which in a world of boys, he's a gentleman
pairing jason grace x fem!reader
warnings reader is implied to not be a child of the big three + a greek
When Taylor Swift said, “in a world of boys, he’s a gentleman,” she was talking about Jason. That whole song is just about Jason
This man is so respectful and considerate and just really wonderful. He feels too good to be true! Which is why you don’t let yourself fall for him at first. He’s literally the most perfect guy you’ve ever met 
Meanwhile, Jason’s thinking the same about you. To him, you’re a breath of fresh air from all the rigidness and strict lines he’s been forced into not only as a Roman but as a son of Jupiter. Why would you want to be stuck with someone as boring as him?
So you just spent your days longingly gazing at each other when the other wasn’t looking while also avoiding each other in public spaces because both of you were slightly intimidated by the other’s gorgeous presence 
Your first proper interaction must’ve been orchestrated by Hera and Aphrodite themselves considering how adamant you two were on being 6ft apart at all times, and surprisingly, it was in the mortal world
You were spending the day at your favourite library because you missed it and liked to pretend your life was normal by blending in with mortals, and also because you had studying you needed to do since quests left ample time for schoolwork
Jason was there because he’d been cooped up at camp for as long as he could remember and wanted to see what life away from the Gods and their schemes was like, and what better place to figure that out than a library?
You breathed a sigh of relief as you finally finished the essay you’d been working on since you arrived at the library. It had been weighing on your mind for days but you couldn’t find time for it until today. As a reward for your hard work, you decided to get yourself a sweet treat (me too girl) before continuing your studies
Haphazardly packing up your stuff, you quickly got up, practically drooling at the thought of the new menu item you were finally going to get after craving for weeks
You were a little too excited. As you turned, you bumped into someone, dropping some of your papers
“Gods, I’m so sorry,” the person you bumped into said, quickly bending down to gather all your stuff
You knew that voice. You could recognise it anywhere
“Jason? What’re you doing here?” You said, suddenly feeling awfully hot for no particular reason
That was the day you really befriended Jason Grace. He decided to accompany you to the cafe you planned to go to, paid for your order and spent the rest of the day there with you. Away from all the craziness of demigod life, you and Jason finally got to truly know each other
After a while of getting closer, you two begin to date, and it might just be the most beautiful relationship known to man. The way Jason acted before you began dating was nothing compared to now. That was just the bare minimum
You literally never have to lift a finger around him as he insists on doing everything for you. He opens doors for you, pulls your chairs out and takes your coats off for you. If you’re on a quest and you need to sleep, he makes sure you always get the comfier place and takes first watch
He also always leaves you notes. Sometimes they’re notes of motivation, sometimes they’re small poems about how much he loves you and sometimes they’re just really random
Jason is a big fan of taking polaroid pictures with you. After Hera stripped him of his whole life, he’s always had a fear of waking up one day with the same feeling he had on that wilderness school bus, so he takes pictures with all the people he loves and keeps journals and has a box full of all the things that are important to him in case it happens
He keeps one in his wallet at all times to ensure his immediate remembrance of you if his memories get taken again
(As if he’d forget you in the first place. Hera would have to pry the memories of you out of his cold, dead hands)
Your siblings love him so much too! They were a little stressed at first because he’s a child of Zeus, the God notorious for breaking the hearts of his lovers and cheating on his eternal wife, but he showed up at your cabin door to pick you up for a date with a bouquet of flowers for the cabin and then walked you back himself, staying outside until the very second the door was shut and now they love him LOL
Sometimes you think they love him more than you because they’re always asking about him
You spend a lot of time at his cabin. He disguises it as just really wanting to spend time with you and while that is true, secretly it's also because the Zeus cabin gets super cold and lonely and is also kind of scary at night, even though he sleeps in the one space away from the gaze of his father
“Honey,” Jason says, wrapping an arm around your waist. The campfire sing along had ended which signified the end of the day, and all around you, campers were wishing their friends goodnight as they headed to their cabins. You suppressed a giggle, knowing exactly what Jason wanted from the tone of his voice
You hummed, giving your boyfriend a bleary-eyed smile as you waited for him to voice his request. It was cute how even though you’d done this many times before, he still got shy at the idea of you two sleeping in the same room, on the same bed
“Would you maybe wanna spend the night at my cabin? I missed you today, and I can’t even begin to imagine how hot it must be in your cabin, with all your siblings in it, y’know.”
“Are you asking because you missed me or because you’re scared of daddy dearest?” You quipped, unable to contain yourself as his face turned bright red
“I’m kidding, Jase, of course I’ll spend the night with you!”
Later on in your relationship, when he’s sure you’re the one for life, he shows you around New Rome. He grew up with a peaceful life in the city being the goal, so it only made sense for him to show you around
Loves the way you light up at everything around you. He’d known New Rome for his whole life and could draw a map of it blind, but you make it feel brand new
Is ecstatic when you tell him you also want to start a life with him in New Rome. The moment you utter those words he’s already signed papers for an apartment and is drawing punnett squares to figure out what your kids would look like (I hate punnett squares they are the bane of my existence)
You know the part in The Notebook where the girl’s describing the house she wants? That’s what Jason showing u around New Rome reminds you of
Years later, you reminisce on the way you’d avoid each other as you tell your kids about your lives as teens in your lovely house in New Rome because he definitely did not die <3
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empress-simps · 1 month
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Missed Hints
Pairing: Remus Lupin x Fem! Reader CW: Language Genre: Fluff Summary: Remus Lupin wanted to make his feelings known; he is trying numerous ways to tell you, but you are simply quite oblivious to the poor boy’s advances.
Note: Am I a bit too obsessed with Rems? Probably. This one's a bit shorter than the rest. Enjoy reading! Pictures used are from Pinterest, credits to the owners!
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Sometimes, all Remus wanted to do was run into a wall to knock himself out.
Maybe it’ll help formulate a reason why you couldn’t pick up his signals and actions that he wants to be more than friends. Please cut this poor boy some slack; he’s literally done everything he could to hint that he likes you.
The problem is that you are quite oblivious- being as dense as the castle walls in Hogwarts. Although this hasn’t stopped Remus from pursuing you after several pitiful (also quite funny) attempts, if anything, it made him work even harder to let you know he fancies you.
“Y/n, wait up!” Remus calls out to you, leaving his mates, who were whispering words of encouragement and ‘good luck’ to him. Hearing your name made you turn around, a book in your hand, as you smiled at the taller boy. “Remus, hi!” He smiled, walking beside you and settling in at the same pace as you. Suddenly, a friend of yours piped up, “Y/n, we have to go get something in the dorms; stay with Remus, yeah?” before you could even reply, they were rushing to leave. Remus could only blush as your friends shot him a thumbs up before escaping the scene, trying to stop the giggles escaping their mouths.
It was all up to him now.
“Erm, so how were the holidays?” he asked, trying to act casually as he placed his hands in his pockets. The question made you hum, your eyes lit up. "Oh, it was wonderful! We spent the holidays in Canada, lots of snow, I made a snow man and visited some parks.” She nods, holding her book closer to her chest, seemingly lost in thought. “It was also freezing.” Remus hums in agreement. “Is that so? I’m glad you had fun.” He smiles, and you both walk towards the great hall to have dinner.
You looked up at him with a bright smile and said, “Tell me about yours, Rems! I’m sure it was also fun.” Remus blushed, hearing his nickname roll off your tongue so casually. Even after all the years you’ve known each other, simply calling him by his nickname that you specially made for him has an effect that never faded away. “Well, it was just simple, really. I just stayed at James’ and had fun.” He shrugged his shoulders, smiling at you. He could care less about his holiday shenanigans, preferring you just talk his ear off about every little thing you did, he will absorb what you say word by word, like a sponge.
 "Well, James is quite an interesting person.” She hummed in agreement, Remus felt his eyebrow twitch, a small twinge similar to jealousy creeping up into him. What about him? Do you think he’s interesting too? Was Remus someone who could be worthy of your time?
 “Yeah, that bloke was conjuring up some pranks to pull this year.”
You let out a small giggle and oh merlin please take the poor boy to Madame Pomfrey because he thinks his poor heart can’t handle all the feelings he has towards you. Remus Lupin is such a simp.
He clears his throat, trying to muster up some courage as he asks you the million-galleon question. “So, are you free tomorrow? It’s Hogsmeade day.” Remus smiles, thankfully, his clammy hands are kept under his pockets, making his nervousness almost unnoticeable. Your eyes lit up “Oh! I forgot, but yes, I am free tomorrow.” Remus saw his chance and took it. “Great, how about we hang out in Three Broomsticks?”
For Merlin’s sake, please make this turn into Lupin’s favor. He’s done too many ways to confess to your clueless self.
“That would be fantastic! I can bring my friends along, and you can bring James, Sirius, and Peter too!” you clapped your hands excitedly, not noticing how the werewolf visibly deflated as you exclaimed. Right, might as well reject him right now on the spot to end his misery.
He could probably shout “I love you” and stare at you directly- but you’ll just think he’s talking to someone behind you. Remus had also tried to pass you a note containing his feelings for you back then. Grabbing it without much of a thought, you passed it to your friend, thinking he wants you to give it to her, who shakes her head and sighs, looking at Remus.
The rest of the Marauders and your friends think Remus’s plans of confessing to you were a lost cause.
“Our poor Moony…” Peter frowns, as James shakes his head. “At this point, Moony should just kiss her.” Sirius sighed, feeling pity for his friend. “She would probably think it was a friendly kiss.” Peter snorts, trying to control his laughter, James glared at Sirius jokingly before pushing him. “Bugger off Pads, Y/N’s just… super innocent? I guess.” They resumed watching the two from a distance, a look of anticipation evident in their faces.
“I was kind of hoping it’ll be just us?” Remus grins nervously, sitting beside you as you reach the Gryffindor table. You took a bite out of the apple pie from your plate before replying, “Sure, it’ll still be fun. You’re a great company, Rems.” She smiles, before resuming on eating the remaining apple pie slice. Little do you know the simple compliment you made had a tremendous effect on Remus.
“Moony, your smile hasn’t left your face ever since Y/n agreed. Stop it, I’m getting scared.” Sirius states, Remus turns to look, a hint of a small dopey smile on his face. “Hm?”
“Oh merlin, Y/n broke him.” Peter blanches. They were smacked upside their heads lightly by James. “Come on now, don’t rain on his parade. Moon’s just… well- over the moon.” James laughs lightly, Sirius snorts while Peter tries to hide his smile. Remus rolled his eyes playfully, opening his trunk to pick out the clothes he’s going to wear tomorrow. “Whatever, now help me decide what to wear, you sods.”
“Rems! Over here!” You exclaimed, standing on your tiptoes, arms up and waving in his directions. Remus smiles, maneuvering through the line of students waiting to get out of Hogwarts and to Hogsmeade. “Y/n! you look… pretty.” He blushes, drinking in the sight of you. Remus could swear on his life that he saw a light shade of pink dust your cheek as you tucked a stray hair behind your ear.
“Thank you, I like your sweater. It suits you.” You said, eyes going over his body and one of Remus’s signature sweaters. You can’t deny it; you like what you see, you were pulled from your thoughts when someone spoke.
“Oi! Get a move on you half-blood and goody-two-shoes! Holding up the bloody line is what you’re doing!” Evan Rosier, a Slytherin student complained a few feet away from you and Remus, Mulciber and Dolohov backs their fellow Slytherin and friend up. He snarls, those blokes, looks like they’ll have a new target for one of their nasty pranks.
“If I were you, I would shut my mouth.” Remus warns, standing in front of you, blocking your frame from their view.
Evan raised one eyebrow, amusement swimming in his eyes. “What are you going to do? Pesky little Gryffindor like you are always running around trying to be brave.” He taunts, moving closer to their direction.
“Rems, I’m fine. Let’s go, yeah?” She gently tugs the sleeve of his sweater, he looks down at you, his expression softening. “Alright then.” He threw one last warning look at Rosier over his shoulder; that punk needs to just wait and see what’s going to come and bite his ass.
The two of you are sitting in the Three Broomsticks, talking about basically anything under the sun. Well, you mostly talked while Remus just listens, humming and sometimes sharing his two cents on the topic you are on.
“Rems, thank you.”
Remus’ eyebrows shot up in confusion, “Thank you? What for?”
“Earlier, Evan Rosier.”
“Ah, that prick. It was nothing, y/n.” He offers a gentle smile; he wants to touch your hand that was directly across his from the table but ultimately deciding against it, the last thing he wants to do is make you feel uncomfortable.
“Thank you for being my friend. You’re an amazing person who deserves the world.” She smiles, slowly taking his hand onto hers and squeezing it tightly.
He felt a crack in his heart. “Yeah, you are too.” He managed to choke out, offering a wry smile.
Friends. Is that it? Is he just one of the many friends you have in your life? Is he a friend that will slowly drift away after you graduate from Hogwarts? Merlin, he would even count himself lucky if you invited him to be at your wedding, and if he wants to push his luck then he might even be the godfather to one of your future kids.
You furrowed your brows, “Is there something wrong, Rems?” He looks at you, quickly shaking his head. “Nothing’s wrong. Why do you ask?” You hummed, “Well, you have this kind of haunted look on you when you’re bothered about something; you’re doing it right now.”
Remus blinks, even he himself wasn’t aware of that. He closed his eyes and sighed; fuck it. He’ll push his luck to the extremes by confessing his love for you. Doesn’t matter if you see him as just a friend, you deserve to know.
“Y/n, I have to tell you something.”
“Of course. What would that be?”
“Well, I don’t know how to tell you this without being upfront about it…” He starts, you urged him to continue; well, here goes nothing.
“Y/n, I-“
“Two butterbeers, correct?”
Remus wants to pull his hair out of frustration as the server walked towards them and set down the butterbeers they ordered, interrupting his speech. You smiled, thanking them before turning to Remus, who was frowning.
“What was it you were trying to say, Rems?” You asked, sipping your butterbeer.
“I like you, a lot. Ever since we met.” He simply blurts out quickly, as if he’s scared someone is going to interrupt again. You blink slowly, setting your butterbeer down gently.
“I like you too, Remus.”
“No- you don’t understand,” He shakes his head as you furrowed your eyebrows, utterly confused.
“I fancy you, love.” He emphasizes, taking both of your hands into his large ones, looking at you straight in the eyes, completely serious. She widens her eyes ever so slightly, her heart rate speeding up a bit.
“Why didn’t you tell me? I’ve always fancied you too, Rems.”
Remus felt as if the time slowed down, his heartbeat pulsing faster, eyes blinking owlishly, his jaw slack in shock.
Did he hear that right? Please tell him that he heard that right.
“I-I… I gave you hints, love!” He sputtered, “But you’ve just ignored them every single time!” She frowns, “I didn’t notice…” Remus agreed, “Forgive me, but you were quite oblivious.” A small smile was on his face.
“You could’ve just said outright that you fancy me, Rems.” She chuckles, a faint blush on her cheeks.
“If you like me too, then why didn’t you tell me?”
“I didn’t want to force you.” She said, looking at the beverage in her hand. His eyes softened, “Force me? To what, love?”
She sighs, looking up at him. “I didn’t want you to force yourself to try to love me just because I feel that way for you.”  Before Remus could even speak, she opened her mouth again, “I know you, Remus. You would’ve tried either way, that’s just who you are.” She chuckles, sipping butterbeer before continuing.
“You have a heart of gold, Rems. That’s one of the things I love about you.” She rubs her thumb across his scarred knuckles gently. The hairs on the back of his neck stood up, the simple and gentle touch made his spine shiver.
If this was some kind of dream, then he would be more than happy to not wake up.
“Can I kiss you?” He breathes out, making you giggle. You stood up from your seat and leaned towards him, you can feel and smell his peppermint toothpaste fanning against your lips, beckoning you closer.
“You don’t even have to ask.” You closed the distance between you and sealed both of your lips with a kiss.
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reverie-starlight · 1 month
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{PR DAY ~ sakusa kiyoomi}
MSBY manager!reader my beloved <3
it’s PR Day for the jackals and you, their manager, have the day off. so why is your boyfriend trying so hard to convince you to go with him?
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gn!reader, fluff, an attempt at humor, atsumu slander (as much as it pains me, it comes with the territory of writing a fic like this 😔) suggestive in some parts. not nsfw at all, but explicit language is used and one conversation surrounds that topic, so read at your own risk <3 also, intentional tense-switch in the beginning!!! and just like the first part, it’s not explicitly mentioned, but reader and atsumu have known each other since high school.
part 1 of the mini-series
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managing MSBY came with its ups and downs.
on one hand, you wouldn’t have met your boyfriend if it weren’t for this job. and you've never laughed as hard as you have been these past three years with coworkers before meeting the current core line up of the jackals.
but on the other? you had three massive fully grown children under your care. four, technically, if they managed to annoy sakusa enough that he stoops to their level of childishness.
which was unfortunately very often.
nearly every week.
fine, basically everyday.
and ever since your relationship was revealed to the team nearly a year ago, the “trouble trio” had been behaving exactly like you expected them to. the whole team was slightly insufferable about it, sure, but atsumu, hinata and bokuto really took it too the next level.
so obviously you really valued your days off.
and today was the first day off you’ve had in months. you refused to take off days during the busiest weeks of the season, but today was a PR day.
interviews, promotional videos for the official social media accounts, a livestream or two- all things you were more than happy to leave in the hands of the team’s PR and social media managers.
the birds were singing, the sunlight was streaming through the bedroom window and a cool breeze could be felt against your skin. the day was calm and you were so excited to relax and do all the things you had planned.
but of course, your hopes are just that.
you see your boyfriend standing in the doorway of your bedroom, looking like he wants to say something. your heart lurches into your throat.
“soooo,” he starts, not looking directly at you as he moves to the bed and looks at his laid out clothes. you’re already shaking your head before he can say anything else. he ignores this and proceeds to betray you. “if you wanted to tag along today, you could or whatever.”
he’s shameless. he knows how much you’ve been looking forward to today.
“kiyoomi. love of my life. my darling. what the fuck?”
he lets out a snort and looks down at you semi-pleadingly- a rare sight. “I’ll buy you coffee on the way there.”
oh, he’s bargaining? you smirk. “aww, baby,” you stand up and make your way over to him, dramatically twirling and falling back into him with the back of your hand touching your forehead and the other pressed to your chest. “you just can’t bear to be apart from me, can you?”
the pleading look in his eye fades and he gives you a disgusted look you know he doesn’t mean. his arms stay wrapped around you so you don’t fall. “you wish.”
you shrug and move back to your chair, finishing up your morning routine. “hmm I guess I’ll stay here then.”
you enjoy the silence for a moment before he sighs. “fine, two coffees.”
a loud laugh leaves your mouth when he says that. your boyfriend would never put this performance on for anyone else. it was as close to begging as you’d ever get from sakusa kiyoomi.
you shake your head and sigh. “my love, you know I’ve been looking forward to my day off for so long. why are you so insistent about me going with you?”
suddenly he’s behind your chair and leaning down so his breath tickles your ear. “coffee and lunch and maybe when we get back I could be convinced to try that thing you were talking about…” the words are backed up by a kiss to your jaw and some pointed eye contact through the mirror.
you widen your eyes and search his expression for any trace of a lie.
none.
you cannot believe you’re letting him convince you into this, but the offer is far too good to pass up.
you pretend to mull it over, then meet his eyes in the mirror again. “make sure the trouble trio don’t try to coerce me into working and we have a deal.”
“well of course, I was going to yell at them if they tried anything like that anyway.”
“perfect, then let’s seal it with a kiss.”
“only a kiss, baby, I feel your hands wandering.” he pecks your lips quickly and pulls away before you can deepen it.
you pout. “can you blame me? you’ve got me all excited now.”
he shakes his head fondly and straightens up, moving to put the shirt his stylist had insisted upon for the upcoming interviews. you had to hand it to her- she knew exactly what she was doing.
you watch him with hawk eyes and he just turns his head to look at you in amusement. “stop staring at me and get ready, you perv, we have to leave soon.”
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as soon as you step into the building where all the other jackals are, you’re bombarded with confused greetings.
“hey, I thought it was your day off?”
“ayy, manager’s here! good to see ya.”
“what are you doing here? you weren’t scheduled for today, were you?”
you sigh and sip your coffee, letting go of sakusa’s hand as you speak to the coach. “no, I wasn’t. I was kidnapped and brought here by one of your wing spikers.”
he chuckles and glances over at your boyfriend, who is looking up at the ceiling and avoiding eye contact. “I see. well, if anyone tries to get you to work today, just let me know and I’ll help sakusa put them in their places.”
you smile kindly. “thank you, sir, I appreciate it.”
as soon as he walks away, you’re surrounded by the three people you wanted to see least today.
a long sigh leaves your lips as atsumu, hinata and bokuto stare at you in wonder.
“just get it over with,” you grumble.
“how much do ya wanna bet he promised something outrageous?” atsumu.
“what, like an all expenses paid vacation?” hinata.
“no, it’s omi-omi, it wouldn’t make sense for him to take time off in the middle of game season.”
you roll your eyes at their back and forth and glance over at the man in question, who appears to be glowering. you can almost picture the scowl underneath his mask. “you’re all idiots,” he states.
“hey! I haven’t even said anything yet!” bokuto protests.
“yes, but I can practically hear the gears in your brain grinding.”
“I’ll bet it’s a sex thing,” atsumu interrupts just as bokuto is about to defend himself.
you all freeze and stare at him.
your boyfriend, deadly calm, says “miya, I will skin you alive.”
the blonde, who absolutely loves getting a rise out of sakusa, just smirks. “oh, so I’m right then?” he turns to you and slings an arm over your shoulder. “tell me, dear manager, what exactly did he have to agree to in order to get ya to show up on your day off?”
you flick his forehead and shake your head disapprovingly. “none of your business, you freak. just 'cause your dating life isn’t going too well right now doesn’t mean you can pry into mine. download tinder or something if you’re that bored.”
bokuto and hinata snicker at that, but straighten up quickly when he shoots them a glare. suddenly, meian stalks up behind the three of them and clears his throat.
“if you’re all done terrorizing our manager, our social media team is ready for us now. hurry up.” he nods at you with an apologetic smile and drags atsumu away from you. “sakusa, you too. we’ve been waiting for a while now.”
as soon as his teammates walk away and he’s sure they’re not watching him, he slumps a bit and you notice the tips of his ears have gone red. you smile at him in amusement and pat his cheek, the action only slightly awkward due to his mask.
“aw lighten up, kiyoomi, I’m used to dealing with atsumu by now. just ignore him, he wouldn’t dream of bringing that up again if he knows what’s good for him.”
he sighs and drops his shoulders, relief washing over him now that he knows you’re not regretting your decision to come with him. he slips off his mask and presses a quick kiss to your lips. “alright. I love you, just enjoy the show.”
you take his mask and walk with him to the rest of the group so that they can start with the promotional videos.
it’s fun to watch, honestly, because the team’s dynamic does work well for the cameras. they’re not even playing anything up.
you sit through the promo videos they need to film for upcoming games, the silly one-off fluff questions and the fan asks for their instagram page before they’re allowed a break.
sakusa stalks over to you with a small scowl and you smile. “you’re doing great, handsome.”
his expression softens a bit and he offers you a kiss on the forehead. “thank you, darling. care for some lunch?”
you nod and pull him out the door before a certain trio can invite themselves to the impromptu lunch date.
you walk in comfortable silence towards the building’s food court before something pops into your mind. “kiyoomi, you never answered my question from earlier.”
he hums in acknowledgment. “and what might that be?”
