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cinnaminsvga · 3 years

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a love that endures | Yoongi

→ summary:

“Oh come on! Just go say hi to him already,” Seokjin huffs. He wiggles his eyebrows, striking you with the urge to shave them off in retaliation. “I could feel your ‘God, I miss his dick’ vibes from across the room!”

“I do not emit dick thirst vibes,” you respond hotly, swatting him in the tit. You pause, considering. “Wait, but do you think he misses my p—”

“Say no more,” Seokjin interrupts, a wicked smirk gracing his lips. His gaze is fixed somewhere behind you, but you have a sinking suspicion you know why he looks like he’s won the lottery. “Speaking of the devil, look who’s coming over to say hello!”

{or alternatively: Yoongi and Y/N. Y/N and Yoongi. High school sweethearts that were never meant to last, until a reunion ten years later manages to reignite a flame that never quite burnt out.}

→ genre: high school reunion!au, exes to lovers, fluff, humor, minor angst → warnings: shy!yoongi and shy!oc live rent free in my brain, mutual pining is poggers, hoseok and seokjin aren’t evil for once in a cinnaminsvga fic, implied smut so it’s pg-13 because i’m a wimp → words: 14.4K → a/n: SHE’S ALIVE!! this is dedicated to @himbeaux-joon who commissioned this piece ages ago. thank you again for requesting this because this was honestly so much fun to write. i’ve been in a bit of writing slump these past few weeks but this fic came out so easily and got way longer than expected (perhaps because it’s about yoongi and he’s always been the easiest one to write for me). enjoy!! ;o;

The mere sight of him is enough to knock the wind out of you.

Your body freezes, the hand curled around your paper cup filled with punch tightening ever so slightly. It isn’t like you’re surprised that he came; you aren’t supposed to be. Of course, you should have expected his arrival, but you’ve been hoping all night that he might have been too busy to attend.

He isn’t even on time—it has almost been two hours since the event started and you had been filled with a false hope that perhaps he had RSVP’d and decided he couldn’t make it.

You had seen Hoseok, his best friend from your younger days, standing outside the entrance of the ballroom before they had started letting people in. The moment Hoseok saw you, he immediately came over to sweep you into a tight hug, his infectious laughter ringing in your ears. He had greeted you happily, expressing how much he missed you since high school, but never once bringing up the elephant in the room.

It wasn’t like you were going to bring him up first. No, that would be weird on your part. Nevermind the fact that going to high school reunions was a recipe for reliving past traumas and seeing all your childhood friends either married or pregnant—you weren’t going to be that person who asked where their ex was. You refused to be the person craning their neck to spy on the entrance every two minutes, hoping to catch sight of an old familiar face.

The problem is that you are that person, and you kind of hate yourself for it. However, it is also the reason why you are probably the only person in the entire ballroom who notices his quiet arrival.

He has never liked causing commotions, which is often apparent from the way he conducts himself. He walks into the room just as a loud round of applause breaks out; an old schoolmate of yours is walking up to the podium, probably the person who had arranged the get-together in the first place. It is a perfect distraction for him as he slinks past the door, keeping near the wall so as not to be seen by anyone just yet.

(Except he has been seen—he just doesn’t know it yet.)

You do not know for how long you stare at him, just that it takes you a moment to realize you haven’t taken a breath since he stepped foot into the same space as you. You take a deep, shuddering breath, forcing your racing heartbeat to calm down. You swallow thickly, throat so unbearably dry that even drinking from your lukewarm cup of punch doesn’t seem to do anything.

But the undeniable truth is there, standing only a few meters away from you, and nothing on earth will be able to wash away the nerves flooding through your system.

After ten years of radio silence, Min Yoongi is in your orbit once again.

In the grand scheme of things, ten years wasn’t all that long. Four years in university had passed by in a blur, and the absolute chaos that ensued right after you graduated as you scrambled to secure a job and move out of your hometown had made the days seem shorter than they actually were. You had not even noticed that time was passing until you found that cream envelope waiting for you one day after work, your alma mater’s school crest painfully recognizable even after all these years.

During all that time, the world around you shifted without you noticing, and that meant people were changing too.

Yoongi is 28 now. And so are you, after many months of denial. You have not seen each other since you were both 18—both of you far too young to know about any of the things you would experience in the next ten years.

He might have grown a little taller since then, something you are sure that your brother will find amusing. His hair isn’t dyed like you remembered, as he has opted to keep it his natural dark black that you have not seen since you were both in middle school. It’s styled differently too: combed over and gelled back, with his bangs pushed back and his forehead exposed. When he turns his head to the side, a gasp spills past your lips before you can stop it.

“Is that a fucking undercut?” you mutter in shock, your eyes straining out of their sockets as you try to drink him in. Even under the dim lighting of the ballroom, his new haircut is hard to miss. No one else seems to be undergoing the same mental collapse as you, judging by how everyone’s attention is still fixated on the person speaking at the podium. How the hell is no one else losing their fucking minds to the sight of Min Yoongi with a fucking undercut? Some questions are impossible to answer, you surmise.

When you decided to attend the reunion, you had not once thought about how Yoongi would look like. Somehow, you had developed this stagnant picture of him in your head, even after all these years. To you, he will always be the boy with the stark blonde hair, the mismatched eyelids, the pouty lips, the dumpling cheeks. He is the boy who can’t wear his own contact lenses to save his life, the boy who sometimes wears his favorite leather jacket to sleep, the boy who only drinks Americanos like it was water.

Gone are those days, you realize. That image of him has been smashed to pieces, instead replaced by this dashing (and incredibly hot) man—a stranger. A stranger with unbleached (and healthy) hair, a jawline sharp enough to cut glass. He has his glasses kept away, and there is no leather jacket in sight.

But you can see him, if you look hard enough. The same spark in his eye, the same curve of his lips. You catch him smiling for a second, and his cheeks still puff up like dough. Maybe it’s just hopeless thinking, but you see him. It’s still him. To you, he will always be your 18-year-old Min Yoongi, the one who would greet you with a sweet kiss on the forehead every time you would—

Raucous applause breaks you from your train of thought, and you blink rapidly in surprise. You have to forcibly pull yourself out of your Yoongi-induced trance, clapping alongside everyone without really knowing what was going on. All of the extra noise sounds like buzzing in your ears, especially when it is drowned out by the roar of your blood rushing to your head all at once.

“Once again, I’d like to thank you all for coming tonight. We will begin the program right after dinner, so please feel free to help yourselves to the buffet! Cheers everyone!” You faintly hear your old schoolmate speak, before her voice is quickly overrun by the commotion of people walking over to the extravagant display of food. It takes a moment for the crowd of heads to disperse, so when you can finally look back to where you last saw Yoongi, he is no longer alone.

Hoseok has his arm slung around Yoongi, his infectious laughter loud enough to be heard over clinking plates and silverware. The two are as different as night and day, with Hoseok practically bouncing from excitement and Yoongi rolling his eyes from annoyance. But it is easy to see that his pout is nothing but a ruse; you can already catch the beginnings of a smile tugging at his lips.

You feel your own seams breaking, unwittingly sporting a grin of your own. It is nice to know that Yoongi hasn’t been alone all this time, that he still seems close with his old best friend. You cannot count the number of friendships that you have lost over time, and you still grieve many of them during your quiet moments. Alas, it was often never even anyone’s fault, the strains of adulthood often being the biggest deal breakers in your relationships.

That is, of course, except for one.

“Enjoying yourself? I didn’t think we’d share the same voyeuristic tendencies,” says a voice, creeping up behind you. Now, normal people would not usually expect other sane people to invade your personal space and breathe directly into your ear, but that’s just your humble opinion. What you do know is that one certain individual enjoys breaking the mold when it comes to societal norms, and it is none other than…

“Jesus fucking Christ!” You shriek, nearly sucker-punching the offending degenerate in the face. You hold back your fist from connecting with his face, but your resulting irritation remains. Whether that irritation is because you regret holding back or not will unfortunately also have to remain unanswered. “Oh God, it’s you.”

“Oh, no need for that. Most people usually call me Seokjin,” he snickers, thoroughly enjoying your flushed face. Kim Seokjin pats you on the shoulder, his trademark “pretty boy” smile still as radiant as you remembered. It does nothing to quell your urge to raise your fists again, however. “Hello, Y/N. Fancy seeing you here!”

“The feeling is not mutual,” you snort. Much like how Yoongi was with Hoseok, your derision is nothing but a rouse. As much as you want to kick Seokjin in the nuts, you also cannot ignore how much you want to hug him the slimy bastard—but you definitely will not be the first one to admit it. So like the tsundere that you are, you decide to insult him instead. “Why are you here? You’re not even from this class. Don’t you have other things to do? Or rather, people to do?”

“My heart! You wound me,” he gasps, grasping his chest as though he’d been shot. “How could you say that to your best friend in the entire world? Don’t you know how much I missed you?”

“Easy. I do it because the only other alternative would lead me straight to prison,” you shrug, but your grin betrays you.

This time, you don’t jolt away when he closes in for a hug. “And I guess I miss you too,” you say, your words slightly muffled into his chest. Like always, he sees through your prickly act because as much as you like to pretend, Kim Seokjin is kind of amazing—loose bolts and all.

“It’s nice to know that your tongue hasn’t lost its edge, though I suppose I wouldn’t be intimately knowledgeable in that area. After all, I still am very much a raging homosexual and pussy isn’t really my forte,” Seokjin guffaws, his volume causing a few nearby guests to raise their heads in alarm.

You bow at them, sheepishly apologizing on his behalf before grabbing him by the collar.

“Will you stop being embarrassing for just one second? I swear, I thought I retired from my babysitting job when I graduated high school,” you hiss, but the way his mouth curls up with mischief is answer enough. God, you missed this son of a bitch.

“Unfortunately for you, being a pest is part of my DNA,” he smirks, carefully plucking your hands off from his neck, as though your nails were not mere inches away from ripping his trachea into pieces. “Though, I am offended by your assumption that I am still the same slut that you knew. I’ve grown up a little, you know! I’m a changed man!”

“Oh, please. Don’t tell me you of all people have settled down,” you laugh, not missing the way Seokjin’s perfectly stenciled brow raises slightly.

“I know we haven’t seen each other since Christmas, but come on Y/N! You of all people should be applauding me for my improved behavior! You must have noticed how much I changed when I visited.”

“When you visited me last Christmas, you immediately insulted my taste in kitchen towels, went on Grindr to find a hookup despite my numerous pleas, and promptly desecrated my guest bedroom that no housekeeper or priest is willing to exorcise to this day,” you gag, shuddering at the memory. “And then you ate all my ice cream and proceeded to clog my toilet!”

“Um? Aren’t you forgetting that I also bought you that dress you wanted? Rude,” Seokjin retorts, not the least bit remorseful. “Well, that’s what you get for agreeing to be my best bitch for life. You know that I take pinky promises very seriously.”

Unfortunately, he does take his promises seriously. It is probably the only thing he’ll ever be serious about, as much as the man enjoys parading his depravity. “Okay, whatever. I’ll bite. Who’s the unlucky man you’ve managed to deceive into a relationship?”

“Oh, it’s someone we both used to know. I’m his plus one for tonight,” he says, supplying you with the most useless non-answer imaginable.

“Seokjin. We’re at a high school reunion. We know everyone here. That could be anyone!” you exclaim.

“Well, isn’t that fun? Then we can do a scavenger hunt!” Seokjin grins, clapping his hands together excitedly. He pulls you in front of him, forcing the two of you to survey the crowd. “Okay, hold your arm out like this—” After a few seconds of you failing to resist him, he manages to get you to unfurl your finger as if you were about to order something from the dollar menu at McDonalds. Unfortunately for you, the tall twink is stronger than he appears. “—and just keep pointing around until I tell you that you’re getting warmer!”

“Seokjin, I don’t think this is very—” you start, but Seokjin is already moving your arm for you. Like a hurricane, Kim Seokjin listens to no one but his own homewrecking whims.

“Park Chanyeol? Close, but not really. You should know that I don’t double dip with past flings,” he says, shifting you to the left. “Kim Namjoon? Now that’s a hunk of meat that I wish I’d taken a bite of, but unfortunately he’s as straight as a ruler. Pass,” he hums, continuing to move you bit by bit.

You’re both getting uncomfortably close to where Yoongi is, and Seokjin doesn’t appear to be stopping any time soon. You did notice that Yoongi had come dateless to the reunion (a fact, by the way, that you did not rejoice over when you had noticed), but that doesn’t necessarily mean he’s single. You have known Seokjin for more than a decade at this point, and despite your odd friendship, you are sure that he would never do anything to hurt you on purpose.

Though, that does beg the question… How far does his dick thirst really go? Maybe you’ll finally find out today.

“Warmer, getting warmer…” Seokjin inches you closer and closer to where Yoongi is standing. You feel frozen in his grasp, unsure if you wanted to know anymore. If Seokjin really is dating Yoongi, then what? It’s not like you were dating him anyway… What difference does it make if it’s Seokjin?

(It makes all the difference, but you refuse to think about it.)

“Nope, not Wonho... A little bit to the left… Bingo!” Seokjin declares, stopping your finger right on— “No, Y/N! Stop moving! You’ve gone too far to the wall! I was pointing at him.”

“H-Hoseok? You’re dating Hoseok?!” You squeak, an avalanche of relief flooding through you. You don’t even have the energy to pretend to be composed as your entire body starts untensing involuntarily, your shoulders slumping as though a weight has been lifted from you. “Why couldn’t you have just told me like a normal person? Why must everything be tortuous and dramatic when it comes to you?”

“I am a naturally insufferable and theatrical person. Sue me,” he shrugs, greatly enjoying the exhausted look on your face. “What? Were you actually scared that I was dating your sloppy seconds? What do you think I am? An asshole?”

You stare at him. “Is that a rhetorical question?”

Seokjin scoffs. “If I wanted to get roasted, I would approach two tops at a gay bar.” He pauses. “Wait, are you seriously not going to congratulate me for finally snagging a boy who has a functioning moral compass?”

“Define ‘snagging.’ Did you, like, tie him up and blackmail him to become your boyfriend like those terrible One Direction Wattpad fanfics, or—” You stop halfway, giggling at your friend’s unamused pout. “Okay, okay. Yes, Seokjin. I am very proud of you. Congrats on finally becoming an adult. Your hoe days are over.”

“Who said they were over?” He snorts. Noticing your alarm, Seokjin rolls his eyes in exasperation. “Oh, don’t give me that look! I’m not into infidelity and you know that. I just meant that I’m still a hoe with significantly fewer options.”

“How did that even happen in the first place?” you say, jabbing your thumb in Hoseok’s direction. Thankfully, the man in question is still busy talking to Yoongi, though you don’t know for how much longer. If Seokjin isn’t lying, then there’s a high chance they’re going to walk over to say hi and you’re not sure if you’re mentally prepared to go through the five stages of grief all over again.

“Believe me, I’m surprised as well. I started dating Hoseok after he asked me for help with his sister’s wedding gift. He asked me to help arrange an itinerary for her sister’s honeymoon in America,” Seokjin explains with a dreamy smile. He sighs, holding a hand up to his chest. You can physically see the heart emojis circling his head like a halo. “We hit it off from there and dare I say… Not only is he the only person who can keep up with my high maintenance lifestyle, but dear Lord, he could totally be recruited into the NDA for his astounding dick game—”

“Ever heard of TMI? Gross,” you interrupt, your face crumpling in disgust. You shove him away when his loud cackles start rattling your eardrums.

“You were scared though, right?” he says through his giggles. “When you thought that I was dating Yoongi?”

Of course Seokjin had noticed your mini-mental breakdown, judging from the shit-eating grin on his face.

“N-no,” you stutter, but your heated cheeks and averted gaze give you away. “E-either way, I wouldn’t have cared if you did!” you say. You know, like a liar.

“I bet you don’t care that Yoongi got significantly hotter in the past ten years too, huh?” Seokjin teases, snickering loudly. Under the harsh lighting of the fluorescent chandelier lights, you might have mistaken the boy in front of you for the devil instead of your best friend of almost twenty years.

“I sincerely rue the day I introduced myself to you in the third grade,” you hiss, sipping from your cup to hide your humiliation.

“Aww, you’re so cute when you’re all embarrassed,” Seokjin coos, pinching your cheeks with the gentleness of an ape. You slap his hand away, unable to think of any retort.

“Cat got your tongue? You didn’t even deny it when I accused you,” Seokjin laughs. He claps his hands jovially, acting as though he’s enjoying a show at the circus. Given your performance tonight, that statement isn’t all that far from reality.

“I don’t need to defend myself from you,” you say, puffing your cheeks indignantly. “I just… think he looks handsome. Is that illegal or something?”

“Certainly not. Though, you might want to dial down the pining a teensy bit,” he singsongs. “That’s how I found you in the first place. I sensed your pining from a mile away and came as soon as I could!”

“I wasn’t pining!” you exclaim. “I was just… admiring the plant beside him.”

“Right, sure,” Seokjin says, arching an eyebrow in challenge. You feel your hackles rising at his smug expression, your ‘Seokjin-is-about-to-ruin-your-life’ alarm ringing in your ears. “So, you wouldn’t mind if I brought you over there to say hello? After all, my boyfriend is over there and as much as I enjoy pestering you, I also want to be with him very much.”

You whistle lowly, impressed. “Wow, that’s actually kind of sweet of you.”

“Yes, I know. Kim Seokjin’s heart grew three sizes that day, yada yada yada.” Seokjin says sarcastically, but his lovesick smile ruins the effect. When he opens his mouth once more, the mirage instantly disappears. “But you would understand if you saw how much he’s packing—”

“Shut up, I didn’t ask—”

“Fine, then let’s ask the man himself! Besides, you know you’re being ridiculous, right?” Seokjin tuts, annoyed. He fixes you with a glare, making you feel like a scolded child. “It’s just Yoongi. You and I both know he doesn’t have a mean bone in his body and probably would love to see you after so long.”

You wave your hands around helplessly, almost sloshing your drink onto a nearby bystander. After muttering a meek apology at your harried classmate, you turn back to Seokjin with a defeated sigh.

You know that he’s right, and you absolutely hate him for it. “Jinnie, I’m a mess! I can hardly think with Yoongi standing meters away from me, much less if he were to stand right in front of me! I’m just going to embarrass myself,” you lament, holding your head in your hand.

“That’s true. You will definitely embarrass yourself,” Seokjin hums, nodding sagely. He shrugs his shoulders. “All the more reason we should do it. Relax, I’ll be your wingman like old times! All we have to do is remind him of all the fantastic, mind-blowing coitus you had in your youth and he’ll be a goner for sure.”

“If by goner, you mean he’ll be gone from my life permanently this time, then you’re right,” you groan. You have a half a mind to dump the remainder of your disgusting punch all over his expensive Bottega Veneta coat, though you also don’t want to spend the next three months receiving packaged turds from Seokjin in your mailbox. “Please, just let me suffer in silence for the remainder of the night, okay? Is that really too much to ask?”

