#and now she's in a strange place where she doesn't know anybody and she could be executed for murdering the person she loved the most

[doydoune]

the worst day of their lives so far, but the night is quiet

#dounart #this case is so special to me like. can you imagine what they went through #it's phoenix's first trial on his own and hus second ever. he just lost his beloved mentor. she's been brutally murdered #and now somehow he has to defend her little sister in trial and going up against the only reason he became a lawyer #he wanted to see him again but this is the worst timing and he has to hold on for everybody #and maya just lost her remaining close family and discovered her body covered in blood #and now she's in a strange place where she doesn't know anybody and she could be executed for murdering the person she loved the most #and her only hope is this strange 24-years old rookie attorney who has no idea what he's doing #yeah... #aadoodles23 #ace attorney #aa #ace attorney fanart #phoenix wright #mia fey #maia fey #doodle #art

[prismatic-ink]

what if Lizzie didn't die?

nobody's ever fallen out of the void before, so no participant has ever come back to tell the tale of what that's like. the communicator says she's eliminated, and everyone shrugs and carries on, because for all they know, she is. Maybe there is a ground to hit down there, or some monster that swoops in and kills in a single blow.

but the thing is - there's no end in a void. it just continues forever. and ever. and ever. it's simple physics; a void/vacuum is a blank space, a complete and total absence of anything at all. there's nothing there that could have killed Lizzie because, by definition, nothing is in the void at all. not even time could have gotten her.

now imagine being condemned to a place (or as close to a place as the void can get) where you will never see anything again, hear anything again, falling falling falling, towards a ground that will never appear. a place where you can never look into anyone's eyes ever again. eventually, a green streak in brown hair is the only memory you have of another human existing that hasn't been lost to the millennia you've spent falling. this place where you will be the only thing that exists, the only thing that will exist, and the only thing that has ever existed, slipping through the cracks of time, eternally in solitude.

wouldn't that be a fitting place for a woman who spent all her time on solid ground alone, with almost nobody to care for her? falling so far out of the bounds of reality even the watchers don't know she's still alive? so beyond the reach of anybody that nobody will ever hear her calls for them to come to her, let alone heed them? and let's be honest, if they could hear her, would they even come?

and who knows, maybe when the next season rolls around, for some strange, inexplicable reason, the watchers can't find Lizzie. It's no trouble, they can construct a new Lizzie from her memory, even if it's one season behind. and maybe this time, Lizzie has better luck and lots of friends. she doesn't really get why Scar is so apologetic, or Joel so clingy, or even why she constantly feels like she's teetering on the edge of a precipice, about to fall. but that's just her being silly, right?

all the while the original Lizzie falls forever. forgotten again.

#and this is why the canary curse still exists AYYY #but i wanted the post to be about Lizzie because people should be talking about how she's the most tragic life series character ever #and i will die on this hill #but also imagine Joel reunited with his wife ESPECIALLY if he wins #and him being like “hey i avenged you!” #but even if he feels that something is off he won't ever know that the original Lizzie is still falling and always will be #wait i just realized this technically means that she would win Secret Life no matter what LMFAO i love terrible HCs you think up at 3 am #secret life #trafficblr #ldshadowlady #smallishbeans #tagging him even though he's a small mention #felt like it counted #my post

[dancinglikebutterflywings]

Wolf Chan | Bang Chan

Pairing: Werewolf!Bang Chan x Reader. 

Request: No.

Synopsis: Y/N's suspicions are confirmed on a Halloween night. 

Warnings: Werewolves, fear, wounds, my poor attempt at scary. Fluffy ending. Repost from my now deactivated account.

Word Count: 1,093 

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©️ No one has permission to copy, translate and/or repost my fics on here or any other site. Likes, Comments & Reblogs are welcomed and appreciated. 

"Hey baby," Y/N speaks into her phone as she's greeted by her boyfriend's voicemail for the third time. When he doesn't answer his phone, she becomes concerned and decides to leave a message this time. It wasn't normal for Chan miss her calls, and if he did, he would call her as soon as he could. "Call me as soon as you get this, okay? I'm beginning to worry."  

After ending the call, she checks her text messages before sending a text to Changbin and Han asking if Chan was still with them. They are the two who were likely to be know of what was going on since he spends most of the day with them. They both reply to the text right away, stating they haven't seen him since they took a lunch break.  

Y/N circles back and begins walking towards Chan's apartment building. She is more worried than ever. Being a bit of a workaholic, Chan wouldn't just leave the studio without notifying anybody, especially those who are closest to him.   

Her worry quickly turns to terror as she reaches his apartment and sees that the door is wide open and barely hanging on its hinges. A wolf's cry can be heard out in the distance, sending a shiver down her spine.  

As she goes Chan's apartment, the sky open’s and it starts pouring rain, far in the distance the rumbling of thunder could be heard, adding to the fear she’s already experiencing. Gripping the strap of her shoulder bag tightly, her heart pounding against her chest, she steps through the doorway, crossing the threshold into his apartment.  

 "Channie?" She calls out to him in the pitch-darkness, but her voice comes out weaker and quieter than she expected.  

She finds the light switch and flicks it on. She gasps and jumps as the bulb momentarily flickers before shattering into a million pieces, leaving her once again in darkness. The only light came from the full moon faintly illuminating the living area. Her heart is pounding against her chest so loudly that she can hear it with her own ears. While remaining in place, she clumsily pulls her phone from her bag and drops it on the ground. She picks it up with trembling hands and hastily makes another call to Chan.  

The sound of Chan's phone ringing causes her to look around in fear. It's another strange element of the situation. In the same way that his laptop is an extension of him, Chan never leaves his home without his phone.    

She drops her phone and screams aloud as a huge bang comes from behind her. She turns on her heal and sees Bang Chan, half naked, covered in blood, with enormous, jagged wounds that look like claws larger than a bear have torn through his flesh and appearing to be on the cusp of death's door. Her fear turns to panic as he slumps to the ground and passes out.  

“Chan!” she shouts as she rushes towards him and tries to get him to wake up. “Chris! Christopher!”  

When he doesn’t budge or stir, she moves to check his wounds. Seeing how deep they are, she hurries into the bathroom to find the first aid kit he keeps in there. Finding it under the sink, she grabs it hurries back to the kitchen.   

Arriving back in the kitchen, she’s startled to find Chan missing. Fear creeping back into her veins, she looks around to see where he could have gone. In the dark room it was hard to see where he could be.  

“Bang Chan?” she questions, her voice meek.  

“What are you doing here?” She hears him ask, voice raspy and weak. The pain he’s in is evident in his tone.  

“I’m worried about you,” she answers, looking in the direction his voice came from, but she can’t see a thing until a flash of lightening illuminates the apartment for less than a second. She finds his form leaning against the wall in the living room, slightly hunched over and shivering. “You never came for dinner, you weren’t answering your calls, and no one has seen you since midday.”  

“Something came up,” he tells her. “You need to leave, now.”  

“Let me help you,” she says going to take a step forward only for him to yell at her to stop.  

“Go home, Y/N,” He continues to shout at her, his tone loud and booming over the pouring rain, shocking her. He’s never raised his voice like that at her before.   

“I’m not leaving until I know you’re okay,” she tells him, her voice calm and assertive.   

“I’m fine.”  

“No, you're not.” she argues, and moves towards him.   

Giving in, he allows her to help him into his bedroom. She switches on the light as the enter the room and places him on the bed. After getting a better look at his wounds and ignoring all of Chan’s protests, she heads back into the kitchen to grab the first aid kit she dropped.   

Walking back into the bedroom, she finds Chan missing again. Hearing the running water coming from the bathroom, she walks into the room finding Chan with a damp cloth, wiping the blood from his skin. There are no more wounds littering his perfect body. The only sign of there any, is the blood that now stained the cloth he’s using and the pink water in the sink.  

“When were you going to tell me that you’re a werewolf?” she asks leaning on the bathroom door frame, watching him.   

“I was hoping, never,” he answers honestly. “But that would be impossible. How did you figure it out?”   

“I got suspicious when you would only spend the whole night at the studios when there was a full moon,” she tells him. “Leading up to the full moon, you’re always on edge and a lot snappier and more aggressive. It’s also like you're in heat leading up to it as well.”   

“I’m sorry I didn’t tell you and you had to figure it out on your own,” he apologizes unplugging the sink, letting the pink stained water swirl down the drain.  

“Promise me, you’ll let me help you from now on and that we’re in this together,” she asks. “I love you and don’t want to lose you.”  

“I promise,” he answers, moving closer to her, bringing her into his arms. “But as soon as I tell you to leave, you leave. I don’t want to hurt her or worse.”  

She nods and pulls him into a kiss. 

©️ No one has permission to copy, translate and/or repost my fics on here or any other site. Likes, Comments & Reblogs are welcomed and appreciated. 

BANG CHAN: @staytiny2000 - @dancelikebutterflywings - @kpopmenace143 - @treehouse-mouse - @alexxavicry - @jedi-dreea - @rainydayteacups - @tinyelfperson - @yeonjunnie - @laylasbunbunny - @lixsimp143 - @skz1-4-3

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#bang chan #stray kids #bang chan x reader #bang chan x y/n #stray kids x reader #stray kids x y/n #bang chan fics #bang chan imagines #bang christopher chan x reader #bang christopher chan x y/n #bang christopher chan imagines #bang christopher chan fics #stray kids bang christopher chan #stray kids fics #stray kids imagines #stray kids scenarios #bang chan scenarios #bang chan x female!reader #bang chan x afab!reader #bang chan x fem!reader #bang chan x female reader #skz #skz x reader #stray kids x afab!reader #stray kids x fem!reader #stray kids x female reader #skz x afab!reader #skz x fem!reader #skz x female reader #skz imagines

[nsfwordwitch]

Kinktober 2023 Day 7

Prompt: Clothes Sharing (sfw) Pairing: Astarion x nonbinary tiefling Tav 690 Words

🔞Adults Only Blog🔞

(This story is safe for work though!)

"Hey, big hero! Delivery came for you."

"Who, me?"

Astarion sighs. "Darling, who else could he be talking about?"

"It must be from my parents!" Weft hurries up the stairs of the Elfsong like a child on their birthday. In the middle of their rented room, a large crate is waiting. Weft snaps their fingers and it pops open, revealing piles of clothes wrapped in paper. "Oh they went all out."

Weft starts digging through, separating the contents. "There should be something for everyone," they say, and sure enough, each of them has one soft package with their name on it.

"How did you get my measurements?" Jaheira asks as she holds up a beautifully patterned silk robe.

"I eyeballed it," Weft says. "Sorry if I got anybody's wrong."

"Whoa, soldier, I didn't know you were rich rich," Karlach says, slipping into her own robe. "This thing's got a fire resistance enchantment and everything!"

"Hardly rich, but when you're in the trades, you get perks. Here, Lae'zel, now you don't have to sleep naked."

Lae'zel takes the paper-wrapped nightgown and scowls at it. "You are well aware I prefer to sleep nude. Your gift is useless and offensive."

Astarion can just barely hear Weft whisper to her "It's Shadowheart's favorite color."

"Hm. Very well. Thank you for your…thoughtfulness."

After the gifts are distributed, Weft picks up the remaining clothes and carries them to Astarion's bed.

"Alright," they say to him, "here's the one with your name on it. It's not very…practical. But I think you'll like it."

He unwraps it to find an elegantly made waistcoat, a fine velvet brocade in gold and garnet. "Oh darling, it's beautiful."

"My brother's work, probably. He loves to do brocade. Does it fit?"

"As if you'd get my measurements wrong." He slips into it, and the fit is perfect. "See? How does it look?"

"Quite fetching. Although…I don't know if it goes with your shirt."

"My shirt is two hundred years old, I doubt it goes with anything so au currant."

"Huh. Yeah. I wonder." They dig through the remaining clothes. These are not the pristine gifts sent for the others, but appear to be well worn and cared for.

"Are these your clothes?" he asks softly. Something about the sight of them, this essential part of Weft's life from before, has struck him in a strange way.

"Yep. My favorites, just like I asked for."

"Just your favorites?" he asks, aghast.

Weft laughs. "I know. I have quite a big wardrobe, but when you're the face of a textile family, you can't show up anywhere looking less than your best. Yes, here we go." They hold up a dark gray button-up shirt. "It might be a bit big for you, but…well the colors would work, I think."

He takes the shirt from them, then dances around them to ensure his back is to the window, where the others can't see it. Weft holds the waistcoat and his own shirt while he pulls on their gray one. Their guess was right: it is too big, but he finds it doesn't bother him in the slightest. Despite having surely been in a drawer for several months, it still smells like them.

So little makes him feel safe, these days. The longer they're in the city without confronting Cazador, the more afraid he becomes. He shifts around inside the shirt, adjusting it to sit better on his shoulders, and the smell reaches up and wraps him in calm. He holds his arms out. "Well?"

"It's definitely your color….The oversized look sort of works on you, I think. Like you're an unwell poet who writes three masterpieces a day."

"That's my cheekbones, not the shirt." He holds out a hand. "Waistcoat?" They hand it over and he puts it on. He sees their eyes light up and they put a hand over their mouth. He raises an eyebrow. "That good, hm?"

"Yes. You should wear my shirts more often."

The place where his heart once beat starts to ache. "You have plenty. Perhaps I'll wear one every day."

Weft smiles wide. "Sounds like a plan."

#baldur's gate 3 #kinktober 2023 #oc weft #astarion #astarion bg3 #they probably have a ship name I should be tagging but idk what

[siennadraws]

I'm doing this for revenge/ I am doing this to try and stay true

When the dream team officially became a team

Laïs rose from her spot to join Kassandra at the Adrestia's stern.

The waves, reflecting the night sky, hypnotized her with their steady lull. Her mind was strangely silent. Her hunt hadn't truly started, but the confirmation of the Cult's existence, the certainty that that cold-eyed murderer was part of it, brought a long-lost focus to her.

She knew where to start.

Her gaze slid to the older woman. Laïs would help her bring down the Cult. For her aunt, for Kassandra's family, for everyone who had their lives destroyed by them, and the war they sowed. For peace.

But before that, what had brought her next to Kassandra- she chewed on her thoughts, searching for the right words. The misthios didn't look like the type of woman Laïs wanted to have on her bad side, but she didn't seem nearly as guarded as her.

Their eyes met, and the older woman's raised eyebrow told the younger she couldn't put it off any longer.

"If you're going after the Cult, you should know I'm going after them too," with a sigh she broke the eye contact. "I also lost family to them..."

Kassandra nodded, giving her a sympathetic look. Laïs returned it with a small smile.

"I know what it's like to lose everything, from one day to another. Find yourself lost in a world so much bigger than you thought. If I can help one family reunite, in the middle of all of this- I want to do it."

The misthios gave her a once over, she could almost see the gears turning behind her eyes, asking herself if she could keep up.

Laïs was confident in her strength. Her aunt had taught her how to shoot a bow, her time alone how to hunt, and her time in Athens the difference between a rabbit and a human. She could shoot with her eyes closed.

And the last two years, she had spent most of her waking hours training with her sword. How to climb and blend in the shadows and crowds. All of it for this.

If her lean muscles didn't convince the misthios, the determination in her eyes would have to do.

"It's good to have you on the crew."

Laïs let out a sigh of relief, nodding in response, "It's good to be in it."

As she looked at the older woman, a thought formed in her mind, one she couldn't escape. One Laïs would bet Kassandra couldn't escape either.

"So, your brother- the champion. What are you going to do about him?"

She tensed at her words, and Laïs looked back at the waves to give her some sense of privacy.

"When I held Alexios for the first time, I was so afraid of hurting him that I surrounded myself in pillows. I held him so tightly."

As she fell silent, Laïs could feel how she bristled at whatever she saw behind her eyes. And she knew the answer to her question.

"This cruelty the Cult spreads, it's a disease. You said you saw his face, while the rest were covered, everyone knew him, and he knew nobody. That doesn't sound like he's the infection. If anybody can help him, it's you, Kassandra."

The misthios gave a weak nod, and it was all Laïs could do not to smile.

Love wasn't rarer in wartime, love was a constant in the world, yet it felt so much more special to find it now. Its light seemingly so much brighter in all the darkness of the world. The younger woman prayed it felt the same to the rest, prayed it would be enough of a beacon to this family.

"What did he look like?"

Kassandra furrowed her brows in thought, bringing his image to the front of her mind.

"Only a bit taller, he had eyes and hair like mine, he keeps it long, half tied and with beads. He had a golden armor, with snakes in it. A white cape. They called him Deimos."

Laïs froze at the description, quickly doing her best to disguise her surprise. She bit her tongue as she remembered him.

The angry soldier at the tavern, she had shepherded him away to a corner table, drank by his side, and talked to him until he left.

She had thought his armor was out of place in the tavern, but she had been tired. Laïs figured he was likely an aristocrat sent to war, with a rank and armor bought by his parents.

The relief she had felt as Kassandra told her she would try to save him came back tenfold. He had looked more like a hurt dog leashed than whatever a champion was. Looked as haunted as the old veterans she had met in her travels.

Shaking herself from her thoughts, Laïs offered her hand to Kassandra, "No harm will fall to your brother if I'm there. I only ask you one thing- there is a man among the Cult, blue-eyed and red-headed. He must be in his late thirties now. His head is mine."

The misthios shook her hand, a smile on her face, "It's a deal."

#laïs #siennawrites #assassin's creed oc #assassins creed oc #assassin's creed odyssey

[marshmallowprotection]

So...had my blood taken today (very ow) and it just made me wonder

Mint Eye and its strange medical ideas

What exactly do they do to their 'patients' when testing, evaluating and working out if the elixir is effective etc??

I wouldn't be surprised if some got seriously ill

Or maybe worse

Do you think they'd do potentially very dangerous procedures like blood-taking, transfusions etc???

I dread to think what happens in the laboratories of that place

The honest answer is that you don't want to know. If I went into all of the gory details, you wouldn't be able to stomach it. What I mean by that is that there is canonically a lot of experimentation going on with the elixir and the effects on has on people. You can assume that to be the case because the Elixir is never the same once.

It has a lot of different ingredients and those ingredients don't always have the same increments in the chemical process. There might be a batch that has one kind of mushroom and then the next batch might overcompensate with a different herb. The game doesn't tell us what is used in the elixir, but the Secret Ending mentions some of what the hospital found to be used in the batches that were found.

Taking that information into account, it was a process of trial and error for her to figure out what was going to be the most useful in building something that could corrupt somebody's mind in between the process of cleansing and mental manipulation.

In Another Story, Saeran is one of the first people to have the elixir used on him, and he himself is a test subject in that regard.

They have no idea what is going to happen to somebody that uses the elixir in the long term. They need to have test subjects because you can't just throw something like this at the wall. No way. Not if you're trying to make sure the people live after they take it. The key point is making sure that believers survive the elixir and you don't know what is and isn't safe until you test it.

They're not testing it for safety, they are testing it to figure out what is just the most that they can use on somebody before it's too much. I should also point out that the average believer isn't taking as much elixir, as say, Ray, Saeran, or Unknown. The reason why they take so much of it is because Rika is trying to keep a lid on them. But, for a believer that is just average? They're not drinking an elixir that often in Mint Eye.

They're taking it bi-weekly, at least, that's how I write it. Because I personally believe the only time the Believers actually consume Elixir is during religious ceremonies. Since Mint Eye is based on her bad experience with Catholicism, I imagine that Rika holds services on Wednesdays and Sundays.

The elixir is given out like communion wafers and wine. They take a small sip of elixir twice a week. However, if you are going through the initiation ceremony or you are being cleansed, you are consistently being tortured non-stop with a bottle of elixir. Now, what does that mean for the basement test subjects? Well, that's quite simple when it comes down to it.

Test subjects are believers that have gone against the group to the point where she doesn't intend on letting them get out so they can be used up until they die. I also imagine if anybody had the misfortune of stumbling onto Mint Eye through a trip through the mountains and was at the wrong place at the wrong time, they’re kidnapped into the basement for elixir testing.

Now, testing is a broad category that I can't exactly get into because there is a lot of work that would go into that, but I can say that it's uncomfortable and not something that you should mess with inside your head if you want to stay sane.

The point is, you should never know what it's like to be a test subject, because you don't want to end up down there. The elixir is what she's focused on getting tested. What that means is... different depending on how you want to imagine Mint Eye. It could mean taking a lot of a person's blood, a huge surgery, or drug trials. There's really no way to know.

#ask #character analysis #mystic messenger #mm #mysme #mysticmessenger #mint eye #mod kait #anon

[halothenthehorns]

Chapter 15: MY BROTHER DUELS ME TO THE DEATH

Jason's breath caught in his throat, his hand automatically wanted to reach for his coin, and he also kind of wanted to run out of the room knowing the kind of turmoil Percy was going to go through when he had to fight Tyson to the death?!

"Jason?" Thalia called in concern, quickly breaking up any other little conversations that had sparked up in the momentary lull.

He wanted to hide the book behind his back and pretend he hadn't read that to himself. He still kind of wanted to run out of the room too. "Percy, take a deep breath for me," Jason tried to caution.

Percy scowled and called him an asshole, following this up by saying, "I'm not that bad!"

Jason read each word carefully, bracing himself for impact with each new one.

Percy went white as Chiron's hindquarters as an icy force of water blasted through the room. "We what!?"

There wasn't much choice in the matter after that. Jason kept reading after Thalia snapped at him to get a move on while Percy sat frozen in place like he'd never move again for these horrible implications. He could very well be an iceberg in Antarctica for the sheer coldness radiating off of him.

The metal door was half hidden behind a laundry bin full of dirty hotel towels. I didn't see anything strange about it, but Rachel showed me where to look, and I recognized the faint blue symbol etched in the metal.

"So how did Rachel find it?" Alex asked with interest, flicking his half frozen hair over his shoulder so that it smacked Magnus in the face. "Does she regularly go around behind dirty laundry bins to see what's behind them?" A hobby he surly had himself.

"Hopefully an answer that does not involve the words, the Labyrinth called to her," Magnus begged.

"It hasn't been used in a long time," Annabeth said.

"I tried to open it once," Rachel said, "just out of curiosity. It's rusted shut."

Percy still wasn't maintaining his calm very well as images of Minos driving him mad caused him to chase Tyson around with his sword kept flying through his mind as wild as Icarus; but the initial shock of those words had dulled into a fanciful fear hopefully fueled by his ridiculous brain. Surely, surely, if he'd ever hurt Tyson he would have known that, felt that, long before now. With any luck Tyson had just beaten him to a pulp in the first five seconds of whatever this was and he'd been healed by ambrosia...

Whatever dull feelings of adrenaline that were trying to rush through him gave his brain enough of a cool down to give a shaky laugh and say, "I knew she'd fit right in, curiosity is our number one brand."

"And look where it leads you," Thalia sighed in exasperation.

"No." Annabeth stepped forward. "It just needs the touch of a half-blood."

Sure enough, as soon as Annabeth put her hand on the mark, it glowed blue. The metal door unsealed and creaked open, revealing a dark staircase leading down.

"Anybody else feel like the stairs are a bit of an extra insult?" Will sighed. "Why couldn't it be a slide? At least have fun on the way down."

"Will, no," Nico frowned in concern.

"How would you get back up?" Jason asked.

"I don't think the maze's goal is for you to do that," Will shrugged, at least fully aware of his insanity it seemed. "I just think it would be nice if it gave you some fun in its hellscape."

"Will, no," Nico sighed again.

He had the most experience with this place, so Will decided not to push further.

"Wow." Rachel looked calm, but I couldn't tell if she was pretending or not.

"She's in acting clubs," Thalia nodded, "it is hard to tell how much she's faking it, but also she doesn't go out of her way to hide her emotions that I could tell." She had never spent any significant amount of time around Rachel, but Annabeth had in recent months and mentioned a few off hand times about the blow out fights the red head had with her dad that resembled Annabeth's own with hers.