“why were you so insistent on me joining you today?”
he doesn’t answer for a moment, but you wait patiently. you know he’s not ignoring you.
finally he sighs and squeezes your hand. “I feel like we haven’t been spending much time together lately outside of work… and I was hoping that by bringing you with me today we’d be able to have at least some time together…” his voice is low, but he’s not shy about it.
you fiddle with the chain around your neck, one he bought for you a while back. "that's very sweet of you, kiyo."
"and..." he hesitates a bit, but you squeeze his hand in return to encourage him. "I feel more relaxed in front of the cameras when you're there."
you melt a little bit. "I'm happy I make you feel that way, kiyoomi. thank you for kidnapping me on my day off, I suppose."
he snorts and you smile. you're about to lean in to pull his mask down for a kiss, but you're interrupted. of course.
"hey, hey, hey! there you guys are! we saw you leaving so figured we'd get lunch with you!"
you honestly don't think you could ever be mad at bokuto, but he is seriously testing your patience right now. not far behind him are atsumu and hinata, one looking smug and the other a bit sheepish. one of them probably brought up your departure to bokuto, either on purpose or accidentally you'd never know.
you sigh and pat sakusa on the back. "yeah, come on. you're all paying for your own, though."
you both ignore the whines of the fully grown children behind you and continue walking hand in hand.
~~~~
BONUS:
"so this question is directed at sakusa..." atsumu reads the question silently and the team watches as he holds back a laugh.
you watch as your boyfriend narrows his eyes at the blonde in front of him and you sigh. things had been going so well up until now.
it’s past lunch break now, and their social media manager had just given them a box full of printed out tweets with fan questions to answer. she snickers to herself as if she knows which question it is and looks pointedly at you from behind the phone she’s recording on.
you blink in confusion, but everything is made clear when atsumu opens his mouth again.
“omi-omi, user @/kiyosdear wants to know if you’re single, or if you’re in need of a dog, because they’re more than willing to bark.”
the social media manager giggles, as does the rest of the team. you feel your eye twitch a bit, but you’re easily able to shove down any possession you feel in the moment.
it’s obviously impossible to ignore so many people vying for his attention all the time, but sometimes it could be a little funny to see how flustered your boyfriend could become from the unwanted attention.
you smile at the small scowl that forms. “no thank you. I’d want nothing less.”
atsumu snorts at his curt answer and hands the box to him. sakusa picks out a question and reads it to himself before blushing furiously and turning his face away from the camera. you watch curiously as meian looks over his shoulder to see what could have garnered that reaction from him and his eyes trail to you amusedly.
the social media manager looks like she’s having a field day, zooming in on sakusa’s red face for a moment. it’s not often something flusters him that badly after all. she’ll milk it for all it’s worth.
the captain pries the paper out of your boyfriend’s hand and reads it out loud.
“@/msby_luvr asks, yo @/sakusakiyoomi, is your team's manager single? totally unrelated, @/msbymanager, are you free on thursday?"”
it’s not exactly a secret to the public that there’s something going on between you two, they just don’t know what that something is.
of course neither of you ever confirm or deny anything, but you imagine being asked outright like that is what caught him off guard.
the camera cuts to you, “offstage” laughing at the question and shaking your head a little in amusement.
or maybe he’s not shy, but rather jealous?
that’s kind of sweet.
regardless, you speak up for him, knowing he wouldn't answer. "I am not single, but thanks for asking."
the camera pans back to the team, just in time to catch the tail end of atsumu clapping your boyfriend on the shoulder.
sakusa gives you a small smile, clearly relieved you took over for him, and goes back to focusing on the interview.
hinata, the poor thing, reads the next question. “oh boy… @/msbymanager asks, sakusa and atsumu rivals to lovers arc when?”
you cackle as both men whip their heads in your direction, betrayal and incredulity on their faces.
raising your hands, you said to them “in my defence, I was still miffed about being dragged here on my day off when I sent it in!”
atsumu loudly refuted the question and the jeers from his teammates, but that was all drowned out by the look your boyfriend sent your way.
you sighed. you were really in for it later.
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
I’ll 100% be doing more MSBY manager!reader. and I’ll do more PR scenarios as well, bc as much fun as this was to write, it didn’t have as much as I wanted to include. but I’ll have to do more research. thank you for reading!! and happy birthday sakusa <3
tags: @dira333 (ty for inspiring me to turn it into a mini-series) @emmyrosee (Ik you love Sakusa and you wanted the WIP for this a long time ago)
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bahablastplz · 17 days
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Snap: Minho x Reader x Jisung
After your boyfriend decides to punish you by not touching you for two weeks, you take matters into your own hands. There's one way to make him snap, and that is Han Jisung. Content: Smut. That's it. Warnings: Heavy degradation, humiliation, p in v sex, unprotected sex, cum eating, fingering, dom/sub dynamics, choking, complicated feelings WC: 3500
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You should have known not to test your boyfriend. 
Your boyfriend Minho is one of the best things that has ever happened to you. He is sweet, kind, forgiving, and so so patient with you. 
Ever since you have been dating, he has done an amazing job to make sure you feel loved, whether that be through smaller gestures like baking food with you or writing notes, or buying you flowers and taking you out on the best dates of your life. He is thoughtful and caring, and you both love each other very much. 
The other great thing about Minho is this other side of the world he has helped you to explore… sexually, that is. He introduced you to the world of doms and subs and your relationship has absolutely thrived on that dynamic. Because for that gentle, loving and caring boyfriend that you get to see during the day… you also get to see the exact opposite. Minho, who will take no bullshit. Minho, who can edge you for hours on end and knows exactly which buttons to push to get you to fall apart for him. Minho, who can wrap his hand around your throat and whisper the filthiest, most vulgar things in your ears to try to get you to submit to him. 
Lee Minho, your boyfriend, is an enigma. Better yet, he is yours.
Which is why you know that you can get away with pushing him to his limits the same way that he pushes you to yours. 
That’s sort of how you got yourself into your current situation. 
 Because, maybe one day you decided to push him, and he might have caught you touching yourself in your bed when you weren’t supposed to. And when he tried to give you your punishment, you had an orgasm without his permission. Fast forward to your new punishment: He hasn’t touched you in two weeks. 
Sometimes, you feel like your boyfriend has turned you into a sex-craved machine. But, who can blame you? It’s not your fault that your boyfriend has a body sculpted by the Gods and an even sexier personality. You swore on your life you would never beg and be desperate for a man. And then came Minho. 
During the past two weeks, you have felt absolutely deprived and horny out of your goddamn mind. He knew it, too. He saw the way that you would squeeze your legs together whenever he sat next to you, the way you would squirm, the way that your eyes would get blown out and your breathing heavy… and he didn’t even have to touch you. It was a mind game, and you were losing badly. 
So, that’s how you came up with your awful idea; push Minho to the breaking point and watch him snap. It was a win/win, really. Not only would your punishment end, but maybe you could get him angry enough to have the rough, hard, toe-curling sex you’ve been craving. You just needed to wait for the right opportunity… and it practically fell into your lap. 
Movie night with Han Jisung. 
Jisung is Minho’s best friend. The two are practically inseparable, bonded with a connection deeper than words could describe. Of course, Jisung was at one point one of your best friends as well, as he was the one that introduced you to your boyfriend in the first place. That’s how you know that the way to get to Minho is through Jisung. 
It started with making dinner, the three of you. It’s a weekly tradition, Friday nights eating homemade dinner and watching cheesy movies. This week is your pick, too. It was almost like all of the pieces of the puzzle were coming together. 
You laugh at Jisung’s jokes. Of course, Minho laughs too, but you make a point to laugh harder than you should, slapping your hand onto his shoulder. “Jisung, you are so funny,” you laugh. “I forgot how funny you are. We should hang out more!” 
That causes the man to let out a shy chuckle, throwing his hand behind his head sheepishly. You look over at your boyfriend and smile at him brightly. 
That night, you make sure to leave lingering touches on Jisung’s body. You reach into the popcorn bowl at the same time as him, grazing his knuckles with your fingers. You swipe a piece of stray hair behind his ear. You even drape your legs across his lap completely during the movie. It always leads to a light laugh from him and a blush that spreads across his cheeks, his eyes flickering to Minho’s for approval. Of course, Minho was never looking at him. 
He was looking at you. 
His eyes bore into yours all night, eyes hard and mouth set into a straight line. You really, truly couldn’t tell what he was thinking. But you make a show of looking at him for a reaction every time and smiling at him with big, bright eyes. 
That night, for your movie choice you made sure to pick the raunchiest, sexiest chick flick that you could find. So of course, when a sex scene started playing you shifted your position. Switching the direction of your body, you put your legs on Minho’s lap and your head on Jisung’s thigh, looking up at him with a bright smile. You admire his bright red cheeks, obviously flushed from the situation at hand. 
“Isn’t this a good movie, Sungie?” You giggle, nustling your head against his thigh. That is the breaking point. 
Minho’s hand reaches across the table, snatching the remote. The TV turns off, causing you and Jisung to turn your heads to look at him. 
“Enough,” he said in a low timbre. 
“What?” you ask innocently. That’s when Minho grabbed the flesh of your thigh hard, kneading the muscle. You gasp when he does so, not expecting the action. His hand trails higher and cups your clothed pussy. 
That was something else… you had put on one of the most revealing outfits you owned, clad with a tight tank-top and miniskirt. This gives Minho easy access to slip his hand right where you need him most. 
“Minho, what are you–” 
“Shhh. If you’re going to act like a needy slut, then you’re going to fucking take it.” Your face goes completely red. While you were expecting him to snap, you thought he was going to drag you to your room and fuck the shit out of you. Not in the living room, while your head rests on Jisung’s lap. 
Your eyes shoot up to Jisung’s, who has been staring at you unabashedly this whole time. When your eyes meet, he clears his throat. 
“Um… I should probably go,” he says, making to stand up. 
“Don’t.” Minho’s voice is sharp, causing you both to freeze. At the same time, he slides your panties to the side and thrusts a finger into your core, causing your body to rock back into Jisung. You let out a loud moan–after weeks, you’re finally getting the contact you’ve been desperately craving. Jisung’s hands make way to your shoulders, holding you in place as he looks at Minho. 
“You’re gonna act like you haven’t been loving my girlfriend touching up on you and flirting with you all night? God, it’s so obvious, Sungie,” he laughs, continuing his ministrations and now thrusting two finger in and out of your sopping core. “She’s been acting like a needy, desperate slut for us, though, so I think we should treat her like one, yeah?” 
Jisung gulps. “We? Minho, I–” 
“You want to fuck her, Sungie? You can fuck her tight cunt, she’ll love it, too. And when you’re done, I’m gonna fuck her harder… I’m gonna fuck her better and fill her up so she knows who her pussy really belongs to.” You moan at his words, squirming around trying to get away from the way his fingers bully into your cunt. 
“Please… Jisung,” you say, looking up at him. “Want you to fuck me, too.” And you truly do. You can see the way your boyfriend is getting off on it, the way that he wants to prove to you that he is better. Somehow you could just tell that he wasn’t bothered in the slightest. 
“Yeah, okay. Fuck,” Jisung breaths. 
“Pull down her shirt,” Minho instructs. Jisung immediately follows his directions, as if in a trance, revealing your bare chest to the two men. “Play with her nipples. Pinch them, she likes that.” The feeling of Jisung’s thumbs pinching and pulling harshly against your nipples has you breathless and moaning, because this person touching you wasn’t your boyfriend. It felt so wrong, but with your boyfriend’s attention still on your leaking pussy and his eyes never leaving yours, it felt so right. 
“Fuck, she’s clenching so tight on my fingers,” Minho tells Jisung. “She likes you playing with her, I can feel her getting close.” 
“Yeah?” Jisung stares down and looks at your face, fucked out, and you look at him fucked out out of your mind. Lips parted and eyes glossy, your eyes didn’t leave his. He looked at you with utter adoration, never stopping his motions on your chest. 
“Min, Min… Cumming, fuck,” you breath. Your boyfriend keeps a steady pace, finger fucking you right through your orgasm. As Jisung slows his pace, rubbing slower on your nipples, he pulls off with a harsh tug. 
You sit up, putting your pressure on your arms as you look at Minho who slowly pulls his fingers out of your cunt. Revealing his fingers, he shows Jisung how soaked his fingers are. 
“Want to taste her sweet cunt?” Minho asks with a devilish smirk. Jisung nods his head with doe eyes. 
Minho reaches past your body and extends his hand to Jisung, offering the boy his two fingers. You watch as Jisung parts his lips, Minho sliding the appendage inside. You clench your thighs together at the loud slurping and soft whimper that this elicits from his mouth, eyes shut as he tastes your release. Minho’s gaze hardens, watching him with predatory eyes. When he pulls his fingers out from his mouth, a long string of saliva connects his fingers to Jisung’s mouth, dripping down onto your bare chest. The action makes both you and Jisung moan softly. 
Minho stands, maneuvering your body to the position he wants you in. He puts you on your hands and knees on the couch, ass up and hanging over the edge for easy access. He pulls your underwear down around your knees but keeps the skirt on, opting to flip it up over your body instead. You feel used like this, shirt bunched down around your waist and panties not even fully off your body yet. 
“Come fuck her pussy,” Minho says to Jisung. He stands up fast, moving behind you to position himself at your entrance. Here he has a full view of your cunt, still soaked and glistening from your release. He lets out a shaky breath and looks at Minho for permission, who stands over you and looks down at you. You look up at him almost pathetically, giving him a weak smile. He smirks at you, practically cooing as he tucks a strand of hair behind your ear. 
“Go on,” he says, his voice suddenly turning sharp as he addresses Jisung. “I’m not going to tell you twice.” 
You don’t see Jisung pull his pants down but you feel him poke at your entrance, his tip leaking as he rubs it up and down your folds. You rock your hips back, desperate for the pressure, and hiss when he finally enters you. As soon as he does, he stills, breathing heavy behind you. 
“Fuck… so tight,” he says, more to Minho than to you. He gives a cat-like smirk and gestures for the boy to continue. And so Jisung starts, slowly rocking his hips into you. He grinds up against your ass each time, a grip bruising right on your hips. 
Minho sits down on the couch now in front of you. Here he can look right into your eyes, his gaze harsher than you had ever seen before. 
“Look at you getting your slutty pussy fucked by my friend,” he coos. It feels condescending, and you tilt your head down to look toward the couch when you feel his fingers underneath your chin. He pulls you up to meet his eyes, fingers pinching your cheeks to part your mouth open for him. “Do you know how long he’s been waiting to fuck you for? It’s almost pathetic. He’s wanted your sweet cunt for so long but he could never have it, could he?” You shake your head at him, and Jisung whines from behind you, increasing his pace. 
As Jisung goes harder and you start approaching your release, you look up at Minho with tears pricking your eyes. 
“Close?” He coos. You nod your head. “You gonna cum on his cock?” 
“Please,” you grunt out. “Please Minho.” 
“Go ahead, then.” And it's not until Minho brings your face to his in a wet, messy kiss that you finally finish. You moan into his mouth and he drinks it up, his tongue pushing against yours and into your mouth. Jisung becomes more vocal as well, whiny moans and heavy breathing as he fucks you through your orgasm. 
Minho pulls you off of his lips harshly, looking at his friend behind you. Jisung looks absolutely wrecked and Minho knows it won’t take long to push him over his edge as well. 
“Is her tight pussy clenching around you good?” He asks. He looks at his friend with a proud smirk. Jisung nods, eyes closed and head thrown back. “As good as you imagined? Wanna tell me how good her pussy feels?” 
“S’good,” he says. “So warm and wet… so tight, fuck…” 
Minho stands, walking over to Jisung. He lifts your skirt higher, revealing your bare ass to Jisung. “Go ahead and paint her ass, if you’re gonna cum,” he tells him. 
And with a few more thrusts and a soft ‘fuck, fuck, fuck,’ he pulls out and covers your ass with him cum. You’re covered in it, as he came a lot, and it starts dripping down your body. Minho scoops some of Jisung’s release with two fingers and brings them to your mouth, your lips automatically parting for him. You lick it off of his fingers, looking at him. You’re floating into a soft subspace and he can see it, utterly and completely submissive for him now. You’re pliant and completely at his command. He looks down at you with dark eyes. 
“My turn,” he says. Him and Jisung switch places, promptly. Jisung stares at you with wide eyes and watches your face, the way that you moan when Minho slips into you easily. 
His pace is brutal from the start, his hips snapping into yours relentlessly, his thighs making a loud wet sound as they slap against the backs of yours. A hand grabs at your hair, yanking you upwards to look at Jisung; he gasps when he sees you, mouth wide open and tears streaming down your face as you let out a sob. It’s too much, the overstimulation, the way Minho’s long cock kisses your cervix at every thrust. And he uses the hand in your hair to control you, pulling you back onto his cock with his strong grip. 
“Fuck…ing… pussy… so… good… for… me…,” Minho enunciates with every snap of his hips. 
You’re babbling at this point, too far gone to form any coherent words. “Min… oh my… fuck,” you say. “Jisung, Sungie…” you cry out at one point, his eyes never leaving yours. Even though he’s no longer participating he still watches intently, his lips parted in a soft ‘o’. 
“What are you calling his name for?” Minho taunts. “I’m the one fucking this cunt, not him. Are you so braindead that you don’t know who’s cock you’re calling out for?” 
“No… Min,” you answer. 
“Good, I’m gonna cum in this greedy pussy,” he says. “Only I can fill you up. Only I can breed your filthy cunt,” he says. “Say… fuck, say my name when you cum on my cock, baby.” 
And you do, because your release comes out of nowhere. With a loud cry you’re calling, no, screaming his name, clenching around him impossibly tight. Your orgasm seems to last forever, and you know he can feel the way you’re spasming around him with every thrust. 
When his hand snakes around and grabs the front of your throat, you know he’s close. His hand squeezes tight and you feel dizzy and light-headed, but this floaty feeling has you rolling your eyes to the back of your head in pleasure. 
Minho must be completely gone now, no longer spewing filthy words. He doesn’t say anything as he finally cums inside, grabbing your hips so tight that it’s sure to leave a mark. He stills against you and you can feel his hot release flood you, his cock twitching as he grinds impossibly deeper into your ass, as if he were trying to get his cum as far into you as he can, as if he were trying to mark you as his. 
When he releases his grip on you your body slumps onto the couch. Suddenly you’re weak all over and your body feels limp, vision starting to blur as you look up at Jisung. You notice a large wet stain on his pants, and you realize he must’ve cum again, simply from watching you get fucked within an inch of your life. You let out a soft chuckle and reach for his hand, your fingers weakly intertwining with his and giving him a soft squeeze. 
Arms are scooping you up in an instant, and you open your eyes to see your boyfriend carrying you in his arms, bridal style. 
“I’m going to get her into the bath,” he tells Jisung. 
“Okay. I should… I’m probably going to leave,” he says, voice riddled with uncertainty. 
“You don’t have to,” he replies. You can hear the softness in his tone, the fondness for his best friend coming through in his words. “You don’t have to,” he repeats. 
And though he’s no longer using that domineering tone that had you and Jisung submitting to him in an instant, Jisung still listens to his words. You shoot Jisung a shy smile and wave your fingers at him as you’re carried off into the bathroom. 
Minho is ever the attentive lover, humming as he sits next to you beside the tub. He scrubs your skin gently, rubbing soothing circles into your sore muscles. He pays careful attention when shampooing your hair, making sure not to get any of the soap into your eyes. Your boyfriend Minho is one of the best things that has ever happened to you. He is sweet, kind, forgiving, and so so patient with you. In this moment you’re reminded of that fact, and you feel a twinge of guilt when you’re reminded of the way you acted earlier. 
“I’m sorry,” you say. It’s the first words you’ve spoken since after you had sex. They’re barely loud enough to hear, but you know your words haven’t fallen upon deaf ears when he lets out a soft sigh. 
“You have nothing to apologize for, love,” he murmurs. “I’m sorry for dragging out your punishment for too long. I know you were trying to rile me up and get on my nerves… and it worked. Not for the reason that I thought though. I thought that… I thought that Jisung touching you would make me mad, but the more I thought about it… fuck, the thought of sharing with him what’s mine, to show him ‘this is my beautiful girlfriend that makes me feel so good…’ It was so hot, baby. And I wanted him to touch you. I wanted him to make you feel good, too. He looked so fucked out, and I liked that it was us that made him feel like that, y’know?” 
You smile softly at him. “Min, can I ask you a question?” 
He hums in response. 
“Do you… have feelings for him?” He doesn’t meet your eye, and that’s all the answer that you need. You know that outloud, at least right now, he could never truly admit it, but he didn’t have to. “It’s okay,” you reassure. “Nobody’s faulting you if you do. We don’t have to talk about it right now, okay?” 
Minho wraps you in a towel and dries your skin. His eyes are full of adoration for you. Before you walk into your bedroom, his lips meet yours in a soft kiss. 
That night, the three of you fall asleep in your bed. There’s no discussion to be had about how this complicates your relationship. There’s no words exchanged, there’s no awkward eye contact, and there are no bad thoughts that cloud your mind as you drift to sleep. You listen to Jisung’s soft snoring and the pitter patter of Minho’s heartbeat. You fall asleep warm, intertwined with many limbs, and with a soft smile on your face.  *** Part 2/4 of the threesome series ;) Hope y'all enjoyed Masterlist Recs
Taglist: @lolareadsimagines / let me know if you want to be added to the taglist for this series
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astroboots · 10 months
Text
EVERY YOU EVERY ME #9
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COLLABORATED WITH @THIRSTWORLDPROBLEMSS
Pairing: Miguel O'Hara x female reader
Summary: You get a new mysterious co-worker.
Word count: 8,100
Series Masterlist | Spiderverse Masterlist | Astroboot’s Masterlist | thirstworldproblemss’ Masterlist
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August 1st
Nearly pancaked by grand piano falling from the 8th floor outside of favorite cafe. No casualties (except the piano).
August 5th
Freak blizzard out of nowhere during lunch. Nearly crushed by large icicle dropping directly outside the exit of the Chrysler building. No other known casualty.
August 6th
An escaped hippopotamus from the Bronx zoo ran 11.3 miles, nearly got stampeded when exiting hotel for work. No casualties.
August 12th
Tornado appeared inside the Guggenheim museum, nearly squashed by large falling statue. Nobody nearby was seriously injured.
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It's already mid-August now. You've used up more than a month of your allotted three. It means you don't have much more time to waste, but that knowledge does nothing to help you in figuring things out. 
You’ve compiled a comprehensive list of the Universe's ongoing murder attempts, determined to keep track of them all. All in all, there are 37 incidents and counting that you’re aware of… and they’re all different. 
