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hisunshiine · 10 months

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—college nights, diner fights | jjk

pairing: waiter!jungkook x waitress!reader au/genre: diner au, e2l, angst, smut, fluff rating: M wc: 9,664 warnings: POV switches (obvious, tho) mentions of domestic abuse and alluded infidelity (parents not pairing), JK's mom has terrible boyfriends and his dad is a petty "Disney" dad, Reader's parents are better but not around often, mentions of Jungkook having to protect his mom from the bad boyfriends, mean teachers, enemiesssssss, triggering middle school memories can be brought up upon reading the banter of middle school JK and reader LOL but also not LOL, swearing, vulgar statements, forced proximity, secret mutual pining, a drunken physical altercation/assault at work (mild), mentions of blood, minor cuts/scrapes, kissing, tattoo tracing SMUT warnings: oral (f receiving), praise an: shoutout to my beta readers @colormepurplex2 @downbad4yoongi @mrsparkjimin18 @peachiilovesot7 for helping me get this thing done in time despite me being on vacation and dragging my feet! thank you all so much for the motivation, for brainstorming, and just all around positive feedback! summary: If you can't stand the heat, get out of the kitchen! You and Jungkook have been enemies for as long as you can remember—elementary school even—and when Seokjin hires him despite knowing this, you have to call a truce during working hours. When an incident at work leads Jungkook, and you, to put things into a different perspective, will the heated diner fights become a passionate college night? Or will it fizzle before it can start?

Bangtanstrology Writing Event hosted by ME of @bangtanwritershq

My Big 3 are: Sun (Member): Gemini- Jungkook, Moon (How They Met): Scorpio- Late Night Diner, Rising (Trope): Libra- Enemies to Lovers

Part 1: Elementary School

Elementary school is supposed to be fun. For you, 11 years old and in the fifth grade, elementary school is perhaps the best time of your life so far. Your dad signed up for career day, and you are excited beyond measure for him to come in and meet with your class to talk about his job.

It’s rare that you get to spend time with your dad, as his job keeps him pretty busy. The fact that he was able to show up today was a miracle in and of itself, but he negotiated presenting first so that he could leave first to get to work.

“Everyone, please welcome our first parent speaker, Mr. Cha.”

Your classmates applaud as your dad steps forward to the podium in the front center of the classroom and you beam from ear to ear. He looks all spiffy—hair styled well, suit pressed, and shoes shined.

“Good morning, boys and girls, I am Mr. Cha, and I am here to speak to you about my career. To be honest, I have two jobs,” he pauses as the kids, including you, look at him in both awe and confusion, “I am the father to that little girl right there,” he points to you and you giggle. “That is a full time job all on its own, but for the other time spent working, I am a plastic surgeon.”

You can’t help the pride you feel from your classmates clapping as your dad shares. He talks about the schooling needed to get to his position, shares study tips for the transition to middle and high school, which—while still some time away—will be good to begin practicing even now.

“You’re so handsome, Mr. Cha! Have you ever had any work done yourself?” one of the students asks during the question time.

“Ah, great question! I have tried some of the treatments that we offer at my clinic, because if I don’t believe in it, why should others have faith in me and the services I offer?” he explains. “I had a colleague of mine fix my deviated nose bridge, which I injured playing basketball in college, and I maintain my skin with various anti-aging treatments as well. It’s important to start taking care of your skin even at this age! Princess, come help me please.” Your dad gestures to you, and you rise from the chair, only a little embarrassed at him using your nickname. “Help me pass these out to your classmates.”

You begin walking around the room, placing the small cardstock printouts on each of your classmates’ desks as your dad continues speaking.

“These are coupons for my office. You can give these to a family member, or if your parents will allow you to come in, we offer a free consultation to check your skin, and a reduced rate for any skin care products or procedures for any of my princess’s classmates and their family.” He wraps up his presentation there, pulling you into him for a side hug as he smiles at your classmates and the other parents waiting in the wings to present. “Thank you for letting me present, I’ve got to run because I have a rhinoplasty scheduled today, and I need to prepare, but I had a lot of fun talking with you all today!” As your dad kisses your forehead, he whispers a quick goodbye as he leaves your classroom. You’ve never felt so proud.

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“Okay, everyone, let’s line up for P.E.,” Ms. Kim directs, and you jump in line with your peers to walk down to the field. Your classroom teacher disappears for his break as Ms. Kim takes over, and thus ensues a battle between your class as you play ‘Capture the Flag’.

“The rules are simple,” Ms. Kim explains, “a ball is placed on each side of the field in that box.” She points at the four cones creating a safe zone with a kickball inside of it. “Once the game begins, players have to cross the midline into ‘enemy’ territory to try and capture the ball and bring it back to their side. The other team has to stop you from stealing the ball by pulling the flags to remove your waistband—no tackling! Understand?”

“Yes, Ms. Kim!”

“Good. If your belt is pulled off, you stand off to the side at the cone here, okay? That’s the jail. To rescue your teammates from jail, you have to high five them. You must return to your side before attempting to go after the ball again. Once a player enters the box, they are safe, but they cannot stay in there forever…”

You tune out Ms. Kim because you already know how to play, and instead busy yourself with wrapping the tan belt around your waist, adjusting the position of the three blue flags hanging from it. The red team moves to their side of the midline, and you stretch your legs idly as you wait for the teacher to blow her whistle.

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Huffing, you pout as you walk to the jail cone, re-attaching the waistband that your classmate pulled off. He’s put you in jail several times now, almost as if he’s targeting only you during the game. It’s getting a little irritating, since Jeon Jungkook is the fastest boy in the fifth grade, but he’s spending all of his time chasing you instead of helping his team win. Even now, he’s guarding the jail so your best friend can’t come to save you again.

“Dang, JK, you pulled her flag again?” Kim Taehyung snickers loudly as he jogs over to where you’re held captive.

“Can’t let the princess get everything, now can we?” he taunts, a sarcastic tone to his words.

Kim Taehyung, unable to whisper to save his life, leans into Jungkook and asks, “Do you think her dad worked on her face? No way she’s that pretty on her own.”

Your feelings are split between irritated and pleased at the backhanded compliment.

“She’s not that pretty, it looks more like her dad messed up her face, ‘cause she’s so ugly,” Jungkook counters, and it’s hard to decipher if his cheeks are red from playing or from talking about your looks.

“But, you said last week that she was—”

Ms. Kim’s whistle blows to end the game, and you miss the end of Taehyung’s statement. Walking away from the two fools, you barely get a foot outside of the jail zone when a sharp tug at your waist stops you in your tracks. You look down and see your belt missing, and hear a soft thud a few moments later as it hits the grass in the opposite direction several yards away.

Taehyung is laughing, his large boxy grin behind his hand as Jungkook smirks at you.

“You lost.”

The two then take off towards where your teacher is collecting the game belts, leaving you to backtrack to get yours.

“What took you so long? Everyone else has already returned to the building. Taking your time to head back to class is not good sportsmanship.”

“But, Jungkook—”

“No excuses. Hurry up and get inside.”

Jogging back to the building, you get another scolding when you reach the classroom, with your teacher telling you that just because your dad is a surgeon and came for Career Day does not mean you get to behave this way. From the corner of your eye, you watch as Jungkook eats up every second of the scolding, seeming to enjoy the way you wilt as it continues. As you walk back to your seat, you don’t see Jungkook stick out his foot, and you trip loudly as the desks and chairs nearest you clatter and clang as you try to regain your footing.

As the boys snicker at your forced clumsiness, you vow to yourself that Jeon Jungkook is the worst person to exist, and you will hate him for as long as you live.

Part 2: Middle School

Jungkook’s had a hard week. Chuseok just ended, and he had to spend it with his dad’s family instead of with his mom this year, per their divorce agreement. He’s partially thankful because it allowed him a moment to rest. His hypervigilance with his mom’s new boyfriend is tiring, and his grades are suffering for it. But Jungkook is tired of these men sniffing around for a piece of the ‘supposed’ alimony his mom receives from his dad, because everyone was aware when the CEO of Jeon Industries divorced his wife and married his secretary. Jungkook begged to switch schools, but his parents refused, despite it being reported on several news outlets for a month in sixth grade.

Eighth grade hasn’t been so bad for him though, no one talks about the divorce anymore, and Jungkook is able to be just Jungkook, known for his athletic abilities and gaming. He was able to guilt his dad into a new gaming computer, since he forgot to take him back to school shopping, and Jungkook is able to help his mom pay the bills each month with the earnings he makes betting on Overwatch.

So when he returns back home, tired of hearing tales and seeing pictures of the trip to Cancun with the new baby that conveniently interrupted the planned shopping trip, to see his bed holding a Nike box with the shoes Jungkook begged his mom to get at the start of the year, he’s elated. He erupts into shouts and whoops of excitement, running to the kitchen to hug his mom.

“Ouch!” she can’t hide the wince as Jungkook pulls back from the embrace.

“I didn’t even squeeze you that tightly, Mom. Are you okay?”

“Yeah, it’s nothing, you know how clumsy I am, I ran into the dining room table the other night—”

Jungkook doesn’t even think as he reaches for the hem of her shirt, barely lifting it to see an ugly burgundy bruise spreading across her abdomen.

“Mom! Did he do this to you?” Jungkook demands, fury building in his body.

“N-no, honey, you know how I c-can be,” she stutters through the lie, but they both know the truth.

“Mom, if he did this because of money, just return the shoes, it’s fine.”

“No. I bought those for you. You deserve them.” His mom is resolute, turning away and adjusting her shirt as she goes back to cooking dinner. “Plus, we broke up. He won’t be back.”

Up in his room, Jungkook readies the shoes for school tomorrow. He has a few nice things, his dad is a CEO after all, but after the divorce, Jungkook chose his mom, and his dad took it personally. His dad didn’t understand, but the choice was clear to Jungkook. His dad had a new wife, but his mom had no one. Jungkook couldn't leave her too. But his dad became spiteful after that, and so Jungkook can’t take most things his dad buys him to his mom’s house, including certain clothes and shoes.

It’s why he’s so upset about his dad missing back-to-school shopping, because those were usually the only things he was allowed to take to his mom’s, but this year he has nothing new. Not until his mom bought him the Nike Dunks he’s been coveting. Jungkook is happy, proud of his mom for choosing him over the newest boyfriend, and lying in bed, he finally feels like maybe his life isn’t so bad. He hears a knock at the door, and his mom’s tired feet shuffling to answer it.

“Please, Jongyeon-ah, I promise, it won’t happen again.”

Jungkook rolls over, grabbing his headphones to drown out the sounds of the pleading, good for nothing, weaseling himself back into his mom’s life.

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“Yo, Jungkook, those dunks are fly!”

Jungkook props his shoes up on the desk next to his in class, showing off the brand-new kicks to Taehyung.

“Yeah, they're limited edition.” Jungkook knows his response is a little douchebag-esque, but he doesn’t care. He’s wanted these shoes for the longest time, and after all of the bullshit he dealt with during Chuseok and now waking up to see that greasy slimeball his mom said she was done with shirtless at the table for breakfast, he just wants to pretend for once that his life is perfect.

“Take your crusty shoes off my desk,” you scoff. Jungkook ignores you for a few seconds, leaving his feet where he has them propped on your desk. He hates that you called his shoes crusty, knowing that they’re not. They don’t even have a speck of dirt on them! He made sure of that upon his arrival, being overly cautious with each step and wiping away any blemish he perceived to be there.