She'd changed into a ratty Museum of Modern Art T-shirt and her regular marker-colored jeans, her blue plastic hairbrush sticking out of her pocket. Her red hair was tied back, but she still had flecks of gold in it, and traces of the gold glitter on her face. "So...after you?"

"So polite," Magnus waved his hand about in a very posh way.

"She's certainly in the right kind of adventuring outfit," Alex chuckled, "easy to spot in the dark."

"That finally explains the camp shirts," Nico smirked.

"You're the guide," Annabeth said with mock politeness. "Lead on."

"So she can die first," Jason mock whispered in case anybody had missed that.

Percy was not in a laugh it off kind of mood though. He felt like someone was trying to force that hairbrush of hers down his throat spine first. Annabeth and Rachel were going to make him go bald with stress before he even found Tyson.

The stairs led down to a large brick tunnel. It was so dark I couldn't see two feet in front of us, but Annabeth and I had restocked on flashlights. As soon as we switched them on, Rachel yelped.

A skeleton was grinning at us.

"Sadly nothing new at this rate," Thalia shook her head.

It wasn't human.

"That is," Magnus's brows leaped up to his hairline in surprise what else could it be. Didn't anything other than a human turn to dust?

It was huge, for one thing—at least ten feet tall. It had been strung up, chained by its wrists and ankles so it made a kind of giant X over the tunnel. But what really sent shivers down my spine was the single black eye socket in the center of its skull.

Percy shivered so hard dust rained down from the ceiling once more, with cracks to large to ignore much longer. If the roof caved in, would their protection go with it?

"How, is that even possible?" Alex asked with a very dry mouth.

Nico didn't particularly want to answer, because he knew what a freak it made him to have studied this. The right combination that went from torturing to killing to preserve the trophy you wanted from that monster.

Jason wasn't waiting around for an answer regardless, and it wasn't all concern for his own safety. It wasn't Tyson, it was not Tyson, he wasn't that big!

But it would be nice if the book confirmed it.

"A Cyclops," Annabeth said. "It's very old. It's not...anybody we know."

Percy's brain scattered off into about twenty questions over that, starting and stopping so fast in his mind he couldn't manage any of them. Why would she phrase it like that? Did she know how old it was? What kind of archeologist half-blood book was she sleeping with nowadays? Was she just as afraid as he was saying Tyson's name right now in fear he would show up next...on and on it went...

It wasn't Tyson, she meant. But that didn't make me feel much better. I still felt like it had been put here as a warning. Whatever could kill a grown Cyclops, I didn't want to meet.

"One of these days, Tyson is going to be a full grown cyclops, and I certainly want to meet him," Alex reminded in case anybody forgot.

"I bet he'll have no choice but to give Percy nice, non-rib breaking hugs then," Magnus said in a pouty kind of voice as if this were a truly heart wrenching affair.

Percy gave a begrudging laugh he didn't feel just for their attempts to liven the mood.

Rachel swallowed. "You have a friend who's a Cyclops?"

"Tyson," I said. "My half brother."

"Your half brother."

"Hopefully we'll find him down here," I said. "And Grover. He's a satyr."

"Oh." Her voice was small. "Well then, we'd better keep moving."

"Information that really should have been shared before hand Percy," Jason sighed. "She thinks she's just in there to help you find Daedalus, now you're adding extra."

"Hopefully she doesn't charge by the side quest or I'll never pay her off," Percy said lightheartedly enough like he wasn't still internally screaming.

She stepped under the skeleton's left arm and kept walking. Annabeth and I exchanged looks. Annabeth shrugged. We followed Rachel deeper into the maze.

"At least we're avoiding the really not fun phrase of the blind leading the blind," Nico offered.

"Nah, that was the first time with Percy and Annabeth," Thalia chuckled.

"Hey," Percy sighed.

"Don't make me pull Jason out and tell you how many wrong turns you took," she insisted with a smirk.

"There's no such thing as a right turn in that place," he tried to insist even knowing he'd lose.

"Every other turn was a right turn that led to more death," Percy was instantly proven right as Jason rolled his eyes. How was it even when he was right he still never won an argument, Percy sighed as he let the reading continue.

After fifty feet we came to a crossroads. Ahead, the brick tunnel continued. To the right, the walls were made of ancient marble slabs. To the left, the tunnel was dirt and tree roots.

I pointed left. "That looks like the tunnel Tyson and Grover took."

Annabeth frowned. "Yeah, but the architecture to the right—those old stones—that's more likely to lead to an ancient part of the maze, toward Daedalus's workshop."

"We need to go straight," Rachel said.

Annabeth and I both looked at her.

"That's the least likely choice," Annabeth said.

"You don't see it?" Rachel asked. "Look at the floor."

I saw nothing except well-worn bricks and mud.

"What a shame, I'm sure the maze is trying its hardest to make them seem like awesome, original bricks and mud," Alex chuckled.

"It can try a lot less harder any time it wants to, I always encourage laziness," Percy promised. "Like just making one path!"

"There's a brightness there," Rachel insisted. "Very faint. But forward is the correct way. To the left, farther down the tunnel, those tree roots are moving like feelers. I don't like that. To the right, there's a trap about twenty feet down. Holes in the walls, maybe for spikes. I don't think we should risk it."

By the time Jason was done describing that he was pretty thoroughly convinced he could be in a room full of zombies and be none the wiser if Rachel wasn't around to tell him he was being an idiot. It was a skin crawly, terrifying feeling to be so blind, so powerless and have no way to get out of that. There was no training, nothing more he could do for himself to circumvent the fact he had no idea what was down a tunnel.

"The maze is learning?" Magnus's voice shook with terror and he was making no move to hide it. "It knows those are the paths you'd want to pick from last time and it's adapting?!"

Percy swallowed a lump in his throat. They were all quickly going to lose the thread of being in this together and start freaking out as bad as he was, and he didn't want that.

"Yeah, but, that's why we brought Rachel," he reminded with a nervous laugh. "It's good to have friends." His voice was shaky, he was toying with a frayed bit of his jeans and only hesitantly meeting all of their eyes as he looked around the room, but it was clear he meant every word.

Percy was no more happy about this than any of them, but he'd lived through it and wasn't actively complaining about every step, so Magnus tried to keep himself in check while Jason nodded his agreement.

I didn't see anything like she was describing, but I nodded. "Okay. Forward."

"You believe her?" Annabeth asked.

"Yeah," I said. "Don't you?"

Annabeth looked like she wanted to argue, but she waved at Rachel to lead on.

Thalia released a sigh of relief echoed all around. It was worrisome for a moment, that Annabeth was going to actively argue the point with the girl they'd brought down there for just this reason and insist she knew better.

Annabeth proved she was smarter than that in this very moment though. She didn't have to like it, she didn't even have to trust Rachel, but it was clear she trusted Percy enough that this time, maybe it would work out.

Together we kept walking down the brick corridor. It twisted and turned, but there were no more side tunnels. We seemed to be angling down, heading deeper underground.

"No traps?" I asked anxiously.

"I like to think she'd mention that before you have to ask," Nico offered.

"You never know with those artsy types," Percy tried to say with a straight face. "She needed to be invited onto the quest, maybe she needs voice activation."

"Just because you need explicit instructions and a map to find anything in your own room doesn't mean the rest of us do Perce," Thalia smirked.

"Nothing." Rachel knit her eyebrows. "Should it be this easy?"

"I don't know," I said. "It never was before."

"You got decently far in before and nobody almost died," Jason offered.

"I was trying this new thing where I wasn't planning on jinxing myself," Percy rolled his eyes.

"So, Rachel," Annabeth said, "where are you from, exactly?"

She said it like, What planet are you from? But Rachel didn't look offended.

"Rachel has clearly studied up on her mythology and knows that the planets were named for the Roman deities and thinks it a compliment Annabeth is now trying to include her, even going about it in a silly way," Will said in a very peaceful kind of tone that was so full of it the others had no choice but to laugh.

"Brooklyn," she said.

"Aren't your parents going to be worried if you're out late?"

Jason stumbled over that in surprise as he realized he'd never questioned the same. Not once while she'd been in here or somehow appeared in two random states.

Rachel exhaled. "Not likely. I could be gone a week and they'd never notice."

"Why not?" This time Annabeth didn't sound as sarcastic. Having trouble with parents was something she understood.

Magnus raised his hands in mock celebration. "Who knew all it took was a little shared trauma to make friends?"

"Chiron apparently figured it out and that's why he set up Camp," Nico snorted.

"And we commend him for that," Will grinned.

Before Rachel could answer, there was a creaking noise in front of us, like huge doors opening.

"What was that?" Annabeth asked.

"I don't know," Rachel said. "Metal hinges."

"Oh, that's very helpful. I mean, what is it?"

"Why would she know that?" Jason groaned. "She didn't grow a third eye down there!"

"I wouldn't mind if she did right now," Percy tried hard not to squeak.

Then I heard heavy footsteps shaking the corridor—coming toward us.

"Run?" I asked.

"Run," Rachel agreed.

We turned and fled the way we'd come,

"It's nice to hear Annabeth sure didn't question that one," Alex muttered.

but we didn't make it twenty feet before we ran straight into some old friends. Two dracaenae—snake women in Greek armor—leveled their javelins at our chests. Standing between them was Kelli, the empousa cheerleader.

"Just once!" Percy snapped in outrage as he glared at the book and his hands shook, "just once can't this maze work in our favor! Can't a trap door open under those monsters sending them to Tartarus! Or hell, sending us to where Grover and Tyson are chilling with Pan! How did they circle around us?! How-"

"I know Percy," Thalia placed a calming hand on his shoulder. Her worry for Annabeth and him obvious in every creased line of her face she hadn't been there to know how bad it got.

It took a lot of concentration for Percy to focus on her, her voice, her touch, but when he did he saw that this room was hanging on by a thread and they hadn't even gotten to the worst of it yet. They were captured, no way around that.

Where was Tyson?! What had happened to Grover!? Those were things he needed to know, that he nodded gratefully at Thalia for to assure her to keep going.

"Well, well," Kelli said.

I uncapped Riptide, and Annabeth pulled her knife; but before my sword was even out of pen form, Kelli pounced on Rachel. Her hand turned into a claw and she spun Rachel around, holding her tight with her talons at Rachel's neck.

Percy might as well have painted himself gold and struck a pose. He used up every bit of his concentration not to move, to so much as breathe wrong. Rachel was fine. She'd been in here but a few days ago. He would not break this Titan's bathhouse and possibly get his friends killed because she was fine. His shaky exhale caused a few more around him as the others had sat tense waiting for him to react, but Thalia just smirked with a know it all expression that he was going to be fine.

"Taking your little mortal pet for a walk?" Kelli asked me. "They're such fragile things. So easy to break!"

"How ridiculous, Rachel doesn't even have a leash," Magnus sniffed.

"I knew we should all still be wearing armor though, I don't see enough downsides to have stopped," Alex huffed.

Magnus's mind suddenly fritzed like bad reception as he imagined Alex in traditional viking armor, metal bra and all. He quickly turned away.

Behind us, the footsteps came closer. A huge form appeared out of the gloom—an eight-foot-tall Laistrygonian giant with red eyes and fangs.

The giant licked his lips when he saw us. "Can I eat them?"

"I bet that any monster that did try to eat you would just spit you right back out," Jason offered.

"Thanks," Percy sighed.

"No really," he insisted with an odd smile. "You'd either slash your way out before you even hit their stomach, or you'd taste so bad he'd spit you out anyways."

"So I can be covered in monster saliva, thanks Jason, really wanted to visualize that," Percy mock promised.

"No," Kelli said. "Your master will want these. They will provide a great deal of entertainment." She smiled at me. "Now march, half-bloods. Or you all die here, starting with the mortal girl."

"Who sets the beat?" Magnus asked blankly. Alex smacked his shoulder and called him an idiot.

It was pretty much my worst nightmare. And believe me, I've had plenty of nightmares.

"I've been keeping track," Jason promised. "This is probably number two after Annabeth was nearly crushed by the sky you thought was a cave."

"Thanks," Percy said with his shaking hand pressed against his stomach.

Thalia would have snatched the book away to smack Jason with it if it wouldn't have taken extra time to get past this moment.

We were marched down the tunnel, flanked by dracaenae, with Kelli and the giant in back, just in case we tried to run for it. Nobody seemed to worry about us running forward. That was the direction they wanted us to go.

Up ahead I could see bronze doors. They were about ten feet tall, emblazoned with a pair of crossed swords. From behind them came a muffled roar, like from a crowd.

"Oh, yessssss," said the snake woman on my left. "You'll be very popular with our hossssst."

I'd never gotten to look at a dracaena up close before, and I wasn't real thrilled to have the opportunity.

Will had, and his breath passed out in a shallow wisp as he swallowed a scream, memories flashing behind his eyes to fast. Nico felt the shiver that passed over him, not a physical one, but the manifestation of death that oozed right off of Will just from mentioning those things. It saddened him greatly Will had such vivid experience with the feeling Nico so easily associated with many in camp at his mere presence, but Will never moved an inch away from him as the moment came and went.

Jason, of coursed, sounded thrilled like somebody was waving jerky under his nose. Percy found an easy distraction of watching this guy go nuts over a new description of a monster about to eat him mildly better than thinking about said monster ripping off Rachel's throat and hitting him in the face with it.

She would've had a beautiful face, except her tongue was forked and her eyes were yellow with black slits for pupils.

She wore bronze armor that stopped at her waist. Below that, where her legs should've been, were two massive snake trunks, mottled bronze and green.

She moved by a combination of slithering and walking, as if she were on living skis.

"That is so cool!" Jason grinned. "Why do you think they developed a second snake trunk? Do you think the area where they join is the weak spot, I can't imagine they can fit armor around there. Oh, how potent do you think their venom is-"

"Jason," Thalia sighed patiently, "can we do this after everybody isn't about to die?"

"That's never," he huffed, but obligingly read on all the same. He was worried about Tyson too.

"Who's your host?" I asked.

She hissed, which might have been a laugh. "Oh, you'll sssssee. You'll get along furiousssly. He'ssss your brother, after all."

Percy's innards went on an entire rollercoaster without him, he lurched in his seat and even dug his fingers into the beanbag like he was hanging on for life. Oh gods, he already thought he'd lost Tyson once, he didn't know how he was going to do this again! An arena, Luke had mentioned something about that, he'd know Tyson and would save him for a battle to the death against him while Annabeth was forced to watch-

Percy heard the book keep going with a kind of fuzzy, background noise like Tyson's snoring he'd learned to fall asleep to. It helped though, the buzz of voices the smallest reminder he wasn't alone in this, that he had others he had to focus on too like making sure Annabeth and Rachel got out of this.

"My what?" Immediately I thought of Tyson, but that was impossible. What was she talking about?

"Would it be possible for Percy to have a long lost half sibling down there?" Magnus asked in surprise. "If some poor Greek kid went in there way back when and time was that messed up and they managed to survive on their own up until this point?"

"Even the maze wouldn't make them immortal," Nico shook his head. "That person would still have died of old age, granted far, far later than they should have if they had managed all that, which is like a 1% chance of happening."

"I'm now over here wondering if they found Polyphemus and dragged him off that island," Jason admitted. Cyclops kind seemed the only direct links associated with Percy at any rate and if it wasn't Tyson at least this was a deserved rematch, but could lead to the same problem of Percy being unwilling to kill his opponent.

The giant pushed past us and opened the doors. He picked up Annabeth by her shirt and said, "You stay here."

"Hey!" she protested, but the guy was twice her size and he'd already confiscated her knife and my sword.

Alex knew he shouldn't but he started chuckling anyways as he imagined a feisty kitten who thought she was tough. Annabeth of course was, and most likely considering seven other ways to kill that giant, but it was still amusing.

Kelli laughed. She still had her claws at Rachel's neck.

Will kept the nasty idea to himself Kellie probably got some perverse pleasure out of feeling Rachel's pulse going a mile a minute, feeling the fear leaping right through her skin. He felt like his skin was going to erupt in hives in moments at the idea of that snaky, scaly flesh all over him, that was probably his personal nightmare.

"Go on, Percy. Entertain us. We'll wait here with your friends to make sure you behave."

I looked at Rachel. "I'm sorry. I'll get you out of this."

She nodded as much as she could with a demon at her throat. "That would be nice."

"This girl is being way to chill about this," Magnus frowned in concern if she was in shock.

"She lied to a bunch of zombie guard's upon first meeting me," Percy reminded with a shrug. "This is not her first encounter with monsters, gods knows how many others she's just had to walk past in the street without reacting."

The dracaenae prodded me toward the doorway at javelin-point, and I walked out onto the floor of an arena.

Jason checked his tone of voice, making sure he didn't sound as nervous as he felt, but calm. Not casual, not while Percy was fighting for his life, that would feel heartless. It was an easy feeling to pull up inside himself, it always felt natural to fall into the roll of calmly studying the worst outcome.

I guess it wasn't the largest arena I'd ever been in,

"What is?" Magnus asked.

"Fields of Asphodel," Percy said without hesitation.

Magnus shivered for that answer, but maybe just a tad less than the last few times.

but it seemed pretty spacious considering the whole place was underground. The dirt floor was circular, just big enough that you could drive a car around the rim if you pulled it really tight. In the center of the arena, a fight was going on between a giant and a centaur. The centaur looked panicked. He was galloping around his enemy, using sword and shield, while the giant swung a javelin the size of a telephone pole and the crowd cheered.

Why did it have to be a centaur? Thalia fought the urge to rub her shoulders and huddle up tight in her seat. She would have had the same reaction had it been anyone familiar in that arena. A satyr, a half-blood...

The first tier of seats was twelve feet above the arena floor. Plain stone benches wrapped all the way around, and every seat was full. There were giants, dracaenae, demigods, telekhines, and stranger things: bat-winged demons and creatures that seemed half human and half you name it—bird, reptile, insect, mammal.

But the creepiest things were the skulls. The arena was full of them. They ringed the edge of the railing. Three-foot-high piles of them decorated the steps between the benches. They grinned from pikes at the back of the stands and hung on chains from the ceiling like horrible chandeliers. Some of them looked very old—nothing but bleached-white bone. Others looked a lot fresher. I'm not going to describe them. Believe me, you don't want me to.

Alex swallowed a nasty feeling in the back of his throat. Oh, he agreed. He normally would have laughed and said bring it on and dared himself he could have made something more grotesque than any of those fleshy skulls...but it just would not make anybody laugh right now.

In the middle of all this, proudly displayed on the side of the spectator's wall, was something that made no sense to me—a green banner with the trident of Poseidon in the center. What was that doing in a horrible place like this?

"Really, really misunderstood capture the flag?" Magnus asked in a squeaky voice.

"I'm still on Percy's team," Will raised his hand.

Above the banner, sitting in a seat of honor, was an old enemy.

"Luke," I said.

"You keep saying that like you have other enemies to identify as new," Nico snorted.

"Do you count?" Percy asked with a raised brow.

Nico flushed and looked away, and Percy instantly felt bad for embarrassing the kid on a snap comment he didn't really mean.

"What about the Labyrinth?" Percy continued in a much more obvious joking tone. "What about-" he stumbled to a quick stop. He'd been about to say Calypso, because she had been an impediment to his quest, but that just made him feel bad because she hadn't done it on purpose.

I'm not sure he could hear me over the roar of the crowd, but he smiled coldly. He was wearing camouflage pants, a white T-shirt, and bronze breastplate, just like I'd seen in my dream. But he still wasn't wearing his sword, which I thought was strange.

"Way more than strange," Jason agreed. "I'm wondering if he gave it to Quintus as some kind of trade maybe? The excellent swordsman he was might have considered it a trophy?"

Percy didn't think that was right, but the answer settled somewhere in him. A trade, a gift...it nagged just on the edge of his mind close enough to be chewing on his ear but too loose for him to bat it properly away until he was more thoroughly distracted.

Next to him sat the largest giant I'd ever seen,

"Why do they get bigger every time you meet a new one?" Magnus sighed. "Can't you fight a tiny monster for once? The kind that you'd feel bad for stepping on?"

"If I could let you pick the monsters I face, I would," Percy promised. "And only Magnus! The rest of you assholes would take a tiny squishy shape and drop it in water and then it's a demon hippo about to murder me."

"Guilty," Thalia nodded without remorse.

"You got us," Alex snickered while Jason tried to hide his smile behind the book.

"I wouldn't make you fight any monsters," Will said in a pouty kind of voice he wasn't an exception too.

"But then he'd never get any training again," Nico reminded.

Will looked like he was reconsidering his comment now, and Percy crossed his arms triumphantly he'd been right from the start.

much larger than the one on the floor fighting the centaur. The giant next to Luke must've been fifteen feet tall, easy, and so wide he took up three seats. He wore only a loincloth, like a sumo wrestler.

"Does he follow the ancient traditional ways too?" Nico asked with honest amusement.

"What monster have I yet faced that had a shred of honor?" Percy scoffed.

His skin was dark red and tattooed with blue wave designs. I figured he must be Luke's new bodyguard or something.

"That was, cool," Jason tried to say like he meant it.

"I'm guessing that's the guy related to you," Alex used the whole deductive reasoning of him having waves etched into his body to make that brilliant leap. "If so, props for irony."

"No, no I will not be giving props to any giant who is red and has blue waves and is hoarding a flag of my dad," Percy huffed.

"Is it just those specific requirements?" Alex asked.

"For now," Percy frowned.

There was a cry from the arena floor, and I jumped back as the centaur crashed to the dirt beside me.

He met my eyes pleadingly. "Help!"

They had been hazel. His coat had been a speckled grey color.

He was nothing like the Party Ponies, nor did he resemble Chiron in any way. Percy didn't know if Centaurs were like nature spirits and would be reincarnated as a plant in some happy other life.

Percy knew he never learned his name.

I reached for my sword, but it had been taken from me and hadn't reappeared in my pocket yet.

Nico still vividly imagined Percy lunging forward barehanded, strangling that giant without a second thought, the dust of his life force dripping through his hands as he brushed himself off and looked around with that smirk and a 'who's next?' Because Percy was supposed to be the hero who would never let anything bad happen to anyone.

Bianca might as well have been rolling her eyes at him, trying to snatch his cards away so he would pay attention to what was really going on. The panic, the guilt on Percy's face as his hands actually spasmed in frustration and concentration, the care he had to put into not actively murdering them all over a memory that pained him.

He still wished his stupid active imagination would end soon and he could burn Percy's made up card and stats already he'd latched onto and be done with it. On the other hand, the idea of hero's had also gotten him through a lot of lonely times and was quite entertaining letting his mind wander for a moment knowing those monsters and hero's could still come to life in his mind on those cards even if it wasn't real.

So long as he kept that in mind, that normal balance, he just let himself smile with sorrow for a moment as the book continued.

The centaur struggled to get up as the giant approached, his javelin ready.

A taloned hand gripped my shoulder. "If you value your friendsss' livesss," my dracaena guard said, "you won't interfere. This isssn't your fight. Wait your turn."

"What an awful merry go round, I want off this ride," Magnus shivered with a horrible churning in his gut. How on earth had everybody made it out of this alive? If they even had... but he'd gotten pretty good at following Percy's impulses over the last few days. He kept reaching for something in his pocket, though he was fidgeting with his pen in his non-dominant hand to keep himself from fully pulling it out. Percy was agitated, prepared for a fight, but he'd been much, much worse when he felt the sense of somebody being in real danger that wasn't him.

The centaur couldn't get up. One of his legs was broken. The giant put his huge foot on the horseman's chest and raised the javelin. He looked up at Luke. The crowd cheered, "DEATH! DEATH!"

Luke didn't do anything, but the tattooed sumo dude sitting next to him arose. He smiled down at the centaur, who was whimpering, "Please! No!"