They differ in severity. They differ in scale and they differ in frequency. Sometimes it can take weeks, sometimes days, sometimes within hours of each other. If there’s any sort of pattern to them—anything that might help you predict what will happen next or how to stop it—you can’t see it.  There’s nothing that gives you any hint or clue as to where you can start to make progress with solving this mystery.
The one thing you have been able to observe from cataloging these incidents is that Miguel was right about what he told you that day at Starbucks: the universe is ramping up. Each attempt is becoming more and more bizarre, defying the very laws of physics and nature in its attempts to snuff you out. Before this, in all of your years in New York, you’ve never heard of a blizzard in July or a tornado indoors. 
With the escalating dangers, Miguel is more on guard than ever. Sticking close to you at all times like a particularly insistent herding dog that’s always a few inches from nipping at your heels. Even when he’s seemingly preoccupied by something else—reading a book, folding clothes, eating a crate of kit kats in one sitting—you can always tell that he’s keenly aware of and attuned to your every minute move. 
Practically, the only time he lets you out of his sight is for bathroom visits. 
Work is still a point of contention between you two. He hates that he can't enter the building to monitor you at work and make sure you're safe, and after that incident when you caught a co-worker trying to take a surreptitious selfie with Spiderman while Miguel was loitering around in the windows, you’d banned him from climbing and scuttering around the exterior of the building like some deranged squirrel. 
It’s made him even less pleased about your whole work situation, something he’s not shy about sharing with you. Every morning when you are about to leave for work, Miguel will stand by the door with that ever present frown and ask you: 
“Why are you still going into a job you hate when there’s only two months left?”
This morning, you sigh as you reach for your jacket and messenger bag. 
Part of you completely understands and even agrees with his logic. If the end of the world is only two months away, why go back to that shithole everyday? You could go to Disneyland. Eat fancy croissants in Paris for breakfast. Have Lyla fake a reservation at an all-inclusive yoga retreat in Bali. You could be living your life like every moment is your last. 
The thing is though, as delusional as it may be, you’re not ready to bet on the world ending just yet. 
“Miguel, I fully intend for the universe to still be around in two months. And I don’t want to be unemployed when that day comes. I’m not some trust fund baby. Once we figure this thing out, you’re gonna be free to go, and if you take Lyla with you, then what am I supposed to do? Live on the streets? Rent in the city is ridiculous, and my rent-controlled apartment got blown into a million pieces.”
For once Miguel doesn’t seem to have anything smart to say back. He tilts his head, quietly studying your face. Then after a long pause, he gives you a curt nod, as if something clicked into place. 
"Fine."
You stop mid-way through zipping up one of your boots to eye him suspiciously. 
Okay, that’s… different.
In all the mornings you’ve repeated this argument, this is the first time he’s simply accepted your explanation without sassing you back. He just gazes right back, apparently unperturbed, and holds the door of your hotel room open for you, ready to walk you to work. 
There is definitely something going on inside his head, because this stubborn dummy never lets anything go without a fight. You just don’t know what it is yet. 
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By mid-morning, you've forgotten all about your suspicions, too busy dealing with the aftermath of your coworker's incompetence. You're not entirely sure how they managed to corrupt the Excel formula you’d painstakingly inserted to make sure all the numbers add up correctly, but two hours later, you're still trying to get the data to compute properly. 
It’s the kind of mind numbing task that lets your mind wander, and you spend most of that morning wondering what Miguel is up to. He’s probably lingering near the building, eating mini donuts by the dozens from that food truck that is always parked around the corner. 
There’s a pointed series of knocks on your cubicle wall. The noise is grating, and it makes the whole of your back seize up because you recognize that signature knock from sound alone. It’s your boss, probably here to ask if you have capacity to take on more case evaluations. 
And sure enough, as you reluctantly turn to look, you see her, toothy smile and all, looking down at you in that hammy and strained way of hers. 
“Are you busy?” she asks. “I just wanted to introduce you to the newest member of the team.” 
She gestures to the person standing beside her. Your gaze goes up over their insanely long legs, up and over the narrow and tapered waist and torso, up over the wide chest and broad, broad shoulders, and even before you get to the familiar face, you already know who you are looking at, because no one else is that tall.
Your mouth gapes open wide in shock.
This stupid motherf-
“This is Mickey O’Hara,” your boss introduces, simpering up at him. (You didn’t even know she knew how to simper.) 
Has Miguel gone insane?
What is he playing at?!
He didn’t even bother to change his name properly!
And the man looks unfairly good in office casual! He’s dressed in a white, well-fitted button down shirt and dress pants. Wearing ridiculous thick-rimmed glasses that would belong on Gregory Peck. Riotous curls are as messy and wild as ever, not having even bothered to comb it back. You don’t know who he thinks he’s fooling, the subdued get-up only makes him stick out like a sore thumb.
“Mickey is our newest hire,” your boss continues, batting her eyes at him. “He's interning with our team as a junior insurance claims adjuster and will be shadowing you for the next two months.”
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After that, Miguel truly is with you everywhere you go. 
He spends most of each workday sitting on a spare chair in your small cubicle, the two of you squeezed into 6'x6', shoulder touching shoulder in that tiny, cramped space.
A superhero he may be, but Miguel is a terrible office worker. He seems completely bamboozled by the copier, and you quickly learn not to ask him to do any copying or scanning or even pick your printouts from the printer, because he always manages to mangle the process, coming back with crumpled up prints or half-shredded paper that looks like budget confetti.
Before the week is over, he’s gained a reputation with the rest of the team as the handsome-but-useless junior that can’t even make coffee for shit.
Most of the time, he doesn't even make an effort to look like he’s doing any actual work, just sits right next to you, and reads books all day long. When you scold him and ask him to at least pretend like he's doing busy work, or he'll get fired, Miguel will just shrug and quietly hum back at you, engrossed in whatever latest sci-fi book his nose is buried in. 
"If they fire me, I'll just have Lyla hack into their HR system and rehire me."
Then there’s the way his sleeves are always rolled up halfway up his arm, hugging tight around the firm muscles of his forearm. The peep show of gorgeously tanned skin that is always on display for all to see. It's obscene. 
He’s maddening and distracting. 
Still, you can’t be too mad about his presence. The office is a much more treacherous place than you’d initially thought. It’s a danger zone of death traps. 
One morning when you’re in the supply room, getting a new pad of post-its from one of the massive industrial shelves—the ones that are supposed to be bolted to the wall for safety—suddenly crumpled, taking half the wall with it and nearly flattening you. That was almost game over for you. Squashed like a bug and entombed under a pile of archived TPS reports. 
Then there’s that time with the runaway elevator when the supposedly secure and unbreakable industrial cables snaps, with you in it, falling through 40 floors. And you still shudder everytime you walk past the copy machine because of that time it tried to electrocute you. If Miguel hadn’t been there for all of these incidents, you’d be a goner. 
Another upside is that it’s also nice to have a cubicle buddy. On slow days, the two of you kill time watching YouTube origami tutorials and practicing with post-its stolen from the temporarily-relocated office supplies. 
Despite having hands the size of a giant, Miguel is surprisingly good at it. Delicately folding paper cranes, butterflies and flowers that sit in the place of pride atop of your computer screen, compared to your questionable attempts that usually wind up in a crumpled ball in the trash. 
With Miguel there, your days at the office are never boring or predictable in the way they used to be. It no longer feels like you are just going through motions. It's almost… fun. 
If there wasn’t a cosmic executioner’s ax looming over your neck, you don’t think you would mind spending every day with him like this.
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You take it back. You do mind spending days with him like this. Miguel is the worst. 
You've been doing data entry all morning, and the man will not shut up about how primitive Excel is. 
“Malo! I don’t understand how your company relies on this software. There are so many data consistency issues! It completely lacks data validation and integrity checks, and it’s too prone to human error when entering crucial data, which results in–” 
You take deep calming breaths as you continue to type, trying to pretend his rant is white noise.  
The previous day's near death experience—an electrical surge from the printer, trying to finish what the copy machine started—also wiped out one of the file servers, and now you and half your department are stuck manually re-entering three years worth of data.  
Two hours in, your fingers are aching, and you're about ready to start banging your head on the keyboard out of frustration. (Or banging the keyboard on Miguel’s head if he doesn’t shut up.)
Like he can hear your thoughts, the man in question obligingly stops talking, and there’s a moment of blessed silence before your chair glides smoothly and suddenly to the left as Miguel rolls you out from in front of your computer. Your first instinct is to wonder what new danger he’s saving you from, but no… He’s just moving you out of the way to make space for him to drag his own chair in front of the screen. “Enough,” he says firmly, already typing out some unintelligibly complex code at a speed that far outstrips your own personal best of 67 words per minute, “I can’t watch you keep doing this when it’s so simple to automate.”
You sometimes forget just how smart Miguel is. 
True, he can’t seem to work the office printer, but he’s a genius scientist who single-handedly built an A.I. sophisticated enough to hack into financial institutions and topple governments. He successfully invented a machine that travels between dimensions. Every other sentence coming out of his mouth sounds like something that would confound Stephen Hawking. You don’t know why you’re surprised he’s able to automate Excel spreadsheets. 
It doesn’t take him very long at all. 
Within minutes, he’s finished, hitting enter one final time, and then you can see all of the cells rectify themselves one by one. Errors disappear and new corrected information appears, data populating blank cells and aligning itself in tidy rows. 
You lean in closer to get a better look. Your elbow snags the edge of your coffee cup and the cup topples over, splashing runaway hot coffee across your hand.
Before you have a chance to react, there’s a strong pull backwards. Miguel is already grabbing you and pulling you sideways into his lap and out of the firing range.
The cup clatters off the edge of the desk and onto the floor. The rest of the burning liquid never had the time to land on you. 
Then you’re sitting on top of him, confined in the much too small seat of the office chair that can barely fit him and his broad backside, and much less the both of you. But if it’s uncomfortable, Miguel doesn’t show it. He takes your hand in his to inspect it carefully.
The patch of skin burns and stings, but you can’t tell if it’s from the coffee or his burning touch that makes you feel like there’s liquid fire simmering in your veins. 
“You okay?” he says, his voice right in your ear.
He is so close. Surrounding you. Broad arms locked around your waist and the firm muscles of his thick thighs under yours.
“Yeah,” you manage, nodding slowly. Your tongue feels heavy and dry in your mouth.
He quietly drags your hand closer to his face, then blows on the back of your burnt knuckles to soothe the sting. 
“Better?” 
Those stunning eyes are staring into yours from inches away, cut cheeks right there, nose barely brushing against yours, and – god, is he close. Too close. 
Miguel is always in close proximity to you these days. Never more than a couple yards away, but save for life or death situations, the two of you do not find yourself like this. He only ever holds you when you’re crashing through the skies or about to collide with a runaway vehicle. This is different somehow. 
Your heart feels like a trapped bird in your chest, fluttering so fast and panicky it might burst from inside out at the proximity. 
“I– um– ah…” You’re not saying any words, just making strange noises in your throat like a squawking bird. 
Your eyes flicker away from his face avoidantly and from the corner of your eye, you spot Matt from accounting spying on you from the cubicle across. 
Oh god. This probably doesn’t look great, does it?
You’re sitting on a co-worker’s lap in the middle of an open plan office. Compromising does not even begin to describe the position you two are in.
Jumping off his lap, you quickly stand up and turn away, trying to ignore the flustered heat in your cheeks. 
You walk back over to your chair, about to sit yourself back down, but there’s spilled coffee everywhere. The dark brown liquid quickly sinking into the already stained fabric of the seat.  You need to clean this up or else your chair is going to smell like expired coffee for the rest of time. Grabbing for your bag, you start digging for some tissues so you don't have to walk up to the supply closet.
You pull out item after item. Tampons. Sunglasses. A half-eaten chocolate bar. More tampons. New wallet with new ID, (expedited, all courtesy of Lyla). A handful of pennies. A random pamphlet. Still no tissues though, so you upend your bag onto your desk, wincing at the clatter. 
How on Earth have you accumulated this much stuff in the few short weeks since your apartment was destroyed?  And how on Earth do you not have any kleenex or napkins or anything in your handbag?? 
You paw through the mess, hoping for something useful, then swear as some of it spills over onto the floor. Ducking down, you crawl half under your desk, collecting wayward tampons and receipts, until your eyes pause on the pamphlet.
Not just any pamphlet. It’s yellow and bright with Whoopie Goldberg's face in the corner. It's the map you received from the fortune teller lady. One of your many misfires.
Now that you look closely at it, there are faint lines that seem to glow faintly in the dimness under your desk that weren't there when you were looking at it in plain daylight.
You pick it up and unfold it, laying it out on the floor. It looks like it’s been written on with some kind of a glow-in-the-dark marker, but it’s not dark enough for you to see clearly. You need to get somewhere darker to test your theory.
Backing out from under your desk, you get to your feet and head briskly off down the hall. You barely make it three steps before Miguel’s on your tail, his towering height blocking out the bright LED lamps above as he follows after you like the world’s biggest duckling. 
“Cielo, what’s wrong?”
“Nothing’s wrong,” you murmur curtly under your breath. The heat from before is still riding persistently on your face, and you quicken your steps, hoping it doesn’t show. 
You half run to the end of the hall until you reach the small supply closet. When you open the door to step inside, Miguel is right behind you, apparently trying to squeeze himself in after you. 
"We won't both fit in here!" you scold as you close the door after you.  His unhappy expression is the last thing you see as darkness envelops you in the pitch black.
There’s a niggling feeling of guilt that wiggles down into your skin. But you remind yourself that you can always steal cupcakes meant for clients from the conference room to make it up to him. All will be forgiven if you appease his sweet tooth. 
Ducking your head to stare down at the map clutched in your hands, you squint your eyes in the dark to study it closely. There's a small star glowing bright in the middle of the map.
It's a literal star map.
She gave you a location.
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You're standing in front of an old stone building at 177A Bleecker Street, smack in the middle of Greenwich village with its picturesque ivy covered old brownstone houses. 
Then there's this monstrosity: Sanctum Sanctorum. The infamous residence of Dr. Strange.
The mansion is built in a mix of a Victorian and Gothic style as if the architect couldn't make up their mind and just decided 'why not both?' Throughout the rooftop, there are ornate carvings and intricate stonework that you suspect was meant to lend it a mysterious air, but instead the place reminds you of Disney’s Haunted Mansion ride attraction. 
You bring up your hand to the old knocker, gripping it firmly. Your lungs tighten, breath constricting in your chest as you hesitate, unable to bring yourself to pull the brass down to make contact with the wooden front door. Instead you’re holding it still in the air. 
Maybe this isn’t a good idea after all. How are you going to explain this? 
‘The universe is out to get me, please send Avengers to help.’
Isn’t he just going to think you’re nuts? One of those delusional Supes-fan with munchausen syndrome?
"We can still leave," Miguel says. 
The man's been protesting every step of the way here, buzzing in your head about how much of a bad idea this is.
You frown, turning around to him. "I want to do this,” you answer. 
His continued opposition is the final push you need. You bring down the knocker against the front door and tap it repeatedly. 
There's no answer.
Part of you has to fight the urge to turn your feet and flee, saving yourself the embarrassment. But before you do, there’s a loud creak and a heavy scraping noise against the entrance as the double door swings inwards and slowly opens. 
No one greets you by the door. The entryway before you is empty, revealing a grand imperial staircase leading to the second floor, curving upward into a majestic spiral on each side of the room. 
It looks deserted. It’d be impolite to just step inside without someone to greet you and explicitly invite you in. But the doors did open to let you in. 
You look at Miguel, unsure of what to do, but the man does not have the same compunction for politeness that you do, he’s already walked in, shoes and all, straight into the main hall. 
“Can we just get this over with without you making your usual stupid grand dramatic entrance?” Miguel says into the empty room seemingly to no one in particular and you don’t know who he thinks he’s talking to. 
A ring of ember and fire sparks into existence out of nothingness in the center of the room. The ring grows wider, and you can see hints of another room inside of the circle: one decorated in a different decoration style than the current room you’re in: moroccan seats and plush cushions with oriental wooden carved furniture. 
A man steps out from within that room to stand in front of you both. The ring of light closes behind him once he’s made it through. Clad in a rich purple tunic and dark robes that is monk-like in appearance. Miguel steps in front of you, tucking you safely behind him. 
"You're not Strange," Miguel sneers, and you want to smack him. Why does he always have to be this rude?
"Oh, I'm quite strange. But I am not the Doctor. I am Wong. I’m the Sorcerer Supreme and guardian of this place." The man’s voice is calm and formal, and he holds himself with a stately manner as he speaks. 
You pop out your head from behind Miguel’s side. "We’re here to see Doctor Strange." 
At the repeated mention of Strange, the man’s formality seems to fall away, an expression of irritation bleeding into his features. 
"Let me know when you find him. Because he is not here."
"Where is he?" Miguel asks, and there’s that contempt rumbling in his voice again. 
"I do not know. Probably playing hooky again. The man comes and goes as he likes." Wong makes a muttering noise under his breath as he continues. "Treats this sacred place like a summer gig at McDonalds."
Your chest deflates. How are you supposed to get Dr. Strange to help you if he’s not even here?
"I need help,” you plead with Mr. Wong. Maybe he can help you if Dr Strange can’t, he is the Sorcerer Supreme after all, supreme is the highest level, right? This might even be an upgrade from Strange. “I know this sounds crazy, but I think the universe is out to get me." 
Wong just looks at you, expression unchanging, and okay, yeah, that was maybe not the best place to start. You take a deep breath, trying to figure out how to make yourself sound less paranoid.
"I've almost died 40 times since the beginning of the summer. I just want to know why this keeps happening and how to make it stop."
You dig into your bag, pulling out the folded map. 
"We talked to a fortune teller in Chinatown, and she gave me this map. It led us here, and I'm really, really hoping you can help me."
Wong dips his head down to the map, "This is a celebrity home star map," he says, with a straight face and a neutral voice that only slightly betrays that he thinks you're batshit crazy.
“I know it sounds crazy, but-”
“Sanctum Sanctorum opened its doors for you, which means it wanted me to meet with you. I believe what you’re telling me.”
Oh thank god.
You tell him everything, rambling on as you try to explain what’s been happening and what little you know about it as best you can. The near death experiences, Miguel being a Spiderman from another dimension, the destruction of your apartment,  the unnatural phenomena and the universe’s escalating attempts on your life. 
Wong is quiet throughout, studying your face with grave concentration as you speak. 
When you’re finally done, he sighs with deep weariness that emanates from the core of his soul. He looks down on his feet, tapping them in deep consideration.
"I have an idea,” Wong says cautiously, “I could perform a Multiversal Divination on you, that might give us a clearer idea of what we’re dealing with,” 
“What does that mean?” Miguel asks, anger vibrating off his skin and boiling in his tone.  
This man needs to calm down. You clearly need to take him to anger management, because since the moment he’s stepped into this place he’s been on the edge (even more so than usual).
“What does a ‘Multiversal Divination’ entail?” he continues, “Is that some magical mumbo jumbo that’s going to hurt her? Because if so we’re not–”
“I’ll do it,” you say, interrupting his objections, and you sidestep Miguel who is scowling, mouth already parted in yet another protest, to stand in front of Wong. 
Wong looks to you and then Miguel, then back at you again, caught in the awkward stalemate, before you interrupt. 
“Please, I need answers. Whatever it is, if it might help, I want to do it.”
Wong nods, stepping closer to you. "This will feel a little bit strange," he warns with the bedside manner of a patient doctor.
His hand comes to your collarbone and he places his palm there with a gentle push. There is barely any effort put into it, but you feel the force of it as if you had been slammed with the full force of a six ton truck. Your body wants to leap out of its skin. It is the sensation of being dumped in cold water from head to toe. A shock runs through your entire nervous system.
Images flash before your eyes, flickering by too fast for you to process. They’re vivid and bright. Glimpses of a scene: your apartment, your work, your commute home. Each of them expiring in a fraction of a moment before you have a chance to latch on and make sense of any of them individually.
You see yourself in picture after picture. Except slightly different in each. Short hair. Long locks. Curly.
In some you're wearing glasses instead of the contact lenses that you usually use. In others, you’re sporting the piercing you wanted to get at 16 but never did. Sometimes you have tattoos, sometimes not; occasionally you’re covered in them. Dyed hair, in every color of the spectrum: pink, blue, purple. A myriad of versions of you, of every variation of the decisions you could have possibly taken in your life. 
There are pictures of memories you have had and not had. They rush in and flee before you're able to grab hold of one.
Captured moments of lifetimes you have never lived.
It's overwhelming. You don't understand what you're seeing. There’s pandemonium inside your head.
Then everything slows to a crawl.
The scene unfolding before you is one that you immediately recognize. An image that you'll never forget.
Window after window after window flashing you by. You know this view. Have seen it twice before. The same view of the Chrysler building as you were falling. But it's different this time. 
The sky isn’t blue, nor is it gray. It’s a pink and an abnormal purple, a color you’ve never seen on it before and it looks both beautiful and completely wrong. There’s an angry tear in the sky, cracking at the edges with static. The whole of the sky looks like it is going to cleave in two and bring the whole world with it. Is this the future? Is it the past?
There's no pain, but somehow tears run down your cheeks uncontrollably.
In the distance you hear Miguel's voice, muted even though you know from that tone that he's furious and must be bellowing loud enough that it echoes through the walls. It sounds like you are underwater, and you have to strain to make out what he is saying.
"Why is she crying?" He's definitely shouting, voice raw and growling. Is this part of your memory or is it happening in the now? "You're hurting her."
The ground approaches. 
"Stop! Stop!" Miguel's voice is shouting, but there's no way to stop this. Everything is going too fast this time around.
Miguel is here, tearing through the sky towards you. But you know it's too late. He's too far away. He can't save you this time.
Then everything does stop. 
No images in your head. No noise in your ears.
Everything goes black, like the ending of a movie.
Then you hear a thud.
It's loud and close and real.
You snap yourself out of your fugue state, to see Miguel towering over Wong's body where the Sorcerer Supreme lies, limp and lifeless on the ground.
“What did you do!? Are you out of your mind?" you shout, running up to them.
Oh god. Oh god. Oh god. Wong isn’t moving, not even blinking!
"He was hurting you!" Miguel roars. 
"He wasn't hurting me, you big doofus!" you shout back, and it’s only then that the fury in Miguel’s eyes seem to abate. 
"What's wrong with him?” you ask, bending down Wong’s limp body on the ground. “Is he dead!? Did you kill him?” There's a rising panic pushing inside your throat.
"He's just paralyzed."
"He’s para– What do you mean paralyzed? What did you do to him?"
"I just... I bit him," he uses a finger to part his lips slightly, pushing the upper one up just enough to reveal the sharp edges of his fangs. "There's toxins in them that can have a paralyzing effect."
You glance back at Wong. He’s still worryingly still. 
“Is there some kind of way to un-paralyze him!?"
"It was just a small bite," Miguel says, ducking his head down sheepishly to stare at the floor, like a scolded boy. "I didn’t use that much venom... It’ll wear off. He shouldn't be out long. Maybe half an hour or so."
“I’m sorry. So, so sorry,” you tell Wong fervently, hovering over him. You can see his eyes tracking yours and the rise and fall of his chest, and you breathe a sigh of relief at the proof that he’s still alive. “Do you, um… Do you want me to help you up?”