“Awe, is the princess jealous she doesn’t have the limited edition dunks?” Jungkook can’t pinpoint when this rivalry started, he just knows that for as long as he can remember, the two of you have been enemies.

“There’s a reason the supply is limited. It’s because they’re ugly and they stopped making them once they realized someone would have to be an idiot to wear them. You sitting here with them just proves this point.” You push his crossed feet off your desk and he lets you, but Jungkook holds you in his glare.

“One day you’ll stop being a hater, drowning in all that Haterade you’ve been drinking,” Jungkook makes a play on words, and his friends ‘ooooh’ and high five at his middle school burn.

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At lunch, Jungkook precariously steps between the seats to avoid damaging his shoes. His shins are starting to hurt from how he’s walking to avoid creasing his sneakers, but it’s worth the pain to him. He’s successfully avoided getting any food on his shoes from the sloppy eaters, and as he makes the last stretch to the door, a loud yell catches him off guard.

“Watch it!”

Nayeon, one of your lackeys, warns everyone as she’s bumped by you and her red sports drink goes flying. Jungkook is stuck between tables, backpacks cluttering the aisle and Nayeon’s body flailing taking up all of the space. It all happens in seconds—a hip check, a flying drink, and the contents now strewn across the floor and Jungkook’s new sneakers and laces now stained a bright red, dripping across the leather and fabric of his brand new, limited edition Nike Dunks.

“Oh my god, Nayeon, you are so clumsy!”

Jungkook gawps at you, unbelieving, as your annoying voice fills the silence that took over the room only moments before.

“So sorry, Jungkook. Nayeon bumped into me and then she spilled her haterade—I mean Gatorade—all over your new shoes! I hope those weren’t hard to get or anything! I’m sure your CEO daddy can get you a new pair.”

Jungkook storms from the room, seething at your audacity. If you had any idea about his life, would you treat him this way? He wishes you could walk a day in his shoes, maybe you would realize that life outside your perfect, princess bubble is not always sweet, and would think twice before being a bitch to him, but it’s too late for him to change his view of you. You are the devil’s spawn and Jungkook has never hated someone as much as he hates you.

Part 3: High School

Getting into BTS-U should be easy for you, what with your dad being an alumnus, but you don’t want to rely on nepotism. You’ve been working your ass off for good grades all four years of high school, and the final determination of your competency is about to start. Only one student can represent your high school as the Youth of the Year, winning prestige and honor by being granted early admission into any four-year university in the country of their choice without needing CSAT scores.

The last of the trials, the oral interview, is scheduled for today and as you sit outside the room in the creaky, overly hard chair, your heart pounds. Of course, the final two students competing for this merit would be the two students who despise each other the most in the school, making the competition that much more important to you.

You cannot lose to fucking Jeon Jungkook.

“We’re ready for you!”

The chipper voice startles you from your thoughts as you steel yourself to go into the final challenge.

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“Thank you all for your participation in the Youth of the Year program. As you know, the contenders were all very high achieving and will have plenty of options available to you for your future. Do not let not being named deter you from the future awaiting you all. Now, today, we interviewed the two finalists from this wonderful school, and while both were outstanding, one student really opened up and shared a vulnerable side to him that inspired us. He has already begun an incredible journey in his young life, showcasing a will to succeed. Jeon Jungkook, please stand.”

The crowd in the auditorium bursts into applause as you burst into tears. The one good thing about this ceremony is that the finalists do not sit on stage, so in the chaos and celebration, you are able to sneak away to the bathroom. Jeon Jungkook looked so shocked to have been chosen, but you knew that he couldn’t actually be shocked. His mom stood up with him, hugging him with pride, and your parents couldn’t even be bothered to show up for such an important moment.

You tell yourself it’s not a big deal, that you have done well and will most likely have the same options for college as Jungkook does, but being a Youth of the Year finalist is not the same as being the Youth of the Year. What really hurts you the most is that if the roles were switched, Jungkook’s mom would be there to hug him and tell him he did great and fought hard. If you had been chosen, you still would’ve been alone, but at least the loneliness wouldn’t have hurt as much.

The judges who interviewed you must think you don’t need the help, that you have everything you could ever want, so why would they choose the spoiled little rich girl? Why would they choose the girl who eats dinner with the maids, who read bedtime stories to herself growing up, the girl who has everything—everything except a family that loves her more than their careers and supports her unfailingly?

Facing the mirror, you reach for your purse and pull out the small makeup pouch so that you can erase any evidence of the sadness you feel today, brimming with the unshed tears of yesterday, and prepare your battle face to go back out there and be cordial as the runner up. Another battle you’ll face alone.

Part 4: College at BTS-U

“Welcome to Jin’s Diner, have a seat wherever you’d—what the fuck are you doing here?”

The chiming of the door opening caught your ear, so you’d turned to greet the newest customer, except instead of an overly tired trucker or a group of post-clubbing college students, you’re faced with one Jeon Jungkook.

“You kiss your mother with that mouth?” he asks, eyebrow pitched and smirk full of snark.

“No, I kiss your father with this mouth. Now get out.” You go back to wiping down the counters, ignoring the stare of your arch-nemesis as you finish cleaning.

“Now, now, Baby Cakes, let your new coworker into the diner so you can finally get the help you've been asking for.”

You turn to the owner’s son, Kim Seokjin, mouth gaping open in confusion. “Coworker? I thought you read through the notes I made on all of the applicants?”

“Yes, I did, and they were very helpful. He’ll be working nights with you, so show him to the back while I grab a lock for his locker and a uniform.”

“Sir—”

“Now, Cakes.”

Seokjin disappears into the hallway towards his office, and you turn back to Jungkook, who’s standing smugly with his arms crossed watching you.

“Ugh, keep up, small fry.”

Jungkook’s black boots squeak along the freshly mopped floor as he hustles to catch up with you. The doorway behind the counter opens into the kitchen, where the two line cooks, Hoseok and Yoongi, work diligently. Hoseok is sitting next to the recently delivered products with a clipboard in hand as he counts the items, while Yoongi is wiping down his area before the rush begins. You clear your throat loudly to gather their attention.

“We have a new waiter, his name is Jeon Jungkook, but he shall go by Small Fry, I think.” The smile on your face is devilish, and the two men snicker as they take in the newbie rushing in behind you.

“Wait, why am I ‘Small Fry’?” he asks, only a little out of breath from having to round the counter and catch up to you.

“Because everyone who works here gets called a food nickname, helps with the creeps, especially on nights.”

“I’m Suga,” Yoongi greets, “and this here is Hobi-Honey, but we just call him Hobi for short.”

“And I’m Baby Cakes, as you heard bossman say.”

“What’s your real name again, Small Fry?” Yoongi asks, his platinum hair shining in the fluorescent kitchen lights.

“It’s Jungkook,” he answers, emphasizing his name as he glares at you.

“Hmm, Baby Cakes, I think he might be better suited to Cooky…”

“Isn’t that too close to his name?” you argue, hoping to keep Small Fry, but when you see Hobi shake his head, you know you’ve lost.

“Fine, Cooky it is then! Next new hire will be called Small Fry no matter what!” you concede, waving Jungkook to follow you towards the back of the kitchen.

He trails you quietly as you push a swinging wooden door with a circular window in it and lead him into the employee lounge. Seokjin is whistling to himself as you enter, twirling a metal lock around his finger. You look around the room, surprised at how quickly he had everything ready.

“Great, you met Suga and Hobi then?” he asks, nodding at the door you just entered.

“Yes, I figured it would be best to do that first on the way here.”

“So, Jungkook—”

“He’s Cooky,” you interrupt, but Seokjin just shakes your rudeness off.

“—Cooky, this here’s the lounge. The door you just entered is used while you’re on shift for breaks and such. When you arrive for your shift and leave for the night, it should always be through the door behind me.” He gestures to a purple-handled door. “To the left are the employee cubbies, and to the right, we have the laundry station, small kitchenette, and door to the staff bathroom.”

You nod at the TV mounted on the wall next to the swinging door. “The remote always stays on this table,” you tap the main table in the room that seats six, “and we typically keep the TV on ESPN, MTV, or my personal favorite, HGTV.”

“Thank you, Cakes. Now, your Jin’s Diner gear stays here, we’ll wash it for you after each shift you work.” Seokjin points to a stacked washer and dryer in the corner. “Just throw it in the wash after your shift each night. We’ll put it back in your cubby for you once dry.”

Jungkook nods, but he looks a bit overwhelmed from all of the information. You take the lead and sit down first hoping he’ll follow you. You know Seokjin talks fast and moves through the employee information even faster, and despite not liking Jeon Jungkook, you need the help on your shift since Mochi quit to focus on his last semester.

You grab a permanent marker and white label from the center of the table, tossing it across to Jungkook with a little more force than necessary.

“We each have a cubby, with a small locker inside. Use this to write your name and then claim an empty spot, and you can also write your name on the tags of your uniform.”

Seokjin grabs plastic-wrapped clothing articles from the cabinet next to the laundry station and approaches the table, too, tossing down the new clothing.

“Your gear. Shirt, apron, and a ballcap. If you want a visor instead, let me know. Black, khaki, or blue jeans, black non-slip shoes, keep the blingy jewelry at home.”

“Dammit, I was planning to choke him with his chain after the first shift.”

Seokjin levels his gaze at you, and you know you’re pushing your limits with him.

“I’ll have you follow Baby Cakes around to learn the drill for taking orders, but mostly you’ll be bussing tables tonight. I’ll work on the final processing of your paperwork in the meantime. Cakes, come with me while he changes.”

You follow Seokjin out of the lounge and back towards the office. He opens the door and steps back to allow you to enter first, shutting the door behind him as he follows you into the room.

“You need to tone it down. I know you said that you and he have some bad blood, but we need the help and he’s the best applicant we have.”

“It’s deeper than that, Jinnie, he’s literally been tormenting me since elementary school. We work with heavy-duty machinery and cutlery. You might come in one morning to find that one of us has stabbed the other to death.” You push out your bottom lip and give him your best, roundest, watery puppy eyes. “Is that what you really want?”

“What I want is to have a fully staffed evening shift so that my best girl can stop having bags under her eyes and complaining about her feet hurting every shift.” Seokjin smiles teasingly at you. “Plus, you need a good annual review to get a raise, and training new employees looks good to the owner.”

“Your dad is the owner! You can just tell him to give me a raise!”

“I could…but this is so much more fun. Who knows, he’s kinda hot…maybe you find out that the reason he’s picked on you your whole life is because he has a crush on you.”

“That fallacy is just a way for the patriarchy to continue to push abuse acceptance and the ‘boys will be boys’ agenda.” You cross your arms, but overall you know Seokjin is right. You’ve always prided yourself on being able to adapt well to situations, put a fake smile on when you need to deal with rude customers or your parents missing another monumental event in your life. “But fine. At work, it’ll be a ceasefire. That’s about all I can promise you.”

“I thought you said there would be a ceasefire!” Seokjin yells at you from where you sit in his office. Jungkook is seated next to you, slouching in the chair with his head turned away towards the wall. You can see his jaw clenching every few seconds as Seokjin continues berating you. “Instead, I got a call from a family friend that you two were so busy yelling at each other for not doing your jobs that you effectively stopped doing your job!”

You huff as you roll your eyes, turning away from Jungkook’s severely hot—no—aggravating jawline, (where did that thought even come from?) to respond to Seokjin.