“I do not emit dick thirst vibes,” you respond hotly, swatting him in the tit. You pause, considering. “Wait, but do you think he misses my p—”

Swiveling around, you see that your intuition is right: Yoongi and Hoseok are swiftly making their way through the crowd, one of them appearing to be more enthusiastic than the other. You swallow thickly, your palms growing damp as they get closer to where the two of you stand.

"Seokjin, we gotta go!" you hiss, but your panic goes largely ignored as your best friend leaves you to envelop his lover in a dramatic embrace.

The two men exchange teary and heartfelt touches, acting as if they had been separated by years of war instead of the meager minutes they had spent apart to greet their long-time friends.

"My honeybunch! Oh, how I've missed you so much!" Seokjin cries, nuzzling his nose into Hoseok's neck. You might have mistaken him for a vampire with how aggressively he sniffs Hoseok's skin. Had Seokjin been 5% more unhinged, you do not doubt that he might have started suckling on his boyfriend like a leech.

"Oh, hyung. It's barely been an hour, but why does it feel like it has been forever?" Hoseok sighs forlornly, jaw clenching as though he's in pain. He croaks out a sob, lifting Seokjin in the air and spinning him around. "My love, let us never part again!"

You take a few steps away from them, trying to make it apparent to all the bewildered onlookers that you have nothing to do with homosexual Tweedledee and Tweedledum.

"What kind of shitty production is this? I want my money back," you murmur, fake-gagging behind the two of them. The lovesick fools pay no mind to your disgust; in fact, they seem to relish in it. Their efforts double, their theatrical kissy-smoochy sound effects causing goosebumps to form on your arms. "Seriously, I've had enough of this and I've only been forced to witness it for two seconds."

"Tell me about it," says a voice to your left. Startled, you nearly let out a shocked gasp when you realize that Yoongi had found his way by your side, his own disgusted gaze fixed on the bumbling buffoons still lost in their world. He glances at you for a second, quirking his lips into a small smile. "Hey, Y/N."

In just six words, Min Yoongi manages to make time grind to a halt. You gape at him, your brain ceasing in function. It takes you a full minute to realize that the man standing beside you is not a figment of your imagination. You had been so caught up in the absurdity of the situation that for a moment you had forgotten that Yoongi is a real person.

It's Yoongi, your first love. The person you haven't seen or spoken to in years. The man who has haunted your dreams for over a decade. He's standing right beside you, and he's smiling at you. He's here, he's hot, and he's saying hello.

Like the incredibly eloquent and profound person that you are, you reply: "Yellow!"

You had meant to say "Yoongi, hello!" like a normal person, but your brain had amalgamated your words during its rebooting process. And so, you are left standing there silently, frozen by your embarrassment. You swear you can hear a pin drop as you beg for the earth to swallow you whole.

Unfortunately for you, the floor remains painfully tangible beneath your feet, forcing you to clear your throat and expound on your mystifying exclamation. Yoongi watches you with curious eyes, patiently waiting for you to speak.

"W-what I meant to say is, uh," you stammer, your cheeks heating up to an alarming degree. "Those yellow streamers are pretty tacky, don't you think?"

Nice one. In terms of comebacks, you would personally give yourself a C for effort. (Note: C stands for "Can I please shove a fist up my ass and crabwalk the fuck out of here?")

Yoongi contemplates the tacky decorations in question, nodding in agreement. "Yeah, I guess. They pretty much look like the stuff we'd make in elementary school during Arts and Crafts." He points to your mutual friends, grimacing in annoyance. "Them, on the other hand? No child should ever come into contact with those heathens."

"You're right," you snort, shaking your head.

There is a long and awkward pause. Yoongi clears his throat, swaying from side to side while staring at his shoes. You aren't any better, twiddling your thumbs as you will your cheeks to stop flushing. Your senses are practically screaming at you to run away and hide forever, but your limbs feel disjointed from the rest of you.

It's like we're at the zoo on a date and the monkeys won't stop fucking each other, your mind unhelpfully supplies, offering you an image that will permanently make its home on the backs of your eyelids.

Desperate to break the silence, eventually you say, "Hey, Yoongi—"

Right at the same time, Yoongi says, "Hey, Y/N—"

Another pause, but this one is slightly less tense. The two of you share a nervous laugh, though yours sounds a little bit more hysterical. You motion for him to speak first.

"I, uh... wanted to say that you look great. Yeah. Like, you haven't aged a day at all. N-not to say that I don't think you've matured or..." Yoongi stumbles over his words, his voice cracking.

Instead of feeling relieved that he's just as nervous as you, his anxiety only exacerbates your own. There's a reason you have never been good at public speaking, and this is a good example of why:

"No! I get what you mean, don't worry about it," you laugh, on the verge of a mental breakdown. What the fuck is this conversation, even? "You look exactly the same too. Umm... Of course, except for the, uh, hair?"

"Oh, you mean the gray hairs?"

"No, no! Of course not! I m-meant your hair looks really hot—I mean good! It looks GOOD," you repeat, frantically emphasizing the last bit. You had instinctively panicked, your voice rising in pitch. If your cheeks weren't flaming hot already, then they're definitely redder than Seokjin's ass after a Friday night of fun.

The apples of Yoongi's cheek match your own flustered state, though you can imagine that you’re probably at least a hundred times worse. “Well, thank you. I was actually feeling self-conscious about my hair, so hearing that from you is really… nice,” he says, brushing his hair shyly. “I’m kinda done with bright colored hair for now, so seeing my hair in its natural state is still kind of weird.”

“I seriously doubt that Y/N was talking about your hair color, Yoongi,” Hoseok interjects, magically reappearing behind you when you don’t notice. You flinch in surprise, causing him to let out a hearty chuckle at your jumpiness. It seems that today is “Let’s scare the living shit out of Y/N” day with how many people have crept up on you in just one night.

Beside him, Seokjin looks like a bomb ready to explode, his fist jammed up his mouth to keep his guffaws from slipping out. “God, this is even better than the cringe compilations I watch on Youtube,” he wheezes, wiping a stray tear.

“Don’t be so mean to them, hyung! Don’t mind him,” Hoseok says to you, bowing apologetically. He smiles cherubically at Yoongi. “See, Yoongi? I told you that Y/N is even hotter up close!”

“God, fucking kill me,” you hear Yoongi groan.

“So, have you guys caught up yet, or have you just been fumbling around each other like a couple of horny teenagers?” Seokjin snickers, narrowly avoiding your heel stomping his foot.

“We’ve only just said hello. Leave us alone, jackass,” you huff.

“Oh, you’d like that, wouldn’t you? Well, Hoseok and I can go on our merry ways if you wish—”

“Yoongi! Did you tell Y/N about your work back in Seoul? I bet she’d love to hear about it,” Hoseok interrupts smoothly, saving you from further embarrassment (courtesy of his infuriating goblin of a boyfriend.)

You blink in surprise, turning to the man in question. “You live in Seoul now? Did you move there after finishing university?” you ask.

“Well,” Yoongi starts, clearing his throat. He’s permanently pink at this point, not that you mind in the slightest. He always did have the cutest blush (and once upon a time, you used to love teasing him about it.) “I sort of dropped out of university early. Decided it wasn’t really my thing, you know?”

“Don’t sell yourself short, Yoongi. You were a fantastic student. I’m sure Y/N remembers how smart you are,” Hoseok says, winking inconspicuously at you.

You force out a laugh in response. You know perfectly well what he was trying to do; Hoseok isn’t slick in the slightest, though you do admit that you are intrigued to find out what Yoongi had done over the years.

It isn’t like you haven’t been keeping tabs on him. In your defense, it’s hard to stay away from news about Yoongi when he’s such a big deal. So what if you’ve watched a couple of his interviews and streamed all of his songs? He’s always been talented with music, and all the radio shows seem to agree. You couldn’t get away from him if you tried (and it’s not like you were trying very hard, anyway.)

Yoongi shrugs, rubbing his neck bashfully. “E-either way, I decided to tough it out, you know? Follow my dreams and all that, even if it nearly killed me.”

“And now, he’s working in a famous idol company as one of their head producers,” Hoseok finishes for him, chest puffing up in pride. He slaps his best friend on the back, not noticing that he had inadvertently caused Yoongi's spine to cave in from his strength. “Yoongi is so cool, and humble too! He’s been working behind the scenes for a bunch of big names and never got greedy for attention even though he totally deserves it.”

“Damn, so no street cred? Bit schewpid, innit? Imagine all the chicks you could’ve landed, bruv!” Seokjin says, imitating a terrible British accent. You make a move to hit him in the groin, but for once, Hoseok beats you to the punch.

“Nope! Yoongi-chi is super single, aren’t you?” Hoseok says with a sweet grin, ignoring the pained groans of his lover on the floor.

“No need to rub it in, Seok-ah,” Yoongi grumbles defensively. He coughs into his fist, grinding his foot into the floor. He throws a glance your way. “Just been… too busy, I guess.”

From the floor, Seokjin holds up a hand, grasping at Hoseok’s pant leg to hoist himself up. “What a coincidence. Y/N is super single too. In fact, her pussy is so dry that there’d be no chance for any yeast infections to develop—WAIT, DON’T HIT ME AGAIN I PROMISE I’LL BEHAVE!” Seokjin is on his knees, holding his arms up in surrender as Hoseok’s boot is about to connect with his stomach.

“I know I said I was into BDSM, but not like this!” Seokjin says, faking a sob.

“Then behave, darling,” Hoseok replies, eyes lighting dangerously. When he returns his attention to you, you and Yoongi back away instinctively. “Sorry about him. We have an… arrangement,” he says, waving his hands vaguely.

“Understood,” you both say, not understanding but also not wanting to.

Seokjin manages to straighten up eventually, his skin slightly paler than it was before. “A-as I was saying,” he exhales, still gingerly cupping his crotch. “Y/N has been single for so long, but I don’t blame her. Not after that awful disaster of a boyfriend, right? God, Sungjae fucking sucked ass, and not even in the sexy way.”

“Um, yeah…” you say hesitantly, avoiding eye contact. You can feel Hoseok’s and Yoongi’s eyes trained on you, but you’re not confident enough to know that you can keep your face neutral.

With your gaze averted, you don’t notice the way Yoongi’s posture tenses. “Is that so,” he says carefully.

“I’m sorry to hear that,” Hoseok says. You can hear the genuine sadness in his tone, and you chance a peek at him. He pats your shoulder gently, giving you a soft smile. “Honestly, I feel you. I’ve definitely been there, done that. That’s why I’m grateful for Seokjin-hyung, believe it or not. He’s been really good for me.”

“Hah, I told you I’m a good person!” Seokjin says. Again, he goes ignored.

“It’s fine. It’s all water under the bridge,” you say, shrugging. You can still feel Yoongi’s persistent gaze on the side of your head like a brand. You’re kind of afraid to see what sort of expression he has despite the curiosity burning inside of you.

You are still in the middle of debating if it’s worth explaining or not (and to a lesser extent, why you feel like you need to explain yourself to anyone), everyone’s attention is caught by the onslaught of waiters bringing in a fresh batch of food to the buffet. Your stomach growls in response, and you are reminded of the fact that you haven’t eaten since breakfast in preparation for tonight’s event.

“Hold that thought, Y/N,” Hoseok says, holding up a finger. “Hyung! I saw a platter of tuna belly and I know that shit is gonna disappear in two seconds. Let’s head out!” He tugs Seokjin in a hurry, the elder’s gangly legs flying about as he trips over himself to keep up. Seokjin yelps and hollers for him to slow down, but the hangry Hoseok train stops for no one. They run off, leaving Hoseok-and-Seokjin-shaped dust clouds in their wakes.

“Wow,” Yoongi says, dumbfounded. “Did we just get ditched by our two self-proclaimed best friends in the world?”

You nod, equally dumbfounded. “I guess we did.”

He shakes his head. “Fucking traitors.”

And just like that, the conversation dies.

Without your friends acting as buffers, the pair of you return to your painfully awkward states. You rack your brain for a conversation topic, anything to keep the tension at bay. You don’t feel nearly comfortable enough to ask him about his love life, even though you want nothing more than to shake the details right out of him. For perfectly sane reasons, of course.

Lucky for you, Yoongi thinks of a solution. “Um, I guess we should go grab our food as well? I’m assuming we’ll be sitting together since our friends are... you know. Unless you don’t want to, then that’s also perfectly fine with me. I can find somewhere else to sit.”

“I’d love to sit with you,” you say, cringing at your choice of words. Love to? What are you, desperate?! your brain screeches at you, and you mentally beat yourself in the coochie.

Deep down, you know that you’re overreacting, but you can’t help acting like a blushy teenager talking to your crush when you’re around Yoongi. It’s almost as if you’ve reverted to your high school days, back when you’d both started to notice your feelings for each other and the steady flow of butterflies erupting in your stomach had felt less like a burden and more like a revelation.

After tossing your disgusting drink into a nearby bin, you and Yoongi line up behind the rest of your classmates for the buffet, the scene reminiscent of having lunch at your old high school cafeteria. You’re still mildly distracted by Yoongi’s proximity, not looking at what food you were getting and randomly scooping and hoping you don’t dislike all of them.

From the corner of your eye, you notice that Yoongi’s plate is steadily piling up, probably with enough food to feed two people. You’ve never known Yoongi to be much of a heavy eater, but you suppose that free food is still free food at the end of the day.

“So,” Yoongi says after a beat. He pulls you from your trance, and you catch the small smile on his face that tells you that he figured you had been distracted. “How is Jungkook, by the way? He graduated from university a year ago or something, right?”

You pause, your hand stilling on the metal tongs. “How did you know he graduated last year?”

He shrugs. “Well, assuming that he didn’t take any gap years, I did the math and figured he should be at the age where he’s looking for a job.” He turns to you with a sly grin. “Plus, I’m still his friend on Facebook.”

“That’s surprising,” you comment. You backtrack a little, “And I mean it’s surprising in the sense that… All his posts are reshares from dank meme pages and I thought you wouldn’t be into that.”

Yoongi laughs. “I’m not. But… it’s nice to know how things are back home, I guess.”

Do you wonder about me, too? you think, but you internally shake your head. But why would he? He doesn’t owe you anything.

“And your dad? I heard he got hip surgery last fall,” Yoongi says.

“Wait, Jungkook has been posting about our dad’s surgery on his Facebook?”

“Oh! No, not exactly.” Yoongi clears his throat, suddenly nervous. He heaps a big portion of kimchi, some of it staining his sleeve. “I… called him a few days ago, to catch up.”

You’re staring at him, and you dimly register the people lined up behind you huffing impatiently. “You… called him? You have his cell number, too?”

“No, I just… happen to still have your home telephone number memorized and hoped that you guys hadn’t moved,” he says, a little guiltily.

You’re silent for a moment, thoughtlessly scooping more bean sprouts onto your plate than any sane person would be comfortable eating. The two of you inch along the buffet display as you attempt to process his sudden confession.

On one hand, you’re slightly betrayed that your own brother hadn’t thought to mention that your ex had called him, but on the other hand, what would you have done if he did? Ask if you could say hello? The Y/N from last month probably would have laughed if she had known that Min Yoongi still cared enough to call and check on her family, much less have her landline memorized even after all these years.

He still cared.

Unbeknownst to everyone in the room, your heart skips a beat at the thought. You cradle a hand to your chest, urging your nerves to quell. Keep it together, you beg your stupid, naive heart. You can survive one night without falling in love again, can’t you?

...can you?

“I…” you stammer. You swallow thickly, desperate for something to say, anything to stop your mind from going in the wrong direction. “They miss you, you know? You have no idea how many times my parents ask if you’re coming home for Christmas, or—I don’t know.”

“Yeah, my parents are the same. They always wanna know if I’m coming home for the holidays, and they,” he hesitates, swallowing thickly, “They always ask about you, too.”

Oh.

“Oh,” you mutter lamely. Your cheeks feel like they’ve been lit on fire the moment you got here, and you haven’t even visited the bar yet.

You finally make it to the end of the long buffet table where there is a large chocolate fountain just begging for you to ravage if only your stomach wasn’t besieged by butterflies. Yoongi glances at you, his own hands too full to get any desserts, but he still pauses as if he’s waiting for you. When you make it apparent you aren’t interested in the mouthwatering cakes and pastries (a big fat lie, but you also don’t want to vomit in front of him and your hundreds of schoolmates), he raises a brow as though he’s surprised.

“What? I’m not that much of a sweet tooth,” you scoff.

“This is coming from the girl who broke into her little brother’s piggy bank to buy some ice cream from a passing street vendor?” he teases.

“That’s the old me. Now, I make enough money to buy my own sweets,” you say smugly.

He rolls his eyes. “Whatever you say.” If you didn’t know any better, you might have thought he looked endeared.

The pair of you search for Hoseok and Seokjin, only to find that the couple had somehow found a table for all of you somewhere near the back. With one last longing glance at the wondrous chocolate fountain, you walk away with Yoongi in tow. You have to push through throngs of people, a few old familiar faces stopping to say hello before they notice the precarious situation on Yoongi’s plate and let you through. You wave at them, promising to greet them later before turning to Yoongi.

“Isn’t it kind of weird to see all these people again? Not gonna lie, it’s almost hard to recognize a few of them.” You note some of the crazy hair colors and drastic fashion choices that you never thought you’d see a decade ago. An even stranger sight, however, is the occasional schoolmates with little ones attached to their hips. You recognize one of the new parents, your mouth dropping in shock.

“Wait, is that Seulgi? And is that her—”

“Her son? Jesus Christ,” Yoongi mutters, equally as bewildered as you. “Damn, I did not expect her of all people to be one of the first to have a kid. I’d always thought it’d be Sooyoung.”

You nod in agreement. You observe the little boy tug roughly at her skirt, his tiny fists making grabbing motions at the cookies on her plate. “Yeah. I always thought I’d have a kid before Seulgi, at least. What a surprise.”

You speak before you think, and it takes longer than it should have for you to realize your mistake. By then, Yoongi’s expression had already morphed into astonishment, his eyes bugging out as he chokes on his spit.

Your cheeks are burning, your mouth opening and closing as pure panic seizes you. You cannot believe that you just said that! No fucking way! Did you eat lube this morning or something? Why are words just spilling out of your mouth at an unprecedented rate?! You’re begging your brain to come up with something, anything, to control the damage, but alas your thoughts remain resolutely frozen.

If aliens were to choose to study the human race right now, they’d be sorely disappointed to find the lack of intelligent lifeforms. No complex thoughts going on over here! Not one goddamn neuron firing in this bitch!

“O-oh, well, that’s…” he trails off. He clears his throat, his jaw clenched as he awkwardly tries to feign composure. “I didn’t know you were, um, interested? Well, n-not that I think you were averse to the idea of having kids, since I remember you mentioning it when we were, um,” he pauses, struggling to find a word other than dating, or together, or in love, or not painstakingly careful around each other, like every conversation topic was a fucking minefield.

“Younger?” you supply. A safe, neutral word. Yay for you! You deserve a snack from your animal care keeper right about now.