“He’s not gonna want to move for a few more minutes,” Miguel interjects from behind you. “Moving will be incredibly painful until the venom wears off the rest of the way”. 
What the actual fuck!?
You throw a glare at Miguel, as you loop an arm under Wong’s waist, “Well help me move him so he can be more comfortable.” 
At your command, Miguel helps you prop the man up against the wall in what is (hopefully) a more comfortable position, and then you sit next to each other and wait.
"I can't believe you bit the Sorcerer Supreme," you mutter under your breath. “Miguel, you can’t just–” you cut yourself off, too frustrated to find the proper words. 
"I'm sorry,” he says, grimacing at your scolding, looking regretful for once as he ducks down his gaze. “You looked like you were in pain".
Your anger subsides, if only slightly at his repentance. 
“It still doesn’t make it okay. You can’t just attack someone like that! He was trying to help us.”
He doesn’t say anything more to that, just stares down at his feet in contrition. 
The two of you sit in the silence. 
Your mind goes back to the surreal experience you just had. The myriad of thousands if not millions of images that were flashing through your mind at the speed of light.
The warped shape of your world, the jarring images of it distorted and wrong, as it started to collapse. 
Miguel had said that didn’t he? That the universe was going to ramp up its game and if it didn’t succeed, it would eventually self-destruct in its mission to get you.
It takes 26 minutes. The first sign that the toxins are wearing off is that Wong is able to wiggle his toes. His recovery accelerates after that, he's able to move his fingers, then the muscles in his face until he's able to form a grimace. He doesn't look happy, and you don't blame him.
After another five minutes or so, he's able to speak again. 
"Strange way of expressing gratitude, literally biting the hand that helps you."
You get up on your feet to help Wong, and Miguel moves next to you. 
“No, you stay there! Don’t move,” you order, and even though he scowls, Miguel complies. 
You hunch over next to Wong, and help him sit fully upright. He stays seated, but dusts his robe off from the caked soot and fine layers of dirt. 
“This has happened in other dimensions,” Wong tells you. “And if we don’t stop it, our universe will be destroyed.”
“How do we stop it?” you ask. 
“The universe wants you dead. It won’t stop until it achieves its goal.”
Your stomach drops. 
“So in order for this to stop… I need to die?”
There’s a look of barely contained fury burning in Miguel’s red eyes that seems to vibrate out of his skin and pounce. But he doesn't, this time he remains in place, visibly restraining himself, still following your orders. 
“There is that option, or you will need to find the reason for why it wants to kill you. And you need to find it soon, because you don’t have a lot of time left. You will have even less time once the people of this world realize the threat you present to the continued integrity of this universe.” 
“Are you threatening her!?” Miguel demands, and somehow even though you didn’t hear him move, he’s right behind you, red eyes glowing, shoulders rising, looming over Wong, ready to cut him down at any further hints that the man might be a threat to your safety. 
Wong doesn't seem deterred in the slightest. 
You have to give it to the Sorcerer Supreme. He's a brave one. It took you weeks before you stopped being intimidated by the man, and Miguel’s never bitten you. 
“I am only telling you what the universe tells me. And it tells me that you do not belong here at all. The universe thinks neither of you belong here.”
You think back on fortune teller's drawing of the poorly drawn circle and stickfigure of you that’s speared with arrows.
"What if we went… somewhere else?" Miguel asks.
For the first time since he entered this house, his tone is no longer dripping with anger. “What if we left this universe and dimension?”
The image of white blankness enters your mind at his words. You shudder at the reminder. The cold numbness of the void and the sensation of nothingness. Dread fills your veins. A cold clammy sweat flashes hot and cold against your skin at the memory.
Wong tilts his head up in deep consideration. “That might work. This universe would slowly return to equilibrium with her gone. But… This will just start again in any new Universe. Most likely she wouldn’t be able to stay. She might have to leave every dimension she's in for the rest of her natural lifespan. A life spent always on the run.” 
Wong pauses as he glances over to you with sympathy and concern in his gaze. “Is that something you would want?” 
What is the alternative here? To lie down and die?
“Yes.”
“One month’s time, you need to find a way to leave this dimension before then.”
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Back at your hotel that evening, you wake up to the sound of distress. Muffled whimpers and quiet moans. 
By habit, your eyes roam the room, seeking out Miguel in the dark. He’s lying on the sofa from across the room and even in this distance you can make out that his body is writhing beneath the covers. But you’re groggy and too sleep-drunk to make sense of what you’re hearing or seeing. 
There’s murmured noises from him, and it takes you far too long to understand what’s going on. 
He’s having a nightmare. 
Tugging off the blanket on top of you, you get up and scoot over to the end of the bed over to him. Miguel looks like he’s in pain. There’s a sheen of sweat on his forehead as he tosses and turns, face pinched in pain and distress. Now that you’re closer, you can make out words in the sounds he’s making. 
“Quiero quedarme contigo. No te vayas, no te vayas,” he keeps murmuring. 
He looks exhausted. Which, of course he is. He's been on constant alert trying to protect you. Fighting off supernatural weather phenomena, blocking hazardous furniture and fighting off charging hippos out of nowhere. Of course he's worn out.
“Shhhh, It’s alright.” you whisper to him, reaching out to gently stroke his arm, attempting to soothe him. “It’s okay.”
He groans unhappily in his sleep, burying his head into the cushion.
“Quiero quedarme conti–”
"Hey, hey, Miguel,” you tap insistently at his shoulder now. If you can’t soothe the nightmare away, then maybe you can at least wake him up out of it, “It's okay. Wake up."
This time his eyes slam open, wide with adrenaline and shock, and he shoots upright, head whipping from side to side as he scans the room. Every inch of him prepared to leap into a fight.  
“What’s wrong? What’s–”
“You were having a nightmare,” you explain to him. 
He stiffens at that, dropping his eyes to stare down at his lap unhappily. 
“Shit, did I wake you?” he runs a hand over his face, then lays back down, “Sorry.” 
Silence blankets the two of you, and you don’t know what else to say to him. Except just that you want him to be able to rest–truly rest–after the day, week and month you’ve both had. You don’t want him to have to go back to snatching moments of troubled, uncomfortable sleep on that stupid, too-small couch.
“You could come sleep on the bed with me,” you offer, “That couch is nowhere near big enough for you.”
"It's fine," he mutters, "It's been fine the last month, and it's fine now."
"It's not though. You're clearly not sleeping well.  I should have asked you before.  I'm surprised your back isn't already killing you—that sleeping position looked painful."
His head darts down, eyeing his own spread legs that are sticking out into the empty air from the bottom of the couch. But he doesn't concede the point.
"Please?" you try again, "It will make me feel better."
Apparently all you needed to do was ask, because Miguel immediately complies like your request was a decree. He gets up, pulling the quilt with him, his mop of curls in adorable disarray as he drags his feet over to the other side of the bed and flops down with a loud thump that makes the whole mattress bounce underneath you.
You can feel the pull of the sheets where his legs threaten to brush up against your bent knees, and you're beginning to realize you didn't think this through. Even in the big bed, there's only so much space, and he seems to be taking up most of it.  
He's close, and you can't seem to peel your eyes away from the strong line of his throat. Can't help the way your body reacts. Your pulse starts to race, heart kicking up hard and fast against your ribs.
Miguel turns around to observe you with narrowed eyes. “You okay?” 
Shit! Did he hear you? That timing was too on the nose. You nod at him a little bit too frantically and you sound high-pitched and skittish even to your own ears. 
 “Yes of course, why wouldn’t I be?”  
“Your heart is beating really fast.”
Fuck. He could hear you. Of course he can, he has super hearing powers doesn’t he? 
“I’m just tired,” you stammer out, wrapping the blanket close to your chest for layers as a shield from his super hearing. 
Miguel doesn’t push it. He turns back around, letting his head drop down the pillow. 
The distance between you has been growing smaller and smaller with each passing day together and you think you have been crossing an invisible line that you shouldn’t be crossing as of late. 
You think of the closeness of him in the office, the weight of his arms on your waist as he held you in his lap. His eyes on you. The bare skin of his broad back casually revealed to you when he was changing. The same back that you find yourself staring up at in this moment. 
“Go to sleep,” Miguel rasps from your side, and you nearly jump out of your skin in surprise. 
You close your eyes, but somehow in the dark you become even more keenly aware of his presence in the bed with you. Your heart seems to skip a little bit faster as the seconds pass, each beat a little bit harder. 
There's a quiet sigh, then a much louder exhale, as he turns back towards you in bed. 
"What's wrong?" His voice is still gruff with sleep.
"I can’t fall asleep,” you say, staring up at the ceiling in the dark. “Can you talk? It might help me sleep."
He snorts with a laugh. The sound of it makes something pleasant skitter up the length of your spine. He's got a nice laugh. It's a shame he doesn't laugh often.
"What's so funny?"
"No, nothing. Just... some things never change." Even in the dim of the unlit room, you can see the smile on his lips.
"What do you want me to talk to you about?" he asks.
You tilt your head, considering it. Miguel rarely gives you a carte blanche to ask him for information. Logically, you should use this moment to seize a tactical advantage and ask him for all the salacious details that you know he’s been keeping from you. But as you wrack your brain for questions, the only ones that come to mind are disappointingly ordinary. You just want to know more about him. Small, silly, personal details, the way he seems to know everything about you. 
"Tell me about where you're from," you request, "Your dimension. Your hometown." 
He shifts on the bed, lying flat on his back until he’s staring up at the ceiling with you as he reminisces. 
"It's called Nueva York. It's significantly more technologically advanced than this dimension. Definitely cleaner. People aren't as big of assholes as they are here. Public hygiene is way better, everything doesn’t reek of piss. Oh, and there’s not a rat epidemic in the public transportation system there." 
His head turns to his side to look at your face, and he gives you a small mischievous grin as he continues. "Food is healthier. You don't get junk food there."
The words should be complimentary, but from his tone of voice and what you know of his eating habits, you think it’s probably a win for your dirty, rat-infested dimension.
"Lots of skyscrapers and neon-lights everywhere. It's colorful."
He pauses, as if he's struggling to find anything more to say about the place. Then his head tips to the side, meeting your eyes, and his gaze is soft. 
“I'll take you there," he promises, voice quiet and warm and it makes something sweet and honeyed trickle inside your veins pleasantly. 
“How?” you wonder.
His smile drops, replaced by an unhappy frown. “Not sure yet, but I’ll figure it out.”
“Can’t we just open up a portal like last time?”
He shakes his head. 
"The last time I took you through the portal, it was meant to take us back to my dimension.  But I built the parallel universe traversal device to transport me—and only me—through the multiverse."
He reaches out to you, fingers wrapping gently around your wrist. The contact makes your skin tingle, but you don’t pull away. 
"I wasn't thinking last time. We can’t take the risk of winding up back in the void.” 
He’s mumbling now, nearly asleep. His eyes half-shut as he blinks slowly, struggling to keep them open as he slowly blinks.
"Someone that disappears in the void, they'll be erased from existence and out of every timeline. No one will ever remember you or know you existed. It's as if you've never existed at all."
You eye the watch on your wrist. The slight sheen of the bed light reflecting against the shiny glass.
"Can we modify the watch?"
"Firstly, not a watch", he reminds you by rote as he fluffs up his pillow with his arm. 
"And second..." he pauses, eyes drifting up to study the ceiling before he shakes his head, "I've tried. It doesn’t work. The power source isn’t powerful and your world is not technically advanced enough for me to build an upgraded self-sustaining fusion power source that would be needed. It’s how we ended up in the void.” 
Worry burrows into your chest, and your gaze drops down from his face. It always feels like you’re taking one step forward and ending up two steps back. Futile and hopeless but that’s what you get for trying to fight against the will of the universe. 
"Go to sleep," he says again, his hand coming to rest gently on top of your head, "I'll figure it out, don't worry.”
You smile, warmed by the comforting gesture and his reassurance. 
“I won't let you get hurt this time."
…‘this time.’
The promise cuts through you like glass. Sharp and jagged and clawing its way into your chest until it hurts you to breathe.
Miguel is talking to you, but you don’t think it’s you he’s thinking of when he says the words.
He attacked Wong without a second of hesitation when he thought you were hurt. He's exhausting himself half to death to protect you. But you know that he’s not really doing any of this for you. 
It’s not your comfort he was thinking of when he cradled your burnt hand and gently blew on your fingers. It’s not your love of egg tarts that makes him save the flaky pastries for you when the two of  you go out for dinner. It’s not you—has never been you—that he’s seeing whenever his eyes linger on your face when he thinks you’re not paying attention. 
You're riding on the emotional coattails of the other you. The unwavering loyalty that he had for her has transferred to you now that she's gone.
He must have really loved her. 
There’s a sharp fissure in your chest, and you try to swallow down the thistle of needles that’s found its way into your throat, only to discover that your saliva tastes sour and bitter. 
Closing your eyes, you can see an image of yourself smiling with him, laughing with him, holding his hand. Except it’s not you. 
It’s her. 
Other-you, with the wedding band and the happy life and– And somehow better hair too, the lucky bitch!
Except… she wasn't lucky, was she? She's dead.
She’s dead, and you still resent her for what she had with Miguel. It's such an ugly feeling. 
You squeeze your eyes shut as hard as you can, but the image doesn’t go away. Nor does that acrid taste in your mouth. You can't help it. This irrational and childish madness is eating into the edges of your mind. You're envious of your other self. 
God that’s fucked up. 
Does someone like you even deserve to be saved at all?
~ Next Issue
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Credits & Dedications: To @thirstworldproblemss for all the rubberducking we do together on this silly little story. Thank you so much for sitting with me and making this fun! I love you 234238472938492374923 x infinity and back again.
a/n: to be notified of new writing updates follow astroboots-writes and turn on notifs.
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saerins · 5 months
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°୨୧ MORAL OF THE STORY
+ sae x f!reader | wc 2k | content: both of them are just kinda selfish in their own ways, angst, mentions of alcohol
notes: haha hi guys …. i’m totally not in love with sae . totallyyyyyy … ( kidding i need help sos ) (∘⁼̴⃙̀˘︷˘⁼̴⃙́∘)
summary: you and sae have been in love with each other since high school. during your special day, he throws you a curveball.
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everything’s in full swing.
dinner is ongoing, the meat station being particularly popular, as you expected. all your old friends from different schools are mingling along so well, just like you imagined they would. everyone’s excited for the big day tomorrow, and so are you.
as you watch everything unfolding from the balcony, you can’t help but smile. one step closer to tomorrow, one step closer to forever.
unlike everyone else, you abstain from drinking yourself silly. they can afford to be hungover tomorrow, but not you. won’t be good to see the bride throw up all over her wedding dress.
“you look pretty like this.”
turning around at the man who has your full attention, you smirk. “just like this, itoshi sae?”
there’s a pink flush on his cheeks and you have a hard time gathering whether it’s from your words or the liquor. sae’s only a little tipsy—not enough to consider him drunk. but he chuckles though, and it has your heart beating faster; he still has the same hold over you like he did way back then.
nothing much has changed since you first knew him. he’d always been special to you, and you, to him.
“all the time,” he corrects himself, both elbows leaning on the railing, looking at the sea view before the two of you.
giggling, you mirror his position, bare arm brushing the sleeves of his expensive suit. “i’m sure you know i feel the same,” you tease him back.
sae laughs a little harder, and it’s refreshing to see his usual stoic expression turn soft. “of course i know,” he says before turning to look you in the eyes, those teal tones forever magic when they stare at you. “i’ve known since you started having that crush on me back in high school.”
you groan, covering your face. “see, i knew you’d bring that up!” you complain, embarrassed. it’s kind of humiliating whenever he brings that up—it’s his worst blackmail material. “shush—i don’t want anyone to know. no mentioning it in any toasts or anything, okay?” your cheeks are heating up by now, and you have to pout.
the man beside you only continues laughing, both of you enjoying just existing in the moment, and even though he doesn’t say anything, you know he won’t say shit about that. because he always listens to you.
everyone else is still inside, preoccupied by the games hosted by the emcee.
“hey, y/n?” sae speaks up as your laughter drowns out.
you turn to him, narrowing your gaze and smiling, wondering what to expect from him—as you always are, because sae’s good at surprising you and you love that. “yes, mr itoshi sae?”
there’s a small pause as he swallows the lump in his throat, his eyes still gazing at you, from your hair to your nose to your chin and back at your eyes. “i’m in love with you.”
at that moment, time stands still and there’s a ringing drowning your ears, a silence swallowing you whole. it has you doubting whether it’s really him in front of you, saying the words you’d always wanted to hear from him.
“what—”
“i love you, y/n.”
and by all means, it should’ve been a happy occasion. you’ve dreamt of this moment happening over and over and over again. back then, you envisioned something different.
you and sae, twenty-three, finding out where your life paths are going, converging together and deciding to fuck what everyone thinks and go for it anyway. you and sae, twenty-four and making it past the one-year mark and defying everyone else’s expectations (including your own). twenty-five and thinking why neither of you thought to try sooner. twenty-six and knowing you’re set for the rest of your life.
that’s how it was supposed to be.
but at eighteen, sae had left without a word after your confession, a selfish choice. at nineteen, your friendship was reduced to one-sided texts while sae was off trying to piece his future. at twenty, you’d given up and let sae turn his full attention to soccer, while you’d hold no grudges and finish your studies. by twenty-two, you’d met someone who always put you first, someone who always knew what to do to make you feel better. someone who’s good for you.
“what are you doing, sae?” you ask him, nostrils flared from all the emotions threatening to spill out of you. it was easy to convince yourself that you no longer felt anything for him when he wasn’t here to tempt you, wasn’t here to taunt you for giving up. but since he’s been back for the past year, it proves to be difficult to suppress all the old feelings you’d tucked away.
sae takes his time to answer, because he doesn’t know either. he doesn’t fucking know why he’s only telling you this now, when he’s felt this way since you were both sixteen. when you’re both ten years older and living very different lives. when you’re about to marry someone else that isn’t him and it’s driving him crazy.
“i don’t know,” he answers honestly, suddenly realising the gravity of what he did and looking away ashamed. “i just… i love you. ever since we were younger, i- i’ve always felt the same.”
he did, and he still loves you. he was stupid when he was younger. he left and made stupid decisions like not even trying to talk to you because he didn’t know what the fuck he should do and now no excuse would be good enough to convince you to choose him. there’s no reason for you to. you’re about to marry someone who’s so obviously in love with you. someone who shows you off everywhere, someone who treats you the way sae wish he did since all those years ago.
what is he even doing? he doesn’t even know.
whenever he thought about how you’d react if he ever told you those words, he didn’t think you’d be like this; silent, tears flowing out your eyes, the cold creeping up your cheeks and bare arms and making you shiver.
“i wish…” you pause, looking him in the eyes. “i wish you’d said that before it was too late.”
he’d seen that coming. of course there wouldn’t be anything different to this story, not even with his confession. except, maybe, the nostalgia of getting a chance to say everything he never did, to the girl who always deserved it the most.
despite every single part of him that is screaming at him that whatever he’s thinking about is wrong, that people shouldn’t do this to the bride the night before the wedding, that little volume of alcohol inside him provides all the rush he needs. a swift sweep of the surrounding scenery is all he needs to know nobody’s watching, and before either of you really know it, sae’s lips are on yours and you’re so conflicted it’s criminal.
of course, you’re the one who pulls away—but there’s never disdain in your eyes when you look at him. a mercy he shouldn’t be able to afford but he does, only because you’re a saint compared to him.
it’s selfish; he’d always loved you, always wanted you, always never knew what to do with himself but now he’s dragged you down this rabbit hole and the aftermath isn’t particularly sweet. you’re sweet, though, the taste of cake that lingered on your tongue.
“i’m sorry,” he settles for, and the perplexed expression behind your eyes just serve to make him hate himself for this. he should.
you clear your throat, sniffling down your emotions before straightening yourself up and offering him a smile—one laced with ten years of melancholy and a lifetime of sae’s regrets.
“i’m sorry too,” you tell him, and part of you doesn’t know what you’re apologising for. is it because he realised his feelings too late and doesn’t stand a chance right now? is it because you’re consoling him for his loss? or is it because you’re thinking that if he had done this even just a few weeks earlier, maybe you would’ve changed your mind? that’s something to be sorry to your fiancé at the time for, right?
there’s a dull ache in your heart that’ll be hard to extinguish. it’s a sorry state to be in especially when tomorrow should be one of the biggest days of your life, but you’ll manage, just like you always have. the little girl inside of you is happy, even if just a little, even if this situation is a little questionable. but the boy she’s loved her whole life finally has the guts to say that he feels the same way.
all too little too late; now he’s just the lingering feelings of what should’ve been that you need to say goodbye to no matter how much your selfishness never wants to let go.
taking a step back, you purse your lips into a thin smile and reach your hand out. sae shakes it, the sad deformation of your friendship turning into plain formalities. “thank you,” you say, trying your best not to let any more of the pain show, “for everything.”
for being the first person you ever really considered a friend. for being the first person who always protected you from the storms. for being the guy who became most of your firsts. for loving you too, this whole time. there’s a lot you want to thank itoshi sae for—but where you’re about to go, the phase of life that you’re going to enter, it’ll know no peace if you allow sae in it.
this might be one of the last few times you ever speak to the love of your life.
sae chuckles weakly, the strength in his grip fading. “i should be the one telling you that.” you were an integral part of his youth after all. you’re the only one for him, and that’s all that has to be said. only person outside of family he truly cares for. only person he’d ever give his heart to. only person that can demand anything of him and he’ll follow through. only person that can possibly ruin him.
only person that he wonders what it’d feel like if he ever heard you say it back.
but he knows he’ll never get it.
“maybe… in another life,” and a small smile is all you can offer before you have to pull away, the tenderness with which sae holds you rivaling that of your fiancée’s.
in another life, he’ll definitely find you. he’ll find you and keep you and make sure he isn’t as stupid as he was back then.
but as he lets your fingers slip through his hand, as he watches you retreat to your future husband—he knows that this life is what matters now, and this life is where he’ll never be happy. and as the groom slowly looks away from you, to sae, and nods like he now knows yet does nothing about it, sae hates him even more.
he’s perfect for you. with you. both of you seem like you’re cut from the same cloth. everything sae could probably never measure up to.
so he gets ready. gets ready to go back and have an early night. gets ready to watch you vow yourself away to another man right in front of his face. gets ready to sideline himself and say goodbye to the one person he ever loved.
on your wedding day, that’s when the two of you see the last of each other; the remnants of your friendship being kept in the form of a photo in your form—groom on one side, sae on the other. even years after the fact, even when your phone’s been changed twice, thrice, how many ever times—it’s still there, stagnant in your album, never discarded.
on another side of the world, the same happens with sae. it’s there, as though it’s engraved in the album, favourited and kept hidden. petty as it is, the version of the picture in sae’s phone has your husband cropped out.
through all these years, sae keeps staring at it whenever he thinks of you, wondering what could’ve been.
540 notes · View notes
theostrophywife · 6 months
Text
kiss with a fist | chapter ten.