“That’s not even what happened last night! This idiot decided to fuck with the seating and of course, since the big game is tomorrow, we had a lot of people stop in and it was noisy. I was trying to seat the guests who were being louder and rowdier on one side so that our regulars,” you glare at Jungkook, who’s still refusing to look at either you or Seokjin, “could dine in peace, but when I ran to the back to restock the napkins for the bar top, he seated people himself. He’s not the host. He’s still a newbie! It’s been, what? Three, four months?”

“...Four,” Jungkook mumbles, but you ignore it.

“And so then poor Mrs. Hana ended up dealing with the hooligans who disrupted her meal, and yes, it was when I was trying to explain to him how seating works—”

“I know how seating works, it’s not rocket science!”

“So then why would you mess with the flow of the diner and seat them there?!”

“Because you,” Jungkook finally breaks the stoic act and turns to face you abruptly, so much so you almost visibly jump, “kept seating the large groups in your sections, which meant that you were giving yourself the better tips and leaving me with the geriatrics who barely leave anything!”

“Are you serious? You think I was trying to take tips from you? I hate dealing with the sports crowd! I would have gladly traded with you if you had said something to me, but you were too busy ignoring me when I was trying to talk to you about dividing up the floor—”

“—you talk to me like I’m a child, so of course I was ignoring you, you dolt—”

“—really piss me off, you think I would stoop so low, probably because it’s what you would do—”

“Shut up, both of you!” Seokjin’s eyes have a hardness to them you are not used to seeing. He’s usually laid back, but the stress lines on his face speak to an underlying tension you aren’t aware of. “Look,” he takes a deep breath, rubbing his hand over his eyes briefly, “this can’t happen again. Mrs. Hana could’ve broken her hip slipping on the spilled soda, and her son is debating suing us. My dad is obviously handling this situation, but that means your jobs are on the table. If her son demands it in exchange to avoid a lawsuit, I can’t stop it.”

It settles on you at that moment, how severe this is. You know that the little, old lady regular slipped and fell, but both you and Jungkook rushed over to help her up, comping her meal and walking her outside to sit quietly and assess how she was feeling while waiting for her son to arrive. Not only that, but he didn’t seem mad when he picked her up—just worried about if she was in pain and if she needed to go see a doctor. Apparently, after the shock wore off, his anger set in.

“I’m sorry, Seokjin. It won’t happen again.”

“Get to your shift, I’m sure Nam—I mean Porkchop—is ready to go. Remember, Suga will be late today, the championship game is tonight. So no more ignoring the hooligans and Cooky,” Seokjin gives his leveled glare to Jungkook this time, “Baby Cakes is in charge. I know you’re eager to prove yourself, and you’ve done well so far, but she’s worked the aftermath of championship games before.”

Jungkook stares back at Seokjin, a low humming tension filling the room before he answers with a “Yes, sir.”

The diner is louder than Jungkook’s ever heard before as he goes around clearing tables now that the game is over. His coworker, Yoongi, did amazing from what he saw on the screen. BTS-U wore their white home jerseys with purple and black lettering, so it was easy to see when number 3 hit the game-winning three-pointer.

Now, as the same white jersey is stepping into the diner, all of the fans cheer and bang their cups and silverware to congratulate the MBC Cup National University Basketball Championship’s MVP for the win tonight.

Jungkook looks across the dining area, where he sees you kneeling on the countertop clapping your hands above your head. The uniform dress that you chose for tonight has risen higher up your thigh than normal—probably from the way you climbed up onto the counter—giving Jungkook a pretty good view of the skin leading up to what he’s sure are lace panties. He’s walked in on you changing one too many times to not know your preference.

He can’t look away from you; something about the sheer energy radiating off of you is magnetic, as if you’re lit from within, and before he knows it, he’s moving closer to you. Jungkook knows he can’t stand you personally, but physically? He’ll never admit this aloud—not since Taehyung almost told you the truth back in elementary school— but you’re the prettiest girl he’s ever seen.

He doesn’t have much time to ponder your looks as you bring two fingers to your lips and let out a loud wolf whistle, setting you off balance with the action. Luckily he’s already been pulled into your orbit, because he catches you with two strong hands on your waist before you can fall off the counter.

“Thanks, Cooky!” you say, eyes alight and voice pleasant, as if you’ve forgotten who Jungkook is to you, and who you are to him.

“No problem, Baby Cakes.” Jungkook helps you climb down, and when you bend forward to place your palms on the counter to dismount, he sees his hypothesis on your panties is right. His eyes remain on your ass as you extend a leg to the floor, and despite the trouble the two of you got into before your shift, Jungkook can’t seem to care to remember why he shouldn’t be enjoying the view.

“Congrats, Suga!” Jungkook watches as you launch yourself into Yoongi’s arms, giving him a loud smooch on the cheek.

“Thanks, Cakes, that last shot was for you.” He winks, and Jungkook doesn’t understand why he’s feeling so affected, but he wants to blame it on those panties you unknowingly flashed for the irritation he feels toward his friend for flirting with you. She’s your enemy, Kook, get it the fuck together.

Jungkook stalks away, grabbing his bussing bin and rag so he can clean up the table of the group in line to pay.

🍽️🍽️🍽️🍽️🍽️🍽️🍽️🍽️🍽️🍽️🍽️🍽️🍽️🍽️🍽️🍽️🍽️🍽️🍽️🍽️🍽️🍽️🍽️🍽️🍽️🍽️🍽️🍽️

“Fuck you and your sorry-ass school!”

Jungkook turns his head to see you standing feet shoulder-width apart with your arms crossed, looking so much like the evil bitch he’s come to know. Only this time, it’s directed towards an EXO-U fan, by the looks of the silver and black shirt he’s sporting.

“Sir, I’m going to have to ask you to leave.”

You command the space well, and had the man been sober, he probably would have listened to you when you gave him the polite option to leave on his own two feet. As luck would have it, the man grew more belligerent with each passing moment, causing Jungkook to run and grab Yoongi from the back to help handle the situation. Jungkook doesn’t like what he’s hearing when he returns to the front.

“You dumb cunt, we don’t have to leave! Come over here, baby, suck my cock like you suck their players, bet that’s why they won, huh? Saw you all over their star player earlier, let me get a piece, bitch.”

Jungkook wants to lunge at the man, but Yoongi beats him to the table, effortlessly grabbing the man by his arm and neck to yank him from his booth seat.

Jungkook gets to his other side, helping the man walk towards the double glass doors as Yoongi mutters menacingly at the patron.

“Best not show your face around here again, if you know what’s good for you. Find another place to eat, and we won’t beat your ass.”

Yoongi lets go of the man once they clear the sidewalk into the parking lot, the man’s friends stumble out behind, but Jungkook shoves the man hard, and he falls to the ground. He feels no remorse for the man; he reminds him too much of the creeps his mom dealt with: stench of alcohol on their breath that grew with each vulgar word that rolled out of their mouths, animosity leeching from their greasy skin—Jungkook needs to wash his hands and splash his face.

Fleeing inside, he bypasses you cleaning up the mess the rowdy table left behind, unable to hear the words you say clearly enough to decipher them. He knows that it’s almost time to close up and he has a few tasks to do to help speed up the process, but he’ll get to them in a minute. He just needs a minute to shake off this feeling, and then he’ll be okay to do the final cleaning for the evening, and find out what you said.

You’ve always hated dealing with the championship game guests, but always loved being with the crowd because of the thrill and your love for the game. The shift wasn’t terrible work-wise, as Jungkook really pulled his weight throughout the shift, allowing you to be in charge as the hostess and main waitress, filling in where you needed and bussing tables as the guests rotated through the double doors.

And you can’t lie, when you almost lost your balance on the counter, it was kind of hot that he was there to catch you, and help you down safely. With his jawline that can cut glass and his warm hands sitting large on your hips, you were a little sad to have them drop away, but you hid your disappointment in congratulating Suga and then moved on with the shift.

Of course, such a perfectly good shift had to end with a douchebag. To your surprise, when you turn to look to Jungkook for help, he’s already approaching with Suga in tow. And damn your worst enemy if he doesn’t do the second hottest thing of the night, vanquishing the drunkard with the sailor’s mouth from your sight, his foul friends trailing behind.

You clear off the table, the half-eaten food discarded in the trash and you realize that it needs to be taken out now before the last of the tables are done. Jungkook speed walks past you, so you call out to him, “Cooky, take the trash out, please!”

You finish sweeping under the table, then wipe down the booth’s table as Suga also returns inside, pausing to check on you.

“Everything good, Cakes?”

You nod, placing a hand on your hip as you reflect on the incident. “Yeah, he was a real fuck boy, but you and Cooky saved me just in time.”

“Always…I’m surprised Cooky was so worked up when he called me from the kitchen. Usually you two are at each other’s throats, I would’ve thought he’d enjoy seeing you deal with a rude customer.”

“Well, we did get yelled at earlier by Jin for last night, so we promised to work together and drop whatever rivalry we have during working hours. So maybe that’s it.”

“Mmm…maybe. Well, let me go help Hobi, this last wave will keep us later if I don’t.” Yoongi takes a few steps to round the counter, then calls back out to you, “The trash is about to overflow, Cakes!”

Frowning, you notice that Jungkook has yet to return to take out the trash. Glancing around the room, you see most of the tables are in stages of eating or waiting for their food. They all seem well and distracted with clips from the post-game coverage, so you decide to take out the trash yourself. Maybe the truce between you and Jungkook isn’t as intact as you think.

Grumbling to yourself, you tie off the bag and lift it from the bin, foot angled to keep the wheels from sliding across the floor from the tug. You eye the replacement black bag, but decide to put it in once you return from the dumpster.

You hate taking out the trash; you love feminism but some tasks are just made for men. You refuse to use the loud trolley with the janky wheel, so you carry the bag gingerly, resting it down every few steps as you make your way across the sparsely lit back parking lot.

“Well, if it isn’t the bitch who didn’t let me finish my meal.”

You snap your head around, eyes roving for the source of the raspy words, finally landing on the douchebag discharged from the diner only 10 minutes ago.

“We didn’t charge you for it, so I suggest you leave before this turns into a real problem.” You keep your eyes on him, watching as he shifts around on his feet, inching closer to you. You hold your stance, refusing to look weak in case he decides you’d make a good target.

“Maybe if you come suck me off like a good girl, I won’t leave a bad review online about how much of a cunt you’re being. Matter of fact, throw in some pussy, let me fuck you properly and I bet all that attitude will drop. You just need someone to tame you.”

The man lunges for your left arm, his meaty fist closing around your wrist and you pull back to break the contact but he’s strong. You yell out, stumbling back away from the trash bag and he follows, heavy footfalls adding to the sounds of the evening.

“Let go, you freak!”

You jolt your arm, wrenching it in as many directions as you can to try and relax his grip but he pulls you closer to him until you can smell the ethanol on his breath as he places his other hand forcefully on your shoulder.

“I said I wanted you on your knees, stupid bitch,” he utters, and reflexively you punch him in his dick. He groans and releases you, hunching over in pain. You make out a figure stepping through the service door, and you call out for help. Attempting to step around the man, you only make it a few steps before you feel the weight of the man bearing down on you again.

“You stupid bitch!”

You try to run, but the man has the back of your dress in his grip so instead, your shoes scrape the asphalt in the same place repeatedly. A loud thwack of flesh on flesh sounds right before you’re released, dropping the short distance to the concrete. Your palms and knees feel the sting of the gravel but the relief of being out of the man’s hold overpowers any lingering pain as you scramble to your feet.