“Right,” he nods. He looks down at his shoes, revealing his flushed neck. He’s frustratingly adorable like this, but it does nothing except distract you. “Were you, um, planning on having a kid with your ex-boyfriend? Before you broke up?”

Ex-boyfriend? Why is he bringing him up all of a sudden? You stare at him in confusion for half a second before realization strikes you. Thankfully (or unthankfully), it seems that Yoongi misunderstands the implication behind your words and has taken your little slip-up the wrong way. For once, you are so thankful that Yoongi almost failed Math during the 10th grade and never learned to put two and two together.

“Definitely not,” you bark out a laugh, but it sounds incredibly forced, even to your own ears. You stare at the plate of food in your hands, a wave of unpleasant memories washing over you. “I doubt he’d ever want kids, anyway. Seokjin used to make fun of him and call him the world’s biggest toddler.”

Yoongi winces, his brow furrowing. “How long were you together?”

“Like, two years?” You shrug. “It felt longer, to be honest. Even if we dated for so long, I could never imagine myself having a family with him,” you say.

It was almost the truth, but not quite. While your ex-boyfriend had undoubtedly been a pain in your ass, he wasn’t completely bad, especially in the beginning. You had enough self-respect that you would have ended the relationship earlier if he didn’t have any redeeming qualities. The main problem was that he had a tough act to follow, and you don’t think any man on earth would be able to live up to your lofty expectations at this point, not when you’d constantly be comparing everyone to—

Yoongi speaks up again. “Seokjin seems to really dislike him. Was he really that bad?”

“Seokjin has never really liked any of my past flings,” you admit, rolling your eyes. (You fail to mention that Yoongi has always been the only exception.) “Despite his own disgustingly high body count, I can’t say he was wrong. Sungjae was a self-centered prick who never gave me the time of day. Hell, I was almost thankful when I caught him cheating. It was the final push I needed.”

Even though it’s been so long, the pain of seeing your ex-boyfriend locking lips with a stranger he had randomly picked up from the street still throbs inside of you. It wasn’t like you were particularly sad or surprised to find out, but you’d always been a bit sensitive to people who kept secrets from you. Plus, it kinda sucked to know that they had fucked on your favorite Egyptian cotton sheets.

“Fucking bastard. If I ever saw him in person, I’d definitely kick his nuts ‘til he’s left with a concave crotch,” he seethes, eyes narrowing.

You laugh. You have to confess that the mental image is satisfying. “You don’t even know what he looks like though!”

“Doesn’t matter. I’m sure Seokjin would tell me if I asked,” he huffs. He mutters something else after, but his volume drops to a whisper and you have to step closer to properly hear him.

“What? Sorry, I missed that,” you say, but you could have sworn he said something like “I wouldn’t have done that if it were me” but you couldn’t be completely sure.

“N-nothing,” he stutters, waving off your confusion. He tacks on a smile, but you can tell that he must have been embarrassed by whatever he’d said. If it was anything like what you thought he’d said, then you could understand. It wasn’t like he was wrong, anyway.

He makes a move to rub the back of his neck, but he greatly underestimates the weight of his platter and nearly drops everything. Something deep inside of you kicks in, and your body instinctively moves to hold his plate with your free hand, saving him from a very messy situation. However, that also means that your hands are now touching each other, your fingertips grazing his knuckles.

Instead of letting him go like a normal person, your ape brain makes the first move (as per usual).

“Your hands are still cold,” you say dumbly. You had wanted to say more, like “your hands are still as cold as they were from when we were younger,” but bringing up your past together, even for something so harmless, still feels taboo. You keep your hands where they are, your eyes locked on his. It feels like you’re in the middle of a dramatic TV show while I Will Go To You by Ailee plays in the background. You can almost imagine the numerous ads for random Korean cosmetic products framing the two of you in slow motion.

Yoongi chuckles, reluctantly pulling away from you. You already miss the sensation of his skin on yours. “I guess some things never change, huh?” he says, wavering slightly. He stares at you for another moment before shaking his head, as though he’s pushing away some unwelcome thoughts. He turns away, leaving you behind to make his way to your table.

Despite the unbidden emotions bubbling up your throat and threatening to spill over, you have no choice but to follow.

At the table, Seokjin and Hoseok speak mutely with each other, though the exaggerated expressions on both their faces tell you that they had been in the middle of an argument. When Yoongi takes his place beside Hoseok, the couple pauses in their bickering to greet you.

Hoseok looks at Yoongi’s overflowing plate. “Dude. I know I teased you about being a skinny twig a while ago, but I wasn’t implying that you gorge yourself.”

Yoongi jolts in surprise before staring back at his plate. Weirdly enough, he looks just as shocked as Hoseok to find the amount of food he had gotten, as though he hadn’t even noticed.

Perhaps he was just as distracted as you had been? you think, staring at your own meager pickings. Oops, you definitely didn’t get enough food to fill your ravenous appetite.

“That’s fine. I can share with you guys,” Yoongi says.

Seokjin peers at your plate, smirking knowingly. “Oh, yes. I’m sure Y/N would love to get some of your food. It seems like the two of you either over or underestimated how much you’d eat.”

“Aww, cute!” Hoseok coos, pinching Yoongi’s cheek. “You still have the habit of getting food for her. That’s so sweet that you still remember that about her!”

You had been in the middle of taking a swig of your water, but Hoseok’s comment nearly causes it to spew out from your nose. You cough harshly, beating your chest as your nose burns, among other things.

“Hoseok!” Yoongi scolds. He hits his friend on the shoulder, but Hoseok’s giggles refuse to stop.

“Oh shit, you’re totally right! Remember all those times when either one of us was forced to third-wheel with them?” Seokjin guffaws. “Y/N always orders something gross whenever we eat out together, and Yoongi ends up having to share half of his food with her when she starts moping.”

“I did not mope!” you retort vehemently.

“You kind of did,” Yoongi mutters under his breath, but you catch him this time.

You cross your arms, scowling. “Did not!”

Yoongi covers his mouth to fake a cough, but you can tell he’s smiling from how his eyes start to crinkle.

“You guys are so cute,” Hoseok sighs, squeezing Yoongi into a hug. Yoongi paws at him weakly, but you know that he enjoys skinship too much to push his friend away. Still, he pouts cutely, his cheeks puffing up like a pastry.

“Anyway, why were you guys arguing a while ago?” Yoongi asks, changing the subject. “Seokjin-hyung is kinda red in the face.”

“Oh, we weren’t really arguing. Hyung had gotten some wine from the bar but he forgot to get me some,” Hoseok says. He glares sharply at Seokjin. “Bastard.”

“You just said we weren’t fighting!” Seokjin whines. He stands up, raising his arms in surrender. “But fine! I’ll go get your damn wine,” he sulks, groaning when he stretches his back and a few worrisome pops resound from his joints.

“Damn, hyung. I know I told you that I hope you grow up well when we were kids, but I didn’t think you’d take it that literally,” Yoongi jokes, earning a sharp laugh from you. Yoongi glances at you then, visibly proud when he catches the wide grin on your face.

Seokjin gasps, offended. “I am not old! I’m literally a year older than you guys! And here I was, about to get you both drinks as well! It sucks to be the nice one in a friend group,” he sniffs.

“Yes, we are eternally grateful for your service,” Hoseok says sarcastically. “Oh, and remember to get some drinks for Y/N and Yoongi-chi too!” Hoseok adds, slamming his palm on Seokjin’s sore back.

Seokjin yelps, before biting his lip. “Owwie, that hurt,” he moans, winking salaciously.

As the closest person to him, you make it your right to jam your heeled foot onto his gelatinous and push away with a shout of disgust. “Leave, wench!” you snarl, but you’re unfortunately drowned out by his cackling. Even so, he does make his leave, affording your table some level of peace.

“So,” Hoseok starts, a twinkle of mischief in his eye. He cradles his chin with his hands, smiling innocuously at the two of you. “How’s it goin’? Are you both having fun?” he says, laced with meaning.

Ah, you had forgotten; peace was never an option.

Though he is undoubtedly less annoying than Seokjin, you still don’t trust the way he’s staring at you, like he’s waiting for one of you to jump into the other’s lap and recreate his favorite porn scene.

(A terrible thought to have, especially when you’d probably be as begrudging as you should be if you were swayed sufficiently.)

“It’s going fine, thank you very much,” Yoongi responds, giving his best friend a stern look.

You nod wordlessly, unable to trust yourself to keep from stammering and making your frayed nerves apparent (if they aren’t already.) You grab your glass and busy yourself with your drink to delay answering.

You don’t notice that you had taken Yoongi’s cup by accident until you’ve already gulped a third of his water, dropping it with a loud clunk. “Oh shit, sorry! I didn’t mean to drink from yours,” you say sheepishly.

Yoongi smiles at your concern. “No worries. It’s just a cup.”

“Sharing cups too? Damn, what happened while Seokjin and I were away?” Hoseok laughs. Yoongi flicks him lightly on the wrist in retaliation.

“It’s just a cup,” he repeats before turning to you. “Sorry, I think he’s a bit drunk.”

“Haven’t had a single drop of alcohol but whatever,” Hoseok says, shoveling a large piece of tuna belly into his mouth.

The sight of him eating reminds you of your own hunger, your food slightly colder now after talking to Yoongi and your friends for so long. You take a spoonful of chicken, the taste not terrible but not as good as you would like. Your face must give your disappointment away because you hear Yoongi chuckling beside you.

“Bad food again? Guess you really are the same,” Yoongi says, low enough that Hoseok wouldn’t hear. He pushes his plate towards you, carefully nudging some of his bulgogi onto yours. “This tastes kind of sweet, so I’m not really into it. But you prefer it sweeter right?”

All you can do is nod in agreement, watching as he piles your plate with his food. His sleeves, which had already been stained previously by some stray bits of kimchi, become even more saturated with sauces and oils. Now that you see it up close, his sleeves seem a bit too long for him, his palms half covered like sweater paws.

Without thinking too hard, you place your hands over Yoongi’s wrists, his entire body freezing as he waits for what you will do. Gently, as though you’re approaching a frightened kitten, you fold his sleeves until they’re no longer dangling into his food. The gesture is more intimate than you had intended, his proximity allowing you to smell the familiar fragrance of his cologne.

Paco Rabanne, your mind reminds you. Of course.

You pull away, trying your best to appear as unfazed as possible. You clench your hands and dig your nails into your skin to keep them from trembling. “If I’m the same, you’re no better. You always used to forget to pull back your sleeves before eating.”

After a beat, Yoongi returns from his stupor, licking his lips. “My hands were cold,” he explains.

“I know.” You lick your lips too, suddenly parched despite all the water you have drunk.

A forgotten treasure trove of memories resurrects inside of you, things that you had thought had been buried too deep for you to find again. You are filled with this odd feeling, an awareness. An old wound has resurfaced, one that you thought had healed long ago.

That wound throbs, still.

It’s so strange, being with him like this. A piece of your past that has come to your present, both the same and different as you remember. He knows parts of you that no one else will, as do you with him. But those parts were only ever supposed to stay buried: memories, after all, aren’t supposed to be tangible.

And yet, here he stands: real, alive, close.

It leaves you feeling emptier than before.

The atmosphere grows somber after that, neither of you offering much to the conversation. Hoseok is more than happy to pick up the slack, filling the stark silence along with the occasional hums from Yoongi. When Seokjin returns, he makes no note of the change in mood and focuses more on eating and talking with his partner. It allows the two of you to remain deep in thought.

You are pushing your remaining bits of food around your plate when the soft instrumental music playing on the overhead speaker stops abruptly, and the sound of a microphone being tapped prompts everyone to turn to the front of the ballroom. The host of the event announces that the next part of the reunion will begin shortly and encourages all the performers to head to the sound booth to prepare. A couple of your schoolmates rise from their seats, most of whom were the students you remembered being part of choir or band.

You half-expect Yoongi to stand up as well, but he stays rooted to the spot. Apparently, Hoseok is wondering the same thing.

“Yoongi? Didn’t you say that the organizers asked you to perform some of your songs?” Hoseok questions.

“They did.”

“But?”

Yoongi brings his fingers to his teeth, biting on them anxiously. Your hand makes a move to pull them away, but you think better of it. No need to supply your friends with more teasing ammunition. “But I changed my mind last minute. I felt kind of embarrassed to be performing my own songs. I’m more of a producer, not a performer.”

“There’s nothing to be embarrassed about, Yoongi. You’re poggers, as the kids like to say,” Seokjin pipes up.

“I wouldn’t put it like that, but he’s right. A lot of people like your music and think you’re a great performer,” you assure him. “And I like your music, too,” you add shyly.

Yoongi’s hand drops from his mouth, eyes glittering with disbelief. He looks like he wants to disagree with you, but eventually decides to just smile in gratitude. “I didn’t know you listened to my music,” he says quietly.

Before you can reply, Seokjin chooses to interrupt with his migraine-inducing cackle and ruin the moment (as he is prone to do.) “Oh bitch! If you only knew how much this girl loves your music. She even buys your physical CDs AND collects your photocards.”

“I do not!” You scream, flinging a piece of bread at his head. You refuse to peek at Yoongi.

“Don’t worry, Y/N! I collect his photocards too. Wanna trade sometime? I’m missing the one when he still had mint hair,” Hoseok giggles.

“Will the two of you stop? God, it’s like you both had been planning to embarrass us as much as possible,” Yoongi exclaims, incensed.

When neither of them responds, you and Yoongi whip your heads towards them only to find two self-satisfied, smirking shitheads.

“Why watch reality shows when you can make your own?” Seokjin says in lieu of an answer, pointing finger guns. He blows you a kiss with a wink.

You clutch your chest, pretending to wince in pain. “Augh! Poison damage!”

Seokjin scoffs. “Swagever, man. You’re just mad because you’re angry,” he retorts, sticking out his tongue.

While you were occupied bickering with Seokjin, you had not seen that one of your old schoolmates had invited herself to your table. She sandwiches herself in the space between you and Yoongi, bumping you roughly enough to topple you out of your chair.

“What the fuck?” you yelp in surprise, holding onto the table to balance yourself. After straightening back into your seat, you find that your view of the world has become obscured by asscheeks the size of beachballs.

“Hi Yoongi,” she purrs seductively. Or at least, what she thinks is seductive. To you, her voice sounds like nails grating on a chalkboard.

“Hello?” Yoongi says, but it comes out sounding more like a question. It’s clear that he doesn’t remember her name, as he searches your eyes for help. You shrug unhelpfully; you deleted almost all the names of everyone that you had gone to school with right after graduation. Besides, her horrendous plastic surgery makes it even twice as hard to discern her identity.

“Hi Hyejin,” Hoseok speaks up, answering your unspoken question. Oh, right. The name does ring a bell, somewhat. You don’t recall her looking like a cartoon character before, but you suppose beauty standards are meant to be subjective. Maybe she wanted to look like a One Piece character.

Hyejin purses her lips into a tight smile but doesn’t return his greeting. She turns back to Yoongi, bending forward until her boobs are practically smooshed against his face. You wonder idly if stabbing her chest with your chopsticks would cause them to burst like a balloon, or perhaps drain like a puss-filled pimple. Both, you surmise, would be very entertaining to watch.

“It’s been a while since we’ve last seen each other, hm? I heard you’ve been very busy ever since we graduated from high school,” she says, batting her eyelashes.

“Uh, yeah? Some of us have jobs,” he says, passively dissing her. You let out a strangled laugh, causing Hyejin to aim a glare back at you. You bring your (his) cup of water to your lips, feigning innocence.

Hyejin rolls her eyes. “Right. But I meant that you’ve become a real star back in Seoul! I didn’t know you were such a musical prodigy!”

“I’m really not. I just work hard,” he shrugs. He’s visibly uncomfortable, especially since Hyejin was pretty much breathing the same air as him. Every time he leans away from her, she takes it as an invitation to come closer. He is nearly lying horizontally at this point, his back parallel with the floor.

“Humble as well as handsome? My, my. I didn’t think you’d be such a charmer,” she laughs, saccharine sweet. She twirls her dyed brown hair with her perfectly manicured acrylic nails. You rub at the goosebumps forming on your arms, cringing at the phantom sensation of her nails digging into your skin.

“Just spit it out. What the hell do you want so you can leave,” Seokjin interjects. Everything about his demeanor says calm and collected, but the way he presses his lips into a thin line says otherwise. You can sense the air dropping in temperature, despite the embers burning behind his eyes.

“I came over here to ask if Yoongi could give me his autograph, that’s all. I am his biggest fan, after all,” she sulks. She winks at him for extra measure. “And maybe his number too? I’d love to discuss your music with you sometime!”

“Oh, um. That’s—” he cuts off, hesitant to answer. He tugs at his ears nervously, exchanging subtly alarmed glances with you.

You remember that signal very distinctly; it’s a distress call that he would do whenever he needed a way out. He used to do it a lot when you were at social gatherings, especially when people would trap him in boring or awkward conversations. He never did like socializing with people outside his circle, but he was often dragged to parties by his more extroverted friends.

He might be hot as hell with his stylish clothes and jaw-dropping undercut, but he’s still awkward as hell around strangers. When the universe created him, they made sure to keep everything in balance. If they hadn’t been fair, you certainly would’ve died much earlier.

“Yoongi, don’t you have spare CDs of your music?” you quip, dragging Hyejin’s attention onto you. Her eyes narrow imperceptibly, suspicious.

“I do?” He stares at you blankly.

You resist hitting your forehead in exasperation. “Yes, Yoongi. Remember? You left a couple of them in my car.”

Yoongi’s eyes light up in understanding. “Oh, right! I left my CDs. In your car. That we drove here. Together. We came here. Together. Yes, correct.”

From your periphery, you can sense Hoseok barely holding onto his sanity after witnessing that pitiful display. Who can blame him when Yoongi’s infamously terrible acting skills are having their first appearance in over ten years? How he managed to pass Drama class is still a mystery to this day.

“Yup,” you say, popping your p. You give Hyejin a winsome smile, your hands folded neatly on your lap. You can almost see the steam blowing out of her ears. It fills you with delicious satisfaction. “Why don’t Yoongi and I go get them so he can sign one?”

If her eyes had been made of lasers, you’d be a cauterized mess jumble of organs by now. Can’t say you would regret it either way.

“How kind of you.” She sneers. “Also, I wasn’t aware that you two were still a thing.”

“I wasn’t aware that we were required to inform you of anything,” you retort placidly. You plaster on your fakest grin. “Now, if you can please move your fat ass—I mean, if you can please move out of the way so I can go to my car...” you trail off, gesturing for her to leave.

After a few more indignant sputters on her end, she eventually makes her exit. She throws a couple of poisonous glares, but they go largely ignored by you and your friends. With her gone, you feel as though you can finally breathe fresh air again.

“Great stuff, Y/N! Congrats on winning your first bitch-off,” Seokjin chirps, back to his usual self. You roll your eyes at his antics but smile nonetheless.

“Thanks. I learned from the best.”

Yoongi clears his throat. “So, are we still gonna go?” He looks back and forth from her to you. “Just so we can pretend you actually have my albums in your car?”