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masterlist 💋 chapters 💋 playlist
pairing: theodore nott x reader.
song inspiration: the way i loved you - taylor swift.
author's note: get in, besties. we're crawling out of the trenches. i hope ya'll aren't too mad at me after this.
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The fallout from your fight with Theo wasn’t as bad as you thought it would be. Mostly because you spent the entire weekend holed up in your dorm and avoiding the nuclear aftermath. It was a coward’s approach, but you were content to let sleeping dogs lie. You didn’t know if you could bear facing the others. 
The newfound friendships you had formed with the Slytherins were all sure to implode given the circumstances. Theo was one of their oldest friends and they were loyal to their own. Once Theo told them what had gone down between you, they would undoubtedly take his side. You would've. The worst part was, you couldn't even blame them for it. 
The argument with Theo hurt. Because you knew each other so well, he knew exactly what to say to push your buttons. You were so, so angry in the moment, but the more that time passed, you could see that you were both in the wrong. Yes, Theo shouldn't have acted like an emotionally constipated twat, but you also could've approached the situation better. Instead, the two of you crashed and burned, imploding whatever precarious thing you had built up over the past few months. You were afraid that your newfound friendships with the others would become collateral damage.
The possibility of losing all of them filled you with unbearable sadness. You cried in bed until you were sure that you couldn’t possibly have anything left in you and then you cried some more. Luna was obviously very concerned on your behalf. She had never seen you cry, so you could only imagine how incredibly jarring it was for her to witness you sob for three days straight.
To her credit, Luna never judged you for any of it. She just let you feel the range of emotions you’ve been holding back for months, often rubbing your back and fixing you a soothing cup of tea. Every now and then she’d ask if you’d like to come to the Great Hall for a meal, but you declined each time. You wanted to put off the inevitable for as long as possible. 
When Monday crept around and hiding in your dorm was no longer an option, you carefully timed your arrival and departure to class so that you wouldn’t run into any of them. Especially not Theo. 
The plan was working well and you successfully avoided everyone until Wednesday afternoon. You had just gotten out of History of Magic when Mattheo and Enzo cornered you. They were both out of breath and sweaty, presumably from quidditch practice. 
“Y/N!” Enzo called from across the hall. You froze and rounded the corner, hoping to lose them in the crowd. 
“I know you see us, Y/N!” Mattheo called after you.
Unfortunately, they were much faster and caught up to you easily. You clutched your books in your arms like a safety blanket. “I have to go to class.” 
“No, you don’t,” Enzo said. “History of Magic is your last class of the day. We used to study after, remember? Before you decided to ditch us.” 
“I’m not ditching anyone,” you countered defensively. 
“Is that why we haven’t seen you for four days?” Mattheo pondered. “You don’t eat meals with us. You don’t attend game nights. You don’t let us walk you to class. Sounds like a classic ditching to me, Y/N.”
“Look, it’s just…complicated right now, okay.” You sighed, adjusting the strap of your satchel. “With everything that happened with Theo, I thought it would be best to keep my distance.” 
“Is that why he’s been moodier than usual?” Enzo asked. “You two had a fight?”
“He didn’t tell you?” 
Mattheo shook his head. “He nearly took my head off at practice, but when I tried to ask what the bloody hell was up his arse, the git just stormed off. I should’ve known it was because of you.” 
You flinched. Enzo elbowed Mattheo in the ribs, which caused the latter to grumble dramatically. “What Mattheo meant to say is that ever since you stopped coming around, Theo’s been in a proper foul mood.” Enzo placed a hand on your shoulder. “What exactly happened between the two of you?” 
The tears spilled out before you could stop them. You had done your best to keep it together during classes and club meetings and even prefect duties, but that one simple question seemed to push you over the edge. What happened between you and Theo? Your friendship, rivalry, flirtation, whatever had been forming these past few months had blown up in your face and you had been the one to light the match. 
Before you knew what was happening, Enzo crushed you into a hug. “It’s okay, Y/N. You don’t have to tell us.”
“It’s bad, Enz. I fucked up. I fucked up really bad.” 
To your surprise, Mattheo rubbed your back despite the mild discomfort on his face from seeing you cry. “Whatever it is, I’m sure you and Theo can fix it. You two are crazy about each other.” 
“You don’t understand, Mattheo. We said some really awful things to each other. I think—I think I really hurt him. I figured he would have told you all by now and that it would mean the end of my friendship with everyone.” 
“No way,” Mattheo countered. “You’re only just admitting that we’re friends. I’m not letting all that hard work go to waste.” 
You chuckled, wiping a tear away with the back of your hand. Enzo grinned, pinching your cheek. “There’s that smile. Mattheo’s right. We wouldn’t drop you just because you and Theo are fighting.” 
“The fight was my fault,” you sniffled. “I took it too far and I said some things that I really, really regret. I would understand if you took his side.” 
“We’re not taking sides,” Enzo assured you. “You’re both our friends. We care about you equally.”
“But you’ve known Theo your whole lives.” 
“Exactly,” Mattheo said with a nod. “We know how frustrating he can be sometimes. Even with us, Theo’s not exactly the most open person in the world. But something changed when you started becoming closer. You changed him, Y/N.”
“We all felt it,” Enzo added. “He started opening up more. Even talked about his mum and he never talks about his mum. I suspect you had something to do with that.” You felt the tears well up again. “My point is, it would be silly to let one little fight ruin a friendship. We’re definitely not letting it ruin ours. 
Mattheo draped a shoulder over you. “You’re one of us now, Y/N. There’s no getting rid of us.” 
Your heart felt like it might burst as you pulled the two boys into a group hug. Enzo chuckled as you practically crushed him and Mattheo ruffled your hair, messing up the neat braid you had arranged it in. 
“If either one of you tell anyone about this, I’ll slip a whiz-bang underneath your pillows.”
"There's the Y/N we know and love," Mattheo said with a grin. "Now come on, you're coming to dinner with us."
"We're not taking no for an answer either," Enzo stated when he saw the hesitation on your face.
You chuckled. "It's Wednesday," you recalled, training your suspicion towards Mattheo. "You just want me to come to dinner so I can stop Malfoy from taking the last red velvet cupcake, don't you?"
Mattheo huffed in indignation. "Can't I be a good friend and secure my sweets at the same time?"
"You're officially demoted to acquaintance, Riddle."
He gasped dramatically. "You take that back, Y/N!"
The knot in your stomach eased as the three of you made your way over to the Great Hall. The reconciliation didn't fully rid you of the guilt and anxiety, but at least it was a start.
"Well, well, well," Draco drawled as he raised a pale brow at you. "Look who decided to join us."
Blaise rolled his eyes. "Don't mind him. He's just upset you haven't been around to help touch up his roots."
"I'll have you know I'm a natural blonde, Zabini!"
"Merlin, all that bleach has truly seeped into your head," you quipped back.
The boys smiled as you took your seat. You appreciated how easy it was to slip back into things. They seemed to know that silly banter and arguments over cupcakes were exactly what you needed. You knew that they had to be at least a little bit curious about your situation with Theo, but they didn't pry. You would tell them when you were ready.
For now, it was just nice to sit and eat dinner with your friends.
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After reconciling with Draco and Blaise in the Great Hall over dinner, you were at least comforted by the fact that none of the Slytherins hated you. With the exception of Theo and probably Pansy as well. Out of the entire group, she was probably the one that you were scared to face the most. You had made an entire deal out of threatening her not to hurt Luna and then turned around and did the same exact thing to one of her closest friends instead. 
She had to be beyond angry. You put off speaking with her until the last possible second. As you walked back to your dorm that Friday night, you were nearly shaking with anticipation. You knew that Pansy would be studying with Luna before heading off on their weekly date night. 
You winced as you opened the door. As expected, Luna and Pansy were sprawled out on the rug, surrounded by parchment and ink. 
“Hi, Y/N,” greeted Luna. 
“Hi, Loons,” you said, fidgeting by the door. You had never felt more uncomfortable than when Pansy turned over to look at you. “Hi…Pansy.” 
“Y/N,” she said simply. Her glossy bob curved perfectly underneath her cheekbone as she turned towards you. “We’re finishing up here so you’ll have the room to yourself.” 
You swallowed thickly. “Actually, I’ve been meaning to talk to you. If you don’t mind.” 
Luna closed her book. “Would you like a moment alone, Y/N?” 
“No,” you said a bit quickly. “Stay, Loons. I could use the emotional support.” 
Your friend smiled and shot a pleading look at her girlfriend. Pansy conceded with a nod. “Are you going to finally tell me what the hell’s going on between you and Theo?” 
You sighed, sitting cross legged on the rug between them. “We had a fight.” 
“I gathered as much. Theo said something stupid, didn’t he? He always does when he gets scared of his own emotions.”
“We both said really stupid things to each other. I…think I took it too far though. I hit him where it hurts. Used his own words against him. I really hurt him, Pansy.” You averted your gaze, picking at the rug beneath you. “That’s why I’ve been skipping meals and avoiding everyone. Especially you. I know how much you care about the boys, and I really fucked it up with Theo. I understand if you’re mad at me, but I just want you to know that I really regret it.” 
The Slytherin girl appraised you for a moment. You had never been one to shy away from scrutiny, but you felt incredibly small as Pansy looked you over. You deserved whatever condemnation and vitriol she wanted to throw your way. You braced yourself for the worst as you met her gaze, but all you found was hurt in Pansy's expression.
“I’m not mad at you because you got into a fight with Theo,” Pansy said. “That’s his and your business to sort out. I’m mad because you just pulled away from all of us without saying anything. You assumed we’d drop you, so you did it first."
“And it was really stupid of me, but I know how loyal you are to each other and I hurt one of you. I didn’t know how to face everyone.” 
“You’re one of us too, Y/N,” Pansy declared. You felt your eyes brimming with tears as Luna squeezed your hand. “Not because you’re my girlfriend’s best friend, but because you’ve become my friend too. It hurt that you pushed us all away.” 
“I’m so sorry, Pans.” 
She sighed and awkwardly patted your back. Clearly displays of emotion were a completely foreign concept to the two of you. Luckily, Luna more than made up for the uncertainty. She nudged Pansy gently.
“It’s alright, Y/N. I get it, truly. If there’s anything Slytherins understand, it’s the sin of pride. We’re all quite good at hiding behind our cozy little walls of self preservation, as Lu likes to say. That’s exactly what Theo’s doing now.” 
“How is he?” you asked hoarsely. 
Not being able to see or speak to Theo this week had been hell. It felt like a part of you was missing. Like you were trying to function without a vital organ. As terrified as you were to admit it, Theo had become as essential as breathing.
Somewhere between your late night talks at the Black Lake, your childish arguments about pumpkin flavored creamers in the Great Hall, and sneaking him into Ravenclaw Tower to watch the stars in the common room, Theo's presence had become so ingrained in your life that its sudden absence felt like losing a limb. You didn't just miss him. You felt entirely lost without him.
“I won’t sugarcoat it. Theo’s not well. He’s moody and cranky and snaps at the smallest things.” You winced. “It’s not entirely your fault. I pushed him to tell you. Hell, we all did. I think we might’ve overwhelmed him.” 
“Tell me what?” 
Pansy smiled sadly. “I think you know.” 
“I don’t.” 
She sighed. “You two are so alike. Ignoring things that are right in front of you. Stubborn as hell, too. It’s bloody frustrating.” 
“Sounds like someone I know,” Luna added softly.
Pansy chuckled. “Point taken, Lu.” The two of them smiled softly at each other, which made you grin a little. They were so obviously smitten and you were happy for both of your friends. 
It made your heart ache all over again. You never knew how much you wanted that. That closeness, that intimacy. And all it took was a stupid, idiotic fight to realize that you already had it all along.
“When we came back from Hogsmeade, I took Theo aside and asked him about the two of you. Anyone with an ounce of common sense could tell that he's head over heels for you, but he was being an absolute wanker and stalling so I thought I’d give him a push.” Pansy crossed her legs, looking troubled. “I told him that he couldn’t keep ignoring his feelings, which is classic Theodore behavior. After some convincing, he said that he would tell you the following night.”
“The night of the slug club dinner.” 
Pansy nodded. “Theo left the common room with a bouquet of wisterias. The boys gave him so much shit for it, but he walked out with a smile.” 
A bouquet of wisterias. Like the one you’d seen in the bin outside of Ravenclaw Tower. You had plucked a flower from it and pressed it into one of your journals. 
“I didn’t see him that night.” 
“I think he might’ve gotten scared and abandoned the plan altogether,” Pansy confirmed. “I figured this week was just Theo’s way of coping. He has a bad habit of running away from things when they get too real.” 
“We have that in common.” 
“Trust me, we noticed.” 
Luna nudged Pansy with her elbow. You covered your face with your hands and sighed in frustration. “What do I do now, Pans? How do I fix this?”
“I promised not to meddle,” Pansy started. You nodded, knowing that there were boundaries that you couldn’t ask her to cross. “But if I happen to accidentally leave the passcode to the Slytherin dorms as well as the proper spells to get past Theo’s door laying around, then I can’t be blamed if someone comes across it. After all, it’s not like I’d purposely do anything to reconcile two blubbering idiots who are so obviously miserable without each other."
She scribbled furiously on a piece of parchment and slid the page over to you. Her gaze softened. “Look, Y/N. I’ve been friends with Theo for a long, long time. He has a hard time letting people in and you did it so easily that I think it terrified him. As hard as it may be, you’re going to have to tell him how you feel. You can’t dance around it anymore. He deserves more than that. You deserve more than that.”
You nodded, taking her words to heart. “Thank you, Pansy. To truly show my appreciation, I won’t make you hug me.” 
Her mouth quirked. “I knew I liked you for a reason.”
Luna beamed. She pulled you in for a hug and squeezed extra tight. “Good luck, Y/N. Remember what I said. Lead with your heart, not with your head.”
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Lead with your heart, not with your head.
Your best friend’s words echoed over and over in your head as you paced across Theo’s dorm. Thanks to Pansy’s thorough instructions, you managed to sneak through the dungeons and into his room without any problems. Sneaking in had been a piece of cake, but forcing yourself to stay was another story. 
Logically, you knew that only fifteen minutes had passed since your crime of breaking and entering, but it felt like an eternity. Your palms were sweaty, your head was spinning, and your stomach was twisted into knots. You were bloody nervous. 
What if Theo didn’t want to see you? What if he turned you away? Oh gods, what if he came in here with another girl—
You shook your head so violently that you were surprised that you hadn’t given yourself whiplash. For Godric’s fucking sake. You truly needed to get it together.
The door swung open and Theo threw his quidditch bag on the floor whilst kicking off his shoes. He nearly tossed his Nimbus right at your head, but you dodged it with a yelp at the last possible second. 
Theo whirled around, his eyes widening in surprise. “Merlin's fucking beard, you scared the bloody hell out of me!” He propped his broom up against the wall and crossed his arms. “What are you doing here, Y/N?” 
In the dim dungeon lighting, you could see the heavy bags underneath those watercolor eyes. Theo looked like he hadn’t slept in days and a part of you felt guilty for contributing to his distress. Despite practicing outside for hours, he looked paler than usual like the color had seeped out of his skin. You didn't imagine that you looked any better.
Seeing Theo again was harder than you thought it would be. It was like receiving the kiss of life and having the breath knocked out of your lungs all at once. Every fiber in your being, every nerve ending, every cell and neuron came alive at the sight of him. Theo was the sun and you were just a wandering star resisting his gravitational pull.
You fidgeted with your fingers. “Pansy let me in.” 
“Clearly my protection charms are ineffective against meddling witches,” Theo declared loudly, probably half expecting Pansy to be eavesdropping on the conversation. 
“Don’t be mad at Pansy. She was just trying to help me because she knew how badly I needed to talk to you.”
He sighed and closed the door behind him. Theo stayed put by the doorway as though he was afraid to take another step closer. You couldn’t blame him. “I heard you loud and clear during our last conversation.”
“That’s the thing. I’ve gone over that conversation over and over again in my head and I can’t even figure out what we were really even fighting about. I said some truly awful things and I’m—“ you paused, taking a deep breath. “I’m sorry for that, Theo.” 
You wrung your hands together and averted his gaze. “If you couldn’t tell by now, I’m sort of shit at this whole vulnerability thing.”
“No fucking shit.”
A part of you knew you deserved that, but it didn’t hurt any less. You took a shaky breath, intent on focusing solely on the rug beneath your feet to keep yourself from crying. 
Theo came closer, his lanky frame coming into view. The smell of sweat and sea salt and cigarette smoke was so overwhelming that it made you feel a bit homesick. “Sorry, force of habit." He sat down next to you, nudging you with his shoulder. You swallowed thickly, wondering how in the hell that tiny bit of contact instantly soothed your nerves. "To be fair, I wasn’t entirely innocent in that exchange either. I said some horrible things too and it's eaten away at me all week. I'm sorry, Y/N. I was a complete arsehole to you."
“Yeah, I guess we’re both pretty big arseholes.”
His throaty chuckle sounded like music to your ears. “Is that it? You broke into my dorm just to call me an arsehole?”
You shook your head and forced yourself to look up at him. The fact that he was this close yet you weren't able to touch him made you physically ill. “No. During our fight, you said that I had no idea how you felt and you’re right. I don’t. I think I was just so hurt when you said that you weren’t my friend that I flew off the handle and didn’t even give any consideration to how you felt.” 
Theo clenched his jaw. “I don’t blame you. I was being an absolute prick when I said that.” His voice grew softer as he came closer. “What I really meant was that I didn’t want to be just friends. I was going to tell you.”
The pieces started coming together. He had been outside Ravenclaw Tower when Harry had dropped you off. “The night of the slug club dinner. Pansy said you were coming to talk to me and that you left the common room with flowers in your hand.”
He frowned. “I’m going to need to have a serious talk with Pansy about the importance of confidentiality. But yes, I had a whole speech prepared for you. I was going to pour my little heart out to you that night.”
“So why didn’t you?”
Theo clenched his fists and avoided your gaze. “I saw you kissing Potter.”
“You were jealous.”
It was more of a statement than a question. The entire thing clicked into place for you then. The discarded bouquet. The strange behavior afterwards. Theo had seen you kiss Harry on the cheek and mistook it for something else entirely. 
“I wanted to rip him to shreds.” Theo shifted beside you and sighed deeply. "I was so angry. At him, at you, but most of all, at myself. I saw you two together and I realized that Harry is the type of man you deserve. A good man. One who isn't haunted by dark magic and bad blood."
"What are you talking about, Theo?"
"I've been so selfish these past few months. I let myself think that I could...that I could be someone who deserves to be by your side. Someone who makes you smile and snort and roll your eyes at all my stupid jokes. Instead, all I've brought you is grief. You almost turned down the Slughorn dinner because of me. You came close to fighting Romilda because you were defending me and my friends. People whisper and stare when we walk down the halls together. I never cared when it was directed towards me, but I can't do that to you. I won't drag you down."
Tears filled your eyes. "I don't regret any of the things that have happened these past few months. People will always talk, Theo. That's their own problem. But the fact that you think you're dragging me down breaks my heart." Theo took a shaky breath when you took his face in your hands. "Do you not see how good you are? You're caring and kind and resilient. You're annoyingly charming and you infuriate me like no other, but I wouldn't have it any other way. Anyone would be lucky to have you in their lives. You're the best person I know, Theodore Nott, and I'll not have you argue otherwise."
He closed his eyes and leaned into your touch. "I wouldn't dream of it, amorina. You always win every argument we have anyways."
You chuckled, releasing a breath that you hadn't realized you've been holding since the moment Theo walked away from you in that potions classroom. He gently grasped your wrist, rubbing soothing circles against your skin. "What about Potter?"
"What about him?"
"That kiss," Theo whispered. "You don't know how much it killed me to see someone else kiss you."
"You know he's with Ginny right?" you said, watching as relief visibly washed over him. "Even if he wasn't, Harry is not my type."
"Oh yeah? What's your type then, diavolina?"
The nickname that you used to hate so much suddenly felt like a comforting hug. It was your thing. An inside joke that was only between the two of you.
"Snarky little Slytherins who vex me to death by thinking that I have a crush on Potter when I'm so obviously only into him," Theo chuckled softly. “If you had stayed, you would have seen that it was just an innocent kiss on the cheek. I was thanking Harry for walking me back to my dorm and for saving me from myself during the dinner.”
The expression of concern on his face softened everything in you. “It didn’t go well with Slughorn?”
“No, it went brilliantly. I listened to him commend our stellar performance in his class and I couldn’t fucking stomach any of it. Not when the one person that deserved it wasn’t even there,” your voice cracked as you recalled the anger you felt that night. “All because of something that isn’t your fault. I lost it. I gave Slughorn a piece of my mind and stormed out. I would’ve done a lot worse if Harry hadn’t stopped me, but it made me sick…all of it made me sick. And I wished more than anything that you were beside me making inappropriate jokes that would’ve had me rolling my eyes in annoyance.”
Theo tilted your chin up, giving you a full view of the spreading grin on his face. “You missed me.” 
You nodded, feeling your breath catch in your throat. “I did,” you confirmed. “I do.” 
To your surprise, Theo wrapped you in his arms. As he hugged you, every ounce of dread and anxiety dissolved while he held you so tightly that you could hardly breathe. 
“I’ve missed you too,” he whispered into your hair. “I have missed you every moment we were apart.” 
Whatever armor you may have had around your heart came crashing down at that moment. Theo had taken a sledgehammer to your defenses and obliterated them entirely. 
“I’m sorry, Theo,” you cried, clutching at his chest. “I’m sorry for all the horrible things I said. I didn’t mean it—I was just scared.” 
Theo rubbed your back and whispered in a soothing voice. “I know, love. I was scared too. I still am,” he admitted shakily. You blinked as he swiped your tears away with his thumb. “When we started this, I thought it would be easy. Sleeping with someone who hated me meant that there was no chance of me getting hurt. It was supposed to be simple, but you made it anything but."
The tenderness in his gaze pierced through your very soul. "You clawed your way into my heart with your surly attitude and violent threats, but you also showed me this vulnerable side of you that feeds baby thestrals and defends my friends and drinks disgusting pumpkin flavored beverages. Then you started becoming more than just someone I wanted to sleep with. You became my friend.” 
You sobbed, burying your face in his chest. “I’ll always be your friend, Theo. Always.”
“I know, Y/N. Aside from Pansy and the guys, you’re probably my best friend. Though if Mattheo asks, I'll deny it. You know how possessive he gets."
You chuckled through your tears. "You're my best friend, too. You're the only person I want to talk about my day with, no matter how eventful or boring. I care about your quidditch rants and your gelato obsession and your weird habit of cutting the crust off of every sandwich you eat."
"Hey, it's perfectly normal to have an aversion to crust, okay." You snorted, which made him grin from ear to ear. "Gods, I have missed that laugh. I have missed everything about you, my sullen, irritable, and borderline violent little Ravenclaw." You smiled as he caressed your cheek. "No one has ever stood up for me like you have. I’ve just gotten so used to being blamed for my father’s sins that I stopped fighting it. It’s easier to let them think that I’m the bad guy.”
You looked up and held his gaze, conveying everything that you wanted to say that you couldn't put into words. “But you’re not, Theo. You’ve never been the bad guy.”