Then the sumo dude held out his hand and gave the thumbs down sign.

"Why does that somehow feel more disappointing than if he'd just started chanting death too?" Alex frowned.

"Note to self," Percy said none to quietly.

I closed my eyes as the gladiator giant thrust his javelin. When I looked again, the centaur was gone, disintegrated to ashes. All that was left was a single hoof, which the giant took up as a trophy and showed the crowd. They roared their approval.

He would not picture Chiron right now, he would not picture Chiron right now...and yet his mind was as unhelpful as ever as it offered up his mentor, the great white stallion himself crumpling, his camp in ruins. The first slayed in the coming war so no more hero's could be trained if they failed this mission.

A gate opened at the opposite end of the stadium and the giant marched out in triumph.

"I hope he dies first when you burn this place down," Thalia said in a calm, deadly voice.

That giant sadly did not even crack the top three of monsters that needed to die first in that place, number one of whom was Luke. He didn't think Thalia would appreciate him correcting that though.

In the stands, the sumo dude raised his hands for silence.

"Good entertainment!" he bellowed. "But nothing I haven't seen before. What else do you have, Luke, Son of Hermes?"

Luke's jaw tightened. I could tell he didn't like being called son of Hermes.

"Then maybe he should do what the rest of us do and just disown his parentage instead of causing mass casualties in a war," Alex threw his hands up and looked very much like he was trying to explain this to the densest of people.

"He had to be extra about it, I bet Hermes is the god of theatrics too," Magnus grumbled.

He hated his father. But he rose calmly to his feet. His eyes glittered. In fact, he seemed to be in a pretty good mood.

"Never a great thing for my day," Percy frowned.

"Pessimism like that is why we can't have world peace Percy," Jason chuckled.

"Yes, I'm the problem here," Percy rolled his eyes.

"Lord Antaeus," Luke said, loud enough for the crowd to hear. "You have been an excellent host! We would be happy to amuse you, to repay the favor of passing through your territory."

"A favor I have not yet granted," Antaeus growled. "I want entertainment!"

"And Grover said those tap dancing lessons would be of no use," Alex scoffed, "look at you already needing him."

"I have several good book and movie selections I'd be willing to offer him?" Will said half-heartedly.

"I'm wondering how other people could possibly get through this without a horde of disposable monsters behind them," Jason frowned. "If they just offer themselves up as a tribute, who are they fighting? The sumo guy?"

"I'm sure sumo guy keeps prisoners alive in cells for just that reason," Nico unhappily answered. Whether monster, mortal, or anywhere in between, everyone wound up traversing the labyrinth.

Luke bowed. "I believe I have something better than centaurs to fight in your arena now. I have a brother of yours." He pointed at me. "Percy Jackson, son of Poseidon."

Percy felt a tidal wave of emotions hit him for that, most of all relief. Tyson was still down in this crazy dangerous place somewhere with Grover, not about to fight him to the death! The relief caused the others to even let out their own sigh of the pressure of the room lifting.

Second was disgust. Geez, he wished he would stop seeing other products of his dad getting around!

The crowd began jeering at me and throwing stones, most of which I dodged, but one caught me on the cheek and made a good-sized cut.

Percy flinched, his fingers grazing the spot now. It shouldn't be any reflection on the forthcoming fight he was coming into it with a silly cut...but still his worry only grew. This was going to be a nasty fight.

Antaeus's eyes lit up. "A son of Poseidon? Then he should fight well! Or die well!"

"And what is that supposed to mean?" Thalia asked with a raised brow.

"That this guy who's name I don't want to pronounce is clearly biased and an idiot, unlike other sons of Poseidon," Percy grinned.

"Oh, okay," she grinned.

"If his death pleases you," Luke said, "will you let our armies cross your territory?"

"Perhaps!" Antaeus said.

Luke didn't look too pleased about the "perhaps." He glared down at me, as if warning me that I'd better die in a really spectacular way or I'd be in big trouble.

"Minos wishes he had the kind of vengeance Percy's ghost would cause," Will scoffed.

"Luke really deserves whatever he gets coming, he can't even broker a deal with a cheapskate. Hermes should really disown him himself," Alex nodded.

"Luke!" Annabeth yelled. "Stop this. Let us go!"

Luke seemed to notice her for the first time. He looked stunned for a moment. "Annabeth?"

Percy felt an immediate sense of regretful guilt. Luke probably never would have taken Annabeth onto this quest, it was to dangerous.

And she would have smacked Luke with her knife for trying to leave her behind, Percy found himself smiling instead.

"Enough time for the females to fight afterward," Antaeus interrupted. "First, Percy Jackson, what weapons will you choose?"

The dracaenae pushed me into the middle of the arena.

I stared up at Antaeus. "How can you be a son of Poseidon?"

Not one joke of a family resemblance passed the room, and Percy's smile grew.

"Don't look so smug Percy, we'd never insult Tyson's looks by comparing any of you," Thalia smirked, while Percy sighed.

"I am his favorite son!" Antaeus boomed.

"Psssh, I'm sure he loves all of his kids equally," Will mock tried to correct.

"Oh yeah," Percy grinned, "I don't see Antaeus being kidnapped into the ocean against his will."

"Percy," Thalia frowned at him, "please stop phrasing that like it's a good thing."

 "Behold, my temple to the Earthshaker, built from the skulls of all those I've killed in his name! Your skull shall join them!"

I stared in horror at all the skulls—hundreds of them—and the banner of Poseidon. How could this be a temple for my dad? My dad was a nice guy. He'd never ask me for a Father's Day card, much less somebody's skull.

"Everybody has their own hobbies?" Will tried to say through an awkward smile.

"I wish Poseidon's was caving this place in ages ago," Thalia scowled.

"Percy!" Annabeth yelled at me. "His mother is Gaea! Gae—"

Nico's breath caught. He was grateful to be trapped under the ocean for the first time, because even down here he picked his feet off the floor and looked wearily down to see if a new abyss was opening up. Annabeth had invoked her name, in her own domain...Gaea stirs the ghosts kept whispering in his dreams...

Will felt the distress shivering right off of Nico and watched him for several moments with deep concern. It made total sense if Nico had a thing against the Earth goddess herself after being trapped underground for so long. He wanted to offer him something, comfort, some sense of a promise he didn't have to deal with it alone. Nico had actually reciprocated the last few times he'd tried...but he had hesitated a moment to long, and Jason kept reading. Nico glanced over at him and gave him a weary smile which Will instantly returned, and the look in his eyes seemed grateful enough as he smacked Will's side and muttered about him hogging all of the couch again.

Her Laistrygonian captor clamped his hand over her mouth.

"Rude," Alex sniffed with a perfect roll of the r's.

"Like Luke doesn't use every life-line and cheat code at his disposal," Percy agreed with a scowl.

His mother is Gaea. The earth goddess. Annabeth was trying to tell me that was important, but I didn't know why. Maybe just because the guy had two godly parents.

"Don't most monsters?" Magnus asked.

"They're not even two opposing gods, ocean and earth," Jason nodded there seemed no specific connection.

Percy was just to grateful nobody was asking where Gaea and Poseidon connected on the family tree for this to even be possible.

That would make him even harder to kill.

"You're crazy, Antaeus," I said. "If you think this is a good tribute, you know nothing about Poseidon."

The crowd screamed insults at me, but Antaeus raised his hand for silence.

"Weapons," he insisted. "And then we will see how you die. Will you have axes? Shields? Nets? Flamethrowers?"

"A flamethrower's been an option this whole time?" Magnus spluttered.

"Sounds like an OP kind of weapon, no good entertainment," Alex said in what he obviously thought was an impression of Antaeus.

"Just my sword," I said.

Laughter erupted from the monsters, but immediately Riptide appeared in my hands, and some of the voices in the crowd turned nervous. The bronze blade glowed with a faint light.

"Imagine if Riptide had killed any of the monsters in there before and you didn't know," Nico grinned. 

Percy gazed down at his pen with a fond smile. Riptide had been Hercules's first, and as much as he loathed the guy now, he had been one hell of a monster slayer.

"Round one!" Antaeus announced. The gates opened, and a dracaena slithered out. She had a trident in one hand and a weighted net in the other— classic gladiator style.

"Someone's trying to earn extra credit," Jason sniffed, his full confidence in every word Percy wouldn't bat an eye at this fight.

"I'll show her some extra practice Chiron taught me," Percy grinned. It was a casual enough expression for him, but there was a hint of something else behind it already. This wasn't just any fight to Percy. He could not lose.

I'd trained against those weapons at camp for years.

She jabbed at me experimentally. I stepped away. She threw her net, hoping to tangle my sword hand, but I sidestepped easily, sliced her spear in half, and stabbed Riptide through a chink in her armor. With a painful wail, she vaporized into nothing, and the cheering of the crowd died.

Percy threw his arms wide with a mocking smile.

"I don't think they're very entertained Percy," Thalia said with mock sympathy.

"You should try fireworks, or at least some sparklers," Will offered.

"I could try shoving a grenade in somebody's mouth too," he shrugged as his arms fell. "Oh well, I've never cared what my peers think of me anyways."

"No!" Antaeus bellowed. "Too fast! You must wait for the kill. Only I give that order!"

I glanced over at Annabeth and Rachel. I had to find a way to get them free, maybe distract their guards.

"Nice job, Percy." Luke smiled. "You've gotten better with the sword. I'll grant you that."

Percy's skin crawled and he fought the urge to gag. Luke praising him once would have been the coolest thing after that very first quest.

"Round two!" Antaeus yelled. "And slower this time! More entertainment! Wait for my call before killing anybody. OR ELSE!"

"Or else you get two thumbs down," Alex said with confidence.

"Remind me not to ever disappoint you," Percy theatrically shivered.

The gates opened again, and this time a young warrior came out. He was a little older than me, about sixteen. He had glossy black hair, and his left eye was covered with an eye patch. He was thin and wiry so his Greek armor hung on him loosely. He stabbed his sword into the dirt, adjusted his shield straps, and pulled on his horsehair helmet.

"Who are you?" I asked.

"Ethan Nakamura," he said. "I have to kill you."

They knew there were other, actual people in Luke's army, Chris's vegetative state still sat heavily on their minds as a constant reminder. Another boy walking through those doors was still the last thing they wanted to hear. Give Percy a rematch with that Chimera, let him go toe to toe with any monster. It would not have been Pleasant, but it still would always feel better than two barely teenagers trying to kill each other.

"Why are you doing this?"

"Hey!" a monster jeered from the stands. "Stop talking and fight already!"

The others took up the call.

"I have to prove myself," Ethan told me. "Only way to join up."

And with that he charged.

Will swallowed several foul things he'd like to say about that. Gods, he'd never wanted to know any step of the 'process' of Luke inducting kids to his side. Did Janey the seven year old chased to camp by a sphynx and vanished a month later have to prove herself? Did Christopher Sanders, only nine?

He'd been much happier with his own delusional idea every new half-blood that joined Luke's side was in a safe space, a new camp he was building away from this army of monsters being treated like fodder.

Our swords met in midair and the crowd roared.

It didn't seem right. I didn't want to fight to entertain a bunch of monsters, but Ethan Nakamura wasn't giving me much choice.

Neither were the monsters behind him holding Annabeth and Rachel prisoner. Most people got carrots and sticks, noooo, he got sticks and sticks!

Percy was keeping his anger at the situation mostly in check still. Sometimes there were campers around to watch the goings on in the arena, he'd fought in front of people before and he tried to spend a moment convincing himself Ethan was just a new camper and somebody would blow a whistle before anybody got hurt.

He pressed forward. He was good. He'd never been at Camp Half-Blood, as far as I knew, but he'd been trained. He parried my strike and almost slammed me with his shield, but I jumped back. He slashed. I rolled to one side. We exchanged thrusts and parries, getting a fell for each other's fighting style. I tried to keep on Ethan's blind side, but it didn't help much. He'd apparently been fighting with only one eye for a long time, because he was excellent at guarding his left.

Jason read that with such interest Percy felt like he was under a microscope. He and Thalia exchanged bemused looks what this guys deal was, he read like he was dying to take notes and probably share them with the class as soon as possible. Percy was now half convinced he must have been tortured by a teacher in his past life and had needed this rescue.

"Blood!" the monsters cried.

My opponent glanced up at the stands. That was his weakness, I realized.

He needed to impress them. I didn't.

"I don't suppose the case of, you are your own worst critic will come in handy?" Alex offered.

"He clearly judges himself good enough," Percy said with begrudging respect. He'd held his own, though Percy hadn't exactly been fighting all out. He didn't want to kill this guy.

He yelled an angry battle cry and charged me, but I parried his blade and backed away, letting him come after me.

"Boo!" Antaeus said. "Stand and fight!"

Ethan pressed me, but I had no trouble defending, even without a shield.

He was dressed for defense—heavy armor and shield—which made it very tiring to play offense. I was a softer target, but I also was lighter and faster.

The crowd went nuts, yelling complaints and throwing rocks. We'd been fighting for almost five minutes and there was no blood.

Finally Ethan made his mistake. He tried to jab at my stomach, and I locked his sword hilt in mine and twisted. His sword dropped into the dirt.

There was no triumphant shout of joy in here. Instead the heavy weight of memory left them all flinching like Percy had gotten another scratch.

Thalia wondered if Luke had seen that, been proud and hopeful Percy would still join his side someday.

Or if he'd just been watching Annabeth, making sure that Giant didn't squeeze the life out of her. She was never sure of his priorities anymore.

Before he could recover, I slammed the butt of my sword into his helmet and pushed him down. His heavy armor helped me more than him. He fell on his back, dazed and tired. I put the tip of my sword on his chest.

"You should post videos online," Alex sporadically decided. "You'd go viral, kids would never shut up about the cool thing they learned watching Percy Jackson fight every kind of opponent."

"Um, pass," Percy frowned at the idea of random people walking up to him on the street and congratulating him for kicking a monster sized rat to the curb.

"We can always post the footage of the play we do," Will offered oh so helpfully. "We get some really cool stunts and moves depicting most of it as being fake anyways."

"Will!" Percy spluttered while Alex smiled in delight. "Man you have got to stop with that joke, tell me there's no play!"

Will opened his mouth with a troubling smile on his face that didn't feel like it was going to be a helpful answer before Jason continued anyways.

"Get it over with," Ethan groaned.

I looked up at Antaeus. His red face was stony with displeasure, but he held up his hand and put it thumbs down.

"Forget it." I sheathed my sword.

There had been no moment of suspense between those last two sentences. Nobody had thought for a second Percy was going to kill this kid.

There was a sad, lingering silence as Jason took a breath though to realize Ethan had been about to accept it.

"Don't be a fool," Ethan groaned. "They'll just kill us both."

I offered him my hand. Reluctantly, he took it. I helped him up.

"No one dishonors the games!" Antaeus bellowed.

"Well that's what they get for inviting two Nobody's," Nico rolled his eyes.

"I'm sure Rachel would happily make three if we had time to explain," Percy agreed.

"Your heads shall both be tributes to Poseidon!"

I looked at Ethan. "When you see your chance, run." Then I turned back to Antaeus.

Jason felt a troubled knot already forming in his gut, and they hadn't even gotten to the escape part yet. Now Annabeth's group was going up to six members? It would be an act of the gods if they all made it out of this alive...

"Why don't you fight me yourself? If you've got Dad's favor, come down here and prove it!"

"Mmm," Alex smacked his lips in appreciation as if just sampling his favorite flavor. "Calling out the big boss to post up or shut up. Gets um every time."

"Yeah," Percy said with a weary sigh of agreement. His bones were already trembling against each other like they were about to break out into song as he scrambled in his mind trying to figure out how he won this one.

The monsters grumbled in the stands. Antaeus looked around, and apparently realized he had no choice. He couldn't say no without looking like a coward.

Thalia did offer Alex a high five which he happily air slapped.

"I am the greatest wrestler in the world, boy," he warned. "I have been wrestling since the first pankration!"

"Pankration?" I asked.

"I'm assuming that has nothing to do with the rations of the color pink?" Will frowned.

"I said pank like pain with a k," Jason frowned.

"Potato potato," Will shrugged. "Don't get me started on how hard it is to understand some of yawls accents if I'm not paying attention."

"I swear if we weren't all reading a magic book for dyslexic's we would have murdered each other by now over a fight of spelling Percy's name," Thalia sighed as she rubbed her forehead.

Nico was personally amused at Thalia's point being proven by not one of them actually seeming to stop and think to ask what the heck a pankration was in all their sporadic chatter.

"He means fighting to the death," Ethan said. "No rules. No holds barred. It used to be an Olympic sport."

"And they stopped that one?" Magnus scratched absently at his neck where his hair was tickling him to long. "Man, no wonder the turn out for those is lacking."

"You know how we all say a normal person should be thrown into one of those to see what an average person is like against these trained athletes," Alex smirked. "Yeah, I don't think anybody would be volunteering for this one."

"Except you," Magnus frowned accusingly.

"Yeah, but after I won ten years in a row I bet people would stop volunteering," Alex shrugged.

"Thanks for the tip," I said.

"Don't mention it."

Rachel was watching me with wide eyes. Annabeth shook her head emphatically, the Laistrygonian's hand still clamped over her mouth.

"You just know she's thinking up some new swears for you she's pissed she can't shout." Thalia said in sympathy. "I've wanted to call you a shrimp faced twit for the last hour."

"And she's much more creative," Percy chuckled.

I pointed my sword at Antaeus. "Winner takes all! I win, we all go free. You win, we die. Swear upon the River Styx."

"Look at you learning your lesson about that," Jason nodded with a slow clap.

"Like it'll do any good," Percy scoffed with a raised eyebrow, well aware even when he won he'd still have to escape Luke next.

Antaeus laughed. "This shouldn't take long. I swear to your terms!"

He leaped off the railing, into the arena.

"Good luck," Ethan told me. "You'll need it." Then he backed up quickly.

"Antaeus would probably accuse you of cheating," Will sighed, "but I wished Ethan had volunteered to help you. You just saved his life!"

"He's already helped enough by telling me there's no rules," Percy shrugged with that kind of grin on his face, the light in his green eyes that made all of them brace themselves and wish for a strap on their seats.

Antaeus cracked his knuckles. He grinned, and I saw that even his teeth were etched in wave patterns, which must've made brushing after meals a real pain.

Thalia burst out laughing hard. "Like he brushes his teeth."

"Note to self, his breath is probably worse than a dragons," Percy gagged.

"Weapons?" he asked.

"I'll stick with my sword. You?"

He held up his huge hands and wiggled his fingers. "I don't need anything else! Master Luke, you will referee this one."

Luke smiled down at me. "With pleasure."

"Percy takes a step and a whistle blows for a foul," Nico rolls his eyes.

"What's a referee even for if there are no rules?" Magnus frowned.

"To judge if the death was worthy," Percy shrugged, "which personally I don't think an immortal should get to be the judge of anyways!" It had never done anyone any good that he could tell.

Nico gave a slight cough and Percy frowned at him for a minute before he just said, "oh," without taking it back and Jason awkwardly moved on. Yeah, Hades had still kidnapped his mom.

Antaeus lunged. I rolled under his legs and stabbed him in the back of the thigh.

"Argggh!" he yelled. But where blood should've come out, there was a spout of sand, like I'd busted the side of an hourglass. It spilled into the dirt floor, and the dirt collected around his leg, almost like a cast. When the dirt fell away, the wound was gone.

"Well that's, not great," Magnus offered. It really was no guessing he was Annabeth's cousin.

"So I'm imagining a catapult right?" Alex began. "Percy lures him one way while we strip the stadium for parts and once he's strapped in for liftoff we add-"

Now thoroughly convinced Alex was on somebody's watchlist, Jason casually reminded they should focus on what Percy's actual plan was going to be.

He charged again. Fortunately I'd had some experience fighting giants. I dodged sideways this time and stabbed him under the arm. Riptide's blade was buried to the hilt in his ribs. That was the good news. The bad news was that it was wrenched out of my hand when the giant turned, and I was thrown across the arena, weaponless.

Percy had no reaction at all to his mind remembering that pain. The bruises he'd have had all along his back, the tense muscles it would take pure ocean water to fix after the stress of this place. His eyes were only on the prize.

Antaeus bellowed in pain. I waited for him to disintegrate. No monster had ever withstood a direct hit from my sword like that.

"Geryon did," Jason uneasily corrected. "Your blade doesn't always mean you're going to win the fight Percy."

He sounded friendly enough, like he was coaching him, but Percy was to pent up to do more with the advice than nod his thanks.

The celestial bronze blade had to be destroying his essence. But Antaeus groped for the hilt, pulled out the sword, and tossed it behind him.

"At least he didn't use it like a toothpick?" Thalia offered.

"I'd have to find a way to burn my sword," Percy shivered.

More sand poured from the wound, but again the earth rose up to cover him.

"How sensitive do you think that ability is?" Nico grinned a very unwelcoming smile. "If he gets a paper cut? If he stubs his toe does mommy make it better?"

"You and Percy are never allowed on the same quest," Will frowned at the idea these two would be playing tennis with each other and the monster was the ball.

Dirt coated his body all the way to his shoulders. As soon as the dirt spilled away, Antaeus was fine.

"Now you see why I never lose, demigod!" Antaeus gloated. "Come here and let me crush you. I'll make it quick!"

Antaeus stood between me and my sword. Desperately, I glanced to either side, and I caught Annabeth's eye.

The earth, I thought. What had Annabeth been trying to tell me?

Antaeus's mother was Gaea the earth mother, the most ancient goddess of all.

Antaeus's father might have been Poseidon, but Gaea was keeping him alive.

I couldn't hurt him as long as he was touching the ground.

I tried to skirt around him, but Antaeus anticipated my move. He blocked my path, chuckling. He was just toying with me now. He had me cornered.

"Now the only question left is, are you a wind up toy or do you need batteries or rechargeable, or what?" Thalia tapped her chin.

"I'm the kind that'll bite your hand if you reach for my fries," Percy reminded.

"You could never prove I did that," she sniffed.

I looked up at the chains hanging from the ceiling, dangling the skulls of his enemies on hooks. Suddenly I had an idea.

"Oooh, here we go again," Magnus sighed.

Nico tried hard not to flinch at that, but it was hard now knowing Bianca had once been a part of Percy's crazy plans.

I feinted to the other side. Antaeus blocked me. The crowd jeered and screamed at Antaeus to finish me off, but he was having too much fun.

"Not so easy now is it," Percy waved at the book like Antaeus was here to show his own hypocrisy to.

"I genuinely worry none of you guys are remotely worried about any of this anymore," Magnus sighed.

"We all deal with stress in our own ways," Alex shrugged.

"Puny boy," he said. "Not a worthy son of the sea god!"

Percy's jaw clenched tight. The entirety of the ocean sparked in his eyes. The easy going smile they all knew to be on him finally slipped away to that look of intense concentration that was born to control more of the surface of the planet than Gaea could.

I felt my pen return to my pocket, but Antaeus wouldn't know about that. He would think riptide was still in the dirt behind him. He would think my goal was to get my sword. It wasn't much of an advantage, but it was all I had.

"You've won worse with less," Thalia said with a dark undertone to her voice that was still waiting for the worst to be revealed.

I charged straight ahead, crouching low so he would think I was going to roll between his legs again. While he was stooping, ready to catch me like a grounder, I jumped for all I was worth—kicking off his forearm, scrambling up his shoulder like it was a ladder, placing my shoe on his head. He did the natural thing. He straightened up indignantly and yelled "HEY!"

"You are the definition of a pest," Alex laughed approvingly.

"I will be the unkillable fly!" Percy joyously agreed.

I pushed off, using his force to catapult me toward the ceiling. I caught the top of a chain, and the skulls and hooks jangled beneath me. I wrapped my legs around the chain, just like I used to do at the ropes course in gym class. I drew Riptide and sawed off the chain next to me.