“Trust me, Yoongi-chi. She does have your albums in her car.” Seokjin titters. “I wasn’t kidding about the photocard collection.”

“Ignore him. And yes, I do have your albums. I listen to them in my car from time to time,” you say, attempting nonchalance. “I’d hate to give them away to that bitch, but if it keeps her away...”

Away from you is left unsaid, but it’s heavily implied.

(No, you aren’t jealous. You’re above jealousy. It’s not like that bitch would ever have a chance with him anyway, unlike you—!

Woah there, cowgirl. Let’s stay on the right path. Don’t want your heart getting chewed up and spat back out all over again, do you?)

“I’ll just mail you a new one. Signed, if you want. You can probably sell it on eBay or whatever.” He tries to say it like a joke, but his brow is too furrowed to be convincing. (You want to kiss him there and make it go away.)

You don’t trust yourself to speak, so all you do is nod mutely. You stand up and Yoongi follows suit.

“We’ll be right back. If she comes back before then, tell her to scram,” you tell Hoseok and Seokjin. They salute you in response (well, Hoseok does. Seokjin does a very rude gesture with his fingers that is supposed to mimic something explicit. Feel free to use your imagination.)

The walk to the parking lot is a quiet one. The two of you stay side by side, his strides naturally matching your own. Unlike before, you don’t feel the need to fill the silence for once, content to just be in each other’s presence.

The hotel that your reunion is being held at is unusually unpopulated. The lobby consists of a handful of employees milling about, a few of whom look ready to fall asleep on their feet. You nod politely at the bellboy who opens the main doors for you, declining his offer to call the valet service to fetch your car.

“Just hand me my keys. I’ll look for my car in the parking lot.” It wouldn’t be hard to find, anyway. Your beat-up Toyota Corolla looks as though it’s been through three wars and then some.

It isn’t long until you find it parked close to the entrance. You unlock your car from the passenger seat, shimmying the glove compartment open to reveal your collection of CDs.

“Wow, you weren’t lying when you said you listened to my music,” Yoongi says, voice loud amidst the tranquil night. It startles you, and you accidentally knock over some of the albums onto your car floor. On top of the pile lies Yoongi’s most recent album, the one you recall he had released a couple of months ago.

Strange, how just hours ago you were listening to his music on the way to the reunion, only for the boy on the cover of the album to be just inches away from you.

“Yeah, well. You’re a pretty good artist,” you say.

“Only pretty good?” he repeats, amused.

“Don’t push it,” you snort. You grab the album on top, waving it in front of him. “This should be good enough, right?”

He plucks it from your grasp, an unreadable expression clouding his eyes. He chuckles, but there’s an edge of sadness in his tone. “Good enough,” he agrees solemnly.

His sudden quietness is different from the peaceful one before. It’s sorrowful, maybe regretful. He looks like a man stuck in grief.

“Did you know that I didn’t finish this album before releasing it?”

The question seems a little out of the blue, but you answer regardless. “No, I didn’t. They don’t sound unfinished to me.”

“The songs themselves aren’t unfinished,” he explains. He turns the album over, his finger running down the back where the tracklist is printed. “One of my songs never made it in.”

“Couldn’t you have delayed the album launch so you could complete it?”

He shakes his head. “It was actually the first song I finished out of all of them.”

“Then..?”

“It didn’t matter, at the time. I wrote it for someone specifically, but I didn’t want to put it on the album if she—they didn’t listen to it. It wouldn’t matter if the whole world heard that song because only they would understand it.”

“But now? What changed?” Fear and hope run down your spine in tandem when the question tumbles out of you. You hold your breath, and the world shifts from its axis.

But he doesn’t elaborate further.

x x x x x

You return to the hotel after acquiring both an album and some more tension. The album feels heavy in your hands, weighed down by secrets you are still too afraid to uncover. Not that Yoongi would ever willingly divulge them to you—because revealing them would make them real, and making them real would mean you would have to accept them, and accepting them would cause you to—

“They’re gone,” Yoongi announces when you reenter the ballroom. You can’t spot your table from the entranceway, but the certainty in Yoongi’s tone makes you believe him.

“No fucking way. Did those two little shits ditch us to exchange body fluids or something?”

Yoongi grimaces. “Please don’t say it like that. It’s bad enough that I was sitting close enough to Hoseok a while ago that I got accidentally footsie’d by Seokjin hyung.”

You wince, placing a pitying hand on his shoulder. “God didn’t make us his strongest soldiers.”

Yoongi tries dialing Hoseok a few times, but none of the calls connect. “Just my rotten luck,” he groans. He types angrily into his phone, worry creasing his forehead. “He was supposed to be my ride back to his place.”

“Seokjin isn’t answering his phone either,” you say apologetically. “How much do you wanna bet this is part of their evil scheme to leave us together?”

“I don’t doubt it in the slightest,” he deadpans. He sighs tiredly, rubbing his temples. “I suppose I can take a taxi there, but I also don’t know if he’ll be home to open the door for me.”

“Then why don’t you just stay with me?”

You don’t know what you’re doing.

In your head, the offer makes sense. He’s just a friend, you remind yourself. Nothing is stopping you from rekindling a friendship with him. You have purely platonic intentions. Friends help each other out.

Never mind the fact that your heart hasn’t stopped fluttering the entire night. Never mind the fact that you’ve caught yourself staring at him just as many times as you’ve caught him staring at you. Never mind the fact that you don’t want the night to end, not now not ever.

(Never mind the fact that you’ve never quite stopped loving him.)

So when he accepts, you convince yourself that offering had been the right thing to do.

(Maybe. Hopefully. You just wish your heart doesn’t end up as collateral damage.)

The drive home is short, thanks to the late hour. You had asked him if he had wanted to stay until the end of the reunion, but he had declined. “Nothing else left for me there,” he says.

You feel as though he’s hinting at something. Your grip on the steering wheel tightens. “At least I get to keep my album.”

Yoongi laughs, short and sweet.

As much as you try to fight it, sitting in the car with him brings up a lot of memories.

The two of you in the backseat as his older brother drives you to his house for dinner, backpacks filled with crumpled notes and loose pens, a promise of an intense study session for your upcoming exams ready to be broken. You remember how the sky would turn orange in the afternoon, the warm light streaming through the car window and washing Yoongi’s skin with a soft glow.

His cheeks had looked inviting, his lips even more. And you would lean over, kissing him like it was easy. Because it was easy, and you never had to think twice about it.

Your trip down memory lane doesn’t end in the car. As you walk up the steps to your childhood home, you hesitate by the door, your keys frozen over the lock. You can hear Yoongi’s soft breathing behind you, but his presence doesn’t feel as stifling as you thought it would be.

You’re far from being at ease, but you aren’t frightened either. Mostly, you’re just filled with anticipation. Of what? You aren’t sure.

“Excuse the mess. Jungkook is in the middle of moving out so there’s just stuff everywhere,” you say just as you open the door. You toe off your shoes by the entrance, kicking them off haphazardly into the pile of sneakers and boots.

You hear Yoongi huff out a laugh behind you. “Aish, that kid. Still hasn’t let go of his Timbs, huh?”

“He has also been really into chunky sneakers these days. I think he’s finalizing his transformation into Thumper,” you joke. “He’s staying at his new apartment for the weekend with my parents, so you won’t be seeing them. They’re helping him settle in.”

“Really? He didn’t mention moving when we spoke. Where is he moving to?”

“Busan. He and his best friend from college are going to start a restaurant in his hometown. Which is funny, since neither of them are the best chefs.”

Yoongi whistles. “Still, that’s impressive. I can’t remove the image from my head of when he was a kid. He was so scared of anything. He wouldn’t let go of your mom’s leg even if his life depended on it.”

He steps deeper into the house, his gaze jumping from end to end as he surveys your childhood home. You watch him, noting how right he looks standing there in the middle of your living room, like a chipped painting that has been restored.

It’s scary, how easily you’ve accepted him back into this place.

He stays rooted to the spot, the moonlight filtering through the kitchen windows and illuminating his frame. The air pulses with something magical, something dream-like, and it muddles your vision. It’s the only explanation you have for why your chest tightens when he turns to face you, with a gaze filled with sadness, mourning, yearning.

“Jungkook’s height chart is still here,” he murmurs. The small nicks on the kitchen door frame are hard to see, and other people have mistaken them for signs of wear and tear. But he knows what they are because he was there when your mother had etched the first scratch.

He looks at your ancient dining table, his hand brushing over the surface. “This too,” he says, rubbing at a large burn mark on the wood.

“Mom made sure to use placemats after that. I didn’t think a sizzling plate would burn through the table like that,” you say, giggling as you reminisce. “You know, we still use your mom’s galbi jjim recipe. We haven’t found a better one.”

“I’m sure she would love to hear that,” Yoongi smiles, but it fades just as quickly. “It’s so… strange. Being here again and seeing that nothing really changed.”

But things did change. Upstairs, in your bedroom. That night, ten years ago.

You still remember what you had said to him, when you had said it to him, how you had said it to him.

It was a sunny afternoon, the time of day when you’d be on your way home from school. The two of you had stood in your room, neither of you wanting to sit because sitting meant staying, and staying only made this harder.

There hadn’t been many tears in that moment; those were shed only after the realization had sunk in, when you’d fully understood what had happened. At the time, the decision had been as easy as breathing.

Except you had both been drowning. The clock was ticking down to the end of high school, and the inevitable wasn’t slowing down.

Yoongi wanted to chase his dreams in Seoul. You wanted to stay closer to home, with your friends and family.

You weren’t going to be the one to hold him down. You weren’t going to be that person, not when he’s destined for greater things than his hometown could offer—not even a girl who loved him would be worth staying for.

He had suggested it, first. He had been prepared for you to cry, or maybe scream, but you did none of that. Instead, you pulled him close, hugging him tighter than you ever had before. You wanted to make it last, imprint the sensation onto your brain so that his warmth might stay with you, even after he’s little more than a distant memory. You trembled, terribly so, even though the beginnings of summer crept on your skin like a brand.

It’s time to let him go, Time whispered. You refused to listen, just for another moment.

Let me have this last moment, you beg. But Time refused to listen.

“Do you know?” Yoongi had spoken into your neck, had hoped his words would stain there. “Do you know how much I love you?”

Love, not loved. “I did,” you say. You think better of it. “I do.”

When you separated, for good this time, it had left an ache deeper than you could have ever imagined.

But you were young. Young love was supposed to hurt, but it wasn’t supposed to last. “You’ll find others,” your mother had said, brushing a soothing hand through your hair as you sobbed.

Then why? Then why has it lasted this long?

It has been a question you’ve asked yourself, and you’re starting to think that the answer has always been right in front of you.

The answer is standing in front of you: real, alive, close.

“Why didn’t you ever date again?” you ask. You ask even though you know he can lie, if he wants. He can tell you anything and you would believe him.

But he wouldn’t; you know he wouldn’t.

“I was afraid of closing a door that I never meant to close in the first place,” he says. His voice crackles like static, but that might be the blood rushing to your head. He moves toward you but keeps a hand’s width away. Still too far.

He continues. “After that day, when I left,” he swallows, “after I left, I think… I think I left a piece of me with you. A-and I don’t think I ever stopped…” he cuts off, exhaling shakily.

“Stopped what?” you breathe.

“You know.” He waves his hands around helplessly. They fall heavily back down to his sides, defeated. “You know?” he repeats.

You do. Because you are the same. The old wound had never healed; it burns and it bleeds like new.

Your skull feels like it’s stuffed with cotton when you close the distance between the two of you. He circles his arms around your waist, tentative, but he relaxes when you wind your arms around his neck. Your vision is warped, so you choose to close them. You wait, with bated breath, as his warmth inched closer and closer.

The sensation of his lips on yours jolts you back to your senses. His kiss reminds you of your youth, of a love that had made you excited to start your day. Even now, your body remembers, and it rejoices.

The tenderness does not last long before it turns fervent, tongue and teeth crashing like waves against the shore. If his kisses could speak, they would tell you stories of how much he missed you, of how much he mourned the time you had both lost. They would tell you of the days when he’d almost pressed your number onto his phone, of the nights when he’d stare at the polaroids he had kept of you.

They would ask if you still love him like he still loves you.

He tastes of desperation, and you are likely to be the same. It is a desperation you haven’t tasted in years—but it doesn’t feel scary like it used to. Time no longer feels like it’s racing against you, like you had something to prove before the hour was over. This reckless abandon feels like home against your skin—it is an ache being soothed after having ripped your scabs over and over again.

It’s Yoongi.

And when he pulls you to your room, he doesn’t even need his eyes to find his way as his feet still memorize the floorboards. He struggles with the doorknob, forgetting that it always jammed, but it’s okay because you can always teach him again. You can teach him everything again.

The bed creaks under your weights and even the mattress sounds like it is sighing in relief. That sigh echoes from your lips when his hand slips under your clothes, his palm stopping over your heart.

“I won’t break it, this time,” he says. He promises. “If you let me.”

You wonder if he can feel your heart soaring, pounding against your ribs. “I think the line has long been crossed to ask for my permission.” You place your hand over where his is laid. You squeeze tight.

This time, you don’t let him go.

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darkficsyouneveraskedfor · 3 years

Text

Sugar, Sugar 15

[FIFTEEN/END]

MASTERLIST

Warnings: non-consent sex and rape, violence, mean sugary Steve

This is a dark! sugar daddy! Steve fic. Obvious AU so please keep that in mind. :) That being said, it will be an explicit fic (18+) with noncon. Your media consumption is your own responsibility. Warnings have been given. DO NOT PROCEED if these matters upset you.

(This chapter: violence, threats, fear :O)

Series Summary: The reader is struggling in the big city but find opportunity before her. Will she take it?

This Chapter: The wedding day approaches but not everything goes to plan.

Author Notes: So this is another series wrapped up after a grueling two years, haha. Sorry y’all.

Please let me know what you think, like and reblog <3 love ya

🍭 🍭 🍭

The floor length mirror was trimmed with twisted gold. You stared at your reflection as your shaky hands pressed against the front of the ivory dress. The cut hid the small bump but you could not forget it. Ever since you confessed, it all happened so fast; the wedding was pushed up, the dress tailored and expedited, and invitations sent out in a rush.

It all felt surreal. The day had come but you just couldn’t accept it. How could you go through those doors and smile through it all?

You closed your eyes and let your breath out. They would knock when it was your time. Your father would be waiting to walk you down the aisle. The guests waited eagerly for the most talked about ceremony in the city. And you still felt like just a footnote in your own wedding.

You moved away from the mirror and sat unsteadily, gripping the arms of the cushioned chair, careful not to catch your veil under you. That night you told him, that was the final straw. But you didn’t forget what Sasha said. You took a picture of the broken door and wrote down the entire scene. You sent it to yourself in an email as proof.

That wasn’t the last time. You recorded Steve one day when he came in as you were texting your sister about the new date. You hadn’t answered his last message about your first appointment with the doctor. He was livid and you sat and listened to him rant as the red dots pulsed. You wrote down every instance, every time he made you appease him, every terrifying word.

Then there were the police reports. Nothing more than words in a filing cabinet but the night he choked you was just the beginning. He threatened to break your finger when you took your ring off because your hands were swelling. Then he broke your laptop when you didn’t pay him enough attention.

As the wedding loomed closer, he only seemed to get worse. He was clingy, always touching you, marveling over your stomach. He checked in almost every hour on the hour when he was working, and you weren’t stupid enough not to notice that the building was being watched.

It was like you were living two lives and yet you were entirely trapped with him. What good could the emails do? Or the reports when the police wouldn’t act on them? You were going to marry this man and that would be the end of it; of you, of your life.

Knuckles tapped on the door and you stood. You crossed the room and inched it open the door. You flinched as you were met by an unexpected and uninvited guest.

“Sasha?” you gasped.

“You’re marrying him then?” he held the handle but you didn’t try to close the door, “the account gone, I heard nothing from you.”

“I… I’m scared,” you admitted, “when he found out, I thought he was going to--” you shook your head. He wouldn’t actually kill you.

“You know it’s not too late,” Sasha urged.

“You can’t be here, it he finds out, he’ll--”

“I’ll defend myself,” Sasha snarled uncharacteristically, “I’ll give him what he deserves.’

“No, I don’t want you to get hurt. You need to go,” you begged as you glanced past him furtively.

“I will. Come with me,” he said, “just go. Everyone’s distracted, they won’t know--”

“I can’t just leave. You don’t understand--”

“No, you don’t understand,” he argued, “if you marry him, it all gets so much more complicated. I told you that day at the café. It will be harder to fight after the vows, but right now, you can still get out.”

“And go where?”

He swallowed and looked down the hall. You could hear the distant murmur of the crowd.

“Did you do any of it? Keep a journal? Something?” he asked.

“I tried. I went to the police but nothing,” you sniffed and gripped the door tight.

“Nothing yet but that’s a start,” he chewed the inside of his lip.

“Why are you here? Why is this so important to you?”

“Because I can do something,” he hissed, “because I can’t live with it if I don’t. So come on. Come with me, I got a bigger place. It’ll have to do for now and then we’ll work on getting you standing, getting the baby somewhere to grow--”

“Am I trading him for you?”

“I’m your friend,” he said evenly, “that will never change. All I want is you safe. If it makes you feel better, I’ll sleep in the hall. You can lock me out and I’ll sleep against the door. But I came down here knowing I wouldn’t leave without you.”

“It’s a sweet fantasy but--”

“Come on,” he grabbed your hand and pushed the door open, “please, don’t go with him. It doesn’t end well. You don’t get out. It doesn’t get better.”

“I have nothing,” you quavered.

“You have me,” he said, “please don’t make me walk out of here alone.”

“I….” you uttered as your heart squeezed. “He’ll come after you.”

“Good, I want him to,” he clung to you, “please?”

You inhaled and heard the voices. Your father and your sister. You had no time to think but you knew it was your only chance.

“Let’s go,” you lifted your skirt and pulled the door shut behind you as you stepped out, “now.”

He held onto your hand as you rushed away from the voices and skirted around the corner. Sasha urged you on down the back stairs and through the maze like halls of the extravagant church. You nearly tumbled down the stairs and he caught you as you came along the narrow passage beside the main room, the guests and groom just on the other side of the wall.

You came out into the sunlight and Sasha lifted the train of your skirts as he directed you over the grass. our heels sank into the dirt as you rushed over and the organ began to play Here Comes the Bride. As he helped stuff the swathes of fabric in behind you in his modest car, the music stopped suddenly.

He closed the door as you were squished in the back seat amid your layered skirts and he got in the front. The engine turned and he nearly side swept another car as he pulled out without looking. You peeked back behind you but saw no one coming down the large steps of the church.

He turned the corner and sidled in behind a yellow cab. He looked at you in the mirror and nodded. You bit your lips nervously as reality sank in. Your chest hammered and your entire body buzzed with adrenaline. You knew it was only the beginning.

🍭

The day passed in a daze. You sat in your wedding dress waiting for all hell to break loose. Sasha sat with a beer, silently, and tapped his foot endlessly. When the silence was too much, he turned on the television but neither of you paid any attention to the old sitcom.