He smiled softly. “I know and you know. That’s enough for me.”
“When did you get to be so mature, Theodore Nott?”
“Since the girl that I’m hopelessly and pathetically in love with told me to grow the fuck up.” Theo’s eyes shone with emotion as he looked at you.  “I tried not to fall for you. Gods, I tried so fucking hard, but I failed.” He dropped his forehead down to yours. “I have failed utterly and miserably, because I am in love with you and I’m tired of hiding it. You have my heart, Y/N. Break it. Crush it. Decimate it. Do what you must, but please know that it's yours. It will always be yours."
A pained laugh escaped from your lips. “I love you too, Theo. I have no defense left. No armor of logic or reason that you haven’t completely destroyed. Hai conquistato il mio cuore.”
You have conquered my heart. 
Theo placed your hand on his chest. “Do you feel that? I think my heart just stopped beating. The things you do to me, Y/N.” 
You smiled and pulled him in by the front of his jersey. “I think I know a way to make it start beating again.”
“Yeah?” Theo asked with a smirk. 
“Yeah.” 
He smiled as you impatiently tugged him down, wrapping your arms around his neck and kissing him. Theo sighed against your mouth before picking you up bridal style, which made you yelp in surprise. You giggled as he gently placed you on the bed, his lips never once leaving yours. 
“Gods, I love you,” he murmured. “Not just your body, but your smile. Your laugh. Your cute little snort. The way your nose scrunches up when I annoy you. I love it. I love all of it. I missed you so fucking much. Staying away from you was hell.” 
“I missed you, too. All your snarky little comebacks and borderline vulgar one-liners and your eyes. Gods, you have no right having such pretty eyes.” 
Theo smirked. “Oh my god, Y/N. You totally have a crush on me.” He dug his fingers into your sides as you laughed and wriggled underneath him. Theo continued his assault, bypassing the top layer of your robe for better access. His gaze softened as he hovered over you. “Are you wearing my jumper?” 
You tugged at the hem and smiled sheepishly. “I may or may not have slept in it all week. You’re not getting it back, so don’t even ask.” 
“It’s alright. At least now you’re finally representing the best uni.” 
His words gave you pause. “Wait,” you said, looking down at the faded jumper. “Theodore, are you telling me that all this time I’ve been wearing a Cambridge jumper? The Cambridge jumper that you begged your mum to buy for you during your first visit?” 
“The very same one.” 
“But you love this thing. You said you wore it until it was down to its last thread.” 
“Yeah, but I love you more,” he beamed as he kissed your cheek. “I knew I was a goner the night I gave it to you. I spent the entire summer thinking about you. I thought I was going insane. It was worse than nicotine withdrawals. Then I had you again and I thought that would take care of the craving, but I got greedy. I just wanted more and more of you.” 
“Oh my god, Theo. You totally have a crush on me.” 
“I fancy the pants out of you, Y/N.”
“Good, cause you’re about to get me out of them in a minute.” 
“You,” Theo said, punctuating the word with a kiss. “Are,” Another kiss. “Perfect.” You giggled as he smacked his lips against yours. “Sono pazzo di te, amore mio.” 
You smiled. “I’m crazy about you too, Teddy.” 
“Teddy?” 
“D’ya like it?” 
Theo kissed you again, this time savoring every second as he pressed his body against yours. “I love it and I love you.” 
“I love you too, Teddy.”
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jenosbigtoe · 6 months
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Hey I love ur blog and ur writing. Could u pls make another alpha jeno 🙏🙏🙏 .....no pressure.
mdni. nsfw 18+
pairing: step brother!alpha!lee jeno x reader
warnings: exes to lovers, stepcest (don’t read if you’re uncomfortable), abo, masturbation (f), marking, scenting, mating press, creampie, unprotected sex,
a/n: i felt like a part 2 to the one i already made wouldn’t make any sense so i added a twist… i kinda went crazy um it wasn’t supposed to be this long
when you found out your mom was marrying your first love’s, lee jeno’s, dad, you cried for weeks.
“m-mom, why would you do this to me?” you sobbed, tears rolling down your puffy eyes. “you know what he meant to me.”
“well y/n i’m sure you know what it’s like for an unmated omega to live in this world,” she responded, rubbing your back affectionately. “i love his dad and he loves me. we are getting married. it’s not like you’re even together anymore so it shouldn’t even matter.”
you jerked away from the contact and stomped all the way back to your room to cry even harder in your pillow all night.
you and your mother moved into your new stepdad’s house the next month. it all felt so fast. one day you found out your mother was marrying the father of the love of your life and now you’re moving into his house. how were you supposed to face your now stepbrother who was also your ex? the last time you’ve seen him was at that stupid wedding and it seemed he was barely acknowledging your existence. what went wrong between you two? he was the first alpha you ever fell in love with. the only alpha you’ve ever loved. the only alpha you still love. you wanted to be mates with him forever, have pups and a life together. and now he was your stepbrother.
it was torture, living in that house with him. knowing that being in love with your now stepbrother was oh so wrong. god, his scent was everywhere. his scent that has always driven you mad, making you so needy and wanting his affection. you would catch glimpses of him around the house, causing your omega to go crazy inside. he would be in the kitchen drinking a glass of water as you walked in for a snack. he’d be working out in the home gym right when you’d go to use the treadmill. he’d be on the couch, watching a tv show as you passed by the living room to get to the bathroom. every single time you wanted to snuggle up against his body and bury your face in his chest. you wanted him to give you one of his grins reserved only for you and call you his omega again. but he was only ever cordial to you, just acknowledging your presence every time you walked by but never going past that. nothing more than a small smile and a wave when he saw you, making you so upset and frustrated. you wanted him so bad.
as fresh newlyweds, your mom and stepdad decided it was a perfect time to go on a three month long honeymoon in europe and leave you alone with your stepbrother at the house. you begged and pleaded for your mom to just wait a little longer to let you adjust to the new environment before leaving you alone in that house, but she was set on enjoying her time with her new husband. so you were left with lee jeno, your step brother, or in your eyes, your alpha. your mate. the one that got away.
for the first week, you pouted and locked yourself in your room, refusing to leave except to eat or use the bathroom. and you avoided jeno even more than usual. the entire time you’d been living at that house, you and he left each other alone, only communicating when necessary. but your sudden reclusiveness even had him worried, as he knocked on your door many times during your tantrum. but you refused to answer, knowing that if you saw him you would go crazy.
then you had the perfect idea. why don’t you get revenge on your stupid mother for being so selfish and doing this to you? marrying your first love’s dad, making you live under the same roof as your ex and his father that you’ve known for only 2 months, and leaving you alone with said ex for three whole months? and what better way to exact revenge than to get with her new husband’s son? really in your eyes it was a win-win. you would get revenge on your mom for putting you in this position and you would get back with jeno, whom you’re still so in love with. (really it was just a win-win for you but who cares.)
for the next month, you used everything you knew about jeno to slowly drive him crazy over you. you started by wearing the little outfits you knew he loved seeing on you. the first time he saw you wearing a thin tank that showed off your plush tits with his favorite lacy bra, you didn’t miss how his eyes almost bulged out of his head. but jeno was a gentleman and continued treating you like normal. you would wear the skimpiest loungewear—shorts that hugged your ass and barely covered your panties, camis that would squeeze your tits, sometimes even going without a bra to expose your nipples. while jeno seemed like he didn’t notice the sudden change in your attire, you knew him better than that. you noticed every wandering eye, every stare that was just a second too long, every avoided eye contact. sometimes you would see him adjust his pants ever so slightly so you wouldn’t notice his growing erection. but you always did anyways.
you started initiating real conversations with him, asking him about his day and what he’s up to. you got a lot closer and more comfortable with him, and he with you. it seemed you were starting to become almost friends again, despite the weird exes and step siblings thing.
then you moved on to getting physically closer to him. when he was in the kitchen, you’d brush up behind him, making careful sure to press your tits against his back in attempts to scoot past. or he would be watching a movie on the couch and you’d saunter up in your little outfits saying, “ooh, i love this movie. can i watch?” as you plopped yourself next to him. you would complain about being cold and beg to lay under the blankets with him. you would snuggle yourself flush to his body underneath the covers, rubbing your head against his scent gland and scenting yourself. or even at night, sometimes you would knock on his door with fat tears in your eyes saying, “jen, i can’t sleep again. it’s hard trying to adjust living in this new house.” and jeno is so sweet, he’d welcome you with open arms and let you cuddle him in his bed as you fall asleep with a smirk in your face.
“best step brother ever,” you’d sometimes tell him, not missing how his body would tense up at the title.
it seemed like your plan to seduce jeno back into your arms was working, but not at the speed you wanted. by now, you wanted him jumping your bones and fucking you like animals. he should’ve claimed you as his mate once again. but he was set on being a gentleman, always so respectful of your space despite all the signs you were giving him. you saw the lustfilled stares he’d give you when he thought you weren’t looking. you saw how he’d have to adjust his pants to hide his erection when you brush up against his cock or show off your tits and ass.
so you decided to take a risk, in hopes of speeding up the process. you were tired of being so needy for him, knowing he wanted you just as bad. you needed your alpha, who the fuck cares if he was legally your step brother now? he was your mate first.
you knew jeno’s schedule like the back of your hand at this point. so you knew it would be a good 30 minutes before he’d come home from going to the gym with his buddies. taking this fact into consideration, you carefully snuck into jeno’s room. you loved his room so much. everything about it was so him, every little trinket or poster or piece of decor was a piece of lee jeno. his scent drenched the entire room and hit your nose as soon as you walked in, leaving you a melting puddle of mush. you had loved his scent so much, and it was the strongest in his room. you felt your panties dampen with the smell of his sexy intoxicating scent.
you heart was alight with nerves. slowly, you stripped down to just your bra and panties, leaving your shorts and tank on the side of his bed. it was his favorite set, the white lacy bra and matching white lacy panties with a small pink bow resting above your ass. you laid on his bed, turning your head to inhale deeply into his pillow. you let out a soft sigh of satisfaction.
slowly, you reached your hand down into your panties. you were already wet just from smelling his scent. you let one hand grope your breasts as you started teasing your hole with your fingers, going around the rim before slightly pumping a finger in and taking it back out. you imagine your fingers to be his, teasing and playing with your leaking pussy so good.
but your fingers were too small, you needed more. you added another finger and another finger, trying to pump them in and out of your pussy to hit that sweet spot but you couldn’t. your fingers couldn’t hit deep enough, couldn’t fill up your pussy like you needed. you were growing frustrated, tears pricked your eyes.
you didn’t even notice him at the door, watching your every move with pupils blown and lustfilled eyes.
“now what do we have here, baby?” jeno growled out, taking slow steps towards your needy body.
you whined and bucked your hips against your hand, one hand squeezing your tit and the other fingers deep inside your cunt. “jen..” you whimpered.
jeno walked over to the bed and crawled on top of your body, taking your hands and pinning them above your head in one hand and gripping your chin tightly with the other hand.
“you tease me for weeks, knowing how crazy you drive me. knowing i can’t do jack shit because you’re supposed to be my ex-girlfriend, my step sister. and now i catch you in my own bed, shoving fingers into your cunt?” he whispered lowly into your ears. you shuddered. he sounded pissed. and you loved it.
you rubbed your legs together. “oops,” you feigned innocence. at this point, your pussy was sopping and dripping onto the sheets below.
he spat out a “that’s it” and ripped your underwear clean off. he used your ripped panties to bound your wrists above your head. “don’t fucking move, brat,” he warned, as he stripped off his own clothes. “you’re getting it this time.”
your heart was about to beat out of your chest. this is what you’ve been fantasizing about for weeks. when he pulled out his angry cock, you almost drooled. he was so so big, tip red and drooling, veins running up and down his curved shaft. and his balls were so big and heavy. you wondered how he ever managed tk fit inside your little pussy, but he was your mate. of course he was going to fit.
with one deep thrust, he bottomed out in your tight cunt. you screamed in delight, body squirming and thrashing beneath his powerful thrusts. he used his strength to pin your hips down and prevent you from moving away from his thrusts, thick muscles bulging from effort.
“oh fuck,” you moaned out.
he put your legs up on your shoulders and smacked your ass. “fuck this pussy is just as good as i remember.”
he went impossibly harder and faster with every thrust. lewd sounds of skin slapping against skin and heavy pants and moans filled the room. you struggled against the tie binding your wrists together but jeno growled and held you down tighter.
“fuck, you’re mine now, baby. never leaving you ever again. this pussy is mine. my girl. my omega. my mate,” he panted against your lips, pressing a deep kiss on your mouth.
your pussy gushed and clenched around his hard cock. “alpha,” you whined.
he used his weight to drive even deeper into you, tip kissing your cervix so sweetly. he nuzzled his head against your neck and starting scenting you. “my omega. mine…”
at this point, your mind was turning numb with pleasure. you were in a complete state of bliss. you’d never want anything more than being with your mate, your alpha like this.
“fuck, gonna cum, baby. gonna cum inside this delicious little pussy. everyone’s gonna know you’re mine when you’re round with my pups, when you have my mark on your neck,” he grunted.
you squirmed and bucked your hips up to meet his thrusts. “yes, please, alpha cum inside me! want your pups so bad. want to be your mate forever,” you whined, nuzzling your face into his wild hair.
he gave a few last deep thrusts before bottoming out completely as he came deep inside your dripping pussy. you gave him a sweet kiss as his cock twitched and throbbed deep inside.
he cradled your head and laid his forehead against yours. “y/n, i never stopped loving you. i’m sorry it took this long for me to tell you this but i want you to be mine. i don’t give a fuck about what anyone else will say, what our parents will say. i want you to be my mate forever,” he whispered, staring deep into your eyes.
it felt like he was laying his soul bare to you. tears pricked your eyes, this was all you had ever wanted. “oh, alpha,” you started. he wiped away the stray tears that fell from your eyes. “i missed you so much. i never stopped loving you. nothing will stop me from loving you. i want to be your mate forever.”
he leaned his head down to prod at the flesh of your neck, grazing your skin slightly with his teeth. you shivered and nodded your head, giving him permission to go further.
he left a deep mark on your neck, biting just hard enough to break skin and seal his bond on you. “baby, you’re mine now. no going back ever again.”
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Text
1968 [Chapter 4: Zeus, God Of Thunder]
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A/N: Can you believe we're already 1/3 done with this series?? I sure can't! I hope you enjoy Chapter 4. I'm so excited to show you where we're headed. The times are indeed a-changin'... 😉
Series Summary: Aemond is embroiled in a fierce battle to secure the Democratic Party nomination and defeat his archnemesis, Richard Nixon, in the presidential election. You are his wife of two years and wholeheartedly indoctrinated into the Targaryen political dynasty. But you have an archnemesis of your own: Aemond’s chronically delinquent brother Aegon.
Series Warnings: Language, sexual content (18+ readers only), violence, bodily injury, character deaths, New Jersey, age-gap relationships, drinking, smoking, drugs, pregnancy and childbirth, kids with weird Greek names, historical topics including war and discrimination, math.
Word Count: 7.3k
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💜 All of my writing can be found HERE! 💜
You unzip the floral suitcase that Alicent gave the nurses to pack for you. Inside are the hundreds of greeting cards sent by people from the Atlantic to the Rockies; downstairs, Eudoxia is distributing a dozen bouquets of flowers throughout the house with appropriate grimness, and more arrive each hour. You lift cards out of the suitcase by the handful and lay them down on your bed. Every movement feels slow, every thought muddled, bare feet in cold wet sand that swallows you to your ankles. The windows are open, the sheer curtains billowing. The wind whips in off the ocean, smelling of brine and sun glare, life and death.
Aemond emerges from the bathroom in a gale of steam. He finishes adjusting his eyepatch and then dresses himself: white shorts, blue polo. Aemond wears a lot of blue. It is Greek, is it American, it is the Democratic Party, it is the color of the sky that was once believed to hold Olympus, it is everything he’s ever been or wanted to be. He’s humming The House Of The Rising Sun. It’s the first time you’ve truly been alone since the night before he caught his flight to Tacoma.
Beneath the greeting cards you find the books, cosmetics, and three new sundresses, none of which you ended up wearing home. Alicent bought you a plain black shift dress, matching gloves and flats, and opaque sunglasses to hide your face from the journalists who waited outside the hospital. And there is one last item to unpack. At the bottom of the suitcase is a clear plastic bag containing fabric, white dotted with bruises of common blue violets. At first you are confounded, and then you turn it over to see the dark, saturated stain of crimson. It’s the sundress you were wearing the day you were rushed to Mount Sinai to have Ari. The nurses hadn’t known if you wanted to keep it, burn it, bury it.
“Why didn’t you come back?”
Aemond’s brow furrows, like he’s surprised by the question. He goes to his writing desk and turns the chair around so it’s facing you. He sits, crosses one leg over the other, leans back and hides his hands in his pockets. His tone is gentle, but his gaze is hard. “By the time I heard that you’d had the baby, it was already over. You were out of surgery, he was in an incubator, and that was the immutable reality. I figured there was nothing I could do at that point to improve the outcome. And that’s true. Me flying back early wouldn’t have changed anything.”
“But you should have been there,” you insist, eyes wet, voice quivering. “You should have known him like I did.”
“Winning Washington was important.”
“Washington is a basket of votes, Ari was our child, he was real.”
“No one told me he was dying—”
“Because you didn’t pick up the fucking phone.”
Aemond is incredulous, like he couldn’t have heard you correctly. “It’s not like I was playing golf or drinking myself under some bar, I was campaigning 20 hours a day and it worked.”
“Nothing on earth could have kept me away from you when you got shot in Palm Beach.”
“So maybe it wasn’t just about Washington,” Aemond says, and his words aren’t gentle anymore. They are razored, dauntless, daring you to battle him. “It’s about the whole picture, it’s about the momentum. If I had underperformed in Washington, the dominoes would fall in Kentucky, and Utah, and Virginia, and then at the national convention in August, and then against Nixon in November. I don’t have the luxury of disappearing from the public eye to sit adoringly by your bedside when we both know there isn’t a single goddamn thing I can do to help.”
“It would have made you look like a better man.”
“But not a better president.”
And like a fracture being snapped back into place, you remember what Aegon said on that bloodstained night in Florida: You’re a vessel. You’re a cow. And one day he’ll be done with you. You stare down at the ruined dress entombed in plastic, still clutched in your hands. You don’t dare to let Aemond see your eyes. You’re afraid you won’t be able to disguise the betrayal glistening there. You ask, a whisper, a whimper: “Why aren’t you sad?” I thought you loved him. I thought you were always so worried about him.
“Of course I’m sad,” Aemond says, more kindly now, patiently, like he’s speaking to someone who can’t be expected to comprehend. “But it’s different for the mother.”
You can’t reply. If you do, something lethal will pour out, smoke and poison and arrows, something that shoots to kill. Ari was quietly interred at the Targaryen family mausoleum in Saint George Greek Orthodox Cemetery in Asbury Park. It had felt so wrong to leave his tiny casket there in a silent stone prison full of strangers.
Aemond is behind you now, trying to knead the tension out of your shoulders. And for the first time in two years, you wish he’d stop touching you. Your belly hurts, your head hurts, your heart hurts, you are a garden blooming with bruises and scars. “I know you aren’t in your right mind. Everything will be better soon. I promise.”
Tears gather on your eyelashes. “I miss him.”
“We’ll have others. Here, let me take that…” Aemond grabs the bag holding your ruined dress and it’s out of your reach before you can think to resist. “You should get ready for dinner.”
“Okay,” you reply numbly, now gazing down at your empty palms. Aemond leaves with his grisly parcel, and you never see it again. But once he’s gone you don’t shed your black mourning dress, blood-soaked pad, bandages, and shake loose your hair and step into the shower. Instead, you walk around the bed to pick up the mint green rotary phone on your nightstand. You speak to a series of operators before you reach the Harbour Rocks Hotel in Sydney. While you listen to the ringing through the intercontinental wire, you sit down on the bed. You’ve never felt low like this. You’ve never felt so unmoored from everything you had believed about your life.
A gruff, familiar voice answers. He’s just waking up, slurping on his morning coffee, dabbing his moustache with a napkin. “Hello?”
“Daddy, I don’t think I’m where I’m supposed to be.”
“What?” he asks, and immediately he is no longer groggy but desperately concerned. Your parents are away on a month-long tour of Australia and often incommunicado. By the time they received news of Ari’s death and called Mount Sinai in hysterics to speak with you, you had told them not to rush home. You were about to be released, and they would not make it in time for the funeral regardless. Aemond insisted on a swift, private ceremony, a detour on the drive back to Asteria, like it was something he couldn’t wait to put in his rearview mirror. “What are you talking about, sweetheart?”
“Aemond, he…” He’s not the man I thought he was. I don’t know him, I don’t trust him. “He’s not acting right, he’s not…he didn’t…Daddy, it’s like he doesn’t care. And I don’t want to be here anymore. Can I fly down to Tarpon Springs when you and Mama get back? Can I stay with you for a while? And then…and then…” You don’t even know what words you’re looking for. They don’t exist in your universe.
 “Listen, honey,” your father says with great tenderness. “Are you listening?”
“Yeah.” You’re trying to stifle your sobs so no one downstairs hears you.
“You’ve just been through something terrible. So terrible I can’t even imagine it. And of course you’re feeling out of sorts. But Aemond is your husband, he’s your protector and your ally, your best friend, your partner in life. He’s not the one responsible for what happened. You can’t misdirect your heartache at him.”
“But he’s…Daddy, there’s…there’s something wrong with him.”
“Oftentimes, it’s easier for women to talk about their emotions, both good and bad. But for men—especially men like Aemond who are so self-disciplined by nature—it can be like pulling teeth to express themselves. They don’t like to be vulnerable. They actually think they’re failing in their commitments to their wife if they let her see how much they’re struggling. Aemond is hurting just like you are. He might not show it in the way you expect, but that doesn’t mean he doesn’t care. Of course he cares.”
How do you know, Daddy? Have you cut him open and studied his brain, his ropy nerves, the dark chambers of his heart? “I thought he saw me like you see Mama, I thought he included me in everything because he loved and respected me, but that’s not it. He just needs someone to help him get elected, that’s all Ari and I were to him, and I can’t…I just can’t…the thought of him touching me now…”
“Sweetheart, Aemond is a good man,” your father says. “He does love you. He does respect you. And he’s doing such incredible things for this country. I have friends in Florida who’ve been voting Republican since Hoover, but they’re crossing over for Aemond. They think he’s the one to clean up this mess. Vietnam, poverty, civil rights, the riots, the shootings, the hippies, the drugs, the Russians, the Chinese, someone has to pick up the pieces and create something that makes sense. Do you think Nixon or Humphrey would end the war by this time next year? Do you think either of them would compel the South to enforce voting rights or desegregation?”
“No,” you say, closing your eyes. But that doesn’t mean I can forget what I’ve learned about Aemond.
“Here, your mom wants to say something.” Your father vanishes; your mother’s voice comes piping across the copper submarine cables that span the length of the Pacific Ocean. You wonder—randomly, distractedly—if any of the wires connecting you to Sydney run through Arizona, the place Aegon told you he didn’t want to leave.