Behind you, Jungkook is pummeling the man in the face, and you pause for a moment in shock before you rush back to him, grabbing his bicep to stop him from swinging again.

“Cooky, stop, I’m okay! Jungkook!”

He freezes, turning to look at you as if to see if your statement is true, and seeing that you’re serious, he appears to deflate a bit, no longer an attacking watchdog but a protective knight, making sure his charge is unscathed.

“Let’s go.” He gestures for your hand and you place yours in his, letting him guide you away from the groaning sack of trash and the garbage bag on the ground.

The fluorescent lights of the break room are blinding after the darkness of outside. Vaguely you hear Jungkook yelling at the others working, followed by the clattering of kitchen items, but you’re so out of sorts you don’t even realize that Jungkook has maneuvered you into a chair and is gently checking your knees, palms, and arms. He brushes off the remaining dirt from your skin.

“Are you hurt anywhere?”

His voice sounds pained, and this pulls you from your thoughts and back to the present with him.

“Um, I don’t think so.”

“Where all did he touch you? It might not hurt now, but once the adrenaline dies off, you might feel it.”

“Um, my arm, my shoulder, I can’t…I don’t know.”

“It’s okay, let me check your neck…he grabbed your dress and pulled you, so I wanna make sure it won’t bruise.”

He takes your face in his hands delicately, tilting your head to expose your neck to his view. The proximity has your head spinning, his cologne enveloping you as he leans closer, a hand leaving your cheek to allow a finger to trail across your neckline. You know he’s just checking to make sure that there’s no lingering marks, but you don’t think that the after effects of tonight will be anything anyone can see. He grabs a glass of water for you, and you sit quietly while he tends to the minor cuts on your palms from the jagged gravel in the parking lot.

Time seems to pass as you’re deep in thought, but you’re not sure how much until Seokjin appears, his purple and white painted face replacing the doe eyes and clenched jaw. He looks frazzled, as if he just left an after-party for the championship and was pulled into work. You realize after a moment that that’s actually what happened, and chuckle at yourself. He says your real name, pulling you out of your laughter.

“I’m so sorry this happened, luckily Jungkook was there. I don’t know what I would've done if something happened to you.” Seokjin pulls you into a hug, and you reciprocate, squeezing him tighter as the feeling of being held feels good. He pulls away sooner than you like, but he continues talking to you about what’s been going on since you’ve been sitting in the employee lounge.

“Look, don’t worry about staying and cleaning up tonight, okay? We’ve got everything under control. Hobi called the cops and Yoongi made sure the guy didn’t flee before they came. He’s in their custody now.”

“What about Jungkook?” you ask, uncharacteristically using his given name.

“He’s giving his statement to the police now. They’ll want to talk to you too, but I can put it off for tonight if you need,” Seokjin offers kindly, but you want to get it over with.

“It’s okay, I’ll speak to them now.”

“If you’re sure. I’ll grab one of the detectives now and they can take your statement, and then I’m sending you home. Jungkook will drive you, okay? You’re still a bit shaky.”

You look down at your hands, seeing the tremble Seokjin is referencing and nod. There’s no use in putting up a fight. All of the men you work with have now proven that you’re safe with them. Seokjin walks over to the door, popping his head out to call for an officer, and he paces quietly as you recount what happened, starting with the attacker growing belligerent in the dining area. Once finished, Seokjin grabs Jungkook from where he’s talking with Yoongi outside the door, ushering him to take your belongings and get you home.

You follow along, compliant, waving goodbye to the others as Jungkook pulls off into the main road back towards campus.

“You live by BTS-U, right?”

“Yeah, at Omelas, next to the train tracks.”

Neither of you speak again until he parks, turning off the engine to his jeep.

“Here, let me help you.” Jungkook grabs your backpack and climbs out of the SUV, coming around to the passenger side door to open it for you. You jump out and lead the way to your first -floor apartment. Unlocking the door, you flip on the lights as you toe off your non-slip work shoes.

“My roommate is out of town visiting her parents this weekend.”

Dumping your purse onto the kitchen counter, you walk further into your home, Jungkook trailing you slowly. He kicks off his shoes, socks shuffling quietly along the carpet as he enters your living room after closing and securing the front door lock. He places your backpack on the couch, and the two of you stand there awkwardly.

“Um, do you want some water or something? I have juice, milk, beer…” you trail off, uncertain.

“Water is fine, thanks.”

You grab a glass from the cupboard, filling it with ice water to return the favor from earlier as you bolster your courage to thank him. You hand him the glass and before you can think too hard, you just start speaking.

“Jungkook, I just wanted to thank you, for coming out there and, you know, saving me. I know we don’t get along much, but you really came through and I appreciate it.”

Jungkook’s eyes widen, blinking up at you from where he’s sitting on your couch. He takes a long sip from the glass, and he seems uncertain if he wants to speak but does so anyway.

“It was nothing, really.”

“Why, um, why did you help me, I mean—I’m just saying, oh this is coming out wrong—”

“Look, I’ve had a lot of practice dealing with creeps like him. I’ve had to do it plenty for my mom, and I just don’t like to see anyone getting hurt, not even my arch nemesis.” Jungkook tries to joke it off at the end, but his tone reveals so much more to you about what he’s not saying.

“I’m sorry, I didn’t know it was like that for you back in high school.” You sit down next to him, closer than you normally would with your backpack taking up part of the seat, but you don’t mind it. You feel safer being closer to him.

“I mean, why would you know?” he asks, leaning back into the couch and taking another sip. “You have a perfect family, I’m sure nothing like this happened on the weekly at your place.”

“No, but like, my perfect family isn’t what everyone thinks it is, either. My parents didn’t pay attention to me, always busy working and what not. Honestly career day, back in like fifth grade was the only time one of my parents made it to something, and even then, it was so my dad could advertise his business. I felt so sheltered growing up, like I had no life skills. It’s why I work at the diner.”

Jungkook digests your words, understanding blooming through his chest.

“I get that. It’s funny, I remember that day so well, I was so jealous of you, because your dad showed up for you. I guess our dads are the same though…I think if I had grown up with my parents still together, I would’ve felt like you do. My dad kind of left me behind when he remarried, you know? In a way, that made me less sheltered, because when I was with my mom, I had to grow up fast. I couldn’t always have the nicest things because she couldn’t always afford them.”

“I didn’t realize that you had to split time between them. One of my friends, Jimin? He told me about how your dad wouldn’t let you take things back and forth between houses.”

“Why did he do that?” Jungkook looks a little scandalized, and you’re sure it’s because Jimin is one of his best friends. He’s the one who recommended that he apply to Jin’s Diner in the first place, and how you knew to warn Jin to not hire Jungkook, not that it worked. “I didn’t know you were close with Jimin!”

“We used to work together…you actually replaced him. It’s why we were hiring in the first place. But, he told me that because he was trying to get me to ease up on you one day. I was complaining about something and he was trying to make you more human, I guess.”

Jungkook just nods. You know he probably realizes there’s no reason to be mad, it was all in the past and Jimin was coming from a good place when he revealed that.

“Well, it’s true. My dad is kind of the worst. My mom saved up to get me some Dunks back in middle school because my dad couldn’t be bothered to take me back to school shopping. As if I didn’t grow a foot and 3 shoe sizes.”

“Oh fuck, you know, I’m sorry for making Nayeon spill her drink on your shoes. That was really evil of me.”

“We were like 13? 14? All middle school girls are evil.” Jungkook chuckles. You’re relieved at how gracious he’s being, but a little annoyed. You turn to him to say as much, but he continues to speak. “Honestly, I don’t even know why we went toe to toe like that. We probably would’ve been best friends if we had combined our smarts. You were really great during the Youth of the Year competition. I’m sorry that you didn’t win, I think you deserved to.”

Jungkook is looking back at you now, with his pretty doe eyes, sitting so close to you. You don’t know what to say so you don’t say anything, instead focusing on his star-filled eyes and the way they’re staring into your own. His arm moves slowly, lifting to bring his hand to your face, curling a tendril of hair behind your ear.

“It’s getting pretty late now, I should get home,” he starts, but his eyes speak volumes and it doesn’t seem like he wants to leave just yet. “But there’s still one more thing I need to apologize for.”

Your eyebrows furrow, confused as to what incident it could be when his lips meet yours in a tender kiss, not too forceful but not shy either—just the right amount to let you know this isn’t a mistake. It takes you a few seconds to respond, but when you sense Jungkook about to move away you pull him in closer, keeping his lips where you can access them. It’s not enough though, so throwing caution to the wind, you straddle him as your tongue swipes for entry, pushing him further into the couch as you lean into his fit body. He groans at your boldness, large hands planted firmly on your ass as the kiss deepens. You feel dangerously high, lacking oxygen, but you can’t stop—you don’t want to stop. He’s intoxicating.

His fingers tighten imperceptibly, and you know he, too, is at the end of his air, so you break apart, chest heaving as you stare at his lips, red and plump from the kiss.

“That was your…apology for? Or you were…apologizing for…kissing me?” you pant, trying to catch your breath.

“Both?” he says with a cute, bunny-like smile, “one, for hating you all these years, and two, for kissing you out of the blue.”

“And if I want you to apologize to me more?” you half-question, half-goad, and Jungkook gives the right answer, leaning into you once more so he can kiss you hard, teeth nipping at your bottom lip before pulling away.

“That’s something I can do.” Jungkook uses his strength to flip you onto your back on the couch, knocking your backpack out of the way and onto the floor. “Is this okay?” He searches your eyes for your consent to his hands on your thighs, fingertips skimming the hem of your dress.

You nod, and he trails them higher until he’s grasping the band of your panties and sliding them down without haste. You enjoy the commanding presence he takes on, unlike the people you deal with on a daily at work, indecisive with what to order, he knows exactly what he wants, and when Jungkook pushes up your dress and buries his face between your thighs, it takes everything in you not to climax right then. His tongue flits around your clit, teasing you as his hands massage your thighs while keeping them wide for him.

“Jungkook,” his name is a breathy whisper in the air as your fingers curl around his locks, tightening your grip when he flicks closer to where you need him. “Please.”

You wiggle your hips, searching for more friction from his tongue but he just pulls away, tutting his tongue at you for being bad. You sit up slightly to glare at him.

“Patience, baby.”

Whining, you lay back on the couch with a huff. “This is why we hated each other bac—oh, fuck me,” you finish with a moan as he flattens his tongue across your pussy and stimulates every nerve he can cover. Wrapping his lips around your clit, he begins to suck, gently flicking his tongue every few seconds as he positions two fingers at your dripping center. Delving inside of you, the plunge of his fingers reaches the ache inside of you, causing your legs to tremble as he fine-tunes your body like an instrument.

“Feels so good, mmph, fuck,” is all you can manage to say as he continues to pump his fingers, the squelching of your walls suctioning them back in with every tug out only making you wetter. Jungkook hums, and the thrumming sensation curls your toes. Arching your back, you tug his hair hard as you mewl loudly from the impending orgasm.

“You can do it, baby, cum for me,” Jungkook praises, “you’re doing so well, squeezing my fingers so tight, watch me.”

When his mouth once again finds its rhythm on your core, it takes just a few seconds of making eye contact with Jungkook, doe-eyes wide as he watches you enjoy his tongue, before you shiver and melt into the euphoria he’s bringing to your body.