When the trance of disbelief dissipated, he showed you around his spacious loft. He was being paid well by Stark but you worried how long he would stay on the payroll after what he’d done. Steve wasn’t stupid and there were more photographers at the church then you’d seen collectively over the last year and a half.

“This is the second bedroom,” he showed you into a room with gleaming windows. There was a bed, a dresser, curtains, a cozy rug, all carefully selected, “I thought you’d be here sooner.”

Your eyes lingered on the box leaned against the far wall. A crib.

“Didn’t know how long…” his voice trailed off as he followed your eye line, “I’m not trying to be him. You can go anytime but I… you have a place here.”

Your eyes welled and you blotted them with your knuckles, the rough lace of your gloves scratching your cheeks, “you did all this for me?”

“I told you, I’d do anything,” he said.

“But… Sasha, I don’t--”

“I don’t expect anything from you. High school was a long time ago but you made it bearable for the biggest dweeb in the class.” He sighed and paced a circle around the room, “you know, I had the biggest crush on you. That doesn’t mean anything now, it doesn’t mean I want you to fall into my arms, but it means I want to help you. It’s the right thing to do, somehow I made a career of doing the right thing so what’s one more?”

You felt your chest sink and you covered your cheeks with your hands, “Sasha?”

“Please,” he cringed, “I was a teen boy, I think I had a thing for Oprah once. Really, it’s just… we’re friends. We’ll always be friends.”

“I can’t…” you sniffled and dropped your hands, “I don’t deserve any of this.”

“He doesn’t deserve you,” Sasha intoned, “and you don’t deserve to live like that. I know this isn’t much but I know you. You’ll find your way, you just got a little lost.”

“I…” you shook your head speechless.

“We’ll figure everything else out tomorrow. You can borrow some of my clothes for tonight and then we can see about retrieving your things from Steve,” he neared the door and stopped beside you, “or we can say fuck it and you can start all over.”

You turned and slung your arms around him. You buried your face against his shoulder as tears spilled out onto his jacket.

“How did you know?” you sobbed.

“That day at the shower,” he rubbed your back gently, “you know, lawyers learn how to read people and you never were very good at subtlety.”

“No,” you chuckled through your tears, “No, it’s why I was great as a bard.”

“Mmm,” he grumbled, “if that’s how you remember it.”

🍭

It felt like Sasha was gone forever but when you checked the clock, it had only been twenty minutes.

You sat on the couch with your feet under you as you watched the news and rocked nervously. All anyone was talking about was Steve Rogers’ runaway bride. Your face was everywhere and the statement issued by Steve made it all the worse.

He painted you as a gold-digger, as an adulterer, as a swindler. He was the heartbroken fiancé and you were the wrongdoer. You knew it would go this way but expectation never softened reality.

You flinched as the lock turned and Sasha entered with a bag in hand. He came to the couch and set it down beside you.

“I don’t know about my taste in women's clothes but those should do,” he said as he checked his watch, “we should go soon.”

“Yeah,” you stood and opened the bag to reveal the lavender blouse and dark jeans, “you really didn’t have to--”

“You kidding, he’s gonna be surrounded by cameras. You can’t win his game if you don’t play it. I’ve dealt with his type before, they’re the ones who need lawyers on standby,” he sneered, “did you eat?”

“Yeah, thanks,” you swiped up the bag and headed for the hallway, “it was good.”

“No problem,” he shrugged as he grabbed the remote and shut off the tv, “and ignore all that nonsense.”

You got dressed and emerged as your anxiety grew to impatience. You left the apartment in brittle silence and the car ride fed the uneasy bubbling of your stomach. .

As you came up to Steve’s building, you sat for a moment before you got out. Sasha followed and shoulder away the cameras as you neared the front door

The elevator moved slowly and fidgeted uncontrollably as it dinged on Steve’s floor. You swallowed and braced yourself to face Steve. Sasha kept a few feet back as you walked down the hall and stopped at the door. You knocked as you found it locked.

It was a while before it opened but when it did, you were startled as Steve grabbed the front of your blouse and wrenched you inside. He spun you but quickly released you as he was knocked off balance and sent sprawling over the floor. Sasha stood above him with his hands in fists.

“Hey,” he pointed at Steve then looked at you, “you okay?”

You nodded as Steve glared between the two of you and cautiously got to his feet, “so you brought your little boyfriend?”

“She’s here to get her stuff. We thought we’d avoid a police escort, as her lawyer I thought it prudent, but we can always make that phone call,” Sasha said sternly, “she is entitled to her possessions.”

“Her stuff? I paid for every single thing she has to her name. Hers? Mine.” Steve spat and reared on you again, only to be caught by Sasha as he inserted himself between you.

“You will not touch her again. Those things you bought for her were gifts. You have no legal rights to them once they are given. She will take her clothes, her phone, and any other necessities.”

“Pfft, she’s not taking anything. She’s not going anywhere,” Steve growled, “she not yours--”

“I am certain the photogs would appreciate a show,” Sasha pulled out his phone, “police? That can only be a domestic dispute.”

Steve squinted and his nose flared as he looked at you over Sasha’s shoulder, “fucking slut.” He crossed his arms and stepped aside, “get your shit, get out…” he hissed, “but I have my rights too. You will not keep me from my baby.”

“That will be settled in court,” Sasha replied coolly, “go on, get your things.”

He waved you past him as he kept you shield from Steve. He was of a height with Steve but not as broad. Even so, you felt safe behind him. You rushed down to the bedroom and quickly gathered up your toiletries and those clothes you didn’t absolutely hate. Your phone screen was shattered but you took it anyway.

As you emerged again, a bag slung on your shoulder, you slid the ring from your finger.

“You can keep the rest,” you said as you placed the band on the small round table just inside the front room, “goodbye Steve.”

“Goodbye? Goodbye?” he spat, “this isn’t the end and you fucking know it.”

“Calm down,” Sasha warned.

“You don’t tell me what to do,” Steve shoved him, “I should fucking smash your head in--”

“I’d like you to try,” Sasha stood his ground, “really. You think the court would let a violent man be around an infant?”

Steve scoffed and rolled his eyes. He backed down and shouldered by Sasha. “Get the fuck out.”

You left quickly. You had no desire to hang around. As you stepped onto the elevator, Sasha softly touched your elbow and you winced. The bag fell to your elbow and he quickly scooped it up and heaved it over his own shoulder.

“You okay?” he asked.

“No, I don’t think so,” you said, “he was so angry. I--”

“I was stupid, we should’ve brought the police. Fuck the cameras,” he said, “from this point on, no contact with him whatsoever. Only through me and the court. No talking to reporters, no nothing.”

“Yeah, that won’t be hard,” you uttered as he led you out of the elevator.

As you came outside, cameras flashed and voices called out. You collided with Sasha as he was blocked by a photographer shouting questions, “is it true you’re pregnant? Is it Steve’s?”

“My client will not be answering questions,” Sasha kept on and made a path for you, “go, she’s not answering any of your questions.”

He elbowed past more cameras and opened the car door for you. You fell inside and quickly huddled down in your seat. As he sat behind the wheel, he mumbled and pulled out into traffic. He gripped the wheel tightly and pushed himself back into the vinyl.

“That asshole,” he said, “he’s gonna want the paternity test. This isn’t gonna be pretty.”

“I can’t… he fucking told them. I mean, I’m not surprised but… god,” you grimaced.

“We’ll get the test done before he makes a formal request,” Sasha said, “it shows transparency and when we hand over those results, we’ll include those police reports too.”

“Police reports?” you blinked.

“Sorry, I… It’s a suggestion,” he said tersely, “but he’s going to make this a trial by media.”

“No, no, I want to,” you said firmly, “I want everyone to know the real Steve Rogers.”

🍭

‘I was just like many struggling in the city. I worked a low-paying job in data entry and lived in an apartment which was little more than a box. The dreams of the big city were passing me by as there was little opportunity to be found.

Then I met Steve Rogers. Like a dream or a Lifetime movie. I was in debt, I was desperate, and he offered me a safety net. I can own my part in the relationship; I was interested and I accepted his generosity. I was all too happy with the arrangement.

That was until I found out that it was all based on a lie. I didn’t know that he had access to my accounts even before I knew him, that he had used his connections to force me into that dire situation. And I could not know the real man behind the billionaire façade.

It was little things at first. Any woman loves to feel wanted but his possessiveness soon turned to control. He kept me isolated from my own family and did not permit me to do anything without his permission. His affection turned to obsession and when it was not reciprocated he forced it from me.

He took me on vacation and did not allow me to wear clothes. He chose what I wore, how I looked, and what I did. He coerced me into acts I was reluctant about, and when he was too rough, he did not listen to my pleas for him to stop.

When I tried to leave him, he followed me and dragged me back. He had me watched by PIs and surveilled all my communications. He used his financial power to control me and when that did not work, he used his physical power.

Steve Rogers abused me. He yelled in my face, he threatened my family, and he choked me.

Steve Rogers raped me. He expected me to bend to his will whenever he desired and when I refused, he held me down and did what he wanted.

Steve Rogers took my whole life and when I chose to leave, he set his eyes on the life inside of me.

The only thing I want from him is freedom. I want to live safely with my child and I want that child to never experience the abuse of their father. I never want anyone to know that horror again which is why I have written this and released the police records. I am not asking for anything but peace for me and my unborn child.’

The statement was carefully edited by Sasha. You reread the font across the glossy pages of Vanity Fair, the article spliced with excerpts not only from the police reports, but your own emailed accounts of your relationship, and the whole thing began with an image of that broken bathroom door.

It was two months since you ran away from the altar but life was not a romcom. It was a disaster. Even with the article, you knew not all would believe you. You knew it would open you to doubt and vitriol. And you knew Steve would have a response.

You closed the magazine and groaned as you rubbed your hips. Freedom didn’t feel so… freeing. There was a long way to go; court dates, doctor’s appointment, and depositions. But it was a start.

You rested your hand on your stomach and pushed on the arm of the couch as you stood stiffly. When you were halfway up, you felt a hand on your elbow and Sasha helped you stand straight. You smiled guiltily. You’d grown a lot in the last few weeks and still had nearly four months to go.

“The reviews are good,” he said, “I know that is kinda grim but… people seem to believe you.”

“Seem to?” you echoed as you went to the kitchen and pulled out the container of sliced strawberries, “or they don’t?”

“Well,” he leaned on the counter as he watched you add too much cream to the berries and smiled, “Stark Industries has cut ties with Shield, Inc. and Tony has made a sizeable donation to several shelters across the city,” he cupped his chin coyly as he leaned on his elbow, “and will be covering legal costs for the support hearings seeing as I can’t legally represent you anymore.”

“Oh,” your mouth fell open before you could spray some cream onto your tongue, “when were you going to tell me this?”

“I’m telling you now,” he crossed his arms as he shifted them further over the island, “I thought I’d give the good news first.”

“And the bad?” you put down the can of cream as you neared the marble across from him.

“I have several requests for interviews and I think you should do at least one,” he said, “I know you hate reporters and all that but… with a little Rogers baby on board, it’s just another part of the process.”

“Oh, and what should I tell them,” you edged around the counter towards him, “that I moved? That I found someone better?” He turned to you, his lips curved as he leaned in and you turned your face up to peck his lips, “or maybe I should tell them I’m single? Keep the intrigue?”

“As long as you tell them I’m handsome, I don’t mind,” he purred as he placed his hand on your side.

“Oh, how could I leave that out?” you cooed and kissed him again, “patient, loving, kind… but what a geek?”

“A geek?” he smirked and framed your chin with his hands, “says the dungeon master.”

You giggled and ran your hands up his chest, “someone’s gotta raise this little bard well.”

“Oh, no, no, she’s not gonna be a bard. Maybe a cleric?”

“No way! That’s lame,” you chirped, “how about… a sorcerer? Ours is a bit lacking.”

“Excuse you,” he quipped, “what was your AC again? Maybe next session I’ll run out of healing spells.”

“See?” you taunted, “geek.”

You drew him to you until he was pressed to your belly and he swept you up in a kiss. You rocked with him as he turned you against the counter and slowly parted.

You squeezed his wrist as you went back around to your strawberries and cream. You took a spoon and scooped up a mouthful as you slid your phone towards you. Sasha stayed as he was, watching you scroll through the emails and piled up texts.

You stopped as one blared in all caps. There was no name, only ‘Private’. You opened the conversation and found a dozen bubbles; ‘THIS ISN’T OVER’, ‘HE CAN’T KEEP YOUR FROM ME’, ‘CUTE, YOU THINK PEOPLE BELIEVE YOUR SHIT.’ Another message blipped up, an image and you dropped your spoon as it opened.

You saw the picture of your sister and her son. You shook as you put your hand down on the counter and choked on the cream.

“What?” Sasha reached over and turned your phone to him, “Shit,” he sighed and blocked the number, “he’s just stacking the evidence against himself.”

“I--” you blinked as tears boiled behind your eyes.

“You don’t need to be afraid,” he screencapped the conversation, “this just makes the case even easier.”

“No, I will always be afraid of him,” you said as you touched your stomach, “it’s not just about me anymore.”

“And it’s not just you anymore,” he took your hand and rubbed the back of it with his thumb, “we’ve been through worse. If we can get through a cave full of orcs, we can defeat Steve Rogers.”

END (or is it?)

#steve rogers #dark steve rogers #dark!steve rogers #steve rogers x reader #fic #dark fic #dark!fic #series #sugar daddy au #au #sugar daddy!steve Rogers #sugar sugar #marvel #mcu #captain america

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bakugotsundere · 3 years

Text

Hating Him - Bakugo Katsuki (3)

Bakugo x (black) fem reader

( still can read if you’re not)

sorry if it bothers you, i just felt that my black readers weren’t feeling black as they were reading y/n stories cause i for sure wasn’t

Warning: Smut, Rough sex, hair pulling, name calling, Nsfw 18+

It had been weeks since you talked to Bakugo. You had been avoiding him ever since that night at Minas house. Practice was quiet, no arguing between you two. There was a time a couple of days ago you argued, only because of him of course. He had to lead the team during practice once and was just being very obnoxious and he tried it with you and you snapped on him, so then it started a argument. Some hurtful things were said, you told him that Shindo had looked better than him and you knew this made his blood boil but he had already called you desperate so you could careless.

“Are you alright?” You heard shindo ask, pulling you out of your thoughts. You placed your feet in his lap, “I’m fine. Thanks for asking.” You said softly. Shindo was a transfer student. Mina had introduced him to the group right before you and bakugo had got into that argument. Shindo was very handsome and was a pretty chill person so you and him got along well. Bakugo hated Shindo for some unknown reason so he never came around anymore, he barely came around before so it didn’t matter. Shindos hands messaged your legs as you watched Denki try to act as something. You were playing a game of charades and you had to guess what denki was trying to be.

Everyone was here except for bakugo and Kirishima. “Hey guys.” You heard a familiar voice say. Speaking of the fucking devil. You turned around to be greeted with a happy kirishima and a angry bakugo. He just had to bring him. Bakugos eyes met yours and he clenched his jaw once he saw your legs on Shindo. You didn’t say a word to each other. Bakugo had on a white t-shirt and a pair of grey sweatpants. You gave kirishima a small smile before turning back around in your seat. The tension between you and Bakugo had to be noticeable. Bakugo sat down on the other couch with Kirishima as they greeted everyone. Bakugo greeted everyone except you and Shindo.

The game of charades continued and you and Shindo were having your own conversation, “Where’d you get those rings from?” He asked and you could feel Bakugos eyes on you. You began to get nervous because the truth would cause a lot. Telling him that Bakugo gave them to you because he couldn’t finger you with them on didn’t sound like a plan. Kirishima noticed that these were Bakugos too, “Hey Bakugo aren’t those-

Bakugo hit Kirishima in his shoulder and once he caught on kirishima gave you a confused smile. Fuck kirishima. “I got them from a friend.” You said and he grabbed your hand, looking at it, “May I ask who this friend is?” He asked and you gave him a small smile nodding your head, “Her name is...Alena, before I left for college she gave me them to keep.” You lied and he nodded his head before you went on to talk about something else. That was close but it’s not like you and Shindo are together but saying you got them from Bakugo would stir up a lot of things. From then on Bakugo kept his eyes on you. You were the only thing he was focusing on until everyone started to leave until you were the only one left in the lounge area.

You stared at your hand with bakugos rings on it, remembering everything from that night. You figured that The rings were causing too much trouble and decided that you had to go give them back to Bakugo. Bakugo lived behind the university in like a loft looking home. You only knew this because there was once a part at his house that you ended up not going to. You walked off out of the university, heading straight to his place.

...

Once you made it to his loft, you knocked on the door a few times before he finally opened it. He was wearing a pair of grey nike shirts and a pair of white socks. His shirt was off, showing his toned body. He also had the on the wrist bands that you’re guessing his mother gave him from all of those community help outs she worked at. He looked good but you knew you couldn’t say that. He looked down at you, “What do you want?” He asked and you removed his rings from off of your small finger and handed them to him, “Here are your rings.” You told him and he sighed taking them in his hand, “Is that all?” He asked and you nodded your head. “Do you wanna come in?” He asked and you shrugged your shoulders, “I don’t know, Depends on if it’s considered desperate or not.” You told him and he sighed, “Look-

You walked past him, going inside his loft. You looked around, all his furniture was grey and black, some wooden, which fit him. Everything was neat. Nothing out of place. The stairs to his room was to the right while his living room was on the left and there was also a really black tall bookshelf in the corner. And all the way in the back was his kitchen. The wall on the right was brick. It was really cold inside his house but you liked it. You took off your jacket leaving you only in a white see-through tank top and a pair of grey biker shorts that were a bit too short and he watched you. He could feel him self start to get hard down there and he had wished he didn’t like the sight of you in your natural state. All you had to do was touch him and he’d be in for it.

You turned around to face him, “So why did you invite me in? I thought I was the reason for all your problems?” You slyly said craving his reaction. “Why’d you accept the offer? Shindo’s much more attractive than me right?” He asked, “Mhmm. You called me desperate in front of the whole track team. Now if I told them how much you liked the taste of me I’d be wrong.” You told him and he walked towards you.

His large body towered over yours. “Should’ve done it while you could, I’m not taking back anything I said. You are desperate. You know like I know that I’m the only one who has ever made you feel that good.” He told you and you looked up at him, “And I’m not taking back anything I said either. Your ego is too big for you to be losing to a girl like me. And as much as you hate to admit it, you are also desperate for me. I can tell by the way you’re getting harder by the second. I’m attractive even when we’re arguing?” You asked him and this hit a nerve. You wanted it to. His large hands found there way to your hair and he pulled your freshly straightened hair. He sat down on the couch and pulled your body onto him, making you straddle him. Somehow he still felt taller even while you were sitting on him.