“Hello? Are you there?”
“I’m here, Mama.”
“Oh, honey,” she sighs, distraught, hearing the exhaustion and misery in your voice. “You’ve got the baby blues, and no baby to hold good and close to help them run their course. I’m so sorry. It’s just awful, so awful.”
You speak before you know what you’re going to say. “I don’t want to be married to Aemond anymore.”
“You’re confused, sweetheart. Your hormones are all over the place, you’re in pain, you’ve just had major surgery, and after this year with all the stress from the campaign and that horrific shooting in Palm Beach—”
“He’s not like Daddy.” Tears are flooding down your cheeks; your voice is hoarse. “I thought he was, but he’s not.”
“You cannot make a mistake like this,” your mother says, and she’s turned from silk to steel. “If you do something drastic now, you’ll wake up in a month or six months or a year and realize you’ve ruined not just your life, but the chance this country had at a better future. Don’t you realize what’s at stake here? Every marriage goes through tough times. Every husband needs to learn how to care for his wife, and every wife how to best support her husband. That’s natural, and you’ve only been married two years. Of course you and Aemond are still learning how to navigate life together. It only seems so much worse because of what’s happened to the baby.”
Is she right? Am I wrong? “I don’t know,” you say weakly.
“If you leave now, what happens?” your mother demands. “You abandon the campaign and Aemond’s support plummets. You are a divorcee, a sinner, a failure. You don’t get your son back. But you do lose everything you’ve helped build. Marriage isn’t an experiment, ‘oh let’s give it a try and if we hit any bumps we’ll call the whole thing off.’ No. It’s a covenant. Marriage is for life.”
Yes it is, in just about every faith, and certainly for the Greek Orthodox Church. You are suddenly consumed by mistrust for your own body, this flesh that failed your son and now is deceiving you with doubt so heavy—like cold iron or lead or platinum—it masquerades as truth. How could you imagine a life after Aemond? What waits for you in Tarpon Springs besides the promise of an eventual remarriage that is banal, powerless, bleak, exactly what you’ve always plotted so willfully to avoid?
“Do you understand me, honey?” your mother asks, and she’s soft and kind again. “I don’t mean to be strict with you. My heart breaks for you, and I love you. I’m not trying to upset you. I’m trying to protect you from yourself.”
“Yes.” There are people getting massacred in Vietnam right now; there are people who can’t afford roofs over their heads. Who am I to complain? Your tears have stopped; your breathing is now slow and measured. “Yes, Mama. I understand.”
After you’ve hung up, you stay where you are for a long time, your hands folded limply in your lap and gazing at the paintings hung on the pale blue walls: small replicas of The Birth of Venus, Romulus and Remus, Prometheus Bound, Perseus Rescuing Andromeda, Echo and Narcissus, Jupiter and Io. Then you get up to sift through the greeting cards you’ve piled on the bed, not really seeing them. Only one captures your attention. Only one jolts you out of the fog like a flash of lightning through dark churning clouds.
You take the card Aegon gave you back when you were still a mother and set it upright on your nightstand, consider it for a while, wander into the bathroom to scrub the despair from your skin and change into something less somber for dinner.
~~~~~~~~~~
You’re playing Battleship with Cosmo by the edge of the swimming pool while all the other children splash around, howling with laughter and diving for toys they throw to the bottom and then fetch with their teeth like golden retrievers, G.I. Joes and Barbies and Trolls and even a waterlogged Mr. Potato Head. The nannies are observing intently, poised to leap in if anyone should appear to be at risk of drowning. If Ari had lived, I wouldn’t have wanted nannies to raise him, you think. I would have wanted him to have a normal childhood. I would have wanted to know him.
“Your turn,” Cosmo says with a grin. He’s the one who looks the most like Aegon, or how you imagine Aegon must have looked before the pills and the booze and the long caged decades. His hair is so light a blonde it’s nearly white, his eyes huge and glimmering and mischievous. Battleship is a bit advanced for a five-year-old. Cosmo keeps guessing the same coordinates over and over, so you periodically lie and tell him he’s sunk one of your ships. When you launch a successful attack against his, he seems to think it’s fair game to relocate the vessel to a more advantageous location.
“D7.”
He picks up his aircraft carrier and repositions it. From the record player drifts California Dreamin’. “Nope! Nothing sank!”
“Wow. I’m so bad at this.”
Cosmo is snickering. “Yeah, you are. Really bad.”
“If I got drafted, the Army would be better off leaving me at home. I’d just be a nuisance.”
“What’s drafted?”
“Never mind. Your turn to guess.”
“J12!”
The grid only goes up to 10. Nonetheless, you slap your own forehead dramatically. “Oh no, not again! You sunk my battleship!”
“Yay!” Cosmo cheers, then turns to the Jacuzzi. It’s brand new, just installed last month. “Mom, did you see? I’m winning!”
You glance over at Mimi. She has passed out, her latest Gimlet drained and her head resting atop her crossed arms, propped on the rim of the Jacuzzi. “Uh, Cosmo, run inside and ask Doxie to make you a peanut butter and jelly sandwich, okay?”
“Okay.” He scampers off, toddling on reckless little legs.
With no shortage of difficulty, you manage to stand. Each day your abdominal muscles feel less like they’ve been shredded and then mended with threads of fire, but the pain is still bad, very bad, and there are spots of skin on your belly that are numb when you skim your fingertips across them. You will have a long vertical scar like Aemond’s, an irreparable reminder of the blood you’ve paid to the cause. And for all your anguish, this particular fact doesn’t torment you. It is proof that Ari existed, however briefly, however futilely.
You amble over to the Jacuzzi, your roomy lavender dress flowing in the wind, and shove one of Mimi’s shoulders. “Mimi, wake up. Get out of the water.”
She mumbles incoherently in response. You reach for her before remembering you can’t lift anything. You look around. Alicent and Helaena are on lounge chairs at the other end of the pool; Alicent is trying very hard to look interested while Helaena shows her about 100 different butterfly species pictured in a kaleidoscopically colorful book. Criston is off giving Ludwika a tour of the property, flanked by a flock of Alopekis hoping for treats. Ludwika is Otto’s wife of six months but only newly arrived, 30 years old, perpetually unimpressed, modelesque, golden blonde, if Barbie was from Poland. Aemond, Otto, and Viserys—his sparse threads of silver hair hanging like cobwebs around his gaunt face, grimacing and clutching the armrests of his wheelchair—are conspiring on the lawn between the main house and the pool. They haven’t noticed your predicament. Fosco is sauntering by wearing some of the tiniest swim shorts you’ve ever seen. He is the son of an Italian count, gangly and chatty and from what you’ve seen almost certainly addicted to gambling.
“Will you help me move Mimi, please?” you ask him. “I’m afraid she’s going to drown.”
“Of course, of course, no problem. Let me handle it. Do not hurt yourself.” He has her half-dragged out of the Jacuzzi before Mimi startles awake.
“What’s going on?” she slurs. “Put me down, I can walk.”
“I doubt it,” you say.
“You are alright?” Fosco asks Mimi as he steadies her on the cement, wet with pool water. She clutches at his forearms helplessly.
“I’m fine. Absolutely fine.”
“Mimi, go inside,” you say. “Eat a sandwich. Tell Cosmo you’re proud of him for winning Battleship.”
“Battleship? Well, that’s just ridiculous. He’s five. Five-year-olds can’t play Battleship.”
“And yet you will congratulate him regardless.”
She can feel your impatience, your judgement, sharp like wasp stings. Mimi retreats like a kicked dog to the main house, somehow summoning the will to remain mostly upright.
You look to Fosco. “Do you know where Aegon is?” You want to see him, but you also don’t; each time you’re in the same room now is a disorienting storm of familiarity, curiosity, painful reminders, annoyance, awkwardness, longingness to again feel as close to him—to anyone—as you did during those fleeting moments at Mount Sinai Hospital in Manhattan.
Fosco chuckles. “Where is he ever? Napping, sailing, drinking, on the phone with one of his lady friends. I could not say. I have not seen him recently.”
“Okay. Thanks anyway.” The music stops—the record needs to be flipped over—and now you can just barely hear what Aemond, Otto, and Viserys are discussing.
“And you criticized me for going too young,” Aemond says to Otto. “What’s your age difference with Ludwika? 40 years?”
“She’s good publicity. She defected from the Eastern Bloc in search of the American Dream.”
“Being married to you?” Aemond quips. “I think she found the American Nightmare.”
“Speaking of wives,” Otto continues. “I assume since yours had one surgery, that’s how all the future children will need to be born, is that right?”
Aemond nods, frowning. “Yeah. And the doctors said she shouldn’t have more than three. It weakens the uterus, I guess, all that slicing and suturing. Do it too many times and ruptures get more likely, and those can be fatal.”
“Very unfortunate,” Viserys rasps. “Children are our greatest legacy. I wanted at least ten, but your mother…well…after Daeron, it just never happened again.” And you know that this is just one of the ways in which Aemond had planned to win his father’s admiration: by contributing more new Targaryens to the dynasty than anyone else. Now that’s impossible.
Otto sighs wistfully. “To have a brand new baby to parade around in the fall…that would have been wonderful.” For the first time in two years, you can sense that you have disappointed him. Fosco is watching you, uneasy, ashamed, sorry without knowing what to do about it.
“Absolutely,” Aemond says, as if this is not the first time the thought has crossed his mind. “But it’s done now. There’s no sense in dwelling on what might have been. We must look forward. It’s feasible that…well…if we try again and get good news by October, we can announce in time for Election Day…”
You can’t listen anymore. Your belly aching, your bare feet hurrying through warm emerald grass, you traverse the lawn and disappear into Helaena’s garden, painstakingly tended and continuously expanded since she was a little girl. There are marigolds and daffodils, tulips and roses, azaleas, asters, butterfly bushes, chrysanthemums, lilies and lupines, sunflowers, violets, life blooming in a hundred different shades. There are tiny statues too, tucked away in random places, stone angels and untamed creatures, alligators and turtles and rabbits and cats, the only sort the Alopekis will tolerate. At the very center of the garden is a tall circle of hedges with only one opening, an arched doorway cut into the thick lush green. You’ve been here before, though only with Aemond. On a property shared with so many family members—and the occasional intrusive journalist—it’s a good place to escape prying eyes. You pass through the threshold with a hand resting absentmindedly on your belly, as if you’re still pregnant. You keep doing this. Each time you remember you’re at the end of something rather than the beginning, it carves you open all over again.
Around the inside perimeter of the circle are twelve sculptures positioned like numbers on a clock: eleven Olympians and Hades, confined to the Underworld. In the middle of the clearing is the largest stature of all, a wrathful Zeus hurling lightning bolts and surrounded by a gurgling fountain of glass-clear water. Under the shadow of Zeus, Aegon is sprawled on the ground and smoking a joint. “So you’re hiding from them too, huh?” He gives you a sly, welcome-to-the-club smirk, then offers you his joint. “Want a hit?”
You shake your head, not taking another step towards him. “I shouldn’t have done that.”
He is confused. “Done what?”
“Any of it.” I told him about my life before. I made the mistake of thinking I could go back.
Aegon still doesn’t seem to understand. “You’re scared I’m gonna snitch?”
You shrug, evasive. It’s not just the fact that he knows. It’s the sensation that you’ve unlatched something—an attic room, a jewelry box, a birdcage—and now you can’t get it locked again, and the door rattles with every footstep and storm wind, and you are no longer Aphrodite or Io but Pandora, a hunger growing in your stitched womb like a child.
“What? What’s wrong with you?” And that’s always how he says it, not what’s the matter or are you alright or what did I do or how can I fix it?
“I’m kind of…embarrassed, I guess.”
“Embarrassed,” Aegon echoes. “Because of me?”
“I feel like I said and did a lot of things that were out of character because I was emotionally compromised.”
“They were out of character for who you’ve been trying to convince everyone you are since you married Aemond, sure. But they weren’t out of character for you.”
He’s treading too close now, arrows piercing their mark, a tremor near the epicenter. “You don’t know what you’re talking about.”
“Au contraire, I have acquired many interesting revelations recently.”
“Where’d you learn French? From Mimi?”
His smile dies. “Boarding school.”
You don’t know how to reply. You don’t know how to be around Aegon without either hating him or letting him see parts of yourself that you’re trying to drown like Icarus in the waves. You glance yearningly towards the doorway cut into the hedges.
All at once, Aegon is furious. “You don’t want to talk to me? You want to go back to how it was before, you want to pretend Mount Sinai never happened? Fine. You got it. Wish fucking granted. Whatever you have to do.”
He turns away from you. You flee from him. But that night when Asteria is hushed and still—Aemond, Criston, and Otto are attending a fundraising dinner in Philadelphia, and you are temporarily excused from accompanying them as you recover—you creep down into the basement of the main house to apologize. Mimi sleeps in a bedroom on the second floor, but here Aegon can keep odd hours and drink and smoke to his heart’s content, and even entertain clandestine guests, girls who are beautiful and giggling and never invited twice.
Aegon isn’t here. He might be passed out somewhere, or at a party, or maybe even upstairs with Mimi, and something about this idea twists through your mending guts like a blade. In his absence, you take a quick look around his room, something you’ve never done before. You hadn’t had any interest; it wouldn’t even have occurred to you. There’s a large green futon, a matching shag carpet, a television, a bookshelf full of notebooks and paperbacks—Kurt Vonnegut, Harper Lee, Sylvia Plath, Truman Capote, Ken Kesey—and vinyl albums, a record player, and his two acoustic guitars. The first is unpainted maple wood covered with stickers. I’d rather be nowhere reads one; Burn pot not people proclaims another. The second guitar is the souvenir he bought in Manhattan, an aquamarine blue six-string.
There's something strange on his end table. Along with a dozen empty cups is a full ashtray, and there’s a folded piece of paper tucked underneath. You slide the paper out and open it. It’s the receipt you used to solve the long division problem in your hospital room.
Why would he keep this? you think, mystified. There are footsteps above your head, and you quickly return the receipt to where you found it and leave before your trespass can be discovered.
When you emerge from the basement, Fosco is waiting in the hallway and carrying a Tupperware container filled with something that resembles kourabiethes, Greek shortbread cookies. “I thought I saw you sneak down there. What were you looking for?”
You scramble for an explanation. “One of the dogs is missing. Alicent wanted me to check the basement.”
“Ah, yes, I see.” He passes you the Tupperware container. “These are for you. I hope they are not too bad. I baked them myself.”
“Are they…” You shake it. “Biscotti?”
“They are ossi dei morti,” Fosco says. “Bones of the dead. We make them to remember loved ones we have lost. They are hard, so you should dip them in coffee or tea before you try to eat them.”
You open the lid. Inside are long thin cookies coated with powdered sugar. You inhale almond flour, cloves, cinnamon. And you are so touched you cannot find your words.
“You know, there still places in Italy where mothers wear black for years to mourn their children.” This is not trivia; it is an acknowledgement. Your son is gone. There is no shame in the grief that is left behind. In another house, it would be expected, it would be required.
“Thank you, Fosco.”
He smiles warmly. “We are in this together, no? We are pieces of the same machine.”
Then he plods off towards the living room, sliding a rolled-up horse racing program out of the back pocket of his tight plaid pants.
~~~~~~~~~~
You’re in Louisville, Kentucky, where thunder quakes the eaves. An hour ago, Aegon was popping Valium and leisurely plucking at his pool water blue Gibson guitar, slumped against the wall, nipping at a flask filled with straight Bacardi. But he’s not anymore. Now he’s gathered around the small color television with you, Criston, Otto, Fosco, Helaena, and Ludwika. The news is just breaking. There was a civil rights protest at the University of Kentucky in Lexington one hour to the east. Someone threw a rock, or someone claims someone threw a rock, or someone threw something that was mistaken for a rock, and in any event the situation escalated from there and local police who were monitoring the demonstration opened fire on a crowd, killing five students and injuring another dozen.
Outside, word is spreading through the crowd of over 2,000 people that have gathered for Aemond’s planned speech at the historic Iroquois Amphitheater, a New Deal project finished in 1938. Rain is pouring, and the venue has no roof. Aemond is already 20 minutes late. The voices are becoming louder, more demanding, more wrathful. They’re shouting that Aemond is too afraid to face them now, that he’s trying to figure out what his statement will be, that he’s cowardly and calculating; and if President Lyndon Baines Johnson was here tonight instead of cursing his bad stars up in Washington D.C., he would certainly have something to say about the capriciousness of voters who love you, hate you, carry you higher, drag you down, all without ever knowing you.
In truth, Aemond is not stalling on purpose. He’s in the bathroom trying to get his prosthetic eye in. It’s been giving him hell all afternoon. He wears his eyepatch at home, but he’s never made a public appearance without his glass eye clean and perfect in his voided socket.
“He’s going to have to say something about it,” you tell the others as you watch the news coverage.
“Say what?” Otto snaps. “If he doesn’t treat those dead kids like martyrs he’s going to get booed off the stage. If he condemns the police he’s going to lose the suburbs. They’ll run to Humphrey now and Nixon in November.”
The weather report called for storms—which is why Alicent, Mimi, and the children are already back at the Seelbach Hotel for the night after a long day of shaking hands and smiling gamely—but no one expected it to get this bad. The room you’re huddled in is just off-stage, so you can see it all: the wind ripping signs and flags from people’s hands, drenched clothes, sopping hair, snarling faces, rain turning puddles to rivers. The stomping of boots is now as loud as the thunder. Rocks and bottles are being pitched at the stage.
“Is America always like this?” Ludwika asks, scandalized.
“No, not at all,” Otto says. “Goddamn animals…”
Aegon replies, not taking his eyes from the television: “You’d be mad too if cops were shooting your friends and the only graduation present you had to look forward to was getting disemboweled by guerillas in Vietnam.”
“I’ve had it with you and your Marxist bullshit! You want to liberate the dispossessed masses? Why don’t you start by donating your monthly drugs and rum budget to the—”
“We should cancel,” Fosco says. “Just call the whole thing off. Tell them Aemond is sick or something.”
“That’s the headline you want? ‘Senator Targaryen hides from grieving supporters who braved a thunderstorm to see him’?! Just give the White House to Nixon now!”
“I don’t think we can cancel,” Criston says softly. “I think if we tried to leave, they’d swarm the car.”
“It’s a riot,” Otto moans, rubbing his face with his hands. “This is what happens when you court voters like this, college kids and hippies, professional malcontents…”
“Aren’t there police outside?” Ludwika says anxiously.
“Yeah, a handful,” Criston tells her. “And if they try to do anything this will erupt and we can add to the body count in Lexington…”
You leave them and follow a hallway to the men’s bathroom; on the periphery of your vision, you can tell that Aegon is watching you go. You push the door open and find a row of stalls and three sinks, one of which Aemond is standing in front of as he stares into his reflection and attempts to shove the prosthetic eye into his empty, gore-red left socket. His suit is navy blue, his hair neatly slicked back, his shoes so polished they’re reflective like a mirror.
“Fuck,” he hisses, flinching. His right cheek is wet with tears of frustration and agony. It’s July 26th, and tomorrow are the final three state conventions in the Democratic primary. Humphrey is almost certain to take Utah; Virginia will go to Governor Mills Godwin, who is only running in his home state to control the delegates and will hand them over to whoever he feels is most worthy in August. But Aemond is the favorite to win here in Kentucky. Or at least, he was an hour ago.
“What can I do? What do you need?”
“You can’t do anything. It’s…it’s this goddamn nerve pain, it feels like I’m being fucking stabbed, I can’t get the muscles to relax enough…”
Like an apology, you say: “Aemond, the crowd is getting out of control.”
“So you came in here to rush me?”
“No, I’m here to help.”
“You’re not helping. You’re doing the exact opposite.”
“I think you should give this speech with your eyepatch on. It looks good, and you’ll be as comfortable as possible, and the crowd won’t have to wait any longer than they have already.”
“No.”
“Aemond, please—”
“No! FDR didn’t make speeches in his wheelchair and I’m not making mine without my eye in.”
“Do you want me to get you Aegon’s pills? Rum, weed?”
“You don’t think I’ve already taken something?” He tries to force his eye in again and strikes his fist against the sink when he can’t.
Then you ask gingerly: “Do you know what you’re going to say about the shooting?”
“Get out!” Aemond shouts. “You’re making it worse, just get the fuck out! Go!”
You bolt from the bathroom, hands trembling, throat burning. You don’t want to return to the television where the others are standing; you’re worried they’ll be able to tell how upset you are. You go to the edge of the stage, arms crossed protectively over your chest, and peek out into the crowd. Above their chants and jeers and howled threats, lightning splits the sky.
I don’ t think we’re going to be able to find our way out of this one. I think this is the end of the road.
“Hey,” Aegon says, tapping your shoulder. “Back up.”
“I’m fine here.”
“No you’re not.” He grabs your arm and tugs you farther backstage. Seconds later, an Absolut Vodka bottle explodes into crystalline shrapnel where you were standing. You yelp and Aegon gives you a little eyebrow raise. I told you, he means.
“Someone has to go out there,” Otto says, still lurking by the television. Fosco is comforting Helaena, who is quietly weeping; Ludwika is watching the news coverage in horror, surely reconsidering all her life choices. A sixth University of Kentucky student has been declared dead. “We can’t wait.”
“No we can’t,” Criston agrees. Then they both turn to you expectantly.
Your blood goes icy. Tonight was meant to be your first official appearance since the baby. Your hair is up, your dress a navy blue to match Aemond’s suit, gold chains around your wrist and throat, a gold chain of a belt. You thought you were ready. But it wasn’t supposed to be like this.
“Don’t you look at her,” Aegon says, sharp like a scalpel, like a bullet, like something that punctures arteries and lungs. “They’re throwing glass. You figure something else out, don’t even look at her.”
Otto relents, perhaps halfheartedly. “No, you’re right. I don’t know what I was thinking.”
Criston starts heading for the bathroom to get Aemond. Otto is watching the television again, his face vacuous as his ambitions are carried away by a flood of rain, wind, rage, blood. Aegon snatches his guitar from where he left it by the wall. He tosses the strap over his head, gives the strings a few experimental strums and retunes them, starts walking towards the stage.
“Aegon, what are you doing?” you ask, panicked.
“Someone has to distract the crowd.”
“No, stop, you can’t—”
“Hey,” Aegon says. And when you glance past him at the uproarious, storm-drenched frenzy, he turns your face back to his to make sure you’re listening. His hand is insistent but gentle, his voice steady. “Don’t go out there. Okay?”
“Okay,” you agree, startled.
He gives you one last small, parting smile, a flash of his teeth, a daring glint in his murky blue eyes. Then he’s out in the torrential rain, soaked to the skin in seconds. His frayed green Army jacket clings to him; his hair is ravaged by the wind. As he takes his place behind the microphone, a stone that someone has hurled skates by him and nicks the apple of his left cheek. You can see a trickle of blood snaking down his sunburned skin before the rain washes it away; you feel a desperate gnawing dread that someone will hurt him, not just here but anywhere, not just now but ever. The crowd is still seething, shouting, stomping their feet to join the inescapable growl of the thunder. Aegon’s pick flies over the guitar strings as he begins playing, raindrops cast from his fingers like spells. At first, you can barely hear him.