"Come down here, coward!" Antaeus bellowed. He tried to grab me, but I was just out of reach. Hanging on for dear life, I yelled, "Come up and get me! Or are you too slow and fat?"

He howled and made another grab for me. He caught a chain and tried to pull himself up. While he was struggling, I lowered my sawed-off chain, hook first. It took me two tries, but finally I snagged Antaeus's loincloth.

Will gasped and covered his eyes like a dork, Nico snickered for himself, while the others all continued to listen with their mouths hanging open which was just as amusing to Percy. His hands ached from the callouses he'd ruptured and he wouldn't be surprised to be picking unpleasant things out of his palms for weeks after this...but that friendly smile was already right back in place as his confidence grew.

"WAAA!" he yelled. Quickly I slipped the free chain through the fastening link on my own chain, pulled it taut, and secured it the best I could.

Antaeus tried to slip back to the ground, but his butt stayed suspended by his loincloth. He had to hold on to the other chains with both hands to avoid getting flipped upside down. I prayed the loincloth and the chain would hold up for a few more seconds. While Antaeus cursed and flailed, I scrambled around the chains, swinging and cutting like I was some sort of crazed monkey. I made loops with hooks and metal links. I don't know how I did it. My mom always said I have a gift for getting stuff tangled up. Plus I was desperate to save my friends.

Anyway,

"Yeah, like that's ever something somebody should just talk right past," Magnus frowned.

"Do you want to stop and discuss all of those bullet points?" Percy asked in shock. "Because I can personally promise if we start with just the one about all my tangled up shoe laces we'll be here a good twenty minutes."

Magnus sighed in defeat. "Anyways..."

"Correct answer," Jason nodded.

within a couple of minutes the giant was suspended above the ground, hopelessly snarled in chains and hooks. I dropped to the floor, panting and sweaty. My hands were raw from climbing.

"Get me down!" Antaeus demanded.

"Free him!" Luke ordered. "He is our host!"

"Does anyone else feel like he just said that out of obligation," Jason rolled his eyes.

Six hands went up and Jason looked way to pleased about getting a unanimous vote that at least three of them promised not to do it again on principle.

I uncapped Riptide. "I'll free him."

And I stabbed the giant in the stomach. He bellowed, and sand poured out, but he was too far up to touch the earth, and the dirt did not rise to help him.

"I guess some birds shouldn't be kicked out of their nest," Nico snorted.

"That is somehow the opposite of what just happened," Thalia looked at him mildly.

"And yet it still works," Nico shrugged.

Antaeus just dissolved, pouring out bit by bit, until there was nothing left but empty swinging chains, a really big loincloth on a hook, and a bunch of grinning skulls dancing above me like they had finally had something to smile about.

"So which one did you claim as your trophy Percy?" Alex asked with a clear winner in his mind.

"None," Percy frowned.

"I would have taken the sand, put him in an hour glass so he never misses game night," Alex sighed at his clear lack of creativity. Percy was mildly offended after the way he'd just thought up killing that monster, but really, would it do him any good to argue the point?

"Jackson!" Luke yelled. "I should have killed you long ago!"

"You tried," I reminded him.

"And thankfully, practice doesn't seem to make perfect in this case," Thalia grumbled.

"Practice doesn't make perfect, it makes progress," Will said with chipper. Of course, he knew everybody came out of it alive, but to everyone else he sounded a wee bit like a maniac.

"Let us go, Luke. We had a sworn agreement with Antaeus. I'm the winner."

He did just what I expected. He said, "Antaeus is dead. His oath dies with him. But since I'm feeling merciful today, I'll have you killed quickly."

Percy had seen it coming, he was in no way surprised, and yet he still hadn't come up with a second part to his brilliant plan to actually get them out of this!

Jason fiddled with the pages for a few seconds as he wondered at Luke casually ordering Percy's execution. Had he lost all hope of recruiting him and claiming the Prophecy for his side? Did he somehow think he could talk Thalia out of her oath and use that to his advantage?

They were questions without an answer.

He pointed at Annabeth. "Spare the girl." His voice quavered just a little. "I would speak to her before—before our great triumph."

Thalia wished that would stop hurting her so much every time. To hear her friend wounded, looking desperately for help in his family, and knowing Annabeth would not give it to him. He was hurting them both, and no matter how she longed to just cut ties with him completely, Luke was to far gone to see any other way.

Every monster in the audience drew a weapon or extended its claws. We were trapped. Hopelessly outnumbered.

"Yeah, yeah, how many times have I heard that before," Thalia yawned, mock checking a watch she did not wear.

"Until you let me borrow your fart arrows, you're not allowed to be that confident about my mortality," Percy frowned.

"Hard pass," Thalia said while patting his forehead.

Then I felt something in my pocket—a freezing sensation, growing colder and colder. The dog whistle. My fingers closed around it. For days I'd avoided using Quintus's gift. It had to be a trap. But now...I had no choice. I took it out of my pocket and blew. It made no audible sound as it shattered into shards of ice, melting in my hand.

Now Jason couldn't help an accidental dramatic pause as his mind whirled with possibilities of all the ends and outs, paths and plans that could lead to Mrs. O'Leary showing up at this time, friend or foe...until Thalia smacked him and said, "stop leaving everyone in suspense if this chain saw massacre lives another hour."

"That is the coolest thing you've ever called me Thals," Percy grinned.

"Don't make me regret it," she grinned right back.

Luke laughed. "What was that supposed to do?"

"Actually summon a taxi, guess nobody's invented an app for that yet," Nico snipped.

From behind me came a surprised yelp. The Laistrygonian giant who'd been guarding Annabeth flew past me and smashed into the wall.

"AROOOOF"

Kelli the empousa screamed as a five-hundred-pound black mastiff picked her up like a chew toy and tossed her through the air, straight into Luke's lap.

"Dang I love this dog," Thalia yelled like she'd just won them a game against Air Bud at the playoffs.

"She gets extra treats and belly rubs for life," Alex cooed for the good girl. Magnus swallowed automatic revulsion and decided he'd better start getting used to this dog.

Mrs. O'Leary snarled, and the two dracaenae guards backed away. For a moment the monsters in the audience were caught completely by surprise.

"Always nice when you surprise the monsters that have seen everything," Percy grinned, his talent for startling Chiron getting a nice flip side on the bad guys.

"The only thing that would make this moment better was if she was a pink poodle instead of a massive tank dog," Alex chuckled.

"Let's go!" I yelled at my friends. "Heel, Mrs. O'Leary!"

"The far exit!" Rachel cried. "That's the right way!"

Ethan Nakamura took his cue. Together we raced across the arena and out the far exit, Mrs. O'Leary right behind us. As we ran, I could hear the disorganized sounds of an entire army trying to jump out of the stands and follow us.

"I hope those monsters all trampled each other like you were a Black Friday sale," Alex grinned.

"Who knew it was so easy to relate these monsters to real life problems," Magnus frowned.

Jason sighed his turn was up while he was still mapping out strategies of how to funnel the monsters in one by one while tossing Mrs. O'Leary some bacon bits as he got up to hand the book off.

PJOPJOPJOPJO

Gods do I wish Hunger Games had come out just a few years earlier! I wanted to make so many references...

#pjo #hoo #Jason Grace #Thalia Grace #Percy Jackson #Will Solace #Nico Di Angelo #Alex Fierro #Magnus Chase #percabeth #solangelo #fierrochase

[multifandomgurl]

Holiday With Alpha

This is a part of The Alpha series

A/N- This isn't new , I had published this one on AO3 before but since I couldn't write anything today I thought maybe this would be okay for now. I will be publishing a request tomorrow which is for Chris Redfield and I'm so excited for it!! I really hope you like it 💜 Also your feedbacks are so important to me so please comment what you think!

Warnings- Praise kink, Dom/Sub , Dom!Chris , Daddy!Chris , daddykink. ( Let me know If I missed one please ;) )

Summary-Reader offers Chris to take a vacation to get some rest. Chris doesn't take kindly to it at first, but later accepts it through someone and Reader and him have a good time on vacation.

For the first time in a long time, Chris was able to get up from work and the first thing you told him when he got home was that you wanted to take a vacation. You knew how tired Chris was at work and you wanted to take a vacation to relax him a bit and reduce his stress level. Chris understood what you meant but he didn't want to leave the house even on his vacation day in case something sudden happened at work but after you talked to him you secretly called the most sensitive person on his team - Emily - and talked about vacation plans. She knew very well how hard her captain was working and the only reason you told her was that you thought she could talk to Chris because Emily is a woman and she takes things more casually. And so she did. Because after you talked to Emily, Chris's phone rang and he started listening to Emily with a frown and grunt. Even though you were careful not to look at him after his speech was over, it didn't go unnoticed that he got up from your side and went upstairs.

Like you, you thought he had a vacation plan because you worked just as hard as Chris, and as if that wasn't enough, you came home and did the housework, but of course nobody was forcing you to do it because Chris and you were living such a comfortable life that nobody cared. Every now and then, Claire would call and tell you she was coming with Leon, and you'd usually be home alone and quickly tidy up the messy house and head into the kitchen to set the perfect table for them and your husband. Lucky for you, Claire and Leon had easygoing personalities like you, so you didn't have to worry too much.

After Chris got up and left, you were undecided whether to follow him or not, but because you were wondering what he was thinking, you followed him and when you came to your bedroom where you were staying together, you saw that he had already taken out the suitcases and prepared his clothes. Surprised, it's almost as if Chris didn't prepare like this for going anywhere other than not going anywhere but work and packing up on the way there. Never. When you opened the ajar door and walked in, his eyes turned towards you and he smiled warmly. You returned his smile and opened your arms to hug him, wrapping your tiny arms around his huge, warm body. Hugging him always made you feel so good because Chris was the best hugger in the world and no one could argue otherwise.

" I thought we weren't going. So what's the rush? " He gave you a small laugh and placed a kiss on your forehead. " Why? Can't I prepare the things we need for our holiday? " Of course he could, but it wasn't very Chris and that's what really surprised you. " Of course you can but did anybody say something to you because you've been acting a bit strange for a few minutes. '' He nodded his head in the sense of 'I understand' and without leaving you, he held your waist tightly and brought you to his level and took you in his lap. Even though you were a little embarrassed about what he did, you still kept quiet about enjoying this Chris. " Let's say someone has blown my mind. " You chuckled and started to kiss him passionately, taking your lips between his. “Do you have any idea where we are going?” He took you off his lap, pulled some papers out of his work bag, and threw them on the bed. “You may choose where would you like to go, and I'll follow.” You followed suit, closing your eyes and randomly choosing one of the brochures. Even if Chris didn't want to show it, he liked your attitude, and you did it to entertain him a bit and get rid of his work fatigue. You opened your eyes to see a place you never expected, you looked at Chris and shook your head. " No it's so expensive Chris- I mean, yeah we both work but it's-it's a lot " Chris left what he was doing , came to your side, took both of your hands, brought his lips to them and gave a long kiss. " As long as I have you, as long as you have me, it doesn't matter what it is. Don't worry about it baby, we'll work it out, together. But for now, let's focus on the fun part, shall we?"

The next day, you hurriedly packed your suitcases with Chris' help and drank a cup of coffee while you were waiting for the taxi to arrive.

‘’ I still can’t believe we’re going on a holiday. It feels.. ‘’

‘’ Different. Yeah I know. And I totally get why you want to go to holiday so bad and I’m sorry I haven’t made any time for you. ‘’ Chris was partially right about what he said because his work was so busy that you didn't want to keep him from his job, but on the other hand, your financial situation was good enough and you both needed a distraction. You were glad Chris understood that. You snuggled closer to Chris sitting next to you, inhaling his masculine scent and poking your head into his neck. Chris grinned at that, but he let you snuggle even closer, squeezing you under his arm. No matter how much you wanted at that moment to just sit and snuggle with him, the taxi would come at any time, but you had no intention of getting up.

‘’ You really wanna tease me right now, doll? ‘’ It wasn't your intention to do this to him, it was just a small thank you for taking you on vacation, but you had an unbelievable sensitivity to this man. Chris was such a person that he could make the person in front of him do whatever he wanted, and he gave severe punishments to those who did not. You once witnessed him give someone from his team a thousand laps as a full penalty, and, likely, that person has never been on Chris' word since then. Remembering this made you want to giggle, but you suppressed it and got yourself out of Chris's arms to straighten your posture.

‘’ What would you do about it? ‘’ Chris must have not understood, as he raised his eyebrows and told you to repeat what you said. ‘’ What would you do If I were a tease to you? I mean the cap is on his way, so we don’t have time-‘’ ‘’Who said we don’t have ‘time’ ‘’ You knew what he meant by the grin on his face and you were sure he would take it out on you when you got to the hotel, he could have fucked you in the elevator before you even got to your hotel room, but you didn't think Chris would do something like that in a public place and you knew he would call it disrespectful. Although Chris was a very stricted man at work, the same was true at home because he needed to maintain his form somehow and had no tolerance for indiscipline.

With that stupid grin on his face, he pulled you into his arms and placed kisses all over your face, starting from your ear. Your laughter was heard almost throughout the house, and it was very likely that they heard it from the outside as well. While you were bickering with each other for a few minutes, the house bell rang as you straightened up and took one of the suitcases by the door. You didn't get much because you were staying for three days on vacation, and it wasn't necessary because you weren't going there to impress anyone or rush from party to party, you were going to relax, to finding peace, and having a man like Chris Redfield by your side made you a pretty lucky person in that case.

Although your trip was enjoyable, you were a little bored while Chris was sleeping since you hadn't boarded with a plane for a long time and all you did was listen to music.

When you opened your playlist, you came across Taylor Swift's Love Story and this song reminded you of your relationship with Chris because you were in a cafe the day you met him and a young girl was playing this song acoustically. When you couldn't stand to sing because you knew the song, everyone except Chris yelled at you, but Chris came to you and talked about how beautiful your voice was. Of course, when a burly person like Chris came near you, you trembled a little, but when he sat next to you and introduced himself, you were relieved and your love started like this.

When you got to your room at the hotel, you both threw yourself on the bed and slept until the evening, sometimes you slept or talked. When you woke up the next morning, you felt a weight on you. You tried to push him away, but he was sleeping so deeply that he wouldn't even wake up. So you decided to provoke him a little and reached out and touched his dick. In response, Chris fidgeted a little uncomfortably, then a moaning sound came out of his mouth. You were encouraged by this, and you went even further, running your hand through his shorts and stroking him over his boxer. Most likely he was dreaming about you touching him in his wildest dreams at that moment, but if he had woken up, you definitely wouldn't have gotten away with it. You blushed at the thought of that, and just as you were about to take your hand off him, he grabbed your hand hard and moved it forward for you to put it back in the same place.

‘’ Either you do it, or I’ll have to punish you for it. You choose.’’ You loved his sleepy voice and you almost let out a groan with enthusiasm when you decided to force yourself to go back to what you were doing. You stroked it gently at first and then took it completely in your hand and slid your hand up and down. To make it easier for you to do this, Chris finally got up from you and reached over, pulled you into his lap. He licked his lips and kissed you passionately, while keeping his hands on your hips as you moved your hips back and forth. Only kissing sounds and your moaning could be heard in the room, which made you more aroused. Chris gave up on the move, tossed you to the side, climbed on top of you and kissed you from your neck to your breasts. You, not inferior to him, took his face in your hands and pressed them to your lips again. After a few minutes of kissing,

Chris pulled away from your lips and took off your thin T-shirt, continuing to place seductive kisses down your breasts, up to your navel and into your vaginal area. You couldn't take it so much that you pulled at Chris' hair and let out a loud groan, the breath you had been holding for two minutes.

‘’ Please Chris… I can’t. ‘’ While playing with your vagina, Chris gave you an even more infuriating look from the corner of his eye and continued to provoke you. ‘’ What do you want? Tell me what you need baby. Beg for it more. ‘’ You were raising your voice more and more as he progressed, and now you wanted to touch him too. '’ Please, Chris please I want to touch you too. It’s- ahh fuck it’s too much Chris.’’ Chris finally listened to you and took off his shorts and boxer and threw it aside, running his dick around your hole, waiting for you to beg more before he got in. '' What’s my name? ’’ ’ Daddy. Daddy please…’’ ‘’ What do you want?’’ ‘’ I want you please daddy. ‘'Without waiting any longer, Chris groaned quickly and went inside. You could hear the groaning and the slapping of your bodies as he went in and out.

‘’ Ahh fuck I can’t believe we’ve waited for this until this time. Fuck, babygirl you feel so good,so fucking good. ‘’ ‘’ Daddy, you feel so good too daddy. ‘' ' He was playing with your boobs as he went in and out even faster, and it drove you crazy enough. You knew as soon as he trembled that he was getting close to having an orgasm, and even though you signaled for him to come out, he didn't and continued to fuck you until you both came. You had only one question on your mind as you both lay there and hugged each other, exhausted at the end of this. If Chris dies one day while on mission, how would you take care of your unborn child on your own? At the thought of that, you snuggled closer to Chris and unconsciously felt a tear fall from your eye. Chris noticed this and countered your sting and took you in his arms. ‘’ What’s bothering you, doll? ’’ You decided to take a deep breath and tell him about the trouble you were holding inside. ‘’ It’s just, you know , I don't know how I'm going to get out of this if we have a kid and you die while you're on a mission. You may call me a freak but- ‘’ He grabbed by your chin, stared into your eyes, and as he smiled like he'd never smiled before, you felt something melt inside you.‘’ I can’t guarantee that but I promise I’ll be careful, sweetheart. ‘’ It would be foolish not to trust him any longer when you have entrusted him with your life. Whatever Chris Redfield did, whatever he said was right for you, and no one could argue otherwise.

That day went so well after the words he said that you felt as if you were in a fairy tale and you, the princess, had finally found your prince, and you never expected that this holiday would go like this. Good thing you were with Chris and hoped it would stay like this forever

#resident evil #resident evil 7 #resident evil imagine #resident evil fanfiction #resident evil smut #resident evil 7 imagine #resident evil 7 fanfiction #resident evil 8 #resident evil 8 fanfiction #resident evil 8 imagine #re7 #re7 fanfiction #re7 imagine #re7 chris #re7 biohazard #re8 imagine #re8 #re8 fanfiction #re8 chris redfield #resident evil village #resident evil village imagine #chris redfield x reader #chris redfield x you #chris redfield #chris redfield smut #hound wolf squad #re village #re village imagine #re fanfic #alpha chris redfield

[sandrabailey316]

There was a right wing activist in the '70s who came out of Oklahoma who started in anti-gay movement against homosexuals. This was a proposition that she made nationally that if you were gay you would lose your job you would lose your house you would lose all rights to go into public places. People who were allies to homosexuals friends and family also lost their houses and their jobs and couldn't go into public places either.

In 1978 Wichita, Kansas (which I currently reside in on and off for about 30 years now) was the first city to pass this ordinance against gay people so they were arrested and thrown in jail just for being homosexual on top of losing their houses and their jobs and their friends.

About 4 years ago I was a traveling bartender and I came out as bisexual but I did not come out here. To anyone not even my closest friends. Not even my best friend of 25 years. Two years ago I came out as a bisexual woman finally here in Wichita. Since then I have seen Kansas try and know my niece and her wife's marriage. Gay friends of mine trans friends of mine I've seen them personally and physically attacked. ( I did actually punch one of these attackers in a bar that I had already been kicked out of twice so it really didn't matter to me) He was my cousin and he came out as gay. He made the mistake of going to the restroom because we were filling up on beer, and these men followed him in there, and started pushing him physically around and making jokes and trying to keep him from getting out the door. Strangely enough the leader of these people what is really trying to pick me up. When my cousin came back out to the patio and he explained to me exactly what happened and told him me he was not comfortable there and that we should go. I finally got him to tell me why and what happened. The" leader" that was trying to get me trying to get me away from my cousin and offered to buy me a drink well there were a couple things I could do. So I smiled at him said nothing and punched him in the face. Before I was about to throw a patio chair my cousin picked me up and physically took me outside because the bartender was yelling about how I punched this "man.' (a term that I am using very loosely.)

Anyway guys back to this Anita Bryant or as I like to call her the "Devil's Mistress." Finally got to her 40th City in the United States to pass this proposition that all gay Americans were to lose their house etc.

No let's just stop right here okay because I am originally from Moore, Oklahoma. I love my home state of Oklahoma. That's where I spent all my young life on my grandpa's farm that's where me and my big sister were driving a small tractor and got in trouble for running through my grandma's garden of tomatoes. It's where I learned to ride a horse with a saddle and bareback. Absolutely love Oklahoma. However Anita Bryant is the shame of Oklahoma.

Still to this day in my own City and your own city everywhere violence against transgender people has risen quite substantially. This also includes even a gay person.

I did not want to come out in Wichita if you've been reading this article you would understand why things here have not gotten better.

A game and approached me on the street the other day and asked me if he could please use my cell phone to call the police he was the homeless guy but I took him over to a safe place where these guys wouldn't find him give him a couple cigarettes give him the phone and tried to help him make a report because these two men had cornered him in an alley and they had both taken turns raping him. The police did nothing.

In closing I would like to say" it's nobody's goddamn business who anybody else is sleeping with." I would also like to say just because somebody says they are gay "that doesn't mean that they want to have sex with you." Do you want to screw everybody you meet?!! Didn't think so. So what makes gay and transgender people different in that area?

I've been on many of not so peaceful protest about LGBTQIA right because even though these people that are my friends maybe gay and I may be half gay they look no different in my eyes as someone I grew up with or my niece I changed her diaper these are people I love and they're fighting for their lives right now.

I'm done with today's blog. You're free to go find something else to do.

Your Friend, Sandy

#lgbtqia+

[josephsaturn]

Ok y'know what? fuck it i like the idea so i'm keepin this AU-

So if you don't know what i'm talking about, recently i made a post about how danganronpa and phineas and ferb take place in a similar time period, so it could be plausible that candace flynn could attend hope's peak high school through some chicanery.

So let's talk about that.

First, how does she end up attending? answer:

Her brothers.

Look me dead in the gd eye and tell me Jin & the rest of the steering committee wouldn't be frothing at the mouth to have both Phineas and Ferb attend Hope's Peak. those two are prime material, and the (Data for the Izuru Kamukura Project) hope they'd bring to the world would be absolutely insane!

So, after Summer Belongs to You (the one where everyone goes on a trip around the world for the summer solstice), a representative of HPA decides to take a visit to the Flynn-Fletcher residence to see what's going on after their visit to Tokyo.

As he arrives, Candace is in the process of getting her brothers busted, so she decides to take the time to explain what's happening after the guy explains who he is. Once she's done, Linda comes back and Candace tries to bust the boys, but fails again.

The guy's intrigued, so he decides to set up some cameras around and basically take stock of what's going on. About 2 weeks pass, and the data he's corroborated looks something like this:

The boys built something for 13 out of the 14 days.

Out of those things built, Candace tried to bust 8 of the 13 days.

All 8 times, the thing the boys built somehow mysteriously disappeared, or broke, or was completely destroyed before Linda could see it.

For the 5 days when candace didn't, the thing stayed. In fact, it was completely untouched. Granted, those 5 days Linda wasn't able to see whatever was built, so there's that.

Also, through the cameras, there was a recurring motif of bad things happening to Candace. Like, not as bad as Komaeda, but definitely way above average.

So, the rep decides to take this to the committee, and they decide to let Candace attend, especially as the rep keeps gathering data where the common thread is that Candace is trying to bust the boys and pretty much always fails.

So, during the school year, she gets sent the acceptance letter, and everyone encourages her to go.

Thus, Candace Flynn-fletcher is welcomed into Hope's Peak Academy's halls as class 78-B's very own Ultimate Buster!

Now for her talent.