“You’re mouth is so fucking smart, you know that?” He asked and you smiled, “Only with you. Shindo has never made me as angry as you do.” You told him and he pulled you in, kissing you on your lips. His kisses were rough and you liked it. His teeth pulled at your bottom lip before they sunk into your neck. He yanked your hair, leaving your neck open. A soft moan left your lips as bakugos mouth played at your neck, “D-Dont leave a Mark.” You breathed out and he shook his head no, “I’ll do whatever the fuck I want with you, you’re mine .” He told you and your hands found there way to his blonde hair. His nibbles slowly turned into gentle kisses, just to let you know he had already placed many hickeys on your neck and his hands dragged over your curves as he bring his lips back to yours.

Your hips grind against his cock as your wet pussy soaked through your shorts, staining his grey ones. You gasp as he hands find there way to your ass, gripping it roughly. Kneading it almost. Your moans went straight into his mouth as he kissed your lips. You cupped his warm cheeks with your hands as he used his hands to guide you along his throbbing cock. The heat from both your bodies didn’t match to to the coldness in his loft. His body was like a drug to yours, you couldn’t help but want more. “You’re making a fucking mess.” He growled lowly and you looked at him, “S-Sorry. I can’t control it.” You told him softly between kisses, “You’re such a fucking slut.” He said as you buried your head into his warm neck. There was no doubt that you had already was lost on him.

You gently kissed his neck, making his jaw clenched, you found yourself wanting to Mark him too. You nibble at his neck and short grunts left his lips. You placed them everywhere, you knew Bakugo wasn’t even gonna try to cover it up. He was gonna have everyone guessing whose lips had planted them. “I-I need it. ” You whispered softly in his ear, “Don’t know what it is. Be specific sweetheart.” He told you through gritted teeth as his throbbing cock pressed directly against your pussy. “C-Can you please fuck me daddy?” You asked him. Your words went straight to his dick making his urge to have himself deep inside you more incompetent.

He shifted underneath you, pulling his shorts off revealing his cock. It was bigger than you had thought. It was very thick and long. It leaked with Precum and the tip was swollen. Veins were everywhere and all of that you wanted it was gone. You didn’t know if you could take it. You wrapped your hand around it, bringing your thumb to the tip. You looked at him, “B-Bakugo I don’t think we should be doing this.” You managed to say and his hands found there way to your shorts, starting to pull them off.

His tip pressed at your entrance waiting to feel your walls. “Why not?” He asked lowly and you looked down at his dick, “This is bad sportsmanship.” You told him, trying to focus on your words but his dick had been way too distracting at the moment, “And arguing all day isn’t? Stop acting innocent, I know how much of a slut you really fucking are.” He said before he pushed you down all the way on him, making your thighs clench and your hands grip his large shoulders. He gripped your waist, moving you up and down, giving you no time to adjust. Your eyes flutter as you push out insufficient moans from your lips. His cock was getting larger and larger inside your gushy flesh making you whimper each thrust. You found yourself savoring this feeling.

He watched in satisfaction as your body bounced up and down on him. The view of your brown frame doing so made him want to fuck you harder. “So god damn tight and wet for me.” He muttered. The sound of your ass clapping down into him was the only thing that could be heard. Your moans were barely audible and every groan that came from him made your Pussy wetter and wetter. As you started to move faster, you could tell you were about to meet your climax. His cock was hitting more than just your cervix. You were about to cum. You were reaching your ending point. You found yourself collapsing on him and letting out a series of moans and falling into his chest.

“Good girl. I wanna see you cum for me again.”

He moved your hands behind your back and started to fuck the shit out of you. His cock grazed against your walls as he did so, your cries were ignored by him. He was going faster than before, way faster. You couldn’t move at all, Bakugo had done more than just take control, “I-I can’t.” You cried to him and he ignored you, “You can’t what?” He asked as he continued to fuck you. “I can’t t-take it Bakugo.” You moaned into his neck. “I don’t give a shit. Should’ve thought about that before you came here.” He growled and tears brimmed at your eyes. This had felt so good, he was rough, so rough and you enjoyed it. Enjoyed every single part of it. He really was perfect for you.

Your moans turned into whimpers as you let out loud begs. His constant ramming at your sweet spot turned into a feeling of euphoria. Your walls started to suck him in, squeezing around his veins as another wave of cum was about to rush over you. “Shit. Your squeezing me so tight. God dammit.” He said between gritted teeth. You could feel him about to come so you fee into it, “Cum inside me please.” Your words straight to his cock and he let put a series of curse words followed by his cum pouring inside of you. You took his dick from out of you, letting his cum pour out of you and onto your fingers. You put them in your mouth, licking up every last drop of it. You then fell into his chest, feeling tired already, “My legs hurt.” You told him.

“We’re not done yet.”

His hands gripped underneath your ass, lifting you up. Your legs wrapped tightly around his waist, you buried your head into his neck, knowing that you probably weren’t going to be able to walk after this. He brung you upstairs to his room, placing you on his bed. He turned you on your stomach, and you arched your back for him, Knowing what was already about to happen.

He placed his hands at your waist and pressed the tip at your entrance. He teased you a little before shoving himself all the way in. You could never get used to this feeling. He started off slow before he found the Rhythm and started fucking the shit out of you. Your mind began to feel hazy as in this position, you could feel every single inch of them and it fucking drove you mad.

Your small hands gripped the covers, grabbing the satin fabric tightly. He was literally fucking you senseless. Nothing but the sound of your ass bouncing off his torso could be heard. With each thrust, you felt something jolt inside you. His cock was piercing through you almost. Your mind wasn’t filled with anything but him and his length, hoping his constant thrusting didn’t stop. You wanted to be wasted off him. “M-More. I want more.” You whimpered and he went crazy inside you. He pulled your hair and started to go faster than before. His grip on your hair was strong, hurting your scalp almost. He was farther than your cervix and your eyes started to flutter. He was destroying you. Showing you what more really was.

“K-Katsuki, I-I,” you tried to say something but you couldn’t. He was fucking you too hard for words to even form from your lips. His hand rubbed down your back and he held your waist down into the bed and started ramming himself inside your already abused pussy. “Who’s pussy is this?” He asked and you answered quickly, “Yours- Katsuki please.” You begged as he stretched you out even more. He slapped your ass making you yelp. Your moans were muffled into the covers as you buried your head into them. You felt so dizzy, your vision was blurry and you felt hopeless. Your legs started to shake, and your walls squeezed him tightly. You didn’t even have time to tell him because right then and there you came all over him but he didn’t care, he continued. After a few sloppy strokes he eventually came inside you.

You felt so violated and disgusted. “Fuck. Come and clean me up.” He demanded referring to his dick. You sat up, cum dripped from out of your pussy as you took his length in your mouth, cleaning up the mess you made on it. Once you were done he grabbed you buy your chin, pulling you towards his face. Sweat dripped from down his face. You started blinking a lot when you felt nervous. He noticed and chuckled lowly before placing a kiss on your forehead and cheek, “You look so pretty all worn out from me y/n.” He stated. You turned away embarrassed and still shaken up by what he just had done. “I’m tired.” You told him and he stood up, walking into the bathroom to get a towel.

“If that’s only how long you can last you’re in for a rude awakening with me next time my love.”

#bakugo x black reader #bakugou katsuki #bakugo x reader #bakugou x y/n #bakugou smut #mha smut #my hero academia #just Bakugo

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accioxreparo · 4 years

Text

entranced | f.w.

synopsis: Fred finds himself taking a different approach to get your attention. Little does he know he already has it.

pairing: Fred Weasley x reader

warnings: none!

a/n: This idea is straight from the discord chat earlier with my babes! This concept is honestly so amazing and completely inspired by @levylovegood and also this picture so hopefully I did it justice 😭💖

The Gryffindor table was uncharacteristically silent as Fred Weasley approached late for breakfast. That was typical though. More often than not he was rushing in right before classes started and just as quickly rushing back out.

What was unusual though, and the source of everybody’s shock, was the pair of glasses framing his face. Glasses he didn’t need. Glasses nobody was sure even belonged to him.

“What?” Fred barely acknowledged them as he started putting food on his plate. “What’s with the staring?”

“What’s with -” Ginny let out a heavy sigh as she shared a glance with her siblings, every one of which was just as confused as she was. “What are you wearing those for?”

“Wearing what for?”

“Those obviously!” George reached across the table and flicked the frame of the glasses, skewing them sideways on Fred’s face. He ducked out of the way before he could retaliate. “Didn’t even know you owned any glasses.”

“Well I do,” Fred answered easily. Now that he was looking up he couldn’t help himself. His eyes scanned the Great Hall until he found you hunched over a book and scribbling something on some parchment.

“Well yeah but what for?” Ron frowned through a mouthful of food.

“To see, Ronniekins,” Fred looked away from you quickly when you glanced up abruptly, almost immediately looking right at him. “That’s what most people use them for.”

“Yeah but that’s not what you need them for,” Ron was oblivious to the fact that Fred wasn’t paying him any attention. His gaze had gone back to you the second you went back to your reading. “Think one of us would’ve noticed if you really needed them.”

“Spill it,” Ginny leaned forward while narrowing her eyes. “I can almost guarantee you didn’t own those before last night. Now why do you need them?”

“Need what?”

A groan resounded between the three siblings, each of them coming to the realization that Fred was paying absolutely zero attention to their conversation.

“Okay new question,” George kicked Fred underneath the table, forcing him to look their way again. “What’s got you so -”

But before he could get the question all the way out Fred threw back his goblet of pumpkin juice and practically tripped over himself getting up from the table. “I’ll see you guys later.”

“Well that was something.” Ron shook his head, staring at the empty spot his brother had just left.

Ginny nodded towards the entrance of the Great Hall where Fred had stopped, apparently finding one of the suits of armor very interesting. “Look at that.”

“Makes sense now,” George only shook his head as the three of them watched Fred wait a few seconds after you had left the Great Hall to follow you. “McGonagall changed our seats in Transfiguration the other day and since then our dear Freddie’s been infatuated with none other than Y/N Y/L/N. Has a perfect view of her from where he sits now.”

“You’re kidding,” Ron couldn’t help but scoff at the revelation. “She’s top of her class, always in the library. There’s no way she’d even give Fred the time of day.”

“Maybe that’s why he likes her,” Ginny shrugged, going back to her own breakfast. “Or why he’s intrigued at the very least.”

George hummed before a smirk flashed on his face, leaning in towards his younger siblings a little more. “Place your bets, kids. Do we think Fred’s little glasses plan is going to work or not?”

You tried your hardest not to stare, you really did.

Of course you’d noticed Fred Weasley of all people hanging around you for the past week or so, who wouldn’t? The fact that he happened to go out of his way a little to talk to you meant absolutely nothing at all though, you’d convinced yourself of that. Especially not when you knew you’d stuttered through practically every conversation you’d had with him so far.

Finally you thought maybe, just maybe, you were getting somewhere. Maybe you could work up the courage to say more than a few words to him next time you spoke. But then you caught sight of the glasses sitting comfortably on the bridge of Fred’s nose. They framed his face perfectly and it really wasn’t fair how they somehow made his eyes shine more than they usually did.

Any kind of coherent thought you were able to form left your brain when you laid eyes on him from across the classroom.

This really wasn’t you. You were smart, you knew that for a fact. Sure you mostly kept to yourself but there wasn’t a single time you hadn’t been able to think of a quick comeback, even if it was only muttered to yourself underneath your breath. That was how all of this had started after all.

He’d overheard a particularly hilarious quip during Potions one day and his burst of laughter had earned him a detention. He had promised you he didn’t mind when you fumbled your way through a quick apology the next day.

Now, though, you were speechless at the mere sight of him because how was it possible for one human to look that good? It didn’t help that you quite literally had the perfect view of him from across the transfiguration room. You weren’t sure how you hadn’t noticed him in his glasses before. Had he even worn them before?

Just as you were about to search your memories for any kind of recollection of Fred and his glasses you were interrupted. It was then you realized that you were openly staring at him, and apparently not very subtly.

“Would you like to tell the class what it is you find so interesting, Miss Y/L/N?”

You weren’t sure how long Professor McGonagall had been standing there or what answer she expected of you. Before you could say anything she turned around and took a few steps, effectively blocking your site of the very person you’d been distracted by.

“What about you, Mr. Weasley? You seem to be just as distracted.”

Fred, for once, seemed to also be at a loss for words. He’d barely managed to blink owlishly and start with the beginning of an excuse before he was shushed again. McGonagall looked between the two of you for a moment before pursing her lips. “Detention tonight, both of you.”

Frankly, you were too scared to argue. So instead you turned back towards the very thing that had been the cause of your distraction only to find him already looking at you. You could feel the heat rush to your face when Fred offered you a smile as he pushed the glasses up his face a little and mouthed, this should be fun.

Much to your surprise, you were in fact not the first one to reach the transfiguration room at exactly seven o’clock that night. Fred pushed himself off the wall immediately upon seeing you walking his way, a look on his face you couldn’t quite read.

“And here I was thinking you were going to ditch me.”

“I think,” You gulped as you looked anywhere but at him. He was still wearing his glasses and you were positive you’d get distracted again if you looked at him for too long. “I think I’d just get another detention if I did that.”

Fred, on the other hand, was looking right at you with a small smile playing on his lips. This detention was more than worth it in his eyes, especially if it meant getting to spend an hour alone with you. Well almost alone anyway. You were fidgeting a little too much though, something he noticed rather easily. “Is this your first one?”

“First what?”

“Detention.”

You frowned then, stopping your nervous movements and looking up at his towering figure. “Why would you think that?”

“I don’t know really,” Fred shrugged and couldn’t but smile at the sight of you looking at him curiously, head tipped to the side and arms crossed in front of you. “Maybe it’s just cause you’re always so quiet.” The memory of you cursing at Snape under your breath a couple weeks ago made him laugh suddenly. “You do have a mouth on you, though, don’t you?”

You knew what he was referring to immediately and a flush spread across your face once more. “I’m sorry about that, again”

“Don’t worry about it,” Fred leaned against the wall again and slid down until he was sitting on the floor. “So is it?”

“No,” With a sigh you followed his movements and sat down cross legged next to him. “Though I guarantee my reasons probably aren’t as fun as yours.”

“Try me,” Fred turned then so he was facing you, a cheeky smile playing on his lips. “You first.”

Slowly your nerves started fading away. Your gaze however stayed focused on the wall in front of you. “Fine, One was for ditching History of Magic to read in one of the broom cupboards.”

“Well aren’t you a little rebel.”

“Oh always,” That comment made you laugh. You could hear the grin in his voice and finally worked up the nerve to look at him, trying your hardest to focus on the conversation and not on the way his school robes had been abandoned and the sleeves of his button up shirt rolled up his arms. “Now your turn.”

Talking to Fred came easier than you thought it would. A couple well timed jokes had you relaxing completely and soon enough the two of you were laughing together right there, sitting on the floor in a random hallway.

The reason behind you being there had slipped your mind completely. That is until you noticed Professor McGonagall walking down the hallway. Both of you scrambled up from the floor, simultaneously recalling the fact that you had detention.

“Professor,” You nodded and quickly straightened out your clothes.

Fred, meanwhile, gave a smirk as he leaned against the wall once more. “You know I think we ought to give you detention for keeping us waiting, Professor.”

“Did neither of you get my owl?” McGonagall ignored the comment as she moved to unlock the door to her office.

You turned to look at Fred, both of you sharing a confused look. “Owl?”

“Your detention was cancelled,” Once the door was unlocked she stood in the doorway and glanced between the two of you. You didn’t miss the ghost of a smile that flashed on her face. “Though I suppose it’s just as well. The two of you two certainly got to know each other better. Perhaps you can now find it in yourselves to keep the staring to a minimum in my class.”

Then without another word she walked into the room and shut the door behind her.

Your stare was blank as you glanced quickly between the office, Fred, and the spot Professor McGonagall once stood. “Did she -”

Fred chuckled again and followed as you started walking down the hallway towards your common room. “Did she what? Trick us into going on a first date? I think so.”

You weren’t able to keep the grin off your face as you shook your head a little. “It was not a first date. It was talking.”

“Is that so?”

“It is.”

“Well in that case how about this weekend? We can try not to get ourselves another detention while sneaking out to Hogsmeade.” Fred stopped when you did and couldn’t help but notice the surprised look on your face, one that faded quickly. “How about it?”

“I’ll agree if you tell me one thing, first.” You challenged, eyes narrowing and arms crossing as you stared directly at him for the first time.

“Anything.” Fred’s answer was just as confident.

Your eyes flickered across his face, taking in the sight of him wearing those glasses just as you had earlier. “You’ve never worn those before have you?”

A beat passed and Fred knew he’d been caught. You could see right through him. “Yes I have.”

“No you haven’t,” Your arms fell to your sides, being able to see his hesitation clearly. “I’d remember.”

“And why is that?”

“Because you look good in them.”

“Do I?” Fred chuckled when your eyes widened at your own comment. One you evidently you hadn’t meant to actually tell him. “Since we’re confessing I suppose I should tell you that you’re right.”

“I knew it!” You were quick to respond and nod in satisfaction. “What are you wearing those for then?”

For a moment Fred only looked at you. This wasn’t where he’d seen his day going. Maybe some more pining, wondering if you’d noticed him at all. Now that he was here beside you, both of you apparently smitten enough with each other for one of your professors to meddle, he was ecstatic. “I’ll tell you but you’re not allowed to laugh at me.”

“I promise I won’t.”

“Fine,” Fred started walking down the hall again but stayed focused on you to see what your reaction would be. “I thought they’d make you notice me more since you always seemed to be avoiding me.”

You tried not to smile, you really did. But the corners of your mouth started turning upwards and Fred stopped again, not being able to resist grinning along with you. “You said you wouldn’t laugh!”

“I’m not!” A laugh really did escape you then and you quickly put a hand over your mouth to muffle the sound. You looked up at him then, a little more serious. “I swear I’m not laughing at you. I just think it’s cute.”

“Well I’m glad you think so cause I quite like these. Think I look rather dashing.” Fred pushed the glasses up a little bit from where they’d slipped and smirked. “And apparently you agree since the whole reason we’re here is your staring.”

“Hey, both of us were staring, thank you very much.”

“Well I couldn’t help myself, darling. You’re entrancing, you know.”

“Entrancing,” You repeated the word and your grin softened, looking away as butterflies formed in your stomach. “Is that right?”

“It is,” Fred gave a firm nod, giving you no room to argue. “You’re beautiful, love, you must know that.”

When you dared to look at him he was smiling at you, a completely genuine sparkle in his eyes as he looked only at you. You weren’t sure yet what the warm feeling that erupted in your chest and fluttered through your body at the sight of his gaze trained on you was. He was looking at you like you were the world and it overwhelmed you with emotions you couldn’t quite pinpoint.

Fred on the other hand? You were positive he was definitely somebody you could get used to. Him and his smile that never faded. Him and his laugh that was practically infectious. Him and his eyes that were full of life, showed you entire worlds, and sat behind a pair of glasses he didn’t need.

“Thank you,” You couldn’t help but beam back at him, a flash of confidence suddenly coursing through your veins. “So are you.”