“Come gather ‘round, people, wherever you roam
And admit that the waters around you have grown
And accept it that soon you’ll be drenched to the bone
If your time to you is worth saving
And you better start swimmin’ or you’ll sink like a stone
For the times, they are a-changin’”
The audience is settling down now. Some of them are singing along. You can feel that Otto, Ludwika, Fosco, and Helaena are gathering around you, but you don’t grasp anything they’re saying. You can’t tear your eyes from Aegon. It’s like you’re seeing him for the first time, this radiant sunbeam of a man, a light in dark places, a constellation that whispers myths through the ink-spill indigo of the night sky. How could you ever have hated him? How could you ever have thought he was worthless?
“Come writers and critics who prophesize with your pen
And keep your eyes wide, the chance won’t come again
And don’t speak too soon, for the wheel’s still in spin
And there’s no tellin’ who that it’s naming
For the loser now will be later to win
For the times, they are a-changin’”
Aemond and Criston appear beside you at the edge of the stage; Aemond’s prosthetic eye has at last been successfully placed with no lingering evidence of a struggle. You expect him to apologize for what he said in the bathroom, but he doesn’t. Instead he says when he sees Aegon: “What the hell is he doing?”
“Saving your career,” you reply simply.
“Come senators, congressmen, please heed the call
Don’t stand in the doorway, don’t block up the hall
For he that gets hurt will be he who has stalled
The battle outside raging
Will soon shake your windows and rattle your walls
For the times, they are a-changin’”
Now Aegon peers pointedly off-stage to where Otto Hightower is gawking. Aegon beams, throws his head back to get his dripping hair out of his eyes, comes back to the mic.
“Come mothers and fathers throughout the land
And don’t criticize what you can’t understand
Your sons and your daughters are beyond your command
Your old road is rapidly aging
Please get out of the new one if you can’t lend your hand
For the times, they are a-changin’”
Everyone you can see in the crowd is singing and swaying. It’s not just a Bob Dylan song from 1964 but an anthem, a prayer, a rallying cry, a dire warning for the powers at be.
“The line, it is drawn, the curse, it is cast
The slow one now will later be fast
As the present now will later be past
The order is rapidly fading
And the first one now will later be last
For the times, they are a-changin’”
The audience is applauding and whistling. Aegon steals a glimpse of where you are standing backstage, checks that Aemond is still there with you and that he’s ready.
“Ladies and gentlemen,” Aegon broadcasts with a wicked grin. “I am now proud to present the next president of the United States of America, Senator Aemond Targaryen!”
And Aemond is crossing the stage, no trace of pain or self-consciousness or prey-animal fear, no mere mortal but someone chosen by the gods, and the rain is slowing to a drizzle, and the clouds are opening to let through rare pinprick aisles of daylight, and the riotous spectators are now his disciples, exorcised of any rage they’ve ever felt for the scarred senator from New Jersey. He and his family are not the enemy; they are the solution. They are revolutionaries who have bled for the cause. They bring with them the change that is required. Aegon steps back and the rest of you join him in a semi-circle like a crescent moon behind Aemond. When you walk out onto the stage, the cheers swell to screams.
Aegon takes off his guitar and then leans into you. “He’s lucky you aren’t 35,” Aegon whispers, soft lips that curl into a smile as they brush your ear. And he’s teasing you but he’s not mocking, he’s not mean. He’s so close you share the same atmosphere, the same gravity. “Maybe when he finishes up his second term you can start building your resume for your first.”
“I want your endorsement.”
“From the disgraced former mayor of Trenton? What an honor. You’ll have to fight for it.”
You ball up a fist and playfully bump your knuckles against his chin. He pretends to bite at you. And you laugh for the first time since a doctor and priest entered your hospital room 13 days ago. Aegon slings an arm around your shoulders, pulls you against him, soaks you in his rain.
“Today in Lexington, we lost six brave and brilliant souls,” Aemond says, his voice booming through the amphitheater. A hush ripples through the crowd as they listen, enraptured. “Their sacrifice was for the most noble of causes, but they should never have been forced to pay the ultimate price. They deserved long, full lives in a better America than the one we now call home. This tragedy is a symptom of the sickness that has infected this nation, a fatal failure to empathize with our fellow countrymen, a deafness to pleas for justice, a blindness to mercy. But the remedy is within all of us, for it is our own humanity. When we purge the diseases of war, prejudice, and ravenous greed, we will reclaim our best selves—our true selves—and our nation will at last be cured.”
The amphitheater is illuminated with not only strobing lightning but the flashbulbs of cameras. The journalists have arrived just in time.
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taurizzz · 7 months
Text
You Got It, pt. 3
Bada Lee x Reader
Synopsis: Y/n wants nothing to do with Bada, but Bada cannot bring herself to let y/n go.
Part 1, Part 2, Part 3
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Update: you never wanted to dance again.
Your dancing career lasted all about 12 minutes, but the idea of dance just reminded you of bada and she was the last person you wanted on your mind.
Yet, she was the only one on your mind.
It didn't help that she was blowing up your phone, alternating between texting and calling. Each attempt ending in failure as the look of her name pop up on your phone made you sick to your stomach.
You felt so stupid. Coming to Korea was only supposed to last three months, yet here you are, catching feelings for someone you probably wont ever see again. And to think she liked you.
Little ol' you.
You weren’t like the crowd Bada hung around. You trip over thin air, you aren’t popular, you’re go to university for a practical degree, afraid to try chase your dreams because it’s not financially realistic. You’re just y/n l/n, and you were regular.
An ordinary girl, not made to be with someone of Bada's calibre.
Maybe that’s why you ran away from the party as soon as you saw Bada and Redlic. Deep down inside, you knew that nothing would ever happen between you and the dancer. You had never been one to be unrealistic and to allow yourself to fall into the depths of your fantasies. Your dreams, delusions and true desires were hidden in your soul, unspoken and invisible to those around you. You can’t allow yourself to have false hope, especially when it comes to love.
Bada Lee had been the centre of those desires since the day you met.
And now you find yourself sitting outside your Airbnb, the night before your flight home, with a heavy weighted pressure on your chest and silent pleas to the stars for something good to happen.
You can hear the door leading inside slide open. Expecting it to be Gigi, you don’t bother to look up from your position between your knees, closing your eyes to try forget the past three months.
“Y/n-” that voice isn’t Gigi’s. Your eyes shoot wide open, easily recognising the voice you’ve been hearing every day since that dance class.
“Not now Bada,” you whisper into the dead of the night, keeping you head between your legs like a kicked puppy.
You felt the dancer plop down beside you, gently brushing against you and you couldn’t tell if she had done that on purpose or not. There was no point fretting about it, Bada isn’t yours and will never be.
“Gigi let me in,” Bada started to say, taking a deep breath, “she said you’re leaving tomorrow.”
You lifted your head slightly, to relieve your neck from the discomfort of bending it for long. You couldn’t bring yourself to look at the girl beside you.
“You haven’t been picking up my calls-”
“Why should I?” Animosity fills your tone as you interrupt Bada, who just sighs in response. Silence fills the space between you two as neither of you are quite sure on what to say to each other.
Clearing her throat quietly, breaking the awkward synergy between you and her, Bada takes the first step to mending your relationship.
“I’m so sorry for the other night, y/n. I didn’t mean to kiss Redlic, I was drunk and I had been trying to look for you but then she said she needed to talk to me-” Bada stops talking as you finally decide to look at her.
Bada couldn’t help but think you looked so precious with your puffy eyes and red cheeks from the cold. She hated that she was the one who made you feel like this, but she couldn’t be more grateful to be the one with you right now.
As you two stare at each other, a quiet longing shared between your eyes, you whisper for Bada to carry on. So she does.
“I followed her into the room and I asked her what’s wrong,” Bada sighs as she rubs her face with her hands, “Redlic said that she saw the way I looked at you and it wasn’t fair because she’s liked me longer than I’ve even known you, and then she kissed me.”
Your breath hitches slightly as Bada recalls her and Redlic kissing, the memory flashes through your head making your face scrunch in hurt and disgust.
Bada continues, “and then you walked in y/n. I swear, when you did, it was like I had immediately sobered up and knew I fucked up right away. I tried to chase after you but Redlic tried to keep me back, she said I should leave you alone and stay with her but I couldn’t. When I managed to get outside, your Uber was driving away.”
Tears prick your eyes at Bada’s explanation, you didn’t know what this meant for you two. You were leaving tomorrow. Deep in your thoughts, you don’t notice Bada taking one of your hands that were cracking your fingers, something you did when you were nervous, bringing you back to reality.
Staring down at your interlocked hands, you didn’t have the willpower to pull your hand out of the embrace and you simply didn’t want to.
“Bada,” you hoarsely say, “we’re not even together, you don’t need to tell me any of this.”
“That’s the thing y/n, I want us to be together. This past month has been the best month of my life since you came along,” Bada leans into you, your shoulders huddled next to each other.
You shut your eyes, almost in phantom pain. You were confused, why did she have to come here? Why did she want to be with you, knowing you’re leaving? Why did your heart swell when she said those words?
Bada suddenly stands up, pulling you along as she still has a deathly grip on your hand. Letting out yelps of protest, your questions go unanswered as she pulls you out of the house and to her car. You hesitantly climb into the vehicle, eyeing out the taller girl, who just gives you a toothy grin and gets in the car herself.
“Where are we going, Bada?” You ask as she pulls out of your driveway. She doesn’t answer you as she drives along the streets of Seoul, the gently colours inconsistently lighting up her face and you couldn’t help but think she belonged in an art gallery.
As the drive continues, silence settling over you, a hand grips your thigh. You look over at Bada to see she has one hand on the steering wheel while the other is on you, her thumb gently rubbing against your skin.
Why is this happening to me?! You’re frustrated in several ways, not understanding why the universe is doing this to you a day before you return home.
Suddenly, you notice the recognisable sign that has been a repetitive part of your life in the past month.
JustJerk Dance Academy
“You brought me to your studio?” You are so confused, but Bada nods and hurries out the car to open your door.
You whisper a quiet “thank you”, butterflies filling your entire body at the way Bada smiles at you before grabbing your hand, directing you both inside.
As she goes to open the door, she places a hand over your eyes. You yelp in surprise, grabbing Bada’s wrist that’s nearest to your face.
“It’s ok, y/n.” Bada whispers into your ear from behind you. You feel her body against your back and her hot breath on your neck, shivers run down your spine from her closeness to you. “Just trust me.”
You couldn’t help but think, last time I trusted you, you kissed another girl. Yet, you managed to keep your mouth shut as Bada guided you into, what you imagined to be, the studio. You could soft music playing already, and as she uncovers your eyes, you gasp at the sight in front of you.
A picnic blanket is set out in the middle of the floor while candles are spread out surrounding the blanket. Food is placed in the middle, you can see the steam coming from it still. How did Bada do this if she had been with you?
Tears threaten to fall from your eyes, as you find yourself in shock from the gesture. No one had ever done something like this before for you.
Bada, who is still pressed behind you, guides you to sit down on the blanket. And you comply. Utter confusion taking over your senses.
“Bada,” you clear your throat, “what is this?”
Bada sheepishly smiles at you, her face reddening as she sits down across from you. “I wanted to make it up to you, and I know you said we’re not together, but I really like you y/n. I want to spend the rest of my time with you but for now, this will have to do. So please, spend your last night in Seoul with me.”
Of course you couldn’t deny Bada what she wants because you would be denying what you want as well.
The night trickles on, the candles illuminating the room, a romantic ambience flows throughout the room. The whole world seemed to stand still, watching the two girls fall in-love with each other. The stars knew that their journey was going to be tough, but for tonight, their worries ceased to exist.
Bada stands up abruptly as you’re eating some tteokbokki, “dance with me, y/n.”
“I can’t dance,” you whisper, deja vu of the first time you met.
Bada smiles and reaches out her hand that you instinctively take, “you can do anything, y/n.” She leads you to a spot away from the candles, aware of your clumsy tendencies.
Bada’s arms snake around your waist, while yours wrap around her neck. You both begin to sway to the music, you head leaning against her as hers leaning against you. The two of you fit perfectly against each other, as if you were made for each other. The pure synergy between you two is enough to create new worlds as your hearts merge as one. It was a dangerous game that your souls were playing, but fate had different plans for you and Bada.
You raise your head, looking up and into the eyes of the taller girl. Bada, whose heart was beating tremendously fast as she looked into your round, starry eyes, leaned in slightly. It was a soft, slow moment of you both leaning in, stopping just moments away. Staring into each others eyes, you could see the longing and desire within Bada’s soul, so you close the gap between you… physically and figuratively.
Your lips mold perfectly with each other. Her soft lips pressed against yours as she pulled you closer towards her, not planning on letting you go anytime soon.
There weren’t fireworks like the movies describe. It was better. There were promises of a long life spent together, of shared laughter and tears. There were promises of having each other’s backs, of being there for each other when things get tough, of finding the one person who you could share your ugliest moments with.
There was the feeling of finding your soulmate.
As the kiss dissipates, you can’t find the strength to open your eyes but you feel Bada lean her forehead against yours. Her arms are still tightly wrapped around you and you have no plan on moving away either.
The sound of your heartbeats fill your ears, the heavy thumping noise reminding you of the passionate moment that you just had.
Finally opening your eyes, Bada is staring down at you. If you didn’t know any better, you would’ve thought it was love.
And you didn’t know any better.
“Y/n,” Bada whispers, afraid she’ll break the fragile atmosphere surrounding you two, “I think I love you.”
Your heart feels like it’s about to explode from the unexpected confession of the world’s most dangerous feeling. Yet, you’re so ready to confess as well.
“Bada,” you smile at the tall girl in front of you, “I think I love you too.”
You lean your head against Bada, still swaying to the music, reality slowly catching up to you. You were leaving tomorrow, unsure of when you’d be back to Korea. Bada’s whole life is in and has always been in Korea, she can���t just up and leave. The heaviness of the future causes you to pull away from Bada, making the dancer give you a quizzical brow.
“What’s wrong?”
“I leave tomorrow and I’m not sure when I’ll be back, and you can’t leave. You’re entire life is here,” you share your thoughts as you turn your back to Bada, not prepared for her to see the growing sadness on your face.
Arms wrap around you from behind as Bada rests her head on your shoulder, “we’ll make it work, y/n. I’ve finally found the one I want to be with, I’m not letting you go so easily.”
You sigh, leaning against Bada. Uncertainties lie ahead of you both but as long as you had each other, you could defeat even the deadliest enemies.
“Wait for me, Bada. I don’t know when I can come back here, but please, wait for me.”
You can feel Bada’s smile against your skin, her arms tightening around you, pressing you against her as if to say she was already planning on it.
“Yeah, you got it.”
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hello everyoneeee,
that was kind of a cluster fuck of a part 3 but oh well!
y/n and bada are definitely going to experience the epic highs and lows of high school football life together, my poor bebiesss heheh
i hope you all enjoyed and are having a great day unlike last part LOL where bada broke our heart :/
i actually really enjoyed writing this part because the way i was imagining bada setting up a picnic like this for me ;-;
anywayssss, hope you’re all have a wonderful day!
lots of love,
j <3
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clusterbuck · 1 year
Note
"don’t hog the blanket." (bonus if it's pre-relationship teehee)
chimney insists it isn’t a destination wedding, since he and maddie went to the courthouse the day after he proposed and made it official.
(“just—you know. tomorrow isn’t promised, and all that,” he’d said, and the gathered frontrunners of the guinness world record for most deaths evaded, also known as his closest friends and colleagues, had nodded.
“and we don’t want to do a whole big thing, anyway,” he’d added. “we have a kid and a house. there are approximately seventy-three betters ways for us to spend that kind of money, and that’s just off the top of my head.”)
but everyone agreed there should be something—some way of celebrating their marriage, and maybe also the fact that they’re all still alive. as time goes by, it feels more and more like something to celebrate.
there’s some arguing, several votes, and some creative scheduling on bobby’s part, and they end up with a long weekend at an airbnb an hour outside of los angeles, spouses invited but children not.
buck drives them both up, because of course he does. the only discussion had been what time should i pick you up? and eddie tries to ignore it, like he always tries to ignore the way he and buck default to each other time and time again.
it doesn’t mean anything, he tells himself. it’s just that you’ve been friends for so long, and know each other so well, and sometimes when you close your eyes you imagine him—
it doesn’t mean anything, he tells himself. everything is fine.
they leave after maddie finishes a shift, and get in around dinner time. straws are drawn over who gets to make dinner, and bobby emerges the lucky winner.
“why don’t the rest of you get settled in the meantime?” he suggests. “i’ll be quick.”
maddie starts handing out room keys, although eddie’s not entirely sure why any of them will need a bedroom door that locks.
he’s also not entirely sure he wants to find out.
“oh,” maddie says, looking up at him and buck. “i thought—hm. there’s not as many rooms as i thought there’d be.”
buck frowns. “meaning?”
“can you two share a room?” maddie asks. “just—everyone else is. well. married.” she laughs a little, then looks down at the floor, self-conscious. chimney shows up out of nowhere to press a kiss to her temple.
eddie blinks. he’d known this, of course, on an objective, rational level—but it hits him now, standing in the living room of this airbnb with it’s large windows for gorgeous natural light and whatever the fuck else the description had said.
everyone else is married.
everyone else is married, but more often than not he and buck are treated as an equivalent unit anyway. despite not being married. despite not even being—
“yeah, no problem,” buck says, then turns to look at eddie, something hiding behind the grin on his face. “just don’t hog the blanket.”
eddie scoffs. “you’re one to talk.”
“okay, excuse me,” buck says, “i have never woken with the entire blanket hidden behind my back—”
“that was one time—”
“okay,” maddie says, holding the key out to buck and trying and failing to cover up a laugh. “so you’ll be fine, then.”
yeah, eddie thinks. definitely. it’ll be fine.
and he manages to believe it all the way through dinner, and a surprisingly intense round of charades. he believes it all the way through changing into the pyjamas he’s glad he thought to bring, focusing on organising the pairs of socks in his duffel bag so he doesn’t accidentally catch a glimpse of buck.
then they crawl into bed, eddie avoiding looking at buck so intently that he doesn’t notice buck avoiding looking at him, and—
“you’re doing it,” buck grumbles. “you’re hogging the blanket.”
“am not,” eddie shoots back. “you’re hogging the blanket. i barely have any of it.”
“stop yanking,” buck says. “maybe if you weren’t so far away—”
“you’re far away,” eddie says without thinking, and beside him, buck huffs.
“i’m just gonna—” he mutters, then shuffles around, until suddenly his arm is thrown over eddie’s waist and his face is pressed to eddie’s shoulder. his feet tangle with eddie’s, and the blanket settles comfortably over both of them.
“there,” buck mumbles. “room for both of us.”
eddie makes a noise, one that he hopes buck will interpret as assent. as anything, really, other than what it is, which is eddie’s brain short-circuiting at the feeling of buck’s chest against his back. the weight of buck’s arm on him, and the way buck’s hand has slipped just under the hem of eddie’s t-shirt, his warm fingers splayed against the bare skin of eddie’s stomach. he’s pretty sure that when they get out of bed in the morning, the shape of buck’s hand will be seared into his skin.
he’s imagined this, once or twice before. what it would be like to share a life with buck, to have all these liminal moments he misses out on with the way things are now, the almost-but-not-quite that they never talk about. he’s imagined it, and if felt just like this, right down to how cold buck’s toes are when they brush against his legs and how eddie can’t bring himself to pull away.
but it doesn’t mean anything, eddie tells himself. everything is fine.
only—buck settles in closer and sighs, and eddie, who has spent years listening to every sound buck makes, recognises this one.
this is the sound buck makes when he’s home.
only one bed prompts 🛏️
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d4yl1ghts · 26 days
Text
stuck
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mark sloan x shy, fem!reader
summary: you and mark get to know each other when you get stuck in an elevator
A/N- i feel like he would love star wars? but this gives me such katniss and peeta vibes
-
You read the files that Doctor Shepherd had given you to take a look through because he thought his new patient may have some sort of problem with their heart and cardiology was your specialty. You were currently in the elevator, heading up to find an empty room to study your new case when the elevator suddenly came to a halt. Confusedly you glanced around and noticed Mark Sloan, the world’s number one man-whore was the only other person there.
He glanced up from his papers and made eye contact with you. “What happened?”, he questioned with a hint of uncertainty in his voice. This was the first time you’d heard him so nervous. “I think the elevator just broke.”, you sighed as the realisation just set in once you said it out loud. He huffed to himself. “Hopefully they’ll be able to fix it soon, I have a surgery in an hour.”, he stated, checking the time on his watch.
“Might as well get comfortable.”, he added as he fixed himself on the floor and placed his files beside him. You copied his actions and sat opposite him. “So, what case have you got there?”, he asked you, striking conversation. “Oh, just a new case Derek wanted me to check up on. What about you?”, you awkwardly asked as your cheeks blazed. “Just some boring charts of burn victims, I have to reconstruct their faces, arms and legs.”, he said. “Oh, lovely.”, you replied sarcastically.
You stared at the wall of the lift and zoned out into your own thoughts. It must have been around five minutes of silence before Mark started speaking again: “If we’re gonna be here for a while then we may as well get to know each other.”, he said, looking into your eyes. It wasn’t a bad idea, there was nothing else you could really do.
“Tell me three random facts about yourself. I’ll go first: I used to live in New York (I’m sure you’ve heard about that), my middle name is Everett and I love the Star Wars movies.”
“Uhm… this is actually hard to think about, hold on.”, you said, embarrassed. He chuckled slightly. “Okay, I hate posh restaurants, I also love the Star Wars movies and I have a pet cat named Jack.”
“Cool, why do you hate posh restaurants though?”, he questioned as he turned to you with amusement in his eyes. “They’re just so intimidating and I just generally don’t like the vibe of the, do you know what I mean? Also, they’re so overpriced like you could find some cosy place that sells nicer food for way cheaper.”, you said passionately. You did not like posh restaurants at all. “I get what you’re coming from to be honest. I always preferred a cute and little cafe opposed to a fancy restaurant.”, he reasoned.
“If I ever ask you out on a date, I guess I’ll know where to take you.”, he flirted which left your cheeks on fire, well that’s what it felt like anyway. “I’m not surprised everyone calls you a man-whore.”, you said as you ignored what he previously said. “That’s not my proudest nickname.”, he responded. “I want to change my nickname, I don’t want to be known as that anymore. I don’t want loads of hook-ups and flings, I want a real relationship.”
He gazed at you. “I swear we’re having a whole confession session here. Oh my God, it rhymed.”, he laughed to himself. You laughed along with him, he was pretty funny and cute. If you looked past his reputation, he was a nice guy.
After another fifteen minutes of talking and joking, firefighters had arrived and gotten the two of you out of the elevator. “Hey, Y/N, do you wanna hang out one day? Not in an elevator, of course.”, he asked you, almost anxiously as he awaited a response. “Yeah, I’d love to.”
“I promise I won’t take you to a posh restaurant.”, he added as he walked away and charmingly smirked at you. You laughed to yourself and waved him off. “We can work out a date.”
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