“That’s it, fuck—you look so pretty, baby.”Body spent, you stare up at the ceiling blinking as you come back to earth. Jungkook tucks himself behind you, holding you in his arms. You look down at the arm over your waist, your fingers lightly tracing the tattoos on his exposed full sleeve. You can feel his bulge, know that there’s so much more…apologizing you both need to do after years of being enemies, but you have all night for that. And in the morning, you don’t know what will happen, if there will be more to come after tonight, but what you do know is that at this moment you don’t hate Jungkook; not even a little bit, not even at all.

🍽️🍽️🍽️

thank you for reading!!!

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nerdofspades · 2 years

Text

Okay. DP x DC idea. What if the League met Fenton before they met Phantom. Not in a ghost fight. Not doing anything particularly weird. Just Danny Fenton trying his best.

When they first notice the ghosts of Amity Park they all get a little worried about it, but no one can beat out Batman's paranoia. Ghosts may not have caused too many problems outside of Amity yet, but he doesn't trust that to stay that way. So he researches.

He, of course, finds out about Phantom, but shelves his usual just-in-case-he-turns-evil plans until after he can get some ghostly experts to brief the League. He does some cursory research into Phantom's history and abilities, which of course drags up everything in the Amity News cycle and some references in both Ancient Egypt and Ancient Rome. (So Batsy gives up on the idea of finding out a human civilian identity. Kid's dead and his "life" has been lost to time until he decides to say something.)

But, more importantly, there are no good options for who to ask for lessons in ghost hunting.

First option: the GIW. Absolute morons who have never caught anything stronger than an ectopus, cause more damage to property than the ghosts, and have security so lax it doesn't even take Batman ten seconds to get in. Absolutely not. Not for the watch tower.

Second option: Vlad Co. Owned and operated by billionaire Vlad Masters who runs in the same social circles as Lex Luthor. He has better security than the GIW but the question with him is not whether or not he *could* keep the secret, but whether or not he *would.*

Third option: Dr.s Fenton of FentonWorks. They have the most cutting edge ghost hunting technology and the most published papers. But. Well. A brief survey of the town makes it very clear they are biased at best and bigoted at worst. Not something the League wants to associate with, but they are still the best of the bad options.

Or so they think until Bruce Wayne goes to open contact with them and notices the Fenton children. He knew about them before coming of course. Jasmine Fenton, top of her class with a full ride to Harvard and plans to major in psychology. Has historically been vocal about her distaste for her parent's work. Likely because of Danny. Daniel Fenton is a trouble maker barely scraping by in his classes that had an accident in his parents lab a year ago. Not the brightest and not well behaved, but by all accounts he's got a good heart.

And neither of then are very enthused about his presence in their home. Neither of them seem to care for their parents anti-ghost rhetoric either. Jazz tries to reason with them and Danny just rolls his eyes behind their back. And casually takes apart and fixes one of their inventions.

Bruce quickly makes a minor investing deal with the elder Fentons as cover and a quick way to keep and eye on their research and finds an excuse to get the kids out of the house to talk. Once out, he extends the Justice League's request for training with ghost hunting gear and a project to install anti-ecto security measures in their base(s). Danny is hesitant but agrees.

And Danny is so tired and so done with this crap when he's in the Watch Tower. (He's enamored with the space station for several minutes, but once he gets on track, the League think he's a mini Bruce. All business and telling them not to be idiots.)

He gives them a basic run down of what each item is and how to use it. Common ghostly abilities and power scaling. (Do not call him to consult on a blob ghost, ectopus, or other weak ghostly animal. But they are not to try and fight several of the stronger ghost. A fair amount of this tech will make their afterlives miserable, but won't actually do much beyond annoy them. Superman in particular should stay away from anything strong enough to overshadow. No one wants to fight a possessed Kryptonian.) He gives them plenty of thermoses, guns, nets, and specter deflectors plus some odds and ends for them to test out. And then he starts working on the shield, which he worked on with Tucker to upgrade so it would recognize his ecto signature as friendly (and a couple others like Clockwork, Pandora, Frostbite, and Wulf) so it wouldn't shoot him on the spot.

It would probably take several trips to get everything working properly, by which point Danny has likely made friends with a few League members. And a few of them have probably noticed something weird about him, but they ignore it cause he's a good kid and it's just a little weird. Won't hurt anything.

Constantine takes one look at the kid and is not seen again until months after he finally leaves.

But now they have working ghost defenses and they can protect people if a ghost tries to attack anywhere outside of Amity! (Yes, several ask Danny to install a shield at their personal hideouts as well. Batman tries to figure it out on his own and decides to just ask Danny for now. He'll figure it out eventually, but Fenton schematics are a pain and the power source doesn't look like anything he's ever seen before.)

Eventually everything is done and Danny goes back to his life with a large chunk of cash in his new bank account and a secure line just incase the league needs to consult with him again. Danny thinks that's the end of it until Batman shows up decked out in Fenton gear looking for Phantom.

Continue

#dp x dc #danny phantom #dc comics #batman paranoia #fanfiction #danny is so done with this and the league is not going to leave him alone #but he got to see the bat cave #and only the bat cave bruce will handle the manor personally once he figures out how the shield works

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snickerdoodlles · 9 months

Text

pulling out a section from this post (a very basic breakdown of generative AI) for easier reading;

AO3 and Generative AI

There are unfortunately some massive misunderstandings in regards to AO3 being included in LLM training datasets. This post was semi-prompted by the ‘Knot in my name’ AO3 tag (for those of you who haven’t heard of it, it’s supposed to be a fandom anti-AI event where AO3 writers help “further pollute” AI with Omegaverse), so let’s take a moment to address AO3 in conjunction with AI. We’ll start with the biggest misconception:

1. AO3 wasn’t used to train generative AI.

Or at least not anymore than any other internet website. AO3 was not deliberately scraped to be used as LLM training data.

The AO3 moderators found traces of the Common Crawl web worm in their servers. The Common Crawl is an open data repository of raw web page data, metadata extracts and text extracts collected from 10+ years of web crawling. Its collective data is measured in petabytes. (As a note, it also only features samples of the available pages on a given domain in its datasets, because its data is freely released under fair use and this is part of how they navigate copyright.) LLM developers use it and similar web crawls like Google’s C4 to bulk up the overall amount of pre-training data.

AO3 is big to an individual user, but it’s actually a small website when it comes to the amount of data used to pre-train LLMs. It’s also just a bad candidate for training data. As a comparison example, Wikipedia is often used as high quality training data because it’s a knowledge corpus and its moderators put a lot of work into maintaining a consistent quality across its web pages. AO3 is just a repository for all fanfic -- it doesn’t have any of that quality maintenance nor any knowledge density. Just in terms of practicality, even if people could get around the copyright issues, the sheer amount of work that would go into curating and labeling AO3’s data (or even a part of it) to make it useful for the fine-tuning stages most likely outstrips any potential usage.

Speaking of copyright, AO3 is a terrible candidate for training data just based on that. Even if people (incorrectly) think fanfic doesn’t hold copyright, there are plenty of books and texts that are public domain that can be found in online libraries that make for much better training data (or rather, there is a higher consistency in quality for them that would make them more appealing than fic for people specifically targeting written story data). And for any scrapers who don’t care about legalities or copyright, they’re going to target published works instead. Meta is in fact currently getting sued for including published books from a shadow library in its training data (note, this case is not in regards to any copyrighted material that might’ve been caught in the Common Crawl data, its regarding a book repository of published books that was scraped specifically to bring in some higher quality data for the first training stage). In a similar case, there’s an anonymous group suing Microsoft, GitHub, and OpenAI for training their LLMs on open source code.

Getting back to my point, AO3 is just not desirable training data. It’s not big enough to be worth scraping for pre-training data, it’s not curated enough to be considered for high quality data, and its data comes with copyright issues to boot. If LLM creators are saying there was no active pursuit in using AO3 to train generative AI, then there was (99% likelihood) no active pursuit in using AO3 to train generative AI.

AO3 has some preventative measures against being included in future Common Crawl datasets, which may or may not work, but there’s no way to remove any previously scraped data from that data corpus. And as a note for anyone locking their AO3 fics: that might potentially help against future AO3 scrapes, but it is rather moot if you post the same fic in full to other platforms like ffn, twitter, tumblr, etc. that have zero preventative measures against data scraping.

2. A/B/O is not polluting generative AI

…I’m going to be real, I have no idea what people expected to prove by asking AI to write Omegaverse fic. At the very least, people know A/B/O fics are not exclusive to AO3, right? The genre isn’t even exclusive to fandom -- it started in fandom, sure, but it expanded to general erotica years ago. It’s all over social media. It has multiple Wikipedia pages.

More to the point though, omegaverse would only be “polluting” AI if LLMs were spewing omegaverse concepts unprompted or like…associated knots with dicks more than rope or something. But people asking AI to write omegaverse and AI then writing omegaverse for them is just AI giving people exactly what they asked for. And…I hate to point this out, but LLMs writing for a niche the LLM trainers didn’t deliberately train the LLMs on is generally considered to be a good thing to the people who develop LLMs. The capability to fill niches developers didn’t even know existed increases LLMs’ marketability. If I were a betting man, what fandom probably saw as a GOTCHA moment, AI people probably saw as a good sign of LLMs’ future potential.

3. Individuals cannot affect LLM training datasets.

So back to the fandom event, with the stated goal of sabotaging AI scrapers via omegaverse fic.

…It’s not going to do anything.

Let’s add some numbers to this to help put things into perspective:

LLaMA’s 65 billion parameter model was trained on 1.4 trillion tokens. Of that 1.4 trillion tokens, about 67% of the training data was from the Common Crawl (roughly ~3 terabytes of data).

3 terabytes is 3,000,000,000 kilobytes.

That’s 3 billion kilobytes.

According to a news article I saw, there has been ~450k words total published for this campaign (*this was while it was going on, that number has probably changed, but you’re about to see why that still doesn’t matter). So, roughly speaking, ~450k of text is ~1012 KB (I’m going off the document size of a plain text doc for a fic whose word count is ~440k).

So 1,012 out of 3,000,000,000.

Aka 0.000034%.

And that 0.000034% of 3 billion kilobytes is only 2/3s of the data for the first stage of training.

And not to beat a dead horse, but 0.000034% is still grossly overestimating the potential impact of posting A/B/O fic. Remember, only parts of AO3 would get scraped for Common Crawl datasets. Which are also huge! The October 2022 Common Crawl dataset is 380 tebibytes. The April 2021 dataset is 320 tebibytes. The 3 terabytes of Common Crawl data used to train LLaMA was randomly selected data that totaled to less than 1% of one full dataset. Not to mention, LLaMA’s training dataset is currently on the (much) larger size as compared to most LLM training datasets.

I also feel the need to point out again that AO3 is trying to prevent any Common Crawl scraping in the future, which would include protection for these new stories (several of which are also locked!).

Omegaverse just isn’t going to do anything to AI. Individual fics are going to do even less. Even if all of AO3 suddenly became omegaverse, it’s just not prominent enough to influence anything in regards to LLMs. You cannot affect training datasets in any meaningful way doing this. And while this might seem really disappointing, this is actually a good thing.

Remember that anything an individual can do to LLMs, the person you hate most can do the same. If it were possible for fandom to corrupt AI with omegaverse, fascists, bigots, and just straight up internet trolls could pollute it with hate speech and worse. AI already carries a lot of biases even while developers are actively trying to flatten that out, it’s good that organized groups can’t corrupt that deliberately.