#wow this is so soft I just -#fred weasley x reader #harry potter fanfiction #fred weasley #fred weasley x y/n #fred weasley imagine #fred weasley x you #harry potter one shot #harry potter imagine #harry potter fanfic #harry potter fic #hp fanfic #hp fic #hp imagine #hp series #my fics #entranced

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itsthewritergal · 3 years

Text

I was worried - Odd One Out part 4 - Weasley!Reader x D.M

Part 1 Part 2 Part 3

Draco had searched the castle, high and low. Every single place Y/N and him had found last year, yet she wasn’t anywhere to be found. Draco didn’t expect to find her in the Common Room, he cursed himself silently as it now seemed so obvious that she was here. She stood by the large windows looking out into the depths of the Black Lake, she really loved the views from the Common Room. She’d even persuaded Draco and the others to move the nicest sofa over so that she could watch the lake as they spoke. Draco of course wasn’t very happy about it all, but once Y/N asked he gave in instantly, somehow she had wormed her way underneath his skin, much to his friends amusement of course. Draco slowed once he realised she wasn’t alone, there were a few first years gathered around the window next to her, her voice rung through the common room

“And on the sunny days the sun shines through the window and it casts this beautiful light all through the room” She said with a kind smile, Draco grinned as he remembered the words he had spoken to her on her first night

“But the Gryffindor’s said we were bad” One first year said

“They said we’re with You Know Who” Another added

“Well they’re wrong” Taylor said with a pitiful smile at Y/N

“Completely wrong, you chose your own path. And here you can be anyone you want” She said ignoring the look from her friend, Y/N’s eyes landed on Draco who stood leaning against the wall with a goofy look on his face. She grinned at him then turned back to the first years

“Anyone?” One asked “Anyone at all” Y/N said “You know when I got sorted last year I begged the hat to change its mind. But the hat knows best, I’ve made friends who I know I’ll have for life now. And i wouldn’t change it for the world” She grinned

“Y/N?” a girl said “You’re a Weasley, what do your family think of you being a Slytherin?” She asked, Draco knew there was no malice behind the words but he saw how they cut through Y/N’s facade for a moment

“They know this is the best place for me” She said with a faltering smile

“Last one to the dorms is a slimy frog” Taylor said quickly bursting into a run towards the dorms. The first years laughing behind her. Y/N was left alone. Her attention turned to Draco who moved closer to her,

“I thought they were my lines” He smirked

“Shove off, I was only comforting them” She said

“The hat should have put you in Hufflepuff you’re so soft” He laughed as he pulled her down onto the sofa with him, she landed on his lap with a huff

“You’re an idiot” She said clambering off of him and placing her next to him with her feet laying on his lap

“I’m an idiot that’s been looking around the castle for you” He said, the worry appearing back on his face

“Why would you do that?” Y/n said

“Cause I was worried about you” Draco said gently

“I’m fine” She said tiredly

“You don’t have to lie to me” He said brushing a strand of hair from her face

“I’m used to it, I’ve had it all summer” She said quietly fiddling with her fingers, Draco placed his hand on top of hers stopping her from pulling at the skin around her nails.

“You’re staying with me then next summer” He said firmly

“I couldn’t do that to your family that’s not fair” “Mother loves you, it would be an honour” He chuckled

“ooh already getting an invite to the manor, where have I gone wrong” Blaise laughed as he landed heavily on the sofa

“You don’t look like Y/N” Crabbe laughed

“That’s enough” Draco snapped, he caught the way Crabbe looked at Y/N and it made his skin crawl. Y/N shifted in her seat

“I’m going to go to bed, I’ll see you guys in the morning” She hummed tiredly

“Night” Draco said with a smile.

— — — — —

Y/N had heard about the Buckbeak incident, it had been all over the school by lunch. Typical Draco she thought making a mountain out of nothing, Pansy had apparently been doting on him all morning in the hospital wing, Y/N was sure Draco loved all that. She told herself not to be jealous, that she and Draco were only friends and he saw her as only a friend, but the thought of Pansy all over him made her angry. Really angry. She walked into the Great Hall for dinner with a scowl on her face, she had lied to her friend and said it was because of her bad grade in potions which was partly true; Snape had been particularly rude and horrid to Y/N today. Her scowl deepened when she saw Pansy sitting with Draco with her arm around her shoulder, and Draco’s arm in a sling. Y/N sat a few seats away from Draco, who tried to get her attention as she sat down. Y/N noticed the looks she got from Draco and her other friends but she decided to ignore them.

“Does it hurt terribly Draco?” Pansy doted on him, Draco replied but Y/N didn’t bother to listen. Instead she pushed her plate a little away from her and walked out of the great hall, she heard some whispers, but that was nothing new to her. She was a Slytherin Weasley having people talk about her was practically her birthright. The Slytherin common room was practically empty, with a few students getting ready to head to dinner. Y/N sat herself down on her favourite sofa, and settled her mind on getting her potions work done.

“Missed you at dinner” Crabbe said sitting down next to her, Y/N looked around for Draco, Crabbe and Goyle had always given her the creeps. Y/N didn’t respond “Come on Y/N, talk to me” He begged, the tone made her skin crawl,

“I’m busy” She said simply, she had hoped Crabbe would get the message, Draco would have noticed the fear in her voice, but he wasn’t here

“Do you not like me then?” Crabbe said, Y/N left Crabbe on the sofa and sat herself down at one of the desks at the side of the room, Much to her disappointment Crabbe followed her and sat opposite her

“I can help you with your homework” he offered

“You’re bad at potions, so no thank you” She said with a tight smile “I Can still help” He argued

“No” She shut him down, turning her eyes back down to the work in front of her, only for her leg to get kicked by the boy in front of her “What?” She asked scowling at Crabbe “Why don’t you like me?” He asked “You should go out with me then i’d show you” He said

“Don’t you understand what no means?” Y/N snapped,

“woah Y/N” Blaise said walking into the common room, with Draco and Pansy following “You alright?” He asked

“He won’t leave me alone” She snapped angrily, feeling her emotions bubble up at the sight of her friends

“That’s not true” Crabbe argued “She was leading me on”

“Why don’t we go on a walk?” Draco asked Y/N

“No thanks, it seems like you’ve got your hands full with Pansy” She snapped turning on her heel and storming off to the dorms.

— — — — —

Y/N was up early, sitting in the common room already dressed for the school day ahead. She watched the giant squid as it swam up and down past the windows. Her fingers played with the frayed edges of her knitted jumper, it reminded her of home. She didn’t feel a home at Hogwarts this year, the sofa dipped next to her pulling her out of her thoughts.

“You’re up early” Draco said gently

“Yeah” She said not once looking at him, she didn’t want to or need to. Although the sling caught the corner of her eye, she wasn’t going to dote on him as well

“Crabbe was out of order, I’ve sorted him out” Draco said draping his good arm across the sofa behind Y/N

“I was handling it” she snapped

“I was only trying to help Y/N” Draco replied

“Right well I should go and sort out my books for the day” Y/N knew it was a bad lie but nothing else had come to mind

“Have I done soemthing?” Draco said impatiently

“No Draco you haven’t” She said not daring to look at him, scared that she would break apart

“Clearly I have because You’ve been avoiding me” Draco snapped “I’ve noticed, ever since yesterday you’ve barely said two words to me”

“You’re making things up Draco” She replied turning with a scowl plastered on her face “Y/N,” he said seriously “has someone said something?” “It’s nothing” She said gently

“I know you too well for that to work” Draco said taking a step towards her, he towered over her. She hadn’t noticed just how much he had grown before

“I don’t like it” She said quietly

“I’m going to need more than that darling” he said

“I don’t like seeing Pansy all over you, she’s acting like you’re hers. It’s pathetic” She snapped

“You know what Pansy is like darling, pay no attention to her” Draco said “I don’t” She defended herself

“There’s something else Y/N, I know there is” he said gently coaxing her back towards the sofa

“Last night when Crabbe was being weird with me, I couldn’t do anything. I felt so powerless, I didn’t like it” She said

“I won’t let anything like that happen to you again. I promise” Draco said

“Does your arm hurt badly?” Y/N asked gently her fingers brushing over the sling

“not really, I just wanted to see how much homework I can avoid doing” He chuckled, not admitting how much he adored watching Y/N gently touch his hand,

“Nothing’s going to happen to Buckbeak right?” she asked

“No, I don’t want anything to happen to him. It’s why I haven’t told my parents yet” Draco said gently “Promise you’ll try and stop them if they do anything” She said gently

Draco brushed her face with his good hand. A smile graced his lips,

“I promise”

Taglist :)

@whitewineandpizzapuffs

@planet-naptune

@thefandomplace

@sebby-staan

@witch-and-a-half

@nojamsonmytoast

@seanh-boredom

@wanniiieeee

@louweasleymalfoy

Odd one out taglist

@loxbbg

#odd one out #draco malfoy fic #draco lucius malfoy #draco angst #Draco #Draco Malfoy #draco x you #draco x reader angst #draco x y/n #draco x reader #draco x weasley #weasley!reader

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zmediaoutlet · 3 years

Text

in support of Texas relief, @padaleckimeon donated $100 and requested Dean Jr. meeting Sam and Dean in heaven. Thank you for donating!

to get your own personalized fic, please see this post. (no longer taking prompts)

(read on AO3)

When Dad dies, Dean takes a week off. It wasn’t sudden, or a surprise. Dad had been sick for a while, his body starting to fail him. At first Dean had been scared, and then he’d been angry. He was only twenty-four when Dad got the diagnosis and it wasn’t—fair, in some stupid but essential way. He’d barely graduated from college and, yeah, Dad was kind of old, older than a lot of his friends’ parents, but—he thought, somehow, that him dying just wasn't… applicable. Dad was just—there, always. Solid, supportive, kind of boring maybe but also stronger than anyone Dean had ever known, or would ever know, and it wasn’t right that he could just be sitting in his apartment midway through a novel and get a call and kind of sigh, because he was in a good part in the book, and then to sit up straight with his hair standing on end to hear Dad say, quiet, I'm sorry, buddy. We need to talk about something. That’s what he said, first. That he was sorry.

There were treatments, but not many. Dean had flown out and gone to a few of the appointments with the oncologist and Dad had been quiet, listening to the options. He’d researched a lot of this on his own, because Dean had done the same thing, and they’d both been nodding along during the options. Injections, radiation. Chemo. Dad had asked, polite, what the life expectancy was for each option, and Dean had watched the side of his face and not the doctor, and when the answer was given Dad had closed his eyes briefly, and then looked away from both Dean and the doctor, out the window at the snowy day, and Dean had known, then.

Dad made it past Dean’s twenty-fifth birthday. He had a party with his friends, at his girlfriend’s apartment, and they tried to keep his spirits up but it was a pretty shitty party, all told. The next day, his actual birthday, he flew back out to Dad’s house and he was in good spirits—had a mini-cake, even, with a single candle that he made Dean blow out—but he was thin, and his hair was growing back in snow-white and tender-soft, and when Dad fell asleep in front of the crappy old cowboy movie that Dean had picked just because he knew Dad for some reason liked it, Dean went out onto the porch into the nearly-springtime air and he cried, pissed at himself. Pissed at everything. Then just—unbearably sad, because he liked his current girlfriend but he didn’t think he was going to marry her, and that meant that whatever girl he did marry would be one his dad would never meet—if he had kids, they’d never know how his dad concentrated like a motherfucker on crossword puzzles and obsessed over documentaries and knew every single piece of the inside of that behemoth car in the garage and was just the smartest kindest most stubborn person. Just—the best person. They’d listen to Dean’s stories maybe but they wouldn’t know, because Dad would never meet them, and that was just—unbearable, that night. In the morning, Dad made oatmeal and Dean added a bunch of sugar because Dad’s oatmeal was inedible otherwise, and Dad smiled kind of rueful like he always did when Dean did that, and then Dad said, I’m sorry, again, kind of quiet, and Dean reached out and held his hand—thin, and the bones feeling frail—and he said don’t be sorry, Dad, and four months later, Dad was dead.

Dad was always pretty up-front with him about most everything, especially after he and Mom split up. When he was twelve, Dad explained the supernatural very carefully, telling him that he was safe but that other people might not be, and why. When he was thirteen, Dad told Dean that Hell and Heaven were both real and that there was, definitely, confirmed, a God, and maybe it wasn’t the same God that other people knew but that Dad said he was kind, in his own way. The person in charge of Hell, Dad said, was maybe less so, but she wouldn’t hurt Dean, ever. Dad said he knew that for fact, and he said it so certainly, looking Dean in the eye, that Dean believed him. When Dean turned eighteen, a few months from graduating high school, Dad took him to a tattoo parlor and said for maybe the first time in Dean’s life that something was non-negotiable, and Dean hadn’t cared because what other kid in the senior year was going to walk at graduation with a kickass demonic tattoo?

There were other things, though, that they didn’t talk about. Dad said one day a lot when Dean was little but then, when he was older and it was clear that one day would be never, he just said—I can’t, buddy. I wish I could.

After the week off, rattling around the old house, and the cremation with no service that Dad had insisted on, Dean drives out to the lawyer in Sioux Falls. She’s nice. Respectful but not cloying. The Samuel Winchester Estate that Dean is the sole beneficiary of is—a lot of money. A lot more money than he knew Dad had, or that he could have ever earned. Dad has assigned some of the money to go to charities, and to some people Dean doesn’t know—the lawyer doesn’t say who in the specific, but says they’re kids of some of Dad’s old friends. Dean didn’t know Dad had many friends, much less ones who’d get trust funds in inheritance. Aside from the stock options and the accounts and all the money left over, Dean inherits a list of assets. The house, of course. The Chevy in the garage, with the stipulation that he can never sell it. A safety deposit box, from which the lawyer has already retrieved the contents.

She leaves him alone, to go through the box. Neatly organized, like everything else in Dad’s life. File-folders of pictures, printed out all old-fashioned. Some of Dean when he was a baby. Some of when Dad and Mom were still together, leaning against each other, Dean hugged between them. Some—much older, creased and faded, stored in little plastic sleeves so they can't degrade. He recognizes a few from the framed copies Dad always had in the house. Some he hasn't seen. Most of them—almost all of them—are of his Uncle Dean, who died before he was born, and he looks especially at one that just—hits him in the gut, in this awful way where he has to sit there looking at the soothing taupe paint of the conference room wall before he can look at it again. Uncle Dean's facing the camera, sort of, although he's laughing about something and not really looking into the lens, and there's Dad, laughing too. He looks… young. Younger than Dean is now. He flips the picture over. Dad's handwriting, careful: 2006, Bobby's house. Almost fifty years ago. An entire life he didn't know. He thinks again of his imaginary future kids. These lives they have, grandfather to father to son, that overlap like a venn diagram but—not enough. Not close to enough.

What's a life? How to summarize, from beginning to faded end, in a way that would make sense to anyone but who it happened to?

Dad left letters, explaining, but he's gone and the context is missing. There are so many questions Dean wants to ask but he can't, of course, anymore. The first letter is attached to the key to the bunker, where he would never take Dean when he was alive, and on winter break from med school Dean flies from Boston to Kansas and rents a car and drives alone through the snowfields.

Dark, inside. He throws the big switch and the lights crackle, hum on, almost reluctant. He has no idea how it's getting power. Dust, but not as much as there could be. A library, a kitchen. Archives upon archives. Dad had explained, but what little he'd said both in life and in the letters didn't come close. It was home, he wrote, for over a decade. The only one we had with four walls, for our whole lives, although we didn't think of it that way. I didn't, at least. Dean doesn't know what that means but he looks into the bedrooms and sees… emptiness, plain bunks and old desks and funny lamps. I just picked a random room, Dad said, and as Dean's looking he really can't tell which was Dad's. Figures. Their house when Dean was growing up didn't change a bit, no matter how terrible that wallpaper was. It's only when Dean pushes open the door to room 11 that there's any personality, and he flicks the light and stands there blinking, surprised. Guns and knives on the wall. Books, piled up. Empty beer bottles crowded on the little table. Dust, but—not as much as there could be. He walks in, cautious, this feeling in his gut like he's in someone's home and they've just walked out, and could return any moment. A food bowl on the floor. A shirt flung over the chair. On the desk: more books and magazines and a folded actually-on-paper newspaper from 2024, and a job application, half filled out. Dean Winchester, it says at the top, in mostly-neat capitals, and Dean rests a hand on the back of the chair and feels… strange. He tries to picture it—the man from the pictures, Dad's brother, filling up this space. Drinking beer and reading pulp westerns and checking out—oh, weird, magazine porn. Dean shakes his head. Impossible.

In the letters, Dad said: Hunting was all we knew how to do. With everything we knew, it was our duty to use the knowledge the best way we could. I went back and forth on it. Your uncle never did, even if I know there were times he wished he—that we both—could be something else. I don't want that for you. I want you to live exactly the life you want for yourself. No expectations, okay? Not from me or anyone else.

There are printed files that go back a hundred years. More than. Paper files, but old SSDs too, with connectors Dean has to find adapters for. Dad: If you want to know what we did, it's digitized. I know I always said I'd tell you one day, but I never knew how to say it. I'm sorry for that. I always thought I'd be one hundred percent honest, if I ever got a kid, because of how we were raised. I didn't know how hard that could be. Stuff that you'd want to say, but when it came time to just open your mouth and say it there weren't any words.

Dad wrote up all the old hunts, it turned out. Simple notes about where/when/how, the kind of monster it was, the number of people who died and the people who were saved. The people they had to explain things to, who knew now about the supernatural underbelly to the universe. He noted, too, if there were injuries, and Dean reads with his hand over his mouth a long, long litany of Dean W. shot, right arm; Sam W. broken bone in hand; Dean W. concussion; Sam W. strangled. On and on. No wonder Dad didn't make a big fuss when Dean broke his leg in the fourth grade.

He sleeps in the bunker overnight, in one of the spare bedrooms that's not room 11. There's a fan on the ceiling, dusty office supplies on the desk. By lamplight he reads the letters, on his back on the stiff terrible mattress, his eyes stinging and past-midnight tired. Our lives weren't the kind of thing anyone would want, Dad wrote. I spent so long trying to get away from it because I thought 'it shouldn't be this way' – and I was right, you know? It shouldn't have been how it was. But it was that way, anyway, and in the end that was something I was okay with. We were making what difference we could. We were happy. A lot of people have it worse.

'We'. Dad hardly writes Uncle Dean's name but he's in every letter. We, we, we. Dad told Dean stories, of course, the dumb stuff they got up to when they were teenagers, or the (sanitized, Dean's sure) adventures they had as adults, but despite the pictures on the wall at home and the pictures in the deposit box and the whole life that's here, Dean can't—see it. Beer bottles on the table in the bedroom, one on either side of the tiny table. The shirt slung over the chair. We were happy, he says, but—how? Dean can't imagine it.