Surprise, surprise, Candace...isn't actually the Ultimate Buster.

Her teacher knows this.

The staff knows this.

anybody who's not a student knows this.

and Candace herself, subconsciously, knows this.

In reality, the "Buster" talent is a farce. The real reason she's here is as basically a second Lucky Student: The teachers want to dissect the way her luck works, and also make the boys, once they get to high-school age, more willing to leave to attend HPA.

As for how her luck works?

Well, here's what they got:

Candace's luck is...strange.

They've separated it into two parts: The "Komaeda-esque" part, and the "busting effect" part.

The Komaeda-esque part is fairly self-explanatory: things just. tend to go wrong around Candace. Plates break, she slips on puddles, if someone throws water in her general direction, it'll always fall on her and no one else, etc.

Basically, whatever the universe finds the funniest, will happen to her.

The second part, The Busting Effect (or what Candace herself calls "the mysterious force") is infinitely more interesting.

Basically, this part of Candace's luck is fickle, and has a set of requirements to activate:

There must be some fuckery going on that Candace doesn't like She must have the instinct to stop it ("Busting Instinct") She must report said fuckery to her most trusted authoritative figure (Her mom, and at HPA, her teacher) She has to get incredibly close to said authority figure seeing the fuckery If even one of these requirements isn't met, no matter how close, The Busting Effect doesn't happen.

She doesn't know about the fuckery? No busting effect.

She doesn't wanna bust? No busting effect.

No person in authority around her? No busting effect.

the figure doesn't get close to seeing the fuckery? No busting effect.

It took the talent development scientists almost an entire semester to figure out her busting parameters, but once they did... oh buddy you best believe they put that shit in Izuru did absolutely nothing at all. They did nothing with it.

And yes, this does mean that Izuru gets busting urges.

#if ur wondering class 78-b isn't a typo #it's not the class Makoto n them are in either #phineas and ferb #candace flynn #danganronpa #i'll call this AU... #ultimate buster au #pnf #dr

[hymnoire]

Gaya and Allegra ( @stillresolved ), the ugly ducklings of the Kang family. From as long as Gaya remembers, Aeri has never played nice. A storm, of screams and tears when Aeri was younger, fighting with Bellamy, fighing with Seraphina and then with Bellamy again. Gaya, she was silent, in her own corner watching, observing, perfect, disciplined, docile. Everything anybody would have wanted in a daughter, they would have found it in her. Yet at the end of the day, Bellamy, Seraphina, they didn't want to play with her either. Allegra in tears from anger, Gaya handind her the lollipop she stole from Bellamy's pockets to comfort her. Came the family dinners, in the same fashion, Allegra and the others were difficult, loud, even though sometimes they were uniting to in the kitchen to eat chocolate without supervision. Gaya, she was sitting perfectly still, with her plate emptied wondering why the adults sometimes were looking at her oh so strangely. Her Mother, her Uncle, her Aunt too, as if forced to accept her presence. In an ironic way, only her father was talking to her, paying attention to her, congratulating her for finishing her plate and for remaining good compared to her cousins. Gaya would smile, her father would smile at her in return. Everything is different now and yet, the same. Aeri, throwing pillows out of anger and violent outbursts meanwhile Gaya's anger has always been cold, like a bullet in the head, silent. She watches the mess Aeri made out that room as she enters. That room, Gaya always liked it, it was a place where and Aeri could hide and be by themselves. "You're... not my cousin". Aeri told her, when they were both 6 years old, meeting for the first time. "I know. It's a secret. What if I was your sister instead? Sera she's mean, I can replace her if you want. I'm good at replacing." Answered young Gaya which made Aeri nod her head with a smile. "Okay. Let's play dolls."

Of course Aeri welcomes Gaya with fire and rage, which doesn't upset Gaya no, Gaya knows Aeri is burning, her tone is nothing against her. Just like Aeri knows Gaya's cold almost emotionless behaviours sometimes do not mean she is cold and emotionless, it is all about accepting the other's malfunctions in a way. "Scold you? Please. Nobody standing for themselves out of fear is why pieces of shit like him end up renowed in the first place. Bitches like us are here to remind them of that. You know I'm on your side," Speaks Gaya who sits down the couch, comfortably in her white Yves Saint Laurent usual suit. "I just wasn't expecting it to go so public so fast. Did you know the simple mention of your name is the reason why Dispatch hasn't bankruped yet?" A joke/ "I just came to make sure you're okay.. " Her tone is calm. Sincere. She means it. She cares. "What did uncle say?" While Gaya is always doing her best to avoid scandals to her name, the little times it did happen, it didn't affect her much - perhaps because nobody would care so much in the family, in the end she is just a pawn. In fact it is the mere reason why she works so hard to be perfect on paper or else, maybe, a long time ago her father would have decided to give her back to the foster house. It's different for Aeri, a biological Kang, with the weight of the blood, everyone cares, even if in a toxic way at least, they care. "I know you're not going to listen to me when I say you shouldn't be so bothered. Truly, Aerin, you shouldn't. No matter what Bel says, like, fuck him. These tabloids try to define you the way they want, by twisting your actions and painting you in the light that brings them money. How about you launch your next collection sooner? Like that, all the medias will talk about your art, their petty little articles will be buried in your success."

#龍 : 𝐤𝐚𝐧𝐠 𝐠𝐚𝐲𝐚. / the heiress. #龍 : 𝐤𝐚𝐧𝐠 𝐠𝐚𝐲𝐚. / interactions. #Aerin is her little nickname she gives her #Gaya cares about Aeri she does :( <3 #Right it's the continuation of that one meme i sent like last month hehe

[brooklynislandgirl]

The puzzled look on Beth's face causes an incredulous smile to draw itself across Dr. Strange's chiseled features, driving deep grooves around his cheeks and eyes. Of any student he's ever had, only Beth would ask that.

"Because you're incredibly capable, of course. Borderline savant. Anybody would be proud to have you as their student, and probably Nic West, most of all. " He glances down at the document in his hand. "Now, granted, he doesn't like being upstaged, especially by a student, and he and I have what you could charitably describe as an... acrimonious relationship... aaaand it's just a cold hard fact that his last three mentees haven't exactly been success stories. But if I'm completely honest, the man's far more willing to attend the butcher shop we call an ER than I am. He's seen and dealt with issues I haven't. The more well-rounded your knowledge base is, the better off you'll be. Even I have to admit that much."

He lets the written inquiry fall to his desktop with a pursing of his lips, then flickers his gaze back up to her. She does a good job of trying to hide her displeasure; what he sees is a quick downcast of her own eyes towards her toes, a clasping of her hands together in front of her. She was almost too quick for him to catch it, but there'd been a fleeting instant there where he'd seen the stricken, doe-eyed expression.

He knows that look well by now. When half her face seems to be occupied by her eyes, like she can't open them widely enough to capture the world around her. It's a feature he understands perhaps a little too well, even if he hasn't lived her specific life. It's the gaze of a person of extraordinary privilege, whose experience with trauma are quiet, too convenient to notice, and might require the entirety of their largesse to compensate the army of therapists they would require.

Except the money could go to better things than the petty selfishness of self-rehabilitation.

Stephen saves his petty selfishness for other pursuits.

He drives those troughs into his visage again to offer her a smile of reassurance. "Okay, okay. That's obviously a no-go. I'll let him know you belong to me."

Lost Sparks || Accepting

A quiet conversation held in an office in the aery reaches of the hospital, though he has a much smaller, much more cramped one on the university campus as well. The walls are honey-combed with book shelves: some contain tomes of the latest techniques ~not the least of which were ones that he pioneered, invented whilst held in the embrace of his own brilliance~ and others held wisdom passed down more than decades, ages past. Some hold awards and certificates. His desk takes up a good portion of one quarter of the room and its top is littered with files, envelopes, charts, a sleek laptop, a desk phone. There's chairs she could have easily sat in. A small couch that is sometimes the only bed he sleeps in for days and even then only a couple hours at a time. Some people might dismiss him as some playboy-hot shot Doctor, the kinds that they portray on steamy night time dramas but those people don't know the real Stephen Strange. He bleeds himself dry to preform every day miracles. There isn't any other medical doctor who has even half his skill, the Admiral included. And no other man's opinion holds as much sway with her as his does. She's spent months now trying to prove that her dedication is absolute. That she is willing to learn and adapt and be moulded to suit any real or imagined need he might have so that she could continue to learn under him. He'd never given any indication that she'd displeased him, that she'd let him down or failed something he'd asked or assigned to her so catastrophically that there was no chance to make it right. Anyone in her place could understand then why she'd spent all of the day before in searing shock, unable to process the simple language typed onto the page indicating that she would be stripped away from his mentoring and be placed under the tutelage of Nicodemus West. She could blame the tears which refused to slide down her cheeks blurring the words together. She could tell her roomate that Haole isn't her native language. She could make up any number of excuses for why she'd received the letter. Instead, she'd come here first thing in the morning. Hadn't bothered with office hours. Hadn't made an appointment. Barged in like Horatio Nelson at the Battle of Trafalgar, and set the letter and a perfectly made cup of coffee: quad espresso, single origin, pour-over, 200-degree temperature, steamed milk, one pump hazelnut, two pumps vanilla, cinnamon sprinkle. So softly she might have been drownt out by the beating of her heart and the tick of his watch telling time, she'd demanded to know why he was sending her away. She'd not expected the answer she got. But neither had she ever forgotten. Perhaps especially now when Stephen stands on the opposite side of the barrier she'd cast only moments before; a thick blister of raw magick shot through threads of spiritual mana which provides a double-lock against the demon hovering over her. It isn't that the Sorcerer Supreme can't fight his own battles. Quite the opposite, in some ways he can out fight her on many fronts. But this creature has particular wants and Beth cannot say for certain that Stephen would have walked away from this unscathed. The demon has courted the Sanctum night after night. Infiltrated dreams with false promises and bargains requiring only desire existing. Those very tender young souls and a couple of the yearning elder ones were easy to collect as leverage. It turns and leers at Stephen, mocking laughter rattling around inside of her head and likely his too. It wants him to watch. It wants to sup on his anger and misery, savouring the anticipation. Thick, noxious saliva drips down its fangs as it swings its head back toward her. It bathes her in foul breath and Beth looks literally a little green around the gills. "You should go now, Stephen. I got dis."

#tangleweave #Kakua|Stephen Strange #Sphere Music|Stephen and Beth #The Flames that Burn|Dr Strange AU #Brooklyn Stories|New York

[the-firebird69]

Watch "Martika - Toy Soldiers" on YouTube

My brother's clothes and clones expresses what this means it didn't have the hard to have children. In this realm and it is due to the oligarchy and their teachings and what they wanted to use know what they're using to try and stay in power and subjugate everybody and worse. And it's true this song is about that too and it's about her experiences and it's about her clan and they're falling and the clones and the clone Army she's hanging out with them and they are figuring it out now but besides that my brother figured it out a long time ago and he didn't come out and tell me and he told me a few things silently but really it's all over the place like this song for instance. This gets somewhere and Hera is going to lead you to it it has to do with mom

Zues

They are brothers and eventually he got out of them when he was feeding on in the womb and what they were eating or she was eating and he figured out how to do a lot of stuff as soon as books at the X-Men headquarters Westminster and Rochester and all over the place and in Connecticut at the vanderbilts and more houses and none of you care to go and see you might when you hear what's actually happening if you figure it out. What he was was a pig because he was made into one now he was already one but he was turned into a horrific monstrous person dracol killed so many people it wasn't even funny during his era he was known as the biggest murderer on Earth and he's the father of Dracula. And he went back to Spain after they gave him a couple pieces of land and then said none he wiped out practically half the state of Spain and he called it a state because the size of a state he said and he's a mean person our people were okay we had to do things then he created his own lands galatia and there he grew Giants of his own from his mother and father and his wife was left out she was a sad woman and afraid all the time and couldn't stand him and she said it to him quite often he said you'll be okay you're my sister-in-law and your sister is my wife and she got a little mad but she felt better because he keeps it straight in the end she's sitting in her grave but Dave wants her preserved so she's there but it's cool because he keeps it cool. Now listen to me there's somebody that you should be looking for other than her cuz she's going to disappear later on and it's my husband's mom and yes there's a rebel and he is against the empire mostly but he'll kill anybody that's in his way to do the job and it's a massive hassle and his computer is a huge pain in the ass it seems are very evil. So yes I was sitting there observing but we have children and he hasn't found them they're pretty big too but his are nasty and it's because of his mom being grafted to bulge and it doesn't deteriorate the brains it is that they're both trying to survive and they're sharing and that much change in Ken would be like an arm or a leg not a brain not even a whole brain. So it's in coding a little bit sort of it's really doping and the problem is that when they're doing it Dave knows how to make it stick sometimes perhaps so what you get as a clone is a little bit more like the Abomination or the hulk or swamp thing or Jeepers creepers when he's fully pumped up you can't stop that guy and when they're huge you can't stop them so you should go see if Mom's there at least do this assignment fully at least carry through with it and find out if she's where they put her at least. For the love of God have some decency you should know as a people what's going on with them what if Tommy f is the one running those giants simply had Trump drop them on himself I mean come on that's a little strange isn't it

Hera

But she's making sense about and what she says makes sense we should go check if she's there if she's not we know there's a problem and it could be Tommy F or Dave they're the most likely suspects other people that handle the AI too but really it's those two and tell me if it's trying to hide it or get at it and we can't tell and her friend and we think that Camilla does we ask her and she says I don't know I can't get near it and that's torture and she hasn't deserve that after all this abuse and finally abused from her son Dave really it's King David he was a massive massive person back then and still is he's a massive killer and her friend says his name is actually Joseph and I can't stand it because it's Joseph Stalin and he's the one who's shooting at our friend and he wants to know what happened

Mac

#Youtube

[yoursforeternity-ts4]

Part 4

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"I'm so happy to see you guys!" Maggie streches her arms. "I'm a hugger!" She laughs while hugging Elizabeth.

"You too Aurora come here let's make a Lizzy sandwich!"

Great she already gave Elizabeth a nickname...

"I'm good thanks i don't do hugs..." Aurora refuses.

Aurora used to be a really outgoing girl and she had many friends. Human friends. But when the whole becoming a ghoul thing happened, she lost them all. They didn't want to be friends with a monster.

"I'm so excited you both came to meet me. I was so sure only Lizzie would show up!" Maggie laughs. "So whats up?"

"Well i bet you know already alot about me because of my blog, so tell something about yourself!" Liz says smiling.

"Damn this is like a job inreview...well where do i start... I love making new friends, i don't actually have any tho... I mean online i'm pretty popular but i haven't had a chance to actually meet anybody... Exept now you!" Maggie gets out of breath for talking so fast. "Sorry, like i said i'm pretty excited..." She laughs.

"I live with my dad at the moment but he is a realtor and is helping me to find my own place. Also i have a cat! Her name is Beans and she is the cutest thing ever. Wait!" Maggie takes her phone out and starts scrolling.

She shows a picture of a...cat?

"She sure is a cutie, haven't seen a cat like that before. Umm where were you're from? I mean you said you live near us in the message?" Liz asks.

"We live in Strangerville. It's a great place, tho something strange has been happening there lately. People are acting strange...but it's Strangerville, there's always something strange! Did i already say strange?" Maggie laughs. "Originally we are actually from another dimension, it's pretty cool. We used to come here for vacation. Where i'm from there's alot more monsters there than here, but dad says it's alot easier to sell houses for humans."

Aurora watches Liz is looking at Maggie. She looks mesmerized about her story.

"I know only little about you Aurora from Lizzies blog, i want to get to know you too!"

Her too? Maggie doesn't know Liz. There's so much more to Elizabeth than what she blogs.

"She can be little shy around new people." Liz smirks. "She knows how to play every intsrument in the world and has the best greenthumb in the whole universe. She had shit tons of plants and i have no idea how she manages to keep them alive...oh sorry Aurora, you can speak for yourself..." Elizabeth laughs.

"Well i don't know... I love music and plants..." And Liz... "I guess that's everything about me..." Aurora says quietly.

"SHIT!" Maggie shouts suddently. "I was supposed to be at an open house today! I really have to go i'm so so sorry! Let's hang soon again!" She rushes out before Liz and Aurora could say anything.

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Thank you for reading 🫀

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#ts4occult #ts4halloween #ts4storytelling #ts4 story #the sims #the sims 4 screenshots #the sims 4 vampires #the sims 4 #ts4 screencaps #ts4 screenies #ts4 screenshots #simblr #lgbtq story #lgbtq

[extravaguk]

pairing: jungkook x reader

summary: But above all things, the last thing you expected to happen when you came back was to show your tits and get pierced by none other than motherfucking Jeon Jungkook.

Jeon Jungkook. Guk. Gukkie. Jeongukkie.

wordcount: 15k

genre: summer!au, ex high school classmaters, kinda frenemies to lovers, tattoo artist!&piercing artist!jungkook, popular!reader

rated: m (fluff - smut - angst)

warnings: you broke jungkook's heart you bitch!! , oral sex (m&f), protected sex (shocking tbh), CL as your bestie it doesnt get better than that! idk i dont wanna spoil too much

author's note: fucking finally dude!! i've been writing this since february but school was kicking my ass. now that i finished my exams and mercury is in gemini i was able to finish it. if you read this, i hope you enjoy it!

Inkphoria

You've been standing outside the shop re-reading the word for fifteen minutes, although it definitely feels like it has been longer. You're gripping the flyer too tightly, rumpling the paper in your hand until you're pretty much sure it's ruined. It's the first day of June, and it's already too hot. The sun and humid weather are causing beads of sweat to form in your hairline and your white tank top to stick to your skin. Your jean shorts didn't feel this uncomfortable a few hours ago and you're sure the heat is causing your mascara to transfer to your eyelids and lower lashline. You've never needed a slushie and a smoke this bad in forever, even if you knew the later would make your parents lose their shit.

Inkphoria

You read it again. Your brain is trying to guess what font its written in, an excuse to try to steady your heart beat until your nerves ease a little and you can finally gather the courage to step into the damn shop. You've noticed a few people passing by giving you strange looks because maybe it hasn't been fifteen minutes. Perhaps you've been unmoving like an idiot in the middle of the street for longer than you want to admit.

Chaelin's voice echoes inside your head.

'Its not that much of a big deal. It's not even that painful, trust me.'

You wish you could trust your best friend, but your best friend is also the same woman who assured you Cats was the movie of the year. Yes, not 'Cats: The Musical'. 'Cats', the movie.

'And this could be a great start to get out of your comfort zone and start living your life exactly the way you want to, not the way people expect you to. Not the way your family wants you to, not the way Adam wanted you to.'

But although her credibility could sometimes be questionable - like that time she also told you she'd tried marmite and 'honestly, it's not as bad as people make it out to be'-, you also didn't trust anybody in this world as much as you trusted her. She had always been your entire support system, the only one around you who never sugarcoated, who always treated you as an equal, who was always there for you to help you discover yourself and, at the same time, remind you of who you were.

'And it's gonna look so hot, too.'

That's it. Sticking the wrinkled flyer on your back pocket, your feet finally start moving. It doesn't take longer than three strides and you're pushing open the door.

The first thing you notice is that, thankfully, the shop is empty. The second thing you notice is the bright sky blue walls, a green undertone peaking through. Your eyes scan nervously the interior. Frames with tattoo designs and people modeling other different designs decorate the walls, some skateboards also hanging from the ceiling. A few plants in the corner, and two leather couches on either side of the room. Your scanning stops on the counter, where a girl with short, platinium hair and -what you guess is- the eighty percent of her body inked. Face included. She's been looking at you, a smirk tugging at her lips. Her tone is amused when she speaks

"Hi." she says. "You can come closer, you know? We don't bite."

Great. As if you couldn't feel more out of place, apparently you also couldn't look more out of place.

"Sorry." you gulp as you walk forward. "It's my first time doing anything like this."

She laughs this time, but it's not mean. It's not mocking, thank God, and the smile she sends you is as warm as the weather, friendly, luckily helping you calm down a bit. "A virgin, huh? JK's gonna love this." your eyes jump in surprise, but she's fast to wave her hands in front of you. "Just a joke. So, first time getting a tattoo. You have something in mind, honey?"

"Um, no. Not a tattoo. Not yet, I think." you wet your lips, regretting not reaplying chapstick before stepping inside. "A piercing."

"Oh! Cool!" she claps her hands, too excited for your own taste, pulling from under the counter a catalogue. "So, where will it be? Cartilogue? Nose? A lot of people are getting their septums pierced right now, though, so you might-"

"Nipples. Like, one of them."

Her gaze finds yours in surprise, although her face swiftly transforms again into an amiable expression. "Now, that's badass. Alright!" she skims through the pages of the catalogue until she finds the nipple piercing collection. You scratch your head before wiping your forehead sweat-free. "You can pick either barbells or hoops, although barbells heal faster and they don't move around as much. There's different kinds of metal, too. Gold or platinium. If your skin is sensitive, I recommend titanium. It's hypoallergenic and not as problematic."

The blonde keeps talking as you nod your head, a smile making its way into your face while silently thanking her for her easygoing personality. It quickly makes you feel comfortable and stupid for being so terrified of doing this.

Once you decide, settle on the cost and sign the papers, she stands up from the stool she'd been sitting on. "Ok, I'll go tell my coworker. He's been sketching tattoos all morning, it's time he gets to work!" she laughs, but suddenly your smile banishes and your throat shuts down.

"He?" your alarmed tone halts her motions and she looks back at your frightened expression.

He? A he is going to pierce your nipple? You're about to let a random stranger, a HE, see and touch one of your boobs and then pierce a needle through one of your nipples?

"Oh, baby, don't worry. I'd do it myself if I knew how to, but I only do tattoos. Most of our staff are on summer vacation so it's mostly just him and I. If you don't feel comfortable, which is totally understandable, you can wait until september when Minzy comes back and she can do it for you." It's her turn to scratch the back of her head as she adds: "but trust me, we're professionals. He's not a creep or anything like that. He's been doing this for a long time. He won't cross any boundaries."

September? You won't even be here in september. Fuck.

Sure, you could do it when you move back into the city. But this summer was supossed to be the summer. You already decided after your breakup with Adam that there would be no trace of the old you. That it was time to push yourself, to do the things that you've always wanted to do, unapologetically. To find the new you, the real you. To stop being scared.

So after going through you options for a few seconds and taking a deep breath, you make up your mind.

"It's fine. I can do it."

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"JK, sweetheart!"

Jungkook is finishing drawing a Chinese dragon when Mijoo opens the door without knocking. Again. He puts the pen down, rubbing his eyes. It's monday, a slow monday, not much work, and he had hoped it would stay that way until closing time. It's summer and Jungkook hates summer. He hates the heat, he hates being drenched in sweat, and he hates the fact that he can do nothing about it. Because working in the summer is terrible. Summer makes him lazy, makes him want to bathe in a tub full of iced water and not get out until he turns into a raisin and october comes. It makes him irritable. Summer makes him annoyed by people -like Mijoo, even if he loves her to death- and himself.

"I got a girl here who wants a nipple piercing, her first piercing by the way, so get your shit ready and bla bla bla. Straight titanium barbell. Also, don't flirt and don't be creepy. She almost ran away when I told her a male was going to be touching and piercing her tit, be mindful of that. She's too cute, if you want to get her number you should wait until it's done. I think that's it. I'll bring her in in a minute."

Mijoo leaves as fast as she talks, but Jungkook is already used to it. He's already used to the headaches her mouth causes too. He sighs before standing up, tying his too-long raven hair into the best bun he can manage. He washes his hands, sets the table up, sits on the chair and puts the gloves on. He's too busy sterilizing the jewerly when Mijoo comes back with you.

"Alright, my babies. I'll leave you to it." she turns to you. "He'll explain everything, from how the process will be to how to take care of it after it's done." she leaves before saying bye, closing the door behind her, and then he finally turns to you.