#generative ai #pulling this out wasnt really prompted by anything specific #so much as heard some repeated misconceptions and just #sighs #nope #incorrect #u got it wrong #sorry #unfortunately for me: no consistent tag to block #sigh #ao3

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concussed-to-pieces · 7 months

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Wolves At The Door; Part Four

Fandom: Resident Evil [Village]

Pairing: Eventual Karl Heisenberg/AFAB!Reader

Rating: Holy shit M.

Summary: "I…would you come to bed with me?"

A/N: Welcome all, welcome to our fourth installment! It’s good to be back. Enjoy!

Tag List: @cookiethewriter @amneris21 @topgirl17 @vodkafolie @a-smol-witch @clockworkmidnight @calwitch @silver-quinn01 @velvet-paradox @hijackser @mrs-wolfwood @nonstop-haikyuu @mic-sunderland @somethingthatsaysbubbles @fullofmoonsandstars @stargazerofgoldenwords @imthegreenfairy86 @karlskitten @nitrogennightmare @chunnies @thirstworldproblemss @tartimaar-bloggeth @thesmartbiscuit

Prelude

Part One

Part Two

Part Three

[!TRIGGER WARNING!: This installment contains mentions of blood, canon-typical violence and depictions of mental duress. Stay safe!]

It wasn't a question of whether he was going to heal, he would be fine. The cadou saw to that. The question was more along the lines of whether you would even tolerate him. You had, bare minimum, let him clean the scrape on your shin, but the whole time he cradled your leg he could feel your calf was as tense as a coiled spring. You were insanely lucky to have gotten away from the lycans mostly unscathed, a fact that you voiced before he could.

Heisenberg had to confess, he had not a clue how he had managed to catch that big bastard before it bit you. Maybe he had, in a desperate moment of stress-induced hysteria, somehow grappled with the entire planet's magnetic fields and halted time for a millisecond.

Because that's how that works, right? He thought dryly.

You really ought to be dead. Shit, he ought to be dead a few times over.

Karl sighed as he turned this way and that, examining the back of his leg in the mirror of your cramped-but-empty closet. The skin was essentially healed, the only evidence of recent trauma some mild swelling and redness. As for his hand the…venom? Infection? Hyper gangrene? He was never quite sure what to label the effect the various anti-mold measures had, but whatever it was had also receded, so at least his arm's veins didn't look like a roadmap of Stockholm anymore. The back of his hand bore some slight discoloration and tingled a little, but if that was the price to pay for shoving his fist into a lycan's jaws then so be it.

You knocked on the closet door. "Come in," the man called, shifting back from the door so you could actually get it open. "Was just surveying the damage."

"How does it look?" You asked cautiously.

Heisenberg shrugged, tugging the leg of his pants back up so you could inspect the area. Truthfully he was a little surprised that you even wanted to know. "Not bad, considering how it looked earlier today."

"Wow, how the fuck-" Karl hadn't expected you to touch him and he nearly jumped out of his skin when you did, your fingers grazing the back of his thigh. You didn't seem to notice his reaction, carrying on to voice your disbelief further. "Hey, if you heal this quick then what the hell was I doing marinating you with that stuff from the Duke for months?"

"I don't really know." Karl admitted. He'd been thinking about that himself. "Maybe it's because I didn't really…remember that I could? Like a mind over matter kind of thing."

"Or you just liked having someone take care of you." You teased, going to leave the closet space.

Karl moved before he thought about it, grabbing your wrist. You paused, looking at him curiously. Now that he had you here, though, Heisenberg didn't have any idea what he was going to do. And so, in an antiquated gesture, the man raised your hand to his mouth and touched a soft kiss to your knuckles. "Thanks for everything, sugar." He said it quietly, sincerely.

It was a little gratifying to feel how your pulse quickened beneath his fingers even while you waved off his thanks.

…

You stood in the doorway of your room, nervous hands worrying at the hem of your shirt while you tried to convince yourself that this wasn't a big deal and you could just go to sleep.

You'd been trying to sleep, that was the issue. You'd laid there for hours. It was nearly three am and you were still awake, your mind refusing to rest as it turned the events of the day over and over in a ceaseless loop.

You sprinting across the yard, you holding the knife, securing that last talisman, getting knocked down by the lycan-

Over and over, over and over. What if Karl hadn't been there, what if something different had happened, what if he had been too late?

Then, what if I had refused to help? That thought gave you pause, recalling the distress on Karl's face while he yelled, "if something gets you because I'm out of it-!"

What did he mean by that? He hadn't finished the sentence, and there hadn't exactly been an opportunity to ask questions. Had he meant to imply that something 'getting' you would cause him grief? Was he just irritated that you had been reluctant to let him near?

Over and over.

"Karl?" You whispered into the living room, feeling a little foolish. He was probably passed out, not a care in the world.

"By the door," you heard to your surprise. "Can't sleep either?"

You groped forward through the dark, your eyes slowly adjusting enough for you to see Karl's tall silhouette leaning against the storm door. He appeared to be watching the rainfall and you noticed he was actually resting his weight on the staff you had made for him.

"How'd you tell?" You asked, not really expecting an answer.

He chuckled dryly. "You're awake and out here. I know, it's a bold assumption to make."

"Oh ha ha." You stuck your tongue out at him. "You're just a card, Heisenberg."

"That's Lord Heisenberg to you." He teased back, and you caught the faint flash of a grin. "What's on your mind?"

You sighed, rubbing your eyes. "Is it dumb to say 'everything'? I mean, I've never been afraid of being dumb, but…well, today was a lot."

"It was." After that incredibly helpful response, Karl went quiet.

You continued tentatively, "it was almost like…like you were someone else back there."

The quiet stretched on and on. You weren't sure if he would even bother to answer you so you resigned yourself to watching the rain. Off in the distance towards the mountains thunder rolled, heralding another fall storm brewing.

"The human mind isn't designed to take on so much trauma and stress, not all in one go. I had to–my body had to…change. Drastically. And once my brain reached its limit, it just…closed off everything in an attempt to prevent more damage." Karl exhaled heavily. "At least, that's what I figure happened to me, why I was…why I'd forgotten almost everything." You felt more than saw him tilt his head. "There's a lot of bad memories in here. Ugly stuff. Painful stuff. Things done to me, things I was driven to, but also things I did of my own free will. A lot to…come to terms with."

"So you've remembered everything, then?" You weren't sure why exactly sadness was your most prevalent emotion, but after a moment you figured it out. He has no reason to stay. He had been waiting for the Duke's return, and now that he had what he was looking for…

"Not quite." Karl suddenly sounded exhausted. "Enough to fill in some of the gaps."

You dropped your hands, fingers back to yanking at the hem of your shirt.

"I…would you come to bed with me?"

…

Heisenberg blinked down at you, stunned silent at this, frankly, out of character request. You continued your anxious fiddling, your own eyes fixed on the doorway.

"I'm sorry, I just–after today, I don't want to be alone in the dark, that's all." You tried to clarify, and Karl felt like a bastard when his heart sank a little. But…

He could live with innocent intentions, free of calculation and subterfuge. "Buy me dinner first, sugar." The man joked, hoping that it was too dim for you to have noticed the flicker of disappointment that must have crossed his face. He clapped you on the shoulder, feeling how tense you were through that touch. "Let me pick up my blanket. I'll meet you in there."

Karl's legs were leaden. It was a short eternity before he reached his cot, and even longer before he mustered up the courage to grab the bedding he had claimed he needed. Instead of rushing to your room, the man pressed his hands into the blanket, resting his weight on the cot. Shit.

Shit shit shit.

Karl inhaled a bracing gulp of air, a flash of lightning casting a huge shadow up on the wall in front of him. The real tempest was coming fast, it would seem. He returned to the doorway, latching the storm door shut and then gently closing over the inside panel so he could lock it. That task accomplished, he moved to the sink to crank closed the window beside it. The rest of the windows had been locked earlier, the two of you having nervously checked and double checked them several times before darkness fell.

Nothing left now but the hard part, Karl thought, loathing the dread that flooded his body. It wasn't even aimed at you for fuck's sake! He just didn't trust himself, that's all. But he could behave. He would behave. For you. For the version of himself that he had gotten a taste of, that you believed in, a gentler, safer Heisenberg.

You were still upright in your bed, the room nearly pitch black. Karl was only able to pick out the whiteness of your undershirt, hovering ghostly over the covers. "Hey sugar," he murmured, trying to keep his tone light. "Where do you want me?"

"Just hop in wherever, we can figure out logistics later," was your curt reply. Lightning flashed again, allowing Karl to make his way to the edge of the bed unscathed, where he sat to unbuckle his boots and shuck them off. When he laid down, his leg brushed up against yours.

You were stiff as a board beside him, your arms at your sides and hands clenched into fists. "Do you…uh…" Heisenberg propped himself up on one elbow, extending his other arm out. He wasn't exactly certain how to say it, but after a moment you slid yourself closer and he wrapped his arm around your shoulders when you turned into his embrace. You seemed oddly cold, your body even shivering slightly, so Karl began rubbing your back with firm, even strokes in an attempt to warm you. Must be the adrenal dump. They've had a hell of a day.

"I can't stop thinking about that thing." You confessed after a time, your voice muffled by his chest. Heisenberg hummed in acknowledgement. "I just…it was so big and I felt–I felt totally hopeless. Like I was alone and it getting me was inevitable." You dug your face in even deeper. Karl could feel the chill of your nose through his borrowed shirt. "Not much in this forest scares me."

"You're alright." Karl murmured in what he hoped was a soothing manner. "Nothing's gonna' touch you while I'm here."

"Yeah. While you're here." You echoed, sounding a little nasally. "But when you leave, I-" Thunder interrupted you and Karl felt you heave an annoyed breath out against his chest.

He had to wait out the rumble of thunder before challenging, "Who said I'm leaving? Do you want me to leave?"

"No." Your hands gripped the fabric of his shirt. "No, I really don't. And that's scary too."

Heisenberg, after having endured Miranda for so many years, was well accustomed to the emotional confusion that could occur when things got murky. He'd been called precious and strong and smart enough times to never again believe that those words were said in sincerity. My wonderful, powerful son. "You wanting me around is scary to you?" You nodded mutely against his chest. "And why's that, I wonder?" The man continued lazily, his fingers smoothing down the back of your neck.

"I don't trust myself not to do something stupid," was your blunt response. Karl had always appreciated a candid approach. "I don't want you to leave. I…I enjoy your company."

"Is that so?" Karl mused, doing his best to keep his tone light, teasing. "That hit to the head must have really rattled you, sugar. Saying all this…s'pretty bold, even for you."

"I know, dammit," you growled, "and don't make fun of me. I'm exhausted and terrified."

"Close your eyes, then. I can feel you staring."

"They've been closed!" You caught one of his hands, yanking it clumsily to jam his palm against your cheek. Karl felt the momentary brush of your lashes against his thumb. "See? Closed!"

"Excuse the slander," he chuckled, sweeping his thumb beneath your eye. "You must be tired to be this touchy-feely with me." You flinched, your arms stiffening, and Karl returned his hand to the back of your neck. "Easy now overthinker, I didn't say it was a bad thing." He whispered, his cheek now resting against your own while his mouth pressed to the shell of your ear. "As long as you don't think it's a bad thing, you can be just as…demanding as you need to be. Let me be your distraction, sugar."