In the last letter Dad wrote, I think I'm writing this when I've got a month or two left. Dr. Hendricks isn't sure. I wish I had more time, to explain how it was. Who we were. I never told you the most embarrassing thing in the world, but I'm old and I'm not going to be around and not much will be able to embarrass me anymore, so screw it. (Fifty years ago I would have gotten really mad at myself for that kind of comment; more things age can fix.) There are books about us. There's a hard drive, in the bunker. It's labelled BURN THIS. (That's your uncle's handwriting.) They're true, more or less. Written by a really crappy, amateur writer, but he was a kind of prophet, and he knew everything there was to know about us, and he wrote books for about five years, based on our life and the real things we did. Some of it is exaggerated and melodramatic. A lot of it is just how it happened. You'll have to decide which is which. I don't come off too well in some of them but I hope you'll understand that the world… I don't know how to describe it. Somehow the world felt different, then. It was just us, trying our best. I hope it gives you some idea of the life we had. No matter what happened, I'm glad that life led me to you.

What's a life?

Dean marries. Not the girl from college but a woman, later. Red hair, blue eyes. Absolutely no sense of humor beyond puns. Hates cooking and has strong opinions on movies from the 1980s. They have three kids, a girl and then a boy and then a girl again. All dark-haired, smart. Dean gives the boy the middle name Samuel and his wife holds his hand, says it sounds great.

He's a doctor. He meets hunters. He sets bones for free and prescribes medication when needed and when it will be needed. A woman, last name Novak, calls him and says you know, your dad was one of the greats?, and he meets people—older than him by twenty, thirty years, with scars and dangerous lives and guns hidden in every corner, and he hears stories. Sam Winchester, who saved the world. Dean knows—he's read the books—but there are more years that the books didn't cover, more people who didn't die because of his dad's intervention. "They were the best," one man says, shrugging, and gets no argument, nods and shrugs from every hunter in the room, and Dean goes home that night and kisses his littlest girl where she's already tucked up in bed, and he thinks: what will she know, about who her grandfather was? Who their family is? What could she possibly know?

Dean's wife dies in her eighties. An accident. A broken hip, an infection following. Still happens, even in this new century. The kids are grown, have kids of their own, and the funeral is big, and there are people at his elbow who say to him we're so sorry and who share anecdotes of her life and who support him to his chair, even though at ninety he's perfectly capable of getting to his chair himself. He's a cranky old man, he realizes. She would've laughed at him. He thinks, inevitably, of his own father's death. Silent and unmourned, except by one. What's a life.

He writes letters, for his children. The estate is handled. He calls the oldest girl and explains to her that she's going to be the executor, and that there are things she has to keep. A key. A car. Pictures, so that her boys will know where they came from. "Of course, Dad," she says, placating a little because he's old and clearly starting to lose his grip, but she'll do it. She's a good kid. Dean learned how to raise a kid from the best.

When he dies, he's expecting it. The trip to the hospital. The monitors. He knows the pain meds even if he's retired and his doctor looks like an infant but she gives him the good stuff. It's—easy. A slipping away. He closes his eyes to sleep and there is a moment where he thinks with surprisingly clarity, this is okay, isn't it, and has the feeling of someone's hand laid on his, and then he sleeps, and doesn't wake up again.

He opens his eyes in an armchair, in a house that he doesn't recognize but that feels instantly familiar. Music playing, somewhere, and a gold-tinged afternoon spilling through the window, and tone-deaf singing from the kitchen. His mind feels clearer than it has in… Tears come to his eyes but it doesn't hurt. He puts his fingers to his mouth and smiles, breathing in slow, and thinks—well, this is it. Heaven.

Time is no longer time. Space is—immaterial. There's a house, not their house, but it's roomy and it has what he needs and the bed he crawls into with his wife at the end of a day is comfortable, and that's what matters, as he lays his hand on her hip where he used to lay it always, and she sighs against the pillow and squirms and tucks herself into a fetal pretzel, like she always used to. The spill of her hair red against the pillow. Her warmth, plush against his bones. She smells not of honeysuckle or vanilla but just like warm, human skin, the faint bite of salt-sweat at the nape of her neck, the must in the morning in thin bluish light when she turns over and finds him awake, and smiles. Incredible. The weight of her is real, and the spot between her breasts when he kisses her there is real, and he'd always believed in some distant way that what his dad had told him was true—that there was a heaven, that there would be some kind of justice after death—but it was distant, and academic, because of course there was a life to live and patients to care for and children to raise and a wife to bury and a death to get through. What a thing, to come to. This place, with her hair on the pillow, and her smell. He hadn't forgotten it, in the end, after all.

The house sits in some place that feels like South Dakota. Home, or close to it. A lake among trees. A distance between things. He reads, and plays games he barely remembers from being a kid, and he watches the Ghostbusters movies again because his wife insists and they are, he has to admit, still funny, but he makes fun of the weird museum guy anyway, and she kicks him where her feet are tucked in his lap, and he tickles her in retaliation, and then—well, the movie will be there, later, when they're done.

She rides her bike every day. One day she comes back and says she was just visiting her mother, and Dean sits up and says, "What?" But—of course. What's time? What's a space, between this shared slow heaven and another? She shrugs—his mother-in-law says hi—and he sits there on the couch with his game paused, watching her go into the kitchen and shake her sweaty hair back from her face, redoing it into the practical twist at her neck like she always does, and he thinks—okay. Okay, maybe now.

The bookshelf has every book he could want, and seems to know what he needs to read before he does. Raining outside, spattering gentle on the eaves, and his wife made a huge pot of tea and took it to bed upstairs and left him just a cup, and so he sits at the kitchen table with his cup of tea and opens the book—Home, by Carver Edlund—and reads it, lingering, even if he's read it three times before online, his thumb brushing over the cheap too-thin pages of this physical copy. There's a poltergeist, preposterous. The psychic, odd and familiar. The brothers, united, and he reads the next-to-last chapter very slowly, lingering, as they find the box of pictures, as they get into the car together. Drive off, to meet some new dawning day.

He finishes his cup of tea. Puts on a clean shirt, combs his hair. "I'll be back," he says, to his wife, and she blinks at him from her nest of blankets with her own book and then only nods, and Dean goes downstairs and gets into his car and finds the road, beyond the garden gate, and drives.

He doesn't know where he's going but that doesn't matter. He turns on the car radio and it's playing—oldies, but really oldies, the stuff that was old when he was little. What childhood sounded like. Farms appear, melt away. Trees rising, through hills. He sings along, under his breath, remembering: a roadtrip to his grandma's house, Mom sleeping in the passenger seat and Dad driving through the night, and Dad singing very, very badly, as quiet as he could, and Dean thinking even as a kid that this was some private thing, to see, and he had to be silent and not show that he was awake or it would disappear. That feeling, it crept up on him at the oddest times, when he was an adult, and later. That sensation of the armored tank of the car moving through the dark, and the silence around them, and the quiet music inside, and Dad, in a world of his own, entirely separate from the world he shared with Dean.

Another hill. Climbing a mostly-paved road. Not raining anymore but the sun coming in slanted gold through the trees. Distance, and a curve, and then: a house. Old-looking. Older maybe than the one Dean and his wife share. In front of it, a car. The car.

Dean parks. He gets out, and the air smells washed-fresh, a little fecund. Like summer. He puts his hand on the hood of the Impala and it's sun-warm and he tears up, completely unexpected, and has to sit on the hood and hold his hands over his face, his heart—full, in a way he's felt since dying, but not in this particular way, this way of feeling that he thought had mellowed, a lifetime ago.

So much for putting on a good face. He wipes over his mouth and dashes his eyes clear. A porch, with new-carved railings. A door, painted blue. He knocks, his body feeling empty and clean and young, terribly young, and before he's quite ready the door opens, and it's—his uncle, in a purple plaid shirt and paint-spattered jeans and grey socks, frowning at him, saying, "Uh, hi?"

He looks—almost exactly like he looked in the pictures. Maybe forty, lines beside his eyes and heavy stubble on his jaw. The age he was when he died. Dean opens his mouth, can hardly dredge up what to say, and then he hears a voice say, "Dean?" and Dean and his uncle both turn their heads to see—Dad, young too, completely shocked, standing on the far side of the porch in running gear with sweat slicking his hair back from his head, and Dean drags in air and says, "Dad," and Dad grins at him, that big creased dorky-looking dad-smile that Dean only got once in a blue moon, and he steps forward and they're hugging, then, and it's—heaven. That's all he can think. Heaven, Dad's arms tight around him, his shoulders slotting in under Dad's because—Dad was so tall, and this is where Dean fit and never would fit again once Dad was gone. Here, under Dad's arm. Like being a kid again.

Dad's hand on the back of his head. A startled, shaky, deep breath in, and then hands gripping his shoulders, and being shoved reluctantly back to have Dad look down at his face, serious and worried. "How long has it been?" he says. "Are you—you didn't—?"

"I was ninety-seven," he says, and Dad's eyebrows go high and he smiles, big and glad and real, relieved. He touches Dean's face and Dean smiles back, tears rising again for no reason and for so many reasons. "I look good, don't I?"

Dad huffs a laugh. "You look great," he says, and then his eyes lift over Dean's head, and Dean has to turn around because—

What to call him? Uncle Dean. Standing there with his shoulder against the doorframe, his mouth tucked in on one side. Like from right out of one of the pictures, returning Dad's look. His eyes drop after a second to meet Dean's and Dean feels this odd jolt, in his chest. Bizarre, to see. He's real. All Dad's stories, the wall of memories, the books, and here he is, in grey socks, looking all over Dean's face like he's seeing it for the first time. "Guess you got your looks from your mom's side of the family," Uncle Dean says, finally, and Dad says, behind him, "Nice, dude," and Uncle Dean shrugs, unrepentant, but with an unexpected dimple quirking into his cheek, and holds out his hand to shake, and Dean takes it and has another shock at it, warm, callused, firm, real—while Uncle Dean says, wry, "Well, I guess some introductions are in order, huh?"

Uncle Dean and Dad share the house. It's nice, inside. Old fashioned in a way that feels comfortable, as Dean's come to expect. (He wonders, in a few hundred years—will new arrivals to heaven expect old-fashioned arcologies?) Uncle Dean brings beers from the kitchen and Dad takes his without even looking, drinking in Dean's face when Dean's doing the exact same to him. He looks so young. Younger, maybe, than he was even in the few pictures Dean has of him being a baby, held tiny in the crook of Dad's massive arm—some past time, some time Dean doesn't belong to, but Uncle Dean clearly does. Dad shakes his head after a few seconds, huffs again, rueful. "I don't even know where to start," he says.

Uncle Dean rolls his eyes, behind him, and says, "How about you ask the kid how he's doing, genius." Mean, but he squeezes Dad's shoulder too, and Dad bites his lip, looks at Dean, his head tipping. Asking.

It's awkward, but only in the way Dean would expect. To see his dad after so long—and both of them dead—and to explain… what? A life. Being a doctor, meeting a wife. Children. Grandchildren. "Great-grandpa Sammy," Uncle Dean fake-whispers, "told you you were old." Nudging Dad, half-sitting on the arm of his chair. Looking proud enough he could burst, although Dean doesn't know exactly why.

"Are you going to make dinner or are you just here to heckle?" Dad says, looking up, exasperated, and Uncle Dean raises his hands, says, "Oh, I'm here to heckle," but he gets up, too, says, "You get tired of the inquisition, kid, we've got more drinks in the kitchen," and cuffs Dad around the back of the head before he disappears down the blue-painted hall—and music comes on, after a moment. The kind of music that was on Dean's radio as he drove. Comfort sounds that go deep into some space beyond his bones.

"He's a lot, sorry," Dad says, after a second.

"I know, I read about it," Dean says, and Dad blinks at him, mouth half-open, before he remembers.

They have dinner. Uncle Dean makes burgers, fries, a spinach salad that Dean and Dad both groan at, and he looks at them across the table with his burger in his hands and shakes his head. No salad on his plate, Dean notices. They talk but about—nothing. Uncle Dean asks if the Broncos ever won the Superbowl again and Dean tries to dredge up an answer. Dad asks what his wife did for a living. Dean wants to ask things and doesn't know how. There's time, he knows, but for now all he can do is—watch. Dad leaning back in his chair with a beer, smiling at him while Uncle Dean tells some probably well-worn story about trying to fix the Impala in a rainstorm, and Dad was pissed for some reason and so kept handing him the wrong tools. "It was too dark to actually read the grip numbers," Dad says, patient like it's the hundredth time, and Uncle Dean says back, immediately, "Who needs the numbers? You can feel the weight in your hand!" Old arguments, well-worn, in the well-worn house. The way they move around each other, washing dishes, putting plates away. The way Dad's eyes will jump across the table, half a second before Uncle Dean's even opening his mouth, a smile already waiting to be pushed back down.

When it's night he says he should get back to his wife. "I'd like to meet her," Dad says, "some day."

"Gotta see who's willing to put up with a Winchester," Uncle Dean says, eyebrows waggling.

Dad sighs but nods, too. Dean gets folded into a hug, there under the tuck of his arm, and then he hugs Uncle Dean, too, impulsive and just—wanting to, feeling like a kid. Uncle Dean startles but hugs him back right away. "You're good, kid," he says, quiet against the side of Dean's head, and Dean nods and says, "Thanks," for more than he can say other than that, right then on this particular day, and then he gets into his car and pulls away from the house and looks back to see Uncle Dean gripping Dad's shoulder again while they watch him move away—and when he's home, after a blurring drive that's long enough for him to settle himself, he comes up the stairs to where his wife's warm in bed and slides in beside her and she says, sleepy, "How was it," and he says against her hair, "Perfect," because—it was. It was perfect.

Dean comes alone to their house twice more, on days when he needs it and doesn't see a reason not to. He brings his wife, the third time, and Dad's extremely polite and Uncle Dean asks her about engineering and Dean enjoys it, from the couch, while she gets the same interrogation he did, and they're driving home with her at the wheel, his eyes on the passing trees, before she says, "They're an interesting couple," and it doesn't strike him, for what may be a mile of blurring distance, why that sentence wasn't quite right.

It should be a shock. It isn't. That it isn't should, itself, be a shock, but he sits with it for a few days, the easy rhythm of heaven sliding around them.

He goes to see his mother, finally. She's in a place on a lakeshore. Her first husband, kind but remote, giving them space. She presses his hands between her own and he goes through the list of answers to all her questions, smiling, feeling déjà vu, and then says, cautious, that he's been to see Dad. "Oh!" she says, and doesn't seem upset. "How is he?"

"Good," he says. They never married, his parents—Dad had told him, much later, that it just didn't occur to him to ask—and he knew they didn't resent each other, but there wasn't much closeness there. He didn't realize how little until he was married himself. Still, he's cautious as he says: "He and my uncle have a place. Uncle Dean, you know?"

Mom sits back in her chair. "Well, then," she says, soft. She's youngish, too. Fifty maybe, her hair shot with grey. "That sounds about right."

He doesn't know how to ask but there's no way to do it other than just—to ask. "What do you know about him?"

Mom smiles, slow, and looks out at the lake. "Honey, your dad's a good man, but I think you know as well as I do that he doesn't give a lot away." Dean follows her look. A boat, far out on the water. Not close enough to hail. "He didn't talk about his brother, much. That said more than I think he knew it did. All those pictures. Well, you remember." She shakes her head, looking down at her lap. "I resented him for a while. A dead man. Silly of me. But then I suppose your dad could have resented Luke, if he'd—cared more. Sorry. That sounds like I'm angry, but I'm not. There just wasn't much left in Sam, that's all. He loved you and he loved someone that wasn't here anymore and there just wasn't room for me, or at least not room for what I needed. I wished I could've known him. Dean, I mean. I would've understood your dad a lot more, I think, but then—I don't think I would've ever met him, if Dean were around."

When he gets home he pulls a book off the shelf. Frail, the spine cracked badly. Supernatural, the first book in the whole series. When Dad was at college and the whole thing started. He sits on the floor by the bookshelf and lets the cup of tea his wife brings go cold on the rug, and reads again and again the scene—coming down the stairwell, finding the car in the garage, going through the details of the voice on the tape, on where their dad (Dean's grandfather) could possibly be, and Dad says there's this interview he can't skip. His whole future, on a plate. In the story, it's Dad's point of view, and he looks at Uncle Dean and Uncle Dean smirks, and Dad thinks, This is exactly what I was getting away from. Dean drags his thumb over the page, looks at the shelf. All those books. All the years in them, and the horrors in those. Hell, and apocalypse, and none of it euphemisms or easy metaphor. All the things Dad wanted to get away from—and then all the years, after, where he stayed exactly where he was. And then—a lifetime later—to come back home to a house, with a blue door, and his eyes not bothering to follow his brother as he leaves a room, because he knows without doubt that he'll be back.

In bed, he asks his wife, "When do you think the kids will get here?" and she turns over and stares at him, and says, "Hopefully not for years?"

He shakes his head, folds his arm under his head. "Duh," he says, and gets her to punch his chest lightly. "Ow. I meant… I don't know. What do you think their lives will be? Like… who will they be? I can't even imagine."

She stops trying to lightly beat him and goes thoughtful. Her thumb finds the little scar on her chin and rubs it, as is her habit, and her eyes slip over his shoulder to the distance. "They'll be—them." He raises his eyebrows, and she shrugs, rolling closer. "I mean, what do you want from me? I knew Abbie for fifty-one years and I still think that girl's a mystery. When she's… probably a grandmother herself, now, I guess. Is she still at Notre Dame? Are she and Andre happy? Are the boys healthy and do they like each other, and did she ever get Jacob to stop drawing cartoon dicks on the walls?" Dean laughs—god, he'd forgotten that—and she smiles at him, props her head on one fist. Says, softer, "Did she live the life she wanted to have? I don't know. I guess when she gets here we can ask her, but we'll never…"

No, they'll never. Dean touches the scar on her chin and she focuses on him, instead of some other world they're no longer privy to. "It's a venn diagram," he says, after a moment. "All of us. Abbie, overlapping with you and me, and then us overlapping with our parents, and on and on, all the way back. I guess we don't get to know what's outside the center parts."

"Even if there's a hundred and four crappily-written books about the other parts," she says, raising her eyebrows, and Dean shrugs, caught. She grins, shaking her head at him, and then squirms in close, tucking in under his chin. Kisses his throat, sighs. "Why not stop at a hundred? Seems random."

"I don't know, maybe the publisher wanted him to stretch it out," Dean says, and she hums, and puts her nose on his collarbone to settle in. He smooths her hair back, away from her shoulder. His favorite book is Swan Song, probably. The final one, as far as most people knew. His dad, the hero, saving humanity and the world, but that wasn't the best part. The best part was the army man, stuck in the door. His dad, looking at that, and meeting his brother's eye, and that being—enough. Just that, and all the life it represented. Enough.

"Venn diagrams," he says, aloud, quietly.

"Yes, you're very brilliant, Dr. Winchester," his wife says, mumbling. "Now go to sleep."

He kisses her hair, and does.

#ffcc #wincest #dean jr #my writing #this is again just sort of a collection of paragraphs #and it's--mostly what you asked for i think?#but mainly it's me musing about the unknowability of parents and children #so uh #that's what i was able to manage #hopefully i'll remember how to construct a story soon lol

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