Your eyes meet and suddenly everything stops. He almost drops the sterilizing machine, his whole body tensing, going into panic mode as he recognizes you immediatly. His hands shake.

Of course he does. Of course he recognizes his high school crush. The too goody two shoes, too pretentious and too rich, too good for everybody and, most importantly, 'too good for Jeon Jungkook' girl of his high school dreams. Of course he recognizes the girl he had confessed his stupid crush to when he was sixteen. Of course he recognizes the girl who rejected and broke his young and foolish heart when he was a dumb teenager.

It doesn't matter that six years have passed ever since. He still knows every lock of your hair like the palm of his hand. He still remembers the shape of your lips and the exact shade of your eyes. He can still identify the body he fantasized about -and jacked off to- when he was a hormonal teen, now filled in all the right places. Now a grown woman.

Just one look at you after years and years of pining is enough to almost make him faint. And grow a boner under his jeans.

And by the look on your face, your eyes wide and your mouth agape, you recognize him as well.

Dammit.

He schools his features and clears his throat. Forces his body to relax and compose himself, because he's not a teenager anymore. He's also a grown man, who has matured, who now has much more experience with women than he did back then. He had already embarrased himself enough when he was sixteen to be doing it all over again. You're just another attractive girl in a sea of attractive women.

He turns to you. You still haven't said anything. Neither has he.

"Um, you can sit on the table." he manages, motioning to the set up in front of him. He watches you taking doubtful steps until you're sitting down, your eyes avoiding his gaze. He almost forgot you were here to get pierced. Holy shit, you were here to get pierced. To get your nipple pierced.

You're a professional, Jungkook. You can do this, Jungkook. You've seen boobs before, Jungkook. You've pierced nipples before, Jungkook.

Clearing his throat again and forcing his hands to stay by his side, he speaks. "The... The top." your gaze finds his, like a puppy about to get scolded. You look at your top, realization dawning on you. "You don't have to take it off. You can just pull it down."

So you do, pulling the straps of the white tank top down and dragging the fabric down with trembling fingers. No bra. Jungkook gulps as your breasts comes into vision. As perfect as he had imagined years ago. His cock twitches. Round, full, perky and so damn inviting he has to hold himself back from latching onto one nipple with his mouth around it and swirling his tongue over the nub until you're a pretty, moaning, little mess on his piercing tabl-

He closes his eyes for just a second before reminding himself to act like the 23 year old Jungkook he's tried so hard to become. The confident, assured Jungkook he is.

"Okay, this is how it'll go. First I'll clean it and scrub it to get rid of any bacteria." he's so glad he hasn't stuttered yet. 23 year old Jungkook doesn't stutter like 17 year old Jungkook. He's also glad he can pick the alcohol bottle and the surgical scrub without trembling. When he faces you again, you're watching his motions with your lip caught between your teeth. That has him swallowing the lump in his throat.

Making eye contact with him again, you take a deep breath and offer a small nod, so he gets to work. He can show you and himself he's a grown man. A grown man who can pierce a nipple without appearing like it's the first time he's seen a boob in his life. The sooner he does it, the sooner it's over.

Jungkook wets the paper towel with alcohol before carefully wiping over your nub with it. Your back arches, probably from the cold feeling, he guesses. He rubs it a few times before throwing it in the trash can nearby. He avoids looking at how enticing the soft peak is salluting him when he reaches for the marker. He doesn't say anything when he dots it with it, jaw clenched and his dick painfully stiff.

"Lay back." his voice low as he commands, turning away to get the clamp. When he slides closer, he tries to ignore the view: you, with your hair sprawled and your sweaty, shiny skin and your eyes focused on the cieling, nipple fully erect, like the star of one of his most erotic dreams. He extends his free gloved hand before he can stop himself, fingers carefully working the nub until he's sure it's painfully hard. Almost as hard as he is.

You gasp, your back arching again. He stills and looks at you, your cheeks flushed pink. Probably from the heat, he guesses again. Or at least that's what he tells himself. He can't stop himself from wondering how responsive would you be in a different setting, most likely his bed while his teeth play with your breast and his cock dives into-

"You okay?" he studies your face, your eyes not meeting his and instead still focusing on the white ceiling.

"Mhm." you reply with a small voice.

"Relax, alright? It'll be over soon." his voice is as gentle as he can, his fingers mindlessly caressing your breast to try to soothe your nerves. Or maybe it's just because he's a selfish bastard. Whatever it is, he forces himself to bring the clamp to your nipple, securing it around it.

"Take a few deep breaths. This will only take a second of pain and then it will go away." He misses the way your mouth falls open, but he doesn't miss the way your eyes squeeze tight as the needle goes in.

"Ah!" he definitely doesn't miss that either. He goes rigid for a second, because that didn't fucking sound like a cry of painfulness. It's breathy, and whiny, not too loud and, for fucks sake, if that's how you sound when you're getting fucked, he swears to God-

He feels your heartbeat under his hands when he puts the barbell in and then the bandage over it. He takes a look at you, chest moving up and down. And then you take a look at him and what he sees is almost enough to take you right there.

Reddened cheeks, drops of sweat framing your face and those eyes glazed with something he's seen too much in the women he's fucked throughout his life. They're half lidded, mascara adorning your long lashes and almost smudged, looking right through him.

"Jungkook..." and your voice, as you say his name -acknowledging him for the first time since you stepped into his shop, for the first time since you were sixteen-, it's hoarse, almost inaudible, like you just came all over his-

He's on his feet in an instant like he's been burned. "It may bleed for the first week, and it can be really sore. The swelling will eventually come down." he's quickly tidying up the table, a bottle in his hand that he hands to you without looking directly. "Wash it gently with this soap and warm water once per day. Don't touch it. Wear a comfortable...bra. If it gets crusty, clean it with saline. Not alcohol or any other thing you might clean a wound with. The soap I just gave you or saline. Nothing else."

He's pacing around the room as he takes his gloves off and throws them in the trash bin, too agressively maybe, then he keeps rambling, like he's hurriedly trying to make you leave as soon as possible. "Avoid pools and the sea. It takes about six months to a year to heal, so don't... don't touch it, don't play with it or..." he clears his throat, "don't let anyone else play with it. And if it gets infected, come back immediately and I'll take a look at it." which he honestly hopes it won't happen. When he faces you, your top is back on and you're getting off the table.

"Alright, um...I'll do that." clearing your throat, your hand gripping the doorknob. "Thank you."

But right before you can exit the room, Jungkook says your name.

"_____." when you turn around to face him, it takes a few seconds for him to make eye contact from across the room. "It was good to see you."

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"Let me see!"

It's the first thing Chaelin says when she opens the door to her appartment. It's on the second floor, small enough to compare it to most expensive appartments you'd stayed in throughout your life, but big enough for Chaelin, her cat and her -impressive- collection of acrylic nail kits and pairs of high heels. It's also big enough for her to offer you the only guest room until summer is over so you didn't have to, one, stay at your parents' place, and two, find an appartment in a short period of time for a short period of time.

When you left years ago, you did so with the thought of 'never looking back'. You never really expected to return here, of all places. Maybe visit your best friend for a weekend at most, have dinner with your parents on a saturday and then go back to the new life you'd made for yourself on a sunday.

But that was before you'd caught Adam cheating.

Tale as old as time: childhood sweethearts get engaged, move in together, son of a bitch sleeps with the assistand he told his girlfriend not to worry about, and then the brokenhearted girl packs her bags and leaves the cheating bastard begging for her to come back.

You'd be lying if you said you were surprised.

Throughout your life, you'd learned to expect many things, regardless of being sheltered and babied by your family since you were born. Watched too much Maury and Dr.Phil. Too much Gossip Girl to know what the deal with life really is.

So, thankfully, you'd only shed a few tears, mostly because your ego and self steem were slightly triggered. You'd realize long before that your feelings for Adam started to disappear once he popped the question and you said yes. Your love story began as teenagers but soon after graduating, the two of you went on different paths: you'd matured, grown into your twenties while he got stuck at 17 and never stopped acting as such.

So yeah, whatever, break ups are hard. But they're not as hard when the love is gone and the sole reason to stay with your partner is to please your parents. You were also right when you expected your mom to tell you to 'forgive and forget' because 'those things just happen, it's not a big deal, honey'.

But above all things, the last thing you expected to happen when you came back was to show your tits and get pierced by none other than motherfucking Jeon Jungkook.

Jeon Jungkook. Guk. Gukkie. Jeongukkie.

The lanky nerd with braces, glasses and an anime obsession much bigger than his hentai obsession, which is saying a lot. The shy, awkward classmate who'd stuttered his undying crush for you when you were just kids. That one who you had rudely rejected like the bitch you used to be in high school.

But my God, Jeon Jungkook was anything but a kid now.

You were shocked. You were gagged. Couldn't seem to fathom what was happening and what your eyes were seeing. It took you a while to close your mouth when you realized JK was Guk. Gukkie. Jeongukkie.

With messy black hair, a smoldering gaze free of glasses, piercings adorning both ears, and his right eyebrow,, the braces long gone showing perfectly straight - but still bunny like- teeth. The clothes he wore were loose, all black, but it was impossible not to notice the muscles of his back and arms, covered with tattoos from his hands to his forearms. You'd bet there were more of them underneath the fabric.

It was awkward at first. You didn't know what to do, or what to say. Didn't know if he rememberd you. So you chose to stay quiet while your body chose to react like it had never been in the presence of an attractive young man in it's entire life.

And oh, did it react.

He was reluctant, his old timid demeanor peeking through his newly adopted persona. But as soon as those hands came in contact with your skin, your whole body was lit on fire. Like you were 16 and losing your virginity over again and it was the first time a dude touched your boobs.

There shouldn't have been anything erotic about it -besides the fact that your entire breasts were exposed-, it should've been just a professional procedure. But those gloved fingers touched and pinched and suddenly you were too aware of Jeon Jungkook and the way you were starting to sweat profously, not due to the heat of the season.

You tried to distract yourself by looking at the cieling and not at his gorgeous face. Tried to avoid thinking about Jeon Jungkook and how his mouth would feel wrapped around you. Tried not to think about the way your panties were a second skin to your folds, and how tempted you were to grind your hips until you recieved some sort of friction with the jean fabric of your shorts. You wonder if he noticed you squeezing your thighs together. You hope not.

And then the needle happened. You never thought of yourself as a particularly kinky person. Sex with Adam was boring for the most part and you'd lost your libido for a long time. Stopped thinking about sex altogether. But the pain. The pain mixed with his hand rubbing soothing circles on your breast and his voice, as sweet as honey, guiding you through it. It made you reconsider a lot of things you'd once dismissed as 'weird' or 'deviant'

You swear you almost came right on his table.

And then your eyes connected, you made the mistake of calling his name like a satisfied woman who still needed more, and it was all gone. He stood up like a scared cat, gave you a bunch of explanations about the aftercare that you barely grasped without even looking at you and pretty much rushed you to leave.

So you walked, all the way from the tattoo parlor to Chaelin's appartment, mortified, and completely humilliated.

"Are you gonna let me see or not?" your friend says expectantly as you finally sit down after chugging a glass of iced water. You sigh, placing the glass on the table before carefully pulling down your top. "Oh my God, it looks so cool!" she gasps and you can't help a smile while she studies it in amazement. "Did it hurt?"

"Um, I guess." you keep out the part where you almost orgasmed, obviously, stopping her hand from touching when she reaches towards you. "Wait, no. He said something about not touching it for like six months or a year, I don't remember."

At that, Chaelin's eyebrows quirk up. "He? It was a he? Was he cute, at least?"

"You won't believe this..." looking away for a few seconds, you take a deep breath. "It was Jeon Jungkook."

There's a pause, a silence that fills the room when Chaelin's jaw drops. "Jeon Jungkook...pierced your nipple?"

You close your eyes, bracing yourself for what you're a hundred percent sure is coming.

"Ha..." there it is. "Ha ha..." you still know there's more. "Ha ha ha..."

Chaelin laughs hysterically for about God knows how long, while you keep drinking your glass of water unfaced, your mind drifting back to Guk. Gukkie. Jeongukkie, his tattoos and his stupid gloved hands.

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You know he's here.

Everything was cool, you were doing alright, having a great time with your vodka sprite in hand and your cute white bikini on. Chaelin was by your side, the guys were excited to have you back and thankfully, you'd avoided most questions about Adam and they'd avoided digging too deep into the topic. You'd sunbathed the whole afternoon, kept away from the water like he'd told you and ate the Hawaiian pizza Yoongi insisted on ordering despite Namjoon's and Jimin's complaints.

It's at night, when you're a little tipsy and your cheeks are flushed, that you feel it. You'd barely noticed Taehyung disappearing to let in a new guest.

You don't see him, but you feel him.

You're sitting on the pool tile steps, legs dangling and the water baely reaching your belly to make sure it doesn't touch your very sensitive and newly pierced nipple. Your back is facing the sliding glass doors of Hoseok's house, but the moment you hear his voice, smooth but animated as he converses with Taehyung, your body wakes up immediately, back straightening, goosebumps forming on your arms and nipples tightening against the fabric of your two piece.

You don't turn around, instead opting for downing the remaining of your drink and coming to the realization that, of course, Taehyung, social butterfly who'd always got along with everybody and remained friends with most people from high school, still keeps in touch with Jungkook.

You ignore him when he enters the pool, still peering from the corner of your eyes while pretending to be engaged in Chaelin's and Jihyo's conversation. Your mind sabotages you by taking you to that day a week ago at the tattoo parlor.

To the warmth of his hand, to the few strands of hair that his small ponytail couldn't keep together, to the way his eyes focused on such an intimate part of your body, to the endless ink decorating his skin, to-

Great. Now your bottoms are wet and not due to the water.

You don't miss Chaelin supressing a laugh and her not so subtle elbowing. You glance at her in warning and try to keep calm for the next fifteen minutes until Jin proposes moving to the living room to watch a movie.

"I'm gonna stay here for a little longer, guys." you say, after clearing your throat. You needed some time to gather yourself before being in a confined space with Jungkook.

"Are you sure?" Jin stops by your side to place a hand on your shoulder as everybody starts exiting the pool. "It's Mean Girls! You love Mean Girls! You never miss a minute of Mean Girls!"

Rolling your eyes, you wave him dismissively. "I know every dialogue on Mean Girls like the back of my hand, I think I'll be alright, Jin."

When everybody finally leaves, you take a deep breath, covering your face with your hands in an attempt to get him out of your head. Damn Jeon Jungkook and his irresisitble glow up.

"You okay?"

The unexpected voice startles you, a gasp finding its way out of your mouth and causing you to jump on your seat, heartbeat erratic as you instantly recognize who it belongs to. Your hand grasps your chest as if that would do anything to protect yourself against him.

"Shit, don't do that!" you say, the words almost getting stuck in your throat as you see him approaching you, still submerged in the pool. The more he nears you, the less water depth there is and the more visible his torso comes into view. Wich was exactly what you'd been avoiding.

Because Jeon Jungkook was ripped, as you'd imagined when you first encountered him.

Broad shoulders and strong biceps and chiseled abs and veiny forearms. Drenched hair, a full sleeve of tattoos and water dripping from delicious tan skin and all just so very hard. That paired up with a loopsided smile that does nothing but make you shudder.

"Sorry." he doesn't sound apologetic at all when he says that, the smirk adorning his features telling. "You just seemed a little off." you advert your gaze when he pushes his hair back.

"I'm fine, just...just wanted to be by myself."

"Oh" Jungkook's smile disappears. "I can leave, if you want me t-"

"No!" you're not sure where that comes from and neither does he, judging by the look on his face when your eyes find his. Eyebrows raised and mouth slightly parted, he's as surprised as you and there's an awkward silence for a few seconds. "Um, you don't have to. I mean, it's not my house, you can do whatever you want." you sniff and tame your voice, trying to seem cool and collected like you didn't just practically beg him not to go.

Ironic, considering this was exactly what you had been fearing for the past thirty minutes.

And then he smiles. A knowing smile. A smile that says 'you just totally checked me out and now you don't want me to leave'. A smile that you would have never associated with Jeon Jungkook of all people years ago. A smile that makes you want to look away but still keeps you in place.

"Sure." he says, closing the space between the two of you slowly but still leaving enough distance. "So, how's it going?"

You clear your throat, head high and determined not to let this man, or any man for that matter, turn you into a trembling mess. You're still you and you're not easily shaken by the opposite sex. Or at least that's what you helplessly chant in your head.

"Everything's cool. I'm on summer vacation now," a little white lie, "so I decided to-"

"The piercing." he says, the smile never leaving his face. "I meant how's the piercing."

"The pier- right." you almost miss the step he takes forward, all too aware of his height over yours but thankful for the centimeters that being propped on the stairs added to yours. "It's-" you almost, almost miss his knee touching your knee and him slightly separating your legs with his own inch by inch. Or how your thighs open unvoluntarely to welcome him in and how you can barely find coherent words to speak. "It's doing-" or the way his smile disappears and is instead focusing his dark stare fully onto yours.

"It's doing well." you finally say in a whisper, not being able to bring yourself to be louder.

He hums. "May I see it?" Jungkook wets his lips with the tip of his tongue and the action and his voice is enough to make you nod your head, bewitched.

His movements are unhurried, his hand coming up to tentatively come in contact with the flesh of your clavicle. His fingers skim through your skin upwards, his touch is feather-like when it wraps around your throat. You pant, and he stops but he doesn't move away, his eyes still focused on yours, studying you, daring you to pull back, to tell him to back off. But just a simple touch of his and you're fully under his control. It reminds you too much of the day you got that damn piercing.

Your lips are parted and for a moment he stays just like that. His body so close to yours but not close enough, and his hand slightly gripping your neck. Your pussy clenches around nothing and you can't wrap your head around the fact that something so simple sets your entire being alive and leaves you aching.

Then, as slow as he started, his hand travels from the front of your neck to the back, pushing your hair aside to carefully untie the straps of your bikini. He breathes through his nostrils, doesn't make a sound. He seems so collected it's starting to annoy you.

Instead, your breathing is ragged when the top falls down, exposing both your breasts to him. That's when he removes his eyes from yours and his jaw clenches. Your nipples perk up under his gaze, like they remember him and the effect he had on them just a week ago. You're at least glad you're not the only one affected but he seems to be a master at keeping it under wraps.

Then, his hand moves again, leaving goosebumps on your skin as it goes south. Jungkook takes his time, so deliberate you want to scream, until he's cupping your pierced breast, keeping away from the nipple just like he'd advised you a few days prior. You can't look away from his face, from his eyes observing you like you're a full course meal and he's been starving for days. You feel drops of water falling from his hair to your thighs, his thumb caressing your skin so delicately as it faintly nears your still tender nipple. Just nearing it, never touching it.

"Beautiful." his murmur is almost imperceptible and for a moment you think you've imagined it. Your back arches on its own, breast pushed against the palm of his hand, almost like your body is begging him to come closer, to touch you more, to feel you all over. He meets your eyes briefly, gauging your reaction, before going back to your chest. Suddenly, the grip on your breast tightens, fingers ever so softly squeezing your flesh. From your throat comes a mewl, your eyes shut and your legs close around his waist.

"Jungkook, please..." you whisper when you open your eyes. He looks at you, unvertainty written all over his face, lips bruised as if he had been biting on them too hard, gaze as glassy as yours. And just like that, the spell is broken. He blinks and his expression changes completely. Lips forming a straight line and jaw tight. His hand retracts, fixing your bikini top over your breasts before tying it around your neck like it originally was. Meanwhile your eyebrows crunch in confusion. But when you're about to start asking questions, he clears his throat.

"It's healing okay." he steps back, avoiding your eyes. "I'll see you inside."

Jungkook leaves the pool like nothing happened.

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Jungkook is fiddling, fixing the position of his glasses and combing through his straight hair with shaky hands, habits he's tried so hard to get rid of in his sixteen years of existence but still finds impossible to.

He can't help it. He's always been like this: the quiet and awkward kid in class who sits in the back, a misunderstood puppy in a sea of stronger dog breeds that could eat him alive. An outcast. Too geeky for his own good. Notebokes full of Dragon Ball doodles on the margins of the pages, the shelves in his room stacked with Marvel figurines, and a closet filled with outdated clothes that he has been inheriting from his older brother.

He has never been the type to stand out, always being overlooked by people like he's invisible. He doesn't mind though. He'd much rather be ignored than getting picked on by bullies like he used to in elementary school.

He never gets invited to parties. Ever. He's a nobody who barely speaks, and when he does he either stutters or manages to embarrass himself in one way or another. He's seen the look on people's faces when they look at him. Their eyes seem to scream 'weirdo' everytime he gets acknowledged.

So obviously the only reason he was invited to this particular party had a first and last name: Kim Taehyung. The only kid in Jungkook's entire life who didn't look at him in a funny way, the only kid who took the time to entangle in a random conversation with him after class and who seemed geniune enough to make Jungkook feel comfortable.

He's not sure how it happened, since Taehyung mostly hangs out with the cool kids. But somehow it did, and now Jungkook is uncomfortably standing in a living room full of drunk teens, looking directly at you.

You, the one girl Jungkook had been pining on for God knows how long. You, who are obviously too pretty, too popular, and way out of his league. You, with your plaid skirt and your polo shirt and those legs that never seem to end. You, who are sitting with your friends in a couch, drink in hand and visibly tipsy. And yet, he doesn't think he's ever seen anyone pull of the 'drunk-rosy-cheek' look better than you.

He can hear your laugh through the music and he already thinks it sounds better than whoever is playing in the background.

"Come on, Gukkie! Her friends are leaving and she's all by herself now! It's your chance" Taehyung's obviously drunk too because it took Jungkook a while to decypher his exact words. He'd disappeared for a while and now that he's back, he's pushing Jungkook in your direction.

"This was a mistake, Taehyung." Jungkook shakes his hair and steps back, quickly glancing at the front door to prepare his escape. But his new friend's grip on his hoodie keeps him in place.

"Guk, listen. The only thing you have to do, is walk up to her, and say 'hey I think you're, like, really pretty. Just letting you know. Bye!' That's it. Jung- Dude, Guk, seriously, look at me." Taehyung grabs Jungkook's cheeks, squishing them between his hands and forceing him to face him. "You've been crushing hard on her for years, my man. We're graduating and you won't see each other again. What's the worst thing that can happen? Getting rejected?"

Jungkook's eyebrows draw together. "Um, yeah?"

"Exactly! Getting rejected is not the end of the world, bro! It just means keep trying on other girls!" Taehyung releases his hold on Jungkook's cheeks. "I just think you're going to regret not telling your crush she's your crush. Who knows? Maybe in the future you two will get married."

Jungkook snickers, muttering a 'yeah right' under his breath. Still, he can't help the smile that Taehyung's words always seem to pull out of him.

"Now," Taehyung playfully slaps Jungkook before turning him in your direction again. "Go get 'em, tiger!"

"Okay," Mijoo's voice slices through Jungkook's memories. She's sitting on Jungkook's desk, munching on her brownies and looking at her coworker expectantly. "And then what?"

He sighs, running a hand through his hair, sits back on his chair, already feeling the effects of Mijoo's baked goods. "And then I walked up to her, like a damn fool, stutter and all. And I say:" he clears his throat, making an effort to do his best teenage Gukkie impression."'Hey, _____, um, so, I think you're beautiful and I've had a crush on you since seventh grade, haha, just wanted to let you know.'"

Mijoo rolls her eyes, still chewing. "And then what?"

"And then she looked me up and down, giggled, fucking giggled, Mijoo, and said 'Who are you, again?'" Mijoo gasps and Jungkook closes his eyes, trying to force that recollecion out of his head.

"What a bitch." she can't help but laugh before apologizing. Jungkook merely shrugs his shoulders and takes another bite of his brownie. "She didn't say anything else?"