…

You gasped before you could stop yourself and you hoped Karl didn't notice how warm your face had suddenly gotten. That hope appeared to be in vain, because a soft chuckle issued hotly against your ear.

"Interested in the proposition, sugar? I'll behave, I promise." Heisenberg murmured, continuing, "After all, you've tamed me, right?"

"I didn't say that!" You protested hastily, wondering if he was offended. "That was all the Duke, you can't pin that on me."

"Listen, I…" Karl paused. "I don't want you thinking that I'm just in bed with you to get my dick wet. This is all very spur-of-the-moment, even for me. We've had a hell of a day, and I–I don't know a lot of effective ways to cope. You say no and we stop this entire conversation."

Dick wet. Jesus. Jesus. It was unfair how attractive that sounded, considering how crude the sentiment actually was. But him saying it like that, his voice husky and earnest…

"What do you want to do?" You asked, proud that your words didn't shake.

"Kiss you."

"Only that?"

"Yeah." Karl huffed out an exasperated breath. "I'm tired, sugar."

You couldn't help the laugh that escaped you. "No no, I didn't mean it like that! I've just had other people try to do things that I wasn't ready to do. I'm not complaining, I promise."

Karl rumbled, the noise merging with the thunder that echoed outside. "Only that." He stated firmly.

"What do you want me t-"

"Just lay there and enjoy it." Heisenberg tipped your chin upwards, his mouth meeting yours. "Just relax." He breathed, gently nipping your lower lip.

You slid your hands into his hair, cradling the back of his head. You were working mostly blind, so there was a little fumbling on your part when you guided his mouth back to yours. Karl snickered at the bump of your nose against his cheek, but let himself be moved around. For your part you felt yourself slowly, slowly start to relax, the tension you had been holding in your lower back since the fracas earlier finally loosening as the seconds turned into minutes.

You liked kissing him, you had to admit. Not that there was anything wrong with that in the first place! This was, after all, just a mutually beneficial act between two people who had endured something, frankly, insane. He was offering comfort in (apparently) one of the few ways he knew how, and you appreciated his consideration.

The rain hitting the roof began to pick up in intensity.

"Thank you," you sighed, then giggled when his facial hair tickled your cheek. You felt Heisenberg pause, the man seeming to hover over you momentarily. On either side of you, his hands balled up in the quilt.

"Don't." The word was so low you almost didn't hear it, but he repeated it a second later. "Don't." His voice was deadly serious. "You…deserve a lot better than this, sugar. Don't settle for it just because you're scared or lonely."

"I can still be grateful." You replied softly, hearing him huff out an exasperated breath. "Oh be quiet, you're such a nerd. This means more to me than you'd ever believe, so let me enjoy it."

…

You eventually fell asleep to the lullaby of the rain and thunder, but Karl had no such luck. He laid awake until the somber gray of dawn, his mind uneasy with jumbled, disjointed thoughts.

I could. They would let me. He shoved that particular thought away. There was no point to it. He had offered this as a one-off thing, a way to ease your nerves. His own as well, if he was being entirely honest. Karl had been thoroughly rattled by the day's events. Regaining the majority of his memories in a mad dash, mere moments before having to literally fight for his life, for your life…it had been a long, stressful, exhausting day.

But it was over now. He could rest, for the moment anyway. He was safe. You were safe.

So why the hell did he feel like he had started something he couldn't finish?! Why had giving you a few simple kisses ignited some low, persistent ache in his gut? Even now, hours later, his body throbbed and he was extremely, intensely aware of your presence inches from him. Not in the usual way, the amplification of his senses via the cadou, the predator chase. A different way. Softer and yet…sharper, a blade that cut without pain.

Karl had the strangest feeling that this could kill him. You could kill him. He wasn't even certain how, but the surety left no room for debate. Something about you was deadly to him.

The odd part was that he couldn't really bring himself to care. Karl had stared down the gaping maw of death more times than he could count and he had always relished the triumph of overcoming the ensuing carnage. This was no different, for all its lack of obvious threat. He would either be victorious, or fall headfirst into whatever snare had been laid.

His eyes grew heavier the longer he thought, and at some point he ended up drifting off to sleep.

And he dreamed.

He dreamed of the fight with Ethan, the rain and distant thunder echoing from the waking world. He dreamed of the Duke leaning over him, none of his words making any damn sense. Then, he dreamed of you.

You, binding his wounds and nursing him with calloused hands. You, words always full of your dry wit even as you ceaselessly worked. You, beneath the tree, looking up at him with the shadow of a smile still on your lips–

Heisenberg jerked awake, horrified.

Oh no.

Oh fuck no.

…

Karl was in an absolutely terrible mood, not that you could blame him! He had dealt with a lot, he deserved a day to sulk and lick his proverbial wounds. You also guessed he hadn't gotten much rest, and you felt a little guilty over sleeping so well beside him.

He had three outbursts of varying degrees before you finally shooed him outside, telling him to walk the fenceline until he cooled off. "Go take a nap next to the river!" You suggested. "I always enjoy the peace there."

Heisenberg stomped down the porch steps, his hands jammed in his pockets. "Gonna' go check the snares." He said brusquely, as if you hadn't spoken at all. "See if we have dinner."

"Alright!" was your cheerful reply, which made him mutter something under his breath before he was out of earshot.

Once he made it to the fenceline however, you dove into your lower cabinets, searching through your preserve jars until you located one that said 'apple'. It had been too long since you had made a plum spice cake, and (fingers crossed) the rare treat would perk up your long-term houseguest. The recipe had needed a bit of tweaking, but you knew it by heart at this point. It was always better with fresh plums, and you substituted out the eggs for applesauce. The tricky part was the sugar, since year to year you weren't sure if you would have it on hand. Worst case, you had just skipped it before and layered the cake with preserves instead. Luckily for you, this particular time you still had a little lump of brown sugar sitting in your sealed container, a tiny victory in and of itself.

Your streak of good luck persisted when you located an unexpected, unopened jar of lard mixed in with the preserves, and you performed a little hop of glee upon realizing it hadn't been simply opened and forgotten about. That would ensure the cake wouldn't stick to the pan! A mild annoyance, maybe, but you wanted this to be perfect. Karl deserved as much, and you did as well.

After hoisting your flour container out from beneath the counter, you sussed out your measuring cups and the lone large bowl, then got to work.

Part Five

#karl heisenberg #lord karl heisenberg #eventual romance #fix it fic #au #resident evil #re 8 #re 8 village #resident evil village #resident evil karl heisenberg #karl heisenberg x reader #karl heisenberg imagine #re 8 karl heisenberg #slow burn #canon typical violence #a little kith

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totisviribus · 1 year

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An ADHD Morning

I set seven alarms so I don't oversleep. I couldn't sleep last night because I was researching ancient Rome on Wikipedia until 2am so I am bleary tired. My coffee maker is moldy from last week's brew and I don't even consider cleaning it, I just know that I won't be having coffee this morning.

I forgot to shower the night before, but now I don't have enough time to do it this morning, I got up too late. I use dry shampoo and hope my hair doesn't look greasy (it does). I scrape it into a messy pony tail that will give me a migraine but it's the only way it looks acceptable. My finger nails are stumps of dried blood because I picked at them all night. The inside of my lip is swollen and bleeding because I couldn't stop chewing on it, thinking about how I could ruin today. My eyebrows need to be plucked. My face is covered in acne because I never remember to take my makeup off before I fall asleep.

My bedroom is a sea of clothes, piled high to obscure the wooden floors. One hamper has some clean clothes in it, I know, but I have forgotten which one. My ironing board is under the piles somewhere, but it's broken, so I'll have to try to use the anti-wrinkle spray on the sweater I fish off the floor and hope it looks okay. It's already been forty minutes, how has the time passed this way? I will be late now, no hope of arriving on time. My sweater is covered in cat hair. Where is the lint roller? I look through the piles and can't find it. I spend ten minutes looking for tape to make a make-shift lint roller and it doesn't really work.

My dresser is filled with empty makeup tubes, used makeup wipes, glasses wipes, and used lint roller sheets. I pick out the products I use and quickly do my makeup on my unclean skin.

Purse. I need my purse. Which purse did I use last? Which has my wallet in it? I walk past the piles on the floor of my apartment, past the dirty dishes, past the mound of art supplies on my desk. I find my purse on the floor under my desk. Okay.

Socks? I need socks. My socks might show when I sit down in these too-tight too-short pants. I have to find matching ones. Clean ones? No, that's too much of a reach. I must just find matching ones. I search, digging through the floor piles. I find two that do not match, but are the same color. Good enough.

Fifteen minutes late. My cat chirps as he brushes against my leg. Oh! My little friend! He's so cute and sweet. My sister loves to get pictures of him, so I'll take one for her. Look up here, Blue! So cute. I should really update the instagram I made for him, I've met so many people who have the same type of cat. I should edit some photos of him today to post. He makes me so happy. I feel so lucky I get to have a cat and such a sweet, loving one like Blue. How many people get to have such a great pet? I'm so thankful for him, and I tell him so while I scratch his face the way that makes him purr.

I text my sister the picture. She tells me to have a good day. I try to find a cute GIF to send her to tell her to have a good day too. Here's one with Snoopy. She'll like that.

I also need to feed Blue. There are a dozen empty, smelly cans on the counter of cat food, but I pick a new one out of the box they were shipped in and put it in his dish with a random measuring spoon because all my other silverware is dirty.

Bag. I need to pack a bag. Laptop, keys, tissues, pens, notebook, headphones, charging cable for my phone. Is that everything? And my wallet, of course! Aha. That would be bad if I forgot that.

My shoes are dirty and scuffed but I don't have time to fix them. What kind of coat? I don't check the weather. I pick out a thin yellow one that I like. I've always liked bright colors. This will cheer me up to wear it. Bag, coat, keys, phone...where is my phone?

I have headphones on, listening to a YouTube video on two times speed, but I don't know where my phone is. I don't have time for this! But I can't leave without my phone.

It's deep in the covers of my bed. I don't remember putting it there between sending the GIF to my sister and now, but no matter. I found it.

It's twenty degrees and raining. I have no umbrella and my spring coat is incredibly inappropriate for the weather.

I've left my car on the street for a few days in an area that is only for 3-hour parking. The parking tickets are stacked on the windshield. I owe the city about $400 in parking tickets and I keep getting letters from the police that they'll boot my car if I don't pay. I messed up the days on my budget spreadsheet, so I won't be able to pay them for another month.

I have no gas. I check the miles my car estimates I can go with the amount left and compare it to what my GPS says. Just enough. Maybe. It'll be okay. I can't get gas now.

I forgot to brush my teeth. I forgot my laptop charging cable. I forgot to take my medication, and I forgot to bring my medication with me to take my second dose. When I finally arrive at my destination, I don't remember that my debit card fell between the seat in my car yesterday while getting coffee at the drive-thru. So I leave without it. I also forgot to put deodorant on.

I wonder what my coworkers would think of me if they knew about my messy apartment, my poor hygiene, my lack of planning skills. Will they notice my teeth aren't brushed? Do I have any gum, mints, anything?

My coworker sees me come in late with in an oddly-fitting outfit and messy hair, but I greet them happily when I come in. They say that everyone forgets things sometimes and lends me their laptop charger. I'll forget to return it, but they don't know that yet. They don't know about my kitchen or my bedroom or my clothes or my unwashed face or my parking tickets. They don't know that without my medication I will be useless for the entire day and get nothing done, making more work for them.