"She said something along the lines of:" he clears his throat again, this time, doing an impression of you. "'That's sweet and all but, you and I... we're not the same. And I have a boyfriend, so...' She said that like I didn't know, like I wasn't aware of the school's it couple! Like I was dumb!"

Mijoo nods. "And now you want to fuck her even more than you did in high school."

"I- No! Well, yes. Fuck, of course I want to sleep with her! But I just... can't."

"Why not?"

"Did you hear anything about what I just told you or were you too concentrated trying to get high?"

It's Mijoo's turn to roll her eyes. "I heard everything you just told me. I just don't understand what the problem is. You two were sixteen. Sure, she was a bitch about it, but Lord knows I've been a bitch my entire life and now I'm not anymore." Jungkook raises an eyebrow at that. "Okay, sometimes I can be nice. But the point is..." Mijoo finishes her piece of brownie before getting off of Jungkook's desk. "It's been, what? Nine? Ten years? People change, JK. You're the best example of that. You want to fuck her and she obviously wants to fuck you too. You're both adults." she wipes her hands on her shorts. "I think it's time you fulfill that high school fantasy of yours."

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You've made up your mind.

And by you, it means Chaelin has made up your mind.

It didn't take long to convince you though. That last interaction with Jungkook cause too many emotions stirring within you. It left you hot, it left you bothered, it left you confused. Sure, it also left you a little bit embarrassed like the first time, but above everything else, that interaction with Jungkook left you absolutely livid.

Because who the fuck did Jeon Jungkook, formerly known as Guk, Gukkie, Jungukkie, and currently known as JK, think he was to come near you, speed your heart rate's up, and then runaway like that?

You've spent days thinking about it. About that face, about that body, about those hands and- shit. You're doing it again.

You've spent days trying to push those intrusive thoughts. Spent days trying to bury what happened. You've spent days trying to keep quiet, not telling anyone about it and just wishing that stupid spark of desire simply went away.

But it has just been simply unavoidable. You haven't been able to ignore the sleepless nights with your brain drifting back to that night and forbidding your hand from slipping under your panties. Or the excessive amount of time during the day where images of him suddenly popped in your head and wouldn't go away, even with you squeezing your thighs to try to make the ache go away.

So you ended up ranting and ranting and ranting to the only person you could confide on, who is obviously your best friend. Your best friend, who's too smart for her own good and knows you too well for your liking. Because apparently your moodiness and snappy remarks couldn't go unnoticed.

And after explaining the fiasco over a bottle of wine -and minutes of endless laughing on Chaelin's part because, again, it's Gukkie you two were talking about and, according to her, this was "the most karmic thing I've ever seen"-, she gave you the best advice an older sister could ever give.

"Fuck him."

"I know right? Fuck him!"

"No. I mean, fuck him."

And now here you are. Right inside that room you stepped in weeks ago, confronting the man in question with the same confidence that has always distinguished you from others and trying to act like the fluttering inside your belly wasn't nauseauting.

"A date."

"Yes."

"You want to go on a date with me." this wouldn't be so hard if Jungkook didn't look so delectable in a plain white t-shirt and ripped jeans. You cross your arms over your chest, doing your best to not look down at the exposed skin of a man who obviously worked out a lot and apparently, never skipped leg day. "What's the catch?"

He's sitting on his chair, back resting comfortably and legs spread, narrowing his eyes at you and probably wondering why the girl at the front desk let you in without an appointment. Also, probably wondering if there was a catch to all of this.

"There's no catch. I just want to go to the fair this weekend. I'll ask Taehyung for your number and text you the date and the exact place we'll be meeting. Unless..." your quirk one of your eyebrows. "Unless you're already planning on how you'll chicken out this time."

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Of course, Jungkook says yes to going on a date with his high school crush but spends the following days overthinking every single thing.

He can't help but feel like it's kinda sketchy. What if you're planning your vendetta on him? What if you don't even show up and he ends up there looking like a damn idiot? What if you hate him and are just messing up with him? What if that incident in high school is going to repeat itself?

"If she doesn't show up, you simply move on and never speak to her again. It's that simple. She can't have that much power over you to cry about something like that." Mijoo had said that same day she let you in the tattoo parlor after you'd asked to see Jungkook. Jungkook's coworker hadn't even question you and just motioned you to Jungkook's room with a knowing smile on her face. Later that day, Jungkook had scolded her about it and she'd simply shrugged.

He considers cancelling, eyes reading the 'won't be able to make it, sorry (sad face emoji)' over and over again and fingers hovering over the send button so many times he's lost count. But then he remembers that comment of yours about him chickening out and Jungkook starts seeing red.

How couldn't you understand he's just terrified of you rejecting him one more time? Sure, Jungkook is now an adult who doesn't get butthurt over stuff like that. He's experienced too much after graduating from high school and he's a much stronger individual than his fragile self back was back then.

But something about you just makes him feel so... weak.

He still finds it impossible to concieve where he got the courage to approach you like that at Taehyung's pool, or how he brought himself to touch you for longer than a minute without coming in his pants. He'd enjoyed it too much. Allowing him to see you so exposed, just for him. He'd be so tempted to kiss you right there and then, to run his hands up and down your thighs and fully wrap your legs around him to let you known how much you'd affected him. Once you called his name, it was like he'd finally snapped out of it and backed away like he'd been burned by you. He spent the next twenty minutes trying to keep himself from pulling down his pants and jerking off in his friend's bathroom.

It's terrible. Because he feels like the teenager he used to be when you're around. Shy, insecure and overall a mess. You showing up in his life after so many years and now apparenly being interested in him seems like a dream that he's not sure he wants to keep being in or wake up from before it's too late and he falls back into that tumoltuous longing that will inevitably end up in heartbreak. His heartbreak.

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It's saturday night, he's standing by himself in the crowded fair at the spot. You're fifteen minutes late and he's already about to turn back and dip out. He feels too awkward and the nerves are eating him alive.

You're not going to show up. You're not going to show up and now he feels and looks even dumber than the time he told you he was crushing on you. You're not even going to show up and now he's going to come back home, get drunk by himself and curse your name for-

"Hey!" he turns around to the sound of your voice and sees you running towards him. "Sorry I'm late! I couldn't find my phone and spent like thirty minutes looking for it. Turns out, Sharon Stone, was taking a nap on top of it and I didn't even notice."

"Sharon Stone?"

"Chaelin's cat."

To be honest, he's too surprised to process your explanation right away. He might also be a little speechless because that sky blue sundress looks too good on your skin and your eyelashes are so long, framing your beautiful eyes, and your lips are all glossy and kisseable that it takes him a while to find his own voice.

He clears his throat. "It's alright." scratching the back of his head, he momentarely adverts his gaze from you in an attempt to not get distracted by how soft your hair looks and how much he wants to wrap it around his hands in a ponytail. "Um, where do you want to go first?"

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Almost an hour and a half later, when the sun has already disappeared and you're both surrounded by colorful lights, Jungkook decides to buy the both of you hot dogs and a drink and you both settle down on a bench.

You've been walking all over the fair, going from booth to booth, playing any game in sight Jungkook dared you to -he obviously had a competitive streak-: from the ballon and dart games, to the shooting games, to the bumping cars, to the ball-in-basket one. To say you were having fun was an understatement.

You'd almost regretted setting the date up. You were sure he wouldn't even show up and if he did, you were scared of how awkward things could get between the two of you. And if things were awkward, you were sure it would only take less than thirty minutes for the both of you to part ways and never talk again about such failure of a date.

To your surprise, none of that happened.

The conversation was flowing, both of you acting like you were strangers on their first date getting to know each other, which, to be fair, that's exactly what it felt like. There was a slight banter, teasing each other when one of you lost in whatever game you were playing while the other was obviously winning. There were laughs and a funny feeling in your tummy whenever you'd walk side by side and his arm brushed yours.

There was no stiffness on his shoulders, no mention of the past or your previous encounters, no acknowledgement of the blatant sexual tension you'd experienced before, not an ounce of avoidance whenever your eyes met his and he was even sure of himself enough to place a hand on your lower back or briefly interwine your fingers with his to guide you through the mass of people.

It felt like you'd both unspokenly agreed on making each other feel comfortable enough to have a good time.

"I didn't think you were going to show up, to be honest." you suddenly say, taking a sip of your strawberry juice and thankful to finally let your feet rest for a while.

Jungkook looks at you, hot dog mid air and eyebrows almost disappearing into his hairline. "You didn't think I was going to show up? I didn't think you were going to show up." you simply shrug, lowering your gaze seepishly, the beginning of a smile on both your faces. He surprises you by tilting your head in his direction with his forefinger. You watch him watching you, a little dazed, a little lost in how his dark hair messily falls over his forehead and his equally dark eyes study your face, his thumb swiping over your lower lip. "You um... There was ketchup right there." he lies.

"Oh" you say, feeling your face heating up. "Thanks. Red doesn't really match this dress." you manage a smile and tuck a lock of your hair behind your ear.

At that, he eyes your dress for a moment, mouth slightly ajar. He's debating on whether or not to say something but you beat him to it.

"I'm sorry, by the way."

"For being late? I already told you it's fin-"

"No." you shake your head. "For... that time when we were young and I was such a concieted brat." you say, looking away , trying to find anything else that's not his pretty face. "I thought I was a queen bee back then. I was annoying and rude, specially to you. I..." you lick your lips. The cherry glittery gloss was already gone. "I thought it was cute, what you said. There was no reason for me to act like that. I know this doesn't make anything right but..." when you turn to face him again, there's still the same expression on his face. "I'm sorry."

A few seconds go by before it's him who's shaking his head. "It's okay. It was a long time ago, anyway." he smiles at you, although it doesn't reach his eyes and seems sorta forced. You sigh, and he takes your hand. "Let's go to the ferris wheel."

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tell you're tense. You're sitting right beside him in the ferris cabin, your back is all straight, you're facing forward and he believes you haven't blinked for what feels like an eternity. He thinks it has everything to do with your conversation a few minutes ago. You were probably not content with his response but what could Jungkook do? There was really no point in apologizing for something that happened years ago, but at the same time, he didn't want to hold anything against you like a resentful asshole because it was really not who he was. But there was still a little bit of stingyness inside of him and he didn't know how to make it go away.

At the end of the day, here you were, on a date with him that you'd asked for, getting along and asking questions about him and laughing at his jokes and trying to start all over again.

But then the ferris wheel starts moving, and he finally understands why you look so uncomfortable.

It's the way you immediately grip his forearm, nails digging in his skin and he swears he hears the smallest gasp forcing itself out your throat.

"Are you... scared?" he tentatively asks.

You say nothing for a while, not moving an inch. He would laugh if you didn't look so pained about it.

"I don't like small confined spaces nor rollercoasters." you finally say through gritted teeth.

"It's not really that small and ferris wheels are not rollercoasters. " your nails dig deeper and he winces. "Okay, okay. You don't like small confined spaces nor rollercoasters, and that includes ferris wheels. So why didn't you tell me?"

"I don't know. I've never liked ferris wheels but you seemed excited about it, so..."

There's a silence after that in the environment, neither of you exactly sure of what to say or how to act. Until Jungkook moves one of his hands hands until it's resting on the one who's holding onto him for dear life, fingers caressing yours. The warmth of his hand spreads through yours and although it's almost July and you can already feel your sweaty back staining your dress, it's oddly comforting. What's more comforting even, is him twisting his body towards you and talking with the calmest and most soothing tone you've ever heard.

"Look at me." you do instantly, unwillingly, and kinda wish you hadn't. It's almost as if your body will do anything he says without question. Like he has some sort of power over it to just react however he wants. His eyes bore into yours and suddenly the cab doesn't seem so suffocating. "It's just you and me right now. We're not even on a ferris wheel." the corners of his mouth turn slowly upwards. You zone out the environment, suddenly too aware of him and how close he is and how loud the beating of your heart is to your own ears.

"Jungkook."

You swallow the knot in the back of your throat when he removes his hand from yours. It almost makes you protest, - now realizing you've losened the tight grip on his arm- , before it craddles your face, keeping you in place while bringing his body closer.

"You have to stop saying my name like that."

With his thigh touching your thigh, your whole demeanor melts. When he leans closer, and you feel his breath fanning over your lips, your eyes shut closed.

"Tell me I can-" he starts to say.

"Yes." you finish for him. He doesn't doubt on closing the distance between you two. His lips touch yours and your body shakes in excitement. It's just him lightly skimming your lips with his but it's already too much and at the same time, not enough. It has you deepening it, yourself moving closer when he kisses you again. It has you relaxing against him, the tenseness prior disappearing and making you arch your back when his tongue asks for permission.

But it's exactly then, the moment you open your lips to him, that has you losing your mind.

The sparks fly, traveling from your head to your toes and then settling on the pit of your stomach as soon as the kiss starts to turn desperate and rough. When he nibbles your lips with his teeth, it makes you mewl and whine and your nipples tight against the cotton of your dress. It makes the metal barbell to feel uncomfortable, slightly painful. And when he goes back to being messy and filthy with his tongue tangled with yours, your thighs close on their own.

He forces himself to pull his hand back and bring it down, finding the parting of yd opening them for him. "Wait," you say, your fingers wrapping around his forearm as you try to catch your breath."The ferris-" he shuts you up with another kiss.

"We're not on a ferris wheel." he reminds you, a soft whisper against your mouth. And for whatever reason, you believe him.

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"He fingered you on the ferris wheel."

"Yes."

"And you came before the ride was over."

You take a small sip of wine, your eyes focusing on the TV where a rerun of the Golden Girls is playing, although, to be fair, lately you haven't been able to pay much attention to anything else but a certain brunet with doe eyes and kisseable lips. "Yes."

She hums, stealing a handful of popcorn from the bowl between your thighs.

"How long did it took? Like five minutes?"

There's a pause in which you clench your jaw, your fingers twitching around the glass in your hand, and then you answer. "Probably less."

There's another pause, and then-

"Ha...Ha ha...Ha ha ha-"

You let her laugh. It's okay. You knew you had it coming.

Chaelin knows the pillow you throw right at her face is also something she had coming.

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It's not that you're mad.

Jungkook and you had a great time on that fair date, he made you laugh, bought hot dogs and drinks for the two of you and got you off inside the cab of a ferris wheel on record time with those magical, long fingers of his. Technically, there shouldn't be anything to be angry about.

Except it's been a week and you can't stop thinking about him, about wanting more, and about those words that he left you with after the ferris wheel ride ended, when you had tried to return the favor.

'Next time, maybe.'

And there hasn't been a next time.

The thought of texting him or giving him a call to ask for another date is persistent in your mind. It remains while you do the laundry or wash the dishes, while you shower, while you eat or while you spend your days at the beach with Chaelin. There's always the incessant desire to reach out towards your phone, unlock it and dial his number to beg for more.

But you'd never been one to beg, so you resist the urge everytime that feeling starts to creep up on you and it washes over you like a wave. You silence your phone and try to concentrate on making the most out of your summer.

It's one random night, when you're tiredly dragging your feet across Chaelin's apartment's carpet, yawning and ready to succumb to a well needed slumber, that you see your phone screen's lighting up with a message.

Your heart pathetically leaps inside your chest when you read his name.

'you free on saturday?'

You wish you could say you ghosted him, ignored his text and moved on with your life until it was him who begged you for another date. But the truth is you opened it in a matter of seconds and typed 'i'm free, why?' back in a rush with trembling fingers.

So now you're on the passanger seat of his car while he sits on the driver seat, the first saturday night of July, like he's Danny Zuko and you're Sandy Olsson, watching a vintage movie in a drive-in theater which plot you don't give a shit about, even if Jungkook's date plan idea made something inside of you churn with adoration.

And the only reason why you don't give a single damn about the movie playing in front of your eyes, is because you're hot. Way too hot. And the reason and cause is none other than the boy-now-turned-man sitting on your left.

You barely exchanged words when he picked you up, just rode in silence until you got to your destination and you bet he can feel as well as you do the tension in the air.

You've surveyed him a few times from the corner of his eye, noticing him fiddling with the rings around his fingers and shifting in his seat from time to time. And if the sight of his fingers bring memories that you've tried to bury to keep yourself from lunching towards him, a brief glance at his forearms, adorned with ink drawn through his golden flesh -doing a poor job at concieling the veins running underneath- and his skin-tight jeans wrapping those muscled thighs of his is enough to have you be the one squirming in your seat.

A woman can only endure so much, and you come to that realization thirty minutes into the movie.

"I want to suck your cock." you say, a stern expression on your face as you turn your body in his direction.

Jungkook frozes as your voice slides over him. It takes him a couple seconds to look at you, shock widening his eyes and parting his lips.

"Huh?" he manages, his grip on the steering wheel turning his knuckles white.

Without separating your gaze from his, you gather your hair and tie it in a ponytail with the hair tie previously around your wrist. You don't miss the quick glance he sneaks into the curvature of your neck and the valley between your breasts.

Inching forward, closing in on him, you place one of your hands on top of his thigh, the action making his whole body tense. "____..." he whispers your name in a warning that doesn't sound convincing even in his own ears.

You smile, your eyes never wavering from his as your hand inches upwards, slowly caressing over the fabric of his jeans until you finally come across what you were looking for.

His hand flies to your wrist, stilling your movements. "____, this is not-". He starts, but his voice gets stuck inside his throat when you palm his undoubtly growing erection.

"Shh." your shaky breath fans over his cheek and you force yourself on your knees on the passanger seat in a more comortable possition to stop the trembling to reach them.

You fumble with the belt holding his pants in place, then with the button and finally with the zipper. He helps you by lifting his hips to pull his jeans and boxers to his thighs and you have to bite back a mixture between a gasp and a moan at the sight below you. You haven't even seen Jeon Jungkook naked all the way, but the mere sight of his hard cock with pre-cum glistening on his crown is probably the sexiest thing you've ever had the pleasure of appreciating.

It gets sexier when you wrap your hand around the base and his body melts in the driver seat, throwing his head back with his eyes shut. It gets even sexier when you finally lower your head, swirling your tongue over the head before finally engulfing him fully in the wet warmth of your mouth.

"Shit." his voice is tight, uneven as his hand loosely grips your ponytail, as if careful not to accidentally hurt you and break the glorious moment.

Although you wouldn't mind at all. Because the moment your hands are on him, and your tongue is on his shaft, that's the only thing you care about. Your belly is twisting, an undeniable wet spot on your panties as the fabric sticks to your folds, and the more you suck Jungkook, the more you want from him. His earthy taste is addicting and the soft little whimpers he occasionally can't prevent himself from are making you want to milk him until he can't take it no more. There's this desire within you to whorship him and his cock like you had been dreaming for the past weeks.

"This is s-so fucking h-hot." he rasps between ragged breaths, the bobbing of your head, sliding up and down his dick as your hand works the centimeters your mouth can't take is about to make him faint.

"Getting a blowjob?" you joke, your throat starting to feel sore as you kiss his leaking tip.

"N-no." he draws in a rough breath when you take him all of him again. "You giving me a blowjob... T-the f-fact that anyone c-could see us..." he darts a quick glance at your body, your ass up in the air and your dress sliding down, almost exposing you completely. "The fact that-ah! Shit..." he squeezes his eyes when he feels a glob of your spit lubricating him.

There's a sudden need to make you feel the same, to touch your skin and have you shaking the same way you have him. So one of his hands travels from your spine, to your perked ass, finally dragging the cotton of your dress to allow himself to see your thin white panties. "The fact that anyone could see you l-like this," he murmurs, regaining a little bit of control when he squeezes one of your cheeks. "letting t-them see you s-sucking my cock and..." he smirks when he feels you gasping around him, his fingers trapped between your thighs and pushing them inside your heat easily "and letting them see me fingering this pretty little pussy."

Soon after that he's cumming in your mouth while you're cumming around his fingers.

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At first, it's mostly on weekends when you see each other. Weekends of stolen kisses and soft sighs and whispering against each other's lips. Then weekends turn to week days, sitting on grass while sipping on refreshing beverages, drawing each other laughs, elbows touching as you walk around the park side by side because the both of you are too scared to interwine your fingers together.

Jungkook feels content like this: sitting on the sand with you between his thighs, admiring the sunset while nuzzing your neck and inhaling your scent every now. He likes waching you enoying your strawberry ice cream, almost forgetting the chocolate chip one already melting in his hand.

"If you were an ice cream flavor,which one would you be?" you ask him, relaxing against his chest.

"Rocky road."

"Why?"

He shrugs behind you. "Everyone likes rocky road."

You hum, playfully rolling your eyes. "What about me? Which ice cream flavor would I be?"

"Lemon sherbet, in the summer."

"Lemon sherbet? Out of all of the flavours out there, you're rocky road and I'm lemon sherbet?"

"Lemon sherbet, in the summer." he corrects.

"Okay, fine. Why?"

"You're boring and basic."

You gasp, trying to feign outrage but not being able to repress the laugh that escapes your throat. You elbow him, his laugh mixing with yours while taking the time to wrap his arms around your form, the breeze blowing your hair allowing him a spot between your neck and your shoulder. "You're boring and basic, but once you have a taste..." he presses a small kiss on your skin, causing the tiny hairs on the nape of your neck to rise. "Once you have a taste, specially on the hottest day in the middle of summer, you can't stop tasting and licking until there's no more lemon sherbet left."

You suck in on a breath when he craddles your jaw to face him. "It's been my favourite flavor since I was a kid." he kisses you immediately after, his lips swallowing the small whimper now stuck in your throat.

You close your eyes as his tongue opens your mouth, arousal blasting your insides and something much, much deeper that you fear to even name shredding your chest.

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The beginning of august comes faster then you two realize, but what you both do realize is how hard it's becoming to stay away from each other.

It's been thirty days of dates happening almost everyday, sharing high school memories and anecdotes of the time you spent away from each other. Hours of getting to know each other and opening up to each other. From failed relationships to new friendships. Of park dates walking side by side and fingers now interwined because you both realized one day that, fuck it.

It's difficult to sleep when you realize you're starting to catch serious feelings for somebody who was just supposed to be a fling. It's hard to sleep when his face, his voice and his touch and thoughts of missing him when you don't see each other start haunting you at night.

It's hard for Jungkook to focus on work when you're everything that's occupying his mind. Because he has a hundred sketches to make but he's too busy thinking about the hundred different sketches he would make of you.

It's hard not to send him a goodnight text, just like it's hard for him not to reply in a matter of seconds, almost as if he was already waiting to recieve it.

Jungkook thinks of you at night. Of how pretty and absolutely perfect you are for him. Of the taste of your lips, the way your hair feels between his fingers, or the flush on your cheeks when he makes you cum as droplets of sweat accumulate between your breasts. He thinks about your voice. He also thinks about the amount of hours left to be able to listen to it again.

But mostly he thinks about how ridiculous this situation is. Because he was stupidly crushing on you when you were only teenagers, daydreaming about a chance with you. And now his crush is long gone and he's starting to realize that he's falling, and falling fast.

You, too, think of Jungkook at night. Of his ability to bring a smile out of you, to soothe you with just a few words and filling your belly excitement, happiness and feelings you're sure you've never felt before.

Jungkook's managed to imprint himself in your dreams, and you, in his.

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Getting drunk with Jungkook is fun and messy.

It's fun because he lets loose, he stutters a lot like he used to do when he was a teenager and he makes you laugh louder than ever before. It's messy because he has no control over his hands as they explore your body, clumsily taking your clothes off as his mouth laps at the breast he's allowed to touch.

He's more forceful and dominating too, pinning your hands above your head, and commanding you to keep them right there, on the pillows of his bed. When you rebel against it, your fingers finding the hard planes of his chest, he pulls away from you and places them back where he left them. "Don't make me tie you up." he threatens, and your body shudders beneath him.