I'm an excellent actress. I pretend to be like everyone else, and somehow I pass the test every time. I'm a shy, kind, young woman - they would never suspect there is a moldy box of forgotten take out food in my backseat that I'll discover in a few days. People socialized as female are expected to be neat, organized, in control. They don't even consider that I might not be those things.

"What did you bring for the potluck today?" my coworker asks.

The ingredients I bought for the dish I signed up to make are rotting in my fridge, forgotten as soon as I put them there after shopping two weeks ago. I didn't think to buy them closer to today. I also didn't think to put the pot luck on my calendar.

I make up an elaborate story about how my boyfriend needed to be picked up from a far-away job site last night. She believes me and I feel I don't deserve it.

I wish I wasn't a good actress.

#adhd #adhd women #adhd post #adhd tag #adhd things #executive dysfunction #neurodiverse stuff #add #essay #personal #totisviribusletters #adhd feels #adhd life #adult ADHD #adhd adult #adhd brain #my adhd

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meshlasolus · 2 years

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House Of Memories (1/?)

Obi-Wan Kenobi x Padawan!reader

Warnings: slavery, fluff (just sweet, young Obi-Wan)

Summary: Obi-Wan recalls his first time meeting you, when you were a slave on your home planet.

A/n: so this had literally been in my drafts about a year now I didn't even remember it was there then I saw all the Kenobi stuff coming out and remembered it existed.... anyway enjoy this there will be a whole series for it

Words: 2.2k (kinda short for me, I know)

Obi-Wan remembers the first time you entered his life like it was yesterday. When he was only eighteen years old, he and his master came across a slave camp on an outer rim planet called Mimban. It was out of the Republic's jurisdiction; therefore, the anti-slavery laws did not apply.

The mission that brought them here was simple enough, or so Master Qui Gon had initially thought. The labor camps on this planet made it practically impossible to find the separatist base. The Master and his young padawan walked endlessly until they got to a point of restlessness. At this point it would lead them to believe that maybe there was no hidden base at all, that perhaps this was a gigantic set up to haul them off on a wild goose chase while important things happened back at the Jedi temple. They of course scolded themselves a moment later for the thought. They only needed to concentrate, to sense something even the slightest bit off in the force. They had been trained to do it, and had before... the only thing keeping them from deciphering the exact location was a small stint in the force. A single being that held a strong presence.

"Master, do you-?"

"Yes, I sense it," Qui Gon turned on his heels immediately. He knew that the separatist base would not be found until the fork in the road had been delt with. The force signature radiating off of one person or creature in this place was the only thing either him or Obi-Wan could possibly focus on.

The young padawan followed after his teacher with much ambition to seek out the distraction, nay, the opposing pull in the force.

They both came to a stop at the edge of the camp, and low and behold, a child, maybe three or four years old at most, was working tirelessly in mud. Qui Gon tried to shuffle through her thoughts, perhaps to find a name, or a family, but she guarded them by the force, without even possibly meaning to. How a small child at such a young age could possess such power and subconsciously know how to use it already was beyond either of their comprehension, and yet even Obi-Wan, as doubtful as he was, easily found himself able to tell that the large force signature belonged to her.

"It can't be," Obi-Wan mumbled to himself, continuing towards the child as his Master did.

"It can, and it seems to be so."

Qui Gon was the first to approach the youngling, his nurturing fatherly instincts took over when he knelt down beside her, scraping mud into a bucket with her bare hands. She seemed so focused, which was irregular for a mind so young. Perhaps as a slave, she was forced to learn tasks even before this age. He wasn't sure if he should start with the native language of the lands, or in galactic basic. He wasn't very up to par with his Mimbanese, so he opted for the latter.

"Hello, young one."

She glanced up at him, and brilliance was held in her eyes, he could sense that much. A prodigy perhaps. She was listening intently for him to continue, though she knew he didn't belong to this camp, or even this planet. He was unrecognizable to her.

"I am Jedi Master Qui Gon Jinn of Coruscant, and this is my Padawan learner, Obi-Wan Kenobi."

At the mention of his name, Obi-Wan stepped forward. The little girl looked at him and stood up. She took a step towards him curiously, before grabbing at his hand and yanking it towards the ground she was on only moments ago. She began her work again, and even gave some fistfuls of mud to Obi-Wan for good measure.

"It appears she wants you to help her."

Qui Gon let out a chuckle. Obi-Wan did as the small child did, using his hands to fold mounds of dirt and mud into the tall metal buckets that sat beside her. He wasn't ever fond of children before, in fact, he might say he was often annoyed by them. He wasn't sure of this specific child yet, but she did make him quite curious.

"I sense her midichlorian count is quite high. I need to find who she belongs to. Keep her busy and make sure she stays within sight," Qui Gon stood, dusting what he could from his cloak. Obi-Wan nodded and watched as his master turned back to the camp before his sleeve was tugged on again by the child. An impatient little thing she was. He furrowed his brow as he got back to work helping her, filling the bucket with mud for whatever purpose it would be used.

Once done, she stood to her feet, beginning to pull one of the buckets with all her strength. He followed along, carrying the other bucket and going to wherever the destination was. He almost felt a hint of annoyance, until he saw her struggling over a bump in the ground. He instantly felt a large deal of compassion for realizing the actual situation here. This wasn't a child playing in the dirt for the fun of it, this was a slave that was being worked hard at an incredibly young age, with no hope of anything better.

He had of course heard of the slave trades of the outer rim territories, however he had yet to see the product of one. He had only just realized he stopped in his tracks, because after the child managed over the bump in the ground, she stopped also, looking up at him with a tilt in her head. She had made it clear she wanted him to follow her, did she not?

"I'm sorry," he spoke hurriedly, continuing on the pathway.

She seemed to be getting tired from dragging that entire bucket, but she kept onwards anyways, and it struck a nerve with Obi-Wan. He wondered how poorly a small thing like her must be treated to carry on like she did with no hesitation.

He looked closer at her hands and feet, both bare, covered in dirt as well as cuts and scrapes. He couldn't bear to stand back and allow her to do this any longer. It pained him now that he didn't see it before. All these people, these children that were bound to this planet to do labor for others they probably owed nothing to. He had an emotional awakening, a spring of immense compassion and sympathy all at once. He'd been so sheltered from such things before, that now it was all he could see.

He walked beside the child and picked up her bucket as well, nodding forward as to tell her she could lead him on. She did so, walking faster now that she didn't have a load to carry. The two buckets of dirt were a small weight to Obi-Wan, but it made him feel better to take it from her.

They continued on to what looked like a large sinkhole on the side of their camp. Others were dumping large crates of mud to fill it, and he assumed that's what she was doing also, however little she could.

She looked up at him and pointed into the sinkhole. He dumped the buckets into a scarcely filled area, then looked back to her. It seemed foolish to him at first, following after a child and doing her bidding, but now he did it willingly without question. He just wanted to help her.

She started on her way back to the mounds of dirt past the front of camp again, and he was ready to follow diligently if not for the voice of his Master.

"I dare say you follow her orders better than my own," Qui Gon said in a joking tone. He smiled and stopped in his tracks, the girl also stopping when she realized the one holding the buckets wasn't going back to the dirt with her.

"I only wanted to assist her in her labor."

"She won't be laboring here any longer. I've struck a deal to have her released into our possession."

Obi-Wan smiled. If even one child under these horrible circumstances had a chance of a better life, then he was by all means pleased. The little thing looked confused, but she heard a few things she understood. She just didn't know what it meant. She didn't know what the Jedi were, although Qui Gon had introduced himself as such.

"What of our previous mission?" Obi-Wan asked, his curiosity of their former reason for being on this planet got the better of him just now.

"The separatists seem to have already left their base on this planet. The council will be far more pleased to hear of our unintentional finding, I'm sure."

Qui Gon approached the girl again, but this time she seemed a small bit more intimidated. She wasn't quite sure she wanted to be taken away. She took a step backwards, then looked at Obi-Wan.

They both sensed her fear, and Obi-Wan remembered what it was like to leave everything he'd known to go train at the temple. He had come from better circumstances, however.

Obi-Wan knelt to the ground again, beckoning her over with a soft look on his face. "Don't be afraid."

It took a few moments, and she came slow, but made her way to him, nonetheless. He couldn't help but smile. She trusted him.

He scooped up her small form in his arms, and she grabbed at the hood of his cloak to keep steady. She seemed quite comfortable there, a puzzled look coming over her face as she toyed with his padawan braid.

His master kept looking back over his shoulder at the two. He had been trying for years to make his padawan understand the power of assisting those in need. It seems he only needed to experience it for himself. It was part of the Jedi way, and Obi-Wan Kenobi was going to grow into an exceptional Jedi.

Once back on the ship, Qui Gon presented his apprentice with a testing kit, one he knew as familiar. He also handed him some first aid supplies, as it seemed she would be needing some fixing up.

"We need to test her blood for an M count. If there's not enough blood you may have to draw it before we return," Qui Gon started up the ship, and lifted it off of the maker forsaken planet.

Obi-Wan was hesitant but continued to do as his Master instructed of him. The frightened look on the small girl's face was a stab to his chest as he set her down on one of the seats.

"It's alright, I won't hurt you."

He didn't see any ease come across her face, but he felt a sudden calmness in her force signature that encouraged him to continue. He cleaned up her hands and feet as best he could with what little he had, and unfortunately, there wasn't enough blood to be tested. He really didn't want to do this, but it had to be done sooner or later. He figured talking might make it better.

"Little one, what is your name?" He asked as he prepared a draw stick. He saw the gears in her head turning, so clearly, she was distracted enough.

"Y/n," she pointed to herself, not sure what else to say.

He pulled her arm slightly away from her body so it could only be seen in her peripheral vision. He kept his eyes on hers as to not let on to what he was doing.

"Well, I'm very glad to have met you, Y/n."

He poked the draw stick just barely under her skin, and she jolted a bit at the sudden prick of pain. He readied another question to keep her mind busy.

"Do you remember my name?" He quickly ran the draw, collecting a small blood sample for the M test.

"Yes," She nodded quickly, then pointed at his chest as she said "Obi."

"That's very good," he smiled genuinely, placing a small pad on her arm and taping it down until the small blood flow had clotted.

"Am I going to come work for you?"

He was a bit surprised at how chatty she had become in only a moment. Perhaps they didn't allow her to speak very often in her camp. It seemed no one there actually did.

"No, little one," he chuckled slightly, starting the blood test while she watched from her seat. "Where we're going, the only work you will do is training."

Maker, he thought, 15,000 midichlorians. His M count was around 13,500, and he thought he had a fairly high count. This child was stronger with the force than most of his friends or colleagues.

"Training?" She titled her head again, as she had all those times before. It was endearing.

"It's going to be fun," he nearly promised. "You will learn about the force, and everything you can do with it."

She seemed very confused, and Obi-Wan figured that even with her heightened intelligence, she was still only a child, at the age of three of four at most.

He watched her yawn, seeing her eyes begin to droop heavy. He opted to carry her into the back seating area, where the seats were more like benches. He knew she would be more comfortable here. He sat her down, and then he followed, letting her head rest over his knee. She was out like a light, and it didn't take long for him to be, too.

(Tags for this series are open)

#obi wan kenobi x reader #obi wan series #obi wan x reader #obi wan kenobi #obi wan x padawan #obi wan kenobi x padawan!reader #ewan mcgregor #hayden christensen #anakin skywalker x reader

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