He sucks, and bites and leaves marks all over your skin, grunting in response to your moans. Creating a path of kisses from your lips to your stomach, his shoulders separating your knees, opening you up only for him. And thankfully, when you reach down to tug at the strands of hair framing his face, he lets you, because he knows you need something to hold on to the moment his tongue eats you up. He leaves his fingertrips on your thighs as he keeps you in place, not allowing you to runaway. Just forcing you to take it as he takes from you.

And when you cum, he doesn't back away. He keeps sucking, and licking and punishing you with his mouth until you're cumming over and ove again, screaming and begging for his cock.

Having Jungkook over you, both completely naked, skin to skin and only sweat in between is more than you could've ever fantazised about. He slurls your name when he puts the condom on. He would do anything to feel you raw, but he also knows he wouldn't be able to last a minute. The sight of you spread open, with your cheeks darkened by a crimson blush and your hair tangled all over his pillow is a picture he wants to keep forever.

He enters you when you call his name, your voice dripping with need. He stretches your warm and wet felsh, slowly easing himself into you at first, until he's fully inside and your bodies are completely in union. A shiver runs down Jungkook's spine when he looks at your contorted face in pleasure, your lips forming an 'O' and your pussy clenching around him.

"Oh, my God." you moan into the dark of Jungkook's room, and even then, he can clearly appreciate every curve of your body lifting off the mattress to connect with his. He lowers himself on his elbows on either side of your head, caging you in and capturing your mouth with his.

"I know, baby." he murmurs. It's hot, in the middle of August but suddenly Jungkook doesn't hate summer as much as he used to. Not with you sharing the heat with him. "It's way beyond what I could ever imagine." You nod hurriedly against his lips, your arms finding their way around his neck as he starts rocking in and out of you.

"It's too good." you cry, when he hits a particular spot that has you rolling your eyes in bliss and gripping his waist tighter with your legs against you. Your fingers thread through his hair, not bothered by the beads of sweat gathered on the nape of his neck.

"Too good..." he agrees, not missing the shiver that's shaking your own frame when he picks up his speed. "You have no idea what I would do t-to fucking feel you with n-no barriers between us," his movements become frantic as his hips slap against yours, his jaw clenched as he keeps talking, "to s-stuff you full of my c-cum over and over again until it won't stop d-dripping."

Jungkook's voice against your ear has you trembling and your orgasm nearing closer, your nails scratching down his back as his thrusts overpower your form. "Would you like that?" he asks with his voice strangled.

"Y-yes. Anything y-you want."

"You'd take all of my cum like a good cum-slut?"

You hate the fact that that's what makes you come undone. The twisting and knotting in the pit of your stomach finally snapping until you're holding on to him like you never want to let him go and he's following soon after.

Because if Guk, Gukkie, Jengukkie was not only able to make you come in less than a few minutes with his fingers or his tongue, but he was also able to make you cum instantly just by calling you a good cum-slut, that means you're fucked. Like, really, really fucked.

≿━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━༺❀༻━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━≾

There's a knot in Jungkook's stomach and a suffocating grip around his vocal chords as he caresses your skin. The sun is rising in the distance with the first rays of light entering his room through the window. Your shamphoo is intoxicating him, numbing him and enticing him to bury his nose in the tangled curls pressing against his chest. Your arm is thrown across his stomach, your breathing leavig goosebumps all over his body.

"It's too early. Go back to sleep." you mumble against his heart. He wonders if you can feel it dangerously speeding up.

"I can't." he says, voice struggling to stay balanced. "I have to tell you something."

You hum in response, sleep still interwined with your body, your arm tightening around him. You sigh in content, expecting him to elaborate.

He wets his suddenly dry lips. "I don't want this to end. In fact, ____.... I want more. Need more."

"Jungkook..." your whole body goes rigid right away, untanglling your bodies from each other and sitting up on the mattress.

"No, listen to me." he mimicks your movements, rapidly grabbing your hands to make you look at him. His eyes are expressive, a mixture of fear and hope swirling in his dark irises. "I wake up everyday, and you're the first thing I think of. I go on about my day, and I keep thinking about you, wondering what you're doing and counting down the hours until I get to see you again. I spend every night dreaming about you, and when we'e together, the only thing I can think about is how I wish I could stop time so I don't have to say bye to you the next morning. ____, I-"

"Jungkook, stop please." you shake your head, pushing away from him and in desperate need of air. You press a hand against your chest, beating back the throb of pain while the other curls in a tight fist, the feeling of your fingernails digging into your palm less painful than the ache inside your heart. "This... This wasn't supossed to happen, Jungkook." you start pacing around the room, as if trying to find an exit while avoiding his gaze. "This was just a summer fling. That's all it was, I'm supposed to come back to the city in two weeks and-"

"A summer fling?" a sardonic sneer comes out of him. "Oh my God, I can't believe this is happening again..." he mumbles to himself before rising from the bed. You stop immediately, a shiver quaking through you as his impressive frame intimidates His eyebrows are drawn together and his dark eyes are void of any prior emotion. "You're going back to the city in two weeks? And you didn't care to tell me until now, after I just spilled my guts to you?"

You eyes fill up with uncomfortable tears, reaching one arm towards him. "Jung-"

He flinches, taking one step back. "A summer fling is all I mean to you?"

"Ju- "

"Look me in the eyes, right now, and tell me that's all I mean to you. A summer fling." panic crawls up your throat. There's the need within you to confirm, to stare into his beautiful and stern eyes and tell him that, yes, that's all he is to you. But you've never been a good liar. So nothing comes out. You opt for wrapping your ams around yourself wishing they were his and lowering your eyes to the ground. "I think... I think you should leave."

Those are the last words he says to you, and the last thing you see when you turn around one more time after gathering your clothes, is his back as he looks out the window.

You allow yourself to cry the exact moment you step into Chaelin's apartment. Your friend is sitting on the couch, bowl of cereal in hand and a fresh cup of coffee sitting on the livingroom's table.

"Hey, you're early tod- Baby, what's wrong?"

"Please, don't laugh."

That morning, you lay down for hours on the couch with your head on Chaelin's lap while she softly brushes your hair as you cry, hiccup, fight through the pain in your heart and relate to her as best as you can the latest events.

She doesn't laugh at all.

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"She'll come back." Mijoo's slurred words do nothing to put Jungkook's state at ease that night. He simply shrugs, fingers clenching at his sides, frowing into his drink before gulping down the bitter taste of vodka in one shot. "Seriously, I think she's just afraid. My ex was the same."

"Comparing her to your ex is not the analogy you think it is."

"Ugh, shut up. Things didn't work with my ex because she was a bitch." Jungkook gives Mijoo a pointed look which she responds to by rolling her eyes and sipping on her rum coke. "Your girl is not a bitch. She used to be a bitch. What she did this morning was bitchy, but, like I said, she's just being a pussy. If she only wanted sex with you, she wouldn't have been doing couple stuff with you the entire summer."

"Whatever. I don't care." he lies and Mijoo knows he's lying but decides to drop the subject fo now.

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"We can't keep spending our days smoking weed." Chaelin speaks over Blanche's voice on the TV.

"I know. I'm just sad."

"You have to come back and tell him how you feel."

"I know."

There's a beat of silence before your friend kicks your thigh with her feet.

"I know and I will." you mumble through red eyes and smoke clouds.

≿━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━༺❀༻━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━≾

It's September first and it doesn't feel like Jungkook's birthday at all. He's been trying to focus on his work, alternating between isolating in full hermit mode and hanging out with friends to drink away his sorrow. The days have gone by and before he could realize it, he woke up today with over twenty text messages wishing him a happy day and a throbbing hangover.

He dresses up on autopilot. First a cotton shirt, then a pair of jeans and lastly, his Nike's. He doesn't bother tying his sneakers just like he doesn't bother taking a shower. He smokes a cigarette for breakfast, the death stick making him feel nauseaus on an empty stomach. And then he goes to work.

He's been repeating the same routing for the past weeks and he's not thinking of changing it, not even on his bithday.

He spends hours drawing, tattooing and drawing some more between yawns. He ignores texts an phone calls and simply waits until the day is over to go home, go to bed and forget about the fact that you're probably on your way to the city and that he hasn't crossed your mind not even once.

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Inkphoria.

You've been standing outside the shop re-reading the word for fifteen minutes, although it definitely feels like it has been longer. You're gripping cup of ice cream as it melts down your fingers the more you wait. The shop is already empty and it's starting to darken out side, and still you're so hot. Your shorts are heavy and your tank top is sticking to your skin. You didn't even bother to put on any make, although your eyebags definitely needed some concieling and your lashes some dimension to hide the fact that you'd been crying for the last few days.

'You're crazy about him.'

Chaelin's voice echoes inside your head.

You've lost count of how many times your best friend has given your advice, or simply encouraged you to do something you've been too scared to try.

'And he's cazy about you too.'

Chaelin might be wrong about marmite and the movie Cats, but she's definitely now wrong about anything regarding your and Jungkook.

That's it. You briefly close your eyes, inhale a deep breath then release it slowly. You start walking. It doesn't take longer than three strides and you're pushing the door open.

The tattoed blonde looks up from the counter the second you come into view. She smiles at the distance between you two. "You can come closer. I won't bite."

You clear your throat, stalking closer to her. "Is he-"

"He's in the back." she replies before you can finish you question. You close your mouth, clear your throat and nod your head.

"Thanks, Mijoo." she gives you a small wink, her smile easing your nerves like she had three months ago.

She watches you disappear. She shakes he head, her smile meeting her eyes. "I told him so."

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Jungkook ignores the knock on his door at first. It's almost ten and the parlor is about to close. He just has to finish this last fucking sketch so he can grab his shit and go the fuck ho-

Knock knock.

He growls, exhasperation cursing through him. He runs a hand through his messy pile of hair, his rings tangling between the strands, making him wince in pain. "Come in." he grunts under his breath. The door opens. "Mijoo, I really have to finish-"

He stops dead in his tracks as soon as he sees you.

"Hey." you say after a moment of hesitation.

"Hey." he replies and although there's something inside, deep in his chest, shouting at him to stand up, run up to you and kiss your face while he tells you how beautiful you look right now and how happy he is to see that you're still here, he decides against it. "Listen, ____, I'm pretty busy-"

"No, you listen to me." you cut him off abruptly. He looks taken aback and is already opening his mouth to say something, but you're not having it. "Please, just... Let me talk."

Silence looms between the two of you for a while, a staring contest defying each other to back down. When you take one step inside and close the door behind you, he sighs and leans back against his chair.

You move towards him slowly, your lip caught between your lip going through your mind for the speech you'd been preparing the last few days. Your hands are sticky due to the the sugary treat liquifying in your hand. "I know there's no reason you should give me another chance after rejecting you in high school, and there's definitely no reason why you should forgive me for the way I shut you out a few weeks ago. You've been confessing your feelings to me since we were teenagers, and now it's my turn to tell you exactly how I feel about you."

"Jungkook, the truth is... I like you so much. I like you more than I've ever liked anyone. Ever. I said this was just a summer fling, and I was lying. I was lying because there's no way a simple summer fling could make me feel the way you do. There's no way a simple summer fling could make me want not just summer with you, but also fall and winter, and spring and every summer that comes next."

You hadn't realize when your eyes filling up with tears until the sight of him starts blurrying in front of you. His fingers reach yours, his thumb comforting on your skin. "____, it's okay-"

"I'm not done yet." you sniffle, gathering enough courage to continue. "I brought you a lemon sherbet because you said it was your favourite. But you also implied I was your favourite, and I want to keep being you favourite, but now it's already melted and-"

The corners of Jungkook's lips start pulling upward as he tugs you towards him, his heart loudly jumping inside his chest. "Shhh, come here."

He takes the ice cream from your hand and places it on his desk. Then he's helping you onto his lap, your head tucked under his chin and your arms wapping on their own around his neck.

He doesn't care about your sticky fingers or the wet stains of your tears in his shirt. The only thing he cares about is the fact that you're right there, letting him engulf your frame and drown in the scent and warmth he'd misses so much.

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The first day of June has Jungkook sweating and wishing for a haircut. Jungkook usually hates summer. He hates the fact that he has to shower at least twice a day, and the fact that the heat is almost unbearable to sleep in and also the fact that he's easily sunburnt.

This year, however, Jungkook likes summer a little bit more.

"Excuse me, miss. Do you have an appointment?" it's the fact that you're starting to wear those summer dresses he loves so much, and the fact that your skin glows under the sun like glitter, and also the fact that he can lick ice cream off of it whenever he desires.

"I am the appointment." your giggle is almost childlike, playing with Jungkook's heart strings. You shut the door behind you, nearing him. You also seem to always have that flush on your cheeks. Although he likes to think part of it is due to him. He doesn't say anything else as he puts his pencil down and instead turns around in the chair to have you immediately on top of his thighs.

Yeah, he also likes the path your lips trace from his cheek, to his jaw, ending at the juncture between his neck and his shoulder. It still makes his body quaver to this day.

"Let me see." he murmurs against you forhear, his hand already working on unbottoning the front of your dress.

"Mijoo hasn't left yet." you whisper back, your smile impossible to supress and the faint whimper impossible to hide when his fingers expose your breast and tug at the titanium barbell adorning the already hardened nub.

Jungkook loves knowing he was the one to do that, and also the only one to play with it. He doesn't hesitate when he dips his head. "As if we'd ever cared about that." he adds, wrapping your sole point in his mouth.

He fucks you on his studio table with your legs around his waist and his tongue playing with both your breasts, the tattoo sketches long forgotten, scattered on the floor as he whispers against your flesh something that sounds a lot like 'I love you'.

#jungkook #jeon jungkook #jungkook smut #bts fanfic #jungkook angst #jungkook x reader #bts #bts fic #bts smut #jungkook fic

[leahblackk]

Lies Pt.1

(The gif is not mine. Whoever made this thank you and I’m sorry)

Summary: Spencer Reid and Y/n Y/L are two incredible agents with a beautiful relationship. But things get messed up when Cat Adams comes into their life.

Type: Angst. 

I changed things a little bit so there’s no spoilers for those who haven’t got into this part of the serie. Probably a second part if I dont have another block. Enjoy!

Pt.2 here

Pt.3 here

...

Y/n Y/L and Spencer Reid are some of the best FBI agents the Bureau has ever had, and all of their coworkers can tell you the same. Even those cops and agents who had to work with when the case was far from home. They were always so dedicated to their work. It wasn't a surprise when they got pretty close to each other. They had a beautiful friendship.

Their coworkers and other people they had worked with can tell you they looked so in love with each other. It wasn't a secret. The way they protected each other, the way they looked at each other. In the cases, always talking and laughing around and even got to the point where they got touchy, need to feel the other warmth. Yeah, they were in love.

But yet they were too proud to say it out loud. It took two long years to finally say it out loud. They started a beautiful relationship which, in the words of the technical analysts Penelope Garcia, their relationship was the remainder for all the team that love still exists, even when sometimes all can be sadness and death, they were the ray of sun and happiness who have entered the doors of the BAU.

But like anything can be rainbows and happiness all the time, things got messed up when Cat Adams came into the couple's life. Spencer had questions, and the only person who could give him answers was her.

Y/N on her side didn't feel right talking to Cat. It wasn't because she was jealous, she wasn't like that, and even if she were, she understands that it was vital for him to talk to her. Besides, Spencer wasn't excited either. Adding the fact that she received letters from Adams while Cat was in prison.

Cat Adams was utterly obsessed with Spencer Reid, and when she found out he was dating Dr Y/L, she got furious, so she decided to make a living hell for Spencer's little girlfriend. Writing her letters, telling her how much Spencer loved Maeve and Cat, and because he couldn't have any of them, he decided to pick Y/N as a third choice.

Y/N wasn't stupid, and she understands what Cat was trying to do, but the letters never stopped. Even in those moments when she needed comfort from all the stress, Spencer never found out what was going on.

Y/n exhaled and stood from her desk and walked through the BAU hallways with a million thoughts in her head. She stood in front of the Batcave how Penelope used to call it, and knocked on the door. After a few seconds, she heard chairs wheels moving on the floor, and later soft heels steps walking closer to the door. And then the door was opened, letting Y/N see Penelope's face. She smiled at her, and Y/N smiled as well.

"Hey pumpkin, how may I help you?" She asked and stepped aside, letting her friend inside.

"I just need some light and love into this madness," Y/N said while she sits on the empty desk aside from the computers.

"Well, you came to the right place."

Garcia could sense something wasn't okay with her. She sits on her chair and looks at her friend who was playing with her rings and with the specific one that Spencer gave her on their anniversary as a promise ring. Garcia wasn't a profiler, but she knew that the reason why she was acting particularly was because of Boy Genius.

"Tell me what is bothering that pretty mind of yours." She put her hand on her knee to give her comfort cause she knew Y/L wasn't good with talking about her feelings.

"It's just all of this thing about Spencer talking with Cat, I don't know, makes me have this weird feeling in my heart."

"Are you jealous?"

"No, I'm not. I thought that maybe was the reason, but I'm not at all. It's just, I don't know Pen." She exhales, feeling frustrated because she couldn't find the right words.

Garcia gives her a sad smile. "Look, if you were jealous, you don't have to because let me tell you that boy genius is in love with you. He wouldn't cheat on you or hurt you on purpose. Besides, with Cat? That lady is hella crazy."

Y/N chuckled and smiled at her.

"Hey, you two had a party and didn't invite me?" Emily said, walking inside of the room and sitting next to Y/N.

"Well, you are already here," Pen says.

"Is everything alright? Morgan told me Spencer was coming from his little chat with Cat."

"I hope he got the answers he needs," Garcia said, looking over at Emily.

"He didn't," JJ said in the frame of the door, looking exhausted.

"How did everything go?" Y/N asks.

JJ exhaled, walking inside and sitting in front of Emily and Y/N. "It wasn't right. She got into his skin, and he got so mad. When we're driving, he didn't want to talk with anybody. And then when we got here, he went to Hotch's office." "I hope he's okay." Y/N whispers, playing with her ring again.

"Why won't you go and talk to him? He probably wants to see you." Emily says, looking at her, but she was focused on playing with her rings.

Y/N shook her head. "When he's mad, he likes to be alone. Besides, if he went to Hotch's office for a reason."

"You don't want to talk to him, do you?" Emily asked.

Y/N could feel tears in the corner of her eyes and shook her head again. "Is not for something he did, but I don't think I will help if I go with him right now. I just feel weird, you know?"

"It has to be a reason why you feel like this, honey. "Garcia said.

Y/N nod and sigh. "When Spencer and I got together, he already met Cat, and when she found out we were dating, I don't know what happened, and she started sending me letters. She used to tell me how much Spencer loved Maeve and her, and you know I got this job months after Maeve died. Obviously, Spencer told me, but the way she described everything was so weird and hurtful, besides she told me he loved her so much and the reason he was with me it was because he couldn't have any of them and I was the third choice. I know she did it because she wanted to make me mad. But, I don't know, and today she wrote to me and told me she was going to do anything in her power to have Spencer with her again."

Y/N wiped the tear going down on her cheek.

"That bitch." Garcia said, wiping her tears because watching Y/N cry, one of her best friends, hurt her.

"Spencer knows about this?" JJ asked.

"No, he doesn't. It was nothing initially, and then I couldn't find the right moment and then all the stress we had been through. I didn't think it was a good idea."

"Baby, he's your boyfriend. He needs to know." Emily said, grabbing Y/N's tight.

"I know, but I don't think this is a good time either. Please don't tell him, I will, but not now." "Your secret is safe with us," Garcia said, and Y/N smiled at her friends.

…

When Y/N finally felt a little bit better, she walked out of Garcia's Batcave and put herself to work.

"Hey, where were you? I was looking for you." She heard her boyfriend's voice, watching him standing beside her. She looked at him and could sense how tense he was.

"I was with Garcia. How did everything go?" She already knew the answer but still asked. She watched her boyfriend sigh. She didn't notice the cup of coffee in his hand until he put it on her desk.

"It wasn't ideal, but it could've been worse."

"I'm sorry." She said, giving him a sad smile.

"It's okay. I have to talk with you about something." She could sense he was nervous.

"Yeah?"

He looked down, not wanting to tell what he was going to. He didn't want her to feel bad, but he needs her approval.

"Cat wanted a deal. Me going on a date with her so she can tell us what we need, but I needed to ask you first because I am not going to do anything you are not comfortable with because-"Spencer started rambling.

"Spence," She stops him. "It's okay. I mean, I know how bad you need to know this, so yeah, don't worry." It wasn't okay, she didn't want him to go on a date with her, but she would be selfish if she denied it.

Spencer stared at her girlfriend, he didn't think she would agree, and he would understand why. He didn't want her going on a date with someone else too. Yet, he felt relieved.

"Are you sure?"

Y/n only nodded.

…

It was now the day date. Spencer tried to find Y/n before he left, he needed to see her and ask her again if she wanted him doing that, but he didn't find her. She was getting distant from him. He felt weird not having her with him. They couldn't talk about it because Spencer knew that if she needed to speak to him, she'd.

And then with his heart hurt because he couldn't find his girlfriend, he went on a date with the woman who made her girlfriend be apart from him.

…

Y/n was doing paperwork all day, but then she received a strange call.

"Hello?" Y/n asked.

"Y/n Y/L?" The other line asked.

"Who is this?"

"I need you to come to the direction I will send you on a message, alone, please. I need you to save me."

"Who is this?" She asked again, more confused than ever.

"Emily Johnson, please come. She said that If you come with anyone else, she is going to kill me, please. I am scared."

Emily Johnson was one of the victims they were looking for a few months before, but for reasons the team didn't know, the case got closed, declaring Emily Johnson dead. The line went dead, and Y/n didn't know what to do. She knew that she might get in trouble if she goes alone, but she might kill her if Y/n doesn't go.

She grabbed her things and walked out of the Bureau. And then she received a message with the direction. Biting her lip, Y/n got into her car and started driving.

…

Y/n stood in front of a brown apartment door with the number 206. She took out her gun and opened the door softly. She walked inside, closing the door behind her, watching Emily Johnson tied on a chair, tears coming down her face. When Emily watched Y/n, she started moving and tried to talk, but she couldn't because of the tape on her mouth.

Y/n walked where she was. "Hey, it's okay. Everything is okay. You're okay. It is over now." Y/n took the tape out of her mouth, and Emily started crying again.

"Thank you, thank you so much. I thought she was going to kill me."

"I need you to tell me who she is." She started taking off the string who kept her in the chair.

And then the door got open, and Y/n retook her gun, pointing to the door. Her heart got broken when she saw what was in front of her. Spencer, her boyfriend kissing Cat, with his hands on her hair. Y/n put down her gun, and then Spencer pulled away from Cat, watching her, but Cat was watching Y/n with a smile.

Spencer, confused, looked where Cat was looking, and his heart got paralyzed. There was his girlfriend, looking at them with tears in her precious eyes.

"Y/n," Spencer said with all the guilt in the world. Shaking.

"It's her! Y/n, it's her." Emily said, and Y/n came out of her shook.

"Hello, Y/n, it is so nice to see you," Cat said with a smile.

"Sadly, the feeling is not reciprocated. And it's Doctor Y/L for you, " Y/n said. She untied the girl who was shaking and took her hand. "I will return you to your parents, okay? But we need to go with someone first." The girl nodded. Y/n looked at Spencer with disgust. He looked at her with guilt, trying to figure out what to do or what to say.

"Doctor Reid, I hope you can get Cat where she belongs, unless, of course, you want to keep her." She said, walking outside. Spencer took her arm hurt at the name she just calls him. It wasn't Spence, Spencer or even Reid. "Don't touch me."

"I told you I was going to get Spencie back," Cat said.

"What is she talking about?" Spencer asked, confused.

"Doesn't matter anymore."

And then Y/n left. Spencers biggest love went thinking he cheated on her

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